Part 8

Lumped together in this way—and the above paragraph makes no pretence at completeness of statement,—the amount of prose fiction of one and another kind produced in England under Elizabeth and James the First may seem to be considerable, and certainly no student of the evolution of literature, or of the many-sided intellectual activity of the Shaksperian age, would to-day think of underrating it. Yet it is possible perhaps to go to the other extreme, and to exaggerate its historic importance. To trace the connection between the tentative output of the ’prentice-writers just referred to and the fully grown fiction of the eighteenth century—to indicate, for example, the lines along which Nash leads us through Defoe to Smollett and Fielding, and the points of unexpected contact between Sidney and Richardson is an inquiry full of curious interest for the special student. But too much might easily be made of the results brought to light thereby. After duly allowing for the isolated productions of the Elizabethan period, which undoubtedly broke ground in many directions, we come back still to the broad fact, that it was not until after the Restoration, and largely as a result of what was then undertaken and accomplished, that the novel firmly established itself as a well-defined form of literary art. With the Restoration, therefore, it may fairly be said that we open a new chapter in the history of English fiction.

* * * * *

The new era, however, began badly enough, in the midst of a byway of most absurd experiment, which could not, in the nature of things, lead to any permanent achievement. For along with so much else that was French in manners, fashions, morals, turns of speech, there had already been imported into England a taste for the peculiar form of romance—the _roman à longue haleine_—which was just then enjoying amazing popularity in the country of its birth, on the other side of the Channel. As we turn back to the dull and monstrous productions of the class now in question, we find it difficult enough to conceive that in any place, under any possible circumstances, there should have been men and women able to derive not simply enjoyment, but passionate and continuous enjoyment, from their pages. But the famous Hôtel de Rambouillet had set its mark upon them, and in the well-prepared country of the “Arcadia,” they realized instant and complete success, not only among the ultra-fashionables of a Gallicized society, but also in the more general reading world.

We must glance for a moment at one or two of the most salient characteristics of the school of fiction which thus became for a time so widely influential, that we may at once appreciate its stultifying tendencies, and bring into clear perspective what we shall presently have to say about the work of Mrs. Manley and Mrs. Behn. In doing this we need go no farther than the examples furnished by the three most prominent French leaders of polite taste—Gomberville, La Calprenède, and Mlle. de Scudéri.

In the first place, the would-be student of the so-called classical-heroic romances of these once celebrated writers is staggered by their tremendous bulk and inordinate prolixity. The modern reader shudders at Richardson, and takes his “Pamela” and “Sir Charles Grandison” in condensed editions. But Richardson is brevity itself compared with these earlier indefatigable laborers in the field of the novel. Gomberville’s “Polexandre” began in four volumes quarto, and in its later editions comprised some six thousand pages; the “Cléopâtre” of La Calprenède, when finished, filled twelve octavo volumes; “Pharamond,” written partly by the same author, and partly by Pierre d’Ortigue de Vaumorière, reached nearly the same length; while the “Clélie” and “Le Grand Cyrus” of Mlle. de Scudéri—who in the matter of resolute long-windedness was, naturally enough, more than a match for her masculine rivals—extended respectively to some eight thousand and fifteen thousand octavo pages.[6] These, and such as these, were the works that Pope was ridiculing when in “The Rape of the Lock” he built out of them an altar for the due celebration of the “adventurous baron’s” religious rites; and he was surely justified in describing them as “huge French romances.” It makes us feel how little of permanence and stability there is in any matter of taste, when we remember that these colossal productions, over which the most patient reader of to-day would soon catch himself yawning, were once awaited with interest and devoured with avidity.

Footnote 6:

The reader of Pepys, recalling Mrs. Pepys’s fondness for these interminable stories, will remember that, as we have seen, “Le Grand Cyrus” once gave rise to considerable unpleasantness between husband and wife.

But even more important, from the standpoint of literary history, than the mere size of these overgrown absurdities were their structural principles and peculiarities of style. An offshoot apparently from the chivalrous and pastoral romances of earlier date, with the addition of what it pleased writers and readers alike to regard as an “historical” blend of interest, the classical-heroic romance proper presents a bewildering jumble of the most far-sought and incongruous materials. In fine disregard of anachronism and inconsistency, their authors carry us hither and thither about the world, introducing us to Greeks and Romans, Egyptians and Persians, Knights of the Round Table, Paladins of Charlemagne, shepherds and shepherdesses of nowhere in particular, and even Peruvian Incas. The main plot, as a rule deceptively simple, is complicated from first to last by enormous and intricate ramifications of secondary actions; a characteristic due to the fact that every fresh individual introduced, whether in the central narrative, or in some excrescence from it, persists in recounting his own adventures at tremendous length. Thus we have story within story, wheel within wheel, till the reader completely loses his hold upon the tangled threads of intrigue, and collapses into a condition of dazed despair.[7] But this is not the worst. The characters seem to be totally unable to tell their experiences in a straightforward fashion and have done with it. They linger by the way—time being of no importance to any of them—to indulge in everlasting conversations and soliloquies, discourse learnedly on delicate questions of gallantry and honor, quote, criticise, sentimentalize, pour out page after page of inflated rhapsody, and cavil remorselessly on the ninth part of a hair. Thus the so-called “historic” element in these romances, is nominal only. The heroes and heroines, of whatever race, clime, or era, are only masquerading men and women of seventeenth-century France, with the ridiculous jargon of the Hôtel de Rambouillet incessantly upon their lips.

Footnote 7:

Novel-readers will not need to be reminded that the “story-within-story” device survived long after the classical-heroic romance had passed into oblivion. It is employed, for instance, by both Fielding and Smollett, and traces of it are to be found in the earlier work of Dickens, and in other writers quite near our own time.

It will be seen from this brief description that the classical-heroic romance was absolutely artificial and unreal; that it had, and pretended to have, no touch or contact with the things of solid existence. Characters, incidents, sentiments, speech were all of a world apart—Utopia, Arcadia, No-Man’s-Land. Life was not distorted, as it is in the writings of many romantic novelists and most of our modern realists. It was simply not considered at all.

At the time when these ponderous and vapid productions reached the climax of their popularity on their native soil, French was well understood by the educated classes in England; and it was in their original tongue, therefore, that they made their way at first among the fellow-countrymen of Milton. But translations soon followed with a rapidity that bore startling testimony to the strength of the new taste. “Polexandre” appeared in an English version as early as 1647; “Ibrahim,” “Cassandra,” and “Cléopâtre” in 1652; while “Clélie,” “Astrée,” “Scipion,” “Le Grand Cyrus,” “Zelinda,” and “Almahide” were all translated and published between the latter date and 1677. On the heels of these regular translations soon came sundry imitations which, after the manner of imitations in general, reproduced with scrupulous fidelity all the worst features of the original works. “Eliana,” issued in 1661, reads almost like a burlesque of the heroic style, and abounds in long-drawn descriptive passages of the most florid and fantastic kind. Running this very close in overwrought extravagance of theme and language, the “Pandion and Amphigenia” of Crowne the dramatist saw the light four years later. But the most celebrated of the English specimens of this exotic school is a somewhat earlier work—the “Parthenissa” of Roger Boyle, Earl of Orrery; a production left incomplete after reaching more than eight hundred folio pages. This is pronounced by Dunlop, whose industry and patience in reading the romances of this period must have been little short of superhuman, to be the best English specimen of its class; and most of us will probably be more ready to accept his judgment than to undertake its verification.[8]

Footnote 8:

A delightfully witty account of this work, and of the classical-heroic romance at large, will be found in Jusserand’s “English Novel in the Time of Shakspere,” a book which combines with the erudition of the German specialist the verve, tact, and lucidity of the French—qualities which are commonly to be sought in vain in the voluminous and too often chaotic lucubrations of Teutonic scholarship.

Both “Eliana” and “Parthenissa” were broken off abruptly, the latter in the middle of one of its most interesting situations; and Dunlop is probably right in regarding this fact as evidence of the gradual decline of the taste out of which they had grown and to which they had appealed. Indeed, so far as England was concerned, the classical-heroic romance could not have been otherwise than ephemeral. It had no real hold upon English society, and was fundamentally out of harmony with the spirit of an age in which chivalry had degenerated into empty gallantry, and playing at pastoral simplicity had ceased to be an aristocratic amusement. The temper of which it was one manifestation for a time made its influence deeply felt in almost every department of literature; it invaded even poetry; and directly inspired that extraordinary form of drama, so familiar to the student of Davenant and Dryden—the heroic play. But the prose fiction to which it gave existence carried in its essential qualities the seeds of early decay. It is true that in certain quarters it retained a faint and shadowy kind of reputation longer than might have been expected.[9] But the rise of a totally different school of novelists in the last decades of the seventeenth century, practically marks the close of its career; and dying, it left no issue.

Footnote 9:

Translations of several of the great French romances, including “Clelia,” “which opened of itself in the place that described two lovers in a bower,” are given in the list of books on Leonora’s shelves (“Spectator,” No. 37); and suggestive mention is made of “Pharamond” and “Cassandra” as late as 1711 (“Spectator,” No. 92). Mrs. Lennox’s satire, “The Female Quixote,” may be taken to show that even in 1752 these works were still sometimes read.

* * * * *

We are now at length prepared to appreciate the historic significance and interest of what, in a rather loose way, is commonly called the prose fiction of the Restoration.

Says Mrs. Manley, in the introductory address to the reader in her “Secret History of Queen Zarah”:—

“Romances in France have for a long time been the diversion and amusement of the whole world; the people ... have read these works with a most surprising greediness; but that fury is very much abated, and they are all fallen off from this distraction. The little histories of this kind have taken place [sic] of romances, whose prodigious number of volumes were sufficient to tire and satiate such whose heads were most filled with these notions.... These little pieces which have banished romances are much more agreeable to the brisk and impetuous humor of the English, who have naturally no taste for long-winded performances; for they have no sooner begun a book than they desire to see the end of it.”

These remarks will doubtless strike some readers as curious, and we may well wonder what the followers of Taine, particularly, would make of the “brisk and impetuous humor” here alleged to characterize the English people. But they are valuable to us, irrespective of their psychology, because they enable us to understand how the new fiction—the fiction in which, despite all adventitious differences, we can clearly recognize the beginnings of the modern novel—arose to take the place of the Anglo-French romance. The “little histories” to which Mrs. Manley refers grew up by the most natural process of reaction against the “prodigious number of volumes” into which, as we have noted, the older narratives had run. Nor was it in measure only that a change was initiated. As we shall presently see, the novel of the Restoration, broadly so-called, differed from its predecessors not merely in length, but also in the more important qualities of subject-matter, treatment, and style. The old Arcadia was finally forsaken for the solid earth, and lengthy descriptions, multifarious episodes, wearisome soliloquies, and needless tortuosities of plot were at the same time left behind. Real life now formed the basis of the story, and, despite occasional reminiscences of the older manner, crispness of narration became one of the writers’ principal aims.

We have here undertaken to consider a little this healthy and significant change from the romance to the novel in the writings of two of its representative exponents—Mrs. Behn and Mrs. Manley. It should be understood, however, that in adopting this course we have no intention of throwing their work into undue prominence. They were but part-factors in a general movement, and must be contented to share its honors with a number of their contemporaries. Nevertheless, they possess a special interest for the student of English literature, for two very good reasons. In the first place, taken together, they illustrate with remarkable clearness those broader characteristics of the new fiction which it is our principal concern in this little essay to bring to light; and, secondly, there is the fact that they were women. It is surely in itself instructive to find that while the great Elizabethan drama can adduce no example of a woman-writer, it is in the productions of a couple of women that we can study to the best advantage some of the rudimentary developments of the modern novel.[10]

Footnote 10:

Common fairness leads me to state, though it must be in the quasi-obscurity of a foot-note, that in any exhaustive treatment of the Restoration novel, place should be found for a third female name—that of Swift’s “stupid, infamous, scribbling woman,” Mrs. Haywood. But though this lady produced, between 1720 and 1730, a number of short stories that might fittingly be touched upon here, her best-known works, “The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless” (1751) and “The History of Jeremy and Jenny Jessamy” (1754), belong to the times of Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett, and therefore to another school and period of fiction entirely. She would thus be very likely to tempt us too far afield for the purposes we have here in view.

It will be convenient for us to ignore the strict demands of chronology and begin with the work of Mrs. Manley, which, though somewhat later in date than Mrs. Behn’s, may properly be taken first, since it is at once cruder in form and historically of minor importance.

Mrs. De la Riviere Manley—“poor Mrs. Manley,” as Swift calls her, in the “Journal to Stella”—enjoyed anything but a peaceful life. It seems to be an accepted tradition among biographers of men and women of letters to begin their narratives by protesting that the lives of authors seldom furnish exciting materials, and then to go on to add that their particular heroes or heroines are exceptions to the general rule. Certainly Mrs. Manley was an exception, if rule indeed it be, which I think open to question. She herself has given us some account of her adventures and misfortunes in different portions of her “New Atalantis,” and more particularly in “The History of Rivella”—an autobiography and _apologia pro vitâ sua_—published in 1714, under the pseudonym of Sir Charles Lovemore. There is no need for us to follow her through all her varied experiences, the record of which, though often lively enough, is seldom of a very improving character. It will be sufficient to give the briefest outline of her career.

She was born in Guernsey about the year 1677, her father, Sir Roger Manley, being, as is generally stated, governor, or, as seems more probable, deputy governor, of that island. According to her own account, she grew up into a sharp-witted, impressionable girl, who, receiving rather more than an average education, early gave signs of an intelligence beyond what, at that time, was considered the fair endowment of her sex. Her tribulations, too, began early. Her parents died when she was still very young, and she fell into the hands of a male cousin, who unfortunately became enamored of her. The man was known to be married already, but he asserted that his wife was dead; and Rivella, deceived by his protestations, entered into a secret marriage with him. The theme of one of her most unsavory stories seems to have been directly suggested by this tragic episode in her own life. After a while, of course, the truth came out. Then her scoundrelly husband abandoned her, and she was left to shift for herself as best she might. About this time she gained the patronage of the famous Duchess of Cleveland, one of Charles the Second’s mistresses, in attendance upon whom she remained during some six months. But the Duchess was a woman of fickle temper. She soon grew tired of Mrs. Manley; and, by pretending that she had discovered her in an intrigue with her son (and there may possibly have been more ground than poor Rivella admits for the allegation), found an excuse for dismissing her from her service. It was now that Mrs. Manley appears to have taken up her pen in earnest—and a very reckless and caustic pen it by and by turned out to be. Her tragedy, “The Royal Mistress,” acted in 1696, proved so successful that she found herself courted by all the dandies and witlings of the day; and for some years, as a consequence, she spent her time principally in getting out of one intrigue into another. Nevertheless, she found leisure, amid all her excitements, to write and produce her “Secret Memoirs and Manners of Several Persons of Quality, from the New Atalantis”—a work which, under the most thinly disguised names, attacked in an extremely violent and outspoken manner the men who had been mainly instrumental in bringing about the Revolution. In virtue of this production Mrs. Manley may be said to have secured the doubtful honor of being the first political woman-writer in England. So successful was the satire in reaching those for whom it was intended, that the printer was straightway apprehended; but Mrs. Manley—who, as Swift contemptuously put it, “had generous principles for one of her sort”—would not allow him to suffer in her behalf. She appeared before the Court of King’s Bench, and declared herself solely responsible for the entire undertaking, maintaining, moreover, “with unaltered constancy, that the whole work was mere invention, without any cynical allusion to real characters.”[11] Mrs. Manley, indeed, seems to have cared a great deal more about getting her printer out of a scrape than about sticking too solemnly to the simple truth; since, apart altogether from the manifestly satirical intention of the book, we know that she made its publication the basis of a personal application to the ministry. In the “Journal to Stella,” Swift tells us how he afterwards met Mrs. Manley at the house of Lord Peterborough, and adds that she was there “soliciting him to get some pension or reward for her service in the cause, by writing her ‘Atalantis.’” Still we must frankly admit that her loyalty to the printer in such a crisis throws her character into a rather favorable light.

Footnote 11:

Scott’s edition of Swift’s works (1824), vol. ii., p. 303, _note_.

However, after a short period of confinement, and sundry appearances before the court, Mrs. Manley was allowed to go free, and the matter dropped. After this adventure, she produced several dramatic pieces, wrote some pamphlets of a political kind, and for a time conducted “The Examiner,” which had then been relinquished by Swift. Indeed, she appears to have remained in the full swing of activity to the close of her life. She died, aged about forty-seven, in 1724, at the house of one John Barber, an alderman of the City of London, with whom it is supposed she had for some time past been living.

In person, as she herself very candidly tells us, Mrs. Manley was fat, and her face had been early marked by that terrible scourge of the age, the smallpox; notwithstanding which defects, her fascination of manner and conversation was so great, that she was always popular with the other sex. Of her moral character, perhaps, the less said the better. Circumstances had not been kind to Rivella; and at this distance of time, and with all the intrigues in which she was involved, it is not always easy to say how far she was sinned against, and how far sinning, or whether her own statement came anywhere near the facts of the case when she boldly declared that “her virtues” were “her own, her vices occasioned by her misfortunes.” Still we must admit the truth of the words which she has put into the mouth of d’Aumont in the “History of Rivella”: “If she have but half so much of the practice as the theory, in the way of love, she must certainly be a most accomplished person.” And a most accomplished person, after her own fashion, she evidently seems to have been.

The most famous of her writings—if the word _famous_ can properly be used, when they have all passed into oblivion—is, of course, the “New Atalantis”—that veritable “cornucopia of scandal,” as Swift dubbed it. This work swept its author into temporary notoriety, and for a few years was perhaps as much talked of and discussed as any publication of the time. But the life has long since gone out of its personalities and topical allusions, and the ordinary reader of English literature, if he recall it even by name, is likely to remember it only for the use Pope makes of it in a well-known passage in “The Rape of the Lock”:—

“Let wreaths of triumph now my temples twine! (The victor cried); the glorious prize is mine! While fish in streams, or birds delight in air, Or in a coach and six the British fair; As long as Atalantis shall be read, Or the small pillow grace a lady’s bed; While visits shall be paid on solemn days, When numerous wax-lights in bright order blaze; While nymphs take treats, or assignations give, So long my honor, name, and praise shall live!”