English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History Part 45

In society, Macaulay was a great talker--he harangued his friends; and there was more than wit in the saying of Sidney Smith, that his conversation would have been improved by a few "brilliant flashes of silence."

But in spite of his faults, if we consider the profoundness of his learning, the industry of his studies, and the splendor of his style, we must acknowledge him as the most distinguished of English historians. No one has yet appeared who is worthy to complete the magnificent work which he left unfinished.

THOMAS CARLYLE.--A literary brother of a very different type, but of a more distinct individuality, is Carlyle, who was born in Dumfries-shire, Scotland, in 1795. He was the eldest son of a farmer. After a partial education at home, he entered the University of Edinburgh, where he was noted for his attainments in mathematics, and for his omnivorous reading.

After leaving the university he became a teacher in a private family, and began to study for the ministry, a plan which he soon gave up.

His first literary effort was a _Life of Schiller_, issued in numbers of the _London Magazine_, in 1823-4. He turned his attention to German literature, in the knowledge of which he has surpa.s.sed all other Englishmen. He became as German as the Germans.

In 1826 he married, and removed to Craigen-Puttoch, on a farm, where, in isolation and amid the wildness of nature, he studied, and wrote articles for the _Edinburgh Review_, the _Foreign Quarterly_, and some of the monthly magazines. His study of the German, acting upon an innate peculiarity, began to affect his style very sensibly, as is clearly seen in the singular, introverted, parenthetical mode of expression which pervades all his later works. His earlier writings are in ordinary English, but specimens of _Carlylese_ may be found in his _Sartor Resartus_, which at first appalled the publishers and repelled the general reader. Taking man's clothing as a nominal subject, he plunges into philosophical speculations with which clothes have nothing to do, but which informed the world that an original thinker and a novel and curious writer had appeared.

In 1834 he removed to Chelsea, near London, where he has since resided. In 1837, he published his _French Revolution_, in three volumes,--_The Bastile_, _The Const.i.tution_, _The Guillotine_. It is a fiery, historical drama rather than a history; full of rhapsodies, startling rhetoric, disconnected pictures. It has been fitly called "a history in flashes of lightning." No one could learn from it the history of that momentous period; but one who has read the history elsewhere, will find great interest in Carlyle's wild and vivid pictures of its stormy scenes.

In 1839 he wrote, in his dashing style, upon _Chartism_, and about the same time read a course of lectures upon _Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History_, in which he is an admirer of will and impulse, and palliates evil when found in combination with these.

In 1845 he edited _The Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell_, and in his extravagant eulogies worships the hero rather than the truth.

FREDERICK II.--In 1858 appeared the first two volumes of _The Life of Frederick the Great_, and since that time he has completed the work. This is doubtless his greatest effort. It is full of erudition, and contains details not to be found in any other biography of the Prussian monarch; but so singularly has he reasoned and commented upon his facts, that the enlightened reader often draws conclusions different from those which the author has been laboring to establish. While the history shows that, for genius and success, Frederick deserved to be called the Great, Carlyle cannot make us believe that he was not grasping, selfish, a dissembler, and an immoral man.

The author's style has its admirers, and is a not unpleasing novelty and variety to lovers of plain English; but it wearies in continuance, and one turns to French or German with relief. The Essays upon _German Literature_, _Richter_, and _The Niebelungen Lied_ are of great value to the young student. Such tracts as _Past and Present_, and _The Latter-Day Pamphlets_, have caused him to be called the "Censor of the Age." He is too eccentric and prejudiced to deserve the name in its best meaning. If he fights shams, he sometimes mistakes windmills and wine-skins for monsters, and, what is worse, if he accost a shepherd or a milkmaid, they at once become _Amadis de Gaul_ and _Dulcinea del Toboso_. In spite of these prejudices and peculiarities, Carlyle will always be esteemed for his arduous labors, his honest intentions, and his boldness in expressing his opinions. His likes and dislikes find ready vent in his written judgments, and he cares for neither friend nor foe, in setting forth his views of men and events. On many subjects it must be said his views are just. There are fields in which his word must be received with authority.

OTHER HISTORIANS OF THE LATEST PERIOD.

_John Lingard_, 1771-1851: a Roman Catholic priest. He was a man of great probity and worth. His chief work is _A History of England_, from the first invasion of the Romans to the accession of William and Mary. With a natural leaning to his own religious side in the great political questions, he displays great industry in collecting material, beauty of diction, and honesty of purpose. His history is of particular value, in that it stands among the many Protestant histories as the champion of the Roman Catholics, and gives an opportunity to "hear the other side," which could not have had a more respectable advocate. In all the great controversies, the student of English history must consult Lingard, and collate his facts and opinions with those of the other historians. He wrote, besides, numerous theological and controversial works.

_Patrick Fraser Tytler_, 1791-1849: the author of _A History of Scotland from Alexander III. to James VI. (James I. of England)_, and _A History of England during the reigns of Edward VI. and Mary_. His _Universal History_ has been used as a text-book, and in style and construction has great merit, although he does not rise to the dignity of a philosophic historian.

_Sir William Francis Patrick Napier_, 1785-1866: a distinguished soldier, and, like Caesar, a historian of the war in which he took part. His _History of the War in the Peninsula_ stands quite alone. It is clear in its strategy and tactics, just to the enemy, and peculiar but effective in style. It was a.s.sailed by several military men, but he defended all his positions in bold replies to their strictures, and the work remains as authority upon the great struggle which he relates.

_Lord Mahon_, Earl of Stanhope, born 1805: his princ.i.p.al work is a _History of England from the Peace of Utrecht to the Peace of Versailles_.

He had access to much new material, and from the Stuart papers has drawn much of interest with reference to that unfortunate family. His view of the conduct of Washington towards Major Andre has been shown to be quite untenable. He also wrote a _History of the War of Succession in Spain_.

_Henry Thomas Buchle_, 1822-1862: he was the author of a _History of Civilization_, of which he published two volumes, the work remaining unfinished at the time of his death. For bold a.s.sumptions, vigorous style, and great reading, this work must be greatly admired; but all his theories are based on second principles, and Christianity, as a divine inst.i.tution, is ignored. It startled the world into admiration, but has not retained the place in popular esteem which it appeared at first to make for itself.

He is the English _Comte_, without the eccentricity of his model.

_Sir Archibald Alison_, 1792-1867: he is the author of _The History of Europe from the Commencement of the French Revolution to the Restoration of the Bourbons_, and a continuation from 1815 to 1852. It may be doubted whether even the most dispa.s.sionate scholar can write the history of contemporary events. We may be thankful for the great ma.s.s of facts he has collated, but his work is tinctured with his high Tory principles; his material is not well digested, and his style is clumsy.

_Agnes Strickland_, born 1806: after several early attempts Miss Strickland began her great task, which she executed n.o.bly--_The Queens of England_. Accurate, philosophic, anecdotal, and entertaining, this work ranks among the most valuable histories in English. If the style is not so nervous as that of masculine writers, there is a ready intuition as to the rights and the motives of the queens, and a great delicacy combined with entire lack of prudery in her treatment of their crimes. The library of English history would be singularly incomplete without Miss Strickland's work. She also wrote _The Queens of Scotland_, and _The Bachelor Kings of England_.

_Henry Hallam_, 1778-1859: the princ.i.p.al works of this judicious and learned writer are _A View of Europe during the Middle Ages_, _The Const.i.tutional History of England_, and _An Introduction to the Literature of Europe_ in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. With the skill of an advocate he combines the calmness of a judge; and he has been justly called "the accurate Hallam," because his facts are in all cases to be depended on. By his clear and ill.u.s.trative treatment of dry subjects, he has made them interesting; and his works have done as much to instruct his age as those of any writer. Later researches in literature and const.i.tutional history may discover more than he has presented, but he taught the new explorers the way, and will always be consulted with profit, as the representative of this varied learning during the first half of the nineteenth century.

_James Anthony Froude_, born 1818: an Oxford graduate, Mr. Froude represents the Low Church party in a respectable minority. His chief work is _A History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth_. With great industry, and the style of a successful novelist in making his groups and painting his characters, he has written one of the most readable books published in this period. He claimed to take his authorities from unpublished papers, and from the statute-books, and has endeavored to show that Henry VIII. was by no means a bad king, and that Elizabeth had very few faults. His treatment of Anne Boleyn and Mary Queen of Scots is unjust and ign.o.ble. Not content with publishing what has been written in their disfavor, with the omniscience of a romancer, he a.s.serts their motives, and produces thoughts which they never uttered. A race of powerful critics has sprung forth in defence of Mary, and Mr. Froude's inaccuracies and injustice have been clearly shown. To novel readers who are fond of the sensational, we commend his work: to those who desire historic facts and philosophies, we proclaim it to be inaccurate, illogical, and unjust in the highest degree.

_Sharon Turner_, 1768-1847: among many historical efforts, princ.i.p.ally concerning England in different periods, his _History of the Anglo-Saxons_ stands out prominently as a great work. He was an eccentric scholar, and an antiquarian, and he found just the place to delve in when he undertook that history. The style is not good--too epigrammatic and broken; but his research is great, his speculations bold, and his information concerning the numbers, manners, arts, learning, and other characters of the Anglo-Saxons, immense. The student of English history must read Turner for a knowledge of the Saxon period.

_Thomas Arnold_, 1795-1832: widely known and revered as the Great Schoolmaster. He was head-master at Rugby, and influenced his pupils more than any modern English instructor. Accepting the views of Niebuhr, he wrote a work on _Roman History_ up to the close of the second Punic war.

But he is more generally known by his historical lectures delivered at Oxford, where he was Professor of Modern History. A man of original views and great honesty of purpose, his influence in England has been strengthened by the excellent biography written by his friend Dean Stanley.

_William Hepworth Dixon_, born 1821: he was for some time editor of _The Athenaeum_. In historic biography he appears as a champion of men who have been maligned by former writers. He vindicates _William Penn_ from the aspersions of Lord Macaulay, and _Bacon_ from the charges of meanness and corruption.

_Charles Merivale_, born 1808: he is a clergyman, and a late Fellow of Cambridge, and is favorably known by his admirable work ent.i.tled, _The History of the Romans under the Empire_. It forms an introduction to Gibbon, and displays a thorough grasp of the great epoch, varied scholarship, and excellent taste. His a.n.a.lyses of Roman literature are very valuable, and his pictures of social life so vivid that we seem to live in the times of the Caesars as we read.

CHAPTER XL.

THE LATER NOVELISTS AS SOCIAL REFORMERS.

Bulwer. Changes in Writing. d.i.c.kens's Novels. American Notes. His Varied Powers. Second Visit to America. Thackeray. Vanity Fair. Henry Esmond. The Newcomes. The Georges. Estimate of his Powers.

The great feature in the realm of prose fiction, since the appearance of the works of Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett, had been the Waverley novels of Sir Walter Scott; but these apart, the prose romance had not played a brilliant part in literature until the appearance of Bulwer, who began, in his youth, to write novels in the old style; but who underwent several organic changes in modes of thought and expression, and at last stood confessed as the founder of a new school.

BULWER.--Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer was a younger son of General Bulwer of Heydon Hall, Norfolk, England. He was born, in 1806, to wealth and ease, but was early and always a student. Educated at Cambridge, he took the Chancellor's prize for a poem on _Sculpture_. His first public effort was a volume of fugitive poems, called _Weeds and Wild Flowers_, of more promise than merit. In 1827 he published _Falkland_, and very soon after _Pelham, or the Adventures of a Gentleman_. The first was not received favorably; but _Pelham_ was at once popular, neither for the skill of the plot nor for its morality, but because it describes the character, dissipations, and good qualities of a fashionable young man, which are always interesting to an English public. Those novels that immediately followed are so alike in general features that they may be called the Pelham series. Of these the princ.i.p.al are _The Disowned_, _Devereux_, and _Paul Clifford_--the last of which throws a sentimental, rosy light upon the person and adventures of a highwayman; but it is too unreal to have done as much injury as the _Pirate's Own Book_, or the _Adventures of Jack Sheppard_. It may be safely a.s.serted that _Paul Clifford_ never produced a highwayman. Of the same period is _Eugene Aram_, founded upon the true story of a scholar who was a murderer--a painful subject powerfully handled.

In 1831 Bulwer entered Parliament, and seems to have at once commenced a new life. With his public duties he combined severe historical study; and the novels he now produced gave witness of his riper and better learning.

Chief among these were _Rienzi_, and _The Last Days of Pompeii_. The former is based upon the history of that wonderful and unfortunate man who, in the fourteenth century, attempted to restore the Roman republic, and govern it like an ancient tribune. The latter is a n.o.ble production: he has caught the very spirit of the day in which Pompeii was submerged by the lava-flood; his characters are masterpieces of historic delineation; he handles like an adept the conflicting theologies, Christian, Roman, and Egyptian; and his natural scenes--Vesuvius in fury, the Bay of Naples in the lurid light, the crowded amphitheatre, and the terror which fell on man and beast, gladiator and lion--are _chef-d'uvres_ of Romantic art.

CHANGES IN WRITING.--For a time he edited _The New Monthly Magazine_, and a change came over the spirit of his novels. This was first noticed in his _Ernest Maltravers_, and the sequel, _Alice, or the Mysteries_, which are marked by sentimental pa.s.sion and mystic ideas. In _Night and Morning_ he is still mysterious: a blind fate seems to preside over his characters, robbing the good of its free merit and condoning the evil.

In 1838 he was made a baronet. His versatile pen now turned to the drama; and although he produced nothing great, his _Lady of Lyons_, _Richelieu_, _Money_, and _The Sea Captain_ have always since been favorites upon the stage, subsidizing the talents of actors like Macready, Kean, and Edwin Booth.

We must now chronicle another change, from the mystic to the supernatural, as displayed in _Zanoni_ and _Lucretia_, and especially in _A Strange Story_, which is the strangest of all. It was at the same period that he wrote _The Last of the Barons_, or the story of Warwick the king-maker, and _Harold, the Last of the Saxon Kings_. Both are valuable to the student of English history as presenting the fruits of his own historic research.

The last and most decided, and, we may add, most beneficial, change in Bulwer as a writer, was manifested in his publication of the _Caxtons_, the chief merit of which is as an usher of the novels which were to follow. Pisistratus Caxton is the modern Tristram Shandy, and becomes the putative editor of the later novels. First of these is _My Novel, or Varieties of English Life_. It is an admirable work: it inculcates a better morality, and a sense of Christian duty, at which Pelham would have laughed in scorn. Like it, but inferior to it, is _What Will He do with It?_ which has an interesting plot, an elevated style, and a rare human sympathy.

Among other works, which we cannot mention, he wrote _The New Timon_, and _King Arthur_, in poetry, and a prose history ent.i.tled _Athens, its Rise and Fall_.

Without the highest genius, but with uncommon scholarship and great versatility, Bulwer has used the materials of many kinds lying about him, to make marvellous mosaics, which imitate very closely the finest efforts of word-painting of the great geniuses of prose fiction.

CHARLES d.i.c.kENS.--Another remarkable development of the age was the use of prose fiction, instead of poetry, as the vehicle of satire in the cause of social reform. The world consents readily to be amused, and it likes to be amused at the expense of others; but it soon tires of what is simply amusing or satirical unless some n.o.ble purpose be disclosed. The novels of former periods had interested by the creation of character and scenes; and there had been numerous satires prompted by personal pique. It is the glory of this latest age that it demands what shall so satirize the evil around it in men, in cla.s.ses, in public inst.i.tutions, that the evil shall recoil before the attack, and eventually disappear. Chief among such reformers are d.i.c.kens and Thackeray.

Charles d.i.c.kens, the prince of modern novelists, was born at Landsport, Portsmouth, England, in 1812. His father was at the time a clerk in the Pay Department of the Navy, but afterwards became a reporter of debates in Parliament. After a very hard early life and an only tolerable education, young d.i.c.kens made some progress in the study of law; but soon undertook his father's business as reporter, in which he struggled as he has made David Copperfield to do in becoming proficient.

His first systematic literary efforts were as a daily writer and reporter for _The True Sun_; he then contributed his sketches of life and character, drawn from personal observation, to the _Morning Chronicle_: these were an earnest of his future powers. They were collected as _Sketches by Boz_, in two volumes, and published in 1836.

PICKWICK.--In 1837 he was asked by a publisher to prepare a series of comic sketches of c.o.c.kney sportsmen, to ill.u.s.trate, as well as to be ill.u.s.trated by, etchings by Seymour. This yoking of two geniuses was a trammel to both; but the suicide of Seymour dissolved the connection, and d.i.c.kens had free play to produce the _Pickwick Papers_, by Boz, which were ill.u.s.trated, as he proceeded, by H. K. Browne (Phiz). The work met and has retained an unprecedented popularity. Caricature as it was, it caricatured real, existent oddities; everything was probable; the humor was sympathetic if farcical, the a.s.sertion of humanity bold, and the philosophy of universal application. He had touched our common nature in all ranks and conditions; he had exhibited men and women of all types; he had exposed the tricks of politics and the absurdity of elections; the sn.o.bs of society were severely handled. He was the censor of law courts, the exposer of swindlers, the dread of c.o.c.kneys, the friend of rustics and of the poor; and he has displayed in the princ.i.p.al character, that of the immortal Pickwick, the power of a generous, simple-hearted, easily deceived, but always philanthropic man, who comes through all his trials without bating a jot of his love for humanity and his faith in human nature. But the master-work of his plastic hand was Sam Weller, whose wit and wisdom pervaded both hemispheres, and is as potent to excite laughter to-day as at the first.