The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves Read online

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  THE ADVENTURES OF SIR LAUNCELOT GREAVES

  by Tobias Smollett

  With the Author's Preface, and an Introduction by G. H. Maynadier, Ph.D.Department of English, Harvard University

  CONTENTS

  INTRODUCTION

  CHAPTER I In which certain Personages of this delightful History are introduced to the Reader's Acquaintance II In which the Hero of these Adventures makes his First Appearance on the Stage of Action III Which the Reader, on perusal, may wish were Chapter the last IV In which it appears that the Knight, when heartily set in for sleeping, was not easily disturbed V In which this Recapitulation draws to a close VI In which the Reader will perceive that in some Cases Madness is catching VII In which the Knight resumes his Importance VIII Which is within a hair's-breadth of proving highly interesting will interest the Curiosity of the Reader IX Which may serve to show, that true Patriotism is of no Party X Which showeth that he who plays at Bowls, will sometimes meet with Rubbers XI Description of a modern Magistrate XII Which shows there are more Ways to kill a Dog than Hanging XIII In which our Knight is tantalised with a transient Glimpse of Felicity XIV Which shows that a Man cannot always sip, when the Cup is at his Lip XV Exhibiting an Interview, which, it is to be hoped, will interest the Curiosity of the Reader XVI Which, it is to be hoped, the Reader will find an agreeable Medley of Mirth and Madness, Sense and Absurdity XVII Containing Adventures of Chivalry equally new and surprising XVIII In which the Rays of Chivalry shine with renovated Lustre XIX Containing the Achievements of the Knights of the Griffin and Crescent XX In which our Hero descends into the Mansions of the Damned XXI Containing further Anecdotes relating to the Children of Wretchedness XXII In which Captain Crowe is sublimed into the Regions of Astrology XXIII In which the Clouds that cover the Catastrophe begin to disperse XXIV The Knot that puzzles human Wisdom, the Hand of Fortune sometimes will untie familiar as her Garter XXV Which, it is to be hoped, will be, on more accounts than one, agreeable to the Reader

  INTRODUCTION

  It was on the great northern road from York to London, about thebeginning of the month of October, and the hour of eight in the evening,that four travellers were, by a violent shower of rain, driven forshelter into a little public-house on the side of the highway,distinguished by a sign which was said to exhibit the figure of a blacklion. The kitchen, in which they assembled, was the only room forentertainment in the house, paved with red bricks, remarkably clean,furnished with three or four Windsor chairs, adorned with shining platesof pewter, and copper saucepans, nicely scoured, that even dazzled theeyes of the beholder; while a cheerful fire of sea-coal blazed in thechimney.

  It would be hard to find a better beginning for a wholesome novel ofEnglish life, than these first two sentences in The Adventures of SirLauncelot Greaves. They are full of comfort and promise. They promisethat we shall get rapidly into the story; and so we do. They give us thehope, in which we are not to be disappointed, that we shall see a gooddeal 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 theEnglish country, without these same hostelries, were less comfortable.For few things in the world has the so-called "Anglo-Saxon" race morereason to be grateful than for good old English inns. Finally there is athird promise in these opening sentences of Sir Launcelot Greaves. "Thegreat northern road!" It was that over which the youthful Smollett madehis way to London in 1739; it was that over which, less than nine yearslater, he sent us travelling in company with Random and Strap and thequeer people whom they met on their way. And so there is the promisethat Smollett, after his departure in Count Fathom from the field ofpersonal experience which erstwhile he cultivated so successfully, hasreturned to see if the ground will yield him another rich harvest.Though it must be admitted that in Sir Launcelot Greaves his labours werebut partially successful, yet the story possesses a good deal of thelively verisimilitude which Fathom lacked. The very first page, as wehave seen, shows that its inns are going to be real. So, too, are mostof its highway adventures, and also its portion of those prison scenes ofwhich Smollett seems to have been so fond. As for the description of theparliamentary election, it is by no means the least graphic of its kindin the fiction of the last two centuries. The speech of Sir ValentineQuickset, the fox-hunting Tory candidate, is excellent, both for itsbrevity and for its simplicity. Any of his bumpkin audience couldunderstand perfectly his principal points: that he spends his estate of"vive thousand clear" at home in old English hospitality; that he comesof pure old English stock; that he hates all foreigners, not exceptingthose from Hanover; and that if he is elected, he "will cross theministry in everything, as in duty bound."

  In the characters, likewise, though less than in the scenes just spokenof, we recognise something of the old Smollett touch. True, it is nothigh praise to say of Miss Aurelia Darnel that she is more alive, orrather less lifeless, than Smollett's heroines have been heretofore.Nor can we give great praise to the characterisation of Sir Launcelot.Yet if less substantial than Smollett's roystering heroes, he is moredistinct than de Melvil in Fathom, the only one of our author's earlieryoung men, by the way, (with the possible exception of Godfrey Gauntlet)who can stand beside Greaves in never failing to be a gentleman. Itis a pity, when Greaves's character is so lovable, and save for hisknight-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 Scott's objection [Tobias Smollett in Biographicaland Critical Notices of Eminent Novelists] that nothing in the seaman's"life . . . renders it at all possible that he should have caught" thebaronet's Quixotism. Otherwise, so far from finding fault with the oldsailor, we are pleased to see Smollett returning in him to a favouritetype. It might be thought that he would have exhausted the possibilitiesof this type in Bowling and Trunnion and Pipes and Hatchway. In pointof fact, Crowe is by no means the equal of the first two of these. Andyet, with his heart in the right place, and his application of sea termsto land objects, Captain Samuel Crowe has a good deal of the rough charmof his prototypes. Still more distinct, and among Smollett's personagesa more novel figure, is the Captain's nephew, the dapper, verbose,tender-hearted lawyer, Tom Clarke. Apart from the inevitable Smollettexaggeration, a better portrait of a softish young attorney could hardlybe painted. Nor, in enumerating the characters of Sir Launcelot Greaveswho fix themselves in a reader's memory, should Tom's inamorata, Dolly,be forgotten, or the malicious Ferret, or that precious pair, Justice andMrs. Gobble, or the Knight's squire, Timothy Crabshaw, or that veryindividual horse, Gilbert, whose lot is to be one moment caressed, andthe next, cursed for a "hard-hearted, unchristian tuoad."

  Barring the Gobbles, all these characters are important in the book fromfirst to last. Sir Launcelot Greaves, then, is significant amongSmollett's novels, as indicating a reliance upon the personages forinterest quite as much as upon the adventures. If the author failed in asimilar intention in Fathom, it was not through lack of clearly conceivedcharacters, but through failure to make them flesh and blood. In thatbook, however, he put the adventures together more skilfully than in SirLauncelot Greaves, the plot of which is not only rather meagre but alsofar-fetched. There seems to be no adequate reason for the baronet's whimof becoming an English Don Quixote of the eighteenth cent
ury, except thechance it gave Smollett for imitating Cervantes. He was evidentlyhampered from the start by the consciousness that at best the success ofsuch imitation would be doubtful. Probably he expresses his ownmisgivings when he makes Ferret exclaim to the hero: "What! . . . youset up for a modern Don Quixote? The scheme is rather too stale andextravagant. What was a . . . well-timed satire in Spain near twohundred years ago, will . . . appear . . . insipid and absurd . . . at this time of day, in a country like England." Whether fromthe author's half-heartedness or from some other cause, there is nodenying that the Quixotism in Sir Launcelot Greaves is flat. It is adrawback to the book rather than an aid. The plot could have developeditself just as well, the high-minded young baronet might have had just asentertaining adventures, without his imitation of the fine old SpanishDon.

  I have remarked on the old Smollett touch in Sir Launcelot Greaves,--theindividual touch of which we are continually sensible in Roderick Randomand Peregrine Pickle, but seldom in Count Fathom. With it is a newSmollett touch, indicative of a kindlier feeling towards the world. Itis commonly said that the only one of the writer's novels which containsa sufficient amount of charity and sweetness is Humphry Clinker. Thestatement is not quite true. Greaves is not so strikingly amiable asSmollett's masterpiece only because it is not so striking in any of itsexcellences; their lines are always a little blurred. Still, it showsthat ten years before Clinker, Smollett had learned to combine thecontradictory elements of life in something like their right proportions.If obscenity and ferocity are found in his fourth novel, they are nolonger found in a disproportionate degree.

  There is little more to say of Sir Launcelot Greaves, except in the wayof literary history. The given name of the hero may or may not besignificant. It is safe to say that if a Sir Launcelot had appeared infiction one or two generations earlier, had the fact been recognised(which is not indubitable) that he bore the name of the most celebratedknight of later Arthurian romance, he would have been nothing but aburlesque figure. But in 1760, literary taste was changing. Romanticismin literature had begun to come to the front again, as Smollett hadalready shown by his romantic leanings in Count Fathom. With it therecame interest in the Middle Ages and in the most popular fiction of theMiddle Ages, the "greatest of all poetic subjects," according toTennyson, the stories of Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table,which, for the better part of a century, had been deposed from theirold-time place of honour. These stories, however, were as yet soimperfectly known--and only to a few--that the most to be said is thatsome connection between their reviving popularity and the name ofSmollett's knight-errant hero is not impossible.

  Apart from this, Sir Launcelot Greaves is interesting historically asending Smollett's comparatively long silence in novel-writing after thepublication of Fathom in 1753. His next work was the translation of DonQuixote, which he completed in 1755, and which may first have suggestedthe idea of an English knight, somewhat after the pattern of the Spanish.Be that as it may, before developing the idea, Smollett busied himselfwith his Complete History of England, and with the comedy, The Reprisal:or the Tars of Old England, a successful play which at last brought abouta reconciliation with his old enemy, Garrick. Two years later, in 1759,as editor of the Critical Review, Smollett was led into a criticism ofAdmiral Knowles's conduct that was judged libellous enough to give itsauthor three months in the King's Bench prison, during which time, it hasbeen conjectured, he began to mature his plans for the English Quixote.The result was that, in 1760 and 1761, Sir Launcelot Greaves came out invarious numbers of the British Magazine. Scott has given his authorityto the statement that Smollett wrote many of the instalments in greathaste, sometimes, during a visit in Berwickshire, dashing off thenecessary amount of manuscript in an hour or so just before the departureof the post. If the story is true, it adds its testimony to that of hisworks to the author's extraordinarily facile pen. Finally, in 1762, thenovel thus hurried off in instalments appeared as a whole. This methodof its introduction to the public gives Sir Launcelot Greaves stillanother claim to interest. It is one of the earliest English novels,indeed the earliest from the pen of a great writer, published in serialform.

  G. H. MAYNADIER.

  THE ADVENTURES OF SIR LAUNCELOT GREAVES