Eighteenth-century prose

The new century threw aside the strange plots and ideas of heroic
tragedy and turned to reasonable things, DANIEL DEFOE described the
Great Plague1 of London in his Journal of the Plague Year (1722). The
plague broke out (badly) in 1665, when Defoe was only five, but he
obtained information about it from different places. His Robinson Crusoe
(1719) is a better and more famous book. This story is based on a real
event, Alexander Selkirk, a sailor who quarrelled with his captain, was
in fact put on the island ofjuan Fernandez, near Chile, and lived there
alone for four years. Defoe made a good story out of this event: indeed,
his book is almost a novel, and one of the first in English.
RICHARD STEELE

and JOSEPH ADDISON worked together in pro-

ducing The Tatler, a paper of essays on various subjects. A more

famous paper. The Spectator, followed. Steele was a warm-hearted
man, friendly and careless with money. Addison was a calm man
of learning, and a traveller, and he hated violence. These essays,
written in pure English prose without too much ornament, helped
towards the production of the novel ; for they described the actions
of imaginary characters, such as Sir Roger de Coverley, who became
a great favourite among the readers.
Addison and Steele were mild; JONATHAN SWIFT was a bitter
satirist. At this time there was a fierce argument about the abilities
and the books of the ancients and the moderns. In this battle of

1plague, a dangerous disease.

Robinson Crusoes Island from the 1720 edition of the book

the books Swift supported his friend Temple by writing The Battle
of the Books (1704) on the side of the ancients. His Tale of a Tub
(1704) attacked religious ideas, and annoyed a large number of
readers. An example of his bitterness may be seen in A Modest
Proposal (1729), which contains the suggestion that the poor, who
needed money, should sell their children to the rich as food. This
kind of satire seriously accepts the evils of the world, and goes on to
show' their extreme results.
Swifts most famous satire, Gullivers Travels (1726), is in four
books. As a story it is popular with the young, who usually read the
first two books: Gullivers voyages to Lilliput (where the people are
six inches high) and Brobdingnag (where they are immense).
The Lilliputians fight wars (as the English do) which seem foolish.
The king of Brobdingnag, after hearing about Gullivers country,
thinks that the people there must be the most hateful race of creatures on earth.
DR SAMUEL JOHNSON

was always poor and therefore had to do all

kinds of literary work, even if he did not like it. His famous Dictionary appeared in 1755 and went into five editions2 in his own life.
He was a kind of literary ruler, giving judgments on books and
authors like a god. Late in life he wrote his Lives of the Poets (177981) with decision and clear expression.
His own writings are less important than w'hat he said, and a
record of his conversations has fortunately been preserved for us in
the Life of Johnson (1791) by his friend JAMES BOSWELL. This is the
2

edition, printing of a book with (in 2nd and later editions)' corrections and
other changes.

greatest biography in English. Boswell had the happy idea of writing

down the exact words used by Johnson, and the result is a highly
interesting picture of the literary world of the time. Here are a few
of Johnsons statements:
A man, Sir, should keep his friendship in constantA repair.
Let me smile with the wise and feed with the rich.
It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives.
Why, Sir, if you were to read Richardson for the story,
your impatience would be so much fretted0 that you
would hang yourself.
Sir, there is more knowledge of the heart in one letter of
Richardsons than in all Tom Jones.
There is now less floggingc in our great schools than
formerly, but then less is learned there; so that what the
boys get at one end they lose at the other.
Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life;
for there is in London all that life can afford 0.
A

continual D worried c beating D give

An original picture of Dr Johnson and Boswell on a journey lo Scotland

4
3

conciliation, gaining (someone) as a friend.

oratory, making public speeches; oratorical, of this style.

anyone wrote a letter it was an important event, LADY MARY

WORTLEY MONTAGU wrote

some of the best-known. She was a

witty, learned and beautiful woman. Her letters from Turkey,

where her husband represented the King (George I) of England,
describe events in that country, and there she discovered a way of
preventing smallpox 2. She tried it on her own son and introduced
it into England. Later she wrote letters from Italy, and all show her
wisdom and good sense.
The fourth EARL OF CHESTERFIELD is chiefly famous now for his
letters to his son. They are in fine prose, contain wise advice, but
are not always morally perfect. He tried to tell his son what would
succeed in the world, and not what ought to succeed. Chesterfield
also received a famous letter from Dr Johnson, who once asked him
for help with his dictionary. Just as the work was finished, Chesterfield praised it in public. Johnson wrote an angry letter asking why a
great man should help him when no more help was needed.
The letters of HORACE WALPOLE are written in good prose, but
the character of the writer is not always attractive. The letters of
the poets Gray and Cowper are also important. Grays are those of a
learned man; Cowpers show us something of his simple and gentle
character.
The English novel proper was born about the middle of the eighteenth century. The study of character had begun some time before
in Earles Microcosmograpkie and other books of this kind. Addison
and Steele had drawn the character of Sir Roger de Coverley, and
had studied the behaviour of women, in The Spectator. Dryden and
Chesterfield had built up a fine prose style which was ready for use.
Defoe in Robinson Crusoe, and other writers such as Swift, had written
stories of adventure. It is not, therefore, surprising that in 174.0 a
real novel appeared. It was Pamela by SAMUEL RICHARDSON.

2smallpoxj a dangerous disease which, if it

does not kill, leaves deep marks
on the skin.

Pamela is a novel written in the form of letters, and these appeared

one after the other. This book is different from mere stories of
adventure; for it examines the human heart and shows the effects
of human character. Richardson, a printer by trade, did not write it
until he was over fifty. When he did w'rite it, and when the letters
began to appear, the ladies of the time were excited. They nolonger needed the old
stories of far-away princesses; they could
read about the feelings of an English girl, Pamela Andrews. It is a
simple story of a good girl who receives the rewards of virtue.
Because it came out in letters (supposed to be from Pamela), the
ladies could try to persuade Richardson to let Pamela do what they
wanted. Oh, Mr Richardson, please dont let her die!' and so on.
Richardsons next novel, Clarissa Harlowe (1747-8;, is his best.
Clarissa is the beautiful daughter of a severe father who wants her
to marry against her will. She is driven to a state of despair, and
dies an early death. The novel is about eight times as long as an
ordinary modern novel, but it was widely read in England and
abroad in Richardsons dav.
henry fielding, a

man of gay character, began a novel, Joseph

Andrews (1742), as a kind of satire on Pamela. Joseph is supposed to

be her brother. Pamela was a serving-girl whose master paid her
too much attention; Joseph is also a servant and is in difficulties of
the same sort. Fielding soon became interested in his own novel,
and let Joseph fall into the background. The later part of the novel is
chiefly about Parson Adams, a simple, funny, and good-hearted
priest. Fielding wrote the novel directly, as a straight story, without
the trick of letters.
Fieldings greatest novel, Tarn Jones (1749), appeared in eighteen
books, each of which had an essay before it. (George Eliot and
Thackeray did the same sort of thing.) Tom is a boy found in Mr
An illustration by Thomas Rowlandson for Fieldings Tom Jones

Allworthys house, and he is brought up there with kindness. Then

he falls in love wdth the beautiful Sophia, daughter of Squire
Western. He does several other things that Allworthy does not like,
and Tom is driven out of the house. In London he has many adventures, but in the end he meets Sophia there and all ends happily.
Another of Fieldings books, The History of Jonathan Wild the
Great (1743), is a satire. It deals with a real criminal, Wild, who
stole a lot of money with his followers before he was found guilty
and put to death in 1725.
A new kind of picture of real life was drawn by TOBIAS SMOLLETT
in his picaresque novel, Roderick Random (1748). The novel is
powerful and unpleasant. It describes bitterly the life of those who
sail the seas. In another novel, Peregrine Pickle (1751), the hero is an
unpleasant fellow who travels a good deal, has fights, and visits
Paris and Holland. Several well-drawn characters includc a violent
seaman, Trunnion, whose language is terrible, but w'hose heart is of
gold.
A later novel by Smollett, Humphrey Clinker (1771), is in the form
ofletters, and is less violent and in better taste than the other two.
It describes the travels through England and Scotland of the Bramble
family. Smolletts books often give us interesting information about
life and society in his time.
A fourth novel-writer of importance at this time was LAURENCE
STF.RNE. His

astonishing books are as confusing as life itself. He

seems to dislike order and common sense, but perhaps life does not
contain much of either. His Tristram Shandy (1760-7) made him
famous. We have to read about half the book before the hero,
Tristram, is bom. Sterne leaves the story whenever he likes, to give
opinions and write essays on any subject in the world. He adds a
few blank pages and rows of stars here and there to confuse his
readers as much as possible. In spite of this, he can draw clear
characters, such as the old soldier, Uncle Toby, and his servant,
Trim. Another work by Sterne, A Sentimental 7 Journey through
France and Italy (1768) is not so confused or confusing and is in
better prose. Yet even here Sternes strange mind looks out at us
from the pages.
sentimental, concerned with the feelings (rather than reason), especially
feelings of love.
J

Another important novel of the time was The Vicar of Wakefield

(1761-2) by OLIVER GOLDSMITH. It is the story of a good and virtuous family which has great misfortunes; but all comes right in the
end. The novel contains some famous short poems, including the
Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog, which shows something of Goldsmiths humour. A good man is bitten by a mad dog:
The wound it seemed both sore and sad
To every Christian eye;
And while they swore the dog was mad,
They swore the man would die.
But soon a wonder came to light
That showed the roguesA they lied.
The man recovered8 of the bite;
The dog it was that died,
4

had men B got better

HORACE WALPOLE, whose letters

have been mentioned, wrote

(partly as a joke) The Castle of Otranto (1764), a novel about the

twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It contains descriptions of impossible events, such as the destruction of a building by an immense
ghost inside it. This novel of terror 8 was followed by others. Vathek
(1786) is a novel by WILLIAM BECKFORD. This astonishing book
(first written in French and then translated) tells us that Vathek
was the grandson of Harun al-Rashid and became the servant of
Eblis, the devil. After many adventures, he is allowed to visit the
underground halls of Eblis, but discovers that all the riches and
wonders there have little interest for him. He is punished for his
crimes with terrible pain. The description of the underworld is a
good piece of writing.
mrs ann radcliffe developed the novel

of terror with work of

better quality. She had a real feeling for nature. She causes interest
by describing unusual scenes and sights, such as moving walls and
secret passages, and strange events which she explains later. Her
greatest novel, The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), is set in the Appenine
Mountains. The girl Emily is held in a castle by her aunts husband,
an evil character. The writer keeps up the readers interest by
describing one astonishing event after another. In a locked room
Emily sees a dark curtain and wants to look behind it. She is afraid
of what may be there, but she bravely pulls it aside. On a long seat
she sees a dead body, with blood on the floor below. She bends over
it, faints, and drops her lamp. Mrs RadcliiTe mixes this kind of
writing with fine descriptions of sunlight on the forests, mountains
dark in the evening time (the Alps attracted her greatly), and the
sweetness of wild flowers. From her descriptions, it is clear that she
looked directly at nature, and did not get her ideas from books. Her
other novels were Romance9of the Forest (1791) and The Italian (1797).
She also wrote A Sicilian Romance (1790) and An Italian Romance

(179 0 8l
5

revolution, a rising of the people against their rulers.

Johnsons Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia (1759) is a kind of novel; at

least it has a story. But there are many essays on various subjects.
Rasselas, his sister Nekayah, and the philosopher Imlac go to
Egypt to study, because Rasselas is tired of the easy life in Abyssinia.
Johnson wrote the book in one week to pay for his mothers funeral.
EDWARD GIBBON decided

to write The Decline and Fall of the

Roman Empire while he was making a tour of Italy in 1764. The first
book appeared in 1776, two more books in 1781, and the last three
in 1788. This is recognised as the greatest historical work in English
literature. In splendid prose it covers the events of thirteen centuries,
and relates the ancient to the modern world. It is clear and complete,
and usually correct. It deals with various religions, Roman law,

Persian politics, the attacks of uncivilised tribes, and many other

affairs. After more than twenty years of search and study, Gibbon
says, it was on the day, or rather the night, of the 27th of June,
1787, between the hours of eleven and twelve that I wrote the last
line of the last page in a summer-house in my garden.
edmund burkf, wrote

fine prose too, but it was oratorical3 prose.

He was a lawyer and a member of Parliament. Some of his wise and

splendid speeches may be found in his Speech on American Taxation
(1774), Speech on Conciliation4 with America (1775}j and Letter to the
Sheriffs of Bristol (1777). He argues that wise government must not
press its rights too hard. The question with me, he says, is not
whether you have a right to render [ = make] your people miserable,
but whether it is not your interest to make them happy.
Later in his life his Reflections on the French Revolution 5 (1790) made
him famous in all parts of Europe. He supported the old ways of
government against the new. Although this book deals with the
problem of that age, its pages are covered with ideas which are
true in other situations.
Burke made many other speeches. He wanted to get rid of slavery.
He attacked Warren Hastings after Hastings had left India in 1785.
He often spoke on parliamentary affairs.
Some of the best English letters were written during the eighteenth
century. The post at that time was slow and uncertain, and when