Woman's Work in English Fiction, from the Restoration to the Mid-Victorian Period. Clara Helen Whitmore
of her helplessness, deceived her by a false marriage, and after three years abandoned her. Upon this she entered the household of the Duchess of Cleveland, the mistress of Charles the Second, who soon tired of her and dismissed her from her service. She then began to write, and by her plays and political articles soon won an acknowledged place among the writers of Grub Street.
From the many references to her in the letters and journals of the period, she seems to have been popular with the writers of both political parties. Swift writes to Stella that she is a very generous person "for one of that sort," which many little incidents prove. She dedicated her play Lucius to Steele, with whom she was on alternate terms of enmity and friendship, as a public retribution for her ridicule of him in the New Atalantis, saying that "scandal between Whig and Tory goes for not." Steele, equally generous, wrote a prologue for the play, perhaps in retribution for some of the harsh criticisms of her in the Tatler. All readers of Pope remember the reference to her in the Rape of the Lock, where Lord Petre exclaims that his honour, name and praise shall live
As long as Atalantis shall be read.
Although Mrs. Manley's pen was constantly and effectively employed in the interest of the Tory party, she being at one time the editor of the Examiner, the Tory organ, none of her writings had the popularity of the New Atalantis. It went through seven editions and was translated into the French. The book has no intrinsic merit; its language is scurrilous and obscene; but it appealed to the eager curiosity of the public concerning the private immoralities of men and women who were prominent at court. Human nature in its pages furnishes a contemptible spectacle.
The New Atalantis has now, however, assumed a permanent place in the history of fiction. This species of writing had been common, in France, but it was the first English novel in which political and personal scandal formed the groundwork of a romance. Swift followed its general plan in Gulliver's Travels, placing his political enemies in public office in Lilliput and Brobdingnag, only he so wrought upon them with his imagination that he gave to the world a finished work of art, while Mrs. Manley has left only the raw material with which the artist works. Smollett's political satire, Adventures of an Atom, was also suggested by the New Atalantis, but here the earlier writer has surpassed the later. All three of these writers took a low and cynical view of humanity.
The women novelists who directly followed Mrs. Manley did not have her strength, but they had a delicacy that has given to their writings a subtle charm. From the time of Sarah Fielding to the present threatened reaction the writings of women have been marked by chastity of thought and purity of expression.
CHAPTER II
Sarah Fielding. Mrs. Lennox. Mrs. Haywood. Mrs. Sheridan
About the middle of the eighteenth century, some interesting novels were written by women, but their fame was so overshadowed by the early masters of English fiction, who were then writing, that they have been almost forgotten. For in 1740 Pamela was published, the first novel of Samuel Richardson; in 1771, Humphry Clinker appeared, the last novel of Tobias Smollett; and during the thirty-one years between these two dates all the books of Richardson, Fielding, Sterne, and Smollett were given to the world, and determined the nature of the English novel. The plot of most of their fifteen realistic novels is practically the same. The hero falls in love with a beautiful young lady, not over seventeen, and there is a conflict between lust and chastity. The hero, balked of his prey, travels up and down the world, where he meets with a series of adventures, all very much alike, and all bearing very little on the main plot. At last fate leads the dashing hero to the church door, where he confers a ring on the fair heroine, a paltry piece of gold, the only reward for her fidelity, with the hero thrown in, much the worse for wear, and the curtain falls with the sound of the wedding bells in the distance.
The range of these novels is narrow. They describe a world in which the chief occupation is eating, drinking, swearing, gambling, and fighting. Their chief artistic excellence is the strength and vigour with which these low scenes are described. Sidney Lanier says of them: "They play upon life as upon a violin without a bridge, in the deliberate endeavour to get the most depressing tones possible from the instrument." And Taine, who could hardly endure any of them, writes of Fielding what he implies of the others: "One thing is wanted in your strongly-built folks—refinement; the delicate dreams, enthusiastic elevation, and trembling delicacy exist in nature equally with coarse vigour, noisy hilarity, and frank kindness."
The women who essayed the art of fiction during these years did not have so firm a grasp of the pen as their male contemporaries, and they have added no portraits to the gallery of fiction; but they saw and recorded many interesting scenes of British life which quite escaped the quick-sighted Fielding, or Sterne with the microscopic eyes.
In 1744, when Richardson had written only one book, and Fielding had published only two, before Tom Jones or Clarissa Harlowe had seen the light of day, Sarah Fielding published David Simple, under the title of The Adventures of David Simple, containing an account of his travels through the cities of London and Westminster in the search of a real friend, by a Lady. The author commenced the story as a satire on society. For a long time David's search is unsuccessful. Although he changed his lodgings every week, he could hear of no one who could be trusted. Many, to be sure, dropped hints of their own excellence, and the pity that they had to live with inferior neighbours. Among these was Mr. Spatter, who introduced him to Mr. Varnish. The former saw the faults of people through a magnifying glass; while the latter, when he mentioned a person's failings, added, "He was sure they had some good in them." But David soon learned that Mr. Varnish was no readier to assist a friend in need than the fault-finding Mr. Spatter.
Like her brother Henry, Sarah Fielding is often sarcastic. In one of the chapters she leaves David to his sufferings, "lest it should be thought," she added, "I am so ignorant of the world as not to know the proper time of forsaking people." But the pessimistic vein of the first volume changes to a more optimistic tone in the second. David, in his search for one friend, finds three. Fortunately these consist of a brother and sister and a lady in love with the brother. Even at this early time, an author had no doubts as to how a novel should end. The heading of the last chapter in the book informs us that it contains two weddings, "and consequently the Conclusion of the Book."
In its construction, the plot is similar to that of the other novels of the period. David has plenty of time at his disposal, and listens with more patience than the reader to the detailed history of all the people he meets, and often begs a casual acquaintance to favour him with the story of his life.
But Sarah Fielding's chief charm to her women readers is the feminine view of her times. In David Simple we have the pleasure of travelling through England, but with a woman as our guide. As Harry Fielding travelled between Bath and London, the fair reader wonders what he reported to Mrs. Fielding of what he had seen and heard. Surely at these various inns there must have been some by-play of real affection, some act of modest kindness, some incident of delicate humour. Did he regale Mrs. Fielding with the scenes he has described for his readers? Probably when she asked him if anything had happened en route, he merely yawned and replied, "Oh, nothing worth while." He had too much reverence for his wife to repeat these low scenes to her, and we suspect he had eyes for no others. What would Addison or Steele have seen in the same place?
Sarah Fielding also takes her characters on a stage-coach journey, but here we sit beside the fair heroine, an intelligent lady, and gaze at the men who sit opposite her. There is the Butterfly with his hair pinned up in blue papers, wearing a laced waistcoat, and humming an Italian air. He admires nothing but the ladies, and offered some little familiarity to our heroine, which she repulsed; upon this he paid her the greatest respect imaginable, being convinced, as she would not suffer any intimacy from him, she must be one of the most virtuous women that had