Chapter IV · THE SATIRIC GROUP

In France satire used the oriental tale seriously for the purpose of criticizing contemporary society, morals, and politics; but also turned its criticism against the oriental tale itself, which it travestied and parodied. These forms of satire we may term, respectively, social and literary,—the former, satire by means of the oriental tale; the latter, satire upon the oriental tale. Such social satire had appeared as far back as 1684 with the publication of L’Espion turc^[171] by Giovanni Paolo Marana. This pseudo-oriental translation catered to the growing interest in the Orient, contributing an important element to the oriental vogue not actually inaugurated until the publication of the epoch-making Mille et une Nuits (1704–1717). The genre of pseudo-letters, founded—so far as we know—by Marana, was continued by Charles Rivière Dufresny in his Amusemens (sic) 156serieux et comiques (1699),^[172] culminated in the Lettres Persanes (1721) of Montesquieu, and was widely diffused by a score of imitators.^[173] A particularly light and humorous form of social satire is exemplified in Marmontel’s prose tale, Soliman II.

The literary satire referred to above was a natural reaction against current enthusiasm for the extravagance of the oriental tale. Count Hamilton led this reaction with his entertaining parodies on oriental stories and fairy tales; Caylus, Voltaire, and others followed. In general the satirizing tendency seems to have been about evenly divided between social and literary satire. The natural inclination of the French to satirize foibles of social life and weaknesses of the social structure is plainly visible. Equally 157apparent is their acuteness in perceiving and criticizing faults of literary style. In England the emphasis was characteristically different and rested more on conduct, less on art. Numerous translations and imitations of Marana, Montesquieu, and others appeared; and in Goldsmith’s Citizen of the World the genre of pseudo-letters reached its highest point of development in England. There were a few interesting translations of French tales in which literary and social satire were mingled, such as those by Voltaire; and a few translations of literary parodies by Caylus, Bougeant, and Hamilton. But, if we except Horace Walpole’s trifling Hieroglyphic Tales, there was no original English parody.^[174]

As in France, so in England the impetus and direction to this particular form of satire were first given by Marana.^[175] The main idea of his Espion Turc—the disguised Oriental observing and commenting on European society and politics in a series of letters home—was apparently 158original with him and was immediately popular. The first English translation, by William Bradshaw, slightly edited by Robert Midgley, appeared 1687–1693.^[176] The character of the eight small, dusty volumes of the English version is curious. An historical preface to Vol. I. is followed by a Letter to the Reader which, like Irving’s account of the disappearance of Diedrich Knickerbocker, tells how the Turk vanished from his rooms leaving behind his roll of manuscript, and beseeches the Gentle Reader’s respectful attention. The Letters form a rambling journal of gossip on current politics and satire on society. “We must not expect to find here in Paris the great Tranquility which is at Constantinople. The Town is so full of Coaches, of Horses and Waggons, that the Noise surpasses Imaginations. Thou wilt certainly find it strange that Men who are in Health ... 159should cause themselves to be drawn in an Engine with Four Wheels.... The more moderate French, which do not approve of this luxury, say, That, in the Time of Henry III. there were but Three Coaches in Paris, whereof Two were the King’s; But the Number is now so great, that they are not to be counted. I can tell thee no more of the Genius of the French; thou knowest it perfectly. There is in all their actions a Spirit very delicate and an Activity like that of Fire. It seems as if none but they knew the short Duration of man’s life; they do every Thing with so much Haste, as if they had but one Day to live; If they go on Foot, they run; if they ride, they fly; and if they speak, they eat up half their Words. They love new Inventions passionately.... They love Moneys, which they look upon as the first Matter, and second Cause of all Things; They well nigh adore it and that is the Original Sin of all Nations.”^[177] On all sorts of subjects the Spy makes all sorts of remarks, trivial and serious, stupid and interesting, never very profound. 160He gives court gossip; sketches his call upon Cardinal Richelieu in obedience to the Cardinal’s command; and recounts stories of Spanish cavaliers, Italian ladies, and Arab galley-slaves. In oriental colouring The Turkish Spy, especially in its earlier volumes, is more consistent than later imitations like, for example, Lyttelton’s Persian Letters. The Spy’s point of view seems remote; he speaks as a foreigner might speak of customs that appear to him different from those of his native country. “How often,” he says (Vol. VI., p. 3), “have I been like to discover myself by pronouncing the sacred Bismillah, either when I sat down to eat, or ... began any other Action of Importance.... When I met any of my acquaintance in the street, I was apt to forget that I had a hat on, and instead of putting off that, according to the Fashion of the Franks, I laid my hand in my Breast, and sometimes bow’d so low, that my Hat fell off.... If I had Occasion to address myself to a Person of Quality, I was ready to take up the Bottom of his Cloak, Gown, or Robe, and to kiss it in token of Reverence, as the Custom is in the East, when we salute the Grandees. Nay, sometimes I could not forbear 161falling on my Knee, or prostrate on the Ground before Cardinal Richlieu [sic].” The description (Vol. I., p. 107) of the fair Paradise of the faithful, clad in robes of “pleasing green,” and receiving from the hands of God their recompense, is not unlike the conventional descriptions in the Adventures of Abdalla or the Persian Tales. Eastern proverbs and stories are quoted (Vol. I., pp. 119, 140), and Eastern or pseudo-Eastern forms of blessing; e.g. “He that is Lord of the East and the West, from whose Throne hang Millions of Stars in Chains of Gold, encrease thy Virtues and Blessings, and preserve thee from the Poison of ill Eyes and malicious Tongues, and bring thee to the Fields of Endless Light” (Vol. II., p. 28); or “He that is merciful and gracious, who hath separated the Brightness of the Day from the Obscurity of the Night, defend both thee and me from the malice of Whisperers, from the Enchantments of Wizards, and such as breathe thrice upon the Knot of the Triple Cord” (Vol. III., p. 47). By slight touches throughout the Letters, the author with more or less success keeps up the illusion. But “the chief permanent interest of the once popular Letters is 162derived from the fact that they inaugurated a new species of literary composition. The similar idea of a description of England as if by a foreigner was suggested by Swift as a good and original one in the Journal to Stella, and was utilized by Ned Ward and by many successors, but Montesquieu’s Lettres Persanes (1723) is the best classical example. Many subsequent writers, including Charles Lamb, have been under obligations to the Letters, etc.”^[178]

163Dufresny’s influence as well as Marana’s on the development of the genre of pseudo-letters is clearly visible. The Amusements Serious and Comical Calculated for the Meridian of London (1700),^[179] by Thomas Brown, is in part a verbal translation, in part a paraphrase of Dufresny’s work, with the addition of graphic sketches of London scenes and characters in the manner of Defoe. Brown nowhere acknowledges his indebtedness, however. His Preface, or rather Dufresny’s, of which his is practically a translation, defends the choice of the title, Amusements Serious and Comical, for the thoughts on life he is about to present; and avows his purpose of robbing neither the Ancients nor the Moderns of learned quotations with which to decorate his style. He will rather pillage all he gives his reader from “the Book of the World, which is very ancient and yet always new.” Amusement II., The Voyage of the World, a free translation 164of Dufresny’s Amusement Second, Le Voiage du Monde, describes general impressions of life at court. Brown adds vivid pictures of individuals, e.g. the Character of the Antiquated Beau: “Observe that old starched Fop there; his Hat and Peruque continue to have as little Acquaintance together as they had in the year ’65. You would take him for a Taylor by his Mein, but he is another sort of an Animal, I assure you, a Courtier, a Politician, the most unintelligible thing now in being,” etc.^[180] Amusement III., London, is based on Dufresny’s Amusement III., Paris. For the imaginary Siamese whom Dufresny conceives as a traveling companion, Brown substitutes an Indian. Brown’s idea of the location of India seems as vague as that of a fifteenth-century explorer. He calls his companion, “my Indian” and “my friendly American,” and on the next page makes him compare St. Paul’s with the Chinese Wall and contrast the irreverent conduct of Englishmen in church with the devout worship by his countrymen of “the gods in the pagods.”

165But the chief difference between Brown’s work and Dufresny’s is due to the clever way in which the English writer enriches the brief, generalized, mildly satirical comments of his French original by concrete sketches of street life,—frequently coarse, but always picturesque,—which recall the work of Defoe or Hogarth. For instance, Dufresny writes: “Je supose^[181] donc que mon Siamois tombe des nuës, et qu’il se trouve dans le milieu de cette Cité vaste et tumultueuse, où le repos et le silence on peine à regner pendant la nuit même. D’abord le cahos bruiant de la rüe Saint Honoré l’étourdit et l’épouvante; la tête lui tourne.

“Il voit une infinité de machines differentes que des hommes font mouvoir: les uns sont dessus, les autres dedans, les autres derriere; ceux-ci portent, ceux-la sont portez; l’un tire, l’autre pousse; l’un frape, l’autre crie; celui-ci s’enfuit, l’autre court aprés. Je demande à mon Siamois ce qu’il pense de ce spectacle.—J’admire et je tremble, me repond-il; j’admire que dans un espace si etroit tant de machines et tant d’animaux, dont les mouvements sont opposez ou differens, soient ainsi agitez sans se 166confondre; se démêler d’un tel embarras, c’est un chef-d’œuvre de l’adresse des François.... En voiant vôtre Paris, continuë ce Voiageur abstrait, je m’imagine voir un grand animal; les ruës sont autant de veines où le peuple circule: quelle vivacité que celle de la circulation de Paris!—Vous voiez, lui dis-je, cette circulation qui se fait dans le cœur de Paris; il s’en fait une encore plus petillante dans le sang des Parisiens; ils sont toujours agitez et toujours actifs, leurs actions se succedent avec tant de rapidité qu’ils commencent mille choses avant que d’en finir une, et en finissent milles autres avant que de les avoir commencées. Ils sont également incapables et d’attention et de patience; rien n’est plus prompt que l’effet de l’oüie et de la vûë, et cependant ils ne se donnent le tems ni d’entendre ni de voir.”^[182]

Compare the corresponding but far livelier passage in Brown.^[183] “I will therefore suppose this Indian of mine dropt perpendicularly from 167the Clouds, and finds himself all on a sudden in the midst of this prodigious and noisy City, where Repose and Silence dare scarce shew their Heads in the darkest Night. At first dash the confused Clamours near Temple-Bar stun him, fright him and make him giddy.

“He sees an infinite number of different Machines, all in violent motion, some riding on the top, some within, others behind, and Jehu on the Coach-box, whirling some dignified Villain towards the Devil, who has got an Estate by cheating the Publick. He lolls at full Stretch within, and half a dozen brawny ... Footmen behind.

“In that dark Shop there, several Mysteries of Iniquity have seen Light; and its a Sign our Saviour’s Example is little regarded, since the Money-changers are suffered to live so near the Temple.... Here stands a Shop-keeper who has not Soul enough to wear a Beaver-Hat, with the Key of his Small-Beer in his Pocket; and not far from him a stingy Trader who has no Small-Beer to have a Key to.... Some carry, others are carried; Make way there, says a gouty-legged Chairman.... Make room there, says another Fellow driving a wheelbarrow 168of Nuts, that spoil the Lungs of the City Prentices.... One draws, another drives. Stand up there, you blind Dog, says a Carman, will you have the Cart squeeze [you]?... One Tinker knocks, another bawls, Have you Brass-pot, Kettle, Skillet, or Frying-Pan to mend? Whilst another ... yelps louder than Homer’s Stentor, Two a groat and Four for sixpence Mackerel?... Here a sooty Chimney-sweeper takes the Wall of a grave Alderman and a Broomman justle[s] the Parson of the Parish.... Turn out there, you ... says a Bully with a Sword two Yards long jarring at his Heels, and throws him into the Kennel. By and by comes a Christening with a Reader screwing up his Mouth to deliver the Service alamode de Paris, and afterwards talk immoderately nice and dull with the Gossips ... followed with ... a ... Trumpeter calling in the Rabble to see a Calf with six Legs and a Topknot. There goes a Funeral with the Men of Rosemary after it, licking their Lips after their hits of White, Sack, and Claret in the House of Mourning, and the Sexton walking before, as big and bluff as a Beef-eater at a Coronation. Here’s a Poet scampers for’t as fast as his Legs will carry 169him, and at his heels a brace of Bandog Bailiffs, with open Mouths, ready to devour him and all the Nine Muses.”

Then follows the story of a visit to a coffeehouse, to St. Paul’s, to the shops in Cheapside, and to many other places. During the walk Brown’s Indian makes the remark Dufresny puts into the mouth of his Siamese concerning the city as an “Animal” through whose veins—the streets—life circulates. To the final sentence: “[The people] don’t allow themselves time either to hear or to see,” Brown adds, “but like Moles, work in the dark and undermine one another.” The above quotations suggest better than any comments the way in which Brown utilized and enriched his source. He discussed the same topics: the playhouse, the promenades, gallantry, marriage, and gaming-houses; and from Dufresny’s Cercle Bourgeois developed The City Lady’s Visiting-Day, which, despite Brown’s characteristically coarse tone and biting satire, recalls some of Addison’s essays. That Brown influenced Addison has, in fact, been suggested.^[184] The earlier 170writer certainly holds a significant place in the line of development of the pseudo-letter genre.

The work of Marana, Dufresny, and Brown was continued by Addison and Steele, the first notable English men of letters to utilize the oriental material as a vehicle for satire. In the case of the moralistic and philosophic groups of oriental tales they gave the initial impulse; in this instance, though they did not originate the satiric tendency, they did assist in popularizing it. As early as No. 50 of the Spectator (April 27, 1711), Addison handles similar material in his account of “the very odd observations by four [American] Indian kings” as set down in a manuscript left behind them. St. Paul’s they imagined to have been wrought out of a huge misshapen rock. “It is probable that when this great work was begun, ... many hundred years ago, there was some religion among this people; for they give it the name of a temple and have a tradition that it was designed for 171men to pay their devotions in.... But ... I could not observe any circumstances of devotion in their behaviour.... Instead of paying their worship to the deity of the place, they were most of them bowing and courtesying to one another, and a considerable number of them fast asleep.” “This island was very much infested with a monstrous kind of animals, in the shape of men, called whigs; ... apt to knock us down for being kings.... (The tory) was as great a monster as the whig and would treat us ill for being foreigners.” After ridiculing the wigs of Englishmen and the patches of English ladies, the observations close, and Addison draws the moral that we should not be so narrow as these Indians, who regard as ridiculous all customs unlike their own. Another essay in the Spectator,^[185] similarly modeled on The Turkish Spy or the Amusements, is a letter to the King of Bantam from his ambassador in England, 1682, criticizing the empty compliments of English social and diplomatic circles, and giving clever pictures of London life. The pretended letter from the King of China to the Pope asking for a Christian wife^[186] ridicules fantastic “oriental” 172descriptions; the assumptions of “his majesty of Rome and his holiness of China”; and “the lady who shall have so much zeal as to undertake this pilgrimage, and be an empress for the sake of her religion.”

Two other essays, not pseudo-letters, complete the slender number of satiric oriental tales used by Addison and Steele. In one, the story of the transmigrations of Pug, the monkey, satirizes the ape-like character of the beau supposed to be incarnate in Pug.^[187] In the other^[188] Will Honeycomb, apropos of “those dear, confounded creatures, women,” suggests having a marriage-fair as they do, he says, in Persia, where homely women are endowed with the money paid for beauties. He questions which would be the stronger motive in Englishmen, love of money or love of beauty. The same essay contains a story of a merchant in a Chinese town after a Tartar victory. He buys a sack for a high price, discovers in it an old woman, and is about to throw her into the river, but relents when she promises wealth. She keeps her promise, and their married life is contented.

173In the later periodicals throughout the century the number of such tales is even smaller than in the Spectator. The World, No. 40, on the “Infelicities of Marriage owing to the Husband’s not giving way to the Wife,” contains a bald abridgment of the Story of King Ruzvanchad and the Princess Cheristany “from the first volume of the Persian Tales.” The Story of the Dervise’s Mirror^[189] has almost no oriental colouring and is used for social satire. The mirror has the power of reflecting what a person really is, what he wishes to be, and what he thinks he is. The Connoisseur, No. 21, contains the story of Tquassaouw and Knonmquaiha, “an Hottentot story,” which has been well described as “an indecent parody of the oriental style,” and is the only example of deliberate parody in all the eighteenth-century periodicals. As suggested elsewhere,^[190] English writers used the oriental tale, not so much for literary as for social satire, and expressed their disapproval of the genre by direct criticism in preference to parody.

After the social satire of Addison and of Steele, the next in point of time and the most notable is that of Montesquieu. His Lettres 174Persanes appeared in 1721.^[191] The date of the first extant English translation, by Mr. Ozell, was 1730; of the third edition of Ozell’s version, 1731; of an anonymous translation, sixth edition, 1776. Thus, from 1721 on past the middle of the century, the work was accessible to English readers, and made the figure of the observant, satirical European in oriental disguise, introduced by The Turkish Spy, almost as familiar in England as on the Continent. Les Lettres Persanes is unquestionably the most artistic example of the oriental pseudo-letter. Montesquieu’s genius raised his work above the level of the casual and intermittent comments and external details found in The Turkish Spy and the court memoirs of the seventeenth century, to philosophic and organic criticism of life. His chief aim was to express his views on social customs, forms of government, and questions of religion and conduct; and as he published the book anonymously, he was enabled to write with great freedom. His secondary purpose 175was to entertain, and to this purpose his genius cleverly adapted the oriental colouring. The two Persians visiting Paris, the serious Usbek and the younger and gayer Rica, and their various correspondents, are vivaciously, if slightly, sketched; the best parts of the book are the comments on European ideas and customs, but the slender thread of story is not without interest. As the author, in the Preliminary Reflections prefixed to the quarto edition, says: “There is nothing in the Persian Letters that has given readers so general a satisfaction as to find in them a sort of romance without having expected it.”^[192] The “sort of romance” relates the insubordination of Usbek’s wives in his absence and culminates in the unfaithfulness of his favourite wife Roxane and the death of her lover. It is Roxane who writes to Usbek the concluding letter, informing him that she has taken poison, and reproaching him with bitter scorn.

The oriental colouring in the Letters is thin, and is often set aside by the author in his eagerness 176to discuss general questions. Usbek and Rica write, it is true, of bashaws, brachmans, transmigrations; the Guebres, who worship the sun and talk ancient Persian; Haly and Zoroaster; imams, magi, and the Koran. Customs of the seraglio are frequently used as an excuse for extreme license in description. But the author, by taking nominally the Persian point of view and by contrasting Persian ways with European, satirizes the latter adroitly. Among the subjects discussed are the evils of despotism, the value of a mild government and of a just administration of laws, the greediness of clergy, the fallibility and conceit of the French Academy, the caprices of fashion, the vanity of authors and of women. Of Spanish literature Rica writes: “You may meet with wit and good sense among the Spaniards, but look for neither in their books. View but one of their libraries, romances on this side, and school divines on the other; you would say that they had been made ... by some secret enemy to human reason. The only good one of all their books, is that which was wrote to show the ridiculousness of all the others” (Letter LXXVIII.). Sometimes the criticism is embodied 177in clever character-sketches, like those of the would-be wits (Letters LIV., LXXXII.); the newsmongers or Quidnuncs (Letter CXXX.);^[193] and the men of fashion (Letter LXXXVIII.). In Letter LXXII. Rica describes “a man who was highly pleased with himself.” “He had decided, in a quarter of an hour, three questions in morality, four historical problems, and five points in natural philosophy. I never saw so universal a decider; his mind was never suspended by the least doubt. We left the sciences; talked of the news of the times. He decided the news of the times. I was willing to catch him, and said to myself; I must get into my strong fort; I will take refuge in my own country; I talked to him of Persia; but I had scarce spoke four words to him, but he contradicted me twice, upon the authority of Tavernier and Chardin. Hah! said I to myself, what a man is this here? He will presently know all the streets in Ispahan better than myself; I soon determined what part to take: I was silent, I left him to talk; and he yet decides.” The question put to Usbek whether happiness is 178attained by virtue or by self-indulgence is answered by the story of the Troglodites, an ancient Arabian people to whom selfishness brought adversity, and virtue prosperity.^[194] Other stories inserted, after the fashion of the pseudo-letter genre, are The History of Apheridon and Astarte;^[195] a so-called Greek myth;^[196] the story of the Persian Lady Anais;^[197] and the incident of the patient cured of insomnia by reading dull books of devotion.^[198] It is not surprising to read in the Preliminary Reflections: “So great a call was there for the Persian Letters, upon their first publication, that the booksellers exerted their utmost efforts to procure continuations of them. They pulled every author they met by the sleeve, and said, Sir, I must beg the favour of you to write me a collection of Persian Letters.”^[199]

The first English collection of pseudo-letters written in imitation of Montesquieu and his predecessors was the Persian Letters of Lord Lyttelton (1735).^[200] Although inferior to Les 179Lettres Persanes in literary value, the book needs more comment here because it is an English work and is less well known, and also because it directly influenced Goldsmith’s Citizen of the World. The Prefatory Letter asserts that these letters are translated from the Persian, acknowledges that they lack the “Eastern sublimity” of the original, and attempts to forestall the accusation that the character of the Persian is fictitious. Many such counterfeits have appeared both in France and England, the author says, but this is genuine. His defense not only fails to convince the reader but confirms the opinion gained from various authorities on Lyttelton’s life and from the book itself, that it is a pseudo-translation written in English by Lyttelton.

The letter-form is used with far less skill than in the Lettres Persanes. Selim the Persian at London is supposed to write all the seventy-eight letters to his friend Mirza at Ispahan, and the letters have thus the monotony of a journal instead of the varied interest of letters by several people. Lyttelton makes a slight and ineffectual attempt to imitate the artistic qualities of the dramatic narrative which forms the 180framework of the Lettres Persanes, but the reader can with difficulty disentangle the fragments of plot. In Letter XXIII. Selim’s friend Abdalla is introduced, but does not appear again until Letter XLII. He then intrusts his wife Zelis to Selim while he returns to the East to ransom his father from captivity. The thread of the story is lost again until Letter LXXVIII., which recounts Abdalla’s adventures and his reunion with Zelis.^[201] Finally, in Letter LXXIX. Selim reveals to Mirza his hopeless love for Zelis and consequent determination to return to Persia. The oriental colouring is as slight as the narrative. The author occasionally remembers to refer to Persia, “the resplendent palace of our emperor,” and the seraglio, or to use an oriental phrase. “Madam” (says Selim to the mother of an English girl whom he wishes to marry), “I have a garden at Ispahan, adorned with the finest flowers in the East: I have the Persian jasmine and the tulip of Candahar; but I have beheld an English lily more fair ... and far more sweet.”^[202] Occasionally, the incongruity 181between the Persian and English points of view results in humour. Selim describes a card-party as a sight “very strange to a Persian; ... tables ... round which were placed several sets of men and women; they seemed wonderfully intent upon some bits of painted paper ... in their hands. I imagined at first that they were performing some magical ceremony, and that the figures ... on ... the ... paper were a mystical talisman. What more confirmed me in this belief was the grimaces and distortions of their countenances, much like those of our magicians in the act of conjuring. But ... I was told they were at play, and that this was the favourite diversion of both sexes.”^[203] Again he writes of a visit to a suburban villa, elegant, but so cold that he thought “the great saloon” the family burying-place, and caught a cold, “which,” as he said, “took away my voice in the very instant that I was going to complain of what he made me suffer” (Letter XXXII.).

But the author often forgets the Persian 182point of view; his thin disguise falls off and reveals the grave English gentleman seriously concerned over the shortcomings of English society and government. He uses the pseudo-letter merely as a means to a definite satirical end. He comments freely upon the unhappy victims of injustice in the debtors’ prison; upon the courts of law, parliament, the evils of parties, “the abuse of the thing called eloquence,” the growth and value of the constitution, the faults of the educational system, the soporific effects of fashionable opera, and the immorality of society. He depicts various types of character. “There is a set of people in this country, whose activity is more useless than the idleness of a monk. They are like those troublesome dreams which often agitate and perplex us in our sleep, but leave no impression behind them when we wake. I have sent thee an epitaph made for one of those men of business, who ended his life and his labours not long ago; ... ‘Here lies ..., who lived threescore and ten years in a continual hurry. He had the honour of sitting in six parliaments, of being chairman in twenty-five committees, and of making three hundred and fifty speeches.... He left 183behind him memoirs of his own life, in five volumes in folio. Reader, if thou shouldst be moved to drop a tear for the loss of so considerable a Person, it will be a Singular favour to the deceased; for nobody else concerns himself about it, or remembers that such a man was ever born’” (Letter XXV.). Other “Characters” are the good-natured country gentleman, the benevolent bishop, the virtuoso, the vain man, the true wit, and the rough country squire. The last is drawn with real vigour. The squire was vastly enjoying the bear- and bull-baiting; and when Selim and a Frenchman criticized the dreadful cruelty of the sport, he “cast a very sour look at both.... He was dressed in a short black wig, had his boots on, and held in his hand a long whip, which, when the fellow fought stoutly, he would crack very loudly by way of approbation, ... [and would say] ‘Let me tell you that if more people came hither and fewer loitered in the drawing-room, it would not be worse for Old England’” (Letter III.).

One of the best letters^[204] bears a close resemblance 184to Letter XIV. in The Citizen of the World: “The other morning a friend ... told me, with the air of one who brings an agreeable piece of news that there was a lady who most passionately desired the pleasure of my acquaintance, and had commissioned him to carry me to see her. I will not deny to thee, that my vanity was a little flattered with this message: I fancied she had seen me in some public place and had taken a liking to my person; not being able to comprehend what other motive could make her send for a man she was a stranger to, in so free and extraordinary a manner, I painted her in my own imagination very young, and very handsome, and set out with most pleasing expectations, to see the conquest I had made: but when I arrived at the place of assignation, I found a little old woman, very dirty, encircled by four or five strange fellows, one of whom had a paper in his hand, which he was reading to her with all the emphasis of an author.” She greeted Selim “with great satisfaction,” saying she had long been curious to know a Mahometan and to be initiated into all the mysteries of the Koran in order to perfect a system of theology she had herself contrived. 185“‘Madam,’ replied I, in great confusion, ‘I did not come to England as a missionary.... But if a Persian tale would entertain you, I could tell you one that the Eastern ladies are mighty fond of.’ ‘A Persian Tale!’ cried she, ‘Really, sir, I am not used to be so affronted.’ At these words she retired into her closet, with her whole train of metaphysicians; and left my friend and me to go away, as unworthy of any further communications with her.” Another proof that Goldsmith borrowed from Lyttelton is the similarity of certain names and incidents in Goldsmith’s story of the Chinese Philosopher’s son and the beautiful captive^[205] to those in the tale of Abdalla in the Persian Letters. In both are to be found the heroine Zelis, the sudden appearance of the beautiful slave to the hero, her account of her master’s partiality, her flight with the hero, the separation and final reunion of hero and heroine. In putting in such a story Goldsmith followed the traditional lines of the genre and, as usual, improved upon the crude method of Lyttelton, exemplified in the utterly extraneous, coarse, and inartistic tales of Ludovico and Honoria,^[206] and of Acasto and Septimius,^[207] 186apparently of Italian or Spanish origin. Not until almost the last Letter does Lyttelton introduce the love of Selim for Zelis,—a belated attempt to enliven the tedium by some human interest. The slight sketches of English life break the monotony occasionally, but are not enough to redeem the dullness of the book as a whole. The satire is such as might be expected from a man who has been called amiable, ignorant of the world, “a poor practical politician,” and “a gentleman of Elegant Taste in Poetry and Polite Literature.” His chief claim to remembrance lies in the fact that he influenced Goldsmith.^[208]

187The English pseudo-letters, aside from Lyttelton’s Persian Letters and Goldsmith’s Citizen of the World, are comparatively insignificant. Among them the most popular was Horace Walpole’s Letter from Xo-Ho,^[209] which was written May 12, 1757, and went through five editions in a fortnight. It is a brief, witty satire, aimed chiefly at the injustice of the system of political rewards and punishments, as exemplified in Admiral Byng’s recent execution. There are a few good hits at social amusements, at the English weather, and at foibles of the English character in general. The oriental disguise is extremely thin, but is cleverly used to point the satire. For instance, Xo-Ho says: “I thought when a nation was engaged in a great war with a superior power, that they must have council [sic]. I was deceived; reason in China is not reason in England ... my friend Lien Chi, I tell thee things as they are; I pretend not to account for the conduct of Englishmen; I told thee before, they are incomprehensible.” Xo-Ho refers to “our august emperor,” and swears by 188“Cong Fu-tsee,” but the mask does not conceal Walpole’s supercilious smile. As a link in the development of pseudo-letters in England, Xo-Ho is especially interesting, being in all probability one of the sources of Goldsmith’s Chinese Philosopher.

The Citizen of the World is a good illustration of the tribute paid by Dr. Johnson to Goldsmith: “Nullum quod tetigit non ornavit.” First printed in the form of bi-weekly letters in Newbery’s Public Ledger, beginning January 24, 1760, the book was immediately popular, and was published in 1762 under the title The Citizen of the World,^[210] or Letters from a Chinese Philosopher residing in London to his friends in the East. Numerous editions followed. From what source Goldsmith caught the phrase “Citizen of the World” is unknown.^[211] He may have taken it 189from a French book which had appeared only a few years before, Le Cosmopolite (1750), by Fougeret de Monbron, and which had been reprinted in 1752 under the title Le Citoyen du Monde.^[212] Byron called it “an amusing little volume full of French flippancy,” and drew from it a quotation^[213] which he prefixed to Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. Among Goldsmith’s other sources are, of course, Montesquieu and Marana, 190possibly also Dufresny. The name Fum-Hoam he probably drew from the Chinese Tales. It is not unlikely that he knew the recent translation of Hau Kiou Chooan,^[214] by Wilkinson. He undoubtedly utilized Lyttelton’s Persian Letters.

Like its predecessors, The Citizen of the World is a series of letters written ostensibly by an Oriental describing and satirizing the manners and customs of Europe by sharp contrast with the real or imaginary customs of his native land. Previous pseudo-letters had been interspersed, like the Addisonian periodicals, with episodical stories and character-sketches, and The Citizen of the World elaborated both these lines of decoration. The most famous sketches are those of the “Man in Black,” “Beau Tibbs,” and the “Wooden-legged Soldier.” But to the student of oriental fiction the chief interest of these Letters lies in the ease and facility with which Goldsmith handles his oriental material. Instead of attempting a cumbersome description of the Chinese Philosopher, Lien Chi Altangi, the first letter gives brief credentials as to his 191honesty and respectability in a way that would surely appeal to the English public. His friend Fum-Hoam is a shadowy figure, just distinct enough to be a receptive correspondent. A touch of romance is given by the frequent mention of Lien Chi’s longing for home and the improbable but interesting love story of his son. The heroine, a beautiful slave, proves to be the niece of the Man in Black, Lien Chi’s best friend in London. The character of the Chinese Philosopher is purposely vague; the comments on London life are Goldsmith’s own. Every now and then he remembers to hold the mask before his face and to drop a sudden remark in character, and the result is a humorous incongruity. The picture of London streets where “a great lazy puddle moves muddily along” is more vivid by contrast to Lien Chi’s memory of the golden streets of Nankin.^[215] Ideals of 192feminine beauty are all the more acutely and quizzically described by praising absolutely opposite Chinese standards. The justice of literary patronage in China is contrasted with the bribery and falsity of the English custom. Absurd English fashions in dress and household decoration, cruelty to animals, and inconsistent funeral rites are freely criticized. Goldsmith employs effectively the indirect method of the satirist who condemns one custom by praising its opposite. He seeks to give verisimilitude by quotations from Confucius, “the Arabian language,” “Ambulaachamed the Arabian poet,” and “a South American Ode.” In the half-serious, half-humorous Preface Goldsmith tells us that “the metaphors and allusions are all drawn from the East. This formality our author [i.e. Lien Chi] carefully preserves. Many of their favourite tenets in morals are illustrated. The Chinese are grave and sententious; so is he. But in one particular the resemblance is peculiarly striking; the Chinese are often dull, and so is he. Nor has my assistance been wanting. We are told in an old romance of a certain knight-errant and his horse who contracted an intimate friendship. 193The horse most usually bore the knight, but, in cases of extraordinary despatch, the knight returned the favour, and carried his horse. Thus, in the intimacy between my author and me, he has usually given me a lift of his Eastern sublimity, and I have sometimes given him a return of my colloquial ease.”^[216] Usually Goldsmith begins a Letter with an oriental metaphor and soon drops into plain English. Sometimes his philosopher remembers to draw the letter to a close with a figure of speech. Letter II. begins: “Friend of my Heart, May the wings of peace rest upon thy dwelling.” In the same letter the ship’s progress is compared to the swiftness of an arrow from a Tartar bow. The goddess of Poverty is likened to a veiled Eastern bride supposed to be beautiful, but hideous when the veil is drawn. Vauxhall Gardens look to Lien Chi like the dreams of Mahomet’s paradise. But Goldsmith’s sense of humour and instinct of artistic restraint show him the absurdities of the pseudo-oriental style, and lead him to use such figures sparingly.

194The tales inserted in the Citizen of the World reveal a similar mastery of material. The majority are stories with a moral or satirical import and exemplify some general proposition. The insincerity and the brevity of effusive affection are amusingly illustrated by a variant of the Matron of Ephesus: the story of Choang the fondest husband and Hansi the most endearing wife (Letter XVIII.).^[217] The virtue of benevolence is set forth in the tale of the good king Hamti’s triumphal procession, made up of the poor whose sufferings he had relieved (Letter XXIII.). The Rise and Decline of the Kingdom of Lao (Letter XXV.) is a moralistic tale concerning political evils, and is modeled apparently on the History of the Troglodites in Montesquieu or Lyttelton. False politeness is ridiculed, first directly, and then indirectly, by two amusing letters from the English lady Belinda and the Chinese lady Yaoua (Letter XXXIX.). Each describes an absurdly ceremonious call which 195her suitor makes upon her father. The folly of avarice is taught by the story of Whang the miller,—a tale not unlike the familiar one of the woman who killed the goose that laid the golden egg (Letter LXX.). Injustice thwarted by quick wit is illustrated in the conclusion of the story of the clever prime minister (Letter CI.).^[218] Unjustly accused of misgovernment, he asked to be banished to a desolate village. His queen granted the request, but could find no such village. Hence she realized the universal prosperity of the country under her vizier’s rule, and withdrew the unjust accusation. Several Eastern apologues are also used to illustrate some generalization. The fable of the elephant who prayed to be as wise as man, suffered discontent, and was happy only when restored to his former state of ignorance, exemplifies “the misery of a being endowed with sentiments above its capacity of fruition” (Letter LXXXII.);^[219] A Chinese fable, ... Five animals at a meal, sets forth the rapacity of lawyers (Letter XCVIII.); and An Eastern 196Apologue of the Genius of Love, illustrates feminine insincerity and “false idolatry” (Letter CXIV.). Similar to this apologue is the author’s dream of the Glass of Lao (Letter XLVI.), which reflects the true character of all the ladies who look into it. All prove to be faulty except one. Before her face the mirror remains fair,—because she has been “deaf, dumb, and a fool from the cradle.” Two allegories in the manner of Addison and Johnson occur, one of Gardens of Vice and Virtue (Letter XXXI.)^[220]; the other, of the Valley of Ignorance, said by Goldsmith to be drawn from the Zend-Avesta, but resembling the Happy Valley of Rasselas (Letter XXXVII.). In addition to these more or less humorous short stories with a moralizing turn, there is one clever parody in Hamilton’s style, of the fairy stories and oriental tales: the story of Prince Bonbenin bonbobbin 197bonbobbinet and the white mouse with the green eyes; and one longer romantic narrative: the love and adventures of the Chinese Philosopher’s Son and the beautiful Zelis (beginning in Letter VI.).^[221] Several tales of travel are found in the account of the Philosopher’s journey to Europe through countries “where Nature sports in primeval rudeness.” In general, Goldsmith’s use of tales and fables is similar to Addison’s and Johnson’s. His purpose is to say something serious under the guise of entertainment, to instruct as well as to amuse. In the mouth of his Chinese Philosopher the half-serious, half-humorous criticism gains poignancy.^[222]

The concept of this central character stimulated Goldsmith’s quizzical common sense and keen appreciation of that incongruity which is the soul of humour; and also afforded an opportunity 198to express his democratic sympathies,—his benevolence towards all men, Chinese and English, far and near. This is the more noticeable in contrast with the attitude of polite society towards the East. The Chinese Philosopher is not unduly puffed up by his reception. “The same earnestness,” he writes, “which excites them to see a Chinese, would have made them equally proud of a visit from a rhinoceros.” The amusing scene (Letter XIV.)—already alluded to (p. 184)—describing Lien Chi’s visit to the old lady, ridicules the current fad for grotesque Chinese bric-a-brac. “She took me through several rooms, all furnished, she told me, in the Chinese manner; sprawling dragons, squatting pagodas, and clumsy mandarins were stuck upon every shelf; in turning round one must have used caution not to demolish a part of the precarious furniture. In a house like this, thought I, one must live continually upon the watch; the inhabitant must resemble a knight in an enchanted castle, who expects to meet an adventure at every turning.”

In general, the oriental decorations of the book are quite external. Yet the repeated reference to what the author imagines, or pretends 199to imagine, is the Chinese attitude of mind or turn of phrase, adds to The Citizen of the World a distinct and admirable element of humour. The book may justly be regarded as one of the best English oriental tales of the period.

Of the numerous French imitations of Marana and Montesquieu only a few of any importance were translated into English, for instance, the Chinese Letters (1741)^[223] of D’Argens, and the Letters of a Peruvian Princess (1748),^[224] by Mme. F. Huguet de Graffigny.

A few other comparatively unimportant satires similar to the pseudo-letters may be mentioned briefly. As early as 1705 appeared The Consolidator, or Memoirs of sundry transactions from the World in the Moon. Translated from the Lunar Language By the Author of the True-Born Englishman.^[225] In this prose satire Defoe imagines the author of these Memoirs journeying from China to the Moon, in a remarkable, feathered flying-machine called the “Consolidator,” and criticizing the state of European society, politics, and letters by comparison 200and contrast with Lunar and with Chinese conditions. Defoe’s Tour through England, (1724–1726), though not satire, is connected with the genre of pseudo-letters in being written as if by a foreigner. In 1730 appeared Paul Chamberlain’s translation of Mme. de Gomez’s Persian Anecdotes,^[226] “a historical romance,” purporting to be founded on actual history: “the singular events in the life of Ismael, Sophy of Persia,” as related in the memoirs of D’Agout, De la Porte, and De la Forests, ambassadors of France at the Porte. The author protests vigorously against the charge that the romance is fictitious, but the character of the work seems to indicate that the charge is well founded. Upon an incoherent basis of historical fact is built a still more incoherent and rambling structure of fiction,—a panorama of stories concerning innumerable characters, more or less connected with the figures of the two friends, Ismael and Tor. Full of battles, insurrections, crimes, intrigues,—political and romantic,—the book is commonplace and of little general value. It is of interest here only because the externals are oriental: the scenes are laid in 201the East; the proper names are Eastern, and there is a slight attempt to reproduce oriental customs. The popularity of the oriental disguise for various purposes is also shown by books like the Perseis or Secret Memoirs for a History of Persia.^[227] The preface to the French original asserts that the book is translated from an English work by an Englishman who made at Ispahan “un assez long séjour.” A Key is affixed telling who the different characters are, e.g. Cha-Abbas I. is Louis XIV.; Cha-Sephi I., Louis XV. The history begins with the death of Cha-Abbas and continues through part of the reign of Cha-Sephi I. It is somewhat satirical, and contains more or less court gossip and criticism of various personages, but is stupid reading. The Conduct of Christians made the sport of Infidels, in a letter from a Turkish merchant at Amsterdam to the Grand Mufti at Constantinople on occasion of ... the late scandalous quarrel among the clergy [by Kora Selym Oglan, pseud.], London, 1717, is a satirical pseudo-letter. Milk for Babes, Meat for Strong Men, and Wine for Petitioners, being a Comical, Sarcastical, Theological Account of a late Election at 202Bagdad for Cailiff of that City. Faithfully Translated from the Arabick and Collated with the most Authentick Original Manuscripts By the Great, Learned and Most Ingenious Alexander the Coppersmith [W. Boles?] ... second edition, Cork, 1731, is a worthless political satire. The Oriental Chronicles of the Times; being the translation of a Chinese manuscript supposed to have been written by Confucius the Sage [a satirical account of events in 1784–1785 in defense of C. J. Fox], London (1785), is arranged in chapters and verses like the Old Testament and is a feeble effort. The Trial and execution of the Grand Mufti, From an ancient Horsleian manuscript found in the Cathedral of Rochester, London (1795?), is a satire on S. Horsley, Bishop of Rochester. A Brief and Merry History of Great Britain Containing an account of the religious customs, etc., ... of the people written originally in Arabick [by Ali Mohammed Hadji, pseud.]. Faithfully rendered into English by A. H. [A. Hillier], London (1710?), is a carping and coarse diatribe on English manners and life, with rare references to the superiority of Eastern ways, in the manner of the Turkish Spy, but far inferior.

203Smollett’s political satire, the History and Adventures of an Atom (1769),^[228] is a pretended account of Japanese events as chronicled by a personified atom, who, by means of ridiculing the Japanese people, actually satirizes the English, e.g. in the description of the Council’s going to sleep while discussing the defense of the nation from foreign invaders; or that of the councilor who endeavoured to make a speech and could only cackle. Smollett’s introduction is picturesque. He imagines himself meeting “an old maid in black Bombazine,” the administratrix of Nathaniel Peacock. She gives him Peacock’s manuscript, which recounts how the atom appeared to Peacock and told him of its experiences in Japan. The book as a whole is of trifling value, occasionally humorous or bitterly sarcastic, and often coarse.^[229] Defoe’s System of Magic (1726)^[230] contains the Story of Ali Abrahazen and the Devil and the Story of the Arabian Magician in Egypt.^[231] Finally, 204The Bramine’s Journal by Laurence Sterne, an unpublished manuscript now in the British Museum, is an interesting instance of the utilization of the oriental disguise.^[232]

Enough has been said to illustrate the tendency in England to use oriental fiction for the purpose of social and political satire. In France such satire was frequently combined with parody of the rambling, complicated structure of many oriental tales, e.g. the frame-tale; and also with ridicule of the “oriental” style and diction. In England there was almost no parody of the narrative form of the oriental tale. Criticism tended rather to parody of the oriental diction and to frank mockery of the entire genre.

In one translation from the French the satire is purely social: Marmontel’s Soliman II.^[233] 205(1764). This story, one of the cleverest of all Marmontel’s Contes Moraux, recounts briefly the conquest of the great sultan by a pretty European slave, Roxalana,—a conquest so complete that her “little, turned-up nose” overthrows the laws of the empire. In the original preface the author writes: “I proposed to myself to display the folly of those who use authority to bring a woman to reason; and I chose for an example a sultan and his slave, as being two extremes of power and dependence.”^[234] When the story opens, Soliman, afflicted with ennui, demands in place of the “soft docility”^[235] found in his Eastern women, the charms of “hearts nourished in the bosom of liberty.” Three European slaves are therefore brought to his seraglio. The first, Elmira, is beautiful and affectionate; the second, Delia, has a charming voice; with each Soliman is content for a brief time. The third is the madcap Roxalana, who expostulates against the restraints of the seraglio with such vivacity that, despite her lack 206of regular beauty, her piquant charm “disconcerts the gravity” of Soliman. “But the great, in his situation, have the resource of silence; and Soliman, not knowing how to answer her, fairly walked off, concealing his embarrassment under an air of majesty.” At another time, he says: “But, Roxalana, do you forget who I am, and who you are?”—“Who you are and who I am? You are powerful, I am pretty; and so we are even.” She continues to laugh at him, to do exactly as she pleases, and to entertain him with clever satire on European ways and Eastern customs. Finally, in order to impress her, he allows her to see him in all his glory, receiving ambassadors. But the effect on Roxalana is startling. “Get you gone out of my sight,” she says to him.... “Is this your art of love? Glory and grandeur, the only good things ... are reserved for you alone, and you would have me love you!... If my lover had but a hut, I would share his hut with him and be content. He has a throne; I will share his throne or he is no lover of mine. If you think me unworthy to reign over the Turks, send me back to my own country where all pretty women are sovereigns.” There is nothing for 207Soliman to do but to marry this extraordinary slave “in contempt of the laws of the sultans.”

Among the translations from the French showing mingled social and literary satire, Voltaire’s tales^[236] take precedence, notably The Black and the White; The White Bull; The Princess of Babylon; Memnon the Philosopher; and Bababec. The scenes of part of Voltaire’s Travels of Scarmentado are laid in the East. The Princess of Babylon may be taken to illustrate Voltaire’s method. The aged Belus, so the story begins, “thought himself the first man upon earth; for all his courtiers told him so, and his historians proved it.” An oracle had ordained that the hand of his daughter, the surpassingly beautiful Formosanta, should be given only to the prince who could bend the bow of Nimrod and kill a ferocious lion. At a gorgeous tournament three kings strove in vain. Suddenly a handsome youth appeared, riding on an unicorn and bearing a phœnix on his wrist. He bent the bow, saved the life of one of his rivals, sent a love poem to the princess, cut off the lion’s head, gracefully drew its teeth, replaced them with magnificent diamonds, and gave the trophy to 208his phœnix. “Beautiful bird,” said he, “carry this small homage and lay it at the feet of Formosanta.” The great admiration and curiosity aroused, were increased by his sudden departure on receiving news of his father’s mortal illness. After this opening scene, the rest of the story recounts the wanderings of the princess through almost all the known countries of Asia and Europe in search of the stranger, until they are finally reunited. The extravagant plot, incident, and diction of the earlier oriental tales are entertainingly parodied, and the travels of the princess and her lover give a good opportunity for keen satire on European customs and ideas. For instance, in one country the princess finds that birds also meet in a grove to worship God, and that they have some parrots that preach wonderfully well. Voltaire’s satire strikes the hypocrisy of self-seeking clergy, the frivolity of “at least one hundred thousand” Parisians, and the wickedness of inquisitors who burned their victims “for the love of God.” With satire in one hand and praise in the other, he commends reason in the Germans, good government among the English, and ideal government in Russia, which he calls the Cimmerians’ land, 209probably meaning that ideal government is yet in Cimmerian darkness.

The Black and the White, a distinct and clever parody on oriental stories and fairy tales, recounts the passion of Rustan for a princess of Cashmere, who proves to be imaginary. He goes through marvelous adventures under the guidance of a good genius, “the White,” and an evil genius, “the Black.” But in the end he awakes out of an hour’s sleep to find that he has dreamed all his adventures, including the death of his princess and his own mortal wound. “Take heart,” said Topaz; “you never were at Kaboul; ... the princess cannot be dead, because she never was born; and you are in perfect health.” The White Bull is a similar satire on oriental stories and fairy tales, and also on the miracles of the Old Testament and ignorant worship. The White Bull is the metamorphosed Nebuchadnezzar, who receives human form at the last and marries the princess of Egypt. Other characters are the Witch of Endor, Jonah’s whale, Balaam’s ass, and the serpent of Eden. Memnon the Philosopher is a satire on the vanity of attempting to be a perfect philosopher. Bababec is a sketch, mocking the folly 210of religious fanatics by describing the Fakir who becomes famous and thinks himself religious because he tortures himself with nails, in contrast with the wisdom of men who live useful, sensible lives.^[237] The Travels of Scarmentado, a satire on persecution for conscience’ sake, recounts one incident that recalls The Female Captive (cf. p. 50, ante). The hero hears a fair Circassian say “Alla, Illa, Alla” so tenderly that he thinks the words are expressions of love, and repeats them in his turn. He is accused of having become a Turk by saying those words, and escapes only with a fine. He flees to Persia. In his own words: “On my arrival at Ispahan, the people asked me whether I was for white or black mutton? I told them that it was a matter of indifference to me, provided it was tender. It must be observed that the Persian empire was at that time split into two factions, that of the white mutton and that of the black. The two parties imagined that I had made a jest of them both; so that I found myself engaged in a very troublesome affair at the gates 211of the city, and it cost me a great number of sequins to get rid of the white and the black mutton.”

In all these tales—even those that are apparently written for mere amusement—Voltaire’s genius, masterly command of his material, and intense hatred of hypocrisy and injustice give to his satire a keen and penetrating quality which at once differentiates it from the comparatively care-free and superficial fun of Marmontel, Caylus, Bougeant, and Hamilton.

The three last named are the only other French satirists of any consequence whose works were translated into English in this period. The Oriental Tales (1745)^[238] of Caylus is a good parody of the collections of oriental stories. The frame-tale, itself a satire upon the interminable method of story within story, is briefly as follows: Hudjadge, King of Persia, though gentle by nature, grows tyrannical from insomnia. He commands his jailer on pain of death to find a story-teller who can lull him to sleep. The jailer’s beautiful daughter Moradbak offers herself somewhat as Scheherazade does in the Arabian Nights, and succeeds so admirably that the sultan sleeps in peace, regains 212his temper, and marries her. The first tale she tells is the appropriate History of Dakianos and the Seven Sleepers, and the king, “whose eyes had begun to close during the recital, ... came to himself when she had ceased speaking. ‘I am satisfied,’ said he; ... ‘I listened with some attention to the beginning of the history, but I did not interest myself much for thy little dog, and I was almost asleep with Jemlikha, as if I had been in his cavern; therefore, I know not much of what passed afterwards.’—‘If your majesty has the least curiosity ... I will begin ... again.’—‘No, no,’ said the king, ‘I have enough for the first time.’” After another tale “the sultan ... had appeared very wide awake all the time, though he might with reason have dropt asleep at some parts of it.” Caylus succeeded only too well with his parody; most of his stories are decidedly soporific. A few familiar tales, such as the Seven Sleepers, and some entertaining stories like Jahia and Meimoune, break the otherwise uniform monotony. For oriental colouring we find the usual references to Mohametan legend: the mountain of Kaf, which surrounds the world and is composed of one emerald; the angel Israphil; 213magical flights; genii and monsters; devout heroes; Solomon’s ring; a treasure-cave accessible to an old dervish by means of his magic candlestick; and curious riddles like those in the Persian Tales. The descriptions are fantastic, extravagant, and occasionally coarse. Though the Oriental Tales is said to have been based upon genuine oriental manuscripts, it shows few traces of any such source, and is of value chiefly as exemplifying the tendency towards parody.

The Wonderful Travels of Prince Fan-Feredin, in the country of Arcadia, interspersed with observations historical, geographical, physical, critical, and moral. Translated from the original French of Guillaume Hyacinthe Bougeant, Northampton, n. d.,^[239] is an entertaining parody on the heroic romances by name, e.g. Astrea, Palmerin, etc., and on the fairy tales, with occasional satirical remarks on the oriental tales as well.

One of the most popular of all the parodies and satires that followed so rapidly on the heels of the extravagant pseudo-translations in France was Fleur d’Epine, by Count Anthony Hamilton, the author of the Memoirs of Count Grammont. The English version, Thorn-Flower, 2141760,^[240] lost much of the wit and charm of Hamilton’s style, and yet kept, of course, the humour of situation and narrative. How Hamilton began to write these tales, half earnest, half satirical, is quite in keeping with their light and entertaining character. “The conversation happened to turn in a company in which he was present on the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, which were just published; every one highly commended the book; many seemed to hint at the difficulty of writing that species of composition. ‘Nothing can be more easy,’ replied Count Hamilton, ‘and as a proof of it I will venture to write a Circassian tale after the manner of the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments on any subject which you can mention.’—‘Fiddlesticks!’ (Tarare) replied the other.—‘You have hit it,’ said Count Hamilton; ‘and I promise you that I shall produce a tale in which Fiddlestick shall be the principal hero.’ In a few days he finished this tale, which he called Fleur d’Epine. It was much read and admired in Paris.”^[241] The popularity is not surprising, 215for the story is an exceedingly clever imitation—and parody—of its extravagant predecessors. The author pretends that it is one of the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, and in the introductory scene puts into the mouth of Dinarzade some capital mockery of the long-winded confusion of some of her sister Scheherazade’s tales. Throughout, as in Hamilton’s other tales, the interruptions and comments by the audience form comic interludes. Hamilton has caught the manner of the earlier stories admirably, and heightens it in ostensible seriousness just enough to bring it within the pale of ridicule. To say that his story is located far in the East is not sufficient. He proceeds to say exactly how far: “two thousand four hundred and fifty leagues from here.” His princess, like her prototypes, is superlatively fair; but, moreover, her eyes are so brilliant that men die from her glance as if struck by lightning, and the artist who paints her portrait is obliged to wear smoked glasses. The introduction of the hero is farcical. He is a disguised prince, and when asked by the caliph what his name is, startles the whole court by replying, “‘Tarare!’ (Fiddlestick!) ‘Tarare!’ says the 216caliph; ‘Tarare!’ say all the counselors; ‘Tarare!’ says the Chancellor. ‘I ask you,’ says the caliph, ‘what is your name?’—‘I know it well, Sire,’ he replies.—‘Well, then,’ says the caliph.—‘Tarare!’ says the other, making a bow.... ‘And why are you named Tarare?’—‘Because that is not my name.’ ‘And how so?’ says the caliph.—‘It is because I have dropped my name to assume this one,’ says he.—‘Nothing could be clearer,’ says the caliph, ‘and yet it would have taken me more than a month to find it out.’” The characterization is purposely colourless, as in the parodied tales. Yet there is occasionally a clever bit of character analysis, such as the account of May-Flower’s sudden interest in her rival. In the use of magic, Hamilton’s fancy runs riot side by side with his keen sense of the ridiculous; here his parody reaches its highest point. One of the tasks set the hero is the theft from an old witch of the “sounding mare.” That remarkable creature carried a golden bell on every hair, and thus made “ravishing music.” The ingenious Tarare silenced this music by filling each bell with a kind of glue, mounted the mare with May-Flower, and fled from the pursuing 217sorceress. The latter nearly succeeded in coming up with them, when at the last desperate moment, “Sonante,” the mare, shook her left ear three times. The prince found in it a little stone, which he threw over his left shoulder. Instantly and just in time to save them there arose out of the ground a protecting wall, only sixty feet high, but so long that one could see neither the beginning nor the end. Other difficulties in the hero’s path consisted of the animals that opposed his passage through the forest. “One would say that these accursed beasts knew his purpose, for in place of taking pains to come at him, they merely spread out to right and left; three hydras, ten rhinoceroses, and some half dozen of griffons, gazed upon his progress. He knew the rules of war well enough; so, after having examined the situation and their appearance, he saw their design, and since the sides were not equal, he had recourse to stratagem.” One marvelous event is piled upon another until the author breaks out into an apostrophe: “Oh! how great a help are enchantments in the dénouement of an intrigue or end of a tale!”

Another of Count Hamilton’s stories, Le 218Bélier,^[242] half parody, half imitation of the fairy tales, incidentally pokes fun at the oriental tales, too. The fair heroine, Alie, insane with love, imagines that she is Scheherazade in the Thousand and One Nights, and that she must at once tell a tale. In the midst of her soliloquy she falls asleep, to be awakened by her father, who is somewhat startled to have her address him as “Great Commander of the Faithful!” The Ram is an enchanted prince who tells a tale to his master, the giant, beginning abruptly: “‘After the white fox was wounded, the queen did not fail to visit him.’ ‘Friend Ram,’ said the giant, interrupting him, ‘I do not understand that at all. If you would begin at the beginning, you would give me pleasure; these tales that begin in the middle only confuse^[243] my imagination.’—‘Very well,’ said the Ram. ‘I consent, against the usual custom, to put each event in its place; the beginning of my story shall be at the commencement of my recital.’” Later, when the story-teller follows the conventional method in leaving some of his 219personages on a magic island at a critical juncture, the giant again objects, and forbids him to leave the island until he has quite finished their story. Of talismans, Hamilton says: “Great was the virtue of ancient talismans, and even greater the faith of those that believed in them.” He describes extravagant emotions thus: “Joy, astonishment, and anxiety were simultaneously depicted on the face of the druid, though it is rather difficult to depict them all at once on the same face.”

Les Quatre Facardins,^[244] the last in order of composition of Hamilton’s tales, is the least interesting. As the author confesses, in his rhymed preface, one who like himself sets out jokingly to imitate and to make fun of such absurdities ends by becoming equally absurd. That is true of The Four Facardins. No oriental tale could be more extravagant in plot and incident. The various adventures of the four princes of the same name, Facardin, are so utterly tangled that the reader, like the giant in Le Bélier, feels as if his imagination were 220becoming “embrouillée.” It is not surprising that the author left the story unfinished. The frame-tale begins hopefully to recount how Prince Facardin of Trebizonde tells his adventures to Sultan Schariar, Scheherazade, and Dinarzade; but, after the other Facardins begin their own stories, the main thread would be hard to follow, were that necessary. Their various adventures include encounters with lions, enchanters, giants, and fair ladies, and are enlivened with fanciful descriptions,—sometimes in questionable taste,—and occasional humour. On the whole The Four Facardins is not nearly so entertaining as Hamilton’s other tales.

The only English writer who made a deliberate attempt to parody the structure of the oriental tales was Horace Walpole. His Hieroglyphic Tales (1785)^[245] are, as the postscript says, “mere whimsical trifles, written chiefly for private amusement; half a dozen copies only are printed.” But even though a mere skit, the book is interesting as a straw to show which way the wind was blowing. The Preface is a rather clever satire on the pretentious, highly 221moralistic, and would-be scholarly prefaces to oriental tales; and informs the reader that “the Hieroglyphic Tales were undoubtedly written a little before the creation of the world ... and preserved by oral tradition in the mountains of Crampcraggi, an uninhabited island not yet discovered.” The seven short stories which make up the book are somewhat similar to Hamilton’s. The scene of the first, A New Arabian Nights’ Entertainment, is laid in the kingdom of Larbidel. “The other side of the mountain was inhabited by a nation of whom the Larbidellians knew no more than the French nobility do of Great Britain, which they think is an island that somehow or other may be approached by land.” The other stories are also parodies: The King and his Three Daughters; The Dice-box; The Peach in Brandy, a Milesian Tale; Mi Li, a Chinese Fairy Tale; and a Venetian Love-story of two black slaves who prove to be dogs.

Walpole’s tone of supercilious mockery toward the oriental tales was typical of critical opinion generally between the middle of the century and the end of our period (c. 1786). Preluded by Pope’s ridicule of Ambrose Philips as

222“The bard whom pilfer’d Pastorals renown,

Who Turns a Persian Tale for half-a-crown,”

such criticism found its best expression in Goldsmith. The Citizen of the World (Letter XXXIII.) ridicules authors who attempt “to write in the true Eastern style, where nothing is required but sublimity.” Lien Chi is amused to hear an English lady say: “Oh, for a history of Aboulfaouris [sic], the grand voyager, of genii, magicians, rocs, bags of bullets, giants, and enchanters, where all is great, obscure, magnificent, and unintelligible;” and even more amused when an author in the company rejoins: “I have written many a sheet of Eastern tale myself ... and I defy the severest critic to say but that I have stuck close to the true manner. I have compared a lady’s chin to the snow upon the mountains of Bomek; a soldier’s sword to the clouds that obscure the face of heaven. If riches are mentioned, I compare them to the flocks that graze the verdant Tefflis; if poverty, to the mists that veil the brow of mount Baku. I have used thee and thou upon all occasions, I have described fallen stars, and splitting mountains, not forgetting the little Houris who make a pretty figure in every description. 223But you shall hear how I generally begin. ‘Eben-ben-bolo, who was the son of Ban, was born on the foggy summits of Benderabassi. His beard was whiter than the feathers which veil the breast of the Penguin; his eyes were like the eyes of doves, when washed by the dews of the morning; his hair, which hung like the willow weeping over the glassy stream, was so beautiful that it seemed to reflect its own brightness; and his feet were as the feet of a wild deer, which fleeth to the tops of the mountains.’ There, there, is the true Eastern taste for you; every advance made towards sense is only a deviation from sound. Eastern tales should always be sonorous, lofty, musical, and unmeaning.”

Except for the Arabian Nights, many of the oriental tales that had appeared up to 1760–1761, when Goldsmith wrote, or even up to the date of Walpole’s parody (1785), gave considerable provocation for such criticism. Indeed, to a certain extent, the vogue of these tales was another expression of the tendency more grotesquely manifested in the current craze, likewise ridiculed, for Chinese domestic architecture and house furnishings. “A few years ago,” 224William Whitehead writes (World, No. 12, 1753), “everything was Gothic, now it is Chinese.” In 1754 William Lloyd describes a country place decorated by “Chinese artists”:—

“The trav’ler with amazement sees

A temple, Gothic or Chinese;

With many a bell and tawdry rag on,

And crested with a wooden dragon.”^[246]

The World, No. 117, ridicules the “applause so fondly given to Chinese decorations or to the barbarous productions of a Gothic genius which seems once more to threaten the ruin of ... [Greek] ... simplicity ... [which is so] ... superior.” The same essay describes a visit to Lady Fiddlefaddle’s Chinese dressing-room. She had thrown aside her grandfather’s fine Italian pictures for the sake of red dragons, “pagods,” and ugly monsters. Just as “the Greek and Roman architecture are discarded for the novelties of China ... [so] Correggio is neglected for gothic designs ... and the tinsel of a Burletta has more admirers than the gold of Shakespeare.”^[247] It may be, Warton goes on to 225say, that an attempt to improve this state of learning and taste will be thought “romantic ... and chimerical.” The Connoisseur, No. 122, ridicules the faults of a man of fashion who goes so far as to think the Bible to be “as romantic as the Alcoran.” To a writer in the World, No. 70, one redeeming quality in the craze for oriental tales is the fact that some of them “contain useful morals and well-drawn pictures from common life.” A later contributor to the same periodical, No. 121, writes to the editor: “Among the many visions related by your predecessors and contemporaries, the writers of periodical essays, I remember few but what have been in the oriental style.” And he adds a sentence which may be taken as epitomizing the critical opinion of his contemporaries: “For my own part, I am neither Dervise nor Brachman, but a poet and a true Christian.”

226