Halleck's New English Literature Part 36

Thou wilt have time enough for hymns divine, Since Heaven's eternal year is thine."

Some of his plays have songs and speeches instinct with lyrical force.

The following famous lines on the worth of existence are taken from his tragedy of _Aurengzebe:_--

"When I consider'd life, 'tis all a cheat, Yet, fool'd with hope, men favor the deceit, Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay: To-morrow's falser than the former day, Lies worse; and while it says, we shall be blest With some new joys, cuts off what we possest.

Strange cozenage! none would live past years again; Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain.

And, from the dregs of life, think to receive What the first sprightly running could not give.

I'm tir'd with waiting for this chemic gold, Which fools us young and beggars us when old."

General Characteristics.--In point of time, Dryden is the first great poet of the school of literary artists. His verse does not tolerate the unpruned irregularities and exaggerations of many former English poets. His command over language is remarkable. He uses words almost as he chooses, but he does not invest them with the warm glow of feeling. He is, however, something more than a great word artist.

Many of his ideas bear the stamp of marked originality.

In the field of satiric and didactic poetry, he is a master. The intellectual, not the emotional, side of man's nature appeals strongly to him. He heeds not the song of the bird, the color of the rose, nor the clouds of evening.

Although more celebrated for his poetry than for his prose, he is the earliest of the great modern prose stylists, and he displays high critical ability.

DANIEL DEFOE, 1659?-1731

[Ill.u.s.tration: DANIEL DEFOE. _From a print by Vandergucht_.]

Varied Experiences.--Daniel Defoe was born in London, probably the year before the Restoration. His father, a butcher in good circ.u.mstances, sent the boy to a school in which English, instead of Latin, was the medium of instruction. He was taught how to express himself in the simple, forceful English for which he became famous.

His education was planned to make him a dissenting minister; but he preferred a life of varied activity. He became a trader, a manufacturer of tiles, a journalist, and a writer of fiction. By also serving as a government agent and spy, he incurred the severe criticism of contemporaries. It is doubtful if even Shakespeare had more varied experiences or more vicissitudes in life.

For writing what would to-day be considered a harmless piece of irony, _The Shortest Way with Dissenters_, in which Defoe, who was himself a dissenter, advocated banishment or hanging, he suffered the mortification of exposure for three days in the pillory and of imprisonment in the pestilent Newgate jail. His business of making tiles was consequently ruined. These experiences, with which his enemies taunted him, colored his entire life and made him realize that the support of his wife and six children necessitated care in his choice and treatment of subjects.

His life was a succession of changing fortunes. He died in poverty in 1731 and was buried in Bunhill Fields, London. His grave was marked by only a small headstone, but the English boys and girls who had read _Robinson Crusoe_ in the Victorian age subscribed the money for a monument with a suitable inscription. It is remarkable that Bunhill Fields, which contains the graves of so many humble dissenters, should be the final resting place of both Bunyan and Defoe, the authors of the first two English prose works most often read to-day.

A Journalist and a Prolific Writer.--Defoe has at last come to be regarded as the first great English journalist. He had predecessors in this field, for as early as 1622 the _Coranto_, or journal of "current" foreign news, appeared. In 1641, on the eve of the civil war, the _Diurnall_ of domestic news was issued. In 1643, when Parliament appointed a licenser, who gave copyright protection to the "catchword" or newspaper t.i.tle, journalists became a "recognized body." "Newsbooks" and especially "newsletters" grew in popularity.

Only a few years after the Restoration, there appeared _The London Gazette_, which has been continued to the present time as the medium through which the government publishes its official news.

From 1704 to 1713 Defoe issued _The Review_, which appeared triweekly for the greater part of the time, and gave the news current in England and in much of Europe. _The Review_, an unusual achievement for the age, shows Defoe to have been a journalist of great ability. This paper had one department, called _The Scandal Club_, which furnished suggestions for _The Tatler_ and _The Spectator_.

It has been computed that Defoe wrote for _The Review_ during the nine years of its publication 5000 pages of essays, in addition to nearly the same amount of other matter. He also issued many pamphlets, which performed somewhat the same service as the modern newspaper with its editorials. It is probable that he was the most prolific of all English authors. Few have discussed as wide a range of matter. He wrote more than two hundred and fifty separate works on subjects as different as social conditions, the promotion of business, human conduct, travels in England, and ghosts.

Fiction.--Defoe was nearly sixty when he began to write fiction. In 1719 he published the first part of _Robinson Crusoe_, the story of the adventures of a sailor wrecked on a solitary island. The Frenchman Daudet said of this work: "It is as nearly immortal as any book can ever be." The nineteenth century saw more than one hundred editions of it published in London alone. It has been repeatedly issued in almost every language of Europe. The secret of the success of _Robinson Crusoe_ has puzzled hundreds of writers who have tried to imitate it.

The world-wide popularity of _Robinson Crusoe_ is chiefly due (1) to the peculiar genius of the author; (2) to his journalistic training, which enabled him to seize on the essential elements of interest and to keep these in the foreground; (3) to the skill with which he presents matter-of-fact details, sufficient to invest the story with an atmosphere of perfect reality; (4) to his style, which is as simple and direct as the speech of real life, and which is made vivid by specific words describing concrete actions,--such as hewing a tree, sharpening a stake, hanging up grapes to dry, tossing a biscuit to a wild cat, taking a motherless kid in his arms; and (5) to the skill with which he sets a problem requiring for its solution energy, ingenuity, self-reliance, and the development of the moral power necessary to meet and overcome difficulties.

Young and old follow with intense interest every movement of the shipwrecked mariner when he first swims to the stranded ship, constructs a raft, and places on it "bread, rice, three Dutch cheeses, five pieces of dried goat's flesh, a little remainder of European corn, and the carpenter's chest." Readers do not accompany him pa.s.sively as he lands the raft and returns. They work with him; they are not only made a part of all Crusoe's experience, but they react on it imaginatively; they suggest changes; they hold their breath or try to a.s.sist him when he is in danger. Defoe's genius in making the reader a partner in Robinson Crusoe's adventures has not yet received sufficient appreciation. The author could never have secured such a triumph if he had not compelled readers to take an active part in the story.

It was for a long time thought that Defoe was ignorant, that he accidentally happened to write _Robinson Crusoe_ because he had been told of the recent experience of Alexander Selkirk on a solitary island in the Pacific. It is now known that Defoe was well educated, versed in several languages, and the most versatile writer of his time. _Robinson Crusoe_ was no more of an accident than any other creation of genius.

Defoe's other princ.i.p.al works of fiction are: _Memoirs of a Cavalier_, the story of a soldier's adventures in the seventeenth century; _The Life, Adventures, and Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton_, a graphic account of adventures in a journey across Africa; _Moll Flanders_, a story of a well-known criminal; and _A Journal of the Plague Year_, a vivid, imaginative presentation, in the most realistic way, of the horrors of the London plague in 1665. These works are almost completely overshadowed by _Robinson Crusoe_; but they also show Defoe's narrative power and his ability to make fiction seem an absolute reality. In writing _Gulliver's Travels_, Swift received valuable hints from Defoe. Stevenson's _Treasure Island_ is the most successful of the almost numberless stories of adventure suggested by _Robinson Crusoe_.

JONATHAN SWIFT, 1667-1745

[Ill.u.s.tration: JONATHAN SWIFT. _From the painting by C. Jervas, National Portrait Gallery_.]

Life.--Swift, one of the greatest prose writers of the eighteenth century, was born of English parents in Dublin in 1667. It is absolutely necessary to know something of his life in order to pa.s.s proper judgment on his writings. A cursory examination of his life will show that heredity and environment were responsible for many of his peculiarities. Swift's father died a few months before the birth of his son, and the boy saw but little of his mother.

Swift's school and college life were pa.s.sed at Kilkenny School and Trinity College, Dublin. For his education he was indebted to an uncle, who made the boy feel the bitterness of his dependence. In after times he said that his uncle treated him like a dog. Swift's early experience seems to have made him misanthropic and hardened to consequences, for he neglected certain studies, and it was only by special concession that he was allowed to take his A.B. degree in 1686.

After leaving college, he spent almost ten years as the private secretary of Sir William Temple, at Moor Park in Surrey, about forty miles southwest of London. Temple had been asked to furnish some employment for the young graduate because Lady Temple was related to Swift's mother. Here Swift was probably treated as a dependent, and he had to eat at the second table. Finally, this life became so intolerable that he took holy orders and went to a little parish in Ireland; but after a stay of eighteen months he returned to Moor Park, where he remained until Temple's death in 1699. Swift then went to another little country parish in Ireland. From there he visited London on a mission in behalf of the Episcopal Church in Ireland. He quarreled with the Whigs, became a Tory, and a.s.sisted that party by writing many political pamphlets. The Tory ministry soon felt that it could scarcely do without him. He dined with ministers of state, and was one of the most important men in London; but he advanced the interests of his friends much better than his own, for he got little from the government except the hope of becoming bishop. In 1713 he was made dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. In 1714, Queen Anne died, the Tories went out of power, and Swift returned to Ireland, a disappointed man. He pa.s.sed the rest of his life there, with the exception of a few visits to England.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MOOR PARK. _From a drawing._]

When English politicians endeavored to oppress Ireland with unjust laws, Swift championed the Irish cause. A man who knew him well, says: "I never saw the poor so carefully and conscientiously attended to as those of his cathedral." He gave up a large part of his income every year for the poor. In Dublin he was looked upon as a hero. When a certain person tried to be revenged on Swift for a satire, a deputation of Swift's neighbors proposed to thrash the man. Swift sent them home, but they boycotted the man and lowered his income 1200 a year.

During the last years of his life, Swift was hopelessly insane. He died in 1745, leaving his property for an asylum for lunatics and incurables.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SWIFT AND STELLA. _From the painting by d.i.c.ksee._]

The mysteries in Swift's life may be partly accounted for by the fact that during many years he suffered from an unknown brain disease. This affection, the galling treatment received in his early years, and the disappointments of his prime, largely account for his misanthropy, for his coldness, and for the almost brutal treatment of the women who loved him.

Swift's attachment to the beautiful Esther Johnson, known in literature as Stella, led him to write to her that famous series of letters known as the _Journal to Stella_, in which he gives much of his personal history during the three sunniest years of his life, from 1710 to 1713, when he was a lion in London. Thackeray says: "I know of nothing more manly, more tender, more exquisitely touching, than some of these brief notes, written in what Swift calls his 'little language' in his _Journal to Stella_."

A Tale of a Tub and the Battle of the Books.--Swift's greatest satire, the greatest prose satire in English, is known as _A Tale of a Tub_. The purpose of the work is to uphold the Episcopalians and satirize opposing religious denominations. For those not interested in theological arguments, there is much entertaining philosophy, as the following quotation will show:--

"If we take an examination of what is generally understood by happiness, as it has respect either to the understanding or the senses, we shall find all its properties and adjuncts will herd under this short definition,--that it is a perpetual possession of being well deceived. And first, with relation to the mind or understanding it is manifest what mighty advantages fiction has over truth; and the reason is just at our elbow, because imagination can build n.o.bler scenes and produce more wonderful revolutions than fortune or nature will be at expense to furnish."

Swift's satiric definition of happiness as the art "of being well deceived" is a characteristic instance of a combination of his humor and pessimistic philosophy.

In the same volume with _A Tale of a Tub_, there was published a prose satire in almost epic form, _An Account of a Battle between the Ancient and Modern Books in St. James Library_ (1704). Although this satire apparently aims to demonstrate the superior merits of the great cla.s.sical writers, it is mainly an attack on pretentions to knowledge.

Our greatest surprise in this satire comes not only from discovering the expression, "sweetness and light," made famous by Matthew Arnold in the Victorian age, but also from finding that a satirist like Swift a.s.signed such high rank to these qualities. He says that the "Ancients" thus expressed an essential difference between themselves and the "Moderns":--

"The difference is that, instead of dirt and poison, we have rather chosen to fill our lives with honey and wax, thus furnishing mankind with the two n.o.blest of things, which are Sweetness and Light."

Gulliver's Travels.--The world is always ready to listen to any one who has a good story to tell. Neither children nor philosophers have yet wearied of reading the adventures of Captain Lemuel Gulliver in Lilliput and Brobdingnag. _Gulliver's Travels_ is Swift's most famous work.

Gulliver makes four remarkable voyages to strange countries. He first visits Lilliput, which is inhabited by a race of men about six inches high. Everything is on a corresponding scale. Gulliver eats a whole herd of cattle for breakfast and drinks several hogsheads of liquor.

He captures an entire fleet of warships. A rival race of pygmies endeavors to secure his services so as to obtain the balance of power.

The quarrels between these little people seem ridiculous, and so petty as to be almost beneath contempt.

Gulliver next visits Brobdingnag, where the inhabitants are sixty feet tall, and the affairs of ordinary human beings appear petty and insignificant. The cats are as large as three oxen, and the dogs attain the size of four elephants. Gulliver eats on a table thirty feet high, and trembles lest he may fall and break his neck. The baby seizes Gulliver and tries to swallow his head. Afterward the hero fights a desperate battle with two rats. A monkey catches him and carries him to the almost infinite height of the house top. Certainly, the voyages to Lilliput and Brobdingnag merit Leslie Stephen's criticism of being "almost the most delightful children's book ever written."

The third voyage, which takes him to Laputa, satirizes the philosophers. We are taken through the academy at Lagado and are shown a typical philosopher:--

"He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cuc.u.mbers, which were to be put in vials, hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw, inclement summers. He told me he did not doubt that in eight years more he should be able to supply the governor's gardens with sunshine at a reasonable rate."

In this voyage the Struldbrugs are described. They are a race of men who, after the loss of every faculty and of every tie that binds them to earth, are doomed to continue living. Dante never painted a stronger or a ghastlier picture.

On his fourth voyage, he visits the country of the Houyhnhnms and describes the Yahoos, who are the embodiment of all the detestable qualities of human beings. The last two voyages are not pleasant reading, and one might wish that the author of two such inimitable tales as the adventures in Lilliput and Brobdingnag had stopped with these.

Children read _Gulliver's Travels_ for the story, but there is much more than a story in the work. In its pages the historian finds allusions that throw much light on the history of the age. Among the Lilliputians, for example, there is one party, known as the Bigendians, which insists that all eggs shall be broken open at the big end, while another party, called the Littleendians, contends that eggs shall be opened only at the little end. These differences typify the quarrels of the age concerning religion and politics. The _Travels_ also contains much human philosophy. The lover of satire is constantly delighted with the keenness of the thrusts.

General Characteristics.--Swift is one of the greatest of English prose humorists. He is noted also for wit of that satiric kind which enjoys the discomfiture of the victim. A typical instance is shown in the way in which, under the a.s.sumed name of Isaac Bickerstaff, he dealt with an astrologer and maker of prophetic almanacs, whose name was Partridge. Bickerstaff claimed to be an infallible astrologer, and predicted that Partridge would die March 29, 1708, at 11 P.M. When that day had pa.s.sed, Bickerstaff issued a pamphlet giving a circ.u.mstantial account of Partridge's death. Partridge, finding that his customers began to decrease, protested that he was alive.

Bickerstaff promptly replied that Partridge was dead by his own infallible rules of astrology, and that the man now claiming to be Partridge was a vile impostor.

Swift's wit frequently left its imprint on the thought of the time.