Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, page 252
It would, indeed, be difficult to convey to one who has not examined this production for himself, any idea of the exceedingly rough, clumsy, and inartistical manner in which even this bald conception is carried out. The stories are absolutely dragged in by the ears. So far from finding them result naturally or plausibly from the conversation of the interlocutors, even the blindest reader may perceive the author’s struggling and blundering effort to introduce them. It is rendered quite evident that they were originally “on hand,” and that “O’Malley” has been concocted for their introduction. Among other niaïseries we observe the silly trick of whetting appetite by delay. The conversation over the “kidneys” is brought, for example, to such a pass that one of the speakers is called upon for a story, which he forthwith declines for any reason, or for none. At a subsequent “broil” he is again pressed, and again refuses, and it is not until the reader’s patience is fairly exhausted, and he has consigned both the story and its author to Hades, that the gentleman in question is prevailed upon to discourse. The only conceivable result of this fanfarronade is the ruin of the tale when told, through exaggerating anticipation respecting it.
The anecdotes thus narrated being the staple of the book, and the awkward manner of their interlocution having been pointed out, it but remains to be seen what the anecdotes are, in themselves, and what is the merit of their narration. And here, let it not be supposed that we have any design to deprive the devil of his due. There are several very excellent anecdotes in “Charles O’Malley” very cleverly and pungently told. Many of the scenes in which Monsoon figures are rich less, however, from the scenes themselves than from the piquant, but by no means original character of Monsoon — a drunken, maudlin, dishonest old Major, given to communicativeness and mock morality over his cups, and not over careful in detailing adventures which tell against himself. One or two of the college pictures are unquestionably good — but might have been better. In general, the reader is made to feel that fine subjects have fallen into unskilful hands. By way of instancing this assertion, and at the same time of conveying an idea of the tone and character of the stories, we will quote one of the shortest, and assuredly one of the best.
“Ah, by-the-by, how’s the Major?”
“Charmingly: only a little bit in a scrape just now. Sir Arthur — Lord Wellington, I mean — had him up for his fellows being caught pillaging, and gave him a devil of a rowing a few days ago.
“ ‘Very disorderly corps yours, Major O’shaugnessy,’ said the general; `more men up for punishment than any regiment in the service.’
“Shaugh muttered something, but his voice was lost in a loud cock-a-doo-doo-doo, that some bold chanticleer set up at the moment.
“ ‘If the officers do their duty Major O’shaugnessy, these acts of insubordination do not occur.’
“Cock-a-doo-doo-doo, was the reply. Some of the staff found it hard not to laugh; but the general went on —
“ ‘If, therefore, the practice does not cease, I’ll draft the men into West India regiments.’
“ ‘Cock-a-doo-doo-doo!’
“ ‘And if any articles pillaged from the inhabitants are detected in the quarters, or about the persons of the troops — ‘
“ ‘Cock-a-doo-doo-doo!’ screamed louder here than ever.
“ ‘Damn that cock — where is it?’
“There was a general look around on all sides, which seemed in vain; when a tremendous repetition of the cry resounded from O’shaughnessy’s coat-pocket: thus detecting the valiant Major himself in the very practice of his corps. There was no standing this: every one burst out into a peal of laughter; and Lord Wellington himself could not resist, but turned away, muttering to himself as he went — ‘Damned robbers every man of them,’ while a final war-note from the Major’s pocket closed the interview.”
Now this is an anecdote at which every one will laugh; but its effect might have been vastly heightened by putting a few words of grave morality and reprobation of the conduct of his troops, into the mouth of O’shaughnessy, upon whose character they would have told well. The cock, in interrupting the thread of his discourse, would thus have afforded an excellent context. We have scarcely a reader, moreover, who will fail to perceive the want of tact shown in dwelling upon the mirth which the anecdote occasioned. The error here is precisely like that of a man’s laughing at his own spoken jokes. Our author is uniformly guilty of this mistake. He has an absurd fashion, also, of informing the reader, at the conclusion of each of his anecdotes, that, however good the anecdote might be, he (the reader) cannot enjoy it to the full extent in default of the manner in which it was orally narrated. He has no business to say anything of this kind. It is his duty to convey the manner not less than the matter of his narratives.
But we may say of these latter that, in general, they have the air of being remembered rather than invented. No man who has seen much of the rough life of the camp will fail to recognize among them many very old acquaintances. Some of them are as ancient as the hills, and have been, time out of mind, the common property of the bivouac. They have been narrated orally all the world over. The chief merit of the writer is, that he has been the first to collect and to print them. It is observable, in fact, that the second volume of the work is very far inferior to the first. The author seems to have exhausted his whole hoarded store in the beginning. His conclusion is barren indeed, and but for the historical details (for which he has no claim to merit) would be especially prosy and dull. Now the true invention never exhausts itself. It is mere cant and ignorance to talk of the possibility of the really imaginative man’s “writing himself out.” His soul but derives nourishment from the streams that flow therefrom. As well prate about the aridity of the eternal ocean [[Greek text:]] xxx xxx xxx [[:Greek text]]. So long as the universe of thought shall furnish matter for novel combinations, so long will the spirit of true genius be original, be exhaustless — be itself. A few cursory observations. The book is filled to overflowing with songs of very doubtful excellence, the most of which are put into the mouth of one Micky Free, an amusing Irish servant of O’Malley’s, and are given as his impromptu effusions. The subject of the improvisos is always the matter in hand at the moment of composition. The author evidently prides himself upon his poetical powers, about which the less we say the better; but if anything were wanting to assure us of his absurd ignorance and inappreciation of Art, we should find the fullest assurance in the mode in which these doggrel verses are introduced.
The occasional sentiment with which the volumes are interspersed there is an absolute necessity for skipping.
Can anybody tell us what is meant by the affectationof the word L’envoy which is made the heading of twoprefaces?
That portion of the account of the battle of Waterloo which gives O’Malley’s experiences while a prisoner, and in close juxta-position to Napoleon, bears evident traces of having been translated, and very literally too, from a French manuscript.
The English of the work is sometimes even amusing. We have continually, for example, eat, the present, for ate, the perfect — see page 17. At page 16, we have this delightful sentence — “Captain Hammersley, however, never took further notice of me, but continued to recount, for the amusement of those about, several excellent stories of his military career, which I confess were heard with every test of delight by all save me.” At page 357 we have some sage talk about “the entire of the army;” and at page 368, the accomplished O’Malley speaks of “drawing a last look upon his sweetheart.” These things arrest our attention as we open the book at random. It abounds in them, and in vulgarisms even much worse than they.
But why speak of vulgarisms of language? There is a disgusting vulgarism of thought which pervades and contaminates this whole production, and from which a delicate or lofty mind will shrink as from a pestilence. Not the least repulsive manifestation of this leprosy is to be found in the author’s blind and grovelling worship of mere rank. Of the Prince Regent, that filthy compound of all that is bestial that lazar-house of all moral corruption — he scruples not to speak in terms of the grossest adulation — sneering at Edmund Burke in the same villanous breath in which he extols the talents, the graces and the virtues of George the Fourth! That any man, to-day, can be found so degraded in heart as to style this reprobate, “one who, in every feeling of his nature, and in every feature of his deportment was every inch a prince” — is matter for grave reflection and sorrowful debate. The American, at least, who shall peruse the concluding pages of the book now under review, and not turn in disgust from the base sycophancy which infects them, is unworthy of his country and his name. But the truth is, that a gross and contracted soul renders itself unquestionably manifest in almost every line of the composition.
And this — this is the work, in respect to which its author, aping the airs of intellect, prates about his “haggard cheek,” his “sunken eye,” his “aching and tired head,” his “nights of toil” and (Good Heavens!) his “days of thought!” That the thing is popular we grant — while that we cannot deny the fact, we grieve. But the career of true taste is onward — and now more vigorously onward than ever — and the period, perhaps, is not hopelessly distant, when, in decrying the mere balderdash of such matters as “Charles O’Malley,” we shall do less violence to the feelings and judgment even of the populace, than, we much fear, has been done to-day.
FRANCIS MARRYATT.
IT has been well said that “the success of certain works may be traced to sympathy between the author’s mediocrity of ideas, and mediocrity of ideas on the part of the public.” In commenting on this passage, Mrs. Gore, herself a shrewd philosopher, observes that, whether as regards men or books, there exists an excellence too excellent for general favor. To “make a hit” — to captivate the public eye, ear, or understanding without a certain degree of merit — is impossible; but the “hardest hit” is seldom made, indeed we may say never made, by the highest merit. When we wrote the word seldom we were thinking of Dickens and the “Curiosity Shop,” a work unquestionably of “the highest merit,” and which at a first glance appears to have made the most unequivocal of “hits” but we suddenly remembered that the compositions called “Harry Lorrequer” and “Charles O’Malley” had borne the palm from “The Curiosity Shop” in point of what is properly termed popularity.
There can be no question, we think, that the philosophy of all this is to be found in the apothegm with which we began. Marryatt is a singular instance of its truth. He has always been a very popular writer in the most rigorous sense of the word. His books are essentially “mediocre.” His ideas are the common property of the mob, and have been their common property time out of mind. We look throughout his writings in vain for the slightest indication of originality — for the faintest incentive to thought. His plots, his language, his opinions are neither adapted nor intended for scrutiny. We must be contented with them as sentiments, rather than as ideas; and properly to estimate them, even in this view, we must bring ourselves into a sort of identification with the sentiment of the mass. Works composed in this spirit are sometimes purposely so composed by men of superior intelligence, and here we call to mind the Chansons of Béranger. But usually they are the natural exponent of the vulgar thought in the person of a vulgar thinker. In either case they claim for themselves that which, for want of a more definite expression, has been called by critics nationality. Whether this nationality in letters is a fit object for high-minded ambition, we cannot here pause to inquire. If it is, then Captain Marryatt occupies a more desirable position than, in our heart, we are willing to award him.
“Joseph Rushbrook” is not a book with which the critic should occupy many paragraphs. It is not very dissimilar to “Poor Jack,” which latter is, perhaps, the best specimen of its author’s cast of thought, and national manner, although inferior in interest to “Peter Simple.”
The plot can only please those who swallow the probabilities of “Sinbad the Sailor,” or “Jack and the Bean-Stalk” — or we should have said, more strictly, the incidents; for, of plot, properly speaking, there is none at all.
Joseph Rushbrook is an English soldier who, having long served his country and received a wound in the head, is pensioned and discharged. He becomes a poacher, and educates his son (the hero of the tale and also named Joseph) to the same profession. A pedler, called Byres, is about to betray the father, who avenges himself by shooting him. The son takes the burden of the crime upon himself, and flees the country. A reward is offered for his apprehension — a reward which one Furness, a schoolmaster, is very anxious to obtain. This Furness dogs the footsteps of our hero, much as Fagin, the Jew, dogs those of Oliver Twist, forcing him to quit place after place, just as he begins to get comfortably settled. In thus roaming about, little Joseph meets with all kinds of outrageously improbable adventures; and not only this, but the reader is bored to death with the outrageously improbable adventures of every one with whom little Joseph comes in contact. Good fortune absolutely besets him. Money falls at his feet wherever he goes, and he has only to stoop and pick it up. At length he arrives at the height of prosperity, and thinks he is entirely rid of Furness, when Furness re-appears. That Joseph should, in the end, be brought to trial for the pedler’s murder is so clearly the author’s design, that he who runs may read it, and we naturally suppose that his persecutor, Furness, is to be the instrument of this evil. We suppose also, of course, that in bringing this misfortune upon our hero, the schoolmaster will involve himself in ruin, in accordance with the common ideas of poetical justice. But no; Furness, being found in the way, is killed off, accidentally, having lived and plotted to no ostensible purpose, through the better half of the book. Circumstances that have nothing to do with the story involve Joseph in his trial. He refuses to divulge the real secret of the murder, and is sentenced to transportation. The elder Rushbrook, in the meantime, has avoided suspicion and fallen heir to a great property. Just as his son is about to be sent across the water, some of Joe’s friends discover the true state of affairs, and obtain from the father, who is now conveniently upon his death-bed, a confession of his guilt. Thus all ends well — if the word well can be applied in any sense to trash so ineffable — the father dies, the son is released, inherits the estate, marries his lady-love, and prospers in every possible and impossible way.
We have mentioned the imitation of Fagin. A second plagiarism is feebly attempted in the character of one Nancy, a trull, who is based upon the Nancy of Oliver Twist — for Marryatt is not often at the trouble of diversifying his thefts. This Nancy changes her name three or four times, and so in fact do each and all of the dramatis personae. This changing of name is one of the bright ideas with which the author of “Peter Simple” is most pertinaciously afflicted. We would not be bound to say how many aliases are borne by the hero in this instance — some dozen perhaps.
The novels of Marryatt — his later ones at least — are evidently written to order, for certain considerations, and have to be delivered within certain periods. He thus finds it his interest to push on. Now, for this mode of progress, incident is the sole thing which answers. One incident begets another, and so on ad infinitum. There is never the slightest necessity for pausing; especially where no plot is to be cared for. Comment, in the author’s own person, upon what is transacting, is left entirely out of question. There is thus none of that binding power perceptible, which often gives a species of unity (the unity of the writer’s individual thought) to the most random narrations. All works composed as we have stated Marryatt’s to be composed, will be run on, incidentally, in the manner described; and, notwithstanding that it would seem at first sight to be otherwise, yet it is true that no works are so insufferably tedious. These are the novels which we read with a hurry exactly consonant and proportionate with that in which they were indited. We seldom leave them unfinished, yet we labor through to the end, and reach it with unalloyed pleasure.
The commenting force can never be safely disregarded. It is far better to have a dearth of incident, with skilful observations upon it, than the utmost variety of event, without. In some previous review we have observed (and our observation is borne out by analysis), that it was the deep sense of the want of this binding and commenting power, in the old Greek drama, which gave rise to the chorus. The chorus came at length to supply, in some measure, a deficiency which is inseparable from dramatic action, and represented the expression of the public interest or sympathy in the matters transacted. The successful novelist must, in the same manner, be careful to bring into view his private interest, sympathy, and opinion, in regard to his own creations.
We have spoken of “The Poacher” at greater length than we intended; for it deserves little more than an announcement. It has the merit of a homely and not unnatural simplicity of style, and is not destitute of pathos; but this is all. Its English is excessively slovenly. Its events are monstrously improbable. There is no adaptation of parts about it. The truth is, it is a pitiable production. There are twenty young men of our acquaintance who make no pretension to literary ability, yet who could produce a better book in a week.
HENRY COCKTON.
“Charles O’Malley,” “Harry Lorrequer,” “Valentine Vox,” “Stanley Thorn,” and some other effusions now in course of publication,” are novels depending for effect upon what gave popularity to “Peregrine Pickle” — we mean practical joke. To men whose animal spirits are high, whatever may be their mental ability, such works are always acceptable. To the uneducated, to those who read little, to the obtuse in intellect (and these three classes constitute the mass) these books are not only acceptable, but are the only ones which can be called so. We here make two divisions — that of the men who can think but who dislike thinking; and that of the men who either have not been presented with the materials for thought, or who have no brains with which to “work up” the material. With these classes of people “Stanley Thorn” is a favorite. It not only demands no reflection, but repels it, or dissipates it — much as a silver rattle the wrath of a child. It is not in the least degree suggestive. Its readers arise from its perusal with the identical ideas in possession at sitting down. Yet, during perusal, there has been a tingling physico-mental exhilaration, somewhat like that induced by a cold bath, or a flesh-brush, or a gallop on horseback — a very delightful and very healthful matter in its way. But these things are not letters. “Valentine Vox” and “Charles O’Malley” are no more “ literature” than cat-gut is music. The visible and tangible tricks of a baboon belong not less to the belles-lettres than does “Harry Lorrequer.” When this gentleman adorns his countenance with lamp-black, knocks over an apple-woman, or brings about a rent in his pantaloons, we laugh at him when bound up in a volume, just as we would laugh at his adventures if happening before our eyes in the street. But mere incidents, whether serious or comic, whether occurring or described — mere incidents are not books. Neither are they the basis of books — of which the idiosyncrasy is thought in contradistinction from deed . A book without action cannot be; but a book is only such, to the extent of its thought, independently of its deed. Thus of Algebra; which is, or should be, defined as “a mode of computing with symbols by means of signs.” With numbers, as Algebra, it has nothing to do; and although no algebraic computation can proceed without numbers, yet Algebra is only such to the extent of its analysis, independently of its Arithmetic.
