Furetière, writing in the same spirit, declares that he wishes to concern himself with "persons who are neither heroes nor heroines, who will neither raise armies nor overturn kingdoms; but who will be good people of middling rank who quietly go on their usual way, of whom some are handsome and others plain, some wise and others foolish; and the latter have the appearance indeed of forming the greatest number."[355]
Without speaking of the more important works of Cervantes and Rabelais,[356] most of these novels were translated into English, and in the same spirit as they had been written, that is, to be used as engines of war against heroes and heroism. "The French themselves," writes one of the translators, "our first romantique masters ... have given over making the world otherwise than it was; are now come to represent it to us as it is and ever will be."[357] "Among all the books that ever were thought on," writes another, who curiously enough had about the same opinion of the favourite novels of his time as Sidney had had of the drama a century earlier, "those of knight errantry and shepherdry have been so excellently trivial and naughty, that it would amuse a good judgment to consider into what strange and vast absurdities some imaginations have straggled ... the Knight constantly killing the gyant, or it may be whole squadrons; the Damosel certainly to be relieved just upon the point of ravishing; a little childe carried away out of his cradle after some twenty years discovered to be the sone of some great prince; a girl after seven years wandring and co-habiting and being stole, confirmed to be a virgin, either by a panterh, fire or a fountain, and lastly all ending in marriage ... These are the noble entertainments of books of this kinde, which how profitable they are, you may judge; how pernicious 'tis easily seen, if they meet but with an intentive melancholy and a spirit apt to be overborn by such follies;"[358] a spirit, in fact, such as Lady Lurewell's, whose reading of "Cassandra" had, as we have seen, such remarkable consequences.[359]
[p. 401.
Efforts made in England to imitate this style and to lead, by means of the romance itself, a reaction against the false heroism that the romance had introduced, proved sadly abortive. These attempts have fallen into a still more profound oblivion than those of the story-tellers of Shakespeare's time. The English were not yet masters of the supple, crisp and animated language which suited that kind of tale, and which the French possessed from the thirteenth century. A few original minds like Sidney in his "Apologie" had employed it; but they formed rare exceptions, and in the seventeenth century most men continued to like either the pompous prose with its Latin periods, held in highest honour by Bacon, or the various kinds of flowery prose used by Lodge, Greene, Shakespeare and Sidney. So the romance writers who attempted to bring about a reaction received no encouragement and were forgotten less from want of merit than because even their contemporaries paid no attention to them. Thinking to open up a new path, they got entangled in a blind alley where they were left. The ground was to be broken anew by more robust hands than theirs, the hands of Defoe.
Some of these attempts however are worthy of attention, notably one in which imitation of Scarron and Furetière is to be found, entitled "The Adventures of Covent Garden."[360] The scene is laid in London among the cultivated upper middle class: life is so realistically represented, that this work, now entirely unknown, is one of those that best aid us to re-constitute that society in which Dryden, Wycherley and Otway lived.
Peregrine, the hero of the tale, spends his evenings at the "Rose" or at "Will's," Dryden's favourite coffee-house, or at the theatre, where the "Indian Emperor," one of Dryden's heroic dramas, was being played. With the Lady Selinda, in whose box he sits, he discusses the merits of the play, the value of the French rules and the license of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. Many interesting remarks occur in these conversations which seem put in writing after nature, and are very curious in the history of literature. If they do not exactly recall the Molière of the "Critique de l'Ecole des Femmes," they will recall Furetière, no insignificant praise. It is, besides, a compliment difficult to apply to any other English novelist of the period. Here is a specimen of literary criticism if not deep, at least lively, such as was going on at the play, or in the drawing-rooms at the time of the Restoration:
"You criticks, said Selinda, make a mighty sputter about exactness of plot, unity of time, place and I know not what, which I can never find do any play the least good (Peregrine smiled at her female ignorance). But, she continued, I have one thing to offer in this dispute, which I think sufficient to convince you. I suppose the chief design of plays is to please the people,[361] and get the playhouse and poet a livelihood?
"You must pardon me, madam, replyed Peregrine, Instruction is the business of plays.