Eighteenth Century Vignettes

V. 'THE FEMALE QUIXOTE.'

ONE evening in the spring of the year 1751, the famous St. Dunstan, or Devil Tavern, by Temple Bar, – over whose Apollo Chamber you might still read the rhymed 'Welcome' of Ben Jonson; whence Steele had scrawled hasty excuses to 'Prue' in Bury Street; and where Garth and Swift and Addison had often dined together, – was the scene of a remarkable literary celebration. A young married lady, not then so well-known as she afterwards became, had written a novel called the 'Life of Harriot Stuart,' which was either just published or upon the point of issuing from the press. It was her first effort in fiction; and, probably through William Strahan the printer, one of whose employés she married, she had sought and obtained the acquaintance of Samuel Johnson. The great man thought very highly of her abilities: so much so, that he proposed to his colleagues at the Ivy Lane Club (the predecessor of the more illustrious Literary Club) to commemorate the birth of the book by an 'all-night sitting.' Pompous Mr. Hawkins, who tells the story, says that the guests, to the number of near twenty, including Mrs. Lenox (for that was the lady's name), her husband, and a female acquaintance, assembled at the Devil at about eight o'clock in the evening. The supper is characterised as 'elegant,' a prominent feature in it being a 'magnificent hot apple-pye,' which, because, forsooth (the 'forsooth' is Hawkins's), Mrs. Lenox was also a minor poet, her literary foster-father had caused to be stuck with bay-leaves. Besides this, after invoking the Muses by certain rites of his own invention, which should have been impressive, but are not described, Johnson 'encircled her brows' with a crown of laurel specially prepared by himself. These ceremonies completed, the company began to spend the evening 'in pleasant conversation, and harmless mirth, intermingled at different periods with the refreshments of coffee and tea.' But there must have been stronger potations as well, since the narrator, Hawkins, who had a 'raging tooth,' and is therefore excusably inexplicit, speaks of the desertion by some of those present of 'the colours of Bacchus;' and he expressly mentions the fact that Johnson, whose face, at five o'clock, 'shone with meridian splendour,' had confined himself exclusively to lemonade. By daybreak, the 'harmless mirth' was beginning to be intermingled with slumber, from which those who succumbed were only rallied with difficulty by a fresh relay of coffee. At length, when St. Dunstan's Clock was nearing eight, after waiting two hours for an attendant sufficiently wakeful to compile the bill, the company dispersed. Their symposium had been Platonic in its innocence; but to Hawkins, demoralised by toothache, and sanctimonious by temperament, their issue into the morning light of Fleet Street had all the aspect, and something of the remorse of a tardily-terminated debauch. Before he could mentally disinfect himself, he was obliged to take a turn or two in the Temple, and breakfast respectably at a coffee-house.

Although she is now forgotten, Charlotte Lenox, the heroine of these Johnsonian 'high jinks,' was once what Browning would have termed 'a person of importance in her day.' Her father, Colonel James Ramsay, was Lieutenant-Governor of New York. When his daughter was about fifteen, he sent her to England, consigning her to the charge of a relative in this country, who, by the time she reached it, was either dead or mad. Then Colonel Ramsay himself departed this life, and she was left without a protector. Lady Rockingham took her up, receiving her into her household; but an obscure love-affair put an end to their connection; and she subsequently found a fresh patroness in the Duchess of Newcastle. She must also have tried the stage, since Walpole speaks of her as a 'deplorable actress.' Her sheet anchor, however, was literature. In 1747 Paterson published a thin volume of her poems, dedicated to 'the Lady Issabella [sic] Finch,' – a volume in which she certainly 'touched the tender stops of various quills,' since it recalls most of the singers who were popular in her time. There are odes in imitation of Sappho (with one 'p'); there is a pastoral after the manner of Air. Pope; there is 'Envy, a Satire; 5 there is a versification of one of Mr. Addison's 'Spectators.5 To this maiden effort, a few years later, followed the novel above-mentioned, which is supposed to have been more or less autobiographical; then came another novel, 'The Female Quixote;' then 'Shakespeare Illustrated;' then a translation of Sully's 'Memoirs;' and then again more novels, plays, and translations. Mrs. Lenox lived into the present century, supported at the last partly from the Literary Fund, and partly by the Right Hon. George Rose, who befriended her in her latter days, and ultimately, when she died, old and very poor, in Dean's Yard, Westminster, paid the expenses of her burial. She is said – by Mr. Croker, of course – to have been 'plain in her person.' If this were so, she must have been considerably flattered in the portrait by Reynolds which Bartolozzi engraved for Harding's 'Shakespeare.' It is also stated, on the authority of Mrs. Thrale, that, although her books were admired, she herself was disliked. As regards her own sex, this may have been true; but it is dead against the evidence as regards the men. Johnson, for example, openly preferred her before Mrs. Carter, Miss Hannah More, and Miss Burney; and he never, to judge by the references in Boswell's 'Life,' wavered in his allegiance. He wrote the Dedications to 'The Female Quixote' and 'Shakespeare Illustrated;' he helped her materially (as did also Lord Orrery) in her version of Père Brumoy's 'Théâtre des Grecs;' he quoted her in the 'Dictionary;' he drew up, as late as 1775, the 'Proposals' for a complete edition of her works, and he reviewed her repeatedly. What is more, he introduced her to Richardson, by whom, upon the ground of her gifts and her misfortunes (She 'has genius,' and she 'has been unhappy,' said the sentimental little man), she was at once admitted to the inner circle of the devoted listeners at North End and Parson's-Green. Another of her admirers was Fielding, who, in his last book, the 'Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon,' calls her 'the inimitable and shamefully distress'd author of the Female Quixote.' Finally, Goldsmith wrote the epilogue to the unsuccessful comedy of 'The Sister,' which she based in 1769 upon her novel of 'Henrietta,' – an act which is the more creditable on his part because the play belonged to the ranks of that genteel comedy which he detested. A woman who could thus enlist the suffrage and secure the sendee of the four greatest writers of her day must have possessed exceptional powers of attraction, either mental or physical; and this of itself is almost sufficient to account for the lack of a corresponding enthusiasm in her own sex.

How she obtained her education, the scanty records of her life do not disclose. But it is clear that she had considerable attainments; and she obviously added to them a faculty for ingenious flattery, which, after the fashion of that day, she exhibited in her books. In her best effort, 'The Female Quixote,' there is a handsome reference to that 'admirable Writer,' Mr. Richardson; and Johnson is styled 'the greatest Genius in the present Age.' 'Rail,' she makes one of her characters say elsewhere, and painfully à-propos de bottes, – 'Rail with premeditated Malice at the "Rambler;" and for the want of Faults, turn even its inimitable Beauties into Ridicule: The Language, because it reaches to Perfection, may be called stiff, laboured, and pedantic; the Criticisms, when they let in more light than your weak Judgment can bear, superficial and ostentatious Glitter; and because those Papers contain the finest System of Ethics yet extant, damn the queer Fellow, for over-propping Virtue;' – in all of which, it is to be feared, the bigots of this iron time will see nothing but the rankest logrolling. Yet it was not to Mrs. Lenox that Johnson said, 'Madam, consider what your praise is worth.' On the contrary, if Dr. Birkbeck Hill conjectures rightly, he wrote a not unfavourable little notice of the book in the 'Gentleman's Magazine' for March, 1752, – a notice, which, if it does no more, at least compactly summarises the scheme of the story.

'Arabella,' it says (the full title is 'The Female Quixote; or, the Adventures of Arabella'), 'is the daughter of a statesman, born after his retirement in disgrace, and educated in solitude, at his castle, in a remote province. The romances which she found in the library after her mother's death, were almost the only books she had read; from these therefore she derived her ideas of life; she believed the business of the world to be love, every incident to be the beginning of an adventure, and every stranger a knight in disguise. The solemn manner in which she treats the most common and trivial occurrences, the romantic expectations she forms, and the absurdities which she commits herself, and produces in others, afford a most entertaining series of circumstances and events.' And then he goes on to quote, as coming from one equally 'emulous of Cervantes, and jealous of a rival,' the opinion which Mr. Fielding had expressed a few days earlier, in his 'Covent Garden Journal,' – an opinion which, if, as Johnson asserts, he had at this time no knowledge of the author of the book, does even more credit to his generosity than to his critical judgment. For the author of | Tom Jones' not only devotes rather more than two handsome columns to 'The Female Quixote;' but, professing to give his report of it 'with no less Sincerity than Candour,' gravely proceeds to show in what it falls short of, in what it equals, and in what it excels (!) the master-piece of which it is a professed imitation. According to him, the advantage of Mrs. Lenox in the last respect (for the others may be neglected) lies in the fact that it is more probable that the reading of romances would turn the head of a young lady than the head of an old gentleman; that the character of Arabella is more endearing than that of Don Quixote; that her situation is more interesting; and that the incidents of her story, as well as the story itself, are less 'extravagant and incredible' than those of the immortal hero of Cervantes. Finally, he sums up with the words which Johnson afterwards reproduced, in part, in the 'Gentleman's Magazine:' 'I do very earnestly recommend it, as a most extraordinary and most excellent Performance. It is indeed a Work of true Humour, and cannot fail of giving a rational, as well as very pleasing Amusement to a sensible Reader, who will at once be instructed and very highly diverted. Some Faults perhaps there may be, but these all leave the unpleasing Task of pointing them out to those who will have more Pleasure in the Office. This Caution, however, I think proper to premise, that no Persons presume to find many [He is speaking in his assumed character of Censor of Great Britain]. For if they do, I promise them the Critic and not the Author will be to blame.'

Pro captu lectoris habent sua fata libelli. In spite of the verdict of Johnson and Fielding, – that is to say, in spite of the verdict of the Macaulay and Thackeray of the Eighteenth Century, – the Critic, it is to be feared, must be blamed to-day. Were Fielding alone, one might discount his opinion by assuming that he would naturally welcome a work of art which was on his side rather than on that of Richardson; but this would not account for the equally favourable opinion of Johnson. 11

Nor could it be laid entirely to the novelty of the attempt, for 'Tom Jones' and 'Clarissa' and 'Peregrine Pickle,' masterpieces all, had by this time been written, and can still be read, which it is difficult to say of 'The Female Quixote; or, the Adventures of Arabella.' Mrs. Lenox's fundamental idea, no doubt, is a good one, although the character of the heroine has its feminine prototypes in the 'Précieuses Ridicules' of Molière and the Biddy Tipkin of Steele's 'Tender Husband.' It may be conceded, too, that some of the manifold complications which arise from her bringing every incident of her career to the touchstone of the high-falutin' romances of the Sieur de la Calprenède, and that 'grave and virtuous virgin,' Madeleine de Scudéry, are diverting enough. The lamentable predicament of the lover, Mr. Glanville, who is convicted of imperfect application to the pages of 'Cassandra,' by his hopeless ignorance of the elementary fact that the Orontes and Oroondates of that performance are one and the same person; the case of the luckless dipper into Thucydides and Herodotus at Bath who is confronted, to his utter discomfiture, with the inoffensive tone of the book itself, can reconcile us to a heroine who is unable to pass the sugar-tongs without a reference to Parisatis, Princess of Persia, or Cleobuline, Princess of Corinth; – who holds with the illustrious Mandana that, even after ten years of the most faithful services and concealed torments, it is still presumptuous for a monarch to aspire to her hand; – and who, upon the slightest provocation, plunges into tirades of this sort: 'Had you persevered in your Affection, and continued your Pursuit of that Fair-one, you would, perhaps, ere this, have found her sleeping under the Shade of a Tree in some lone Forest, as Philodaspes did his admirable Delia, or disguised in a Slave's Habit, as Ariobarsanes saw his Divine Olympia; or bound haply in a Chariot, and have had the Glory of freeing her, as Ambriomer did the beauteous Agione; or in a Ship in the Hands of Pirates, like the incomparable Eliza; or' – at which point she is fortunately interrupted. In another place she fancies her uncle is in love with her, and thereupon, 'wiping some Tears from her fine Eyes,' apostrophises that elderly and astounded relative in this wise – 'Go then, unfortunate and lamented Uncle; go, and endeavour by Reason and Absence to recover thy Repose; and be assured, whenever you can convince me you have triumphed over these Sentiments which now cause both our Unhappiness, you shall have no Cause to complain of my Conduct towards you.' There is an air of unreality about all this, which, one would think, should have impeded its popularity in its own day. In the Spain of Don Quixote it is conceivable; it is intolerable in the England of Arabella. But there are other reasons which help to account for the oblivion into which the book has fallen. One is, that by neglecting to preserve the atmosphere of the age in which it was written, it has missed an element of vitality which is retained even by such fugitive efforts as Coventry's 'Pompey the Little.' 12

Indeed, beyond the above-quoted references to Johnson and Richardson, and an obscure allusion to the beautiful Miss Gunnings who, at this date, divided the Talk of the Town with the Earthquake, there is scarcely any light thrown upon contemporary life and manners throughout the whole of Arabella's history. Another, and a graver objection (as one of her critics, whose own admirable 'Amelia' had been but recently published, should have known better than any one) is that, in spite of the humour of some of the situations, the characters of the book are colourless and mechanical. Fielding's Captain Booth and his wife, Mrs. Bennet and Serjeant Atkinson, Dr. Harrison and Colonel Bath are breathing and moving human beings: the Glanvilles and Sir Charleses and Sir Georges of Mrs. Charlotte Lenox are little more than shrill-voiced and wire-jointed 'High-Life' puppets.

VI. FIELDING'S 'VOYAGE TO LISBON.'

NOT far from where these lines are written, on the right-hand side of the road from Acton to Ealing stands a house called Ford-hook. Shut in by walls, and jealously guarded by surrounding trees, it offers itself but furtively to the incurious passer-by. Nevertheless, it has traditions which might well give him pause. Even in this century, it enjoyed the distinction of belonging to Lady Byron, the poet's wife; and in its existing drawing-room, 'Ada, sole daughter of my house and heart,' was married to William, Earl of Lovelace. But an earlier and graver memory than this lingers about the spot. More than one hundred and forty-three years ago, on a certain Wednesday in June, the cottage which formerly occupied the site was the scene of one of the saddest leave-takings in literature. On this particular day had gathered about its door a little group of sympathetic friends and relatives, who were evidently assembled to bid sorrowful good-bye to some one, for whom, as the clock was striking twelve, a coach had just drawn up. Presently a tall man, terribly broken and emaciated, but still wearing the marks of dignity and kindliness on his once handsome face, made his appearance, and was assisted, with some difficulty (for he had practically lost the use of his limbs), into the vehicle. An elderly, homely-looking woman, and a slim girl of seventeen or eighteen, took their seats beside him without delay; and, amid the mingled tears and good wishes of the spectators, the coach drove off swiftly in the direction of London. The sick man was Henry Fielding, the famous novelist; his companions, his second wife and his eldest daughter. He was dying of a complication of diseases; and, like Peterborough and Doddridge before him, was setting out in the forlorn hope of finding life and health at Lisbon. Since Scott quoted them in 1821, the words in which his journal describes his departure have been classic:

'Wednesday, June 26, 1754. – On this day, the most melancholy sun I had ever beheld arose, and found me awake at my house at Fordhook. By the light of this sun, I was, in my own opinion, last to behold and take leave of some of those creatures on whom I doated with a mother-like fondness, guided by nature and passion, and uncured and unhardened by all the doctrine of that philosophical school where I had learnt to bear pains and to despise death.

'In this situation, as I could not conquer nature, I submitted entirely to her, and she made as great a fool of me as she had ever done of any woman whatsoever: under pretence of giving me leave to enjoy, she drew me in to suffer the company of my little ones, during eight hours; and I doubt not whether, in that time, I did not undergo more than in all my distemper.'

Of Fielding's life, it may be said truly, that nothing in it became him like the leaving it. At the moment of his starting for Lisbon, his case, as is clear from the above quotation, was already regarded by himself as desperate. To 'a lingering imperfect gout' had succeeded 'a deep jaundice;' and to jaundice, asthma and dropsy. He was past the power of the Duke of Portland's powder; past the famous tar-water of the good Bishop Berkeley. Had he acknowledged his danger earlier, his life might have been prolonged, though, in all probability, but for brief space. His health had for some time been breaking; he was worn out by his harassing vocation as a Middlesex Magistrate; and he feared that, in the event of his death, his family must starve. This last consideration it was that tempted him to defer his retirement to the country in order to break up a notorious gang of street-robbers, and so earn (as he fondly hoped) some government provision for those helpless ones whom he must leave behind him. He succeeded in his task, although he failed of his reward; and what was worse, as regards his health, much irrecoverable opportunity had been lost. By the time that his labours were at an end, he was a doomed man. The Bath waters could effect nothing in the advanced stage of his malady; and, after a short sojourn at his 'little house' at Ealing, he took his passage in the 'Queen of Portugal,' Richard Veal, master, for Lisbon. Of this voyage he has left his own account; and the posthumous volume thus produced is a curiosity of literature. It is one of the most touching records in the language of fortitude under trial; and it is not surprising to learn – as we do from Hazlitt – that it was a favourite book with another much-enduring mortal, the gentle and uncomplaining 'Elia.'