The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves

The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves

It was on the great northern road from York to London, about the beginning of the month of October, and the hour of eight in the evening, that four travellers were, by a violent shower of rain, driven for shelter into a little public-house on the side of the highway, distinguished by a sign which was said to exhibit the figure of a black lion. The kitchen, in which they assembled, was the only room for entertainment in the house, paved with red bricks, remarkably clean, furnished with three or four Windsor chairs, adorned with shining plates of pewter, and copper saucepans, nicely scoured, that even dazzled the eyes of the beholder; while a cheerful fire of sea-coal blazed in the chimney. It would be hard to find a better beginning for a wholesome novel of English life, than these first two sentences in The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves. They are full of comfort and promise. They promise that we shall get rapidly into the story; and so we do. They give us the hope, in which we are not to be disappointed, that we shall see a good deal of those English inns which to this day are delightful in reality, and which to generations of readers, have been delightful in fancy. Truly, English fiction, without its inns, were as much poorer as the English country, without these same hostelries, were less comfortable. For few things in the world has the so-called Anglo-Saxon race more reason to be grateful than for good old English inns. Finally there is a third promise in these opening sentences of Sir Launcelot Greaves. The great northern road! It was that over which the youthful Smollett made his way to London in 1739; it was that over which, less than nine years later, he sent us travelling in company with Random and Strap and the queer people whom they met on their way. And so there is the promise that Smollett, after his departure in Count Fathom from the field of personal experience which erstwhile he cultivated so successfully, has returned to see if the ground will yield him another rich harvest. Though it must be admitted that in Sir Launcelot Greaves his labours were but partially successful, yet the story possesses a good deal of the lively verisimilitude which Fathom lacked. The very first page, as we have seen, shows that its inns are going to be real. So, too, are most of its highway adventures, and also its portion of those prison scenes of which Smollett seems to have been so fond. As for the description of the parliamentary election, it is by no means the least graphic of its kind in the fiction of the last two centuries. The speech of Sir Valentine Quickset, the fox-hunting Tory candidate, is excellent, both for its brevity and for its simplicity. Any of his bumpkin audience could understand perfectly his principal points: that he spends his estate of vive thousand clear at home in old English hospitality; that he comes of pure old English stock; that he hates all foreigners, not excepting those from Hanover; and that if he is elected, he will cross the ministry in everything, as in duty bound. In the characters, likewise, though less than in the scenes just spoken of, we recognise something of the old Smollett touch. True, it is not high praise to say of Miss Aurelia Darnel that she is more alive, or rather less lifeless, than Smolletts heroines have been heretofore. Nor can we give great praise to the characterisation of Sir Launcelot. Yet if less substantial than Smolletts roystering heroes, he is more distinct than de Melvil in Fathom, the only one of our authors earlier young men, by the way, (with the possible exception of Godfrey Gauntlet) who can stand beside Greaves in never failing to be a gentleman. It is a pity, when Greavess character is so lovable, and save for his knight-errantry, so well conceived, that the image is not more distinct. Crowe is distinct enough, however, though not quite consistently drawn. There is justice in Scotts objection [Tobias Smollett in Biographical and Critical Notices of Eminent Novelists] that nothing in the seamans life . . . renders it at all possible that he should have caught the baronets Quixotism. Otherwise, so far from finding fault with the old sailor, we are pleased to see Smollett returning in him to a favourite type. It might be thought that he would have exhausted the possibilities of this type in Bowling and Trunnion and Pipes and Hatchway. In point of fact, Crowe is by no means the equal of the first two of these. And yet, with his heart in the right place, and his application of sea terms to land objects, Captain Samuel Crowe has a good deal of the rough charm of his prototypes. Still more distinct, and among Smolletts personages a more novel figure, is the Captains nephew, the dapper, verbose, tender-hearted lawyer, Tom Clarke. Apart from the inevitable Smollett exaggeration, a better portrait of a softish young attorney could hardly be painted. Nor, in enumerating the characters of Sir Launcelot Greaves who fix themselves in a readers memory, should Toms inamorata, Dolly, be forgotten, or the malicious Ferret, or that precious pair, Justice and Mrs. Gobble, or the Knights squire, Timothy Crabshaw, or that very individual horse, Gilbert, whose lot is to be one moment caressed, and the next, cursed for a hard-hearted, unchristian tuoad. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 6758
Author: Smollett, T. (Tobias)
Release Date: Sep 9, 2004
Format: eBook
Language: English