Chapter XIV

ESSAYISTS AND LETTER WRITERS, LITERARY HISTORIANS.

The most important part of the posthumous papers of Samuel Butler, the discovery of which in the eighteenth century has been mentioned, was his _Characters_, composed upon the model of Theophrastus, and fairly entitling him to the appellation of the English Theophrastus, which is not the highest encomium imaginable. As the only work of the kind which has come down to us from antiquity, the _Characters_ of Theophrastus, which are in reality much later than the time of that successor of Aristotle, have passed as models, a reputation in excess of their desert. They offer an acute and entertaining enumeration of various peculiarities of character, but do not succeed in presenting the personage as a whole, and have much the air of being compiled from traits delineated with a real truth of representation by the comic poets. Butler's _Characters_ are of just the same kind, and his work is rather a museum of particulars than a gallery of portraits. The age of Charles II. by no means lives in him as the age of Anne lives in Addison. La Bruyere, Butler's more celebrated French successor, who certainly never read and probably never heard of him, fell into precisely the same error from too timid an adherence to Theophrastus; and the improvement upon him effected by Addison may be compared to the service rendered to sculpture by Daedalus, the first, it is said, to show the human form in motion. Isolated remarks in Butler's essays are frequently very shrewd and pregnant; as when he says of the newsmonger, 'He would willingly bear his share in any public calamity to have the pleasure of hearing and telling it;' or of the hunter, 'Let the hare take which way she will, she seldom fails to lead him at long-running to the alehouse;' or the description of a prince's unworthy favourite as 'a fog raised by the sun to obscure his own brightness.' Many of Butler's miscellaneous thoughts, appended to the _Characters_, are highly acute, and exhibit a happy talent for illustrating abstract ideas by comparison with sensible objects, as for instance: 'Oaths and obligations in the affairs of the world are like ribands and knots in dressing, that seem to tie something, but do not.' In politics Butler is, of course, a loyalist, and one whose loyalty is intensified by his aesthetic dislike to Puritanism, in which he was constitutionally incapable of seeing anything but cant. At the same time, the contempt which as a man of understanding he could not help entertaining for the conduct of affairs under the Restoration, and disappointment at the neglect with which he was himself treated, seem to have almost reduced him to a condition of political scepticism. 'The worst governments are the best when they light in good hands; and the best the worst, when they fall into bad ones'--a remark condensed into a famous couplet by Pope, who appears to have become acquainted with Butler's MS. through Atterbury. It is worth observing that Butler not only prefers Ben Jonson to Shakespeare, but seems to take his superiority for granted: 'Virgil, who wanted much of that natural easiness of wit that Ovid had, did nevertheless with hard labour and long study arrive at a higher perfection than the other with all his dexterity of wit, but less industry, could attain to. The same we may observe of Jonson and Shakespeare; for he that is able to think long and judge well will be sure to find out better things than another man can hit upon suddenly, though of more quick and ready parts, which is commonly but chance, and the other art and judgment.' One special distinction of Butler's is to have been perhaps the first English satirist of mark who made parody a political weapon, or at least showed its capabilities for this purpose, as it does not appear that any of his political parodies were printed in his lifetime. Jack Cade's speeches in Shakespeare are, indeed, a sufficient model, but Butler worked out the hint elaborately in his fictitious speeches in the Rump Parliament; his mock eulogium of this body or segment of a body in the oration supposed to be delivered at Harrington's Rota; and the parody of Prynne's style in the imaginary correspondence between him and John Audland, the Quaker.

Butler's remains were only partially printed in 1759, but the MSS. from which Thyer's publication was drawn were acquired in 1885 by the British Museum. His selection seems to have been in general exceedingly judicious, but the opportunity may be taken of giving some examples of Butler's unpublished thoughts:

'There is no better argument to prove that the Scriptures were
written by divine inspiration than that excellent saying of our
Saviour, If any man will go to law with thee for thy cloak,
give him thy coat also.

'Birds are taken with pipes that imitate their own voices, and
men with those sayings that are most agreeable to their own
opinions.

'If the French nobility should follow our fashions, and send
their children over to learn our language, and receive their
education from us, we should have as glorious an opinion of
ourselves, and as mean a value of them, as they have of us;
and therefore we have no reason to blame them, but our own
folly for it.'

It is interesting to learn Butler's opinion of Dryden as a critic:

'Dryden weighs poets in his virtuoso's scales that will weigh
to the hundredth part of a grain, as curiously as Juvenal's
lady pedantess--

"Committit vates, et comparat inde Maronem,
Atque alia parte in trutina suspendit Homerum."

He complained of Ben Jonson for stealing scenes out of Plautus.
Set a thief to find out a thief.'

George Savile, Marquis of Halifax, who ranks with Shaftesbury and Temple among the few politicians of that age entitled to the appellation of statesman, enriched English literature with a small volume of essays, the most important of which are his vindication of his own political course and principles in _The Character of a Trimmer_ and _The Anatomy of an Equivalent_. Of these Macaulay justly says: 'What particularly strikes us is the writer's passion for generalization. He was treating of the most exciting subjects in the most agitated times; he was himself placed in the very thick of the civil conflict; yet there is no acrimony, nothing inflammatory, nothing personal. He treats every question as an abstract question, begins with the widest propositions, argues these propositions on general grounds, and often, when he has brought out his theorem, leaves the reader to make the application, without adding an allusion to particular men or to passing events.' The effect of this remarkable breadth of view was not with Halifax, as so frequently the case, to paralyze energy, and render the comprehensive mind unfit for practical action. He was not retained in equilibrium by the difficulty of deciding between two courses, but was an enthusiast for the _via media_, as great a zealot for compromise as zealots commonly are for strong measures; and, though sometimes too yielding or too speculative for the unquiet times in which his lot was cast, would have made an almost ideal prime minister for the nineteenth century. His praise of trimming, which to more fiery spirits must have seemed an ignoble policy, rings with the eloquence and passion of the most genuine conviction:

'Our Trimmer adores the Goddess Truth, though in all ages she
has been scurvily used, as well as those that worshipped her.
'Tis of late become such a ruining virtue that mankind seems to
be agreed to commend and avoid it; yet the want of practice,
which repeals the other laws, has no influence upon the law of
truth, because it has root in heaven, and an intrinsic value in
itself that can never be impaired. She shows her greatness in
this, that her enemies, even when they are successful, are
ashamed to own it. Nothing but power full of truth has the
prerogative of triumphing, not only after victories, but in
spite of them, and to put conquest herself out of countenance.
She may be kept under and suppressed, but her dignity still
remains with her, even when she is in chains. Falsehood with
all her impudence has not enough to speak ill of her before her
face. Such majesty she carries about her that her most
prosperous enemies are fain to whisper their treason, all the
power upon the earth can never extinguish her. She has lived in
all ages, and let the mistaken zeal of prevailing authority
christen any opposition to her with what name they please, she
makes it not only an ugly and an unmannerly, but a dangerous
thing to persist. She has lived very retired indeed, nay,
sometimes so buried that only some few of the discerning part
of mankind could have a glimpse of her; with all that, she has
eternity in her, she knows not how to die, and from the darkest
clouds that shade and cover her she breaks from time to time
with triumph for her friends, and terror to her enemies.

'Our Trimmer, therefore, inspired by this divine virtue,
thinks fit to conclude with these assertions, That our climate
is a trimmer between that part of the world where men are
roasted and that part where they are frozen: That our Church is
a trimmer between the phrenzy of phanatic[12] visions and the
lethargic ignorance of Popish dreams: That our laws are
trimmers between the excess of unbounded power and the
extravagance of liberty not enough restrained: That true virtue
has ever been thought a trimmer, and to have its dwelling in
the middle between the two extremes: That even God Almighty
himself is divided between his two great attributes, his mercy
and his justice.

'In such company our Trimmer is not ashamed of his name, and
willingly leaves to the bold champions of either extreme the
honour of contending with no less adversaries than nature,
religion, liberty, prudence, humanity, and common sense.'

Burnet might well be puzzled by a man who 'seemed to have his head full of Commonwealth notions,' and yet concurred in the worst measures of Charles II.

The most important of Halifax's other essays are his advice to his daughter, excellent for sense and curious as an illustration of the manners of the age, and his character of Charles II., nicely balanced between half-sincere censure and half-sarcastic apology. There is nothing in Charles's history to refute Halifax's view of him as a man whose master passion was the selfish love of ease; but much to prove that his abilities and discernment were far greater than Halifax chooses to allow. Halifax's aphorisms, as usual, are too numerous to attain a uniformly high standard, but some are exceedingly good.

'A fool hath no dialogue within himself.

'Malice may be sometimes out of breath, Envy never. A man may
make peace with hatred, but never with envy.

'An old man concludeth from his knowing mankind that they know
him too, and that maketh him very wary.

'He that leaveth nothing to chance will do few things ill, but
he will do very few things.'

An allusion in these aphorisms to the Bank of England proves that Halifax went on writing till nearly the hour of his death in 1695. Of his other writings, the most remarkable is the _Advice to a Dissenter_ (1687), a masterly dissuasive against abetting the illegalities of James.

Possibly, when Halifax penned the last-quoted aphorism, he was thinking of Sir William Temple, well known to him at the council-board, of whom Macaulay says, 'It was his constitution to dread failure more than he desired success.' This elegant writer, whom we have already met as an historian and as a speculator upon government, for once did a rash thing when he entered into the controversy respecting the comparative merits of the ancient and modern writers, knowing little of either. Macaulay has done full justice to the ignorance and carelessness of this well-worded composition; but Macaulay has said nothing of its extraordinary want of insight. Temple need not be blamed for having been unable to make up his mind whether the blood circulated, and whether the earth went round the sun (the Grand Duke Cosmo found Cambridge disputing against the latter proposition in 1669); what is really astonishing is that he should have been utterly blind to the stupendous consequences which Giordano Bruno had pointed out a century before. 'If they are true,' he says, 'yet these two great discoveries have made no change in the conclusions of astronomy, nor in the practice of physic, and so have been of little use to the world, though perhaps of much honour to the authors.' After this, Temple's essays are not likely to be referred to in quest of intellectual wisdom, and their chief value, apart from the purity and elegance of their style, consists in their illustrations of contemporary opinions and practices. This is especially the case with the essay on _Health and Long Life_. Temple enumerates with suppressed amusement the various sanatory fads he has known, among which he seems to reckon tea and coffee. Unconsciously confirming an anecdote of Charles II. and his physicians, related by Evelyn, he tells us that Peruvian bark was at first received with prejudice and suspicion, but was becoming rehabilitated in his day, and fairly confounds us by his faith in 'that little insect called millepedes; the powder whereof, made up into little balls with fresh butter, I never knew fail of curing any sore throat.'

The letter-writers of the age who have any claim to a place in literature as such are but few, and none of their epistles were intended for publication. Dryden, as elsewhere, takes the lead, and his letters, though scanty and occasional, occupy a pleasant chamber in the edifice of his prose writings. The first, dated 1655, and addressed to a female cousin in language of complimentary gallantry, is of especial interest as showing how early his prose style was formed. Notwithstanding the strain of high-flown sentiment enforced by the occasion, it is far less fanciful and involved than similar compositions of the early Caroline period, and is in all essential respects an example of the sound, clear prose of the Restoration. The letters to the two Rochesters, the man of letters and the man of office, are models of ingenious flattery in different styles; those to his publisher, Jacob Tonson, apart from their personal interest, are important for the light they throw upon the relations between publishers and authors at a period when publishers were as yet mere tradesmen, and the most popular author could hardly subsist by authorship. The latest of all, addressed to his Northamptonshire kindred, are mellow as with the light of a setting sun, and afford pleasant glimpses of the occasional ruralizings of the most urban of poets.

[Sidenote: Lady Temple's letters (1652-1654).]

Sir William Temple is so thoroughly identified with the Restoration period, that although the Lady Temple's charming letters of his betrothed, Dorothy Osborne, were written in 1652-54, and not published until 1888, they may be regarded as belonging to it. The young lady was well known from Macaulay's account of her in his essay upon her husband, and many of her letters had been published in Courtenay's life of her husband, ere the whole, so far as preserved, recently became accessible in the edition of Mr. Edward Abbott Parry. Intended for no other eyes than her lover's, these letters have given Lady Temple high rank among English epistolographers. Though they are exceedingly well written, their charm is personal rather than literary. No biographer or novelist has painted a truer picture of the English maiden, high-minded and high spirited, heroically constant and at the same time full of engaging frailties and arch teasing ways, than is depicted in these artless self-revelations. Temple seems to have behaved perfectly well throughout their protracted engagement; and his fulfilment of it after Dorothy's beauty had been destroyed by the smallpox may be reasonably believed to have been the effect of inclination, no less than of honour and duty. The very slight glimpse we obtain of their married life reveals Lady Temple's interest in his political career; had this been guided by her his life would probably have been less comfortable, and his memory more glorious.

[Sidenote: Dean Prideaux's letters (1674-1710).]

The letters of Humphrey Prideaux, Dean of Norwich, to John Ellis, Secretary of the Treasury, edited for the Camden Society by Sir Edward Maunde Thompson, though ordinary familiar correspondence, are too curious a repertory of gossip to be passed over without notice. They are mostly written from Oxford, and retail the scandal of the university in a lively fashion, although the writer, a middling classical and oriental scholar, known by his edition of the _Arundel Marbles_ and his _Life of Mahomet_, seems rather a matter-of-fact personage. His relish for scandal, however, occasionally makes him humorous, as when he describes the deportment of his predecessor in the Norwich deanery: 'His whole life is the pot and the pipe, and, go to him when you will, you will find him walking about his room with a pipe in his mouth and a bottle of claret and a bottle of old strong beer (which in this country they call nog) upon the table, and every other turn he takes a glass of one or the other of them.' The book is rich in such vignettes; its more serious interest consists in its illustration of the practical refutation of the theory of divine right previously held by the majority of the clergy by James II.'s misgovernment. The beginning and the end of the correspondence are in violent political contrast; and the metamorphosis is entirely effected during the last two years of James's reign.

Literary history is necessarily among the latest developments of literature. The nearest approach to it in the England of the seventeenth century was the younger Gerard Langbaine's (1656-92) _Account of the English Dramatic Poets_, Oxford, 1691. Langbaine laid himself out particularly to discover the sources from which dramatists had borrowed their plots, and is styled by Dr. Johnson 'the great detector of plagiarism.' He has been accused of having read poetry for no other purpose, but is vindicated by Mr. Sidney Lee. The value of his work is much increased by the manuscript notes and additions of Oldys and others, copies of which are in the British Museum and Bodleian. The literary compilations of Edward Phillips are so poor that they would have deserved no notice if he had not been Milton's nephew, and the first English author to mention _Paradise Lost_.

FOOTNOTES:

[12] All the editions have _Platonic_, but this must be a misprint.