THE GEORGIAN PERIOD.*
Mn. GEORGE PASTOR is a wanderer in the byways and narrow lanes of life and letters. It is his pleasure to explore such forgotten corners as have escaped the vigilance of other discoverers, and he depends for his success as much upon good luck as upon intelligence. His latest discoveries are not so fortunate as his earlier ones; yet there are always some flowers in every hedgerow which retain their scent and freshness.
The most entertaining subjects upon which Mr. Paston touches in his Side-Lights on the Georgian Period are the magazines and journals of the time. Periodical literature as we know it to-day was then in its infancy, but the infant differed little from the overgrown child. In other words, you may match the follies of to-day by the follies of yesterday. On the whole, we think the old are better; but the Town and County, the Westminster, and the Oxford were none of them very wise productions. Their illustrations are more character- istic than ours, since rapid methods and photography were as yet uninvented ; while their articles and stories display the obvious weaknesses of their period. They are the strangest mixture of foppery and sentiment, interspersed with scraps of malignant gossip. To us their uniformity is astonishing ; but doubtless they appeared worlds apart one from the other to their contemporaries, and we are sure that in a hundred years only a practised eye will be able to distinguish between the many popular magazines which to-day seem different enough. As for the stories, they are all intensely moral, and they were evidently composed with no other end in view than to inculcate an obvious lesson. As Mr. Paston says, "they may be roughly divided into two classes : the first, in which a simple, trusting girl is saved from the machinations of the villain, not by her own common-sense or initiative, but by the opportune appear- ance of an honest lover; the second, in which a giddy coquette falls a victim to her own folly." In brief, they were the very small change of Richardson, and it is not surprising that a genteel public, which found Fielding coarse, should have delighted in timid .Aramintas and pinchbeck Lotharios.
The reviews had far more energy, if little less intelligence. They were two in number, the Monthly and the Critical. They castigated contemporary literature with a heavy hand and a light understanding ; and although they often permitted tersonal animosities to overweight the scales of justice, they might 'well 'have performed the task of criticism more foolishly. Johnson's comment upon the rivals, expressed to the King, is familiar to all. "The Monthly Review," said the Doctor, "was done with the most care, the Critical upon the best principles." This, of course, meant that the editor of the Monthly Review was a Whig who could not keep his political sympathies out of his criticism. Acrimony played a large part in the judgments of those days, as it did after- wards in the Edinburgh and the Quarterly. The nameless Reviewers were as good at a "slashing article "as Mr. Croker, though in knowledge they could not be compared to the Admiralty clerk. It was for the writers of bad novels that they reserved their bitterest scorn. In a preface to a review of Peregrine Pickle and Amelia the critic deplores the decay • Side•Lights on the Georgian Period. By George Poston. London : Methuen and Co. LlUn 6c1.) of sound literature. "Serious and useful works are scarce read," Rays the Reviewer, "unless ticketed with the label of amusement. Thence that flood of novels, tales, romances, and other monsters of the imagination, imitated from the French, whose literary levity we have not been ashamed to adapt." It is a poor preface to the consideration of Fielding's masterpiece; but the complaint that the world of letters was swamped by bad novels was as well justified then as now. The nineteenth century inherited from its prede- cessor some twenty thousand novels, very few of which are known to-day, even by their titles, and the Reviewers may be forgiven who were confronted season after season by these masses of dulness. Their vision, no doubt, was rendered less and less acute by the constant contemplation of bad literature, and it is not astonishing that they were not always able to distinguish the few masterpieces which fell in their way. The Monthly Review could only spare a couple of lines for Gray's "Elegy." "The excellence of this little piece," said the Reviewer, "amply compensates for its want of quantity." And what the Reviewer said of the " Elegy " we may say of the Reviewer. The same journal "read 'Sir Charles Grandison' with alternate pleasure and disgust," and there is something at least to be said in favour of this mixed judgment.
But the most interesting episode in the career of the Monthly Review is Goldsmith's brief passage through its pages. It seems that Dr. Griffiths encountered the poet while yet an usher, and thinking that he would be a valuable recruit, made him an astounding offer. Goldsmith was to board and lodge with the Griffiths, to receive a small salary, and to devote all his time to the service of the Review. Such an arrangement could not last. Goldsmith complained that he was half starved, and that Dr. Griffiths tampered with his copy. Griffiths, of course, declared that Goldsmith refused to work. At any rate, they parted, the poet owing the editor the price of a suit of clothes, which was afterwards deducted from money due for a Life of Voltaire, and thenceforth the Monthly Review was sworn to tear the works of Goldsmith to shreds. When the poet died the editor was magnificent in patronage, and declared that "so far as his knowledge of books extended, he was not an nnuseful assistant."
Another interesting chapter in Mr. Paston's book is entitled "London through French Eye-glasses," and it adds something to our knowledge of foreign opinion. Nothing is more curious in the history of our international relations than the monstrous lies that have been told about England by French travellers. And for the most part the lies are identical. But this sameness suggests not the truth of the libel, but the constancy of a tradition. After the Napoleonic Wars it was universally stated that the French prisoners in England were brutally chained in galleys, and in a book called The Savages of Europe (1764), quoted by Mr. Paston, we find an early occurrence of the same falsehood. The personages of this book no sooner land at Dover than they see "a heap of miserable wretches, tied neck and heel, who were being plundered by the natives." But to all rules we may find exceptions, and the sympathy of Voltaire is as conspicuous as the monstrous hatred of the infamous du Pullet. And two of Mr. Paston's travellers, M. Grosley and Madame du Boccage, are bent upon impartiality, if not upon kindliness. M. Grosley is eloquent concerning the safety of our streets and the modesty of our appetites ; while Madame du Boccage honestly desired to be pleased with everything. But even in their misunderstandings these travellers are amusing, and, as illuminated by Mr. Paston, they throw a very pleasant side- light upon the age.
The longest chapter in the book is called "A Burney Friendship," and sets forth a correspondence which passed between Miss Fanny Burney and Marianne Port, a niece of Mrs. Delany. Miss Port was a charming girl, impressionable and gay, who was driven, like Mrs. Delany herself, into a convenient marriage ; but not before she had seen a little of the world, and under Miss Burney's auspices had snatched a glimpse of the Court. The Court, which would have been dulness itself, was lit up by two courtiers, Colonel Golds- worthy, a delightful "rattle," and Colonel Manners, under whose portrait by Gillray was printed the motto :— " Gentle Manners, with affections mild, In wit a man, simplicity a child."
The portraits of these two soldiers are very well, if inad-
vertently, drawn, and we regret that one or other of them did not make a match of it with Miss Port. However, Miss Burney was something of a prig, we fear, and did not do all she might to advance her friend's popularity.
Such are some of the subjects which Mr. Paston has touched with the lightness and sympathy which are familiar, and we recommend his book to all those who, like the critics of the Monthly Review, are tired of the trash of novels.
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