ABSTRACT

[…………………………………………………………………………….. 1 ] Author

Ah! they ought to allow for the capriccios of what is, after all, but a better sort of goblin. The bath into which Ariel, the most delicate creation of Shakspeare’s imagination, seduces our jolly friend Trinculo, was not of amber or rose-water. But no one shall find me rowing against the stream. I care not who knows it, I write for general amusement; and, though I never will aim at popularity by what I think unworthy means, I will not, on the other hand, be pertinacious in the defence of my own errors against the voice of the public.

Captain

You abandon, then, in the present work (looking, in my turn, towards the proof-sheet), the mystic, and the magical, and the whole system of signs, wonders, and omens? There are no dreams, or presages, or obscure allusions to future events?

Author

Not a Cock Lane scratch, my son—not one bounce on the drum of Tedworth 2 —not so much as the poor tick of a solitary deathwatch in the wainscot. All is clear and above board: a Scots metaphysician might believe every word of it.

Captain

And the story is, I hope, natural and probable; commencing strikingly, proceeding naturally, ending happily, like the course of a famed river, which gushes from the mouth of some obscure and romantic grotto; then gliding on, never pausing, never precipitating its course, visiting, as it were, by natural instinct, whatever worthy subjects of interest are presented by the country through which it passes; widening and deepening in interest as it flows on; and at length arriving at the final catastrophe as at some mighty haven, where ships of all kinds strike sail and yard?

Author

Hey! hey! what the deuce is all this? Why, ’tis Ercles’s vein, 3 and it would require some one much more like Hercules than I to produce a story which should gush, and glide, and never pause, and visit, and widen, and deepen, and all the rest on’t. I should be chin-deep in the grave, man, before I had done with my task; and, in the meanwhile, all the quirks and quiddities which I might have devised for my reader’s amusement would lie rotting in my gizzard, like Sancho’s suppressed witticisms, when he was under his master’s displeasure. 4 There never was a novel written on this plan while the world stood.

Captain

Pardon me—Tom Jones.

Author

True, and perhaps Amelia also. Fielding had high notions of the dignity of an art which he may be considered as having founded. He challenges a comparison between the novel and the epic. Smollett, Le Sage, and others, emancipating themselves from the strictness of the rules he has laid down, have written rather a history of the miscellaneous adventures which befall an individual in the course of life than the plot of a regular and connected epopœia, where every step brings us a point nearer to the final catastrophe. These great masters have been satisfied if they amused the reader upon the road; though the conclusion only arrived because the tale must have an end, just as the traveller alights at the inn because it is evening.

323Captain

A very commodious mode of travelling, for the author at least. In short, sir, you are of opinion with Bayes—‘What the devil does the plot signify, except to bring in fine things?’ 5

Author

Grant that I were so, and that I should write with sense and spirit a few scenes unlaboured and loosely put together, but which had sufficient interest in them to amuse in one corner the pain of body; in another, to relieve anxiety of mind; in a third place, to unwrinkle a brow bent with the furrows of daily toil; in another, to fill the place of bad thoughts, or to suggest better; in yet another, to induce an idler to study the history of his country; in all, save where the perusal interrupted the discharge of serious duties, to furnish harmless amusement—might not the author of such a work, however inartificially executed, plead for his errors and negligences the excuse of the slave, who, about to be punished for having spread the false report of a victory, saved himself by exclaiming—‘Am I to blame, O Athenians, who have given you one happy day?’ 6

Captain

Will your goodness permit me to mention an anecdote of my excellent grandmother?

Author

I see little she can have to do with the subject, Captain Clutterbuck.

Captain

It may come into our dialogue on Bayes’s plan. The sagacious old lady—rest her soul!—was a good friend to the church, and could never hear a minister maligned by evil tongues without taking his part warmly. There was one fixed point, however, at which she always abandoned the cause of her reverend protégé: it was so soon as she learned he had preached a regular sermon against slanderers and backbiters.

Author

And what is that to the purpose?

Captain

Only that I have heard engineers say that one may betray the weak point to the enemy by too much ostentation of fortifying it.

Author

And, once more I pray, what is that to the purpose?

Captain

Nay, then, without farther metaphor, I am afraid this new production, in which your generosity seems willing to give me some concern, will stand much in need of apology, since you think proper to begin your defence before the case is on trial. The story is hastily huddled up; I will venture a pint of claret.

Author

A pint of port, I suppose you mean?

Captain

I say of claret—good claret of the monastery. Ah, sir, would you but take the advice of your friends, and try to deserve at least one-half of the public favour you have met with, we might all drink Tokay!

Author

I care not what I drink, so the liquor be wholesome.

Captain

Care for your reputation, then—for your fame.

Author

My fame! I will answer you as a very ingenious, able, and experienced friend, being counsel for the notorious Jem MacCoul, 7 replied to the opposite side of the bar, when they laid weight on his client’s refusing to answer certain queries, which they said any man who had a regard for his reputation would not hesitate to reply to. ‘My client,’ said he—by the way, Jem was standing behind him at the time, and a rich scene it was—‘is so unfortunate as to have no regard for his reputation; and I should deal very uncandidly with the court should I say he had any that was worth his attention.’ I am, though from very different reasons, in Jem’s happy state of indifference. Let fame follow those who have a substantial shape. A shadow—and an impersonal author is nothing better—can cast no shade.

324Captain

You are not now, perhaps, so impersonal as heretofore. These Letters to the Member for the University of Oxford—— 8

Author

Show the wit, genius, and delicacy of the author, which I heartily wish to see engaged on a subject of more importance; and show, besides, that the preservation of my character of incognito has engaged early talent in the discussion of a curious question of evidence. But a cause, however ingeniously pleaded, is not therefore gained. You may remember the neatly-wrought chain of circumstantial evidence, so artificially brought forward to prove Sir Philip Francis’s title to the Letters of Junius, 9 seemed at first irrefragable; yet the influence of the reasoning has passed away, and Junius, in the general opinion, is as much unknown as ever. But on this subject I will not be soothed or provoked into saying one word more. To say who I am not would be one step towards saying who I am; and as I desire not, any more than a certain justice of peace mentioned by Shenstone, 10 the noise or report such things make in the world, I shall continue to be silent on a subject which, in my opinion, is very undeserving the noise that has been made about it, and still more unworthy of the serious employment of such ingenuity as has been displayed by the young letter-writer.

Captain

But allowing, my dear sir, that you care not for your personal reputation, or for that of any literary person upon whose shoulders your faults may be visited, allow me to say that common gratitude to the public, which has received you so kindly, and to the critics who have treated you so leniently, ought to induce you to bestow more pains on your story.

Author

I do entreat you, my son, as Dr. Johnson would have said, ‘free your mind from cant’. For the critics, they have their business, and I mine; as the nursery proverb goes— The children in Holland take pleasure in making What the children in England take pleasure in breaking. 11 I am their humble jackal, too busy in providing food for them to have time for considering whether they swallow or reject it. To the public I stand pretty nearly in the relation of the postman who leaves a packet at the door of an individual. If it contains pleasing intelligence—a billet from a mistress, a letter from an absent son, a remittance from a correspondent supposed to be bankrupt—the letter is acceptably welcome, and read and reread, folded up, filed, and safely deposited in the bureau. If the contents are disagreeable, if it comes from a dun or from a bore, the correspondent is cursed, the letter is thrown into the fire, and the expense of postage is heartily regretted; while all the time the bearer of the despatches is, in either case, as little thought on as the snow of last Christmas. The utmost extent of kindness between the author and the public which can really exist is, that the world are disposed to be somewhat indulgent to the succeeding works of an original favourite, were it but on account of the habit which the public mind has acquired; while the author very naturally thinks well of their taste who have so liberally applauded his productions. But I deny there is any call for gratitude, properly so called, either on one side or the other.

Captain

Respect to yourself, then, ought to teach caution.

Author

Ay, if caution could augment the chance of my success. But, to confess to you the truth, the works and passages in which I have succeeded have uniformly been written with the greatest rapidity; and when I have seen some of these placed in opposition with others, and commended as more highly finished, I could appeal to pen and standish that the parts in which I have come feebly off were by much the more laboured. Besides, I doubt 325the beneficial effect of too much delay, both on account of the author and the public. A man should strike while the iron is hot, and hoist sail while the wind is fair. If a successful author keep not the stage, another instantly takes his ground. If a writer lie by for ten years ere he produces a second work, he is superseded by others; or, if the age is so poor of genius that this does not happen, his own reputation becomes his greatest obstacle. The public will expect the new work to be ten times better than its predecessor; the author will expect it should be ten times more popular, and ’tis a hundred to ten that both are disappointed.

Captain

This may justify a certain degree of rapidity in publication, but not that which is proverbially said to be no speed. You should take time at least to arrange your story.

Author

That is a sore point with me, my son. Believe me, I have not been fool enough to neglect ordinary precautions. I have repeatedly laid down my future work to scale, divided it into volumes and chapters, and endeavoured to construct a story which I meant should evolve itself gradually and strikingly, maintain suspense, and stimulate curiosity; and which, finally, should terminate in a striking catastrophe. But I think there is a demon who seats himself on the feather of my pen when I begin to write, and leads it astray from the purpose. Characters expand under my hand; incidents are multiplied; the story lingers, while the materials increase; my regular mansion turns out a Gothic anomaly, and the work is closed long before I have attained the point I proposed.

Captain

Resolution and determined forbearance might remedy that evil.

Author

Alas! my dear sir, you do not know the force of paternal affection. When I light on such a character as Bailie Jarvie, or Dalgetty, 12 my imagination brightens, and my conception becomes clearer at every step which I take in his company, although it leads me many a weary mile away from the regular road, and forces me to leap hedge and ditch to get back into the route again. If I resist the temptation, as you advise me, my thoughts become prosy, flat, and dull; I write painfully to myself, and under a consciousness of flagging which makes me flag still more; the sunshine with which fancy had invested the incidents departs from them, and leaves everything dull and gloomy. I am no more the same author I was in my better mood than the dog in a wheel, condemned to go round and round for hours, is like the same dog merrily chasing his own tail, and gambolling in all the frolic of unrestrained freedom. In short, sir, on such occasions I think I am bewitched.

[…………………………………………………………………………………..]

Captain

You are determined to proceed then in your own system? Are you aware that an unworthy motive may be assigned for this rapid succession of publication? You will be supposed to work merely for the lucre of gain.

Author

Supposing that I did permit the great advantages which must be derived from success in literature to join with other motives in inducing me to come more frequently before the public, that emolument is the voluntary tax which the public pays for a certain species of literary amusement; it is extorted from no one, and paid, I presume, by those only who can afford it, and who receive gratification in proportion to the expense. If the capital sum which these volumes have put into circulation be a very large one, has it contributed to my indulgences only? or can I not say to hundreds, from honest Duncan the paper-manufacturer to the most snivelling of the printer’s devils, ‘Didst thou not share? Hadst thou not fifteen pence?’ 13 I profess I think our Modern Athens 14 much obliged to me for having established such an extensive manufacture; and when universal suffrage comes in fashion, I intend to stand for a seat in the House on the interest of all the unwashed artificers connected with literature.

326Captain

This would be called the language of a calico-manufacturer.

Author

Cant again, my dear son: there is lime in this sack, too; 15 nothing but sophistication in this world! I do say it, in spite of Adam Smith and his followers, that a successful author is a productive labourer, and that his works constitute as effectual a part of the public wealth as that which is created by any other manufacture. 16 If a new commodity, having an actually intrinsic and commercial value, be the result of the operation, why are the author’s bales of books to be esteemed a less profitable part of the public stock than the goods of any other manufacturer? I speak with reference to the diffusion of the wealth arising to the public, and the degree of industry which even such a trifling work as the present must stimulate and reward, before the volumes leave the publisher’s shop. Without me it could not exist, and to this extent I am a benefactor to the country. As for my own emolument, it is won by my toil, and I account myself answerable to Heaven only for the mode in which I expend it. The candid may hope it is not all dedicated to selfish purposes; and, without much pretensions to merit in him who disburses it, a part may ‘wander, heaven-directed, to the poor’.

Captain

Yet it is generally held base to write from the mere motives of gain.

Author

It would be base to do so exclusively, or even to make it a principal motive for literary exertion. Nay, I will venture to say that no work of imagination, proceeding from the mere consideration of a certain sum of copy-money, ever did, or ever will, succeed. So the lawyer who pleads, the soldier who fights, the physician who prescribes, the clergyman—if such there be—who preaches, without any zeal for his profession, or without any sense of its dignity, and merely on account of the fee, pay, or stipend, degrade themselves to the rank of sordid mechanics. Accordingly, in the case of two of the learned faculties at least, their services are considered as unappreciable, and are acknowledged, not by any exact estimate of the services rendered, but by a honorarium, or voluntary acknowledgment. But let a client or patient make the experiment of omitting this little ceremony of the honorarium, which is censé to be a thing entirely out of consideration between them, and mark how the learned gentleman will look upon his case. Cant set apart, it is the same thing with literary emolument. No man of sense, in any rank of life, is, or ought to be, above accepting a just recompense for his time, and a reasonable share of the capital which owes its very existence to his exertions. When Czar Peter wrought in the trenches, he took the pay of a common soldier; and nobles, statesmen, and divines, the most distinguished of their time, have not scorned to square accounts with their bookseller. 17

Captain. (Sings.)

O if it were a mean thing, The gentles would not use it; And if it were ungodly, The clergy would refuse it. 18

Author

You say well. But no man of honour, genius, or spirit would make the mere love of gain the chief, far less the only, purpose of his labours. For myself, I am not displeased to find the game a winning one; yet while I pleased the public, I should probably continue it merely for the pleasure of playing; for I have felt as strongly as most folks that love of composition which is perhaps the strongest of all instincts, driving the author to the pen, the painter to the pallet, often without either the chance of fame or the prospect of reward. 327Perhaps I have said too much of this. I might, perhaps, with as much truth as most people, exculpate myself from the charge of being either of a greedy or mercenary disposition; but I am not, therefore, hypocrite enough to disclaim the ordinary motives, on account of which the whole world around me is toiling unremittingly, to the sacrifice of ease, comfort, health, and life. I do not affect the disinterestedness of that ingenious association of gentlemen mentioned by Goldsmith, who sold their magazine for sixpence a-piece, merely for their own amusement. 19

Captain

I have but one thing more to hint. The world say you will run yourself out.

Author

The world say true; and what then? When they dance no longer, I will no longer pipe; and I shall not want flappers enough to remind me of the apoplexy. 20

Captain

And what will become of us then, your poor family? We shall fall into contempt and oblivion.

Author

Like many a poor fellow, already overwhelmed with the number of his family, I cannot help going on to increase it. ‘’Tis my vocation, Hal.’ 21 Such of you as deserve oblivion—perhaps the whole of you—may be consigned to it. At any rate, you have been read in your day, which is more than can be said of some of your contemporaries of less fortune and more merit. They cannot say but that you had the crown. It is always something to have engaged the public attention for seven years. Had I only written Waverley, I should have long since been, according to the established phrase, ‘the ingenious author of a novel much admired at the time’. I believe, on my soul, that the reputation of Waverley is sustained very much by the praises of those who may be inclined to prefer that tale to its successors.

Captain

You are willing, then, to barter future reputation for present popularity?

Author

Meliora spero. 22 Horace himself expected not to survive in all his works; I may hope to live in some of mine. Non omnis moriar. 23 It is some consolation to reflect that the best authors in all countries have been the most voluminous; and it has often happened that those who have been best received in their own. time have also continued to be acceptable to posterity. I do not think so ill of the present generation as to suppose that its present favour necessarily infers future condemnation.

Captain

Were all to act on such principles, the public would be inundated.

Author

Once more, my dear son, beware of cant. You speak as if the public were obliged to read books merely because they are printed; your friends the booksellers would thank you to make the proposition good. The most serious grievance attending such inundations as you talk of is that they make rags dear. The multiplicity of publications does the present age no harm, and may greatly advantage that which is to succeed us.

Captain

I do not see how that is to happen.

Author

The complaints in the time of Elizabeth and James of the alarming fertility of the press were as loud as they are at present; yet look at the shore over which the inundation of that age flowed, and it resembles now the Rich Strand of the Faëry Queene— Bestrew’d all with rich array, Of pearl and precious stones of great assay; And all the gravel mix’d with golden ore. 24 Believe me, that even in the most neglected works of the present age the next may discover treasures.

Captain

Some books will defy all alchemy.

328Author

They will be but few in number; since, as for writers who are possessed of no merit at all, unless indeed they publish their works at their own expense, like Sir Richard Blackmore, their power of annoying the public will be soon limited by the difficulty of finding undertaking booksellers. 25

Captain

You are incorrigible. Are there no bounds to your audacity?

Author

There are the sacred and eternal boundaries of honour and virtue. My course is like the enchanted chamber of Britomart— Where as she look’d about, she did behold How over that same door was likewise writ, Be Bold—Be Bold, and everywhere Be Bold. Whereat she mused, and could not construe it; At last she spied at that room’s upper end Another iron door, on which was writ— Be Not too Bold. 26