Various
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 60, No. 373, November 1846
Emily.– Papa, Miss – says that we have said all our lessons, and will you let us have Tickler to play with?
Tickler.– Bow – wow – wow! – Bow, wow! – Bow! bow! bow! – [Running up and scampering towards her, and they go away together.]
Servant.– Brown has called with some lobsters, sir – (shows them) – two very nice ones, and a small crab – only fifteenpence the lot.
Self.– Very well – buy 'em.
Wife.– (Entering) – Lobsters and crabs again! Really one would think that you had had a surfeit of them long ago.
Servant.– Brown says, sir, he mayn't be able to get any more for some time, the wind's so high.
Wife.– Oh, buy them, of course! Every thing is bought that comes here! That's eleven crabs this week!
Self.– What have you got there, my Xantippe?
Wife.– I wish you would drop that odious name.
Self.– What have you there, my Angel?
Wife.– No, that won't do either.
Self.– Well, Fanny, then – what have you got there?
Wife.– Why, 'tis the new work of Mr Dickens —Dombey & Son. What an odd name for a tale!
Self.– Why, how did you get it?
Wife.– Mrs – (at the parsonage) has just got a packet of books from town, and has lent us this, as it is a wet day, till the evening, and they have got lots to read at present.
Self.– I am very much obliged to them.
Wife.– So am I, for I want to read it first; manners, if you please.
Self.– Come, come, Fanny, I really want it; I've a good deal of curiosity.
Wife.– So have I, too!
Self.– Well, at any rate, let me look at the plates.
Wife.– Certainly; and suppose, by the way, as I've no letter to write – suppose I sit down with you, and read it to you! 'Twill save your eyes, and I'm all alone in the other room.
Self.– Very well. [Madame shuts the door; seats herself on the miniature sofa; I poke the fire; and she begins.] Being called away soon afterwards on some domestic exigency, she leaves me – and I read for myself. You said that you should like to know my opinion of Mr Dickens' new story, and I read it with interest, and some care. 'Tis exactly what I had expected; containing clear evidence of original genius, disfigured by many most serious, and now plainly incurable, blemishes. The first thing striking me, on perusing this new performance, is, that its author writes, as it were, from amidst a thick theatrical mist. Cursed be the hour – should say a sincere admirer of Mr Dickens' genius – that he ever set foot within a theatre, or became intimate with theatrical people. You fancy that every scene, incident, and character, is conceived with a view to its telling– from the stage. This suggestion seems to me to afford a key to most of the prominent faults and deficiencies of Mr Dickens as an imaginative writer; the lamentable absence of that simplicity and sobriety which invest the writings, for instance, of Goldsmith with immortal freshness and beauty. With what truthful tenderness does such a writer depict nature! – how different is his treatment from the spasmodic, straining, extravagant, vulgarizing efforts of the play-wright! The one is delicate and exquisite limning; the other, gross daubing: – the one faithfully represents; the other monstrously caricatures. This is the case with Mr Dickens; and it is intolerably provoking that it should be so; for he has the penetrating eye and accurate pencil, which – properly disciplined and trained – might have produced pictures worthy to stand beside those of the greatest masters. As it is, you might imagine his sketches to be the result of the combined simultaneous efforts of two artists – one the delicate limner, the other the vulgar dauber and scene-painter above spoken of. He has invention and skill enough to produce an interesting character; and place him in a situation favourable for developing his eccentricities, his failings, his excellences – in a word, his peculiarities. Well; he prepares his reader's mind – sets before you an interesting, a moving, a mirth-stirring occasion, when – bah! – all is ruined; the spasmodic straining after effect becomes instantly and painfully visible; and the personage before you is made to talk to the level of a theatrical audience, especially pit and gallery – and in unison with "gingerbeer, apples, oranges, and sodawater" associations and recollections. Let me give two striking instances, occurring at the very opening of "Dombey and Son." The first is the colloquy at pp. 3, 4; the other at p. 9. The former presents you Dr Parker Peps, a fashionable accoucheur, and the humble admiring family medical man – the occasion being a momentary absence of both from the clamber of a lady dying in childbed, Mrs Dombey; and can any one of correct taste or feeling bear in mind that occasion, and fail of being revolted by the drivel put into the mouth of the consulting accoucheur? – who, when telling Mr Dombey of the mortal peril in which his wife overhead is lying – apologises to him for speaking of her as "Her Grace the Duchess!" "Lady Cankaby," "The Countess of Dombey:" his obsequious companion accounting for such lapses on the score of his "West End practice." Is this nature? Is it actual life? Any thing approaching to either? If not, what is it meant for? Why, to tickle a Christmas audience at one of the minor playhouses! The other (these are only two out of many) is the character of Mr Chick, an old fool, who has a habit of whistling and humming droll tunes on the most solemn occasions, interrupting and interlarding conversation with "Right tol loor-rul," "A cobbler there was," "Rumpti-iddity bow, wow, wow!" is it not certain that Mr Dickens here had his eye on Tilbury or Bedford enacting the part? And for no other purpose whatever is this precious character introduced than to hit off this very original peculiarity! From the same theatrical habit of mind, it happens that Mr Dickens cannot carry on his stories in an even, straightforward course, but presents us with a series of "scenes!" – utterly marring the effect and annihilating the truthfulness and reality of the whole; e. g. the jarring interruption of this story at a touching and interesting moment – at the moment of the two doctors and Mr Dombey's return to poor Mrs Dombey's death-bed, when the reader feels that they are almost instantly to witness her death, by the introduction of two tiresome twaddlers, reproductions of old stock characters of the author, Mrs Chick and Miss Tox, whose descriptions and utterly irrelevant conversation detain us for nearly three pages. At length these motley "stagers" – if I may be allowed the word – are grouped round the poor lady's death-bed; and let me here say, that in my opinion the character and situation of poor Mrs Dombey are both exquisitely conceived, and appeal to the deepest sympathies of the heart; but, alas! the perverse, provoking, incorrigible writer will not let us enjoy "the luxury of grief;" but while we are bending over her death-bed, our attention is called off to a remarkably interesting and appropriate circumstance – two watches of two of the doctors "seem in the silence to be running a race!" * * "they seem to be racing faster!!" * * "The race, in the ensuing pause, was fierce and furious. The watches seemed to jostle, and to trip each other up!!!" and a moment or two afterwards the lady expires, under very moving circumstances, touched with perfect delicacy and truthfulness. Would the intrusion of a sow into a lovely flower-garden be more shocking or disgusting to the beholder? Again, in the first page, we are presented to Mr Dombey, gazing with unutterable feelings at his newly-born son, "forty-eight minutes of age;" and Mr Dickens tastefully suggests the comparison of the little creature, which is "somewhat crushed and spotty in his general effect!!" whose mother is at that moment in dying agonies in that very room, to "a muffin, which it was essential to toast brown while it was very new!!" And a few lines forward, the posture of the innocent unconscious little being suggests the brutal idea of a prize-fighter– his "little fists, curled up and clenched, seemed, in his feeble way, to be SQUARING AT EXISTENCE for having come upon him so unexpectedly!!!" Was ever any thing more monstrous? To find a gentleman of Mr Dickens' great genius, and experience in literary composition, sinning in this way, is provoking beyond all measure. The above abominations to be perpetrated by him, who at page seventeen can present us with so exquisite a touch as the following: – He is describing the blank appearance of the dismantled house, immediately after the funeral of the poor, neglected, and heart-broken lady. "The dead and buried lady was awful, in a picture frame of ghastly bandages. Every gust of wind that rose, brought eddying round the corner, from the neighbouring mews, some fragments of the straw that had been strewn before the house when she was ill; mildewed remains of which were still cleaving to the neighbourhood, and these being always drawn by some invisible attraction to the threshold of the dirty house to let opposite, addressed a dismal eloquence to Mr Dombey's window." The thirty-two pages of this first number contain very many provocatives to unfavourable criticism. They bristle all over with mannerisms – abound with grotesque, unseemly, extravagant comparisons and personation, (one of Mr Dickens' chiefly besetting sins) – many of the scenes contain truth and humour, smothered and lost by prolixity, incident and character diluted by a tedious and excessive minuteness of description; and it is to be feared that several of the characters will bear a painfully strong resemblance to some of their predecessors in Mr Dickens' other stories. Mr Dickens may feel angry at my plainness; and, in return, I must express my fears that he is not aware of the extent of injury which has been inflicted upon him by clique-homage– the flattery of fluent, incompetent admirers – the misconstrued silence of critics of experienced taste and refinement. Does Mr Dickens really consider the light in which his writings, containing such faults as those above adverted to, must be viewed by the upper and thinking classes of society – persons of cultivated taste, of refinement, of piercing critical capacity, who disdain to enter the little, babbling, vulgar, narrow-minded circles miscalled "literary?"
But I have done. Mr Dickens has been magnificently patronised by the public, who – I being one of them – have a right to speak plainly to, and of a gentleman whose writings have so large a circulation at home and abroad; who has no excuse, that I am aware of, for negligence or inattention; who is bound to consider the effect of example on the minds of tens of thousands of young and inexperienced readers who may take all for gospel that he chooses to tell them – and to be very very guarded as to moral object or effect – if moral object or effect his writings have, and be not intended solely to provoke, by their amusing and farcical absurdity and extravagance, an idle and forgotten laugh. I have no personal acquaintance with Mr Dickens, and have written in an impartial spirit, paying homage to his undoubted genius, denouncing his literary faults – for his own good, and the advantage of his readers, and of the literary character of the country.
Speaking of the literary character of the country, puts me in mind of the intention which I had formed some months ago, of writing an article upon the prevalent style of literary composition. May I take this opportunity of making a few observations upon that subject? And yet I must first admit, that my own style in writing this letter is far more loose, and inexact, and slovenly, than ought to be tolerated in even such a letter as this. Herein, however, I only imitate Dr Whately, who, on arriving at that part of his "rhetoric" which deals with public speaking, starts with an admission that he himself does not possess the qualifications, the acquisition of which he proceeds to enforce upon others.
The writing of the present day has many distinguishing excellences and faults. The most conspicuous of the latter is, perhaps, a want of simplicity and steadiness of style. Force – startling energy – are too uniformly aimed at by some; others affect continual sarcasm and irony, whatever may be the nature of the occasion. One class of writers are so priggishly curt and epigrammatic as to throw over their lucubrations an uniform air of small impertinence: it would be easy to point out, I think, an incessant illustration of this "school," if one may use the word. Others uniformly affect the trenchant and tremendous, with very big words, and awful accumulations of them. Some seem to aim at a picturesque ruggedness of style – defying rule, and challenging imitation. Very many writers of all classes are so parenthetical and involved in their sentences, that by the time that they have got to the end of a sentence, both they and their readers have forgotten where they set out from, and how the plague they got where they are: looking back breathless and dismayed at a confused series of hyphens entangled among all sorts of exceptions, reservations, and qualifications. This fault, and a grievous one it is, is daily illustrated, and by writers, who, by their carelessness in this matter, do themselves incalculable injustice, rendering apparently turbid the clearest possible stream of reasoning, marring the effect of the most beautiful and apposite illustration, and irritating and confusing the reader. In my opinion, this fault of our public writers is to be traced to the influence of Lord Brougham's style. He has, and always had, a prodigious command of nervous and apposite language, always writing or speaking with a violent impetus upon him; and yet, while crashing along, his versatile and suggestive faculties hurried him incessantly from one side to the other, hither and thither – anticipating this, qualifying that, guarding against this, reserving that – extruding undesirable implications and inferences, with a sort of wild rapidity and energy – adopting ever-varying fanciful equivalent expressions – crowding, in fact, a dozen considerable sentences into one turbid monster. Yet it must be owned, that in all this he seldom misses his way; his original impetus carries him headlong on to the point at which he had aimed. Not so with his imitators. They start with an imaginary equality of force, of fulness, and variety; but forthwith rush into a strange higgle-piggledy, helter-skelter sort of imposing wordiness, equally bewildering and stupifying to their readers and themselves. No man can fall into this sort of fault who is habituated to leisurely distinctness of thought: he will conceive beforehand with deliberate purpose, and that, cæteris paribus, will induce a clear, close, and energetic expression of his thoughts, preventing misapprehension, and convincing even a strongly prejudiced opponent. Shorten your sentences, gentlemen; take one thing at a time; put every thing in its proper place; attempt not to put a quart into a pint pot; do not write in such a desperate hurry, nor attempt to hit half-a-dozen birds with one stone. Another prevalent vice is a sickening redundancy of classical quotation and allusion. Many of our newspaper writers, and among them some of the very cleverest, cannot contemplate any topic which they propose to discuss, without its suggesting, as if by a sudden, secret sort of elective affinity, previous events and occurrences of past ages. Out tumble scraps from Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Terence, Plautus, Lucretius, with their prose companions; and this, too, be it observed, almost always Roman; – it requires a certain hardihood to adopt the Greek language in modern composition. In short, one really thinks himself entitled to infer, from this extravagant amount of quotation and allusion, as well ancient as modern, that its perpetrators are very young: red-hot from their classical studies, panting to exhibit the extent of their acquisitions, the scholarly ease and precision with which they can apply the most recondite passages and allusions to the fresh occurrences of the moment. One is apt to suspect that one great motive for acquiring, extending, and retaining knowledge, is the simple desire to exhibit the possession of it. But all this is very vain and foolish. It looks stupidly ridiculous to persons of experienced judgment. An occasional and very sparing use of this sort of accessory is always desirable, often marvellously graceful and happy; an excess of it decisively indicates pedantic puerility, ostentation, and a grievous deficiency of strength and originality. It is likely, moreover, to have a very unpleasant and irritating effect, when apparent in popular compositions – in leading or other articles in newspapers, for instance – viz. on occasions where the persons addressed, or at least very many of them, do not comprehend or appreciate the allusion or quotation. A really classical turn of mind is usually accompanied by too fine and correct a taste to admit of these eccentricities and vagaries. The English language is a very fine language, my friends; and a very, very fine and rare thing it is to be able to use it with freedom, and purity, and power. Another very censurable kindred habit of many of our public writers is, the interlarding their compositions with abominable scraps of French, and even of Italian. Faugh! – is not this adding insult to injury, in dealing with the noble language of our country?
A week has elapsed since I penned the foregoing sentences, and during that week only two things have occurred to me worthy of noticing. First, a couple (apparently newly married) put up for a few hours at the little inn in the village. They were both of a certain age. He wore a ponderous watch-chain and seals; she also was sufficiently bedizened after the same fashion. Twice I encountered them. First, on the seashore, where they took their seat very coolly on the rock next adjoining my old perch, which I was then occupying. After some considerable swagger, my gentleman produced a newspaper from his pocket, and distinctly said to his fair companion – "What an uncommon good thing the Illustrious London News is for the lower classes!" Second, the worthy couple were walking together, at a subsequent period of the day, laden with provender for an open-air lunch – with sandwiches and a black bottle, and with a matter-of-fact air, turned into a beautifully disposed rustic walk, having palpable indicia of privacy – it belonging, in fact, to the residence of a nobleman. My lord's gentleman, or gentleman's gentleman, happening to meet them, (I passing at the time,) asked them, with great courtesy of manner, if they were aware "that that was private property?" "Well," replied our male friend angrily, "and what if it is? I thought an Englishman might go any where he pleased in his own country, provided he didn't do any mischief. But come along, my dear," giving his arm to his flustered companion, "times are come to a pretty pass, aren't they?" With this, the offended dignities retraced their steps, but prodigiously slowly, and I saw no more of them. – The other occurrence was a dream, as odd, as obstinate in adherence to my memory. Methought I went one day to church to hear a revered elderly relative of mine preach. The church was crammed with an attentive and solemnly-disposed audience, whom the preacher was addressing very calmly but seriously, without gown or bands, but wearing two neckerchiefs, one resting upon the topmost edge of the other, and being of blue silk, with white spots! Though aware of this slight departure from clerical costume, it occasioned me no surprise, but I listened with serious attention. 'Twas only when I had awoke that the fantastic absurdity of the thing became apparent.
The "British Association" has just been making, at Southampton, as I see by the papers, one of its annual exhibitions of childish inanity. This sort of thing appears to me to be humiliating to the country, in respect of so many men of real scientific eminence, like Sir John Herschel and Dr Faraday, and one or two others, permitting themselves to be trotted out on such occasions for the amusement of the vulgar, and, in doing so, countenancing the herd of twaddling ninnies who figure on these occasions as spouters, or patronising listeners to the fluent confident sciolists of the various "sections." I can fancy one of these personages carefully bottling up against the day of display, some such precious discovery as that of "a peculiar appearance in the flame of a candle!" – which actually formed the subject of a paper at the last meeting; or, "on certain magnetic phenomena attending corns on the human foot," – which latter, after a stiff debate as to the propriety of publishing it, is not, it seems, at present, to edify the world at large. The whole thing is resolvable into a paltry love of lionising, and being lionised – of enacting the part of prodigies before pretty admiring women, and simpering simpletons of the other sex. 'Tis an efflorescence of that vicious system which of late years continually manifests itself in the shape of flaunting reunions, soirées, conversazioni, &c. &c., where is to be heard little else than senile garrulity, the gabble of ignorant eulogy, or virulent envious depreciation and detraction. 'Tis true that distinguished scientific foreigners now and then make their appearance at the meetings of the Association; but there can be little doubt that they come over in utter ignorance of the really trifling character of those meetings, misled by the eager exaggerations of their friends and correspondents in this country. Can you conceive any thing more preposterous in its way, than the chartering of the steam-boat by the Association, to convey its members from Southampton to the Isle of Wight on a geological expedition? Methinks I see the crowd of "venerable boys" – to adopt the bitterly-humorous language of the Times– landing at Black Gang Chine, each with his bag slung round him, and hammer in hand, dispersing about, rap! rap! rap! – chick! chick! chick! – and fondly fancying that they are effectually learning, or teaching, geology, in the hour or two thus idled away! Can any thing be more exquisitely absurd? Bah! all this might be harmless and pleasant enough, in the way of a holiday recreation for school-boys or girls; but for grave, grown-up men – peers, baronets, knights, doctors, F.R.S., F.A.S.'s, &c. &c., – the thing really does not bear dwelling upon.
"I can have no hesitation, to whatever amount of obloquy, or of forfeited friendship, the avowal may expose me, in stating the conclusion, which anxious and repeated consideration of the state of Ireland has at length forced upon me, (Cheers.) It is, that the time has arrived for reconsidering the state of our relations with Ireland, with a view to a repeal of the Legislative Union between the two countries, (Hear, hear.) I see no other adequate remedy for the ills which desolate that unhappy country, and think that such a step would also happily free England from a burden long felt to be intolerable, (Hear.) I am fortified in arriving at this result, by a review of the favourable effects produced on Ireland by the measures which, during the last few years, I have had the honour to bring forward in this house, and see carried into effect by the legislature, (Cheers.) I am aware that this avowal may startle some of the more timid (hear, hear) of those gentlemen who have usually done me the honour to act with me; but an imperious sense of duty compels me to be prompt and explicit upon this vital question, which I am fixedly resolved to settle in the way I propose; and I will, for that purpose, avail myself of every means which the constitution places at the disposal of her Majesty's responsible advisers, (Cheers.) * * * I claim no credit for proposing this great measure of justice and mercy, nor wish to detract from the merit due to those whose minds the light of truth and reason reached earlier than mine. Whatever credit is due, I have no hesitation in ascribing to —Daniel O'Connell," (Cheers.) * * * * Is there a man in the empire who would be seriously surprised if he were to hear Sir Robert Peel make the above statement in the next session of Parliament, if he met the house once more as Prime Minister? And so, in the session after, might we expect a similar announcement with reference to the Protestant succession to the throne; and then – but by no means to stop even there – the conversion of our form of government from a limited monarchy into a republic. What, in short, may not be predicted of such a statesman as Sir Robert Peel? Who can conceive of him taking his stand any where? Assisting any body or any thing? It pains me to ask, whether the history of this country ever saw a man who had done so many things, the impropriety and danger of which he had himself uniformly beforehand demonstrated? Sir Robert Peel has been converted into a sort of political pillar of salt – a melancholy instructive memento of the evils of unprincipled statesmanship – the former word being used, not in a vulgar offensive sense, but as signifying, simply and solely, the absence of any fixed principles of political action; or the habit of action irrespective of principle. I will not, however, pursue this painful and humiliating topic further, than to express the deep concern and perplexity occasioned to me, amongst hundreds of thousands of others, by the recent movements of Sir Robert Peel. I have never thought or spoken of him, up even to the present moment, otherwise than with sincere respect for his spotless personal character, and the highest admiration of his intellectual and administrative qualities. I would scout the very faintest insinuation against the purity of his motives, at the same time loudly expressing my concern and amazement at witnessing such conduct as his, in such a man!
"Who would not weep if such a man there be —
Who would not weep if Atticus were he?"
I said just now, that Sir Robert Peel's signal characteristic was the doing things, the impropriety and danger of doing which he had himself beforehand demonstrated; and that was the reflection with which I yesterday concluded the perusal of a memorable little document which I took care to preserve at the time – I mean his national manifesto at the general election of 1841, in the shape of his address to the electors of Tamworth. Apply it now like a plummet to the edifice of Sir Robert Peel's political character; how conclusively it shows the extent to which it has diverged or swelled from the perpendicular line of right – how much he has departed from the standard which he had himself set up! What must be his feelings on recurring to such a declaration as this?
"That party," [the Conservative,] "gentlemen, has been pleased to intrust your representative with its confidence – (cheers;) and, notwithstanding all the remarks that have been made at various times, respecting differences of opinion and jealousy among them, you may depend upon it that they are altogether without foundation; and that that party which has paid me the compliment of taking my advice, and following my counsel, are a united and compact party, among which there does not exist the slightest difference of opinion in respect to the principles they support, and the course they may desire to pursue. (Cheers.) Gentlemen, I hope I have not abused the confidence of that great party."66 (Loud cheers.)!!! I give the eloquent and eminent speaker credit for feeling a sort of twinge, a pang, a spasm, on reading the above. One more extract I will give relative to the recent conduct of Sir R. Peel on the sugar-duties: – "The question now is, gentlemen, whether, after the sacrifices which this country has made for the suppression of the slave-trade, and the abolition of slavery, and the glorious results that have ensued, and are likely to ensue from these sacrifices, we shall run the risk of losing the benefit of these sacrifices, and tarnishing for ever that glory, by admitting to the British markets sugar, the produce of foreign slavery? Gentlemen, the character of this country, in respect to slavery, is thus spoken of by one of the most eloquent writers and statesmen of another country, Dr Channing, of the United States: – 'Great Britain, loaded with an unprecedented debt, and with a grinding taxation, contracted a new debt of a hundred millions of dollars, to give freedom, not to Englishmen, but to the degraded African. I know not that history records an act so disinterested, so sublime. In the progress of ages, England's naval triumphs will sink into a more and more narrow space on the records of our race. This moral triumph will fill a broader, brighter page.' Gentlemen," proceeded Sir Robert Peel, "let us take care that this 'brighter page' be not sullied by the admission of slave sugar into the consumption of this country, by our unnecessary encouragement of slavery and the slave-trade."67
Is it not humiliating and distressing to compare these sentences, and the lofty spirit which pervades them, with the speech, and the animus pervading it, delivered by Sir Robert Peel in the House of Commons, on Lord John Russell's bringing in his bill for "sullying this bright page" of English glory? Did Sir Robert Peel, true to principle, solemnly and peremptorily announce the refusal of his assent to that cruel, and foolish, and wicked measure? I forbear to press this topic, also quitting it, with the expression of my opinion, that that speech alone was calculated to do him fearful and irreparable injury in public estimation. It is impossible for the most zealous and skilful advocacy to frame a plausible vindication of this part of Sir Robert Peel's conduct. I sincerely acquit him of having any sinister or impure motive; the fact was, simply, that he found that he had placed himself in a dire perplexity and dilemma.
I think it next to impossible that Sir Robert Peel can ever again be in a position, even if he desired it, to sway the destinies of this country, either as a prime minister, or by the force of his personal influence and opinion. Has he or has he not done rightly by the greatest party that ever gave its noble and ennobling support to a minister? Can he himself, in 1846, express the "hope" of 1841, that "he has not abused the confidence of that great party?" If he again take part in the debates of Parliament, he will always be listened to, whoever may be in power, with the interest and attention justly due to his masterly acquaintance with the conduct of the public business, most especially on matters of finance. But with what involuntary shrinking and distrust is his advocacy or defence of any of our great institutions likely to be received hereafter by their consistent and devoted friends? Will they not be prepared to find the splendid vindication of the preceding evening, but the prelude to the next evening's abandonment and denunciation? Is not, in short, the national confidence thoroughly shaken? His support and advocacy of any great interest are too likely to be received with guarded satisfaction – as far as they go, as long as they continue– not with the enthusiastic confidence due to surpassing and consistent statesmanship.