Nature and Art by Elizabeth Inchbald

Elizabeth Inchbald’s polemical second novel Nature and Art (1796) levels scathing criticism at the Church of England, the legal system, and the system of education. It also considers the unfair treatment of “fallen women” and gestures toward the expansionism of the contemporary British Empire. The novel follows two generations of the Norwynne brothers: Henry Norwynne, a musician, emigrates to Africa with his infant son, while his brother William advances socially through the university and the church, eventually achieving the position of bishop. When Henry’s son, also named Henry, returns to England, untutored yet intelligent and honorable, he differs from his cousin the younger William, whose fine education renders him malicious and incapable of independent thought. This contrast – between the eponymous “nature and art” – drives the novel. Young William seduces, impregnates, and abandons a village maid, Hannah Primrose, who attempts infanticide and resorts to prostitution and thievery. She is executed when young William, a judge, hands down her death sentence. By contrast, after rescuing his father from exile in Africa, young Henry marries the worthy parson’s daughter Rebecca Rymer and the three live contentedly and self-sufficiently in a rural retreat. Young Henry promotes poverty and humility as virtuous ends and denounces the misguided reverence of wealth and social prestige. Written and published amid England’s crackdown on Revolutionary dissent, Nature and Art places Inchbald among the era’s notable “Jacobin” novelists.