The Project Gutenberg EBook of Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges by William Makepeace Thackeray This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at http://www.gutenberg.org/license Title: Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges Author: William Makepeace Thackeray Release Date: July 10, 2009 [Ebook 29363] Language: English ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HENRY ESMOND; THE ENGLISH HUMOURISTS; THE FOUR GEORGES*** Henry Esmond The English Humourists The Four Georges By William Makepeace Thackeray Edited, with an Introduction, by George Saintsbury With 15 Illustrations Humphrey Milford Oxford University Press London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Copenhagen, New York, Toronto, Melbourne, Cape Town, Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, Shanghai Contents Introduction. .1 The History Of Henry Esmond, Esq. 21 Dedication. 21 Preface. The Esmonds Of Virginia . 22 Book I. The Early Youth Of Henry Esmond, Up To The Time Of His Leaving Trinity College, In Cambridge . 29 Chapter I. An Account Of The Family Of Esmond Of Castlewood Hall . 32 Chapter II. Relates How Francis, Fourth Vis- count, Arrives At Castlewood . 38 Chapter III. Whither In The Time Of Thomas, Third Viscount, I Had Preceded Him As Page To Isabella . 47 Chapter IV. I Am Placed Under A Popish Priest And Bred To That Reli- gion.—Viscountess Castlewood . 59 Chapter V. My Superiors Are Engaged In Plots For The Restoration Of King James II . 66 Chapter VI. The Issue Of The Plots.—The Death Of Thomas, Third Viscount Of Castle- wood; And The Imprisonment Of His Viscountess . 79 Chapter VII. I Am Left At Castlewood An Or- phan, And Find Most Kind Protectors There . 95 Chapter VIII. After Good Fortune Comes Evil . 104 Chapter IX. I Have The Small-Pox, And Prepare To Leave Castlewood . 114 iv Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges Chapter X. I Go To Cambridge, And Do But Little Good There . 135 Chapter XI. I Come Home For A Holiday To Castlewood, And Find A Skeleton In The House . 143 Chapter XII. My Lord Mohun Comes Among Us For No Good . 157 Chapter XIII. My Lord Leaves Us And His Evil Behind Him . 168 Chapter XIV. We Ride After Him To London . 183 Book II. Contains Mr. Esmond's Military Life, And Other Matters Appertaining To The Esmond Family201 Chapter I. I Am In Prison, And Visited, But Not Consoled There . 201 Chapter II. I Come To The End Of My Captivity, But Not Of My Trouble . 211 Chapter III. I Take The Queen's Pay In Quin's Regiment . 221 Chapter IV. Recapitulations . 232 Chapter V. I Go On The Vigo Bay Expedition, Taste Salt Water And Smell Powder . 238 Chapter VI. The 29th December . 251 Chapter VII. I Am Made Welcome At Walcote . 258 Chapter VIII. Family Talk . 269 Chapter IX. I Make The Campaign Of 1704 . 277 Chapter X. An Old Story About A Fool And A Woman . 287 Chapter XI. The Famous Mr. Joseph Addison . 298 Chapter XII. I Get A Company In The Campaign Of 1706 . 310 Chapter XIII. I Meet An Old Acquaintance In Flanders, And Find My Mother's Grave And My Own Cradle There . 316 Chapter XIV. The Campaign Of 1707, 1708 . 330 v Chapter XV. General Webb Wins The Battle Of Wynendael . 339 Book III. Containing The End Of Mr. Esmond's Adventures In England . 369 Chapter I. I Come To An End Of My Battles And Bruises . 369 Chapter II. I Go Home, And Harp On The Old String . 384 Chapter III. A Paper Out Of The “Spectator” ... 400 Chapter IV. Beatrix's New Suitor . 421 Chapter V. Mohun Appears For The Last Time In This History . 433 Chapter VI. Poor Beatrix . 448 Chapter VII. I Visit Castlewood Once More . 455 Chapter VIII. I Travel To France And Bring Home A Portrait Of Rigaud . 466 Chapter IX. The Original Of The Portrait Comes To England . 477 Chapter X. We Entertain A Very Distinguished Guest At Kensington . 493 Chapter XI. Our Guest Quits Us As Not Being Hospitable Enough . 509 Chapter XII. A Great Scheme, And Who Balked It 520 Chapter XIII. August 1st, 1714 . 526 Appendix . 542 The English Humourists Of The Eighteenth Century . 544 Lecture The First. Swift . 545 Lecture The Second. Congreve And Addison . 587 Lecture The Third. Steele . 629 Lecture The Fourth. Prior, Gay, And Pope . 671 Lecture The Fifth. Hogarth, Smollett, And Fielding . 722 Lecture The Sixth. Sterne And Goldsmith . 758 The Georges . 798 The Poems . 798 vi Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges Sketches Of Manners, Morals, Court And Town Life . 801 George The First . 802 George The Second . 832 George The Third . 859 George The Fourth . 891 Footnotes . 925 Introduction. Thackeray In His Study At Onslow Square. From a painting by E. M. Ward We know exceedingly little of the genesis and progress of Esmond. “It did not seem to be a part of our lives as Pendennis was,” says Lady Ritchie, though she wrote part of it to dictation. She “only heard Esmond spoken of very rarely”. Perhaps its state was not the less gracious. The Milton girls found Paradise Lost a very considerable part of their lives—and were not the happier. But its parallels are respectable. The greatest things have a way of coming “all so still” into the world. We wrangle—that is, those of us who are not content simply not to know—about the composition of Homer, the purpose of the Divina Commedia, the probable plan of the Canterbury Tales, the Ur-Hamlet. Nobody put preliminary advertisements in the papers, you see, about these things: there was a discreditable neglect of the first requirements of the public. So it is with Esmond. There is, I 2 Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges thought, a reference to it in the Brookfield letters; but in several searches I cannot find it. To his mother he speaks of the book as “grand and melancholy”, and to Lady Stanley as of “cut- throat melancholy”. It is said to have been sold for a thousand pounds—the same sum that Master Shallow lent Falstaff on probably inferior security. Those who knew thought well of it—which is not wholly surprising. It is still, perhaps, in possession of a success rather of esteem than of affection. A company of young men and maidens to [x] whom it was not long ago submitted pronounced it (with one or two exceptions) inferior as a work of humour. The hitting of little Harry in the eye with a potato was, they admitted, humorous, but hardly anything else. As representing another generation and another point of view, the faithful Dr. John Brown did not wholly like it—Esmond's marriage with Rachel, after his love for Beatrix, being apparently “the fly in the ointment” to him. Even the author could only plead “there's a deal of pains in it that goes for nothing”, as he says in one of his rare published references to the subject: but he was wrong. Undoubtedly the mere taking of pains will not do; but that is when they are taken in not the right manner, by not the right person, on not the right subject. Here everything was right, and accordingly it “went for” everything. A greater novel than Esmond I do not know; and I do not know many greater books. It may be “melancholy”, and none the worse for that: it is “grand”. For though there may not be much humour of the potato- throwing sort in Esmond, it will, perhaps, be found that in no book of Thackeray's, or of any one else's, is that deeper and higher humour which takes all life for its province—which is the humour of humanity—more absolutely pervading. And it may be found likewise, at least by some, that in no book is there to be found such a constant intertwist of the passion which, in all humanity's higher representatives, goes with humour hand in hand—a loving yet a mutually critical pair. Of the extraordinarily difficult form of Introduction. 3 autobiography I do not know such another masterly presentment; nor is it very difficult to recognize the means by which this mastery is attained, though Heaven knows it is not easy to understand the skill with which they are applied. The success is, in fact, the result of that curious “doubleness”—amounting, in fact, here to something like triplicity—which distinguishes Thackeray's attitude and handling. Thus Henry Esmond, who is on the whole, I should say, the most like him of all his characters (though of course “romanced” a little), is himself and “the other [xi] fellow”, and also, as it were, human criticism of both. At times we have a tolerably unsophisticated account of his actions, or it may be even his thoughts; at another his thoughts and actions as they present themselves, or might present themselves, to another mind: and yet at other times a reasoned view of them, as it were that of an impartial historian. The mixed form of narrative and mono-drama lends itself to this as nothing else could: and so does the author's well-known, much discussed, and sometimes heartily abused habit of parabasis or soliloquy to the audience. Of this nothing has yet been directly said, and anything that is said would have to be repeated as to every novel: so that we may as well keep it for the last or a late example, The Virginians or Philip.