A Victorian Art of Fiction

Essays on the Novel in British Periodicals 1870-1900

John Olmsted, John Charles Olmsted

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781138638372
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317269038
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

First published in 1979, this collection of thirty-nine essays on the novel drawn from seventeen periodicals demonstrates the primary concerns of those discussing the nature and purpose of prose fiction in the period from 1870 to 1900. The essays reflect what was thought and said about the art of fiction and reveal what journalists of these periodicals thought were the most urgent critical concerns facing the working reviewer.

Including an introduction which assesses the issues raised by the best periodicals at the time, this anthology is designed to provide students of Victorian fiction and critical theory with a collection of essays on the art of fiction in a convenient and durable form.

"Our First Great Novelist"

Macmillan's Magazine 30 (May 1874), 1–18

George Barnett Smith

HENRY FIELDING, for he it is upon whom we place the distinction of being England's first great novelist, has for a century past been the constant subject of criticism. His surpassing merits have compelled even his most pronounced foes to assign him a lofty place in the art which he adorned. Attempts to depreciate his genius, because the moral backbone was lacking in some of his characters, have been repeatedly made, but with no permanent effect upon his renown. For ourselves, we affirm at the outset that we consider him the Shakespeare of novelists. By this, of course, it will be understood, we do not imply that the sum of his genius was in any way comparable to that of the illustrious dramatist; but that he achieved his results in the same way. He was the great artist in fiction because he was the great observer and interpreter of human nature. The novel will never be able to assume a position of equal importance with the drama, because of its comparative defectiveness of construction. But to such perfection as it is capable of being brought, Fielding almost attained. It is, then, for the reason of the similarity of his method to that of Shakespeare that we have ventured to award him the highest title of eminence. It will be our endeavour, while not hiding his defects, to set forth the grounds of justification for the position we have assumed.

With that perversity which only men of the same class or profession can exhibit towards each other, it was the fashion with literary men of Fielding's time—and indeed for many years subsequently—to compare him unfavourably with his rival, Richardson. It is singular how frequently individuals of professed literary acumen are willing to accept the dicta of others in matters of criticism. We are only just now losing the effects of this empiricism. Some unfortunate epigram, or some warped and fantastic judgment, has frequently been passed upon an author by those who were supposed to be competent judges, and the depreciatory observations have had the same effect upon the public mind as that of the pebble cast into the pool. The waters have been agitated and disturbed by ever-widening circles of discontent, even to their utmost limits. Much laborious effort has been required to exorcise the prejudice thus established; and it is just this power which a wrong judgment possesses over the minds of men in an equivalent degree with a right one, which makes criticism dangerous. In the hands of an incapable person it is an engine of incalculable mischief. And the fact that now and then this engine destroys its foolish owner is no satisfaction for the wrong done to men of undoubted genius. The self-righting power of criticism certainly moves slowly. We are somewhat diffident, for example, when we find it necessary to differ strongly from such authorities as Dr. Johnson; or at any rate should unquestionably have been so had we been amongst his contemporaries. Now that we are out of reach of his terrible voice and his overbearing demeanour, and regarding him thus from a safe distance, we do not find it so difficult to designate his capacity for judging in literary matters as often shallow and pretentious. Most people admit that his view of Milton is far from a just and worthy one of that sublime poet. He lacked the balance of mind, the intellectual equipoise, which is the foundation of the critical faculty. Consequently, with the lapse of time, his reputation in this respect will crumble away. Even the obsequious Boswell has ventured to insinuate that at times Johnson was so swayed by his feelings that, when making comparisons between writers, he very often contradicted his intellect by his affection; and, while saying the utmost he could of the inferior qualities of his personal favourite, ignored those which were superior in the person with whom he was ranged in comparison. Some such treatment as this was meted out to Fielding when he placed him in juxtaposition with Richardson. Let us reproduce his criticism. "Sir," said he, in that pompous manner in which we can fancy the burly old Doctor was wont to settle the affairs of men and mundane concerns generally, "there is all the difference in the world between characters of nature and characters of manners; and there is the difference between the characters of Fielding and those of Richardson. Characters of manners are very entertaining; but they are to be understood by a more superficial observer than characters of nature, where a man must dive into the recesses of the human heart." There is very little in this beyond saying that there is a great deal of difference between things which differ. Yet it is the kind of criticism which bears a deceptive sound with it, and acquires a reputation far in excess of its value, as being an expression of great apparent profundity. We shall hope to show that in his attribution of the one method to Fielding and the other to Richardson, Dr. Johnson came to an erroneous conclusion. For the present his observations lend some force to what has gone before, and it is an undoubted fact that the weakness of Fielding's moral character had much to do with Johnson's estimate of him. The formidable lexicographer was of that class of men who are almost prepared to find fault with the sun because of the spots upon his surface.

Horace Walpole was another of the critics who appear to have been either blinded by envy or unable to detect the effects of true genius, for we find that he was amongst the earliest detractors of Fielding — a prominent member of the school of depreciators which endeavoured to humble him in the eyes of his contemporaries. It is pleasant, however, to think that some who bear great names have expressed the most unqualified admiration for the novels of our author, and the opinion of one really master mind outweighs that of a hundred Walpoles. Byron gave it as his belief that "Fielding was the prose Homer of human nature;" the far-seeing Goethe was delighted with his art; and Gibbon demonstrated his literary sagacity by the following eloquent eulogium: — "Our immortal Fielding was of the younger branch of the Earls of Denbigh, who drew their origin from the Counts of Hapsburgh, the lineal descendants of Eltrico, in the seventh century Dukes of Alsace. Far different have been the fortunes of the English and German divisions of the family of Hapsburgh; the former, the knights and sheriffs of Leicestershire, have slowly risen to the dignity of a peerage; the latter, the Emperors of Germany and Kings of Spain, have threatened the liberties of the Old, and invaded the treasures of the New World. The successors of Charles V. may disdain their brethren of England; but the romance of 'Tom Jones,' that exquisite picture of human manners, will outlive the palace of the Escurial, and the Imperial Eagle of Austria." Ornate as is Gibbon's language it yet contains a judgment upon Fielding which has been in gradual process of verification since the words were written. Most of those who have dispassionately considered Fielding's works, and compared them with the works of his contemporaries and successors, will arrive at a conclusion much nearer that expressed by Gibbon than that of the detractor, Horace Walpole, Of course, an argument which we have previously used for another purpose, may possibly be inverted and turned against ourselves. It may be replied that after all criticism is only the opinion of one man, though it is often acted upon by the multitude: and that judgments upon literary works attain an inordinate influence when delivered by individuals of acknowledged reputation. Supposing this were to some extent true, every single reader has the opportunity of righting the matter so far as he is personally concerned. But what we do find valuable about the art of criticism, notwithstanding its numerous and manifest imperfections, is this, that it not unfrequently results in the deposition of much that is unworthy, and in the exaltation of some works which have been threatened with an undeserved obscurity. The critic is really nothing more than a leader of men; he is supposed to have the capacity of leading in the right way, and when it is found that there is no light in him, and he is incapable of perceiving eternal Truth, we should withdraw ourselves from his guidance. We say, then, that while it is necessary for a man's self-culture and intellectual independence that he should not accept off hand the opinions of any critic, however eminent, in the bulk and without scrutiny, yet when judgments come to us stamped with the names of those who have devoted themselves to the art of criticism, they should at any rate receive candid, if searching, investigation. The destruction of the empiricism of the critic need not involve the destruction of the eclecticism of the art. It must come to us as a friendly guide, and not as a tyrant. Our own opinion of Fielding stands very little short of the most eulogistic which has been expressed concerning him; but we trust we have arrived at it out of no slavish regard for other minds.

A glance at the novelist's life is almost a necessity, for it elucidates many points in connection with his works which would otherwise be obscure. There has probably been no instance where the impress of the author's character has been more perceptible upon his writings than that of Fielding. Some of his novels confessedly contain passages from his own life, with very little variation of detail. It will have been perceived by the quotation from Gibbon that Fielding was of illustrious descent, but the wealth of the family must have flowed into another channel, for he got none or little of it. He was born on the 22nd of April, 1707, at Sharpham Park, near Glastonbury. His father was a distinguished soldier, having served with Marlborough at Blenheim, and at length obtained the rank of Lieutenant-general. Besides being grandson of an Earl of Denbigh, this warrior was related to other noble families. The mother of Fielding was a daughter of Judge Gold, one of whose immediate descendants was also a baron of the Exchequer. Posterity may thus rest satisfied with the novelist's birth. Fielding, however, was not the only one of his family who appears to have been talented in literature. One of his sisters wrote a romance entitled "David Simple," and was also the author of numerous letters, which, with the story, earned the encomiums of her brother. We cannot, of course, now say to what extent she may have been indebted to him in regard to these compositions. There is every reason to believe that he was most accessible to advice and sympathy, whilst his affection for his relatives was deep and sincere. This —in addition to a warm affection for children—is one of the redeeming traits in a character that was subsequently marred by many imperfections. Having received the earlier part of his education at home, from the Rev. Mr. Oliver, his private tutor—who is supposed to have been laid under contribution as the original of Parson Trulliber—Fielding was sent to Eton, where he became intimate with Fox, Lord Lyttelton, Pitt, and others, who afterwards acquired celebrity with himself, and at various crises in his history sustained towards him the part of real friendship. Unlike many literary men, whose scholastic career has been rather a fiasco than otherwise, Fielding was most successful in his acquisition of knowledge, and when only sixteen years of age was acknowledged by his masters to possess a very sound acquaintance with all the leading Greek and Latin writers. Traces of this linguistic proficiency are again and again beheld in his novels. From Eton he went to the University of Leyden, where he immediately entered upon still wider and more liberal studies; but at the threshold of his life the demon of misfortune which seems to have dogged his footsteps all through his career found him out. His university career closed prematurely, for his father, General Fielding, had married again, and having now two large families to keep out of a small income, discovered that his original intention with regard to his son must be abandoned. This could not have been a pleasant intimation to a youth of twenty, who had just begun to feel the expansion of his faculties, and doubtless to be conscious that his future "might copy his fair past" as regards the accumulation of the stores of knowledge. Whatever laxity of mind overtook him in after life, the earlier years of Fielding show him to have been enamoured of learning, and in no wise averse to its routine. His spirit was keen and eager, and though at twenty years of age he was somewhat given to pleasure, he at the same time was always desirous to excel, and never allowed his recreations and amusements to bar his intellectual progress.

Undismayed, however, by this rebuff of fortune, Fielding returned to London with comparatively little depression of spirits, and even this entirely cleared off as soon as he began to mingle in the society of the metropolis. It was here, as we shall presently see, that greater dangers afterwards attended him, which he was less able to withstand than the assaults of adversity. Fielding was especially distinguished for all those gifts which make a man the darling of the circle in which he moves; and accordingly we learn that in a very few months after his settlement in London he was an established favourite of its great literary and dramatic lions, Lyttelton and Garrick amongst the number. Under the auspices of the latter he speedily commenced writing for the stage, and at the age of twenty, as Mr. Roscoe tells us in his excellent life of the novelist, produced his first comedy of "Love in several Masques." We shall postpone what comments we have to make upon this and Fielding's other works till the close of our remarks on his personal history. Necessity compelled him to turn to the writing of comedies, for though he was supposed to be enjoying an allowance of some 200l. per annum, he made a joke about this income to the effect that it was a sum which really anybody might pay who would. At this juncture some of our most brilliant wits were writing for the stage, so that the young author might be pardoned for the degree of nervousness he felt on entering upon the same career. Indeed, although his genius was not naturally that of the dramatist, the probability is that what aptitude he really possessed for it was somewhat cramped by the circumstances in which he was placed, and the diffidence with which he undertook a profession that at the time enjoyed two of its keenest and wittiest ornaments. It appears, nevertheless, that the comedy already mentioned, and his second one of "The Temple Beau," were well received, though his success was by no means proportioned to his increasing embarrassments. That his efforts at comedy were well appreciated is testified to by Lord Lyttelton's assertion, when some one was alluding to the wits of the age, that "Harry Fielding had more wit and humour than all the persons they had been speaking of put together." This language seems to have been concurred in by others who were continually looking out for some new thing in that age of wit and humour. Fielding must have worked with great rapidity, for during the nine seasons in which he wrote for the stage, and before he attained his thirtieth year, he had written no fewer than eighteen pieces, reckoning both plays and farces.

It was in the midst of his unsatisfactory career in connection with the stage —unsatisfactory because of its restlessness and its recklessness—that an event occurred which promised to change the whole tenor of his life for ever; and had Fielding been as strong in his will as he was in the perception of what is right, we should now probably have been able to write him in different characters. In his twenty-seventh year he fell in love with a young lady named Cradock, residing at Salisbury. She was possessed of both beauty and accomplishments, but her fortune was small. Fielding, however, never hesitated in the pursuit of an object wherein his heart was deeply enlisted, and accordingly he married Miss Cradock with her small fortune of fifteen hundred pounds. The old, old passion had thus again its good old way. Shortly after his marriage his mother died, and Fielding became possessed of a little estate in Dorsetshire, worth some two hundred a year. Hither he bore his bride, and made many resolves to lead the life of a model country gentleman. But with all his affection for his wife—and it was genuine and sincere—he was led by the example of others into great extravagance. Setting up his coach, and living as though he could make one pound do duty for a hundred, it can evoke no surprise that at the end of three years he discovered all his patrimony to be gone, and found himself faced by the terrible spectre of absolute poverty which he himself had raised. It is held by many that genius should never be tried by the ordinary standpoints of thrift and virtue. This is a position to which we can give no kind of countenance; but what we may look at with regard to Fielding, as some mitigation for his conduct at this period, are those social qualities for which he was so famous. Though they ultimately proved his pecuniary ruin, they were marked by a generosity which cannot but breed hi us a pity for the man himself. The delights of society were more than he could bear; he entered into them with a zest which completely overmastered his aplomb, and for the time being made him their slave. So far this was unquestionably bad; but his case must not be confounded with that of the essentially vicious, with the man who never had Fielding's lofty appreciation for the good, and never even felt the most spasmodic striving after an ideal. To the one we can extend our unfeigned sympathy, to the other only our unmitigated abhorrence. As the sequel to the difficulties which overtook Fielding, he was compelled to resume the study of the law, which he had at one time hoped to abandon for ever. Entering himself at the age of thirty as a student of the Inner Temple, he at once began to work with a will, in order to recover himself from his embarrassments. His devotion to his studies was most praiseworthy, and, as he had great natural shrewdness, there is every reason to believe that in the legal profession he would have been most successful. But one cause or another continually interrupted him, and whatever he undertook through life seems to have met with a premature ending. For his failure, however, ultimately to earn distinction at the bar, he was himself in the first instance responsible. He was not only called, but assiduously went the Western circuit for two or three years, though briefs appear to have been very scanty with him. Suddenly, and in consequence of an intimation that he proposed issuing a work upon law, his practice increased immensely, but only, we are told, to decline again as rapidly. Meanwhile physical retribution began to overtake him for the convivial years he had spent in London society; he was seized with gout, in addition to which, his constitution was much weakened and enfeebled; though in justice it must be said that late hours of study, with literary work executed under great pressure, acted as additional causes in the general break-up of his system. The upshot of it all was that after ceasing the active exercise of his profession, and writing two- large volumes (a "Digest of the Statutes at Large"), which remained for many years unpublished, he finally quitted the bar, and returned to literary pursuits. As might be expected from the nature of his talents, he contributed for a time most successfully to periodical literature. But a period of great distress quickly came upon him. With failing health, which interfered somewhat with the operations of his brilliant intellect, his mind was still further racked with the consciousness that his wife and family were entirely dependent upon his exertions. Heroic he undoubtedly was under difficulties, but there are some odds against which men cannot possibly contend. Note, nevertheless, how the true spirit of the man shone through all the darkness which surrounded him at this trying moment. His biographers, one and all, bear testimony to the native strength of his mind. We are assured that "when under the most discouraging circumstances—the loss of comparative fortune, of health, of the fruits of years of successful toil; his body lacerated by the acutest pains, and with a family looking up to him for immediate support—he was still capable, with a degree of fortitude almost unexampled, to produce, as it were, extempore, a play, a farce, a pamphlet, or a newspaper. Nay, like Cervantes, whom he most resembled both in wit and genius, he could jest upon his misfortunes, and make his own sufferings a source of entertainment to the rest of the world." He did, in fact, at this precise period, and in the darkest hour of his misery, indite a rhyming letter to Sir Robert Walpole, with himself and his position for its subject; which is full of the most humorous allusions. One cannot help thinking, while reading this incident, of the much later humourist of our own time, Hood, whose experience was almost its counterpart, with the exception of the difference in the cause of Hood's suffering, a naturally frail constitution being the sole reason of his bodily decay. Fielding was now writing because, as he expressed it, "he had no choice but to be a hackney writer or a hackney coachman," This was the man who had been the pride of London fashionables, who had doubtless kept a hundred tables in a roar, and whose very enjoyment of life for its own sake was so keen as to cause Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (his second cousin) to say in comparing him with Steele, that "he ought to go on living for ever." When writing for the stage, Fielding was frequently obliged to pass off work which did not satisfy his critical judgment. For this he was now and then remonstrated with by Garrick, and he once replied that the public were too stupid to find out where he failed. The consensus of the pit, however, is tolerably keen, and when the audience began on this occasion to hiss the weak part of the comedy Fielding was astonished, exclaiming, "They have found it out, have they?" An anecdote characteristic both of the man and his times is told of the novelist which affords a clue to some of his pecuniary difficulties, though it is a credit to his generosity. It appears that some parochial taxes had long remained unpaid by Fielding, a fact which need not greatly surprise us. At length the collector—as tax-collectors always will—became rather threatening in his aspect, and Fielding went off to Dr. Johnson, that friend-in-need of the impecunious, to obtain the necessary sum of money by a literary mortgage. He was returning when he met with an old college friend who was in even greater difficulties than himself. He took him to dinner at a neighbouring tavern, and emptied the contents of his pockets into his hands. Being informed on returning home that the collector had twice called on him for the amount, Fielding replied, "Friendship has called for the money, and had it; let the collector call again." Other anecdotes could be cited illustrating the bonhomie and natural benevolence of the novelist's character.

It was during the period in which Fielding was most busily employed upon his literary ven...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Original Title
• Original Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• "The Uses of Fiction." Tinsleys' Magazine 6 (March 1870), 180-85
• "Recent Novels." Academy 2 (December 15, 1871), 552-54
• "Dickens in Relation to Criticism." Fortnightly Review 17 (February 1872), 141-54
• "The Late Lord Lytton as a Novelist." Cornhill Magazine 27 (March 1873), 345-54
• "Middlemarch, a Study of Provincial Life," Quarterly Review 134 (April 1873), 336-69
• "Our First Great Novelist." Macmillan's Magazine 30 (May 1874), 1-18
• from "Ouida's Novels." Westminster Review 105 (April 1876), 360-86
• "Novel-Reading." Nineteenth Century 5 (January 1879), 24-43
• "The Novels of George Meredith." British Quarterly Review 69 (April 1879), 411-25
• "The New Fiction." Contemporary Review 37 (February 1880), 247-62
• "The Moral Element in Literature." Cornhill Magazine 43 (January 1881, 34-50
• "A Gossip on Romance." Longman's Magazine 1 (November 1882), 69-79
• "Charles Dickens." Fortnightly Review 38 (December 1882), 762-79
• "American Novels." Quarterly Review 155 (January 1883), 201-29
• "The New School of Fiction." National Review 1 (April 1883), 257-68
• "About Old and New Novels." Contemporary Review 45 (March 1884), 388-402
• "The Art of Fiction." Longman's Magazine 4 (September 1884), 502-21
• "Mr. Howells' Novels." Westminster Review 122 (October 1884), 347-75
• "A Humble Remonstrance." Longman's Magazine 5 (December 1884), 139-47
• "A Dialogue on Novels." Contemporary Review 48 (September 1885), 378-401
• "About Fiction." Contemporary Review 51 (February 1887), 172-80
• "The Present State of the Novel. I." Fortnightly Review 48 (September 1887), 410-17
• "Count Leo Tolstoi." Fortnightly Review 48 (December 1887) 783-99
• "The Present State of the Novel. II." Fortnightly Review 49 (January 1888), 112-23
• "Gustave Flaubert." Gentleman's Magazine 265 (August 1888), 120-31
• "The Fall of Fiction." Fortnightly Review 50 (September 1888), 324-36
• "New Novels." Academy 37 (January 18, 1890), 41-43
• "The New Watchwords of Fiction." Contemporary Review 57 (April 1890), 479-88
• "Brought Back from Elysium." Contemporary Review 57 (June 1890), 846-54
• "La Bête Humaine. A Study in Zola's Idealism." Fortnightly Review 56 (October 1891), 453-62
• "A Study of Mr. Thomas Hardy." Westminster Review 137 (February 1892), 153-64
• "The Tyranny of the Novel." National Review 19 (April 1892), 163-75
• "Reticence in Literature. Some Roundabout Remarks." Yellow Book 2 (July 1894), 259-69
• "The Romances of Nathaniel Hawthorne." Westminster Review 142 (August 1894), 203-14
• "On Literary Construction." Contemporary Review 68 (September 1895), 404-19
• "Concerning Jude the Obscure." Savoy No. 6 (October 1896), 35-49
• "A Tragic Novel." Cosmopolis 7 (July 1897), 38-59
• "Balzac." Fortnightly Review 71 (May 1899), 745-57
• "The Aesthetics of the Novel." Literature 5 (July 29, 1899), 98-100