A History of English Literature

Allworthy, intended as an example of benevolent perfection, is no less of a
pale abstraction than Sir Charles Grandison. The women, cleverly as their
typical feminine traits are brought out, are really viewed only from
without.
THE OTHER SENTIMENTALISTS AND REALISTS. Richardson and Fielding set in
motion two currents, of sentimentalism and realism, respectively, which
flowed vigorously in the novel during the next generation, and indeed
(since they are of the essence of life), have continued, with various
modifications, down to our own time. Of the succeeding realists the most
important is Tobias Smollett, a Scottish ex-physician of violent and brutal
nature, who began to produce his picaresque stories of adventure during the
lifetime of Fielding. He made ferociously unqualified attacks on the
statesmen of his day, and in spite of much power, the coarseness of his
works renders them now almost unreadable. But he performed one definite
service; in 'Roderick Random,' drawing on his early experiences as a ship's
surgeon, he inaugurated the out-and-out sea story, that is the story which
takes place not, like 'Robinson Crusoe,' in small part, but mainly, on
board ship. Prominent, on the other hand, among the sentimentalists is
Laurence Sterne, who, inappropriately enough, was a clergyman, the author
of 'Tristram Shandy.' This book is quite unlike anything else ever written.
Sterne published it in nine successive volumes during almost as many years,
and he made a point of almost complete formlessness and every sort of
whimsicality. The hero is not born until the third volume, the story mostly
relates to other people and things, pages are left blank to be filled out
by the reader--no grotesque device or sudden trick can be too fantastic for
Sterne. But he has the gift of delicate pathos and humor, and certain
episodes in the book are justly famous, such as the one where Uncle Toby
carefully puts a fly out of the window, refusing to 'hurt a hair of its
head,' on the ground that 'the world surely is wide enough to hold both
thee and me.' The best of all the sentimental stories is Goldsmith's 'Vicar
of Wakefield' (1766), of which we have already spoken (above, page 244).
With its kindly humor, its single-hearted wholesomeness, and its delightful
figure of Dr. Primrose it remains, in spite of its artlessness, one of the
permanent landmarks of English fiction.
HISTORICAL AND 'GOTHIC' ROMANCES. Stories which purported to reproduce the
life of the Past were not unknown in England in the seventeenth century,
but the real beginning of the historical novel and romance belongs to the
later part of the eighteenth century. The extravagance of romantic writers
at that time, further, created a sort of subspecies called in its day and
since the 'Gothic' romance. These 'Gothic' stories are nominally located in
the Middle Ages, but their main object is not to give an accurate picture
of medieval life, but to arouse terror in the reader, by means of a
fantastic apparatus of gloomy castles, somber villains, distressed and
sentimental heroines, and supernatural mystery. The form was inaugurated by
Horace Walpole, the son of the former Prime Minister, who built near
Twickenham (Pope's home) a pseudo-medieval house which he named Strawberry
Hill, where he posed as a center of the medieval revival. Walpole's 'Castle
of 'Otranto,' published in 1764, is an utterly absurd little story, but its
novelty at the time, and the author's prestige, gave it a great vogue. The
really best 'Gothic' romances are the long ones written by Mrs. Ann
Radcliffe in the last decade of the century, of which 'The Mysteries of
Udolpho,' in particular, was popular for two generations. Mrs. Radcliffe's
books overflow with sentimentality, but display real power, especially in
imaginative description. Of the more truly historical romances the best
were the 'Thaddeus of Warsaw' and 'Scottish Chiefs' of Miss Jane Porter,
which appeared in the first decade of the nineteenth century. None of all
these historical and 'Gothic' romances attains the rank of great or