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Argal: Or the Silver Devil
A cautionary tale where events are observed and influenced by a demon trapped within a silver cross. Originally released in 1793.
423 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1793
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Argal
3 booksThe author and protagonist of Argal; or the Silver Devil. Charles Frost, in his An Address Delivered to the Literary and Philosophical Society at Kingston-upon-Hull; at the Opening of the Seventh Session, on Friday, November 5, 1830, names George Hadley as the writer behind the pen name.
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October 31, 2017
The 18th century tale of the demon in the silver cross; a religiopolitically motivated thingaresque of a most unique kind, with elements of the Gothic romance novel.
The uncommon literary genre which is the thingaresque has existed for centuries, but the term wasn't officially coined until 2008 in a posthumous article by Alfred Owen Aldridge, wherein he describes it as:
"The structural device of a protagonist-narrator who is not [...] a human being but possess the intellectual and emotional constituents of one. [...] This device portrays an object or thing as observing the human condition rather than having this task performed by a set of characters involved in surroundings and events." (A.O. Aldridge, 'Ludic prose from Laurence Sterne to Carlos Fuentes,' in Romantic Prose Fiction, p. 656.)
Perhaps the two most famous exemplars of the genre, seen from the now, would be Chrysal: or, the Adventures of a Guinea (from 1760; also likely amongst the inspirations behind Argal) and Twenty Bucks (a movie by Keva Rosenfeld from 1993), but if one was to look for the most atypical one amongst them then the story of the demon in the silver cross would be a good place to start.
The non-human protagonist-narrator of this tale, and the observer of the follies of humanity in its time, is a demon named Ashtaroth, who will during the misfortunes which it encounters in the tale be renamed Argal, the name which we are introduced to by the title of the novel. This change of name came about as the spirit failed the task it had been set to accomplish by the superior spirit which commanded it, one known both from the Bible as a false god that demanded child sacrifices¹ and from Milton's Paradise Lost as one of the first and most important amongst the infernal spirits, the one known as Moloch. The task was to corrupt the monarchy of Great Britain by seducing the then heir apparent to the throne – i.e. George II; the tale is set during George I's reign – by inhabiting a silver cross and from there exert his influences, into marrying a Catholic princess and thus return the country's morale to the hands of the papal Antichrist. (The prejudices of the novel will be presented later, for now let it suffice to say that Catholics are not presented in kind words herein.) As Argal narrates his tale, he begins by admitting to failing this task and we are later informed of the consequences where ”among other indignities when we are banished or confined, we are degraded, by the imposition of a name, which has some relation to the materials whereof our prison is composed” (vol. 1, p. 207); in other words, Argal literally takes his name from argon and is therefore truly 'the silver devil.'
Ashtaroth, when first given the cross to inhabit and ordered to do so, were given the ability to inhabit any part of the silver which constituted its cross, even if its mass were to be split into lesser portions, and even if these parts in turn were melded into other pieces of silver. Thus when a bit is broken of the cross and remade into a silver coin, he was able to follow it and do his malice through it with equal force as if the cross had been whole – an opportunity he does not miss, and his first set of adventures thus begins. Other bits of the silver cross embark on their own journeys and their adventures occur in parallel with those of the coin, and so we are treated to several storylines, each containing its own anecdotal stories; occasionally they converge on each other, at other times their stories are separate, but never do they fail in presenting the vices of the people involved and the power which these hold to a tempter sealed in silver. The result is a novel which is made up out of several short stories, who are usually independent from each other beyond being tied together by Argal's narration and viewpoint. Perhaps an elegant way of putting it would be to call it a collection of short fiction that is hung from a silver string?
Argal has a twenty-four-page-long introduction dedicated in part to warning the potential reader that this is not your run-of-the-mill romance novel from this era. (The other part is a description of how the manuscript to this novel was found in the lining of several luggage trunks.) These novels often included an array of unrealistic literary devices whose common function was to return the reader to a calm state after having been presented the dangers, adventures, and tragedies experienced by the hero or heroine – a loved one might be lost to unfortunate and lachrymose circumstances, yet would reappear at the end to tell the tale of their miraculous escape; lovers might be unable to marry due to differences in social standing, yet would discover that the commoner amongst them has a hidden parentage amongst the nobility; a protagonist might face adversities that would be the end of any human, yet be saved by the most unlikely coincidence – and these novels is what the introduction describes as ”that preposterous mass of incredible trash, with which the monthly press groans” (vol. 1, p. ix.) The stories in Argal were intended to be realistic in their depiction of life, but not solely to escape the standardised recipe for fiction, instead they were also intended to impart wisdoms with regard to this world; a brief summary of these wisdoms would be to remain virtuous, abstain from temptation, and do not get involved with any person of suspicious religious convictions, especially Catholics.
The Catholic priest is presented as a master of plying his vices. They are thieves, murderers, and rapists – not all at once, of course, but they are all in their different ways servants of the Antichrist. The novel even goes so far as to describe how the greater demonic spirits want ”to establish their kingdom on a permanent and sure foundation, revive the days of fire and faggot, for the future emolument of their favorite Antichrist the Pope” (vol. 1, p. 37.) The novel goes on to describe Jews in nearly as negative terms: "Messieurs Shadrack Solomons, and Abednego Manasses, refiners, silversmiths, money-mongers, coin-sweaters, dealers in teas, ruin and brandy, exporters of old cloaths, receivers of stolen goods, &c. &c. &c." (vol. 1, p. 32.) It even manages to find room for a jab at Muslims in volume two. (Not to mention the harsh treatment it gives the young George II on several occasions, but then again he was hardly popular in his time.) Ignoring the derogatory ways of Argal is quite impossible, and the opinions herein would likely also have been seen as extreme at the time when it was first published. They are taken so far that one could be forgiven for thinking this must surely be an attempt at comedy, or one could conceive that since the protagonist-narrator is a demon then some hate speech is to be expected, but unfortunately it somehow, nevertheless, seems a sincere attempt at moralization and a defamation of those of a different religiopolitical stance.
Argal appears to have enjoyed a moderate popularity in its day and was reprinted at least once. It was even mentioned by the literate Charles Frost when recounting the important authors of Kingston-upon-Hull (C. Frost, An Address Delivered to the Literary and Philosophical Society at Kingston-upon-Hull; at the Opening of the Seventh Session, on Friday, November 5, 1830, p. 104.) In this address Frost also provides us with the name of the author: George Hadley, a known linguist, adventurer, and historian. The novel was originally released anonymously, replacing the author's name with that of Argal and thus indicating that the silver demon itself was the source of it. It was to be a long time before it saw a release that was attributed to Hadley; in fact, this reviewer could not find any release older than 1976 (published by Ayer Co Pub) with the proper attribution. Even the reprintings by Gale ECCO Print Editions do not acknowledge the authorship. Yet, there is no apparent reason to doubt Frost since he was a local historian at Kingston-upon-Hull, where the novel was written, and he made his address mere thirty-seven years after its publishing.
On the topic of the Gale ECCO Print Editions it should be mentioned that this review is based on their re-print of the first edition of Argal from 1793.² It is printed from the microfilm scans of the original, which means that its looks resemble those of the original as closely as is possible. To see the pages as they were over two-hundred years ago inevitably adds a heightened sense of history to the reading process, but it comes with a cost and in this case the cost is slightly too high. Printing was an imperfect art in the late 18th century and not all pages would end up equally legible, and this copy of Argal has been unfortunate in this respect: Each volume has at least a dozen words that are difficult to understand, at least five or six of which are impossible to make out; approximately every fifth page are disfigured by a lack of ink in the printing process; and on two pages there are sentences partially lost because the sheets were folded when the microfilm image was captured. The only other edition that is readily available at the moment is another reprint by Gale ECCO Print Editions, this time of the 1794 single-volume edition originally printed by Zachariah Jackson in Dublin, but I have not perused it and am not partial to its legibility. The 1976 edition by Ayer Co Pub seem nearly impossible to track down. It is also worth noting that Hadley was fond of using italics to signify emphasis or sarcasm, a trait which I do not know if has made it into the later editions.
It is unlikely that Argal will get a great renaissance like many 18th century Gothic novels have had in recent times. This is not just because it grew obscure when its age faded into a new one – which likely in part resulted from having its political message grow less relevant with time, and in part that the time of the thingaresque lasted only a brief while before falling from fashion – nor just its derogatory sentiments, but more so because it is a needlessly difficult read. Hadley is extremely prone to use long and winding sentences that are punctuated in a manner more akin to blank verse poetry than prose, and to make matters worse he keeps hinting towards concepts which his contemporary readers might have understood but which today's would lack the common ground required to do so. In short, the novel requires too much effort from today's readers to be an attractive entertainment; unless one is prepared to labour in order to journey through Argal, then it is likely that one will at some point give up and leave the read unfinished.
Yet, there is one attraction that may make it worth while: This is seemingly the only instance ever of anyone combining the thingaresque with the Gothic novel. (Although Hadley left a small bite directed towards the Gothic fiction genre – i.e. ”What a Goth!” used by a master to describe a servant he perceived as unintelligent – and thus likely never intended Argal to have any connection to it. More of his criticism of the genre can be found in the introduction along with his dismissal of the romance novel.) It may not be set in the Gothic era, but then neither are most of the novels attributed to the genre. It does however have many of Gothic literature's other features, such as grandiose architecture, weak and malevolent clergy, the pitching of virtuous characters against villainous ones, and, of course, has a supernatural element inimical to each story's progression. Thus, the potential attraction would be felt by those who are already well versed in early Gothic fiction and is in want of something of its ilk yet which does not come across as a repetition of preceding works, a problem that became quite pronounced amongst these novels as the movement grew in popularity. For the few who do experience this want and are willing to deal with Argal's issues, then it is actually a welcome detour before picking up yet another of those novel's who prescribe to the genre's predictable standard.
1. It is worth noting that older biblical sources do not necessarily support this idea. The practice described is unclear at best, and there are good reasons to question whether or not this practice is even prescribed to Moloch, with translation errors being a very real alternative. No non-biblical contemporary sources mentions the deity – though there have been at least one deity who imperfectly resemble the description – and so we get little to no external help in clarifying this uncertainty. In any case, what pertains to Argal is the view of Moloch in the 18th century, as a biblical scourge of children and, from Paradise Lost, as one of the highest ranking amongst Satan's fallen angels. The latter in particular seems to be the origin of Hadley's interpretation of it; the two interpretations do not deviate far from each other and one might go so far as to call them identical.
2. There seem to be some uncertainty regarding whether or not the first edition was released in 1793 since the volumes themselves are not dated, but this is nevertheless the year normally ascribed to its release.
The uncommon literary genre which is the thingaresque has existed for centuries, but the term wasn't officially coined until 2008 in a posthumous article by Alfred Owen Aldridge, wherein he describes it as:
"The structural device of a protagonist-narrator who is not [...] a human being but possess the intellectual and emotional constituents of one. [...] This device portrays an object or thing as observing the human condition rather than having this task performed by a set of characters involved in surroundings and events." (A.O. Aldridge, 'Ludic prose from Laurence Sterne to Carlos Fuentes,' in Romantic Prose Fiction, p. 656.)
Perhaps the two most famous exemplars of the genre, seen from the now, would be Chrysal: or, the Adventures of a Guinea (from 1760; also likely amongst the inspirations behind Argal) and Twenty Bucks (a movie by Keva Rosenfeld from 1993), but if one was to look for the most atypical one amongst them then the story of the demon in the silver cross would be a good place to start.
The non-human protagonist-narrator of this tale, and the observer of the follies of humanity in its time, is a demon named Ashtaroth, who will during the misfortunes which it encounters in the tale be renamed Argal, the name which we are introduced to by the title of the novel. This change of name came about as the spirit failed the task it had been set to accomplish by the superior spirit which commanded it, one known both from the Bible as a false god that demanded child sacrifices¹ and from Milton's Paradise Lost as one of the first and most important amongst the infernal spirits, the one known as Moloch. The task was to corrupt the monarchy of Great Britain by seducing the then heir apparent to the throne – i.e. George II; the tale is set during George I's reign – by inhabiting a silver cross and from there exert his influences, into marrying a Catholic princess and thus return the country's morale to the hands of the papal Antichrist. (The prejudices of the novel will be presented later, for now let it suffice to say that Catholics are not presented in kind words herein.) As Argal narrates his tale, he begins by admitting to failing this task and we are later informed of the consequences where ”among other indignities when we are banished or confined, we are degraded, by the imposition of a name, which has some relation to the materials whereof our prison is composed” (vol. 1, p. 207); in other words, Argal literally takes his name from argon and is therefore truly 'the silver devil.'
Ashtaroth, when first given the cross to inhabit and ordered to do so, were given the ability to inhabit any part of the silver which constituted its cross, even if its mass were to be split into lesser portions, and even if these parts in turn were melded into other pieces of silver. Thus when a bit is broken of the cross and remade into a silver coin, he was able to follow it and do his malice through it with equal force as if the cross had been whole – an opportunity he does not miss, and his first set of adventures thus begins. Other bits of the silver cross embark on their own journeys and their adventures occur in parallel with those of the coin, and so we are treated to several storylines, each containing its own anecdotal stories; occasionally they converge on each other, at other times their stories are separate, but never do they fail in presenting the vices of the people involved and the power which these hold to a tempter sealed in silver. The result is a novel which is made up out of several short stories, who are usually independent from each other beyond being tied together by Argal's narration and viewpoint. Perhaps an elegant way of putting it would be to call it a collection of short fiction that is hung from a silver string?
Argal has a twenty-four-page-long introduction dedicated in part to warning the potential reader that this is not your run-of-the-mill romance novel from this era. (The other part is a description of how the manuscript to this novel was found in the lining of several luggage trunks.) These novels often included an array of unrealistic literary devices whose common function was to return the reader to a calm state after having been presented the dangers, adventures, and tragedies experienced by the hero or heroine – a loved one might be lost to unfortunate and lachrymose circumstances, yet would reappear at the end to tell the tale of their miraculous escape; lovers might be unable to marry due to differences in social standing, yet would discover that the commoner amongst them has a hidden parentage amongst the nobility; a protagonist might face adversities that would be the end of any human, yet be saved by the most unlikely coincidence – and these novels is what the introduction describes as ”that preposterous mass of incredible trash, with which the monthly press groans” (vol. 1, p. ix.) The stories in Argal were intended to be realistic in their depiction of life, but not solely to escape the standardised recipe for fiction, instead they were also intended to impart wisdoms with regard to this world; a brief summary of these wisdoms would be to remain virtuous, abstain from temptation, and do not get involved with any person of suspicious religious convictions, especially Catholics.
The Catholic priest is presented as a master of plying his vices. They are thieves, murderers, and rapists – not all at once, of course, but they are all in their different ways servants of the Antichrist. The novel even goes so far as to describe how the greater demonic spirits want ”to establish their kingdom on a permanent and sure foundation, revive the days of fire and faggot, for the future emolument of their favorite Antichrist the Pope” (vol. 1, p. 37.) The novel goes on to describe Jews in nearly as negative terms: "Messieurs Shadrack Solomons, and Abednego Manasses, refiners, silversmiths, money-mongers, coin-sweaters, dealers in teas, ruin and brandy, exporters of old cloaths, receivers of stolen goods, &c. &c. &c." (vol. 1, p. 32.) It even manages to find room for a jab at Muslims in volume two. (Not to mention the harsh treatment it gives the young George II on several occasions, but then again he was hardly popular in his time.) Ignoring the derogatory ways of Argal is quite impossible, and the opinions herein would likely also have been seen as extreme at the time when it was first published. They are taken so far that one could be forgiven for thinking this must surely be an attempt at comedy, or one could conceive that since the protagonist-narrator is a demon then some hate speech is to be expected, but unfortunately it somehow, nevertheless, seems a sincere attempt at moralization and a defamation of those of a different religiopolitical stance.
Argal appears to have enjoyed a moderate popularity in its day and was reprinted at least once. It was even mentioned by the literate Charles Frost when recounting the important authors of Kingston-upon-Hull (C. Frost, An Address Delivered to the Literary and Philosophical Society at Kingston-upon-Hull; at the Opening of the Seventh Session, on Friday, November 5, 1830, p. 104.) In this address Frost also provides us with the name of the author: George Hadley, a known linguist, adventurer, and historian. The novel was originally released anonymously, replacing the author's name with that of Argal and thus indicating that the silver demon itself was the source of it. It was to be a long time before it saw a release that was attributed to Hadley; in fact, this reviewer could not find any release older than 1976 (published by Ayer Co Pub) with the proper attribution. Even the reprintings by Gale ECCO Print Editions do not acknowledge the authorship. Yet, there is no apparent reason to doubt Frost since he was a local historian at Kingston-upon-Hull, where the novel was written, and he made his address mere thirty-seven years after its publishing.
On the topic of the Gale ECCO Print Editions it should be mentioned that this review is based on their re-print of the first edition of Argal from 1793.² It is printed from the microfilm scans of the original, which means that its looks resemble those of the original as closely as is possible. To see the pages as they were over two-hundred years ago inevitably adds a heightened sense of history to the reading process, but it comes with a cost and in this case the cost is slightly too high. Printing was an imperfect art in the late 18th century and not all pages would end up equally legible, and this copy of Argal has been unfortunate in this respect: Each volume has at least a dozen words that are difficult to understand, at least five or six of which are impossible to make out; approximately every fifth page are disfigured by a lack of ink in the printing process; and on two pages there are sentences partially lost because the sheets were folded when the microfilm image was captured. The only other edition that is readily available at the moment is another reprint by Gale ECCO Print Editions, this time of the 1794 single-volume edition originally printed by Zachariah Jackson in Dublin, but I have not perused it and am not partial to its legibility. The 1976 edition by Ayer Co Pub seem nearly impossible to track down. It is also worth noting that Hadley was fond of using italics to signify emphasis or sarcasm, a trait which I do not know if has made it into the later editions.
It is unlikely that Argal will get a great renaissance like many 18th century Gothic novels have had in recent times. This is not just because it grew obscure when its age faded into a new one – which likely in part resulted from having its political message grow less relevant with time, and in part that the time of the thingaresque lasted only a brief while before falling from fashion – nor just its derogatory sentiments, but more so because it is a needlessly difficult read. Hadley is extremely prone to use long and winding sentences that are punctuated in a manner more akin to blank verse poetry than prose, and to make matters worse he keeps hinting towards concepts which his contemporary readers might have understood but which today's would lack the common ground required to do so. In short, the novel requires too much effort from today's readers to be an attractive entertainment; unless one is prepared to labour in order to journey through Argal, then it is likely that one will at some point give up and leave the read unfinished.
Yet, there is one attraction that may make it worth while: This is seemingly the only instance ever of anyone combining the thingaresque with the Gothic novel. (Although Hadley left a small bite directed towards the Gothic fiction genre – i.e. ”What a Goth!” used by a master to describe a servant he perceived as unintelligent – and thus likely never intended Argal to have any connection to it. More of his criticism of the genre can be found in the introduction along with his dismissal of the romance novel.) It may not be set in the Gothic era, but then neither are most of the novels attributed to the genre. It does however have many of Gothic literature's other features, such as grandiose architecture, weak and malevolent clergy, the pitching of virtuous characters against villainous ones, and, of course, has a supernatural element inimical to each story's progression. Thus, the potential attraction would be felt by those who are already well versed in early Gothic fiction and is in want of something of its ilk yet which does not come across as a repetition of preceding works, a problem that became quite pronounced amongst these novels as the movement grew in popularity. For the few who do experience this want and are willing to deal with Argal's issues, then it is actually a welcome detour before picking up yet another of those novel's who prescribe to the genre's predictable standard.
1. It is worth noting that older biblical sources do not necessarily support this idea. The practice described is unclear at best, and there are good reasons to question whether or not this practice is even prescribed to Moloch, with translation errors being a very real alternative. No non-biblical contemporary sources mentions the deity – though there have been at least one deity who imperfectly resemble the description – and so we get little to no external help in clarifying this uncertainty. In any case, what pertains to Argal is the view of Moloch in the 18th century, as a biblical scourge of children and, from Paradise Lost, as one of the highest ranking amongst Satan's fallen angels. The latter in particular seems to be the origin of Hadley's interpretation of it; the two interpretations do not deviate far from each other and one might go so far as to call them identical.
2. There seem to be some uncertainty regarding whether or not the first edition was released in 1793 since the volumes themselves are not dated, but this is nevertheless the year normally ascribed to its release.
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