SOURCE: “The Novelist” in Thomas Holcroft: Literature and Politics in England in the Age of the French Revolution, The Edwin Mellen Press, 1995, pp. 71-98.

[In the excerpt below, Rosenblum traces the development of Holcroft as a novelist and argues that he deserves recognition for his experimental work in the novel, particularly in Anna St. Ives, Hugh Trevor, and parts of Bryan Perdue.]

I. THE NOVEL AS THEATER

Holcroft's treatment of the novel was similar to that of the drama not only in theory but also in practice. It is worthwhile to examine some of these general similarities before turning to an investigation of individual works.

Holcroft's novels contain much of the theatrical. Whether Holcroft utilizes the first person narrative—as he does in Manthorn, the Enthusiast, The Adventures of Hugh Trevor, and the Memoirs of Bryan Perdue—or the epistolary mode of Alwyn, or The Gentleman Comedian and Anna St. Ives, he allows at least the main character to present himself directly to the audience. As with drama, the author remains behind the scene; the reader confronts the character immediately and, on the basis of that confrontation, must decide for himself how to react to that character. This immediacy was an effect for which Holcroft strove; as he wrote in Manthorn, “I think the language of the speakers will convey a more forcible idea of their feelings than any description that I can give.”¹

The choice of the form for Holcroft's novels suggests the influence of the stage; so, too, do the contents. In the epistolary novels, the letters are very much like speeches. In part this may be a reflection of the eighteenth century's regard for letters as another form of conversation; but when Anna St. Ives refers to her correspondence as “conversing in despite of distance,”² she is suggesting the carry-over of the theatrical to the novel.

Theatrical technique is even more obvious in the use of dialogue, which abounds in Holcroft's prose fiction. Moreover, these dialogues often contain the equivalent of stage directions. Thus, when Anna in the eighth letter of Anna St. Ives records a conversation with her father, she includes such details as “I perceived him cast an eye toward the door”³ or “I ventured to take his hand.”⁴ These comments are even set off in brackets, just as formal stage directions might be. Similarly, Hugh Trevor records Enoch's speech before the bishop:

He had a profound reverence for the episcopacy, [bowing to the ground] was so bitter an enemy to caveling innovators, [grinning malignity] had so full a sense of his own inferiority [contorting his countenance, like a monkey begging for gingerbread] … that, while he spoke, the broad cheeks of the bishop swelled true high church satisfaction; dilating and playing like a pair of forge bellows.⁵

Such a device gives color to individual scenes and assists in revealing character by depicting significant, though minute, details.

Another aspect of the theatrical is the sense that each letter or episode is a scene. Thus, Anna writes to Louisa, “I have a little incident to relate, which interests us both; the Dramatis Personae being, as usual, Clifton, Frank Henley, and the friend of my Louisa.”⁶ Earlier she had begun a letter, “Frank was but one of the actors, though the true and indeed sole hero of the scene I am going to relate.”⁷ Perhaps the finest example of the letter as scene is Coke Clifton's to Guy Fairfax describing the nearly successful attempt to seduce Anna:

Behold I say the wild disorder of her look! Then turn to me, and read secure triumph, concealed exultation, and bursting transport on my brow! … See me in the very act of fastening on her! And see—! … See that old Incubus Mrs. Clarke enter, with a letter in her hand that had arrived express, and was to be delivered instantly!⁸

The emphasis here on the visual is yet another borrowing from drama, a borrowing which recurs in Holcroft's narratives. Thus, Anna describes an incident that seems to come directly from a pantomime or melodrama:

In the morning at breakfast, Frank took the cakes I usually eat to hand to me; and Clifton, whose watchful spirit is ever alert, caught up a plate of bread and butter, to offer me at the same instant. His looks shewed he expected the preference. I was sorry for it, and paused for a moment. At last the principle of not encouraging Frank prevailed, and I took some bread and butter from Clifton. It was a repetition of slights, which Frank had lately met with, and he felt it; yet he bowed with a tolerable grace, and put down his plate.⁹

Coke Clifton earlier had described a fête champêtre that again seems derived from the pantomime.

The mild splendour of the moon was utterly eclipsed, by the glittering dazzle of some hundreds of lamps; red, green, yellow, and blue; … all mingled, in fantastic wreaths and forms, and suspended among the foliage.¹⁰

A noteworthy similarity exists between this celebration and that in the second act of A Tale of Mystery; both, moreover, are to celebrate approaching marriages.

Many of the situations as well as the descriptions derive from dramatic conventions. Hugh Trevor, something of a country bumpkin, is gulled by three sharpers, a stock event in the farces of the period. Later in that novel, Glibly is ridiculing Mr. Migrate as the latter approaches unseen:

He declaims against dissimulation, yet will willingly accost the man whom—Ha! Migrate! How do you do? Give me leave to introduce you to Mr. Trevor. … Your range of knowledge and universal intimacy, with men and things, may be useful to him.¹¹

Like Sir Frederic Fashion in Seduction, Coke Clifton feigns true love but really seeks only to seduce; like Sir Frederic, too, a letter which he sends ultimately betrays him. The timely arrival of Mrs. Clarke with her urgent letter in the passage cited above is decidedly theatrical also.

So, too, is the use of dialect for comic effect. MacFane's brogue that appears in Anna St. Ives was typical in the farces of the period, in which one might have heard an Irishman say, “I made him repent after his death the day that ever he was born.”¹² Abimelech seems another Squire Turnbull, with his uncouth rustic saws, such as his comment to Frank, “Now that all o' the fat's in the fire, why I must be set to catch the colt if I can.”¹³ His observation that “fair speeches wonnot heal broken pates, and a mouthful of moonshine will send a man hungry to bed. Promise may be a fair dog, but Performance will catch the hare”¹⁴ smacks even more of the country booby. Bryan Perdue imitates his father's brogue in his letters, and T. Stentor in Alwyn receives letters in brogue from an Irish friend. Since one really had to hear the words to appreciate their humor, Holcroft certainly was consciously using a theatrical device here.

Even the attempted balance between sentiment and satire seems to derive from the same impulses that occasioned that balance in drama. Alwyn, for example, is dedicated to Sheridan and contains much satire, as one would expect of a work dedicated to the author of The School for Scandal. Maitland, Sr. first appears as a foolish old man riding a mathematical hobby horse; in his letter to Mr. Stamford discussing the proposed match between their children, he writes, “Let the attractive powers of your daughter be separated by the letter c, and call her portion m … Then Maria's whole attractive power will be equal to c+m.”¹⁵ The novel exposes the folly of false benevolence—here exemplified by Handford's collecting all maimed and aged animals, at the expense of the deserving needy—and ridicules the Irish even more strongly than Sheridan did in The Rivals.

Yet Holcroft couples with these satirical elements much of the sentimental. Whenever Maria plays a love song Alwyn has written, she cannot restrain her tears. Her brother's comment upon this would have done credit to any man of feeling: “I always tell her I love her for it [he writes], for tears of compassion are nature's marks of distinction, and the heart that never melts is less than human.”¹⁶ While Maria pines for Alwyn, Alwyn pines for her, writing melancholy verses and taking long, solitary walks punctuated with sighs and tears.

Anna St. Ives, too, offers something of both L'Allegro and Il Pensoroso. Though the novel emphasizes the development of the mind, and though Coke Clifton's letters are replete with satire, there are again certain scenes aimed at the sensibilities of the late eighteenth-century reader. Early in the work Frank sees a “well-looking, and indeed handsome young woman, with a fine child in her arms” who rushes through a crowd to reach her husband. Upon approaching him, “she wrung her hands, she fell on her knees, she held up her babe; and, finding these were ineffectual [in securing his release], she screamed agonizing prayers to save her Harry.”¹⁷ In Hugh Trevor Holcroft introduces a similar scene. As Hugh is reading a newspaper, “a beggar, with a child at her back, and another that she led [come] into the coffee-room.”¹⁸ Though Anna repeatedly asserts the claims of reason over passion, the scene in which she promises to be dutiful to her father is replete with tears and sentiment (Letter LXVIII). To Frank's attempts to reason with her about marriage Anna does not give rational arguments but instead a highly emotional one. Even the delivery suggests that passion, not logic, moves her: “The world!—My family!—My father! I cannot encounter the maledictions of a father!—What! Behold him in the agonies of cursing his child?”¹⁹

In writing his novels, then, Holcroft drew upon dramatic techniques, characters, and situations. He did not, however, restrict his borrowings to the stage; as in the case of his comedies, the autobiographical element is often noticeable.

Both Manthorn and Alwyn are in fact thinly veiled autobiographical accounts of the novelist-dramatist's early life. Manthorn's experiences with a spouting club and Hilkirk's with the Irish stage and then the troupes of strolling players precisely mirror Holcroft's own. Frank Henley's early reading corresponds to that of his creator; Hugh Trevor's adventures with Bay Meg on a heath are similar to those Holcroft recounts in his Memoirs.

Perhaps even more significant than specific incidents that befall the various characters is the nature of Holcroft's fictional heroes. Each one is poor and must fend for himself in a world that is indifferent to his fate if not openly hostile. Each is a man of principle buffeted about by a cruel and hypocritical society. If in the sonnet Shakespeare unlocked his heart, Holcroft unlocked his in the novel. For while one traces aspects of Holcroft's sentiments in his malcontents, and while Lambert in The Vindictive Man seems to be the writer's alter ego, these inner emotions are most prevalent in the novel.

Holcroft was not merely unlocking his heart, however; he was also indulging in wishful thinking. Hilkirk suffers the same misfortunes as Holcroft in being forced to join Macklin's company in Ireland, in failing with that company, in narrowly escaping drowning while returning to England, and in enduring the hardships of a strolling player. But Hilkirk proves to be the son of a rich merchant; at the end of the novel he is wealthy and happily married to Julia. In Hugh Trevor Wilmot's difficulties with earning a living as a novelist and dramatist match Holcroft's own early disappointments, but the fictional figure at last finds the patron that eluded his creator. Holcroft's heroes have the formal education he himself so craved but was denied; they overcome adversity to attain comfort and respect that never were the lot of the man who stood behind these masks. Neither such characters nor such conclusions are unique to Holcroft; but the autobiographical elements incorporated in these novels and the appearance of four of the five at times when Holcroft was in financial difficulty suggest that through his fiction he was trying to escape unpleasant reality as well as trying to earn money.

Holcroft drew upon his experiences with the theater and life to find materials for his novels. He also drew upon virtually every major eighteenth-century British novelist. As a novelist as well as a dramatist Holcroft was epigonic. Coke Clifton's attempts to seduce Anna St. Ives are reminiscent of Lovelace's adventures with Clarissa as well as Sir Frederic's with Lady Morden (which in turn come indirectly from Richardson). The imprisonment of Frank Henley in a private madhouse and the appearance of Anna there remind one of Sir Launcelot Greaves, in which the hero and heroine are similarly incarcerated. Like Tom Jones, Hugh Trevor and Bryan Perdue must learn prudence, for, again like Jones, they possess good nature but initially are impetuous. Several of the incidents and characters in Hugh Trevor are similar to those in Roderick Random and Humphrey Clinker: Hector Mowbray seems patterned after Orson Topehall, the bishop after Smollett's vicar, and Lydia Wilmot after Miss Williams. Hugh rescues the occupants of a coach that has overturned in a stream, just as Humphrey Clinker does.

Nor is Sterne neglected. Though his influence is most obvious in the Memoirs of Bryan Perdue, Anna St. Ives reads “the divine Sterne” and thinks of his Sentimental Journey as she prepares, like Yorick, to set out for France.²⁰ In her first letter from France she tells Louisa, “Sterne was in my pocket, and his gentle spirit was present to my mind.”²¹ In Bryan Perdue Holcroft turned from the Sentimental Journey to Tristram Shandy; as Rodney Baine notes regarding the playfulness of the narrator there, one “aspect of the sportive pose is the Shadyean cultivation of formlessness—the employment of material apparently or actually digressive.”²² Like Tristram, Bryan invokes good humor and compares the novel to a journey upon which the reader and author embark together. Bryan, again like Tristram, shows a concern for time. In a sentence that might have come from Sterne, he writes, “I have no stop watch, or other machine, to calculate, my good tempered reader, at what rate we are going; but I have a latent suspicion that our progress is slow.”²³

II. MANTHORN, THE ENTHUSIAST AND ALWYN, OR THE GENTLEMAN COMEDIAN

In the Town and Country in 1778, Holcroft objected to those novels that are “ill-imagined, and weakly connected.”²⁴ Yet Manthorn, which appeared serially in that magazine in 1778 and 1779, shows both traits. Holcroft's intention was “to exhibit the various stages of an unconnected life, a roving disposition, and a restless imagination,” and he noted that “the sudden transitions of such a hero give us abundant opportunities of periodical respiration.”²⁵ The demands of periodical fiction contributed in some measure to the sudden transitions that Holcroft himself confessed marked his performance; but as Manthorn moves from Methodist to freethinker to spouter, the tale demonstrates little continuity. Nor are the individual episodes themselves well digested. The first chapter, for example, has as its headnote:

My birth and parentage. The warmth and changeableness of my disposition. Instances of it. Jump off Westminster bridge for a kite. Suffer beating for a topstring. The adventure of the flute and the well. The force of antipathies, and my strange behaviour thereupon at the Playhouse. The commencement of my friendship with Padget. Can't bear teasing. The institution of the feast of the plum-cake.²⁶

All this action unfolds in a mere four pages!

The action-packed narrative devotes little attention to any one episode; nor do the characters develop any real personalities. Manthorn does undergo a conversion to and then from Methodism, but neither is convincing because both occur rapidly and are huddled together with many other incidents. Nor does a theme emerge from the novel. Religious enthusiasm is the butt of some of the satire, as are inexperienced theatergoers; but, again, by failing to linger upon any single situation or show connection between incidents, the work becomes just a series of scenes.

Thus, Holcroft's first attempt at a novel is much like his early—and last—attempts at comedy. In both there are several amusing incidents. For instance, when Manthorn, who has previously spent some time in a well, attends a play and sees hob about to suffer the fate he had once endured, he charges onto the stage to rescue the poor player. The portrait of the Motto family, in which the husband is a zealous Anglican, his wife a zealous non-conformist, and a sister a devout Catholic, is entertaining; for all their zeal and devotion, they show no charity, no true Christianity. However, these amusing scenes have no connection save the presence of Manthorn; that unity of plot which Holcroft so much stressed is absent.

The author himself fairly quickly recognized the unsatisfactory nature of the work, for he abandoned Manthorn and his spouter friends in May, 1779, with the novel incomplete. As will be noted momentarily, Holcroft was not without material to continue. He must therefore have realized that the story was pointless and without direction and so resolved to expend no further energy upon it.

Instead, he took what would have formed the continuation of Manthorn and utilized that material for Alwyn, which appeared in the year following the demise of his first novel. Like Manthorn, Alwyn recounts Holcroft's adventures; however, whereas Manthorn deals essentially with Holcroft's life in the 1760's, Alwyn focuses upon his experiences as a strolling player.

The form of the work is somewhat different from Manthorn, being an epistolary novel rather than a first person narrative. However, many of the letters, especially Hilkirk's early ones, are so long as to be more like the latter than the former. In these letters Hilkirk describes his adventures as a stroller, adventures which Alwyn soon comes to share after he loses the protection of the Stamford family because of his gambling. Hilkirk and Alwyn also share a love for women of a higher class than they; Hilkirk has fallen in love with Julia, the ward of Mr. Seldon, while Alwyn loves Maria Stamford. Both young men despair of ever attaining their loves.

The plot becomes increasingly complex after Alwyn joins a troupe of strollers. Truncheon Stentor, angered by Alwyn's supplanting him as Romeo, a part he himself has played for fifty years, seeks revenge.²⁷ When the widowed Mrs. Vincent falls in love with Alwyn and is rebuffed, the displaced actor obtains an ally. Mrs. Vincent's lover, too, resents the youth. Meanwhile, Mr. Stamford wishes to marry his daughter to Tom Maitland, the son of a childhood friend who later rescued Stamford from bankruptcy. Finally, Alwyn overcomes all these difficulties, discovers a rich uncle, and marries Maria, while Hilkirk proves to be Mr. Seldon's son and so can marry Julia.

Because so much of the action revolves around Alwyn, the plot is much more unified than that of Manthorn, in which the hero was often observer rather than actor. Moreover, Alwyn in his letters reveals more of his thoughts and emotions than did Manthorn, so that he becomes an interesting figure. Nevertheless, there still is much extraneous material. Hilkirk, who dominates the early portion of the novel, plays almost no role later; Julia, who is supposedly Maria's co-equal in the double plot, never appears in the novel herself as the author of a single letter. Stentor spends as much time trying to secure a new position as he does revenging himself upon his usurper. Squire Westwood, who befriends Alwyn, seems mainly a device to introduce the young actor to Mrs. Vincent. Tom Maitland's pranks merely reveal the dangers of youthful folly and provide a few light moments.

Thus, the novel has too many characters and too many unnecessary episodes. The plot also is marred by what Holcroft admitted is “a fortunate concurrence of circumstances.” Alwyn happens to pass by Maitland Hall just as it takes fire and so has the opportunity to save the life of Maria. Later, he is near a lake in which Handford is drowning and so preserves the man who proves to be his rich uncle. Hilkirk's father has been able to keep secret his son's identity and has chosen to do so to teach the boy fortitude.

The unnecessary complications in the plot, improbable occurrences, and overly sentimental treatment of the love affairs suggest that Holcroft had much to learn about novelistic technique; whereas Duplicity shows much promise, Alwyn does not. Only towards the end of the novel does Holcroft reveal some ability at handling the epistolary mode, at utilizing its full capabilities rather than assigning letter numbers instead of chapter headings to long, rambling narrations. He attempts, for example, to present Maria's prospective marriage from the viewpoints of Tom Maitland, Alwyn, and the three Stamfords. While this procedure helps reveal character, it also results in repetition; Maria and her brother write similar accounts, and Tom's letter adds nothing new.

The most effective use of the epistolary mode is the description of the fire at Maitland Hall. Tom's letter presents the basic facts of the incident and his reaction to it. Stamford, Sr. provides commentary upon the event, without repeating his son's information, and unfolds his emotions, while Alwyn's is the only one to speak of the hero's role in this incident. Each character has had a somewhat different experience and reaction to the event, each knows something the others do not, and only by piecing together the various accounts does the reader appreciate the full significance of the fire or obtain all the facts about it.

The real interest of the novel must remain, though, its autobiographical episodes and its description of the life of the strolling player in the late eighteenth century. There is little psychological depth, little real plot development. Even the didacticism of the novel is muted. Mr. Seldon wishes to teach fortitude to Hilkirk—a virtue, as the next chapter suggests, Holcroft much admired—but his method is ridiculed at the conclusion of the novel. Alwyn protests that there is “no title to superiority but what is derived from goodness,”²⁸ but everyone in the novel respects economic and social class lines. Hilkirk maintains that “Hibernia has produced many first-rate geniuses,”²⁹ but the only Irishmen to appear in the novel are avaricious, bigoted, or ridiculous.

III. ANNA ST. IVES

Twelve years intervened between Alwyn and Holcroft's next novel. Then, in the same year that he produced his greatest play, he published his best novel. Like The Road to Ruin, Anna St. Ives stands out not only as the finest of Holcroft's writings in its genre but also as one of the major works of the late eighteenth century. Beneath a simple plot lurk complexities of character and theme; and though the plot is hardly original, its treatment is.

On the surface the novel presents a traditional love triangle; both Coke Clifton and Frank Henley love Anna St. Ives. Because Frank is the son of the steward of Sir Arthur St. Ives, neither Anna nor her father initially regards him as a fit suitor for her. Coke, on the other hand, is well born; he is also the brother of Anna's closest friend and chief correspondent, Louisa. Coke, however, is, like Lovelace and Sir Frederic Fashion, a man of gallantry. Like Lovelace, too, he becomes chagrined when Anna does not seem sufficiently fond of him. He renounces any intentions he may have had of marrying, seeking instead to betray Anna by fraud or ravish her by force. He also seeks to punish Frank for the presumption of supplanting him in Anna's heart. Ultimately, though, Coke proves too good to bring his plans to fruition. He secures the release of Frank from the private asylum in which he had confined his rival and is reconciled to Anna's marriage with the commoner.

Shades of Richardson and Smollett obviously haunt the novel; but, unlike so many imitations of these writers' works, this one is effective. Holcroft is able, for instance, to have his characters write to the moment without straining the reader's credulity. Thus, Anna writes to Louisa, “Your brother has this moment left me. Our conversation has been animated; and, as usual, I sit down to commit what has passed to paper, while it is fresh on my memory.”³⁰ Not only does this instant recording give immediacy to what the character is writing, but also it lends credibility to the lengthy dialogues that are purportedly transcribed from memory.

When Anna flees the house in which Coke has imprisoned her, she seeks refuge at a nearby residence. She at once sits down to record her adventure; her account, which concludes in a surprising manner, has greater impact because of its immedicacy. Further, since neither she nor the reader knows what is to follow, suspense is the greater:

Good heaven! What does this mean?—I have just risen to see if the little boy were within call, and find the door is locked upon me! I have been listening—I hear stern and loud voices!

Where am I?—Oh, Louisa, I am seized with terror!…

All is lost! Flight is hopeless!—The very man who headed the ruffians that seized me has just walked into the room.³¹

Coke, writing to Guy Fairfax, employs the same device.

I am here—At the scene of action—she is in the room above me, and I am ridding myself of reluctance. … It draws near midnight—I am now in her apartment, the room next to her bed-chamber. … I am fully prepared; am undressed, and ready for the combat. … Surely this hussy sleeps? No!—I hear her stir!—She is at the door! And now—!³²

In addition to being able to write in the present and thereby increase the impact of the action, Holcroft in Anna St. Ives exploits the capacity of the epistolary novel to present fragmented views of a situation. The audience knows more than any of the characters; this knowledge again increases the reader's concern for those who are acting in partial blindness. In Letter XXI Frank tells of interrupting a duel between an Englishman and a Frenchman. In the following letter Anna informs Louisa that according to the maid Frank and Coke “were quite surprised at the sight of each other” but rejects this reaction as “one of the flourishes” of the maid's imagination.³³ Coke's letter immediately following reveals that the maid was correct; for the first time the reader discovers that the Englishman involved in the duel was Coke Clifton. In Letters CVI and CVII Coke discusses his plans for revenge against Anna and Frank. The two letters following this therefore provide a frightening contrast. Anna writes of Clifton, “He seeks me no more, offers not to molest me, and I hope has forgotten me. … I expected storms, but a sweet calm has succeeded that seems to portend tranquility and happiness.”³⁴ Frank writes in a similar vein to Oliver Trenchard, but the reader knows on what infirm foundation these characters have built their hopes.

While in the epistolary novel there is the opportunity for presenting material from different points of view, there is also the danger of repeating mundane matters. In Alwyn Holcroft had fallen prey to this danger, but in Anna St. Ives he does not. In Letter XX Anna describes the family's trip from London to Paris. Frank does not dwell upon the details of the journey but rather begins Letter XXI with a mere mention of their arrival and then proceeds to other matters. In Letter XI Frank merely mentions that he has accepted twenty pounds from Anna; Anna's letter follows with a detailed account of Frank's initial refusal and final acceptance.

This non-repetition of detail serves not only to speed the narrative but also to reveal character. In Letter LVI Anna praises Frank's efforts during a storm at sea and reveals how these efforts saved the lives of her father, Coke, and the mariners as well as her own. Frank's letter immediately following observes calmly, “We have been in some danger, owing to the drunkenness of the Deal boatmen; but saved ourselves by a little exertion.”³⁵ Nothing could better reveal Frank's natural modesty than this juxtaposition of accounts.

Finally, the epistolary technique here enables Holcroft to provide comic relief at crucial moments or to heighten suspense by interposing letters from various correspondents. After three emotionally charged letters by Coke, Anna, and Frank (LXXI-LXXIII) comes a brief exchange between Sir Arthur and Abimelech Henley concerning the possibility of raising money for Anna's dowry. While the matter follows from what has preceded this exchange, the manner does not. Sir Arthur's blusterings intermixed with supplications, and Abimelech's malapropisms, rural saws, and arrogance thinly veiled behind such phrases as “Always a savin and exceptin your onnurable onnur”³⁶ raise a laugh and so dispel, howbeit momentarily, the tension that has arisen.

On the other hand, at the end of the novel, interposed letters heighten the tension of the scene. Frank's “Fragment” ends as his Jailors are about to burst into his room to murder him. Then follows Anna's short letter about her supposed escape; she concludes, “Merciful Heaven! I hear the voice of Frank!—What is doing?—Must I remain here?—Oh misery!—What cries!”³⁷

Mere technical skill would not have created a great novel, however; no matter how well handled, a mere love triangle could not retain a reader's interest for seven volumes. Even the various incidents in the novel—Frank's rescue of Coke from a mountain lake or the near shipwreck of the St. Ives family on their return from France—do not account for its strength. Rather, as with Holcroft's dramas, the real interest lies in the characterization.

In a letter to Guy Fairfax, Coke writes,

I do not think there is, upon the face of the whole earth, so nauseous a thing as an over dose of wisdom; & mixed up, according to the modern practice, with a quantum sufficit of virtue, and a large double handful of the good of the whole.³⁸

Frank tends to fit this description. As Coke says of him,

The quintessence of all the knowledge, wit, wisdom, and genius that ever saw the sun, from the infantine days of ABC and king Cadmus, to these miraculous times of intuition and metaphysical legerdemain, is bottled up in his brain, from which it foams and whizzes in our ears, every time discretion can be induced to draw the cork of silence.³⁹

He is indeed, a paragon of virtue; and though his private thoughts are sometimes subject to passion, his actions never are. Such a deviation from reality was intentional. As Coke's comments indicate, Holcroft realized he was creating a character whose very perfections rendered him subject to objection, but the novelist was willing to sacrifice realism for didacticism.

Both Anna and Coke, on the other hand, are believable, and in their depiction Holcroft once again reveals his insight into human nature. On the surface Anna and Frank seem similar; like Frank, she seems dedicated to reason and carefully weighs the merits and disadvantages of marriage to Coke. But Holcroft carefully and subtly demonstrates that she is more the woman than the philosopher.

One may see this demonstration in her relationship with Frank. Anna's first letter praises him, even while noting the insurmountable obstacles to any possibility of love or marriage between them. Yet obviously at the very beginning of the novel the thought is there. Later she tells Louisa, “I admire Frank Henley greatly, ardently admire him, yet I certainly do not love,”⁴⁰ though she sighs to think that his good qualities are “to be rejected.”⁴¹

Either she does not know her own mind, or she is a designing coquette. As she passes Frank's apartment after an interview with her father, she feels suddenly faint and calls for help to conduct her to her room. After Frank yields to her request to accept twenty pounds from her, she adds, “I could love you for it if you would let me.”⁴² While she later denies that these words have any serious import, Frank not surprisingly writes to Oliver, “There is such sweetness in her countenance, when she speaks to me, such a smile, so inviting, so affirmative, that I am incessantly flattering myself it cannot but have a meaning.”⁴³ When Frank composes a love poem and leaves it on the pianoforte, Anna sets the words to music and sings them with great emotion. Holcroft notes significantly that “she knew the writing.”⁴⁴ Following these various episodes, Anna must admit that she has been acting strangely. She asks Louisa, “Have I not thoughtlessly betrayed him into a belief that I mean to favour a passion which I should think it criminal to encourage?”⁴⁵ Yet in that same letter she suggests that at least unconsciously she has been doing precisely what she wants to do:

I avow, therefore, Frank Henley is, in my estimation, the most deserving man I have ever known. A man that I could love infinitely. A man whose virtues I do and must ever love. A man in whose company my heart assures me I could have enjoyed years of happiness.⁴⁶

Though she is still using the past subjunctive, she is equally conditional with Coke Clifton, whom she claims to want to marry. Thus, she hesitates when Coke proposes to her. And though she wishes to persuade Frank of the difference between “the pure love of mind” and “the meaner love of passion,” she impulsively kisses him while doing so.⁴⁷ Long before she will admit to herself where her true affection lies, Coke—who, for all his faults, is quite perceptive—recognizes that despite her protestations, he is not the object of her love. As he writes, “Her partialities all lead another way: ay and her passions, too.”⁴⁸

Even after promising to marry Coke—a promise she gives with a shudder—she cannot bear the thought of Frank's departure from the household. As Coke stands by amazed, Anna on her knees pleads with Frank to abandon his project of going to America.

What is clear to Coke and what Frank suspects must finally become apparent to Anna. She must at last concede that Frank Henley is the man she loves. Anna's vacillation throughout most of the novel, her objections to Frank and her seeming rejection of him, give her a psychological complexity—and hence interest—that rivals that of any eighteenth-century heroine.

Just as Anna surpasses most of her fictional peers, so Coke rises above the typical eighteenth-century villain. He shares with the Restoration rake a love of pleasure and a distaste for philosophical speculation. As he writes to Fairfax,

What cannot instantly be comprehended I can scarcely persuade myself to think worthy of the trouble of enquiry. I love to enjoy; and, if enjoyment do not come to me, I must fly to seek it, and hasten from object to object till it be overtaken. … The five senses are my deities.⁴⁹

He has been a gallant in Italy, where he has had several affairs, and he has a fashionable disdain for marriage. But when he meets Anna he abandons his rakish principles and for a time sincerely wishes to marry her and reform. Thus he parts company with the standard rake of the period and becomes more sympathetic than Lovelace, whom he otherwise so much resembles. There is truth as well as pathos in his comment to Fairfax,

I loved her … better than ever I loved woman; and would have loved her more, have loved her entirely, infinitely, heart and soul, if she had not wronged me. From the first I was overlooked by her, catechised, reprimanded, treated like a poor ignoramus, while her Henley—!⁵⁰

Anna's treatment of Coke has indeed been unfair. He is correct in observing that “she dangles me at the end of her line, up the stream and down the stream, fair weather and foul, at her good pleasure!”⁵¹ Only when he at last realizes that Anna really loves Frank, that, as he says, “Were I this moment in her arms, her arms would be clasping [Frank], not me,”⁵² does he abandon his honest intention of marrying.

His pride stung, he resolves upon revenge. But he no longer revels in sensuality. Instead he becomes a misanthrope; and it is as such, not as a rake, that he seeks to rape Anna. By the end of the novel he has changed yet again. He saves the life of Frank Henley, releases Anna, and becomes reconciled to her marriage with the man she loves.

Thus, Anna St. Ives is a psychological novel, focusing on the minds more than on the actions of the characters. Incidents are significant because they illustrate a psychological state, and virtually every incident does so. It is fitting that the novel should concern itself with the minds of its characters, for Holcroft's intention in writing the work was to show the capacity of the mind to improve, for hidden virtues to emerge. Anna is no more aware of her love for Frank at the beginning of the novel than Coke is of his benevolent impulses. These impulses finally triumph, however; experiences shape character. As the next chapter discusses in some detail, Holcroft believed that man is fundamentally good and that goodness will eventually conquer evil. Coke's reformation illustrates the truth of these beliefs, and Anna's experiences provide another example of the growth of the mind.

Both Sir Arthur St. Ives and Abimelech Henley also undergo alterations in the course of the novel. Neither of these characters is essential to the plot, but Sir Arthur's abandoning his prejudices against Frank's birth and Abimelech's final conversion from a greedy and corrupt steward to an honest man re-emphasize man's capacity for leaving his long-held but erroneous views for newer, better ones.

IV. THE ADVENTURES OF HUGH TREVOR

This theme of man's capacity for improvement forms the basis of Holcroft's next novel, The Adventures of Hugh Trevor. The first part of the work appeared in 1794, the second part three years later. Again the plot is simple. Hugh must find a profession for himself; as he attempts to enter the church, the law, and politics, he makes discoveries about the nature of each. Equally important, he discovers the nature of reality and so matures because of his experiences.

Hugh is compelled to seek his fortune because his stepfather, Wakefield, and Wakefield's uncle combine to defraud him of almost all the money left him by his grandfather. Disguised as Belmont, Wakefield continues to haunt Hugh, winning money from him and then seizing an estate willed to him. Unlike Osborne, Wakefield does not restore the estate or the money; he does, however, promise to marry Lydia Wilmot, the sister of Hugh's friend and the girl he earlier had seduced and abandoned, and to lead a sober and righteous life if Hugh will not contest the seizure. Hugh agrees. Shortly afterwards Hugh learns that a man whose life he has saved is his rich uncle; at the conclusion of the work Hugh is able to marry Olivia Mowbray, whom he has loved since childhood, and to live comfortably without any profession at all.

As in Anna St. Ives, the individual incidents are significant chiefly because they illustrate the development of a character's mind. Hugh says of himself, “It was my habitual error to interpret everything in my own favour.”⁵³ As he looks back upon his youth he comments, “It must be acknowledged I was but little aware how much I had to learn, and unlearn, or of the opposition I should meet from my own prejudices, as well as from those of the world.”⁵⁴ It is this process of education that is of greatest interest to both the novelist and the reader.

When Hugh sets out for Oxford, he believes that he is embarking upon a quest for knowledge. He thinks of the university in the highest terms, regarding it as “the seat of the muses, … the nurse of wisdom, … the mother of virtue.”⁵⁵ That he is to begin his education at Oxford is true, but not in the sense that Hugh imagines. “It is impossible,” he muses, that Hector Mowbray “should have remained so long in this noble seminary and continue the same selfish, sensual, and half-brutal” individual he had been earlier.⁵⁶ Hugh's first view of Oxford and Hector shakes these great expectations:

Hector gave three loud cracks with his whip, whistled his dogs, and with a Stentor voice called after one of his servants—“Why holloa! You blind blood of a w—! Why Sam! G—shiver your soul; what are you about? … D—my body, Trevor, I'm glad to see you!⁵⁷

By the end of his first day at the university, Hugh's illusions have fled, but his education has hardly begun.

After being rusticated for a term, he goes to London, where he meets a stranger who offers to conduct him to see the king's palace. Hugh suspects the man may be a sharper, but thinks, “There is no trick he is master of shall prevail on me to part with the little money I have in my pocket.”⁵⁸ Immediately thereafter the fellow picks that pocket.

Undaunted, Hugh becomes involved with the Earl of Idford and a bishop, writing political tracts for the first and theological pieces for the other. He thinks it an easy task to banish corruption and heresy, “to reform the state and establish the hierarchy.”⁵⁹ The major problem facing him he believes to be the choice between becoming prime minister and archbishop. When the earl joins the ministry he has been condemning and the bishop asks to plagiarize Hugh's defense of the Thirty-Nine Articles, Hugh again suffers disillusionment.

But his fund of illusions is not exhausted even then. Reading Blackstone he exclaims, “Can any thing be more provident, more wise, more desirable” than the law?⁶⁰ So enthusiastic is he that he ignores the comments of a law student regarding a recent case:

It was an aggravating thing for a man to have his daughter seduced, be beaten himself because he was angry at the injury, and, when he sues for redress, not only to be unable to obtain it, but find his fortune destroyed, as well as his daughter's character, and his own peace.⁶¹

Reality again intrudes, and Hugh at last realizes that the law, too, is not a fitting profession.

Hugh's experiences serve to satirize the various estates—church, parliament, law, and university—but, more importantly, they satirize Hugh. In the Town and Country Magazine for 1777 Holcroft had written, “Men owe the greatest part of their chagrin and disappointment to the extravagance of their hopes.”⁶² Turl echoes this observation when he tells Hugh, who has complained of the perfidy of the bishop and earl,

Your great mistake is in supposing yourself blameless. You have chiefly erred in entertaining too high an opinion of your own powers, and in cherishing something like a selfish blindness to the principles of the persons, with whom you have been concerned.⁶³

It is this lesson, chiefly, that Hugh must learn. He must learn to abandon his self-confidence and his prejudices, peer behind façades and penetrate to the reality, however unpleasant, lying behind. Only in that way can he achieve true happiness.

Ostensibly, Wakefield and Hugh are very different. Whereas Hugh is a perpetual optimist, Wakefield believes that “the world is all a cheat; its pleasures are for him who is most expert in legerdemain and cajolery.”⁶⁴ Instead of believing that the world is ready to reward merit without the slightest provocation, Wakefield maintains, “If you do not prey upon the world, the world will prey upon you. There is not alternative.”⁶⁵

In fact, Wakefield, like Hugh, has a distorted view of reality. Though the reader sees much less of Wakefield than of Hugh, he does see the two together on several occasions. And though Wakefield mocks Hugh's beliefs, he tells his step-son towards the end of the novel that he has not escaped unscathed from their conversations. As he says, “I have ridiculed your arguments: but I have not forgotten them.”⁶⁶ The reconciliation between the two is thematically justified, because both, beginning at opposite extremes of error, have finally embraced truth.

Thus, the concerns of this novel are those of Anna St. Ives; the treatment of the subject, however, is less satisfying. One major difference is the large number of events that Holcroft treats in every chapter. Whereas in his previous novel he had used a letter to depict one event, here each chapter is, as in Manthorn, replete with adventure. In eight pages he discusses

Gloomy thoughts: Filial emotions: A journey to the country: A lawyer's accounts not easily closed: Conscientious scruples: The legacy received and divided: Return to Oxford: More disappointment: Treachery suspected: Arrival at London: Difficulty in choosing a profession.⁶⁷

The thirteenth chapter of the second volume devotes nine pages to

Gloomy meditations, or pills for the passions: More of Enoch's morality: Turl improves, yet is still unaccountable and almost profane: Consecrated things: Themistocles and vengeance: A love scene: More marriage plots: And a tragicomic denouement: The fate of Themistocles: The manuscript in danger.⁶⁸

The novel has a unity of theme lacking in both Manthorn and Alwyn, but less matter would have allowed for fuller development of individual episodes.

A more serious fault is the multiplicity of coincidences. No eighteenth-century novel or play is without its fortuitous circumstances, but in Hugh Trevor they are overdone. As Hugh flees his overbearing master, he sees a coach overturn in a river. Hugh hastens to rescue the occupant, who proves to be his grandfather. Later he rescues Olivia not once but twice, and, towards the end of the novel, saves the life of an old man who proves to be his uncle.

His introduction to the Earl of Idford is also the result of a happy series of coincidents. At Abington Hugh had noticed a diamond-studded watch belonging to the earl. When Hugh attends a play in London, someone tries to steal his watch. Hugh grabs the fellow, who returns not Hugh's timepiece but the diamond-studded one Hugh had seen earlier. In returning the watch, Hugh renews his acquaintance with his fellow Oxonian.

To cite but one other example, Hugh takes a room in the same house that Lydia Wilmot is using. Lydia's servant, Mary, is another of those whose life Hugh has saved; through her he becomes reacquainted with his old tutor and the future wife of Wakefield. Lydia is being supported by Olivia, so Hugh's ties with her also are re-established. While these coincidences do advance the novel one feels tempted to exclaim with Clarke, “How oddly things do fall out!”⁶⁹

Nevertheless, Holcroft again shows ability as a novelist here. Hugh's naiveté may be excessive and Wakefield's conversion sudden, but both characters are essentially credible. They, like Holcroft's best dramatic figures, derive from convention but are sufficiently individualized to transcend stereotype. The structure of the novel, too, is sound, the first three volumes showing Hugh failing at Oxford (I), with the earl and bishop (II), and at love (III). By the beginning of the fourth volumes then, Hugh may say, “I had wasted my patrimony, quarreled with my protector, renounced the university, had no profession, no immediate resource, and had myself and my mother to provide for: by what means I knew not.”⁷⁰ The next three volumes show an improvement of fortune. By the end of the fourth volume Hugh has found a protector in Evelyn; at the conclusion of the fifth he inherits an estate by the death of his mother and her lawyer; and at the conclusion of the novel he is wealthy and happily married.

Anna St. Ives and, to a lesser extent, Hugh Trevor, reveal Holcroft's abilities as a novelist. His next and final attempt at prose fiction would suggest his limitations.

V. MEMOIRS OF BRYAN PERDUE

In 1805 the Memoirs of Bryan Perdue appeared in three volumes. Heretofore Holcroft had allowed his novelistic characters to recount their own adventures and thereby demonstrate, either wittingly (as with Hugh) or not (as with Anna St. Ives) the growth of the mind from error and prejudice to self-awareness and understanding. Bryan Perdue presents a more complex persona, for the narrator is to remain masked and unreliable. At the beginning of the novel he states, “I have a cot, and am a kind of Hermit,”⁷¹ and he repeatedly reminds the reader that he lives “in a cottage”⁷² remote from the world; consequently, he warns, he may be unable to make just observations.

Nor is his remote residence the only bar to his reliability. The reader quickly learns that “Bryan Perdue” is not the real name of the narrator. This use of a pseudonym places another barrier between the reader and the author, rendering it more difficult to comprehend him. Though he insists that “my frankness is my chief virtue”⁷³ and that “in memoirs of this kind there ought to be no concealment, no prevarication, nor the least false colouring, the resemblance should be perfect,”⁷⁴ the reader has good cause to wonder whether these memoirs in fact are devoid of concealment. Not only has he learned that the narrator is concealing his true identity, but also he receives Bryan's caution “against tergiversation on my part.”⁷⁵

This is not an idle warning. Immediately after begging forgiveness “for the simplicity with which I state dubious points, on which I have heard much but know little,”⁷⁶ he contradicts himself by asserting, “My knowledge of men and things is great.”⁷⁷ He criticizes narrators who digress:

I may have made the remark already [indicating, incidentally, that his memory is faulty and hence again unreliable], but, whether I have or have not, I beg leave to make it now, that the writer, who wanders from his subject, makes delays, and fatigues with a superabundance of words … has much vanity, little sagacity, and less good taste.⁷⁸

What, then, must one conclude about Bryan himself, whose account is replete with such wanderings? Indeed, just prior to condemning the writer who strays from his subject he had excused an irrelevant discussion on fashion by saying, “Reader, blame me or not, you must have patience. When game so glorious starts in view, the hunter has no blood in him that will not run away with his rider.”⁷⁹ The memoir is studded with such digressions and apologies.

Finally, Bryan suggests that even if he wished to give an accurate account of his past life, he could not because he is no longer the man he once was:

I am at this moment thinking of one of my own discoveries: namely, that, in any one man, had any one circumstance been different from that which it precisely was … the man would himself also have been more different from himself than, on a slight examination the most acute reasoner would be prone to believe.⁸⁰

Since each experience therefore changes a man, the narrator is not the same person as he whose tale he is narrating. Morever, since the very act of narration is an experience, Bryan never remains the same. Then, too, he assumes several guises. “When I speak with the lips of Patrick, Alexander, or Henry,” he informs the reader, “I am then not myself, past, present, or to come, but am either Patrick, Alexander, or Henry.”⁸¹ To penetrate to the real character of the narrator, then, is impossible, for the present narrator is not telling his own story but rather is twice removed—by name and experience—from the person he is trying to describe; and at times he is even farther removed than that.

Holcroft, who was always concerned with the nature of truth, thus seeks to explore the very nature of reality here. In Hugh Trevor he had shown that one's illusions and prejudices could mask that reality; in Bryan Perdue he takes a more pessimistic stance, questioning whether reality can be known.

Bryan certainly is unable to attain a knowledge of reality. One indication of this inability is his attitude towards gambling. His father is a gambler and is killed as a result of his activities. His own gambling results in his dismissal from school and the loss of respect of his protector and friends. Frederic Vaughn loses two hundred fifty pounds entrusted to him by his employer and so is almost forced to flee England; Bryan, who has won the money, cannot but be aware of the anguish gambling thus causes both Frederic and his mother. Yet Bryan still can state that gambling is

highly to be venerated, as having been the [discovery] of our great fore-fathers. … Who will dare to dispute the goodness of what our great and infallible forefathers did, the rules they followed, and the institutions that they made! Not I, truly! I were in danger else of being branded as a new philosopher!⁸²

At school Bryan observes that Maximillian Lord Froth may do whatever he pleases because he is the son of an earl, and Bryan claims that he has heard this permissiveness to nobility is not limited to his own academy. But if that report were true, it would “imply but the destruction of discipline; hypocrisy in the pretended high priests of virtue; and, in the gradual decay of ancient and honorable nobility, the final destruction of these realms.” Bryan therefore concludes that his seminary must be an exception “and that all our other public seminaries are conducted in so impartial and dignified a manner, and with so generous an assiduity, wisdom, and virtue, as everybody knows is absolutely necessary to the prosperity of the state.”⁸³ Of course, the reader realizes the dangers of gambling and the sad condition of English public schools. But he cannot be certain whether the obvious really eludes the narrator or whether he is seeking to gull the reader.

Bryan allows for the latter possibility: he boasts not only of the masks he wears and hence the impenetrability of his disguise but also of the great power which he wields: “Prate and preach about tyrants, indeed! Who is so great a tyrant as an author? Who holds the reins of life and death with such absolute authority” as does a writer?⁸⁴ Writing of the illness of Betty Clarke, Bryan states that he may kill or cure his heroine as he pleases. When he is dismissed from school following the death of his father, he notes that he has no relatives because he has as author chosen to have none. “Were they forthcoming, just now, they would but trouble my narration; they might relieve me, and I want to be in distress. … Should any of them happen hereafter to make their appearance, why so be it; it may then be convenient.”⁸⁵ This comment ridicules the sudden appearance of long-lost relatives which characterizes so much eighteenth-century literature, including Holcroft's own. But it also suggests again that the reader cannot penetrate to the truth of the situation; he must depend upon the information which an unreliable and whimsical narrator supplies.

But the author's tyranny is subject to a power greater still. As Bryan begins to discuss George Saville's gaming habits, he digresses to treat those who allow gambling on Sunday while keeping the opera-houses closed. Of this straying from the topic he can say only, “Ah, me! How are we led unsuspectingly along in this world!”⁸⁶ He observes that “Legion is a cunning rascal,” but, because Bryan is “led away … to chase every wild goose that starts in view,” he cannot recall his purpose in making that observation and so must proceed to another topic.⁸⁷

The action-packed chapters of Hugh Trevor reappear in Bryan Perdue, but here they serve to illustrate the power of association which rules even the monarch-author. Thus, the fourth chapter of the second volume treats

the eagerness of youthful Sportsmen: the Danger of bad Acquaintances: the Manner of Gamblers: the virtuous Valour of George Saville: Gaming-Houses for every Class: Reforming Societies: Opera Dancers, Fiddle Cases, and Receptacles for fashionable and vulgar Vice: Question and Answer: the Danger of opposing a Torrent: more brazen Heads than one.⁸⁸

Unlike the action-filled chapters of Holcroft's earlier novels, these do not present a chronological account of the hero's many adventures. Instead, they leap from topic to topic; even individual segments within chapters lack any real coherence, as the section on “Opera Dancers, Fiddle Cases, and Receptacles for fashionable and vulgar Vice” suggests.

Like Gulliver's Travels and Tristram Shandy, both of which served as models for this work, the Memoirs of Bryan Perdue is a decidedly modern novel. Both narrator and reader are lost in a funhouse; the audience is being manipulated by the writer, but the writer, too, lacks complete control over his medium. Nor is there a distinct line of demarcation between reader and author, for the two merge in dialogues that Holcroft intersperses throughout the narrative.

Had Holcroft been able to maintain this artistic ambiguity throughout his work, Bryan Perdue would rank among the finest of novels. His didactic purpose, however, would not allow for such ambiguities. Perhaps, too, he ultimately lacked the artistic ability to maintain the high level of creativity that marks the first half of the work. He realized that in the latter portion of the novel the character of the narrator changes drastically, stating laconically in the preface that he “gradually suffered all sportiveness to die away.⁸⁹ Digressions disappear, and the narrator loses his naiveté. Thinking that the issue of capital punishment was too important for trifling, Holcroft turned the latter half of the novel into an attack on executions. Over a hundred people had been executed for forgery in 1800 alone. The novel illustrates the terrible waste this penalty caused, as Bryan, who escapes death for this charge, becomes a trustworthy, competent manager of a West Indian plantation.

In abandoning the techniques that distinguish the first part of the novel in favor of a standard first person narrative, Holcroft abandoned both originality and humor for a purpose that would have been better served by a tract. Moreover, he undermines the character of Bryan, who must now be accepted as reliable, as a spokesman for the author rather than as one who is several removes from him. In the latter half of the novel, irony yields to sententiousness. Thus, Bryan returns to the theme of gambling but treats that theme very differently than he had earlier:

If men would but be made sensible of the mad risk they run, when they encourage a spirit of gaming, if they were not blind to the narrow selfishness, the odious passions to which it gives birth, the desire of gaining that which may be, and often is, the destruction of families, the hazard of being exposed to equal destruction themselves … there would soon be no gambling.⁹⁰

The apparent message of the first part of the novel also becomes inverted. Baine suggests that the Memoirs of Bryan Perdue reflects Holcroft's disillusionment with the failure of the reform movement in England, the revolution in France, and his own fall from favor. While Bryan's inability to learn from experience or overcome his prejudices would indeed suggest that the notion of truth triumphant was but a chimera, the latter half of the novel is as openly didactic as Duplicity. The narrator remarks without irony that

the pleasing purpose with which I began these memoirs was to preserve youth, if possible, from falling ignorantly into the many dangers through which I have passed; and to induce the aged seriously to reflect on the means by which some of the great misfortunes of society may be lessened.⁹¹

The attacks on the penal code and slavery further suggest that neither personal affliction nor national indifference to reform dissuaded Holcroft from preaching doctrines in which he believed throughout his life.

VI. SUMMARY

Holcroft matured as a novelist just as he matured as a dramatist. Throughout his writings in each genre one may note the progress of his technical ability. In both, too, one sees in his last works a falling off from the heights of his achievements in the early 1790's. And in both one may detect at times the didactic purposes of the author overcoming the artistic. There is, however, more depth to Anna St. Ives, Hugh Trevor, and the first half of Bryan Perdue than in any of the comedies. The novel allowed Holcroft greater opportunity for the development of character and permitted the indulgence of episodes without detracting so readily from the unity of design. Since the novel was a new genre, Holcroft may have felt more free to experiment; though he borrowed freely from his predecessors, he shows more originality in his fiction than in his dramas. Then, too, the novel was not constrained by popular dictates. A novel that pleased a thousand people would be a great success, whereas a play that pleased the same number would close on opening night.

Holcroft was a pioneer in both the novel of ideas and the psychological novel; and, at his best, he was able to combine the two to create works both interesting and instructive. In Bryan Perdue the two novelistic forms unfortunately clash, but even there the first half of the novel is advanced for its age. Holcroft therefore merits recognition as a contributor to both the prose fiction of his period and the stream of the English novelistic tradition.

Notes

1. Town and Country Magazine, 11 (1779):14.

2. Anna St. Ives, p. 15.

3. Ibid., p. 23.

4. Ibid., p. 24.

5. The Adventures of Hugh Trevor, p. 130.

6. Anna St. Ives, p. 206.

7. Ibid., p. 148.

8. Ibid., p. 326.

9. Ibid., p. 127.

10. Ibid., p. 116.

11. The Adventures of Hugh Trevor, p. 185.

12. Anna St. Ives, p. 229.

13. Ibid., p. 217.

14. Ibid., p. 250.

15. Alwyn, I, 79-80.

16. Ibid., pp. 72-73.

17. Anna St. Ives, p. 34.

18. The Adventures of Hugh Trevor, p. 13.

19. Anna St. Ives, p. 131.

20. Ibid., p. 1.

21. Ibid., p. 66.

22. Thomas Holcroft and the Revolutionary Novel, p. 106.

23. Memoirs of Bryan Perdue, I, 61.

24. 10 (1778): 129.

25. Town and Country Magazine, 10 (1778): 129.

26. Ibid.

27. Again one sees Holcroft using the novel to achieve in fiction what he never could achieve in reality. As a stroller he never was a successful actor.

28. Alwyn, I, 181.

29. Ibid., pp. 87-88.

30. Anna St. Ives, p. 169.

31. Ibid., pp. 466-467.

32. Ibid., pp. 412-416.

33. Ibid., p. 77.

34. Ibid., p. 380.

35. Ibid., p. 189.

36. Ibid., p. 247.

37. Ibid., p. 467.

38. Ibid., p. 177.

39. Ibid., p. 236.

40. Ibid., p. 26.

41. Ibid., p. 70.

42. Ibid., p. 46.

43. Ibid., p. 73.

44. Ibid., p. 110.

45. Ibid., p. 113.

46. Ibid., p. 112.

47. Ibid., p. 135.

48. Ibid., p. 235.

49. Ibid., p. 63.

50. Ibid., p. 351.

51. Ibid., p. 176.

52. Ibid., p. 309.

53. The Adventures of Hugh Trevor, p. 261.

54. Ibid., p. 98.

55. Ibid., p. 74.

56. Ibid., pp. 74-75.

57. Ibid., p. 75.

58. Ibid., p. 100.

59. Ibid. p. 132.

60. Ibid., p. 335.

61. Ibid, pp. 335-336.

62. 9 (1777):545.

63. The Adventures of Hugh Trevor, p. 158.

64. Ibid., p. 212.

65. Ibid., p. 221.

66. Ibid., p. 427.

67. Ibid., p. 174.

68. Ibid., p. 155.

69. Ibid., p. 322.

70. Ibid., p. 279.

71. Memoirs of Bryan Perdue, I, 10.

72. Ibid., p. 16.

73. Ibid., p. 47.

74. Ibid., p. 77.

75. Ibid., p. 3

76. Ibid., p. 15.

77. Ibid., p. 19.

78. Ibid., p. 124.

79. Ibid., p. 119.

80. Ibid., p. 194.

81. Ibid., p. 172.

82. Ibid., II, 56.

83. Ibid., I, 163-164.

84. Ibid., p. 283.

85. Ibid., p. 245.

86. Ibid., II, 37.

87. Ibid., p. 43.

88. Ibid., p. 26.

89. Ibid., I, v.

90. Ibid., III, 41-42.

91. Ibid., p. 43.