Chapter XXVI: Appendix: C

THE EPITHET ‘SENTIMENTAL.’

Goldsmith’s use of ‘sentimental’ in the ‘prologue’ to _She Stoops to
Conquer_ (p. 109, l. 36)—the only occasion upon which he seems
to have employed it in his _Poems_—affords an excuse for
bringing together one or two dispersed illustrations of the rise and
growth of this once highly-popular adjective, not as yet
reached in the _N. E. D._ Johnson, who must often have heard it,
ignores it altogether; and in Todd’s edition of his _Dictionary_
(1818) it is expressly marked with a star as one of the modern words which
are ‘not’ to be found in the Doctor’s collection. According to Mr. Sidney
Lee’s admirable article in the _Dictionary of National Biography_
on Sterne, that author is to be regarded as the ‘only begetter’ of the
epithet. Mr. Lee says that it first occurs in a letter of 1740 written by
the future author of _Tristram Shandy_ to the Miss Lumley he
afterwards married. Here is the precise and characteristic passage:—‘I
gave a thousand pensive, penetrating looks at the chair thou hadst so
often graced, in those quiet and _sentimental_ repasts—then
laid down my knife and fork, and took out my handkerchief, and clapped it
across my face, and wept like a child’ (Sterne’s _Works_ by
Saintsbury, 1894, v. 25). Nine years later, however circulated,
‘sentimental’ has grown ‘so much in vogue’ that it has reached from London
to the provinces. ‘Mrs. Belfour’ (Lady Bradshaigh) writing from
Lincolnshire to Richardson says:—‘Pray, Sir, give me leave to ask
you . . . what, in your opinion, is the meaning of the word _sentimental_,
so much in vogue amongst the polite, both in town and country? In letters
and common conversation, I have asked several who make use of it, and have
generally received for answer, it is—it is—_sentimental_.
Every thing clever and agreeable is comprehended in that word; but [I] am
convinced a wrong interpretation is given, because it is impossible every
thing clever and agreeable can be so common as this word. I am frequently
astonished to hear such a one is a _sentimental_ man; we were a _sentimental_
party; I have been taking a _ sentimental_ walk. And that I might be
reckoned a little in the fashion, and, as I thought, show them the proper
use of the word, about six weeks ago, I declared I had just received a _
sentimental_ letter. Having often laughed at the word, and found fault
with the application of it, and this being the first time I ventured to
make use of it, I was loudly congratulated upon the occasion: but I should
be glad to know your interpretation of it’ (Richardson’s _Correspondence_,
1804, iv. pp. 282–3). The reply of the author of _Clarissa_,
which would have been interesting, is not given; but it is clear that by
this date (1749) ‘sentimental’ must already have been rather overworked by
‘the polite.’ Eleven years after this we meet with it in the Prologue to
Colman’s
‘Dramatick Novel’ of _Polly Honeycombe_. ‘And then,’ he says,
commenting upon the fiction of the period,—

And then so _sentimental_ is the Stile,

So chaste, yet so bewitching all the while!

Plot, and elopement, passion, rape, and rapture,

The total sum of ev’ry dear—dear—Chapter.

With February, 1768, came Sterne’s _ Sentimental Journey_ upon
which Wesley has this comment:—‘I casually took a volume of what is
called, “A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy.” _Sentimental_!
what is that? It is not English: he might as well say, _ Continental_
[!]. It is not sense. It conveys no determinate idea; yet one fool makes
many. And this nonsensical word (who would believe it?) is become a
fashionable one!’ (_Journal_, February 11, 1772). In 1773,
Goldsmith puts it in the ‘Dedication’ to _She Stoops_:—‘The
undertaking a comedy, not merely _sentimental_, was very dangerous;’ and
Garrick (forgetting Kelly and _False Delicacy_) uses it more
than once in his ‘Prologue’ to the same play, e.g.—‘Faces are blocks
in _sentimental_ scenes.’ Further examples might easily be multiplied, for
the word, in spite of Johnson, had now come to stay. Two years
subsequently we find Sheridan referring to

The goddess of the woful countenance,

The _sentimental_ Muse!—

in an occasional ‘Prologue’ to _The Rivals_. It must already
have passed into the vocabulary of the learned. Todd gives examples from
Shenstone and Langhorne. Warton has it more than once in his _History
of English Poetry_; and it figures in the _Essays_ of
Vicesimus Knox. Thus academically launched, we need no longer follow its
fortunes.