Thomas Love Peacock wrote his second novel, Melincourt or Sir Oran Hautton, with the goal of lambasting various political and literary figures. The book proved more ambitious, particularly in its length, than its predecessor, Headlong Hall (1816). Some critics found its satirical excesses equal to that of its length, and its lack of a clear narrative voice an additional weakness. Its satire proved sharper in reaction to the period following the Battle of Waterloo, with Peacock targeting varied ideas regarding progress. However, he focused his attacks on specific individuals, rather than just ideologies, resulting in undeserved and unfair caricatures of some of the most important figures of the day.
It opens following the fortunes of Anthelia Melincourt, a 21-year-old heiress, and efforts on the part of her various suitors to woo her into marriage. Early on, the narrator explains that Anthelia’s father was of the group who “maintained the heretical notion that women are… rational beings; though, from the great pains usually taken in what is called education to make them otherwise, there are unfortunately very few examples to warrant the truth of the theory.” Peacock later lampoons such lack of education for females and the poor when the wealthy character Mr. Sylvan Forester takes great pains to educate the charming, flute-playing orangutan, of the book’s title, which will also court Anthelia. That the ape is able to gain a seat in Parliament reflects obvious disdain for the political system. Peacock satirizes the rotten borough phenomenon, in which boroughs with zero or very low population gained government seats, controlled basically by political machines or aristocracy, proving blatantly problematic during the “One vote” election.
Peacock’s additional characters include Mr. Anyside Antijack, representing George Canning, a Tory supporter of government reform and relief for the poor, and Mr. Killthedead, assumed to represent Sir John Barrow, secretary to the Admiralty. As public figures, they invited such lampooning. However, his characterizations of poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge as Mr. Mystic; William Wordsworth as Mr. Paperstamp; and Robert Southey, also a historian, critic, and England’s poet laureate, as Mr. Feathernest, are deemed unfair by critic George Saintsbury. Saintsbury agrees that Coleridge and Southey opened themselves to satire due to certain erratic changes in their opinions, but that the attacks on the always modest and unassuming Wordsworth as the self-indulgent, materialistic Paperstamp are absurd. He also contends that Southey in no way “sold his soul” for the poet laureateship, nor did he “feather his nest” with nothing but books, and that the lack of humor in that characterization remains unpardonable.
Notable features are the novel’s poems and songs, with Anthelia’s ballad, “The Tomb of Love,” labeled as “first class.” It also describes a dance based on the game of chess, which grew from Peacock’s devotion to pageantry, materialized in the “revels” he held for his grandchildren.
Peacock wrote a new preface to the 1856 edition, in which he recognized that certain reforms of political and social inequities had occurred since the novel’s original printing, one of the most notable being the forced freeing of slaves by British colonists. He also notes that, because the “Court is more moral,” the “public is more moral; more decorous, at least in external semblance.” However, he adds that “the progress of intellect” has not kept stride with the “progress of mechanics,” and “the ‘reading public’ has increased its capacity of swallow, in a proportion far exceeding that of its digestion.” Peacock obviously felt that England’s civic structure still merited lampooning, with the hopes that satire would, as expected in its classical origins, lead to change. The book remains readily available.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Dawson, Carl. His Fine Wit: A Study of Thomas Love Peacock. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970.
Saintsbury, George. Introduction to Melincourt, or Sir Oran Haut-ton, by Thomas Love Peacock. London: Macmillan, 1927, vii–xiii.