THE POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SATIRE OF THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK

A THESIS

submitted in partial fulfilment for the

Degree of

MASTER OF ARTS by

JEAN ALICE GOULD LUMSDEN

Montreal 1944 INDEX

INTRODUCTION. Page 10

CHAPTER I. ARTS AND LETTERS. Page ZZ*

CHAPTER II. RELIGION. Page 45.

CHAPTER III. EDUCATION. Page 61.

CHAPTER IV. POLITICS AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS. Page 72.

CHAPTER V. RACIAL PREJUDICES. Page 102.

CONCLUSION. Page 115. INTRODUCTION

Thomas Love Peacock was born at Weymouth in October, 1785. His father was Samuel Peacock, a glass-merchant, carry­ ing on his trade in St. Paul's Churchyard. Nothing of any interest seems to be known of his family or himself. That he was in business in 1768 is certain, for many years later his son, Thomas, wrote the rough copy of a.farce, The Three Doc­ tors, on the blank pages of an old account book, whose cover was marked with the words "Day Book: 1768: Saml. Peacock". One of these pages indicates that Peacock, the author, was one day suffering from an attack of indolence or distraction, or that he had momentarily lost the urge to write. It is covered with scrawls of all sorts, capital letters, curves and other marks which make little or no sense. In the cor­ ner of the left margin, however, there is inscribed: "T. L. Peacock - 1811 1768 n ~45 " This not only furnishes evidence that The Three Doctors was written in 1811, but also contains what is probably the second- best autograph to be found in the manuscripts. One may pre­ sume that Samuel Peacock was still in business in 1785, for at the end of that year his son was baptised in London. About three years later the father died.

1 A. M. Freeman. Thomas Love Peacock (London: Martin Seeker, 1911) p. 130. 2 The mother of Peacock was Sarah, daughter of Thomas Love, a naval captain. She survived her husband by thirty- five years, and was, throughout that comparatively long time, her sonfs best and most intimate friend. f,He loved her", says the writer of an article in the North British Review, written just after Peacock's death, "with a love beyond that of common natures". Her loss affected him more profoundly than any other event of his life. So strong was her influence upon him that he consulted her judgment in all that he wrote, and it is recorded that some time after her death he remarked to a friend that he had never written with any zeal since. From then on he wrote very little that was of any length, but was inclined to restrict himself largely to magazine articles. Many of the fragmentary beginnings of satires and romances belong to that period, and it was very likely owing to the want of her encouragement that they were left unfinished.

After the death of his father, Peacock and his mother went to live with her father in Chertsey. It was here that the boy no doubt heard daily talk of the sea, not only from Captain Love, his grandfather, but from his mother as well, whose brother and nephew were also in the navy. Letters from them must have been fairly frequent, affording the most interesting and welcome topic of conversation. These 3 letters gave rise to questions by his mother and explanations by his grandfather, constituting his early education in mari­ time affairs. Thus the environment of his early years, to which was added the influence of heredity, produced in Pea­ cock a keen interest in every form of seamanship, a passion for which he provided an outlet at all times of his life, taking advantage of whatever scope and vehicle chance threw in his path.

While in his grandfather's company at Chertsey, Pea­ cock must have been entertained with many an unusual anec­ dote from the store of the old man's experience. It may safely be assumed that these stories had a considerable inf­ luence on the tastes and abilities developed in his maturer years. If we are to believe the authorities, he may be said to have begun to collect material for his novels at the age of three. As was natural for a boy of his age, he quite likely accepted as true certain fanciful statements which passed as facts of natural history. These took firm root in his impressionable mind, and later he incorporated them in a satirical romance. The original of Captain Hawltaught in Mellncourt is none other than Captain Love, Peacockfs grandfather. He certainly did not make much use, however, of what must have been unusually rich opportunities. The account of the old captain is vivid enough, but it is 4 remarkable only as an "in memoriam", thus giving the im­ pression that the sole motive for inserting it in the novel was the desire to perpetuate his memory. It is related that a dangerous wound compelled the old captain to renounce his ddtoliiigg element, and lay himself up in ordinary for the rest of his days. He retired on half-pay and the produce of his prize-money to a little village in the west of England, where he employed himself very assidu­ ously in planting cabbages and watching the changes of the wind. This description is indeed applicable to Captain Love who, as master of H. M. S. "Prothee", had lost a leg in an action against the French in 1783; but it could also fit scores of retired sailors similarly situated. The clue is to be found farther on: the old captain was fond of his bottle of wine after dinner, and his glass of grog at night. Oran was easily brought to sympathise in this taste; and they have many times sat up together half the night over a flowing bowl, the old captain singing "Rule Britannia", "True Courage", or "Tom Tough", and Oran accompanying him on the French horn . . . The old captain used to say that grog was the elixir of life; but it did not prove so to him; for one night he tossed off his last bumper, sang his last stave, and heard the last flourish of his Oran's horn. 2 Herein the captain is chiefly remarkable for his devotion to the bottle, a feature which in itself does not distinguish him from a multitude of others; while it is altogether un­ likely that Peacock inserted him in one of his novels merely to

2 T. L. Peacock, Melincourt (London: George Newnes, Ltd., 1903) chap. VI. 5 commemorate his habitual intemperance. The important thing to note is that it was Captain Hawltaught who introduced Oran to Forester: "During a summer tour in Devonshire, I called upon my old friend Captain Hawltaught, and was intro­ duced to Mr. Oran;"3 and if we bear in mind the fact that he represents Peacock in the novel, just as Captain Hawltaught means Captain Love, it is not difficult to see in the two pages of the novel in which he appears,an indirect acknow­ ledgement of the fact that Captain Love made Peacock acquaint­ ed with the sailors' tales and legends about Oran. In any event, Captain Hawltaught is not necessary either to the story, the theories, or the satire, and is brought in merely because he first introduced Oran to civilisation and to Mr. Forester.

Peacock's life may well be compared with the course of a remote and lonel3r stream, approachable only at certain points, the greater part of its channel being hidden in impen­ etrable mystery. He was much too reticent to write anything about himself which might create amusement for the critics or delight for posterity. Yet in Some Recollections of Childhood. written when he was about fifty, there are recorded some of his impressions at the beginning of his school-days. A descrip­ tive sketch called The Last Day of Windsor Forest is another of his finished writings which may be considered remarkable as

3 loc. cit. 6 being ostensibly autobiographical, though even here his utterances are not absolutely personal and intimate. His recollections are hot so much of his own childhood as child­ ish memories of other people and external things. One small chapter of the Recollections concerned some of those early impressions which he later reproduced in his novels. His description of the Abbey House, together with its gardens, at once brings the reader into the familiar atmosphere, reminding him of the introductory chapter to either Headlong Hall or Nightmare Abbey. There is no mistaking the style: the house had been built near the site of those ancient abbeys, whose demesnes the pure devotion of Henry Till transferred from their former occupants (who foolishly imagined they had a right to them, though they lacked the might which is its essence) to the members of his convenient parliamentary chorus, who helped him to run down his Scotch octave of wives. * At the back of the house was a dark grove of trees. To Peacock, aged seven, this grove had a mysterious appearance, and one day he was enraptured to discover that it contained a ghost. The news was communicated and the whole house assembled to investi­ gate the scene of the apparition. No ghost, however, was found. A tall lily, growing just beyond the trees, was gently swaying to and fro in the wind, so that from the point where the child had stood it was alternately visible and hidden.

Another incident recorded by Peacock was actually

4 A. M. Freeman, op. cit., p. 25. 7 reproduced in one of his novels. Charles, the son of the house, had been confined to his room for being impolite to an elderly relative; I found him in his chamber [says PeacockJ sitting by the fire with a pile of ghostly tales, and an accumulation of lead which he was casting into dumps in a mould . . . He was determined not to make an3r submission, and his captivity was likely to last till the end of his holi­ days . 5 Years later, when he first read the lines in Don Juan: "I pass my evenings in long galleries solely, And that's the reason I'm so melancholy," he was immediately transported in thought to that room, the scene of Charles' captivity. The reader is reminded of Scythrop in his tower, surrounded with weird novels and mys­ terious appliances.6

Until the end of his thirteenth year Peacock attended a boarding school at Englefield Green. His teacher is said to have been proud of his pupil, while Peacock speaks highly of him, praising him for his enthusiasm and s;ympathy. Appar­ ently he was successful in making the boys take interest in what he taught them. The encouragement being given, Peacock's studious turn of mind was capable of doing the rest, and already he began to spend the occasional holiday with his

5 ibid., p. 27. 6 T. L. Peacock, Nightmare Abbey (London: George Newnes, Lts., 1903) chap. II# books in the open air, preferably beside a river. Peacock spent about six years and a half — five according to the account of his granddaughter, Edith Nicolls — at Engle- field Green: this was the only formal education he received. It is quite certain that from then on Peacock "never had any master or pastor at all".7

Among the few short pieces in existence, written when he was at school, there is a letter in verse written to a cousin and dated Chertsey, September 25, 1795. Evidently he is expecting his cousin's return from abroad: "Calm when you sail may Neptune keep The surgy billow of the deep Ah should old Davi ope his jaw And lodge you in his hungry maw; Sorrow pale would fill my breast, To loose my friend would loose my rest. Let not Aeolus vex the waves, Q Locked be the winds in roaring caves."

Another document written during 1796, when England was in dread of a French invasion, is almost pompous in tone, showing that the childish manner has disappeared and been replaced by an attempt to imitate an adult manner of

7 George Saintsbury, Introduction to Thomas Love Peacock's novels (London, Macmillan & Co., 1895) 8 A. M. Freeman, op. cit., p. 34. 9 speech and of writing. The child of eleven is very much concerned with "the present alarming state of the country. . . . At this time, threatened by a powerful and victorious enemy, and bending under a load of severe exactions, I take up my pen to give you my sentiments.»9 At the age of fourteen Peacock was in the empl03rment of a firm in Throgmorton Street, a phase of his life vrtiich remained' unrecorded until brought to light by an article in The Library. It appears that a children's magazine, called The Monthly Preceptor, offered prizes for essays on set subjects, and that Master T. L. Peacock was one of the successful competitors. The title of the essay was "Is History or Biography the more improving Study?" Peacock's essay was in verse, and was published "not as a specimen of poetry particularly excellent, but as an extraordinary effort of genius in a boy of this age".^-^ The verses need not detain us here: they are unfortunately prophetic of what was to come, and are a prelude to a series of poetical mistakes that marked Peacock's attempt to make a reputation in his first period of authorship. The same magazine inaugurated a course of instruc­ tion in the Natural History of Animals. From this he received his second set of statements concerning the habits and char­ acter of that being who became the hero of Melincourt. In

9 ibid., p. 35. 10 ibid., p. 37. 10 addition to a lengthy description, there was given a copper plate illustration of the original of Sir Oran chosen years later to represent the borough of Onevote at Westminster. When Peacock became a grown man, he studied Lord Monboddo's Ancient Metaphysics, as well as his Origin and Progress of Language. This author was firmly convinced of the humanity of the orang outangs, and after giving many proofs of that quality, he thus concludes: "If such an animal is not a man, I should desire to know in what the essence of a man consists, and what it is that distinguishes a natural man from the man of art?" The list of names and works quoted in the notes to Melincourt is evidence of the thorough in­ vestigation made by Peacock in what may be called an unex­ plored tract of the imagination.

It is unknown how long Peacock remained in the em­ ployment of the firm in Throgmorton Street, but it was very likely not longer than two years. His reading during the following four or five years was almost voracious. He be­ gan to read regularly at the British Museum, studying in the daylight hours all the foreign and classical literature within his reach, while he often spent the evening with an English book, reading aloud to his mother. A few copies of verse were composed by him between the years of 1801 and 1805, foremost among which is The Monks of St. Mark. 11 Exaggerated though this piece is, it displays the character­ istics of his later manner, and is a genuine Peacockian ballad. In 1806 he published his first volume, Palmyra and other Poems, chiefly remarkable for containing a con­ ciliatory preface, "To Reviewers", the only non-vituper­ ative passage ever written by him concerning the journal­ ists. The attempt to procure a fair hearing by this means may seem childish and ingenuous; yet it was quite character­ istic of Peacock. Shelley, reading the poem, Palmyra, in 1812, considered it "the finest piece of poetry" that he had ever read — an amazing statement; but it must be remem­ bered that Shelley was very young when he made it. Evident­ ly Peacock's plea, "To Reviewers", was successful, for the Monthly Review had the following statement to make:"Fenced and barricaded as Helicon is, a few individuals contrive to clamber over the inclosure, and to get a sip from the sacred fountain. Mr. Peacock appears to be one of this favoured minority."

For seven years more Peacock was destined to labour under what was perhaps his only illusion, namely, that he was a poet. A publisher, named Hookham, has preserved in a number of letters almost all that is known of him during three of these years. From these letters some light is thrown on Peacock's activities. In 1808 he was under- secretary to Sir Home Popham, then in command of H. M. S. "Venerable" on the Walcheren expedition. In one of his letters he speaks of the ship as a "floating inferno" and writes that he would give anything to be at home. He was back home in April of the following year, when he began to explore the Thames, preparatory to writing a poem, the Genius of the Thames. This poem belongs to a well-defined class, and may be called a Poem of Locality, its true ori­ ginators being Marvel, Denham, and Dyer. The Genius of the Thames was a great trouble to Peacock, though it need not have been, as the subject was dear to his heart; but he kept his poetical ideas and emotional experiences in the background, and composed a deliberate and conventional fabrication void of genuine inspiration. He calls upon Fancy to lead him along the river's course, from its spring all the way to the Medway and the "giant-sire's embrace". He could have dispensed with the aid of Fancy, for he had just walked it himself. The British Critit?, however, states that "the Genius of the Thames claims very high and almost unqualified applause".

The year 1810 saw Peacock in Wales. There he re­ ceived word of the criticisms of his poem, and writes that he was almost "metamorphosed into a conceited coxcomb". The Satirist was not so favourable, though to this he 13 affects indifference. "fThe Satirist1, I perceive, has done his best to pulverise me, and has brayed me without mercy in his leaden mortar. Lord help him! The fellow's ignor­ ance is almost equal to his malevolence." While in Wales he obtained material for some of the finest portions of his fiction. Almost the first name to occur in his letters is that of Tremadoc, immediately calling to mind the embank­ ments, later described so beautifully in Headlong Hall.11 His interest in the subject of embankments must have been awakened, for he was led to study the legendaiy inundation of Gwaelod, which he used as the foundation for the first part of The Misfortunes of Elphin. At the house where he stayed, he met a doctor, a lawyer, and a parson. The last of these he described as a "little dumpy, drunken mountain- goat,f. Here we have the original of Dr. Gaster of Headlong Hall and the parsons of his satirical poem, Calidore. Read­ ers of Crotchet Castle will recall that Mr. Chainmail met Miss Susannah while exploring the mountain valleys of that part of Wales in which he was staying: so, too, Peacock, while waiting for some books and clothes from London, met Jane ©ryffydh, who later became his wife. The letters be­ longing to this period of his life are full of incidents which later on take place in the novels. Crotchet Castle and Headlong Hall are again and again recalled by his

11 T. L. Peacock, Headlong Hall (London: George Newnes, Ltd., 1903) chap. Vll. 14 descriptions of scenery. In one letter he quotes a bardic IS triad, placed afterwards at the head of the sixth chapter of The Misfortunes of Elnhin. One truly remarkable passage describes how his future father-in-law, Dr. Gryffydh, while on a midnight walk to the "Black Cataract", a favourite haunt of Peacock's, at one point missed his footing and had a fall of fifteen feet perpendicular. Luckily his descent was arrested by an intervening hazel. In Headlong Hall Mr. Cranium falls from the tower and is "transferred to a tuft of hazel, which, after holding him an instant, consigned him to the boughs of an ash that had rooted itself in a fissure about half way down the rock, which finally trans- 13 mitted him to the waters below?ft He is rescued therefrom by Mr. Escot, his future son-in-law. '^he enthusiastic Mr. Cranium may be a caricature of Dr. Gryffydh, waxing elo­ quent on some favourite subject.

Upon his return from Wales, Peacock busied himself with another elaborate poem, The Philosophy of Melancholy#

12 "The three objects of intellect: the true, the beautiful, and the beneficial. The three founda­ tions of wisdom: youth to acquire learning; memory, to re*ain learning; and genius, to illustrate learning." Triads of Wisdom. "The three primary requisites of poetical genius: an eye, that can see nature; a heart, that can feel nature, and a resolution, that dares follow nature." Triads of Poetry. 13 T. L. Peacock, Headlong Hall, chap. VIII. 15 It was published in the early part of 1812. The theme of the poem is theoretical and speculative but at the same time intimate. For this reason Peacock is sincerer and his utterances more personal; indeed, this poem is the only one in which he reveals himself. At the time of writ­ ing he appears to have been affected by a prevailing moodiness of temper, and once, in a letter to Hookham, he writes: "There is more truth than poetry is the remark of Wordsworth that 'as high as we have mounted in delight, in our dejection do we sink as low'". In The Philosophy of Melancholy he allows himself greater liberty of sentiment, though he is still a slave to form and expression. He does not banish experience here as he did in the Genius of the Thames. "I was alone in the mountains of Merioneth­ shire',1 he boldly tells us,"and observed the woods and water­ falls in their changes with the different seasons and wea­ thers." To search for the cause of this change in aim and feeling is a superfluous task: suffice it to say that it began to take place then just because it was time for it jbo take place. One could, moreover, mention the name of Jane Gryffydh, whom he had met in Wales, without appearing to be too presumptuous. With the publication of this poem, Peacock's first period of authorship comes definitely to an end.

14 For an estimation of Peacock as a poet, and a dis­ cussion on his poetry, J. B. Priestley's invaluable work may be consulted, Thomas Love Peacock, chap. V, pp. 111-129. 16 The early years of Peacock's literary career were not entirely fruitless, for one of his pseudo-classical studies was the means of introducing him to a man who applied to it a vital criticism and thus spurred him on to something better. That man was Shelley. Their meet­ ing toofe place in 1812, some time after Peacock's return from Wales. No longer did he, though still regretting as keenly as ever the heroic ages of the world and the class­ ical spirit in literature, invoke dryads by the Thames and desire a population of oreads for the Cambrian hills: no longer did he write of the English woodlands as of the Groves of Arcady. As his knowledge of life ripened, his vision became clearer. Henceforward he wrote mythologically of a mythological time in the world's history, and satisfied his longing for heroic imagery and setting by the study and repro­ duction of the events of a legendaiy age. He trans­ ferred the antiquity from his epithets to his plots. He tended more and more to treat his own time satiri­ cally, in prose and verse, while writing a greater number of those small poems, lyrics, ballads, and catches, which do not seem at the present day to be­ long to any particular age, and by their freshness in spite of the changes in taste and fashion have made a fair bid for immortality. 15 Peacock's Memoiri states that he met Shelley just be­ fore the latter went to Tanyrallt. Shelley was then twenty years old. The meeting was in all probability brought about by Hookham, who sent him a copy of The Philosophy of Melan-

15 A. M. Freeman, op. cit., p. 111. 17 choly and the second edition of the Genius of the Thames and Palmyra. Shelley, in a letter to Hookham thanking him for the books, highly praises Peacock's intellect, but he objects strongly to the apparent identification of well- being with commerce, of the happiness of the British people with the triumphs of the British flag, and to the styling of George III as "a patriot king". These accusations must have annoyed Peacock, but by implication they contained the greatest compliment he had ever received: Shelley thought him capable of better things. In an undated fragment Ahrimanes, probably begun in 1813, the influence of Shelley is evident. "Is it true," the poet asks, "that an evil inf­ luence rules the world? ... Is there a single spot on earth where fraud, corruption, selfishness and pride do not wear the specious robes of sanctity to enable them to break the natural bonds of love and peace?" Such a place may exist, where the good influence Btil.1 reigns; "But not in fanes where priestly curses ring, Not in the venal court, the servile camp, Not where the slaves of a voluptuous king Would fain o'erwhelm, in flattery's poison clamp, Truth's vestal torch and love's promethean lamp." A note to this passage points to the fact that it was pro­ bably occasioned by the trial and conviction of a book­ seller named Eaton, who had published a free-thought pam- 18 phlet. This man's fine and imprisonment were the subject of Shelley's letter to Lord Ellenborough.

The title of the fragment, Ahrimanes,requires some explanation. Among the various people whom Peacock met under Shelley's roof, one, J. F. Newton, was an extreme vegetarian and a teetotaller. He advocated a diet consist­ ing solely of roots, fruits, and distilled water. In a tract that he had written, The Return to Nature, he insist­ ed that all moral diseases and perversions had been brought into existence through the corrupting use of animal food and strong drink, and that only an adoption of the system he recommended would bring back health, purity, peace and happiness into the world and restore the golden age. As the mystical symbol of his ethical creed, he chose the Zodiac of Dendera, the grouping of whose component parts proved the necessity of the vegetable regimen. There were four stages in the world's history, the third, the one in which we live, was under the spell of an evil power — Ahrimanes.

That Peacock was much impressed with Newton and his general theory of degeneration may readily be seen from the early novels: The natural and original man Csays Mr. Escot (Peacock)] lived in the woods: the roots and fruits of the earth 19 supplied his simple nutriment: he had few desires, and no diseases. But, when he feegan to sacrifice victims on the altar of superstition, to pursue the goat and the deer, and, by the pernicious invention of fire, to pervert their flesh into food, luxury, disease, and premature death were let loose upon the world.16 Again: He [Mr. ToobadJ maintained that the supreme dominion of the world was, for wise purposes, given over for a while to the Evil Principle; and that this precise period of time, commonly called the enlightened age, was the point of his plenitude of power. He used to add that by and by he would be cast down, and a high and happy order of things succeed; but he never omitted the saving clause, "Not in our time": which last words were always echoed in doleful response by the sympathetic Mr. Glowry.1?

Two farces, The Dilettanti and The Three Doctors, and a satirical ballad, Sir Proteus, are biographically important as constituting the beginning of his satire and containing, though in an undeveloped state, nearly all its elements. The two plays are intimately connected with Headlong Hall, con­ taining characters, situations, and even speeches found in that novel. One of the characters in The Dilettanti, Meta­ phor the poet, is interesting as affording the first instance of the author's practice of introducing actual people into his book. Metaphor, with his didactic poem on the "Princi­ ples of Astonishment", is intended for Payne Knight, author of The Landscape, a didactic poem on the principles of landscape gardening. The Three Doctors introduces, not the

16 T. L. Peacock, Headlong Hall, chap. II.

1? T. L. Peacock, Nightmare Abbey, chap. I. 20 characters, but the house and grounds and the genial host, Mr. Hippy, prophetic of the Mr. Hippy of Melincourt. He is simply Squire Headlong with the additional touch of hypo­ chondriac malady suggested by his name. He has unexpectedly succeeded to some property and, like Squire Headlong, is urging his servants to get the house in order for the recep­ tion of three doctors and a Mr. Milestone. In the midst of the confusion Mr. Hippy sings: "Couldn't that old sot, Sir Peter, Keep his house a little neater?" Mr. Milestone appears again in Headlong Hall!8 The third work, Sir Proteus, is the most obscure of all Peacock's satires, as well as being the bitterest. From the fact that its preface is dedicated to Byron, it is commonly believed that he is its villain — it has no hero: but this belief is false, for there is no mistaking the parody of several of Southey's poems — Thalaba, Madoc in Wales, and The Curse of Kehama. The preface, entirely lacking in modesty, ironically eulogises Southey for the profound judgment with which his opinions are con­ ceived, the calm deliberation with which they are promul­ gated, the Protean consistency with which they are main­ tained, and the total absence of all undue bias on their formation, from private u^rtiality or personal resent­ ment. The poem extends to nearly ninety stanzas, while its foot­ notes occupy as much space as the text. Sir Proteus is

18 Chapters IV, VI. 21 lacking in form and coherence, and it is often difficult at first sight to discern the general drift of the satire. It is full of veiled allusions to men who are now forgotten, but it is not important enough to drag them from their well- deserved oblivion. Its attitude consists of identifying literature with politics and confounding both with pre­ judice and opportunism. Though its attack is mainly direct­ ed at the Tory faction, the author hits out fiercely in other directions, so that neither Whigs nor Radicals could claim him as their ally. In spite of its many drawbacks, however, Peacock did not succeed in completely hiding his wit. There are some characteristic jokes, some indignant outbursts and amusing generalisms, as well as much true criticism and pungent sarcasm; but its chief claim to im­ portance rests on the ground that, though obscure in itself, it illumihates passages of other works. Many names appear­ ing in Melincourt, for example, would be unintelligible were it not for Sir Proteus. CHAPTER I

ARTS AND LETTERS

Headlong Hall was issued anonymously in 1816. By this time Peacock must have been convinced of the mistaken directions of his earlier efforts, his poetic labours. Accordingly he de­ cided to part company with those intellectually stagnant who had given him encouragement in the past, and appeal instead to the intelligent and well-informed of his day. This novel mark­ ed the author's final stage from bondage to liberty, and at the same time proclaimed the appearance of something absolutely new in English literature. From then on Peacock's reputation was established. Prose, not poetry, was to be the vehicle of his thoughts; a stately, vigorous prose that resembled all that was best in the previous ages, but was not the result of imitation. It was rather the outcome of strong sympathy with the older authors. He owes much to Fielding and Sheridan, but much more to Cicero, for intellectually and emotionally he lived in ancient Greece and Rome.

One of the characters of The Three Doctors is Marma- duke Milestone, Esq., who has "published many books; sold none". He reappears in Headlong Hall as "a picturesque land­ scape gardener of the first celebrity". This gentleman must

1 T. L. Peacock, Headlong Hall, chap. Ill, where see note. 23 be taken to represent Humphrey Repton, whose works were the pet aversion of Payne Knight, editor of the Landscape. He held in especial horror the "pagodas, Chinese bridges, gravel-walks, and shrubberies", wherewith Mr. Milestone proposes to decorate the grounds of Headlong Hall. One age, sir, has brought to light the treasures of ancient learning; a second has penetrated into the depths of metaphysics; a third has brought to per­ fection the science of astronomy; but it was reserved for the exclusive genius of the present times, to in­ vent the noble art of picturesque gardening, which has given as it were, a new tint to the complexion of nature, and a new outline to the physiognomy of the universe Is This is a parody on Repton's pompous style and pretentious assertions. Mr. Milestone's plan for Lord Littlebrain's park is Repton's published plan for Tatton Park.3

Sir Patrick 0'Prism, who takes an exception to Mr. Milestone's "new outline of the physiognomy of the universe", is Sir Uvedale Price. This man, better known as a writer than as a painter, contended that the works of the modish gardeners of the day violated the laws of art, and carried on a good-natured controversy with Repton on this point. A harsher dispute arose between him and Payne Knight, concern­ ing the distinction between the picturesque and the beauti­ ful. Knight asserted that they were identical, treating

E ibid., chap. IV. 3 i)bi>d., chap. VI. 24 Price's theory of the picturesque with little courtesy. Jeffrey in an article in the Edinburgh Review attempted to sum up and say the last word on the subject: Mr. Milestone: Sir, you will have the goodness to make a distinction between the picturesque and the beautiful. Sir Patrick: Will I? och! but I TO n't. For what is beautiful? That which pleases the eye. And what pleases the eye? Tints variously broken and blended. Now, tints variously broken and blended constitute the picturesque. Mr. Gall (Jeffrey): Allow me. I distinguish the picturesque and the beauti­ ful, and I add to them, in the laying out of grounds, a third and distinct character, which I call "unexpeeted- ness". Mr. Milestone: Pray, sir, by what name do you distinguish this char­ acter, when a person walks round the grounds for the second time? 4 Landscape gardening, then, is the first object of Peacockfs satire.

In Sir Proteus there is a reference to the duel be­ tween Moore and Jeffrey. This apparently was too good an opportunity to miss, so there was appended a note on "Re­ views", which were treated to such universal obloquy that Sir Proteus was unnoticed by the Press. Peacock was by that

4 ibid., chap. IV. 25 time immune to the attacks of these gentlemen; henceforward he was to be the attacker. He made no attempt to disguise his hatred for the men who set themselves up as pundits in Edinburgh, and who, thus established, were ill-natured enough to try to discourage from a literary career any per­ son who did not conform blindly to their narrow canons. Per­ haps the most notorious example of harsh treatment dealt out by the reviewers is the reception accorded by them to Keats' Endymion. Shortly after its publication there appeared a critique which was carping and spiteful, but which was follow­ ed by another in Blackwood's Magazine which was basely in­ sulting. In speaking of these attacks Keats himself said: "The reviewers have enervated men's minds, and made them in­ dolent . . . These reviews are getting more and more power­ ful, especially the 'Quarterly'". In the preface to The Revolt of Islam Shelley has this to say: It is the misfortune of this age that its writers, too thoughtless of immortality, are exquisitely sensible to temporary praise or blame. They write with the fear of the"reviews before their eyes. This system of criticism sprang up in that torpid interval when poetry was not. Some years later, in the preface to Adonais, he directly accuses the editor of the Quarterly: The savage criticism on his "Endymion" which appeared in the "Quarterly Review" produced the most violent effect on his susceptible mind . . . Miserable man! You, one t>$ the meanest, have wantonly defaced one of the noblest specimens of the workmanship of God. Nor shall it be your excuse that, murderer as you are, you have spoken daggers but used none.

5 For the beginning of the Edinburgh Review see A New Spirit of the Age, ed. R. H. Horne, pp. 201-2. 26 Some years after the publication of Palmyra and Other Poems, Peacock remarked that it may be said to have been strangled at birth by the reviewers. When he set about writing his first novel, he must have been very much aware of how he had written in the past with a view to pleasing those men. He must have remembered all too well, with what eagerness he had looked forward to their praise, chary though it was, with their jealousy for the preeminence of the older writers. Now the hesitation and uncertainty of these "trading critics", as he called them, appeared to him in a solemnly ridiculous light: he would do his best to make them appear even more ridiculous.

The first hit at the reviewers appears in a chapter describing the guests of Squire Headlong as they arrived at Headlong Hall: Next arrived a post-chaise, carrying four inside, whose extreme thinness enabled them to travel thus economically without experiencing the slightest inconvenience. These four -oersonages were two very profound critics, Mr. Gall and Mr. Treacle, who followed the trade of reviewers, but occasionally indulged themselves in the composition of bad poetry; and two very multitudinous versifiers, Mr. Nightshade and Mr. Mac Laurel, who followed the trade of noetry, but occasionally indulged themselves in the com­ position of bad criticism. Mr. Nightshade and Mr. Mac Laurel were the two senior lieutenants of a very formidable corps of critics, of whom Timothy Treacle, Esquire, was captain, and Geoffrey Gall, Esquire, generalissimo.b It has already been shown, in the Mr. Milestone episode, that 6 T. L. Peacock, Headlong Hall, chap. Ill 27 Mr. Gall represents Jeffrey, the editor of the Edinburgh Review; while Wordsworth and Southey have been suggested as the originals of Treacle and Nightshade. Mr. Mac Laurel has been identified as Campbell, because, like Mr. Mac Laurel, he was a late revolutionary, a present pension-holder from the Government, and a Scotsman. According to Mr. Mac Laurel poetry is like any other commodity on the market, and is sold to the highest bidder: Ye mun alloo, sir, that poetry is a sort of ware or commodity, that is brought into the public market wi' a' other descreptions of merchandise, an' that a mon is pair- fectly justified in getting the best price he can for his article. Noo, there are three reasons for taking the part o' the people: the first is, when general leberty an' pub­ lic happiness are conformable to your ain parteecular feel­ ings o' the moral an' poleetical fitness o' things: the second is, when they happen to be, as it were, in a state of exceetabeelity, an' ye think ye can get a gude price for your commodity, by flingin' in a leetle seasoning o' pheelan- thropy an' republican speerit; the third is, when ye can bully the meenestry into gieing ye a place or a pansion to hau'd your din, an' in that case, ye point an attack against them within the pale o' the law; an' if they tak nae heed o' ye, ye open a stronger fire; an' the less heed they tak, the mair ye bawl; an' the mair factious ye grow, always within the pale o' the law, till they send a plenipotentiary to treat wi' ye for yoursel, an' then the mair popular ye happen to be, the better price ye fetch.7 Campbell in this chapter is represented as the type of half- e ducat ed Scotsman, who must explain the most obvious remark with the complete procedure of elementary logic. Actually, he did consent to "haud his din" on the subject of democracy in ex­ change for a pension granted by Grenville's government.

7 ibid., chap. V. 28 In the course of the conversation between Foster (Shelley) and Escot (Peacock), Foster discourses on the super­ iority of the modern intellectual man over the primitive savage, stating that "no philosopher would resign his mental acquisitions for the purchase of any terrestrial good". Mr. Escot: In other words, no man would resign his individuality . . . Unluckily for the rest of your argument, the understanding of literary people is for the most part exalted as you ex­ press it, not so much by the love of truth and virtue, as by arrogance and self-sufficiency; and there is, perhaps, less disinterestedness, less liberality, less general bene­ volence, and more envy, hatred, and uncharitableness among them, than among any other description of men. (The eye of Mr. Escot, as he pronounced these words, rested very unintentionally on Mr. Gall (Jeffrey). Mr. Gall: You allude, sir, I presume, to my review. Mr. Escot: Pardon me, sir. You will be convinced it is impossible I can allude to your review, when I assure you that I have never read a single page of it. 8 Almost fifteen years were to pass between the writing of Headlong Hall and Crotchet Castle, yet Peacock's dislike of the reviewers never waned. His method of attack, however, did undergo a change. In the former novel cant and hypocrisy are inveighed against by the sermonising Foster and the stern, logical Escot; in Crotchet Castle Peacock abandoned this method. He no longer attempted to outpreach cant, but now decided that

8 loc. cit. 29 it was better to laugh it down, to overpower it by violence and prejudice. The worldly Dr. Folliott takes the place of Escot as the interpreter of Peacock's personality. The Doctor and Mr. Mac Quedy (Mc Culloch, the economist) have been dis­ cussing, over the dinner table, heredity and environment, but before proceeding with the argument, the Doctor, who is on the side of heredity, feels that he must make one remark: There is a set of persons in your city, Mr. Mac Quedy, who concoct every three or four months a thing which they call a review: a sort of sugar-plum manufacturers to the Whig aristocracy. Mr. Mac Quedy begs that the Doctor will speak of them with res­ pect, seeing that he is one of them. Dr. Folliott: Well, sir, these gentlemen among them, the present company excepted, have practised as much dishonesty as, in any other department than literature, would have brought the prac­ titioner under the cognisance of the police. In politics, they have run with the hare and hunted with the hound. In criticism they have, knowingly and unblushingly, given false characters, both for good and for evil: sticking at no art of misrepresentation, to clear out of the field of literature all who stood in the way of the interests of their own clique. They have never allowed their own pro­ found ignorance of anything (Greek, for instance) to throw even an air of hesitation into their oraizular decision on the matter. They set an example of profligate contempt for the truth, of which the success was in proportion to the effrontery; and when their prosperity had filled the market with competitors, they cried out against their own reflected sin, as if they had never committed it, or were entitled to a monopoly of it. The latter, I rather think, wasPeacock what the, iyn wanted a lette. 9r to Hookham written in February 1809,

9 T. L. Peacock, Crotchet Castle (London: George Newnes, Ltd., 1903) chap. IV. 30 had requested some books belonging to that kind of literature which a few years later became the object of his most violent abuse. He also had inquired very tenderly after some of the authors whom not long after he was to do his best to ridicule and discredit. Is another volume of Miss Baillie's tragedies forthcoming? Lhe asks3 Has Gifford undertaken to edit Beaumont and Fletcher? . . . What is Walter Scott about? Is anything new expected from the pen of the incomparable Sou they? How is poor Campbell? His lyre breathed the very soul of poetry: must it remain unstrung forever? Gifford was a Tory and the editor of the Quarterly Review, the official Tory organ, just as the Edinburgh was the organ of the Whigs. It was he whom Shelley so bitterly denounced in his preface to the Adonais. When Peacock wrote Melincourt in 1817, he certainly entertained no tender feelings towards Gifford, whom he introduced in that novel as Mr. Vamp. In a chapter entitled "Mainchance Villa", Peacock took as many as thirty statements from the Quarterly ReviewLQall chosen from one long article against reform, and proceeded to ridicule them merely by the farcical presentment of the persons by whom they were uttered. Among these was Mr. Vamp, represented as the editor of the "Legitimate Review". He detests moral philosophy: according to him, "every man who talks of moral philosophy is a thief and a rascal". Earlier in the novel Peacock speaks in the person of Desmond, whose father had brought him up "to consider money as a means, and not as an end, and to remember

10 Quarterly Review, No. XXXI 31 that the only real treasures of human existence were truth, health, and liberty". Unable to finish his education, owing to his father's untimely death, he went to London to seek em­ ployment. His first application was to a bookseller in Bond Street, who, with supercilious politeness, rejected his treatise on the Elements of Morals, exclaiming that "if you detect any one of my customers in the act of pronouncing the word 'morals', I will give you any price you ask for your copy­ right." He realized, however, that "there were some smart things here, which would cut a pretty figure in a Review. My friend Mr. Vamp, the editor, is in want of a hand for the moral department of his Review. I will give you a note to him." Fur­ nished with the note, he proceeded to that gentleman's lodgings. Mr. Vamp received him with great hauteur, and, discovering thatt Desmond had "a turn in the moral line", observed that he had been very ill provided in that way for a long while. Though morals are not much in demand among our patrons and customers, and will not do, by any means, for a standing dish they make, nevertheless, a very pretty seasoning for our politics, in cases when they might otherwise be unpala­ table and hard of digestion. Then, pointing to some literary matter, Mr. Vamp exclaimed: All these, though under very different titles, and the productions of very different orders of mind, have, either onenly or covertly, only one object; and a most impertinent oil it is. This object is twofold; first, to prove the existence, to an immense extent, of what these writers thiS proper to denominate political corruption; secondly to convince the public that this corruption ought to be 4?^tov^ri As to tl^e existence of corruption (it UL 1 extinguished., • • . -^ \ z' , TAr^ -«ii •?+ ^prqiiflqinn is a villainous word, by-the-by — we call it persuasion 32 in a tangible shape"): as to the existence, then, of '/persuasion in a tangible shape", we do not wish to deny i^;4.0?4.t:^e contrarY> we have no hesitation in affirming that it is "as notorious as the sun at noonday" . . . The political composition of this article is beautiful; it is the production of a gentleman high in office, who is indebted to "persuasion in a tangible shape" for his present income of several thousands per annum; but it wants, as I have hinted, a little moral seasoning . . . We have several reverend gentlemen in our corps, but morals are unluckily quite out of their way. We have, on several occasions, with their assistance, substituted theology for morals; they manage this very cleverly, but I am sorry to say it only takes among old women. . . 11 When Desmond told him candidly that he would season it in such a manner as to satisfy himself, Mr. Vamp flew into a rage and vowed vengeance against the bookseller for having sent him a Jacobin.

Peacock's first attack on contemporary poets, especially those of the Lake school, appeared in the satirical ballad, Sir Proteus. For eighteen years he continued to abuse them, especially Southey, whom he violently disliked and whom he singled out as the favourite object of his satire. Byron, too, attacked this poet savagely though with less single-minded assiduity.1S People have taken great pains to point out the one-sided, short-sighted, ill-natured manner of such an undis- criminating attack, but, as Freeman observes, it is only fair to consider, in extenuation of the crime, that it must at least have appeared strange at the time to observe the quondam revolutionaries, Pantisocrats, political prisoners -- Wordswotth, Southey, Coleridge, Montgomery, Campbell ~ metamorphosed into steady supporters of things

11 T. L. Peacock, Melincourt, chap, XIII. 12 see The Vision of Judgment, stanzas XCVI, XCVII, XCVIII 33 as they were, and most of them in receipt of pensions or salaries frourthe Government. Not only Byron, Moore, and Hunt, but Shelley, who had tried hard to like and admire Southey, fully shared Peacock's views as to the political conduct of these poets, as may be seen from his letters of the winter 1811-12: again in 1818 he wrote to Peacock urging him to give the enemy no quarter, "remember, it is a sacred w&r".l3

-i-n Sir Proteus Southey appears under the name of Johnny Raw, mounted on his mare, the Pegasa of the Cumberland school of poetry, and boasting of his early epics. One stanza runs as follows: "A wild and wondrous stave I sung, To make my hearers weep: But when I looked, and held my tongue, I found them fast asleep!" This stanza commemorates an incident which took place during a visit of Shelley to Southey at Keswick, when the elder poet treated the younger to a reading from one of his unfinished epics. After some time, hearing no sound or comment, Southey stopped reading and looked up from his manuscript. Shelley had vanished. He had glided noiselessly from his chair to the floor and lay buried in profound sleep under the table. The poem then continues with Johnny Raw, thus rebuffed and in need of fresh inspiration, calling upon Proteus and bidding him appear in every shape most out of keeping with taste and nature. Sir Proteus answers the summons, assuming

13 A. M. Freeman, op. cit., pp. 141-2. 34 in turn the form of all Peacock's pet aversions. The last form to be assumed is that of a minstrel of the Scottish Border. So harsh is the screech of Sir Walter — any ear but that of Johnny Raw would have been too delicate to sur­ vive it — that it startled Pegasa, who reared up and threw Johnny into the sea. He is finally carried to "a wild and lonely shore, beneath the waning moon". The ballad ends with an invitation to Southey: "Come, then, and join the apostate train Of thy poetic stamp, That vent for gain the loyal strain, 'Mid Stygian vapours damp, While far below, where Lethe creeps, The ghost of freedom sits, and weeps O'er Truth's extinguished lamp."

Nightmare Abbey presents Southey as Roderick Sackbut, 14 Esquire, who reviews his own poems in the Quarterly. In Melincourt he is Mr. Feathernest, who once saw darkly through a glass of water, but now sees clearly through a glass of wine*!:5 He had once "written Odes to Truth and Liberty, but at that time he had a vague notion that all was wrong. Since

14 T. L. Peacock, Nightmare Abbey, chap. V, 15 T. L. Peacock, Melincourt, chap. XVI. 35 then persuasion had appeared to him in a. tangible shape, and convinced him that all was right, especially at court". His name in Crotchet Castle is Mr. Rumblesack Shantsee, a turn­ coat whose company has brought Coleridge (Mr. Skionar) into i ft bad repute; while in Maid Marian he is called Harpiton (a creep­ ing thing), a phrase containing perhaps more compact virulence than any other writer could put into many words. Harpiton, the minstrel of Prince John, is thus described: Now it is a matter of record among diverse historians and learned clerks, that he (John) was then and there smitten by the charms of the lovely Matilda, and that a few days after he despatched his travelling minstrel, or laureate, Harpiton (whom he retained at moderate wages, to keep a journal of his proceedings, and prove them all just and legitimate), to the castle of Arlingford, to make pro­ posals to the lady. This Harpiton was a very useful per­ son. He was always ready, not only to maintain the cause of his master with his pen, and to sing his eulogies to his harp, but to undertake at a moment's notice any kind of courtly employment, called dirty work by the profane, which the blessings of civil government, namely, his master's pleasure, and the interests of social order, namely, his own emoluments, might require. 17 In February 1809, Peacock had written a letter in which he had called Southey "incomparable". The same letter also contained a reference to Wordsworth: "Is Wordsworth sleeping in peace on his bed of mud in the profundity of the Bathos, or will he again wake to dole out a lyrical ballad?"

16 T. L. Peacock, Crotchet Castle, chap. V. 17 T. L. Peacock, Maid Marian, chap. IX. 36 Peacock apparently had never entertained any liking for Wordsworth, and this is perhaps strange, for his mood in the presence of nature strikingly resembled Wordsworth's. This poet is first satirised in Sir Proteus. There three men appear in a tub, Wordsworth's household article, "like one of those which women use to wash their clothes". They embark on a voyage to the moon, to write nonsense about her. The other two men are recognised as Coleridge and Wilson. As in $he case of Southey, Wordsworth's political opinions had undergone a change since his youth, and like Southey also — Southey had been made Poet Laureate in 1813 — he was the holder of a Government office, Distributor of Stamps. He is accordingly represented in Melincourt as Mr. Peter Paul Paper stamp, in the company of Mr. Feathernest, the poet, and Mr. Vamp, the reviewer. Mr. Paperstamp "is chiefly remark­ able for an affected infantine lisp in his speech, and for "LB always wearing a waistcoat of duffel grey". It appears that Peacock, in introducing Miss Celandina as Mr. Paperstamp's daughter, had never heard of Dorothy and the literary sym­ pathy and intimacy existing between her brother and her. Lastly, Wordsworth is described by Lady Clarinda as Mr. Wil­ ful Wontsee, a friend of Mr. Rumblesack Shantsee, r,n<=+<5 nf qfme note, who used to see visions of Utopia, £5 ?uw re^ubUcs'beyond the western deep: but finding

I8 T. L. Peacock, Melincourt, chap, i 37 that these El Dorados brought them no revenue, they turned their vision-seeing faculty into the more profitable channel of espying all sorts of virtues in the high and mighty, who were able and willing to pay for the discov­ ery. 19

Coleridge has already appeared in Sir Proteus as one of the three men on a trip to the moon in a tub. In Melin­ court he is only just recognisable as Mr. Mystic, rowing in dense fog over the Ocean of Deceitful Form to the Isle of Pure Intelligence, talking unintelligible metaphysics, and put to rout by an explosion of his own gas?0 All this, of course, is nothing more than contempt for Coleridge's Kant­ ian metaphysics, which Peacock looked upon as mere jargon. As Mr. Flosky, in Nightmare Abbey, he is treated somewhat more kindly. Peacock did this perhaps out of deference to Shelley, for Coleridge was one of the few poets of note really in sympathy with his poetics and metaphysical reveries. In­ deed, if Peacock had but studied Coleridge's character, in­ stead of making fun of his metaphysics, Coleridge would have improved considerably in the successive novels. As it is, in Nightmare Abbey, he is accused of nothing more discredit­ able than a love of talking nonsense; but even here he is caught trespassing on the domain of common sense:

T. L. Peacock, Crotchet Castle, chap. V. T. L. Peacock, Melincourt, Chap. XXXI. 38 The elements of pleasure and pain are everywhere. The degree of happiness that any circumstances or objects can confer on us depends on the mental disposition with which we approach them . . . (Mr. Flosky suddenly stopped: he found himself unintentionally trespassing within the limits of common sense.)21 Coleridge, it should be mentioned, must have had Peacock's personal sympathy for the treatment accorded him in the Quarterly. This Review, strongly supported by Southey, had occasionally uttered doubtful compliments about him. In this novel, therefore, he has the honour of expressing the author's own sentiments on the occasion of the arrival of a parcel of modern books: "Devilman, a novel". Hm. : Hatred — revenge — misanthropy -• and quotations from the Bible. Hm.: This is the morbid anatomy of black bile — "Paul Jones, a poem". Hm.: I see how it is. Paul Jones, an amiable enthusiast — disappointed in his affections — turns pirate from ennui and magnanimity - cuts various throats --...— "The Downing Street Review. Hm!: First article ~ An Ode to the Red Book, by Roderick Sackbut, Esquire. Hm.: His own poem reviewed by himself. Hm-m-m. 22 This shows that Peacock must have altered his mind as to the relations between Southey and Coleridge since he wrote Melin­ court, where they are accused of carrying on a regular log­ rolling business in partnership with Cifford.23 The new posi­ tion is summed up when Mr. Toobad (J. F. Newton), speaking of the advantages which our ancestors had over us, says: "They saw true men, where we see false knaves: they saw Milton, and

21 T. L. Peacock, Nightmare Abbey, chap. VII.

22 ibid., chap. V. 23 T. L. Peacock, Melincourt, chap. XXXIX. 39 we see Mr. Sackbut;" and Coleridge answers: "The false knave, sir, is my honest friend; therefore, I beseech you, let him be countenanced. God forbid but a knave should have some countenance at his friend's request."24 A further vindication of Coleridge is uttered by Lady Clarinda: "Why, they say that Mr. Skionar, though he is a great dreamer, always dreams with his eyes open, with one eye at any rate, which is an eye to his gain; but 'I believe' that in this respect the poor man has got an ill name by keeping bad company."25 Broadly stated, then, Peacock hasl treated Coleridge far more kindly than Southey and Wordsworth. His conversa­ tion with Marionetta is merely intended to ridicule his philosophical pretensions; yet the tone contains more of comedy than of satire.26 The scene does not convey the feel­ ing that he is a despicable person or entirely a fool. A humorous touch is added to the portrait of Coleridge in the "treatise which Mr. Flosky 'intends' to write, on the Cate­ gories of Relation, which comprehend Substance and Accident, Cause and Effect, Action and RE-action," and another in the £7 five hundred lines which he has composed in his sleep.

24 T. L. Peacock, Nightmare Abbey, chap. XI. 25 T. L. Peacock, Crotchet Castle, Qhap. V. 26 T. L. Peacock, Nightmare Abbey, chap. VIII.

27 ibid., chap. X, VIII. 40 There is no reason to believe that Peacock had anything hcrt sympathy for Byron, but he did object, "in the common name of humanity, to his false and mischievous ravings." Mr. Hilary speaks Peacock's mind in Nightmare Abbey: To rail against humanity for not being abstract per­ fection, and against human love for not realising all the splendid visions of the poets of chivalry, is to rail at the summer for not being all sunshine, and the rose for not being always in bloom.28 Mr. Cypress (Byron) is appropriately introduced as about to leave England: actually he had taken his final departure about two years before Nightmare Abbey was written. His lacerated spirit at once proclaims itself: "The mind is rest­ less, and must persist in seeking, though to find is to be disappointed." His avowed intention of travelling in the countries of Socrates and Cicero is received with vigorous disapproval by Scythrop, who is familiar to all readers of Peacock as Shelley. This person is of the opinion that Mr. Cypress should remain at home where there is hope of improve­ ment, instead of taking pleasure in visiting countries that to him are past all hope of regeneration. There is great hope of our own, (he saysD and it seems to me that an Englishman, who, either by his station in society, or by his genius, or (as in your instance, Mr. Cypress,) by both, has the power of essentially serving his country in its arduous struggle with its domestic enemies, yet forsakes his country, which is still so rich in hope, to dwell in others which are only fertile in the ruins of memory, does what none of those ancients,

28 ibid., chap. XI. 41 whose fragmentary memorials you venerate, would have done in similar circumstances. 29 So careful was Peacock to announce the identity of this char­ acter that he has Mr. Flosky (Coleridge) say: "Brutus was a senator; so is our dear friend, but the cases are different. Brutus had some hope of political good: Mr. Cypress has none." The term "senator" was applicable to Byron, but not to Mr. Cypress.

Shelley's influence upon Peacock is easily discernible in the first two novels. Headlong Hall presents him to us as Mr. Foster, who tempers Mr. Escot's (Peacock) pessimism by pointing to the progress of modern society: "Everything we look on attests the progress of mankind in all the arts of life, and demonstrates their gradual advancement towards a state of unlimited perfection."30 At the time of his writing Melincourt Peacock was deeply impressed with the theories and practice of his friend, so much so that he now identified him­ self with Shelley, not with his opponent. In this novel he commemorated one of Shelley's eccentric actions: Sir Oran, whose birth and parentage have already been alluded to, is pictured as rising suddenly from the table and taking a fly­ ing leap through the window, all as a result of his having

9 8 loc# cit. 30 T. L. Peacock, Headlong Hall, chap. I. 42 drunk a glass too much?1 Shelley had once jumped out of the window at Marlow to escape from an unwelcome visitor. When informed of somebody's arrival, he had mistaken the name of the person for that of another for whom he had a violent dislike?2

In Nightmare Abbey Peacock wrote of Shelley for the third time, on this occasion making of him a hero of comedy. The story of Scythrop may be described as a playful carica­ ture of Shelley's more obvious eccentricities. For the pur­ poses of the plot, Peacock made use of some of the most striking incidents of his life. The account of Scythrop's college life and of his festive dancing and drinking in Lon­ don has, of course, no foundation in Actual fact. The first reported scrap of conversation with his father, when Mr. Glowry reads him a passage from a Commentary on Ecclesias­ tics, is a paraphrase of what Shelley wrote in his Vindication of Natural Diet?5 while Miss Emily Girouette, Marionetta and Stella have their counterparts in real life, namely Harriet Grove, Harriet Yfestbrook and Mary Godwin. The treatise which Scythrop wrote and published "to feel the pulse of the wisdom and genius of the age", is plainly a travesty of Shelley's

31 T. L. Peacock, Melincourt, chap. IV.

32 Memoirs of Shelley, p. 66-7. 33 T. L. Peacock, Nightmare Abbey, chap. I. 43 pamphlet on the subject of the regeneration of Ireland?4 All trace of him is lost, however, when in the end Scythrop settles down into a state of misanthropy and drunkenness. There is no doubt as to the identity of the mysterious lady, Stella, in the novel: she tells us plainly enough whose daughter she is: "I submit not to be an accomplice in my sex's slavery. I am, like yourself, a lover of freedom, and I carry my theory into practice. 'They alone are subject to 35 blind authority who have no reliance on their own strength.'" The last line is a direct quotation from chapter five of Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Women. Marion­ etta, with whom Scythrop becomes infatuated, and whom Mr. Glowry describes as a "dancing, laughing, singing, thoughtless, careless, merry-hearted thing,"uu is certainly the Harriet whom Shelley married. This statement is well substantiated by a conversation which takes place between them: Scythrop: What would I have? What but you, Marionetta? You, for the companion of my studies, the partner of my thoughts, the auxiliary of my great designs for the emancipation of mankind. Marionetta: I am afraid I should be but a poor auxiliary, Scythrop. What would you have me do?37

34 ibid., chap. II. 35 ibid., chap. X. 36 ibid., chap. IV. 37 ibid., chap. III. 44 To an enthusiast with such an object in life, Harriet did, in the words of Marionetta, prove "but a poor auxiliary".

It is evident, from what has been said, that Peacock considered that the literature of his day was not the soil in which truth and liberty could flourish. He therefore took it upon himself to expose all those who used it as a field for gain, becoming, as he expressed it, "paragraph-mongers of journals and hireling compounders of party-praise and censure, under the name of periodical criticism?.38

38 T. L. Peacock, Melincourt, chap. XIII. 45

CHAPTER II

RELIGION

At the inn where Peacock stayed during his sojourn in Wales, he met a lawyer, a doctor, and a parson whom he des­ cribed in a letter to Edward Hookham as "a little, drunken, dumpy mountain-goat". This parson he afterwards used as the original of the Reverend Doctor Gaster, who appears in 'Head­ long Hall". Some idea of Peacock's dislike for clergymen may be obtained by an examination of the names which he attaches to them in the early novels. Gaster comes from the Greek word for "stomach", which implies that the Doctor was inordinately fond of eating and drinking. Peacock's own note reads: "Gaster: scilicet - Venter, - et praeterea nihil". The names of the two divines in Melincourt, Portpipe and Grovelgrub, are obvious enough in meaning. Bosky, the appellation of Mrs. Pinmoney*s "reverend friend", comes from the Greek word meaning "to feed"; but the implication is much stronger than that, for the word applies to animals who feed by means of the snout. This is the derivation of the English, "proboscis", a snout. Finally there is Mr. Larynx, whose name is expressive of a love of talking.

Among the guests whom Squire Headlong invited down to Headlong Hall "to argue, over his old Port and Burgundy, the

1 T. L. Peacock, Melincourt, chap II. 46 various knotty points which had puzzled his pericranium", was the Reverend Dr. Gaster. This gentleman was neither a philosopher nor a man of taste, but "he had so won on the Squire's fancy by a learned dissertation on the art of stuff­ ing a turkey, that he concluded no Christmas party would be complete without him".2 Very little time elapses before Escot, who represents Peacock in the novel, very outspokenly proclaims his lack of respect for the clergy. The occupants of the coach have been taking part in a discussion of the effect of animal food on mankind, a topic familiar to Peacock through his ac­ quaintance with J. F. Newton, and Mr. Jenkison (Jefferson Hogg), the statu-quo-ite, concludes that man is omnivorous, and on that he acts. The Reverend Doctor Gaster: "Your conclusion is truly orthodox: indeed, the loaves and fishes are typical of a mixed diet; and the practice of the Church in all ages shows that - " Mr. Escot: "That it never loses sight of the loaves and fishes". Later in the evening, after all the guests have arrived at Head­ long Hall, Dr. Gaster proceeds to the library, "where he sat by the fire, in profound meditation over a volume of the Aimanach des Gourmands". At dinner Mr. Mac Laurel (Campbell) opens the conversation with the remark that the squire has "sairtainly des- covered the tarrestrial paradise, but it flows wif a better leecor than milk an' honey". Doctor Gaster:

* T."' L»j Peacpck,TrHeadlong Hall, chap. I. 3 T. L. Peacock, Headlong Hall, chap. II. 4 ibid., chap. III. 47 HemJ Mr. Mac Laurel', there is a degree of pro- faneness in that observation, which I should not have looked for in so staunch a supporter of church and state. Milk and honey was the pure food of the antediluvian patriarchs, who knew not the use of the grape, happily for them - (Tossing off a bumper of Burgundy.)

When Mr. Escot (Peacock) remarks, among other things, that primitive man had not the faculty of speech, the parson appeals to the authority of Moses to prove the contrary: Your doctrine is orthodox, in so far as you assert that the original man was not encumbered with clothes, and that he lived in the open air; but, as to the faculty of speech, that, it is certain, he had, for the authority of Moses - Hereupon Mr. Escot enjoys an easy triumph: Of course, sir, I do not presume to dissent from the very exalted authority of that most enlightened as­ tronomer and profound cosmogonist, who had, moreover, the advantage of being inspired; but when I indulge myself with a ramble in the fields of speculation, and attempt to deduce what is probable and rational from the sources of analysis, experience, and comparison, I confess I am too often apt to lose sight of the doc­ trines of that great fountain of theological and geolo­ gical philosophy.5 That Peacock did not think very highly of the intellec­ tual qualities of the clergy is evident from the thrust he makes at them farther on in the novel. Mr. Escot has come upon the skull of Cadwallader during the course of a day's ramble. The genuineness of the skull is vouched for by the Welsh sexton, whose logic runs as follows: "He was the piggest man that ever

ibid., chap V# 48 lived, and he was puried here; and this is the piggest skull I ever found: You see now - " After detailing by what means he has become possessed of it, Mr. Escot proceeds: This skull is the skull of a hero, long since dead, and sufficiently demonstrates a point, concerning which I never myself entertained a doubt, that the human race is undergoing a gradual process of diminu­ tion, in length, breadth, and thickness. Observe this skull. Even the skull of our reverend friend, which is the largest and thickest in the company is not more than half its size.6 ' Six years later, when writing Maid Marian, Peacock remembered the phrasing of this thrust and made use of it again. One of the arrows which Little John had shot into the air, rebounded with the hollow vibration of a drumstick from the shaven sconce of the Abbot of Rubygill. The abbot picked up the missile - missive or messenger arrow, which h^d rebounded from his shaven crown, with a very unghostly malediction on the sender, which he suddenly checked with a pious and consolatory reflec­ tion on the goodness of Providence in having blessed him with such a thickness of skull, to which he was now indebted for temporal preservation, as he had before been for spiritual promotion. Melincourt, which was written in 1817 and which is Peacock's longest and, in some respects, dullest novel, presents no fewer than three clergymen to the reader. The first of these is the Reverend Mr. Portpipe, a cleric somewhat less debased than Dr. Gaster. The very spacious left wing of Melincourt Castle had in modern times been left free to the settlement of a colony of

6 ibid., chap. X. 7 T. L. Peacock, Maid Marian, chap VIII* 49 ghosts, which, according to the report of the peasantry and the domestics, very soon took possession, and retained it most pertinaciously, notwithstanding the pious incantations of the neighbouring vicar, the Reverend Mr. Portpipe. He often passed the night in one of the dreaded apartments over a. blazing fire with the same in­ variable exorcising apparatus of a large venison pasty, a little Prayer-book, and three bottles of Madeira: for the reverend gentleman sagaciously observed, that as he had always found the latter a charm against blue devils, he had no doubt of its proving equally efficacious against black, white, and grey. In this opinion experience seemed to confirm him; for ... he was always found in the morning comfortably asleep in his large arm-chair, with the dish scraped clean, the three bottles emp­ ty, and the Prayer-book clasped and folded precisely in the same state and place in which it had lain the preceding night.8 In the life-time of Sir Henry Melincourt, who ''though an exceptionable moral character, was unhappily not oue Qf the children of grace, in the theological sense of the word", Mr. Portpipe was not in very high favour. The vicar, however, adopting St. Paul's precept of being all things to all men, found it on this occasion his interest to be liberal; and observing that no man could coerce his opinions, repeated with great complacency the line of Virgil "Tros Tyriusve mihi discrimine agetur"; though he took especial care that his hetero­ dox concession should not reach the ears of his bishop, who would infallibly have unfrocked him for promulgat­ ing a doctrine so subversive of the main pillar of all orthodox establishments.9 8 T. L. Peacock, Melincourt, chap. I. 9 ibid., chap. I. 50 When Mr. Forester and Mr. Fax, in the course of their search for Anthelia, visit the home of Mr. Portpipe, he takes great pride in showing them what he is pleased to call his "library".

There is my library: Homer, Virgil, and Horace, for old acquaintance sake, and the credit of my cloth: Tillotson, Atterbury, and Jeremy Taylor, for materials of exhortation and ingredients of sound doctrine: and for my own private amusement in an occasional half-hour between my dinner and my nap, a translation of Rabelais and The Tale of a Tub. Then comes the satirical thrust. Forester, who approaches the "library" with the avowed intention of taking down Homer, is cautioned thus: "Take care how you touch him: he is in a very dusty condition, for he has not been disturbed these thirty years".10

It was often the case in the eighteenth and nineteenth century that a young clergyman, before commencing his work with the Church, acted as tutor to the son of some rich nobleman. The Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub is portrayed, therefore, as the tutor of Lord Anophel Achthar, a suitor for the hand of Anthelia. She makes it quite plain at the outset that the spirit of the age of chivalry, manifested in the forms of modern life, will constitute the only character on which she can fix her affections. This puzzles Lord Anophel, who applies for in-

10 ibid., chap. XXXVI. ^ Peacock gives the meaning: "A useless clod of earth". 51 formation to Grovelgrub: "Grovelgrub, what is the spirit of the age of chivalry?" Grovelgrub: "Really, my lord, my studies never lay that way." Lord Anophel: "True, it is not necessary to your degree".12

The third clergyman is introduced briefly in the chap­ ter entitled The Paper-Mill. This is a vivid account of the distress so often occasioned by the failure of the country banks to make payments. When Mr. Fax and Mr. Forester come upon the scene, the former addresses himself for the explana­ tion of particulars to a plump and portly divine, whose, coun­ tenance exhibits none of the symptoms of rage, grief, and des­ pair which are depicted on the faces of the inhabitants of the town of Gullgudgeon. His reason for bearing the general calamity with "Christian resignation" is that he always got cash for his notes directly. Peacock makes him speak in what was then the attitude of some of the clergy: The system of paper-money is inseparably interwoven with the present order of things, and the present order of things I have made up my mind to stick by, precisely as long as it lasts. Mr. Fax: "And no longer?" Mr. Peppertoast: "I am no fool, sir." Mr. Fax: "But, sir, . . . why did you not warn your flock of the impending danger?" Mr. Peppertoast: "Sir, I dined every week with one of the partners."13

i2 T. L. Peacock, Melincourtt chap VIII. 13 ibid., chap. XXX. 52 In addition to the three divines just described, Melincourt contains references to three others, Mr. Bosky, the etymology of whose name has already been noted, the Reverend Dr. Vorax, end Mr. Simony, whose name obviously suggests the corrupt practice of buying or selling ecclesias­ tical preferment. Here again narrowness of outlook on the part of the clergy is made the butt of Peacock's satire. Desmond (Peacock), in describing Miss Pliant, says of her: She was highly accomplished: a very scientific musician, without any soul in her performance; . . . and a proficient in French grammar, though she read no book in that language but Telemaque. and hated the names of Rousseau and Voltaire, because she had heard them called rascals by her father, who had taken his opinion on trust from the Reverend Mr. Simony, who had never read a page of either of them.14 The date of the fragmentary Calidore is unknown, but evidence points to its having been begun between Headlong Hall and Melincourt. The grounds for this assumption are that Calidore tilts vigorously at two windmills also combated in Melincourt, and also that its parsons resemble Dr. Gaster. In this frag­ ment the drunkenness and gluttony of the Welsh clergymen is presented as unaccompanied by any redeeming quality: evidently Peacock still remembered the drunken parson whom he had met during his stay in Wales. Calidore, a being hailing from Terra Incognita, comes ashore on the coast of Wales in a little skiff, which, after he has disembarked, he folds up

ibid., chap. XIII. 53 "to the size of a prayer book" and pockets. He then proceeds to an inn where he puts up for the night. In the parlour are two parsons, not at all genial, but mean, morose, and drunken. On Calidore's invitation they partake of a magnificent supper, which causes an expansion and exhilaration of their torpid spirits.

It may fairly be said that Nightmare Abbey is, with the exception of Gryll Grange, the least harsh and the least bitter of all Peacock's satires. A decided change of attitude towards the clergy, at any rate, may now be seen. Mr. Larynx, the vicar of Claydike, a village about ten miles distant from the Abbey, though not by any means an admirable person, is yet not so ob­ jectionable as any of his predecessors. Peacock describes him as a good-natured accommodating divine, who was always most obligingly ready to take a dinner and a bed at the house of any country gentleman in distress for a companion. Nothing came amiss to him - a game at billiards, at chess, at draughts - here follows a list of his accomplishments - for all or any of these, or for anything else that was agreeable to any one else, consistently with the dye of his coat, the Reverend Mr. Larynx was at all times equally ready.15 The poet Crabbe wrote in somewhat the same vein: Fiddling and fishing were his arts; at times He altered sermons and he aimed at rhymes, And his fair friends; not yet intent on cards, Oft he amused with riddles and charades.lb

1$ T. L. Peacock, Nightmare Abbey, chap. I. 16 George Crabbe, The Village. 54 The satire directed at the priesthood in The Misfor­ tunes of Elphin is humorous rather than bitter. The Druids£Peacock says] were the sacred class of the bardic order. Berore the change of religion, it was by far the most numerous class; for the very simple reason that there was most to be got by it: all ages and nations having been sufficiently en­ lightened to make the trade of priest more profit­ able than that of poet.17 By the time he wrote Maid Marian (1822), Peacock's attitude is so far changed that he makes a friar the hero of the story: indeed, Friar Tuck is one of Peacock's best characters, and is chosen to speak what may be called the keystone of his philosophy: "The world is a stage, and life is a farce, and 18 he that laughs most has most profit of the performance". The satire consists of remarks such as the following: Brother Michael (Friar Tuck) had more jollity and less hypocrisy than any of his fraternity, and was very little anxious to disguise his love of the good things of this world under the semblance of a sanc­ tified exterior*19

Peacock was forty-five when he wrote Crotchet Castle. For twelve years he had been cut off from the inspiring com­ radeship of Shelley. These years had been passed in London, in the service of the East India Company, where he had come into contact with many of the wire-pullers of the day. Con-

17 T. L. Peacock, The Misfortunes of Elphin, chap. VI 18 T. L. Peacock, Maid Marian, chap XVI. 19 ibid., chap V. 55 sequently, though his observation and knowledge had widened, his enthusiasms had undergone no change. Crotchet Castle is entirely non-constructive. It is a criticism whose aim is an exposure of cant in all its manifestations. Strangely enough, Peacock chooses the Reverend Dr. Folliott to act as the enemy of cant. Having himself no illusion or ideals, he does not believe in those sincerely or falsely professed by others. Peacock attributes to him many of his own traits - his classical proficiency and partiality for Nonnus, his hatred of Brougham, "the learned friend" and all his works, his aversion to the Scotch and the political economists. The savage never laughs because he has nothing to laugh at; but, he says, "give him Modern Athens, the 'learned friend', and 20 the Steam Intellect Society. They will develop his muscles". The Doctor, however, does not possess any superior spiritual qualities. He has, not a wittier tongue, but a louder voice than the rest. During a conversation over the dinner table, he becomes drunken and passionate, and has to be called to order. Mr. Eavesdrop (Hazlitt) has printed something personal about the Doctor, "to gratify the appetite of the reading public for gossip". Enraged at this, he promises Eavesdrop a sound thrash­ ing with "an exemplary bamboo". Eavesdrop: "Your cloth protects you, Sir". Reverend Dr. Folliott: "My bamboo shall protect me, Sir". Mr. Crotchet: "Doctor, doctor, you are growing too polem-

20 To L. Peacock, Crotchet Castle, chap II. 56 ical". Rev. Dr. Folliott: "Sir, my blood boils. What business have the public with my nose and wig?" 21

Finally, in Gryll Grange, the production of his old age, Peacock presents a pleasing picture of the Reverend Doctor Opimian, a worthy divine who dwells in an agreeably situated

22 vicaraget on the outskirts of the New Forest. All traces of enmity or harsh feeling towards the clergy have now disap­ peared. In the Reverend Doctor Opimian one can see Thomas Love Peacock invoking a blessing on the inmates of the Abbey H£>use, the scene of part of his childhood, perhaps the happiest part, and which was the prototype of the abbeys and halls of his novels©

There is nothing in the scanty records of Peacock* s life to explain his attitude towards the Church. The history of that period will, however, do much to reveal why Peacock spoke of the divines as "bloated and beneficed sensualists." In the eighteenth century some of the most active, law-learned, and beneficent of the justices were clergymen, but towards the close of that century they began to identify themselves more closely with the landed gentry than ever before or since. The most con­ spicuous fact about the state of religion in England at that time

21 ibid., chap. VI. 22 T. L. Peacock, Gryll Grange, chap. III. 23 To L. Peacock, Melincourt, chap. XXIV, 57 was the insignificance of the official heads of the Church as leaders of religious opinions. The Church was inclined to think more of its privileges than its mission: as some cynic remarked, the State paid lip-service to the Church, and the Church in return paid life-service to the State. Most of the bishops were politically minded Tories, selected by Tory prime ministers, who enjoyed an almost uninterrupted hegemony during the period of 1783 to 1830. Some served the party by political activity, some had been college tutors of statesmen, some were the near relatives of noblemen who owned rotten boroughs. Manners-Sutton, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1805 to 1828, distributed sixteen livings as well as a variety of cathedral appointments among seven members of his family. Watson of Llandaff was appointed Bishop of Llandaff by the Whigs for his political services in opposing the American War. During the thirty-four years of his episcopate he visited his diocese once. Blomfield, who was promoted to the see of London in 1828, wrote, towards the en^ ©f his life, to Palmerston that he would like t© resign his see if he could receive an an­ nuity of six thousand pounds. This, according to his son, was a third of what he was then enjoying. The Extraordinary Black Book, which appeared in 1821, contained the charge that the ecclesiastical revenues of the whole of Europe were less than those of England* 58 For a time the English clergy became the least clerical of priesthoods. The more public-spirited and ambitious among their number found an outlet for their energies on the magis­ terial bench, while many more hunted and shot and joined in the ordinary social life of the neighbouring squires. Peacock alludes to the latter tendency on the part of clergymen. On one occasion the Reverend Mr. Portpipe was unable to entertain Mr. Fax and Mr. Forester just then, "as he had a great press of business to dispose of; namely, a christening, a marriage, and a funeral". Mr. Forester: A christening, a marriage, and a funeral'. With what indifference he runs through the whole drama of human life, raises the curtain on its commence­ ment, superintends the most important and eventful action of its progress, and drops the curtain on its close! Mr. Fax: Custom has rendered them all alike indifferent to him . . o The sexton •'sings at grave-making"; the undertaker walks with a solemn face before the coffin, . . . and the reverend gentleman who concludes the process, and consigns to its last receptacle the shell of extinguished intelligence, has his thoughts on the wing of the sports of the field or the jovial board of the Squire."5*

While religion among the upper classes was in this slug­ gish state, among the poorer people the movement of John Wesley took root rapidly. The very essence of this movement was "enthusiasm", and it swept the country. All "enthusiasm" was

24 ibid., chap. XXXIV. 59 condemned by well-bred parsons and left to the Methodists, as the followers of Wesley called themselves. The upper classes remained hostile to Methodism, and the established Church thrust it out to join itself to the old Dissenting bodies. The ultimate consequence was that the Nonconformists rose from about a twentieth of the church-goers to something near a half. Wesley1s Methodism became the religion of the neglected poor.

To Peacock neither of these extremes was acceptablet The "enthusiasm" of the Methodists appeared to him as so much cant, and his opinion in this respect is manifest from a stray remark dropped here and there: Speculative opinions have been sometimes changed by the efforts of roaring fanatics. Men have been found very easily permutable into "ites" and "onians*; "avians" and "arians", Wesleyites or Whitfieldites, Huntingdonians or Muggletonians, . • .25 Methodist-preaching is termed "a development of the light of the age": This pennillion-singlng long survived among the Welsh peasantry almost every other vestige of bardic customs, and may still be heard among them on the few occasions on which rack-renting, tax-collecting, common-enclosing, methodist-preaching, and similar developments of the light of the age, have left them either the means or inclination of making merry.26 Mr* Touchandgo, writing to his daughter from America, spoke of

25 ibid., chap V. 26 T. L. Peacock, The Misfortunes of Elphin. chap. XV. 60 it as a land in which all men flourish; but, he writes, "there are three classes of men who flourish especially - Methodist preachers, slave-drivers, and paper-money manu­ facturers".27

The fact that Peacock and the inside of a church were complete strangers has no part in the discussion. What he disliked about the clergy of his day was their hypocrisy and, as was often the case, their lack of learning. The target of his attack was the type of divine who regarded a conscience as "an expensive luxury", and who, instead of "imitating the temperance and humility of the founder of that religion, pre- 28 ferred to feed by it and flourish".

27 T. L. Peacock, Crotchet Castle, chap XI. 28 T. L. Peacock, Melincourt» chap XIV, XXIV. 61

CHAPTER III

EDUCATION

Peacock*s period of formal education came to an end before he was thirteen. At the age of six and a half he was sent to a private school at Englefield Green, kept by a cer­ tain Mr. Wicks, who appears to have been a man who knew how to make the boys take interest and pleasure in what he taught them. He is said to have been proud of his pupil, while Peacock in turn speaks highly of him. Short as his schooling was, however, he was exceptionally well read in Greek, Latin, Italian, and French, so that he must have been an extremely exceptional person. After his period of apprenticeship to the firm In Throgmorton Street, London, he was a constant visitor at the British Museum, where he read hard and laid down the foundation of his scholarship. Peacock's education was, there­ fore, irregular, and because of this he probably gave himself some airs, and was a little paradoxical in his display of classi­ cal literature. When The Satirist , for example, spoke dis­ paragingly of The Genius of the Thames , he had the following words to say of the editor: "Lord help him! The fellow's ig­ norance is almost equal to his malevolence". The ignorance consists of a misuse of a classical quotation. Years later, in 1828, he made a violent attack on Moore for the same offence

1 Peacock's letters to E. Hookham. 62 This author had published in the Westminster Review a poem entitled The Epicurean, which Peacock was given the task of reviewing. Now Peacock had no liking for Moore, who had writ­ ten a biography of Byron, in which it was evident that he, acting like a "small Boswell", had completely misunderstood some of the conversations and had consequently misrepresented his subject. He had, moreover, destroyed Byron's autobiography. Peacockfs criticism of The Epicurean is a masterly one, and must have completely annihilated the unfortunate poet. He proved conclusively that Moore did not know the outlines of the philosophy he claimed to describe, and that he was ignorant of an easily accessible classical author who could have preserved him from his worst blunders - Lucretius.

Whatever be the reasons for Peacock's not entering a University, they are not important enough to detain us here. It is certain that he did not go, and this fact is important, for it explains the many foolish and hurtful gibes at the Univer­ sities, forgetful that though a fox with his tail on may gracefully dwell on the superfluity of that implement, a fox with his tail off had very much better not do so.2 The state of learning in the Universities at that time, however, was such that Peacock with his satirical tendency, could not forbear from holding it up to ridicule0

2 G. Saintsbury, Introduction to Novels of T, L. Peacock p<> xl© 63 Peacock was in the main not exaggerating when he stated that Universities were a hundred years in knowledge behind the rz rest of the world. The University of Oxford was particularly stagnant, and made no pretence of fulfilling its functions. Prior to 1800, there was no real examination for the degree, and thus there was a deal of truth in Newman's remark that it gave no education at all to the youth committed to its keeping. One source of complaint among some was the fact that the government of the Universities was in the hands of the clergy; while another was that Oxfofd and Cambridge enjoyed a monopoly of all the University privileges in England. The spirit of monopolists was, according to these responsible for the complaint, narrow, lazy, and oppressive. Cambridge appeared to be less deeply in­ fected with the vices of the Cloister than her sister; but if Cambridge shone at all, it was only in comparison with Oxford.

Peacock hit hard at this slumbrous period of the Univer­ sities, putting his impressions in the words of Desmond: I profited little at the University, as you will easily suppose. The system of education pursued there appeared to me the result of a deep-laid conspiracy against the human understanding,a mighty effort of political and ecclesiastical machlavelism, to turn the energies of inquiring minds into channels, where they will either stagnate in disgust, or waste themselves in nugatory labour. To discover or even to illustrate a single moral truth, to shake the em­ pire of a single prejudice, to apply a single blow

3 T. Lo Peacock, Melincourt. chap. XXIV0 64

of the axe of philosophy to the wide-spreading roots of superstition and political imposture, is to render a real service to the best hopes of mankind; but all this is diametrically op­ posed to the selfish interests of the hired misleaders of society, the chosen few, as they are called, before whom the wretched multitude grovel in the dust as before "The children of a race, Mightier than they, and wiser, and by heaven Beloved and favoured more". The bitter tone of this passage may very likely have its origin in Shelley's expulsion from Oxford, seven years pre­ viously. He and a friend had made a careful analysis of the doctrines of Hume. From this analysis he made a little book, which he sent by post to such persons as he thought would be willing to enter into a metaphysical discussion. He sent it under an assumed name, with a note, requesting that if the recipient were willing to answer the tract, the answer should be sent to a specified address in London. He received many an­ swers; but in due time the little work and its supposed authors 5 were denounced to the college authorities.

Instead of being the national centres of learning and instruction, the Universities were little more than monastic establishments for clerical sinecurists with a tinge of letters.

T# L# Peacock, Melincourt, chap. XIII0

T. L. Peacock, Memoirs of P. B0 Shelley, p. 17 (London: H.F.B<>Brett~Smith, 1909). 65 Young men of family, between Eton and the "Grand Tour", end a number of ordinary individuals designed for the Church, spent their time there very pleasantly, some with a great deal of drink­ ing and cheerful noise, and some with a little reading of books. Peacock points to these conditions in his humorous account of Scythrop's stay at the University: When Scythrop grew up, he was sent, as usual, to a public schod, where a little learning was painfully beaten into him, and from thence to the university, where it was carefully taken out of him; and he was sent home like a well-threshed ear of corn, with nothing in his head; having finished his education to the high satisfaction of the master and fellows of his college, who had, in testimony of their ap­ probation, presented him with a silver fish-slice, on which his name figured at the head of a laudatory inscription in some semi-barbarous dialect of Anglo- Saxon! sed Latin. His fellow-students, however, who drove tandem and random in great perfection, and were connoisseurs in good inns, had taught him to drink deep ere he departed. He had passed much of his time with these choice spirits, and had seen the rays of the midnight lamp tremble on many a lengthening file of empty bottles.6 The phrase "having finished his education" is a favourite one with Peacock, who uses it to express his contempt for a college education. It occurs again and again in the early novels. Desmond calls it "a mischievous* and ridiculous farce". Moral science, therefore, moral improvement, the doc­ trines of benevolence, the amelioration of the general condition of mankind, will not only never form a part of any public institution for the performance of that ridiculous end mischievous farce called the "Finishing of Education" ...

6 T. L. Peacock, Nightmare Abbey, chap. I.

7 T. L. Peacock, Melincourt, chap. XIII0 66 Jefferson Hogg, whom Peacock met at Shelley's house at Bracknell, and who appeared as Mr. Jenklson in Headlong Hall, is introduced as Sir Telegraph Paxarett in Melincourt. The description of him is interesting as affording what may well have been Peacock's personal opinion of the man who, in­ cidentally, had been expelled from Oxford with Shelley, and who wrote a Life of the poet. "Sir Telegraph is thoughtless", said Mr. Forester, but he has a good heart and a good natural capacity. I have great hopes of him. He had some learning, when he went to college; but he was cured of it before he came away. Great, indeed, must be the zeal for Im­ provement which an academical education cannot extin­ guish.8 When advised by Mr. Forester to read ancient books,"the only source of happiness left in this degenerate world", Sir Tele­ graph answers: "Read ancient booksl That may be very good ad­ vice to some people: but you forget that I have been 8t college, and finished my education".9 Mr. Forester informs Sir Telegraph of his intention to make Oran a member of Parliament, and con­ tinues: "But before taking this important step, I am desirous that he should finish his education". In Oran's case, however, this means"putting a few words into his mouth".10 The word "finish" may have a double meaning here: "finish" in the sense of to "ruin"; a jibe on Peacock's part.

Mr . Listless is also said to have "finished his education"

8 ibid., chap VII. 9 ibid., chap. XXIV.

10 ibid., chap. VI. 67 In a parcel containing some books sent express from London, there is a poem which he proceeds to inspect. The Reverend Mr. Larynx: "For a young man of fashion and family, Mr. List­ less, you seem to be of a very studious turn". Mr. Listless: "Studious! You are pleased to be facetious, Mr. Larynx. I hope you do not suspect me of being studious. I have finished my education".

Peacock's frequent ridicule of the "march of intellect" and the spread of education, as it appears in Crotchet Castle. probably has its origin in his boyhood, when he, for a time at least, seriously studied The Monthly Preceptor. Doubtless the absurd pretention and attempted completeness of the scheme - one of the subjects on which Peacock wrote was, "Is History or Biography the more improving Study?" - provoked a revulsion in his enthusiasm before he had read many numbers. The genial Dr. Folliott, who represents Peacock in the novel of his middle age, has no patience with the "march of mind": God bless my soul, sir! I am out of all patience with this march of mind. Here has my house been nearly burned down, by my cook taking it into her head to study hydrostatics, in a sixpenny tract, published by the Steam Intellect Society, and writ­ ten by a learned friend who is for doing all the world's business as well as his own . • . Elsewhere the Doctor has this to say about education: "Education: Well, sir, I have no doubt schools for all are just as fit for

11 T. L. Peacock, Nightmare Abbey, chap. V0 12 T. L. Peacock, Crotchet Castle, chap. II. 68 the species salmo salar" - the Doctor is eating Thames salmon for breakfast - "as for the genus homo. But you must allow, that the specimen before us has finished his education in a manner that does honour to his college".13 &ven at forty-five Peacock still retains his dislike of the Universities; but by now the bitterness has gone from his tone, and he controls him­ self by merely ridiculing them: In their line, I grant you, oyster and lobster sauce are the pillars of Hercules. But I speak of the cruet sauces, where the quintessence of the sapid is condensed in a phial. I can taste in my mind's palate a combination, which, if I could give it reality, I would christen with the name of my college, and hand it down to posterity as a seat of learning indeed.14

Peacock had once before made a similar remark with refer­ ence to the Universities. Mr. Sarcastic, who replaces Mr. for­ ester in order to express Peacock's own views as distinct from those of Shelley, takes a great delight in showing a man his own picture, and making him damn the rascal: I irreparably offended the Reverend Dr. Vorax by telling him that having a nephew, whom I wished to shine in the church, I was on the look-out for a luminous butler, and a cook of solid capacity under whose joint tuition he might graduate. "Who knows", said I, "but he may immortalise himself at the University, by giving his name to a pudding?"15

13 ibid., chap. IV. 14 ibid., chap. IV. 15 T. L. Peacock, Melincourt, chap. XXI. 69 Perhaps the best thrust of all, however, is that which Peacock aims at Oxford, whose educational status at that period was by general consent much below that of her sister University. Spoken by Dr. Folliott, it is clearly Peacock's own jibe: At Oxford, they walked about to see the curiosities of architecture, painted windows, and undisturbed libraries. The Reverend Doctor Folliott laid a wager with Mr. Crotchet "that in all their perlustrations they would not find a man reading", and won it. "Ay, sir", said the reverend gentleman, "this is still a seat of learning, on the principle of ~ once a captain always a captain".^6

A nation that could look with an indifferent eye upon the stagnation of its Universities, was not very likely to set much store by primary and secondary education. The schools of England in the eighteenth century were a disgrace. It has been estimated that the condition of the public or higher schools was worse between 1750 and 1840 than at any other time since the days of King Alfred. The grammar schools were largely derelict, often scandalous. In some cases, for half a century or more, only six boys might have attended the school at some large centre of popu­ lation. The endowments of the secondary schools were to a con­ siderable extent embezzled by absentee masters, who imitated the example set them by the official class in other spheres of Church and State. It is very near the truth to say that the English middle classes were the worst educated in the world at this time.

T. L. Peacock, Crotchet Castle, chap. VI# 70 There was a bright spot, however, in the very dismal picture. Certain of the old endowed schools were neither scandalous nor inefficient. Hawkshead, which Wordsworth at­ tended, was an example of the better schools. It lay in the bosom of nature, as it were, and numbered among its pupils the healthy sons of north-country yeomen. The absence of organized athleticism, examination, inspection or competition, though it may have been bad for the public interest and for the average pupil, was good for genius, which flourished more when left to itself, than It does under the constant pressure and excitement 17 of our own day.

Either Peacock may have had too little scope for any satire of the public schools, or else the memory of his own years spent at Englefield Green may have precluded any such desire, but the fact remains that there is little or nothing in the novels aimed at that institution. The only two refer­ ences in the nature of satire have to do with corporal punish­ ment, rather than with learning. The first has been quoted al­ ready: "When Scythrop grew up, he was sent as usual, to a public school, where a little learning was painfully beaten into him": the other describes the condition of the Reverend Mr. Grovelgrub and Lord Anophel after the thrashing administered by Sir Oran:

The Reverend Mr0 Grovelgrub, who in his youthful days had been beaten black and blue in the capacity of "fag" (a practice which reflects so much honour on our public seminaries), bore the infliction with more humility".18

17 G. M. Trevelyan, British History in the 19th Century. p# 28 (New York: Longman's, Green & Co., 1922). 18 T. L. Peacock, Melincourt. chap. XXI. 71 There can be no doubt but that Peacock was a self- satisfied scholar. As he looked about him, he very likely saw few who were his match in a knowledge of the Classics. This fact tended to make him somewhat vain, especially as he had never been to a University. Thus his attacks upon that institution are often little more than triumphant crowing. Later on in life, when he witnessed the efforts on the part of men like Brougham to place education within the reach of all, he somewhat unreasonably laughed at them. Great credit, however, must be given to Brougham who was not afraid of making a fool of himself before the learned if he could help the ignorant to learn. 72

CHAPTER IV

POLITICS AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS

From 1783 to 1830 the Tory party, except for one brief interval, held office in England. Its policy was rigidly con­ servative, and may be called the political response of the governing classes of England to the French Revolution. The latter turned men's minds against change in any form: for it quickened the pride of Englishmen in what they possessed, adding a genuine alarm lest what they possessed should be taken away from them. Burke, who had championed the cause of the Americans some years previously, was now the great apostle of Conservatism. His Reflections on the French Revolution have enshrined in a perfect form the conservative principles which constitute one half of our political and social hap­ piness. But for recognition of the other half he was surpassed by men far his inferior in genius. His desertion of the Liberal cause prompted Peacock to call him, not a sublime apostle, but a "pensioned apostate".

Throughout the whole of the period under discussion the word Jacobin came to hold in the public mind the place occupied between the Armada and the Popish Plot by the word Jesuit. It symbolized the political and spiritual enemies of England, a class of continental mischief-makers, with disciples, as Lord

1 G. M. Trevelyan, British History in the 19th century, p. 63. 73 Eldon said, in our very midst, who would if they could, defeat us in war, destroy us by revolution, or transform us into their own likeness by propaganda. So great was the fear of Jacobinism that in 1797 a newspaper, the Anti-Jacobin, was published under the auspices of Pitt. It is from his associations with this newspaper that Canning, Pitt's successor, takes his place in literature.

Whatever may have been the feelings of his contemporaries with regard to the word Jacobin, it is certain that Peacock en­ tertained none of their fears. To him it was a splendid oppor­ tunity for satire, and he uses the word to expose the narrowness of outlook so prevalent in his day. Desmond is called a Jacobin by Mr. Vamp for refusing to "season his article in such a manner p as seemed likely to satisfy him". Mr. Peppertoast uses the word to describe Mr. Lookout, whose warning to the people of Gull- gudgeon has gone unheeded: There is a Jacobin rascal in this town, who says it is a bad sign . . . but myself and my brother magistrates have taken measures for him, and shall soon make the town of Gullgudgeon too hot to hold him, as sure as my name is Peppertoast* He finally becomes exasperated with Mr. Lookout: Do you hear him? Do you hear the Jacobin rascal? Do you hear the libellous, seditious, factious, levelling, revolutionary, republican, democratical, atheistical villain? 3

2 T. L. Peacock, Melincourt, chap. XIII.

3 ibid., chap XXX. 74 The French Revolution and the bloody path which its supporters had pursued, produced in the English statesman a sort of horror of the lower classes, who from now on were regarded as a potential menace. The word used to designate them was generally "the swinish multitude". Maid Marian, a satire on legitimacy, contains several references to the classes so described. Social order is defined as the preservation of the privileges of the few who happened to have any, at the expense of the swinish multitude who happened to have none, except that of working and being shot at for the benefit of their betters, which is obviously not the meaning of social order in our more enlightened times.4 During the episcopal regency of the bishops of Ely and Durham, the ignorant impatience of the swinish multitude with these fruits of good living, brought forth by one of the meek who had inherited the fruits of the earth, displayed itself in a general ferment.

In the era after Waterloo general unrest and upheaval was at its height. The artificial prosperity of the war period was followed by an unprecedented depression. So desperate was the condition of the labourer that he often resorted to highway robbery and thieving as a means of subsistence. The crime most deeply resented and most severely punished by legislators and magistrates was regarded by the bulk of the population as no crime at all. A man whom society had made a pauper in spite of himself, could see no wrong in snaring hares and netting part-

T. L. Peacock, Maid Marian, chap. IX. ibido, chap IX, cf. also chap. XI. 75 ridges in order to provide food for wife and child. Miniature battles were often waged at night between gentle­ men and their servants and professional poachers. In these years a new terror was introduced into the English wood­ land, in the form of the "mantrap", with its crocodile teeth, and the yet deadlier "spring-gun", lurking in the undergrowth and murdering not only the poacher, for whom they were meant, but the gamekeeper or the innocent neutral. Peacock points to the harshness of the game laws in several passages: They (the Druids) would also, perhaps have found some difficulty in feeding them (the prisoners), from the lack of the county rates, by which the most sensible and amiable part of our nation, the country squires, contrive to coop up, and feed, at the public charge, all who meddle with the wild animals of which they had given themselves the monopoly . . . The people lived in darkness and vassalage. They were utterly destitute of the blessings of those "schools for all", the house of correction, and the treadmill, wherein the autochthonal justice of our agrestic kakisto- cracy now castigates the heinous sins which were then committed with impunity, of treading on old footpaths, picking up dead wood, and moving on the face of the earth within sound of the whir of a partridge." One of the guests of Mr. Crotchet is described by Lady Clarinda Sir Simon Steeltrap, of Steeltrap Lodge, member for Crouching-Curtown, Justice of Peace for the county, and Lord of the United Manors of Spring- gun and Treadmill; a great preserver of game and public morals.8

6 G. M. Trevelyan, British History in the 19th Century. p. 159-151. 7 T. L. Peacock, The Misfortunes of Elphin, chap, VI, 8 T.L. Peacock, Crotchet Castle, chap. V. 76 Peacock's temperament rendered him unfit for the role of a reformer. Only once did he attempt to reform, and that was at the instigation of Shelley, who saw in Melincourt the best work that Peacock had done up to that time. Most readers will hardly agree with this judgment, and it is more than likely that Peacock himself did not; for after Melincourt he never again set his hand to reforming, but preferred to hold existing abuses up to ridicule. For this, indeed, his genius was admir­ ably suited. The suspension of Habeas Corpus in 1817 presents to him no occasion for righteous indignation; instead he al­ ludes to it in the following manner: When he (Prince John) recovered, he found Harpiton diligently assisting in his recovery, more in the fear of losing his place than in that of losing his master: the prince's first inquiry was for the pri­ soner he had been on the point of taking at the moment when his "habeas corpus" had been so un­ seasonably suspended.9

In Melincourt Peacock was attempting to create a char­ acter, Mr. Forester, out of Shelley and himself. The result is that Mr. Forester is a dull prig, without Peacock's own wit and without Shelley's theoretical enthusiasm. Still, several chapters in which the author manages to forget him­ self contain as fine satire as anything he ever wrote. Oran, whom Peacock's grandfather introduced to him at the age of three, now takes his place in literature as a being possessed of every human attribute except speech: he is made a baronet

9 T. L. Peacock, Maid Marian, chap. X. 77 and elected a member of Parliament for the borough of Onevote. Peacock admits, somewhat naively, that his principal object is an irresistible exposure of the universality and omnipotence of corruption by purchasing for an oran outang one of those seats, the sale of which is unblushingly acknowledged to be "as notorious as the sun at noonday".10 In the account of the election Peacock dispenses with Mr. Forester and creates a new character for the occasion. He has now a free hand, as it were, and in the person of Mr. Sarcastic finds an outlet for personal expression. Mr. Sar­ castic 's utterances from the first word to the last are pure irony. He addresses Mr. Christopher Corporate as the free, fat and dependent burgess of this ancient and honourable borough. The monied interest, Mr. Corporate, for which you are as illustrious as the sun at noonday, is the great point of con­ nection and sympathy between us. A member of Parliament, gentlemen, to speak to you in your own phrase, is^sort of staple commodity, manufactured for home consumption. The duty of a representative of the people, whether actual or virtual, is simply to tax.J-1 The speech of Mr* Sarcastic to the inhabitants of the unfran­ chised city is Peacock's statement of the case for reform. Earlier in the episode he remarks that "all that reason can say on the subject has been said for years by men of all parties - while they were out". In 1832 Lord John Russell, in the debate on the Reform Bill, made a full and academic statement of the case, developing all the points indicated in this chapter by Peacock.

T. L. Peacock, Melincourt, chap. VI. ibid., chap. XXII. 78 In the chapter entitled Mainchance Villa Peacock as­ sembles a band of Tories and reactionaries, with whom Fax and Forester join issues. The chapter is an immortal one, and well proclaims him a comic genius. A new character now appears on the scene - Canning. He is named Mr. Anyside Antijack, a very important personage just arrived from abroad on the occasion of a letter from Mr. Mystic (Coleridge) of Cimmerian Lodge, denouncing an approaching period of public light. This letter had filled Messieurs Paperstamp, Feathernest, Vamp, Killthedead, and Antijack with the deepest dismay; and they were now holding a consultation on the best means to be adopted for totally and finally extinguishing the light of human understanding. The satire in this chapter is based on about thirty statements taken from No. XXXI of the Quarterly Review, the official organ of the Tory party. These statements are taken from a long ar­ ticle against Parliamentary Refoim. The characters who utter them are ridiculed by their farcical presentment. Many of the sentences are literally quoted, as an extract from the pages of the Quarterly will show: Quarterly: Of all men, the smatterer in philosophy is the most intolerable and the most dangerous ... He begins by unlearning his creed and his commandments . • • His neighbour's wife may be in some danger, and his neighbour's property also, if the distinction between "meum" and "tteum" should be practically inconvenient to the man of free opinions. Mainchance Villa: Moral philosophy! Every man who talks of moral philoso­ phy is a thief and a rascal, and will never make any scruple of seducing his neighbour's wife, or stealing his neighbour's property. Every moral philosopher discards the creed and commandments: the sixth com­ mandment says, Thou shalt not steal; therefore, every 79 moral philosopher is a thief. In 1798 Canning and Gifford had ridiculed Southey, then a revolutionary, in the Anti-Jacobin. This is the substance of Mr. Anyside Antijack's remark; We must set the alarmists at work as in the Antijacobin war: when, to be sure, we had one or two honest men among our opposers - (Mr. Feathernest and Mr. Paper- stamp smiled and bowed.

The chorus, "The Church is in danger'." is intended to burlesque the Quarterly's practice of putting forth the in­ security of the Church as an excuse against Reform. The pop­ gun incident refers to the collision of a body of socialists, called Spenceans, with the forces of the law (1816). Accord­ ing to an informer the meeting of this band in Spa Fields, Bermondsey, was to be the signal for an attack upon the Tower. The alarm produced in the whole nation by this riotous fiasco 12 was out of all proportion to its real Importance.

Mr. Killthedead, who is found among the Tories at Main­ chance Villa is John Wilson Croker, who acted for years as journalist of the party. He was the author of The Battle of Talavera and other Poems. Peacock speaks of him as "a great com­ pounder of narcotics, under the denomination of 'Battles', for he never heard of a deadly field,. . . but immediately seizing his goose-quill and foolscap He fought the 'Battle'o'er again, And twice he slew the slain,"13

12 ibid., chap. XXXIX, see note. 13 ibid., chap, XXVIII. 80 Canning was once more to be the butt of Peacock's satire: this time he appeared as Prince Seithenyn in The Misfortunes of Elphin. The second chapter contains the only definitely personal satire in the whole book. It is not difficult to discover the meaning of "virtual superintendence" and the rotten embankment, which must be taken to stand for "virtual representation" and the unreformed House of Commons. On several occasions between 1817 and 1822 Canning had spoken out strongly against Reform. The arguments of Prince Seithenyn for leaving the embankment as it is, are so strikingly similar to those of the Tory states­ man that one is justified in concluding that Peacock intended to parody that person's famous utterances. Seithenyn argues in favour of what is obviously wrong: Everything that is old must decay. That the embank­ ment is old, I will not altogether deny; that it is any the worse for that, I do most sturdily gainsay. Our ancestors were wiser than we: they built it in their wisdom; and, if we should be so rash as to try to mend it, we should only mar it . . . There is nothing so dangerous as innovation . . . This immortal work has stood for centuries, and will stand for cen­ turies more, if we let it alone.14 Seithenyn, however, is a much better character than Mr. Anyside Antijack. Although a drunkard, he is free from his precursor's canting sophistry and the deliberate preference of his own to the national Interest: Reform, sir, is not to be thought of; we have been at war twenty-five years to prevent it; and to have it after all, would be very hard. We have got the national debt instead of it: in my opinion a very pretty substitute.i5

T. L. Peacock, The Misfortunes of Elphin, chap. II. T. L. Peacock, Melincourt, chap* XXXIX. 81 Society is as much to blame for putting him in a responsible position, as Seithenyn is for behaving as he did.

Of all the novels Peacock ever wrote, Maid Marian is the least successful and least characteristic. It is surprisingly unoriginal. Friar Tuck, for instance, is borrowed from Rabelais' character of Frere Jean; in some parts, moreover, Peacock has slavishly imitated a translation (Urquhart's) of Rabelais. It was not his knowledge of Rabelais and the Robin Hood Ballads, however, that inspired the book: it was rather his love of the woodlands, to which he had been attached all his life. The Last Day of Windsor Forest relates a curious incident which must have had a profound effect upon Peacock. The Enclosure Act of 1814 was so faultily worded that a farmer of Water Oakley, calling himself Robin Hood and his two helpers Scarlett and Little John, began to make a regular business of killing the Kingfs deer. In spite of the threats of the Deputy Ranger he set the Crown at defiance, end could not be crushed. Finally two regiments of cavalry were employed to drive the deer from the open into the enclosed portions of the forest. This incident serves to explain the frequent references to legitimacy which provide the satirical strain throughout the story. It is shown that every argument, except heredity and divine right, for obedience to a reigning king can apply equally for adherence to an outlaw: Robin Hood is king of the forest both by dignity of birth and by virtue of his standing army: to say nothing of the free choice of the people, 82 which he has indeed, but I pass it by as an illegiti­ mate basis of power . . . What title had William of Normandy to England, that Robin of Locksley has not to merry Sherwood?l6 Maid Marian, however, will always be read for what it obviously is - a tale of forest life. The following stanzas, sung by Brother Michael, truly contain the spirit of the forest: (1) "For the slender beech and the sapling oak, That grow by the shadowy rill, You may cut down both at a single stroke, You may cut down which you will.

(2) "But this you must know, that as long as they grow, Whatever change may be, You never can teach either oak or beech To be aught but a greenwood tree." 17

Throughout the eighteenth century the slave-trade was looked upon as perfectly respectable, and very few voices were raised against it. With the advent of the "Century of Enlighten­ ment", however, the poets, philosophers, and religious enthus­ iasts began a vigorous attack upon it, as a result of which came the abolition of the trade in 1806, followed in 1833 by the abolition of slavery itself. Naturally enough, England, being the greatest seafaring nation, carried on the largest share of the trade. The slaves, captured along the African coast, were shipped to North and South America and the West Indies, the latter

16 T. L. Peacock, Maid Marian, chap. XI, XII.

17 ibid., chap. II. 83 of these being of great commercial value owing to the sugar and coffee plantations. In Melincourt. where the author pre­ sents so many of his serious thoughts, Peacock makes sugar and West Indian slavery one of the subjects of his eclectic creed.

Mr. Forester (Peacock) begins by calling sugar a "nefarious ingredient", no atom of which he suffers to pass his threshold. He then proceeds to explain his reasons for this to Sir Telegraph: I have no wish to resemble those pseudophilanthropists, those miserable declaimers against slavery, who are very liberal of words which cost them nothing, but are not capable of advancing the object they profess to have at heart, by submitting to the smallest personal privation ... My reform commences at home . . . How can the consumer of sugar pretend to throw on the grower of It the exclusive burden of their par­ ticipated criminality? . . . Sugar is economically superfluous, physically pernicious, morally atrocious, and politically abominable.18 The joint opinions of Shelley and Peacock on the use of sugar are set forth in the speeches at the anti-saccharine fete; but in order to give Peacock's own views, apart from those of Shelley, the cynical Mr. Sarcastic is called upon. He answers Mr. Forester's eloquence by pointing out that mankind is too selfish and too sensual to abstain from the use of sugar: Do you consider how very agreeable to us is the sensation of sweetness in our palates? Do you suppose we should give up that sensation because human creatures of the same flesh and blood as ourselves are oppressed and enslaved to procure it for us?19

18 T. L. Peacock, Melincourt, chap. V. 19 ibid., chap. XXVII, 84 In answer to this, Sir Telegraph offers himself as the first new member of the anti-saccharine society, - an act which re­ calls how Jefferson Hogg used to adapt himself to the habits of the Shelleys and the Newtons in the matter of diet. Only two of the party protest against the league - the fat alderman and Mr. Vamp. The former, who is taken to represent Sir William Curtis, formerly Lord Mayor and M.P. for London and created a baronet in 1802, cries out about the ruin of commerce, while Mr. Vamp (Gifford) is hot on the subject of revenue.20 The anti-saccharine society must not be taken as serious on Peacock's part: it is just his manner of vindicating the method of ridicule to those who claim it is either useless or prejudicial to the cause of progress. He believeswith Byron that "ridicule is the only weapon the English climate does not rust".

Maithus' work, The Essay on the Principle of Population. first appeared anonymously in 1798. Its pessimistic tone was in direct contrast to that of Godwin's Political Justice^ which was published five years earlier. This author had illimitable confidence in the future of society and the progress of science; but he failed to notice that, life having become so pleasant, men might then multiply beyond the means of subsistence. Maithus' Law of Population, - that whereas population increases In geometric, the means of subsistence increases in arithmetic proportion, - was a direct answer to that problem. A controversy was carried on for some time by the two men, during which Peacock, who knew

ibid., chap. XXVII. 85 Godwin through Shelley, became interested in the theories of Maithus.

There is no doubt of the identity of Mr« Fax, who is introduced somewhat incongruously in the seventh chapter of Melincourt; This is Mr. Fax, the champion of calm reason, the indefatigable explorer of the cold clear springs of knowledge, the bearer of the torch of dispas­ sionate truth, that gives more light than warmth. The whole tenor of his conversation, end in particular the quotation from the Essay in a note to one of his speeches in Chapter XL, point to this identification. Fax's conversation throughout is based largely on Maithus' Third Book. Sentences such as the following are almost directly quoted from the Essays The cause (of all the evils of society) is the tendency of population to increase beyond the means of subsistence . . . The baleful influence of the poor laws has utterly destroyed the prin­ ciple of calculation in them (the lower orders). They marry by wholesale, without scruple or com­ punction, and commit the future care of their family to Providence and the overseer. Malthus recommended that a greater degree of respect and per­ sonal liberty be awarded to single women, and advocated moral restraint as a check to population; to this Peacock makes direct reference: Bachelors and spinsters I decidedly venerate. The world is overstocked with featherless bipeds . . . Some must marry, that the world may be peopled: many must abstain, that it may not be overstocked. Little and good is very applicable in this case.21

ibid., chap. VII. 86 It is indeed astonishing, in the light of Peacock's hatred of political economy and the kindred sciences - "a hyperbarbarous technology, that no Athenian ear could have 22 borne" - to witness his respectful treatment of Mr. Fax. From a literary point of view, moreover, it is regrettable. One must assume that he was not prepared, even if he were inclined, to refute Mr. Fax. The material for witty or angry discussion was certainly at his disposal in some of Mr. Fax's conversation; but for once Peacock was not anxious to amuse and so treated these theories with an excessive seriousness. Peacock is least like his true self in Melincourt.

Throughout the conversation between Mr. Fax and Mr. Forester frequent mention is made of the disgraceful con­ dition of the poor. Undoubtedly the Industrial Revolution had contributed to the greatness of England by placing her far ahead of any other commercial nation, but at the same time it had concentrated all the wealth in the hands of the upper classes. In the years immediately following the Napoleonic wars, the distress of the poor was acute. Between 1816 and 1820 there were riots all through England, especially in the big manufacturing centres, where unemployment, owing to the glut of British goods in European markets, was prevalent. The popu­ lation that a century before had lived mostly on farms in rural England was now to be found in abject hovels amid the slums of

22 T. L. Peacock, Crotchet Castle, chap IIo 87 large cities. "Merry England" had indeed become a misnomer, "a phrase" as Peacock said, "which must be a mirifical puzzle to anyone who looks for the first time on its most lugubrious 23 inhabitants". Mr. Forester points with long-winded bitter­ ness to this state of things:

Commercial prosperity is a golden surface, but all beneath it is rags and wretchedness. It is not in the splendid bustle of our principal streets - in the villas and mansions that sprinkle our valleys - . . . but it is in the mud hovel of the labourer - in the cellar of the artisan - in our crowded prisons - our swarming hospitals - our overcharged workhouses - in those narrow districts of our over­ grown cities which the affluent never see - where thousands and thousands of families are compressed within limits not sufficient for the pleasure ground of a simple squire - that we must study the true mechanism of political society.24 Elsewhere he alludes to the workhouses and child labour:- The palaces that everywhere rise around them to shame the meanness of their humble dwellings, the great roads that everywhere intersect their valleys, and bring them continually in contact with the over­ flowing corruption of cities, the devastating mono­ poly of large farms, that has almost swept the race of cottagers from the face of the earth, sending the parents to the workhouse or the army, and the children to perish like untimely blossoms in the blighting imprisonment of manufactories, have com­ bined to diminish the numbers and deteriorate the character of the inhabitants of the country.2^ Even in Headlong Hall, where he does not pretend to be a reformer, Peacock intrudes a serious tone in the speech of

23 T. L. Peacock, The Misfortunes of Elphin. chap. XII. 24 T. L. Peacock, Melincourt, chap. XVI. 25 ibid., chap XXV. 88 Mr. Escot, who, having outlined the picture of artificial life, proceeds: Complicated machinery: behold its blessings. Twenty years ago, at the door of every cottage sate the good woman with her spinning-wheel: the children, if not more profitably employed than in gathering heath and sticks, at least laid in a stock of health and strength to sus­ tain the labours of maturer years. Where is the spinning-wheel now, and every simple and insulated occupation of the industrious cot­ tager? Wherever this boasted machinery is es­ tablished, the children of the poor are death- doomed from their cradles. Look for one moment at midnight into a cotton-mill, amidst the smell of oil, the smoke of lamps, the rattling of wheels, the dizzy and complicated motions of diabolical mechanism: contemplate the little human machines that keep play with the revolu­ tions of the iron work, robbed at that hour of their natural rest, as of air and exercise by day: observe their pale and ghostly features . • . As Mr. Escot said this, a little rosy-cheeked girl, with a basket of heath on her head, came tripping down the side of one of the rocks on the left. The force of contrast struck even on the phlegmatic spirit of Mr. Jenkison, and he almosIt ti sincline sometimed fos rdifficul the moment tto tidentifo the doctriny with ecertaint y of deterioration.26 several of Peacock's characters who must have been recognized at once by his contemporariesQ There is considerable vague­ ness attached to the sketch of Mr. Toogood; but if he is not Robert Owen himself, then he is undoubtedly an Owenite. After the crisis of 1815, which revealed to him the serious defects of the economic order, Owen began to dabble in communal experi-

T. L. Peacock, Headlong Hall, chap VII. 89 ments. In 1825 he founded the colony of New Harmony in Indiana, and another at Orbiston in Scotland, which lasted, however, only for a few years. He is most remarkable for the cooperative association, with its system of no profits; although its present form is the result of the efforts of the Rochdale Society, six of whom were ardent disciples of Owen himself. Mr. Toogood is Introduced In Crotchet Castle by Lady Clarinda: Next to him (Mr. Skionar) is Mr. Toogood, the co-operationist, who will have neither fighting nor praying; but wants to parcel out the world into squares like a chess-board, with a community on each, raising everything for one another, with a great steam-engine to serve them in common for tailor and hosier, kitchen and cook.27 In the succeeding chapter he makes several attempts to inter­ pose his theories amid those of the others, but his efforts meet with no response: "It is the distribution that must be looked to: it is the paterfamilias that is wanting in the state. Now here I have provided for him (reproducing his diagram)." His suggestion to "build a grand co-operative parallelogram, with a steam-engine in the middle for a maid of all work", is Peacock's way of throwing gentle ridicule upon his impracti­ cable schemes. Malthusf theories would find no place in Owen's ideal society, and the latter probably viewed the "dismal science" with particular horror. Peacock evidently refers to some such utterances on Owen's part in the following lines:

T. L. Peacock, Crotchet Castle, chap. V. 90 Mr. Toogood asseverated that there was no such thing as surplus population, and that the land, properly managed, would maintain twenty times its present inhabltants.28

The identity of Mr* MacQuedy caused some confusion even among the readers of Peacock's day. This character was first taken to be John Stuart, the son of James Mill, - Mac Q,. E. D., the son of a demonstration. It is unlikely, however, that Peacock had him in mind, because at the time of his writing Crotchet Castle (1831) , his superior at the East India House was James Mill, whom he succeeded in 1836. Mr. Macquedy's avowed connection with the Edinburgh Review could not, moreover, be applicable to Mill. Dr. Folliott: There is a set of persons in your city, Mr. MacQuedy, who concoct every three or four months a thing which they call a review: a sort of sugar-plum manufacturers to the Whig aristo­ cracy". Mr. MacQuedy:"I cannot tell, sir, exactly, what you mean by that; but I hope you will speak of those gentlemen with res- pect seeing that I am one of them". The reference to "the right principles of rent, profit, wages, and currency" points to the political economist, J. R. McCulloch, the friend of Ricardo. Further proof as to the correctness of this identity

28 ibid., chap. X. 29 ibid., chap. IV. 30 ibid., chap. II. 91 is given in Sir Edward Strachey's Reminiscences. Thds re­ calls a dinner at which Peacock had been bored to death by three political economists, among whom was McCulloch. One of them read a paper beginning with the phrase, "In the in­ fancy of society", - which was used for purposes of satire by Peacock: Mr. MacQuedy: Nothing is so easy as to lay down the outlines of a perfect society. There wants nothing but money to set it going. I will explain myself clearly and fully by reading a paper. (Producing a large scroll) "In the infancy of society" - Dr. Folliott: Pray, Mr. MacQuedy, how is it that all gentlemen of your nation begin everything they write with the "infancy of society"? In handling this character, however, Peacock displays an entire lack of bitterness, which may perhaps be explained by the fact that he was beginning to realize that his dislike of the science and nationality personified in this individual, Mr. MacOuedy, was whimsical and unreasonable.

If the satire aimed at political economy and its up­ holders, as it appears in Crotchet Castle, is good, it is even better in The Misfortunes of Elphin. In the sixth chapter of that novel he sets forth in masterly fashion the main differ­ ences between life in a comparatively primitive period and in the early nineteenth century. Material progress, he points out, has in no way affected the permanent motives of human nature,

except in the forms of their activity. 92 The science of political economy was sleeping in in the womb of time. The advantages of growing rich by getting into debt and paying interest was altogether unknown; the safe and economical cur­ rency, which is produced by a man writing his name on a bit of paper, for which other men give him their property, and which he is always ready to exchange for another bit of paper, of an equally safe and economic manufacture, being also equally ready to render his own person, at a moment's notice, as impalpable as the metal which he promises to pay, is a stretch of wisdom to which the people of those days had nothing to compare. They had no steam- engines, with fires as eternal as those of the nether world, wherein the squalid many, from in­ fancy to age, might be turned into component por­ tions of machinery for the benefit of the purple- faced few. They could neither poison the air with gas, nor the waters with its dregs: in short, they made their money of metal, and breathed pure air, and drank pure water, like unscientific barbarians. Political science they had none. The blessings of virtual representation were not even dreamed of: so that when any of their barbarous metallic currency got into their pockets or coffers, it had a chance to remain there, subjecting them to the inconven­ ience of unemployed capital. Still they went to work politically much as we do. The powerful took all they could get from their subjects and neigh­ bours: and called something or other sacred and glorious when they wanted the people to fight for them. They repressed disaffection by force, when Peacock'it showeds firsitseltf attacin akn overon papet actr mone; buty theappearey encourd in­ the aged freedom of speech, when it was, like Hamlet's fragmentary Calidore* This being falls in love with the reading, "words, words, words" . . . 31 daughter of a Welsh parson, who suspects him of aiming at acquiring her dowry of a thousand pounds. On hearing this

T. L. Peacock, The Misfortunes of Elphin. chap. VI. 93 Calidore scatters a handful of gold coins, which he calls "mere dross", on the table. The clergyman is astounded at this, because he has seen nothing but paper money for twenty ye^rs. Some time afterwards Calidore goes to London, where he brings his gold to the bank to exchange it for the currency of the country, and Is astonished at receiving "slips of paper"* He fails utterly to comprehend a state of society in which promises to pay are accepted as payments.

Among the numerous subjects of satire in Melincourt Peacock does not omit paper money, to which he devotes one chapter, The Paper Mill, exclusively. This serves to illus- trate, in rather farcical fashion, what must have been a fre­ quent occurrence in the early nineteenth century, when the monetary situation of Great Britain was far from being stable. But where the satire in Calidore was amusing and entertaining, in Melincourt it is more like a surfeit, and certainly contri­ butes nothing to the somewhat monotonous novel. Mr. Fax and Mr. Forester carry on their dull conversation with remarks such as these: Mr. Fax: "All the arts and eloquences of cor­ ruption may be overthrown by the enumeration of these simple words: boroughs, taxes, and paper-money. " Mr. Vamp: "Paper- 31 money. What, is the ghost of bullion abroad?" Mr. Forester: "Yes! and till you can make the buried substance burst the paper cerements of its sepulchre, its ghost will continue to walk

31 On Feb. 19, 1810, a committee was appointed to inquire into the high price of bullion* 94 like the ghost of Caesar, saying to the desolated nation: 32 fI am thy evil spirit!f"

There were two factors behind the monetary crises which disturbed Great Britain in Peacock*s day: the French wars, which began in 1793, and the imperfect understanding of bank­ ing. The first of these caused the expenditures of the nation to soar far above its revenues, while the second was often res­ ponsible for the failure of the country banks, which in turn undermined the stability of the Bank of England. This insti­ tution had more than once33 demonstrated its inability to re­ sist the prevalent feeling of the public by being cautious in times of speculation and liberal during depressions and alarms. It remained for Ricardo to illustrate the right principles of banking. He was convinced of the superiority of paper money over the metallic; but he pointed out that the supply of the former should never become excessive, and to guarantee the value of bank-notes, or to regulate their issue and prevent deprecia­ tion, he advocated that a reserve of gold should be kept at the hank in the form of ingots.

In 1826 Peacock wrote a little volume of parodies and topical verses entitled Paper Money Lyrics: out of deference to James Mill these were not published but Issued privately

32 T. L. Peacock, Melincourt, chap XXXIX. 33 viz. in 1792-3, 1797, and 1810. 95 twelve years later. The Lyrics celebrates the successive stages of the financial panic which began in November, 1825, and lasted till March of the following year. A speculative frenzy arose out of an immense accumulation of wealth for which no safe em­ ployment could be found at home except at a moderate rate of interest; even the hard-won savings of humble families were risked in enterprises grotesque in their absurdity. It was the most ruinous mania of speculation since the "South Sea Bubble". Peacock very appropriately makes Pan, the author of "panic terrors", begin the lyrics with the announcement: The country banks are breaking; The London banks are shaking. A run on the banks is depicted with the depositors clamouring for their balances, while the bankers strive to pacify them with assurances that they have plenty of gold. The fourth lyric is a parody of Wordsworth's extreme simplicity, indi­ cated by the title: A Mood of my own Mind: Occurring during a gale of wind at Midnight, when I was writing a paper on the Currency by the light of two mould candles. Of paper currency he is made to say: "I find it buys me everything that people have

to sell".

The history of Mr. Touchandgo might well have been written about this time. The son of Mr. Crotchet had made himself a junior partner in the eminent firm of Catchflat and Company: 96 Here, in the days of paper prosperity, he applied his science-illumined genius to the blowing of bub­ bles, the bursting of which sent many a poor devil to jail, the workhouse, or the bottom of the river, but left young Crotchet rolling in riches. These riches he had been on the point of doubling, by a marriage with the daughter of Mr* Touchandgo, the great banker, when, one foggy morning Mr. Touchandgo and the-contents of the till were suddenly reported absent. Young Crotchet's day of reckoning was not far in the offing, either: the news of it is communicated to Dr. Folliott by Mr. MacQuedy: The great firm of Catchflat and Company, in which young Crotchet is a partner, has stopped payment. Dr. Folliott: Bless me: that accounts for the young gentleman's melancholy. I thought they would over-reach them­ selves with their own tricks. The day of reckoning, Mr. MacQuedy, is the point which your paper-money science always leaves out of view. Mr. MacQuedy: I do not see, sir, that the failure of Catchflat and Company has to do with my science. Dr. Folliott: It has to do with it, sir, that you would turn the whole nation into a great paper-money shop, and take no thought of the day of reckoning. But the dinner is coming. I think you, who are so fond og paper promises, should dine on the bill of fare.

Public characters, though less numerous than in the first three novels, are not entirely lacking in Crotchet Castle. The most notorious of these is henry, Lord Brougham, his appearance

34 T. L. Peacock, Crotchet Castle, chap. I. 35 ibid., XVIII# 97 in this book is sudden and unprepared, except for one or two obscure references in The Misfortunes of Elphin: We may well boast of the progress of light, when we turn from this picture to the statutes at large, and the Court of Chancery; and we may indulge in a pathetic reflection of our sweet-faced myriads of "learned friends";. -,.r. and: The people lived in darkness and vassalage. They were lost in the grossness of beef and ale. They had no pamphleteering societies to demonstrate that reading and writing are better than meat and drink . . . Throughout Crotchet Castle Brougham is referred to as the "learned friend", a title indicating both his legal profession and his enthusiasm for education. Dr. Folliott, who speaks Peacock's opinion in this novel, has nothing but loathing and contempt for the "learned friend" and his efforts to bring education within the reach of all: Mr. Firedamp: Sir, you seem to make very light of science. Dr. Folliott: Yes, sir, such science as the learned friend deals in: everything for everybody, science for all, schools for all, rhetoric for all, law for all, physic for all, words for all, end sense for none. I say, sir, law for lawyers, end cookery for cooks: and I wish the learned friend, for all his life, a cook that will pass her time in studying his works, then every dinner he sits down to at home, be will sit on the stool of repentance.^5

In 1812 Brougham had defended the Hunt brothers on a charge of libel; but later, in 1819, he virtually deserted the Radical party by suggesting in a letter to Lord Grey that the Whigs publicly announce their hostility to them. It is uneer-

ibid., chap, n 98 tain whether Peacock knew of this volte-face, at any rate, he singles out for ridicule all the incidents of Brougham's career from 1819 to 1831*

The first incident to be ridiculed is his connection with the Charity Commission, of which he was chairman. En­ dowed education and charity were in a state of corruption as bad as anything to be found in the Church. In the novel Dr. Folliott is summoned to the inn by the Charity Commissioners: Dr. Folliott: "The Charity Commissioners^ who on earth are they?" On entering the inn he ascertains that in virtue of the com­ mission of Parliament, the commissioners are now inquiring into the state of the public charities of the village, which inci­ dentally consist of one pound per annum. Dr. Folliott (walking out of the inn): They have come here in a chaise and four to make a fuss about a pound per annum, which after all, they leave as it was . . . That is just the sort of service to be looked for from the learned friend. Oh, the learned friend: the learned friend'. He is the evil genius of everything that falls his way**57

In a speech on education delivered in the House of Com­ mons, Brougham had said: Let the soldier be abroad if he will; he can do nothing in this age. There is another personage, a personage less imposing in the eyes of some, perhaps insignificant. The schoolmaster is abroad; and I trust him, armed with his primer, against the soldier in full military array.

ibid., chap. VIII. 99 Peacock burlesques this speech in the hold-up episode, wherein Dr. Folliott is waylaid by two ruffians whom he manages to rou One of them he beats to the ground with his bamboo: Confess speedily, villain; are you a simple thief, or would you have manufactured me into a subject for the benefit of science? Ay, miscreant caitiff, you would have made me a subject for science, would you? You are a schoolmaster abroad, are you? You are marching with a detachment of the march of mind are you? You are a member of the Steam Intellect * Society, are you? You swear by the learned friend, do you?*56 f

Brougham's part in founding the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (1827) receives the following notice: Dr* Folliott: Well, Mr. MacQuedy, how goes on the march of mind? Mr* MacQuedy: Nay, sir; I think you may see that with your own eyes. Dr. Folliott: Sir, I have seen it, much to my discomfiture. It has marched into my rick-yard, and set my stacks on fire, with chemical materials most scientifically compounded. It has marched up to the door of my vicarage, a hundred and fifty strong; ordered me to surrender half my tithes; consumed all the provisions I had provided for my audit feast, and drunk up my old October. It has marched in through my back-parlour shutters, and out again with my silver spoons, in the dead of night. The policeman, who was sent down to examine, says my house has been broken open on the most scientific principles. All this comes of education* Mr. MacQuedy: I rather think it comes of poverty.

ibid., chap. VIII 100 Dr. Folliott: No, sir. Robbery perhaps comes of poverty, but scientific principles of robbery come of education. I suppose the learned friend has written a sixpenny treatise on mechanics, and the rascals who robbed me have been reading it*

When Canning succeeded Castlereagh who had committed suicide in 1822, Brougham deserted the Whigs for the Tory party, returning to the opposition upon Canning's death in 1827. In November, 1830, he assured the house that no change in the ad­ ministration could by any possibility affect him. There is a direct reference to this statement in the remark of Mr.Crotchet: Well, doctor, for your comfort, here is a declaration of the learned friend's that he will hever take office. Dr. Folliott: 40 Then, sir, he will be in office next week. On November 20 of the same year it was announced that Brougham was to be the Whig Lord Chancellor, and on November 22 he ac­ tually took his place on the woolsack. His title was Baron Brougham and Vaux, or, as Peacock suggests, his public assumption of the title of Guy Fawkes: Mr. Crotchet: As you predicted, your friend, the learned friend, is in office; he has also a title; he is now Sir Guy de Vaux. Dr. Folliott: Thank heaven for that: he is disarmed from further mischief. It is something, at any rate, to have that hollow and wind-shaken reed rooted up for ever from the field of public delusion.4i

39 ibid., chap. XVII,cf. chap* II« 40 ibid., chap. XVII. 41 ibid., chap. XVIII* 101 In discussing Peacock's satire of politics there is always the temptation to connect him with one party or the other. The early novels, Melincourt especially, contained satire aimed at the Tories: thus Peacock might be regarded as a Radical. In Crotchet Castle, on the other hand, he displays his contempt for aristocratical prejudice in the episode deal­ ing with the rabble-rout.42 Free trade is the object of his 43 attack in a passage in his last novel. This might be inter­ preted as a change of politics, from Liberal to Conservative; but Peacock was thinking, not of politics, but of slaves at the time when he was writing. It is best, therefore, not to iden­ tify Peacock with any party, but to consider him as one who was always ready to point out the incongruities of politics and hold them up to ridicule*

42 ibid., chap* XVIII. 43 T. L. Peacock, Gryll Grange, chap. XIX. 102

CHAPTER V

RACIAL PREJUDICES

From the point of view of Peacock's attacks upon the Scottish nation, it is somewhat amusing to find that he was baptized at the Scotch Kirk, London Wall. In his early novels he never misses an opportunity of ridiculing Scotchmen, roost of whom are "the traditional comic figures of the eighteenth century, coming to England to be introduced to boots and trou­ sers and to acquire 'walth and prosparity' by cheating its guileless inhabitants". The observation made by Dr. Johnson on these emigrant Scots well indicates the feelings of the average Englishman of his day. While at the Mitre tavern he happened to overhear a man named Ogilvie discoursing on the noble wild prospects of Scotland; to which he made the follow­ ing rejoinder: I believe, sir, you have a great many. Norway, too, has noble wild prospects; and Lapland is remarkable for prodigious wild prospects. But, sir, let me tell you, the noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees, is the high road that leads him to Englando

Peacock's description of Ebenezer MacCrotchet's sire gives some idea of how many of the men of that nation began the careers:

1 A. M. Freeman, Thomas Love Peacock, p. 282. 2 J. Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, (London: Collins Press), p* 163* 103 Ebenezer MacCrotchet, Esquire, was the London-born offspring of a worthy native of the "North Countrie", who had walked up to London on a commercial adventure, with all his surplus capital, not very neatly tied up in a not very clean handkerchief, suspended over his shoulder from the end of a hooked stick, extracted from the first hedge on his pilgrimage; and who, after having worked himself a step or two up the ladder of life, had won the virgin heart of the daughter of a highly respectable merchant of Duke's Place, with whom he inherited the honest fruits of a long series of ingenuous dealings.3 Having thus begun the narrative, Peacock cannot refrain from hitting at the Scotchman's ability to "make good": It is said, that a Scotchman returning home, after some years' residence in England, being asked what he thought of the English, answered: "They hanna ower muckle sense, but they are an unco braw people to live amang"; which would be a very good story, if it were not rendered apocryphal" by the Incredible circumstance of the Scotchman going back.4

Only a century before Peacock's day the Highland Scots were living in a semi-barbarous state. Rob Roy and The Lady of the Lake; to mention but two of Scott's works, present a picture of Scotland in the early days, and it is interesting to note the lawlessness of the chieftains and their clans. Peacock is always ready to remind the Scotch of his day of their comparatively late evolution from barbarism. Several instances will suffice to illustrate this: The narrow ledge, which formed the only natural access to the castle-rock, had been guarded by every impediment which the genius of fortification could oppose to the progress of the hungry Scot, who might be disposed, in his neighbourly way, to drop in without invitation and carouse at the ex­ pense of the owner, rewarding him, as usual for

3 T. L. Peacock, Crotchet Castle, chap* I. 4 ibid. 104 his extorted hospitality, by cutting his throat and setting fire to his house.0 While on his way to Melincourt to pay his respects to Anthelia, Sir Telegraph stays for the night at Redrose Abbey. He and Mr. Forester visit the stable: Sir Telegraph found this important part of the building capacious and well adapted for its pur­ pose, but did not altogether approve of its being totally masked by an old ivied wall, which had served in former times to prevent the braw and bonny Scot from making too free with the beeves of the pious fraternity.6 Further predatory tendencies of the Scot are duly noted in The Misfortunes of Elphin: The subjects of Gwythno defended themselves so well against the invaders of his dominions that after two or three inflictions of signal chastise­ ment, they limited their aggressions to coming quietly in the night, and vanishing before morning with cattle: an heroic operation, in which the pre­ eminent glory of Scotland renders the similar ex­ ploits of other nations not worth recording." The border town of Carlisle, where many a marauding Scot ended his career by swinging on a rope's end, furnishes Peacock with an occasion for some delightful humour: Caer Lleon was the merriest of places, and was commonly known by the name of Merry Caer Lleon; which the English ballad-makers, for the sake of the smoother sound, and confounding Cambria with Cumbria, most ignorantly or audaciously turned into Merry Carlisle; thereby emboldening a northern antiquary to set about proving that King Arthur was a Scotchman; according to the old principles of harry and foray, which gave Scotchmen a right to

5 T. L. Peacock, Melincourt, chap. I. 6 ibid., chap IV. 7 T. L. Peacock, The Misfortunes of Elphin, chap. I. 105 whatever they could find on the English border; though the English never admitted their title to anything there, excepting a halter in Carlisle.8

In the satirical ballad, Sir Proteus» the last form assumed by Proteus was that of a minstrel of the Scottish Border; and so great was the screech of the minstrel, Sir Walter Scott, that it startled Johnny Raw's (Southey's) mare, who reared up and threw him into the see. Sir Walter also ap­ pears in Paper Money Lyrics; this time to explain that his countrymen still carry on border warfare, in the shape of dis­ honest business transactions. Thomas Campbell's poem beginning with the lines - Ye Mariners of England That guard our native seas, is thus parodied: Ye kite-fliers of Scotland, Who live from home in ease; and ends with the expressive phrase - Mac Banquo's occupation's gone'.

Peacock had little patience with Scotchmen, most of whom he considered superficial and but half educated; and he was very much aware of their love of argument, "their inborn love of disputation", as he calls it, to which he must have been often subjected during his period of office at the East

ibid., chap. XII. 106 India House. These men, however, like Mr. Crotchet, always managed to make the best of their limited abilities:- Mr* Crotchet himself was eminently jolly, though by no means eminently learned. In the latter res­ pect he took after the great majority of the sons of his father's land; had a smattering of many things, and a knowledge of none; but possessed the true northern art of making the most of his intellectual harlequin's jacket, by keeping the best patches always bright and prominent.9

Though there can be no doubt that Peacock disliked the Scotch chiefly for their obtrusiveness, yet the fact that the reviewers belonged for the most part to that nation greatly intensified his antipathy. The reviewers had said of Shelley that he was "a rare prodigy of crime and pollution, whose look even might infect". When Byron wrote his Hours of Idleness. Brougham took it upon himself to write in the Edinburgh Review a criticism that was carping and ill-natured. Byron's answer appeared in the form of English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. unsurpassed by anything of its kind for its rapier-like attacks. The juxtaposition of the words "Scotch" and "Reviewers" happily expresses, in Peacock's case, the close connection between the objects of his dislike*

A change of attitude towards the Scotch, however, can be discerned even in Crotchet Castle, where Mr. MacQuedy (J* R. McCulloch), though disliked because of his political economy, is treated without any trace of bitterness. A

T. L. Peacock, Crotchet Castle, chap. I. cf. ibid., chap* VI* 107 similar change of attitude on Peacock's part has already been observed in the case of the clergy, whom Peacock began by abusing violently and finished by making his spokesmen. Gryll Grange, the last of his works, passes a favourable judg­ ment on Mr. MacBorrowdale,"an old friend of Mr. Gryll, a gen­ tleman who comprised in himself all that Scotland had ever been supposed to possess of mental, moral, and political phil­ osophy; 'And yet he bore it not about*; not 'as being loth to wear it out*, but because he held that there was a time for all things and that dinner was the time for joviality, and not 12 for argument. " This is in complete accord with Peacock's own sentiments, and may therefore be viewed in the light of an apology to the Scotch*

Among the poems that accompanied Palmyra (1806) was Levi Moses, termed by the reviewer "a vulgar Jew song", and dragged from its natural obscurity to be quoted in the Critical

Review: My fader cried 'clothesh' trough de shtreetsh as he vent, Dough he now shleeping under de shtone ish; He made by his bargainsh two hundred per shent, And dat way he fingered de monish* Mr. Crotchet had not only a Scotch accent and Scotch blood, but also some traces of Hebrew. Originally his name was Jfibenezar

MacCrotchet, but as he was

11 Samuel Butler, Hudibras* 12 T. L. Peacock, Gryll Grange, chap. XIII. 108 desirous to obliterate alike the Hebrew and Caledonian vestiges in his name, he signed him­ self E. M. Crotchet, which by degrees induced the majority of his neighbours to think that his name was Edward Matthew* Thereafter, says Peacock, he settled down as an English coun­ try gentleman, "as if his parentage had been as innocent of both Scotland and Jerusalem as his education was of Rome and Athens". His daughter, Miss Crotchet, was "tolerably good- looking; north of Tweed, or in Palestine, she would probably have been a beauty; - - - but she had a nose which rather too prominently suggested the idea of the tower of Lebanon, which looked towards Damascus". 3

Peacock undoubtedly detested Jews for their money-making tendencies, and in the few passages in which he mentions them, 1, he speaks of them contemptuously as "money-lending" or "rich". Finally, in Gryll Grange, he makes objection to the bestowing the honours of knighthood, a purely Christian institution, on Jews and Paynim; very worthy persons in themselves, and entitled to any mark of respect befitting their class, but not to one strictly and exclusively Christian; money-lenders, too, of all callings and most antipathetic to that of a true knight. This is followed by an uproarious poem called, The New Order of Chivalry, whose heroes are Sir Moses, Sir Aaron, Sir

Jamrama jee*

13 T. L. Peacock, Crotchet Castle, chap. I. 14 T. L. Peacock, Nightmare Abbey, chap. VI, IX. Melincourt, chap. XXX. 15 T. L. Peacock, Gryll Grange, chap. XVIII. 109

A good indication of how he regarded the French of his own day may be had from a remark of Scythrop's: A Frenchman is born in harness, ready saddled, bitted, and bridled, for any tyrant to ride. He will fawn under his rider one moment, and throw him and kick him to death the next; but another adventurer springs on his back, and by dint of whip and spur on he goes as before*^* In all his long life Peacock never once took a trip across the Channel, which is sufficient evidence that he thought the French not worth visiting. Only one or two jokes are made at their expense: A mermaid was taken in the year 1403 in a Dutch lake, and "was in every respect like a French woman, 17 except that she did not speak". To Mrs. Pinmoney Sir Oran has a very fashionable air. "Haut-tont French extraction, no doubt. And now I come to think of it, there is something very 18 French in his physiognomy".

Little reference is made to the Irish in the novels, but what little there is is contemptuous in tone and mocks at their pennilessness. Harum O'Scarum, Esquire, is described as "the sole proprietor of a vast tract of undrained bog in the county of Kerry". Because Anthelia Melincourt had ten thousand a year, it followed that there were both Irishmen and clergymen

16 T. L. Peacock, Nightmare Abbey, chap. XI. 17 ibid., chap. VII. 18 T. L. Peacock, Melincourt, chap. XV.

19 ibid., chap. VIII, 110 20 among her admirers. Marionetta's mother had run away with an Irish officer, with the result that "the lady's fortune disappeared in the first year: love, by natural consequence, disappeared in the second; the Irishman himself, by a still 21 more natural consequence, disappeared in the third."

In his remarks about the Germans Peacock confines him­ self mainly to making fun of their metaphysics and their literature. Indeed, Coleridge's vulnerability to Peacock's wit lies in his devotion to Kant's metaphysics. Mr. Flosky plunges into "the central opacity of Kantian metaphysics, and 2? lies 'perdu' several years in transcendental darkness": Mr. Mystic provides amusement by using phrases taken straight from the German philosophy: while Mr. Skionar differs with Mr. MacQuedy on the question of who discovered metaphysics: I cannot agree with you, Mr. MacQuedy, that you have found the true road of metaphysics, which the Athenians only sought. The Germans have found it, sir: the sublime Kant, and his disciples.*5* Goethe's novels are too gloomy in tone to suit Peacock's taste, and so they are ridiculed whenever the opportunity presents it­ self. After Scythropfs passion for Emily Gironette came to an

20 ibid*, chap. I* 21 T. L. Peacock, Nightmare Abbey, chap. III. 22 ibid., chap. I. 23 T. L. Peacock, Melincourt, chap. XXXI.

24 T. L. Peacock, Crotchet Castle, chap. II. Ill end, he entertained himself by reading, among other things, German tragedies, on the recommendation of Mr. Flosky. He would take his evening seat beside a ruined wall, - "a thick canopy of ivy, with an owl in it, over his head, - and the Sorrows of Werter in his hand."25 Further reference to Goethe's novels is made in the description of young Crotchet, whose physiognomy was left blighted, sallowed, and crow's- footed, to a degree not far below that of the fallen spirit who, in the expressive language of German romance, is described as "scathed by the ineradicable traces of the thunderbolts of Heaven". In Gryll Grange the dictum of Porson, that "life is too short to learn German", evokes from Dr. Opimian (Peacock) 27 the comment that "he never had any velleity towards German".

Between 1810 and 1813 Peacock spent considerable time in Wales, so that he had the opportunity of studying the people and their customs close at hand. On taking leave of Merioneth­ shire he had written a strange little poem in which such un­ favourable lines appear: Long as disgusted virtue flies From folly, drunkenness and lies: Long as insulted science shuns The steps of thy degraded sons;

25 T. L. Peacock, Nightmare Abbey, chap. II., cf. also chap. X., XIV. 26 T. L. Peacock, Crotchet Castle, chap. I. 27 T. L. Peacock, Gryll Grange, chap. III. 112 but it is quite probable that he was writing in this vein because of ,the conduct of a clergyman whom he had met there. In Headlong Hall, whose location is in Wales, Peacock makes numerous references to that people. He obviously finds them rather ludicrous, and makes their pride of ancestry the sub­ ject of ridicule on numerous occasions. The mythical line of the Ap-Headlongs he traces down from the time of the flood - "Harry Headlong, Esquire, of Headlong Hall, in the vale of Llanberris, the only surviving male representative of the antediluvian family of Headlong Ap-Rhaiader".28 When Squire Headlong mentions one of the daughters of Chromatic,the mus­ ician, as his choice in marriage, his old aunt is horrified at the thought of an alliance with "a Saxon", and turns up her nose very distastefully. * Elsewhere Peacock pokes fun, in a kindly way, at their comparative lack of learning: Harry Headlong, Esquire, was, like all other Welsh squires, fond of shooting, hunting, racing, drinking, and other such innocent amusements; but, unlike other Welsh squires, he had actually suf­

fered certain phenomena, calle• .d books, to find their way into his house . 3^ Welsh poetry must have been quite amusing to Peacock; as is indicated when he speaks of the poems of Taliesin, "which have neither head nor tail, and which, having no sense in any other 31 point of view ..." The Triads, with their gnomic wisdom,

28 T. L. Peacock, Headlong Hall, chap. XIII, cf.also chap. XI, XIV* 29 ibid., chap. XIV. 30 ,.,. ibid., chap. I. T. L. Peacock, The Misfortunes of Elphin, chap. VI 113

he imitates only with a view t0 humour: "This was the kiss of Taliesin to the daughter of Elphin, which is celebrated in an inedited triad, as one of 'the Three Chaste Kisses of the Island of Britain'".?2; end: "This slap is recorded in the Bardic Triads as one of the Three Fatal Slaps of the Island of Britain".'53 The mysteries of the Druidic religion he somewhat contemptuously regards as "a quantity of allegori- cal mummery".0* In spite of all this, however, he probably had a genuine liking for the Welsh, ~ Welsh scenery certainly did inspire him, - and in addition there is the fact that Wales was the birthplace of his wife; only he did refuse to see them as different from the rest of the human species.

That Peacock htd no liking for the black race is indi­ cated by a remark in Gryll Grange: "In St. Domingo the Negro has taken the place of the Caraib. The change is clearly for the worse*"3^ On that island the Negroes, after the proclama­ tion of their freedom by the French Revolutionists, rose up against the whites and threatened the whole race in the Archi­ pelago. The island of St. Domingo became the scene of unsur­ passable horrors*

32 ibid., chap. VIII. 33 ibid., chap. XVI. °*ibid., chap. VI. 35 T. L, Peacock, Gryll Grange, chap. XIX. 114 It is not an exaggeration to say that behind all of Peacockfs racial prejudices there lay a deep-rooted love of England; not, perhaps, the England of his own day, but the England of the past. Though it is true that Mr. Chainmail is gently ridiculed by the author, yet this character acts in many instances as Peacock's interpreter. The people of the twelfth century were not, and could not be, subjected to that powerful pressure of all the other classes of society, combined by gunpowder, steam, and "fiscality",^which has brought them to that dismal degradation in which we see them now.3$ Peacock could not understand why people took pleasure in going abroad: to him most countries on the Continent were past all hope of regeneration. The remark made by Mr* List­ less, that "the most ecdentric and original of all characters is an Englishman who stays at home", is nothing more than 37 Peacockfs own description of himself.

36 T. L. Peacock, Crotchet Castle, chap. IX, 37 T. L. Peacock, Nightmare Abbey, chap. XI. 115

CONCLUSION

With the publication of Crotchet Castle (1831), Peacock's literary activity came almost to a standstill for many years. He became more absorbed in business, and, as a consequence,extended his acquaintance with public men; thus he had little or no time to devote to writing. Still, be­ tween 1831 and 1851 he did publish several articles in The London Review, and began, but abandoned, the autobiographical Chertsey. whose material was used for the Recollections of Childhood. All the productions of his old age appeared in the pages of Fraserfs Magazine.

Gryll Grange was published in serial form thirty years after Crotchet Castle. The remarkable thing about the novel is its lack of bitterness; oy now Peacock had become more and more fond of passing his time in the garden, or in conversing with his friends, and was tending to care less about public affairs. His old enemies, the Tories, have vanished and given place to the Conservatives: the name must surely be a mis­ nomer, he says, "forsooth, a nil conservando". Then follows a remark on a perversion of words, of which there is an inex­ haustible catalogue, a glass of Madeira being the only thing "which is really what it Is called".1 Brougham is still his "bete noire", with a new title, Lord Facing-both-ways. He has

T. L. Peacock, Gryll Grange, chap. I. 116 long ago abandoned the party which had founded such high hopes on him, and now spends his time making speeches and giving harangues to the Pantopragmatic Scoiety (Social Science Society): "Why, Lord Michin Malicho (John Russell), Lord Facing-both- ways, and two or three other arch-quacks, have taken to merry- andrewising in a new arena, which they call the Science of Pan- 2 topragmatics". Lord John Russell, who thirty years before was the Gracchus of Reform, introduced a bill in 1854 to reform the abuses left intact by the Bill of 1832, but withdrew it when Lord Palmerston threatenedto resign. He therefore may be called "the Sisyphus of the present*. Peacock is bitterly disappointed with America, "to which we are indebted for nothing but evil . . . Look at their Congress and their Courts of Justice . . * Look at their extensions of slavery, and their revivals of the slave- trade ..." The latter he admits to be the fault of our friends of liberty,.under the pretext of free trade. The effects of popular education are beginning to show themselves: people now make speeches with education as their subject, - one which has "no beginning, middle, nor end. Never was such a journey through the desert of mind: the Great Sahara of intellect". Lastly there is the Competitive Examination which takes for its norm: "It is better to learn many things ill than one thing well".4

In spite of these unpleasant considerations the characters

2 ibid., chap. VIII* 3 ibid*, chap. XVIII* 4 ibid., chap. XIX, XV. 117 of Gryll Grange pass a serene existence. Where there was argument in the earlier novels, there is now discussion in this, his last. Gryll Grange may be said to typify Halliford where Peacock spent the last years of his life; and, just as surely, the Reverend Dr. Opimian is none other than the author himself. A glance at the description of the Doctor's house­ hold will at once justify this statement;5 but the strongest evidence of all may be had from the description of Mr. Falconer's library, which gives the exact information of Peacock's own studies: "The books of the lower circle were all classical; those of the upper, English, Italian,and French, with a few volumes in Spanish". Peacock had begun to learn Spanish in the last few years of his life, probably owing to the influence of Shelley, whose favourite works in that language were the Autos of Calderon. Peacock expresses his opinion on that author in his Memoirs of Shelley. Shelley had written a letter to Mr. Gisborne, saying: "I am bathing myself in the light and odour of the starry 'Autos'. I have read them all more than once". Peacock explains the statement thus: "These were Calderon's religious dramas, being of the same class as those which were called 'Mysteries' in France and England, but of a far higher order of poetry than anything the latter ever at­ tained".7 The one quotation in Spanish in all Peacock's writ-

ibid., chap. II• Ibid., chap. III. T. L. Peacock, Memoirs of Shelley, p. 73* 118 ings is to be found at the head of chap. XXVIII of Gryll Grange,

Dr. Opimian is not the only important character in Gryll Grange; there is another, Mr. Falconer, who represents Peacock's friend of forty years ago, Shelley, Mr. Falconer is presented to the reader by Dr. Opimian, who comes upon him in the course of a ramble. One remembers that in Melincourt. Sir Telegraph (Jefferson Hogg) met Mr* Forester during his journey to the place of that name. In each case, again, the wanderer comes upon a place lately deserted, but now enclosed and inhabited. The similarity of treatment is too striking to be accidental. In Gryll Grange Mr. Falconer relates the story of Lord Noirmont, a character in a novel of Charles Brockden Brown8: in the Memoirs Peacock states that Shelley was espec- 9 ially fond of the novels of Brown* Lastly, Mr. Falconer, in love with Morgana, visits a forest dell in order to rid himself of the obsession of her image10: the description of the spot corresponds with that of the Bourne, In The Last Day of Wind­ sor Forest* a place which Peacock had not seen since he was in the habit of visiting it with Shelley.

Peacock had written the Memoirs of Shelley shortly be­ fore writing Gryll Grange* The inference to be drawn is that

T* L. Peacock, Gryll Grange, chap. IV* T. L. Peacock, Memoirs of Shelley, p. 35*

T. L. Peacock, Gryll Grange, chap* XII* 119 in reading his friend's correspondence once more, Peacock became so much under the influence of Shelley and so much with him in thought, that he reincarnated him in his last novel. Mr* Falconer bears a strong resemblance to Shelley, or to what Shelley would have been like, had he lived; his devotion to ideal beauty, and his tendency to live in the immaterial, rather than the material, world are explicitly set forth in Gryll Grange. Certain of Mr. Falconer's re­ marks will Illustrate this: "Our happiness is not in what is, but in what is to be .. * I think I can clearly distin­ guish devotion to ideal beauty from superstitious belief. I feel the necessity of some such devotion to fill up the void 12 which the world, as it is, leaves in my mind. . . It is not my own world that I complain of. It is the world on which I look 'from the loopholes of retreat'".13 'The image of Mr* Falconer looking upon the world "from the loopholes of retreat" is reminiscent of Scythrop in Nightmare Abbey, but it is some­ thing more: it is a repetition of what Peacock had written about Shelley in the Memoirs: I can conceive him, if he had lived to the present time, passing his days like Volney, looking on the world from his windows without taking part in its turmoils; and perhaps like the same, or some other great apostle of liberty (for I cannot at this moment verify the quotation), desiring that nothing should be inscribed on his tomb, but his name, the

ibid., chap. IV* 2 ibid., chap. IX* 3 ibid., chap. XI* 120 dates of his birth and death, and the single word, 'Desillusionn6'".14 Thus, with the memory of his friend Peacock ends up his life as a novelist, just as he had begun it with his company.

It is always an interesting study to trace the course of a person's life from its beginning to its conclusion. In Pea­ cock's case this is almost impossible owing to the scanty material at one's disposal; for the records of his existence, even if placed in close juxtaposition, would hardly fill out ten years. In spite of this it is possible to observe how his early years influenced his artistic and intellectual develop­ ment. At first, conventional poetry claimed his attention and efforts, but the results were unsuccessful. It was during this period of his life that he met Shelley, through contact with whom Peacock turned aside from poetry and found his true bent. The early novels were the direct outcome of this friendship. The years spent at the East India House were of great value to his development, for, although they absorbed much of his time and energy, yet they widened his outlook and afforded him the experience necessary to produce his last satirical novel, Crotchet Castle. The two romances, Maid Marian and The Misfor- tunes of KLphin, belong to this period. During the long succeed­ ing portion of his life, he produced a few reviews, some articles 121

of personal interest, chief among which are his recollections of Shelley, and, lastly, the conversation-romance of his old age, Gryll Grange*

The satire of his novels is not, as a general rule, of a harsh nature, although Peacock does give vent to his rage at the mention of Southey and Broughan. What Peacock writes is motivated more by a spirit of humour than of bitterness* Never considering himself a reformer, he does not attempt to improve conditions. All his life he remained aloof from the world as much as he could, and preferred to look upon it, and those that peopled it, with mirth and laughter. In his old age, with manifestations of change everywhere at hand, most of which appeared to him for the worse, he is complacent enough to say: "Happily, quiet virtues are all around us, and obtrusive virtues seldom cross our path. On the whole, I agree in opinion with Theseus, that there is more good than n 15 evil in the world.

15 T. L. Peacock, Gryll Grange, chap. VII. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Peacock, Thomas Love. Novels. London, George Newnes Ltd. Peacock, Thomas Love. Novels. London, George Routledge. Vol.1, II Peacock, Thomas Love. Novels, with Introduction by George Saintsbury. London, Macmillan & Co. 1890. Boswell, James. The Life of Samuel Johnson. London, Collins. Bawd^iitadH, &• c. & Fotheringham, J. K. The History of England from Addington's Administration to the Close of William IV s Reign (1801 - 1837). London, Longman's Green & Co. 1906* Freeman, A* Martin. Thomas Love Peacock, A Critical Study* London, Martin Seeker. 1907. Gide, Chas. & Rist, Chas* A History of Economic Doctrines, trans­ lated by R. Richards. Boston, D. C. Heath. 1913. Lang, Andrew. Oxford. London, Seeley Service & Co., Ltd. 1902* The Paper Pound of 1797 - 1821; a Reprint of the Bullion Report, with Introduction by Edwin Cannan. London, P. S. King & Son. 1925. Peacock, Thomas Love. Memoirs of Shelley, ed. by H. F* B* Brett- Smith* London, Frowde. 1909. Priestley, J. B. Thomas Love Peacock. London, Macmillan & Co* 1907. Somervell, D. C. English Thought in the Nineteenth Century. London, Methuen & Co. 1929. Trevelyan, G. M. British History in the Nineteenth Century. New York, Longman's Green & Co. 1922* Woodward, E. L* The Age of Reform. Oxford, Clarendon Press. 1939*