When Corporal Trim in one of his many attempts to begin the immortal story of the King of Bohemia and his Seven Castles, called that King unfortunate, and Uncle Toby compassionately asked “was he unfortunate then?” the Corporal replied, the King of Bohemia, an' please your honour was unfortunate, as thus,—that taking great pleasure and delight in navigation and all sort of sea affairs, and there happening throughout the whole Kingdom of Bohemia, to be no sea-port town whatever,—“How the Deuce should there, Trim? cried my Uncle Toby; for Bohemia being totally inland, it could have happened no otherwise.”—“It might said Trim, if it had pleased God.”—“I believe not, replied my Uncle Toby, after some pause—for being inland as I said, and having Silesia and Moravia to the East; Lusatia and Upper Saxony to the North; Franconia to the West, and Bavaria to the South, Bohemia could not have been propelled to the sea, without ceasing to be Bohemia,—nor could the sea, on the other hand, have come up to Bohemia, without overflowing a great part of Germany, and destroying millions of unfortunate inhabitants who could make no defence against it,—which would bespeak, added my Uncle Toby, mildly, such a want of compassion in Him who is the Father of it,—that, I think, Trim—the thing could have happened no way.”
Were I to say of a Homo on any establishment whatsoever, political, commercial or literary, public or private, legal or ecclesiastical, orthodox or heterodox, military or naval,—I include them all that no individual in any may fancy the observation was intended for himself and so take it in snuff, (a phrase of which I would explain the origin if I could,)—and moreover that no one may apply to himself the illustration which is about to be made, I use the most generic term that could be applied,—Were I to say of any Homo, (and how many are there of whom it might be said!) that he might have been whelped or foaled, instead of having been born, no judicious reader would understand me as predicating this to be possible, but as denoting an opinion that such an animal might as well have been a quadruped as what he is; and that for any use which he makes of his intellect, it might have been better for society if he had gone on four legs and carried panniers.
“There stands the Honourable Baronet, hesitating between two bundles of opinions”—said a certain noble Lord of a certain County Member in the course of an animated debate in the House of Commons on a subject now long since forgotten. I will not say of any Homo on any establishment that his fault is that of hesitating too long or hazarding too little; but I will say of any such hypothetical Homo as might better have been foaled, that I wish his panniers had supplied him with better bundles to choose of.
“How,” says Warburton, “happened it in the definitions of Man, that reason, is always made essential to him? Nobody ever thought of making goodness so. And yet it is certain that there are as few reasonable men as there are good. To tell you my mind, I think Man might as properly be defined, an animal to whom a sword is essential, as one to whom reason is essential. For there are as few that can, and yet fewer that dare, use the one as the other.”—And yet, he might have added, too many that misuse both.
The aforesaid Critic on the Athenæum establishment spoke with as little consideration as Trim, when he said that the Opus might have been a novel, implying the while—if it had so pleased the Author; and I make answer advisedly like my Uncle Toby in saying that it could not have pleased me.
The moving accident is not my trade;
To freeze the blood I have no ready arts.1
1 WORDSWORTH.
Wherefore should I write a novel? There is no lack of novels nor of novel-writers in these days, good, bad, and indifferent. Is there not Mr. James who since the demise of Sir Walter is by common consent justly deemed King of the historical Novelists? And is there not Mrs. Bray who is as properly the Queen? Would the Earl of Mulgrave be less worthily employed in writing fashionable tales upon his own views of morality, than he is in governing Ireland as he governs it? Is there any season in which some sprigs of nobility and fashion do not bring forth hot-house flowers of this kind? And if some of them are rank or sickly, there are others (tell us, Anne Grey! are there not?) that are of delicate penciling, rich colours, and sweet scent. What are the Annuals but schools for Novelists male and female? and if any lady in high life has conceived a fashionable tale, and when the critical time arrives wishes for a temporary concealment, is not Lady Charlotte Bury kindly ready to officiate as Sage Femme?
The Critic was not so wide of the mark in saying that this Opus ought to have been a novel—to have pleased him, being understood.
Oh, like a book of sport thou'lt read me o'er;
But there's more in me than thou understandest:2