I dedicate to you, my indulgent Critic and long–tried Friend,
the work which owes its origin to your suggestion. Long since, you
urged me to attempt a fiction which might borrow its characters
from our own Records, and serve to illustrate some of those truths
which History is too often compelled to leave to the Tale–teller,
the Dramatist, and the Poet. Unquestionably, Fiction, when aspiring
to something higher than mere romance, does not pervert, but
elucidate Facts. He who employs it worthily must, like a
biographer, study the time and the characters he selects, with a
minute and earnest diligence which the general historian, whose
range extends over centuries, can scarcely be expected to bestow
upon the things and the men of a single epoch. His descriptions
should fill up with colour and detail the cold outlines of the
rapid chronicler; and in spite of all that has been argued by
pseudo–critics, the very fancy which urged and animated his theme
should necessarily tend to increase the reader's practical and
familiar acquaintance with the habits, the motives, and the modes
of thought which constitute the true idiosyncrasy of an age. More
than all, to Fiction is permitted that liberal use of Analogical
Hypothesis which is denied to History, and which, if sobered by
research, and enlightened by that knowledge of mankind (without
which Fiction can neither harm nor profit, for it becomes
unreadable), tends to clear up much that were otherwise obscure,
and to solve the disputes and difficulties of contradictory
evidence by the philosophy of the human heart.
My own impression of the greatness of the labour to which you
invited me made me the more diffident of success, inasmuch as the
field of English historical fiction had been so amply cultivated,
not only by the most brilliant of our many glorious Novelists, but
by later writers of high and merited reputation. But however the
annals of our History have been exhausted by the industry of
romance, the subject you finally pressed on my choice is
unquestionably one which, whether in the delineation of character,
the expression of passion, or the suggestion of historical truths,
can hardly fail to direct the Novelist to paths wholly untrodden by
his predecessors in the Land of Fiction.
Encouraged by you, I commenced my task; encouraged by you, I
venture, on concluding it, to believe that, despite the partial
adoption of that established compromise between the modern and the
elder diction, which Sir Walter Scott so artistically improved from
the more rugged phraseology employed by Strutt, and which later
writers have perhaps somewhat overhackneyed, I may yet have avoided
all material trespass upon ground which others have already
redeemed from the waste. Whatever the produce of the soil I have
selected, I claim, at least, to have cleared it with my own labour,
and ploughed it with my own heifer.
The reign of Edward IV. is in itself suggestive of new
considerations and unexhausted interest to those who accurately
regard it. Then commenced the policy consummated by Henry VII.;
then were broken up the great elements of the old feudal order; a
new Nobility was called into power, to aid the growing Middle Class
in its struggles with the ancient; and in the fate of the hero of
the age, Richard Nevile, Earl of Warwick, popularly called the
King–maker, "the greatest as well as the last of those mighty
Barons who formerly overawed the Crown," [Hume adds, "and rendered
the people incapable of civil government,"—a sentence which,
perhaps, judges too hastily the whole question at issue in our
earlier history, between the jealousy of the barons and the
authority of the king.] was involved the very principle of our
existing civilization. It adds to the wide scope of Fiction, which
ever loves to explore the twilight, that, as Hume has truly
observed, "No part of English history since the Conquest is so
obscure, so uncertain, so little authentic or consistent, as that
of the Wars between the two Roses." It adds also to the importance
of that conjectural research in which Fiction may be made so
interesting and so useful, that "this profound darkness falls upon
us just on the eve of the restoration of letters;" [Hume] while
amidst the gloom, we perceive the movement of those great and
heroic passions in which Fiction finds delineations everlastingly
new, and are brought in contact with characters sufficiently
familiar for interest, sufficiently remote for adaptation to
romance, and above all, so frequently obscured by contradictory
evidence, that we lend ourselves willingly to any one who seeks to
help our judgment of the individual by tests taken from the general
knowledge of mankind.
Round the great image of the "Last of the Barons" group
Edward the Fourth, at once frank and false; the brilliant but
ominous boyhood of Richard the Third; the accomplished Hastings, "a
good knight and gentle, but somewhat dissolute of living;"
[Chronicle of Edward V., in Stowe] the vehement and fiery Margaret
of Anjou; the meek image of her "holy Henry," and the pale shadow
of their son. There may we see, also, the gorgeous Prelate,
refining in policy and wile, as the enthusiasm and energy which had
formerly upheld the Ancient Church pass into the stern and
persecuted votaries of the New; we behold, in that social
transition, the sober Trader—outgrowing the prejudices of the rude
retainer or rustic franklin, from whom he is sprung—recognizing
sagaciously, and supporting sturdily, the sectarian interests of
his order, and preparing the way for the mighty Middle Class, in
which our Modern Civilization, with its faults and its merits, has
established its stronghold; while, in contrast to the measured and
thoughtful notions of liberty which prudent Commerce entertains, we
are reminded of the political fanaticism of the secret Lollard,—of
the jacquerie of the turbulent mob–leader; and perceive, amidst the
various tyrannies of the time, and often partially allied with the
warlike seignorie, [For it is noticeable that in nearly all the
popular risings—that of Cade, of Robin of Redesdale, and afterwards
of that which Perkin Warbeck made subservient to his extraordinary
enterprise—the proclamations of the rebels always announced, among
their popular grievances, the depression of the ancient nobles and
the elevation of new men.]—ever jealous against all kingly
despotism,—the restless and ignorant movement of a democratic
principle, ultimately suppressed, though not destroyed, under the
Tudors, by the strong union of a Middle Class, anxious for security
and order, with an Executive Authority determined upon absolute
sway.
Nor should we obtain a complete and comprehensive view of
that most interesting Period of Transition, unless we saw something
of the influence which the sombre and sinister wisdom of Italian
policy began to exercise over the councils of the great,—a policy
of refined stratagem, of complicated intrigue, of systematic
falsehood, of ruthless, but secret violence; a policy which
actuated the fell statecraft of Louis XI.; which darkened, whenever
he paused to think and to scheme, the gaudy and jovial character of
Edward IV.; which appeared in its fullest combination of profound
guile and resolute will in Richard III.; and, softened down into
more plausible and specious purpose by the unimpassioned sagacity
of Henry VII., finally attained the object which justified all its
villanies to the princes of its native land,—namely, the
tranquillity of a settled State, and the establishment of a
civilized but imperious despotism.
Again, in that twilight time, upon which was dawning the
great invention that gave to Letters and to Science the precision
and durability of the printed page, it is interesting to conjecture
what would have been the fate of any scientific achievement for
which the world was less prepared. The reception of printing into
England chanced just at the happy period when Scholarship and
Literature were favoured by the great. The princes of York, with
the exception of Edward IV. himself, who had, however, the grace to
lament his own want of learning, and the taste to appreciate it in
others, were highly educated. The Lords Rivers and Hastings [The
erudite Lord Worcester had been one of Caxton's warmest patrons,
but that nobleman was no more at the time in which printing is said
to have been actually introduced into England.] were accomplished
in all the "witte and lere" of their age. Princes and peers vied
with each other in their patronage of Caxton, and Richard III.,
during his brief reign, spared no pains to circulate to the utmost
the invention destined to transmit his own memory to the hatred and
the horror of all succeeding time. But when we look around us, we
see, in contrast to the gracious and fostering reception of the
mere mechanism by which science is made manifest, the utmost
intolerance to science itself. The mathematics in especial are
deemed the very cabala of the black art. Accusations of witchcraft
were never more abundant; and yet, strange to say, those who openly
professed to practise the unhallowed science, [Nigromancy, or
Sorcery, even took its place amongst the regular callings. Thus,
"Thomas Vandyke, late of Cambridge," is styled (Rolls Parl. 6, p.
273) Nigromancer as his profession.—Sharon Turner, "History of
England," vol iv. p. 6. Burke, "History of Richard III."] and
contrived to make their deceptions profitable to some unworthy
political purpose, appear to have enjoyed safety, and sometimes
even honour, while those who, occupied with some practical, useful,
and noble pursuits uncomprehended by prince or people, denied their
sorcery were despatched without mercy. The mathematician and
astronomer Bolingbroke (the greatest clerk of his age) is hanged
and quartered as a wizard, while not only impunity but reverence
seems to have awaited a certain Friar Bungey, for having raised
mists and vapours, which greatly befriended Edward IV. at the
battle of Barnet.
Our knowledge of the intellectual spirit of the age,
therefore, only becomes perfect when we contrast the success of the
Impostor with the fate of the true Genius. And as the prejudices of
the populace ran high against all mechanical contrivances for
altering the settled conditions of labour, [Even in the article of
bonnets and hats, it appears that certain wicked falling mills were
deemed worthy of a special anathema in the reign of Edward IV.
These engines are accused of having sought, "by subtle
imagination," the destruction of the original makers of hats and
bonnets by man's strength,—that is, with hands and feet; and an act
of parliament was passed (22d of Edward IV.) to put down the
fabrication of the said hats and bonnets by mechanical
contrivance.] so probably, in the very instinct and destiny of
Genius which ever drive it to a war with popular prejudice, it
would be towards such contrivances that a man of great ingenuity
and intellect, if studying the physical sciences, would direct his
ambition.
Whether the author, in the invention he has assigned to his
philosopher (Adam Warner), has too boldly assumed the possibility
of a conception so much in advance of the time, they who have
examined such of the works of Roger Bacon as are yet given to the
world can best decide; but the assumption in itself belongs
strictly to the most acknowledged prerogatives of Fiction; and the
true and important question will obviously be, not whether Adam
Warner could have constructed his model, but whether, having so
constructed it, the fate that befell him was probable and
natural.
Such characters as I have here alluded to seemed, then, to
me, in meditating the treatment of the high and brilliant subject
which your eloquence animated me to attempt, the proper
Representatives of the multiform Truths which the time of Warwick
the King–maker affords to our interests and suggests for our
instruction; and I can only wish that the powers of the author were
worthier of the theme.
It is necessary that I now state briefly the foundation of
the Historical portions of this narrative. The charming and popular
"History of Hume," which, however, in its treatment of the reign of
Edward IV. is more than ordinarily incorrect, has probably left
upon the minds of many of my readers, who may not have directed
their attention to more recent and accurate researches into that
obscure period, an erroneous impression of the causes which led to
the breach between Edward IV. and his great kinsman and subject,
the Earl of Warwick. The general notion is probably still strong
that it was the marriage of the young king to Elizabeth Gray,
during Warwick's negotiations in France for the alliance of Bona of
Savoy (sister–in–law to Louis XI.), which exasperated the fiery
earl, and induced his union with the House of Lancaster. All our
more recent historians have justly rejected this groundless fable,
which even Hume (his extreme penetration supplying the defects of
his superficial research) admits with reserve. ["There may even
some doubt arise with regard to the proposal of marriage made to
Bona of Savoy," etc.—HUME, note to p. 222, vol. iii. edit. 1825.] A
short summary of the reasons for this rejection is given by Dr.
Lingard, and annexed below. ["Many writers tell us that the enmity
of Warwick arose from his disappointment caused by Edward's
clandestine marriage with Elizabeth. If we may believe them, the
earl was at the very time in France negotiating on the part of the
king a marriage with Bona of Savoy, sister to the Queen of France;
and having succeeded in his mission, brought back with him the
Count of Dampmartin as ambassador from Louis. To me the whole story
appears a fiction. 1. It is not to be found in the more ancient
historians. 2. Warwick was not at the time in France. On the 20th
of April, ten days before the marriage, he was employed in
negotiating a truce with the French envoys in London (Rym. xi.
521), and on the 26th of May, about three weeks after it, was
appointed to treat of another truce with the King of Scots (Rym.
xi. 424). 3. Nor could he bring Dampmartin with him to England; for
that nobleman was committed a prisoner to the Bastile in September,
1463, and remained there till May, 1465 (Monstrel. iii. 97, 109).
Three contemporary and well–informed writers, the two continuators
of the History of Croyland and Wyrcester, attribute his discontent
to the marriages and honours granted to the Wydeviles, and the
marriage of the princess Margaret with the Duke of
Burgundy."—LINGARD, vol. iii. c. 24, pp. 5, 19, 4to ed.] And,
indeed, it is a matter of wonder that so many of our chroniclers
could have gravely admitted a legend contradicted by all the
subsequent conduct of Warwick himself; for we find the earl
specially doing honour to the publication of Edward's marriage,
standing godfather to his first–born (the Princess Elizabeth),
employed as ambassador or acting as minister, and fighting for
Edward, and against the Lancastrians, during the five years that
elapsed between the coronation of Elizabeth and Warwick's
rebellion.
The real causes of this memorable quarrel, in which Warwick
acquired his title of King–maker, appear to have been
these.
It is probable enough, as Sharon Turner suggests, [Sharon
Turner: History of England, vol. iii. p. 269.] that Warwick was
disappointed that, since Edward chose a subject for his wife, he
neglected the more suitable marriage he might have formed with the
earl's eldest daughter; and it is impossible but that the earl
should have been greatly chafed, in common with all his order, by
the promotion of the queen's relations, [W. Wyr. 506, 7. Croyl.
542.] new men and apostate Lancastrians. But it is clear that these
causes for discontent never weakened his zeal for Edward till the
year 1467, when we chance upon the true origin of the romance
concerning Bona of Savoy, and the first open dissension between
Edward and the earl.
In that year Warwick went to France, to conclude an alliance
with Louis XI., and to secure the hand of one of the French princes
[Which of the princes this was does not appear, and can scarcely be
conjectured. The "Pictorial History of England" (Book v. 102) in a
tone of easy decision says "it was one of the sons of Louis XI."
But Louis had no living sons at all at the time. The Dauphin was
not born till three years afterwards. The most probable person was
the Duke of Guienne, Louis's brother.] for Margaret, sister to
Edward IV.; during this period, Edward received the bastard brother
of Charles, Count of Charolois, afterwards Duke of Burgundy, and
arranged a marriage between Margaret and the count.
Warwick's embassy was thus dishonoured, and the dishonour was
aggravated by personal enmity to the bridegroom Edward had
preferred. [The Croyland Historian, who, as far as his brief and
meagre record extends, is the best authority for the time of Edward
IV., very decidedly states the Burgundian alliance to be the
original cause of Warwick's displeasure, rather than the king's
marriage with Elizabeth: "Upon which (the marriage of Margaret with
Charolois) Richard Nevile, Earl of Warwick, who had for so many
years taken party with the French against the Burgundians,
conceived great indignation; and I hold this to be the truer cause
of his resentment than the king's marriage with Elizabeth, for he
had rather have procured a husband for the aforesaid princess
Margaret in the kingdom of France." The Croyland Historian also
speaks emphatically of the strong animosity existing between
Charolois and Warwick.—Cont. Croyl. 551.] The earl retired in
disgust to his castle. But Warwick's nature, which Hume has happily
described as one of "undesigning frankness and openness," [Hume,
"Henry VI.," vol. iii. p. 172, edit. 1825.] does not seem to have
long harboured this resentment. By the intercession of the
Archbishop of York and others, a reconciliation was effected, and
the next year, 1468, we find Warwick again in favour, and even so
far forgetting his own former cause of complaint as to accompany
the procession in honour of Margaret's nuptials with his private
foe. [Lingard.] In the following year, however, arose the second
dissension between the king and his minister,—namely, in the king's
refusal to sanction the marriage of his brother Clarence with the
earl's daughter Isabel,—a refusal which was attended with a
resolute opposition that must greatly have galled the pride of the
earl, since Edward even went so far as to solicit the Pope to
refuse his sanction, on the ground of relationship. [Carte. Wm.
Wyr.] The Pope, nevertheless, grants the dispensation, and the
marriage takes place at Calais. A popular rebellion then breaks out
in England. Some of Warwick's kinsmen—those, however, belonging to
the branch of the Nevile family that had always been Lancastrians,
and at variance with the earl's party—are found at its head. The
king, who is in imminent danger, writes a supplicating letter to
Warwick to come to his aid. ["Paston Letters," cxcviii. vol. ii.,
Knight's ed. See Lingard, c. 24, for the true date of Edward's
letters to Warwick, Clarence, and the Archbishop of York.] The earl
again forgets former causes for resentment, hastens from Calais,
rescues the king, and quells the rebellion by the influence of his
popular name.
We next find Edward at Warwick's castle of Middleham, where,
according to some historians, he is forcibly detained,—an assertion
treated by others as a contemptible invention. This question will
be examined in the course of this work; [See Note II.] but whatever
the true construction of the story, we find that Warwick and the
king are still on such friendly terms, that the earl marches in
person against a rebellion on the borders, obtains a signal
victory, and that the rebel leader (the earl's own kinsman) is
beheaded by Edward at York. We find that, immediately after this
supposed detention, Edward speaks of Warwick and his brothers "as
his best friends;" ["Paston Letters," cciv. vol. ii., Knight's ed.
The date of this letter, which puzzled the worthy annotator, is
clearly to be referred to Edward's return from York, after his
visit to Middleham in 1469. No mention is therein made by the
gossiping contemporary of any rumour that Edward had suffered
imprisonment. He enters the city in state, as having returned safe
and victorious from a formidable rebellion. The letter goes on to
say: "The king himself hath (that is, holds) good language of the
Lords Clarence, of Warwick, etc., saying 'they be his best
friends.'" Would he say this if just escaped from a prison? Sir
John Paston, the writer of the letter, adds, it is true, "But his
household men have (hold) other language." very probably, for the
household men were the court creatures always at variance with
Warwick, and held, no doubt, the same language they had been in the
habit of holding before.] that he betroths his eldest daughter to
Warwick's nephew, the male heir of the family. And then suddenly,
only three months afterwards (in February, 1470), and without any
clear and apparent cause, we find Warwick in open rebellion,
animated by a deadly hatred to the king, refusing, from first to
last, all overtures of conciliation; and so determined is his
vengeance, that he bows a pride, hitherto morbidly susceptible, to
the vehement insolence of Margaret of Anjou, and forms the closest
alliance with the Lancastrian party, in the destruction of which
his whole life had previously been employed.
Here, then, where History leaves us in the dark, where our
curiosity is the most excited, Fiction gropes amidst the ancient
chronicles, and seeks to detect and to guess the truth. And then
Fiction, accustomed to deal with the human heart, seizes upon the
paramount importance of a Fact which the modern historian has been
contented to place amongst dubious and collateral causes of
dissension. We find it broadly and strongly stated by Hall and
others, that Edward had coarsely attempted the virtue of one of the
earl's female relations. "And farther it erreth not from the
truth," says Hall, "that the king did attempt a thing once in the
earl's house, which was much against the earl's honesty; but
whether it was the daughter or the niece," adds the chronicler,
"was not, for both their honours, openly known; but surely such a
thing WAS attempted by King Edward," etc.
Any one at all familiar with Hall (and, indeed, with all our
principal chroniclers, except Fabyan), will not expect any accurate
precision as to the date he assigns for the outrage. He awards to
it, therefore, the same date he erroneously gives to Warwick's
other grudges (namely, a period brought some years lower by all
judicious historians) a date at which Warwick was still Edward's
fastest friend.
Once grant the probability of this insult to the earl (the
probability is conceded at once by the more recent historians, and
received without scruple as a fact by Rapia, Habington, and Carte),
and the whole obscurity which involves this memorable quarrel
vanishes at once. Here was, indeed, a wrong never to be forgiven,
and yet never to be proclaimed. As Hall implies, the honour of the
earl was implicated in hushing the scandal, and the honour of
Edward in concealing the offence. That if ever the insult were
attempted, it must have been just previous to the earl's declared
hostility is clear. Offences of that kind hurry men to immediate
action at the first, or else, if they stoop to dissimulation the
more effectually to avenge afterwards, the outbreak bides its
seasonable time. But the time selected by the earl for his outbreak
was the very worst he could have chosen, and attests the influence
of a sudden passion,—a new and uncalculated cause of resentment. He
had no forces collected; he had not even sounded his own
brother–in–law, Lord Stanley (since he was uncertain of his
intentions); while, but a few months before, had he felt any desire
to dethrone the king, he could either have suffered him to be
crushed by the popular rebellion the earl himself had quelled, or
have disposed of his person as he pleased when a guest at his own
castle of Middleham. His evident want of all preparation and
forethought—a want which drove into rapid and compulsory flight
from England the baron to whose banner, a few months afterwards,
flocked sixty thousand men—proves that the cause of his alienation
was fresh and recent.
If, then, the cause we have referred to, as mentioned by Hall
and others, seems the most probable we can find (no other cause for
such abrupt hostility being discernible), the date for it must be
placed where it is in this work,—namely, just prior to the earl's
revolt. The next question is, who could have been the lady thus
offended, whether a niece or daughter. Scarcely a niece, for
Warwick had one married brother, Lord Montagu, and several sisters;
but the sisters were married to lords who remained friendly to
Edward, [Except the sisters married to Lord Fitzhugh and Lord
Oxford. But though Fitzhugh, or rather his son, broke into
rebellion, it was for some cause in which Warwick did not
sympathize, for by Warwick himself was that rebellion put down; nor
could the aggrieved lady have been a daughter of Lord Oxford, for
he was a stanch, though not avowed, Lancastrian, and seems to have
carefully kept aloof from the court.] and Montagu seems to have had
no daughter out of childhood, [Montagu's wife could have been
little more than thirty at the time of his death. She married
again, and had a family by her second husband.] while that nobleman
himself did not share Warwick's rebellion at the first, but
continued to enjoy the confidence of Edward. We cannot reasonably,
then, conceive the uncle to have been so much more revengeful than
the parents,—the legitimate guardians of the honour of a daughter.
It is, therefore, more probable that the insulted maiden should
have been one of Lord Warwick's daughters; and this is the general
belief. Carte plainly declares it was Isabel. But Isabel it could
hardly have been. She was then married to Edward's brother, the
Duke of Clarence, and within a month of her confinement. The earl
had only one other daughter, Anne, then in the flower of her youth;
and though Isabel appears to have possessed a more striking
character of beauty, Anne must have had no inconsiderable charms to
have won the love of the Lancastrian Prince Edward, and to have
inspired a tender and human affection in Richard Duke of
Gloucester. [Not only does Majerus, the Flemish annalist, speak of
Richard's early affection to Anne, but Richard's pertinacity in
marrying her, at a time when her family was crushed and fallen,
seems to sanction the assertion. True, that Richard received with
her a considerable portion of the estates of her parents. But both
Anne herself and her parents were attainted, and the whole property
at the disposal of the Crown. Richard at that time had conferred
the most important services on Edward. He had remained faithful to
him during the rebellion of Clarence; he had been the hero of the
day both at Barnet and Tewksbury. His reputation was then
exceedingly high, and if he had demanded, as a legitimate reward,
the lands of Middleham, without the bride, Edward could not well
have refused them. He certainly had a much better claim than the
only other competitor for the confiscated estates,—namely, the
perjured and despicable Clarence. For Anne's reluctance to marry
Richard, and the disguise she assumed, see Miss Strickland's "Life
of Anne of Warwick." For the honour of Anne, rather than of
Richard, to whose memory one crime more or less matters but little,
it may here be observed that so far from there being any ground to
suppose that Gloucester was an accomplice in the assassination of
the young prince Edward of Lancaster, there is some ground to
believe that that prince was not assassinated at all, but died (as
we would fain hope the grandson of Henry V. did die) fighting
manfully in the field.—"Harleian Manuscripts;" Stowe, "Chronicle of
Tewksbury;" Sharon Turner, vol. iii. p. 335.] It is also
noticeable, that when, not as Shakspeare represents, but after long
solicitation, and apparently by positive coercion, Anne formed her
second marriage, she seems to have been kept carefully by Richard
from his gay brother's court, and rarely, if ever, to have appeared
in London till Edward was no more.
That considerable obscurity should always rest upon the facts
connected with Edward's meditated crime,—that they should never be
published amongst the grievances of the haughty rebel is natural
from the very dignity of the parties, and the character of the
offence; that in such obscurity sober History should not venture
too far on the hypothesis suggested by the chronicler, is right and
laudable. But probably it will be conceded by all, that here
Fiction finds its lawful province, and that it may reasonably help,
by no improbable nor groundless conjecture, to render connected and
clear the most broken and the darkest fragments of our
annals.
I have judged it better partially to forestall the interest
of the reader in my narrative, by stating thus openly what he may
expect, than to encounter the far less favourable impression (if he
had been hitherto a believer in the old romance of Bona of Savoy),
[I say the old romance of Bona of Savoy, so far as Edward's
rejection of her hand for that of Elizabeth Gray is stated to have
made the cause of his quarrel with Warwick. But I do not deny the
possibility that such a marriage had been contemplated and advised
by Warwick, though he neither sought to negotiate it, nor was
wronged by Edward's preference of his fair subject.] that the
author was taking an unwarrantable liberty with the real facts,
when, in truth, it is upon the real facts, as far as they can be
ascertained, that the author has built his tale, and his boldest
inventions are but deductions from the amplest evidence he could
collect. Nay, he even ventures to believe, that whoever hereafter
shall write the history of Edward IV. will not disdain to avail
himself of some suggestions scattered throughout these volumes, and
tending to throw new light upon the events of that intricate but
important period.
It is probable that this work will prove more popular in its
nature than my last fiction of "Zanoni," which could only be
relished by those interested in the examinations of the various
problems in human life which it attempts to solve. But both
fictions, however different and distinct their treatment, are
constructed on those principles of art to which, in all my later
works, however imperfect my success, I have sought at least
steadily to adhere.
To my mind, a writer should sit down to compose a fiction as
a painter prepares to compose a picture. His first care should be
the conception of a whole as lofty as his intellect can grasp, as
harmonious and complete as his art can accomplish; his second care,
the character of the interest which the details are intended to
sustain.
It is when we compare works of imagination in writing with
works of imagination on the canvas, that we can best form a
critical idea of the different schools which exist in each; for
common both to the author and the painter are those styles which we
call the Familiar, the Picturesque, and the Intellectual. By
recurring to this comparison we can, without much difficulty,
classify works of Fiction in their proper order, and estimate the
rank they should severally hold. The Intellectual will probably
never be the most widely popular for the moment. He who prefers to
study in this school must be prepared for much depreciation, for
its greatest excellences, even if he achieve them, are not the most
obvious to the many. In discussing, for instance, a modern work, we
hear it praised, perhaps, for some striking passage, some prominent
character; but when do we ever hear any comment on its harmony of
construction, on its fulness of design, on its ideal character,—on
its essentials, in short, as a work of art? What we hear most
valued in the picture, we often find the most neglected in the
book,—namely, the composition; and this, simply because in England
painting is recognized as an art, and estimated according to
definite theories; but in literature we judge from a taste never
formed, from a thousand prejudices and ignorant predilections. We
do not yet comprehend that the author is an artist, and that the
true rules of art by which he should be tested are precise and
immutable. Hence the singular and fantastic caprices of the popular
opinion,—its exaggerations of praise or censure, its passion and
reaction. At one while, its solemn contempt for Wordsworth; at
another, its absurd idolatry. At one while we are stunned by the
noisy celebrity of Byron, at another we are calmly told that he can
scarcely be called a poet. Each of these variations in the public
is implicitly followed by the vulgar criticism; and as a few years
back our journals vied with each other in ridiculing Wordsworth for
the faults which he did not possess, they vie now with each other
in eulogiums upon the merits which he has never
displayed.
These violent fluctuations betray both a public and a
criticism utterly unschooled in the elementary principles of
literary art, and entitle the humblest author to dispute the
censure of the hour, while they ought to render the greatest
suspicious of its praise.
It is, then, in conformity, not with any presumptuous
conviction of his own superiority, but with his common experience
and common–sense, that every author who addresses an English
audience in serious earnest is permitted to feel that his final
sentence rests not with the jury before which he is first heard.
The literary history of the day consists of a series of judgments
set aside.
But this uncertainty must more essentially betide every
student, however lowly, in the school I have called the
Intellectual, which must ever be more or less at variance with the
popular canons. It is its hard necessity to vex and disturb the
lazy quietude of vulgar taste; for unless it did so, it could
neither elevate nor move. He who resigns the Dutch art for the
Italian must continue through the dark to explore the principles
upon which he founds his design, to which he adapts his execution;
in hope or in despondence still faithful to the theory which cares
less for the amount of interest created than for the sources from
which the interest is to be drawn; seeking in action the movement
of the grander passions or the subtler springs of conduct, seeking
in repose the colouring of intellectual beauty.
The Low and the High of Art are not very readily
comprehended. They depend not upon the worldly degree or the
physical condition of the characters delineated; they depend
entirely upon the quality of the emotion which the characters are
intended to excite,—namely, whether of sympathy for something low,
or of admiration for something high. There is nothing high in a
boor's head by Teniers, there is nothing low in a boor's head by
Guido. What makes the difference between the two? The absence or
presence of the Ideal! But every one can judge of the merit of the
first, for it is of the Familiar school; it requires a connoisseur
to see the merit of the last, for it is of the
Intellectual.
I have the less scrupled to leave these remarks to cavil or
to sarcasm, because this fiction is probably the last with which I
shall trespass upon the Public, and I am desirous that it shall
contain, at least, my avowal of the principles upon which it and
its later predecessors have been composed. You know well, however
others may dispute the fact, the earnestness with which those
principles have been meditated and pursued,—with high desire, if
but with poor results.
It is a pleasure to feel that the aim, which I value more
than the success, is comprehended by one whose exquisite taste as a
critic is only impaired by that far rarer quality,—the disposition
to over–estimate the person you profess to esteem! Adieu, my
sincere and valued friend; and accept, as a mute token of gratitude
and regard, these flowers gathered in the Garden where we have so
often roved together. E. L. B.
