History of English Humour, Vol. 2

CHAPTER VII.

Dodsley—"A Muse in Livery"—"The Devil's a Dunce"—"The Toy Shop"—Fielding—Smollett.

Robert Dodsley was born in 1703. He was the son of a schoolmaster in Mansfield, but went into domestic service as a footman, and held several respectable situations. While in this capacity, he employed his leisure time in composing poetry, and he appropriately named his first production "A Muse in Livery." The most pleasant and interesting of these early poems is that in which he gives an account of his daily life, showing how observant a footman may be. It is in the form of an epistle:—

"Dear friend,
Since I am now at leisure,
And in the country taking pleasure,
It may be worth your while to hear
A silly footman's business there;
I'll try to tell in easy rhyme
How I in London spent my time.
And first,
As soon as laziness would let me
I rise from bed, and down I sit me
To cleaning glasses, knives, and plate,
And such like dirty work as that,
Which (by the bye) is what I hate!
This done, with expeditious care
To dress myself I straight prepare,
I clean my buckles, black my shoes,
Powder my wig and brush my clothes,
Take off my beard and wash my face,
And then I'm ready for the chase.
Down comes my lady's woman straight,
'Where's Robin?' 'Here!' 'Pray take your hat
And go—and go—and go—and go—
And this and that desire to know.'
The charge received, away run I
And here and there, and yonder fly,
With services and 'how d'ye does,'
Then home return well fraught with news.
Here some short time does interpose
Till warm effluvias greet my nose,
Which from the spits and kettles fly,
Declaring dinner time is nigh.
To lay the cloth I now prepare
With uniformity and care;
In order knives and forks are laid,
With folded napkins, salt, and bread:
The sideboards glittering too appear
With plate and glass and china-ware.
Then ale and beer and wine decanted,
And all things ready which are wanted.
The smoking dishes enter in,
To stomachs sharp a grateful scene;
Which on the table being placed,
And some few ceremonies past,
They all sit down and fall to eating,
Whilst I behind stand silent waiting.
This is the only pleasant hour
Which I have in the twenty-four.
For whilst I unregarded stand,
With ready salver in my hand,
And seem to understand no more
Than just what's called for out to pour,
I hear and mark the courtly phrases,
And all the elegance that passes;
Disputes maintained without digression,
With ready wit and fine expression;
The laws of true politeness stated,
And what good breeding is, debated.
This happy hour elapsed and gone,
The time for drinking tea comes on,
The kettle filled, the water boiled,
The cream provided, biscuits piled,
And lamp prepared, I straight engage
The Lilliputian equipage,
Of dishes, saucers, spoons and tongs,
And all the et cetera which thereto belongs;
Which ranged in order and decorum
I carry in and set before 'em,
Then pour the green or bohea out,
And as commanded hand about."

After the early dinner and "dish" of tea, his mistress goes out visiting in the evening, and Dodsley precedes her with a flambeau.

Another fancy was entitled "The Devil's a Dunce," was directed against the Pope.[11] Two friends apply to him for absolution, one rich and the other poor. The rich man obtained the pardon, but the poor sued in vain, the Pope replying:—

"I cannot save you if I would,
Nor would I do it if I could."
"Home goes the man in deep despair,
And died soon after he came there,
And went 'tis said to hell: but sure
He was not there for being poor!
But long he had not been below
Before he saw his friend come too.
At this he was in great surprise
And scarcely could believe his eyes,
'What! friend,' said he, 'are you come too?
I thought the Pope had pardoned you.'
'Yes,' quoth the man, 'I thought so too,
But I was by the Pope trepanned,
The devil couldn't read his hand.'"

The footman's next literary attempt was in a dramatic poem named "The Toy-Shop," and he had the courage to send it to Pope. Why he selected this poet does not plainly appear; by some it is said that his then mistress introduced her servant's poems to Pope's notice, but it is not improbable that Dodsley had heard of him from his brother, who was gardener to Mr. Allen of Prior Park, Bath, where Pope was often on a visit. However this may have been, he received a very kind letter from the poet, and an introduction to Mr. Rich, whose approval of the piece led to its being performed at Covent Garden.[12] This play was the foundation of Dodsley's fortune. By means of the money thus obtained, he set himself up as a bookseller in Pall Mall, and became known to the world of rank and genius. He produced successively "The King and the Miller of Mansfield," and "The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green." He published for Pope, and in 1738, Samuel Johnson sold his first original publication to him for ten guineas. He suggested to Dr. Johnson the scheme of writing an English Dictionary, and also, in conjunction with Edmund Burke, commenced the "Annual Register." Dodsley's principal work was the "Economy of Human Life," written in an aphoristic style, and ascribed to Lord Chesterfield. He also made a collection of six volumes of contemporary poems, and they show how much rarer humour was than sentiment, for Dodsley was not a man to omit anything sparkling. The following imitation of Ambrose Philips—a general butt—has merit:

A Pipe Of Tobacco.
Little tube of mighty power,
Charmer of an idle hour,
Object of my warm desire
Lip of wax, and eye of fire,
And thy snowy taper waist
With my finger gently braced,
And thy pretty smiling crest
With my little stopper pressed,
And the sweetest bliss of blisses
Breathing from thy balmy kisses,
Happy thrice and thrice again
Happiest he of happy men,
Who, when again the night returns,
When again the taper burns,
When again the cricket's gay,
(Little cricket full of play),
Can afford his tube to feed
With the fragrant Indian weed.
Pleasures for a nose divine
Incense of the god of wine,
Happy thrice and thrice again,
Happiest he of happy men.

Few humorous writers have attained to a greater celebrity than Fielding. He was born in 1707, was a son of General Fielding, and a relative of Lord Denbigh. In his early life, his works, which were comedies, were remarkable for severe satire, and some of them so political as to be instrumental in leading to the Chamberlain's supervision of the stage. His turn of mind was decidedly cynical.

In the "Pleasures of the Town," we have many songs, of which the following is a specimen:—

"The stone that always turns at will
To gold, the chemist craves;
But gold, without the chemist's skill,
Turns all men into knaves.
"The merchant would the courtier cheat,
When on his goods he lays
Too high a price—but faith he's bit—
For a courtier never pays.
"The lawyer with a face demure,
Hangs him who steals your pelf,
Because the good man can endure
No robber but himself.
"Betwixt the quack and highwayman,
What difference can there be?
Tho' this with pistol, that with pen,
Both kill you for a fee."

His plays were not very successful. They abounded in witty sallies and repartee, but the general plot was not humorous. The jollity was of a rough farcical character. It was said he left off writing for the stage when he should have begun. He took little care with his plays, and would go home late from a tavern, and bring a dramatic scene in the morning, written on the paper in which he had wrapped his tobacco.

In many of his works he shows a mind approaching that of the Roman satirists. Speaking of "Jonathan Wild," he says:—

"I think we may be excused for suspecting that the splendid palaces of the great are often no other than Newgate with the mask on; nor do I know anything which can raise an honest man's indignation higher than that the same morals should be in one place attended with all imaginary misery and infamy, and in the other with the highest luxury and honour. Let any impartial man in his senses be asked, for which of these two places a composition of cruelty, lust, avarice, rapine, insolence, hypocrisy, fraud, and treachery is best fitted? Surely his answer will be certain and immediate; and yet I am afraid all these ingredients glossed over with wealth and a title have been treated with the highest respect and veneration in the one, while one or two of them have been condemned to the gallows in the other. If there are, then, any men of such morals, who dare call themselves great, and are so reputed, or called at least, by the deceived multitude, surely a little private censure by the few is a very moderate tax for them to pay."

There is a considerable amount of humour in Fielding's "Journey from this World to the Next." He represents the spirits as drawing lots before they enter this life as to what their destinies are to be, and he introduces a sort of migration of souls, in which Julian becomes a king, fool, tailor, beggar, &c. As a tailor, he speaks of the dignity of his calling, "the prince gives the title, but the tailor makes the man." Of course his reflections turn very much upon his bills.

"Courtiers," he says, "may be divided into two sorts, very essentially different from each other; into those who never intend to pay for their clothes, and those who do intend to pay for them, but are never able. Of the latter sort are many of those young gentlemen whom we equip out for the army, and who are, unhappily for us, cast off before they arrive at preferment. This is the reason why tailors in time of war are mistaken for politicians by their inquisitiveness into the event of battles, one campaign very often proving the ruin of half-a-dozen of us."

Julian also gives his experience during his life as a beggar, showing that his life was not so very miserable.

"I married a charming young woman for love; she was the daughter of a neighbouring beggar, who with an improvidence too often seen, spent a very large income, which he procured from his profession, so that he was able to give her no fortune down. However, at his death he left her a very well-accustomed begging hut situated on the side of a steep hill, where travellers could not immediately escape from us; and a garden adjoining, being the twenty-eighth part of an acre well-planted. She made the best of wives, bore me nineteen children, and never failed to get my supper ready against my return home—this being my favourite meal, and at which I, as well as my whole family, greatly enjoyed ourselves."

"No profession," he observes, "requires a deeper insight into human nature than a beggar's. Their knowledge of the passions of men is so extensive, that I have often thought it would be of no little service to a politician to have his education among them. Nay, there is a much greater analogy between these two characters than is imagined: for both concur in their first and grand principle, it being equally their business to delude and impose on mankind. It must be admitted that they differ widely in the degree of advantage, which they make of their deceit; for whereas the beggar is contented with a little, the politician leaves but a little behind."

There is a considerable amount of indelicacy in the episodes in "Tom Jones," and also of hostility, which is exhibited in the rough form of pugilistic encounters, so as almost to remind us of the old comic stage. He seems especially fond of settling quarrels in this way, and wishes that no other was ever used, and that "iron should dig no bowels but those of the earth." The character of Deborah Wilkins, the old maid who is shocked at the frivolity of Jenny Jones; of Thwackum, the schoolmaster, whose "meditations were full of birch;" and of the barber, whose jests, although they brought him so many slaps and kicks "would come," are excellent. There is a vast fertility of humour in his pages, which depending upon the general circumstances and peculiar characters of the persons introduced, cannot be easily appreciated in extracts. The following, however, can be understood easily:—

"'I thought there must be a devil,' the sergeant says to the innkeeper, 'notwithstanding what the officers said, though one of them was a captain, for methought, thinks I to myself, if there be no devil how can wicked people be sent to him? and I have read all that upon a book.' 'Some of your officers,' quoth the landlord, 'will find there is a devil to their shame, I believe. I don't question but he'll pay off some old scores upon my account. Here was one quartered upon me half-a-year, who had the conscience to take up one of my best beds, though he hardly spent a shilling a day in the house, and his man went to roast cabbages at the kitchen fire, because I would not give them a dinner on Sunday. Every good Christian must desire that there should be a devil for the punishment of such wretches....'"

The Man of the Hill gives his travelling experiences:—

"'In Italy the landlords are very silent. In France they are more talkative, but yet civil. In Germany and Holland they are generally very impertinent. And as for their honesty I believe it is pretty equal in all those countries.... As for my own part, I past through all these nations, as you perhaps may have through a crowd at a show, jostling to get by them, holding my nose with one hand, and defending my pockets with the other, without speaking a word to any of them while I was pressing on to see what I wanted to see.'

"'Did you not find some of the nations less troublesome to you than the others?' said Jones.

"'Oh, yes,' replied the old man, 'the Turks were much more tolerable to me than the Christians, for they are men of profound taciturnity, and never disturb a stranger with questions. Now and then, indeed, they bestow a short curse upon him, or spit in his face as he walks in the streets, but then they have done with him.'"

From another passage, we find that ladies are armed with very deadly weapons. He had said that Love was no more capable of allaying hunger than a rose is capable of delighting the ear, or a violin of gratifying the smell, and he gives an instance:—

"Say then, ye graces, you that inhabit the heavenly mansions of Seraphina's countenance, what were the weapons used to captivate the heart of Mr. Jones. First, from two lovely blue eyes, whose bright orbs flashed lightning at their discharge, flew off two pointed ogles; but, happily for our hero, hit only a vast piece of beef, which he was then conveying into his plate. The fair warrior perceived their miscarriage, and immediately from her fair bosom drew forth a deadly sigh; a sigh, which none could have heard unmoved, and which was sufficient at once to have swept off a dozen beaux—so soft, so sweet, so tender, that the insinuating air must have found its subtle way to the heart of our hero, had it not luckily been driven from his ears by the coarse bubbling of some bottled ale which at that time he was pouring forth. Many other weapons did she essay; but the god of eating (if there be any such deity) preserved his votary; or, perhaps, the security of Jones may be accounted for by natural means, for, as love frequently preserves from the attacks of hunger, so may hunger possibly, in some cases, defend us against love. No sooner was the cloth removed, than she again began her operations. First, having planted her right eye sideways against Mr. Jones, she shot from its corner a most penetrating glance, which, though great part of its force was spent before it reached our hero, did not vent itself without effect. This, the fair one perceiving, hastily withdrew her eyes, and levelled them downwards as if she was concerned only for what she had done, though by this means she designed only to draw him from his guard, and indeed to open his eyes, through which she intended to surprise his heart. And now gently lifting those two bright orbs, which had already begun to make an impression on poor Jones, she discharged a volley of small charms from her whole countenance in a smile. Not a smile of mirth or of joy, but a smile of affection, which most ladies have always ready at their command, and which serves them to show at once their good-humour, their pretty dimples, and their white teeth.

"This smile our hero received full in his eyes, and was immediately staggered with its force. He then began to see the designs of the enemy, and indeed to feel their success. A parley now was set on foot between the parties, during which the artful fair so slily and imperceptibly carried on her attack, that she had almost subdued the heart of our hero before she again repaired to acts of hostility. To confess the truth, I am afraid Mr. Jones maintained a kind of Dutch defence, and treacherously delivered up the garrison without duly weighing his allegiance to the fair Sophia."

It has generally been the custom to couple the name of Smollett with that of Fielding, but the former has scarcely any claim to be regarded as a humorist, except such as is largely due to the use of gross indelicacy and coarse caricature. He first attempted poetry, and wrote two dull satires "Advice" and "Reproof." His "Ode to Mirth," is somewhat sprightly, but of his songs the following is a favourable specimen:—

"From the man whom I love, though my heart I disguise,
I will freely describe the wretch I despise,
And if he has sense but to balance a straw
He will sure take the hint from the picture I draw.
"A wit without sense, without fancy, a beau,
Like a parrot he chatters, and struts like a crow;
A peacock in pride, in grimace a baboon,
In courage a hind, in conceit a gascon.
"As a vulture rapacious, in falsehood a fox,
Inconstant as waves, and unfeeling as rocks,
As a tiger ferocious, perverse as a hog,
In mischief an ape, and in fawning a dog.
"In a word, to sum up all his talents together,
His heart is of lead, and his brain is of feather,
Yet if he has sense to balance a straw
He will sure take the hint from the picture I draw."

Although Smollett indulged in great coarseness, I doubt whether he has anything more humorous in his writings than the above lines. Sir Walter Scott formed a more just opinion of him than some later critics. He says:—

"Smollett's humour arises from the situation of the persons, or the peculiarity of their external appearance, as Roderick Random's carroty locks, which hung down over his shoulders like a pound of candles; or Strap's ignorance of London, and the blunders that follow it. There is a tone of vulgarity about all his productions."

Smollett was born in Dumbartonshire in 1721. He became a surgeon, and for six or seven years was employed in the Navy in that capacity. This may account for the strong flavour of brine and tar in the best of his works—his sea sketches have a considerable amount of character in them—sometimes rather too much. His liberal use of nautical language is exhibited when Lieutenant Hatchway is going away,

"Trunnion, not a little affected, turned his eye ruefully upon the lieutenant saying in piteous tone, 'What! leave me at last, Jack, after we have weathered so many hard gales together? Damn my limbs! I thought you had been more of an honest heart: I looked upon you as my foremast and Tom Pipes as my mizen; now he is carried away; if so be as you go too, my standing rigging being decayed d'ye see, the first squall will bring me by the board. Damn ye, if in case I have given offence, can't you speak above board, and I shall make you amends."

Some idea of his best comic scenes, which have a certain kind of humorous merit, may be obtained from the following description of the progress of Commodore Trunnion and his party to the Wedding. Wishing to go in state, they advance on horseback, and are seen crossing the road obliquely so as to avoid the eye of the wind. The cries of a pack of hounds unfortunately reach the horses' ears, who being hunters, immediately start off after them in full gallop.

"The Lieutenant, whose steed had got the heels of the others, finding it would be great folly and presumption in him to pretend to keep the saddle with his wooden leg, very wisely took the opportunity of throwing himself off in his passage through a field of rich clover, among which he lay at his ease; and seeing his captain advancing at full gallop, hailed him with the salutation of 'What cheer? ho!' The Commodore, who was in infinite distress, eyeing him askance, as he passed replied with a faltering voice, 'O damn ye! you are safe at an anchor, I wish to God I were as fast moored.' Nevertheless, conscious of his disabled heel, he would not venture to try the experiment that had succeeded so well with Hatchway, but resolved to stick as close as possible to his horse's back, until Providence should interpose in his behalf. With this view he dropped his whip, and with his right hand laid fast hold of the pommel, contracting every muscle of his body to secure himself in the seat, and grinning most formidably in consequence of this exertion. In this attitude he was hurried on a considerable way, when all of a sudden his view was comforted by a five-bar gate that appeared before him, as he never doubted that there the career of his hunter must necessarily end. But alas! he reckoned without his host. Far from halting at this obstruction, the horse sprang over with amazing agility, to the utter confusion and disorder of his owner, who lost his hat and periwig in the leap, and now began to think in good earnest that he was actually mounted on the back of the devil. He recommended himself to God, his reflection forsook him, his eyesight and all his other senses failed, he quitted the reins, and fastening by instinct on the main, was in this condition conveyed into the midst of the sportsmen, who were astonished at the sight of such an apparition. Neither was their surprise to be wondered at, if we reflect on the figure that presented itself to their view."

Smollett delights in practical jokes, fighting, and violent language. Sometimes we are almost in danger of the dagger. He rejoices in fun, in such scenes as that of Random fighting Captain Weasel with the roasting-spit, and what he says in "Humphrey Clinker" of the ladies, at a party in Bath, might better apply to his own dialogues. "Some cried, some swore, and the tropes and figures of Billingsgate were used without reserve in all their native rest and flavour."

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