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 LECTURES ON 
 
 THE ENGLISH COMIC 
 WRITERS 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM HAZLITT 
 
 WITH .AN INTRODUCTION 
 BY R. BRIMLEY JOHNSON 
 
 " It is a very good office one man does another, when 
 he tells him the manner of his being pleased."— Steele. 
 
 HENRY FROWDE 
 
 OXFORD UNIVERSITY TRESS 
 
 LONDON, NEAY YORK AND TORONTO
 
 William Hazlitt 
 
 Born: Maidstone April 10, 1778 
 
 Died : London .... September 18, 1830 
 
 The ^''Lectures on the English Comic Writers" were first 
 published in IHIS. In " The World's Classics" theii loere 
 first puhlished in 1907, the text followed being that of the 
 third edition, IS4I, edited by the author s son. 
 
 Printed by Ballanty.vk. Hanson &■ Co. 
 At the Ballautyiie Press, Edinburgh
 
 ?K33 
 
 Q 
 
 TO 
 
 c 
 
 Hs 
 
 I 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 It is undeniable that neither his most intimate friends 
 
 J) nor his most sympathetic critics have spoken or written 
 
 2^ of William Hazlitt witli enthusiastic abandon or with 
 
 '~ spontaneous aifection. Men of far less ability than he, 
 
 ^ and of more limited outlook, have inspired devotion in 
 
 <M their lifetime and stirred the pulses of posterity. 
 
 ^ His failure in this respect is the more remarkable 
 
 CO because '^'^ the man's writings are himself. He does not | 
 
 summarize or pigeon-hole the matter ;_but goesinfo'it, 
 
 tFTeii and there, before your eyes and takes you with' 
 
 him. You i^eejlhe puitJlTg of wbiob ha-iii_iATitiiTg^yon 
 
 take up the Im e of jirgument he is^defendijii|r, youthiuk 
 
 out the"icherneIEe.is elaborating, you study the author 
 
 .Jie~is~criticizing. Your mind shares the processes upon 
 
 wliicTi he is engaged, and becomes lost in them. You 
 
 03 read with his gusto or his prejudice, you reason with his 
 
 ^ vigour, and draw conclusions upon the basis of his expe- 
 
 •Ci"ience." In other words, Hazlitt, despite his cynical 
 
 ^estimate of the public, actually wrote with a keen sense 
 
 of personal enjoyment that one would expect to have 
 
 proved infectious. Yet we think, much and often, of 
 
 what he has written ; little and seldom of the man 
 
 liimself. 
 
 The " Lectures on the Comic Writers " bear out our 
 conclusion in a marked degree. I^ey treat of a genial 
 subject ill a spirit of €atbelio-appreciatij)u. _ We may 
 wonder, by chance, to find Addison and Johnson among 
 the " Comic " writers ; but certainly we need not cavil 
 at the broad-mindedness of a critic sufficiently well 
 
 32602
 
 vi IN'I'ROnUCTION 
 
 iiifonneil to illiiiniiiate t'xery stej) of the ^vay with liis 
 wealth of appropriate comment and illustration. 
 I llazlitt^ moreover, seldom errs in judf;inent. Jle 
 j ranks t)ie.spoutaiifiQus humour of Shakespijare.jahove 
 jiTonsoii's srholarly " liinnoursj^the jTobust humanity 
 of Fieldintr and Smollett above the moralities of the 
 essayists, Steele's tender fancies above the prim periods 
 of Addison. He jH^fljaclS-. the-. .sparkle of .X'^iiF^IfiYfij 
 ^\ ydieriey, itn'^t^arquhar ; priories iii (Joldsmith, Uncle 
 Toliy^j Sheridan, aud abovo all in IIo^artli-;_ while fully 
 'alive to the unique "artificial reality" of Richard- 
 son. " F'or if the business of life," as he most happily 
 shows us, " consisted in letter-writing, and was carried 
 on by tlic post (like a Spanish game of chess), hntnan 
 nature irould be what Richard son represents it." Almost 
 fi the only unreasonable estimate in the whole volume is 
 tliat of Fanny Burney as "a mere connnon observer 
 of manners," whom he idly depreciates for one of her 
 most charming qualities — that she never ibrgot she 
 was a woman. But then women, according to Ilazlitt, 
 " learn the idiom of manners and character, as they do 
 tliat of language, by rote, without troubling themselves 
 about principle." 
 
 With this single exception, he not only recognizes 
 the widest diversity in the masters of genius, but 
 discovers, and endows with immortality, a thousand 
 " buried treasures " of the neglected and the forgotten. 
 He never misses the genuine antique, however barren 
 or unsavoury the surrounding dust-heap. 
 f Moreover, he has succeeded more nearly than any 
 other writer on the subject in finding a solution to 
 that most baffling of critical problems-^ie di stinction 
 jbetween wit an d humour . For, curiously enough, vvTuTe 
 any mmcl ot rnoclerate intelligence can generally deter- 
 'mine of a given writer, or at least of any particular 
 passage, which element affords the prevailing excel- 
 lence, the most subtle of our critics have so far failed 
 to discover a quite satisfactory definition of difference. 
 But Hazlitt, at least, expresses an important truth in 
 saying that " Hu mour is describing the ludicrous as it
 
 INTRODUCTION vii 
 
 is in i tself; wi t is tlie exposing it. by^compari ng it witli 
 la gmetlii ng else. HumTjliFTs^as jt were^ the growth of 
 nature and accident7~wit is the product of art and, 
 "fancy." 
 
 """~And Hazlitt's appreciations^ despite his mastery of 
 theory, are never academic or even merely intellectual. 
 Happy absurdities keep him in "^^ roars of laughter"; 
 he revels in pure nonsense, and understands tlie whole- 
 some bracing influence of unthinking merriment, llie 
 abandon of the best comedies inspires his whole-hearted 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 Here, surely, were matter enough for good fellow- 
 ship, and tliat camaraderie between writer and reader 
 for which so many a genius of the past will seeni always 
 among the best and dearest of our personal friends. 
 Yet Hazlitt never arouses such feelings. His spirited 
 plaudits of rollicking humour leave us emotionally 
 cold. The plays, the novels, or the pictures themselves 
 can give us something to which he never attained. His 
 insight, undoubtedly, will make our enjoyment keener 
 and more subtle ; but, perversely enough, we cannot — 
 except as an act of deliberate justice — experience that 
 sense of gratitude which his stimulating suggestiveness 
 undoubtedly deserves. 
 
 This failure to excite the ordinary and spontaneous 
 human emotions arises from certain limitations in 
 the man himself, and we need not go beyond tliese 
 " Lectures " to discover the cause. For it is not 
 necessary, I think, to lay much stress on his mvn 
 cynical record of his career, to refine upon the supposed 
 compulsion by which he is said to have turned author, 
 or to accept his statement of the affectations deliberately 
 imposed upon his style in contempt of the public pre- 
 ference for meretricious graces. He " resolved," lie 
 would have us believe, " to turn over a new leaf,i to 
 take the public at its word, to master all the tropes and 
 figures he could lay his hand on ; and, though he was 
 
 1 i.e. to avoid the "original bent of his mind," shown in 
 " the dry and meagre" style of his first work, "An Essay on 
 the Principle of Human Action."
 
 viii INTRODUCTION 
 
 a plain man, never to appear al)roa(l but in an embroi- 
 dered dress." Such an intention may, in fact, liave 
 entered liis mind ; it may have recurred to his imagina- 
 tion in moments of bitterness and depression. But it 
 never cooled his intellectual vivacity or hampered his 
 expression. No one can even dip into his essays without 
 an absolute conviction that he wrote as he felt, in a 
 perfectly natural and original style. His son declares 
 that "he could scarcely at the outset see his way two 
 sentences before him " ; and, in truth, though fluent 
 and even eloquent, his actual construction is frequently 
 I awkward, and he probably always found the art of 
 composition a sufficiently wearisome business. He has 
 no natural graces of style and no instinct for form.' 
 He " was a born man of letters, and could not help 
 turning everj-thing he touched into literature," but he 
 "never took kindly to writing as a profession." Yet 
 the enthusiasm which can overcome these very limita- 
 tions, the genius which his halting sentences never 
 obscure, should by rights, one would imagine, but the 
 more endear the man. 
 
 It is not the faults in Ilazlitt's style that repel us. 
 Though the cause lies undoubtedly in the man himself, 
 it is no less certainly Ijetrayed in his work. Attempt- 
 ing, for example, to exonerate a certain freedom of 
 expression very prevalent in our old comedies, he 
 remarks that " the consciousness, however it may 
 arise, that there is something we ought to look grave 
 at, is almost always a signal for laughter outright ; 
 we can hardly keep our countenance at a sermon, a 
 funeral, or a wedding." He notes, as a fault in Sliake- 
 speare, that " the spirit of humanity and the fancy of 
 the poet generally prevail over the mere wit and 
 satire ; we sympathize with his characters more often 
 than we laugh at them. . . . The ridicule wants the 
 
 1 In the " Lectures on Comic Writers," for example, he is 
 often obscure, or at least peculiarly awkward, in the use of 
 pronouns ; and one passage on Hogarth is both clumsy and 
 incorrect — " He belongs to no class, or if he does, it is to the 
 same classes as Fielding, Smollett, Vanbrugh, and Moliere. "
 
 INTRODUCTION ix 
 
 sting of ill-nature. . . . He liardly had such a thing 
 as spleen in his nature." And again^ "The wit and 
 humour, however diverting, is social and humane. 
 But this is not the distinguishing characteristic of 
 wit, which is generally provoked by folly and spends 
 its venom on vice." Finally: "^ I do not consider/ 
 comedy as exactly an affair of the heai't or the imagina-/ 
 tion ; and it is for this reason only that I think Shake-j 
 speare's coniedies deficient." 
 
 The savage bitterness of his own temperament 
 applauds the " sting of ill-nature " and tempts him to 
 conceal liis personal bias by the ingenious sophism that, 
 because the comhination of poetry or imagination with 
 wit or humour is only possible to the mightiest genius, 
 it produces an inferior form of comedy. Since many 
 have failed in the attempt, the ideal itself must be 
 mistaken. Again, he '^'^had rather see Mrs. Abington's 
 Millamant than any Rosalind that ever appeared," and 
 therefore Millamant is 'Hjetter adapted to the stage 
 than Rosalind" — a poor compliment to the dramatic 
 profession. 
 
 He accounts for the decay of Comedy in a similar 
 spirit. The comedy of the Stage has killed the comedy 
 of Life. Manners have become more uniform (though, 
 as he justly observed, no more essentially moral or 
 refined), and eccentricities less prominent ; all the 
 material for legitimate comedy must vanish as civiliza- 
 tion advances. He seems to consider that circum- 
 stances which have undoubtedly made the art, alike 
 for author and actor, more difficult by demanding 
 greater subtlety of treatment, have destroyed it alto- 
 gether. 
 
 His apparent satisfaction in the second-best, his 
 assumption that the particular form of literature 
 he invites us to enjoy must degenerate, are not 
 encouraging to enthusiasm. The banishment of heart 
 and imagination fi-om the realm of comedy, the demand 
 for spleen and ill-nature as essential ingredients to 
 wit, provide decisive evidence of his limitations. 
 
 ITiey seem to have poisoned his personal experience.
 
 X INTRODUCTION 
 
 and they certainly vitiate liis best work. Hazlitt, in 
 fact, was ne\'ei- in l()\-e with life. Brought up in a 
 Unitarian home, and educated for the ministry at a 
 Unitarian coUege, he early acquired "that passion for 
 truth" and that "incorrigible attachment to a general 
 proposition" which he describes as the guiding prin- 
 ciple of Jiis existence. The lack of emotional nouri.^1 - 
 ment in youth, when the healthy human animal lives 
 by feeling and the wildest imaginings colour reality, 
 closed the normal outlets to a sensitive nature. The 
 " siren's song " of Coleridge " stunned and startled " 
 him, "as it were, from sleep," and dethroned the ideal 
 of Justice for that of Beauty. But the awakening was 
 intellectual, impersonal, leaving the senses stagnant. 
 
 And all the while lires were smouldering within 
 the student critic, missing their natural channels of 
 expression ; so that Ilazlitt grew ever more dissatisfied, 
 morbid, and tempestuous. He was always restless, 
 seeking after he knew not what. Twice he turned to / 
 the consolations of marriage, with singularly ill-chosfnV 
 partners ; and fairly ruined his chances of healthy 
 aftection by that extraordinary and unsatisfying expe- 
 rience, of which his Liher Amoris is the amazing 
 record. He never trusted a friend, yielding continually '^ 
 to petty suspicions, and imagining himself slighted at 
 every word. Yet no man surely stood in more obvious 
 need of the closest human sympathy. He seems to 
 have been occasionally hap2)y in his love for his son ; 
 and, strangely enough amid such a chapter of accidents, 
 his devotion was reciprocated. 
 
 Such a temperament, such experience, naturally 
 influenced his work : and it is in keeping with the limi- 
 tations thereby imposed that he, alone among essayists 
 of equal eminence, he, too, who was always writing, 
 and writing with genius, never composed a line of poetry, 
 never told a story, never invented a character. 
 
 His services to the art of criticism are manifold and 
 unique : he will be read and remembered, with admira- 
 tion and applause, until men cease to study books and 
 to love literature. But we are governed more by our
 
 INTRODUCTION xi 
 
 feelings than by abstract justice^ and William Hazlitt 
 himself will never conquer our hearts or live in our 
 memory. 
 
 His pathetic picture of the little scholar reveals, 
 more ehjquently than volumes of unavailing regret 
 or protest^ the inward loneliness he had so bitterly 
 experienced : — " He stirs not^ he still pores upon his 
 book ; and as he reads, a slight hectic flush passes 
 over his cheek, for he sees the letters that compose 
 the word ' fame ' glitter on the page, and his eyes 
 s^vini, and he thinks that he will one day write a book, 
 and have his name repeated by thousands of readers, 
 and assume a certain signature, and write essays and 
 criticisms in a London magazine, as a consummation 
 of felicity scarcely to be believed ! Come hither, thou 
 poor little fellow, and let us change places with thee, 
 if thou wilt ; here, take tlie pen, finish this article, 
 and sign what name }'ou please to it ; so that we 
 may but change our dress for yours, and sit shiver- 
 ing in the sun, and con over our little task, and 
 feed poor, and lie hard, and be contented and happy, 
 and think what a fine thing it is to be an author, 
 and dream of immortality, and sleep o' nights." 
 
 Yet this Man of Discontent, this enemy to himself 
 and his friends, closed his earthly pilgrimage with an 
 utterance of sublime faith in the Blessings he had 
 never enjoyed, the Meaning he had never discovered. 
 Somewhere, in visions he never found language to 
 utter, William Hazlitt had seen God and knew that 
 He was good. 
 
 For when, at the age of fifty-t^vo, worn out hy his 
 own tempestuous railing at men and things, he " lay 
 ghastly, shrunk, and helpless on the bed from which 
 he never afterwards arose," he could yet pronounce 
 with emphasis his own immortal epitaph — '' Well, I've 
 had a happy life." 
 
 R. BRIMLEY JOHNSON.
 
 NOTICE 
 
 TO THE THIRD EDITION, 1841 
 
 The Lectures forming this volume were delivered at 
 the Surrey Institution in 1818, and published imme- 
 diately ai^erwards. The present Edition, however, 
 cont^iins some additions from other sources, collected 
 by the author, apparently with a view to a reprint 
 of the volume, which additions are distinguished by 
 brackets. Some of these are taken from an article 
 contributed by the author to the Morning Chronicle in, 
 I think, 1813, and the rest are critical prefaces, written 
 by my father for Mr. Oxberry's Editions of the various 
 Plays remarked upon. Having determined upon the 
 speedy publication, in a collective form, of the whole 
 of my father's writings on Art, and Artists, together 
 with some pieces on these subjects not hitherto edited, 
 1 at first conceived it advisable to transfer the " Lecture 
 on Hogarth " to this latter work, where, possibly, in 
 some points of view, it might appear better placed ; 
 but, on reflection, I have retained that Lecture in its 
 original position ; for, after all, Hogarth was a comic 
 writer, and one of our best ; the only difference is, 
 that he wrote on canvas. 
 
 W. H. 
 
 Xlll
 
 • 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 LECTURE PAGE 
 
 •^ I. Introductory. — On Wit and Humour . 1 •' 
 
 li. On Shakespeare and Ben Jonson . 36 '^ 
 
 III. On Cowley, Butler, Sucklin(j, Ether- 
 
 EGE, etc. ...... G1 
 
 W. On Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugk. 
 
 AND Farquhar . . . . .88 
 
 V. On the Periodical Essayists . . 117 
 
 VI. On the English Novelists . . . 138 
 
 VII. On the Works op Hogarth : On the 
 Grand and Familiar, Style of 
 Painting . . . . . . !7o 
 
 ^ VIII. On the Comic Writers f»F the Last 
 
 Century . . 199
 
 LECTURES 
 
 ON THE 
 
 J 
 
 ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 LECTURE I.— INTRODUCTORY 
 
 ON WIT AND HUMOUR 
 
 Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps ; for he 
 is the only animal that is struck with the difference 
 between what things are, and what they ought to be. 
 We weep at what thwarts or exceeds our desires in 
 serious matters : we laugh at what only disappoints 
 our expectations in trifles. We shed tears from sym- 
 pathy with real and necessary distress ; as we burst 
 into laughter from want of sympathy with that which— 
 is unreasonable and unnecessary, the absurdity of 
 which provokes our spleen or mirth, rather than any 
 serious reflections on it. 
 
 To explain tl^e nature -of-laughter and tears^JS-lO— 
 account for lhjei-coadj j:ion of Juuftatt-life .; -for it is in 
 a mangier compounded of these two ! . It is a tragedy 
 or a comedy — sad or merry^asjtjiappens. The crimes 
 "an^^Tnisforturies that are inseparable fi-om it, shock 
 and wound the mind when they once seize upon it, 
 and wlien the pressure can no longer be borne, seek 
 relief in tears : the follies and absurdities that men 
 commit, or the odd accidents that befall them, afford 
 us amusement from tTie very rejection of these false 
 claims upon our sympathy, and end in laughter. If 
 everything that went wrong, if every vanity or weak-
 
 2 'J'llK ENGLISH COMIC ^\RIT^:RS 
 
 ness ill anotlier gave us a sensible pnig, it would be 
 bard iiidei'd : but as long as tbe disagreeableuess of 
 tlie conscqueiiccs of a sudden disaster is kept out of 
 sigbt l)y tbe ininiediate oddity of tbe circiiuistances, 
 and tbe absurdity or unaccountableness of a foolisb 
 action is tbe most striking tiling in it, tbe ludicrous 
 prevails over tlie patbetic, and we receive pleasure 
 ill^tl'ad of ])aiii from tbe farce of life wbicb is played 
 before us, and wbicb discomposes our gravity as oilen 
 as it fails to move our anger or our pity I 
 
 Tears may be considered as tbe natural and involun- 
 tary resource of tbe mind overcome by some sudden 
 and violent emotion, before it bas bad time to recon- 
 cile its feelings to tbe cbange of circumstances : wbile 
 laiigbter may be defined to be tbe same sort of con- 
 vulsive and involuntary movement, occasioned by mere 
 surprise or contrast (in tbe absence of any more serious 
 emotion), before it lias time to reconcile its belief to 
 contradictory appearances. If we bold a mask before 
 our face, and approach a cbild witb tins disguise on, 
 it will at first, from tbe oddity and incongruity of tbe 
 appearance, be inclined to laugh ; if we go nearer to 
 it, steadily, and without saying a word, it will begin 
 to be alarmed, and be half-inclined to cry : if we 
 suddenly take otf the mask, it will recover from its 
 fears, and burst out a-laughing ; but if, instead of 
 presenting the old well-known countenance, we have 
 concealed a satyr's head or some frightful caricature 
 behind the first mask, the suddenness of the change 
 will not in this case be a source of merriment to it, 
 but will coinert its surprise into an agony of con- 
 sternation, and will make it scream out for help, even 
 though it may be convinced that tbe whole is a trick 
 at bottom. 
 
 Tbe alternation of tears and laughter, in this little 
 episode in common life, depends almost entirely on the 
 greater or less degree of interest attached to tbe dif- 
 ferent changes of appearance. 
 
 The mere suddenness of the transition, the mere 
 balking our expectations, and turning them abruptly
 
 Ox\ WIT AND HUiMOUR 3 
 
 into anotlier channel, seems to give additional liveli- 
 ness and gaiety to the animal spirits ; but the instant 
 the change is not only sudden, but tlireatens serious 
 consequences, or calls up the shape of danger, terror 
 supersedes our disposition to mirth, and laugliter gives 
 place to tears. It is usual to play with infants, and 
 make them laugh by clapping your hands suddenly 
 before them ; but if you clapped your hands too loud, 
 or too near their sight, their countenances immediately 
 change, and they hide them in the luirse's arms. Or 
 suppose the same child, grown up a little older, comes 
 to a place, expecting to meet a person it is particularly 
 fond of, and does not find that person there, its 
 countenance suddenly falls, its lips begin to quiver, 
 its cheek turns pale, its eye glistens, and it vents its 
 little sorrow (gro^vn too big to be concealed) in a flood 
 of tears. Again, if the child meets the .same person 
 unexpectedly after a long absence, the same effect will 
 be produced by an excess of joy, with different accom- 
 paniments ; that is, the surprise and the emotion 
 excited will make the blood come into his face, his 
 eyes sparkle, his tongue falter or be mute, but in 
 either case the tears will gush to his relief, and lighten 
 the pressure about his heart. On the other hand, if 
 a child is playing at hide-and-seek, or blind-man's-buff, 
 Avith persons it is ever so fond of, and either misses 
 them where it had made sure of finding them, or 
 suddenly runs up against them where it had least 
 expected it, the shock or additional impetus given to 
 the imagination by the disappointment or the discovery, 
 in a matter of this indifference, will only vent itself 
 in a fit of laughter. ^ The transition here is not from 
 one thing of importance to another, or from a state 
 of indifference to a state of strong excitement ; but 
 merely from one impression to another that we did 
 not at all expect7and w-hen we had expected just the 
 
 1 A child that has hid itself out of the way in sport, is under 
 a great temptation to laugh at the unconsciousness of others 
 as to its situation. A person concealed from assassins, is in 
 no danger of betraying his situation by laughing.
 
 4 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 contrary. Tlie mind having been led to form a certain 
 conclusion, and the result producing an immediate 
 solution of continuity in the chain of our ideas, this 
 alternate excitement and relaxation of the imagina- 
 tion, the object also striking upon the mind more 
 vividly in its loose unsettled state, and before it has 
 had time to recover and collect itself, causes that alter- 
 nate excitement and relaxation, or irregular convul- 
 sive movement of the muscular and nervous system, 
 which constitutes physical laugliter. The discontinu- 
 ous in our sensations produces a correspondent jar and 
 discord in the frame. The steadiness of our faitli and 
 
 nof our features begins to give way at the same time. 
 J We turn with an incredulous smile from a story that 
 ^ staggers our belief: and we are ready to split our 
 sides with laughing at an extravagance that sets all 
 common sense and serious concern at defiance. 
 
 * To understand or define the ludicrous, we must first 
 know vvjiat the serious is. Now the serious is the 
 habitual stres^s_v^ich jthe imnd lays upon the expecta- 
 
 * Tibn_of.a.giyen-iJrde>*. of events^ following one another 
 ' with a certain regularity and weight of interest attached 
 
 , to Tliemi When this stress is increased beyond its 
 
 'jisual pitch of intensity^ 50 as to overstrain the feelings 
 
 Jay the violent opposition of good to bad^pr of objeets_ 
 
 to our desires, it b^oii]_es_the pathetic or tragical/ 
 
 - r'I'he ludicrous, orcomic, is the unexpected loosening 
 
 \ or relaxing this stress below its usual pitch of intensity, 
 
 I by such an abrupt transposition of the order of our 
 
 ideas, as taking the mind unawares, throws it off its 
 
 guard, startles it into a lively sense of pleasure, and 
 
 leaves no time nor inclination for painful reflections. 
 
 The essence^fllie-laugluvbla then is jthe mcongr uouSi 
 the jdisconnecting one ide a from another , or the jostling 
 of one feelings against another. Ilie first and most 
 ■^ obvious cause of laughter is to be found in the simple 
 succession of events, as in the sudden sliifting of a 
 disguise, or some unlooked-for accident, without any 
 absurdity of character or situation. The accidental con- 
 tradiction between our expectations and the event can
 
 ON WIT AND HUMOUR 6 
 
 hardly be said, however, to amount to the ludicrous ; 
 it is merely laughable. The XudicioM Js_whfii:(&.±hfire_ 
 is the same finntradictjonjbetween th e object and our 
 expectroonsTTieightened by som e deformity or _ hx= — 
 
 "convemencej'Tha t is ^y its being c ontrary_Je_J£hgi_ 
 
 ^r"custo'ma fy"oF^ sjniblej as the_^dIcnouSj whjchjs. 
 
 "theirighest degreji of the laughabkL Js that which i s 
 
 contra ry Hot onjy jo custon L-biit t,n Sfi iise and reason , 
 
 or "is"a^or untarv departure from what we have a right 
 
 16 expecTlrom those wh o are coiiscious of absura ity 
 
 " and^ropr iety in .word s^JoQ£a,_aiid_aciiQiis. 
 
 Of these different kinds or degrees of the laughable, 
 the first is the most shallow and short-lived ; for the 
 instant the immediate .surprise of a thing's merely 
 happening one way or another is over, there is nothing 
 to throw us back upon our former expectation, and 
 renew our wonder at the event a second time. Tlie 
 second sort, that is, the ludicrous arising out of the 
 improbable or distressing, is more deep and lasting, 
 either because the painful catastrophe excites a greater 
 curiosity, or because the old impression, fi-om its 
 habitual hold on the imagination, still recurs mechani- 
 cally, so that it is longer before we can seriously make 
 up our minds to the unaccountable deviation from it, 
 
 ,/llie third sort, or the jidlculous arising out of absui-dity_ 
 ^Twgn^s^m probabili ty, tha t is , where the defec t or 
 
 " weakness is of a jnanls n^" sppking^, is the most refined 
 "of all, but not always so pleasant as the last, because 
 
 'Ihe same contempt and disapprobation which sharpens 
 and subtilizes our sense of the impropriety, adds a 
 severity to it inconsistent with perfect ease and enjoy- 
 ment. This last species- is properly the province of 
 ^satire. " llie principle of contrast is, however, the same 
 ni'allthe stages, in the simply laughable, the ludicrous, 
 the ridiculous ; and the effect is only the more com- 
 plete, the more durably and pointedly this principle 
 operates. 
 
 To give some examples in these different kinds. We 
 laugh, when children, at the sudden removing of a 
 paste-board mask : we laugh, when grown up, more
 
 6 THE ENGLISH CX)MIC WRITERS 
 
 gravely at the tearing off the mask of deceit. We 
 laugh at absurdity ; we laugh at deformity. We 
 laugh at a hottle-nose in a caricature ; at a stuffed 
 figure of an akleruiau in a pantomime, and at the tale 
 of Slaukenbergius. A dwarf standing by a giant 
 makes a contemptible figure enough. Rosinante and 
 Dapi)le are lauglialde from contrast, as their masters 
 from the same principle make two for a j^air. We 
 laugh at the dress of foreigners, and they at ours. 
 Three chimney-sweepers meeting three Chinese in 
 Lincoln's Inn Fields, they laughed at one another till 
 they were ready to drop down. Country people laugh 
 at a j)erson because they never saw him before. Any 
 one dressed in the height of the feshion, or quite 
 out of it, is equally an object of ridicule. One rich 
 source of the ludicrous is distress with which we can- 
 not sympathize from its absurdity or insignificance. 
 Women laugh at their lovers. We laugh at a damned 
 author, in spite of our teeth, and though he may be 
 our friend. " There is something in the misfortunes 
 V^'f our best friends that pleases us." We laugh at 
 people on the top of a stage-coacli, or in it, if they 
 ^eem in great extremity. It is hard to hinder children 
 from laughing at a stammerer, at a negro, at a drunken 
 man, or even at a madman. We laugh at miscliief. 
 We laugh at what we do not believe. We say that an 
 argument or an assertion that is very absurd, is quite 
 ludicrous. We ljuigh_to show oui^ satisfe^ 
 Qursdves, or our contempt " for t hose" about^us, or to 
   conceal ou*-6B^_oxjQiir Jguurance. We laugh, at feels, 
 and at tkose— who^^jjretend- lQ_Jbfi^ wisfir- at ex treme 
 sim£licity,_j^wkvraTdness,_,li^^ affectation. 
 
 "They were~talking of me," says Scrub, "foi^TKiey 
 laughed consumedly." Lord Foppington's insensibility 
 to ridicule, and airs of ineffable self-conceit, are no 
 less admirable ; and Joseph Surface's cant maxims of 
 morality, when once disarmed of their power to do 
 hurt, become sufficiently ludicrous. We laugh atjhat 
 _in_ others^wji ich i .s- a^jserious matter Ejjurielves, ; be- 
 j;ause, Qur selfJig e is stronger than ou r^y^tnpatT^j
 
 ON WIT AND HUxMOUR 7 
 
 sooner takes the alarnij and instantly turns our heed- 
 less mirth into gravity, which only enhances the jest 
 to otliers. Some one is generally sure to be the 
 sufferer by a joke. What is sport to one is death to 
 anotlier. Iti s only very sensible or very hnnpst ppr»p lg_ 
 who laugh a s fr eely at their, nwn ahgniv Htipa «>: at. thosp. 
 of their neig hbours. In gen eral the contrar y rule 
 holds, and we only l augh at those misfortunes in which 
 ^jve are sp ectators ~not sharer s. The injury, the dis- 
 appointment, shame, and vexation that we feel put a 
 stop to our mirth ; while the disasters that come home 
 to us, and excite our repugnance and dismay, are an 
 amusing spectacle to others. The greater resistance 
 we make, and the greater the perplexity into which 
 we are tlirown, the more lively and piquant is the in- 
 tellectual display of cross-purposes to the bystanders. 
 Our humiliation is their triumph. We are occupied 
 with the disagreeableness of the result instead of its 
 oddity or unexpectedness. Others see only the conflict 
 of motives and the sudden alternation of events — we 
 feel the pain as well, which more than counterbalances 
 the speculative entertainment we might receive from 
 the contemplation of our abstract situation. 
 
 You cainiot force people to laugh, you cannot give 
 a reason why they should laugh ; — they must laugli of 
 themselves, or not at all. As we laugh from a spon- , 
 taneous impulse, we laugh the more at any restraint 
 upon this impulse. We laugh at a thing merely be- 
 cause we ought not. If we think we must not laugh, 
 this perverse impediment makes our temptation to 
 laugh the greater ; for by endeavouring to keep the 
 obnoxious image out of sight, it comes upon us more 
 irresistibly and repeatedly, and the inclination to 
 indulge our mirth, the longer it is held back, collects 
 its force, and breaks out the more violently in peals of 
 laughter. In like manner anything we must not think 
 of makes us laugh, by its coming upon us by stealth 
 and unawares, and from the very efforts we make to 
 exclude it. A secret, a loose word, a wanton jest, 
 makes people laugh. Aretine laughed himself to death
 
 8 thp: kxglish comic writers 
 
 ^/at liearing a lascivious story. Wickedness is often 
 made a substitute for wit ; and iu most of our good 
 old comedies the intrigue of the plot and the double 
 meaning of the dialogue go hand-in-hand, and keep 
 up the ball with wonderful spirit between them. The 
 consciousness, however it may arise, that there is 
 sometliing that we ought to look grave at, is almost 
 always a signal for laughter outright : we can hardly 
 keep our countenance at a sermon, a funeral, or a 
 wedding, ^^'hat an excellent old custom was that of 
 throwing the stocking ! \Vhat a deal of iiniocent 
 mirth has been spoiled by the disuse of it ! It is 
 not an easy matter to preserve decorum in courts of 
 justice ; the smallest circumstance that interferes with 
 the solemnity of the proceedings throws the whole 
 place into an uproar of laughter. People at the point 
 of death often say smart things. Sir Thomas More 
 jested with his executioner : Rabelais and Wycherley 
 both died with a bon-mot in their mouths. 
 
 Misunderstandings {malentendus) , where one person 
 means one thing, and another is aiming at something 
 else, are another great source of comic liumour, on tlie 
 same principle of ambiguity and contrast. 
 
 There is a high-wrought instance of this in the 
 dialogue between Aimwell and Gibbet, iu the ''Beaux' 
 Stratagem," where Aimwell mistakes his companion 
 for an officer in a marching regiment, and Gibbet 
 takes it for granted that the gentleman is a high- 
 wayman. Tlie alarm and consternation occasioned 
 by some one saying to him in the course of common 
 conversation, " 1 apprehend you," is the most ludicrous 
 thing in that admii-ably natural and powerful perform- 
 ance, Mr. Emery's "Robert Tyke." Again, uncon- 
 sciousness in the person himself of what he is about, 
 or of what others think of him, is also a great height- 
 ener of the sense of absurdity. It makes it come the 
 fuller home upon us from his insensibility to it. His 
 simplicity sets off the satire, and gives it a finer edge. 
 It is a more extreme case still wliere the person is 
 aware of being the object of ridicule, and yet seems
 
 ON WIT AND HUMOUR 9 
 
 perfectly reconciled to it as a matter of course. So 
 u/wii_is often the more forcible and pointed for being 
 dry and serious, for it then seems as if the speaker 
 himself liad" rro' intention in it, and we were the lirst to 
 find it out. J^rouYj as a species_of wit, owes its force 
 to the same principle. In such cases it is the con- 
 trast between the appearance and the reality, the 
 suspense of belief, "afitr'the seeming incongruity, 
 that gives point to the ridicule, and makes it 
 enter the deeper when the first impression is over- 
 come. Excessive impudence, as in the "Liar"; 
 or excessive modesty, as in the hero of " She Stoops 
 to Conquer"; or a mixture of the two, as in the 
 "Busy Body," are equally amusing. Lying is a 
 species of wit and humour. To lay anything to a 
 person's charge from which he is perfectly free, shows 
 spirit and invention ; and the more incredible the 
 effrontery, the greater is the joke. ^--x 
 
 There is nothing more powerfully humorous than 
 what is called keeping in comic character, as we see 
 it very finely exemplified in Sancho Panza and Don 
 Quixote. The proverbial phlegm and the romantic 
 gravity of these two celebrated persons may be re- 
 garded as the height of this kind of excellence. The 
 deep feeling of character strengthens the sense of the 
 ludicrous. Keeping in comic character is consistency 
 in absurdity ; a determined and laudable attachment 
 to the incongruous and singular. The regularity 
 completes the contradiction ; for the number of in- 
 stances of deviation from the right line, branching out 
 in all directions, shows the inveteracy of the original 
 bias to any extravagance or folly, the natural im- 
 probability, as it were, increasing every time with the 
 multiplication of chances for a return to common 
 .sense, and in the end mounting up to an incredible 
 and unaccountably ridiculous height, when we find 
 our expectations as invariably baffled. The most 
 curious problem of all, is this truth of absurdity to 
 itself. That reason and good sense should be consistent, 
 is not wonderful : but that caprice, and whim, and
 
 10 tup: ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 fantastical jirejiulice, should be uuiforin and infallible 
 in their results, is the surprising thing. But while 
 tliis characteristic clue to absurdity helps on the ridi- 
 cule, it also softens and harmonizes its excesses ; and 
 the ludicrous is here blended with a certain beauty 
 and decorum, from this very truth of habit and senti- 
 ment, or from the principle of similitude and dissimili- 
 tude. The devotion to nonsense, and enthusiasm about 
 trifles, is liighly affecting as a moral lesson : it is one 
 of the striking Aveaknesses and greatest happinesses of 
 our nature. Tliat which excites so lively and lasting 
 an interest in itself, even though it should not be 
 wisdom, is not despicable in the sight of reason and 
 lunnanity. We cannot suppress the smile on the lip ; 
 but the tear should also stand ready to start from tlie 
 eye. The history of hobby-horses is equally instruc- 
 tive and delightful ; and after the pair I have just 
 alluded to. My Uncle Toby's is one of the best and 
 gentlest that " ever lifted leg ! " The inconveniences, 
 odd accidents, falls, and bruises to which they expose 
 their riders, contribute their share to the amusement 
 of the spectators ; and the blows and wounds that the 
 Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance received iu his 
 many perilous adventures, have applied their healing 
 influence to many a hurt mind. — In what relates to 
 the laughable, as it arises fi'om unforeseen accidents or 
 self-willed scrapes, the pain, the shame, the mortifica- 
 tion, and utter helplessness of situation, add to the 
 joke, provided they are momentary, or overwhelming 
 only to the imagination of the sufferer. Malvolio's 
 punishment and apprehensions are as comic, from our 
 knowing tliat they are not real, as Cln-istopher Sly's 
 drunken transformation and short-lived dream of 
 happiness are for the like reason. Parson Adams's 
 |fall into the tub at the Sc[uire's, or his being discovered 
 in bed with Mrs. Slipslop, though pitiable, are laugh- 
 able accidents ; nor do we read with much gravity of 
 the loss of his iEschylus, serious as it was to him at 
 the time. A Scotch clergyman, as he was going to 
 church, seeing a spruce, conceited mechanic, who was
 
 ON WIT AND HUMOUR 11 
 
 walking before him, suddenly covered all over with 
 dirt, either by falling into the kennel, or by some 
 other calamity befalling him, smiled and passed on ; 
 but afterwards seeing the same person, who had 
 stopped to refit, seated directly facing him in the gallery, 
 with a look of perfect satisfaction and composure, as if 
 nothing of the sort had happened to him, the idea of 
 his late disaster and present self-complacency struck 
 him so powerfully, that, unable to resist the impulse, 
 he flung himself back in the pulpit, and laughed till 
 he could laugh no longer. I remember reading a 
 story in an odd number of the European M(i(jazine, 
 of an old gentleman who used to walk out every 
 afternoon with a gold-headed cane, in the fields 
 opposite Baltimore House, which were then open, only 
 with foot-paths crossing them. He was frequently 
 accosted by a beggar with a wooden leg, to whom he 
 gave money, which only made him more importunate. 
 One day, when he was more troublesome than usual, 
 a well-dressed person happening to come up, and 
 observing how saucy the fellow was, said to the 
 gentleman, '^'Sir, if you will lend me your cane for a 
 moment, I'll give him a good threshing for his im- 
 pertinence." The old gentleman, smiling at the 
 proposal, handed him his cane, which the other no 
 sooner was going to apply to the shoulders of the 
 culprit, than he immediately whipped oif his wooden 
 leg, and scampered off with great alacrity, and his 
 chastizer after him as hard as he could go. The 
 faster the one ran the faster the other followed him, 
 brandishing the cane, to the great astonishment of 
 the gentleman who owned it, till having fairly crossed 
 the fields, they suddenly turned a corner, and nothing 
 more was seen of either of them. 
 
 In the way of miscliievous adventure, and a wanton 
 exhibition of ludicrous weakness in character, nothing 
 is superior to the comic parts of the " Arabian Nights' 
 Entertainments." To take only the set of stories of 
 the Little Hunchback, who was choked with a bone, 
 and the Barber of Bagdad and his seven brothers —
 
 12 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 there is that of the tailor who was persecuted by the 
 miller's wife, and who, after toiling all night in the 
 mill, got nothing for his pains — of another who fell 
 in love with a fine lady, who pretended to return his 
 pas.sion, and inviting him to her house, as the pre- 
 liminary condition of lier fevour, had his eyebrows 
 shaved, his clotlies stripped off, and being turned loose 
 into a winding gallery, lie was to follow her, and by 
 overtaking obtain all his wishes, but after a turn or 
 two, stumbled on a trap-door, and fell plump into the 
 street, to the great astonishment of the spectators and 
 his own, shorn of his eyebrows, naked, and without a 
 ray of hope left : — tliat of the castle-building pedlar, 
 who in kicking his wife, the supposed daughter of an 
 emperor, kicks down his basket of glass, the brittle 
 foundation of his ideal wealth, his good fortune, and 
 his arrogance : — that, again, of the beggar who dined 
 with the Barmecide, and feasted with him on the names 
 of wines and dishes : and, last and best of all, the in- 
 imitable story of the impertinent Barber, himself one 
 of the seven, and worthy to be so ; his pertinacious, 
 incredible, teasing, deliberate, yet unmeaning folly, 
 his wearing out the patience of the young gentleman 
 whom he is sent for to shave, his preparations and his 
 professions of speed, his taking out an astrolabe to 
 measure the height of the sun while his razors are 
 getting ready, his dancing the dance of Zimri and sing- 
 ing the song of Zamtout, his disappointing the young 
 man of an assignation, following him to the place of 
 rendezvous, and alarming the master of the house in 
 his anxiety for his safety, by which his unfortunate 
 patron loses his hand in the affray, and this is felt as 
 an awkward accident. The danger which the same 
 loquacious person is afterwards in of losing his head 
 for want of saying who he was, because he would not 
 forfeit his character of being '"^ justly called the Silent," 
 is a consummation of the jest, though, if it had really 
 taken place, it would have been carrying the joke too 
 far. There are a thousand instances of the same sort 
 in the Thousand and One Nights, which are an in-
 
 ON WIT AND HUMOUR 13 
 
 exhaustible mine of comic humour and invention, and 
 which from the manners of the East which they describe, 
 carry the principle of callous indiiference in a jest as far 
 as it can go. Tlie serious and marvellous stories in that 
 work, which have been so much admired and so greedily 
 read, appear to me monstrous and abortive fictions, like 
 disjointed dreams, dictated by a preternatural dread 
 of arbitrary and despotic power, as the comic and 
 familiar stories are rendered proportionally amusing 
 and interesting from the same principle operating in a 
 different direction, and producing endless uncertainty 
 and vicissitude, and an heroic contempt for the un- 
 toward accidents and petty vexations of human life. 
 It is the gaiety of despair, the mirth and laughter of 
 a respite during pleasure from death. The strongest 
 instances of effectual and harrowing imagination are in 
 the story of Amine and her three sisters, whom she led 
 by her side as a leash of hounds, and of the goal who 
 nibbled grains of rice for her dinner, and preyed on 
 human carcasses. In this condemnation of the serious 
 parts of the Arabian Nights, I have nearly all the 
 world, and in particular the author of the " Ancient 
 Mariner," against me, who must be allowed to be a 
 judge of such matters, and who said, with a subtlety of 
 philosophical conjecture which he alone possesses, that 
 " if I did not like them, it was because I did not 
 dream." On the other hand, I have Bishop Atterbury 
 on my side, who, in a letter to Pope, fairly confesses 
 that " he could not read them in his old age." 
 
 There is another source of comic humour which has 
 been but little touched on or attended to by the critics 
 — not the infliction of casual pain, but tlie pursuit of 
 uncertain pleasure and idle gallantry. Half the busi- 
 ness and gaiety of comedy turns upon this. Most of 
 the adventures, difficulties, demurs, hair-breadth 'scapes, 
 disguises, deceptions, blunders, disappointments, suc- 
 cesses, excuses, all the dextrous manoeuvres, artful 
 inimendoes, assignations, billets-doux, double entendres, 
 sly allusions, and elegant flattery, have an eye to this — 
 to the obtaining of those " favours secret, sweet, and
 
 14 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 precious," iu wliicli love and pleasure consist, and 
 which when attained, and the equivoque is at an end, 
 the curtain drops, and the play is over. All the 
 attractions of" a subject that can only be u^lanceii at 
 indirectly, that is a sort of forbidden f^round to the 
 imagination, except under severe restrictions, which 
 are constant])' broken throujjh ; all the resources it 
 sup])lies lor intriji-ue and invention ; the bashfulness of 
 the clownish lover, his looks of alarm and petrified 
 astonishment ; the foppish affectation and easy confi- 
 dence of the liappy man ; tlie dress, the airs, the 
 languor, the scorn, and indifference of the fine lady ; 
 tlie l)ustle, pertness, loquaciousness, and tricks of the 
 chambermaid ; the impudence, lies, and roguery of 
 the valet ; the match-making and unmaking ; tlie 
 wisdom of the wise ; the sayings of the witty ; tlie 
 folly of the fool; "the soldier's, scholar's, courtiei''s 
 eye, tongue, sword, the glass of fashion and the mould 
 of form," have all a view to this. It is the closet of 
 Blue-Beard. It is the life and soul of Wycherley, 
 
 \ Congre\'e, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar's plays. It is the 
 sadt of coiuedy, witlifiut _which jt would ..be_jvflilthless 
 and insijjul. It makes Horner decent, and Millamant 
 diviner It is the jest between Tattle and Miss Prue. 
 It is the bait with which Olivia, in the " Plain 
 Dealer," plays with honest Manly. It lurks at the 
 bottom of the catechism whicli Archer teaches Cherry, 
 and wliich she learns by heart. It gives the finishing 
 grace to Mrs. Amlet's confession — "Though I'm old, 
 I'm chaste." Valentine and his Angelica would be 
 nothing without it ; Miss Peggy would not be worth a 
 gallant ; and Sleuder's " sweet Anne Page " would be 
 no more ! " The age of comedy would be gone, and 
 the glory of our play-houses extinguished for ever." 
 Our old comedies would be invaluable, were it only 
 for this, that they keep alive this sentiment, which 
 still survives in all its fluttering grace and breatliless 
 palpitations on the stage. 
 
 ^ Humour is the describing the ludicrou s a s it is in 
 itself; wit^„thg_ exposi ng it, Sy comparing _or^ con-
 
 ON WIT AND HUMOUR 15 
 
 /trastiug it with sometliiiig elsfi^ Humour is^ .as_it_ 
 ■were^ the growth of nature^and accident ; wit is the 
 jroduct of art and fancy. _ Humour, as it^is shown in 
 books, is an imitation of the natural or acquired 
 absurdities of mankind, or of the ludicrous in accident, 
 situation, and character; 'ijtLIs the illustrating and 
 heightening the sense olthat absurdly by some suddeji^ 
 and unexpected likeness or opposition of one thing 
 to another, wliich sets off the quality we laugh at ox. 
 despise in a still more contemptible or striking point 
 ^f vie^K. Wit, as distinguished from poetry, is the 
 imagination or fancy inverted and so applied to given 
 objects, as to make the little look less, the mean more 
 light and worthless ; or to divert our admiration or 
 wean our affections from that which is lofty and im- 
 pressive, instead of producing a more intense admira- 
 tion and exalted passion, as poetry does. Wit may 
 sometimes, indeed, be^ shown in coinpliments as weYT 
 ^s satire ; as in the common epigram —   
 
 " Accept a miracle, instead of wit : 
 See two dull lines with Stanhope's pencil writ." 
 
 But then the mode of paying it is playful and ironical, 
 and contradicts itself in the very act of making its ow n 
 performance an humble foil to another's. Wjt hovers 
 round the borders of the li^ht and triflings whether in "*'' 
 matters^ of pleasure xjr pain ; for^as.SO.on as_ it describes 
 the serious seriously, it c eases to be wi t, and passes , 
 
 Jnto^ajdiiferent forrtu Wit is, irL_ia£±^lifi_elo.qiieuce ^ 
 of indiffer ence , or an ingeiiious and striking exposition 
 oTthose evanescent and glancing impressions of object? 
 which affect us more from surprise or contrast to the 
 train of our ordinary and literal preconceptions, than 
 from anything in the objects themselves exciting our 
 necessary sympathy or lasting hatred. TJifi._fevaurite 
 employment of wit j^s to add littleness to littleness,^_ 
 
 "and help cdiiti'iiipt on insignificance by all the arts of • 
 £etty_and incL'ssant warfare ; or if if ever affects to 
 aggrandize, and use the language of hyperbole, it is 
 only to betray into derision by a fatal comparison, as
 
 16 THK EN(iLISII COMIC WRITERS 
 
 in the mock-heroic ; or if it treats of serious passion, 
 it must do it so as to lower the tone of intense and 
 high-wrouf^ht sentiment hy the introduction of hur- 
 lesque and familiar circumstances. To give an in- 
 stance or two. Butler, in his " Hudibras," compares 
 the change of night into day to the change of colour 
 in a boiled lobster. 
 
 " The sun had long since, in the lap 
 Of Thetis, taken out his nap ; 
 And, like a lobster boil'd, the morn 
 \^ From black to red began to turn : 
 
 When iTudTBras, whom thoughts and aching 
 
 'Twixt sleeping kept all night and waking, 
 
 Began to rub his drowsy eyes. 
 
 And from his couch prepared to rise, 
 
 Resolving to dispatch the deed 
 
 He vow'd to do with trusty speed." 
 
 Compare this with tlie following stanzas in Spenser, 
 treating of the same subject : — 
 
 " By this the Northern Waggoner had set 
 His seven-fold team behind the stedfast star, 
 That was in ocean waves yet never wet. 
 But firm is fix'd and sendeth light from far 
 To all that in the wide deep wand'ring are : 
 And cheerful chanticleer with his note shrill, 
 Had warned once that Phcebus' fiery car 
 In haste was climbing up the eastern hill. 
 
 Full en-vious that night so long his room did fill. 
 
 At last the golden oriental gate 
 Of greatest heaven 'gan to open fair, 
 And I'hcebus, fresh as bridegroom to his mate, 
 Came dancing forth, shaking his dewy hair. 
 And hurl'd his glist'ring beams through gloomy air: 
 Which when the wakeful elf perceived, straitw;iy 
 He started up, and did himself prepare 
 In sun-bright arms and battailous array. 
 For with that pagan proud he combat will that day." 
 
 In this last passage every image is brought forward 
 that can give effect to our natural impressions of the 
 beauty, tlie splendour, and solemn grandeur of the 
 lising sun ; pleasure and power wait on every line
 
 ON WIT AND HUMOUR 17 
 
 and word : whereas^ in the other^ the only memorable 
 thing is a grotesque and ludicrous illustration of the 
 alteration which takes place from darkness to gorgeous 
 lights and that brouglit from the lowest instance, and 
 with associations that can only disturb and perplex 
 the imagination in its conception of the real object it 
 describes. Tliere cannot be a more witty, and at the 
 same time degrading comparison, than that in the 
 same author, of the Bear turning round the pole-star 
 to a bear tied to a stake : — 
 
 " But now a sport more formidable 
 Had raked together village rabble ; 
 'Twas an old way of recreating 
 Which learned butchers call bear-baiting, 
 A bold adventurous exercise 
 With ancient heroes in high prize. 
 For authors do affirm it came 
 From Isthmian or Xemsean game ; 
 Others derive it from the Bear 
 That's fixed in northern hemisphere. 
 And round about his pole does make 
 A circle like a bear at stake, 
 That at the chain's end wheels about 
 And overturns the rabble rout." 
 
 I need not multiply examples of this sort. Wit or 
 ludicrous invention produces its effect oftenest by 
 comparison, but not always. It frequently effects its 
 purposes by unexpected and subtle distinctions. For 
 instance, in the first kind, Mr. Sheridan's description 
 of Mr. Addington's administration as the fag-end of 
 Mr. Pitt's, who had remained so long on the treasury 
 bench that, like Nicias in the fable, "he left the 
 sitting part of the man behind him," is as fine an 
 example of metaphorical wit as any on record. The 
 same idea seems, however, to have been included in 
 the old well-kno%vn nickname of the Rump Parliament. 
 Almost as happy an instance of the other kind of wit, 
 which consists in sudden retorts, in turns upon an idea, 
 and di\erting the train of your adversary's argument 
 abruptly and adroitly into another channel, may be
 
 18 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 seen in the sarcastic reply of Porson, who lieariug 
 some one observe, tliat "certain modern poets would 
 be read and admired when Homer and Virgil were 
 forgotten," made answer — " And not till then ! " Sir 
 Robert \Valpole's definition of the gratitude of place- 
 expectants, tliat " it is a lively sense oi future favours," 
 is no doubt wit, but it does not consist in the finding 
 out any coincidence or likeness, but in suddenly trans- 
 posing the order of time in the common account of 
 this feeling, so as to make tlie professions of those 
 who pretend to it correspond more with their practice. 
 It is filling up a blank in the human heart with a 
 word that explains its hollowness at once. Voltaire's 
 saying, in answer to a stranger who was observing how 
 tall his trees grew — "That they had notliing else to 
 do," — was a quaint mixture of wit and humour, making 
 it out as if they really led a lazy, laborious life ; but 
 there was here neither allusion nor metaphor. Again, 
 that master-stroke in "Hudibras" is sterling wit and 
 profound satire, where, speaking of certain religious 
 hypocrites, he says, that they 
 
 " Compound for sins they are inclined to 
 By damning those they have no mind to ; " 
 
 but the wit consists in the truth of the character, and 
 in the happy exposure of the ludicrous contradiction 
 between the pretext and the practice ; between their 
 lenity towards their own vices, and their severity to 
 those of others. Tlie same principle of nice distinction 
 must be allowed to prevail in those lines of the same 
 author, where he is professing to expound the dreams 
 of judicial astrology. 
 
 *' There's but a twinkling of a star 
 Betwixt a man of peace and war, 
 A thief and justice, fool and knave, 
 A huffing officer and a slave ; 
 A crafty lawyer and pickpocket ; 
 A great philosopher and a blockhead ; 
 A formal preacher and a player ; 
 A learned physician and man-slayer."
 
 ON WIT AND HUMOUR 19 
 
 The finest piece of wit I know of^ is in the lines of 
 Pope ou the Lord Mayor's show — 
 
 " Now night descending, the proud scene is o'er ; 
 But lives in Settle's numbers one day more." 
 
 This is certainly as mortifying an inversion of the idea 
 of poetical immortality as could be thought of: it fixes 
 the maximum of littleness and insignificance ; but it 
 is not^By likeness to anji:hing else that it does this, 
 but by literally taking the lowest possible duration of 
 ephemeral reputation, marking it (as with a slider) on 
 the scale of endless renown, and giving a rival credit 
 for it as his loftiest praise. In a word, the shrewd 
 separation or disentangling of ideas th at s eem iJiie 
 sanie^ or Iwhere the _secret contradictio n is not sufii- 
 cjentl y suspected, and is of a ludicrous and whimsical 
 nature, is wit j ust as much asjE^^J^Jiogi^g together 
 thosejtTTat appearat first sight totally ditferenL Tliere 
 "TsTHen no sufficient ground for admitting Mr. Locke's 
 celebrated definition of wit, which he makes to consist 
 in the finding out striking and unexpected resemblances 
 in things so as to make pleasant pictures in the fancy, 
 while judgment and reason, according to him, lie the 
 clean contrary way, in separating and nicely distin- 
 guishing those wherein the smallest difference is to be 
 found. ^ 
 
 1 His words are — "If in having our ideas in the memory 
 ready at hand consists quickness of parts, in this of having 
 them unconfused, and being able nicely to distinguish one 
 thing from another, where there is but the least difference, con- 
 sists in a great measure the exactness of judgment and clear- 
 ness of reason, which is to be observed in one man above 
 another. And hence, perhaps, may be given some reason of 
 that common observation, that men who have a great deal 
 of wit and prompt memories, have not always the clearest 
 judgment or deepest reason. For wij; lying mostly in the 
 assemblage of ideas, and putting them together with quickness 
 and variety, wherein can be found any resemblance or con- 
 gruity, thereby to make up pleasant pictures and agreeable 
 visions in the fancy ; judgment, on the contrary, lies quite on 
 the other side, in separating carefully one from another ideas 
 wherein can be found the least difference, thereby to avoid
 
 20 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 On tills definition, Harris, the author of " Hermes," 
 lias very well observed, that the demonstrating the 
 equality of the three angles of a right-angled triangle 
 to two right ones, would, upon the principle here 
 stated, he a piece of wit instead of an act of the judg- 
 ment or understanding, and Euclid's Elements a col- 
 lection of epigrams. On the contrary, it has appeared 
 that tlie detection and exposure of difference, parti- 
 cularly where this implies nice and subtle observation, 
 as in discriminating between pretence and practice, 
 between appearance and reality, is common to wit and 
 satire with judgment and reasoning, and certainly the 
 comparing and connecting our ideas together is an 
 essential part of reason and judgment, as well as of 
 Awit and fancy. Mere wit, as opposed to reason or 
 argument, consists in striking out some casual and 
 partial coincidence which has nothing to do, or at 
 least implies no necessary connection with the nature 
 of the things, which are forced into a seeming analogy 
 
 being misled by similitude, and by affinity to take one thing 
 for another." {Essay, vol. i. p. 143.) This definition, such as 
 it is, Mr. Locke took without acknowledgment from Hobbes, 
 who says in his " Leviathan," " This difference of quickness in 
 imagining is caused by the difference of men's passions, that 
 love and dislike some one thing, some another, and therefore 
 some men's thoughts run one way, some another, and are held 
 to and observe differently the things that pass through their 
 imagination. And whereas in this succession of thoughts there 
 is nothing to observe in the things they think on, but either in 
 what they be like one another, or in what they be unlike, those 
 that observe their similitudes, in case they be such as are but 
 rarely observed by others, are said to have a good wit, by 
 which is meant on this occasion a good fancy. But they that 
 observe tlieii' differences and dissimilitudes, which is called 
 distinguishing and discerning, and judging between thing and 
 thing, in ca^e such discerning be not easy, are said to have 
 a good judgment ; and particularly in matter of conversation 
 and business, wherein times, places, and persons are to be dis- 
 cerned, this virtue is called discretion. The former, that is, 
 fancy, without the help of judgment, is not commended for 
 a virtue; but the latter, which is judgment or discretion, is 
 commended for it=elf, without the help of fancy." — leviathan. 
 P- 32-
 
 ON WIT AND HUMOUR 21 
 
 tby a play upon words, or some irrelevant conceit, as in 
 piuis, riddles, alliteration, &c. The jest, in all sucli 
 cases, lies in the sort of mock-identity, or nominal, 
 resemblance, established by the intervention of the 
 sarnSlivbrds expressing different ideas, and couutenanc- 
 injj:, as it were, by a fatality of language, the mis- 
 chievous insinuation which the person wlio lias the wit 
 to take advantage of it wishes to convey. So when the 
 disaffected French wits applied to the new order of the 
 Fleur du lys the double entendre of Gompagnons d' Ulysse, 
 or companions of Ulysses, meaning the animal into 
 which the fellow-travellers of the hero of the Odyssey 
 were transformed, this was a shrewd and biting intima- 
 tion of a galling truth (if truth it were) by a fortuitous 
 concourse of letters of the alphabet, jumping in "a 
 foregone conclusion," but there was no proof of the 
 thing, unless it was self-evident. And, indeed, this 
 may be considered as the best defence of the contested 
 maxim, that ridicule is the test of truth; viz. that it 
 does not contain or attempt a formal proof of it, but 
 owes its power of conviction to the bare suggestion of 
 it, so that if the thing when once hinted is not clear 
 in itself, the satire fails of its effect and falls to the 
 ground. The sarcasm here glanced at the cliaracter 
 of the new or old French noblesse may not be well- 
 founded ; but it is so like truth, and "comes in such 
 a questionable shape," backed with the appearance of 
 an identical proposition, that it would re((uire a long 
 train of facts and laboured arguments to do away the 
 impression, even if we were sure of the honesty and 
 wisdom of the person who undertook to refute it. A 
 flippant jest is as good a test of truth as a solid bribe ; 
 and there are serious sophistries, 
 
 "Soul-killing lies, and truths that work snaall good," 
 
 as well as idle pleasantries. Of this we may be sure, 
 that ridicule fastens on the vulnerable points of a 
 cause, and finds out the weak sides of an argument ; 
 if those who resort to it sometimes rely too much on 
 its success, those who are chiefly annoyed by it almost
 
 J 
 
 22 THE ENGLISH COMIC WIUTFJIS 
 
 always are so with reason, and cannot be too much on 
 their jjuanl against deserving it. Before we can laugli 
 at a tiling, its absurdity nnist at least be open and 
 palpable to common apprehension. Ridicule is neces- 
 sarily built on certain supposed facts, whether true or 
 false, and on their inconsistency with certain acknow- 
 ledged maxims, whether right or wrong. It is, there- 
 fore, a fair test, if not of philosophical or abstract 
 truth, at least of what is truth according to public 
 opinion and common sense ; for it can only expose to 
 instantaneous contempt that which is condemned by 
 public opinion, and is hostile to the common seii.se of 
 mankind. Or, to put it differently, it is the test of 
 the quantity of truth that there is in our favourite 
 prejudices. To show how nearly allied wit is thought 
 to be to truth, it is not unusual to say of any person — 
 " Such a one is a man of sense, for though he said 
 nothing, he laughed in the right place." — Alliteration 
 comes in here* under the head of a certain sort of 
 verbaLjJTJt ; or, by pointing the expression, sometimes 
 points the sense. Mr. Grattan's wit or eloquence (1 
 don't know by what name to call it) would be 
 nothing without this accompaniment. Speaking of 
 some ministers whom he did not like, he said, ''Their 
 only means of government are the guinea and the 
 gallows." There can scarcely, it must be confessed, 
 be a more effectual mode of political conversion than 
 one of these applied to a man's friends, and the other 
 to himself. The fine sarcasm of Junius on the effect 
 of the supposed ingratitude of the Duke of Grafton 
 at court — " Tlie instance might be painful, but the 
 principle would please " — notwithstanding the pro- 
 found insight into human nature it implies, would 
 hardly pass for wit without the alliteration, as some 
 poetry would hardly be acknowledged as such without 
 the rhyme to clench it. A quotation or a hackneyed 
 phrase, dexterously turned or wrested to another 
 purpose, has often the effect of the liveliest wit. An 
 idle fellow who had only fourpence left in the world, 
 which had been put by to pay for the baking some
 
 ON WIT AND HUMOUR 23 
 
 meat for his dinner, went and laijd it out to buy a new 
 string for a guitar. An old acquaintance, on hearing 
 this story, repeated those lines out of the " Allegro " — 
 
 " And ever against eating cares 
 Lap me in soft Lydian airs." 
 
 The reply of the author of the periodical paper called 
 the World to a lady at church, who seeing him look 
 thoughtful, asked what he was thinking of — "Tlie 
 next World,"- — is a perversion of an established for- 
 mula of language, something of the same kind. — 
 Rhymes are sometimes a species ofmt, where there is 
 an" alternate combination anH^esolution or decomposi- 
 tion of the elements of sound, contrary to our usual 
 division and classification of them in ordinary speech, 
 not unlike the sudden separation and re-union of the 
 component parts of the machinery in a pantomime. 
 The author who excels infinitely the most in this way 
 is the writer of "Hudibras." He also excels in the 
 invention of single words and names, which have the 
 effect of wit by sounding big, and meaning nothing :— 
 " full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." But of 
 the artifices of this author's burlesque style I shall 
 have occasion to speak hereafter. — It is not always 
 easy to distinguish between the wit of words and that 
 of things, " For thin partitions do their bounds divide." 
 Some of the late Mr. Curran's bon mots, or jeux d'.espi'it, 
 might be said to owe thei? hirth to this sort of equi- 
 vocal generation ; or were a happy mixture of verbal 
 wit and a lively and picturesque fancy, of legal acute- 
 ness in detecting the variable applications of words, 
 and of a mind apt at perceiving the ludicrous in ex- 
 ternal objects. " Do you see any thing ridiculous in 
 this wig.''" said one of his brother judges to him. 
 " Nothing but the head," was the answer. Now 
 here instantaneous advantage was taken of the slight 
 technical ambiguity in the construction of language, 
 and the matter-of-fact is flung into the scale as a 
 thumping makeweight. After all, verbal and acci- 
 dental strokes of wit, though the most surprising
 
 24 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 and laughablej are not the best and most lasting. 
 That wit is the most refined and eiFectual, which is 
 founded on the detection of unexpected likeness or 
 distinction in things, rather than in words. It is more 
 severe and galling, that is^, it is more unpardonable 
 though less sui-prising, in proportion as the thought 
 suggested is more complete and satisfactory, from its 
 being inherent in the nature of the things themselves. 
 Hceret lateri lethalis anindo. Truth makes the greatest 
 libel, and it is that which barbs the darts of wit. The 
 Duke of Buckingham's saying, " Laws are not, like 
 women, the worse for being old," is an instance of a 
 harmless truism and the utmost malice of wit united. 
 Tliis is, perhaps, what has been meant by the di.stinc- 
 tion between true and false Avit. Mr. Addison, indeed, 
 goes so far as to make it the exclusive test of true wit 
 that it will bear translation into another language, 
 that is to say, that it does not depend at all on tlie 
 form of expression. But this is by no means the case. 
 Swift would hardly have allowed of such a strait-laced 
 theory, to make havoc with his darling conundrums ; 
 though there is no one whose serious wit is more that 
 of things, as opposed to a mere play either of words or 
 fancy. I ought, I believe, to have noticed before, in 
 , speaking of the difference between wit and hui^our, 
 'that wit is often pretended absurdity, where the person 
 overacts or exaggerates a certain part with a conscious 
 design to expose it as if it were another person, as 
 when Mandrake in the Twin Hivals says, " This glass 
 is too big, carry it away, I'll drink out of the bottle." 
 On the contrary, when Sir Hugh Evans says very 
 innocently, "'Od's plessed will, I will not be absent 
 at the grace," though there is here a great deal of 
 humour, there is no wit. This kind of wit of the 
 humorist, where the person makes a butt of himself, 
 and exhibits his own absurdities or foibles purposely in 
 the most pointed and glaring lights, runs through the 
 whole of the character of P'alstatf, and is, in trutli, the 
 principle on which it is founded. It is an irony 
 directed against oneself. Wit is, in fact, a voluiit ary
 
 ON WIT AND HUMOUR 25 
 
 act of the mind, o r exercise of the in vention, showing 
 "the absurd and liidicroiis conscinnsly j whether in o ur- 
 selves or another. Cross-readings, where the blunders 
 are designed, are wit ; but if any one were to light 
 upon them through ignorance or accident, they would 
 be merely ludicrous. j| \ 
 
 It might be made an argument of the intrins ic j j 
 superiority of po etry or imag inatio n to wit ,^ that thje ( / 
 former does not admit^of. mere verbal conmnatious.^. i | 
 "NVhenever they do occur, they are unifoj-mly blemishes. { : 
 It requires something more solid and substantial to .' 
 raise admiration or passion. Tlie general forms and 
 
 " aggi-egate masses of our ideas must be brought more 
 into play, to give weight and magnitude. Imagination 
 may be said to be the finding out somethi ng s imilar jn 
 ThnigS~e'enerally alikeTTSrjvvith 'Trke feelings attached, 
 
 '~to~them, wliile wit principally aims at findin g out 
 
 ~^Tnething that soems"~lhe same, or a mounts to_a 
 
 momentary deception whe re you least expected it^ viz. 
 
 JjlIIiliings " totally__opposite. ^The reason why more 
 
 slight and partial, or merely accidental and nominal 
 resemblances, serve the purposes of wit, and indeed 
 characterize its essence as a distinct operation and 
 faculty of the mind, is, that the object of ludicrous 
 poetry is naturally to let down and lessen ; and it is 
 easier to let down than to raise up ; to weaken than to 
 strengthen ; to disconnect our sympathy from passion 
 and power, than to attach and rivet it to any object of 
 grandeur or interest ; to startle and shock our pre- 
 conceptions, by incongruous and equivocal combina- 
 tions, than to confirm, enforce, and expand them by 
 powerful and lasting associations of ideas, or striking j 
 ;ind true analogies. A slight cause is sufficient to 'j^ 
 produce a slight effect. To be indifferent or sceptical, I 
 requires no effort ; to be enthusiastic and in earnest, 
 requires a strong impulse, and collecti\e power. Wi t 
 and_lmmour_(comparatively speaking, or taking the / 
 extremes to judge of the gradations by)jip peal to our / 
 indolencey^our vanity^our weakness, and insensibility.;/ 
 serious and impa,ssionedj)oetry aj)peals to our strength^
 
 26 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 ourjiiagnaniniitj, our virtue, and humanity. Any- 
 thing is sufficient to heap contempt upon an object^' 
 even the bare suggestion of a mischievous allusion to 
 what is improper, dissolves the wliole charm, and puts 
 an end to our admiration of tlie sublime or beautiful. 
 Reading the finest passage in Milton's " Paradise 
 Lost" in a false tone, will make it seem insipid and 
 absurd. Tlie cavilling at, or invidiously pointing out, 
 a few slips of the pen, will embitter the pleasure, or 
 alter our opinion of a whole work, and make us throw 
 it down in disgust. ITie critics are aware of this vice 
 
 ^^nd infirmity in our nature, and play upon it witli 
 periodical success. Tlie meanest weapons are strong 
 enougli for this kind of warfare, and the meanest 
 hands can wield them. Spleen can subsist on any 
 kind of food. Tlie sliadow of a doubt, the liint of an 
 inconsistency, a word, a look, a syllable, will destroy 
 our best-formed convictions. What puts this argu- 
 ment in as striking a point of view as anything, is the 
 nature of parody or burlesque, the secret of which lies 
 merely in transposing or applying at a venture to any- 
 thing, or to the lowest objects, that which is applicable 
 only to certain given things, or to the highest matters. 
 
 g "From the sublinietQ-Jlie_xidjculoiis, there is b^t 
 
 t_one step." The slightest vrant of unity of impressioii 
 destroys the sublime ; the detection of the smallest 
 incongruity is an infallible ground to rest the ludicrous 
 upon. But in serious poetry, vvhich aims at riveting 
 I I our affections, every blow must tell home. - /rhQ_ 
 I ''Tmssing a single time is fatal, and undoes the_spell. 
 / .We see how difficulty rt_is to sustain a continued flight 
 / / 5f ittrpressiv^~ §entiment : how easy it musFTictTieir'to 
 travesty or Burlesque it, to flounder into nonsense, 
 and be witty by playing the fool. J[t is a common , 
 ^.mistake, however, to suppose tha t parodi_ es.jiegrade, / 
 • T^r^ imply;ia:.stigiai£r: on_the subject_L_an__the jcontrary,'/ 
 „|t.beyjn general__imply_som etliing serious o r sacred in 
 tlie originals. Without this, they would be good for 
 nothing ; for the immediate contrast would be wanting, 
 and with this they are sure to tell. The best^ parodies— 

 
 ON WIT AND HUMOUR 27 
 
 _,are, accordingly, the best and most striking things^ 
 *1:eversed. Witness the common -travesties of Homer - / 
 and Virgil. Mr. Canning's court parodies on Mr. ^ 
 "Soutliey's popular odes are also an instance in point 
 (I do not know which were the cleverest) ; and the 
 best of the ''Rejected Addresses" is the parody on 
 CcaJibe, though F do not certainly think that Crabbe is / 
 the most ridiculous poet now living. 
 
 Lear and the Fool are the sublimest instance I know 
 of passion and wit united, or of imagination unfolding 
 the most tremendous sufferings, and of burlesque on 
 passion playing with it, aiding and relieving its inten- 
 sity by the most pointed, but familiar and indifferent 
 illustrations of the same thing in different objects, 
 and on a meaner scale. Tlie Fool's reproaching Lear 
 with '' making his daughters his mothers," his snatches 
 of proverbs and old ballads, ''The hedge-sparrow fed 
 the cuckoo so long, that it had its head bit off by its 
 young," and "Whoop jug, I know when the horse 
 follows the cart," are a running commentary of trite 
 truisms, pointing out the extreme folly of the infatu- 
 ated old monarch, and in a manner reconciling us to 
 its inevitable consequences. 
 
 Lastly, there is a wit of sense and observation, which ,_^ 
 consists in the acute illustration of good sense and 
 practical wisdom by means of some far-fetched conceit 
 or quaint imagery. The matter is sense, but the form 
 is wit. Thus the lines in Pope — 
 
 '"Tis with our judgments as our watches, none 
 Go just alike ; yet each believes his own — " 
 
 are witty rather than poetical ; because the truth they 
 convey is a mere dry ^bserv ation ^jiaJmman' life, with- 
 out elevation or erithusiasm, and the illustration of 
 it is of that quaint and familiar kind that is merely 
 curious and fanciful. Cowley is an instance of tlie'^ 
 same kind in almost all his writings. Many of the 
 jests and witticisms in the best comedies are moral 
 apTforisms and rules for the conduct of life, sparkling 
 with wit and fancy in the mode of expression. The
 
 28 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITEllS 
 
 ancient philosopliers also abounded in the same kind 
 of wit, in telling home truths in the most unexpected 
 maiuier. — In this sense Mson was the greatest wit and 
 moralist that ever lived. Ape and slave, he looked 
 askance at himian nature, and beheld its weaknesses 
 and errors transferred to another species. Vice and 
 virtue were to him as plain as any objects of sense. 
 He saw in man a talking, absurd, obstinate, proud, 
 angry animal ; and clothed these ajastractions with 
 wings, or a beak, or tail, or claws, or long ears, as 
 they appeared embodied in these hieroglyphics in the 
 brute creation. His moral philosophy is natural his- 
 tory. He makes an ass bray wisdom, and a frog 
 croak humanity. The store of moral truth, and the 
 fund of invention in exhibiting it in eternal forms, 
 palpable and intelligible, and delightful to cliildreu 
 and grown persons, and to all ages and nations, are 
 almost miraculous, 'fhe inventimi _pf a fable is to me 
 JJT e most env iable exertTon of human genius : it is the 
 .discovering a truth 'to"whicli,. there is no clue, and 
 which, when once found out, can never be forgotten. 
 I would rather have been the author of " iEsop's 
 Fables " than of " Euclid's Elements " ! That popular 
 entertainment, Punch and the Puppet-show, owes part 
 of its irresistible and universal attraction to nearly the 
 same principle of inspiring inanimate and mechanical 
 agents with sense and consciousness. The drollery 
 and wit of a piece of wood is doubly droll and farcical. 
 Punch is not merry in himself, but " he is tlie cause 
 of heartfelt mirth in other men." The wires and 
 pulleys that govern his motions are conductors to 
 carry off the spleen, and all "that perilous stuff that 
 weighs upon the heart." If we see a number of people 
 turning the corner of a street, ready to burst with 
 secret satisfaction, and with their faces bathed in 
 laughter, we know what is the matter — that they are 
 just come from a puppet-show. Who can see three 
 little painted, patched-up figures, no bigger than one's 
 thumb, strut, squeak, and gibber, sing, dance, chatter, 
 scold, knock one another about the head, give them-
 
 ON WIT AND HUxMOUR 29 
 
 selves airs of importance, and " imitate humanity most 
 abominably/' without laughing immoderately? We 
 overlook the farce and mummery of human life in 
 little, and for libthing ; and what is still better, it 
 costs them who have to play in it nothing. W^e place 
 the mirth, and glee, and triumph, to our own account ; 
 and we know that the bangs and blows they have 
 received go for nothing, as soon as the showman puts 
 them up in his box and marches off quietly with them, 
 as jugglers of a less amusing description sometimes 
 march off with the wrongs and rights of mankind in 
 their pockets ! I have heard no bad judge of such 
 matters say, that " he liked a comedy better than a 
 tragedy, a farce better than a comedy, a pantomime 
 better 'than a farce, but a puppet-show best of all." 
 I look upon it, that he who invented puppet-shows 
 was a greater benefactor to his species, than he who 
 invented Operas ! 
 
 I shall conclude this imperfect and desultory sketch 
 of wit and humour with Barrow's celebrated description 
 of the same subject. He says, " —But first it may be 
 demanded, what the thing we speak of is, or what this 
 facetiousness doth import ; to which question I might 
 reply, as Democritus did to him that asked the definition 
 of a" man — 'tis that which we all see and know; and one 
 better apprehends what it is by acquaintance than I 
 can inform him by description. It is, indeed, a thing 
 so versatile and multiform, appearing in so many 
 shapes, so many postures, so many garbs, so variously 
 apprehended by several eyes and' judgments, that it 
 seemeth no less hard to settle a clear and certain notice 
 thereof, than to make a portrait of Proteus, or to define 
 the figure of fleeting air. Sometimes it lieth in pat 
 allusion to a known story, or in seasonable application 
 of a trivial saying, or in forging an apposite tale ; some- 
 times it playeth in words and phrases, taking advantage 
 from the ambiguity of their sense, or the affinity of 
 their sound ; sometimes it is wrapped in a dress of 
 luminous expression; sometimes it lurketh under an 
 odd similitude. Sometimes it is lodged in a sly
 
 30 THE ENGLISH COiMIC WRITERS 
 
 question, in a sniai-t ansn-er ; in a quirkish reason ; in 
 a shrewd intimation ; in cmniiiijijly diverting or cleverly 
 restoring an objection : sometimes it is couched in a 
 bold scheme of speech ; in a tart irony ; in a lusty 
 hyperbole ; in a startling metaphor ; in a plausible 
 reconciling of contradictions, or in acute nonsense : 
 sometimes a scenical representation of persons or things, 
 a counterfeit speech, a mimical look or gesture passeth 
 for it ; sometimes an affected simplicity, sometimes a 
 presumptuous bluntness giveth it being ; sometimes it 
 riseth only from a lucky hitting upon what is strange ; 
 sometimes from a crafty wresting obvious matter to the 
 purpose ; often it consisteth in one knows not what, 
 and springeth up one can hardlj'^ tell how. Its ways 
 are unaccountable aiul inexplicable, being answerable 
 to the numberless rovings of fancy and windings of 
 language. It is, in short, a manner of speaking out of 
 the simple and plain way (such as reason teacheth and 
 knoweth things by), which by a pretty surprising un- 
 couthness in conceit or expi-essioii doth affect and amuse 
 the fancy, showing in it some wonder, and breathing 
 some delight thereto. It raiseth admiration, as signify- 
 ing a nimble sagacity of apprehension, a special felicity 
 of invention, a vivacity of spirit, and reach of wit more 
 than vulgar : it seeming to argue a rare quickness of 
 parts, that one can fetch in remote conceits applicable ; a 
 notable skill that he can dexterously accommodate them 
 to a purpose before him, together with a lively brisk- 
 ness of humour, not apt to damp those sportful flashes 
 of imagination. (Whence in Aristotle such persons are 
 termed iwiSe^ioi, dexterous men, and evrpoiroi, men of 
 facile or versatile manners, who can easily turn them- 
 selves to all things, or turn all things to themselves.) 
 It also procureth delight by gratifying curiosity with 
 its rareness or semblance of difficulty (as monsters, not 
 for their beauty but their rarity; as juggling tricks, 
 not for their use but their abstruseness, are beheld with 
 pleasure) ; by diverting the mind from its road of serious 
 thoughts ; by instilling gaiety and airiness of spirit ; by 
 provoking to such dispositions of spirit, in way of emu-
 
 ON WIT AND HUMOUR 31 
 
 lation or complaisance^ and by seasoning matter^ other- 
 wise distasteful or insipid, with an unusual and thence 
 grateful tang." — Barrow s Works, Serm. 14. 
 
 I mil only add, by way of general caution, that 
 there is nothin gjnora^ildiculou&JJiajiJ^ugjlter without 
 "acause, nor anything morejtroublespme than what are 
 "called laugliing'peopTe,. A professed laugheEi&lircQn^ 
 teniptible and tiresome a character as a professed wit-: 
 the one is always contriving^omiething.±Q laugb_at, the 
 otFer is always laughing at_nothing. AiL._e_xc.e&s_jQf 
 IfmJX^Jg -9^'' imppTtinp.nt as j^n^e^yress of gravity. A 
 character of this sort is well personified by Spenser, in 
 the " Damsel of the Idle Lake " — 
 
 ■who did assay 
 
 To laugh at shaking of the leaves light." 
 
 Any one_miist_be_mainlj' igno_raiit.,QiLjth 
 srho is surprised at everythingJie sees ; or wonderfully ' 
 conceited, vvho^expects everything to conform to^Ms. 
 
 .3MaBdar3 of pro priet y. i^lowiiS._an(r Idiots laugh on all 
 occasions ; arid thfi_ comm£m_feiiing;^ of mshing to_be 
 thought satirical often runs thr ough whole, fiimilies in 
 country places, to the^reat annoyance of their neigh- 
 
 .-bours. To be struck with incongruity in whatever 
 comes before us, does not argue great comprehension 
 or refinement of perception, but rather a looseness and 
 flippancy of mind and temper, which prevents the 
 individual from connecting any two ideas steadily or 
 consistently together. It is owing to a natural crudity 
 and precipitateness of the imagination, which assimi- 
 lates nothing properly to itself. People who are always 
 laughing, at length laugh on the wrong side of their 
 faces ; for they cannot get others to laugh with them. 
 In like manner, an affectation of wit by degrees hardens 
 the heart, and spoils good company and good manners. 
 A perpetual succession of good things puts an end to 
 common conversation. There is no answer to a jest, 
 but another ; and even where the ball can be kept up 
 in this way without ceasing, it tires the patience of the
 
 32 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 bystanders, and runs the speakers out of breath. Wit 
 is the salt of conversation, not tlie food. 
 i The four chief names ftav comic Imuiour out of our 
 jW'frTftngmige are Ari^topliaiios mid Lucian among the 
 '■.ailcientSj Moliereand liabelais among the moderns, 
 t Of the two first I shall say, for I know, but little. I 
 ' should have liked Aristophanes better if he had treated 
 Socrates le.ss scurvily, for he has treated him most 
 scurvily both as to wit and argument. His Plutus and 
 his Birds are striking instances, the one of dry humour, 
 the otlier of airy fancy, — Lucian is a writer who appears 
 to deserve his full fame : he has the licentious and 
 extravagant wit of Rabelais, but directed more uniformly 
 to a purpose ; and his comic productions are inter- 
 spersed with beautiful and eloquent descriptions, full 
 of sentiment, such as the exquisite account of the fable 
 of the halcyon put into the mouth of Socrates, and the 
 heroic eulogy on Bacchus, which is conceived in the 
 highest strain of glowing panegyric. 
 
 Tlie two others author I proposed to mention are 
 modern, and French. Mqliere, however, iij, the spirit 
 of. his writings, is almosit aa, niiich an Eng-lish as a 
 French author — quite a harhure in all in which he 
 really excelled. He^ was unquestiQiiably oiie . of the 
 greatest comic g-eniuses that ever lived ; a man of Jn- 
 
 ""jGjoiie jvLt.,.gaietyjand inyention-^iTTI of life^JLaugbter, . 
 
 and whim. Butit qannot be denied^that hjs plays arg. 
 Tu_general mere farcGs^without ^crujvulous adherence 
 ^_tg_nature, refinement_of. character, or common proba- 
 J)ility. The plots of several of them could not be 
 carried on for a moment without a perfect collusion 
 between the parties to wink at contradictions, and act 
 in defiance of the evidence of their senses. For in- 
 stance, take the Medecin malgre lui ("The Mock 
 Doctor "), in which a common wood-cutter takes upon 
 himself, and is made successfully to support through 
 a whole play, the character of a learned physician, 
 without exciting the least suspicion ; and yet notwith- 
 standing the absurdity of the plot, it is one of tlie most 
 laughable and truly comic productions that can well
 
 ON WIT AND HUMOUR 33 
 
 be imagined. The rest of his lighter pieces^ the 
 Bourgeois Gentilhomme , Monfiieur Pourceaugnuc, George 
 Dandin (or "Barnaby Brittle"), &c., are of the same 
 description — gratuitous assumptions of character, and 
 fancifu l and outrageous -caricatures of. nature. He 
 indulges at his peril in the utmost licence of burlesque 
 exaggeration ; and gives a loose to the intoxication of 
 his animal spirits. With respect to his two most 
 laboured comedies, the " Tartuffe " and " Misanthrope," 
 I confess that I find them ratlier hard to get tlirough : 
 they have much of the improbabilitj^ and extravagance 
 of the others, united with the endless commonplace 
 prosing of French declamation. Wliat can exceed, 
 for example, the absurdity of the " Misanthrope," who 
 leaves his mistress, after every proof of her attachmeirt 
 and constancy, for no other reason than that she will 
 not submit to the technical formality of going to live 
 with him in a wilderness.'' The characters, again, 
 which Celimene gives of her female friends, near the 
 opening of the play, are admirable satire^ (as good as 
 Pope's characters of women), but not exactly in the 
 spirit of comic dialogue. The strictures of Rousseau 
 on this play, in his " Letter to D'Alembert," are a 
 fine specimen of the best philosophical criticism. — 
 Tlie same remarks apply in a greater degree to the 
 "Tartufi"e." The long speeches and reasonings in 
 this play tire one almost to death : they may be very 
 good logic, or rhetoric, or philosophj', or anj-thing but 
 comedy. If each of the parties had retained a special 
 pleader to speak his sentiments, they could not have 
 appeared more verbose or intricate. Tlie improbability 
 of the character of Orgon is wonderful. This play is 
 in one point of view invaluable, as a lasting monument 
 of the credulity of the French to all verbal professions 
 of wisdom or virtue ; and its existence can only be 
 accounted for from that astonishing and tyrannical 
 predominance which words exercise over things in the / 
 mind of every Frenchman. The ]£cole des Femmesy 
 from which Wycherley has borrowed his " Country 
 Wife," with the true spirit of original genius, is, in 
 
 c
 
 NJ 
 
 34 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 my jiidg-ment, tlie ina.stpr])iece of Alolicre. The set 
 .speeches in the original play, it is true, would not be 
 borne on the English stage, nor indeed on the French, 
 but tliat they are carried off by the verse. The Crifique 
 de I'tkole des Femine.s, the dialogue of which is prose, 
 is written in a very different style. Among other 
 things, this little piece contains an exquisite, and 
 almost unanswerable defence of the superiority of 
 comedy over tragedy. Moliore was to be excused for 
 talking this side of the question. 
 
 A writer of some pretensions among our.selves has 
 reproached the French with " an equal want of books 
 and men." There is a common French print, in 
 whi<;h Moliere is represented reading one of his plays 
 in the presence of the celebrated Ninon de I'Enclos, 
 to a circle of the wits and first men of his own 
 time. Among these are the great Corneille ; the 
 tender, faultless Racine ; P'ontaine, the artless old 
 man, unconscious of immortality ; the accomplished 
 St. Evremond ; the Duke de la Rochefoucault, 
 the severe anatomizer of the human breast ; Boileau, 
 the flatterer of courts and judge of men ! \¥ere 
 these men nothing .'' Tliey have passed for men 
 (and great ones) hitherto, and though the pre- 
 judice is an old one, I should hope it may still last 
 our time. 
 
 Rabelais is another name that might have saved this 
 unjust censure. The wise sayings and heroic deeds of 
 Gargantua and Pantagruel ought not to be set down as 
 nothing. I have already spoken my mind at large of 
 this author ; but I cannot help thinking of him here, 
 sitting in his easy-chair, with an eye languid with 
 v/ excess of mirth, his lip quivering with a new-born 
 conceit, and wiping his beard after a well-seasoned 
 jest, with his pen held carelessly in his hand, his 
 wine-flagons, and his books of law, of school divinity, 
 and physic before him, which were his je.st-books, 
 whence he drew endless stores of absurdity ; laughing 
 at the world and enjoying it by turns, and making 
 the world laugh with him again, for the last three
 
 ON WIT AND HUMOUR 35 
 
 hundred years, at liis teeming wit and its own pro- 
 lific follies. Even to those who have never read ■</ 
 liis works, the name of Rabelais is a cordial to the 
 spirits, and the mention of it cannot consist with 
 gravity or spleen !
 
 36 THE ENGLISH COMIC vnUTEIlS 
 
 LECTURE II 
 
 ON SHAKESPEARE AND BEN JONSON 
 
 ! Db. Johnson thought Sliakespeare's comedies better 
 than Ins tragedies, and gives as a reason, that he was 
 more at home in the one than in the other. Tliat 
 comedies should be written in a more easy and care- 
 less vein than tragedies, is but natural. Tliis is only- 
 saying that a comedy is not so serious a thing as a 
 tragedy. But that he showed a greater mastery in 
 the one than in the other, I cannot allow, nor is it 
 , generally felt. The labour whiclLthe Doctor thought 
 it^ost_Shakespeare to write his tragedies, only showed 
 the labour which it cost the critic in reading them, 
 that is, hi^_generalju disposition to sympathize heartily 
 andsjjontaneously with works of high -w rought passion 
 or imagination. There~ls not in any part of this 
 author*? Writings the slightest trace of his having ever 
 been " smit with the love of sacred song," except some 
 passages in Pope. His habitually morbid tempera- 
 ment and saturnine turn of tjiought required that the 
 string should rather be relaxe3than tightened, that 
 v/ the. weiglit upon.jtli£,jnind should rather be taTcen off 
 than_ have anything added -fee~it. TEeFe was a sluggish 
 moroseness about his moral constitution that refused 
 to be roused to any keen agony of thought, and that 
 was not very safely to be trifled with in lighter 
 matters, though this last was allowed to pass off as the 
 most pardonable offence against the gravity of his pre- 
 tensions. It is in fact the established rule at present, 
 in these cases, to speak highly of the Doctor's autho- 
 • rity, and to dissent from almost every one of his 
 critical decisions. For my own part, I so far consider
 
 SHAKESPEARE AND BEN JONSON 87 
 
 this prefe rence given to the c o mic genius j)f the poet^ 
 as erro neous an4_ unfounded, that I should say that 
 hejsjthe only tragic poet in the_woxLdJn the highjssL 
 /sense^ as being on a par with, and the same as Nature, 
 IpEer^r^iestlLeigTits and.de^ of actipnLaiKLsuiet:*' 
 'iiig. There is but one who durst walk within that 
 mighty circle, treading the utmost bound of nature 
 and passion, showing us the dread abyss of woe in all 
 its ghastly shapes and colours, and laying open all the 
 faculties of the human soul to act, to think, and suffer, 
 in direst extremities ; whereas, I think, on tlie other 
 hand^ that in comedy, though Jiistelents there too, 
 "were as" wonderful asjthey were deligh tful, ye t that 
 tEere ^were some bef ore hip, o thers on a IfiEfiLmth 
 him , ^ncL-itiaiiy close be hind him. I , cannot help 
 thinking, for instancej_that Moli ere was as great, or 
 a_greater co mic ge nius than Shakespeare,- though 
 assuredly I do not think that Racine was as great, or a 
 greater tragic genius. IJ]hjixli_thatJ)oJJl_iLaMl§is_apd_ 
 Cervantes, the one _in f he power of ludicrous descrip- 
 tion, the other in the Inven tion and perfect keeping 
 of comic character, excelled Shakespearej that ia,^ 
 "they would have been greater men, if th ey h ad had 
 equarpbwer with him over the stronger passions. JEor 
 myjow:s_teading, IJikaJyiuibrugKV^C VVives'^Con- 
 ^idiracy " as well, or (" not to speak it profanely^') 
 better than the " Mer ry Wi ves of Windsor," aixd.Cour 
 greve'^s "Way of the Woiid '^asjwelLas_th_e_/J_Comedy 
 ^f Errors" or "Love's Labour's Lost." ,Eilt_L.cannot 
 say that I know of atiy_tragedies in the world that 
 make evea a . lolerab le ap proach to " Hamlet," or 
 "Lear,;! or ^^Othello,'li3T. sojne_others, either in the 
 sum totaV of their effect, or in t heir comp lete distinct-^ 
 neis^fi-piiTeverytlung^else, by whlcli they take not only 
 unquestioned, but undivided possession of Jhe miud^- 
 and form a class, a vtwlcTby themselves mmgling with 
 all our thoughts like a second being. Other tragedies 
 tell for more or less, are good, bad, or indifferent, as 
 they have more or less excellence of a kind common 
 to them with others : but these stand alone by them-
 
 38 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 selves ; tliey liave uothing commonplace in tliem ; 
 they are a new power in the imagination^ they tell tor 
 tlieir whole amount, they measure from tlie ground. 
 There is not only nothing so good (in my judgment) as 
 "Hamlet," or "Lear," or " Otlicllo," or " Macheth," 
 hut there is nothing like "Hamlet," or "Lear," or 
 " Othello," or " Macheth." There is nothing, I believe, 
 in the majestic Corneille, e(iual to the stern pride of 
 " Coriolanus " ; or wliich gives sucli an idea of the 
 crumbling in pieces of the Roman grandeur, "like an 
 unsubstantial pageant faded," as the " Antony and Cleo- 
 patra." Rut to match the best serious comedies, such 
 as MolieraaJL^Iiiaaiithnipe "_jii^ " Tartutfe7^~we 
 inustgo to Shakespi;arfi's tragixxxliaracters, tlie Timon 
 ()f Athens or Imueat lagQj when we shall more than -. 
 succi'c(l. He ])ut hie strengtli_into his tragedies, ^nd 
 "pTayril with comedy.. He was greatest in what was 
 "greatest ; and his forte was not tfiflilig, according to" 
 the opinion here combated, even though he might do 
 that as well as anybody else, unless he could do it 
 better than anyliody else. J would^notJ)ejinderstood 
 to_saj_tliat there are iiotL^ceue&Jir . whole^charactersTn 
 ^hakespeare_equal in wit and drolleiy to anythiiig 
 upon l-ecord . . Jb'alataff aloH^^ instan ce which, if I 
 
 would, I could not get over. "JJe..is.th&Jeviatha,n of_ 
 .alLtlie_creaiinNes_of th^jAi^^^ 
 
 taunbles._abi)ut_his unidfildy bulk in an- ocean „o£wit^ 
 and humour." But in general it will b e found (if I 
 'am not mistaken^, that^even in the very best ofjhese 
 the spirit of humanity and__the fancy of IheL^oet 
 greatly ]ncvail over thejmere wit and satire, and tliat 
 we sympathize with his^ cliaracters j)ftener than wft. 
 ^ugh at them._ His ridicule wants the sting of ill- 
 nature. He had hardly such a thing as spleen in his 
 composition. Falstaif himself is so great a joke, 
 rather from his being so huge a mass of enjoyment 
 than of absurdity. His re-appearance in the " Merry 
 Wives of Windsor " is not " a consummation devoutly 
 to be wished," for we do not take pleasure in the 
 repeated triumphs over him. Mercutio's quips and
 
 SHAKESPEARE AND BEN JONSON ,39 
 
 banter upon his friends show amazing gaiety, frank- 
 ness, and vohibility of tongue, but we think no more ^ 
 of them when the poet takes the words out of his 
 mouth, and gives tlie description of Queen Mab. 
 Touchstone, again, is a shrewd biting fellow, a lively, 
 mischievous wag : but still, what are his gibing sentences 
 and chopped logic to the fine moralizing vein of the 
 fantastical Jaques, stretched beneath "the shade of 
 melancholy boughs " ? Nothing. Tliat_is, Shakespeare 
 was a greater poet t han wit j hig^jmagination was the 
 leading^aud- mastex^uality of his mind, vvhich^was 
 always ready to soar into its native element : the^ 
 ludicrous was only secondary and subordinate. In the 
 comedies of gallantry and intrigue, with what fresh- 
 ness and delight we come to the serious and romantic 
 parts ! What a relief they are to the mind, after 
 those of mere ribaldry or mirth ! Those in " Twelfth 
 Night," for instance, and " Much Ado about Nothing," 
 where Olivia and Hero are concerned, throw even 
 Malvolio and Sir Toby, and Benedick and Beatrice, 
 into the shade. They "give a very echo to the seat 
 where love is throned." What he has said of music 
 might be said of his own poetry — 
 
 " Oh ! it came o'er my ear like the sweet south 
 That breathes upon a bank of violets, 
 Stealing and giving odour." 
 
 How poor, in general, what a falling-off, these parts 
 seem in mere comic authors ; how ashamed we are of 
 them ; and how fast we hurry the blank verse over, 
 that we may get upon safe ground again, and recover 
 our good opinion of the author ! A striking and 
 lamentable instance of this may be found (by any one 
 who chooses) in the high-flown speeches in Sir Richard 
 Steele's '' Conscious Lovers." As good an example as 
 any of this' informing and redeeming power in our 
 author's genius might be taken from the comic scenes \/ 
 in both parts of " Henry IV." Nothing can go much 
 lower in intellect or morals than many of the char- 
 acters. Here are knaves and fools in abundance, of
 
 40. THE ENGLISH COMIC W^RITERS 
 
 / the meanest order^ and stripped stark -naked. But 
 
 ^ genius, like cliarity, " covers a multitude of sins " ; 
 
 we pity as much as we despise them ; in spite of our 
 
 (disgust wo like them, hecause they like tliemselves, 
 and because we are made to sympathize with them ; 
 and the ligament, fine as it is, which links them to 
 liumanity, is never broken. Who would quarrel with 
 W'^art, or Feeble, or Mouldy, or Bull-calf, or even 
 with Pistol, Nym, or Bardolph .'' None but a hypo- 
 crite. The severe censurers of the morals of imaginary 
 cliaracters can generally find a hole for their own 
 vices to creep out at, and yet do not perceive how it 
 is that the imperfect and even deformed characters in 
 Shakespeare's plays, as done to the life, by forming a 
 part of our personal consciousness, claim our personal 
 forgiveness, and suspend or evade our moral judgment, 
 by bribing our self-love to side with them. Not to do 
 so, is not morality, but affectation, stupidity, or ill- 
 nature. I have more sympathy with one of Shake- 
 speare's pick-purses, Gadshill or Peto, than I can 
 possibly have with any member of the Society for the 
 Suppression of Vice, and would by no means assist to 
 deliver the one into the hands of the other. Those 
 who cannot be persuaded to draw a veil over the 
 foibles of ideal characters, may be suspected of 
 wearing a mask over their own ! Again, in point of 
 understanding and attainments. Shallow sinks low 
 enough ; and yet his cousin Silence is a foil to him ; 
 he is the shadow of a shade, glimmers on the very 
 verge of downright imbecility, and totters on the 
 brink of nothing. " He has been merry twice and 
 once ere now," and is hardly persuaded to break his 
 silence in a song. Shallow has " heard the chimes at 
 midnight," and roared out glees and catches at taverns 
 and inns of court, when he was young. So, at least, 
 he tells his cousin Silence, and Falstalf encourages the 
 loftiness of his pretensions. Shallow would be thought 
 a great man among his dependants and followers ; 
 Silence is nobody — not even in his own opinion ; yet 
 he sits in the orchard, and eats his caraways and
 
 SHAKESPEARE AND BP:N JONSON 41 
 
 pippins among the rest. Shakespeare takes up the 
 meanest subjects with the same tenderness that we do 
 an insect's wing, and would not kill a fly. To give a 
 more particular instance of what I mean, I will take 
 the inimitable and affecting, though most absurd and 
 ludicrous dialogue, between Shallow and Silence, on * 
 the death of old Double. 
 
 "Shallow. Come on, come on, come on; give me your 
 hand, sir ; give me your hand, sir ; an early stirrer, by the 
 rood. And how doth my good cousin Silence ? 
 
 Silence. Good morrow, good cousin Shallow. 
 
 Shallow. And how doth my cousin, your bedfellow ? and 
 your fairest daughter, and mine, my god-daughter Ellen ? 
 
 Silence. Alas, a black ouzel, cousin Shallow. 
 
 Shallow. By yea and nay, sir ; I dare say, my cousin 
 William is become a good scholar : he is at Oxford still, is 
 he not ? 
 
 Silence. Indeed, sir, to my cost. 
 
 Shallow. He must then to the inns of court shortly. I was 
 once of Clement's inn ; where, I think, they will talk of mad 
 Shallow yet. 
 
 Silence. You were called lusty Shallow then, cousin. 
 
 Shallow. I was called anything, and I would have done 
 anything indeed, and roundly too. There was I, and little 
 John Doit of Staffordshire, and black George Bare, and 
 Francis Pickbone, and Will Squele, a Cotswold man, you had 
 not four such swinge-bucklers in all the inns of court again ; 
 and, I may say to you, we knew where the bonarobas were, 
 and had the best of them all at commandment. Then was 
 Jack Falstaff, now Sir John, a boy, and page to Thomas 
 Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk. 
 
 .Silence. This Sir John, cousin, that comes hither anon \ 
 about soldiers ? \ 
 
 Shallow. The same Sir John, the very same : I saw him \ 
 break Schoggan's head at the court-gate, when he was a crack, i 
 not thus high ; and the very same day did I fight with one 
 Sampson Stockfish, a fruiterer, behind Gray's-inn. 0, the 
 mad days that I have spent ! and to see how many of mine 
 old acquaintances are dead ! 
 
 Silence. We shall all follow, cousin. 
 
 Shallow. Certain, 'tis certain, very sure, very sure: death 
 (as the Psalmist saith) is certain to all, all shall die. — How a 
 good yoke of bullocks at Stamford fair ? 
 
 Silence. Truly, cousin, I was not there. 
 
 Shallow. Death is certain. Is old Double of your tovim 
 living yet ? 
 
 i
 
 42 THE ENGLISH COMIC WllITERS 
 
 Silence. Dead, sir. 
 
 Shallou: Dead ! see, see ! he drew a good bow ; and dead ? 
 he shot a tiiio shoot. John of Gaunt loved him well, and 
 betted much nioiioy on his head. Dead ! he woidd have 
 clapped i' th' clout at twelve score ; and carried you a fore- 
 hand shaft a fourteen and a half, that it woLild have done a 
 man's heart Lfood to see. — How a score of ewes now ? 
 
 Silence. Thereafter as they be : a score of good ewes may 
 be worth ten pounds. 
 
 Shallow. And is old Double dead ? " 
 
 'lliere is not anytliiiifif more characteristic tliaii this 
 ill all Shakespeare. A finer sermon on mortality was 
 never preached. We see the frail condition of human 
 life^ and the weakness of the human understanding in 
 Shallow's reflections on it ; who, while the past is 
 sliding from beneath his feet, still clings to the present. 
 Tlie meanest circumstances are shown through an 
 atmosphere of abstraction that dignifies them : their 
 very insignificance makes them more affecting, for they 
 instantly put a check on our aspiring thoughts, and 
 remind us that, seen through that dim perspective, the 
 difference between the great and little, the wise and 
 foolish, is not much.** " One touch of nature makes the 
 whole world kin " : and old Double, though his exploits 
 had been greater, could but have had his day. There 
 is a pathetic na'wete^vaixed-\ip with Shallow's common- 
 jiace reflections and impertinent digressions.^ The 
 reader laughs (as well4ie,niay) in reading the passage, 
 ^iGut he lays down the book to thiuk. Xh-eJKit^ however 
 f«(nverting, is social ajid humane. But this is not the 
 j distinguishing characteristic of wit, which is generally 
 provoked by folly, and spends its venom upon vice. 
 ^Tlie fault, then, of Shakespeare's comic Muse is, in 
 my opinion, that it is too good-natured and magnani- 
 mous. It mounts above its quarry. It is "appre- 
 [hensive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble, fiery, and 
 delectable shapes " : but it does not take the highest 
 pleasure in making human nature look as mean, as 
 ridiculous, and contemptible as possible. It is in this 
 1 respect, chiefly, that it differs from the comedy of a 
 1 later, and (what is called) a more refined period.
 
 SHAKESPEARE AND BEN JONSON 43 
 
 Genteel comedy is the comedy of fashionable life, and 
 of artificial character and manners. The most pungent 
 ridicule is that which is directed to mortify vanity, and 
 to expose affectation ; but vauitj' and affectation, in 
 their most exorbitant and studied excesses, are the 
 ruling principles of society, only in a highly advanced 
 state of civilization and manners. Man can hardly be 
 said to be a truly contemptible animal, till, from the 
 facilities of general intercourse, and the progress of 
 example and opinion, he becomes the ape of the 
 extravagances of other men. / The keenest edge of 
 satire is required to distinguish between the true and 
 false pretensions to taste and elegance ; its lash is laid 
 on with the utmost severity, to drive before it the 
 common herd of knaves and fools, not to lacerate and 
 terrify the single stragglers. In a_\vpxd, it Is when 
 folly is epidemic, and vice worn as a mai'kof distinc- 
 tion, that all the malice flf^wit and huniour is called 
 out and justified.tQ.detect.±LeJmpLQsture, and prevent 
 the contagion. fi-om spreadiugV The fools in Wycherley 
 and Congreve are of their own, or one another's making, 
 and deserve to be well scourged into common sense 
 and decency : the fools in Shakespeare are of his own 
 or nature's making ; and it would be unfair to probe 
 to the quick, or hold up to unqualified derision, the 
 faults which are involuntary and incorrigible, or those 
 which you yourself encourage and exaggerate, from the 
 pleasure you take in witnessing them. Our later comic 
 writers represent a state of manners, in which to be a 
 man of wit and pleasure about town was become the 
 fashion, and in which the swarms of egregious pre- 
 tenders in both kinds openly kept one another in 
 countenance, and were become a public nuisance. 
 Shakespeare, living in a state of greater rudeness and 
 simplicity, chiefly gave certain characters which were 
 a kind of grotesques, or solitary excrescences growing 
 up out of their native soil without affectation, and which 
 he undertook kindly to pamper for the pul)lic enter- 
 tainment. For instance, Sir Andrew Aguecheek is 
 evidently a creature of the poet's own fancy. Tlie
 
 44 THP: ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 author lends occasion to his absurdity to show itself as 
 much as he pleases, devises antics for him which would 
 not enter into his own head, makes him "go to church 
 in a giilliard, and return liome in a coranto " ; adds 
 fuel to his folly, or throws cold water on his courage ; 
 makes his puny extravagances venture out or slink into 
 corners without asking his leave ; encourages them 
 into indiscreet luxuriance, or checks them in tlie bud, 
 just as it suits him for the jest's sake. The gratification 
 of the fancy, "and furnishing matter for innocent 
 mirth," are, therefore, the chief object of tliis and 
 otlier characters like it, rather than reforming the 
 moral sense, or indulging our personal spleen. But 
 Tattle and Sparkish, who are fops cast not in the mould 
 of fancy, but of fashion, who have a tribe of forerunners 
 and followers, who catch certain diseases of the mind 
 on purpose to communicate the infection, and are 
 screened in their preposterous eccentricities by their 
 own conceit and by the world's opinion, are entitled to 
 no quarter, and receive none. They think themselves 
 objects of envy and admiration, and on that account 
 are doubly objects of our contempt and ridicule. — Wje 
 find that the scenes of Shakespeare's comedies are mosO.^^ 
 laid in the country, or are transferaljle there at pleasure. 
 The genteel comedy exists OnlyiQ Jowns, and crowds 
 of borrowed characters, who copy others as the satirist 
 copies them, anjl who are. X)iL^_see.ii_ta_be_despjsed. 
 " All beyond Hyde Park is a desert " to it : while there 
 tlie pastoral and poetic comedy begins to vegetate and 
 flourish, unpruned, idle, and fantastic. It is hard to 
 " lay waste a country gentleman " in a state of nature, 
 whose humours may have run a little wild or to seed, or 
 to lay violent hands on a young booby 'squire, whose 
 absurdities have not yet arrived at years of discretion : 
 but my Lord Foppington, who is " the prince of cox- 
 combs," and " proud of being at the head of so prevail- 
 ing a party," deserves his fate. I am not for going so 
 far as to pronounce Shakespeare's " manners damnable, 
 because he had not seen the court " ; but I think that 
 comedj_dpes_not_find its ricjiest harvest tilljndividual
 
 SHAKESPEARE AND BEN JONSON 45 
 
 «■' infirmities have passed into general manners, and it i 
 IS Bie example of courtSj^cliieliy, that stamps folly T 
 jwith credit and currency, or glosses over vice with 
 .meretricious lustre. L,_conceive, therefore, that the^ 
 golden period of our_ comedy was j ust after the age_gf 
 Charles II, whenthe town first became tainted with 1 
 the affectation of the manners and conversation of I 
 
 T"fashionahle life, and before_ the distinction befween_\ 
 rusticity and elegance, art and nature, _was lost (as it \ 
 afterwards was) in a general diffusion of knowledge,- 
 and the reciprocal advantages of ciyil intercouxse. It 
 is to be remarked, that the union of the tliree grada- 
 tions of artificial elegance and courtly accomplishments 
 in one class, of the affectation of them in another, and 
 of absolute rusticity in a third, forms the highest point 
 of perfection of the comedies of this period, as we may 
 see in Vanbrugh's Lord Foppington, Sir Tunbelly 
 Clumsy, and Miss Hoyden ; Lady Townly, Count / 
 Basset, and John Moody ; in Coiigreve's Millamant, 
 Lady Wishfort, Witwoud, Sir WilfuT Wltwoud, and ' 
 the rest. 
 
 In another point of view, or with respect to that 
 part of comedy which relates to gallantry and intrigue, 
 the difference between Shakespeare's comic heroines 
 and those of a later period may be referred to the 
 same distinction between natural and artificial life, V 
 between the world of fancy and the world of fashion. 
 The refinements of romantic passion arise out of the 
 imagination brooding over '^'^airy nothing," or over a 
 favourite object, where "love's golden shaft hath 
 killed the flock of all affections else " : whereas the 
 refinements of this passion in genteel comedy, or in 
 everyday life, may be said to arise out of repeated 
 observation and experience, diverting and frittering 
 away the first impressions of things by a multiplicity 
 of objects, and producing, not enthusiasm, but fastidi- 
 ousness or giddy dissipation. For the one a com- 
 paratively rude age and strong feelings are best fitted ; 
 for " there the mind must minister to itself" : to the 
 other, the progress of society and a knowledge of the
 
 \ 
 
 h 
 
 46 THE ENGLISH COiMlC WRITERS 
 
 world are essential ; for here tlie eifeet does not depend 
 on leaving? tlie mind concentred in itself^ but on tlie 
 wear and tear of tlie lieart, amidst tlie complex and 
 rapid movements of the artificial machinery of society, 
 and tlie arbitrary subjection of the natural course of 
 the affections to every the slightest fluctuation of 
 
 I fashion, caprice, or opinion, llius Olivia, in "Twelftli 
 Night," has but one admirer of equal rank with her- 
 self, and but one love, to whom she innocently plights 
 her hand and heart ; or if she had a thousand lovers, 
 she would be the sole object of their adoration and 
 burning vows, without a rival. The heroine of romance 
 and poetry sits secluded in the bowers of fancy, sole 
 queen and arbitress of all hearts ; and as the character 
 is one of imagination, "of solitude and melancholy 
 musing born," so it may be best drawn from the imagi- 
 nation. Millamant, in the " Way of the World," on 
 the contrary, who is the fine lady or heroine of comedy, 
 has so many lovers, that she surfeits on admiration, 
 till it becomes indifferent to her ; so many rivals, that 
 she is forced to put on a thousand airs of languid 
 affectation to mortify and vex them more ; so many 
 offers, that she at last gives her hand to the man of 
 her heart, rather to escape the persecution of their 
 addresses, and out of levity and disdain, than from 
 any serious choice of her own.{| This is a comic cliar- 
 
 \^cter ; its essence consists in making light of things 
 from familiarity and use, and as it is formed by habit 
 and outward circumstances, so it requires actual observa- 
 tion, and an acquaintance with the modes of artificial 
 life, to describe it with the utmost possible grace and 
 precision. Congreve, who had every other opportunity, 
 was but a young man when he wrote this character ; 
 and that makes the miracle the greater. 
 
 I do not, in short, consider comedy as exactly an 
 affair of the heart or the imagination ; and it is for 
 this reason only that I think Shakespeare's comedies 
 deficient. I do not, however, wish to give a preference 
 of any comedies over his ; but I do perceive a differ- 
 ence between his comedies and some others that are. 
 
 \\
 
 SHAKESPEARE AND BEN JONSON 47 
 
 ■> jnotwithstanding, excellent in their way, and I have 
 \ [endeavoured to point out in what this difference con- 
 sists, as well as I could. Finally, I will not say that 
 he had not as great a natural genius for comedy as 
 any one ; but I may venture to say, that he had not 
 the same artificial models and regulated mass of fashion- 
 j able absurdity or elegance to work upon. 
 
 ^ A The superiority of Shakespeare's natural genius for 
 / comedy cannot be better shown tlian by a comparison 
 f| between his comic characters and those of Ben Jonson. 
 ! The matter is the same : but how different is the 
 manner ! The one gives fair play to nature and his 
 own genius, while the other trusts almost entirely to 
 limitation and custom. Shakespeare takes his ground- 
 /work in indtvidual character and tlie manners of his 
 age, and raises from them a fantastical and delightful 
 superstructure of his own : the other takes the same 
 groundwork in matter-of-fact, but hardly ever rises 
 above it ; and the more he strives, is but the more 
 enveloped '^'^in the crust of formality" and the crude 
 circumstantials of his subject. His genius (not to 
 profane an old and still venerable name, but merely 
 to make myself understood) resembles the grub more 
 than the butterfly, plods and grovels on, wants wings 
 to wanton in the idle summer's air, and catch the 
 golden light of poetry. Ben Jonson is a great 
 I borrower from the works of others, and a plagiarist 
 'even from Nature; so little freedom is there in his 
 limitations of her, and he appears to receive her bounty 
 jlike an alms. Plis works read like translations, from 
 ia certain cramp manner, and want of adaptation. 
 'Shakespeare, even when he takes whole passages from 
 books, does it with a spirit, felicity, and mastery over 
 his subject, that instantly makes them his own ; and 
 shows more independence of mind and original think- 
 ing in what he plunders without scruple, than Ben 
 Jonson often did in his most studied passages, forced 
 from the sweat and labour of his brain. His style is 
 as dry, as literal, and meagre, as Shakespeare's is 
 exuberant, liberal, and unrestrained. The one labours
 
 48 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 hard, lashes himself up, and produces little pleasure 
 with all his fidelity and tenaciousness of purpose : 
 the other, without putting himself to any trouble, 
 or thinking about his success, performs wonders, — 
 
 " Does mad and frantic execution , 
 Enpaping' and redeeming of himself, 
 With such a careless force and forceless i care, 
 As if that luck, in very spite of cuiuiing, 
 Bad him win all." 
 
 Tliere are people who cannot taste olives — and I cannot 
 much relish Ben Jonson, though I have taken some 
 pains to do it, and went to the task with every sort of 
 goodwill. I do not deny his power or his merit ; far 
 from it : but it is to me of a repulsive and unamiable 
 kind. He was a great man in himself, but one cainiot 
 readily sympathize with him. His works, as the char- 
 acteristic productions of an individual mind, or as 
 records of the manners of a particular age, cannot be 
 
 jvalued too highly ; but they have little charm for the 
 ^' mere general reader. Schlegel observes, that whereas 
 Shakespeare gives the springsjif Imman-natur^ :ghich 
 are always the same, or sufficiently so to be interest- 
 ing and intelligible ; Jonson chiefly gives the humours 
 of men, as connected With certain arbitrary or conven- 
 
 *tional modes of dress, action, and expression, M'hicli 
 
 i are intelligible only^ while they last, and not "very 
 I intercstittg^^ KTiytlme. Shakespeare's characters are 
 
 I men ; Ben Jonson's are more like n^^cliiiies, governed 
 
 1 by mere routine, or by the convenience of the poet, 
 whose property they are. In reading the one, we are 
 let into the minds of his characters, we see the play of 
 their thoughts, how their humours flow and work : the 
 author takes a range over nature, and has an eye to 
 every object or occasion that presents itself to set ofi^ 
 
 pand heighten the ludicrous character he is describing. 
 \y Hisjhumour (so to speak) Jjubbles, sparkles, and finds 
 
 [ itTway in all directions, 'like a natural spring. In 
 
 1 Unforced. 
 
 /
 
 SHAKESPEARE AND BEN JONSON 49 
 
 Ben Joiison it is, as it were, .confined in a leaden 
 cistern, where it stagnates and corrupts ; or directed 
 only through certain artificial pipes and conduits to 
 answer a given purpose. The comedy of this author is 
 far from being " lively, audible, and full of vent " : it is 
 for the most part obtuse, obscure, forced, and tedious. 
 He wears out a jest to the last shred and coarsest grain. 
 His imagination fastens instinctively on some one mark 
 or sign by which he designates the individual, and 
 never lets it go, for fear of not meeting with any 
 other means to express himself by. A cant phrase, an 
 odd gesture, an old-fashioned regimental uniform, a 
 wooden leg, a tobacco-box, or a hacked sword, are the 
 standing topics by which he embodies his characters 
 to the imagination. They are cut-aud-dried comedy ;\, 
 the letter, not the spirit of wit and humour. Each 
 of his characters has a particular cue, a professional 
 badge which he wears and is known by, and by notliing 
 else, llius there is no end of Captain Otter, his Bull, 
 his Bear, and his Horse, which are no joke at first, 
 and do not become so by being repeated twenty times. 
 It is a mere matter of fact, that some landlord of his 
 acquaintance called his drinking cups by these ridicu- 
 lous names ; but why need we be told so more than 
 once, or indeed at all .'' There is almost a total want i 
 of variety, fancy, relief, and of those deliglitful transi- 
 tions which abound, for instance, in Shakespeare's 
 tragi-comedy. In Ben Jonson, we find ourselves 
 generally in low company, and we see no hope of get- 
 ting out of it. He is like a person who fastens upon 
 a disagreeable subject, and cannot be persuaded to leave 
 it. His comedy, in a word, has not what Shakespeare 
 somewhere calls " bless'd conditions." It is cross- j 
 grained, mean, and mechanical. It is handicraft wit. ! 
 Squalid poverty, sheer ignorance, bare-faTred— inipu- 
 dence, or idiot imbecility, are his dramatic common- 
 places — things that provoke pity or disgust, instead 
 of laughter. His portraits are caricatures by dint of 
 their very likeness, being extravagant tautologies of 
 themselves ; as his plots are improbable by an excess ^
 
 50 THE P:NGLISII COMIC WRITERS 
 
 of consistency ; for he goes thorough-stitch with 
 whatever lie takes in hand, makes one contrivance 
 answer all purposes, and every obstacle give way to a 
 predetermined theory. For instance, nothing can be 
 v^.niore incredible than the mercenary conduct of Corvino, 
 in delivering up his wife to the palsied embraces of 
 Volpone ; and yet the poet does not seem in the least 
 to boggle at the incongruity of it : but the more it is 
 in keeping with the absurdity of the rest of the fable, 
 and the more it advances it to an inci-edible catastrophe, 
 the more he seems to dwell upon it with complacency 
 and a sort of wilful exaggeration, as if it were a logical 
 discovery or corollary from well-known premises. He 
 would no more be baffled in the working out a plot, 
 than some people will be baffled in an argmnent. " If 
 to be wise were to be obstinate," our author might 
 have laid signal claim to this title. 1_d Ren was of 
 a scholastic turn, and had dealt a little in the occult 
 sciences and controversial divinity. He was a man 
 of strong crahbed sense, retentive memory, acute 
 observation, great fidelity of description and keeping 
 in character, a power of working out an idea so as to 
 make it painfully true and oppressive/ and with great 
 honesty and manliness of feeling, as well as directness 
 of understanding : but with all this, he wantjid, to 
 £iJ^..-tlLinkisgi_lhat__genial__^^iTt; of enjoyifnent and 
 finer_fancy, which coiistitute the essence ofpoetry and. 
 of wit. The sense of reality exerciseda despotic 
 sway over his mind, and equally weighed down and 
 clogged his perception of the beautiful or the ridicu- 
 lous. He had a keen sense of what was true and 
 false, but not of the difference between the agreeable 
 and the disagreeable ; or if he had, it was by his 
 understanding rather than his imagination, by rule 
 and method, not by sympathy, or intuitive perception 
 of "the gayest, happiest attitude of things." There 
 was nothing spontaneous, no impulse or ease about 
 his genius : it was all forced, up-hill work, making 
 a toil of a pleasure. And hence his overweening 
 admiration of his own works, from the effort they
 
 SHAKESPEARE AND BEN JONSON 51 
 
 had cost him, and the apprehension that they were 
 not proportionably admired by others, who knew 
 nothing of the pangs and throes of his Muse in 
 child-bearing. lu his satirical descriptions he seldom 
 stops short of the lowest and most offensive point of 
 meanness ; and in his serious poetry he seems to 
 repose with complacency only on the pedantic and 
 far-fetched, the U/tima Thule of his knowledge. He 
 lias a conscience of letting nothing escape the reader 
 that he knows. Aliquando stifflcmiinandus erat, is as 
 true of him as it was of Shakespeare, but in a quite 
 different sense. He is doggedly bent upon fatiguing 
 j''ou with a favourite idea ; whereas Shakespeare over- 
 powers and distracts attention by the throng and 
 indiscriminate variety of his. His " Sad Shepherd " 
 is a beautiful fragment. It was a favourite with the 
 late Mr. Home Tooke : indeed it is no wonder, for 
 there was a sort of sympathy between the two men. 
 Ben was like the modern wit and philosopher, a 
 grammarian and a hard-headed thinker. There is an 
 amusing account of Ben Jonson's private manners 
 in " Howel's Letters," which is not generally known, 
 and which I shall here extract. 
 
 ''From James Howel, Esq., to Sir Thomas Hawk, Kt. 
 
 " Westminstbk, 5th April, 1636. 
 
 "Sir, — I was invited yesternight to a solemn supper by 
 B. J., where you were deeply remembered ; there was good 
 company, excellent cheer, choice wines, and jovial welcome : 
 one thing intervened, which almost spoiled the relisli of the 
 rest, that B. began to engross all the discourse, to vapour 
 extremely by himself, and, by vilifying others, to magnify his 
 own Muse. T. Ca. (Tom Carew) buzzed me in the ear, that 
 though Ben had barrelled up a great deal of knowledge, yet 
 it seems he had not read the ethics, which, among other 
 precepts of morality, forbid self-commendation, declaring it 
 to be an ill-favoured solecism in good manners. It made 
 me think upon the lady (not very young) who, having a good 
 while given her guest neat entertainment, a capon being 
 brought upon the table, instead of a spoon, she took a 
 mouthful of claret, and spouted into the hollow bird: such
 
 62 THE ENGLISH COMIC AruiTERS 
 
 an accident happened in this entertainment : you know — 
 propria laus sordet in ore: be a m:ui's breath ever so sweet, 
 yet it makes one's praise stink, if he makes his own mouth 
 the conduit-pipo of it. Bi;t, for my part, I am content to 
 dispense with the Roman infirmity of Ben, now that time 
 hath snowed upon his pericranium. You know Ovid and 
 (your) Horace were subject to this humour, the first Vnirstiiig 
 out into — 
 
 Jamque opus e.xegl, quod ncc Jovis ira nee ignis, &c. 
 
 The otlier into — 
 
 E.Kegi monumentum sere pereiuilus, &c. 
 
 As also Cicero, while he forced himself into this hexameter : 
 O for tuna tarn nntam me conside RoniamJ There is another 
 reason that e.Kcuseth B. , which is, that if one be allowed to 
 love the natural issue of his body, why not that of the brain, 
 which is of a spiritual and more noble extraction?" 
 
 The coiR'urring testimony of all liis contemporaries 
 agrees with his own candid avowal, as to Ben Jonson's 
 personal character. He begins, for instance, an epistle 
 to Drayton in these words : — 
 
 " Michael, by some 'tis doubted if I be 
 A friend at all ; or, if a friend, to thee." 
 
 Of Shakespeare's comedies I have already given a 
 detailed account, which is before the public, and 
 which I shall not repeat of course ; but I shall give a 
 Icursory sketch of the principal of Ben Jonson's. [It 
 has been observed of this author, that he painted not 
 so much human nature as temporary manners ; not 
 the characters of men, but their humours ; that is to 
 say, peculiarities of phrase, modes of dress, gesture, 
 «fec., which becomuig obsolete, and being in themselves 
 altogether arbitrary and fantastical, have become unin- 
 telligible and uninteresting.] The " Silent '\V"oman " is 
 built upon the supposition of an old citizen ilisliking 
 noise, who takes to wife Epicene (a supposed young 
 lady) for the reputation of her silence, and with a view 
 to disinlierit his nephew, who has laughed at his 
 infirmity ; when the ceremony is no sooner over than 
 the bride turns out a very shrew, his house becomes a
 
 SHAKESPEARE AND BEN JONSON 63 
 
 very Babel of noises, and he offers his nepliew his 
 own terms to unloose tlie matrimonial knot, which is 
 (lone by proving that Epicene is no woman. There is 
 some humour in the leading character, but too much is 
 made out of it, not in the way of Moliere's exaggera- 
 tions, which, though extravagant, are fantastical and 
 ludicrous, but of serious, plodding, minute prolixity. 
 Tlie first meeting between Morose and Epjcejie is well 
 managed, and does not " o'erstep the modesty of 
 nature," from the very restraint imposed by the situa- 
 tion of the parties— by the affected taciturnity of the 
 one, and the other's singular dislike of noise. The 
 whole story, from the beginning to the end, is a gra- 
 tuitous assumption, and the height of improbability. 
 Tlie author, in sustaining the weight of his plot, seems 
 like a balance-master who supports a number of people, 
 piled one upon another, on his hands, his knees, his 
 shoulders, but with a great effort on his own part, 
 and with a painful effect to the beholders. The scene 
 between Sir Amorous La Eool and Sir John Daw, in 
 which they are frightened, by a feigned report of each 
 other's courage, into a submission to all sorts of indig- 
 nities, which they construe into flattering civilities, is 
 the same device as that in "Twelfth Night" between 
 Sir Andrew Aguecheek and Viola, carried to a para- 
 doxical and revolting excess. Ben Jonson had no idea 
 of decorum in his dramatic fictions, which Milton says 
 is the principal thing, but went on caricaturing himself j 
 and others till he could go no farther in extravagance, j 
 and sink ro lower in meanness. The titles of his' 
 dramatis peisoncp, such as Sir Amorous La Fool, True- 
 wit, Sir John Daw, Sir Politic Would-be, &c. &c., 
 which are significant and knowing, show his determina- 
 tion to overdo everything by thus letting you into 
 their characters beforehand, and afterwards proving 
 their pretensions by their names. Tims Peregrine, 
 in " Volpone," says, "Your name. Sir.''" Politick. 
 " My name is Politick Would-be." To which Pere- 
 grine replies, " Oh, that speaks hira." How it should, 
 if it was his real name, and not a nickname given him
 
 54 THE ENGLISH COAHC VVKITERS 
 
 on purpose by tlie author, is liard to conceive. Tliis 
 play was Drydcii's favourite. It is iiideiMl full of sliarp, 
 biting sentences against the women, of which he was 
 fond. The following may serve as a specimen. True- 
 wit says, " Did I not tell thee, Uuuphine .'' Why, all 
 their actions are governed by crude opinion, without 
 reason or cause ; tliey know not why they do any- 
 thing ; but, as they are informed, believe, judge, 
 praise, condemn, love, hate, and in emulation one of 
 another, do all these things alike. Only they liave 
 a natural inclination sways 'em generally to tlie worst, 
 when they are left to themselves." This is a cynical 
 sentence ; and we may say of the rest of his opinions, 
 that " even though we should hold them to be true, 
 yet is it slander to have them so set down." The 
 women in this play indeed justify the author's severity ; 
 they are altogether abominable. They have an utter 
 want of principle and decency, and are equally with- 
 out a sense of pleasure, taste, or elegance. Madame 
 Haughty, Madame Centaur, and Madame Mavis, form 
 the College, as it is here pedantically called. They 
 are a sort of candidates for being upon the town, but 
 cannot find seducers, and a sort of blue-stockings, 
 before the invention of letters. Mistress Epicene, the 
 silent gentlewoman, turns out not to be a woman 
 at all ; which is not a very pleasant denouement of 
 the plot, and is itself an incident apparently taken 
 from the blundering blind-man's butf conclusion of 
 the "Merry Wives of Windsor." What Shakespeare 
 might introduce by an accident, and as a mere passing 
 jest, Ben Jonson avouIu set about ])uilding a whole 
 play upon. The directions for making love given by 
 Truewit, the author's favourite, discover great know- 
 ledge and shrewdness of observation, mixed with the 
 acuteness of malice, and approach to the best style of 
 comic dialogue. But I must refer to the play itself 
 for them. 
 V " Volpone, or the Fox," is his best play. It is 
 prolix and improbable, but intense and powerful. It 
 is written con amore. It is made up of cheats and
 
 SHAKESPEARE AND BEN JONSON 55 
 
 dupesj and the author is at home among them. He 
 shows his hatred of the one and contempt for the 
 other^ and makes them set one another oif to great 
 advantage. There are several striking dramatic con- 
 trasts in this pLay, where the Fox lies perdu to watch 
 his prey, where Mosca is the dexterous go-between, 
 outwitting his gulls, his employer, and himself, and 
 where each of the gaping legacy-hunters, the lawyer, 
 the merchant, and the miser, eagerly occupied with the 
 ridiculousness of the other's pretensions, is blind only 
 to the absurdity of his own : but the whole is worked 
 up too mechanically, and our credulity overstretched 
 at last revolts into scepticism, and our attention over- 
 tasked flags into drowsiness. Tliis play seems formed 
 on the model of Plautus, in unity of plot and interest ; 
 and old Ben, in emulating his classic model, appears 
 to have done his best. There is the same caustic, 
 unsparing severity in it as in his other works. His 
 patience is tried to the utmost. His words drop gall. 
 
 "Hood au ass with reverend purple, 
 So you can hide his too ambitious ears, 
 And he shall pass for a cathedral doctor." 
 
 *^ The scene between Volpone, Mosca, Voltore, Cor- 
 vino, and Corbaccio, at the outset, will show the 
 dramatic power in the conduct of this play, and will 
 be my justification in what I have said of the literal 
 tenaciousness (to a degree that is repulsive) of the 
 author's imaginary descriptions. 
 
 / " Every Wan in his Humour" is a play well known 
 to the public. Tliis play acts better tlian it reads. 
 The pathos in the principal character, Kitely, is "as 
 dry as the remainder biscuit after a voyage." There 
 is, however, a certain good sense, discrimination, or 
 logic of passion in the part, which aff'ords excellent 
 hints for an able actor, and which, if properly pointed, 
 gives it considerable force on the stage. Bobadil is 
 the only actually striking character in the play, or 
 which tells equally in the closet and the theatre ; he 
 is the real hero of the piece. His well-known pro-
 
 66 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 posal for the pacification of P^urope by killing some 
 twenty of them, each his man a day, is as good as 
 any other that has been suggested up to the present 
 moment. His extravagant affectation, his l)lustering 
 and cowardice, are an entertaining medley ; and his final 
 defeat and exposure, though exceedingly liumorous, 
 / are the most affecting part of the story. Brainworm 
 is a particularly dry and abstruse cliaracter. We 
 neither know his business nor his motives : his plots 
 are as intricate as they are useless, and as the ignor- 
 ance of those he imposes upon is wonderful. This is 
 the impression in reading it. Yet from the bustle and 
 activity of this character on the stage, the changes of 
 dress, the variety of affected tones and gipsy jargon, 
 and the limping affected gestures, it is a very amus- 
 ing theatrical exhibition. The rest. Master Matthew, 
 Master Stephen, Cob, and Cob's wife, were living in 
 the sixteenth century. Tliat is all we all know of 
 them. But from the very oddity of their appearance 
 and behaviour, they have a very droll and even pic- 
 turesque effect when acted. It seems a revival of 
 the dead. We believe in their existence when we see 
 them. As an example of the power of the .stage in 
 giving reality and interest to what otherwise ^^•ould be 
 without it, I might mention the scene in whicli Brain- 
 worm praises Master Stephen's leg. llie folly here is 
 insipid fi-om its being seemingly carried to an excess, 
 till we see it ; and then we laugli the more at it, the 
 moi'e incredible we thought it before. 
 J " Bartholomew Fair " is chiefly remarkable for the 
 exhibition of odd humours and tumbler's tricks, and 
 is on that account amusing to read once. " The 
 Alchymist" is the most famous of this author's 
 comedies, though I think it does not deserve its 
 reputation. It contains all that is (]uaint, dreary, 
 obsolete, and hopeless in this once famed art, but 
 not the golden dreams and splendid disappointments. 
 M^e have the mere circumstantials of the sublime 
 science, pots and kettles, aprons and bellows, crucibles 
 and diagrams, all the refuse and rubbish, not the 
 
 \
 
 SHAKESPEARE AND BEN JONSON 67 
 
 essence, the true elixir tnta. There is, however, one 
 glorious scene between Surly and Sir Epicure Mam- 
 mon, which is the finest example I know of dramatic 
 sophistry, or of an attempt to prove the existence 
 of a thing by an imposing description of its effects ; 
 but compared with this, the rest of the play is a 
 caput mortuum. The scene I allude to is the follow- 
 ing :— 
 
 "Mammon. Come on, Sir. Now, you set your foot on 
 
 shore 
 In Novo Orbe ; here's the rich Peru ; 
 And there, within. Sir, are the golden mines, 
 Great Solomon's Ophir ! He was sailing to 't 
 Three years, but we have reached it in ten months. 
 This is the day wherein, to all my friends, 
 I will pronounce the happy word, Be eich : 
 This day you shall be Spectatissimi. 
 You shall no more deal with the hollow dye, 
 Or the frail card. . . . 
 
 You shall start up young viceroys. 
 And have your punks and punketees, my Surly ; 
 And unto thee, I speak it first, Be rich. 
 Where is my Subtle, there ? Within, oh ! 
 
 Face, [within] Sir, he'll come to you by and by. 
 
 Mam. That is his Firedrake, 
 His Lungs, his Zephyrus, he that puffs his coals, 
 Till he firk nature up in her own centre. 
 You are not faithful, Sir. This night I'll change 
 All that is metal in my house to gold ; 
 And early in the morning will I send 
 To all the plumbers and the pewterers. 
 And buy their tin and lead up ; and to Lothbury, 
 For all the copper. 
 
 Swly. What, and turn that too ? 
 
 Mam. Yes, and I'll purchase Devonshire and Cornwall, 
 And make them perfect Indies ! You admire now ? 
 
 Surly. No, faith. 
 
 Mam. But when you see th' effects of the great medi- 
 cine, 
 Of which one part projected on a hundred 
 Of jMercury. or Venus, or the Moon, 
 Shall turn it to as many of the Sun ; 
 Nay, to a thousand, so ad infinitum; 
 You will believe me. 
 
 Sv/rly. Yes, when I see 't, I will. —
 
 68 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 Mam. Ila ! why ? 
 Do you think I fable with you? I assure you, 
 He that has once the flower of the Sun, 
 The perfect ruby, which we call Elixir, 
 Not only can do that, but, by its virtue, 
 Can confer honour, love, respect, long life ; 
 Give safety, valour, yea, and victory, 
 To whom he will. In eight and twenty days 
 I'll make an old man of fourscore a child. 
 
 Surly. No doubt ; he's that already. 
 
 Mam. Nay, I mean, 
 Restore his years, renew him, like an eagle, 
 To the fifth age ; make him get sons and daughters. 
 Young giants : as our philosophers have done, 
 The ancient patriarchs, afore the flood, 
 But taking, once a week, on a knife's point. 
 The quantity of a grain of mustard of it ; 
 Become stout Marses, and beget young Cupids. 
 
 You are incredulous. 
 
 Surly. Faith, I have a humour. 
 I would not willingly be gulled. Your stone 
 Cannot transmute me. 
 
 Mam. Pertinax, my Surly, 
 Will you believe antiquity ? records ? 
 I'll show you a book where Moses and his sister, 
 And Solomon, have written of the art ; 
 Ay, and a treatise penn'd by Adam — 
 
 Surly. How ! 
 
 Mam. Of the philosophers' stone, and in High Dutch. 
 
 Surly. Did Adam write. Sir, in High Dutch ? 
 
 Mam. He did ; 
 Which proves it was the primitive tongue. 
 
 \_Enter Face, as a servant. 
 How now ! 
 Do we succeed ? Is our day come, and holds it? 
 
 Face. The evening will set red upon you. Sir ; 
 You have colour for it, crimson ; the red ferment 
 Has done his office : three hours hence prepare you 
 To see projection. 
 
 Mam. Pertinax, my Surly, 
 Again I say to thee aloud, 13e rich. 
 This day thou shalt have ingots, and to-morrow 
 Give lords the affront. . . . Where's thy master ? 
 
 Face. At his prayers, Sir, he ;
 
 SHAKESPEARE AND BEN JONSON 59 
 
 Good man, he's doing his devotions 
 
 For the success. 
 
 Mam. Lungs, I will set a period 
 
 To all thy labours ; thou shalt be the master 
 
 Of my seraglio . . . 
 
 For 1 do mean 
 
 To have a list of wives and concubines 
 
 Equal with Solomon : . . . 
 
 I will have all my beds blown up, not stuft : 
 
 Down is too hard ; and then, mine oval room 
 
 Fill'd with such pictures as Tiberius took 
 
 From Elephantis, and dull Aretine 
 
 But coldly imitated. Then my glasses 
 
 Cut in more subtle angles, to disperse 
 
 And multiply the figures as I walk. . . . My mists 
 
 I'll have of perfumes, vapoured about the room 
 
 To lose ourselves in ; and my baths like pits 
 
 To fall into ; from whence we will come forth 
 
 And roll us dry in gossamer and roses. 
 
 Is it arriv'd at ruby ? Where I spy 
 
 A wealthy citizen, or a rich lawyer, 
 
 Have a sublimed pure wife, unto that fellow 
 
 I'll send a thousand pound to be my cuckold. 
 
 Face. And I shall carry it ? 
 
 Mam. No. I'll have no bawds, 
 But fathers and mothers. They will do it best, 
 Best of all others. And my flatterers 
 Shall be the pure and gravest of divines 
 That I can get for money. 
 
 We will be brave, Puffe, now we have the medicine. 
 My meat shall all come in, in Indian shells, 
 Dishes of agate set in gold, and studded 
 With emeralds, sapphires, hyacinths, and rubies. 
 The tongues of carps, dormice, and camel's heels 
 Boil'd in the spirit of Sol, and dissolv'd pearl, 
 Apicius' diet, 'gainst the epile})sy ; 
 And I will eat these broths with spoons of amber, 
 Headed with diamond and carbuncle. 
 My footboys shall eat pheasants, calver'd salmons, 
 Knots, god wits, lampreys ; I myself will have 
 The beards of barbels serv'd instead of salads ; 
 Oil'd mushrooms ; and the swelling unctuous paps 
 Of a fat pregnant sow, newly cut off, 
 Drest with an exquisite and poignant sauce ; 
 For which I'll say unto my cook, There's gold, 
 Go forth and he a knight. 
 
 Face. Sir, I'll go look 
 A little how it heia:hteiis.
 
 60 THE ENGLISH COMIC \V1UTERS 
 
 Mam. Do. i\Iy shirts 
 I'll have of taffeta-sarsnet, soft and light 
 As cobwebs ; ami for all my other raiment, 
 It shall be such as might provoke the Persian, 
 Were he to teach the world riot anew. 
 My gloves of fishes' and birds' skins, perfum'd 
 With gums of Paradise and eastern air. 
 
 Surly. And do you think to have the stone with this ? 
 
 Mam. No, I do think t' have all this with the stone. 
 
 Surly. Why, I have heard he must be hovio frwii, 
 A pious, holy, and religious man, 
 One free from mortal sin, a very virgin, — 
 
 Mam. That makes it, Sir, he is so ; — but I buy it. 
 My venture brings it me. Ho, honest wretch, 
 A notable, superstitious, good soul. 
 Has worn his knees bare, and his slippers bald, 
 With prayer and fasting for it, and. Sir, let him 
 Do it alone, for me, still ; here he comes ; 
 Not a profane word afore him : 'tis poison." 
 
 Act ii. sc. 1. 
 
 I have only to add a few words ou Beaumont and 
 
 Fletcher. "Rule a Wife and Have a Wife," "The 
 
 Chances/' and " Tlie Wild Goose Chase," the original 
 
 yOf the " Inconstant," are superior in style and execu- 
 
 Vtion to anything of Ben Jonson's. They are, indeed, 
 
 |some of the best comedies on tlie stage ; and one proof 
 
 (that they are so is, that they still hold possession of 
 
 it. 'Diey show the utmost alacrity of invention in 
 
 contriving ludicrous distresses, and tlie utmost spirit 
 
 in bearing up against, or impatience and irritation 
 
 under them. Don John, in "The Chances," is the 
 
 heroic in comedy. Leon, in " Rule a AV^ife and Have 
 
 a AFife," is a fine exhibition of the born gentleman 
 
 and natural fool : the Copper Captain is sterling to 
 
 this hour : his mistress, Estifania, only died the other 
 
 day with Mrs. Jordan : and the two grotesque females 
 
 v in the same play, act better than the Witches in 
 
 "Macbetli."
 
 COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC. 61 
 
 LECTURE III 
 
 ox COWLEY, BUTLER, SUCKLING, ETHEREGE, ETC. 
 
 The metaphysical poets or wits of the age of James 
 and Charles I, whose style was adopted and carried 
 to a more dazzling and fantastic excess by Cowley 
 in the following reign, after which it declined, and 
 gave place almost entirely to the poetry of observa- 
 tion and reasoning, are thus happily characterized by 
 Dr. Johnson : — 
 
 " The metaphysical poets were men of learning, and 
 to show their learning was their whole endeavour : but 
 unluckily resolving to show it in rhyme, instead of 
 writing poetry, they only wrote verses, and very often 
 such verses as stood the trial of the finger better than 
 of the ear ; for the modulation was so imperfect, that 
 thev were only found to be verses by counting the 
 syllables. 
 
 " If the father of criticism has rightly denominated 
 poetry rexvij fxifx-qriKr], an imitative art^ these writers 
 will, without great wTong, Ihm' their right to the name 
 of poets, for they cannot be said to have imitated any- 
 thing ; they neither copied nature nor life ; neither 
 painted the forms of matter, nor represented the 
 operations of intellect." 
 
 The whole of the account is well worth reading ; it 
 was a subject for which Dr. Johnson's powers both of 
 thought and expression were better fitted than any 
 other man's. If he had had the same capacity for 
 following the flights of a truly poetic imagination, or 
 for feeling the finer touches of nature, that he had 
 felicity and force in detecting and exposing the aber-
 
 62 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 rations from the broad and hoaton path of propriety 
 and coinniou sense, he wouhl have amply deserved 
 the reputation he has acquired as a pliih>sophical 
 critic. 
 
 Tlie writers liere referred to (such as Donne, Davies, 
 Crasliaw, and others) not merely mistook learninc^ for 
 poetry^ — they thought anything was poetry that dirt'ered 
 from ordinary prose and the natural impression of 
 things, by being intricate, far-fetched, and improb- 
 able. Their style was not so jTfo^JM'ly learned as meta- 
 physical ; that is to say, whenever, by any violence 
 done to their ideas, they could make out an abstract 
 likeness or possible ground of comparison, they forced 
 the image, whether learned or vulgar, into the service 
 of the Muses. Anything would do to "hitch into a 
 rhyme," no matter whether striking or agreeable, or 
 not, so that it would puzzle the reader to discover 
 the meaning, and if there was the most remote cir- 
 cumstance, however trifling or vague, for tlio pre- 
 tended comparison to hinge upon. They brought ideas 
 together not the most, but the least like ; and of which 
 the collision produced not light, but obscurity — served 
 not to strengthen, but to confound. Tlieir mystical 
 verses read like riddles or an allegory. They neither 
 belong to the class of lively nor severe poetry. They 
 have not the force of the one, nor the gaiety of the 
 other ; but are an ill-assorted, unprofitable union of 
 the two together, applying to serious subjects that 
 quaint and partial style of allusion which fits only what 
 is light and ludicrous, and building the most laboured 
 conclusions on the most fimtastical and slender premises. 
 The object of the poetry of imagination is to raise or 
 adorn one idea by another more striking or more 
 beautiful : the object of these writers was to match any 
 one idea with any other idea, for better for worse, as we 
 say, and whether anything was gained by the change 
 of condition or not. The object of the poetry of the 
 passions, again, is to illustrate any strong feeling, by 
 showing the same feeling as connected with objects or 
 circumstances more palpable and touching ; but here the
 
 COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC. 68 
 
 object was to strain and distort the immediate feeling 
 into some barely possible consequence or recondite 
 analogy, in which it required the utmost stretch of mis- 
 applied ingenuity to trace the smallest connection with 
 the original impression. In short, the poetry of this 
 period was strictly the poetry not of ideas, but of defi- 
 nifions- : it proceeded in mode and figure, by genus and 
 specific difference ; and was the logic of the schools, or 
 an oblique and forced construction of dry, literal matter- 
 of-fact, decked out in a robe of glittering conceits, 
 and clogged with the halting shackles of verse. The 
 imagination of the writers, instead of being conversant 
 with the face of nature, or the secrets of the lieart, was 
 lost in the labyrinths of intellectual abstraction, or 
 entangled in the technical quibbles and impertinent 
 intricacies of language. The complaint so often made, 
 and here repeated, is not of the want of power in these 
 men, but of the waste of it ; not of the absence of genius, 
 but the abuse of it. Tliey had (many of them) great 
 talents committed to their trust, richness of thought, 
 and depth of feeling ; but they chose to hide them (as 
 much as they possibly could) under a false show of 
 learning and unmeaning subtlety. From the style 
 which they had systematically adopted, they thought 
 nothing done till they had perverted simplicity into 
 affectation, and spoiled nature by art. They seemed 
 to think there was an irreconcilable opposition between 
 genius, as well as grace and nature ; tried to do with- 
 out, or else constantly to thwart her ; left nothing to 
 her outward " impress," or spontaneous impulses, but 
 made a point of twisting and torturing almost every 
 subject they took in hand, till they had fitted it to the 
 mould of their self-opinion and the previous fabrications 
 of their own fancy, like those who pen acrostics in the 
 shape of pyramids, and cut out trees into the form of 
 peacocks. Their chief aim is to make you wonder at 
 the writer, not to interest you in the subject ; and by 
 an incessant craving after admiration, they have lost 
 what they might have gained with less extravagance 
 and affectation. So Cowper, who was of a quite oppo-
 
 64 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 site school, speaks feelingly of the misapplication of 
 Cowley's poetical genius. 
 
 "And tbcmuh reclairn'd by modern lights 
 From an erroneous taste, 
 1 cannot but lament thy splendid wit 
 Entangled in the cobwebs of the schools." 
 
 Donne, who was considerably before Cowley, is with- 
 out his fancy, but was more recondite in his logic, 
 and rigid in his descriptions. He is hence led, ])ar- 
 ticularly in his satires, to tell disagreeable truths 
 in as disagreeable a way as possible, or to convey a 
 pleasing and aifecting thought (of wliich there are 
 many to be found in his other writings) by the 
 harshest means, and with the most painful effort. 
 His Muse suiiers continual pangs and throes. Ilis 
 thoughts are delivered by the Cjesarean operation. 
 The sentiments, profound and tender as they often 
 are, are stiiled in the expression ; and " heaved pant- 
 ingly forth," are "buried quick again" under the 
 ruins and rubbish of analytical distinctions. It is 
 like Poetry waking from a trance : with an eye bent 
 idly on the outward world, and half-forgotten feelings 
 crowding about the heart ; with vivid impressions, 
 dim notions, and disjointed words. The following 
 may serve as instances of beautiful or impassioned 
 reiflections losing themselves in obscure and difficult 
 applications. He has some lines to a Blossom, which 
 i)egin thus : 
 
 " Little think'st thou, poor flow'r, 
 Whom 1 have watched six or seven days, 
 And seen thy birth, and seen what every hour 
 Gave to thy growth, thee to this height to raise, 
 And now dost laugh and triumph on this bough, 
 
 Little think'st thou 
 That it will freeze anon, and that I shall 
 To-morrow find thee fall'n, or not at all." 
 
 This simple and delicate description is only intro-
 
 COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC. 66 
 
 duced as a foundation for an elaborate metaphysical 
 conceit as a parallel to it, in the next stanza. 
 
 " Little think'st thou (poor heart 
 That labour'st yet to nestle thee, 
 And think'st by hovering here to get a part 
 In a forbidden or forbidding tree, 
 And- hop'st her stiffness by long siege to bow :) 
 
 Little think'st thou, 
 That thou to-morrow, ere the sun doth wake, 
 Must with this sun and me a journey take." 
 
 Tills is but a lame and impotent conclusion from so 
 delightful a beginning. He thus notices the circum- 
 stance of his wearing his late wife's hair about his 
 arm, in a little poem which is called the Funeral : 
 
 " Whoever comes to shroud me, do not harm 
 Nor question much 
 That subtle wreath of hair, about mine arm ; 
 The mystery, the sign you must not touch." 
 
 The scholastic reason he gives quite dissolves the 
 charm of tender and touching grace in the sentiment 
 itself — 
 
 " For 'tis my outward soul, 
 Viceroy to that, which unto heaven being gone, 
 
 Will leave this to control, 
 And keep these limbs, her provinces, from dissolution." 
 
 Again, the following lines, the title of which is 
 " Love's Deity," are highly characteristic of this 
 author's manner, in which the thoughts are inlaid 
 in a costly but imperfect mosaic-work. 
 
 " I long to talk with some old lover's ghost. 
 Who died before the God of Love was born ; 
 I cannot think that he, who then lov'd most. 
 Sunk so low, as to love one which did scorn. 
 But since this God produe'd a destiny, 
 And that vice-nature, custom, lets it be ; 
 I must love her that loves not me." 
 
 The stanza in the " Epithalamion on a Count Pala- 
 tine of the llhine," has been often quoted against 
 
 E
 
 66 THE KxNGLlSH CX)M1(; WKITKIIS 
 
 liiin, and is an almost irresistible illustration of tlic 
 extravaj^'-ances to uliic-li this kind of writing, wliicli 
 turns upon a ])ivnt of words and possible allusions, 
 is liable. Speaking of the bride and bridegroom he 
 says, by way of serious compliment — 
 
 " Here lies a she-Sun, and a he-Moon there, 
 She gives the best Hght to his sphere ; 
 Or each is both and all, and so 
 They unto one another nothing owe." 
 
 His love-verses and epistles to his friends give the 
 most favourable idea of Donne. His satire^ are too 
 clerical. He shows, if I may so speak, too much 
 disgust, and, at the same time, too much contempt 
 for vice. Plis dogmatical invectives hardly redeem 
 the nauseousness of his descriptions, and compromise 
 the imagination of his readers more than they assist 
 their reason. Tlie satirist does not write with the 
 same authority as the divine, and should use his 
 poetical privileges more sparingly. "To the pure 
 all things are pure," is a maxim which a man like 
 Ur. Donne may be justified in applying to himself; 
 but he might have recollected that it could not be 
 construed to extend to the generality of his readers, 
 without benefit of clergy. 
 
 Bishop Hall's Satires are coarse railing in verse, and 
 hardly that. Pope has, however, contrived to avail 
 himself of them in some of his imitations. 
 
 Sir Jo lin Davj es is the author of a poem on the Soul, 
 and of one on Dancing. In both he shows great 
 ingenuity, and sonSelTmes terseness and vigour. In 
 the last of these two poems his fancy pirouettes in a 
 very lively and agreeable manner, but something too 
 much in the style of a French opera-dancer, with 
 sharp angular turns, ami repeated deviations from the 
 faultless line of simplicity and nature. 
 
 Crashaw was a winter of the same ambitious stamp, 
 whose imagination was rendered still more inflammable 
 by the fervours of fanaticism, and who having been
 
 COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC. 67 
 
 converted from Protestantism to Popery (a weakness 
 to wliich the "seething brains" of the poets of this 
 period were prone) by some visionaiy appearance of 
 the Virgin Mary, poured out his devout raptures and 
 zealous enthusiasm in a torrent of poetical hyperboles. 
 Tlie celebrated Latin epigram on the miracle of our 
 Saviour, ^'The water blushed into wine," is in his 
 usual hectic manner. His translation of the contest 
 between the Musician and the Nightingale is the best 
 specimen of his powers. 
 
 Davenant's ''Gondibert" is a tissue of stanzas, all 
 aiming to be wise and witty, each containing some- 
 thing in itself, and the whole together amounting to 
 nothing. The thoughts separately require so much 
 attention to understand them, and arise so little out 
 of the narrative, that they witla difficulty sink into the 
 mind, and have no common feeling of interest to recall 
 or link them together afterwards. The general style 
 may be judged of by these two memorable lines in the 
 description of the skeleton-chamber. 
 
 " Yet on that wall hangs he too, who so thought, 
 And she dried by him whom that he obeyed." 
 
 Mr. Hobbes, in a prefatory discourse, has thrown 
 away a good deal of powerful logic and criticism in 
 the recommendation of the plan of his friend's poem. 
 Davenant, who was poet-laureate to Charles II, wrote 
 several masques and plays which were well i-eceived iu 
 his time, but have not come down with equal applause 
 to us. 
 
 Marvel (on whom I have already bestowed such 
 praise as I could, for elegance and tenderness in his 
 <lescriptive poems) in his satires and witty pieces was 
 addicted to the affected and involved style here repro- 
 bated, as iu his " Flecknoe " (the origin of Dryden's 
 " Macflecknoe ") and in his satire on the Dutch. As 
 an instance of this forced, far-fetched method of treat- 
 ing his subject, he says, in ridicule of the Hollanders,
 
 68 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 that when tlieir dykes overflowed, the fish used to 
 come to tahle with them, 
 
 " And sat not as a meat, but as a guest." 
 
 TTiere is a poem of Marvel's on the death of King 
 Charles I, which I have not seen, but which I liave 
 heard praised by one whose praise is never liigh hut of 
 the highest things, for the beauty and pathos, as well 
 as the generous frankness of the sentiments, coming, 
 as they did, from a determined and incorruptible 
 political foe. 
 
 Shadwell was a successful and voluminous dramatic 
 writer of tnuch the same period. His "Libertine" 
 (taken from the celebrated Spanish story) is full of 
 spirit ; but it is the spirit of licentiousness and impiety. 
 At no time do there appear to have been such extreme 
 speculations afloat on the subject of religion and 
 morality, as tliere were shortly after the Reformation, 
 and afterwards under the Stuarts, tlie diflFerences being 
 widened by political irritation ; and the Puritans often 
 over-acting one extreme out of grimace and liypocrisy, 
 as the king's party did the other out of bravado. 
 
 _Cai:evv is excluded from his pretensions to the 
 laureateship in Suckling's " Sessions of the Poets," on 
 account of his slowness. His verses are delicate and 
 pleasing, with a certain feebleness, but with very little 
 tincture of the aifectation of this period. His masque 
 (called " Ccelum Britannicum ") in celebration of a 
 marriage at court, has not much wit or fancy, but the 
 accompanying prose directions and commentary on the 
 mythological story, are written with wonderful facility 
 and elegance, in a style of familiar dramatic dialogue 
 approaching nearer the writers of Queen Anne's reign 
 than those of Queen Elizabeth's. 
 
 Milton's name is included by Dr. Johnson in the 
 list of metaphysical poets on no better authority than 
 ■^' his lines on Hobson the Cambridge Carrier, which he 
 acknowledges were the only ones Milton wrote on this 
 model. Indeed, he is the great contrast to that style 
 of poetry, being remarkable for breadth and massiness,
 
 COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC. 69 
 
 or what Dr. Johnson calls " aggregation of ideas," 
 beyond almost any other poet. He has in this respect 
 been compared to Michael Angelo, but not with much 
 reason : his verses are 
 
 " inimitable on earth 
 
 By model, or by shading pencil drawn." 
 
 Suckling is also ranked, without sufficient warrant, 
 among the metaphysical poets. Sir John was '^^of 
 the court, courtly " ; and his style almost entirely 
 free from the charge of pedantry and affectation. 
 ITiere are a few blemishes of this kind in his works, 
 but they are but few. His compositions are almost 
 all of them short and lively effusions of wit and 
 gallantry, written in a ftimiliar but spirited style, 
 without much design or effort. His shrewd and 
 taunting address to a desponding lover will sufficiently 
 vouch for the truth of this account of the general 
 cast of his best pieces. 
 
 " Why so pale and wan, fond lover? 
 Pr'ythee why so pale ? 
 Will, when looking well can't move her, 
 Looking ill prevail ? 
 Pr'ythee why so pale ? 
 
 Why so dull and mute, young sinner ? 
 
 Pr'ythee why so mute ? 
 Will, when speaking well, can't win her, 
 
 Saying nothing do't? 
 
 Pr'ythee why so mute? 
 
 Quit, quit for shame, this will not move, 
 
 This cannot take her ; 
 If of herself she will not love, 
 
 Nothing can make her ; 
 
 The Devil take her." 
 
 The two short poems against Fruition, that beginning, 
 "'ITiere never yet was woman made, nor shall, but 
 to be curst,'' — the song, " I pr'ythee, spare me gentle 
 boy. Press me no more for that slight toy. That 
 foolish trifle of a heart," — another, "'Tis now, since
 
 70 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 I sat (lowu before That foolish fort, a heart," — Liifea 
 Ahnison — the set of similes, " Hast thou seen the 
 down in the air, When wanton winds have tost it," — 
 and his " Dream," which is of a more tender and 
 romantic cast, are all exquisite in their way. They 
 are the origin of the style of Prior and Gay in tlieir 
 short fugitive verses, and of the songs in the " Beggar's 
 Opera." His '^Ballad on a Wedding" is his master- 
 piece, and is indeed unrivalled in that class of composi- 
 tion, for the voluptuous delicacy of the sentiments, 
 and the luxuriant richness of the images. I wish I 
 could repeat the whole, but that, from the change of 
 manners, is impossible, llie description of the bride 
 is (half of it) as follows : the story is supposed to be 
 told by one countryman to another : — 
 
 " Her finger was so small, the ring 
 Would not stay on, which they did bring ; 
 
 It was too wide a peck : 
 And to say truth (for out it must) 
 It look'd like the great collar (just) 
 
 About our young colt's neck. 
 
 Her feet beneath her petticoat, 
 Like little mice, stole in and out, 
 
 As if they feared tlie light ; 
 But oh ! she dances such a way ! 
 No sun upon an Easter-day 
 
 Is half so fine a sitjht. 
 
 Her cheeks so rare a white was on 
 No daisy makes comparison 
 
 (Who sees them is undone). 
 For streaks of red were mingled there, 
 Such as are on a Cath'rine pear, 
 
 (The side that's next the sun). 
 
 Her lips were red ; and one was thin, 
 Compai-'d to that was next her chin ; 
 
 (Some bee had stung it newly) 
 But (Dick) her eyes so guard her face, 
 I durst no more upon them gaze, 
 
 Than on the sun in July.
 
 COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC. 71 
 
 Her mouth so small, when she does speak, 
 Thoud'st swear her teeth her words did break, 
 
 That they might passage get ; 
 But she so handled still the matter, 
 They came as good as ours, or better, 
 
 And are not spent a whit." 
 
 Tliere is to me in the whole of this delightful per- 
 formance a freshness and purity like the first breath 
 of morning. Its sportive irony never trespasses on 
 modesty, though it sometimes (laughing) threatens to 
 do so ! Suckling's Letters are full of habitual gaiety 
 and good sense. His "Discourse on Reason in 
 Religion " is well enough meant. Though he excelled 
 in the conversational style of poetry, writing verse 
 with the fi-eedom and readiness, vivacity and uncon- 
 cern, with which he would have talked on the most 
 familiar and sprightly topics, his peculiar powers 
 deserted him in attempting dramatic dialogue. His 
 comedy of the "Goblins" is equally defective in 
 plot, wit, and nature ; it is a wretched list of exits 
 and entrances, and the whole business of the scene is 
 taken up in the unaccountable seizure, and equally 
 unaccountable escapes, of a number of persons from a 
 band of robbers in the shape of Goblins, who turn out 
 to be noblemen and gentlemen in disguise. Suckling 
 was not a Grub Street author ; or it might be said, 
 that this play is like what he might have written 
 after dreaming all night of duns and a sponging house. 
 His tragedies are no better : their titles are the most 
 interesting part of them, " Aglaura," " Brennoralt," 
 and "TlieSadOne." 
 
 Cowley had more brilliancy of fancy and ingenuity 
 of tlToughT than Donne, with less pathos and senti- 
 ment. His mode of illustrating his ideas differs also 
 from Donne's in this — that whereas Donne is contented 
 to analyse an image into its component elements, and 
 resolve it into its most abstracted species, Cowley first 
 does this, indeed, but does not stop till he has fixed 
 upon some other prominent example of the same 
 general class of ideas, and forced them into a meta-
 
 72 THE ENGLISH COMIC WIiriERS 
 
 phorical union, by the medium of the generic defini- 
 tion. Thus he says — 
 
 " The Phoenix Pindar is a vast species alone." 
 
 He means to say that he stands by himself ; he is then 
 '^a vast species alone": then by applying to this 
 generality the p7'incipium individuationiii , he becomes 
 a Phoenix, because the Phoenix is the only example of 
 a species contained in an individual. V'et this is only 
 a literal or metaphysical coincidence ; and literally 
 and metaphysically speaking, Pindar was not a species 
 by himself, but only seemed so by pre-eminence or 
 excellence ; that is, from qualities of mind appealing 
 to and absorbing the imagination, and which, there- 
 fore, ought to be represented in poetical language by 
 some other obvious and palpable image, exhibiting 
 the same kind or degree of excellence in other things, 
 as when Gray compares him to the Theban eagle, 
 
 "Sailing with supreme dominion 
 Through the azure deep of air." 
 
 Again, he talks in the " Motto," or invocation to 
 his Muse, of "marching the Muse's Hannibal" into 
 undiscovered regions. That is, he thinks first of being 
 a leader in poetry, and then he immediately, by virtue 
 of this abstraction, becomes a Hannibal ; thougli no 
 two things can really be more unlike, in all the asso- 
 ciations belonging to them, than a leader of armies 
 and a leader of tlie tuneful nine. In like manner, he 
 compares Bacon to Moses ; for in his verses extremes 
 are sure to meet. The " Hymn to Light," which 
 forms a perfect contrast to Milton's " Invocation to 
 Light," in the commencement of the third book of 
 " Paradise Lost," begins in the following manner : — 
 
 "First-born of Chaos, who so fair didst come 
 From the old negro's darksome womb 1 
 Which, when it saw the lovely child. 
 The melancholy mass put on kind looks, and smil'd."
 
 COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC. 78 
 
 And soon after — 
 
 " 'Tis, I believe, this archery to show 
 
 That so much cost in colours thou, 
 And skill in painting, dost bestow, 
 Upon thy ancient arms, the gaudy heav'nly bow. 
 
 Swift as light thoughts their empty career run, 
 
 Thy race is finished when begun ; 
 
 Let a post-angel start with thee, 
 And thou the goal of earth shalt reach as soon as he." 
 
 Tlie conceits here are neither wit nor poetry ; but a 
 burlesque upon both, made up of a singular meta- 
 phorical jargon, verbal generalities, aiid physical 
 analogies. Thus liis calling Chaos, or Darkness, "the 
 old negro," would do for abuse or jest, but is too 
 remote and degrading for serious poetry, and yet it is 
 meant for such. The " old negro " is at best a nick- 
 name, and the smile on its face loses its beauty in such 
 company. The making out the rainbow to be a species 
 of heraldic painting, and converting an angel into a 
 post-boy, show the same rage for comparison ; but 
 such comparisons are as odious as they are unjust. 
 Dr. Johnson has multiplied instances of the same false 
 style in its various divisions and subdivisions.^ Of 
 Cowley's serious poems, the " Complaint " is the one 
 I like the best ; and some of his translations in the 
 Essays, as those on "Liberty" and "Retirement," 
 are exceedingly good. The Odes to Vandyke, to 
 the Royal Society, to Hobbes, and to the latter 
 Brutus, beginning " Excellent Brutus," are all full 
 of ingenious and high thoughts, impaired by a load 
 of ornament and quaint disguises. The "Chronicle, 
 or List of his Mistresses," is the best of his original 
 lighter pieces ; but the best of his poems are the trans- 
 lations from Anacreon, which remain, and are likely 
 to remain, unrivalled. Tlie spirit of wine and joy 
 circulates in them ; and though they are lengthened 
 
 1 See his " Lives of the British Poets," vol, i.
 
 74 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 out beyond tlie originals, it is by fresh impulses of an 
 eager and inexhaustible feeling of delight. Here are 
 some of tlicni : — 
 
 DKINKING. 
 
 • " 'J'he thirsty earth soaks up the rain, 
 
 And drinks, and gapes for drink again. 
 The plants suck in the earth, and are 
 With constant drinking fresh and fair. 
 The sea itself, which one would think 
 Should have hut little need of drink, 
 Drinks twice ten thousand rivers up, 
 So fill'd that they o'erflow the cup. 
 The busy sun (and one would guess 
 By's drunken fiery face no less) 
 Drinks up the sea, and, when he's done, 
 The moon and stai-s drink up the sun. 
 They drink and dance by their own light, 
 They drink and revel all the night. 
 Nothing in nature's soVjer found, 
 But an eternal health goes round. 
 Fill u]) the bowl then, till it high, 
 Fill all the glasses there ; for why 
 Should every creature drink but I; 
 Why, man of morals, tell me why?" 
 
 Tliis is a classical intoxication ; and the poet's imagi- 
 nation, giddy with fancied joys, communicates its spirit 
 and its motion to inanimate things, and makes all 
 nature reel round with it. It is not easy to decide 
 between these choice pieces, which may be reckoned 
 among the delights of human kind; but that to the 
 Grasshop2)er is one of the happiest as well as most 
 serious : — 
 
 " Hai^py insect, what can be 
 In happiness compar'd to thee ? 
 Fed with nourishment divine, 
 The dewy morning's gentle wine ! 
 Nature waits upon thee still, 
 And thy verdant cup does till ; 
 'Tis filled wherever thou dost tread, 
 Nature's self thy Ganymede.
 
 COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC. 75 
 
 Thou dost drink, and dance, and sing ; 
 Happier than the happiest king ! 
 All the fields which thou dost see, 
 All the plants, belong to thee ; 
 All that summer-hours produce, 
 Fertile made with early juice. 
 
 Man for thee does row and plough, 
 Farmer he, and landlord thou ! 
 Thou dost innocently joy ; 
 Nor does thy luxury destroy ; 
 The shepherd gladly heareth thee, 
 More harmonious than he. 
 
 Thee country hinds with gladness hear, 
 Prophet of the ripen'd year ! 
 Thee Phoebus loves, and does inspire ; 
 Phoebus is himself thy sire. 
 
 To thee, of all things upon earth, 
 
 Life is no longer than thy mirth. 
 
 Happy insect, happy thou ! 
 
 Dost neither age nor winter know ; 
 
 But, when thou'st drunk, and danc'd, and sung 
 
 Thy fill the flowery leaves among, 
 
 (Voluptuous and wise withal, 
 
 Epicurean animal !) 
 
 Sated with thy summer feast. 
 
 Thou retir'st to endless rest." 
 
 Copley's J^says are among tlie most agreeable prose 
 compositions in our language, being equally recom- 
 mended by sense, wit, learning, and interesting per- 
 sonal history, and wi-itten in a style quite free from 
 the faults of his poetry. It is a pity that he did not 
 cultivate his talent for prose more, and write less in 
 verse, for he was clearly a man of more reflection than 
 imagination. The Essays on Agriculture, on Liberty, 
 on Solitude, and on Greatness, are all of them 
 delightful. From the last I may give his account of 
 Sonecio as an addition to the instances of the ludicrous, 
 wliich I have attempted to enumerate in the intro- 
 ductory Lecture ; whose ridiculous affectation of gran- 
 deur Seneca the elder (he tells us) describes to this 
 effect : " Senecio was a man of a turbid and confused
 
 76 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 wit, 'who could not endure to speak any but mighty 
 words and sentences, till this Innnour grew at last into 
 so notorious a habit, or rather disease, as became the 
 sport of the whole town : he would have no servants, 
 but huge, massy fellows ; no plate or household stuff, 
 but thrice as big as the fasliion : you may believe me, 
 for I speak it without raillery, his extravagancy came 
 at last into such a madness, that he would not put on 
 a pair of shoes, each of which was not big enough for 
 both his feet ; he would eat nothing but what was 
 great, nor touch any fruit but liorse-plums and i)ound- 
 pears ; he kept a mistress that was a very giantess, 
 and made her walk too always in chiopins, till at last 
 he got the surname of Senecio Grandio." This was 
 certainly the most absurd person we read of in anti- 
 quity. Cowley's character of Oliver Cromwell, which 
 is intended as a satire (though it certainly produces 
 a very different impression on the mind), may vie for 
 truth of outline and force of colouring with the master- 
 pieces of the Greek and Latin historians. It may serve 
 as a contrast to the last extract. " What can be more 
 extraordinary than that a person of mean birth, no 
 fortune, no eminent qualities of body, which have 
 sometimes, or of mind, wliich have often, raised men 
 to the highest dignities, should have the courage to 
 attempt, and the happiness to succeed in, so improb- 
 able a design as the destruction of one of the most 
 ancient and most solidly-founded monarchies upon the 
 earth .'' That he should have the power or boldness 
 to put his prince and master to an open and infamous 
 death ; to banish that numerous and strongly-allied 
 family ; to do all this under the name and wages 
 of a Parliament ; to trample upon them too as he 
 pleased, and spurn them out of doors when he grew 
 weary of them ; to raise up a new and unheard-of 
 monster out of their ashes ; to stifle that in the very 
 infancy, and set up himself above all things that ever 
 were called sovereign in England ; to oppress all his 
 enemies by arms, and all his friends afterwards by 
 artifice ; to serve all parties patiently for a while, and
 
 COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC. 77 
 
 to command them victoriously at last ; to overrun 
 each corner of the three nations, and overcome with 
 equal facility both the riches of the south and the 
 poverty of the north ; to be feared and courted by all 
 foreign princes, and adopted a brother to the gods of 
 the earth ; to call together Parliaments with a word 
 of his pen, and scatter them again with the breath of 
 his mouth ; to be humbly and daily petitioned that he 
 would please to be hired, at the rate of two millions a 
 year, to be the master of those who had hired him 
 before to be their servant ; to have the estates and 
 lives of three kingdoms as much at his disposal as was 
 the little inheritance of his father, and to be as noble 
 and liberal in the spending of them ; and lastly (for 
 there is no end of all the particulars of his glory), to 
 bequeath all this with one word to his posterity ; to 
 die with peace at home, and triumph abroad ; to be 
 buried among kings, and with more than regal solem- 
 nity ; and to leave a name behind him, not to be 
 extinguished, but with the whole world ; which, as it 
 is now too little for his praises, so might have been 
 too for his conquests, if the short line of his human 
 life could have been stretched out to the extent of his 
 immortal designs ? " 
 
 Cowley has left one comedy, called "Cutter of 
 Coleman Street," which met with an unfavourable 
 reception at the time, and is now (not undeservedly) 
 forgotten. It contains, however, one good scene, 
 which is rich both in fancy and humour, that between 
 the puritanical bride, Tahitha, and her ranting royalist 
 husband. It is said that this play was originally com- 
 posed, and afterwards revived, as a satire upon the 
 Presbji;erian party ; yet it was resented by the court 
 party as a satire upon itself. A man must, indeed, be 
 sufficiently blind with party-prejudice, to have con- 
 sidered this as a compliment to his own side of the 
 question. "Call you this backing of your friends?" 
 llie cavaliers are in this piece represented as reduced 
 to the lowest shifts in point of fortune, and sunk still 
 lower in point of principle.
 
 78 THE ENGLISH COMIC ^VlUTEItS 
 
 The greatest single production of wit of this period, 
 I might say of this country, is Butler's '^Hudibras." 
 It contains specimens of every vaTioty of drollery and 
 satire, and those specimens crowded together into 
 almost every page. The proof of this is, that nearly 
 one lialf of his lines are got by heart, and quoted for 
 mottoes. In giving instances of different sorts of wit, 
 or trying to recollect good things of this kind, they 
 are the first wliich stand ready in the memory ; and 
 they are those which furnish the best tests and most 
 striking illustrations of what we want. Dr^Campbell, 
 ^y in his ^^ Philosophy of Rhetoric," when treating of 
 the subject of wit, which he has done very neatly and 
 sensibly, has constant recourse to two authors. Pope 
 and Butler, the one for ornament, the other more for 
 use. Butler is equally in the hands of the learned arul 
 the vulgar, for the sense is generally as solid as the 
 images are amusing and grotesque. Whigs and Tories 
 join in his praise. He could not, in spite of himself, 
 
 "narrow his mind, 
 And to party give up what was meant for mankind." 
 
 Though his subject was local and temporary, his fame 
 was not circumscribed within his own age. He was 
 ^ admired by Charles II and has been rewarded l)y pos- 
 terity. It is the poet's fate ! It is not, perhaps, to be 
 wondered at, that arbitrary and worthless monarchs 
 like Charles II should neglect those who pay court to 
 them. The idol (if it had sense) would (Icspise its 
 worshippers. Indeed, Butler hardly merited anything 
 on the score of loyalty to the house of Stuart. True 
 wit is not a parasite plant. The strokes which it aims 
 at folly and knavery on one side of a question, tell 
 equally home on the other. Dr. Zachary Grey, who 
 added notes to the poem, and abused the leaders of 
 Cromwell's party by name, would be more likely to 
 have gained a pension for his services than Butler, who 
 was above such petty work. A poem like " Hudibras " 
 could not be made to order of a court. Charles might 
 very well have reproached the author with wanting to
 
 COWLEY, BLTLER, ETC. 79 
 
 sliow his own wit and sense rather than to favour a 
 tottering cause ; and he has even been suspected, in 
 parts of his poem, of glancing at majesty itself. He in y 
 general ridicules not persons, but things, not a party, 
 but their principles, which may belong, as time and 
 occasion serve, to one set of solemn pretenders or 
 another. This he has done most eifectually, in every 
 possible way, and from every possible source, learned 
 or unlearned. He has exhausted the moods and figures 
 of satire and sophistry. ' It would be possible to deduce 
 tlie diflferent forms of syllogism in Aristotle, from 
 the different violations or mock-imitations of them 
 in Butler. He fulfils every one of Barrow's conditions 
 of wit, which I have enumerated in the first Lecture. 
 He makes you laugh or smile by comparing the high 
 to the low,- or by pretending to raise the lovv to the 
 lofty ; ^ he succeeds equally in the familiarity of his • 
 illustrations,* or their incredible extravagance/ by 
 
 1 " And have not two saints power to use 
 A greater privilege than three Jews? 
 
 Her voice the music of the spheres, 
 So loud it deafens mortals' ears. 
 As wise philosophers have thought, 
 And that's the cause we hear it not." 
 
 2 " No Indian p>rince has to his palace 
 
 More followers than a thief to the gallows." 
 
 3 " And in his nose, like Indian king. 
 
 He (Bruin) wore for ornament a ring." 
 
 4 " Whose noise whets valour sharp, like heer 
 
 By thunder turned to vinegar." 
 
 6 " Replete with strange hermetic powder, 
 
 That wounds nine miles point-blank would solder. 
 
 His tawny beard was th' equal grace 
 Both of his wisdom and his face ; 
 In cut and die so like a tile, 
 A sudden view it would beguile :
 
 80 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 comparing things that are alike or not alike. lie 
 surprises equally by his coincidences or contradictions, 
 by s])iiniing out a long-winded flimsy excuse, or by 
 turning short upon you with the point-blank truth. 
 His rhymes are as witty as his reasons, equally remote 
 from what common custom would suggest ; ^ and he 
 startles you sometimes by an empty sound like a 
 blow upon a drum-head,^ by a pun upon one word,^ 
 and by splitting another in two at the end of a verse, 
 with the same alertness and power over the odd and 
 unaccountable in the combinations of sounds as of 
 images. * 
 
 There are as many shrewd aphorisms in his works, 
 clenched by as many quaint and individual allusions, 
 as perhaps in any author whatever. He makes none 
 but palpaljle hits, that may be said to give one's 
 
 The upper part thereof was whey, 
 The nether orange mixed with grey. 
 This hairy meteor did denounce 
 The fall of sceptres and of crowns ; 
 With grisly type did represent 
 Declining age of government ; 
 And tell with hieroglyphic spade 
 Its own grave and the state's were made. 
 
 This sword a dagger had his page, 
 That was but little for his age ; 
 And therefore waited on him so, 
 As dwarfs upon knight errants do." 
 
 1 " And straight another with his flambeau 
 
 Gave Ralpho o'er the eyes a damn'd blow. 
 
 That deals in destiny's dark counsels, 
 And sage opinions of the moon sells." 
 
 2 "The mighty Tottipottimoy 
 
 Sent to our elders an envoy." 
 
 8 " For Hebrew roots, although they're found 
 To flourish most in barren ground. " 
 
 4 ' ' Those wholesale critics that in coffee- 
 Houses cry down all philosophy."
 
 COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC. 81 
 
 understanding a rap on the knuckles.' He is, indeed, 
 sometimes toajyolific, and spins his antitlietical sen- 
 tences outT^ one Rafter another, till the reader, not 
 the author, is wearied. He is, however, very seldom 
 guilty of repetitious, or wordy paraphrases of himself ; 
 but he sometimes comes rather too near it, and inter- 
 rupts the thread of his argument (for narrative he 
 has none) by a tissue of epigrams, and the tagging 
 of points and conundrums without end. The fault, 
 or original sin of his genius, is, that from too 
 much leaven it ferments and runs over ; and there 
 is, unfortunately, nothing in his subject to restrain 
 and keep it within compass. He has no story good 
 for anything, and his characters are good for very 
 little. They are too low and mechanical, or too much 
 one thing, personifications, as it were, of nicknames, 
 and bugbears of popular prejudice and vulgar cant, 
 unredeemed by any virtue, or difference or variety of 
 disposition, lliere is no relaxation or shifting of the 
 parts ; and the impression in some degree fails of its 
 effect, and becomes questionable from its being always 
 the same. Tlie satire looks, at length, almost like 
 special pleading ; it has nothing to confirm it in the 
 apparent good humour or impartiality of the writer. 
 It is something revolting to see an author persecute 
 his characters, the cherished offspring of his brain, in 
 this manner, without mercy. Hudibras and Ralpho 
 have immortalized Butler ; and what has he done for 
 them in return, but set them up to be " pilloried on 
 infamy's high and lasting stage " .'' This is ungrateful ! 
 The rest of the characters have, in general, little 
 more than their names and professions to distinguish 
 them. We scarcely know one from another, Cerdon, 
 or Orsin, or Crowdero, and are often obliged to turn 
 back, to connect their several adventures together. 
 In fact, Butler drives only at a sect of obnoxious 
 
 1 " This we among ourselves may speak, 
 But to the wicked or the weak, 
 We must be cautious to declare 
 Perfection-truths, such as these are."
 
 82 rilli ENGLISH COMIC WRIIKKS 
 
 n])inioiis, and runs into ^fneral <! 'claniations. His 
 puem in its essence is a satire, or didactic poem. It is 
 not virtually dramatic or narrative. It is composed of 
 dij^ressions by the author. He instantly ])reaks off in 
 the middle of a story, or incident, to comment upon 
 and turn it into ridicule. He does not ffive cliarac^ters 
 but topics, which would do just as well in his own 
 mouth without agents, or machinery of any kind. 
 The long digression in Part III., in which no mention 
 is made of the hero, is just as good and as much an 
 integrant part of the poem as the rest. The conclusion 
 is lame and impotent, but that is saying nothing ; the 
 beginning and middle are equally so as to historical 
 merit. There is no keeping in his characters, as in 
 Don Quixote ; nor any enjoyment of the ludicrousness 
 of their situations, as iu Hogarth. Indeed, it requires 
 a considerable degree of sympathy to enter into and 
 describe to the life even the ludicrous eccentricities 
 of others, and there is no appearance of sympathy or 
 liking to his subject in Butler. His humour is to his 
 wit, "as one gi-ain of wheat in a bushel of chaff: you 
 shall search all day, and when you find it, it is not 
 worth the trouble." Vet there are exceptions. The 
 most decisive is, I think, the description of the battle 
 between Bruin and his foes. Part I. Canto iii., and 
 again of the triumphal procession in Pai-t II. Canto ii., 
 of which the principal features are copied in Hogarth's 
 election print, the Chairing of the Successful Candidate. 
 The account of Sidrophel and Whackum is anotlier 
 instance, and there are some few others, but rarely 
 sprinkled up and down.^ 
 
 1 The following are nearly all I can remember : — 
 
 " Thus stopp'd their fury and the basting 
 Which towards Hudibras was hasting." 
 
 It is said of the bear, in the fight with the dogs — 
 
 " And setting his right foot before, 
 He raised himself to show how tall 
 His person was above them all.
 
 COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC. 83 
 
 'Hie widow, the termagant heroine of the poem, is 
 still more disagreeable tlian her lover : and her sarcastic 
 account of the passion jf love, as consisting entirely in 
 an attachment to land and houses, goods and chattels, 
 which is enforced with all tlie rlietoric the author is 
 master of, and hunted down tlirough endless similes, 
 is evidently false. The vulgarity and meanness of 
 sentiment which Butler complains of in the Presby- 
 terians, seems at last, from long familiarity and close 
 contemplation, to have tainted his own mind. Their 
 worst vices appear to have taken root in his imagination. 
 
 At this the knight grew high in chafe, 
 And staring furiously on Ralph, 
 He trembled and look'd pale with ire, 
 Like ashes first, then red as fire. 
 
 The knight himself did after ride. 
 Leading Crowdero by his side. 
 And tow'd him if he lagged behind, 
 Like boat against the tide and wind." 
 
 " And raised upon his desperate foot. 
 On stirrup-side he gazed about. 
 
 And Hudibras, who used to ponder 
 On such sights with judicious wonder." 
 
 The beginning of the account of the procession in Part IL is 
 as follows : — 
 
 " Both thought it was the wisest course 
 To wave the fight and mount to horse, 
 And to secure, by swift retreaiing, 
 Themselves from danger of worse beating : 
 Yet neither of them would disparage 
 By uttering of his mind his courage. 
 Which made 'em stoutly keep their ground, 
 With horror and disdain wind-bound. 
 And now the cause of all their fear 
 By slow degrees approached so near. 
 They might distinguish different noise 
 Of horns and pans, and dogs and boys, 
 And kettle-drums, whose sullen dub 
 Sounds like the hooping of a tub."
 
 84 'rin-: English comic writers 
 
 Nothing but vvliat was selfish and grovelling sunk into 
 his memory, in the depression of a menial situation 
 under his supposed hero. He has, indeed, carried his 
 private grudge too far into his general speculations. 
 He even makes out the rebels to be cowards and well 
 beaten, which does not accord with the history of the 
 times. In au excess of zeal for Church and State, he 
 is too much disposed to treat religion as a cheat and 
 liberty as a farce. It was the cant of that day (from 
 which he is not free) to cry down sanctity and so])riety 
 as marks of disaffection, as it is the cant of this to hold 
 them up as proofs of loyalty and stauncli monarchical 
 principles. Religion and morality are, in either case, 
 equally made subservient to the spirit of party, and a 
 stalking-horse to the love of power. Finally, there is 
 a want of pathos and humour, but no want of interest 
 in '^Hudibras." It is difficult to lay it down. One 
 thought is inserted into another ; the links in the chain 
 of reasoning are so closely riveted, that the attention 
 seldom flags, but is kept alive (without any other assist- 
 ance) by the mere force of writing. There are occa- 
 sional indications of poetical fancy, and an eye for 
 natural beauty ; but these are kept under or soon dis- 
 carded, judiciously enough, but it should seem, not for 
 lack of power, for they are certainly as masterly as 
 they arc rare. Such is the burlesque description of the 
 stocks, or allegorical prison, in which first Crowdero and 
 then Iludibras are confined : the passage beginning— 
 
 " As when an owl that's in a barn, 
 Sees a mouse creeping in the corn, 
 Sits still and shuts his round blue eyes, 
 As if he slept," &c. 
 
 And tlie description of the moon going down in the early 
 morning, which is as pure, original, and picturesque as 
 possible : — 
 
 "The queen of night, whose large command 
 Rules all the sea and half the land. 
 And over moist and crazy brains 
 In high spring-tides at midnight reigns, 
 Was now declining to the west, 
 To go to bed and take her rest."
 
 COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC. 85 
 
 Butler is sometimes scliolastic, but he makes his 
 learning tell to good account ; and for the purposes of 
 burlesque nothing can be better fitted than the scholastic 
 style. 
 
 Butler's "Remains" are nearly as good and full of 
 sterling genius as his principal poem. Take the follow- 
 ing ridicule of the plan of the Greek tragedies as an 
 instance : 
 
 " Reduce all tragedy, by rules of art, 
 Back to its ancient theatre, a cart, 
 And make them henceforth keep the beaten roads 
 Of reverend choruses and episodes ; 
 Reform and regulate a puppet-play, 
 According to the true and ancient way ; 
 That not an actor shall presume to squeak 
 Unless he have a license for 't in Greek ; 
 Nor devil in the puppet-play be allowed 
 To roar and spit fire, but to fright the crowd, 
 Unless some god or demon chance to have piques 
 Against an ancient family of Greeks ; 
 That other men may tremble and take warning 
 How such a fatal progeny they're born in ; 
 For none but such for tragedy are fitted 
 That have been ruined only to be pitied ; 
 And only those held proper to deter 
 Who have th' ill luck against their wills to err; 
 Whence only such as are of middling sizes, 
 Betwixt morality and venial vices, 
 Are qualified to be destroyed by fate, 
 For other mortals to take warning at." 
 
 Upon Critics. 
 
 His ridicule of Milton's Latin style is equally severe, 
 but not so well founded. 
 
 I have only to add a few words respecting the 
 dramatic writers about this time, Ijefore we arrive at the 
 golden period of our comedy. Those of Etherege ^ are 
 good for nothing, except "The Man of Mode," or "Sir 
 Fopling Flutter," which is, I think, a more exquisite 
 and airy picture of the manners of that age than any 
 other extant. Sir Fopling himself is an inimitable 
 
 1 " Love in a Tub," and " She Would if She Could."
 
 «n THE ENGLISH COMIC WlUrEIlS 
 
 cdxcomit, but ploasaiit withal. He is a suit of clothes 
 person ifi I'd. Doriiiiant (sup])Osecl to be jjord lloehester) 
 is tlie genius of grace^ gallantry, and gaiety. The 
 women in this courtly play have very much the look 
 and air (Imt something more demure and significant) 
 of Sir Peter Lely's l>eauti(!s. Harriet, the mistress 
 of Dorimant, who "tames his wild heart to her 
 loving hand," is the flower of the piece. Her natural, 
 untutored grace and spirit, her meeting with Dorimant 
 in the Park, bowing and mimicking him, and the 
 luxuriant description which is given of her hne pei-son, 
 altogether form one of the chcf.s-d'o'Mvre of dramatic 
 painting. I should think this comedy would bear reviv- 
 ing ; and if Mr. Liston were to play Sir Fopling, the part 
 would shine out with double lustre, " like the morn risen 
 on mid-noon." Drydeu's comedies have all the point 
 that there is in ribaldry, and all the humour that there 
 is in extravagance. I am sorry I can say nothing better 
 of them. He was not at home in this kind of writing, 
 of which he was himself conscious. His play was horse- 
 play. His wit (what there is of it) is ingenious and 
 scholar-like, rather than natural and dramatic. Thus 
 Burr, in the " Wild Gallant," says to Failer. " She 
 shall sooner cut an atom than part us." His plots are 
 pure voluntaries in absurdity, that bend and shift to his 
 purpose without any previous notice or reason, and are 
 governed by final causes. " Sir Martin Marall," which 
 was taken from the Duchess of Newcastle, is the best of 
 his plays, and the origin of the " Busy Body." Otway's 
 comedies do no sort of credit to him : on the contrary, 
 / they are as desperate as his fortunes. The Duke of 
 Buckingham's famous "Rehearsal," which has made, 
 and deservedly, so much noise in the world, is in a 
 great measure taken from Beaumont and Fletcher's 
 " Knight of the Burning Pestle," which was written 
 in ridicule of the Loudon apprentices in the reign of 
 Elizabeth, who had a great hand in the critical decisions 
 of that age. There were other dramatic writers of this 
 period, noble and plebeian. I shall only mention one 
 other piece, the " Committee," I believe by Sir Robert
 
 COWLEY, BUTLER, ETC. 87 
 
 Howard, which h.as of late beeu cut do^vu iuto the farce 
 called " Houest Thieves," and vrhich I remember read- 
 ing with a great deal of pleasure many years ago. 
 
 One cause of the difference between the immediate 
 reception and lasting success of dramatic works at 
 tliis period may be, that after the Court took the 
 play-houses under its particular protection, everj'thiug 
 became very much an affair of private patronage. If 
 an author could get a learned lord or a countess- 
 dowager to bespeak a box at his play, and applaud 
 tlie doubtful passages, he considered his business as 
 done. On the other liand, there was a reciprocity 
 between men of letters and their patrons ; critics 
 were " mitigated into courtiers, and submitted," as 
 Mr. Burke has it, " to the soft collar of social esteem," 
 in pronouncing sentence on the works of lords and 
 ladies. How ridiculous this seems now ! What a 
 hubbub it would create if it were known that a parti- 
 cular person of fashion and title had taken a front 
 box in order to decide on the fate of a first play ! 
 How the newspaper critics would laugh in then* 
 sleeves ! How the public would sneer ! But at this 
 time there was no public. I will not say, therefore, 
 that these times are better than those ; but they are 
 better, I think, in this respect. An author nowadays 
 no longer hangs dangling on the frown of a lord, 
 r or the smile of a lady of quality (the one governed 
 perhaps by his valet, and the other by her waiting- 
 1 maid), but throws himself boldly, making a lover's 
 1 leap of it, into the broad lap of public opinion, on 
 which he falls like a feather-bed ; and which, like the 
 great bed of ^\'are, is wide enough to hold us all very 
 I comforfet 
 
 e
 
 88 THE ENGLISH COMIC ^VRITERS 
 
 LECTURE IV 
 
 ON WYOHERLEY, CONGREVE, VANBRUGH. 
 AND FARUUIIAR 
 
 /jCoiHEDY is a "graceful ornament to the civil order; 
 the Corinthian capital of polished society." Like the 
 mirrors which have heen added to the sides of one 
 of our theatres, it reflects the images of grace, of 
 gaiety, and pleasure double, and completes the per- 
 spective of human life. To read a good comedy is 
 to keep the best company in the world, where the 
 best things are said, and the most amusing happen, 
 t The wittiest remarks are always ready on the tongue, 
 ' and the luckiest occasions are always at hand to 
 •^ give birth to the happiest conceptions. Sense makes 
 strange havoc of nonsense. Refinement acts as a 
 foil to affectation, and afl^ectation to ignorance. Sen- 
 tence after sentence tells. We don't know which 
 to admire most, the observation or the answer to it. 
 We would give our lingers to be able to talk so 
 ourselves, or to hear others talk so. In turning over 
 the pages of the best comedies, we are almost trans- 
 ported to another world, and escape from this dull 
 age to one that was all life, and whim, and mirth, 
 and humour, 'llie curtain rises, and a gayer scene 
 presents itself, as on the canvas of ^V>±teau. We 
 are admitted behind the scenes like spectators at Court, 
 on a levee or birthday ; but it is the Court, the gala 
 day of wit and pleasure, of gallantry and Charles II ! 
 What an air breathes from the name ! what a rustling 
 of silks and waving of plumes ! what a sparkling of 
 diamond ear-rings and shoe-buckles ! What bright 
 eyes (ah, those were Waller's Sacharissa's as she
 
 WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, P:TC. 89 
 
 passed !), what killing looks and graceful motions ! 
 How tlie faces of the whole ring are dressed in smiles ! 
 how the repartee goes round ! liow wit and folly, 
 elegance and awkward imitation of it, set one another 
 off! Happy, thoughtless age, when king and nobles 
 led purely ornamental lives ; when the utmost stretch 
 of a morning's study went no farther than the choice 
 of a sword-knot, or the adjustment of a side-curl ; 
 when the soul spoke out in all the pleasing eloquence 
 of dress ; and beaux and belles, enamoured of them- 
 selves in one another's follies, fluttered like gilded 
 butterflies, in giddy mazes, through the walks of St. 
 James's Park ! _ 
 
 The four principal writers of this style of comedy 
 (which I think the best) are undoubtedly VV^yclierley, 
 Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar. The dawn was / 
 in Etlierege, as its latest close was in Sheridan. — It / 
 is liard to say which of these four is best, or in what ,' 
 eacli of them excels, they had so many and such 
 great excellences. , 
 
 J Congreve is the most distinct from the others, and 
 \\.he most easily defined, both from what he possessed, 
 ;ind from what he wanted. He Jiad by far the_inQS± 
 'wit and elegance, with less of otTier things, of humour, 
 character, incident, &c. His style is inimitable, nay 
 perfect. It is the highest model of comic dialogue. 
 Every sentence is replete with sense and satire, con- 
 veyed in the most polished and pointed terms. Every 
 page presents a shower of brilliant conceits, is a tissue 
 of epigrams in prose, is a new triumph of wit, a new 
 conquest over dullness. The fire of artful raillery is 
 nowliore else so well kept up. This style, which he was 
 almost the first to introduce, and which he carried to the 
 utmost pitch of classical refinement, reminds one exactly 
 of Collins's description of wit as_opposed to humour, 
 
 " Whose jewels in his crisped hair 
 Are placed each other's light to share." 
 
 Sheridan will not bear a comparison with him in the 
 regular antithetical construction of his sentences, and
 
 90 THE ENGLISH COMIC WUIlllRS 
 
 in the mechanical ai'tifices of his style, though so mucli 
 later, and thougli style in general has heen so much 
 studied, antl in the mechanical part so mucli improved 
 since then. It hears every mark of Jieing wliat he 
 himself in the dedication of one of liis ])lays tells 
 us that it was, a spirited copy taken off and carefully 
 revised from tlie most select society of his time, exhil)it- 
 ing all the sprightliness, ease, and animation of familiar 
 conversation, witli tlie correctness and delicacy of the 
 most finished composition. His works are a singular 
 treat to those wlio have cultivated a taste for the 
 niceties of Englisli style : there is a peculiar flavour in 
 the very Avords, which is to he found in liardly any 
 other writer. To the mere reader his writings would 
 be an irreparable loss : to the stage they are already 
 become a dead letter, with the exception of one of 
 them, "Love for Love." This play is as full of char- 
 acter, incident, and stage-effect, as almost any of those 
 of his contemporaries, and fuller of wit than any of his 
 own, except perhaps the ^' Way of the World." It 
 still acts, and is still acted well. The effect of it 
 is prodigious on the well-informed spectator. In 
 particular, Munden's Foresight, if it is not just the 
 thing, is a wonderfully rich and powerful piece of comic 
 acting. His look is planet-struck ; his dress and appear- 
 ance like one of the signs of the Zodiac taken down. 
 Nothing can he more bewildered ; and it only wants a 
 little more helplessness, a little more of the doating, 
 querulous garrulity of age, to be all that one conceives 
 of the superannuated, star-gazing original. The gay, 
 unconcerned opening of this play, and the romantic 
 generosity of the conclusion, where Valentine, when 
 about to resign his mistress, declares — " I never valued 
 fortune, but as it was subservient to my pleasure ; and 
 my only pleasure was to please this lady," — are alike 
 admirable. The peremptory bluntness and exaggerated 
 descriptions of Sir Sampson Legend are in a vein truly 
 oriental, with a Shakespearean cast of language, and 
 form a striking contrast to the quaint credulity and 
 senseless superstitions of F'oresight. The remonstrance
 
 WYCHERLEY, COxXGREVE, ER!. 91 
 
 of his son to liim, "to divest him, ah)iig with his 
 inheritance, of his reason, thoughts, passions, inclina- 
 tions, affections, appetites, senses, and the huge train 
 of attendants which he brought into the world with 
 him," with his valet's accompanying comments, is one 
 of the most eloquent and spirited specimens of wit, 
 pathos, and morality, that is to be found. The short 
 scene with Traplaud, the money-broker, is of the first 
 water. What a picture is here drawn of Tattle ! 
 " More misfortunes, Sir ! " says Jeremy. Valentine. 
 " What, another dun.^" Jeremji. " No, Sir, but Mr. 
 Tattle is come to wait upon you." Wliat an introduc- 
 tion to give of an honest gentleman in the shape of a 
 misfortune ! The scenes between him. Miss Prue, and 
 Ben, are of a highly coloured description. Mrs. Frail 
 and Mrs. Foresight are " sisters every way " ; and the 
 bodkin which Mrs. Foresight brings as a proof of her 
 sister's levity of conduct, and which is so convincingly 
 turned against her as a demonstration of her own — 
 " Nay, if you come to that, where did you find that 
 bodkin .'* "^is one of the trophies of the moral jus- 
 tice of the comic drama. The " Old Bachelor " and 
 "Double Dealer" are inferior to "Love for Love," 
 but one is never tired of reading them, 'ilie fault of 
 the last is, that Lady Touchwood approaches, in the 
 turbulent impetuosity of her character, and measured 
 tone of her declamation, too near to the tragedy-queen ; 
 and that Maskwell's plots puzzle the brain by their 
 intricacy, as they stagger our belief by their gratuitous 
 villainj^ Sir Paul and Lady Pliant, and my Lord and 
 Lady Froth, are also scarcely credible in the extravagant 
 insipidity and romantic vein of their follies, in which 
 they are notably seconded by the lively Mr. Brisk and - 
 
 "dying Ned Careless." / 
 
 The " AV^ay of the A^'orld " was the author's last and ^ 
 most carefully fitiisTied performance. It is an essence 
 almost too fine ; and the sense of pleasure evaporates 
 in an aspiration after something tliat seems too exqui- 
 site ever to have l)een realized. After inhaling the 
 spirit of Congreve's wit, and tasting ^'love's thrice
 
 92 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 repjuted nectar" in liis works, the liea<l grows giddy 
 in turning from the liigliest point of rapture to the 
 ordinary business of life ; and we can witli difficulty 
 recall the truant Fancy to those objects whicli we are 
 fain to take up with here, for better, for worse. \Vliat 
 can be more enclianting than Millamant and her 
 morning thouglits, her doux somineila ? Wliat more 
 provoking than her reproach to her lover, who pro- 
 poses to rise early, " Ah ! idle creature ! " The meet- 
 ing of these two lovers, after the abrupt dismissal of 
 Sir AV^ilful, is the height of careless and voluptuous 
 elegance, as if they moved in air, and drank a finer 
 spirit of humanity. 
 
 " Millamant. Like Phoebus sung the no less amorous boy. 
 Mirahdl. Like Daphne she, as lovely and as coy." 
 
 Millamant is the perfect model of the accomplished 
 fine ladv : 
 
 V " Come, then, the colours and the gi-ound prepare, 
 Dip in the rainbow, trick her off in air ; 
 Choose a firm cloud, before it falls, and in it 
 Catch ere she change, the Cynthia of a minute." 
 
 She is the ideal heroine of the comedy of high life, 
 who arrives at the height, of indifference to everything 
 from the height of satisfaction ; to whom pleasure is 
 as familiar as the air she draws ; elegance worn as a 
 part of her dress ; wit the habitual language wliich 
 she hears and speaks ; love, a matter of course ; and 
 who has nothing to hope or to fear, her own caprice 
 being tlie only law to herself, and rule to those about 
 her. Her words seem composed of amorous sighs — 
 her looks are glanced at prostrate admirers or envious 
 rivals. 
 
 " If there's delight in love, 'tis when I see 
 That heart that others bleed for, bleed for me." 
 
 She refines on her pleasures to satiety ; and is almost 
 stifled in the incense that is offered to her person, her 
 wit, her beauty, and her fortune. Secure of triumph.
 
 WYCHERLEV, COxXGREVE, ETC. 93 
 
 her slaves tremble at her frown : her charms are so 
 irresistible, that her conquests give her neither sur- 
 prise nor concern. "Beauty the lover's gift.^" she 
 exclaims, in an answer to Mirabell — " Dear me, what 
 is a lover that it can give.'' Why one makes lovers 
 as fast as one pleases, and they live as long as one 
 pleases, and they die as soon as one pleases ; and then 
 if one pleases, one makes more." M'e ai-e not sorry 
 to see her tamed down at last, from her pride of love 
 and beauty, into a wife. She is good-natured and 
 generous, with all her temptations to the contrary ; 
 and her behaviour to Mirabell reconciles us to her 
 treatment of ^Fitwoud and Petulant, and of her 
 country admirer. Sir ^V^ilful. 
 
 Congreve has described all this in his character of 
 '' Millamant, but he has done no more ; and if he had, 
 he would have done wrong. _He_Jias ^iven_ iLS the 
 ; finest idea of an artificial character of this kind ; but 
   it IS still the reflection of an artificial cliaracter. ^ The 
 spri ngs of nature ^ passion, or im agination are^^ 
 feebly toucFed. The impressions appealed to, and with 
 "masterly address, are habitual, external, and conven- 
 tional advantages ; the ideas of birtli, of fortune, of 
 connexions, of dress, accomplishment, fashion, the 
 opinion of the world, of crowds of admirers, continu- 
 ally come into play, flatter our vanity, bribe our 
 ; interest, soothe our indolence, fall in with our pre- 
 judices ; — it is these that support the goddess of our 
 ; idolatry, with wliich she is everything, and without 
 . which she would be nothing. The-niere.._fin©-4ad^of 
 Lcomedy, compared with th6_ li^j-oine of roraajice-«r 
 Jpoetry, when stripped of her adventitious ornaments 
 jaird^ adjaatages, is too rhuch like the dolOtrlpped of 
 '■ its finery. In JiiiiiHflgJ>O^Ullamaiit,^w^_tl^ 
 ~"as"~ntuch_ofTier dress as.of^her person-; tt-4s^not sg, 
 ! with respect~to ~Tlosal ind or Pgrdita. Tlie poet has 
 " painted them diiferently ; in colours which " nature's 
 own sweet and cunning hand laid on," with health, 
 with innocence, with gaiety, "wild wit, invention 
 Sever new" ; with pure red and white, like the wild-
 
 94 THE ENGLISH (OMIC WRITERS 
 
 ing-'s blossoms ; with warbled wood-notes^ like the 
 feathered choir's ; with thoughts fluttering on the 
 wings of imagination, and hearts panting and breath- 
 less with eager dcdight. The interest we feel is in 
 themselves ; the admiration the}'^ excite is for them- 
 selves. They do not depend upon the drapery of 
 cireumstances. It is Nature that "blazons herself" 
 in them. Imogen is the same in a lonely cave as in 
 a court ; nay more, for she tliei'e seems something 
 heavenly — a spirit or a vision ; and^ as it were^ shames 
 her destiny, brighter for the foil of circumstances. 
 Millamant is nothing but a fine lady ; and all her airs 
 and affectation would be blown away with tlie first 
 breath of misfortune. Enviable in drawing-rooms, 
 adorable at her toilette, fashion, like a witch, has 
 thrown its spell around her ; but if that spell were 
 broken, her power of fascination would be gone. For 
 that reason I think the character better adapted for 
 the stage : it is more artificial, more theatrical, more 
 meretricious. I would rather have seen Mrs. Abing- 
 ton's Millamant than any Rosalind that ever appeared 
 on the stage. Somehow, this sort of ac([uired elegance 
 is more a thing of costume, of air and manner ; and 
 in comedy, or on the comic stage, the light and 
 familiar, the trifling, superficial, and agreeable, bears, 
 perhaps, rightful sway over that which touches the 
 affections, or exhausts the fancy. — There is a callous- 
 v^ ness in the worst characters in the " Way of the 
 World," in Fainall, and his wife, and Mrs. JVIarwood, 
 not very pleasant ; and a grossness in the absurd ones, 
 such as Lady Wishfort and Sir Wilful, which is not a 
 little amusing. Witwoud wishes to disclaim, as far 
 as he can, his relationship to this last character, and 
 says, "he's but his half brother" ; to which Mirabell 
 makes answer — "Then, perhaps, he's but half a fool." 
 Peg is an admirable caricature of rustic awkwardness 
 and simplicity, which is carried to excess witliout any 
 offence, from a sense of contrast to the refinement of 
 the chief characters in the play. The description of 
 Lady Wishfort's face is a perfect piece of painting.
 
 WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. 95 
 
 Tlie force of style in this author at times amounts to 
 poetry. ^Y^aitwell, who personates Sir Rowland, and 
 Foible, his accomplice in the matrimonial scheme upon 
 lier mistress, hang as a dead weight upon the plot. 
 They are mere tools in the hands of Mirabell, and 
 want life and interest. .Conereve's characters can all 
 of them s peak w ell, they ar e~lne^ ~mac Times w hen 
 thejLJ^jOxneJo acL/ZQuf.Juill<i^ siiperroj^ 
 Tiim aim oj^ entir ely w ith..hts,mt.. His serious and 
 tragic p^oetry is frigid and jejune to an unaccountable 
 degree. His forte was the description of actual 
 manners, whether elegant or absurd ; and when he 
 could not deride the one or embellish the other, his 
 attempts at romantic passion or imaginary enthusiasm 
 are forced, abortive, and ridiculous, or commonplace. 
 Tlie description of the ruins of a temple in the begin- 
 ning of the " Mourning Bride," was a great stretch 
 of his poetic genius. It has, however, been over- 
 rated, particularly by Dr. Johnson, who could have 
 done nearly as well himself for a single passage, in 
 the same style of moralizing and sentimental descrip- 
 tion. To justify this general censure, and to show 
 how the lightest and most graceful wit degenerates 
 into the heaviest and most bombastic poetry, I will 
 give one description out of his tragedy which will 
 be enough. It is the speech which Gonsalez addresses 
 to Almeria : 
 
 " Be every day of your long life like this. 
 The sun, bright conquest, and your brighter eyes 
 Have all conspired to blaze promiscuous light, 
 And bless this day with most unequal lustre. 
 Your royal father, my victorious lord, 
 Loaden with spoils and ever-living laurel, 
 Is entering now, in martial pomp, the palace. 
 Five himdred mules precede his solemn march, 
 Which groan beneath the weight of Moorish wealth. 
 Chariots of war, adorned with glittering gems, 
 Succeed ; and next, a hundred neighing steeds, 
 White as the fleecy rain on Alpine hills ; 
 That bound, and foam, and champ the golden bit, 
 As they disdain'd the victory they grace.
 
 96 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 Prisoners of war in shining fetters follow : 
 
 And captains of the noblest blood of Afric 
 
 Sweat by his chariot-wheels, and lick and grind, 
 
 With gnashing teeth, the dust his triumphs raise. 
 
 The swarming populace spread every wall, 
 
 And cling, as if with claws they did enforce 
 
 Their hold, through clifted stones stretching and staring 
 
 As if they were all eyes, and every limb 
 
 Would feed its faculty of admiration. 
 
 While you alone retire, and shun this sight ; 
 
 Tliis sight, which is indeed not seen (though twice 
 
 The multitude should gaze) in absence of your eyes." 
 
 This passage seems, in part, an imitation of Jioling-- 
 broke's " Entry into London." The style is as different 
 from Shakespeare as it is from that of Witwoud and 
 Petulant. It is plain that the imagination of the 
 author could not raise itself above the burlesque. 
 His "Mask of Semele," "Judgment of Paris/' and 
 other occasional poems, are even worse. I would 
 not advise any one to read them, or if I did, they 
 would not. 
 
 3.V^t«h«jaey was before Congreve ; and his " Country 
 Wife " will last longer than anything of Congreve's as 
 a popular acting play. It is only a pity that it is not 
 entirely his own ; but it is enough so to do him never- 
 ceasing honour, for the best things are his own. His 
 humour iSj, in general, broader, his cbaractfi rs n ^re 
 natural, and his incidents more striking than Con- 
 _gTeve's. It may be said of Corrgreve,'tliartlie work-" 
 manship overlays the materials : in Wycherley, the 
 casting of the parts and the fable are alone suificient 
 to ensure success. We forget Cong rev e's char acters. 
 and._onI^_remember what they say : we remember 
 Wycherley's characters, and the incidents they meet 
 with, just as if they were real, and forget what they 
 say, comparatively speaking. Miss Peggy (or Mrs. 
 Margery Piuchwife) is a character that will last for 
 ever, I should hope ; and even when the original is 
 no more, if tliat should ever be, while self-will, curio- 
 sity, art, and ignorance are to be found in the same 
 person, it will be just as good and as intelligible as
 
 WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. 97 
 
 ever in the description, because it is built on first 
 principles, and brought out in the fullest and broadest 
 manner. Agnes, in Moliere's play, has a great deal of 
 the same unconscious impulse and heedless naivete, 
 but hers is sentimentalized and varnished over (in tlie 
 French fashion) with long-winded apologies and analy- 
 tical distinctions. It wants the same simple force and 
 home truth. It is not so direct and downright. Miss 
 Peggy is not even a novice in casuistry : she blurts out 
 her meaning before she knows what she is saying, and 
 she speaks her mind by her actions oftener than by 
 her words. The outline of the plot is the same ; but 
 the point-blank hits and master-strokes, the sudden 
 thoughts and delightful expedients, such as her chang- 
 ing the letters, the meeting her husband plump in the 
 park, as she is running away from him as fast as her 
 heels can carry her, her being turned out of doors by 
 her jealous booby of a husband, and sent by him to her 
 lover disguised as Alicia, her sister-in-law — occur first 
 in the modern play. There are scarcely any incidents 
 or situations on the stage, which tell like these for 
 pantomimic effect, which give such a tingling to the 
 blood, or so completely take away the breath with 
 expectation and surprise. Miss Prue, in " Love for 
 Love," is a lively reflection of Miss Peggy, but without 
 the bottom and weight of metal. Hoyden is a match 
 for her in constitution and complete effect, as Corinna, 
 in ''The Confederacy," is in mischief, but without the 
 wit. Mrs. Jordan used to play all these characters ; 
 and as she played them, it was hard to know which 
 was best. Pinchwife, or Moody (as he is at present 
 called), is, like others of Wycherley's moral characters, 
 too rustic, abrupt, and cynical. He is a more dis- 
 agreeable, but less tedious character than the husband 
 of Agnes, and both seem, by all accounts, to have been 
 rightly served. The character of Sparkish is quite 
 new, and admirably hit off. He is an exquisite and 
 suffocating coxcomb ; a pretender to wit and letters, 
 without common understanding, or the use of his 
 senses. Tlie class of character is thoroughly exposed 
 
 o
 
 98 THE ENGLISH COMKJ WRITERS 
 
 uiul understood ; but he persists in his absurd conduct 
 so far, that it becomes extravagant and disgusting, if 
 not incredibhy, from mere weakness and fojipery. Yet 
 there is something in liim that we are inclined to 
 tolerate at first, as his professing that "with him a 
 wit is the first title to respect"; and we regard liis 
 unwillingness to be pushed out of the ro(mi, and 
 coming back in spite of their teeth, to keep tlie com- 
 pany of wits and railers, as a favourable omen. But he 
 utterly disgraces his pretensions before he has done. 
 With all his faults and absurdities, he is, however, a 
 much less off'ensive character than Tattle. Horner is 
 a stretch of probability in the first concoction of that 
 ambiguous character (for he does not appear at present 
 on the stage as Wycherley made him) : but notwith- 
 standing the indecency and indirectness of the means 
 he employs to carry his plans into effect, he deserves 
 every sort of consideration and forgiveness both for 
 the display of his own ingenuity, and the deep insight 
 he discovers into human nature — such as it was in the 
 time of Wycherley. Ilie author has commented on 
 this character, and the double meaning of the name 
 in his " Plain Dealer," borrowing the remarks, and 
 almost the very words of Moliere, who has brought 
 forward and defended his own work against the objec- 
 tions of the precise pai-t of his audience, in his Critique 
 de PfJcole des Femmes. There is no great harm in 
 these occasional plagiarisms, except that they make 
 one uncomfortable at other times, and distrustful of 
 
 Ithe originality of the whole. The "Plain Dealer" 
 is Wycherley's next best work, and is a most severe 
 and poignant moral satire. 7'here is a heaviness 
 about it, indeed, an extravagance, an overdoing 
 both in the style, the plot, and characters, but the 
 truth of feeling and the force of interest prevail over 
 every objection. The character of Manly, the Plain 
 Dealer, is violent, repulsive, and uncouth, which is a 
 fault, though one that seems to have been intended 
 for the sake of contrast ; for the portrait of consum- 
 mate, artful hypocrisy in Olivia, is, perhaps, rendered
 
 WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. 99 
 
 more striking by it. The iiidiguatiou excited against 
 tliis odious aud pernicious quality by the masterly 
 exposure to which it is here subjected, is "a discipline 
 of humanity." No one can read this play attentively 
 without being the better for it as long as he lives. It 
 penetrates to the core ; it shows the immorality and 
 liateful effects of duplicity, by showing it fixing its 
 harpy fangs in the heart of an honest and worthy 
 man. It is worth ten volumes of sermons. Tlie scenes 
 between Manly after his return, Olivia, Plausible, and 
 Novel, are instructive examples of unblushing impu- 
 dence, of shallow pretensions to principle, and of the 
 most mortifying reflections on his own situation, and 
 bitter sense of female injustice and ingratitude, on the 
 part of Manly. The devil of hypocrisy and hardened 
 assurance seems worked up to the highest pitch of 
 conceivable effrontery in Olivia, when, after confiding 
 to her cousin the story of her infamy, she, in a moment, 
 turns round upon her for some sudden pur])ose, and 
 affecting not to know the meaning of the other's allu- 
 sions to what she has just told her, reproaches her 
 with forging insinuations to the prejudice of her char- 
 acter, and in violation of their friendship. " Go ! you're 
 a censorious ill woman." ITiis is more trj-ing to the 
 patience than anything in the " Tartuffe." The name 
 of this heroine, and her overtures to Fidelia as the 
 page, seem to have been suggested by " Twelfth Night." 
 It is curious to see how the same subject is treated by 
 two such different authors as Shakespeare and W'ycher- 
 ley. The widow Blackacre aud her sou are, like her 
 lawsuit — everlasting. A more lively, palpable, bust- 
 ling, ridiculous picture cannot be drawn. Jerry is a 
 liopeful lad, though undutiful, and gets out of bad 
 hands into worse. Goldsmith evidently had an eye 
 to these two precious characters in " She Stoops to 
 Conquer." Tony Lumpkin and his mother are of the 
 same family, and the incident of the theft of the 
 casket of jewels, and the bag of parchments, is nearly 
 the same in both authors. Wycherley's other plays 
 are not so good. '^The "Gentleman Dancing Master" 
 
 l/
 
 100 tup: English comic writers 
 
 is a long, foolisli farce, in the exaggerated manner of 
 Moliere, but vvitliout bis spirit or wbimsical invention. 
 "Love in a AV^ooil," tliougli not wbat one would wish 
 it to be for the author's sake or our own, is much 
 better, and abounds in several rich and highly-coloured 
 scenes, particularly those in whicli Miss Lucy, her 
 mother Crossbitc, Dapperwit, and Alderman Gripe are 
 concerned. Some of the subordinate characters and 
 intrigues in this comedy are grievously spun out. 
 Wycherley, when he got hold of a good thing, or 
 sometimes even of a bad one, was determined to make 
 the most of it ; and might have said with Dogberry, 
 truly enough, " Had 1 the tediousness of a king, I 
 could find in my heart to bestow it all upon your 
 worships." In reading this author's best works, those 
 which one reads most frequently over, and knows 
 almost by heart, one cannot help thinking of the 
 treatment he received from Pope about his verses. 
 It was hardly excusable in a boy of sixteen to an 
 old man of seventy. 
 
 Van br ugh comes next, and holds his own fully with 
 the best. He is no writer at all, as to mere author- 
 ship ; but he makes up for it by a prodigious fund of 
 comic invention and ludicrous description, bordering 
 somewhat on caricature. Tliough he did not borrow 
 from him, he was much more like Moliere in genius 
 than Wycherley was, who professedly imitated him. 
 He has none of Goaigreve's graceful refinement, and 
 as little of Wycherley's serious manner and studied 
 insight into the springs of character ; but his exhi- 
 bition of it in dramatic contrast and unlooked-for 
 situations, where the different parties play upon one 
 another's failings, and into one another s hands, keep 
 ing up the jest like a game at battledore and shuttle- 
 cock, and urging it to the utmost verge of breathless 
 extravagance, in the mere eagerness of the fray, is 
 beyond that of any other of our writers. His fable 
 is not so profoundly laid, nor his characters so well 
 digested, as Wycherley's (who, in these respects, bore 
 some resemblance to Fielding). Vanbrugh does not
 
 WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. 101 
 
 lay the same deliberate train from the outset to the 
 conclusion, so that the whole may hang together, 
 and tend inevitably from the combination of different 
 agents and circumstances to the same decisive point ; 
 but he works out scene after scene on the spur of the 
 occasion, and from the immediate hold they take of 
 his imagination at the moment, without any previous 
 bias or ultimate purpose, much more powerfully, with 
 more verve, and in a richer vein of original invention. 
 His fancy warms and burnishes out as if he were 
 engaged in the real scene of action, and felt all his 
 faculties suddenly called forth to meet the emergency. 
 He has more nature than art ; what he does best, he 
 does because he cannot help it. He has a masterly 
 eye to the advantages which certain accidental situa- 
 tions of cliaracter present to him on the spot, and 
 executes the most difficult and rapid theatrical move- 
 ments at a moment's warning. Of this kind are the 
 inimitable scenes in the " Provoked Wife," between 
 Razor and Mademoiselle, where they repeat and 
 act over again the rencontre in the Mulberry walk 
 between Constant and his mistress, than which nothing 
 was ever more happily conceived, or done to more 
 absolute perfection ; that again in the " Relapse," 
 where Loveless pushes Berinthia into the closet ; the 
 sudden meeting, in the " Confederacy," between Dick 
 and Mrs. Amlet ; the altercation about the letter 
 between Flippanta and Corinna, in the same play, and 
 that again where Brass, at the house of Gripe the 
 money-scrivener, threatens to discover his friend and 
 accomplice, and by talking louder and louder to him, 
 as he tries to evade his demands, extorts a grudging 
 submission from him. This last scene is as follows : — 
 
 " Dick. I wish my old hobbling mother ha'n't been blabbing 
 something here she should not do. 
 
 Brass. Fear nothing, all's safe on that side yet. But how 
 speaks young mistress's epistle ? soft and tender ? 
 
 Dick. As pen can write. 
 
 Brass. So you think all goes well there ? 
 
 Dick. As my heart can wish.
 
 102 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 Brass. You are sure on't ? 
 
 Dick. Sure ou't. 
 
 Brass. Why then, ceremony aside [putting on his hat], you 
 and I must have a little talk, Mr. Amlet. 
 
 Dick. Ah, Brass, what art thou going to do ? wo't ruin me ? 
 
 Brass. Look you, Dick, few words ; you are in a smooth way 
 of making your fortune ; I hope all will roll on. But how 
 do you intend matters shall pass 'twixt you and mo in this 
 business 1 
 
 Dick. Death and furies ! What a time dost take to talk 
 on't ? 
 
 Brass. Good words, or I betray you ; they have already 
 heard of one Mr. Amlet in the house. 
 
 Dick. Here's a son of a whore. [A.iide. 
 
 Brass. In short, look smooth, and be a good prince. I am 
 your valet, 'tis true: your footman sometimes, which I'm 
 enraged at; but you liave always had the ascendant, I con- 
 fess : when we were schoolfellows, you made me carry your 
 books, make your e.\erciso, own your rogueries, and sometimes 
 take a whipping for you. When we were fellow-'prentiees, 
 though I was your senior, you made me open the shop, clean 
 my master's shoes, cut last at dinner, and eat all the crust. 
 In our sins, too, I must own you still kept me under ; you 
 soar'd up to adultery with the mistress, while 1 was at humble 
 fornication with the maid. Nay, in our punishments you 
 still made good your post ; for when once upon a time I 
 was sentenced but to be whipp'd, I cannot deny but you 
 were condemned to be hang'd. So that in all times, I must 
 confess, your inclinations have been greater and nobler than 
 mine; however, I cannot consent that you should at once fix 
 fortune for life, and I dwell in my humilities for the rest of 
 my days. 
 
 Dick. Hark thee. Brass, if I do not most nobly by thee, I'm 
 a dog. 
 
 Brass. And when ? 
 
 Dick. As soon as ever I am married. 
 
 Brass. Ay, the plague take thee. 
 
 Dick. Then you mistrust me ? 
 
 Brass. I do, by my faith. Look you, Sir, some folks we 
 mistrust, because we don't know them : others we mistrust, 
 because we do know them : and for one of these reasons I 
 desire there may be a bargain beforehand : if not [raising his 
 voice], look ye, Dick Amlet — — 
 
 Dick. Soft, my dear friend and companion. The dog will 
 ruin me [aside]. Say, what is't will content thee ? 
 
 Bi'nss. ho ! 
 
 Dick. But how canst thou be such a barbarian ? 
 
 Brass. I learnt it at Algiers.
 
 WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. 103 
 
 Dick. Come, make thy Turkish demand then. 
 
 Brass. You know you gave me a bank-bill this morning to 
 receive for you. 
 
 Dick. I did so, of fifty pounds ; 'tis thine. So now thou art 
 satisfied ; all is fixed. 
 
 B7-ass. It is not, indeed. There's a diamond necklace you 
 robb'd your mother of e'en now. 
 
 Dick'. Ah, you Jew ! 
 
 Brass. No words. 
 
 Dick. My dear Brass. 
 
 Brass. I insist. 
 
 Dick. My old friend ! 
 
 Brass. Dick Amlet [raisinr/ his voice], I insist. 
 
 Dick. Ah, the cormorant [ai'trfe]. Well, 'tis thine ; thou'lt 
 never thrive with it. 
 
 Brass. When I find it begins to do me mischief, I'll give it 
 you back again. But I must have a wedding suit. 
 
 Dick. Well. 
 
 Brass. A stock of linen. 
 
 Dick. Enough. 
 
 Brass. Not yet a silver-hilted sword. 
 
 Dick. Well, thou shalt have that too. Now thou hast 
 everything. 
 
 Brass. Heav'n forgive me, I forgot a ring of remembrance. 
 I would not forget all these favours for the world ; a sparkling 
 diamond will be always playing in my eye, and put me in 
 mind of them. 
 
 Dick. This unconscionable rogue [aside]. Well, I'll bespeak 
 one for thee. 
 
 Brass. Brilliant. 
 
 Dick. It shall. But if the thing don't succeed after all 
 
 Brass. I am a man of honour and restore : and so, the treaty 
 being finished, I strike my flag of defiance, and fall into my 
 respects again." [Takes off his hat. 
 
 The " Confederacy " is a comedy of infinite con- 
 trivance and intrigue, with a matchless spirit of 
 impudence. It is a fine careless ej?pose of heartless 
 want of principle ; for there is no anger or severity 
 against vice expressed in it, as in Wycherley. The 
 autlior's morality in all cases except his " Provoked 
 Wife " (which was undertaken as a penance for past 
 peccadilloes), sits very loose upon him. It is a little 
 upon the turn ; " it does somewhat smack." Old 
 Palmer, as Dick Amlet, asking his mother's blessing
 
 104 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 on his kncOj was tlie very idea of a graceless son. 
 His sweetlieart Corimia is a Miss Prue, but nature 
 works in her more powerfully. Lord Foppington, in 
 ''The Relapse," is a most splendid caricature : he is a 
 personification of the foppery and folly of dress and 
 external appearance in full feather. He blazes out 
 and dazzles sober reason with ridiculous ostentation. 
 Still, I think this cliaracter is a copy from Etherege's 
 Sir Fopling Flutter, and upon the whole, perhaps. 
 Sir Fopling is tlie more natural grotesque of the two. 
 His soul is more in his dress ; he is a more dis- 
 interested coxcomb. The Lord is an ostentatious, 
 strutting, vainglorious blockhead ; the kniglit is an 
 unaffected, self-complacent, serious admirer of his 
 equipage and person. For instance, what they 
 severally say on the subject of contemplating them- 
 selves in the glass is a proof of this. Sir Fopling 
 thinks a looking-glass in the room " the best company 
 in the world " ; it is another self to him : Lord Fop- 
 pington merely considers it as necessary to adjust his 
 appearance, that he may make a figure in company. 
 The finery of the one has an imposing air of grandeur 
 about it, and is studied for effect : the other is really 
 in love with a laced suit, and is hand and glove with 
 the newest-cut fashion. He really thinks his tailor 
 or peruke-maker the greatest man in the world, 
 while his Lordship treats them familiarly, as necessary 
 appendages of his person. Still this coxcomb-noble- 
 man's effeminacy and mock-heroic vanity are admirably 
 depicted, and held up to unrivalled ridicule ; and his 
 courtship of Miss Hoyden is excellent in all its stages, 
 and ends oracularly : — 
 
 ' ' Lord Foppington. Now, for my part, I think the wisest 
 thing a man can do with an aching heart, is to put on a serene 
 countenance ; for a philosophical air is the most becoming 
 thing in the world to the face of a person of quality : I will 
 therefore bear my disgrace like a great man, and let the 
 people see I am above an affront. [Then turning to his 
 brother.'] Dear Tam, since things are thus fallen out, pr'ythee 
 give me leave to wish thee joy ; I do it de ban caur, strike me
 
 WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. 105 
 
 dumb : you have married a woman beautiful in her person, 
 charming in her airs, prudent in her conduct, constant in her 
 inclinations, and of a nice morality — stap my vitals ! " 
 
 Poor Hoyden fares ill in his Lordship's description of 
 her J tliough she could expect no better at his hands 
 for her desertion of him. She wants sentiment, to be 
 sure, but she has other qualifications — she is a fine 
 bouncing piece of flesh and blood. Her first announce- 
 ment is decisive — " Let loose the greyhound, and lock 
 up Hoyden." Her declaration, "It's well they've got 
 me a husband, or, ecod, I'd marry the baker," comes 
 from her mouth like a shot from a culverin, and leaves 
 no doubt, by its effect upon the ear, that she would 
 have made it good in the sequel, if she had not been 
 provided for. Her indifference to the man she is to 
 marry, and her attachment to the finery and the title, 
 are justified by an attentive observation of nature in 
 its simplest guise. Tliere is, however, no harm in 
 Hoyden ; she merely wishes to consult her own in- 
 clination : she is by no means like Corinna in "The 
 Confederacy," "a devilish girl at the bottom," nor 
 is it her great delight to plague other people. — Sir 
 Tunbelly Clumsy is the right worshipful and worthy 
 father of so delicate an offspring. He is a coarse, 
 substantial contrast to the flippant and flimsy Lord 
 Foppington. If the one is not without reason " proud 
 to be at the head of so prevailing a party " as that of 
 coxcombs, the other may look big and console himself 
 (under some affronts) with being a very competent 
 representative of the once formidable, thougli now 
 obsolete class of country squires, who had no idea 
 beyond the boundaries of their own estates, or the 
 circumference of their own persons. His unwieldy 
 dullness gives, by the rule of contraries, a lively sense 
 of lightness and grace : his stupidity answers all the 
 purposes of wit. His portly paunch repels a jest like 
 a woolsack : a sarcasm rebounds from him like a ball. 
 His presence is a cure for gravity ; and he is a stand- 
 ing satire upon himself and the class in natural history
 
 106 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 to vvliic'li he l)el()nge<l. — Sir John Brute, in ''Tlie 
 Provoked Wife," is an animal of the same P]nglish 
 grnwtli, liiit of a cross-grained breed. He has a spice 
 of tlie demon mixed up witli the brute ; is mischievous 
 as well as stupid ; has improved his natural parts by a 
 town education and example ; opposes the fine-lady 
 airs and graces of his wife by brawling oaths, impene- 
 trable surliness, and pot-house valour; overpowei'S 
 any tendency she might have to vapours or hysterics 
 by the fumes of tobacco and strong beer ; and thinks 
 to be master in his own house by roaring in taverns, 
 reeling home drunk every niglit, breaking lamps, and 
 beating the watch. He does not, however, find this 
 lordly method answer. He turns out to be a coward 
 as well as a bully, and dares not resent the injuries 
 he has provoked by his unmanly behaviour. This was 
 Garrick's favourite part ; and I have heard that his 
 acting in the drunken scene, in which he was disguised 
 not as a clergyman, but as a woman of the town, 
 which was an alteration (>*^' his own to suit the delicacy 
 of the times, was irresistible. The ironical conversa- 
 tions in this play between Belinda and Lady Brute, 
 as well as those in " The Relapse " between Amanda 
 and her cousin Berinthia, will do to compare with 
 C'ongreve in the way of wit and studied raillery, but 
 they will not stand the comparison. Araminta and 
 Clarissa keep up the ball between them with more 
 spirit, for their conversation is very like that of kejrt- 
 mistresses ; and the mixture of fashionable slang and 
 professed want of principle gives a sort of zest and 
 high seasoning to their confidential communications, 
 which Vanbrugh could supply as well as anybody. 
 But he could not do without the taint of grossness and 
 licentiousness. Lady Townly is not really the vicious 
 character, nor quite the fine lady, which the autlior 
 would have her to be. Lady Grace is so far better ; 
 she is what she pretends to be, merely sober and insipid. 
 — Vanbrugh'sybr^e was not the sentimental or didactic ; 
 his genius flags and grows dull when it is not put into 
 action, and wants the stimulus of sudden emergency,
 
 WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. 107 
 
 or the fortuitous collision of different motives; to call 
 out all his force and vivacity. His antitheses are happy 
 and brilliant contrasts of character ; his double enten- 
 dres equivocal situations; his best jokes are_ practical 
 devices, not epigrammatic conceits. His wit is that 
 which is emphatically called mother-wit. It brings 
 those who possess it, or to whom he lends it, into 
 scrapes by its restlessness, and brings them out of 
 them by its alacrity. Several of his favourite char- 
 acters are knavish, adroit adventurers, who have all 
 the gipsy jargon, the cunning impudence, cool presence 
 of mind, selfishness, and indefatigable industry ; all 
 the excuses, lying, dexterity, the intellectual juggling 
 and legerdemain tricks, necessary to fit them for this 
 sort of predatory warfare on the simplicity, foUies, or 
 vices of mankind. He discovers the utmost dramatic 
 generalship in bringing off his characters at a pinch, 
 and by an instantaneous ruse de guerre, when the case 
 seems hopeless in any other hands, llie train of his 
 associations, to express the same thing in metaphysical 
 language, lies in following the suggestions of his fancy 
 into every possible connexion of cause and effect, 
 rather than into every possible combination of likeness 
 or difference. His ablest characters show that they 
 are so by displaying their ingenuity, address, and 
 presence of mind' in critical junctures, and in their 
 own affairs, rather than their wisdom or their wit " in 
 intellectual gladiatorship," or in speculating on the 
 affairs and characters of other people. 
 
 Farquhar's chief characters are also adventurers ; 
 but they are adventurers of a romantic, not a knavish 
 stamp, and succeed no less by their honesty than their 
 boldness. They conquer their difficulties, and effect 
 their "hair-breadth 'scapes" by the impulse of natural 
 enthusiasm and the confidence of high principles of 
 gallantry and honour, as much as by their dexterity 
 and readiness at expedients. They are real gentle- 
 men, and only pretended impostors. Vanbrugh's 
 upstart heroes are without "any relish of salvation," 
 without generosity, virtue, or any pretensions to it. 
 
 f5
 
 108 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 AVe have little sympathy for them, and no respect 
 at all. But we have every sort of goodwill towards 
 Farquhar's heroes, who have as many peccadilloes to 
 answer for, and play as many rogue's tricks, but are 
 honest fellows at bottom. Iknow little other differ- 
 ence between these two cai)ital writers and copyists 
 of nature, tlian that Farquhar's nature is the better 
 nature of the two. We seem to like both the author 
 and his favourites. He has humour, character, and 
 invention, in common with the other, with a more 
 unaffected gaiety and spirit of enjoyment, wliich over- 
 flows and sparkles in all he does. He makes us laugh 
 from pleasure oftener than from malice. He some- 
 where prides himself in having introduced on the 
 stage the class of comic heroes here spoken of, which 
 has since become a standard character, and wliich 
 represents the warm-hearted, rattle-brained, thought- 
 less, high-spirited young fellow, who floats on the 
 back of his misfortunes without repining, who forfeits 
 appearances, but saves his honour — and he gives us to 
 understand that it was his own. He did not need to 
 be ashamed of it. Indeed there is internal evidence 
 that tliis sort of character is his own, for it pervades 
 his works generally, and is the moving spirit that 
 ^''informs them. His comedies have on this account 
 ])robably a greater appearance of truth and nature than 
 almost any others. His incidents succeed one another 
 with rapidity, but without premeditation ; his wit is 
 easy and spontaneous ; his style animated, unembar- 
 rassed, and flowing ; his characters full of life and 
 spirit, and never overstrained so as to " o'erstep the 
 modesty of nature," though they sometimes, from 
 haste and carelessness, seem left in a crude, unfinished 
 state. There is a constant ebullition of gay, laugh- 
 ing invention, cordial good humour, and fine animal 
 spirits, in his writings. 
 
 Of the four writers here classed together, we should 
 perhaps have courted Congreve's acquaintance most, 
 for his wit and the elegance of his manners ; Wyclier- 
 ley's, for his sense and observation on liuman nature ;
 
 WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. 109 
 
 ( K'anbrugh's, for his power of farcical description and 
 I telling a story ; Farquhar's, for the pleasure of his 
 /'society, and the love of good fellowship. His fine 
 '" gentlemen are not gentlemen of fortune and fashion, 
 like those in Congreve, but are rather " God Almighty's 
 gentlemen." His valets are good fellows : even his 
 chambermaids are, some of them, disinterested and 
 sincere. But his fine ladies, it must be allowed, are 
 not so amiable, so witty, or accomplished, as tliose 
 in Congreve. Perhaps they both described women in 
 high-life as they found them : Congreve took their 
 conversation, Farquhar their conduct. In the way of 
 fashionable vice and petrifying affectation, there is 
 nothing to come up to his Lady Lurewell, in " The 
 Trip to the Jubilee." She by no means makes good 
 Mr. Burke's courtly and chivalrous observation, that 
 the evil of vice consists principally in its want of refine- 
 ment ; and one benefit of the dramatic exhibition of 
 such characters is, that they overturn false maxims of 
 morality, and settle accounts fairly and satisfactorily 
 between theory and practice. Her lover. Colonel 
 Standard, is indeed an awkward incumbrance upon so 
 fine a lady ; it was a character that the poet did not 
 like ; and he has merely sketched him in, leaving him 
 to answer for himself as well as he could, which is 
 but badly. We have no suspicion, either from his 
 conduct, or from any hint dropped by accident, that 
 he is the first seducer and the possessor of the virgin 
 affections of Lady Lurewell. The double transforma- 
 tion of this virago from vice to virtue, and from virtue 
 to vice again, her plausible pretensions and artful 
 wiles, her violent temper and dissolute passions, show 
 a thorough knowledge of the effects both of nature 
 and habit in making up human character. Farquhar's 
 own heedless turn for gallantry would be likely to 
 throw him upon such a character ; and his goodness 
 of heart and sincerity of disposition would teach him 
 to expose its wanton duplicity and gilded rottenness. 
 Lurewell is almost as abandoned a character as Olivia, 
 in " The Plain Dealer " ; but the indignation excited
 
 no TOE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 against her is of a less serious and tragic cast. Her 
 peevish disgust and aifected liorror at everything that 
 comes near her, form a very edifying picture. Her 
 dissatisfaction and ennui are not mere airs and graces 
 worn for fashion's sake, but are real and tormenting 
 inmates of her breast, arising from a surfeit of pleasure 
 and the consciousness of guilt. All that is hateful in 
 the cajtrice, ill humour, spite, hauteur, folly, impu- 
 dence, and affectation of the complete woman of 
 quality, is contained in the scene between her and 
 her servants in the first act. The depravity would be 
 intolerable, even in imagination, if the weakness were 
 not ludicrous in the extreme. It shows, in the highest 
 degree, the power of circumstances and example to 
 pervert the understanding, the imagination, and even 
 the senses. The maimer in which the character of the 
 gay, wild, free-hearted, but not altogether profligate 
 or unfeeling Sir Harry Wildair, is played off against 
 the designing, vindictive, imperious, uncontrollable, 
 and unreasonable humours of LureAvell, in the scene 
 where she tries to convince him of his wife's infidelity, 
 while he stops his ears to her pretended proofs, is not 
 surpassed in modern comedy. I shall give it here : — 
 
 " Wildair. Now, dear Madam, 1 have secured my brother, 
 you have disposed of the Colonel, and we'll rail at love till 
 we ha'n't a word more to say. 
 
 Lurewell. Ay, Sir Harry. Please to sit a little, Sir. You 
 must know I'm in a strange humour of asking j'ou some 
 questions. How did you like your Ij.'idy, pray, Sir? 
 
 Wild. Like her ! Ha, ha, ha ! So very well, faith, that for 
 her very sake I'm in love with every woman I meet. 
 
 Lure. And did matrimony please 3'ou extremely ? 
 
 Wild. So very much, that if polygamy were allowed I 
 would have a new wife every day. 
 
 Lure. Oh, Sir Harry ! this is raillery. But your serious 
 thoughts upon the matter, pray. 
 
 Wild. Why then, Madam, to give you my true sentiments 
 of wedlock : I had a lady that I married by chance — she was 
 virtuous by chance — and I loved her by great chance. Nature 
 gave her beauty, education an air ; and fortune threw a young 
 fellow, five-and -twenty, in her lap. I courted her all day, 
 loved her all night ; she was my mistress one day and my wife
 
 WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. Ill 
 
 another ; I found in one the variety of a thousand, and the 
 very confinement of marriage gave me the pleasure of change. 
 Lure. And she was very virtuous. 
 
 Wild. Look ye, Madam, you know she was beautiful. She 
 had good nature about her mouth, the smile of beauty in her 
 cheeks, sparkling wit in her forehead, and sprightly love in 
 her eyes. 
 
 Liire. Pshaw ! I knew her very well ; the woman was well 
 enough. But you don't answer my question, Sir. 
 
 Wild. So, Madam, as I told you before, she was young and 
 beautiful, 1 was rich and vigorous ; my estate gave a lustre to 
 my love, and a swing to our enjoyment ; round, like the ring 
 that made us one, our golden pleasures circled without end. 
 
 Lure. Golden pleasures ! Golden fiddlesticks ! What d'ye 
 tell me of your canting stuflt ? Was she virtuous, I say ? 
 
 Wild. Ready to burst with envy ; but I will torment thee 
 a little [aside]. So, Madam, I powdered to please her, she 
 dressed to engage me ; we toyed away the morning in amorous 
 nonsense, lolled away the evening in the park or the play- 
 house, and all the night — hem ! 
 
 Lure. Look ye. Sir, answer my question, or I shall take 
 it ill. 
 
 Wild. Then, Madam, there was never such a pattern of 
 unity. Her wants were still prevented by my supplies ; my 
 own heart whispered me her desires, 'cause she herself was 
 there; no contention ever rose, but the dear strife of who 
 should most oblige ; no noise about authority ; for neither 
 would stoop to command, 'cause both thought it glory to 
 obey. 
 
 Lure. Stuff ! stuff ! ^tuff ! I won't believe a word on't. 
 
 Wild. Ha, ha, ha ! Then, Madam, we never felt the yoke 
 of matrimony, because our inclinations made us one — a power 
 superior to the forms of wedlock. The marriage torch had 
 lost its weaker light in the bright flame of mutual love that 
 joined our hearts before ; then 
 
 Lure. Hold, hold. Sir ; I cannot bear it, Sir Harry, I'm 
 atl'ronted. 
 
 Wild. Ha, ha, ha ! Affronted ! 
 
 Ltire. Yes, Sir ; 'tis an affront to any woman to hear 
 another commended, and I will resent it. In short, Sir 
 Harry, your wife was a 
 
 Wild. Buz, Madam — no detraction. I'll tell you what she 
 was. So much an angel in her conduct, that though I saw 
 another in her arms, I should have thought the devil had 
 raised the phantom, and my more conscious reason had given 
 my eyes the lie. 
 
 Lure. Very well ! then I a'n't to be believed, it seems. 
 But, d'ye hear, Sir !
 
 112 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 Wild. Nay, Madam, do you hear ! I tell you 'tis not in 
 the power of malice to cast a blot upon her fame ; and though 
 the vanity of our sex, and the envy of yours, conspired both 
 against her honour, I would not hear a syllable. {Stopping 
 his ears.^ 
 
 Lure. Why then, as I hope to breathe, you shall hear it. 
 The picture f the picture ! the picture ! [Bcmivng aloud.^ 
 Wild. Ran, tan, tan. A pistol-bullet from ear to ear. 
 Lure. That picture which you had just now from the 
 French Marquis for a thousand pounds ; that very picture 
 did your very virtuous wife send to the Marquis as a pledge of 
 her very virtuous and dying affection. So that you are both 
 robbed of your honour and cheated of your money. \_Loud.^ 
 Wild. Louder, louder. Madam. 
 
 Lure. I tell you. Sir, your wife was a jilt ; I know it, I'll 
 swear it. She virtuous I she was a devil ! 
 Wild. [Sings] Tal, al, deral. 
 
 Lure. Was ever the like seen ! He won't hear me. I 
 burst with malice, and now he won't mind me ! Won't you 
 hear me yet ? 
 
 Wild. No, no, Madam ! 
 
 Lure. Nay, then I can't bear it. [Bursts out a crying.] 
 Sir, 1 must say that you're an unworthy person, to use a 
 woman of quality at this rate, when she has her heart full of 
 malice ; I don't know but it may make me miscarry. Sir, I 
 say again and again, that she was no better than one of us, 
 and I know it ; I have seen it with my eyes, so I have. 
 
 Wild. Good heav'ns deliver me, I beseech thee ! How shall 
 I 'scape ? 
 
 Lure. Will you hear me yet ? Dear Sir Harry, do but hear 
 me ; I'm longing to speak. 
 
 Wild. Oh ! I have it.— Hush, hush, hush. 
 Lure. Eh 1 what's the matter ? 
 Wild. A mouse 1 a mouse ! a mouse 1 
 Lure. Where 1 where ? where ? 
 
 Wild. Your petticoats, your petticoats. Madam. [Lurewell 
 shrieks and rims.] my head 1 I was never worsted by a 
 woman before. But I have heard so much to know the 
 Marquis to be a villain. [Knocking.] Nay, then, I must run 
 for't. [Runs out and returns.] The entry is stopped by a 
 chair coming in ; and something there is in that chair that I 
 will discover, if I can find a place to hide myself. [Goes to 
 the closet door.] Fast ! I have keys about me for most locks 
 about St. James's. Let me see. [Tries one key.] No, no; 
 this opens my Lady Planthorn's back-door. [Tries another.] 
 Nor this ; this is the key to my Lady Stakeall's garden. 
 [Tries a third.] Ay, ay, this does it, faith. [Goes into the 
 closet.]"
 
 WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, ETC. 113 
 
 The dialogue between Cherry and Arclier, in "The ^ 
 Beaux' Stratagem," in which she repeats her well- 
 conned love catechism, is as good as this, but not so 
 fit to be repeated anywhere but on the stage. "The 
 Beaux' Stratagem" is the best of his plays as a 
 whole ; infinitely lively, bustling, and full of point 
 and interest. 
 
 The assumed disguise of the two principal charac- 
 ters. Archer and Aimwell, is a perpetual amusement to 
 the mind. Scrub is an indispensable appendage to a 
 country gentleman's kitchen, and an exquisite confidant 
 for the secrets of young ladies. " 'ITie Recruiting 
 OflScer " is not one of Farquhar's best comedies, though 
 it is light and entertaining. It contains chiefly sketches 
 and hints of characters, and the conclusion of the plot 
 is rather lame. He informs us, in the dedication to 
 the published play, that it was founded on some local 
 and personal circumstances that happened in Shrop- 
 shire, where he was himself a recruiting officer ; and 
 it seems not unlikely tliat most of the scenes actu- 
 ally took place at the foot of the Wrekin. "The 
 Inconstant" is much superior to it. llie romantic 
 interest and impressive catastrophe of this play, I 
 thought, had been borrowed from the more poetical 
 and tragedy-practised muse of Beaumont and Fletcher ; 
 but I find they are taken from an actual circumstance 
 which took place in the author's knowledge, at Paris. 
 His other pieces, "Love and a Bottle," and "The 
 Twin Rivals," are not on a par with these, and no 
 longer in possession of the stage. The public are, after 
 all, not the worst judges. Farquhar's " Letters," pre- 
 fixed to the collection of his plays, are lively, good- 
 humoured, and sensible, and contain, among other . / 
 things, an admirable exposition of the futility of the \J 
 dramatic unities of time and place. ' 
 
 This criticism preceded Dennis's remarks on that 
 subject, in his strictures on Mr. Addison's " Cato," 
 and completely anticipates all that Dr. Johnson has 
 urged so unanswerably on the subject in his preface 
 to Shakespeare.
 
 114 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITKIIS 
 
 We may date the (Icolinc of P^iiglisli comedy from 
 the time of Far(juhar. 
 
 For this several causes might be assigned in the 
 
 apolitical and moral changes of the times ; hut, among 
 other minor ones, Jeremy Collier, in his "View of the 
 Knglish Stage," frightened the poets, and did all lie 
 
 jcould to spoil the stage by pretending to reform it ; 
 that is, by making it an echo of the pulpit, instead of 
 
 la reflection of the manners of the world. He complains 
 
 'bitterly of the profaneness of the stage; and is for 
 fining the actors for every oath they utter, to put an 
 end to the practice ; as if common swearing had been 
 an invention of the poets and stage-players. He can- 
 not endure that the fine gentlemen drink, and the 
 fine ladies intrigue, in the scenes of Congreve and 
 Wycherley, when things so contrary to law and gospel 
 happened nowhere else. He is vehement against duel- 
 ling, as a barbarous custom^ of which the example is 
 suffered with impunity nowhere but on the stage. He 
 is shocked at the number of fortunes that are irreparably 
 ruined by the vice of gaming on the boards of the 
 theatres. He seems to think that every breach of the 
 ten commandments begins and ends there. He com- 
 plains that the tame husbands of his time are laughed 
 at on the stage, and that the successful gallants triumph, 
 which was without precedent either in the city or the 
 Court. He does not think it enough that the stage 
 "shows vice its own image, scorn its own feature," 
 unless they are damned at the same instant, and carried 
 off (like Don Juan) by real devils to the infernal regions, 
 before the foces of the spectators. It seems that the 
 author would have been contented to be present at a 
 comedy or a farce, like a Father Inquisitor, if there 
 was to be an auto da ft^ at the end, to burn both the 
 actors and the poet. This sour, nonjuring critic has a 
 great horror and repugnance at poor human nature in 
 nearly all its shapes, of the existence of which he 
 appears only to be aAvare through the stage : and this 
 he considers as the only exception to the practice 
 of piety, and the pei-formance of the whole duty of
 
 WYCHEKLKY, CONGREVE, ETC. 115 
 
 man ; and seems fully convinced, that if this nuisance 
 were abated, the whole world would be regulated 
 according to the creed and the catechism. — This is a 
 strange blindness and infatuation ! He forgets, in his 
 overheated zeal, two things : First, that the stage 
 must be copied from real life, that the manners repre- 
 sented there must exist elsewhere, and " denote a fore- 
 gone conclusion," to satisfy common sense.— Secondly^ 
 that the stage cannot shock common decency, according 
 to the notions that prevail of it in any age or country, 
 because the exhibition is public. If the pulpit, for 
 instance, had banished all vice and imperfection from 
 the world, as our critic would suppose, we should not 
 have seen the offensive reflection of them on the stage, 
 Avhich he resents as an affront to the cloth, and an out- 
 rage on religion. On the contrary, with such a sweep- 
 ing reformation as this theory implies, the oflfice of the 
 preacher, as well as of the player, would be gone ; 
 and if the common peccadilloes of lying, swearing, 
 intriguing, fighting, drinking, gaming, and other such 
 obnoxious dramatic commonplaces, were once fairly got 
 rid of in reality, neither the comic poet would be able 
 to laugh at them on the stage, nor our good-natured 
 author to consign them over to damnation elsewhere. 
 The work is, however, wi-itten with ability, and did 
 much mischief: it produced those do-me-good, lacka- 
 daisical, whining, make-believe comedies in the next 
 age (such as Steele's " Conscious Lovers," and 
 others), which are enough to set one to sleep, and 
 where the author tries in vain to be merry and 
 wise in the same breath ; in which the utmost 
 stretch of licentiousness goes no farther than the 
 gallant's being suspected of keeping a mistress, and 
 the highest proof of courage is given in his refusing 
 to accept a challenge. 
 
 In looking into the old editions of the comedies of 
 the last age, I find the names of the best actors of 
 tliose times, of whom scarcely any record is left but in 
 Colley Cibber's Life, and the monument to Mrs. Old- 
 field in AYestminster Abbey ; which Voltaire reckons
 
 116 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 amojig the proofs of the liberality, wisdom, and polite- 
 ness of tlie Englisli nation : — 
 
 " Let no rude hand deface it, 
 And its forlorn hiojacet." 
 
 Authors after tlieir deaths live in their works : players 
 only in their epitaphs and the breatli of common 
 tradition. They " die and leave the world no copy." 
 Their uncertain popularity is as sliort-lived as it is 
 dazzling-, and in a few years nothing is known of them 
 but that they were.
 
 THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS 117 
 
 LECTURE V 
 
 ON THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS 
 " The proper study of mankind is man." 
 
 I NOW come to speak of that sort of writing which has 
 heen so successfully cultivated in this country by our 
 periodical Essayists, and which consists in applying 
 the talents and resources of the mind to all that mixed 
 mass of human affairs, which, though not included 
 under the head of any regular art, science, or profession, 
 falls under the cognizance of the writer, and " comes 
 home to the business and bosoms of men." Quicquid 
 agunt homines nostri farrago libelli, is the general motto 
 of this department of literature. It does not treat of 
 minerals or fossils, of the virtues of plants, or the 
 influence of planets ; it does not meddle with forms of 
 belief, or systems of philosophy, nor launch into the 
 world of spiritual existences ; but it makes familiar 
 with the world of men and women, records their 
 actions, assigns their motives, exhibits their whims, ^ 
 characterizes their pursuits in all their singular and 
 endless variety, ridicules their absurdities, exposes 
 their inconsistencies, " holds the mirror up to nature, 
 and shows the very age and body of the time, its form 
 and pressure"; takes minutes of our dress, air, looks, 
 words, thoughts, and actions ; shows us what we are, 
 and what we are not ; plays the whole game of human 
 life over before us, and by making us enlightened 
 spectators of its many-coloured scenes, enables us (if 
 possible) to become tolerably reasonable agents in the 
 one in which we have to perform a part. "The act 
 and practic part of life is thus made the mistress of our
 
 118 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 tlu'orique." It is tlie best and most natural course of 
 study. It is in morals and manners what the experi- 
 mental is in natural philosophy, as opposed to the 
 dogmatical method. It does not deal in sweeping 
 clauses of proscription and anathema, but in nice dis- 
 tinctions and liberal constructions. It makes up its 
 general accounts from details, its few theories from 
 many facts. It does not try to prove all l)lack or all 
 white as it wishes, but lays on the intermediate colours 
 (and most of them not unpleasing ones), as it finds 
 tliein blended with ''the web of our life, which is of a 
 mingled yarn, good and ill together." It inquires 
 what human life is and has been, to show what it ought 
 to be. It follows it into courts and camps, into town 
 and country, into rustic sports or learned disputations, 
 into the various shades of prejudice or ignorance, of 
 refinement or barbarism, into its private haunts or 
 public pageants, into its weaknesses and littlenesses, 
 its professions and its practices — before it pretends 
 to distinguish right from wrong, or one thing from 
 another. How, indeed, should it do so otherwise.'' 
 
 " Qijid sit pulchrum, quid turpe, quid utile, quid non, 
 Plenius et melius Chrysippo et Crantore dicit." 
 
 The writers I speak of are, if not moral philosophers, 
 moral historians, and that's better ; or if they ai-e 
 both, they found the one character upon the other ; 
 their premises precede their conclusions ; and we 
 put faith in their testimony, for we know that it is 
 true. 
 
 Montaigne was the first person who in his Essays 
 led the way to this kind of writing among the moderns. 
 The great merit of Montaigne then was, that he may 
 be said to have been the first who had the courage to 
 say as an author what he felt as a man. And as 
 courage is generally the eifect of conscious strength, 
 he was probably led to do so by the riclmess, truth, 
 and force of his own observations on books and men. 
 He was, in the truest sense, a man of original mind,
 
 THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS 119 
 
 that is^ he had the power of looking at things for him- 
 self, or as they really were, instead of blindly trusting 
 to, and fondly repeating what others told him that 
 they were. He got rid of the go-cart of prejudice and 
 affectation, with the learned lumber that follows at 
 their heels, because he could do without them. In 
 taking up his pen he did not set up for a philoso- 
 pher, wit, orator, or moralist, but he became all these 
 by merely daring to tell us whatever passed through^ 
 his mind, iu its naked simplicity and force, that he 
 thought anyways worth communicating. He did not, 
 iu the abstract character of an author, undertake to 
 say all that could be said upon a subject, but what in 
 his capacity as an inquirer after truth he happened to 
 know about it. He was neither a pedant nor a bigot. 
 He neither supposed that he was bound to know all 
 things, nor that all things were bound to conform to 
 what he had fancied or would have them to be. In 
 treating of men and manners, he spoke of tliem as 
 he found them, not according to preconceived notions 
 and abstract dogmas ; and he began by teaching us 
 what he himself was. In criticizing books he did not 
 compare them with rules and systems, but told us 
 what he saw to like or dislike in them. He did not 
 take his standard of excellence "according to an exact 
 scale " of Aristotle, or fall out with a work that was 
 good for anything, because " not one of the angles at 
 the four corners was a right one." He was, in a word, 
 the first author who was not a book-maker, and who 
 wi-ote, not to make converts of others to established 
 creeds and prejudices, but to satisfy his own mind of 
 the truth of things. In this respect we know not 
 which to be most charmed with, the author or the 
 man. There is an inexpressible frankness and sincerity, - 
 as well as power, in what he writes. Tliere is no 
 attempt at imposition or concealment, no juggling 
 tricks or solemn mouthings, no laboured attempts at 
 proving himself always iu the right, and everybody 
 else in the wrong ; he says what is uppermost, lays 
 open what floats at the top or the bottom of his mind.
 
 120 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 and deserves Pope's character of him, where he pro- 
 fesses to 
 
 pour out all as plain 
 
 As downright Shippen, or as old Montaigne." i 
 
 He does not converse with us like a pedagogue with 
 liis pupil, whom lie wishes to make as great a block- 
 head as himself, but like a philosopher and friend who 
 has passed through life with thought and observation, 
 and is willing to enable others to pass througli it with 
 pleasure and profit. A writer of this stamp, I confess, 
 appears to me as much superior to a common book- 
 worm as a library of real books is superior to a mere 
 book-case, painted and lettered on the outside with 
 tlie names of celebrated works. As he was the first to 
 attempt this new way of writing, so the same strong 
 natural impulse which prompted the undertaking, 
 carried him to the end of his career. The same force 
 and honesty of mind which urged him to throw off the 
 shackles of custom and prejudice, would ena])le him to 
 complete his triumph over them. He has left little 
 for his successors to achieve in the way of just and 
 original speculation on human life. Nearly all the 
 thinking of the two last centuries of that kind which 
 the P^rench denominate morale observatrice, is to be 
 found in Montaigne's Essays : there is a germ, at 
 least, and generally much more. He sowed the seed 
 and cleared away the rubbish, even where others have 
 reaped the fruit, or cultivated and decorated the soil 
 to a greater degree of nicety and perfection, lliere is 
 no one to whom the old Latin adage is more applicable 
 than to Montaigne, " Pereant isti qui ante nos nostra 
 dixerunt." There has been no new impulse given to 
 thought since his time. Among the specimens of 
 criticisms on authors which he has left us, are those 
 on Virgil, Ovid, and Boccaccio, in the account of 
 books which he thinks worth reading, or (which is the 
 
 i Why Pope should say in reference to him, " Or tnore wise 
 Charron," is not easy to determine.
 
 THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS 121 
 
 same thing) which he finds he can read in his old age, 
 and which may be reckoned among the few criticisms 
 which are worth reading at any age. ^ 
 
 Montaigne's Essays were translated into English by 
 Charles Cotton, who was one of the wits and poets of 
 the age of Charles II ; and Lord Halifax, one of the 
 noble critics of that day, declared it to be "the book 
 in the world he was the best pleased with." ^fhis 
 mode of familiar Essay writing, free from the trammels 
 of the schools and the airs of professed authorship, was 
 successfully imitated, about the same time, by Cowley 
 and Sir William Temple in their miscellaneous Essays, 
 which are very agreeable and learned talking upon 
 
 1 As an instance of his general power of reasoning, I shall 
 give his chapter entitled One Mati's Profit is another's Loss, in 
 which he has nearly anticipated Mandeville's celebrated paradox 
 of private vices being public benefits : — 
 
 " Demades, the Athenian, condemned a fellow-citizen, who 
 furnished out funerals, for demanding too great a price for his 
 goods ; and if he got an estate, it must be by the death of a 
 great many people ; but I think it a sentence ill grounded, for- 
 asmuch as no profit can be made but at the expense of some 
 other person, and that every kind of gain is by that rule liable 
 to be condemned. The tradesman thrives by the debauchery 
 of youth, and the farmer by the dearness of corn ; the architect 
 by the ruin of buildings, the officers of justice by quarrels and 
 lawsuits ; nay, even the honour and function of divines is owing 
 to our mortality and vices. No physician takes pleasure in the 
 health even of his best friends, said the ancient Greek comedian, 
 nor soldier in the peace of his country ; and so of the rest. 
 And, what is yet worse, let every one but examine his own 
 heart; and he will find that his private wishes spring and grow 
 up at the expense of some other person. Upon which con- 
 sideration this thought came into my head, that Nature does 
 not deviate from her general policy ; for that naturalists hold 
 that the birth, nourishment, and increase of any one thing is 
 the decay and corruption of another : — 
 
 Nam quodcunque suis 7nutatum finibus exit. 
 Continue hoc mors est illius, quodfuit ante. 
 
 ' For what from its own confines chang'd doth pass, 
 Is straight the death of what before it was." " 
 
 Vol. I. Chap. xxi.
 
 122 Tin: ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 paper. Lord Shaftesbury, on the contrary, wlio aimed 
 at the same ea.sy, di-tjdge mode ot" fonimuuicatiiig liis 
 thoughts to the world, has quite spoiled his mattta-, 
 which is sometimes valuable, by his manner, in wliicli 
 he carries a certain flaunting, flowery, figurative, 
 flirting style of amicable condescension to the reader, 
 to an excess more tantalizing than the most starched 
 and ridiculous formality of the age of James I. lliere 
 is nothing so tormenting as the aiFectution of ease aiul 
 freedom from affectation. 
 
 The ice being thus thawed, and the barrier that kept 
 authors at a distance from common sense and feeling- 
 broken through, the transition was not difficult from 
 Montaigne and his imitators to our Periodical Essayists. 
 These last applied the same unrestrained expression of 
 their thoughts to the more immediate and passing scenes 
 of life, to temporary and local matters ; and in order 
 to discharge the invidious office of Censor Moruin more 
 freely, and with less responsibility, assumed some ficti- 
 tious and humorous disguise, which, however, in a great 
 degree, corresponded to their own peculiar habits and 
 character. By thus concealing their own name and 
 person under the title of the "Tatler," ^'Spectator," 
 &c., they were enabled to inform us more fully of what 
 was passing in the world, while the dramatic contra.st 
 and ironical point of view to which the whole is sub- 
 jected, added a greater liveliness and piquancy to the 
 descriptions. Tlie philosopher and wit here connivences 
 newsmonger, makes himself master of "the perfect spy 
 o' th' time," and from his various walks and turns 
 through life, brings home little curious specimens of 
 the humours, opinions, and manners- of his contempo- 
 raries, as the botanist brings home different plants and 
 weeds, or the mineralogist different shells and fossils, 
 to illustrate their several theories, and be useful to 
 mankind. 
 
 I'lie first of these papers that was attempted in this 
 country was set up by Steele in the beginning of the 
 last century ; and of all our Periodical Essayists, the 
 " Tatler " (for that was the name he assumed) has always
 
 THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS 123 
 
 appeared to me the most accomplished and agreeable. 
 Montaigne, whom I have proposed to consider as the 
 father of this kind of personal authorsliip among the 
 moderns, in which the reader is admitted behind the 
 curtain, and sits down with the writer in his gown and 
 slippers, was a most magnanimous and undisguised 
 egotist ; but Isaac Bickerstaff, P]sq., was the more dis- 
 interested gossip of the two. The French author is 
 contented to desorilie the peculiarities of liis own mind 
 and person, which he does with a most copious and 
 unsparing hand. The English journalist good-naturedly 
 lets you into the secret both of his own affairs and 
 those of his neighbours. A young lady, on the other 
 side of Temple Bar, cannot be seen at her glass for 
 half a day together, but Mr. Bickerstaff takes due 
 notice of it ; and he has the first intelligence of the 
 symptoms of the belle passion appearing in any young 
 gentleman at the west end of the town. The departures 
 and arrivals of widows with handsome jointures, either 
 to bury their grief in the country^ or to procure a 
 second husband in town, are regularly recorded in his 
 pages. He is well acquainted with the celebrated beau- 
 ties of the preceding age at the Court of Charles II : 
 and the old gentleman (as he feigns himself) often 
 grows romantic in recounting '^'^the disastrous strokes 
 which his youth suffered" from the glances of their 
 bright eyes, and their unaccountable caprices. In 
 particular, he dwells with a secret satisfaction on the 
 recollection of one of his mistresses, who left him for a 
 richer rival, and whose constant reproach to her husband, 
 on occasion of any quarrel between them, was '' I, that 
 might have married the famous Mr. Bickerstaff, to be 
 treated in this manner ! " The club at the Trumpet 
 consists of a set of persons almost as well worth know- 
 ing as himself. The cavalcade of the justice of the 
 peace, the knight of the shire, the country squire, and 
 the young gentleman, his nephew, who came to wait 
 on him at his chambers, in such form and ceremony, 
 seem not to have settled the order of tlieir precedence 
 to this hour ; and I should hope that the upholsterer
 
 124 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 and his companions, wlio used to sun themselves in the 
 Green Park, and who broke their rest and fortunes to 
 maintain the balance of power in Eui-ope, stand as fair 
 a chance for immortality as some modern politicians. 
 Mr. BickerstafF himself is a gentleman and a scholar, 
 a humorist and a man of the world, with a great deal 
 of nice easy naivete about him. If he walks out and is 
 caught in a shower of rain, he makes amends for this 
 unlucky accident by a criticism on the shower in Virgil, 
 and concludes with a burlesque copy of vei'ses on a city 
 shower. He entertains us, when he dates from his own 
 apartment, with a quotation from Plutarch, or a moral 
 reflection ; from the Grecian coffee-house with politics, 
 and from Will's, or the Temple, with the poets and 
 players, the beaux and men of wit and pleasure about 
 town. In reading the pages of the " Tatler," we seem as 
 if suddenly carried back to the age of Queen Anne, of 
 toupees and full-bottomed periwigs. Tlie whole appear- 
 ance of our dress and manners undergoes a delightful 
 metamorphosis. We are surprised with the rustling 
 of hoops, and the glittering of paste buckles. The 
 beaux and the belles are of a quite different species 
 from what they are at present ; we distinguish the 
 dappers, the smarts, and the pretty fellows, as they 
 pass by Mr. Lilly's shop-windows in the Strand ; we 
 are introduced to Betterton and Mrs. Oldfield behind 
 the scenes ; are made familiar with the persons and 
 performances of Mr. Penkethman and Mr. Bullock ; 
 we listen to a dispute at a tavern on the merits of the 
 Duke of Marlborough, or Marshal Turenne ; or are 
 present at the lirst rehearsal of a play by Vanbrugh, or 
 the reading of a new poem by Mr. Pope. Tlie privilege 
 of thus virtually transporting ourselves to past times, 
 is even greater than tliat of visiting distant places in 
 reality. London a liundred years ago would be much 
 better worth seeing than Paris at the present moment. 
 It may be said, that all this is to be found, in the 
 same or a greater degree, in the ''Spectator." For 
 myself, I do not think so ; or, at least, there is in the 
 last work a much greater proportion of commonplace
 
 THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS 125 
 
 matter. I liave^ on this account, always preferred the 
 " Tatler " to the " Spectator." Whether it is owing to 
 my liaving been earlier or better acquainted with the 
 one than the other, my pleasure in reading these two 
 admirable works is not at all in proportion to their 
 comparative reputation. Tlie " Tatler '' contains only 
 half the number of volumes, and, I will venture to say, 
 at least an equal quantity of sterling wit and sense. 
 "The first spriglitly runnings" are there — it has 
 more of the original spirit, more of the freshness and 
 stamp of nature. The indications of character and 
 strokes of humour are more true and frequent ; the 
 reflections that suggest themselves arise more from 
 the occasion, and are less spun out into regular disser- 
 tations. They are more like the remarks which occur 
 in sensible conversation, and less like a lecture. Some- 
 thing is left to the understanding of the reader. Steele 
 seems to have gone into his closet chiefly to set down 
 what he observed out of doors. Addison seems to 
 have spent most of his time in his study, and to have 
 spun out and wire-drawn the hints, which he borrowed 
 from Steele, or took from nature, to the utmost. I 
 am far from wishing to depreciate Addison's talents, 
 but I am anxious to do justice to Steele, who was, 
 I think, upon the whole, a less artificial and more 
 original writer. The humorous descriptions of Steele 
 resemble loose sketches, or fragments of a comedy ; 
 those of Addison are rather comments, or ingenious 
 paraphrases, on the genuine text. The characters of 
 the club not only in the "Tatler," but in the "Spec- 
 tator," were drawn by Steele. That of Sir Roger de 
 Coverley is among the number. Addison has, however, 
 gained himself immortal honour by his manner of 
 filling up this last character. Who is there that can 
 forget, or be insensible to, the inimitable, nameless 
 graces, and varied traits of nature and of old Eng- 
 lish character, in it — to his unpretending virtues and 
 amiable weaknesses — to his modesty, generosity, hos- 
 pitality, and eccentric whims — to the respect of his 
 neighbours, and the afi'ection of his domestics — to his
 
 12(5 THE ENGLISH COMIC AVIU'IERS 
 
 uaywanl, hopeless, secret passion t\n- liis fair enemy, 
 tlie widow, in wliich there is more of real romance and 
 true delicacy than in a tliousand tales of kniglit- 
 errantry— (we perceive the liectic fliisli of his cheek, 
 the faltering of liis tongue in speaking of her hewitch- 
 ing airs and "the whiteness of her hand")— to tlie 
 havoc he makes among the game in his neiglihourhood 
 — to his speech from the hench, to sliow the "Spec- 
 tator" what is tliought of him in the country — to his 
 unwillingness to be put up as a sign-post, and his 
 having his own likene'^s tTirned into the Saracen's 
 head — to his gentle reproof of the baggage of a gipsy 
 
 that tells liim "he has a widow in his line of life" 
 
 to his doubts as to the existence of witchcraft, and 
 protection of reputed witches — to his account of the 
 family pictures, and his clioice of a chaplain— to his 
 falling asleep at cluirch, and liis reproof of John 
 AV'illiams, as soon as he recovered from his nap, 
 for talking in sermon-time. The characters of WilL 
 \Yimble and A\'ill Honeycomb are not a whit behind 
 their friend. Sir Roger, in delicacy and felicity. The 
 delightful simplicity and good-humoured officiousness 
 in the one are set off by the graceful affectation and 
 courtly pretension in the other. How long since I 
 first became acquainted with these two characters in 
 the "Spectator"! What old-foshioned friends they 
 seem, and yet I am not tired of them, like so many 
 other friends, nor tliey of me ! How airy these abstrac- 
 tions of the poet's })en stream over the dawn of our 
 acquaintance with human life ! how they glance their 
 fairest colours on the prospect before us ! how pure 
 they remain in it to the last, like the rainbow in the 
 evening cloud, which the rude hand of time can 
 neither soil nor dissipate ! What a pity that we can- 
 not find the reality, and yet if we did, the dream would 
 be over. I once thought I knew a Will Wimble and a 
 Will Honeycomb, but they turned out but indifferently : 
 the originals in the "Spectator" still read word for 
 word, the same that they always did. We have only 
 to turn to the page, and find them where we left
 
 THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS 127 
 
 them ! — Many of the most exquisite pieces in the 
 " Tatler/' it is to he ohserved, are Addison's, as the 
 " Court of Honour," and the " Personification of 
 Musical Instruments," with almost all those papers 
 tliat form regular sets or series. I do not know 
 whether the picture of the family of an old college 
 acquaintance, in the " Tatler," where the children 
 run to let Mr. BickerstaiF in at the door, and where 
 the one that loses the race that way, turns hack to tell 
 the father that lie is come ; with the nice gradation of 
 incredulity in the little boy, who is got into " Guy 
 of AV'arwick," and tlie "Seven Champions," and who 
 shakes his head at tlie improbability of " ^Esop's 
 Fables," is Steele's or Addison's, thougli I believe it 
 belongs to the former. ^ The account of the two 
 sisters, one of whom held up lier head higher than 
 ordinary, from having on a pair of flowered garters, 
 and that of the married lady wlio complained to the 
 " Tatler " of the neglect of her husband, with her 
 answers to some home questions that were put to her, 
 are unquestionably Steele's. If the "Tatler" is not 
 inferior to the "Spectator" as a record of manners 
 and character, it is very superior to it in the interest 
 of many of the stories. Several of the incidents 
 related there by Steele have never been surpassed in 
 the heart-rending pathos of private distress. 1 might 
 refer to those of the lover and his mistress, \Alien the 
 theatre, in which tliey were, caught fire ; of the bride- 
 groom, who by accident kills liis bride on the day of 
 their marriage ; the story of Mr. Eustace and his wife ; 
 and the fine dream about his owa mistress when a 
 youth. What lias given its superior reputation to the 
 
 1 It is Steele's ; and the whole paper (No. 95), observes Mr. 
 Leigh Hunt, is in his most delightful manner. The dream 
 about the mistress, however, is given to Addison by the editors, 
 and the general style of that number is his; though, from the 
 story's being related personally of Bickerstaff, who is also repre- 
 sented as having been at that time in the army, we conclude 
 it to have originally come from Steele, perhaps in the course 
 of conversation. The particular incident is much more like a 
 story of his than of Addison's.
 
 128 THE ENGLISH COMIC WIUTEIIS 
 
 " Spectator," is the greater gravity of its pretensions, 
 its moral dissertations and critical reasonings, by 
 which 1 confess myself less edified than by other 
 things, which are tliought more liglitly of. Systems 
 and opinions change, but nature is always true. It 
 is the extremely moral and didactic tone of the 
 "Spectator" which makes us apt to think of Addison 
 (according to Mandeville's sarcasm) as "a parson in 
 a tie-wig." Many of liis moral Essays are, liowever, 
 exquisitely beautiful and happy. Such are the reflec- 
 tions on cheerfulness, those in Westminster Abbey, 
 on the Royal Exchange, and particularly some very 
 affecting ones on the death of a young lady in the 
 fourth volume. These, it must be allowed, are the 
 perfection of elegant sermonizing. Ilis critical Essays 
 are not so good. I prefer Steele's occasional selection 
 of beautiful poetical passages, without any affectation 
 of analysing their beauties, to Addison's fine-spun 
 theories. The best criticism in the '^ Spectator," that 
 on the Cartoons of Raphael, of which Mr. Fuseli has 
 availed himself with great spirit in his Lectures, is by 
 Steele.^ I owed this acknowledgment to a writer who 
 has so often put me in good humour with myself, and 
 everything about me, when few things else could, and 
 when the tomes of casuistry and ecclesiastical his- 
 tory, with which the little duodecimo volumes of the 
 "Tatler" were overwhelmed and surrounded, in the 
 only library to which I had access when a boy, had 
 tried their tranquillizing effects upon me in vain. I 
 had not long ago in my hands, by favour of a friend, 
 an original copy of the quarto edition of the "Tatler," 
 with a list of the subscribers. It is curious to see 
 some names there which we should hardly think of 
 (that of Sir Isaac NeAvton is among them), and also to 
 observe the degree of interest excited by those of the 
 different persons, which is not determined according 
 
 1 The antithetical style and verbal paradoxes which Burke 
 was so fond of, in which the epithet is a seeming contradiction 
 to the substantive, such as " proud submission" and " dignified 
 obedience," are, I think, first to be found in the "Tatler."
 
 THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS 129 
 
 to the rules of the Heralds' College. One literary 
 name lasts as long as a whole race of heroes and their 
 descendants ! The " Guardian," which followed the 
 " Spectator," was, as may be supposed, inferior to it. 
 
 The dramatic and conversational turn which forms 
 the distinguishing feature and greatest charm of the 
 "Spectator" and "Tatler," is quite lost in the 
 " Rambler," by Dr. Johnson. There is no reflected 
 light tlirown on human life from an assumed character, 
 nor any direct one from a display of the author's own. 
 The " Tatler " and " Spectator " are, as it were, made 
 up of notes and memorandums of the events and 
 incidents of the day, with finished studies after nature, 
 and characters fresh from the life, which the writer 
 moralizes upon, and turns to account as they come 
 before him. The "Rambler" is a collection of moral 
 Essays, or scholastic theses, written on set subjects, 
 and of which the individual characters and incidents 
 are merely artificial illustrations, brought in to give a 
 pretended relief to the dryness of didactic discussion. 
 The " Rambler " is a splendid and imposing comniou- 
 place-book of general topics, and rhetorical declama- 
 tion on the conduct and business of human life. In 
 this sense, there is hardly a reflection that had been 
 suggested on such subjects which is not to be found in 
 this celebrated work, and there is, perhaps, hardly a 
 reflection to be found in it which had not been already 
 suggested and developed by some other author, or in 
 the common course of conversation. The mass of 
 intellectual wealth here heaped together is innnense, 
 but it is rather the result of gradual accumulation, 
 the produce of the general intellect, labouring in the 
 mine of knowledge and reflection, than dug out of the 
 quarry, and dragged into the light by the industry 
 and sagacity of a single mind. I am not here saying 
 that Dr. Johnson was a man without originality, com- 
 pared with the ordinary run of men's minds, but he 
 was not a man of original thought or genius, in 
 the sense in which Montaigne or Lord Bacon was. 
 He opened no new vein of precious ore, nor did he 
 
 I
 
 130 THE EiXGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 light upon any single pel)liles of uncommon size and 
 unrivalled lustre. \Ve seldom meet with anything to 
 "give us pause"; he does not set us thinking for the 
 first time. His reflections present themselves like 
 reminiscences ; do not disturb the ordinary march of 
 our thoughts ; arrest our attention by the stateliness 
 of their appearance^, and the costliness of their garb, 
 but pass on and mingle witli the throng of our impres- 
 sions. After closing the volumes of the " Rambler," 
 there is nothing that we remember as a new truth 
 gained to the mind, nothing indelibly stamped upon 
 the memory ; nor is there any passage that we wish to 
 turn to as embodying any known principle or observa- 
 tion, with such force and beauty that justice can only 
 be done to the idea in the author's own words. Such, 
 for instance, are many of the passages to be found 
 in Burke, which shine by their own light, belong to 
 no class, have neither equal nor counterpart, and of 
 which we say that no one but the author could have 
 written them ! There is neitlier the same boldness of 
 design nor mastery of execution in Johnson. In the 
 one, the spark of genius seems to have met with its 
 congenial matter : the shaft is sped : the forked light- 
 ning dresses up the face of nature in ghastly smiles, 
 and the loud thunder rolls far away from tlie ruin 
 that is made. Dr. Johnson's style, on the contrary, 
 resembles rather the rumbling of mimic thunder at 
 one of our theatres ; and the light he throws upon a 
 subject is like the dazzling effect of phosphorus, or an 
 ignis fatuus of words. There is a wide difference, how- 
 ever, between perfect originality and perfect common- 
 place : neither ideas nor expressions are trite or vulgar 
 because they are not quite new. They are valuable, 
 and ought to be repeated, if they have not become 
 quite common ; and Johnson's style both of reasoning 
 and imagery holds the middle rank between startling 
 novelty and vapid commonplace. Johnson has as 
 much originality of thinking as Addison ; but then 
 he wants lais familiarity of illustration, knowledge of 
 character, and delightful humour. — What most dis-
 
 THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS 131 
 
 tinguishes Dr. Johnson from other writers, is the 
 pomp and uniformity of his style. All his periods are 
 cast in the same mould, are of the same size and shape, 
 and consequently have little fitness to the variety of 
 things he professes to treat of His subjects are 
 familiar, but the author is always upon stilts. He 
 has neither ease nor simplicity, and his efforts at play- 
 fulness, in part, remind one of the lines in Milton : — 
 
 ' ' The elephant 
 
 To make them sport wreath'd his proboscis lithe." 
 
 His " Letters from Correspondents," in particular, are 
 more pompous and unwieldy than what he writes in 
 his own person. This want of relaxation and variety 
 of manner has, I think, after the first effects of novelty 
 and surprise were over, been prejudicial to the matter. 
 It takes from the general power, not only to please, 
 but to instruct. ITie monotony of style produces an 
 apparent monotony of ideas. WhatisTeally striking and 
 valuable, is lost in the vain ostentation and circumlocu- 
 tion of the expression ; for when we find the same pains 
 and pomp of diction bestowed upon the most trifling as 
 upon the most impoi-tant parts of a sentence or discourse, 
 we grow tired of distinguishing between pretension and 
 reality, and are disposed to confound the tinsel and 
 bombast of the phraseology with want of weight in the 
 thoughts. Thus, from the imposing and oracular nature 
 of the style, people are tempted at first to imagine that 
 our author's speculations are all wisdom and profundity : 
 till having found out their mistake in some instances, 
 they suppose that there is nothing but commonplace 
 in them, concealed under verbiage and pedantry ; and^ 
 in both they are wrong. The fault of Dr. Johnson's 
 style is, that it reduces all things to the same artificial 
 aiid unmeaning level. It destroys all shades of differ- 
 ence, the association between words and things. It is 
 a perpetual paradox and innovation. He condescends 
 to the familiar till we are ashamed of our interest in it : 
 he expands the little till it looks big. " If he were to 
 write a fable of little fishes," as Goldsmith said of him,
 
 132 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 '' he would make them speak like great whales." Wb 
 can no more distinguish the most familiar objects in his 
 (lescri[)tions of them, than we can a well-known face 
 inidcr a huge painted mask. The structure of his 
 sentences, which was his own invention, and which has 
 ])een generally imitated since his time, is a species of 
 rhyming in prose, where one clause answers to another 
 in measure and (juantity, like the tagging of syllables 
 at the end of a verse ; the close of the period follows as 
 mechanically as the oscillation of a pendulum, the sense 
 is balanced with the sound ; each sentence, re\'olving 
 round its centre of gravity, is contained within itself 
 like a couplet, and each paragraph foi-ms itself into a 
 stanza. Dr. Johnson is also a complete balance-master 
 in the topics oT'morality. He nev'jer mi courages hope, 
 but he counteracts it by fear ; he never~eIicTfs^a truth, 
 but he suggests some otijection in answer to it. He 
 seizes and alternately quits the clue of reason, lest it 
 should involve him in the labyrinths of endless error : 
 he wants confidence in himself and his fellows. He 
 dares not trust himself witli the inmiediate impressions 
 of things, for fear of compromising his dignity ; or 
 follow them into their consequences, for fear of com- 
 mitting his prejudices. His timidity is the result, not 
 of ignorance, but of morbid apprehension. " He turns 
 the great circle, and is still at home." No advance 
 is made by his writings in any sentiment, or mode 
 of reasoning. Out of the pale of established autho- 
 rity and received dogmas, all is sceptical, loose, and 
 desultory : he seems in imagination to strengthen the 
 dominion of prejudice, as he weakens and dissipates 
 that of reason ; and round the rock of faith and power, 
 on the edge of which he slumbers blindfold and uneasy, 
 the waves and billows of uncertain and dangerous 
 opinion roar and heave for evermore. His " llasselas^' 
 is the most melancholy and debilitating moral specula- 
 , tion that e\'er was put forth. Doul)tful of the faculties 
 of his mind, as of his organs of vision, Johnson trusted 
 only to his feelings and his fears. He cultivated a 
 belief in witches as an out-guard to the evidences of
 
 THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS 133 
 
 religion ; and abused Milton^ and patronized Lauder, 
 in spite of his aversion to liis countrymen, as a step to 
 secure the existing establishment in Church and State. 
 'Iliis was neither right feeling nor sound logic. 
 
 The most triumphant record of the talents and char- 
 acter of Johnson is to be found in Bosv^U's life of 
 liim. Tlie man was superior to the autlTor, M^hen he 
 threw asTEte'liTspen, which he regarded as an encum- 
 brance, he became not only learned and thought- 
 ful, but acute, witty, humorous, natural, honest ; 
 hearty and determined, " the king of good fellows and 
 wale of old men." There are as many smart repar- 
 tees, profound remarks, and keen invectives to be 
 found in Boswell's ''inventory of all he said," as are 
 recorded of any celebrated man. The life and dramatic 
 play of his conversation forms a contrast to his written 
 works. His natural powers and undisguised opinions 
 were called out in convivial intercourse. In public, 
 he practised with the foils : in private, he unsheathed 
 the sword of controversy, and it was " the Ebro's 
 temper." The eagerness of opposition roused him 
 from his natural sluggishness and acquired timidity ; 
 he returned blow for blow ; and whether the trial 
 were of argument or wit, none of his rivals could 
 boast much of the encounter. Burke seems to have 
 been the only person who had a chance -with him ; 
 and it is the unpardonable sin of Boswell's work, that 
 he has purposely omitted their combats of strength 
 and skill. Goldsmith^ asked, "Does he wind hito a 
 subject like a serpent, as Burke does } " And when 
 exhausted with sickness, he himself said, " If that 
 fellow Burke were here now, he would kill me." It 
 is to be observed, that Jolmson's colloquial style was 
 as blunt, direct, and downright, as his style of studied 
 composition was involved and circuitous. As when 
 Topham, Beauclerc, and Langton knocked him up at 
 his chambers at three in the morning, and he came to 
 tlie door with the poker in his hand, but seeing them, 
 exclaimed, " What ! is it you, my lads .'' Then I'll have 
 a frisk with you ! " and he afterwards reproaclies
 
 134 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 Lan^toii, wlio was a literarj' milksop^ for leaviiiff tlieni 
 to go to an eiigagcniont " with some un-idfud girls." 
 What words to come from the mouth of the great 
 moralist and lexicograplier ! His good deeds were as 
 many as his good sayings. His domestic habits, his 
 tenderness to servants, and readiness to ol)lige his 
 friends ; the quantity of strong tea that he drank to 
 keep down sad thoughts ; his many labours reluctantly 
 begun, and irresolutely laid aside ; his honest acknow- 
 ledgment of his own, and indulgence to tlie weak- 
 nesses of others ; his throwing himself back in the 
 post-chaise with Boswell, and saying, "Now 1 think I 
 am a good-humoured fellow," though nobody thought 
 him so, and yet he was ; his quitting the society of 
 Garrick and his actresses, and his reason for it ; his 
 dining with AV'ilkes, and his kindness to Goldsmith ; 
 his sitting with the young ladies on his knee at the 
 Mitre, to give thorn good advice, in which situation, 
 if not explained, he might be taken for Falstaff ; and 
 last and noblest, his carrying the unfortunate victim 
 of disease and dissipation on his back up through 
 Fleet Street (an act which realizes the parable of tiie 
 good Samaritan) — all these, and innumei'able others, 
 endear him to the reader, and must be remembered 
 to his lasting honour. He had faults, but they lie 
 buried with him. He had his prejudices and his 
 intolerant feelings, but he suffered enough in the con- 
 flict of his own mind with them ; for if no man can be 
 happy in the free exercise of his reason, no wise man 
 can be happy without it. His were not time-serving, 
 heartless, hypocritical prejudices ; but deep, inwoven, 
 not to be rooted out but with life and hope, which he 
 found from old habit necessary to his own peace of 
 mind, and thought so to the peace of mankind. I do 
 not hate, but love him for them. They were between 
 himself and his conscience, and should be left to that 
 higher tribunal 
 
 "Where they in trembling hope repose, 
 The bosom of his father and his God."
 
 THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS 135 
 
 In a word, he has left behind him few wiser or better 
 men. 
 
 The herd of his imitators showed what he was by 
 their disproportionate effects. The Periodical Essay- 
 ists that succeeded the '' Rambler " are, and deserve 
 to be, little read at present. " Tlie Adventurer," by 
 Hawksworth, is completely trite and vapid, aping all 
 tlie faults of Johnson's style, without anything to atone 
 for tliem. The sentences are often absolutely unmean- 
 ing ; and one-half of each might regularly be left 
 blank. ''The World," and ''Connoisseur," which 
 followed, are a little better ; and in the last of these 
 there is one good idea, that of a man in indifferent 
 health who judges of every one's title to respect from 
 their possession of this blessing, and bows to a sturdy 
 beggar with sound limbs and a florid complexion, 
 while he turns his back upon a lord who is a valetudi- 
 narian. 
 
 Goldsmith's "Citizen of the World," like all his 
 works, bears the stamp of the author's mind. It does 
 not "go about to cozen reputation without the stamp 
 of merit." He is more observing, more original, more 
 natural and picturesque than Johnson. His work is 
 written on the model of the " Persian Letters," and 
 contrives to give an abstracted and somewhat perplexing 
 view of things, by opposing foreign prepossessions to 
 our o^vn, and thus stripping objects of their customary 
 disguises. W^hether truth is elicited in this collision 
 of contrary absurdities, I do not know ; but I con- 
 fess the process is too ambiguous and full of intricacy 
 to be very amusing to my plain understanding. For 
 light summer reading it is like walking in a garden V 
 full of traps and pitfalls. It necessarily gives rise to 
 paradoxes, and there are some very bold ones in the 
 " Essays," which would suliject an author less estab- 
 lished to no very agreeable sort of censuru literaria. 
 Tlius the Chinese philosopher exclaims very unadvisedly, 
 "The bonzes and priests of all religions keep up 
 superstition and imposture ; all reformations begin 
 with the laity." Goldsmith, however, was staunch
 
 136 THE ENGLISH COiMlC WRITERS 
 
 in his practical creed, and might bolt speculative 
 extravagances with impunity. There is a striking 
 difference in this respect between him and Addison, 
 wlio, if lie attacked autliority, took care to have 
 common sense on his side, and never hazarded any- 
 thing offensive to the feelings of others, or on the 
 strength of his own discretional opinion. There is 
 anotlier inconvenience in this assumption of an exotic 
 character and tone of sentiment, that it produces an 
 inconsistency between the knowledge which the indivi- 
 dual has time to acquire and which the author is bound 
 to communicate. Thus tlie Chinese has not been in 
 England three days before he is acquainted with tlie 
 characters of the three countries which compose this 
 kingdom, and describes them to his friend at Canton 
 l)y extracts from the newspapers of each meti-opolis. 
 The nationality of Scotchmen is thus ridiculed : — 
 
 " Edinburgh. — We are positive when we say that Sandurs 
 Macgregor, lately executed for horse-stealing, is not a native 
 of Scotland, but born at Carrickfergus." 
 
 Now this is very good ; but how should our Cliinese 
 philosopher find it out by instinct.'' Beau Tibbs, a 
 prominent character in this little work, is the best 
 comic sketch since the time of Addison ; unrivalled in 
 his finery, his vanity, and his poverty. 
 
 I have only to mention tlie names of the " Lounger " 
 and the '^' JMirror," which are ranked by the author's 
 admirers with Sterne for sentiment, and with Addison 
 for liumour. I shall not enter into that ; but I know 
 that the story of " La Roche " is not like the story of 
 " Le Fevre," nor one hundredth part so good. Do I 
 say this from prejudice to the author .'' No ; for I have 
 read his novels. Of "The Man of the World" I can- 
 not think so favourably as some others ; nor shall 1 
 here dwell on the picturesque and romantic beauties of 
 ''^ Julia de Roubigne," the early favourite of the author 
 of '' Rosamond Gray " ; but of the " Man of Feeling" 
 I would speak with grateful recollections ; nor is it
 
 THE PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS 137 
 
 possible to forget the sensitive, irresolute, interesting 
 >|larley_ ]_aiid that lone figure of Miss VKa-ltoia in it, 
 thaOioats in the horizon, dim and^ethereal, tlie day- 
 dream of her lover's youtliful fancy — better, far better, 
 than all the realities of life !
 
 138 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 LECTURE VI 
 
 ON THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS 
 
 There is an exclamation in one of Gray's letters — ''Be 
 mine to read eternal new romances of Marivaiix and 
 Crebillon ! " If I did not utter a similar aspiration at 
 the conclusion of tlie last new novel which I read (I 
 would not give oifence by being more particular as to the 
 name) it was not from any want of aifection for the class 
 of writing to which it belongs ; for witliout going so far 
 as the celebrated French philosopher, who thought that 
 more was to be learnt from good novels and romances 
 than from the gravest treatises on history and morality, 
 yet there are few works to which I am oftener tempted 
 to turn for profit or delight, than to the standard pro- 
 ductions in this species of composition. We find there 
 a close imitation of men and manners ; we see the very 
 web and texture of society as it really exists, and as we 
 meet with it when we come into the world. If poetry 
 has " something more divine in it," this savours more 
 of humanity. We are brought acquainted with the 
 motives and characters of mankind, imbibe our notions 
 of virtue and vice from practical examples, and are 
 taught a knowledge of the world through the airy 
 medium of romance. As a record of past manners and 
 opinions, too, such writings atford the best and fullest 
 information. For example, I should be at a loss where 
 to find in any authentic documents of the same period 
 so satisfactorj?^ an account of the general state of society, 
 and of moral, political, and religious feeling in the 
 reign of George II as we meet with in the '^ Adventures 
 of Joseph Andrews " and liis friend Mr. Abraham 
 Adams. This work, indeed, I take to be a perfect piece 
 of statistics in its kind. In looking into any regular
 
 THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS 139 
 
 history of that period, into a learned and eloquent 
 charge to a grand jury or the clergy of a diocese, or 
 into a tract on controversial divinity, we should hear 
 only of the ascendancy of the Protestant succession, the 
 horrors of Popery, the triumph of civil and religious 
 liherty, the wisdom and moderation of the sovereign, 
 the happiness of the subject, and the flourishing state 
 of manufactures and commerce. But if we really wish 
 to know what all these fine-sounding names come to, 
 we cannot do better than turn to the works of those 
 who, having no other object than to imitate nature, 
 could only hope for success from the fidelity of their 
 pictures ; and were bound (in self-defence) to reduce 
 the boasts of vague theorists and the exaggerations of 
 angry disputants to the mortifying standard of reality. 
 Extremes are said to meet ; and the works of imagina- 
 tion, as they are called, sometimes come the nearest to 
 truth and nature. Fielding, in speaking on this subject, 
 and vindicating the use and dignity of the style of 
 writing in which he excelled against the loftier pre- 
 tensions of professed historians, says, " that in their 
 productions nothing is true but the names and dates, 
 whereas in his everything is true but the names and 
 dates." If so, he has the advantage on his side. / 
 
 I will here confess, however, that I am a little pre- V 
 judiced on the point in question ; and that the effect of 
 many fine speculations has been lost upon me, from an 
 early familiarity with the most striking passages in the 
 work to which I have just alluded. Thus nothing can 
 be more captivating than the description somewhere 
 given by Mr. Burke of the iiidisaoluble connexion.-, 
 between learning and nobility, and of tlie respect 
 universally paid by wealth to piety and morals. But 
 the effectof this ideal representation has always been 
 spoiled by my recollection of Parson Adams sitting ^ 
 over his cup of ale in Sir Thomas Booby's kitchen. 
 Echard "On the Contempt of the Clergy" is, in like 
 manner, a very good book, and " worthy of all accep- 
 tation"; but somehow an unlucky impression of the 
 realitv of Parson Trulliber involuntarilv checks the
 
 140 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 emotions of respect to which it might otherwise give 
 rise ; while^ on the other hand, the lecture wliicli Lady 
 Hoohy reads to Lawyer Scout on tlie immediate expul- 
 sion of Joseph and Fanny fi-om the parisli, casts no 
 very favourable light on the flattering accounts of our 
 practical juris])rudence wliich are to he found in Black- 
 .stiine or Dc Lolme. The most moral writers, after all, 
 are those who do not pretend to inculcate any moral. 
 The pi-ofossed moralist almost unavoidably degenerates 
 into the partisan of a system ; and the philosopher is 
 too apt to warp the evidence to his own jturpose. But 
 the painter of manners gives the facts of Imman natiu'e, 
 and leaves us to draw the inference ; if we are not able 
 to do this, or do it ill, at least it is our own fault. 
 
 The first-rate writers in this class, of course, are 
 few ; but those few we may reckon among the greatest 
 ornaments and best benefactors of our kind. 'Jliere 
 is a' certain set of them avIio, as it were, take their 
 rank by the side of reality, and are appealed to as 
 evidence on all questions concerning human nature. 
 Tlie principal of these are Cervantes and Le Sage, who 
 may be considered as having been naturalized among 
 ourselves ; and, of native English growth, Fielding, 
 Smollett, Richardson, and Sterne.^ As this is a 
 department of criticism which deserves more atten- 
 tion than has been usually bestowed upon it, I shall 
 here venture to recur (not from choice but necessity) 
 to what I have said upon it in a well-knoA\ai periodical 
 publication ; ^ and endeavour to contribute my mite 
 towards settling the standard of excellence, both as to 
 degree and kind, in these several writers. 
 
 I shall begin with the history of the renowned " Don 
 Quixote de la Mancha," who presents something more 
 stately, more romantic, and at the same time more real 
 
 1 It is not to be fo-gotten that the author of " Robinson 
 Crusoe" was also an Englishman. His other works, such as 
 the " Life of Colonel Jack," &c. , are of the same cast, and 
 leave an impression on the mind more like that of things than 
 words. 
 
 2 The Edinburgh Review.
 
 THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS 141 
 
 to the imaginatiou, than any other hero upon record. 
 His lineaments, his accoutrements, his pasjteboard 
 vizor, are familiar to us ; and Mambrino's helmet still 
 glTtters in the sun ! We not only feel the greatest 
 love and veneration for the knight himself, but a 
 certain respect for all those connected with him, the 
 curate and Master Nicolas the barber, Sanclio and 
 Dapple, and even for Rosinante's leanness and his 
 errors. — Perhaps there is no work which combines so 
 much whimsical invention with such an air of truth. 
 Its popularfty is almost unequalled ; and yet its merits 
 have not been sufficiently understood. Tlie story is 
 the least part of them ; though the blunders of Sancho, 
 and the unlucky adventures of his master, are what 
 naturally catch the attention of the majority of readers. 
 The pathos and dignity of the sentiments are often 
 disguised under the ludicrousness of the subject, and 
 provoke laughter when they might well draw tears. 
 The character of Don Quixote himself is one of the 
 most perfect disinterestedness. He is an enthusiast 
 of the most amiable kind ; of a nature equally open, 
 gentle, and generous ; a lover of truth and justice ; 
 and one who had brooded ov^er the fine dreams of ^ 
 chivalry and romance, till they had robbed him of 
 himself, and cheated his brain into a belief of their 
 realit_v. There cannot be a greater mistake than to 
 consider '' Don Quixote " as a merely satirical work, or 
 as a vulgar attempt to explode "the long-forgotten 
 order of chivalry." Tliere could be no need to explode 
 what no longer existed. Besides, Cervantes himself 
 was a man of the most sanguine and enthusiastic 
 temperament ; and even through the crazed and 
 battered figure of the knight, the spirit of chivalry 
 shines out with undiminished lustre ; as if the author 
 had half-designed to revive tlie examples of past ages, 
 and once more " witch the world with noble horseman- 
 ship." Oh! if ever the mouldering flame of Spanish 
 liberty is destined to break forth, wrapping the tyrant 
 and the tyranny in one consuming blaze, that the 
 spark of generous sentiment and romantic enterprise.
 
 142 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 from which it must he kindled, has not heen quite 
 extinguished, will perhaps be owing to thee, Cervantes, 
 and to thy " Don Quixote" ! 
 
 The character of Sancho is not more admirable in 
 itself, than as a relief to that of the kniu;lit. The con- 
 trast is as picturesque and. striking as that between the 
 figures of Rosinante and Dapi)le. Never was there so 
 comj)lete a purfie qiiarrt'e: — they answer to one another 
 at all points. Nothing need surpass the truth of physi- 
 ognomy in the description of the master and man, both 
 as to body and mind ; the one lean and tall, the other 
 round and short ; the one heroical arul courteous, the 
 other selfish and servile ; the one full of high-flown 
 fancies, the other a bag of proverbs ; the one always 
 starting some romantic scheme, the other trying to 
 keep to the safe side of custom and tradition. Tlie 
 gradual ascendancy, however, obtained by Don Quixote 
 over Sancho, is as finely managed as it is characteristic. 
 Credulity and a love of the marvellous are as natui-al 
 to ignorance as selfishness and cunning. Sancho by 
 degrees becomes a kind of lay-brother of the order ; 
 acquires a taste for adventures in his own way, and is 
 made all but an entire convert by the discovery of tlie 
 hundred crowns in one of his most comfortless journeys. 
 Towards the end, his regret at being forced to give 
 up the pursuit of knight-errantry, almost equals his 
 master's ; and he seizes the proposal of Don Quixote 
 for them to turn shepherds with the greatest avidity 
 — still applying it in his own fashion ; for while the 
 Don is ingeniously torturing the names of his humble 
 acquaintance into classical terminations, and contriving 
 scenes of gallantry and song, Sancho exclaims, " Oh, 
 what delicate wooden spoons shall I carve ! what 
 crumbs and cream shall I devour ! "—forgetting, in 
 his milk and fruits, the pullets and geese at Camacho's 
 wedding. 
 
 This intuitive perception of the hidden analogies of 
 things, or, as it may be called, this instinct of the 
 imagination, is, perhaps, what stamps the character of 
 genius on the productions of art more than any other
 
 THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS U3 
 
 circumstance : for it works unconsciously^ like nature^ 
 and receives its impressions from a kind of inspira- 
 tion. There is as much of this indistinct keeping and 
 involuntary unity of purpose in Cervantes as in any 
 author whatever. Something of the same unsettled^ 
 rambling Immour extends itself to all the subordinate 
 parts and characters of the work. Thus we find the 
 curate confidentially informing Don Quixote, that if he 
 could get the ear of the government, he has something 
 of considerable importance to propose for the good of 
 the State ; and our adventurer afterwards (in the 
 course of his peregrinations) meets with a young 
 gentleman who is a candidate for poetical honours, 
 with a mad lover, a forsaken damsel, a Mahometan 
 lady converted to the Christian faith, &c. — all deline- 
 ated with the same truth, wildness, and delicacy of 
 fancy. The whole work breathes that air of romance, 
 that aspiration after imaginary good, that indescribable 
 longing after something more than we possess, that in 
 all places and in all conditions of life, 
 
 still prompts the eternal sigh, 
 
 For which we wish to live, or dare to die ! " 
 
 Tlie leading characters in " Don Quixote " are strictly 
 individuals ; that is, they do not so much belong to, 
 as fornl a class by themselves. In other words, the 
 actions and manners of the chief dramatis personce 
 do not arise out of the actions and manners of those 
 around them, or the situation of life in which they 
 are placed, but out of the peculiar dispositions of 
 the persons themselves, operated upon by certain 
 impulses of caprice and accident. Yet these impulses 
 are so true to nature, and their operation so exactly 
 described, that we not only recognize the fidelity of 
 the representation, but recognize it with all tlie 
 advantages of novelty superadded. Tliey are in the 
 best sense originals, namely, in the sense in which 
 Nature has her originals. They are unlike anything 
 we have seen before — may be said to be purely ideal ; 
 and yet identify themselves more readily with our
 
 144 THE ENGLISH COMIC VVIlirEIlS 
 
 imagination, and are retained more strongly in memory, 
 than perhaps any others : they are never lost in the 
 crowd. One test of the trutli of this ideal painting 
 is the number of allusions which " Don Quixote " lias 
 furnished to the whole of civilized Europe ; that is 
 to say, of appropriate cases and striking illustra- 
 tions of the universal principles of our nature. The 
 detached incidents and occasional descriptions of human 
 life are more familiar and obvious ; so that we have 
 nearly the same insight here given us into the char- 
 acters of innkeepers, barmaids, ostlers, and puppet- 
 show men, that we have in Fielding. There is a 
 much greater mixture, however, of the pathetic; and 
 sentimental with tlie quaint and humorous, than there 
 ever is in Fielding. I might instance the story of 
 the countryman whom Don Quixote and Sancho met 
 in their doubtful search after Dulcinea, driving his 
 mules to plough at break of day, and "singing the 
 ancient ballad of Roucesvalles " ! The episodes, which 
 are frequently introduced, are excellent, but liave, 
 upon the whole, been overrated. They derive their 
 interest from their connexion with the main story. 
 We are so pleased with that, that we are disposed to 
 receive pleasure from everything else. Compared, 
 for instance, with the serious tales in Boccaccio, they 
 are slight and somewhat superficial. That of Marcella, 
 the fair shepherdess, is, I think, the best. I shall 
 only add, that "Don Quixote" was, at the time it 
 was published, an entirely original work in its kind, 
 and that the author claims the highest honour which 
 can belong to one, that of being the inventor of 
 a new style of writing. I have never read his 
 " Galatea," nor his " Loves of Persiles and Sigis- 
 munda," though I have often meant to do it, and I 
 hope to do so yet. Perhaps there is a reason lurking 
 at the bottom of this dilatoriness : I am quite sure 
 the reading of these works could not make me think 
 higher of the author of " Don Quixote," and it might, 
 for a moment or two, make me think less. 
 
 There is another Spanish novel, "Guzman d'Alfa-
 
 THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS 145 
 
 rache/' nearly of the same age as " Don Quixote/' 
 and of great genius^ though it can hardly be ranked 
 as a novel or a work of imagination. It is a series 
 of strange, unconnected adventures, rather drily 
 told, hut accompanied by the most severe and 
 sarcastic commentary. The satire, the wit, the 
 eloquence, and reasoning, are of the most potent 
 kind : but they are didactic rather than dramatic. 
 They would suit a homily or a pasquinade as well 
 or better than a romance. Still there are in this 
 extraordinary book occasional sketches of character 
 and humorous descriptions, to which it would be 
 difficult to produce anything superior. This work, 
 which is hardly known in this country except by 
 name, has the credit, without any reason, of being 
 the original of "Gil Bias." Tliere is one incident 
 the same, that of the unsavoury ragout, which is 
 served up for supper at the inn'. In all other respects 
 these two works are the very reverse of each other, 
 both in their excellences and defects. — " Lazarillo 
 de Tormes " has been more read than the " Spanish 
 Rogue," and is a work more readable, on this account 
 among others, that it is contained in a duodecimo 
 instead of a folio volume. This, however, is long 
 enough, considering that it treats of only one subject, 
 that of eating, or rather the possibility of living 
 without eating. Famine is here framed into an art, 
 and feasting is banished far hence. The hero's time 
 and thoughts are taken up in a thousand shifts^ to 
 procure a dinner ; and that failing, in tampering 
 with his stomach till supper time, when being forced 
 to go supperless to bed, he comforts himself with 
 the hopes of a breakfast the next morning, of which 
 being again disappointed, he reserves his appetite for 
 a luncheon, and then has to stave it off again by 
 some meagre excuse or other till dinner ; and so on, 
 by a perpetual adjournment of this necessary pro- 
 cess, tlirough the four-and-twenty hours round. The 
 quantity of food proper to keep body and soul together 
 is reduced to a minimum; and the most uninviting 
 
 K
 
 146 THE ENGLISH COiMIC WRITERS 
 
 morsels with which Lazarillo meets once a week as 
 a godsend, are pampered into tlie most sumptuous 
 fare by a loni; course of inanition. The scene of this 
 novel could be laid nowhere so properly as in Spain, 
 tliat land of priestcraft and poverty, where hunger 
 seems to lie the ruling passion, and starving the 
 order of the day. 
 
 '"^Gil Bias" has, next to " Don Qui.xote," been more 
 generally read and admired than any other novel ; and 
 in one sense deservedly so : for it is at the head of 
 its class, though that class is very diiferent from, and 
 I should say inferior to the other. There is little 
 individual character in "Gil Bias." The author is a 
 describer of manners, and not of character. He does 
 not take the elements of human nature, and work them 
 up into new combinations (which is the excellence of 
 "Don Quixote") ; nor trace the peculiar and shifting 
 shades of folly and knavery as they are to be found in 
 real life (like Fielding) : but he takes off, as it were, 
 the general, habitual impression which circumstances 
 make on certain conditions of life, and moulds all his 
 characters accordingly. All the persons whom he 
 introduces carrj- about with them the badge of their 
 profession, and you see little more of them than their 
 costume. He describes men as belonging to distinct 
 classes in society ; not as they ai-e in themselves, or 
 with the individual differences which are always to be 
 discovered in nature. His hero, in particular, has no 
 character but that of the successive circumstances in 
 which he is placed. His priests are only described as 
 priests : his valets, his players, his women, his courtiers 
 and his sharpers, are all alike. Nothing can well 
 exceed the monotony of the work in this respect : — at 
 the same time that nothing can exceed the truth and 
 precision with which the general manners of these 
 different characters are preserved, nor the felicity of 
 the particular traits by which their common foibles ai'e 
 brought out. lluis the Archbishop of Grenada will 
 remain an everlasting memento of the weakness of 
 human vanity ; and the account of Gil Bias' legacy, of
 
 THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS 147 
 
 the uncertainty of hinnan expectations. This novel is 
 also deficient in the fable as well as in the characters. 
 It is not a regularly constructed story ; but a series 
 of amusing adventures told with equal gaiety and good 
 sense, and in the most graceful style imaginable. 
 
 It has been usual to class our own great novelists as 
 imitators of one or other of these two writers. Fielding, 
 no doubt, is more like "Don Quixote" than "Gil 
 Bias " ; Smollett is more like " Gil Bias " than "Don 
 Quixote " ; but there is not much resemblance in either 
 case. Sterne's "Tristram Shandy" is a more direct 
 instance of imitation. Richardson can scarcely be 
 called an imitator of any one ; or if he is, it is of the 
 sentimental refinement of Marivaux, or of the verbose 
 gallantry of the writers of the seventeenth century. 
 
 Tliere is very little to warrant the common idea that 
 Fielding was an imitator of Cervantes, except his own 
 declaration of such an intention in the title-page of 
 " Joseph Andrews," the romantic turn of the character 
 of Parson Adams (the only romantic character in his 
 works), and the proverbial humour of Partridge, which 
 is kept up only for a few pages. Fielding's novels are, 
 in general, thoroughly his own ; and they are thoroughly 
 English. What they are most remarkable for, is 
 neither sentiment, nor imagination, nor wit, nor even 
 humour, though there is an immense deal of this last 
 quality ; but profound knowledge of human nature, at 
 least of English nature, and masterly pictures of the 
 characters of men as he saw them existing. ITiis 
 quality distinguishes all his works, and is shown almost 
 equally in all of them. As a painter of real life, he 
 was equal to Hogarth ; as a mere observer of human 
 nature, he was little inferior to Shakespeare, though 
 without any of the genius and poetical qualities of his 
 mind. His humour is less rich and laughable than 
 iSmollett's ; his wit as often misses as hits ; he has none 
 of the fine pathos of Richardson or Sterne ; but he has 
 brought together a greater variety of characters in 
 common life, marked with more distinct peculiarities, 
 and without an atom of caricature, than any other
 
 148 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 novel-writer whatever. The extreme sul)tlety of obser- 
 vation on tlie spring-s of liunian conduct in ordinary 
 characters, is only equalled by the injjenuity of contriv- 
 ance in bringing those springs into play, in sucli a 
 manner as to lay open their smallest irregularity. The 
 detection is always complete, and made with the cer- 
 tainty and skill of a philosophical experiment, and the 
 ohviousness and familiarity of a casual observation. 
 The truth of the imitation is indeed so great, that it 
 has been argued tliat Fielding must have had liis 
 materials ready-made to his hands, and was merely 
 a transcriber of local manners and individual habits. 
 For this conjecture, however, there seems to be no 
 foundation. His representations, it is true, are local and 
 individual ; but they are not the less profound and con- 
 clusive. The feeling of the general principles of human 
 nature operating in particular circumstances, is always 
 intense, and uppermost in his mind ; and he makes use 
 of incident and situation only to bring out character. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to give any illustrations. 
 "Tom Jones" is full of them. There is the account, 
 for example, of the gratitude of the Elder Blifil to his 
 brother, for assisting him to obtain the fortune of Miss 
 Bridget Alworthy by marriage ; and of the gratitude 
 of the poor in his neighbourhood to Alworthy himself, 
 who had done so much good in the country that he 
 had made every one in it his enemy. There is the 
 account of the Latin dialogues between Partridge and his 
 maid, of the assault made on him during one of these 
 by Mrs. Partridge, and the severe bruises he patiently 
 received on that occasion, after whicli the parish of Little 
 Baddington rung with the story, that the schoolmaster 
 had killed his wife. There is the exquisite keeping in the 
 character of Blifil, and the want of it in tliat of Jones. 
 There is the gradation in the lovers of Molly Seagrim, 
 the pliilosopher Square succeeding to Tom Jones, wlio 
 again finds that he himself liad succeeded to the accom- 
 plished Will Barnes who had the first possession of Jier 
 person, and had still possession of her heart, Jones being 
 only the instrument of her vanity, as Square was of her
 
 THE P:NGLISH novelists 149 
 
 interest. Tlien there is the discreet honesty of Black 
 George, the learning of Tliwackum and Square, and 
 the profundity of Squire AVestern, who considered it 
 as a physical impossibility that his daughter should 
 fall in love with ToTii Jones. We have also that 
 gentleman's disputes with his sister, and the inimitable 
 appeal of that lady to her niece : " I was never so 
 handsome as you/ Sophy ; yet I had something of 
 you formerly. 1 was called the cruel Parthenissa. 
 Kingdoms and states, as Tully Cicero says, undergo 
 alteration, and so must the human form ! " The 
 adventure of the same lady with the highwayman, who 
 robbed her of her jewelswhile he complimented her 
 beauty, ought not to be passed over ; nor that of Sophia 
 and her muff, nor the reserved coquetry of her cousin 
 Fitzpatrick, nor the description of Lady Bellaston, nor 
 the modest overtures of the pretty widow Hunt, nor 
 the indiscreet babblings of Mrs. Honour. Tlie moral 
 of this book has been objected to without much reason ; 
 but a more serious objection has been made to the 
 want of refinement and elegance in two principal 
 characters. We never feel this objection, indeed, 
 while we are reading the book ; but at other times we 
 have something like a lurking suspicion that Jones 
 was but an awkward fellow, and Sophia a pretty 
 simpleton. I do not know how to account for this 
 effect, unless it is that Fielding's constantly assuring 
 us of the beauty of his hero, and the good sense 
 of his heroine, at last produces a distrust of both. 
 The story of " Tom Jones " is allowed to be unrivalled ; 
 and it is this circumstance, together with the vast 
 variety of characters, that has given the " History of 
 a Foundling" so decided a preference over Fielding's 
 other novels. The characters themselves, both in 
 '' Amelia " and " Joseph Andrews," are quite equal to 
 any of those in "Tom Jones." The account of Miss 
 Matthews and Ensign Hibbert in the former of these, 
 — the way in which that lady reconciles herself to 
 the death of her father, — the inflexible Colonel Bath, 
 the insipid Mrs. James, the complaisant Colonel Trent,
 
 150 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 tlie (loinure, sly, intrig-uing, equivocal Mrs. Bennet, 
 the lord who is her seducer, and who attempts after- 
 wards to seduce Amelia by the same mechanical pro- 
 cess of a concert-ticket, a hook, and the disguise of a 
 great-coat, — his little, fat, short-nosed, red-faced, good- 
 humoured accomplice, the keeper of the lodging- 
 house, who, having no pretensions to gallantry herself, 
 has a disinterested delight in forwarding the intrigues 
 and pleasures of others (to say nothing of honest 
 Atkinson, the story of the miniature-picture of Amelia, 
 and the hashed mutton, which are in a diiferent style), 
 are masterpieces of description, llie whole scene at 
 the lodging-house, the masquerade, &c., in "Amelia," 
 are equal in interest to the parallel scenes in "Tom 
 Jones," and even more refined in the knowledge of 
 character. For instance, Mrs. Bennet is superior to 
 Mrs. Fitzpatrick in her own way. The uncertainty 
 in which the event of her interview with her former 
 seducer is left, is admirable. Fielding was a master of 
 what may be called the double entendre of character, 
 and surprises you no less T)y what he leaves in the 
 dark (hardly known to the persons themselves) than 
 by the unexpected discoveries he makes of the real 
 traits and circumstances in a character with which, 
 till then, you find you were unacquainted. ITiere is 
 nothing at all heroic, however, in the usual style of 
 Iiis delineations. He does not draw lofty characters 
 or strong passions ; all his persons are of the ordinary 
 stature as to intellect, and possess little elevation of 
 fancy, or energy of purpose. Perhaps, after all. 
 Parson Adams is his finest character. It is equally 
 true to nature and more ideal than any of the others. 
 Its unsuspecting simplicity makes it not only more 
 amiable, but doubly amusing, by gratifying the sense 
 of superior sagacity in the reader. Our laughing at 
 him does not once lessen our respect for him. His 
 declaring that he would willingly walk ten miles to 
 fetch his sermon on vanity, merely to convince ^\^ilson 
 of his thorough contempt of this vice, and his consol- 
 ing himself for the loss of his .^schylus by suddenly
 
 THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS L51 
 
 recollecting- tliat he could not read it if he liad it, 
 because it is dark, are among the finest touches of 
 naivete. The night adventures at Lady Booby's with 
 Beau Didapper and the amiable Slipslop are the most 
 ludicrous ; and that with the huntsman, who draws off 
 the hounds from the poor parson because they would 
 be spoiled by following vermin, the most profound. 
 Fielding did not often repeat himself, but Dr. Harrison, 
 in " Amelia," may be considered as a variation of the 
 character of Adams ; so also is Goldsmith's " Vicar of 
 Wakefield " ; and the latter part of tiiat work, which 
 sets out so delightfully, an almost entire plagiarism 
 from Wilson's account of himself, and Adams's domestic 
 history. 
 
 Smollett's first novel, " Roderick Random," which is 
 also his best, appeared about the same time as Fielding's 
 " Tom Jones," and yet it has a much more modern air 
 with it ; but this may be accounted for from the cir- 
 cumstance that Smollett was quite a young man at the 
 time, whereas Fielding's manner must have been formed 
 long before. The style of " Roderick Random " is 
 more easy and flowing than that of " Tom Jones " ; 
 the incidents follow one another more rapidly (though, 
 it must be confessed, they never come in such a throng, 
 or are brought out with the same dramatic eifect) ; the 
 humour is broader, and as efi^ectual ; and there is very 
 nearly, if not quite, an equal interest excited by the 
 story. What, then, is it that gives the superiority to 
 Fielding } It is the superior insight into the springs 
 of human character, and the constant development of 
 that character through every change of circumstance. 
 Smollett's humour often arises from the situation of 
 the persons, or tlie peculiarity of their external appear- 
 ance ; as, from Roderick Random's carroty locks, which 
 hung down over his shoulders like a pound of candles, 
 or Strap's ignorance of London, and the blunders that 
 follow from it. There is a tone of vulgarity about all 
 his productions. The incidents frequently resemble 
 detached anecdotes taken from a newspaper or maga- 
 zine ; andj like those in ''Gil Bias," might happen
 
 •y 
 
 152 THE ENGLISH COMIC AVRITERS 
 
 to a IniiHlrcd otlier characters. He exhibits tlie ridi- 
 culous accidents and reverses to which human life 
 is liable, not "the stuff" of which it is composed. 
 He seldom probes to the quick, or penetrates beyond 
 tlie surface ; and, therefore, he leaves no stings in the 
 minds of his readers, and in this respect is far less 
 interesting than Fielding. His novels always enliven, 
 and never tire us ; we take them up with ])leasure, and 
 lay them down without any strong feeling of regret. 
 We look on and laugh, as spectators of a highly 
 amusing scene, without closing in with the combat- 
 ants, or being made parties in the event. ^Ve read 
 " Roderick Jiandom " as an entertaining story, for 
 the particular accidents and modes of life wliich it 
 describes have ceased to exist ; but we regard " Tom 
 Jones " as a real history, because the author never 
 stops short of those essential principles which lie at 
 the bottom of all our actions, and in which we feel an 
 immediate interest — intus et in cute. Smollett excels 
 Vmost as the lively caricaturist : Fielding as the exact 
 painter and profound metaphysician. I am far from 
 maintaining that this account applies uniformly to the 
 productions of these two writers ; but I think that, as 
 far as they essentially differ, what I have stated is the 
 general distinction between them. " Roderick Ran- 
 dom " is the purest of Smollett's novels : I mean in 
 point of style and description. Most of the incidents 
 and characters are supposed to have been taken from 
 the events of his own life ; and are, therefore, truer to 
 nature. There is a rude conception of generosity in 
 some of his characters, of which Fielding seems to 
 have been incapable, his amiable persons being merely 
 good-natured. It is owing to this that Strap is superior 
 to Partridge ; as there is a heartiness and warmth of 
 feeling in some of the scenes between Lieutenant 
 Bowling and his nephew, which is beyond Fielding's 
 power of impassioned writing. The whole of the scene 
 on ship-board is a most admirable and striking picture, 
 and, I imagine, very little if at all exaggerated, though 
 the interest it excites is of a very unpleasant kind,
 
 THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS 153 
 
 lierause tlie irritation and resistance to petty oppression 
 can be of no avail. Tlie picture of the little j^rofligate 
 French friar, who was Roderick's travelling companion, 
 and of whom he always kept to the windward, is one 
 of Smollett's most masterly sketches.— " Peregrine 
 Pickle" is no great favourite of mine, and "Launcelot^ 
 Greaves " was not worthy of the genius of the author. 
 
 " Humphry Clinker " and " Count Fathom " are 
 both equally admirable in their way. Perhaps the 
 former is tlie most Eleasant gossiping- novel • that was 
 ever written ; that whicITgives the most pleasure with 
 the least effort to the reader. It is quite as amusing 
 as going the journey could have been ; and we have 
 just as good an idea of what happened on the road 
 as if we had been of the party. Humphry Clinker 
 himself is exquisite ; and his sweetheart, ..^^^^^^j^^ 
 Jenkins, not much behind him. Matthew Bramble, 
 though not altogether original, is excellently supported, / 
 and seems to have been the prototype of Sir Anthony / 
 Absolute in the "Rivals." But Lismahago is the 
 flower of the flock. His tenacipusness in argument 
 is not so delightful as the relaxation of his logical 
 severity, when he finds his fortune mellowing in the 
 wintry smiles of Mrs. Tabitha Bramble. Tliis is the 
 best preserved, ancTmost^'SeveTie of all Smollett's 
 characters. The resemblance to "Don Quixote" is 
 only just enough to make it interesting to the critical 
 reader, without giving oifence to anybody else. The 
 indecency and filth in this novel, are what must 
 be allowed to all Smollett's writings.— The subject 
 and characters in " Count Fathom " are, in general, 
 exceedingly disgusting : the story is also spun out to 
 a degree of tediousness in the serious and sentimental- 
 parts ; but there is more power of writing occasionally 
 shown in it than in any of his works. I need only 
 refer to the fine and bitter irony of the Count's address 
 to the country of his ancestors on his landing in Eng- 
 land ; to the robber scene in the forest, which has 
 never been surpassed ; to the Parisian swindler who 
 personates a raw English country squire (Western is
 
 154 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 tame in the com])arison) ; and to the story of the 
 seduction in the west of England. It would be diffi- 
 cult to point out, in any author, passages written 
 witli more force and mastery than these. 
 
 It is not a very difficult undertaking to class Field- 
 - ing or Smollett ; — the one as an observer of the 
 characters of human life, the other as a describer of 
 its various eccentricities. But it is by no means so 
 easy to dispose of Richardson, who was neither an 
 observer of the one nor a describer of the other,^ but 
 who seemed to spin his materials entirely out of his 
 own brain, as if there had been nothing existing in the 
 world beyond the little room in which he sat writing. 
 There is 'an artificial reality about his works which is 
 nowhere else to be met with. They have the romantic 
 air of a pure fiction, with the literal minuteness of a 
 common diary. The author had the strongest matter- 
 of-fact imagination that ever existed, and wrote the 
 oddest mixture of poetry and prose. He does not 
 appear to have taken advantage of anything in actual 
 nature from one end of his works to the other ; and 
 yet, throughout all his works, voluminous as they are 
 (and this, to be sure, is one reason why they are so), 
 he sets about describing every object and transaction, 
 as if the whole had been given in on evidence by an 
 eye-witness. This kind of high finishing from imagi- 
 nation is an anomaly in the history of human genius ; 
 and certainly nothing so fine was ever produced by the 
 same accumulation of minute parts. There is not the 
 least distraction, the least forgetfulness of the end— 
 every circumstance is made to tell. I cannot agree 
 that' this exactness of detail produces heaviness ; on 
 the contrary, it gives an appearance of truth, and a 
 positive interest to the story ; and we listen with the 
 same attention as we should to the particulars of a 
 confidential communication. I at one time used to 
 think some parts of "Sir Charles Grandison" rather 
 trifiing and tedious, especially the long description of 
 Miss Harriet Byron's wedding-clothes, till I was told 
 of two young ladies who had severally copied out the
 
 THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS 155 
 
 whole of that very description for their own private 
 gratification. After that I could not blame the author. 
 
 Hie eifect of reading this work is like an increase of 
 kindred. You find yourself all of a sudden introduced 
 into the midst of a large family^ with aunts and cousins 
 to the third and fourth generation, and grandmothers 
 both by the father's and mother's side ; and a very odd 
 set of people they are, but people whose real existence 
 and personal identity you can no more dispute than 
 your own senses, for you see and hear all that they 
 do or say. "V^liat is still more extraordinary, all 
 this extreme elaborateness in working out the story 
 seems to have cost the author nothing ; for, it is said, 
 that the published works are mere abridgments. I 
 have heard (though this I suspect must be a pleasant 
 exaggeration) that "^ Sir Charles Grandison " was origin- 
 ally written in eight-aud-twenty ^'olumes. 
 
 " Pamela " is the first of Richardson's productions, 
 and the very child of his brain. Taking the general idea 
 of the character of a modest and beautiful country girl, 
 and of the ordinary situation in which she is placed, 
 he makes out all the rest, even to the smallest circum- 
 stance, by the mere force of a reasoning imagination. 
 It would seem as if a step lost, would be as fatal here 
 as in a mathematical demonstration. The development 
 of the character is the most simple, and comes the 
 nearest to nature that it can do, without being the 
 same thing. .^ Tlie interest of the story increases with 
 the dawn of understanding and reflection in the heroine : 
 her sentiments gradually expand themselves, like open- 
 ing flowers. She writes better every time, and acquires 
 a confidence in herself, just as a girl would do, in 
 writing such letters in such circumstances ; and yet it 
 is certain that no girl would write such letters in such 
 circumstances. What I mean is this : — Richardson's 
 nature is always the nature of sentiment and reflection, 
 not of impulse or situation. He furnishes his char- 
 acters, on every occasion, with the presence of mind of 
 the author. He makes them act, not as they would 
 from the impulse of the moment, but as they might
 
 150 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 upon reflection, and upon a careful review of every 
 motive and circiimslance in their situation. Tiiey 
 regularly sit down to write letters : and if the business 
 of life consisted in letter-writing, and was carried on 
 by the post (like a Spanish game at chess), human 
 nature would be what Ilicliardson represents it. All 
 actual objects aiul feelings are blunted and deadened 
 by being presented through a medium which may be 
 true to reason, but is false in nature. He confounds 
 his own point of view witli that of the immediate actors 
 in the scene ; and hence presents you with a conven- 
 tional and factitious nature, instead of that which is 
 real. Dr. Johnson seems to have preferred this truth 
 of reflection to the truth of nature, when he said that 
 there was more knowledge of the human heart in a 
 page of Ricliarjlaon, than in all Fielding. Fielding, 
 however, saw more of the practical results, and under- 
 stood the principles as well ; but he had not the same 
 power of speculating upon their possible results, and 
 i/ combining them in certain ideal forms of passion and 
 imagination, which was Richardson's real excellence. 
 
 It must be observed, however, that it is this mutual 
 good understanding and comparing of notes between 
 the author and tlie persons he describes, his infinite 
 circumspection, his exact process of ratiocination and 
 calculation, which gives such an appearance of cold- 
 ness and formality to most of his characters, — which 
 makes prudes of his women and coxcombs of his men. 
 Everything is too conscious in his works. Everything 
 is distinctly brougM home tcr-tii© mind of the actors 
 in the scene, which is a fault undoubtedly : but then, 
 it must be confessed, everything is brought home in 
 its full force to the mind of the reader also ; and we 
 feel the same interest in the story as if it were our 
 own. Can anything be more beautiful or more affect- 
 ing than Pamela's reproaches to her " lumpish heart," 
 when she is sent away from her master's at her own 
 request ; its lightness when she is sent for back ; the 
 joy which the conviction of the sincerity of his love 
 diffuses in her heart, like the coming on of spring ;
 
 THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS 157 
 
 the artifice of the stuff gown ; the meeting with Lruly 
 Davers after her marriage ; and the trial-scene with 
 her husband? Who ever remained insensible to the 
 passion of Lady Clementina, except Sir C^harles 
 (jrandison himself, who was the object of it? (- larisaa 
 is, hjavveyer, his masterpiece, if we except Lovelace. 
 If she is fine in herself, slie is still finer in liis account 
 of her. With that foil, her purity is dazzling indeed : 
 and she who could triumph by her virtue, and the 
 force of her love, over the regality of Lovelace's 
 mind, his wit, his person, his accomplishments, and 
 his spirit, conquers all hearts. I should suppose that 
 never sympathy more deep or sincere was excited 
 than by the lieroine of Richardson's romance, except 
 by the calamities of real life. The links in this 
 wonderful chain of interest are not more finely 
 wrought, than their whole weight is overwhelming 
 and irresistible. Who can forget the exquisite graxla.- 
 tions of her long dying-scene, or the closing of the 
 coffin-lid, when Miss Howe comes to take her last 
 leave of her friend ; or tlie heart-breaking reflection 
 that Clarissa makes on what was to have been her 
 wedding-day ? Well does a certain writer exclaim — 
 
 " Books are a real world, both pure and good, 
 Round which, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood, 
 Our pastime and our happiness may grow ! " 
 
 Richardson's wit was unlike that of any other writer 
 — his humour was so too. Both were the effect of 
 intense activity of mind — laboured, and yet completely 
 effectual. I might refer to Lovelace's reception and 
 description of Hickman, when he calls out Death in 
 his ear, as the name of the person with whom Clarissa 
 had fallen in love ; and to the scene at the glove-shop. 
 ^Vhat can be more magnificent than his enumeration 
 of his companions—" Belton, so pert and so pimply — 
 Tourville, so fair and so foppish ! " &c. In casuistry 
 this author is quite at home ; and, with a bold- 
 ness greater even tlian his puritanical severity, has 
 exhausted every topic on virtue and vice. There is
 
 158 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 another peculiarity in Richardson, not perhaps so 
 uncommon, wliich is, his systematically preferrinj^ his 
 most insipid characters to his finest, thouijh both were 
 equally his own invention, and he nuist be supposed 
 to have understood something of their qualities. Thus 
 he preferred the little, selfish, affected, insignificant 
 Miss Bj'ron, to the divine Clementina ; and again. 
 Sir Ciiarles Grandison to the nobler Lovelace. I have 
 nothing to say in fiivour of Lovelace's morality ; but 
 Sir Charles is the prince of coxcombs, — whose eye 
 was never once taken from his own person and his 
 own virtues ; and there is nothing which excites so 
 little sympathy as this excessive egotism. 
 
 It remains to speak of Sterne ; and I shall do it in 
 few words. Tliere is more of mannerism and affecta- 
 tion in him, and a more immediate reference to 
 preceding authors ; but his excellences, where he 
 is excellent, are of the first order. His characters 
 are intellectual and inventive, like RichardsoifspBut 
 totally opposite in the execution. The one are made 
 out by continuity, and patient repetition of touches ; 
 the others, by glancing transitions and graceful 
 apposi<tion. His style is equally different from 
 Richardson's : it is at times the most rapid, the most 
 happy, the most idiomatic of any that is to be found. 
 It is the pure essence of English conversational style. 
 His works consist only of morceaiijc — of brilliant 
 passages. I wonder that Goldsmith, who ought to 
 have kno^vn better, should call him "a dull fellow.'^ 
 His wit is poignant, though artificial ; and his 
 characters (though the groundwork of some of them 
 had been laid before) have yet invaluable original 
 differences ; and the spirit of the execution, the master- 
 strokes constantly thrown into them, are not to be 
 surpassed. It is sufficient to name them : — Yorick, 
 Dr. Slop, Mr. Shandy, My Uncle Toby, Trim, Susanna, 
 and the Widow VV'adman. In these he has contrived 
 to oppose, with equal felicity and originality, two 
 characters, one of pure intellect, and the other of 
 pure good nature, in My Father and My Uncle Toby.
 
 THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS L59 
 
 Tliere appears to have been in Sterne a vein of dry, 
 sarcastic humour, and of extreme tenderness of feeling ; 
 the latter sometimes carried to affectation, as in the 
 tale of Maria, and the apostroplie to the recording 
 angel ; but at other times pure, and without blemish. 
 The story of Le Fevre is perhaps the finest in the 
 English language. My Father's restlessness, both of 
 body and mind, is inimitable. It is the model from 
 which all those despicable performances against modern 
 philosophy ought to have been copied, if their authors 
 had known auji;liing of the subject they were writing 
 about. My Uncle Toby is one of the finest compli- 
 ments ever paid to human nature. He is the most 
 unoffending of God's creatures ; or, as the French 
 express it,"(m tel petit bon honmie ! Of his bowling- 
 green, his sieges, and his amours, who would say or \ 
 think any thing amiss ! J 
 
 It is remarkable that our four best novel-writers 
 belong nearly to the same age. We also owe to the 
 same period "(the reign of George II) the inimitable 
 Hogarth, and some of our best Writers of the middle 
 style of comedy. If I were called upon to account 
 for this coincidence, I should waive the consideration 
 of more general causes, and ascribe it at once to tlie 
 establishment of the Protestant ascendancy, and the 
 succession of the House of Hanover. Tliese great 
 events appear to have given a more popular turn to 
 our literature and genius, as well as to our government. 
 It was found high time that the people should be 
 represented in books as well as in Parliament. They 
 wished to see some account of themselves in what they 
 read ; and not to be confined always to the vices, the 
 miseries, and frivolities of tlie great. Our cloraestic- 
 tra^edy, and our earliest periodical works, appeared a 
 little before the same period. In despotic countries, 
 human nature is not of sufficient importance to be 
 studied or described. The cunuille are objects rather 
 of disgust than curiosity ; and there are no middle 
 classes. The works of Racine and Moliere are either 
 imitations of the verbiage of the Court, before which
 
 160 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 they were represented, or fanciful caricatures of tlie 
 manners of the lowest of the people. But in the period 
 of our history in question, a security of person and 
 property, and a freedom of opinion had been established, 
 which made every man feel of some consequence to 
 himself, and appear an object of some curiosity to 
 his neighbours : our manners became more domes- 
 ticated ; there was a general spirit of sturdiness 
 and independence, which made the English character 
 more truly English than perhaps at any other period — 
 that is, more tenacious of its own opinions and purposes. 
 The whole surface of society appeared cut out into 
 square enclosures and sharp angles, which extended to 
 the dresses of the time, their gravel-walks and clipped 
 hedges. Each individual had a certain ground-plot of 
 his own to cultivate his particular humours in, and 
 let them shoot out at pleasure ; and a most plentiful 
 /crop they have produced accordingly. The reign of 
 "^ George II was, in a word, the age of hobftii-horsea : but, 
 since that period, things have taken a different turn. 
 
 His present Majesty (God save the mark !) during 
 almost the whole of his reign, has been constantly 
 mounted on a great war-liorse ; and has fiiirly driven 
 all competitors out of the field. Instead of minding 
 our own affairs, or laughing at each other, the eyes of 
 all his faithful subjects have been fixed on tlie career 
 of the sovereign, and all hearts anxious for the safety 
 of his person and government. Our pens and our 
 swords have been alike drawn in tlieir defence ; and 
 the returns of killed and wounded, the manufacture of 
 newspapers and parliamentary speeclies, liave exceeded 
 all foriner example. If we have liad a little of tlie 
 blessings of peace, we have had enough of the glories 
 and calamities of war. His Majesty has indeed con- 
 trived to keep alive the greatest public interest ever 
 known, by his determined manner of riding his hobby 
 for half a century together, with the aristocracy, the 
 democracy, the clergy, the landed and moneyed interest, 
 and the rabble, in full cry after him ; — and at the end 
 of his career, most happily and unexpectedly succeeded,
 
 THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS 101 
 
 amidst empires lost and woii^ kingdoms overturned and 
 createdj and the destruction of an incredible number 
 of liveSj in restoring the div'me rigid of kirujs, and thus 
 preventing any future abuse of the example which 
 seated his family on the throne ! 
 
 It is not to be wondered at, if amidst the tumults 
 of events crowded into this period, our literature has 
 partaken of the disorder of the time ; if our prose 
 has run mad, and our poetry grown childish. Among 
 those persons who "have kept the even tenor of --J 
 their way," tlie author of "Evelina," "Cecilia," and 
 " Camilla," must be allowed to hold a distinguislied 
 place.' Mi-s. Iladcliffe's "enchantments drear," and 
 mouldering castles, derived part of their interest, no 
 doubt, from the supposed tottering state of all old 
 structures at the time; and Mrs. Inchbald's "Nature 
 and Art" would scarcely have had the same popularity, 
 but that it fell in (as to its two main characters) with 
 the pi-evailing prejudice of the moment, that judges 
 and bishops were not invariably pure abstractions of 
 justice and piety. Miss Edgeworth's "Tales," again 
 (with the exception of " Castle Rack-rent," which is 
 a genuine, unsophisticated, national portrait), are a 
 kind of pedantic, pragmatical common sense, tinctured 
 with the pertness and pretensions of the paradoxes to 
 which tliey are so self-coniplacently opposed. Madame 
 D'Arhlajt' is, on the contrary, quite of the old school, / 
 a mere common observer of manners, and also a very 
 woman. It is this last circumstance which forms the 
 peculiarity of her writings, and distinguishes them 
 from those masterpieces wliich I have before mentioned. 
 She is a qujckj lively, and accurate observer of persons 
 and tilings; but" she always looks at them with a 
 consciousness of her sex, and in that point of view 
 in whicli it is the particular business and interest of 
 women to observe them. There is little in her works 
 
 1 "The Fool of Quality," "David Simple," and "Sydney 
 Biddulph," written about the middle of the last century, 
 belong to the ancient ;v'^/>«e of novel-writing. Of the "Vicar 
 of Wakefield " I have attempted a character elsewhere. 
 
 L
 
 I(i2 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 of passion or character, or even manners, in the most 
 extended sense of the word, as iniplyinfj;- the sum-total 
 of our liahits and pursuits ; her /arte is in descrihing ./'^ 
 the absurdities and affectations of external l)ehaviour, 
 or the manners of people in company. Her cliarac- 
 ters, wliich are ingenious caricatures, are, no doubt, 
 distinctly marked, and well "Rept up; but they are 
 slightly shaded, and exceedingly uniform. Her heroes 
 and heroines, almost all of tliem, depend on the stock 
 of a single phrase or sentiment, and have certain 
 mottoes or devices by which they may always be 
 known. Tliey form such characters as people might 
 be supposed to assume for a night at a masquerade. 
 She presents not the whole-length figure, nor even 
 the face, but some prominent feature. In one of 
 her novels, for example, a lady appears regularly 
 every ten pages, to get a lesson in music for nothing. 
 She never appears for any other purpose ; this is all 
 you know of her ; and in this the whole wit and 
 humour of the character consists. Meadows is the 
 same, who has always the cue of being tired, without 
 any other idea. It has been said of Shakespeare, that 
 you may always assign his speeclies to the proper 
 characters ; and you may infallibly do the same thing 
 with Madame D'Arblay's, for they always say the 
 same thing. Tlie Braughtons are the best. Mr. 
 Smith is an exquisite city portrait. " E_velina " is also 
 her best novel, because it is the shortest ; that is, it 
 has all the liveliness in the sketches of character, 
 and smartness of comic dialogue and repartee, without 
 the tediousness of the story, and endless affectation 
 of sentiment which disfigures the others. 
 
 Women, in general, have a quicker perception of 
 any oddity or singularity of character than men, and 
 are more alive to every absurdity which arises from a 
 violation of the rules of society, or a deviation from 
 established custom. This partly arises from the 
 restraints on their own behaviour, which turn their 
 attention constantly on the subject, and partly from 
 other causes. The surface of their minds, like that
 
 THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS 163 
 
 of their bodies, seems of a finer texture tliau ours ; / 
 more soft^ and susceptible of immediate impulses. 
 They have less inuscular strength^ less power of 
 continued voluntary attention-, of reason, passion, and 
 imagination ; but they are more easily impressed with 
 whatever appeals to their senses or habitual prejudices. 
 The intuitive perception of their minds is less disturbed 
 by any abstruse reasonings on causes or consequences, 
 'liiey learn the idiom of character and manners, as they 
 acquire that ot language, by rote, without troubling 
 themselves about the principles. Their observation 
 is not the less accurate on that account, as far as it 
 goes, for it has been well said that " there is nothing 
 so true as habit." 
 
 There is little other power in Madame D'Arblay's V 
 novels than that of immediate observation ; her char- 
 acters, whether of refinement or vulgarity, are equally 
 superiicial and confined. The whole is a question of 
 form, whether that form is adhered to or infringed 
 upon. It is this circumstance which takes away dignity 
 and interest from her story and sentiments, and makes 
 the one so teaziug and tedious, and the other so insipid. 
 The difficulties in which she involves her heroines are 
 too much "Female Difficulties" ; they are difficulties 
 created out of nothing. The author appears to have 
 no other idea of refinement than it is the reverse of 
 vulgarity ; but the reverse of vulgarity is fastidiousness 
 and affectation. There is a true and a false delicacy. 
 Because a vulgar country Miss would answer "yes" 
 to a proposal of marriage in the first page, Madame 
 D'Arblay makes it a proof of an excess of refinement, 
 and an indispensable point of etiquette in her young 
 ladies to postpone the answer to the end of five volumes, 
 without the smallest reason for their doing so, and 
 with every reason to the contrary. Tlie reader is led 
 every moment to expect a df-nouement , and is as often 
 disappointed on some trifling pretext. The whole 
 artifice of her fable consists in coming to no con- 
 clusion. Her ladies " stand so upon the order of 
 their going," that they do not go at all. They will
 
 164 JlJE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 not abate an ace of tlieir punctilio in any circumstances 
 or on any emergency. Tliey would consider it as 
 (]uite indecorous to run downstairs tliougli the house 
 were in flames, or to move an inch off the pavement 
 tliougli a scaflx)lding was falling. She has formed to 
 herself an abstract idea of perfection in connnon 
 behaviour, which is quite as romantic and impracti- 
 cable as any other idea of the sort ; and the consequence 
 has naturally been that she makes her heroines commit 
 the greatest improprieties and absurdities in order 
 to avoid the smallest. In opposition to a maxim 
 in philosophy, they constantly act from the weakest 
 motive, or rather from pure contradiction. The whole 
 tissue of the fable is, in genei'al, more wild and 
 chimerical than anything in " Don Quixote," without 
 the poetical truth or elevation. Madame D'Arblay has 
 woven a web of difficulties for her heroines, some- 
 thing like the green silken threads in which the 
 shepherdesses entangled the steed of Cervantes' hero, 
 who swore, in his fine enthusiastic way, that he would 
 sooner cut his passage to another world than disturb 
 the least of those beautiful meshes. To mention the 
 most painful instance — the " Wanderer," in her last 
 novel, raises obstacles lighter than " the gossamer 
 that idles in the wanton summer air," into insur- 
 mountable barriers ; and trifles with those that arise 
 out of common sense, reason, and necessity. Her 
 conduct is not to be accounted for directly out of the 
 circumstances in which she is placed, but out of' some 
 factitious and misplaced refinement on them. It is 
 a perpetual game at cross-purposes. There being a 
 plain and strong motive why she should pursue any 
 course of action, is a sufficient reason for her to avoid 
 it, and the perversity of her conduct is in proportion 
 to its levity — as the lightness of the feather baffles the 
 force of the impulse that is given to it, and the 
 slightest breath of air turns it back on the hand from 
 which it is thrown. We can hardly consider this as 
 the perfection of the female character ! 
 
 1 must say I like Mrs. Radcliffe's romances better,
 
 THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS 165 
 
 and think of them oftener ; and even when I do not, 
 part of the impression with which I survey the full- 
 orbed moon shining in the blue expanse of heaven, or 
 hear the wind sighing through autumnal leaves, or 
 walk under the echoing archways of a Gothic ruin, is 
 owing to a repeated perusal of the " Romance of 
 the Forest," and the "Mysteries of Udolpho." Her 
 descriptions of scenery, indeed, are vague and wordy 
 to the last degree ; they are neither like Salvator nor 
 Claude, nor nature nor art ; and she dwells on the 
 effects of moonlight till we are sometimes weary of 
 them ; her characters are insipid, the shadows of a 
 sliade, continued on, under different names, through 
 all her novels ; her story comes to nothing. But in 
 harrowing up the soul with imaginary horrors, and 
 making the flesh creep, and the nerves thrill with fond 
 hopes and fears,she is unrivalled among her fair country- 
 women. Her great power lies in describing the inde- 
 finable, and embodying a phantom. She makes her 
 readers twice children ; and from the dim and shadowy 
 veil which she draws over the objects of her fancy, 
 forces us to believe all that is strange, and next to 
 impossible, of their mysterious agency ; whether it is 
 the sound of the lover's lute borne o'er the distant 
 waters along the winding shores of Provence, recalling 
 with its magic breath, some long-lost friendship or 
 some hopeless love ; or the full choir of the cloistered 
 monks, chaunting their midnight orgies ; or the lonely 
 voice of an unhappy sister in her pensive cell, like 
 angels' whispered music ; or the deep sigh that steals 
 from a dungeon on the startled ear ; or the dim appari- 
 tion of ghastly features ; or tlie face of an assassin hid 
 beneath a monk's cowl ; or the robber gliding through 
 the twilight gloom of the forest. All the fascination 
 that links the world of passion to the world unknown 
 is hers, and she plays with it at her pleasure ; she has 
 all the poetry of romance, all that is obscure, visionary, 
 and objectless in the imagination. It seems that the 
 simple notes of Clara's lute, which so delighted her 
 youthful heart, still echo among the rocks and moun-
 
 166 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 tains of the Valois ; the mellow tones of the minstrel's 
 songs still minerle with the noise of the dashing oar 
 and the ri])pling of the silver waves of the Mediter- 
 ranean ; the voice of Agnes is heard from the haunted 
 tower, and Schodoni's form still stalks through the 
 frowning ruins of Palinzi. The greatest treat, however, 
 which Mrs. Radcliffe's pen has provided for the lovers 
 of the marvellous and terrihle is the Proven9al tale 
 ^vhich Ludovico reads in the Castle of Udolpho as the 
 lights are beginning to burn blue, and just before the V 
 faces appear from behind the tapestry that carry him 
 off, and we hear no more of him. This tale is of a 
 knight, who being engaged in a dance at some high 
 festival of old romance, was summoned out by another 
 knight clad in complete steel ; and being solemnly 
 adjured to follow him into the mazes of the neighbour- 
 ing wood, his conductor brought him at length to a 
 hollow glade in the thickest part, where he pointed 
 to the murdered corse of another knight, and lifting 
 up his beaver showed him by the gleam of moonlight 
 which fell on it, tliat it had the face of his spectre- 
 guide ! Tlie dramatic power in the character of Sche- 
 doni, the Italian monk, has been much admired and 
 praised ; but the effect does not depend upon the 
 character, but the situations ; not upon the figure, but 
 yupon the background. The " Castle of Otranto" 
 /(which is supposed to have led the way to this sfyTe of 
 ■NiM'riting) is, to my notion, dry, meagre, and without 
 effect. It is done upon false principles of taste. The 
 great hand and arm whrch' are thrustr into the court- 
 yard, and remain there all day long, are the pasteboard 
 machinery of a pantomime ; they shock the senses, and 
 have no purchase upon the imagination. They are a 
 matter-of-fact impossibility ; a fixture, and no longer 
 a phantom. Quod sic mihi ostendis, incredulus odi. By 
 realizing the chimeras of ignorance and fear, begot 
 upon shadows and dim likenesses, we take away the 
 very grounds of credulity and superstition ; and, as 
 in other cases, by facing out the imposture betray the 
 secret to the contempt and laughter of the spectators.
 
 THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS 167 
 
 Tlie " Recess/' and the " Old English Baron," are also 
 '' dismal treatises/' but with little in them "at which 
 our fell of hair is like to rouse and stir as life were in 
 it." They are dull and prosing, without the spirit of 
 fiction or the air of tradition to make them interesting. 
 After Mrs. Radcliffe, Monk Lewis was the greatest 
 master of the art of freezing the blood. The robber- 
 scene in the " Monk " is only inferior to that in 
 ^^ Count Fathom/' and perfectly new in the circum- 
 stances and cast of the characters. Some of his 
 descriptions are chargeable with unpardonable gross- 
 ness, but the pieces of poetry interspersed in this far- 
 famed novel, such as the fight of Roncesvalles and the 
 Exile, in particular, have a romantic and delightful 
 harmony, such as might be chaunted by the moon- 
 light pilgrim, or might lull the dreaming mariner on 
 summer seas. 
 
 If Mrs. Radcliffe touched the trembling chords of the 
 imagination, making wild music there, Mrs. Inchbald 
 has no less power over the springs of the heart. She 
 not only moves the affections but melts us into " all the 
 luxury of woe." Her " Nature and Art " is one of the 
 most pathetic and interesting stories in the world. It is, 
 indeed, too much so ; or the distress is too naked, and 
 the situations hardly to be borne with patience. I think 
 nothing, however, can exceed in delicacy and beauty the 
 account of the love-letter which the poor girl, who is 
 the subject of the story, receives from her lover, and 
 which she is a fortnight in spelling out, sooner than 
 show it to any one els'e ; nor the dreadful catastrophe 
 of the last fatal scene, in which the same poor creature, 
 as her former seducer, now become her judge, is about 
 to pronounce sentence of death upon her, cries out 
 in agony — " Oh, not ft-om you ! " Tlie effect of this 
 novel upon the feelings, is not only of the most distress- 
 ing, but withering kind. It blights the sentiments, 
 and haunts the memory. The " Simple Story" is not 
 much better in this respect : the gloom, however, which 
 hangs over it is of a more fixed and tender kind : we 
 are not now lifted to ecstasy, only to be plunged in
 
 7 
 
 ICH THE ENGLISH COMIC AV^IUTERS 
 
 madness; and besides the sweetness and dignity of 
 
 some of tlie characters, there are redeeming traits, 
 
 retrospective glances on the course of human life, 
 
 , wliicli brighten tlic backward stream, and smile in hope 
 
 ^ or patience to the last. Such is the account of Sand- 
 ford, her stern ami inflexible adviser, sitting by the bed- 
 side of Miss Milner, and comforting her in her dying 
 moments ; thus softening the worst pang of human 
 nature, and reconciling us to the best, but not most 
 shining virtues in Imman character. Tlie conclusion 
 of " Nature and Art," on the contrary, is a scene of 
 heartless desolation, which must effectually deter any 
 one from ever reading the book twice. Mrs. Inchbald 
 is an instance to confute the assertion of Rousseau, 
 that women fail whenever they attempt to describe the 
 passion of love. 
 
 I shall conclude this Lecture, by saying a few words 
 of the author of "Caleb Williams," and the author 
 of " Waverley." I shall speak of the last first. In 
 knowledge, in variety, in facility, in truth of painting, 
 in costume and scenery, in freshness of subject, and in 
 
 / initired interest, in glancing lights and the graces of a 
 style passing at will " from grave to gay, from lively 
 to severe," at once romantic and familiar, having the 
 utmost force of imitation and apparent freedom of inven- 
 tion ; tliese novels have the highest claims to admira- 
 tion. What lack they yet. ^ The author has all power 
 given him from without — he has not, perhaps, an equal 
 power from v.-ithin. The intensity of the feeling is not 
 equal to the distinctness of the imagery. He sits like 
 a magician in his cell, and conjures up all shapes and 
 sights to the view ; and with a little variation we might 
 apply to liim what Spenser says of Fancy : — 
 
 " His chamber was dispainted all within 
 With sundry colours, in the which were writ 
 Infinite shapes of things dispersed thin ; 
 Some such as in the woi Id were never yet ; 
 Some daily seene and knowen by their names, 
 Such as in idle fantasies do Hit ; 
 Infernal hags, centaurs, fiends, hippodames, 
 Apes, lions, eagles, owls, fools, lovers, children, dames."
 
 THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS 169 
 
 In the midst of all this phantasmag'oria, the author 
 liimself never appears to take part with his characters, 
 to prompt our affection to the good, or sharpen our 
 antipathy to the had. It is the perfection of art to 
 conceal art ; and this is "iTere done so completely, tliat 
 while it adds to our pleasure in the work, it seems to 
 take away from the merit of the author. As he does 
 not thrust himself forward in the foreground, he loses 
 the credit of the performance. The copies are so true 
 to nature, that they appear like tapestry figures taken 
 off by the pattern ; the obvious patchwork of tradition 
 and history. His characters are transplanted at once 
 from their native soil to the page which we are read- 
 ing, without any traces of their having passed through 
 the hot-bed of the author's genius or vanity. He 
 leaves them as he found them ; but this is doing 
 wonders. The Laird and the Bailie of Bradwardine, 
 the idiot rhymer, David Gellatley, Miss Rose Brad- 
 wardine, and Miss Flora Mac-Ivor, her brother the 
 Highland Jacobite chieftain, Vich Ian Vohr, the High- 
 land rover, Donald Bean Lean, and the worthy page 
 Galium Beg, Bothwell and Balfour of Burley, Claver- 
 house and Macbriar, Elshie the Black Dwarf, and the 
 Red Reever of Westburn Flat, Hobbie and Grace 
 Armstrong, Ellangowan and Dominie Sampson, Dirk 
 Hatteraick and Meg Merrilies, are at present " familiar 
 in our mouths as household names," and whether they 
 are actual persons or creations of the poet's pen, is 
 an impertinent inquiry. Tlie picturesque and local 
 s(;enery is as fresh as the lichen on the rock : the 
 cliaracters are a part of the scenery. If they are 
 put in action, it is a moving picture : if they speak, 
 we hear their dialect and the tones of their voice. If 
 the humour is made out by dialect, the character by 
 the dress, the interest by the focts and documents in 
 the author's possession, we have no right to complain, 
 if it is made out ; but sometimes it hardly is, and then 
 we have a right to say so. For instance, in the 
 ''Tales of my Landlord," Cainiy Elshie is not in 
 liimself so formidable or petrific a person as the real
 
 170 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 Black Dwarf, called David Ritchie, nor are his acts 
 or sayings so stajfgeriug to the imagination. Again, 
 the first introduction of this extraordinary personage, 
 groping about among the hoary twilight ruins of tlie 
 Witch of Micklestane Moor and her Grey Geese, is 
 as full of preternatural power and bewildering effect 
 (according to the tradition of the country) as can be ; 
 while the last decisive scene, where the Dwarf, in his 
 resumed character of Sir Edward Mauley, comes from 
 the tomb in the Cliapel, to prevent the forced marriage 
 of the daughter of his former betrothed mistress witli 
 the man she abhors, is altogether powerless and tame. 
 No situation could be imagined more finely calculated 
 to call forth an author's powers of imagination and 
 passion ; but nothing is done. The assembly is dis- 
 persed under circumstances of the strongest natural 
 feeling, and the most appalling preternatural appear- 
 ances, just as if the effect had been produced by a 
 peace-officer entering for the same purpose. Tliese 
 instances of a falling-otf are, however, rare ; and 
 if this author should not be supposed by fastidious 
 critics to have original genius in the highest degree, 
 he has other qualities which supply its place so well, 
 his materials are so rich and varied, and he uses them 
 so lavishly, that the reader is no loser by the exchange. 
 We are not in fear that he should publish anotlier 
 novel ; we are under no apprehension of his exhaust- 
 ing himself, for he has shown that he is inexhaustible. 
 Whoever else is, it is pretty clear that the author of 
 " Caleb Williams " and " St. Leon " is not the author 
 of ^"^ Waverley." Nothing can be more distinct or 
 r excellent in their several ways than these two writers. 
 
 ilf the one owes almost everything to external observa- 
 tion and traditional character, the other owes everything 
 to internal conception and contemplation of the possible 
 workings of the human mind. There is little knowledge 
 of the world, little variety, neither an eye for the 
 picturesque, nor a talent for the humorous in " Caleb 
 Williams " for instance, but you cannot doubt for a 
 moment of the originality of the work and the force of
 
 THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS 171 
 
 the conception. The impression made upon the reader 
 is the exact measure of the strength of the author's 
 genius. For the effect^ both in " Caleb Williams " and 
 " St. Leon," is entirely made out, neither by facts, nor 
 dates, by black-letter or magazine learning, by tran- 
 script or record, but l)y intense and patient study of 
 the human heart, and by an imagination projecting 
 itself into certain situations, and capable of working up 
 its imaginary feelings to the height of reality, llie 
 author launches into the ideal world, and must sustain 
 himself and the reader there by the mere force of 
 imagination. The sense of power in the writer thus 
 adds to the interest of the subject. — The character of 
 Falkland is a sort of apotheosis of the love of fame. 
 Tlie gay, the gallant Falkland lives only in the good 
 opinion of good men ; for this he adorns his soul with 
 virtue, and tarnishes it with crime ; he lives only for 
 this, and dies as he loses it. He is a lover of virtue 
 l)ut a worshipper of fame. Stung to madness by a 
 brutal insult, he avenges himself by a crime of the 
 deepest dye, and the remorse of his conscience and the 
 stain upon his honour prey upon his peace and reason 
 ever after. It was into the mouth of such a character 
 that a modern poet has well put the words. 
 
 Action is momentary, 
 
 The motion of a muscle, this way or that ; 
 Suffering is long, obscure, and infinite." 
 
 In the conflict of his feelings he is worn to a skeleton, 
 wasted to a shadow. But he endures this living death 
 to watch over his undying reputation, and to preserve 
 his name unsullied and fi-ee from suspicion. But he is 
 at last disappointed in this his darling object, by the 
 very means he takes to secure it, and by harassing and 
 goading Caleb Williams (whose insatiable, incessant 
 curiosity had wormed itself into his confidence) to a 
 state of desperation, by employing every sort of perse- 
 cution, and by trying to hunt him from society like an 
 infection, makes him turn upon him, and betray the 
 inmost secret of his soul. The last moments of Falkland
 
 s/ 
 
 172 THE ENGLISH CC).\UC WRITERS 
 
 are indeed sublime : the spark of life and the hope of 
 imperishable renown are extinguished in him together ; 
 and bending liis last look of forgiveness on his victim 
 and destroyer, he dies a martyr to fame, but a confessor 
 at the shrine of virtue ! The rc-action and play of these 
 two characters into each other's hands (like Othello and 
 [ago) is inimitably well managed, and on a par with 
 ^ anything in tlie dramatic art ; but Falkland is the hero 
 of the story, Caleb \Villiams is only the instrument of 
 it. This novel is utterly unlike anything else that ever 
 was written, and is one of the most original as well as 
 powerful productions in the English language. " St. 
 Leon" is not equal to it in the plot and groundwork, 
 though perhaps superior in the execution. In the one 
 Mr. Godwin has hit upon the extreme point of the 
 perfectly natural and perfectly new ; in the other he 
 enters into the preternatural world, and comes nearer 
 to the world of commonplace. Still the character is 
 of the same exalted intellectual kind. As the ruling 
 passion of the one was the love of fame, so in the other 
 the sole business of life is thought. Raised by the fatal 
 discovery of the philosopher's stone above mortality, he 
 is cut off from all participation with its pleasures. He 
 is a limb torn from society. In possession of eternal 
 youth and beauty, he can feel no love ; surrounded, 
 tantalized, tormented with riches, he can do no good. 
 The races of men pass before him as in a speculum ; but 
 he is attached to them by no common tie of sympathy 
 or suffering. He is thrown back into himself and his 
 OAvn thoughts. He lives in the solitude of his own 
 breast, — without wife or child, or friend,' or enemy in 
 the world. His is the solitude of the soul, — not of 
 woods, or seas, or mountains, — but the desert of society, 
 the waste and desolation of the heart. He is himself 
 alone. His existence is purely contemplative, and is 
 therefore intolerable to one who lias felt the rapture of 
 affection or the anguish of woe. The contrast between 
 the enthusiastic eagerness of human pursuits and their 
 blank disappointment, was never, perhaps, more finely 
 portrayed than in this novel. Marguerite, the wife
 
 THE ENGLISH NOVELISTS 173 
 
 of St. Leon, is an instance of pure and disinterested 
 affection in one of the noblest of her sex. It is not 
 improbable that the author found the model of this 
 character in nature.— Of " Mandeville," I shall saj- 
 only one word. It appears to me to be a falling-off in 
 the subject, not in the ability. The style and declama- 
 tion are even more powerful than ever. But unless an 
 author surpasses himself, and surprises the public as 
 much the fourth or fifth time as he did the first, he 
 is said to fall off, because there is not the same 
 stimulus of novelt}'. A gi"eat deal is here made out 
 of nothing, or out of a very disagreeable subject. I 
 cannot agree that the story is out of nature. The 
 feeling is very common indeed ; though carried to an 
 unusual and improbable excess, or to one with which 
 from the individuality and minuteness of the circum- 
 stances, we cannot readily sympathize. 
 
 It is rare that a philosopher is a writer of romances. 
 Hie union of the two characters in tliis author is a sort 
 of phenomenon in the history of letters ; for I cannot 
 but consider the author of " Political Justice " as a 
 philosophical reasoner of no ordinary stamp or pre- 
 tensions. That work, whatever its defects may be, is 
 distinguished by the most acute and severe logic, and 
 by the utmost boldness of thinking, founded on a love 
 and conviction of truth. It is a system of ethics, and 
 one that, though I tliink it erroneous myself, is built 
 on following" up into its fair consequences, a very 
 common and acknowledged principle, that abstract 
 reason and general utility are the only test and stan- 
 dard of moral rectitude. If this principle is true, then 
 the system is true : but I tliink that Mr. Godwin's 
 book has done more than anything else to overturn 
 the sufficiency of this principle by abstracting, in a 
 strict metaphysical process, the influence of reason 
 or the understanding in moral questions and relations 
 from that of habit, sense, association, local and personal 
 attachment, natural affection, ttc. ; and by thus making 
 it appear how necessary tlie latter are to our limited, 
 imperfect, and mixed being, how impossible the former
 
 174 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 as an exclusive guide of actiou^ unless man were, or 
 were capable of becoming, a purely intellectual being. 
 Reason is no {loul)t one faculty of the human mind, 
 and the chief gift of Providence to man ; but it must 
 itself be subject to and modified by other instincts and 
 j)rinciples, because it is not the only one. This work 
 then, even supposing it to be false, is invaluable, as 
 demonstrating an important truth l)y the reductio ad 
 ubsurduDt ; or it is an experwienturn cruc'is in one of 
 the grand and trj-ing questions of moral philosophy. — 
 In delineating the character and feelings of the her- 
 metic philosopher St. Leon, perhaps the author had 
 not far to go from those of a speculative philo- 
 sophical Recluse. He who deals in the secrets of 
 magic^ or in the secrets of the human mind, is too 
 often looked upon with jealous eyes by the world, 
 which is no great conjurer; he who pours out his 
 intellectual wealth into the lap of the public, is hated 
 by those who cannot understand how he came by it ; 
 he who thinks beyond his age, cannot expect the 
 feelings of his contemporaries to go along with him ; 
 he whose mind is of no age or country, is seldom 
 properly recognized during his lifetime, and must 
 wait, in order to have justice done him, for the late 
 but lasting award of posterity : — " Where his treasure 
 is, thei'e his heart is also."
 
 THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, ETC. 175 
 
 LECTURE VII 
 
 ON THE WORKS OF HOGARTH : ON THE GRAND 
 AND FAMILIAR STYLE OF PAINTING 
 
 If the quantity of amusement, or of matter for more 
 serious reflection wliicli their works have afforded, is 
 that by which we are to judge of precedence among 
 the intellectual benefactors of mankind, there are, 
 perhaps, few persons who can put in a stronger claim 
 to our gratitude than Hogarth. It is not hazarding 
 too much to assert, that he was one of the greatest 
 comic geniuses that ever lived, and he was certainly 
 one of the most extraordinary men this country has 
 produced. ^ Criticism has not done him justice, though 
 public opinion has. His works have received a sanction 
 which it would be vain to dispute, in the universal 
 delight and admiration with which they have been 
 regarded, from their first appearance to the present 
 moment. The wonderful knowledge which he possessed 
 of human life and manners, is only to be surpassed (if 
 it can be) by the power of invention with which he has 
 combined and contrasted his materials in the most 
 ludicrous and varied points of view, and by the mastery 
 of execution with which he has embodied and made 
 tangible the very thoughts and passing movements of 
 the mind. Critics sometimes object to the style of 
 Hogarth's pictures, or to the class to which they 
 belong, f First, he belongs to no class, or if he does, 
 it is to the same classes as Fielding, Smollett, Van- 
 brugh, and Moliere. > Besides, the merit of his pictures 
 does not depend on the nature of the subject, but on 
 the knowledge displayed of it, on the number of ideas 
 they excite, on the fund of thought and observation 
 contained in them. Thev are to be studied as works
 
 17G 'l'[TE ENGLISH COMIC \V^RITE11S 
 
 of science as well as of amusement ; they satisfy our 
 love of truth ; tliey lill up the void in the mind ; tliey 
 form a series of plates in natural liistoiy, and of that 
 most interesting part of natural history, tlie history of 
 our own species. Make what deductions you please 
 for the vulgarity of the subject, yet in the research, 
 the profundity, the absolute truth and precision of the 
 delineation of character ; in the invention of incident, 
 in wit and humour ; in tlie life with which they are 
 "instinct in every part"; in everlasting variety and 
 originality ; they never have, and probably never l^'ill 
 be surpassed. ■•'I'hey stimulate tlie faculties as well as 
 soothe them. 'VOther pictures we see, Hogarth's we 
 read." 
 
 Tlie jiublic had not long ago an opportunity of 
 viewing most of Hogarth's pictures, in the collection 
 made of them at the British Gallery. The supe- 
 riority of the original paintings to the common prints, 
 is in a great measure confined to the " Marriage a la 
 Mode," with which I shall begin my remarks. 
 
 Boccaccio, the most refined and sentimental of all 
 the novel-writers, has been stigmatized as a mere 
 inventor of licentious tales, because readers in general 
 have only seized on those things in his works which 
 were suited to their own taste, and have thus/'reflected 
 their own grossness back upon the writer. \/So it has 
 happened, that the majority of critics having been 
 most struck with the strong and decided expression 
 in Hogai'th, the extreme delicacy and suhtle grada- 
 tions of character in his pictures have almost entirely 
 escaped them. In the first picture of the " Majxiage 
 a la ^l-fti^^" the three figures of the young nomemau, 
 "Tils' intended bride, and her inamorato, the lawyer, 
 show how much Hogarth excelled in the power of giving 
 soft and effeminate expression. Tliey have, however, 
 been less noticed than the other figures, which tell 
 a plainer story, and convey a more palpable moral. 
 Notliing can be more finely managed than the differ- 
 ence of character in these delicate personages. 'Jlie 
 beau sits smiling at the looking-gla.ss, with a reflected
 
 THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, ETC. 177 
 
 simper of self-admiration, and a languishing inclina- 
 tion of the head, while the rest of his body is perked 
 up on his high heels, with a certain air of tip-toe 
 elevation. He is the Narcissus, of- the, reign of 
 George. H, whose powdered peruke, ruffles, gold 
 lace, and patches, divide his self-love equally with 
 his own person, the true Sir Plume of his day, — 
 
 " Of amber snuff-box justly vain, 
 
 And the nice conduct of a clouded cane." 
 
 There is the same felicity in the figure and attitude 
 of the bride, courted by the lawyer. There is the 
 utmost flexibility, and yielding softness in her whole 
 person, a listless languor and tremulous suspense in 
 the expression of her face. It is the precise look 
 and air which Pope has given to his favourite Belinda^ 
 just at the moment~DfH;4i« *' Rape of the Lock." The 
 hetghteiied glow, the forward intelligence, and loosened 
 soul of love in the same face, in the " Assignation Scene" 
 before the masquerade, form a fine and instructive 
 contrast to the delicacy, timidity, and coy reluctance 
 expressed in the first. The lawyer, in both pictures, 
 is much the same — perhaps too much so — though even 
 this unmoved, unaltered appearance may be designed 
 as characteristic. In both cases, he has "a person 
 and a smooth dispose, framed to make women false." 
 He is full of that easy good humour, and easy good 
 opinion of himself, with which the sex are delighted. 
 There is not a sharp angle in his face to obstruct his 
 success, or give a hint of ddubt or difficulty. His 
 whole aspect is round and rosy, lively and unmeaning, 
 happy without the least expense of thought, careless, 
 and inviting ; and conveys a perfect idea of the unin- 
 terrupted glide and pleasing murmur of the soft periods 
 that flow from his tongue. 
 
 The expression of the bi-ide in the " Moriihig Scene " 
 is the most highly seasoned, and at the same lime "the 
 most vulgar in the series. The figure, face, and atti- 
 tude of the husband are inimitable. Hogarth has with 
 great skill contrasted the pale countenance of the 
 
 M
 
 178 TUE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 ]nis;]iaii(l witli the yellow whitish colour of the marhle 
 chimiiey-j)ioce l)chiiid him, in such a manner as to 
 preserve the fleshy tone of the former. The airy 
 splendour of the view of the inner room in this picture, 
 is probahlj' not exceeded by any of the productions of 
 tlie Flemish school. 
 
 The Young Girl , in the third pictui-e, wlio is repre- 
 sented as a victim of fashionable profligacy, is unques- 
 tionably one of the artist's chefo-d'oiuvre. The exijuisite 
 delicacy of the painting is only surpassed by the felicity 
 and sulitlety^ of the conception. Nothing can he more 
 striking than the contrast l)etween the extreme softness 
 of her person and the hardened indifference of her 
 character. The vacant stillness, the docility to vice, 
 the premature suppression of youthful sensibility, the 
 doll-like mechanism of the whole figure, which seems 
 to have no other feeling but a sickly sense of j)ain, — 
 show the deepest insight into human nature, and into 
 the efi^'ects of those refinements in depravity, by which 
 it has been good-naturedly asserted, that " vice loses 
 half its evil in losing all its grossness." llie story of 
 this picture is in some parts very obscure and enig- 
 matical. It is certain that the Nobleman is not looking 
 straight forward to the Quack, whom he seems to have 
 been threatening with his cane ; but that his eyes are 
 turned up with an ironical leer of triumph to the 
 Procuress. Tlie commanding attitude and size of this 
 woman, — the swelling circumference of her dress, 
 spread out like a turkey-cock's feathers, — the fierce, 
 ungovernable, inveterate malignity of her countenance, 
 which hardly needs the comment of the clasp-knife to 
 explain her purpose, are all admirable in themselves, 
 and still more so, as they are opposed to the mute 
 insensibility, the elegant negligence of dress, and the 
 childish figure of the girl, who is supposed to be her 
 protegee. As for the Quack, there can be no doubt 
 entertained about him. His face seems as if it were 
 composed of salve, and his features exhibit all the chaos 
 and confusion of the most gross, ignorant, and impudent 
 empiricism.
 
 THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, ETC. 179 
 
 Tlie gradations of ridiculous affectation in the "Music 
 Scene," are finely imagined and preserved. Tlie pre- 
 posterous, overstrained admiration of the Lady of 
 Quality ; the sentimental, insipid, patient delight of 
 the Man with his hair in papers, and sipping his tea ; 
 the pert, smirking, conceited, half-distorted approhation 
 of the figure next to him ; the transition to the total 
 insensihility of the round face in profile, and tlien to 
 the wonder of the Negro-boy at tlie rapture of his 
 mistress, — form a perfect whole. The sanguine com- 
 plexion and flame-coloured hair of the female Virtuoso 
 throw an additional light on the character. This is 
 lost in the print. Tlie continuing the red colour of the 
 hair into the back of the chair, has been pointed out as 
 one of those instances of alliteration in colouring, of 
 wliich these pictures are everywliere full. Tlie gross, 
 bloated appearance of the Italian Singer is well relieved 
 by the hard features of the instrumental Performer 
 behind him, which might be carved of wood. The 
 Negro-boy, holding tlie chocolate, in expression, colour, 
 and execution, is a masterpiece. The gay, lively 
 derision of the other Negro-boy, playing with the 
 Actseon, is an ingenious contrast to the profound amaze- 
 ment of the first. Some account has already been given 
 of the two lovers in this picture. It is curious to 
 observe the infinite activity of mind which the artist 
 displays on every occasion. An instance occurs in the 
 present picture. He has so contrived the papers in 
 the hair of the Bride, as to make them look almost 
 like a wreath of half-blown flowers ; while those which 
 he has placed on the head of the musical Amateur very 
 much resemble a chevaux-de-frise of horns, which adorn 
 and fortify the lack-lustre expression and mild resigna- 
 tion of the face beneath. 
 
 Tlie ".Ni ght Scene " is inferior to the rest of the 
 series. The attitude of the Husband, who is just 
 killed, is one in which it would be impossible for him 
 to stand, or even to fall. It resembles the loose paste- 
 board figures they make for children. The characters 
 in the last picture, in which the wife dies, are all
 
 180 THE ENGLISH COMIC ^riUTKRS 
 
 masterly. ^\^e would ])articularly refer to the captious, 
 petulant selt-sufficieney of the Apothecary, whose face 
 and figure are constructed on exact physiognomical 
 princi])lcs, and to the fine example of passive obedience, 
 and non-resistance in tlie Servant^ whom he is taking 
 to task, and whose coat of green and yellow livery is 
 as long and melancholy as his face. Tlie disconsolate 
 look, the haggard eyes, the open moutli, the comb 
 sticking in the hair, the broken, gapped teeth, wliich, 
 as it were, hitch in an answer — everything about liim 
 denotes the utmost perplexity and dismay. The har- 
 mony and gradations of colour in this picture are 
 uniformly preserved with the greatest nicety, and 
 are well worthy the attention of the artist. 
 
 We have so tar attempted to point out the fund of 
 observation, physical and moral, contained in one set 
 of these pictures, the "Marriage a la Mode." The 
 rest would furnish as many topics to descant upon, 
 were the patience of the reader as inexhaustible as the 
 painter's invention. But as this is not the case, we 
 shall content ourselves with barely referring to some of 
 those figures in the other pictures, which appear the 
 most striking ; and which we see, not only while we 
 are looking at them, but which we have before us at 
 all other times. For instance ; who, having seen, can 
 easily forget that exquisite frost-piece of religion and 
 morality, the antiquated prude, in the picture of 
 '•'Morning".'' or that striking commentary on the 
 " good old times," the little wretched appendage of a 
 footboy, who crawls, half-famished and half-frozen, 
 behind her.'' The French man and woman, in the 
 " Noon," are the perfection of flighty alFectation and 
 studied grimace ; the amiable fraternization of the two 
 old women saluting each other, is not enough to be 
 admired ; and in the little master, in the same national 
 group, we se6 the early promise and personification of 
 that eternal principle of Avondrous self-complacency 
 proof against all circumstances, which makes the French 
 the only people who are vain, even of being cuckolded 
 and being conquered ! Or shall we prefer to this, the
 
 THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, ETC. 181 
 
 outrageous distress and uiuiiitigated terrors of tlie boy 
 who has dropped his disli of meat, and wlio seems red 
 all over with shame and vexation, and bursting with the 
 noise he makes ? Or what can be better than the good 
 liousewifery of the girl underneath, who is devouring 
 the lucky fragments ? Or than the plump, ripe, florid, 
 luscious look of the servant-wench, embraced by a 
 greasy rascal of an Othello, with her pie-dish tottering 
 like her virtue, and with the most precious part of 
 its contents running over? Just— no, not quite— as 
 good, is the joke of the woman overhead, who, having 
 quarrelled with her husband, is throwing their Sunday's 
 dinner out of the window, to complete this chapter 
 of accidents of baked dishes. The husband, in the 
 " Evening Scene," is certainly as meek as any recorded 
 in history ; but we cannot say that we admire this 
 picture, or the " Night Scene " after it. But then, in 
 tbe " Taste in High Life," there is that inimitable pair, 
 differing only in s'ex, congratulating and delighting pne 
 another by "all the mutually reflected charities" of 
 folly and affectation ; with the young lady, coloured 
 like" a rose, dandling her little, black, pug-faced, white- 
 teethed, chuckling favourite ; and Avith the portrait of 
 M. Des Noyers, in the background, dancing in a grand 
 liallet, surrounded by butterflies. And again, in " The 
 Election Dinner," is' the immortal cobbler, surrounded 
 by his peers, who, " frequent and full," — 
 
 "In loud recess and brawling conclave sit 
 
 the Jew, in the second picture, a very Jew in grain- 
 innumerable fine sketches of heads in the " Polling 
 for Votes," of which the nobleman, overlooking the 
 caricaturist, is the best ; — and then the irresistible, 
 tumultuous display of broad humour in the " Chair- 
 ing the Member," which is, perhaps, of all Hogarth's 
 pictures, the most full of laughable incidents and 
 situations. The yellow, rusty-faced thresher, with liis 
 swinging flail, breaking the head of one of the chair- 
 men ; and his redoubted antagonist, the sailor, with 
 his oak stick, and stumping wooden leg, a supplemental
 
 182 THP: ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 cudgel — the persevei'iiif!;' ecstasy of the hobblinj^ blind 
 fiddler, wlio, in the fray, appears to have been trod 
 upon by the artificial excrescence of the honest tar — 
 Alonsieur, the monkey, with piteous aspect, speculat- 
 ing the impending disaster of the triumphant candidate ; 
 and his brother Bruin, appropriating tlie paunch — the 
 precipitous flight of the pigs, souse over head into the 
 water ; the tine lady fainting, with vermilion lips ; and 
 the two chimney-sweepers, satirical young rogues ! — 
 I had almost forgot the politician, who is burning a 
 hole through his hat with a candle in reading a news- 
 paper ; and the chickens, in the " March to Fincliley," 
 wandering in search of their lost dam, who is found" in 
 the pocket of the Serjeant. Of the pictures in the 
 ''Rake's Progress," exhibited in this collection, I sliall 
 not here say anything, because I think them, on the 
 whole, inferior to the prints, and because they have 
 already been criticized by a writer, to whom I could 
 add nothing, in a paper which ought to be read by 
 every lover of Hogarth and of P^ngiish genius — I mean, 
 Mr. Lamb's "Essay on the Works of Hogarth." 1 
 shall at present proceed to form some estimate of the 
 styie of art in wliich this painter excelled. 
 
 -4^'hat distinguishes his compositions from all others 
 of the same general kind, is, that they are equally 
 remote from caricature and from mere still life. It 
 of course happens in subjects taken from common life, 
 that the painter can procure real models, and he can 
 get them to sit as long as he pleases. Hence, in 
 general, those attitudes and expressions have been 
 chosen which could be assumed the longest ; and 
 in imitating which, the artist, by taking pains and 
 time, might produce almost as complete facsimiles 
 as he could of a flower or a flower-pot, of a dama^sk 
 curtain or a china vase. The copy was as perfect a^id 
 as uninteresting in the one case as in the other, w On 
 the contrary, subjects of drollery and ridicule, afford- 
 ing frequent examples of strange deformity and pecu- 
 liarity of features, these have been eagerly seized by 
 another class of artists, who, without subjecting them-
 
 THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, ETC. 180 
 
 selves to the laborious drudgery of the Dutch school \ 
 aud their imitators, have produced our popular cari- i 
 catures, by rudely copying or exaggerating the casual | 
 irregularities of the human countenance. Hogarth ! 
 has equally avoided the faults of both these styles ; 
 the insipid tameness of the one, and the gross ^ 
 extravagance of the other, so as to give to the "/ 
 productions of his pencil equal solidity and eflfect. 
 For his faces go to the very verge of caricature, and 
 yet never (I believe in any single instance) go beyond 
 it : they take the very widest latitude, and yet we 
 always see the links which bind them to nature : they 
 bear all the marks, and carry all the conviction of 
 reality with them, as if we had seen the actual faces 
 for the first time, from the precision, consistency, and 
 good sense with which the whole and every part is 
 made out. They exhibit the most uncommon features, 
 with the most uncommon expressions ; but which yet 
 are as familiar and intelligible as possible, because, 
 with all the boldness, they have all the truth of 
 nature. Hogarth has left behind him as many of 
 these memorable faces, in their memorable moments, 
 as, perhaps, most of us remember in the course of 
 our lives, and has thus doubled the quantity of our 
 experience. 
 
 It will assist us in forming a more determinate idea 
 of the peculiar genius of Hogarth, to compare him 
 with a deservedly admired artist in our own times. 
 The highest authority on art in this country, I under- 
 stand, has pronounced that Mr. Wilkie united the 
 excellences of Hogarth to those of Teuiers. I demur 
 to this decision in both its branches : but in demurring 
 to authority it is necessary to give our reasons. I 
 conceive that this ingenious and attentive observer 
 of nature has certain essential, real, and indisputable 
 excellences of his own ; and I think it, therefore, the 
 less important to clothe him with any vicarious merits 
 which do not belong to him. Mr. Wilkie's pictures, 
 generally speaking, derive almost their whole value 
 from their reality, or the truth of the representation.
 
 184 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 'J'hey are works of pure imitative art ; and tlie test 
 of this style of composition is to represent nature 
 faithfully and ha])pily in its siinplost combinations. It 
 may be said of an artist like Mr. Wllkic, that nothintj 
 lunnau is indifferent to him. His mind takes an 
 interest in, and it gives an interest to, tbfe most 
 familiar scenes and transactions of life, vile pro- 
 fessedly gives character, thought, and passion, in 
 their lowest degrees, and in their everyday forms. 
 He selects the commonest events and appearances of 
 nature for his subjects ; and trusts to their very 
 commonness for the interest and amusement he is 
 to excite.^ J^lr. 'W^ilkie is a serious, prosaic, literal 
 narrator of facts ; and his pictures may be considered 
 as diaries, or minutes of what is passing constantly 
 / about us. vHogarth, on the contrary, is essentially a 
 comic painter ; his pictures are not indifferent, unim- 
 passioned, transcripts of incidental scenes or customs, 
 or descriptions of hvmian nature, but rich, exuberant 
 moral satires, exposing vice and folly in their most 
 ludicrous points of view, and, with a profound insiglit 
 into the weak sides of character and manners in all 
 their tendencies, combinations, and contrasts. There 
 is not a single picture of his containing a representa- 
 tion of merely natural or domestic scenery. - He is 
 carried away by a passion for the ridiculous. His 
 object is not so much " to hold the mirror up to 
 nature" as "to show vice her own feature, scorn 
 her o\ra image." He is so far from contenting him- 
 self with still-life that he is always on the verge of 
 caricature, though without ever falling into it. He 
 does not represent folly or vice in its incipient, or 
 dormant, or grub state ; but full-grown, with wings, 
 pampered into all sorts of affectation, airy, ostenta- 
 tious, and extravagant. Folly is there seen at the 
 height— the moon is at the full; it is "the_ very 
 error of the time." There is a perpetual collision of 
 eccentricities — a tilt and tournament of absurdities ; 
 the prejudices and caprices of mankind are let loose, 
 and set together by tlie ears, as in a bear-garden.
 
 THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, ETC. 185 
 
 Hop-arth paiuts nothing but comedy or tragi-comedy. 
 \Vilkie i>uiuts neither one nor the other. Hogarth 
 never looks at any object but to find out a moral 
 or a ludicrous effect. ^Filkie never looks at any 
 object but to see that it is tloere. Hogarth's pictures 
 are a perfect jest-book from one end to the other. I 
 do not remeniber a single joke in ^Vilkie's, except 
 one very bad one of the boy in the " Blind Uddler," 
 scraping the gridiron, or fire-shovel, 1 forget which 
 it is.' In looking at Hogarth, you are ready to burst 
 vour sides witli laughing at the unaccountable jumble 
 of odd things which are brought together ; you look 
 at AV^ilkie's pictures with a mingled feeling of curiosity 
 and admiration at the accuracy of the representation. 
 For instance, there is a most admirable head of a 
 man coughing in the " Rent-day " ; the action, the 
 keeping, tl^o choked sensation, are inimitable ; but 
 there is nothing to laugh at in a man coughing. 
 AVhat strikes the mind is the difficulty of a man's 
 being painted coughing, which here certainly is a 
 masterpiece of art. But turn to the blackguard 
 cobbler in the " Election Dinner," who has been 
 smutting his neighbour's face over, and who is lolling 
 out his tongue at the joke, wdth a most surprising 
 obliquity of vision, and immediately "your lungs 
 begin to crow like chanticleer." Again, there is the 
 little boy crying in the "Cut Finger," who only gives 
 you the idea of a cross, disagreeable, obstinate child in 
 pain ; whereas the same face in Hogarth's "Noon," from 
 the ridiculous perplexity it is in, and its extravagant, 
 noisy, unfelt distress, at the accident of having let fall 
 the pie-dish, is quite irresistible. Mr. Wilkie, in his 
 picture of the " Ale-house ]3oor," I believe, painted 
 Mr. Liston as one of the figures without any great 
 effect. Hogarth would have given any price for such a 
 subject, and would have made it worth any money. I 
 have never seen anything in the expression of comic 
 humour equal to Hogarth's pictures but Listen's face I 
 
 1 The waiter drawing the cork, in the "Rent -day," is 
 another exxeption, and quite Hogarthian.
 
 VM THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 Mr. Wilkie paints interiors, but still you generally 
 connect them with the country. Hogarth, even when 
 he paints people in tlie open air, represents them either 
 as coming from London, as in the polling for votes at 
 Brentford, or as returning to it, as the dyer and hi.s 
 wife at Bagnigge ^Vells. In this last picture he has 
 contrived to convert a common rural image into a type 
 and emblem of city honours. In fact, I know no one 
 who had a less pastoi-al imagination than Hogarth. 
 He delights in tlie thick of St. Giles's or St. James's. 
 His pictures breatlie a certain close, greasy, tavern 
 air. The fare he serves up to us consists of high- 
 seasoned dishes, ragouts, and olla podridas, like the 
 supper in " Gil Bias," which it requires a strong- 
 stomach to digest. Mr. >Vilkie presents us with a 
 sort of lenten fare, very good and wholesome, but 
 rather insipid than overpowering ! Mr. VVilkie's 
 pictures are, in general, much better painted than 
 Hogarth's ; but the " Marriage a la Mode '' is superior 
 both in colour and execution to any of VVilkie's. I 
 may add here, without any disparagement, tliat, as an 
 artist, Mr. Wilkie is hardly to be mentioned with 
 Teniers. Neither in truth and brilliant clearness 
 of colouring, nor in facility of execution, is there 
 any comparison. Teniers was a perfect master in all 
 these respects, and our own countryman is positively 
 defective, notwithstanding the very laudable care 
 with which he finishes every part of his pictures. 
 Tliere is an evident smear and dragging of the paint, 
 which is also of a bad purple or puttyish tone, and 
 which never appears in the pictures of the Flemish 
 artist, any more tlian in a looking-glass. Teniers, 
 probably from his facility of execution, succeeded in 
 giving a more local and momentary expression to his 
 figures. They seem each going on with his particular 
 amusement or occupation ; Wilkie's have, in general, 
 more a look of sitting for their pictures. Their com- 
 positions are veiy different also ; and in this respect, 
 I believe, Mr. Vvilkie has the advantage. Teniers's 
 boors are usually amusing themselves at skittles, or
 
 THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, ETC. 187 
 
 cUmciug', or drinking, or smoking, or doing what they 
 like, in a careless, desultory way ; and so the composi- 
 tion is loose and irregular. Wilkie's figures are all 
 drawn up in a regular order, and engaged in one 
 principal action, with occasional episodes. Tlie story 
 of the "Blind Fiddler" is the most interesting and 
 the best told. The two cliildren standing before the 
 musician are delightful. Tlie " Card-players " is the 
 best coloured of his pictures, if I am not mistaken. 
 The •'' Village Politicians," though excellent as to 
 character and composition, is inferior as a picture to 
 those which Mr. \Vilkie has since painted. His latest 
 pictures, however, do not appear to me to be his best. 
 There is something of manner and affectation in the 
 grouping of the figures, and a pink and rosy colour 
 spread over them, which is out of place. The hues of 
 Rubens and Sir Joshua do not agree with Mr. ^Vilkie's 
 subjects. One of his last pictures, that of "Duncan 
 Gray," is equally remarkable for sweetness and sim- 
 plicity in colour, composition, and expression. I must 
 here conclude this very general account ; for to point 
 out the particular beauties of every one of his pictures 
 in detail, would require an Essay by itself. 
 
 I have promised to say something in this Lecture on 
 the difference between the grand and familiar style of 
 painting ; and I shall throw out what imperfect hints 
 I have been able to collect on this subject, so often 
 attempted and never yet succeeded in, taking the 
 examples and illustrations from Hogarth, that is, 
 from what he possessed or wanted in each kind. 
 
 And first, the difference is not that between imita- 
 tion and invention ; for there is as much of this last 
 quality in Hogarth as in any painter or poet whatever. 
 As for example, to take two of his pictures only, I 
 mean the "Enraged Musician" and the "Gin Lane"; 
 in one of which every conceivable variety of disagree- 
 able and discordant sound — the razor-grinder turning 
 his wheel ; the boy with his drum, and the girl with 
 her rattle momentarily suspended ; the pursuivant blow- 
 ing his horn ; the shrill milk-woman ; the inexorable
 
 nu$ THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 ballad-siiigiT, with lier squalling inft^nt ; the pew- 
 terer's shop close by ; the fish-women ; the chimney- 
 .sweepers at tlie top of a chimney, and the two 
 cats in melodious concert on the ridjie of the tiles ; 
 with the hells ringing in the distance, as we sec by 
 the flags flying ; — and in the otlier, the complicated 
 forms and signs of death and ruinous decay — the 
 woman on the stairs of tlie bridge asleep, letting lier 
 child fall over ; her ghastly companion opposite, next 
 to death's door, with hollow, famished clieeks and 
 staring ribs ; the dog fighting with the man for the 
 bare shin-bone ; the man hanging himself in a garret ; 
 the female corpse put into a coffin by the parish 
 beadle ; the men marching after a funeral, seen 
 through a broken wall in the background ; and the 
 very houses reeling as if drunk and tumbling about 
 the' ears of the infatuated victims below, the pa^vJ^- 
 broker's being the only one that stands firm and 
 unimpaired — enforce the moral meant to be conveyed 
 liy each of these pieces with a richness and research 
 (if combination and artful contrast not easily paralleled 
 in any production of the pencil or the pen. The 
 clock pointing to four in the morning, in "Modern 
 Midnight Conversation," just as the immovable 
 I'arson Ford is filling out another glass from a 
 brimming punch-bowl, while most of his companions, 
 with the exception of the sly lawyer, are falling 
 around him " like leaves in October " ; and again, 
 the extraordinary mistake of the man leaning against 
 the post, in the " Lord Mayor's Procession " — show 
 a mind capable of seizing the most rare and transient 
 coincidences of things, of imagining what either never 
 happened at all, or of instantly fixing on and applying 
 to its purpose what never happened but once. So far, 
 the invention shown in the great style of painting is 
 poor in the comparison. Indeed, grandeur is supposed 
 (whether rightly or not, I shall not here inquire) to 
 
 itnply a simplicity inconsistent with this inexhaustible 
 variety of incident and circumstantial detail. 
 
 JSecondly, the diflPerence between the ideal and
 
 THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, ETC. 189 
 
 familiar style is not to be explained by the difference 
 between the genteel and vulgar ; for it is evident that 
 Hogarth was almost as much at home in the genteel ' 
 comedy as in the broad farce of his jjictures. He 
 excelled not only in exhibiting the coarse humours and 
 disgusting incidents of the lowest life, but in exhibiting 
 the vices, the follies, and the frivolity of the fashion- 
 able manners of his time : his fine ladies do not yield 
 the palm of ridicule to his waiting-maids, and his lords 
 and his footmen are on a very respectable footing 
 of equality. There is no want, for example, in the 
 " Marriage a la Mode," or in " Taste in High Life," 
 of affectation verging into idiocy, or of languid sensi- 
 bility that might — 
 
 / " Die of a rose in aromatic jKiiii." 
 
 yMany of Hogarth's characters would form admirable 
 illustrations of Pope's Satires, who was contemporary 
 with him. j/'In sliort, Hogarth was a painter, not of 
 low but of real life ; and the ridiculous and pronnHent" 
 features of high or low life, " of the great vulgar or the 
 small," lay equally open to him. Tlie country girl, in 
 the first plate of the " Harlot's Prqgi-ess^" coming out 
 of the waggon, is not more'simple aiurungainly than 
 the same figure, in the second, is thoroughly initiated 
 into tlie mysteries of her art, and suddenly accomplished 
 in all the airs and graces of affectation, ease, and impu- 
 dence. The affected languor and imbecility of the same 
 girl afterwards, when put to beat hemp in Bridewell, 
 is exactly in keeping with the character she has been 
 taught to assume. Sir Joshua could do nothing like 
 it in his line of portrait, which differed chiefly in the 
 background. The fine gentleman at his levee, in the 
 " Rake's Progress," is also a complete model of a person 
 of rank and fortune, surrounded by needy and worth- 
 less adventurers, fiddlers, poetasters and virtuosi, as 
 was the custom in those days. Lord Chesterfield him- 
 self would not liave been disgraced by sitting for it. 
 I might multiply examples to show that Hogarth was 
 not characteristically deficient in that kind of elegance
 
 190 THE ENGLISH (lOMIC WRITERS 
 
 wliicli arises from an liabitual attention to external 
 appearance and deportment. I will only add as 
 instances, amonsc liis women, the two cirgantcs in the 
 " J>edlam Scene," who are dressed (allowing for the 
 difference of not quite a century) " in the manner of 
 Ackermann's fashions for May"; and among the men, 
 the lawyer in " Modern Midnight Conversation," whose 
 gracious significant leer and sleek lubricated counte- 
 nance exhibit all the happy finesse of his profession, 
 when a silk gown has been added, or is likel_y to be 
 added to it ; and several figui'cs in the " Cockpit," who 
 are evidently, at the first glance, gentlemen of the old 
 school, and where the mixture of the blacklegs with 
 the higher character is a still further test of the dis- 
 criminating skill of the painter. 
 
 Again, Hogarth had not only a perception of fashion, 
 but a sense of natural beauty. There are as many 
 pleasing faces in his pictures as in Sir Joshua. Witness 
 the girl picking the rake's pocket in the " Bagnio " 
 scene, whom we might suppose to be " the cliarming 
 Betsy Careless" ; the poet's wife, handsomer than falls 
 to the lot of most poets, wlio are generally more intent 
 upon the idea in their own minds than on the image 
 before them, and are glad to take up with Dulcineas 
 of their own creating ; the theatrical heroine in the 
 " Southwark Fair," who would be an accession to either 
 of our play-houses ; the girl asleep ogled by the clerk 
 in church-time, and the sweetheart of the " Good 
 Apprentice" in the reading desk, in the second of that 
 series, almost an ideal face and expression ; the girl in 
 her cap selected for a partner by ther footman in the 
 print of Morning," very handsome ;/and many others 
 equally so, scattered like "stray-iifts of love and 
 beauty" through these pictures, ^^ogarth was not 
 then exclusively the painter of deformity. He painted 
 beauty or ugliness indifferently, as they came in liis 
 way ; and was not by nature confined to those faces 
 which are painful and disgusting, as many would have 
 us believe. 
 
 Again, neither are we to look for the solution of
 
 THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, ETC. 191 
 
 the difficulty in the difference between the comic and 
 the tragic, between loose laughter and deep passion. 
 For Mr. Lamb has shown unanswerably that Hogarth 
 is quite at home in scenes of the deepest distress, in 
 the heart-rending calamities of common life, in the 
 expression of ungovernable rage, silent despair, or 
 moody madness, enhanced by the tenderest sympathy, 
 or aggravated by the frightful contrast of the most 
 impenetrable and obdurate insensibility, as we see 
 strikingly exemplified in the latter prints of the 
 " Rake's Progress." To the unbeliever in Hogarth's 
 power over the passions and the feelings of the lieart, 
 the characters there speak like '''^the handwriting on 
 the wall." If Mr. Lamb has gone too far in parallel- 
 ing some of these appalling representations with Shake- 
 speare, lie Avas excusable in being led to set off what 
 may be considered ay a staggering paradox against 
 a rooted prejudice. V^^At any rate the inferiority of 
 Hogarth (be it what it may) did not arise from a want 
 of passion and intense feeling ; and in tliis respect he 
 liad the advantage over Fielding, for instance, and 
 others of our comic wi-iters, who excelled only in the 
 light and ridiculous, lliere is in general a distinc- 
 tion, almost an impassable one, between the power of 
 embodying the serious and the ludicrous ; but these 
 contradictory faculties were reconciled in Hogarth, as 
 they were in Shakespeare, in Chaucer, and as it is 
 said that they were in another extraordinary and later 
 instance, Garrick's acting. 
 
 None of these, then, will do : neither \A'ill the most 
 masterly and entire keeping of character lead us to an 
 explanation of the grand and ideal style ; for Hogarth 
 possessed the niost complete and absolute mastery over 
 the truth and /identity of expression and features in 
 liis subjects. ^Every stroke of his pencil tells accord- 
 ing to a preconception in his mind. If the eye squints, 
 the mouth is distorted ; every feature acts and is acted 
 upon by the rest of the face ; even the dress and atti- 
 tude are such as could be proper to no other figure : 
 the whole is under the influence of one impulse, that of
 
 192 Tin-: ENGLISH COMIC AV^IUTERS 
 
 truth and nature. Look at the heads in the " Cockpit " 
 ah'eady mentioned, one ot" the most masterly of liis 
 productions in tliis way, wliere the working's of^tlie 
 mind are seen in every muscle of every face ; and the 
 same expression, more intense or relaxed, of hope or 
 of fear^ is stamped on each of tlie cliaracters, so that 
 you could no more transpose any part of one counte- 
 nance to another, than you could change a profile to 
 a front face. Vllogarth was, in one sense, strictly an 
 historical painter : that is, he represented tlie manners 
 and humours of mankind in action, and tlieir cliaracters 
 hy varied expression. Everything in his pictures has 
 life and motion in it. Not only does the business of 
 the scene never stand still, but every feature is put 
 into full play ; the exact feeling of the moment is 
 brought out, and carried to its utmost height, and 
 then instantly seized and stamped on the canvas for 
 ever. \Ahe expression is always taken en passant, in 
 a state of progress or change, and, as it were, at tlie 
 salient point. Besides tlie excellence of each individual 
 face, the i-eflection of the expression from face to face, 
 the contrast and struggle of particular motives and 
 feelings in the different actors in the scene, as of anger, 
 contempt, laughter, compassion, are conveyed in the 
 happiest and most lively manner. His figures are not 
 like the background on which they are jiainted : even 
 the pictures on the wall have a peculiar look of their 
 own. All this is effected by a few decisive and rapid 
 touches of the pencil, careless in appearance, but 
 infallible in their results ; so that one great criterion 
 of the grand style insisted on by Sir Joshua Reynolds, 
 that of leaving out the details, and attending to general 
 character and outline, belonged to Hogarth. He did 
 not, indeed, arrive at middle forms or neutral expres- 
 sion, which Sir Joshua makes another test of the ideal ; 
 for Hogarth was not insipid, lliat was the last fault 
 with which he could be charged. But he had breadth 
 and boldness of manner, as well as any of them ; so 
 that neitlier does tliat constitute the ideal. 
 
 What then does ? We have reduced this to some-
 
 THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, ETC. 193 
 
 thing like the last remaining quantity in an equation, 
 where all the others have been ascertained. Hogarth 
 had all the other parts of an original and accprhplished 
 genius except this ; but tliis he liad not. •He had an 
 intense feeling and command over the impressions of 
 sense, of habit, of character, and passion, the serious 
 and the comic, in a word, of nature, as it fell within 
 his own observation, or came within the sphere of his 
 actual experience ; but he had little power beyond 
 that sphere, or sympathy with that which existed 
 only in idea. He was " conformed to this world, 
 not transformed.]' If he attempted to paint Pharaoh's 
 daughter, and Paul before Felix, he lost himself. His 
 mind had feet and hands, but not wings to fly with. 
 There is a mighty world of sense, of custom, of every- 
 day action, of accidents and objects coming home to 
 us, and interesting because they do so ; the gross, 
 material, stirring, noisy world of common life and 
 sellish passion, of which Hogarth was absolute lord 
 and master : there is another mightier world, that 
 which exists only in conception and in power, the 
 universe of thought and sentiment, that surrounds 
 and is raised above the ordinary world of reality, as 
 the empyrean surrounds this nether globe, into which 
 few are privileged to soar with mighty wings out- 
 spread, and in which, as power is given them to 
 embody their aspiring fancies, to "give to airy 
 nothing a local habitation and a name," to fill ivith 
 imaginary shapes of beauty or sublimity, and make 
 the dark abyss pregnant, bringing that which is 
 remote home to us, raising themselves to the lofty, 
 sustaining themselves on the refined and abstracted, 
 making all things like not what we know and feel in 
 ourselves, in this "ignorant present" time, but like 
 what they must be in themselves, or in our noblest 
 idea of them, and stamping that idea with reality 
 (but chiefly clothing the best and the highest with 
 grace and grandeur) : this is the ideal in art, in poetry, 
 and in painting. There are things which are cog- 
 nizable only to sense, which interest only our more 
 
 N
 
 194 THE ENGLISH ( OMIC WRITERS 
 
 immediate instincts and passions : the want of food, 
 tiio loss of a liml)^ or of a sum of money ; there are 
 others tliat appeal to different and nobler faculties : 
 the wants of the mind, the hun^rer and tliirst after 
 truth and beauty — that is, to facultiiis commensurate 
 with objects greater and of greater refmement, which 
 to be grand must extend beyond ourselves to others, 
 and our interest in which must be refined in propor- 
 tion as they do so.^ The interest in these subjects is 
 in proportion to the power of conceiving them, and 
 tlie power of conceiving them is in proportion to the 
 interest and affection for them, to the innate bias of 
 the mind to elevate itself above everything low, and 
 purifj' itself from everything gross. Hogartli only 
 transcribes or transposes what was tangible and visible, 
 not the abstracted and intelligible. You see in his 
 pictures only the faces which you yourself have seen, 
 or others like them ; none of his characters are think- 
 ing of any person or thing out of the picture ; you are 
 only interested in the objects of their contention or 
 pursuit, because they themselves are interested in them. 
 Tliere is nothing remote in thought, or comprehensive 
 in feeling. 'J'he whole is intensely personal and local, 
 but the interest of the ideal and poetical style of art 
 relates to more permanent and universal objects ; and 
 the characters and forms must be such as to correspond 
 with and sustain that interest, and give external grace 
 and dignity to it. Sucli were the subjects whicli Raphael 
 chose ; faces imbued with unalterable sentiment, and 
 figures that stand in the eternal silence of thought. 
 He places before you objects of everlasting interest, 
 events of greatest magnitude, and persons in them lit 
 
 1 When Meg Merrilies says in her dying moments — " Nay, 
 nay, lay my head to the East," what was the East to her? Not 
 a reahty, but an idea of distant time and the land of her fore- 
 fathers ; the last, the strongest, and the best that occurred to 
 her in this world. Her gipsy slang and dress were quaint and 
 grotesque ; her attachment to the Kaim of Derncleugh and the 
 wood of Warrock was romantic ; her worship of the East was 
 ideal.
 
 THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, ETC. 195 
 
 for the scene and action — warriors and kings, princes 
 and nobles, and greater yet, poets and philosophers, 
 and mightier than these, patriarchs and apostles, pro- 
 phets and founders of religion, saints and martyrs, 
 angels and the Son of God. We know their importance 
 and their high calling, and we feel that they do not 
 belie it. We see them as they were painted, with the 
 eye of faith. The light which they have kindled in the 
 world is reflected back upon their faces ; the awe and 
 homage which has been paid to them is seated upon 
 their brow, and encircles tliem like a glory. All those 
 who come before them are conscious of a superior 
 presence. For example, the beggars in the Gate 
 Beautiful are impressed with this ideal borrowed char- 
 acter. Would not the cripple and the halt feel a 
 difference of sensation, and express it outwardly in 
 such circumstances.^ And was the painter wrong to 
 transfer this sense of preternatural power and the con- 
 fidence of a saving faith to his canvas .'' Hogarth's 
 " Pool of Bethesda," on the contrary, is only a col- 
 lection of common beggars receiving an alms. The 
 waters may be stirred, but the mind is not stirred 
 with them. Tlie fowls, again, in the " Miraculous 
 Draught of Fishes,^' exult and clap their wings, and 
 seem lifted up with some unusual cause of joy. There 
 is not the same expansive, elevated principle in 
 Hogarth. He has amiable and praiseworthy char- 
 acters, indeed, among his bad ones. The master of 
 the industrious and idle apprentice is a good citizen 
 and a virtuous man ; but his benevolence is mechanical 
 and confined ; it extends only to his shop, or, at most, 
 to his ward. His face is not rufiled by passion, nor 
 is it inspired by thought. To give another instance, 
 the face of the faithful female fainting in the prison- 
 scene in the " Rake's Progress," is more one of 
 effeminate softness than of disinterested tenderness, 
 or heroic constancy. But in the pictures of the 
 " Mother and Child," by Raphael and Leonardo da 
 Vinci, we .see all the tenderness purified from all the 
 weakness of maternal affection, and exalted by the
 
 196 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRrn<:iis 
 
 prospects of religious faitli ; so tliat tlie piety and 
 devotion of future generations seems to add its weiglit 
 to the expression of feminine sweetness and parental 
 love^ to press upon the heart, and breathe in tlie 
 countenance. This is the ideal, passion blen<U'd vvitli 
 thought and pointing to distant objects, not debaseil 
 by grossness, not thwarted l»y accident, not weakened 
 by familiarity, but connected with forms and circum- 
 stances that give the utmost possible expansion and 
 refinement to the general sentiment. With all my 
 admiration of Hogarth, I cannot think him equal to 
 Raphael. 1 do not know whether if the portfolio were 
 opened, I would not as soon look over the prints of 
 Hogarth as those of Raphael ; but assuredly, if the 
 question were put to me, I would sooner never have 
 seen the prints of Hogarth than never have seen those 
 of Raphael. It is many years ago since I first saw the 
 prints of the '^' Cartoons" hanging round the old- 
 fashioned parlour of a little inn in a remote part of 
 the country. I was then 3'oung : I had heard of the 
 fame of the " Cai-toons," but this was the first time 
 I had ever been admitted face to face into the presence 
 of those divine works. '' How was I then uplifted ! " 
 Prophets and apostles stood before me as in a dream, 
 and the Saviour of the Christian world with his attri- 
 butes of faith and power ; miracles were working on 
 the walls ; the hand of Raphael was there ; and as his 
 pencil traced the lines, I saw godlike spirits and lofty 
 shapes descend and walk visibly the earth, but as if 
 their thoughts still lifted them above the earth. Tliere 
 I saw the figure of St. Paul, pointing with noble fer- 
 vour to " temples not made with hands, eternal in 
 the heavens"; and that finer one of Christ in the 
 boat, whose whole figure seems sustained by meekness 
 and love ; and that of the same person surrounded by 
 his disciples, like a flock of sheep listening to the 
 music of some divine siiepherd. I knew not how 
 enough to admire them. If from this transport and 
 delight there arose in my breast a wish, a deep 
 aspiration of mingled hope and fear to be able one
 
 THE WORKS OF HOGARTH, ETC. 197 
 
 day to do something like them, that hope has long 
 since vanished ; but not with it the love of art, nor 
 delight in the works of art, nor admiration of the 
 genius which produces them, nor respect for fame 
 which rewards and crowns them ! Later in life, I saw 
 other works of this great painter (with more like them) 
 collected in the Louvre, where Art at that time lifted 
 up her head, and was seated on her throne, and said, 
 "All eyes shall see me, and all knees shall bow to 
 me ! " Honour was done to her and ail hers. There 
 was her treasure, and there tlie inventory of all she 
 had. There she had gathered together her pomp, and 
 there was her shriue, and there her votaries came and 
 worshipped as in a temple. The crown she wore was 
 brighter than that of kings. A\liere the struggles for 
 human liberty had been there were the triumphs of 
 human genius. For there, in the Louvre, were the 
 precious monuments of art ; there " stood the statue 
 that enchants the world " ; there was " Apollo," the 
 " Laocoon," the " Dying Gladiator," the head of the 
 "Antinous," "Diana with her Fawn," the "Muses 
 and the Graces " in a ring, and all the glories of the 
 antique world : — 
 
 " There was old Proteus coming from the sea, 
 And wreathed Triton blew his winding horn." 
 
 Tliere, too, were the two " St. Jeromes," Correggio's 
 and Donienichino's ; there was Raphael's " Trans- 
 figuration," the "St. Mark" of Tintoret, Paul 
 Veronese's "Marriage of Cana," the "Deluge" of 
 Poussin, and Titian's "St. Peter Martyr." It was 
 there that I learned to become an enthusiast of the 
 lasting works of the great painters, and of their 
 names no less magnificent : grateful to the heart as 
 the sound of celestial harmony from other spheres, 
 waking around us (whether heard or not) from 
 youth to age ; the stay, the guide and anchor of 
 our purest thoughts ; whom, having once seen, we 
 always remember, and who teach us to see all things 
 through them ; without whom life would be to begin
 
 198 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 again, and the earth barren ; of Raphael,^ whci lifted 
 the human form half-way to Heaven ; of Titian, who 
 painted the mind in the foce, and unfolded the soul 
 of things to the eye ; of Rubens, around whose pencil 
 gorgeous shapes thronged numberless, startling us by 
 the novel accidents of form and colour, putting the 
 spirit of motion into the universe, and weaving a 
 gay fantastic round and bacchanalian dance with 
 nature ; of Rembrandt, too, who " smoothed the i-a\en 
 down of darkness till it smiled," and tinged it with 
 a light like streaks of burnished ore ; of these, and 
 more than these, of whom the world was scarce 
 worthy, and for the loss of whom nothing could con- 
 sole me — not even the works of Hogarth !
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY 199 
 
 J 
 
 LECTURE VIII 
 
 ox THE COMIC WRITERS OF THE LAST CENTURY 
 
 The question which has been often asked, ''Why there I 
 are comparatively so few good modern comedies ? " | 
 appears in a great measure to answer itself. It is 
 because so many excellent comedies have been written, 
 that there are none written at present. Comedy natur- 
 ally wears itself out — destroys the very food on which 
 it lives ; and by constantly and successfully exposing 
 the follies and weaknesses of mankind to ridicule, in 
 the end leaves itself nothing worth laughing at. It 
 holds the mirror up to nature, and men seeing their 
 most striking peculiarities and defects pass in gay 
 review before them, learn either to avoid or conceal 
 them. It is not the criticism which the public taste- 
 exercises upon the stage, but the criticism which the 
 stage exercises upon public manners that is fatal to 
 comedy, by rendering the subject-matter of it tame, 
 correct, and spiritless. We are drilled into a sort of 
 stupid decorum, and forced to wear the j-ime dull 
 uniform of outward appearance ; and yet it is asked, y 
 why the Comic_3Iuse does not point, as she was 
 wont, atthe^eculiarities of our gait and gesture, and 
 exhibit the picturesque contrasts of our dress and 
 costume, in all that graceful variety in which she 
 delights. The genuine source of comic writing, 
 
 "Where it must live, or have no life at all," 
 
 is undoubtedly to be found in the distinguishing pecu- 
 liarities of men and maimers. Now this distinction 
 can subsist, so as to be strong, pointed, and general, 
 only while the manners of different classes are formed 
 almost immediately by their particular circumstances.
 
 200 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITEKS 
 
 and the characters of individuals by their natural 
 temperament and situation, without being everlastingly 
 modified and neutralized by intercourse with the world 
 — by knowledge and e(hication. In a cei'tain stage of 
 society, men may be said to vegetate like trees, and to 
 become rooted to tlu; soil in which they grow. They 
 have no idea of anything beyond themselves and their 
 immediate sphere of action ; they are, as it were, circum- 
 scribed, and defined by their particular circumstances ; 
 they are what their situation makes them, and nothing 
 more. Each is absorbed in his own profession or j>nr- 
 suit, and each in his turn contracts that habitual 
 peculiarity of manners and opinions which makes him 
 the subject of ridicule to others, and the sport of tlie 
 Comic Muse. Thus the physician is notliing but a 
 physician, the lawyer is a mere lawyer, the scholar 
 degenerates into a pedant, the country squire is a 
 different species of being from the fine gentleman, the 
 citizen and the courtier inhabit each a different world, 
 and even the affectation of certain characters, in aping 
 the follies or vices of their betters, only serves to show 
 the immeasurable distance which custom or fortune has 
 placed between them. Hence the earlier comic writers, 
 taking advantage of this mixed and solid mass of ignor- 
 ance, folly, pride', and prejudice, made those deep and 
 lasting incisions into it, — have given those sharp and 
 nice touches, that bolil relief to their characters, — have 
 opposed them in every variety of contrast and collision, 
 of conscious self-satisfaction and mutual antipathy, with 
 a power which can only find full scope in the same rich 
 and inexhaustible materials. But in proportion as comic 
 genius succeeds in taking off the mask from ignox'ance 
 and conceit, as it teaclies us 
 
 " To see ourselves as others see us," — 
 
 m proportion as we are brought out on the stage 
 together, and our prejudices clash one against the 
 other, our sharp angular points wear off ; we are no 
 longer rigid in absurdity, passionate in folly, and we
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY 201 
 
 prevent the ridicule directed at our habitual foibles 
 by laughing at them ourselves. 
 
 If it be said, that there is the same fund of absurdity 
 and prejudice in the world as ever — that there are the 
 same unaccountable perversities lurking at the bottom 
 of every breast, — I should answer. Be it so: but at 
 least we keep our follies to ourselves as much as pos- 
 sible ; we palliate, shuffle, and equivocate with them ; 
 they sneak into by-corners, and do not, like Chaucer's 
 Canterbury Pilgrims, march along the high road, and 
 form a procession ; they do not entrench themselves 
 strongly behind custom and precedent ; they are not 
 embodied in professions and ranks in life ; they are 
 not organized into a system ; they do not openly 
 resort to a standard, but are a sort of straggling 
 nondescripts, that, like Wart, " present no mark to 
 the foemau." As to the gross and palpable absurdi- 
 ties of modern manners, they are too shallow and 
 barefaced, and those who aifect are too little serious 
 in them, to make them worth the detection of the 
 Comic Muse. They proceed from an idle, impudent 
 affectation of folly in general, in the dashing bravura 
 !«tyle, not from an infatuation T\'ith any of its charac- 
 teristic modes. In short, the proper object of ridicule\ 
 is egotism : and a man cannot be a very great egotist, \ 
 who every day sees himself represented on the stage. 
 We are deficient in comedy, because we are vvithout 
 cliaracters in real life — as we have no historical pictures, V 
 liecause we have no faces proper for them. 
 
 It is, indeed, the evident tendency of all literature 
 to generalize and dissipate character, by giving men 
 the same artificial education, and the same common 
 stock of ideas ; so that we see all objects from the 
 same point of view, and through the same reflected 
 medium ; — we learn to exist, not in ourselves, but in 
 books ; — all men become alike mere readers^spec- 
 tators, not actors in the scene, and lose their proper 
 personal identity. The templar, the wit, the man of 
 pleasure, and the man of fashion, the courtier and 
 the citizen, the knight and the squire, the lover and
 
 202 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 the miser — Lovelace, Lothario, Will Honeycomb, and 
 Sir Roger de Coverley, Sparkish and Lord Foppington, 
 Western and Tom .Jones, My Father and My Uncle 
 Toby, Millainant and Sir Sampson Legend, Don Quixote 
 and Sanclio, Gil Bias and Guzman d'Alfarache, Count 
 Fathom and Joseph Surface, — have met and exchanged 
 commonplaces on the barren plains of the haute littrra- 
 ture — toil slowly on to the temple of science, " seen a 
 long way oiF upon a level," and end in one dull com- 
 pound of politics, criticism, chemistry, and meta- 
 physics ! 
 
 We cannot expect to reconcile opposite things. 
 If, for example, any of us were to put ourselves into 
 the stage-coach from Salisbury to London, it is more 
 than probable we should not meet with the same 
 number of odd accidents, or ludicrous distresses on 
 the road, that befell Parson Adams ; but why, if we 
 get into a common vehicle, and submit to the con- 
 veniences of modern travelling, should we complain 
 of the want of adventures ? Modern manners may 
 be compared to a modern stage-coach ; our limbs 
 may be a little cramped with the confinement, and 
 we may grow drowsy, but we arrive safe, without 
 any very amusing or very sad accident, at our 
 journey's end. 
 
 In this theory 1 have, at least, the authority of 
 r Sterne and the " Tatler " on my side, who attribute 
 
 ^ the g¥«ater._yariety and richness of comic excellence 
 in our writers, to the greater variety and distinctness 
 of character among ourselves ; the roughness of the 
 texture and the sharp angles not being worn out by 
 the artificial refinements of intellect, or the frequent 
 collision of social intercourse. — It has been argued on 
 the other hand, indeed, that this circumstance makes 
 ^^against me ; that the suppression of the grosser indica- 
 tions of absurdity ought to stimulate and give scope 
 to the ingenuity and penetration of the comic writer 
 who is to detect them ; that the progress of wit and 
 humour ought to keep pace with critical distinctions 
 
 s) and metaphysical niceties ; [that the more we are
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY 203 
 
 become like one another^ or like nothing, the less 
 distinction of character we have, the greater dis- 
 crimination must it require to bring it out ; that the 
 less ridiculous our manners become, the more scope 
 do they afford for art and ingenuity in discovering 
 our weak sides and shades of infirmity, and that the 
 greatest sameness and monotony, must in the end 
 produce the most exquisite variety. What a pity 
 it is, that so ingenious a theory should not have the 
 facts on its side; and that the perfection of satire ^/ 
 should not be found to keep pace with the want of 
 materials. It is rather too much to assume on a . 
 mere hypothesis, that the present manners are equally I 
 favourable to the production of the highest comic 
 excellence, till they do produce it. Even in France, 
 where encouragement is given to the noblest and 
 most successful exertions of genius by the sure 
 prospect of profit to yourself or your descendants, 
 every time your piece is acted in any corner of the 
 empire, — we find the best critics going back to the 
 grossness and illiberality of the age of Louis XIV for 
 the production of the best comedies ; which is rather 
 extraordinary, considering the infinitely refined state 
 of manners in Finance, and the infinite encouragement 
 given to dramatic talent. But there is a difference 
 between refinement and imbecility, between general 
 knowledge and personal elegance, between meta- 
 physical subtlety and stage-effect. All manners, all jl 
 kinds of folly, and all shades of character are not U 
 equally fit for dramatic representation. There is a I 
 point where minuteness of distinction becomes labo- 
 rious foolery, and where the slenderness of the mate- 
 rials must bafiie the skill and destroy the exertions of 
 the artist. A critic of this sort will insist, indeed, 
 on pulling off the mask of folly, by some ingenious 
 device, though she has been stripped of it long ago, 
 and forced to compose her features into a decent 
 appearance of gravity ; and apply a microscope of a 
 new construction to detect the freckles on her face and 
 inequalities in her skin, in order to communicate amus-
 
 204 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 ing discoveries to the audience, <as some pliilosophical 
 lecturer does the results of his chemical experiments 
 on the decomposition of suhstances to the admiring 
 circle. There is no end of this. His penetrating 
 eye is infinitely delighted with the grotesque appear- 
 ance of so many imi)erceptil)le deviations from a right 
 line, and mathematical inclinations from the perpen- 
 dicular. The picture of the " Flamborough Faniuy," 
 painted with each an orange in his hand, must have 
 been a masterpiece of nice discrimination and graceful 
 inflection. Upon this principle of going to work the 
 wrong way, and of making something out of nothing, 
 we must reverse all our rules of taste and connnon 
 sense. No comedy can be perfect till the drdiiuttis 
 personee might be reversed without creating nuic?!! 
 confusion ; or the ingredients of character ought to 
 be so blended and poured repeatedly from one vessel 
 into another, that the difference would be perceptible 
 only to the finest palate. Thus, if Moliere had lived 
 in the present day, he would not have drawn his 
 " Avare," his " Tartuffe," and his " Misanthrope " with 
 those strong touches and violent contrasts which he 
 has done, but with those delicate traits which are 
 common to human nature in general, that is, his 
 Miser without a\'arice, his Hypocrite without design, 
 and his Misanthrope without disgust at the vices 
 of mankind ;] these theorists, in short, have been 
 sanguine enough to expect a regular advance from 
 grossness to refinement iu Avit and pleasantry, on the 
 stage and in real life, marked on a graduated scale 
 of human perfectil)ility, and have been hence led to 
 imagine that the best of our old comedies were no 
 better than the coarse jests of a set of country 
 clowns — a sort of comedies bourgeoises, compared with 
 the admirable productions which might, but have not, 
 been written in our times. I must protest against this 
 theory altogether, which would go to degrade genteel 
 comedy from a high court lady into a literary prosti- 
 tute. I do not know what these persons mean by 
 refinement in tliis instance. Do they find none in
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY 205 
 
 Millamant and her morning dreams, in Sir Roger de 
 Cov^erley and his widow ? Did not Etherege, Wycher- 
 ley, Suckling, and Congreve, approach tolerably near 
 
 ' ' the ring- 
 
 Of mimic statesmen and their merry king " ? 
 
 Is there no distinction between an Angelica and a 
 Miss Prue^ a V^alentine^ a Tattle, and a Ben ? Where, 
 in the annals of modern literature, shall we find any- 
 thing more refined, more deliberate, more abstracted 
 in vice than the nobleman in '^'^ Amelia"? Are not 
 the compliments which Pope paid to liis friends, to 
 Murray and to Corn bury, equal in taste and elegance 
 to any which have been paid since? Are there no 
 traits in Sterne? Is not Richardson minute enough? 
 Must we part with Sophia Western and her muff, and 
 
 / Clarissa Harlowe's "preferable regards" for the loves 
 of the plants and the triangles ? Or shall we say that 
 the Berinthias and Alitheas of former times were mere 
 rustics, because they did not, like our modern belles, 
 subscribe to circulating libraries, read " Beppo," prefer 
 
 .^rv^-^*^ Gertrude of Wyoming" to the " Lady of the Lake," 
 or the"'Tlady of the Lake " to '^'^ Gertrude of Wyoming," 
 differ in their sentiments on points of taste or systems 
 of mineralogy, compose learned treatises, and deliver 
 dissertations on the arts with Corinna of Italy ? Tliey 
 had something else to do and to talk about. Tliev 
 were employed in reality, as we see them on the stage, 
 in setting off their charms to the greatest advantage, 
 in mortifying their rivals by the most pointed irony, 
 and trifling with their lovers M'ith infinite address. 
 The height of comic elegance and refinement is not 
 to be found in the general diffusion of knowledge aiul 
 civilization, which tends to level and neutralize, but 
 in the pride of individual distinction, and the contrast 
 between the conflicting pretensions of different ranks 
 in society. [The beauty of these writers in general 
 was that they gave every kind and gradation of char- 
 acter, and they did this because their portraits were 
 taken from life. They were true to nature^ full of
 
 206 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 meaninsr, perfectly understood and executo<l in every 
 [>art. Tlieir coarseness was not mere vuly-arity^ tlieir 
 refinement was not a mere negation of precision. 
 They refined upon characters, instead of refininji: tliem 
 away. Their refinement consisted in working out the 
 parts, not in leaving a vague outline. They painted 
 human nature as it was, and as they saw it with indi- 
 vidual character and circumstances, not human nature 
 in general, abstracted from time, place, and circum- 
 stance. Strength and refinement are so far from being 
 incompatible, that they assist each other, as the hardest 
 bodies admit of the finest touches and the brightest 
 polish. Rut there are some minds that ne\'er under- 
 stand anything, but by a negation of its opposite. 
 There is a strength without refinement, which is 
 grossness, as there is a refinement without strength 
 or effect, which is insipidity. Neither are grossness 
 and refinement of manners inconsistent with each 
 other in the same period. The grossness of one class 
 adds to the refinement of another, by circumscribing 
 it, by rendering the feeling more pointed and exquisite, 
 by irritating oui- self-love, &c. 'lliere can be no great 
 refinement of character where there is no distinction 
 of persons. The character of a gentleman is a rela- 
 tive term. The diffusion of knowledge, of artificial 
 and intellectual equality, tends to level this distinction, 
 and to confound that nice perception and high sense 
 of honour, which arises from conspicuousuess of situa- 
 tion, and a perpetual attention to personal propriety, 
 and the claims of personal respect. It is common, I 
 think, to mistake refinement of individual character 
 for general knowledge and intellectual subtlety, with 
 which it has little more to do than with the dexterity 
 of a rope dancer or juggler. The age of chivalry is 
 gone with the improvements in the art of war, which 
 superseded personal courage, and the chai-acter of a 
 gentleman must disappear with those refinements in 
 intellect which render the advantages of rank and 
 situation common almost to any one. The bag-wig 
 and sword followed the helmet and spear, when these
 
 Of^ THE LAST CENTURY 207 
 
 outward insignia no longer implied a real superiority, 
 and were a distinction without a difference. Even the 
 grossness of a state of mixed and various manners 
 receives a degree of refinement from contrast and oppo- 
 sition, by being defined and implicated with circum- 
 stances. The Upholsterer in " The Tatler " is not a 
 mere vulgar politician. His intense feeling of interest 
 and curiosity about wliat does not at all concern him, 
 displays itself in the smallest things, assumes the most 
 eccentric forms, and the peculiarity of his absurdity 
 masks itself under various shifts and evasions^ which 
 the same folly, when it becomes epidemic and universal, 
 as it has since done, would not have occasion to resort 
 to. In general it is only in a state of mere barbarism 
 or indiscriminate refinement that we are to look for 
 extreme grossness or complete insipidity. Our modern 
 dramatists, indeed, have happily contrived to unite 
 both extremes. Oni7ie tidit punctum. On a soft ground 
 of sentiment they have daubed in the gross absurdities 
 of modern manners void of character, have blended 
 romantic waiting-maids with jockey noblemen, and the 
 liumours of the four-in-hand club, and fill up the piece 
 by some vile and illiberal caricature of particular indi- 
 viduals known on the town. 
 
 Some persons are for refining comedy into a pure 
 
 j intellectual abstraction, the shadow of a shade. Will 
 they forgive me if I suggest, as an addition to this 
 theory, that the drama in general might be constructed 
 
 ( on the same abstruse and philosophical principles } As 
 they imagine that the finest comedies may be formed 
 witliout individual character, so the deepest tragedies 
 might be composed without real passion. The slightest 
 and most ridiculous distresses might be improved, by 
 art and metapliysical aid, into the most affecting scenes. 
 A young man might naturally be introduced as the hero 
 of a philosophic drama^ who liad lost the gold medal 
 for a prize-poem ; or a young lady, whose verses had 
 been severely criticized in the reviews. Nothing could 
 come amiss to this rage for speculative refinement ; or 
 the actors might be supposed to come forward, not in
 
 A 
 
 J 
 
 208 THE ENGLISH COiMlC WRITERS 
 
 any character, but as a sort of chorus, reciting speeches 
 on the general miseries of tlie human life, or reading 
 alternately a passage out of Seneca's ''Morals" or 
 Voltaire's " Candiile." This might by some be thought 
 a great improvement on English tragedy, or even on 
 the Krencli. 
 
 llie Avhole of such reasoning proceeds on a total 
 misconception of the nature of the drama itself. It 
 confounds philosophy with poetry, laboured analysis 
 with intuitive perception, general truth M'ith indi- 
 vidual observation. It makes the Comic Muse a dealer 
 in riddles, and an expounder of hieroglyphics, and a 
 (taste for dramatic excellence, a species of the second 
 •sight. It would have the drama to be the most remote, 
 whereas it is the most substantial and real of all things. 
 ilt represents not only looks, but motion and speech. 
 i TTie painter gives only the former, looks without action 
 : or speech, and the mere writer only the latter, words 
 without looks or action. Its business and its use is to 
 express the thoughts and character in the most strik- 
 ing and instantaneous manner, in the manner most like 
 reality. It conveys them in all their truth and subtletv, 
 but in all their force and with all possible effect. It 
 brings them into action, obtrudes tliem on the sight, 
 embodies them in habits, in gestures, in dress, in cir- 
 cumstances, and in speech. It renders everything overt 
 and ostensible, and presents human nature not in its 
 elementary principles or by general reflections, but 
 exhibits its essential qualities in all their variety of 
 combination, and furnishes subjects for perpetual reflec- 
 ion. 
 
 But the instant we begin to refine and genei-alize 
 beyond a certain point, we are reduced to abstraction, 
 and compelled to see things, not as individuals, or as 
 connected with action and circumstances, but as um-_ 
 versal truths, applicable in a degree to all things,~and 
 in tlieir extent to none, which therefore it would be 
 absurd to predicate of individuals, or to represent to 
 the senses. The habit, too, of detaching these abstract 
 species and fragments of nature, destroys the power
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY 209 
 
 of combining them in complex characters^ in every 
 degree of force and variety. The concrete and the 
 abstract cannot co-exist in the same mind. We accord- 
 ingly find, that to genuine comedy succeed satire and 
 novels, the one dealing in general character and descrip- 
 tion^ and the other making out particulars by the assist- 
 ance of narrative and comment. Afterwards come 
 traits, and collections of anecdotes, bon mots, topics, 
 and quotations, &c., which are applicable to any one, 
 and are just as good told of one person as another. 
 Thus the trio in the Memoirs of M. Grimm, attributed 
 to three celebrated characters, on the death of a fourth, 
 might have the names reversed, and would lose nothing 
 of its effect. In general these traits which are so much 
 admired, are a sort of systematic libels on human nature, 
 which make up, by their malice and acuteness, for their 
 want of wit and sense. 
 
 Sir Richard Steele thought that the excellence of 
 the English in comedy was in a great measure owing 
 to the originality and variety of character among 
 them. With respect to that extreme refinement of 
 taste which Madame de Stael advocates to the French, 
 tliey are neither entirely without it, nor have they so 
 2nuch as they think. The two most refined things in 
 the world are the story of the P^alcon in Boccaccio, 
 and the character of Griselda in Chaucer, of neither 
 of which the French would have the smallest concep- 
 tion, because they do not depend on traits, or minute 
 circumstances, or turns of expression, but in infinite 
 simplicity and truth, and an everlasting sentiment. 
 We miglit retort upon Madame de Stael what she 
 sometimes says in her own defence — ''That we under- 
 stand all in other writers that is worth understanding." 
 As to Moliere, he is quite out of the present question ; 
 he lived long before the era of French philosophy and 
 refinement, and is besides almost an English author, 
 quite a harbare, in all in which he excels. To suppose 
 that we can go on refining for ever with vivacity and 
 effect, embodying vague al>stractions, and particulariz- 
 ing flimsy generalities — " showing the very body of the
 
 210 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 age, its form and pressure," tliougli it has neither 
 form nor pressure left— seems to me the heit^ht of 
 speculative absurdity. That undefined " frivolous 
 space," beyond which Madame de Stael regards as 
 ''the region of taste and elegance," is, indeed, nothing 
 but the very limbo of vanity, the land of chiromancy 
 and occult conceit, and paradise of fools, where, 
 
 "None yet, but store hereafter from the earth 
 Shall, like aenal vapours, upward rise 
 Of all things transitory and vain."] 
 
 The alterations which have taken place in conver- 
 sation and dress, in consequence of the change of 
 manners in the same period, have been by no means 
 favourable to comedy. Tlie present prevailing style 
 of conversation is not personal, but critical and ana- 
 lytical. It consists almost entirely in the discussion 
 of general topics, in ascertaining the merits of authors 
 and their works ; and Congreve would be able to 
 derive no better hints from the conversations of our 
 toilettes or drawing-rooms, for the exquisite raillery 
 or poignant repartee of his dialogues, than from a 
 deliberation of the Royal Society. In like manner, 
 the extreme simplicity and graceful uniformity of 
 modern dress, however favourable to the arts, has cer- 
 tainly stripped comedy of one of its richest ornaments 
 and most expressive symbols. The sweeping pall, and 
 buskin, and nodding plume were never more service- 
 able to tragedy, than the enormous hoops and stiff 
 stays worn by the belles of former days, were to the 
 intrigues of comedy. They assisted wonderfully in 
 heightening the mysteries of the passion, and adding 
 to the intricacy of the plot. Wycherley and Van- 
 brugh could not have spared the dresses of Vandyke, 
 lliese strange fancy-costumes, perverse disguises, and 
 counterfeit shapes gave an agreeable scope to the 
 imagination. "That seven-fold fence" was a sort of 
 foil to the lusciousness of the dialogue, and a barrier 
 against the sly encroachments of double entendre. 
 The greedy eye and bold hand of indiscretion were
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY 211 
 
 repressed^ which gave a greater licence to the tongue. 
 The senses were not to he gratified in an instant. 
 Love was entangled in the folds of the swelling hand- 
 kerchiefj and the desires might wander for ever round 
 the circumference of a quilted petticoat, or find a rich 
 lodging in the folds of a damask stomacher. There 
 was room for years of patient contrivance, for a thou- 
 sand though tSj schemes, conjectures, hopes, fears, and 
 wishes. There seemed no end of obstacles and delays ; 
 to overcome so many difliculties was the work of ages. 
 A mistress was an angel, concealed behind whalebone, 
 flounces, and brocade. What an undertaking to pene- 
 trate through the disguise ! What an impulse must it 
 give to the blood, what a keenness to the invention, 
 what a volubility to the tongue ! " Mr. Smirk, you 
 are a brisk man," was then the most significant com- 
 mendation ; but nowadays, a woman can be but 
 undressed ! Again, the character of the fine gentle- 
 man is at present a little obscured on the stage, nor 
 do we immediately recognize it elsewhere, for want 
 of the formidable insignia of a bag-wig and sword. 
 NVithout these outward credentials, the public must not 
 only be unable to distinguish this character intuitively, 
 but it must be '^^ almost afraid to know itself." The 
 present simple disguise of a gentleman is like the 
 incognito of kings. The opinion of others aifects our 
 opinion of ourselves ; and we can hardly expect from 
 a modern man of fashion that air of dignity and 
 superior gracefulness of carriage which those must 
 have assumed who were conscious that all eyes were 
 upon them, and that their lofty pretensions continu- 
 ally exposed them either to public scorn or challenged 
 public admiration. A lord who should take the wall 
 of the plebeian passengers without a sword by his side, 
 would hardly have his claim of precedence acknow- 
 ledged ; nor could he be supposed to have that obsolete 
 air of self-importance about him, which should alone 
 clear the pavement at his approach. It is curious how 
 an ingenious actor of the present day (Mr. Farren) 
 should play Lord Ogleby so well as he does, having
 
 212 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 never seen anything of tlie sort in reality. A noble- 
 man in full costume and in broad day, would be a 
 phenomenon like the lord mayor's coach. The attem])t 
 at getting up genteel comedy at present is a sort of 
 galvanic experiment^ a revival of the dead. 
 
 Tliere is a certain stage of society in which people 
 Vhecome conscious of their peculiarities and absurdities, 
 affect to disguise what they are, and set up pretensions 
 to what they are not. This gives rise to a correspond- 
 ^ ing style of comedy, the object of which is to detect 
 the disguises of self-love, and to make reprisals on 
 these preposterous assumptions of vanity, by marking 
 the contrast between the real and the affected char- 
 acter as severely as possible, and denying to those, 
 who would impose on us for what they are not, even 
 the merit which they have. Tliis is the comedy of 
 artificial life, of wit and satire, such as we see it in 
 Congreve, Wycherley, Vanbrugh, &c. To tliis suc- 
 ceeds a state of society from which the same sort 
 of affectation and pretence are banished by a greater 
 knowledge of the world, or by their successful exposure 
 on the stage ; and which, by neutralizing the materials 
 of comic character, both natural and artificial, leaves 
 no comedy at all — but the fpntimental. Such is our 
 modern couiedy. There is a period in the progress of 
 manners anterior to both these, in which the foibles 
 and follies of individuals are of nature's planting, not 
 the growth of art or study ; in which they are there- 
 fore unconscious of them themselves, or care not who 
 knows them, if they can but have their whim out ; 
 and in which, as there is no attempt at imposition, 
 the spectators rather receive pleasure from humour- 
 ing the inclinations of the persons they laugh at, than 
 wish to give them pain by exposing their absurdity. 
 This may be called the comedy of nature, and it is the 
 comedy wliich we generally find in Shakespeare. 
 
 I have observed in a former lecture, that the most 
 spirited era of our comic drama was that which 
 reflected the conversation, tone, and manners of the 
 profligate, but witty age of Charles II. With the
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY 213 
 
 sfraver and more business-like turn which the Revo- 
 lution proltably gave to our miiuls^ comedy stooped 
 from her bolder and more fantastic fli2:hts ; and the 
 ferocious attack made by the nonjuring divine, Jeremy 
 Collier, on the immorality and profaneness of the 
 plays then chiefly in vogue, nearly frightened those 
 unwarrantable liberties of wit and humour from the 
 stage wiiich were no longer countenanced at Court nor 
 copied in the city. Almost the last of our writers 
 who ventured to hold out in the prohibited track was 
 a female adventurer, Mrs. Centlivre, who seemed to 
 take advantage of the privilege of her sex, and to set 
 at defiance the cynical denunciations of the angry 
 puritanical reformist. Her plays have a provoking 
 spirit and volatile salt in them, which still preserves 
 them from decay. Congreve is said to have been 
 jealous of their success at the time, and that it was 
 one cause which drove him in disgust from the stage. 
 If so, it was without any good reason, for these plays 
 liave great and intrinsic merit in them, which entitled 
 them to their popularity (and it is only spurious and 
 undeserved popularity which should excite a feeling 
 of jealousy in any well-regulated mind) : and besides, 
 their merit was of a kind entirely different from his 
 own. The "Wonder" and the "Busy Body" are 
 properly comedies of intrigue. Their interest depends 
 chiefly on the intricate involution and artful denoue- 
 ment of the plot, which has a strong tincture of mis- 
 chief in it, and the wit is seasoned by the archness of 
 the humour and sly allusion to the most delicate points. 
 They are plays evidently written by a very clever 
 woman, but still by a woman : for I hold, in spite of 
 any fanciful theories to the contrary, that there is a 
 distinction discernible in the minds of women as well 
 as in their faces. The "Wonder" is one of the best 
 of our acting plays. The passion of jealousy in Don 
 Felix is managed in such a way as to give as little 
 offence as possible to the audience, for every appear- 
 ance combines to excite and confirm his worst suspicions, 
 while we^ who are in the secret, laugh at his ground-
 
 214 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 less uneasiness and apprehensions. The ambiguity of 
 the lieroine's situation, which is like a continued 
 practical equivoque, gives rise to a quick succession of 
 causeless alarms, subtle excuses, and the most hair- 
 breadth 'scapes. The scene near the end, in wliich 
 Don Felix, pretending to be drunk, forces his way 
 out of Don Alanuel's house, who wants to keep him 
 a prisoner, by producing his marriage-contract in the 
 shape of a pocket-pistol, with the terrors and confu- 
 sion into which the old gentleman is thrown by tliis 
 sort of argumentum ad hominem, is one of the richest 
 treats the stage affords, and calls forth incessant peals 
 of laughter and applause. Besides the two principal 
 characters (Violante and Don P'elix), Lissardo and 
 Flippanta come in very well to carry on the under- 
 plot ; and the airs and graces of an amorous waiting- 
 maid and conceited man-servant, each copying after 
 their master and mistress, were never hit off with 
 more natural volubility or affected nonchalance than 
 in this enviable couple. Lissardo's playing off the 
 diamond ring before the eyes of his mortified Dulcinea^ 
 and aping his master's absent manner while repeating — 
 " Roast me these Violantes," as well as the jealous 
 quarrel of the two waiting-maids, which threatens to 
 end in some very extraordinary discoveries, are among 
 the most amusing traits in this comedy. Colonel 
 Briton, the lover of Clara, is a spirited and enter- 
 prising soldier of fortune ; and his servant (iibby's 
 undaunted, incorrigible blundering, with a dash of 
 nationality in it, tells in a very edifying way. — "The 
 Busy Body " is inferior, in the interest of the story 
 and characters, to the "Wonder"; but it is full of 
 bustle and gaiety from beginning to end. The plot 
 never stands still ; the situations succeed one another 
 like the changes of machinery in a pantomime. The 
 nice dove-tailing of the incidents, and cross-reading 
 in the situations, supplies the place of any great force 
 of wit or sentiment. The time for the entrance of 
 each person on the stage is the moinent when tliey 
 are least wanted, and when their arrival makes either
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY 215 
 
 themselves or somebody else look as foolish as possible. 
 The laughableness of this comedy^ as well as of "The 
 ^\^onde^/' depeuds on a brilliant series of mistimed 
 exits and entrances. Marplot is the whimsical hero 
 of the piece, and a standing memorial of unmeaning 
 vivacity and assiduous impertinence. 
 
 f" The Busy Body " is a comedy that has now held 
 possession of the stage above a hundred years (the best 
 test of excellence) ; and the merit that has enabled it 
 to do so, consists in the ingenuity of the contrivance, 
 the liveliness of the plot, and the striking effect of the 
 situations. Mrs. Centlivre, in this and her other plays, 
 could do nothing without a stratagem ; but she could 
 do everything with one. She delights in putting her 
 draniatis personce continually at their wits' end, and in 
 nelping them off with a new evasion ; and the subtlety 
 of her resources is in proportion to the criticaluess of 
 the situation and the shortness of the notice for resort- 
 ing to an expedient. Twenty times, in seeing or read- 
 ing one of her plays, your pulse beats quick, and you 
 become restless and apprehensive for the event ; but 
 with a fine theatrical sleight of hand, she lets you off, 
 undoes the knot of the difficulty, and you breathe freely 
 again, and have a hearty laugh into the bargain. In 
 short, with her knowledge of chambermaids' tricks, 
 and insight into the intricate foldings of lovers' hearts, 
 she plays with the events of comedy, as a juggler shuffles 
 about a pack of cards, to serve his own purposes, and 
 to the surprise of the spectator. This is one of the 
 most delightful employments of the dramatic art. It 
 costs nothing — but a voluntary tax on the inventive 
 powers of the author ; and it produces, when success- 
 fully done, profit and praise to one party, and pleasure 
 to all. To show the extent and importance of tlieatrical 
 amusements (which some grave persons would decry 
 altogether, and which no one can extol too highly), a 
 friend of ours, whose name will be as well known to 
 posterity as it is to his contemporaries, was not long 
 ago mentioning, that one of the earliest and most 
 memorable impressions ever made on his mind, was
 
 216 THE ENGLISH COAJIC WRITERS 
 
 the seeing " Venice Preserved " acted in a country town 
 when he was only nine years ohl. But lie added, that 
 an elderly lady who took him to see it, lamented, not- 
 withstanding the wonder anddcdight he had experienced, 
 that instead of" Venice Preserved," they had not gone 
 to see " The Busy liody," which had been acted the 
 night before. This was fifty years ago, since wldcli, 
 and for fifty years before that, it has been acted a 
 thousand times in town and country, giving delight to 
 the old, the young, and middle-aged, passing the time 
 carelessly, and affording matter for agreeable reflection 
 afterwards, making us think ourselves, and wish to be 
 thought, tlie men equal to Sir George Airy in grace 
 and spirit, the women to Miranda and Isabinda in love 
 and beauty, and all of us superior to Marplot in wit. 
 Among the scenes that might be mentioned in this 
 comedy, a,s striking instances of happy stage effect, are 
 Miranda's contrivance to escape from Sir George, bv 
 making him turn his back upon her to hear her con- 
 fession of love, and the ludicrous attitude in which he 
 is left w-aiting for the rest of her speech after the lady 
 has vanished ; his offer of the hundred pounds to her 
 guardian to make love to her in his presence, and when 
 she receives him in dumb show, his answering for both ; 
 his situation concealed behind the chimney-screen ; 
 his supposed metamorphosis into a monkey', and his 
 deliverance from thence in that character by the inter- 
 ference of Marplot ; Mrs. Patch's sudden conversion of 
 the mysterious love letter into a charm for the tooth- 
 ache, and the whole of Marplot's meddling and l)lunders. 
 Thelast character is taken from Drydeu and the Duchess 
 of Newcastle ; and is, indeed, the only attempt at 
 character in the play. It is amusing and superficial. 
 We see little of the puzzled perplexity of liis brain, but 
 his actions are absurd enougli. He whiffles about the 
 stage with considerable volubility, and makes a very 
 lively automaton. Sir George Airy sets out for a scene 
 or two in a spirited manner, but afterwards the char- 
 acter evaporates in the name ; and he becomes as 
 commonplace as his friend Charles, who merely laments
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY 217 
 
 over his misfortunes, or gets out of them by following- 
 the suggestions of his valet or his valet's mistress. 
 Miranda is the heroine of the piece, and has a right to 
 be so ; for she is a beauty and an heiress. Her friend 
 has less to recommend her ; but who can refuse to fall 
 in love with her name ? What volumes of sighs, what 
 a world of love, is breathed in the very sound alone — 
 the letters that form the chai-miug name of Isabinda !] 
 The comedies of Steele were the first that were 
 written expressly with a view not to imitate the, 
 manners, but to reform the morals of the age. The/ 
 author seems to be all the time on his good beliaviour, 
 as if writing a comedy was no very creditable employ- 
 ment, and as if the ultimate object of his ambition was 
 a dedication to tlie queen. Nothing can be better 
 meant, or more inefficient. It is almost a misnomer 
 to call them comedies ; they are rather homilies in 
 dialogue, in which a number of very pretty ladies and 
 gentlemen discuss the fashionable topics of gaming, of 
 duelling, of seduction, of scandal, &c., with a sickly 
 sensibility, that shows as little hearty aversion to vice 
 as sincere attachment to virtue. By not meeting the 
 question fairly on the ground of common experience, by 
 slurring over the objections, and varnishing the answers, 
 the whole distinction between virtue and vice (as it 
 appears in evidence in the comic drama) is reduced to 
 verbal professions, and a mechanical, infantine good- 
 ness. The sting is, indeed, taken out of what is bad ; 
 but what is good, at the same time, loses its manhood 
 and nobility of nature by this enervating process. I 
 am unwilling to believe that the only difference between 
 right and wrong is mere cant, or make-believe ; and I 
 imagine, that the advantage which the moral drama 
 possesses over mere theoretical precept or general 
 declamation is this, that by being left free to imitate 
 nature as it is, and not being refei-red to an ideal 
 standard, it is its own voucher for the truth of the 
 inferences it draws, for its warnings, or its examples ; 
 that it brings out the higher as well as lower prin- 
 cij)les of action, in the most striking and convincing
 
 218 THE ENGLISH COMIC AVllITRRS 
 
 points of view ; satisfies us that virtue is not a mere 
 sliadow ; clothes it with passion, imagination, reality, 
 and, if I may so say, translates morality from tlie 
 language of theory into that of practice. But Steele, 
 by introducing the artificial znechanisin of morals on 
 tlie stage, and making his characters act, not from 
 individual motives and existing circumstances, the truth 
 of which every one must feel, but from vague topics 
 and general rules, the truth of which is the very thing 
 to be proved in detail, has lost that fine vantage ground 
 which the stage lends to virtue ; takes away from it its 
 best grace, the grace of sincerity ; and, instead of making 
 it a test of truth, has made it an echo of the doctrine 
 of the schools — and '^the one cries Mum, while t'other 
 cries Budget!" Tlie comic writer, in my judgment, 
 then, ought to open the volume of nature and the world 
 for his living materials, and not take them out of his 
 ethical commonplace-book ; for in this way, neither 
 will throw any additional light upon the other. In all 
 things there is a division of labour ; and I am as little 
 for introducing the tone of the pulpit or reading-desk 
 on the stage, as for introducing plays and interludes in 
 church-time, according to the good old popish practice. 
 It was a part, indeed, of Steele's plan, " by the polite- 
 ness of his style and the genteelness of his expressions," ^ 
 to bring about a reconciliation between things which he 
 thought had hitherto been kept too far asunder, to wed 
 the graces to the virtues, and blend pleasure with profit. 
 And in tliis design he succeeded admirably in his 
 '' Tatler," and some other works, but in his comedies he 
 has failed. He has confounded instead of harmonizing 
 — has taken away its gravity from wisdom, and its 
 charm from gaiety. It is not that in his plays we find 
 " some soul of goodness in things evil " ; but they have 
 no soul either of good or bad. His " Funeral " is as 
 trite, as tedious, and full of formal grimace, as a pro- 
 cession of mutes and undertakers. The characters are 
 made either aifectedly good and forbearing, witli "all tlie 
 milk of human kindness," or purposely bad and disgust- 
 
 1 See Mandeville's " Fable of the Bees."
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY 219 
 
 mo-, for the others to exercise their squeamish charities 
 upon them. " The Conscious Lovers" is the best^ but 
 that is far from good, with the exception of the scene 
 between Mr. Thomas and Phillis, who are fellow- 
 servants, and commence lovers from being set to clean 
 the window together. We are here once more in the 
 company of our old friend, Isaac Bickerstaif, Esq. 
 Indiana is as listless and as insipid as a drooping figure 
 on an Indian screen ; and Mr. Myrtle and Mr. Bevil 
 only just disturb the still life of the scene. I am sorry 
 that in this censure 1 should have Parson Adams against 
 me, who thought "The Conscious Lovers" the only 
 play lit for a Christian to see, and as good as a sermon. 
 For myself, I would rather have read, or heard him 
 read, one of his own manuscript sermons ; and if the 
 volume which he left behind him in his saddle-bags was 
 to be had in print for love or money, I would at any 
 time walk ten miles on foot only to get a sight of it. 
 
 Addison's "Drummer, or the Haunted House," is 
 a pleasant farce enough, but adds nothing to our 
 idea of the author of the "Spectator." 
 
 Pope's joint after-piece, called "An Hour after 
 Marriage," was not a successful attempt. He brought 
 into it " an alligator stuifed," which disconcerted the 
 ladies, and gave just ofi'ence to the critics. Pope was 
 too fastidious for a farce writer ; and yet the most 
 fastidious people, when they step out of their regular 
 routine, are apt to become the grossest. The smallest 
 offences against probability or decorum are, to their 
 habitual scrupulousness, as unpardonable as the 
 greatest. This was the rock on which Pope probably 
 split. ITie affair was, howevei-, hushed up ; and he 
 wreaked his discreet vengeance at leisure on the 
 " odious endeavours," and more odious success of Colley 
 Cibber in the line in which he had failed. Gay's 
 " What-d'ye-call-it," is not one of his happiest things. 
 His "Polly" is a complete failure, wliich, indeed, 
 is the common fate of second parts. If the original 
 Polly, in " The Beggar's Opera," had not had more 
 winning ways with her, she would hardly have had so
 
 220 THE ENGLISH COMIC AVRITERS 
 
 many countesses for representatives as she lias had, 
 from her first apjjearance up to tlie present moment. 
 [Gay's capital work is his '' Beggar's Opera." It is, 
 indeed, a masterpiece of wit and genius, not to say 
 of Tnorality. In composing it he chose a very unpro- 
 mising ground to work upon, and he has pride<l him- 
 self in adorning it with all the graces, the 2>recision 
 and brilliancy of style. It is a vulgar error to call 
 this a vulgar ])lay. So far from it, that I do not 
 scruple to say that it appears to me one of tlie most 
 refined productions in the language. The elegance of 
 the composition is in exact proportion to the coarse- 
 ness of the materials ; by ''happy alchemy of mind," 
 the author has extracted an essence of refinement from 
 the dregs of human life, and turns its very dross into 
 J gold. The scenes, characters, and incidents are, in 
 I rthemselves, of the lowest and most disgusting kind ; 
 libut, by the sentiments and reflections which are put 
 jinto the mouths of highwaymen, turnkeys, their mis- 
 ;tresses, wives, or daughters, he has converted this 
 \ motley group into a set of fine gentlemen and ladies, 
 ' satirists and philosojdiers. He has also effected this 
 transformation without once violating probability, or 
 *' o'erstepping the modesty of natui-e." In fact. Gay 
 has turned the tables on the critics ; and by the 
 assumed licence of the mock-heroic style has enabled 
 himself to do justice to nature, that is, to give all the 
 force, truth, and locality of real feeling to the thoughts 
 and expressions, without being called to the bar of 
 false taste and affected delicacy. The extreme beauty 
 and feeling of the song, " Woman is like the fair 
 flower in its lustre," are only equalled by its character- 
 istic propriety and ndiwte. It may be said that this 
 is taken from TibuUus ; but there is nothing about 
 Covent Garden in Tibullus. Polly describes her lover 
 going to the gallows with the same touching simplicity, 
 and with all the natural fondness of a young girl in 
 her circumstances, who sees in his approaching catas- 
 trophe nothing but the misfortunes and the personal 
 accomplishments of the object of her affections. '' I
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY 221 
 
 see him sweeter than the nosegay in his hand : the 
 admiring crowd lament that so lovely a youth should 
 come to an untimely end — even butchers weep, and 
 Jack Ketch refuses his fee rather than consent to tie 
 the fatal knot." The preservation of the character 
 and costume is complete. It has been said by a great 
 autliority — " Tliere is some soul of goodness in things 
 evil:" — and ^'The Beggar's Opera" is a good-natured 
 but instructive connuent on this text. The poet has 
 throAvn all the gaiety and sunshine of the imagina- 
 tion, all the intoxication of pleasure, and the vanity of 
 despair, round the short-lived existence of his heroes ; 
 while Peachum and Lockitt are seen in the back- 
 ground, parcelling out their months and weeks between 
 them. The general view exhibited of human life, is 
 of the most subtle and abstracted kind, llie author 
 has, with great felicity, brought out the good qualities 
 and interesting emotions almost inseparable from the 
 lowest conditions ; and, with the same penetrating 
 glance, has detected the disguises which rank and 
 circumstances lend to exalted vice. Every line in this 
 sterling comedy sparkles with wit, and is fraught with 
 the keenest sarcasm. The very wit, however, takes off 
 from the offeusiveness of the satire ; and I have seen 
 great statesmen, very great statesmen, heartily enjoy- 
 ing the joke, laughing most immoderately at the 
 compliments paid to them as not much worse than 
 pickpockets and cut-throats in a different line of life, 
 and pleased, as it were, to see themselves humanized 
 by some sort of fellowship with their kind. Indeed, 
 it may be said that the moral of the piece is to show 
 the vulgarity of vice ; or that the same violations of 
 integrity and decorum, the same habitual sophistry 
 in palliating their want of principle, are common 
 to the great and powerful, with the lowest and most 
 contemptible of the species. What can be more con- 
 vincing than the arguments used by these would-be 
 politicians, to sliow that in hypocrisy, selfishness, and 
 treachery, they do not come up to many of their 
 betters ? The exclamation of Mrs. Peachum, when
 
 222 THP: ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 her daugliter marries Macheath, "Hussey, hussey, 
 you will be as ill-used, and as much neglected, as "if 
 you had married a lord," is worth all Miss Hainiah 
 More's laboured invectives on the laxity of tlie 
 manners of higli life ! i 
 
 Fielding was a comic writer, as well as a novelist ; 
 but his comedies are very inferior to his novels : they 
 are particularly deficient both in plot and character. 
 The only excellence which they have is that of the 
 
 1 The late ingenious Baron Grimm, of acute critical memory, 
 was up to the merit of the " Beggar's Opera." In his Corre- 
 spondence, he says, " If it be true that the nearer a writer is 
 to nature, the more certain he is of pleasing, it must be allowed 
 that the English, in their dramatic pieces, have greatly the 
 advantage over us. There reigns in them an inestimable tone 
 of nature, wliich the timidity of our taste has banished from 
 French pieces. M. Patu has just published, in two volumes, 
 'A selection of smaller dramatic pieces, translated from the 
 English," which will eminently support what I have advanced. 
 The principal one among this selection is the celebrated 
 ' Beggar's Opera ' of Gay, which has had such an amazing 
 run in England. We are here in the very worst company 
 imaginable ; the di-amatis persona are robbers, pickpockets, 
 gaolers, prostitutes, and the like; yet we are highly amused] 
 and in no haste to quit them ; and why? Because there is 
 nothing in the world more original or more natural. There 
 is no occasion to compare our most celebrated comic operas 
 with this, to see how far we are removed from truth and 
 nature, and this is the reason that, notwithstanding our wit, 
 we are almost always flat and insipid. Two faults are gener- 
 ally committed by our writers, which they seem incapable of 
 avoiding. They think they have done wonders if they have 
 only faithfully copied the dictionaries of the personages they 
 bring upon the stage, forgetting that the great art is to choose 
 the mornents of character and passion in those who are to 
 speak, since it is those moments alone that render them inter- 
 esting. For want of this discrimination, the piece necessarily 
 sinks into insipidity and monotony. Why do almost all M. 
 Vade's pieces fatigue the audience to death? Because all his 
 characters speak the same language ; because each is a perfect 
 resemblance of the other. Instead of this, in ' The Beggar's 
 Opera," among eight or ten girls of the town, each has" her 
 separate character, her peculiar trials, her peculiar modes of 
 expression, which give her a marked distinction from her 
 companions." — Vol. I. p. 185.
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY 223 
 
 style, which is the only thing in which his novels are 
 deficient. The only dramatic pieces of Fielding that 
 retain possession of the stage are, " The Mock Doctor " 
 (a tolerable translation from Moliere's Medecin malgre 
 tui), and his " Tom Thumb," a very admirable piece 
 of burlesque. The absurdities and bathos of some of 
 our celebrated tragic writers could hardly be credited, 
 but for the notes at the bottom of this preposterous 
 medley of bombast, containing his authorities and the 
 parallel passages. Dryden, Lee, and Shadwell, make 
 no very shining figure there. Mr. Listen makes a 
 better figure in the text. His Lord Grizzle is prodi- 
 gious. What a name, and what a person ! It has been 
 said of this ingenious actor, that " he is very great 
 in Liston"; but he is even greater in Lord Grizzle. 
 \\^hat a wig is that he wears I How flighty, flaunting 
 and fantastical ! Not " like those hanging locks of 
 young Apollo," nor like the serpent-hair of the Furies 
 of iEschylus ; but as troublous, though not as tragical 
 as the one — as imposing, though less classical than the 
 other. " Que terribles sont ces cheveux gris," might be 
 applied to Lord Grizzle's most valiant and magnani- 
 mous curls. This sapient courtier's "fell of hair does 
 at a dismal treatise rouse and stir as life were iu't." 
 His wits seem flying away with the disorder of his 
 flowing locks, and to sit as loosely on our hero's head 
 as the caul of his peruke. What a significant vacancy 
 in his open eyes and mouth ! what a listlessness in his 
 limbs ! what an abstraction of all thought or purpose ! 
 With what a headlong impulse of enthusiasm he 
 throws himself across the stage when he is going to 
 be married, crying, "Hey for Doctor's Commons," 
 as if the genius of folly had taken whole-length 
 possession of his person ! And then his dancing is 
 equal to the discovery of a sixth sense — which is 
 certainly very difi"erent from common sense! If this 
 extraordinary personage cuts a great figure in his 
 life, he is no less wonderful in his death and burial. 
 " From the sublime to the ridiculous there is but one 
 step " ; and this character would almost seem to prove.
 
 224 THE ENGLISH COiMIC ^VRITEIlS 
 
 that there is hut one step from the ridiculous to the 
 sublime. — Lubiii Log, however inimitable in itself, is 
 itself an imitation of something existing elsewhere ; 
 but the Lord Grizzle of this truly original actor, is 
 a pure invention of his own. His Caper, in the 
 '' Widow's Choice," can alone dispute the palm with 
 it in incoherence and volatility ; for that, too, " is 
 high fantastical," almost as full of emptiness, in as 
 grand a gusto of insipidity, as profoundly absurd, as 
 elaborately nonsensical ! Why does not Mr. Liston 
 play in some of Moliere's farces .'' I heartily wish that 
 the author of " Love, Law, and Physic," would launch 
 him on the London boards in Monsieur Jourdain or 
 Monsieur Pourceaugnac. The genius of Liston and 
 Moliere together — 
 
 " Must bid a gay defiance to mischance." 
 
 Mr. Liston is an actor hardly belonging to the present 
 age. Had he lived, unfortunately for us, in the time 
 of Colley Gibber, we should have seen what a splendid 
 niche he would have given him in his "Apology." 
 
 Gibber is the hero of the "Dunciad" ; but it cannot be 
 said of him, that he was ''^by merit raised to that l)ad 
 eminence." He was pert, not dull ; a coxcomb, not 
 a blockhead ; vain, but not malicious. Pope's unquali- 
 fied abuse of him was mere spleen ; and the most 
 obvious provocation to it seems to have been an excess 
 of flippant vivacity in the constitution of Gibber. That 
 Gibber's "Birth-day Odes" were dull, is true; but 
 this was not peculiar to him. It is an objection which 
 may be made equally to Shadwell's, to Whitehead's, 
 to Warton's, to Pye's, and to all others, except those 
 which of late years have not been written ! In his 
 " Apology for his own Life," Gibber is a most amusing 
 biographer : happy in his own good opinion, the best 
 of all others ; teeming with animal spirits, and uniting 
 the self-sufficiency of youth with the garrulity of age. 
 His account of his waiting as a page behind the chair 
 of the old Duchess of Marlborough at the time of the 
 Revolution, who was then in the bloom of youth and
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY 225 
 
 beauty, which seems to have called up in him the secret 
 honiajie of "distant^ enthusiastic, respectful love," iifty 
 years after, and the compliment he pays to her (then 
 in her old ai^e), "a g-reat grandmother without grey 
 hairs," is as delightful as anything in fiction or romance ; 
 and is the evident origin of Mr. Burke's celebrated 
 apostrophe to the Queen of France. Nor is the poli- 
 tical confession of faith which he makes on this occa- 
 sion, without a suitable mixture of vanity and sincerity: 
 the \'anity we may ascribe to the jdayer, the sincerity 
 to the politician. The self-complacency with wiiich he 
 talks of his own success, both as a player and a writer, 
 is not greater than the candour and cordiality with 
 which he does heaped justice to the merits of his 
 theatrical contemporaries and predecessors. He bruigs 
 down the history of the stage, either by the help of 
 observation or tradition, from the time of Shakespeare 
 to his own ; and quite dazzles the reader with a con- 
 stellation of male and female, of tragic and comic, of 
 past and present excellence. He gives portraits at full 
 length of Kynaston, of Betterton, of Booth, of Estcourt, 
 of Pinkethman and Dogjret, of Mohun and VVilks, of 
 Nokes and Sandford, of Mrs. Montford, of Mrs. Old- 
 field, of Mrs. Barry, and Mrs. Bracegirdle, and of 
 others of equal note ; with delectable criticisms on their 
 several performances, and anecdotes of their private 
 lives, with scarcely a single particle of jealousy or 
 ill-nature, or any other moti\'e than to expatiate in 
 the delight of talking of the ornaments of his art, and 
 a wish to share his pleasure with the reader. 1 wish 
 I c(juld quote some of these theatrical sketches ; but 
 the time presses. The latter part of his work is less 
 entertaining when he becomes Manager, and gives us 
 an exact statement of his squabbles with the Lord 
 Chamberlain, and the expense of his ground-rent, his 
 repairs, his scenery, and his dresses. — In his plays, his 
 personal character perhaps predominates too much over 
 the inventiveness of his Muse ; but so far from being 
 dull, he is everywhere light, fluttering, and airy. His 
 pleasure in himself made him desirous to please ; but 
 
 p
 
 226 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 liis fault was, tliat lie was too soon satisfied with what 
 he (lid ; that his indolence or want of thonii-ht led 
 him to indulge in the vein that flowed from him with 
 most ease, and that his vanity did not allow him to 
 distinguish between what he did best and worst. His 
 '" Careless Husliand " is a very elegant piece of agree- 
 able, thoughtless writing ; and the incident of Lady 
 Easy throwing her handkerchief over her husband, 
 whom she finds asleep in a chair by the side of her 
 waiting-Avoman, was an admirable ("ontrivance, taken, 
 as he informs us, from real life. His " Double Gallant," 
 which has been lately revived, though it cannot rank 
 in the first, may take its place in the second or third 
 class of comedies. It abounds in character, bustle, 
 and stage-effect. It belongs to what may be called the 
 composite style ; and very happily mixes up the comedy 
 of intrigue, such as we see it in Mrs. Centlivre's Spanish 
 plots, with a tolerable share of the wit and spirit of 
 Congreve and Vanbrugh. As there is a good deal of 
 wit, there is a spice of wickedness in this play, which 
 was a privilege of the good old style of comedy, not 
 altogether abandoned in Cibber's time. The luscious 
 vein of the dialogue is stopped short in many of the 
 scenes of the revived play, though not before we per- 
 ceive its object — 
 
 ' ' In hidden mazes running:. 
 
 With wanton haste and giddy cunning." 
 
 These imperfect hints of double meanings, however, 
 pass off without any marks of reprobation ; for, unless 
 they are insisted on, or made pretty broad, the 
 audience, from being accustomed to the cautious 
 purity of the modei-n drama, are not very expert in 
 deciphering the ecjuivocal allusion, for which they 
 are not on the look-out. To what is this increased 
 nicety owing.'' Was it that vice, from being formerly 
 less common (though more fashionable), was less 
 catching than at present.'' The first inference is by 
 no means in our favour : for though I think that the 
 grossness of manners prevailing in our fashionable
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY 227 
 
 comedies was a direct transcript of the mamiers of 
 the t'ourt at the time, or in the period immediately 
 preceding, yet the same grossness of expression and 
 allusion existed long before, as in the plays of Shake- 
 speare and Ben Jonsou, when there was not this 
 grossness of manners, and it has of late years been 
 gradually refining away. Tliere is a certain grossness 
 or freedom of expression, which may arise as often from 
 unsuspecting simplicity as from avowed profligacy. 
 \\'hatever may be our progress either in virtue or 
 vice since the age of Charles II, certain it is that 
 our manners are not mended since the time of Eliza- 
 beth and Charles I. Is it, then, that vice was formerly 
 a thing more to be wondered at than imitated ; that 
 behind the rigid barriers of religion and morality it 
 might be exposed freely, without the danger of any 
 serious practical consequences — whereas now that the 
 safeguards of wholesome authority and prejudice are 
 removed, we seem afraid to trust our eyes or ears 
 with a single situation or expression of a loose ten- 
 dency, as if the mere mention of licentiousness implied 
 a conscious approbation of it, and the extreme delicacy 
 of our moral sense would be debauched by the bare 
 suggestion of the possibility of vice .'' But I shall not 
 talve upon me to answer this question. The characters 
 in the " Double Gallant " are well kept up. At-All 
 and Lady Dainty are the two most prominent char- 
 acters in this comedy, and those into which Cibber has 
 put most of his own nature and genius. They are the 
 essence of active impertinence and fashionable frivolity. 
 Cibber, in short, though his name has been handed 
 down to us as a byword of impudent pretension and 
 impenetrable dullness by the classical pen of his accom- 
 plished rival, who, unfortunately, did not admit of 
 any merit beyond the narrow circle of wit and friend- 
 ship in which he himself moved, was a gentleman and 
 a scholar of the old school ; aman of wit and pleasantry 
 in conversation, a diverting mimic, an excellent actoi*, 
 an admirable dramatic critic, and one of the best comic 
 writers of his age. His works (always excepting his
 
 228 tup: ENGLISH COMIC WIUTEIIS 
 
 " I'irtli-day Odes"), instead of lieiiig a caput iiiortuiim 
 of literature, liad a great deal of tlie spirit, with a little 
 too much of the froth. His "Nonjuror" was taken 
 from Moliere's "Tartuffe," and has heen altered to 
 the " Hjpocrite." [This latter is a liAely but very 
 provoking comedy, and it is provoking from the nature 
 of the subject. If such things are, it is provoking ; 
 or if they are not, that we should be made to believe 
 them. In the "Tartuffe," the glaring improbal)ility 
 of the plot, the absurdity of a man's imposing on tiie 
 credulity of another against the evidence of his senses, 
 and without any proof of tlie sincerity of a religious 
 charlatan but his own professions, is carried off l)y 
 long formal speeches and pompous casuistry. We find 
 our patience tired out, and our understandings j»er- 
 plexed, as if we ivere sitting in a court of law. 'I'artuffe 
 is a plausible, fair-spoken, long-winded knave, who, if 
 he could not be supposed to convince, might be sup- 
 posed to confound his auditors. In the " Hj^pocrite " 
 of Bickerstaif, the insidious, fawning, sophistical, 
 accomplislied French Abbe, is modernized into a low- 
 lived, canting, impudent Methodist preacher. Dr. 
 Cantwell is a sturdy beggar, and nothing more ; he 
 is not an impostor, but a bully. There is not in 
 anything he says or does the least reason why Sir 
 John Lambert should admit him into his family and 
 friendship, suffer him to make love to his M'ife and 
 daughter, disinherit his son in his favour, and obsti- 
 nately refuse to listen to any insinuation or proof offered 
 against the virtue and piety of his treacherous inmate. 
 It might be said, that in the manners of the old French 
 regime there was something to account for the blind 
 ascendancy acquired by the priest over his benefactor, 
 who might have subuiitted to be enthralled, rohlied, 
 cheated, and insulted, as a tacit proof of his religion 
 and loyalty. The inquisitorial power exercised by the 
 Church was then so great, that a man who refused 
 to be priest-ridden, might very soon be suspected of 
 designs against the State. Such, at least, is the best 
 account we can give of the sameness of Moliere's
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY 229 
 
 " Orgon." But in this country nothing of the kind 
 could happen. A fellow like Dr. Cantwell could only 
 have got admittance into the kitchen of Sir Jolui 
 Lambert, or to the ear of old Lady Lambert. The 
 animal magnetism of such spiritual guides is^ with 
 US;, directed against the weaker nerves of our female 
 devotees. In the original^ we admire the talents of 
 tlie principal character ; in the translation, we only 
 wonder at the incredible weakness of his dupes. In 
 short, the fault of the piece is that the author has 
 attempted to amalgamate two contradictory characters, 
 by engrafting our vulgar Methodist on the courtly 
 French impostor ; and this defect could not be 
 remedied in the execution, however spirited or 
 forcible. Mawworm is quite a local and rational 
 character, and admirably fitted into the piece.] 
 " Love's Last Shift" appears to have been the autlior's 
 favouirEe'; an JTiB received the compliments of Sir 
 John Vanbrugh and old Mr. Southern upon it — the 
 latter said to him : — "Young man, your play is a good 
 one ; and it will succeed, if you do not spoil it by your 
 acting." His plays did not always take equally. It 
 is ludicrous to hear him complaining of the ill success 
 of one of them, " Love in a Riddle/' a pastoral comedy, 
 " of a nice morality " and well spoken sentiments, 
 w liich he wrote in opposition to the " Beggar's Opera," 
 at the time when its worthless and vulgar rival was 
 carrying everything triumphantly before it. Gibber 
 brings this, with much patlietic naivete, as an instance- 
 of the lamentable want of taste in the town ! 
 
 The " Suspicious Husband " by Hoadley, the " Jeal- 
 ous ^Fife" by Colman, and the "Clandestine Marriage " 
 bv Colman and Garrick, are excellent plays of the 
 middle style of comedy, which are formed rather by 
 judgment and selection than by any original vein of 
 genius ; and have all the parts of a good comedy 
 in degree, without having any one prominent, or to 
 excess. The character of Ranger, in the " Suspicious 
 Husband," is only a variation of those of Farquhar, of 
 the same class as his Sir Harry Wildair and others.
 
 230 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 without equal s])irit. The " Jealous \\^ife " herself is, 
 however, u dramatic chef'-d'oRuvre, and worthy of being 
 acted as often^ and better than it is. [Colman, the 
 elder, was the translator of Terence : and the " Jealous 
 Wife" is a classical play. The plot is i-egular, the 
 characters well suppoi'tcd, and the moral the best in 
 the world. The dialogue has more sense than wit. 
 The ludicrous arises from the skilful development of 
 the characters, and the absurdities they conniiit in 
 their own persons, rather than from the smart reflec- 
 tions which are made upon them by others. Thus 
 nothing can be more ridiculous or more instructive 
 than the scenes of which Mrs. Oakly is the heroine, 
 yet they are all serious and unconscious : she exposes 
 herself to our contempt and ridicule by the part she 
 acts, by the airs she gives herself, and her fantastic 
 behaviour in the situations in which she is placed. 
 In other words, the character is pure comedy, not 
 satire. Congreve's comedies for the most ])art are 
 satires, in which, from an exuberance of wit, the 
 different speakers play off their sharp-pointed raillery 
 on one another's foibles, real or supposed. '^The best 
 and most genuine kind of comedy, because the most 
 dramatic, is that of character or humour, in which 
 the persons introduced upon the stage are left to 
 betray their own folly by their words and actions. 
 Tlie progressive winding up of the storj' of the present 
 comedy is excellently managed. The jealousy and 
 hysteric violence of Mrs. Oakly increase every moment, 
 as the pretext for them becomes more and more frivo- 
 lous. The attention is kept alive by our doubts about 
 Oakly's wavering (but in the end triumphant) firm- 
 ness ; and the arch insinuations and well-concerted 
 home-thrusts of the Major heighten the comic interest 
 of the scene. There is only one circumstance on Avhich 
 this veteran bachelor's freedom of speech might iiave 
 thrown a little more light, namely, that the married 
 lady's jealousy is in truth only a pretence for the 
 exercise of her domineering spirit in general ; so that 
 we are left at last in some uncertainty as to the turn
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY 231 
 
 which this humour may take, and as to the future 
 repose of her husband, though the affair of Miss Russet 
 is satisfactorily cleared up. The under-plot of the two 
 lovers is very ingeniously fitted into the principal one, 
 and is not without interest in itself. Charles Oakly 
 is a spirited, well-meaning, thoughtless young fellow, 
 and Harriet Russet is an amiable romantic girl, in that 
 very common, but always romantic situation — in love. 
 Her persecution from the addresses of Lord Trinket 
 and Sir Harry Beagle fans the gentle flame which had 
 been kindled just a year before in her breast, produces 
 the adventures and cross-purposes of the plot, and at 
 last reconciles her to, and throws her into the arms of 
 her lover, in spite of her resentment for his misconduct 
 and apparent want of delicacy. The figure which Lord 
 Trinket and Lady Freelove make in the piece is as 
 odious and contemptible as it is possible for people in 
 that class of life (and for no others) to make. The 
 insolence, the meanness, the affectation, the hollowness, 
 the want of humanity, sincerity, principle, and delicacy, 
 are such as can only be found where artificial rank and 
 station in society supersede not merely a regard to pro- 
 priety of conduct, but the necessity even of an attention 
 to appearances. The morality of the stage has (we are 
 ready to hope) told in that direction as well as others, 
 has, in some measure, suppressed the suffocating preten- 
 sions and flaunting affectation of vice and folly in "per- 
 sons of honour," and, as it were, humanized rank and 
 title. The pictures drawn of the finished depravity of 
 such characters in high life, in the old comedies and 
 novels, can hardly have been thrown away upon the per- 
 sons themselves, any more than upon the world at large. 
 Little Terence O'Cutler, the delicious protege of Lord 
 Trinket and Lady Freelove, is a fit instrument for them 
 to use, and follows in the train of such principals as 
 naturally and assuredly as their shadow. Sir Harry 
 Beagle is a coarse, but striking character of a thorough- 
 bred fox-hunting country squire. He has but one idea 
 in his head, but one sentiment in his heart — and that 
 is his stud. This idea haunts his imagination, tinges
 
 232 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 or imbues every other object, and accounts for his whole 
 phraseology, appearance, costume, and conduct. Sir 
 Harry's ruling passion is varied very ingeniously, and 
 often turned to a very ludicrous account. There is a 
 necessary monotony in the humour, which arises from 
 a want of more than one idea, but the obviousness of 
 the jest almost makes up for the recurrence of it ; if 
 the means of exciting mirth are mechanical, the effect 
 is sure ; and to say that a hearty laugh is cheaply pur- 
 chased, is not a serious objection against it. Wlien an 
 author is terribly conscious of plagiarism, he seldom 
 confesses it ; when the obligation does not press his con- 
 science, he sometimes does. Colman, in the advertise- 
 ment to the first edition of the "Jealous Wife," 
 apologizes for the freedom which he has used in 
 borrowing from "Tom Jones." In reading this 
 modest excuse, though we had seen the jilay several 
 times, we could not imagine what part of the plot was 
 taken from Fielding. We did not suspect that Miss 
 Russet was Sophia Western, and that old Russet 
 and Sir Harry Beagle between them somehow repre- 
 sented Squire Western and young Blifil. But so it 
 is ! The outline of the plot and some of the char- 
 acters are certainly the same, but the filling up 
 destroys the likeness. There is all in the novel that 
 there is in the play, but there is so much in the novel 
 that is not in the play, that the total impression is 
 quite different, and loses even an appearance of resem- 
 blance. In the same manner, though a profile or a 
 shade of a face is exactly the same as the original, we 
 with difficulty recognize it from the. absence of so many 
 other particulars. Colman might have kept his own 
 secret, and no one would have been the wiser for it.] 
 
 The " Clandestine Marriage " is nearly without a 
 fault ; and has some lighter theatrical graces, which 
 I suspect Garrick threw into it. Canton is, I should 
 think, his, though this classification of him among 
 the ornamental parts of the play may seem whimsical. 
 Garrick's genius does not appear to have been equal 
 to the construction of a solid drama ; but he could
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY 233 
 
 retouch and embellish with great gaiety aurl know- 
 ledge of the technicalities of his art. Garrick not 
 only produced joint-pieces and after-pieces, but often 
 set off the plays of his friends and contemporaries with 
 the garnish, the sauce piquant, of prologues and epi- 
 logues, at which he had an admirable knack. — The 
 elder Cohnan's translation of Terence, I may here 
 add, has always been considered, by good judges, as 
 an equal proof of tlie author's knowledge of the Latin 
 language, and taste in his own. 
 
 Bickerstaff's plays and comic operas are continually 
 acted ; they come under the class of mediocrity, gene- 
 rally speaking. Their popularity seems to be chiefly 
 owing to the unaffected ease and want of pretension 
 with which they are written, with a certain humorous 
 naivete in the lower characters, and an exquisite adapta- 
 tion of the music to the songs. His '' Love in a Village" 
 is one of the most delightful comic operas on the stage. 
 It is truly pastoral ; and the sense of music hovers 
 over the very scene like the breath of morning. In 
 his alteration of the " Tartuffe " he has spoiled the 
 '■ Hypocrite," but he has added Mawworm. 
 
 Mrs. Cowley's comedies of the " Belle's Stratagem,'' 
 " \Vlio"s the Dupe," and others, are of the second or 
 third class ; they are rather refucimentos of the char- 
 acters, incidents, and materials of former wi-iters, got up 
 with considerable liveliness and ingenuity, than original 
 ^compositions, with marked qualities of their own. 
 I Goldsmith's " Good-natured Man " is inferior to 
 "She Stoops to Conquer"; and even this last play, 
 'with all its shifting vivacity, is rather a sportive and 
 whimsical effusion of the author's fancy, a delightful 
 and delicately managed caricature, than a genuine 
 comedy. [It, however, bears the stamp of the author's 
 genius, which was an indefinable mixture of the original 
 and imitative. His plot, characters, and incidents are 
 all apparently new ; and yet, when you come to look 
 into them, they are all old, with little variation or 
 disguise :> that is, the author sedulously avoided the 
 beaten, vulgar path, and sought for singularity, but
 
 234 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 found it rather in tlie unhackneyed and eccentric 
 inventions of those who had gone before him, than 
 in his own stores. Tlie " Vicar of Wakefield/' which 
 abounds more than any of his works in deliglitful and 
 original traits^ is still very much borrowed, in its 
 general tone and outline, from Fielding's "Joseph 
 Andrews." Again, the characters and adventures of 
 Tony Lumpkin, and the ridiculous conduct of his 
 mother, in the present comedy, are a counterpart 
 (even to the incident of the theft of the jewels) of 
 those of the Widow Blackacre and her booby son in 
 ^Fycherley's " Plain Dealer." 
 
 This sort of plagiarism, which gives us a repetition 
 of new and striking pictures of human life, is much to 
 be preferred to the dull routine of trite, vapid, every- 
 day commonplaces ; but it is more dangerous, as the 
 stealing of pictures or family plate, where the property 
 can be immediately identified, is more liable to detec- 
 tion than the stealing of bank-notes, or tlie current 
 coin of the realm. Dr. Johnson's sarcasm against some 
 writer, that " his singularity was not his excellence," 
 cannot be applied to Goldsmith's writings in general ; 
 but we are not sure whether it miglit not in severity 
 be applied to ^'^She Stoops to Conquer." The incidents 
 and characters are many of them exceedingly amusing ; 
 but they are so, a little at the expense of probability 
 and bieiiseance. Tony Lumpkin is a very essential 
 and unquestionably comic personage ; but certainly his 
 absurdities or his humours fail of none of their effect 
 for want of being carried far enough. He is in his 
 own sex what a hoyden is in the other. He is that 
 vulgar nickname, a hobbety-hoij , dramatized ; forward 
 and sheepish, mischievous and idle, cunning and stupid, 
 with the vices of the man and the follies of the boy ; 
 fond of low company, and giving himself all the airs 
 of consequence of the young squire. His vacant delight 
 in playing at cup and ball, and his impenetrable con- 
 fusion and obstinate gravity in spelling the letter, drew 
 fi-esh beauties from Mr. Liston's face. Young Marlow's 
 bashfulness in the scenes with his mistress is, when well
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY 235 
 
 acted, irresistibly ludicrous ; but still nothing can quite 
 overcome our incredulity as to the existence of such a 
 character in the present day, and in the rank of life, 
 and with the education which Marlow is supposed to 
 have had. It is a highly amusing caricature, a ridi- 
 culous fancy, but no more. One of the finest and most 
 delicate touches of character is in the transition from 
 the modest gentleman's manner with his mistress, to 
 the easy and agreeable tone of familiarity with the sup- 
 posed chamber-maid, which was not total and abrupt, 
 but exactly such in kind and degree as such a character 
 of natural reserve and constitutional timidity would 
 undergo from the change of circumstances. Of the 
 other characters in the piece, the most amusing are 
 Tony Lumpkin's associates at the Three Pigeons ; and 
 of these we profess the greatest partiality for the 
 important showman who declares that "his bear dances 
 to none but the genteelest of tunes, ' Water parted 
 from the Sea,' or the minuet in ' Ariadne ' ! " This is 
 certainly the "high-fantastical" of low comedy.] 
 
 Murphy's plays of "All in the Wrong" and " Know 
 Your Own Mind," are admirably written ; with sense, 
 sjiirit, and conception of character, but without any 
 great effect of the humorous, or that truth of feeling 
 which distinguishes the boundary between the absur- 
 dities of natural character and the gratuitous fictions 
 of the poet's pen. The heroes of these two plays, 
 Millamour and Sir Benjamin Constant, are too ridicu- 
 lous in their caprices to be tolerated, except in farce ; 
 and yet their follies are so flimsy, so motiveless, and 
 fine-spun, as not to be intelligible, or to have any 
 effect in their only pro])er sphere. Both his principal 
 pieces are said to have suffered by their similarity, 
 first, to Colman's " Jealous Wife," and next to the 
 " School for Scandal," though in both cases he had 
 the undoubted priority. It is hard that the fate of 
 plagiarism should attend upon originality ; yet it is 
 clear tliat the elements of the "School for Scandal" 
 are not sparingly scattered in Murphy's comedy of 
 " Know Your Own Mind," which appeared before
 
 236 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 the latter play, only to be eclipsed by it. This brings 
 nie to speak of Siieritlaii. 
 
 Mr. Sheridan has been justly called "a dramatic 
 
 tstar of the first magnitude " ; and, indeed, among the 
 comic writers of the last century he "shines like 
 Hesperus among the lesser lights." He has left four 
 several dramas behind him, all different or of different 
 kinds, and all excellent in their way ; — the " School 
 for Scandal," the "Rivals," the "Duenna," and the 
 "Critic." The attraction of this last piece is, how- 
 ever, less in the mock tragedy rehearsed than in the 
 dialogue of the comic scenes, and in the character of 
 Sir Fretful Plagiary, which is supposed to have been 
 intended for Cumberland. If some of the characters 
 in the "School for Scandal" were contained in Murphy's 
 comedy of " Know Your Own Mind " (and certainly 
 some of Dashwoud's detached speeches and satirical 
 sketches are written with quite as firm and masterly 
 a hand as any of those given to the members of the 
 scandalous club, Mrs. Candour or Lady Sneerwell), 
 yet they were buried in it for want of grouping and 
 relief, like the colours of a well-drawn picture sunk in 
 the canvas. Sheridan brought them out and exhibited 
 them in all their glory. If that gem, the character of 
 Joseph Surface, was Murphy's, the splendid and more 
 valuable setting was Sheridan^s. He took Murphy's 
 Malvil from his lurking-place in the closet, and " dragged 
 
 I the struggling monster into day " upon the stage. That 
 is, he gave interest, life, and action, or, in other words, 
 its dramatic being, to the mere conception and written 
 specimens of a character. This is the merit of Sheri- 
 dan's comedies, that everything in them tells — there 
 is no labour in vain. His comic muse does not go 
 about prying into obscure corners, or collecting idle 
 curiosities, but shows lier laughing face and points to 
 her rich treasure — the follies of mankind. She is gar- 
 landed and crowned with roses and vine-leaves. Her 
 eyes sparkle with delight, and her heart runs over 
 with good-natured malice. Her step is firm and light, 
 and her ornaments consummate ! Tlie " School for
 
 OF THP: last century 237 
 
 I Scandal" is, if not the most original, perliaps the 
 most finished and faultless comedy which we have. 
 A\'hen it is acted you liear people all around you 
 exclaiming, "Surely it is impossible for anything to 
 be cleverer." The scene in which Charles sells all 
 the old family pictures but his uncle's, who is the 
 purchaser in disguise, and that of the discovery of 
 Lady Teazle when the screen falls, are among the 
 happiest and most highly wrought that comedy, in 
 its wide and brilliant range, can boast. Besides the 
 wit and ingenuity of this play, there is a genial spirit 
 of frankness and generosity about it that relieves the 
 heart as well as clears the lungs. It professes a faith 
 in the natural goodness as well as habitual depravity 
 of liuman nature. While it strips oif the mask of 
 hypocrisy it inspires a confidence between man and 
 man. As often as it is acted it must serve to clear 
 the air of that low, creeping, pestilent fog of cant and 
 mysticism, which threatens to confound every native 
 inipulse, or honest conviction, in the nauseous belief 
 of a perpetual lie, and the laudable profession of 
 systematic hypocrisy. The character of Lady Teazle 
 is not well made out by the author, nor has it been 
 well represented on the stage since the time of Miss 
 |Farren. The " Rivals " is a play of even more action 
 and incident, but of less wit and satire than the x 
 '■' School for Scandal." It is as good as a novel in 
 the reading, and has the broadest and most palpable 
 effect on the stage. If Joseph Surface and Charles 
 have a smack of Tom Jones and Blifil in their moral 
 constitution, Sir Anthony Absolute and Mrs. Malaprop 
 remind us of honest Matthew Bramble and his sister 
 Tabitlia in their tempers and dialect. Acres is a dis- 
 tant descendant of Sir Andrew Ae:ue-cheek. It must 
 be confessed of this author, as Falstaif says of some 
 one, that " he had damnable iteration in him " ! [The 
 /"Rivals" is one of the most agreeable comedies we -^ 
 have. In the elegance and brilliancy of the dialogue, 
 in a certain animation of moral sentiment, and in the 
 masterly denouement of the fable, the " School for
 
 238 THE ENGLISH COiMIC WRITIORS 
 
 Scandal" is superior; but the "Rivals" has moi-e lil'e 
 ^ and action in it, and abounds in a greater number 
 of whimsical characters, unexpected incidents, and 
 al)sur(l contrasts of situation, 'llie effect of the " School 
 for Scandal" is something like reading a collection of 
 epigrams, that of the "Rivals" is more like reading 
 a novel. In the first you are always at the toilette or 
 in the drawing-room ; in the last you pass into the 
 open air, and take a turn in King's Mead. The interest 
 is kept alive in the one play by smart repartees, in the 
 other by startling rencontres ; in the one we laugh at 
 the satii-ical descriptions of the speakers, in tlie other 
 the situation of their persons on the stage is irresistibly 
 ludicrous. Thus the interviews between Lucy and Sir 
 Lucius O'Trigger, between Acres and his friend Jack, 
 who is at once his confidant and his rival ; between 
 Mrs. Malaprop and the lover of her niece as Captain 
 Absolute, and between that young lady and the same 
 person as the pretended Ensign Beverley, tell from 
 the mere double entendre of the scene, and from the 
 ignorance of the parties of one another's persons and 
 designs. There is no source of dramatic effect more 
 complete than this species of practical satire (in which 
 our author seems to have been an adept), where one 
 character in the piece is made a fool of and turned 
 into ridicule to his face, by the very person whom he 
 is trying to overreach. 
 
 There is scarcely a more delightful play than the 
 " Rivals " when it is well acted, or one that goes off 
 more indifferently Avhen it is not. The humour is of 
 so broad and farcical a kind, that if not thoroughly 
 entered into and carried off by the tone and manner 
 of the performers it fails of effect from its obtrusiveness, 
 and becomes flat from eccentricity. The absurdities 
 brought forward are of that artificial, affected, and 
 preposterous description, that we in some measure 
 require to have the evidence of our senses to see the 
 persons themselves "jetting under the advanced plumes 
 of their folly," before we can entirely believe in their 
 existence, or derive pleasure from their exposure. If
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY 239 
 
 the extravaafance of the poet's conceptiou is not sup- 
 ported by the downright reality of the representation, 
 our credulity is staggered and falls to the ground. 
 
 For instance, Acres should be as odd a compound in 
 external appearance as he is of the author's brain. He 
 must look like a very notable mixture of the lively 
 coxcomb and the blundering blockhead, to reconcile 
 us to his continued impertinence and senseless flip- 
 pancy. Acres is a mere conventional character, a gay, 
 fluttering automaton, constructed upon mechanical 
 principles, and pushed, as it were, by the logic of wit 
 and a strict keeping in the pursuit of the ridiculous, 
 into follies and fopperies which his natural thought- 
 lessness would never have dreamt of. Acres does not 
 say or do what such a half-witted young gentleman 
 would say or do of his own head, but what he might 
 be led to do or say Avith such a prompter as Sheridan 
 at his elbow to tutor him in absurdity — to make a butt 
 of him first, and laugh at him afterwards. Thus his 
 presence of mind in persisting in his allegorical swear- 
 ing, •'^Odds triggers and flints," in the duel scene, 
 when he is trembling all over with cowardice, is quite 
 out of character, but it keeps up the preconcerted jest. 
 Jn proportion, therefore, as the author has overdone 
 the part, it calls for a greater efl:brt of animal spirits, 
 and a peculiar aptitude of genius in the actor to go 
 through with it, to humour the extravagance, and to 
 seem to take a real and cordial delight in caricaturing 
 himself. Dodd was the only actor we remember who 
 realized this ideal combination of volatility and phlegm, 
 of slowness of understanding with levity of purpose, of 
 vacancy of thought and vivacity of gesture. Acres's 
 affected phrases and apish manners used to sit upon 
 this inimitable actor with the same sort of bumpkin 
 grace and conscious self-complacency as the new cut 
 of his clothes. In general, this character is made little 
 of on the stage ; and when left to shift for itself, seems 
 as vapid as it is forced. 
 
 Mrs. Malaprop is another portrait of the same over- 
 charged description. The chief drollery of this extra-
 
 240 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 ordinary personage consists in her unaccountaljle and 
 systematic misajtplication of hard woi'ds. How she 
 shouhl know the words, and not their meaning, is a 
 little odd. In reading- the ]ilay we are amused with 
 such a series of ridiculous blunders, just as we are 
 with a series of puns or cross-readings. But to keep 
 up the farce upon the stage, hesides "a nice ch^raiige- 
 ment of epitaphs," the imagination must have the 
 assistance of a stately array of grave pretensions, and 
 a most formidable establishment of countenance, with 
 all the vulgar self-sufficiency of pride and ignorance, 
 before it can give full credit to this learned tissue_a£_ 
 technical absurditj^'^ 
 
 As to Miss Lydia Languish, slie is not easily done 
 to the life. She is a delightful compound of extra- 
 vagance and ria'irpti'. She is fond and froward, practi- 
 cal and chimerical, hot and cold in a breath. She is 
 that kind of fruit which drops into the mouth before 
 it is ripe. She must have a husband, but she will not 
 liave one without an elopement. This young lady is 
 at an age and of a disposition to throw herself into the 
 ainns of the first handsome young fellow she meets ; 
 but she repents and grows sullen, like a spoiled child, 
 wlien she finds that nobody hinders her. She should 
 have all the pliysiognomical marks of a true boarding- 
 school, novel-reading Miss about her, and some others 
 into the bargain. Sir Anthony's description hardl}- 
 comes up to the trutli. She should have large, rolling- 
 eyes ; pouting, disdainful lips ; a pale, clear com- 
 plexion ; an oval chin, an arching neck, and a pro- 
 fusion of dark ringlets falling down upon it, or she 
 will never answer to our ideas of the charming senti- 
 mental hoyden, who is the heroine of the play. 
 
 Faulkland is a refined study of a very common dis- 
 agreeable character, actuated by an unceasing spirit 
 of contradiction, who perversely seizes every idle pre- 
 text for making himself and others miserable ; or 
 querulous enthusiast, determined on disappointment, 
 and enamoured with suspicion. He is without excuse ; 
 nor is it without some difficulty that we endure his
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY 241 
 
 self-tormenting follies, through our partiality for Julia^ 
 the amiable, unresisting victim of his gloomy caprice. 
 
 Sir Anthony Absolute and his son are the most 
 sterling characters of the play. The tetchy, positive, 
 impatient, overbearing, but warm and generous char- 
 acter of the one, and tlie gallant, determined spirit, 
 adroit address, and dry humour of the other, are 
 admirably set oif against each other. The two scenes 
 in which they contend about the proposed match, in 
 the first of which the indignant lover is as choleric 
 and rash as the old gentleman is furious and obstinate, 
 and in the latter of which the son aflfects such a cool 
 indifference and dutiful submission to his father, from 
 having found out that it is the mistress of his choice 
 whom he is to be compelled to marry, are master- 
 pieces both of wit, humour, and character. Sir 
 Anthony Absolute is an evident copy after Smollett's 
 kind-hearted, high-spirited Matthew Bramble, as Mrs. 
 Malaprop is after the redoubted linguist, Mrs. Tabitha 
 Bramble ; and, indeed, the whole tone, as well as the 
 local scenery of the "Rivals," reminds the reader 
 of "Humphry Clinker." Sheridan had a right to 
 borrow ; and he made use of this privilege, not 
 sparingly, both in this and in his other plays. His 
 Acres, as well in the general character as in particular 
 scenes, is a mannered imitation of Sir Andrew Ague- 
 cheek. 
 
 Fag, Lucy, and Sir Lucius O'Trigger, though sub- 
 ordinate agents in the plot of the " Rivals," are not 
 the less amusing on that account. Fag wears his 
 master's wit, as he does his lace, at second-hand ; 
 Lucy is an edifying specimen of simplicity in a 
 chamber-maid, and Sir Lucius is an honest fortune- 
 hunting Hibernian, who means well to himself, and 
 no harm to anybody else. Tliey are also traditional 
 characters, common to the stage ; but they are drawTi 
 with all the life and spirit of originals. 
 
 This appears, indeed, to have been the peculiar forte 
 and the great praise of our author's genius, that he 
 could imitate with the spirit of an inventor. There is 
 
 Q
 
 242 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 hardly a character, we believe, or a marked situation 
 in any of his works, of which there are not distinct 
 traces to be found in his predecessors. But though 
 the groundwork and texture of liis materials was little 
 more than what he found already existing in the modela 
 of acknowledged excellence, yet he constantly varied 
 or improved upon their suggestions with masterly skill 
 and ingenuity. He applied what he thus borrowed, 
 with a sparkling effect and rare felicity, to dilFerent 
 circumstances, and adapted it with peculiar elegance 
 tothe prevailing taste of the age. He was the farthest 
 possible from a servile plagiarist. He wrote in imita- 
 tion of Congreve, Vanbrugh, or Wycherley, as those 
 persons would have written in continuation of them- 
 selves, had they lived at the same time with him. 
 There is no excellence of former writers of which he 
 has not availed himself, and which he has not con- 
 verted to his own purposes, with equal spirit and 
 success. He had great acuteness and knowledge of 
 the world ; and if he did not create his own charac- 
 ters, he compared them with their prototypes in nature, 
 and understood their bearings and qualities, before he 
 undertook to make a different use of them. He had 
 wit, fancy, sentiment at command, enabling him to 
 place the thoughts of others in new lights of his own, 
 which reflected back an added lustre on the originals : 
 wliatever he touched, he adorned with all the ease, 
 grace, and brilliancy of his style. If he ranks only 
 as a man of second-rate genius, he was assuredly a 
 man of first-rate talents. He was the most classical 
 and the most popular dramatic writer of his age. Tlie 
 works he has left behind him will remain as monu- 
 ments of his fame, for the delight and instruction of 
 posterity. 
 
 Mr. Sheridan not only excelled as a comic writer, 
 but was also an eminent orator, and a disinterested 
 ^patriot. As a public speaker, he was distinguished by 
 acuteness of observation and pointed wit, more than 
 by impassioned eloquence, or powerful and compre- 
 hensive reasoning. Considering him with reference
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY 243 
 
 to his conversational talents, his merits as a comic 
 writer, and as a political character, his was perhaps 
 the most accomplished person of his time. 
 
 "Take him for all in all, 
 We shall not look upon his like again."] 
 
 The " Duenna " is a perfect work of art. It has the 
 utmost sweetness and point. Tlie plot, the characters, 
 the dialogue, are all complete in themselves, and they 
 are all his own ; and the songs are the best that ever 
 were written, except those in the "Beggar's Opera." 
 They have a joyous spirit of intoxication in them, and 
 a strain of the most melting tenderness. Compare the 
 softness of that beginning, 
 
 "Had I a heart for falsehood framed,' 
 with the spirited defiance to Fortune in the lines, 
 
 " Half thy malice youth could bear, 
 And the rest a bumper drown." 
 
 It would have been too much for the author of these 
 elegant and classic productions not to have had some 
 drawbacks on his felicity and fame. But even the 
 applause of nations and the favour of princes cannot 
 always be enjoyed with impunity. Sheridan was not 
 only an excellent dramatic writer, but a first-rate ^/ 
 'parliamentary speaker, and a disinterested patriot. 
 His characteristics as an orator were manly, unper- 
 verted good sense, and keen irony. Wit, which has 
 been thought a two-edged weapon, was by him al\yays 
 employed on the same side of the question — I think, 
 on the right one. His set and more laboured speeches, 
 as that on the Begum's affairs, were proportionably 
 abortive and unimpressive ; but no one was equal to 
 him in replying, on the spur of the moment, to pompous 
 absurdity, and unravelling the web of flimsy sophistry. 
 He was the last accomplished debater of the House of 
 Commons. His character will, however, soon be drawn 
 by one who has all the ability, and every inclination to
 
 244 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 do him justice ; who knows how to bestow praise and 
 to deserve it ; by one wlio is liimself an ornament of 
 private and of public life ; a satirist, belove<l by his 
 friends ; a wit and a patriot to boot ; a poet, and an 
 honest man. 
 
 Macklin's " Man of the AVorld " has one powerfully 
 written character, that of Sir Pertiuax Macsycophant, 
 but it required Cooke's acting to make it thoroughly 
 eifectual. 
 
 Mr. Holcroft, in his " Road to Ruin," set the example 
 of that style of comedy, in wliich the slang phrases of 
 jockey-noblemen and the humours of the four-in-hand 
 club are blended with the romantic sentiments of dis- 
 tressed damsels and philosophic waiting-maids, and in 
 which he has been imitated by the most successful 
 of our living writers, unless we make a separate class 
 for the school of Cumberland, who was almost entirely 
 devoted to the comedie larmoyante, and who, passing 
 from the light, volatile spirit of his " West Indian," 
 to the mawkish sensibility of the " Wheel of Fortune," 
 linked the Muse of English comedy to the genius of 
 German tragedy, M'here she has since remained, like 
 Christabel fallen asleep in the AFitch's arms, and where 
 I shall leave her, as I have not the poet's privilege to 
 break the spell. [As to the " West Indian," it is a 
 play that from the time of its first appearing has con- 
 tinued to hold possession of the stage, with just enough 
 merit to keep it there, and no striking faults to drive 
 it thence. It is above mediocrity. There is an agree- 
 able vein of good humour and animal spirits running 
 through it that does not suffer it to sink into downright 
 insipidity, nor ever excites any very high degree of 
 interest or delight. -? Wit there is none, and hardly an 
 attempt at humour, except in the character of Major 
 O'Flaherty, who"would not be recognized as a genuine 
 Irishman but by virtue of his representative on the 
 stage. His blunders and conduct are not such as 
 would proceed from the good-natured unthinking 
 impetuosity of such a person as O'Flaherty is intended 
 to be : but they are such as the author might sit down
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY 245 
 
 and try to invent for him. It is not an Irish character, 
 but a character playing the Irishman ; not a hasty, 
 warm-hearted, hare-brained fellow, stumbling on mis- 
 takes by accident either in his words or actions, but a 
 very complaisant gentleman, looking out for them by 
 design, to humour the opinion which you entertain of 
 him, and who is to make himself a national butt for 
 the audience to laugh at. The " West Indian " him- 
 self (Belcour) is certainly the support of the piece. 
 There is something interesting in the idea of seeing a 
 young fellow of high animal spirits, a handsome for- 
 tune, and considerable generosity of feeling, launched ^J^ 
 from the other side of the world (with the additional 
 impetus that the distance would give him) to run the 
 gauntlet of the follies and vices of the town, to fall 
 into scrapes only to get out of them, and who is full of 
 professions of attachment to virtues which he does not 
 practise, and of repentance for offences which he has 
 not committed. It is the same character as Charles 
 Surface in the " School for Scandal " with an infusion 
 of the romantic from his transatlantic origin, and an 
 additional excuse for his extravagances in the tropical 
 temperature of his blood. 
 
 The language of this play is elegant but common-) ^. 
 place : the speakers seem in general more intent on] oi 
 adjusting their periods than on settling their affairs. 
 The sentiments aspire to liberality. They are amiably) 
 mawkish, and as often as they incline to paradox, have- 1 c 
 a rapid sort of petulance about them, which excites 
 neither our sympathy nor our esteem. The plot is a . 
 good plot. It is well laid, decently distributed through ' ! 
 the course of five acts, and wound up at last to its fiualy 
 catastrophe in a single sentence.] 
 
 Tliere are two other writers whom I have omitted to 
 mention, but not forgotten : they are our two immortal 
 farce-writers, the authors of the " Mayor of Garratt" 
 and the "Agreeable Surprise." If Foote has been 
 called our English Aristoplianes, O'Keefe might well 
 be called our English Moliere. The scale of the 
 modern writer was smaller, but the spirit is the
 
 246 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 same. In light, careless laughter, and pleasant exag- 
 gerations of the humorous, we liave had no one equal 
 to him. 'Iliere is no laltour or contrivance in his 
 scenes, but the drollery of his sulyect seems to strike 
 irresistibly upon his fancy, and run away with his 
 discretion as it does with ours. His "Cowslip" and 
 " Lingo " are " Touchstone " and "Audrey" revived. 
 He is himself a modern antique. His fancy has all the 
 quaintness and extravagance of the old writers, witli 
 the ease and lightness wliich the moderns arrogate 
 to themselves. AH his pieces are delightful, but the 
 " Agreeable Surprise " is the most so. 'I'liere are in 
 this some of the most irresistible double entendres, tlie 
 most felicitous blunders in situation and character, that 
 can be conceived ; and in Lingo's superb replication, 
 " A scholar ! 1 was a master of scholars," he has hit 
 the height of the ridiculous. Foote had more dry, • 
 sarcastic humour, and more knowledge of the world. 
 His farces are bitter satires, more or less personal, as 
 it ha])pened. Mother Cole, in the " Minor," and Mr. 
 Smirk the Auctioneer, in "Taste," witli their coad- 
 jutors, are rich cut-and-come-again, "pleasant, though 
 wrong." But the " Mayor of Garratt" is his magnum 
 opus in this line. Some comedies are long farces : this 
 farce is a comedy in little. It is also one of the best 
 acted farces that we have. The acting of Dowton and 
 Russell, in Major Sturgeon and Jerry Sneak, cannot 
 be too much praised ; Foote himself would have been 
 satisfied with it. The strut, the bluster, the hollow 
 SAvaggering, and turkey-cock swell of the Major ; and 
 Jerry's meekness, meanness, folly, good-nature, and 
 hen-pecked air, are assuredly done to the life. The 
 latter character is even better than the former, which 
 is saying a bold word. Dowton's art is only an imita- 
 tion of art, of an aifected or an assumed character ; but 
 in Russell's Jerry you see the very soul of nature, in 
 a fellow that is " pigeon-livered and lacks gall," laid 
 open and anatomized. You can see that his heart is 
 no bigger than a pin, and his head is as soft as a pippin 
 His whole aspect is chilled and frightened, as if he had
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY 247 
 
 been dipped in a pond ; and yet he looks as if he would 
 like to be snug and comfortable if he durst. He 
 smiles as if he would be friends with you upon any 
 terms, and the tears come in his eyes because you will 
 not let him. Tlie tones of his voice are prophetic as 
 the cuckoo's under-song. His words are made of water- 
 gruel. The scene in which he tries to make a confidant 
 of the Major is great ; and his song of " Robinson 
 Crusoe " as melancholy as the island itself. The recon- 
 ciliation-scene with his wife, and his exclamation over 
 her, ''to think that I sliould make my Molly veep!" 
 are pathetic, if the last stage of human infirmity is so. 
 Tiiis farce appears to me to be both moral and enter- 
 taining ; yet it does not take. It is considered as an 
 unjust satire on the city, and the country at large ; and 
 there is a very frequent repetition of the word " non- 
 sense " in the house, during the performance. Mr. 
 Dowton was even hissed, either from the upper boxes 
 or gallery, in his speech recounting the marching of 
 his corps " from Brentford to Ealing, and from Ealing 
 to Acton"; and several persons in the pit, who 
 thought the whole low, were for going out. This shows 
 well for the progress of civilization. I suppose the 
 manners described in the " Mayor of Garratt " have, 
 in the last forty years, become obsolete, and the char- 
 acters ideal : we have no longer either hen-pecked or 
 brutal husbands, or domineering wives ; the Miss 
 Molly Jollops no longer wed Jerry Sneaks, or admire •• 
 the brave Major Sturgeons on the other side of Temple / 
 Bar ; all our soldiers have become heroes, and our^/ 
 magistrates respectable, and the farce of life is over. 
 
 One more name, and I have done. It is that of 
 Peter Pindar. The historian of " Sir Joseph Banks " 
 and the " Emperor of Morocco," of the " Pilgrims and 
 the Peas," of the " Royal Academy," and of " Mr. 
 Whitbread's brewing-vat," the bard in whom the nation 
 and the king delighted, is old and blind, but still merry 
 and wise ; — remembering how he has made the world 
 laugh in his time, and not repenting of the mirth he 
 has given ; with an involuntary smile lighted up at the
 
 248 THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS 
 
 mad pranks of his Musc^ and the lucky hits of his pen —   
 ''faint picture of those flashes of his spirit, that wore 
 wont to set the tahle in a roar " ; like his own expiring 
 taper, britfht and fitful to the last ; tagging a rhyme 
 or conning his own epitaph ; and waiting for the last 
 summons, grateful and contented ! 
 
 I have thus gone through the history of that part of 
 our literature which I had proposed to myself to treat 
 of. I have only to add, hy way of explanation, that 
 in some few parts I had anticipated myself in fugitive 
 or periodical publications ; and I thought it better to 
 repeat what 1 had already stated to the best of my 
 ability, than alter it for the worse. These parts bear, 
 however, a very small proportion to the whole ; and I 
 have used such diligence and care as I could, in adding 
 to them whatever appeared necessary to complete the 
 general view of the subject, or make it (as far as lay in 
 my power) interesting to others. 
 
 THE END
 
 A LIST OF THE 
 
 WORLD'S 
 
 CLASSICS 
 
 Oxford University Press 
 
 >s.ij^f!i2^ 
 
 " 1
 
 THE WORLD'S CLASSICS 
 
 A SERIES in constant progress, containing over 
 four hundred volumes, and offering in a size 
 adapted for tlie pocket, and at a low price, the most 
 famous works in the English language, with more 
 than a few translations. Many of the volumes con- 
 tain introductions by the best modern writers. 
 
 POCKET SIZE, 6x3! inches (as this list). Large 
 type, on thin opaque paper, in superfine art cloth. 
 
 MANY of the volumes are issued also in superior 
 bindings which are specially recommended for presen- 
 tation. 
 
 THE VOLUMES are obtainable only through the 
 booksellers. 
 
 IN THE FOLLOWING LIST the books are classi- 
 fied as below : 
 
 Anthologies Letters 
 
 Autobiography Literary Criticism 
 
 Biography Philosophy and Science 
 
 Classics-^reek and Roman Poetry 
 
 Drama Politics , Political Theory, 
 Essays and Belles Lettres and Political Economy 
 
 Fiction (Short Stories are Religion 
 
 grouped separately) Short Stories 
 
 History Travel and Topography 
 
 AN INDEX OF AUTHORS is given at the end of 
 the list. 
 
 I
 
 •THE WORLD'S CLASSICS* S 
 
 LATEST ADDITIONS 
 
 ^ Biography 
 
 Crabbe, Life of. By his Son. Introduction by E. M. Forster (404). 
 Trevely.\n (Sir G. O.). Life of Macaulay. With a new Intro- 
 duction by G. M. Trevelyan. 2 vols. (401, 402). 
 
 ^ Essays, &c, 
 
 English Critical Essays. (Twentieth Century.) Selected and 
 
 edited bv Phyllis M. Jones (405). 
 Modern English Essays. Selected by H. S. Milford. Second 
 
 Series (406). 
 Re.\ding at Random. A ' World's Classics ' Anthology (410). 
 
 ^ Fiction 
 
 Austen (Jane). Northanger Abbey. Introduction by Michael 
 
 Sadleir (,2 55)- Persuasion. Introduction by Forrw/ 7?«^ (356). 
 
 Sense and Sensibility. Introduction by Lord David Cecil (389). 
 French Short Stories. Selected and translated by K. Rebillon 
 
 Lamblev (396). 
 German Short Stories. Translated by E. N. Bennett, with an 
 
 Introduction by E. K. Bennett (415). 
 Holme (Constance). The Lonely Plough (390). The Old Road 
 
 from Spain (400). The Splendid Fairing (416). The Trumpet in 
 
 the Dust (409). 
 KlNGSLEY (Henry). Austin Elliot (407). 
 La Motte Fouque. Undine, Sintram, Aslauga's Knight, and The 
 
 Two Captains. With an Introduction by Sir Edmund Gosse (408). 
 Rabelais. Gargantua and Pantagruel. Translated by Urquhart 
 
 and Motteux, with notes. 3 vols. (411-13). 
 Scott. Short Stories. With an Introduction by Lor J Dat'ji Cea7 
 
 (414)- 
 Tolstoy. War and Peace. A revised translation by Louise and 
 
 Aylmer Maude, embodying Tolstoy's final amendments. 3 vols. 
 (233-5)- 
 
 ^ Poetry 
 
 Dante's "biviNE Comedy. Italian text and English translation, 
 
 by Melville B. Andsrson, on facing pages, with notes and full 
 
 index. 3 vols. (392-4). 
 
 English translation only, with notes and full index, in i vol. (395). 
 
 Goethe. Faust, Parts I and II. Translated by Bayard Taylor. 
 
 Intro, by Marshall Montgomery and notes by Douglas Yates (380). 
 
 % Politics, &c. 
 
 Maine (Sir Henry). Ancient Law. Intro, by C K. Allen (362), 
 Speeches and Documents on the British Dominions (1918- 
 193 1 ), from Self-Government to National Sovereignty. Selected 
 with an Introduction, by A. Berriedale Keith (403).
 
 1[ 
 
 iTHE WORLD'S CLASSICS' 
 
 COMPLETE LIST OF THE SERIES 
 Anthologies 
 
 A Book of Narrative Versr. Compiled by V. H. Collins. Intro- 
 duction by Edmund Blunden (350). 
 
 A Book of Scottish Verse. Compiled by R. L. Mackie (417). 
 
 American Criticism. Representative Literary Essays. Chosen 
 by Norman Foerster (354). 
 
 English Essays, chosen and arranged by W. Peacock (32). 
 
 English Essays, i 600-1900, chosen by S. V. Makower and B. Hi 
 Blackwell (172). 
 
 English Essays, Modern. Two Series. Selected by H. Si 
 Milford (280, 406). 
 
 English Letters (Fifteenth to Nineteenth Centuries) (192). 
 
 English Prose from mandeville to ruskin, chosen and arranged 
 by W. Peacock (45). 
 
 English Prose, chosen and arranged by W. Peacock in 5 volumes : 
 
 I, WYCLIFFE to clarendon ; II, MILTON tO GRAY; III, WAL- 
 POLE to LAMB ; IV, LANDOR tO HOLMES ; V, MRS. GASKELL tO 
 HENRY JAMES (219-23). 
 
 English Prose, Narrative, Descriptive, Dramatic (malory to 
 
 STEVENSON), compiled by H. A. Treble (204). 
 English Songs and Ballads, compiled by T. W. H. Croslandi 
 
 New edition, with the text revised, and additional poems (13). 
 English Short Stories (Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries), 
 
 selected by H. S. Milford. Three Series (193, 228, 315). 
 English Verse. Edited by W. Peacock. Vol. I, Early Lyrics 
 
 to SHAKESPEARE (308). Vol. 11, CAMPION to the Ballads (309). 
 
 Vol. Ill, DRYDEN to WORDSWORTH (310). Vol. IV, SCOTT to 
 ELIZABETH BROWNING (3II). Vol. V, LONGFELLOW tO RUPERT 
 BROOKE (312). 
 
 Letters Writtsn in War-time (Fifteenth to Nineteenth Cen- 
 turies), selected and arranged by H. Wragg (202). 
 
 A Miscellany of Tracts and Pamphlets. Sixteenth to Nine- 
 teenth Centuries. Edited by A. C. Ward {2°^). 
 
 Palgrave's Golden Treasury, with 190 pages of additional poems 
 by FitzGerald, Tennyson, the Brownings, Arnold, &c. (133). 
 
 Reading at Random. A ' World's Classics ' Anthology (410); 
 
 ^ Autobiography 
 
 Aksakoff (Serghei). Trans, by J. D. Duff. A Russian Gentleman 
 (241). Years of Childhood (242). A Russian Schoolboy (261). 
 
 Cellini (Benvenuto) (300). 
 
 Ds QuiNCBY (Thomas). Confessions of an Opium-Eater (23). 
 
 Franklin (Benjamin). The Autobiography, edited from his 
 original manuscript hy John Bigelow (250). 
 
 Gibbon (Edward). Autobiography. Intio.J. B. Bury [i^'i).
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. BIOGRAPHY. THE 'CLASSICS' 5 
 
 Haydon (Benjamin Robert). The Autobiography. Introduc- 
 tion and Epilogue by Edmund Blunden (314)- 
 
 HoLCROFT (Thomas). Memoirs, continued by W. Hazlitt (302). 
 
 Hunt (Leigh). Autobiography. Intro. Edmund Blunden {^'^q). 
 
 Mill (John Stuart). Autobiography. Introduction by //aro/J J. 
 Laski (262). 
 
 MoRiTZ (C. P.). Anton Reiser. Intro. P. E. Matheson (299). 
 
 Tolstoy. A Confession, and What I believe. Translated by 
 Aylmer Maude (229). 
 
 Trelawny (E. J.). Adventures of a Younger Son. Introduction 
 hy Ethel Colburn Mayne izSg). 
 
 Trollope (Anthony). Autobiography. Introduction by 
 Michael Sadleir (239). 
 
 ^ Biography 
 
 Carlyle. The Life of John Sterling. Introduction by IF. Hale 
 While (' Mark Rutherford ') (144). 
 
 Crabbe, Life of. By his Son. Intro. E. M. Forster (404). 
 
 Dobson (Austin). Four Frenchwomen: Charlotte Corday, 
 Madame Roland, Princess de Lamballe, Madame de Genlis (248). 
 
 Emerson. Representative Men. (With English Traits) (30). 
 
 Francis of Assisi (St.). The Little Flowers ; and The Life of Bro- 
 ther Giles. Translated into Enghsh verse hy James Rhoades (265). 
 
 Gaskell (Mrs.). The Life of Charlotte Bronte (214). 
 
 Houghton (Lord). Life of Keats (364). 
 
 Johnson (Samuel). Lives of the Poets. 2 vols. (83, 84). 
 
 IMaude (Aylmer). Life of Tolstoy. 2 vols. (383, 384). 
 
 Scott (Sir Walter). Lives of the Novelists. Introduction by 
 Austin Dobson (94). 
 
 Smith (J. T.). NoUekens and his Times. With Introduction 
 bv Walter Sichel (322). 
 
 Trevelyan (Sir G. O.). Life of Macaulay. With a new Intro- 
 duction by G. M. Trevelyan. 2 vols. (401, 402). 
 
 Walton (Izaak). Lives of Donne, Wotton, Hooker, Herbert, 
 Sanderson. Introduction by George Sainlsbury (303). 
 
 ^ The ' Classics \ Greek and Roman 
 
 Aeschylus. The Seven Plays. Translated into English Verse by 
 
 Leuis Campbell (117). 
 Aristophanes. The Acharnians, Knights, Birds, and Frogs, 
 
 Translated by J. Hookham Frere. Intro. W. W. Merry (134). 
 Homer. Translated by Po/)e. Iliad (18). Odyssey (36). 
 Sophocles. The Seven Plays. Translated into English Verse by 
 
 Lewis Campbell (116). 
 Virgil. The Aeneid, Georgics, and Eclogues. Translated by 
 
 John Dryden (37). 
 The Aeneid, Georgics, and Eclogues. Translated by 
 
 James Rhoades (227).
 
 • THE WORLD'S CLASSICS * 
 
 1[ Drama 
 
 Browning (Robert). Poems and Plays, 1833-42 (58); 
 
 [Contents : Pauline, Paracelsus, Strafford, Sordello, Pippa 
 Passes, King Victor, and King Charles.] 
 
 CoNGREVB (William). Complete Works. 2 vols. Introduction by 
 Bonamy Dobrde. Vol. I, I'he Comedies. Vol. 11, The Mourn- 
 ing Bride, with Letters, Poems, and Miscellanies (276, 277). 
 
 Eighteenth Century Comedy. Edited, with an Introduction, 
 by W. D. Taylor. The five comedies are farquhar's Beaux' 
 Stratagem, Steele's Conscious Lovers, gaV's Beggar's Opera, 
 Fielding's Tom Thumb, goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer 
 (292). 
 
 Eighteenth Century, Lesser Comedies of the. Edited by 
 Allardyce Nicoll. The five comedies are Arthur murphy's The 
 Way to keep him, GEORGE colman's The Jealous Wife, mrs. 
 inchbald's Everyone has his Fault, thomas Morton's Speed 
 the Plough, and Frederick Reynolds's The Dramatist (321). 
 
 Marlowe's Dr. Faustus (with goethe's Faust, Part I, trans. 
 J. Anster). Introduction by Sir A. W. PFari (135). 
 
 Restor.\tion Tiligedies. Five Plays, with an Introduction by 
 Bonamy Dobrde (313). The five tragedies are dryden's All for 
 Love, otway's Venice Preserved, southerne's Oronooko, 
 rowe's Fair Penitent, and addison's Cato. 
 
 Shakespeare. Plays and Poems. Preface by A. C. Swinburne. 
 Introductions by Edivard Doivden. 9 vols. Comedies. 3 vols. 
 (100, loi, 102). Histories and Poems. 3 vols. (103, 104, 105). 
 "Tragedies. 3 vols. (106, 107, 108). 
 
 Shakespeare, Six Plays by Contemporaries of. dekker, The 
 Shoemaker's Holiday ; webster. The White Devil ; beau- 
 MONT and FLETCHER, The Knight of the Burning Pestle, and 
 Philaster ; webster. The Duchess of Malfi ; massinger, A 
 New Way to pay Old Debts. Edited by C B. Wheeler (199). 
 
 Sheridan. Plays. Introduction by Joseph Knight (79). 
 
 Tolstoy. The Plays. Complete edition, including the posthu- 
 mous plays. Translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude (243). 
 
 ^ Essays and Belles Lettres 
 
 Bacon. The Essays, Civil and Moral (24). 
 
 Brown (Dr. John). Horae Subsecivae (Rab and His Friends, 
 &c.). Introduction by Austin Dobson (118). 
 
 Carlylb. On Heroes and Hero-Worship (62). Past and Present. 
 Introduction by G. K. Chesterton (153). Sartor Resartus (19). 
 
 Dobson (Austin). At Prior Park, &c. (259). Eighteenth- Century 
 Vignettes. Three Series (245-7). Four Frenchwomen (248), 
 Old Kensington Palace, &c.(2s8). A Paladin of Philanthropy, &c, 
 (256). Rosalba's Journal, &c. (260). Side- Walk Studies (257);
 
 DRAMA. ESSAYS AND BELLES LETTRES 7 
 
 EnteRSON. English Traits, and Representative Men (30). Essays, 
 Two Series (6). Nature, and Miscellanies (236). 
 
 English Critical Essays. 3 volumes. I, Sixteenth to Eighteenth 
 Centuries. II, Nineteenth Century. Ill, Twentieth Century 
 (240, 206, 405). 
 
 English Essays, chosen and arranged by W. Peacock (32). 
 
 (A Book of), 1600-1900. Chosen by S. V. Makower and 
 
 B. H. Blackwell {172). 
 
 Modern. Two Series. Selected by H. S. Milford (280, 
 
 406), 
 
 English Prose, mandevillb to ruskin. Chosen by W. Peacock 
 (45). Also a selection in 5 volumes by the same editor ; WY- 
 
 CLIFFE to clarendon (219) ; MILTON to GRAY (220) ; WALPOLK 
 to LAMB (221); LANDOR tO HOLMES (222); MRS. GASKELL tO 
 HENRY JAMES (223). 
 
 English Prose. Narrative, Descriptive, and Dramatic (malory 
 to STEVENSON). Compiled by H. A. Treble (204). 
 
 Froude(J. a.). Short Studies on Great Subjects. Series 1(269). 
 
 Hazlitt (William). Characters of Shakespeare's Plays. Intro- 
 duction by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch (205). The English Comic 
 Writers, introduction by /?. B. J'o/;nio« (124). Sketches and 
 Essays. Essays on Men and Manners (15). Table-Talk (5). 
 The Spirit of the Age (57). Winterslow (25). 
 
 Holmes (Oliver Wendell). The Autocrat of the Breakfast- 
 Table (61). The Poet at the Breakfast-Table. Introduction by 
 Sir W. R. Nicoll (95). The Professor at the Breakfast-Table. 
 Introduction by Sir W. R. Nicoll (89). 
 
 HoRNE (R. H.). A New Spirit of the Age; Introduction by W. 
 jferrold (127). 
 
 Hunt (Leigh). Essays and Sketches. Introduction by R. B. 
 Johnson (115). 
 
 Irving (Washington). The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, 
 Gent. Introduction by T. Balston (173). 
 
 Lamb. Essays of Elia, and The Last Essays of Elia (2). 
 
 Landor. Imaginary Conversations. Selected, with Introduction, 
 by Prof. E. de Sdincourt (196). 
 
 Milton. Selected Prose. Intro. Malcolm W. Wallace (293). 
 
 Montaignb'.s Essays. Florio's translation. 3 volumes (65, 70, 
 77). 
 
 Reynolds (Sir Joshua). The Discourses, and the Letters to 
 ' The Idler '. Introduction by Austin Dobson (149). 
 
 Ruskin. (Ruskin House Editions, by arrangement with Messrs. 
 Allen & Unwin, Ltd.) 'A Joy for Ever', and The Two Paths. 
 Illustrated (147). Sesame and Lilies, and Ethics of the Dust 
 (14s). Time and Tide, and The Crown of Wild Olive (146), 
 Unto this Last, and Munera Pulveris (148). 
 
 Rutherford (Mark). Pages from a Journal (358). 
 
 Smith (Alexander). Dreamthorp, &c. (200).
 
 8 'THE WORLD'S CLASSICS' 
 
 Smollett. Travels through France and Italy (90). 
 
 Sterne (Laurence). A Sentimental Journey, introduction by 
 
 Virginia PFoo// (333). 
 Stevenson (R . L.). "Virginibus Puerisque, & Across the Plains (2o6> 
 Thackeray. The Book of Snobs, &c. (50). 
 Thoreau. Walden. Introduciionhy Theodore Watts-Dunton[(i%\ 
 Tolstoy. Translated by A. Maude. Essays and Letters (46) 
 
 What is Art ? ' and Essays on Art (33 i ). 
 Tracts and Pamphlets, from john knox to h. g. wells (304). 
 White (Gilbert). The Natural History of Selborne (22). 
 Whitman. Specimen Days in America (371). 
 
 ^ FlcUon (For Short Stories see separate heading) 
 
 Ainsworth (W. Harrison). The Tower of London (162). 
 Austen (Jane). Emma (129). Pride and Prejudice (335). Mans- 
 field Park (345)- Northanger Abbey (355). Persuasion (356). 
 
 Sense and Sensibility (389). 
 Betham-Edwards (M.). The Lord of the Har\'est (194). 
 Blackmore(R.D.). LornaDoone. Intro. Sir HerbertV/arren^i'ji). 
 Borrow (George). Lavengro (66). The Romany Rye (73). 
 Bronte (Anne). Agnes Grey (141). Tenant of Wildfell Hall (67). 
 BrontS (Charlotte). Jane Eyre (i). Shirley(i4). Villette (47)- 
 
 The Professor, and the Poems of the Brontes (78). 
 Bronte (Emily). Wuthering Heights (10). 
 Bunyan. The Pilgrim's Progress (12). Mr. BaQman(338). 
 Cervantes. Don Quixote. 2 volumes (130, 131). 
 CoBBOLD (Rev. Richard). Margaret Catchpole (119). 
 Collins (Wilkie). The Moonstone. Introduction by T. S. 
 
 Eliot (316). The Woman in White (226). 
 Cooper (J. Fenimore). The Last of the Mohicans (163). 
 Defob. Captain Singleton (82). Robinson Crusoe. Part I (17). 
 Dickens. Barnaby Rudge (286). Christmas Books (307). Edwin 
 
 Drood (263) Great Expectations (128). Hard Times (264). 
 
 Old Curiosity Shop (270). Oliver Twist (8). Pickwick Papers. 
 
 2 volumes (120, 121). Tale of Two Cities (38). 
 Disraeli (Benjamin). Coningsby (381). Sybil (291). 
 Eliot (George). Adam Bede (63), Felix Holt (179). The Mill 
 
 on the Floss (31). Romola (178). Scenes of Clerical Life (m?). 
 
 Silas Marner, &c. (80). 
 Fielding. Jonathan Wild (382). Joseph Andrews (334). 
 Galt (John). The Entail. Introduction by John Ayscough (177). 
 Gaskell (Mrs.). Cousin Phillis, and Other Tales, &c. (168). 
 
 Cranford, The Cage at Cranford, and The Moorland Cottage 
 
 (110). Lizzie Leigh, The Grey Woman, and Other Tales. &c. 
 
 (175). Mary Barton (86). North and South (154). Right at 
 
 Last, and Other Tales, &c. (203). Round the Sofa (190). 
 
 Ruth (88). Sylvia's Lovers (156). Wives and Daughters (157).
 
 FICTION 9 
 
 GissiNG. Veranilda (349). Will Warburton (348), 
 
 Goldsmith. The Vicar of Wakefield (4). 
 
 Harris (Joel Chandler). Uncle Remus (361). 
 
 Hawthorne. House of the Seven Gables (273). The Scarlet 
 Letter (26). Tales (319)- 
 
 Holme f Constance). The Lonely Plough (390). The Old Road 
 from Spain (400). The Splendid Fairing (416). The Trumpet 
 in the Dust (409). 
 
 KiNGSLEY (Henry). Geoffry Hamlyn (271). Ravenshoe (267), 
 Austin Elliot (407). 
 
 Le Fanu (J. S.). Uncle Silas. Intro. Montague R. jfamesi^oS). 
 
 La Motte Fouque. Undine, Sintram, &c. (408). 
 
 Lesage. Gil Bias. Ed. J. Fitzmaurke-Kelly. 2 volumes (151, 152). 
 
 Lytton. The Coming Race, &c. (327). Harold (165). 
 
 Marry at. Mr. Midshipman Easy (160). 
 
 Meinhold. The Amber Witch. Intro, by .7. W. Mackail (325). 
 
 Melville (Herman). Moby Dick (225). Typce (274). Omoo 
 (275). White Jacket (253). 
 
 Morier (J. J.). Hajji Baba (238). Hajji Baba in England (285). 
 
 Moritz (C. p.). Anton Reiser. Intro. P. E. Matheson (299). 
 
 Peacock (T. L.). Headlong Hall ; and Nightmare Abbey (339). 
 Misfortunes of Elphin; and Crotchet Castle (244). 
 
 Rabelais. Gargantua and Pantagruel. Translated by Urquhart 
 and Motteux, with notes. 3 vols. (411-13). 
 
 Scott. Ivanhoe (29). 
 
 Smollett. Roderick Random (353). Humphry Clinker (290). 
 
 Sterne. Sentimental Journey (333). Tristram Shandy (40). 
 
 Stevenson (R. L.). Treasure Island (295). Kidnapped ; and 
 Catriona (297). 
 
 Swift. Gulliver's Travels (20). 
 
 Taylor (Meadows). Confessions of a Thug (207); 
 
 TiiACKERAY. Henry Esmond (28). 
 
 Tolstoy. Translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude. Anna 
 Karenina. 2 volumes (210, 211). Childhood, Boyhood, and 
 Youth (352). The Cossacks, &c. (208). The Kreutzer Sonata, 
 &c. (266). Resurrection, trans, by L. Maude (209). Twenty- 
 three Tales (72). War and Peace. 3 volumes (23^-5). 
 
 Trelawny (E. J.). Adventures of a Younger Son (289). 
 
 Trollope. American Senator (391). Ayala's Angel (342). Bar- 
 chester Towers (268). The Belton Estate (251). TheClaveriags 
 (252). Cousin Henry (343). DoctorThorne(298). Dr. Wortie's 
 School(3i7). The Eustace Diamonds (357). Framley Parsonage 
 (305). The Keliys and the O'Kellys (341). Last Chronicle of 
 Barset. 2 vols. (39S, 399). Miss Mackenzie (278). Rachel Ray 
 (279). Sir Harry Hotspur (336). Tales of all Countries (397). 
 The Three Clerks (140). The Warden (217). The Vicar of 
 Bullhampton (272). 
 
 Watts-Dunton (Theodore). Aylwin (52).
 
 to 'THE WORLD'S CLASSICS' 
 
 Tf History 
 
 Bahrow (Sir John). The Mutiny of the Bounty (igs)- 
 Buckle. The History of Civilization. 3 volumes (41, 48, 53); 
 Carlyle. The French Revolution. Introduction by C. R. L. 
 
 Fletcher. 2 volumes (125, 126). 
 Froude (J. A.). Short Studies on Great Subjects. Series I (269). 
 Gibbon. Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. With Maps. 
 
 7 volumes (35, 44. Si, SS. 64, 69, 74). 
 Irving (Washington). Conquest of Granada (150). 
 Macaulay. History of England. 5 vols. (366-70). 
 Motley. Rise of the Dutch Republic. 3 volumes (96, 97, 98). 
 Prescott ( W. H.). The Conquest of Mexico. 2 vols. (197, 198). 
 
 If Letters 
 
 Burke. Letters. Selected, with Introduction, by W.J. Z,aj/t»(237). 
 
 Chesterfield. Letters. Selected, with an Introduction, by 
 Phyllis M. Jones (347). 
 
 Congreve. Letters, in Volume II. See under Drama (277). 
 
 CowPER. Letters. Selected, with Intro., by E. V. Lucas (138). 
 
 DiTFFERiN (Lord). Letters from High Latitudes. Illustrated (158). 
 
 English Letters. Fifteenth to Nineteenth Centuries (192). 
 
 Gray (Thom.\s). Letters. Selected by John Beresford (2S2). 
 
 Johnson (Samuel). Letters. Selected, with Introduction, by 
 R. W. Chapman (282). 
 
 Letters written in War-time, Fifteenth to Nineteenth Cen- 
 turies. Selected and arranged by H. Wragg (202). 
 
 SouTHEY. Selected LetteiS (169). 
 
 Tolstoy. Essays and Letters. Translated by A. Maude (46). 
 
 White (Gilbert). The Natural History of Selborne (22). 
 
 ^ Literary Criticism 
 
 American Criticism. Representative Literary Essays. Chosen 
 by Norman Foerster (354). 
 
 Coleridge (S.T.) Lectures on Shakespeare (363). 
 
 English Critical Essays. Selected and edited by Edmund D. 
 Jones. 2 volumes. I, Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries. II, 
 Nineteenth Century (240, 206). 
 
 Hazlitt (William). Characters of Shakespeare's Plays. Intro- 
 duction by Sir A. T. Quiller-Couch (205). Lectures on the 
 English Comic Writers. Introduction by R. Brimley Johnson 
 (124). Lectures on the English Poets (255). The Spirit of the 
 Age. (Essays on his contemporaries) (57). 
 
 Hornb (R. H.). a New Spirit of the Age (127). 
 
 Johnson (Samuel). Lives of the Poets. 2 volumes (83, 84). 
 
 Sainte-Beuve. Causeries du Lundi. (In English.) 
 
 Shakespeare Criticism, (hemingb and condell to carlyle.) 
 Selected and Introduced by D. Nichol Smith (212).
 
 SCIENCE AND POETRY il 
 
 ^ Philosophy and Science 
 
 (For Political Theory and Religion see separate headings) 
 AuRELius (Marcus). Thoughts. Translated by Jo/jnJacAson (60). 
 Bacon. The Advancement of Learning, and the New Atlantis. 
 
 Introduction by Professor Case (93). Essays (24). 
 Carlyle. Sartor Resartus (19). 
 Darwin. The Origin of Species. With a new preface by Major 
 
 Leonard Darwin (i i). Voyage of a Naturalist (360). 
 Hume (David). Essays (33). 
 
 Reynolds (Sir Joshua). Discourses, &c. Intro. A. Dobson (149). 
 Tolstoy. What then must we do ? Trans, by A. Maude (381). 
 White (Gilbert). The Natural History of Selborne (22). 
 
 ^ Poetry 
 
 (For Aeschylus and Ahistophanes see ' Classics ' on p. 5) 
 
 Arnold (Matthew). Poems, 1849-67(85). 
 
 Barham (Richard). The Ingoldsby Legends (9). 
 
 Blake (William). Selected Poems (324). 
 
 Bronte Sisters, The. The Professor, by charlotte bronte, and 
 Poems by charlotte, emily, and anne bronte (78). 
 
 Browning (Elizabeth Barrett). Poems. A Selection (176). 
 
 Browning (Robert). Poems and Plays, 1833-42 (58), Poems, 
 1842-64 (137)- 
 
 Burns (Robert). Poems (34). Complete and in large type. 
 
 Byron. Poems. A Selection (180). 
 
 Chaucer, The Works of. 3 volumes. Vol. I (42); Vol. II (56); 
 Vol. Ill, containing the whole of the Canterbury Tales (76). 
 
 Coleridge. Poems. Introduction by ^fr.^. T.£>«///er-Cot/cA (99). 
 
 CoNGREVE (William). Complete works in 2 volumes. Intro- 
 ductions by Bonamy Dobrie. I, The Comedies. II, The 
 Mourning Bride, Poems, Miscellanies and Letters (276, 277). 
 
 Dante. Italian text and English verse-translation by Melville B. 
 Anderson, on facing pages, with notes. 3 vols. (392-4). 
 Translation only, with notes, in one volume (395). 
 
 Dobson (Austin). Selected Poems (249) 
 
 English Songs and Ballads. Compiled by T. W. H. Crosland. 
 New edition, with revised text and additional poems, 1927 (13). 
 
 English Verse. Vols. I-V : Early Lyrics to Shakespeare ; cam- 
 pion to the Ballads ; dryden to wordsworth ; scott to b. b. 
 browning ; LONGFELLOW to RUPERT BROOKE. Edited by William 
 Peacock (308-312). 
 
 Francis of Assisi (St.). The Little Flowers of St. Francis. 
 Translated into English Verse hy James Rhoades (265). 
 
 Goethe. Faust, Parts I and II. Translated by Bayard Taylor, 
 Intro, by Marshall Montgomery and notes by Douglas Yates (380). 
 
 Golden Treasury, The. With additional Poems (133). 
 
 Goldsmith. Poems. Introduction by ^u5/iVj£>o65on( 123). 
 
 Herbert (George). Poems. Introductionhy Arthur Waugh^iog). 
 
 Hereick (Robert). Poems (16).
 
 la 'THE WORLD'S CLASSICS * 
 
 Homer. Translated by Pope. Iliad (i8). Odyssey (36), 
 
 Hood. Poems. Introduction hy Walter jferrold {Hy). 
 
 Keats. Foems (7). 
 
 Keble. The Christian Year (181). 
 
 Longfellow. Evangeline, The Golden Legend, &c. (39). 
 
 Hiawatha, Miles Standish, Tales of a Wayside Inn, &c. (174). 
 Macaulay. Lays of Ancient Rome ; Ivry ; The Armada (27). 
 Marlowe. Dr. Faustus (with goethe's Faust, Part 1, trans. 
 
 y. Anster). Introduction by Sir A. W. Ward{i2S)' 
 Milton. The English Poems (182). 
 Morris (William). The Defence of Guenevere, Life and Death 
 
 of Jason, and other Poems (183). 
 Narrative Verse, A Book of. Compiled by V, H. Colliiu. 
 
 With an Introduction by Edmund Blunden (350). 
 Nekrassov. Trans, hy Juliet Soskice. Who can be happy and free 
 
 in Russia ? A Poem (213). Poems (340). 
 Palgrave. The Golden Treasury. With additional Poems (133). 
 RossETTi (Christina). GobUn Market, &c. (184). 
 
 (Dante Gabriel). Poems and Translations, 1850-70 (185). 
 
 Scott (Sir Walter). Selected Poems (186). 
 
 Shakespeare. Plays and Poems. Preface by A. C. Swinburne. 
 
 Introductions by Edward Dowden. 9 volumes. Comedies. 3 
 
 volumes (100, loi, 102). Histories and Poems. 3 volumes 
 
 (103, 104, 105). Tragedies. 3 volumes (106, 107, 108). 
 Shelley. Poems. A Selection (187). 
 Sophocles. The Seven Plays. Translated into English Verso 
 
 by Lewis Campbell (116). 
 Tennyson. Selected Poems. Intro. Sir Herbert Warren (3). 
 ViKGiL. The Aeneid, Georgics, and Eclogues. Translated by 
 
 Dryden (37). Translated hy James Rhoades (227). 
 Wells (Charles). Joseph and his Brethren. A Dramatic Poem. 
 
 Intro. A. C. Swinburne, and Note by T. Watts-Dunton (143). 
 Whitman. A Selection. Introduction by £. tie 5^/zMcoMri (218). 
 Whittier. Poems: A Selection (188). 
 Wordsworth. Poems : A Selection (189). 
 
 \ Politics, Political Economy , Political Theory 
 
 Bagehot (Walter). The English Constitution. With an Intro- 
 duction by the Earl of Balfour (330). 
 
 Buckle. The History of Civilization. 3 volumes (41, 48, 53). 
 
 Burke (Edmund). Letters. Selected, with an Introduction, by 
 Harold J. Laski (237). Works. 6 volumes. Vol. I : A Vin- 
 dication of Natural Society ; The Sublime and Beautiful, &c. 
 (71). II: The Present Discontents ; and Speeches and Letters 
 on America (81). Ill: Speeches on India, &c.(i 1 1). IV: Writings 
 on France, 1790-1 (i 12). V : Writings on Ireland, &c. (i 13). VI: 
 A Letter to a N oble Lord ; and Letters on a Regicide Peace ( 11 4). 
 
 English Speeches, from burke to Gladstone. Selected and 
 edited by E. R. Jones (191). 
 
 Machiavelli. The Prince. Translated by Luigi Ricci (43).
 
 POLITICS, RELIGION, ETC. 13 
 
 Maine (Sir Henry). Ancient Law (362). 
 
 Mill (John Stuart). On Liberty, Representative Government, 
 and the Subjection of Women (170). 
 
 Milton(John). Selected Prose. Intt o.MalcolmW. Wall ace {zg'i)- 
 
 RusKiN. 'A Joy for Ever', and The Two Paths. Illustrated (147). 
 Time and Tide, and The Crown of Wild Olive (146). Unto 
 this Last, and Munera Pulveris (148). 
 
 Smith (Adam). The Wealth of Nations. 2 volumes (54, 59). 
 
 Speeches and Documents on British Colonial Policy (1763- 
 1917). Ed. A. B. Keith. 2 volumes (215, 216). 
 
 Speeches AND Documents on the British Dominions, 1918-31. 
 Selected, with Introduction, by A. B. Keith (403). 
 
 Speeches and Documents on Indian Policy (1756-1921). 
 Edited, with Introduction, by A. B. Keith (231, 232). 
 
 Speeches on British Foreign Policy (1738-1914). Edited by 
 Edgar R.Jones, M. P. {201). 
 
 Tracts and Pamphlets, A Miscellany of. Sixteenth to Nine- 
 teenth Centuries. Edited by A. C. Ward (304). 
 
 Tolstoy. What then must we do ? Translated, with an Intro- 
 duction, by Aylmer Maude (281). 
 
 ^ Religion 
 
 The Old Testament. Revised Version. 4 vols. (385-8). 
 
 .\pocrypha, The, in the Revised Version (294). 
 
 The Four Gospels, and the Acts of the Apostles. Authorized 
 
 Version (344). 
 The New Testament. Revised Version (346). 
 A Kempis (Thomas). Of the Imitation of Christ (49). 
 AuRELius (Marcus). Translated by John Jackson (60). 
 Bunyan. The Pilgrim's Progress (12). Mr. Badman (33S). 
 Koran, The. Translated by E. H. Palmer. Introduction by 
 
 Reynold A. Nicholson (328). 
 Tolstoy. A Confession, and What I believe. Translated by 
 
 Aylmer Maude (229). 
 
 ^ Skort Stories 
 
 Africa, Stories of. Chosen by E. C. Parmvell (359). 
 
 Austrian Short Stories. Selected and translated by Marie 
 
 Busch (337). 
 Chime AND Detection. Two Series (301, 351). Stories by h. c. 
 
 bailey, ERNEST BRAMAH, G. K. CHESTERTON, SIR A. CONAN DOYLE, 
 R. AUSTIN FREEMAN, W. W. JACOBS, EDEN PHILPOTTS, ' SAPPER*, 
 
 DOROTHY SAYERS, and Others. 
 Czech Tales, Selected. Translated, with a Preface, by Maris 
 Busch and Otto Pick (288). Nine stories, including two by the 
 
 BROTHERS CAPEK. 
 
 Dickens. Christmas Books (307). 
 
 English Short Stories. Three Series. Selected by H. S. 
 
 Milford. Introduction by Prof. Hugh Walker in Vol. I (193, 
 
 228, 315).
 
 14 'THE WORLD'S CLASSICS' 
 
 French Short Stories. Eighteenth to Twentieth Centuries; 
 Selected and translated by K. Rehillon Lambley (396). 
 
 Gaskell (Mrs.)- Introductions by Clement Shorter. Cousin 
 Phillis, and Other Tales (168). Lizzie Leigh, The Grey 
 Woman, and Other Tales, &c. (175). Right at Last, and Other 
 Tales, &c. (203). Round the Sofa (190). 
 
 German Short Stories. Translated by E. N. Bennett, with an 
 Introduction by E. K. Bennett (415). 
 
 Ghosts and Marvels and More Ghosts and Marvels. Two 
 Selections of Uncanny Tales made by V. H. Collins. Intro- 
 duction by Montague R. James in Series I (284, 323). 
 
 Hakte (Bret). Short Stories (318). 
 
 Hawthorne (Nathaniel). Tales (319). 
 
 Irving (Washington). Tales (320). 
 
 Persian (From the). The Three Dervishes, and Other Stories; 
 Translated from MSS. in the Bodleian by Reuben Levy (254). 
 
 Fob (Edgar Allan). Tales of Mystery and Imagination (21). 
 
 Polish Tales by Modern Authors. Translated by Else C. M. 
 Benecke and Marie Busch (230). 
 
 Russian Short Stories. Chosen and translated by A. E. Chamot 
 
 (287). 
 Scott. Short Stories. With an Introduction by Lord David 
 
 Cecil (414). 
 Short Stories op the South Seas. Selected by E. C. Parnweli 
 
 (332). 
 Spanish Short Stories. Sixteenth Century. In contemporary 
 
 translations, revised, with an Introduction, hyj. B. Trend (226). 
 Tolstoy. Twenty-three Tales. Translated by Louise and 
 
 Aylmer Maude (72). 
 Thollope. Tales of all Countries (397). 
 
 ^ Travel and Topography 
 
 Borrow (George). The Bible in Spain (75). Wild Wales (224). 
 
 Lavengro (66). Romany Rye (73). 
 Darwin. Voyage of a Naturalist (360). 
 Duffekin (Lord). Letters from High Latitudes (158). 
 Fielding (Henry). Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon, Sac. (142). 
 Melville (Herman). Typee (294). Omoo (275). 
 Morier (J. J.). Hajji Baba of Ispahan. Introduction by C. PKi 
 
 Stewart, and a Map (238). 
 Smollett (Tobias). Travels through France and Italy in 1765'. 
 
 Introduction (Ixii pages) by Thomas Seccombe (90). 
 Sterne (Laurence). A Sentimental Journey. With IntroductioD 
 
 by Virginia WoolfizZZ)-
 
 INDEX OF 
 
 Addison, 6. 
 Aeschylus, 5. 
 Africa, Stories of, 3, 13. 
 Ainsworth (W. Harrison), 8. 
 A Kempis (Thomas), 13. 
 Aksakoff (Serghei), 4. 
 American Criticism, 4, 10, 
 Ancient Law, 3, 13. 
 Apocrypha, The (Revised Ver 
 
 sion), 13. 
 Aristophanes, 5. 
 Arnold (Matthew), 11. 
 Aurelius (Marcus), 11 , ij. 
 Austen (Jane), 3, 8. 
 Austrian Short Stories, 13. 
 Bacon (Francis), 11. 
 Bagehot (Walter), 12. 
 Barham (Richard), 11. 
 Barrow (Sir John), 10. 
 Beaumont and Fletcher, 6, 
 Betham-Edwards M.), 8. 
 Blackmore (R. D.), 8. 
 Blake (WilUam), 11. 
 Borrow (George), 14. 
 British Colonial Policy, 13, 
 
 Foreign Policy, 13. 
 Bronte Sisters, 8. 
 Brown (Dr. John), 6. 
 Browning (Eliz. Barrett), ri. 
 Browning (Robert), 6, 11. 
 Buckle (T. H.), 10. 
 Bunyan (John), 8. 
 Burke, 12. 
 Burns (Robert), ii. 
 Byron (Lord), 11. 
 Carlyle (Thomas), 5, 6, lo. 
 Cellini (Benvenuto), 4. 
 Cervantes, 8. 
 Chaucer, 11. 
 Chesterfield, 3, 10. 
 Cobbold (Richard), 8, 
 Coleridge (S. T.), 10, 11. 
 Collins (Wilkie), 8. 
 Colman, 6. 
 
 Congreve (William), 6. 
 Cooper (J. Fenimore), 8. 
 Cowper (WiUiam), 10. 
 Crabbe, 3, 5. 
 Crime and Detection, 13, 
 Critical Essays, 3, 7, 10. 
 Czech Tales, 13. 
 Dante, 3, 11. 
 Dar\Yin (Charles), 11, 14, 
 
 AUTHORS, ETC. 
 
 Defoe (Daniel), 8. 
 
 Dekker, 6. 
 
 De Quincey (Thomas), 4, 
 
 Dickens (Charles), 8. 
 
 Disraeli (Benjamin,', 8. 
 
 Dobson (Austin), 6, il. 
 
 Don Quixote, 8. 
 
 Dryden, 5, 6. 
 
 DuflFerin (Lord), 10, 14. 
 
 Eighteenth-Century Comedies, 
 
 6. 
 Eliot (George), 8. 
 Emerson (R. W.), 7. 
 English Critical Essays, 3, 7, 10. 
 English Essays, 3, 4. 
 English Letters, 4. 
 EngUsh Prose, 4. 
 English Short Stories, 13, 14. 
 English Songs and Ballads, 4. 
 English Speeches, 3, 12. 
 English Verse, 3, 4. 
 Farquhar, 6. 
 
 Fielding (Henry), 6, 8, 14. 
 Four Gospels, 13. 
 Francis (St.), 5- 
 Franklin (Benjamin), 4. 
 French Short Stories, 3, 14. 
 Froude (J. A.), 7. 
 Gait (John), 8. 
 Gaskeli (Mrs.), 5, 8, 14. 
 Gay, 6. 
 
 German Short Stories, 3, 14. 
 Ghosts and Marvels, 14. 
 Gibbon (Edward), 4, 10. 
 Gil Bias, 9. 
 Gissing, 9. 
 Goethe, 11, 12. 
 Goldsmith (Oliver), 6, 9, 11. 
 Gray (Thomas), 10. 
 Harris (J. C), 9. 
 Harte (Bret), 14. 
 Hawthorne (Nathaniel), 9. 
 Haydon (B. R.), 5. 
 Hazlitt (William), 5, 7, 10. 
 Herbert (George), 11. 
 Herrick (Robert), 1 1. 
 Holcroft (Thomas), 5. 
 Holme (Constance), 3, 9. 
 Holmes (Oliver Wendell), 7. 
 Homer, 5, 12. 
 Hood (Thomas), 12. 
 Horne(R. H.), 7- 
 Houghton (Lord), 5.
 
 i6 
 
 INDEX OF AUTHORS 
 
 Hunt (Leigh), 7. 
 
 Inchbald (Mrs.), 6. 
 
 Ingoldsby Legends, II. 
 
 Irvint; (VVashington), 7, lO. 
 
 Johnson (Samuel), 5, 10. 
 
 Keats, 12. 
 
 Keble (John), 12. 
 
 Keith (A. B.), 13- 
 
 Kingsley (Hcnn), 3. 9^ 
 
 Koran, The, 13. 
 
 Lamb (Charles), 7. 
 
 La Motte Fouque, 3, 9. 
 
 Landor (W. S.), 7- 
 
 Le Fanu (J. S.), 9, 
 
 Lesage, 9. 
 
 Letters written in War-time, i 
 
 Longfellow (H. W.). 12. 
 
 Lytton (Lord), 9. 
 
 Macaulay (T. B.), 10, 12. 
 
 Machiavelli, I3. 
 
 Maine, Sir Henry, 3, 13. 
 
 Marcus Aurelius, 11, 13. 
 
 Marlowe (Christopher), 6. 
 
 Marryat (Captain), 9. 
 
 Massinger, 6. 
 
 Maude (Aylmer), 5. 
 
 Meinhold (J. W.), 9. 
 
 Melville (Herman), 9. 
 
 Mill (John Stuart), 5, 13. 
 
 Milton (John), 7, 13. 
 
 Montaigne, 7. 
 
 Morier (J. J.), 9- 
 
 MoritzfC. P.), 5. 
 
 Morris (W.), 12. 
 
 Morton, 6. 
 
 Motley (J. L.), 10. 
 
 Murphy, 6. 
 
 Narrative Verse, 4, 12. 
 
 Nekrassov, 12. 
 
 New Testament, 13. 
 
 Old Testament, 13. 
 
 Otway, 6. 
 
 Palgrave (F. T.), 4- 
 
 Pamphlets and Tracts, 4. 
 
 Peacock (T. L.), 9. 
 
 Peacock (W.), 4. 
 
 Persian (From the), 14, 
 
 Poe (Edgar Allan), 14. 
 
 Polish Tales, 14. 
 
 Prescott (W. H.), 10. 
 
 Rabelais, 3, 9. 
 
 Reading at Random, 3, 4. 
 
 August 1933. 
 
 Restoration Tragedies, 6.- 
 Reynolds (Sir Joshua), 7. 
 Reynolds (Frederick), bi 
 Rossetti (Christina), 12. 
 Rossetti (D. G.), 12. 
 Rowe, 6. 
 Ruskin (John), 7. 
 Russian Short Stories, 14; 
 Rutherford (Mark), 7. 
 Sainte-Beuve, 10. 
 Scott (Sir W.), 3, 5, 9, 12, 14. 
 , Scottish Verse, 4. 
 Shakespeare, 6. 
 Shakespeare's Contemporaries, 
 
 •f. Shakespeare Criticism, 10. 
 Shelley, 12. 
 Sheridan (R. B.), 6. 
 Smith (Adam), 13. 
 Smith (Alexander), 7, 
 Smith (J. T.), 5- 
 Smollett (T.), 8, 9* 
 Sophocles, 5. 
 Southerne, 6. 
 Southey (Robert), 10. 
 South Seas, Short Stories of, 
 
 3, 14. 
 Spanish Short Stories, 14. 
 Steele, 6. 
 
 Sterne (Laurence), 8, 9, 
 Stevenson (R. L.), 8, 9. 
 Swift (Jonathan), 9. 
 Taylor (Meadows), 9. 
 Tennyson (Lord), 12. 
 Thackeray (W. M.), 8, 9, 
 Thoreau (H. D.). 8. 
 Three Dervishes, The, 14. 
 Tolstoy, 3,6,8,9, 10,11,13,14, 
 Tracts and Pamphlets, 4. 
 Trelawny (E. J.), 5- 
 Trevelyan, 3, 5. 
 Troilope (Anthony), 3, 5, 9* 
 Virgil, 5. 
 
 Walton (Izaak), 5. 
 Watts-Dunton (Theodore), 9, 
 Webster, 6. 
 Wells (Charles), 12. 
 Wells (H. G.), 4. 
 White (Gilbert), 8. 
 Whitman (Walt), 8, la, 
 Whittier (J. G ), 12. 
 Wordsworth (William), 12; 
 
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