II. The Novel-Reading Girl as a Comic Type

The learned-lady theme had an interesting variant in the novel-reading girl. This type, as it appeared in comedy and fiction, is also of French origin. It finds its direct ancestry in Molière's Les Précieuses (1659), a satiric representation of the vogue of the French romances, most of which appeared in the twenty-five years before Les Précieuses.

Along with the vogue of the romances came the critical comment. Scarron's Roman Comique (1651) burlesqued La Calprenède. Boileau's Héros de Romans (1664) and L'Art Poétique (1674) satirized especially the romances of Scudéry. The two satires that showed the effect of the romances on the minds of young girls were Molière's Les Précieuses and later Furetière's Roman Bourgeois (1666).

These romances and satires were almost as well known in the original to cultivated Englishmen as they were to Frenchmen. There were also numerous translations. Between 1647 and 1660 Polexandre, Cassandre, Ibrahim, Artemène, Clélie, Almahide, Cléopâtre, all appeared in English versions, and some of them several times. And the satires were also promptly translated. There is no better illustration of the general English familiarity with those romances than that furnished by the letters Dorothy Osborne wrote to Sir William Temple in 1652-54. The Hôtel de Rambouillet coterie itself could hardly have been more nearly letter perfect in the details than was this young English lady. Her reading becomes so absorbing that her grave lover finds it necessary to caution her against the "late hours" reported to him. She is penitent, but her enthusiasm is unabated. Parts of Cléopâtre, she says, pleased her more than anything she had ever read in her life. She confesses that she cried an hour together over the sad story of Almanzor, and was so angry with Alcidiana that she could never love her after. But she is no uncritical admirer of the heroes and heroines. Her sense of humor does not forsake her. She laughs at L'Amant Jaloux, in Cyrus, as one who seeks his own vexation, and L'Amant mon Aimé was "an ass." Sir William's interest in the romances is hardly less than Dorothy's. She sends him the separate volumes as she completes them, and there is a lively interchange of impressions and comments on various characters and situations.

After the Restoration the fondness for romances may have been somewhat lessened by the new passion for the theater. But romance-readers were still numerous. Pepys tells us that his wife sat up till twelve over the Grand Cyrus. Again he says, "I find my wife troubled at my checking her last night in a coach in her long stories out of the Grand Cyrus which she would tell, though nothing to the purpose, nor in any good manner." However, he must have repented of his rigor, for we find him later calling at Martin's his book-seller's, where he bought Cassandre and some other French books for his wife's closet. And Mr. Pepys himself confesses to at least one Sunday devoted to French romances.

That Mr. and Mrs. Pepys were not alone in their tastes is made evident by contemporary arraignment of the romances as harmful influences. Mr. Pepys records a conversation with a Mr. Wilson who protested passionately against them as perverters of history. The Ladies' Calling (1673) brings the matter home to daily life:

There is another thing to which some devote a very considerable part of their time, and that is the reading Romances, which seems now to be thought the peculiar and only becoming study of young ladies. I confess their youth may a little adapt it to them when they were Children, and I wish they were always in their event as harmless; but I fear they often leave ill impressions behind them. Those amorous passions which 't is their design to paint to the utmost life are apt to insinuate themselves into their unwary Readers, and by an unhappy inversion a Copy shall produce an Original. When a poor young Creature shall read there of some triumphant Beauty, that has I know not how many captiv'd Knights prostrate at her feet, she will probably be tempted to think it a fine thing; and may reflect how much she loses time, that has not yet subdued one heart; and then her business will be to spread her nets, lay her toils to catch somebody who will more fatally ensnare her. And when she has once worried herself into an amour, those authors are subtil Casuists for all difficult cases that may occur in it, will instruct in the necessary artifices of deluding parents and friends, and put her ruin perfectly in her own power. And truly this seems to be so natural a consequent of this sort of study, that of all the divertisements that look so innocently, they can scarce fall upon any more hazardous. Indeed 't is very difficult to imagine what mischief is done to the world by the false notions and images of things: particularly of Love and Honour, those noblest concerns of human life, represented in these mirrors.

The popularity of the French romances and the protests they aroused would naturally make the romance-loving girl a type of genuine social interest, and it is surprising that this element of Molière's Les Précieuses was not sooner taken up in English comedy. There were, to be sure, occasional references to romance-reading something in the style of Molière. In Shadwell's Bury-Fair (1689), for instance, Gertrude is apparently familiar "with Romances and Love and Honour Plays," and she complains that all the lovers talk so in the style of the romances that a girl knows in advance just what compliments she must listen to. And in Wright's Female Vertuosos (1693) Sir Maurice says, "O' my Conscience, Women's Heads, now-a-days, are so stuff't up with their Trash of Romances and Poetry, that there is no Room left in 'em for Reason, or Common Sense." Later he bewails his fate more bitterly: "This Plague of Wit has infected all my Servants, even my little Boy, forsooth, can not turn the Spit now without a Pharamond or a Cassandra in his hand." But it was not till Steele's Tender Husband in 1705 that the romance-reading girl appeared in England as a developed type. Steele's Biddy Tipkin is nearly half a century later than Molière's Madelon and Cathos, but they are her unquestioned ancestors.

In Molière's play the two country girls endeavor to apply to real life the ideas they have gained from the romances. Gorgibus, the father of Madelon and uncle of Cathos, is a worthy citizen whose common-sense views of life subject him to the scornful raillery of the young ladies. He endeavors to provide them with good husbands, but his straightforward methods shock their romance-tutored minds. To be greeted at the first interview with marriage proposals is a crude and coarse proceeding. If Cyrus had married Mandane, and Clélie had married Aronce at once, what would have become of Mademoiselle de Scudéry's romances Artemène and Clélie? The dull Gorgibus, and the lovers he has brought are hopelessly ignorant of le carte de Tendre, ignorant of the regions known as Billets-doux, Petits-soins, Billets-galants, Jolis-vers, and the other exactly marked stages of a well-wrought courtship. The young ladies even doubt the reality of their relationship to Gorgibus, and they reject the names Cathos and Madelon in favor of Polixène and Aminte. Gorgibus attributes all their vagaries to the reading of romances, and in the climax of his irritation exclaims to the stock of offending volumes, "Et vous, qui êtes cause de leur folie, sottes billeveseés, pernicieux amusements des esprits oisifs, romans, vers, chansons, sonnets et sonnettes, puissiez-vous être à tous les diables!"

The fundamental idea and many of the satiric details in the presentation of Biddy Tipkin in Steele's The Tender Husband exactly follow the French model. Biddy's reading is identical with that of Madelon and Cathos, but wider in scope. She refers familiarly to passages or characters in Cléopâtre, Cassandre, Pharamond, Ibrahim, Artemène, Clélie, and Almahide, showing that she had practically covered the field of romance. She is an heiress under the charge of her uncle, Hezekiah Tipkin, a banker of Lombard Street, and his sister, "an antiquated virgin with a mighty affectation for youth." Pounce, a lawyer on the lookout for a rich match for his client, the impecunious Captain Cleremont, describes Biddy thus: "Well then, since we may be free, you must understand, the young lady, by being kept from the world, has made a world of her own. She has spent all her solitude in reading romances, her head is full of shepherds, knights, flowery meads, groves, and streams, so that if you talk like a man of this world to her, you do nothing." But Cleremont, quite equal to the situation, responds, "Oh, let me alone—I have been a great traveller in fairy-land myself, I know Oroondates; Cassandra, Astræa, and Clelia are my intimate acquaintance." Pounce predicts success for the fluent Captain, but there are other plans for Biddy. Her guardians wish her to marry her cousin, Humphry Gubbin, a country lout, familiarly known as "Numps." Her attitude towards him and towards her prosaic aunt appears in the following conversation:

Niece. Was it not my gallant that whistled so charmingly in the parlour before he went out this morning? He's a most accomplished cavalier.

Aunt. Come, niece, come; you don't do well to make sport with your relations, especially with a young gentleman that has so much kindness for you.

Niece. Kindness for me! What a phrase is there to express the darts and flames, the sighs and languishings, of an expecting lover!

Aunt. Pray, niece, forbear this idle trash, and talk like other people. Your cousin Humphry will be true and hearty in what he says, and that's a great deal better than the talk and compliment of romances.

Niece. Good madam, don't wound my ears with such expressions; do you think I can ever love a man that's true and hearty? What a peasant-like amour do these coarse words import! True and hearty! Pray, aunt, endeavour a little at the embellishment of your style.

Aunt. Alack-a-day, cousin Biddy, these idle romances have quite turned your head.

Niece. How often must I desire you, madam, to lay aside that familiar name, cousin Biddy? I never hear it without blushing—Did you ever meet with a heroine in those idle romances, as you call 'em, that was termed Biddy?

Aunt. Ah! cousin, cousin, these are mere vapours, indeed; nothing but vapours.

Niece. No, the heroine has always something soft and engaging in her name; something that gives us a notion of the sweetness of her beauty and behaviour; a name that glides through half-a-dozen tender syllables, as Elismonda, Clidamira, Deidamia, that runs upon vowels off the tongue; not hissing through one's teeth, or breaking them with consonants. 'T is strange rudeness those familiar names they give us, when there is Aurelia, Sacharissa, Gloriana, for people of condition; and Celia, Chloris, Corinna, Mopsa, for their maids and those of lower rank.

Aunt. Look ye, Biddy, this is not to be supported. I know not where you learned this nicety; but I can tell you, forsooth, as much as you despise it, your mother was a Bridget afore you, and an excellent house-wife.

Niece. Good madam, don't upbraid me with my mother Bridget, and an excellent house-wife.

Aunt. Yes, I say she was; and spent her time in better learning than you ever did—not in reading of fights and battles of dwarfs and giants, but in writing out receipts for broths, possets, caudles, and surfeit-waters, as became a good country gentlewoman.

Niece. My mother, and a Bridget!

Aunt. Yes, niece, I say again, your mother, my sister, was a Bridget! the daughter of her mother Margery, of her mother Sisly, of her mother Alice.

Niece. Have you no mercy? Oh, the barbarous genealogy!

Aunt. Of her mother Winifred, of her mother Joan.

Niece. Since you will run on, then I must needs tell you I am not satisfied in the point of my nativity. Many an infant has been placed in a cottage with obscure parents, till by chance some ancient servant of the family has known it by its marks.

Aunt. Ay, you had best be searched—That's like your calling the winds the fanning gales, before I don't know how much company; and the tree that was blown by it had, forsooth, a spirit imprisoned in the trunk of it.

Niece. Ignorance!

Aunt. Then a cloud this morning had a flying dragon in it.

Niece. What eyes had you, that you could see nothing? For my part I look upon it to be a prodigy, and expect something extraordinary will happen to me before night.... But you have a gross relish of things. What noble descriptions in romances had been lost, if the writers had been persons of your gout?

Aunt. I wish the authors had been hanged, and their books burnt, before you had seen 'em.

Niece. Simplicity!

Aunt. A parcel of improbable lies.

Niece. Indeed, madam, your raillery is coarse—

Aunt. Fit only to corrupt young girls, and fill their heads with a thousand foolish dreams of I don't know what.

Niece. Nay, now, madam, you grow extravagant.

Aunt. What I say is not to vex, but advise you for your good.

Niece. What, to burn Philocles, Artaxeres, Oroondates, and the rest of the heroic lovers, and take my country booby, cousin Humphry, for a husband!

Aunt. Oh dear, oh dear, Biddy! Pray, good dear, learn to act and speak like the rest of the world; come, come, you shall marry your cousin and live comfortably.

Niece. Live comfortably! What kind of life is that? A great heiress live comfortably! Pray, aunt, learn to raise your ideas—What is, I wonder, to live comfortably?

Aunt. To live comfortably is to live with prudence and frugality, as we do in Lombard Street.

By mere force of contrast the way is open for the smooth-tongued Mr. Cleremont. He meets the ladies in the park with such phrases as "the cool breath of the morning," "the season of pearly dews and gentle zephyrs," and Biddy is enraptured. After the adroit withdrawal of the aunt by Pounce, Cleremont well maintains with Biddy his reputation as a traveler in fairy-land, and assumes likewise the military prowess without which no romance hero was complete. He soon cleverly turns the conversation to a proposal of marriage, but Biddy understands the laws of romance too well to yield immediately. They part in the true spirit of Cassandre.

Cler. We enjoy here, madam, all the pretty landscapes of the country without the pains of going thither.

Niece. Art and nature are in a rivalry, or rather a confederacy, to adorn this beauteous park with all the agreeable variety of water, shade, walks, and air. What can be more charming than these flowery lawns?

Cler. Or these gloomy shades—

Niece. Or these embroidered valleys—

Cler. Or that transparent stream—

Niece. Or these bowing branches on the banks of it, that seem to admire their own beauty in the crystal mirror?

Cler. I am surprised, madam, at the delicacy of your phrase. Can such expressions come from Lombard Street?

Niece. Alas, sir! what can be expected from an innocent virgin that has been immured almost one-and-twenty years from the conversation of mankind, under the care of an Urganda of an aunt?

Cler. Bless me, madam, how have you been abused! Many a lady before your age has had an hundred lances broken in her service, and as many dragons cut to pieces in honour of her.

Niece. Oh, the charming man! [Aside.]

Cler. Do you believe Pamela was one-and-twenty before she knew Musidorus?

Niece. I could hear him ever. [Aside.]

Cler. A lady of your wit and beauty might have given occasion for a whole romance in folio before that age.

Niece. Oh, the powers! Who can he be?—Oh, youth unknown—But let me, in the first place, know whom I talk to, for, sir, I am wholly unacquainted both with your person and your history. You seem, indeed, by your deportment, and the distinguishing mark of your bravery which you bear, to have been in a conflict. May I not know what cruel beauty obliged you to such adventures till she pitied you?

Cler. Oh, the pretty coxcomb! [Aside.]—Oh, Blenheim, Blenheim! Oh, Cordelia, Cordelia!

Niece. You mention the place of battle. I would fain hear an exact description of it. Our public papers are so defective; they don't so much as tell us how the sun rose on that glorious day—Were there not a great many flights of vultures before the battle began?

Cler. Oh, madam, they have eaten up half my acquaintance.

Niece. Certainly never birds of prey were so feasted; by report, they might have lived half-a-year on the very legs and arms our troops left behind 'em.

Cler. Had we not fought near a wood we should never have got legs enough to have come home upon. The joiner of the Foot Guards has made his fortune by it.

Niece. I shall never forgive your General. He has put all my ancient heroes out of countenance; he has pulled down Cyrus and Alexander, as much as Louis-le-Grand—But your own part in that action?

Cler. Only that slight hurt, for the astrologer said at my nativity, nor fire, nor sword, nor pike, nor musket shall destroy this child, let him but avoid fair eyes—But, madam, mayn't I crave the name of her that has so captivated my heart?

Niece. I can't guess whom you mean by that description; but if you ask my name, I must confess you put me upon revealing what I always keep as the greatest secret I have—for would you believe it, they have called me—I don't know how to own it, but they have called me—Bridget.

Cler. Bridget?

Niece. Bridget.

Cler. Bridget?

Niece. Spare my confusion, I beseech you, sir; and if you have occasion to mention me, let it be by Parthenissa, for that's the name I have assumed ever since I came to years of discretion.

Cler. The insupportable tyranny of parents, to fix names on helpless infants which they must blush at all their lives after! I don't think there's a surname in the world to match it.

Niece. No! What do you think of Tipkin?

Cler. Tipkin! Why, I think if I was a young lady that had it I'd part with it immediately.

Niece. Pray, how would you get rid of it?

Cler. I'd change it for another. I could recommend to you three very pretty syllables—What do you think of Cleremont?

Niece. Cleremont! Cleremont! Very well—but what right have I to it?

Cler. If you will give me leave, I'll put you in possession of it. By a very few words I can make it over to you, and your children after you.

Niece. O fie! Whither are you running? You know a lover should sigh in private, and languish whole years before he reveals his passion; he should retire into some solitary grove, and make the woods and wild beasts his confidants. You should have told it to the echo half-a-year before you had discovered it, even to my handmaid.

Cler. What can a lover do, madam, now the race of giants is extinct? Had I lived in those days there had not been a mortal six foot high, but should have owned Parthenissa for the paragon of beauty, or measured his length on the ground—Parthenissa should have been heard by the brooks and deserts at midnight, the echo's burden and the river's murmur.

Niece. That had been a golden age, indeed! But see, my aunt has left her grave companion and is coming toward us—I command you to leave me.

Cler. Thus Oroondates, when Statira dismissed him her presence, threw himself at her feet, and implored permission but to live. [Offering to kneel.]

Niece. And thus Statira raised him from the earth, permitting him to live and love.

But Biddy has not the cold constitution of the romance heroines and she presently acknowledges that she finds in herself all the symptoms of a raging amour. "I love solitude," she soliloquizes, "I grow pale, I sigh frequently. I call upon the name of Cleremont when I don't think of it—His person is ever in my eyes, and his voice in my ears—Methinks I long to lose myself in some pensive grove, or to hang over the head of some warbling fountain, with a lute in my hand, softening the murmurs of the waters." And in spite of her reluctance to abridge courtship and so shut off "all further decoration of disguise, serenade and adventure," she finally consents to an immediate elopement, declaring that if Oroondates had been as pressing as Cleremont Cassandra would have been but a pocket-book.

Biddy, her aunt, and her two suitors, form the most delightful group of characters in the comedy of manners before Goldsmith and Sheridan. And Biddy can hold her own against any of the heroines except Congreve's Millamant. Nance Oldfield created the character in 1705 and it continued to be a favorite on the stage. The play was given several times nearly every year to 1736 and occasionally afterwards, so that the character of Biddy was one often before the public.

There are also other indications that the topic of romance-reading was one of continued interest. In 1748 there appeared the second edition of an anonymous work entitled The Lady's Drawing-Room. Being a Faithful Picture of the Great World. One chapter entitled "The Adventures of Marilla" presents a character following in the wake of "Biddy Tipkin" and antedating the Female Quixote by perhaps a decade:

Marilla was a young Lady, who, from her most early years, discover'd an uncommon Capacity, and, as she grew up, made a wonderful Progress, not only in those Accomplishments usually allowed to her own Sex, but also in some of those which more properly appertain to ours. While a Child herself, she despis'd all childish Diversions, and, as she was not a Companion for those of riper Years, instead of playing with those of her own, she amus'd herself with Reading, in which she took such an infinite Delight, that, for a Book she had never seen before, she would forego any other Satisfaction could be offer'd her; and, tho' any one who had been present when she was thus employ'd, and saw with what Swiftness her Eye pass'd from the Top of every Page to the Bottom, would have thought it impossible for her to receive much Advantage from the Contents, yet was her Apprehension so acute, and her Memory so retentive, that whatever she look'd over in this Manner was as much her own, as if she had been the author of it.—What could be more amazing than to hear a Girl, of ten or eleven Years of Age, quote Passages from Pliny, Livy, and Sallust, talk of the Policies of Princes, compare their several Interests, and the Motives on which War and Peace were made, and make such Observations on them as could rarely be contradicted! What might not have been expected from such a Genius when Time had ripen't it to Perfection?—She had also strong Notions of Philosophy, Morality, and Divinity, and had only such Books, as tended to the Improvement of her Mind, been thrown in her Way, she had doubtless made one of the most shining Characters that any Age or Nation has produced; but unhappily, she was likewise too well acquainted with Cassandra, Cleopatra, Grand Cyrus, Pharamond, and other fabulous Treatises, which poison'd her Way of Thinking, and gave her a certain Bent of Mind, to which she ow'd all the Misfortunes of her future Life. Indeed, I think, there cannot be any Thing more pernicious to Youth, than the suffering them to read those idle and voluminous Adventures, which have no Foundation either in Truth, or good Sense, and I heartily wish, for the Sake not only of the young Lady I am speaking of, but of many others whose Reason has been perverted by them, tho' perhaps not in an equal Degree, that the Government would forbid all such Books from being sold or printed.... Marilla was always obliging, and affable to every Body, but those who, as I said before, declared themselves her Lovers; now was this owing to either the Insensibility of her Heart, or to an Imagination, that all who address'd her were unworthy to do so, but to those romantick Notions she had imbib'd, by reading in what Manner the fictitious Ladies of Antiquity had behav'd. She has often, since Time and a melancholy Experience of the World, has mortify'd this Foible, confess'd, That at that Time, she thought it the most audacious and presuming Thing in the World for a Man, to make any publick Declaration of his Passion, 'till he had suffer'd the Pangs of it, in secret, for three or four Years.—That, even then, he ought not to do it, unless Fortune had presented him with the Opportunity of ushering it in by some extraordinary Service, and that, whenever he express'd himself on that Head, it should be in such ambiguous Terms, and with so much Timidity, that it should rather be from his alter'd Countenance, and despairing Air The Object of his Affections should perceive he lov'd her, than by any Words he could be able to speak.—Then, as to her own Part in this Farce, it seem'd to her the utmost Indecency in a Woman to listen to any amorous Proposals, 'till the Lover had griev'd himself to a Skeleton, and was on the Point of falling on his own Sword; nor, when he had arriv'd at that Pitch of Desperation, was she to vouchsafe him any greater Favour than a Command to live.—That, after seven Years, she might, tho' with an infinite Shew of Reluctance, allow him to kiss her Hand, confess she pity'd him, but no more;—And, if he persevered a second Apprenticeship in the same Manner, perhaps, that is, if she found none more worthy, reward his faithful Service, by giving herself to him.

These, she acknowledged, were the Ideas she had of Love and Courtship; but, none of her Admirers acting in any Degree answerable to them, she look'd on all the Professions of Love made to her, as so many Affronts, and return'd them only with picquant Repartees, or sullen Silence.

In 1752 Mrs. Charlotte Lennox, in The Female Quixote, gave an even more detailed picture of a girl obsessed by romances. Arabella was left motherless when very young, and her father lived in retirement with her on a vast estate in a remote province. She was very beautiful, and she was trained under the best masters in dancing, French, and Italian. But this excellent education had less influence on Arabella than the great store of French romances left by her mother who had bought them to relieve the tedium of life in the lonely castle. Supposing these romances to be pictures of real life, Arabella founded all her notions and expectations on them. She was on the alert for love adventures, and she misinterpreted the most ordinary actions or phrases into some romantic possibility. Arabella had a good mind, lively wit, a sweet temper, a thousand amiable qualities, but her romantic notions permeated her thoughts and feelings till she became involved in constant absurdities. Generosity, courage, virtue, love, were of value to her only as interpreted by the romances. Her lover, a courteous, frank, handsome man of the ordinary world, found all his attractions clouded over when he unfortunately fell asleep over some chapters in the romances especially selected for his admiration and imitation.

Mrs. Lennox's story satirizes nearly all the salient characteristics of the French romances. She burlesques their length and the ever-recurring histories, adventures, episodes. The romance conception of courtship and marriage, the lady's power of life and death over her lover, the exaggerated military prowess of the lover, the emphasis on unknown but illustrious birth, the bombastic language, the use of disguises, abductions, banishments, the long, argumentative conversations, the odd romance letters with high-flown superscriptions and signatures, and florid, stilted style, the romantic falsification of history, are some of the many elements clearly portrayed by Mrs. Lennox. But in spite of the minute accuracy of her work, Mrs. Lennox's Arabella yields in definiteness of impression as well as in veracity and charm to Biddy Tipkin.

Shortly after The Female Quixote came a little poem by Mrs. Monk entitled "On a Romantick Lady" in which a lover says to his mistress:

This poring over your Grand Cyrus
Must ruin you, and will quite tire us.
It makes you think, that an affront 't is,
Unless your lover 's an Orontes,
And courts you with a passion frantick,
In manner and in stile romantick.
Now tho' I count myself no Zero,
I don't pretend to be an hero.
Or a by-blow of him that thunders,
Nor are you one of the sev'n wonders.
But a young damser very pretty,
And your true name is Mistress Betty.

With Mrs. Lennox and Mrs. Monk we seem to come to the end of the satire on the romance-reading girls. But in 1756 we find in Murphy's Apprentice a young man, a Mr. Gargle, an apothecary's apprentice, whose wits have gone astray through reading romances. "An absurd, ridiculous, a silly empty-headed coxcomb," exclaims his exasperated father, "with his Cassanders and his Cloppatras, and his trumpery; with his Romances, and his damn'd plays and his Odyssey Popes, and a parcel of fellows not worth a groat!" Charlotte, Mr. Gargle's innamorata, was "as innocent as water-gruel" before he taught her to read play-books; but she was not permanently injured by them, for before she had read far her father locked her books away and confined her in her room. In the projected romantic escape Charlotte is all practicality and good sense, but Mr. Gargle demands rope-ladders, moonlight, emotions, attitudes, and poetical quotations, and so spoils all.

But Mr. Gargle lags behind his generation. Romances were being rapidly replaced by the novel. Between 1740 and 1753 Pamela, Joseph Andrews, Jonathan Wild, Clarissa Harlowe, Tom Jones, Amelia, and Sir Charles Grandison had established the new species. And the romance-reading girl speedily gives way to the novel-reading girl.

The first representative of this type comes in 1760 in George Colman's Polly Honeycomb, at the very end of the period we are considering. In the Prologue Colman shows a clear recognition of the change of type. He says:

Hither in days of yore, from Spain or France,
Came a dread sorceress, her name Romance.
O'er Britain's isle her wayward spell she cast,
And common sense in magick chain bound fast.
In mad sublime did each fond lover wooe,
And in heroicks ran each billet-doux:
High deeds of chivalry their sole delight,
Each fair a maid distress'd, each swain a knight.
Then might Statira Oroondates see,
At tilts and tournaments, arm'd cap-a-pie.
She too, on milk-white palfrey, lance in hand,
A dwarf to guard her, pranc'd about the land.

But now, the dear delight of later years,
The younger sister of Romance appears:
Less solemn in her air, her drift the same,
And Novel her enchanting, charming, name.
Romance might strike our grave forfathers' pomp,
But Novel for our buck and lively romp!
Cassandra's folios now no longer read,
See, two neat pocket-volumes in their stead!
And then so sentimental is the stile.
So chaste, yet so bewitching all the while!
Plot, and elopement, passion, rape, and rapture,
The total sum of ev'ry dear—dear—Chapter.
'T is not alone the small-talk and the smart,
'T is Novel most beguiles the female heart.
Miss reads—she melts—she sighs—Love steals upon her—
And then—Alas, poor girl!—goodnight, poor honour!

When Colman published the play he prefixed a list of one hundred and eighty-two novels which purports to be an "Extract from the catalogue of one of our most popular circulating libraries; from which extract the reader may, without any great degree of shrewdness, strain the moral of this performance." Of these books over one hundred are in the form of "Lives," "Memoirs," or "Adventures." The list contains the principal novels of Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett, but the majority of the books have passed into the limbo of the forgotten, if, indeed, they ever existed. Polly gets her books from a circulating library in London, or purchases them from the bookseller, and she keeps up with the new books as they come out, but she does not mention any of the books in Colman's list. The History of Sir George Truman and Emilia, The British Amazon, The Adventures of Tom Ramble, The History of Dick Carless, History of Amelia, are the only novels she speaks of by the title. Her familiarity with novels in general is such that she merely refers to the characters in an offhand fashion. Nurse indicates the scope of Polly's reading in "Yes, yes, you are always reading your simple story-books. The Ventures of Jack this, the history of Betsey t'other, and Sir Humphreys, and women with hard Christian names." But Polly merely refers to Clarinda and to Julia, to Betsey Thompson, to Sally Wilkins, as girls who eloped because they had obstinate, ill-natured parents; to Bob Lovelace as a writer of charming letters; to poor Clarissa and ugly Mr. Soames; to Nancy Howe and Mr. Hickman; to poor Sophy Western as one locked up by an irate father; to Tom Jones, a foundling and yet a gentleman's son. She means to marry Scribble, though they "go through as many distresses as Booth and Amelia." She belabors Mr. Ledger with "I hate you; you are as deceitful as Blifil, as rude as the Harlowes, and as ugly as Dr. Slop." After she has assailed this unwelcome suitor from Change-alley with "You are a vile book of Arithmetick, a table of pounds, shillings, and pence; you are uglier than a figure of eight, and more tiresome than the multiplication-table," she rejoices over her successful vituperation. "Ha, ha, ha! there he goes! ha, ha, ha! I have out-topped them all; Miss Howe, Narcissa, Clarinda, Polly Barnes, Sophy Willis, and all of them. None of them ever treated an odious fellow with so much spirit. This would make an excellent chapter in a new Novel. But here comes papa; in a violent passion, no doubt. No matter: It will only furnish materials for the next chapter."

Though it is apparent that Polly was reading Richardson and Fielding, yet the book that held temporary ascendancy over her imagination was Sir George Truman. By a clever device she is introduced reading the book and giving lively comments thereon:

Polly. Well said, Sir George! Oh, the dear man. But so—"With these words the enraptur'd baronet [reading] concluded his declaration of love."—So!—"But what heart can imagine, [reading] What tongue describe, or what pen delineate, the amiable confusion of Emilia?"—Well, now for it!—"Reader, if thou art a courtly reader, thou hast seen, at polite tables, iced cream crimsoned with raspberries; or, if thou art an uncourtly reader, thou hast seen the rosy-finger'd morning dawning in the golden East;" Dawning in the golden East! Very pretty.—"Thou hast seen, perhaps, [reading] the artificial vermilion on the cheeks of Cleora, or the vermilion of nature on those of Sylvia; thou hast seen—in a word, the lovely face of Emilia was overspread with blushes." This is a most beautiful passage, I protest! Well, a Novel for my money!—[reading] "Sir George touched at her confusion, gently seized her hand, and softly pressing it to his bosom [acting it as she reads] where the pulses of his heart beat quick, throbbing with tumultuous passion, in a plaintive tone of voice, breathed out, 'Will you not answer me, Emilia?'" Tender creature!—"She, half raising [reading and acting] her downcast eyes, and half inclining her averted head, said in faltering accents,—yes, Sir!" Well, now!—"Then, gradually recovering, with ineffable sweetness she prepared to address him: when Mrs. Jenkinson bounced into the room, threw down a set of china in her hurry, and strewed the floor with porcelain fragments: Then turning Emilia round and round, whirled her out of the apartment in an instant, and struck Sir George dumb with astonishment at her appearance. She raved; but the baronet resuming his accustomed effrontery...." Novels, Nursee, novels! [exclaims Polly.] A novel is the only thing to teach a girl life, and the way of the world, and elegant fancies, and love, to the end of the chapter!... Do you think, Nursee, I should have had such a good notion of love so early, if I had not read novels?... Oh, Nursee, a Novel is the only thing!... Lord, Nursee, if it was not for novels and love-letters a girl would have no use for her writing and reading.

It is from her precious novels that the energetic young Polly has a head so full of intrigues and contrivances. Rope-ladders or tied sheets and a feather-bed under the window, disguises, letters in lemon-juice, ink concealed in a pin-cushion, and paper and pens in a fan, all the devices of a thwarted amour, are as the alphabet of intrigue to Polly. No wonder the cautious Mr. Ledger finally withdraws his suit. "She'd make a terrible wife for a sober citizen. Who can answer for her behaviour? I would not underwrite her for ninety per cent." Mr. Honeycomb attributes all Polly's vagaries to "these damn'd story-books," and concludes, "A man might as well turn his daughter loose in Covent-Garden, as trust the cultivation of her mind to A Circulating Library."

Lydia Languish in Sheridan's Rivals (1775) carries us beyond the limits of this study, but Lydia must be mentioned here because she brings this topic to a natural chronological close and because of her relationship to the characters already noted. Judged from the point of view of the books selected, Biddy, Marilla, and Arabella belong to the romance-readers, as opposed to Polly Honeycomb and Lydia Languish, the novel-readers. But the lists of Polly and Lydia are far from identical. Lydia is, indeed, quite up to date in her novels. Nine of the fifteen she mentions were first published between 1768 and 1773. And her reading is much less sensational and trashy than that of Polly. The bustling, executive Polly cannot for a moment be considered the real ancestor of Lydia. It is on Biddy Tipkin that Lydia is more nearly modeled. The points of similarity between The Tender Husband and The Rivals have often been noted, and it is in the Biddy and Lydia portion that this kinship is closest. Lydia with her two suitors and her aunt make up a group fundamentally like the one of which Biddy is the center, though, of course, Biddy's "Urganda of an aunt" is infinitely less amusing than "the old weather-beaten she-dragon," Mrs. Malaprop, and Numps and Captain Cleremont are but faint forerunners of Bob Acres and Captain Absolute. But the original conception, the general relationship of these characters, their function in the play, are much the same. Biddy and Lydia are alike in occasional details and almost identical as type characters. And Lydia as a heroine given over to mischievous reading is like the other heroines in arousing in the harassed guardian or parent numerous protests against romances and novels. Mrs. Malaprop and Sir Anthony Absolute sum up all that has been said in the earlier plays. Mrs. Malaprop would not have young women become "progenies" of learning, and her ideal maid who goes to school at nine to learn a "little ingenuity and artifice," "a supercilious knowledge of accounts," with a little geography and reading, pretty well represents the amount of education the ordinary young girl was getting. And Sir Anthony protests against the inevitable evils consequent on teaching girls to read:

All this is the natural consequence of teaching girls to read. Had I a thousand daughters, by Heavens! I'd as soon have them taught the black art as their alphabet!... Madam, a circulating library in a town is, as an evergreen tree, of diabolical knowledge ... it blossoms through the year!