METAPHYSICAL WRITERS.

259

every other occupation, that even he who attains but mediocrity in them, merits the pre-eminence above those that excel the most in the common and vulgar professions." The scholar and the student should honour Hume, if only for that proud sentence.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE BRITISH NOVELISTS.

JEAVING the serious and weighty writers, of whom we last talked, we come to an important branch of literature-especially of modern literature-Novels and Ro

mances.

66

These are often unfairly despised; but those who despise them do not consider what immense effect they have on the happiness of mankind. It is possible philosophically to object to the dictum generally assigned to Jeremy Bentham, that it is the duty of Government to assure the greatest happiness of the greatest number;" but, if we accept it (and as there are thousands upon thousands by whom the principles of true philosophy never can be understood-even if the wise few could agree upon those principles-we may as well do so), we must remember that novels, of a higher or lower order, form the mental food of a large number of male readers, and of an infinitely larger proportion of female readers. For them the romance, either in three volumes, or in weekly or monthly numbers, furnishes not only mental nourishment and instruction,

FICTION-ITS USE.

261

but mental excitement and pleasure. For them the only pictures of the great world that they behold outside the narrow circle of their homes, lie in romance. For them often, too often, all the nobility, beauty, and excellence of life exist in the pages of fiction. For them all the subtleties of politics, all the problems of existence and religion, all the visions of a more refined life than that of every day toil, all the suggestions of philosophy, and all the shows of fancy lie between the thin boards of the circulating library novel, or the still thinner weekly sheet which they buy of the neighbouring newsman. To a great extent, therefore, the mental health of these people is in the custody of the novelist. Hence the importance of his work is not easily overrated. If imagination and fancy are not among the highest gifts of God, they are certainly among his good ones; so that that which will always captivate the young, the fanciful and the imaginative part of mankind, at the period of their greatest activity, is indeed of the highest importance. In the serial publications of our day to every reader of a serious essay, however lightly touched or amusingly written, we have probably three or four who devote themselves to the tales, and who think prose, unless it be in the shape of dialogue or narration, dull indeed.

But while the novels are amusing, they are educating and forming the minds of the readers; and in this there is no reason to despair, or to take a gloomy view of humanity, because we have fallen on a busy and sensational age. Under every circumstance the writer feels himself to be a teacher; and however degraded he may be by continual practice, by the bare hope of mere gain or the love of money, he is still precluded by his in

stinct, by the generosity of man's heart, and, more than all, by the guidance of Providence, from writing that which is palpably corrupt and corrupting. In ninetynine tales and novels out of every hundred, virtue is made triumphant and vice is discomfited. The hero may be neither a philosopher nor a religionist, but the writer-if but to please his readers-feels that he must invest his chief characters with all that is noble in man and woman-liberality, generosity, honesty, grace, modesty, bravery, courage of mind, agility and strength of body, wisdom, firmness, and endurance. "I suppose," wrote Thackeray, himself a great novelist, "as long as novels last and authors aim at interesting their public, there must always be in the story a virtuous and gallant hero, a wicked monster his opposite, and a pretty girl who finds a champion. Bravery and virtue conquer beauty; and vice, after seeming to triumph, after a certain number of pages is sure to be discomfited in the last volume, when justice overtakes him, and honest folks come by their own." Bearing this in mind we may the more readily affirm that even the light literature of our age and country-taken as a whole-is not pernicious in its effects. The empty mind, as well as the idle hand, is in danger of evil. Certainly some minds might be better employed than in that which a wise man said was the greatest enjoyment of life-reading new and interesting novels; but we may at least comfort ourselves with the fact that they might find a very much worse amusement.

It is not necessary to send the beginner back to a very early age, and the old Greek and Latin romances of Longinus, Apuleius, and others, may be dismissed without apology. Romantic histories, arising from the

EARLY ROMANCES.

263

middle ages, and based partly upon the stories of classical mythology, and the rich stories of early Eastern literature, during the period of the Crusades, are the origin of our modern romances. "The late editor of Warton," says Hallam, "is of opinion that 'the reverence and adoration of the female sex which has descended to our own times, is the offspring of the Christian dispensation.' But until it can be shown that Christianity establishes any such principle, we must look a little further down for its origin." The fact is that woman in Holy Writ, has not assigned to her the position which she now holds: "the silent growth of female ascendancy" has been promoted by the language of romance; the sympathy of mankind has been won towards gentleness, sweetness, and success in love; and the old romances were built upon three columns (now, like the leaning tower of Pisa, a little out of the perpendicular)," chivalry, gallantry, and religion." Upon these, Hallam ("Hist. Lit. Europe," i., p. 133) wisely remarks, "repose the fictions of the middle ages, especially those usually designated as romances."

These romances were long, and to a modern mind, almost interminable; they were originally metrical,' and were chiefly written by natives of the North of France. The English and Germans translated them, and in good time learned men, enchanted by the beauty of sentiment, or the sad, touching, and poetic episodes in these old stories, began to imitate them. Some of these stories were short moral tales, with a moral "tag" or ending placed at the conclusion, such as the "Gesta

"The oldest prose romance, which is also partly metrical, appears to be 'Tristan de Leonois, one of the Cycle of the Round Table,' written or translated by Lucas de Gast, about 1170."-Hallam.