GEORGE LILLO (1693-1739)
THE LONDON MERCHANT OR THE HISTORY OF
GEORGE BARNWELL
DRURY LANE THEATRE 21 JUNE 1731 (96
performances between 1731-1741)
Domestic Tragedies
•Arden of Feversham (c. 1591)
•A Warning for Faire Women (1599)
•A Yorkshire Tragedy (1606)
•Thomas Heywood: A Woman Killed With
Kindness (1607)
Ballad (murder in Shropshire)
An Excellent Ballad of George Barnwel Who
Was Undone by a Strumpet, that caused him
thrice to Rob his Master and to Murder his
Uncle
Charles Dickens: Great Expectations (1861)
What stung me was the identification of the whole affair with my unoffending
self. When Barnwell began to go wrong, I declare I felt positively apologetic,
Pumblechook's indignant stare so taxed me with it. Wopsle, too, took pains
to present me in the worst light. At once ferocious and maudlin, I was made
to murder my uncle with no extenuating circumstances whatever; Milwood
put me down in argument, on every occasion; it became sheer monomania
in my master's daughter to care a button for me; and all I can say for my
grasping and procrastinating conduct on the fatal morning is, that I was
worthy of the general feebleness of my character. Even after I was happily
hanged and Wopsle closed the book, Pumblechook sat staring at me, and
shaking his head, and saying, 'Take warning, boy, take warning!' as if it were
a well-known fact that I contemplated murdering a near relation, provided I
could only induce one to have the weakness to become my benefactor
Conduct book for apprentices
The said apprentice his said master faithfully shall serve, his
secrets keep, his lawfull commandments every where gladly
do. He shall do no dammage to his said master ... He shall
not waste the goods of his said master, nor lend them
unlawfully to any. He shall not commit fornication, nor contract
matrimony within the said term. He shall not play at cards,
dice, tables, or any other unlawfull games, whereby his
master may have any loss. With his own goods or others ...
without licence of his said master, he shall neither buy nor
sell. He shall not haunt taverns or play-houses, nor absent
himself from his said master's service day nor night
unlawfully: but in all things as a faithfull apprentice, he shall
behave himself towards his said master.
She's got such firm possession of my
heart and governs there with such
despotic sway -- aye, there's the cause
of all my sin and sorrow (III.v.21-24)
• She loves me, worthless as I am. Her looks, her words, her flowing
tears confess it. (I.iv.79-80).
• shake off all slavish obedience to your master, but you may serve him
still.
• To give us sense of beauty and desires, and yet forbid us to taste and
be happy, is cruelty to nature" (I.viii. 12-13).
• Were my resolutions founded on reason and sincerely made? Why,
then, has Heaven suffered me to fall? I sought not the occasion and, if
my heart deceives me not, compassion and generosity were my
motives. (II.xiv.1-4).
• The impetuous passion bears down all before it and drives me on
to lust, to theft, and murder.
• 'Tis more than love, 'tis the fever of the soul and madness of desire. In
vain does nature, reason, conscience, all oppose it. (III.v.25- 26)
• I find a power within that bears my soul above the fears of death and,
spite of conscious shame and guilt, gives me a taste of pleasure more
than mortal" (V.iii).
Ernest Bernbaum: The Drama of Sensibility
Confidence in the goodness of average human nature is the main- spring of
sentimentalism. That confidence became in the eighteenth century the
cardinal point of a new gospel, and the cardinal point of a new school of
literature. It was the fundamental assumption of the dramatists of sensibility.
The drama of sensibility, which includes sentimental comedy and domestic
tragedy, was from its birth a protest against the orthodox view of life, and
against these literary conventions which had served that view. It implied that
human nature, when not as in some cases already perfect, was perfectible
by an appeal to the emotions. ... In domestic tragedy it showed [good
hearted persons in the ordinary walks of life] overwhelmed by catastrophes
for which they were morally not responsible.
