Hours in a Library, Volume I | Page 7

De Foe and Richardson, the founders
of our modern school of fiction, appear to have stumbled upon their
discovery by a kind of accident. As De Foe's novels are simply history
minus the facts, so Richardson's are a series of letters minus the
correspondents. The art of novel-writing, like the art of cooking pigs in
Lamb's most philosophical as well as humorous apologue, first
appeared in its most cumbrous shape. As Hoti had to burn his cottage
for every dish of pork, Richardson and De Foe had to produce fiction at
the expense of a close approach to falsehood. The division between the
art of lying and the art of fiction was not distinctly visible to either; and
both suffer to some extent from the attempt to produce absolute illusion,

where they should have been content with portraiture. And yet the
defect is balanced by the vigour naturally connected with an
unflinching realism. That this power rested, in De Foe's case, upon
something more than a bit of literary trickery, may be inferred from his
fate in another department of authorship. He twice got into trouble for a
device exactly analogous to that which he afterwards practised in
fiction. On both occasions he was punished for assuming a character
for purposes of mystification. In the latest instance, it is seen, the
pamphlet called 'What if the Pretender Comes?' was written in such
obvious irony, that the mistake of his intentions must have been wilful.
The other and better-known performance, 'The Shortest Way with the
Dissenters,' seems really to have imposed upon some of his readers. It
is difficult in these days of toleration to imagine that any one can have
taken the violent suggestions of the 'Shortest Way' as put forward
seriously. To those who might say that persecuting the Dissenters was
cruel, says De Foe, 'I answer, 'tis cruelty to kill a snake or a toad in cold
blood, but the poison of their nature makes it a charity to our
neighbours to destroy those creatures, not for any personal injury
received, but for prevention.... Serpents, toads, and vipers, &c., are
noxious to the body, and poison the sensitive life: these poison the soul,
corrupt our posterity, ensnare our children, destroy the vital of our
happiness, our future felicity, and contaminate the whole mass.' And he
concludes: 'Alas, the Church of England! What with Popery on the one
hand, and schismatics on the other, how has she been crucified between
two thieves! Now let us crucify the thieves! Let her foundations be
established upon the destruction of her enemies: the doors of mercy
being always open to the returning part of the deluded people; let the
obstinate be ruled with a rod of iron!' It gives a pleasant impression of
the spirit of the times, to remember that this could be taken for a
genuine utterance of orthodoxy; that De Foe was imprisoned and
pilloried, and had to write a serious protestation that it was only a joke,
and that he meant to expose the nonjuring party by putting their secret
wishes into plain English. ''Tis hard,' he says, 'that this should not be
perceived by all the town; that not one man can see it, either
Churchman or Dissenter.' It certainly was very hard; but a perusal of
the whole pamphlet may make it a degree more intelligible. Ironical
writing of this kind is in substance a reductio ad absurdum. It is a way

of saying the logical result of your opinions is such or such a monstrous
error. So long as the appearance of logic is preserved, the error cannot
be stated too strongly. The attempt to soften the absurdity so as to take
in an antagonist is injurious artistically, if it may be practically useful.
An ironical intention which is quite concealed might as well not exist.
And thus the unscrupulous use of the same weapon by Swift is now far
more telling than De Foe's comparatively guarded application of it. The
artifice, however, is most skilfully carried out for the end which De Foe
had in view. The 'Shortest Way' begins with a comparative gravity to
throw us off our guard; the author is not afraid of imitating a little of
the dulness of his supposed antagonists, and repeats with all imaginable
seriousness the very taunts which a High Church bigot would in fact
have used. It was not a sound defence of persecution to say that the
Dissenters had been cruel when they had the upper hand, and that
penalties imposed upon them were merely retaliation for injuries
suffered under Cromwell and from Scottish Presbyterians; but it was
one of those topics upon which a hot-headed persecutor would
naturally dwell, though De Foe gives him rather more forcible language
than he would be likely to possess.