in the present day. He has that force one way as another."* Application of will, inner enthusiasm, hidden fer- and fatigue of head and arms give oc inent of a violent imagination which cupation to his superfluous activity and formerly produced the sea-kings, and force; the mill-stone must find grist to now produces emigrants and squatters. grind, without which, turning round The misfortunes of his two brothers, empty, it would wear itself away. He the tears of his relatives, the advice of works, therefore, all day and night, at his friends, the remonstrances of his once carpenter, oarsman, porter, hunt reason, the remorse of his conscience, er, tiller of the ground, potter, tailor are all unable to restrain him: there milkman, basketmaker, grinder, baker, was "a something fatal in his nature; "invincible in difficulties, disappoint he had conceived the idea, he must go ments, expenditure of time and tail to sea. To no purpose is he seized Having but a hatchet and an adze, t with repentance during the first storm; took him forty-two days to make a he drowns in punch these "fits" of board. He occupied two months in conscience. To no purpose is he warned making his first two jars; five months by shipwreck and a narrow escape from in making his first boat; then, "by death; he is hardened, and grows ob- dint of hard labor," he levelled the stinate. To no purpose captivity ground from his timber-yard to the sea, among the Moors and the possession then, not being able to bring his boat of a fruitful plantation invite repose; to the sea, he tried to bring the sea up the indomitable instinct returns; he to his boat, and began to dig a canal; was born to be his own destroyer, and then, reckoning that he would require embarks again. The ship goes down; ten or twelve years to finish the task, he is cast alone on a desert island; he builds another boat at another place, then his native energy found its vent with another canal half-a-mile long, and its employment; like his descend- four feet deep, six wide. He spends ants, the pioneers of Australia and two years over it: "I bore with this. America, he must recreate and re-... I went through that by dint of hard master one by one the inventions and acquisitions of human industry; one by one he does so. Nothing represses his effort; neither possession nor weari ness: "I had the biggest magazine of all kinds now that ever was laid up, I believe, for one man; but I was not satisfied still; for while the ship sat upright in that posture, I thought I ought to get everything out of her that I could....I got most of the pieces of cable ashore, and some of the iron, though with infinite labour; for I was fain to dip for it into the water; a work which fatigued me very much, i believe, verily, had the calm weather held, I should have brought away the whole ship, piece by piece." In his eyes, work is natural. When, in order "to barricade himself, he goes to cut the piles in the woods, and drives them into the earth, which cost a great deal of time and labor," he says: A very laborious and tedious work. But what need I have been concerned at the tediousness of any thing I had to do, seeing I had time enough to do it in?... My time or labor was little worth, and so it was as well employed De Foe's Works, 20 vols., 1819-21. The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe i ch. iv. 65. labor. . . . Many a weary stroke it had cost. This will testify that I was not idle. As I had learned not to despair of any thing. I never grudged my labor." These strong expressions of indomitable patience are ever recurring. These stout-hearted men are framed for labor, as their sheep are for slaughter and their horses for racing. Even now we may hear their mighty hatchet and pickaxe sounding in the claims of Melbourne and in the loghouses of the Salt Lake. The reason o their success is the same there as here; they do every thing with calculation and method; they rationalize their energy, which is like a torrent they make a ca nal for. Crusoe sets to work only after deliberate calculation and reflection. When he seeks a spot for his tent, he enumerates the four conditions of the place he requires. When he wishes to escape despair, he draws up impartial. ly, "like debtor and crec 'tor," the list of his advantages and disadvantages, putting them in two columns, active and passive, item for item, so that the balance is in his favor. His courage • Ibid. 76. sense: which the first surge of the sea upon a high wind inconsistent with the thing itself, and with al would have defaced entirely. All this seemed notions we usually entertain of the subtlety of the devil." * In this impassioned and uncultivated mind, which for eight years had continued without a thought, and as it were bodily wants, belief took root, fostered stupid, engrossed in manual labor aná by anxiety and solitude. Amidst the risks of all-powerful nature, in this great uncertain upheaving, a French man, a man bred as we are, would cross his arms gloomily like a Stoic, or would wait like an Epicurean for the return of physical cheerfulness. As for Crusoe, at the sight of the ears of bar is only the servant of his common "By stating and squaring every thing by reason, and by making the most rational judgment of things, every man may be in time master of every mechanic art. I had never handled a tool in my life, and yet in time, by labor, application, and contrivance, I found at last that I wanted nothing but I could have made it, especially if had had tools."* There is a grave and deep pleasure in this painful success, and in this personal acquisition. The squatter, like Crusoe, takes pleasure in things, not only because they are useful, but because they are his work. He feels himself a man, whilst finding everywhere about him the sign of his labor and thought; he is pleased: "Iley which have suddenly made their appearance, he weeps, and thinks at first had every thing so ready at my hand," that God had miraculously caused that it was a great pleasure to me to see all my goods in such order, and especially to find my stock of all necessaries so great." He returns to his home willingly, because he is there a master and creator of all the comforts he has around him; he takes his meals there gravely and "like a king." Such are the pleasures of home. A guest enters there to fortify these natural inclinations by the ascendency of duty. Religion appears, as it must, in emotions and visions: for this is not a calm soul; imagination breaks out into it at the least shock, and carries it to the threshold of madness. On the day when Robinson Crusoe saw the "print of a naked man's foot on the shore," he stood "like one thunderstruck," and fled "like a hare to cover; 99 his ideas are in a whirl, he is no longer master of them; though he is hidden and barricaded, he thinks himself discovered; he intends "to throw down the enclosures, turn all the tame cattle wild into the woods dig up the cornfelds." He has ali kind of fancies; he asks himself if it is not the devil who has left this footmark; and reasons upon it: "I considered that the devil might have found out abundance of other ways to have terrified me; ... that, as I lived quite on the other side of the island, he would never have been so simple to leave a mark in a place; where it was ten thousand to one whether ĺ should ever see it or not, and in the sand too, * Robinson Crusoe, ch. iv. 79. ↑ Ibid. 80. this grain to grow." Another day he Ibid. ch. xi. 184. ↑ Ibid. 187. Po 1. 15. + Heb. xiii. 5. Robinson Crusoe, ch. vii. 134. less worn by friction with the world whose uninjured face is more visible than that of others. All these novels are works of observation, and spring from a moral design. The men of this time, having fallen away from lofty im. agination, and being immersed in act ive life, desire to cull from books solid instruction, just examples, powerful emotions, feelings of practical admit a tion, and motives of action. day he reads the Scripture, and says: | human medals more vigorously struck "I gave humble and hearty thanks. that he (God) could fully make up to me the deficiencies of mv solitary state, and the want of human society by his presence, and the communication of his grace to my soul, supporting, comforting, and encouraging me to depend upon his providence, and hope for his eternal presence hereafter."* In this disposition of mind there is nothing a man cannot endure or do; heart and hand come to the assistance of the arms; religion consecrates labor, piety feeds patience; and man, supported on one side by his instincts, on the other by his belief, finds himself able to clear the land, to people, to organize and civilize continents. III. We have but to look around; the same inclination begins on all sides the same task. The novel springs up everywhere, and shows the same spirit under all forms. At this time* appear the Tatler, Spectator, Guardian, and al: those agreeable and serious essays which, like the novel, look for readers at home, to supply them with examples and provide them with counsels; It was by chance that De Foe, like which, like the novel, describe manCervantes, lighted on a novel of char-ners, paint characters, and try to coracter: as a rule, like Cervantes, he only wrote novels of adventure; he knew life better than the soul, and the general course of the world better than the idiosyncrasies of an individual. But the impulse was given, nevertheless, and now the rest followed. Chivalrous manners had been blotted out, carrying with them the poetical and picturesque drama. Monarchical manners had been blotted out, carrying with them the witty and licentious drama. Citizen manners had been established, bringing with them domestic and practical reading. Like society, literature changed its course. Books were needed to read by the fireside, in the country, amongst the family invention and genius turn to this kind of writing. The sap of human thought, abandoning the old dried-up branches, flowed into the unseen boughs, which it suddenly made to grow and turn green, and the fruits which it produced bear witness at the same time to the surrounding temperature and the native stock. Two features are common and proper to them. All these novels are character novels. Englishmen, more reflective than others, more inclined to the melancholy pleasure of concentrated attention and inner examination, find around them • Jobins Crusoe, ch. viii. 133. Al rect the public; which, finally, like the novel, turn spontaneously to fiction and portraiture. Addison, like a deli cate amateur of moral curiosities, com. placently follows the amiable_oddities of his darling Sir Roger de Coverley, smiles, and with discreet hand guides the excellent knight through all the awkward predicaments which may bring out his rural prejudices and his innate generosity; whilst by his side the unhappy Swift, degrading man to the instincts of the beast of prey and beast of burden, tortures humanity by forcing it to recognize itself in the execrable portrait of the Yahoo. though they differ, both authors are working at the same task. They only employ imagination in order to study characters, and to suggest plans of con duct. They bring down philosophy to observation and application. They only dream of reforming or chastizing vice. They are only moralists and psychologists. They both confine themselves to the consideration of vice and virtue; the one with calm benev olence, the other with savage indigna. tion. The same point of view proson and the slanderous pictures of duces the graceful portraits of Addi Swift. Their successors do the like. and all diversities of mood and talent Two principal ideas can rule, and have ruled, morality in England. Now it is conscience which is accepted as a sovereign; now it is instinct which is taken for guide. Now they have recourse to grace; now they rely on nature. Now they wholly enslave every thing to rule; now they give every thing up to liberty. The two opinions have successively reigned in England; and the human frame, at once too vigorous and too unyielding, successively justifies their ruin and their success. Some, alarmed by the fire of an overfed temperament, and by the energy of unsocial passions, have regarded nature as a dangerous beast, and placed conscience with all its auxiliaries, religion, law, education, proprieties, as so many armed sentinels to repress its least outbreaks. Others, repelled by the harshness of an incessant constraint, and by the minuteness of a morose discipline, have overturned guards and barriers, and let loose captive nature to enjoy the free air and sun, deprived of which it was being choked. Both by their excesses have deserved their defeats and raised up their adversaries. From Shak speare to the Puritans, from Milton to Wycherley, from Congreve to De Foe, from Sheridan to Burke, from Wilberforce to Lord Byron, irregularity has provoked constraint and tyranny revolt. This great contest of rule and nature is developed again in the ings of Fielding and Richardson. do not hinder their works from ac- instruct." We can make no mistake, knowledging a similar source, and con- the title is clear. The preachers re curring in the same effect. joiced to see assistance coming to them from the very spot where there was danger; and Dr. Sherlock, from his pulpit, recommended the book. Men inquired about the author. He was a printer and bookseller, a joiner's son who, at the age of fifty, and in his leisure moments, wrote in his shop parlor: a laborious man, who, by work and good conduct, had raised himself to a competency and had ed. ucated himself; delicate moreover, gentle, nervous, often ill, with a taste for the society of women, accustomed to correspond for and with them, of reserved and retired habits, whose only fault was a timid vanity. He was severe in principles, and had acquired perspicacity by his rigor. In reality, conscience is a lamp; a moralist is a psychologist; Christian casuistry is a sort of natural history of the soul. He who through anxiety of conscience busies himself in drawing out the good or evil motives of his manifest actions, who sees vices and virtues at their birth, who follows the gradual progress of culpable thoughts, and the secret confirmation of good resolves, who can mark the force, nature, and moment of temptation and resistance, holds in his hand almost all the moving strings of humanity, and has only to make them vibrate regularly to draw from them the most powerful harmonies. In this consists the art of Richardson; he combines whilst he observes; his medwrit-itation develops the ideas of the moralist. No one in this age has equalled him in these detailed and comprehensive conceptions, which, grouping to a single end the passions of thirty char acters, twine and color the innumer able threads of the whole canvas, tc bring out a figure, an action, or a les son. IV. "Pamela, or Virtue rewarded, in a series of familiar letters from a beautiful young damsel to her parents, published in order to cultivate the principles of virtue and religion in the minds of the youth of both sexes; a narrative which has its foundation in truth and at the same time that it agreeably entertains by a variety of curious and affecting incidents, is entirely divested of all those images which, in too many pieces calculated for amusement only, tend to inflame the minds they should This first novel is a flower-one of those flowers which only bloom in a virgin imagination, at the dawn of original invention, whose charm and freshness surpass all that the maturity of art and genius can afterwards cultivate or arrange. Pamela is a child of fifteen, brought up by an old lady, 1741. The translator has consulted the tenth edition, 1775, 4 vols. half servant and half favorite, who, against all intervention-a sort of di after the death of her mistress, finds vinity to her, with all the superiority herself exposed to the growing seduc- and authority of a feudal prince. tions and persecutions of the young Moreover, he has the brutality of the master of the house. She is a genuine times; he rates her, speaks to her like child, frank and artless as Goethe's a slave, and yet thinks himself very Margaret, and of the same family. kind. He shuts her up alone for sevAfter twenty pages, we involuntarily eral months, with "a wicked creature," Fee this fresh rosy face, always blush- his housekeeper, who beats and threat ng, and her laughing eyes, so ready ens her. He tries on her the influence with tears. At the smallest kindness of fear, loneliness, surprise, money, she is confused; she knows not what gentleness. And what is more terrible, to say; she changes color, casts down her own heart is against her: she loves her eyes, as she makes a curtsey; the him secretly; her virtues injure her poor innocent heart is troubled or she dare not lie, when she most needs melts * No trace of the bold vivacit;* and piety keeps her from suicide, ity, the nervous coolness, which are when that seems her only resource. the elements of a French girl. She is One by one the issues close around her, a lambkin," loved, loving, without so that she loses hope, and the readers pride, vanity, bitterness; timid, always of her adventures think her lost and humble. When her master tries forci- ruined. But this native innocence has bly to kiss her, she is astonished; she been strengthened by Puritanic faith. will not believe that the world is so She sees temptations in her weak wicked. "This gentleman has de- nesses; she knows that "Lucifer always graded himself to offer freedoms to his is ready to promote his own work and poor servant." † She is afraid of be- workmen ;"t she is penetrated by the ing too free with him; reproaches her- great Christian idea, which makes all self, when she writes to her relatives, souls equal before the common salvawith saying too often he and him in- tion and the final judgment. She says: stead of his honor; "but it is his fault "My soul is of equal importance to if I do, for why did he lose all his dig- the soul of a princess, though my qualnity with me?" No outrage ex-ity is inferior to that of the meanest hausts her submissiveness: he has kissed her, and took hold of her arm so rudely that it was "black and blue;" he has tried worse, he has behaved like a ruffian and a knave. To cap all, he slanders her circumstantially before the servants; he insults her repeatedly, and provokes her to speak; she does not speak, will not fail in her duty to her master. "It is for you, sir, to say what you please, and for me only to say, God bless your honor!"§ She falls on her knees, and thanks him for sending her away. But in so much submission what resistance ! Every thing is against her; he is her master; he is a justice of the peace, secure slave." Wounded, stricken, abandoned, betrayed, still the knowledge and thought of a happy or an unhappy eternity are two defences which no assault can carry. She knows it well; she has no other means of explaining vice than to suppose them absent. She considers that wicked Mrs. Jewkes is an atheist. Belief in God, the heart's belief-not the wording of the catechism, but the inner feeling, the habit of picturing justice as ever living and ever present-this is the fresh blood which the Reformation caused to flow into the veins of the old world, and which alone could give it a new life and a new youth. She is, as it were, animated by this feeling; in the most perilous as in the sweetest moments, this grand sentitwined with all the rest, so much has ment returns to her, so much is it enit multiplied its tendrils and buried its "I dare not tell a wilful lie." |