Justin McCarthy (article)

From The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia

Justin McCarthy is an article published in the Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle on 4 february 1888.

Report of a lecture of the Portsmouth Literary and Scientific Society about Justin McCarthy by A. W. Jerrard, held at the Portsmouth Guildhall on 31 january 1888.


Justin McCarthy

Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle (4 february 1888, p. 3)

LECTURE BY MR. A. W. JERRARD.

On Tuesday Mr. A. W. Jerrard, head-master of the Portsmouth Grammar School, lectured on Justin McCarthy in the Guildhall, before the members of the Literary and Scientific Society. The President (Mr. J. Hay) occupied the chair, and the following gentlemen were also present:— The Mayor of Portsmouth (Mr. A. Addison), the Rev. E. P. Grant, General A. W. Drayson, F.R.A.S., Col. J. E. Taylor, Colonel T. Bryson, Colonel Mahony, Dr. C. C. Claremont, Dr. R. Lyddon, Dr. Bernard J. Guillemard, Dr. Bampton Wright, Dr. Conor, Dr. H. H. Heffernan, Messrs. A. W. Jerrard, H. Percy Boulnois, J. H. Ball, W. Weston, G. L. Green, Hugh S. Maclauchlan, G. Ollis, S. Pittis, J. Cornelius-Wheeler, W. Read, Lewis P. Lewis, R.N., W. Inglis, R.N., W. T. Pover, R.N., J. S. Robinson, R.N., G. M. Bowen, C. Foran, G. Cooke, A. Howell, F. Blake, J. Dunstan, A. E. Gibson, F. H. St. Clair, W. H. McIntyre, F. Charpentier, W. Harper, and G. F. Bell, Drs. A. Conan Doyle and J. Ward Cousins (hon. secretaries), and a large number of ladies. Mr. A. E. Cogswell was elected a member of the society, and Messrs. A. Fisher and T. D'A. Jewers were nominated for membership.

Mr. JERRARD first dealt with Justin McCarthy as a novelist. Mr. McCarthy's forte was in depicting characters of striking originality, such as the heroines in "Dear Lady Disdain," "Miss Misanthrope," and "Donna Quixote." Mr. McCarthy was attracted by the nondescripts who had missed their way and perhaps would never find seekers of adventures, founders of religions, workers for the emancipation of woman, misunderstood poets, statesmen with nothing to do, dissatisfied beings of every kind, dreaming of some Utopia. Mr. McCarthy was obviously a satirist, but he was a genial satirist. He was satisfied with making his characters play their parts before him, with a smile at their weaknesses, their absurdities, and their pretensions. He was not one of those who relegated the girl and matron contemptuously to household cares, but his conclusion was that for woman personal duties ought never to be sacrificed to social duties. But he did not forget that his first business was to be entertaining, and his were not "novels with a purpose." Viewing Justin McCarthy as a historian, Mr. Jerrard pointed out that it was a work of no small difficulty to write an account of recent events, at once readable and systematic, lively and impartial, forcible and graceful, minute in detail, but not wearisome; yet as far as he could judge this was what Mr. McCarthy had accomplished in his annals of the first forty years of the reign of Queen Victoria. If a man wanted to understand the origin and growth of the forces at present contending in the political world, let him read this book, and he would find a lucid explanation of the principles of the various parties, of their objects, their strength, and their weakness. If he wanted to know enough for ordinary conversation of the antecedents, characteristics, merits, and demerits of the leading statesmen and other public men of this and the last generation he would get it in Mr. McCarthy's pages. If his taste was for piquant stories of persons of high degree, or the startling incidents that from time to time thrilled the nation, or for the description of great social or religious movements that have left their mark on the age, let him consult the "History of Our Own Times," and he would not be disappointed. There, too, he would be able to follow the rapid advance of science, the most amazing phenomena of the last half century, and discover the most notable literary works of the Victorian era. Mr. Jerrard then drew attention to Mr. McCarthy's skilful treatment of various subjects, and said that would show them the passing illusions of the public mind how the principles it scorned one day it examined the next, adored the third, then questioned again, rejected and relegated them to Jupiter and Saturn. He would tell them of its fond dreams of everlasting peace when the first Great Exhibition seemed to be about to substitute the rivalry of commerce for that of arms, and then would point out the cruel realities that came instead, the devastating wars, and almost worse than these, the rumours of wars that had made Europe a vast camp, and were crushing her peoples beneath a load of debt too heavy for them to bear. He would describe passing fallacies and panics ridiculous enough to us now, though at any moment we might be the victims of worse ones ourselves, for the study of such a history has its humiliating lessons, hinting that as those we honour in the past as having been so wise and far-seeing were sometimes foolish and unjust, so it was possible that humanity even now and among us might not be wholly free from these "infirmities." In conclusion he quoted Mr. McCarthy's opinion that the fiction of the later period was, like the poetry, inferior to that in the first half of the reign. The sensational novel had had its day, and perhaps in order to give a fresh life to our fiction it would have to be dipped once again in the "old holy well of romance." (Loud applause.)

The PRESIDENT (Mr. James Hay) moved a vote of thanks to the lecturer. In his opinion the subject of the novel was never brought before them in such a masterly way before. Speaking of Mr. McCarthy's abilities as a historian and a novelist, he contrasted the writer named with those novelists who wove too much history into their novels to make them interesting, and with those historians who put too great an amount of fiction into their histories to make them reliable. In his opinion the "History of Our Own Times" as a means of instruction in the cause and origin of great questions of the present day was unequalled.

Dr. CONAN DOYLE seconded the motion, expressing the opinion that Mr. McCarthy's history would live far longer than his novels.

Mr. H. S. MACLAUCHLAN supported the vote of thanks

Dr. J. WARD COUSINS having also spoken, the vote of thanks was enthusiastically awarded.

Mr. JERRARD, in reply, said he specially valued the criticisms of Dr. Conan Doyle, who had by his own delightful work, "A Study in Scarlet," asserted the right to speak with authority on the subject of fiction.