Chapter II: The Victorian Contribution (2)

Eliot, in Darmstetter’s _English Studies_, Dowden’s
_Studies in Literature_, Morley’s _Critical
Miscellanies_, Myers’ _Modern Essays_, and Sherer’s
_Essays on English Literature_.

Meredith, in Elton’s _Modern Studies_, Henderson’s
_Interpreters of Life and the Modern Spirit_, and Sherman’s
_On Contemporary Literature_. Forman is editor of a volume
_Some Early Appreciations of Meredith_.

Reade, in _Swinburne’s Miscellanies_.

Trollope, in Bradford’s _A Naturalist of Souls_, and Julian
Hawthorne’s _Confessions in Criticism_.

And finally there are certain combinations and groups, such as:

Brontë and Eliot, in Bonnell’s _Charlotte Brontë, George
Eliot, and Jane Austen_.

Brontë, Dickens, Eliot, Thackeray, and Trollope, in Saintsbury’s
_Corrected Impressions_; and Peacock, in his _Essays in
English Literature_.

Brontë, Disraeli, Kingsley, and Eliot, in Stephen’s _Hours
in a Library_; and Trollope, in his _Studies of a
Biographer_.

Dickens and Thackeray, in Bagehot’s _Literary Studies_, and
Field’s _Yesterdays with Authors_.

Dickens, Thackeray, and Eliot, in Clark’s _Study of English
Prose Writers_.

Dickens, Thackeray, and Kingsley, in Lang’s _Essays in
Little_.

Dickens and Lytton, in Home’s _New Spirit of the Age_.

Dickens, in Hutton’s _Criticism on Contemporary Thought and
Thinkers_, and Eliot, in his _Essays on Some Modern Guides
to English Thought_.

Dickens, Disraeli, Gaskell, and Meredith, in More’s _Shelburne
Essays_.

Disraeli and Peacock, in Garnett’s _Essays of an
ex-Librarian_.

Eliot, in Berle’s _George Eliot and Thomas Hardy_.

Eliot and Trollope, in James’s _Partial Portraits_.

The following editions of the novelists are those referred to in the text.

Brontë.
_Jane Eyre._ Haworth edition. Harper.
_Shirley_ and _Villette_. Dent edition.

Butler.
_Erewhon_ and _Erewhon Revisited_. Dutton.
_The Way of All Flesh. Modern Library_ edition. Boni
and Liveright.

Dickens.
_Pickwick_, _Oliver Twist_, _Nicholas Nickleby_,
_Martin Chuzzlewit_, _Hard Times_, _Little
Dorrit_, _Tale of Two Cities_, _Our Mutual Friend_.
Hearst International edition.
_Great Expectations_, and _Edwin Drood_. The Jefferson
Press.
_Dombey and Son._ Crowell.
_Barnaby Rudge._ Chapman and Hall.
_Disraeli._ Longmans, Green.

Eliot.
_Middlemarch_ and _Mill on the Floss_. Blackwood.
All the others, Scribners’ Standard edition.

Gaskell. Smith, Elder.

Kingsley. Macmillan.

Lytton. Knebworth edition. Routledge and Sons.

Meredith.
_Sandra Belloni_, _Celt and Saxon_, and _One of Our
Conquerors_: Scribner.
All the others, Constable.

Peacock. Aldine edition. Dent.

Reade. Dana Estes.

Trollope.
Cathedral Series and _The Claverings_: Smith, Elder.
Manor House Series. Dodd, Mead.
_The Bertrams._ Harper.
_The Way We Live Now._ Chapman and Hall.

Thackeray. Dana Estes.

INDEX

_Absalom and Achitophel_, 12 n.

_Adam Bede_, 152, 252, 277, 309 f.

Addison, Joseph, 48, 89.

_Adventures of an Atom_, 193.

_Adventures of Philip, The_, 186.

Alden, R. M., 40.

_Alice_, 158.

_Alton Locke_, 131, 191 n., 198, 212 f., 221.

_Amazing Marriage, An_, 98, 157, 203, 274, 283, 309 n., 313.

_Anti-Jacobin, The_, 169.

_Apology for Smectymnuus, An_, 12.

Ariosto, L., 124.

Aristophanes; his comedy, 4, 8;
comments by Cope and White, 19, 48, 78, 204, 304.

_Aristophanes’ Apology_, 10, 15, 34, 37.

Aristotle, 7, 49.

Arnold, Matthew, 49, 134, 177, 223, 313, 315.

Austen, Jane, 49, 84, 112, 123 n., 129, 134 n., 156, 238, 245, 306.

_Author, The_, 17.

_Autobiography_, (Trollope’s), 52 n.

Bacon, Francis, 273.

_Barchester Towers_, 88, 108 f., 209.

Barclay, Alexander, 21 n., 243.

_Barnaby Rudge_, 96.

_Barry Lyndon_, 78, 79, 148.

_Beauchamp’s Career_, 88, 98 f., 115, 155, 160, 174, 192, 197,
213 f., 224, 301, 302.

Bergson, Henri, 7, 28.

_Bertrams, The_, 142, 202 f., 208 f., 221.

_Bigelow Papers, The_, 4, 168.

Birrell, Augustine, 35.

Blackmore, Sir Richard, 46.

Blake, William, 49.

_Bleak House_, 97, 140, 141, 202.

Boileau, N., 48.

_Book of Snobs, The_, 206 f., 219 f., 286.

Bourne, Randolph, 128.

Bright, John, 170, 204.

Brontë, Charlotte, 46, 49, 50, 85, 92, 116, 130, 131, 156, 170,
180, 183 f., 191, 210, 218, 231, 260, 270, 271, 279, 285, 301.

Brown, John, 12 f., 36, 123 n.

Browne, Sir Thomas, 176.

Browning, Robert, 10, 15, 34, 37, 49, 76, 98, 172 n., 313.

Bryce, James, 84 n.

Buckingham, 2nd Duke of, 9.

Burns, Robert, 48.

Burton, Robert, 49.

Butler, Samuel, 46, 48, 61, 62, 63 f., 81, 82, 87, 128, 130, 145,
180, 187, 190, 191, 198, 202, 210, 214, 218, 219, 221, 222, 231,
246 n., 269, 270, 273, 278, 280, 287, 290 n., 294, 295, 301,
306, 307, 315.

Byron, Lord, 11 n., 17, 28, 35, 48, 76, 169, 171, 173, 177, 223,
289, 304, 306.

Cannan, Gilbert, 69 n.

_Candidate, The_, 16.

Carlyle, Thomas, 38 n., 49, 177, 195, 204, 222 n., 228, 236 n.,
294, 313, 315.

_Catherine_, 62 n., 79, 148.

_Caxtons, The_, 25.

Cervantes, 4, 9 n., 25, 48, 51, 67 n., 70, 175 f., 307.

Chaucer, Geoffrey, 286.

Chesterton, G. K., 65 n., 71 n., 195, 246 n.

Churchill, Charles, 6, 16 f., 48.

Claudius, 169.

_Cloister and the Hearth, The_, 88.

_Coffee-House Politician, The_, 23.

Coleridge, S. T., 171 f., 173, 177.

Collins, Wilkie, 46.

_Colloquies of Society_, 173 n.

_Colyn Clout_, 21 n., 301.

_Coming Race, The_, 63 n., 68, 72, 81, 133, 193, 227.

_Coningsby_, 170, 174, 299.

_Covent Garden Journal, The_, 9 n.

Cowper, William, 17 n., 18, 33, 49, 176.

_Cranford_, 88.

Croce, Benedetto, 4.

_Crochet Castle_, 62, 132, 145, 171, 220.

Crotch, W. W., 246 n.

_Daniel Deronda_, 236 f., 251, 253 n., 281, 292, 310.

Dante, 49.

_David Copperfield_, 78, 199, 218, 219, 250, 300.

Dawson, W. J., 15.

Defoe, Daniel, 12, 17, 22, 49, 70, 74 n., 89, 128, 183.

De Quincey, Thomas, 14, 33, 49, 128.

Dewey, John, 5.

Dickens, Charles, 46, 48, 53, 92, 95 f., 130, 157, 170, 174, 183,
187, 190, 191, 195, 198, 199, 202, 203, 205, 218, 222 n., 231,
234, 235, 237, 238, 240, 244, 247, 249, 250, 260, 262, 269, 270,
271, 272, 273, 278, 285, 287, 290, 315.

_Diana of the Crossways_, 161, 185, 214, 239, 276, 284, 298, 302.

_Dinner of Trimalchio, The_, 127.

Disraeli, Benjamin, 45, 47, 49, 51, 52, 61, 62, 72 f., 77, 81, 82,
89, 123, 130, 134, 156, 170, 173, 174, 187, 188, 191, 193 f.,
198, 202, 210, 216, 225, 231, 244, 271, 279, 299, 315.

_Doctor Thorne_, 143, 192.

_Dombey and Son_, 138, 141, 218, 219, 250 f.

Domitian, 67, 169.

_Don Juan_, 4, 76, 82.

_Don Quixote_, 82, 127.

Donne, John, 48.

Dowden, Edward, 191.

Dryden, John, 12, 21 f., 48, 123 n., 286.

_Duke’s Children, The_, 217 n., 240.

Dunbar, William, 48.

_Dunciad, The_, 82, 169.

_Edwin Drood_, 232, 270.

Edgeworth, Maria, 84.

_Egoist, The_, 78, 88, 98, 100, 101, 153, 184 f., 277, 283, 293.

Eliot, George, 46, 47, 49, 92, 116, 130, 152, 157, 170, 177, 180,
183, 191, 205, 216, 235, 236, 247, 251, 253, 256, 257, 261,
273, 274, 277, 278, 280, 281, 285, 287, 291, 295, 309, 315.

_Emma_, 78.

_England and the English_, 225.

_English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_, 17.

_English Humorists, The_, 50.

_English Novel, The_ (Raleigh’s), 26, 304.

_Epistle to William Hogarth_, 16.

_Epistles to the Literati_, 174.

Erasmus, 49.

_Erewhon_, 63 n., 68, 81, 82, 146 f., 190, 202, 214 f., 227.

_Erewhon Revisited_, 63 n., 69, 81, 216, 290 n.

_Essay on Comedy, An_, 14, 27 f., 31 n., 36 n., 160, 293, 312.

_Essay on Satire, (Brown’s)_, 12 f., 36, 123 n. (Dryden’s), 21 n.,
22, 123 n.

_Ettrick Shepherd, The_, 1, 174 n.

Euripides, 48.

_Evan Harrington_, 161, 162, 190, 255, 284, 307, 308 f.

_Every Man in his Humour_, 8.

_Fair Haven, The_, 69.

_Farina_, 63 n., 79, 81.

_Fatal Boots, The_, 103.

_Felix Holt_, 158 n., 170, 192, 198, 236, 251, 291, 304 n.

Ferrier, Susan, 111, 238.

Fielding, Henry, 9, 14, 22 f., 28, 37 n., 48, 51 n., 89, 91, 286,
303.

_Framley Parsonage_, 119 f., 142, 143 f., 196, 207, 309.

France, Anatole, 49, 124, 246 n.

Freeman, A. M., 66 n.

Fuess, C. M., 28.

Galsworthy, John, 125.

Garnett, Richard, 10, 36, 67 n., 303.

Gascoigne, George, 25, 48.

Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn, 45, 49, 84, 92, 130, 157, 183, 191,
195, 205, 216, 247, 270, 279, 285, 287, 306.

Gay, John, 6.

_Getting Married_, 180.

Gibbon, Edward, 49.

Gifford, William, 14, 17, 48, 171.

_Godolphin_, 234, 276.

_Golden Ass, The_, 127.

Goldsmith, Oliver, 48.

_Great Expectations_, 160.

_Great Hoggarty Diamond, The_, 62 n., 79.

_Gryll Grange_, 63 n., 65, 67.

_Gulliver’s Travels_, 68, 82, 89.

Hall, Joseph, 35, 48, 124, 289.

Hannay, James, 2.

_Hard Times_, 138, 198, 218.

Hardy, Thomas, 46, 49, 156, 223.

Harris, J. E., 71 f.

_Harry Richmond_, 98.

Hazlitt, William, 30 n.

Headlam, Cecil, 286.

_Headlong Hall_, 62 n., 171.

Hebrew _Adversary_, The, 2.

Hebrew Prophets, The, 48.

Heinsius, Daniel, 40 n.

Herford, C. H., 21.

_Henry Esmond_, 88.

_Historical Register, The_, 9.

Homer, 49.

Hood, Thomas, 48.

Hook, Theodore, 170.

Horace, 6, 7, 11, 21, 25, 32 f., 48, 60, 286, 289.

Humor, 5, 7, 59, 83, 86, 280.

Hutten, Ulrich von, 127.

Huxley, Thomas, 177, 315.

_Hypatia_, 88.

Ibsen, Henrik, 71.

_Imaginary Conversations_, 27, 34.

_Infernal Marriage, The_, 62 n., 76 f., 198.

_Intriguing Chambermaid, The_, 22.

Irony, 50, 121 f., 129, 163 f.

_Isaiah_, 297.

_Ixion_, 62 n., 76, 81, 173, 203 f., 223.

James, William, 305.

_Jane Eyre_, 88, 218.

Jerrold, Douglas, 313.

_Job_, 2, 48.

Johnson, Lionel, 22, 35, 176.

Johnson, Samuel, 35, 49, 286.

Jonson, Ben, 8, 48, 59, 229.

Jordan, David Starr, 243.

_Joseph Andrews_, 78.

_Journey from this World to the Next, A_, 68.

_Journey to Parnassus, A_, 175 n., 176.

Juvenal, 6, 11, 21, 37, 48, 169, 286, 289.

Kenelm Chillingly, 113 f., 133, 188, 221 n., 274.

Kingsley, Charles, 46, 49, 50 n., 92, 130, 131, 156, 174, 180,
185 f., 187, 191, 195, 210, 212, 215 n., 219, 221, 231, 236 n.,
248 n., 249, 252 n., 260, 270, 271, 273, 279, 287, 298 f., 301.

Kingsley, Henry, 46.

Knight, Charles, 53.

Lamb, Charles, 6, 129, 175.

Landor, W. S., 27, 34.

Langland, W., 49.

_Last Chronicles of Barset, The_, 109, 118, 237, 261.

_Last Days of Pompeii, The_, 88.

_Latter Day Pamphlets_, 201 n.

_Legend of the Rhine, The_, 62 n., 79, 81.

Lenient, C., 163, 181.

_Letters to Obscure Men_, 127.

_Little Dorrit_, 97, 199.

Lodge, Thomas, 48.

_Looking Backward_, 73, 227.

_Lord Ormont and his Aminta_, 185.

_Love’s Labour’s Lost_, 78.

Lowell, J. R., 168, 193.

Lucian, 4, 9 n., 27, 125, 126.

Lucretius, 49.

Lydgate, John, 148, 243.

Lytton, E. Bulwer, 45, 49, 61, 62, 68, 72 f., 81, 82, 85, 89, 130,
157, 173, 174 f., 177, 183, 187, 191, 192 f., 198, 205, 219,
222 n., 225, 227, 231, 234, 237, 244, 249, 259, 270, 271, 272,
275, 278, 279, 285, 286, 300, 306.

Macaulay, T. B., 173 n.

MacDonald, George, 46.

_MacFlecknoe_, 169.

_Madame Bovary_, 61.

Maeterlinck, M., 16, 315.

_Maid Marian_, 62 n., 65, 79, 81, 145.

_Makers of English Fiction_, 15.

Mallock, W. H., 177.

_Maltravers_, 234 f., 237.

_Mansfield Park_, 209.

_Man and Superman_, 4.

Marston, John, 12, 17.

_Martin Chuzzlewit_, 84, 101, 134, 137.

_Mary Barton_, 88, 198, 298, 306.

Masefield, John, 128.

Massey, Gerald, 170.

_Melincourt_, 62 n., 81, 171, 172, 173, 182 f., 192, 205, 226,
247 f., 311.

Meredith, George, 2, 14, 27, 28, 31 n., 46, 47, 48, 50 n., 54, 61,
62, 71 n., 77, 79, 81, 82, 92, 97 f., 117, 130, 152, 157, 170,
180, 183, 184, 187, 190, 192, 195, 213 f., 216, 217 n., 222,
223, 224, 231, 240, 242, 244, 245, 247, 253, 254, 255, 256, 257,
258 f., 262, 269, 270, 273, 274, 275, 276, 278, 280–287, 293,
295, 298, 301, 302, 308, 312, 313, 315.

_Middlemarch_, 151, 158, 192, 238, 253, 274, 281, 291, 292, 304.

_Mill on the Floss, The_, 150, 238, 274.

Milnes, R. M., 170.

Milton, John, 12, 49.

_Misfortunes of Elphin, The_, 62 n., 65, 81, 192, 206.

_Modern Utopia, A_, 68.

_Modest Proposal, A_, 147, 313.

Molière, Jean-Baptiste, 28, 73 n., 312.

Moore, Thomas, 48.

More, Sir Thomas, 49.

Morris, Corbyn, 129.

Morris, William, 227.

_My Novel_, 91, 235, 244 n.

Napoleon, 169.

Nero, 169.

_Never too Late to Mend_, 199, 300.

_New Atlantis, The_, 68.

_New Machiavelli, The_, 287.

_New Republic, The_, 177.

_Newcomes, The_, 192, 277, 307 n.

_News from Nowhere_, 227.

_Nicholas Nickleby_, 96, 139, 140, 218, 233.

Nietzsche, Friedrich, 125, 315.

_Night and Morning_, 193, 199, 234.

_Nightmare Abbey_, 62 n., 64, 171, 172, 223, 272.

_Noctes Ambrosianae_, 173.

North, Christopher, 1, 174 n., 187 n.

_North and South_, 198, 205, 248.

_Northanger Abbey_, 62 n., 78.

_Novels by Eminent Hands_, 62 n., 79, 174.

_Old Curiosity Shop, The_, 202.

_Old Wives’ Tale, An_, 61.

Oliphant, Mrs., 65 n.

_Oliver Twist_, 95, 95, 137, 139, 270.

_One of our Conquerors_, 154, 160, 179, 197, 223 f., 284, 302.

_Orley Farm_, 160, 202.

_Our Mutual Friend_, 106 f., 202.

_Patience and Foresight_, 314.

_Paul Clifford_, 51 n., 96 n., 198.

Peacock, Thomas Love, 45, 48, 51 n., 52, 61, 62, 63 f., 77, 79, 81,
82, 87, 130, 144, 170, 180, 182, 183, 191, 192, 194, 198, 203,
205, 219, 225, 231, 234, 247, 259, 269, 270, 272, 278, 281, 287,
294, 303, 305 f., 311, 315.

_Peg Woffington_, 88.

_Pelham_, 107, 132, 173, 177, 187, 188, 192, 194, 221, 223, 276 n.

_Pendennis_, 94, 150.

Persius, 8, 169.

Peter Pindar, 177 f.

_Phineas Finn_, 141, 184.

_Phineas Redux_, 170.

_Pickwick_, 78, 88, 199, 202, 232.

_Piers Plowman_, 82.

Plato, 49.

_Political Satire in English Poetry_, 29.

Pope, Alexander, 12, 33, 35, 48.

_Praise of Folly_, 127.

Previté-Orton, C. W., 29.

_Pride and Prejudice_, 134 n.

_Punch_, 313.

_Put Yourself in his Place_, 198, 300.

Rabelais, François, 67 n.

Raleigh, Walter, 26, 123 n., 304.

_Ralph the Heir_, 260 f.

_Rape of the Lock, The_, 4.

Reade, Charles, 46, 47, 49, 52, 92, 130, 157, 191, 195, 198,
199 f., 205, 216, 224 f., 231, 249, 270, 273, 279, 287.

_Rebecca and Rowena_, 62 n., 78 n., 79.

_Renaissance in Italy, The_, 15, 124.

_Reynard the Fox_, 2, 82.

_Rhoda Fleming_, 162, 241 f., 256, 274.

_Richard Feverel_, 163, 216, 257 n., 274.

Richardson, Samuel, 51 n.

_Romance of the Rose, The_, 82.

_Romola_, 151, 252, 274, 305.

_Rose and the Ring, The_, 63 n., 79.

Rostand, Edmond, 78, 256 n.

Saintsbury, George, 60, 129.

_Sandra Belloni_, 154, 155, 190, 254, 255 f.

Satire, 1, 2, 4, 5 f., 10, 11 f., 19 f., 32 f., 41 f., 48 f.,
50 f., 59, 82 f., 86 f., 167 f., 179 f., 229 f., 278, 289,
293 ff.

_Satire Menippée, La_, 169.

_Scenes from Clerical Life_, 88.

Scott, Sir Walter, 46, 49.

_Scourge of Villainy, The_, 12, 17.

Seneca, 169.

_Sense and Sensibility_, 246, 303.

_Seven Satires_, 9.

Shakespeare, William, 39, 49, 67 n., 73 n., 286.

_Shaving of Shagpat, The_, 63 n., 78, 80, 81, 307 n.

Shaw, G. B., 11 n., 65 n., 71, 78, 228, 315.

Shelley, P. B., 49, 51 n., 171, 177.

Sherman, S. P., 287.

_Ship of Fools, The_, 21 n.

_Shirley_, 50, 131, 180, 184, 198, 203, 210 f.

Sidgwick, Henry, 18.

_Silas Marner_, 203, 253, 291.

_Sir Harry Hotspur_, 209.

Skelton, John, 21 n., 48, 169, 301.

_Sketches and Travels_, 272.

_Small House at Allington, The_, 217 n.

Smollett, Tobias, 48, 111, 126, 193.

Socrates, 59.

Southey, Robert, 59, 171, 173, 177.

_Spectator, The, No. 451_, 176.

Spenser, Edmund, 48.

Spingarn, J. E., 4.

Steele, Richard, 127.

_Steele Glas, The_, 25.

Stephen, Leslie, 43, 123.

Sterne, Laurence, 49, 89, 111.

Stevenson, R. L., 310 f., 313.

Swift, Jonathan, 4, 9 n., 22 n., 48, 70, 128, 145, 200, 204, 280.

_Sybil_, 136, 189, 194 n., 195, 198, 210, 306.

Symonds, J. A., 15, 124.

Taine, H. A., 11 n., 23, 27, 272 n., 273, 278.

_Tale of Two Cities, A_, 88, 244.

_Tancred_, 135 f., 170, 194, 225.

_Task, The_, 17 n., 18, 33.

Tatlock, J. S. P., 122 n.

Tennyson, Alfred, 35, 48, 313.

Thackeray, W. M., 46, 48, 50, 51 n., 53, 61, 62, 77, 78, 79, 81,
82, 92 f., 116, 130, 148, 157, 169, 170, 174 f., 183, 187, 189,
191, 205, 206, 209, 217, 219, 231, 235, 240, 243 n., 244, 245,
247, 249, 251, 256, 258, 270, 272, 273, 278, 285, 286, 289, 306,
309.

Thirlwall, Connop, 121.

Thorndike, A. H., 44 f.

_Tom Jones_, 9, 25, 37 n., 78.

_Tragic Comedians, The_, 162.

Traill, H. D., 191.

_Transcripts and Studies_, 191.

Trollope, Anthony, 46, 48, 51, 52, 66, 84, 89 f., 92, 117, 130,
157, 174, 183, 187, 190, 191, 198, 202 f., 207, 209, 219, 221,
222, 231, 235, 237, 240, 243 n., 244, 245, 256, 260, 263, 270,
271, 273, 276, 278, 279, 285, 287, 302, 307, 309.

_Trueborn Englishman, The_, 12 n., 17, 22.

Twain, Mark, 48, 76.

_Twelfth Night_, 78.

_Two Years Ago_, 248 n., 252 n.

_Universal Passion, The_, 18, 33, 80 n.

_Unsocial Socialist, An_, 11 n.

_Up to Midnight_, 246 n.

_Utopia_, 68.

Van Doren, Carl, 67 n.

Van Laun, H., 169.

_Vanity Fair_, 78, 88, 92 f., 101, 149, 175, 183, 286.

Victoria, Queen, 67.

Victorian, 42, 43, 44, 45, 61, 84, 112, 117, 129, 170, 180, 226,
230, 231, 239, 259, 272, 274, 277, 286, 287,296, 306, 310, 311,
315, 316.

Victorians, The, 61, 158, 179, 180, 191, 203, 217, 227, 228, 270,
274, 275, 287, 288, 295, 304, 306, 313, 314, 315.

_Villette_, 211 f., 218, 260.

Virgil, 49.

_Virginians, The_, 311.

_Vittoria_, 98, 155, 282 n.

Voltaire, 38 n., 48, 301.

_Voyage of Captain Popanilla, The_, 62 n., 74, 81, 189, 194 n.,
202.

Walker, Hugh, 67 n., 78 n.

Ward, Mrs. Humphry, 191 n.

_Warden, The_, 207, 209 f., 222.

_Way of All Flesh, The_, 65 n., 68, 147 f., 215 n., 218.

_Way We Live Now, The_, 240 f., 263 f.

Wells, H. G., 73, 315.

Wendell, Barrett, 29 n.

_What Will He Do with It?_, 91 f., 112 f., 272.

Wit, 59, 83, 86, 110 f.

_Wives and Daughters_, 112, 131, 249.

Wolsey, Cardinal, 169.

Wordsworth, William, 49, 171.

Wyatt, Sir Thomas, 48.

Wyclif, John, 49.

_Yeast_, 132, 186, 213 n., 221, 236 n., 260, 298 f., 299.

_Yellowplush Papers, The,_ 62 n., 79, 103, 174.

Yonge, Charlotte, 46.

_Young Duke, The_, 134 f., 189, 198 n.

Young, Edward, 9, 18, 33, 49, 80 n.

Printed in the United States of America

VITA

Frances Theresa Russell was born in Iowa in 1873, and in 1895 received the degree of Ph. B. from the State University. The year of 1898–99 was spent in graduate study at Radcliffe, her major subject up to this time being Latin.

In 1900 she married Dr. Frank Russell, of the Department of Ethnology of Harvard University, and during the remainder of his life was engaged in the study of Anthropology.

In 1906 she became assistant in Philosophy at the Leland Stanford Junior University, and in 1907, assistant in English. She was appointed Instructor in the English Department in 1908, and Assistant Professor in 1916. For the next two years she was registered as a graduate student in the English Department of Columbia University, and in 1919 resumed her work at Stanford University, California.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Churchill, in _The Author_.

[2] _Satires_, I, 10, 15.

[3] Drummond’s translation. A similar couplet is rendered by Evans,

“He, with a sly, insinuating grace,
Laugh’d at his friend, and look’d him in the face.”

[4] Preface to _Every Man in his Humour_.

[5] _Essay on Satire_, by the Duke of Buckingham: Dryden’s Works, XV, 201.

[6] Young: Preface to the _Seven Satires_.

[7] Fielding: _Historical Register_: Dedication to the Public, III, 341.

[8] Fielding: _Tom Jones_: Dedication to George Lyttleton, VI, 5.

He also says, in _The Covent Garden Journal_: “Few men, I believe, do more admire the works of those great masters who have sent their satire (if I may use the expression) laughing into the world. Such are the great triumvirate, Lucian, Cervantes, and Swift.”

[9] Browning: _Aristophanes’ Apology_.

[10] Garnett, in the Enc. Brit. 9th edition.

[11]

“Wolves use their teeth against you, bulls their horn;
Why, but that each is to the manner born?”
_Satires_, I, 1. Conington, 46.

Some modern echoes are heard. Says Byron,--

“Satiric rhyme first sprang from selfish spleen;
You doubt--see Dryden, Pope, St. Patrick’s Dean.”
_Hints from Horace._

Taine applies his general theory to this instance:

“No wonder if in England a novelist writes satires. A gloomy and reflective man is impelled to it by his character; he is still further impelled by the surrounding manners.” _Hist. of Eng. Lit._ IV, 166.

In Shaw’s _An Unsocial Socialist_, one character says of another: “Besides, Gertrude despises everyone, even us. Or rather, she doesn’t despise anyone in particular, but is contemptuous by nature, just as you are stout.”

[12] _Scourge of Villainy._

[13] _Apology for Smectymnuus._

[14] “The end of Satire is reformation.” Preface to _The Trueborn Englishman_.

[15] “The true end of Satire is the amendment of vices by correction.” Preface to _Absalom and Achitophel_.

[16] “Now the author, living in these times, did conceive it an endeavour worthy an honest satirist, to dissuade the dull, and punish the wicked, in the only way that was left.” Preface of Martinus Scriblerus to _The Dunciad_.

[17] _An Essay on Satire._ Occasioned by the death of Pope. Inscribed to Dr. Warburton. In Dodsley’s Collection of Poems, Vol. III.

[18] Fielding: _Covent Garden Journal_.

[19] Preface to the Translation of Juvenal.

[20] _Essay on Comedy_, 76.

[21] _The Renaissance in Italy_, V, 270.

[22] _Makers of English Fiction_, 86.

[23] _Scourge of Villainy_, Satire II.

[24] Preface to _The Trueborn Englishmen_.

[25] Preface to his translation of Aristophanes.

[26] _The Task: The Time-Piece._

His object is to point out the superiority of the preacher, who steps in

“* * * when the sat’rist has at last
Strutting and vaporing in an empty school,
Spent all his force and made no proselyte.”

Later, however, he inadvertently admits even clerical insufficiency:

“Since pulpits fail, and sounding boards reflect
Most part an empty ineffectual sound,
What chance that I, to fame so little known,
Nor conversant with men or manners much,
Should speak to purpose, or with better hope
Crack the satiric thong?”
(From _The Garden_).

[27] Preface to _The Universal Passion_.

The last part of the passage anticipates our discussion of satire as exposure.

[28] _Essays on Great Writers: Some Aspects of Thackeray._

[29] Introduction to Croiset’s _Aristophanes and the Political Parties at Athens_.

[30] Skelton: _Colyn Clout_.

“Of no good bysshop speke I,
Nor good priest I escrye,
Good frere, nor good chanon,
Good nonne, nor good canon,
Good monke, nor good clerke,
Nor yette of no good werke;
But my recounting is Of them that do amys.”

[31] Barclay: Preface to _Ship of Fools_.

“This present Boke myght have been callyd nat inconvenyently the Satyr (that is to say) the reprehencion of foulysshnes. * * * For in lyke wyse as olde Poetes Satyriens repreved the synnes and ylnes of the peple at that tyme lyvynge; so and in lyke wyse this our Boke representeth unto the iyen of the redars the states and condicions of men.”

[32] _Essay on Satire._

[33] _Trueborn Englishman._

[34] _Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift._

He adds, as to motive:

“Yet malice never was his aim;
He lash’d the vice, but spared the name;

* * * * *

His satire points at no defect,
But what all mortals may correct;
For he abhorr’d that senseless tribe
Who call it humour when they gibe:

* * * * *

True genuine dullness moved his pity,
Unless it offer’d to be witty.”

[35] Preface to _The Intriguing Chambermaid_: Epistle to Mrs. Clive.

[36] Prologue to _The Coffee-House Politician_.

[37] _Hist. of Eng. Lit._: on Dickens.

[38] _Post Liminium._

[39] These relationships may be suggested by a graphic diagram. Not all folly is vicious, though all vice is foolish. Not all deception is either vicious or foolish, though folly and vice are for the most part deceitful. The circle of the satirizible practically coincides with that portion of the deception-circle which falls within vice and folly, a small margin being left outside to safeguard against inelasticity.

The connection between these two pairs of subdivisions is evident; hypocrisy belonging on the whole to the vicious branch, and sentimentality, to the foolish.

[40] _Satires_, II, 1.

[41] _The Steele Glas._

[42] Preface to _The Journey to Parnassus_. Gibson’s translation.

[43] Fielding: _Tom Jones_.

The phrase omitted from the Dryden citation above is, “where the very name of satire is formidable to those persons, who would appear to the world what they are not in themselves:”

[44] Raleigh: _The English Novel_.

[45] _Hist. of Eng. Lit._: on Dickens.

[46] _Imaginary Conversations_: Lucian and Timotheus.

Timotheus, exultant over the _Dialogues_, remarks that “Nothing can be so gratifying and satisfactory to a rightly disposed mind, as the subversion of imposture by the force of ridicule.” Disappointed, however, in his assumption that Lucian is now ready to embrace the true faith, which turns out to be a _non sequitur_, he accuses the inflexible pagan of sacrilege, ready to turn into ridicule the true and the holy. To which Lucian in turn replies “In other words, to turn myself into a fool. He who brings ridicule to bear against Truth, finds in his hands a blade without a hilt. The most sparkling and pointed flame of wit flickers and expires against the incombustible walls of her sanctuary.”

Lucian himself, in _The Angler_, declares it his business to hate quacks, jugglery, lies, and conceit.

[47] _Essay on Comedy._

[48] _Laughter_, 174.

[49] _Byron as a Satirist_, 180.

[50] _Political Satire in English Poetry_, 240.

In his _Temper of the Seventeenth Century in English Literature_, Wendell contributes another link to the chain of evidence:

“Sincere or not, satire is essentially a kind of writing which pretends to unmask pretense.”

[51] Hazlett, in his essay on _Wit and Humour_, remarks that “it has appeared that the detection and exposure of difference, particularly where this implies nice and subtle observation, as in discriminating between pretence and practice, between appearance and reality, is common to wit and satire with judgment and reasoning.”

[52] Meredith characterises the chase of Folly by the Comic Spirit as conducted “with the springing delight of hawk over heron, hound after fox.”

[53] _Satires_: I, IV, 78 ff.

[54] _Universal Passion._

[55] _Charity._

[56] _Literary Theory and Criticism._ The Poetry of Pope.

[57] _Imag. Conv._ Lucian to Timotheus.

[58] _Arist. Apol._

[59] In spite of Cowper’s and Byron’s assertions to the contrary.

[60]

“All zeal for a reform that gives offense
To peace and charity, is mere pretense;
A bold remark; but which, if well applied,
Would humble many a tow’ring poet’s pride.”
(_Charity._)

[61] _Sea Dreams._

[62] _Collected Essays_, I, 187.

[63] _Post Liminium._

[64] Preface to _Headlong Hall_, in the Aldine edition of Peacock, 40. In his _Essay on Comedy_, Meredith goes beyond mere absence of hate:

“You may estimate your capacity for comic perception by being able to detect the ridicule of them you love, without loving them the less; and more by being able to see yourself somewhat ridiculous in dear eyes, and accepting the correction their image of you proposes,” 72.

It is true that on the next page he differentiates,--“If you detect the ridicule, and your kindliness is chilled by it, you are slipping into the grasp of satire.” But he is evidently using satire in the older, narrower sense.

[65] John Brown’s _Essay on Satire_.

[66] _Spectator_, 209. L.

[67] Browning: _Aris. Apol._ Cf. Fielding, _Tom Jones_, VI, 357, for a similar distinction.

[68] Cf. Brown’s _Essay on Satire_ for scorn of Shaftesbury’s idea that ridicule is the test of truth; refuted ironically in the lines,--

“Deride our weak forefathers’ musty rule,
Who _therefore_ smil’d, _because_ they saw a fool;
Sublimer logic now adorns our isle,
We _therefore_ see a fool, _because_ we smile.”

He concludes that wit is safe only when rationalized:

“_Then_ mirth may urge, when reason can explore,
_This_ point the way, _that_ waft us to the shore.”

(Carlyle expresses a similar opinion in his essay on Voltaire.)

[69] Heinsius, in his _Dissertations on Horace_. A conception drawn perhaps from the Aristotelian “purging of our passions” through tragedy.

[70] _Rise of Formal Satire in England._ 49.

[71] Leslie Stephen: _George Eliot_, 67–68.

[72] Thorndike, _English Literature_ in _Lectures on Literature_, 268–9.

[73] This theoretically includes only the novel, though the term is used in the widest sense. In the cases of Thackeray, Dickens, Eliot, and Meredith, the line is rather hard to draw between the novel and sketches, tales, short stories, and burlesques. Peacock, Lytton, Disraeli, and Butler force us to make the limits of the novel decidedly flexible.

[74] If it were desirable to eliminate the thirteenth chair, it might be done in a number of ways. Peacock might be ruled out as a contemporary of the earlier generation, as _Gryll Grange_ is all that carries him over. Butler on the other hand belongs to the later, except that _Erewhon_ appeared in the year of _Middlemarch_. As a satirist, Brontë is so near the edge of the circle that her inclusion at all is questionable. Since it happens, however, that the year of her death coincides with that of Reade’s first novel, we might fancy her yielding a place to him, so that there were never more than twelve at one time.

[75] _English Humorists_; _Swift_, 2.

Cf. Kingsley: “One cannot laugh heartily at a man if one has not a lurking love for him.” _Two Years Ago_, 143.

And Meredith: “And to love Comedy you must know the real world, and know men and women well enough not to expect too much of them, though you may still hope for good.” _Essay on Comedy_, 40. Also: “You share the sublime of wrath, that would not have hurt the foolish, but merely demonstrate their foolishness.” Ibid. 85.

[76] _Autobiography_, 133.

[77] Preface to _Oliver Twist_, xv.

That Dickens was mistaken as to the real point of _Don Quixote_, does not impair his argument.

Thackeray had the same motive, of course, in his ridicule of _Paul Clifford_ and the sentimental-picaresque; not because it was sentimental or picaresque, but because it was misleading. In that respect it was he who inherited the mantle of Cervantes, as did Fielding before him in his ridicule of Richardson.

[78] “The vices that call for the scourge of satire, are those which pervade the whole frame of society, and which, under some specious pretense of private duty, or the sanction of custom and precedent, are almost permitted to assume the semblance of virtue.” _Melincourt_, 160. (And here it is the pretense that makes it vulnerable.)

In the Introduction, _Maid Marian_ is described to Shelley as a “comic romance of the twelfth century, which I shall make the vehicle of much oblique satire on all the oppressions that are done under the sun.”

He became, however, so carried away with the romance that he lost sight of the satire, except for brief glimpses.

In the Preface to _Headlong Hall_ (1837 edition) he rounds up the current follies, under the name Pretense:

“Perfectibilians, deteriorationists, statu-quo-ites, phrenologists, transcendentalists, political economists, theorists in all sciences, projectors in all arts, morbid visionaries, romantic enthusiasts, lovers of music, lovers of the picturesque, and lovers of good dinners, march, and will march forever, _pari passu_, with the march of mechanics which some facetiously call the march of intellect. * * * The array of false pretensions, moral, political, and literary, is as imposing as ever; * * * and political mountebanks continue, and will continue, to puff nostrums and practice legerdemain under the eyes of the multitude; following * * * a course as tortuous as that of a river, but in a reverse process: beginning by being dark and deep, and ending by being transparent.” 46–7.

His motto for _Crochet Castle_ is:

“_De monde est plein de fous, et qui n’en veut pas voir,_
_Doit se tenir tout seul, et casser son miroir._”

[79] “And as I had ventured to take the whip of the satirist in my hand, I went beyond the iniquities of the great speculator who robs everybody, and made an onslaught also on other vices--on the intrigues of girls who want to get married, on the luxury of young men who prefer to remain single, and on the puffing propensities of authors who desire to cheat the public into buying their volumes.” _Autobiography_, speaking of _The Way We Live Now_.

Of _Framley Parsonage_: “The story was thoroughly English. There was a little fox-hunting and a little tuft-hunting; some Christian virtue and some Christian cant. There was no heroism and no villainy.” _Autobiography_, 129.

[80] _The Young Duke_, 173.

[81] _Never Too Late to Mend_, 216.

[82] _Vanity Fair_, I, 104.

[83] Ibid., I, 106.

Cf. his Preface to _The Newcomes_: “This, then, is to be a story, may it please you, in which jackdaws will wear peacocks’ feathers, and awaken the just ridicule of the peacocks, in which, while every justice is done to the peacocks themselves * * * exception will yet be taken to the absurdity of their rickety strut, and the foolish discord of their pert squeaking;” 7.

[84] Preface to _Pickwick_ (1847 edition), xix.

Cf. his letter to Charles Knight: “My satire is against those who see figures and averages, and nothing else--the representatives of the wickedest and most enormous vice of this time--and the men who, through long years to come, will do more to damage the real, useful truths of political economy than I could do (if I tried) in my whole life:” _Letters_, I, 363.

[85] _The Later Renaissance_, 113.

[86] _Evolution of the English Novel_, 120.

[87]

1816 _Headlong Hall_
1817 _Melincourt_ (also _Northanger Abbey_)
1818 _Nightmare Abbey_
1822 _Maid Marian_
1828 _The Voyage of Captain Popanilla_
1829 _The Misfortunes of Elphin_
1831 _Crochet Castle_
1833 _Ixion_, and _The Infernal Marriage_
1839 _Catherine_
1841 _The Yellowplush Papers_
1845 _The Legend of the Rhine_
1847 _Novels by Eminent Hands_
1849 _The Great Hoggarty Diamond_
1850 _Rebecca and Rowena_
1855 _The Rose and the Ring_
1856 _The Shaving of Shagpat_
1857 _Farina_
1861 _Gryll Grange_
1871 _The Coming Race_
1872 _Erewhon_
1901 _Erewhon Revisited_

[88] _Samuel Butler, Author of Erewhon_, 65.

[89] Draper: _Social Satire of Thomas Love Peacock_. Modern Language Notes, XXXIV, I

[90] With the exception of _The Way of All Flesh_; another instance of Butler’s wider range.

[91] The word _novel_ must of course be stretched if it is to include this set of fantastic fiction. But that is easily done by accepting Chesterton’s dictum: “Now in the sense in which there is such a thing as an epic, in that sense there is no such thing as a novel.” _Charles Dickens_, 114.

The other alternative is the one taken by Mrs. Oliphant: “We use the word adventurer advisedly, for we cannot regard Peacock’s entry into the field of fiction as by any means an authorized one. One cannot help feeling that he did not want to write novels, but that he found that he could not get at the public in any other way; * * * The consequence is that his novels are not novels in the proper sense of the word.” _Victorian Age of English Literature_, 16.

Cf. Shaw, of whose dramas a similar statement might be made.

[92] “The desideratum of a Peacockian character is that he shall be able to talk.” Freeman: _Life and Novels of Peacock_, 233.

[93] _Crochet Castle_, 35.

[94] “He has knowledge, wit, humour, technical skill, cleverness in abundance, some genius, he is a keen observer, a caustic critic. What he lacks is humanity, just that which is the essence of the greatness of the great humourists--Cervantes, Rabelais, Shakespeare.” Walker: _Lit. of the Victorian Era_, 618. (He explains that humanity in work is meant, not of character.)

[95] “But because he laughed without responsibility he belongs less with the writers of power than with those of whom laughter has exacted a great, as of all laughter exacts a certain, penalty.” Van Doren, _Life of Peacock_, 281.

(One could wish the nature of this “penalty” had been elucidated a bit, instead of being entirely taken for granted. In any case, it must be largely subjective, and therefore a thing which exists only by being felt.)

[96] The phrases are Van Doren’s and Walker’s respectively. Cf. Garnett:

“It cannot be said that the satire of _Gryll Grange_ is very Archilochian. The author has lost the power of raising a laugh at the objects of his dislike, and merely assails them with a genial pugnacity, so open, honest, and hearty as inevitably to conciliate a certain measure of sympathy.” _Introduction._

[97] With _The First Canterbury Settlement_, in 1863.

[98] The coincidence that gave the public _The Coming Race_ in 1871, and _Erewhon_ in 1872 brought the charge of a possible plagiarism in the latter. If the absurd notion that Butler needed any light borrowed from Lytton, is worth expelling, Butler’s own candid statement about it should be sufficient for the purpose.

[99] Cannan says of _Erewhon_, “Few good books have so many faults, and yet it remains the one enduring satire of the nineteenth century.” _Samuel Butler_, 32.

(Whether the _of_ means _directed against_ or _produced by_, the verdict is undoubtedly valid.)

[100] One’s astonishment that it was Meredith who had the honor of rejecting the manuscript of _Erewhon_, submitted to Chapman and Hall, is exceeded only by the astonishment at the reason given,--that it was a philosophical treatise, not likely to interest the general public. One would hardly accuse this critic of a conservative reluctance to expose the public to iconoclastic bacilli, though he had not yet become the author of _Beauchamp’s Career_, nor would one suppose his “public” to be composed entirely of tired business men and sentimental school girls. There remain the two cruxes in the history of satire: failure of the satirist Thackeray to appreciate the satirist Swift, and of the satirist Meredith to appreciate the satirist Butler. If they prove anything it is the diversity among satirists.

[101] Harris: _Samuel Butler, Author of Erewhon_, 13.

Cf. Chesterton’s whimsical remark that “the best definition of the Victorian Age is that Francis Thompson stood outside it.”

[102] _The Coming Race_, 47.

[103] Women were the wooers and choosers in this feministic community, but the problem of feminism was apparently solved by the practice of voluntary relinquishment of wings, by the feminine wearers, after marriage, and a strict devotion to the domestic life.

[104] “And where a society attains to a moral standard in which there are no crimes and no sorrows from which tragedy can extract its aliment of pity and sorrow, no salient vices or follies on which comedy can lavish its mirthful satire, it has lost its chance of producing a Shakespeare, a Molière, or a Mrs. Beecher Stowe.” _The Coming Race_, 230.

[105] After the manner of Defoe’s _Turkish Merchant: the Conduct of Christians Made the Sport of Infidels_, and others of this type.

[106] _Popanilla_, 380. The ensuing debate is made the peg for some vivacious burlesque on Parliamentary speeches.

[107] _Ibid._, 385.

[108] _Popanilla_, 394.

[109] _Ibid._, 459. The whole is in ridicule of Utilitarianism.

[110] _Ixion_, 272.

[111] A prominent feature of this is a white ass (the Public) which the prime minister leads by the nose.

[112] The laborers.

[113] These two are alike in their handling of sparkling dialogue.

[114] Walker’s dictum (_Victorian Literature_, 700) that “Good burlesque is impossible except through sound criticism,” is an instance of the dangerous half truth. The sounder the criticism the better the burlesque, to be sure, but only as _criticism_: as _burlesque_ it may be highly successful in spite of some critical unsoundness. Indeed, it must necessarily contain the element of injustice that inheres in all exaggeration,--the very foundation of burlesque and caricature.

Moreover, Walker’s conception of the burlesque is indicated when he calls _Rebecca and Rowena_ “perhaps the best burlesque ever penned.” As a matter of fact, it is not only far from that preëminence, but it is in form actually less of a burlesque than most of the others under consideration.

[115]

“Heroes and gods make other poems fine;
Plain Satire calls for _sense_ in every line.”
Young: _Universal Passion_.

[116] In one of Lytton’s first volumes is an observation interesting as perhaps the germ from which the plan of _The Coming Race_ was developed.

Vincent, the philosopher of the story, remarks. (_Pelham_, 57):

“There are few better satires on a civilized country than the observations of visitors less polished; while, on the contrary, the civilized traveller, in describing the manners of the American barbarians, instead of conveying ridicule upon the visited, points the sarcasm on the visitor; and Tacitus could not have thought of a finer or nobler satire on the Roman luxuries than that insinuated by his treatise on the German simplicity.”

[117] Mill: _Disraeli, the Author, Orator, and Statesman_, 20.

He adds,--“although we cannot claim for it the merit of that matchless production, still, regarding it as a work of a very young man, it is to our thinking one of infinite promise.”

[118] Perhaps pardon should be asked on behalf of the irresponsible Circumstance which allowed so large a preponderance in this matter to the sex notoriously romantic, flighty, ignorant of real life, and impatient of its prose and drudgery. As to the one man, Bryce remarks, in his _Studies in Contemporary Biography_, “But whoever does read Trollope in 1930 will gather from his pages better than from any others an impression of what everyday life was like in England in the ‘middle Victorian’ period.”

[119] _Ernest Maltravers_, 32. Cf. _How It Strikes a Contemporary_.

[120] These types may be summarized for convenience in a topical outline:

I. Direct.
II. Dramatic.
1. Situation.
2. Character.
a. Witty protagonists.
db. Comical antagonists.

[121] Trollope: _Ralph the Heir_, 275.

[122] _Ibid._, 275–276.

[123] _The Bertrams_, 150.

[124] _Vanity Fair_, I, 225.

[125] _Vanity Fair_, I, 396. In Chapter XIX occurs the remark, “Perhaps in Vanity Fair there are no better satires than letters.”

[126] _Ibid._, I, 214.

[127] _Ibid._, I, 233.

[128] _Vanity Fair_, II, 304.

[129] Among countless such gems, the following is of purest ray serene:

“Oh, be humble, my brother, in your prosperity! Be gentle with those who are less lucky, if not more deserving. Think, what right have you to be scornful, whose virtue is a deficiency of temptation, whose success may be a chance, whose rank may be an ancestor’s accident, whose prosperity is very likely a satire.” _Vanity Fair_, II, 43.

[130] _Pendennis_, II, 53.

The introductory chapter of _The Newcomes_ needs only to be recalled as an instance of the satirical fable. Nor is the beginning of _Henry Esmond_ lacking in the satirical tone.

[131] _Oliver Twist_, 350. The idea was possibly suggested by _Sartor Resartus_.

[132] _Nicholas Nickleby_, I, 286. This thrust is aimed especially at _Paul Clifford_.

[133] _Barnaby Rudge_, I, 296.

[134] _Bleak House_, 553.

[135] _Little Dorrit_, I, 139.

[136] Cf. his description of one of his favorite characters, Nesta Radnor,--“what she did, she intended to do.”

[137] _Beauchamp’s Career_, 2, 3, 4.

[138] _Beauchamp’s Career_, 6.

[139] _The Egoist_, 132. Later he indicates the corollary of this,--

“But not many men are trained to courage; young women are trained to cowardice. For them to front an evil with plain speaking is to be guilty of effrontery and forfeit the waxen polish of purity, and therewith their commanding place in the market.” _Ibid._, 296.

Cf. _Evan Harrington_, 208, for the muddled state of a young woman’s mind, only to be penetrated by “that zigzag process of inquiry conducted by following her actions, for she can tell you nothing, and if she does not want to know a particular matter, it must be a strong beam from the central system of facts that shall penetrate her.”

[140] _The Egoist_, 156.

[141] _The Egoist_, 5.

[142] _The Egoist_, 5.

[143] _Our Mutual Friend_, I, 166.

[144] Trollope: _Barchester Towers_, 299.

[145] _The Egoist_, 4. The “her” refers to Comedy.

[146] _Barchester Towers_, 472–3.

[147] _Last Chronicles of Barset._

[148] Book II, Chapter I.

[149] Vol. I, 78–9.

[150] Lytton’s _Kenelm Chillingly_, 1873, and Meredith’s _Beauchamp’s Career_, 1876.

[151] Lytton’s _Kenelm Chillingly_, 38.

[152] _Ibid._, 39. An echo from _The Coming Race_, published two years earlier.

[153] _Ibid._, 40.

[154] _Ibid._, 90. Later he imagines a hypothetical contribution to _The Londoner_, bringing “that highly intellectual journal into discredit by a feeble attempt at a good-natured criticism or a generous sentiment.” 161.

Kenelm grows into some likeness to his old tutor Welby, an unpedantic, versatile scholar, who belonged to “the school of Eclectical Christology.” The Rev. John Chillingly, for instance, did not perceive Welby’s realism, for the latter listened to idealistic eulogies without contradicting them; having “grown too indolent to be combative in conversation, and only as a critic betrayed such pugnacity as remained to him by the polished cruelty of sarcasm.” 34.

[155] _Beauchamp’s Career_, 167.

[156] _Shirley_, II, 90.

[157] _Ibid._, II, 351.

[158] _Ibid._, II, 250.

[159] It is not in a novel but the shortest of his Short Stories that Meredith has presented to us his truly wittiest character, shown with the brief but startling distinctness of a flash-light. Nowhere is there a more perfect embodiment of the satiric spirit than Lady Camper. It required a malicious imagination to produce the cartoons of the City of Wilsonople, and to use them with such wicked effectiveness. Yet this Limb of Satan was maleficent only to bless, ultimately. The fine military figure upon which she turned the shaft of illumination is equally perfect as the incarnate satirizible; not a sinner, not a villain, but a complacent, fatuous, selfish gentleman, “open to exposure in his little whims, foibles, tricks, incompetencies,” but capable of an improvement that amounted to regeneration.

“Well, General,” his teleological tormentor finally explains, “you were fond of thinking of yourself, and I thought I would assist you. I gave you plenty of subject-matter. I will not say I meant to work a homœopathic cure.”

She further admonishes him that the triumph is his rather than hers, if he cares to make the most of it. “Your fault has been to quit active service, General, and love your ease too well * * * You are ten times the man in exercise. Why, do you mean to tell me that you would have cared for those drawings of mine when marching?” Idleness, moreover, is a first aid to vanity. “You would not have cared one bit for a caricature,” Lady Camper continues, “if you had not nursed the absurd idea of being one of our conquerors.” His final salvation, she concludes, was his sensitiveness to ridicule.

[160] _Last Chronicles of Barset_, 97.

[161] _Ibid._, 175.

[162] _Framley Parsonage_, 259.

[163] _Framley Parsonage_, 264.

[164] _Ibid._, 266.

[165] On dramatic irony, see _American Philological Association Transactions_, 1917, for summary of an interesting unpublished paper read before the Society by Dr. J. S. P. Tatlock.

[166] As advised by John Brown in his _Essay on Satire_:

“The Muse’s charms resistless then assail,
When wrapt in _irony’s_ transparent veil;

* * * * *

Then be your lines with sharp encomiums grac’d;
Style _Clodius_ honorable, _Busa_ chaste.”

And not long before this, Dryden had been saying: “How easy it is to call rogue and villain, and that wittily! But how hard to make a man appear a fool, a blockhead, or a knave, without using any of these opprobrious terms! * * * Neither is it true that this fineness of raillery is offensive. A witty man is tickled while he is hurt in this manner, and a fool feels it not.” _Essay on Satire_, 98.

[167] Stephen: _Hours in a Library_, Second Series. 347.

Another critic of another novelist makes the point by a vivid illustration:

“A rabbit fondling its own harmless face affords no matter of amusement to another rabbit, and Miss Austen has had many readers who have perused her works without a smile.” Raleigh: _The English Novel_, 253.

[168] _Life and Letters_, I, 207.

[169] _The Renaissance in Italy_, V, 8.

[170] _Irony, Living Age_, 259: 250.

[171] _A Second Century Satirist_, 187. A translation by W. D. Sheldon.

[172] _Adventures of an Atom_, II, 121.

[173] Randolph Bourne: _The Life of Irony_. _Atlantic_, III, 357.

[174] Corbyn Morris, in _An Essay towards fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Raillery, Satire, and Ridicule_.

[175] _The English Novel_, 195.

[176] _Wives and Daughters_, 397.

[177] _Shirley_, I, 236.

[178] _Alton Locke_, 58.

[179] _Yeast_, 158.

[180] _Pelham_, 9.

[181] _Crochet Castle_, 21.

[182] _Kenelm Chillingly_, 25.

[183] _Coming Race_, 43.

[184] As an introduction this reminds one of the ironic terseness of Jane Austen: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” (_Pride and Prejudice._) And--“About thirty years ago, Miss Maria Ward, of Huntingdon, with only seven thousand pounds, had the good luck to captivate Sir Thomas Bertram, of Mansfield Park, in the county of Northampton, and to be thereby raised to the rank of a baronet’s lady, with all the comforts and consequences of a handsome house and large income.” (_Mansfield Park_.)

[185] _The Young Duke_, 85. Cf. a similar account of Tom Towers, of _The Jupiter_, in Trollope’s _Warden_.

[186] _Tancred_, 37.

[187] _Ibid._, 37.

[188] _Tancred_, 39.

[189] _Sybil_, 113.

[190] _Oliver Twist_, 42.

[191] _Martin Chuzzlewit_, I, 17.

[192] _Ibid._, I, 234.

[193] _Dombey and Son_, II, 416. Cf. the Musical Banks of Erewhon.

[194] _Hard Times_, 156.

[195] Arthur Clennam had remarked that the patriarchal Mr. Casby is a fine old fellow. Mr. Panks snorts a bitter concurrence of opinion:

“Noble old boy, an’t he? * * * generous old buck. Confiding old boy. Philanthropic old buck. Benevolent old boy! Twenty per cent I engaged to pay him, sir. But we never do business for less, at our shop.” _Little Dorrit_, I, 554.

[196] _Oliver Twist_, 219.

[197] _Nicholas Nickleby_, II, 26.

[198] _Bleak House_, 195.

[199] _Nicholas Nickleby_, II, 85.

[200] _Dombey and Son_, 433.

[201] _Bleak House_, 105.

[202] _Phineas Finn_, I, 214. In the story same Lady Glencora uses the Socratic method on Mrs. Bonteen to make her admit she is really an advocate of social equality.

[203] _Framley Parsonage_, 180.

[204] _Ibid._, 183. Cf. Heine’s remark of Louis Phillipe, that he “rose in solid majesty, every pound a king.”

[205] _The Bertrams_, 6. There are pages in this strain.

[206] _Dr. Thorne_, 207.

[207] _Framley Parsonage_, 477.

[208] _Last Chronicles_, 16.

[209] _Maid Marian_, 15.

[210] _Maid Marian_, 96.

[211] _Crochet Castle_, 90.

[212] _Erewhon_, 110.

[213] _Ibid._, 113–116.

[214] _Erewhon_, 153. Butler’s ability to deliver the casual nudge as well as the deliberate blow is shown in a feature of the prison régime; convict labor is required,--a trade already learned, if possible, otherwise--“if he be a gentleman born and bred to no profession, he must pick oakum, or write art criticisms for a newspaper.” 126.

[215] _The Way of All Flesh_, 26.

[216] _Vanity Fair_, I, 115.

[217] _Vanity Fair_, I, 128.

[218] _Ibid._, 192.

[219] _Ibid._, 255.

[220] _Ibid._, 110.

[221] _Pendennis_, II, 22.

[222] _Mill on the Floss_, I, 189.

[223] _Middlemarch_, I, 161. This book is also pervaded by the exuberant presence of the versatile but cautious Mr. Brooke, who had always “gone a good deal into that at one time,” but always wisely refrained from pushing it too far, as one never can tell where such things will lead.

[224] _Romola_, II, 523.

[225] _Middlemarch_, I, 179.

[226] _Adam Bede_, I, 245. It could not be said of him as it was of Vincy in the above connection,--“The difficult task of knowing another soul is not for young gentlemen whose consciousness is chiefly made up of their own wishes.”

[227] _Letters_, II, 501. In another he speaks of the fine irony of French criticism, which “instructs without wounding any but the vanitous person”: and adds that “England has little criticism beyond the expression of likes and dislikes, the stout vindication of an old conservatism of taste.” _Ibid._, 569.

[228] _The Egoist_, 43. (The “leg” of course referring to Mrs. Jenkinson’s famous epigram).

[229] _The Egoist_, 113.

[230] _Sandra Belloni_, 157.

[231] _Ibid._, 153.

[232] _One of Our Conquerors_, 415.

[233] _Ibid._, 195.

[234] _Vittoria_, 373.

[235] _Beauchamp’s Career_, 369.

[236] _Sandra Belloni_, 68. This is followed by a fling at the “alliance with Destiny”, which reminds us of our recent American slogan of “Manifest Destiny.”

[237] _Letters_, II, 555. To Leslie Stephen, 1904.

[238] _An Amazing Marriage_, 480.

[239] _Ibid._, 147. Cf. also citations in the first part of this chapter.

[240] _Middlemarch_, I, 142. She also comments as follows on the undeniably just statement of Jermyn to Mrs. Transome that Harold should be told the secret of his birth:

“Perhaps some of the most terrible irony of the human lot is this of a deep truth coming to be uttered by lips that have no right to it.” _Felix Holt_, II, 242.

[241] _Diana of the Crossways_, 423.

[242] _Evan Harrington_, 117.

[243] _Evan Harrington_, 137.

[244] _Rhoda Fleming_, 301. Later, however, an equivalent amount, placed in his hands in trust for another purpose, conveniently paid this debt. “It was enough to make one in love with civilization.” _Ibid._, 326.

[245] _The Tragic Comedians_, 195.

[246] _Richard Feverel_, 8.

[247] _Ibid._, 322.

[248] Van Laun: _History of French Literature_, II, 27.

[249] Cf. also the riot of personalities in Blackwood’s, Frazer’s, and other periodicals of their time.

[250] Butler’s etchings in _The Way of All Flesh_, are also from personal sources.