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University Microfilms International 300 N. ZEEB RD., ANN ARBOR. Ml 48106 8128989

D i n i t z, Su s a n M arie

"HENRY ESMOND" AND "THE VIRGINIANS": NOVELS WITHOUT HEROES?

The Ohio Stale University Ph.D. 1981

University Microfilms

International 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106

Copyright 1981 by Dinitz, Susan Marie All Rights Reserved HENRY ESMOND AND THE VIRGINIANS;

NOVELS WITHOUT HEROES?

DISSERTATION

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for

the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate

School of The Ohio State University

By

Susan Marie Dinitz, B.A., M.A.

* * * * *

The Ohio State University

1981

Reading Committee: Approved hy

Dr. Richard Altick

Dr. Arnold Shapiro Adviser Dr. James Phelan Department of English To Dr. Richard D. Altick for enabling me to experience the joys of a scholar adventurer

i i VITA

Sept. 29, 1952. . Born - Akron, Ohio

1 9 7 ^ ...... B.A., Ohio Wesleyan University

1975-1980 Teaching Associate, The Ohio State University Columbus, Ohio

1976 M.A., The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio

1980-1981 Lecturer, The University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont

FIELDS OF STUDY

Major Field: Nineteenth-Century British Literature

Victorian Literature. Professor Richard D. Altick

Rhetoric and Composition. Professor Edward P. J. Corbett

Renaissance Literature. Professor Edwin Robbins

American Literature to 1900. Professor Richard Weatherford

i i i TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page DEDICATION...... ii

VITA ...... iii

INTRODUCTION ...... 1

Chapter

I. THE THACKERAY BACKGROUND: THACKERAY AND THE HISTORICAL ROMANCE ...... 5

II. THE VICTORIAN HISTORICAL ROMANCE

The Hero and The Plot...... 20 The Fair Heroine...... ^7 The Dark Heroine...... 6l The Villain...... 69

III. THE HISTORY OF HENRY ESMOND: HENRY'S ATTEMPT AT AN HISTORICAL ROMANCE ...... 81

IV. THE VIRGINIANS: ANOTHER NOVEL WITHOUT A HERO?...... 138

V. THE USE OF HISTORY...... 155

History in the Victorian Historical Romance. . 156 History in Henry Esmond...... 172 History in The Virginians...... '. . 182

FOOTNOTES...... 193

BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 201

iv INTRODUCTION

Though widely acclaimed as a masterpiece ever since its publication

in 1852, Thackeray’s Henry Esmond has continually posed difficulties in

interpretation. The violent objection of a reviewer in Blackwood's

Magazine to the marriage of Rachel and Esmond echoes that of many

contemporary critics: "our most sacred sentiments are outraged, and our best prejudices shocked .... This error is monstrous and unredeemable."^

Some contemporary reviewers, perceiving Thackeray's portrayal of Rachel

or Esmond or both as ironic, condemned Thackeray for his jaundiced view 2 of life. Others, failing to see any irony in the novel, praised

3 Thackeray for finally creating a noble hero and heroine.

The question of whether or not, in Esmond. Thackeray was being

ironic still divides modem critics. Some question the reliability of

Esmond as narrator, finding evidence in the novel that Henry's memoir is actually an attempt at self-justification, an attempt to make himself

into a hero by discrediting those surrounding him. Rather than being the

culmination of Henry's education, his marriage to Rachel, according to

these critics, marks his regression into the safety of his mother's arms.

And rather than being the "crowning fulfillment of his life," this marriage results in the "bankruptcy of his heart" mentioned in The

Virginians. Juliet McMaster offers the most extended ironic reading of

the novel, which she conveniently summarizes:

1 2

If ... we read the novel as a sustained piece of dramatic irony, we notice not so much the god-like attributes as the wish to appear god-like. His humility is inverted pride, and his self- abnegation an elaborate glorification of self. He renounces a title because he finds more satisfaction in the debt than the ownership. He keeps two women at his feet by maintaining a pose of being at theirs, and he takes a secret pleasure in his knowledge of their adoration while pretending to be unaware of it. And, far from growing to maturity, he finally fulfils the infantile impulse to marry his mother.5

On the other hand, many readers take the narrative at face value, accepting Henry's estimation of himself. These critics often view the novel as a bildungsroman, in which Henry learns that the glittering world represented by Beatrix and the Pretender is only paste and that love alone has genuine value. Henry's choice of Rachel over Beatrix and retirement from the world of strife and ambition to a New World of domestic bliss is, according to these critics, the fitting conclusion to the novel.^

Robert Colby, in a review of Thackeray criticism, concludes that many of the "problems" in interpreting Esmond result from failure to view 7 the novel in its original rhetorical context. The nature of Thackeray's work prior to Esmond suggests that knowledge of the rhetorical context does allow a fuller appreciation of his fiction. In a 1963 dissertation,

Chauncey Loomis studies Thackeray's work up through Vanity Fair and warns readers that Thackeray's

own art was reactional in basis; he was constantly reacting against the prevailing state of things, and his reaction took the form of satiric realism. Appealing mainly to common sense, he roundly condemned the unnatural in fiction, poetry, political propaganda, and painting. Against the romantic ideal and the sentimental unnatural, he increasingly offered a form of realism which was essentially satiric in roots. ... Certainly in Thackeray's hands realism became a satiric weapon, laying open the inner pulp of degenerated romantic art. Even in his later fiction, claims Loomis,

Thackeray's realism is largely satiric in impulse, and its source is to be found in his early reaction against romantic fiction. In his realism Thackeray constantly, if often only implicitly, satirized what he considered to be the delusions of romantic art and thought.9

Appreciation of Thackeray's satiric intent in works prior to Esmond.

then, depends partly on a familiarity with the popular fiction of the

day. Gordon Ray points out that from the first, Thackeray "operated on

the bold assumption that his readers were alert, intelligent, and

literate ...... He expected his readers to appreciate the wicked

fidelity with which he parodied the fiction and poetry of the day."^

This dissertation proposes that knowledge of the historical romances

so eagerly devoured by readers in the 1830's and 40's results in a fuller

appreciation and more accurate understanding of Thackeray's intent and

achievement in Henry Esmond. and more specifically, that such a knowledge

allows a reader to see how in Esmond, as in his previous works,

Thackeray's realistic vision is achieved through implicit satire of popular romantic fiction. Several of the critics who read Esmond as a

bildungsroman allege that the novel, with its noble hero and happy ending,

differs from the rest of Thackeray's fiction. The reading of many

Victorian historical romances leads me to conclude instead that Esmond

is typical Thackeray— that is, ironic.

In the first chapter, I attempt to show how familiarity with

Thackeray's work prior to Esmond encourages the reader to consider an

ironic interpretation of the novel, in particular, one based upon

Thackeray's implicit satire of the popular historical romance. Then,

since most readers will lack the time and patience to read through a dozen-odd of these romances, in the second chapter I outline their conventions before presenting, in the third, an extended ironic reading of the novel. As The Virginians is a sequel to Henry Esmond. the light which this approach sheds upon that novel is examined in chapter four.

And in the concluding chapter, Thackeray's use of history in these two novels is also viewed in the context of the Victorian historical romance. CHAPTER ONE

The Thackeray Background: Thackeray and the Historical Romance

Thackeray's reaction against popular romantic fiction, including the historical romance, was based upon intimate knowledge. Gordon Ray reports that at Charterhouse School, Thackeray preferred contemporary fiction to Latin and Greek. And at Cambridge, "The most serious, because the most constant, interruption of Thackeray's work was his habit of desultory reading of ... modern literature. But Thackeray was not to be diverted from what had already become for him a passion rather than a pastime."^ Wherever we follow the young Thackeray, to

Paris, Germany, or back to London, we find him devouring novels. In letters written between 1829 and 1832, he mentions reading many historical romances, including Scott's Waverley, Castle Dangerous. and

Quentin Durward; Bulwer's Devereux: Leitch Ritchie's The Romance of

History: France: Cooper's Bravo; Paul Lacroix' Roi des Ribauds; Hugo's

The Hunchback of Notre Dame; and another French historical romance,

Chroniques de l'Oeil de Boeuf.

When the loss of his patrimony, lack of success as an artist, and marriage to Isabella Shawe inspired Thackeray to turn to journalism for a living, he turned his passion for popular fiction to practical advantage. He became a reviewer of novels, histories, travel books, memoirs, and diaries, among other things, for Fraser's Magazine and eventually for the Times. the Foreign Quarterly Review. Punch, the 6

Morning Chronicle. and several other newspapers and journals. These

reviews further indicate his familiarity with popular historical

romances. For example, in a review of Treasure Trove. by his friend * * Charles Lever, he mentions several of the conventional plot elements:

It is an historical romance in due form,— a romance of war, and love, and fun, and sentiment, and intrigue, and escape, and rebellion. I have but the dozen first numbers, and the thirteenth of the series is to complete the tale; but the question is, how on earth is it to be finished? It is true the wicked rival has been done for— that circumstances look pros­ perously enough for the hero— that he has saved the heroine from a proper number of dangers, and made himself agreeable to her father; all this is very well. But the hero's name is Corkerv. ...young Ned Corkery must be found to be somebody else ’ s son than his father ’ s, the old grocer of Galway. The novel carries us back to the year 17^5» when the respected Mr. Edward Waverley distinguished himself in the service of his late Royal Highness the Pretender ....

The same article includes reviews of two more historical romances and

alludes to William Ainsworth's The Miser's Daughter.*

Furthermore, Thackeray's reviews suggest the basis for his

objections to romantic art. Whether reviewing a novel, a play, a work

of history, or a painting, he measures it against two standards:

whether it is "true to life," which in the case of historical romances

means whether the manners of the age, historical events, and historical

figures are accurately portrayed, and whether it is moral. Hence,

Thackeray condemns romantic works which he reviews chiefly on two grounds: their falseness to nature and their immorality.

Most French plays and novels, for example, are rejected in

Thackeray's reviews as immoral. In "French Dramas and Melodramas,"

he classifies the French drama into three types: classical, which is

Indeed, Ainsworth and Thackeray were friends; in I836 Thackeray was engaged to illustrate Ainsworth's Crichton, but his courtship and marriage proved too time consuming. too stylized, too unrealistic to move contemporary audiences; the

"comedy of the day," written mostly by Scribe, in which the seventh commandment is always broken; and the Drama, written by Hugo and Dumas, of which he complains: "If Monsieur Scribe's plays may be said to be so many ingenious examples how to break one commandment, the drame is a grand and general chaos of them all; nay, several crimes axe added, not

3 prohibited in the Decalogue, which was written before dramas were."

In "Madame Sand and the New Apocalypse," he describes Lelia as "a regular topsyturvyfication of morality, a thieves' and prostitutes' apotheosis." k On the other hand, in "On Some French Fashionable

Novels," he applauds Monsieur de Bernard's novels for their accurate portrayal of French manners. Yet, he complains, Bernard's novels are

"filled with the remarkable naif contempt of the institution called marriage" typical of the French.^

Similarly, the "topsyturvification" of morality in the Newgate novel received the lash of Thackeray's critical whip on more than one occasion and started Thackeray on a vendetta against Bulwer. In a review of Fielding's works, he attributes the immorality of Ainsworth's

Jack Sheppard to its inaccurate portrayal of real life; because decorum

(or a squeamish audience) prevented Ainsworth from painting vice as it is, Ainsworth was forced to make vice attractive and so produced a novel infinitely more immoral than the truth:

Vice is never to be mistaken for virtue in Fielding's honest downright books; it goes by its name, and invariably gets its punishment. See the consequences of honesty! Many a squeamish lady of our time would fling down one of these romances with horror, but would go through every page of Mr. Ainsworth's Jack Sheppard with perfect comfort to herself. Ainsworth dared not paint his hero as the scoundrel he knew him to be; he must keep his brutalities in the background, else the public morals 8

will be outraged, and so he produces a book quite absurd and unreal, and infinitely more immoral than anything Fielding ever g wrote. Jack Sheppard is immoral actually because it is decorous.

In ’’Thieves’ Literature of France," he condemns Eugene Sue's Les

Mysteres de Paris on the same bases s

... it contains sham incidents (so to speak), sham terror, sham morality .... As for the plot, it is scarcely worth while to examine its construction, so absurdly and monstrously improbable is it. ... Such characters are quite too absurd to reason about, and such a plot passes all the bounds of possibility. To give such a story a moral tendency is quite as absurd as to invent it. We have no right to be interested with the virtues of ruffianism, or to be called upon to sympathize with innocent prostitution. A person who chooses to describe such characters, should make us heartily hate them at once, as 7 Fielding did, whose indignation is the moral of his satire.

As these reviews suggest, Thackeray admired the novels of Fielding for their realism and, by his reasoning, for their consequent morality.

Fielding, he claims, "gives a strong, real picture of human life, and the virtues which he exhibits shine out by their contrasts with the vices which he paints so faithfully, as they never could have done, if Q the latter had not been depicted as well as the former."

In reviews of the fine arts, "truth to reality" is the chief measuring stick against which Thackeray holds up various paintings.

Michael Angelo Titmarsh always examines the accuracy of the costumes;

"a painter," says Thackeray, "should be as careful about his costumes as an historian about his dates, or he plays the deuce with his 9 composition." And on this point, the French artists merit much more applause than the English. In "May Gambols," he observes that

The characters in our artists' history-pieces, as indeed on our theatres, do not look commonly accustomed to the dresses which they assume; wear them awkwardly, take liberties of alteration and adjustment, and spoil thereby the truth of the delineation. The French artists, on the canvas or the boards, understand this branch of their art much better.-*-® 9

It is for the falseness of -heir heroics that Thackeray condemns historical paintings. In "Picture Gossip," Michael Angelo Tltmarsh tells the story of a young student of "high art" at Rome who attends an exhibition :

At the tragic, swaggering, theatrical, historical pictures, he yawned; before some of the grand flashy landscapes, he stood without the least emotion; but before some quiet scenes of humour or pathos, or some easy little copy of nature, the youth stood in pleased contemplation .... "These little pictures," said he, on being questioned, "are worth a hundred times more than the big ones. In the latter you see signs of ignorance of every kind .'... Their heroism is borrowed from the theatre, their sentiment is so maudlin that it makes you sick. I see no symptoms of thought or of minds strong and genuine enough to cope with elevated subjects. No individuality, no novelty, the decencies of costume" ( ... they were dressed out of all historical propriety) "are dis­ regarded; the people are striking attitudes, as at the Coburg. ... If, however, the aspiring men don't succeed, the modest do; and what they have really seen or experienced, our artists can depict with successful accuracy and delightful skill.^

Thus he applauds English painters for deserting the old historical school and its false heroics for more familiar subjects which they can paint truthfully, from nature:

I think every succeeding year shows a progress in the English school of painters. They paint from the heart more than of old, and less from the old heroic, absurd, incomprehensible unattainable rules. They look at Nature very hard, and match her with the best of their eyes and ability. They do not aim at such great subjects as heretofore, or at subjects which the world is pleased to call great, viz., tales from Hume or Gibbon of royal personages under various circumstances of battle, murder, and sudden death. ...The heroic, and peace be with itI has been deposed; and our artists, in place, cultivate the pathetic and familiar. ... The younger painters are content to exercise their art on subjects far less exalted .... Nor surely ought one to quarrel at all with this prevalent mode. It is at least natural, which the heroic was not. 10

Thackeray criticizes histories and historical romances, like historical paintings, for their false heroics. In "The Last Fifteen

Years of the Bourbons," his own attempt at a "serious" history, he observes,"The muse of history has been represented to us hitherto as a grave personagej narrating the events of which she has to take

cognizance, in sounding periods, and treating with solemn hypocrisy the 13 hypocrites with whom she has to deal." In a review of The Duchess of

Marlborough's Private Correspondence. he describes the reality behind history's hypocritical mask through an analogy to the theatres

The dignity of history sadly diminshes as we grow better acquainted with the materials which compose it. In our orthodox history-books the characters move on as a gaudy play-house procession, a glittering pageant of kings and warriors, and stately ladies, majestically appearing and passing away. Only he who sits very near to the stage can discover of what stuff the spectacle is made. The kings are poor creatures, taken from the dregs of the company; the noble knights are dirty dwarfs in tin foil; the fair ladies are painted hags with cracked feathers and soiled trains. One wonders how gas and distance could ever have rendered them so bewitching. The perusal of letters like these produces a very similar disenchantment; and the great historical figures dwindle down into the common proportions as we come to view them so closely. Kings, Ministers and Generals form the principal dramatis personae; and if we may pursue the stage comparison a little further, eye never lighted upon a troop more contemptible.^

The remainder of the article supports his conclusion that "In spite of all the bright achievements recorded in the reign of Anne, there is not, we think, a meaner page in our past history ...." But Thackeray perhaps best reveals the true nature of heroism in his long meditation on

Louis XV in The Paris Sketch Book, about whom he comments:

But a king is not every inch a king, for all the poet may say; and it is curious to see how much precise majesty there is in that majestic figure of Ludovicus Rex. In the plate opposite, we have endeavored to make the exact calculation. 11

The idea of kingly dignity is equally strong in the two outer figures; and you see, at once, that majesty is made out of the wig, the high-heeled shoes, and cloak, all fleurs-de-lis bespangled. ...Thus do barbers and cobblers make the gods that we worship ....1-5

Finally, in Notes of a Journey from Gornhill to Grand Cairo.

Thackeray wishes to expose the reality behind the romanticized heroic view of the middle ages popularized by Scott. The Turks, he claims, were better Christians than the chivalrous knights; and

as far as I can get at the authentic story, Saladin is a pearl of refinement compared to the brutal beef-eating Richard— about whom Sir Walter Scott has led all the world astray. When shall we have a real account of those times and heroes— no good-humoured pageant, like those of the Scott romances— but a real authentic story to instruct and frighten honest people of the present day, and make them thankful that the grocer governs the world now in place of the baron?

Thackeray had begun such an account in 1841 in his "The Knights of

Borsellen," which, says Ray, "reproduces something of the violence, grossness, and cruelty that he had found in Brant&me, Froissart, and 17 Monstrelet." But this historical romance was never completed. 12

As Thackeray objects to the heroic view of history as false, he correspondingly insists on accuracy, on truthfulness, when reviewing historical novels and plays. In "English History and Character on the

French Stage," he corrects a few of the historical inaccuracies in

Scribe's play Le Verre d'Eau, commenting that

Such secondary facts merge in the odiously false colouring given to the whole reign and time. We are willing to allow a very wide license to writers of fiction, when they take up incidents of history not clearly determined, or motives of character not positively ascertained. But M. Scribe transgresses all ordinary bounds ....1°

He concludes "M. Scribe turns history into a sad farce. His licenses bring art itself into contempt. If any subject might thus be trifled with, fictitious writing would cease to be regarded as a medium of 19 truth of any kind." Alexandre Dumas's Excursions sur les bords du

Rhin is criticized on the same grounds: "the information is not in the least to be relied upon, the facts being distorted and caricatured according as the author's furious imagination may lead him. History and the world are stages to him, and melodramas or most bloody tragedies, 20 the pieces acted."

Thackeray criticizes Scribe not only for inaccuracy, but also for immorality. Le Verre d'Eau is "a lie against history, as it is a lie against morals"; "Scribe is as bad a teacher of morals as he is an 21 unwise and unsafe illustrator of history." On the other hand, though the history of Dumas's book cannot be trusted, ladies may safely read it. Thackeray applauds this advance: "However, to do the dramatist justice, ... he has grown more moral too, and decent, so that ladies 22 ... may, on the whole, find it possible to read him." 13

It is on the basis of these critical standards— truth and morality

— that Thackeray places fiction on a higher level than histories themselves. To him, "history" meant social history; and in his essay on

Steele in The English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century, he suggests that he makes this identification because only manners can be truthfully portrayed:

What do we look for in studying the history of a past age? Is it to learn the political transactions and characters of the leading public men? is it to make ourselves acquainted with, the life and being of the time? If we set out with the former grave purpose, where is the truth, and who believes that he has it entire? What character of what great man is known to you? You can but make guesses as to character more or less happy.

i i • I take up a volume of Doctor Smollett, or a volume of the Spectator, and say the fiction carries a greater amount of truth in solution than the volume which purports to be all true. Out of the fictitious book I get the expression of the life of the time; of the manners, of the movement, the dress, the pleasures, the laughter, the ridicules of society — the old times live again, and I travel in the old country of England. Can the heaviest historian do more for me?

In "On Some French Fashionable Novels," he again elevates fiction over history for its greater ability \,o convey the spirit of life at the time:

I am sure that a man who, a hundred years hence, should sit down to write the history of our time, would do wrong to put that great contemporary history of "Pickwick" aside as a frivolous work. It contains true character under false names; and, ... gives us a better idea of the state and ways of the people than one could gather from any more pompous or authentic histories.

Thackeray, then, made the same plea for social history as did Macaulay in his History of England. several years before Macaulay began publishing his work. 14

In the article on French fashionable novels mentioned above,

Thackeray takes histories to task for their inability to have a moral effect on the readers

... the novelist has a loud, eloquent, instructive language, though his enemies may despise or deny it ever so much. What is more, one could, perhaps, meet the stoutest historian on his own ground, and argue with him; showing that sham histories were much truer than real histories; which are, in fact, mere contemptible catalogues of names and places, that can have no moral effect upon the reader .^5

These sentiments are echoed in The Second Funeral of Napoleon. in which he values the fictions written by Goldsmith and Smollett over their histories because the former are "true and instructive pictures of 26 human life." Of histories in general, he complains:

It is no easy task in this world to distinguish between what is great in it, and what is mean; and many and many is the puzzle that I have had in reading History (or the works of fiction which go by that name) , to know whether I should laud up to the skies, and endeavor, to the best of my small capabilities, to imitate the remarkable character about whom I was reading, or whether I should fling aside the book and the hero of it, as things altogether base, unworthy, laughable, and get a novel, ... or any other employment which would leave the mind in a state of easy vacuity, rather than pester it with a vain set of dates relating to actions which are in themselves not worth a fig, or with a parcel of names of people whom it can do one no earthly good to remember .27

In conclusion, Thackeray valued historical fiction, as he did fiction in general, for its ability both to recreate the manners of an age and to make a moral impression. "Morals and manners," he says in a review of Disraeli's Sybil, "we believe to be the novelist's best 28 themes." In the final chapter, we shall see that these same concerns underlie Thackeray's own view of history in Henry Esmond and The

Virginians, and that this view of history was at the time thoroughly conventional; other reviewers judged on the same bases, and other 15 authors of historical romances viewed themselves as instructors of manners and morals.

Throughout the 18^0's, Thackeray was writing fiction as well as reviews, and if in his reviews he criticized romantic fiction and art through exposition, in his fiction he criticized them through parody and burlesque. Reaction against the popularity of Newgate fiction inspired his own first two novels, Catherine and Barry Lyndon. while reaction against the silver-fork novel resulted in the first Yellowplush papers and eventually in Vanity Fair.* Thackeray's versatile mastery of parody is evident in his own chapters imitating in succession a Newgate novel by Bulwer, a political novel by Disraeli, an Irish novel by Charles

Lever, an historical romance by G.P.R. James, a silver-fork by Mrs. Gore, and even a letter by James Yellowplush. In "Barbazure," he parodies the lengthy landscape word-paintings, the minute descriptions of costume and weaponry, the sporadic and superficial attempts to recreate the language of the past, and the spotless, conventional morality characteristic of

James's novels.

"Barbazure," however, was not his first attempt at a parody of the historical romance. Though Catherine satirizes primarily the Newgate novel, Thackeray includes a few sharp barbs aimed at the historical romance. The frequency with which the heroes of these novels encounter the famous figures of the day is his first target:

Had we been writing novels instead of authentic histories, we might have carried them anywhere else we chose: and we had a great mind to make Hayes philosophizing with Bolingbroke,

Matthew Rosa's The Silver-Fork School explores the connections between the silver-fork novels and Vanity Fair. And in his 1963 dissertation, Chauncey Loomis discusses the satire of the silver-fork novel implicit in Vanity Fair. 16

like a certain Devereux; and Mrs. Catherine maitresse en titre to Mr. Alexander Pope, Doctor Sacheverel, Sir John Reade the oculist, Dean Swift, or Marshal Tallard; as th^ very commonest romancer would under such circumstances. '

Next, the tendency for historical romancers to overburden their books

with antiquarian details becomes the object of his satiric wits

It is not our purpose to make a great and learned display here, otherwise the costumes of the company assembled at this fete might afford scope for at least half-a-dozen pages of fine writing; and we might give, if need were, specimens of the very songs and music sung on the occasion. ... Leave we these trifles to meaner souls! Our business is not with the breeches and periwigs, with the hoops and patches, but with the divine hearts of men, and the passions which agitate them.30

In 1844, as a break from Barry Lyndon. Thackeray wrote A Legend of

The Rhine. The plot, a humorous condensation of Dumas' Othon 1 'Archer, indicates his familiarity with the conventional plot of historical romances. First one villain persuades the hero's father to doubt his son Otto's legitimacy and so disown him. Otto determines to face the future with courage and resolution. Next follows a series of chivalrous deeds, for

Fate seems to watch over such ^heroes of romance]]: events occur to them just in the nick of time; they rescue virgins just as ogres are on the point of devouring them; they manage to be present at court and interesting ceremonies, and to see the most interesting people at the most interesting moment; directly an adventure is necessary for them, that adventure occurs.

But in the meantime, Otto has fallen in love with a princess; when their eyes first met, they knew "they loved each other for ever from that 32 instant. A second villain, however, is determined to win the princess and her lands, thus providing our hero with the opportunity to be "brilliant and heroic: the noble Ghilde thought how he should defend 33 the Princess, and win los and honour in the ensuing combat.But our 17 hero disappears, breaking the heroine's heart with his treachery, only to return incognito, meet the villain's challenge to combat, and defeat him. In the meantime, the first villain has been unmasked and Otto's legitimacy upheld. And so our hero returns to claim his fair Princess's hand, ready now to settle down to live happily ever after. Thackeray concludes that through he read the tale in a book by Dumas, "'tis probable that he stole it from some other, and that the other had 3 il. filched it from a former tale-teller.' Indeed, we shall see in the next chapter that a similar plot can be found in most of the historical romances of the period.

In addition to parodying the plot, Thackeray mocks the gratuitous and overabundant antiquarian details dotting the pages of historical romances. The entrance of a knight is accompanied by the following description:

As it was in a friend's country, the knight did not think fit to wear his heavy destrier. or helmet, which hung at his saddle-bow over his portmanteau. ... At his right hand, and convenient to the warrior's grasp, hung his mangonel or mace...; while over his broad and ample chest there fell the triangular shield of the period, whereon were emblazoned his arms— argent, a gules wavy, on a saltire reversed of the second....35

And our hero first appears at dinner "habited for the evening meal in the costly, though simple attire of the nobleman of the period":

The pourpoint worn by young Otto of Godesberg was of blue, handsomely decorated with buttons of carved and embossed goldj his haut-de-chausses, or leggings, were of the stuff of Nanquin, then brought by the Lombard argosies at an immense price from China. The neighboring country of Holland had supplied his wrists and bosom with the most costly laces ... .3 Thackeray paid further ironic respects to the historical romance in 1846, writing "Proposals for a Continuation of Ivanhoe" for Fraser's. which in 1849 he expanded into Rebecca and Rowena: A Romance Upon

Romance. Rather than parody, he employs*here a favorite method of implicitly satirizing romances by portraying conventional characters and events as they would in reality appear. The fair heroine, Rowena, is an "icy, faultless, prim, niminy-piminy," and a "vapid, flaxen-headed 37 creature" whose pride and jealousy make Ivanhoe's married life miserable. King Richard greets him as "Wilfred the henpecked." The conventional happy ending has turned out to be not so happy; Thackeray remarks "Thus Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe, having attained the height of his wishes, was, like many a man when he has reached that dangerous elevation, disappointed. ... It is only hope which is real, and reality OQ is a bitterness and a deceit."

In the characterization of Ivanhoe, Thackeray employs exaggeration to mock the conventional hero. Being a chivalrous knight and "having a large fortune and nothing to do, he went about this country performing charities, slaying robbers, rescuing the distressed and achieving noble 39 feats of arms." As a soldier, his deeds of valor are too numerous to be recounted; "He would be called up twice or thrice in a night to fight the Moors: he led ambushes, scaled breaches, was blown up by mines; was wounded many hundred times ...; he was the terror of the 40 Saracens, and the admiration and wonder of the Christians." And yet unlike his fellow soldiers, Ivanhoe disdains taking plunder; and "the severity of his morals contrasted so remarkably with the lax and dissolute manner of the young lords and nobles in the courts which he frequented, that these young springalds would sometimes sneer and call 4l him Monk and Milksop." Of course, Ivanhoe participates in the historic events of the period; it is he who gathers the Barons to sign the Magna

Carta, and he who defeats the Moors. The narrator observes:

for Ivanhoe was, we need scarcely say, a hero of romance; and it is the custom and duty of all gentlemen of that profession to be present on all occasions of historic interest, to be engaged in all conspiracies, royal interviews, and remarkable occurrences ...

Thackeray's parody of the historical romance, then, spans a decade, from Catherine in 1839 to Rebecca and Rowena in 1849. A little over a year later, Thackeray began to write Henry Esmond. CHAPTER TWO

The Victorian Historical Romance

The Hero and The Plot

That conventional characters and plots appeared and reappeared in historical romances was obvious enough to irritate critics as early as

18^6. G. H. Lewes, in an article in The Westminster Review, described the mechanical pattern employed by historical novelists: The writer

needs only to study Scott, and the historical novelists; to "cram" for the necessary information about costumes, antiquated forms of speech, and the leading political events of the epoch chosen; and to add thereto the art, so easily learned, of complicating a plot with adventures, imprisonments, and escapes. As for character, he need give himself no trouble about it; his predecessors have already furnished him with types; these he can christen anew. Probability he may utterly scorn. If he has any reflections to make, he need only give them a sententious turn; truth, novelty, or depth, are unimportant. Sprinkle largely with love and heroism; keep up the mystery overhanging the hero's birth, till the last chapter; and have a good stage villain, scheming and scowling through two volumes and a half, to be utterly exposed and defeated at last— and the historical novel is complete

A reviewer of G.P.R. James's Russell. published in 18^7» complained that "with all these figures and their evolutions every English reader who has enjoyed the advantages of an average circulating-library 2 education has been made acquainted some forty volumes since." More recently, James Simmons in The Novelist as Historian has remarked that

Victorian historical novels following in the Scott tradition were put together

20 21

the way a small boy might assemble the parts of a model plane kits mechanically fitting the precut parts together according to the diagram. Since there were few alterations in the basic patterns, their total productivity exhibits a most monotonous regularity, the sameness altered only superficially by the choice of background drapery. Rarely has literary composition been so reduced to a mechanical assembly of parts.3

These remarks all suggest that Victorian historical romances followed a conventional pattern. To test this hypothesis and then to recreate the pattern, I read a random selection of historical romances written between 181^-, the date of the publication of Scott's Waverley. and 1852, the date of the publication of Henry Esmond. including several published while Thackeray was writing Esmond. And I found, indeed, after carefully reading a dozen or so, that the plots and characters became easily predictable.*

On opening one of these romances, the reader meets the hero.

Always of noble birth, his age may range from a few months to twenty- some years. And his worldly status may range from that of a poor, nameless orphan to that of an heir to both a title and a fortune. But regardless of his condition in chapter one, all heroes soon reach the nadir of their fortunes. If not before the novel begins, then soon afterwards, the hero is disinherited. The family's lands may be confiscated in a political struggle. Or the true heir is throught to be illegitimate. Occasionally a will is tampered with, and occasionally also a son is disinherited for disobeying his father. Moreover, before too long, he falls in love, only to find marriage is forbidden by the heroine's father. For a youth who is either poor or a commoner or both

*For a list of the titles, dates of publication, and characters in the novels referred to in this chapter, see page 192. 22 makes a very unacceptable son-in-law. Or the heroine may be engaged to another, or the families may hold opposing political opinions, or the hero himself may be the blocking force, leaving his true love for the pleasures and thrills of the court.

Without money or position and separated by a seemingly unbridgeable gulf from his love, the hero's fortunes are ebbing. The remainder of the book consists of his quest for happiness, in the concrete forms of lands, titles, and a suitable bride. As Reginald Hastings says in the novel bearing his name, published by Eliot Warburton in 1850, "with my boyish love had grown up a fierce ambition to win a name and fame by I4, any means that could render me worthy of her."

But from the beginning of this quest, one abstract ideal takes precedence over these more concrete goals: honor. To the Victorian hero, honor has two different meanings, evident in the definition given by the Oxford English Dictionary: "As received, gained, held, or enjoyed: Glory, renown, fame; credit, reputation, good name." Honor, then, refers to both worldly and moral renown, to both the gaining of worldly fame and fortune and the possession of a reputation as a good man. Thus the hero normally possesses honor in the second sense at the beginning of the book. In James Grant's The Scottish Cavalier (1851), c. Walter Fenton claims "all I possess is my honour, a sentiment echoed by Ralph Esher in Leigh Hunt's Sir Ralph Esher (I832): "all that we this family3 possessed, was a high reputation for honour."^ But the hero often longs to attain the first type of honor also. In G.P.R.

James's The King's Highway (1840), Wilton Brown early "formed the great and glorious resolution of winning honour and renown by every exertion 23 of his mind and body.' Mervyn, an orphan in Emma Robinson's

Whitefriars (18^4), longs "to venture out on that brilliant, restless sea of love and.glory which his imagination painted in the world; a g vague yearning for power and freedom ... invaded his monkish solitude."

But the first type of honor is never to be won at the price of the second; fame and fortune are never to be won at the expense of one's good name. In G.P.R. James's Henry Smeaton (l85l), Henry refuses to plead guilty to treason, for guilty "was a dishonouring word— a word that he o would not have attached to any part of his conduct by his own act."^

When Cromwell offers Reginald Hastings banishment in place of death, he declares "I will not be voluntarily a banished man" (Reginald Hastings. p. 265). In fact, Waverley and Henry Smeaton join the Jacobites because they feel the existing government has unjustly suspected them of treason, bringing dishonour to their names.

Indeed, the hero rejects the use of any dishonorable means to gain his ends. Reginald Hastings refuses to become involved in a conspiracy against the Puritans, asserting "I am not one of those who seek to contend in the cause of truth with the weapons of falsehood. I would fain leave such courses to Jesuits and Puritans" (Reginald Hastings. p. 137)» Wilton Brown is maneuvered by the villain into a position in which he can force the Duke to grant him his daughter's hand, but he refuses to use means which, as he says, "compromised my honour" (The

King's Highway, p. 369)* In Ainsworth's James the Second (184?), Charles

Moor claims he "would sooner bear for ever the present stigma on my birth, than seek to efface it by treason to my country.That this concept of honor descended from the code of chivalry is suggested by Ivanhoe's 24 defense of the code before Rebecca in Scott's Ivanhoe (1819):

Thou wouldst quench the pure light of chivalry, which alone distinguishes the noble from the base, the gentle knight from the churl and the savage; which rates our life far, far beneath the pitch of our honour; raises us victorious over pain, tbil. and suffering, and teaches us to fear no evil but disgrace

The hero, then, sets out on several quests: to win his bride, to

gain property and therefore position, and perhaps to gain glory or

fame. All of these, of course, are connected, for a bride without

the means to support her was unthinkable, and for the disinherited,

the way to gain the means lay in winning glory, and therefore titles

and honor, as a soldier. But above all, he must follow the path of

honor. As Walter Fenton declares, "if the most unflinching perseverance,

the most spotless loyalty, and a headlong valour, ... will bring me

honour and renown, I feel that I shall win them" (The Scottish Cavalier,

P. 153).

As the hero is always characterized by unflinching perseverance,

spotless loyalty, and headlong valor, one wonders why three volumes

are required to win honor . The blame can be placed squarely upon the

villain. For while the hero struggles to win fame, fortune, and love,

the villain does his best to obstruct his efforts. The villain has

his own designs on the heroine, and hungers to possess her person, her

estate, or both. The hero, of course, stands in the way of these

designs, and when he not only stands but actively blocks the villain,

the villain becomes possessed by a third motive— revenge. On his

deathbed, Rashleigh, the villain of Scott's Rob Roy (181?), explains

to Frank Osbaldistone why he has hated him: "In love, in ambition, in

the paths of interest, you have crossed and blighted me at every turn. 25

I was born to be the honour of my father's house— I have been its 12 disgrace— and all owing to you." And Philip Prewin in Ainsworth's

The Miser's Daughter (1842) vows, "He has robbed me of two mistresses 13 and a fortune, and I ' 11 be revenged on him ... I swear it."

In order to destroy the hero's chances with the heroine and to avenge himself, the villain devises some way of staining the hero's honor. One popular method was to deceive the heroine into believing her lover faithless. The Reverend Hezekiah Doom tells Zillah that

Reginald Hastings was brawling over a paramour when he was arrested as a spy. Clermistonlee adds a postscript to a letter, telling Lilian that Walter Fenton has married a Frenchwoman of ill-repute. A second method was to contrive events in such a way that the hero would appear to be a traitor, often an intriguing Jacobite. John Newark, the villain of G.P.R. James's Henry Smeaton. first arranges for Henry to attend unknowingly a secret Jacobite meeting and then informs the government about the meeting. He interrupts Henry's letters to a government official explaining the situation, causing Henry to feel he is being treated dishonorably by the existing government and thus driving him to actually support the Jacobites. A very similar train of events causes

Waverley to join mistakenly in the Jacobite rebellion of 1745.

Consequently, the hero spends some time entrapped in the villain's wily net, usually as an unwitting victim. But throughout his trials, he continues to .pursue what he perceives as the cause of righteousness through only righteous means, regardless of the consequences to himself.

In following the path of duty, he completes a standard series of trials.

Almost invariably he fights valiantly in a war. Secondly, he rescues 26 the heroine, usually from an attempted abduction. Either then or at a later point, he fights a duel with the villain to avenge an insult to the lady's or his own honor. During the battle or the duel, he suffers an injury requiring him to be nursed back to health. And throughout the novel, he rescues or protects other characters, often the heroine's father or some historical figure.

That such a large portion of the historical romance consists of these trials suggests its "hybrid" nature in this era: the portrayal of historical characters and events (the historical portion) is intertwined with a sort of bildungsroman (the fictional portion). In some novels, the hero is actually educated; in others, the events are rites of passage through which the true identity of the hero emerges.

But the plots and characters of both sorts are basically the same. Only, in the more strictly "education" novels, the hero's involvement in historical events leads him to change his opinion about kings, about war, about women, even at times about himself.

In some of the novels, an additional strand of events is inserted into the story, in which the hero seeks glory and honor not only on the battlefield, but also at court or in fashionable society, which leads him into a round of dissipations, false love, and possibly even false politics. Devereux, the hero of Bulwer's Devereux (1829), leaves his country sweetheart for Queen Anne's court, where he commences his

"career of manhood and citizenship by learning, under the tuition of the prettiest coquette of her time, the dignified duties of a Court Gallant and a Town Beau." But after taking Lady Hasselton as a mistress and

Lord Tarleton as a friend, after getting a valet, ordering fashions from 27

Paris, ‘becoming a patron of the arts, etc., he complains that "pleasure has disappointed as well as wearied me. I have longed for some better object of worship than the trifler of fashion, or the yet more ignoble minion of the senses." And so, "wearied and sated with the pursuit of what was worthless, my heart ... exhausted itself in pining for what was pure" (pp. 124-, 136). Devereux, then, learns the difference between shallow, frivolous love and true love, between a life of dissipation and a life of worth. Ralph Esher and Randolph Crew are similarly educated.

Some young heroes also learn at court the truth about monarchs and about political life. When first at court, Ralph Esher claims that

"besides admiring the King, as much as anyone, for his wit, I loved him" (Sir Ralph Esher. I, I63). But later he discovers that Charles II is indolent, selfish, and deceitful. After the plague, Charles is

"obliged to make promises which he could not fulfil; and then he was afraid to see people's faces; and men that loved and would have died for him in May, came to hate him by September. He was also obliged to lie a good deal" (Sir Ralph Esher. Ill, 160, l6l) . Lord Buckhurst tells

Ralph stories of honest men ruined in Charles' service, convincing him finally that Charles has no heart (ill, 208-9). An educated Esher returns to his first sweetheart and to life on a country estate. In

Whitefriars. Mervyn undergoes a very similar experience. After serving

Charles faithfully in his army and in his court, Mervyn is angrily dismissed when he cannot convince Aurora to become Charles's mistress.

Later, when Charles actually abducts Aurora, Mervyn is forced to fight with his king. So Mervyn turns from a Loyalist to a Populist and eventually to an instrumental figure in the Glorious Revolution. 28

Indeed, many heroes are educated to adopt a Whig view of history.

(See "below, pages 167-68).

The education of some heroes through history occurs not when they

go to court but when they go to battle. On becoming a Cavalier, the hero of G.P..R. James's Henry Masterton (1832) learns why the Cavaliers lost: "Each man who served, or pretended to serve the monarch, in fact and truth served his own prejudices first: and then gave the dregs of his obedience to his master."*^ As a Cavalier general sighs, women and wine, "have done more to defeat King Charles's armies than all the

Fairfaxes, or Skippons, or Cromwells, that ever were bom" (p. 87). But

Henry Masterton becomes disillusioned not only with the Cavaliers, but with war itself. At first he exclaims "how I dreamed of glory and of victory." But after the battle

... I own a chill feeling of horror came over me, and I could not but comment sadly on the bloody work in which I had been so ardently engaged. Was it glory? I asked myself, to make such things as that? Was he the most honourable who could devise the quickest means of changing the godlike human form ... to the cold, meaningless leaden things, that lay cumbering the bloody earth .... (8^)

Waverley undergoes a very similar education. Once he joins the

Jacobite rebellion, he discovers the Pretender's Court to be filled with

intrigue, for each man has joined with the selfish hope of gaining some

personal reward. He finds Fergus himself to be motivated by selfish

ambition. And, contrary to what the Jacobites have led him to believe,

he learns the people are content with the house of Hanover and offer

little support of the rebellion. So, as soon as he can quit the

Jacobite forces with honor, he does. And like Henry Masterton, he has

become disillusioned with war in general: "... I am heartily tired of 29 the trade of w a r ...... The plumed troops and the M g war used to enchant me In poetry; "but the night marches, vigils, couches under the wintry sky, and such accompaniments of the glorious trade, are not at all to my taste in practice.Waverley learns that his real temperament is not that of a politician or a soldier, but of a husband living in retirement on his country estate. Luckily, his education in politics and war is accompanied by an education in love. Like Devereux,

Ralph Esher, and Randolph Crew, he comes to realize the value of the sweet, fair girl who remained devoted while he was enchanted by a more worldly lady associated with the Court.

Now, having completed a series of trials and in some cases having been educated, the hero has proven himself worthy of reward, worthy of the fulfillment of his quest for a bride, a title, and a fortune. But this happy ending is not effected solely through the efforts of the hero. While he follows the thorny path of duty, minor characters and coincidences help to bring it about.

The hero rarely achieves poetic justice by killing the villain.

Instead, the task falls to a minor character, such as a servant or a romantic father figure. Or the villain is consumed by his own passions, as is Brian de Bois-Guilbert in Ivanhoe. If the hero is responsible for the villain's demise, it is always inadvertently. Mervyn, the hero of Whitefriars. wounds Blood, but the wounds only prove deadly when

Mervyn's mother has the bandages treated with poison.

At long last, with the villain destroyed and the hero proven worthy, a surprise in the ending fully restores the hero's fortunes. The marriage certificate is found which proves the hero's legitimacy. In 30

the last paragraph of Ainsworth's James the Second. James tells Charles

Moor "I have this evening received a packet from Barillon enclosing the

certificate of your mother's marriage with Lord Mauvesin, which secures

. . you the succession to the title and estates. Take it, ... and with it,

the consent of King Louis to your union with Mademoiselle Saint Leu"

(James the Second, p. 254). Or a will is proven to be a forgery. If

the right document does not come to light, the same function is served

by the revelation of the true identity of one of the characters. The

effect is almost that of a revival from the dead, of the character lost

at sea being washed up alive, bringing with him the key to the hero's

happiness. In Ralph Esher. Father Waring turns out to be Miss

Randolph's father, making Miss Randolph legitimate and thus the heiress

to an estate. As the Father exclaims to Ralph, "There is now an end to

all perplexities. You have an estate, you have a bride, you have a

willing and avowed father-in-law, an affectionate and excellent mother-

in-law" (Sir Ralph Esher. Ill, 260). In Rob Roy, the mysterious man

Frank suspects is Di's lover turns out to be her father, thus removing

what Frank viewed as the obstacle to his marriage. The hero's fortunes

can also be restored through changes in politics. Several of the novels

end with a glimpse into the future, when a new king restores the estate

and titles of the banished hero. For example, the ending of Whitefriars

reveals that after the Glorious Revolution, "honours, riches, and fame

were showered upon him [Mervyn]]. He was restored to all his rights, and

the illustrious titles of his ancient house; wedded, with a pomp which

outshone all but royal nuptials ...; and lived to a good old age, in the

enjoyment of every earthly happiness" (Whitefriars. p. 509). 31

Almost without exception, then, historical novels end with the conventional happy ending— wedding bells ring, and the independently wealthy couple goes off to enjoy deserved domestic bliss. As Devereux pictures it, this quiet life contains "sheltered spots, in which the breast garners up all domestic bonds, its household and holiest delights; the companioned hearth, the smile and infancy, and, dearer than all, the eye that glasses our purest, our tenderest, our most secret thought" (Devereux. p. 4A-8) . And the "going off" is literal.

Rather than winning a place in politics or joining the court circle, the hero and heroine retire from the stress of taking part in the historical events of their era or from the evil influences of the court.

In the more strictly "education" novels, this retirement is a conscious rejection of life in history, of the values associated with kings, courts, and wars. As Randolph says, he has become convinced that "a quiet life is more to my taste than a gay one" (The Miser's Daughter.

II, 259)- In other cases, circumstances leave the hero little choice but the quiet life, for several remain in exile at the end of the book, only restored to England in the glimpse of the years ahead. But though homesick for England, they are rarely homesick for a more engaged life.

Looking in on the exiled Smeaton family years later in France, the narrator of Henry Smeaton reports "perfect contentment was upon all their countenances, and harmony in all their hearts" (p. 153)*

This summary of the standard plot suggests that a central concern of Victorian historical romances is to portray what makes up a hero.

And by more closely examining the traits that the hero is required to demonstrate, we can identify very specifically the qualities that 32

Victorian writers and readers viewed as heroic.

Much is revealed by the hero's reaction to his misfortunes. While disinherited and separated from his bride, he demonstrates fortitude and resolution. Wilton Brown has a premonition that an ill wind is blowing his direction and so steels himself to "bear it with unshrinking courage, with resolute determination; nay, with unmurmuring patience"

(The King's Highway. p. 46). When he is, indeed, made a menial clerk, he vows "with that resolute firmness which characterized him even at an early age, to bear all, and to endure all" (The King's Highway, p . 70). On meeting Reginald Hastings at the end of the novel,

Hezekiah Doom compliments him on the fortitude with which he endured his poverty.

Furthermore, the trial of the hero's love proves that it is ardent and eternal. When Reginald Hastings attempts to find happiness with another girl, "there interposes a memory of a higher, nobler nature, which ... has power, even in imagination, to chase away all rivals"

(Sir Reginald Hastings. p. 370). Frank Osbaldistone responds to Di

Vernon's request that he forget her, "Can she ... suppose that is possible?" (Rob Roy. II, 312). And Philip Heme claims that his inability to forget Margaret Vavasour, even after duty forces him to become engaged to another, proves "how indestructible a certain idea is in my mind" (Sir Ralph Esher. Ill, 252). G.P.R. James attempts to describe the ideal nature of the hero's loves "Wilton loved with all those feelings, high and bright, and sweet, which assured her [Laura]] beyond all question that the affection which she had inspired would be permanent as well as ardent" (The King's Highway. p. 255) • In fact, the heroine inspires this ideal love often because she represents to the hero the ideal. Devereux longs for "some better object of worship Qthan the women at court]].... I ask a vent for enthusiasm, for devotion, for romance, for a thousand subtle and secret streams of unuttered and unutterable feeling" (Devereux. p. 124).

The hero often pictures the heroine as an angel. Aurora first appears to Mervyn as an angel grasping his hand, as she pulls him out of the river. Lilian Napier "became in Walter's imagination something more angelic and enchanting than he had previously conceived to exist"

(The Scottish Cavalier, p. 160) . To Reginald Hastings, the heroine represents that primary ideal— honor. When he thinks Zillah has run off with Doom, he laments:

To think, that whilst I was struggling, through toil, and suffering, and danger, to preserve that honour of which you were ever the guiding star; to believe that even then, you were sinking beneath the arts of a thrice-proven villain. (Reginald Hastings. p. 3&3)

The experience of fighting in a war, while it is rarely described in detail, demonstrates the hero's courage, loyalty, and sense of honor.

Walter Fenton, for example, insists on fighting with Dundee because loyalty demands it, even after Lilian tearfully complains that the expedition is sure to be defeated. When Henry Masterton can't convince his brother to join the Cavaliers, he goes on his own, explaining "I felt that I had a superior duty to perform; and I resolved to execute it" (Henry Masterton. p. 79)* Of course, he comes upon the battle at a crucial point, quickly makes a strategic decision, and turns the tide of the battle. Reginald Hastings fights for the Cavaliers until he is exiled, at which time he reports: It was with a sense of mournful satisfaction, that, finding myself an exile, I felt I had done my duty to my King. My brother, my followers, my estate, my prime of life, my best blood, had all been lost in his good cause. (Reginald Hastings, p. 358) - -

Once a hero is involved in a war, it becomes a point of honor not to abandon the cause or surrender until absolutely necessary. Thus, even though Waverley and Henry Smeaton lose their Jacobite sympathies, they refuse to desert. Waverley proclaims, "If the cause I have under­ taken be perilous, there would be greater disgrace in abandoning it"

(Waverley, II, 22$)• Similarly, Henry Smeaton "had taken part in the insurrection most unwillingly, but, having done so, he considered himself entirely identified with it" (Henry Smeaton. p. 135)- And he protests

"against surrender upon any terms but those which will secure our honour" (Henry Smeaton, p . 136).

The war scenes also demonstrate the hero's compassion. When

Lilian finds out Walter Fenton is a soldier, she exclaims, "When I remember the kind and gentle little Walter I used to play with long ago,

I think you must be much too tender hearted for soldiering." Walter responds, "a true soldier is ever compassionate5 and the hand that strikes down a foe should be the first to succor and protect him when fallen" (The Scottish Cavalier, p. 144) . When Waverley stops to aid an injured man, the narrator comments that Fergus could not comprehend "the general philanthropy, which rendered it almost impossible for Waverley to have passed any person in such distress" (Waverley. II, 149). Though the hero views fighting for his king as his duty, he stands sick and appalled at the resulting carnage. When Henry Masterton sees the corpses after his first battle, he reports "I own a chill feeling of 35 horror came over me, and I could not but comment sadly on the bloody work in which I had been so ardently engaged" (Henry Masterton. p. 84).

Reginald Hastings summarizes the disillusionment with war characteristic of the hero:

I will not dwell longer on the minor details of this mournful war. All that my imagination had pictured of grandeur and proud pleasure in a military career, gave way before the sad and stern reality of experience. Nevertheless, war, whatever it be, has its dangerously bright illusion. It is always a stirring spectacle to see a brave army drawn out in battle, and nothing in our life can equal the glow and glorious sense of power as we charge .... But when the living wall of our foe is reached, and borne down and crushed beneath horses' hoofs; when its living fragments resolve themselves into individual men, shrieking for quarter in our own household language; when we dare not show the pity that we feel, or restrain the maddened trooper's rage against the enemy; then the soul sickens, and we curse the grim mockery that rejoices in such a scene. (Reginald Hastings, p. 100)

But though the hero fights for his king, he does not usually play an active role in politics. Often he admits his ignorance of political affairs. When a messenger arrives from the King at the Hastings,

Reginald declares:

I will stand by you to the death in all that may concern the welfare of my country, and the honour of the King. I am but too little acquainted with the state of public affairs; but sure I am that the path pointed out by my father must be that of duty, and one which it becomes a gentleman to follow. (Reginald Hastings, p. 42)

Later, when he discovers that the Cavaliers, the Court, and the King are far from perfect, he rejoices at his former ignorance: "I blessed my stars that youth and ignorance had precluded me from being involved in those political questions that seemed to much embarrass some men's loyalty. For me, I was a mere soldier" (Reginald Hastings. p. 70).

Similarly, Waverley has no fixed political opinions, "nor had his habits at all led him to investigate the politics of the period in which he lived, or remark the intrigues in which his father had been so actively engaged" (Waverley. I, 257). Randolph Crew is surprised to find his mother is a Jacobite, explaining "But I have troubled myself so little about the matter, that it is only lately that I have discovered her opinions were adverse to my own" (The Miser's Daughter, I, 217).

When the hero is more politically aware, he is still rarely involved in party politics.* Philip Herne declares "I felt at liberty to console myself for the want of party zeal, in my ability to love the best men of all parties" (Sir Ralph Esher, II, 251). And Henry Smeaton is "determined to take no part in the foolish struggles which seem likely to take place in this land, and which I feel convinced can end in nothing but the destruction of those that promote them" (Henry

Smeaton. p. 64).

The hero, then, is a soldier rather than a politician. Even

Mervyn, perhaps the most politically involved hero, responds when he is asked to help lead the popular party, "I am a soldier, not a politician" (Whitefriars. p. 410) . This removal from political life explains why the hero retires to his country estate at the end of the novel. The war is over, his duty to his country is fulfilled, and he can return to his proper sphere— that of the landed gentleman.

The hero fighting a duel is similar to the hero fighting a war— ever courageous and honorable. When Randolph Crew fights two duels in one morning, Sir Norfolk, who wins the second, comments "I never crossed swords with a braver young man" (The Miser's Daughter, II, 84).

*For a discussion of the hero's political affiliations, see pages 167-68 below. After Charles Moor fights a duel with Sabine's guardian, the guardian declares, "He is a brave, high-spirited youth, and no adventurer" (James the Second, p. 76). Any insult to himself, to his family, or to a woman has to be met with a challenge. Thus Randolph Crew challenges Philip for attacking him in the street and having him locked up in jail. When

Rashleigh refuses to go before a magistrate to settle their differences,

Frank Osbaldistone challenges him to a duel, explaining "the name we both bear never submitted to insult, and shall not in my person be exposed to it" (Rob Roy, II, 108). Occasionally, as in Frank's case, the duel serves to vindicate the whole family's honor. Devereux claims that he seeks not revenge but justice in his desire to fight with the Abbe

Montreuil, for

over the peace, the happiness, the honour, the virtue of a whole family, through fraud and through blood, this priest had marched onward to the goal of his icy and heartless ambition, unrelenting and unrepenting ... but ... not forever unchecked and unrequited. (Devereux, p. ^30)

But usually the duel is fought to vindicate a lady's honor. Mervyn fights even Charles II after he abducts Aurora, claiming "I am honest and you are a villain and a tyrant" (Whitefriars, p. 377) •

The hero's true mettle is often further revealed when he comes to the rescue of other characters. If he encounters a stranger in distress, much less a friend, he rushes to his or her aid, thus following one portion of the old code of chivalry. Ivanhoe warns Isaac, a stranger, to flee from Brian de Bois-Guilbert. After unwittingly becoming Blood's accomplice in an attempt to steal the crown jewels, Mervyn throws himself over the guard to protect him from Blood's attack. On hearing a lady scream, Charles Moor rushes up and fights the Golden Farmer, a highway robber. Henry Smeaton nans out into the street on seeing a servant knock down a boy and insists that the man be dismissed. When soon after,

Henry rescues Emmeline from abductors, the boy exclaims "He always comes up to help people when they are in need" (Henry Smeaton. p. 24).

The above examples involve only physical efforts. But often the rescue mission is much more complicated, requiring resourcefulness and determination. For example, in The King's Highway. Laura's father begs

Wilton to rescue her from her Jacobite kidnappers. Wilton must first discover where they have hidden her. Then he is encumbered with a state's messenger who refuses to follow his orders and who eventually deserts him. So on his own, Wilton finds Laura, defends her against a group of hostile Jacobites, arranges their escape, and in the meantime contrives the escape of the Duke of Berwick. Even the conspirators note that "there is a determination in that young fellow's look which is not to be mistaken" (The King's Highway, p. 22?). Whitefriars is filled with daring and complicated escape scenes, all maneuvered by

Mervyn. When Mervyn realizes he has lured Godfrey into Blood's trap, he quickly finds him a hiding place and plays the dummy. When Godfrey is found, he contrives his own escape by making a rope and jumping from the roof to the balcony to the river. Later, Mervyn arranges to be placed on the stand as a witness against Sir Algernon Sydney, his sweetheart's father, and then in a stunning speech proves Sydney's innocence while admitting his own guilt. Committed to the Tower, he escapes through a secret passage. 39

In addition to following the code of honor so central to the concept of "being a gentleman"— remaining true to one's love, fighting for one's king, vindicating any insults to one's honor, and aiding those in distress— the hero always has the morals and manners of a gentleman.

The morals are often revealed in his response to drinking. Frank

Osbaldistone leaves his cousins' table "rather than endure any longer the sight of father and sons practising the same degrading intemperance, and holding the same coarse and disgusting conversation" (Rob Roy. I

86-8?). Even at Rob Roy's, he refuses to join in a drink to celebrate his success in regaining his father's property. When offered a drink at dinner, Henry Smeaton "announced at once his very moderate habits, saying that he feared the school in which he had been brought up did not qualify him to compete with Englishmen in the use of the bottle"

(Henry Smeaton, p . 28). Reginald Hastings sees setting a good example as part of his duty as an officer: "I served on through the campaign without a thought but that of doing my duty to the uttermost, and setting myself against the increasing vices of the camp, by all the example that I could show" (Reginald Hastings. p. 323)* Some young heroes, such as Mervyn and Randolph Crew, blush when they first encounter the vices of the court.

The hero's morality is rarely connected with his piety. In fact, his religious views and feelings are never more than casually mentioned.

Often only a sentence or two indicates his faith. Frank Osbaldistone, for example, looks back on his history with "no slight gratitude and veneration to the Disposer of human events" (Rob Roy. I, 3)* Henry

Smeaton advises his servant to repent his sins and sends Emmeline a 40 message to "take comfort, whatever might happen to him, and to place your trust in God" (Henry Smeaton, pp. 127, 139)• Only Devereux experiences a religious crisis within the novel.

While the hero's morals are pure, his manners are impeccable.

Mervyn wins over the Roundheads serving under him partially through

"his general urbanity and kindliness of manner" (Whitefriars. p. 31*0 •

Devereux learns from observing Bolingbroke that "There is no policy like politeness; and a good manner is the best thing in the world, either to get one a good name or to supply the want of it" (Devereux. p. 31) •

When Hugo Hastings addresses a dwarf courteously, the narrator of

Reginald Hastings explains the importance of good manners:

Never yet was courtesy wasted or misplaced. It is the due of heaven-born man to man— the benevolence of manner; ennobling a benefit conferred, and removing all humiliation from a benefit received; it is the soft tongue that breaks bone, repels insult with dignity, and gives protection, without patronage: — to the orator in the forum, the warrior in the fight, the lover in the bower, the noble in the hall, the citizen in the street— it is equally the test of the superior man. (Reginald Hastings. p. 190)

Like good manners, graceful conversation often marks the gentleman.

Waverley's wit and eloquence at a Court ball amaze even Flora. Wilton

Brown's conversation is "sparkling," displaying the "richness and power" of his mind. "His conversation had all that ease and grace which, combined with carefulness of proprieties, is only to be gained by long association with persons of high minds and manners" (The King's Highway. pp. 277, 55)* Henry Smeaton's "easy manner and varied conversation soon removed from the mind of Emmeline the feeling of restraint produced by freshness of acquaintance" (Henry Smeaton. p. 28). Esher and Devereux are both noted in Court circles for their wit. And Lilian is so struck 41 by Walter Fenton's gallant compliments that she thinks he must be from

France (The Scottish Cavalier, pp. 147-49) .

But although conversational powers are stressed, intellectual powers are not. Occasionally an author will note that the hero is intelligent.

Waverley has powers of understanding equal to and a genius finer than

Fergus' s, says Scott (Waverley. 1, 260) . When the hero is presented as a boy, he usually does remarkably well in school. Devereux takes first place in his school's competition. The Jesuit priests discover "veins of fine and rare materials in Mervyn's mind" (Whitefriars. p. 76).

But the hero's growth into manhood rarely includes intellectual development. Reginald Hastings goes so far as to announce "I was but little of a book-man" (Reginald Hastings. p. 11), and in explaining his awe of the pen, draws a clear cut distinction between action and contemplation:

For action and meditation are almost incompatible, and when we are abroad and free among the brave, the beautiful, the dangerous, among those who can injure us and those who can reward, we little think of recording what we have scarcely time to perform. (Reginald Hastings. p. 62)

Though not necessarily a man of intellect, the hero is always a man of sensibility. As a youth, he is often a romantic. Waverley and

Frank Osbaldistone write poetry. Mervyn, Ralph Esher, and Devereux devour romances. Each of the five creates an ideal mistress, what

Devereux calls "the Eve of my soul's imagined and foreboded paradise"

(Devereux. p. 36). Many of the characters experience a Wordsworthian response to nature. Waverley and Frank are intoxicated by the Highland scenery. The Highlands fill Mervyn's mind "with ideas of sublimity and grandeur, which seemed to satisfy a want in his poetical and 42 somewhat dreamy nature" (Whitefriars. p. 323)* Henry Masterton finds the consolation of God's presence in nature, as do Devereux and

Reginald Hastings. Reginald sermonizes:

Nothing hut a sense of wilful sin can poison the happiness that munificent nature sheds around us here; every sense is gratified, exalted, and refined; the painter's eye and musician's ear rest satisfied; and even the poet's heart surrenders its ideal to the actual loveliness before him. ... In my most vain-glorious and prosperous hour, I never felt so truly proud as when gazing on this wondrous scenery; and feeling that it was made for me, and such as me, by Him who made man at first in His own glorious image. (Reginald Hastings, p. 243)

Unlike the twentieth century, the nineteenth century felt no queasy abhorrence of men's tears. Almost without exception, the hero's feelings become so overwhelming that they overflow in tears. The last time Waverley sees Flora, he sheds "a torrent of tears" (Waverley.

II, 367). Philip Herne's tears over Margaret refresh him; "surely I have a right to take this pity on myself, I who am a human being, and

... suffer," he says (Sir Ralph Esher, II, 196). Though Henry Smeaton is not one of those "sentimental" men who are "easily moved to tears,"

Emmeline's letter brings tears to his eyes (Henry Smeaton. p. 119).

The compassion of the hero, previously discussed in relation to his rescuing of others and his revulsion at the horrors of war, adds to the image of the hero as a man of sensibility. He never delights in blood. On encountering a highway robbery, Wilton Brown helps but

"is not very willing to shed blood" (The King's Highway. p. 52). After his servant Blount advised Reginald Hastings to shoot at some soldiers, he shrank "from the thought of taking life as long as there remained a hope of discharging our duty otherwise" (Reginald Hastings. p. 57) •

When Randolph Crew accidentally kills Philip in a duel, he is stupified. Correspondingly, the hero rarely has a passion for field sports.

Waverley is bored by them. The one novel whose hero is a lover of the chase, Reginald Hastings, includes a scene exposing the brutality of the hunt. When Reginald receives congratulations for pursuing the stag into the sea, he apologizes: "I was almost ashamed of it: I could have wished myself far away, and my victim once more roaming free among his native forests" (Reginald Hastings. p. 31l)« As the hero has such a fine sensibility, one can see why he rarely kills the villain. Such a bloody act would hardly be compatible with his character.

But the hero's deep sensibility, when combined with his punctiliousness about his honor, leads to his only two flaws: pride and jealousy. At times, his pride is viewed as a positive quality.

Walter Fenton, though poor and of ignoble birth, was "ever proud in spirit, and fired by an inborn nobility of soul" (The Scottish Cavalier, p. 4l). But with his strong sensibility, any insult to the hero's pride wounds him deeply and may lead, him into error. Walter Fenton declares, "To the heart of the young and proud, there is no agony equal to that of unmerited disgrace and humiliation" (The Scottish Cavalier, p. 66). Mervyn flees the Jesuit convent because he appears to be dishonorable and cannot stand the thought of exposing himself to reproach. Waverley's blood boiled on receiving a reprimanding letter from his Colonel, and, if it were not for Flora's intervention, would have joined the Jacobites then and there, rather than later. Frank

Osbaldistone claims that "my principal fault was an unconquerable pitch of pride which exposed me to frequent mortification" and which prevented him from giving in to his father's requests or reconsidering when he 44 is disinherited (Rob Roy, II, 179)* Devereux discusses the dual nature of pride! "Pride is an elevation which is a spring-board at one time and a stumbling block at another. It was with me more often the stumbling block than the spring board" (Devereux, p. 358).

With his strong sensibility, any suspicion that the heroine is in love with another drives the hero to mad jealousy. Frank Osbaldistone spies on Di Vernon from the garden to find out if she has a secret visitor. Henry Masterton experiences madness and agony when Emily kisses his brother Frank, her intended husband. When Reginald finds out Zillah has left the convent with another man, he is positive that she has left with Doom, the villain, and goes off to Switzerland in a fit of despair. And when Mervyn suspects that Aurora has a fondness for

King Charles, he goes so far as to act as Charles's pander to find out

the truth.

These varied strands that intertwine to make a hero of a Victorian historical romance are evident in his physical appearance. Strength

is always combined with elegance, a combination reminiscent of the

Elizabethan courtier's ideal of sprezzatura. Though muscular, his

figure is slender and symmetrical. And what he lacks in strength he makes up for in agility. Waverley, for example, "though tall and well-made, was rather elegant than robust" (Waverley, II, 113). Ivanhoe,

though a great knight, "did not greatly exceed the middle size, and

seemed to be rather slender than strongly made" (Ivanhoe. I, 128).

Henry Smeaton was "not a whit less strong [[than his opponent[J» though

his figure appeared a good deal slighter to the eye, from the symmetry

with which it was formed" (Henry Smeaton, p. 14). The hero's appearance bs ' is not only elegant, but also noble. Laura is charmed by Wilton Brown's

"fine person, his high and lofty look, and a certain air of distinction and self-possession about him" (The King's Highway. p. 65). Charles

Moor has a "high and noble air." Henry Smeaton's

clear and hazel eyes, not without fire nor even keenness, appeared to beam with high and generous soul; and in his whole demeanor and carriage was that sort of chivalrous aspect which had generally, in former days, distinguished the party called Cavaliers, with a slight touch of their free and careless gayety, but no appearance of their reckless licentiousness. (Henry Smeaton. p. 29)

This combination of strength, slender elegance, and nobility can be viewed as the physical manifestation of the combination of "soldierly" qualities— courage, strength, and determination— with the superior wit, manners, and elegance of a gentleman, and with the compassion, deep feelings, and piety of a noble heart.

In conclusion, Victorian historical romancers created their own version of an ideal gentleman— a version which derived much from the earlier ideal of the chivalrous knight of medieval romance. Like a knight of old, the Victorian hero sets out on a quest— not to slay a dragon, or find a grail, but rather to gain the title and estates which will enable him to become a country gentleman and consequently, to marry a noble heroine and live forever in domestic bliss. Like a knight of old, in fulfilling his quest, the hero must battle the forces of evil, in his case a villain of Victorian melodrama. And while pursuing his quest, the hero has to follow the chivalric code— has to always come to the rescue of those in distress, always uphold the code of honor, always act as a noble, and in his case as a moral, gentleman. Henry Esmond is just such a hero, and in his memoirs he presents his life in the form of an historical romance. But a careful reader will discover that the man

Henry reveals himself to be is not so heroic, is not quite the perfect gentleman he regards himself. Through various ironic techniques,

Thackeray paints for the perceptive reader a portrait of the reality behind the heroic facade presented in the romances. In Henry Esmond. as in much of his earlier work, Thackeray the realist exposes the sham romantic values pervading popular literature. The Fair Heroine

The focus of attention in an historical romance is on the hero.

The heroine is only infrequently involved in the action, functioning primarily as the motivating force behind the hero's quest. While the story portrays the hero's growth into manhood, the heroine remains her ideal self from start to finish.

That she is the ideal woman is suggested by Lord Falkland's description of Zillah in Reginald Hastings. Zillah, he tells Reginald, is the only woman he has ever met

qualified to fulfill woman's original sacred mission, to comfort, ennoble, and bless our doomed race. One, who, gifted with the grace, and beauty, and intellect of an angel, appears to have all the long-suffering, and gentleness, and tenderness, that befits a child of man. One whose bosom would afford a paradise of rest to the weary and wounded spirit that sought refuge and solace from the self-sacrificing generous heart that beats within. (Reginald Hastings, p. 102)

According to this description, woman's "sacred mission" involves fulfilling two different roles: that of an angel, whose goodness, grace, beauty, and wisdom are meant to inspire and ennoble more taintedly mortal man, and that of a solacer, who will pity and comfort erring man in her ever-open maternal embrace. The heroine, then, seems to be modeled somewhat on the Virgin Mary— to be a combination saint and mother.

^7 The hero often looks up to the heroine literally as an angel inspiring him to good (see above, p. 33) • Henry Smeaton thinks of

Emmeline whenever he is tired and dispirited, and "like the visit of an angel, such thoughts strengthen and elevate him" (Henry Smeaton, p. 113).

Reginald Hastings thinks of Zillah as a star, as a "gentle, kindly, liquid light— high and serene above the storms of earth and sky, and only to be sought for in moments of elevated thought and inspiration."

He writes to her, "You first taught me to aspire to a life of purity— and to feel the degradation of a mere life of pleasure. Through the bright medium of your mind, I felt how beautiful was the world that seemed unmeaning to other men .... Even my resolution wore your form"

(Reginald Hastings, pp. 5 6 , 116).

Nobility and dignity mark the angelic heroine. Aurora, the heroine of Whitefriars, has a "nobility of expression in the repose of her perfect features" (Whitefriars. p. 223). Zillah has a "lofty attitude and noble bearing" (Reginald Hastings. p. 137). As for Rowena, the heroine of Ivanhoe, "the noble cast of her head and features prevented the insipidity which sometimes attaches to fair beauties" (Ivanhoe. I

56-57).

But there is nothing stiff or self-righteous about the heroine's noble bearing, for it is accompanied by natural grace. "An indescribable, harmonious grace surrounds" Zillah; she is a creature of "exquisite grace and beauty" (Reginald Hastings, pp. 280, 105). Emmeline has a "wild grace" about her (Henry Smeaton. p. 10). The narrator of The Scottish

Cavalier says of Lilian that "the most enchanting grace was in all her motions" (p. 180). Far from being a dumb blonde, the heroine often is granted a noble mind, though having the noble mind does not endow her with strong powers of reasoning. Rationality, rather, is attributed to men, while women, in keeping with their angelic image, are often portrayed as having an intuitional intelligence. In The King's Highway. Laura has, in addition to "a heart ... full of deep and pure feelings,"

a mind not only originally bright and strong, not only highly cultivated and stored with fine tastes, but highly directed and fortified with strong principles, with an enthusiastic love of everything that was beautiful and graceful, generous, noble, and dignified, (p. 107)

The narrator says of Laura's and Wilton's minds: "The course that their thought pursued was certainly not always alike, but they generally arrived at the same conclusion, she by a longer and a softer way, he by a more rapid, vigorous, and direct one" (The King's Highway, p. 285).

Henry Smeaton falls in love with "the wild, untutored graces of her

[[Emmeline'si mind, the heart-breathing spirit which pervaded everything she said and did" (Henry Smeaton. p. 109)•

As the above quotation suggests, spirituality pervades and thus unites a woman's mind, feelings, and soul. Aurora, for example, wears an

"expression of mingled intellect and feeling, an electric flash in her eye, a brilliancy and sweetness in her smile, which denoted a mind and heart, in which lofty and romantic sentiment blended with all womanly softness and tenderness" (Whitefriars. p. 3^0). This spirituality is the source of the heroine's beauty. Her beauty is always presented as the physical manifestation of her beautiful soul. Reginald describes

Zillah as possessing a "spiritual and sublime beauty— a beauty that appealed not only to the senses but the soul, and raised my admiration 50 into homage” (Reginald Hastings, p. 32). Wilton Brown falls in love with the "vision of radiant loveliness" which Laura's "face and form presented" (The King's Highway, p. 57)* And Devereux says of Isora,

"the cast of her beauty was so dreamlike ... that it was difficult to bear only the sentiments of earth for one who had so little of earth's clay. She was more like the women whom one imagines are the creations of poetry" (Devereux. p. 216).

Specific physical descriptions help create the vision of the heroine as an angel. Her hair, usually blond, though occasionally light auburn, is often described as golden or glittering, creating a halo effect. In Waverley, Rose Bradwardine has "a profusion of hair of paley gold" (I, 89). Lilian's "glittering hair, of the brightest auburn, fell in massive locks on her white neck" (The Scottish Cavalier, p. 11). Similarly, the heroine's blue eyes are often full of light.

Rowena has eyes "capable to kindle as well as melt" (Ivanhoe. I, 57)*

The light of Zillah's "large lustrous eyes with the shadow of their long drooping lashes, increased the spiritual character of the countenance" (Reginald Hastings, p. 280).

And this woman whose whole nature is pervaded by her sprituality necessarily has one of the defining characteristics of an angel— unworldliness. The noble, spiritual being described above must be pure and innocent. The unity of being, the grace, the perfection would be destroyed by much contact with the tainted world. Henry Smeaton explains of Emmeline that "she is very, very beautiful, graceful, gentle, bright, unsullied by this foul and dusty world in which we live"; she is like

Eve before she tasted the fruit— "she knew little of evil, and had not 51 a heart to Imagine it" (Henry Smeaton, p. 71).

Thus the heroine is always young, usually seventeen or eighteen.

She is of noble birth and so has never had to come into contact with

the world of work and want. And she is very, very pure. Henry Smeaton

says of Emmeline, "for yourself, dear lady, your character is as clear and pure as a diamond" (Henry Smeaton, p. 35) . Though pursued by

Charles II, Aurora is "one whose goodness of heart and pride of honour were not to be tempted by all the monarchs of Europe sighing at her feet." Father Olivia says of her "she is the purest and most virtuous

of maidens, wanting nothing but the holiness of death to fit her for the

white-robed company of virgin-martyrs" (Whitefriars. pp. 3^0-41, 499)*

And though Lord Falkland admires Zillah, she gives him no encouragement,

for "she would not know what encouragement meant, no more than if she

were already in heaven" (Reginald Hastings, p. 106). The blue eyes

and blond hair help create the image of a pure, innocent child, as does

the heroine's invariably fair complexion.

Being so innocent, the heroine always blushes at some point in the

story. When Emily kisses her newly-found father before Henry, there

is "pure innocence in her blush" (Henry Masterton. p. 3^0). The blush

is also used as an emblem of candor; the heroine has nothing to conceal.

Thus Rose's complexion is "so pure as to seem transparent, and the

slightest emotion sent her whole blood at once to her face and neck"

(Waverley. I, 89). Emmeline tells Henry, "I have no experience in the

art of concealment" (Henry Smeaton. p. 36). 52

Being artless goes hand in hand with being candid; both qualities emerge from the unthinking spontaneity produced by innocence. Walter

Fenton notes in Lilian "the touching artlessness of her manner" (The

Scottish Cavalier, p. 31)• This ingenuousness manifests itself most often in the heroine's response to the hero; she lacks the guile to be coy or to hide her feelings. Luckily for her, heroes are never the type to take advantage of the situation. Lilian, for example, is "too artless to conceal her deep emotion," and so "with a charming mixture of frankness and timidity, the blushing girl held out both her hands to welcome her lover" (The Scottish Cavalier, p. 2^-2). Rose is "too young and too inexperienced to estimate the full force of the constant attention which she paid to" Waverley (Waverley. II, 209). Emily runs away with Henry Masterton with no fear of losing her reputation, for

"she knew nothing of mankind in general, or of any world but the pure world of her own thoughts" (Henry Masterton. p. 158).

But though frank, the heroine is never brash, immodest, or indelicate. The same Emily who ran away with Henry is described as retaining "all the beautiful delicacy of a woman's feelings, unmingled with any of the artificial reserve which so often mixes with, or ... supplies its place" (Henry Masterton, p. 175)• Though women at the end of the seventeenth century had much freedom, Laura "with feelings of true modesty and perfect delicacy, hesitated not to use all proper and rational liberty, yet shrunk instinctively from the least coarseness of thought or language, and never yielded to aught that was immodest in custom or demeanor" (The King's Highway, p. 28b) . The narrator of The

Scottish Cavalier describes the appeal of such modest beauty: 53

... there were many bright and beautiful beings present who attracted more attention than the timid and retiring Lilian Napier; but in her whole air and manner it is not easy to imagine a girl more exquisitely ladylike. Her long eyelashes were drooped upon her soft and changing cheek, veiling her soft glances, and imparting to her eyes an expression of timidity and modesty, which lent additional charms to the fine features of her adorable little face. (The Scottish Cavalier, p. 180)

The heroine's frankness may also be tempered by her timidity or meekness, as the above description of Lilian suggests. A comment in Ivanhoe suggests that meekness was indeed associated with the fair beauty:

Rowena's "disposition was naturally that which physiognomists consider as proper to fair complexions, mild, timid, and gentle" (Ivanhoe. I,

332).

But though the essence of the heroine is spirituality, her religiosity, like the hero's, is not emphasized. Her faith may be mentioned: Sabine, the heroine of James the Second. is in England because she is a French Huguenot; Di Vernon in addition to being a

Jacobite is a Catholic; Zillah has left the faith of her family to become a devout Puritan. And there may be a reference to her piety: in The Miser's Daughter Hilda wants to pray with her father to prepare him for death; Rose's "unfeigned piety" is mentioned in a list of her good qualities. But that is the extent of the religious views expounded in the novels.

As Lord Falkland's description of woman's sacred mission suggests

(see above, p. ^7), the angelic heroine does not always remain seated on her ethereal throne, but rather descends to comfort and bind the wounds of suffering man. Rose, Rebecca, Isora, and Aurora all tend their heroes when wounded. And some heroes fall in love with their nurses. Mervyn cannot resist Aurora, for "Nothing could equal the tenderness, the assiduity, the enchanting vivacity of this beautiful nurse"

(Whitefriars, p. 394). When Isora is caring for her father, she appears to Devereux to be an angel, for nursing is "that sphere in which woman is most lovely, and in which love itself consecrates its admiration and purifies its most ardent desires" (Devereux, p. 154)•

Yet the heroine often suffers as a consequence of her contact with the world. Laura, Hilda, and Aurora all suffer when their fathers go astray in politics or morals. Aurora breaks into tears while playing the piano, exclaiming to Mervyn, "when I think of these rash intrigues, and how my poor father is mixed up in them!" (Whitefriars. p. 35*0*

She attends her father's trial to support him, her "countenance cold and tranquil as a beautiful corpse, the eyelids purple with incessant weeping, the lips white and parted" (Whitefriars. p. 436) .

The heroine may suffer for her hero as well. When he is in trouble, she often attempts to sacrifice herself to save him. Isora loses her reputation in order to stay in Devereux' house and nurse him. Later, she throws herself between the villain and Devereux, receiving the knife wound intended for him. Aurora consents to give herself to

Charles II to save her father's and Mervyn's lives. Emmeline volunteers to stay in Henry Smeaton's prison cell to let him escape.

Even her love for her hero brings pangs to the heroine. Usually because the father forbids the marriage, she must remain separated from her lover. Occasionally, she suffers from unrequited love as a result of the immaturity of the hero. When rejected by Ralph Esher, Miss

Randolph lies ill in bed for a year and a half. But the trials most frequently endured by the heroine axe the persecutions of the villain. Laura, Hilda, Aurora, Rowena, Emmeline, and Lilian are all abducted. In a humorous play on this convention,

Thomasine, Hilda's neighbor, points out to Hilda that abduction "is what all heroines, like ourselves, are subject to" (The Miser's Daughter.

II, 5)• The villain's persecutions often take on more subtle forms.

Barnard threatens to kill both Isora and Devereux if Isora reveals his identity or marries Devereux, and so she lives in constant terror.

Charles II threatens to kill both Mervyn and Aurora's father if she does not give in to his wishes. And after Clermistonlee's abduction of Lilian is publicly known, she is forced to marry the villain to regain her honor.

The heroine always accepts her suffering, her cross to be born.

When Emmeline endures her separation from Henry Smeaton better than he does, the narrator explains that women "have a sort of prescience that their portion is to endure without murmuring" (Henry Smeaton. p. 69).

Zillah sees suffering as a step to salvation. She writes to Reginald,

"If it be only through darkness and suffering that our path may lead into light at last, I would not that my fate— or yours, were ever brightened by one earthly joy" (Reginald Hastings, p. 360).

In her role as solacer, the fair heroine appears a maternal figure.

But paradoxically, her angelic role endows her with many childlike qualities: youth, innocence, artlessness, naivete, and meekness.

Small phrases often convey the narrator's view of her as childlike.

Lilian has an "adorable little face" (The Scottish Cavalier. p. 180).

And her "girlish frankness and openness of character" delight Walter 56

(The Scottish Cavalier, p. 160). Scott, who always exploits the ironies of his characterizations more fully than the other authors, explains that the romantic Waverley does not fall in love with Rose because she hasn't "precisely the sort of beauty or merit, which captivates a romantic imagination in early youth. She was too frank, too confiding, too kind .... Was it possible to bow, to tremble, and to adore, before the timid, yet playful little girl ...?" (Waverley. I, l4l). As with

Rose, many times the heroine is characterized as possessing the innocent gaiety of a child. Emmeline, with a "quick’ and active spirit," sports in the wind and gets her hair tangled (Henry Smeaton. p. 10) . Aurora is "fresh, gay, and full of rich and jocund life" (Whitefriars. p. 22^).

Lilian Napier's eyes beam "with vivacity and drollery" (The Scottish

Cavalier, p . 11?).

But though lively, the heroine is frail. When abducted, Lilian resorts to tears. She is so humbled and broken in spirit that she lets

Clermistonlee approach her bed'and take her hand. After Wilton Brown rescues Laura from a highwayman, he must support the trembling heroine, who can only walk with unsteady steps (The King's Highway, p. 55) • The extremities of suffering and danger subdue even the more courageous heroines. Though Emily thinks she has strength to flee the Puritans,

Henry Masterton eventually has to carry her. Isora is from a line of

Spanish warriors and carries a dagger to protect herself, but Aubrey's threats so overwhelm her that Devereux finds her fainted in the garden.

Almost every heroine both bursts into tears and faints several times in the course of a novel. 57

Being both innocent and frail, the heroine stands doubly in need of a male protector. At the opening of the story, her father or guardian bears this responsibility. But often this male figure himself exhibits weaknesses. He may become dangerously involved in political intrigue, as do Aurora's, Laura's, Rose's, Di's, Isora's, and Zillah's fathers. Or he may be a miser or a villain. But in any case, the daughter subsequently must worry over her father, rather than vice versa.

But though the daughter may be wiser than the father, it remains her duty to obey him. As Reginald Hastings puts it, "daughters had no right to exercise independent opinions, even if they possessed any"

(Reginald Hastings. p. 16). The sacred value placed on a daughter's obedience to her father comes up most often in relation to marriage.

When the father forbids the heroine to marry the hero, she obeys. But she in turn refuses to marry anyone else. The length to which filial obedience could be drawn was apparently carefully marked. Laura, for example, "would never marry Wilton while her father opposed; but she would never marry any one else; for she felt that in her heart she was already wedded unto him" (The King's Highway. p. 322). Aurora vows to

Mervyn, "Here is my hand— if you accept it, I will be yours and yours alone for ever— and though I will never marry you without my father's consent, I will never marry another" (Whitefriars. p. **03).

Hence the heroine's need of the hero, of someone to protect her father as well as herself. That her love is like a child's for the protecting father is suggested by Laura's response to Wilton's first kiss. She blushes but "feels no wrong," for she knows "that gentle pressure to be but an expression, on his part, of the same high, holy, and noble love with which she could have clung to his bosom in any moment of danger, difficulty, or distress" (The King’s Highway. p. 276).

The narrator comments that Laura feels "implicit Confidence in him

[Wilton^ alone, and security with him only" (The King's Highway, p. 2^9)

A bond is formed between Emmeline and Henry Smeaton for life when she tells him, "I feel that I have none to whom I can look for guidance but you" (Henry Smeaton, p. k-0) . And with that new bond comes trust and confidence, resulting from the "vast assurance with which woman's heart reposes upon love" (Henry Smeaton. p. 51)* That the heroine does not fall in love with promises of fortune or position but rather with promises of protection is made explicit in the narrator's analysis of

Lilian's love of Walter Fenton, a poor soldier, in The Scottish Cavalier

The world was not so intensely selfish then as it is now; for a high spirit and a bold heart, when united to a gallant bearing, a velvet cloak, a tall feather and a long sword, were valued more than an ample purse by the young ladies of that age, who were quite used to find in their ponderous folio romances, how beautiful and disinterested queens and princesses bestowed their hands, hearts, and kingdoms on those valiant knights- errant and penniless cavaliers, who alone, or by the aid of a single faithful squire, freed them from enchanted castles, and slew the wicked enchanters ... who had persecuted them from childhood. (The Scottish Cavalier, p. kl)

Luckily, the heroine herself usually possesses fortune and position.

Once in love, her identity is submerged in the hero's, or, as

Tennyson so happily puts it in the Prince's plea to the Princess:

"So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip/ Into my bosom and be lost in me." Emmeline's love for Henry is described as "the absorption, as it were, of her very being into the being of another" (Henry Smeaton, p. 51)• Flora astutely comments that Rose's husband "will be to her 59 what her father now is, the object of all her care, solicitude, and affection. She will see nothing, and connect herself with nothing, but by him and through him" (Waverley. I, 233)* Flora advises Waverley that

The woman whom you marry, ought to have affections and opinions moulded upon yours. Her studies ought to be your studies}— her wishes, her feelings, her hopes, her fears, should all mingle with yours. She should enhance your pleasure, share your sorrows, and cheer your melancholy. (Waverley. I, 279)

As the child worships the father, the heroine worships the hero, overlooking all of his faults, obeying his every command. When Emily and Frank Masterton are engaged, "The slightest wish he expressed she was prompt to obey; all his actions were approved, all his words were listened to; and it seemed that having made up her mind to become his wife, she was practicing beforehand the conduct which might be proper to that station" (Henry Masterton. p. 14) . The wild romance of

Waverley's spirit delights Rose, who is "too young and inexperienced to observe its deficiencies" (Waverley. I, 1^0) . When Flora critcizes

Waverley's lack of involvement in politics, Rose attributes it to "his genius and elegant taste" (Waverley, II, 211).

Since the heroine gives her whole being to the hero, she has no secrets from him. Once Wilton and Laura declare their love, "not a secret of Laura's bosom was now concealed from him she loved, not a thought, not a feeling. She delighted to tell him all" (The King's

Highway. p. 285). Similarly, once Henry Smeaton declares his love,

Emmeline "poured forth her whole heart. She knew not, she could not conceive, any motive, when once that heart was given and its love acknowledged, for concealing from him she loved anything that passed within it" (Henry Smeaton. p. 91)• It is in such a marriage that the heroine's destiny is fulfilled.

Flora says of Rose Bradwardine, "Her very soul is in home, and in the discharge of all those quiet virtues of which home is the centre"

(Waverley. I, 233)* When Laura and Wilton plight their troth in The

King's Highway. the narrator concludes, "that great change had been effected in Laura by that which is the great first mover of a woman's destinies. She loved and had avowed her love" (The King's Highway.

P. 257).

In conclusion, the fair heroine of a Victorian historical romance is the same ideal woman found in other popular literature of the day— an angel removed from the tainted world who inspires and ennobles man, a mother who comforts him and raises his children, and at the same time a fragile, weak creature who requires his support. Rachel Esmond views herself as, and in many ways is, just such a woman. But in Henry Esmond.

Thackeray reveals that life with such an angel in the house is not all milk and honey, that beneath the angelic surface rumble deep, human passions— resentment, desire, jealousy, possessiveness. The Dark Heroine

A glance at the chart on page 192 shows that about half of the novels contain not one heroine but two. This secondary heroine usually provides a contrast to the first; a dark beauty is contrasted with the light.

Unlike the angelic blonde, the black-haired beauty is very much of this earth. Her hair is always thick, glossy, and loose, her brilliantly dark eyes are softened by long lashes, while her complexion may be a rich brown or a dazzling white. The narrator of The King's

Highway points out that Caroline's beauty is of a different sort than

Laura's, characterized by hair

of the richest, brightest, glossy black ... her rich and massy curls, ... the fine lines of her features, the clear rich brown of her complexion, the glorious light of her large dark eyes, softened by the long thick lashes that overshadowed them, the full and rounded beauty of every limb .... (The King's Highway. p. 133)

Rather than being a frail, virginal seventeen, the dark heroine has the fuller, riper beauty of the twenties, as Caroline's "full and rounded beauty" suggests. In Henry Masterton. Eleanor, with the beauty of

"spring verging into summer," also has a figure of "rounded fulness"

(44). And this rounded fulness is at times very tantalizingly displayed, an exposure unthinkable in connection with the fair heroine. Eleanor's dress, says Henry, "exposed more of her figure than I was accustomed to see displayed, and it struck me strangely, as if something had been

6 l 62

forgotten" (Henry Masterton. p. ^5) • At the tournament in Ivanhoe.

Rebecca's curls

fell down upon as much of a lovely neck and bosom as a simarre of the richest Persian silk ... permitted to be visible.... It is true, that of the golden and pearl- studded clasps, which closed her vest from the throat to the waist, the three uppermost were left unfastened on account of the heat, which something enlarged the prospect to which we allude. (Ivanhoe. I, 109)

When Eleanor falls off her horse, Henry Masterton is rather shocked

to find her receiving company in a reclining position. He reports:

With her beautiful limbs stretched upon her Moorish couch, with every accessory of beauty and luxury, a languid softness in her eyes and an air of negligent exhaustion over her whole form, she looked like a fairer type of that famed Egyptian queen, who made the mighty of the earth her slaves. (Henry Masterton, pp. 56-57)

A bewitcher, an enchantress, a Circe, the dark heroine has dangerous

seductive powers. Eleanor is a "syren," who artfully becomes, as Henry

puts it, "the willing cause of my brother's infatuation" (Henry

Masterton. p. 56). Standing above a romantic waterfall, Flora sings to

Waverley like an enchantress of Boiardo or Ariosto; she is, says the

narrator, "precisely the character to fascinate a youth of romantic

imagination" (Waverley. I, 225, 239)* And Frank Osbaldistone laments of

Di Vernon, "I do not know ... by what witchery this fascinating creature

obtained such complete management over a temper, which I cannot at all

times manage myself" (Rob Roy, I, 257)*

Some dark beauties fascinate men solely for their own amusement.

Annie Laurie has in her manner "a considerable dash of Parisian

coquetry, which is always excessively attractive to beaux, though a

timid and retiring girl, like Lilian, is sure, in the end, to prove the

most loveable and devoted" (The Scottish Cavalier, p. l8l). Coquetry is a game Eleanor "had taught herself to play." She has won many men,

"brought them to her feet, and laughed their passions to scorn; or coldly pretended she had not seen their growing love" (Henry Masterton. p. 46). At court, Phoebe, the dark heroine of Reginald Hastings.

"seemed ... to have improved in the dangerous art of coquetry, and to be amused rather than touched by his Qlugo's] romantic admiration"

(Reginald Hastings, p. 109).

As in Phoebe's case, the dark heroine has often acquired the art of coquetry at court or in high society, where she has also acquired artificial manners, language, and dress. Instead of being artless, she is artful; instead of being innocent and naive, she is worldly. Flora, raised at St. Germain, "was highly accomplished, and had acquired those elegant manners to be expected from one who, in early youth, had been the companion of a princess" (Waverley. I, 213). Caroline, brought up at the Pretender's court, is "evidently more acquainted with the world" than Laura (The King's Highway. p. 198) . Eleanor's "easy tone of high and finished courtesy" is "habitual to her." In Paris, she resides in a "large and magnificent saloon, filled with everything that luxury could invent to pamper the most fastidious taste." Her dress is "rich," and "although nothing that art could do to improve beauty was wanting in her apparel, yet the whole seemed devoid of art" (Henry Masterton. pp. 288-89). In Sir Ralph Esher. Margaret Vavasour, married by her father to a worldly, cynical man, loses her candor and artlessness. As a result, Philip learns that "there was less of unconsciousness and more of will" in her actions than he had supposed" (Sir Ralph Esher, 64

Possibly because they have seen more of the world, dark heroines

are sometimes much more knowledgeable about politics and have much

wider concerns than their fair counterparts. For the Stuarts, Flora

is "prepared to do all, to suffer all, to sacrifice all" (Waverley, I

212). Rose, by contrast, "was so tenderly watched by her father, and

her circle of wishes was so limited, that none arose but what he was

willing to gratify, and scarce any which did not come within the compass

of his power" (Waverley, I , 215)• Caroline has learned the shortcomings

of the Jacobites and even attacks the sacred concept of honor:

a most strange thing, that the customs of the world, and what we call honour, so often requires us to do those things that every principle of right and justice, truth and religion, commands us not to do. God's word tells us not to murder, yet men daily do it, and women think them all the nobler for trading in blood. (The King1s Highway. p. 137)

Rebecca is the outstanding example of the perceptive dark heroine. In

her discussions with Ivanhoe about the code of chivalry, she

successfully points out its limitations and demonstrates her knowledge

of the ideals of the Jewish tradition.

In addition to knowing more than the fair heroine, the dark

heroine acts upon her knowledge. Rather than passively enduring, she plays a very active part in the events of the story. When Caroline discovers there is a kidnapped girl in the house, she insists that it

is "a very bad business, ... and it is for that very reason that I am going to meddle" (The King * s Highway, p. 198), which she does. Eleanor arranges for Puritan troops to interfere with Frank's marriage, thus becoming inadvertently responsible for the death of his father. But

Scott's heroines are the most vigorous maneuverers. In Rob Roy, it is

Di Vernon who actually restores the honor of the Osbaldistone firm. It 65

is she who insists that Rob Roy clear Frank when Rashleigh contrives

to make him look like a Jacobite traitor• And it is she who goes into

the Highlands and gets the firm's money back for Frank. Similarly, once Flora discovers that Rose loves Waverley, she very artfully presents Rose and herself before Waverley in such a manner that he falls

in love with Rose and out of love with her. Waverley, of course, never knows that he has been controlled by this force behind the scenes.

Vigorous actions require strength and courage, which the dark heroine, unlike the frail fair one, possesses in abundance. While

Rowena cowers in hysterics before De Bracy, Rebecca, "better prepared by habits of thought, and by natural strength of mind, to encounter the dangers to which she was exposed," threatens to jump out of the window if Brian moves near her (Ivanhoe. II, 7)* To illustrate the "high spirit" of Flora, the narrator reports that when she is accidentally grazed by a bullet shot by a Highlander, she thanks God that the bullet hit her and not a Whig (Waverley. II, 19^-95)* In his state of confusion,

Frank Osbaldistone finds "a lucid interval to admire the firmness, composure, and presence of mind, which Miss Vernon seemed to possess on every crisis, however sudden" (Rob Roy, I, 262).

Only in Scott's novels, however, are the strengths of the dark heroine explored. Rebecca and Di Vernon are portrayed as most admirable persons, much more so than the heroes themselves. But the followers of

Scott emphasized different aspects of this character. Though sensual,

Scott’s dark beauties are "good" women. In the Victorian historical romance, the dark heroine's sensuality, worldliness, and assertiveness lead her into trouble. Caroline engages in a secret marriage, after 66

which her husband deserts her and returns to his father, too weak to

reveal the truth. Eleanor, though already married, runs off with

Frank Masterton.. Henry senses the danger she presents: "There was

something in her too sweet, too brilliant, too fascinating. The fire

of the heart and the mind was suffered to shine out so brightly, that a doubt was instantly raised, whether it would always be repressed by principle and virtue" (Henry Masterton. p. 206). Phoebe must tell Hugo, her childhood sweetheart, that her "heart's passion was for another, differing from me Qlugo]] ... as darkness from the light; dark and dissembling, though daring too— of much evil repute, and even perhaps inconstant— yet— how dear!" (Reginald Hastings, p. 202).

Even in Scott's novels, the reputation of the dark heroine is suspect. Andrew Fairservice says of Di Vernon, "I wish she was her ain mistress; and I wish she mayna be some other body's mistress or it's lang— She's a wild slip that" (Rob Roy. I, 91)- Later, Frank, tormented by jealousy, spies on Di from the garden to see what secret lover she admits. Rebecca is accused of leading Brian astray with her bewitching black eyes.

Some form of illicit love or the suspicion of it, then, is the source of the dark heroine's suffering in the historical romances following Scott's. Caroline follows her husband to England, meets him secretly, and begs him to reveal their marriage, but to no avail. He later accidentally shoots her. Eleanor, deserted by Frank, takes poison, and then laments to Henry as she is dying that if she had only listened to him, "I should not have now blushed to see you— I should not have been lying the despised and miserable creature that I am— I should not 67

— 0 God! I should not have been hastening, even now, to another and

an awful world, by my own rash act" (Henry Masterton. p. 315) • Margaret

Vavasour dismisses the man she really loves and loses him for years,

only to have him return engaged to another woman.

In conclusion, all heroines, whether dark or fair, suffer. Such,

apparently, was the common lot of women. Rebecca, put on trial for

bewitching Brian, boasts to him, "not in thy fiercest battles hast

thou displayed more of thy vaunted courage, than has been shewn by woman

when called upon to suffer by affection or duty" (Ivanhoe. II, 283).

But unlike the fair heroine, the dark one is usually not rewarded

by a happy ending. Though often initially described as being "meant

for joy," the more experienced heroines end up in a state of melancholy.

Suffering for life is the lot of many of them. Rebecca's love for

Ivanhoe is fruitless, for holding the prejudices of his age, he cannot

see beyond the fact that she is a Jewess. As Jews have no nunneries,

she determines to spend the rest of her life as a holy woman, taking

care of the poor and sick of her people. Flora, overcome by the guilt

she feels for her brother's death, determines to enter a nunnery.

Phoebe, too, becomes a nun. Her "form and face seemed meant altogether

for mirth and happiness; yet 'twas now the most mournful, and by far the

most melancholy of the two. Those violet eyes, once sparkling with

joyful fancies, were dimmed and sunken" (Reginald Hastings, p. 280).

Eleanor, having committed adultery and taken poison, is sure she will end

up in hell. Occasionally, however, the education of the lover allows a

happy ending. The gallant may realize the worth of his mistress and so marry her, as Lord Sherbrooke does Caroline and as Lord Alcestor does 68

Henrietta in G.P.R. James's Russell.

But one cannot expect the dark heroine to end up, like the fair one, in domestic bliss. Knowledgeable, active, sensual, and strong, she has taken on some of the characteristics normally associated with the hero.

She goes far beyond the woman's proper sphere occupied by the fair heroine, and certainly cannot, like the fair heroine, be enfolded into the hero's identity. Di Vernon responds with sarcasm to Frank's attempts to treat her like a frail woman, asserting, "I belong, in habits of thinking and acting, rather to your sex, with which I have always been brought up, than to my own" (Rob Roy. I, 201).

While Rachel plays the part of the fair heroine in Henry Esmond.

Beatrix plays the part of the dark one. And just as in Rachel,

Thackeray explores the negative aspects of a fair angel, in Beatrix he examines the positive ones of a Victorian femme fatale, finding her, indeed, to have many of the strengths previously found only in Scott's dark heroines. The Villain

Through his machinations, the villain of the piece thickens the plot by blocking the hero's attempts to win fame, fortune, and a wife.

Reginald Hastings exclaims, "every man, I presume, is haunted by some other who is sure to encounter him at every trying juncture of his life, and Hezekiah seemed the incarnation of my evil destiny" (Reginald

Hastings, p. 211). The direct association of the villain with the forces of evil occurs in many of the novels. Demon, devil, fiend,

Satan, tempter, and snake— each term is applied on occasion to various villains.

Rather than being motivated by the high ideals of love and honor, the villain is driven by ferocious passions. The narrator of The

Scottish Cavalier says of Clermistonlee, "a storm of fiery passions were smouldering in his haughty bosom" (p. 214) . In Henry Masterton. the face of Walter Dixon's corpse "still bore evident traces of the fierce and deadly passions which had been the habitual tenants of his bosom" (p. 390). Brian de Bois-Guilbert brings death on himself, "a victim to the violence of his own contending passion" (Ivanhoe. II, 371).

The villain possesses a strong but very low, limited mind, closer to cunning than intelligence. Rather than ruling the passions, the villain's mind devises means to satiate them. In Whitefriars. Blood's low forehead, with its massive overhanging eyebrows, suggests "the idea of a rude power and energy of intellect, able to second, but too

69 70

well, the volitions of a coarse and sensual nature" (pp. 19-20).

Similarly, in Rob Roy. Rashleigh's eyes exhibit "an expression of art and design, andj on provocation, a ferocity tempered by caution, which nature had made obvious to the'most ordinary physiognomist, perhaps with the same intention that she has given the rattle to the poisonous

snake" (p. *4-9). And when Walter Dixon is betrayed by his servant,

Henry Masterton describes him as the "wily and daring master, who, with all his cunning and decision, was outwitted and betrayed by the low, quiet art of the despicable insect, that thus lay like an asp in the lair of the tiger" (Henry Mastertonp. 379) •

A cynic, the villain scoffs at the higher aspirations of man— at religion, love, loyalty, and goodness. Glermistonlee thinks Walter

Fenton a fool for believing in the faith of women and Kings (The

Scottish Cavalier, p. *4-22). Walter Dixon "would scoff at things that all sects held sacred," and has "no reverence for prejudice or feelings ...." (Henry Masterton. p. j6) . Brian de Bois-Guilbert, though a Knight Templar, says of his group's religious creeds "we hold these nursery tales in derision" (ivanhoe, II, 19). And John Newark, the villain of Henry Smeaton, has no concept of the imagination or

"of the generous and thoughtless impulses of the heart" (Henry Smeaton. p. 12).

The villain's ferocious passions and sharp cunning are often supported by an animal-like strength. Brian is "thin, strong, tall, and muscular; an athletic figure" with "none of the softer part of the human form" (Ivanhoe. I, 19). In Whitefrlars. Blood's figure is

"remarkable, at first glance, for its prodigious strength and muscular 71 symmetry, the hull-like massiveness of the neck and shoulders, and the somewhat peculiar largeness of the head" (Whltefrlars, p. 19).

The Reverend Doom throws Reginald Hastings aside "with a strength that

I could not have believed possible" (Reginald Hastings. p. 137).

Such a man, having no respect for any values higher than himself, employs the prodigious strength of his mental, emotional, and physical powers to his own ends. Most villains are driven by the desire for two things— a woman and wealth, usually in the form of lands. By subduing the heroine, many hope to gain both. A few— Fergus in Waverley,

Brian in Ivanhoe, Rashleigh in Rob Roy, and Father Montreuil in Devereux

— long for power as well. When, in the course of events, the villain's desires are frustrated, revenge becomes an overpowering fourth ambition.

After Laura rejects his son's suit, Lord Byerdale vows, "if I live for six months I will bring that pride down to the very lowest pitch ...

I will degrade her till she thinks herself a servant wench" (The King's

Highway, p. 128). Clermistonlee vows to Walter, "my path shall not be crossed with impunity by man or devil" (The Scottish Cavalier. p. 8l) .

The narrator of The Scottish Cavalier describes the mixture of motives driving the villain, in this case, Clermistonlee: "It was curious how strongly the sentiments of pride, avarice, and revenge, mingled with his love-musing" (The Scottish Cavalier, p. 190).

With no concept of honor or kindness or truth, with no concept of anything beyond the urgency of his own desires, the villain will resort to any means to accomplish his ends. Lord Byerdale's son warns Wilton

Brown to beware of his father: "for the sake of power or of wealth he has the courage to do anything on earth that is absurd, and for revenge 72 he has the courage to do a great deal more" (The King1s Highway. p. 84).

Violence and deceit are the two means most commonly employed "by the villain. He feels no compunction about using violence, even as a first resort. In Sir Ralph Esher, the Duke of Ormond points out about

Captain Blood that "Blood is his name, and blood is his nature"

(ill, 229). In Whltefriars, Captain Blood, whose eyes reveal "a remorseless energy of purpose and execution" murders Mervyn's father and

Godfrey, and makes attempts on the lives of several others (p. 20).

Walter Dixon, whose means are "bold, villainous, and remorseless," hires a dissipated Cavalier to murder Lord Langleigh, Emily's father (Henry

Masterton, p. 381)*

But murder is not so common as abduction. Abduction was the conventional method to possess the heroine and, after forcing her into a marriage to restore her honor, her lands. Brian, Blood, Lord Mauvesin,

Beau Villiers, and Clermistonlee all attempt abductions. Clermistonlee, in fact, makes three attempts to secure Lilian before he succeeds.

Most villains, though, are too cunning to rely on violence alone.

They realize the importance of appearances, and thus use hypocrisy to further their aims. When Rashleigh turns against the Jacobites, Prank exclaims, "If hell ... has one complexion more hideous than another, it is where villainy is masked by hypocrisy" (Rob Roy, II, 366).

Some use a sweet tongue to insinuate themselves into their victim's good graces. Rashleigh's voice, says Frank, is "the most soft, mellow, and rich in its tones that I ever heard, and was at no loss for language of every sort suited to so fine an organ" (Rob Roy. I, 78). Walter

Dixon "generally contrived to leave you tolerably well satisfied with 73 yourself, by extolling those virtues or talents of which you fancied yourself possessed" (Henry Masterton, pp. 36-7). To win Rebecca, Brian first addresses her in the language of gallantry, as "fair flower of

Palestine" (ivanhoe, II, 9)•

Others hope to win trust by appearing to be candid. After Dixon easily takes him in, Henry Masterton comments, "Of all sorts of hypocrisy

... the affectation of frankness is the surest birdlime for a green youth" (Henry Masterton. p. 35)* Though John Newark "was not without his own particular motives in anything he did," he "frequently covered, or attempted to cover them by an air of frank and straight-forward affabil­ ity" (Henry Smeaton, p. 16) . And Blood is "the most artful and perfidi­ ous of men. His very candour was artifice" (Sir Ralph Esher, III, 82).

Some villains literally take on a false disguise. Philip Frewin appears before Hilda's miserly father as a miser himself, though he is actually a debauched spendthrift, thus gaining the father's esteem and eventually the promise of his daughter and his fortune. In Sir Ralph

Esher, Blood appears first as Captain Sandford and then as Dalton before his true identity is revealed at the end of the novel.

Very often, though, the deceits used are much more complicated, expanding into elaborate schemes and intrigues. The narrator of Waverley reports that "Fergus's brain was a perpetual work-shop of scheme and intrigue, of every possible kind and description" (II, 210). Clermis­ tonlee is a "deep intriguer" (The Scottish Cavalier, p. b) . Many villains utilize both their political position and the hero's love for the heroine to accomplish their ends. For example, Lord Byerdale first encourages Wilton to love Laura by telling him the half truth that he is of noble birth without including the other half— that he is a bastard.

Then he encourages the close association of Wilton and Laura's father.

When the father gets foolishly involved in a Jacobite scheme, Byerdale has him placed in the Tower. A powerful minister of William III,

Byerdale withholds the King's pardon of the Duke and arranges instead an escape scheme which revolves around the marriage of Laura and Wilton in the Tower. To complete the future misery of all parties, he informs

Wilton before the marriage takes place that he has been deceiving Laura and is actually a bastard.

In Henry Masterton, Walter Dixon insinuates himself into Frank

Masterton's favor and then leads Frank to Eleanor Fleming's where, as he predicted, Frank becomes entangled in Eleanor's web. After the

Roundheads defeat the Cavaliers, Dixon demands Eleanor's property as his reward, claiming she traitorously supported an officer of Charles's troops. When his demand is denied, he follows Eleanor and Frank to

Paris, informs Eleanor's husband of their location, and thus arranges for a duel between Frank and the husband in which they are both killed. Once again, he demands the estate. However, when he discovers that the original owner of the estate, Lord Langleigh, has been living in disguise in France, he hires murderers to remove the last barrier between him and the estate. Luckily, Henry's servant Ball O' Fire first murders Walter. Upon discovering the truth, Henry Masterton is horrified by "the artful and insidious manner in which he [Dixonj] had pursued his plan from step to step" (Henry Masterton, p. 381)*

In a word, the villain is a brute. With animal-like desires and the cunning and strength to pursue them, he operates in the dark underworld of hypocrisy, vice, and violence. But for all his schemes

and cunning, he never emerges victorious. Though he seems to have

entrapped the hero in his net, the net is always miraculously removed,

without the hero's having to put up much of a struggle. Brian de Bois-

Guilbert and the Reverend Hezekiah Doom both drop dead, victims of their

own fierce passions. Rob Roy, coming to Frank's rescue, kills Rashleigh,

while Henry's little servant Ball O'Fire kills Walter Dixon, and

Emmeline's retarded brother Richard kills William Newark. Mervyn and

Randolph Crew both inadvertently kill their adversaries. When the villain occasionally is permitted to remain alive, the taste of defeat is made very bitter. The Earl of Byerdale learns that the rightful owner of his estate yet lives, and so is forced to become a dependent of the Jacobite daughter-in-law he has just scornfully dismissed.

Clermistonlee learns that in having Walter Fenton killed, he has murdered his own son. Somehow or other, vice always meets its just deserts.

In The Victorian Vision: Studies in the Religious Novel, Margaret

Maison observes that "the Jesuit provided the perfect villain for 17 fictional purposes." Indeed, the Jesuits, as according to Maison they loomed in the Victorian imagination, are similar in many ways to the villains of historical romances— "crafty liars and plotters of l8 'infernal suavity,'" men "supercilious and satanically unscrupulous."

It is not surprising, then, to find Jesuit priests silently gliding in and out of Victorian historical romances, occasionally playing the part of arch-villain, but more typically having only a supporting role, a role that is a variation on that of the typical villain's. The Jesuit priest is, like the villain, less than human, but as a result not of brute-like passions but rather of a cold intellect removed from all human sympathies. In Devereux, Abbe Montreuil bears a countenance "rigid, thoughtful, and cold" (p. ?)• Whitefriars*

Father Van Huysman's "natural inflexibility and severity of temper were hardened, not subdued, by the extreme ardour of his religious principles" (p. 77). Mervyn is subjected to the education of the good fathers, an education founded on reason, which allows no room for the imagination and forgets "that man has a heart as well as a soul"

(Whitefriars, p. 78)*

The Jesuit's intelligence takes the same form as the villain's— that of cunning. Father Petre in Ainsworth's James the Second is

"crafty, subtle, and ambitious, and versed in all the learning, the art, and the sophistry of his order" (p. 57)• On first meeting Andrew

Fleming, a Jesuit priest turned Benedictine monk, Henry Masterton reports, "I was accustomed to look upon the Roman-Catholic priesthood as the most artful and cunning body of men that ever this world in which we live had produced" (Henry Masterton, p. 2^2). And Henry sees in the Father's attempts to find Frank Masterton "nothing but the tortuous and cunning method which the children of the Romish church pursued to obtain the information of which they were so covetous"

(Henry Masterton. p. 305)*

The Jesuits have only one ambition, described in Whitefriars as a

"colossal desire ... to bring back the whole northern world to the footstool of the Roman dominion" (p. 80). To effect this, they endow the villain's code of any means to achieve one's end with a religious sanction. Father Petre assures James II that "Heaven will forgive any

means you may use to "benefit the true religion" (James the Second,

p. 113)* In The Miser's Daughter. Crackenthorpe Cripps easily convinces

Father Verselyn to betray the Jacobites, for "A Jesuit never hesitated

to betray his friends when it answered his purpose" (II, 2*K)) . Abbe

Montreuil seizes on the vices of Devereux's family to play off the members against each other and in the end obtain the family fortune for

his cause. Like other priests, a master of deceit, Montreuil explains,

"the nakedness of truth should never be too openly exposed to the eyes of the vulgar" (Devereux. p. 80). Father Petre keeps all proofs of Charles

Moor's legitimacy carefully hidden, hoping to employ the man in possession of the family estate as his tool.

Even violence proves acceptable to the Jesuits. Father Petre plots

Mauvesin's abduction of Sabine, assuring the villain "I will make this abduction the means of your rival's disgrace" (James the Second, p. 72).

When Randolph Crew refuses to drink a toast to the Pretender at a

Jacobite meeting, Father Verselyn advises the company to "fall upon him altogether and slay him I ... the imminence of the danger justifies the deed" (The Miser's Daughter. I, 192). Abbe Montreuil is behind Aubrey's attempt to murder his brother Devereux.

In pursuing their cunning plots, Jesuit priests operate in disguise, usually as men of the world. Montreuil surprises the young Devereux by returning from Frank elegantly dressed. Andrew Fleming comes to

England to fight a duel disguised as a layman, and Father Verselyn attends a Jacobite meeting in the same dress. Furthermore, the priests prove quite capable of acting the parts of their disguises; Jesuit priests, says the narrator of Whitefriars. must have a "profound

acquaintance with the passions and politics of the time" (p. 80).

Similarly, Father Van Huysman has a great knowledge of the world

(Whitefriars. p. 77); and nothing could be "more worldly, in their

urbanity," than "Abb! Montreuil's manner and address" (Devereux, p. 7)•

In cursing Abb! Montreuil, Devereux summarizes the character, aims,

and methods of the Jesuit priest:

Over the peace, the happiness, the honour, the virtue of a whole family, through fraud and through blood, this priest had marched onward to the goal of his icy and heartless ambition, unrelenting and unrepenting, ... but ... not forever unchecked and unrequited. (Devereux. p. ^30)

As Devereux suggests, the Jesuit priest meets the same fate as other

villains. Devereux kills Montreuil in a duel. Walter Dixon stabs

Father Fleming for stabbing Frank Masterton. Father Van Huysman is

pressed to death under a slab of rock. But poetic justice is most

fully achieved in Father Verselyn’s end; seeking to hide in a sewer, he

perishes in the slime.

A second variation on the villain is the gallant. A pampered

aristocrat accustomed to having his every desire indulged, the gallant

is a man who, like the Duke of Buckingham in Sir Ralph Esher, has

"had too much pleasure, power, and riches, to have any instinct but

for self-indulgence" (I, 153)* A model courtier, the gallant takes

great pains with his dress, his lute playing, and his witty conversation,

and spends his time indulging in the dissipations fashionable at Court.

The Duke of Buckingham "could forget even his interest, if the pleasure

of the moment was concerned in it" (Sir Ralph Esher. I, 153)* 79

The "pleasure of the moment" usually Involves the pursuit of a woman, along with gambling and drinking. Beau Villiers in The Miser’s

Daughter is "a great coxcomb, a great rake, and a great gamester"

(I, 42-3); though Lady Brabazon is his mistress through most of the novel, the Beau pursues Hilda and in the end elopes with the actress

Kitty Conway. Lord Sherbrooke of The King's Highway is "a libertine by habit," though not a libertine in heart (p. 195)» who freely admits his captivity to his vices, which include drinking and gambling (p. 78).

The Duke of Ormond says of Buckingham, "Today an atheist, to-morrow a puritan, the next day a fiddler, he is never anything truly but a libertine and a mountebank" (Sir Ralph Esher. Ill, 245) •

An aristocrat, the gallant, unlike the typical villain, desires primarily the woman, though if his coffers need replenishing, her fortune and estates may be welcomed. And being a courtier, he first tries the seductive powers'of language. After De Bracy makes such an attempt in Ivanhoe. Rowena retorts "the insolent familiarity with which you apply to me the jargon of a troubadour, forms no apology for the violence of a robber" (I, 327)* When the Duke of Buckingham directs his flowery addresses to both Miss Randolph and Lady Vavasour, Miss

Randolph observes,

he did nothing which I suppose a courtier does not think himself warranted in doing. I have heard him call it "making love." I am sure it is a very bad imitation of— I mean to say, it is surely as different from love, as falsehood from truth. (Sir Ralph Esher. Ill, 114)

If, as above, the heroine sees through his courteous speeches, the villain resorts to abduction. Beau Villiers first tries to abduct Hilda from her house, and when foiled, makes another attempt at Vauxhall. De Bracy, with the help of Brian de Bois-Guilbert, conceives an intricate plot to first ahduct Rowena in a disguise, then appear as himself and rescue her, thereby winning her heart and hand. The Duke of Buckingham, prevented by Philip from abducting Miss Randolph, turns to violence and intrigue, arranging with Blood to have Philip kidnapped and killed. Later in the novel, he murders a man and then openly takes the man's wife for his mistress.

But perhaps because he is an aristocrat, the gallant escapes the fate of other villains. De Bracy seeks refuge in France, as does Beau

Villiers. The Court of Charles II proves so corrupt that even after

Buckingham makes an attempt on the crown, he is forgiven. Occasionally the gallant even reforms, as does Lord Sherbrooke in The King's Highway and Lord Alcester in James's Russell. CHAPTER THREE

The History of Henry Esmond: Henry's Attempt At An Historical Romance

An ironic interpretation of a novel written from the point of view

of one of the characters often assumes that the narrator's view of the

story is not the author's, that the narrator is not to be relied upon.

So it is with Henry Esmond. The narrator shapes his life into the form

of an historical romance, but it is not as an historical romance that

Thackeray wants the reader to see it. Thus, before discussing how

familiarity with the historical romance leads to an ironic

interpretation of the novel, I offer a sample of the clues which direct

the reader to question the reliability of Esmond as narrator.

First, an examination of Henry's professed intent in writing his memoirs proves confusing. At the same time that he claims to be presenting the unheroic "truth" of history, he insists that the truthfulness of any personal view of history is marred by subjectivity.

He opens his memoirs by stating his view of the proper focus for the historians "In a word, I would have History familiar rather than heroic."^ He objects to both the heroic subjects and the heroic stance adopted by historians; in his own age, Clio, the muse of history

busies herself with the affairs only of kings; waiting on them obsequiously and stately, as if she were but a mistress of Court ceremonies, and had nothing to do with the registering of the affairs of the common people. (45)

This objection to the old view of history is expressed through the

81 82 metaphor of kneeling: "Why shall History go on kneeling to the end of time? I am for having her rise up off her knees, and take a natural posture: not to be for ever performing cringes and congees like a

Court-chamberlain" (^-6). Henry's history, then, does not busy itself with kings or queens; but neither does it register the affairs of the common people. Rather, its concern is the aristocracy, in particular

Henry himself. When kings, queens, and other prominent historical figures do make their way into the novel, Henry stoutly refuses to kneel and indeed shows why they should not be knelt to. But even in recording the affairs of his family, Henry refuses to adopt an heroic stance.

Following a satirical portrait of his patron and relative, Viscount

Castlewood, he admits that

It may seem ungracious in one who has received a hundred favours from his patron to speak in any but a reverential manner of his elders; but the present writer has had descendants of his own, whom he has brought up with as little as possible of the servility at present exacted by parents from children ...: and as he would have his grandsons believe or represent him to be not an inch taller than Nature has made him: so, with regard to his past acquaintance, he would speak without anger, but with truth, as far as he knows it, neither extenuating nor setting down aught in malice. (111-12)

Even Rachel is portrayed with "truth," i.e. with faults: "And as Esmond has taken truth for his motto, it must be owned, even with regard to that other angel, his mistress, that she had a fault of character, which flawed her perfections" (113)— jealousy of her own sex. The narrator, then, sets out to portray the unheroic truth of his own and his family's history, thus adopting the unheroic subject and stance which he asserts will convey a more accurate idea of the manners of his age than the history books. 83

And yet, while Esmond claims to have taken the unheroic truth for his motto, he also claims that there is no "truth" in history, whether national or personal. After hearing Frank's explanation of his marital problems, Esmond observes "How each has a story in a dispute, and a true one, too, and both are right, or wrong, as you will" (166). Later,

Esmond makes the point that truth depends upon point of view, and warns his grandchildren not to take his historical portraits as truthful:

Should any child of mine take the pains to read these, his ancestor's memoirs, I would not have him judge of the great Duke by what a contemporary has written of him. No man hath been so immensely lauded and decried as this great statesman and warrior; as, indeed, no man ever deserved better the very greatest praise and the strongest censure. If the present writer joins with the latter faction, very likely a private pique of his own may be the cause of his ill-feeling. ... We have but to change the point of view, and greatest action looks mean; as we turn the perspective- glass, and a giant appears a pigmy. You may describe, but who can tell whether your sight is clear or not, or your means of information accurate. (285-6)

Finally, Esmond even suggests that his portrait of himself may not be totally truthful:

For though enough hath been said about this love-business already— enough, at least, to prove to the writer's heirs what a silly fond fool their old grandfather was, who would like them to consider him as a very wise old gentleman yet; not near all has been told concerning this matter, which, if it were allowed to take in Esmond's journal the space it occupied in his time, would weary his kinsmen and women of a hundred years' time beyond all endurance; and form such a diary of folly and drivelling, raptures and rage, as no man of ordinary vanity would like to leave behind him. (393-4)

Of course, one would not expect the unheroic truth to puff up one's vanity. Apparently Esmond is letting his vanity influence his self- portrait . Secondly, other characters provide versions of events that differ

from Esmond's. Perhaps the most important of the discrepancies concerns

the effects of the smallpox on the marriage of Rachel and Viscount

Castlewood. Aocording to Esmond, the smallpox marred Rachel's beauty.

Consequently, "can anyone, who has passed through the world and watched the nature of men and women there, doubt what had befallen her?" (129)—

Frank married her for her "beaux yeux," and so his "love does not survive her beauty" (129). Rachel, then, is made out to be the victim of Frank:

"The gentlest and kindest of women was suffering ill-usage and shedding tears in secret: the man who made her wretched by neglect, if not by violence, was Harry's benefactor and patron" (153)• This is the version of events detailed by the narrator, and thus that accepted by readers.

But later in the novel, Frank and Rachel reveal that they each view the disintegration of their marriage from entirely different perspectives. In Frank's version, the small-pox marked the end of

Rachel's love of him, not vice-versa. And he attributes this to

Rachel's never having forgiven him for fleeing from Castlewood to avoid contamination: "I believe she would be glad if I was dead; and dead

I've been to her these five years— ever since you all of you had the small-pox: and she never forgave me for going away" (165).

Rachel's version is not so explicit. But she, too, connects the small-pox with the end of her happy marriage, and further with some sin, committed by herself, associated with Henry. In prison, for example, she wildly laments to Henry "and I lost him through you .... Why did you not die when you had the small-pox— and I came myself and watched you .... All that has happened since, was a just judgment on my wicked heart" (205). Similarly, when Henry proposes, she responds "I have

been your nurse. You could not see me, Harry, when you were in the

small-pox, and I came and sate by you. Ah! I prayed that I might die,

but it would have been in sin, Henry" (255)* A. careful reader must

wonder if the truth indeed lies with the narrator, as first appeared.

Thirdly, at least part of the story is told from the perspective

of the "very wise old gentleman" writing his memoirs in Virginia,

a perspective which he admits has changed with time. After describing

Trix as a "coquette from the earliest times almost," whose "power

became more fatal as she grew older" (171-2), he comments:

'Tis not to be imagined that Harry Esmond had all this experience at this early stage of his life, whereof he is now writing the history— many things here noted were but known to him in later days. Almost everything Beatrix did or undid seemed good, or at least pardonable, to him then, and years afterwards. (172)

Are we sure that experience has led Esmond to see things more clearly?

And finally, a close attention to details suggests that the

narrator is manipulating some aspects of the story with one aim—

to make himself look more heroic. Though he claims "he would have

his grandsons believe or represent him to be not an inch taller than

Nature has made him" (ill), his faults are presented in such a way

that they do not form part of our final impression of the narrator.

To this purpose, he manipulates the time frame, so that the present

narrator is clearly separated from the follies of his youth. He admits

that the young Esmond during his first year at Cambridge was quite

morose, absorbed in nursing his injured pride. But the narrator himself

seems a well-balanced, clear-headed fellow: 86

His birth was a source of shame to him, and he fancied a hundred slights and sneers from young and old, who, no doubt, had treated him better had he met them himself more frankly. And as he looks back, in calmer days, upon this period of his life, which he thought so unhappy, he can-see that his own pride and vanity caused no small part of the mortifications which he attributed to others' ill-will. The world deals good-naturedly with good-natured people, and I never knew a sulky misanthropist who quarrelled with it, but it was he, and not it, that was in the wrong. (145-6)

Again, as the despondent lover of Trix, he presents himself as "truly a ludicrous and pitiable object" (384). When he attempts to break

Beatrix's spell by rejoining the army, "He.was more the Knight of the

Woeful Countenance than ever he had been. His moodiness must have made him perfectly odious to his friends under the tents, who like a jolly fellow, and laugh at a melancholy warrior always sighing after Dulcinea at home" (357)• But the narrator here is laughing also. By directing irony at himself, Esmond gains the advantage of appearing so far beyond his faults that they are no longer associated with him.

Esmond further contrives to downplay his faults by placing them in unobtrusive places and by failing to develop them in any detail.

Esmond gets into a rage no less than eight times in the novel. And yet the reader hardly thinks of him as a man who cannot control his emotions.

Why? For one, the rages are only casually mentioned. For example,

Esmond never expresses any dissatisfaction with his play's reception; he even seems a bit proud, boasting that he "writ a fine comedy, that his mistress pronounced to be sublime, and that was acted no less than three successive nights, in London in the next year" (364-5), although the closing of a play after only three nights does not signal a great success. And later we find that "Only nine copes were sold, though

Mr Dennis, the great critic, praised it, and said 'twas a work of great merit; and Colonel Esmond had the whole impression burned one day in a rage, by Jack Lockwood, his man" (387-8). In prison, shunned by

Rachel, he mentions his "dark months of grief and rage" (211), his

"powerless despair and rage against his iniquitous fortune" (216). But this is all we hear of it, and the rage is softened by the present perspective of the narrators "He is old now who recalls you. Long ago he has forgiven and blest the soft hand that wounded him" (211).

The extent of Esmond's jealousy, like his rage, is hidden. Who remembers Esmond secretly following and spying upon the exiled Beatrix to ensure her separation from the Prince? guarding the Prince's door for two nights in succession, to prevent any pursuit of the exile?

For Esmond only casually mentions, in an explanation of his fatigue, that:

The night before and after the altercation with the Prince, my gentleman, having suspicions of his Royal Highness, and fearing lest he should be minded to give us the slip, and fly off after his fugitive beauty, had spent, if the truth must be told, at the Greyhound tavern, over against my Lady Esmond's house in Kensington Square, with an eye on the door, lest the Prince should escape from it. The night before that he had passed in his boots at the Crown at Hounslow, where he must watch forsooth all night, in order to get one moment's glimpse of Beatrix in the morning. (497-8)

The truth, though told, is only given a quick, sideways glance, and again, irony directed at himself ("my gentleman," "if the truth must be told," "forsooth") separates the narrator from the "gentleman."

Proud, sensitive, deeply stung by jealousy or an insult, the young

Esmond was indeed "then of a hotter and more impetuous nature than now"

(193)• and yet the point of view is so carefully controlled that the narrator emerges as the mature, thoughtful, well-balanced Virginia gentleman, writing "when care, and reflection, and grey hairs have 88 calmed him" (193)• A careful reader, then, cannot but question the reliability of the narrator in Henry Esmond. Both his statements of general purpose and his manipulations of more minor details suggest that the novel is his own version of the "truth," perhaps told in such a way that the final impression created is one that a "man of ordinary vanity would like to leave behind him" (39*0 *

• • •

The credibility of Esmond's interpretation of characters and events is further brought into question if the reader is aware of the conventional plots and characters of the historical romances that by

1852 had been popular for over thirty years. For the characters and plots are so similar that the narrator could almost be accused of following one of the critics' recipes for a typical historical romance.

Is the plot of a romance, with Esmond as hero and Rachel as heroine, united in the conventional happy ending, consistent with the unheroic, familiar, truthful view of history Esmond purports to be presenting?

Before we address this question, the actual parallels between Esmond and the popular historical romances must be drawn in further detail.

First, the cast of characters. That Rachel plays the part of the fair heroine is clear from her entrance, in which she comes upon Henry as a Pea certe:

coming back to the lad, with a look of infinite pity and tenderness in her eyes, she took his hand again, ... the boy, who had never looked upon so much beauty before, felt as if the touch of a superior being or angel smote him down to the ground, and kissed the fair protecting hand as he knelt on one knee. To the very last hour of his life, Esmond remembered the lady as she then spoke and looked, the rings on her fair hands, the very scent of her robe, the beam of her eyes lighting up with surprise and kindness, her lips blooming in a smile, the sun making a golden halo round her hair. (49-50)

In appearance, then, we have the fair angel: blond hair giving the

illusion of a halo, eyes (celestial blue, of course) filled with the

light of pity and tenderness. Again and again, Rachel appears to

Henry literally as an angel (107, 256, 292, 345» 483).

Like other fair angels, Rachel herself is untouched by sordid,

worldly sins and troubles; she lives in the country and lives for

heaven. As she explains to Henry:

"I am a country-bred woman, and cannot say but the ambitions of the town seem mean to me. ... I cannot reason her [Beatrix^ out of her ambition. 'Tis natural to her, as to me to love quiet, and be indifferent about rank and riches. What are they, Harry? and for how long do they last? Our home is not here." She smiled as she spoke, and looked like an angel that was only on earth on a visit. (345)

Pious Rachel is constantly walking to and from church services, filling

her spare time with the writing of devotional compositions (357-8).

Impressed on Esmond's memory is a vision of Rachel leading the domestics

in prayer, "kneeling reverently before the sacred book, the sun shining

upon her golden hair until it made a halo round about her" (109).

The unworldly angel is spotlessly pure. When Frank suspects Lord

Mohun of attempting to seduce her, Henry responds, "Gan you doubt the

honour of a lady who is as pure as heaven, and would die a thousand

times rather than do you a wrong?" (177)• And her purity is eternal;

though over forty by the time she marries Esmond, she is "as beautiful

in her autumn, and as pure as virgins in their spring" (513)*

The angel's elevated position endows her with a special dignity

and grace. Mr. Steele confides to Esmond that the sight of Rachel in mourning drives Beatrix right out of his head: "the pallid dignity 90

and exquisite grace of the matron had the uppermost, and I thought her

even more noble than the virgin" (219-20). Esmond observes that Rachel

possesses "a quiet grace, and serene kindness, that had always seemed

to him the perfection of good breeding" (289); "in motion or repose

she seemed gracious alike" (107). And this spirituality pervades

Rachel's entire being; nobility is evident in her mind as well as her

bearing. Esmond discovers that she is an excellent student, learning,

as one would expect, through her feelings rather than her reason:

'twas a wonder how eagerly the mother learned from her young tutor— and taught him too. The happiest instinctive faculty was this lady's— a faculty for discerning latent beauties and hidden graces of books, especially books of poetry .... She was a critic not by reason but by feeling. (135)

Her attitude toward sinful, struggling mankind? As Henry earlier

observed, the eyes of his dea certe are filled with infinite pity and

tenderness (49). She is "an angel of goodness and pity" (291), the

"tenderest of women" (357)• Henry observes "in every look or gesture

of this fair creature, an angelical softness and bright pity" (107).

Such angelic tenderness finds its role in comforting those wounded

in the struggles of the world. When she extends her hand to the orphan

boy, Henry is not surprised at her kindness, for "when was it that that

hand would not stretch out to do an act of kindness, or to protect grief

and ill-fortune" (49)• He later discovers that she has a whole "score

of poor retainers, whom she visited and comforted in their sickness and

poverty, and who blessed her daily" (357)• While bewitched by the cruel

Beatrix, Henry continually turns to Rachel for comfort: "she listened,

smiled, consoled, with untiring pity and sweetness" (291). She is the angel who brings him a drop of water in hell (292). Significantly, it 91

was apparently while nursing Henry that Rachel became conscious of her love for him (205, 255)• And it is through her role as nurse that

Rachel expects to eventually win him back: "When you need me again I will come ever so far. When your heart is wounded, then come to me, my dear" (255)•

Rachel also fills the second worldly role of the fair heroine: that of sufferer. When Henry returns from school, a secret grief has changed Rachel:

The tone of her voice was so much deeper and sadder .... A something hinting at grief and secret, and filling his mind with alarm uhdefinable, seemed to speak with that low thrilling voice of hers, and look out of those clear sad eyes. (151)

Often melancholy, she wears a "sweet sad smile" (371). Trix observes

"She has had a great sorrow in her life, and a great secret; and repented of it. ... No one knows ... what my mother’s life is" (*J-00) .

The secret sorrow is, of course, her first guilty and later unreturned love for Esmond.

One might think it somewhat difficult for Rachel to exhibit the characteristics of the other side of the fair heroine— the child-like side; for she is a little beyond the usual sixteen or seventeen years old, is in fact the mother of two. In Rachel, the maternal aspects of the fair angel become startlingly concrete. Yet her purity, innocence, and unworldliness all contribute to the image of Rachel as the eternal child as well as the eternal mother. Rachel's youthful looks are constantly stressed. At the opening, "she seemed to be a girl; and was at that time scarce twenty years old" (52). When she nears forty, she "did not look to be within ten years of her age" (3^5); and two 92

pages later she grows even younger, appearing "to have the shape and

complexion of a girl of twenty" (3^7)• In one of the novel's striking

portraits, Rachel is pictured as Beatrix's younger sister, seeking

the stronger, more worldly woman's protection. She hides her head on

Beatrix's shoulder:

They made a very pretty picture together, and looked like a pair of sisters— the sweet simple matron seeming younger than her years, and her daughter, if not older, yet somehow, from a commanding manner and grace which she possessed above most women, her mother's superior and protectress. (38l)

And Rachel proves to he as physically weak and fragile as other fair

heroines when she faints at the news of "Harry's" death, and in the

numerous times we come upon her in tears.

But Rachel's girlish qualities are nowhere more evident than in

her attitude toward the hero. She worships him, and, once they are

married, proves willing to totally submerge her own identity in his.

Rachel held this position towards her first husband:

All wishes of his were laws with her. If he had a headache, she was ill. If he frowned, she trembled. If he joked, she smiled and was charmed. ... She made dishes for his dinner; spiced his wine for him ... hushed the house when he slept in his chair, and watched for a look when he woke. ... She clung to his arm as he paced the terrace, her two fair little hands clasped round his great one; her eyes were never tired of looking in his face -and wondering at its perfection. ... All the house was arranged so as to bring him ease and give him pleasure. (108)

It is the same with Henry. Upon finding out that he sacrificed the title and estates for her children, she kneels, wildly crying "Let me kneel— let me kneel, and— and— worship you" (376). When he presents to her his scheme to bring back the Prince, "never was such a glorious scheme to her partial mind, never such a devoted knight to execute it"

(44l) . And according to their daughter, Rachel maintained this 93 attitude throughout their marriage:

I can well understand the extreme devotion with which she regarded him— a devotion so passionate and exclusive as to prevent her, I think, from loving any other person except with an inferior regard; her whole thoughts being centred on this one object of affection and worship. (39)

Though Beatrix is Rachel's daughter, Esmond exclaims "'Tis a marvel to think ... that this girl should have been born from her" (396).

Whereas Rachel is fair, both inside and out, her daughter is quite the opposite. Esmond lists her faults: "She was imperious, she was light-minded, she was flighty, she was false, she had no reverence in her character; she was in everything, even in beauty, the contrast of her mother, who was the most devoted and the least selfish of women"

(3^2-3).

Beatrix possesses the rich, vibrant sensuality of the dark heroine.

Esmond returns from the wars to find her

arrived at such a dazzling completeness of beauty, that his eyes might well show surprise and delight at beholding her. In hers there was a brightness so lustrous and melting, that I have seen a whole assembly follow her as if by an attraction irresistible.... She was a brown beauty: that is, her eyes, hair, and eyebrows and eyelashes, were dark: her hair curling with rich undulations, and waving over her shoulders .... Her mouth and chin, they said, were too large and full, and so they might be for a goddess in marble, but not for a woman whose eyes were fire, whose look was love .... (257)

"Love," claims Esmond, "seemed to radiate from her" (258).

And Esmond, like other heroes, finds to his dismay that the dark heroine's beauty proves dangerously seductive. He joins the army to escape her, but returns to find her "now advanced to a perfect ripeness and perfection of beauty, such as instantly enthralled the poor devil, who had already been a fugitive from her charms" (290). She is his

"charmer" (406); "this Helen" (309); a "smiling young temptress, who had bewitched more hearts than his in her thrall" (35*0 » a Circe (394); a siren (396); his Omphale and Delilah (421).

Like other charmers, Beatrix takes pleasure in exerting her powers of fascination; she is a coquette. Even as a child "she had long learned the value of her bright eyes, and tried experiments in coquetry

... upon rustics and country squires" (155)* According to Frank,

"whenever she sees a man, she makes eyes at him" (269) . At the dinner to celebrate Hairy's duel with Mohun, she flirts with the man of highest rank, the Duke of Hamilton. Henry reports that "When my Lord

Duke went away, she practised upon the next in rank, and plied my young

Lord Ashburnham with all the fire of her eyes and the fascinations of her wit" (353)• She even flirts with the Prince (474).

According to Henry, "part of her coquetry may have come from her position about the Court, where the beautiful Maid of Honour was the light about which a thousand beaux came and fluttered" (395)• Life at court does not contribute much to Beatrix's purity and modesty. Henry suggests that, like others of her type, she is a "light" heroine:

If the English country ladies at this time were the most pure and modest of any ladies in the world— the English town and Court ladies permitted themselves words and behaviour that were neither modest nor pure; and claimed, some of them, a freedom which those who love that sex most would never wish to grant them. (395)

Henry makes another such suggestive comment on the following page:

"Lady Castlewood, and perhaps it was as well, knew little of her daughter's life and real thoughts. How was she to apprehend what passed in Queen's antechambers and at Court tables?" (396). 95

As her position at Court suggests, Beatrix is quite a worldly creature. Rachel, contrasting Beatrix and herself, complains that

"This worldliness, which I can't comprehend, was b o m with Beatrix, who, on the first day of her waiting, was a perfect courtier” (3^5)* When

Rachel joins Beatrix in London, Trix is

quite the mistress and ruler of the little mansion, inviting the company thither, and engaging in every conceivable frolic of town pleasure. Whilst her mother, acting as the young lady's protectress and elder sister, pursued her own path, which was quite modest and secluded. (37l)

Esmond can envision Beatrix only in a courtly setting, as a princess:

She was b o m to shine in great assemblies, and to adom palaces, and to command everywhere— to conduct an intrigue of politics, or to glitter in a queen's train. But to sit at a homely table, and mend the stockings of a poor man's children! that was no fitting duty for her .... She was a princess, though she had scarce a shilling to her fortune .... (382)

Not having been b o m a princess, Beatrix naturally is ambitious; „ with her beauty she can buy a position: '"Yes,' says she, 'I solemnly vow, own, and confess, that I want a good husband .... My face is my fortune. Who'll come? — buy, buy, buy'" (386). And so there is little hope for poor Esmond's suit, as Rachel explains: "She wants a commander-in-chief, and not a colonel. Were a duke to ask her, she would leave an earl she had promised. ... I know not how my poor girl is so worldly" (3^)«

As the hero is the central focus of the plot, most of the parallels of Esmond with the hero of the historical romances will be drawn later, on pages 100-105. But it should be noted at once that Esmond's character is quite suitable for the part. First, Henry is a man of sensibility. Corporal Steele notes that

even as a boy he had "a sensibility above his years" (106). Like other

heroes, he is a romantic} in his youth he writes poems to a country lass

(126), finally finding in Beatrix a fit object for poetry (26l). The

brutalities of war offend his fine sensibilities. So does unnecessary

killing; he refuses to take the life of the villainous Mohun, though

he beats him in a duel. And Henry is not above shedding "tears of not

unmanly emotion" (lt-38, 203).

This man of sensibility is a perfect gentleman. Even Lord Mohun

respects him, for "young as he was there was that in Esmond's manner

which showed that he was a gentleman too, and that none might take a

liberty with him" (182). The Viscountess Isabel compliments him on

possessing the "bel air" (226). When he devotes himself to letters, he

"pleased himself by thinking that he writ like a gentleman if he did

not always succeed as a wit" (417)•

The gentleman is a model of morality, never drinking to excess.

Rachel holds him up as an example to her son: "do not drink much

wine, sir; Harry never loved to drink wine" (264); and indeed, when

invited to share a second bottle, he refuses (265, 301-2).

Though Henry typically chooses to be a soldier rather than a parson,

his piety is not left in question. He studies theology at Cambridge, and explains to Father Holt his switch in faith from the Catholicism of his youth to Anglicanism: "I have thought of that question, too ... thought it out for myself, as all men must, and contrive to do the right, and trust to Heaven as devoutly in my way as you in yours" (315)• 9?

But as with other romantic heroes, Esmond's very virtues lead him

into certain faults: most notably, jealousy. His fine sensibilities

combine with his pride to make his reaction to rejection rather violent.

From the very moment he sees Beatrix on the staircase, poor Henry is

tormented by the vision of her destined lover (259). Frank Jr.'s toast

to Beatrix the Marchioness pains Henry, who is "curious and jealous

already" (264). And when the Prince himself admires Beatrix's beauty,

"a pang, as of rage and jealousy," shoots through Esmond (262), a

jealousy which continually gnaws at him until the news of Trix's letter

to the Prince hardens his heart (464, 465, 497, 499> 504).

Other conventionals characters support this main cast. Though we

don't see much of him, John Lockwood plays the part of the faithful

servant, following his master into battle, tending him when wounded,

remaining devoted throughout.

Both of the villains of the piece are typical gallants— handsome,

worldly aristocrats who have been so indulged that various dissipations,

especially wine and women, have become the central focus of their

existence.

Lord Mohun, "always having a consummate good-humour, and bearing

himself with a certain manly grace ... that had its charm and stamped

him a gentleman" (169) charms the entire Castlewood family. But Mohun

is familiar with the vices rather than the virtues of a gentleman: "He

was familiar with dice and women at a time other boys are at school,

being birched; he was as wicked as the oldest rake, years ere he had done growing; and handled a sword and a foil, and a bloody one too, before ever he used a razor" (214) . Though Mohun wins a fortune from Viscount Castlewood at cards, Rachel, not money, is his primary object.

He boasts to Henry "of his libertinism, and frequently avowed that he

held all women to be fair game ... and that they were all, without

exception, to be won" (180). To catch his game, Lord Mohun employs

hypocrisy, seeking in Rachel an instructress for his spiritual welfare,

secretly sending her letters, pretending to have the gout so that he

may refuse drink and play at cards with a cool head, and then promising

Rachel that he will forfeit the huge amount he has won from Frank, for what price she is too naive to comprehend. The whole affair, of course, ends in Frank's death. When Mohun next appears on the scene, his gentlemanly facade has been brutalized through vices

He had sunk by this time to the very worst reputation; he had had another fatal duel in Spain; he had married, and forsaken his wife; he was a gambler, a profligate, and debauchee. ... Esmond had not seen the hateful handsome face of Mohun for nine years .... It was degraded with crime and passion now; it wore the anxious look of a man who has three deaths— and who knows how many hidden shames, and lusts, and crimes— on his conscience. (338)

Though not so degraded as Mohun, the Pretender's selfish dissipations are, like Mohun's, the cause of his villainy. It takes only wine and/ or a woman to divert his attention from his crown. Frank Jr. has a difficult time even getting him to Londons

He does not seem to think what a stake we are all playing. He would have stopped at Canterbury to run after a barmaid there, had I not implored him to come on. He hath a house at Chaillot where he used to go and bury himself awav from the Queen, and with all sorts of bad company. (458-9)

Once at Kensington, "The Prince drank so much, and was so loud and impudent in his talk after drink, that Esmond often trembled for him"

(465); "ten times, perhaps, in the course of as many days, Mr Esmond had to warn the royal young adventurer of some imprudence or some 99 freedom" (466), including tampering with poor Jack Lockwood's sweetheart.

And of course, it is James's pursuit of Beatrix which ruins Esmond's scheme and costs the Pretender the crown. Esmond can only conclude:

That Prince had himself against him, an enemy he could not overcome. He never dared to draw his sword, though he had it. He let his chances slip by as he lay in the lap of opera- girls, or snivelled at the knees of priests asking pardon; and the blood of heroes, and the devotedness of honest hearts; and endurance, courage, fidelity, were all spent for him in vain. (359)

As in several other historical romances, the villain's cause is aided by a Jesuit priest, who does not disdain using dishonorable means, most of which involve some deceit, to achieve his end— the triumph of the Catholic Church, and consequently, of the Stuarts. Father Holt constantly pops up in some disguise or other, explaining to Esmond "in the cause of religion and loyalty all disguises are fair" (316). He instructs Henry that lying is "as lawful a way as the other [remaining silent]] of eluding a wrongful demand" (83). He suddenly appears and vanishes from Castlewood through a trick window; when he passes between the camps of two armies in as mysterious a fashion, Esmond observes,

"I think Holt loved to make a parade of mystery" (314). He creeps between camps "to scheme and foretell, and to pry about as usual" (323)* being, like all Jacobites, a lover of intrigue. And the intrigue usually involves some unlawful violence; Holt attempts to implicate

Frank Sr. in a conspiracy against the Prince of Orange's life, a conspiracy "so like murder, so cowardly in the means used, so wicked in the end, that our nation has sure CsicO done well in throwing off all allegiance and fidelity to the unhappy family that could not vindicate its rights except by such treachery— by such dark intrigue and base 100

agents" (232) . But such unmanly schemes are easily defeated; Henry

observes that

The moral of the Jesuits' story I think as wholesome a one as ever was writs the artfullest, the wisest, the most toilsome, and dexterous plot-builders in the world— there always comes a day when the roused public indigantion kicks their flimsy edifice down, and sends its cowardly enemies a-flying. (232-3)

Thus Father Holt "never played a game but he lost it; or engaged in a

conspiracy but 'twas certain to end in defeat" (511)*

With the stage thus set, the romance inevitably unfolds. The novel

opens, as expected, with a hero of noble birth who has been dispossessed

of the advantages of his station. Because he is thought to be

illegitimate, he is entitled to nothing but shame. Poor Henry has

neither fame, nor fortune, nor love. When his father dies, the child

is "left behind at the Hall, belonging as it were to nobody, and quite

alone in the world" (99)•

Soon after, the fair heroine enters to inspire his chivalrous

love. Henry asks for nothing more than to be able to devote his life to

her: "a thousand and a thousand times in his passionate and impetuous

way he vowed that no power should separate him from his mistress, and

only asked for some chance to happen by which he might show his fidelity

to her" (109). When Rachel teasingly comments, "And my knight longs for a dragon this instant that he may fight" (142), Henry blushes at the truth she has lit upon:

indeed the very thought was in his mind, that he would like that some chance should immediately happen whereby he might show his devotion. And it pleased him to think that his lady had called him "her knight," and often and often he recalled this to his mind, and prayed that he might be her true knight, too. (1^2) 101

A villain provides Henry with several chances to demonstrate his

devotion: it is Henry who stops the initial quarrel between Frank and

Mohun, who warns Rachel against Mohun's seductions, who politely

suggests that Mohun leave Castlewood, and who finally challenges the

villain to a duel. When Frank insists on fighting Mohun, Esmond fights

by his side. And at Frank's deathbed, Henry performs his noblest deed

for his mistress: he gives up the title and estates which he learns

are rightfully his own. He explains, "Noblesse oblige. ... There are

those alive to whom, in return for their love to me, I often fondly

said I would give my life away. Shall I be their enemy now, and

quarrel about a title? What matters who has it? 'Tis with the family

still" (225).

But the hero's devotion to the fair heroine is not at this point

fulfilled through marriage. The villain successfully, though in this

case inadvertently, stains the hero's honor; Rachel holds Henry

responsible for her husband's death. She refuses ever to see him again

and gives his prospective living to Tom Tusher. The effect on Henry is

"dark months of grief and rage! of wrong and cruel endurance" (211).

Rachel, from tender angel, has turned into "his cruel goddess" (210).

Esmond notes the paradoxical nature of this twist in the plot: "It was

the softest hand that struck him, the gentlest and most compassionate

nature that persecuted him" (216) .

And so Henry Esmond, like other heroes, must go off to win fame and fortune, and this quest lead him to the army: "But he had made up

his mind to continue at no woman's apron-strings longer; and perhaps had cast about how he should distinguish himself, and make himself a 102

name, which his singular fortune had denied him" (227). In choosing

to be a soldier rather than a parson or politician, Henry follows in

the footsteps of other heroes of historical romances. And like them,

he readily adopts the loyalties of his family! "without entering very

eagerly into the controversy, Esmond had frankly taken the side of his

family" (358).

A new turn in events only heightens Henry's ambition; he is bewitched by Beatrix. When the dazzling beauty descends the staircase,

Henry has met his fates "And so it is— a pair of bright eyes with a dozen glances suffice to subdue a man; to enslave him and inflame him; to make him even forget" (261-2). Even though her faults become glaringly evident, "there was yet a charm about this Circe from which the poor deluded gentleman could not free himself .... Esmond felt himself enthralled and besotted by the wiles of this enchantress"

(39^)* As fame, fortune, and status, rather than love, attract Beatrix,

Henry continually risks his life in the gamble for honors

His desire for military honour was that it might raise him in Beatrix's eyes. 'Twas next to nobility and wealth the only kind of rank she valued. ... he had no suit to play but the red one, and he played it; for this, in truth was the reason of his speedy promotion; for he exposed himself more than most gentlemen do, and risked more to win more. (356)

When the rank of colonel does not suitably impress Beatrix, Henry engages in one final desperate scheme: what else but a Jacobite plot to place the Stuart Pretender on the throne?

During this apprenticeship he serves for Beatrix, Esmond successfully completes the series of trials expected of a young hero.

He comes to the rescue of those in distress, in one case a nun being assailed by an English soldier. His courage in battle earns him speedy 103

promotions. Indeed, Henry's abilities prove so invaluable that General

Webb entreats him to come out of retirement to be his aide-de-camp and

military secretary (357)■ In the course of battle he endures several

wounds (280, 364)* He fights another duel to avenge the honor of the

family, this time defeating Mohun, And the entrance of a second villain

inspires Henry to his final act of chivalry. To his dismay (and rage),

Henry discovers that the Prince also finds Beatrix's beauty magnetically attracting. To protect the honor of Beatrix and her family, Esmond

separates the pair. When James pursues his quarry, Henry rides to her rescue, and almost fights a duel with the Prince himself.

Through this series of trials, Esmond proves to be made of the stuff of a hero. Dispossessed of his title and property, he faces the future with resolution and fortitude. In battle and duels alike, he demonstrates courage, determination, a strong sense of honor, and loyalty to his mistress and patron.

But Henry's final act of chivalry breaks the dark heroine's spell, and with it the attraction of those glittering prizes— fame and fortune.

As with many heroes, encounters with historical figures provide Henry's education. When Henry discovers that Trix contrived for the Prince to visit her in secret and even kissed him, he sees the fair enchantress for the hag she really is:

The love was dead within him; had she a crown to bring him with her love, he felt both would degrade him. ... What mattered how much or how little had passed between the Prince and the poor faithless girl? They were arrived in time perhaps to rescue her person, but not her mind .... The treacherous heart within her had surrendered, though the place was safe; and it was to win this that he had given a life's struggle and devotion; this, that she was ready to give away for the bribe of a coronet or a wink of the Prince's eye. (504) 104

When he next sees her, "The roses had shuddered out of her cheeks;

her eyes were glaring; she looked quite old. ... As he looked at her,

he wondered that he could ever have loved her" (509) •

His thwarted attempt to place the Pretender on the throne cures

Henry of his attachment to the Stuarts as well as to Beatrix. Like other romantic heroes, though sentiment and family honor inspire loyalty to the Stuarts, involvement in a Jacobite plot quickly turns

Henry into a Whig. James turns out to be a "tippling divinity," with a weakness for low women as well as for wine; "a prince, that had scarce heard the word liberty; that priests and women, tyrants by nature both, made a tool of" (469)J a man who virtually throws away the crown by absenting himself from London to pursue Beatrix at the crucial moment of the Queen's death.

In fact, acquaintance with the heroes of his day has cured Henry of any admiration for politicians and generals. He finds that each acts in his own selfish interests:

Should any clue be found to the dark intrigues at the latter end of Queen Anne's time, or any historian be inclined to follow it, 'twill be discovered, I have little doubt, that not one of the great personages about the Queen had a defined scheme of policy, independent of that private and selfish interest which each was bent on pursuing. (469)

And each will use any means to gain influence with the crown. Oxford disdained no more than Marlborough to use "the meanest arts, flatteries, intimidations, that would secure his power" (470). Bolingbroke, "whose talk was always of liberty, no more shrunk from using persecution and the pillory against his opponents, than if he had been at Lisbon and

Grand Inquisitor" (471). 105

Even the heroic banner of battle itself has been sullied. Henry discovers that battle, far from being noble and glorious, always leaves

"a base residue of rapine, cruelty, and drunken plunder" (306). He complains to Addison:

You hew out of your polished verses a stately image of smiling victory; I tell you, 'tis an uncouth, distorted, savage idol; hideous, bloody, and barbarous. The rites performed before it are shocking to think of. You great poets should show it as it is— ugly and horrible, not beautiful and serene. (297)

And so all is prepared for the happy ending. Henry, cured of worldly loves and ambitions, finally returns to the fair heroine and retreats from the ugly world of war and politics to his own estate in

Virginia, where he finds a happiness which

cannot be written in words; 'tis of its nature sacred and secret, and not to be spoken of, though the heart be ever so full of thankfulness, save to Heaven and One Ear alone— to one fond being, the truest and tenderest and purest wife ever man was blessed with. ... In the name of my wife I write the completion of hope, and the summit of happiness. To have such a love is the one blessing, in comparison of which all earthly joy is of no value .... (512)

Such is the story as Esmond would like his grandsons to believe it. And such is the story as a trusting, not overly careful reader would remember it. But is it the truth? Or is the narrator, who, as we have seen, manipulates smaller details in order to flatter his vanity, manipulating the major events of his life as well, into a conventional structure which allows him to play the role of hero?

And if so, does Thackeray so present the story that the reader can determine the real "truth"? 106

Book I records the story of Esmond's chivalrous devotion to Rachel, a story in which the smallpox plays a crucial role. According to

Henry, it is the smallpox which destroys Rachel's beauty and consequently, her marriage. Esmond, distressed by Rachel's unhappiness, attempts to "be a means of reconciliation between these two persons, whom he revered the most in the world" (167). But, as was already pointed out on page £&, Frank and Rachel each view the disintegration of their marriage quite differently. I would suggest that the truth lies in Rachel's version.

First, the subject is Rachel's own feelings, which presumably she would be able to describe more accurately than Esmond. Secondly, her explanations are uttered in states of high emotion, first under the strain of her husband's death, then in response to Esmond's proposal.

That she would be lying here seems questionable. And thirdly, if one accepts Rachel's version, what before seemed paradoxical and confusing comes into clear focus and is easily understood. According to Rachel, a sin connected with the time she nursed Henry through the smallpox caused her to lose her husband. As she later openly admits her love of Henry, these comments suggest that it was while nursing Henry that she became conscious of her love, that this was her "sin," and that once she fell in love with Henry, she could no longer worship her husband and so lost him. This would explain her secret grief, coupled with her cold greeting and refusal to look at Henry, wheri he returns from Cambridge (151)• It would explain her cruel response to Esmond when he attempts to patch up the differences between Rachel and Frank

(l68). It would explain why, when Frank dies, Rachel suddenly turns 107

into a cruel goddess, refusing to see Henry any more. And it would

explain why she frequently, on later occasions, speaks of her husband's

death as a punishment on her wicked heart (219, 253)* That, according

to Prank himself, Rachel no longer loved him after he left her during

the smallpox lends further support to this version of the truth.

Other critics have pointed out that Rachel loved her young tutor.

The point here is that it was this love, not the loss of her beauty,

which destroyed her marriage. And the mature Henry Esmond must have

realized this. If he remembers Rachel's confusing statements well

enough to write them down, surely, with the enlightening knowledge he

later obtains of her love of him, he could have determined why Rachel

blamed both Henry and herself for her husband's death, and why his

fair angel turned into a cruel goddess. But the mature Esmond

deliberately distorts the truth by telling this portion of the story

from the perspective of his confused younger self. Why? Perhaps

because the truth puts things in an entirely different perspective,

one not so flattering to Henry. Rather than the mediator, he becomes

the cause, however unwitting, of Rachel's and Frank's estrangement.

And rather than the chivalric knight worshipping an angel, he becomes

a naive youth, unaware that his worship has evoked a very human love

in his angel, a love which he does not return. Such a perspective

indeed spoils the whole chivalric image that dominates Book I— both knight and angel appear somewhat tarnished.

One other aspect of Esmond's version of events in Book I proves distorted: that "the happiest period of all his life was this" (109), that the knight wanted nothing more than to show his devotion to his 108

mistress. As soon as Esmond goes off to the army in Book II, he

reveals that he felt resentment as well as devotion toward the

Castlewood family, that he felt the bondage and humiliation as well as

the loyalty and devotion of a servant:

A cloud, as of grief, that had lowered over him and had wrapped the last years of his life in gloom, seemed to clear away from Esmond during this fortunate voyage and campaign. His energies seemed to awaken and to expand, under a cheerful sense of freedom. Was his heart secretly glad to have escaped from that fond but ignoble bondage at home? ... At any rate, young Esmond of the army was quite a different being to the sad little dependant of the kind Castlewood household, and the melancholy student of Trinity Walks; discontented with his fate, and with the vocation into which that drove him, and thinking, with a secret indignation, that the cassock and bands ... were, in fact, but marks of a servitude which was to continue all his life long. For, disguise it as he might to himself, he had all along felt that to be Castlewood's Chaplain was to be Castlewood's inferior still, and that his life was but to be a long, hopeless servitude. (239)

An even greater discrepancy in visions is revealed in a later comment to Beatrix: "Was there something in the air of that dismal old

Castlewood that made us all gloomy, and dissatisfied, and lonely under its ruined old roof? We were all so, even when together and united, as it seemed, following our separate schemes, each as we sat round the table" (401-2). Can this be describing the same place as the "dear old

Castlewood" of Book I?

Book II records, according to Henry, the story of the "ludicrous, pitiable object" bewitched by the cruel Beatrix. Bewitched? A closer reading suggests that here again Esmond's version is not the entire truth.

First, the manner in which the "victimization" is presented leaves the spotlessness of our hero rather questionable. The juxtaposition of

Esmond's proposal to Rachel with his sudden fascination for Beatrix 109 leaves at least this reader appalled at the sudden shift of affections and loyalties. After all, Esmond has just expressed his utter devotion to Rachel: "Brighter eyes there might be, and faces more beautiful, but none so dear— no voice so sweet as that of his beloved mistress....

What is it? Where lies it, the secret which makes one little hand the dearest of all? ... It was a rapture of reconciliation" (250-51).

Yet in the next scene, Henry is eyeing Beatrix "with such a rapture as the first lover is described as having by Milton" (258).

Secondly, although Trix later admits that she put on her stockings to arouse Esmond's admiration, there is no evidence that she continues to encourage him. At first, she apparently ignores his passionate declarations: "Beatrix thought no more of him than of the lacquey that followed her chair. His complaints did not touch her in the least; his raptures rather fatigued her ...; she did not hate him; she rather despised him, and just suffered him" (291). Later, she treats him as one would expect, like a brother, discouraging his attempts to be something more:

For days they would be like brother and sister, or the dearest friends— she, simple, fond, and charming— he, happy beyond measure at her good behaviour. But this would all vanish on a sudden. Either he would be too pressing, and hint his love, when she would rebuff him instantly, and give his vanity a box on the ear; or he would be jealous .... (385)

At no time does she flirt with him. In fact, Beatrix reveals that the constant entreaties of Esmond and Rachel have actually driven her first to flirt with others, and then to an engagement, a very different view of the matter than that presented by Esmond. The event is a dinner in honor of Esmond's duel with Mohun. As Esmond presents it, 110

My Lord Duke and his young neighbour were presently in a very animated conversation. Mrs. Beatrix could no more help using her eyes than the sun can help shining, and setting those it shines on a-burning. ... When my Lord Duke went away, she practised on the next in rank, and plied my young Lord Ahsbumham with all the fire of her eyes and the fascinations of her wit. (352-3)

In this scene, Trix is the "smiling young temptress, who had bewitched more hearts than his in her thrall" (35*0 • Soon after, Ashburnham and

Beatrix are engaged. Beatrix’s version of these events?

I thought I could like you; and mamma begged me hard, on her knees, and I did— for a day. But the old chill came over me, Henry, and the old fear of you and your melancholy; and I was glad when you went away, and engaged with my Lord Ashburnham, that I might hear no more of you, that's the truth. ... I talked with that silly lord all night just to vex you and mamma, and I succeeded, didn't I? (410)

That Esmond's vision of Trix is jaundiced by her rejection of him receives further support from his tirades against her. For example, he complains to his descendants:

I wonder will they have lived to experience a similar defeat and shame? Will they ever have knelt to a woman, who has listened to them, and played with them, and laughed at them— who beckoning them with lures and caresses and with Yes, smiling from her eyes, has tricked them on to their knees, and turned her back and left them? All this shame Mr Esmond had to undergo; and he submitted, and revolted, and presently came crouching back for more. (35*0

But did Beatrix play with him? beckon him with lures and caresses? trick him on his knees? No evidence in the novel supports these accusations. Apparently because Henry fell in love with Beatrix, she must have bewitched him; because she does not return his love, she is cold and heartless; and because she pursues others, she is a coquette.

A careful examination of Beatrix's own actions and words, then, does not correspond with the portrait of her drawn by Esmond. Recall, though, that according to Henry the vision of Beatrix he presents to Ill

the reader is not the vision he had at the time; at the time he adored

her. Whereas the events in Book I are told from the point of view of

the ignorant, innocent boy, the events of Book II are told from the

point of view of the "educated” old man. In both cases, the choice of

point of view allows Henry to portray himself as blameless, as

victimized, as an heroic martyr.

Just as Esmond is not the poor victim of Beatrix, the relationships

between the other members of the now triangular relationship (Rachel—

Esmond— Beatrix) are also distorted by Henry in Book II.

Take the relationship between Esmond and Rachel. According to

Esmond, Rachel becomes his nurse and comforter, the angel who brings

him a drop of water in hell. Yet consider that at this point in the

story Rachel has admitted and Esmond has acknowledged her love of him

(254). For Esmond then to go to her, weeping and complaining about his

hopeless passion for her daughter, seems a bit cruel and selfish. One

would expect, as Esmond discovers, that such visits are followed by

tears (292). And yet Esmond never presents this relationship with

Rachel as anything to his discredit; he even maintains at the beginning

(109), middle (375). and end (439) of the novel that he has remained true to Rachel since he first vowed as a child to be her devoted knight.

The relationship between Rachel and Beatrix is equally distorted by our hero's vision, as the following scene indicates. Henry has just returned from the wars, to find that Rachel knows of his sacrifice of the title and estates. When she kneels and worships him, he responds,

'"Tis for me to kneel, not for you: 'tis for me to be thankful that I can make you happy. Hath my life any other aim? Blessed be God that 112

I can serve you! What pleasure, think you, could all the world give

me compared to that?" (375)• A short while later, Beatrix imitates

Frank in a religious procession. She holds out her foot for her

slipper, and Esmond kneels to her, vowing "If you will be Pope, I will

turn Papist" (380). Trix notes that Rachel's feet are tapping in

impatience, and so she runs and embraces her mother. Rachel breaks out

in near hysterics:

"You are taller than I am, dearest ... and— and it is your hand, my dear, and not your foot he wants you to give him," and she said it with a hysteric laugh, that had more of tears than laughter in it; laying her head on her daughter's fair shoulder, and hiding it there. They made a very pretty picture together, and looked like a pair of sisters— the sweet simple matron seeming younger than her years, and her daughter, if not older, yet somehow, from a commanding manner and grace which she possessed above most women, her mother's superior and protectress. (38l)

And so the scene ends with this "pretty picture," in which, if the reader places all the facts into the context, Esmond has once again claimed his devotion to Rachel only to prove within minutes that it is

Beatrix, not Rachel, whom he adores. This naturally arouses Rachel's jealousy of her daughter, and Beatrix is placed in the position of comforting a mother who is jealous of her because the man whom her mother loves loves her. A pretty scene indeed! Here, as elsewhere,

Esmond fails to admit how his own relationships with Rachel and with

Beatrix have affected the relationship between the mother and daughter, for it would not much contribute to our admiration of his chivalrous devotion to the family.

That the Beatrix of Book II is not a cruel coquette suggests that the Beatrix of Book III might not be the dissolute schemer that Henry portrays. Henry claims to have learned that Trix isn't worthy of him, 113 that her mind, if not her body, is desecrated:

What mattered how much or how little had passed between the Prince and the poor faithless girl? They were arrived in time perhaps to rescue her person, but not her mind; had she not instigated the young Prince to come to her; suborned servants, dismissed others, so that she might communicate with him? The treacherous heart within her had surrendered, though the place was safe .... (50*0

Are the accusations even true? Yes, Beatrix did write a letter to the

Prince and send a servant to ensure its delivery. But when the Prince visits her (on the information of the Bishop, not the letter), she gives him milk rather than wine, keeps a servant always in the room with them, and then locks herself in her bedroom for the night. She seems perfectly capable of protecting herself from the Prince. Frank, who is as careful of her honor as a faithful brother should be, identifies the episode for what it is by bursting "into a great fit of laughter" (50*0 • Apparently he does not think Beatrix irrevocably ruined.

Henry's response, on the other hand, indicates an unhealthy obsession with Trix's sexuality:

"If it amuses thee ... that your sister should be exchanging of kisses with a stranger, I fear poor Beatrix will give thee plenty of sport." — Esmond darkly thought, how Hamilton, Ashburnham, had before been masters of those roses that the young Prince's lips were now feeding on. He sickened at that notion. Her cheek was desecrated, her beauty tarnished; shame and honour stood between it and him. (50*0

In fact, Henry's jealousy has been both rampant and unhealthy since the

Prince first arrived. On the night of his arrival, "the eager gaze of the young Prince, watching every movement of Beatrix, haunted and pursued him. The Prince's figure appeared before him in his feverish dreams many times" (464). At Kensington as well as at Castlewood, the 114

Prince's giving Beatrix (as he does Rachel) a brotherly kiss "set

Colonel Esmond tearing with rage" (465)• It is Henry who plays the instrumental role in exiling Beatrix. And his desire to ensure her separation from the Prince is so intense that he stays up three nights in a row, spying first on Trix, then on the Prince.

Whether a man so jealous is seeing things clearly seems doubtful.

Indeed, even after his "education" Henry still seems obsessed with

Beatrix. When Beatrix enters the Prince's chambers, his thoughts immediately turn to her sexuality: "What came she to seek there?"

(509)• And the sight of Rachel makes him contrast the two women:

"she wasn't thinking of queens and crowns" (510).

Esmond's political education seems to follow a little too closely upon the heels of his education in love. Before Esmond brings the

Prince over, he presents very convincing, carefully thought out reasons why he is supporting the Stuart cause, not because of divine right, but because "the desire of the country being unquestionably for an hereditary monarch, Esmond thought an English king out of St Germains was better and fitter than a German prince from Herrenhausen" (366, also 312). What changes his mind? Henry first expresses a switch in political loyalties on the night of the Prince's arrival, the same night he is haunted by the gaze of the Prince admiring Beatrix. He complains:

he is here, and I have brought him; he and Beatrix are sleeping under the same roof now. Whom did I mean to serve in bringing him? Was it the Prince, was it Henry Esmond? Had I not best have joined the manly creed of Addison yonder, that scouts the old doctrine of right divine, that boldly declares that Parliament and people consecrate the Sovereign, not bishops .... (464) 115

Another night, Frank himself expresses concern for Trix and reports her dinner conversation with the Prince, The result? Esmond is again racked by doubts and torments over the Prince and Trix, and apparently consequently, over his political views:

'twas a scheme of personal ambition, a daring stroke for a selfish end— he knew it. What cared he, in his heart, who was king? Were not his very sympathies and secret convictions on the other side— on the side of People, Parliament, Freedom? And here was he, engaged for a prince, that had scarce heard the word liberty; that priests and women, tyrants by nature both, made a tool of. The misanthrope was in no better humour after hearing that story []of the dinner conversation]] .... (469)

Admittedly, the Prince does give Esmond reasons to believe him less than princely. But Esmond earlier pointed out the many (and similar) flaws of George (312). Esmond's jealousy colors his vision of both the Prince and politics.

What about Esmond's disillusionment with politics in general? As noted earlier, Esmond condemns politicians for using politics to pursue their own selfish interests, and further for using any means to achieve their ends. He observes:

Should any clue be found to the dark intrigues at the latter end of Queen Anne's time, or any historian be inclined to follow it, 'twill be discovered, I have little doubt, that not one of the great personages about the Queen had a defined scheme of policy, independent of that private and selfish interest which each was bent on pursuing. (469)

This passage begins Chapter X. Chapter IX concludes with the account of the "horrible doubts and torments" racking Esmond's soul quoted in the previous paragraph. The juxtaposition of the two passages casts a rather ironic light on Esmond's political "education." Isn't Esmond involved in Jacobite schemes primarily to further his own private and selfish interests— his pursuit of Beatrix? And doesn't he switch 116

allegiance from St. Germains to Hanover when his scheme proves unsuccessful, indeed backfires? Is Esmond, then, much better than the politicians he condemns?

As it is Henry's education which brings about the happy ending, the nature of the former suggests we examine the nature of the latter.

Much light can be shed on the nature of Esmond's love for Rachel by comparing Esmond's second proposal with his first. What evokes the first proposal? Not love for Rachel, but a realization that Rachel loves him:

the depth of this pure devotion, (which was, for the first time, revealed to him quite) smote upon him, and filled his heart with thanksgiving. Gracious God, who was he, weak and friendless creature, that such a love should be poured out upon him? Not in vain, not in vain has he lived ... that has such a treasure given him. What is ambition compared to that, but selfish vanity? To be rich, to be famous? (2

In fact, when Rachel rejects his proposal on the grounds that Esmond does not love her, Henry doesn't dispute her reasoning. And immediately following this proposal, he falls passionately in love with Beatrix.

Esmond's second proposal is expressed in almost exactly the same terms as the first:

As I think of the immense happiness which was in store for me, and of the depth and intensity of that love which, for so many years, hath blessed me, I own to a transport of wonder and gratitude for such a boon— nay, am thankful to have been endowed with a heart capable of feeling and knowing the immense beauty and value of the gift which God hath bestowed upon me. Sure, love vincit omnia; is immeasurably above all ambition, more precious than wealth, more noble than name. He knows not life who knows not that: he hath not felt the highest faculty of the soul who hath not enjoyed it. In the name of my wife I write the completion of hope, and the summit of happiness. To have such a love is the one blessing, in comparison of which all earthly joy is of no value; and to think of her, is to praise God. (512)

Again, he never voices his love of Rachel, but rather thanks God that 117

he can appreciate the great gift of her love. A lack of passion is

evident in his very explanation of how the marriage came about: "We

had been so accustomed to an extreme intimacy and confidence, and had

lived so long and tenderly together, that we might have gone on to the

end without thinking of a closer tie; but circumstances brought about

that event which so prodigiously multiplied my happiness and hers" (512).

Esmond describes the nature of his love for Rachel earlier in the novel,

following his first proposal:

'Twas happiness to have seen her: 'twas no great pang to part; a filial tenderness, a love that was at once respect and protection,.filled his mind as he thought of her; and near her or far from her, and from that day until now, and from now till death is past, and beyond it, he prays that sacred flame may ever burn. (273)

Apparently the sacred flame burning then is the same flame burning now, a flame which, sacred as it is, lacks the intensity of passion. "A filial tenderness, a love that was at once respect and protection," hardly seems the basis for a marriage which is the crowning fulfillment of his life.

Another clue that clarifies the ending is Esmond's play. He points out that the plot is quite a new one, in which

A young woman was represented with a great number of suitors, selecting a pert fribble of a peer, in place of the hero; (but ill-acted, I think, by Mr. Wilks, the Faithful Fool), who persisted in admiring her. In the fifth act, Teraminta was made to discover the merits of Eugenio (the F.F.), and to feel a partiality for him too late; for he announced that he had bestowed his hand and estate upon Rosaria, a country lass, endowed with every virtue. But it must be owned that the audience yawned through the play; and that it perished on the third night .... (388)

One cannot help noting that this quite new plot is actually very similar to the plot of the novel itself. Beatrix, with a large number 118 of suitors, does choose a peer (Ashburnham) rather than our hero, who, like a faithful fool (though acting better than Mr. Wilks) persists in admiring her. Esmond does win the hand of a country lass, endowed with every virtue. The one major difference between the plots, however, is quite suggestive. In the play, the young woman realizes the merits of the faithful fool too late; indeed, the faithful fool seems to marry the country lass out of childish spite, to make the young woman come to her senses and suffer for undervaluing him. The reader can form the conclusions from the parallels here as she or he will. But there is evidence in the novel that Esmond has not gotten Beatrix totally out of his system.

When he describes Beatrix laughing, for example, he reminisces,

"I fancy I hear it now. Thirty years afterwards I hear that delightful music" (468). Thinking of her charms, he admits that he can "invoke that beautiful spirit from the shades and love her still," a comment which he quickly qualifies: "or rather I should say such a past is always present to a man" (429)• A similar slip evoking a compulsion to qualify a revealing statement occurs when he thinks back to the consequences of his bringing the Prince to Kensington:

He was not the first that has regretted his own act, or brought about his own undoing. Undoing? Should he write that word in his late years? No, on his knees before Heaven, rather be thankful for what then he deemed his misfortune, and which hath caused the whole subsequent happiness of his life. (464)

Of course, if one is willing to look beyond Esmond to The Virginians, its sequel, one finds that Esmond spends much of his time in Virginia sketching portraits of a beautiful creature— Beatrix. 119

In conclusion, a careful reader will find that the "true" events

of Esmond's life do not so perfectly fit the form of the typical

historical romance. In each of the three books of the novel, Henry's

account of the major events proves distorted: in the first, his account

of his chivalrous devotion to an angelic heroine; in the second, his

account of his bewitchment by the dark heroine; and in the third, his

account of his "education" and subsequent fulfillment through marrying

the fair heroine.

I i i

And as the story is distorted, so must be Esmond’s portrait of himself. In his own view, Esmond, although victimized by his father, by Rachel, by Beatrix, and by the Prince, has acted honorably and

chivalrously throughout, eventually gaining the happiness and fulfillment he so deserves. But to understand the real Esmond, we must turn first to his childhood.

Esmond's refuge from the loneliness, the feelings of inferiority, the shame of his childhood, is love. One night he ponders the questions of his life: "who was he, and what?"

The boy thought with many a pang of shame and grief of his strange and solitary condition:— how he had a father and no father; a nameless mother that had been brought to ruin .... The soul of the boy was full of love, and he longed as he lay in the darkness there for some one upon whom he could bestow it. (105)

When left behind at Castlewood after his father's death, he feels the same longing: he "had a fond and affectionate heart, tender to weakness, that would fain attach itself to somebody, and did not seem to rest until it had found a friend who would take charge of it" (107). 120

Henry's solution to the questions surrounding his own identity, then, is to desire to merge his Identity with another's. Thus, he quite appropriately uses the term worship rather than love to describe his feelings for Rachel and Beatrix; for in so sacrificing his identity,

Henry does become a slave. It is this compulsion to be a slave which motivates Henry throughout the novel.

Henry's first object of worship is Father Holt. Almost from their first meeting, "his new pupil gave himself up with an entire confidence and attachment to the good Father, and became his willing slave" (69).

Henry thinks in terms of being a martyr for Father Holt: "I know I would go to the stake for you" (8l); "Esmond, young as he was, would have died sooner than betray his friend and master" (83). And indeed,

Father Holt inspires Henry to want to be a priest, a vocation he associates with martyrdom (72).

When Father Holt departs, Rachel becomes his replacement. The sight of her literally forces Henry to his knees (50). Again and again,

Henry kneels, or wishes to kneel, to his mistress (l4l, 151» 375)* As a young boy, he explains, "It cannot be called love, that a lad of twelve years of age, little more than a menial, felt for an exalted lady, his mistress: but it was worship" (107-8). And it is worship that he feels several years later, defending his feelings to Mohun: "I never had a mother, but I love this lady as one. I worship her as a devotee worships a saint" (184).

This worshipper conceives of himself as Rachel's servant. He begs her not to send him to college, pleading "let me stay and be your servant" (l4l). Obedience to Rachel is the cardinal rule governing his 121

life: "his mistress had told him that she would not have him leave

her; and whatever she commanded was will to him" (189).

Furthermore, the servant wishes to be a martyr, to sacrifice

himself for his fair angel: "his attachment for Lady Esmond was such a passion of grateful regard, that to spare her a grief, or to do her a service, he would have given his life daily" (129). Indeed, Henry

continually associates service to Rachel with the sacrificing of his own worldly success. Because Rachel desires it, he is willing to give up his own ambitions and enter the Church (189). He sacrifices his title and estates for her, explaining "If I cannot make a name for myself, I can die without one. Someday, when my dear mistress sees my heart, I shall be righted" (208). And both times he proposes, Henry contrasts marrying Rachel with winning wealth and a noble name

(254, 512).

But Rachel destroys this relationship; she turns into Henry's cruel goddess, forbidding him to see her again, and thus freeing Henry from his servitude and enabling him to fulfill his own ambitions: "he had made up his mind to continue at no woman's apron-strings longer; and perhaps had cast about how he should distinguish himself, and make himself a name, which his singular fortune had denied him" (227). And so Henry joins the army. He returns from it with a new vision of

Rachel:

sister, mother, goddess to him during his youth— goddess now no more, for he knew of her weaknesses; and by thought, by suffering, and that experience it brings, was older now than she; but more fondly cherished as woman perhaps than ever she had been adored as divinity. (250-51) 122

But it takes no longer than the next scene for Henry to find a new object of adoration: Beatrix. He now becomes Beatrix's worshipper; only a dozen glances are required to enslave him (26l). And though he leaves London to destroy the spell, he returns "still hopeful, still kneeling, with his heart in his hand for the young lady to take"; "far or near, she knows I'm her slave" (3^-i 3^5) •

This worship of Beatrix, however, has two marked differences from his worship of Rachel. First, Henry flatly denies being sexually attracted to Rachel. When Mohun suggests it, he is outraged, responding,

"I never had a mother, but I love this lady as one ... To hear her name spoken lightly seems blasphemy to me" (184). Yet he eyes Trix

"with such a rapture as the first lover is described as having by

Milton" (258). And whereas Henry is not jealous of Rachel, he is jealous of Beatrix from the first moment he sees her, thinking of the time when "the destined lover comes and takes away pretty Beatrix," a vision which quite puts everything else out of his head (259)•

Secondly, whereas for Rachel Henry had to sacrifice his ambition,

Beatrix inspires it. He soon regrets that he has given up his claim to the estate (270). He returns to the army, hoping through the red coat to gain the honor that will raise him in Beatrix's eyes, even risking his life for speedy promotion (356). He vows "What little reputation I have won, I swear I cared for it because I thought Beatrix would be pleased with it .... I would have had a little fame, that she might wear it in her hat" (3^) •

In summary, Henry's youth is dominated by a filial love, lacking in sexual passion and associated with sacrificing his own desire for 123

glory. As a young man, he is motivated by a sexual love, filled with

passion and associated with achieving success and renown. In both

cases, the love is perceived in terms of worship, with himself as the

* slave.

But though Henry chooses to worship, he at the same time secretly

resents his position as slave. Once freed from his commitment to

Rachel, he finds that "disguise it as he might to himself, he had all

along felt that to be Castlewood's Chaplain was to be Castlewood's

inferior still, and that his life was but to be a long, hopeless

servitude" (239)• He joins the army partially in response to "a bitter

feeling of revolt at that slavery in which he had chosen to confine

himself" (227)• As soon as he meets Beatrix, he resents his sacrifice

of the estate (270). And he bitterly resents having to kneel to

Beatrix, apparently to no avail:

Will they Jjhis descendants^ ever have knelt to a woman ... — who beckoning them with lures and caresses and with Yes, smiling from her eyes, has tricked them on to their knees, and turned her back and left them? All this shame Mr Esmond had to undergo; and he submitted, and revolted, and presently came crouching back for more. (35*0

Esmond's resentment of his position suggests that although a compulsion

to worship is the underlying motivation of his life, he is actually an

extremely proud man. And indeed, a closer examination of the text

suggests that though he attempts to appear modest, he secretly takes

great pride in his accomplishments. Though he professes to be no

better or worse than other military men, he describes himself as "a

young gentleman, who, in the eyes of his family, and in his own,

doubtless, was looked upon as a consummate hero" (286). Similarly,

though to Isabel (225), Father Holt (315)> and Rachel (375) he presents 124

his decision to sacrifice his title as quite simple, the narrator admits

that Esmond "took a greater pride out of his sacrifice than he would have

had in those honours which he was resolved to forgo" (235)• Trix

concludes that "of all the proud wretches in the world Mr Esmond is

the proudest, let me tell him that" (408).

Any sting to Henry's pride induces a violent reaction. When Rachel accuses him of disgracing Castlewood by bringing in the smallpox from the alehouse, Henry is "bewildered with grief and rage" (120). When

Beatrix flirts with the Duke of Hamilton rather than our hero, again his heart is filled with bitter rage (35^)• And when his play closes after three nights, Henry has the "whole impression burned one day in a rage" (388).

A paradox, then, is inherent in Henry's position; he is both a willing slave and a very proud man. An explanation of this paradox is suggested by an examination of the slavery/worship imagery which runs throughout the novel, for the same paradox underlies it. Henry expresses both the relationship between men and women and that between politicians and monarch in terms of worship. And in both cases, a role reversal occurs: the worshipper becomes the worshipped, and vice versa.

This reversal explains the paradox. A proud man or woman can be a slave, because inherent in the slave's position is the master's. He who is a slave has the chance of becoming a master, perhaps even through being a slave, gets to be the master.

For example, Henry frequently discourses on women's slavery to their husbands. The husband is "the King of the Fireside. He is master of property, happiness— life almost. He is free to punish, to make 125

happy or unhappy— to ruin or to torture. He may kill a wife gradually

and be no more questioned than the Grand Seignior who drowns a slave

at midnight" (175). Rachel is Frank's "chief slave and blind

worshipper" (132). Henry satirically describes her domestic slavery in

great detail (108). A disillusioned Rachel bitterly comments of women,

"we were bred to be slaves" (134) • And Henry laments "indeed, 'twas

the fashion of the day as I must own; and there's not a writer of my

time of any note, with the exception of poor Dick Steele, that does not

speak of a woman as of a slave, and scorn and use her as such" (15*0 •

On the other hand, however, Esmond speaks of women as "tyrants by

nature" (469), complaining "who does not know how ruthlessly women will tyranise when they are let to domineer" (382). He claims that it is

women who rule the world, who lead men to their destruction; every man

has his Eve or his Lady Macbeth, his Omphale or his Delilah (421). And

this knowledge comes from personal experience. Henry finds to his

dismay that "a pair of bright eyes with a dozen glances suffice to

subdue a man; to enslave and inflame him" (26l).

In Rachel's relationship with Frank, we see how a slave turns into

a master. It is Rachel's very worship of Frank that becomes the "gentle

bonds with which his wife would have held him," bonds so chafing that

they eventually cause Frank to sigh "for freedom and for his old life":

a home-god grows heartily sick of the reverence with which his family-devotees pursue him, and sighs for freedom and for his old life, and to be off the pedestal on which his dependants would have him sit for ever, whilst they adore him ...;— so, after a few years of his marriage, my honest Lord Castlewood began to tire; all the high-flown raptures and devotional ceremonies with which his wife, his chief priestess, treated him, first sent him to sleep, and then drove him out of doors. (110) 126

Though a loving wife, Rachel is "a very jealous and exacting one" (110).

Indeed, "the opinion of the country was, that my lord was tied to his

wife's apron-strings, and that she ruled over him" (113)• Furthermore,

according to Esmond, Rachel and Frank both eventually realize that she,

not he, is the better person, a realization which has destroyed many

marriages besides theirs:

Much of the quarrels and hatred which arise between married people come in my mind from the husband's rage and revolt at discovering that his slave and bedfellow, who is to minister to all his wishes ... — is his superior; and that he, and not she, ought to be the subordinate of the twain .... (154)

With politicians it is the same. They, too, are apparently born

slaves. Henry criticizes St. John:

What hours will you pass on your gouty feet— and how humbly will you kneel down to present a despatch— you, the proudest man in the world, that has not knelt to God since you were a boy, and in that position whisper, flatter, adore almost, a stupid woman, that's often boozy with two Lsic] much meat . and drink. (383)

Yet Esmond views politicians as being on their knees in order to gain

power, as worshipping in order to be worshipped. Oxford "disdained no

more than the great fallen competitor of his, the meanest arts,

flatteries, intimidations, that would secure his power" (470). St.

John "was on his knees at Hanover and St Germains too; ... and to

serve his turn, and to overthrow his enemy, he could intrigue, coax,

bully, wheedle, fawn on the Court favourite, and creep up the back-stair

as silently as Oxford" (471). Oxford also flatters both courts, for

"whichever the King was, Harley's object was to reign over him" (470).

And Marlborough actually achieves this ambition and becomes "the greatest

subject in all the world, a conqueror of princes ... that had given the law to sovereigns abroad, and been worshipped as a divinity at home" (470). 12?

This role reversal is evident in Esmond's own life. In Book I,

Esmond is Rachel's slave. But midway through the novel, Rachel becomes

Esmond's worshipper. When she finds out his sacrifice of the estates,

Rachel flings herself down on her knees, wildly begging Esmond "let me

kneel— let me kneel, and— and— worship you" (376). For her continuing

adoration of her knight, see above, pages 92-9 3 *

Beatrix actually perceives Henry's love of her in terms of this

role reversal. According to Beatrix, though Henry appears humble, he

is actually quite proud, and though he worships her, he himself insists

on being worshipped. It is this realization which causes Beatrix to

reject his suit. She tells Esmond,

Shall I be frank with you, Harry, and say that if you had not been down on your knees, and so humble, you might have fared better with me? ... All the time you are worshipping and singing hymns to me, I know very well I am no goddess, and grow weary of the incense .... I should have been sulky and scolded; and of all the proud wretches in the world Mr Esmond is the proudest, let me tell him that ... and I won't worship you, and you'll never be happy except with a woman who will. (408)

Later, she again expresses both her rejection of Esmond and her

inability to love the Duke of Hamilton in terms of the worship image

and the role reversal. She has found that men, in worshipping her,

actually bind her, force her into servitude. She explains to Henry:

You were ever too much of a slave to win my heart; even my Lord Duke could not command it. ... I was frightened to find I was glad of his death; and were I joined to you, I should have the same sense of servitude, the same longing to escape. ... I tried to love him; ... affected gladness when he came: submitted to hear when he was by me, and tried the wife's part .... But half-an-hour of that complaisance wearied me, and what would a lifetime be? My thoughts were away when he was speaking; and I was thinking, 0 that this man would drop my hand, and rise up from before my feet! (444)

What Beatrix desires, then, is a man who is not her slave, and so who 128

consequently will not turn her into one.

So Beatrix does reject Henry, though he chooses to present the

matter as his own rejection of her. Henry's response?— to return to

the filial love of his youth, the fair angel/mother who will both adore

him and allow herself to be adored, though at the price of his own

passions and success in the world. Beatrix perceives that it is

actually Rachel, rather than herself, who will satisfy Henry's need to

be worshipped: "Mamma would have been the wife for you, had you been a

little older, though you look ten years older than she does .... You

might have sat, like Darby and Joan, and flattered each other; and

billed and cooed like a pair of old pigeons on a perch" (^09).

That his marriage to Rachel does indeed fulfill such a desire is

evident from his daughter’s description of Esmond in America— the King

of his own plantation, with a wife's passionate and exclusive devotion,

her "whole thoughts being centred on this one object of affection and

worship" (39)• His daughter points out that "They say he liked to be

the first in his company; but what company was there in which he would

not be first?" (40). Life in America allows him to be first in his

company. It is this desire to be first in his company, then, that

explains Henry's life and Henry's memoirs; throughout his life, Henry

has been motivated by the desire to be worshipped, and before he dies,

he must create a vision of his life in which he appears the hero who deserves to be worshipped.

• 1 1 129

Henry's distorted vision of his own life requires some distortion

in his vision of the two major figures in his life, Rachel and Beatrix.

Esmond's portrait of Rachel is fairly accurate; in most respects

she proves to be the fair angel Esmond presents. To be sure, Henry

himself criticizes her. Her one fault is jealousy of her own sex (113);

she has both spoiled her children and held them on too tight a reign

(131, 377t 396); and though virtuous, her virtue can be cold and proud

(119, l65» 272, 484). But still, Esmond's final vision of Rachel is

that of the angel, "the truest and tenderest and purest wife ever man

was blessed with" (512). The novel concludes with a description of

Rachel as possessing "the tenderest heart in the world" (513)*

Unfortunately, however, the reader has found out that this heart's

tenderness toward Esmond results in cruelty toward others, in particular

toward her daughters, whom she regards as threatening her love. Her

second daughter reports:

I know that, before her, my dear father did not show the love which he had for his daughter; and in her last and most sacred moments, this dear and tender parent owned to me her repentance that she had not loved me enough; her jealousy even that my father should give his affection to any but herself .... (39)

As Beatrix actually does threaten Rachel’s love of Esmond, Rachel's

jealousy of and cruelty toward Beatrix eventually astound even Esmond.

As soon as Henry falls for the beauty descending the staircase, Rachel

begins to warn Esmond against her daughter, condemning her as proud,

ambitious, flirtatious, and light (344). She defends this condemnation

of her daughter by claiming that Henry is her son and deserves to be

warned (344). But her most overt act of cruelty occurs when Beatrix forgets to remove the miniature of the Duke of Hamilton from the box containing the diamond, necklace she returns to Henry. Rachel asks if

Beatrix has left the miniature on purpose, implying that now that

Beatrix has a prince, she cares no more for a duke. The pain this causes Beatrix is so great that "having delivered this stab, Lady

Esmond was frightened at the effect of her blow. It went to poor

Beatrix's heart" (^83). Beatrix finally realizes that Rachel's jealousy of her is stronger than Rachel's love:

Farewell, mother; I think I never can forgive you; something hath broke between us that no tears nor years can repair. I always said I was alone; you never loved me, never— and were jealous of me from the time I sat on my father's knee. Let me go away, the sooner the better; I can bear to be with you no more. (^83)

Rachel does not even deign to respond to this outpouring of emotion, but rather accuses her daughter of being proud and hard-hearted towards her mother. Who is actually being proud and hard-hearted? Even Esmond admits it is Rachel: "If my mistress was cruel, at least she never could be got to own as much. Her haughtiness quite overtopped Beatrix's and, if the girl had a proud spirit, I very much fear it came to her by inheritance" (U8b).

Beatrix, on the other hand, is far from the coquette and bewitcher

Esmond presents. In fact, she demonstrates many of the same strengths attributed to Scott's dark heroines. Like Di Vernon, she feels more akin to the males in her society than to the weak, soft, tender females.

She complains to Henry and Rachel: "Why am I not a man? I have ten times his QFrank'sJ brains, and had I worn the— well, don't let your ladyship be frightened— had I worn a sword and periwig ... I would have made our name talked about" (386). She readily admits that there is little of female softness in

her nature: "'Tis no question of sighing and philandering between

a nobleman of his Grace's age and a girl who hath little of that

softness in her nature" (407). But as she demonstrates when her

fiance the Duke of Hamilton is killed in a duel, her hardness takes

the form of strength and courage in adversity. Esmond complains that

"she would take no confidant, as people of softer natures would have

done" (434-5)5 and yet, "she was above their triumph and their pity,

and acted her part in that dreadful tragedy greatly and courageously;

so that those who liked her least were yet forced to admire her. We

... could not but respect the indomitable courage and majestic calm

with which she bore it" (435)*

Accompanying this strength is the ambition usually found only in

the male heroes of historical romances. She explains to Henry that in

contrast to him and Rachel, who might have sat and flattered each other

like Darby and Joan, she wants her "wings and to use them" (409).

Unfortunately, the only path to fame and fortune open to a woman during

the reign of Queen Anne was marriage. Beatrix defends her ambitions on

the marriage market in these terms: "Why should I not own that I am

ambitious, ... and if it be no sin in a man to covet honour, why should

a woman too not desire it" (407-8). Actually, as the above statement

indicates, Beatrix is one of the few characters who openly admit their

intentions and flaws. If she is ambitious and worldly, at least she readily owns it. When Rachel accuses her of worldliness, she retorts,

"Do you think that I am a child in the nursery, and to be frightened by

Bogey? ... where is the harm of wishing to be comfortable? ... Yes ... 132

I solemnly vow, own, and confess, that I want a good husband. Where's the harm of one? My face is my fortune. Who’ll come? — buy, buy, buy'." (385-6) . .

The perceptiveness and honesty evident in Beatrix's analysis of herself are evident throughout the novel in her comments about others.

She is a lady "whose bright eyes nothing escaped" (381). She analyzes

Esmond perfectly, acknowledging his good q_ualit5.es, but insisting that he is also proud and wants to be worshipped, and that consequently a marriage to her would make him unhappy (408, 385)• She perceives her mother's secret sorrow and her over-fondness for Esmond (400).

The reader's condemnation of Beatrix's worldliness and ambition must be qualified by the fact that during the novel Beatrix is in a sense "educated" and admits the folly of her ambition. She confesses to Esmond that while engaged to the Duke, she realized a marriage for money would not make her happy, that what she longs for is love:

But I think I have no heart; at least, I have never seen the man that could touch it; and, had I found him, I would have followed him in rags had he been a private soldier .... I would do anything for such a man, bear anything for him; but I never found one. You were ever too much of a slave to win my heart; even my Lord Duke could not command it ...... I took him to have a great place in the world, and I lost it. I lost it, and do not deplore him— and I often thought, ... 0, if I yield to this man and meet the other, I shall hate him and leave him. (443-4)

The suffering caused by the Duke's death transforms Beatrix. She retires from court and takes to visiting poor cottages, nursing the sick, and directing a singing school (44l). The change is evident in her face:

"She was older, paler, and more majestic than in the year before" (44l).

And all the courtiers agree that the change has been for the better,

"that the young lady had come back handsomer than ever, and that the 133 serious and tragic air, which her face now involuntarily wore, became her better than her former smiles and archness" (451).

Thus, far from being the coquette and seductress Esmond presents,

Beatrix's own comments suggest a portrait of a woman of strength, courage, intelligence, sensitivity, and honesty, who for a while makes the mistake of feeling forced to compete on the marriage market. But unfortunately, by the end of the novel, the role-reversal inherent in the other relationships in the novel occurs also between Esmond and

Beatrix. From slave, Esmond turns to tyrant, victimizing, along with

Rachel and Frank, poor Beatrix. The three band together to drive

Beatrix from Kensington, which in the end results in her alienation from the entire family (480-83)•

t I •

The narrator and the actual author of Henry Esmond, it appears, must be distinguished. Though Henry attempts to envision himself as the hero of an historical romance, Thackeray refuses to kneel to his here.and exposes the psychological motivations underlying Esmond's chivalrous actions. That Henry should not be knelt to is only further emphasized by the actual differences between Henry Esmond and other historical romances.

First, the value most sacred to the hero, and consequently his primary aim, is honor. Honor encompasses the possession of an untarnished name, of fame, and of fortune. All these are closely allied with the heroine; the hero pursues fame and fortune in order to win the heroine (often receiving them along with her) but refuses to do anything that would tarnish his reputation as a gentleman in order to get her. 13^

In Henry Esmond, however, honor and love prove mutually exclusive.

That Henry associates his love for Rachel with the sacrifice of his

own ambitions has already been noted. But he specifically contrasts

this love with his honor. He consoles himself for his decision to give

up the estate and title with the thought that "Someday, when my dear

mistress sees my heart, I shall be righted; or if not here or now, why,

elsewhere; where Honour doth not follow us, but where Love reigns

perpetual" (208). Similarly, he explains to Rachel that he pursued fame

and fortune solely to win Beatrix, not for any desire for foolish honor:

"What care I to be a colonel or a general? Think you 'twill matter a

few score years hence, what our foolish honours today are? I would have

had a little fame, that she might wear it in her hat" (3^0 •

But not only does Esmond make a distinction between honor and love;

he also proves willing to sacrifice his integrity as a gentleman to win

his love. Whereas other heroes stick firmly to the loyalties and

convictions of their families, refusing to turn coat to gain an

advantage, Esmond's worship of both Rachel and Beatrix involves a

sacrifice of his conscience. Because of Rachel, he leaves Catholicism

for Anglicanism, and "indeed, the boy loved his catechiser so much that

he would have subscribed to anything she bade him" (109). Because of

Rachel, he becomes a Jacobite:

And it was from his affection and gratitude most likely, and from that eager devotion for his mistress, which characterized all Esmond's youth, that the young man subscribed to this, and other articles of faith, which his fond benefactress set him. Had she been a Whig, he had been one .... (229)

When his devotion turns to Beatrix, he declares, "If you will be Pope,

I will turn Papist" (380), and then describes himself as an "unlucky 135 gentleman; who bound his good sense, and reason, and independence, hand and foot; and submitted them to her" (382). After a Jacobite plot fails to win him Beatrix, Esmond does turn to Hanover. Love rather than

Honour motivates Henry, and he willingly sacrifices the second for the first.

Henry not only makes a mockery of the central value held by the chivalrous hero; his very acts of chivalry do more to destroy the Esmond family than to serve it. Consider, for example, Esmond's duels, the hero’s traditional means of defending the weak and defeating the villain.

The first duel in which Esmond participates ends in the death of his patron, the head of the Esmond family. Though Henry defeats Mohun in his second duel, he refuses to kill the villain, freeing him to eventually destroy the Duke of Hamilton, and with the Duke Beatrix's hopes and dreams. In his third duel, this time with James Edward,

Esmond ends up forgiving the villain and blaming the lady he had rushed to rescue.

Look at the final results of Esmond's chivalrous devotion to the family— first the alienation of Rachel from Prank, and eventually the alienation of Rachel from her children. As was earlier pointed out, it is Rachel's love of her young knight that divides her from her husband. Though Henry cannot be held responsible for Frank's Catholic wife, it is Henry who drives Beatrix and Rachel apart. In worshipping

Rachel, he arouses her love. In switching his devotion to her daughter, he arouses her jealousy. This jealous mother proves so cruel and spiteful to her daughter that Beatrix is driven away. The happy completion of Esmond's quest, then, is marred by the

fact that Esmond's winning of Rachel involves the destruction of her

relationship with her husband and with her daughter. It is further

marred by the fact that Rachel has throughout the novel served the

role of Esmond's mother, and that her rival for the hero's affections

is her daughter. Since the novel was published, critics and readers

have been bothered, even repulsed, by this quasi-incestuous triangle.

And this, of course, radically departs from the plan of the historical

romance, in which the fair heroine is without fail a young girl, the

dark one several years older, and the three participants in the triangle

never related.

The differences between Henry and a chivalrous hero of a popular

romance are all to Henry's discredit. That Henry is futilely attempting

to build himself into a hero is further suggested by another type of

departure from the popular romance: Henry eliminates those elements

of the romance which are not so complimentary to the hero. The heroes

of the romances are never perfect; the faults of a Frank Osbaldistone

or a Ralph Esher are freely admitted and generally the same— pride and

jealousy. But our hero covertly attempts to present himself as humble

and modest and to hide the extent of his pride and jealousy. Again,

whereas in the romances there is no question that the hero deserts the

fair heroine for the dark one and for the promise of gold and glory,

Esmond insists on presenting himself throughout as both a helpless

victim of the dark heroine and at the same time as a devoted servant

of the fair heroine. Finally, the protagonist of an historical romance

is never the only heroic figure in the novel. Often a father figure comes to the aid of and sets an example for the hero. But Esmond

"builds himself into a hero partially "by exposing the faults of every other figure in the novel. No one else deflects the spotlight from center stage. CHAPTER FOUR

The Virginians: Another Novel Without a Hero?

The editorial framework surrounding Henry Esmond directs the reader to view the story within from an ironic perspective, in contrast to the romantic perspective of the narrator himself. From the time he created it, Thackeray sensed that in that framework lay the germ of another story— a sequel to Henry Esmond. And that sequel, which finally appeared five years later as The Virginians, is also written from an ironic perspective. Perhaps partially as a result of this perspective, the plot does not take the form which Henry Esmond chose for his memoirs— that of the romantic quest. Rather, the plot of The Virginians takes the form of a comedy of manners, in which the protagonists expose the society into which they enter. Therefore, the close examination of the parallels to the historical romance pursued in the previous chapter proves less fruitful here. But although the plot of The Virginians is not that of an historical romance, the nature of the hero continues to be one of the novel's central concerns. Moreover, the heroes of this novel are viewed through the narrator's ironic perspective, thus further illuminating the differences between Henry Esmond's vision of things and his creator's.

138 139

The old Colonel himself appears briefly in the book, living a life

quite different from that blissful Indian summer he describes at the

conclusion of his memoirs. Apparently after Rachel and Henry married,

another reversal took place, and his wife rose off her knees to make

Henry a slave once more. When The Virginians opens, Rachel has died,

having bequeathed her power to her daughter. Mountain, the daughter’s

schoolgirl friend who now serves as her companion, reminds George that

Rachel was "how man years older than the Colonel when she married him?

— When she married him and was so jealous that she never would let the poor Colonel out of her sight. The poor Colonel! after his wife, he had been henpecked by his little daughter."'*' And the narrator observes that

It was Colonel Esmond’s nature ... always to be led by a woman; and, his wife dead, he coaxed and dandled and spoiled his daughter; laughing at her caprices, but humouring them; making a joke of her prejudices, but letting them have their way; indulging, and perhaps increasing, her natural imperiousness of character. (I, 30)

Colonel Esmond explains to his grandson that he doesn't stand up to his daughter because he likes sitting down best (I, 29). Rather than living in content, Colonel Esmond appears to have given up living altogether:

At one period, this gentleman had taken a part in active life at home, and possibly might have been eager to share its rewards; but in latter days he did not seem to care for them. A something had occurred in his life, which had cast a tinge of melancholy over all his existence. He was not unhappy— to those about him most kind— most affectionate, obsequious even to the women of his family, whom he scarce ever contradicted; but there had been some bankruptcy of his heart, which his spirit never recovered. He submitted to life, rather than enjoyed it, and never was in better spirits than in his last hours when he was going to lay it down. (I, 26)

Readers of Henry Esmond can guess the nature of that bankruptcy of his 140

heart; where the drama of his life truly lay is revealed in the picture-

books he makes for his grandsons, in which he draws over and over again

Beatrix, her brother, and the Pretender (I, 38)*

Gerald Sorensen observes that "Henry Esmond is reincarnated in 2 George Esmond Warrington." George is indeed very like his grandfather.

Beatrix exclaims that he is "the grandfather come to life" (II, 80), that

he has "quite the bel air— a somthing melancholy— a noble and

distinguished je ne sais quoy— which reminded her of the Colonel"

(II, 54). In his possession of the bel air, then, George shows himself

the true heir of the Colonel. He has "a lofty way with him" (II, 123);

"a certain grandeur and simplicity, which showed him to be a true

gentleman" (II, 175)• And his possession of the "something melancholy"

hints at the darker aspects of Colonel Esmond also inherited by George—

aspects which the Colonel attempted to gloss over in his self-portrait,

here painted with a sharper clarity. In describing himself as the

opposite of his brother, George points out that the physical features

which distinguish the two also mark their differences in temperament.

Harry is fair, while George is brown; "His disposition is bright, and

mine is dark .... Harry is cheerful, and I am otherwise, perhaps. He knows how to make himself beloved by every one, and it has been my lot

to find but few friends" (II, 52).

As with Colonel Esmond, many of George's "darker" aspects stem from one trait— pride. George, says the narrator, "very likely loved to be king of his company (as some people do)" (II, 234), and just as the

Colonel did.* He finds amusement in the company of lesser men— of Eugene

In the preface to Henry Esmond, Rachel Esmond Warrington says of her father, "They say he liked to be the first in his company; but what company was there in which he would not be first?" (40) 141

Castlewood and Parson Sampson. And he refuses to submit to any man or woman. Some sting to his pride is continually provoking George's fury. As a boy, his mother's petty tyrannies drive the Grown Prince to revolt— against his slave being whipped, against the dismissal of his

tutor, against Rachel's wish to use his inheritance to provide for

Harry. When, in "a desperate and unhappy attempt to maintain her power"

(I, 44), Rachel follows the young George Washington's suggestion to have

George whipped, he breaks his grandfather's cup in a rage, and with it

Rachel's domination (I, 50)

Mother, however, still controls the purse strings, and when George revolts once again by marrying a girl with no fortune, he chooses poverty in England over slavery at home: "in Virginia he was only the first, and, as he thought, the worst-treated, of his mother's subjects.

He dreaded to think of returning with his young bride to his home ....

Better freedom and poverty in England" (II, 197). The trials of poverty, however, are not so easily borne by George. Waiting for an audience with a bookseller "was sometimes a hard task for a man of my name and with my pride," he reports; in his dealings with the booksellers, he describes himself as never otherwise than "sulky, overbearing, and, in a word, intolerable" (II, 331)• When he thinks back to that time, says George, "the struggles of pride are fought over again: the wounds under which I smarted, re-open. There are some acts of injustice committed against me which I don't know how to forgive; and which, whenever I think of them, awaken in me the same feelings of revolt and indignation" (II, 322). Indeed, he never forgives his mother for her acts of injustice. "I know how to remit," says George, "not 142

forgive. I wonder are we proud men proud of being proud?" (II, 35*0 •

Pride and jealousy, observes Beatrix, are the two sins besetting

the Esmonds (I, 125; II, 52-3)- And George, like his mother and father,

exhibits the second as well as the first. "Of a jealous and suspicious

disposition" (I, 53), Mountain's hint that young Washington might soon

be master of both George's mother and Castlewood arouses "the jealous

demon within him" (I, 60), which he coaxes along until his heart is

"full of hatred, and rage, and jealousy" (I, 103). He challenges the

"simple and guileless gentleman" to a duel, vowing "I am not your slave,

George Washington, and I never will be. I hated you then, and I hate

you now" (I, 98)*

Like his grandfather, George takes great pride in his plays, which,

like his grandfather's, are of questionable quality. The narrator

suggests that in attempting a tragedy, George is aspiring beyond his

limitations:

Most young men pay their respects to the Tragic Muse first, as they fall in love with women who are a great deal older than themselves. Let the candid reader own, • if ever he had a literary turn, that his ambition was of the very highest, and that however in his riper age he might come down in his pretensions ... tragedy and epic only did his green unknowing youth engage, and no prize but the highest was fit for him. (II, 141-2)

Though George attempts to take the failure of his second play,

Pocahontas, "like a Trojan," the boos and hisses of audience and critics

cut him deeply. He remembers "the most futile incidents of the day: down to a tune which a carpenter was whistling by my side at the playhouse, just before the dreary curtain fell" (II, 309); he spends pages finding excuses for the failure, none of which, of course, have anything to do with the quality of the play. But the play does put 143

several listeners to sleep; Samuel Johnson observes that "after the

performance of your tragedy, I doubt whether nature has endowed you

with those peculiar qualities which are necessary for achieving a

remarkable literary success" (II, 320).

But unlike his grandfather, George has no political or military

ambitions. He is a child of the "educated" Henry, who rejected an

active role in life for the Indian Summer of Virginia with Rachel. So

George remarks, "I never had ambition for that kind of glory, and can

make myself quite easy without it. ... The taste I have had of battles

has shown me how little my genius inclines that way. ... I love my

books and quiet best, and to read about battles in Homer or Lucan"

(II, 115-16). He tells Henry:

I look forward to a quiet life: a quiet little home, a quiet little library full of books, and a little Someone dulce rldentem. dulce loquentem, on t'other side of the fire, as I scribble away at my papers. I am so pleased with this prospect, so utterly contented and happy, that I feel afraid as I think of it, lest it should escape me .... What is ambition to me, with this certainty? What do I care for wars, with this beatific peace smiling near? (II, 195)

Indeed, his praises of his marriage sound strikingly like the Colonel's.

Whereas Henry's love is "the one blessing, in comparison of which all 3 earthly joy is of no value, and to think of her, is to praise God,"

George's marriage is "the blessing of mine (jLife^; and I never think of it but to thank heaven" (II, 229-30). Whereas Henry's marriage is "of its nature sacred and secret, and not to be spoken of, though the heart be ever so full of thankfulness, save to Heaven and the One Ear alone,"

George's married life has "its precious rewards and blessings, so great that I scarce dare to whisper them to this page; to speak of them, save with awful respect and to One Ear, to which are offered up the prayers 144 and thanks of all men" (II, 313)•

Rather than being an active participant in the affairs of the world, George, like his educated grandfather, takes on the role of an amused observer. "Always of a sceptical turn," observes the narrator,

"Mr. W. took a grim delight in watching the peculiarities of his neighbours" (II, 234). Lydia's treatment of the Castlewood family he finds "infinitely diverting" (II, 242,247). He loves to have Sampson near him, "for a more amusing Jack-friar never walked in cassock"

(II, 291).

When the follies of others do touch him personally, George responds with sarcasm. He defies the authority of his tutor, the pompous Mr.

Ward, through "a wicked sarcastic method, which, perhaps, he had inherited from his grandfather" (I, 44). When he suspects Washington of intending to marry Rachel, he directs "stinging sarcasms" at the enemy

(I» 55)• George remarks to Theo that women do not generally speak to him, for he is "said to have a sarcastic way which displeases them"

(II, 111).

Though born in a different century and country, though brought up in plenty and honor rather than in poverty and shame, George is strikingly like his grandfather. And throughout the novel, George lives in the image of the Colonel. He has read his grandfather's memoirs many times over (II, 47) and takes an "extraordinary interest" in his history and dwelling-place (II, 234). Beatrix's stories of the old times fascinate him; "my fancy wandered about in her," he observes,

"amused and solitary, as I had walked about our grandfather's house at

Castlewood, meditating on departed glories, and imagining ancient times" 114-5

(II, 2^-5). As a youth, George acts with the image of the noble Colonel in mind. He sadly explains to Henry that he, as the first son, must go fight the French and Indians, for "each of us must do his duty. What would our grandfather say if he were here?" (I, 66). And after challanging Washington to a duel, he proudly boasts:

You see I say nothing; Madam Esmond's name does not even appear in the quarrel. Do you not remember, in our grandfather's life of himself, how he says that Lord Castlewood fought Lord Mohun on a pretext of a quarrel at cards? and never so much as hinted at the lady's name, who was the real cause of the duel? I took my hint, I confess, from that.■Harry. (I, 100-101)

But there is the crucial difference that whereas in Henry Esmond.

Henry created his own self-portrait, in The Virginians Goerge's portrait is drawn by the narrator. Thus, although George models his actions upon his grandfather's, what under the Colonel's pen took on the appearance of a lofty nobility takes on, in George's case and as seen through the eyes of the narrator, an air of the ludicrous.

Colonel Esmond, for example, fought valiantly in several duels.

In defeating Mohun, he avenged the honor of the Castlewood family, while in challenging the Pretender, he defended the honor of Beatrix.

George, on the other hand, fights, or rather offers to fight, such wicked adversaries as his tutor, for offering to whip him, a young ensign "whom he pinked in the shoulder, and with whom he afterwards swore an eternal friendship" (I, 53), the noble George Washington, whom he unjustly suspects of designing to marry his mother, and his cousin

Will, who informs the police to prevent the duel. In the previous chapter I questioned the gloriousness of the Colonel's duels, but at least he fought genuinely villainous characters, under serious provocation. George thinks back on his "affairs of honor" with some complacency

(I, 89). Throughout the narrative, George, like his grandfather, takes pride in his reputation as a man of honor, with some unfortunate results for those he loves best. When one of the Esmond brothers must join in

Braddock's campaign, George insists on going, although Henry desires to go with all his heart while George dislikes fighting, because "honneur oblige, and my name being number one, number one must go first" (I, 7^)*

,rWith a voice of extraordinary kindness and tenderness," he explains to his brother, '"tis the law of Honour, my Harry" (I, 65). Later, he deserts Theo because he promised Colonel Lambert "on his honor," that he would not see her (II, 268). It takes the realistic little Hetty to convince George that his concept of honor is somewhat lacking. She exclaims: "Honour! And you are the men who pretend to be our superiors; and it is we who are to respect you and admire you! ... to desert an angel ... is what you call honour? ... Honour, indeed! You keep your word to him, and you break it to her! Pretty honour!"

(II, 268). And finally, he plunges Theo and himself into poverty by insisting "as a gentleman and a man of honour" on paying back a promised bribe.

When "Honour and Duty" seem imperatively to call George to fight in the American Revolution (II, ^-22), he somehow ends up fighting on the wrong side. As in the case of George's opinions on other subjects, his statements on the Revolution are rather confusing, containing both pro-British and pro-American sentiments. At several points he pronounces himself a Whig, though he fights for the Tories:

I have mentioned that contraxiety in my disposition, and, perhaps, in my brother's, which somehow placed us on wrong 147

sides in the quarrel .... Harry should have been the Tory, and I the Whig. Theoretically my opinions were very much more liberal than those of my brother, who, especially after his marriage, became ... a person ceremonious, stately, and exacting respect. (II, 383)

"A strange feeling this," he owns, "I was on the Loyalist side, and yet wanted the Whigs to win" (II, 391)*

According to Colonel Esmond, his story, like the story of other heroes of romance, ended on a note of triumph: having won both the hand of the heroine and an estate, Henry retired to a life of blissful content as a country gentleman. But as George points out, the trials of life continue after the wedding bells have stopped pealing

(II, 358-59)• In The Virginians, we see George not only before but also after his marriage and inheritance, and the silencing of the wedding bells marks the end of any heroic notions the reader might still have held about George.

As a doctor tells Theo, George's inheritance proves his ruin

(II, 359)* Thinking how the fruits of Plenty's horn have been poured into his lap— money, home, wife, children— he confesses to feeling "an ingrate," for they have not brought him happiness (II, 419). Rather,

George finds that domestic life as a country gentleman puts him to sleep:

the first pleasure of taking possession of our kingdom over, I own I began to be quickly tired of the crown. ... sweet Joan, ... being thy faithful husband and true lover always, thy Darby is rather ashamed of having been testy so often; and, being arrived at the consummation of happiness, Philemon asks pardon for falling asleep so frequently after dinner. There came a period of my life, when having reached the summit of felicity I was quite tired of the prospect I had there: I yawned in Eden, and said, "Is this all? What, no lions to bite? no rain to fall? no thorns ...?— only Eve, for ever sweet and tender .... Shall I make my confessions? ... (II, 357-58) 148

From his frequent apologies to his wife for his testiness (II, 357). his moodiness (II, 357), and his glum silence (II, 374, 360), one guesses that George didn't contribute much to the bliss of his family's life.

Having gained the summit of felicity, then, George longs to be back struggling in the world, longs to "saddle Rosinante and ride back into the world, and feel the pulses beat again, and play a little of life's glorious game!" (II, 419). But the gout prevents him, though the gout in itself contains hidden blessings; it occupies him a good deal, and so clears his wits and enlivens his spirits (II, 364).

If George, in many ways the model of his grandfather, is not a hero, Thackeray introduces another candidate by having George enter the world accompanied by a twin brother, in almost every respect his opposite. What George is not, Henry is— humble, warm, open, affectionate, frank, full of animal strength and spirits.

Unfortunately, he is also George’s opposite in intelligence. As Eugene

Castlewood observes, "poor Harry hath the best heart in the world; but

I doubt whether his head be very strong." "Not very strong, indeed," agrees George (II, 71)•

With this combination of qualities, Henry proves a follower rather than a leader. George observes, "My kind best brother was always led by somebody; by me when we were together ..., by some other wiseacre when I was away" (II, yUt-U-5) • One of these wiseacres is George

Washington. "My brother," says George, "was indeed subjugated by his old friend, and obeyed him and bowed before him as a boy before a school-master" (II, 430). But Harry's chief tyrant proves to be his wife, Fanny Mountain. As the narrator observes, "who has not heard how 149

... your burly heroes and champions of war are constantly henpecked"

(II, 128).

That Harry, like George, is no hero is further illustrated by the

ways in which Harry, like George, acts upon the same impulses as other

heroes, with ludicrous results. Through Harry, Thackeray parodies the

hero's chivalrous love of the fair heroine. Unfortunately, Henry falls

instantly in love with, and vows eternal fidelity to, a fair heroine

twice his age, with a somewhat tarnished reputation and a passion for

cards. To poor Henry this woman appears an "angle £sic3"» and inspires

his chivalrous devotion. He vows:

If you were to bid me jump out of yonder window, I should do it; or murder, I should do it. ... I want to do something— to distinguish myself— to be ever so great. I wish there was Giants, Maria ... that I could go and fight 'em. I wish you was in distress, that I might help you, somehow. I wish you wanted my blood, that I might spend every drop of it for you. (I, 162)

And an opportunity for Knight Harry to prove his devotion does present

itself. When Maria is taken in durance for outstanding debts, Henry

rushes to her rescue: "She knew he would; he was her champion, her

preserver from bondage and ignominy. ... Mr. Warrington felt a glow of pleasure thrill through his frame. ... Not a little proud and elated

was our young champion, as, with his hat cocked, he marched by the side

of his rescued princess" (I, 356).

Like other heroes, Harry is "educated" in the course of the novel.

In his case, the knowledge that Lady Maria's teeth are false turns him from an innocent boy into "a man,— quite an old man" (I, 198). But though educated, Harry, like George, is determined to act as a man of honor should. Over a bottle with Parson Sampson, poor Harry begins to 150

cry in his cups at the thought of his pledge to Maria. But when the

Parson suggests he withdraw his offer, Harry proudly retorts: "I've

promised her, and an Esmond— a Virginia Esmond, mind that— Mr. What's

your name— Sampson— has but his word!" The narrator observes that "The

sentiment was noble, but delivered by Harry with rather a doubtful

articulation" (I, 286).

Harry stands up for the honor of the Esmonds and Old Virginia on

several other occasions— whenever anyone challenges him to a bet. For

"the young man thought it was for the honour of his country not to be

ashamed of any bet made to him" (I, 236). As the narrator observes,

this is a rather "queer code of honour" (I, 255)•

In the previous chapter, I attempted to show that although in

Henry Esmond the Colonel paints himself as a hero, the novel is actually,

like Vanity Fair, a novel without a hero. It seems that again, in The

Virginians, the two protagonists fail to reach heroic stature. In

Henry Esmond. however, the Colonel was careful to depict the flaws of

all the other characters. In The Virginians, the narrator is not so

cynical; a contrast to George is provided in Colonel Lambert and in

two historical figures— James Wolfe and George Washington.

Martin Lambert, like George, lives a life centered around the home

and family. But whereas George finds this life Irritating and boring,

the Lambert home is filled with warmth, charity, kindness, and good

cheer. When the world deserts Henry, Aunt Lambert reassures him, "The world may look coldly at you, but we don't belong to it: so you may

come to us in safety" (II, 82). Henry discovers that "The gates of the old house seemed to shut the wicked world out somehow, and the 151

inhabitants within to be better, and purer, and kinder than other

people" (I, 213).

Perhaps one explanation for the healthiness of the Lambert family

is that although Colonel Lambert's home is removed from the world,

Colonel Lambert is not. According to the Colonel, duty as well as

family are the aims of his life. He explains to Henry, "When I began

life, et militavi non sine. ... I dreamed of success and honour; now I

think of duty, and yonder folks" (I, 218). Duty leads the Colonel to

serve his country first as a soldier, then as the Governor of Jamaica.

Furthermore, in praising James Wolfe, Colonel Lambert asserts that it

is duty which takes precedence over family: "But, great as his love

is ... honour and duty are greater, and he leaves home, and wife, and ease, and health, at their bidding. Every man of honour would do the like; every woman who loves him truly would buckle on his armour for him" (II, 190).

Colonel Lambert is, like George, a man of honor. Descended from supporters of Cromwell, he refuses to bow to the Countess of Yarmouth-

Walmoden, the King's mistress; and a„ court, he is not overly polite to noblemen (II, 86). But though a man of honor, the Colonel, unlike

George, is humble rather than proud. George learns that "To love and forgive were easy duties with that man. Beneficence was natural to him, and a sweet, smiling humility" (II, 295)* He easily overlooks

Harry's rash insults, and is the sole friend to come to Harry's aid when he's placed in durance for his debts. James Wolfe tells Henry that "Martin Lambert hath acted in this as he always doth, as the best

Christian, the best friend, the most kind and generous of men" (II, 6). 152

To James Wolfe, Colonel Lambert serves as a model: "To have such

a good name, and to live such a life as Colonel Lambert’s," says Wolfe,

"seem to me now the height of human ambition" (I, 220). Like Colonel

Lambert, though Wolfe once dreamed of winning glory and honor, his

desires liave grown much more tranquil:

I would like quiet, books to read, a wife to love me, and some children to dandle on my knee. I have imagined some such Elysium for myself .... True love is better than glory; and a tranquil fireside, with the woman of your heart seated by it, the greatest good the Gods can send to us. (I, 220)

But also like Colonel Lambert, duty comes first with Wolfe, before the domestic happiness he dreams of. He tells Harry that duty must be the first object of any man: "Sure every man was made to do some work; and a gentleman, if he has none, must make some. ... honour is the aim of life ... and every man can serve his country one way or the other"

(I, 26l). In the course of the novel, duty leads Wolfe to head the

British troops in America, at the expense of his domestic happiness, his health, and eventually his life.

Although James Wolfe asserts that to live a life such as Colonel

Lambert's seems to him the height of human ambition, the Wolfe of The

Virginians is clearly a man above other men. Colonel Lambert observes that Wolfe, a lieutenant-colonel at thirty, commands men many years his senior, yet "no one envies his superiority, for, indeed, most of us acknowledge that he is our superior" (I, 217). At Quebec, Wolfe awaits his quarry tirelessly, draws him out on a desperate gamble, and so achieves a brilliant victory for Britain. "His end was so glorious," says the narrator, "that I protest not even his mother nor his mistress ought to have deplored it, or at any rate have wished him alive again. 153

I know it is a hero we speak of" (II, 256), though this praise is

qualified by the observation that the odds could have as easily gone

against the gambler.

George Washington is another man above other men. Possessing "an

extraordinary simplicity and gravity" (I, 54), he is not stung by

George's sarcastic remarks, for "His nature was above levity and jokes:

they seemed out of place when addressed to him. He was slow of

comprehending them: and they slunk as it were abashed out of his

society" (I, 84).

Henry worships Washington by instinct, explaining that "he has a

greatness not approached by other men" (II, 432). And George, though he

bears a personal grudge against the General, concludes that "here indeed

is a character to admire and revere; a life without a stain, a fame

without a flaw. Quando invenies parem?" (II, 382-3); Washington is

"all mankind's superior" (II, 383)*

If Wolfe was the force behind a British victory in Canada, George

Washington was the force behind the colonists' victory in America. As

George Warrington tells it:

the gallant soldiers who fought on her [America'sj side, their indomitable Chief above all, had the glory of facing and overcoming, not only veterans amply provided and inured to war, but wretchedness, cold, hunger, dissentions, treason within their own camp, where all must have gone to rack, but for the pure unquenchable flame of patriotism that was for ever burning in the bosom of the heroic leader. What a constancy, what a magnanimity, what a surprising persistence against fortune'. ... in defeat invincible, magnanimous in conquest, and never so sublime as on that day when he laid down his victorious sword and sought his noble retirement. (II, 382)

In George's estimation, Washington rises above even James Wolfe, for

To endure is greater than to dare; to tire out hostile fortune; to be daunted by no difficulty; to keep heart when all have 15^

lost It; to go through intrigue spotless; and to forego even ambition when the end is gained— who can say this is not greatness, or show the other Englishman who has achieved so much? (II, kjk)

The Virginians, then, is not another novel without a hero.

Although there is not much heroic about the fictional protagonists,

Thackeray finds his heroes in history. He finds in history not only

"moral" men, men who, like Colonel Lambert, act under the inspiration

of duty and family rather than glory and power, but moral men who

influence the course of nations. Unlike Colonel Esmond, the narrator

The Virginians does not reject the world of history in favor of a

retired life as a country gentleman, but rather places men partaking in

the former world above men retiring to the latter. The Virginians presents an alternative to the conclusion of Henry Esmond and to George

Warrington's unhappy life as a country gentleman. CHAPTER FIVE

The Use of History

From the time of the novel's publication, critics have been

divided not only as to whether, in Esmond. Thackeray was being ironic,

but also in respect to its quality as an "historical" novel. In the

contemporary reviews, opinion ranged widely, some acclaiming it as "not

so much a novel as a history of the age of Queen Anne,"'*' others accusing

Thackeray of having "wilfully misrepresented the men and manners of the 2 time." Many reviewers critcized the characters as being merely

3 "creatures of the nineteenth century dressed up in ... quaint attire.

While a few modern critics praise the novel's accurate portrayal

of the age of Queen Anne, k most are concerned with the philosophy of

history evident in Esmond rather than with its portrayal of manners.

Many of them fail to see any irony in the book and so interpret Esmond's

retreat to America as Thackeray's retreat from history. Accordingly,

critics believing that the historical novel should present "a profound

awareness of man's largest historical situation and destiny"-^ condemn

Esmond as shallow and escapist.^ Others join Avrom Fleishman in applauding the ending as "a vision of the emptiness of all life in

history and ... a hint of the ideal of a life outside of history."

Considering the historical as well as the fictional aspects of Henry

Esmond in the light of the Victorian historical romance allows one to at least view Thackeray's use of history in a contemporary context.

155 History in the Victorian Historical Romance

A Victorian historical romance rarely takes as its primary aim the

presentation of an historical event or character. The books were not

intended to be history lessons told in an interesting manner. As

Chapter Two has indicated, the plot centers not in any actual events in

history but in the fictional hero's quest for love and honor and the

villain's attempt to defeat it. The authors thus follow Scott's method,

described in an article appearing in 1859 as "taking from history simply

the framework, the spirit and manners of the times to which the action

belongs, and inventing a story which is concerned with fictitious

characters.

Moreover, the heroes, heroines, villains, and plots of the romances

are alike in many respects, regardless of the historical setting, at

least enough so as to allow the identification of certain recurring

conventional elements as has been done in Chapter Two. Apparently,

then, the Victorians did not conceive of character itself as historical, as varying from period to period in history, or as being determined by

social environment. The eighteenth-century concept of "general" human nature still had a hold over the popular mind. Scott, in the

introduction to Waverley, says as much; he claims to have thrown

the force of my narrative upon the characters and passions of the actors;— those passions common to men in all stages of society, and which have alike agitated the human heart, whether it throbbed under the steel corselet of the fifteenth century, the brocaded coat of the eighteenth, or the blue frock 156 157

and white dimity waistcoat of the present day .... It is from the great book of Nature, the same through a thousand editions, whether of black-letter, or wire-wove and hot-pressed, that I have venturously essayed to read a chapter to the public. (I, 13-1*0

Of course, this introduction was written in 1805, while most of the novel was written in 1813-1**. The conclusion of the novel suggests, on the contrary, that Scott wrote Waverley at least partially to preserve for posterity certain character types and manners that he felt would soon be gone forever:

The gradual influx of wealth, and extension of commerce, have since united to render the present people of Scotland a class of beings as different from their grandfathers, as the existing English are from those of Queen Elizabeth's time.

... and now, for the purpose of preserving some idea of the ancient manners of which I have witnessed the almost total extinction, I have embodied in imaginary scenes, and ascribed to fictitious characters, a part of the incidents which I then received from those who were actors in them. (II, **01-02)

Indeed, Scott is lauded for his great insights into character as

9 formed by the historical environment. But Scott is the exception rather than the rule here. And many aspects of his characterization and plots were universal enough to be found in the historical romances of the Victorians, as well as in other romances by Scott himself set in different time periods.

These novelists also followed Scott's expansive method of describing the manners and habits of the era. But they did not make the assumption that as the manners changed, the characters changed. In his introduction to Reginald Hastings. Eliot Warburton explains his concept of what is "historical" in his novel:

To return to my Cavalier. His Memoirs, or Confessions as they should perhaps be called, appear to have been composed with a twofold object; namely, in the hope of illustrating the social 158

life of the period of which he treats, and of rendering more familiar its leading characters; not only such heroic characters as inspire emulation, "but also such as may deter from future evil, by showing of what base matter that evil was composed. ... I do not fear that the antiquity of his experience will prove prejudicial to his interest; for .the passions— as immortal as the spirit of which they are the features— are unchangeable by time and almost by circumstances .... (iii-iv)

Warburton, then, while he sees human nature as universal and unchanging, identifies what distinguishes one period of history from another as the manners, the social life of the era. An examination of the historical novels of the period suggests that most authors agreed with him, and felt they were presenting history in describing the dress, architecture, furnishings, and habits of an era. Most of them, in the spirit of Macaulay's History of England. equated history with social history. Setting a fictional story in an historical setting thus allowed them to present what they conceived of as the true stuff of history: manners. These changed, while the story of human life, the fictional portion, remained the same through all periods.

Most of the novels contain full and precise descriptions of dress.

When the reader first meets Lady Castlemain in Sir Ralph Esher, for example, he meets with an elaborate costume:

Lady Castlemain was dressed in white and green, with an open bodice of pink, looped with diamonds. Her sleeves were green, looped up full on the shoulders with jewelry, and shewing the white shift beneath, richly trimmed with lace. The boddice was long and close, with a very low tucker. The petticoat fell in ample folds, but not so long as to keep the ankles unexposed; and it was relieved from an appearance of too much weight by the very weightiness of the hanging sleeves, which counterpoising its magnitude, and looking flowery with lace and ribbons, left the arms free at the elbows, and fell down behind on either side. The hair was dressed wide, with ringlets at the cheeks .... (Sir Ralph Esher. I, 62-3)

The clothes of a dandy, Beau Villiers, receive minute attention in 159

The Miser's Daughter:

Beau Villiers, who was, indeed, a remarkably handsome man, and dressed in the extremity of the mode, wore a light blue embossed velvet coat, embroidered with silver, with broad cuffs similarly ornamented; a white waistcoat of the richest silk, likewise laced with silver; and tawny velvet breeches, partly covered with pearl-coloured silk hose, drawn above the knee, and secured with silver garters. His dress was completed by shoes of black Spanish leather, fastened by large diamond buckles, and a superb Ramillies periwig of the lightest flaxen hair .... He carried a three cornered hat fringed with feathers, and a clouded cane, mounted with a valuable pebble. (The Miser's Daughter. I , 44)

Through these descriptions, the reader could picture the characters in

their period dress. This not only helped to convey the flavor of the

period, it was in a way what distinguished one period from the next.

Similarly, scenes are described so that one can picture the

characters in a period setting. Before we meet the Baron of

Bradwardine, the type of the old Scottish nobleman, his castle is

carefully described (Waverley. I, 75-78). Henry Smeaton opens with a

comparison of St. James Square and Pall Mall in 1715 to their

contemporary appearance. In Henry Masterton. a view of an entire English village of the period is included:

Winding down the slope of an easy hill, the smooth, broad road opened out upon a village green, with a large glistening pond on the right, shaded by tall elms, several clumps of which were scattered round. Forty or fifty neat cottages surrounded the green; and a long row of plain white houses went skirting down by the side of the road .... On the left hand ... rose one spire of the church from a group of immemorial trees, whose rounded masses broke beautifully the somewhat heavy architecture of the body of the building; and about half a mile distant, on the right, in the full light of the evening sun, appeared a large and lordly dwelling, surrounded by the deep woods, which crowned a wide sloping lawn, only separated from the village by a thick brick wall. Farther still, beyond, through an opening left between the trees and the hill, rose a high rocky piece of ground, covered by the grey ruins of an old feudal castle; and there seemed, to the eye of fancy, a moral propriety in the arrangement of the whole scene that enhanced its beauty. The 160

cottages gathered round the foot of the more wealthy dwelling— that dwelling itself rising out of the midst of them— the house of prayer standing near at hand; and far beyond the grey and crumbling fragments of feudal tyranny, commenting on the change of days, and monumenting the evils of the past. The whole had a vague reference to the state of society which existed before the civil war broke out, and perhaps the image was the more pleasing from its very indistinctness. (Henry Masterton, PP. 38-39)

Once the set has been described, the reader is often taken inside the houses with the characters. In The Miser's Daughter. for example,

Abel's house, inside and out, has a distinctly eighteenth-century flavor:

Nothing could be more snug than his retreat at Lambeth, with its fine garden, its green-houses and hot-houses, its walls covered with fruit-trees, and its summer-house, with windows commanding the river, and frescoed ceiling, painted in the time of Charles the Second, at which epoch the house was built, and the garden laid out. Then he had some choice pictures of the Flemish school, two or three of Charles's beauties, undoubted originals, by Lely and Kneller, but placed in his brother's room, to be out of his own sight plenty of old china, and old japanned cabinets; a good library, in which the old poets, the old dramatists, and the old chroniclers, found a place; and, above all, a large cellar abundantly stocked with old wine. (The Miser's Daughter, I, 3^)

In The Scottish Cavalier, the villain's room reflects both the period and his nature:

Supper was laid; carved crystal, plate, and snow-white napery gleamed in the light of the ruddy fire, and of four large wax candles that towered aloft in massive square holders of French workmanship. Over the mantel-piece, in an oak frame, amid the carving of which grapes, nymphs, and bacchanals were all entwined together, hung a portrait painted by Jamieson, representing a pale young lady in a ruff and fardingale .... Silver plate, a goodly row of labelled flasks ... and various viands, formed a corps-de-reserve on a grotesquely- carved buffet of black oak, for everything was fashioned after the grotesque in those days. The knobs of the red leather chairs, and the ponderous fire-irons, were strange and open- mouthed visages; the brackets supporting the cornices of the doors and the mantel-piece, were also strange bacchanalian faces grinning from wreaths of vine-leaves, clusters of grapes, and crowns of acanthus. Three long silver-hilted l 6 l

rapiers with immense pommels, shells, and guards, pistols, steel caps, masks, foils, ... lay all huddled in a corner, while the broad mantel-piece presented quite an epitome of the proprietor's character. (The Scottish Cavalier, p. 75)

The reader not only sees but also tastes the life of the period.

In Ivanhoe, a medieval feast is set before the guests:

Swine's flesh, dressed in several modes, appeared on the lower part of the board, as also that of fowls, deer, goats, and hares, and various kinds of fish, together with huge loaves and cakes of bread, and sundry confections made of fruits and honey. The smaller sorts of wildfowl, of which there was abundance, were not served up in platters, but brought in upon small wooden spits or broaches, and offered by the pages and domestics who bore them, to each guest in succession .... Beside each person of rank was placed a goblet of silver; the lower board was accommodated with large drinking horns. (ivanhoe, I, 55“56)

Compare this distinctly medieval fare with the Scottish breakfast eaten by Walter Fenton:

The most substantial breakfast of these degenerate days would dwindle into insignificance when compared with that which loaded the long oaken table of Bruntisfield House. In the centre smoked a vast urn of coffee, surrounded by diminutive cups of dark-blue china, flanked on the right by a side of mutton roasted, on the left by a gigantic capon; a dish of wild ducks balanced another of trout, both being furnished by the adjacent loch; broiled haddocks, pickled salmon, kippered herrings, pyramids of eggs, and piles of oat and barley-cakes; wheaten loaves and crystal cups of honey were also there; but chief above all towered a vast tankard of spiced ale; beside it stood a long-necked bottle of strong waters to whet the appetite, lest through the eyes it should fairly become satisfied by the mere sight of so many edibles. At the lower end of the board, the servants were accomodated with bickers and cogues of porridge and milk, which they supped with cutty-spoons of black horn, while two mighty trenchers of polished pewter held the magazines from which they drew their supplies. (The Scottish Cavalier, pp. 147-48)

Once such descriptions have given the reader the appropriate setting in which to picture the action, the characters often engage in a few activities typical of the period. This is especially true in the novels in which the hero attends Court. In Sir Ralph Esher. one 162

learns how a typical day was spent at Charles II's courts

Nothing in the morning but breakfasting, bowling, dressing, or boating; nor in the afternoon but drinking, gaming, and play-going; nor all the rest of the time but riding, dancing, guitar-tinkling, loitering, and love-making. Item, supper; item, the parks. Now we were at Hampton Court; now at Greenwich; now at Tunbridge, Newmarket, St. Albans. Then we went to Epsom .... (Sir Ralph Esher, I, l8l)

In The Miser's Daughter. we get an account of Trussell Beechcroft's daily routine. Although his small allowance circumscribes his activities,

he was daily to be seen sauntering on the Mall, or in Piccadilly .... The Cocoa Tree and White's were too extravagant for him— the Smyrna and the Saint James's too exclusively political— Young Man's too military— Old Man's too much frequented by stock-jobbers— and Little Man's by sharpers— so he struck a middle course, and adopted the British. This was during the day-time; but after the play, if by chance he went thither, he would drop into Tom's or Will's coffee-houses, to talk over the performance— to play a game at picquet— or to lose a half crown at faro. ... The ordinaries he rarely attended— never, indeed, unless invited by a friend to dine with him at one of them. (The Miser's Daughter. I, 32)

And the reader travels with the crowd attendant on Beau Villiers to such popular places of entertainment as the Folly on the Thames (a pleasure-boat), Marlybone Gardens, Ranelagh, and Vauxhall.

These external elements were what the Victorian romancers believed changed from period to period. They did not envision history as some sort of process of development, or view the present as formed by the past. But the isolated descriptions included here can be misleading.

Though reviewers, especially of Ainsworth, often complained that antiquarian details overpowered the narrative portion of the romances, in general the quantity of such descriptions serves to give the fictional portion a period flavor rather than to dominate it. As 163

Chapter Two indicated, the characters were not mere clothes horses,

as critics of G.P.R. James mistakenly suggest.

In addition to portraying the manners of the age, the historical

romances include miniature portraits of famous historical characters,

capsule histories of famous events, and descriptions of battles. These

vignettes are rarely organically connected with the fictional portion

of the novel. The hero happens to meet a famous person at Will's.

Devereux is a friend of Bolingbroke and so takes an interest in the

state of affairs following Queen Anne’s death. As the hero is a

soldier, the battles in which he fights are described in detail.

Apparently these details are included for their own inherent value as

bits of historical information, though they are rarely so extensive as

to draw attention to their irrelevancy to the plot.

The miniature portrait of a famous figure, then, was a conventional

component of these books. Devereux, for example, has dinner with Dr.

Swift:

In person Swift is much above the middle height, strongly built, and with a remarkably fine outline of throat and chest; his front face is certainly displeasing, though far from uncomely; but the clear chiselling of the nose, the curved upper lip, the full, round Roman chin, the hanging brow, and the resolute decision, stamped upon the whole expression of the large forehead, and the clear blue eye, make his profile one of the most striking I ever saw. (Devereux. pp. 12?-28)

In Sir Ralph Esher. Philip Herne visits Milton in Italy:

I had learnt from a Christ Church acquaintance, that he was blind. The lids of his eyes, however, were not closed; and as he turned his blind orbs upon you while speaking, they gave him a singular and almost supernatural expression, very well suited to his poetry. His locks had the same graceful flow on either side his head, though his aspect was the worse for years, and I though not without something of a puritanical irritability. The rest, however, was tranquil and dignified. (Sir Ralph Esher, II, 242) 164

Occasionally, mere name-dopping takes the place of portraiture, still serving, however, to evoke an impression of the period in an educated reader. Devereux opens with more name-dopping per line than any other passage I encountered. Devereux reports that his uncle

did as his ancestors had done before him, and, cheap as the dignity had grown, went up to court to be knighted by Charles II. He was so delighted with what he saw of the metropolis that he forswore all intention of leaving it, took to Sedley and champagne, flirted with Nell Gwynne, lost double the value of his brother's portion at one sitting to the chivalrous Grammont, wrote a comedy corrected by Etherege, and took a wife recommended by Rochester. The wife brought him a child six months after marriage .... (Devereux. pp. 1-2)

Capsule histories occur even oftener than miniature portraits.

Chapter VII of Ivanhoe opens with a description of the condition of

England in the reign of King John. Rob Roy contains a similar discussion of the condition of the Highlands (II, 126-130). Ralph Esher summarizes the events of 1667, the year after the fire of London:

In my mind, the next year should have been recorded as more wonderful; for it not only contained the flight, imprisonment and restoration to favour of the said Duke [Buckingham], the real rage of the King at Miss Stewart's marriage, the downfall of Clarendon, and "the death of the ever-young and immortal Old Cowley," (as Rochester called him) but I saw the Dutch fairly up the river, burning our ships in our very teeth; and furthermore, I saw ... the whole court in a quiver of consternation at the news .... (Sir Ralph Esher. Ill, 175)

Several of the novels contain detailed descriptions of battles:

Preston in Henry Smeaton. Killycrankie and Steinkirke in The Scottish

Cavalier, and in Sir Ralph Esher. a naval battle with the Dutch.

In including all of these historical facts and characters, the authors professed to be as accurate as possible. In his note to the

1852 edition of Devereux. Bulwer-Lytton comments:

And here be it pardoned if I add that so minute an attention has been paid to accuracy that even in petty details, and in 165

relation to historical characters "but slightly known to the ordinary reader, a critic deeply acquainted with the memoirs of the age will allow that the novelist is always merged in the narrator. (Devereux. p. xii)

Footnotes are frequently included as proof of the accuracy of some

point. The description of Reginald Hastings' impressions of London

is accompanied by a footnote referring the reader to Evelyn's Memoirs

(Reginald Hastings. p. 320) . When Wilton Brown visits Fenwick in prison, G.P.R. James includes a footnote assuring the reader that

Fenwick did have visitors (The King's Highway, p. 3^8). James Grant notes in the preface to The Scottish Cavalier that he originally

intended to include footnotes "containing the local traditions and authorities from which it has been derived," but on second thought decided to discuss in the preface itself the historical accuracy of the minor characters and the places referred to in the book.

The two types of historical elements discussed so far— descriptions of manners and historical vignettes— help to place the reader in the appropriate setting and give him the flavor of and a few facts about the period, but actually have little to do with the narrative. Yet much history is brought into the novel through the plot. Most often, the hero comes into contact with "history" through one of three developments: he goes to court, he goes off to war, or the villain entraps the hero into some involvement in political events. The historical situation, then, provides the battleground for the conflict between hero and villain as well as the opportunity for the hero's identity to emerge or the lessons to educate him. And as the fight between the hero and villain is a fight of good against evil, as the hero's education is an education in morality, the historical elements 166

so included are viewed from a moral perspective. History here resumes

the function it had served in the eighteenth century: to provide lessons in morality. That morality was a central concern of these novelists is evident from their prefatory remarks. In the first chapter of Waverley. for example, Scott refers to "the moral lessons, which I would willingly consider as the most important part of my plan"

(Waverley. I, 14). Reginald Hastings claims to "be writing for posterity, who will want to know "what an Englishman has felt and done in times like these; what errors he has fallen into, and by what actions he has endeavored to redeem those errors" (Reginald Hastings. p. 5)•

Ainsworth chose for the epigraph to The Miser's Daughter a quotation from Topham's Life of Elwes; "The delineation of such characters as these I consider as very moral instruction to mankind, and a lesson more demonstrative of the perfect vanity of unused wealth, than has lately been presented to the public."

For a detailed discussion of the "moral education" history provides for many heroes, see pages 26-29. Briefly, it is through attending a court or engaging in a battle or being drawn into a political plot by the villain that many heroes discover the shallowness, the pettiness, the selfishness, the depravity of kings, dukes, generals,— of court politics in general and of the ladies in attendance at court.

Thus, historical figures are almost always on the evil side of the romance's moral conflict. Some of the villains actually are historical figures (Blood, in both Whitefriars and Sir Ralph Esher, for example). And many of the historical characters have the same vices as the villain. Charles II, as portrayed in Whitefriars. Sir Ralph Esher, and Reginald Hastings, is a typical gallants shallow, weak, and

indolent, but sensual, selfish, and willing to use violence and intrigue

to gain his ends. Puritans, on the other hand, are, in Henry Masterton and Reginald Hastings. portrayed as canting hypocrites, whose mouths are always filled with biblical quotations but whose aims are selfish and whose cunning, one Cavalier remarks, "will always baffle ours"

(Reginald Hastings. p. ?2). As Jesuits are often at the bottom of their schemes, Jacobites themselves are in many ways like the Jesuits: lovers of intrigue willing to use any mthods to gain their ends. In The King * s

Highway. they perfectly correspond to Lady Helen's description of them as men "who would have thought fit to violate every principle of justice and humanity" (The King's Highway. p. 232). And the masters are not much better than the servants. The Pretenders demonstrate their unworthiness to wear the crown whenever they enter a novel. Henry

Smeaton leaves St. Germains disgusted with

all that he had witnessed of the mean intrigues of the court, and the shameless ingratitude of its princes toward some of their best and most faithful servants, together with the licentiousness, the weakness, the frivolity, and the baseness of the principal persons who surrounded them, if not the princes themselves. (Henry Smeaton. p. 7^)

Having been informed by Bolingbroke of the intrigue at the Pretender's court, Devereux won't even visit St. Germains while in France. Though

Waverley is at first enamoured with James, he too becomes disillusioned with the intrigues pervading the Pretender's court in Scotland. And in Redgauntlet. Charles Edward throws away the crown for a woman.

Thus, in romances set between 1660 and 1750, noble characters are almost without exception educated to hold the Whig view of history, often through experiences with Stuart kings, with the Jacobites, or 168 with the Pretenders (Waverley, Lennard Sherbrooke, Henry Smeaton,

Mervyn). Mervyn, for example, though brought up by Jesuits and for a time a servant of Charles II, learns to "transfer his allegiance from his king to his country" and becomes "one of the principal movers of

that grand revolution which shattered the tyrannous throne of the

Stuarts" (Whitefriars. p. 507) • For other heroes, experience with the

Jacobite cause only strengthens their Whig sympathies (Frank

Osbaldistone, Devereux, Randolph Crew).

Certainly there are historical characters in the books with noble qualities, but such figures are never heroes. Ivanhoe's Richard the

Lionhearted, for example, is the type of the chivalrous knight, but the resulting character makes a very poor king. Ivanhoe himself condemns his "wild spirit of chivalry which so often impelled his master upon dangers which he might easily have avoided, or rather, which it was unpardonable in him to have sought out" (Ivanhoe. II, 321). The chivalrous knight leaves few solid benefits to his country; the narrator concludes, "In the lion-hearted King, the brilliant, but useless character, of a knight of romance, was in a great measure realized and revived" (Ivanhoe. II, 322). The King's Highway, which propounds a

Whig view of history, ends up applauding the Glorious Revolution, but

William is hardly a hero. The narrator terms his appearance that of

"dignity divested of grace," and notes that "the harsh and somewhat coarse features of the monarch, which abstractedly seemed calculated to display strong passions, were in their habitual state of cold immobility"

(The King's Highway, p. 297). The closest thing to a hero is the noble martyr Sydney in Whitefriars. who is so idealistic that the popular 169 party which he supports keep him in ignorance of their plans.

History, then, does not provide the fictional hero with models; there are no romantic father figures among the historical characters to inspire the hero to follow in their footsteps. Rather, history provides examples of downright villainy at worst and of good intentions incapable of being fulfilled at best. It is not surprising that most heroes reject political life at the end of the novel: experience has taught them to retreat from it altogether to the bliss of family life in retirement on a country estate. Frank Osbaldistone, Waverley, Devereux,

Esher, Randolph Crew, and Reginald Hastings all follow this pattern.

Reginald Hastings, for example, ends with the Restoration. But although

Reginald remained a devoted Cavalier throughout, he returns to his country estate instead of court, for "the only courtiers who seemed at home here, were jabbering French, and lisping foreign oaths, through beards trimmed in Parisian fashion" (Reginald Hastings, p. 409)• Henry

Masterton and Henry Smeaton live in exile in France, yet still in domestic bliss. Of all the heroes, only Mervyn and Ivanhoe end up taking an active part in politics.

One could summarize the approach to history found in Victorian historical romances as one concerned with "manners and morals." Rather than viewing history as an evolving process or as a series of cycles, the Victorian romancers regarded each period of history in isolation, one distinguished from the next chiefly by the clothes worn, the houses inhabited, and the activities engaged in— the manners of the age— while human nature underneath its period dress remained essentially the same in all periods, thus allowing the reader to learn a moral lesson 170 applicable to himself from the stories of the past.

That this "manners and morals" view of history was shared by average middle class Victorians is suggested by the fact that reviewers of the historical romances of this era seem to expect it. G.P.R. James, for example, is applauded for his portrayal of history in Henry

Masterton: "He is a master of costume and manners, and gives us the colour and aspect of the times of which he treats.Similarly, Leigh

Hunt is applauded for his skill in "displaying the characters, and tastes, and manners of the days of the Commonwealth and the King; and assuredly he has given us a very clear and life-like picture of the chief actors and acts in the great drama of those stirring times.

Archibald Alison, an historian himself, points out that the historical portion of these romances, i.e. the description of manners, only serves to provide the basis on which to present a general view of human nature.

He warns the novelist not to overdo the manners: "Descriptions of still life— pictures of scenery, manners, buildings, and dresses— are the body, as it were, of romance; they are not it soul." The historical romance's principal interest, he claims, "must be sought in human 12 passion and feeling." Another reviewer spells out exactly how the historical romance is intended to use history:

The historical romance is not so denominated because it develops an historical event, or introduces characters whose names are enrolled in the annals of antiquity,- but because it professes to delineate the distinctive peculiarities and costume of the times to which it is understood to relate. The historical event is referred to for the purpose of giving consistency and probability to the plot, and the persons are introduced as the landmarks of the age whereof the manners are represented. Opportunity is thus afforded to instruct as well as amuse ....13 And these same critics who stress manners also stress morals. The reviewer of Henry Masterton quoted above finds its chief excellence not in its presentation of manners, but in "the unaffected sympathy of the author in all that is generous and heroic, and his dislike and loathing iq. for whatever is vile and base." Archibald Alison insists that the true standard for judging historical romances is their moral effect:

"Are they fitted to elevate and purify the minds of their readers?

Will the persons who peruse, and are amused, perhaps fascinated, by them, become more noble, more exalted, more spiritual beings, than 15 they were before." ^ Correspondingly, the French school of historical romance is sharply criticized by English reviewers for its immorality.

A reviewer in the April 1837 issue of the Edinburgh Review applauds

G.P.R. James's historical romances for their "cheerfulness of tone and purity of feeling; the freedom from topics of doubtful morality," and condemns the French school for its violent and overstrained passions and its mocking of the tranquil and domestic virtues. ° History in Henry Esmond

If one accepts the premise upon which Chapter Three is based, that

Henry Esmond's account of his own life is not to be trusted, one must wonder whether the same would apply to his account of history. After all, Henry warns the reader:

Should any child of mine take the pains to read these, his ancestor's memoirs, I would not have him judge of the great Duke by what a contemporary has written of him. No man hath been so immensely lauded and decried as this great statesman and warrior .... If the present writer joins with the latter faction, very likely a private pique of his own may be the cause of his ill-feeling. ... We have but to change the point of view, and greatest action looks mean .... You may describe, but who can tell whether your sight is clear or not, or your means of information accurate. (285-86)

Was Thackeray making the point in Esmond that all views of history are subjective, slanted by personal bias?

A knowledge of Thackeray's own view of the historical events and figures he describes suggests that no, where history is concerned, the narrator and the author are one. Esmond's portraits of the famous men of the age are demonstrably Thackeray's. The Swift, Addison, and

Steele of the novel are the very Swift, Addison and Steele of his lectures on The English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century (see below, pages 178-79)• Though Esmond warns the reader that his portrait of Marlborough is biased, it is not blacker than Macaulay's. That even in Marlborough Thackeray was presenting the "truth" as he saw it is clear from a letter:

172 173

When I was writing "Esmond", I read the Marlborough despatches very carefully— a great deal more carefully than Alison, who blunders in numerous details— Berwick's and Colbert's memoirs, and the remarkable French Collections relative to the war of the Succession, printed in Louis Phillipe's reign— and my impression distinctly was as stated in "Esmond", that Marlborough, who was in treaty to receive a bribe of three millions of crowns for the raising of the Siege of Lille— gave information to his nephew the Duke of Berwick of the departure of Webb with the convoy from Ostend, and intended to sacrifice him, which he would have done but for the unexpected issue of that brilliant little battle.1?

And Thackeray goes on to mention a contemporary poem, Swift's Journal

to Stella. Chamberlayne's Magnae Brltanniae Notitia, and the Elderly

Biographical Dictionaries. Here, then, we have a glimpse of the pains

Thackeray took to get the facts right, to present, through Esmond. the

"truth" about the age.

Other comments about Esmond in his letters suggest the seriousness with which Thackeray viewed his role as historian. He complains of the novel: "It has taken me as much trouble as 10 volumes, and for no particular good for most of my care and antiquarianism is labor thrown away, and there must be a blunder or two or perhaps 20 w the critics 18 will spy out." In another letter written at about the same time, he sounds the same note:

I wish I had 6 months more to put into the novel: now it's nearly done it's scarce more than a sketch and it might have been made a durable history: complete in it's parts and its whole. But at the end of 6 months it would want another 6: it takes as much trouble as Macaulays History almost and he has the vast advantage of remembering everything he has read, whilst everything but impressions I mean facts dates & so forth slip out of my head ...^9

Though Thackeray does make a few minor slips when it comes to dates, in general his novel demonstrates the great care he took to get his history right. T.C. Snow and William Snow list in the 1915 Oxford 174

Edition of Henry Esmond some of the sources Thackeray used for his

historical information:

He relies on Macaulay, as far as Macaulay reached when he wrote, and his general view of the history is coloured more deeply by Macaulay than by any other historian. ... After Macaulay ends, for the war he has used Coxe's Life of Marlborough. and the Prince de Ligne's Life of Eugene, with single incidents taken from Boyer ..., and De Quincy Csic[] ..., and Sergeant Millner ...; for events at home, Boyer's Annals and Lord Stanhope's History. and Miss Strickland (in the Queens of England). and Macpherson’s Papers. and probably many party pamphlets, and above all Swift, both the political pamphlets and the Journal to Stella. For all the details of social life he has inexhaustible material in the Spectator and the Tatler, the Journal to Stella, the correspondence of Swift, Steele, and their friends, the Apology of Colley Cibber, and he has not altogether disdained even Mrs. Manley and Ned Ward.20

And their ninety-two pages of notes indicate the large number of historical references packed into Esmond. According to these editors,

Thackeray made only two serious errors: one, his misrepresentation of the character of James Edward, the other, a similar misrepresentation of the general feeling of the people toward the Stuarts. The first they attribute to the lack of information available at the time, explaining that Thackeray "has had to reconstruct the Prince's character a priori. and naturally he has constructed it on the models of his father and his 21 uncle and his son." The second they attribute to an error in opinion commonly held by Victorians.

Furthermore, both Esmond and Thackeray take the same approach to history. In his dedication, Thackeray describes Esmond as a "book which copies the manners and language of Queen Anne's time" (36). Similarly,

Henry Esmond explains his preference for familiar over heroic history in terms of manners: "In a word, I would have History familiar rather than heroic: and think that Mr. Hogarth and Mr. Fielding will give our 175

children a much better idea of the manners of the present age in

England, than the Court Gazette and the newspapers which we get thence"

(46). Accordingly, Henry Esmond includes careful descriptions of the

dress, the architecture, the furnishings, the countryside, and the daily

habits of the aristocracy during the reign of Queen Anne.

If anything, Henry Esmond includes less descriptive drapery than

other historical romances; Thackeray's descriptions never weigh down

the story. Descriptions of appearance, for example, often focus on

just a few details. When Beatrix descends the staircase, Esmond is

stunned by her beauty, not her dress. Yet he notes the "scarlet ribbon

which she wore, and upon the most brilliant white neck in the world"

(257). And her brother notes the "silver clocks" on her scarlet

stockings, and her white shoes. Because it serves as the object of

satire, the appearance of Isabel Esmond receives scrutinizing attention.

Henry is amazed by his first sight of her:

My Lady Viscountess's face was daubed with white and red up to the eyes, to which the paint gave an unearthly glare: she had a tower of lace on her head, under which was a bush of black curls— borrowed curls— so that no wonder little Harry Esmond was scared .... She sate in a great chair by the f ire- corner; in her lap was a spaniel-dog that barked furiously; on a little table by her was her ladyship's snuff-box and her sugar-plum box. She wore a dress of black velvet, and a petticoat of flame-coloured brocade. She had as many rings on her fingers as the old woman of Banbury Cross; and pretty small feet which she was fond of showing with great gold clocks to her stockings, and white pantofles with red heels; and an odour of musk was shook out of her garments whenever she moved or quitted the room, leaning on her tortoiseshell stick, little Fury barking at her heels. (6?)

Note the careful details not only of dress, make-up, hairstyle, and

smell, but of lifestyle— the snuff-box, the spaniel, the tortoiseshell

stick. 176

Henry describes not only the Viscountess, but also her chambers.

He first meets her in a room "richly ornamented in the manner of Queen

Elizabeth's time, with great stained windows at either end, and

hangings of tapestry, which the sun shining through the coloured glass

painted of a thousand hues" (67).

Thackeray also follows the tradition of describing the main hall

where much of the novel takes place, and of placing this hall in a

landscape s

It stood on a rising green hill, with woods behind it, in which were rooks' nests, where the birds at morning and returning home at evening made a great cawing. At the foot of the hill was a river with a steep ancient bridge crossing it; and beyond that a large pleasant green flat, where the village of Gastlewood stood and stands, with the church in the midst, the parsonage hard by it, the inn with the blacksmith's forge beside it, and the sign of the Three Castles on the elm. The London road stretched away towards the rising sun, and to the west were swelling hills and peaks .... The Hall of Castlewood was built with two courts, whereof one only, the fountain court, was now inhabited, the other having been battered down in the Cromwellian wars. In the fountain court, still in good repair, was the great hall, near to the kitchen and butteries. A dozen of living-rooms looking to the north, and communicating with the little chapel that faced eastwards and the buildings stretching from that to the main gate, and with the hall (which looked to the west) into the court now dismantled. (70)

But Thackeray seems to focus more on describing the habits of

daily life during the reign of Queen Anne than on the drapery

surrounding it. Henry's father leads the life of a country gentleman:

"A little fowling, a little hunting, a great deal of sleep, and a long

time at cards and table, carried through one day after another with his lordship" (71)• His cousin, Prank Castlewood, leads a similar life at

Castlewood:

My lord was hunting all day when the season admitted; he frequented all the cock-fights and fairs in the country, and 177

would ride twenty miles to see a main fought, or two clowns break their heads at a cudgelling match; and he liked better to sit in his parlour drinking ale and punch with Jack and Tom, than in his wife's drawing-room: whither, if he came he brought only too often blood-shot eyes, a hiccuping voice, and a reeling gait. (117-18)

Isabel Esmond occupies her time with her cards, her papers, her French romances, her plays, and her companions:

Blessed be the king who introduced cards, and the kind inventors of piquet and cribbage, for they employed six hours at least of her ladyship's day. ... Her dependants one after another relieved guard .... Poor ladies I ... sitting by her ladyship reading her to sleep, with the News Letter or the Grand Cyrus. My lady used to have boxes of new plays from London, and Harry was forbidden ... to look into them. (75-6)

Even such small details as the curate being required to leave the table before the pudding and sweetmeats, the fashionableness of black pages, the disturbances of the Mohawks, and the charms of Mrs. Bracegirdle are included.

In addition to portraying the manners of the age, Thackeray, like other historical romancers, also includes portraits of famous people, capsule histories, and accounts of battles, primarily for their historical interest. For though these details occur quite believably within the fictional plot, they contribute little to it.

Many of the famous men of that age come to life before the reader of Henry Esmond. Thackeray goes beyond the miniature portrait; rather than following the conventional method of describing a famous man's appearance and character, Thackeray brings him into the action. Esmond sits to a bottle of wine with Addison and Steele, helping Addison write his famous "Campaign" poem celebrating the Battle of Blenheim.

Bolingbroke and the Steeles attend a dinner party at the Esmonds', Mrs.

Steele providing Bolingbroke with an object for his wit. General Webb 178 and Marlborough politely battle it out at a banquet provided by Prince

Eugene at Lille.

Having prepared his lectures on The English Humourists of the

Eighteenth Century during the same year in which he began to write

Esmond (l85l), Thackeray had the material for several of the portraits ready at hand. For example, in the lectures Thackeray declares that he would have declined the pleasure of being Swift's friend because

If you had been his inferior in parts ... his equal in mere social station, he would have bullied', scorned, and insulted you; if, undeterred by his great reputation, you had met him like a man, he would have quailed before you, and not had the pluck to reply, and gone home .... If you had been a lord with a blue riband, who flattered his vanity, or could help his ambition, he would have been the most delightful company in the world.

In Swift's rude treatment of Esmond when he mistakes our hero for a printer's helper, followed by his chagrin at meeting Esmond at a dinner party, we see the Swift described above in action.

Similarly, the rather cold yet kindly Addison of the lectures enters the novel by stepping back and blushing when Steele attempts to hug his friend in public. Addison invites his friends to the same shabby apartment in the Haymarket mentioned in the lectures, and bears his poverty with the same lofty cheerfulness. Exhibiting the same weakness for wine, he immediately presses his friends to share a bottle.

Addison is engaged in writing his poem on the Battle of Blenheim discussed in the lectures, and it is Esmond himself who inspires the famous simile noted there comparing Marlborough to an angel. Esmond, like Thackeray, finds many lines of the poem more than indifferent. 179

And finally, Dick Steele in the lectures and Dick Steele in Henry

Esmond is the same tender-hearted, gentle, loveable rogue, always sinning and repenting, writing his Christian Hero "deep in debt, in 23 drink, and in all the follies of the town," ^

While these men come to life, however briefly, others merely pass rapidly across the stage, providing the novel with more historical texture. In a chapter on the wits of the age, the page is dotted with famous name after names

The pleasantest of the wits I knew were the Doctors Garth and Arbuthnot, and Mr Gay, the author of "Trivia," the most charming kind soul that ever laughed at a joke or cracked a bottle. Mr Prior I saw, and he was the earthen pot swimming with the pots of brass down the stream, and always and justly frightened lest he should break in the voyage. ... The famous Mr Congreve I saw a dozen times at Button's, a splendid wreck of a man, magnificently attired, and though gouty, and almost blind, bearing a brave face against fortune. The great Mr Pope ... was quite a puny lad at this time, appearing seldom in public places. ... Indeed I think the most brilliant of that sort I ever saw was not till fifteen years afterwards, when I paid my last visit in England, and met young Harry Fielding ... who for fun and humour seemed to top them all. (^-19)

In addition to these miniature portaits, capsule histories are sprinkled throughout the novel. Many of the main political events are briefly described in order to provide a background for Esmond's careers in the army, as a political writer, and finally as a Jacobite plotter.

Thus, the central focus of the historical summaries is the Whig— Tory controversy. For example, an explanation of Esmond's reasons for being a Tory is followed by this capsule history:

When the Princess Anne succeeded, the wearied nation was glad enough to cry a truce from all these wars, controversies, and conspiracies, and to accept in the person of a Princess of the blood royal a compromise between the parties into which the country was divided. The Tories could serve under her with easy consciences; though a Tory herself, she represented the 180

triumph of the Whig opinion...... The King dead then, the Princess Anne ... was proclaimed by trumpeting heralds over the town from Westminster to Ludgate Hill, amidst immense jubilations of the people. Next week my Lord Marlborough was promoted to the Garter, and to be Captain-General of Her Majesty's forces at home and abroad. (230)

For other examples, see Esmond. pages 312, 322-23, 415-16, 471-72.

Similarly, though Esmond warns his grandsons to look for the history of battles and sieges in the proper books, not in this family history (308), he does include many brief descriptions of battles. To provide a background for Esmond's military actions, the battles of

Blenheim (279-80), Ramilles (304-06), Wynandal (330-33). Malplaquet

(361-63), and the siege of Lille (327-29) all receive a few pages of attention.

But in spite of these many historical elements in Henry Esmond, the central purpose of the novel is not to teach the reader history.

As in other historical romances, most of the novel (especially after

Book I) is devoted to the fictional plot— to the story of Esmond's chivalrous devotion to Rachel and the Castlewood family, his fascination for Beatrix, his education, and the final happy ending. And there is nothing historical about this plot or this cast of characters; as

Chapters Two and Three have indicated, the same cast of characters plays out the same drama in Esmond as that found in other historical romances.

Worldly coquettes like Beatrix, unworldly angels like Rachel, and chivalrous gentlemen like Esmond are not unique to the reign of Queen

Anne. As Andrew Sanders observes;

... like Fielding before him he [Thackeray] acknowledges that though clothes, manners and expressions change, man himself remains recognizable, physically and morally, in whatever 181

century he is observed. ... his criticism does not extend over two different societies, but over an England which is substantially unchanged despite shifts in political and social fashions.^

History, then, functions primarily in Esmond. as in other historical romances, to provide a structure, a background for the drama. It is in historical settings that Esmond attempts to win fame and fortune; thus wars, Whig-Tory politics, and a Jacobite plot are brought into the novel. And it is these historical events which provide Henry's education: in war, in politics, and in love (see above, pages 103-105). History in The Virginians

That history provides the true heroes of The Virginians suggests that it does not follow the conventions of the historical romance as closely as Esmond. for these books all adopt the same "unheroic" approach to history found in Esmond. Indeed, a topsyturvification occurs in The Virginians. Whereas Henry Esmond adopted an unheroic view of history and an heroic view of himself, the narrator of The

Virginians adopts a more heroic view of history (though many unheroic elements are still present) and an unheroic view of the fictional characters— lending further support to my contention in Chapter Three that Esmond's heroic view of himself is not Thackeray's.

Still, the approach to history in The Virginians is in many ways like that found in Esmond as well as in other historical romances. In fact, the switch in the narrator's perspective— from romantic in Henry

Esmond to ironic in The Virginians— only expanded the opportunity for portraits of manners and disquisitions on morals in The Virginians.

Henry and George are not heroic figures, filling up and dominating the canvas that contains them, as was Henry Esmond, but rather are ordinary men, of ordinary stature, more acted upon by others than active themselves. Whereas the plot of Henry Esmond is basically that of an heroic quest centered around the hero, heroine, and villain, The

Virginians is more a comedy of manners, with Henry in Book One the innocent entering the den of wolves, and George in Book Two the young 182 183

lover whose marriage is blocked by the older members of society. Thus

the narrator's point of view in The Virginians provides Thackeray with

the opportunity to spend a large portion of the novel portraying

eighteenth-century English society, within the context of the fictional

story.

Even more than Henry Esmond, The Virginians is an historical

tapestry of rich textures; descriptions of landscapes, buildings,

costumes, food, and period characters help transport the reader back

to the eighteenth century. With Harry and George the reader is led on

a tour of Castlewood, of Oakhurst, and of the summer palace at

Kensington. He sits down with General Braddock and his men to enjoy a

dinner which does justice to the lavish hospitality of Virginia. With

the Castlewoods he spends a typical Sunday, in the morning attending a

sermon on the evils of gambling, then whiling away the afternoon and

evening with cards and punch. At Tunbridge Wells, he watches as Madame

Bernstein's chambers are prepared for a card-party:

Three footmen in livery, gorgeously laced with worsted, set out twice as many card-tables. A major-domo in black and a bag, with fine laced ruffles, and looking as if he ought to have a sword by his side, followed the lacqueys bearing fasces of wax-candles, of which he placed a pair on each card-table, and in the silver sconces on the wainscoted wall that was now gilt with the slanting rays of the sun, as was the prospect of the green common beyond .... Groups of many-coloured figures in hoops and powder and brocade sauntered over the green and dappled the plain with their shadows. On the other side from the Baroness's windows you saw the Pantiles, where a perpetual fair was held, and heard the clatter and buzzing of the company. A band of music was here performing for the benefit of the visitors to the Wells. (I, 225-26)

Stopping at an inn, he catches a glimpse of the plump landlady behind her bar "surrounded by her china and punch-bowls, and stout gilded bottles of strong waters, and glittering rows of silver flagons" (I, 7) • 184

In Mr. Sampson, he meets the Abbe Parson: "A hundred years ago, ...

the clergyman who frequented the theatre, the tavern, the race-course,

the world of fashion, was no uncommon character in English society:

his voice might he heard the loudest in the hunting-field: he could

sing the jolliest song ... and could call a main as well as any at the

gaming table" (I, 267). And in Sir Miles Warrington, he has the pleasure of meeting a Good Old Country Gentleman (II, 9-H) •

Once transported back a hundred years, the reader is not surprised

to encounter Samuel Richardson and Samuel Johnson at Tunbridge Wells,

the former "toddling along the walk with a train of admiring ladies

surrounding him" (I, 239). the latter refusing to bow to Lord

Chesterfield, who, unable to control his passion for cards, also happens to be at the Wells. And for readers familiar with the period, the pages are dotted with contemporary allusions. George takes dinner at the

Star and Garter with "Mr. Soame Jenyns, Mr. Cambridge, Mr. Walpole, possibly, if he is not too fine to dine in a tavern; a young Irishman, a Mr. Bourke, who they say, is a wonder of eloquence and learning— in fine, all the wits of Mr. Dodsley's Shop" (II, 134-35)* And he reassures Theo that though he has seen more beautiful women, none suit him as well: "I have met Mrs. Carter and Miss Mulso, and Mrs. Thrale, and Madam Kaufmann, and the angelical Gunnings, and her Grace of

Devonshire, and a host of beauties who were not angelic, by any means; and I was not dazzled by them" (II, 35?)• 185

George comments of Beatrix, who tells him the family stories:

How unconsciously did she paint her own family— her own self; how selfish, one and all; pursuing what mean ends; grasping and scrambling frantically for what petty prizes; ambitious for what shabby recompenses; trampling— from life's beginning to its close— through what scenes of stale dissipations and faded pleasures! (II, 55)

In Thackeray's case, of course, the painting is not unconscious, but in The Virginians, as in Beatrix's stories, portraying the manners of this age is almost inseperable from portraying the morals.

In the members of the Castlewood family, Thackeray presents the dissipations of the age— drinking, swearing, but above all, gambling.

As Beatrix warns Henry,

it has been the rage and passion of all our family. My poor silly brother played; both his wives played, especially the last one .... I would not trust her at Castlewood alone with you: the passion is too strong for them, and they would fall upon you, and fleece you; and then fall upon each other, and fight for the plunder. (I, 223)

And this fleecing does indeed take place. As Henry's experiences at

Tunbridge Wells and in London reveal, the Castlewoods' passion proves to be the rule rather than the exception in English society. Harry writes home, "betting is all the rage here, and the bloods and young fellows of fashion are betting away from morning till night" (I, 238).

When George comes to rescue Harry from his relations, he thanks Heaven that though Virginia was dull, "we were bred there. We were made little slaves, but not slaves to wickedness, gambling, bad male and female company" (II, 195)-

And the English prove slaves to more than dissipations; the English bow to wealth. The Baroness Bernstein informs Henry, "You are making your entry into the world, and the gold key will open most of its doors to you" (I, 222). Indeed, while thought a rich heir, Henry is the

toast of the company at the Wells and in London; when he turns out to

be only a second son, his presence no longer commands notice, let alone

respect. Similarly, when George chooses a lady without fortune for his

wife, Sir Miles, like the rest of George's relatives, cannot "find words

to express his horror and anger at the want of principle exhibited" by

his nephew (II, I85). In exchange for her fortune, Lord Castlewood

willingly becomes the slave of his little wife Lydia (II, 330)* whether

her father earned his money as a grocer, a smuggler, or a slave-dealer

is of little consequence (II, 251). The narrator concludes, "there is

no country where prosperity is so much respected as in ours: and where

success receives such constant affecting testimonials of loyalty"

(I, 183).

In the Warringtons, Thackeray portrays the English disposition

to bow to power. George reports that "Sir Miles was assiduous at Court

(as I believe he would have been at Nero's) .... Sir Miles indeed was the obedient humble servant of the Minister, whoever he might be. I am surprised he did not speak English with a Scotch accent during the first favourite's brief reign" (II, 329). The Warringtons, in their desire to please, even offer their daughter as a replacement for the

Countess of Yarmouth-Walmoden, the King's mistress (II, 289). While the Countess remains the King's favourite, the whole English nobility courts her; at Henry's dinner party "almost all the company pushed, and bowed, and cringed, and smiled, and backed before this Countess ....

... all the world, in order to show their loyalty doubtless, thronged round my Lady Yarmouth" (I, 308). When even the Bishop of Salisbury 187

"bows before the Countess, Colonel Lambert exclaims, "it is their sacred

Majesties who axe the cause of the shame .... Think of the bishop of

the Church and the proudest nobility of the world cringing and bowing

before that painted High Dutch Jezebel. Oh, it's a shame! a shame!"

(I, 291)

Of English society in the 1750's and 60's, the narrator concludes,

It was not a good time. That old world was more dissolute than ours. There was an old king with mistresses openly in his train, to whom the great folks of the land did honour. There was a nobility, many of whom were mad and reckless in the pursuit of pleasure; there was a looseness of words and acts which we must note, as faithful historians, without going into particulars, and needlessly shocking present readers. (I, 257)

And yet, though manners "were looser a hundred years ago" (I, 142), the

narrator often slyly suggests that the readers of his day may still have need of some of the same lessons in morality. "Ought we not," he

suggests to the Madam who screeches at some of the things done a hundred years past, "to thank the Fates that have improved our morals so prodigiously, and made us so eminently virtuous?" (I, 142). Similarly, after describing the Castlewood family, he observes, "Of course there are no such people now; and human nature is very much changed in the last hundred years. At any rate, card-playing is greatly out of mode: about that there can be no doubt" (i, 224). In regard to Beatrix's cynical language, he concludes "We mayn't be more virtuous, but it is something to be more decent: perhaps we are not more pure, but of a surety we axe more cleanly" (II, 54).

The ironic point of view in The Virginians, then, allows Thackeray full play in presenting the manners and morals of the eighteenth century. But in addition to this conventional approach to history, 188

Thackeray attempts to achieve a type of unity "between the fictional

and historical portions of The Virginians found to some degree in

Henry Esmond but not in other Victorian historical romances— a unity

achieved through metaphor. In Henry Esmond. Thackeray examines both

politics and love through the metaphors of worship and slavery (see

above, pages 119-128). In all of the aspects of The Virginians

discussed so far— the characterization of George, of Henry, and of the

morals of the age— Thackeray employs this same metaphor of slavery.

But whereas in Henry Esmond Thackeray examines worship and the desire

to be worshipped in psychological depth, in The Virginians Thackeray

substitues breadth for depth. The psychology of no one character is

explored in the same depth as is Henry's, Rachel's, or Beatrix's, but

tyranny, slavery, and the revolt against slavery prove to be the

motivating forces behind a wide spectrum of characters, actions,

descriptions of manners, and historical events. In running throughout

all aspects of the novel, the metaphor of slavery unifies the fictional

and historical portions of the novel.

The primary example of this unity is in the novel's portrayal of

the American Revolution. According to Geroge, it is the tyranny of

Britain which drives the colonies to revolt:

Many foolish exactions and petty tyrannies, the habitual insolence of Englishmen towards all foreigners, all colonists, all folk who dare to think their rivers as good as our Abana and Pharpax; the natural spirit of men outraged by our imperious domineering spirit, set Britain and her colonies to quarrel; and the astonishing blunders of the system adopted in England brought the quarrel to an issue, which I, for one, am not going to deplore. (II, 3^)

Later, in describing the Boston Tea Party, he likens the colonists'

response to that of a child to its parents, more specifically, of his 189

son Miles to himself:

I might have sentenced Master Miles Warrington, at five years old, to a whipping, and he would have cried, taken down his little small-clothes and submitted: but suppose I offered (and he richly deserving it,) to chastise Captain Miles of the Prince's Dragoons? He would whirl my paternal cane out of my hand, box my hair-powder out of my ears. ... He would assert his Independence. in a word; and if, I say, I think the home Parliament had a right to levy taxes in the colonies, I own that we took means most captious, most insolent, most irritating, and above all, most impotent, to assert our claim. (II, 375-76)

The colonists' revolt against Britain is nicely paralleled in

Fanny Mountain's revolt against Madam Esmond. Rachel Esmond is a

woman who "never came near man or woman, but she tried to domineer over

them" (I, 33)* The narrator fancies her

enthroned in her principality of Castlewood, the country gentle-folks paying her court, the sons dutiful to her, the domestics tumbling over each other's black heels to do her bidding, the poor whites grateful for her bounty and implicitly taking her doses when they were ill .... (I, 32)

One of her subjects is Fanny Mountain, and though little Fanny smilingly

obeys her mistress, she achieves her revenge in persuading Harry to rise

to her defense, revolt against his mother, and marry her. Harry vows

to George that "it was our mother's persecution which made him marry

her. He couldn't stand by and see a poor thing tortured as she was,

without coming to her rescue" (II, 373)* The resentment smoldering in

Fanny's bosom erupts when George criticizes her for being cruel to Maria.

Fanny responds, "Have not I had torture enough in my t i m e ...... No

slave was ever treated as I was," and looks "as though she was determined to pay back the injuries inflicted on her" (II, 385-86).

George grieves for his "poor brother, who had taken this sly creature into his bosom" (II, 386). And indeed, the slave turns into a tyrant, ruling over Henry until her death. When the Revolutionary War erupts, Rachel, the tyrant, is all for calling out the militia and sending the ringleaders to prison, while

Fanny, the revolting slave, adopts a "hot and eager political tone," declaring "the perfidious British Government was only preparing a snare, and biding its time until it could forge heavier chains for unhappy

America. Were they angry? Why did not every American citizen rise, assert his rights as a freeman .... (II, 376). Ironically, Harry, under the direction of his wife, joins the rebels' side, while George, the rebel throughout the novel, joins the Tories and fights against the

Americans. But even George agrees that "Had I been in Virginia instead of London, 'tis very possible I should have taken the provincial side, if out of mere opposition to that resolute mistress of Castlewood, who might have driven me into revolt, as England did the colonies" (II, 3^)*

A second domestic revolution takes place in the Castlewood family when Eugene marries Lydia Van den Bosch, an American, to gain her fortune. To his surprise, over "the whole house, domain, and village the new Countess speedily began to rule with an unlimited sway"

(II, 240). When Madame Bernstein plans to form Lydia into a suitable

English lady, she proves "rather a rebellious subject" (II, 247), defies the Barnoness, and defeats her. George observes, "America had revolted, and conquered the mother country" (II, 249). And Lydia agrees with the politics here; when Wolfe defeats the French, she declares: "and now we have turned the French king out of the country, shouldn't be at all surprised if we set up for ourselves in America .... I've no notion of folks being kept down, and treated as children for ever!" (II, 247). 191

Thackeray's concept of "history" in Henry Esmond and in The

Virginians is in almost every respect identical to the concept of history underlying other popular historical romances. In all of these novels, "history" consists of presentations of the manners and morals of the age, of miniature portraits of the famous figures, and of capsule histories of war and politics. Furthermore, in writing in Henry Esmond an historical romance exposing the unheroic aspects of history,

Thackeray did nothing new. Most historical romances present this view of history; history, they say, may provide the villains but never the heroes, nor even models for the heroes. Kings, princes, generals, political triumph and military glory, all are exposed. What is startlingly innovative in this novel is not the historical portion, but rather the fictional portion. For although Scott, James, Bulwer-Lytton,

Ainsworth, Eliot Warburton, and Emma Robinson adopt an unheroic stance towards history itself, the fictional hero and heroine receive the complete admiration of the authors and readers. But in Henry Esmond,

Thackeray not only exposes the unheroic aspects of history; he exposes in addition the potentially unheroic aspects of the fictional romance.

In The Virginians. Thackeray breaks from tradition in two additional ways: by using metaphor to unify the historical and fictional portions and by finding heroes in history. TITLE AUTHOR_____ DATE_____ SETTING HERO HEROINE VILLAIN

Waverley Scott 1814 George II Waverley Rose (Fergus) Flora

Rob Roy Scott 1817 George I Frank Osbaldistone Di Vernon Rashleigh

Ivanhoe Scott 1819 John/Richard Ivanhoe Rowena Brian de Rebecca Bois-Guilbert

Devereux Bulwer-Lytton 1829 George I Devereux Isora Abbe Montreuil

Sir Ralph Leigh Hunt 1832 Charles II Esher Miss Randolph Blood Esher Philip Heme Marg. Vavasour Buckingham

Henry G.P.R. James 1832 Civil War Henry Masterton Emily Walter Dixon Masterton Frank Masterton Eleanor

The King's G.P.R. James 1840 William III Wilton Brown Laura Gaveston Earl of Byerdale Highway Caroline

The Miser's Ainsworth 1842 George II Randolph Crew Hilda Philip Frewin Daughter Beau Villiers

Whitefriars Robinson 1844 Charles II Kervyn Aurora Blood

James the Ainsworth 1847 James II Charles Moor Sabine Lord Mauvesin Second

Reginald Warburton 1850 Civil War Reginald Zillah Hezekiah Doom Hastings Hugo Hastings Phoebe Digby

Henry Sneaton G.PiR< James 1851 George I Henry Smeaton Emmeline John Newark

The Scottish James Grant 1851 James II Walter Fenton Lilian Clermistonlee 2 9 1 Cavalier Annie Laurie FOOTNOTES

INTRODUCTION

^[Margaret Oliphant], "Mr. Thackeray and His Novels," Blackwood's Magazine. 77 (January 1855), 92.

[Owen Maddyn]], rev. of Henry Esmond. Athenaeum. Nov. 6 , 1852, pp. 1199-1201.

Rev. of Henry Esmond, Literary Gazette, J6 (Nov. 6 , I852), 823-25.

[[Samuel Phillips]]* "Mr* Thackeray's New Novel," Living Age. 36 (Feb. 5* 1853)* 277-80; rpt. in Thackeray; The Critical Heritage, ed. Geoffrey Tillotson and Donald Hawes (New York: Barnes and Noble, Inc., 1968), pp. 151-59.

[Nassau Senior]], "Thackeray's Works," Edinburgh Review (American Edition), 99 (Jan. 185*0, 115-16, 119-20.

Robert Vaughan, "Thackeray's Esmond." in Essays and Remains (London: Parker, 1858), II, 311-320.

[]Charles Russell]], "The Novels of 1853*" The Dublin Review. 34 (March 1853), 182-187.

[John Forster]], rev. of Henry Esmond. Examiner. Nov. 13, 1852, pp. 723-726; rpt. in Thackeray: The Critical Heritage, pp. 1*44-50.

■^[[G.H. Lewes]], "Thackeray’s New Novel," Leader, Nov. 6, 1852, pp. 1071-1073; rpt. in Thackeray: The Critical Heritage, pp. 136-3 8 .

[George Brimley]], "Thackeray's Esmond." Spectator. Nov. 6, 1852, pp. 1066-67; rpt. in Thackeray: The Critical Heritage, pp. 138-44.

Rev. of Henry Esmond, Sharpe's London Magazine. 16 (Dec. I852), 380-8 1 . 4 William Marshall, "Dramatic Irony in Henry Esmond," Revue des langues vlvantes, 27 (1961), 35-^2.

J . Hillis Miller, The Form of Victorian Fiction (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1968), pp. 17-24, 97-104.

193 194

John Hagan, "'Bankruptcy of His Heart': The Unfulfilled Life of Henry Esmond," Nineteenth-Century Fiction. 27 (1972), 293”3l6«

^Juliet McMaster, Thackeray: The Major Novels (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 196l), p. 124.

^Robert Bledsoe, "Sibi Constet: The Goddess of Castlewood and the Goddess of Walcote," Studies in the Novel. 5 (1973)» 211-19.

loan Williams, "The History of Henry Esmond: Thackeray's Anatomy of Sentimental Man," in The Realist Novel in England: A Study in Development (London: The Macmillan Press Ltd., 1974), pp. 156-68 ,

George Worth, "The Unity of Henry Esmond." Nineteenth-Century Fiction. 15 (196O-61), 3^5-53.

Robert Schueler, "Functions and Purposes in the English Historical Novel of the Nineteenth Century," Diss. Duke University 1972, pp. 90-102.

Barbara Hardy, The Exposure of Luxury: Radical Themes in Thackeray (London: Peter Owen, 1972), pp. 179-88.

Jack P. Rawlins, Thackeray's Novels: A Fiction That is True (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), pp. 188-90.

7 'Robert Colby, "William Makepeace Thackeray," in Victorian Fiction: A Second Guide to Research. ed. George Ford (New York: Modern Language Association, 1978), pp. 114-15. Q Chauncey Loomis, "Thackeray the Satirist," Diss. Princeton University 1963. p. 170.

9 'Loomis, p. iii.

"^Gordon N. Ray, Thackeray: The Uses of Adversity (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1955). p. 247.

^Rawlins, p. 188. Hardy, p. 8 5 .

CHAPTER ONE

■^Gordon N. Ray, Thackeray: The Uses of Adversity. pp. 118-19. 2 "A Box of Novels," in Miscellaneous Essays Sketches and Reviews. Vol. XXV of The Works of William Makepeace Thackeray (London: Smith, Elder, & Co., 1899). PP- 51-52. 195

•^"French Dramas and Melodramas," in The Paris Sketch Book. Vol. XVI of The Works of William Makepeace Thackeray (Londons Smith, Elder, & Co., 1879), P • 257• All subsequent references in this chapter to Thackeray's works will be to this edition. h "Madame Sand and the New Apocalypse," in The Paris Sketch Book. p . 210. K On Some French Fashionable Novels," in The Paris Sketch Book. p. 101. A "Fielding's Works, With a Memoir by Thomas Roscoe," in Stray Papers (n.d.; rpt. New Yorks Kraus Reprint Co., 1971), P* 109* 7 "Thieves' Literature of France," Foreign Quarterly Review. 31 (April 1843), 240-41. g "Fielding's Works, With a Memoir by Thomas Roscoe," in Stray Papers. p. 105.

^"A Pictoral Rhapsody," in Works. XXV, 142.

10"May Gambols," in Works. XXV, 206.

11"Picture Gossip," in Works. XXV, 221-2. 12 "Letters on the Fine Arts. No. 3• The Royal Academy," in Stray Papers. p. 214. IS ^"The Last Fifteen Years of the Bourbons," Foreign Quarterly Review, 29 (July 1842), 391. 14 Rev. of The Duchess of Marlborough's Private Correspondence. by Lady Charlotte Bury, in Stray Papers. p. 79*

^"Meditations at Versailles," in The Paris Sketch Book, pp. 284-5.

■^"Notes of a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo," in Works. XII, 250.

"^Ray, Thackeray: The Uses of Adversity. p. 268. 18 "English History and Character on the French Stage," Foreign Quarterly Review. 31 (April 1843), 147. 1 9 ^"English History and Character on the French Stage," pp. 149-50. 20 "Travelling Romancers: Dumas on the Rhine," Foreign Quarterly Review. 30 (Oct. 1842), 107. 21 "English History and Character on the French Stage," pp. 148, 168. 196 22 "Travelling Romancers: Dumas on the Rhine," p. 124.

^"The English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century," in The English Humourists, Charity and Humour. The Four Georges (rpt. London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1968), pp. 88, 90. oL "On Some French Fashionable Novels," in The Paris Sketch Book, p. 8 9 .

^"On Some French Fashionable Novels," p. 8 5 .

"The Second Funeral of Napoleon," in Works. XXII, 304. 2 7 "The Second Funeral of Napoleon," pp. 303-4• 28 Contributions to the Morning Chronicle, ed. Gordon N. Ray (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1955), p. 77.

^Catherine: A Story. in Works. XX 72.

•^Catherine. pp. 128-29.

^ " A Legend of the Rhine," in Works. XV, 231.

•^"A Legend of the Rhine," p. 243.

•^"A Legend of the Rhine," p. 253*

■^"A Legend of the Rhine," p. 263.

*^"A Legend of the Rhine," p. 207.

A Legend of the Rhine," pp. 210-11. 37 -""Rebecca and Rowena, A Romance Upon Romance," in Works. XIII, 107. o O "Rebecca and Rowena," pp. 110-11. 39 "Rebecca and Rowena," p. 138. 40 "Rebecca and Rowena," p. 150. 41 "Rebecca and Rowena," p . 148, 42 "Rebecca and Rowena," pp. 140-41. 197

CHAPTER TWO

^[G.H. Lewes], "Historical Romance: The Foster Brother, and Whitehall," The Westminster Review. 4-5 (184-6), 35* 2 Rev. of Russell: a Tale of the Reign of Charles II. by G.P.R. James, Athenaeum. 10 July 184-7» P* 726. 3 James C. Simmons, The Novelist As Historian: Essays on the Victorian Historical Novel (The Hague: Mouton, 1973)» pp * 20-21. if. Eliot Warburton, Reginald Hastings: An Autobiography (London: Colburn & Co., Publishers, 1851), p. 18. All further references to this work and to the next twelve novels cited appear in the text.

^James Grant, The Scottish Cavalier or The First Royal Scots (London: George Routledge & Sons, n.d.), p. 2 5 .

^Leigh Hunt, Sir Ralph Esher: or, Adventures of a Gentleman of the Court of Charles II (London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, 183277T7 33- 7 G.P.R. James, The King1s Highway. Vol. XI of The Works of G.P.R. James. Esq . (London: Smith, Elder, & Co., 184-7), p. 4-0. 0 [Emma Robinson], Whltefrlars. or The Days of Charles the Second (London: George Routledge and Sons, n.d.), p. 81. 9 G.P.R. James, Henry Smeaton: A Jacobite Story of the Reign of George the First (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1850J, p. 14-6.

■^William Harrison Ainsworth, James the Second; or, the Revolution of 1688 (London: G. Routledge & Co., 1854-), p. 11.

^S i r Walter Scott, Ivanhoe. Vols. XVI and XVII of The Edinburgh Waverley (Edinburgh: T. and A. Constable, 1901), II, IO8-O9 . 12 Sir Walter Scott, Rob Roy, Vols. VII and VIII of The Edinburgh Waverley (Edinburgh: T. and A. Constable, 1901), II, 373* 13 -William Harrison Ainsworth, The Miser's Daughter. Vols. XVIII and XIX of The Novels of William Harrison Ainsworth (London: Gibbings & Co., Ltd., 1902), II, 167.

^Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Devereux/Lucretia (Boston: Dana Estes & Co., n.d.), p. 8 9 .

^G.P.R. James, Henry Masterton: Or, the Adventures of a Young Man (London: Parry, Blenkam, and Co., 184-7), p. 72. 198

■^Sir Walter Scott, Waverley. or: 'Tis Sixty Years Since. Vols. I and II of The Edinburgh Waverley (Edinburgh: T. and A. Constable, 1901), II, 297-98 . 17 Margaret M. Maison, The Victorian Vision: Studies in the Religious Novel (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1961), p. 182.

^Maison, pp. 175, 169 .

CHAPTER THREE

William Makepeace Thackeray, The History of Henry Esmond. ed. John Sutherland and Michael Greenfield (1970; rpt. New York: Penguin Books, 1980), p. 46. All further references to this work appear in the text.

CHAPTER FOUR

William Makepeace Thackeray, The Virginians. Volumes VIII and IX of The Works of William Makepeace Thackeray (London: Smith, Elder, and Co., 187977 I , 5^* All further references to this work appear in the text. 2 Gerald Sorensen, "A Critical Edition of W. M. Thackeray's The Virginians." Diss. University of Minnesota 1966, p. lv.

3 Henry Esmond, p. 512. 4 Henry Esmond, p. 512.

CHAPTER FIVE

Rev. of Henry Esmond, Southern Literary Messenger, 18 (Dec. 1852). 758-761.

2 "Mr. Thackeray and the Age of Queen Anne," New Quarterly Review. 2 (Jan. 1853), 11-17, quoted by Dudley Flamm, Thackeray1s Critics (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, i960, 1967), p. 83 .

3 "A Trio of Novels," Dublin University Magazine. 41 (Jan. I853), 70-79. 199

See also: Rev. of Henry Esmond. Eclectic Review. 97 (-Ian. 1853)* 37-49•

[Samuel Phillips]]. "Mr* Thackeray's New Novel," Living Age. 36 (Feb. 5, 1853), 277-80. L Jane Millgate, "History versus Fiction: Thackeray's Response to Macaulay," Costerus, 2 (1974)» 48-53•

Marilyn Karlson, "Thackeray's Eighteenth-Century Literary Heritage: A Study of Henry Esmond." Diss. Tulane University 1975*

Peter Loewen, "The Historical Novel: A Study in the Deviations From the Scott Canon," Diss. University of Denver 1952, chapter 8.

■^John Maynard, "Broad Canvas, Narrow Perspective: The Problem of the English Historical Novel in the Nineteenth Century," in The Worlds of Victorian Fiction, ed. Jerome Buckley (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975)» P • 238.

^Maynard, p. 250.

Nicholas Ranee, The Historical Novel and Popular Politics in Nineteenth Century England (London: Vision Press Ltd., 1975)» PP* 55-57* 7 Avrom Fleishman, The English Historical Novel: Walter Scott to Virginia Woolf (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1971), p. 142.

Andrew Sanders, The Victorian Historical Novel 1840-1880 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1979), pp. 105-08, 112-14.

Stephen Bann, "L'anti-histoire de Henry Esmond," Poetique. 9 (1972), 61-79. 0 "Of Novels, Historical and Didactic," Bentley's Miscellany. 46 (1859), 43. Q John Lauber, Sir Walter Scott (New York: Twayne Publishers Inc., 1966), pp. 64, 132 .

10Rev. of Henry Masterton, by G.P.R. James, Athenaeum. June 30, I832, p. 411.

"^Rev. of Sir Ralph Esher, by Leigh Hunt, Athenaeum. January 14. 1832, p. 25. 12 [Archibald Alison]], "The Historical Romance," Blackwood's Magazine. 58 (Sept. 1845), 354 . 13 "Historical Romance: Sir Walter Scott and his Imitators," Fraser's Magazine. 5 (Feb. I832), 18-19. 200 llL Rev. of Henry Masterton. p. 411

■^Alison, p. 342.

■^"Recent English Romances," Edinburgh Review. 65 (April, 1837), 188-89.

■^"To S.N. Rowland," 2 May 1855, The Letters and Private Papers of William Makepeace Thackeray, ed, Gordon N , Ray (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1946), III, 446-47• 1 ft "To Mrs. Gore," April 1852, The Letters and Private Papers of William Makepeace Thackeray. Ill, 27.

■^"To Mrs. Carmichael-Smyth," 17-19 April I852, The Letters and Private Papers of William Makepeace Thackeray. Ill, 38 . 20 T.G. and William Snow, ed., The History of Henry Esmond. by William Makepeace Thackeray, 2nd ed. (Oxfords Clarendon Press, 1915), p. xxvi.

^Snow, p. 570* 22 William Makepeace Thackeray, The English Humourists, Charity and Humour. The Four Georges (rpt. London: J.M. Dent & Sons, Ltd., 1968), pp. 8-9. 23 The English Humourists. p. 102. 24 Andrew Sanders, p. 102 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Works by Thackeray

Ray, Gordon N ., ed. The Letters and Private Papers of William Makepeace Thackeray. 4 vols. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1946.

Thackeray, William Makepeace. Burlesques.' Vol. XV of The Works of William Makepeace Thackeray. London: Smith, Elder, & Co., 1879.

------. Catherine: A Story. Vol. XX of The Works of William Makepeace Thackeray. London: Smith, Elder, & Co., 1879*

------. Contributions to the Morning Chronicle. Ed. Gordon N . Ray. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1955*

------. Contributions to "Punch." Vol. XXVI of The Works of William Makepeace Thackeray. London: Smith, Elder, & Co., 1907.

------."English History and Character on the French Stage." Foreign Quarterly Review, 31 (April 1843), 140-68.

------. The English Humourists. Charity and Humour. The Four Georges. London: J.M Dent & Sons, 1968.

"French Romancers on England." Foreign Quarterly Review, 32 (Oct. 1843), 226-246.

------. The History of Henry Esmond. Ed. John Sutherland and Michael Greenfield. 1970; rpt. New York: Penguin Books, 1980.

------. "The Last Fifteen Years of the Bourbons." Foreign Quarterly Review, 29 (July 1842), 384-420.

------. Miscellaneous Essays Sketches and Reviews. Vol. XXV of The Works of William Makepeace Thackeray. London: Smith, Elder, & Co., I899.

"New Accounts of Paris." Foreign Quarterly Review, 32 (Jan. 1844), 470-90.

201 202

"Notes of A Journey From Comhill To Grand Cairo." In The Works of William Makepeace Thackeray. Vol. XII. London: Smith, Elder, & Co., 1879.

------. The Paris Sketch Book. Vol. XVI of The Works of William Makepeace Thackeray. London: Smith, Elder, & Co., 1879•

"Rebecca and Rowena." In The Works of William Makepeace Thackeray. Vol. XIII. London: Smith, Elder, & Co., 1879*

"The Second Funeral of Napoleon." In The Works of William Makepeace Thackeray. Vol. XXII. London: Smith, Elder, & Co., 1879.

------t Stray Papers, n.d.; rpt. New York: Kraus Reprint Co., 1971.

------"Thieves' Literature of France." Foreign Quarterly Review. 31 (April 184-3), 231-49.

"Travelling Romancers: Dumas on the Rhine." Foreign Quarterly Review. 30 (Oct. 1842), 105-24.

------. The Virginians. Volumes VIII and IX of The Works of William Makepeace Thackeray. London: Smith, Elder, and Co., 1879*

Contemporary Criticism of Thackeray

Flamm, Dudley. Thackeray's Critics: An Annotated Bibliography of British and American Criticism 1836-1901. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1966, 1967.

[Maddyn, D. Owen], Rev. of Henry Esmond. Athenaeum, Nov. 6 , 1852, pp. 1199-1201.

[[Martin, Theodore^. "Thackeray's Works." Westminster Review. 59 (April 1853), 363-388.

"New Novels." Fraser's Magazine. 46 (Dec. I852), 622-33.

[Oliphant, Margaret^]. "Mr. Thackeray and His Novels." Blackwood's Magazine. 77 (January 1855), 86-9 6 .

Rev. of Henry Esmond. Eclectic Review. 97 (Jan. 1853), 37-49.

Rev. of Henry Esmond. Literary Gazette. 36 (Nov. I852), 823-25, 839-40. 203

[[Russell, Charles]]• "Novel-morality: the Novels of 1853•" The Dublin Review. 34 (March 1853)* 174-203*

[[Senior, Nassau]. "Thackeray's Works." Edinburgh Review. 99 (Jan. 185*0, 196-243.

Tillotson, Geoffrey and Donald Hawes, eds. Thackeray; The Critical Heritage. New Yorks Barnes & Noble, Inc., 1968.

"A Trio of Novels." Dublin University Magazine. 4l (Jan. 1853)* 70-79*

Twentieth-Century Criticism of Thackeray

Baker, Ernest. The Age of Dickens and Thackeray. Vol. VII in The History of the English Novel. 1936; rpt. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1966.

Barm, Stephen. "L'anti-histoire de Henry Esmond." Po£tique, 9 (1972), 61-79*

Bledsoe, Robert. "Sibi Constet: The Goddess of Castlewood and the Goddess of Walcote." Studies in the Novel. 5 (Summer 1973)* 211-1 9 .

Brogan, Howard. "Rachel Esmond and the Dilemma of the Victorian Ideal of Womanhood," ELH, 13 (1946), 223-32.

Carey, John. Thackeray: Prodigal Genius. London; Faber & Faber, 1977*

Colby, Robert. Thackeray1s Canvass of Humanity; An Author and His Public. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1979*

------. "William Makepeace Thackeray." In Victorian Fiction: A Second Guide to Research. Ed. George Ford. New York: Modern Language Association, 1978, PP* 114-142.

Donovan, Robert. "Redgauntlet. Henry Esmond. and the Modes of Historical Fiction. In The Shaping Vision: Imagination in the English Novel from Defoe to Dickens. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1966, pp. 173-205.

Douglas, Dennis. "Thackeray and the Uses of History." Yearbook of English Studies. 5 (1973), 164-77*

Fleishman, Avrom. The English Historical Novel: Walter Scott to Virginia Woolf. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1971* 204

Graham, W. H. "Thackeray's 'The Virginians.'" Contemporary Review, 16? (1945), 45-48.

Hagan, John. "'Bankruptcy of His Heart's The Unfulfilled Life of Henry Esmond." Nineteenth-Century Fiction, 27 (1972), 293-3l6.

Harden, Edgar F. The Emergence of Thackeray1s Serial Fiction. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1979*

"Esmond and the Search for Self." Yearhook of English Studies. 3 (1973), 181-95.

"A Partial Outline for Thackeray's The Virginians." Journal of English and Germanic Philology. 75 (1976), 168-8 7 .

Hardy, Barbara. The Exposure of Luxury: Radical Themes in Thackeray. Londons Peter Owen, 1972.

Iser, Wolfgang. The Implied Readers Patterns of Communication in Prose Fiction from Bunyan to Beckett. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974.

Loewen, Peter. "The Historical Novels A Study in the Deviations From the Scott Canon." Diss. University of Denver 1952.

Loofbourow, John. Thackeray and the Form of Fiction. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964.

Loomis, Chauncey. "Thackeray the Satirist." Diss. Princeton University 1963.

Lukacs, Georg. The Historical Novel. Trans. Hannah and Stanley Mitchell. Londons Merlin Press, 1962.

Maison, Margaret. The Victorian Vision: Studies in the Religious Novel. New Yorks Sheed & Ward, 1961.

Manning, Sylvia. "Incest and the Structure of Henry Esmond." Nineteenth-Century Fiction. 34 (1979-80), 194-213.

Marshall, William. "Dramatic Irony in Henry Esmond." Revue des langues vivantes. 27 (1961), 35-42.

Maynard, John. "Broad Canvas, Narrow Perspectives The Problem of the English Historical Novel in the Nineteenth Century." In The Worlds of Victorian Fiction. Ed. Jerome Buckley. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1975» PP. 237-63.

McMaster, Juliet. Thackerays The Ma.jor Novels. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1971. 20 5

"Thackeray's Things: Time's Local Habitation." In The Victorian Experience: The Novelists. Ed. Richard Levine. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1976, pp. *+9-84.

Miller, J. Hillis. The Form of Victorian Fiction. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1968.

Millgate, Jane. "History versus Fiction: Thackeray's Response to Macaulay." Costerus, 2 (1974), 43-57•

Monod, Sylvere. "Brother Wearers of Motley." Essays and Studies. NS 26 (1973), 66-82.

Olmstead, John. Thackeray and His Twentieth-Century Critics: An Annotated Bibliography 1900-1975. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1977.

Phillipps, K.C. "The Language of Henry Esmond." English Studies, 57 (Feb. 1976), 19-42.

Ranee, Nicholas. The Historical Novel and Popular Politics in Nineteenth Century England. London: Vision Press Ltd., 1975-

Rawlins, Jack. Thackeray's Novels: A Fiction That Is True. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974.

Ray', Gordon N. Thackeray: The Uses of Adversity (1811-1846). New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1955*

------. Thackeray: The Age of Wisdom (1847-1863). New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1958•

Rosner, Mary. "Perspectives on Henry Esmond." Victorian Newsletter. No. 56 (Fall 1979), PP. 26-31.

Sanders, Andrew. The Victorian Historical Novel 1840-1880. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1979*

Scarry, Elaine. Henry Esmond: The Rookery at Castlewood. Literary Monographs No.J. Ed. Eric Rothstein and Joseph Wittreich. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1975*

Schueler, Robert. "Functions and Purposes in the English Historical Novel of the Nineteenth Century." Diss. Duke University 1972.

Simmons, James. The Novelist as Historian: Essays on the Victorian Historical Novel. Vol. 88 of Studies in English Literature. The Hague: Mouton, 1973.

"The Novelist as Historian: A Study of the Early Victorian Historical Fiction, 1828-50." Diss. University of California, Berkeley 1966. 206

------Thackeray's Esmond and Anne Manning's 'Spurious Antiques.’" Victorian Newsletter. No. 42 (Fall 1972), pp. 22-24.

Snow, T.C. and William Snow, eds. The History of Henry Esmond. By W.M. Thackeray. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1915*

Sorensen, Gerald. "A Critical Edition of W.M. Thackeray's The Virginians." Diss. University of Minnesota 1966.

Stokes, Geoffrey. "Thackeray as Historian: Two Newly Identified Contributions to Fraser's Magazine.11 Nineteenth-Century Fiction, 22 (1967-68), 281-88.

Sudrann, Jean. "The Philosopher's Property: Thackeray and the Use of Time." Victorian Studies. 10 (1967), 359-88.

Sutherland, John. Thackeray At Work. London: The Athlone Press, 1974.

"Thackeray's Notebook for Henry Esmond." Costerus, 2 (1974), 193-215.

Talon, Henri A. "Time and Memory in Thackeray's Henry Esmond." The Review of English Studies. NS 13 (May 1962), 147-56.

Tilford, John E. "The Love Theme of Henry Esmond." PMLA, 67 (1952), 684-701.

Tillotson, Kathleen. Novels of the Eighteen-Forties. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1954.

Trodd, Anthea. "Michael Angelo Titmarsh and the Knebworth Apollo." Costerus. 2 (1974), 59-81.

Wheatley, James. Patterns in Thackeray's Fiction. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1969.

Williams, loan. "The History of Henry Esmond: Thackeray's Anatomy of Sentimental Man." In The Realist Novel in England: A Study in Development. London: The Macmillan Press Ltd., 1974, pp. 156-6 8 .

- Thackeray. London: Evan Brothers Ltd., 1968.

Winegarner, Lela. "Thackeray's Contributions to the British and Foreign Review." Journal of English and Germanic Philology. 47 (1948)7 237-245.

Worth, George. "The Unity of Henry Esmond." Nineteenth-Century Fiction. 15 (1960-61), 3^5-53. 207

Historical Romances Referred to in the Text

Ainsworth, William Harrison. James the Second; or, the Revolution of 1688. London: G. Routledge & Co., 1854.

------. The Miser's Daughter. Vols. XVIII and XIX of The Novels of William Harrison Ainsworth. London: Gibbings & Co., Ltd., 1902.

Bulwer-Lytton, Edward. Devereux. Boston: Dana Estes & Co., n.d.

Grant, James. The Scottish Cavalier or The First Royal Scots. London: George Routledge & Sons, n.d.

Hunt, Leigh. Sir Ralph Esher: or, Adventures of a Gentleman of the Court of Charles II. 3 vols. London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, I832.

James, G.P.R. Henry Masterton: Or, the Adventures of a Young Man. London: Parry, Blenkarn, and Co., 1847.

------. Henry Smeaton: A Jacobite Story of the Reign of George the First. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1850.

------. The King's Highway. Vol. XI of The Works of G.P.R. James, Esq. London: Smith, Elder, & Co., 1847.

------. Russell: A Tale of the Reign of Charles II. London: Smith, Elder, & Co., 1847.

[Robinson, Emma]]. Whitefriars or The Days of Charles the Second. London: George Routledge and Sons, n.d.

Scott, Sir Walter. Ivanhoe. Vols. XVI and XVII of The Edinburgh Waverley. Edinburgh: T. and A. Constable, 1901.

------. Redgauntlet: A Tale of the Eighteenth Century. Vols. XXXV and XXXVI of The Edinburgh Waverley. Edinburgh: T. and A. Constable, 1901.

------. Rob Roy. Vols. VII and VIII of The Edinburgh Waverley. Edinburgh: T. and A. Constable, 1901.

------Waverley, or: 'Tis Sixty Years Since. Vols. I and II of The Edinburgh Waverley. Edinburgh: T. and A. Constable, 1901.

Warburton, Eliot. Reginald Hastings: An Autobiography. London: Colburn & Co., Publishers, 1851. 208

Contemporary Articles on the Historical Romance

"Ainsworth's St. James1s; or. The Court of Queen Anne." Fraser's Magazine, 30 (Dec. 1844), 740-42,

[Alison, Archibald]]. "The Historical Romance." Blackwood1s Magazine. 58 (Sept. 1845), 341-56.

"James's Life of Henry IV." Blackwood's Magazine. 62 (Sept. 1847), 371-86.

"The Romantic Drama." Blackwood's Magazine. 60 (Aug. 1846), 161-77.

"Aspects of Contemporary Literature." Fraser's Magazine, 35 (April 1847), 379-85.

"Bulwer's Rise and Fall of Athens." The Edinburgh Review. 65 (July 1837), 151-77.

"Critical and Miscellaneous Notices." Westminster Review. 50 (Oct. 1848), 281-82.

"A Dozen of Novels." Fraser's Magazine. 9 (April 1834), 456-87.

"English Novels." Fraser's Magazine. 44 (Oct. I851), 375-91*

"Fruits of the Season." Fraser's Magazine. 42 (Aug. 1850), 203-14.

"Historical Romance: Sir Walter Scott and His Imitators (No. I)." Fraser's Magazine. 5 (Feb. 1832), 6-19; (No. Il), 5 (March 1832), 207-17.

Janin, Jules. "Literature of the Nineteenth Century. France." Athenaeum, May 6, 1837, PP. 321-26.

([Kingsley, Charles]]. "Recent Novels." Fraser's Magazine. 39 (April, 1849), 417-32.

[[Lewes, G. H.[]. "Historical Romance: The Foster Brother. and Whitehall." The Westminster Review. 45 (March 1846), 34-55*

------. "Recent Novels: French and English." Fraser's Magazine, 36 (Dec. 1847), 686-95-

"Miss Martineau's Rock and Billow— Historical Fictions." Edinburgh Review. 85 (April 1847), 461-76.

"New Novels." Fraser's Magazine, 40 (Dec. 1849), 691-702. 209

"Of Novels, Historical and Didactic." Bentley*s Miscellany. 46 (1859), 42-50.

"On the Picturesque Style of Historical Romance." Blackwood's Magazine, 33 (April, 1833), 621-27.

"Recent English Romances." The Edinburgh Review. 65 (April I837), 180-204.

"Recent Works of Fiction," North British Review. 15 (Aug. 1851), 419-41.

Rev. of Henry Masterton, by G.P.R. James. Athenaeum. June 30, 1832, p. 411.

Rev. of The King's Highway. by G.P.R. Jamas. Athenaeum. March 28, 1840, p. 251.

Rev. of Russell. by G.P.R. James. Athenaeum. July 10, 1847, p. 726.

Rev. of Sir Ralph Esher, by Leigh Hunt. Athenaeum. Jan. 14, I832, p. 25.

Rev. of The Tower of London. by W. H. Ainsworth. Fraser's Magazine. 23 "(Feb. 1841), 169-83.

"Spring Novels." Fraser's Magazine. 35 (May, 1847), 548-52.

"Walter Scott— Has History Gained by His Writings?" Fraser's Magazine, 36 (Sept. 1847), 3^5-51.

"The Waverley Novels." The Edinburgh Review. 55 (April 1832), 61-79.