INTRODUCTION.
INTRODUCTION
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