ON THE COMIC WRITERS OF

ENGLAND.

BY CHARLES COWDEN CLARKE.

XIII. THE ESSAYISTS.

HE Essay in a prose composition may bear some analogy to the sonnet in a poetical one. It comprises a condensation of thought upon a given subject, to be delivered

within a certain limited space. In the sonnet, the thought, or reflection upon the thesis, must, by law, be prescribed within the compass of fourteen lines. In the essay the restriction, it is true, is not so stern; but a conventional dilation is understood and generally adhered to, or the essay extends into the more important character of the "Treatise."

The first, I believe, and certainly the most important of English essays, are those immortal quintessentialisms of wisdom, the essays of Lord Bacon, in which each subject, or thesis of his discourse, is treated in the most brief, and at the same time in so comprehensive and plenary a manner, that it were difficult to conceive how anything more could be said upon the topic, and, consequently, still less how that more could elucidate and improve the writer's argument. The author might well say, with an honest appreciation of their quality (although the offspring of his own brain), that they were composed of the stuff and matter that "come home to men's business and bosoms," and that he believed they "would last as long as books should last"; and so they certainly will, or another hyperborean darkness will have spread over the world's wisdom and literature, or, to apply by metaphor his own sublime picture of physical and material dissolution, wherein he says, "Deluges and earthquakes are the two great winding-sheets that bury all things in oblivion "; so a deluge of barbarism only will deprive the world of Bacon's essays. Of all the books in my own little collection (Shakespeare only excepted) no one is so scored, or has so many marginal recognitions of the author's wisdom-moral, practical, and theoretical, as that little microcosm of ethical philosophy-"little body, indeed, but with a mighty heart."

It is not my intention, because it would not suit my space and purpose, to enter into any account of the foreign essayists upon the morals, manners, and customs of their contemporaries—such writers as Casa, in his treatise on "Manners," and Castiglione, in his book entitled the "Courtier": works universally esteemed in their day for their grace and purity of diction; but which, like vegetable and animal growths, having fulfilled their mission, have passed from the modern world's recognisance, or are known only to the literary antiquarian. Their authors addressed themselves to their own, and not to "all time," and hence their mortality.

The most vigorous and undying book of foreign essays, in my own recollection, I should pronounce to be that highly interesting record of individual feelings, thoughts, reflections, and egoistical sensations by the celebrated Montaigne: a book which, from its very egoism and individuality, with quaint and varied matter, will remain for ever a classic in its rank of literature. It is needless to inform any one who is acquainted with our English version of the work that Cotton, the angler and pupil of old Izaak Walton, was our first translator of it, and I remember hearing the late Mr. Barnes, of the Times, pronounce it to be one of the finest translations he knew of any book.

Besides Bacon in our own nation, we have had several grave and sound writers-as essayists-upon the morals and manners of their several ages, such as Peacham and Braithwaite, and Sir Francis Vere -men of no insignificant standing in their day, although, like some of their contemporaries, they were more to be esteemed for their weight of matter than for a captivating popularity of manner. We have also had our essayists upon general subjects and topics: Feltham's "Resolves," for instance, at one time claimed a large share of popular favour, and they who seek for, and can appreciate sound and sincere, with original thought, and who look for something beyond mere evanescent entertainment, will arise from the perusal of some of his tracts and reflections with an elevated feeling of the author's mind, and with an improvement of their own.

But nothing had yet been projected of a periodical nature-light and airy in manner, which should attract the attention of the thoughtless many, at the time that it was preaching to them lessons of moral rectitude, and at the same time was chastising their vices, or laughing at their follies and impertinences. The drama and the stage had in the first instance been the chief exemplars of good manners, and the satirists of vice and folly, till both writings and representations had sunk into that revolting state of corruption and licentiousness as we

find them when that tide of obscenity poured in upon us with the Restoration. The public amusements (which should always respect if not elevate the manners of a nation) had in that period (and a short time before it) of our history reached a pitch of grossness and absurdity that we, in our day, can scarcely realise, even while we read them.

Nicholl, in his preface to an edition of the periodicals of Steele and Addison, makes the following observation :-" In all changes of English manners a foreign influence has long been predominant. The earliest accounts inform us that those who were allowed to prescribe the modes in dress, language, and sentiment, collected their knowledge in their travels, and were not ashamed of being conquered by the follies of a nation whose arms they despised. About the time we now treat of, foreign fopperies, ignorance of the rules of propriety, and indecorous affectations, had introduced many absurdities into public and private life, for which no remedy was provided in the funds of public instruction, and which consequently prevailed with impunity until the appearance of the essayists." Nicholl here means distinctly the essayists of the 18th century—the periodical essayists, and the father and originator of these was Richard Steele. "This useful and intelligent class of writers (and he at their head), struck with the necessity of supplying the lesser wants of society, determined to subdivide instruction into such portions as might suit those temporary demands and casual exigencies which were overlooked by graver writers and more bulky theorists, or, in the language of Addison, to bring philosophy out of closets and libraries, schools and colleges, to dwell in clubs and assemblies, at tea-tables and in coffee-houses.'”

This great and important work of public improvement-moral and intellectual, Steele originated in the Tatler. I have heretofore spoken of this eminent and very useful man; and I do not find that I have much to add to what I then advanced respecting his genius and career of public utility. That Steele had more inventive talent than Addison must strike every one who canvasses the productions of the two authors. Addison does not exhibit much originality in developing character; nevertheless, his portraits of the several members of the club in the Spectator are drawn with much elegance of manner and delicacy of finish; and another important exception to the opinion just given must be made in the instance of Sir Roger de Coverley, one of the chastest and most exquisite specimens of individuality in literary portraiture that could well be quoted. Sir Roger stands out distinctly as the exemplar of the country gentleman of the 18th

century. Addison also exhibited a graceful imagination in his allegorical inventions; and of these "The Vision of Mirza" stands in the first rank of this class of writing. But in his dramatic inventions he has betrayed how very little genius he possessed for that department of composition; his "Cato" being totally barren both of plot and character; while his "Drummer" (taken for a sample of comic humour) is as melancholy as a morass. The brilliant quality of Addison's genius displayed itself in the sterling purity and elegance of his wit, with a classical correctness of diction. These phases of his intellectual character Steele placed constantly in his view for the purpose of his own improvement in style; and the result was, that his latter papers bear so strong a resemblance to the manner of his model, that it is difficult to distinguish them. The style and manner of this era, and of those two graceful writers in particular, bear a close affinity to the social deportment of the intellectual better circles of the same period: precise, and yet gay; fluent and easy, yet unfrivolous; graceful, polished, and keen, yet not acrimonious-never indeed ill-tempered, and therefore gentlemanly. I do not think that our feelings ever rise into the glow of admiration at their effusions, either of wit or pathos; at the same time, they rarely sink into indifference; and never into contempt. Some of Steele's little stories, written for a social and moral purpose, will be read with a grateful interest so long as true love, and the principles of just equality are held in any esteem in the world: while the wickedness of avarice, selfishness, and cruelty stand illustrated for ever in that most bitter of all sarcasms upon commercial cupidity, the "History of Inkle and Yarico."

In the first paper of the Tatler, Steele in his pleasant and gay manner announces that he had "invented its title in honour of the fair sex." The Tatler, in fact, consists of a running fire of comment upon the follies, the gaieties, the levities, the humours, the absurdities, the fashions, and the vices of the wits, the beauties, and the "pretty fellows" about town; recording the sayings and doings, and comings and goings, the hundred thousand nothings that comprise the life of the fashionable world-and a most faithful mirror of the age it is. He (the Tatler) laughed at frivolity, rebuked vice, and reformed both with a quill of spontaneous natural wit and buoyant humour; and effected with the airy wave of his pen, what might have been attempted in vain by a whole crusade of ponderous moralists, with voluminous gravity. He rallies the women out of the preposterous amplitude of their hoop-petticoats; and laughs the beaux out of the ridiculous length of their swords; he banters and shames the ladies

out of the scantiness of their tuckers, while he mocks the gentlemen out of the extravagance of their wigs. His manner were well worth the consideration of many a censor and critic of our own day; for he is never rough and unkind, and consequently he is always the gentleman.

Almost the only occasions on which Steele allows himself to be seriously sedate, and to argue gravely are, when he is upon the subject of seduction or duelling. On the latter point he felt deeply

-as has already been recorded in a former essay. A quarrel was fastened upon him, which he endeavoured to avoid; and when forced into the fight, he killed his antagonist by accident.

It is to be observed that in questions involving an arbitration of justice between the two sexes, Steele is uniformly inclined to favour the women. He was a true "knight of dames." He chivalrously pleads the cause of the weak against the strong; and almost forgets the sternness of the judge in the zeal and warmth of the advocate. It was Steele who uttered that ever memorable and witty sentence upon the subject of seduction. He said: "To the eternal infamy of the male sex, falsehood among men is not reproachful; but credulity in women is infamous."

Upon the subject of marriage too, although he is wonderfully outspeaking on those alliances of worldly convenience, he yet frequently expresses himself with so tender a consideration, and with such gentleness of feeling towards the feebler party, that his precepts 'contributed in no slight degree to induce a better state of social feeling between man and wife than had ever existed before the period when those essays were written. Here is a passage on this same subject which affords a good specimen of Steele's style-sufficiently earnest to gain attention; yet sly and playful enough to attract the butterfly readers to whom he addressed himself.

There is a relation of life (he says) much more near than the most strict and sacred friendship; that is to say, marriage. This union is of too close and delicate a nature to be easily conceived by those who do not know that condition by experience. Here a man should, if possible, soften his passions [Steele here means his temper]; if not for his own ease, in compliance with a creature formed with a mind of a quite different make from his own. I am sure I do not mean it an injury to women, when I say there is a sort of sex in souls. I am tender of offending them, and know it is hard not to do so on this subject: but I must go on to say that the soul of a man, and that of a woman, are made very unlike, according to the employments for which they are designed. The ladies will please to observe, I say, our minds have different, not superior qualities to theirs. The Virtues have respectively a masculine and a feminine cast. What we call in men Wisdom, is in women Prudence. It is a partiality to call one greater than the other. A prudent woman is in the same class of honour as a wise man, and the VOL. VIII., N.S. 1872.

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