_.
aN a
\

SS

\<«

XX

PAD GMI

 

ULE

RS
POLAR

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 
Cornell University Library
PR 457.M16

A gallery of illustrious Hil charac

HAMA UH

3 1924 013 260 785 ainover

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
A GALLERY

OF

ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS.
WYMAN AND SONS,
FINE ART, CLASSICAL, AND GENERAL PRINTERS,

GREAT QUEEN STREET, LONDON, W.C.
 

 

A GALLERY OF
ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS

(1830-1838)

DRAWN BY THE LATE

DANIEL MACLISE, R.A.

AND

ACCOMPANIED BY NOTICES CHIEFLY BY THE LATE

WILLIAM MAGINN, LLD.

(Republished trom ‘* Fraser's Magazine.”

EDITED BY
WILLIAM BATES, B.A.

PROFESSOR OF CLASSICS IN QUEEN’S COLLEGE, BIRMINGHAM.

WITH A PREFACE, AND COPIOUS NOTES, BIOGRAPHICAL, CRITICAL,
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL, AND GENERALLY ILLUSTRATIVE.

 

LONDON: CHATTO AND WINDUS, PUBLISHERS.

(SUCCESSORS TO FOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN.)

 

 
    
  

Southey

Pecavel bankes

Thadeeray

AY lt

MAB
UY
LY

\ aS
WHE,

 

A

    

   

GE
LEE)

Log

poe

 

    
 

<i K

y

Zi |
CBE NN
SP

ay
7 =|

fay
bg C=

Uy Yyf Se? U]
: Y/fy

 

  
 

2

         
  
 
   

    

ANS.

vIL¢
cae}

FIRAS KR

q
4

“THU:
 

 

 

A GALLERY OF
ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS

(1830—1838)

DRAWN BY THE LATE

DANIEL MACLISE, R.A.

AND

ACCOMPANIED BY NOTICES CHIEFLY BY THE LATE

WILLIAM MAGINN, LL.D.

(Republished trom ‘* Fraser's Magazine.”

EDITED BY
WILLIAM BATES, B.A.

PROFESSOR OF CLASSICS IN QUEEN’S COLLEGE, BIRMINGHAM.

WITH A PREFACE, AND COPIOUS NOTES, BIOGRAPHICAL, CRITICAL,
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL, AND GENERALLY ILLUSTRATIVE.

 

LONDON: CHATTO AND WINDUS, PUBLISHERS.

(SUCCESSORS TO FOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN.)

 
 

 

 

TO THE

RIGHT HON, BENJAMIN DISRAELI, M.P,,

ETC. ETC. ETC.,

THIS REPRODUCTION OF

“SB Gallery of Glustrions Lrterary Characters,”

OF WHICH HE IS AN ILLUSTRIOUS MEMBER,
IS, BY PERMISSION,

RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED.

Hand secus ac cultor, tacitd sub nocte, Sabeus,
Sydera quum nubes eripuere polo,

Unica si remamet, tenebris nitidissima fulgens,
Stella, petit supplex, araque thure calet,—
INCLYTE, Te facilem aggredior, feliciter ausus,
Et mea, vota velut, quantulacumque fero ;

Tu faveas, e preclaris preclare superstes,—
Qui nomen decoras nobilitate novum,—

Qui meritis famam antevenis, virtute parentem,
Eloquio cives, ingenioque genus,—

Laudabunt alii que Tu dignaris honore,
Haudque swum accipient hec mea cepta decus.

tah. 3B.

 

 

 
BOTTOR'S PREAPACL.

0

 

 

HIS VOLUME consists of a reproduction of the Portraits and
Groups originally published in Fraser’s Magazine, 1830-88, under
the title of “ A Gallery of Illustrious Literary Characters ” ; and
of the biographico-critical sketches by which these were accom-
panied. Three portraits, not forming part of the original series,
have been added ;* and the whole, it is hoped, will be found to
derive completeness and interest from the copious illustrative
“ Notes,” which now appear for the first time, and for which I
am responsible.

In reviewing their labours in the Magazine, at the conclusion
of the first decade of its existence, its conductors, turning from
pen to pencil, thus advert to the novel graphic feature of their

serial :—‘‘ We commenced a Gallery of ‘Illustrious’ Literary Characters in the month of July,
1830,—commenced, we own, in mere jocularity; and, trusting to his well-known good-nature
and long-tried good temper, selected Jerdan as our opening portrait. There was nothing in
what we said that could annoy a man for whom we had so sincere a regard; and we found that the
idea pleased. We continued it, therefore, until we published no less than EIGHTY-ONE.”

Next follows an analytical account of the “ Gallery,” together with some justification of, or
apology for, the choice of subjects, concluding with the remarks :—‘ We closed our series of
portraits, principally for lack of sufficiently attractive materials, but are ready to revive them at
any time, if we think the public requires us to do so. It will be a valuable present to the future
Granger ; even as it is, the collection is in no inconsiderable demand for the purpose of
illustrating books of contemporary literature, such as the works of Lord Byron, Lockhart’s ‘ Life
of Sir Walter Scott,’ &c. In another generation it will be an object of greater curiosity. Our
successors will have no difficulty in procuring set portraits of ‘Scott, Rogers, Moore, and all the
better brothers,’ though even of them it will not be easy to obtain the familiar faces and attitudes
as sketched in the Magazine; but where can it be expected that elsewhere will be found any
record of the countenances of the illustrious obscure who were scribbling away, with more or less
repute, in the reign of William IV.?”

There is every reason to believe that these portraits are, without any exception, the production
of that distinguished artist, the late Danret Mactisz, R.A. The sketches being slight,—in
many cases tinged by caricature,—in nearly all taken surreptitiously or from recollection,—and
accompanied, moreover, by humorous, satirical, or sarcastic comments,—both artist and author were
disposed to obscure their identity with a veil of pseudonymous mystery. The portraits are
nevertheless of the highest excellence, and bear the impress, one and all, of a master hand.
Firm and delicate at once in outline, and felicitous in composition, they exhibit a marvellous
subtlety in the apprehension and exhibition of intellectual character. Mr. 8. C. Hall, a most
competent authority, speaks of them as “admirable as likenesses, and capital as specimens of art’;
while Thackeray, in a letter to G. H. Lewes, tells how greatly Goethet+ was interested in those
“admirable portraits,’’—though “the ghastly caricature of R(ogers) ”? made him shut up the book
and put it away m anger; for, as the veteran said with natural horror, “They would make me look
like that.’’t

 

* Henry Hallam; W. M. Thackeray; and Daniel Maclise, R.A.

t ‘Life of Goethe.’ By G. H. Lewes. Vol. ii. p. 445, ed. 1855.

{ It may be well to mention that a similar series of outline portraits, entitled ‘Our Portrait Gallery,” inferior in
interest and artistic merit, but accompanied by much longer and more serious biographical notices, is to be found in the
vill EDITOR'S PREFACE.

It has generally been understood that the task of “exhibiting the Gallery,” as Mahony
termed it, was confided to the. late William Maginn, LL.D. The several pages of illustrative
matter produced in discharge of this important function are fully worthy and characteristic of the
genius of this extraordinary and unfortunate man. In style, pure, easy, and vigorous ; in matter,
they are suggestive, graphic, and varied,—scintillating with wit, withering with sarcasm, biting
with irony, genial with praise, pregnant with learning, and all aglow with the lambent humour of
Aristophanes or Rabelais. They were “ entirely original in plan and execution,” says a biographer,
“and created a sensation in literary circles not often paralleled. . . . As a whole, they are,
we think, the most original and sparkling of the Doctor’s productions; and when we remember
that they were hit off at a moment’s notice, we shall be easily able to fancy how meteoric was the
intellect from which they emanated. Wit was their principal recommendation. . . . . And
we never read them without involuntarily thinking we hear the Doctor speak, for they are perfect
resemblances of what his conversation was.”’* The portrait of the ‘ Doctor” himself occurs in
the “ Gallery ; ” but to illustrate this the pen of his ever-constant friend J. G. Lockhart was called
into requisition. That of Thomas Carlyle was appropriately sought to show forth the <iéwdov of
Goethe. And to “ Father Prout,”’—the Rev. Francis Mahony,—are attributed the prose sketches
of Henry O’Brien, L. E. Landon, and the great French chansonnier, Béranger. With the
exception of these, I am not able to state that any one of the pen-characters is other than the
production of Maginn himself.

Each muster-call on the march of life serves but to remind us sadly of the comrades who
have fallen by the way. When two lustres had passed over the “ Gallery,” its projectors recorded
that nearly one-fourth of the members,—old and young alike,—had sped from “ sunshine to the
sunless land.” This was in 1840; but at the later stand-point of 1859, when Frank Mahony
edited ‘ Prout’s Reliques” for Bohn, the Padre could only remember eight,—he. unaccountably
forgot Jerdan, making a ninth,—as surviving, of the twenty-seven “ Fraserians ”’ whom Maclise,
in the splendid cartoont+ which forms our frontispiece, has depicted, carousing at the round table
in Regent Street. Again, when at the expiration of a like interval, the present volume went to
press, but a bare tithe of this century of illustrious men remained among us. And now two of
this little group have taken their departure. Sir Joun Bowrine,—his membership is conjectural,
but this matters little——so renowned asa polylinguist and commercial economist, has gone down to
the grave, an octogenarian, full of life and honours ;t and the great Abbey has claimed all that was
mortal of Epwarp, Lorp Lyrron,§ the “ Admirable Crichton”? of modern literature,—the writer

Dublin University Magazine. This includes seventy-two portraits, and terminates with that of Captain McClure, R.N., in
the number for March, 1854, vol. xliii, Those of Moore and J. W. Croker (vol. xix.), Dr. Maginn (vol. xziii.), Crofton
Croker (vol. xxxiv.), and J. 8. Knowles (vol. xl.), have their analogues in Fraser’s series, with which they may be
compared.

* Dublin University Magazine, Janyary, 1844, p. 88.

+ This cartoon, said the Graphic, in its notice of Maclise, “rendered priceless” the number of Fraser (January, 1835,
vol. xi.) which contained it.

f Sir John Bowring died November 28rd, 1872, in the 8lst year of his age, at his residence, Mount Radford, near
Exeter, his native city. He became in early life the friend and political pupil of Jeremy Bentham, whose principles he
advocated in the Westminster Review, of which he was, later, the editor. He subsequently acted as executor to his master,
—wrote his life, with no very great success,—and edited his works, in ill-printed, ill-arranged, incorrect, and incomplete
fashion. Although deeply versed in the economics and literature of commerce, it is as a linguist that he is especially
to be remembered. In this regard he was more remarkable than Cardinal Mezzofanti himself, as his acquirements were not
merely verbal, but made ancillary to literary purposes. He himself estimated the number of languages which he knew at
two hundred, of which he spoke one hundred. Forty he is said to have known critically, including many from different
classes. He retained his marvellous powers to the last; and at his death, stood, so far as I know at the head of the linguists
of the world.

§ Lord Lytton died at Torquay, 18th January, 1873. He was born in 1805, and was consequently in his 68th year.
It has been said, and probably with truth, that he is the last literary man, of the present day at least, concerning whose
place of sepulture a care will be felt. The title devolves upon his only surviving offspring, the Hon. Edward Robert Lytton,
born in 1881, and already favourably known in literature, under the pen-name of “ Owen Meredith.” It is right to mention
that had the life of Lord Lytton been longer spared, the publication of this volume would have been graced with his
illustrious name, as he had kindly granted permission to the Editor to dedicate it to him.

 
EDITOR’S PREFACE. ix

who, as Novelist, Historian, Essayist, Poet, Orator, and Dramatist, has rendered more applicable
to himself than any contemporary man of letters the celebrated eulogy of Johnson on Goldsmith.*

I now come to my own share in the volume. Admiration of the technical merit of the
portraits, and interest in the illustrious originals, conceived in boyhood, acquired strength as
I grew older; and, ever and anon, I was wont to enjoy a pleasure, whose infinite variety custom
had no power to stale, by running over one or more of the fifteen volumes of Fraser, in which my
favourite series was contained, with the ever-recurring regret that this was not to be obtained in
a separate form, and in the compass of a single portable volume. I was not, however, unaware
that what I so much desired already to some extent existed. Shortly after the completion of the
“Gallery,” a selection of the portraits, to the number of thirty-four, was issued by the
proprietors, in a handsome quarto volume. A very limited number of the edition was printed, at
two guineas each ; with twenty-four copies on India paper, at three guineas. The drawings, it
was stated, were destroyed immediately after their first appearance, and not one had been suffered
to get abroad detached from the Magazine. This volume then, good so far as it went, contained
little more than a third of the entire series; was unaccompanied by explanatory text ; and was,
moreover, from its restricted issue, in booksellers’ lingo, “ difficult of procuration.”

By-and-by, a question respecting the “ Gallery” having been asked in a well-known serial,
Iwas induced to attempt an answer. This, somehow, grew upon my hands, and assumed the
form of an analytical account of the series.t At the conclusion of this, which was, so far as I
know, the first attempt to call attention to the interest and excellence of the “ Gallery,” I naturally
expressed the feeling which was uppermost in my mind, and exclaimed, with small hope indeed
of the realization of my idea, “What a truly charming book of pictures and prose,—the
quintessence, as it were, of Maclise and Maginn, giving the very form and pressure of their
literary time,—would this century of illustrious literary characters make ! ”

The implied suggestion, like a chance seed upon genial soil, was adopted by one who has
manifested equal enterprise and tact in catering for the public delectation. Shortly after the
appearance of my article, I received a communication from Mr. Horren,{ informing me that he
proposed to reproduce the portraits, with the accompanying text ; and requesting me to undertake
the editorial supervision of the work, and the preparation of such notes as I might think desirable
to add completion and importance to that which had such elements of attraction in itself. To this
proposal I lent a ready ear. The task, it is true, was not unattended with trouble and difficulty,
but then it seemed a labour of love. It was pleasing, moreover, to aid the publisher in his
worthy design ; and, while contributing to the attainment of my own desire, take part in the
production of a book which I felt assured all lovers of literature of kindred tastes could not fail to
regard as a xrijua é¢ act,—a “ joy for ever.”

This is apart from my own labours, of which I have now,—but at no length,—to speak.
Whether my “Notes” add interest and value to the volume, I must leave others to decide.
Desultory as they are, and of varied character, as the title-page imports, there may be something

* “Qui nullum fere scribendi genus non tetigit,
Nullum quod tetigit non ornavit ;
Sive risus essent movendi,
Sive lacryma,
Affectuum potens at lenis dominator,
Ingenio sublimis, vividus, versatilis,
Oratione grandis, nitidus, venustus.”

+ Notes and Queries, March 11, 1871, p. 211.

{ Here, again, the hand of Death has been busy. In one of his last letters to me, Mr. Hotten says, “I have not
followed your ‘Notes’ as I ought to have done; that pleasure is reserved till completion.” But it'was not permitted to
this able, energetic, and enterprising man to witness the publication of the volume in the progress of which he had
manifested such interest. JoHn CampEn Horren died, after a short illness, June 14th, 1873, aged forty years. A reference
to Allibone’s “ Critical Dictionary of English Literature,” sub voce “ Syntax,” will afford some idea of the literary labours
of Mr. Hotten, as contributor to the Literary Gazette, the Parthenon, the London Review, &c.; and there, too, will be found
a list of some threescore volumes, either written or edited by him, among which may be mentioned his clever biographical
sketch of Thackeray, and “The Story of Charles Dickens’s Life,”—the latter, as he wrote me at the time, the result of
“twenty days’ hard work.”

b
x EDITOR’S PREFACE.

in them to please a diversity of tastes. What is neither new nor attractive to one reader may yet
be so to another ; and thus, in their very discursiveness, they may prove, it is hoped, an humble
illustration of that species of writing, of which the younger Pliny sets before us the precept and
the example :—“‘ Ipsa varietate teuntamus efficere, ut alia aliis, quedam fortasse omnibus placeant.”

In addition to these “ Notes,” I have been enabled, as space permitted, to insert a few
magazine miscellanies and other fugitive pieces, valuable in themselves and illustrative of the
period and the characters noticed. For these, at least, I feel sure of the thanks of lovers of
literary curiosities, and especially for such a gem as the rare poem by Charles Lamb, “Satan
in Search of a Wife,’ at p. 169, for permission to republish which, it is right I should
mention, I am indebted to the late Epwarp Moxon. My thanks are also due to J. Minner
Barry, M.D., of Tunbridge Wells, for the kindly interest and trouble he has.taken in the progress
of the work, and the valuable information which his wide acquaintance with periodical and general
literature has enabled him to convey.

That there were giants in the olden days is the belief of all; nor is this the mere cry of the
laudator temporis acti. Time would appear to have for the mental eye some of the effects of
space for the physical. The objects presented for consideration become undefined and exaggerated
in the medium interposed, derive adventitious interest from association, and cease to exhibit those
trivial defects which often mar the appreciation of great and enduring qualities. Thus, it is
difficult to form an abstract judgment of the great men of the past, and weigh their gifts in an
equal scale with those of our more immediate contemporaries. Nevertheless, with this con-
sideration before me, I am unable to divest myself of the conviction that the celebrated writers of
the former half of the present century possessed an individuality of talent, and awaken a deep
personal curiosity, which can never be claimed for those of the latter by a future race of critics
and biographers. Into the causes of this, I do not profess now to enter, and must remain content
with the statement of my belief. It is curious, moreover, to remark that a like phenomenon is to
be noticed in the literary annals of the other countries of Europe, where, amid,—and partly on
account of,—a general diffusion of intellectual light, the eye is attracted by the radiance of few
bright particular stars. ‘ Historians,” says 8. C. Hall, in the “ Postscript” to his charming
“ Book of Memories,” “of the later half of the nineteenth century will not have such materials.
as the first half of it supplied. ‘There were giants on earth’? when I was young; there are few
such to excite wonder, as well as reverence, in the existing age, although, for one who was then
an ‘author by profession,’ there are now a hundred; while readers have multiplied a thousand-
fold.”’ It is with this glorious band that the reader is now privileged to consort; and this, by
the associated labours of Macrisz and Macgrny, in such intimacy that, though born in a later day,
and remote, perchance, from lettered haunts, he may almost lay down the volume with the boast
of Horace :—

“

 

 

quidquid sum ego, quamvis
Infra Lucili censum ingeniumque; tamen me
Cum magnis vixisse invita fatebitur usque
Invidia . . o

Enough as to the genesis of the book, which it is now time, in ancient fashion, to bid “go
forth.” With no pretensions to unity of design as a biographical essay, a history of the literary
epoch, or a critical analysis of its character and productions, it must be regarded rather as a series
of fragmentary episodes than a connected work. The sketches of Maclise were often hasty and
furtive; the illustrations of his collaborator dashed off currente calumo, and generally under
stimulus of an impure Hippocrene; and my own “ Notes,” from circumstances connected with
the mechanical production of the volume, on which it is unnecessary to dilate, will often, I fear,
show traces of haste and crudity, which revision might have allowed me an opportunity of
correcting. However, such as it is, I now commit it to the reader, with the humble obsecration
of the Roman poet :—

“Da veniam subitis, et, qui legis ista, memento,
Me dare non librum, sed 2xediacpa tibi.”

BirmMiIncHaM, August, 1873. WILLIAM BATES.
2

SOB Ss OR os oe

w Wh wD Ww bw bw bw WY Ww DDD OH BP Be ee ee
PPPS PNIanrF WON STMDNATAHRE HWW HS

ew
~)

ww iw w
anak OK

1

oR BR © Go Go
YF OSes

b

LIST OF PORTRATTS.

 

Page

THE “ FRASERIANS.” ...........0006 Frontispiece.

» WILLIAM JERDAN ooo... ccc ccc cceceeeeeeee ees 9
THOMAS CAMPBELL...........0c.cceceeeeeueeee 11
JoHN Gipson LOCKHART ............0.000. 13
SAMUEL ROGERS............00c0ceeceeeee eens 15
THOMAS MOORE ..........0ccceceseee eee ee ence 19
Str WALTER SCOTT oo... cece cee eee eee ees 21
JOHN GALT jo55 serdnncdas desesen sidesandenear. 24
WILLIAM MAGINN 0.00... cc cece cece cee ee eee 25
CROFTON CROKER.........0cc0cesceceeneeeeaees 29
MRS... NORTON ics covagian iodenca vs ga eke ionic 31
JOHN WILSON,.........ccccccecceeeeeeeeceeees 33
Mary Russevt MITForD ................0. 35

. Don TELEsFoRO DE TruEBA y Cozio... 37
. EARL OF MUNSTER ..........0.ccecceeeeeeeees 39
. Lorp JoHn RUSSELL .........ccccceceeeeeeee 41
. Ricot Hon. JoHN Witson Croker ... 43
TyDUS-POOH-POOHM. .........ceceeceneee ee eees 45
WASHINGTON IRVING 1.0... 0.2 cc eeeeee seen eee 46
Tue Lorp BrouGHAM AND VAUM......... 49
RoBERT MONTGOMERY............0c000e eee eee 52

+ JAMES HOGG. iiss asada idea eeiedas eerste eas 54
. THe Baron Von GOETHE.............00005 57
. IsraEL [Isaac] D’Isragnl............... 61
. THE ANTIQUARIES .......ccccecee cee ce ease eee 64
. Louis EustacHE UDE ..............000006 68
. REVEREND Doctor LARDNER ............ 72
. Epwarp Lytton BULWER ...............+0+ 74
. ALLAN CUNNINGHAM ......ccccceeceeeeseeees 17
. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH ............200e0e eee 79
. Str Davip BREWSTER.............00.eeeee eee 82
. WILLIAM ROSCOE ..... ccc eeecee sence eee eee 85
. PRINCE DE TALLEYRAND...........00000eeeee 89
» JAMES MORIER, wo .c ceca ca otk cans vevanns oes 91
. COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON.........0.200000+ 93
6 DHE: TIGER sc sus iaseaeg tue vk sn Veen acumen 95
. BensaMIn D’ISRAELI ...........c0ceeeeeeeeee 98
. THOMAS CARLYLE  ........ceccceeceeseeeneeee 100
. SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE ............... 103
. GEORGE CRUIKSHANK .......c0cceceeeeeeee ene 106
- Doctor MOIR .........ccccccceenenenecenereees 110
. MIss LANDON .......c ccs ccc cdeeeeeeecneeeeens 111
Miss HarriEt MARTINEAU .......seeeeeee 114

 

 

No.
43.
44,
45,
46.

47,

48.
49,

50.

dl.
52.
53.
54.
55.
56.
57.
58.
59.
60.
61.
62.
63.
64,
65.
66.

67.

68.
69.
70.
71.

72.
73.

74.
75.
76.
77.
78.
79.
80.
81.
82.
83.

Page
GRANT THORBURN ..........ccceeeeeeeeaee ees 117
CAPTAIN ROSS .........0:cccccesceceeeeeeeeaes 118
Sir EGERTON BRYDGES ..............00c0008 121
DanteL O’CoNNELL AND RicHarp LAaLor
SAID: oo. cons vevsanieina cas eee aeeaa ae eee 124
THEODORE E. Hook ...........e ccc eee eee ees 126
CuarLes MoLioy WESTMACOTT...........- 129
niGs: SELUNT: cise widened ag aineeetagyexe 132
W. H. AINSWORTH........0..0..00:c eee ene eee 134
THOMAS FULT. g.ce.ueccscaien tos eras voveesa xe 137
Rev. Grorce RoBert GLei¢ ............ 139
WILLIAM GODWIN .......cceeeceeseeeeeneees 141
JAMES; SMITH ia diss des sctaesevan cane ven eres 143
ComMTE D’ORSAY .........::ccceese cee eee eee nes 146
CHARLES LAMB ........c ccc ces cece caeeneeees 149
PrerRE-JEAN DE BERANGER ............... 152
Miss JANE PORTER ......... cece eeeeee ees 156,
Lapy MORGAN on... cee ecececeee eee ceteeeees 158
Mr. Auaric ATTILA WATTS ............ 161
Lorp FRANCIS HGERTON.............00c00008 163
Henry O’BRIEN .......... A ccatiicte Ener Mi nelae 165
MicHarL THOMAS SADLER ...........-..0065 168
HARL OF MULGRAVE .........0cccccene eee ees 172
WILLIAM COBBETT ........... ea aa ee gar joee es 173
FRANCIS PLACE ......cccececes ee eaeeeeeeeees 178
RopBert MACNISH .......ceccecceeceeeeeeenes 179
Recina’s Marps or Honowr............... 182
MICHAEL FARADAY ...........0cccceeceeeeeees 184
Rev. Wituiam Liste Bow es ............ 185
Mas, S, OG, HAGE. sisnssnys ses vonsversencvas 189
Siz Joun C. Hopyoust...........c.cc.0000 191
Mr. Sergeant TALFOURD .............0.005 194
Stn JOHN SOANE ........ccccceeeeeeeeeee eee ees 197
Lorp LYNDHURST...........00cccee cee eeneee ees 201
SHERIDAN KNOWLES..........0..0cseeeec eee ees 202
EDMUND LODGE ..........cccecececereee ensues 206
JOHN BALDWIN BUCKSTONE ..............5 210
Sir WILLIAM MOLESWORTH ............... 211
Rev. SypNEY SMITH ..............0.00000005 213
HENRY EUATTAME <3 5: cosue-cesidaie sos oe 8d Sie cosets 219
W. M. THACKERAY ooo... c cece ceeecce eee 222
Daniet Mactisz, R.A. occas 228
“Sola doctoram monumenta vatum
Nesciunt fati imperium severi,
Sola contemnunt Phlegethonta, et Orci
Jura superbi.”

GEoRGIUS BUCHANANUS,
 

PHI JEIDWIr OR mie WH

 

TE JUTE IRR GAZE TS
A GALLERY

OF

ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS.

 

No. 1.—WILLIAM JERDAN.

ILLIAM JERDAN was born in Scotland about the year 1730. The first seventy or eighty
years of his life he spent in the usual dissipations of youth—a detail of which we may be excused
from giving, as the follies of our early days afford no instruction to the moralist, and supply no just means
of appreciating the character of the full-grown man. On his arrival in London, a centre to which all talent
gravitates as certainly as falling bodies descend to the earth, we find him employed in that profession by
whose labours the opinions, or at least the declarations, of our statesmen are conveyed to the world.
Afterwards, filled with a just indignation against the vices of society, his name occurs among those who
determined to tear off their deceitful mask, and to expose, by name, to the public scorn, culprits whom they
deemed unworthy of being concealed from the penalties of their turpitude. Vice being, as usual,
triumphant in this metropolis, it is not astonishing that his well-meant endeavours for the public good were
not long continued, and we next discover him in the character of Apollo, or, to drop the language of
mythology, directing the Sun. In this task he was assisted by Mr. John Taylor, a gentleman whose name
will be remembered as long as the tail of Mathews or Gattie waves in the hundreds of Drury, or the courts
of Covent Garden. The duplex government of these editors was principally remarkable for a controversy,
carried on in the paper itself between them, each, ay he was lord of the ascendant of the day, emptying the
vials of abuse upon his coadjutor, to the no small diversion of the public. During his solar government, he
seized, in the lobby of the House of Commons, Bellingham, the assassin of Perceval, of which he has given
an account in his life of that statesman. After favouring the world with a translation of the ‘Hermit in
Paris,” and other works, he finally settled as editor of the Literary Gazette (a proof of which he is in the
picture before us reading, with scrutinizing eye, in quest of literals) ; and there he sits still enthroned, high
arbiter of wit.

So far for a Johnsonian notice ; as for the rest, we have not much more to add, except that he is the
best of good fellows, convivial abroad, hospitable at home ; that, in spite of what a small set of very small
critics or disappointed authors say, he manages his Literary Gazette admirably well; that he gives the
earliest literary news, chooses the fairest specimens from new books, does not encumber us with criticism,
and is wholly free from spite and rivalry. Thatin the hurry of weekly composition and selection, he, or those
whom he employs, is sometimes mistaken, is true enough ; the only wonder is that he does not slip oftener.
A great cry was got up afew years ago by some foolish Cockneys, who, having contrived to impose upon him a
sonnet of Shakspeare’s as a modern composition, continue to ring the changes on this notable blunder ever
since,—as if there were any man in England on whom the same trick could not have been played with every
chance of success. None but a puppy or a pedant will pretend that he knows all Shakspeare’s sonnets by
heart. If no worse critical lapse than this be committed by Jerdan, he may set his heart at ease, and drink
his third bottle in quietness.

His criticism, we are told, is not brilliant or deep ; he is no Dr. Johnson, or Longinus, or Aristotle, or
Schlegel, or any other of the fine names. So be it ; but there is something to be said for him nevertheless.
With opportunities of being smart and caustic, of inflicting hurt and injury, to show his wit or gratify his
spleen, he has taken the other course, that of aiding the efforts of early genius, of encouraging the hopes
of neglected talent, of cheering the path of authors anxiously struggling on through the difficulties of their
way ; and if the books of Colburn and Longman obtain their due share of notice, must it of necessity be
attributed to other motives than a fair bias in favour of partners and friends in whose choice of works his
own advice is often taken? It would be strange, indeed, if he ghould not sometimes express in his Gazette
the same favourable opinions which urged him to recommend to the publishers the purchase of a novel or
a poem.

But supposing this to be a blemish, and admitting that the necessitous littérateurs who sometimes
contribute to the Gazette complain every now and then of the niggardly hand with which payment for thei:
B
10 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

needy labours is doled out,—these are faults of others, not of himself. He supplies us with a pleasant
paper every Saturday ; and, to conclude,— :

“Tf to his fault some critic errors fall,
Look in his face, and you’ll forget them all.”

But we allow that the best time for looking at it is not that chosen by our Rembrandt; the favourable
hour is ten o’clock at night, and his position at the head of a table, firmly seated behind an intrenchment
of decanters.

MV OPES.

HE “ Gallery ” commences appropriately with the cidwAov of WitLi1am JERDAN, the Nestor, if not the
Aristarchus, of journalistic critics. We will not deny that he was born in 1730, as stated above,
but think it right to mention that a William Jerdan first saw the light at Kelso, where his father had a
small estate, on April 16, 1782. Some seventy years after this event,—in August, 1851,—a testimonial
was set on foot, “as a public acknowledgment of the literary labours of William Jerdan, animating to
many and instructive to all, since the commencement of the Literary Gazette, in 1817, to the close of the
last year, and of the value of his services to Literature, Science, and the Fine and Useful Arts.” On the
Committee for the promotion of this laudable object were men of the highest position in literature, art,
and politics, Brougham, Croly, Lockhart, Maclise, Thackeray, Bulwer, Cruikshank, dc.

The establishment of the Literary Gazette—the first weekly journal of criticism and Belles Lettres in
this country,—and his “ gallant seizure” of Bellingham.(May 11, 1812), are incidents in the life of Jerdan
mentioned by the editor of “Don Juan” in his Preface, as constituting the title of the critic to be
remembered by posterity. His narrow escape of at Iéast receiving a challenge to fight a duel with the
noble author of that poem may also be mentioned among his credentials. It appears that some remarks
which he had made on Byron’s lines to Mrs. Charlemont having given offence, the irate bard entrusted a
cartel of defiance to his friend, Douglas Kinnaird, who, wisely retaining it in his possession till he had an
opportunity of appealing from Philip drunk to Philip sober, succeeded in dissuading the poet from his
angry purpose.

We have no recollection of the imposition practised upon Jerdan in the matter of the Shakspearian
sonnet, and we, too, are of opinion that to have been so deceived is no impeachment on his critical sagacity,
or, indeed, on that of any one else. You may safely write down that man an ass who assumes judicial
infallibility in literary or artistic discrimination. The most cautious, learned, and experienced judges are
liable to error. Did not Muretus deceive Scaliger by palming upon him some verses of his own as the
work of an ancient? Did not Peter Burmann doubt as to the antiquity of Jortin’s inscription, and
Thomas Warton give it a place in his “ Delectus”? Was not Sir Walter Scott as open to deception as his
own Monkbarns, though no one should have known the ring of a true Border ballad better than he? Were
no acute critics entrapped by Chatterton and by Ireland? Are the “ Letters of Phalaris” authentic? And did
not Simonides hoodwink the learned Dindorf at Leipzig? These are questions out of hundreds in the
history of literature and art, and the answers to them should lead to modesty in the assumption of
sagacity, and leniency towards others who have fallen into error.

It should not be forgotten that the Royal Society of Literature, founded in 1821, owes its existence,
in great measure, to William Jerdan, who was one of its earliest members; in 1826 he became a member
of the Royal Society of Antiquaries.

Those who wish to know more of Jerdan’s literary career must refer to his “Men I Have Known,” 1866,
8vo. ; his “ Autobiography,” 4 vols. 12mo., 1852 ; “ Men of the Time,” ed. 1856; and the obituary notice in
the Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. xlvi., N.S., p. 441.

This veteran critic closed his long and honourable career at his residence, near Bushey Heath, July,
1869, at the patriarchal age of 88.

 

Some twelve months later were borne to their last resting-place, at Willesden, the remains of another
editorial critic, whose career had been concurrently prolonged with that of Jerdan. This was the well-
known Cyrus Reppine, who, born at Penryn, in 1785, died in June, 1870. He, like Jerdan, had
outlived his generation, — 2

“ Oblitusque suorum, obliviscendus et illis ;’—

and only two carriages followed him to the grave. He used to relate how above 1,000 persons followed
his father, a popular Nonconformist divine, to the tomb. “There is a line to be drawn,” as the Atheneum
remarked, “between fuss and neglect.”
 

 

EDITOR OF THE NEW MONTHLY.

THE
No. 2.—THOMAS CAMPBELL.

ROM the Literary Gazette to the New Monthly is but a step ; as we had Jerdan in our last, we follow

up the series by Campbell. A biography of the Bard of Hope would be indeed sadly out of place

here, and we therefore shall not write it. If we outlive him, we may attempt his life, as he is now
attempting that of Lawrence.

Our painter has taken him in his happiest moment, in that still sweet period when the hours are the
smallest and minntes the gayest. What he is saying in that moment of openness, it is easy for his friends
to conjecture. Complaining, perhaps, of Brougham, for having come between him and his own project of
the College of Gower-street ; deploring the fate of that learned University ; abusing Moore ; sighing over
his lot in being tied to Colburn ; or venting amatory suspirations after a fair authoress. Perhaps he is
explaining to his audience how infinitely inferior all poets, past, present, and to come, are to himself; or
enlightening them upon the vast number of lords and ladies, and knights of the garter, with whom he is
familiar.

Behind is the half-finished Hipprocrene whence flows his inspiration ; scattered at his feet, the
correspondence of the New Monthly Magazine, which is destined in lightivg his pipe, ex fwmo dare lucem ;
supporting his ink-bottle, a box labelled “ Literary Union,” a name which, as the club that assumed it can
boast neither of literature nor union, has been, by general consent, changed into the more appropriate title
of the Refuse of the Destitute. Over his head is a figure of Hope, not a little resembling the sign of the
Blue Anchor. We have, in short, the room and the man, his business and his pleasures, literally
before us.

It will be seen from the awry state of his wig, the dependent arm, the Joosely-held pipe, the uncravatted
throat, the slipshod feet, that Tom is completely at his ease. And why should he not rest and refresh
himself after the labours of the day? After arbitrating in the wrangles of the Refuse, agitating in the
turmoils of all the College of the Cockneys, writing lectures and biographies ; reading, or even pretending to
read, the proofs of the Vew Monthly ; dropping in amid various coteries of Whiggery ; and getting through
other such deadly work ; ought he not to be a weary man at night-fall? And being so, may he not lie down
and rest, comforting himself with those chasers of grief to which the nepenthe of Homer is nothing?
Depend upon it, readers, gentle and ungentle, that the likeness is exquisite, and taken at the
witching hour.

A friend of ours has sent us some verses on this plate, of which we take a couplet :—

“‘ There’s Tom Campbell in person, the poet of Hope,
Brimful of good liquor, as gay as the pope.
His shirt-collar’s open, his wig is awry,
There’s his stock on the ground, there’s a cock in his eye.
Half gone his last tumbler—clean gone his last joke,
And his pipe, like his college, is ending in smoke.
What he’s saying who knows, but perhaps it may be
Something tender and soft of a bouncing ladye.”

The song then becomes scurrilous and abusive ; we suppress, therefore, all the culpable verses to come to
the last, which is panegyrical :—
“ Well! though you are yoked to a dull Magazine,

Tom, I cannot forget it, what once you have been ;

Though you wrote of Lord Byron an asinine letter ;

Though your dinners are bad, and your talk is no better ;

Yet the song of the Baltic—Lochiel’s proud lay—

The Seamen of England—and Linden’s red day—

Must make up for the nonsense you write and you speak,

Did you talk it and write it seven days in the week!”

In which we coincide and conclude.

MOT ff &.

HIS is a portrait indeed “exquisite, and taken at the witching hour”; far happier, in our

judgment, than Maclise’s finished “three-quarter,” or even the fine likeness by Sir Thomas Lawrence.

The rollicking verses above—what a pity the “scurrilous and abusive” ones were suppressed—really

leave little to say in the way of criticism. Still, among the pieces that posterity will not willingly let die,

must be included that exquisitely-perfect gem, “The Soldier's Dream”; the fine ode, recited by

Mr. Young at the farewell dinner to J. P. Kemble, in 1817; the passionate and plaintive “ O’Connor’s
B
12 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

Child,”—the “diamond of his casket of gems,” as Delta Moir has it ; “ Reullura”; “The Last Man,” with
its sublime, if faulty, conception (Charles Swain has written a worthy pendant, “The First Man,” and we
inust not forget the “ Last Man” of Thomas Hood) ; the touching story of “Gertrude,” with its Arcadian
grace ; and those fine episodes in the ‘“ Pleasures of Hope,” which will float the poem down the surface of
the stream of Time.

Criticism—the ultimate judgment of the world—is conversant with merit in the abstract, and has
no consideration for the accidents often pleaded of age, sex, or worldly position. But individuals and con-
temporaries may be permitted to remember that the “ Pleasures of Hope ” appeared in 1799, when its author
was only twenty-two years of age, and be led to consider it to be, what it undoubtedly is, a very remarkable
instance, in such a case, of successful mastery over the form and spirit of poetical expression. It is true
that marks of juvenility are everywhere apparent ; that the diction is often redundant, and sense not always
commensurate with sound. Still, it is a poem of sustained rhythmical march ; of sentiments expressive of
every note in the gamut of feeling ; and of episodes, whether from history, fiction, or domestic life, full of
beauty, force, pathos, and natural truth. In the words of Moir, “the heart is lapped in Elysium, the rugged
is softened down, and the repulsive hid from view ; Nature is mantled in the enchanting hues of the poet’s
imagination, and life seems but a tender tale set to music.” Perhaps there is no didactic poem in our lan-
guage so well known and loved as this,—if not as a whole, by its component parts. We have no doubt that
it will continue to be so, in spite of new “schools” of poetry and poetical criticism ; and that it will retain
its place, as a classic, in our literature, nobly closing that bright era, of which Dryden and Pope
heralded the morn, and which closed when the star of the genius of Wordsworth appeared above the poetical
horizon, to announce a new dayspring of poetry and beauty. ‘

We have no room to speak of the Spenserian “Gertrude of Wyoming,” exquisitely beautiful and
pathetic as much of it is ; of ‘‘ Theodric,” which is pure, if wanting in force and spirit ; or of the “ Massacre
of Glencoe.” Neither does the prose of Campbell demand much notice : as the work of such a poet, it could
hardly be other than tasteful and felicitous ; though it is not unfrequently florid and affected. Little of it
is now remembered ; except, indeed, his brilliant and judicious criticisms on English poetry and poets, for a
portable annotated edition of which, without the Specimens, we are indebted to the late Peter Cunningham.

Few poets have been better paid than Campbell. From first to last, he appears to have received nearly
£1,000 for the “ Pleasures of Hope,” making about fifteen shillings a line ; than which Byron got no more,
—receiving £2,500 for “‘ Manfred,” the “ Prisoner of Chillon,” and the third canto of “ Childe Harold.”

Campbell was slow and fastidious in composition ; we smell the lamp and hear the lime labor,—yet his
local colour and incident are often faulty. Thus, he places tigers on the banks of Lake Erie, hyzenas in
South America, and associates the “ village curfew ” with the haunts of the red Indian.

Perhaps he has written nothing truly finer than “Hohenlinden,” yet this fine Horatian lyric was
rejected as a contribution to the Greenock Advertiser, with the intimation that it did not “come up to the
editor’s standard,” and that poetry was evidently not the forte of the contributor! (Notes and Queries,
Dec. 13th, 1862, p. 475.) We must not, however, forget, as we criticise the critic, that Campbell
himself would never admit the merit of this piece. We learn the fact from Cyrus Redding, who edited
his poetical works, and who adds,—so little worth is a man’s judgment as to the relative value of his
own productions,—that the poet positively forbade the “ Dirge of Wallace,” one of the finest of the minor
pieces, to be included in the collection. (II. 354.)

Campbell was a great lover of the “ weed,” and here we have him enjoying the

“Tnnocuos calices, et amicam vatibus herbam,”’—

as old Thorius has it. Beattie, his biographer, describes his lumbered room, “tobacco-pipes mingled with
he literary wares,” &c. He was, indeed, like Tom Warton and Vinny Bourne, careless in his manners ;
and Lady Morgan relates that when dining with Lord Aberdeen, Manners Sutton, and the Duchess of
Gordon, the bard—horribile dictu—put his knife into the salt-cellar to help himself! We honour him for it.

Shortly before his death, he read that grand piece, the “ Thanatopsis” of Bryant, at the opening of the
Exhibition in Suffolk Place, and broke down with emotion when he came to the lines,—

“ So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan that moves
To the pale realms of shade, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of Death,
Thou go not like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon,” &c.

saying that “nothing finer had ever been written.” He was born July 27,1777, and died at Boulogne,
June 15, 1844, aged 67. He lies in Westminster Abbey, next to Southey’s monument, where is an exqui-
site statue of the poet by W. C. Marshall.

His “ Life and Letters,” by William Beattie, M.D., one of his executors, was published by Moxon, in
3 vols. 8vo., 1849 ; and there are also the “ Memoirs” of the poet by his old friend and literary subordinate,
Cyrus Redding, 2 vols.-8vo., 1860.
STUILUV Od TAL tO HOLIGH TAL

 

 

 
( 13)

No. 3—JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART.

E are rising in the world, from the Literary Gazette to the New Monthly, from the New Monthly to
the Quarterly. As we introduced Tom Campbell to our readers in his nightly guise, here we
have John Gibson Lockhart in his morning attire.

There he sits in his Parisian morning gown, busily smoking his sempiternal cigar. "Whatever may be
thought of his critical severities, it is indisputable that there is no literary man in all the great republic of
letters who is more constantly occupied with puffing. It would take several volumes to explain what may
be the effects of smoking upon a reviewer : we have the authority of Lord Byron that sublime tobacco—

“ From east to west,
Soothes the tar’s labours, and the Turkman’s rest.”

But as a reviewer is neither a tar nor a Turkman, we are not in the least degree advanced towards the proper
elucidation of the subject. Far less are we prepared to enter into this desultory and autoschediastic,
off-hand, and extemporaneous article, as Sir Charles Wetherell would call it, to discuss what should be
the form or vehicle in which the tobacco should be exhibited under the particular circumstances—whether
as cigar, meerschaum, cheroot, perquito, dudeen, hookah, yard of clay ; or whether the material should be
oriental or occidental, Havannah or Turkey, Virginian or Chinese. This would open too wide a field, and
we decline entering into a subject which has already called forth so much acrimonious controversy, marked
by that personality which is the disgrace of the literature of the present day. It will be seen by a
reference to our plate of Campbell, that the New Monthly and the Quarterly take different sides on the
question ; the former patronizing a pipe, the latter a cigar.

His keen eyes are fixed on a book held at arm’s length, but what the matter of the book is, or
wherefore it is surveyed by that scrutinizing glance, is beyond our power to conjecture ; one thing is evident,
and he will agree with us in thinking, that, as exhibited by our engraver, it has a decided advantage over
most modern works—or, indeed, ancient,—for it is here depicted blank, and therefore escapes the fate of
containing sixteen pages of nonsense per octavo sheet, which is the usual proportion. By its folio shape,
we may perhaps conjecture it to be a Romancero, some ballad of which he is intently turning into those
sounding fourteen-syllable verses which his example has deluded various innocent damsels into considering
as the original metre of Spanish ballad-mongers. We are tolerably certain it cannot be an article for the
Quarterly ; for we take it for granted that he is a gentleman of too much sense and acuteness not to fall into
the regular editorial habit of never reading any such rubbish as the papers sent by contributors : it is quite
enough to publish them.

As he is at present engaged in what Hazlitt would call an autobiography of himself, which we may
expect in the next publishing season (the fall of the leaves, as Bentley pleasantly says), we shall not
intrude upon his province any further, than to say that he was born in the city of St. Mungo, the punch of
which he has duly celebrated and immortalized ; that he is a man of Oxford, of which also he hath
celebrated the piety and politics :—

[‘ Unfading in lustre, unbroken in years,
The great mother of Charchmen and Tories appears ; ’”” |

that having studied in the bowers of Baliol, whilom King of Scotland—that he has hewn down various
Philistines in divers quarters, fighting for ever, we need not say most thanklessly, the battles of church
and king ; and that now he sits in the seat of Gifford, in the workshop of Murray. Long may he there
wield his critical baton, but we must recommend with more truculence! He looks on too patiently while
literary atrocities of the most deplorable nature are daily committed: this should be amended, and as a
parting hint, we earnestly entreat him to turn off Barrow. It will be felt as a compliment by a

grateful public.

 

NOTES.

S we have just had Campbell inhaling solace through the somewhat plebeian conduit of a “ Broseley,”

so do we now find Lockhart making use of that later and elegant device by which mediate fumigation

is rendered needless, and the convoluted weed happily made to serve as its own pipe. Each plan has its

advantages, and is good in its way; the whole thing is a matter of taste, and if Maginn declined the
controversy for fear of the acrimony that might arise, it seems well for us to exercise like discretion.

Lockhart was a man of somewhat cold external demeanour ; only showing his better and more genial

qualities after long intimacy. Hence, he comes down to us rather as a literary or intellectual abstraction,

than as the subject of deep personal affection and interest. Still, we know that he was actually an amiable

and lovable man ; an elegant scholar ; no mean poet ; and so well versed in the mechanism of his profession

as to be able, in the words of the Quarterly (vol. Ixxxiii.), “to write on any subject, from poetry to dry-rot.”
14 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

He was born in Lanarkshire in 1794, and was educated at Baliol College, Oxford, where he took a
first class in literis humanioribus, graduating B.C.L. in 1817. He married Sophia, the eldest, and perhaps
best-loved daughter of Sir Walter Scott, and devoting himself to literature, succeeded Gifford, as editor of
the Quarterly Review, in 1826, a post which he worthily occupied till 1853, when failing health occasioned
his resignation.

As a poet, we have his spirited translations from the ballad literature of Spain—among his earliest
contributions to Blackwood—besides many exquisite scattered verses, as ‘Captain Paton’s Lament,” and
‘Napoleon ”; as a biographer, his lives of Napoleon, of Burns, and of his great father-in-law; as a
humorist, his smart and graphic “ Peter’s Letters to his Kinsfolk,” which every one read in the north, and
even down in southerly Leicester attracted the notice of Robert Hall in his pulpit ; as a novelist, ‘‘ Valerius,”
coldly and sternly classical in its treatment as a romance of Apuleius or Barclay; “ Adam Blair,” with its
burning passion and guilt ; “ Matthew Wald” and “ Reginald Dalton,” light, easy, and superficial.

Lockhart died at Abbotsford, in his 60th year, Nov. 25th, 1855. His career had been a reasonably
prosperous and happy one. Possessed of private means, he had never known the res angusta domi,
which almost proverbially attend upon the lot of those who, as he did, forsake the liberal-handed Themis
for that occupation which, as Sir Walter Scott said, might serve as a stick, but should never be relied on as
a crutch. Literature was to Lockhart not unremunerative, and his editorship produced him a regular and
liberal income. He also enjoyed the auditorship of the Duchy of Cornwall, which was worth £600 per
annum, and for which he was indebted to Sir Robert Peel.

The following remarks are from the eloquent notice in the 7imes, attributed to his friend, Lord
Robertson :—

“Tt was characteristic of Lockhart’s peculiar individuality that wherever he was at all known,
whether by man or woman, by poet, man of business, or man of the world, he touched the hidden chord of
romance in all. No man less affected the ‘poetical, the mysterious, or the sentimental ; no man less
affected anything ; yet as he stole stiffly away from the knot, which, if he had not enlivened, he had
hushed, there was not one who did not confess that a being had passed before them who had stirred all the
pulses of the imagination, and realized what is generally only ideal in the portrait of a man. To this
impression there is no doubt that his personal appearance greatly contributed, though too entirely the
exponent of his mind to be considered as a separate cause. Endowed with the very highest order of manly
beauty, both of feature and expression, he retained the brilliancy of youth and a stately strength of
person, comparatively unimpaired in ripened life; and then, though sorrow and sickness suddenly brought
on a premature old age, which none could witness unmoved, yet the beauty of the head and of the bearing
so far gained in melancholy loftiness of expression what they lost in animation, that the last phase, whether
to the eye of painter or of anxious friend, seemed always the finest.”

Maginn alludes to Lockhart’s “sempiternal cigar,” which seems, indeed, to have been a part of the
man. Jamie Hogg gives us also a capital picture of him as ‘‘a mischievous Oxford puppy for whom I was
terrified ; dancing after the young ladies, and drawing caricatures of every one who came ir contact with
him.” Lockhart, indeed, made capital fun out of the simple Shepherd, whom for years he contrived to
keep in a state of perfect mystification as to the, authorship of the “tremendous articles” in Blackwood.
Says the latter: “Being sure I could draw nothing out of either Wilson or Sym, I always repaired to
Lockhart to ask him, awaiting his reply with fixed eyes and a beating heart. Then, with his cigar in his
mouth, his one leg flung carelessly over the other, and without the symptom of a smile on his face, or one
twinkle of mischief in his dark grey eye, he would father the articles on his brother, Captain Lockhart, or
Peter Robertson, or Sheriff Cay, or James Wilson, or that queer, fat body, Dr. Scott; and sometimes on
James or John Ballantyne, and Sam Anderson, and poor Baxter. Then away I flew with the wonderful
news to my other associates ; and if any remained incredulous, I swore the facts down through them ; so
that before I left Edinburgh I was accredited the greatest liar in it, except one.”

We have spoken above of “ Peter’s Letters to his Kinsfolk.” In this clever and celebrated work,—a
kind of Scotch tour, suggested perhaps, in form, by the Scotch chapters of “ Humphrey Clinker,”—we are
humorously presented with the public and private history of the notables of the period, both Whig and
Tory. Some people have seen in these epistles of the imaginary Dr. Morris a cento of libels ; Lockhart,
indeed, admits that “nobody but a very young and a very thoughtless person would have dreamed of
putting forth such a book.” Sir Walter Scott judged, however, more leniently of it, and spoke of the
“ Doctor’s ” character for “ force of expression, both serious and comic, and acuteness of observation,” and
regretted that there was not such a work fifty or even twenty-five years ago. Asarecord of characters
and events the work is indeed highly valuable, and it is much to be wished that some contemporary
yet survives to furnish us with an explanation of the personal hints and allusions. A review of the
work will be found in Blackwood’s Magazine, vol. iv. pp. 612, 745 ; and vol. vi. p. 288.

Our copy has the words, “second edition” on the title-page . has any one seen the “ first” 1 We opine
not ; and believe that this has no existence but in the imagination of the author,—or, indeed, authors, for
more hands than one were certainly concerned in the production of the book.

The portrait of “ Peter Morris, M.D.,” prefixed to the first volume, is mentioned by Jackson and
Chatto, in their “ History of Wood Engraving” (2nd ed., p. 633), as being one of the earliest published
specimens of the invention of Mr. Lizars, of Edinburgh, for “metallic relief engraving.” :

An account of the literary career of Lockhart will be found in the Quarterly Review, October, 1864.
 

THE AUTHOR OF" THE PLEASURES OF MEMORY
No. 4.—SAMUEL ROGERS.

E ae nil nisi bonum!” There is Sam Rogers, a mortal likeness—painted to the very
eath !

We have often thought that a collection of the witticisms let off on the subject of Sam Rogers’s death,
would go near equalling in bulk the vast volume of jokes put into his mouth by a thousand industrious
pun-manufacturers, There is Mackintosh’s wonder, why, when at an election time he could not find an
accommodation at any hotel in a country town, he did not try snug lying in the churchyard ; the French
valet’s announcement of him as M. le Mort, mistaking him for Tom Moore, and the consequent horror of
the company ; Scott’s recommendation that Sam should try his fate in medicine, where, if there was any truth
in physiognomy, he would be sure to shine, on the strength of his having perpetually a facies Hippocratica.
Hook’s friendly caution, when he saw him at Lord Byron’s funeral, to keep out of sight of the undertaker,
lest he should claim him as one of his old customers. But why extend the roll, when there is not a variety
of jest in which “ Goodman death, Goodman bones, thou atomy thou,” or any other of the complimentary
phrases bandied about by Hostess Quickly and Doll Tearsheet, against their inveterate enemy, the beadle,
could be twisted, which has not been brought into action against Rogers. He stands all this fire undis-
turbed, strenuously maintaining, not only that he is alive, but that his countenance is the very beau ideal
of beauty. “That is a very pretty girl,” said he, one night, to Newton the painter ; “she has a té¢e morte.
I have a téte morte—it is really one of the finest styles of the human countenance.” Whereupon Sam
‘grinned horribly a ghastly smile,” just as he is doing in the opposite picture.

Independently of the persecution Sam suffers from being dead, a grievance which he has in a great
measure outlived, he is an ill-used gentleman, in being made Pun-master-general to the United Kingdom.
How this high distinction originally came to be his, we have no historical documents to prove. It is now
settled. Joe Miller vails his bonnet to Sam Rogers. In all the newspapers, not only of the kingdom, but
of its dependencies—Hindostan, Canada, the West Indies, the Cape, from the Tropics—nay, from the
Antipodes to the Orkneys, Sam is godfather-general to all the bad jokes in existence. The Yankees have
caught the fancy, and from New Orleans to New York it is the same—Rogers is synonymous with a pun.
All British-born or descended people—yea, the very Negro and the Hindoo—father their calembourgs on
Rogers. Quashee or Ramee-Samee, who knows nothing of Sir Isaac Newton, John Milton, or /raser’s
Magazine, grins from ear to ear at the name of the illustrious banker, and with gratified voice exclaims,
« Him d funny, dat Sam !”

By this fame Sam must be known, after he is allowed to be dead by the parish officers. For, after all,
the literary glory of Sam will be one of the smallest. His verses are of the petty larceny school of poetry.
When Wordsworth read in “ Don Juan” the commandment that

 

“ Thou shalt not steal from Samuel Rogers,”

he remarked very properly that no theft would be more hazardous, because, not only Sam might reclaim
the pilfered goods, but there would be no small danger of their being looked after by those from whom the
said Sam had originally stolen them.

He has a pretty house, with pretty gewgaws in it—he gives tolerable dinners, and says very spiteful
things ; he is an ugly man, and his face is dead, and his jokes flat. His poetry is poor, and his banking-
house rich ; his verses, which he purloined, will be forgotten ; his jests (which others made for him) may
be remembered. The “Pleasures of Memory” will go the way of all other pleasures; but it is not
impossible that his name may, like Joe Miller's, be perpetuated as the unwilling godfather of a book of
conundrums. St%c transit gloria Sammi !

 

LTO Tot? 35s,

IR bonus est quis? Here we have the ‘“‘ Bard of Memory,” lean as if he had fed on bank-notes and
drank ink ; sallow, as though he had breathed no air that was not laden with the taint of gold—a
caput mortuum ;—yet another quarter of a century was to pass away before

“ The weary wheels of life at length stood still ;””—

and Samuel Rogers, so long a symbol of death in life, exchanged, we would trust, for life in death, his
fabled wealth, and his Tusculum of St. James’s Place, with its pictures, its gems, its coins, and its books.
A strangely-favoured lot was that of Samuel Rogers. Born at Stoke-Newington, July 30th, 1763, of
opulent parents, he enjoyed, for nearly a century, ample leisure and means to indulge his favourite tastes
and pursuits. He was the connecting link between the age of Johnson, Goldsmith, and Reynolds and our
16 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

own. He was eating his eighth birth-day pudding on the day that Gray, the poet, died. In the same
year that the Ayrshire Ploughman canvassed the weavers of Kilmarnock for subscriptions for that volume
of ‘ Poems chiefly in the Scottish Dialect ”—which will only perish with the language in which they are
written—the London banker took his first verses to Cadell, with a cheque to pay the probable expenses.
He had agitated the tintinnabulary appendage at the door of Samuel Johnson, and been blackballed at his
club ; wandered over St. Anne’s Hill with Fox and Grattan ; dined with Condorcet at Lafayette’s in
1789 ; breakfasted with Robertson, heard Blair preach, taken coffee with the Piozzis, and supped with Adam
Smith, all in one day of that same eventful year ; met Byron in Italy; and had been intimate with a
host of celebrities, whose lives were but episodes in his own. The Nestor—rather, perhaps, the Tithonus
—of our poets, his pleasurable existence was prolonged to his 94th year—a length of career only approached,
so far as we now remember, by the poet Waller, who, coming into existence only two years after the death
of Queen Elizabeth, missed but by a few months witnessing the accession of William and Mary. He
died December 18th, 1855, retaining his faculties nearly to the last, and forming a striking exception to
the dictum of Swift, who demurred to the title of “a fine old man,” saying, “there is no such thing ; if
his head and his heart had been good for anything, they would have worn him out long ago.”

Samuel Rogers made a good use of his wealth : this, however, has been overstated, and we believe it
was never much above £5,000 a year, of which he spent a fourth part in charity. It was to him that
Sheridan addressed the last letter he ever wrote, begging for assistance, to prevent the very bed on which
he was dying from being torn from under him by bailiffs; and the answer was a cheque for £200; it was
he who helped Moore in his Bermudan difficulties ; who lent Campbell £500 to enable him to purchase a
share in the Vetropolitan ; and it was under his patronage that Moxon commenced business as a publisher,
as under the auspices of Pope, Dodsley had started in life a century before.

The epoch of his advent as a poet was favourable to his fame. Burns had not appeared ; Cowper and
Crabbe were but yet little known; Peter Pindar held the day with his coarse and vigorous satires ; and
Hayley was lord of the ascendant, in his vapid and polished mediocrity. The rest of the field was occupied
by poets of the softer sex—More, Seward, Aikin, and H. M. Williams. The “Ode to Superstition” appeared
in 1786 ; then the “Pleasures of Memory,” tender, classical, and refined, but inferior to the “ Pleasures of the
Imagination ” of Akenside, which preceded it, and to the ‘‘Pleasures of Hope” of Campbell, which followed it.
The “Italy ” (ascribed to Southey on his first anonymous appearance), gemmed with charming descriptions
of Ausonian life and scenery, and exquisite graces of style and language ; ‘‘ Human Life,” warm in colour,
deep in feeling, tender in conception ; and “Columbus,” which, perhaps, hardly merited the severe castigation
of Lord Dudley, in the Quarterly Review.

When the estro of composition was over,—the muse of Rogers was hard-bound, gave birth but seldom,
and was long in travail—the poet sat down to perfect the material form of his darling productions.
Stothard, with his graceful and tender pencil—our English Raphael,—and Turner, the northern Claude,
with his rainbow-tinted palette,—were summoned to collaborate. The production of the two volumes,
“Poems” and “ ltaly,” published by Moxon, 1830-4, is said to have cost their author between £10,000
and £15,000; and as they have never been excelled in beauty, taste, and merit, by any books
anywhere or anywhen, and as, moreover, the art of the painter and the poet is so happily married as to be
indivisible, it is possible that there may be some applicability in the wicked parody of Pope’s distich :—

‘“ See where the pictures for the page atone,
And Sam is saved by beauties not his own ;”
or the wickeder couplet :—
“ Of Rogers’s ‘ Italy,’ Luttrell relates
That ’twould have been dished, were it not for the plates !”
For the drawings, Turner was to have received £50 apiece; but as it was represented to him that the
poet had miscalculated the probable returns, he consented to take them back, and charge £5 each for
their use. (Hdin. Rev., No. cexi., p. 99.)

One of the most interesting episodes in the life of Rogers was his intimacy with Byron. This
took place, through the introduction of Moore, in Nov., 1811. Byron, in his Satire of 1809, had called the
poet “melodious Rogers,” and classed the “Pleasures of Memory” with the “Essay on Man” and the “ Pleasure
of Hepe,” as the most beautiful didactic poems in the language. In 1813, Byron dedicated to him his poem
“The Giaour,” “as a slight but most sincere token of admiration for his genius, respect for his character,
bs gratitude for his friendship ;” and wrote on a blank leaf of the “ Pleasures of Memory ” the charming

ines :—
“ Absent or present, still to thee,
My friend, what magic spells belong!
As all can tell, who share like me,
In turn thy converse or thy song.

But when the dreaded hour shall come,
By friendship ever doom’d too nigh,

And ‘Memory,’ o’er her Druid’s tomb
Shall weep that aught of thee can die:

How fondly will she then repay
Thy homage offer’d at her shrine,

And blend, while ages roll away,
Her name immortally with thine.”
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS, 17

After this the poets met by appointment at Bologna, in the autumn of 1821 ; visited the Florence gallery
together ; and parted, never to meet again in this world. Rogers found Byron had grown grey-headed in
ie five years that had passed since they had met, though then only in his thirty-third year ; and saw
ittle to

 

a recall the Youth that swam
From Szstros to ABypos.”

The poets sat “far, far into the night conversing,” and the elder bard has left a charming account of the
interview, as one of the episodes in his “Italy” (p. 97).

It is sad to remember that such a friendship, so begun, and between such men, should be marred in
its remembrance. How it came about we know not; whether Byron, as it has been said, had received
annoyance by the minute and fastidious dilettanteism of Rogers, and his unseasonable visits, when in Italy ;
or whether, as seems more probable, some one of those sarcastic and personal remarks in which Rogers was
wont to indulge at the expense of his most intimate associates had been conveyed to the poetic pilgrim at
Ravenna, by one of those good-natured friends who are ever ready to charge themselves with such missions ;
—it appears that he (Byron) revenged himself by the composition of a satire, which has been said to be
“the greatest of modern satirical portraits in verse,” and “not surpassed for cool malignity and happy
imagery in the whole compass of the English language.” It was composed, it appears, before the final
meeting of the poets at Bologna, but was never published by Byron. Its appearance was posthumous,
and as it is not included in the “ Poetical Works,” and is but little known, we transcribe it :—

QUESTION.

“ Nose and chin would shame a knocker, Skin all sallow, flesh all sodden,—
Wrinkles that would puzzle Cocker ; Form the Devil would fright God in.
Mouth which marks the envious scorner, Is’t a corpse stuck up for show,

With a scorpion in each corner, Galvanized at times to go?
Turning its quick tale to sting you With the Scripture in connexion,
In the place that most may wring you ; New proof of the resurrection,
Kyes of lead-like hue and gummy, Vampire, ghost, or ghoul, what is it ?
Carcass pick’d out from some mummy ; I would walk ten miles to miss it.”
Bowels (but they were forgotten
Save the liver, and that’s rotten).
ANSWER.

“ Many passengers arrest one, Darting on the opportunity
To demand the same free question. When to do it with impunity.
Shorter’s my reply and franker— You are neither,—then he’ll flatter
That’s the Bard, the Beau, the Banker. Till he finds some trait for satire ;”
Yet if you could bring about, Hunts your weak point out, then shows it
Just to turn him inside out, When it injures to disclose it,

Satan’s self would seem less sooty, In the mode that’s most invidious,
And his present aspect—Beauty. Adding every trait that’s hideous,
Mark that (as he masks the bilious From the bile, whose blackening river
Air, so softly supercilious) Rushes through his Stygian liver.
Chasten’d bow, and mock humility, Then he thinks himself a lover :—
Almost sicken’d to servility : Why I really can’t discover

Hear his tone (which is to talking In his mind, age, face, or figure:
That which creeping is to walking ; Viper-broth might give him vigour :
Now on all-fours, now on tip-toe) ; Let him keep the caldron steady,
Hear the tales he lends his lip to :— He the venom has already.

Little hints of heavy scandals ; For his faults, he has but one—
Every friend in turn he handles ; *Tis but envy when all’s done.

All which women, or which men do He but pays the pain he suffers,
Glides forth in an innuendo, Clipping, like a pair of snuffers,
Clothed in odds and ends of humour— Lights which ought to burn the brighter ise
Herald of each paltry rumour, For this temporary blighter.

From divorces down to dresses, He’s the cancer of his species,
Women’s frailty, men’s excesses, And will eat himself to pieces :

All which life presents of evil Plague personified and famine ;

Make for him a constant revel. Devil, whose sole delight is damning !
You’re his foe, for that he fears you,

And in absence blasts and sears you: For his merits, would you know ’em?
You’re his friend, for that he hates you; Once he wrote a pretty poem!”

First caresses, and then baits you:

These bitter lines were written in 1818; they were, it appears, in Moore’s hands, but he suppressed
them, probably because their publication would have excluded him from Rogers’s breakfasts, and they
first appeared, with annotations, “supplied by the great literary characters who annotate the new edition
of Lord Byron,” in Fraser’s Magazine, No. xxxvii., p. 81. It is of these that Maginn elsewhere (Dub. Univ.
Mag., Jan. 1844, p. 86) says, they “are well worth five dozen ‘ Parasinas’ and ‘ Prisoners of Chillon.’ ”
The satire is indeed a literary curiosity of the highest interest, and exceeds, in cool and concentrated venom,
everything that has appeared since the days of Swift, except perhaps Gifford’s truculent “ Epistle to Peter
Pindar.” “I would give a trifle,” said Maginn, “to have seen Sam’s face the morning that satire was
published.” The victim, we are told, thought of buying up all the copies of the magazine, but was dis-

CG

44
18 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

suaded by acooler friend, who convinced him of the futility of such a step. Crabb Robinson called it,
in his “ Diary,” a vile lampoon, and tells, on the authority of W. 8. Landor and Lady Blessington, of the
heartless glee with which Byron boasted that he made Rogers sit down on the very cushion beneath
which the dogerel catilinary was hidden.

Rogers took no ostensible revenge ; but we can fancy that a sad feeling of desecrated friendship was
in his heart when he penned, in a copy of “ Byron,” the following lines, which saw the light for the first
time in the Dublin University Magazine for May, 1857 :—

‘When I beheld thee, light and gay,
The idol of the passing day ;
The god of fools who never knew
The worth of him they cringéd to ;—
When I beheld thee, proud and young,
Despise the tribute due thy song;
While thy high spirit kept away
Sages from converse, souls astray ;—
When nature show’d the bitter mind
Fraught with ill-will to all mankind ;—
I wept that genius had been given
To one who thus could lead so far from heaven.”

Maginn brings the accusation of “petty larceny” against our poet. This charge is probably, in part
at least, based upon the assertion of Coleridge, in his first volume of verse, that Rogers stole the tale of
“Florio” from the “ Lochleven” of Michael Bruce. Lamb wrote to Coleridge, denouncing the charge as
utterly unfounded ; and Coleridge, in the second edition of his volume, took occasion to “‘ expiate a sentence
of unfounded detraction by an unsolicited and self-originating apology.” Rogers was satisfied, and thus the
matter ended.

The face of Rogers is said to have been pleasing, and even handsome in youth. The painting by
Hoppner and the drawing by Sir Thomas Lawrence alike lend credence tothe belief. But the fact is,
there is no good likeness of him, for the simple reason that he would not allow one to be taken. There is
one drawn on stone in 1838, by Mrs. Geale, Lady Morgan’s niece, which would have been excellent if the
artist had ventured to give him his actual age. The portrait by Meyer, from a sketch by Baron Denon, is
not satisfactory. Dantan’s bust is hardly a caricature, and for that reason was held by its subject in
especial horror. The sketch of Maclise before us is perhaps the most faithful and the best of all.

If Rogers has not come down to us as a modern Joe Miller, it is not the fault of Dr. Maginn and
Theodore Hook. He had a knack of uttering pointed epigrammatic sayings and smart replies, but, as in
the case of Selwyn, Luttrell, Sheridan, Jekyll, Walpole, Rose, and others, hundreds of jokes have been
fathered upon him, of whose paternity he was guiltless. In the early days of the John Bull it was the
fashion to lay every foundling witticism at the door of Sam Rogers, and thus the refined poet and man of
letters became known as a sorry jester,—just as Virgil was held to be a great magician in the dark ages ;
the grave philologist, Meursius, has come down to us as the author of an obscene book, of which he is
altogether innocent ; and the ‘learned George Buchanan, who whipped Latin fundamentally into James I.,
is only known to chap-book students as “the King’s Fool.”

It was to Rogers that Moore dedicated his “ Lalla Rookh”; Byron inscribed his name at the summit
of a literary pyramid of contemporary poets, while he put Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey nearly at
the base. Leigh Hunt, on the other hand, with better judgment, in his clever “ Feast of the Poets,” admits
four poets to dine with Apollo,—Scott, Southey, Campbell, and Moore ;—while Rogers is only asked to tea.
“You might have given him supper,” wrote Byron to Hunt, ‘if only a sandwich”; and Moore pointed
out what he thought an injustice. ,

Dr. Beattie, his medical attendant, who was with him when he died, wrote, “a more tranquil and
placid transition I never beheld.” Memory had long deserted her chosen bard ; but he remembered, almost
to the last, the lines with which we conclude these disjointed notes, and which were worth, he was wont to
say, all the fine writing the world ever produced :—-

“When my soul flies to the first great Giver,
Friends of the Bard, let my dwelling be,
By the green bank of that rippling river,
Under the shade of that tall beech-tree.
Bury me there, ye lovers of song,
With my hands on my breast,
Like a child at rest,
And my lyre in the grave unbroken.”

Among the most constant guests at the memorable breakfasts of Rogers was the Rev. Alexander Dyce
(died May, 1869). This gentleman had been in the habit, from his first introduction to the poet, and with
his knowledge and sanction, of recording the various sayings and anecdotes with which the conversation of
his host abounded. These, or rather a selection from them, he subsequently published under the title of
‘“ Recollections of the Table-Talk of Samuel Rogers” (Moxon, 8vo.), a volume which received an unfavour-
able notice in the Hdinburgh Review, No. ccxi., p. 73. Another little volume, with a biographical preface,
is entitled ‘‘ Recollections of Samuel Rogers” (Longmans, 1859, sm. 8vo.). The editor of this was William
Sharp, a nephew of the poet, one of whose brothers, Samuel Sharp, is author of a privately-printed volume
lying before us,—‘ Some Particulars of the Life of Samuel Rogers” (1859, 8vo., pp. Ixiv.).
 

THE AUTHOR OF LALLA ROOK”
No. 0.—THOMAS MOORE.

ERE’S to thee, Tom Moore !—Our artist has woven him a bower of vines and roses, and hung old
Anacreon over his head. As we take it for granted that it was not intended to express, by a
practical pun, that Tom must be always considered as below Anacreon, we suppose it must have been meant
by those adjuncts to inform us, that, in spite of that little wizzened, cunning, crabbed countenance, which
is not much better than a caricature of a John-apple of ancient date, we are looking upon the Epicurean
in person—the Thomas Little—the kissing and kissed of Rosa—the mail-coach companion of Fanny of
Timmol—the poet of all the loves, and all the grapes.

We wish there was no truth in what Theodore said of him, viz., that he was something between a toad
and a Cupid ; but it is impossible to see him in any of those houses where he is the show of the evening,
without being reminded of the expression, by the admixture of creep and flutter which characterizes his
motions—the go-by-the-ground deference to the haughty Whig master or mistress, and the soaring soft on
gentle pinions, which, while he hangs over his piano, make him the light Eros of all the damsels of tender
years circumfused about. We could never learn that Tom was a divinity of dowagers.

Tt grieves us to look upon that scowl upon his brow, which all the simpering of the mouth will not
keep down. His own worthy ambition appears to have been announced in a wise song of his, the air of
which affects us with a reminiscence somewhat resembling sea-sickness :—

“ When in death I shall calm recline,
O bear my heart to my mistress, dear!
Tell her it lived upon smiles and wine—”

Such food was the diet looked forward to by Moore, and he thought he could find it by hanging on
with the Hollands and Lansdownes, and others of that most impertinent and worthless crew of upstart
peers, who think their clamour for Whiggery gives them a patent for impertinence to every parvenw who
eats their dinners. But, as remarks Sotades, or Clemens Alexandrinus, or Straton, or Taratalla, or some of
the other eminent authors to whose learned names Moore loves to refer [“ quote Lycophron,” says the
Quarterly, “and it will be taken for granted that you know Homer” ; bitter is the eating of another
man’s bread ; and we fear that now that Tom has fallen into the sere and yellow leaf, he has begun to find
the truth of that saying. His melodies are effete ; his songs fast passing into that bourne whence no songs
ever return ; he repents of Tom Little’s escapades ; and, droll as they undoubtedly are, cannot find much
reason to rejoice in the memory of those of Tom Browne. It is a pity to think that a youth of roses is to
be succeeded by an age of thorns. He has discovered what Dr. Johnson might have told him, without his
having had the trouble of learning that bitter truth by experience, that the booksellers are, the best
Mecenases ; and he who began his flight as butterfly for the boudoirs is content to end it as grub for the
bibliopoles.

Ho weck he has given us half a dozen good songs in his time, for which we forgive “ Lalla Rookh” ;
and, in honour of the Fudge family, shall imitate the public in consigning the “ Epicurean” (a pretty
Epicurean, by the bye, who never kisses a girl or empties a bottle throughout the whole book) to oblivion.
He is now travelling through Ireland with his liberal patron, Lord Lansdowne, and if he wish to try his
hand in a new style, as all his old styles are worn out, what he sees of his lordship’s tenantry, and feels at
his lordship’s board, will afford him materials to rival Churchill, in a new “ Prophecy of Famine.”

But the sheets must go to press,
And the devil ’s at the door;

And we can’t spare another line,
So good-bye to thee, Tom Moore.

NOTES.

a HAT a lucky fellow you are,” said Rogers to Moore ; ‘surely you must have been born with a

rose on your lips, and a nightingale singing on the top of your head!” Yet the “ Bard of the
Butterflies” hardly looks happy in his Anacreontic bower ; perhaps he is brooding over the Regent's threat
to “put him into a wine-cooler,” or haply has Maclise thought appropriate that “expression of hostility to
the Church establishment” which Sydney Smith once advised a sculptor to throw into the poet's
countenance.

Thomas Moore was born in Dublin, May 28,1779. As Lockhart’s classical studies produced that
direction of thought to which we owe “Valerius,” so the first-fruits of the genius of Moore were his
translation of “ Anacreon.” Next.came the “Odes and Hpistles,” in 1806, sparkling with that witty and

c 2
20 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

graceful ease which the poet made his own, but deservedly branded by Jeffrey for that frequent indecency
which, conspicuous in the “Tales” of Prior (between whom and Moore so many points of poetical
resemblance may be traced), has escaped the reprehension of so stern a moralist as Dr. Johnson, and not
prevented laudatory mention on the monument in Westminster Abbey. Possibly the evil is exaggerated ;
any way it seems inherent in this manner of verse. There is an old alliance between the daughters of
Mnemosyne and the winged son of Cytheraa. It was the boast of Horace that he sang—

“ Liberum, et Musas, Veneremque et illi
Semper heerentem puerum,”—

and the licentiousness of thought and expression that here and there mars the exquisite polish of his
“Odes” may be traced through the “ Juvenilia” of Beza, the “ Basia” of Secundus, the “ Pancharis” of
Bonnefonius, the “Chansons” of Béranger, and the “Songs” of Burns, to the amatory effusions of
“Thomas Little,” some of which, harmless enough as they are, had doubtless better have been unwritten.

In 1817 appeared “ Lalla Rookh.” This is a poem of splendid diction and gorgeous imagery ; too
rich in ornament, too dazzling in uncontrasted light. The author, who was to receive £3,000 for his task,
had prepared himself by an immense amount of preliminary reading, and it is no small proof of his genius
that of ponderous and intractable materials he has constructed so rich and graceful an edifice. In local
colour, too, it is so truthful that it is translated into Persian, and isa favourite with the Orientals themselves.
The “Loves of the Angels,” with much that is beautiful, was felt to be inferior; it was, moreover,
unfortunate for its effect that it appeared in the same year with the fine “ Heaven and Earth” of
Byron. The “ Epicurean ” is a prose poem, worthy of a place by the side of “ Vathek” and “ Rasselas,” but
reminding one too much of the “ Vie de Séthos.”

Moore was great in satire. Not, indeed, that he wielded the ruthless mace of Juvenal, the cutting lash of
Ariosto and Dryden, the polished scalpel of Boileau and Pope, or the poisoned dagger of Junius. The edge
of his sarcasm seems turned by its wit, and the smile of the striker to blunt his weapon’s point. Yet the
blade of Moore is keenly incisive, illustrating, in the effect of its practised stroke, the axiom of Lady
Montague,—

“ Satire should, like a polish’d razor keen,
Wound with a touch that’s scarcely felt or seen.”

The prose of Moore has the same faults as his poetry,—too much glitter and ornament, too little
simplicity and repose. He may even be mentioned as a theologian, for he wrote a book of some learning
in defence of the chief articles of the Roman Church, though he had his children baptized in the Anglican
cominunion. We cannot speak at length of his “ Life” of Byron. It is known that the materials were first
confided to Maginn,—not a very squeamish man certainly,—who shrank aghast from the hideous apocalypse.
Moore was applied to, and the result is that portraiture of the poet-lord which, if but an idealized repre-
sentation, does not at least require to be veiled from sight like his own Prophet of Khorassan. The
problem of Byron’s life yet waits an Cidipus for its solution.

But it is as a song-writer that Moore will live. His genius was essentially lyrical, and his minor pieces
are the very diamond-dust of poetry. Here he is the legitimate successor of Carew, Herrick, Surrey,
Lovelace, Suckling, and Waller ; he is what Tasso is to the Venetians, Béranger to the French, and Burns
to the Scotch. “To me,” says Byron, “some of Moore’s last Erin sparks,—‘ As a beam o’er the face of the
waters,’ ‘When he who adores thee,’ ‘Oh, blame not the bard,’ ‘Oh, breathe not his name,’—are worth all
the epics that ever were composed.” In these exquisite compositions breathes the very soul of sweetness
and pathos ; wit the most brilliant, harmony the most perfect, imagery the most felicitous, all shaping into
verbal form, as if with the silent music of crystallization. And if in these Moore is not always perfect ; if
we miss earnestness of purpose, simplicity, natural impulse, and spontaneity of utterance ; if there is too
much elaboration of wit, and stimulation of fancy,—let it be remembered that no art is more difficult than
that of writing a good song, and that compositions worthy of the name, the coinage of the heart rather than
of the brain, and inspired by true feeling as distinguished from imitative and febrile sentiment, are much
rarer, in this or any other language, than is generally suspected.

We have associated the name of Moore with that of Burns ; the comparison, indeed, forces itself upon
the mind, and, whether right or not, these two poets must stand forth as the lyrical genii of their respective
countries. Each has his merits. We know the profound passion and simple pathos of the Scottish peasant,
and, regarding Moore as a national poet, cannot but see some truth in the saying of Hazlitt, that he “changed
the wild harp of Erin into a musical snuff-box.” Yet Moore has merits of his own, as are pointed out by a
liberal and elegant critic, whose words we adopt :—“ If Moore had been born and bred a peasant as Burns
was, or if Ireland had been such a land of knowledge, and virtue, and religion, as Scotland,—and surely,
without offence, we may say that it never was, and never will be, though we love the green island well,—
who can doubt that with his fine fancy, warm heart, and exquisite sensibilities, he might not have been as
natural a lyrist as Burns ; while, take him as he is, who can deny that in richness and variety, in grace, and
in the power of wit, he is superior to the ploughman ?”— Ree. of Chr. North, i. 272.

One word as to Moore’s domestic relations. He married in 1811, and has been absurdly charged by the
moralists with selfish neglect of his amiable wife. Hear one who was best able to speak :—“ This excellent
and beautiful person received from him the homage of a lover, enhanced by all the gratitude, all the
confidence, which the daily and hourly happiness he enjoyed were sure to inspire: thus, whatever amuse-
ment he might find in society, whatever sights he might behold, whatever literary resources he might seek
 

”

1
Moo

VERT W

WA

M6

OF

ITA MOR
AUTHOR

THE
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 21

elsewhere, he always returned to his home with a fresh feeling of delight. The tine he had been absent
had always been a time of exertion and exile; his return restored him to tranquillity and peace.”—
Jfemoirs, Pref. xi.

This amiable man and gifted poet, the spoiled child of fashion and idol of society, whose ‘latter years
had been clouded by loss of memory, and an almost childish helplessness, died at his residence, at Sloperton
Cottage, February 26, 1852, in the 73rd year of his age.

In the year following, 1853, appeared his “ Memoirs, Journal, and Correspondence” (8 vols. 8vo.), by
the Right Hon. Lord John Russell, his life-long friend, to whom the task had been confided by will.

‘We have portraits of the poet by Sir M. A. Shee; Maclise ; Richmond; F. Sieurac (engraved in Galignani’s
excellent edition) ; and Sir Thomas Lawrence (the last work of the artist, if we mistake not), who has,
perhaps, best succeeded in conferring upon his subject the aristocratic air which nature had denied him.

The classical reader may like to be reminded that the “Irish Melodies” have been admirably trans-
lated into Latin verse under the title of “Cantus Hibernici Latine redditi, quibus accedunt Poemata
quedam Anglicorum auctorum item Latine reddita, Editore Nicolao Lee Torre, Coll. Nov. apud Oxon.
olim Socio, Leamington, 1856-8-9,” 3 vols. 8vo. Mr. Torre was assisted in his task by some of the most
elegant scholars of the day, among whom may be mentioned the unfortunate J. Selby Watson, M.A.

No. 6.—SIR WALTER SCOTT.

N the opposite page is old Sir Peveril! Many a time has he figured on canvas or paper, in stone,
bronze, or plaster, in oil or water colours, lithographed, copper-plated, mezzotinted, in all the variety
of manner that the art of the sculptor, the founder, the modeller, the painter, the etcher, the engraver, the
whole tribe of the imitators of the face divine, could display him. He has hung in the chamber of kings,
and decorated the door of the alehouse—has graced the boudoir of beauty, and perambulated the streets
borne upon the head of a swarthy Italian pedlar. He has been depicted in all moods and all postures ; but
we venture to say that the baronet, as he really looks, was never so exactly put before the public as we now
see him.
There he is, sauntering about his grounds, with his Lowland bonnet in his hand, dressed in his old
green shooting-jacket, telling old stories of every stone and bush, and tree and stream, in sight—tales of
battles and raids—or ghosts and fairies, as the case may be, of the days of yore,

 

“Ere Scotland’s griefs began,
When every man you met had kill’d his man!”

Everything is correct in the picture, from the peak of his head down to his very cudgel; and if the dogs
are not as authentic altogether as their master, they may serve as types to show that he is fond of being
so attended.

If we could write in the manner of fine writers—which, thank Heaven! we cannot—we should say
much about the aérial attendants who lackey his head as the dogs do his heels. Stoddart, or, if not, some-
body else, has drawn a picture, which has been engraved in some of the Annuals, of the dreams of the
infant Shakspeare. High in the clouds we behold, exhibiting themselves in his sleep to the mental eye
of the future poet, the goodly company of Hamlet and Jack Falstaff, Richard and Ophelia, Othello and Juliet,
and “many more too long.” This glorious gallery is, indeed, unapproachable ; but still, from the head
depicted upon the opposite leaf, sprang Rebecca and Marmion, Die Vernon and Dugald Dalgetty, the Baron
of Bradwardine and Flora M‘Ivor, Nicol Jarvie and Claverhouse, Meg Merrilies and Jeanie Deans, Caleb
Balderstone and the Master of Ravenswood—the list is not half exhausted, but we must stop—visions of
pathos and fun, of honour and conviviality, of grace and grotesqueness, of all that is grand or droll, or mad
or shrewd, or merry or melancholy, or valiant or prudent, or boisterous or meditative, or pious or profane,

i i kind,—
ey nee al “Who can his miracles declare?”

It is, indeed, idle to be wasting one’s time in cataloguing the dramatis persone of the “ Waverley
Novels,” or their predecessors in rhyme, which are familiar as household words—

“ From sunny India to the Pole.”

Long may he continue to “feed us with good things,” even though, unlike the days of the Chaldee
MS., everybody now knoweth whence they come; and having, by the unprecedented sale of his “ series,”
ee) DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

vot rid of difficulties, in which it was a thousand pities he should ever have been involved, may he be
enabled, for the remainder of his life—a thousand years, as the Spaniards say—to whisk his stick over his
shoulder, with untroubled heart, in the manner of Corpora) Trim, as follows :—

 

 

WOLD 2 ss.

ef So the Magician !”—as Parr said,—
“Ut magus, et modo me Thebis, modo ponit Athenis.”’

The desire of becoming acquainted in the body with those from whose minds we have long received
delight, is natural enough ; as is also the expectation to find in the one the “ outward and visible sign ” of
the “inward and spiritual grace” we have known in the other. But it is a desire, often if not always,
productive of disappointment, and could never hardly, we imagine, be more so than in the present instance,
if, indeed, we have a faithful representation of the great Wizard of the North, in the coarse, ungainly figure
before us,—a bundle of amorphous garments, surmounted by a conical, shock-headed protuberance, unkempt
and slovenly, as was Mephibosheth, when he came down to meet his royal patron, though the son of
Jonathan was lame in both his feet instead of one only, a fact of which our artist has cleverly reminded us.

The prose of Scott, hisnovels we mean, may be said to have passed out of the region of criticism ; and
the creations of his teeming fancy, like those of Shakspeare, people our waking remembrance with all the
vividness of material entities. It is as a poet that we would rather regard him in these brief notes ; and
this, because the splendour of his later writings has tended to eclipse, as we think, unduly, the glory
of his earlier and not less remarkable productions. Scott’s first attempt at verse appeared in the very
year of the death of Burns. It is a little singular that the earliest inspiration of his muse was not
the indigenous traditionary minstrelsy of his own land of historic flood and fell, but that German
ballad poetry, which, tinged by a mystic and gloomy supernaturalism, enjoyed a brief popularity during the
early part of the present century. But this tendency was accidental and evanescent, and the genius of
Scott reverted to that direction for which early association had prepared it. His childhood had been passed
at the farm of Sandy-Knowe, where every field had its battle, and every brook its legend ; the Rebellion
of ’45 still dwelt in the memory of the simple Borderers, and the atrocities of the ‘“‘ Butcher Cumberland”
were not forgotten. Hence the “‘ Border Minstrelsy,” which, as a critic of the day prophetically remarked,
‘contained the elements of a hundred romances,” and which, with the “ Reliques” of Bishop Percy and
the “ Collection” of Evans, did so much to break up the old classic style, and influence the compositions of
Southey, Coleridge, and Wordsworth. Then followed those glorious narrative and descriptive poems, in
which, as we think, Scott has not been surpassed by any poet of ancient or modern times. The Della
Cruscans died away, and the minor stars of Whitehead, Hoole, Pye, Darwin, Seward, and Hayley paled
their fires before the new and effulgent luminary. Still, we do not forget that the voice of praise was not
unanimous, and that, among others, Leigh Hunt and Hazlitt were inclined to underestimate the poetry of
Scott,—as Waller had depreciated Milton ; Madame de Staél, Corneille ; and Voltaire, Shakspeare.

On the other hand, Moir, a judicious critic not less than an elegant poet, wrote of his immortal
countryman :—

“ Brother of Homer, and of him
On Avon’s banks, by twilight dim,
Who dreamt immortal dreams, and took
From Nature’s hand her storied book :

Earth hath not seen, Time may not see,
Till ends his march, such other three.”

And we hesitate not to record our opinion that, in simplicity and majesty of conception, picturesqueness of
description, ardour of narration, rapid recurrence of striking incident, and manly avoidance of false
sentiment and affectation, the Scottish poet has only been surpassed by the bard of Chio himself, But these
are not qualities in request in these latter days of spasmodic utterance, rugged diction, and affected
profundity. “Sir,” said Dr. Johnson, speaking of some such atrocities of his day, “aman might write
such stuff for ever, if he could but abandon his mind to it”; and yet some modern “ critic,”—we forget his
name,—has positively characterized these “ poets” in “schools,” and ‘“ groups,” Romantic, Idyllic, and so
forth, God save the mark ! One’s consolation is, that, after drinking awhile at these turbid puddles, one must
revert to the pure fount at last, and that Scott and Cowper, and the older masters, will some day cease to
be underrated merely because they can be understood.
¥

GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 23

_ The peculiarity in the physical conformation of Scott’s head is noteworthy ; but the apex of the cone
is more sharply fastigated here than in a cast after death on a bracket before us. This is said to be due to
an enlargement of the organ of “veneration,” and phrenologists strive to render it accordant with his
character by pointing to his fondness for the monuments and records of the past. But this was manifested
only with regard to those of his own country. In his hopeless voyage to Italy in search of health he
showed no sympathy with the ancients, and derived no gratification from the sight of classical antiquities.
Rome to him, as to some other traveller, was “a fine city, but very much out of repair.” No feeling was
awakened, even when he stood amid the galleries of the Coliseum or the ruined arches of the Baths of
Caracalla 3 and the Temple of Apollo, the Forum, the Bay of Bais, the Lake of Avernus, and the storied
Misenum, only served to suggest a line of a Jacobite ditty. Like the stricken warrior of Virgil,— ,

a moriens dulces reminiscitur Argos,”—

and it was only when he returned to the old familiar scenes that he seemed for a time to regain some
portion of that health and strength which he had been so far to seek. “I have seen much,” he said, “but
nothing like my ain house.” Here he lingered a few days, and died at Abbotsford on September Wh,
1832, in the sixty-second year of his age. His last intelligent words, to Lockhart, were, “I may have but

a minute to speak to you. My dear, be a good man,—be virtuous,—be religious,—be a good man... Nothing
else will give you any comfort when you come to lie here.”

In our notes on Jerdan we hinted at Scott’s liability to imposition. We were thinking of one par-
ticular instance, which, inasmuch as it has escaped the industry of, or been intentionally overlooked by
Lockhart, may be noticed here. as showing that the black-letter sagacity of the “Shirra” himself might
be caught napping, and that with the simple credulity of his own Jonkbarns he could mistake the “ bit
bourock of the mason-callants” for a Roman preetorium.

We allude to a brochure of five pages, entitled “The Raid of Featherstonehaugh: a Border Ballad.”
This was really written by Sir Walter’s early friend, Mr. Robert Surtees, of Mainsforth, author of the
“ History of Durham,” some of whose other impositions upon the poet were printed in the ‘“ Border
Minstrelsy,” or inserted in notes to his “ Metrical Romances.” Of this poem, in particular, Sir Walter
entertained so high an opinion that he has incorporated a verse from it into ‘“‘ Marmion,” and given it entire
in a note as a genuine relic of antiquity, gravely commenting upon it in a most elaborate manner, and
pointing out its exemplifications of the then state of society. It will be found in “ Marmion,” Canto I.
verse 13.

“The whiles a Northern harper rude,” &ec.

Another pleasant hoax on the poet may be recorded. In a letter to Southey, September, 1810, he
states that a “witty rogue had proved him guilty of stealing a passage from one of Vida’s Latin poems.
which he had never seen or heard of.” The passage in question was the well-known distich in “ Marmion” :—

“ When pain and anguish wring the brow,
A ministering angel thou!”

The reference was to Vida’s “ Ad Eranen,” El. IT. v. 21 :—

“Cum dolor atque supercilio gravis imminet angor,
Fungeris angelico sola ministerio.”

If these lines were to be found among the poems of the learned Bishop, the coincidence would
certainly have been a remarkable one; but we need not say that they are of more modern fabrication,
being the production of Henry J. T. Drury, afterwards one of the masters of Harrow, who took it into
his head, in his college days, to perpetrate this clever trick upon Scott, after the manner of Lauders
upon Milton. The other lines of the piece, “ Marmio ad Claram,” are given in the “ Arundines Cami,”

. 36.
- “Who wrote the Waverley Novels?” This is the title of an ingenious pamphlet by W. J. F.—to
which, and to Notes and Queries, series 1 and 2, passim, we must refer the curious for a discussion of
the question. ;

Of parodies upon, and imitations of Scott there are plenty. One of the best known is “Jokeby; a
Burlesque on Rokeby. A Poem. In Six Cantos. By an Amateur of Fashion” (London, 8vo., 8th ed. 1813).
We cannot see much talent in this, although it has gone through so many editions; and of its various
attributions to John Roby, Thomas Tegg (its publisher), or the ‘“ Adelphi,” James and Horace Smith, we
cannot say which is correct. There is also “The Lay of the Scottish Fiddle; a Poem in Five Cantos,
supposed to be written by W S , Esq.” (London, 1814, 8vo.), which has been attributed to
Washington Irving, but which we believe to have been the production of the celebrated American writer,
James Kirke Paulding, a classic on the other side of the Atlantic, though so little known here.

 

 
24 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

No. 7.—JOHN GALT.

HE “author of a ‘Life of Byron’” stands with his back to the fire—a posture, we perceive, ridi-
culed with great justice by the author of “ Maxwell,’—viz., Theodore Hook ; but which posture
is in great request nevertheless. It is, for example, the favourite attitude of Lord Nugent ; and as he is
not only a real lord, but a Lord of the Treasury to boot, we think that Theodore ought not to disparage a
custom practised by an authority which must be considered very large indeed upon such a point.

We see that Galt turns his back also upon Canada, which we hope is by no means typical of an
intention never to turn again towards the colony he has created, and the towns he has raised. If he has
been at war with the Canada Company, a thing of his own making, it is no more than is to be expected
from the nature of all human assemblies, which are but too happy to kick down the ladder by which they
are raised ; and if he fret at their ingratitude, it only shows that he is more ignorant of the world than
is becoming in a man of his spectacles. As for his “ Life of Byron,” we find that it has been sufficiently
belaboured by various individuals, some of whom might as well have let it alone, and perceiving, on tossing
over our proof-sheets, that it has been amply defended by himself in this very number of our Magazine, we
think it quite supererogatory to say anything about it here. However, as Galt is a friend, and as we have
a considerable affection for Colburn and Bentley, though we do give them a slight rub every now and then,
we may mention that, whether the book is good, bad, or indifferent, its fourth edition is now publishing or
being published, whichever form of expression is more consolatory to our readers.

But if we were Galt, we should not have chosen, if-we had a voice in the business, to be characterized
solely as the “author of the ‘ Life of Byron,” except that the youngest bairn is the favourite, as usual.
Where were the Ayrshire Legatees, with the honest Doctor, and the inimitable Mr. Pringle /—where Sir
Andrew Wylie, the beaw ideal of Scotchment—where Leddy Grippy, whom both Scott and Byron
pronounced the first of heroines ’—where the Provost, who, to our mind, is the first of heroes? True it is
that we consider the “ Life of Byron,” by Galt, to be the best and most honest history of the wayward
course of that illustrious Childe ; but Byron was no bantling of his own brain,—not there begotten like the
progeny we have enumerated above.

To be sure, it is a matter of no importance—so we have the man. Galt stands six feet three, with a
stoop in his shoulders. The face opposite is like; but we think that our Rembrandt has evinced a
Dutchman-like liberality in the article of trousers. We do not believe that Galt procures his pantaloons
from the most scientific of Schneiders ; but unless the garment in which he is represented be one which he
has brought with him ready manufactured by the axe or saw of a Canadian backwoodsman, we know not
where else he could have seduced a carpenter to have fashioned anything like the nether integument in
which he is here depicted.

These biographical sketches of ours being confined rigorously to a page, and our laws exceeding in
punctuality of enforcement the decrees of the Medes and Persians, we must stop short. All we have to
say in conclusion is that we

Hope long, in wine, or toddy, or in malt,
To toast the shrewd Scot’s humour of John Galt.

 

NWO Lf £8.

H ERE we have John Galt, the Anakim of our “ Gallery.” “We are old fellow-travellers,” said Byron

of him, ‘‘and with all his eccentricities he has much strong sense, experience of the world, and is,
as far as I have seen, a good-natured philosophical fellow.” For the rest, Galt has written his own
“ Autobiography” (2 vols. 8vo., 1833), and we have not much to say here anent him.

He was born at Irvine, in Ayrshire, May 2nd, 1779, and educated at Greenock. Unsuccessful in his
first commercial enterprise, he entered himself for the study of the law. Fursaking Themis, he proceeded
to the Continent, where he fell in with Lord Byron, whose life he was later to write. He became agent to
a company for establishing emigrants in Canada; but getting embroiled with his principals, he was
suspended, and tried unsuccessfully to form a New Brunswick Company in opposition. Then after he
applied himself to literature for the means of subsistence. To give a complete account of his taskwork for
the booksellers would be a task unprofitable, if possible; but his tales of Scottish life have salt enough to
keep them for awhile. In the cultivation of this department of fiction, Galt, like John Wilson, James
Hogg, and Andrew Picken, was encouraged by the glory with which it had been invested by Scott, in his
Waverley Novels. He produced in succession the “Annals of the Parish” (1819), “ The Ayrshire Legatees”
(1820), “ The Entail” (1823), with ‘Laurie Todd,” “ Sir Andrew Wylie,” “The Provost,” “The Last of the
Lairds,” “ Ringain Gilhaize,” “Southennan,” and many others. In these there is no lack of “shrewd
Scot’s humour,” pawky sagacity, and occasional pathos ; but their humanity, somewhat narrowed and localized
by provincialism, is less catholic in its sweep than the immortal fictions of Scott, and they are deficient in
those touches of nature which bring the whole world into kinship. “The Life of Mansie Wauch,” is
erroneously attributed to Galt, in the obituary notice in the Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. ii. p. 93.

He was seized with paralysis, and succumbed to the fourteenth attack of this malady, at Greenock,
April 11th, 1839, in the sixty-first year of his age.
 

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

we

j ve J \
im Call
 

can \\

eM \ \\
i
A\

 

    

THE DOCTOR”

66
No. 8.—-WILLIAM MAGINN.

. See pedem, Srtantrer, hic optumé manebimus ”: be pleased to sit still, if you can (even on paper) but
for a moment, that the European public may familiarize itself with your outward mannikin. Your
name (“ Dog on it,” as the Baillie says) has long been familiar to us all; but how few of the admirers of
your genius have ever seen in the flesh Ensign and Adjutant Sir Morgan O’Doherty. Profit by this
opportunity, ladies and gentlemen ; this is the veritable Milesian, the undoubted heir and representative of
the old chiefs of the great clan or sept O’Gin.
: This extraordinary specimen of the real original Phenician (or Punic) breed is now, we are credibly
informed, in the thirty-seventh year of his age ; but though Burns, Bellingham, and Byron worked them-
selves out by that time of day, the Doctor is still considered in full possession of many of his faculties. His
locks, indeed, are silvery, and till of late that circumstance told against him ; but in grief and vexation he
shaved all off, at the period of “the breaking in upon the constitution ”; and having subsequently mounted
an elegant nut-brown scratch (the masterpiece of old Morgan, of St. J ames’s-street), he now wears on the
whole a juvenile aspect rather than otherwise. Our artist has caught, with singular felicity, the easy, good-
humoured nonchalance of this learned and libellous countenance. High Church and State doctrines should
be seriously adopted, and manfully maintained. Whigs, Papists, Radicals, whatever comes under the
disgusting category of Liberalism, should be exposed, insulted, stabbed, crucified, impaled, drawn, and
quartered—in essay, disquisition, review, romance, ballad, squib, pasquinade, and epigram—in Greek, in
Hebrew, in Latin, in Irish, in Italian, in English, and in slang ; but no interference with the calm pursuits
of the scholar, or the graceful amenities of the gentleman. Take things easy after seven o’clock ; from that
hour till two in the morning be your own man; from two to ten be your own wife’s man; from ten till
seven again be the man of the public. Carpe diem. Leave no moment absolutely idle, and suffer no sense,
however just, of superiority, to influence your conduct and demeanour. Be a Bentley, if you can, but omit
the brutality ; rival Parr, eschewing all pomposity ; outlinguist old Magliabecchi, and yet be a man of the
world ; emulate Swift in satire, but suffer not one squeeze of his sceva indignatio to eat your own heart.
Be and do all this, and the Doctor will no longer be a unique.

‘Whether shining a precocious gem in Trinity College, Dublin, or illuminating the young ideas of the
Corkers, or sustaining the power and glory of Blackwood, or now co-editing the grand, unrivalled, stanch,
sturdy organ of orthodoxy, the Standard (we say nothing of a casual contribution to Regina), the redoubted
O'Doherty has always been, is, and ever will be, the jovial, also the simple-hearted, the careless, and the
benignant. loreat Doctor !—Long may he continue at once the star of our erudition, our philosophy, and
our dialectics, and, in his own immortal words,—

“ A randy, bandy, brandy, no Dandy,
Rollicking jig of an Irishman!”

Long may his mellow voice be heard in the land, now pouring out a rich flood of hexameters, gwvarvra
avvero.o.r, and now cheering the festive circle with the hearty, jolly, soul-stirring chant, which he indited
in the days of his youth,—
“ Drink to me only from a jug, and I will pledge in mine;
So fill my glass with whisky punch, and I’ll not ask for wine!”
We have always been of opinion, that had the Poet Laureate and “ The Doctor” taken orders, they would
have made two admirable bishops.

 

WO 2 S.

HAT can we say, in the compass of a few lines, and as a pendant to his own brilliant schizzo, of

the renowned “Doctor” ?—a giant in literature, an erratic genius, Protean in intellect as in
appellation, a “ myriad-minded man” ; and, at the same time—sad that we should have to point the old,
old moral,—the most melancholy, because the most striking, instance in the history of letters, of the utter

absence, amid all his splendid endowments, of that
“ Prudent, cautious self-control”
which another unfortunate son of genius* has told us, as the lesson of his own bitter experience,
“Ts wisdom’s root.”
-For it is sad that one so rarely and variously gifted—of learning so profound and extensive ; who in
philosophy was pronounced by Moir “ abler than Coleridge”; in satire, was declared by Macnish “ equal to

* Burns.
D
26 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

Swift” ; by another great authority, was styled, “us a political writer, the greatest in the world”; by his
friend Kenealy,—himself a tine scholar and a man of genius,—‘“‘as a parodist inimitable, perhaps the
greatest that ever lived” ;—it is sad, we repeat, that such a man should perish in the very prime of life, as
we must infer, from his own imprudence, and be indebted to the munificence of a stranger for the means of
decent burial.

Passing from these anticipatory reflections, let us take a brief glance at the leading events in the
literary career of this remarkable man.

William Maginn was born in 1794, and was a native of Cork—a city which can also boast of having
given birth to Crofton Croker, James Sheridan Knowles, Forde, Hogan (the sculptor), Barry and Maclise
(the painters), the learned James Roche (the “J. R.” of the Gentleman’s Magazine), Jack Boyle (the witty
editor of the Cork Freeholder), and Francis Mahoney, better known as “Father Prout.” He entered
Trinity College, Dublin, in his tenth year, and became a Doctor of Laws in his twenty-fifth. Here he was
the reputed author of a poem entitled ‘“‘ A‘neas Eunuchus,” which excited much attention from the
boldness of its thought, but which it has never been our good fortune to meet with.

If we are not mistaken, Maginn commenced his career in this country in the columns of the Literary
Gazette, under the management of Jerdan. He first corresponded with Blackwood in 1819, in the
November number of which year appeared his extraordinary Latin version of ‘Chevy Chase.” In the
June number for the same year will be found his continuation (Part iii.) of the “Christabel ” of Coleridge,
a poem which in weird fancy and graceful imagery is, perhaps, hardly inferior to the original. To the
Literary Souvenir of 1828 he contributed his beautiful story, “The City of the Demons”; to the
volume for 1829, “The Vision of Purgatory”; and he lent assistance, together with Keightley, to the
“Fairy Legends” of Crofton Croker. In 1830 was started Fraser's Magazine, the early numbers of
which were almost entirely written by the Doctor and his friend, Mr. Hugh Fraser, after whom,
and not after James Fraser, the publisher, the magazine derived its name. Here, in the Regent-street
back-parlour, were written the inimitable “ Fraser Papers”; and here also were knocked off, currente
calamo, and moistened by a rore puro, which alas! was not of Castalia, the accompanying text, to
the “Gallery of Tlustrions Literary Characters,” “the most original and sparkling of the Doctor's
productions” ; and another evidence, when we think of the manner of their production, “how meteoric
was the intellect from which they emanated.” In Yraser’s Magazine, 1837, appeared a Shakspeare
paper ; and in vol. xx., the series of articles, three in number, we think, on the celebrated essay of
Dr. Farmer, “On the Learning of Shakspeare.” This latter, with all its faults,—it leaves Farmer's
“ Essay” where it found it,—is brilliant in treatment and discursive in illustration, showing the wide and
unsuspected extent and direction of the Doctor’s reading, and it seems inexplicable to us that, in these
days of “reprints,” it has not occurred to any one to collect and issue these “Shakspeariana” in a
substantive form. In No, lxiv. of Fraser occurs the brilliant paper, “The Fraserians” ; in No. lxxiii.,
the “ Report on Fraser's Magazine” ; and in No. 1xxx., the libellous, and certainly unjustifiable, review on
the novel, ‘“‘ Berkeley Castle.” This led to the personal and severe castigation of Fraser, the publisher, by
the Hon. Grantley Berkeley, the author of the novel; and the action at law, Fraser v. Berkeley and
Another, which was tried beford Lord Abinger, in the Exchequer Court at Westminster, December 3rd,
1836, resulting in damages for the plaintiff, of £100. There was also a cross action, Berkeley v. Fraser, in
which a verdict was entered by consent for the plaintiff, with damages forty shillings, each party paying
his own costs. The report in full of this trial will be found in Fraser's Magazine for January, 1837,
followed by Maginn’s “defence,” such as itis. In Nos. xevi., xevii., and xcix. appeared that marvellous
farrago of Rabelaisian wit and learning, “ The Doctor,” a conjectural review of, and commentary upon, the
celebrated work of Southey. But it is impossible to give anything like a complete list of Maginn’s
contributions to this magazine, of which he was, from the commencement, the very soul and presiding spirit.
Again, in Blackwood (vol. xlviii.) we have his “Tobias Correspondence,” which, as he himself said, “« contains
the whole art and mystery of editing a newspaper”: this was written in a garret in Wych Street, when
hiding from the emissaries of the law, and is pregnant with his own literary experiences. Here, too (vol. xi.),
we would point to his inimitable song, “The Wine-bibber’s Glory,” in English and Latin, equal to
anything of Vincent Bourne or Walter de Mapes, and reminding us of the choicest gems in the “ Eloge
de l’Ivresse,” or the “ Vaux de Vire” of the old Norman Anacreon, Olivier Basselin.

In Fraser's Magazine, January, 1838, appeared the first “Homeric Ballad,” of which there are
sixteen in all, the concluding one being the last poetical essay that proceeded from his facile pen,—as his
last prose paper was a “leader” for The Age. Also, in 1838, he translated the “Comedies of Lucian,”
which did not meet with the success they deserved.

In newspaper literature, he was one of the chief contributors to the John Bull ; he had an appointment
on The Age ; he wrote for the True Sun ; he wag chosen by Murray foreign editor to the unfortunate and
short-lived Representative, and resided for a while, in this capacity, at Paris; and, on the establishment of
the Standard, was appoiuted joint editor with Dr. Gifford.

The impulsive and meteoric character of the genius of Maginn was’ not favourable for the production
of literary work requiring continuity and concentration of effort. Hence he has not left much “ book-
work” behind him. In this department, however, we must not forget to mention his extraordinary novel,
“Whitehall ; or, the Days of George IV.,” an octavo volume published by W. Marsh, without date (1827).
This is styled by Jerdan “a singular example of wild genius,” and another authority characterizes it as
“one of the most wild and extraordinary productions of the day, overflowing with madcap wit and quaint
GALLERY OF LITERARY CELEBRITIES. 27

learning, and containing sketches of all the leading characters of the time, from George IV. down to Jack
Ketch, the hangman. To the last-named office, by an inimitable stroke of humour, he appoints Mr. Tierney,
who, having come up to town with an earnest desire to be made Prime Minister, and having in vain
solicited that or some other place, finally, in despair, accepts the office of executioner, and performs the last
ceremonies of the law on Mr. Huskisson, who, he tells us, ‘amid the acclamations of surrounding thousands,
died easily and instantaneously.’ This work is very rare, but it will well repay any one who takes the
trouble of searching for it through the old book-shops of London.” (Dublin University Magazine, vol. xxiii.
p- 86.) This very curious book was noticed in the Quarterly Review, January, 1828, where its true object
is pointed out, “to laugh down the Brambletye House species of novel,” and its study recommended “ to
those well-meaning youths who imagine that a few scraps of blundered antiquarianism, a prophetical
beldam, a bore, and a rebellion, are enough to make a Waverley novel.” From it we are induced to make
one extract,—the portrait of “Sam Hodges,”’—partly as a taste of its quality, and partly to serve as a
pendant to Byron’s versified satire on the banker-poet :—

“This singular and eccentric man was never seen by strangers but with astonishment. Nature, which
made him by profession a punster, seemed to have intended his very person for a sort of joke. He was
about four feet high, and his head was at least a quarter of that size. It hung heavily to one side, and
his countenance, of an unearthly paleness, drooped like an overgrown turnip hanging upon a pole. His
under-jaw projected considerably, and gave him the appearance of a perpetual grin. His lack-lustre eye
shot its leaden beams from under shaggy eyebrows, and his locks, untamed by brush or comb, hung in grisly
knots over his wrinkled brow. Lord Byron, with that disregard for decorum of language which so
conspicuously marked the conversations of that celebrated poet, used rather blasphemously to call him a
caricature of a crucifixion. Strange being! Yet under that odd and repulsive appearance he possessed
wit unbounded, jocularity unceasing, deliberate courage, magnanimous philanthropy. Sage in council,
jocose at table, valiant in action, luxurious in ease, he was the idol of London. Wherever he went joy
brightened every countenance, and the very phrase ‘It’s a saying of Sam’s,’ became proverbial to express
the highest degree of wit. In this particular, indeed, he was unequalled; none, in fact, approached him
except the illustrious Hallam, who, we are informed by some of the principal critical works of the age,
wrote a jocular treatise on the Middle Ages, which has not come down to posterity, but which in his own
generation appears to have excited a universal laugh whenever it was mentioned.” (Page 85.)

Another novel was published after his death, “John Manesty ; or, the Liverpool Merchant,” 2 vols.
Svo., 1844, illustrated by the inimitable George Cruikshank. The reader, too, may care to be reminded
of that little pocket La Rochefoucauld of the diner-out and man about town, “ The Maxims of Sir Morgan
O'Doherty, Bart.,” Blackwood, 1849.

We have spoken of Maginn’s skill in parody ; in this, truly, he was fucile princeps, the greatest of his
time, if indeed not of all time. His effusions in this way are scattered here and there, but the curious
reader may find some specimens in Jerdan’s “ Autobiography,” vol. iii. p. 82. As a song-writer he was not
excelled, even by Proctor (Barry Cornwall); and, as a conversationist, his table-talk is represented to be
“an outpouring of the gorgeous stores wherewith his mind was laden, flowing on like the storied Pactolus,
all golden,” and to be equally devoid of the pomposity of Johnson and the often tedious monotony of
Coleridge. Of him, indeed, it might truly be said that he was, like the learned Buchanan, “ omni liberali
eruditione non leviter tinctus, sed penitus imbutus” ; or, as Heinsius was pronounced by Selden, “tum
severarum quam amcenarum literarum Sol.” Hear one, capable of judging, and who knew him from the
very commencement of his career to its mournful close,—the late William Jerdan :—“ There is scarcely
any species of literature of which he has not left examples as masterly as any inthe language. Romauncist,
Parodist, Politician, Satirist, Linguist, Poet, Critic, Scholar,—pre-eminent in all, and in the last all but
universal,—the efflux of his genius inexhaustible.”

But we must bring these notes to a conclusion, and hasten to the closing scene, over which we would
fain draw the curtain. With the induration of intemperate habits, and the want of ordinary prudence,
Maginn had been gradually descending in the world, till at length he became a prey to all the ills,—except
indeed, one,—which

«________ the scholar’s life assail,
Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the gaol’’?—(Jounson) ;—

and which are happily more characteristic of the age which produced his countrymen, Goldsmith, Sheridan,
and Dermody, than our own. Finally, a speculation to reprint, in a serial form, the choicest of his
magazine articles not having been successful, Maginn, in 1842, was thrown into the Fleet Prison for the
expenses. Hence he emerged penniless, and in the last stage of consumption. In this condition he was
enabled to retreat to Walton-upon-Thames, and here he breathed his last, August 20, 1842, in the 49th
year of his age, utterly forsaken, like Sheridan, by the party for whom he had done so much, and in
ignorance of the noble munificence of Sir Robert Peel, whose gift of £100, in answer to the touching
appeal made to him on behalf of the dying scholar, only arrived in time to pay hig burial fees. Alas! poor
Yorick.

In the Dublin University Magazine for January, 1844, appeared a long, affectionate, and scholarly
biographical notice of Maginn. This we have seen attributed to D. M. Moir; but we would rather
ascribe it to his reverent and faithful friend and countryman, Edward Kenealy, the distinguished barrister.
The portrait prefixed to this is by Mr. Samuel Skillin, of Cork ; it is pronounced an admirable likeness, but
its artistic inferiority is ab once manifest on comparing : with the masterly sketch by Maclise.

D
2s DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

In the following year, 1845, was published by Churton, of Holles Street, a charming little volume by
the racy and genial scholar we have just alluded to—-Mr. Kenealy,—and which the lover of classical delicicee
will place—if he has the luck to meet with it, for it, too, is now a rare book—by the side of the “ Reliques
of Father Prout.” It is entitled “ Brallaghan ; or, the Deipnosophists,” and besides the humorous charac-
terizations of Maginn and the other members of the Fraserian party, it contains at the end an affectionate
and touching tribute to the deceased scholar, and a generous estimate of his character as a writer and a
man. Qne passage from this and we have done :—

“ His funeral was quite private, and was attended only by a very few friends, who loved him fondly
while he lived and venerate his memory now that he is gone; and the tears that fell upon his grave were
the last sad tribute to as true, and warm, and beautiful a soul as ever animated a human breast. The
place in which he is buried is one that his own choice might have selected, for the Spirit of Repose itself
seems to dwell around it, and lends a new charm to its rustic beauty. No noise is ever heard there but the
rustling of the trees, or the gay chirp of the summer blackbirds, or the echo of the solemn hymns as they
ascend to heaven in music on the Sabbath. Strangely contrasted, indeed, is its peacefulness with the
troublous scenes of his. many-coloured life, and provocative of pensive reflection the gentle silence that
invests it like a spell. The rude villager, as he passes over his grave, little dreams of the splendid intellect
that slumbers beneath, or the host of sweet and noble traits that lived within the heart already mouldering
under his feet into a clod of the valley. But his genius has already sanctified the ground, lending to it the
magic which entwines itself with the homes or tombs of celebrated men, rendering it henceforward a classic
and muse-haunted solitude, to which history will point, and making it for all time a spot to which the
scholar will piously resort, and where the young enthusiast of books will linger long and idolatrously in
the soft sunlight, or beneath the radiant stars.” (Page 331.)

The following witty and pathetic lines were written, by way of epitaph on his deceased friend, by John
Gibson Lockhart :—

“ Here, early to bed, lies kind William Maginn,
Who, with genius, wit, learning, life’s trophies to win,
Had neither great lord, nor rich cit of his kin,
Nor discretion to set himself up as to tin:
So his portion soon spent, like the poor Heir of Lynn,
He turn’d author, while yet was no beard on his chin ;
And whoever was out, or whoever was in,
For your Tories his fine Irish brains he would spin ;
Who received prose and rhyme with a promising grin,
‘Go ahead, you queer fish, and more power to your fin!’
But to save from starvation stirr’d never a pin.
Light for long was his heart, though his breeches were thin,
Else his acting, for certain, was equal to Quin ;
But at last he was beat, and sought help of the bin,
(All the same to the Doctor, from claret to gin,)
Which led swiftly to gaol, with consumption therein ;
It was much, when the bones rattled loose in his skin,
He got leave to die here, out of Babylon’s din.
Barring drink and the girls, I ne’er heard of a sin,
Many worse, better few, than bright, broken Maginn.”

Walton-on-Thames, August, 1842.

The following fine lyric may serve at once to fill our page and afford a specimen of the Doctor’s skill
in this species of composition :—

I. II.
“T give my soldier-boy a blade Cool, calm, and clear the lucid flood
In fair Damascus fashion’d well : In which its tempering work was done :
Who first the glittering falchion sway’d, As calm, as clear, as cool of mood
Who first beneath its fury fell, Be thou, whene’er it sees the sun ;
I know not; but I hope to know For country’s claim, at honour’s call,
That for no mean or hireling trade, For outraged friend, insulted maid,
To guard no feeling base or low, At mercy’s voice to bid it fall,
I give my soldier-boy a blade. I give my soldier-boy a blade.

Il.

The eye which mark’d its peerless edge,

The hand that weigh’d its balanced poise ;
Anvil and pincers, forge and wedge,

Are gone, with all their flame and noise;
And still the glitt’ring sword remains :

So when in dust I low am laid,
Remember, by these heartfelt strains,

I gave my soldier-boy a blade.”
 

 

 

 

 
( 29 )

No. 9.—CROFTON CROKER.

ENTLE Reader, permit us to introduce to you Crofton Croker, the king of all the fairies, “ finely

attired in his robe de nuit.” Rare jewels, they tell us, are packed in small caskets ; and if this be

the case, Crofty’s must certainly be of the rarest. Tom Moore and he, heaped, like Pelion and Ossa of old,
one upon the head of the other, would not reach the height of Carus Wilson, erst of Furnival’s Inn.

_ Appropriately, therefore, he has chosen fairy ground as his natural home, and appointed himself
historiographer to King Oberon and all his Cluricaunes. Whether by this selection of his topic he meant
slily to insinuate that he is one of the race himself, and determined, like Lord Grey, to support the interests
of his “ order,” we cannot say ; but nothing can be more certain than that he has Hibernicized the whole
realm of faéry for ever and aye in the literature of England. And with reason good ; was not the “ Fairy
Queen ” itself written in Ireland? Yea, beneath

“Old father Mole—so hight that mountain gray,
That fronts the north side of Ardmulla’s vale ;”

by the waters of “‘ Mulla mine,” which Spenser tells us he had taught to weep. Crofty himself, a native
of that very county in which Spenser wrote, and of which, but that he [Spenser, not Croker] ran away from
the Desmonds, he was to have been sheriff in 1598,—a Corkonian true, born on the lovely banks of

“The spreading Lee, that, like an island fair,
Encloseth Corke with his divided flood,” —

had a just right and title from the soil to plant his tiny friends upon “ the sod,” and to decorate them with
all the full richness of that round and racy brogue which flourishes in most admirable perfection in the
mighty metropolis of beef and butter. .

If Crofty be an original nursling of the fairies, it is impossible to conjecture the antiquity of his age ;
for whether he be a Phooka, a Cluricaune, a Lepricaune, or any other of the tribes upon which these
euphonious names are bestowed in the Irish dialect, we believe that they keep the secret of their years
before the Flood with as much care as an uncourted maiden of nine-and-twenty. But, supposing him to be
of mortal birth, he stands 4 feet 10} inches high, weighs 7} stone, averages 30 odd years old (as he is
only lately married we leave out the unit), was born in Cork—the beautiful city,—is of the best blood of
the Crokers (let nobody imagine that he is related to the late secretary of the Admiralty, whose real
genuine name is Crohoore), wrote various pretty antiquarian papers in a thousand unheard-of vehicles, came
to London full of fancies of fame, and found the Admiralty congenial quarters ; conceived the idea of
Trishizing the fairies—and did it well,—lived like a gay convivial fellow with sundry droll companions ;
emptied his bottle, made love, and raked as Irishmen are wont to do; wrote books of all sizes ; sowed his
wild oats of course, soberized, etceterazed ; and there he is, in a slight degree reduced from the size of life,
nestling among our leaves.

Time has not done him the superfluous injustice of bending him in his iron hand ; though, as the plate
opposite betrays, he has thinned his flowing locks ; and the picture drawn by his nurse, and immortalized
by being published in our pages,* is still applicable to Crofty. All blessings, then, from the “ good
people” upon

——“ His dark eyebrows,
And eyes bright and merry ;

And cheeks that resemble
The hawthorn berry.”

NOTES.

R. WATTS, too, was a little man ; and, when taunted with the exiguity of his person, is said to have

exclaimed :—
“ Were I so tall to reach the Pole,
Or grasp the ocean with my span,
I would be measured by my soul :
The mind’s the standard of the man!”

We cannot vouch for the truth of the story ; but it is at least ben trovato. Croker might well submit to
the same test ; for if he has not left the shade of a great name upon the earth, he attained a respectable
place in the republic of letters, and has left behind him the sweet savour of an honourable and useful

career.
Thomas Crofton Croker,—to give him his whole name,—was, like Maginn, a Corcagian, and was born in

* Praser’s Magazine, vol. i, p, 200.
30 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

the “ beautiful city,” on the 15th January, 1798. His first visit to England was paid to Thomas Moore, in
Wiltshire ; and soon after his arrival in London, he received from John Wilson Croker, a namesake, but
no relation, the appointment at the Admiralty, which he held for nearly thirty years, retiring in 1850, as
senior clerk of the first class. In literature he is best known by his “ Fairy Legends of Ireland,” which
first appeared in 1825, This was translated the same year into German, by the Brothers Grimm, with an
elaborate introduction ; and in 1828 into French, by P. A. Dufau: The second edition was illustrated by
etchings after Maclise ; and the work,—which was held to constitute its author “the honourable member
for fairy-land,”—was afterwards condensed by Murray, for his “ Family Library,” in which form we generally
see it. Although Croker has somehow managed to get all the credit of the book, it was, undoubtedly, a
composite production, of which it would be difficult now—unless, indeed, Mr. Keightley were to help us—to
apportion the shares correctly to their different authors. The son of Mr. Croker, in the memoir of his
father prefixed to the “ Walk from London, &c.” gives no hint that others were concerned in the fabrication
of the work ; but a more immediate contemporary, A. A. Watts, is severe upon the subject :—

‘*_________________ gee Crofton Croker,
That dull, inveterate, would-be joker ;
I wish he’d take a friendly hint,
And when he next appears in print
Would tell us how he came to claim,
And to the book prefix his name,—
Those Fairy Legends, terse and smart,
Of which he penn’d so small a part ;
Wherefore he owned them all himself,
And gave his friends nor fame, nor pelf ?”

Literary Souvenir, 1832, p. 236.

The authors, indeed, are supposed to have been seven or eight in number—Crofton Croker, Thomas
Keightley, Humphries, Dr. Maginn, Lynch, and others. Croker was also author of ‘‘ Researches in the
South of Ireland,” 1824 ; “ Legends of the Lakes,” 1829; numerous contributions to the Gentleman's and
Fraser's Magazing ; and translated and edited the curious tour of Boullaye le Gouz through Ireland in 1644,

One of the most interesting of Croker’s works is the “ Walk from London to Fulham,” 8vo., Tegg, 1860.
This is a republication of a series of papers which originally appeared in Fraser’s Magazine. They were
collected, after his father’s death, by J. F. Dillon Croker, F.S.A., &c., who has prefaced the volume by a
memoir, and are illustrated by the late Mr. Fairholt. They constitute a literary and antiquarian itinerary
of the route which the author knew so well, and contain descriptions of many localities now changed and
forgotten.

Croker married Marianne, daughter of Francis Nicholson, an eminent landscape-painter, who died
6th March, 1844, aged 91 years. This lady survived her husband by two months only, dying October 6th,
1854. All three slumber in the same grave.

Between the years 1837 and 1846, Croker inhabited a charming cottage at Fulham, which bore, as a
legend on the gate-piers informed the passers-by, the romantic appellation of “Rosamond’s Bower.” Of
this residence, with its garden, and its store of curiosities, pictures, and books, a privately printed descrip-
tion, of which but a very few copies were distributed to his friends, was prepared by its inmate.

“ Parva domus! nemorosa quies at

 

Here Croker was visited by Lucy Aiken, and a host of other celebrities. Here, when Major-General
Sir Charles O’Donnell was seated at lunch, Moore himself dropped in, and partook of the repast. This event
was commemorated by the proud and happy host by an inscription on the back of the chair which the
poet had occupied, which produced a careless little epigram from “ Father Prout” (Mahoney),—

“ This is to tell 0’ days
When on this Cathedra,

He of the ‘ Melodies’
Solemnly sat, agrah!”

The literary pilgrim will seek in vain for “ Rosamond’s Bower,” unless, indeed, he is aware of the fact
that the successor to Croker-—Mr. Thomas James Bell—altered this name to “ Audley Cottage.”

Croker was described by Sir Walter Scott, who breakfasted with him at Lockhart’s, as “little as a
dwarf, keen-eyed as a hawk, and of easy, prepossessing manners,—something like Tom Moore.” There is
a whole-length of him, in oil, by Maclise, in the possession of Richard Sainthill, Esq., of Cork ; and a pen-
sketch in ‘the Dublin University Magazine for August, 1849 (greatly inferior to Maclise’s outline before
us), accompanied by a long memoir, of which the materials were evidently furnished by himself. He will
also be recognised in one of the figures in Maclise’s picture, “Snap-Apple Night ;” and he appears, in very
characteristic miniature, in the engraving of the Druidical remains at Gur Lough, in the Gentleman's
Magazine for February, 1833.

Lastly, should the curious reader pick up one of the volumes from Crofton Croker’s library, he will find
detailed with amiable vanity upon the book-plate, either indicating the possessor’s residence, ‘ Rosamond
Bower, Fulham,” or “3, Gloucester Road, old Brompton,” the various learned Societies, with the dates of
membership, to which he belonged.

It was at the latter residence that he died, August the Sth, 1854, in the 57th year of his age.
 

 

 

 

we

THE AUTHOR OF THE UNDYING ONE.
Cat}

No. 10.—MRS. NORTON.

ATR Mrs. Norton! Beautiful Bhouddist, as Balaam Bulwer baptizes you, whom can we better choose

for a beginning of our illustrious literary portraits, when, diverging from the inferior sex, our pencil

dares to portray the angels of the craft? Passionately enamoured, as we avowedly are, of L. E. L. ; soul-

struck by the wonders of Mrs. Hemans’s muse ; in no slight degree smitten by Mary Ann Browne ;

venerating such relics of antiquity as Lady Morgan or Miss Edgeworth ; pitying (which is akin to loving)

the misfortunes of Mrs. Heber or Miss , we yet must make Mrs. Norton the leader of the female

band. She writes long poems,—she is a sprig of nobility,—and she is the granddaughter of that right

honourable gentleman whose picture is suspended above her head, and whom the ingenuity of our
lithographer has contrived to represent rubicund in the nasal feature, even in spite of the want of colours.

A caricature of this lady appeared in a rival publication, which is commonly called by the name of the
New Monthly. There her characteristic features were lost in a nonsensical straining after effect. What
has a lady, the head of a household, to do with staring at the stars, or any other wondrous body stuck over
head? ‘We display her as the modest matron making tea in the morning for the comfort and convenience
of her husband. He does not appear, because we had no notion of wasting a lithograph upon any male
creature this month. But there she is, with delicate finger, preparing to concoct that fluid which, in
Ireland and France, is called “ thé,” and which the people of England, in obedience to the villanous mincing
of the Cockneys, dwindle to the name of T.

Authoresses are liable to many rubs. Mrs. Norton, it would appear by her picture, at breakfast, has
escaped some. Happy in all the appliances of wealth and fame, there is nothing to alter the beauties of
that symmetrical form. And her look, as depicted in the sketch before us, is enough to show that she has
not passed the night in any sublunary matters ; but in the contemplation of that divine philosophy and
sublime poetry which is best indulged in without intrusion. The consequences are upon her countenance.
‘Sweet are the sorrows of Rosalie.” She is evidently composing a poem which no doubt will be as fluent,
as clear, as lucid, and as warm as the liquid distilling from the urn.

- Of a life like hers what can be told? Spent in elegant retirement, the grace of her private circle, or
blazing forth the ornament of brilliant society, there is no unfeminine display about her which can supply
matter for the anecdote-monger. We all know that she is Tom Sheridan’s daughter, and that she has
wooed successfully the muses from her earliest days, beginning with the “ Dandies’ Ball,” and ending [for
the present] with the “Undying One.” Ifwe wished to speak epigrammatically, in the manner of rising
young gentlemen in debating societies, we should say that she has married her thoughts to immortal verse,
and herself to the Honourable Mr. Norton.

Of her poetry enough has been said in this our Magazine, and we hope she has met that gentle usage at
our hands which it becomes us to bestow, and her to receive. We shall be always found ready to attend her
whenever she makes another expedition into-the realms of prose, as we understand she meditates, or of
rhyme, with the due devotion of critical cavaliers. We think that a lady ought to be treated, even by
reviewers, with the utmost deference, except she writes politics, which is an enormity equal to wearing

breeches.
But we must hasten to an end, conscious that going further would intrude ; and, wishing the fair theme

of our pen every degree of honour and happiness,

 

“ With all humility we make our bow.”

NWOT ES.

HIS graceful, charming portrait is the fulfilment of a kind of promise, made some six months before,
at the close of a eulogistic review of “The Undying One” (Fraser's Magazine, ii. 180), to give
the fair authoress a place in the “ Gallery.”

The terrible “‘ Doctor” is in his softer mood; Regina is looking up, The Siamese Twins—Bulwer’s we
mean—have received castigation ; the last glass of gin-toddy was deftly mixed ; or, which is more probable,
—for the “ Doctor” wag an Irishman, —he has for the nonce divested himself of tooth and claw, like the
amorous lion of Babrius, and is prostrate before the throne of beauty.

The “Doctor” deals in eulogy ; we have no other wares, and retire, making, too, our bow, from the
pre-occupied ground. ; ; ; ;

Was not, by the bye, the “Dandies’ Ball” the production of an earlier writer? and was it not the
“ Dandies’ Rout” which claimed Miss Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Sheridan as the authoress? One word of
32 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

remembrance for her fine poem, “The Child of the Islands,” and her sad, sad novel, “Stuart of
Dunleath.”

Tn 1831 appeared her poem, “The Undying One,” founded upon that mysterious legend of antiquity
which has exercised the genius of C. F. D. Schubart among the Germans ;* Eugéne Sue among the
French ;+ and Shelley} and Croly§ among ourselves. We ought not, moreover, to omit mention of “The
Dream, and other Poems” (1840), as, in the opinion of the Quarterly Review, it justified the claim of the
authoress to the title of “ the Byron of our modern poetesses.”

Mrs. Norton was born,—but what matter dates? ‘Let those whom it may concern hunt the details up
in “ Women of the Time,” or the “ Dictionnaire des Contemporains.” Shakspeare, jealously dogging the
footfall of Time, implored him to pass his mistress by, and leave her beauty unmarred :—

“Oh! carve not with thy hours my love’s fair brow,
Nor write rude lines there with thy antique pen.”

If anything could awaken pity in the “ Unpitying One,” it would be an adjuration in the language of
the Bard of Avon ; and if the ‘“ Unstaying One” ever stayed on his onward path,—well nigh half a century
has elapsed, O Posthums, since the artist traced that lovely face and graceful form,—it would be to gaze,
spell-bound, upon such beauty as that of CarotinE Norton !

To Fraser’s Magazine for April, 1831, was contributed, by Mr. F. W. N. Bayley, a poem of a dozen
stanzas, entitled “ A Long Song of Kestasy.” This is a sort of eulogistic advertisement of the Magazine,
and metrical summary of its contents, and as such was not admitted to companionship with the other
articles, but found a place, as it was probably intended it should do, on the back of the title for the month.
This leaf, not being included in the pagination, is generally consigned by the sapient binders to the waste,
although it contains upon one side the “ contents,” and on the other, “ notices to correspondents,” and such
pieces as that we now allude to, and consequently merits preservation. As two of these stanzas have
reference to our “ Gallery,” we give them :—

“ With portraits of our learned men
It makes the world acquainted ;
To see their phizzes pencill’d there
Is next to being sainted !

Jerdan was drawn, as Jerdan is
When evening dews are falling ;
Str Walter walk’d about his grounds

To his northern watch-dog calling ;
Galt warm’d his inexpressibles
Before a roaring fire!
And Rogers look’d as much amused
As one could well desire.

Lockhart, the Comet of the North,
His brown cigar was smoking ;

Moore gazed upon the clement skies
And look’d like Momus joking!

Campbell, with lengthy pipe in hand,
Seem’d like a god in clover!

Maginn, array’d in new brown scratch,
A gentleman all over ;

Croker, the Irish fairy king,
And Oberon of the Moderns;

With several others yet to come,
Who doubtless will be odd *uns!”

This gentleman—known in his day as Mr. Alphabet Bayley, from the number of initial letters which
appeared before his surname—was the son of a Peninsular and Waterloo officer. The father having been
ordered to Barbadoes, the son accompanied him, and there obtained materials for the work which he
published on his return, “ Four Years’ Residence in the West Indies,” 1830, 8vo. He was also author of
several songs, which found a ready acceptance with a certain class of music-sellers, in some measure,
perhaps, from the similarity of the name of their author to that of the popular Thomas Haynes Bayly,
author of “I'd be a Butterfly,” &c. He also edited a magazine, which had some success in its day, entitled
the Omnibus, and was the first editor of the Illustrated London News. A later publication, by which he
was well known, was his “ New Tale of a Tub,” 1841, folio, and since often republished in smaller and
cheaper forms. He died in Birmingham, of bronchitis, in 1853, aged 45, and was interred in one of the
public cemeteries of that town.

* “Der Ewige Jude.” + “Le Juif Errant.”
{ “The Wandering Jew” (Fraser’s Magazine, July, 1831. Medwin had also a hand in this). § “ Salathiel.”
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE EDITOR OF BLACKWOODS MAGAZINE
( 33)

No. 11—JOHN WILSON.

ROFESSOR WILSON! What can be said of Professor Wilson worthy of his various merits ?
Nothing. Were we to reprint Lockhart’s graphic account of him in “ Peter's Letters,” it would not
tell half his fame. A poet who, after having had the calamity of obtaining Oxford prizes, and incurred
the misfortune of being praised by the Hdinburgh Review for some juvenile indiscretions in the way of
rhyme, wrote the “City of the Plague,” which even the envious Lord Byron placed among the great works of
the age, and which all real critics put higher than his poetical lordship’s best productions in the way of
tragedy ; a moral Professor, who “ dings down” the fame of Dugald Stewart,—a paltry triumph, we own,
if truly considered, over a small person, but a triumph of no trivial moment if the voice of Edinburgh be
counted of any avail ; an orator who, sober or convivial, morning or evening, can pour forth gushes of
eloquence the most stirring, and fun the most rejoicing ; a novelist, who has chosen a somewhat peculiar
department, but who in his “Lights and Shadows,” é&c., gives forth continually fine touches of original
thought, and bursts of real pathos ; a sixteen stoner, who has tried it, without the gloves, with the Game
Chicken, and got none the worse; a cocker, a racer, a six-bottler, a twenty-four tumblerer—an out-and-
outer—a true, upright, knocking-down, poetical, prosaic, moral, professorial, hard-drinking, fierce-eating,
good-looking, honourable, and straightforward Tory. Let us not forget that he has leapt twenty-seven feet
in a standing leap, on plain ground !—[Byron never ceased boasting of the petty feat of swimming three or
four miles with the tide, as something wondrous. What is it to Wilson’s leaping ?]—a gipsy, a magaziner,
a wit, a six-foot club man, an unflinching Ultra in the worst of times !—In what is he not great?

“Show this to Wilson,” says the said Lord Byron, in one of his letters published by that respectable
gentleman Thomas Moore ; “show this to Wilson, for I like the man, and care little for his magazine.”
Lord Byron wrote this under the impression that Wilson was the editor of Blackwood ; and as common
fame agrees with his lordship’s conjecture, we have ventured to affix to the Professor’s portrait the title of
“‘Christopher North.” We hope he will not be angry with us for so doing, because it is done honoris causd,
as Sir C. Wetherell would say. Who is there that does not distinguish the Professor's hand amid the
adjoining Balaam, and rejoice over the mingled mirth and melancholy, the humour and poetry, the
eloquence and buffoonery, the gravity and the gaiety of those fitful productions which, under one strange
name or another, gleam forth every now and then in brilliant contrast with the lack-lustre and miserable
paste by which they are surrounded.

In the opposite plate, he is depicted as he appears in his countryman Macdonald’s admirable statue.
Perhaps other positions less severe and stony might be more characteristic, but we had no objection that the
picture of the poet should call attention to the works of the statuary. In the background are seen the
University, of which Wilson is the most distinguished ornament; a fistic contest, such as his Boxiana
sketches have embalmed ; and the rudiments of a cock-fight, which, coming under the general head of
“Varment,” falls within the province of his frolic pen. The Professor's wig, and the crutch of the
rheumatic Mr. North, have their appropriate place in the picture ; and if our readers regret that we have
found no room for a symbol emblematic of his tragedy, in our plate, they will, in all probability, have
found plague enough in getting through our illustrative letter-press. Farewell !—

“ Heec dictans raptim mediis in fluctibus urbis,
Propino poculum, Wilsdne care, tibi!”

 

NODE &,

T is very hard to have to say something about a man of whose genius a great master has proclaimed that
nothing worthy can be said. But four decades have passed over this dictum, and have given us at
least a few facts to place upon record.

John Wilson was born May 19th, 1785, at Paisley, a town which has produced Tannahill, Alexander
Wilson, and more than one other Scottish poet; and where Motherwell, if not born, passed his boyhood
and youth. He received his earlier education at the University of Glasgow, under such men as Richardson,
Jardine, Miller, and Young; and proceeded thence to Oxford, where he graduated B.A., 1807; M.A.,
1808, gaining the Newdigate prize for poetry, and the reputation of being the best boxer, the highest
leaper, the most ardent cock-fighter, and the fastest runner among his fellow-students. He was, moreover,
a Radical of so advanced a type, that he thought it wrong to employ a servant to black his boots, and was
wont to perform that necessary operation himself.

His father, a wealthy manufacturer, had purchased the estate of Elleray, on the shores of Windermere,
and this led to the son’s intimacy with Wordsworth, Southey, Quillinan, Coleridge, and De Quincey.
Here he contributed some fine letters to Coleridge’s “ Friend,” under the signature of “ Mathetes” ; and
hence, quite as much as from the character of his poems, his general association with the “ Lake School.”
In 1812 appeared the “Isle of Palms”; and in 1816, the “City of the Plague.” These poems, together
with those by which they were accompanied, or which subsequently appeared in the magazines of the day,
gave the author a high place among modern bards. The characteristics of Wilson’s poetry are exuberance

E
34 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

of fancy ; tenderness and pathos ; sympathy with the beauties of nature, and the charms of rural and
contemplative life; and touching pictures of religious confidence and innocent love. These qualities
constitute the charm of Wilson’s lesser poems, which will continue to please ; but in the more sustained
flights of his muse, become, in spite of the classical purity of their diction, almost monotonous in their
even, sustained, and uncontrasted progression. Their early critic was Jeffrey, who welcomed the new
aspirant, and strove to withdraw him from the ‘“ pond-poets” across the Border. Of Wilson’s novels,—the
“ Foresters,” “ Margaret Lindsay,” the “ Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life,’— we will only say that they
possess excellencies and defects very similar to those of his poetry. In 1814 he came to reside in
Edinburgh, and was called to the bar, but never practised. In 1817 was started Blackwood's Magazine,
with its indiscriminate Toryism, its unjust and unreasoning abuse of what it was pleased insolently to term
the “Cockney School,” with Leigh Hunt and Hazlitt at its head, and its glorification of everybody north
of the Tweed, and everything that chanced to be written in what was termed British “ Doric.” Wilson,
Lockhart, and Maginn were on the staff, and Blackwood’s had already become known—as was said—as the
*¢Blackguard’s” ; when the two latter, gravitating to London,—Lockhart to edit the Quarterly, in 1826, and
Maginn to establish Fraser’s,—Wilson was left to alter the character of the magazine, and give it the high
literary and critical standing which it so long maintained.

One review, and one only, did Wilson write for the “‘ Blue and Yellow.” This was an article on the
fourth cauto of “Childe Harold.”

In 1820, by the death of Thomas Brown, the chair of Moral Philosophy in the University of
Edinburgh became vacant, and Wilson was urged by his friends, and especially by Sir Walter Scott,
to become a candidate. His opponent was Sir William Hamilton, a logician and metaphysician of the
highest rank. Wilson was as yet an untried, and comparatively unknown man, but his Conservatism,—he
had long shed his early Radical skin,—gained him the day, and he was elected to the vacant chair by
political influence. This was not as it should have been ; and there can be no question that Sir William
Hamilton was the fitter man. The experiment, however, turned out better than could have been
anticipated. Wilson perhaps had, as was said, to cram for his lectures ; but they were prepared with great
care, and delighted his auditory by their fire, originality, and eloquence, and the happy combination of
literature, philosophy, and poetry which they exhibited.

Not to speak of the “ Noctes Ambrosian” would be an unpardonable omission. Here we have Wilson
in all his glory, giving us the reflex of his many-sided intellect, alternating poetry with politics, wit with
wisdom, pathos with bathos, fun with philosophy, literary gossip with metaphysical discussion, gastronomy
with esthetics,—and this by means of the most skilful and artistic ordonnance of heterogeneous and
apparently unmanageable qualities and characters. Perhaps the domain of literature does not contain so
remarkable an instance of the union of brilliant and diverse mental powers combining to form a marvellous
and harmonious whole. The character of the Shepherd is a glorious conception ; and it 1s as he is made to
speak and do in the “Symposia” at Ambrose’s that James Hogg will go down to posterity. O’Doherty
had laid down the principle that a journalist should never deny a thing that he had not written, nor
acknowledge one that he had. Hogg found that his literary associates acted on this, and determined that
he would sign his name to everything he published, that, as he says, he might be answerable to the world
only for his own offences. But, says he, “as soon as the rascals perceived this, they signed my name as
fast as I did. They then contrived the incomparable ‘ Noctes Ambrosiane,’ for the sole purpose of putting
into the mouth of the Shepherd all the sentiments which they durst not avowedly say themselves, and those
too often applying to my best friends.”

Asa critic Wilson was pre-eminently great ; at least, when the catholicity of his sympathies was not
impaired by political or national feeling. Here, too, he was truly original in style ; at once subtle in
analysis, precise in discrimination, genial in tone, and rich in imaginative illustration. In the union of
those characteristics we do not know that he had a precursor, or that he has since been surpassed.

His portrait for our “Gallery” was not taken ad vivum, but is from the statue at Edinburgh, by
Macdonald. The pugilistic encounter, and the cocks dimicantes gratis, of which we catch a glimpse without,
remind us of the predilections of his ardent youth ;* but the poet-philosopher is in his latter days, and his
gaze is not upon the things of the outer world, as he sits, rapt in sublime and solitary meditation, as it
were, ‘‘ waiting and wondering on vaster shores than lie by the seas of time.”+ It is a fine conception,
though it perhaps hardly recalls the Christopher North of our thoughts ; and we would fain have the
intellectual as well as the physical Titan in his earlier years,—“ a cross between the man, the eagle, and the
lion,” as Gilfillan described him ; or in the guise in which rumour spoke of him to Hogg, as “a man from
the mountains in Wales, or the West of England, with hair like eagles’ feathers, and nails like birds’ claws.”

Wilson never entirely recovered from the shock produced by the death of his wife, a beautiful and
most amiable woman, in 1837 ; and his writings, subsequent to this bereavement, betray more of effort
with less of power than his earlier productions. An attack of paralysis compelled him to abandon his chair
in 1853, when a pension of £200 was conferred upon him by Lord John Russell. This he did not enjoy
long, dying at Edinburgh, on April 3rd, in the following year, in the 69th year of his age.

A “Memoir” of this gifted man, by Mrs. Gordon, his daughter, has since been published (1862, 8vo.) ;
Lockhart’s “graphic account” of him will be found in “ Peter’s Letters to his Kinsfolk,” vol. iii. p. 256 ;
Gilfillan devotes a long chapter to him in one of his “ Galleries”; and two most excellent papers on his
poetry were contributed to Hogg’s “ Instructor,” as is supposed, by the Rev. P. Landreth, of Cupar-Fife.

* Athenceum, No. 1821, p. 555. + Thomas Aird.
 

   

il

Hitt,

~

i

—

bA.

THE AUTHOR OF OUR VILLAGE .

99

ee
( 35 )

No. 12.—MARY RUSSELL MITFORD.

N our village we have an authoress, too, and her name is Mary Mitford. Now, let nobody suppose that
Mary, on account of the pretty alliteration of her name, is one of the fine and romantic young ladies
who grace pastorals in prose or verse. On the contrary, our Mary is a good-humoured spinster of a certain
age, considerably inclined, we do not know whether with her own consent or not, to embonpoint, and the
very reverse of the picturesque. There are, however, few girls in our village, or twenty villages beyond it,
that can dress up so pretty a basket of good-looking and sweet-smelling natural flowers, all of the true
English soil, not foreign and flaunting like the flaring dahlias that one class of bouquet-gatherers thrust under
our noses with so much pretence, nor smelling of turf and whiskey like the strong-scented bog-lilies which
are offered to us by the basket-women of the provinces ; nor yet at all resembling the faded imitation roses
picked up in second-hand saloons, and vended as genuine posies of quality by draggletail damsels, who
endeavour to pass themselves off as ladies’ maids, generally without character. And Mary’s basket
is arranged in so neat, so nice, so trim, so comely, or, to say all in one word, so very English a manner,
that it is a perfect pleasure to see her hopping with it to market. We say nothing as to the way in which
she applies the profits of her business, though, if we did, it would redound to her praise and honour, because,
in these our sketches, we have always looked at the subject before us only as it comes before the public.

We are afraid, however, that if we attempt to write any longer in this style, our prattle will be voted
tedious ; our imitation must partake of the vice of the original, and the only defect in Miss Mitford’s own
style of writing is its mannerism. We do not know any sketch-manufacturer whose manner is so decided.
Read only a single chapter, a character, a description, and you feel that you are introduced to one of a large
family, the members of which have a likeness to one another, qualem decet esse sororum. It is hard to say
how you get such a feeling from a single specimen, but so it is. Dropping all metaphor, then, we have
only to remark, that it is impossible that anything can be cleverer and racier than Miss Mitford’s sketches,
and if she has not made so much noise in the literary world as other ladies far more slenderly qualified,
why, the battle is not always to the strong, nor the race to the swift ; and, moreover, a lady who does not
write politics or double entendre, or make herself a lioness, or enlist into the honourable corps of the
puffmongers, throws away a great many chances of renown, which are eagerly caught at by less scrupulous
adventuresses.

From the good-humoured and sonsy physiognomy opposite, it may easily be conjectured that she is not
exactly the muse of tragedy, and yet her plays have always been popular for the season ; which is as much
as can well be expected. In her pieces we find good situations, fine verses, honourable sentiments, and
sounding passages, which obtain, as they deserve, considerable applause. Male critics, however, are so
ungallant as to say, that superior as ladies are to gentlemen in all other particulars, there are a few things
out of their power: they can never be distinguished generals, scientific cooks, first-rate tragedians, high-
class epics, or piquant epigrammatists ; and in spite of Joan of Arc, Mrs. Rundell, Joanna Baillie, Miss
Mitford, and Louisa Sheridan, we are pretty much of that opinion. ;

Miss Mitford, in the plate, is attended, not by Eros, but rather Anteros; not by love’s god, but
a printer’s devil, to whom she is delivering copy, as they perversely call our original MS., for some of the
thousand annuals, perhaps, which she ornaments. As one of the same diabolic breed is at our own elbow,
we must finish our page by a wish that,

Still may her picture, when she’s pleased to sit for ’t,
Show her the same good-humour’d Mary Mitford.

 

NOTE Ss.
f ‘HIS amiable and accomplished lady was born at Alresford, in Hampshire, December 16th, 1786. In

dramatic literature she has displayed considerable ability, and is known as the author of several
plays, which enjoyed a fair share of success at the time of their appearance. Of these we may mention
“ Julian,” “ Foscari,” and “Rienzi,” as most striking in dramatic power ; while another,—“ Charles the
First,” although it may be pronounced ultra-royal in tendency, was suppressed, like the “ Alasco” of Sir
Martin Archer Shee, by George Colman, the deputy licenser, acting under the authority of the Lord
Chamberlain. Both plays appear alike innocent to us, and we cannot understand the motive of their
exclusion from the stage. Miss Mitford has also published a volume of “ Dramatic Scenes” (8vo., 1827),
marked by much vivid and pathetic action. These, however, will hardly survive ; neither, too, her minor
poems, spirited and graceful as they are. It is rather by her “Belford Regis” and “Our Village ” that
she must hope to be remembered by posterity. In ee works we are presented with a series of pictures

E
36 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

of English country life, painted at once with the minute fidelity of a Flemish artist, and the refined grace
of a pure-minded and educated lady. The papers known in their collected form as “ Our Village” were
offered to Campbell, the poet, for publication in the Mew Monthly Magazine, but were unaccountably
rejected by him as unsuitable; and the Lady’s Alagazine (1819) had the honour of giving them to the
world. They at once found favour with the public, and will, we think, continue to be read. When heated
from the lava-flood of modern and foreign fiction, it is refreshing to turn to these pure and tranquil
streams, where we seem, as it were, to experience a spiritual rebaptism, and the perturbed soul regains a
wholesome serenity.

We could have wished to record that the lot of one who conceived these pure and graceful episodes was
itself easy and devoid of care. But it was hardly so: a literary career, even when successful, is fraught
with frequent anxiety and disappointment; and that of Mary Russell Mitford was no exception to the
rule. Her latter days were, to some extent, clouded over by narrow means and disease ; she finished her
novel “ Atherton,” as a letter to her constant friend, Mr. Bennoch, informs us, “when very few people
could even have held a pen.” Finally, esteemed and regretted by all who knew her, she died at her
residence, Swallowfield Cottage, near Reading, January 10th, 1855, aged 68.

As materials for her biography, we have her own “ Recollections of a Literary Life, and Selections from my
favourite Poets and Prose-writers,” 3 vols., 1851, 8vo. This, however, must not be sought for as a personal
or autobiogrophical narrative ; but, in her own words, as an attempt to make others relish a few favourite
authors as she relished them herself. Then we have the “ Memoirs and Letters of Charles Boner, with
Letters by Mary Russell Mitford to him during Ten Years,” edited by R. M. Kettle, 2 vols., Bentley,
1871, 8vo. ; an obituary notice in the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. xliii. p. 428 ; the “ Life of Mary Russell
Mitford, &c., related in a Selection from her Letters to her Friends,” edited by the Rev. A. G.
L'Estrange, 3 vols, Bentley, 1870, 8vo.; and, lastly, some very interesting “ Recollections of Miss
Mitford,” published soon after her death, in the Aré-Journal, to which they were contributed by her faith-
ful and confidential friend, Mr. Francis Bennoch, a City merchant, with additions by Mr. and Mrs.
8. C. Hall.

In person Miss Mitford was described by Jerdan, with truly British lack of gallantry, as “ short, rotund,
and unshapely ; but in her manners easy, amiable, and interesting, and in her writings natural, intellectual,
and delightful ;” a picture, he adds, of what Byron rudely called a “dumpy woman.” We have her portrait
after Haydon, prefixed to her ‘Dramatic Works,” 1854 ; another by 8. Freeman, in her “ Recollections ”;
while a charming stippled head, engraved by Thomson, from a drawing by F. R. Say, in the New Monthly
Maguzine for October, 1831, gives a favourable idea of the kindliness of her humour and the keenness of
her powers of observation.

We take this opportunity of noticing a very charming book, in which an acute and kindly foreign
observer has given us his own impressions of English country life, with especial reference to its institutions,
social and educational. This is entitled, “La Vie de Village en Angleterre; ou, Souvenirs d’un Exilé”
(8vo., Paris, 1862), and is well worthy of perusal.

 

SONG.

“ Tue lily-bells are wet with dew,

The morning sunbeams kiss the rose,

And rich of scent, and bright of hue
The summer garden glows.

Then up, and weave a garland, sweet,
To braid thy raven hair,

Before the noontide’s withering heat
Strike on those flowerets fair.

“A flickering cloud is in the sky,

A murmuring whisper in the gale ;

They tell that stormy rain is nigh,
Or desolating hail.

Then up, and weave a garland, sweet,
To deck thy glossy hair,

Nor wait till evening tempests beat
Upon those flowerets fair.”

Mary RusseLt Mirrorp.
 

THE AUTHOR OF THE EXQUISITES”
(or

No. 18—DON TELESFORO DE TRUEBA Y COZIO,

The Don, to tune of gay quadrille,
Floats double, Don and shadow.

ERE we have Trueba, dancing, and, as usual, occupied in turning his spectacled eyes from his

partner, and all other persons whatever, upon the far more lovely shadow of himself. He is

dressed in the manner of one of his own Exquisites ; and, to use the favourite expression in that illustrious
comedy, is displaying himself as a bore of no inconsiderable dimensions.

Of Telesforo de Trueba y Cozio, thus presented to our view, we have little to say. Leigh Hunt, who,
even in his sere and yellow leaf, pursues all the Cockneyisms of his youth, fresh and verdant as when first
they flourished, in all the pride of amber-coloured silk inexpressibles, over “the halfmountain region of
Hampstead,” said, in his Zatler’s review of the “ Exauisites,” that it was uncommonly refreshing to meet a
real Spanish Don, and that it carried the mind back to Gil Blas and Lazarillo de Tormes, and other heroic
characters of a similar stamp. Had Hunt extended his researches as far as Somers Town, he would have
found dons of all sorts and degrees, walking about in the shirtless majesty of independence, without
stretching his ideas into the region of romance ; and, ignorant as we are of Trueba’s Spanish history, we can
only take him up in England, where we do not find him so wonderful a specimen as some of his friends
would wish to pass him off upon us. How strange, lisps a lady critic, that a Spaniard should write such
good English. How wonderful, brogues forth a gentleman of the press, that a foreigner should have so
complete an insight into our manners. Sweet lady! Kind Milesian! ‘Don Telesforo de Trueba y Cozio
was educated here at some Roman Catholic college. Here he has spent his youth, here he is spending his
manhood, English is his vernacular tongue, and he can no more write Spanish than Lord Palmerston or
Dr. Bowring. He is no more in education or language a Spaniard than the Lord Mayor, even though,
as in the case of that illustrious functionary, people generally prefix the Don to his name.

We have always, however, considered this a matter of little consequence. Trueba, be he Spaniard or
Briton by education, writes passable novels in irreproachable English. His name is an injury to him, in
the very reverse manner to what might be expected. Conscious that it is a strange thing for a gentleman
so Hispanically cognominated, to write English at all, the reading public, with its usual wisdom, has
taught him to look upon himself as a wonder on that one account. As in the ease of the learned pig, we
care not what the erudite animal reads, so that he does but read ; so, in the case of Trueba, it seems to be
settled that so as he does write in English, it is a matter of secondary consideration what he writes. This,
we are sorry to say, has acted sadly upon the permanent fame of our Castilian. .A man who consents to be
shown as a lion, runs the risk of being at last metamorphosed into an ass. Let him, therefore, shake off
most lustily whatever advantage he may fancy he obtains by being a curiosity, and, as he is in some sort a
clever fellow, he may get on in time. As long as he is the astonishing Npaniard “ wot writes English,” so
long will he not do anything worth a farthing.

His “ Exquisites” have, we understand, been condemned to that bourne from whence no comedy
returns ; his novels are not quite equal to the workmanship of his countryman Cervantes. Many a man,
says old Rabelais, wears the dress of a Spaniard, who cannot show the pluck of a Spanish soldier. He has
some talent, nevertheless, and if he will really work, something may be got out of him; but, to borrow
an illustration from the picture opposite, let him not mistake the shadow, singularity, for the substance,

fame !

 

WOTEh Ss.

AGINN avows that he has little to say about this dapper, self-satisfied gentleman, and we confess

that we have not much more. Our readers may regard him as a fly in amber, and wonder, so

completely are his name and fame now things of the past, to what he is indebted for being thus embalmed

in the “ Gallery.” The answer is,—his pleasing appearance and gentlemanly manners, his reputation as a

linguist, his temporary success as a dramatic author and a novelist, his membership of the Garrick Club,

his fame as a contributor to the Metropolitan and other magazines, and the prestige which invariably attaches
to a well-bred, well-educated foreigner, of assured position, in lion-loving London.

However this may be, the Don, though fond enough of notoriety, hardly felt grateful for the manner in
which it was conferred, and was angry with the artist for handing him down to posterity, absorbed in
self-complacency and the solitary performance of Terpsichorean evolutions. ‘“ Why should this be ?” asks
Fraser (Aug., 1831, p. 20). “All works of art should be consistent ; one would not paint a puppy with a
lion’s head, a goose with the wings and long neck of an ostrich, or a donkey with the head and ears of the
bearded pard.” This occurs in a short notice of Trueba’s novel, “Paris and London,” a trashy, flippant,
38 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

indecent affair, dedicated to Bulwer, and now quite forgotten.

Thus, attitude and occupation alike
appropriate, we have Trueba himself before us, an elegant trifler,

“Meditans nugarum, et totus in illis.”

Let him be thankful for his undeserved occupancy of a place in our “ Gallery.”

The mother of Trueba, a lady of fortune, and a stanch Liberal, left Spain on the overthrow
of the Constitutional party, and took up her residence in Paris. Her son was educated in this
country, and preferred it as a residence. He became an author, and wrote several novels—“ The Castilian,”
“ The Incognito,” “ Salvador, the Guerilla,”—of the merits of which, as we do not chance to have met with
one of them, we will not attempt to speak. He wrote several farces, which were successful in their day :
such as, “ Call again To-morrow,” “ Mr. and Mrs. Pringle,” &c.; also a comedy, “The Exquisites,” which may
still be remembered by play-goers; another, entitled “Men of Pleasure,” which was unsuccessfully
performed at Drury Lane, in June, 1832; and a third, which appeared with better fate at the Victoria,
in January, 1834, under the title of the “ Royal Fugitive ; or, Triumph of Justice.” We believe that he
also wrote pieces in French, which achieved success on the Parisian stage ; and that he is not unknown as
a dramatic author in his own country and language.

In 1829, Trueba wrote for Constable's Miscellany, the “ Life of Hernan Cortes,” an able and apparently
impartial biography of this extraordinary man; and in the following year, for the same serial, the
“ History of the Conquest of Peru by the Spaniards.”

Trueba returned to Spain in 1834, and was speedily elected a member of the Chamber of Procuradores,
and secretary of committee, where his talents as a linguist, and his knowledge of English life and society,
must have made him eminently useful. But his career was short; his death taking place, October 4th,
1835, at the age of about thirty, in Paris,—whither he had fled, subsequently records Fraser, from Madrid,
“his death accelerated, as was said, by the terrors of the murderous Spanish contest into which he had

thrust himself without any suspicions of the danger he was drawing upon his head.”

 

SONNET.

I stoop upon St. Peter’s battlement,
And my eye wander’d o’er Imperial Rome,
And I thought sadly on the fatal doom
*Neath which her ancient palaces had bent ;
Of temple and tower outrageously uprent,
Or moulder’d into dust by slow decay ;
Of halls where godlike Czesar once bore sway,
Or glorious Tully fulmined eloquent !
So shall all earthly fade! What wonder then,
If Time can make such all-unsparing wreck,
If neither genius, art, nor skill:of men,
Can e’er pretend his felon hand to check,
That this old coat, I’ve worn these three years past,
Should on each elbow want a patch at last ?
Wittiam Maeinn, LL.D.

TO A BOTTLE OF OLD PORT.
(Parody—* When he who adores thee.””—Moorg.)

WHEN he who adores thee has left but the dregs
Of such famous old stingo behind ;
Oh! say, will he bluster or weep,—no ’ifegs !
He’ll seek for some more of the kind.
He'll laugh, and though doctors perhaps may condemn,
Thy tide shall efface the decree,
For many can witness, though subject to phlegm,
He has always been faithful to thee!

With thee were the dreams of his earliest love,
Every rap in his pocket was thine,

And his very last prayer, evry morning, by Jove,
Was to finish the evening in wine.

How blest are the tipplers whose heads can outlive
The effects of four bottles of thee ;

But the next dearest blessing that heaven can give,
Is to stagger home muzzy from three!

Wintiam Maeinn, LL.D.

THE ROUND TOWER.

In London, queen of cities, you may see
Facing the lovely house of Somerset,
A goodly, tall round tower: its base is wet
With Thames’ fair waters rolling quietly ;
Who was it built this tower? What may it be ?
Say, was it piled by Druid hands of old!
Or rear’d by Eastern magi, there to hold
The sacred flame, type of their deity ?
Was it a hermit’s calm retreat? or pile
Where hung sonorous the resounding bell ?
Or is it such as in green Erin’s isle
‘We see, whose uses nobody could tell P—
*Twas answer’d :—Who "twas built it, know I not,
But ’tis, I know, the tower for Patent Shot.
Wititiam Macinn, LL.D.

NEW WORDS TO AN OLD TUNE.
(Parody—“TI saw from the beach,” &c.—Moorz.)

To the Finish I went, when the moon it was shining,
The jug round the table moved jovially on ;

I staid till the moon the next morn was declining ;
The jug still was there, but the punch was all gone

And such are the joys that your brandy will promise
(And often these joys at the Finish I’ve known),

Every copper it makes in the evening ebb from us,
And leaves us next day with a headache alone !

Ne’er tell me of puns, or of laughter adorning
Our revels that last till the close of the night;

Give me back the hard cash that I left in the morning,
For clouds dim my eye and my pocket is light.

Oh! who’s there that welcomes that moment’s returning,
When daylight must throw a new light on his frame—

When his stomach is sick, and his liver is burning—
His eye shot with blood and his brow ina flame ?

Wittiam Maerinn, LL.D.
 

   

ar at
= }
= ‘

 

NGLAND.

i

TO

INDIA

SUCRHIEY FRUM
( 39 )

No. 14.—EARL OF MUNSTER.

HE treaty of Munster gave religious peace to the Empire in 1648. We are sorry to say that the
peerage of Munster did for a short time somewhat the contrary in our Empire in 1831. It is,
however, a tender point ; and we shall pass over the slippery surface with a flying foot : as we have already
said, our object in these sketches is far removed from private gossip. As for the clamour about this elevation
of a most worthy and honourable gentleman, it is almost forgotten already. Those who compare it with
the doings in the days of Charles II. know very little of our history.

We have only to consider the Earl of Munster in his literary capacity ; and certainly, except the King
of Bavaria, whose poetry is not altogether equal to Homer's, no scion of royalty, no matter how
descended, has, in our times, wielded the pen in a more author-like fashion. His lordship campaigned
with the Tenth, at the close of the Peninsular war, and was dismissed, with the other officers of that
regiment, for having committed an unprecedented breach of etiquette in that corps—by fighting. Quentin
knew far better what was the duty of a dandy regiment, and kept a prudent position in the rear. Fitz-
Clarence had the impertinence to charge and break the enemy’s line ; for which he was broken himself, and
sent to India. In those days (as his lordship is an author, he must pardon us for attributing to him a
literary failing) he did not particularly abound in rupees, and it was so much the better for himself. If he
had gone to India as a princeling, he would have come back not much better ; instead of which he set
about reading, writing, translating, interpreting, stewing, working, drilling, parading, moonsheeizing, and
a long list of &c.’s of the same kind, and turned out at last, what is so rare a character, we are sorry to say,
but when it does occur, so very accomplished a character, a literary soldier,—a wielder of the pen and the
sword. His “Journey Overland from India” is a masterpiece in its way. A hundred years ago it would
have set all Europe in wonder ; and even now, when Eastern travellers are as plenty as Russia ducks in
summer weather, it is by no means to be sneezed at. If we, magazin@bred as we are, could venture to
violate the awful sanctity of anonymous writing, we could point out papers of his in the United Service
Journal which would have made glad the heart of old Folard ; as it is, they rejoiced that (or those) of the
Siamese twins, Colburn and Bentley.

We have depicted his lordship as an officer, in full fig. Those who know him will see that our sketch
is a wonderful likeness (except that it is a little too cross) not only’in physiognomy,—the family physiognomy
by the way,—but in the general air and mise. Behind him our painter has placed a set of Indian gods,
some of whom much resemble certain friends of ours of the Whig party,—the one to the extreme right is
a striking resemblance of Lord —— (a new Lnglish creation),—some queer Oriental matters, and a
manuscript of nail-beads, or other wonderful affairs, unknown to all mankind.

These, perhaps, may be his private studies, but, if fame speak not untruly, he has, lying by him, things
far more valuable than any which he has as yet published, and which we hope are not to be smothered by
the coronet. Why does he not write articles for this, our super-excellent Magazine? As we have not yet
the benefit of his hand, we have taken the liberty of inserting his head ; and, as he is about making up his
household, offer a page

 

To one who can right well pen, sword, or gun stir—
Colonel Fitz-Clarence, Harl of song-famed Munster.*

 

NOTES.

HIS gentleman was the eldest son of the Duke of Clarence, by Mrs. Jordan, the celebrated actress.
He distinguished himself in many engagements in the Peninsular war, especially at Fuentes
d’Onore, where he was wounded, and again at Toulouse ; acquiring by his conduct and military abilities
the friendship of the Duke of Wellington, by whom he was much esteemed.

In 1830 he was raised to the peerage. He was one of the original members of the Royal*Asiatic
Society ; became in due course a member of Council ; and was raised to the Presidency in 1841. He had
been long engaged on a work on Oriental strategy.

In 1842 the Earl of Munster was attacked by a cerebral disorder, and destroyed himself in a fit of
insanity on March 20th of that year, in the 49th year of his age.

* Momonia, sweet dwelling of song. See Fraser’s Magazine for June, p. 556.

os
40 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

The following song in English and Latin, by William Maginn, LL.D., is alluded to in our notice of
that extraordinary genius. We have already expressed our opinion as to its merits, and are sure that it
will be read with interest asa specimen of the Doctor’s skill in humorous versification, whether in English
or Latin :—

THE WINE-BIBBER’S GLORY.—A NEW SONG.
TunE—“ The Jolly Miller.”

“Quo me, Bacche, rapis tui
Plenum ?” Hor.

i.

Ir Horatius Flaccus made jolly old Bacchus
So often his favourite theme ;

If in him it was classic to praise his old Massic,
And Falernian to gulp in a stream ;

If Falstaff’s vagaries ’bout Sack and Canaries
Have pleased us again and again ;

Shall we not make merry, or Port, Claret, or Sherry,
Madeira, and sparkling Champagne ?

2

First Port, that potation preferr’d by our nation
To all the small drink of the French;

Tis the best standing liquor for layman or vicar,
The army, the navy, the bench ;

*Tis strong and substantial, believe me, no man shall
Good Port from my dining-room send ;

In your soup,—after cheese,—every way it will please,
But most téte-d-téte with a friend.

3. *

Fair Sherry, Port’s sister, for years they dismiss’d her
To the kitchen to flavour the jellies—

There long she was banish’d, and well nigh had vanish’d
To comfort the kitchen-maids’ bellies; _~

Till his Majesty fix’d, he thought Sherry when sixty
Years old, like himself, quite the thing :

So I think it but proper to fill a tip-topper
Of Sherry, to drink to the King.

4

Though your delicate Claret, by no means goes far, it
Is famed for its exquisite flavour ;

*Tis a nice-provocation to wise conversation,
Queer blarney, or harmless palaver ;

*Tis the bond of society,—no inebriety
Follows a swig of the Blue;

One may drink a whole ocean, but ne’er feel commotion
Or headache from Chateau Margoux.

5.

But though Claret is pleasant to taste for the present,
On the stomach it sometimes feels cold ;

So to keep it all clever, and comfort your liver,
Take a glass of Madeira that’s old;

When ’t has sail’d for the Indies, a cure for all wind ’tis,
And colic ’twill put to the rout :

All doctors declare a good glass of Madeira
The best of all things for the gout.

6

Then Champagne! dear Champagne; ah! how gladly I
drain a
Whole bottle of Mil de Perdrix ;
To the eye of my charmer, to make my love warmer,
If cool that love ever could be.
I would toast her for ever—but never, oh! never,
Would I her dear name so profane :
So if e’er when I’m tipsy, it slips to my lips, I
Wash it back to my heart with Champagne!

TOPORIS GLORIA.—A LATIN MELODY.

To a Tune for itself, lately discovered in Herculaneum,

—being an ancient Roman air,—or, if not, quite as good. ,

Cum jollificatione boisterosi; 7.e., With boisterous

jollification.

i

St Horatio Flacco de hilari Baccho
Mos carmina esset cantare.

Si Massica vina vocaret divina,
Falernaque sciret potare :

Si nos juvat miré Falstaffium audire
Laudentem Hispanicum merum.

Cor nostrum sit letum, ob Portum, Claretum,
Xerense, Campanum, Maderum.

II.

Est Portum potatio quam Anglica natio
Vinis Gallie practulit lantis :—

Sacerdote amatur—et laicis potatur
Consultis, militibus, nautis.

Si meum conclave hoc forte et suave
“Vitaverit, essem iniquus,

Post caseum—in jure—placebit secure
Preesertim cum adsit amicus.

III.

Hinc quamvis cognatum, Xerense damnatum,
Gelata culind tingebat,

Vinum exul ibique dum coquo cuique
Generosum liquorem praebebat.

Sed a rege probatum est valde pergratum
Cum (ut ipse) sexagenarium—

Largé ergo implendum, regique bibendum
Opinor est nunc necessarium.

IV.

Claretum, oh! quamvis haud forte (deest nam vis)
Divino sapore notatur ;

Hinc dulcia dicuntur—faceta nascuntur—
Leniterque philosophizatur.

Socialis potatio! te haud fregit ratio
Purpureo decoram colore !

Tui maximum mare liceret potare
Sine mentis frontisve dolore.

Vv.

Etsi vero in presenti Claretum bibenti
Videatur imprimis jucundum,

Cito venter frigescat—quod ut statim decrescat
Vetus vinum Maderum adeundum.

Indus si navigarit, vento corpus levarit
Colicamque fugarit hoc merum ;

Podagra cruciato “ Vinum optimum dato,”
Clamant medici docti, “ Maderum.”

VI.

Campanum! Campanum! quo gaudio lagenam
Ocelli Perdricis sorberem !

Ad dominz oculum exhauriam poculum
Tali philtro si unquam egerem —

Propinarem divinam—sed peream si sinam
Nomen carum ut sic profanetur,

Et si, cum Bacchus urget, ad labia surgit
Campano ad cor revoletur !
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
( 41)

No. 15,—LORD JOHN RUSSELL.

VENETIAN connoisseur, somewhat exuberant of panegyric, asserted that Titian’s “Woman with a
Basket of Eggs” was more natural than if the woman had been alive. A similar compliment, we
apprehend, may be fairly applied to our coadjutor of the pencil, for the manner in which he has executed
the noble paymaster in effigy. “To snatch a grace beyond the reach of art,” however, in this case, would
hardly have been compatible with fidelity to his subject, and how could he set at nought the famous
aphorism of Boileau, rien n’est beau que le vrai! His lordship is apparently meditating some tremendous
“Gothic” metaphor, wherewithal to wring the withers of Old Sarum, frighten Bishop’s Castle from its
propriety, and wrench away the very keystone of Boroughbridge. May he be more successful than the
professor in the Grand Academy of Lagado, who made so many unavailing attempts to extract sunshine
from a cucumber! But whence the pensive droop? and why have not those mouse-coloured locks that
sleek lubricity which their owner seems to think symptomatic of mental composure? The cholera, be
it remembered, as well as the schoolmaster, “is abroad”; and therefore, setting nobility apart, we feel
almost tempted to ask with Joab, when he accosted Amasa, “ Art thou in health, my brother?”

The battlements of Jericho disappeared before the war-blast of a bugle ; but it was reserved for Lord
John to demonstrate the lévelling power of a penny trumpet. When King Solomon reprobated the
vanity of man, “who would fain be wise, though born like a wild ass’s colt,” he could never have
anticipated the arrival of an era which would make the chattering of pies and the croaking of ravens
political auguries once more. He who owned that he knew nothing, was characterized by the oracle as the
profoundest of sages ; but what shall we think of those who, “wise in their own conceit,” mistake hornet-
feelers for an elephant’s proboscis, and fondly deem their head to be full of matter more precious than the
gold of Ophir, when it is manifestly as empty as the purse of a ruined man! We agree with the son of
Sirach—alas! the “coneys are a feeble race.”

Of Lord John Russell’s dramatic lucubrations, it would be rather ungenerous to offer an opinion :
de mortuis nil nisi bonum. Being neither hyenas nor resurrectionists, we duly reverence the tomb. In
his double character of orator and statesman alone he should henceforth be regarded, since the hero
of history (from Flimnap, the high treasurer of Lilliput, down to Lord John Russell,—a full cubit higher
than any of the household of Mildendo) is always entitled to take precedence of a mere chronicler of
protocols. His lordship is now a member of “a unanimous and united cabinet,” and we have accordingly
a right to assume that concord in politics depends on principles very different from those of music,—as the
intestines of sheep and wolves have never hitherto been known to harmonize in the same concert. “Self-
love,’ quoth Spurzheim, “draws the head and the whole body upwards and backwards, and keeps them
stiff.” Such precisely is the usual speaking attitude of his lordship, and the fact at least affords a reasonable
presumption that he enjoys that kind of happiness ascribed by the philosopher to those who most rejoice in
their own graces and good opinion. We are not aware that the noble lord has ever been accused of eating
his own words; but, be that how it may, he gives himself abundant time to masticate them in the
utterance—for they ooze forth one by one, like drops of oil from a miser’s cruet ; and monotony, moreover,
is a besetting sin of which he cannot possibly divest himself.

“ When once he begins he never will flinch,
But repeats the same note the whole day, like a finch.”

Were we disposed to press hard on this duodecimo addendum to Royal and noble authors, we should
also observe, that he is a little too much addicted to the notions of Dogberry, who advises “the most
desartless” constable to “let his writing and reading appear when there is no need of such vanity.”
However, as it is, we pledge his lordship in a draught of the milk of loving kindness ; and shall only add
our conviction that madrigals and idylls are most germane to his genius: had he entirely devoted himself
to those gentle arts in the voluptuous solitudes of Woburn,—

“ He would ne’er surpassed be,
By the best pipe in Arcady.”
But “che sara saré” is the motto of the house of Russell, and one cannot quarrel with the
truism.

NOTES.

VERYBODY knows that this illustrious statesman is the youngest son of the sixth Duke of Bedford,
by his first marriage, and that he was born in London, on the 18th of August, 1792.
By posterity Lord John Russell—since raised to the peerage under the title of Earl Russell—will be
better known as a diplomatist and politician than as a man of letters. This latter, however, is the
F
42 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

character in which he engages our attention, as a member of our “Gallery,” and in which, if we were
disposed to be diffuse, we might consider his pretensions as an essayist, a tragedian, a novelist, an historian,
a biographer, an editor, a writer on constitutional history, and a political pamphleteer. One of his earliest
publications was a slim 8vo. volume, entitled “Essays and Sketches of Life and Character,” 1820. To
these words was added the statement that the essays were published from the MS. of “a gentleman who
has left his lodgings”; and the volume was prefaced by a narrative, signed “ Joseph Skillett,” the lodging-
house keeper, who is supposed to publish the papers to pay himself the rent which his lodger had forgotten
to liquidate. These bibliographical facts may be worth recording, as this preface was afterwards suppressed,
and the book supplied with a new title-page, on which the words, “second edition,” with the date 182],
appeared, with the addition of a dedication to “Thomas Moore, Esq., who advised the publication of the
following fragments.”

Not only has Earl Russell been distinguished by his life-long love of literature, but also by his friend-
ship with men of letters, and his generosity to them when in need of assistance.

As a minister and politician, men do and will form opinions widely diverse as to his conduct and
abilities. We ourselves do not hesitate to say that, with all his solecisms and shortcomings as a diplo-
matist, we consider Earl Russell to have ever been, according to his lights, a consistent Liberal, an honest
man, and a faithful servant, alike of his Queen and his countrymen. He is now an octogenarian ; we hope
that he will yet awhile be spared to the country he has served so long and so well; but when that awful
event shall happen to Earl Russell, to which piety brings no indefinite delay, it will surely be predicated of
it, in the words of Cicero, “ luctwosum hoc suis; acerbum patric ; grave bonis omnibus.”

 

LAYS OF THE TWADDLE SCHOOL.
Pastoral Duet between Ropert Montcomery and Taomas Haynes Bay.y.

R. M. Satan saintly I sang, with meek maw-worm mummery,
And old Beelzebub’s bard was young Robert Montgomery.
T. H. B. Satins and silks, I sang gravely and gaily,
And the bard of the boudoir was Thomas Haynes Bayly.
R. Ml. To my genius and muse nothing earthly could come awry,
Such a devil of a poet was Robert Montgomery.
T. H. B. With my butterflies, buttercups, butter flow’rs daily,
I butter’d my bread—heigh, for Thomas Haynes Bayly.
R. M. “ Divine Omnipresence,” sunshiny and summery,
Woke, like Memnon’s stone statue, the harp of Montgomery.
T. H. B. With my songs, and my sonnets, the girls I wooed fraily,
Tom Moore, the chaste model of Thomas Haynes Bayly.
R. M. But the Deity still that illuamed my humdrummery,
My Magnus Apollo was Robert Montgomery.
T. H. B. Apollo—though radiant his rays—shines but palely,
When the eyes of the fair shine on Thomas Haynes Bayly.
R. M. In heaven, or in hell, not a theme could I strum awry,
So fired and insipid was Saint Robert Montgomery.
T. H. B. With “ Miniature Lyrics” the muse did I waylay,
And a miniature picture of Thomas Haynes Bayly.
R. M. In grand verse I sang Oxford’s grand chapels, grand chummery,
And grandeur’s grandiloquent Robert Montgomery.
T. H. B. I sang about Bath till I bother’d them really,
And eclipsed was Kit Anstey by Thomas Haynes Bayly.
R. M. Talk of Milton, John Bunyan, or Southey—all flummery,—
They are mere metre-mongers to Robert Montgomery.
T. H. B. Herrick, Waller, Burns, Byron, Moore, Morris, or Shelley,
Were poor sing-song strummers to Thomas Haynes Bayly.
R. M. You're hard, Tom! Let’s cast all the critics’ vile scum awry,
Britain’s bards are Haynes Bayly and Robert Montgomery.
T. H. B. Agreed! with my patronage, fame can ne’er fail ye, -
Heigh, for Robert Montgomery and Thomas Haynes Bayly.
Fraser’s Magazine, vol. iv. p. 52.

The following lines have never been published, and may be taken as a continuation :—

Criticus. Who are ye, twin shades, laurel-girt, and whence hail ye ?
Ambo, From Elysium we come, we’re Montgomery and Bayly.
R. M. All, it’s clear, must convince of my works the mere summary,
That the first of all poets is Robert Montgomery.
T. H. B. The rushlights of all other lyrists burn palely,
In the splendour poetic of Thomas Haynes Bayly.
R. M. I wrote satires, blank-verse, of heroics a rum array,
And of Satan the Laureate was Robert Montgomery.
T. H. B. Who combined with Hood’s wit all the sweetness of Hayley ?
Who wrote ‘ Lunatic Lays,’ ‘ Fashion’s Eclogues,’ but Bayly ?
Ambo. We’re sure, you must see, that you’ve written in some hurry,
About Thomas Haynes Bayly and Robert Montgomery.
 

 

 

Boz

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE .EDITOR OF BOSWELLS JOHNSON

 
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 43

Criticus. Now, stop; with harsh words we don’t wish to assail ye,
You, Montgomery, at least ;—we rather like Bayly.
All you’ve done is mere turgid and orude fee-faw-fummery,—
—Not of you, we speak, Bayly, but you, Robert Montgomery.
So to alter what’s writ a month’s talk won’t avail ye,
Get ye back, Bob Montgomery, and Thomas Haynes Bayly.
(Exeunt ambo.)

Of Ropert Montcomery, whose pretentious verse suggested and justified the foregoing harmless
pleasantry, we shall shortly have occasion to speak.

We hardly know why Tuomas Haynus Bayty, a poet of altogether another stamp, should have been
thus associated with him. Perhaps Horace might not unfairly describe such poems as his as

“Versus inopes rerum, nugzeque canore ;””

but still, as a lyric poet Bayly possessed no mean ability, and his songs are all that is easy and graceful.
He was author of two or three novels, which we never read, and some thirty or forty pieces for the stage,
which we never saw. Older theatre-goers, however, may remember his “Tom Noddy’s Secret,” “ Perfection,”
&c., and every one knows his beautiful songs, “Oh, no, we never mention her,” and “I’d be a Butterfly,” —
of which Archdeacon Wrangham has left us so exquisite a Latin version,—which were the charm of every
London drawing-room, while the writer was pining in sickness and distress. He died at Cheltenham, in
the 42nd year of his age, April 22nd, 1839, leaving a widow and two children in adverse circumstances. A
benefit at Drury Lane produced the sum of £200 for them ; and his widow edited his poetical works, and
prefaced them by a memoir, 1844, 2 vols. 8vo.

No. 16—RIGHT HON. JOHN WILSON CROKER,

HERE is not a cleverer fellow in the dominions of King William IV. than the gentleman so
luxuriously lapped up in a dressing-gown on the opposite page, nor one who has done so little in
comparison with his powers. Born a wit, he has contented himself with laughing at the pretensions of
others, without waking any effort of his own. In his earlier days, the butts whom he selected were the
most important which the idleness of a provincial city could afford—the players in the Dublin theatre.
As he advanced in life, he found objects of ridicule and laughter in the more serious-looking mummers who
fill, in this country, the offices of statesmen and senators. The same spirit that gave causticity to the
“Familiar Epistles,” animated the pen which assailed Whigs and Whiggery in the satiric article, grave
and gay, of the Vew Whig Guide, the John Bull, the Quarterly Review, and fifty other vehicles of minor
renown. But the glories of the profession from which he selected his original victims, the stage, are not
more fugacious than those of the political wit. His gibes, his sarcasms, his bitter allusions, his graphic
comicalities, his quizzes, his parodies—are all admirable at the moment, and objects of the highest applause
with his party ; in afew years they are gone—as flat as uncorked soda-water, the bubbling gas fled for
ever, and the vapid residue only left behind. Therefore it is that those who, like us, think highly of Mr.
Croker’s genius, are anxious that he should yet, while his powers are as vigorous as ever, give the world
something by which succeeding generations may appreciate him. His edition of ‘“ Boswell’s Johnson” is
an amusing and almost a necessary book ; but the industry and the ingenuity wasted upon the choses de
néant, which, after all, make up the staple of his additions, might have been better applied. Such works
convey little more renown than those official treatises which it was lately his duty to superintend. He was
once asked, at a large party, by the blue-stocking Countess of B , if he had brought out any new work.
“ Nothing,” he replied, “since the last Mutiny Act.” He silenced the intrusive lady ; but now that he
is free from such routine toil, ought we not to expect something else? We are much mistaken if he has
not some concealed work, some treasured gem, which may yet, but perhaps not until after his death, burst
suddenly upon the world. In many matters he is a professed admirer of Horace Walpole ; in some
respects an imitator. Do we hazard an unlucky guess when we say that nothing is more probable than
that “‘ Memoirs to serve for the History of England in the first years of the Nineteenth Century,”
lurk in the escritoire of the ex-secretary, and that every day is adding to its store? If such a book do
exist, what queer characters of certain persons, what shrewd remarks on party history, what thorough
contempt for mouth-honoured leaders, what biting sarcasm and unspared satire, may we not be prepared to
find! But as we have anticipated that its publication will not take place until after the death of its
author, we hope that its appearance will be long protracted.

Ireland boasts the birth of Mr. Croker,—he is a Galway man. His father, who finally held a high
situation in the Excise, was a wit in his way, and though: he never translated the “Satires of Ariosto,” as
Hazlitt strangely fancied, was so far poetical as to a most excellent song. Croker was bred to the

F

 

 
44 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN,

Irish bar ; accident threw him into Parliament; his advocacy of the Duke of York smoothed his way to
office. In two-and-twenty years’ administration of the navy, it will not be difficult for the disappointed to
find matter of censure ; but now that he is out, justice allows us to say that his attention was unremitting,
and his activity unwearied. By the simplicity and comprehensiveness of his arrangements, he has
rendered the management of the multifarious concerns of our navy, in all its branches, as easy as that of a
private counting-house ; and even those who grumbled beneath his rule are now beginning to think that
there is much truth in the old adage which tells us that “seldom comes a better.” In Parliament he is
assuming that station, from which he has too long suffered himself to be shouldered by plausible mediocrity,
supported by hypocritical candour, and the low underling tactics of St. Stephen’s and Whitehall. But this
had better be treated of elsewhere.
We start him for Secretary of State in the next Ministry.

NWOT ES,

T is Southey who somewhere says that bad poets make malevolent critics, just as weak wine turns to vinegar ;
and he elsewhere expresses a doubt whether any man ever criticised a good poem maliciously who
had not written a bad one himself. We believe this, as a principle, to be perfectly true, and do not consider
William Gifford and John Wilson Croker to be in any respect exceptions to its applicability. Both of these
men were critics of the most acrimonious and venomous malignity, in whose hands the ferula of
Aristarchus became a poisoned dagger ; and yet both produced substantive works of no mean ability. One,
the agnus Apollo of Byron, was author of the “ Baviad and Meviad,” that terse and vigorous satire which
annihilated the Della Criscan school ; and the other, in his “ Familiar Epistles to Frederick E. Jones, Esq.,
on the Present State of the Irish Stage,”* which drove poor Edwin, the comedian, to the bottle which
killed him,t gave evidenve of that power of invective and sarcasm which was, in the future, to become the
tool of private malice and party ferocity. Still these pieces were critical in character, and differing in no
essential respect from their authors’ subsequent diatribes in the Quarterly, or the Courier, cannot be held to
invalidate Southey’s rule.

Croker, though of English descent, was an Irishman by the accident of birth, and first saw the light
in County Galway, December, 1780. He was educated at the University of Dublin, where he graduated
B.A. in 1800. He sat for many years for Downpatrick in the House of Commons, and, for the first five
years of his Parliamentary career, represented his University ; but he had been among the most strenuous
opponents of the Reform Bill, and resolutely withdrew from public affairs upon the dissolution which
followed that momentous measure. He was Secretary to the Admiralty from 1809 to 1830, and in 1828
became a Privy Councillor. In the spring of 1809, Croker, in association with Sir Walter Scott, George
Canning, Merritt, and George Ellis, set on foot the Quarterly Review, as an equipoise to the Hdinburgh,
which had become obnoxious to the Tory party, and hated for the reckless ferocity of its criticism. It is
difficult, if not impossible, at this length of time to discriminate between the articles of Gifford and those
of Croker,—par nobile fratrum,—and no doubt many are attributed to the latter which were actually
written by the former. But still it was undoubtedly Croker who wrote that virulent review of Lord John
Russell’s “ Life of Moore,” which gave such distress to the poet’s widow, who could not believe that it was
Croker’s, as she had believed him her husband’s friend ; it was Croker who left the munificent hospitality
of Drayton Manor only to cut up his host in a political article ; and it was Croker who, in the London
Courier, penned that bitter review of his friend Scott’s “ Malagrowther’s Letters,” which evoked such a
delicate and touching rebuke from their author, then succumbing to adversity and disease. Finally, it was
Croker, of whom a competent judge of his character said that he was “a man who would go a hundred
miles through sleet and snow, in a December night, to search a parish register, for the sake of showing
that a man is legitimate, or a woman older than she says she is.”

This miserable man, so willing to wound, so fearless to strike, so anxious to inflict pain,—and that
without the excuse of the critic in Bulwer’s tale,t that “he was in distress, and the only thing the
magazines would buy of him was abuse,’—met with a retribution that tended doubtless to embitter his latter
days. Disraeli, in his “ Coningsby,” under the transparent fiction of Rigby, has held up Croker and his
pretensions to the ridicule and contempt of his contemporaries, with a success but very imperfectly impaired
by the retaliative review in the Quarterly ; Macaulay, an old opponent, who had long bided his time,
destroyed for ever, by his article in the Ldinburgh on Croker’s edition of “ Boswell’s Johnson,” any
reputation for industry, sagacity, and learning which the editor had enjoyed ; while his social footing was
not improved by the revelations on the trial of Lord Hertford’s valet,—though here Croker might console
himself by his lordship’s bequest of £21,000 and his cellar of wine.

Croker died, aged 76, August 10th, 1857.

* Our copy, the presentation one from Croker to Gifford is the 4th edition, Dublin, 1805, 8vo.
+ “Our Actresses,” by Mrs. C. B. Wilson.
t “The Student.” (“The World as it is.”)
 

OUR MAN OF GENIUS,

Translator of The Portry of the Sandwich Islands,
( 45 )

No. 17,—TYDUS-POOH-POOH.

T is, we know, not usual, nor indeed is it correct, in the management of our periodical publications, to

_ give the names—far less the faces—of the gentlemen who favour us with their contributions ; but
particular exceptions will occur, and in the present instance we transgress the rule with pride and pleasure.
We have, in truth, been transgressing on three or four former occasions, when we depicted the counte-
nances of those constant contributors of ours, Sir Walter Scott, Mr. Samuel Rogers, Earl Munster, Lord
John Russell, &e. &e.

To a grateful and discerning public, who can appreciate talent, and do justice to worth, we gladly
submit the effigy of our Man or Gentus! Yes; this is Typus-poon-poon, the translator of the poetry of
the Sandwich Islands! Behold the bard, who, erst in his native country, degenerate England, sang un-
honoured and unpraised—how praised, how honoured now! Not only is his Hyperian brow with

“Laureate crown adorned,”

and he reigns the undisputed monarch of Owyheian literature, but he also rejoices in the knowledge
that England at length bows to the supremacy of his genius,—that his country proudly glories in her son.

The romantic history of Tydus-pooh-pooh, up to his arrival at Owyhee, is well known to the world,
for we have elsewhere related it, and who reads not “Regina”! Of the life of our Man of Genius sub.
sequently to his introduction at the court of Rhio-Rhio, but little is known ; for at that period he ceased
to correspond with his friends in England, as if resolved to break every tie with a country that had treated
him with chilling neglect. By adopting all the manners and customs of the natives, he rapidly rose in
favour. He cherished the growth of his nails, and with such success, that they excited the envy of Frizlee-
Kume Lo, the under-treasurer, whose nails, till then, had been the boast of all the Islands. His nose was
pierced by a skilful operator ; and he declared brandy (the court drink) to be the only potation fit for a
sentimental poet and expatriated genius.

Our artist, whom we sent on an especial mission to Owyhee, seized a fortunate moment for depicting
the genius-hallowed form of Tydus-pooh-pooh. Behold him, in calm meditation—his eyes, not with poetic
frenzy rolling, but soft, calm, subdued. No turbulence is there, no sullen envy, and no raging ire ; but,
with pensive brow, he leans upon his arm, and thinks, mayhap, of times by-gone, and friends now friends
no more! Thinks he of England? "Tis then in sorrow more than anger; and if from such a mouth
reproach could come against his native land, oh! not in words of bitterness would he clothe it; but witha
tearful eye and beating heart—with swelling bosom and a faltering voice, we think we hear him, in the
words of our immortal bard, lowly murmur forth,—

“ Blow, blow, thou wintry wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man’s ingratitude.”

Such, perhaps, are the meditations of the poet. His late occupation we can easily guess. The out-
spread book in his lap shows that he has been engaged in the usual employment of poets, and his dexter
and sinister supporters prove that he has met the poet’s usual fate ; that is to say, he has been reading aloud
his poems, and of the two component parts of his audience, one is wrapt in gentle slumber, and the other,
with precursive yawn, is preparing to rival the sleeper. This is as it should be, for it proves the potency
of the poetry.

Since the arrival in this country of Rammohun Roy, the Christian Brahmin, conjecture has been afloat
as to the possibility of Tydus-pooh-pooh revisiting his native shores; but the expectation is baseless, the
hope false. The disappointment of youthful days has left too deep. a wound ; and though tardy justice has
been meted to his literary attainments, yet is not the early blow forgotten, though forgiven it may be. As
Tydus-pooh-pooh has in honour roved through the shady groves of Owyhee, so there honoured will he die ;
and another Pope may sing, ,

“ By foreign hands thy dying eyes were closed,
By foreign hands thy decent limbs composed,
By foreign hands thy humble grave adorn’d,
By strangers honour’d, and by strangers mourn’d.”

NOT £ S-

ARTHER on in the Magazine (vol. xxi. p. 22), it may be read that this plate “is merely a joke, the
point of which is now forgotten.” It was probably best so then, and even now the mystery may

not be worth the pains of elucidation. An ingenious friend, however, would contend, with much plausi-
bility of argument, that the original of this odd caricature portrait is no other than the celebrated scholar,
46 7 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

linguist, and political economist, Dr.—more recently Sir John—Bowring, so well known by his translations
from the Russian, Servian, Polish, Magyar, Danish, Swedish, Frisian, Dutch, Esthonian, Spanish, Portuguese,
and Icelandic poetry. My friend thinks it possible to trace in the countenance before us, disfigured as it is,
a resemblance to the features of this eminent individual, and hints that the very name may be adumbrated
by the ring which adorns the nasal organ, and the sort of bow which may be discerned in the head-gear.
We may further refer the curious to Fraser's Magazine, vol iii. p. 334, for a clue which their ingenuity may
enable them to follow up with success.

No, 18.—WASHINGTON IRVING.

HERE stands Washington Irving, author of the “Sketch Book.” In his modest deportment and
easy attitude we see all the grace and dignity of an English gentleman. Washington Irving, it
is well known, is by birth an American. If all the Americans were of the same cast of figure and
appearance, we should be happy to recognize in them what our neighbours of the Scottish soil are proud
to hail in their own gentle Dundases,—the fact that every mother’s son was a man “comme il faut /” Such,
however, is not the case. Our friend Captain Basil Hall has, in his celebrated travels through Yankee
Land, given us a few leaves from “The American Chesterfield,” which do not exactly place the manners
of the children of Jonathan in the most amiable or delectable point of view. The Jonathonian arbiter
elegantiarum talks of the impropriety of smoking and chewing a quid, and spitting on the floor and carpet,
and a thousand other gawcheries, which are characteristic of our Transatlantic brethren. The Yankee
Chesterfield, however, might have exempted the smokers from his anathema. We flatter ourselves that we
are patterns of gentility, and we patronize the best of Woodvilles; and our friends Lockhart and Sir
Walter Scott are also eminent smokers, and will give as correct a judgment on the quality of Cheroot and
Havannah as our philosophic Coleridge can on brandy or Thompson and Fearon’s Stomachic fifty degrees
above proof. Tom Campbell, however, takes no delight in a cigarro, the source of his solace existing
in the impure channel of a pipe, commonly bought in pot-houses for a halfpenny. We know not if
Mr. Washington Irving be a smoker; but, to judge by his gentlemanly appearance, he ought to be one.
Smoking is, and always has been, a healthful and fashionable English custom ; there were schools and pro-
fessors established here for the purpose of teaching the mystery of smoking on the first introduction of the
Virginian weed, and the mode of expifilicating the smoke out of one’s mouth is at present, as it were, a
shibboleth demonstrative of an English gentleman.
Mr. Washington Irving came early in life among us, and has made himself a welcome denizen in our
realm of literature. While he was yet a fresh importation, all the town were agog after him, as though he
were a gentle monster brought over for a nine days’ wonder from some

“Far off island in the western main.”

We had heard so much of Virginia planters, and Backwoodsmen, and Kentucky-men, and Squatters, and
other nondescript savages, that we could hardly conceive anything in the shape of a gentlemanly biped
comming from America. We were, however, agreeably surprised ; and so great a favourite had Mr. Irving
become, in an inconceivably short time, that his “Sketch Book,” and “Bracebridge Hall,” and “ Tales ofa
Traveller,” and “ Knickerbocker’s History,” were bought up with greedy curiosity and pleasure in Eng-
land, which is the true mart for talent and genius. Old men chuckled to see typified in the pages of
those works the pure diction and graces of Addison, and a revived portraiture of the times of Sir Roger
de Coverley ; young fellows laughed outright at the legends of Swampy Marsh and Dismal Hollow, and
the uncouth and quaint pictures of the old Dutch settlers ; and young damsels sighed and wept over the
beautiful scenes of love and pathos with which the youthful and eloquent American knew well how to
bewitch their senses. From being a nine days’ wonder, therefore, Mr. Irving has very justly settled into
the pride of Transatlantic authorship, and a standard writer among British men of genius.

From his steadfast gaze, and the look of soft delight which is lighting up his countenance, we should
fancy that he is thinking of the fair clime of Andalusia, and of the dark blue waters of the Guadalquiver.
Perhaps he is meditating another exquisite volume, which shall contain further deeds of the most chival-
rous war in authentic history. Mw gentil guerra, says Navagero, speaking of its achievements ; and
Garibay says that no plain has been trampled so frequently, or by such numerous armies, as that of Granada.
‘Whether his genius lead him to expatiate further on the exploits of the Zegris and Abencerrages, or take
wings to survey new objects across the Atlantic and Alleghany heights, the literary labours of Washington
Irving will always find a ready way to the understandings and hearts of Englishmen.
 

THE AUTEOR OF THE SKETCH ROOK”
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 47

MO LD ES.

W* scarcely know that we have anything of our own to add to this brief, but almost exhaustive

criticism on the literary and social merits of the great American writer. The high place which
he took, as it were by assault, in public estimation, he still retains ; and it would be difficult to name any
one, among foreigners at least, who is so certain of enjoying in the future a definite and permanent rank,
among English classical writers. He is an elegant essayist, a refined humorist, a picturesque historian,
and a graphic biographer; and by the kindly and altogether genial tone by which his writings are
interfused, has done much, just at the moment when it was most wanted, to unite by a living bond of amity,
two great nations, which must ever have, to a great extent, a common language and literature. Perhaps
his best-known work is his “Sketch Book,” and even now the greatest favourite. It was by this that he
made his first appearance before the British public ; and it seems strange, looking at it now, to remember
how it was first rejected by Murray, who failed to see in it the elements of success, and only taken up by
that astute and experienced bibliopole, when the failure of Miller, who had it in hand, compelled its author
to seek elsewhere for protection once more. Not, indeed, that there ¢s anything to be wondered at in a
fact which is only one more illustration of that stupidity of publishers, and owlish ignorance of their
“readers,” which caused the rejection in turn of “Robinson Crusoe,” “Tom Jones,” Burn’s “ Justice,”
Buchan’s “ Domestic Medicine,” Bloomfield’s “ Farmer’s Boy,” the “ Rejected Addresses,” the “ Robbers ”
of Schiller, Byron’s “Don Juan,”—and a host of other works of genius and popular acceptance, had we
space for recapitulation, which, either “returned,” or insufficiently paid for, have left their authors to starve,
while they have subsequently proved mines of wealth to the trading community, which failed to perceive
even their commercial value.

It was Washington Irving who was selected, with Hallam, to receive the gold medal of the Royal Society
of Literature, as one of the most distinguished of modern historical writers. He also received the honorary
degree of D.C.L. from the University of Oxford.

He was born at New York, April 3rd, 1783, and died November 28th, 1860, aged 76.

In 1862-3 was published, by H. G. Bohn, his “ Life and Letters,” by his nephew, Pierre E. Irving,
4 vols. 8vo. ; and there is an obituary of him in the @entleman’s Magazine, vol. lili. p. 82.

Maginn would fain know if this genial writer was affiliated to the great smoke-guild, whose members
are scattered all over the world. This we cannot determine, but being ourselves moderately addicted to
the occasional “ taking of fumes by pipes to dry and comfort,” as the sage of Verulam hath it, we should be
glad to have the question resolved in the affirmative. We should not be sorry, moreover, to know that,
like Tom Campbell, he imbibed the Nicotian solace through what our predecessor somewhat irreverently
terms “the impure channel” of a halfpenny pipe. This is a primitive and time-honoured method, while the
cigar is a modern and coxcombical innovation. We are acquainted with the various forms of “ drinking
tobacco,” as the process used to be termed, and speak not unadvisedly. We have smoked Canaster at
Berlin, in the capacious porcelain bowl of the German students, and in the mighty meer-schaum of the
Viennese; we have inhaled caporal through a brille-gueule, in a Parisian mansarde; we are familiar with the
ostentatious nargeeleh of the Persians, the hookah of the Turks, the simpler cutty-pipe of the Scotch, and the
dudheen of the Irish,—cum multis aliis,—and solemnly declare, as the result of our experience, that nothing
excels in point of economy, elegance, and convenience, the “Broseley straw,” or “Churchwarden,” of
English manufacture :-—

“ Little tube of mighty power,

Charmer of an idle hour,
* * * * *

Lip of wax, and eye of fire ;”

as Isaac Hawkins Browne has it, among his fine imitations,*

It was while manipulating such an instrument,—for it is marvellous how little it has changed in form
since the introduction of tobacco,—that Raleigh, or Tarlton (the story is told of both), was inundated with
water by his servant, aghast at the unwonted incandescence of his master. It was the right thing in
Shakspeare’s time for your brave gallant to smoke his pipe upon the very stage (how odd it is that the
great bard makes no mention of tobacco ; Ben Jonson is full of allusions to it), and there he sat,—

«________ attended by his page,
That only serves to fill those pipes with smoke,
For which he pawnéd hath his riding-cloke.”’
Springs to catch Woodcocks. 1618.

Poets have ever been friendly to tobacco. Raphael Thorius, who has left us the elegant “ Hymnus
Tabaci,”+ which Addison has included among his “ Muse Anglicane,” though the work of a Frenchman,

addresses, in fine ecstasy, the—
“ Planta beata, decus terrarum, munus Olympi!”

 

* “Poems upon Various Subjects, by the late Isaac Hawkins Browne, Esq.,” 1768, 8vo., p. 117, The “Pipe of
Tobacco, in imitation of several authors,” will also be found in “The Cambridge Tart,” 1823, 8vo., p. 176.
+ Translated into English verse by Peter Hansted. 1651. 12mo.
48 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

John Phillips, the author of the ‘Splendid Shilling,” commences a fine Latin ode to Henry
St. John :-—
«_____ das mihi divitem
Haurire succum, et suaveolentes
Szepe tubis iterare fumos ;”

and Antony Alsop, our “English Horace,” scared not the attendant muse by the constant exhalation of
Nicotian odours :—
“Dum tubum, ut mos est meus, ore versans,
Martiis penso, quid agem Calendis,
Pone stat Sappho, monitisque miscet
Blanda severis.”

To the theologian the pipe has ever been as dear as to the poet. Swift proclaims :—

“ Parson, these things in thy possessing
Are better than the Bishop’s blessing.
* * * * * *

October store and best Virginia.”
And Pope allots to
“History her pot, Theology her pipe.”

It is fine to think of Robert Hall lighting his Broseley at the pulpit lamps at the close of his sermon, and
of Parr, half hidden by fuliginous clouds, a yard or so behind the bowl of a huge “ churchwarden.” We
think, too, of Charles Lamb,—as he thought of Charles Cotton, in the delectable chamber, “ piscatoribus
sacrum,”—of Hobbes, and Barrow, and Aldrich, and Newton, and Milton, and the host of glorious
intelligences who have delighted in a pipe, and are thankful for the innocent enjoyment which is intensified
by such a multitude of pleasant associations. We think, too, lastly, as we reverse the exhausted bowl, and
replace it in its nook, of the fine monitory symbolism that resides in the familiar implement, and commend
the same to our smoking readers, as expressed in an ancient distich :—

“Mens ignis, tubulus corpus mihi, vitaque fumus,
Herba penus, clavus fata, suprema cinis ;”

which has been thus quaintly Englished :—

“Of lordly man how humbling is the type,
A fleeting shadow, a tobacco-pipe.
His mind, the fire; his frame, the tube of clay ;
His breath, the smoke, thus idly puff’d away ;
His food, the herb that fills the hollow bow] ;
Death is the stopper ; ashes end the whole.”

Why may not we enjoy an excursus as well as the “ Doctor’?
 

THE WKDITOR OF “MAUR TIMES”
(i)

No. 19.—THE LORD BROUGHAM AND VAUX.

T is a common panegyric among a certain coterie, upon any person whom they wish to honour as being

fit for statesmanship, that he is a man who is equal to the times, or before the times; but in the case

of the illustrious individual whose portrait graces the opposing page, although he is in the head and front

of the movement, and at the top and bottom of the law,* it is very generally supposed that he is the

man behind the Times ; or, to drop mystification of all kinds, that his is the hand from which are dis-

charged those articles that atone by their lightning for the general heaviness of the thundering of Printing-
House Square.

The limits of our monthly page would not suffice to describe the multifarious avocations of the
Journalist-Chancellor. On the woolsack, leaping through cases, as Harlequin does through a hoop, without
touching them, wonderful in agility and most dexterous in despatch, exciting the astonishment of the
audience, and winning the tribute of a clap from the upper gallery of the press ; in the House of Lords
as droll as Punchinello, and about as dignified ; in the Hdinburgh Review as airy as Jeffrey, and as deep as
Mackintosh ; in the Zimes as oracular as a Stock Exchange reporter on the evening before settling day ;
at the Beefsteak Club as comical as he is in the House of Lords—great over a bottle, over a case, over a
debate, over an article, it is impossible to say in which he is greatest ; but truth compels us to lament
that he had not originally turned his talents to the stage, for he certainly would have beaten Mathews
out of the field in the versatility of the characters he could perform, and driven Yates into despair by the
rapidity with which he altered his dresses.

Our artist has taken him in the act of writing a leading article. He has, as it were, caught him
in the maner. The hour is three—just in time for the latest touch for the morning,—the subject, in all
probability, some abuse of Lord Grey (a favourite topic), under cover of a seeming panegyric. Perhaps it
may be some of that simulated censure of himself which is intended to throw a doubt upon the author-
ship ; but when we look upon the eager eye, the relaxed wig, the flung-aside gown, the whole air full of
grimace and grog, it strikes us that abuse of the venerable senior, as he calls}!him, who is now nepo-
tising at the head of affairs, is the staple commodity which is flowing full and fast from his nimble and
caustic pen.

aad why should he not despise the imbecile congregation of idiots on whose shoulders he pranced
into Chancery, firmly holding the animals whose backs he bestrode by their elongated ears? They are
his property—his own natural prey—and he is free to make game of them, especially since the new bill
has put an end to the sin of poaching. We cannot conceive Brougham ratting. He may leave the set to
whom he is now attached, but it will be much more in the character of a cat than a rat: he will not
depart without showing that he possesses talons, which can turn upon the hand that patted him, and
under whose smoothing pressure he had so long purred in hypocritical murmurings. The time is, we
imagine, not far distant when his bounce is to be taken, and his colleagues find themselves unable to keep
him by the tail.

He has declared himself born in St. Andrew Square, in Edinburgh ; others assign him an humbler
birth-place in the Cowgate. To us, who consider all parts of Edinburgh perfectly equal in respectability,
the controversy is of the smallest possible importance ; but it is of more moment to decide what are his
merits as a Chancellor and a statesman. The bar are rather hostile to his pretensions in the former
character ; but commend us to the cautious observation of the gentleman in Parliament, who said that he
would answer that question categorically, if he were asked, at the end of fifty years,—but not before. His
despatch, at all events, is undoubted. We may imitate the epigram on More, and say that such a brooming
out of suits in Chancery is not to be expected “ till a Brougham comes there again”—whether it is a clean
sweeping, is a different question.

As a statesman,—but we fear the opinion of Fraser's Magazine on that point would be listened to
with suspicion. So we leave him to his leader.

NOTES,

HE ordinary intellect that seeks repose in inactivity stands amazed at the productiveness of those
rarer minds which find their needful rest in change of action. It is the fallowness of land, com-

pared with the rotation of crops; where it is to a difference of procedure, rather than to the nature of the
soil, that we are to attribute the varying result. The productions of genius differ from those of talent in

* It is a fact that the highest situation of the law, 7.c., of Lord Chancellor, and the lowest which a gentleman can
hold, that of Sergeant-at-Arms to the Court of Exchequer, are held at the same time by Lord Brougham.
G
50 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

kind rather than in degree ; though nothing is more common than to see ascribed to the former that which
happens to be merely larger in quantity than the ordinary effects of the latter. To Lord Brougham we
should ascribe little genius, but vast natural powers, highly cultivated, and a mighty talent for continuity
and concentration of effort and attention. Some have said that this is genius, but we believe that no
definition would be more erroneous and deceptive. How well Brougham is described by Sydney Smith :—

“ Look at the gigantic Brougham, sworn in at twelve o’clock, and before six p.m. he hasa Billon the table abolishing the
abuses of a court which has been the curse of England for centuries. For twenty-five long years did Lord Eldon sit in that
court surrounded with misery and sorrow, which he never held up a finger to alleviate. The widow and the orphan cried
to him as vainly as the town-crier, when he offers a small reward for a full purse. The bankrupt of the court became the
lunatic of the court. Estates mouldered away, and mansions fell down, but the fees came in and all was well; but in an
instant the iron mace of Brougham shivered to atoms the House of Fraud and Delay. And this is the man who will help to
govern you, who bottoms his reputation on doing good to you, who knows that to reform abuses is the safest basis of fame,
and the surest instrument of power ; who uses the highest gift of reason, and the most splendid efforts of genius, to rectify
all those abuses which all the genius and talent of the profession have hitherto been employed to justify and protect. Look
you to Brougham, and turn you to that side where he waves his long and lean finger, and mark well that face which nature
has marked so forcibly ; which dissolves pensions, turns jobbers into honest men, scares away the plunderer of the public,
and is a terror to him that does evil to the people! ”

But on the same subject Brougham’s own words are still finer, in the peroration of his magnificent
speech on the “ Present State of the Law,” February 7th, 1828 :—

“ Tt was the boast of Augustus—it formed part of the glare in which the perfidies of his earlier years were lost—that
he found Rome of brick, and left it of marble ; a praise not unworthy of a great prince, and to which the present reign has
its claim also. But how much nobler will be our Sovereign’s boast when he shall have it to say, that he found law dear and
left it cheap; found it a sealed book, left it a living letter; found it the patrimony of the rich, left it the inheritance of the
poor; found it the two-edged sword of craft and oppression, left it the staff of honesty and the shield of innocence!”

What a pile of literature has this man left behind hith! Much necessarily written in haste and open
to correction. He was a fine mathematician ; a paper on “ Optics,” written before he was out of his teens,
was judged by the Royal Society worthy of preservation among its “ Transactions,’—and wrote much for
the “ Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge,” of which he was long chairman. We cannot point
out Brougham’s share in this praiseworthy work with certainty ; but to him are to be attributed at least
some of the errors wittily exposed by the author of a lengthy pamphlet, published at the time, entitled
“The Blunders of a Big-Wig ; or, Paul Pry’s Peeps into the Sixpenny Sciences.” London, 1827. 8vo.

There is no doubt that to Brougham—not Jeffrey—is to be ascribed the celebrated article in the
Edinburgh Review on Byron’s “Hours of Idleness,” which produced, by way of retaliation the satire,
“ English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.” ‘

These are of the “ follies of the wise,” and Brougham was full of such,—impulsive as a woman, hasty
and wayward as a child, made up of inconsistencies and contradictions. The following quatrain is attri-
buted to Jeremy Bentham :—

“Oh, Brougham! a strange mystery you are,
Nil fuit unquam sibi tam dispar ;
So foolish and so wise—so great, so small,
Everything now—to-morrow nought at all!”

Look at the caricatures of him in Punch, especially that where we have him as citizen of all nations,
with varying head-dress and upper garments, while the uncouth features and the plaid tweed continuations
are a fixed quantity !

We can but indicate. Robert Gilfillan has a brilliant article on Brougham in his “ Galleries of
Literary Portraits”; and Hazlitt very ably discusses his character as an orator in his “Spirit of the
Age,” treating Brougham as the representative of the Scottish school, whose oratory is the result of
mechanism, as distinguished from the Irish, whose eloquence, according to him, is the offspring of
impulse. The parallel is ingeniously drawn, and the conclusion not devoid of truth. He has been termed
a Marcellus in attack ; he was, at least, no Fabius in defence.

For our own part, we ever read with pleasure the “ Biographies” of Brougham, especially those of the
Chathams ; the liberal, large-hearted estimate of Voltaire; and the lives of the other philosophers and
men of letters of the time of George ITI.

It is not generally known that Lord Brougham, who had written on every subject, from the higher
mathematics to lithotomy, and of whom it was ill-naturedly said that “if he had only known a little of
law, he would have had a smattering of everything,” had also adventured into the realms of fiction. The
book-collector, however, has long known of the existence of a three-volume novel, of the orthodox
8vo. size, entitled “ Albert Lunel ; or, the Chateau of Languedoc,” the customary attribution of which to
the pen of his lordship has never been denied. The bibliographic history of this work is somewhat curious.
The title-page sets forth that it was published by Charles Knight, in 1844; but, as may be learnt from
Bohn’s edition of Lowndes’s “ Bibliographers’ Manual,” it was so rigidly suppressed that only five copies,
which had been presented to friends, remained in circulation. Its value was estimated at five guineas ;
and certainly, on the rare occasions when a copy has found its way into the market, it has fetched an
extravagant price. After the death of the author, the motives or necessity for suppression would seem to
have ceased ; and early in 1872 a number of copies were sold off, so that a set was attainable for some
half-dozen shillings. The number of copies thus evulgated was, we were informed, limited; so that we
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 51

have no doubt, that unless another batch is turned out, “ Albert Lunel” will soon be classed again among
rare books. Moreover, the fact we have mentioned being either unknown, or conveniently ignored, the
statement of Lowndes will be quoted in the future, as a justification of the character of excessive rarity,
and the demand of a high price from the bibliomaniac.*

There are some men whose external configuration is not less remarkable and characteristic than their
intellectual and moral idiosyncrasies. Such a man was Lord Brougham, whose lineaments, familiar to us
by portraits innumerable, from the time of his early renown as the fearless champion of Queen Caroline,
to the later transcripts from photographs, are thus portrayed in the course of an able parallel between
him and Canning (1823), in the Leisure Hour for August Ist, 1868, probably from the pen of Jerdan :—

“ The features of Brougham were harsh in the extreme, while his forehead shot up to a great elevation ; his chin was long
and square; his mouth, nose, and eyes seemed huddled together in the centre of his face—the eyes absolutely lost amid
folds and corrugations ; and while he sat listening, they seemed to retire inward, or to be veiled by a filmy curtain, which
not only concealed the appalling glare, which shot away from them when he was aroused; but rendered his mind and his
purpose a sealed book to the keenest scrutiny of man.”

An ingenious gentleman, inspired by the fame of the learned Slawkenbergius, immortalized in the
pages of “Tristram Shandy,” has written a treatise, entitled “ Nasology ; or, Hints towards a Classification
of Noses” (1848, 8vo. ; reprinted by Bentley, under the title of ‘Notes on Noses,” 1852). He goes on
pretty well in illustration of his system, till he is fairly brought to a stand-still by the consideration of the
olfactory protuberance appertaining to the subject of these notes, which he is finally forced to regard as
entirely sui generis, and requiring a class for itself alone. After speaking of the various classes into
which noses may be divided, and significance of these as to the character of their possessors, he says :—

“Tt now only remains to treat of some obstinate noses which will not come within our classification.

“ One of these is that curious formation, a compound of Roman, Greek, Cogitative, and Celestial, with the addition of a
button at the end, prefixed to the front of my Lord Brougham. We are bound, from its situation, to admit that it is a nose,
and we must, therefore, treat of it; but it’s a queer one. ‘Sure, such a nose was never seen.’

“Tt is a most eccentric nose; it comes within no possible category; it is like no other man’s; it has good points, and
bad points, and no points at all. When you think it is going right on for a Roman it suddenly becomes a Greek; when you
have written it down Cogitative, it becomes as sharp asa knife. At first view it seems a Celestial; but Celestial it is not ;
its celestiality is not heavenward, but right out into illimitable space, pointing—we know not where. Itis a regular Proteus :
when you have caught it in one shape, it instantly becomes another. Turn it, and twist it, and view it, how, when, or
where you will, it is never to be seen twice in the same shape, and all you can say of it is, that it’s a queer one. And such
exactly is my Lord Brougham ; verily my Lord Brougham and my Lord Brougham’s nose have not their likeness in heaven
or earth—and the button at the end is the cause of all.

“Thus, Lord Brougham’s nose is an exception to our classification ; itis not, as has been asserted, an exception to our
system. On the contrary, it is manifestly a strong corroboration of it. The only exceptions are those when the character
does not correspond with the nose, and of those we have yet to hear.”

This illustrious man and extraordinary character was born at Edinburgh, in Septembeft, 1778, and
died at his seat at Cannes, in the south of France, May 8th, 1868. If he had lived four months longer he
would have entered upon his 91st year.

“ Strange that a harp of thousand strings
Should keep in tune so long!”

 

* Since writing this paragraph, our attention has been drawn to an article in Figaro, Oct. 5th, 1872, upon what purports
to be a reprint of “ Albert Lunel.” The book is commented upon, both as regards its style and morality, in a tone of
severity with which we must disagree ; but which the publisher will be thankful for, as it will certainly have the effect of
clearing his shelves of the publication. A doubt expressed as to the authorship of the book, which the writer hints was
formally repudiated by the late Lord Brougham, and as to the legal right of the publisher to issue it, brought forth a letter
from the latter (Mr. Chas. H. Clarke, of Paternoster Row), in the succeeding number of the periodical we have mentioned.
In this is produced an undertaking by the present Lord Brougham not to make any claim in respect to copyright of the novel
in question, or to take legal or other proceedings in case of its being reprinted. In all this, however, I do not see any
additional proof of the book being written by the eminent man to whom it is ascribed, nor have I had, by inspection, an
opportunity of ascertaining whether it has been actually reprinted, or merely reissued with a new title-page, and a preface.

a 9
(92)

No, 20.—ROBERT MONTGOMERY.

‘“« ARDENT, enthusiastic, gentle, wild,
Too soon a man, and yet too late a child;
Beloved by some, misunderstood by more,
And rich in talents, though in fortune poor.”

This pretty quatrain, which so sweetly trips O,
Was sung by Bob Montgomery de seipso

 

N plain prose, it was written under an engraving of his own countenance, contained in the album of a
young lady who requested him to favour her with some verses. The poet complied, and the above
couple of distichs were the production of his modest Muse.

The picture on which he wrote this pleasant commentary was, we suppose, that which figures in front
of one of his diabolic poems. We here supply him with another ; he is fixed in amorous gaze on a repre-
sentation of his lovely countenance, in which he is depicted as wooing, with upturned eyes and uplifted
pen, in quest of the inspiration of the Muse. Over the picture, however, hovers a lubber fiend—Clark-
son, perhaps ; the face is, we understand, a likeness of that great critic, who tips his pen with the peculiar
poetry which is

“ Beloved by some, misunderstood by more,
And rich in rubbish, though in talent poor,’—
even the poetry of Satan.

There is much in the mise of Montgomery that announces the poet. He swings on a chair in the see-
saw fashion of his verse, and his throat is uncravated in the anti-neckcloth fashion of Lord Byron. As
he is a religious bard, his hands are clasped in adoration of the picture he is worshipping, or, as in that
picture itself, directed to his ear, in order to point out to notice that he has one, which the readers of his
verse would be inclined to doubt. Hair and whiskers are as trim as becomes so oily a poetaster ; and
the whole figure speaks the favourite both of Phebus and himself.

In one of his poems he described Watts (whose Christian name he maintains is Alexander) as a most
snivelling wretch ; and Watts, as a set-off, informs us that our poet is the son of Gomery, the clown of
Bath. It is not in our power to decide the controversy between these illustrious writers, as to the pro-
priety of their appellations, or the minute passages of their earlier history. The literary career of Satan
Montgomery—Robert the Devil, as Tom Hood calls him—is easily told; he wrote Puffiads and other
satires of much pungency, though now unheard of, in which Jerdan and various critics of less renown were
most scurvily entreated. Poets and booksellers were scourged with most elastic finger, and the whole
world of type was thrown into consternation. Proud of his success, he went forward in his task. From
printers to devils is but a step, and he libelled Satan himself, in a poem now gone to the potentate after
whom it was named. Rising, like his hero, from the asphaltic pool, he next attacked heaven’s towers, and
fell in the attempt, like Daniel O’Rourke among the geese. He then adventured a middle flight, and sang
of Oxford and all its “grands,”—-vying in verse with the prose of the divine Dillon, chaplain to Lord
Venables. He had entered himself in Rhedycina, properly choosing Lincoln as his college, of which he
may rival its glorious bell—the mighty Tom—in the volume, sonorousness, and emptiness of its windy music.

Well, after all, he is young yet; and if he minds his books, he may see that what he has hitherto
written is sad stuff, and try on a better tack. His principal poems, marked by every possible blemish of
bad taste, were yet intended to convey ideas of virtue and religion ; and let that cover a multitude of sins.
If he ever does better, nobody will be happier to trumpet forth his praises than ourselves. But, as he
has now got into a place where he can read something worth reading, he may find out, in a recondite
work, that

««______ Mediocribus esse poetis
Non Di, non homines, non concessére columne.”’

Which may be thus paraphrased :—

Gods, men, and columns [magazine columns], wreak a vengeance summary
On middling verse, like that of Bob Montgomery !

NOLL S,

E have reason to believe that this gentleman is actually the issue of Gomery, a celebrated clown ;

and that, consequently, the aristocratic addition to his patronymic is a self-authorized assumption.

The fact is, Montgomery, in his early satire, “The Age Reviewed” (page 145), had attacked A. A.
Watts, under the appellation of “Scriblerus,” and accused him of assuming the name of “ Alaric,” in
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 53

reference, as he was pleased to imagine, “ to the similarity of his disposition with that of the Goth.” Watts
retaliated upon his assailant in the “ Literary Souvenir” for 1832, as

“ce

that thing of trick and flummery,
The maudlin, mawkish, mock-Montgomery ! ”’—~

asserting, in a note, that the poet was “the son of Gomery, the well-known clown of Bath,” and charging
him in turn with having appropriated a name to which he had no just claim. However this may be,
vulgarity of origin can only, nowadays, be taken as conferring additional credit upon literary or social
eminence ; and as for mere name, one has surely a perfect right to alter one’s own, to change it for
another, or, as probably in this case, to supply a prefix which had been previously elided.

The career of the Rev. Robert Montgomery is soon told. His first attempt in literature, so far as we
know, was the satire entitled “The Age Reviewed,” 1827, 8vo. This is an imitation—longo intervallo—
of Byron’s “ English Bards, &e.,” and hardly repays reference, except here and there for forgotten literary
gossip. Then came another satire of smaller size, “The Puftiad,” 1828, 8vo., not now often met with.
In the same year appeared “The Omnipresence of the Deity,” written, it is said, in the author's nineteenth
year, and which has gone through something like thirty editions. About this time Montgomery entered
himself at Lincoln College, Oxford, where he graduated B.A., 1833; M.A., 1838; being placed in the
fourth class, in literis humanioribus, at the examination at the end of Easter term, 1833. His other
poems, of which we merely give the titles, were “Satan,” “The Messiah,” “ Oxford,” “ Woman, the Angel
of Life,” “The Universal Prayer,” &c. ; and he was author of a great number of theological works.

We are willing to believe that Mr. Montgomery was a sincerely pious man, and an earnest minister of
religion : and if this was the case it matters little what the world thinks of his poetry. This, we are com-
pelled to say, was turgid, bombastic, florid, and characterized by every existing variety of bad taste. And yet
ittook. The subjects, indeed, were awfully momentous, and had an interest for every one. Moreover, loud-
ness and pretence are always pretty sure to attract attention ; and, as Bishop Jewel has it, “vessels never
give so great a sound as when they areempty.” ‘The Omnipresence of the Deity” found admirers, too,
among competent judges. It was praised by Professor Wilson, Crabbe, Bowles, Southey, Sharon Turner,
and Alison ; it received in Blackwood (vol. xxiii. p. 751) a notice, on the whole, favourable ; and it was
eulogized by the minor papers, the Literary Gazette, the Atheneum, and the Literary Chronicle.

But doubtless in these cases the calm judgment of the critic had been disturbed by his religious senti-
ments, and the final verdict is on the other side. Macaulay, perhaps remembering the epithet “ pert”
(“ Age Reviewed,” p. 111), and disgusted with the literary puffery of the author of “The Puffiad,” casti-
gated this offence with a scorpion lash in the Hdinburgh Review for April, 1830. The following passage
occurs here: “ His works have received more enthusiastic praise, and have deserved more unmixed contempt,
than any which, as far as our knowledge extends, have appeared within the last three or four years. His
writings bear the same relation to poetry which a Turkey carpet bears to a picture. .... - 2

Blackwood has a severe article on “Canting Poetry,” of which that of Montgomery furnishes the
text, in the number for August, 1829, page 239. Fraser dismisses “ Satan” to his own realms (vol. i. p. 95);
and the author of a contemporary satire (‘‘A Poetical Epistle, addressed to Robert Montgomery, &e. :
an. Hyperborean Sacrifice.” Oxford, 1831, 8vo.) is unable to express his opinion of ‘‘ Oxford” with proper
decorum :—

“For your name of itself sets with laughter a-twitching
The face of each college from chapel to kitchen,
It has pass’d to a bye-word—we tell it with pain—
For all that is vacant, and vague, and inane.” (Page 9.)

On the other side, however, a champion stepped forward to do battle for the poet. This was a Mr.
Edward Clarkson, who published a book entitled ‘“‘Robert Montgomery and his Reviewers ; with some
Remarks on the Present State of English Poetry and the Laws of Criticism.” London, 1830, 8vo. pp. 164.
This little volume is well and generously written, but hardly hits the mark. Its errors, verbal and
critical, are noticed in Fraser’s Magazine, vol. i. p. 721, and later in the same periodical it is proclaimed,
“Regina said, ‘Let Bob Montgomery, the rhyming monkey, and Ned Clarkson, his accompanying bear, be
utterly annihilated from the face of the earth,’ and lo! annihilated they were immediately, and no one
wastes a moment about the existence or small-doings of such puny worthless pismires” (vol. iv. p. 8).

A man of Montgomery’s vanity would often have his portrait painted ; we have one before us by
Thomson, from a painting by Derby ; there is another by C. Grant; while Maclise has had in his eye the
Byronic portrait by Hobday, the original of which, according to Macaulay, “appears to be doing his very
best to look like a man of genius, though with less success than his strenuous exertions deserve.”

Montgomery was a very popular preacher, and was ever ready to give his services for the benefit of
religion or charity. He became eventually minister of Percy Chapel, St. Pancras, and died at Brighton,
December, 1855, in his 49th year.

We ought not to omit to mention that the present observations of Fraser on Robert Montgomery are
among those of which it was admitted, at a later period, that “though not remarkably harsh, they were
uncalled for and unjust.” In fact, the poetry of this writer still finds readers and admirers, while better is
forgotten ; and for the justification of such, we do not hesitate to avow our full belief that, in the words of
old Fuller, taken literally, it “will be admired by judicious posterity while Fame has a trumpet left her,
and any breath to blow therein.”
Lae)

No, 21—JAMES HOGG,

CuEar ye your pipes, O Muses, and sing of the Shepherd of Ettrick—
Hogg, from the mountain of Benger, invading the city of London !
Opposite see he stands, wrapt round in pastoral mantle,
Covering his shoulders broad. His hand is graced with the bonnet
Such as the shepherds wear in the lowland country of Scotland.
Comelily curled is his nose ; his eye has a pleasantish twinkle.
Open his honest mouth, whence flow’d such rivers of verses,
(Whither, we need not say, flow’d in such gallons of toddy),
So does he look in the morn, ere yet the goblet or tumbler
Pours forth its copious stores, and puts a cock in his eyelid.

Hail to thee, honest bard! the bard of bonny Kilmeny !
Author of Hogg on Sheep, in fifty magazines writer,
Song-maker sans compare, who sang of Magillivray Donald !

UT really, in writing a sketch of the life of a Scottish shepherd, whose fame is built on his intense
knowledge of his own vernacular, and not in the slightest degree tainted by any suspicion of his
having any “ Bits of Classicality” about him, it is, we must admit, somewhat out of place to make use of
the ponderous verse of Homer or Virgil, or Dr. Southey. We should sing him, if it were in our power, in
the manner of a Border ballad, and celebrate his irruption into the south, as his predecessors on the banks
of Tweed sang the march of the Douglas

“Into England to take a foray.”

We need not trouble ourselves with writing the life of Hoge. We may say, with the Grub-street
author mentioned by Horace Walpole, that not even Plutarch himself, much less a cat, has had so many
lives as Hogg. He has written three or four himself; Wilson, Lockhart, Dr. Morris, Grey, and halfa
score others, have biographized the shepherd. And at the great dinner given to him last week, he favoured
the company with a sketch of his personal history, which was so minute as to supply the details of his
birth, the moment at which that auspicious event occurred, and the various adventures of the howdie on
that memorable occasion. It would be repeating a twenty-times-told tale to explain that Hogg was reared
a shepherd—that at twenty years old he could not read or write—that at forty he had published those
poems which have been so familiar to all the world ever since, and that he has since continued to labour
with hand and head, putting a stout heart against a stiff brae, and year after year-accumulating fresh fame.
All this is sufficiently known to the inhabitants of the old world and the new.

He has been ever and always a true and consistent Tory, which we mention to his great honour ;
although it confers little honour on the Tory party, that his exertions in their cause should have been so
lightly rewarded.

Had Hogg taken the other side, that to which it might have been conjectured his humble origin would
have inclined him, and turned his song-making talents to Whig or Radical purposes, we hesitate not to say
that he might have been a dangerous man in the bias he could have given to the lower ranks of Scotland—
a country in which such songs as his have always had great influence. Instead of that he, though of the
soil, clung to the Tory cause, and through good report and evil report has been constant and earnest in his
sincere adhesion to the party. Therefore we say that he has done the State some service ; that he has done
himself any, we should scruple to assert ; but that we know that the approbation of a man’s own mind
for honest, honourable, and disinterested conduct, is above all praise.

We wish him success in his new speculation, and hope that his series of works will sell off in tens of
thousands. We were gratified to see his countrymen rallying round him in such numbers at the dinner
which they gave him ; but we trust that their admiration of his talents and his honesty will be shown in
some more substantial style.

Adieu, kind shepherd !—sixty years have pass’d
Since through this world you first began to jog ;
Five dozen winters more we hope you'll last,
The pastoral patriarch of the tribe of Hogg!

NOTES.

URELY, if any country in the world, it is “invincible, romantic Scotia” who has just cause to be
proud of her peasant-poets,—those glorious airéyovec, who, drawing their inspirations from the
natural scenes and oral traditions of their own storied land, and with small aid from society or education,
pour forth their souls in untutored song, with all the glee and spontaneity of the lark at heaven’s gate.
Many there are ; but of all who have strung their names on Time’s eternal bead-roll, there stand forth in
the foremost rank. These are Robert Burns, James Hogg, and Allan Cunningham,—truly a trio an equal
to which Scotland may safely challenge the whole world to produce.
 

«&

THE AUTHOR OF THER CHALDEE MANUSCRIPT
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 55

Of these, Burns is essentially the poet of human feeling and passion, whose burning thoughts find
response in every bosom, and whose utterances kindle sympathetic feeling with all the rapidity of the elec-
trical current. Hogg, on the other hand, has no footing upon the lower world,—he is the bard of a weird
and imaginative realm,—of the spirits that haunt the lonely glen and the storied stream,—of the fairy, the
brownie, and the mournful wraith of the unburied victim. Cunningham, lastly, is the minstrel of the
Border foray and feud, the knightly joust, the men and the deeds of other times, which he brings before us
with a picturesqueness and reality perhaps excelled by no other lyrist.

It is of James Hoge, more commonly known—perhaps from the cacophony of his actual patronymic—
as “the Ettrick Shepherd,” that we have now to say a few words. This extraordinary man was born in
the Forest of Ettrick, in Selkirkshire, January 25th, 1772; was bred wp as a shepherd and cowherd, and
never had more than six months’ education in his life. He first began to write ballads at twenty-four years
of age, in the very year of the death of Burns, who, as Hogg did not learn till the following one, had been
a ploughman. poet, was born on the same day of the same month as himself, and whose “Tam O’Shanter,”
then heard for the first time, fairly ravished its hearer, whose favourite it ever after remained. This was
the crisis of his life ; the very pivot on which his destinies were to turn. He thought within himself that
he, as a shepherd, had more time on his hands than a ploughman, but then wept at the reflection that he
was not able to write. However, he resolved to be a poet, and follow in the steps of his great predecessor.
‘We must now pass over a decade during which our Shepherd had written and sung many a song,—
published the “ Mountain Bard,”—and written “ Hogg on Sheep,” for which Constable gave him £86, and
the Highland Society a premium,—and arrive at the year 1810. Then it was that poor Hogg, brought to
insolvency by the farming speculations into which the unwonted™ possession of capital had seduced him,
“in utter desperation took his plaid about his shoulders,” and wended his way to Edinburgh, to push his
fortunes as a literary man. At this epoch he says of himself: “I had never been once in any polished
society, had read next to nothing, was now in the 38th year of my age, and knew no more of human life
and manners than a child.” In 1813, when forty years of age, he published the “ Queen’s Wake,” and in
1832, when he prefaced the solitary volume that appeared of the projected “Altrive Tales,’* with so
interesting an autobiography, he could enumerate some three-score of volumes as the production of his pen,
—which, as he truly says, “if the quality were at all proportionate to the quantity, are enough for any
man’s life.”

Of Blackwood’s Magazine Hogg boasts of being “the beginner and almost sole instigator,” and here,
in October, 1817, was published the thrice-celebrated “ Chaldee Manuscript,” of which, at the foot of the
portrait before us, he appears as the author. This curious piece, written certainly in part by him, and
in part by Wilson and Lockhart, professed to give, in Scriptural phraseology, a sort of history of the
Magazine, in course of which the seceders, Pringle and Cleghorn, and the supporters of the rival, Con-
stable, together with most of the literary notabilities of the day, are satirized, or alluded to, under the
guise of beasts and birds. The appearance of this witty lampoon caused the greatest excitement; the
number of the Magazine containing it went off like wild-fire. A “second edition” was issued, but lo ! the
reprehensible jew d’esprit was withdrawn, and its place supplied with inoffensive matter. Hence the rage
for “ private copies,” as they were termed ; that is, those containing the libellous article, with MS. marginal
explanations. These have, of course, been carefully hoarded up, or destroyed in many cases, and are now
rarely met with; we are the lucky possessors of a copy which contains, besides other relevant matter, a
MS. key to the characters in the handwriting of the great James Watt, to whom the information would
doubtless be furnished by some of his old literary associates in the North.

One of the victims, who supposed himself injured, proceeded against Blackwood, and recovered damages
to a considerable amount; numerous pamphlets and broadsides appeared on both sides, all of which are
now of the utmost rarity. William Hone cited the article, as a religious parody, in his celebrated defence ;+
stating that it was “written with a great deal of ability,” and that it was based on a certain chapter of
Ezekiel. We cannot now say more on the subject, but must content ourselves by referring those among our
readers who may wish to see this once celebrated satire to the ‘“‘ Noctes Ambrosianz,” vol. iv., where, with
the elision of a few verses, it is reprinted ; and to articles in Votes and Queries, 3rd series, vol. v. pp. 314,
317 ; and vol. vii. p. 469.

The most concise certainly, and perhaps not the least cqrrect of the criticisms upon Hogg, is that pro-
nounced in the “ Noctes” upon one of his novels, “‘The Three Perils of Man,” which is said to be “like
all his things, a mixture of the admirable, the execrable, and the tolerable.” The critic adds, “ Hogg is a
true genius in his own style—one of the most wonderful creatures in the world, taking all things
together.” Perhaps it is to his beautiful poem, “ Kilmeny,” that we should point as the best specimen
of our poet’s peculiar power. This is an episode in the longer poem, “The Queen’s Wake,” and purports
to be a narrative of the reminiscences of a child, who has been spirited away, in her sinless purity, into
fairy-land, and after a time permitted to return to the habits and duties of earthly life. In this beautiful
piece the genius of Hogg is in its proper element. The story is told in a spontaneous strain of the most
exquisite imaginative poetry, so vaguely picturesque in its descriptions, so abstract and ideal in its imagery,

* Tho “ Altrive Tales” were to consist of 12 vols. 8vo., published by Cochrane & Co., and illustrated by George Cruikshank.
They were to contain not only a selection from the author’s writings, but original tales; and the author was induced to its
publication, as he informs us, “not as an ostentatious display, but as an inheritance to his children, and a legacy to his
country.” The project, however, did not meet with public approbation, and only one volume appeared (1832).

+ “First Trial,” page 18.
56 i DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

so resonant with tones which are not of this world, that the fancy is taken captive with its wild, unearthly
charm.

Hogg is one of the chief compotators of the “ Noctes.” Till he got to Edinburgh he had led a very
temperate life ; but he was evidently to the manner born, and took to his grog like a poet. One of his
first publishers, James Robertson, he describes happily as “a kind-hearted confused body, who loved a joke
and adram.” The two worthies met each day to consult about the publication, and uniformly proceeded to
“a dark house in the Cowgate,” where they drank with the printers till Hogg’s brain was so dizzy, that on
leaving he could hardly walk. Long before this, however, he records how, when the two Cunninghams,
father and son, had sought him out when herding his master’s ewes on a Nithsdale hill, the elder produced
a ‘strong bottle,” with which they retired into the lonely bothy, and talked and boozed far into the after-
noon. It was Lockhart’s store of Jamaica rum which enabled the Shepherd, as he confesses, to overcome
his rustic timidity ; while Sym—the Timothy Tichler of Blackwood’s—and he were wont to fiddle and
fuddle the long night through, to prove who, of the twain, had the softest heart and the strongest head.

These are poor Hoge’s own ingenuous confessions, and are, moreover, in strict accordance with a certain
fixed principle and theory of life held by him. This was sorely disturbed when, visiting Keswick, and
having sent an invitation to Greta Hall, asking Southey to come to his inn and “ drink one halfanutchkin
with him,” the poet indeed came, and stayed an hour and a half, but showed no disposition to imbibe. “T
was,” says Hogg, “a grieved as well as an astonished man when J found that he refused all participation
in my beverage of rum-punch. For a poet to refuse his glass was to me a phenomenon ; and I confess
I doubted in my own mind, and doubt to this day, if perfect sobriety and transcendant poetical genius
can exist together. In Scotland I am sure they cannot. With regard to the English, J shall leave
them to settle that among themselves, as they have little that is worth drinking.”

Well, this is a position we are not prepared to dispute. Plutarch tells us that the Muses them-
selves were given to fuddling ; and Horace says that their breath of a morning indicated addiction to
stronger waters than those of Helicon. The latter bard, indeed, goes so far as to assert that no teetotaller
can possibly write pleasing or lasting verse :—

“Nulla placere diu, nec vivere carmina possunt,
Quze scribuntur aquee potoribus. as

 

Epist. xix.
Thus paraphrased by a witty modern :—

“Tf with water you fill up your glasses,
You'll never write anything wise ;
For wine is the horse of Parnassus,
Which hurries a bard to the skies.”
Horace in London.

In like vein John Phillips says :—

 

ie The Muses still require
Humid regalement, nor will aught avail
Imploring Phcebus with unmoisten’d lips.”
Cider, ii. 397.

Even Milton is on this side of the question, and, in his “ Epistle to Carlo Deodati,” asks :—

“ Quid quereris refugam vino dapibusque poesin P
Carmen amat Bacchum, carmina Bacchus amat.”

It is true that on the other side we have Wordsworth somewhere declaring himself
“ A simple, water-drinking bard,”’—

with which, perhaps insufficient counterpoise, we leave the vexed question for the consideration of our
readers.

Maginn had a high opinion of the Ettrick Shepherd. Of him he said, “In his simplicity consisted
his excellence. Had he attempted anything great he would have made himself ridiculous. He was
every inch a man; full of fun and feeling, without the heaviness of Scott.”

It is pleasing to know that this artless genuine child of Nature saw no reason to be discontented, in
retrospect, with the part it had been allotted him to play on this world’s stage. “One may think,”
said he, on writing his “ Memoir” in 1832, “that I must have worn outa life of misery and wretchedness ;
but the case has been quite the reverse. I never knew either man or woman who has been so uniformly
happy as I have been ; which has been partly owing to a good constitution, and partly from the conviction
that a heavenly gift, conferring the powers of immortal song, was inherent in my soul. Indeed, so uni-
formly smooth and happy has my married life been, that, on a retrospect, I cannot distinguish one part
from another, save by some remarkably good days of fishing, shooting, and curling on the ice.”

Two years after this, in 1835, James Hogg departed from the life in which he found so much innocent
and thankful enjoyment. His “Poetical Works,” with his life by Professor Wilson, were published by
Blackie, in 1850-2, 5 vols. 12mo.

It is, perhaps, worthy of note that this is the first portrait in the “Gallery” signed “ Alfred Croquis,”
the pseudonym adopted by Maclise in his subsequent sketches, and by which he was known among his
literary collaborators.
 

THE AUTHOR OF“ FAUST’
No. 22,—THE BARON VON GOETHE.

ees thou here beholdest the Eidolon of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. So looks and lives,

now in his eighty-third year, afar in the bright little friendly circle of Weimar, “ the clearest, most
universal man of his time.” Strange enough is the cunning that resides in the ten fingers, especially what
they bring to pass by pencil and pen! Him who never saw England, England now sees: from Fraser’s
“Gallery ” he looks forth here, wondering, doubtless, how he came into such a Lichtstrasse (“ light-street,”
or galaxy) ; yet with kind recognition of all neighbours, even as the moon looks kindly on lesser lights,
and, were they but fish-oil cressets, or terrestrial Vauxhall stars (of clipped tin), forbids not their shining.
Nay, the very soul of the man thou canst likewise behold. Do but look well in those forty volumes of
“musical wisdom,” which, under the title of Goethe’s Werke, Cotta of Tiibingen, or Black and Young of
Covent Garden—once offer them a trifle of drink-money—will cheerfully hand thee: greater sight, or more
profitable, thou wilt not meet with in this generation. The German language, it is presumable, thou
knowest ; if not, shouldst thou undertake the study thereof for that sole end, it were well worth thy
while.

Croquis (a man otherwise of rather satirical turn) surprises us, on the occasion, with a fit of enthusiasm.
He declares often, that here is the finest of all living heads; speaks much of blended passion and repose ;
serene depths of eyes ; the brow, the temples, royally arched, a very palace of thought ; and so forth.

The writer of these notices is not without decision of character, and can believe what he knows. He
answers Brother Croquis, that it is no wonder the head should be royal and a palace ; for a most royal
work was appointed to be done therein. Reader! within that head the whole world lies mirrored, in such
clear, ethereal harmony, as it has done in none since Shakspeare left us: even this Rag-fair of a world,
wherein thou painfully strugglest, and (as is like) stumblest-—all lies transfigured here, and revealed
authentically to be still holy, still divine. What alchymy was that: to find a mad universe full of
scepticism, discord, desperation ; and transmute it into a wise universe of belief, and melody, and reverence !
Was not there an opus magnum, if one ever was? This, then, is he who, heroically doing and enduring,
has accomplished it.

In this distracted time of ours, wherein men have lost their old loadstars, and wandered after night-
fires and foolish will-o’-wisps ; and all things, in that “shaking of the nations,” have been tumbled into
chaos, the high made low and the low high, and ever and anon some duke of this, and king of that, is
gurgled aloft, to float there for nfoments ; and fancies himself the governor and head-director of it all, and is
but the topmost-froth-bell, to burst again and mingle with the wild fermenting mass,—in this so despicable
time, we say, there were nevertheless—be the bounteous heavens ever thanked for it !—éwo great men sent
among us. The one, in the island of St. Helena now sleeps “dark and lone, amid the ocean’s everlasting
lullaby ;” the other still rejoices in the blessed sunlight, on the banks of the Ime.

Great was the part allotted each, great the talent given him for the same ; yet, mark the contrast !
Bonaparte walked through the war-convulsed world like an all-devouring earthquake, heaving, thundering,
hurling kingdom over kingdom ; Goethe was as the mild-shining, inaudible light, which, notwithstanding,
can again make that chaos into a creation. Thus, too, we see Napoleon, with his Austerlitzes, Waterloos,
and Borodinos, is quite gone—all departed, sunk to silence like a tavern-brawl. While this other !— jhe still
shines with his direct radiance ; his inspired words are to abide in living hearts, as the life and inspiration
of thinkers, born and still unborn. Some fifty years hence his thinking will be found translated, and
ground down, even to the capacity of the diurnal press; Acts of Parliament will be passed in virtue of
him :—this man, if we well consider of it, is appointed to be ruler of the world.

Reader ! to thee, thyself, even now, he has one counsel to give, the secret of his whole poetic alchymy :
GEDENKE ZU LEBEN. Yes, “think of living!” Thy life, wert thou the “ pitifullest of all the sons of
earth,” is no idle dream, but a solemn reality. It is thy own; it is all thou hast to front eternity
with. Work, then, even as he has done, and does—“ LIkE A STAR UNHASTING, YET UNRESTING.”—JSic
valeas.

NWOT LES,

OR the exquisite prose sketch above was called into requisition the pen of a gentleman who, at that time

and even now, may be said to have done more than any other scholar to bring his countrymen

acquainted with the riches of German literature. We need hardly say that we allude to Tomas CARLYLE,

among whose “Critical and Miscellaneous Essays” this smaller gem is included. The accompanying

portrait, moreover, was not taken ad vivwm, but is copied from one by Stieler, of Munich. “It proved,”
Il
58 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

says a note to our edition,—an American one,—of Carlyle, “a total failure and involuntary caricature,—
resembling, as was said at the time, a wretched old-clothes man, carrying behind his back a hat which he
seemed to have stolen.” This passage we only transcribe to express our dissent from the opinion expressed
in it, the portrait appearing to us in all respects a worthy and suggestive resemblance of the great patriarch
of German literature, and indicating in no small degree that decision of character and potency of will, by
means of which, as we are told, he was able to ward off an infectious fever by which he was menaced.

It is as the author of “Faust” that Goethe here appears before us, and it is probably with this divine
production that his name is still, and ever will be, more intimately associated, than with any other of his
works, transcendently great as many of them are. We were yet young in German when we commenced
the study of this immortal work, and knew little beyond our Lesebuch, and the Studenten-lieder, which a
joyous group from the Fatherland—ourselves the only Hnglander—carolled nightly in a garret at Paris.
Much was the dissuasion from friendly voices, who told of the manifold difficulties of a work, the interpret-
ation of which had baffled the strongest minds of Germany. Nothing daunted, we adventured ; and soon
found, to our own surprise, that, aided by our “ Worterbuch,” and Mr. Hayward’s admirable prose translation,
we were making easy and satisfactory progress in our delightful task. The obstacles arising from grammar
and construction we found to be neither numerous nor important; while the obscurities of meaning,—of
which, doubtless, there are many and great,—hardly affected the continuity of progress, or diminished the
pleasure which the mere poetry afforded. We therefore venture to recommend a like experiment to those
other students of High Dutch to whom the fancied difficulties of “‘ Faust” have hitherto made it a sealed
book.

Many a deep impression have the waves of Time washed away since those early days, but we
can yet recall, in all their vivid glow, the emotions which the first reading of this sublime poem
awakened in our soul. It was asa wind to awaken each slumbering emotion of the mind; a lightning
flash to kindle every current of sympathy ; a mirror, reflecting to the spirit’s gaze its own unfamiliar
characters and lineaments. We read it as we wandered through Rhineland, in native Frankfort, in
“friendly ” Weimar, and in beautiful Berlin, —‘“ light of the world”;*—and longer study and wider appre-
hension has only increased the opinion we then formed of the beauty of its poetry, the profundity of its
meaning, and the almost universality of its significance.

What manner of book, then, is this? What is its meaning and object? Primarily, ‘‘ Faust” may be
considered simply as a dramatic poem, having for its object, like the “Doctor Faustus” of our own
“Marlowe of the mighty line,” the exhibition and illustration of the old tradition of a scholar who, made
mad by hard study and much learning, has, or believes that he has, intercourse with the Evil One, in the
guise of Mephistopheles.t This is the superficial, and, as far as it goes, the correct view. But then, if we
would gain a clue to its farther interpretation, and a better hope of fairly plucking the heart out of its
mystery, we mast not forget that we have the author’s own testimony as to the almost entirely subjective
character of the work, and the passionate and perplexed condition of his mind at the time of its composi-
tion ;{ and thus endeavour to regard it as a pathography, shadowing forth the spiritual life of its author,
and the pains and sorrows through whose purging fires his soul passed to its eventide grandeur and serenity.

But this is not all. “Faust” is a work of supreme genius, and consequently possesses in a superlative
degree, quite apart from its mere objective and exoteric form, that invariable and critical characteristic of
all works of genius, by virtue of which they become interfused with, and reciprocated by, the various
idiosyncrasies, mental and moral, to which they gain access, in such manner that, imparting and deriving,
informing and informed, generating and acquiring new life, their assimilation with the receptive soul and
intellect becomes so complete, that the mutual agencies and relations of these with them are thenceforth
and evermore indissoluble and indiscriminable.

Hence it is that the esoteric explanations of “ Faust,’ are almost as numerous as its readers ; each
one giving that of which his own mind is the unconscious factor. In this way, one student has held that
the poet merely intended to convey a body of practical lessons on the wisdom of life ; another, that his
object was a delineation of the eternal struggle between the component elements, corporeal and psychical,
of the human dualism ; a third, that the poem is to be regarded as an eipfvevatc, a striving to reconcile
the great contradiction of the world, and establish peace between the real and the ideal ; a fourth, that the
leading idea—as in the Apuleian fable of Cupid and Psyche—is the redemption of the soul, polluted by
sensual passion, through the purifying influence of a childlike and innocent love ; a fifth—and this, if our
memory does not lead us astray, was the view of our own Coleridge—that the dramatic action was
intended to evolve the consequences of a misology, or hatred and depreciation of learning, caused by an
originally intense thirst for knowledge baffled ; while others, lastly, have regarded the piece as nothing
more nor less than a daring attempt to afford a pantheistic solution of the great enigma of the universe.

Now there is an entire absence of evidence, external as well as internal, as to the truth and value of
either, or any, of these fanciful theories. The reader is, therefore, free to adopt which he pleases, or, if he
thinks fit, to evolve a new one for himself. But in any case, any such theories must be regarded and
pursued as radiating paths from a common central stand-point,—the exhibition and illustration of the
nursery story, suggested emphatically to the mind of the poet by the similarity of his own feelings with
regard to the acquisition of knowledge and conviction of its vanity, to those of the hero of the old familiar
tradition,

 

* “ Tumen Orbi,”—anagram of Berolinum.
+ See a paper on “ The Devil‘and Dr. Faustus,” in the Cornhill Magazine, Dec., 1866.
I Hckermann’s “Conversations with Goethe,” vol. ii. p. 342.
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. a9

“Faust” is, we repeat, a work of supreme genius ; worthy to take its place, as it undoubtedly will, in
due succession to the sublime cardinal productious of the human intellect,—the “ Hamlet.” of Shakspeare,
the “ Divine Comedy” of Dante, the “(Mdipus” of Sophocles, and what time has spared, to us of the
divine “Trilogy” of Aischylus. But if it is thus grand in conception, it is no less perfect in mechanical
execution. In this aspect it is perfect. We do not believe that there is a faulty rhythm, a halting line,
or an imperfect rhyme in the whole poem, which thus stands forth in antipodal majesty and beauty, con-
trasted with those monstrous superfcetations of conceit upon inanity, which, native in origin, or imported
from America, have, in these latter years, brought burning disgrace upon the sacred name of poetry.

But enough of “ Faust.” We do not know if a Goethiana has yet been published, though Goethe,
like Shakspeare and Voltaire, has created a literature of his own, and needs a bibliographer. The
Meisterstuck itself has been translated some score of times into English, and there is already a whole library
of Vorlesungen and “ Essays.” The English reader, however, may be contented with the prose translation
of Mr. A. Hayward, of which many editions have already appeared, with its admirable introduction, and
elucidatory notes; the “Remarks” upon this, by D. Boileau (1834, 8vo.) ; Dr. Koller’s “Faust Papers ”
(1835, sm. 8vo.) ; and the poetical translation of Anna Swanwick, published by Bohn, which is at once
faithful and mellifluous.

To the “second part” of “ Faust” we cannot do more than briefly allude; and can neither here offer
a solution or a demonstration of its relative continuity in respect to the earlier poem. According to
Eckermann, who was a kind of Boswell to the great man, Goethe affirmed that in it was displayed a far
richer world than in the former part ; that it was less subjective in character ; and that the atmosphere was
higher, broader, clearer, and more passionless. For a paper upon it, reference may be made to Mraser’s
Magazine, October, 1863. It has been translated into prose by Dr. Bernays ; into verse by Archer Gurney
(1842), and later (1871), by Mr. Bayard Taylor.

Such is the fulness and many-sidedness of the genius of Goethe, and so full of energy and activity
his long literary career, that the briefest notice of his various productions would demand a fur greater space
than we have now at our disposal. It is to him that the Germans are, in a great measure, indebted for
the present condition of their noble language, and their knowledge of its qualities and capabilities. When
“The Sorrows of Werther,” in 1774, announced the dawn of a genius which was destined for immortality,
the dispute between the adherents of Gottsched and Bodmer was yet unsettled, and it was still an open
question whether the infant literature was to receive its early influence from the traditions and examples of
the French or English writers. It was Goethe, unquestionably, who, by his earlier works, helped, in the
face of reproach and ridicule, to decide the wavering national judgment. It was mainly by his example
that the language was freed from formal restraint ; that heterologous accretions were excluded; and its
powers of expression developed by the formation of notional compounds, in accordance with the rules of
verbal analogy. Hence it is, that the German language, by an ever-changing co-ordination of its own
primal elements, is, after the Greek, perhaps the richest and most flexible of the various modes of human
speech ; and that the Germans possess the advantage, enjoyed to a large extent by ourselves, of being able
to study, in almost archetypal perfection, the masterpieces of other literatures. The French, on the other
hand, have scarcely a good translation in their language, while their “creaking lyre,” once the envy of the
Germans, is ill adapted at least for the higher forms of poetical expression. The German, indeed, is essen-
tially the language of poetry ; while, were we called upon to assign to the other idioms of Europe the
department for which each was best fitted, we should indicate the English for oratory, French for
conversation, Italian for song, and Spanish for the expression of the tender passion.

More than one generation has passed away since that which wept over the sufferings of “‘ Werther”
(1774), or imitated his eccentricities. It is a work of true genius, instinct with profound pathos and
energic passion. We have two or three translations, all inadequate, and this may account for the
comparative oblivion into which it has fallen.

In the drama of “ Egmont” occurs the character of Clara, than which exists no more lovely example
of woman’s constancy and devotion. The “Iphigenia auf Tauris’’ is a classical production almost worthy
of Sophocles himself, and refreshing to the vexed spirit as a Greek statue.* ‘“ Hermann and Dorothea”
(1797) is an idyllic epos of truly Homeric character, written after the ancient models, in hexameters, full
of pastoral beauty and axiomatic wisdom. Then there is “ Wilhelm Meister” (1820), so finely rendered by
Carlyle, with its exquisite creation of Mignon; the “ Wahlverwandschaften” (1809), a novel of great
beauty and power, but, perhaps, to some minds, dangerous in theory ; “ Cellini” (1803), in its Italianized
German ; “ Dichtung und Wahrheit,” a biopathography of intense interest; ballads, songs, and minor
poems, exhibiting elegance, facility, and consummate finish ; and lastly, the correspondence of Goethe with
Lavater, Schiller, Von Bernsdorff, Zeller, Schultz, and Bettina von Arnim,t—embodying a vast amount of
literature and criticism.

In English we have Mrs. Austin’s “ Characteristics of Goethe” ; Carlyle’s various essays ; Eckermann’s
‘“‘ Conversations” ; and the masterly and exhaustive life by G. H. Lewes.

To this great man a long career was allotted. Born at Frankfort-on-the-Maine, August 28th, 1749,
he reigned for more than half a century at Weimar, the acknowledged primate of the intellectual life of
Germany. He belonged to the ministry, was the friend and councillor of his own Sovereign, and received

* Parts of this piece have been translated into Greek by Professor Hermann, of Leipsic.
+ Bettina Brentano, perhaps, more properly ; as it was yet in her maiden days that she was co-respondent in the
“ Briefwechsel mit einem Kinde.”
H 2
60 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

honourable distinctions from other monarchs. Finally, death—that fatal factor that mars the sweet
equation of life—put a term to an existence which had been entirely devoted to science, literature, and art ;
and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe rendered up his spirit at Weimar, on the 22nd of March, 1832, aged 82,
with the memorable words upon his lips—to which some have applied a secondary meaning—“ Das mehr

Licht herein komme” !
Rest thou soft in heavenly slumbers,

Near thy friend and Prince reclined ;

For thy life was nobly spent
In culturing thine age’s mind.

Till space and time have pass’d away,
‘Thy name shall live in mortal breast :

Then rest thee on thy tranquil couch,
By Earth adored ; in Heaven thrice blest.”

 

In the illustrative text to the sketch of Maginn, at page 25 (which I believe may be ascribed to the
pen of his friend J. G. Lockhart), two lines of verse occur, highly indicative of the nationality of the
subject. These will be found to form part of the song given below, a performance which may be pro-
nounced unique in its humorous and suggestive excellence, and which was contributed by the “ Doctor”
himself to a little volume entitled “‘ Whistlebinkie ; or, the Piper of the Party. A Collection of Songs,
chiefly for the Social Circle.” Glasgow, 1839.

THE LADY’S POCKET ADONIS.

THERE was a lady lived at Leith,
A lady very stylish, man ;
And yet, in spite of all her teeth,
She fell in love with an Irishman.
A nasty, ugly Irishman,
A wild, tremendous Irishman,
A tearing, swearing, thumping, bumping,
Ranting, roaring Irishman !

His face was no ways beautiful,
For with small-pox ’twas scarr’d across ;
And the shoulders of the ugly dog
Were almost double a yard across.
Oh! the lump of an Irishman!
The whiskey-devouring Irishman !
The great he-rogue, with his wonderful brogue,
The fighting, rioting Irishman !

One of his eyes was bottle-green,
And the other eye was out, my dear ;
And the calves of his wicked-looking legs
Were more than two feet about, my dear.
Oh! the great big Irishman!
The rattling, battling Irishman !
The stamping, ramping, swaggering, staggering,
Leathering swash of an Irishman !

He took so much of Lundyfoot,
That he could snort and snuffle, oh!
And, in shape and size, the fellow’s neck
Was as bad as the neck of a buffalo.
Oh! the horrible Irishman !
The thundering, blundering Irishman !
The slashing, dashing, smashing, lashing,
Thrashing, hashing Irishman !

His name was a terrible name, indeed,
Being Timothy Shady Mulligan ;
And when he’d emptied his tumbler of punch,
He’d not rest till he’d fill’d it full again.
The boozing, bruising Irishman,—
The ’toxicated Irishman—
The whisky, frisky, rummy, gummy,
Brandy, no dandy Irishman !

This was the lad the lady loved,
Like all the girls of quality ;
And he broke the skulls of the men of Leith,
Just by the way of jollity ;
Oh! the leathering Irishman!
The barbarous, savage Irishman !
The hearts of the maids, and the gentlemen’s heads,
Were bother’d, I’m sure, by this Irishman !
 

 

 

 

 

wo to

—

AUTHOR OF “LIFE & CHARACTER OF CHARLES L:
( 61

No. 23.—ISRAEL D’ISRAELI.

PPOSITE, in easy-chair, sits Israel [Isaac] D’Israeli, one of the patriarchs of the author tribe. His

name indicates the nation from which he has sprung, but there is nothing else Jewish—in the ill

sense of the word, we mean—about him. That he is imbued with some of the spirit of the most

recondite Jewish literature, is evident by many an indication, vocal to the intelligent, scattered throughout
his amusing works.

‘We mean not the slightest offence by this reference to Mr. D’Israeli’s original race ; but we cannot
help remarking it as a curiosity in literature that among all the writers of the present day there is none
who has so thoroughly imbibed the English feeling of affectionate regard for our history, even in its most
minute branches, whether literary or political, or is so deeply impressed with a reverent love for allthe
great institutions of our country, as the gentleman before us. No Tory Doctor of Oxford is a warmer
champion of the good old cause ; not Anthony Wood himself a more unwearied searcher into the history
of our literature. This we cannot help thinking a highly honourable trait. It was curious enough to
perceive, in his late controversy with Lord Nugent, a descendant of the Grenvilles and Temples arraying
himself with the enemies of Church and King, and a Hebrew of the Hebrews, whose ancestors, in the
days of the great struggle against both, were wanderers over the earth, and would certainly have been
rejected with marked indignation by the cavaliers and high churchmen of the days of Charles, raising
his pen in zealous defence of the martyr. It is very unnecessary to say to those who have observed the
works of Lord Nugent and Mr. D’Israeli, on which side of the controversy the victory has rested.

D’Israeli has almost wholly escaped the two miseries which have formed the subject of his most
amusing works. He has not mixed in the quarrels, nor has he been involved in the calamities of authors.
His course has been prosperous and quiet, from agreeable youth to respectable old age. His future
biographer will not have any materials to found “interesting anecdotes” upon, which is beyond question
one of the pleasantest things that can be said of any man. His literary mélanges will always be referred
to as the most curious collections of anecdotical lore ever brought together, and his historical and political
compositions justly regarded as works in which the trivial traditions of gossip, which have generally
passed current as history not to be contradicted, and been invested with all the pomp of sonorous periods,
or the ornaments of graceful diction, are exposed to a searching scrutiny, supported by the most multifarious
reading and indefatigable consultation of authentic documents. Our acknowledged Toryism does not draw
from us this panegyric. If we were to write on the same subjects as those which have occupied the pen
of Mr. D’Israeli, it is highly probable that we should differ in many imstances from his conclusions upon
characters and events ; for our propensities are by no means so strongly biassed towards the house of Stuart.
We are more of the mind of old Daniel Burgess (we believe, or some other celebrated punster of his time),
who observed that the Scriptures themselves were against the party of King James, because although the
original name of the founder of the chosen nation was Jacob, yet was the nation called after his adopted
title Israel. They were called Israelites, said Dan, because the Lord would not allow them to be called
Jacobites. One, at least, of the descendants of Jacob, we find, does not believe in the correctness of this
comment.

We hope that the Blanda senectus of Mr. D’Israeli may yet be employed in those agreeable labours for
which his reading and information so admirably fit him. And when he at last retires from the scene, as
we all must do, will he not leave an heir behind him, even Benjamin, the son of his right hand, who, with
the pen of a ready writer, inditeth tales and novels, greatly by the

——“ §pinsters in the sun,
And the free maids ”—

admired and extolled? By the way, it is not entirely off the chances that we may, in this gorgeous
Gallery of ours, exhibit the figure and countenance of the author of “Vivian Grey,” with a brief bio-
graphy. In the mean time, we bid his father adieu, with every demonstration of respect. Peace be with

him !

NOT ES,

HETHER we regard his long and honourable life, exclusively devoted to the best interests of
literature,—the pure and elevating pleasure which his writings have bestowed,—the influence

which they have had in diffusing that taste for historical and literary investigation, which is a marked
characteristic of the age,—the impartiality of his judicial decisions,—the catholicity of his sentiments,—
the philosophic tone of his criticism,—or the industry and conscientiousness of his research,—we com-
62 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

mence a few notes upon the literary career of Isaac D’Israxut, with feelings of profound respect and
gratitude.

He was born at Enfield, May, 1766, and was the only child of Benjamin D’Israeli, a Venetian
merchant, long settled in this country, and descended from a line of merchants, whose home for generations
had been the once proud Queen of the Adriatic. His early education was received in this country, whence
he proceeded to Holland, acquiring at Amsterdam and Leyden several modern tongues ; and then to France
(1786), where he became imbued with that taste for the French language and literature which never after-
wards left him.

It must have been shortly after his return that he wrote those two curious letters to Dr. Vicesimus
Knox, dated severally April 10th and 20th, 1786, which were printed for the first time in the Gentleman's
Magazine, July, 1848 (vol. xxx. p. 29), and which exhibit his early ambition to distinguish himself in a
literary career. In 1789 he wrote “A Poetical Epistle on the Abuse of Satire,” and in 1790 a “ Defence
of Poetry,”* which he afterwards suppressed, burning the entire edition, except a few copies which had been
sold. In 1791-3 appeared the “ Curiosities of Literature,” a work which was the first to make revelation
of the fact that we possessed in our own literature materials for historical and literary investigation hardly
inferior to the celebrated “Mémoires pour Servir” of the French. Next appeared the “ Dissertation on
Anecdotes” (1793), “ Essay on the Manners and Genius of Literary Character” (1795),—a favourite with Lord
Byron and Bulwer ; ‘ Miscellanies ; or, Literary Recreations” (1796). All of these are standard works, and
have been often reprinted. Besides these, D’Israeli was author of many books which are not so well known ;
he was a literary projector, full of industry and energy, and much of his earlier career as an author is buried
in obscurity. We believe he had a hand in the compilation of two bulky tomes, entitled “ Varieties of
Literature, from Foreign Literary Journals and Original MSS., now first published” (London: Debrett,
1795, 2 vols. 8vo.). W. Tooke was also engaged in this, and assistance was lent by Pratt, Mavor, and
other literary friends, whose respective parts it is impossible now to ascertain. Buy the book when you can
get it ; it is full of curious matter. Just after this appeared “Vaurien; or, Sketches of the Times: a
Philosophical Novel” (1797, 2 vols. 8vo.), the title of which was, perhaps, prophetic; and “ Romances”
(1798, 8vo. 2nd ed. 1801), the principal tale in which—“ Mejnoun and Leila, the Arabian Petrarch and
Laura,’—is worth mentioning, as it is said to be the first Eastern story written by a European, in which
the proprieties of costume and manner have received careful attention,+ though in this respect it is still
inferior to that marvellous Oriental romance, “The Wondrous Tale of Alroy,” written by the gifted son of
the author. The notes, moreover, to this tale exhibit considerable diversity of reading. Next we have a
volume of “ Narrative Poems” (1803, 4to.); and a novel, entitled “ Despotism ; or, the Fall of the Jesuits ”
(1811, 2 vols. 8vo.). We have also before us the curious Rabelaisian piece, commonly attributed to
D’Israeli, entitled “‘ Flim-Flams ; or, the Life and Errors of my Uncle and his Friends. With Illustrations
and Obscurities by Messieurs Tag, Rag, and Bobtail. A Literary Romance” (London : Murray, 3 vols. 12mo.
1806). This very curious medley is profusely illustrated by clever satirical etchings, by Richard Dagley,
author of “Death’s Doings,” and to the “curious reader” is well worth the trouble and cost of acquisition.
The unfortunate J. Selby Watson—the awful termination of whose social career has been so recently
brought before us—would throw some doubt upon the authorship of this book, which he characterizes as “a
production filled with pointless attempts at satirical description and dialogue, and abortive efforts at wit,
and written altogether in a style and manner utterly at variance with D’Israeli’s acknowledged works.”+
These remarks, however, are especially in allusion to the passage in which Professor Porson is ridiculed
(vol. iit, p. 262), which Mr, Watson would ascribe to Edward Dubois.§

D’Israeli had doubtless met with the rare work of J. Pierius Valerianus “ De Literatorum Infelicitate ”
(Venetiis, 1620),|| or the curious lines by Thomas Heywood, “ De dura et misera sorte Poetarum.”§] These
may have not improbably suggested to him his treatises on the “ Quarrels” and “ Calamities ” of authors—
titles which hardly convey a just idea of the wide range of literary history which they embrace. To the
collected edition of these is now appended the “ Inquiry into the Literary and Political Character of James
the First, including a Sketch of his Age.”

We have spoken of D’Israeli’s early education at Amsterdam and Leyden. There can be little doubt,
even if we had not the internal evidence of his later works in support of the belief, that, inspired by the
Jewish influence of these cities, no less than by his own tastes and family traditions, he became deeply
initiated in Hebrew and Rabbinical literature. Upon a mind like his the works of Maimonides, Moses
Ben Mizraim, Aben Ezra, Manasseh Ben Israel, and Moses Mendelssohn, would have a deep and abiding
influence ; and taking the last great writer as a model—the Jews say “from Moses to Moses there is none
like Moses,”—he was wise enough to escape the snares of Rabbinism and Talmudism ; to have small regard
for the authoritative commentaries with which the authors of the Mishna and Gemara have overlaid and
perverted the Mosaic legislation ; and, standing aloof as a cool and speculative philosopher, to shun associa-
tion with political and religious parties. It is to the pervading spirit and habit of thought thus acquired

* We give the title of this scarce book for the benefit of those whom it may concern :—“ A Defence of Poetry, addressed
to Henry James Pye, Esq. ; to which is added a Specimen of a new Version of Telomachus.” By I. D’Israeli, 1790, 4to.

+ W.C. Taylor, LL.D., in Bentley’s Miscellany, vol. xxiii. p. 219.

t “Life of Porson,” by J. Selby Watson, p. 383.

§ Author of “The Wreath” (1799) ; “My Pocket-Book” (1807); died Jan. 10, 1850.

|| Reprinted by Sir Egerton Brydges (Geneve, 1821, 8vo.).

{ “‘Hierarchie of the Blessed Angels,” 1635, folio, p. 245,
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 63

that we are indebted for his “ Genius of Judaism” (London : Moxon, 8vo. 1833), a work at once philosophic
in tone, able in treatment, and learned in illustration. It is now a scarce book, and has fallen into an
oblivion so complete that ordinary readers are not even aware of its existence.

Tt was an article by D’Israeli on “Spence’s Anecdotes,” in the Quarterly Review, in which he
attempted a vindication of the moral and poetical character of Pope, which produced the famous controversy
as to the merits of that poet, which was carried on in some score of pamphlets by Bowles, Lord Byron,
Gilchrist, M‘Dermot, Thomas Campbell, and others.

Ata later period of his literary career, D’Israeli’s character for accuracy of research was somewhat
rudely assailed by the publication of Mr. Bolton Corney’s “Curiosities of Literature Illustrated,” of which
we have before us the second edition, “ revised and acuminated,” 1838, 8vo. A review of this will be found
in the Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. ix. p. 61. D’Israeli replied in a pamphlet entitled “The Illustrator
Ilustrated” (1838), which is also noticed in the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. ix. p. 369.

About 1839 this useful and interesting writer was stricken with blindness. As in the case of our own
Milton, the American Prescott, and the French historian Thierry, this awful calamity did not altogether
interrupt his valuable labours. By the aid of his daughter, who, to use his own touching expressions of
paternal gratitude, “so often lent the light of her eyes, the intelligence of her voice, and the careful work
of her hand,” the stricken author—“ in the midst of his library, distant from it,” surrounded by “ unfinished
labours, frustrated designs,”—was enabled to revise and correct his “ Miscellanies of Literature,” for Moxon’s
collective edition of 1840; to produce that interesting series of papers which form a kind of sequel to the
“ Curiosities ” and the “ Miscellanies,” and which bear the title of “Amenities”; and to revise his great
work on the “ Life and Reign of Charles the First,” which, on ity first appearance, had procured for its
author the honorary title of D.C.L. from the University of Oxford, conferred as a mark of respect by
the authorities of that ancient seat of learning, in the words of its public orator,—“ optimi regis optimo
defensori.”

Isaac D’Israeli attained a patriarchal age, dying in his 82nd year, at his seat, Bradenham House,
Buckinghamshire, January 19th, 1848. He had lost his wife, to whom he had been united more than
forty years, in the spring of the previous year ; and he left behind him four children,—a daughter—alluded
to above,—and three sons, of whom the eldest, the Right Hon. Benjamin D’Israeli, the celebrated novelist
and statesman, is known wherever the English language has penetrated, or English politics are a matter of
importance or interest.

There is a portrait of Isaac D’Israeli by Drummond, in the Monthly Mirror for January, 1797 ;
another by Denning, in Bentley's Miscellany, and prefixed to Moxon’s edition of the “ Curiosities” ; and a
sketch by Count D’Orsay, in 1848, a woodcut from which illustrates the notice of the original in the
Illustrated London News, January 29th, 1848. The signature, “ Alfred Croquis,” to the sketch of Maclise
now before us has led the writer of the obituary of D’Israeli, in the Gentleman’s Magazine (vol. xxx. p. 99),
into the natural error of attributing it to “ Alfred Crowquill,” the pseudonym of the well-known artist
Alfred Henry Forrester, who died in May, 1872, in the 67th year of his age.

 

The following fine verses were written extempore by the poet Wordsworth, on hearing of the death of
James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd :—

WHEN first, descending from the Moorlands, Like clouds that rake the mountain summits, i

I saw the stream of Yarrow glide
Along a bare and open valley,
The “ Ettrick Shepherd” was my guide.

When last along its banks I wander’d,
Through groves that had begun to shed

Their golden leaves upon the pathways,
My steps the Border-Minstrel led.

The mighty minstrel breathes no longer,
>Mid mould’ring ruing low he lies ;

And death upon the Braes of Yarrow
Has closed the Shepherd-poet’s eyes ;

Nor has the rolling year twice measured,
From sign to sign, his steadfast course,

Since every mortal power of Coleridge
Was frozen at its marvellous source ;

The rapt one, of the godlike forehead,

The heaven-eyed creature sleeps in earth ;
And Lamb, the frolic and the gentle,

Has vanish’d from his lonely hearth.

Or waves that own no curbing hand, \

‘How fast has Brother follow’d Brother

From sunshine to the sunless land!

Yet I, whose lids from infant slumbers
Were earlier raised, remain to hear

A timid voice, that asks in whispers,
“Who next will drop and disappear P”’

Our haughty life is crown’d with darkness,
Like London with its own black wreath,
On which, with thee, O Crabbe, forth looking,
I gazed from Hampstead’s breezy heath ;

As if but yesterday departed,
Thou, too, art gone before; yet why
For ripe fruit seasonably gather’d
Should frail survivors heave a sigh ?

No more of old romantic sorrows
For slaughter’d Youth, and love-lorn Maid,
With sharper grief is Yarrow smitten,
And Httrick mourns with her their Shepherd dead!
Rydal Mount, Nov. 30, 1835.
( BF)

No. 24.—THE ANTIQUARIES.

“ ayopnrat
"EoSol, rerriyeoou éoxdres, olre, kad’ bAnY
Agvopéw eel opevor Ora Netpidecoay ieiot.”
¢

O Homer sang, long ago, of the specimens of antiquity in the Scan Gate ; and in like chattering

occupation behold the Society of Antiquaries !—not as Grose, that worthy fellow of the fraternity,

has depicted them, examining Boadicea’s urn, or any similar piece of trumpery, but as Croquis, with purer

taste, has sketched them, engaged in the discussion of their cakes and coffee. The halfhour’s reading is

over, the business part of the meeting concluded, and we find the élite of that “ learned body,” as they
are modestly pleased to style themselves, regaling in the “pleasant and profitable ” manner represented.

Behold, then, a selection of no unfair specimens of the component parts of “the Antiquaries,” from
its noble president, ‘Athenian Aberdeen,” to “the Atlas of the Society,” as the facetious Sir Harris
Nicholas, the ex-fellow, justly styled that energetic pourer-out of coffee, its broad-shouldered and square-
built clerk, Mr. Martin! Vice-presidents, secretaries, and members, are here also displayed, not “ tricked
out,” as the heralds say, with their holiday faces, but as they actually look, and talk, and congregate into
groups, at three-quarters past eight of the clock upon the evenings of Thursday in each week respectively,
between the months of November and May inclusive. Here stand and sit the A.S.8.es, great and small,
long and short ; in witness whereof behold the lengthy Jerdan, peering through his glass at every thing
and person around him ; while the five-feet nothingness of Crofty Croker has taken up a position under
Jerdan’s elbow, sipping his coffee in the blessed unconsciousness of the fairyhood of his situation. Behind
this size-ace of our species we think we recognize Mr. John Bowyer Nichols, to whom Mr. Secretary Ellis
is explaining some passage which his want of articulation, and breathless and sputtering haste to close the
reading punctually at the half-hour, has rendered doubtful to Mr. Nichols—in order that it may be satis-
factorily reported by Sylvanus Urban. Next to Ellis we have no difficulty in identifying his coadjutor,
the ingenious Nicholas Carlisle, who simpers with becoming complacency at the agreeable manner in
which the evening has gone off. Why the Society has two secretaries, is a question that has been asked
in these reforming times. The necessity is obvious—because one can’t read, and the other can’t write.

In the elderly young gentleman seated at the coffee end of the table we acknowledge the Deputy
Keeper of His Majesty’s State Papers, Mr. Lemon to wit, full of wonder and delight at everything.
Beyond him is the Byronic Mr. William Henry Rosser, who has the courage to display his pomwm Adami
to the keeness of the east wind and the unerring pencil of our Croquis. Of whom the group may be com-
posed which has assembled beneath the vacated chair of the president, we pause not to inquire ; but,
shaping our course from thence down the table, we behold the ghost-like resemblance of the ex-Medico-
Botanico Star-bearer of the ex-Emperor Don Pedro—the illustrious Johnny Frost! Mr. Kempe, we
think we may conclude from the action of his hand, is turning a deaf ear to ex-Director Frost, and
giving all his attention to the remarks of Mr. Rosser. Beneath the classic Kempe we behold the wood-
cutter Brooke, poring over some old print or other—one of antiquated costume, perhaps, of which, in a
week or two hence, we shall see a translation by him, with all the embellishments of a rich and poetic
fancy, yet strictly preserving its antiquarian character.

A full-length of old Caley is before us—there is no mistaking him ; the build of his head, and his
hands in the true antiquarian attitude, behind his back, leave no doubt upon the subject ; and he is
talking to our friend D’Israeli, of whom having spoken in our last number, we need say nothing more
here than to correct an error of the press by which this curiosity of literature was called Israel instead
of Isaac, The bald, square-faced, round-headed gentleman, whom Mr. Martin is so actively engaged in
assisting to coffee, it strikes us, must be intended for the late President of the Royal Society, Mr. Davies
Gilbert. If our conjecture be correct, we think our friend Croquis has not been so happy in the portrait
as usual. But who can question the group exhibiting the President, supported by his Vices, right and
left, Whig and Tory—the historian of the Middle Ages, the “learned Hallam, much renowned for Greek” —
and the shrewd-looking Hamilton ?

 

WO? # Ss,

N anriquartan, says “ Hudibras” Butler,* is “an old frippery philosopher, that has so strange #
natural affection to worm-eaten speculations, that it is apparent he has a worm in his skull, and

says that, with Scaliger, he would sell the empire of Germany for an old song.” In similar vein of satire,
another quaint old writer of “characters” describes such a person as, “a man strangely thrifty of times
past, and an enemy indeed to his maw, whence he fetches out many things when they are now all rotten

* “Remains of Samuel Butler,” vol. ii. p. 62.
 

S Ky
Ws
io

 

 

 

 

A FEW OF THE ES.As
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 65

and stinking. .... He never looks at himself till he is grey-haired, and then he is pleased with his own
antiquity. His grave does not fright him, for he has been used to sepulchres, and he likes death the better
because it gathers him to his fathers.”* Puckle admits an Antiquarian into his “ Club,” and depicts him as
“an idolater of ages past, and who seems to esteem everything, as Dutchmen do cheese, the better for
being mouldy.” Poor “Shakspeare” Ireland, who, when a lad in his teens, had so finely bamboozled the
black-letter buzzards and coney-catching commentators of his day, does not forget our friends when manning
his “‘ Modern Ship of Fools ” :—
—— “Dolts, by whom a trifle ’s cherish’d,
Which ’neath Time’s withering hand hath perish’d ;
Whose sapient brain from modern works no pleasure knows ;
Dotes on crack’d urn Etruscan—bust without a nose.” >

Well, the “ Antiquarians” can bear this innocent fun-poking, or we should not have revived it. Not
but that there are among them yet, and always will be, fit subjects for the satirist—feeble, credulous,
shallow-brained men, who,—

“ Vetera extollentes, recentium incuriosi,”—

ride their stumbling hobby to the very death, miss the end in devotion to the means, and expend their
minds amid les infiniments petits, whether of bibliography, verbal criticism, book-collecting, or any other
pursuit connected with “ antiquarianism,’

But these are the weaker brethren, from whom we may turn, when our laugh is over, to pay our respects
to the “antiquarians” proper—men really deserving of the name—unobtrusive and earnest scholars, to
whom we are indebted for all that we know of the past ; for correct texts, elucidatory comments, recovered
manuscripts, instructive collections, and the preservation of the evanescent memorials, the “ trivial fond
records” of bygone days, from which, better than formal chronicles or splendid monuments, we gain the
form and pressure of the elder time.

What a funny question that is of Wordsworth’s,—

“Ts it a party in a parlour P
Cramm’d just as they on earth were cramm’d:
Some sipping punch, some sipping tea,
But, as you by their faces see,

All silent and all damn’d!

Charles Lamb was amazingly tickled by it, and it will be sought for in vain in the later editions of “ Peter
Bell.” These facts must justify its introduction here ; for, now we have written it, we cannot, for the life
of us, see the applicability of any part of it; except, indeed, the latter half of the third line, and then for
“tea” we must read “coffee.”

The present is naturally all in all to the “ young man,” and it is generally when Time has thinned the
flowing locks, and written strange defeatures in the face, that we become addicted to the study of the past.
Hence it is that the individuals of our group are already elderly,—“ by ’r lady, inclining to threescore,”——
and that it comes to pass that not one now remains to be reminded of other days by this happy reproduction
of a symposvum of four brief decades ago.

The first to obey the dread summons was “old” Joun Carzy. This gentleman died August 28,
1834, aged 71. He held the office of Keeper of the Records in the Augmentation Office and
Chapter House, Westminster. He was author of many communications to the Gentleman's Magazine,
and, in conjunction with the late Sir Henry Ellis and Dr. Bandinel, edited the new edition of Dugdale’s
“ Monasticon.” , He was also Secretary to the “ National Record Commission,” from 1801 till its dissolution
in 1831, and was joint editor of fourteen works published by the Commission, a list of which will be
found in the Gentleman’s Magazine, April, 1834, page 374.

The next death demanding record is that of Rosperr Lemon, which took place in his 57th year,
July 29, 1835. This gentleman was Deputy Keeper of his Majesty’s State Papers, formerly in Scotland-
yard, and more recently in St. George’s-street, and a long gallery over the Treasury-passage. This Augean
stable was thoroughly cleansed by the indefatigable labours of this officer in 1823 ; one result being the
discovery of the MS. of the lost work of Milton, “De Doctrina Christiana,” which was presented to
George IV., and entrusted to Dr. Charles Sumner, afterwards Bishop of Winchester, for publication. A
house was built for the reception of the State Papers in St. James's Park, with private accommodation
for the keeper, and here it was that Mr. Lemon died. The name of this gentleman is mentioned, with a
well-deserved compliment, by Sir Walter Scott, in a postscript, appended in 1829, to the “ cabinet” edition
of “Rob Roy,” in alluding to some documents relating to that extraordinary person.

The third to depart was Joun Frost—perhaps the youngest of the party—who died at Berlin,
March 17th, 1840, at the early age of 37. He was born in 1803, and is now best known as the founder of
the ‘“ Medico-Botanical Society of London.” He was early admitted to a fellowship in the Society of
Antiquaries, and became a candidate for a like honour in the Royal Society. Here he was blackballed,

* “ Microcosmography ; or, a Piece of the World discovered.” Hd. 1811, pp. 22—24.
+ “ Stultifera Navis: the Modern Ship of Fools,” 1807, p. 125.
I
66 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

and thereupon perpetrated the inconceivable folly of challenging the secretary to fight a duel! But he was
a man full of foibles, inordinately vain and conceited, and pertinacious, even to impudence, in the attain-
ment of an object. He was Secretary to the ‘ Royal Humane Society”; but resigned this respectable and
lucrative post without due consideration, and was unable, when he regretted the step too late, to regain his
position. Becoming involved in certain responsibilities, which he had unwisely taken upon himself, he
was forced to leave London. He first went to Paris, where he resided under the name of James Fitzjames ;
and next proceeded to Berlin, where he was said to be practising the medical profession with some success,
when death overtook him. He married Mdlle. Harriette Yosy, daughter of the well-known authoress of
“ Switzerland and its Costumes.”

A few months later was summoned Davirs Giupert, a gentleman of high scientific and literary
attainments, who died December 24th, 1840, in the 73rd year of his age. He belonged to a family of high
respectability, long settled in Cornwall ; his paternal name was Giddy, but this he exchanged, by Royal
permission, for that which he subsequently bore, on his marriage with the daughter and _ heiress of Thomas
Gilbert, Esq., of Eastbourne, Sussex. It is worthy of note that Mr. Giddy was one of the first to recognize
the latent talents of Humphrey Davy, and did much to promote their development, introducing him to his
friend, the celebrated Dr. Beddoes, who became afterwards notorious for his democratic proclivities. Later,
when Davy had become a great chemist and had earned a title, he became President of the Royal Society.
His old friend and patron, Mr. Gilbert, was then treasurer, and when the philosopher was forced by ill
health to leave England for a time, filled the vacated chair. He was subsequently elected to the honours
of the Presidency, but, three years later, upon its being understood that H.R.H. the Duke of Sussex was
ambitious of occupying the position of scientific primate in England, he resigned the post (1831), con-
tinuing, however, to act as Vice. He had graduated M.A. at Oxford, and received from that University, in
1832, the degree of D.C.L., the highest compliment which that body has it in its power to bestow. He
was author, inter alia, of “A Collection of Ancient Christmas Carols, with the Tunes to which they were
formerly sung in the West of England,” 1823, 8vo., and some valuable works on the Cornish topography
and language, of which latter philology has to lament that the memorials preserved are so sparse and
imperfect.

He was followed, after a short interval, by A. J. Kempz, who died August 21st, 1846, in his 62nd
year. Early in life this gentleman was author of a poem “The Battle of Trafalgar” (4to. 1806). He was
editor of the ‘ Losely Manuscripts” (8vo. 1836), and he contributed the letterpress to his brother-in-law’s
(Mr. C. A. Stothard) beautiful work, “The Monumental Effigies of Great Britain.” He was an unfailing
contributor to the Archwologia and the Gentleman's Magazine, in which he published a series of papers,
entitled “ Londiniana,” and an article (in 1830), “Tavistock and its Abbey,” partly written by the Rev.
E. A. Bray, vicar of Tavistock, and incorporated by Mrs. Bray, in her work on the “ Borders of the Tamar
and Tavy,” in letters addressed to Southey, the Poet-Laureate. Mr. Kempe was also interested in
Archery, and contributed some interesting papers to the Gentleman’s Magazine on the subject ; a few copies
of these were reprinted for private circulation only, in 1832, with the contributions of Sir Samuel Rush
Meyrick, and a bibliography of archery, by Mr. John Gough Nichols.

(The lady mentioned above was formerly Miss Anne Eliza Kempe, and was the only sister of the
antiquarian. Her first husband was Charles Alfred Stothard, F.8.A., the second son of the historical
painter, and himself a draughtsman of consummate ability. He died from an accident, being killed on the
spot by a fall from a ladder, when making a drawing from some ancient stained glass in the church of Beer-
Ferrers, Devon. His widow afterwards married the Rev. E. A. Bray, vicar of Tavistock, and is well known
as Mrs. Bray, by her novels, “Trelawny,” “Tales of the Heart,” &c.; and by her “ Life of Thomas
Stothard, R.A.” (Murray, 4to. 185])—a work of deep interest, exquisite beauty, and most refined taste.
She has also written a life of her first husband, Charles A. Stothard, F.S.A.)

The next on the fatal list is Nicnonas Caruisur, F.R.S. He was half-brother of the celebrated
surgeon, Sir Anthony Carlisle, and is known by his “Concise Description of the Endowed Grammar
Schools of England and Wales” (1818, 2 vols. 8vo.); his “Collections for the History of the Ancient
Families of Carlisle (1822), and Bland ” (1826), in 4to. ; his “ Hints on Rural Residences” (1825, sm. 4to.),
acento of extracts from Price, Repton, Papworth, and others ; his “ Memoirs of the Life and Works of
William Wyon, Esq., A.R.A., Chief Engineer of the Royal Mint” (with postscript and supplement as to
the relative merits of Wyon and Pistrucci), 1837, 8vo.; his “ Concise Account of Foreign Orders of
Knighthood, &e. ” (1839, royal 8vo.); and other works. He died August 27th, 1849.

Then follows W. H. Rossrr, who died May 27th, 1848, aged 56. He became a Fellow in 1823, and
was a constant attendant upon the meetings, the reports of which he had the credit of contributing to the
Literary Gazette. In 1835 he exhibited the body of an Egyptian ibis, or ardea, the mummy of which he
had unrolled. (See Archeologia, xxvi. 483.) He afterwards amplified his paper, and published it, with
engravings, in the Gentleman's Magazine, August, 1836, p. 145. Among other peculiarities of costume or
appearance, it may be noted that Mr. Rosser refused to muffle his neck in the fashionable “stock” or
cravat, and disdained to adopt the Wellingtonian investment for his nether limbs, adhering to the manly
Hessian boot as long as he lived.

With short interval, departed Francis Martin, Clarenceux King of Arms, who died June 3rd, 1848.
He entered. the College of Heralds as Bluemantle Pursuivant, June 17th, 1797 ; was made Windsor
Herald, April 24th, 1819 ; Norroy King of Arms, February 5th, 1839; and Clarenceux, April 28th,
1846. He had also filled the office of Treasurer of the College of Arms since 1840.
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS, 67

Just two mouths later,—alas !— ;

“How soon has brother follow’d brother,
From sunshine to the sunless land,”’—

died, at the early age of 49, in the vicinity of Boulogne, Sir Nicnonas Harris Nicoxas, a Knight of the
Hanoverian Guelphic Order, and Chancellor and Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St. Michael and
St. George. Few names on the roll of antiquarian literature, especially that branch of it which is devoted
to genealogy, deserve so high a place as “that of this gentleman, who may claim a place after Camden,
Dugdale, and Selden. We can only just allude to his “ Notitia Historica ” (1824), on which was modelled the
very useful “ Chronology of History ” (1833), published in Lardner’s “ Cabinet Cyclopedia ” ; the “ Synopsis
of the Peerage” (1825) ; his edition of “ Davidson’s Poetical Rhapsody ” (1826), and of the curious “ Flagellum.
Parliamentarium,” attributed to Andrew Marvell (1827, 12mo.); the “Memoirs and Letters of Joseph
Ritson” (1833, 2 vols. 8vo.) ; the “ Literary Remains of Lady Jane Grey” (1826); and a long shelf-full
of other works of equal value and interest. In 1826 he became, in conjunction with Henry Southern,
editor of the Retrospective Review, of which a new series was then commenced.

The next to depart of our group was Henry Haxzam, 6 révv, the celebrated historian of the “Middle
Ages” and “ The Literary History of Europe, &c.,” works which are too well known to need comment here.
He died in January, 1859, in the 82nd year of his age. 1t was to his son, Arthur Henry Hallam, a young
man of remarkable promise, who died in 1833, that his friend Tennyson inscribed that remarkable series of
poems, which are published under the title of ‘In Memoriam.” All this is known ; but how the historian
became “renowned for Greek” may be forgotten, and will bear telling again. It appears that Richard
Payne Knight had inserted some Greek verses in his “ Analytical Inquiry into the Principles of Taste”
(1805, 8vo.). Hallam reviewed this in the Edinburgh, and was exceedingly severe on one of the verses,
‘which he did not discover were Pindar’s till the press rendered it impossible to cancel the critique, which
still stands an everlasting monument of Hallam’s ingenuity.”*

On July 11th, of this year also, at his residence, Bolton Row, Mayfair, died W. R. Hamixton, F.R.S.,
aged 82.

‘i On January 12th, 1860, died at Chichester, in the 88th year of his age, W. H. Brooke, an artist of
great merit, belonging to a class which is probably now extinct. He studied under Samuel Drummond,
A.R.A., who, in his etching from his own painting of the “‘ Death of Nelson,” has introduced a portrait of
his pupil as one of the sailors. He was a friend of Singleton and Stothard, whom, in grace of composition
and outline, he much resembled. He was “‘the faithful and cherished friend” of C. A. Stothard, and was
held in the highest esteem by the more illustrious father, who considered that, as an artist, he possessed
great genius, and regretted that he could not devote himself more entirely to the study of the higher branch
of the art for which Nature had designed him.t It was Mr. Brooke to whom we are indebted for the
charming vignettes in Major’s first illustrated edition of the “Complete Angler” of Izaak Walton (1823,
8vo.) ; for those for the first authorized edition of Moore’s “‘ Irish Melodies,” the ‘“ Fairy Legend of the
South of Ireland,” and the “ Fairy Mythology,” of Keightley. In 1815 he was engaged on the Satirist, for
which he produced some clever etchings; many of his drawings on wood, about this time, were engraved
by Thomson, Branston, and other eminent xylographers ; he illustrated the earlier editions of Carleton’s
“Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry”; the “Siamese Twins,” of Bulwer ; and contributed several
etchings to the “Collectanea” of his friend, Mr. Roach Smith, and the elegant “ Book of Archery” of
G. A. Hansard, 8vo. 1841.

On December 14th, 1860, at the age of 76, was gathered to his fathers the fourth Ear, or ABERDEEN,
long the President of the “ Society of Antiquaries.” He is “ the travelled Thane,” the “sullen Aberdeen,”
of Byron, whose anger, as a poetic pilgrim, was awakened by what he considered the desecration of classic
sites, by the removal of their monuments to a northern and uncongenial clime. This nobleman was a
contributor, when very young, to the Hdinburgh Review ; wrote “ An Inquiry into the Principles of Beauty
in Grecian Architecture ” (1822), which, we think, is appended, as an introduction, to Wilkins’s translation
of Vitruvius. Asa Minister, the Earl of Aberdeen was not popular. His foreign policy was censured, as
supposed, perhaps wrongly, to indicate a preference for absolute rather than constitutional government. His
manner, moreover, was somewhat cold and austere ; and he was supposed not to sympathize with the public
wind in the war with Russia in the Crimea. Hence the clever lines, which appeared at this period, and of

which we cite the first and last stanzas :—

“¢There’s cauld kail in Aberdeen,’ Still ‘ cauld kail in Aberdeen,’

When blood runs quick in all besides ; At lies and truth—at loss and gain ;

The dilettante Scot serene, But what are we, thus meek and mean,
Shows his blank face, whate’er betides. To brook command of such a brain ?

When Russian treason’s dragg’d to bar, Up! England, up! and with a shout
Despite each diplomatic screen,— To startle e’en that stoic spleen,—

When England brands the lying Czar,— In honest Saxon, thunder out,—
‘There’s cauld kail in Aberdeen.’ Down with ‘cauld kail’—and Aberdeen!”

 

* Note to “English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.” See also “Hypocrisy: a Satire.’ By the Rev. C. O. Colton.
Tiverton, 1812, 8vo. p. 22.
+ See “Life of Thomas Stothard, R.A.,” by Mrs. Bray, p. 205, Note.
12
68 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN,

We next have to record the death of the literary veteran Jonn Bowyer Nicuots, the middle term in
a series of printers, who, by their high characters and learned labours, have conferred additional lustre on
the typographic art. He was born July 15th, 1779, and died October 19th, 1863, in the 85th year of his
age. He succeeded to a share in the Gentleman's Magazine, which he held in common with the descendants
of Epwarp Cave and Davip Henry ; in 1833 he became sole proprietor, and in the year following trans-
ferred a share to the late William Pickering, when the editorial management was placed in the hands of
the Rev. Joun Mitrorp. This share he repurchased, and in 1856 conveyed the whole property to Mr.
J. H. Parker, of Oxford. This celebrated serial, which has been called “the Old Parr of magazines,” was
commenced in 1731, and continued to flourish for upwards of one hundred years, under the conduct of
three editors only, each of whom had been a journeyman printer. It is now virtually defunct, the magazine
which bears the old name being a different thing altogether, and is, in the eyes of those who knew and
reverenced its progenitor, what the reprint of old Burton was to Charles Lamb, “a heartless sight.”
Sundry changes took place in its form during its latter years, each for the worse, till its final extinction ; a
circumstance for which we would fain find some other cause than the previous decline, as a class, of the
“ Gentlemen” who had upheld it. Mr. Nichols was a frequent contributor to its pages, under the signature
N. R.&., the final letters of his names ; he republished that curious book, “The Life and Errors of John
Dunton,” in 2 vols. 8vo. ; he continued and completed the very important work of his father, the “ Illustra-
tions of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century,” a sequel to the equally well-known “ Literary
Anecdotes,” of which Macaulay said that he had derived more pleasure and information than from any other
books with which he was acquainted ; he was also, like his father, a commentator upon Hogarth, having
published, in 1833, a volume, very useful to the collector, entitled “ Anecdotes of William Hogarth, written by
Himself, &c.,”—a work which, it is well to observe, has no relation whatever to that under a similar title* by
his father, John Nichols, of which the ¢hzrd edition, “enlarged and corrected,” appeared in 1785, and
is one of the most interesting books of art-anecdote with which we are acquainted.

The last name on our mortuary bead-roll is that of the venerable and highly-respected Sir Henry
Exxts, who died at his residence, 24, Bedford Square, January 15th, 1869, in the 92nd year of hisage. He
was the responsible editor of the important edition of the ‘ Monasticon” of William Dugdale, published in
1817-30, 6 vols. folio ;f and was author of the General Introduction to “Domesday Book.” To literary
students he was equally well known as the Principal Librarian cf the British Museum, an office to which he
was appointed in 1827, and which he held for 30 years. | a \%

Of the other “characters,” of whom we have not made mention; JerDAN, Croker, and D’IsRrazii
have had separate portraits and notices, and need no further record here. They, too, have passed away.
All are gone alike ; the guests have departed, and the “ banquet-hall” is deserted. The harmless revelry is
over ; the learned gossip hushed; the quaint forms have vanished for ever; the curious collections are
dispersed ;—and, were we permitted to compare small things with great,—this, our Antiquaries’ parlour,
with that larger chamber, the world,—we might close these brief records with the magnificent peroration
with which Raleigh concludes the last page of his “ Historie ” :—

“O eloquent, iust, and mighty Death ! whom none could aduise, thou hast perswaded ; what none hath
dared, thou hast done ; and whom all the world hath flattered, thou only hast cast out of the world and
despised : thou hast drawne together all the farre stretched greatnesse, all the pride, crueltie, and ambition
of man, and couered it ali ouer with these two narrow words, Héc iacet.”

Historie of the World, ed. 1614, p. 669.

No. 25,—LOUIS EUSTACHE UDE.

HEN we originally projected this our Gallery of illustrious literary characters, we had an idea of
confining it to our own countrymen ; but Fate, as is usual, controls the designs of men. There
is scarcely an Englishman on our list. Of Scotchmen we have had Jerdan, Campbell, Lockhart, Scott,
Hogg, Galt, Wilson, Brougham; of Irishmen, Moore, Maginn, Crofton Croker, Wilson Croker; of
Americans, Washington Irving ; of Sandwich Islanders, Tydus-pooh-pooh, whose identity much puzzles the
learned inquirer ; of ladies, Mrs. Norton and Miss Mitford. Of the male English authors of renown we
have as yet depictured none save D’Israeli, Lord Munster, Lord John Russell, Montgomery, and Sam
Rogers ; and even of these the first is a descendant of Abraham Ben-Terah, and the last has long since
ceased to be classed among living authors.

* “ Biographical Anecdotes of William Hogarth, with a Catalogue of his Works chronolozically arranged, and Occasional
Remarks.” 1785, 8vo.

+ Reprinted with, according to Lowndes, some slight omissions, in 1846, in 8 vols. folio,
 

 

NN

(

oe

  

  
   

am “itt Kh \:
ee

NN

         
            

 

     

 

Ms

N
AN

NN

 

 

 

 

 

wg
a

AUTHOR OF “THE FRENCH COOK”
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 69

But we have had, nevertheless, no absolute foreigner now alive—Goethe, alas! is dead—for the
Yankees, Irish, Scotch, and Sandwich Islanders, are offshoots of our own—with the single exception of the
Muy Excelente Seitor Don Telesforo de Trueba y Cozio. As our cosmopolitan propensities are becoming
more and more extensive in these days of spreading liberality, we have determined to give the Anglicised
Iberian a fitting companion ; and whom can we better select than that admirable specimen of an Anglicised
Frenchman, Louis Eustache Ude? Ude and Trueba are worthy of one another ; and we are sure the Don
will feel all the value of the compliment.

Not that we wish to make Trueba too vain by insinuating that he is in any respect an equal to Ude.
Far from it. Ude is a great man, a most original author, a gentleman of exquisite taste, of infinite godt,
of gusto (a favourite word of Mr. Hazlitt’s) beyond all compare. We talk of the richness, the raciness,
the fine flavour of the style of authors. Will Sir Walter Scott himself contend that in these particulars
even his works can compete with Ude’s? Certainly not. Sir Walter is a man of too much genius to make
any such pretencu. The wit may boast of his Attic salt, the satirist of his peppery powers, the pastoral
poet sing of sheep and lambs, the bard of the middle ages deck his poetry with descants on barons bold
and knights of fame, L. E. L. warble sweetly of doves and pigeons, and so forth ; but who knows how to
manage salt or pepper, to dress the lamb, to serve up the baron, to cook the knightly loin, to make pétés
of the pigeon, like Ude? Ude is the greatest author of the day—unrivalled, now that Dr. Kitchiner
has gone to another feast, and that Mother Rundell is scouted out of civilized kitchens by a just indig-
nation.

It is our fixed intention to review this eminent man’s immortal work in a short time, or rather
to extract from it some of the primest and most savoury pieces. Here, cramped down like a turbot in
an undersized fish-kettle, we have not room to dilate on his great merits. We take the opportunity,
hasty as it is, of assuring our readers that Ude, like all the eminent men of the day who do not expect
places from the Whigs, is a true Tory. Cooking for Lord Sefton has not debauched him from his
original principles ; and he has indulged in a satirical touch at his lordship, by designating some of the
most abominable dishes ever devised & la Sefton. "We have never tasted the dishes so designated without
thinking of his lordship, which must be allowed to be a sufficient abomination. No; the chosen cook of
Louis XVI. and the Duke of York cannot be a Whig. How tender, how touching his apostrophe to the
Duke, after his Royal Highness’s demise: “ Ah, mon pauvre Duc! how much will you miss me when
you are gone!” Ude felt all the inconvenience which must be experienced by one used to the benefits
of superexcellent cookery, no matter to what region he might be transplanted.

Our artist has taken him in a moment of inspiration, when, resting his chin upon a ladle, he is
meditating the divine things to be produced by the hour of repast. Visions of cookery sublime—courses,
entrées, hors-d’ceuvres, chase one another through his prolific brain. The thought now kindling in his
culinary eye will ripen into a dinner, and the curl of his nose is prognosticatory of perfumes far surpassing
any which come upon the perfumed breezes of Araby the blest.

 

Farewell! of fish, flesh, fowl—baked, roast, boil’d, stew’d,
Thou first of artists, Louis Hustache Ude.

NOTES,

N old times, as A‘sop informs us, a misunderstanding took place between the BeLty and the Mrmpenrs ;
the latter struck work, and the former was compelled by cogent arguments to show its place and
importance in the harmonious whole before its recalcitrant colleagues could be induced to resume their
functions. The old fable, as history is said to do, would seem to be repeating itself ; the Members (of our
“ Gallery”) whose claims were purely intellectual, have made, for a time, defection, and leave one, whose
titles are ventral, to assert the value of his pretensions in the cycle of renown. We must take a lesson in
the “art of sinking,” and, leaving the brain awhile,—eamus quo ducit gula.

Not that we, by any means, feel this change of direction derogatory. Gastronomy is a recondite art and
science, whose professors are gentlemen and men of learning. Witness the death of Vare, the mattre
Phétel of Condé, that Cato or Decius of the gridiron who transfixed himself with his own skewer because
the fish did not arrive for his master’s dinner ; and Soyer, who has written a history of Cookery,* in which
the mere perusal of the titles of the authorities cited is a liberal education. Further than this, we hold the
theory, which we have not space to develop here, that Gastronomy has claims to be considered one of the
Fine Arts, the appreciation of which is a natural faculty, born with us, and not acquired, though it can be
improved and developed. In this way flavours may be considered to resemble the notes of a musical instru-
ment, and blend, like them, in various harmonious combinations. Thus one set forms a distinct octave ; a
second, another ; so that, by the unscientific admixture of different octaves, feeble and unpalatable flavours

* “The Pantropheon; or, History of Food and its Preparation, from the Harliest Ages of the World.” London,
1853. 8vo.
70 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN,

result. Perhaps Dugald Stewart had some inkling of this when, discussing sweets and bitters, he says that
“both are equally essential to those effects which, in the art of cookery, correspond to that composite beauty
which it is the object of the painter and of the poet to create” ;* and Arbuthnot, too, before him, when he
boldly asks, “ What is a bagpipe, the mother of all music, but a pudding of harmony? Or what is music
itself, but a palatable cookery of sounds ?”+

But this is a transcendental view of the question, which demands a high class of intellect for its com-
prehension, and we descend to a more practical consideration of the subject.

Few will deny the importance of the art of Cookery -—

“Plus moraliste que gourmand,
Ami, si j’aime un peu la table,
Je n’ai pas tort; la table rend
L’homme plus doux, et plus traitable.”

All those great minds which have sought to sway others have acted upon the principle that the stomach
was the way to the heart. The mouth, perhaps, should have been said ; for, to pursue our former analogy,
just as the man “who has no music in his soul,”—that is, who is incapable of appreciating the difference
between one note and another,—is fit for everything that is bad, so the owners of those palates to which all
tastes are indifferent, and which

“ Distinguish not rare peacock from vile swan,
Nor Mareotic juice from Ceecuban,”

are hard to be dealt with by the argumentwm ad gulam, which diplomatists have ordinarily found so potent.
“ A hungry belly has no ears,” says the proverb; and wise men have long laid the truth to their hearts.
Tacitus informs us that the ancient Germans never undertook anything of importance without a feast, and
that those who gave the best dinners were the most popular. When Napoleon despatched the Abbé de
Pradt to gain Poland to his cause, his sole instructions were, ‘‘Tenez bonne table et soignez les femmes ” ;
the dinners at. the houses of Lansdowne and Holland have converted to Whiggery many a vacillating
politician ; and Moore despatches the Foreign Secretary and a fine turtle together on a sea voyage,—

“To soften the heart of a diplomate,
Who is known to dote upon verdant fat,
And to let admiring Europe see
That calipash and calipee
Are the English forms of diplomacy.” }

Brillat Savarin says, “ Dis-moi ce que tu manges, je te dirai ce que tu es” ; and Esquiros believes that
a man is of Teutonic or Keltic descent as he is addicted to the juice of the hop or the vine as a beverage.
Whatever truth there may be in these theories, it is a matter of interest, at least, to know what manner of
meat or drink great men have held in especial preference. But they have been more reticent about their
eating than their reading, and we know less about their favourite meats than their favourite books. We saw it
mentioned the other day, we know not on what authority, that the favourite dish of the great Caréme was
‘ bullock’s liver and onions.” Dr. Johnson, Mrs. Piozzi tells us, took especial delight in “a leg of pork boiled
till it dropped from the bone, a veal pie with plums and sugar, and the outside cut of a salt buttock of beef.”
These are not bad things, though the taste which dictated them has been pronounced coarse ; but we should
have joined issue with the lexicographer when, during the second course, he called for the butter-boat of
lobster sauce, and poured its contents over his plum-pudding! Parr—we mean “ the Brummagem Doctor,”
and not him of “life-pill” celebrity, whose fame Taylor, the water-poet, has sung, says, “ There are certainly
one or two luxuries to which I am addicted: the first is a shoulder of mutton, not under-roasted, and richly
incrusted with flour and salt ; the second is a plain suet-pudding ; the third isa plain family plum-pudding ;
and the fourth, a kind of high festival dish, consists of hot boiled lobsters, with a profusion of shrimp sauce.”
William IV.—not that it much matters—delighted in “a roast fowl and a black bottle of sherry.” Burns
has written a poem in praise of a Scotch “haggis” ; and O'Doherty admits the excellence of this national
dish. Charles Lamb has left us a “ Dissertation on Roast Pig,” not less exquisite in savour than the dish
which he has immortalized ; and Southey, too, boasts himself as one

sf who in all forms

Of pork, . .. . baked, roasted, toasted, boil’d, or broil’d,
Fresh, salted, pickled, season’d, moist, or dry,

Whether ham, bacon, sausage, souse, or brawn,

Leg, blade-bone, bald-rib, griskin, chine, or chop,

Profess myself a genuine philopig.Ӥ

 

Hume, when accused by a lady of being an epicure, replied, “ No, madam ; I am only a glutton.” That is,
he was a gourmand rather than a gourmet, solicitous rather as to the quantity than the quality of his viands.
This, at least, is the signification which these terms have now come to possess, even among the French,
whatever they may have had in former times. They indicate, moreover, classes of eaters who do not well

* “ Philosophical Essays.”

+ ‘‘A Dissertation on Dumpling,” &e. (‘ Miscellaneous Works,” i. 65.)
{t “Dream of Turtle, by Sir William Curtis.”

§ “Epistle 1o Allan Cunningham.” (‘The Anniversary,” 1829, p. 20.)
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS, 71

come together. Thus, while in the latter category we should place the author of “ Pelham,” and, indeed,
see many reasons in that clever novel to induce to this opinion, we should have little doubt that to the
former class belonged that ireful guest, who, leaving the classic and elegant table of his Amphitryon with the
cravings of hunger still unappeased, indited the epigram :—

“You see,” says Sir Ned, as we enter his doors,

“| have furnish’d my rooms @ la Lowis Quatorze.”

“Then I wish,” said a guest, “when you ask me to eat,
You would furnish your board @ la Louis Dixhuit ;
The eye cannot feast, when the stomach is starving,
So, pray, less of your gilding and more of your carving.”

I suppose that this is a case in which it might be said with truth, fucit indignatio versum.

Another good thing was said of a poet’s dinner by the Rev. Sydney Smith. It was the custom of
Rogers not to have his lights on the dinner-table, but to dispose them so as to illuminate the fine pictures
overhead,—a fashion which extorted from the witty parson the remark that “above all was brightness,
while below was darkness and gnashing of teeth.”

Tt is one of the maxims of Sir Morgan O’Doherty that “in whatever country one is, one should choose
the dishes of the country.” The dictum is a wise one; we have in England a national cookery, which, in
the opinion of the great Ude himself, is, “‘ when well done, superior to that of any country in the world.”
Entertaining the same opinion, we venture to record our absolute contempt for the snobby, servile custom
of neglecting our admirable indigenous cookery for such abominations as cartes a la Frangaise and diners
@ la Russe,—things which, on the table of a British citizen, are about as execrable, and bear about the same
relation to their originals, as rosbif on the Boulevards, or a bifteck in the Palais Royal. So, also, it is a
mistake to intrude into one epoch the style of cookery that belonged to another, and long anterior one.
Hence the humorous catastrophe which befell the gastronomic experiment on the culinary properties of land-
snails, made, as Sir Walter Scott imforms us, by Drs. Black and Hutton, respectively of chemical and
geological fame. These gentlemen had learnt that the epicures of old considered these testacec great delicacies,
and that the Italians still esteem them; and thought it a pity that they should be lost to the modern
kitchen. The snails were accordingly caught and stewed ; and a huge dish of them was placed berore the
friends, whose stomachs already revolted at the aspect of the filthy mess. They slowly began their meal,
and managed to swallow a few small mouthfuls. But philosophers are but men, after all, and with a little
hesitancy as to who should take the initiative, the modern-antique dish was ordered away with every
expression of disgust and abhorrence. We wonder if the learned doctors had ever read that most racy and
comical “ Dinner after the Manner of the Ancients,” described by Smollett in his “« Peregrine Pickle,”* and
which the inimitable George Cruikshank has chosen for so capital an illustration in his “ Points of Humour.”+

We do not suppose that any one cares much about Ude personally, although his career was diversified
enough to earn for him the title of the “Gil Blas of the Kitchen.” Dedicated to the service of the diew
ventru in his early years, he seems, with a strange misapprehension of his true destiny, to have abandoned
the career thus opened to him, and became in turn a jeweller, an engraver, a printer, a haberdasher, a
commercial traveller, an agent de change, and an inspector of gambling-houses. Relinquishing this latter
employment, he reverted to his original calling, and became in due time maitre @hdtel to Madame Letitia
Buonaparte. Arithmetic is called one of the fixed sciences, and yet hundreds of situations are hastily
abandoned, characters lost, and enmities made, on account of some speculative difference of opinion arising
between employers and employed, with regard to some purely elementary question. Something of this
paltry character led to a rupture between Madame Buonaparte and her chef, and the latter transferred his
talents to this country. Here he soon found an engagement under the Earl of Sefton at 300 guineas per
annum. He was also at one time maitre d’hétel to the Duke of York, and at another, head of the culinary
department of the too celebrated establishment in St. James's, of the ex-fishmonger, Crockford. We are
glad to record that a provision for the old age of the artiste was thoughtfully made by his former master, the
Earl of Sefton, who, at his death, left him an annuity of £100.

Ude had been long resident in this country, and had acquired a right to the title of an “ Anglicised
Frenchman.” Whether he knew enough of the language to write the book so lauded by Maginn, even with
revision, we cannot say; but in any case, with his higher opinion of English cookery, he could not put in
the plea of the French hotel-keeper at Dresden, who, although he had been twenty years in the country,
could not speak a word of German, and replied to the astonishment expressed by a guest with the simple
query, “A quoi bon, Monsieur, apprendre la langue d'un peuple qui ne posscde pas une cuisine ?”

* “ Peregrine Pickle,” vol. ii. chap. 10. + “Points of Humour.” 1823. Part ii. Point 6.
( 72)

No. 26—REVEREND DOCTOR LARDNER,

ARDNER, cailed at his baptism by the name of Dennis, amplified by his own classical taste to
that of Dionysius, but by his compatriots generally pronounced as Dinnish, stands before you,
gentle reader, cloaked and hatted in his usual guise. His chin is perked up @ Vordinaire, and his
spectacled eyes beam forth wisdom. In order, we suppose, to illustrate some of the principles of his own.
treatise on mechanics, as published in the Cad., he generally takes the position of standing toes in, heels
out, according to the cavalry regulations ; and therefore so he is depicted in the opposite engraving. What
bulk it is he carries under his cloak we know not, nor have we any grounds whereon to offer a con-
jecture.

Bred in the Irish University, which is now so much abused and belaboured by the Whigs and
Radicals, as the silent sister (most unjustly, indeed, in one point of view, for a, more spouting university
never existed, as Mr. Shiel can testify), Lardner early obtained there great fame and eminence as a grinder,
and published a work on the differential calculus, which he wrote avowedly for the purpose of learning the
science,—a pleasant process, which we opine is oftener practised than confessed. Not satisfied with this
modicum of renown, he migrated, as his countrymen are fond of doing, one fine morning to London.
Perhaps he was annoyed at the superior airs assumed by the fellows of the college—a dignity which, we
know not why, he never obtained—over all inferior grades. It is a saying of Tom Browne that there is
no greater man than a fellow in his college, and none smaller out of it; and even Thomas himself never
sported a more veritable dictum. Certainly, the fellows of Trinity, Dublin, do not lose an inch of their
height while parading in courts, presiding in commons, or dealing forth premiums or cautions at examina-
tions ; and we are the more confirmed in our opinion that it was some slight on the part of some of these
functionaries that has laid London under the obligation of Dionysius’s presence, by the fact that he has more
than once declared he knew not the most famous among them, vea, Charles Boyton himself (whom we mention
honoris causd), even by name. “As if,” exclaimed an indignant A.B.T.C.D., to whom this fact was com-
municated, ‘‘a risidint Masthur of Thrinity Collidge did not know iviry wan of the fillows aqual to his
own toes and fingers.” It certainly was a stretch of fancy on the part of our friend opposite, to which the
ignorance of Russell Square is but a trifle.

We find him, on arrival, at once a Professor in the University of London, called by its ill-willers
Cockney College, or some other name still more unsavoury. Here he, with the true spirit of a Hibernian,
threw himself, without delay, into the thick of the thousand-and-one fights with which that most pugnacious,
or, to use the old term, hoplomachic of universities, immediately on its creation abounded, armed shillela in
hand. We take it for granted that his ancient Tory partialities, never wholly eradicated, we hope, ex-
acerbated his bile against the Whigs; but whatever was the occasion, the consequence way that Dennis,
after giving and taking as much punishment as would have been expected from Jem Ward or Josh
Hudson, was fairly floored at last, and obliged to quit the ring. Hereupon he commenced a literary Cab-
driver, and has started his Cycloped, with various fortune, good or bad,—the former, we trust, predomi-
nating. Of this great work we have had several occasions to speak already, and it is highly probable that
many more will occur. We are sorry to learn that the impartiality of our strictures has sometimes ruffled
the mind of our philosophical friend ; but we assure him that we wish him, and indeed all literary men,
well; and if we censure, it is only with a view to his and their improvement in mind or morals. Around
him he has gathered a various host, as diversified as those with whom Nonnus, in his thirteenth book,
surrounds his hero.

But as our business is not now with

oe , ef > , t
—— TPOHaKovue pwac, ayetpopevouc Awvicw,

as the epigraph has it, but with the leader himself,—we thus conclude our first Dionysiac.

 

AY OT eS,

E can testify that the portrait before us is a graphic and suggestive representation of the outward

\) \ form of the learned Professor, having—albeit when very young—not only seen him in the flesh,

but enjoyed the advantage of an introduction to, and conversation with him. This must have been very
shortly before his exodus from Britain,—of which more anon. ;

Dr. Lardner was born in Dublin, April 3rd, 1793. He was the son of a solicitor, and commenced

life early in his father’s office. Not liking this, he entered himself at Trinity College, Dublin, in 1812.
 

 

THE EDITOR OF “THE CABINET CYCLOPE DIA’.
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 73

Here he took several prizes, and graduated B.A. in 1817. For the next ten years he remained in the
University, and in 1828 published his edition of the “ First Six Books of Euclid,” which became established
as a class-book, and still remains, in our opinion, the most comprehensive and philosophical of the various
editions of Euclid, and the best adapted to the requirements of the solitary student. On the establishment
of the University of London (now University College), in 1827, Dr. Lardner, at the invitation of Lord
Brougham, accepted the chair of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, and shortly after projected his well-known
Cabinet Cyclopedia, in which he himself wrote the treatises on “ Mechanics,” “ Hydrostatics and Pneumatics,”
“ Heat,” “ Arithmetic,” and “Geometry.” The most eminent men of the day in science and literature
collaborated, and the series was completed in 135 volumes. It was for this work, in 1830, that Sir John
Herschel wrote that “ Preliminary Discourse upon Natural Philosophy,” which has been pronounced to be the
complement of the “ Novum Organon,” and, indeed, the greatest book of its class since the days of Bacon.
Engaged in the prosecution of these and other literary enterprises, the career of the Doctor went on
prosperously' till it received a rude shock in 1840. Without going deeply into particulars, we briefly
state that in this year, at the Lewes Assizes, an action was brought against Dr. Lardner, by Captain
Heaviside, of Brighton, for criminal conversation with his wife. The damages were laid at £10,000, and it
was shown in evidence that a large property was settled on Mrs. Heaviside, who was the mother of three
children, the eldest being fourteen years of age, and whom Dr. Lardner had only known for thirteen weeks
when the elopement took place. This was the only fact alleged in mitigation of damages, which the jury,—
with a verdict, of course, for the plaintiff, who had already administered personal castigation, with detriment,
as was alleged, to the wig and spectacles of the amorous philosopher,—assessed at £8,000. Now here was
a term, the arbitrary introduction of which into the already stated equation of ways and means, bafiled
even the mathematical skill of the Doctor, and he only effected its elimination by the abandonment of his
country and position. He at once proceeded to the United States, in the various towns of which, and in
Cuba, he lectured with success. In 1845 he returned to Europe, and took up his residence in Paris. Here
he held the appointment of foreign correspondent to the Daily News,* and died April 29th, 1859, aged 66.

The Fraserians may laugh at the pretensions of Dr. Lardner, and “Father Prout” dub him “a man
of letters,” from the number that he appended to his name ; but it must be admitted that he was possessed
of great abilities, and that the public is largely indebted to him as a pioneer of education. Few men have
done more than he to extend and popularize scientific knowledge among the people, a task for which he was
well qualified by his experience and acquirements, and the elegance, perspicuity, and precision of his style.

Dr. Lardner was married, in 1815, to Miss Cecilia Flood, a niece of the celebrated Irish orator, the
contemporary of Grattan. In 1820 the parties separated by mutual consent, and in 1849 a formal
divorce took place, when the Doctor married Mrs. Heaviside. In 1864 some discreditable family disclosures
were made in the Rolls Court, Dublin, in the case “ Me Lardner’s Trusts, ex parte Boyd,” from which it
appeared that the divorced wife died in 1862. We have the documents before us, but do not know that they
contain much of interest to the general reader, while they might inflict pain on survivors. So much,
however, was necessary for an explanation of an allusion in the facetious song with which we conclude these
“ Notes,” and concerning the concoction of which “ Father Prout” hatches an amusing story.

According to the veridical narration of the learned incumbent of Watergrasshill, Dr. Lardner made a
special trip to Paris to induce Béranger, the poet, to whom he had previously conveyed a “handsome
remuneration,” through Dr. Bowring, to sing or say a good word about the Cabinet Cyclopedia, which the
latter translated the Encyclopédie des Cabinets @ (we leave the reader to fill in the word). Lardner
gave the poet a dinner, we are informed, “on the strength of the expected commendatory poem, when the
following song was composed after the third bottle” :—

 

UEPEE DE DAMOCLES. THE DINNER OF DIONYSIUS.
Dez Damoclés l’épée est bien connue, Ox! who hath not heard of the sword which old Dennis
En songe & table il m’a semblé la voir; Hung over the head of a stoic ?
Sous cette épée, et menacante et nue, And how the stern sage bore that terrible menace,
Denis l’ancien me forgait & m’asseoir. With a fortitude not quite heroic P
Je m’écriais que mon destin s’achéve,— There’s a Dennis, the “tyrant of Cecily” hight *
La coupe en main, au doux bruits des concerts, (Most sincerely I pity his lady, ah!).
O vieux Denis, je me ris de ton glaive, Now this Dennis is doom’d for his sins to indite
Je bois, je chante, et je siffle tes vers! A “Cabinet Cyclopzedia.”
“ Que du mépris Ja haine au moins me sauve! 23 He press’d me to dine, and he placed on my head
Dit ce pédant, qui rompt un fil leger ; An appropriate garland of poppies ;
Le fer pesant tombe sur ma téte chauve, And lo! from the ceiling there hung by a thread
J’entends ces mots, “ Denis scait se venger !” A bale of unsaleable copies. [erush’d!”
Me voild mort, et poursuivant mon réve,— “Puff my writings,” he cried, “or your skull shall be
La coupe en main, je répéte aux enfers, “That I cannot,” I answer’d, with honesty flush’d.
O vieux Denis, je me ris de ton glaive, “ Be your name Dionysius, or Thady, ah!
Je bois, je chante, et je siffle tes vers! Old Dennis, my boy, though, I were to enjoy

But one glass, and one song, still one laugh, loud and long,
I should have at your Cyclopedia !”

 

* Men of the Time,” ed. 1856. (This writer is surely in error when he states that Dr. Lardner was a graduate of,

and resident in, Trinity College, Cambridge. : a
+ This is in allusion to the bill, then before the Lords, for divorce from his wife, whose Christian name was Cecilia.

K
( 74)

No. 27,—EDWARD LYTTON BULWER,

f

ERE we have Bulwer in an appropriate position, viewing his face and reviewing his beard. With

razor far keener than the edge of his “Siamese Twins,” is he delicately mowing his chin ; and,

clothed in a robe de nuit far more flowing than the numbers of his “ Milton, a Poem,” looks with charmed

eyes upon the scene before him, and exclaims, with all the rapture of a satisfied editor, “ What a charming

article! Worth anything per sheet!” We have taken him just on the eve of publication, revising his
last proof the moment before coming out.

He has himself, in an autobiography published some time ago in the New Monthly, given us an ample
history of his seed, breed, and generation. We are sorry to say that we have forgotten the genealogy ;
but, it was related, if we do not wholly misapprehend the matter, pretty much in the style attributed to
old Hardcastle in “She Stoops to Conquer” : “‘ My grandmother was a major of dragoons, and one of my
aunts a justice of the peace.” The same history contained many other interesting particulars concerning
the curl of his whiskers,—which, by our plate it will be seen, are well put on,—the peculiarity of his coat,
the tournure of his countenance, and other matters, momentous to the general reader. L. E. L., however,
in her “ Romance and Reality,” which we take shame to ourselves for not having hitherto reviewed,
has so completely depictured him (we shall not say con amore, lest that purely technical phrase should be
construed literally), as having a high nose, relieved by an open mouth, a forehead of an especial shape,
contrasted with a peculiar chin, &c. &c., that it would be useless to go over the concern any more.

His poetry is so-so, or rather very bad; and yet with a strange, but at the same time usual per-
versity, he prefers it to his prose, which is, or was, readable and pleasant. “Falkland,” to be sure, is
no great things—it being a book the naughtiness of the conception of which is happily neutralized by
the dulness of its execution. But “Pelham” was full of smart magazine papers, any one of which
would be worth any money to the New Monthly—two or three of them might, perhaps, find admission
in a dull month into Fraser ; and it is on this work he should take His stand. The reason is plain:
he had, close by, the pattern and exemplar of the hero—“ He but looked in the glass, and he drew from
himself.” Devereux,” “Disowned,” ‘‘ Doomed,” &c., are barely readable, and “ Eugene Aram” has
been already celebrated in our pages.

As a statesman he is chiefly remarkable for his strenuous exertions in the great and vital question
of the Majors and Minors. He is bending all the powers of his mighty mind to arrange the great and
truculent feud between Drury and Davidge, the Garden and the Wells; while his eminent brother is
occupied in settling the quarrels between Russia and Poland. In oratory he has not suceeeded ; which
his il-willers attribute to his injudicious custom of applying too liberal a stimulus of brandy before
venturing on the desperate attempt of addressing an assembly so awful and august as that which con-
gregates in St. Stephen’s. It is a custom he should give up. By taking a turn or two with his new
theatrical friends in the barns in the country, he will be able to master nerve enough to get on before
a promiscuous rabble without applying to an ally whose aid is often too potent for those who call it in.
Of his Magazine we say nothing. Let him aud Tom Campbell squabble it out between them.

Yet we must not so part with Bulwer, after all. If he would give up his “affectations”—and_ surely
he is now old enough to do so,—and learn to believe that to be a Garrick Club dandy is not one of the
highest objects of human ambition ; if he would not fancy that the authorship of some three or four flimsy,
and one clever novel, is the perfection of literary fame; if he would forswear the use of such words as
“ liberal principles,” ‘enlarged ideas,” “‘ progress of mind,” “behind the age,” and other nonsense of the
kind, which could be used by a parrot with as much effect as by the rising talent of the day; if he would
read something, and think a little—get to harder study and a humbler mind; there is the making of some-
ca well worth praising in Bulwer ;—and when we see it, nobody will be happier to proclaim it than
ourselves,

NO Tie S.

HATEVER may be the place allotted to Lorp Lyrron in the future history of English literature,

it must be conceded that, not only in our judgment, but that of Continental Europe, he stands

forth as the most prominent and typical representative of the “ Literary Character” of his own time and

country. This position,—honourable in itself, whether to be confirmed by the judgment of posterity or

not,—he owes to that love of literature and earnest devotion to it as an art which has been the per-
vading characteristic of his life. With the prayer of the Mantuan,—

“ Me vero primum dulces ante omnia Muse,
Quarum sacra fero ingenti perculsus amore,
Accipiant,”’—
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AUTHOR OF THE SIAMESE TWINS”.
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 75

he chose his high vocation when yet a school-boy, and, ever obedient to its demands, has devoted his after-
life to the development of his powers, with a love which no other object could alienate, and an industry
which no difficulty or disappointment could tire. Inheriting an historical name, and the fortune and
position of an English gentleman, he has regarded these accidents ‘as the incentives to exertion, not the
title-deeds of sloth”; and, closing his ears to the siren voices of pleasure and indolence, has laboured more
intensely in his art than any bookseller’s hireling drudge,—toiling after the ever-fleeting Perfection with a
fixity of purpose which the golden apples of life have had no charm to weaken, For this, in the abstract,
he demands the admiration and respect of his contemporaries, while the pleasure and information which
his charming and varied writings have conveyed to them demand in no less degree their affection and
gratitude.

Tt does not fall within our purpose to attempt a critical examination of the writings and genius of this
great writer,—a task for which we have neither space, inclination, nor, indeed, the requisite information ;
and shall confine ourselves,—as is our wont,—to the few desultory reflections that occur to us.

Lord Lytton had but barely entered his teens when he first sacrificed to the Muses. We have before
us a rare little volume, entitled “Ismael : an Oriental Tale, with other Poems, by Edward George Lytton
Bulwer. Written between the Age of Thirteen and Fifteen. London, 1820.” 12mo.

In the same year was printed at Paris, but not published, a slender tome, bearing the title of “ Weeds
and Wild Flowers” (royal 8vo. 1820). This volume, indeed, is much scarcer than the earlier one, as not
only was a very limited number of copies printed, but most of these were called in by the author, from his
anxiety, it is said, to suppress the satiric sketch, “ Almacks” (pp. 46-61), with the bitter lampoon on the
Duke of Wellington, whom the youthful bard, in an earlier poem, had characterized as “ godlike.” These
primitic are, of course, curiosities ; but, perhaps, there is little in them to excite much astonishment, or
announce the advent of a great poetic genius. This, however, can hardly be said of his prize poem,
“ Sculpture,” which carried off the Chancellor’s gold medal, in 1825 ; a set of verses which, though scarcely
worthy to rank with the “Palestine” of Heber, the “Athens” of Praed, or the “‘ Apollo Belvidere” of
Milman, contains, among much that is yet crude and juvenile, many indications of poetic ability. It is
the custom to decry “ prize poems,” and Jerdan* has the remark that Cambridge has scarcely produced a
single one worthy the after-fame of a successful writer ; but we quite concur with Professor Wilson, who
holds them in high estimation, and mentions many with the warmest eulogy.t But to return.

Although there are hardly any departments of English literature in which Bulwer has not made essay
—attaining supreme excellence in some, and rising above mediocrity in all,—it is, we presume, as a NOVELIST
that, first and foremost, his pretensions have to be regarded. Here we have several marked distinctions of
class. Of one,  PenHam ” (1828) may be taken asa type. This, which at once raised its youthful author
to a high rank among living writers of fiction, is a witty, smart, epigrammatic novel, exciting wonder as to
how its precocious knowledge of men and manners had been come at, and delighting by its thrilling incident,
powerful descriptions, and the vividness of its dramatic situations. What more picturesque than the ride
home from the races, and the finding of the body of the murdered Tyrrell? What more pathetically
humorous than the visit to the old college chum, Christopher Clutterbuck? { What more graphic than
the visit to the flash crib, and the escape with the repentant accomplice from the clutches of Brimstone
Bess? One often hears the assertion that Bulwer has written “nothing better” than “ Pelham”; and
this may be accepted as a truth, with the modifying words “in this line.” “ Zanoni” belongs to a different
class, and in this, too, the author reaches his culminating point. Here we have not to do with the heroes
and villains of everyday life, but with beings who belong, in part, to another sphere, and deal with
mysterious and occult agencies. The forgotten lore of the Cabala is unfolded ; the extinguished furnace of
the alchemist lighted anew ; the solitary lamp of the Rosicrucian re-illumed. The motto of this extraordi-
nary book might well have been taken from the Jntroduction,—“ It is ® romance, and it is not a romance.
It is a truth for those who can comprehend it; and an extravagance for those who cannot.” Here, then,
we have another of those works, which, like “ Faust,” dealing in types or symbols,—as, indeed, every
work of true art does,—is objectively correlated with the thoughts and feelings of other minds, and has,
according to the diversities of these, an instructive and various significance. It is nothing that the author
cannot, or does not choose, to tell us himself what lesson he intended to convey, or pronounce which of the
many “keys” or explanations which readers,—some, no doubt, acting upon Leigh Hunt’s instructions,—

“ Make all you read on him
Seem what you thought of it ;
Palm your own creed on him,
Though he knew nought of it ;””—

have forwarded for his approbation. The most cursory reader of the book must have some dawning of the
fact that something is intended to be suggested to his mind more subtle and impalpable than that which is
embodied to his senses. Then comes the attempt to discover what this is, and the absurdities into which
interpreters fall, from unaided and unskilful search. The science of signs is the very folly of wisdom, as

* Literary Gazette, vol. 155, p. 586.
+ © Noctes Ambrosianz,” vol. i. p. 59.
{ It was a remark in this chapter, indicating no great respect for verbal criticism, which called forth the late
Dr. Donaldson’s coarse attack upon the author. See the “ a of the Greeks,”’ 6th edition, 1849, note to p. 44.
K
76 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

Rabelais* has shown with equal wit ’and truth. But in this case a clue is offered to the reader, which,
though not the author's own, is at least so far admitted and adopted by him as may be signified by his
selecting it from others as the production of “one of the most eminent of living writers,’+ and appending
it to his edition of the novel of 1853. According to this ‘key,’ by the character of Mejnour we are to
understand Science ; by Zanoni, Idealism ; by Viola, the Human Intellect and Heart ; by the child, New-
born Instinct ; by Aidon-ai, Faith ; by the Dweller on the Threshold, Mear ; by Mervale, Conventionalism ;
by Nicot, Passion ; by Glyndon, Unsustained Aspiration ; and so on,—while the main object of the whole
is to show that the universal Human Lot is, after all, that of the highest privilege. Thus, Conventionalism
goes plodding on; Selfish Passion perishes ; Instinct sleeps ; and Idealism learns the lesson that self-
sacrifice is the means of true redemption. Here, then, is one interpretation, and this is truth to him that
troweth it. But it will not be true to all; for, as an old Platonist has it, “ahundred men may read the
same book by the aid of the same lamp, yet all may differ on the text ; inasmuch as the lamp only lights the
characters,—the mind must divine the meaning.”

A third class of Lord Lytton’s novels are those comprised in the “ Caxton” series. Here we have the
most minute, and, at the same time, broad and masterly delineations of character and incident, in language
of the utmost polish and refinement. So perfected, indeed, has the style become, that it is almost vicious
from the absence of vice. We miss the sparkling vivacity of the earlier novels, and long, now and then,
for the negligentia non ingrata which Cicero advises the orator to let appear in his discourse. But it is
natural not to admire perfection ; and, after all, we cannot but wonder at the artistic skill by which the
novelist has avoided monotony by the alternation of pathos, humour, and the various elements of his
narration. ‘ Pelham,” perhaps, sinned by being too pointed and epigrammatic ; since its composition
the author has laboured and studied as few men have, and he has now to avoid another extreme, and
beware of that excess of strength which becomes the most vertain weakness. Again, regarding Lord Lytttn
as our representative man of letters, it is curious to observe how little national he is as a writer. Scott and
Galt are eminently Scotch ; Carleton and Banim, Irish ; Dickens and Thackeray, English ; Paul de Kock
and Balzac, French ; and so on; but Lord Lytton is cosmopolitan, and gives little or no indication of his
nationality in his works, which might, indeed, be translations from another language. This arises, in part,
from the subjective character of his intellect, and the prevalence of his imaginative over his reasoning
faculties.

A favourite book of ours is “ The Student,”—that brilliant series of essays, which, light and discursive
as they may be, seem to bring us into more direct communion with the mind of Bulwer than his more
pretending works ; we read it ever and anon with pleasure, and would say of its author, as Bentley asserted
of Bishop Pearson, that “the very sweepings of his study are gold-dust.”

Is Bulwer a poet? We have no space to discuss the question, or even enumerate in proof his written
poems, which may fairly be left to the judgment of a later generation. But this is needless. Seek the
evidence in his works of Fiction, his History, his ‘‘ Essays,” his exquisite “Lady of Lyons,’—that most
charmingly beautiful among the productions of the modern drama,—and if you are unable to discern the
presence of all-pervading, plastic, informing poetic feeling, you had better shut up the books, and devote
yourself to the study of formal logic.

Is Bulwer a pure and healthy writer? Here, again, apply your own unbiassed judgment. The
“ moralists,”—those blow-flies of literature,—have been busy about their prey ; searching out the tainted
spot,—if it existed,—otherwise, rendering that unsound with their own venom which was wholesome
before. Well, each has had his busy day, and buzzed, and blown, and stunk, according to his nature.
Party-feeling, moreover, has been invoked to bias criticism that should have been purely literary ; and
jealousy and envy, in various guise, have not been idle. We have, it is true, his brilliant “‘ Word with the
Public”; but Bulwer has rarely condescended to notice the attacks upon him. Imbued with that love of
fame which an ancient author tells us is the spur of noble minds, he has pursued his course, unhasting and
unresting, gaining inch by inch with resolute toil, and making the goal of one day the starting-place of the
next. He has his reward: already the judgment of the present anticipates that of the future, and we see
the dawning of that day when, obscured by no lingering film of detraction, the genius of Lord Lytton
will shine forth in our literary sphere with the purity of a globe of dew in the light of the everlasting
morning.

* “ Pantagruel,” liv. ii. chap. xix.
+ Are we far wrong in our supposition that the mystagogue in this instance is Miss Martineau ?
 

 

AUTHOR OF THE LIVES OF THE BRITISH PAINTERS” &e.
(a)

‘ No, 28.—ALLAN CUNNINGHAM.

ONEST Allan Cunningham! Such is the flattering sobriquet by which the worthy fellow who sits
on the opposite page is generally known ; and no title is better deserved. We think that his very
face is almost a sufficient guarantee for its justice.

Allan’s biography is sufficiently known to excuse us from the task of writing it over again. Like
Ben Jonson, he began with trowel and mallet, which he abandoned for divine poetry ;—not, however,
abandoned as completely as Rare Ben, because he has wielded them, or superintended their wielding, in a
higher department ; and, instead of helping to build up houses for the savages of Nithisdale and the
adjoining districts, acting now as aide-de-camp to Chantrey, it is his province to assist in bringing forth the
features of those distinguished individuals whom the public delighteth to honour, or who delight to honour
themselves, by setting up graven images of heads, frequently as brainless and impenetrable as the marble
out of which they are hewn, for no small consideration. In this post we believe that Allan has found a
resting-place for his maturing years, more comfortable than those in which the Muses are too often fond of
quartering their votaries.

He has himself expressed his dissatisfaction with his own Scotch novels, as compared with those of
Sir Walter Scott ; but we must not allow him to make a comparison so odious. ‘“‘ Who,” says the Greek
proverb, ‘is to compete with Apollo at the bow”? We admit with, or rather without, pleasure, that we
do not recollect what all the novels of our friend Allan are about; but we have a misty recollection of
their being very fine matters, full of chivalry, and Scotland, and clouds, and warriors, and Cameronians, in
the most approved Caledonian fashion ; and of “ Paul Jones” we have already recorded a most favourable
opinion, which we have no idea of retracting in this our infallible Magazine. Nor, though we have reviewed
his “Maid of Elvar,” and read with singular delight his “Sir Marmaduke Maxwell,’ and other dramatic
compositions, full, as Sir Walter says, of “fine passages that lead to nothing,” are these more lengthy
compositions impressed with much vivid distinctness upon our mental retina. But his songs, who shall
forget? Who that has any taste for ballad poetry will have let slip from his memory those beautiful speci-
mens of that style of composition in its most exquisite perfection, which, under the pretence of being
fragments of Galloway and Nithisdale songs, were published by an especial ass of the name of Cromek, on
whom Allan—in that particular, not honest Allan, but about as dishonest as Chatterton—palmed them as
genuine. They are simply chefs-d’euvre, and are almost, but not entirely, equalled by the Jacobite relics,
which he at another period, but in a similar mood of humbug and inspiration, gave to the not-altogether-
unsuspecting, nor the altogether-in-such-arts-unpractised Hogg. It is foolish to compare either him or
Hogg with Burns—they are all three Scotch, and all three makers of verses ; but there the similarity ends.
Cunningham has his own merits—he will never be able to write a song with Burns ; but Burns never
could have turned off a ballad like him. :

So far for Allan’s inner man. In his outer he is one of the Anakim of literature—Doric in the pro-
portions of his frame as in his poetry—a strapping specimen of Caledonia stern and wild, who, if he be
not a great deceiver, would be as well able to maintain his claim to the crown of the causey as Dandie
Dinmont himself ; and if we do not mistake, he takes care that every one of his heroes, in all his works,
both of prose and verse, should be as ably built as himself—all well-qualified members of the six-feet club,
et supra. In all other matters he is a good-natured, good-humoured, good-hearted fellow, jogging on through
the world with merited good fortune, increasing every year, and, we are happy to say, seeing those who
are to follow him in his name raising themselves to well-won honours, and launching in the career of life
with every hope and prospect of deserved success.

“ And sae gude night, my bonny man }
And sae gude night, quo’ she;
And a stouter chiel in a’ Scotland
Ye’ll never live to see.”

 

NOLES.

“TRapition’s lyre he plays
With firm and skilful hand,
Singing the olden lays
Of his dear native land.”

So sings “a brither Scot,”—the modern Pythagorean hight,—of this, the last in the glorious trinity of
peasant poets whom we linked together in our “notes” upon the “ Ettrick Shepherd.” Nor is ALLAN
73 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

CUNNINGHAM unworthy of this honourable association ; for we have the authority of Sir Walter himself
to justify our opinion that, in regard to the noble volume of Scottish song,—“ no man—not even
Burns—has contributed more beautiful effusions to enrich it.”* Whence comes it, we are tempted to ask,
that the spirit of Poetry,—forsaking the verdant Mount of Phocis, and Castalia’s spring, beloved of old,—
finds her chosen home amid the misty hills and heather-covered moors of this wild and rugged land? Why,
rather than those who have lingered awhile in the groves of Academus, does she choose for her exponents
the large-handed, rough-featured sons of toil, and voices unmodulated by the culture of learning and
society? The answer is manifold. First, there is the national character,—that prefervidum ingenium
Scotorum, which carries the hardy Northmen, and .keeps them erect, wherever the cause is noblest, and the
battle of life the fiercest. Then there is the sublime, inspiring, natural scenery of their own historic land,—
their

“ Caledonia, stern and wild,
Meet nurse for a poetic child;”

and the traditions, with which their infancy is fed, of a country which has for centuries been the battle-
field of national and religious liberty. The pastoral occupation, again, with its day-long hours of solitary
self-commune and introspection, conduces, among other causes, to the development of the poetic tempera-
ment, and kindles an enthusiasm for the unknown and the unseen, which is prompt to break forth into
ardent, unbidden song. There is yet another potentagency. If the Scottish peasant owes little or nothing
_ to education, his imagination is unrestrained by the trammels of classicism, and unpolluted by the lore of

an outworn and effete mythology. But, deep down in his soul, a part of his very self, is enrooted a pro-
found religious feeling, that sense of relation with, and dependence upon, the supreme Spirit of the universe,
without which nothing great has ever been, or ever will be, said or done; it is with the living coal from
the altar that his soul is enkindled ; and the very language in which he spontaneously utters his thoughts,
is informed by that sublime strain of poetry and prophecy which was his earliest lesson at his mother’s
knee, and which now, in his hardy manhood, he does not neglect, as he seeks the daily lesson of humility

and piety in that sacred book,—
‘The big ha’ Bible, ance his father’s pride,”

whose well-worn leaves serve at once to remind him of the past, instruct him in the present, and speak to
him of the future.

James Hogg, in one of his many autobiographical narratives, gives a pleasant account of the visit paid
to him, when herding his master’s ewes on the great hill of Queensberry, by the brothers, James and Allan
Cunningham. The latter is described as ‘a dark, ungainly youth of about eighteen, with a boardly frame
for his age, and strongly-marked, manly features,—the very model of Burns, and exactly such a man. Had
they been of the same age, it would not have been easy to distinguish the one from the other.” They spent
the afternoon reciting their own verses ; partaking of the Shepherd’s “ scrip and store of sweet milk”; and
finishing up with “a strong bottle,” which the elder Cunningham had with him, and which “served to keep
up their spirits to a late hour.” Qn another occasion, the youthful bard, when gaining his daily bread as a
stonecutter in Nithsdale, made a pilgrimage on foot to Edinburgh, for the sole purpose of seeing the author
of “ Marmion,”—afterwards to become a fast friend,—as he passed along the street.

The title, ‘‘ Honest Allan,” so applicable that it has “stuck,” was given to him by Sir Walter Scott,
who pronounced him “a leal and true Scotsman of the old cast.” But let us hear Christopher North, who
tells another story :—‘‘ The most famous thieves in our time have been Rob, James, and Allan. But the
thief of all thieves is the Nithsdale and Galloway thief. ...... Thief and forger as he is, we often
wonder why he is permitted to live. Many is the sweet stanza he has stolen from Time,—that silly auld
carle who kens not even his own,—many the life-like line, and many the strange single word that seems to
possess the power of all the parts of speech.”+ This is partly in allusion to the share which the young poet
had in the “‘ Nithsdale and Galloway Relics” of Cromek, much of which was unquestionably the composi-
tion of Allan, or had heen so happily “‘tinkered up” by him (as Hogg has it) as to become his own. A
good deal has been done in this way to meet the demand of the lovers of antiquity. There was a certain
Rev. Robert Lambe, who, half a century ago, was a capital hand at the fabrication of “ancient ballads.”
He it was who foisted the well-known “ Laidly Worm” on Evans, who included it in the first edition of
his collection, The plan of this gentleman was to get his “innocent impostures” printed at Newcastle.
Hence they were distributed among the peasantry by hawkers and flying stationers, and thus fell under
the notice of collectors, who received them without demur as genuine relics of antiquity. In this way,
some of them are supposed to have gained admission—as others by Surtees certainly have—into Scott's
“Border Minstrelsy,” and similar collections. Hogg, the moment Cromek’s book came to his hand,
discerned the strains of his friend, and describing the sensations of delight with which he heard Morrison
read the “ Mermaid of Galloway,” kept naming the author at every verse. It was his constant belief
and assertion that his friend Allan was author of all that was beautiful in the work. Scott was of the
same opinion, and Hogg wrote a review, in which he “laid the saddle,” as he says, “on the right horse ”;
but Jeffrey, though “convinced of the fraud which had been attempted to be played off on the public, did
not think it worthy of exposure,” and returned the article.

* Letter to Allan Cunningham. (Lockhart’s “ Life of Scott,” p. 441.)
+ “Winter Rhapsody,” Fytte the First. Blackwood’s Magazine, vol. xxix. p. 300.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AUTHOR OF THE EXCURSION.
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 79

The genius of Allan Cunningham, unlike that of Hogg, was essentially lyrical. It was incapable of
sustained flight, and was best evinced in the poetry of songs and ballads, where concentration was
necessitated, as Allan did not know when to hold his hand. Scott classed “ among the best songs going,”
the “Wet sheet and a flowing sea,” and the touching piece, “It’s hame, and it’s hame,” which Mrs.
Lockhart, his daughter, sang so charmingly. The magnificent ballad “Sir Roland Greme” is one of the
finest specimens of word-painting out of Homer,—full of dash, vigour, and energy. Then there are the
“ Mermaid of Galloway,” “She’s gane to dwell in Heaven,” “ Bounie Lady Anne,” “The Lord’s Marie,”
and many others, which are, in their way, of the very highest order of merit. It is, indeed, upon these, and
his contributions to Cromek’s “ Relics,” that his reputation must rest. His genius,—unlike, again, in this
respect, that of Hoge,—ripened in early life, before he had mixed with the world, or derived any assistance
from books. His prose, it is true, was improved by culture, but his verse deteriorated, or, at any rate,
lost that particular merit which gave it its value. Among his prose works the most remarkable is his
* Lives of the Most Eminent British Painters, Sculptors, and Architects” (6 vols. 12mo.), written for
Murray’s “ Family Library,” in 1830-3. This book will be ever read with pleasure for its poetic tone
and generous spirit, though it must be pronounced wanting in that breadth of knowledge and sagacity
of discrimination which must be possessed by any one who pretends, at the present day, to the character
of an art critic. Allan Cunningham is author also of a “ Life of Sir David Wilkie” (1843, 3 vols. 8vo.) ;
a novel, “ Paul Jones”; and two or three others, now forgotten, of whose merits or otherwise we do not
remember enough to enable us to speak.

Few men have been more esteemed in life than the subject of these notes. He was described by one
who knew him well as “a self-educated, self-reliant, self-asserting man, open-handed and straightforward, with
unusual sagacity and rare common sense.” The warm-hearted Hogg, alluding to his first interview with
Allan, says, “ Thus began at that bothy in the wilderness a friendship and a mutual attachment between
two aspiring Scottish peasants, over which the shadow of a cloud has never yet passed,”—and further says
of his friend, “‘ He is all heart together ; without reserve either of expression or manner ; you at once see
the unaffected benevolence, warmth of feeling, and firm independence of a man conscious of his own recti-
tude and mental energies.” Nor has the Shepherd less regard for the intellectual capabilities of his early
friend. “I was astonished,” says he, “at the luxuriousness of his fancy. It was boundless ; but it was the
luxury of a rich garden overrun with rampant weeds. He was likewise then a great mannerist in expression,
and no one could mistake his verses for those of any other man. I remember seeing some imitations of
Ossian by him, which I thought exceedingly good ; and it struck me that that style of composition was
peculiarly fitted for his vast and fervent imagination.” Lockhart, Jerdan, and Sir Walter Scott were his
friends through life ; and it was through the interest of the latter that cadetships were obtained for his two
sons. In London, besides his literary engagements, he obtained an honourable employment as a kind of
“clerk of works” in the studio of Sir Francis Chantrey, the eminent sculptor. Here the poetical character
of his mind, no less than his connection with publishers and the press generally, was of great service to his
employer, while the pecuniary honorarium, and the association with the literary and other celebrities who
crowded to the studio of the fashionable artist, were of no less advantage to himself. His lot would thus,
in its externals, seem to have been pretty prosperous. But such a career as his is attended with worry and
anxiety, care and disappointment, that the world knows not of ; and its recompense is inadequate, even when
successful, All this wears a man out before his time, and so it was, we are afraid, with “honest Allan,
who died at the early age of 56, October 29th, 1842,

 

LE UF ODS

No, 29.-WILLIAM WORDSWORTH,

“THERE'S something in a flying horse,
There’s something in a huge balloon,”

—as the poet of “ Peter Bell” says ; and we may add, there’s something in an easy chair—for in one, as
our readers will observe by casting their eyes on the opposite picture, sits that poet aforesaid, namely
William Wordsworth himself, in proprid persond.

No man of his generation has been so much praised and abused. He.truly prophesied, in his preface
to “Lyrical Ballads,” that these poems woud be enthusiastically admired, or consigned to the uttermost
contempt. Not long after their publication, the cackling brood of the Edinburgh reviewers came into
80 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN,

existence, and they were determined to ‘crow down Wordsworth. Some local We=tmoreland spite actuated
Brougham; and Jeffery was from the beginning, as he will be to the end, a mean and petty creature.
Accordingly, the “Lyrical Ballads,” and all that ever fell from Wordsworth’s muse, were decried as the
most unmeaning nonsense that ever emanated from the brain of a driveller ; and though they fought their
way gallantly up in the world, in the teeth of this adverse criticism, and much more founded upon it
(for of hack critics it is true as of dogs, that the filth of one acts as an incentive to the filth of another),
yet, to the very last of Jeffery’s career, Wordsworth was set down as an ass, great as that belaboured by
Peter Bell. A criticism even on the “ Excursion,” the greatest didactic poem in our language, commenced
with “ This will never do.”

He may now despise the Edinburgh reviewers, and all that to them appertains; but they had their
effect in their day. Even Lord Byron, when attacking the crew in his “English Bards and Scotch Re-
viewers,” fell into their slang ; and the strictures which he poured forth so unsparingly on Wordsworth—
simple Wordsworth—were taken from the Hdinburgh Review. It will be seen, by the edition of his works
now editing for Murray, that his lordship repented afterwards of his injustice, and described his sarcasms
as unfair and illiberal. Without this testimony we might have inferred the fact from the circumstance of
his having imitated the great Laker in some half-dozen of his poems, and transferred some of the most
striking passages of him whom, in “ Don Juan,” he stigmatized as “mad beyond all hope,” into the most
celebrated of his own productions.

The reaction which took place in Lord Byron’s mind has taken place in the mind of the reading
populace in general, and people are now good enough to admit that the author of the “ Sonnets to Liberty,”
“ Laodamia,” “ Dion,” the “Song in Brougham Castle,” the ‘Old Cumberland Beggar,” the “Sweet High-
land Girl,” ‘Yarrow Revisited,” the “ White Doe of Rylstone,” and fifty other things, any of which would
immortalize an ordinary writer, is something of a poet to be named in the days which have produced
an Alaric Watts or a Robert Montgomery. His fame will increase, and the more steadily the more such
productions as the “Idiot Boy,” and ‘“ Alice Fell,” and all the rest of that tribe of compositions, are
forgotten.

i This he will not believe. Talk to Wordsworth of the “Idiot Boy,” at which all mankind have
laughed, and he will tell you, with a most solemn intonation of voice, and great magniloquence of style,
that Charles Fox was most particularly struck with admiration of that very poem, and caution you against
committing the rash act of censuring a production written by such a poet as Wordsworth, and panegyrized
by such a critic as Fox. The various other pieces of nonsense which he has published are furnished with
sponsors equally famous ; and as parents are generally strenuous in defence or patronage of their rickety
children, so does the sropy of our poet shine most conspicuously in favour of those compositions which,
to eyes not parental, appear the most deformed and unsightly. Any man of common sense in half an
hour would, by blotting a couple of dozen pages from Wordsworth’s works, render them secure from
criticism ; but these very couple of dozen are the pages which he would most strenuously insist on
retaining, stunning you with oratory to prove them the most superb things ever composed.

For the rest, he is a good sturdy Tory, a most exemplary man in all the relations of life, and a stamp-
master void of reproach.

 

NOT ES.

HE influence which the genius of Witt1am Worpsworts has had upon our poetic literature, and the

position which will be allotted to him in its future history, involve questions of too great importance

to allow of their being discussed with anything like commensurate amplitude in the limited space at our
command. <A brief attempt may, nevertheless, be made.

A broad glance over the domain of English literature results in its division into three great epochs, or
ages. The first, or Elizabethan, at the latter part of the sixteenth, and extending over the seventeenth
century, and deriving its pervading influence, in great measure, from the literature of Italy ; the second, or
Augustan, during the earlier years of the eighteenth century, and indebted to France for its imitative
impulse ; lastly, the third, which, rather taking its inspiration from Germany, sprang into birth with the
century which is now about to enter upon its latter quarter. In the first great era of our national poetry,
after Minot, Chaucer, and Gower, we have Spenser, Shakspeare, and Sir Philip Sydney. Then Milton,
and Donne, and Cowley, and—for we may include these, too, among poets—Hooker, Jeremy Taylor, Bacon,
and Sir Thomas Browne. This literature was, what literature ever has been and ever will be, the
reflex of the age—its habits and modes of thought—of which it is the offspring, and we find it, accordingly,
natural, impetuous, unrestrained, heroic and tender. Civilization now became diffused ; polish and refine-
ment of manners followed ; and nature shrank back before the approach of art and luxury. The second
era now comes on, with Drypen, Porr, and Swirt as its presiding genii. Tumultuous passion, effervescent
emotion, the grandeur of humanity, and the sublimity of nature, are no longer the themes of the poet. It
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 81

was rather with those artificial and conventional materials so happily summarized by Cowper, that he sought
—and with consummate ability, too,—to co-ordinate in hig polished verse :—

“‘________Roges for the cheeks,
And lilies for the brows of faded age ;
Teeth for the toothless, ringlets for the bald ;
Heaven, earth, and ocean, plunder’d of their sweets ;
Nectareous essences, Olympian dews,
Sermons, and City feasts, and favourite airs ;
Ethereal journeys, submarine exploits ;
And Katerfelto, with his hair on end
At his own wonders, wondering for his bread. ’*

Here, too, the poetry of the age was representative of its character,—artificial, imitative, licentious,
and frivolous. Nature herself was pruned into regularity ; the lawn shaven, the tree clipped, and the
garden cut up in geometrical parterres. But Dryden had manly energy, and transcendent ability ; Pope
was a ‘poet of a thousand years” ;—and their influence extended to the commencement of the present
century. At that period the classical school had become degenerate and effete in the hands of such poets
as Darwin, Hayley, Pye, Seward, and the Della Cruscans. Reversing the rules of art, as illustrated by
Homer, Hesiod, and Theocritus, in the earliest times, some of these writers,— Darwin especially, who was
a man of great talent,—had endeavoured to treat poetically scientific and other subjects, which, being
wholly incompatible with pathos and passion, were deficient in the essential elements of poetry. The
others were entirely false, feeble, and artificial, and owed their evanescent popularity to florid metaphor,
command of language, and polish of versification. But already there were glimpses of a brighter day-
spring. Goldsmith and Johnson had appeared; Akenside and Thomson followed ; and broader daylight
shone before the path of Cowper. Ridicule became once more the test of truth ; Frere and Canning, in
the “ Anti-Jacobin,” laughed down the “Loves of the Plants,” and Gitford in his “ Baviad and Meviad,”
annihilated the pretensions of Laura Matilda and the Della Cruscans. In Scotland, Burns had poured forth
his heart in passionate song, and untimeously passed away ; but he had left behind him, like Cowper, an
influence over the nascent era which cannot be overrated. Crabbe, too, was sternly painting nature ; and
Campbell and Southey, each more or less influenced by old traditions, were preparing for less restricted
flight. Society had been rudely upturned. Old modes and habits of thought were disturbed by the writings
of Voltaire and Rousseau among the French ; by the great political and social Revolution, of which they
were the precursors ; by the speculative theories of the French Academicians ; by the Illuminati, the
mysticists, and the transcendental school of German philosophy. It is now time to speak of WorpswortH.
Born April 7th, 1770, at Cockermouth, in Cumberland, he was educated at Cambridge, where he graduated
M.A. Wandering over to France, full of hope and enthusiasm, he was an eye-witness of those terrible
scenes by which the sacred cause of liberty was polluted, and the progress of democracy almost hopelessly
checked. Disillusioned and regretful, he returned to his native home, in the mountain district of the
North of England. Here, in the midst of the most glorious scenery in the world, he laid down that plan of
future life to which he ever after adhered with a singleness and tenacity of purpose to which we shall
hardly find a parallel. His main object was the studious culture of his faculties as a poet, by communion
with nature in her grandest aspects ; by the study of books; by intercourse with congenial minds ; and
lastly, by the enjoyment of those amenities of social and domestic life which had so marked and purifying
an influence over the lives of Cowper, Southey, and Scott.

It was in 1798, in conjunction with Coleridge, that he published the first volume of his “ Lyrical
Ballads.” In them he first gave examples of that peculiar theory of poetry which he developed, to a greater
or less extent, throughout the entire course of his subsequent poems. He considered that incidents and
situations might be chosen from ordinary life, and described or related in the general language of men, and
yet have the power of exciting the sympathy of the reader, by the colouring which they might receive from
the imagination, and their reference to the primary and universal laws of human nature. In 1800 appeared
the second volume, in the preface to which the author defines his object to be an experiment as to how far
the purposes of poetry might be fulfilled, “by fitting to material arrangement a selection of the real
language of men, in a state of vivid sensation.” It is quite out of our power to discuss here the truth of
the principle involved in these propositions, or the extent to which the author has carried it out in his
works. Sir Joshua Reynolds has been accused of having laid down rules, and achieved his own fame by
their infringement. So Wordsworth, we think, has set at nought his own precepts in those higher flights
of his muse by which he will be remembered ; though, at the same time, we cannot deny that his theory
has had a certain influence upon his practice,—sometimes by rendering his poetry commonplace, puerile,
and affected, but more generally by investing it with that noble and dignified simplicity which is one of its
greatest charms.

Wordsworth is already a classic ; his name is canonized in the world’s breviary as one of its best and
noblest poets. It is in him, as Wilson hints, that is to be found a union of the severe grandeur of the
Grecian with the wilder charm of the romantic school. Scott knew no man more to be venerated for
uprightness of heart and loftiness of genius:t Hogg points out the richness of his poetry, especially for

* “The Task,” book iv.
+ “Memoirs,” by Lockhart, p. 441.
L
a2 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

quotations :—“ For these they are a mine that is altogether inexhaustible. There is nothing in nature that
you may not get a quotation out of Wordsworth to suit, and a quotation, too, that breathes the very soul
of poetry. There are only three books in the world that are worth the opening in search of mottos and quota-
tions, and all of them are alike rich. These are the Old Testament, Shakspeare, and the poetical works of
Wordsworth ; and, strange to say, the ‘ Excursion’ abounds most in them.” Wordsworth was essentially
the poet of Nature ; the world has never witnessed a self-dedication nobler or more complete than his to his
great mistress, and to the general cultivation of his art for its loftiest and purest purposes. It is on the
sure foundation of nature and truth that his reputation is laid, and not on the shifting sands of fashion
and conventionalism. It is thus that we predict for him a certain immortality, together with the increasing
reverence and gratitude of mankind for the noble moral lesson of his life, and the teachings of the whole
body of his poetry. For what have these been but the fostering of love between man and man; the
avoidance ‘of the insidious materialism into which the love of nature may degenerate ; that dignity and
grace reside in humble feelings, and susceptibility in humble bosoms ; that the forms of nature, lovely as they
are, have no life, except as related to Man and his Maker ; that there is a certain correlation between the
mind and the external world ; that the earth is dark unless illumined by the imagination ; and, finally,
that noble poetry can be constructed without the aid of supernatural machinery or artificial excitants. For
these, and many more such teachings, and for the restoration of our poetical literature to truth and nature,
let us be fervently grateful to William Wordsworth, and piously repeat his own words,—

“ Blessings be with him, and eternal praise,
— The Poet, who, on earth, has made us heirs
Of Truth, and pure delight, by heavenly lays.”

To Wordsworth was allotted great length of days, of which it may be said with perfect truth that his
own wish was fulfilled in their being

“ Bound each to each by natural piety ”

 

so untnterruptedly did they pass in the unostentatious discharge of religious duty, the performance of
his self-allotted tasks, and the cultivation of the sweet and ennobling charities of domestic life.

The office which he had long held of stamp distributor for the district, he had been permitted to resign
in favour of his son ; and his life was rendered easy by a pension of £300 per annum from the Government
of Sir Robert Peel. He died April 23rd, 1850, at the age of 80. ~

No, 30.—SIR DAVID BREWSTER.

EAR FRASER,—I have written my own life three times, and hope to write it as many times more
before I die ; and Iam therefore at a loss to know why you did not apply to Sir David himself.
Since, however, this has not been thought of, you may bid your chap of all work say that Brewster was
boru in Jedburgh anno Domini 1782, come of decent worthy folk there, and one of a family of brothers
who have all distinguished themselves in life. He got the prizes at the college, and then was licensed ; but
the first day he mounted the pulpit was his last—for he had then, if he has not still, a nervous something
about him that made him swither when he heard his own voice, and saw a congregation eyeing him: so he
sticked his discourse, and vowed never to try that job again. It was a pity for the Kirk, which has in
our time had few literary ornaments to brag of, by Dr. Chalmers, and Gillespie of Cults, and John Rich-
mond of Southdean ; but it was a good day’s work for Science ; for if the doctor (I have scarce yet learned
to call him Sir David) had gotten a manse, he might most likely have taken to his toddy like other folk,
and considered a “ Synod Sermon” as the ultimatum. However, he forthwith set himself to what has
been a better trade for him than it is ever likely to be for poor me ; and, among other matters, devised the
gvand scheme of the Ldinburgh Encyclopedia, which was certainly the first really good thing of the kind,
and is still, in my opinion, about the best of them; for it is complete in itself, touched up in every part
with the sharpness of one all-presiding mind, and not a jumble of good, bad, and indifferent, gushed out
ram-stam from the ladle of an ignoramus, as is the visible case of too many—always excepting the Metro-
politana. In fact, I find Allerly’s book a sine non qué. It tells me everything I want to know, and a
cursed deal more—but that’s not his fault.

This great affair having begun to feather the doctor’s nest (by which I mean a nice snug flat at the
corner of Charlotte Square, nearly above Adam Duff the sheriff’s), he became the secretary of the Royal
Society, and gradually capped everything in the scientific line; but still adhered to the same simple
manners and total want of selfconceit that had originally recommended him ; and so it went on, until
 

BE

Sr f &

 

     

 

ee
EP

 
   

  

SES
SS

   

Fe

OF THE LIF

F NEWTON.

F

QD

2

AUTHOR
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 83

within these few seasons, when he purchased land, and removed bodily to Tweedside. He is now merely
a most respectable country gentleman, amusing himself at leisure hours with his books and instruments, of
both of which his tosh seat of Allerly, just fornent Melrose, contains a glorious assemblage.

Here he has invented the kaleidoscope, by which, if he had been at all a worldly-wise man, he must
have realized thousands ; but which, though it has made a hundred shopmen rich, never, I believe, brought
him a sixpence. Here he has written his ‘Life of Newton,”—by general admission one of the very first
biographies in any language—his “ Letters on Natural Magic,” as diverting as so many Arabian Tales,
besides a hantle of articles. These are the fruits of wet days in summer, and long evenings in winter. In
general he plays the laird, the farmer, the justice, during the week,—the elder of the kirk on Sunday ; no man
more universally esteemed from Loch Skene to Kelso, from the Carter to Soutra. I confess I used to consider
him a thought stiff; but, about three or four years ago, Colonel Ferguson and John Lockhart brought him
with them, when they were on one of their ploys, to Mont Benger, and that one tup’s-head, and I will not
say how many tumblers, fixed the doctor for ever with me. Since then, every Melrose and St. Boswell’s
fair I have a jollification with Allerly ; and I lay my paw on his shoulder, and say, among all your
F.R.S’s, and F.A.S8.’s, and F.L.8.’s, match me David! He has indeed some minor specialties about him.
For example, he holds that soda water is wholesomer drink than bottled beer, objects to a body’s putting a
nipper of spirits in their tea, and maintains that you ought to shave every morning and wash your feet
ae a ; but who would wish to be severe on the eccentricities of genius? The likeness in your print
1s perfect.

With compliments to the gallant clans of Lovat and Saltoun, I rest yours,

James Hoae.

P.S. Be sure you gird Allerly well about reform and his knighthood. He deserved to be a lord;
but he should never have demeaned himself to take anything from these blackguards ; and to let himself
be coupled with oor Jock !

Altrive, Oct. 10, 1832.

NODE &.

E doubt whether, in technical excellence, fidelity of resemblance, or subtlety and refinement of
characterization, the entire circuit of our “Gallery” has anything to exhibit superior to this most
charming portrait. It suggests, at once, the Man, in the midst of that “home life” which his daughter
has described so well, and the Philosopher, pondering upon eternal truths ; while, at the same time, in its
purity and simplicity, it seems to offer to us the very personification of abstract Thought. The letter, too,
signed “ James Hogg,”—one of the many rogueries perpetrated on the simple-minded Shepherd, who, as if
he had not sins enough of his own to answer for, was the convenient mouthpiece for all that his colleagues
of Fraser and Blackwood did not care about saying themselves,—is so graphic and comprehensive, that any
addition seems a work of supererogation. A few dry facts, however, still remain ; and by briefly recording
them we may supplement the epistle of the pseudo-Hogg with a few “notes,” which, if not very interesting,
may be found at least in some degree useful.

Sir Davip Brewster was born at Jedburgh, December 11th, 1781. As stated above, he was intended
for the ministry, for which, indeed, he studied and obtained a license. But Science had superior charms,
and the youthful minister quitted the pulpit for the workshop and the observatory. In 1816 he obtained
the honour of a Fellowship in the Royal Society; and in the same year the French Institute awarded to
him half the prize of 3,000fr. offered by that body for the two most important discoveries made in Europe,
in physical science, during the preceding two years. In this year, too, he invented that beautiful scientific
toy, the Katerposcopg, to the leading principles of which he was led by an accidental circumstance which
occurred to him in the course of a series of experiments on the polarization of light by successive reflections
between plates of glass, an account of which was published in the Philosophical Transactions for 1815,
and rewarded by the Royal Society of London with the Copley medal. Having brought the instrument to
perfection, the inventor was, by the advice of his friends, induced to take out a patent for it. It was
described under two different forms in the specification, and opticians in London and elsewhere were duly
authorized to fabricate and sell it. The demand was at once prodigious, and the inventor ought to have
gained a large fortune. He had, however, injudiciously divulgated its principles before he had secured the
advantages for himself. It was, moreover, simple in construction, and was capable of pleasing, even when
made without scientific accuracy. Hence, it was largely pirated, no fewer than two hundred thousand, it
is calculated, having been sold in three months in London and Paris alone. Of this number, it is asserted
by Sir David himself, that not, perhaps, one thousand were constructed upon true scientific principles, or
capable of giving anything like a correct idea of the power of the instrument. It is doubtful, too, whether
the inventor ever received a penny from the happy device which has been the source of so much profit and
pleasure to others. An apology, it is true, has been made for the freebooters, to the effect that the inven-
tion did not belong to Brewster, and that he did nothing more than work out an idea of other men. This

L2
St DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

is hardly the place to discuss the question, but we may just observe that it is a well-known fact that the
multiplication of images by the inclination of reflecting surfaces, or mirrors, at. small angles, had long
previously been treated of in works upon optics. Both Father Kircher—that great mechanical genius—
and Baptista Porta had given descriptions of a polygonal speculum ; that is, of an instrument consisting
of mirrors united at their edges, and opening like a book, so as to multiply the images of objects.
Bradley, the astronomer, had also, in 1717, constructed an instrument in which, by the inclination of two
mirrors, placed upon an object, such as an engraving, several images were obtained and disposed by succes-
sive reflections, about a centre. But neither these, nor alsoa theorem of Professor Wood’s,which has been
brought forward, have any further analogy with Brewster’s invention than that they, too, multiply the
reflected figures ; whereas the essential property of the Kaleidoscope is, that it is applicable to objects
which may be movable, and placed at any distance from the eye of the observer. But this is somewhat
dry, I am afraid; so, by way of relief, and to show that this popular instrument possesses another, and
perchance unsuspected property, that of symbolizing the passions and phases of life, as well as symmetrically
reflecting bits of coloured glass, we transcribe the following sonnet :—

LIFE.

I saw a child with a Kaleidoscope,
Turning at will the tesselated field ;
And straight my mental eye became unseal’d,
I learnt of life, and read its horoscope :
Behold, how fitfully the patterns change!
The scene is azure now with hues of Hope ;
Now sober’d grey by Disappointment strange ;
With Love’s own roses blushing, warm and bright ;
Black with Hate’s heat, or white with Envy’s cold ;
Made glorious by Religion’s purple light ;
Or sicklied o’er with yellow lust of Gold:
So, good or evil coming, peace or strife,
Zeal when in youth, and Avarice when old,
In changeful, chanceful phases passes Life.*

Sir David Brewster has given an account of his invention in his “ Treatise on the Kaleidoscope ”
(Edinburgh, 1819), which has gone through several editions. Dr. Roget has shown how the properties of
the instrument may be enlarged by employing a number of mirrors, instead of two, united at their edges,
so as to form a hollow prism. These are called “ polycentral,” and are triascopic, tetrascopic, or hexascopic,
according to the number of mirrors.f

Another of Sir David's contributions to practical science may here be mentioned, on account of the
interest which it excited at the time, from the advantage to the maritime navigation of the kingdom
which it was supposed would result from it. This was an improvement in the construction of the
illuminating department of light-houses, by the substitution of polyzonal lenses instead of parabolic
reflectors,—an adaptation, if we mistake not, of an invention of Buffon, the naturalist. Notwithstanding
the supposed importance of this principle, we believe that its practical application has been confined to
France. ;

It would be a pleasant task, had we space, to enumerate the honours of which this eminent man was
the recipient. In 1832 he was knighted by William IV., and in January, 1849, he was elected one of
the eight foreign associate members of the National Institute of France, vacant by the death of the
celebrated chemist Berzelius. The Royal Society awarded him, in 1819, the Rumford gold and silver
medals ; and he was corresponding member of most of the chief scientific associations in Europe. His
contributions to literature also were important. He edited, and largely wrote in, the Mdinburgh Hneyclo-
pedia, which was not completed till 1830. He wrote the treatise on “Optics” for Lardner’s Cabinet
Cyclopedia. In 1819, conjointly with Professor Jameson, he founded the Edinburgh Philosophic Journal,
and subsequently the Edinburgh Journal of Science. His very valuable “ Life of Newton” is mentioned
with due laudation above; and it should not be forgotten that it was he who, in 1831, proposed that
meeting at York which led to the establishment of the British Association for the Advancement of
Science.

One of the later, and not the least interesting, of the incidents in the career of Sir David Brewster as
a man of letters, was his controversy with Dr. Whewell on the subject of the “ Plurality of Worlds.” The
latter, who had perhaps felt some difficulties connected with the doctrine of the Incarnation, had written a
book teeming with that universality of learning and richness of illustration of which he was master, to
show the improbability that the planets were inhabited by other races’ similar to, but yet distinct from, the
human family ; and arguing, further, that they were as yet unfit for habitation. Brewster, whose interest
in clerical matters had not ceased when he quitted the Scottish pulpit, but formed an insoluble compound
with his scientific predilections, was strangely excited by this book. He first criticised it somewhat angrily
in the North British Review, and then wrote a more lengthy answer, in which he endeavoured to show that
the existence of more worlds than one is not only the “creed of the philosopher, but the hope of the
Christian.”

* “ An Author’s Mind; the Book of Title Pages,” p. 36. London, 1841.
+ “ Annals of Philosophy,” vol. xi.
 

AUTHOR OF THE’LIFE OF LORENZ®D DI MEDICI?
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 85

As another proof of the interest which Sir David took in matters ecclesiastical and religious, it must
not be forgotten that he was one of the foremost in the movement which led to the establishment of the
Free Church of Scotland. Connected, too, with this, or rather with his peculiar mental idiosynevasy, is the
interest which he ever took in magic, clairvoyance, and spirit-rapping. It was this tendency which led,
earlier in life, to his “ Letters on Natural Magic, addressed to Sir Walter Scott, Bart.,” written in 1832, for
Murray’s Family Library. At first he sought to explain away the various phenomena ; but latterly he is
said to have been disposed to attribute them to Satanic agency.

_ Sir David Brewster died at his seat at Allerly, near Melrose, February 10th, 1868, in the 87th year of
his age. It is worthy of note that his first wife, whom he married in 1810, and who died in 1850, was
Juliet, the youngest daughter and co-heiress of James Macpherson, Esq., of Belleville, M.P., better known
to fame as the translator or author of the “ Poems of Ossian.”

We have already alluded to the interesting, if rather desultory, ‘“ Home-Life of Sir David Brewster,”
by his daughter, Mrs. Gordon, 1869, 12mo.

 

No. 31—WILLIAM ROSCOE.

T is not exactly according to our practice to insert in this gallery of ours eminent persons defunct ; but
as we happened to have included Roscoe in our original list, we thought it a pity that the acci-
dent of his dying before we had time to give him a place should deprive him of the meditated honour.

He was born in 1753, and died in 1831—so that he had passed the age assigned by Moses to man by
some eight years. When the close of his life was approaching, he said that he had reason to be grateful for
having passed through the world so calmly, and with so many pleasurable sensations ; and we believe that
he spoke with perfect sincerity. He began life as an attorney, and was so successful in his profession that,
after some years of exertion, he was enabled to retire to enjoy his otiwm cum dignitate; from which he
was seduced, in an unlucky hour, to join a banking concern, the end of which was bankruptcy. In good
or evil fate his moral fame was untouched ; and he displayed himself equal to either fortune. His mis-
fortunes did not depress him ; and the only expression of regret that we recollect to have escaped from him
was in the beautiful sonnet on the loss of his books.

He was of a class of politicians who were mischievous enough, but he never had power sufficient to
effect mischief. He took what is commonly called the liberal side of politics, and wrote trim and pretty
common-places against war, slavery, intolerance, &c. &c., without condescending to consider these things as
anything more than words, without reference to the events of real life. Shocked at war, for instance,
when it was waged by England against the iron despotism of Napoleon, he saw nothing to shock him
when it was waged by Napoleon against us, or against all mankind. Commiserating the condition of the
West Indian peasant because he is called slave, he yet assented to, and to the utmost of his power recom-
mended, the philosophy of the Malthusians and others, who have inflicted the reality of slavery on the
peasant or manufacturer of Great Britain. In his “Leo the Tenth,” ready to defend the exertions of the
papacy, and its penal enactments, to reduce the spirit of Luther and the other apostles of the Reformation
under the bonds of the most grinding ecclesiastical tyranny, he was equally ready elsewhere to denounce as
intolerant the laws which curbed the aggressive spirit of popery in Ireland. Such, however, are the ordi-
nary hallucinations, if not something worse, of our Liberals. He was in Parliament for one session, but
he made no figure. At the next election he was pelted by the populace ; and when, in the succeeding one,
he stood again for Liverpool, he was beaten on the poll.

His two books, “ Leo the Tenth,” and ‘Lorenzo the Magnificent,” are the main props of his fame.
His poetry, though occasionally graceful, has no stamina to insure it any extended existence. But these
volumes are really a present to English—perhaps we might say to European—literature. The Italians
themselves were quite enraptured with them, and they have become classical works in Italy. Their faults
are numerous, and easily pointed out—Sismondi has done so with no very sparing hand ; and English critics of
a more masculine school than that in which Roscoe was reared, will complain of the nerveless style of
wiredrawn elegance in which they are composed. The school of Blair has indeed done much to debase and
emasculate the English language. But after making all abatements, they are works which have amply sup-
plied a great desideratum, and did no small service to our literature in turning our attention to the
glories of the Italian tongue. To have been the author of such histories is no slight fame, and we do
not wonder that Liverpool is proud of having produced Roscoe. Washington Irving’s observations, in
his “Geoffrey Crayon,” on the occasion of his landing in that city, and his reflections on the sale of
Roscoe’s library, will be recollected by all who have any feeling for generous writing. He is, we believe,
however, somewhat unjust to Roscoe’s creditors, for we understand that a most, valuable selection of the

books was offered to him, but peremptorily declined.
The picture opposite is a very exact likeness.
86 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

IO TD ES,

“ But, hark what solemn strains from Arno’s vales
Breathe raptures wafted on the Tuscan gales!
LORENZO rears again his awful head,

And feels his ancient glories round him spread ;
The Muses, starting from their trance, revive,
And, at their Roscor’s bidding, wake and live.” *

E were about to commence our “Notes” upon this classic historian, with some further allusions to
‘Washington Irving’s charming paper in the “Sketch Book”; but, perceiving that to do so would
imply that our readers are among those who have “no feeling for generous writing,” must content
ourselves with a reference to the no less admirable parody upon it, which will be found in a witty little
book, entitled ‘‘ Warreniana.”+ Here it is no longer “Geoffrey Crayon,” and the Liverpool Athenceum ;
but an anonymous American, and ‘No. 30, Strand”; it is not Roscoz the historian who excites the
reverential emotions of the traveller, but Warren the Blacking-maker ; he is not thinking of the “ voice
that has gone forth to the ends of the earth,” but “ the blacking with which he has cleaned his shoes even
in the solitudes of America!” Warren, in short, “is the literary landmark of the place”; and though
“the popular graces of his poetry” had made the pilgrim familiar with the name, “ it could not diminish
the reverence which his immediate presence inspired.” But to be serious.

Wiu1am Roscor was born March 8th, 1753, at Mount-Pleasant, Liverpool, where his father was a
publican and market gardener. He commenced life as a bookseller’s assistant, but after a month’s trial, not
liking the confinement, left the occupation, and became articled in the following year to an attorney at
Liverpool. He practised law with success in his native town for some years, but finding his aversion for
business increase in direct ratio with his love for art and literature, he retired, in 1796, from his practice,
with a moderate competency. In the following year he visited London, and with a view to practise at the
bar, entered himself at Gray’s Inn. Here, however, he did not keep more than one term ; and returning
to Liverpool, purchased a part of the Allerton estate, on which he proposed to fix his future residence, and
devote the remainder of his life to the cultivation of literature, and the pursuits of a country gentleman.

Happy would it have been for William Roscoe if he had adhered to the plan which he had thus laid
down. But if man proposes, he disposes not,—

“We do but row, ’tis fate that steers ;’? —

and, after an anchorage of a brief twelve months in the quiet haven of domestic and literary life, he found
himself once more out at sea, on the storm-tossed ocean of commerce. His friend William Clarke, who,
when residing for his health at Florence, had rendered such service to the historian by collecting materials
to illustrate the age and life of “ Lorenzo,” was at the head of an extensive banking-house. The year 1799
found this in a position of some embarrassment, and the aid of Roscoe was, in turn, sought as confidential
adviser. The difficulties were removed, chiefly through his instrumentality ; and the continuance of his aid
and influence was sought as an active partner. In an evil hour,—whether through a desire to make a
sacrifice to friendship, whether from anticipation of pecuniary advantage,— Roscoe bade farewell for ever to
his lettered ease, and exchanged the “golden reign” of Leo, for that of the Banker,—a metaphorical
reminiscence for an anticipation still more unreal and illusive. Hoe fonte derivata clades !

Before the taking of this fatal step, the “ History of Lorenzo the Magnificent ” had been given to the
world. Happily,—in one sense, at least,—after Roscoe had become a banker, he enjoyed a few years of
tranquillity, during which he had time to produce the necessary continuation of that important work, the
“ History of the Life and Pontificate of Leo X.,” the illustrious son of the subject of his former labours.
We need not speak of these works, which have long been classical. They elicited in this country the
approbation of such men as Mathias, Parr, Hayley, Vincent, Currie, Heber, and Malone; they were
welcomed with enthusiasm by the scholars of the Continent, and translated into Italian, French, and
German ; reprinted in America, and have gone through many editions in the country of their production.
If further proof of their excellence be needed, we have only to mention, that the whole body of professed
critics, with the Edinburgh Review at its head, fell foul of the later work, on account of the liberality and
generosity of its sentiments, and more especially the view which the author took of the cruelties
perpetrated by the early Reformers ; and that the ultra Romanists themselves were no better pleased, as
evinced by the fact that the Italian version was consigned by Leo XII. to the Indea Hxepurgatorius. Other
unfavourable opinions have, it is true, found occasional expression. We ourselves have heard the historian
Michelet, himself but a second-rate writer, speak in disparaging terms of Roscoe, in a lecture-room at
Paris ; but these are exceptions, aud we have no doubt that these histories will continue to be read as long
as a taste for elegant literature shall exist among us.

It is well for the fame of Roscoe as a man of letters, that he had thus early completed the great

* “ Pursnits of Literature,” ed. 1808, p. 234.
+ “Warreniana; with Notes Critical and Explanatory.’ (By W. F. Deacon.) London, 1824, 12mo.
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CILARACTERS, 87

works on which it must rest. In 1816, the banking-house with which he was connected fell once more
into those ditliculties, the occurrence of which has now unhappily become, at least in this country, a
recognized feature of a commercial career. Time and opportunity were granted for extrication, chiefly
from confidence in Roscoe and respect for his character. But this proved in vain, and the necessity
becoming apparent of realizing uot only the assets of the concern, but the private property of the partners,
Roscoe, at once, with heroic fortitude, resolved to offer to public sale his whole personal effects, including
his library, pictures, engravings, and other works of art, which it had been an important part of the
business of his life to bring together, and of which he made such a noble use. After the deprivation of
sight,—the calamity of Homer, Milton, D’Israeli, Prescott, and Thierry,—surely the greatest misfortune
which can happen to a man of letters is the loss of his books. There is a noble class of intellect which,
dealing rather with the abstract —knowing, as it would seem, much from intuition,—and retaining, moreover,
all that has ever come within its grasp,—may come, at length, to be able to dispense, in great measure, with
that from which it derived its fulness. The possessor of such a mind can say, with a fine old poet :—

“T scorne fortune, and was ever free
From that dead wealth depending on her power ;
My treasure still I beare about with me,
Which neither time nor tyrants can devoure.”*

But there is also another and inferior order of mind, as well as a more concrete branch of literary work,
which has to do with facts or figures ; and neither of these can dispense with the extraneous aid of books.
-As was said of old, Scire ubt aliquid invenire possis magna pars eruditionis est, and in this case the learning
perishes with the means of reference, as well as the labour and the pleasure of a life. The world cannot
estimate the extent of such a loss, and may thus receive pardon for allowing it to occur. “The scholar
only knows,” says Washington Irving, “ how dear these silent, yet eloquent, companions of pure thoughts
and innocent hours become in the season of adversity. When all that is worldly turns to dross around us,
these only retain their steady value. When friends grow cold, and the converse of intimates languishes into
vapid simplicity and commonplace, these only continue the unaltered countenance of happier days, and
cheer us with that true friendship which never deceived hope, nor deserted sorrow.”

Here is an expression of feelings which cannot fail to find a responsive echo in the mind of every
lover of books ; and who, among these, is there who will not sympathize with Roscoe in the anguish which
the forced severance from these objects of his love brought to his soul, and admire the manly philosophy
with which he prepared his mind to meet the blow? The following exquisite sonnet was composed by him
at this period, and expresses at once his grief and his fortitude :—

** As one who destined from his friends to part,

Regrets his loss, but hopes again erewhile
To share their converse, and enjoy their smile,

And tempers, as he may, affliction’s dart ;

Thus, loved associates, chiefs of elder art,
Teachers of wisdom, who could once beguile
My tedious hours, and lighten every toil,

I now resign you; nor with fainting heart ;

For pass a few short years, or days, or hours,
And happier seasons may their dawn unfold,
And all your sacred fellowship restore ;

When, freed from earth, unlimited its powers,
Mind shall with mind direct communion hold,
And kindred spirits meet to part no more.”

The “ Catalogues” of these various collections were very extensive, and were prepared by their owner
with his own hand, in order that they should be considered worthy a place in libraries, and thus remain a
permanent record of the literary and artistic treasures once possessed by him. The sales were well attended,
and the biddings high : the books realized £5,150; the engravings and etchings, £1,915 ; and the paintings
and drawings, £2,826. Besides these sale “Catalogues,” which are now difficult to meet with, there is
another and later memorial of the famous collection, in the shape of a slender tome, entitled “ Roscoe’s
Library ; or, Old Books and Old Times,” by the Rev. James Aspinall, M.A. (London and Liverpool, 1853,
8vo. pp. 77),—a volume which, in addition to its bibliographic information, contains some interesting
details of celebrated libraries and their dispersion.

It would probably have been better, alike for the character of Liverpool and the happiness of
Roscoe, had these collections been preserved to him. The merchants of his native city are doubtless clever
book-keepers; but in their ledger account with their distinguished townsman, they had strangely
miscalculated the amount at his credit. But at Liverpool, as Irving found, he who was known as an author
elsewhere, was “spoken of as the banker,” and here the balance was on the wrong side. A good deal,
too, may be said per contra. Roscoe’s independence of feeling would probably have led him to refuse the
gift ; much of the collection was merely ornamental ; and the total value was little short of £10,000. An
attempt was, indeed, made by a few liberal-minded friends to secure for his use the working portion of his

* “Recreations with the Mvses.’ By William Earl of Sterline. Folio. 1637. (“Tragedy of Croosus.”’)
+ The Rev. W. Shepherd, author of the “ Life of Poggio Bracciolini” ; Mr. William Rathbone; J. Brooke Yates; &c.
88 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

library. It was found, ultimately, that he could not retain even this ; and the volumes, which had been
carefully selected by Mr. Shepherd, were finally presented to the Liverpool Athenzum ; the use of them,
and the faculty of their removal from the library, being reserved, for his lifetime, to their former
possessor.

Four years of intense business labour and anxiety now ensued: at the close of which it became
obvious that the proposed plan for settling the affairs of the bank could not be carried out. Actions at law
were commenced ; the personal liberty of Roscoe was imperilled; and it became necessary, after all, to
seek relief in bankruptcy. He obtained his certificate in 1820, and found himself, at the age of 70,
bookless and a beggar, in infirm health and broken spirits. Here, once more, a few friends stepped
forward, collected a sum of £2,500, and vested it in trustees for the benefit of the historian and his family.
In 1822 he published his important “Illustrations of the Life of Lorenzo de’ Medici,” with a reply therein
to the criticisms of Sismondi. In the same year, too, he drew up a very curious-account of a poor Welsh
fisher lad,* who, though in the utmost indigence, and of weak intellect in other directions, had managed to
obtain an extraordinary knowledge of languages. He was critically acquainted with Hebrew, Greek, and
Latin ; Welsh was his mother-tongue ; English he had learnt as a foreign language ; and he both read and
spoke with fluency French and Italian. This extraordinary character had an interview with the eminent
scholar Dr. Samuel Parr. Latin was too simple to engage their attention, but they discussed the refinements
of Greek, and the works of the critics who had illustrated it. They then went off into Hebrew, and its
analogous tongues, when it became apparent that the lad—who, in point of attire, would have shamed a
beggar,—was getting the best of it. The Doctor now tried to take refuge in Chaldee, but soon had to beat
a precipitate retreat. When Jones was asked what he thought of his interlocutor, he replied with faint
praise, “‘ He is less ignorant than most men.” Roscoe draws a parallel between the circumstances of the
early life of the subject of his memoir and those of Moses Mendelssohn, the Jewish philosopher ; and
compares him in the character of his mind, and the earnestness of {his pursuits, with Magliabechi, the
learned librarian of the Grand Duke’s library at Florence. Under more favourable circumstances, he
might also have been no mean rival to the Cardinal Mezzofanti, whose linguistic acquirements will be the
marvel of all succeeding ages to the end of time. We have said this much from the curiosity of the subject,
and because the authorship is not generally known ; nor is it apparent upon the face of the fine portrait
prefixed, that the plate was etched by jMrs. Dawson Turner, of Great Yarmouth, from a drawing by
Mr. Williamson, an eminent portrait-painter, of Liverpool.

Perhaps, too, it may be new to some that it was the pen of Roscoe which furnished the admirable
preface to his friend Daulby’s ‘Catalogue of the Etchings of Rembrandt.” He translated the
“Nurse” of Luigi Tansillo,+ and was the author of that beautiful poem, ‘“O’er the vine-covered hills and
gay regions of France,” of which the reader will find an imitation in the “ Noctes Ambrosiane,” No. 53.
Of other works,—pamphlets on the slave-trade, speeches, addresses on matters political and literary, &e.,
we cannot even make mention.

To the credit of Roscoe’s discrimination it should not be forgotten that he early discovered and
encouraged the genius of the late John Gibson, the eminent sculptor, who was a frequent visitor at
Allerton Hall, and by whom, in 1827, a bust of the historian in marble was presented to the Liverpool
Royal Institution, “in gratitude to one to whom he was indebted for what little merit he might possess as a
sculptor ; who first inspired him with ideas worthy of his profession, and kindled within him an ardent
love of fame in the pursuit of it.”

This eminent man, who ennobled prosperity, dignified adversity, and cast a lustre over the town of his
nativity which will shine bright when the story of her commerce shall be as vague as that of Tyre and
Sidon, died at his residence, Toxteth Park, Liverpool, June 30th, 1831, in his eighty-first year. His life
was written by his son Henry (London, 1833, 2 vols. 8vo.), and has two portraits prefixed,—one from a
painting by John Williamson, the other engraved from the medallion by Gibson. There is also his monu-
ment, with bust, by Davis, in the Renshaw-street Chapel; a bust by Spence, of which we have an
engraving before us ; a portrait, drawn and engraved by Thompson, in the Zuropean Magazine, July, 1822 ;
another, engraved by Hopwood, “from an original picture”; and perchance others which have not found
their way into our portfolio.

 

* “Memoir of Richard Roberts Jones, of Aberdaron, in the County of Carnarvon, in North Wales, exhibiting a
remarkable Instance of a partial Power of Cultivation of Intellect.” London, 1822. 8vo. pp. 50.

+ Liverpool, 1800, 8vo. In looking over Roscoe’s preface to his translation, we perceive that he has not made mention
of a very rare book by Tansillo, “‘ Stanza di Cultura sopra gli Horti de le Donne,” 1587, 12mo. This is a poem of extreme
licentiousness, and is probably one of those which led Pius IV. to insert his writings in the Indew. Tansillo was deeply
grieved by this, and begged hard for removal of the censure, pleading that if his verses were dirty, his life was cleanly :—

“Fu, gran Padre, la carta
Vana talor, la vita sempre onesta,
E tal sara quanto di lei mi resta.”’
   
 
  

 
  
     
  

SS =
mK [ EE ee Sad

ae

Affe booms)
rte SOK Gees ewe ce ae bly ee

Vz
Woy)

 

 

 

 

AUTHOR oF" PALMERSTON, UNE COMEDIE DE DEUX ANS!
( 89 )

No. 32.—PRINCE DE TALLEYRAND.

(cae is old Talleyrand reposing after the thousand-and-one rogueries of the day. He has just come
__ home from the Travellers’ ; and his dreams, in all probability, relate to some feats of diplomacy, in
ao perhaps, his slumbering fancy depicts to him Palmerston turned into a jackass, but by no means a
golden one.

To write a sketch of Talleyrand in the compass of a page is a sheer impossibility. We have put him
among our distinguished literary characters merely on account of his various compositions in re diplo-
maticd,—being well aware, however, that he holds the book-making tribe by profession in well-deserved
contempt. “ Never write a book,” said he to Prince Kofflosky ; “if you do, we shall know all that your
brains are worth for as many francs as your book will cost. No man of sense writes books,—the Emperor
writes no book [this was before the Emperor went to St. Helena],—Socrates never wrote a book.” To
which Talleyrand added a name we decline introducing into any light discourse, even after the example of a
bishop. When Kotilosky pressed him with the names of men acknowledged to be great in other niches of
the Temple of Fame, who had yet written books, such as Julius Cesar, Frederick the Great, &c., the
Prince replied that the examples are rare, and that these books must have been written in order to lead
people astray.

But if he has not been an author in the ordinary sense of the word, he has been everything else. The
accident of his having issued from the loins of a Perigord made him a gentleman, but for seventy long years
he has been actively engaged in undoing that mistake of fortune. He has been an Abbé, a Bishop, a Con-
stitutional Priest, a Clerk in an office, a Minister, a Keeper of a public-house in America, a Prince of the
Empire, a Teacher, a Secretary, a Grand Chamberlain, an Ambassador, a Protocolist, a Catholic, an Atheist,
a Royalist, a Jacobin, a Council of Five Hundreder, a Senator, a Buonapurtist, an Extréme Droit, a Centre
Droit, a Centre Gauche, an Extréme Gauche, a Quand-méme, a Doctrinaire, a Louis-Philippist, a Juste-
Milieu Man, a Wit, a Trimmer, a Rake, a Whist-player, a Rat of many tales, a —~—whatever chance and
his wife made him for the moment. ‘Thank God,” said he, when he swore allegiance to Louis-Philippe,
“this is the thirteenth I have taken.” We will not insult him by saying that he is perfectly ready to swear
allegiance to Henry V. to-morrow ; for, without our saying it, everybody will take it for granted.

His first friend was the Comte d’Artois. While he was a plain abbé, the Comte wearied Louis XVI.
with prayers to make his friend a bishop. Louis for a long time positively refused, alleging as his objection
the rather negligent course of M. de Perigord’s mode of life ; but being further solicited, promised to grant
the request on condition that the abbé would go to the country, and do something ecclesiastical that would
make people forget his escapades in Paris. Accordingly Talleyrand left the city, and preached two ov three
fine sermons, and otherwise behaved himself so as to lay in a sufficient stock of merit. The Comte d’ Artois
obtained his prayer; and the abbé was turned into the Bishop d’Autun. This was his first rise in the
world—mark the end! That comte is now the ex-King Charles X., and the Bishop of Autun is Prince
Talleyrand—and he represents King Louis-Philippe at the Court of St. James.

All his actions have been consistent with this small touch of character. But what matter? Everybody
knows that he is a rogue, but nobody thinks him a fool; and that, after all, in the career in which Talley-
rand has cut such a figure, is the only fatal blot. What consequence is it that he has committed a thousand
perfidies, if it is found that he can be always of use at the moment when his services are required? He
may have betrayed every Government in France, one after another, for the last forty years ; and it is
morally certain that he is ready to give up that which at present prevails there at a moment’s notice ; but
in the meantime he plays their cards to admiration. With what perfect contempt he looks down on the
Whig Administration of England, and how in his private despatches he must chuckle over that unfortunate
catspaw, whom he has nicknamed Palmerston-pour-rire !

The portrait is like the Prince in his recumbent attitude: and he is in the habit of concealing the
defect in his foot (odd enough that Scott, Byron, and Talleyrand should be lame) in the manner represented

in the print.

NOTES.

S in the conflict and turmoil of the elements, principles are evolved which would otherwise have

remained in unsuspected latency ; so in the antagonism of men’s passions and interests, qualities

become developed which bring their possessors into prominence, and claim for them important parts upon

the stage of life. Of this the great French Revolution, at the close of last century, may be taken as an

illustration, where, mighty as were its immediate and subsequent influences upon society, an amount of

energy and intellect was quickened into action commensurate in importance with the event itself. Of all
M
90 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

the actors in that great and terrible drama, those extraordinary men who, born of the circumstances, in
their turn acted upon these, and seemed to mould them to their will in the working out of their destinies ;
two men, closely associated, yet widely diverse in aim, character, and fate, stand forth alike in majesty of
genius, and the historic interest which attaches to their careers. One of these was NapoLEoN BUONAPARTE,
the son of an obscure Corsican ; the other, CHARLES Maurice DE TALLEYRAND-PERIGoRD, the scion of an
ancient and illustrious family of France.

As this extraordinary man belonged to a profession in which words are employed to conceal thoughts ;
in which, to use the words of M. de Reinhard, in his éoge, it was necessary that he should possess the
“faculty of appearing open at the same time that he remained impenetrable ; of being in reality reserved,
although perfectly frank in his manners”; and in which, as Sir Walter Scott said, if he wished to be
communicative, “he would have a thousand reasons for perverting the truth”; it is not remarkable that
his real character is yet, and probably ever will remain, an impenetrable mystery. Here, at all events, we
can scarcely attempt an elucidation.

His career was truly a wonderful one. Born February 13th, 1754, he had more than attained his
majority when Voltaire made his memorable visit to Paris. Talleyrand was introduced to him, and
received an impression from the two interviews which resulted, which remained till the close of his life.
The effects of a fall having rendered him lame, and therefore unfit for a military career, he entered the
Church as a profession. He became, in due course, Abbé de Périgord, and Bishop of Autun (1788). In
this capacity he became a member of the Ltats Généraux ; but soon resigned his bishopric, renounced his
ecclesiastical character, and devoted himself to diplomacy. In 1792 he visited England on a secret
mission ; having returned to France, and, through Danton, narrowly escaped assassination, he went to the
United States, where he remained till 1796, when he was recalled by a decree of the Convention. When
Napoleon became First Consul, Talleyrand remained in office as Foreign Minister. In 1802, released from
ecclesiastical restraints by a brief from Pius VII., he married. Then came the day of his rivalry with
Fouché, resulting in his ultimate advantage, and his elevation by Napoleon (1806) to the rank of Prince
Benevento, and Grand Chamberlain of the Empire. He was Commissioner for France at the Congress of
Vienna ; on the return of Louis XVITI. in 1815, he resumed the portfolio of Foreign Affairs as President
of the Council; soon resigned this, but remained about the person of the King, in virtue of his title as
Chamberlain ; and became the leader of the Opposition in the Chamber of Peers. At the Revolution of
1830, Talleyrand was a septuagenarian. His powers, however, had undergone no declension, and he
proceeded to London, as Ambassador, residing there till 1835. Three years later, after an illness of only
six days, on May 20th, 1838, and in the 84th year of his age, the marvellous career of this extraordinary
man was terminated by death, an event which he met with the same impassible fortitude with which he
had passed through all the grand crises of his life.

Talleyrand, if a selfish, does not appear to us to have been, in any sense of the word, a bad man. No
act of cruelty has been substantiated against him. He was a friend of freedom of thought and expression ;
sought to abolish feudalism, and establish constitutional government and national religion; he was a
promoter of education, and a lover of art and literature. His weapons were witticisms, rather than daggers
and dungeons ; he attracted by grace of manner ; retained affection by acts of real kindness ; and made long
friendships. The estimate of the historian Mignet* is favourable to his character; and his éloge of De
Reinhard, pronounced at the Académie only three months before his own death, is a masterpiece of elegant
and laudatory declamation.+

Who has not heard of the bons mots of Talleyrand. Perhaps the best is the monosyllabic “ Déa/” to
the friend who in sickness told him he was experiencing the tortures of hell. Of another, who
said that he could not account for the dislike with which people regarded him, as he had only committed
one bad action in all his life, he asked, “ Et quand finira-t-elle?” In his quarrel with Fouché,
on the latter saying, “ You need not triumph in your rank ; under a usurpation, the greatest scoundrel
may be Prime Minister if he pleases.” ‘ How fortunate,” was the caustic reply, “that you condescended
to be Minister of Police.” When he met the Duc de Montmorency at the same party with M. de
Rothschild, after the latter had been ennobled by the Emperor of Austria, Talleyrand seized the opportunity
to “present M. le premier Baron Juif to M. le premier Baron Chrétien.” To his secretary, who was
blotting the superfluous ink from a memorial, he said, “ You will never do for a French ambassador. Don't
you know that blotting-paper reveals secrets ?” and, with like caution, when a lady requested his autograph
for her album, he wrote it at the top of the page, to. prevent such a contingency as a promissory note
appearing some day above it. He could also act a good thing as well as say one, as when,—take the
anecdote for what it may be worth,—on the death of Charles X., he is said to have driven through the city
for a couple of days wearing a white hat, on which he placed or removed a piece of crape as he passed
through the quartier of the Carlists or that of the Tuileries.

The portrait is certainly sufficiently hideous, reminding one of a morbid preparation in spirits, or one
of those objects of natural history which we see in glass cases, impaled on a pin. Still, it is an admirable
drawing, and probably hardly caricatured as to likeness. Fraser says subsequently of its appearance in the
“ Gallery,” that “perhaps it should not have been there at all, but how could we resist the opportunity of
giving another, and, as we know, a most characteristic sketch, of the wonderful old man?”

* “Notices Historiques,’”’ par M. Mignet. Paris, 1853, 2 vols. 8vo.
+ “loge de M. le Comte de Reinhard.” Paris, 1888, 8vo.
 

 

 

AUTHOR OF HAJJI BABA IN ENGLAND?
fone

No. 33.—JAMES MORIER.

| ERE is Hajji Baba in England, in the attitude of a fire-worshipper. Hook has remarked, in

; “ Maxwell,” that the posture in which Mr. Morier is here represented is that which is the
oe favourite of Englishmen ; and our Orientalist has not been seduced from it by his sojourn in
‘ran.

We agree with the Quarterly in thinking that Morier is “out of sight” the best novelist who now
exercises his powers of romance-manufacturing. It is idle for our friend Bulwer to be angry with the
decision, or to pick holes in the texture of the sentences in which it is announced ; for the fact is so, and the
author of “ Pelham,” &e. &e., may sit down as contented as his amiable disposition will permit him. He
may be well assured that “‘ Devereux,” with his fine and learned company, his petit-mattre airs, “and all the
rest of him,” showsa less intimate acquaintance with the manners and literature of England than the novels
of Mr. Morier display of those of Persia.

But, withotit minding Bulwer, it is admitted, even by the Persians themselves, that the sketches of
character, habits, thoughts, feelings of their countrymen, in Mr. Morier’s novels, are perfection. As we
are nothing if not critical, we must say that we think the first part of Zajji Baba, while he is confined to
the East, is far superior in its details and conception to that part in which the hero is brought into England.
The burlesque mistaking of our customs by a foreigner is bizarre and amusing at first ; but it tires at last,
and, besides, it has been often done before. The author is far more at home when he is abroad, and the
Earth from which he receives his strength is not his natural, but his adopted mother. Let him, therefore,
give us constant new editions of the Persee—not in the manner of Auschylus, but Hajji. He will find
materials enough to occupy him for the remainder of his natural life.

We willingly leave it to himself to decide if our sketch is not like him in face, style, expression, and
attitude. So far, at least, as its execution goes, few are better qualified to judge; for, in addition to Mr.
Morier’s other accomplishments, he is a sketch-drawer of the very first-rate skill. His portfolio is full of
sketches of almost all the remarkable persons of his time, executed with admirable fidelity. We hope that
some fine day we shall have eloquence enough to induce him to open his stores to our inspection, with a
privilege of transferring to our pages those among them which are suited for our “ Gallery.” We throw
this out as a hint, which we are sure the sagacity of our Eastern friend will immediately understand.

Of his life and adventures we have not much to say that is not tolerably well known to the public
already. Like everybody else who has written many works of character, he has tolerably well exhibited
his own in his novels, and aw fond we suppose he is much such a fellow as his own Hajji. In other respects
he lives in very good style in Charles Street, Berkeley Square, pretty much as people of his class and order
are accustomed to do, in a house almost as full of pretty things as that of our old friend Sam Rogers. He
does not by any means resemble his Mahometan heroes in an Islamite abhorrence of wine, being in that
respect a most orthodox Christian; nor has he any likeness whatsoever to the tyrant eunuch of his
Zohrab in cruelty or any other particular. He is a good-looking, good-humoured Tory, now somewhat
passed the “ mezzo cammin della nostra vita,” but still fit for his work, and, if we are not misinformed, very
busy at this present writing.

Tt is so long since we have given up writing in Persian, that we fear our fingers would not be able
to master all its flourishes with the due caligraphy of a scribe of Ispahan. We must therefore content
ourselves with wishing, in occidental phrase, that he may live a thousand years, and that when he dies
at last, he may be translated without delay to the Paradise of all true believers, in which, if there be any
libraries at all, his novels must be the standard literature.

WOT E Ss, °

MONG those authors who seem to have faded out of sight and memory, chiefly from their not having
followed up in their later years the impression produced in their earlier days, is James Morrer, who

seems to have slipped out of the world, almost without notice, in the year 1849. In his novel ‘“ Zohrab
the Hostage” (1832), we find described the life of that Aga Mohammed Shah, from whose strategy the
Russians took a lesson when they made a desert before the French. Next came “ Ayesha, the Maid of
Kars” (1834), in which we have a clever picture of Persian life and manners. But Morier’s most celebrated
book is “‘ Hajji Baba,” where the hero, a sort of Oriental Gil Blas, and the son of a barber at Ispahan,
enacts almost every part in the drama of life, and narrates his adventures in the East and the West. ; These
novels were clever, and held their ground in spite of its previous occupancy by the clever “ Anastatius” of
“ Furniture ” Hope, but are now not so much asked for as the latter, which has the reputation of being
“scarce,” and has got to be considered, moreover, one of those books that “no gentleman’s library can be
without.” The satire in “ Hajji Baba” was so truthful, says Dr. Angus, ‘that the Minister of State of
Persia, where Morier was for some time secretary to the Embassy, was instructed by the King to complain

of that “foolish business of a book,” as reflecting unduly on the Persian Court.
mM 2
92 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

In 1849 was reissued by Bentley, a sort of novel entitled “ Martin Toutrond ; or, the Adventures of a
Frenchman in London.” To this work, which appears to us wholly destitute of merit, the publisher
prefixed a statement to the effect that he was permitted by the family of Mr. Morier to announce that it
was the production of that distinguished novelist, and moreover that it was originally written in French,
but never published, and was translated by the author himself into English.

 

FRAGMENT OF A VISION.

As dandy, on a Velocipede, And he throws the locks from his forehead fuir,
I saw in a vision sweet, And he pants, and pants, and pants for air ;
Along the highway making speed, What is the reason, I cannot tell,—
With his alternate feet. There is a cause, I know it well;
Of a bright and celestial hue Too firmly bound, too tightly braced,
Gleam’d beauteously his blue surtout ; The corsets grasp his spider waist,
While ivory buttons in a row Till his coat-tails are made to fly
Show’d like the winter’s cavern’d snow, Even from the back they glorify.
Which the breezy North Look again! he is not there—
Drives sweeping forth, Vanish’d into the misty air !
To lodge in the cave below ; Look again! do you see him yet P
Ontario’s beaver, without demur, Ah, no! the bailiff hath seized him for debt.
To form his hat did lend its fur; And to and fro, like a restless ghost,
His frill was of the cambric fine, When peace within the grave is lost,
And his neckcloth starch’d and aquiline ; He paces, as far as far he should,
And oh! the eye with pleasure dwells Within the bounds of Holyrood !

On his white jean indescribables ;

The foregoing lines, which will be recognized as a capital imitation of the lyrical manner of Coleridge,
especially as exhibited in “Christabel,” are from the pen of Dr. Maginn, and may, we fancy, at least for
our younger readers, require a few words by way of comment. About half a century ago, vehicles, which
were at first called ‘‘ dandy-horses,” became fashionable in London. These differed from the “ bicycles” of
the present day in having no treadles, and requiring propulsion by the impact of the riders’ feet upon the
ground. We have before us a clever and rare engraving by I. R. Cruikshank, measuring 16 in. x 11 in,,
“published by G. Humphrey, July 10th, 1819,” and inscribed, “ Every Man on his Perch; or, Going
to Hobby Fair.” Here, in four parallel rows, we find represented twenty-four riders on velocipedes ; the
dress of the former indicating their professions or trades, and the latter appropriate to, or indicative of, the
same, by some peculiarity of construction. Thus the sailor sits in a boat ; the fiddler is astride on a violin ;
the soldier is mounted on a cannon; the tallow-chandler bestrides a huge candle ; and the apothecary is
bifurcated by one of his own labelled phials. There is no appearance of crank or treadles, and all the
riders are making vigorous use of their legs upon the ground. Most are bicyclic, or two-wheeled ; and in all
the forewheel is made to gvrate by a handle, and so direct the course.

We have also penes nos one of William Hone’s curious publications, entitled “The Age of Intellect ;
or, Clerical Show-folk and Wonderful Lay-folk.” By Francis Moore, Physician (London, 1819, 8vo.).
Prefixed to this volume is a coloured frontispiece by George Cruikshank, on which, among other wonders,
we see one dandy painfully struggling up-hill on his bicycle, and another, who, rushing precipitately down the
too facilis descensus, is in the act of performing an involuntary summersault over his runaway vehicle. In
the course of the book the author, touching upon the novelties of the day, alludes to the

“

 

patent pedestrian Accelerators,—

The fleeting Velocipedes,—Perambulators,—

Or Hobbies,—which so much at present the rage are,
That Asses they’ll banish from Brighton, I’ll wager.”
Page 171.

We have a theory that the bicycle was not unknown to the Roman dandy. There is a line in Horace
which has much puzdled the commentators :—

“ Nec sic incipies, ut scriptor cyclicus olim ”’—
De Arte Poet., 136.

and they are not yet agreed as to who or what the cyclic writer was. Now all this learned labour is merely the
result of ignorance of our theory, and the misplacement of a comma. What is more plausible than the
supposition that the poet was in the habit of making the journey to his Sabine farm on a bicycle, and that
having, from want of care or skill in starting, met with an accident, he was anxious to warn others who
might wish to make a similar experiment? Then alter the place of the comma, and read :—

“Nec sic incipies ut scriptor, cyclicus olim,”
and all becomes intelligible, as we form our English version :—

“Don’t start, like the writer, if grief you'd escape,
On bicycle wishing your journey to shape!”

With this brief exposition, we commit our theory, quantum valeat, to the consideration of our readers.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AUTHOR OF CONVERSATIONS WITH LORD BYRON
, Beg

No. 34.—COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON.

ss OST gorgeous Lady Blessington.” Here she is ; and, for want of a better, we apply to her
ladyship the liquorish epithet with which the late Dr. Parr, of Whig and wig memory, addressed
her, in a note of thanks for a large, spicy, delicious, and magnificent twelfth-cake, and because it is well
known, all the world over, that there are no such judges of beauties and sweets as the priesthood.
It is clear that our ancient and reverend friend,

“ With twinkling eyes and visage chubby,”

did in this renowned adjective endeavour to express, by one word, the many rare and racy qualities for
which the Countess is distinguished, blending the saccharine remembrance of the cake with his relish of her
intellectual piquancy. As to her beauty, it would not have been becoming his cloth to have made more
than a remote allusion ; for, in consideration of their professional privileges, the clergy have renounced the
enjoyments of the world, and only consent to plenish the earth in obedience to the first commandment given
to man in the Book of Genesis.

The old doctor had, among the alloy of his Whiggish predilections and penchants, a very rich vein of
opinion cuncerning Lady Blessington’s understanding, and once said that she would be more interesting
when an old woman, with her shrewd and masculine mind, than even now with all her beauty ; adding,
with a luxurious laugh, quite ineffable, “ that meteors were not stars, however bright, though more
gazed at.”

Though Lady Blessington is not sufficiently of a “certain age” to entitle her to be ranked among the
bas bleus, yet the prediction of the perspicacious doctor begins to be fulfilled, and she is now dawning to
the public with the radiance that has long delighted her friends.

Since the publication of Boswell’s “ Life of Johnson,” nothing of the kind so good as her “ Conver-
sations with Lord Byron” has appeared ; their only fault arises from showing his lordship always in his
best bib and tucker, as if he had some innate apprehension that she saw through him. Indeed, it is a truth
she did ; for, with a keen perception of his good qualities, she has not hesitated to show his ridiculous affec-
tation of seeming worse than he could be, by her verbatim version of what he said.

But she has been very indulgent, and put herself under a greater restraint than was at all necessary.
She should have given the uninitiated world the names at full length, and told us something of the amiable
sentiments which his lordship cherished for Lord Brougham, who did so much in the Edinburgh Review to
make him a poet. Considering her sex, however, it is natural to suppose she stood in awe of the Lord
Chancellor’s—wig ; for throughout her composition it is evident she had a due regard-for the dogmatic critic
who wrote in the aforesaid Review that exceedingly judicious article respecting the Spaniard Cevallos, and
therefore she withheld everything concerning him likely to render him ridiculous.

Her ladyship when abroad made, we understand, many sketches of eminent characters, which we hope
she will be induced to publish ; for if the vraisemblable is equal to the mirror-like reflection of Byron, they
will be as acceptable, though some of the originals may perhaps not be so well known here. It is in the
exercise of the feminine faculty of discerning the peculiarities of character that her ladyship excels ; and in
her talent for this species of portraiture she possesses a wand of enchantment that can only be duly appre-
ciated by those who are acquainted with the subjects of her art and potency.

But we must conclude ; for our brief limits only allow us to remark that, although the “ Conversations
with Lord Byron” derive particular interest from the noble poet, the Countess would “show the glory of
her art” better in an original work.

NOT FS.

“ Lavy Birssineton !” cried the glad usher aloud,
As she swam through the doorway, like moon from a cloud;
I know not which most her face beam’d with,—fine creature !
Enjoyment, or judgment, or wit, or good nature.
Perhaps you have known what it is to feel longings
To pat silken shoulders at routs, and such throngings ;—
Well, think what it is at a vision like that !
A Grace after dinner! a Venus grown fat!
Some ‘elderly gentleman’ risk’d an objection ;
But this only made us all swear her ‘ perfection.’
His arms the host threw round the liberal bodice,
And kiss’d her, exactly as god might do goddess.”
Blue-Stocking Revels ; or, the Feast of the Violets.

T is Leigh Hunt who thus introduces the “brilliant Countess,” “the gorgeous lady,” and as she thus
] swims before us, in his graphic lines, as queen regnant of the brilliant coterie of Gore House, we sadly
contrast her with the fugitive and broken-spivited exile, who, a few years later, had a passing dreamin of
94 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN,.

emuliting, in another and foreign home, the historic glories of the Hétel Rambouillet or the
Abbaye-aux Bois.

The early life of Lady Blessington cannot he described without the upturning of a vast amount of
scandalous history. We do not feel disposed to undertake the task, for which, indeed, there is the less
necessity, as it is told without much reticence by Madden,* Grantley Berkeley,t and the anonymous writer
of an amusing book of gossip.t

She was born September Ist, 1790. Her father, whose name was Power, farmed and hunted in
Tipperary, avd was one of those small Irish gentlemen who are designated in that country as sqguireens.
She married unhappily ; returned home ; lost her husband (1817), and four months after she had thus
lecome a widow by law, as she had long been by nature, she married Charles John Gardiner, second
Viscount Mountjoy and first Earl of Blessington. This eccentric nobleman had a rent-roll of some £30,000
per annum ; and so, as Dr, Madden remarks, “‘ the Blessingtons’ splendid mansion in St. James’s Square in
a short time became the rendezvous of the élite of London celebrities of all kinds of distinction ; the first
literati, statesmen, artists, eminent men of all professions, in a short time became habitual visitors at the
wbode of the new-married Jord and lady.”

Well, a coronet and £30,000 a year cover a multitude of sinsin moral London. There is an awkward
decade in the lady’s career about which her more respectable biographers are discreetly silent ; and the
gentleman, who had for his first wife married his former mistress, now, for his second, married her who had
been his friend’s. But what is vice in the poor is merely eccentricity in the rich ; and the remembrance
which years of repentant virtue will not live down in the one case, fades away in the other before such a
tribute to moral prejudices as an aristocratic marriage. Three or four years of this splendid hospitality
wearied the noble couple ; the London establishment was broken up, and the Blessingtons started for the
Continent, accompanied by one of her ladyship’s sisters, and the present Charles Mathews, the celebrated
comedian.

This was in 1822, in which year it is worthy of note that Lady Blessington had made her début in the
literary world by the publication of a slender volume entitled “The Magic Lantern ; or, Sketches of Scenes
ia the Metropolis ” (London, 8vo. pp. 72). The fruit of her Continental experiences was her “Idler in
Jtaly ” and her “ Conversations with Lord Byron”: the former perhaps the best, because the most genuine
of her works ; the latter, according to Grantley Berkeley, about as real as the “Conversations” of Walter
Savage Landor. Byron was greatly taken by the wit and beauty of his fair interlocutor, and, to prolong
her stay, wished her to take a pretty villa near Genoa, called “Il Paradiso,” a title which suggested what
Moore calls an ‘‘impromptu,” in apparent ignorance that the lines are only a modification, to suit the new
circumstances, of the verses which Pope had addressed, a century before, to Lady Mary Wortley
Montague :—

“ Beneath Blessington’s eyes,
The reclaim’d Paradise,
Should be free as the former from evil ;
But if the new Eve

For an apple should grieve,
What mortal would not play the Devil P ’—(1823.)

In 1829 Lord Blessington was carried off by apoplexy, and his lady left with an income of £2,000
a year. In 1829 she took up her abode in London—first, at Seamore-place, Mayfair ; and, later, at Gore
House, Kensington. Here, in the house which had been the quiet home of Wilberforce, she sought to
rival the social fame of a Sévigné or a Récamier, and soon presided queen of a brilliant court, composed of
all that was brilliant or distinguished among, at least, the masculine notorieties of London. Here, in the
words of her biographer, she became “accustomed to an atmosphere of adulation. .... The swinging of
the censer before her fair face never ceased in those salons, and soft accents of homage to her beauty and
her talents seldom failed to be whispered in her ear, while she sat enthroned in that well-known /auteui of
hers, holding high court in queenly state—‘the most gorgeous Lady Blessington.’ ... . She lived for
distinction on the stage of literary society before the footlights, and always en scéne.” Meantime she was
editing “ Keepsakes” and “ Books of Beauty,” feeding and flattering literary lions, and producing in rapid
succession novel after novel: ‘The Repealers,” “The Two Friends,” “The Victims of Society,” “The
Governess,” “The Confessions of an Elderly Lady and an Elderly Gentleman,” “ Strathern,” “ Meredith,”
and others. These were the productions of a naturally clever woman, with much acquired knowledge of
the world, keenness of perception, and goodness of heart. They are smart, witty, and frequently awake and
retain interest ; but they can hardly be said to rise above mediocrity, and are not in the first class even of
fashionable novels. Besides these, an elegant little book is before us—a sort of companion to O’Doherty’s
maxims,—‘ Desultory Thoughts and Reflections” (1839, 12mo.), which is especially interesting, as
exhibiting the mind of its fair authoress in its more genuine and significant workings.

This gilded but wretched existence went on for a time ; then the crash came, exciting only wonder at
the tardiness of its advent. This was in the spring of 1849. Duns of every variety appeared upon the
scene, and Howell & James put in an execution for a debt of £4,000. Then came the auction. ‘“ Every

* “Literary Life and Correspondence of the Countess of Blessington,” by R. R. Madden. London, 1855. 3 vols. 8vo.

+ “Life and Recollections of Hon. Grantley Berkeley.” 1865, vol. iii. p. 201.

t “ Anecdotes and Pasquinades, and Mess-Table Stories: a Work of After-dinner Entertainment, &c.” London, 1857,
8vo. p. 17.
\

~ &
2" ROarO SO

 

 

S a seas cn
Ke SN, \

fa ee tu,
SG SRC es EX

 

    
        
  

   

   
       

   
   
  

ee TT TT TTT
& Nee pA il uly a |

il,
\

: el, \

    

AUTHOR OF SKETCHES OF UPPER CANADA’
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 95

room,” says Dr. Madden, “was thronged ; the well-known library-saloon, in which the conversazioni
took place, was crowded,—but not with guests. The arm-chair, in which the lady of the mansion was wont
to sit, was occupied by a stout, coarse gentleman of the Jewish persuasion, busily engaged in examining a
marble hand extended on a book, the fingers of which were modelled from a cast of those of the absent
mistress of the establishment. People, as they passed through the room, poked the furniture, pulled about
the precious objects of art and ornament of various kinds that lay upon the table, and some made jests and

ribald jokes on the scene they witnessed. ... . It was a total smash—a crash on a grand scale of ruin :
a compulsory sale in the house of a noble lady—a sweeping clearance of all its treasures.” The only person
affected, be it recorded to his credit, was the author of “ Vanity Fair.” “M. Thackeray est venu aussi,”

wrote to his mistress the French valet of the Countess, “ et avait les larmes aux yeux en partant. C’est peut-
étre la seule personne que j’aie vu réellement affectée & votre départ.” It is singular, by the way, that the
first sketch in Lady Blessington’s first book is entitled “The Auction,” and gives a graphic account of the
scene of ruin, and the heartless conduct of attendant “friends,” in language which is exactly applicable to
her own domestic catastrophe of thirty years later. The sale at Gore House realized upwards of £13,000 ;
the Marquis of Hertford being the purchaser of Sir Thomas Lawrence’s famous portrait of Lady Blessington
for £336, which was about four times its original price. :

Lady Blessington went to Paris. In that great centre of social refinement, the unfortunate lady,—to
whom was not inappropriate the phrase which had been applied to the Duchesse VEtampes, who, in the
time of Francis I., was styled “a plus belle des savantes, et la plus savante des belles,” and of whom it
might almost be said, as Brantome has written of another, but not a fairer Marguerite,* that “elle étoit si
parfaite en sgavoir et sapience qu’on lui donna lenom de Minerve de France,’—endeavoured to revive her
unforgotten London glories. On the 3rd of June, 1849, she moved into her new apartments, which she had
fitted up in the old luxurious style, in the Rue de Cercle, Champs Elysées, and on the following day,
June 4th,—just twenty years after the Earl, her husband, had experienced his fatal seizure, and as it were
on the same spot of the same city,—she was stricken with apoplexy, which, complicated as it was with heart-
disease, carried her off in the afternoon of the same day. She died in the arms of M. Simon, her
homeopathic medical attendant, and this so peaceably, ‘“ that it was impossible to perceive the moment when
her, spirit passed away.”

No, 35.—THE TIGER,

NLY two-and-sixpence !—Ladies and Gentlemen, walk in !—Here is the great Tiger of Saugur and
Upper Canada ! !—Only two-and-sixpence !

To descend to sermo pedestris—the opposite print is a fac-simile of the outward man of Wull (Anglicé
William) Dunlop, M.D., author, among fifty greater and lesser productions, of the “ Letters of a Back-
woodsman,” published last year by Murray, and reviewed, con amore, by Billy Maginn apud nos, and by
John Wilson apud Magam.

“The Tiger,”—so called from his clearing two or three islands in the Ganges of a certain ferocious
animal,—is by birth one of the Greenock folk, and now rising forty ; he received his education,—literary,
medical, and convivial,—in Glasgow ; and served from 1812 to 1822, partly in the Peninsula (where he is
understood to have occasionally exchanged the scalpel for the bagnet), partly in North America, and partly
in India. While in the East, he amused himself with the innocent diversions of tiger-murder, &c., above
alluded to ; and, moreover, editing a Tory paper, in opposition to that poor animal James Silk Buckingham,
who, in the catalogue of his victims, can claim no higher rank than that of a cat.

Hodson’s pale ale, iced punch, &c.—in short, the Liver,—induced the Doctor to revisit this island in
1822, and he established himself professionally in Edinburgh ; where, in the elegant society of Professors
Cheape and Bell, Messrs. Peter Robertson, Sam Anderson, Mandarin Menzies, &. &c., he confirmed his
constitutional principles, and by copious exhibitions of hot horn, repaired the ravages which patriotic exer-
tions in distant climes had been able to make even upon the most adamantine of physical fabrics. Had he
remained, there is no doubt he would by this time have reached the eminence of a second Gregory ; but
certain love passages of the most romantic interest interfered, and in 1825 Dunlop shook from his shoes the
dust of Modern Athens, and made his first appearance at the Pig and Whistle.

Wull strenuously assisted John Galt in the formation of the Canada Company in 1826 ; and in the
following year, after being entertained by a distinguished party at a farewell dinner, in the Blue Posts, Cork
Street, he departed, along with the genial author of “ Lawrie Todd,” for the opening paradise of Ontario.

* Duchesse de Berri, afterwards Duchesse de Savoie, circa 1550.
96 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

There, or thereabouts, he has ever since sojourned ; and his “ Backwoodsman” may spare us the trouble of
any detail either as to the bears he has slain, or the cock-tail, flip, gin-sling, and other antifogmatics, he has
swallowed. As Commissioner of the C. C. C., established for the express purpose of increasing the popula-
tion of a virgin soil, it is, we believe, universally conceded that his energies have been all along employed
on the most liberal scale, and with persevering steadiness.

This remarkable biped,—who is now in London for a few weeks, to worry Goderich and Howick
about some beastly proceedings of our degraded Government,—stands six feet three inches, and measures
two feet eight across the shoulders ; in the graphic language of Rimini Unt—

“ Lightsomely drops in his lordly back ; ”

the calf is just twenty inches in circumference—ex pede Herculem ; the paw would have startled Ali Pacha ;
the fur is of the genuine Caledonian redness and roughness; and the hide, from long exposure to Eurus
and Boreas, has acquired such a firmness of texture that he shaves with a brickbat. As he sails again
for Galtopolis in the course of a few weeks, we earnestly recommend to Lord Egremont the propriety of
placing the next cargo of “respectable female emigrants, from Sussex,” under his protection.

Farewell, noble savage, wild as thy woods! When shall we again revel in the rich luxuriance of thy
anecdotes—or shake under the Titanic bray of thy laughter? Sooner, perhaps, than thou expectest—for
verily ! in the day of the dispersion, we mean to beat thy jungle. “Deus dabit vela/; Though Toryism
were expelled from all the rest of the globe, it would find shelter in the log-house of Dunlop. Vivat
Victoria ! :

 

LOL” FES,

OR boldness of outline and firmness of touch, our “Gallery” presents few more striking specimens

than the portrait before us ; while the energy in the expression of the face, and in the natural
language of the attitude, indicate that the original was a man about whom something is to be said. We
frankly confess, however, that we are not, at this writing, in the possession of a single fact in the career of
Witiiam Duncop, to entertain our readers withal: a circumstance which we little regret, as we imagine
that any temporary interest which was attached to his character has long since passed away ; and because it
will atford us an opportunity, for which we have long been wishing, of jotting down a few details of a far
more interesting member of our group of celebrities.

4

REV. FRANCIS MAHONY ; “FATHER PROUT.”

Asxone that remarkable cluster of men who rallied about the ‘ Standard-Bearer,” in the service of
Reena, none was more remarkable for racy scholarship, learned fun, refined wit, original humour, and
varied talent, than the Rev. Francis Manony, better known by his pen-name of “Father Prout.” He
was born in Ireland, near Cork, about 1805, and received his education at a college of Jesuits in France,
and at the University of Rome, when he laid the foundation of those linguistic acquirements which he
afterwards turned to such good account. He returned from Italy in clerical orders, and entered upon the
duties of a parish priest in his native country. Finding these uncongenial, he soon secularized himself,
and came over to the “world.” Adopting literature as a profession, he enrolled himself among the
“ Fraserians,” and contributed to the infant magazine that remarkable series of papers which, under the
title of the “‘ Reliques of Father Prout,” have now taken a high and permanent place among the general
literature of our time. He was also one of the earliest and most brilliant supporters of “ Bentley’s
Miscellany,” and wrote largely for the newspapers. He next spent some years in foreign travel, visiting
Hungary, Asia Minor, Greece, and Egypt, returning, in 1841, by the south of France, and wrote more
than one volume as the fruit of his peregrinations. Upon the establishment of the Daily News, in 1847,
as the first cheap daily paper, under the editorship of Cuartes Dickrns, Mahony was requested by the
latter to undertake the position of correspondent at Rome. This he did ; and when the Pope had left the
Eternal City, and Garibaldi had established his bivouac in the Great Piazza of St. Peter’s,—when the
churches of the Inquisition were sacked, and the modern Triumvirate, Mazzini, Saffi, and Armellini, was
first menaced, and then overthrown, by the French, under Oudinot,—Mahony became the historian of the
patriots. From hence he contributed a remarkable series of letters to his newspaper at Lome, in which his
love and zeal for the Italian cause break forth. These letters, which are redolent with wit and poetry, and
sparkling with classic illustration, were collected and republished by Bentley, in 1849, under the title of
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 97

“ Pacts and Figures from Italy,” and ave well worth possessing in this compact form. In 1851 Mahony
was examined by a Parliamentary Committee on the Mortmain Laws, chiefly as regarding their effects in
the Roman States, when some curious facts were disclosed. When the Cornhill Magazine was established,
Mahony did not forget his old co-Fraserian Thackeray, and sent him a few verses in his characteristic
Horatian style.* He next transferred his services to the Globe newspaper, and acted as foreign correspondent
at Paris till incapacitated by ill-health. In 1864 he retired into a monastery, and there terminated his
earthly career in May, 1866, attended in his last moments by his sister and the Abbé Rogerson.

Since this event we have not been without hope that a “Memoir” of this remarkable man might
appear, or that some further “ Reliques” be given to the world. But the time, we are afraid, is now past
for this, and Francis Mahony must be judged by what he has already done. His life was too busy, and
he lived too much in the world, to enable him to erect a worthy monument of his genius. But all that
he has done is genial and scholarly ; original both in thought and style; and assigns for its writer no mean
place among those who have illustrated the lighter literature of our time. His great character is ‘ Father
Prout,” the “lone incumbent of Watergrass-hill,” who is a worthy pendant to that immortal priest of a
sister communion, the ‘“ Vicar of Waketield,’—the creation of a countryman of our illustrious Padre.
The “ Reliques” of the shrewd and simple priest were originally contributed to raser’s J/agazine, and,
sparkling as they were with wit, humow, scholarship, and classical illustration, raised their author to the
highest grade among the contributors to periodical literature. They were republished by Fraser, in 2 vols.
8vo., with etchings by Maclise. This edition having been long out of print, and become scarce, a new
one, in one volume, “revised and largely augmented,” was issued by Mr. H. G. Bohn, as part of his
‘‘Tilustrated Library,” in 1860. The additions are important, consisting of a preface by the author,
additional “ Reliques,” Maclise’s splendid cartoon of the “Fraserians,” portraits of Béranger and Miss
Landon, and other illustrations, not in the earlier and otherwise handsomer edition.

Among the minor poetical pieces of Mahony, none has been more admired than his simple, affecting
lines on ‘The Shandon Bells.” The spire in which these are contained is built on the ruins of the old
castle of Shandon, and is a prominent object from whatever side the traveller approaches Cork, the
“beautiful.” At its foot repose, as the poet himself informs us, “some generations of his kith and kin,”
and it was thus, with the deepest feelings of love and reminiscence, that he wrote those lines, which in
power and sweetness have rarely been excelled, and which invest with new and undying interest the
crumbling old tower. We give them here as a specimen of Mahony’s poetical abilities :—

THE SHANDON BELLS.

“ Sabbata pango,
Funera plango,
Solemnia clangs.””—Inscription on am old Bell.

1. 3.
“ WirH deep affection, I’ve heard bells tolling

And recollection, Old ‘ Adrian’s Mole’ in,
I often think of Their thunder rolling

Those Shandon bells, From the Vatican ;
Whose sounds so wild would, And cymbals glorious
In the days of childhood, Swinging uproarious
Fling round my cradle In the gorgeous turrets

Their magic spells. Of Notre Dame ;
On this I ponder, But their sounds were sweeter
Where’er I wander, Than the dome of Peter
And thus grow fonder, Flings o’er the Tiber

Sweet Cork, of thee ; Pealing solemnly ;—
With thy bells of Shandon, Oh! the bells of Shandon
That sound so grand on Sound far more grand on
The pleasant waters The pleasant waters

Of the river Lee. Of the river Lee.

2. 4,
I’ve heard bells chiming There’s a bell in Moscow,
Full many a clime in, While on tower and kiosk o!
Tolling sublime in In Saint Sophia

Cathedral shrine, The Turkman gets,
While at a glibe rate And loud in air
Brass tongues would vibrate,— Calls men to prayer
But all this music From the tapering summit

Spoke nought like thine ; Of tall minarets.
For memory dwelling Such empty phantom
On each proud swelling I freely grant them ;
Of the belfry knelling But there is an anthem

Its bold notes free, More dear to me,—
Made the bells of Shandon "Tis the bells of Shandon,
Sound far more grand on That sound so grand on
The pleasant waters The pleasant waters

Of the river Lee. Of the river Lee.”

* “ Pather Prout’s Inaugural Ode to the author of Vanity Fair (Cornhill Magazine, vol. i. p. 75).
. N
No. 36.—BENJAMIN D’ISRAELI

READER dear! do pray look here, and you will spy the curly hair, and forehead fair, and nose so
high, and gleaming eye, of Benjamin D’Is-ra-e-li, the wondrous boy who wrote Alroy in rhyme and
prose, only to show how long ago victorious Judah’s lion-banner rose. In an earlier day he wrote Vivian
Grey—a smart-enough story, we must say, until he took his hero abroad, and trundled him over the German
road ; and taught him there not to drink beer, and swallow schnaps, and pull madschen’s caps, and smoke
the cigar and the meersham true, in alehouse and lusthaus all Fatherland through, until all was blue, but
talk secondhand that which, at the first, was never many degrees from the worst—namely, German cant
and High-Dutch sentimentality, maudlin metaphysics, and rubbishing reality. But those who would find
how Vivian wined with the Marchioness of Puddledock, and other great grandees of the kind, and how he
talked esthetic, and waxed eloquent and pathetic, and kissed his Italian puppies of the greyhound breed,
they have only to read—if the work be still alive—‘“ Vivian Grey,” in volumes five.

As for his tentative upon the Representative, which he and John Murray got up in a very great hurry,
we shall say nothing at all, either great or small ; and all the wars that thence ensued, and the Moravian’s
deadly feud ; nor much of that fine book, which is called the “ Young Duke,” with his slippers of velvet
blue, with clasps of snowy-white hue, made out of the pearl’s mother, or some equally fine thing or other ;
and “ Fleming” (Contarini), which will cost ye but a guinea ; and “ Gallomania” (get through it, can you ?)
in which he made war on (assisted by a whiskered baron—his name was Von Haber, whose Germanical
jabber Master Ben, with ready pen, put into English smart and jinglish), King Louis Philippe and his court ;
and many other great works of the same sort—why, we leave them to the reader to peruse ; that is to say,
if he should choose.

He lately stood for Wycombe, but there Colonel Grey did lick him, he being parcel Tory and parcel
Radical—which is what in general mad we call; and the latest affair of his we chanced to see, is “ What is
he”? a question which, by this time, we have somewhat answered in this our pedestrianrhyme. As for the
rest,—but writing rhyme is, after all, a pest ; and therefore

We shall finish what we have to say, without any Alroyizing, in plain prose; and, like Baalam (we
mean the prophet, not that material which is so prominent in all magazines), we shall conclude with a
blessing an article which has begun in not, perhaps, a complimentary strain. The plain fact then is, that
Ben D’Israeli is a clever fellow, who has written some striking books, in which we think he has shown
great indications of talent, but nothing more. The books prove that the author is a man of abilities,
though they do not reach the mark at which he aims. Benjamin’s politics are rather preposterous ; but he
is young, and may improve. There is one thing good about him, viz., that he can never be a Whig ; and
while that can be said of any man, there is hope for him. Only, we beseech our friend not to write any
more of that sounding fustian which infests the wondrous tale of “ Alroy.” If he wishes to Judaize, why
does he not at once write us Tales of the Talmud, or Gestes of the Gemara, or Memorandums of the
Mischna? A “Romance of Rag-fair,” or a ‘ Heroine of Houndsditch,” would be rather a novelty in these
piping times. Scott, the novelographer of the Border thieves, is departed—why should not one of
London breed attempt to occupy his place? We cannot see any reason to the contrary.

We have already expressed our favourable feelings towards Benjamin’s father; and we must
conclude this article by hoping that, in the end, he will indeed be old Isaac’s “son of his right hand,” as his
name imports in the original Hebraic. He could not follow a more honourable example in life or in letters
than the old Curiosity of Literature ; and we trust that as there is stuff, and good stuff in Ben, he will
speedily get rid of some ridiculous ideas that pursue him, and show those who think well of his talents that
he can do what they wish to see him attempting.

 

NOTES.

E cannot more appropriately introduce this graceful portraiture of the great novelist and statesman

in his younger days,—waiting, it might be, for the announcement of the cab which was to convey

him to one of the brilliant réunions of Gore House,—than by a prose description of the glories of his dress
and person, at that now distant time. ‘His ringlets of silken black hair,” says our authority, who has, it
may be well to remark, a strong literary and political prejudice against his subject, “his flashing eyes, his
effeminate und lisping voice, his dress-coat of black velvet, lined with white satin ; his white kid gloves,
with his wrist surrounded by a long hanging fringe of black silk, and his ivory cane, of which the handle,
inlaid with gold, was relieved by more black silk, in the shape of a tassel. Every one laughed at him for
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AUTHOR OF VIVIAN GREY.
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 99

being affected, but the women declared that his was an affectation of the best style, and they felt his
personal vanity was a flattering homage to their most notorious weakness. Such was the perfumed boy-
exquisite who forced his way into the salons of peeresses. Men held him in light esteem; but observant
women, who, as a rule, are more discerning judges of young men than themselves, prophesied that he would
live to be a great man.”* To complete the depiction, we may add the portrait of another writer, who knew
him about the same period, and rather regarded the mental promise and qualities of the youthful
exquisite :—“ Many years ago, upwards of twenty, I frequently met Mr. D’Israeli at Lady Blessington’s
abode in Seamore Place. It needed no ghost from the grave, or rapping spirit from the invisible
world, to predicate, even then, the success of the young D’Israeli in public life. Though in general
society he was usually silent and reserved, he was closely observant. It required generally a sub-
ject of more than common interest to produce the fitting degree of enthusiasm to animate him, and
to stimulate him into the exercise of ‘his marvellous powers of conversation. When duly excited,
however, his command of language was truly wonderful, his power of sarcasm unsurpassed, the readi-
ness of his wit, the quickness of his perception, the grasp of mind that enabled him to seize on all
the parts of any subject under discussion, persons would only call in question who had never been in
his company at the period I refer to.”+

The Ricur Hoy. Benyamin D’Israeti, sometime her Majesty's Chancellor of the Exchequer, and
leader of the House of Commons, was born in 1805, and is the eldest son of Isaac D’Israeli, the well-
known author of the “ Curiosities of Literature.” Two centuries before the revocation of the Edict of
Nantes had banished to our own shores so much of the industrial talent and energy of France, the
similar bigotry of Torquemada and the Inquisition had caused the exodus from the Iberian peninsula
of those two heretical races, the Moors and the Jews, who were the quickening intellect to the haughty
and impassive people among whom they dwelt. Among those thus banished from the land, which, accord-
ing to tradition, had been the home of his family for more than a thousand years, was the ancestor of the
subject of these notes. He belonged to that pure Sephardim race whose boast is that it has never left the
shores of the Mediterranean. He proceeded to Venice, and there, abandoning the name which he had been
forced to assume in Spain, he made choice of one which, while it indicated his nationality and his creed, had
never been borne, so far as he could ascertain, by any other family. For four centuries the family lived
and traded with success in their new home; till, at length, about 1748, the grandfather of Benjamin was
induced to remove to England, attracted at once by commercial considerations and the prospect of more
perfect religious tolerance. Of his son Isaac, we have already sufficiently spoken. As his ancestors had
been sagacious and practical merchants, and he was a complete and typical man of letters ; so the charac-
teristics of both seem now combined in the character of their illustrious descendant ;—the clear-headed, far-
seeing ability of the former, with the more imaginative and literary tendencies of the latter. This is the
man who has been taunted, as occasion served, as a “Jew,” and an “adventurer.” The Jews |—as a
modern writer ¢ says, “the mystery of their very name is enough to break the head, and perhaps the
heart ;’—and what, if D’Israeli does belong to this wonderful race, of whose fate, characteristics, position,
and destiny, he has himself said so much and so well? Why, if antiquity of origin, purity of blood, and
isolation of caste, constitute nobility, this man must be a noble amongst nobles, a very aristocrat of
aristocrats ; and knowing, to a mathematical demonstration, that his lineal ancestor was present at the
building of the Temple, treat with the most perfect and absolute scorn the pretensions of shoddy wealth
and mushroom aristocracy, rejoicing in the fond belief that its ancestor was turnspit in the kitchen of a
Norman marauder, or bastard of his denationalized and profligate successor! But while Christians, with a
singular disregard of what they owe to the Jewish race, have taunted D’Israeli with being a Jew, the Jews
themselves have censured him for being a Christian. But both are wrong ; inasmnch as he is not a Jew,—
except, indeed, ethnologically, which, as we take it, does not mean much,—nor an apostate. It is true,
that, in his infancy, he was admitted into the community of Israel ; but his father, who had quarrelled with
his synagogue, did not educate his son in Judaism. The precocious talents of the youth attracted the notice
of Samuel Rogers, the poet, who was wont to visit the elder D’Israeli at Hackney, and who, regretting to
see so intelligent a youth without religious instruction, took him to Hackney Church. The parent made
no opposition, and from this event dates the complete severance of the son from the communion of his
fathers. He became a Christian, and a great genius was lost to the Jewish people.

When about twenty years of age, D’Israeli burst upon the world with his “Vivian Grey.” As the
history of a youth of genius and ambition, panting for political and literary fame, the book may be
considered as an autobiography. It is full of faults—in style, taste, conception, and execution ; and yet
perhaps, regarding it as a first essay, a more remarkable book can hardly be found in the history of
literature. A “Key” was published, of which—such was the interest excited by the novel—the tenth
edition appeared in 1827. According to this, Vivian Grey was the author ; Sherborne, D’Israeli the elder ;
Marquis of Carabas, Lord Lyndhurst ; Stanislaus Hoax, Theodore Hook ; Duke of Juggernaut, Duke of
Norfolk ; Prince of Little Lilliput, Prince Leopold; Mrs. Million, Mrs. Coutts; Foaming Fudge,
Brougham; Lord Prima Donna, Lord William Lennox ; Prince Xtmnpqrtosklw, Prince Gortschakof ;
Fitzborn, Sir Robert Peel ; Charlatan Gas, Canning ; Lord Past-Century, Eldon ; Marquis of Grandgofit,

* Jeaffreson’s “Novels and Novelists.”
+ “Literary Life and Correspondence of the Countess of Blessington.” By R. R. Madden. 1855.

t “ Charles Auchester,” vol. ii. p. 20. ;
N
100 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

Lord Hertford; Mrs. Felix Lorraine, Lady Caroline Lamb; while Southey, Brummell, Esterhazy,
Metternich, and other celebrities of the period, are freely introduced and satirized.

An author is born, not made; it is seldom that a father, however greatly a lover of literature
himself, attempts to devote his son to it as a profession. Thus D’Israeli the elder determined to bring up
his clever son to the law, and he was duly articled to a legal firm—Messrs. Swaine & Co., in the Old
Jewry, still in existence under another style. But here he was discontented, and it is a tradition in the
office that he passed the hours of business, “ when he should engross,” in reading poetry. This led to a
change of plan. Benjamin was released from his articles ; his brother James succeeded to the vacant
stool, completed his articles under the firm, and, in the fulness of time, became an attorney.

In 1826 Mr. Murray started the Representative, which was placed under the editorial management of
Lockhart. It is often said that the young author was connected with this unfortunate paper, and that the
unpleasantries resulting from its fate and discontinuance, led to a disruption of the friendship which had
for many years existed between the elder D’Israeli and the publisher, to whom he had long acted as
general literary adviser. This is stated even in so respectable an authority as the Gentleman’s Magazine,
in the obituary of the former ; but is entirely at variance with the fact, as we have the explicit statement
of the son that he never wrote, or was asked to write, one single word in it.

Of D’Israeli’s other works of fiction we have not space to speak. Our own favourites are “ Henrietta
Temple” and “ Venetia.” The former is a love story, in which the rise and progress of the tender passion
is traced in natures fitted to refine and intensify its development. Love is here made the subject of destiny,
and treated as a principle, which, though latent, only awaits occasion and circumstance to burst into flame,
and enkindle the whole soul. In the latter the characters of Shelley and Byron,—the fate of the one and
the conjugal misfortunes of the other,—are, with perhaps somewhat questionable taste, made the subjects
of delineation, and afford a study of enthralling interest.

Of the brilliant political career of D’Israeli, a record must be sought elsewhere. Success like his can
hardly be attained without the creation of enemies, political and literary ; but even these must admire the
indomitable energy, the tenacity of purpose, the brilliance of talent, which have gained for their possessor
his eminent position. To these qualities other and unbiassed observers of his career will be disposed to
add the higher praise of goodness of heart, rectitude of purpose, and honesty of principle, to cumulate the
name which has descended to him through long centuries, without even the shadow of a reproach.

EEA IS

No. 37.-THOMAS CARLYLE.

ERE hast thou, O Reader! the-from-stone-printed effigies of Thomas Carlyle, the thunderwordover-
setter of Herr Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. These fingers now in listless occupation supporting
his head, or clutching that outward integument which with the head holds so singular a relation, that those
who philosophically examine, and with a fire-glance penetrate into the contents of the great majority of the
orb-shaped knobs which form the upper extremity of man, know not with assured critic-craft to decide
whether the hat was made to cover the head, or the head erected as a peg to hang the hat upon ;—yea,
these fingers have transferred some of the most harmonious and mystic passages,—to the initiated, mild
shining, inaudible-light instinct—and to the uninitiated, dark and untransparent as the shadows of Eleusis
—of those forty volumes of musical wisdom which are commonly known by the title of ‘“ Goethe’s Werke,”
from the Fatherlandish dialect of High-Dutch to the Allgemeine-Mid-Lothianish of Auld Reekie. Over-set
Goethe hath Carlyle, not in the ordinary manner of language-turners, who content themselves with giving,
according to the capacity of knowingness or honesty within them, the meaning or the idea (if any there be)
of the original book-fashioner, on whom their secondhand-penmongery is employed; but with reverential
thought, word-worshipping even the articulable clothing wherein the clear and ethereal harmony of Goethe
is invested, Carlyle hath bestowed upon us the “Wilhelm Meister,” and other works so Teutonical in
raiment, in the structure of sentence, the modulation of phrase, and the round-about, hubble-bubble, rum-
fustianish (hiibble-bubblen, riimfiistianischen), roly-poly growlery of style, so Germanically set forth, that it
is with difficulty we can recognize them to be translations at all.

Come, come, some reader will impatiently exclaim,—quite enough of this! A whole page of imitative
Carlylese would be as bad as the influenza. In human English, then, Thomas Carlyle,—like Dionysius of
Syracuse among the ancients, and Milton and Johnson among the moderns,—formerly instilled the prima
stamina of knowledge into the minds of ingenuous youth ; but for some years past has retired from what
    

 

SS

 

  

==

SSS

SS

SSS SEE

       

—=

     
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 101

Oppian calls, or is supposed to call (see Bayle in voce), feeding the sheep of the muses, to the rural occupa-
tion of a Dumfriesshire laird, in a place rejoicing in the melodious title of Craigenputtock, an appellation
which must have delighted his ear, from its similarity in harmonious sound to the poetical effusions of the
bards he loves. Here he occupies his leisure hours in translating Goethe, or in corresponding with the
Edinburgh Review, or Fraser's AM agazine, the Morning Post, or the EZxaminer,—in all, donner-und-blitzen-
izing it like a north-wester. To his credit be it spoken, he gave a Christian and an honourable tone to the
articles of the Edinburgh ; but he came too late. The concern was worn out and gone, and not even Carlyle
could keep it from destruction, particularly when he was associated with Thomas Babbletongue Macaulay,
whose articles would swamp a seventy-four. He has a more congenial soil in Regina, where he expounds,
in the most approved fashion of the Cimbri and the Teutones, his opinions on men and things, greatly to
the edification of our readers. Of his contributions to the forty-eight feet of diurnal or septimanal litera-
ture which are set before the industrious eyes of the readers of newspapers, we know nothing.

He is an honourable and worthy man, and talks the most unquestionable High Fifeshire. Of our
German scholars he is clearly the first ; and it is generally suspected that he has an idea that he under-
stands the meaning of the books which he is continually reading, which really is a merit of no small
magnitude, particularly when we consider that nobody ever thinks of publishing a translation from the
German, without prefixing thereto a preface, proving in general, in the most satisfactory manner, that his
predecessors in the work of translation made as many blunders as there were lines in the book, and that of
the spirit of the original they were perfectly ignorant. Even-handed justice is sure to bring back the
chalice to his own lips, and he receives the same compliment from his successor.

WG 2 ZS:

HERE are certain anecdotes by which, through an impulsive act, or an unpremeditated saying, a

better insight may be gained into character, and a more certain key to the hidden springs of

thought, than is afforded by whole pages of minute and laborious analysis. Of such nature we believe to
be one, which is related in the “‘ New Spirit of the Age,” by R. Hartwell Horne :—

Leigh Hunt and Carlyle were once present among a small party of equally well-known men. It
chanced that the conversation rested with these two, both first-rate talkers, and the others sat well pleased
to listen. Leigh Hunt had said something about the Islands of the Blest, or El Dorado, or the Millennium,
and was flowing on in his bright and hopeful way, when Carlyle dropped some heavy tree-trunk across Hunt’s
pleasant stream, and banked it up with philosophical doubts and objections at every interval; of the
speaker’s joyous progress. But the unmitigated Hunt never ceased his overflowing anticipations, nor the
saturnine Carlyle his infinite demurs to those finite flourishings. The listeners laughed and applauded by
turns, and had now fairly pitted them against each other, as the philosopher of hopefulness and the
unhopeful. The contest continued with all that ready wit and philosophy, that mixture of pleasantry and
profundity, that extensive knowledge of books and character, with their ready application in argument or
illustration, and that perfect ease and good nature, which distinguish each of these men. The opponents
were so well matched, that it was quite clear the contest would never come to an end. But the night was
far advanced, and the party broke up. They all sallied forth, and leaving the close room, the candles, and
the arguments behind them, suddenly found themselves in presence of a most brilliant, starlight night.

They alllooked up. “Now,” thought Hunt, “ Carlyle’s done for ; he can have no answer to that.” “ There,”

shouted Hunt, ‘‘look up there! look at that glorious harmony, that sings with infinite voices an eternal

song of hope in the soul of man.” Carlyle looked up. They all remained silent to hear what he would |
say. They began to think that he was silenced at last,—he was a mortal man. But out of that silence -

came a few low-toned words, in a broad Scotch accent. And who on earth could have anticipated what
the voice said }—“ Eh, it’s a sad sight!” Hunt sat down ona stone step. They all laughed, then looked

very thoughtful. Had the finite measured itself with infinity, instead of surrendering itself up to the |
influence? Again they laughed, then bade each other good night, and betook themselves homeward with .
slow and serious pace. There might be some reason for sadness too. That brilliant firmament probably —

contained infinite worlds, each full of struggling and suffering beings,—of beings who had to die,—for life
in the stars implies that those bright worlds should also be full of graves. But all that life, like ours,
knowing not whence it came, nor whither it goeth ; and the brilliant universe, and its great movement,

having, perhaps, no more certain knowledge of itself, nor of its ultimate destination, than hath one of the

suffering specks that compose this small spot we inherit.

Here we have once more the pendant shield, where the surface appears to be gold or silver, according
to the direction by which the wandering knights approach it ; here, this lower earth, a subject of grief or
gratulation to the one or the other type of mind, as the possessors of which every observer worthy of the
name may be classified. ‘I have often said,” remarks Horace Walpole, “and oftener think, that this
world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those who /ee/,—a solution why,Democritus laughed,

| and Heraclitus wept ... . the quihtessence of all I have learnt in fifty years.” So, the last words of
102 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR, MAGINN.

Rabelais were: “Tire le rideau, la farce est jouée” ; and our own Gay proclaimed that death had only
taught him that life was the farce he had always thought it to be. But this is hardly seemly. Not to
speak of the awfulness of that supreme moment, which precludes a jest,—when Adrian would check his
soul’s wonted hilarity,—

* Nec, ut soles, dabis jocos,”—

we have the highest authority for the belief that “sorrow is better than laughter,” and we are told that
Christ wept more than once, while we have no record even of a smile. But, enough.

Thomas Carlyle was born in 1795, at Ecclefechan, in Dumfriesshire ; educated at the University of
Edinburgh ; and intended for the ministry. But this was probably the view of his parents rather than his
own ; for he became a teacher of mathematics in a Fifeshire schoo], where he remained about a couple of
years, He next chose a priesthood aud a church after his own fashion ; for, says he, “of all priesthoods,
aristocracies, governing classes, at present extant in the world, there is no class comparable for importance
to that priesthood of the writers of books”; and further, ‘the writers of newspapers, pamphlets, books, these
are the real working, effective Church of a modern country.” By all which, we mean that he determined
to devote himself to literature as the profession and business of his life. He became a contributor to the
“ Edinburgh Encylopedia,” and early in his career produced his fine translation of Goethe’s “ Wilhelm
Meister.” He then commenced his “ Life of Schiller,” in the London Magazine, pronounced “a classical
work” by a German friend of ours,* and sufficiently esteemed by Goethe for him to constitute an elegantly
bound copy of it his donation to the Literary Society of Berlin, founded under his auspices. About 1830
he proceeded to London, and took up his abode in that quaint old house at Chelsea, where, with
Maclise for a neighbour, he has dwelt for the long period of forty years. Here he allied himself to
the “ Fraserians,” and commenced in Regina the publication of his “Sartor Resartus,” still our own
favourite among all his works. In 1837 we have that series of brilliant graphic episodes which is
called the “‘ History of the French Revolution,” and’ where, if we do not find the dignity and simplicity
of history, the various phases of that terrible period are brought before us with most impressive and life-
like reality. Besides these, we have five volumes of essays (collected from the Hdinburgh Review,
the Foreign, the Westminster, and the foreign Quarterly, from fraser’s Magazine, the Hauaminer, ke.) ;
“Lives of Cromwell and Frederick the Great,” “Past and Present,” “ Hero-Worship,” ‘“ Chartism,”
“ Latter-day Pamphlets,” “ Life of Stirling,” the Zhunderer of the Times, and other works, in which,
amid a good deal that is startling in paradox, much sound sense and generous philosophy may be
found, always provided that the reader has undergone the necessary “‘baphometic fire-baptism” to
qualify him to penetrate the author’s melodramatic extravagancies of style. Of these, we must remark,
the earlier writings are comparatively free; these are fresh, nervous, and vigorous, though yet with a
certain originality of diction which marks their author. It is in the later works that we find the “fierce
fuliginous fire” that so often scares the on-looker; Smelfungus, Sauerteig, and Dryasdust come before us
with “ damnable iteration”; and phantasms, galaxies, and sea-green heroes dance before us in all the mazes
of metaphorical confusion. Carlyle himself, in his essay on Richter, has drawn the distinction between
“ singularity ” and “ affectation,” and warned us against too lightly imputing the latter, which “is the
product of falsehood, a heavy sin, and the parent of numerous heavy sins,” in cases of the former, where,
‘if the nature and condition of a man be really and truly, not conceitedly and untruly, singular, so also
will his manner be, so also it ought to be.” Thus, we will not lightly decide upon the merits or demerits of
Thomas Carlyle as a writer of English. We know that apart from superficial affectations,—or singularities,
—as they may be, he is a vigorous word-wielder and an original thinker. He is a hater of humbugs, a
demolisher of shams, a pricker of wind-bags; a genuine man, of generous impulses, honest hate, enduring
affection, and tender memories. Whatever difference of opinion may exist as to the characteristics of this
powerful and original writer, and his influence and value as a man of letters, all thoughtful readers must
admit their large indebtedness to him, and, object to his mannerisms as they may, be forced after all to
admit, in his own words, that “on the whole, genius has privileges of its own ; it selects an orbit for itself ;
and, be this never so eccentric, if it is indeed a celestial orbit, we mere star-gazers must at last compose
ourselves ; must cease to cavil at it, and begin to observe it, and calculate its laws.”+

* Mr. Franz L. J. Thimm, in his “ Literature of Germany, historically developed.” (London, 1844, 8vo.) Why does
not this gentleman favour students of German with a second edition of this excellent manual ? We know he has one ready
for publication.

+ “ Miscellanies,” i. pp. 15, 16.
 
  

: Ay A\ \\
A a
i

    

Xt
\\
.

      

\
No

  

      

 

              

   

‘i \ A SS
NAG =
ae WW PR
: LQ WN WAN \ 7 (
; ESS AWN SS SAAS i
SS Q&Xt' {A VQAL|VGQ{ A
Te ENS SSS

S

HRISTABIEL ?

Cc

AUTHOR OF
( 103 )

No. 38.—SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.

So are we to present

“The noticeable man with large grey eyes ’—

the worthy old Platonist—the founder of the romantic school of poetry—the pourer-forth of wisdom
multifarious, in language as mellifluous as that of Nestor himself—the good honest old thoroughgoing
Tory—even Samuel Taylor Coleridge himself—in an attitude of suffering. But so it is. He is at this
present writing under the sheltering roof of worthy Mr. Gillman, on the summit of Highgate Hill,
labouring under sciatica, jaundice, and other of those ills that afflict mankind. He has come to the third
step of the animal who formed the subject of the Sphinx’s riddle, and walks hobblingly upon three legs ;
and more the pity.

Coleridge has himself told us all the more material parts of his life in that queer and pleasant book,
his “ Biographia Literaria,” and it is needless for us now to tell how he was a Unitarian preacher, but
soon abandoned that pestilent and cold-hearted heresy,—how he was a newspaper editor,—how he wrote
the “ Friend,”—how he stirred up wars against Napoleon Buonaparte, late of the island of St. Helena,
deceased,—how the Emperor wished very particularly to take him under his kind protection, and patronize
the editor of the Morning Post as he patronized Palm,—how he wrote all manner of fine verses, and
generally forgot to publish them,—how “ Christabel” having been recited to Sir Walter Scott, and a
thousand others, was the acknowledged parent of the “Lay of the Last Minstrel,’—how Lord Byron,
having made free with a passage of it in his “Siege of Corinth,” it was at length produced,—how Jeffery,
or some of his scrubs, foully abused it in the Hdinburgh Review,—how he valiantly brought Jeffery to the
scratch, and made the little fellow apologise,—how, in short, he has lectured, talked, preached, written,
dogmatized, philosophized, dreamed, promised, begun, never ended, and so forth, are all written by himself,
and of course well known to the reader.

What he has done is exquisite, but it is nothing to what he could have done. Sapepoy adior gow
has been unluckily his motto, and the morrow never has come. Procrastination, that thief of time—the,
quotation is old, though the author is Young—has beguiled him onward in comparative idleness ; and his
best ideas have been suffered so often to lie unused, that they have at last appeared as the property of
others. His graceful “ Christabel” is a flagrant instance of this. It remained twenty years unpublished,
but not unknown ; and when its example had reared the ballad epic, or poetical novel, to its highest and
most magnificent state, it made its appearance, in the eyes of the general reading public an imitation of
its own progeny. We do not remember any worse luck in all literary history.

But Coleridge cared for none of these things. On he went, holding the even tenour of his way,
conversing with all and sundry. Many a critic deemed original has lived exclusively by sucking Coleridge’s
‘brains. The late William Hazlitt was one of the most conspicuous thieves. There was not an observation
—not a line—in all Hazlitt’s critical works, which was worth reading, or remembering, that did not
emanate directly from our old friend the Platonist ; other spoliators, more or less known, were as barefaced.
It was always worse done than if Coleridge had done it, and sometimes vilely perverted in spirit ; but
still the seed was good, and he has thus strongly acted upon the public mind of his day. We fear that his
‘Lay Sermons,” abounding as they do in brilliant and eloquent passages, have not found a very enlarged
audience; but what he has spoken and suggested is now diffused throughout the literature of England,
and forms part and parcel of every mind worth containing it in the country.

Would that we could see him drinking everlasting glasses of brandy-and-water in coffee-houses
various,—or carousing potations pottle-deep, as of old, in the western world of Bristol,—or making orations
to barmaids and landladies, and holding them by his glittering eye and suasive tongue ; and, above ull, we
most ardently hope to witness the publication of the conclusion of

The lovely Lady Christabel,
Finish’d by Coleridge, hale and well.

NOTES,

OLERIDGE may be regarded under the triform aspect of a TaLknr, a Port, anda Tuinker. Asa
cc Talker, he was doubtless superlatively great,—that is, in a certain sense ; and it is by his talking
that his life is partly to be measured. Nor improperly so ; for although talking and doing are incompatible,
the one ceasing when the other begins, yet, inasmuch as extremes meet, when talking exists in a certain
104 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

quantity and quality, it arrives at the dignity and importance of doing. And thus it comes to pass that, in
the case of Coleridge, his son Derwent, and some few others, talking and doing are one and the same thing.
It was in monoloyue, not conversation, that Coleridge shone. He rambled on uninterruptedly for hours ;
his auditors intoxicated by the ambrosial ichor that fell from the lips of the “ old man eloquent,” and careless
bout the logical sequence, or even the very subject, of his rambling discourse. “ Did you ever hear me
preach ?” said he to Lamb. “In-n-never heard you do anything else,” was the stuttering reply. ‘Coleridge
was a marvellous talker,” says Rogers ;* “one morning, when Hookham Frere also breakfasted with me,
Coleridge talked for three hours without intermission about poetry,—and so admirably, that I wish every
word he uttered had been written down.” The same authority goes on to say :—“ Sometimes his harangues
were quite unintelligible, not only to myself but to others,” an illustration of which we gain from another
source better than from the reminiscences of Mr. Dyce. “Wordsworth and myself,” says Rogers, “had walked
to Highgate to call on Coleridge, when he was living at Gillman’s. We sat with him two hours, he talking
the whole time without intermission. When we left the house, we walked for some time without speaking.
‘What a wonderful man he is!’ exclaimed Wordsworth. ‘Wonderful, indeed,’ said I. ‘What depth of
thought, what richness of expression!’ continued Wordsworth. ‘There’s nothing like him that ever I
heard,’ rejoined I. Another pause. ‘Pray,’ inquired Wordsworth, ‘did you precisely understand what he
said about the Kantian philosophy ?’ R. ‘Not precisely.” W. ‘Or about the plurality of worlds?’ R. ‘T
can’t say I did. In fact, if the truth must out, 1 did not understand a syllable from one end of his
monologue to the other.” W. ‘No more did I’”+ If all spectators, hearers, and readers were as honest
as these interlocutors, many a wind-bag would fall to earth for want of the puff of spurious praise which
keeps it aloft. But the flock will continue to follow the bell-wether, vanity fear the imputation of
ignorance, and omne ignotum pro magnifico be the rule of common judgment to the end of time.

As a Port, Coleridge is unquestionably great; and here, too, greater by his influence and principles
than his actual achievements. He had no “ finger industry,” as he said to Cottle, who was pressing him for
“copy,” though his brain was always at work,—small comfort to the expectant compositor! Hence it is,
—to his ill-health and his fatal habits,—that his morning promise,—probably no other poet had done what
he had done at thirty,—has never been fulfilled, and that the monument of his fame in the British Walhalla
is a mere Torso, showing only by its fragmentary magnificence what the entire figure seemed destined to be.
For the rest, Maginn has fairly anticipated us in all we would here have said on the subject of Coleridge’s
poetry. ‘‘Christabel” should have been published earlier. Pope had, a century before, bidden the
aspirant

“ From vulgar bounds with brave disorder part,
And snatch a grace beyond the reach of art ;”

but had still, by his practice, cast a cold. spell over English poetry. Coleridge was one of the first to free
himself from the restraint of the icy fetters, and lead the way with this weird, beautiful creation, in which
“the spiritual and material are so exquisitely blended that it is difficult to know where they run into each
other.”{ There is no doubt that he, eminently a copyist and a follower of other minds, had been largely
influenced by Goethe, Herder, and the ballad and romantic poets of the German “Sturm und Drang”
period, just as this had cast off the authority of classical tradition, and followed the unrestricted flight of
Homer, Shakspeare, Ossian, and the ballad literature so industriously collected by Percy, Ritson, and Evans.
With rapid intection, Scott caught the sacred flame, and the whole cope of heaven was soon ablaze with new
and unfamiliar fires.

What about Coleridge as a PuinosopHer? Those still among us, in whose ears the music of his voice
yet lingers, may exclaim exultingly to us, who only know his conversational glories by tradition,—“ quid si
ipsum audiissetis?”—as Alschines said to the Rhodians, when they were enchanted by the mere perusal
of the speeches of Demosthenes. But his vaunted philosophy we have, in many forms, before us, and
can judge for ourselves. The Zimes says somewhere that it is wholly incredulous as to the depth of
Coleridge, and that it regards his “philosophy” as “the most monstrous sham since Swedenborg.”§
Tenneman, too, places him as “ no systematic writer, but a metaphysical dilettante.”|| To his “ philosophy ”
may, indeed, be applied the epigram, which he is said to have written himself upon “ Christabel” :—

“Your poem must eternal be,
Dear sir, it cannot fail ;
For ’tis incomprehensible,
And wants both head and tail.”

We are no lovers of obscurity. It is because of the muddiness, not the depth, of the water, that you
cannot see the pebbles in the bed of the stream. We should almost be vain enough to say with Madame
de Staél, when reproached for not understanding Goethe,—“ Monsieur, je comprends tout ce qui mérite
détre compris; ce que je ne compreuds pas n’est rien.” But this seems, like every other thing, a matter
of taste. Chalmers complained to Irving of the obscurity of Coleridge ; but the latter replied, “You

* “Table-Talk of Samuel Rogers,” by Rev. Alexander Dyce, p. 207.
+ Edinburgh Review, No. cexi. p. 103.

t{ D. M. Moir.

§ Bentley’s Miscellany, vol. xl. p. 211.

|| “ History of Philosophy,” Bohn’s ed., p. 490.
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 105

Scotchmen would handle an idea as a butcher handles an ox. For my part, I love to see an idea looming
through the mist.” Very good; but it should be remembered that natural objects are magnified when
seen through a hazy medium, and that a street-lamp must not be set down as the sun because a London
fog has invested it with a portentous halo. We have honestly tried to make ourselves acquainted with
the general views and bearings of Coleridge’s “ Philosophy,” but without success. We have found it
obscure, turgid, immethodic, and mystical ; a pathless forest, horrent with transcendental terminology, and
penetrated by no straggling ray of the Zwmen siccum of the Baconian metaphysics. Besides, what there is
cannot be called his own. It has already been pointed out, beyond the power of refutation, that he is largely
indebted for his philosophy and his profoundest views on the zesthetics of art to Schelling, a philosopher of the
German school. From this writer Coleridge has adopted much, garbled more, and often translated, without
the slightest acknowledgment, entire pages verbatim. Another less-known metaphysician, Maasz, he has
laid under heavy contributions. The brothers Stolberg afforded him the original, almost word for word, for
his fine lines, “ To a Cataract”; Frederica Brun (see Preface to “Table Talk”), many of the principal ideas
in his admired “ Hymn before Sunrise in the Vale of Chamouni”; and lastly, Schiller, the exquisite
distiches, in which the classical metres are so happily described and exemplified,* as follows :—

Homeric HexsaMeETER.

“ Strongly it bears us along, in swelling and limitless billows ;
Nothing before, and nothing behind, but the sky and the ocean.”

Ovipran Execiac Merre.

“In the Hexameter rises the fountain’s silvery column ;
In the Pentameter aye falling in melody back.’

This is a somewhat painful subject, and opens up a curious question, not only as to the psychological
condition of the man who could thus appropriate the thoughts and very words of others without
acknowledgment, but also the critical character of the readers, who accepted as a marvellous system of
“philosophy” the garbled and mutilated transcendentalism of a young German philosopher who had just
left his teens! But we have no further space to discuss the matter, and refer the curious reader to
Tait’s Magazine, Sept., 1834 ; the British Magazine, Jan., 1835 ; and Blackwood’s Magazine, March, 1840.

A. few hasty facts in the life of 8. T. Coleridge. He was born at Ottery St. Mary’s, Devon,
Oct. 21st, 1772; educated at Christ's Hospital ; entered Jesus College, Cambridge, in 1791, where he
gained the Browne Medal for his Greek ode on the Slave-trade, and was one of four selected candidates
for the University Scholarship, vacant by the election of Porson (who was examiner on the occasion) to
the Greek Professorship ; left the University without a degree, and enlisted as a private in the 15th
Dragoons ; got his discharge ; joined Southey at Bristol, and started the Watchman ; married in 1795 ;
became a Unitarian preacher at Taunton ; was enabled by the Wedgwoods to go to Germany,—

“The land that produced a Kant with a K,
And many more cants with a C;”

studied at Gottingen; returned, and betook himself to the Lakes; in 1804, visited his friend, Dr.
Stoddart, at Malta, and for fifteen months acted there as secretary to Sir Alexander Ball, the governor
of the island; returned to England; undertook the literary and poetical department of the Morniny
Post ; delivered a course of lectures in 1808, on poetry and the fine arts, at the Royal Institution ;
published the Friend ; left the Lakes finally in 1810 ; took up his abode in London with Basil Montague,
the “ water-drinking barrister” (son of Lord Sandwich and the murdered Miss Reay) ; went, about 1816,
to stay a week with his friend Mr. Gillman, a surgeon residing at the Grove, Highgate, and remained
there for the rest of his life, dying, after a long illness, July 25th, 1834, in the 62nd year of his age.

The “ Opium-Eater ” styles Coleridge “the largest and most spacious intellect, the subtlest and most
comprehensive that has yet existed among men.” W. 8. Landor calls this “impiety to Shakspeare,” and
“treason to Milton,” but thinks that every one besides, including Bacon, Byron, and Scott, is to him as a gun-
flint compared to a granite mountain !f Lamb loved his early friend to idolatry, and never overgot his death,
“What was his mansion,” said he, “is converted into a chapel.” The tablet to his memory in Highgate
Church records “that his disposition was unalterably sweet and angelic. He was an ever-enduring, ever-
loving friend, the gentlest and kindest teacher, the most engaging home companion.” This is proved, to a
great extent, by the love which he excited. But he cannot be said to have possessed strength or decision of
character ; he may have loved truth, but he failed to attain it ; he was a slave to the use of opium, and
sacrificed his social obligations for it ; he broke engagements, and “ knew not the sanctity of a pledged word.”
J. and T. Wedgwood allowed him £150 per annum to finish his education in Germany ; Joseph Cottle, of
Bristol, was profuse in liberality to him ; Southey kept his wife and children ; he received for many years a
pension of £100 per annum as one of the ten Royal Associates of the Royal Society of Literature ; and,
finally, was indebted to the Gillmans, of Highgate, for a home, and all the comforts of life, from middle
life to its close-—when he might almost have said, with the younger Scaliger,—“ Ego ab obitu patris mei

semper eleemosynis vixi.”
* For the originals, see “ Schiller’s Werke,” band, i. p. 62 ed. Stuttgart u. Tiibingen, 1852.

+ Letter to Lady Blessington. t “ Essays from the Times,” 1851, p. 250.
0
( 106 )

No. 39.—GEORGE CRUIKSHANK.

ERE we have the Sketcher sketched; and, as is fit, he is sketched sketching. Here is George

Cruikshank—the George Cruikshank—seated upon the head of a barrel, catching inspiration from

the scenes presented to him in a pot-house, and consigning the ideas of the moment to immortality on the
crown of his hat. We wish that he would send us the results of his easy labours.

Of George Cruikshank the history is short. He stands too often and too well before the eyes of the
public to render it necessary that we should say much about him ; and we confess, that of his earlier annals
we know little or nothing. This, it must be allowed, is but small reason for a “regular magazine hand” to
decline writing a long article about them, according to the usual and much-honoured practice of the well-
trained contributors of our worshipful contemporaries. But as we profess to have a conscience, we must not
comply with the usage ; honestly stating, on the contrary, that the first of Cruikshank’s works known to us
are his caricatures of George IV. and his friends. Tories as we were and are, and as we trust we still shall
be, these comic picturings haunt our imagination. The poor old king in every attitude of ludicrous distress
(the “ Fat in the Fire” was perfection) ; Copley (sketched, us we have been assured, merely from description,
and yet a great likeness) ; Castlereagh (but even the professed caricaturist could not destroy the gentlemanly
grace of that noble face and figure) ; the “ Waterloo man,” with his sword dropping into the scale against
the pen ; the various parsons, jailors, jockeys, lawyers, and the rest, were first-rate. As Cruikshank himself
says of Gilray, “‘ He that did these things was a great man, sir,—a very great man, sir!” To Cruikshank,
however, they were productive of nothing but the fame of their cleverness and the odium of their politics ;
as Hone, for whom and his blockhead authors George’s talents floated the dire rubbish of the ‘‘ House that Jack
Built,” and other witless productions, never paid him for what he had done. In all these stupid productions
there were loud puffs of the power of the press—George never knew anything of it when in their hands but
as a screw.

However, what he did gave him fame and name. We Tory folk were horribly angry at the time, but
we soon confessed that the caricaturist was a clever fellow. The Trade came to the same conclusion, and
work flowed in apace. We rather think he quitted ere long the shabby crew who wished to make him their
property, and has settled down, if not into the genuine faith of a Tory, at least into that approach to ortho-
doxy which consists in the detestation of a Whig. At all events, he does not appear any longer as a political
caricaturist ; and yet, was there ever a time when there was such an opportunity? Just think of a speech
from the woolsack by Lord Brougham, at eleven o'clock at night, or an opening of a budget, or other finan-
cial matter, by Lord Althorp, at any hour of the twenty-four. We wish that Cruikshank would wake a
little, and show H. B. that, clever as he is, he is not to be allowed a monopoly of depicting the humours or
stupidities of Whiggism.

Of course, George is, like all other men of undoubted genius, a most ill-used gentleman. As Mathews
laments that the general obtuseness of the public will not recognize his talents for tragedy,—as Liston mourns
over the delusion which applauds him in Sam Swipes and Paul Pry, and does not permit him to appear as
the Damon or Strephon of a sighing opera,—so Cruikshank is shocked at the evil fate which consigns him to
drawing sketches and caricatures, instead of letting him loose in his natural domain of epic or historical pic-
ture. Let him content himself: he can draw what will be held in honoured remembrance when ninety-nine
out of every hundred of the great “ masters” of our “schools,” anda still larger proportion of all the R.A.s
and A.R.A.s that ever existed, or ever are doomed to exist, will be forgotten. The historical which he should
cultivate is such as that which appears in his recently published ‘‘ Sketch-Book,” where, for example, the life of
Buonaparte, whether as eagle soaring over the Alps or eagle chained to a perch, is depicted in all its stages,
from artillery-lad on watch, through triumph, splendour, and flight, to the little cocked-hatted and round-
paunched exile of St. Helena. And so we conclude our thirty-ninth article of this series; and he who
refuses to subscribe to its truth is a dissenter worse than a pagan.

 

MOTE §S,

E believe that an ingenious gentleman once succeeded in cramming the “ Iliad” into a nutshell ; we

\ \ wish that he were here to teach us how to get the tenth part of what we think and feel about the
character and genius of our friend GEorcE CRUIKSHANK within the limits of this narrow page.

“Old” George Cruikshank,—“ King” Cruikshank,—“old” in our recollections, “king” in his

branch of art,—which, Mr. Wright well says, “he has raised to perhaps the highest degree of excellence

it has yet reached.” What a flood of kindly emotions, love, admiration, respect, and gratitude, are excited
  

en
‘ Vig tii 4 Z 2 ‘
4 YP, fd

Yy
1. Ce
y oy, | :

 
           

   

 

 

 

   

AUTEOR GRILLUSTRATIONS OF TIME"
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 107

by the mention of that suggestive and familiar name! The delight of our grandfathers, who were wont to
tell how they fought their way through the crowd that blocked up Hone’s or Fairburn’s windows, in
Ludgate Hill, half a century ago, to catch a glimpse of the new cut of the “Dandy of Sixty” ; our own
wonder, ere we knew the difference between woodcut and etching ; our very children, — if we have any,—
are now collecting him as an “old master,” and giving fabulous sums for scraps, which we happily laid in
at an easier day, and afford us a never-failing fund of amusement and instruction.

; George was born,—so tells us “Men of the Time,”—about 1794. His father, Isaac, was an artist of
eminence, whose caricatures were equal to those of any of his contemporaries, with the exception of Gilray
and Rowlandson, and whose miniature portraits,—we have a specimen before us,—were distinguished by
much grace and careful execution. George was at work for the public in his teens. Myr. Wright speaks of
“two of his earliest works, published by Fores, of Piccadilly, and dated respectively the 3rd and 19th of
March, 1815” ;* but these were not his first. We have before us the folding coloured frontixpiece, full of
life, vigour, and Hogarthian humour, to a work entitled ‘ Metropolitan Grievances, &c.,” published by
Sherwood & Co. in 1812; and in the same year he etched for his brother Robert the capital “Sparring
Match at the Fives-court,” which gives a fictitious value to the first volume of Pierce Egan’s “ Boxiana,”
printed by G. Smeeton, in 1812. This gives a retrospect of sixty years, and these even may not be the
earliest. In 1820 came his connection with William Hone, so celebrated for his religious parodies, and the
political persecution of which they were made the instruments. It is the fashion to decry this writer, and
speak of his anti-Georgian squibs as only deriving currency from the woodcuts of Cruikshank. But this
is not the case. His “ Political House that Jack built,” his “Queen’s Matrimonial Ladder,” and his
“ Political Showman,” are clever and smart in themselves, and possess now an historical importance, which,
together with their illustrations, is raising them every day in value to the collector. In 1827 their author
collected as many complete sets as he could ; added a preface and title-page, on which is a vignette of
author and artist, seated together at a table,—“ We twa hae paidl’t”; and styled the volume ‘“ Hone’s
Facetie and Miscellanies.” A copy of this, we observe, fetched a couple of guineas at the sale of George
Smith, in July, 1867 (Lot 4,055); and it is now worth quite as much, or more. Take care, when you
find it, that it contains the rare and inimitable plate, in black and white, of the “Queen’s Matrimonial
Ladder” ; and the equally rare “‘ Bank Restriction Note,” which Hone almost begged from the careless artist,
and whose exhibition in the publisher’s window caused an obstruction which civic authority had to remove,
and I know not what of cash to the tradesman’s pocket. George himself,—for we are honoured with the
friendship of the distinguished artist,—has discoursed to us of the exiguity of his own remuneration ; but
we should hardly estimate it so low as a writer in /raser's Magazine, who, reviewing “Three Courses and
a Dessert” (June, 1830, p. 549), says that the whole sum received from Hone was not more than £18.
Among the rarer pamphlets of the time, is a virulent attack upon the pamphleteer, entitled “ Slop’s Shave
at a Broken Hone” (1820, 8vo.), in which the following lines occur :—

“JT grant exceptions sometimes may occur ;
For instance, such dull boggling slang as you sell,
However coarse, attention would not stir,
Nor barrow-women of their pence bamboozle,
Without a woodcut to explain the sense,
And help along its lame incompetence.

Therefore the wisest job that ever you did

(Next to your well-known Trial and Subscription)
Was your flash bargain with a wag concluded,

To aid your threadbare talent for description ;
For who, in fits at Cruiky’s droll designs,
Can stay to criticise lop-sided rhymes P

Make much of that droll dog, and feed him fat :
Your gains would fall off sadly in amount,
Should he once think your letter-press too flat,
And take to writing on his own account :
Your libels then would sell about as quick, sir,
As bare quack labels would without th’ elixir.”—(Page ii.)

Ata later period Hone paid an affectionate tribute to the friend whose talents had been of such inestimable
service to him. He rejoices that his “ little pieces acquainted every rank of society in the British dominions
with the powers of the artist, whose genius had been wasted on mere caricature till it embodied his ideas
and feelings.” He praises the “ multiform fertility of the freest pencil that ever drew a line on a block” ;
and adds, “his conception of original fancy seems intuitive, and yet his elaboration of a fac-simile would
glisten the peering eye of a bibliomaniac.”+ ;

This, too (1821), was the “ Tom and Jerry” period, when Pierce Egan—‘“Fancy’s child”—produced
his immortal “ Life in London ; or, the Day and Night Scenes of Jerry Hawthorn, Esq., and his elegant
Friend Corinthian Tom, accompanied by Bob Logic, the Oxonian, in their Rambles and Sprees through

* « History of Caricature and Grotesque in Literature and Art.” By T. Wright, M.A., &c. London, 4to. 1865.
+ “ Aspersions Answered.” By William Hone. 1824, 8vo. p. 49.
0 2
108 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

the Metropolis.” What a splendid copy we have before us—George IV.’s own, to whom it is dedicated,
with the Royal arms on the back! But we must replace it, for it needs a chapter for description.* A
companion volume is the “ Finish to the Adventures of Tom, Jerry, and Logic,” which was not published
till 1830, and of which Robert Cruikshank boasts himself the “original suggester and artist.” The early
pages of this book give a curious account of the furore which its predecessor inspired, and the imitations,
ballads, and dramatic entertainments to which it gave rise. Among others, Moncrieff wrote a piece which
had a run of some two or three hundred nights at the Adelphi. Prior to its production, Egan himself had
a drama in rehearsal at Covent Garden ; and the story goes that, finding its success was likely to be
impaired by the rival production, he had a verbal “turn-up” with the dramatist in the street, accusing him
of larcenous appropriation from the pages of “Tom and Jerry.” ‘No, by the mass!” exclaimed Moncrieff;
“not so, sir; not at all. TU tell you what, Pierce: Rodwell sent me the books to read. I did so; but
they posed me for a month. I could make neither head nor tail of them. So what did I do, sir? Why,
e, wrote my piece from the inimitable plates—Cruikshank’s plates—and boiled my kettle with your
letterpress. That’s the plain fact.”+ Just one word for the “ Life in Paris: comprising the Rambles, Sprees,
and Amours of Dick Wildfire and his Bang-up Companions,” by David Carey (8vo. 1822), entirely
illustrated by George—funful, graphic, humorous; and Combe’s ‘Life of Napoleon: a Hudibrastic
Poem” (1817, 8vo.), with its thirty coloured plates by Cruikshank, in which farce and tragedy are
struggling for the mastery. A vast favourite of ours is “ Mornings in Bow-street” (1825-7). Strolling
some years ago into a small circulating library kept by a Mr. Griffiths, at Ludlow, we were informed by
him that he had been a shopman to the publishers, and in that capacity had paid the artist for his designs
at the rate of five guineas each for the large, and two for the smaller ; and, moreover, that the male figure
on the vignette or title was a portrait of the draughtsman. Just about this time, too, the inimitable
‘« Points of Humour,” published by Baldwyn, a relative of the artist (part i, 1823; part ii, 1824), made
their appearance.

We must hold our pen. The mere designation of the landmarks in this artist's long and industrious
career demands more than the whole space that we have at our disposal. What a, life of study, observation,
and Jabour has his been! What do we not owe him for the amusement he has afforded us, and the moral
lesson of his labours and his life! It was the boast of Rowlandson that he had etched as much copper as
would sheathe a first-rate man-of-war. Cruikshank may not be able to say this, for his works have been on
a smaller scale ; but his productiveness has been something quite amazing, especially when we consider
that it has all been marked by honesty and earnestness, never bears a trace of “scamping,” and has been
wholly irrespective of fee or reward, the artist taking whatever offered, and doing what he had to do with
his whole might, and the utmost simplicity and directness of purpose. Thus one may well believe that his
life has been, us he once described it to ourselves, like that of a squirrel in its cage, illustrating by the
paddling movement of his hands the rotatory labours of the little animal. Some idea of this may have been
gained by the ‘Cruikshank Exhibition” of more than a thousand etchings, at Exeter Hall, in July,
1863, to which Mr. F. T. Palgrave devotes a paper in his “‘ Essays on Art,” where this able critic points
out our artist’s affinity to Bewick, and styles him “decidedly the first illustrative designer of the
time.”

Mr. Ruskin has shown that the tragic power of Cruikshank is on a par with his comic genius. Here
he is right. Truly great in caricature as he is,—Walter Thornbury hails him “ king,’—he has probably
too much of the milk of human kindness in bis nature to allow him to spend his life in personal satire.
Hence his abandonment of this branch of art, and his addiction to another, for which he has most special
and unusual capabilities. Popular superstition, diablerie, the faéry realm of Puck and Titania, the
gnomes of the mine, and the spirits of the air, never had a more congenial and penetrative exponent.
Witness his illustrations to Grimm’s “ German Popular Stories,” which Ruskin has pronounced the “ finest
things, next to Rembrandt, that have been done since etching was invented”;§ his etchings to Scott’s
“ Demonology and Witchcraft” ; those to ‘ Peter Schlemihl” and “ Hans of Iceland ;” and his pictures in
oils, which we have seen upon his easel, to illustrate the “Midsummer Night’s Dream” of Shakspeare.
Of late years, as we all know, he has devoted his genius to the exemplification of the evils of that giant
vice which is rampant among us ;—our great national shame of drunkenness, which has probably produced
more misery and crime than all other vices put together. He may have carried his hatred of this vile habit
even to intolerance ; but be this as it may, we say all honour to the great artist with whom the desire
to benefit his kind has become the mainspring of action, and who devotes the maturity of his talents to
improve and reform the world that, in his younger days, he was contented to amuse.

We do not assert that Cruikshank is a perfect artist; that his genius has no limitations ; or that he is
always free from manverism or puerility. It is well said by Blackwood, that he is an excellent humorist ;
in low London life, above all, admirable ; seems to have given his days and nights to that portion of human
nature which is to be contemplated in the glorious atmosphere of round-houses. But the artist’s poverty is
visible when he attempts to paint a gentleman of England. He cannot hit the quiet arrogance of the
only true aristocracy in the world; he cannot draw their easy, handsome faces, knowing but not black-
guard, proud, kind, scornful, voluptuous, redolent in every lineament of high feeling, fifteen claret, and

 

* Pierce Egan died, August 8th, 1849, aged 77.

+ “Every Night Book; or, Life after Dark.” 1827, 8vo. p. 81.

+ Reviewed in Blackwood’s Magazine, July, 1823, p. 18.

§ “Elements of Drawing.” By J. Ruskin. 1857, 8vo. Appendix, p. 340.
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 109

the principles of Mr. Pitt.’* Well, the allegation may have some truth; as also that he equally fails in
his delineation of a “lady of England,” where certainly we miss those graceful lines that mark the female
figures of Stothard and Rowlandson,—two artists in very different walks apart, but whom we advisedly
couple together.

_ What a curious mistake that is in the “Kunstler Lexicon,” of Nagler. Some years ago, in some
periodical, the merits of George and Robert Cruikshank were compared, and the former spoken of as “ the
real Simon Pure.” Unaware of the significance of a phrase which has become proverbial among us, the
German writer begins his memoir of the former by the statement that he is an English artist, ‘‘ whose real
name is Simon Pure.” Turning next to the letter P, we accordingly read :—“ Purs (Simon), the real name
of the celebrated caricaturist, George Cruikshank” !

Mr. Cruikshank’s last production,—which we possess by his kindness,—is a pamphlet in which he
seeks to vindicate his claim to the primal idea, if not to the characters and many of the incidents, of the
“Oliver Twist” of Charles Dickens, and the “ Miser’s Daughter” of W. Harrison Ainsworth. We think
his labour was needless,—at least as regards the latter work. Let him turn to any second-hand bookseller’s
catalogue, and he will find this, and the other books which he has illustrated, under his own name, while
that of his colleague of the pen is only mentioned as a collateral and unimportant circumstance.

Few men have excited so large an amount of affection and respect from his contemporaries. “Timothy
Tickler” (Sym) exclaims,—“ What a clever fellow George Cruikshank is. They said he was a mere
caricaturist. Sir, he is a painter; a great painter."t Ruskin says of his etchings to Grimm,—“ You
cannot look at them too much, nor copy them too often. All his works are very valuable... . his
manner of work is always right, and his tragic power, though rarely developed, and warped by habits of
caricature, is, in reality, as great as his grotesque power.” Walter Thornbury, speaking of his “ Progress
of Crime,” writes :—‘ There seems to me quite as much thought, and heart, and moral power about this
work, as about any of Hogarth’s or Diirer’s ; and I am firmly convinced that Cruikshank, when he dies
(which may God long avert), and death has given a sacred character to his works, in our national
collection of English art (if we ever have one) will be one of our most venerated old masters.”{ Samuel
Phillips says :—‘ George is popular among his associates. His face is an index of his mind. There is
nothing anomalous about him and his doings. His appearance, his illustrations, his speeches, are all alike—
all picturesque, artistic, full of fun, feeling, geniality, and quaintness. His seriousness is grotesque, and
his drollery is profound. He is the prince of living caricaturists, and one of the best of men.” Thackeray,
in his fine appreciative article in the Westminster Review (No. lxvi.),§ a labour to which, we are told,
he looked back with peculiar pleasure,—winds up :—‘‘ He has told us a thousand new truths, in as many
strange and fascinating ways ; he has given a thousand new and pleasant thoughts to millions of people ;
he has never used his wit dishonestly ; he has never, in all the exuberance of his frolicsome nature, caused
a single painful or guilty blush. How little do we think of the extraordinary power of this man, and how
ungrateful we are to him!” Mr. Palgrave speaks of “his high gifts to move both tears and laughter,” and
of the reparation which Time has in store for him, as it has had for Hogarth. Finally, that scholarly
antiquary, Thomas Wright, tells how we owe to his influence and to his example, in a great degree, the
cleansing of this branch of art from certain objectionable characteristics of which he had spoken; and
concludes the subject and his volume, at once, with words which we take leave to adopt as expressive of
our own feelings :—‘‘ May he still live long among the friends who not only admire him for his talents,
but love him for his kindly and genial spirit ; and none among them love and admire him more sincerely
than the ‘ writer’ of the present ‘ Notes.’”’||

ISAAC ROBERT CRUIKSHANK.

Rozert, or more properly Isaac Roserr Crurksuank, was the elder brother of the more celebrated
George, in whose greater fame his own has unjustly become absorbed. He passed his early years at sea ;
but, devoting himself to art, associated himself with his brother, conjointly with whom he produced the
famous illustrations for Pierce Egan’s “Life in London.” Thenceforth the brothers pursued different
courses, though their affection for each other suffered no diminution. We cannot pretend to enumerate
here the works of Robert, and must content ourselves with the assertion that they are only inferior in merit
to those of George, and are now unwisely neglected by the collector. Robert Cruikshank died of bronchitis,
March 13th, 1856, in the 65th year of his age. His old friend and literary coadjutor in “ Cumberland’s
British Theatre,” the late George Daniel, of Islington, has left a feeling tribute to his memory, in his
“ Love’s Last Labour not Lost” (Pickering, 1863, 12mo.), page 173.

* Blackwood’s Magazine, February, 1854, p. 220.

+ ‘Noctes Ambrosianew,”’ No. xliv.

t “British Artists, from Hogarth to Turner.” By Walter Thornbury, vol. ii. p. 64.

§ Republished in 1840 (8vo.), by Hooper, Pall-Mall:—once obtainable for a couple of shillings, and now worth hard on
for a guinea!

|| ‘‘ History of Caricature.” By T. Wright, 1865, p. 494.
( 0 9

No. 40.—DOCTOR MOIR,

E here present our readers with Dr. Moir, the far-famed Delta of the North ; our itinerant artist

having taken a flying sketch of him in passing through the borough [now] of Musselburgh. We

forgot ; the town was in the “olden time” of that degree, as witnesseth that ancient rhyme, not more
remarkable for its beauty than its perspicuity :—

“Musselburgh it was a burgh
When Edinburgh was nane,
And Musselburgh will be a burgh
When Edinburgh is gane.”

To return to the portrait. Be it known to all men, that although the Doctor is celebrated far and
wide for “stringing blethers upon rhyme,” as naturally as Robert Burns himself, yet the world has but the
moiety of a notion of a little part of his worth, when it thinks that his poetry comprehends all the merit
which entitles him to the praise and goodwill of our courteous readers. In fact, if there be any efficacy in
local influences, he could not help being Delta—he had no choice in the matter; he was “to the manner
born,” and has no more reason to be proud of his gift than a beautiful young lady of her beauty.

Certainly he is somewhat indebted to Fate, but with equal innocence ; for he was not consulted about
the expediency of being born in the burgh aforesaid, and is guiltless of associating in the environs, so many
storied and classic talismans. For example, in the walks of Pinkie House his callow muse probably first
learnt to chirp—Pinkie, so renowned in minstrelsy and song, and rebuilt in its fame by the author of
“Waverley.” Then his boyish musings in Eskgrove, where the Protector Somerset pitched his tent in the
invasion of Scotland, on the very spot where old Lord Eskgrove set up a leaden image of Flora, obnoxious
to schoolboys, by whom she has been pitted with small shot, as naturally as if she had been ill of the
small-pox before vaccination was discovered. His adolescence strayed, no doubt, as far as Carberry Hill,
and there he had bright visions of the fair, ill-fated Mary. But our limits oblige us to curtail the verse-
inspiring catalogue of the circumstances that probably as much contributed to make him a poet, as the
Edinburgh University to dub him a doctor.

Although the Doctor is chiefly known afar by his rhymes, and esteemed at home for his household
worth, he is also not unknown to many strangers for his reason. Some of his occasional papers (in
Rearna, as well as elsewhere) have great. merit for the simple perspicuity of style, and the sedate good
sense which pervades them ; indeed, we are disposed to value his possession of this quality very highly, for
with the most unaffected “to the point” clearness, his dissents are ever expressed in that mild and
temperate manner which bespeaks respect for his information and understanding.

His talents are confined neither to rhyme nor reason ; he possesses a naive vein of humour of no
common kind, as witnesseth ‘“ Mansie Waugh,” which, though to the English a sealed book, is a work very
admirably descriptive of a class of persons fast wearing out even in that land of originals, Scotland, as well
as of manners that are no longer common. ;

When part of “‘Mansie Waugh ” first appeared in Blackwood, it was ascribed to Galt by many of his
friends ; and indeed his Scottish manner was so evident throughout, that he said himself it was strange he
had no recollection of writing such a book—as if he had no doubt of its being his. It is an instance of the
vraisemblable equal to anything in the “ Rejected Addresses.” We hope that he has not worked out this
vein. Mansie Waugh himself was becoming somewhat of a bore at last ; but are there no other Mansies
in the land?

The Doctor is great upon contagion ; and not content with fighting, and in a great measure subduing,
the foul fiend Cholera (he was secretary to the Edinburgh Board during the prevalence of the disorder, and
filled the office with high honour to himself), he wrote a book about it. Whether Cholera rejoiced that
his enemy had written a book or not, we cannot say ; but, at all events, we trust that it will be a long day
before he or any of his rascally breed, seed, or generation shall come to deprive our literature of the
multifarious talents of

“ Delta, triangular bard,”

as somebody, we forget who, once called him.

 

NOT ES.

HIS eminent physician, poet, and critic, died at Dumfries, aged 53, July 6th, 1851. He was born at
Musselburgh, in January, 1798 ; studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh ; and practised in

his native town, where his skill, kindness, and assiduity gained him a large measure of success. So early
as 1817, when a lad of nineteen, he committed his first verses to the press, in the pages of Blackwood’s
 

 

A Croguss deh

LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH®

7

OF

AUTHOR
 

Ti

ne : :
—

HI

 
  

cA

 
 

f
!

MT

  

 

 

= SS SS Se

SSS ee

== a SSS SSS
SSS ae

 

 

Sea

a
742 _ 2 ez

a a

io 3G

RDM

ALITY

Ad

4

ANID IRTE

=
A

AN OIE

Ii

iF

D

DIR

Mpa {
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 111

Magazine, a serial which, for the long period of more than thirty years, he continued to enrich with a
supply of poetical contributions,—the last, “The Lament of Selim,” leaving his hand little more than a
fortnight before his death. This long series of poems is uniformly distinguished by command of language,
piety of tone, delicacy of fancy, and purity of thought. “ Delta,” says Professor Wilson, “has produced
many original pieces, which will possess a permanent place in the poetry of Scotland.” Jeffrey wrote to
him, thanking him for the gratification which he had received from his poems, and ascribing to them “more
genuine pathos than anything almost that he had ever read in verse”; and Dr. Butler, the Bishop of
Lichfield, singled out his lines on Mount St. Bernard, as worthy of a Latin version, which forms one of the
happiest pieces in the “ Arundines Cami.”

It was also in Blackwood that was commenced one of the most felicitous pieces of Scotch humour that
has ever appeared,—the “Life of Mansie Waugh, Tailor in Dalkeith.” This admirable imaginary
biography was subsequently completed, dedicated to Galt, and issued by Blackwood in 1828. In the
depiction of Scottish character in the humbler walks of life,—in quiet, refined humour,—in simple pathos,
—we know nothing superior to it, and rank it with the “Cottagers of Glenburnie” of Miss Hamilton, the
“Castle Rackrent” of Miss Edgeworth, and the “Cranford” of our own Mrs. Gaskell. Regarding this as
an original creation, we consider that it alone is sufticiert to obtain for its author a high place among those
authors who, like Scott and Galt, have used fiction as a vehicle for the delineation of national character.

The position of Dr. Moir as a critic depends upon his “Sketches of the Poetical Literature of the
Past Halfcentury ” (Blackwood, 8vo. 1851). This is a reprint of six lectures, originally delivered at the
Edinburgh Philosophical Association, in the session of 1850-1. A notice of it forms the subject of an
essay in Gilfillan’s “ Literary Portraits,” where its merits and demerits are fairly pointed out. His
definition of poetry,—“ Objects or subjects seen through the mirror of imagination, and descanted on in
harmonious language,” he admits to be imperfect. So is that of Aristotle, Dr. Johnson, and Leigh Hunt ;
and we still await a satisfactory explanation. The book, however, is genial, eloquent, and enthusiastic ;
but erroneous in classification, and mistaken as to the fate of poetry and its necessary declension, in an era
of science and discovery.

Dr. Moir also edited the poems of Mrs. Hemans, the greatest female poet that this country has yet
produced ; wrote a “ Life of John Galt”; and was author of “Outlines of the Ancient History of Medicine,
being a View of the Progress of the Healing Art among the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and Arabians”
(1831), a work of great erudition and research.

It was when visiting his old and valued friend Thomas Aird that he was attacked with peritonitis,
Dr. Christison, of Edinburgh, was called in; but he grew worse, and died on the Sunday morning,
three days after his attack. On the 11th of July he was buried at Musselburgh, where he had so
long practised, and was interred near to that fondly-loved boy whose early fate he had sung in his
well-known “Casa Wappy,” a poem hardly less true and pathetic than Cowper's lines on the receipt
of his mother’s picture.

His poetical works have been collected and published by his friend Thomas Aird,—himself a
poet of rare poetical genius,—who has prefaced the volumes with a Life, which in power of language
and generosity of feeling may be pronounced a model of appreciative biography.

PK REF OS

No, 41.—MISS LANDON.

ETITIA ELIZABETH LANDON! Burke said, that ten thousand swords ought to have leaped

out of their scabbards at the mention of the name of Marie Antoinette; and in like manner we

maintain that ten thousand pens should leap out of their ink-bottles to pay homage to L. E. L. In Burke’s

time, Jacobinism had banished chivalry—at least out of France,—and the swords remained unbared for the
queen ; we shall prove that our pens shall be uninked for the poetess.

As to writing the history of her birth, education, and all other such particulars, we must decline so
doing for many reasons ; of which we may specify one, viz., that we look upon it as the most indefensible
of all things to inquire into the chronological history of any lady—in which sentiment, it will be seen
on examination, that all the compilers of all the peerages agree with us. Nor shall we detain ourselves by
long details of her works. “ Que regio in terris?” says Virgil: but we forget; we are writing about a
lady, and must abjure Latinising, and content ourselves by paraphrasing Virgil’s question in English, and
ask, In what quarter of our literary world is not L. KE. L. known and admired? From her “ Improvvisatrice ”
(a word puzzling to pronounce to the average natives of Cockney-land, and which she, not having the fear
of Della Crusca before her eyes, spelt with a single v, thereby deluding into that practice many ingenious
young gentlemen and ladies), which, we believe, was her first work published in the substantive shape of a
volume, to her last illustrations of the gatherings of Fisher or Heath, through the verse of her “ Golden
Violet” and the prose of her ‘* Romance and Reality,” all her works have been favourites with everybody,
but especial pets of the press. We do not doubt that the forthcoming “ Francesca Carrara” will receive an
accueil equally favourable. ‘
112 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

There is too much about love in them, some cross-grained critic will say. How, Syuaretoes, can there
be too much of love in a young lady’s writings? we reply in a question. Is she to write of politics, or
political economy, or pugilism, or punch? Certainly not. We feel a determined dislike of women who
wander into these unfeminine paths ; they should immediately hoist a moustache—and, to do them justice,
they in general do exhibit no inconsiderable specimen of the hair-lip. We think Miss L. KE. L. has chosen
the better part. She shows every now and then that she is possessed of information, feeling, and genius,
to enable her to shine in other departments of poetry ; but she does right in thinking that Sappho knew
what she was about when she chose the tender passion as the theme for woman.

Whether she merely writes on this theme as a matter of abstract poetry, or whether there is anything
less unsubstantial to inspire the sentiments of her flowing verses, is a question which we have no right to
ask ; but this we shall say, that she is a very nice, unbluestockingish, well-dressed, and trim-looking young
lady, fond of sitting pretty much as Croquis (who has hit her likeness admirably) has depicted her, in neat
and carefully-arrayed costume, at her table, chatting, in pleasant and cheering style, with all and sundry
who approach her. The only verses of which we ever knew Archibald Constable, the bookseller, to be
guilty—and these, the erudite reader will perceive, are not altogether original—were in praise of Miss
Landon, whom he met while travelling in Yorkshire :—

“TJ truly like thee, L. E. L.,
The reason why I cannot tell;
But this is fact, I know full well,
That I do like thee, L. HE. L.”

And the quatrain of the bibliopole will be cheerfully agreed to by all who know her ; though they, not being
under the necessity of parodying the epigram of Dr. Fell, will probably be afforded sufficient reasons.

By why is she Miss Landon ?

“ A fault like this should be corrected,” as Whistlecraft says.

 

NODE S:

“Lapy ! for thee a holier key shall harmonize the chord—
In Heaven’s defence, Omnipotence drew an avenging sword ;
But when the bolt had crush’d revolt, one angel, fair though frail,
Retain’d his lute, fond attribute ! to charm that gloomy vale.
The lyre he kept, his wild hand swept; the music he’d awaken
Would sweetly thrill from the lonely hill where he sat apart forsaken ;
There he’d lament his banishment, his thoughts to grief abandon,
And weep his full; ’twas pitiful to see him weep, fair Lanpon.

He wept his fault! Hell’s gloomy vault grew vocal with his song;
But all throughout, derision’s shout burst from the guilty throng:
God pitying view’d his fortitude in that unhallow’d den ;

Freed him from hell, but bade him dwell amid the sons of men.
Lady, for us, an exile thus, immortal Poesy

Came upon earth and lutes gave birth to sweetest minstrelsy ;
And poets wrought their spell-words, taught by that angelic mind,
And music lent soft blandishment to fascinate mankind.

Religion rose! men sought repose in the shadow of her wings ;
Musie for her walk’d harbinger, and Genius touch’d the strings :
Tears from the tree of Araby cast on her altar burn’d,

But earth and wave most fragrance gave where Poetry sojourn’d.
Vainly, with hate inveterate, hell labour’d in its rage,

To persecute that angel’s lute, and cross his pilgrimage ;

Unmoved and calm, his songs pour’d balm on sorrow all the while ;
Vice he unmask’d, but virtue bask’d in the radiance of his smile.

Oh ! where, among the fair and young, or in what kingly court,

In what gay path, where Pleasure hath her favourite resort,
Where hast thou gone, angelic one? Back to thy native skies ?
Or dost thou dwell in cloister’d cell, in pensive hermit’s guise ?
Methinks I ken a denizen of this our island—nay,

Leave me to guess, fair poetess! queen of the matchless lay !

The thrilling line, lady! is thine; the spirit pure and free ;

And England views that angel muse, Lanpon! reveal’d in THEE!”

HESE fine lines, addressed to L. E. L., as the “ Angel of Poetry,” are a paraphrastic translation by
“Father Prout,” of that exquisite poem,—

‘Je veux pour vous prendre un ton moins frivole,”’—

one of the noblest and highest-wrought amid the songs of Béranger, and may seem a not inappropriate
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 113

introduction to our few remarks upon this, the brightest, best-loved, earliest-lost, of the daughters of
song.

Poor L. BE. L. ! We yet remember the shock of grief, the vague terror, the dark surmise, that succeeded
the news of her early fate, and the pity for one, of nature so tender, so refined, and so susceptible, who had
thus early perished among strangers, in an unfamiliar home, and on a savage coast. But we anticipate.

Letimia Exizapera Lanpon was born at Hans Place, Chelsea, August 14th, 1802. We shall not
dwell upon her early life, of which it is supposed that she has given the history in her “ Traits and Trials ”
(1837). She had plenty of anxiety and trouble, we know. She was thrown an orphan upon the
world ; deprived of the patrimony that should have been hers, and neglected by the family that should
have educated and provided for her. But she pushed bravely on, and found friends. Jerdan had sight of
the earliest fruits of her muse, and encouraged them with his approbation (1822). To the Literary
Gazette she was a contributor for years, and the friendship of its able conductor did much to stimulate
her efforts, and gain for her acceptance with the public. Her earliest substantive work was published by
Warren, of Bond Street, and is now quite forgotten. It is entitled “The Fate of Adelaide, a Swiss
Tale of Romance, and other Poems.” Then followed her other works: first, the “ Improvisatrice and
other Poems,” in 1824, and in due succession, “The Troubadour,” “The Golden Violet,” “ The
Venetian Bracelet,” “The Vow of the Peacock,”—all poems; and her novels, “Romance and Reality,”
“Francesca Carrara,” and “Ethel Churchill.” If we say that these latter are marked by brilliant
beauties and striking defects, we make use of terms that are also applicable to the whole series of
poems. They are full of elegant fancy and tender feeling; conventional rather than natural; wanting
in individuality of character, and deficient in the concentration of thought and evidence of culture
which characterize the higher orders of poetry. Many of these defects are probably due to early
education and impulsiveness of character; and there is evidence that she was endeavouring, at the
time of her death, to increase and systematize her knowledge, and refine her taste.

About 1826, the time approached for the mavriage of L. E. L. to a gentleman who had long been her
literary adviser and firm friend ; and it was thought right that certain reports which affected her fair fame
should be traced, if possible, to their source. This was done ; and we believe that it was satisfactorily shown
to all parties that they were destitute of foundation. The mental worry and pain brought a severe illness
on the victim ; she broke off her engagement with the gentleman who was to have been her husband,
although he was perfectly willing to carry it out ; and a few months after her recovery, to the astonishment
of all her friends, she accepted a proposal of matrimony from Mr. George Maclean, Governor of Cape
Coast Settlement, in South Africa. She was married June 7th, 1838, by her brother, the Rev. Whittington
Landon, and ‘“ given away” by Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer ; sailed from Portsmouth July 5th ; landed at
the Cape August 16th, after a prosperous voyage, during which her pen was not idle; and was at once
installed as the responsible mistress of Cape Coast Castle.

Two short months of apparent peace and contentment passed away in her new home, to the duties
and habits of which she seemed to be growing accustomed, when, on October 15th, 1838, she was found
dead on the floor of her bedroom, with an empty bottle in her hand, labelled “ Acid. Lydrocyanicum
Dilutum Pharm. Lond. 1836.” An inquest took place, on which her husband deposed that she was
subject to spasms and hysterical affections, and had been in the habit of using the medicine as a remedy, as
prescribed by her former medical attendant in London. Mr. Cobbold, her then medical adviser, gave his
opinion that death had been caused by an improper use of the medicine; and the jury returned the
verdict that it was the result ‘of her having incautiously taken an overdose of prussic acid, which, from
evidence, it appeared she was in the habit of taking as a remedy for spasmodic affections to which she was
subject.” With the opinion thus expressed we must be content, though doubt and dissatisfaction prevailed
at the time. The husband, whose reluctance to fulfil his matrimonial engagement, had been subject of
public comment, fell under grave suspicion ; and dark hints were rife of a treacherous page, a poisoned cup
of coffee, and a native mistress. A rigid inquiry into all the circumstances of the fearful tragedy was
made by Dr. Madden, who visited Cape Coast a few months after its occurrence, and resulted in the
conviction that the unfortunate lady had actually died of an overdose of prussic acid, administered by
herself ; but whether accidentally or designedly, there was no further evidence to show. Here, however,
it is right to mention, as militating against the conclusion involved in the latter supposition, that two
letters are extant, the one written probably on the evening before her decease, and the other on the fatal
morning. The latter was produced by Mr. Maclean at the inquest, as affording evidence of the happy
and contented state of the writer’s mind; and the former, which was on its way to England, is not less
cheerful in tone. Both are addressed to Mrs. 8. C. Hall, one of the earliest and most esteemed of her
friends ; were published by that lady in the Zimes ; and thence transferred to the Gentleman's Magazine for
February, 1839, p. 150.

We must conclude. As Lord Byron was wont to date the later events of his life from “ his funeral
with Miss Milbanke,” so the “baked meats” of poor L. E. L.’s marriage might have furnished forth
her burial breakfast. It has been remarked that the features of Charles Stuart bore an expression of
sadness prophetic of his doom ; and in like manner, a peculiar and marked characteristic of Miss Landon’s
writings is the pervading feeling of blight, disappointment, and misery, and the prevision of untimely and
solitary death. This may have been the natural reaction of a gay and joyous temperament, delighting in
contrast,—just as Thomson, who used to lie in bed all day because there was nothing worth getting up for,
was eloquent in praise of early rising. But this peculiarity is, nevertheless, curious as a coincidence ; as

P
4 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

also is the frequent mention of Prussic acid in connection with one of her characters—Lady Marchmont,
in “ Ethel Churchill.”

As we began with verse, so do we round off with some fine stanzas, by Charles Swain, to the memory
of L. E. L., in the Friendship’s Offering shortly after her death :—

“ Still mourns Erinna—ever by that coast,
Whose dismal winds shriek to each weeping cloud ;
Whose waves sweep solemn as a funeral host,
Still mourns the Loves’ own Minstrel, in her shroud ;
The Sappho of that Isle, in genius proud ;
The ImprovvIsATRICE of our land;
The daughter of our soil—our fame-endow’d !
For her Erinna seeks the fatal strand,
And lifts to distant shores her woe-prophetic hand !

The blighted one! the breast, whose sister-tear
Sprang to each touch of feeling—heaves no more !
Our Lanpov, silent on her funeral bier,
Far from our hearth, sleeps on a foreign shore.
The voice of her,—the song-inspired,—is o’er.
Oh! she who wept for others, found no tone
To soothe the many parting griefs she bore;
Nor had a tear for that sweet spirit lone,—
All sorrows found a balm save that fair minstrel’s one!

Thou, who receivedst her rose-encircled head,
Our Minstrel, in the bloom of her young fame,
Give back our lost and loved! Restore our dead !
Return once more her first and dearest name !
We claim her ashes! ’tis a Nation’s claim !
Her, in her wealth of mind, to thee we gave ;
Yet plead we for the dust of that dear frame;
Oh, bear our world-lamented o’er the wave!
Let England hold at last—’tis all she asks—her grave!”
Friendship’s Ofering.

The plea was never answered ; and LL. E. L. sleeps on in the barren sands of Africa, where “ the
mournful music of the billows, to which she listened in her solitary, sea-girt dwelling, is now the dirge
that resounds o’er her distant grave.”

We believe that, on this occasion, it was “‘ Father Prout,”.and not Dr. Maginn, who undertook, in the
preceding prose sketch, to duly discharge the honours of the “ Gallery.”

 

ORL OT

No, 42.—MISS HARRIET MARTINEAU.

OORE has lately expended some verses on this lady, which, though not particularly good, will in all

probability outlive the productions of Miss Martineau herself ; and the future commentator on the

Moorish poetry of Tom Browne the Younger will be somewhat puzzled to tell who was the lady summoned
by the bard in the verses beginning with

“ Come live with me, and be my blue.”

We will assist him,—for doubtless, one of the first works the literary antiquary of future centuries will
consult must be Fraser's Magazine,—by the delineation of her countenance, figure, posture, and occupation,
which will be found on the opposite plate. He will readily agree with us, after proper inspection, that it is
no great wonder that the lady should be pro-Malthusian ; and that not even the Irish beau, suggested to
her by a Tory songster, is likely to attempt the seduction of the fair philosopher from the doctrines of
no-population.

She is, of course, the idol of the Westminster Review and other oracles of that peculiar party, which,
by all persons but themselves, is held to be the most nauseous mixture of the absurd and abominable that
ever existed. Some of them, we forget which, in an article which we dissected, glorified England as a land
of wonders, in consequence of having had the merit of producing a young lady capable of writing on the
effects of a fish diet upon population ; and we agreed with them so far as to say that it was indeed a wonder
that such themes should occupy the pen of any lady, old or young, without exciting a disgust nearly
approaching to horror. Mother Wolstonecroft, in some of her shameless books,—books which we seriously
consider to be in their tendency (a tendency only marred by their stupidity) more mischievous and degrading
than the professedly obscene works which are smuggled into clandestine circulation, under the terrors of
   

iran
Hi cm

    

 

 

 

P a

ea

Dat oe Pi meee. PA, fa

AUTHOR OF “ILLUSTRATIONS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY”
’

GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 115

outraged law,—boasts that she spoke of the anatomical secrets of nature among anatomists “as man speaks
to man.” Disgusting this, no doubt ; but far less disgusting than when we find the more mystical topics of
generation, its impulses and consequences—which the common consent of society, even the ordinary practice of
language (a little philological or etymological consideration will explain to the cognoscent reader what we mean),
has veiled with the decent covering of silence, or left to be examined only with philosophical abstraction, brought
daily, weekly, monthly, before the public eye, as the leading subjects, the very foundation-thoughts, of
essays, articles, treatises, novels ! tales ! romances ! to be disseminated into all hands, to lie on the breakfast-
tables of the young and the fair, and to afford them matter of meditation. We wish that Miss Martineau
would sit down in her study, and calmly endeavour to depict to herself what is the precise and physical
meaning of the words used by her school—what is preventive check—what is moral check—what itis they
are intended to check,—and then ask herself, if she is or is not properly qualified to write a commentary on
the most celebrated numbers of Mr. Carlile’s Republican, or to refute the arguments addressed by the
learned Panurge to the Dame de Paris, as founded upon false notions of philosophy.

We are sorry, for many reasons, to write this—sorry that we should have to speak in censure of a lady
for anything—sorry that the cause of our censure should be of such a kind—sorry that our pages should be
soiled by any allusions to such subjects at all; and we shall therefore escape, as soon as possible, to the
refuge of the picture before us. Here is Miss Harriet in the full enjoyment of economical philosophy ; her
tea-things, her ink-bottle, her skillet, her scuttle, her chair, are all of the Utilitarian model ; and the cat,
on whom she bestows kindest caresses, is a cat who has been trained to the utmost propriety of manners by
that process of instructions which we should think the most efficient on all such occasions. There she sits
cooking—

“rows
Of chubby duodecimos ;”

 

certain of applause from those whose praise is ruin, and of the regret of all who feel respect for the female
sex, and sorrow for perverted talent, or, at least, industry ; doomed to wither in the cold approbation of the
political economists ; and, after ghosting it about for their hour,—

——‘‘ thence
Be buried at the Row’s expense.”

IoOFD 2 a:

«Au! welcome home, Martineau, turning statistics
To stories, and puzzling your philogamistics ;
I own I don’t see any more than Dame Nature,
Why love should await dear good Harriet’s dictature,
But great is earth’s want of some love-legislature.”

O, in his “ Feast of the Violets,” sings genial Leigh Hunt, whom we summon once more, as Master

of the Revels, to usher in another of the fairer members of this, our “Gallery.” Welcome, once

and again, Miss Marrinzav, who, though you may rather belong to the Marthas, who are “ careful about
many things,” than the Maries, who choose “the better part,” have yet earned our respect and gratitude
for a long and consistent life of labour, whose sole object has been the improvement and benefit of your
generation. Miss Martineau began her course some fifteen months later than the century which is now
approaching its third quarter, and still bears up gallantly against her untiring competitor. Authorship, into
which she naturally fell in early life, from the state of isolation in which she was placed by deficiency in
the senses of hearing, taste, and smeil, became subsequently necessary from pecuniary disasters in her
family ; and she succeeded in making herself independent by literary exertion, before her reputation was
generally established. Passing over her earlier works, as far back as 1823, we come to her celebrated
series of tales, written as “Illustrations of Political Econcmy.” Her plan, to exemplify the doctrines of
this science by imaginative illustration, was submitted to the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Know-
ledge, but rejected, on the ground that facts could not be clothed with advantage in the garb of fiction.
Perhaps this is generally true. The novelist may take history, if he chooses, as the foundation of his
story, but it will always be read with the suspicion that facts have been moulded,—as, indeed, they
generally are,—to suit the writer’s idea of poetic justice or artistic development. Thus, very little is
gained ; and though the book may keep its place as a work of fiction, it will fail, however truthful it may
be, as a relation of historical or biographical facts. These remarks may apply to Miss Martineau’s fine
story, “The Hour and the Man,” of which the sable patriot, Toussaint Ouverture, is the hero, and which
would probably have attained a higher estimation if it had appeared professedly as a simple biography.
Lamartine, it will be remembered, has also chosen, as the subject of a drama, the career of this extra-
ordinary man, who has, once for all, vindicated the capacity of the Negro race for moral and intellectual
greatness, and by his own cruel fate in a French dungeon reconciled us to the lingering death of Napoleon
at St. Helena if only on the principle of retributive sone In 1835 Miss Martineau made a visit to the

P
116 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

United States ; of this her “Society in America” (1837) is a record, in which personal detail does not so
much find a place as the condition of the country in its social, religious, and political aspects. A year later
appeared her “ Retrospect of Western Travel,” which is rather devoted to individual experience, and
contains some able delineations of the more celebrated among the Americans. Some five-and-twenty years
ago religious readers were no little shocked to perceive a tone of speculative infidelity in one of Miss
Martineau’s works,—“ Eastern Life, Past and Present,’—which contained a record of a visit to the East,
made in 1846, with her brother, the Rev. James Martineau, and a few other friends. A year or two
later, this culminated in downright atheism, as expounded in her “ Letters on the Laws of Man’s Social
Nature and Development,” being a correspondence between herself and Mr. H. G. Atkinson, a mesmerist,
and published in 1851, It is astonishing how angry good folks are made by arguments which they say
refute themselves, and statements which they affirm to be too silly to do any harm. But so it is; and the
conclusions, long established, are :—1. That the question of the existence or non-existence of a God is best left
alone ; and 2. That it is better to believe in one with a hundred arms and a hundred legs, than none at all.

It is well to mention that a pension has been on two occasions offered to Miss Martineau,— once by
Lord Grey, in 1832, and again, a few years later, by Lord Melbourne,—but declined by her, on the ground
that acceptance was inconsistent with her expressed opinions on the subject of taxation. This noble sacrifice
to principle was made at a time when failing health rendered literary exertion impossible, and pecuniary
anxieties were impending which a certain income, however small, would have removed ; and must gain our
respect, even in face of her erroneous notions as to the metaphysical nature of a Deity.

With the name of Miss Martineau is associated by Maginn,—ill-spelt, and in irreverent fashion,—
that of another female writer, who, in her “ Vindication of the Rights of Women” and her ‘“ Posthumous
Works,” expounded theories and discussed subjects which are usually thought to be beyond the province of
her sex. This was Mary Wottstonecrart, the wife of William Godwin, who wrote her life,—the mother
of Mary Godwin, who became the second wife of the poet Shelley, and to whom we are indebted for that
portentous conception “ Frankenstein,’”—and the subject of a charming portrait by Opie (of which we have
an engraving), which hung in the study of Southey, who speaks of the original as one

“Who, among women, left no equal mind
When from this world she pass’d id

 

Mary Wollstonecraft was indeed, if not perfect, a “woman nobly planned.” Her principles may have been
dangerous and her practice incorrect, but the emotions of her heart were ardent and sincere. She has left
one book at least which ought to gain her a permanent place in literature. This is her “ Letters written
during a short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark” (1796, 8vo.), of which it may safely be said
that they contain more soul and feeling than any epistolary work in the language, and more irresistibly than
any make the reader in love with their writer. Dr. Thomas Brown, the metaphysician, held this book in
the highest estimation, and accompanied a copy which he gave to a friend with some verses which were
published in his poems, and were subsequently expanded into the volume known as the “ Wanderer in
Norway” ; and Mrs. Siddons wrote to Godwin, of the same work, that it was read by no one possessing
“more reciprocity of feeling than herself, or more deeply impressed with admiration of the writer's
extraordinary powers.”

This is not, by the way, the first vindication of “ Mother Wollstonecraft,” as Maginn calls her. There
isa “ Defence of the Character and Conduct of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, founded on Principles of
Nature and Reason, as applied to the peculiar Circumstances of her Case.” 1803, 12mo.
 

TODD.

TUAW TR IU

 
{ Tie 5

No, 43,—GRANT THORBURN,

Cy. well-informed readers do not require to be told that upwards of thirteen thousand nine hundred

and ninety-nine regular subscribers to any monthly work is an acquisition not to be attained without
great assiduity, and, we may add, some talent. We shall not, however, descant on our own Jaudable
endeavours ; although the portrait which faces this article of the celebrated Mr. Thorburn, the original
“Lawrie Todd,” bears witness that they are of no ordinary kind.

As soon as our Number with the autobiography of this eminent gentleman reached America, the whole
republic was set astir, as if the election of the president was contested. Mr. Thorburn was obliged to
forego the weighing of seeds, the feeding of birds, and the culling of flowers ; in short, to do nothing all
day but to state to the ladies and gentlemen who resorted to his store, the reasons which had hitherto
prevented him from visiting London, with his precious manuscript of the instances of special providence
which he himself had experienced. Indeed, the crowd became go great to hear him that he was obliged to
ascend into one of his galleries ; and there, mounted on a barrel-head, by which he became visible to the
crowd below, to hold forth on the subject.

All, however, that he could urge was of no avail. The ladies and gentlemen assembled on the
oceasion highly applauded, no doubt, his eloquent speech ; but they could not listen to his argument.
** London,” they said, “was the mart of the mind; and though it was becoming his innate modesty to
profess his contentation at the great éclat he had attained, still they thought that the candle of so rare a
genius should not be hidden under such a bushel as New York.” Accordingly, his blushes and diffidence
were overcome, and he was constrained to come over the sea; and here he is, his likeness illuminating the
pages of Rearna, and his person irradiating the streets and social parties of London—the press is big with
his important work, and the day of the deliverance of which is at hand—as may be seen by the following
advertisement, published verbatim in all the London daily papers :—

“TO THE PUBLIC.

“ As Mr. Jobn Galt in his ‘Lawrie Todd,’ and Sundrie other Periodicals, Magazines, Newspapers, &c. in Europe and
america have published So many Scraps and Fragments of my Life, I think its a duty I owe the Public and myself to send
forth a true Copie.—I think the events of my life are more Strange in realietie, than many which I have read in fiction, and
as I owe the giver of all good a Large Debt of Gratitude, I think its my dutie to make Sure that the world shall know it,—it
will be published in a few days by Mr. James Fraser, No. 215, Regent Street, which is the only true history of my Life

ever printed in Britain. (Signed) “ Grant THORBURN, Seedsman, New York.
“Now at No. 14, Tavistock Row, Covent Garden,
16 Novr. 1833.”

It is not, however, so much by this announcement that the curiosity of our numerous particular
readers, not that of the public in general, ought to be excited, as by the nature of the book itself. For of
late it has not been quite so much the fashion as it ought to have been, for literary men to acknowledge
their experiences of a special providence ; although it cannot be supposed that the teachers of the earth are
less sensible of its aid than the rest of the human race. We therefore solicit attention to this great feature
of the forthcoming volume, convinced that it will not only afford amusement in the perusal, but edification
in that somewhat obsolete manner which our ancestors, with all their often-referved-to wisdom, deemed not
unbecoming to feel and to confess. To be serious, Mr. Thorburn’s book, written entirely by himself, will
be no ordinary treat to those who discern the hand of Sustaining Succour in the various vicissitudes of
private life, as well as in the more obstreperous transactions of the world, and humbly recognize that
Impartial Power which beholds alike, unmoved from its purposes,

“ A hero perish and a sparrow fall.”’

 

NOTES.

OME of our readers may have read “ Lawrie Todd,” and will not be sorry to make acquaintance with
the original (in every sense of the word) “Simon Pure,” whose career forms the subject of that once
famous book, just as the adventures of Alexander Selkirk suggested “ Robinson Crusoe” to Defoe, and the
leading incidents in the lives of Byron and Shelley furnished Disraeli with the plot of “Venetia.”
In Fraser's Magazine for June, 1833, is commenced the publication of “ Mr. Thorburn’s M8.,” which
occupies two numbers of the Magazine, being concluded in that for July. It is prefaced by the following
remarks :—
118 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

“ Mr. Adam Fergusson, in his clever and graphic practical notes, made during a tour in Canada, mentions
that he became acquainted with Mr. Thorburn, of New York, the ‘ very identical Lawrie Todd,’ and that,
so far as the first volume of that entertaining work goes, Galt had exactly recorded his life and
adventures.”

This is not quite correct : ‘ Lawrie Todd” is in nine parts, and only the first part contains the history
of Mr. Thorburn. Here and there, anecdotes derived from him are interspersed through the narrative, but
the first forty pages of the work comprehend the main part of his communication ; and even in it there are
fictitious additions introduced.

In the last edition of ‘“ Lawrie Todd,” Galt mentions, in the first note, that the outlines of the following
pages are derived from Mr. Thornton (Thorburn), of New York. “TI have retained in them,” says he, “all
the truth and beauty of his original narrative: in the pathetic parts I have not ventured to offer any
amendment, because I could not ; but [ have dealt with more freedom in those that were lighter. I have
enlarged the narrative, and added to the incidents ; but J have not presumed to think that I could improve
a story which Nature had taken so much pains to relate. In this matter our readers are enabled to judge
for themselves. We have obtained Mr. Thorburn’s original manuscript, which is subjoined,” éc.

We need not transcribe further, as the reader possesses the necessary indications to pursue the story
for himself. There is a good deal that is interesting and worthy of preservation in ‘“ Lawrie Todd,” which
may be placed by the side of such books as the “ Lives” of William Hutton and Benjamin Franklin. The
Shepherd pronounces it “maist amusin’” in one of the Voctes, and it would probably ere this have received
the honours of republication, but from the dilution which its valuable part has undergone from the cruel
necessity of spinning out into three poor volumes the materials which might have made one good one.
Still it is interspersed with quaint Scotch humour, sbrewd philosophy, and practical wisdom ; and at the
time of its publication—though in this respect it is now obsolete—had a certain value for intending
emigrants, which helped its sale. “Lawrie Todd,” we repeat; is still an interesting book, and its worthy
original no bad illustration of that principle of “self-help,’—or “ help-self,” which, we take it, is much
about the same thing,—about which so much has been said or written of late. Not that examples are
rare ; they tread on one’s toes, and blow their trumpets in one’s ears everywhere. It might seem better
and nobler to “help others”; but where are we to find the illustrative examples !

No, 44.—CAPTAIN ROSS,

S the season is yet young, any animal will do for a lion; and the animal now dressed in the skin is

Captain Ross, who is playing the part at the various soirées and conversaziont, such as they are,

which are now giving. In one respect it will be admitted that he is well qualified for showing off; for

both in movement and countenance he bears no small similitude to a walrus, one of the greatest personages

about the Pole; and he gets through the various straits, creeks, and bays of a miscellaneous party of

prattlers, with the same kind of heavy alacrity that we may conceive distinguished his attempts to find a
north-west passage.

He is depicted on the opposite page undergoing the suffering of his voyage. It is evident that when
we all thought him dead, he was not only alive, but in excellent spirits, and making gallant battle against
the cold. If Croquis be correct in his sketch, and he took as much pains as possible to insure correctness,
the Captain was in full thaw, and as little likely to be congealed as any of us. On this point, however, we
shall suspend our opinion, keeping it as stationary as the needle on the magnetic pole, which we are told
Captain Ross has found, until his quarto makes its appearance in due season.

But we regret to say that considerable doubt exists,—not, indeed, as to the appearance of the work,
because that is a necessary appendage to the voyage— Go slide—make book,’—but as to the value of its
contents. If the Captain has seen the magnetic pole, to use the language of a Scotch newspaper, which
evidently considered it to be somewhat like a barber's pole stuck up in the way of a fingerpost for the load-
stone, he has seen nothing else. His discoveries, as far as we can learn, have been precisely nothing—
always excepting Lake Landon (a queer compliment, by the way, to a poetess to connect her name with all
that is cold, frozen, hard, and cheerless) ; and a punster might be tempted to say that, as he lost his Fury
in a Sound, so does his Tale signify nothing. We have stories, indeed, of skies darkened for months, in
which the only indication of mid-day was a glimmering streak on the verge of the horizon,—of tribes who
never drank water or heard of fire,—of unwashed natives sitting on beds of eternal ice, waiting for the
appearance of a seal to catch him, their only article of food,—of Esquimaux ladies, though not exactly of
the fair sex, perpetually oiled, if not perfumed,—of omens, dreams, and portents of expectant widowers in
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AUTHOR OF” VOYAGE TO BAFFIN’S BAY”
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 119

the ice, and anticipating widows on shore,—of bears paying visits occasionally through the roofs of houses
concocted of snow,—of a pining after greenery, the want of which prevailed to an extent that would have
broken the heart of Leigh Hunt, and five hundred other pastorals of Hampstead and the adjacent parishes, —
and a few more anecdotes of the same kind; but we believe that even they are very scanty, and that
neither geography nor science in any of their branches have profited a whit by the embedding of Captain
Ross within the regions of thick-ribbed ice. ous verrons/ In the meantime we leave him to the con-
templation of our readers, in the act of sipping his brandy and water with thirsty lip ; which we think our
excellent friend the sketcher has drawn in a manner to excite the emulation of all the wine, or brandy, or
beer bibbers on the face of the terraqueous globe.

Let nobody fancy for a moment that we are blaming Captain Ross for taking care of himself while
out upon his chilly voyage. Far be from us such a thought. ‘The only thing for which we think he ought
to be condemned was for going at all. He had failed once, and that should have been quite satisfactory.
We take it for granted that he will never think of failing a third time. He should now be satisfied with
the full glory that he has proved, if not exactly that there is no north-west passage at all, yet that he
decidedly is not the man to find it.

This is quite fame enough for any one, and upon the strength of it he may continue to lionize until
some worthier specimen of the species is caught in the due season, and then he will melt and dissolve away.
We confess that we shall be happy to find ourselves altogether mistaken in our anticipations as to the
contents of his forthcoming book ; but from all that we can gather we fear that our account will prove
correct. We must conclude our notice by assuring our readers that the likeness in the accompanying
sketch is very striking ; and though we happen never to have seen the Captain dipping with so much
alacrity into a tumbler, we can easily conceive that Croquis, having caught him in the fact, has, with great
fidelity,

“Fixed him in that glorious shape.”

 

NOT AS.
J OWEVER “illustrious” Carrain Ross may have seemed as an Arctic explorer, the title, now
at least, hardly seems appropriate as a “literary character.” He has, however, written
“Memoirs of Lord de Saumarez,” “ Letters to Young Sea Officers,” and a “Treatise on Steam

Navigation,” which give him a place in the great guild of literature. He was born in 1777, was
fifteen years a midshipman, and was appointed commander of the Lriseis in 1812, on the Baltic station.
In 1818 he was named to the command of an expedition to explore Baffin’s Bay, and search for a north-
west passage to the Pacific. One of the vessels was commanded by Lieutenant, afterwards Sir Edward,
Parry, who subsequently, in his own discoveries, followed out the indications of his less fortunate superior,
Captain Ross, who was now obliged to have recourse to private enterprise, sailed once more from the Thames,
in 1827, to solve, if possible, the question of a north-west passage. Not returning, an expedition was fitted out
in 1833, under Captain Back, whose outfit was provided by a sum of £7,000, raised by subscription.
Captain Ross and his companions returned to England in the October following, and gave the narrative of
his expedition in a quarto volume, published in 1835. In 1838 he became British Consul at Stockholm,
and remained there in that capacity till 1844. He had, in former days, pledged himself to make search
for his friend Sir John Franklin, if he should be lost ; and when the fate of the latter became a matter of
fear, he remembered this, and, at the age of seventy-three, set sail in a small vessel of 90 tons only (the
Feliu), wintered in the ice, and would have stayed a second year had his means allowed. For this cause, for
which he gave up his halfpay and his pensions, he was unsuccessful in obtaining the smallest help from the
Admiralty. He was, moreover, excluded altogether from the Arctic counsels, in which, one would have
thought, his experience would have been valuable, and published a pamphlet exposing the treatment to
which he had been subjected. Still he had received many honours: was knighted in 1834 ; received a
pocketful of gold medals, the freedom of many important seaports, swords, and other acknowledgments ;
besides a pension of £150 per annum,—with which, and his reputation of a hardy gallant seaman, an
experienced commander, and a stanch faithful friend, he might well be content.
Rear-Admiral Sir John Ross, Knt., C.B., died in 1856, at the age of seventy-nine.

 

Tux following humorous Macaronics were written by LricH Hon, in 1821, the period so memorable
for the culmination of the quarrel between Grorce IV. and his “injured Queen”; when the very streets
were impassable by reason of the crowds who pressed about the windows of Hong and FarrBury, to gaze
upon the daily novelties in shape of pamphlet, ballad, or broadside, “ richly dight” with those inimitable
woodcuts, the delicie of the modern collector, which earned for Grorce CrurksHanx the title, which, at
the lapse of half a century, he still retains, of the Kina or Caricarurists. :

Grantley Berkeley, who is evidently unaware of the authorship, alludes to this “doggrel,” as he calls
120 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

it (“ Life and Reminiscences,” vol. iv. p. 169), and says thatit was “sung in the streets by ragged vocalists
seeking pence.” He quotes a stanza or two, probably from recollection or an incorrect copy, as the song
was never published by the author ; it is now given, as “revised and augmented” by him (1860) “ from the
first imperfect sketch.”

CORONATION SOLILOQUY OF HIS MAJESTY KING GEORGE_THE FOURTH,

1821.
To the Tune of :—
Amo, amas,
T love a lass,
As cedar tall and slender;
Sweet cowslip’s grace
Is her nominative case,
And she’s of the feminine gender,
Horum quorum,
Sunt divorum,
Harum scarum, divo;
Tag, rag, merry, derry, periwig and hatband,
Hie, hoc, harum, genitivo.

O’KEere.
I. v.
Rego, regis, Must I walk now!
Good God, what’s this ? What a baulk now!
What, only half my Peeries ! Non est regis talis.
Regas, regat, Oh, for youth now!
Good God, what’s that ? For in truth now,
The voice is like my deary’s Non sum eram qualis.
Oh, no more there ; Well, well, roar us,
Shut the door there ; On before us,
Harum, scarum, strife 0! Harum, flarum, stout O,
Bags, Bags,* Sherry Derry, periwigs and fat lads, Stately, greatly, periwig, and trumpets,—
Save us from our wife O! Oh, could I leave but my gout O!
Il. Vi.
I decline a What a dies !
C. Regina, How it fri-es!
Rew alone’s more handsome : Handkerchiefs for sixty.
Oh, what luck, sir, Approbatio !
Eeit uxor ! Stbilatio !
Rursus ego aman sum. How I feel betwixt ye!{
Glory, glory ! Curlies, burlies,
How will story Dukes, and earlies,
Tell how I was gazed at! Bangs and clangs of band O!
Perfect from my pumps, to the plume above my hat-band, Shouty, flouty, heavy rig and gouty,
All are me amazed at! When shall I come to a stand O!
III. VIL.
Yes, my hat, sirs, Bliss at last !
Think of that, sirs, The street is pass’d ;
Vast and plumed, and Spain-like ; The aisle,—I’ve dragg’d me through it :
See my big Oh, the rare
Grand robes; my wig Old crowning chair !
Young, yet lion-mane like. I fear I flopp’d into it.§
Glory! Glory! Balmy, balmy,
I’m not hoary ; Comes the psalmy ;
Age it can’t come o’er me: Bland the organ blows me;
Mad caps, grave caps, gazing on this grand man, Crown downcoming on a periwig that fits me,
All alike adore me. All right royal shows me!
Iv. VIII.
I know where Oh how bona
A fat, a fair, My corona !
Sweet other self is doting: Sitting so how dulcis !
I'd reply, My oculus grim,
With wink of eye, And my sceptrwm slim,
But fear the newsman noting. And proud, as I hold it, my pulse is !
Hah, the Toying,+ Shout us, chorus ;
Never cloying, Organs, roar us ;
Cometh to console me: Realms, let a secret start ye :—
Crowns and sceptres, jewellery, state-swords,— Dragon-killing George on the coin is myself,
Who now shall control me ? And the dragon is Bonaparte.||

* Lord Eldon, familiarly known as “ old Bags”; “Sherry Derry,” Sheridan.

+ When the Regalia, on Coronation-day, are brought into Westminster Hall, and laid before his Majesty on a table, his
viewing of them is called “the Toying.”

t It is historical that the King walked from the Hall to the Abbey, and returned, through a mingling of applauses
and hisses.

§ The chair in Westminster Abbey in which all the Sovereigns of England have been crowned, from the time of
Edward I.

|| It appears that the King was wont to attribute to his own discernment, as the sovereign arbiter of affairs, the
downfall of Bonaparte.
 

SE
Y .

ty

AUTHOR OF MARY DE CLIFFORD?

 
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS.

Ix.

And yet, alas!
Must e’en I pass

‘Through hisses again on foot, sirs!
Oh, pang profound !
And I now walk crown’d,

And with sceptre in hand to boot, sirs!
I go, I go,
With a fire in my toe,

Pm bowing, blasting, baking!

Xx.

But now we dine!
Oh, word divine,

Beyond what e’en has crown’d it !
Envy may call
Great monarchs small,

But feast, and you dumb-found it.
Brandy, brandy,
To steady me handy

For playing my knife and fork, 0!

121

Hall, O Hall, ope your doors, and let your guest in;

Green fat and devilry* shall warrant me ere bedtime
Every inch I’m a-king.

In drawing my twentieth cork, 0!
XI.

Hah, my Champy !+
Plumy, trampy! =

Astley’s best can’t beat him !
See his frown!
His glove thrown down !

Should a foe appear, he’d eat him !
Glory, glory,
Glut, and glory,—
I mean poury,
Glut and poury,
Poury, mory,
Splash and floory,

Crown us, drown us, vivo !f
Cram, dram, never end, plethora be d—n’d, man ;
Vivat Rex dead-alive O!

No. 40.—SIR EGERTON BRYDGES,

IR EGERTON BRYDGES is indeed a veteran in literature. Many are our grey-headed readers who
will call to mind the pensive pleasure which they experienced when reading “ Mary de Clifford,” in
the days of their youth. His subsequent works are far too numerous for us to mention, even by their
names, without departing from our plan of brief biographical notices; but the omission is of little
importance, as he has inserted a complete list in one or more of his recent productions. Several of them
are already dear to the bibliomaniac, and, as years roll by, others will become so, in consequence of the very
few copies which he has allowed to be printed ; and this remark is more particularly applicable to those
published on the Continent. Descended from a long line of illustrious ancestors, and firmly convinced of
the justice of his claim, Sir Egerton endeavoured to prove his right to a seat in the House of Lords. But
his efforts were not crowned with success ; and the disappointment in that great object of his ambition
unhappily passed not over him as the shadow of the summer cloud. It left upon his mind painful and
enduring impressions, which he is little inclined to conceal; and a querulous tone, a sense of injury, and
something too nearly akin to misanthropy, are, ever and anon, prominent in most of his subsequent
lucubrations, which, amid the gloom, are, however, redolent with the ripe fruits of experience and deep
meditation. These may be plucked by a select few, who are not to be deterred from the gathering by
briars and brambles around the trunk of the aged tree ; but the many will pass by. They must be attracted,
or, at least, not repelled ; and it is not more true that “ every heart knoweth its own bitterness,” than that
the “stranger intermeddleth not therewith.” We take this to be a principal reason why divers of his
works are but little read ; for a pleasant and profitable collection might Sir Egerton make from his desul-
tory and almost unknown writings (such as the “ Veredica,” “ Decapentaca,” dsc.), could he but resolve to
forget himself.

For some years past he has resided in the neighbourhood of Geneva, not as a misanthrope, but mingling
with society, and moving therein with the placid ease and politeness. of the old school. When his country-
men contrived to get up private theatricals at the “Cassino,” prologues and epilogues were forthcoming
from the pen of the writer of the well-known sonnet “ Echo and Silence”; and he is ever ready to assist
in promoting the happiness of others. Such are the sunny hours of his existence ; but, when alone, it is to
be feared that an habitual cloud hovers over his spirit, darkly tinting with its shadow “the thick-coming
fancies” which he is ever committing to paper ; and few writers are more systematically engaged. It isin

* By “devilry” it is presumed nothing more diabolical is meant than “devilled”’ kidneys and biscuits.
+ His Majesty’s champion, Mr. Dymoke.
{ Vivo,—a dative instead of an accusative case: a small slip over a bottle.

Q
122 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

what we term the dead of night—at four in the morning—that this veteran commences the daily task,
which habit and an active mind concur in summoning him to perform as a duty. It was recently his boast
that, for a period of many months, he had every morning seen the sun rise over the Lake of Geneva; and
that, before the rest of the world was moving, he had done his “ day’s work.” He was then residing at a
villa (the grounds of which joined those of “ Les Délices,” formerly the residence of Voltaire), about a mile
and a half from Geneva, and was in the habit of walking into town almost daily, to read the papers and
gossip, even as others ‘whom nature makes by the gross, and sets no mark upon them.” Since that period
he has removed farther from the town; but, as we hear, his habits continue unchanged ; and the conse-
quence must be an immense accumulation of manuscripts, the greater portion of which will probably, in
due course, be sent to the press, as he has never evinced an inclination to “ hide his light under a bushel.”
Many of his works, indeed, have been published at a great expense and loss to himself, owing to causes
which no doubt he clearly foresaw,—such as the small number of copies printed, the comparatively few
persons on the spot who read English, and the impossibility of exciting general interest towards bibliomaniac
and genealogical inquiry. These repeated sacrifices bear witness that Sir Egerton has not been urged on in
his literary career by the auri sacra fames. To use a common but expressive term, writing is his “ hobby ”;
and many a pleasant hour do we sincerely wish him therewith, whether gaily cantering round the flowery
meads of poesy, or slowly and patiently threading the formidable mazes of genealogical trees, detecting, ever
and anon, relics of the olden time, and ruins of mighty houses.

NOTES.

HE name of this literary veteran is especially sweet to the bibliomaniacal ear,—not from the number of

books he has written, but the small number he has printed,—not from the productions of his own

intellect, but rather the “restitution” he has afforded to those of others, by his critical notices or his
elegant reprints.

Of one of his earlier, and, indeed, more valuable works, Lord Byron speaks,—‘‘ Redde the ‘ Rumi-
nator’: a Collection of Essays by a strange, but able, old Man.” These volumes,* which numbered among
the contributors to their pages, R. P. Gillies, Archdeacon Wrangham, the Rev. Montagu Pennington, and
Capel Lofft, have always been favourites of our own; and we endorse the opinion of Dr. Nathan Drake,
who says, “I am acquainted with no essays which display a more exquisite taste, and excite a higher relish
for the productions of genius.” Another early work is the tale “ Mary de Clifford,” first published, I think,
in 1800, the mention of which, we confess, recalls little or none of the “ pensive pleasure” spoken of by
Maginn as produced by its perusal in years gone by. The writer speaks in his preface of the “ exquisite
pleasure” which he has received from the “ novels of Mrs. Smith,” and as he attributes this to a “ peculiar
congeniality of all the ideas in which he has been habituated to indulge,” we presume that he has taken
those admired productions as a standard, and are not surprised that they, and his own sentimental story,
are allowed to slumber together. There is an interesting essay on Sir Egerton Brydges in the “ Literary
Leaves ”+ of David Lester Richardson. Here his struggles to obtain a permanent and conspicuous
place in literature are contrasted with the small success he has obtained. This is the more remark-
able, as he was always ready to swim with the stream of popular taste. During the rage for poetry, from
the time of Cowper to Byron, he courted the Muses with toil and ardour ; when Minerva-press novels were
in demand, Sir Egerton was ready with a whole shelf-ful of sentimental fictions ; when Charlotte Smith
and W. L. Bowles had made the “sonnet” fashionable, our poet cultivated this form of poetic com-
position ; and when Lord Byron died, our aspirant was soon ready with a bulky volume of “ Letters
on the Character and Poetical Genius” of the lamented bard, of which Moore says that “they contain
many just and striking views.” Among other causes of failure were haste and want of concentration.
In the preface to one of his rarer books,”{ he says, “he who cannot throw out his ideas at once must
fail : with every retouch the spirit evaporates. No one, while correcting, can resume the same train of
ideas, and he will therefore unconsciously break the natural associations. The right word is always that
which rises with the idea.” Now, this may be right in theory; but it is not found to answer in practice.
Easy writing, as we know, is often very hard reading. Horace will always please,—whose rule for poetry
was ‘“nonum prematur in annum,” before publication ; and the “ Rime” of Cardinal Bembo will never
fail to be admired,—which are said to have passed through forty divisions in their composer's desk, receiving
correction at each transition before they were committed to the press. Again, a man with a grievance is
always a bore :—

“Cure leves loquuntur ; ingentes stupent,”

is an axiom on which the world acts, whether it expresses a truth or not, and gives little sympathy to
those who are always grumbling. This was the case with Sir Egerton Brydges, who was ever complaining
of his own “ wrongs,” the “ malice and hard-heartedness of the world,” his “struggles to court the balm and
oblivion of literature,” and the “innumerable arts to wrest this from him, or make him abandon it.” Like
Rousseau, he seems to have believed that all the world was in a conspiracy against him, and that just as

* 2 vols. small 8vo. 1813. + London, 1840, 2 vols. 8vo. ; vol. i. p. 289,
{ “The Lake of Geneva: a Poem.” Geneva, 1832, 2 vols. 4to. Twenty-five copies only.
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 123

the Lords had debarred his access to the House of Peers, the critics were striving to exclude him from the
Temple of the Muses. To expose these machinations was the main object of his otherwise interesting
“ Autobiography, Times, Opinions, and Contemporaries of Sir Egerton Brydges, Bart., per legem terre
Baron Chandos of Sudeley.” (1834, 2 vols. 8vo.) This had been preceded by a much more interesting
book, which is hard to get hold of, as it appeared in Paris, and the few copies printed were all for presents.
This is entitled “A Note on the Suppression of Memoirs, announced by the Author in June, 1825, contain-
ing numerous Strictures on Contemporary Public Characters.” (Paris, September, 1825. 12mo. pp. 92.)
Sir Egerton had intended to publish a private autobiography, but, changing his plan, he determined to make
it public in character : hence the smaller Vote, and the larger subsequent work. With regard to the often-
iterated charge of malice, persecution, and injustice, a few words may be said, In 1790, on the death of
the last Duke of Chandos, the subject of these remarks induced his elder brother, the Rev. E. T. Brydges,
to prefer a claim to the barony, alleging his descent from a younger son of the first Brydges who bore the
title. The claim was considered at full length by the House of Peers, who, in 1803, pronounced its decision,
“that the petitioner had not made out his claim to the title and dignity of Baron Chandos.” That this decision
was in accordance with right and justice is conclasively shown by Mr. G. F. Beltz, the Lancaster Herald,
in his “ Review of the Chandos Peerage Case, adjudicated 1803, and of the Pretensions of Sir 8. E. Brydges,
Bart., to designate himself, per legem terre, Baron Chandos of Sudeley ” (8vo. 1834). From this laborious
and minute analysis, it appears that the claim was entirely groundless ; that the connection between the
Bridges of Harbledown, near Canterbury, yeomen, and the Brydges, Lords Chandos, was at once imaginary
and fabricated ; and that, moreover, John Bridges, the great-grandfather of Sir Egerton, was nothing more
nor less than a grocer at Canterbury ; that both his wives were grocers’ daughters, and that all their kinsmen
were of the same rank in life. It was on his mother’s side alone that he had any cause for genealogical pride ;
this it was that directed his mind to the subject, and incited him to grasp at a peerage, which was just
becoming extinct, on the failure of a family whose name happened to be similar to his own. His elder
brother died without issue in 1807, and on his death Sir Egerton began to sign himself, per legem terre,
B.C. of S., maintaining that although his claim had been negatived by Parliament, he could, when he
chose it, assert his rights by common law.

Reverting from a subject, on which it is most charitable to conclude that Sir Egerton Brydges
had become a monomaniac, it would be agreeable, if space permitted, to speak atlength of the service which
he has rendered to literature, more especially by such serials as the “ Censura Literaria” ;* “ British Biblio-
grapher,’+ and “Restituta,”{ and his charmingly tasteful reprints) We have a list before us which,
including original works, amounts to no less than 120 separate publications. A summary of the more
important of these is given in the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. viii. (N.8.), p. 537 ; in Martin’s “ Catalogue
of Privately Printed Books,” pp. 370—404 ; and at the end of a poem, entitled “ Modern Aristocracy ; or,
the Bard’s Reception” (Geneva, 8vo. 1831, pp. 52), where will also be found some genealogical details, and
the “arms and quarterings” of the author, amounting in number to thirty !

Among the poems of this writer is one which, in delicacy of conception and beauty of imagery, is
superior to any other production of bis pen. This is his “Sonnet on Echo and Silence,” in which his
muse is so far impar sibt, that we are not astonished at the author’s desire to vindicate his claim to its
composition, especially as it had been attributed to Henry Brooke, in a collection of sonnets edited by
Coleridge, at Bristol, some time afterwards, and spoken of by Wordsworth and Southey in the highest
terms of praise. “It ought,” said the author, “to be original, for it cost me intensity of thought to bring
it into so narrow a shape.” It was first published as one of his juvenile poems in 1785, and had then been
“ corrected over and over again,” under the advice of Lord Chief Justice Abbott (Lord Tenterden), till, by
repeated labour, it was brought as near perfection as its author could carry it.§ Having, perchance,
raised the curiosity of the reader, we here present this little gem, accompanied by the exquisite Latin
version of Archdeacon Wrangham :—

 

SONNET SONNET.
On EcHo AND SILENCE.

3 A Ecuo Er TAcITuRNITAS.
(Written in the Author’s 20th year.)

In eddying course when leaves began to fly, Hic arborum atque illac ferebantur coma,

And Autumn in her lap the store to strew, Autumnus et fruges sinu collegerat :

As mid wild scenes I chanced the Muse to woo, Sylvestribus Musam in locis, per devios
Through glens untrod, and woods that frown’d on high, Calles vagus Nymphas stupens video duas :
Two sleeping nymphs with wonder mute I spy! Enque evolavit !—Viridi amicta tegmine

And, lo, she’s gone! In robe of dark green hue Echo soror Taciturnitatem deserit,

*T'was Echo from her sister, Silence, flew, Venantium namque ivit ad ccelum fragor,
For guick the hunter’s horn resounded to the sky ! Umbrisque territa liquefit Taciturnitas ;

In shade affrighted Silence melts away ; Sects ac soror, properantibus que saltibus,

Not so her sister.— Hark! for onward still, Rupes per collesque pernix emicat

With far-heard step she takes her Jistening way, Audita longs, celere pracipitans iter,
Bounding from rock to rock, and hill to hill. Jocosa jamque Virgo voces milliés

Ah, mark the merry maid in mockful play Imitata laeotum replicat, audin ? per nemus.

With thousand mimic tones the laughing forest fill! F. W. CEstria, Januar, 1831.§
* 10 vols. 8vo. 1805-9. + 4 vols. 8vo. 1810-14. ft 4 vols. 8vo. 1816.

§ “Recollections of Foreign Travel; or, Life, Literature, and Self-Knowledge.” By Sir Egerton Brydges. London,
1825, vol. ii. p. 18.
|| “ Anglo.Genevan Critical Journal.” Geneva, 1831, part ii. p. 280 (only fifty copies).

Q 2
124 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

It only remains to be added that Sir Egerton Brydges was born at Wootton Court, in Kent, Nov. 30th,
1762; entered at Queen’s College, Cambridge, 1780, which he left without obtaining a degree ; was called
to the Bar in 1787 ; elected F.A.S. 1795 ; removed to Lee Priory in 1810, where he established his private
press in 1813; received the Knighthood of the foreign Order of St. Joachim in 1808; became M.P. for
Maidstone in 1812; obtained patent for baronetcy in 1814; quitted England for Continental residence in
1818 (the press at Lee Priory being finally discontinued in 1823); and that he died at Campagne Gros
Jean, near Geneva, in his seventy-fifth year, Sept. 8th, 1837. He was married twice, and had fifteen children,
the fourth of whom, by the first marriage, became the wife of Edward Quillinan, the well-known poet.

No. 46.—DANIEL O'CONNELL AND RICHARD LALOR SHEIL,

LAUDE FROLLO, the Archdeacon of Josas, is made, in M. Victor Hugo’s novel of ‘“‘ Notre Dame,”

to philosophize in eloquent and energetic terms on the irresistible tendency of spiders to eat flies,

and of flies to be eaten by spiders. He argues it to be a breach of the laws of nature to prevent this

unavoidable result ; and we agree with the learned dignitary of the Cathedral of Paris, that it is improper to

attempt anything so preposterous. Therefore let the spider eat the fly, and the fly be eaten by the spider,
to the end of the chapter.

We were reminded of this judgment of Claude Frollo’s the other night, as, strolling into the House
of Commons, or, if truth is to be spoken, squeezing into it, we attended the debate on ‘ Who is the traitor?”
Deep and important was the question—wise and ingenious the debate ; and we could not avoid being struck
with O’Connell’s patronizing of Sheil. Cunningly had the Big Demagogue fixed the odium of the treason
on the Little Demagogue—cunningly had he limited the inquiry as to the evidence to be adduced to Sheil,
and Sheil alone—cunningly had he aroused the ire of the Government against his honourable and learned
friend—cunningly had he made him the object of the compassion of Sir Henry Hardinge, Sir Robert Peel,
Sir Robert Inglis, and the other Tories—cunningly had he kindled the resentment of the Hills, and
Broughams, and the utilitarians, and the scribblers, and the ZJ%mes men, and the Penny Magazine men,
against Sheil—cunningly had he put him into the position of solemnly and upon his honour and conscience
denying that which all the rest of the House of Commons believed, until he denied it, when, of cowrse, they
unanimously retracted all their former impressions—cunningly did he hold him up to the Irish savages asa
renegade, to the Irish tail as a traitor, to the House of Commons as a culprit, to the ministers as an object
of attack, to the Radicals as an object of hatred, to the newspapers as a butt, to the clubs as a matter of
sneer, to the gentlemen of London as a man whose sayings may as well be taken with some allowance ; and
then having done that, he defended him with a warmth, a zeal, an earnestness, an ability, a devotion, which
would have done honour to Damon and Pythias, either or both. We thought, too, of Sheil’s own conduct
to the author of the tragedy called “ Damon and Pythias” (poor Banim), and we could not help feeling that
the intense humiliation under which, in spite of professional and national habits, he was evidently labouring,
was in no small degree merited.

O'Connell pawed him with patronizing hand, as Sheil sate clawing his hair and clasping his knee. The
likenesses of both the honourable and learned men will be recognized to be accurate. There is the bulky
and swaggering figure of O’Connell, and the slim, cowering, ill-cut, and haunchless shape of Sheil. The
face of the member for Tipperary (for this Parliament only, for he “will never go there no more”) is too
much agonized by the sense of his unhappy predicament to allow us to say that it presents its usual air of
smirking insignificance ; it is now sublimed into something higher, by a sense that it is not merely mean,
but on the verge of being meanness discovered. The countenance of O’Connell is that of ten thousand of
his countrymen,—good-humoured in surface, but indicative of deep, deep treachery within. It says, as
plainly as features can say, “I have you now, my good fellow—there, then—I pat you on the back ; and if
you are to be hanged to-morrow, I shall feel great pleasure in sending you to the gallows.”

However, as Sheil is acquitted, he is an honourable man—as Mr. O’Connell fought for his friend, he
is an honourable man—as Lord Althorp said that he did not believe what he himself had asserted, he is an
honourable man—as Thomas Babington Macaulay refused to repeat what he said to Hill of Hull, he is an
honourable man—as John Wood, once of Preston, who now gets two thousand a year from Government,
played do. do. to Bab Mac., he is an honourable man—as Hill of Hull retracted his words, he is an
honourable man.

So are they all—all honourable men! But where is Pease the Quaker? Is Broadbrim to be dumb—
Aminadab tuneless? We think the brotherhood ought to take the matter up.
 

AUTHOR
of of the
“AGITATION? "APOS TATE?”
imi

GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 12

NOTES.

. ‘HE great Acrraror has very little claim upon our attention as a “ Literary Character,” and it is

beyond our scope to trace, however briefly, his political life. He was born on August 6th, 1775,
—the very year in which the Americans first asserted their claims to independence,—and completed his
education, with his brother Maurice, at Douay and St. Omer, the president of which, Dr. Stapylton, thus
prophetically wrote, on their departure, to the uncle of his pupils :—‘ With respect to the elder, Daniel,
I have but one sentence to write about him ; and that is, that J never was so much mistaken in my life as
I shall be, unless he be destined to make a remarkable figure in society.”

It was on the 21st of December, 1793, the day on which Louis XVI. was beheaded at Paris, that the
brothers set out for Calais, on their return to England. They had witnessed the horrors of the French
Revolution ; and the elder often said that the sight and remembrance almost made him a Tory in heart.
He became a student at Lincoln’s Inn, and was called to the Bar in 1794, before he had completed his
twentieth year, being one of the first admitted after the removal of Roman Catholic disabilities. With
his career as a lawyer we have not now to do, nor with that as a statesman. In 1828 he was returned to
Parliament by the electors of Clare, for which county he was enabled, in the following year, to take his
seat, by the passing of the Roman Catholic Relief Bill. He also sat successively for Waterford, Kerry
(his native county), and Dublin (1832-6). Having been petitioned against, and unseated, he became
representative for Kilkenny ; but, at the general election in 1837, he was once more returned for Dublin,
and in 1841 for the county Cork.

Thus, altogether, he had a seat in the House of Commons for eighteen years, in seven several
Parliaments, and for six different constituencies.

In 1841 came renewed “agitation” in Ireland. “ Repeal” became the watchword ; and monster
meetings were held on the Royal hill of Tara, the Curragh of Kildare, the rath of Mullaghmast, and
other spots of traditionary interest. At the proposed meeting at Clontarf, Government interfered.
O’Connell was prosecuted, sentenced to pay a fine of £2,000, and suffer a year’s imprisonment. The
judgment was reversed, it is true, by the House of Lords; but the prosecution had its effect, and the
credit of O’Connell and the resources of the Repeal Association were alike impaired. Every one has
heard of the ‘“ begging-box ” of O’Connell,—which “‘ Father Prout” likens to the copper money of Woods,
in a former day, and cries,—“Oh, for a Drapier to expose that second and most impudent scheme for
victimizing a deluded and starving peasantry ! ”

In 1846 the Whigs returned to power, and O’Connell found that his day was over. He turned his
back upon the scene of his triumphs, and set forth on a devotional pilgrimage to the great capital of his
faith. This he was not destined to reach ; he was seized with a fatal illness at Genoa, and breathed his
last in that city, May 15th, 1847, in the 72nd year of his age. His heart was embalmed, and transmitted

to Rome; and his body brought back to his native country for interment. 2

RICHARD LALOR SHEIL.

RicHarp Lator SHEIL can lay somewhat better claim to a place among literary celebrities than his more
imposing companion. He was born in Dublin in 1793 ; commenced his education at Stoneyhurst, and subse-
quently entered at Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated with distinction. He kept terms at Lincoln’s
Inn, with a view to practise at the English Bar ; but his father, who had been a successful merchant at Cadiz,
having lost his property, he was compelled to return to Ireland, and was called to the Irish Bar in 1814.
His tragedy “ Adelaide,” to which the splendid histrionic ability of Miss O'Neill gave a temporary success,—
as also his dramatic pieces, “The Apostate,” “ Bellamira,” and “ Evadne, or the Statue,”—were written by
him to provide funds for his expenses, and produced him some £2,000. Asa barrister, he never obtained
much success ; for, although his oratorical powers were admitted, he never inspired great confidence in his
legal knowledge. By-and-by he entered Parliament, where we do not care to follow him too closely. In
1839 he accepted office as Vice-President of the Board of Trade, and was sworn in as Privy Councillor.
In Parliament he achieved considerable distinction as an orator; his voice, it is true, wanted compass
and power, but his speeches were fervid, impassioned, and eloquent. In 1850 he accepted the post
of British Minister at Florence: a step by which he escaped adroitly the necessity of either supporting
or opposing the anti-Papal measure of her Majesty's Ministers, from whom he held the office of Master of
the Mint.

He was destined to enjoy his new position but for a short time only. He died at Florence, May 28th,
1851, in the 58th year of his age. The immediate cause of his death was reported to be gout in the
stomach; but it is probable that the event was at least hastened by the shock to a highly nervous
organization and enfeebled constitution, produced by the melancholy death of his stepson, Mr. Power, who

committed suicide, from the pressure of pecuniary difficulties.
126 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

DELICIA.
Tue following exquisite lines were written by the younger DisraELt in the album of the Countess of
B.essrneTon, and refer to a young deaf and dumb grand-niece of the latter, ‘the favourite and petted and
pitied plaything of her distinguished circle of guests.”

TO A BEAUTIFUL MUTE.

1.
TELL me the star from which she fell,
Oh! name the flower
From out whose mild and perfumed bell,
At witching hour,
Sprang forth this fair and fairy maiden,
Like a bee with honey laden.

2.
They say that these sweet lips of thine
Breathe not to speak ;
Thy very ears, that seem so fine,
No sound can seek ;
And yet thy face beams with emotion
Restless as the waves of ocean.

3.
"Tis well; thy face and form agree,
And both are fair.
I would not that the child should be
As others are;
I love to mark her, in derision,
Smiling with seraphic vision,—

4.
At our arts of vulgar sense
That cannot stain, .
Nor mar her mystic innocence,
Nor cloud her brain
With all the dreams of worldly folly,
And its creative melancholy.

5.
To thee I dedicate these lines,
Yet read them not.
Cursed be the art that e’er refines
Thy natural lot ;
Read the bright stars and read the flowers,
And hold converse with the bowers.

 

EXTRACT FROM “POEMS OF THE
APPREHENSION.”

(Parody on Worpsworta.)

My heart leaps up when I behold
A bailiff in the street ;
’T was so since from one first I ran;
’T was so even in the Isle of Man;
Twill be so even in Newgate’s hold,
Or in the Fleet!
k A trap is hateful to a man!
And my whole course in life shall be
Bent against them in just antipathy.

EPIGRAM ON THE POET MOORE.

WHEN Limerick, in idle whim,
Moore, as her member, lately courted,
The “boys,” for form’s sake, ask’d of him
To state what party he supported.

When thus the answer promptly ran,—
Now give the wit his meed of glory,—
“T’m of no party as a man,
But as a poet am-a-tory.”

Wittiam Macinn, LL.D.

 

 

No. 47.-THEODORE E, HOOK.

EHOLD, gentle reader ! a most exact effigies of Tuzoporz !!! as he may be contemplated in the flesh
any Saturday afternoon, about four o’clock. He has just descended from the grand vestibule of the
Atheneum, where he has been enjoying Praed’s rhymes of the morning, a well-cayenned mutton-chop, and
a glass of the Murchison sherry ; forthwith he will glide round the corner, under the shade of the York
pillar—not forgetting, as he glides, Lady Aldborough’s proposition with respect to the said pillar, or O’Brien’s
doctrine as to the original design of the round towers of Ireland—and ensconce himself in the small oratory
of the Carlton dining-room, there to refresh body and mind with another chop, another bumper, and another
squib. Theodore will then be primed to shine in the Conservative circle above stairs, bright over all the
other luminaries of the gang, until it be time for him to doff his knowing surtout, and appear in finished
grace, the full-figged swell of the eight o’clock board, whether in Piccadilly, in Palace Yard, or in Privy
Gardens, or beneath some less stately roof, more worthy to ring with the trumpet-notes of honest laughter
and the linked sweetness long drawn out of “one cheer more” /—the delighted and delighting guest of
some huge-paunched alderman, red-gilled archdeacon, or gorgeous widow, unsparing of her late lamented
lord’s quadrimum, and blandly tolerant Ultra-tauri in Venerem ruentis.
AWE TUES

(oD

 

 

ose

A argh

Art

\y

pra.
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 127

_ Peace and jollity go with him, wherever he is this evening destined to pick his turbot-fin, lap down
his magnum, exhibit the splendid tabatiére of the Capitan-Pacha, and shower wit and fun and conundrum
about him, like a fountain of Vauxhall fire, radient but harmless! Peace be with the most unenvious of
satirists, the kindest-hearted of libellers, the most sincere, steadfast, unflinching champion of the long cork,
and the Alliance of Church and State !

Our page-plan forbids any attempt at a biography of the biographer of Baird. He was born, we
believe, about the year 1790; blazed on the town qs a convivialist, an improvisatore, a crack farce-writer,
ere he had well begun his fourth lustrum ; became at those early days one of the chosen companions of that
never-sufliciently.to-be-regretted prince,—

“Who dearly loved to bid the bottle pass,
Exchanging with his subjects glance and glass ;””

and who, in due time, gave his then thin friend a dignified colonial appointment, which—but for the white-
liverpoolism of the Tories in the worn-out pantaloon imbecility of their fifth act—the now rotund Theodore
would to this hour have retained. ’Tis no matter.

“ After pomp’s fitful fever he dines well! ”

His novels are the only ones of the day that will go down to posterity, except those of Walter Scott
and Maria Edgeworth ; he, Theodore, being the sole English, and, more especially, the sole town representa-

'tive in this narrow circle of immortals. His songs will be edited with curious notes a hundred years

. hence by some Tory Lord Holland, if, at that period of mundane history, there should be any such animal

as either a Tory or a Lord. His good sayings will be bound up with those of Talleyrand, Jekyll, Rogers,
Hill, Somerville, Murray, Alvanley, Rothschild, and Luttrell ; and perhaps the party who were contented
to be sustained by his arguments, and cheered with his merriment, but who never gave them anything but
their claret and their “hip, hip, hurrah !” will by that time have erected a “round tower” to his memory
also, and inscribed it with the unadorned name and surname of a Great Wir and a Goop Frtiow, who
long ago ought to have belted a riband, broad as Charles, Lord Farnborough’s, across the manly chest of
TuEoporE, Viscount Hoox, Baron Crook or FuLnam.

‘Well, don’t let us be too hard upon the poor Red-Tape-Worms, neither! Their heroic successors have
not yet had the pluck to make either Tom Moore an exciseman, or Sidney Smith a bishop! -And does
Theodore, after all, look like a disappointed scribe? Not he!—his eyes are sparkling as diamonds of the
mine—his step is elastic, his brow unwrinkled, his chin double, his “belly is as a round goblet which
wanteth not liquor”; and this very night, after having punished as much port as if he were a Lord
Chancellor, he will polish a broiled bone that might make Sheil’s corpus kick the beam, and drain a bowl
of mulled Burgundy, in which the author of “ Don Carlos” would have to swim for his life.

 

NOTES,

“ Lorp of the squib, and primate of the pun,
Fat THEopore, thy wreaths for these are won!
The ton’s hired Comus thou,—thy brains each week
Can void in columns puns thou dar’st not speak ;
Who, prompt like thee, can hatch an unclean joke,
Or give to b y wit the master-stroke ?
So meaningly, who throw the smutty hint,—
Thou punning improvisator in print P
May George enrol thee for his Windsor fool,
A dinner wit, surpassing Villiers’ school!”

 

—so far, with indignant pen, our old acquaintance “Holy Bob,” in his once famous satire “The Age
Reviewed.” Each of us knows the original, whether the portrait be faithful or not, and can say with
George Colman, “Hook and I (eye) are old friends !” ;

Turopore Hock commenced life in the possession of everything that should have made it prosperous
and happy. He inherited musical talent from his father and literary from his mother. His manners and
person were elegant ; he was endowed with a natural wit, which probably has never been surpassed, and
which enabled him, as Charles Lamb said, “even to make nonsense respected ; and he early secured
friends, by whom a prospect of fortune and honour was opened before him. Yet, in face of all, we are
compelled to regard him, as we do his old friend and ally Maginn, as an illustration of the sententious
proposition of Dr. Johnson, in allusion to the fate of another literary man about town,—the unfortunate
Savage,—that “those that disregard the common maxims of life will make knowledge useless, wit
ridiculous, and genius contemptible.”

Hook was ae in Londen, Sept. 22, 1788. It was not he, but his elder brother, Dean Hook, who died
in 1828, who wrote the novels, “ Pen Owen” and “ Percy Mallory” ; but Theodore himself made an early
128 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

début, at the age of seventeen, by his comic opera, “The Soldier’s Return,” which was acted in 1805, and
produced him £50. This was followed by a great number of farces, monologues, and comedies, including
the better known ‘Invisible Girl,” written especially to exhibit the talent of his friend Jack Bannister ;
and “ Tekeli,” a melodrama (1806), which produced a vast sensation in the world of playgoers.

In 1809 occurred the much-talked of “ Berners-street Hoax,” in which it is pretty well known that
Hook had a hand; if, indeed, he was not its inventor and prime mover. His joking proclivities had burst
forth before this, and nearly cost him his matriculation. When asked by the Vice-Chancellor if he was
prepared to sign the Thirty-nine Articles, the flippant candidate briskly replied, “Oh, yes, sir, quite ready ;
Forty, if you please”; and an apology was necessary to soothe the ire of the dignitary. Hook is the
Stanislaus Hoax of D’Israeli’s ‘‘ Vivian Grey”; anda record of his practical jokes, ‘‘ boisterous buffooneries,”
mad adventures, and fits of frolic and drollery, would filla volume. Many of these are, indeed, narrated
in his ‘Sayings and Doings,” “Gilbert Gurney,” and “Jack Brag”; but, as Lockhart says, “they are
nothing without the commentary of that bright eye—the deep gurgling glee of his voice—the electrical
felicity of his pantomime,—for in truth he was as great an actor as could have been produced by rolling up
Liston’and Terry and Mathews, into one.” Much, therefore, of Hook died with him, or only survived in
the memory of friends, soon to pass away like himself. He has been blamed for thus expending his genius
at dinner-tables, and with boon-companions, or of being one of those who,—

“To parties give up what was meant for mankind; ”

but it must be remembered that much of the charm of a joke often depends upon the graces of its utterer,
and that this was especially the case with Hook, of whom it might emphatically be said, as Cicero wrote of
Antony,—“In eo facetie que nullé arte tradi possunt.” Many of his best things, too, would hardly
bear repetition, for there is doubtless some truth in Montgomery's satire. ‘“ Hook,” says the author of
the “ Modern Dunciad,”* “igs a good table companion, and well worth his dinner to entertain a company.
His levities, when they steer clear of indecency and profaneness, are amusing, and to those not read in ‘Joe
Miller, have an air of novelty.” We must not leave the subject of Theodore Hook’s witticisms without
recording our abhorrence of practical jokes and their perpetrators. Nothing is at once so vulgar, so cruel,
and so dangerous in its possible consequences. Deriving pleasure from the infliction of pain on another,
the practical joker is devoid of the essential property of true gentlemanliness, and deserves to be branded
aS a common nuisance. When Hook took upon himself to invite poor “Romeo” Coates to a féte at
Carlton House, it is greatly to the credit of the Prince Regent that he expressed regret that entrance had
been refused him, and sent his secretary next morning to apologise in person.

In 1813 came Hook’s appointment to the offices of Accountant-General and Treasurer at the
Mauritius, at a salary equivalent to £2,000 per annum. Here he remained five years, at the end of which
time a deficiency of some £12,000 was discovered in his accounts, and he was compelled to return, not, as he
said to an inquiring friend, exactly from ill-health,—for here, too, he could not help a joke,—but “on account
of something wrong in the chest.” Lockhart, in his excellent article on Theodore Hook,t has investigated
this affair with sufficient minuteness. He is inclined to exculpate Hook from everything but negligence,
and expresses great regret that the latter did not apply his superfluous means to the reduction of the debt,
which he himself admitted. He received £1,000 for each series of ‘“‘ Sayings and Doings” ; the editorship
of the John Bull, of which he was almost the sole writer, long produced him £2,000 per annum ; and his
other novels and literary works must have been a large source of profit. Surely, out of these sums he
could have paid something into the Exchequer from time to time in liquidation of the liability, and thus
not only maintained his self-respect, but possibly obtained a chance of enjoying, at some future day, the
renewed patronage of the Crown or its Ministers.

It was in 1820 that Hook started his magazine, “The Arcadian.” Lockhart says that he never saw
but one number, and that this “ contained a long ballad of provoking pungency, satirizing Holland House,
and styled ‘The Silver Po.’” This ballad is now before us; it will be found in the number for April 1,
1820, p. 117, and consists of twenty-five stanzas, signed M. B. It is too long to give here, even it were
quite suitable for reproduction in this more modest age. The magazine is certainly of excessive rarity ;
as is also the pamphlet,——of which, too, Lockhart says he has “in vain endeavoured to recover a copy,”—
entitled “ Tentamen ; or, an Essay towards the History of Whittington, some time Lord Mayor of London.”
By Vicesimus Blenkinsop, A.8.8., dc. (1821, 8vo. pp. 43). In this satire, which occasioned considerable
attention, and went through three or four editions, Whittington represents Alderman Wood, and “hys
catte,” Queen Caroline. It is, of course, on the Georgian side of the question.t

Hook wrote many novels ; besides those we have already named, “ Maxwell,” “‘ Parson’s Daughter,”
“Love and Pride,” and others gua nune perscribere longum est. Here are the good and evil qualities
which we have had to signalize im other cases. Knowledge of the world, insight into character, dramatic
ability ; marred by diffusiveness, prolixity, and repetition. We long for the “harvest of the quiet eye” ;
the terse narrative, the quiet characterization, the unobtrusive yet telling incident. Hook was the parent
of all modern fashionable novel’; and some of his tales’ may yet live in spite of their faults. ‘Confound
haste and hurry,” says Tickler, in the “ Noctes” (No. lviii). ‘Who that has read his ‘ Sayings and
Doings,’ and, above all, ‘ Maxwell,’ will doubt that had he given himself time for consideration and reflection,
we should have been hailing him ere now, nem. con., as another Smollett, if not another Le Sage 1”

* The late George Daniel, of Islington, of bibliomaniacal celebrity.

+ In the Quarterly Review, vol. lxxi., p. 53; reprinted by Murray, 1852,
{ Our copy is the third edition, with portrait of the Alderman on the title-page.
 

 
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 129

It would never do to speak of Theodore Hook without alluding to his talents for improvisation. A.
genius for this is rare among us; and our language is hardly so well adapted for its display as the plastic
Italian to which it is native. Here Hook was facile princeys,—undoubtedly the greatest which this
country has ever produced. “We remember once,” says one who knew him, “to have heard Mr. Hook
sing a song upon a company of sixty persons, each verse containing an epigram. Sheridan was present, and
expressed his opinion that it was one of the most extraordinary exertions of human intellect that he had
ever witnessed.” *

Fancy,—to cite an illustration of his marvellous talent which just occurs to our memory,—an
interruption in the midst of an improvisation at his own house, by the announcement of a servant, in
unintentioned rhythm,—

“Please Mr. Winter has called for the taxes,”

and Hook, nothing put out, rattling on,—

“T advise you to give him whatever heaxes 5
Mr. Winter’s a man who stands no sort of flummery,
For though Winter’s his name, his process is summery !””

Even when in the “durance vile” of Shire Lane, under an Exchequer writ (Aug., 1823),—with
Maginn for a companion in misfortune,—he had no reluctance to make sport for the Philistines, out of his
own calamity and disgrace. He had become a great favourite with the sheriff's officer, Mr. Hemp ; and
when the eve of his departure arrived, after a sojourn of some nine months, he was regaled by the
hospitable functionary with a farewell banquet. At its close an improvisation took place, in course of

which the prison officers and inmates were shown up in successive verses, each rounded off with the
chorus :—

“ Let him hang with a curse,—this atrocious, pernicious
Scoundrel that emptied the till at Mauritius!”

‘We must hasten to the end. Regret for the past, mental worry and labour in the present, and anxiety for
the future, made Theodore Hook an old man when he ought still to have been a young one. Add to these
agencies, dinners ; drink (he got at last to be able to take nothing but brandy) ; and late hours, which poor
Theodore had a way to avoid by going home at three or four in the morning,—and we need not wonder that
his constitution gave way. He died, after an illness of three weeks, at his residence at Fulham, August
24th, 1841, in the 53rd year of his age; deeply in debt, and leaving five children, whose existence was
unsanctioned by law or religion, entirely unprovided for. The sale of his books and other effects produced
£2,500, which was surrendered to the Crown, as the privileged creditor. He was a man warm in his
friendships ; of humane and charitable disposition ; and of open-handed, generous nature. He was beloved
and regretted by all who knew him ; and possessed to the last such charm of grace and manner, that, at
the Atheneum, his favourite club, it is said that the dinners fell off to the extent of £300 per annum when
he disappeared from his accustomed corner, near the door of the coffee-room.

No, 48.—CHARLES MOLLOY WESTMACOTT.

- ‘HE commencement of the history of the Great Captain of the Age is enveloped in a sort of cloud ;

for, like William the Conqueror, Don John of Austria, the brave Dunois, Sir Richard Falconbridge,
Marshal Berwick, Marshal Beresford, Marshal Saxe, an immense number of the nobility of all nations,
including all beginning with the prefix of /itz—and by no means excluding a host of others who do not
sport that distinguishing monosyllable,—he may, we believe, blazon a baton sinister in his arms, as securely
as if he were Duke of Grafton, Richmond, Buccleuch, or St. Alban’s.

Westmacott, we understand, has written his autobiography, which would, no doubt, be an exceedingly
amusing and entertaining book, if he would tell the truth and the whole truth. That he should tell
nothing but the truth would be by no means necessary ; who could tie himself to such a strictness? or if
he did, where would be the advantage? But we bargain for the truth and the whole truth ; and let it be,
if he pleases, in fairy fiction dressed. If we do not much mistake his history, he is the son of the late
facetious Dick Westmacott (the statuary) and the pretty widow of Kensington, Mrs. Susannah Molloy,
who kept the King’s Arms, close by the gate, some forty and odd yearsago. Old Westmacottreared him as
his own, sent him to St. Paul’s under Dr. Roberts, passed him through the Royal Academy, and educated
bim as an artist ; but, at the death of the father, the son, Richard Westmacott, the sculptor, ruled in his
stead, and left the original of our portrait to shift for himself as he could in the world. With family
quarrels we have nothing to do; but we are certain that the tracing of C. Westmacott’s life, from the
period when he was sent penniless from his father’s house to the present moment, when he is a prosperous

* See also “Life of Charles Mathews,” vol. ii. p. 59,
i R
130 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

gentleman, would be a strange eventful history. Publish it by all means, Mr. Westmacott, and save us the
trouble of squeezing such an encyclopedia of incidents into a page.

He has gone through all the turns of life—theatrical, journalist, artistical (if that is the fit word) ;—
can boast that he wrote a piece, painted the scenes, and played a part in it—been the depository of secrets,
in all these departments, innumerable—and, unless we are much deceived, of secrets in other quarters of a
higher and a stranger kind. With them, however, we shall not meddle; having at present only to intro-
duce Mr. Charles Molloy Westmacott to our readers in his capacity as the editor of the Age, a situation
which he has for some seven years filled—and a perilous post it is. He sits in our sketch in firm port and
defiance of all and sundry who will venture to question his judgments on their lives or characters ;
beneath his foot is deposited an unhappy couple of the volumes of his antagonist Bulwer, which he is
crushing without mercy ; under his right hand, as in propriety bound to do, lies the Age, outspread in
all its amplitude, with the ink-hottle close by, whence its varied contents are to flow. Beside bim is a
cabinet stored with communications many and strange, destined no doubt in due time to see the light of day,
and astonish the hearts of the natives. But by far the most characteristic touch of the whole sketch—and
our readers may be perfectly assured that Croquis in introducing it has not ventured on doing so from his
own inventive genius, but faithfully copied from the /ife—is the knowing horsewhip in the hat. You see
at once that it is no trifle. The end inserted in the hat sinks so decidedly, and the lash that is visible
outside curvets with so much ease, that we cannot be deceived as to the nature of the “ tool,”—it is loaded,
and no mistake. The Great Captain of the Age we see is determined not to be trifled with; and if
inquisitive personages come in his path, he is prepared with an answer.

He is a plucky little fellow, who has pushed his way actively in the world. He is desperately neglected
in a quarter which owes him the deepest gratitude ; but he has fought in his paper the battle of the Tories
as open-mouthedly and as freely as he could—and that is open-mouthedly and freely enough, in all
conscience.

So may he still, through many a lengthen’d stage,
Manage the well-train’d leaders of the Age.

NOLL S.

XCEPT as belonging to a typical period, and associated with events to which Time has given an
extraneous interest, we cannot confess to much sympathy with the impudent, self-satisfied, rosy-
gilled little journalist whose admirable portraiture we have now before us. ‘The account given of his
genealogy by Maginn,—who seems, from some cause or other, to have regarded with especial kindness a
man whom he should have held as the very dirt beneath his feet,—is, in the main, correct ; and we
believe that his title to the high artistic appellation of “ Westmacott” depends solely on his own
assumption. We will not dispute his right to that of “ Molloy,” which was the name of his mother, and
was derived from the son of a respectable master chimney-sweeper, whose shed and premises were lately,
and probably are yet, to be seen in a narrow street or court running from the lower end of Drury Lane to
the church of St. Mary-le-Strand. But enough of this. Stemmata quid faciunt ? asks the poet ; and we
were only led to rake among forgotten rubbish by the consideration that if it was ever fair to revive a
scandalous story, it was so in the case of one who notoriously made market of the scandals of others.
Those who have penetrated the arcana of London journalism need not be informed of what is meant
by the terms “ink-making” and ‘“ black-mail,” by which is implied that detestable system of literary
terrorism which, although existing before his time, and suspected, at least, in far more reputable quarters,
was further methodized and perfected by Westmacott than any free-pen of his own licentious period. Of
similar practices, the late Barnard Gregory, Renton Nicholson, and others, have been, at a more recent
day, accused ; but however true the charges may be in their cases, we believe that the offences were of
minor character, and venture to assert, for the credit of journalism, that their known commission at the
present day would entail upon the guilty exclusion from tbe guild on which their-practices bring disgrace
and contempt. The modus operandi was as follows :—Sometimes a vague rumour, or hint of scandal,
accompanied perchance by a suggestive newspaper paragraph, was conveyed to one or more of the parties
implicated, with a threat of further inquiry into its truth, and a full exposure of the circumstances which
excited the sender’s virtuous indignation. This, if the selected victim was a man of nervous, timid
temperament, often produced the desired effect ; and, although possibly entirely innocent of the allegation,
he preferred to purchase silence, and escape the suspicion which publicity does not fail to attach to a name.
If, on the other hand, no notice was taken of the communication, the screw received some further turns.
A narrative was drawn up, and printed off, in the form of a newspaper paragraph ; this was transmitted
to the parties concerned, with a letter, intimating that it had been “received from a correspondent,” and
that the publisher thought fit, prior to publication, to ascertain whether those whose names were mentioned
desired to correct, modify, or cancel any part of the statement. There is no doubt that very large sums
have been extorted by these scoundrelly means, and a vast amount of anxiety and misery occasioned.
Not to rake in the mud for forgotten slander, we shall content ourselves here by saying that Westmacott
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 131

became acquainted, in the course of his excavations, with a certain scandalous intrigue, in which members
of the Court, a general officer, and even persons of loftier station, were implicated. The usual means
were had recourse to, and the screw “put on”; till finally he was induced to deliver up the piéces
Justificatives for the consideration of a sum amounting, if we are not greatly mistaken, to not much less
than £5,000, This, with sundry other “pulls,” and the more legitimate gains of his editorship, enabled
Westmacott to fit up a classic Z’usculanwm between Barnes and Richmond, with books and pictures within,
as befitted an owner of Ciceronian tastes, and surrounded by grounds, in which might be seen, as in the
Groves of Blarney,—
“ All heathen gods,
And nymphs so fair,
All standing naked :
In the open air!”

How long this lasted, we know not ; neither are we acquainted with the circumstances which led to
his exodus from these shores, He took up his residence in Paris, where we knew something of him ; and
in that city he died about August, 1868.

The dog-whip nestling in Westmacott’s hat was a necessary ally to a man whose hand had been as
that of Ishmael. But his weapon was sometimes turned against himself. On October 10th, 1830, a
severe, and no doubt well-deserved, castigation was administered, at Covent Garden Theatre, upon
Westmacott, by Charles Kemble, in return for some opprobrious epithets which, it was alleged, the editor
of the Age had bestowed on his daughter Fanny. The incensed actor was taken into custody; but we
suppose that it was considered that he had justification for the assault, as the case was dismissed by the
magistrates, though the injured person was unable to attend, by reason of his wounds. A flogging, too,
was threatened him by the author of “ Pelham,” who, probably, had good grounds for such a proceeding.
The threat, however, was not carried out, and the “critic” revenged himself by his coarse and vulgar
‘* Letter to E. L. Bulwer, from C. M. Westmacott” (Ridgway, 1833, 8vo. pp. 16).

Previously to this a work had appeared, which is now known to be the production of Westmacott, and
to which, as a veritable chronique scandaleuse of the time, a value is now attached which would hardly be
due to its merits proper. This was entitled “The English Spy : an Original Work, Characteristic, Satirical,
and Humorous, comprising Scenes and Sketches in every Rank of Society ; being Portraits of the Illus-
trious, Eminent, Eccentric, and Notorious, drawn from the Life by Bernard Blackmantle ” (Sherwood & Co.
1826, 2 vols. royal 8vo.).* In the pages of this extraordinary work figure all the notabilities of the day,
either openly or under slight disguise ; and Tom Best, White-headed Bob, “ Pea-green” Hayne, Colonel
Berkeley, the “ Golden” Ball, Dr. Kett, Charles Mathews, Jemmy Gordon, and a host of others of equal
notoriety, mingle, cheek hy jowl, in the vivid and moving panorama. The volumes contain no less than
seventy-two large coloured engravings, after the fashion of those in the “ Life in London.” The great
majority of these are by Robert Cruikshank, and contain numerous portraits. One or two were con-
tributed by G. M. Brightly and J. Wageman, and two by the inimitable Rowlandson, one of which (vol. i.
p. 411) gives a most admirable delineation of the Life Academy at Somerset House, in which the R.A.’s,—
‘West, Shee, Haydon, Lawrence, Westmacott, Flaxman, and the rest,—their identity indicated by the
initials on their mill-boards,—are gloating over the nude charms of a blonde and Rubensesque female model.
Portraits of the author are liberally introduced, and we find him especially in one of the admirable vignettes
on wood,—the last in the book,—where “ Bob Transit,” his companion, is a likeness of Robert Cruikshank.

In the following year (1826) we have “The Punster’s Pocket-Book ; or, the Art of Punning enlarged.
By Bernard Blackmantle. Illustrated with numerous original Designs by Robert Cruikshank.” (8vo.)
This somewhat elegant volume is a ri/wcimenio of the “Ars Punica” of Dr. Sheridan, as enlarged by Swift ;
and is dedicated to George IV. in appropriate terms, “with the most fervent loyalty, the most sincere
admiration, and the most profound respect.”

Upon the death of the “worthy ”—or “unworthy ”—to whom these notes refer, his collections found
their way over to England. Some of his manuscript note-books were offered for sale in the catalogue of
Mr. Thomas Arthur, for Dec. 1868, and contain some curious particulars. One gives an account of a
conversation between George IV. and Beau Brummell, on the night of the Prince’s marriage, indicating
the cause of his estrangement from the Princess Caroline, and which Westmacott had from Brummell
himself; another relates to the dealings of the Duke of Gloucester and his executors with regard to a
Mrs. Maguire and her son, and gives the history of Miss Jane Burdett, a natural daughter of the Duke of
Kent ; a third touches on the banishment of Sir John Conroy, the Queen’s foster-father; Lady Flora
Hastings and the Palace Tragedy ; a fourth gives details of the Princess Charlotte’s first lover ; the Princess
Amelia and her offspring; Talleyrand’s heartless conduct; the Cottage in Windsor Park,—cum multis
aliis,—all of which we have only alluded to in illustration of what we have said about the character, habits,
and pursuits of CHARLES Moxitoy WEsTMAcort.

We have before us an excellent portrait in stipple of “The Author of the English Spy, &c., engraved
from an exhibition drawing by T. Wageman.” :

* We believe this work was continued under the title of the St. James’s Royal Magazine.

+ We suspect that few book-collectors are unacquainted with the catalogues of Mr. Arthur; certainly none should be
without them. All lovers of curious books,—ourselves assuredly among the number,—are greatly indebted to this
enterprising bowquiniste, alike for his indefatigable industry in adding to his stock, and the bibliographic information with
which he accompanies its announcement. 3

R
( 182 )

No. 49.—LEIGH HUNT.

EIGH HUNT complained sadly of the pickpocket look which the malice or want of skill of an
L engraver had conferred on that copy of his countenance which decorated his book about Lord Byron.
We hope that he will think our artist has succeeded better ; although truth compels us to confess that there
is not much of the style noble in the physioguomy of the ci-devant sonnetteer of Hampstead, even though
“its intelligence relieves it from insignificance.”

Hunt has written in a hundred different places all the particulars of his personal history, and we are
thereby relieved from any pressing necessity of expatiating on his biography. He was once very warlike
with his pen, and fond of controversy ; but that occurred when he was calidus juventd,—

“In his hot youth, when George the Third was king.”

Time and the wear of the world has smoothed the roughness of his ire, and his quills bristle not for the
conflict as of old. Once upon a time he was ready to attack everybody, from the Prince Regent down to
the poor scene-shifter ; and he tells us he then thought that a satire was nothing more than a “ pleasant
thing in a book.” He felt the difference when the Northerns dubbed him King of the Cockneys. He is
now far more tolerant of mankind; but he still preserves in considerable bloom all the grand characteristics
of his original career,—the jauntiness and greenery, the theatrical orange-suckery, the suburban relishes,
the admiration of all that is of the town, towny. He prattles as ever of green fields, and fancies that he
knows something of fine breeding and the fine air of a gentleman of the West End. His pet words
still cling to him in spite of all vicissitudes of time and fortune ; and it is impossible to mistake an article
of his, whether marked by the ruffled ¢% or not. By the way, he ought to put a sham diamond ring on
the index finger—it would look more sparkish ; or sport a daffy-downdilly from the back of Jack Straw’s
in the hand, thereby to show that the farmy fields of Hampstead are not forgotten.

We grieved somewhat, on looking over his last edition of ‘ Rimini,” when we missed the old familiar
faces of these five lines, which had excited the savage criticism of Gifford. It was weak of Hunt to leave
out these purple patches,—

“The thigh broad spread—the pressing thumb upon it ;
And the jerk’d feather swaling in the bonnet ;”
or,—
“The two divinest things the world has got—
A lovely woman on a rural—spot ;”
or,—
“She had stout notions on the marrying score ;”

or the hundred magnificent words which had called up the bile of the critical sutor who smote Hunt with
his crepida. The poem did not appear to us anything like what it was some—almost twenty years ago,
when we read it with infinite gratification, chiefly on account of these charming specimens of composition.
Why should he have cared for his critics? They were no friends of his. And had we been Hunt we
should have stuffed the poem ten times fuller of Cockneyisms, and not abated a rhyme to oblige the non-
residents of London, who think that Anna ought not to be pronounced Aunar. We should have shown the
provincials our intense contempt of their notions of the English tongue, and in the honour of Bow-bell
have rhymed tobacco with Long Acre, as in the days of old.

He is now coming somewhat beyond that mezzo cammin of which Dante sings, and fortune has not
smiled upon him. The party to which he formerly attached himself is in power, but all his old labours in
the libel line on their behalf are forgotten. Those who abused the Prince Regent with far greater virulence
than Hunt ever did are high in office, and glorying in their elevation. They have of course left him to
struggle as he can. We hope that his struggling is successful; we understand, indeed, that his Journal
has, as it deserves to have, a prosperous sale. It is ay refreshing as his former productions, and of a

pleasanter spirit. He has been an excessively ill-used man in many respects, and by none more than by
Lord Byron, and those who panegyrize his lordship,—

“With the twaddle of Allan, the meanness of Moore.”

And so fare thee well, and prosper, “Signor Le Hunto, gran gloria di Cocagna.”

NO TE SS,

N the long and eventful career of Lerch Hunt is so essentially involved the literary and political
history of the present century, that it is impossible to give adequate consideration to any one of its
varied aspects without occupying a larger space than we can here afford to all. Thus we can only offer a
L

7

  

few x : L oo fh,
i C LIF te L LYE 4

 

 

 

TAR OLY ORALULES ©

ET CESS

VV ON

fi

(1

AL TTC
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS, 133

“ fierce abridgment,” Jeaving much that occurs to us altogether untouched ; for, like Dr. Johnson, we find
it more easy to be abstinent than temperate.

This charming writer was born at Southgate, in Middlesex,—his father a West Indian, and his mother
a Philadelphian,—October 19th, 1784. Like his life-long friends Coleridge and Lamb, he received his
education at Christ's Hospital. His first pursuit was the law; but this he forsook for an appointment in
the War Office, which, in turn, he gave up to become, in 1808, founder and joint proprietor of the
Examiner. The Tories were in the ascendant ; and one of Hunt’s articles brought down on him a Govern-
ment prosecution. This failed; and a second prosecution, incited by an article in which the practice of
flogging in the army was censured, resulted in an acquittal, in 1811. The third time paid for all. Hunt-
called the Regent an “ Adonis of Sixty,” and awoke the sprete injuria forme of the “first gentleman of
Europe.” Grounds for another prosecution were searched for and found ; and this time a verdict of “ guilty”
was returned against Leigh and his brother John, and each was sentenced to a fine of £500 and two years,
imprisonment. On the liberation of the former, he proceeded to Italy, on the invitation of his friends
Shelley and Byron, to set up “The Liberal ; or, Verse and Prose from the South ;” and here he resided some
four years, part of which time was passed under the same roof with Byron, but not to the increase of
friendly feeling between the poets. Hunt returned to England, and devoted himself to literature. In
1847, the same Government which had consigned him to a prison found him worthy of a pension ; and
£200 per annum was bestowed upon him by the Queen, at the recommendation of Lord John Russell.
Failing health rendering change of air desirable, he was induced to remove to the house of his friend,
Mr. Reynell, at Putney,—the printer, by the way, of the Hxaminer, the paper which he had founded just
half a century before,—and here he breathed his last, without suffering, in the possession of all his
faculties, and without a sigh or struggle, on Sunday, August 28th, 1859, in the 75th year of his age.

As a journalist, Leigh Hunt cannot be placed in the foremost rank. His thought was refined rather
than vigorous ; and his strong individuality was unfavourable to united working for a common object.
Yet he had the virtues of honesty, liberality, and generosity.

As an essayist, he occupies a far higher place. That which was the defect of his political writings is
the charm of his discursive essays. With much of the quaint humour of Charles Lamb, he has frequently
a breadth of thought which reminds the reader of Addison and Steele, with a delicacy and sensitiveness
which is sometimes even morbid. He made himself the friend of those whom he addressed, and loved to
regard his subject in all its bearings. Truth was to him a polygon, courting examination at each of its
angles, and changing its character with the light in which it was seen. Many of these “ Essays” will live
with the language, and be the delight of great men of other generations, as they were of those who
are gone. Thus, the favourite paper of Hazlitt was that on “Sleep”; Lamb loved “Coaches and their
Horses,” the essay on the “ Deaths of little Children,” and “Thoughts and Guesses on Human Nature” ;
Shelley held in especial favour the “Fair Revenge,” and Keats the paper on a hot summer day, entitled
“The Now”; while the prime favourites of Lord Holland were “The Old Gentleman,” and the “Old
Lady.”

ae a dramatic critic, Leigh Hunt, after Hazlitt, was the first of his day. Refinement of taste, felicity
of expression, and nicety of discrimination mark his judgments, and render his collection of “Critical Essays
on the Performances of the London Theatres” (1807, Svo.) charming reading, even at this lapse of time.

As a talker, Hunt was pre-eminently great, and had the faculty of throwing “light as from a painted
window” on any subject which occupied his attention. How well does his friend Hazlitt bring before us
his style and manner :—“ Hunt has a fine vinous spirit about him. He sits at the head of a party with
great gaiety and grace; has an elegant manner and turn of features ; has continual sportive sallies of wit
or fancy ; tells a story capitally ; mimics an actor or an acquaintance to admiration ; laughs with great glee
and good humour at his own and other people’s jokes; understands the point of an équivoque or an observation
immediately ; has a taste for, and a knowledge of, books, of music, of medals; manages an argument
adroitly ; is genteel and gallant; and has a set of by-phrases and quaint allusions always at hand to
produce a laugh.” Keats, too, was mindful of the varied charms of his friend’s discourse :—

“ He who elegantly chats and talks,
The wrong’d Libertas,—who has told you stories
Of laurel chaplets, and Apollo’s glories,
Of troops chivalrous marching through a city,
And tearful ladies made for love and pity.”

As a poet, much that Leigh Hunt has written will live with the language. The “Story of Rimini”
(1816) is the longest, and perhaps the best of his poems. It is worthy of especial study, as a leading
specimen of that fourth, or composite, school of poetical expression to which Shelley, Keats, and “ Barry
Cornwall” also'belong. In origin Italian, it has also received an influence from France and Germany, and
is probably destined to be in its further development the cardinal mode of poetical expression among us.
“Rimini” is perhaps the finest narrative poem since the days of Dryden. Of his other poems, “ Foliage,”
“ The Descent of Liberty,” “The Feast of the Poets,” and the “ Legend of Florence,”—a great favourite with
the Queen, who went several times to see it at Covent Garden, and commanded its performance before her
at Windsor,—and his minor pieces, we have not space to speak. Genius is apparent in all that Hunt
wrote. Originality marks his handling of the commonest things. Generally showing mannerism,—
not seldom descending to puerility,— whatever flowed from his pen is instinct with a living soul. Then his
134 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

Translations. Here he is truly facile princeps. In his hands, English is as flexible as German. His
“ Bacchus in Tuscany,” from the fine dithyrambic of Francesco Redi, is, so far as our knowledge extends,
the best translation in verse in the language; and his version of the exquisite “Lutrin” of Boileau is,
in its way, hardly less excellent. One fact must be noticed. The later editions of “ Rimini,” the “ Feast
of the Poets,” and other pieces, differ greatly, from capricious alterations and cancellings, from the originals.
Of those in “ Rimini,” the author speaks with regret in his “‘ Autobiography,” and intimates his intention
of restoring the narrative to its first course. It was right, perhaps, to reverse some of the harsher and more
palpably erroneous judgments in the “ Feast of the Poets,” and we are thus afforded the very curious
study of comparing the growth and alteration of opinion in the author’s mind. The very finest thing, in
its way, as we take it, that he ever wrote, finds no place in the edition of his ‘“‘ Poetical Works,” collected
and revised by himself before his death, and we hope to be able to give it in the course of this volume.

He who judges will be judged by others. Hunt made bitter enemies by his “ Feast of the Poets.”
His severe remarks on Sir Walter Scott, repented of afterwards, and cancelled in later editions, brought
down upon him the undying enmity of the Scotch critics, who were never tired of laughing at his
Cockneyisms, and his immortal “ yellow breeches ” ; and Gifford, of the Quarterly, whose unmanly sneer at the
crutches of poor Mary Robinson had excited the indignation of the poet, went on misquoting and ridiculing
the “Story of Rimini,” till pilloried by its author in his “ Ultra-Crepidarius.”* There is a choice page of
ribaldry, too, in the “ Age-Reviewed” of “Satan” Montgomery (page 196), which the reader can search
out for himself if he thinks it worth his trouble.

On the other hand, read Shelley’s dedication of his “‘ Cenci”; and those lines of the same poet, which
occur in a poetical epistle, where he describes his friend as—

«« _____ one of those happy souls
Which are the salt of the earth, and without whom
This world would smell like what it is—a tomb ;
Who ts, what others seem ; 22

We have already alluded to Leigh Hunt’s “ Autobiography,” originally published in 1850, 8vo. 2 vols.,
and since condensed into a smaller and cheaper form. There is also his “ Correspondence,” edited by his
eldest son, 1862, 2 vols. 8vo.

No. 50.—W. H. AINSWORTH.

E have not the pleasure of being acquainted with Mrs. Ainsworth, but we are sincerely sorry for
her—we deeply commiserate her case. You see what a pretty fellow THE young novelist of the
season is; how exactly, in fact, he resembles one of the most classically handsome and brilliant of the
established lady-killers,—the only darling of the day, except Cradock, alias Caradoc,—whose charms have
been equally fatal among the nymphs of the Seine and the Thames. No Truefit, anxious to set off his
Brutus, could have devised a more neatly-cut countenance ; no wnstricken Stultze need ask a more dashing
outline of back, hip, thigh, leg, &c., for the exhibition of toggery. We may, without swagger, apply to
Ainsworth what Theodore Hook has sung of D’Orsay le beaw :—

“ See him, gallant and gay,
With the chest of Apollo, the waist of a gnat ;”’

—but then comes the rub for Mrs. A., as well as the rhyme for “ gay” :—
“ The delight of the ball, the assembly, the play ! ”’

Alas! it were well if “balls, assemblies, and plays” were all; there are also such things, not undreamt of
in the philosophy of the Mayfair fair ones, as boudois and téte-d-tétes ; and the best we can say for this
Turpin of the cabriolet, whose prancer will never masticate a beefsteak, is, that if he escapes scotfree during
the first month of the blaze of his romance, he is a lucky as well as a well-grown lad. Of this all concerned
may be only too sure, that many a dove as well as crow will, on the present occasion,

“ Make wing to the Rooky-wood.”

Well, Heaven send him a good deliverance! But when we see how even whey-faced, spindle-shanked,
musk -smelling baboons get on occasionally among feathers and furbelows, when once they have attached
anything like a rag of notoriety to their names, we own we regard with fear and trepidation the fiery
furnace of flattering sighs through which this strapping A-Bed-Nego must endeavour to bring his jolly
whiskers unsinged.

* 1823, 8vo. pp. 40.
 

\

yoy ‘

‘le

Be

 

"ROOKWOOD.

at RL Es

 

KR

R

ii
Ws

4

 

Ow

BOUT OR
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 135

Of the previous history of Walter Hederic Ainsworth, we believe all that the general reader has any
concern in may be told in a couple of sentences. He is the grandson, or great-grandson, of the celebrated
Latin lexicographer, who was at school with Tom Hill, somewhere about the middle of the reign of
George IT. ; while, by the other side of the house, he is connected with the lineage of the illustrious John
Bee. His father was a flourishing gentleman, «.c. solicitor, at Manchester ; and the old boy spared no pains
to train up his child in the way he should engross. But love and genius will out; and here he is, two
hundred miles from the Babylon of spinning-jennies, murdering right and left before and behind the scenes
of the Opera,—writing Vau-devils for Yates,—Inter-lewds for Bunn,—and after having had to do, more or
less, with we know not how many little pieces of the Olympic, now at length astonishing London and
Creesufying Bentley by a real dashing display of the long-buried inspiration of romance !

May he turn out many novels better, none worse than “ Rookwood”; may the Adelphi in the meantime
do justice to his Highwayman ; and may he, as far as is consistent with the frailty of humanity, penetrate
puffery, and avoid the three insatiables of Solomon, king of Israel! Amen.

P.S.—I perceive old Yorke has left me room to add my view of the subject in sounding rhyme.
Here goes :—
Enjoy thy prime of glory, Master Walker,
With moderation: be a cogent talker
In quiet corners,—ever, Master Hederic,
Making sheer sense the Ilov rw of thy rhetoric ;
Thus, saying sunk in doing, Master Ainsworth,
I promise thee in measure full thy pains’ worth
’Mid the sweet world of intellectual creatures,
Whose bathycolpic forms and dazzling features
May, brass on brass, in tempting file be seen,
Fit Frontispieces all for the Court Macazine.—M. O’D.

 

NOTE Ss

UR maxim is, de vivis nil,—at least, in the way of criticism ; and so we shall have little to say
about this popular novelist. He was born in 1805, and early published a tiny volume of verse,
under the pen-name of “ Cheviot Tichbourne,” which he dedicated to Charles Lamb. For that charming
writer he had a great veneration, and wrote some letters to him, accompanying a present of books, and
pressing him to visit Manchester, the answers to which are preserved in Lamb’s correspondence, as edited
by Talfourd. In his 21st year he published his first work of fiction, “Sir John Chiverton,” which was
fortunate enough to attract the attention of Sir Walter Scott, who notes in his diary (October 17th, 1826),
that he read it with interest, and thought it “a clever book,” coupling with it in his praise, the ‘ Brambletye
House” of Horace Smith, and claiming to be the originator of the style in which they were both
written :—

“ Which I was born to introduce,
Refined it first, and show’d its use.” —Swirt.

We hold “Crichton” to be still the best historical novel of Ainsworth, and always read it with
interest. ‘Rookwood ” is full of dramatic incident and striking situations, related with power. There is
a smart review of it, comparing Ainsworth and Bulwer, to the advantage of the former, under the title of
“ High-Ways and Low-Ways ; or, Ainsworth’s Dictionary, with Notes by Turpin,” in Fraser's Magazine,
for June, 1834. ‘Jack Sheppard” will live for ever, if only from the inimitable etchings of George
Cruikshank, who has made the subject his own :—

“ CRUIKSHANK, ’tis thine to gild with fame
Th’ obscure, and raise the humble name;
To make the form elude the grave,

And SHeEpparp from oblivion save.

Tho’ life in vain the wretch implores,
An exile on the farthest shores,

Thy pencil brings a kind reprieve,
And bids the dying robber live.

This piece to latest time shall stand,
And show the wonders of thy hand.
Thus former masters graced their name,
And gave egregious robbers fame.

‘Apelles, Alexander drew,
Ceesar is to Aurelius due ;
Cromwell in Lely’s work doth shine,
And Sheppard, CRUIKSHANK, lives in thine! ”
136 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

To confess the truth, Sheppard enjoys a double immortality ; for the foregoing verses, which we
transcribe from “The Malefactors’ Register ; ur, a New Newgate and Tyburn Calendar” (p. 408), were
actually written to celebrate a former delineation, in oils, of the notorious burglar by Sir JamEs
THORNHILL, who visited him in Newgate for the express purpose of taking him ad vivum, and whose first
sketch, now before us, bears, in its vigour, not to speak of the autograph below, better evidence of its
genuineness than a certificate “‘ with five justices’ hands to it, and witnesses more than a page would hold.”
Walter Thornbury holds these novels of Ainsworth very cheap. ‘‘Even Dickens,” says he, “had his fine
gold jewelled by Cruikshank. Ainsworth’s tawdry rubbish—now all but forgotten, and soon to sink deep
in the mudpool of oblivion, was illuminated witha false splendour by this great humorist” ; * and elsewhere
points out the great artist's “Rembrandtic nightmare of the ‘Headsman sharpening his Axe,’ from
Ainsworth’s melodramatic novel, ‘Tower of London, —a wonderful weird dusk, with no light but that
which glimmers on the bald scalp of the hideous headsman, who, feeling the edge of his axe with his thumb,
grins with a devilish foretaste of his pleasure on the morrow. I need scarcely say that all the poetry,
dramatic force, mystery, and terror of the design is attributable to Cruikshank.” We have already alluded
to the controversy as to whether artist or writer has claim to the origination of these illustrated novels ;
whether, in short, these were “written up ” to Cruikshank’s etchings, or the latter merely illustrated what
the novelist had already written. Cruikshank complains that his name is ignored in the announcements
of “The Miser’s Daughter,” as dramatized by Mr. Andrew Halliday ; and we think that Mr. Ainsworth is
entitled to a counter-growl,—like Master Pierce Egan, in old days,—that his works are catalogued by the
booksellers under Cruikshank’s name, and their currency attributed to that artist’s illustrations. The first
edition of “Rookwood” was published before any acquaintance existed between artist and novelist ; but
Cruikshank’s services were called in to illustrate a later issue. “Jack Sheppard” was published in
Bentley's Miscellany ; Cruikshank made the designs for this, and asserts that it was the “only bit of
MS. of the author that he ever saw in the whole course of his life.” ‘“‘ Guy Fawkes” appeared in the same
serial, and received, too, the advantage of the artist’s master-hand ; then came the “ Tower of London,”’—
of which Cruikshank claims the “ original idea,” published in monthly numbers, and in which he and
Ainsworth were equal partners ; the “Miser’s Daughter”; ‘“ Windsor Castle,” the first part of which was
illustrated by Tony Johannot, and the remainder by Cruikshank ; and, finally, “St. James's ; or, the Court
of Queen Anne,” which was the last of Ainsworth’s novels which Cruikshank illustrated.

It may be well to mention that “John Bee,’—or, more properly, “Ion Bee,’—who seems to bea
connection of Mr. Ainsworth on his mother’s side, is the pseudonym of Mr. John Badcock, the well-
known author, inter alia, of the “Dictionary of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, the Pit, of Bon-Ton, and
the Varieties of Life, &e.” (1823, 8vo.), and “The Living Picture of London” (1828, 8vo.), about whom
we could say much more, if space permitted.

We have pointed out elsewheret that the capital drinking-song, “Jolly Nose,” which, put into the
mouth of Blueskin, in the novel “Jack Sheppard,” became so famous by Paul Bedford’s impersonation of
the character, is a translation of one of the Vaua-de-Vire of the fine old Norman Anacreon, Olivier
Basselin. These, with other chansons-d-boire of the same period, have been collected by the Bibliophile
Jacob, and published by A. Delahays (Paris, 1858, 8vo.), and thus placed within reach of lovers of the
esprit gaulois. “We give both versions for comparison :—

A SON NEZ.

Beau Nez, dont les rubis ont cousté mainte pipe
De vin blanc et clairet,

Et duquel Ja couleur richement participe
Du rouge et violet ;

Gros Nez! Qui te regarde & travers un grand verre,
Te juge encore plus beau.

Tu ne ressembles point au nez de quelque hére
Qui ne boit que de l’eau.

Un coq d’Inde, sa gorge 4 toy semblable porte:

Combien de riches gens .
N’ont pas si riche nez! Pour te peindre en la sorte,

Il faut beaucoup de temps.

Le verre est le pinceau, duquel on t’enlumine ;
Le vin est la couleur

Dont on t’a peint ainsi plus rouge qu’une guisene
En beuvant du meilleur.

On dit qu’il nuit aux yeux; mais seront-ils les maistres ?
Le vin est la guarison

De mes maux: j’aime mieux perdre les deux fenestres
Que toute la maison.

DRINKING SONG.

Jotty Nose! the bright rubies that garnish thy tip
Were dug from the mines of Canary ;

And to keep up their lustre I moisten my lip
With hogsheads of claret and sherry.

Jolly Nose! he who sees thee across a broad glass,
Beholds thee in all thy perfection ;

And to the pale snout of a temperate ass
Entertains the profoundest objection.

[For a turkey-cock’s neck one might surely mistake thee :
Why there’s many a well-to-do fellow

Can’t boast such a nose! What a time it must take thee
To get to a colouring so mellow. ]{

For a big-bellied glass is the palette I use,
And the choicest of wine is my colour ;

And I find that my nose takes the mellowest hues,
The fuller I fill it,—the fuller.

Jolly Nose! there are fools who say drink hurts the sight :
Such dullards know nothing about it ;

Tis better with wine to extinguish the light,
Than live always in darkness without it.

 

* “British Artists from Hogarth to Turner,” vol. ii. p. 59.

+ Notes and Queries, December 19th, 1863, p. 488.

{ For the sake of completeness, I have hastily supplied the stanza in brackets, which Mr. Ainsworth has, judiciously

for his purpose, omitted.
 

  

 

ORIOL OS

 

diaivi
3 ws

ny

WAS

sf

oa

PASCO

sa

Oe

IO

AR

J

oy

AUTHOR OF Wel Syl
( 137 )

No, o1.—THOMAS HILL.

AM ROGERS, we rather think, was quizzing George Robins, when he told him that the phenomenon
opposite was one of the little Hills celebrated for their skipping propensities in the Psalms; but there
can be no doubt that he is the facile atavus of our existing literature. Most surely, therefore, we ought
long ago to have given this venerable and vivacious patriarch and punster, as seated at his snug breakfast-
table, over his usual Apennine of shrimps and Euxine of chocolate—refreshing his optics, meanwhile, with
the third perusal of the “ Mirror of Fashion.” Here, however, you at length behold him. “Ecce” (to
apply what Augustus Cesar said on a remarkable occasion of Horatius Flaccus), “Ecce homuncionem face-
tissimum—en tibi lepidissimum senem !”

The Biographia Britannica proves that Aaron Hill returned from the East with Lord Paget, his
kinsman and patron, in 1703 ; so that as our hero has never denied that he was born at Constantinople, he
must now be af least one hundred and thirty-one. This would be pretty well, were he as toothless as Lord
Grey, as bald as the Duke of Sussex, as lame as Lord Holland, and as impotent, in every sense of that word,
as all the three of them. But the wonder of us Liliputians of a day is considerably increased when we
reflect that this Man-Mountain has, at this hour, a complete set of grinders, which hardly call once a year
for a slight manipulation of his friend Cartwright ; that he trots daily at least twenty miles upon pins as
sturdy and compact almost as those of our dear Taglioni; that his curls are still anything but rare, and
owe nothing of the richness of their gloss to either the lead-comb or Collins’s Milk, or any other item of the
Palmerstonian swpellex ; that the lad is still the very life and soul of the most bethumbed column in the
Chronicle ; the chief helluo of whitebait within the bills of Lovegrove ; closes the scene twice a week with
a grilled chicken at no great distance from Norton-street ; and from July to eternity takes no medicine but
his Lady de Crespigny’s prandial pill. Wonderful creature! And he has buried five wives, too! We are
not at all surprised to hear that the effigy of our Adelphic Oracle is to supplant that old water-gruel
Cornaro in the next edition of Sir John Sinclair.

‘Well, Hill, how did things look at Billingsgate, this morning? Covent Garden lively, Tom? What
do you think of John Black permitting Bear Ellice to put his paw into the leader? Pooh, pooh, Hill!
All Heber’s concern gone yet? How does Cochrane get on with your worthy young friend, Lord Shammus
of Should-be !—stirring, eh? When did you dine with Murray, Tom? What is Wright about now? I
think I could trace a certain fine Roman hand in the last Fraser. Ah, you wag! how could you do Hogg
so? Pot and kettle, Tom, eh? Any more Ramsbottoms coming? Theodore hearty this summer? What's
Lockhart thinking of for next Number, old cock? Ah, those pea-and-thimble rogues! Now do tell me,
what’s Brougham’s regular dose, Hill! Does Fricour still keep up his fame for the roast turbot? What
has Southey got for this edition of Cowper? My eye! how the laureate puffed you in his preface to Kirke
White! Why was Lady T so werry dolorous when Grizzle made his blubbering exit? What the
deuce is that new print you've stuck up alongside of Parr? Ah, Tom! those were merry days when you,
and I, and Perry, and John Kemble, ran our rigs together—sic transit. Have you had a tumbler with Sir
Morgan lately? How’s James? Come, now, what did you turn by your tickets for the Abbey, Tom ?
What's all this about Mulgrave, Hillock? You'll take the thing up at the Garrick, won’t you? Fie! do
you think we've forgotten all about you and the Bellamy? Ah, Tom, the White Hermitage! How you
floored Dubois, Andrews, Smith, Twiss—every mother’s son of them, and then went to sup with the
Duchess, you dog! Lord, Lord! if you ever do make a die of it, how your cellar will cut up! Why the
mischief don’t you write your memoirs, Hill? Do by all means !—Life and Works, in the same shape with
Byron’s, Crabbe’s, and so forth. Plenty of facts—pooh ! pooh! bushels, bushels. I dare say the Emperor
would not mind a thousand—eh, Chimborazo ?

Come, Tommy, ’tis eleven o’clock ; get on your boots again ; don’t forget the umbrella, my boy! Oh,
Jupiter, how capitally Mathews hits off your grunt! Little Davy never did you better at Hampton.

 

 

LOOT” eS

S the “Paul Pry” of Poole and Liston, and the “ Hull” of “ Gilbert Gurney,” if not as an “ illustrious
A literary character,” the “thrice-centenarian Tom Hunu,”—the “Tom Hill of all the realm of
Cockayne,”—demands some record here, although he, with Louis Eustache Ude and Grant Thorburn, are
inserted in the “Gallery” as “no more than curiosities.”* As to age, he was always considered quite a
Methuselah ; James Smith said that it was impossible to discover it, because his parish-register had been
burnt in the Fire of London, and he took advantage of the circumstance to conceal the year of his nativity ;
and Theodore Hook capped this with a “ Pooh, pooh !”—Hill’s characteristic exclamation—-“ he’s one of the
little Hills that are spoken of as skipping in the Psalms.” Although not quite go old as this, he was past
his eightieth year when he died, at his chambers in the Adelphi, at the close of the year 1840, and “ London
lost one of its choicest spirits, and humanity one of her kindest-hearted sons.” As to the character of Hull

* Praser’s Magazine, vol. xxi. p. 22.
8
138 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

in “ Gilbert Gurney,” Lockhart says, “ Hook has painted that good-natured, harmless little gossip to the
life”; and adds that the chapters were read in MS. to Hill himself, who felt flattered by the notice given
to him, and gave a joyful imprimatur. The same authority further says,—“ As a mere octogenarian he was
wonderful enough. No human being would, from his appearance, gait, or habits, have guessed him to be
sixty. Till within three months of his death, he rose at five usually, and brought the materials of his
breakfast home with him to the Adelphi from a walk to Billingsgate ; and at dinner he would eat and
drink like an adjutant of five-and-twenty. One secret was, that a “banyan-day” uniformly followed a
festivity. He then nursed himself most carefully on tea and dry toast, tasted neither meat nor wine, and
went to bed by eight o’clock. But perhaps the grand secret was the easy imperturbable serenity of his
temper. He had been kind and generous in the days of his wealth, and though his evening was
comparatively poor, his cheerful heart kept its even beat.”*

Jt is as the proprietor of the Monthly Mirror, to which Kirke White contributed, that Southey makes
allusion to Hill, speaking of him as “a gentleman who is himself a lover of English literature, and who
has probably the most copious collection of English poetry in existence.” This is perhaps the “ puffery”
to which Maginn alludes ; for Lockhart styles Hill, in reference to this collection, ‘the most innocent and
ignorant of the bibliomaniacs.” This library was formed by him in his palmy days, when he carried on a
prosperous business at Queenhithe, as a drysalter ; and afterwards, when he lost the greater part of the
fortune he had accumulated, by an unsuccessful speculation in indigo, was valued at £6,000. Hill was, too,
a Meczenas in his way, and was an early patron of Bloomfield and Kirke White. He read the “ Farmer’s
Boy ” in manuscript, and had sufficient judgment to recommend it to a publisher. He was a regular quid-
nunc in his manners ; was always about, knew everything, and had always, in some mysterious way, seen
what was to be seen before any one else. In allusion to this and his constant presence at the “ private
views” of exhibitions, it is recorded by a wag, that when he was asked if he had seen the new comet, he
replied,—* Pooh, pooh! I was present at the private view.” Hill led a long life and a inerry one. He
did not suffer the loss of his property to affect him greatly, and retired contentedly to the quiet haven of
the Adelphi. His death took place from the natural progress of decay, his physician telling him,—‘“ I can
do no more for you ; I have done all I can. I cannot cure age.”

Hill left behind him a collection of literary curiosities, the sale of which by auction occupied an entire
week, Among them was Garrick’s cup, formed from the mulberry-tree planted by Shakspeare in his
garden at New Place, Stratford-on-Avon. This fetched forty guineas. A small vase and pedestal, carved
from the same mulberry-tree, and presented formerly to Garrick, was sold, with a coloured drawing of it,
for ten guineas ; and a block of wood, cut from the celebrated willow planted by Pope at his villa at
Twickenham, brought a guinea.

SONG. IDEM LATINE REDDITUM.
I KNow a maiden fair to see; Est virgo,—ne crede, puer, cui perfida ridet,—
Take care! Nam bifrons illa est, seeva et amica simul ;
She can both false and friendly be. Corpore preestanti, qué non est pulchrior ore,—
Beware! Beware! Te capit, improvidum, ludificatque,—Cavr!

Trust her not,
She is fooling thee!

She has two eyes, so soft and brown;
Take care !
She gives a side glance and looks down.
Beware! Beware!
Trust her not,
She is fooling thee!

And she has hair of a golden hue ;
Take care !
And what she says, it is not true;
Beware! Beware!
Trust her not,
She is fooling thee !

She has a bosom as white as snow ;
Take care!
She knows how much it is best to show ;
Beware! Beware!
Trust her not,
She is fooling thee !

She gives thee a garland woven fair ;
Take care!
It is a fool’s cap for thee to wear.
Beware! Beware!
Trust her not,
She is fooling thee !
LoNGFELLOW.

* “Theodore Hook: a Sketch.”

En geminos,—ne crede puer, cui perfida ridet,—
Subtiles oculos, quos habet illa, vagos,

Dejicit, attollit, versuté huc volvit et illuc,—
Te capit, improvidum, ludificatque,—Cave!

Aurates,—ne crede, puer, cui perfida ridet,—
Effusee pendunt, colla per alba, come.

Subridet blandé, loquitur mendacia fingens,—
Te capit, improvidum, ludificatque,—Cave!

Candidior,—ne crede, puer, cui perfida ridet,—
Quam nix nectareus, que cadit alba, sinus ;

Scit quando et quantum valeat monstrare puella,—
Te capit, improvidum, ludificatque,—Cavs !

Nunc flores,—ne crede, puer, cui perfida ridet,—
Purpureos docté colligit illa manu ;
Sertum apt4 fingit,—coprez est tibi pileus,—arte,—
Te capit, improvidum, ludificatque,—Cave !
Epitor.

Murray, 1852, p. 25.
 

AUTHOR OF "THE SUBALTERN?
( 139 )

No. 52.—REV. GEORGE ROBERT GLEIC.

W* here present John Russell, and the rest of the literary public, with a lifelike sketch of the new

chaplain of Chelsea. The ex-lieutenant is a Tory ; but that Johnny did well in selecting him for
this otiwn cum dignitate will be proved, when we have mentioned one undeniable fact, viz., that he is the
only eminent man in the Church who has himself worn a sabre. The old heathens of the Hospital will
perhaps listen to one who may be said to belong to their own order—to a mere black and all black, even of
forty-horse power in prosing, they would undoubtedly turn the deafest of long ears.

Supposing Gleig to have begun at ten, he may now be enjoying his thirtieth season of the moors. His
father is the venerable and learned Bishop of Stirling,—such a bishop in point of emolument as our
Blomfields, and so on, must ere long make up their minds to be—his lordship’s see, we understand,
averaging about £300 per annum; though we can assure our right reverend diocesan that our friend’s father
in the flesh is, as regards essential points, a Father in God entitled to occupy a higher portion of public
confidence than himself. Among other good things that he has done, we must take leave to mention with
eral distinction the begetting of the hero on the opposite page. What is any edition of “ Aischylus”
to that ?

The lad was educated under the wing of the “great mother of Churchmen and Tories”; but was
not satisfied with those opportunities for the display of the pugnacious principle which the rows of Gown
and Town afforded to the youthful strutters of the High-street. A regiment chanced to pass through
Oxford on its way to Lisbon. Our spark instanter bolted from his college, kicked his trencher-cap into the
first ditch, joined the corps as a volunteer, and, on landing, had no difficulty in procuring an epaulette for
his broad and stalwart shoulder. The “Subaltern” and the “Narrative of the War in North America”
may save us the trouble of writing his military life. He has himself recorded it in pages, by means of
which, being dead, he will yet speak to the Chelsea pensioners of 1934,——if such things then there be.

Gleig was severely wounded at our righteous capture of the Yankee capital ; and finding himself, after
Waterloo, in which he was again a good deal cut up, turned adrift on half-pay, it occurred to his brilliant
mind that he might do worse than fall in love. In short, the lieutenant married, took orders, and in due
time got a couple of small livings, and some eight or ten small, but vigorously carnivorous, children in Kent.
To help to cram them, he began to cram “my public”; and both parties have fed daintily ever since. His
“« History of India,” just published, is perhaps his best thing.

Gleig is a very good fellow,—of course, a decided enemy of cant in every form; but a stanch
Churchman,— orthodox as Lefroy, devout as Wetherell, kind-hearted as Inglis, jolly as Boyton, and zealous
as Billy Holmes. In these days of change, we consider every man as fortunate who has two strings to his
bow ; and happy, in particular, is the parson who can, in case of accidents, gird the sword upon his thigh,
and go forth to batter other substances than the “drum ecclesiastic.” The reclaimed lobster, black as it
looks, may be boiled red again. It may yet be with Gleig as it was with his countryman, old Dr. Adam
Ferguson, at Fontenoy. The Doctor was chaplain of the 42nd; and when the first charge occurred, great
was the horror of the colonel to see his reverence rushing, armed with a huge broadsword—ev rpopayouce
payesba. ‘ Doctor, doctor! remember your cloth!” ‘Colonel, colonel! damn my cloth!” responded
the illustrious moralist ; and, suiting the action to the word, clove monsieur even unto the chine—and he
fell with heavy thump, and five sous rattled in his pocket.

Thus if tHE Row were opening now,

Would flame once more the soul of Gleig ;
The surpliced crew he’d thus eschew,

To sport claymore and philibeg.
One rub-a-dub brings Parson Sub,

Where beams the banner of ‘‘ THE Brau ;”
Nor Hume nor Place find softer grace

Than savage Soult, or scamp Junét,
In fields Iberian long ago !

NOTES.

HE Rev. Grorce Rosert Gieie was born in'1796, and consequently wants but three years to

complete his eighth decade. The ‘“Subaltern” was a favourite in our earlier days; and his

“Chelsea Pensioners,” “Country Curate,” and “Chronicles of Waltham,” were all read with avidity, while

we were yet bemuddled with “longs” and “shorts,” and on the wrong side of the pons asinorum. Myr. Gleig

has written many other books, besides various oo to periodical literature, among which may be
8
140 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

mentioned a valuable article “On the Discipline of the Army,” in the Quarterly Review, No. lxxvi. ; and
another, ‘‘On the Education of the Soldier,” in the succeeding number.

 

LEIGH HUNT.

THE exiguity of our “Notes” upon this member of the “Gallery” allows us an opportunity of
carrying out an intention, hinted at in our preceding remarks upon Lrich Hunt. If we were required to
make selection of the poem which, independently of its great merit and interest, was most illustrative of
this poet’s manner and style of treatment, we should without hesitation cite the piece which we now offer
in justification of our opinion. Nor is it our own view alone; for the same piece is adduced by a very
competent critic—the late Professor Craik, M.A.,—as a characteristic specimen of the poet, and “attesting,
as powerfully as anything he has ever produced, the master’s triumphant hand, in a style which he has
made his own, and in which, with however many imitators, he has no rival.”* In 1860 was published,
by Routledge, the “ Poetical Works of Leigh Hunt, now finally collected, Revised by Himself, and Edited
by his Son, Thornton Hunt,” 8vo. In the “ Preface,” we are told of the care which the author, before his
decease, bestowed upon this final edition ; and that, among other things, “he resolved to omit some pieces
asnot being equal in conception or execution to the estimate of his own maturer judgment.” That a
mother’s favourite is the most illfavoured bantling is a matter of daily notice, and possibly a wise
ordination ; and we know that artists and authors have not only attributed undue merit to their worst
pieces, but often held the opinion that their talents have lain in a quite different direction from that in
which they found acceptance with the public. Still, it is remarkable that Leigh Hunt, with all his known
capriciousness of judgment, should have excluded from his collected poems one so calculated in every way
to enhance his fame. But the reader shall judge for himself :—

THE FANCY CONCERT.

Tuey talk’d of their concerts, their singers, and scores,
And pitied the fever that kept me in-doors ; [fancies,
And I smiled in my thought, and said, “O ye sweet
And animal spirits! that still in your dances

Come bringing me visions to comfort my care,

Now fetch me a concert,—imparadise air.”

Then a wind, like a storm out of Eden, came pouring
Fierce into my room, and made tremble the flooring,
And fill’d, with a sudden impetuous trample

Of heaven, its corners; and swell’d it to ample
Dimensions to breathe in, and space for all power ;
Which falling as suddenly, lo! the sweet flower

Of an exquisite fairy-voice open’d its blessing ;

And ever and aye, to its constant addressing,

There came, falling in with it, each in the last,
Flageolets one by one, and flutes blowing more fast,
And hautboys and clarinets, acrid of reed,

And the violin, smoothlier sustaining the speed

As the rich tempest gather’d, and buzz-ringing moons
Of tambours, and huge basses, and giant bassoons ;
And the golden trombone, that darteth its tongue
Like a bee of the gods; nor was absent the gong,
Like a sudden fate-bringing oracular sound

Of earth’s iron genius, burst up from the ground,

A terrible slave come to wait on his masters

The gods, with exultings that clang’d like disasters ;
And then spoke the organs, the very gods they,

Like thunders that roll on a wind-blowing day ;

And, taking the rule of the roar in their hands,

Lo! the Genii of Music came ont of all lands;

And one of them said, “ Will my lord tell his slave
What concert ’twould please his Firesideship to have ?”

Then I said, in a tone of immense will and pleasure,

“Let orchestras rise to some exquisite measure ;

And let there be lights and be odours ; and let

The lovers of music serenely be set ;

And then, with their singers in lily-white stoles,

And themselves clad in rose-colour, fetch me the souls

Of all the composers accounted divinest,

And, with their own hands, let them play me their finest.”

Then lo! was perform’d my immense will and pleasure,
And orchestras rose to an exquisite measure ;

And lights were about me and odours ; and set

Were the lovers of music, all wondrously met;

And then, with their singers in lily-white stoles,

And themselves clad in rose-colour, in came the souls

Of all the composers accounted divinest,

And, with their own hands, did they play me their finest.

Oh! truly was Italy heard then, and Germany,
Melody’s heart, and the rich brain of Harmony ;

Pure Paisiello, whose airs are as new,

Though we know them by heart, as May-blossoms and dew ;
And nature’s twin-son, Pergolesi; and Bach,

Old father of fugues, with his endless fine talk ;

And Gluck, who saw gods; and the learned sweet feeling
Of Haydn; and Winter, whose sorrows are healing ;
And gentlest Corelli, whose bowing seems made

For a hand with a jewel; and Handel array’d

In Olympian thunders, vast lord of the spheres,

Yet pious himself, with his blindness in tears,

A lover withal, and a conqueror, whose marches

Bring demigods under victorious arches ;

Then Arne, sweet and tricksome ; and masterly Purcell,
Lay-clerical soul; and Mozart universal,

But chiefly with exquisite gallantries found,

With a grove in the distance of holier sound ;

Nor forgot was thy dulcitude, loving Sacchini ;

Nor love, young and dying, in shape of Bellini;

Nor Weber, nor Himmel, nor Mirth’s sweetest name,
Cimarosa; much less the great organ-voiced fame

Of Marcello, that hush’d the Venetian sea;

And strange was the shout, when it wept, hearing thee,
Thou soul full of grace as of grief, my heart-cloven,
My poor, my most rich, my all-feeling Beethoven.

O’er all, like a passion, great Pasta was heard

As high as her heart, that truth-uttering bird ;

And Banti was there; and Grassini, that goddess !
Dark, deep-toned, large, lovely, with glorious bodice ;
And Mara; and Malibran, stung to the tips

Of her fingers with pleasure ; and rich Fodor’s lips
And, manly in face as in tone, Angrisani ;

And Naldi, thy whim; and thy grace, Tramezzani ;
And was it a voice >—or what was it P—say—

That, like a fallen angel beginning to pray,

Was the soul of all tears and celestial despair !
Paganini it was, ’twixt his dark flowing hair.

* “ Sketches of the History of Learning and Literature in England, &c.” By Geo. L. Oraik, M.A., vol. vi. p. 199.
  
       

ay)

AUTHOR OF ‘THOUGHTS ON MAN?
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 141

So now we had instrument, now we had song— ’Twas argument even, the logic of tones ;
Now chorus, a thousand-voiced one-hearted throng ; *Twas memory, *tivas wishes, ‘twas laughter, ’twas
Now pauses that pamper’d resumption, and now— moans ;
But who shall describe what was play’d us, or how ? ’T was pity and love, in pure impulse obey’d ;
Twas wonder, ’twas transport, humility, pride ; ’Twas the breath of the stuff of which passion is made.
*Twas the heart of the mistress that sat by one’s side ;
*Twas the Graces invisible, moulding the air And these are the concerts I have at my will;
Into all that is shapely, and lovely, and fair, Then dismiss them, and patiently think of your ‘‘bill.’—
And running our fancies their tenderest rounds (Aside.) Yet Lablache, after all, makes me long to go,
Of endearments and luxuries, turn’d into sounds ; still.

——— SD. BEES

 

No. 53,—WILLIAM GODWIN.

ONDER walks William Godwin! The marks of age press heavily upon him ; but there gleams out

of that strange face and above that stranger figure the eye of fire which lighted up with the conceptions

of “Caleb Williams” and “St. Leon.” Wonderful books! Once read, not only ever remembered, but

ever graven on the mind of those who know how to read. We can enter into the feeling of Lord Byron’s

exclamation, when, after asking Godwin why he did not write a new novel, his lordship received from the

old man the answer, that it would kill him. “And what matter,” said Lord Byron ; “we should have
another ‘St. Leon.’”

But it was not to be. There is power, and stirring thought in ‘“ Fleetwood,” ‘“ Mandeville,” and
“ Cloudesley ”; but they are not what Lord Byron called for. The promised “Seven Sleepers,” which was
to be the conclusion of a new series of “St. Leon,” has never come; and of Godwin the novelist we
suppose there is an end. Of Godwin the politician we have little good to say. He started in opposition
to the received views of the world on all the most important affairs in which that world is concerned ; and
it is perfectly unnecessary to add, that the world beat in the end, as indeed in his case it deserved to beat.
The principles of his “ Political Justice,” derived as it was pretended from the Bible, would, if they could
have been acted upon, have subverted all the honourable relations of society, and destroyed all the
ennobling or redeeming feelings of the heart. Godwin himself, as he confesses in his preface to “St. Leon,”
was sorry for having insulted, in that cold-blooded and, we must say, absurd book, those charities and
duties which are the links of life: we should be much surprised if he has not since repented of all the
work. In his answer to Malthus, he showed that true feelings were prevalent in his mind, though he
failed in producing the fit refutation of the desperate quackery which he opposed, and which was destined
to fall to destruction before the hand of Saddler. His “Thoughts on Man,” containing much that is
eloquent, contain but little that is profound ; and we are sorry to find, that though his scepticism on the
most vital points is not so recklessly urged as in former days, it is scarcely abated. His historical work on
the Commonwealth is a failure ; it in reality is not superior to the schoolboy-histories which he published
under the name of Edward Baldwin,—in one of which (that of Rome) he was so careful as to omit the
defeat of the Cimbri by Marius.

His personal history is not fortunate. He was originally, we believe, a preacher in some heterodox
sect; but when “the lion was to lie down with the lamb,” as was so beautifully brought to pass by
Robespierre, and other tender-hearted dispensers of the mercies of Jacobinism, he forsook his divinity for
politics. He was afterwards a bookseller on Snow Hill, but not lucky in trade. The circumstances of his
connection with Mary Woolstonecroft, his marriage and its consequences, his children and their several
histories, are too well known to render it necessary that we should do more than allude to them. We may
say, however, that in no man’s fate was the evil of acting on wrong principles so manifested to the
destruction of all that could in any relation of life confer happiness or conduce to honour. In writing
“The Life of Mary Woolstonecroft,” he has done more good unintentionally than it ever could have,
intentionally or otherwise, done evil. We shall not have any such lady in our literature again.

He has now taken his place in our world of authors ; and we incline to think that “Caleb Williams ”
and “St. Leon” are the only books of his which will be remembered. His mind is not productive,—
therein singularly differing from that of Sir Walter Scott, with whom alone, as a novelist of power, he of
all our contemporaries can be compared. There is a want of invention even in his best books ; and we can
believe the current story, that “Caleb Williams” was written to illustrate a system, or to prove that a
novel might he composed without reference to the passion of love. Once fairly embarked in his book, he
forgot his systems ; but the idea of so originating them proves that there is a deficiency in the mind. The
phrenologists inform us, that the organ of veneration is wholly and most singularly absent in his head ;—
we do not exactly believe in phrenology ; but his works prove to us, that there is some want in his intellect
which operates to control the impulses of his genius.

The Whigs have had the kindness to give him a hundred a year in some place in Somerset House, which
props his declining days. They gave Mr. T. Macaulay £10,000. It is well.
142 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

NWOLES.,
ee ODWIN,” said Northcote to Hazlitt, in one of their famous colloquies, “is a profligate in theory,
and a bigot in conduct. He does not seem at all to practise what he preaches, though this does
not appear to avail him anything.” “ Yes,” replied Hazlitt, “he writes against himself. He has written

against matrimony, and has been twice married. He has scouted all the common-place duties, and yet he
is a good husband and a kind father. He is a strange composition of contrary qualities. He is a cold
formalist, and full of ardour and enthusiasm of mind; dealing in magnificent projects and petty cavils ;
naturally dull, and brilliant by dint of study ; pedantic and playful; a dry logician, and a writer of
romances.” * Talfourd, in like strain, depicts the two-fold character of the old philosopher: “He was a
man of two beings, which held little discourse with each other,—the daring inventor of theories contrasted
with air-drawn diagrams,—and the simple gentleman, who suffered nothing to disturb or excite him,
beyond his study.” The same incongruity seemed to attach to Godwin in everything. His stature was
short, yet his massive head might have befitted a giant. His voice was thin and small, and the topics of
his conversation usually trivial ; yet he had, in the solitude of his study, promulgated theories which had
convulsed nations and shaken thrones. His demeanour, we learn from Lamb's biographer, was drowsy and
spiritless, and the most interesting society could not keep him awake after dinner ; yet his imagination had
kindled works which will never die, and he had achieved a reputation “which once filled Europe with its
echoes.”

Godwin was born at Wisbeach, in Cambridgeshire, March 3rd, 1756. His father was a nonconformist
minister, as had been his grandfather also. Godwin naturally took to the pulpit himself; but, the story
goes, that his congregation would listen to his father’s old sermons, but not his own, and that consequently
when the former were exhausted, there was nothing left for the son but a resignation of his charge. He
then took himself to London and literature. In 1793 he published his “ Political Justice.” This was a
book born of the ferment which agitated men’s minds, and added to the perturbation of which it was the
offspring. No book was ever so much read at one time, to be so completely forgotten at another. It has
done its work ; aided in the formation of the opinion of the age ; and, like the scaffolding about a building,
may be consigned to the fire or the lumber-heap. In 1797 he published the “‘ Enquirer,” a series of
essays, in which he still further illustrated his original theories. Five-and-twenty years later he was called
upon to edit a new edition (1823, 8vo.), to which he prefixed an “advertisement” of gloomy tone:
“ Alas!” says he, “to what does it all amount? The toys of childhood, the toys of manhood, and the
toys of old age, are still toys; and if it were hereafter possible for me to look down upon them from a
future state, I should find them to be all alike laborious trifles.”

We think that it was in 1794 that “Caleb Williams” burst upon the world. This has been pro-
claimed “the most powerful novel in the language.” Gilfillan gives a graphic account of bis first perusal
of this book, in the dead of night, and in a lonely room. “There is about it,” says he, “a stronger suction
and swell of interest than in any novel we know, with the exception of one or two of Sir Walter's. You
are in it ere you are aware. You put your hand playfully into a child’s, and are surprised to find it held
in the grasp of a giant. It becomes a fascination. Struggle you may, and kick ; but he holds you by his
glittering eye.” Hazlitt used to observe of the two principal characters, that “the manner they are played
into each other was equal to anything of the kind in the drama.” We admire “ Caleb Williams ” ourselves,
but must confess that we have always thought it somewhat overrated,—though we will not go so far as Joseph
Ritson, who proclaimed it “a very indifferent, or, rather, a despicable performance.” + It is upon this
novel that the reputation of Godwin must rest, and we believe that it is one which the world will not
let die.

In 1799 Godwin published “St. Leon,” the most pathetic and imaginative of his novels. The object
of this work is to show that it is beneficial to the individual to conform to the manners and usages of the
society of which he is a unit, and that immunity from the sorrows and cares of humanity is a calamity
instead of a blessing. For the general idea of the plot, Godwin was probably indebted to a passage in the
very curious ‘‘ Hermippus Redivivus; or, the Sage’s Triumph over Old Age and the Grave,” by Dr. Campbell,
from the German of Cohausen (London, 3rd ed., 1771, 8vo.); and in like manner, it was from “Caleb
Williams” that George Colman got the materials for his “Iron Chest.” There is a satire on “St. Leon,”
entitled, “ St. Godwin: a Tale of the Sixteenth, Seventeenth, and Eighteenth Century. By Count Reginald
de St. Leon” (London, 1800, 8vo.). This curious book we are inclined to attribute to Edward Dubois.

A charming little book of Godwin’s is his “ Essay on Sepulchres ; or, a Proposal for erecting some
Memorial of the Illustrious Dead in all Ages, on the Spot where their Remains have been interred” (London,
1809, small 8vo. pp. 116). This was the favourite of Charles Lamb, who affronted the author by telling
him that it was “better than Hervey, but inferior to Sir Thomas Browne.” Lamb calls it “a pretty,
absurd book”’; and Talfourd says of the scheme, that it is “quite chimerical in itself, but accompanied
with solemn and touching musings on life and death, and fame, embodied in a style of singular refinement
and beauty.”

* “ Conversations with Northcote,’’ 1830, 8vo. p. 122.
+ “ Life of Ritson,” by Sir N. Harris Nicolas.
      

—

ua [

      

  

39

ME AUTHORS OF “REJECTED ADDRESSES’.

 
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 143

In 1797 Godwin obtained a legal sanction to his union with Mary Wollstonecraft, the celebrated
authoress of the “Vindication of the Rights of Women.” She was then pregnant, and brought with her
a natural daughter, about three years of age, the result of a former connection. A few months after this
marriage Mrs. Godwin died, having given birth, some ten days previously, to a daughter, who received her
mother’s name. This child, who thus inherited genius from both its parents, was destined to become the
young wife of the poet Shelley, himself a widower ; and give to the world an extraordinary conception,
“Frankenstein,” which, as the production of a young girl of nineteen, is probably without a parallel in
literature. Godwin was plunged into grief at the loss of his wife, and wrote her life,*—

“William hath penn’d a wagon-load of stuff,
And Mary’s life at last he needs must write,
Thinking her were not known enough,
Till fairly printed off in black and white, &c.’’+

 

This “ Life” cost Godwin the friendship of Dr. Parr. He had been accustomed to visit at Hatton ;
and wrote to the Doctor for an explanation of the causes which had led to the evident disruption of friendship
between them. “In 1794,” replies the Doctor, “I had not been shocked, in common with all wise and good men,
by a work which you entitle ‘Memoirs, &c.’” He alludes, moreover, to sceptical expressions in the
“ Enquirer ”; to the dreadful effects of his correspondent’s principles upon the conduct and happiness of certain
of his young friends ; promises to return the books which had been sent to him ; and desires a cessation of
visits and correspondence. All this is impudent and arrogant enough. Mary Wollstonecraft was a woman
of passion and genius; and her husband’s little tribute to her memory is a slight but interesting and
pathetic sketch of an ill-directed and unhappy career.

In 1801 the widower married again ; and by his second wife had one son, who died early, of Asiatic
cholera, leaving behind him an unfinished novel, entitled “Transfusion,” the publication of which the
distressed father superintended.

The latter years of William Godwin were rendered easy by an appointment, which he received during the
administration of Earl Grey, to the sinecure office of Yeoman Usher of the Exchequer. “The last time I
saw him,” records Talfourd, ‘he was heaving an immense key to unlock the musty treasures of which he
was guardian—how unlike those he had unlocked, with finer talisman, for the astonishment and alarm of
one generation, and the delight of all others!” We think Maginn undervalues the emoluments of this
appointment, which we fancy were nearer £200 than £100 per annum. ‘There was a residence attached to
the office, adjoining the Speaker’s Gateway, in New Palace Yard, Westminster ; and here Godwin died, aged
81, on April 7th, 1836.

For his most elaborate work, the “ Enquiry into Political Justice,” Godwin received £700 ; for “ Caleb
Williams” only £84; and for “St. Leon” no less than 400 guineas. He was painted by Northcote, in
1800 ; and at a later period by Sir Thomas Lawrence, who has also left a spirited sketch of Godwin and
Holcroft, sitting together side by side, after the trial of the latter for high treason.

No, 54.—JAMES SMITH,

Y! there’s the end of it! We all know what Dr. Radcliffe said to Queen Anne, when she asked him
what brought on the gout. There sits James Smith, with his foot pressing a soft cushion, his elbows
propped by the arms of an easy-chair, his hand resting on a crutch, his hair departed from his head, his nose
tinged with the colours of the dawn, and his whole man in a state of that repose which indicates that he
has had much work in his way while sojourning in this world, and that, like Falstaff, he is taking his ease in his
own inn, the Garrick,—a club of gentlemen which in a great measure would answer the description given
by that worthy knight of his companions in arms, as being principally composed of “gentlemen of
companies, slaves as ragged as Lazarus—discarded unjust serving-men, younger sons of younger brothers,
revolted tapsters, and ostlers trade-fallen.” Among them sits James Smith, regaling them with jokes,
which, if they are not quite as good as those of Falstaff, have at least the merit of being at least as old.
The name which he bears has excited some rather elaborate wit in “Don Juan ”—

“?Mongst these were several Englishmen of pith—
Sixteen called Thomson, and nineteen named Smith ;”’

and so forth. It is, in spite of this and many other jokes of the same kind, one of the most honourable

* “ Memoirs of the Author of the ‘Vindication of the Rights of Woman.’” By William Godwin. London, 1798, 12mo.
+ “ Spirit of Anti-Jacobinism,” p. 361.
144 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

names in the world. It is derived directly from Tubal Cain. As old Verstegan sings, after some far older
authority,—
“From whence comes Smith, all be he knight or squire,
But from the smith who workéd in the fire ?”

And what descent can be more noble? The Smith has, however, not been especially famous in our
literature ; and in the present case is distinguished only by some cleverly-hammered-out jokes. Whether
James or Horace were the principal hammerman, is a question in doubt among the critics who employ
themselves in discussing matters of such moment. We incline to those who think that anything of value
in the “‘ Rejected Addresses” is to be attributed to the pen of James. But as Horace (Flaccus, not Smith)
remarks, “ grammatici certent,” we shall not dogmatize on the subject. It is certain that James lays no
claim to the novel-writing honours of his brother. With respect to the ‘ Addresses,” he is content to
“partake the triumph”; but he has no notion that he is called upon to “ pursue the ‘ Gale,’ ”—no, nor the
“ Reuben,” nor the ‘“‘ Brambletye,” nor anything that is his,—viz., Horace’s.

James Smith was an attorney, and is a pleasant, twaddling, pun-making, epigram-manufacturing,
extempore-grinding, and painstaking elderly joker. He made one hit, and that was a good one; on the
strength of which he has lived ever since, as indeed he deserved to live. We cannot recollect that he wrote
anything in the book line except his contributions to the “Rejected Addresses,” unless he had a hand in
such stuff as “ Jokeby,” or “ Horace in London.” His magazine papers in the Vew Monthly were rather
monotonous ; and his continually quoting of them for years afterwards has contributed in a great measure
towards getting him, so generally as he is, considered to be a bore. But let him have his praise. His single
talent was a good talent, and there is no reason why he should wrap it up ina napkin. We have already
alluded to the universal diffusion of his name among us English folk, and its trite and ordinary sound in
our ears. It is perhaps more congruous on that account with the station which he has chosen to hold in
our literature. His place there is of the Smiths, Smithish. In his own magazine essays, it was a favourite
pastime to represent Mr. Deputy Higgs, of Norton Folgate, aping the great, and very much disparaged for
the parody. To Scott, to Southey, to Wordsworth, to Byron, Smith is what this Norton-Folgatian is to the
gentlemen of White's. He is, therefore, well named ; and let him not repine at his “ compellation,” as in
former days, when, walking in Oxford Street with Wilson Croker, he observed over a shop-door “ Mortimer
Percy, tailor,”—-“‘Is it not too hard,” said James, then fresh from all the honours of the “Rejected
Addresses ” about him, “that two such grand and aristocratic names should be the lot of a tailor, while
two wits and gentlemen are moving about the streets afflicted with the names of Croker and Smith ?”

No,—the name is right,—

And may the Garrick hail with loud acclaims,
For many a year, the gouty jokes of James.

N OF ZS.

T was said by Lapy Briessineton, that if James Surru had not been a witty man, he would have been
a great one. We think this is probable enough, so often does the deep tide of genius run beneath the
rippling surface of a joyous and humorsome spirit. There is a strong alliance between the humorous and
the pathetic, though the former element in a man’s nature more necessarily and frequently includes the
latter, than the latter the former. Witty, facetious people have always a strong capacity for pathos,—
witness Sterne, Balzac, Hood, Dickens, and a host of others ;—witness the French, at once the gayest and
most melancholy of nations ;—witness the Clown, generally the saddest of men, and the Comic actor,—as
Liston, who invariably believes that his real forte is Tragedy. On the other hand, the grave and serious
writer does not necessarily possess the element of wit,—the faculty of appreciating humour, and giving it
elegant and appropriate expression. Yet itis in the union of the two elements that the highest order of
genius consists,—wit and wisdom in due alternation, the exhibition, turn by turn, of the comic side of
tragedy and the tragic phase of comedy. So it was with Aristophanes and Lucian ; with Ariosto, Rabelais,
Shakspeare, Swift, and Goethe ; and so it will be to the end of time. But this is no place for such a dis-
quisition ; and filling space warns us, as the emptying Clepsydra did the Roman orator, ne in immensum
evagemur.

‘ James Suita was the eldest son of Robert Smith, an eminent legal practitioner of London, who held
for many years the office of solicitor to the Ordnance. He was born February 10th, 1775 ; was, in due
time articled to his father ; taken into partnership, and succeeded to the appointment held by the latter.
So early as 1802, James Smith and his brother Horace became associated with Cumberland, Croker, Sir
J. B. Burgess, Herries, the notorious “ Dr. Syntax” Combe, and others, as contributors to the Pic-Wie
newspaper, founded by Colonel Greville. The existence of this was very short, as was also that of{ The
Cabinet, into which it merged; and in 1809, at the request of Cumberland, James Smith became a con-
tributor to the London Review, one feature of which was the principle, that the name of the writer should
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 145

be appended to every paper. He also wrote some of the prefaces to “ Bell’s British Theatre,” of which
Cumberland had the responsibility ; and about the same time wrote largely for the Monthly Mirror, then
the property of “ Paul Pry ” Hill,* of whose liberal and genial hospitality at Sydenham, the brothers Smith
were constant partakers. Here appeared originally the poetical imitations, entitled “ Horace in London,”
which were subsequently published by Miller, in a slender volume. But it was in 1812, the year of the
re-opening of Drury-lane Theatre, that the little book made its appearance, which, banded about among the
“trade,” offered in vain to the most eminent publishers for nothing, and “rejected” as worthless, proved
one of the most successful hits in literature. Murray was offered the copyright for twenty pounds, but
declined. Seven years later, in 1819, after sixteen editions had been sold, the same publisher was glad to
obtain it for £131. Between that time and 1841, he had published four editions, and sold five thousand
copies. It was John Miller, of Bow Street, Covent Garden, who first ushered this witty little book to the
world. The authors repaired to him as a last resort ; and he at once expressed his willingness to take upon
himself the risk of publication, and give the authors half the profits, if there should be any. The fame of
the witty tome spread like wildfire ; edition after edition was exhausted; the “Imitations of Horace”
were collected and published on the same terms; and by-and-by, the gratified authors were enabled to sell
their half copyright in the two books to Miller for no less than one thousand pounds! It is curious that
this same Miller, who was the only bookseller in London who had sagacity enough to see the merit of the
“ Rejected Addresses,” also became the publisher of the “ Sketch-book ” of Washington Irving, after it had
been rejected by Murray, for the sole reason that it was “ written by an American.” The causes of the same
bibliopole’s refusal of the “ Rejected Addresses” are given by Mr. Timbs, in his “Lives of Wits and
Humorists,” vol. ii. p. 360,—and correctly, as is asserted in an article on Washington Irving, in the Vew
Monthly Magazine, February, 1863, probably by Cyrus Redding, who received the information from Murray
himself. Few books are better known than this of which we have been speaking. Collectors prize it for
the exquisite woodcut illustrations of George Cruikshank ; lovers of wit and humour, for the truly Attic
salt wherewith it is savoured ; while all that know it will readily endorse the opinion of Jeffrey, who says,
“T take the ‘ Rejected Addresses’ to be the very best imitations, and often of difficult originals, that ever
were made.” One effect of the popularity of the book, besides filling the authors’ pockets, was to restrain
the elder coadjutor from risking the reputation he had gained as a wit by any literary undertaking, beyond
short and anonymous pieces. He was aware that to retain a reputation, a writer, in subsequent produc-
tions, was expected by the public not only to transcend others but himself as well. He therefore laid down
the principle, and acted upon it, that when a man had played a good game, he should retire from the tables,
and leave off a winner. Such a course, he would say, was sanctioned by the authority of Bishop Warbur-
ton, who, when Anstey, author of the once equally popular “ Bath Guide,” was presented to him, said,
“Young man, I will give youa piece of advice: you have written a highly successful work,—never put
pen to paper again.”

James Smith was, according to Mathews, “the only man that could write clever nonsense ;” and it was
he accordingly who was employed to concoct “The Country Cousins,” the “Trip to France,” the ‘“ Trip to
America,” and other pieces in which that inimitable actor achieved such wonderful success, about 1820,
For this assistance he received from the generous comedian a sum of £1,000,—“ all for nonsense,” he was
wont to say, contrasting it with the miserable fifteen pounds which Milton got for his “ Paradise Lost.”
But this was not the only occasion in which he found nonsense pay; for having transmitted the
following epigram to Mr. Strahan, the king’s printer, who was suffering from gout and old age, while his
mental faculties were unimpaired, the gratified old gentleman made a codicil to his will, bequeathing
to the writer three hundred pounds :—

“Your lower limbs seem’d far from stout,

When last I saw you walk;

The cause I presently found out,
When you began to talk.

The power that props the body’s length
In due proportion spread,

In you mounts upwards, and the strength
All settles in the head.”

This was at the rate of exactly £37. 10s. per line, “according to Cocker,” and is probably better pay
than poet has received for his verses, since Sannazarius was awarded four hundred gold pieces by the
Venetian Senate, for his celebrated epigram, ‘De Mirabili Urbe Venetiis.”. James Smith never
married. Another epigram, written in his niece’s album, remains to attest his bachelorship :—

“ Should I seek Hymen’s tie,
As a poet I die,
Ye Benedicts mourn my distresses !
For what little fame

Is attach’d to my name,
Is derived from ‘ Rejected Addresses.’ ”’

* Jn our “ Notes” upon Hill, we forgot to indicate another character of fiction, of which he served as prototype. This
was “Jack Hobbleday,” in that most admirable satire, “ Little Pedlington and the Pedlingtonians.’”’ By John Poole, author
of “Paul Pry.” (1839. 2 vols. 8vo.) This witty writer, who had long resided in Paris, died at Kentish Town, London, in
February, 1872, in the 88th year of his age. He was in receipt of a pension of £100 per annum from the Civil List, which
had been procured for him through the intervention of his old and constant friend Charles Dickens. He was buried in
Highgate Cemetery.

T
146 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

A glance at the daily life of this witty man will not be devoid of interest. Writing to a friend, he
says, “‘ Let me enlighten you as to the general disposal of my time. I breakfast at nine, with a mind
undisturbed by matters of business ; I then write to you, or to some editor, and then read till three o’clock.
I then walk to the Union Club, read the journals, hear Lord John Russell deified or diablerized (that word
is not a bad coinage), do the same with Sir Robert Peel or the Duke of Wellington, and then join a knot
of conversationists by the fire till six o’clock, consisting of lawyers, merchants, members of Parliament, and
gentlemen at large. We then and there discuss the Three per Cent. Consols (some of us preferring Dutch
Two-and-a-half per Cent.), and speculate upon the probable rise, shape, and cost of the New Exchange. If
Lady Harrington happen to drive past our window in her landau, we compare her equipage to the Algerine
Ambassador’s; and when politics happen to be discussed, rally Whigs, Radicals, and Conservatives
alternately, but never seriously,—such subjects having a tendency to create acrimony. At six the room
begins to be deserted ; wherefore I adjourn to the dining-room, and gravely looking over the bill of fare,
exclaim to the waiter, ‘ Haunch of mutton and apple tart.’ These viands despatched, with the accom-
panying liquids and water, I mount upward to the library, take a book, and my seat in the arm-chair, and
read till nine. Then call for a cup of coffee and a biscuit, resuming my book till eleven; afterwards return
home to bed. If I have any book here which particularly excites my attention, J place my lamp on a
table by my bedside, and read in bed until twelve. No danger of ignition, my lamp being quite safe,
and my curtains moreen. Thus ends this strange eventful history.” (Mems. and Com. Miscellanies, i. 67.)

James Smith thought, with Southey, that a sudden death was the most desirable mode of eait from the
world, He wrote :—

“T fear not, Fate, thy pendent shears,—
There are who pray for length of years ;
To them, not me, allot ’em :
Life’s cup is nectar at the brink,
Midway a palatable drink,
But wormwood at the bottom.”

His wish was but in part granted. Although (in the midst of temptations, to be otherwise) he had
always been a strictly temperate man, he became in middle life, a martyr to the gout. By this disease he
was at length reduced to utter and helpless decrepitude, though he continued to enjoy life, and bore his
sufferings with unruffled temper. His last illness was short, and not attended with pain. He died at his
house in Craven Street, “ with all the calmness of a philosopher,” as his brother Horace remarks, on the
24th December, 1839, in the sixty-fifth year of his age.

Horace Smith, to whom we have alluded, distinguished himself as a novelist of the school of Sir
Walter Scott. In 1840 he edited the “ Memoirs, Letters, and Comic Miscellanies, in Prose and Verse,” of
his brother (8vo. 2 vols.), and died, July 12th, 1849, in his seventieth year.

No. 50.—COMTE D’ORSAY.

OMTE D’ORSAY, who stands opposite, was first introduced to the literary readers of these realms
in the correspondence of Lord Byron, where he is designated as a Cupidon déchainé, and described
as the idéal of a Frenchman before the Revolution ; that is to say, as a French gentleman, the breed of
whom, gradually diminishing for many years, has been at last pretty well extinguished by Louis Philippe,
who certainly does not make any absurd pretensions to figure in the character. His lordship was so kind
as, inanother letter, to describe Comte D’Orsay as one who seemed to have all the qualities requisite to
have figured in his brother-in-law’s ancestor's memoirs,—by which he means the memoirs of Count
Grammont, perpetrated in or of the days of Charles II. by “ Antonio Hamilton.”
A dozen of years—woe for the time !—have passed since these letters of Lord Byron were written ;
and the Comte is nearer to that bourne from whence no traveller returns, by what Tacitus would call
“ingens spatium humane vite.” We may freely translate the passage for the benefit of all concerned :—

“ Believe me, dear Comte, that twelve years do not pass,
And leave not some signs as they go;
They may fly with the wings of the hawk,—but, alas!
They are mark’d by the feet of the crow.”

But still the Comte is in fine preservation, and may be seen in all places where fine fellows do congregate
as the observed of all observers. Hang it! after all, as Dr. Morriss (ze. John G. Lockhart) says of old
Potts, five-and-thirty is the very prime of life, and they know nothing of it who maintain the contrary. We
appeal to several of the fairest judges in France or England.

The history of the Comte, and his adventures in various courts, from that of William IV. or
Charles X. to any other you would please to mention, in any quarter of London or Paris,—in street or
              

    

 

p L iy
Mi
/ ye
x y
f=
f fi
A | 7
t \
- 4
z
,
&

     

SWS OO
{ N ae : oe),
\

SO SS

Seems |

ier
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS, 147

rue, in place or square, whether St. James’s or Red Lion,—has been written by so many illustrious authors,
especially of the hebdomadal press, that we willingly excuse ourselves from entering upon it here. He is
the son of General Comte D’Orsay, commonly called, we believe, Beau D'Orsay, and brother of the
beautiful Duchess of Guiche. As for the antiquity of his race, that is sufficiently indicated by its having
given the name tothe Quay D’Orsay ; and when we recollect that Henry IV. and Louis XV. are (or were)
content with being patrons only of bridges across the Seine, it is no small glory to share with Voltaire
the honour of being predominant over a whole quay on its side. Our business with him is as an author.
And yet we do not know well how to inform our readers what he has written. He has most cleverly
caricatured and peppered with bon mots all and sundry people who have come near him: the only Lord
Byron that ever gave the least idea of how the man really looked, is by the Comte. But where is his
book that his lordship took so much interest in? Where is the Journal, the extraordinary production, which
gave “a most melancholy but true description of all that regards high life in England”? ‘Where is the
book which “a young Italian lady of rank, érés instrwite also,’—namely, Guiccioli herself,—was delighted
with? Where is the Journal, of which Lord Byron says he never could have described what it attempted
so well. ‘Jl faut étre Frangats to effect this.”

Ll faut étre done un de nos collaborateurs. Comte D’Orsay must send the Journal and és continuation
to us ; and having made him this proposition, we conclude by requiring the attention of all our male readers
to the exquisite sketching of Croquis; our lady readers will need no bidding to look at what is under
the hat of our Alfred, than whom, “since his majesty of the same name, there has not been a more learned
surveyor of our Saxon society.”

And so adieu,—we shall no more say,
About the whiskers of Comte D’Orsay.

NOTES.

F ‘we professed to wield the virgula of the moralist, a review of the career ‘of the celebrated Count
D’Orsay could not fail to bring it into active operation. To marry a school-girl for the sake of her
property, and abandon her almost at the church-door ; to carry on for years a disgraceful intimacy with her
stepmother ; to acquire notoriety for other bonnes fortunes ; to waste talents in dilettanteism, while his
debts were running up to some £120,000,—constitute elements in a life which are hardly calculated to
insure the respect or tolerance of those who are no longer influenced by the charm of language, the
blandishment of manner, and the graces of person. But this is a vein in which we are not desirous to
continue.

As Grantley Berkeley remarks, “‘ D’Orsay was anything but a mere fop, nor was he a mere adventurer.
He was a gallant gentleman of refined taste and aristocratic birth.” On this latter point, Maginn says
enough. He visited England, we know not on what errand, at a very early age. He was born in Paris,
in 1798; and it was in 1823 that Lord Byrom made record of his having perused that MS. journal, which
he styled ‘a very extraordinary production,” and in which the youthful visitor,—a prototype of Count
Smorltork in “‘ Pickwick,” who thought a fortnight ‘a ver long time” to bestow to the study of a country
like England,—had penetrated the “mystery of English ennwi at two-and-twenty,’ and done other very
wonderful things. We imagine that the secret of Byron’s admiration was to be found in the depreciatory
tone of this mysterious “journal.” This harmonized with his own morbid dislike of everything English ;
and, together with a certain affectation of philosophy, and flippant grace of expression, natural to the
French, sufficed to render it, in his judgment, a production of marvellous perspicuity and acuteness.
Byron wrote a friendly epistle to his young friend; alluded to him in laudatory language in his letters to
Lady Blessington, and enclosed to his fair correspondent a ring for “ Alfred,” which he wished him to keep
as “formed of lava, and so far adapted to the fire of his years and character.”

In 1827, D’Orsay was married at Genoa, to Lady Harriet Anne Gardiner, the only daughter of
Lord Blessington, by his first wife. This marriage was in fulfilment of a contract, made in 1823, when
this lady was only twelve years of age, and on the death of her brother, Lord Mountjoy, son and heir of
the Earl of Blessington, between the latter and the Count, to the effect that the Harl should execute a
will, settling his estates in Dublin on Alfred, Count D’Orsay, provided that he married Emily, known
as Lady Harriet Gardiner, the testator’s daughter by Mrs. Browne. In 1829, the infatuated Earl made
a sudden exit from the world, in which he had kept up the game in such glorious fashion, that he had left
his splendid estate burdened with mortgages, debts, annuities, and judgments to the extent of some
£200,000. Then came the removal of Lady Blessington to London; the separation of the Countess
D’Orsay, a modern Iphigenia, from her husband ; and the installatfon of the latter at Gore House, with
his career of sportsman, dandy, wit, artist, and general arbiter elegantiarum of London society. At the
splendid réwnions of which we have spoken, D’Orsay was a constant attendant, delighting by high spirits,
humorous banter, and a rare talent for “trotting out” an eccentric habitué or chance visitor. Among
those who held him in the highest esteem was the witty James Smith, of “ Rejected Addresses” celebrity,
who was wont to adduce him as-a specimen of a perfect gentleman, and pronounced that, in the delightful

rt 2
148 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

union of gaiety and good sense he was absolutely unequalled. An admirable record of these bygone
festivities is preserved in the series of profile sketches, one hundred and twenty-five, we think, in number,
executed by the facile pencil of D’Orsay, and published by Mitchell, of Bond Street. These display powers
which, with due cultivation, might have led to important results ; but, as they are, remain specimens of
amateur talent, and are sometimes feeble. In sculpture, also, D’Orsay was qualified to excel. His statuettes
are often graceful, and display originality of conception ; they are, moreover, invariably refined, and somehow
are invested with a lofty and aristocratic character, which was perchance wanting in the original. It
should not be forgotten, too, that besides his general amiability, D’Orsay was liberal with his purse. A
countryman in distress rarely preferred his claims in vain, and he was one of the most liberal supporters of
the Société de Bienfatsance.

Presently came the long-expected crash at Gore House, as we have elsewhere related, and the Count
and the Lady fled to Paris to escape incarceration. In 1849, Lady Blessington was carried off by apoplexy,
and D’Orsay was left to work out his destinies alone. Afflicted to agony by the loss of his friend, D’Orsay
undertook the preparation of a fitting monument for her whom he had loved well, if not wisely. In the
village of Chambourcy, beyond the woodland precincts of St. Germain-en-Laye, where the rustic cemetery
joins the domains of the family of De Grammont, is to be seen a monumental pyramid. The sepulchral
chamber contains two massive sarcophagi, surmounted by tablets of white marble. In that on the left were
deposited the remains of Marguerite, Countess of Blessington ; while that on the right has now received
those of Alfred, Count D’Orsay. It was currently reported that the Count never recovered the shock of
Lady Blessington’s death, and that his previously healthy frame became at once the subject of a compli-
cation of disorders, under which he sank. The fact, however, is that he survived the death of his old
companion nearly four years, and died of an internal and far less sentimental malady than a broken heart.
This was not, at first, considered dangerous ; more latterly he was ordered by his physician to Dieppe, but
here his health further declined. He returned to Paris, where all hope of his recovery was speedily
abandoned, as it appeared that disease of the lungs had been added to the original malady. He died in
cab city, at the house of his sister, the Duchesse de Grammont, August 4th, 1852, in the 55th year of

is age.

The funeral took place on the 7th of August, and was attended by the Emperor of the French,
Alexandre Dumas ji/s, Emile de Girardin (the journalist), Count de la Tour du Pin, M. Bixio, Clesinger
(the sculptor), Count de Montauban, and others. The Duc de Grammont, his brother-in law, was confined
to a sick-bed, but the Duchesse, his sister, who had nursed her brother in his illness, was present at the sad
scene. Many Englishmen, who had known the Count in his palmy days, were also in attendance ; among whom
was to be observed an old man, one of the last relics of the Brummellian school of dandies. This was the
celebrated Hughes Ball, commonly called, from his great wealth, the “Golden Ball,” who, after trying in
vain to make a noble alliance,* had created a nine days’ wonder in the “ circles of fashion” some thirty years
before, by marrying Mercandotti, the Andalusian Venus, the most charming of all the daughters of
Terpsichore.

A good deal has been said of the ingratitude of the ex-Emperor of the French, as shown in his
reception of Count D’Orsay and Lady Blessington. When an exile in London, and in narrow circumstances,
he had been a frequent visitor at Gore House, and was always received with friendship and hospitality.
That he should return this, when the revolution of Time’s teetotum had placed him on a throne, and
brought his former entertainers as ruined exiles to the capital where he held sway, was only to be supposed.
But the expectations of the latter were probably extravagant, and the position of the former was one of
some difficulty and embarrassment. But it must be remembered that D’Orsay was at once received by the
President, and became one of his chief and most valued advisers. He was greatly opposed to the policy of
the latter, and on the occurrence of the coup d'état of December 2, 1851, which he pronounced “ the
greatest political swindle that had ever been played on a nation,” he exerted himself almost beyond the
limits of prudence to soften the stroke of proscription. All this threw difficulties in the way,—which
were probably not lessened by the conduct of Lady Blessington, whose well-known mot, “ Et vous?” when
asked, on a casual rencontre, by the head of the Republic how long she purposed to remain in France, may
probably be taken as a type of similar impertinences. However this may be, those who put their trust in
“ Princes” know, on high authority, what they have to expect; though this we hardly think is illustrated
in the present case, where the President, as soon as the urgent necessity of D’Orsay was represented to
him, at once attached him to his person by the title and functions of Superintendent of the Fine Arts, and
exclaimed, when informed of his death, that he had “ lost his best friend.”

We have now only to refer those “whom it may concern” to a curious and now scarce volume,
entitled “D’Horsay ; or, the Follies of the Day. By a Man of Fashion” (London: Strange, 1844, 8vo.),
with admirable etchings by George Standfast, and a general uplifting of the curtain upon the faults and
foibles of the man and the day, by one who had evidently been behind the scenes.

* Thus commemorated in a verse of the day :—
“Now by my faith it gives me pain
To see thee, cruel Lady J——
Regret the golden Ball.
*Tis useless now :—‘ the fox and grapes’
Remember, and avoid the apes,
Which wait an old maid’s fall.”
 

 

 

ZZ
Men 4
I

CH
A
AL q
iY
T
It
I
i
) I
I Q
g
i
i]
4
I
A
@
( 149 )

No, 06.—CHARLES LAMB.

CCIDENT or caprice has delayed our notice of Charles Lamb until he was no more. We should have
wished to record our great esteem for that kind-hearted, generous, and honourable man, during his
life ; but we can now do no more than offer up our tribute to his tomb.
Charles Lamb was one of those who, in the beginning of his career, thought that the French revolution
was destined to bring about the reign of peace and goodwill ; and with brighter, or at least more famous
spirits, he underwent the imputation of being a Jacobin. The muse of Canning called upon

“ Southey and Coleridge, Lloyd and Lamb, and Co.”

to praise some forgotten creature who was at one period a member of the Directory. What were Southey’s
feelings at the time, he has immortally laid down in his letter to William Smith, whose worthless name is
thereby preserved in our literature,—we know from the tenor of Coleridge’s lite how little he deserved to
be confounded by Canning with the crew of Jacobinism,—as little did Lamb merit the censure ; but those
who love his name will not be sorry to find it on any pretence yoked to such company.

He was born in London, and educated in Christ’s Hospital, as he has told us in some of his charming
essays. Be it observed, however, that when an affected knot of pestilent scribblers intruded itself upon the
public, some sixteen or seventeen years ago, and earned the title of the Cockney School, nobody was more
solicitous than Lamb (who wrote, with some of the crew, for the London Magazine) to rid himself of all
suspicion of being connected with them. Professor Wilson tells a droll story about Lamb’s anxiety on this
subject, but we have not room for it here.

From his situation in the office of the Accountant-general in the India House he derived a handsome
income. He was very diligent and attentive in his department, being always to be found at his desk in the
forepart of the day. He complained occasionally of the regularity imposed upon him. “I have had my
little month already,” he says in a letter to a friend, ‘and, without incurring disagreeable favour, I cannot
so much as get a single holiday till the season returns with the next year. Even our half-hour’s absences
from office are noted in a book!” And we know quite enough of the policy and prudence of the governing
powers in the underling departments of the India Company, to be quite aware that the favours bestowed
without scruple upon some libelling Whig or tail-kissing Papist, whom they rejoice to employ, would be
made matter of grudge or insult if requested by a gentleman or a man of genius. At four o’clock he was
emancipated, and away he went to Islington, there to dine with his sister—the sister, and friend, and
admirer, and housekeeper, all in one. Then pleasant were the little parties, agreeable the ever-varying
chatter, endless the puns, made with good or bad fortune, as the case might be ; then all the old favourite
books (at some of which he is poring in our accompanying sketch, and eagerly expounding their merits in
his eyes with flashing glance and eloquent tongue, the old familiar bottles being before him) were quoted
and requoted with infinite delight ; until at last, the good drink having done its office, the due quantity of
tobacco having been smoked to its last white ashes, he broke his pipe and wended to his bed, to rise again
in the morning, fresh for the accounts of Mother Company.

Truly was he possessed of a quaint expression, a guileless wit, a gentle appreciation of the good things
said and done in the old days by the old masters of the English tongue ; and his verses, published with
those of Lloyd, his “Rosamond Grey,” his “ Old Blind Margaret,” his ‘“‘ John Woodville,” his odd lines,
full of feeling and thought—(who forgets his “ Verses for an Album,” or his “Old Familiar Faces ” t)—his
essays under the signature of “ Elia” (he was, we believe, of Jewish family, and his real name was Lomb),
or his stories from Shakspeare, well deserve that he should take a rank among those of whom he loved to
speak. Adieu, then, kind Charles Lamb! Long will thy conversations abide in the mind of those who
heard them as (to use thine own words in the preface to the “ Tales from Shakspeare”) “enrichers of the
fancy, strengtheners of virtue, a withdrawing from all selfish feelings and thoughts, a lesson of all sweet
and honourable actions, to teach courtesy, benignity, generosity, humanity ”—for of examples teaching these
virtues “thy life” was full.

WOLD 2S.

‘On, thou whom old Homer would call, were he living,
Home-lover, thought-feeder, abundant.joke-giving ;
Whose charity springs from deep knowledge, nor swerves
Into mere self-reflections, or scornful reserves ;
In short who wert made for two centuries ago,
When Shakspeare drew men, and to write was to know.” —Lxieu Hunt.

HE etching before us, which looks woundily as if the head, at least, had been taken from the full-
length, “scratched on copper from life, in 1825, by his friend, Brook Pulham,”—gives the outward
form of that delightful being, to whom the fine lines above were indited, by one of his oldest and best-loved
150 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

friends,—a writer who has excited a warmer personal feeling, and been more frequently brought before us
by “biographies,” ‘“ reminiscences,” “ essays,” and “letters,” than any other man since the days of Johnson.
Dear Charles Lamb! Who is not familiar with thy outward form 1—those gaiter-clad legs, which Hood
said were “immaterial” ; that noble head, which Hazlitt pronounced “ worthy of Aristotle % ; those mobile
features, whence beamed ‘forth, as Hunt had it, “a compound of the Jew, the gentleman, and the angel” 4
What is there yet unknown about Charles Lamb? Talfourd has given us his “ ‘Life and Letters,” and then
—when the British Quarterly had opened the cupboard door,—in his “ Final Memorials,” disclosed the
skeleton within, in all its ghastly hideousness, and gave the world that life’s lesson of affection, devotion,
and self-sacrifice. De Quincey then came with his reminiscences ; ‘‘ Barry Cornwall,” with his loving record ;
Percy Fitzgerald, who tells of “his homes, his haunts, and his books” ; the Halls, with their ever-pleasant
“Memories” ; together with a host of articles in Magazines and Reviews :—

ss quo fit ut omnis
Votiva pateat veluti descripta tabella
Vita senis.”

 

What, then, is to be said that has not been said before; what dish concocted that shall not prove a crambe
repetita ?

Lamb hated “ facts,” and proclaimed himself “a matter-of-lie man” to some egotistical bore, who was
boasting, we suppose, of his contempt for the imaginative. He elsewhere confesses that he is “ill at dates ;”
but we hope not to offend his peaceful shade by stating that he was born on February 10th, 1775, in
Crown-Office Row, in the Inner Temple. The events of his life have been too often, and too well told to
need repetition here. “ Barry Cornwall’s” description, referring to the year 1817, is interesting: ‘‘ Persons
who had been in the habit of traversing Covent Garden at that time might, by extending their walk a few
yards into Russell Street, have noticed a small, spare man, clothed in black, who went out every morning,
and returned every afternoon as the hands of the clock moved towards certain hours. You could not
mistake him. He was somewhat stiff in his manner, and almost clerical in dress ; which indicated much
wear. He had a long, melancholy face, with keen, penetrating eyes ; and he walked with a short, resolute
step city-wards. He looked no one in the face for more than a moment, yet contrived to see everything as
he went on. No-one who ever studied the human features could pass him by without recollecting his
countenance : it was full of sensibility, and it came upon you like new thought, which you could not help
dwelling upon afterwards ; 3 ib gave rise to meditation, and did you good. This small, half- clerical man, was
—Charles Lamb.

Was he, by the way, quite as regular in his hours as Maginn and Procter assert? ‘There is a tale of
an interview with his “ Directors,” and a gentle reprimand for his late arrival at the desk, with Lamb's
stuttered reply, “But if I do come late, gentlemen, you should take into consideration how soon I go
away!” But here, probably, we may say of him what he said of Coleridge, when Leigh Hunt was
complaining of his religious fervour: ‘“ N-n-never mind what he says,—he’s full of ff-fun.” Any way, the
alleged rejoinder is full of ovine humour, and might well find a place among the bovine stories in Miss
Edgeworth’s bucolic essay.

Lamb was already known to a small circle by his magazine contributions ; but it was not till these were
issued in a collected form, in 1818, that their merits became generally appreciated, and they then took the
world by surprise. This might well be the case, for the essays of “Elia” are productions perfectly suc
generis,—unique in literature. They are unlike those of Montaigne, Addison, Cowley, or Goldsmith, and
yet possess points of resemblance to each. Many of them are worked up from letters written to his friends ;
are eminently “ non-sequaceous,”—as Coleridge would say,—exhibit very little constructive power,—and are
of extremely narrow grasp. But they have compensating merits peculiar to themselves, and these of the
highest order. If critical, they have a marvellous faculty of at once hitting the central point, as it were,
of their subject with unerring accuracy; and shedding a light upon the meaning which it never received
before. Take, for instance, the essays on “Shakspeare,” and the “ Dramatic Writers,” where more is said
in fewer words than is to be found in any other commentator, and positions laid down, not one of which
has ever been gainsaid. The same may be said of the “Essay on Hogarth,” which must henceforth be a
constant accompaniment of every edition of that unequalled humorist, such a necessary help is it to the
direction and methodisation of our own feelings and judgment upon the subject. What need be said of
the more discursive essays,—‘unlicked, incondite things,—villanously pranked in an affected array of
antique words and phrases,’—tricksome and joyous in guise, intense in pathos, delicious in paradox?
Wilful, errant, playful disquisitions they are,—where the humorist takes his stand upon some punctum
indifferens,—a tertium quid,—midway between fact and fiction, truth and falsity, and makes no search for
any eternal principles to which he ‘may refer discrepant thought and feeling. Hence he who reads to
“improve his mind” will hold them of little value ; though, strangely enough, “they have now to be classed
among the very books which their author so hated, ” those “ which no gentleman’s library can be without.”
Of these essays, it is remarked by “ A. K. H. B.,” that “they would have wanted a great part of their
indefinable charm, if their writer had not been trembling on the verge of insanity.” This is probably true.
We all know the story of the awful calamity which fell upon the house of Charles Lamb, and the shadow
which it threw over his life :—the murder of his mother by his insane sister, the recurring insanity of the
latter, and the periodical visits of the brother and sister, strait-waistcoat in hand, to the asylum at Hoxton.
We know that Charles himself was once deprived of his reason, and placed, for a time, under control ;
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CIIARACTERS. 151

and that the preservation of his recovered intellect was, as we would fondly believe, the reward of his life
of selfabnegation and fraternal devotion. In some minds, moreover, the partition between wit and
madness is very slender. Genius, it has been remarked, is, like the pearl in the oyster, a disease of the
animal by which it is produced ;—but Lamb himself, who wrote a paper on the “Sanity of True Genius,”
would have denied the analogy and contested the point.

As a poet, Charles Lamb is, once again original. He has produced but little, it is true ; but that little
is perfect in its own way, and ensures for its author a niche all to himself in the temple of Parnassus.
What more pathetic than his lines on his mother, first printed in the “Final Memorials” (p. 77) ; his
“Old Familiar Faces” ; the “Three Friends” ; and the “Sabbath Bells”? Then there is the fierce energy
of the “ Farewell to Tobacco,” and the “ Gipsy’s Malison,” with its almost demoniacal force of expression.
These are all pieces of perfect finish, and are marked by a wondrously refined artifice of rhyme, rhythm,
phrase, and condensation of thought. One little bit of Lamb’s poetry, by the way, has escaped the industry
of the editor of “ Eliana,’—the song of Thekla, in the “ Piccolomini” of Coleridge (act ii., scene vii.),
which that poet gives, as having been contributed by the author of “Rosamond Grey,” and appearing to him
“to have caught the happiest manner of the old poets.” Another piece, too, may be mentioned, and this,
as we hold it, one of the happiest and most characteristic pieces that Lamb ever wrote. We allude to the
little poem,—“ scarcely worth recollecting,” says Talfourd,—alluded to by Lamb in a letter to Moxon, Oct.
24th, 1831, when hinting at a certain sum accruing to him for “ Devil’s money.” ‘The title of this is
“ Satan in Search of a Wife, with the whole Process of his Courtship and Marriage, and who Danced at
the Wedding ; by an Eye-witness” (Moxon, 1831, 12mo. pp. 36). This little book is somehow become
exceedingly rare. We never saw but our own copy, which was first pointed out to us by the brother of
the publisher ; and the editor of ‘“ Eliana ”—who consoles himself with the supposition that it was probably
‘the poorest thing the author ever printed ”—was not able to recover one, and had to content himself with
a few stanzas; which chanced to be quoted in an old number of the Atheneum.

Willingly would we linger with Charles Lamb in his haunts ;—the little pot-house, the ‘“ Salutation
and Cat,” near Smithfield, where he and Coleridge, full of bright hopes and glorious schemes, drank “ egg-
hot,” and puffed ‘ Oronoko,” long after the chimes at midnight ;—or his various homes, especially that high,
dark chamber, “ No. 4, Inner Temple Lane,” where, surrounded by old books and black-framed Hogarths,
he and his sister regaled “with cold roast lamb or boiled beef, heaps of smoking roasted potatoes, and the
vast jug of porter, often replenished by Becky, from the best tap in Fleet Street,” such ‘men as Hazlitt,
Rickman, Cary, Allan Cunningham, Christopher North, Coleridge, Godwin, Wordsworth, Barry Cornwall,
Hood, Kenney, George Dyer, Talfourd, Charles Lloyd, Leigh Hunt, Liston (the actor), Miss Kelly, Basil
Montague, Charles Kemble, and others. Here was neither the lurid splendour of Kensington Gore, nor
the courtly learning of Holland House ; but furniture that you were not afraid to spoil; a welcome hearty
and homely; talk “farsed with pleasaunce;” and books, which were not to be referred to without a grace
before and after.

One who knew him less well (a right good scholar too),—the late Walter Savage Landor,—has left
some fine lines to commemorate his solitary interview :—

“ Once, and once only have I seen thy face,
Elia! Once only has thy tripping tongue
Run o’er my heart, yet never has been left
Impression on it stronger or more sweet.

‘ Cordial old man! What youth was in thy years,

What wisdom in thy levity, what soul
In every utterance of thy purest breast !
Of all that ever wore man’s form, ’tis thee
I first would spring to at the gate of heaven!”

and goes on to say, “The world will never see again two such delightful volumes as the ‘ Essays of Elia’ ;
no man living is capable of writing the worst twenty pages of them. The Continent has ‘ Zadig, and
‘Gil Blas’ ; we have ‘ Elia,’ and ‘Sir Roger de Coverley.’”

The love between Lamb and Coleridge was a touching and beautiful thing. “The gentle creature,”
said the latter of his old friend, “who looked upon the degraded men and things around him. like
moonshine on a dunghill, which shines and takes no pollution.” Coleridge died in 1834 ; and the event
was a shock to Lamb which he never rightly overgot. In 1833, cough and cramp had attacked him ;—
“ We sleep three in a bed,” he wrote. In this year he moved to his last abode, Church Street, Edmonton ;
and here he continued to enjoy, as he might, the otiosa eternitas of these latter years, until, as Mr. Procter
expresses it, “this lapsed into the great deep beyond,” on December 27th, 1839. The sister, whom he had
loved so purely, and for whom he had sacrificed so much, survived her brother thirteen years, her calamity
hiding from her the magnitude of her loss, and her comforts watched over by their remaining friends.

There are spots on the sun, and they say that the character of Charles Lamb was not altogether free
from infirmity. Walter Thornbury tells that he “sotted over his nightly grog”; Talfourd himself seeks
not to conceal the failing of his friend; Kenealy speaks of ‘the only stigma” on his memory; and we
know that the “Confessions of a Drunkard,” and the ‘“ Farewell to Tobacco,”—he staggered Parr, even,
with his ten pipes a night,—were the tear-blurred records of a self-accusing spirit. Be it so. Swmmi enim
sunt homines tantum is an axiom as full of truth now as in the days of Quintilian, and needs no further
illustration. Indeed, we love Lamb the better for the revelation ; the better, that, not seeking to conceal
153 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN,

his follies, as men love to do, so as to “present no mark to the foeman,” or to palliate or shuffle with them,
he admitted them in a touching and manly spirit, and frankly appealed for compassion from those who, yet
standing, need to take heed lest they fall. But enough ; this is a subject on which we would fain have been
silent, and should have said nothing, had notall been knownalready. Apelles painted Antigonus in profile,
that the loss of one of his eyes might not be visible; and Fuller speaks of such a “ handsome folding-up
of discourse,” that “ virtues are shown outside, and vices wrapped up in silence.” Thus would we treat
the memory of dear Cuartes Lamp, and all the sons of Genius, inheritors in common of the frailties of
lesser mortals. Farewell, then, to thee for a time, thou gentle spirit, in thy own words—

“ Free from self-seeking, envy, low design,
We have not met a whiter soul than thine ! ”*

 

No. 57.—PIERRE-JEAN DE BERANGER.

E BERANGER! How like him in attitude, mien, figure, look! He is depicted just as he is. He
will not, on this occasion, say as he did of the frontispiece to an edition of his Songs, in 1826,—

“ Non, non, tu n’es pas mon portrait! ””
Whether the next line,—

“ Jamais je ne me suis fait peindre,”

continue to be true or not we cannot say ; but that he has been painted will not now be denied by himself,
when he sees the accompanying page. There he sits in the apartment of the prison to which the absurd
policy of the Ministers of the restored Bourbons consigned him, while they overlooked the real traitors who
were undermining their throne ; and he is shown in his usual simple, unostentatious garb, divested equally
of the affectation of extreme plainness as of dandyism. He looks to be what he is—a man.

His life is written in his Songs; his birth is dated [See “ Regina,” vol. xi. p. 93]—

“ Dans ce Paris, plein d’or et de misére,
En l’an du Christ mil sept cent quatre-vingt,
Chez un tailleur, mon pauvre et vieux grand-pére.”

The fairy, at his birth, gave him the gift divine of song-making—a gift which has never departed from
him ; and then decided that his lot was to run through the various phases of

“ Gargon d’auberge, imprimeur, et commis ;”’

and, accordingly, in all these characters he figured before he took his station in the literary world. In
whatever situation he was, it is unnecessary to say that his talents for wit and good-humour were speedily
developed. What he did at twenty we learn from himself,—laughed and drank at Madame Grégoire, made
love to Lisette in a garret, and wrote songs.

“ Javais vingt ans, une folle mattresse,
De francs amis, et l’amour des chansons :
Bravant le monde, et les sots, et les sages,
Sans avenir, riche de mon printemps.
Leste et joyeux, je montais six étages—
Dans un grenier qu’on est bien 4 vingt ans!
* * * *

A table un jour, jour de grande richesse,
De mes amis les voix brillaient en chceur,

Quand jusquw’ici monte un cri d’allégresse
Qu’a Marengo Bonaparte est vainqueur!”

That cry has remained in his heart and soul ever since. It is the key-note of all his writings. An
eager zeal for the military glory of France, a profound sorrow for the reverses of its arms, and a deep
hatred of all who, either native or foreign, contributed to the fall of Bonaparte, are remarkable in his Songs.
Our heroes and ourselves, from Lord “ Villain-ton” and downwards, of course suffered under this feeling.
The name of Waterloo was so sad, that it was never to be allowed to cast a shade of sorrow over his song,
even by mentioning it. Our very hats were satirized, and our taste and politeness vilified, without
compassion. Our victories were chance, or the effect of numbers ; and, at all events, things to be deplored.
Many a song of this kind, and some of them extremely noble and heart-touching—not the less of either

* Epistle to Martin Charles Burney, Hsq., prefixed to “ Rosamond Gray,” &ec.
 

 

 

 

 

 

AUTHOR OF"LIES SOUVENIRS DU PEUPLE.
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 153

because they are dictated by passion,—are to be found in his works. But the restored Bourbons and
their ministers were the principal objects of his satires, which, in 1821, sent him to prison for three
months, and, in 1828, for nine. His works were, however, profitable to him, and his independence was
on many occasious remarkably exhibited. When Charles X. fell, he declared that, in dethroning that
prince, song had been dethroned. He has, we should think, since found, that all that he complained of in
the overthrown Bourbons, flourishes in stricter rigour under Louis Philippe ; that the censeur tyrannique
still exercises the same functions under the citizen-king as when he wrote his song of “La Censure”; and
that the “injiniment petits” are as much in power as in the days of the Gerontocracie. But, after all, why
should our baldpated and bespectacled friend trouble himself about squabbling politics? Why should not
he act like his hero, Homme gris, and sing “ Moi, je m’en ris” ?

NOTE S,

ae NDER the simple name of Chansonnier,” wrote a great French author, “a man has arisen, who is

one of the greatest poets that France has ever produced. With genius which assumes the manner
of La Fontaine and Horace he has sung, when he has chosen, as Tacitus has written.” * The poet alluded
to is P. J. pp Bérancer,—the great national song-writer of France; the best representative of the esprit
Gaulois ; that most perfect master of the modern lyre, who, in these latter days, in the bright city of the
Seine, has invested the simple chanson with a dignity and grace unsurpassed by Horace in his finest ode,
on the banks of the Tiber, two thousand years ago.

This illustrious man, whose father was a poor, improvident tailor, No. 50, Rue Montorgueil, Paris,
negligent of his family, and lost in vain dreams of an illustrious ancestry, was born in that city, August
17th, 1780. At the age of nine or ten he became tavern-boy to his aunt, who kept a small cabaret in the
suburbs of Péronne. Here his lad’s vanity was hurt by having to wait on the guests, and his feeble
constitution unfitted him for the labours of the stable ; so he cast about four some other employment. He
tried the workshop of a jeweller, but did not learn much, and next found a place as clerk to a notary. By-
and-by he succeeded in getting employment in the printing-office of the well-known Laisnez, who had just
established himself at Péronne. Here it was, while setting up the types for an edition of the works of
André Chénier,—one of the most original of the poets of France, and author of that exquisite elegiac,
“La jeune Captive,” written within the walls of the Conciergerie, and inspired by one of his fellow-prisoners,
Mademoiselle de Coigny,—that the youthful compositor conceived the idea of becoming a poet himself.
He remained in the printing-office two years only, and accompanied his father to Paris. Here he spent
three years in the endeavour to find employment, writing songs, pawning his watch, and wearing out his
clothes. At last, pushed @ bout by his necessities, he determined to solicit the protection of Lucien
Bonaparte, brother to the First Consul, who had the reputation of being a patron of men of letters. To
him he accordingly wrote, enclosing two dithyrambic poems (“Le Rétablissement du Culte,” and “Le
Déluge”) for his approbation. From this illustrious man, who became afterwards Prince de Canino, and
is known as the author of an epic poem, “ Charlemagne; ou, |’Kglise délivrée,” not without merit, our young
bard received a speedy answer, inviting him to an interview. At this he was treated with a liberality and
benevolence which he never forgot, and was assured by the Prince that he would assume the responsibility
of watching over his destiny. Lucien himself had to quit Paris shortly, and proceeded to Rome. But he
did not forget his promise, and sent to his protégé, from that city, a procwration, authorizing him to receive
and apply to his own uses, the honorarium to which he was entitled as a member of the Institute. Of
this, arrears for three years were due, which were paid at once. Béranger handed the greater part of the
sum to his father, and was enabled thenceforth to provide pretty well for his own wants with the annual
thousand francs which the traitement of an Academician was worth to him. The protection of his patron,
although in exile, was useful to him in other ways. At the age of twenty-five, he managed to get
employment in the bureaux of the painter, C. P. Landon, for whom he prepared and arranged the text of
his magnificent work, “Les Annales du Musée” (1805-6). For this he got eighteen hundred francs a
year, and was enabled to assist his grandmother and sister. He made an attempt to write for the Stage,
but in after-days considered himself fortunate that he never even obtained the honour ofa reading. In
1807 he lost his situation with Landon ; and, inspired by gratitude, attempted to find a publisher for a
volume of pastorals, which he had dedicated to Prince Lucien, who was living forgotten at Rome. Here
the dédicace caused the condemnation of the book at first sight, and it was not till twenty-five years later,
in 1833, that he was able, by some lines of prose, to express publicly, in a suitable manner, his gratitude
to the illustrious proscrit, whom he had then only seen twice since 1815. On the formation of the Imperial
University, Béranger obtained, through Arnault, a place in one of the dureaua. This gave him leisure to
study the best authors, and perfect his manner. Boileau had written, in his “ Art Poétique,” “TI faut,
méme en chansons, du bon sens et de J’art,” and Béranger thought that this humble and hasty species of
composition was susceptible of an elevation and perfection of style of which it had not hitherto been

* “ Btudes Historiques,” par Chateaubriand. Préface.
U
154 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

thought worthy. He wrote and re-wrote. “Nothing,” says he, “so enlightens as the flame of a manuscript
which is committed to the fire. In that case I ought to see very clearly. I have known authors who
never destroyed any of the verses that they composed. TI have not preserved more than a quarter of mine ;
and I am conscious to-day that I have kept too many of them.” *

From the year 1813 he dates his reputation, and this chiefly from the circulation in MS. of such songs
as the “ Sénateur,” “Le petit Homme gris,” “Les Gueux,” and, above all, by “ Le Roi d’Yvetot.” There
existed at this period a society of chansonniers and littérateurs, called the Caveau, in commemoration of the
cellar rendered illustrious by the réunions of Piron, Collé, Panard, Gallet, and the Crébillons, pére et fils.
This society was presided over by Désaugiers, and in 1815 Béranger, introduced by Arnault, was induced,
somewhat reluctantly, to become a member. In this year he pnblished his first volume of songs (‘‘ Chansons
morales et autres, par P. J. Béranger, Convive du Caveau moderne ; avec Gravures et Musique,” 1815,
8vo., chez Eymery). His connection with the society of the Caveau, thus commemorated, did not last
long. The Hundred Days occurred ; and a diversity of opinion among the body caused the secession of
Béranger. This early volume contains many songs which, though contributing to gain for their author a
popular reputation, are marked by the cynical license of a former day, and would have been removed by
him from later editions, had they not become the property of the booksellers and the public. Béranger was
now the song-writer of the Opposition. During the Hundred Days, the place of censeur of a newspaper,
worth some 6,000£ per annum, had been pressingly offered to him; but he proved the sincerity and
disinterestedness of his convictions by refusing the appointment, although he was literally in want of
necessaries at the time, having regularly handed over to the father of Madame Lucien Bonaparte, who was
in distress, the sum which, till 1814, when the Prince was struck out of the Academy by a royal ordon-
nance, he was legally entitled to receive. But his poverty sat lightly on the honest bard, and was no
embarrassment to him in the company of the wealthy friends which his character and talents had now
procured him. It cost him no effort, as he tells us, to say “I am poor”; and he regards the phrase as
“almost equal to a fortune.” But the courage of the poet was put to another test. Louis XVIII. was
fond of songs, and had said, “we must pardon many things in the author of the ‘Roi d’Yvetot’”; so
Béranger had retained his modest appointment, in spite of his verses. But he received a warning from the
Instruction Publique that further publication would be considered a resignation of his place. Nothing
daunted, he accepted the alternative, and in 1821 he succeeded in inducing Firmin Didot to publish by
subscription a collection of songs, both old aud new, in two duodecimo volumes. Of this edition, the
publication of which was facilitated by the support of the great bankers Lafitte and Bérard, 10,500 copies
were printed. It filled the pockets of the author ; earned him the title of “ poet,” which was first given to
him by the Edinburgh Review ; cost him his place ; and a prosecution, which, in spite of the eloquent defence
of Dupin atné, resulted in a detention of three months in Sainte-Pélagie, and a fine of five hundred francs.
In prison, he occupied the chamber which had just been left by P. L. Courier, and found this a paradise
compared with the fireless garret which had been his dwelling. In 1825 he entrusted to Ladvocat the
publication of a third volume, which, with certain retrenchments insisted on by the authorities, was allowed
to pass. In 1827, his friend Manuel died, and left an annuity of 1,000f to the poet, who renounced, the
legacy because he thought the testator had not duly considered the burdens he left behind him. In 1828,
he published a fourth volume of songs ; and feeling certain of a prosecution, hurried off to Havre, to enjoy
a few days at the seaside, before his liberty should be infringed. On this occasion he was ably defended
by Barthe, but was sentenced to nine months at La Force, and a fine of 10,000f This sum was collected
and paid by his admirers, and the prisoner received in his cell the visits of Victor Hugo, Sainte-Beuve,
Alexandre Dumas, and the most eminent men of the day. Meantime, the poet kept up, from behind the
walls of his dungeon, so deadly a fire against the Government, that he contributed more effectually to
promote its downfall than the more material weapons of the heroes of the Three Days. When the revolu-
tion of July had taken place, it was proposed to make him an annual allowance of 6,000f by way of
indemnification ; but here again he refused, for, said he, ‘there are other victims whose necessities are far
more pressing than mine.” Béranger was now growing old ; honourable proposals were renewed to him by
the Government, but he rejected them, from an honest abhorrence of sinecures. Chateaubriand sought his
acquaintance, and this seemed a recompense beyond anything that money could’ bestow. In 1833 he
offered the last volume of what he called his “Mémoires Chantants” to the public, and tried hard, as he
says, to fall into oblivion. He quitted Paris, and courted retreat and silence at Passy, Fontainebleau,
and Tours. At the revolution of February he was elected member of the Constituent.Assembly, but soon
gave in his resignation, and retired once more to Passy. Here he continued to live, till illness forced him to
return to the capital for medical advice. He took up his abode in the Rue Vendéme, and became an
object of solicitude and interest to the rank and intellect of the city. Here he died, July 16th, 1857, aged
seventy-five. His funeral took place twenty-four hours after death, by order of Government, and was
attended by a vast concourse of people, both civil and military.

We have sufficiently indicated the character of Béranger. He was an honest, independent man,
indebted to no one, and seeking no advancement but that which resulted from his own energy and talents.
It was his simple pride to live on the fruit of his own labours ; and when extraneous assistance came, he
always saw some one in greater stress than himself to receive its benefits. He promoted the success of the
popular party, but refused to share in the rewards which it had to bestow. He owed no honours or

“Memoirs of Béranger, written by Himself.’ London, 1858, 8vo. p. 124,
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 155

emoluments to Government ; he was not even a member of the Legion of Honour. The honours of the
Academy he might probably have had by mere application ; but this he constantly refused to make. An
unsolicited election was hinted at by his friend Lebrun ; but the modest poet deprecated the idea, believing
that the peculiarities of his character and habits were incompatible with the usages of the body,—that he
was a “poor ignorant fellow,’ unworthy of the honour,—and preferring to die, as he had lived, a simple
writer of songs. Later in his life, it was reserved for the Empress of the French to solicit, in the most graceful
and delicate manner, the honour and privilege of soothing the poet’s declining years ; but here, too, the
simple chansonnier gratefully refused, alleging that the annuity which he received from Perrotin, the
possessor of the copyright of his songs, was amply sufficient for his humble wants.

The poetry of Béranger needs no criticism. Benjamin Constant spoke of him as one, “qui fait des
odes sublimes en ne croyant faire que des chansons”; while another elegant critic, M. Jouy, has alluded to
him in language which we willingly adopt as the exponent of our own ideas :—“ Un poéte doué de la grace
et de la finesse d’ Horace, d’un esprit a la fois philosophique et satirique, d'une Ame vive et tendre, d’un
caraectére qui sympathise avec toutes les gloires, avec tous les maux de son pays, s’assied, la lyre en main,
sur le tombeau des braves, et fait répéter 4 la France en deuil les plaintes harmonieuses qu il exhale dans
les chants sans rivaux et sans modéles: j'ai nommé Béranger. Poéte national, il a créé parmi nous ce
genre de chansons, et s’est fait une gloire 4 part dans toutes les autres. Par un talent, ou plutét par un
charme qu'il a seul possédé, il a su rassembler dans ses poémes lyriques de la plus petite proportion la grace
antique et la saillie moderne, la poésie philosophique et le trait de l’épigramme, la gaieté la plus vive, et la
sensibilité la plus profonde ; en un mot, tout ce que l’art a de plus raitiné, et tout ce que la nature a de plus
aimable.” (“ Essai sur la Poésie légére.”)

We have spoken of the aristocratic pretensions of the grandfather and father of our poet. To these
the latter was indebted for the feudal particle which appears before his name, and which was conferred
upon him in the register of his birth. At this he was the first himself to laugh —

“'Hé quoi! j’apprends que I’on critique
, Le de qui précéde mon nom !
Etes-vous de noblesse antique P
Moi, noble? Oh! vraiment, messieurs, non.
Non, d’aucune chevalerie
Je wai le brevet sur vélin.
Je ne sais qu’aimer ma patrie
Je suis vilain, et trds-vilain.”

Béranger was bald at twenty-three; the aspect of his forehead, which made him look like forty-five
when he was only thirty, enabling him to elude the vigilance of the police who made eager search
for refractory conscripts. Few of the portraits, which profess to represent him, possess any historical value.
One of the best is the drawing by Charlet, an etching from which is prefixed to the English translation of
his “Memoirs.” We can speak from personal knowledge as to the fidelity of the sketch of Maclise before
us, which is eminently truthful and characteristic. We made the acquaintance of the poet in the studio of
our friend the late J. J. Grandville, an artist who has succeeded in investing animals, birds, and insects
with human passions and attributes better than any other man, except, perhaps, the German Kaulbach,
whose designs for the Reinecke Fuchs of Goethe are absolutely unequalled in this line of art. Grandville
illustrated a host of books, including “Robinson Crusoe,” “ Gulliver,” and the “Fables of La Fontaine.”
His “ Cents Proverbes” is well known; and his “ Fleurs Animées,” which exhibit a most refined and
poetic fancy. His illustrations of the song-writer are issued under the title of ‘Album Béranger ” (Paris,
1858, 8vo.). In 1846, at the early age of forty-two, the arts sustained an irreparable loss by the death of
this illustrious designer.

In 1856, the death took place in Paris of the well-known republican David d’Angers. His funeral
was attended by a great concourse, with the whole Parisian world of students and artists. Quiet was
preserved till the corpse had been consigned to its narrow resting-place. It was then that the old Béranger
was espied, and the fervida juventus burst forth into an irrepressible shout for the poet and liberty. The
attendant sergens made a charge, and several of the jeunes imprudents were captured, lodged in gaol, and
subsequently sentenced to various terms of imprisonment. Hearing of this, Béranger indited the following
exquisite verses, which, despite all the repression of authority, flew like wildfire from mouth to mouth.
They have all the fire and polish of his former productions, although probably the last that flowed from
his pen. We transcribed them, in Paris, at the time, and give them here, as certainly not contained in
the earlier editions of his “ Chansons,” even if they have been preserved in more recent collections :—

“Pauvres enfans, quoi! vous croyiez encore “Par quel cdté ce temps qu’on fait revivre
Quw’on peut crier ‘ Vive la liberté!’ Ressemble-t-il aux jours révés par moi P
Et sous les plis du drapeau tricolore Moi, qui jamais n’ai cessé de poursuivre
Féter celui qui V’a toujours chantée ! Laquais, flatteur, empereur, prétre, et roi!
Mes méchans vers dont vous gardez mémoire, Si j’ai chanté pour le grand capitaine,
Oubliez-les! Je viens les renier ; C’est quand il fit sans sceptre et prisonnier ;
Si j’y croyais, je maudirais ma gloire ! Brumaire était puni par Sainte-Héléne !
Ah! pardonnez au pauvre chansonnier ! Ah! pardonnez au pauvre chansonnier !
156 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

“ Nisard pour moi serait-il l’éloquence, “Si j’ai chanté cette époque héroique
Et Leverrier un second Arago ? Des habits bleus par la victoire usés,
Suis-je l’ami de la nuit, de Ja silence, C’était les fils de notre République
Et Belmontet me tient-il lieu d’ Hugo ? Battant vingt ans les rois coalisés.
Enfin, mon Dieu, si clément, si bonhomme, Mais ce soldat bien brossé qui nous guette,
Est-ce le Dieu des sbires, des geoliers, Qui nous tuerait pour passer officier,
Est-ce le Dieu que l’on protége & Rome ? N’est pas le mien trinquant 4 la guinguette,
Ah! pardonnez au pauvre chansonnier ! Ah! pardonnez au pauvre chansonnier !”

We have far exceeded our limits, and must bid farewell to the great French national poet, in the
stanzas addressed to him by his friend Antier, in 1821, “au moment oi il va entrer en prison ” :—

* * * * * *

“ Honneur & toi! La chanson, libre et fidre,
Sur le Parnasse a droit de se ranger,
La France encore ne compte qu’un Moliére ;
La France aussi n’aura qu’un Béranger.

Tous deux, bravant une crainte servile,
Sans nul égard des couleurs ni des rangs,
Ont, a la cour, fiétri, comme &, la ville,
Le ridicule et les intolérants.
* * * * * *
Tremblez, cafards! Son vers ridiculise
L’hypocrisie et ses pieux excés.
Tremblez, ingrats! Son vers immortalise
Les détracteurs du courage francais.

Soit qu’il proclame, ou qu’il chante, ou qu’il peigne
Un Dieu de paix, nos plaisirs, nos travers ;

C’est tour 4 tour Collé, Rousseau, Montaigne ;
C’est la nature: elle inspire ses vers.

D’un gotit exquis, d’un commerce modeste,
Toujours prodigue et de zéle et de soins,

Quoique bien pauvre, il trouve encore du reste
Pour obliger ses amis au besoin.”

ROE II

No, 58.—MISS JANE PORTER.

ISS JANE PORTER is depicted in the quiet and ladylike occupation of taking a cup of coffee at

a soirée, given, we suppose, by Mrs. Skinner, at Portland Place. The graceful and delicate hand,

to which we are indebted for “Thaddeus,” is stirring up, not Poles to the bitterness of strife, but sugar to
the sweetness of Mocha.

Nun-like is she drawn in the picture given of her in “Fisher’s Drawing-room Scrap-Book ”; and here
we find that she chooses to exhibit with so much of monastic costume as the graceful hood, or something
like it, cast over her head. Do not let the Protestant apprehensions of our readers be aroused, for Miss
Porter is as high a Protestant even as ourselves ; but in compliment to her Polish novel (which was a
great favourite on the Continent), she was appointed a lady of a chivalric order by one of the German ;
and for that reason she appears as a religieuse. We shall not say anything about the suitableness of such
a headgear to a long and handsome face.

Handsome the face is stt/Z. We hope that Miss Porter has sufficient philosophy to pardon us for that
fatal adverb. Time and tide wait for no man,—nor woman neither ; and there is the fact extant that she
published the “Spirit of the Elbe” in 1800,—some five-and-thirty years ago. Allowing that she was
then but twenty, it brings her nowadays near the Falstaffian age of some seven-and-fifty, or by’r Lady !
inclining to three-score. She wears the years well ; but these publications are sad tell-tales. Many a lady of
Miss Porter’s standing, if she had kept Miss Porter's good looks, could well smuggle off ten or a dozen
years from the account, if she had not dabbled in printers’ work. J oe Miller informs us that: a coal-porter
having inquired what the crime was for which he saw a man hanging at Tyburn-tree, and being told that
it was for forgery, exclaimed, “ Ay, that comes of knowing how to read and write, my good fellow 1” We
are tempted to make a similar exclamation when we find a lady rendering the footsteps of time traceable,
by manifesting her powers of penmanship.
 

THE ACT HORESS OF *THADIDE US OF WARSAW.
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 157

It is a matter of no great importance. Of her novels, we do not think that any won enduring fame
but “Thaddeus of Warsaw,” published in 1803. In her “Scottish Chiefs,” Wallace wight is drawn as a
sort of sentimental dandy, who, if we mistake not, faints upon occasion, is revived by lavender-water, and
throughout the book is tenderly in love. There are some good passages in the “ Pastor’s Fireside,” though
it was not very successful. “‘Thaddeus,” however, “which in our youth beguiled us of our tears,” is the
favourite. It is to her fame that she began the system of historical novel-writing, which attained the
climax of its renown in the hands of Sir Walter Scott ; and no light praise it is that she has thus pioneered
the way for the greatest exhibition of the greatest genius of our time. She may parody Bishop Hall, and
tell Sir Walter,—

“T first adventured,—follow me who list,
And be the second Scottish novelist.”

Her sister, now three or four years dead, was a woman of talent ; and her brother, Sir Robert Ker Porter,
will be remembered as a man of intellect and acquirements, and an artist of no mean powers.

If we say that she is the daughter of a cavalry officer,—that she was born in the metropolis of
mustard, viz. Durham, no matter in what year; that her first book was (we believe) the “Spirit of the
Elbe,” published in 1800 ; that it was followed, in 1803, by ‘‘ Thaddeus of Warsaw,” which went through
several editions, and in due course of years by the “Scottish Chiefs,” the “ Pastor's Fireside,” and some
other novels that we do not just now happen to recollect ; that as a philosophical or ethical writer she is
known as the collector of the aphorisms of Sir Philip Sydney, and a contributor to the pages of Fraser's
Magazine,—we shall have exhausted all the events of her placid and useful life which are known to the
public. In private she is a quiet and good-humoured lady, rather pious, and fond of going to evening
parties, where she generally contrives to be seen patronizing some sucking lion or lioness. In which
occupation may she long continue, devoting her mornings to the Prayer-book, and her evenings to the
conver sazione,—

And may no ill event cut shorter
The easy course of Miss Jane Porter.

NOTES:

HE obsecration in Maginn’s concluding distich was not unheard ; but still,—nec pietas moram,—

wrinkles and old age come on at last, in spite of all, and Miss. Janz Porter died, at the house of

her elder brother, Dr. W. O. Porter, Portland Square, Bristol, May 24th, 1850, in the seventy-fifth year of
her age.

She was born at Durham in 1776, her father being surgeon to the Enniskillen Dragoons. He came
of a right good stock, numbering among his ancestors Sir William Porter, who distinguished himself on the
field of Agincourt ; Endymion Porter, of classic and loyal memory ; and Lord Chief Justice Porter, who
transplanted his branch of the tree to Ireland. On her mother’s side, her genealogical pretensions were no
less respectable ; and among her family connections she numbered John Tweddell, the celebrated scholar
and traveller in Greece, who, cut off by a premature death, now reposes at Athens, beneath the congenial
shade of the temple of Theseus.

Of Miss Porter’s early publication, ‘‘ Thaddeus of Warsaw,” in 1803, mention has been already made,
and of the importance which attaches to it, as having, in all likelihood, suggested to the author of
“ Waverley ” that commixture of truth with fiction which is the characteristic of the modern historical
romance. This novel was translated into several of the Continental languages, and the young authoress
was elected a lady-canoness of the Teutonic Order of St. Joachim. A relation of the eminent Polish
patriot, Kosciusko, sent her a gold ring, containing a miniature of the hero ; and General Gardiner, who was
then British ambassador at the court of Stanislaus, could hardly be brought to believe that the scenes and
events in the earlier chapters could have been described by one who had not been an eye-witness. In 1809
appeared the “Scottish Chiefs,” which, perhaps in a greater degree even than ‘‘ Thaddeus,’—as admitted by
Sir Walter Scott himself to George 1V., at Carlton House,—was the veritable begetter of the “ Waverley
Novels.” This was followed by the “ Pastor’s Fireside”; “ Duke Christian of Luneburgh,’—the subject of
which was suggested by the king himself ;—some of the “Tales Round a Winter's Hearth”; and the
“Field of Forty Footsteps.” Miss Porter was also a contributor to the Gentleman's Magazine, and wrote
the life of her old friend the Rev. Percival Stockdale. Ata much later period of her life she appeared as
editress of a Robinson Crusoeish kind of book, entitled “ Sir Edward Seaward’s Diary.” We believe that
this was actually written by Dr. W. Ogilvie Porter, her elder brother. The “Lady Seaward” of the
narrative was a certain Eliza Clark, to whom some verses addressed “To Eliza,” and signed “ B.,” will be
found at page 329 of ‘The Casket: a Miscellany of unpublished Poems” (1829, 8vo.). These, as attested
by a MS. note by Mrs. Booth, a friend of both, were written by Dr. Porter. The manuscript “ Remains
of Eliza Clark, relating to the Costume of the Ancients, with Remarks on the Temple of Aigina,” was
announced for sale in the catalogue of Kerslake, of Bristol, 1852, together with a portrait of the same lady
158 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

lying on her death-bed, engraved by Lewis, with the inscriptions, “‘ Lady Seaward,” and “ Eliza,” and an
interesting notice of the last days of her life at the back, in the handwriting also of Dr. Porter. There
was a good deal of verisimilitude about the “narrative”; and one of the leading reviews thought it
worthy of an elaborate disproval. Miss Porter was often pressed as to the real origin of the work, and
was wont to reply, “Sir Walter Scott had his great secret ; I must be allowed to keep my little one.” The
reader may now possess some slight clue to the mystery.

So far back as 1832 Miss Porter had lost her younger sister and literary associate, Anna Maria, the
distinguished novelist. Her favourite brother was still alive. This was Sir Robert Ker Porter, the well-
known artist and traveller. In early life he had studied under Benjamin West, and attaining high and
early success in art, had been appointed historical painter to the Emperor of Russia. While exercising his
art in that country, he gained the affections of the Princess Marie, daughter of Prince Theodore von
Scherbatoff, whom he eventually married. In 1813 he was knighted by the Prince Regent ; and in 1826
was appointed Consul at Venezuela. There he remained till 1841, when he left his mission on leave of
absence, and, accompanied by his sister, proceeded to St. Petersburg, to visit his daughter. In this city, on
May 4th, 1842, when on the point of starting on his return to England, he was seized in his carriage by
an apoplectic fit, which proved fatal. This must have been a terrible shock to his sister, who returned
alone to England. She took up her abode with her brother, Dr. Porter, at Bristol, and there passed her
remaining days, retaining her intellectual faculties to the last, and that serenity of disposition which
during her long life had won the admiration of all who knew her.

The following remarks, which appeared at the time of her death in the Athenceum, appear to afford a
happy description of this distinguished lady :—

“In society, Miss Jane Porter was amiable rather than brilliant. There was a touch of old-world and
sentimental eloquence in her manner, which we shall hardly see reproduced. She conversed like an
accomplished woman, who had kept much ‘worshipful company’ in her time,—without, however, the
slightest parade or pretension.. On the contrary, her cordiality to, and admiration of, the authors of a
younger generation can never be forgotten by those who have either witnessed or enjoyed it. She was
actively kind in deed, as well as indulgent in word.”

Her library, pictures, and miscellaneous effects, with much that had belonged to her brother, were sold
by Christie & Manson, July 24th and 25th, 1850.

 

No, 59.—LADY MORGAN.

ADY MORGAN is our subject for this month. Miladi is fitting on a new bonnet with considerable

industry, and admiring, as she has an undoubted right to do, her countenance before a cheval glass.

We leave it to our readers to decide whether she is fitting it on after having returned from boring some
unhappy party to death, or is about to sally forth on a fresh mission of destruction.

We cannot read her books nowadays; but we remember there was a time when we liked the rough
fun and professed vulgarity of ‘“‘O’Donnells,” “ Florence Macarthys,” and the rest. All the genteel part
of these books was vulgarity instinctive, and, therefore, to be regarded merely as a psychological curiosity,
—as a picture of the author’s own mind. ‘The “ Wild Irish Girls,” “ Missionaries,” “ Novices of
St. Dominick,” and so forth, were mere stuff—stuff sans phrase,—and so we opine the advanced years of
her ladyship consider them. Her excellent work on France, dedicated to prove that Napoleon Bonaparte
was a most distinguished friend to liberty, and that his sole object in reigning was to propagate free
institutions, has, we believe, descended to the grave. Croker destroyed it in the Quarterly, in an article
which, however, was far too harsh. The lady did certainly talk bad politics, and sport chambermaid
French, and describe chambermaid manners ; but the petticoat should be a protection against the hard
things which it pleased the then Secretary of the Admiralty to utter. She had not an unfair vengeance
against him afterwards, when she sketched him as the son of Crawley the gauger.

Her sire was an honest long old fellow of the name of MacOwen, who had been a gentleman’s
gatekeeper. Happening to have a good voice for singing bottle-songs, he went on the stage, where he was
a very good Irishman of the Murtoch Delany cast. Great was he in Pan in “Midas” ; and there never
was an Irishman yet who, when he sang the “ Cruiskeen Lawn” in the contest against Apollo, would not
have coincided in the judgment of Midas. Of her lady mother we know nothing; but we believe that
Sydney Owenson (for to Owenson the jolly old gatekeeper had Anglified his name,—how Sydney came
it is difficult to say, unless through some stage vagary) began life as a governess some forty years ago. She
soon began novel-writing, and, having taken the liberal side, was speedily seized on by the small society of
Dublin,—the Papist people praising her because she was scribbling for their cause, the blockish Protestant
chatterers on literature who were in those days to be found in Dublin—and, God be praised for it,
blockheads they were—joining in the chorus to show their liberality. Some honest fellows, no doubt,
 

 

 

AUTHOR OF” © DONNEL.
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 159

did the same because she was an industrious and clever young lady ; and some, of course, because they
thought Glorvina “a beautiful crayatur, and the writin’ uncommon poethic and ginteel.” Such was the
style of thought and criticism in Dublin some thirty years ago. In due course of time she married an
apothecary of the name of Morgan, who suffered the penalty of knighthood from some facetious lord-
lieutenant, which accounts for her ladyship. What has become of Morgan we do not know ; when we last
heard of him he was proving some five-pound debt against an unhappy magazine which he had contributed to
se Colburn, with his usual sagacity, had turned him off long ago, and we have some obscure idea that
e is dead.

A connection with a quack French clique of the most ignorant and pretending praters in the world
has been a great misfortune to poor Lady Morgan; for on the strength of that acquaintance she thinks
herself entitled to pretend to know ladies and gentlemen on the Continent. She is sadly mistaken ; still
more mistaken must she now feel herself, when she finds that all her lamentations about the villanies
of the Orange faction, her sad denunciations of the miseries inflicted by the penal laws over unhappy
Ireland, have in any, even the smallest, way contributed to put her native land under the domination of
those who return her the compliment of calling her an ugly Frenchified old woman, and denounce her as
a bigot and an enemy to her country because she does not grovel at the foot of the priest. But she
has chosen her part, and leaving it to herself to reflect if that part has been well played during her life,
we wish her a merry May morning.

 

NOTES.

“ AnD dear Lapy Morean! Look, look, how she comes,.
With her pulses all beating for freedom like drums ;
So Irish, so modish, so miatish, so wild,
So committing herself, as she talks, like a child ;
So trim, yet so easy ; petite, yet big-hearted,

That truth and she, try all that she can, won’t be parted.
* * ¥ * * *

She'll put on your fashions, your latest new air,

And then talk so frankly, she’ll make you all stare :—
Mrs. Hall may say ‘Oh,’ and Miss Edgeworth say ‘ Fie,”
But my Lady will know all the what and the why.

Her books, a like mixture, are so very clever,

The god himself swore he could read them for ever ;.
Plot, character, freakishness, all are so good ;

And the heroine’s herself playing tricks in a hood.

So he kiss’d her, and call’d her ‘eternal good wench’;
But asked, why the devil she spoke so much French ?”

CCE ITERUM CRISPINUS!—once more we claim the services of the author of “ Ultra-
EL Crepidarius.” Lady Morgan was born in Dublin about 1783, and was the daughter of a song-
writer and composer of some merit, named Robert Owenson. He also boasted of being a relation of Oliver
Goldsmith, and was the first friend and patron of the unfortunate poet Thomas Dermody. We shall not
go minutely into the literary career of Lady Morgan, which is sufficiently touched upon by our predecessor,
and content ourselves by stating that she reached a good length of days,—happy and cheerful, in spite of
the loss of her sight ; kind, loquacious, shrewd, and respected by all who knew her,—and died at her
residence in Lowndes-square, April 13th, 1859, in the seventy-seventh year of her age: She enjoyed a
pension from the Civil List of £300, which she had. well earned, as well by the services which she had
rendered to literature, as the sacrifices she had made and the odium she had incurred, in the promotion of
advanced and liberal opinions.

Sir T. C. Morgan, her husband, irreverently termed an apothecary by Maginn, was physician in the
house of the Marquis of Abercorn. He was a man of very superior abilities, greatly liked by his Irish
patients, modest, well-informed, kind-hearted, and accomplished. He received the honours of knighthood
at the hands of the Viceroy, the Duke of Richmond, a few.hours: only before his marriage. He was the
very opposite of his wife, who was as bustling, restless, energetic; and pushing, as he was modest, retiring,
artless, and unaffected. He became physician to the Marshalsea Prison ; but his chances of practice among
the higher classes in London were somewhat impaired by the publication of his book, “Sketches of the
Philosophy of Life ” (8vo. 1818), which gave offence to the orthodox, as being supposed to favour the
materialistic views advocated by Bichat, and the late eminent surgeon Sir William Lawrence, in his
celebrated lectures on “ Physiology and the Natural History of Man,” delivered before the Royal College
of Surgeons in 1816-18. Hence he had leisure to devote to literary labour, and there is little doubt that
the best part of his wife’s books, especially those on France and Italy, were contributed by him in the form
of chapters on the more serious subjects of law, medicine, the press, &c. In stability of character and
soundness of judgment he was greatly superior to his vivacious wife, and, unlike her, is said to have
160 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

possessed a critical knowledge of the French language. He was, moreover, a man of high accomplishment
and culture, and a nature, simple, upright, and noble. His wife survived him some fifteen years.

In 1822 was published by Colburn a volume, entitled “The Mohawks : a Satirical Poem, with Notes,”
now of considerable rarity, and affording some curious glimpses of men and manners. This has been
attributed to Sir T. C. and Lady Morgan ; but the author of “ The Press, or Literary Chit-Chat: a Satire”
(1822, 12mo.), is unwilling to believe that “even Lady M. could write some parts of it of a most wnladylike
nature,” and judges “from the frequent employment of similes culled from the ‘ Pharmacopeia
Londinensis,’ that it originated from the pericranium of her spouse.”

Lady Morgan’s ‘‘ Book of the Boudoir” (1829, 2 vols. 8vo.), savagely reviewed by Blackwood (vol. xxvi.),
is, say what you will about it, 4 very amusing and readable miscellany. The manner of its publication, as
given by the fair authoress in her address “To the Reader,” affords us a humorous picture. We see her
ladyship just setting off—“ the horses literally putting to” ; the arrival of Colburn, furious with excitement
at the success of the “O’Briens;”—‘“future engagements,”—“ flattering propositions,—obduracy of
authoress ; finally, “a scrubby MS. volume, which the servant was about to thrust into the pocket of the
carriage,” catches the eye of despairing publisher. “ What is that?” Reply, ‘One of many volumes of
odds and ends.” A glance is enough. ‘This is the very thing,” said “the European publisher,’ who
pockets the book, and departs in triumph, and leaves Miladi to pursue her journey. What a thing it is to
be a fashionable authoress !

Gueret has written “La Guerre des Autheurs”; Hogarth drawn the “Battle of the Pictures” ;
Parny chronicled “ La Guerre des Dieux” ; and the witty Dean of St. Patrick’s added a bright leaf to his
chaplet of tmmortelles by his “ Battle of the Books.” It was yet reserved for the clever countrywoman of
the latter to strike the first blow in the “ Battle of the Chairs.” The erudite reader probably needs not to be
told that at Rome is said to be religiously preserved the very chair upon which St. Peter is stated to have
sat and taught in that city. Lady Morgan, in her book on Italy,—which Lord Byron pronounced “an
excellent and fearless work,”—proclaimed this “relic” to be of spurious manufacture, and stated,—upon
the authority of two eye-witnesses, Denon and Champollion, travellers and Oriental scholars of the highest
character and learning,—that the bassi-rilievt with which it is ornamented represent the feats of
Mohammed, and that it bears the inscription, in Cufic characters, ‘‘There is but one God, and Mahomet is
his Prophet.” The book containing this blasphemous allegation was relegated to the Index, and the
champions for the chair buckled on their harness. Tn 1833 was published at Rome, “Remarks on Lady
Morgan’s Statements regarding St. Peter’s Chair, preserved in the Vatican Basilic. By N. Wiseman, D.D.,
&c., Rector of the English College, and Professor of Oriental Languages in the Roman University,” 8vo.
In this pamphlet the learned author endeavours to prove, in defiance of all archeology, that the slandered chair
isa veritable Roman sella curulis ; that the sculpture represents the exploits of the monster-killing Hercules ;
and that the Mahommedan inscription had no existence at all. It must suffice here to state, with regard
to this dissertation, that it is a tissue of solecisms in archeology, history, and art, and wholly plagiarized,
without acknowledgment, from the chapter “De Cathedra ligned 8. Petri,” in the “ Annales SS. A-posto-
lorum Petri et Pauli” of V. Alex. Constantius, printed in Latin, in 1770. This was answered to good
effect by a “Letter to Cardinal Wiseman, by Sydney Lady Morgan.” The question was next taken up by
a competent classical scholar, who communicated anonymously his arguments, in support of her ladyship’s
original statement, to the Daily News, where they attracted considerable notice by their force and learning.
The author, having obtained further proofs of the absurd delusion which had so long existed, and a
“professed portrait” of the chair itself, amplified his matter into a pamphlet of thirty-two pages, which
he published in 1851, under the title of “The Legend of Saint Peter’s Chair. By Anthony Rich, Jun.,
B.A.” To this was prefixed a woodcut of “the Relic called St. Peter's Chair, which, according to the
legend, formerly belonged to a Roman Senator, named Pudens, who presented it (circa a.p. 45) to
St. Peter, from whom it descended as an heirloom to the Vatican Basilica, where it is supposed to be now
preserved” ; together with another engraving of a second chair, alleged to be the one in which St. Peter
sat at Antioch, and now preserved for the edification of the faithful in the Patriarchal Church at Venice.
After all, we know nothing about this marvellous chair, or even whether it is still in existence. According
to Severanus, it refused to burn, and like the lituws of Romulus,* was saved by a miracle, when a
conflagration in the Basilica consumed everything else in its vicinage. But if destroyed, as sceptics
will be too ready to assert, what more easy than to supply its place by one from some Jew broker
in the Ghetto, and so by a pious fraud avoid the loss of such a potent aid to faith? This may have been
the article described by Champollion and Denon, and hence the difference between this and the chair of
which an engraving is given, from the old authorities, by Mr. Rich. Whatever it may actually be, this
triste lignwm is pronounced by Gavazzi “a bit of rotten upholstery, which modern imposture exalts to a
pinnacle of shameless fraud,” and is a fit associate for that statue of Jupiter,—“ Jew Peter,” as some one
has it,—which, consecrated by a Pope, with bronze toe and door-key instead of thunderbolt, receives
the osculations and daily adoration of crowds of ‘ Christians.”

In 1850 Lady Morgan published “ Passages from her Autobiography” (Bentley, 8vo.); after her
death the Fata Morgana were further exposed to view by “The Career, Literary and Personal, of Lady
Morgan. By W. J. Fitzpatrick” (1860, 8vo.); followed. by her “Memoirs, Autobiography, and
Correspondence” (1862, 2 vols. 8vo.).

* Valerius Maximus, lib. i. cap. viii. “De Miraculis,” § ii.
 

 

  

Sas
Lo S>

 

 

 

 

 

THE EDITOR OF THE LITERARY SOUVENIR”

 
 
 
 
   
      
( 161 )

No. 60.—MR. ALARIC ATTILA WATTS.

E are not particularly sure what our friend the Etcher meant by exhibiting Watts in the position

in which he is on the opposite page depicted. The attitude of flying down stairs with a picture

under either arm, and a countenance indicative of caution, is remarkable. Our artist can possibly explain

this, as it is all in his and his brethren’s way. It is their business, and not ours: we know nothing
about it.

When a controversy sprung up some years ago between Alaric Watts and Robert Montgomery, one
of the objects of discussion concerned the names of the distinguished disputants. Watts maintained that
the author of the “Omnipresence” was the son of a clown at Bath, named Gomery; in return,
Montgomery, who, allowing that as Watts was the lawfully begotten son of a respectable nightman of the
name of Joseph Watts, on the New Road, he had a fair title to the patronymic, denied that he had any
claim to the Gothic appellation of Alaric. “The man’s name,” said Montgomery, “is Andrew.”

The Quarterly Reviewer evidently was unaware of the source from which the calumny regarding the
Omnipresent Poet emanated. It is probable that the last-named gentleman has to thank this pseudo-
satirist for more favours than he is aware of.

As to the said “Andrew,” surely it is a matter of no importance. Notwithstanding his many
attempts that way, Watts has scarcely earned the title of ‘Merry Andrew”; his jests being, in sooth, the
most melancholy of all utterances, without being the most musical. We feel bound to add, however, that
it is not very likely, in the usual chances of events, that such names as Alaric Attila Watts should have
met in matrimony with those of Zillah Madonna Wiffen; and an unkind world may suspect a
mystification somewhere, if the scraggiest part of the neck of the world should trouble itself about
such things. For us it is sufficient to know that such a person, whether Andrew -or Alaric, exists as a
scribbling man. He and Bunn began life together in, we think, a medical board off Clarges Street, or
thereabouts, and they have continued to be particular friends ever since. Watts, having a taste for
literature, was employed to write letterpress for the Kit Kat Club, which Croker demolished in quick
time; and we find the ex-secretary refers in one of his articles, in the very last Quarterly, with
satisfaction to the deed. He then got employed in the Leeds Intelligencer, being sped from which, he tried
his hand again in London, and got up a “Souvenir.” It was his merit to improve upon Ackermann,
from whom, however, he stole the idea. He had previously written for Jerdan’s Gazette, in which his chief
occupation was to prove that Lord Byron was no poet. The people in Blackwood, who had some reason
in those days for patronizing Byron, tore the poor Goth to pieces ; and he begged pardon on both knees,
which was graciously granted, on the condition of his becoming flunky to Mr. North—a duty which he
very observantly performed. After floundering about in various speculations in London, he is now head
nurse of an hospital of rickety newspaperlings, which breathe but to die.

He has some talent in writing verses on children dying of colic, and a skill in putting together fiddle-
faddle fooleries which look pretty in print. In other respects he is forty-one years old, of an unwashed
appearance, no particular principles, with well-bitten nails, and a great genius for backbiting. There is
not a man to whom he has been under an obligation,—from Jerdan to Lockhart, from Theodore Hook to
Westmacott, from Andrews to Whittaker, from Crofton Croker to Carter Hall, from Wordsworth to Byron,
from Scott to Southey, from Landseer to Wilkie,—from the man who has fed him from charity to the man
who has from equal charity supported his literary repute, whom he has not, in his poor way, libelled. We
are sorry for it, for his own sake. Such a course redounds to a man’s mischief. His “Souvenir” has
lately, for we doubt not very good reasons, been subjected to changes; and, as mutability and mortality
are yoke-fellows, may ere long, it is probable, undergo the final one. In such case we little anticipate
its immortality elsewhere. The memories committed to its keeping, we are afraid, have a too-fair chance
of perishing. Would it not have been better for him to have avoided slander, gossip, ill-nature, libel,
and scandal, and gone through the world as quietly as we have? Perhaps he may yet mend.

 

NOT ES.

“JT pon’t like that Anaric Ariza Warts !
Whose verses are just like the pans and the pots,
Shining on shelves in a cottager’s kitchen,
Polish’d and prim. Now a greyhound bitch in
The corner,—a cat,—and some empty bottles,
A chubby-faced boy, and the Lord knows what else ;
All taken together’s a picture, which in}
My humble opinion is just as rich in
Domestic detail, without the ‘ what-nots,’
That smooth down the verses of ALAric Warts.”

HESE humorous lines, which we are not desirous of being supposed necessarily to endorse, are
supposed to be sung by Mr. Jesse Morgan, author of the “Reproof of Brutus,” at one of the
x
162 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

Symposiacs, in Fraser's memorable “back-room,” No. 215, Regent-street. There was an old feud,—
probably some newspaper quarrel, between Watts and Maginn. The latter had assisted Watts in the
“« Literary Souvenir,” contributing his beautiful story, “The City of the Demons,” to the volume for 1828,
and his ‘‘ Vision of Purgatory” to that for 1829. Nothing from the “‘ Doctor's” pen appears in the
volumes for 1830 and 1831. In the preface to that of 1832 we find a sort of apology from the editor for
the unusual introduction into such a work, of a “satirical squib.” He adds, “If the general reader be
amused, and the culprit amended, the leading aim of the author will have been achieved. The only persons
who are likely to take offence at any strictures, are those who, from the indifference they are accustomed to
exhibit to the feelings of others, will have but little right to complain.” The satire in question will be
found at page 222; it is entitled “The Conversazione : a Fragment,” and extends to some five hundred
and fifty lines. It touches upon the mutual puffery of Allan Cunningham and the Ettrick Shepherd ; the
lampoons of the “mock-Montgomery”; the novels of Patmore, the “Count Tims” of Blackwood ; the
boozing-matches of Crofton Croker and Maginn, at the “Pig and Whistle”; Hugh Fraser, and his
connection with the Foreign Quarterly ; Bulwer’s satire, “The Siamese Twins” ; the “Literary Union” ;
Churchill (a Fraserian), “ one of the second-hand wits of the mock-Blackwood” ;—cum multis aliis,—and
concludes with the wish that his worst enemies could only see his “rural Tusculum,” with its pictures, its
books, and its busts,—embowered amid apple-blossoms and jasmine-tendrils. The lines on Maginn, which
immediately follow those on Crofton Croker, we must cite :—

“ And, cheek-by-jowl, his brother twin, Nay, rather than his humour balk,
In all but dulness, Pat Maginn ; His mother’s son he’d tomahawk !
Who though he write the LL.D. And so he can but set once more
After his name, will never be His boon companions in a roar,

A whit the graver than he is,— Will scruple not, good-natured elf,
Less fond of drunken ‘ deevilries®; To libel his illustrious self!

Less ready for a vulgar hoax ; A task so difficult, I own,

Addicted less to pot-house jokes ; It can be done by him alone!

And all the rough plebeian horse-play, And yet, to give the devil his due,
He will so oft without remorse play ! He’d neither slander me nor you,
Give him a glass or two of whiskey, From any abstract love of malice,
And in a trice he grows so frisky, But only in his humorous sallies ;

So full of frolic, fun, and satire, For, of his friends he’d lose the best,
So ready dirt around to scatter, Much rather than his vilest jest!”

And so impartial in his blows,
They fall alike on friends and foes;

There are no bones broken here, it is true, but the sword was fairly drawn. The “ Literary Souvenir ”
was commenced in 1824 ; Mr. Watts, then engaged at Leeds in the conduct of the Intelligencer, having
been invited by Hurst, Robinson, & Co., of London, to co-operate with them in the publication of an
annual volume on the plan of the well-known German Literary Almanacks or Pocket-books. The editor
certainly manifested great judgment in the selection of pictures by the first artists for the engravings, and
the accompanying sketches, in prose and poetry, from the most popular writers of the day. The enterprise
was eminently successful, the sale of some of the volumes amounting to 14,000 or 15,000 copies. Ten
volumes of the “Literary Souvenir” were published between 1824 and 1834. In 1835 the Annual
appeared in aslightly modified form, under the title of the ‘Cabinet of Modern Art,” of which three volumes
only were published. If the illustrations and text of these and similar volumes be not, according to modern
notions, of the most elevated character, they had at least a tendency to refine and instruct ; andif Mr. Watts
is correct in estimating the amount expended by him in bringing them out, during these fourteen years, at
£50,000, it must be admitted that he has rendered important services to art and literature. It would appear
that, in the latter part of its career, the sale of this annual had fallen off. Mr. Watts chose to attribute
this to a quiz upon it in Fraser's Mayazine, which purported to be writen by an exiled Pole, who rejoiced
in the name of “ Quaffy-punchovics.” He was, moreover, irate at the metamorphosis of his second Christian
name from “Alexander” to “ Attila” ; but this was an old joke of Lockhart, who, perceiving that he
always signed himself “ Alaric A. Watts,” thought that the second name should match the first, and
supplied the Gothic appellation, by which he was thenceforth always known. He chose, too, to construe
his portrait in the “Gullery,” into an attempt to imply that he had been guilty of the felonious abstraction
of pictures ; and the hints of a “ mystification” in his matrimonial relations as ap insinuation that his union
with “Zillah Madonna” was not of a moral character. All this will not be very apparent to the reader,
who may think, too, that Watts had provoked attack. But Jeremy Bentham defined a “libel” to be “ any-
thing which any man may think may, in any way, annoy him”; and so Mr. Watts thought he had grounds
for an action. The case accordingly came on, December 5th, 1835, in the King’s Bench, Westminster,
before Lord Denman and a special jury. Fraser was ably defended by Mr. Erle, K.C., whose speech will
be found in extenso in Fraser's Magazine for January, 1836, the result being a verdict for the defendants
on the first count,—for the plaintiff on the second count : — Damages, One Hundred and Fifty Pounds.
The defendants, upon this, applied for a new trial, and obtained a rule nist ; but upon the case being heard
in banco, some five or six terms afterwards, the trial was refused on a technical point.

A. A. Watts was born in London, March 19th, 1797. Before he adopted literature as a profession,
we believe that he was employed as a private tutor. In 1823 he published an elegant little volume of
poetry, entitled “Poetical Sketches,” of which a private impression had been in circulation during the

 
“FAUST!

VE THIER’S

 

     

      

     

 

    

     

: AY AS - ‘ a
ERS 5
lew : ? SS es me
a) S |
UU)
“a Hit t

th Hii

OTH |

   

ul

ll

"4
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 163

preceding year. This volume became very popular, and five editions, at least, were sold. In Leeds he
lived for three years, as editor of the Intelligencer; proceeding thence to Manchester to establish the
Manchester Courier. Tn 1827 he was invited to co-operate with Mr. Charles Baldwin and Dr. Giffard in
the establishment of the Standard; and in 1833 set on foot the United Service Gazette. Quarrels with his
partner in this led to Chancery suits, with ruinous results to both parties. He then resumed his relations
with the Stundard, and in 1847 gave up all connection with the newspaper press. We believe that it was
with Mr. Watts that the system originated of printing parts of newspapers in the metropolis, and forward-
ing them to various parts of the country, according to order, to be filled up with local advertisements
and news.

In 1850 he published a very charming volume, worthy of a place by the side of the “Italy” and the
“Poems” of Rogers. This was entitled “Lyrics of the Heart, and other Pyems.” It contained forty-one line
engravings, after Lawrence, Stothard, Leslie, &c., and was issued with “plain” and “ proof” impressions,
to suit the taste or pocket of purchasers. In this are reprinted the earlier poems, two of which—“ The
Death of the Firstborn,” and “My Own Fiveside,” excited the warm commendation of Sir Robert Peel,
who wrote to the author that “to have written these would be an honourable distinction to any one.”
Eighteen years later, the recollection of these poems induced the great statesman to place at the disposal of
the poet a Treasury appointment for his son, and to continue his interest till his lamented death. In 1853
a pension of £100 per annum was conferred upon Mr. Watts by her Majesty, “in consideration of services
rendered by him to literature and the fine arts.” This, together with an appointment in the Income-tax
Department of Somerset House, rendered easy the latter years of his life. He died at Kensington,
April 5th, 1864, in the sixty-eighth year of his age.

As we have mentioned Mrs. Zillah Madonna Watts,—herself a poetess,—it may be well to record
that she was the youngest sister of J. H. Wiffen, the well-known translator of Tasso, and Garcillasso de la
Vega, and for many years private secretary and librarian to the Duke of Bedford.

 

No. 61—LORD FRANCIS EGERTON.

T has been laid down by the sage O’Doherty, “ That the man who writes anything, except for money, is
an Ass”; but, granting that the rule is a sound one, we are disposed to consider Lord Francis Egerton
as an exception. This littérateur has, we believe, a small competency of about £90,000 per annum, with
Bridgewater House for a pied-d-terre here in town,—Oatlands, hallowed by the recollections of Mary Anne
Clarke and black-eyed Mercandotti, for a box, and we know not how many cool old chateaux, for autumnal
recreation, in the provinces, besides. He is, moreover, an indefatigable M.P., and, in spite of the bad
example of his brother the duke, a sturdy Tory ; likewise he is a good fellow, fully alive to all the delights
of society, from “wine and women,” up to “sermons and soda-water.” He is, accordingly, a general
favourite with all classes whose favour is most to be coveted,—with Theodore Hook and the wits,—with
A. B.C. X.Y. Z%., and the beauties, and with Howley, Philpotts, Carr, and all the other ornaments
of the episcopal bench. And being himself witty, good -humoured, a tall man of his inches, as
handsome a fellow as you can pick out in the round town, in the very flower and vigour of his days too
(anno etat. 35), and a most stanch and pious disciple of Mother Church, to say nothing of his having the
best) cook in London after Ude, there can be little doubt that he might enjoy all the aforesaid honours and
luxuries, even had he never incurred the smallest risk of blotting his fingers by anything more serious than
a sonnet in an album, or an autograph upon Duchess Coutts. Yet his lordship is rather a voluminous
author ; and, nevertheless, and notwithstanding, that we dare swear he never extracted one copper from
the till of John Murray, he is on no account to be numbered, like the Morpeths, Mulgraves, and Johnny
Russells, among that mighty army of paper-consumers, whose claim to come under the Linnean class Asryus
it would be a violation of conscience to disallow. :

In fact, laying Byron and Mahon aside, we look upon the youth opposite as the most decent lord-
author of this generation. His “ Faust,” notwithstanding all that has been done in prose by Hayward, and
in verse by Anster, to say nothing of such brainless and tuneless ragamufiins as Blackie, Syme, &e. d&c., his
“Faust” holds its place. We are inclined to the opinion lately expressed by Heraud, or Wordsworth, or
Taylor, or some other first-rate poet, that from no other one éranslation would a stranger to the German
tongue form so high a notion of old Goethe’s merits. The lyrics are really beautiful ; and the whole story
of poor Margaret is brought out so as to fill the heart, if you have one, and the eyes, if you be under
seventeen.

His own best verses are those on the fée at Boyle Farm—then the “ proud alcove” of the De Rooses

x 2
 

164 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

but now dignified by the learned leisure of Sir Edward Bugdenshaw Sugden, Knt. Others, in a similar
vein, are diffused over the boudoirs of Mayfair—rivalling in acceptation the tip-top felicities of Praed,
Fitzgerald, Lady Blessington, and Mrs. Blackwood. Quid datur ultra?

The solemn labour of translating Raumer’s “ History of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries ”
is, we believe, the last of his lordship’s literary achievements, and we beg to offer him our respectful thanks
for the same; though, if ever we come to have the third part of his rental, we shall patiently submit
to hear all the world braying at us upon our successful termination of any similar exploit.

We see by the papers that our lord has just set up a yacht. On this head we feel more disposed
to sympathize with his taste. By all means let him enjoy his princely fortune in every possible shape
and fashion,—dance, ride, sail ; for the evil days are at hand, and behold Bridgewater House will lie very
convenient for his serenity the Second or Third Consul,—Joe Hume or Charlie Buller, to wit ; while
beneath the gilded ceilings of Oatlands will resound the Babylonian melodies of your brother translator,
Bowring, who, after all, would hardly be more absurd as a Secretary of State than the noble subject of
this essay would as “the English master” in some Hamburg gymnasium. Yes, Lord Francis, live and
lie fallow !—let ede, bibe, Jude, be the word for the present. There will be time enough for authorship ; and
who knows but WE, unassailable by revolutions, may have the satisfaction of bolstering you up occasionally
by our certain guineas per sheet in due season.

NOL ES.

T is by the translation of “Faust” that this noble author,—known in those days as Lord Francis
Leveson Gower,—is best known. But if this “held its place ” in the year of grace 1835, it certainly
does not in 1873. It, perchance, did some service in its day as a pioneer, when German was but little
cultivated, and ‘‘ Faust” regarded as obscure as the “Cassandra” of Lycophron. It was lauded to the
skies in the Quarterly Rewiew ; and Blackwood (July, 1823) bedaubed it with extravagant praise, and quoted
the worst passages to justify it. But Goethe himself told Dr. Granville that the noble translator could
only have won approbation as author of Faustus travesti, so completely did he “overset” the tragedy
itself; and Mr. A. Hayward, in his most excellent prose translation, has, once for all, demolished any
pretensions to accuracy of this preceding metrical version. Of its author, Mr. Hayward says, “A
combination of circumstances has enabled him to cast a blot on the fame of the original, which nothing but
the most unsparing exposure can efface”; and adds, in face of the warm eulogy of A. W. von Schlegel, that
“considered as a whole, Lord F. Gower’s translation is about as unfaithful as a translation can be ; and
that, far from bringing to his task a thorough knowledge of the language of his original, he has hardly
construed any two consecutive passages aright.” There is no doubt that this allegation is true. Passages
are wholly omitted,—by which an immoral or irreligious tendency is given to the poem, which it does not
possess; other parts are mutilated, and their meaning misconstrued; and innumerable words are
erroneously translated. On the whole, therefore, we regard it as unfortunate that Lord Egerton was first
in the field. His rank and wealth,—his reputation for taste and talent,—and the belief which was
entertained of the profundity of his German acquirements,—all gave his translation a fictitious currency,
and kept men out of the field, who might have discharged the task with greater ability.
Lord Francis Egerton was born January Ist, 1800. In 1846 he was raised to the peerage as Earl
of Ellesmere, and died February 18th, 1857.

 

DELICI ZA.

LE GRENIER. THE GARRET.

JE viens revoir l’asyle ot ma jeunesse
De la misére a subi les legons ;
J’avais vingt ans, une folle maitresse,
De francs amis, et amour des chansons :
Bravant le monde, et les sots, et les sages,
Sans avenir, riche de mon printemps,
Leste et joyeux, je montais six étages—
Dans un grenier qu’on est bien 4 vingt ans!

I REVIsIr once more the abode, where in youth
I felt the harsh schooling of poverty long ;
I was twenty years old,—had a mistress, forsooth,
Frank, jovial friends, and the solace of song;
Defying the world, with its sages and asses,
In life’s spring I feared not the winter of years ;
On the sixth floor my room,—yet the time gaily passes—
A garret at twenty a palace appears !

’Tis a garret, I care not though all the world know it;
My bed, too, I nought but a truckle could call;

And there stood my table,—and see where the poet
Has charcoal’d three lines of a verse on the wall.

Reappear, then, ye pleasures, that gilded life’s dawn,

C’est un grenier, point ne veux qu’on ignore ;
La fut mon lit, bien chétlf et bien dur;
Li fut ma table; et je retrouve encore
Trois pieds d’un vers charbonnés sur le mur.
Apparaissez, plaisirs de mon bel age,

Que d’un coup @’aile a fustigés le temps !
Vingt fois pour vous j’ai mis ma montre en gage—
Dans un grenier qu’on est bien 4 vingt ans!

As ye cleave in quick flight the long vista of years;
For you twenty times has my watch been in pawn—

A garret at twenty a palace appears!

a
            

|
i

  

ROUND TOWERS OF IRELAND.

mi

 

,

ae

AUTHOR OF THE

 

 

 
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 165

Lisette ici doit sur-tout apparaitre,
Vive, jolie, avec un frais chapeau;
Déja sa main & Vétroite fendtre
Suspend son schall en guise de rideau ;
Sa robe aussi va parer ma couchette—
Respecte Amour! ses plis longs et flottants ;
J’ai su depuis qui payait sa toilette — .
Dans un grenier qu’on est bien 4 vingt ans!

A table un jour, jour de grande richesse,
De mes amis les voix brillaient en chcour,

Quand jusqu’ici monte un cri d’allégresse,
Qu’’ Marengo Bonaparte est vainqueur !

Le canon gronde—un autre chant commence—
Nous célébrons tant de faits éclatants ;

Les rois jamais n’envahiront la France—
Dans un grenier qu’on est bien 4 vingt ans !

Quittons ce toit, ob ma raison s’enivre—

Oh, qu’ils sont loin ces jours si regrettés !
J’échangerai ce qu’il me reste 4 vivre

Contre un des jours qu’ici Dieu m’a comptés.
Pour réver gloire, amour, plaisir, folie,

Pour dépenser sa vie en peu d’instants,
D’un long espoir pour la voir embellie—

Dans un grenier qu’on est bien 4 vingt ans!

BERANGER,

Lisette, before all, on the spot I invoke ;—
Smart, pretty, coquettishly clad as of yore;
I fancy I see her extending her cloak,
Or shaw], curtain-fashion, the window before.
Her gown for my couch a gay coverlet made,
Its long flowing folds gentle Cupid reveres ;
It’s been whisper’d me since who the milliner paid ;—
A garret at twenty a palace appears !:

One day I’d a ‘‘ spread,” for my purse was well lined,
And we merrily push’d round the song and the story;
When we hear the huzzahs of glad voices combined ;
Of Marengo they tell, and Napoleon’s glory.
The cannons roar forth,—we could never sit mute,
We chant the high deed that the warrior endears ;
The foreigner’s step ne’er our land shall pollute ;—
A garret at twenty a palace appears !

Come! the air with a maddening enchantment is rife ;
Oh! how far are those hours to remembrance so dear ;
I'd willingly give all the rest of my life
For but one of the days God allotted me here.
With glory’s bright dream ; with love, pleasure, and joy ;
With life’s rapid flight, ’mid its hopes and its fears ;
With the future, whose promise in youth we enjoy ;—
A garret at twenty a palace appears !
Eprror.

 

No. 62:—HENRY O'BRIEN.

N the village graveyard of Hanwell (ad viti. ab Urbe lapidem) sleeps the original of yonder sketch, and
the rude forefathers of the Saxon hamlet have consented to receive among them the clay of a
Milesian scholar. That “original” was no stranger to us. Some time back we had our misgivings
that the oil in his flickering lamp of life would soon dry up ; still we were not prepared to hear of his
light being thus abruptly extinguished. ‘One morn we missed him” from the accustomed table at the
library of the British Museum, where the page of antiquity awaited his perusal ; “another came—nor
yet” was he to be seen behind the pile of “Asiatic Researches,” poring over his favourite Herodotus, or
deep in the Zendevesta. “The next” brought tidings of his death,—

“ Au banquet de la vie infortuné convive,
J’apparus un jour, et je meurs ;
Je meurs, et sur la tombe oti jeune encore j’arrive,
Nul ne viendra verser des pleurs.”

His book on the “ Round Towers” has thrown more light on the early history of Ireland, and on -the
Freemasonry of these gigantic puzzles than will ever shine from the cracked pitchers of the ‘“ Royal Irish
Academy,” or the farthing candle of Tommy Moore. And it was quite natural that he should have received
from them, during his lifetime, such tokens of malignant hostility as might sufficiently “tell how they
hated his beams.” The “ Royal Irish” twaddlers must surely feel some compunction now, when they look
back on their paltry transactions in the matter of the “ prize essay” ; and though we do not expect much
from such an emasculate specimen of humanity, still it would not surprise us if ‘Tom Brown the
younger,” or “Tom Little,” the author of sundry Tomfudgeries and Tomfooleries, were to atone for his
individual misconduct in a white sheet, or a “blue and yellow” blanket, when next he walks abroad in
that rickety go-cart of drivelling dotage, the Edinburgh Review.

While Cicero was questor in Sicily, he discovered in the suburbs of Syracuse the neglected grave of
Archimedes, from the circumstance of a symbolical cylinder indicating the pursuits and favourite theories
of the illustrious dead. Great was his joy at the recognition. No emblem will mark the sequestered spot
where lies the CEdipus of the Round Tower riddle—no hieroglyphic,—

‘Save daisies on the mould
Where children spell, athwart the churchyard gate,
His name and life’s brief date.”
166 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

But if you wish for monuments to his memory, go to his native land, and there—circumspice /—
Glendalough, Devenish, Clondalkin, Innisscattery, rear their architectural cylinders; and each, through
those mystic apertures that face the cardinal points, proclaims to the four winds of heaven, trumpet-
tongued, the name of him who solved the problem of 3,000 years, and who first disclosed the drift of these
erections !

Fame, in the Latin poet’s celebrated personification, is described as perched

“ Sublimi culmine tecti
Turribus aut altis.’”— Aneid IV.

That of O'B. is pre-eminently so circumstanced. From these proud pinnacles nothing can dislodge his
renown. Moore, in the recent pitiful compilation meant for “a history,” talks of these monuments as being
so many “astronomical indexes.” He might as well have said they were tubes for the purposes of
gastronomy. ’Tis plain he knew as little about their origin as he may be supposed to know of the “‘ hanging
tower of Pisa,” or the “torre degli asinelli,” or how the nose of the beloved resembled the tower of
Damascus,

Concerning the subject of this memoir, suffice it to add that he was born in the kingdom of Iveragh,
graduated in T.C.D. (having been classically “brought up at the feet of” the Rev. Charles Boyton) ; and
fell a victim here to the intense ardour with which he pursued the antiquarian researches that he loved.

“ Kerria me genuit; ytudia, heu! rapuere; tenet nune
Anglia : sed patriam turrigeram cecini.”

 

WOOF ES.

HE preceding beautiful tribute to the memory of the young Irish antiquary is reprinted among the

“Reliques of Father Prout” (Bohn’s ed., p. 162), as the production of the “functionary who

exhibits the ‘literary characters,’” and this we believe to have been, for the nonce, the incumbent of
Watergrasshill himself. ;

Henry O’Brien was a native of the county of Kerry, and was educated at Trinity College, Dublin,
where he graduated B.A. in 1831. Having proceeded to London, he applied himsclf to the preparation
for the press of the essay by which he is best known. This was written in competition for a prize, offered
by the Royal Irish Academy, for the best dissertation on the subject. He was not successful in obtaining
the prize, but his essay was considered so learned and ingenious, that the Society awarded a pecuniary
recompense to its author. With this the latter was not content, and an angry correspondence ensued.

In 1833, the “ Essay,” greatly enlarged, and with illustrative embellishments, made its appearance.
It was entitled: “The Round Towers -of Ireland; or, the History of the Tuath-de-Danaans (being the
Mysteries of Freemasonry, of Sabaism, and of Budhism), for the first time unveiled” (2nd ed., 1834, 8vo.).

The theory expounded in this volume is that the Round Towers of Ireland were Temples constructed
by the early Indian colonists of the country in honour of the fructifying principle of Nature, emanating,
as was supposed, from the Sun, under the denominations of Sol, Phoebus, Apollo, Abad, or Budh, é&c., and
from the moon, under the epithets of Luna, Diana, Juno, Astarte, Venus, Babia, or Batsee, &c. This it
was that excited the religious worship of the Egyptians and Greeks, as symbolized by the obscene
Phallos ; and by the Indians, under the form of the not less indecent Lingam. This, also, was the origin
and design of the most ancient Pagodas of the East; of the Phallic tower, of extraordinary height, of
which Lucian speaks, as existing in Syria*; and of the two pillars of molten brass, which Hiram, king of
Tyre, set up in the porch of the Temple of Solomon.t

There was a controversy between O’Brien and Thomas Moore, the latter of whom, according to “ Prout,”
who said he had the correspondence before him, “ negotiated by letter with O’Brien, to extract his brains,
and make use of him for his meditated ‘History of Ireland.’” We do not know what came of the matter.
O’Brien charged Moore with adopting his ideas without acknowledgment ; and Moore accused O’Brien of
plagiarism from the “Nimrod” of the Hon. Reginald Herbert (Lond., 1826), whose leading idea is that?
the Round Towers were erected as fire-altars, an altogether different theory.

Some remarks on the “ Pillar Towers” will be found in the Gentleman’s Magazine; and a letter, in
defence of the view there taken, was addressed by him to “ Mr. Urban,” in the same serial, vol. ii. p. 365.

On June 28th, 1835, at the early age of thirty-five, Mr. O’Brien was found dead in his bed, at the
Hermitage, Hanwell, the house of a friend, where he had spent the preceding day; and he lies buried in
the churchyard of that village. He had for some time held the situation of tutor in the family of the
Master of the Rolls; had been presented at court; and received as a guest at Lansdowne House.

Maclise has commemorated the early death of the young Irishman by a fine etching, in the “ Reliques
of Father Prout,” reminding us, in its sentiment, of the picture of the “ Death of Chatterton.”

* “De Ded Syria.” + 1 Kings vii.
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 167

DELICIA.

The following humorous doggrel, which is supposed from internal evidence to be from the pen of
Dr. Maginn, was printed in the National Omnibus, January 13th, 1832, p. 14.

EPITAPH ON A FAIR PATIENT OF ST. JOHN LONG’S.

Hic jacet in terris Medicus? Nequaquam,
Pulchra puella ; Sed pictor signorum,
Voluit esse melior In Tipperaria
Dum fuit wella. Inops bonorum.
Que causa mortis Nunc dives auri
Infelix virgo P Sedet sublimis,
Aqua fortis In curru, celebratus
Urens a tergo! Prosa atque rhymis !
Quantum quantitate P Quee tante fame
Nescio sane. Fuit origo ?
Attamen vixero, Venter solutus
Si non any ! Marchionis de Sligo!
Quis administravit ? Nunc particeps alter
Sanctus Johannes ! Dementize vestree P
Quibus recommendatus ? Imo, sane, fuit
Plurimis Zanies ! Dominus Ingestrie.
Quis fuit ille Ah! virgo infelix!
Johannes preefatus ; Tui quam miseresco !
O’Driscoll Billy Sine sheetis aut blankets,
Olim nuncupatus ! Dormientis al fresco!

Ah! virgo infelix,.
Hic intus jace
In longum a Longo,
Requiescas in pace!
SPUNGE.

At the lapse of nearly half a century, a short notice of the extraordinary medical charlatan whose
doings form the subject of the foregoing macaronics, may be neither needless nor uninteresting. St. JoHn
Lone was the son of an Irish basket-maker, and practised, in his early days, with some success, as a
portrait-painter in Limerick. Coming to London, he obtained employment in the studio of Sir Thomas
Lawrence, and was elected a member of the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Asiatic Society.
By-and-by, devoting his attention to the preparation of anatomical drawings for the medical profession, he
picked up some knowledge of the human frame, and was induced to think that the practice of medicine
offered a fairer employment for his abilities, than the prosecution of the fine arts. Acting upon this
conviction, he invented an embrocation and a vapour, which, by means of friction in the one case, and
inhalation in the other, were to cure all human diseases. He took a large house in Harley Street ; and
both this, and the street itself, were speedily blocked up with wealthy patients and their carriages ; his
income amounting in one year, as was said, to the enormous sum of £13,400.* At length, in 1830, a
young lady, who had been frightened by the quack’s prediction that she would fall into a decline, allowed
him to apply the embrocation to her back. A frightful wound was the result, from the exhausting effects
of which, although Sir Benjamin Brodie was summoned to the rescue, the unfortunate victim sank, in her
25th year. An inquest was held; when, in spite of enormous interest to divert justice from its course, a
verdict of manslaughter was given against the charlatan. A similar result followed his appearance in the
dock of the Old Bailey, when, instead of being imprisoned, he was fined £250; a sum which he paid
immediately, and left the court in the carriage of Lord Sligo. Resuming his practice, which was in no
degree impaired by this catastrophe, another fatal case soon occurred, in the person of a Mrs. Lloyd. A
coroner’s jury once more found him guilty of manslaughter ; but he was, this time, acquitted at the Old
Bailey. So important and fuvourable was the evidence adduced on these trials, that his popularity seemed
rather increased than otherwise. The profession, itself, came forward to defend him ; and an anonymous
pamphleteer (1831) compared his cures to those of Jesus Christ. He retained his practice till his death,—
an event which was not long in arriving. It was not exactly, perhaps, one of those cases so delightful to
witness, of the “engineer hoist on his own petard,” when consumption, the very disease which he professed
the most successfully to combat, cut short his career, in the thirty-eighth year of his age, in the enjoyment
of an income of fully £5,000 per annum. An imposing monument in Kensal Green Cemetery records, in
a fulsome inscription, his ‘remedial discovery,” and provokes comparison with the pompous sepulchres

of Ducrow the Hippodamist, and Morison the Hygeist.

* This statement is made, apparently on good authority, in the Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. xix. (1843), p. 139.
 

( 168 )

No. 63.—MICHAEL THOMAS SADLER.

HERE is a sadness, not unmitigated, indeed, but not the less deep and lasting, connected with our

personal memorial for the present month.

Sapter is dead—MicyaEn Tuomas Sapiter! He who truly earned, and without the least
descent into cant or affectation, the title of the poor man’s friend |

His career as a public man has been short, but it has been long enough to leave a name that will not
soon be forgotten. Many’ men have, in a period equally short, gained more distinction, and far better
served themselves,—Macaulay, to wit,—but few have realized or deserved equal honour.

The secret of his Parliamentary career was briefly this: instead of coming there, like many others,
with an empty head but a voluble tongue,—with wit, and repartee, and smartness, and party audacity,—
Sadler came there with his mind and heart overcharged with schemes and plans for the good of the working
classes. During the whole time of his attendance on the House of Commons, politics, properly so called,
did not occupy the tithe of his time or his thoughts. He was ever brooding over some scheme for the
relief of the Irish poor, or the bettering the state of our own agriculturists, or the emancipation of the
infant slaves of our factories. His range of topics was entirely his own ; and as they were ever crossing
and thwarting the common current of daily politics, it was no wonder that he became reckoned, by the
dandies of the House, as an odd and impracticable sort of a fellow.

His manner, too, of dealing with these topics, had the fault of Burke and of Mackintosh,—it was the
style and manner of a student, of one who had gone to the bottom of his subject, and who insisted on
taking with him even those careless or reluctant hearers who had hardly patience to skim the surface for a
few moments.

Yet, with all these disadvantages against him, he was appreciated by the excellent among the people.
Scarcely during his absence from Parliament could a vacancy occur, in any place having a respectable
constituency, without his being the first name mentioned. The applications he was perpetually receiving,
and from places such as Bath and Marylebone, were not to be reckoned by units, but by scores.

His fame, however, is of a higher class than that of a Parliamentarian. His was the hand which, after
a hundred fruitless attempts, and those by men of no mean rank—his was the hand that threw down, and
broke to pieces, and stamped into powder, that Moloch principle, long worshipped as an idol by many, of
the superfecundity of the human species. The Malthusian theory was by him, at once and for ever,
put an end to. It is true that the numerous disciples of that heresy will still adhere to it “for the term
of their natural lives.” But it is now a detected imposture, and its fate is sealed.

The public life of Mr. Sadler may be reckoned to have fallen within the last eight years. His great
work, on the “ Evils of Ireland, and their Remedies,”—a book which has been publicly declared by political
opponents to be “the best ever written on that subject,” was published in 1827. He entered Parliament
in 1829, and retired from it at the dissolution in December, 1832. His labours had then so far aided a
constitutional malady, as to have excited the anxious apprehensions of his friends ; but within the last
.year the symptoms of its advance became unquestionable. His age was, we believe, about fifty-four or
fifty-five.

He was a man of rare natural endowments, and of extraordinary accomplishments ; but these qualities
could only be known, in their variety, to his private circle and friends. His enthusiastic devotion to the
welfare of the poor was the leading feature of his character ; and in this point his value was felt and appre-
ciated by the people generally. We perceive that the men of Leeds are claiming the honour of rearing and
possessing his monument. But there must be a record of his labours and his doings, of a more extensive
and durable character than a local column, or tablet, or statue. Seldom has a nobler subject for the pen of
the biographer been afforded, and we are glad to hear that it will not be allowed to pass unnoticed.

NOT 2 eB.

»

HE career of Micnarn Tuomas Saver was so entirely political, that we shall not find it necessary

to add much to the fine tribute to his memory and character which accompanies his portrait. He was

born at Snelston, a village in the south of Derbyshire, in January, 1780. He was educated principally at

Rome, and made great proficiency in the mathematical sciences at a very early age. He died at New
Lodge, near Belfast, July 29th, 1835, in the fifty-sixth year of his age.
 

AUTHOR OF "THE LAW OF POPULATION,
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 169

WE shall take advantage of the space at our disposal to offer to our readers the rare poem, by CHARLES
Lamp, of which we made mention in our “ Notes” upon that charming genius.

SATAN IN SEARCH OF A WIFE;

WITH THE WHOLE PROCESS OF HIS COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE, AND WHO DANCED AT THE WEDDING.
BY AN EYE-WITNESS.

Lonpon: EDWARD MOXON, 64, NEW BOND STREET.

MDCCCXXXI.

Price One Shilling.

DEDICATION.

To delicate bosoms that have sighed over the “‘ Loves of the Angels,” this poem is with tenderest regard consecrated.
It can be no offence to you, dear Ladies, that the author has endeavoured to extend the dominion of your darling passion ;
to show Love triumphant in places to which his advent has never yet been suspected. If one Cecilia drew an angel down,
another may have leave to attract a Spirit upwards; which, I am sure, was the most desperate adventure of the two.
Wonder not at the inferior condition of the agent; for if King Cophetua wooed a beggar-maid, a greater king need not
scorn to confess the attractions of a fair tailor’s daughter. The more disproportionate the rank, the more signal is the glory
of your sex. Like that of Hecate, a triple empire is now confessed your own. Nor Heaven, nor Harth, nor deepest tracts
of Erebus, as Milton hath it, have power to resist your sway. I congratulate your last victory. You have fairly made an
Honest Man of the Old One; and if your conquest is late, the success must be salutary. The new Benedict has employment
enough on his hands to desist from dabbling with the affairs of poor mortals; he may fairly leave human nature to herself ;
and we may sleep for one while at least secure from the attacks of the hitherto restless Old Bachelor. It remains to be
seen whether the world will be much benefited by the change in his condition.

PART THE FIRST.

I. VIII.
Tae Devil was sick and queasy of late, “O mother, dear, I am dying, I fear ;
And his sleep and his appetite fail’d him ; Prepare the yew and the willow,
His ears they hung down, and his tail it was clapp’d And the cypress black; for I get no ease
Between his poor hoofs, like a dog that’s been rapp’d,-— By day or by night for the curséd fleas,
None knew what the devil ail’d him. That skip about my pillow.”
Il. , IX.
He tumbled and toss’d on his mattress o’ nights, “Your pillow is clean, and your pillow-beer,
That was fit for a fiend’s disportal ; For I wash’d ’em in Styx last night, son,
For ’twas made of the finest of thistles and thorn, And your blankets both, and dried them upon
Which Alecto herself had gather’d in scorn The brimstony banks of Acheron ;—
Of the best down beds that are mortal. It is not the fleas that bite, son.”
Ill. X.
His giantly chest in earthquakes heaved, “Oh, I perish of cold these bitter sharp nights,
With groanings corresponding ; The damp like an ague ferrets ;
And mincing and few were the words he spoke, The ice and the frost hath shot into the bone ;
While a sigh, like some delicate whirlwind broke And I care not greatly to sleep alone
From a heart that seem’d desponding. O’ nights for the fear of Spirits.”
Iv. XI.
Now the Devil an old wife had for his dam, “The weather is warm, my own sweet boy,
I think none e’er was older ; And the nights are close and stifling ;
Her years,—old Parr’s were nothing to them ; And for fearing of Spirits, you cowardly elf—
And a chicken to her was Methusalem, Have you quite forgot you’re a Spirit yourself ?
You’d say, could you behold her. Come, come, I see you are trifling.
v. xm.
She remember’d Chaos a little child, “T wish my Nicky is not in love ?—
Strumming upon hand-organs ; “OQ, mother, you have nick’d it” ;
At the birth of Old Night a gossip she sat, And he turn’d his head aside with a blush,—
The ancientest there, and was godmother at Not red-hot pokers or crimson plush
The christening of the Gorgons. Could half so deep have prick’d it.
VI. XIII.
Her bones peep’d through a rhinoceros’ skin “These twenty thousand good years or more,’
Like a mummy’s through its cerement ; Quoth he, “on this burning shingle
But she had a mother’s heart and guess’d I have led a lonesome bachelor’s life,
What pinch’d her son, whom she thus address’ Nor known the comfort of babe or wife ;—
In terms that bespoke endearment :— ’Tis a long time to live single.”
VII. XIV.
“ What ails my Nicky, my darling Imp, Quoth she, “If a wife is all you want,
My Lucifer bright, my Beelzie ? I shall quickly dance at your wedding.
My Pig, my Pug-with-a-curly-tail, I am dry nurse, you know, to the female ghosts ’’—
You are not well. Can a mother fail And she call’d up her charge, and they came in hosts
To see that which all Hell see?” To do the old beldam’s bidding.
170 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

xv.
All who in their lives bad been servants of sin,—
Adulteress, wench, virago,—
And murd’resses old that had pointed the knife
Against a husband’s or father’s life,
Each one a She Iago.

XVI.
First Jezebel came,—no need of paint
Or dressing to make her charming ;
For the blood of the old prophetical race
Had heighten’d the natural flush of her face
To a pitch ’bove rouge or carmine.

XVII.
Semiramis then low tender’d herself,
With all Babel for a dowry ;
With Helen, the flower and the bane of Greece,
And bloody Medea next offer’d her fleece,
That was of Hell the houri.

XVIII.
Clytemnestra, with Joan of Naples, put in;
Cleopatra, by Antony quicken’d,
Jocasta, that married where she should not,
Came, hand in hand with the daughters of Lot,
Till the Devil was fairly sicken’d.

e XIX.
For the Devil himself, a dev’! as he is,
Disapproves unequal matches.
“OQ mother,” he cried, “‘ despatch them hence !
No Spirit,—I speak it without offence,—
Shall have me in her hatches.”

XX,
With a wave of her hand they all were gone;
And now came out the slaughter :
“Tis none of these that can serve my turn ;
For a wife of flesh and blood I burn,—
I’m in love with a tailor’s daughter.

XXL
“Tig she must heal the wounds that she made,
*Tis she must be my physician.
O parent mild, stand not my foe”’;
For his mother had whisper’d something low
About “ matching beneath his condition.”

XXII.
“ And then we must get paternal consent,
Or an unblest match may vex ye ”—
“Her father is dead ; I fetch’d him away,
In the midst of his goose, last Michaelmas-day—
He died of an apoplexy.

XXII.
“ His daughter is fair, and an only heir,—
With her I long to tether,—
He has left her his hell, and all that he had ;
The estates are contiguous, and I shall be mad
Till we lay our two Hells together.”

XXIV.
“But how do you know the fair maid’s mind ?”
Quoth he, “ Her loss was but recent ;
And I could not speak my mind, you know,
Just when I was fetching her father below ;—
It would hardly have been decent.

XXv.
“ But a tear from her eye, where Cupids lie,
Of love gave proof apparent ;
And from something she dropp’d I shrewdly ween’d,
In her heart she judged that a living Fiend
Was better than a dead parent.

XXVIL
“But the time is short, and suitors may come
While I stand here-reporting ;
Then make your son a bit of a beau,
And give me your blessing before I go
To the other world a-courting.”

XXVIL.
© But what will you do with your horns, my son ?
And that tail,—fair maids will mock it”—
“ My tail I will dock, and as for the horn,
Like husbands above, I think no scorn
To carry it in my pocket.”

XXVIII.
“But what will you do with your feet, my son ?”
“ Here are stockings fairly woven:
My hoofs will I hide in silken hose ;
And cinnamon-sweet are my pettitoes—
Because, you know, they are cloven.”

XXIX. |
“Then take a blessing, my darling son,”
Quoth she, and kiss’d him civil ;
Then his neckcloth she tied ; and when he was dress’d
From top to toe in his Sunday’s best,
He appear’d a comely devil.

XXX.
So he took his leave :—but how he fared
In his courtship,—barring failures,—
In a Second Part you shall read it soon,
In a bran-new song, to be sung to the tune
Of the “ Devil among the Tailors.”

PART THE SECOND.

CONTAINING THE COURTSHIP AND THE WEDDING. .

1.
Woo is she that by night from her balcony looks
On a garden where cabbage is springing ?
Tis the tailor’s fair lass, that we told of above;
She muses by moonlight on her true love;
So sharp is Cupid’s stinging.

I.
She has caught a glimpse of the Prince of the Air
In his Luciferian splendour,
And away with coyness and maiden reserve !
For none but the Devil her turn will serve,
Her sorrows else will end her.

Il.
She saw when he fetch’d her father away,
And the sight no whit did shake her.
For the Devil may sure with his own make free ;
And “it saves besides,” quoth merrily she,
“The expense of an undertaker.

Iv.
“Then come, my Satan, my darling Sin,
Return to my arms, my hell-beau ;
My Prince of Darkness, my crow-black dove ’;—
And she,scarce had spoke when her own true love
Was kneeling at her elbow.
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS,

v.
But she wist not at first that this was He
That had raised such a boiling passion; ' '
For his old costume he had laid aside,
And was come to court a mortal bride
In a coat-and-waistcoat fashion.

VI.
She miss’d his large horns, and she miss’d his fair tail,
That had hung so retrospective ;
And his raven plumes, and some other marks
Regarding his feet, that had left their sparks
In a mind but too susceptive.

VI.
And she held it scorn that a mortal born
Should the Prince of Spirits rival,
To clamber at midnight her garden fence,—
For she knew not else by what pretence
To account for his arrival.

VII.
“What thief art thou,’ quoth she, “in the dark
That stumblest here presumptuous ?
Some Irish adventurer I take you to be,—
A foreigner, from your garb, I see,
Which besides is not over sumptuous.”

1x.
Then Satan, awhile dissembling his rank,
A piece of amorous fun tries ;
Quoth he, “I’m a Netherlander born ;
Fair virgin, receive not my suit with scorn ;—
I’m a Prince in the Low Countries,—

x.
“Though I travel incog. From the Land of Fog
And Mist, ’m come to proffer
My crown and my sceptre to lay at your feet ;
It is not every day in the week you may meet,
Fair maid, with a Prince’s offer.” —

XI.
“ Your crown and your sceptre I like full well,
They tempt a poor maiden’s pride, sir ;
But your lands and possessions,—excuse if I’m rude,—
Are too far in a northerly latitude
For me to become your bride, sir.

xu.
“In that aguish clime I should catch my death,
Being but a raw new-comer.”
Quoth he, ‘ We have plenty of fuel stout ;
And the fires which I kindle never go out
By winter, nor yet by summer.

XIII.
“TJ am Prince of Hell, and Lord Paramount
Over monarchs there abiding.
My Groom of the Stables is Nimrod old,
And Nebuchadnezzar my stirrups must hold -
When I go out a riding.

XIV.
“To spare your blushes and maiden fears,
I resorted to these inventions ;
But imposture, begone ; and avaunt, disguise!”
And the Devil began to swell and rise
To his own diabolic dimensions.

XY.
Twin horns from his forehead shot up to the moon,
Like a branching stag in Arden;
Dusk wings through his shoulders with eagle’s strength
Push’d out; and his train lay floundering in length
An acre beyond the garden.

: XVI.
To tender hearts I have framed my lay,—
Judge ye, all love-sick maidens,
When the virgin saw in the soft moonlight,
In his proper proportions, her own true knight,
If she needed long persuadings. ie

171

XVII.
Yet a maidenly modesty kept her back,
As her sex’s art had taught her :
For “the biggest fortunes,” quoth she, “in the land
Are not worthy ”’—then blush’d—“ of your highness’s
Much less a poor tailor’s daughter. hand—

XVIII.
“ There’s the two Miss Crockfords are single still,
For whom great suitors hunger ;
And their father’s hell is much larger than mine.”
Quoth the Devil, “I’ve no such ambitious design,
For their dad is an old fishmonger ;

XIX.
“And I cannot endure the smell of fish—
I have taken an anti-bias
To their livers, especially since the day
That the Angel smoked my cousin away
From the chaste spouse of Tobias.

XX,
“Had my amorous kinsman much longer staid,
The perfume would have seal’d his obit ;
For he had a nicer nose than the wench,
Who cared not a pin for the pother and stench,
In the arms of the Son of Tobit.”

XXI.

“T have read it,” quoth she, “in Apocryphal Writ,’—
And the Devil stoop’d down and kiss’d her ;

Not Jove himself, when he courted in flame,

On Semele’s lips, the love-scorch’d dame,
Impress’d such a burning blister.

XXII.
The fire through her bones and vitals shot,—
“Oh, I yield, my winsome marrow ;
I am thine for life,’”’ and black thunders roll’d,
And she sank in his arms through the garden mould
With the speed of a red-hot arrow.

XXL.
Merrily, merrily, ring the bells
From each Pandemonian steeple ;
For the Devil hath gotten his beautiful bride,
And a wedding dinner he will provide,
To feast all kinds of people.

XXIV.
Fat Bulls of Basan are roasted whole,
Of the breed that ran at David ;
With the flesh of goats, on the sinister side,
That shall stand apart, when the world is tried ;
Fit meat for souls unsaved !

XXV.
The fowl from the spit were the Harpies’ brood,
Which the bard sang near Cremona,
With a garnish of bats in their leathern wings impt,
And the fish was two delicate slices crimpt,
Of the whale that swallow’d Jonah.

XXVIL
Then the goblets were crown’d, and a health went round
To the bride, in a wine like scarlet ;
No earthly vintage so deeply paints, [Saints,
For ’twas dash’d with a tinge from the blood of the
By the Babylonian Harlot.

XXVII.
No Hebe fair stood cupbearer there,
The guests were their own skinkers ;
But Bishop Judas first bless’d the can,
Who is of all Hell Metropolitan,
And kiss’d it to all the drinkers.

XXVIII.
The feast being ended, to dancing they went,
To a music that did produce a
Most dissonant sound, while a hellish glee
Was sung in parts by the Furies Three ;
And the Devil took out Medusa.
172 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

XXIX, XXX.
But the best of the sport was to hear his old dam But the heat, and the press, and the noise, and the din,
Set up her shrill forlorn pipe,— Were so great, that, howe’er unwilling,
How the wither’d beldam hobbled about, Our reporter no longer was able to stay,
And put the rest of the company out,— But came in his own defence away,
For she needs must try a hornpipe. And left the bride quadrilling.
THE END.

No, 64.—-EARL OF MULGRAVE.

W* present to our readers the ex-Governor-General of Jamaica, the president of the Garrick, and the

Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. Among literary men he is known or heard of as the author of
several novels, which have uot materially contributed to swell his repute; among fashionable people he is
distinguished as an amateur actor, who is equally meritorious in the performance of Hamlet and the Cock.
We recollect him when he used to perform in Florence all manners of characters to all manners of audiences ;
and we never failed to appreciate the discriminating civility with which, after having crowded his rooms
with a miscellaneous collection of all the English who could be found tolerant enough to listen to him, he
used to go through the weary mob, inviting a select few, in the hearing of the whole company, to remain
to supper (a little supper he used to call it, and in that particular he amply kept his word), to the exclusion
of the indignant multitude, who thought that, in common justice, they should have had something to wash
down his lordship’s dose of histrionism.

Our artist is rather too favourable to Mulgrave. Thanks to Deleroix, or some other artist of that
profession, the locks look exuberant still; but woe worth the day! crowsfeet tell about the temples, and
deep wrinkles beseam the well-rouged face. But still, when duly curled, oiled, painted, and lighted-up, he
does look passably well, and might be trusted in a third-rate walking gentleman cast. He is at present
showing off in a part for which he is just as much fitted as he is for enacting Romeo, but one in which he
can do more mischief than could attend the most vigorously hissed performance that ever disgraced a
theatre.

Perhaps his Excellency may have stumbled on the Second Part of “ Henry VI.,” in which Jack Cade
makes his appearance. This great reformer declared that the laws of England should come out of his
mouth (which even his own partisans allowed to be fetid and disgusting) ; that that mouth should be the
Parliament of England ; that be would leave no lord or gentleman in the land ; thata universal destruction
should take place, so that all men should be arrayed in one livery, and worship him their lord. In these
particulars we have now a revived Jack Cade; but do we compare the undaunted “ Mortimer, lord of the
city,” to O'Connell? They both may be designated beggars ; but the beggary of Cade was valiant. He
had no vow in heaven to protect him from the consequence of his outrages; nor, on the other hand, could
he, after he had doomed “ the nobility to go in leathern aprons,” have found a representative of the king
to allow him to play the part of “ protector over him.” That was reserved for our own times.

Mulgrave is poor, and is glad to escape from the eleemosynary hospitality of the Duke of Devonshire
on any terms. He is vain, and the title of Viceroy must tickle his fancy. We are told that he is annoyed
at the marked absence of the Irish gentry from his parties or levees ; but the shouting in the upper
gallery compensates in his ear for the hissing of the boxes; and we recommend him to exhibit at
Donnybrook grinning through a horse-collar, which would at once show his features in their most
appropriate expression, and afford the most congenial gratification to the friends on whom he relies.
In the short list of his ancestors we find that one invented a diving-bell—typical of sinking and
mud-seeking propensities,—that another was that Lord Chancellor of Ireland who was made the victim
of Curran’s bitterness more than a half-century after his death, and about another half-century before
his descendant grovelled at the hoofs of those who adhere to all the sedition, without a tithe of the
talent, of Curran,—that another (Commodore Phipps) was, like his nephew, sent upon an experimental
voyage, in which he had no great success,—and that formerly his Excellency’s father enjoyed, for good
reason (vide Cobbett), the title of Lord Lonsdale’s boots. The noble son plays the part of boots toa
very different person.

To conclude. Mulgrave is about forty years old,—desperately hard up—a most industrious scribbler
—a capital led-captain — a passable buffoon ; but when we see him sent to govern Ireland just now,
we are irresistibly reminded of one of his own novels, and must say,—

+
“By Yes and No, but it is very strange.”
 

 

Wy, Yip

Wy yy i :

 

 

 

AUTHOR OF YES AND Nox”
 

AUTHOR OF THE POLITICAL REGISTER’:
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 173

MOLE S.

ERE vwe have the aristocratic lineaments and courtly form of the nobleman who is better known to
the present generation as the Marquess or NorMansy.

Debrett tells us that he was born May 15th, 1797. He received his education, first at Harrow, and
subsequently at Cambridge, where he graduated M.A. in 1818. In 1838 he was created Marquess of
Normanby, and in 1846 became ambassador at Paris, where he remained till 1852. In the latter part of
this year he was attacked by a severe illness, and was recommended by his physician to reside abroad.
In 1854 he accepted, from the government of Lord Aberdeen, the post of Minister at the Court of
Tuscany, which he resigned in 1858, and returned to England. He died at his residence, Hamilton
Lodge, South Kensington, July 28th, 1863, in the 67th year of his age.

After contemplating the seedy black of Charles Lamb, the bowrgeois simplicity of Béranger, and the
homespun attire of William Cobbett, the eye of the modern Teufelsdréckh cannot but dwell with peculiar
satisfaction on the purple and fine linen of this representative of the “silver-forkers,”—as Regina has it.
But this feeling ends with the gratification produced by the external aspect of the Dandiacal body ; in
other respects, the comparison is in favour of the plebeians. Where are his lordship’s “works”? Who
ever read “ Yes and No,” “ Matilda,” or “The Contrast”? While we regard the slightest fragment of
Charles Lamb with almost religious veneration,—the reader has a fine forgotten piece on the next page ;—
while the carelessest couplet of Béranger shakes the idol in the temple, or the king on the throne ;—while
the pen of Cobbett drives home a truth with all the force of the sledge-hammer of Thor ;—the prolusions
of the Earn or MuLcRaveE now only exist as the lining of circumforaneous trunks,—if, indeed, they have
escaped the speedier doom atforded by transmission.

of in vicum vendentem thus, et odores,

Et piper, et quicquid chartis amicitur ineptis.”

 

 

No. 65.—WILLIAM COBBETT.

MONG the various classes of characters which may be discerned in our political hemisphere, there are
three which stand in a conspicuous light. Of one of these classes the subject of our last Gallery-
portrait was an excellent representative. A second is well seen in the person of him of whom we are now
to speak. A third has no better type and exemplar than in Henry Brougham. The prominent
characteristics of these classes may be thus particularized: I. Enthusiasm. II. Self-will. ILI. Polttical
trading.

We observed Jast month,—and it is a fact of which all who observed his progress are well aware, —
that with Michael Thomas Sadler everything was sacrificed to his plans of benevolence. As a public man,
of undisputed power, no one can doubt that he might have rendered more service to his party than he
actually did, had he entered with more zeal and interest into the politics of the day. But with him this
was impossible. His whole heart and soul, mind and strength, were preoccupied. In other words, he was
an enthusiast.

Turn to the opposite class,—to that which forms our third division,—and see how differently such men
as the Broughams, the Grants, the Macaulays, the Palmerstons, manage matters. They, too, can talk of
philanthropy, and of that most volubly and pathetically. Look at Brougham, first writing an elaborate
defence of slavery ; and then, when the tide turned that way, becoming an apostle of the abolition cause.
Look at the Grants and Macaulays, writing against reform in the Hdinburgh Review ; and then refuting
their own articles, when it became politic to do so, on the floor of the House of Commons. Is not the
whole game as open and obvious as possible? These men have a certain quantity of what is called talent to
sell; and they are watching and tending the market in the best way they can. Macaulay has sold his
article for £10,000 a year (and no one can doubt his talent as a huckster) ; Grant and Brougham for £5,000
each ; and so on.

William Cobbett was of a class perfectly distinct from each of these two. His mind was not full of
zeal for the good of others, like Sadler’s; nor could he stoop to the marketing plan of the “young men of
talent.” He rather aimed to force his way by dint of muscular power; and to a certain extent he
succeeded. His sympathies were with the people; and had he but possessed some moral and religious
principle, he would probably have wrought out great things for them. But though not of such a sordid
soul as the regular place-hunters of our second class, he was yet a self-seeker. The first idea in his mind
was ever,— WILLIAM CospeTr! It was this that effectually prevented his usefulness. Whatever whim he
took up, right or wrong, it became his rule, for the exaltation of himself, to force down the throats of his
74 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

followers. But these hobbies of his were often mere senseless vagaries, and men could not submit to be
rough-ridden by one of themselves.

Infinitely more respectable, then, in every just and rational point of view, than Baron Glenelg, than
my Lord Brougham and Vaux, or than the self-appointed ‘“‘ Member of the Supreme Council,”—we have yet
to regret in William Cobbett the waste of great and noble powers. Our regret, too, is increased by the
reflection that he was a genuine Hnglish writer. There was a substance about him,—a reality, a durability.
The effect of his sayings and doings vanished not away, like the excitement of a Shiel or Macaulay
“ flare-up,” leaving one to wonder the next hour at what we had been startled, and by what we had been
pleased. The value of his reasonings, whatever it was, was at least a real one ; and you returned to his
argumentation with at least an equal interest, when weeks and months had removed the first momentary
excitement.

But the one thing which William Cobbett wanted was sound moral principle, flowing, as it ever must,
from correct religious knowledge. In the absence of these essentials his career was that of a barque on a
trackless ocean, without a compass, and beneath a cloudy sky. Often on a right tack, but ever so by
accident, we see in him a striking example of the waste and inutility of the most stupendous talents, when,
unchecked and undirected by correct principle, they become the senseless agents of Selfwill.

NOLES.

N the career of this extraordinary man is implied the whole political history of this country during the
earlier third of the present century. In taking a brief survey of its main incidents, we must be
careful to hug the shore closely, not to drift unconsciously seaward, on that illimitable ocean.

Although, from his own statement, WiLL1am CopBert was born in 1766, it would appear from the
fact of his christening having taken place, according to the register at Farnham, on April lst, 1763, that
the event should be assigned to a date at least four years earlier. The best account of his early years is
to be gleaned from an autobiographical sketch published when he was in America.* From this, which has
been reprinted in various forms in this country, it may be gathered that his first occupation was frightening
birds from the early seed, hoeing pease, weeding wheat, and holding the plough. He remembered no period
at which he did not earn his own living; and had little or no schooling beside what his father gave him in
winter evenings. In 1782 he went to visit a relation near Portsmouth ; here he first beheld the sea, and
felt that sudden impulse to become a sailor, which he believes to be as natural to an English boy as the
desire of taking the water is toa duck. He tried to get his name enrolled as a sailor on board a man-of-
war ; was refused, and returned to the plough,—but was for ever spoilt for a farmer. :

In 1783, when preparing to go to Guildford Fair, another impulse led him to mount a London coach,
which dropped him at Ludgate Hill, with half a crown in his pocket. Here he got a situation as copying
clerk to a lawyer in Gray's Inn, where he remained nine months,—the only period of his life, says he,
which was wholly unattended with pleasure. Leaving his desk in disgust, he proceeded to Chatham, where,
believing that he was entering the Marines, he enlisted in a marching regiment, the service companies of
which were in Nova Scotia. He remained at Chatham a year, improving his education as well as he was
able, and learning the structure of his own language from Lowth’s Grammar. He was soon raised to the
rank of corporal, and at length sailed from Gravesend for Halifax, N.S. His regiment proceeded to New
Brunswick, where it remained till September, 1791. It was then relieved and sent home ; and Cobbett,
then a sergeant-major, received his discharge, on “earnest application,” together with a certificate of
‘honest and faithful service.” Shortly after his arrival in England, he married. Werther fell in love with
Charlotte when she was cutting bread-and-butter ; Cobbett was smitten by the charms of a young girl of
thirteen, who was scrubbing out a wash-tub on a cold winter’s morning. “That’s the girl for me,” said
he, when he had got out of hearing ; and he looked at the matter as being “settled as firmly as if it had
been written in the book of fate.” We shall not spoil the narrative—one of the most beautiful stories of
love, courtship, and married life that has ever been told,—but refer to the words of Cobbett himself.t
Shortly after bis arrival in England, he brought certain charges of corruption and misconduct against some
of the officers of his regiment, and demanded a court-martial. “If my accusation,” says he, in a letter to
the Judge-Advocate General, “is without a foundation, the authors of cruelty have not yet devised the
tortures I ought to endure. Hell itself, as painted by the most fiery bigot, is too mild a punishment fo-
me.” The trial was granted (March, 1792) ; but on the appointed day no Cobbett appeared ; an adjourn-
ment took place, but he was again absent. On further inquiry, he was found to have absconded. The
articles of charge were read over before his fifty-two witnesses, who had not a word to say; and the

* “The Life and Adventures of Peter Porcupine, with a Full and Fair Account of all his Authoring Transactions ; being
a sure and infallible Guide for all enterprising Young Men who wish to make a Fortune by Writing Pamphlets. By Peter
Porcupine himself.” Philadelphia. 1797. 8vo. pp. 58. :

+ “Advice to Young Men, and (incidentally) to Young Women, in the Middle and Higher Ranks of Life.” By William
Cobbett. 1837. 8vo. Letter III. p. 97.
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CIWARACTERS. 175

defendants were consequently acquitted. The conclusion of the authorities was that the charge was wholly
“destitute of foundation, and wilfully and maliciously set on foot for the purpose of calumniating the
characters of the three officers in question, and of putting them to expense, the accuser not hesitating, in
order to obtain this end, to deceive the Crown, and make a mockery of public justice.”* No further
explanation was ever given, so far as we know, of this extraordinary business.

In 1792 he went to France, where he spent the “ six happiest months of his life.” Here he intended
to stay a while to study the language ; but, hearing at Abbeville of the king’s dethronement, and the
murder of his guards, he turned off towards Havre, and embarked thence for America He landed at New
York in 1792, and proceeded to Philadelphia. Here he opened a bookseller’s shop, and commenced a
periodical paper, or rather a succession of pamphlets, under the signature of “ Peter Porcupine,” which was
marked by the simple force of style and expression which continued to be the distinguishing characteristic
of the author during his long literary career. As the French or Democratic party in America was then in
the ascendant, England was liberally abused by political writers. Of course Cobbett, if only from the spirit
of contradiction, did battle as.the champion of his native land. Some of his blows happened to reach a
certain Dr. Rush, who brought an action against him for libel, and recovered damages to the tune of
5,000 dollars. This finally disgusted Cobbett with the new country, and he left for England in 1800.+

In 1801 he settled in London, opening a bookseller’s shop in Pall Mall, under the sign of “ The Bible,
the Crown, and the Mitre.” ! Here he established a morning paper, under the title of “The Porcupine,”
in which he supported the principles of Pitt. Upon the cessation of this, he started “'The Register,’—a
serial which he continued to produce with almost undeviating regularity for thirty-three years, till his
death ; and which contains, both as regards quantity and quality, the most remarkable mass of political
writing which any one man has ever produced. In 1805, from a Church and King man, Cobbett became
a violent radical, and was for years a grievous thorn in the side of the ministry. A political prosecution is
found sometimes a convenient gag for a troublesome opponent, and Cobbett laid himself open to this by
strictures upon a case of military flogging at Ely. He received a sentence of two years’ imprisonment in
Newgate, and a fine of £1,000. He underwent the former, and the latter was paid by a subscription. By
this time the sale of the “ Register” had risen to the unprecedented number of 100,000 per week, and
Cobbett had been enabled to purchase a valuable estate at Botley, in Hampshire.

Among our Cobbettiana we find a record of a trial which has escaped the notice of biographers. The
title, which we give below,} sufficiently indicates its nature. The verdict was for the plaintiff, with ten
pounds damages. :

In 1818 Cobbett, whose affairs were not, from various causes, so prosperous as they had been, set sail
once more for America,—as Henry Hunt alleges, to avoid the importunity of his creditors. § However
this may be, he returned to England in the following year. Upon passing his effects through the Custom-
house at Liverpool, the contents of one of his boxes is said to have excited the “silent horror” of the
spectators. ‘There, gentlemen,” said Cobbett to the horrified officers, “there are the mortal remains of
the immortal Thomas Paine.” Cobbett had formerly written, ‘There is nothing too absurd for the people
of England to swallow ; they are, in this way, the grossest feeders the world ever saw.” He was now
to test these powers of “swallow.” What his former opinion of Thomas Paine had been,|| may be
ascertained from the pamphlet entitled “Cobbett’s Ten Cardinal Virtues,” { where his contradictory
sentiments at various periods ‘are neatly tabulated for reference; or a similar publication called ‘The
Beauties of Cobbett, in three parts,” where much curious matter is to be found. Now, Tom Paine was
everything that was glorious and noble, and Cobbett thought that it would be a profitable speculation to
exhume his bones from the field where they lay,—the Quaker sect to which he belonged having refused
him burial ;—bring them over to England ; exhibit the skeleton at so much a head ; and afterwards make
up the hair,—the “ugly, uncombed locks” of a former day,—into gold rings, and “sell them at a guinea
apiece beyond the cost of the gold and the workmanship.” These superfluous guineas were to he employed
in the erection of a monument to the memory of Paine. The affair caused a great sensation. In the
House of Lords it was asked by Earl Grosvenor “whether any subject had ever been treated with more
laughter, contempt, and derision than the introduction of those miserable bones”; and in the House of

* “Proceedings of a General Court-Martial, &c.” London, 1809. 8vo. pp. 32.

+ For all the gossip and scandal relating to Cobbett’s residence in America, with notice of the literary and political
squabbles in which he was engaged, see ‘The Porcupiniad ; a Hudibrastic Poem, in Three Cantos. Addressed to William
Cobbett by Matthew Carey.” . Philadelphia, 1790. 8vo. pp. 80.

t “Cobbett’s Oppression! ! Proceedings on the Trial of an Action between William Burgess, a poor labouring Man!
and William Cobbett,’the Patriot and Reformer! ! for employing William Aslett and John Dubber to assault and falsely
imprison the Plaintiff, &c.’’ London, 1809. Pp. 28.

§ “The Preston Cock’s Reply to the Kensington Dunghill: a Twopenny Exposure of Cobbett’s Fourteen-pennyworth
of Falsehoods. By Henry Hunt, Esq., M.P. Addressed to the Electors of Preston.” London, 1831. 8vo.'pp. 16. Reference
may also be made to another pamphlet of the same period, full of ready wit and smart repartee,—‘‘ The Address of Charles
Wilkins, Esq., to the People of Manchester, on the Tnepmipehency of Mr. William Cobbett to represent them in Parliament.”
8yo. pp. 24.

pee How Tom gets a living now ... . I know not, nor does it much signify. He has doneall the mischief he can in the
world; and whether his carcase is at last to be suffered to rot on the earth, or to be dried in the air, is of very little
consequence. Whenever, or wherever he breathes his last, he will excite neither sorrow nor compassion ; no friendly hand
will close his eyes, not a groan will be uttered, not a tear will be shed. Like Judas, he will be remembered by posterity ;
men will learn to express all that is base, malignant, treacherous, unnatural, and blasphemous, by the single monosyllable—
Paine! ”’—“ Life of Thomas Paine,”’ by William Cobbett.

| Manchester (Ambery), 1832, 8vo. pp. 34.
176 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

Commons it was stated, by Mr. Wilmot, that “the man who had dug up the unhallowed remains had
brought them to this country for the purpose of stirring up impiety, by the exhibition of this wretched
mummery.”* Well,—to make a long story short,—the necessary guineas were never collected, and the
twenty waggon-loads of flowers not required, which were to strew the road before the great man’s hearse.
The “bones” remained in the possession of Cobbett till his death. Shortly after this event the eldest son,
who was executor of his father’s will, was arrested for debt. A receiver was appointed to the estate, into
whose care was committed the box of bones. The effects of Mr. Cobbett were sold by auction, in 1836 ;
and the bones brought forward to be offered for competition. The auctioneer, however, refused to put them
up ; and they were withdrawn, and remained in the possession of the receiver. This gentleman, desiring
to be relieved, awaited the orders of the Lord Chancellor ; but the latter, upon the matter being mentioned
to him in court, refused to recognize them as part of the estate, or make any order respecting them. The
receiver thus continued to hold them ; but finding that none of the creditors would relieve him of them,
or, indeed, made inquiry about them, he transferred them, in 1844, to a Mr. Tilley, who retained
them in his possession until a public funeral could be arranged. We have never heard that this has been
done; and know nothing more of these Thome venerabilis ossa.t :

We had arrived at the year 1819. Cobbett, once more in England, threw himself into the political
life of the time ; took an active part in the cause of Queen Caroline ; and made unsuccessful attempts to
get into Parliament as member for Coventry, and for Westminster.

During his absence he had sold his estate at Botley ; he now took a farm at Barnes Elms, in Surrey,
where he attempted to grow sundry trees and plants which he had brought from America, and also to
introduce Indian corn as a substitute for the “infamous potato,” as he called it.t He printed his
“ Register” on paper made from the husks of this corn, and established depéts for the sale of its flour and
bread ; but the project was not ultimately successful. He left Barnes, and entered upon the occupation of
the farm of Normandy, about seven miles from Farnham, his native place.

In 1831 he was indicted for the publication of a libel, in the Weekly Political Register of December
11th, 1830, “with intent to raise discontent in the minds of the labourers in husbandry, and to incite
them to acts of violence, and to destroy corn-stacks, machinery, and other property.” The defendant
pleaded “ Not Guilty,” and defended himself in person. The jury could not agree, six being of one opinion
and six of another, and prayed for their discharge, which was granted.§

In 1832, after the passing of the Reform Act, Cobbett was returned to Parliament for the newly-made
borough of Oldham. It would have been doubtless better for his reputation if he had been unsuccessful
in obtaining a seat in the representative assembly. He possessed neither the temper nor the tact necessary
to constitute a ready and effective debater ; he scarcely made an important speech ; and his Parliamentary
career was thus a disappointment to his friends and admirers. Moreover, there is but little doubt that
his fatal illness was, in a great measure, attributable to the fatigue and labour of his Parliamentary duties.
Without entering upon further details, which will be found in a letter from his son in the Register of
June 19th, 1835, it must suffice to state that the extraordinary man who had founded that serial, and
guided its course for thirty-three years, died on the preceding day, at Normandy Farm, in the 74th year of
his age.

In the course of the same year the will of the deceased was proved. The effects were sworn to be
under the value of £1,500; there were no specific legacies, but the testator bequeathed the copyright of
his works, and all his other property, to his eldest son William. /

Of his personal appearance, Hazlitt has left us a graphic record :—“ The only time I ever saw him, he
seemed to me a very pleasant man,—easy of access, affuble, clear-headed, simple and mild in his manner,
deliberate and unruffled in his speech, though some of his expressions were not very qualified. His figure
is tall and portly. He has a good, sensible face—rather full, with little grey eyes, a hard square forehead,
a ruddy complexion, with hair grey or powdered, and had on a scarlet broadcloth waistcoat, with the flaps
of the pockets hanging down, as was the custom for gentlemen farmers in the last century, or as we see it
in the pictures of members of Parliament in the reign of George I. I certainly did not think less
favourably of him for seeing him.”||

As a political writer, he was at once the most able, the most ready, and the most prolific of the age.
In simplicity, correctness, clearness, and strength of style, he had no equal since the day of De Foe
and Swift. In advocating his views, he seized upon favouring circumstances with marvellous tact ;
detected and exposed the shifts of his opponents with profound skill ; was a master of irony and innuendo ;
was apt in illustration, and powerful in description. He addressed himself to all, to be understood by all ;
and we may search in vain through his hundred volumes to finda sentence which is ambiguous or unintel-
ligible. He was a bitter hater, a remorseless enemy, and befouled those who incurred his ire with the
coarsest terms of invective and abuse. In sarcasm, and especially the art of giving nicknames that “ stuck,”

* “ Cobbett’s Gridiron,” 1822, 8vo. p. 21.

+ ‘Ode to the Bones of the Im-mortal Thomas Paine, newly transported from America to England, by the no less
im-mortal William Cobbett, Esq.”” (By Thomas Rodd, Senr., the Bookseller.) London, 1819, 4to. ‘A Brief History of
the Remains of the late Thomas Paine, from the time of their disinterment, in 1819, by the late William Cobbett, M.P.,
down to the year 1846.” London (Watson), 1847; and Notes and Queries, Fourth Series.

t “A Treatise on Cobbett’s Corn; or, Cobbett’s Corn-Book.” 8vo.

§ “Full and Accurate Report of the Trial of William Cobbett, Esq., before Lord Tenterden and a Special Jury, on
Thursday, July 7th, 1831, in the Court of King’s Bench, Guildhall.” 1831, 8vo. pp. 48.

|| “Spirit of the Age,” by W. Hazlitt. 8vo, 1825.
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 177

he was pre-eminent,—the greatest master since the days of Aristophanes. Burdett was “Old Sir Glory”;
Hunt, “the great liar of the South”; Baines, “the great liar of the North”; Brougham, “a mixture of
laudanum and brandy, with a double allowance of jaw.” Then there is “Sancho” Hobhouse ; “ Mons. de
Snip” Place (the Benthamite tailor-political-economist of Charing Cross); “Little Shilling” Attwood ;
“ Pis-aller” Parkes ; “Bott” Smith (Egerton Smith, of the Liverpool Mercury) ; “Roaring” Rushton ;
“ Gatfer” Gooch ; “ Slate-face” Cropper ; ‘ Prosperity” Fred ; and a host of other epithets which will occur
to the memory of those who are familiar with the political writings of the period. Besides this, Cobbett
has shown better than any one besides the translators of the Bible, and Shakspeare, how powerful an
exponent of thought our simple, home-spun Anglo-Saxon may be made. The vocabulary which he had at
command was all-sufficient for his purpose. He dealt in no subtle refinements, or nice discriminations of
thought and feeling ; and had no thesawrus of classic or composite phrase at command, like that with
which Shakspeare, when he chose, could incarnadine his multitudinous verse.

From an incident in his early life it is evident that the style of Swift had a great charm for him, and it
was upon this probably that he unconsciously modelled his own. “ When a poor boy at eleven years of
age,” says he, ‘‘ with 3d. in my pocket for my whole fortune, I was trudging through Richmond in my blue
smock-frock, and with red garters tied outside my knees, when I perceived in a bookseller’s window a little
book labelled ‘Tale of a Tub, price 3d.’ If I spent my 3d. on it I could have no supper: still, in I went,
and bought the little book, which I was so impatient to examine, that I got over into a field, at the upper
corner of Kew Gardens, and sat down to read on the shady side of a haystack. The book was so different
from anything I had read before ; it was something so new to my mind, that though I could not at all
understand some of it, it delighted me beyond measure, and it produced what I always considered a sort
of birth of intellect. I read on till it was dark, without any thought of supper or bed. When I could see
no longer, I put it into my pocket, and fell asleep by the side of the stack, till the birds in Kew Gardens
awaked me in the morning, and then I started off, still reading my little book. The gardener at Kew, where
I got employment, lent me some books on gardening, but I could not relish them after the ‘Tale of a Tub,’
which I carried about with me wherever I went, till about twenty years old I lost it in a box that fell
overboard in the Bay of Fundy.”

Gilfillan, seeking for a single epithet whereby to epitomise Cobbett, pronounces him “the genius of
common sense.” Robert Hall styles him, “a firebrand, not a luminary—the Polyphemus of the mob,—the
one-eyed monarch of the blind.” Wyndham declared, in the House of Commons, that he deserved that a
“statue of gold” should be erected to him. Hazlitt, in his fine portraiture, says :—‘ He is a kind of
JSourth estate in the politics of the country. He is not only the most powerful political writer of the present
day, but one of the best writers in the language. He speaks and thinks plain, broad, downright English.
He might be said to have the clearness of Swift, the naturalness of Defoe, and the picturesque satirical
description of Mandeville ; if all such comparisons were not impertinent.”

A few words about his principal literary works. He said, himself, of what he termed ‘“ The Cobbett
Library,’—“ When I am asked what books a young man or young woman ought to read, I always answer,
let him or her read a/l the books that I have written. This does, it will doubtless be said, smell of the
shop. No matter. It is what I recommend ; and experience has taught me that it is my duty to give the
recommendation.” He then goes on to enumerate thirty-nine distinct books, other than the “Register.”
Of these we can only glance at one or two.

“ ApvicE To Youne Men.”—This is just the kind of book which would have been termed on its title-
page, “opus aureum” by the old publishers. It is in six letters ; addressed to the “‘ Youth,” “ Bachelor,”
“ Lover,” “ Husband,” “ Father,” and “ Citizen.” In each of these relations of life, the author, with the
most perfect sincerity, and the most amusing simplicity, holds up himself as the model for imitation. To
the Rev. R. Polwhele he elsewhere wrote (July 14th, 1834), “Good God! what have I seen, what I have
done, since J had the pleasure of seeing you! J am the completest instance that ever was known of the
effects of diligence, sobriety, and fortitude.”* With him, as with the Greek sage, the dvuroc %a is con-
firmation strong as Holy Writ, and cannot possibly admit of demur. Here (Letter IT. p. 75) is the capital
account of the Shakspeare forgeries, and his ridicule of the exaggerated worship of the bard. For Cobbett
hated humbugs as heartily as Carlyle, and never lost a chance of exposing a sham sentiment. In a word,
this book is the most extraordinary specimen of common-sense, egotism, manliness, iconoclasm, prejudice,
and Englishism,t—expressed in the tersest, simplest, naturallest style,—that the world has ever yet
seen ; and should be in the possession of every one that can read. It is reprinted, and can be got for a
florin.

“ History oF THE Prorestant Rerormation.”—This book (2 vols. royal 8vo. 1829), for vigour of
composition, hardihood of paradox, and crassitude of ignorance, is without a parallel in the language. It
is a true curiosity of literature, and one of the most amusing of books,—if only from the courageousness of
its prejudice. and absence of all the qualities that go to make up a philosophical history. Of course, the
author was said to be a Romanist at heart ; but the fact seems to be that he was desirous of showing what
could be said on the Romish side of the question, and of doing this better than it had ever been done
before. He did not get many thanks for his pains from the sect he had so effectually served, and is reported
to have said with an oath, that, if he had taken the other and stronger side, he could have roused all
England against the Romanists, and put off their emancipation till the eve of St. Tibb.{ Of course,

* Polwhele’s “Reminiscences,” vol. ii. p. 88. + A word coined by Charles Reece Pemberton.
t See a paper on “ Editors and Newspaper Writers of the last Generation,” in Fraser’s Magazine, February, 1862.
Z
178 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

“answers” appeared by the dozen,-among which we may notice the counter ‘“ History of the Protestant
Reformation,” by McGavin ;* “ Strictures,” by Philanthropos ;+ and a volume, entitled “The Great
Apostacy,” by an anonymous author.t

“ ENGLISH GRAMMAR.” —This Cobbett wrote in a series of letters addressed to his son James, when he
was fourteen years old. ‘I made him copy the whole of it,” says the author, “before it went to press,
and that made him a grammarian at once.” He elsewhere speaks of his “famous grammar for teaching
French people English, which has been for thirty years, and still is, the great work of this kind throughout
all America, and in every nation of Europe.” He has a good reason for his selflaudation and egotism :—
‘“‘ For me not to say that I deem my ‘ English Grammar’ the best book for teaching this science, would be
affectation, and neglect of duty besides ; because I know that it is the best ; because I wrote it for the
purpose ; and because hundreds and hundreds of men and women have told me, some verbally and some
by letter, that though (many of them) at grammar-schools for years, they really never knew anything of
grammar until they studied my book. I, who know well all the difficulties that I experienced when I read
books upon this subject, can easily believe this, and especially when I think of the numerous instances in
which I have seen university scholars unable to write English with any tolerable degree of correctness.Ӥ
Apart from this, the book is as interesting as a romance; perspicuous in arrangement, and amusing in
illustration. The author finds faults in Blair and Johnson ; but it must be remembered that no writer in
a language like ours,—certainly not Cobbett himself,—can bear such a minute criticism as is here applied.
The microscope will detect faults where the naked eye, which is the natural instrument, can only perceive
beauties.

A few words might well be said on some of Cobbett’s other works. There are his letters on the treaty
of Amiens, which Miiller, the Swiss historian, said were more eloquent than anything which had appeared
since the days of Demosthenes ; his “ Manchester Lectures,” full of shrewd common-sense and political
information ; the “Sermons,’—some beautiful, all good (except the thirteenth, on “ Good Friday ; or,
God’s Judgment on the Jews” ||), and of which the author says, “more of these Sermons have been sold
than of the sermons of all the church parsons put together since mine were published ; there are some
parsons who have the good sense and virtue to preach them from the pulpit”; the “ Legacy” to Parsons,
to Labourers, and to Sir Robert Peel; the “ Rural Rides,” with its beautiful descriptions, and hearty love
of country ; the “ History of the Regency and Reign of George IV.” ; “Twopenny Trash”; the various
* Porcupine Tracts ”;—all of which are worthy of some notice beyond the mere reference with which we
must here content ourselves.

We have been thus diffuse in our “ notes” upon WitLiam Coppett for three reasons. The first was
the sheer necessity of the case ; the second, because his successor in the “Gallery ” seems to possess no
peg of interest on which to hang an illustration; and the third is our belief that this extraordinary man,
—in his egotism, his prejudice, his one-sidedness, his humour, his shrewdness, his sagacity, his obstinacy,
his pluck, his pugnacity, his inability to accept defeat,—and perchance a dozen other qualities,—was a
marvellously typical specimen of that bundle of heterogeneous attributes which have come to be associated
with the term “ Englishman.”

No, 66.—FRANCIS PLACE,

HIS hero was found, we believe, in a dustpan, upon the steps of a house in St. James’s Place, about

sixty years back, by an honest Charlie, who forthwith conveyed him to the next workhouse, where

(for these were unenlightened times) the little stranger was kindly taken care of. He was christened

Francis, that being the surname of his wet-nurse ; while, in lieu of patronymic, they gave him Place, as a

memorial of the locality where he had been discovered. Such were the bulrushes out of which Westminster

drew the future Moses of the Preventive Check,—a philosophical decalogue well worthy to supersede the
first, which it so boldly contradicts, particularly in the absurd article about murder.

The Mount Sinai of the new lawgiver is, we need hardly say, a certain tailor’s shop at Charing Cross.

It was there that Johnson said he delighted to contemplate ‘the full tide of human existence.” It is

there Place has erected his grand Mili-dam, for the salutary purpose of arresting this same tide, and causing

* Glasgow, 8vo. Several editions. + Glasgow, 1825, 8vo. t+ London, 1839, 8vo.

§ A forcible illustration of this may occur to the reader, as afforded by the recent letters of a certain “ Head-master”’
of a great public school to the Times.

|| This was added subsequently, and is not to be found in all editions.
 

 

AUTHOR OF HER, PRIN CUPL CF eo

PULAT ION”
 

QSAR

  
 
  
  

AY
‘<€

( f

I

WTEC

(

 

(Uy

(

  

”

AUTHOR OF “CHE ASAT OMY OF DRUNKESNESS,
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 179

it, utterly deserting the ancient and perilous water-course, to wander innocuous amidst the sands and
shallows of the Palus Pseudaphrodisiaca.

This is the magnum opus of the sagest of the snips; but he has also contributed, in many lesser
matters, to the expansion of our intellects. Place soon learned to take a just measure of the fundamental
features of the old system ; and declared war, to the scissors’ point, against those grievous humbugs, the
Boroughs, the Peers, and the Church. Not finding it convenient to withdraw his attention wholly from
the shop, he delegated the task of Parliamentary warfare to various subservient journeymen in succession.
Such was Burdett—such was Hobhouse—and such is Evans: we say is, for we hope there is no chance of
the gallant lieut.-general having been personally dealt with after the tender mercies of Mina. We under-
stand, however, that Place has now feathered his nest to a comfortable extent ; and trust we may therefore
look with confidence to see himself at no distant period within the walls of the House, not of Call, but of
Commons. He is as well entitled to sit there as any philosopher of the zera,—we don’t except Buckingham,
Wakley, Bowring, or Roebuck ; all his equals in birth, his inferiors in wealth, and his superiors in
‘Impudence alone. Like him, they all are, we believe, or have been, Westminster Reviewers ; but it is
well known that Place’s articles were always more prime than any of theirs. He had a wider range, too ;
being, in fact, in its palmier days, at once the Jetlrey, the Playfair, and the Sidney Smith, the critic-poetical,
the critic-mathematical, and the critic-theological, of the grand organ of Benthamism.

We desire to see such men in Parliament,—nay, in office: it is our fervent wish to see Place himself
in Downing Street, where he would certainly look the thing a good deal better than Spring Rice, whom we
are confident he would pronounce a disgrace to any reputable shopboard. We are weary of seeing the
loaves and fishes abandoned, by those who have the real power in this land, to such miserable mendicant
imbeciles, the very dregs and sweepings of the doomed and fated aristocracy, as Johnny Russell, Morpeth,
Mulgrave, and Duncannon, together with such a handful of time-serving scamps, traitors to the Plebs that
spawned them, as Hobhouse, Rice, Ellice, Wood, and Tallow Tomson. Away with these paltry mimes !—
the time is come when the real actors ought to be bounding on the stage ; while such despicable tools
should shrink behind the scenes, there to perform the obscure, as well as dirty work, for which alone nature
and art have qualified them. Away with these dwarf monsters! despised, far below the mark of that rather
respectable sentiment called hatred, by every Tory,—loathed in his secret soul by every Liberal, who does
not happen either to have been begotten by “some tenth transmitter of a foolish face,” or to have first
fawned upon and then spurned the crawling nastiness of his native mud. Away with all such, we say.
Give us men to whose proceedings we can apply some rational standard of calculation,—honest, out-spoken
fractions of men even; anything but this base convention of hypocrisy and cowardice, whose God is
their belly.

No. 67.—ROBERT MACNISH.

OBERT MACNISH, who, with learned pen, has anatomised Sleep and Drunkenness, and, with some-
thing more searching than pen, cut up those bodies which, while alive, were subject to the genial or drowsy
influences of Drunkenness and Sleep, is the hero of our present month’s “Gallery.” It would be needless to
recommend to the favourable notice of the readers of this Magazine the friendly countenance of the Modern
Fythagorean. His history is brief,—brief enough to be squeezed, without any effort of condensation on our
parts, into the customary page. Glasgow, city of St. Mungo and rum-punch, saw his birth some two-and-
thirty years ago. He was initiated into the primal misery of mankind, z.e., education, in the ducal city of
Hamilton, not far from the residence of the first and shabbiest Duke of Scotland. Here he pursued his
infantile studies with such success as to be looked upon as the greatest blockhead of his time; the lowest
seat in the class being his by such prescriptive title, that if chance dethroned him from it by the substitution
of another, the day of so marvellous an event was considered to be one of such wonder and rejoicing as to
demand a holiday. Emancipated from this tutelage, he was doomed to be what in the Scottish language is
called a writer,—a personage who, in more southern latitudes, is designated an attorney ; but Macnish
showed symptoms of conscience, and resolutely determining not to lower his character by becoming a
lawyer, commenced a most successful career as a body-snatcher.

Tis better from the grave the dead to draw,
Than clap the living in the tomb of law,—

as some poet, whose name has never yet been divulged to the public, remarks in a poem that still remains

in MS. penes nos.
z2
180 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

Acting on the principles laid down in this distich, Macknish set about his medical studies with the
zeal of a philosopher and the muscle of a resurrectionist. We sincerely believe that there is no ground for
accusing him of being involved, to any considerable extent, in the scientific practices, carried, soon after the
commencement of his professional career, to their perfection by Messrs. Burke and Hare ; at least, it never
was brought home to him, or anything which appeared to us to be of sufficient testimony. That he was
sent on a mission of medicine to slay the Caithnessians, close by the neighbourhood of the far-famed house of
John O’Groats, cannot be denied. Equally certain is it, that while ravaging the whole of that hospitable
—though, according to works on geography, inhospitable—coast, he laid up ample materials for arranging
the phenomena afterwards dissertated upon in his “ Essay on Drunkenness.” Thence, qualified by the
civilization of the North, he proceeded to Paris ; and there he was bitten with an ambition for authorship.
He began with Drunkenness, and naturally proceeded to Seep. Both are good books ; the author, of course,
thinks that that which the public least regarded, Sleep, is superior to that which met with the larger degree
of popular favour. Blackwood’s Magazine received his first monthly effusion,—it was something about a
metempsychosis ; to which he affixed what was, of course, the most appropriate signature, “A Modern
Pythagorean.” The sobriquet has stuck to him, and a Modern Pythagorean he will be to the end of the
chapter ; though he should eat as much venison as an alderman, and outlive his modernness as much as
George Coleman the Younger has outlived his youth. The “ Book of Aphorisms,” the greater part of which
originally appeared in our pages, is one of his most popular works, being composed on the model of the
most celebrated authors; such as Solomon, Confucius, Aristotle, O’ Doherty, Cato the Censor, Theognis, the
golden verses of the ancient Pythagoras, Rochefoucauld, and other eminent personages, whose writings are,
or should have been, engraved in letters of gold, on pillars of alabaster.

He is now in the prime of life and the full vigour of increasing practice. During the prevalence of
cholera in Scotland, his unwearied services were of eminent advantage in quelling or averting the plague ;
and though we do not wish for its return to afford him a new opportunity of displaying his zeal and ability,
we hope that the ordinary fate of mankind will keep him amply at work as an M.D., while more hilarious
influences will constantly bring him before the public as the M. P.

 

MOT £S.

Sa “favourite contributor” * to the pages of Regina, it was but fitting that Ropert Macwisu should

have a special place and notice in her “Gallery” of worthies. He did not survive the honour long.

Another month brought another number of Fraser ; a brief fortnight more,—and the grave closed over all
that was mortal of Taz Moprern PytHacorzay !

Robert Macnish belonged to that noble profession, the members of which, as we believe, have done more
for literature than those of any other calling ; and who, according to Cicero, approach more nearly to the Divine
nature in the accomplishment of their health-giving mission. He was born February 15th, 1802, at
Glasgow, where his father was a surgeon in respectable practice. At school he was chiefly noticeable for extreme
dulness. He has recorded that he abhorred his teachers as insufferable tyrants ; that no boy was ever
more flogged than he ; and that he looked back to the wranglings, fightings, and heart-burnings of his
schoolboy days with the greatest loathing. At the age of thirteen he left school, and shortly afterwards
commenced the study of physic. Here, again, we may accept his own testimony. “I never was good at
anything,” he wrote in the Phrenological Journal, in reference to acast of his head, which he had forwarded
to Mr. Cox, the phrenologist, “until I attained the age of sixteen, when I became a tremendously hard-
working student in medicine and general literature ; two subjects which I liked, and which I pursued with
an intensity which I may safely say was never surpassed.”

At seventeen he began to contribute to a local periodical. At eighteen he received the degree of Magister
Chirurgie ; and became assistant to Dr. Henderson, of Clyth, Caithness, corresponding, in the midst of his
labours, with the Znverness Courier, and beginning to lay up materials for his “ Anatomy of Drunkenness.”
After some eighteen months of professional and literary work, his health began to fail; and he returned to
Glasgow. After a short stay in his native city, he proceeded to Paris, in order to complete his medical
studies. He attended the lectures of Broussais, and other eminent physiologists ; and also heard a course
by Gall, whose name is associated with that of Spurzheim, as one of the founders of the so-called science of
Phrenology. It was while listening to one of the lectures of the latter, that he was pointed out to his
fellow-students by the lecturer as an instance of the remarkable development of the organ of comparison,
which happened then to be the subject of illustration. In Paris he remained about six months, taking
small part in the gaieties of the city, and caring little for French literature. In 1825 he returned to
Glasgow, where he received his diploma from the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons, presenting to this
body his “ Anatomy of Drunkenness ” as his inaugural thesis. This essay, mere sketch as it was, was well
received. It was published by McPhun, of Glasgow, and has since passed through many editions. The

* Fraser’s Magazine. ‘Preface to our Second Decade,” vol. xxi. p. 23.
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 181

last before his death appeared in 1834; this was the /i/th, and had again received the corrections and
additions of the author, rendering it probably as perfect and complete as he could make it. It must now
be regarded as a classic ; and in perspicuity of method, elegance of style, and felicity of illustration, has no
rival since the elegant essay of Dr. Trotter on the same subject. It was reviewed by Professor Wilson, in
Blackwood, who says :—“This little book is evidently the production of a man of genius. The style is
singularly neat, terse, and vigorous, far beyond the reach of an ordinary mind ; the strain of sentiment is such
as does infinite honour to the author’s heart; and the observation of human life, by which every page is
characterized, speaks a bold, active, and philosophical intellect. As a medical treatise it is excellent ; but
its merit is as a moral dissertation on the nature, causes, and effects of one of the most deplorable and
pernicious vices that can degrade and afflict the ongoings of social life. . . . . To those who stand in
need of advice and warning, this treatise is worth a hundred sermons.”

Macnish had hitherto confined his more literary lucubrations to the minor periodicals of Glasgow and
Edinburgh. In 1826 he essayed a higher flight by the contribution to Blackwood’s Magazine, then in the
height of its early glory, of his extraordinary tale, “The Metempsychosis,” which was made the “ leading
article” in the Number for May. This at once gave its author a place among the brilliant band of men of
genius who rallied round bony, and suggested the pen-name which he thenceforth adopted, of the
“ Modern Pythagorean.”

An able critic in Fraser's Magazine* thus speaks of this celebrated story :—“ It appears to us to be
the best fiction of its kind in ow language. The humour is exquisite,—rich, easy, flowing, and unforced.
There is nothing like antithesis or point in the sentences: and so much the better, for such sparkles and
tricks of wit take away very much from the general effect of the whole piece ; and, to repeat the old maxim,
the perfection of style is de ne pas en avoir. There is a fine faith, too, about the narrative, which, strange
and wild as it is, from the earnest manner in which it is related, has a convincing air, and bears the
character of a truth. Hoffman’s ‘Diableries’ have this merit in a high degree; and perhaps Macnish
was a little indebted to him for his fantastical notions, and his manner of treating the subject.”

For some time after the publication of this story, Macnish continued to be a regular contributor to
Blackwood. He became intimate with Wilson, Moir, De Quincey, Thomas Aird, Hogg, and others ; passed
occasionally the jug round at “ Awmrose’s,”+t and occasionally is mentioned in the “ Noctes,”—but does not
appear, so far as we remember, as an interlocutor.

Besides contributing to Blackwood, Macnish occasionally wrote for some of the “ Annuals.” In the
“ Forget-me-Not” and “ Friendship’s Offering” are to be found articles in prose and poetry from his racy
pen. Among these may be mentioned “ The Vision of Robert the Bruce,” and “ The Covenanters,”—which
latter was dramatized a few years later, and had a ‘‘run” of some length at the English Opera House.

In 1830 he published his next more important work, “ The Philosophy of Sleep,” which he dedicated
to his father, then president of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons at Glasgow. Certain redundancies
and inaccuracies were removed and corrected, and important illustrative matter added, in the later editions.
In the advertisement to the third, which appeared in 1836, he stated that, in its improved form, the work
contained as good an account of Sleep as he was capable of producing, and that it was not probable that
any further change would be made. He had previously removed some obscurities which existed in the
first impression, by openly embracing the doctrines of phrenology, which he believed alone capable of
affording a satisfactory explanation of the various phenomena of Sleep. The second edition of this treatise
was translated into German, and in that form published at Leipzig.

He now became a contributor to Fraser, where the curious story appeared, “Singular Passage in My
Own Life,” and his burlesque essay, “The Philosophy of Burking,” which may have been, in some measure,
suggested by De Quincey’s humorous dissertation, “On Murder considered as One of the Fine Arts.”

Among his fugitive pieces,—many of which are poems both humorous and serious,—may be mentioned
a tale entitled “ The Psychological Curiosity.” This is not included amongst his collected works, and first
appeared as the production of James Hogg, in the “Scottish Annual.” It was afterwards published in
Fraser's Magazine for June, 1839, where it is pointed out as a hoax played off by Macnish on the simple
“ Shepherd.”

In 1834 he managed to escape from his professional labours, and made a trip to the Continent, his
notes on which he shortly after published in Fraser. In this same year, too, appeared his “ Book of

Aphorisms”; “twelve dozen” of which had previously seen the light in Fraser, with a running commentary
by “Sir Morgan O'Doherty,” of whose own worldly-wise “ Maxims” we have already made mention.
They were all written, the author tells us, “in the evenings of September, 1832, for the purpose of whiling
away a few idle hours.”

In 1836 he published an elementary treatise on Phrenology, in the form of question and answer, of

* June, 1839. Page 686.
+ The two Greek lines which stood at the head of each number of the “ Noctes Ambrosian” in Blackwood will be
remembered, with the humorous amplified rendering into English :—
“This is a distich by wise old Phocylides,
An ancient who wrote crabbed Greek in no silly days;
Meaning :—‘’Tis right for good wine-bibbing people
Not to let the jug pass roumd the board like a cripple,
But gaily to chat whilst discussing their tipple.’
An excellent rule of the hearty old cock ’tis,
And a very fit motto to put to our Noctes.”
182 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

which two thousand copies were sold in a few months. This is one of the clearest and most convincing
books on the subject that has yet appeared, and was translated into French, by H. Lebeau, under the title
of “Introduction a l’Etude de la Phrénologie par Demandes et Réponses” (1838, 18mo.). He also edited
Dr. Brigham’s very interesting little work, ‘On the Influence of Mental Cultivation and Mental
Excitement upon Health,” of which two editions appeared. Neither of these have we seen: our own
copy (seventh edition, 1844) appears to be edited by ‘‘ James Simpson, Esq., Advocate,” whose preface is dated
December, 1835.

In America the various works of Macnish have gained a high reputation, and passed through many
editions. In 1836 he received the information that the degree of LL.D. had been conferred upon him, in
recognition of his merits, by Hamilton College, United States.

In December, 1836, Dr. Macnish was attacked by a “cold,”—that disorder which the author of the
“Diary of alate Physician” warns us to consider “asa chill caught by sudden contact with the grave.”
On January 3rd, 1837, he took to his bed ; typhoid symptoms manifested themselves ; he sank into a state
of extreme debility ; became comatose ; and so remained till his death on January 16th, 1837, in the
thirty-fifth year of his age.

At the time of his death, which cut short a career which seemed destined for high intellectual
distinction, he had been engaged on a new edition of his “Treatise on Phrenology.” This appeared at a
later day, when praise and blame were alike to the gifted author.

Shortly after his death “The Metempsychosis” and a number of other tales and fugitive pieces of the
same author were collected and published in two volumes (1836, small 8vo.), prefaced by an interesting
and copious biography by Dr. Moir, who says of his early-lost friend —“I loved him as David loved
Jonathan,—with almost more than a brothey’s love.”

No. 68.—REGINA’S MAIDS OF HONOUR.

T is just a year ago, since we gave a jolly row of our friends whose sex is male, seated at a table round ;
where, o’er claret, punch, or ale, or what liquor could be found, they, with song, or chant, or tale,
made the jocund night resound. Now, as William Wordsworth says, now another day has come (you'll
find the line among his lays) of purer thought and fairer doom ; and behold a company, every one a lovely
she, very busy taking tea, or coffee, as the chance may be.

He who from the imperial lord of Rome derives his haughty name, or else the foe of Julius’ fame
may the title high afford, Cesar or Pompey, careful black, one of Afric’s injured line, standing behind a
lady’s back, offers, not the cups of wine, but the cups, as Cowper sings, which cheer and not inebriate, and
don’t leave behind the stings which gentlemen who sit up late often find the morning brings to parched
tongue and aching pate.

What are they doing? What they should; with volant tongue and chatty cheer, welcoming in, by
prattle good, or witty phrase, or comment shrewd, the opening of the gay new year. Mrs. Hall, so fair
and fine, bids her brilliant eyes to glow,—eyes the brightest of the nine would be but too proud to show.
Outlaw he, and Buccaneer, who'd refuse to worship here. And next the mistress of the shell (not of
lobster, but the lyre), see the lovely L. E. L. talks with tongue that will not tire. True, she turns away
her face, out of pity to us men; but the swanlike neck we trace, and the figure full of grace, and the
mignon hand whose pen wrote the “Golden Violet,” and the Li’rary Gazette, and “ Francesca’s” mournful
story. (Isn’t she painted con amore ?) Who is next? Miladi dear. Glad are we to see you here.
Naughty fellows, we must plead, that with voice of angry organ once or twice we did, indeed, speak not
civilly of Morgan ; but we must retract, repent, promise better to behave. She, we are certain, will
consent all our former feuds to wave ; and, as we know she hates O’Connell, who calls her now a blockhead
old, we shall say that in “ O'Donnell,” and in other tales she told, there is many a page of fun—many a bit
for hearty laughing, some to shed a tear upon,—some to relish while we are quaffing ; and that she can use
the mawleys she has shown upon the “ Crawleys.” Prate away, then, good Miladi,—gossip, gossip, bore and
bore,—all for him who to the shady grove has gone for years a score,—for the sake of old Macowen, and
his song of ‘‘ Modereen Roo,”—for your father’s sake we are going never more to bother you.

Full the face that flashes near her ; can we draw away our gaze? Vision nobler, brighter, dearer,
did ne’er on human eyeball blaze. Front sublime and orb of splendour, glance that every thought can
speak ; feeling proud, or pathos tender, the lid to wet, to burn the cheek ; or, my halting rhyme to shorten,
can't I say ’tis Mrs. Norton? Heiress of a race to whom genius his constant boon has given, through long
wT | } © qa TA SV}
Y V NG NGI) aS

se

=
=

Hy
'

Ss =
Se

 
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 183

descended lines to bloom in wit of earth or strains of Heaven. Oh! if thy Wandering Jew had seen those
sunny eyes, those locks of jet, how vain, how trifling would have been the agony of fond regret which in
thy strains he is made to feel for the creations of thy brain,—those wounds thou say’st he lived to heal,—
thee lost, he ne’er had loved again ! Oh, gorgeous Countess! gayer notes for all that’s charming, sweet, and
smiling, for her whose pleasant tales our throats are ever of fresh laughs beguiling. Say, shall we call thee
bright and fair, enchanting, winning? but, ho ! far hence such praise as ours ; what need she care for aught
beyond Sir Thomas Lawrence? Go, try to read, although his quill is too mean and dull, what she inspired
even in so great a sumph as Willis; and if that Yankee boy admired, who can a Christian person blame, if
he, all Countess-smit, pretends that, if she lets him near the flame of her warm glance he’d think it shame
that, like her book, she and he should look as nothing nearer than Two friends?

Our Muse then, in a hurry, passes the pretty ladies by the glasses, and comes to where Miss Porter
(Jane) is her sweet cup of coffee stirring, and in a soft and easy strain of Mrs. Skinner’s parties purring.
Miss Martineau, with serious brow, beside the author fair of “Thaddeus,” is meditating, grimly, how she
can prevent the very bad use that people have in this sad earth of putting things into confusion, by giving
certain matters birth, in spite of theories Malthusian. And last, the jolliest of them all, soft-seated on
a well-filled bustle, her coffee sips, by Mrs. Hall—dear, darling Mitford (Mary Russell). Long may she
live with graphic touch (though Croquis paints her here left-handed) our English scenes in pencillings
Dutch, as neat as ever Douw commanded, in all their easy, quiet beauty—their modest forms, or grave, or
gay,—their homely cares, their honest duty, with heart all English to display.

And now that all around the table we thus have taken our full career, we drink the Ladies (while we
are able) in the first bumper of the year. Long may they flourish ere they fix, at last, their final home in
Heaven! We wish them joy through Tairty-six—we'll do the same in THIRTY-SEVEN !

NOT BS:

ROM Cropivus down to Peepinc Tom of Covenrry, dire pains and penalties have been deservedly
incurred by those rash individuals of the inferior sex who have dared to intrude upon the sacrec
rites and mysteries of the ladies in secret conclave assembled. True, there are here none of the symbols of
secrecy. The rose is on the cheek instead of the ceiling, and a coftee-cup interposed between finger and lip.
Bué still we shall not pry farther ; for what more do we want to know? Each member of the graceful
sisterhood,—except one,—has already received a notice at our hands ; and the one who yet awaits her turn
has her own niche,—last, it may be, in the “Gallery,” but not least in our own or general estimation.
Something might doubtless be said on the subject of millinery. But here Leigh Hunt himself refuses to be
explicit :—
‘“‘T tell not the dresses. Suffice it that Titian
Had own’d himself conquer’d at this exhibition ;
So rich were the colours! such Autumn! such May!
For spirits and years made them more or less gay ;
And the elder in orange and russet came, queenly ;
The younger, in lily and rose, sprinkled greenly :
The buxom, uniting both tastes, fill’d the doors
With their shoulders and frills, @ la Lowis Quatorze ;
Or, with robes @ l’antique, and with crowns from their graperies :
Blest were the eyes that beheld their broad draperies.”
Feast of the Violets.

Though,—by and by, when the god has fairly revealed himself in person to these, his favourite daughters,
—how finely does the poet describe the saltatory revels of the active deity with these fair daughters of
men :—
“ Now with one, now with t’other he danced, now with ten!

For your god in his dancing is several men.

Fanny Butter he waltz’d with; he jigg’d it with Morean;

With Hatt he developed the rigadoon organ ;

To Parpor he show’d Spain’s impassion’d velocity ;

Norron, the minuet’s high reciprocity.

Then he took LANDON, ere she was aware,

Like a dove in a whirlwind, and whisk’d her in air ;

Or, a Zephyr might catch up some rose-haunting fay,

Or as Mercury once netted Flora, they say ;

And then, again, stately, like any Sultain

With his Queen, he and BiessineTon trod a pavdun,—

Which meaneth a‘ peacock-dance.’ Truly, ’twas grand to see

How they came spreading it, pavoneggidndosi !””

Ibid.

Referring the reader who may wish to know more of the sesquipedalian and dentifrangibulous word at
the end of these clever lines to a paper on “ The Poetry of Motion,” in the New Monthly Magazine for
May, 1836, p: 24, we make our bow to Recina’s Marps or Honour.
( 1a 5

No, 69.—MICHAEL FARADAY.

ERE you have him in his glory—not that his position was in-glorious when he stood uncovered
before Melbourne—then decorated with a blue velvet travelling cap, and lounging with one leg
over an arm of the chair of Cannine !—and distinctly gave that illustrious despiser of “ humbug” to under-
stand that he had mistaken his lad: no! but here you have him, as he first flashed upon the intelligence
of mankind the condensation of the gases, or the identity of the five electricities. Here stands—anno
wtatis 42—at the head of one of the noblest of the sciences—honoured as the compeer of Cuvier, Laplace,
and Buckland-—the son of a poor blacksmith, who was apprenticed at nine years of age to an obscure
bookbinder in Blandford Street, and earned his bread by that humble calling until he was twenty-two !
These are the spectacles on which, of all that history presents, we dwell with the highest exultation. And
yet such are occasionally furnished in the renown of men whose labours do not bring in what Cupid pays
to the unfasting Monsieur that trims his hoary whiskers. Faraday’s revenue, when he stood before the
recumbent Premier, amounted, perhaps, to one-tenth of what the national treasury bestows on Tom Young,
whose ‘‘chemical manipulation” has been exclusively, we believe, developed in the composition of a salad ;
for which art he is extolled, with just enthusiasm, by Ais brother savant, Beak Walker, author of “The
Original.”

Well, although Young got Broderip to write a sort of defence of his master, and “Justice B
mirabile dictu ! got Hook to print it in the John Bull, the current of public feeling could not be stopped :
Recina spoke out,—Wiuuiam Rex, as in duty bound, followed,—Melbourne apologised,—and “ Michael's
pension, Michael’s pension,” is all right.

The only two persons, besides Us and himself, to whom he is after all under any solid obligations, are
not to be looked for in the records of Downing Street or the Pavilion. Ned Magrath, now secretary to the
Atheneum, happening five-and-twenty years ago to enter the shop of Ribeau, observed one of the bucks of
the paper-bonnet zealously studying a book he ought to have been binding. He approached: it was a
volume of the old “ Britannica,” open at “ Electricity.” He entered into talk with the greasy journeyman,
and was astonished to find in him a self-taught chemist of no slender dimensions. He presented him with
a set of tickets for Davy’s lectures at the Royal Institution ; and daily thereafter might the nondescript be
seen perched, pen in hand, and his eyes starting out of his head, just over the clock, opposite the chair. At
last the course terminated ; but Faraday’s spirit had received a new impulse, which nothing but dire
necessity could have restrained; and from that he was saved by the promptitude with which, on his
forwarding a modest outline of his history, with the notes he had made of these lectures, to Davy, that
great and good man (so abominably caricatured by the ass Paris) rushed to the rescue of kindred genius.
Sir Humphrey immediately appointed him an assistant in the laboratory ; and, after two or three years had
passed, he found Faraday qualified to act as his secretary. The steps of his subsequent progress are well
known : he travelled over the Continent with Sir H.and Lady Davy,—and he is now what Davy was when
he first saw Davy—in all but money. Any money, too, now that he has a nest-egg, will accumulate. We
should be sorry to bet a dozen of champagne that, ere ten years more elapse, he will not be Sir Michael.

“ Ay, ay,” quoth Hill, alias Hull, alias Hobbleday, — playing for once “ Paul Pry” ;— “ay, ay,”
quoth the sage, peeping over our shoulders,—“ Far-a-Day, 1 suppose, means, being interpreted, Vear-a-
Knight. Ho!ho!” Peace, you old bore !

The future Baronet is a very good little fellow—a Christian, though, we regret to add, a Sandemanian
(whatever that might signify),—a Tory (as might have been inferred from Rat Lamb’s hostility),—and,
albeit not such a dab in cookery as the purser—or, Sandemanian though he be, so valuable a sand-bag to
his wine-merchant as St. Grant,—playing a fair fork over a leg of mutton, and devoid of any reluctance to
partake an old friend’s third bottle. We know few things more agreeable than a cigar and a bowl of punch
(which he mixes admirably) in the society of the unpretending ex-bookbinder.

 

”
?

NODE &

PON reading over the prose sketch which accompanies the portrait of this distinguished chemist and
philosopher, we find that very little remains to be added in illustration of a career which is chiefly
interesting to students in the science of which he was so distinguished an exponent.
Micuart Farapay was born in 1791, in the parish of Newington, Surrey ; was apprenticed to a
bookbinder ; and worked at his trade till 1812. In 1813 he became chemical assistant to Professor Brande,
    

WY
ANS oa

       

AUTHOR OF ‘CHEMICAL, MANIPULATION ”
 

 

 

 

ce

AUTHOR OF FOURTEEN SONNETS. 1786°
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 185

in the Royal Institution; and becoming the favourite pupil and friend of Sir Humphry Davy, he
accompanied him to the Continent, as stated above, and returned to his place in the Royal Institution in
1815. His discovery of the Chlorides of Carbon dates from 1820; and that of a mutual rotation of a
magnetic pole and an electric current, from the year following. In 1823 he discovered the condensation of
gases ; and in this year he was elected corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of Paris.

In 1824 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society; and in 1829 was appointed to deliver the
Bakerian Lecture, “On the Manufacture of Glass for Optical Purposes,”-—a subject to which he had
previously given considerable attention.

In 1831 Faraday commenced the series of experimental researches in Electricity, which, as published
from time to time in the “Transactions” of the Royal Society, and subsequently collected in separate
volumes, have been said to constitute the most perfect examples of pure and well-regulated induction to be
found in this or any other language. In 1832 their author received the honorary degree of D.C.L. from
the University of Oxford. In the year following, the chair of Chemistry in the Royal Institution was
founded by Mr. Fuller; and, at the express desire of the latter, Dr. Faraday was nominated the first
Fullerian Professor. In 1835 the Government of Lord Melbourne marked its appreciation of the value of
Dr. Faraday’s scientific discoveries by the grant of a pension of £300 per annum.

About twenty years ago occurred one of those epidemic hallucinations to which the human mind is
subject ; and men and women, of all classes of society, went mad on the subject of Tapie-Turninc. The
phenomena were actual ; and were variously referred to electricity, galvanism, odylic force, attraction, the
rotation of the earth, some unrecognized physical power, supernatural agency, and the machination of the
Devil.* All these causes can be investigated by the natural philosopher,—except the last ; and that is
beneath his notice, as the suggestion of an effete credulity and superstition. The philosophical mind of
Faraday was startled by the revelation of the mental condition of educated people in the nineteenth
century, afforded by their reception of a purely physical phenomenon. He was thus led to devote his attention
to the subject, and to devise an instrument which should conclusively show that the true and only cause of
these movements of inanimate bodies was a quasi involuntary muscular action on the part of those whose
hands were superposed. To detect this,—whether, in other words, the hands moved the table or the table
the hands,—Faraday constructed an ingenious little instrument, consisting of a lever which had its fulerum
on the table, while its short arm was attached to a pin fixed on a piece of cardboard, which could slip on the
surface of the table, and its long arm projected as an index of motion. The result of this was, that if the table
moved before the hands of the operator, which were placed on the cardboard, the index moved in the same
direction, the fulcrum, of course, going with the table. If, on the other hand, the hands moved before the
table, the index went in the opposite direction. Lastly, if neither table nor hands moved, the index itself
remained immovable. The especial value of this apparatus was the corrective power which it possessed
over the mind of the ‘operator. The consciousness of the latter that the direction of impulse was made
visible by the index, invariably resulted in the motionlessness of the table. All power was gone ; for the
index made apparent involuntary or mechanical pressure, and the table-turner was no longer able to deceive
himself. The little instrument was afterwards improved, so as to act independently of the table, and was
to be seen at the shop of a well-known philosophical instrument maker,—Newman, 122, Regent Street.
One question, however, still remains, which being psychological rather than physical, seems to have been
ignored by Faraday, as not coming within his own domain. Howis it that people can and do unconsciously
exercise the vast amount of muscular action necessary to set in motion, by the mere pressure of the tips of
their fingers, ponderous tables, and other articles of furniture? Bet perhaps the actuality of this wants
confirmation ; at all events, we have had no evidence of it ourselves.

We have never heard Faraday lecture, but have reason to believe that as an oral teacher of science he
was unrivalled. His language was said to be simple and earnest; and his manner exhibited an equal
ardour to gain and to impart knowledge. THis talent, moreover, was exceeded only by his humility.

It is sad to remember that the mental faculties of this great man became unsettled a short time before
his death. He was obliged to withdraw from his public labours, and did not long survive his retirement.
He died at Hampton Court Green, August 25th, 1867, in the seventy-sixth year of his age.

No. 70.—REV. WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES.

E endeavour to vary the attraction of our “Gallery” by selecting now the London lion, whose outward

Adam may be unknown to nine hundred among a thousand of our provincial admirers ; now the
ornament of some rural district, who has never, perhaps, breathed the air of the metropolis for a week on
end. Here, for example, is the Rector of Bremhill, one as much the observed of all observers in the west
of England, as Wordsworth is in the north ; but who might probably walk from Whitechapel to the

* “Table-Turning, the Devil’s Modern Master-Piece ; being the Result of a Course of Experiments.” By the Rev.

N 8. Godfrey, §.C.L. 1853.
“ Table-Turning Tested, and Proved to be the Result of Satanic Agency.” By the Same. London: Seeleys, 1853.

QA
186 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

White Horse Cellar without being recognised, by a single passer-by, for anything more:than a fair specimen
of your old-fashioned shovel-hat.

The last time he came up, it was to attend the musical festival in Westminster Abbey, on which
occasion he penned fourteen lines, worthy of the only English sonnetteer who cap claim a place in the
same file with Milton and Wordsworth. He then lodged under the roof of the most urbane (who is also
the most Urban, as contradistinguished from Cockney) of our poets. Bowles amused himself now and then
during his stay, as old Crabbe had done in like circumstances before him, with an evening stroll to the
theatres, where, in the sweet security of encog., he might either laugh his sides sore at Liston, or strain his
optics dim at Taglioni. The first night he did not come home till somewhere between one and two. “My
dear friend,” said his host, “I was afraid something had happened—you must have lost your way!” “JT
did,” quoth Bowles ; “I turned east instead of west, I believe, and I don’t know how far I might have
gone astray, had I not fallen into conversation with two very elegant ladies, who were so kind as to conduct
mein safety to your door.” “Lucky man! and did you part company without finding out who they were ?”’
“No,” said our original, “they gave me their tickets; and one of them was a particularly merry young
lady—perhaps you know her [here he handed a card across the table]. And she said, to make sure of my
calling to thank her for her convoy, 1 must give her a keepsake by way of pledge.” ‘By all means,”
grunted Sam ; “be sure you call on Mrs. Stafford, 15, Lisson Quadrant, and reclaim the little siapence.”
“Stafford !—’tis a high name !” observed the sonnetteer ; ‘‘T should not wonder if she were an honourable.”
Moore did not mention if Rogers actually allowed the old boy to make out his visit to the lovely aristocrat
of Paddington.

We do noi wish to be very particular in our biography of this poetical Parson Adams, because he has
himself begun the publication of his Memoirs in monthly numbers ; and we should be sorry to interfere
with a work so sure to deserve extensive circulation. Moreover, who but himself could fill up, with
satisfactory details, the outline of a personal career so calm, so innocent, pursued from youth to age in the
happiest of all human localities—that of -the vine-mantled rectory of the sequestered English valley—only
varied latterly by an annual migration of three winter months to the well-swept, wide-echoing close, that
adjoins the most graceful of cathedrals. Since he left Oxford, even then distinguished beyond her walls by
that 12mo., of which both Wordsworth and Coleridge have recorded that to it they owed their first
impetus,—since the blooming youth left the bowers of Charwell, until the grey-haired sage gave, all-uncon-
scious, his sitting to Croquis,—-such has been the peaceful lot of him who certainly has a far better title
than Rogers to be called “the grandfather of our living poets.” A couple of his self-affiliated progeny have
already been alluded to—thumping twins, it must be allowed; and if we were to reckon up their
intellectual seed, we think our patriarchal designation would pass nem. con.

It has pleased Jeffrey to say, that Bowles will only be remembered for his controversy with Byron.
We think he was wrong in that dispute ; but we reject the sentence of the Northern, as false, faith-
less, and worthy of no acceptation. Bowles is an original genius, if our age has produced one ; and,
if he had never penned a single syllable of prose, his place would have been as secure as even Byron’s
own—to say nothing of the puisne judge’s.

Farewell, dear old bard! Long may you continue to enjoy your morning fiddle and your evening pipe
—the affectionate respect of your parishioners, and the worshipful admiration of your brethren of the clerisy.
And whenever you revisit the great city, even Babylon, the mistress of abominations, be sure you
remember not to forget that OxIver has a rump and dozen at your service,—and that our niece, Miss
Firzyorxe, will see you safe home to No. 22.

 

MODE Ss

WILL play at Bowzs with the Sun and Moon,” was the epigraph chosen by Lord Byron, as from

an “old song,” for the title-page of a pamphlet in controversy with the subject of these “Notes”;
the veteran poet replied by his “Two Letters” to the noble Lord, bearing on their front the significant
motto,—“ He that plays at Bowts must expect Ruppers.”

Witu1am Liste Bowzes must be regarded as one of those poets who are indebted to certain adventitious
circumstances which surrounded their advent, for a reputation to which the abstract merit of their poetry
might not have entitled them. The old formal school had become utterly effete and soulless, with no claim
to attention beyond mechanical facility ; the new school, on the other hand, by the mere force of reaction,
was characterized by a puerility, affectation, and ruggedness which had a tendency to repel the readers of
poetry. A juste-miliew seemed to be offered to the “Sonnets” of Bowles, where were shown a polish of
sonstruction, a grace of rhythm, and a naturalness of sentiment, which, in spite of occasional feebleness and
\ifectation, created an admiration, at the time of their appearance, unintelligible on other grounds, and still
naintain for their author a position of some importance in the history of poetical literature. It was from
she “ Sonnets” of Bowles that the fire of genius was lighted in the soul of Coleridge,—a far greater poet.
He learnt them by heart; made forty autograph copies for his most valued friends ; and declared himself

“
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 187

“ enthusiastically delighted and inspired by them.”* To Bowles, he dedicated his own poetry, and Charles
Lamb loved his friend for the grateful deed. Southey, again,—whom as a poet, too, we should place
in a higher rank than Bowles,—writes to him, “There are three contemporaries, the influence of whose
poetry on my own I can distinctly trace,—Sayers,t yourself, and Savage Landor. 1 owe you something,
therefore, on the score of gratitude.” Now, it may be laid down as an axiom, that the sacred flame of
genius was never enkindled in the human soul but by genius itself,—however feebly the primal spark may
have burnt. Thus we must pronounce Bowles a man of some genius, though not of the highest order or
foremost rank. His poetry so far belongs to the old school, that it is characterized by polish rather than
by strength, and is intellectual rather than imaginative. It is conversant with the softer emotions of our
nature, but seldom rises into passion, The entbusiasm of the lyvist seems subdued by the taste of the
scholar ; and “thoughts that breathe, and words that burn,” find no place in the tender, unimpassioned
strain. Still, if the poet fails to stir the deeper waters in the well of soul, he warms the surface with
sunshine ; if he plays not with the thunderbolt, nor rides upon the storm, he leads us on a tranquil and
flowery path, beneath placid skies, and with measured step.

Bowles was born at King’s Sutton, in Northamptonshire, September 25th, 1772. He was educated on
the Wykeham foundation at Winchester, under Joseph Warton, D.D., and in 1781 was elected a scholar
of Trinity College, Oxford,—which he chose because Thomas Warton (whom he resembles in a higher
degree, probably, than any other poet) was then resident there. In 1783 he gained the Chancellor’s prize
for Latin verse, by his lines, “ Calpe Obsessa,”—the Siege of Gibraltar,—which find a place in his collected
poems. He left the University before a Fellowship had fallen to his lot, and did not proceed to his M.A.
degree till 1792. A disappointment in love at this period led him to travel. He wandered over his native
country, and along the borders of the Rhine. Of these solitary rambles his ‘‘ Sonnets,” published in 1789,
4to., were the fruits. These were followed by his “ Verses to John Howard,” and the “ Grave of Howard,”
in 1790. These, and other subsequent poems, were well received, and went through many editions ; the
impression of 1792 being illustrated by that elegant drauchtsman Thomas Kirk, whom Leigh Hunt calls
“the best artist, except Stothard, that ever designed for periodical works ; and the best artist Scotland ever
produced, except Wilkie.”

Bowles now entered holy orders, and became a Wiltshire curate. This he remained till 1804, when, as
an act of gratitude for services received from his maternal grandfather, Archbishop Moore presented him
with the valuable vicarage of Bremhill, in Wiltshire, in his gift, as an option pro hdc vice. In the same
year he was collated by Bishop Douglas to the prebend of Stratford, in the Cathedral Church of. Salisbury.
In 1818 we find him styling himself Chaplain to H.R.H. the Prince Regent ; and in 1828 he was elected a
canon-residentiary of Salisbury.

Besides the longer poems of Bowles, which were published at various periods during his incumbency of
Bremhill, his various labours as an antiquarian, a theologian, a critic, and a controversialist, demand some
notice at our hands. In 1798 appeared “Coombe Ellen,” and “St. Michael’s Mount”; in 1799 “The
Battle of the Nile”; in 1801 “The Sorrows of Switzerland”; in 1805 ‘The Spirit of Discovery by Sea”;
in 1815 “The Missionary of the Andes”; in 1822 “The Grave of the Last Saxon”; in 1828 “ Days
Departed ; or, Banwell Hill”; in 1832 “St. John in Patmos”; &c. As an archeologist, his ‘ Parochial
History of Bremhill” (1828, 8vo.) deserves mention; as well as his “Hermes Britannicus ; or, a
Dissertation on the Celtic Deity Teutates, the Mercury of Cesar, in further Proof and Corroboration of the
Origin and Designation of the Great Temple at Avebury, in Wiltshire.” As a dissertation upon an
historical subject, we do not know that this volume has ever been held in any great esteem ; the speculative
tendency of the poet rather appearing than the calm and cautious character of the antiquarian. The same
remark may be held also to apply to his “ Life of Thomas Ken, D.D.,” the deprived Bishop of Bath and
Wells (1830-1, 8vo.), which is, nevertheless, a work of considerable interest and importance.

Of the various works which proceeded from the pen of Mr. Bowles in more immediate connection
with his professional functions, it is not within our province here to speak.

We believe that the duties of parish priest were, notwithstanding his literary avocations, discharged
by Mr. Bowles in the most exemplary manner. He took great interest in the education of the poorer
members of his parish, and endeavoured zealously to promote the welfare of the rural population. According
to the reprehensible English custom, he united the duties of the magistrate to those of the parson.
Clerical members of the bench are usually distinguished by the severity of their decisions ; but it is to be
recorded to the credit of Mr. Bowles, that while he was unremitting in attention to the duties of his office,
he was lenient to an extent that, on more than one occasion, incurred the censure of his brother magistrates.
His conduct in one of these affairs carne under the notice of Lord Lansdowne, then Secretary of State for
the Home Department, and received his approbation, as well as that of every feeling and honourable mind.

Some few years before his death, Mr. Bowles resigned his living of Bremhill, after a residence of nearly
a quarter of a century. He passed the remainder of his days at Salisbury, in perfect retirement, necessitated
by increasing bodily and mental debility. He died at his residence in the Close, at that city, April 7th,

1850, in the eighty-eighth year of his age.

* “ Biographia Literaria,” chapter i.

+ We are not acquainted with the poetry of this gentleman, and suppose him to be the “ Mr. Sayer in the Tower,” as
whose production the very clever and original jew d’esprit of Southey, “The March to Moscow,” was palmed upon
Jerdan.—“ Autobiography of W. Jerdan,” vol. i. p. 246. ’

{ “The Indicator,” by Leigh Hunt (lxiii. “My Books a Kirk a Scotchman P

A
Ts88 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

We have purposely omitted to the last all mention of one of the most important incidents in the
literary career of Mr. Bowles,—the celebrated controversy in which he was engaged with the poets
Campbell, Byron, and others, on what they termed “The Invariable Principles of Poetry.” This was
commenced by Bowles, through a critical proposition in an essay on. the poetical character of Pope, which
occurred in the last volume of an edition of that poet, which he edited in 1807, in ten volumes, 8vo., and
for which he had received a sum of £300. The proposition was to the following effect :—“ That all images
drawn from what is beautiful or sublime in the works of nature are more beautiful and sublime than
images drawn from art, and are therefore more poetical. In like manner, those passions of the human
heart which belong to nature in general are, per se, more adapted to the higher species of poetry than
those which are derived from incidental and transient manners.” As an illustration, the critic goes on to
say, “ A description of a forest is more poetical than a cultivated garden ; and the passions which are
portrayed in the ‘ Epistle of Eloisa,’ render such a poem more poetical (whatever might be the difference
of merit in point of composition), intrinsically more poetical than a poem founded. on the characters,
incidents, and modes of artificial life; for instance, the ‘Rape of the Lock.’” This position was attacked,
with some amount of misrepresentation, in an article by Jeffrey (?) in the Hdinburgh Review, and by
Campbell in the New Monthly Magazine and the very elegant and able “Essay on English Poetry ”
(part ili.), which accompanied his “Specimens of the English Poets.” Bowles replied ; and Lord Byron
took up the cudgel for Pope,—whom he always eulogized, but certainly did not gain his fame, as a poet, by
imitating. Bowles had unquestionably the best of the argument,—except, perhaps, as regarded the incidental
question of the moral character of Pope, on which he had been unduly severe, and might reasonably have
modified his strictures. It was the misfortune of Campbell and Byron to be not only weak in their logic,
but to afford, in their own most esteemed poems, an illustration of the truth of their opponent’s principles.
In fact, they would have been silenced at once if Bowles, by omitting to-lay sufficient stress upon what may
be termed the mechanics of poetry,—the perfection and co-ordination of materials,—had not allowed his
antagonists to back out from their main position, and carry on the battle on this merely subsidiary issue,
however important it may be in itself, of the original argument. The sound of the blows dealt by these
doughty champions summoned several minor pamphleteers from their obscurity, who took one or the other
side. Regarding this controversy as a very interesting and important one in the annals of poetic criticism,
we append below, for the benefit of those who may choose to. collect and. study for themselves, a pretty
complete list of the various pamphlets which appeared.*

* “The Invariable Principles of Poetry: in a Letter addressed to Thomas Campbell, Esq., occasioned by some Critical
Observations in his Specimens of British Poets, particularly relating to the Character of Pope.” By the Rev. W. L. Bowles.
London, 1819. 8vo. pp. 46.

“A Letter to the Rev. William Lisle Bowles, in Answer to a Pamphlet, recently published under the Title of ‘A Reply
to an Unsentimental Sort of Critic, the Reviewer of Spence’s Anecdotes in the Quarterly Review for Oct., 1820.’” By
Octavius Gilchrist, Esq., F.S.A. London, 1820. 8vo. pp. 42.

‘“A Reply to the Charges brought by the Reviewer of ‘ Spence’s Anecdotes’ in the Quarterly Review for Oct., 1820,
against the late Editor of Pope’s Works, and Author of ‘A Letter to Mr. Campbell’ on ‘The Invariable Principles of
Poetry.’”? By the Rev. W. L. Bowles. London, 1820. 8vo. (Inserted in the Pamphleteer, No. xxxiii.).

“A Second Letter to the Rev. William Lisle Bowles, in Answer to his Second Reply (printed in the Pamphleteer,
No. xxxiii.), &¢.”’ By Octavius Gilchrist, Hsq., F.S.A. London, 1820. 8vo. pp. 36.

“Letter to ** ** ** * * * * on the Rev. W. L. Bowles’s Strictures on the Life and Writings of Pope.” By the
Right Hon. Lord Byron. London (Murray), 1821. 8vo. pp. 61.

“A Third Letter to the Rev. W. L. Bowles, concerning Pope’s Moral Character: including some Observations on that
Person’s Demeanour towards his Opponents during the recent Controversy on that Subject.” By Octavius Gilebrist, F.8.A.
London, 1821. 8vo. :

“Two Letters to the Right Honourable Lord Byron, in Answer to his Lordship’s Letter to * * * * * * * * * * on the
Rev. W. L. Bowles’s Strictures on the Life and Writings of Pope: more particularly on the Question, Whether Poetry be
more immediately indebted to what is Sublime and Beautiful in the Works of Nature or the Works of Art?” By the Rev.
W. L. Bowles. London, 1821. 8vo. pp. 104.

“ Observations on the Poetical Character of Pope, further elucidating the Invariable Principles of Poetry, &c. With
a Sequel, in reply to Octavius Gilchrist.” By the Rev. W. L. Bowles. 1820-1. (Inserted in the Pamphleteer,
Nos. xxxiv. and xxxv.)

“Letter to Lord Byron, protesting against the Immolation of Gray, Cowper, and Campbell, at the Shrine of Pope.”
1821. 8vo.

‘A Letter to the Rev. W. L. Bowles, in Reply to his Letter to Thomas Campbell, Hsq.,and to his Two Letters to the
Right Hon. Lord Byron; containing a Vindication of their Defence of the Poetical Character of Pope, and an Inquiry into
the Nature of Poetical Images, and of the Characteristic Qualities that distinguish Poetry from all other Species of
Writing.” By M. M’Dermot. 1822. 8vo. (Inserted in the Pumphleteer, Nos. xxxix. and xl.)

“ Letters to Lord Byron on a Question of Poetical Criticism. 8rd Edition, with Corrections. To which are now first
added the Letter to Mr. Campbell, as far as regards Poetical Criticism; and the Answer to the Writer in the Quarterly
Review, as far as it relates to the same Subject. 2nd Edition. Together with an Answer to some Objections and further
Illustrations.” By the Rev. W. L. Bowles. London, 1822. 8vo.

“Letters to Mr. T. Campbell, as far as regards Poetical Criticism, &c., and the Answer to the Writer in the Quarterly
Review, &c. 2nd Edition. Together with an Answer to some Objections; and further Illustrations.” 1822. (Inserted in
the Pamphleteer, No. xl.)

“A Final Appeal to the Literary Public relative to Pope, in Reply to certain Observations of Mr. Roscoe, in his Edition
of the Poet’s Work. To which are added some Remarks on Lord Byron’s Conversations, as far as they relate to the same
Subject and the Author. In Letters to a Literary Friend.’ By the Rev. W. L. Bowles, M.A., &c. London, 1825.
8vo. pp. 190.

eee in Criticism to William Roscoe, Esq., F.R.S., in Answer to his Letter to the Rev. W. L. Bowles, on the
Character and Poetry of Pope.” 1826. 8vyo.
 

 

 

 

 

   
     

SSS
SSS

AUTHOR OF “THE BUCCANEER?®
(, 180 4,

No. 71—MRS. S. € HALL.

“ T J ONOUR to Woman!” is our standing toast. For are not the maids, wives, and widows of these

sea-girt isles our pride and heart’s delight? Long may they continue, as their mothers were
before them, essentially and mentally feminine / All other changes in a nation are of trivial import when
compared with a change for the worse in the character of its females. They are as the well-springs that
feed the stream of future human life,—a stream whose course will be fearful, deadly, and desolate, if the
fountaing be polluted.

The female philosophers and politicians of France, at the close of the last century, so did their godless
work, that he who runs may read its consequences in the present generation. We would not that Britain
should be thus, and so contaminated ; and therefore have felt it to be our duty occasionally to hold up to
ridicule the praise-intoxicated presumption which, with cap and bells jingling, would “runa muck” against
all established and even sacred things. It is not the lady, but the inflated ignorant charlatan, at whom we
point with the finger of scorn. Quacks are of no sex.” But to our subject.

Whether the authoress of “The Outlaw,” née Anna Maria Fielding, claim kindred with the immortal
chronicler of “Tom Jones” is to us unknown. Her mother, we believe, was of French Huguenot lineage ;
the Co. Wexford being filled with such exiles for conscience’ sake, for whom the “lines” can scarcely be
said ‘to have fallen on pleasant places,” theirs being the singular lot to be tumbled out of the frying-pan
of the edict of Nantes into the fire of Scullabogue. The Fieldings, it appears, had estates, which they
resolved and re-resolved to ‘‘see about” improving ; till, somehow, while they were debating, the acres glided
out of their possession. But this is “(a way they have in Ireland”; so nobody was surprised, except,
perhaps, the outgoers. What became of the old people is not on record. The young lady, however, seems
not to have been inclined to go simpering ‘‘Fuimus” throughout the land. She left the paternal halls,
and, appearing in England, took possession of a new Hall by right of conquest ; assuming (like Scipio
Africanus) the name of what she had subdued. Although a dozen years have elapsed since this event, we
are happy to add that the conquered party has evinced no disposition to throw off the yoke, nor has
the question of “ repaling the union” been once mooted.

The Irish sketches of Mrs. 8. C. Hall are her most prominent performances. In them, like the admirable
Edgeworth, she makes her pen ancillary to national improvement, by the gentle, shrewd, and good-
humoured indication of Milesian absurdities. The rotting shed of an Irish hovel, sheltering, as it does, the
most helpless and trampled on of God’s creatures, covers an inexhaustible mine of pathos, as well as fun—
there is the true flebile ludibriwm of the satirist. When Gonzalvi took to exterminating the banditti in the
neighbourhood of Rome, loud murmurs arose among the artists at the prospect of being deprived of such
capital materials for their craft, in costume, grouping, and incident. Poulet Scrope is not aware of the ruin
his Poor Law ror IreLanp would entail on the numerous artisans who make a livelihood of the present
state of things,—Wilkie, by painting “Peep o’ day boys”; or Maclise, by “installing Captain Rocks” ,
Banim, by the heart-rending fidelity of his graphic scenes ; or Lover, by the arch waggery of his prose—not
to be surpassed, save by the witchery of his song. All this would pass away ; nor would the living models
from which they now draw have more substantial existence than Crofton Croker's “ fairies,” or Moore’s
“ragged royal race of Tara.” Solved by the magic touch of substantial emancipation from rags and
famine, the copper chains in which the archbeggar contrives to keep his “hereditary bondsmen” would
have the fate of Wood's halfpence in the last century.

Happily, however, for poets, painters, and Mrs. 8. C. Hall, our enlightened ministry have a different
method of doing “justice to Ireland,” and are wisely impressed with the expediency of continuing the
starvation. system, as the fittest regimen for the distempered Greenlanders. They seek to amuse them,
meantime, with municipal moonshine; and have found a most dignified occupation, in joining the
descendant of a. Kerry pedlar in his melodious howl against the barons and peerage of England. Let Mrs.
Hall continue her sketches. During Sultan Mahmoud’s reign there will be no-lack of ruined villages.

NOTES. .

HAT she was ‘‘tvittie aboue her seye’? was recorded upon stone of a “Good Mistris Hall” of a
former day,—and well might it be so, for she was the daughter of SuaxspzarE! No such rich
heritage of genius can belong to the graceful and accomplished writer to whom we devote these few notes,
though the same sentiment would not be thought inappropriate to her, by any who know her, personally or
through her writings. ; :
The path of Mrs. Hall has lain in the quiet ways of life. The career, indeed, of a married lady,—the
ruler of her household ; the adviser and assistant of her husband in his literary undertakings ; the writer,
190 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

gaining fame by independent genius ; the friend, of ever-ready love and sympathy ; the earnest and zealous
promoter of charitable schemes,—and all this may be said of Mrs. Hall,—presents, fortunately for herself,
few points of salient interest to a biographer. There remains, then, to be noticed little besides the main
incidents of her literary career ; on which we are not inclined to be diffuse, as these will be found fairly
recorded in “ Men and Women of the Time,” and such like publications.

Her first work, we think, was entitled “Sketches of Irish Character,’ and appeared so far back as
1829. Mrs. Hall is by birth an Irishwoman herself, and though she came to this country at an early age,
and has become, by long residence and social ties, naturalized, as it were, here, she is one of the most
skilful delineators of the manners and character of the people among whom her earliest and most
impressionable days were passed. We fancy that there are few who have not read her “ Lights and Shadows
of Irish Life,”— one of the stories of which (‘‘ The Groves of Blarney,” vol. i.) was dramatised by her, and
brought out at the Adelphi with success in 1838. Then came “ Marian; or, a Young Maid’s Mortunes,”
published in 1839, which was the predecessor of the well-known “ Stories of the Irish Peasantry,” which
appeared originally in Chambers’s Journal (a Magazine which contains some of the best stories, and the most
useful writing in the language), and were subsequently collected and published in a substantive form. One
of Mrs. Hall’s last publications,—if not the last,—relates to the same country. The title of this is “The
Fight of Faith : a Story of Ireland, 1688-9.” We always sit down with an anticipation of pleasure to
one of Mrs. Hall’s Irish tales, and are never disappointed. They are simple, natural, graceful, and
pathetic. We do not, however, possess a sufficient knowledge of Ireland to enable us to speak positively
as to the local truth of these stories ; or to define the relative position of their authoress in regard to the
other great writers who have sought by fiction to illustrate the national character,—Edgeworth, Carleton,
Lover, Banim, Lever, and Griffin,—though we should certainly give her a high place on the list.

As a novel-writer, it was with the “ Buccaneer” that Mrs. Hall made her début, in 1832,—the scene
of which is laid in England, during the Protectorate of Cromwell. Then we have “Tales of Women’s
Trials”; and ‘The Outlaw,” a novel of the reign of James II., published in 1835. There is also “ Uncle
Horace,” which we have never seen ; “ The Whiteboy,” published in 1845; ‘‘Can Wrong be Right?” in
1852; and “A Woman’s Story,” in 1857. °

As a dramatist —besides “The Groves of Blarney” already mentioned,— Mrs. Hall has given evidence
of no small ability by her play, ‘The French Refugee,” which had a run of ninety nights at the St. James’s
Theatre, when under the management of Braham. ;

Mrs. Hall is also author of some very graceful stories for children. The attempt to write for the
young is an evidence of a tender and loving disposition ; but to write for them with success,—to amuse
without affectation, and teach without tiring,—is a faculty granted to very few. William Jerdan, whose
friendship for Mrs. Hall dated from a very early day, speaks in the highest terms of this lady’s compositions
for juvenile readers, which he pronounces absolutely free from the general error of marring really good
lessons by bad illustrations,—and values “even as much as the most popular of those she has produced for
mature age.” Mrs. Hall was a valued contributor to the Literary Gazette ; and in writing to its editor on
a bygone Christmas Day, concluded her letter by reminding him, that when looking back upon all that
they had lost,—as year after year, then as now,—

“A narrower circle seems to meet
Around the board,—each vacant seat
A dark and sad remembrance brings,—”

he must enjoy “much real happiness from the knowledge that he had always fostered young talent, given
circulation to opinions calculated to promote the influence of religion and morality, and never inflicted
a careless wound on any living thing.”*

Besides the larger works we have mentioned, Mrs. Hall is the author of many essays and tracts, chiefly
relating to women’s duties, or in eloquent advocacy and illustration of the benefit of temperance,—of all
secular teaching the most important, and that of which, as a nation, we stand most in need. When it is

_ considered that the books, large and small, which have proceeded from her industrious pen number many
more than a hundred,—we are assured, indeed, that the literary works, either written or edited by herself and
her husband, amount to upwards of three hundred and forty,t—it will be understood that our bibliography
is professedly imperfect ; and when it is remembered that the object of this writer has uniformly been to
combine with amusement the purest moral teaching, it will not be thought that the Crown pension of £100
per annum which she enjoys has been bestowed either prematurely or unworthily.

Jt is hardly necessary to mention that the husband of this accomplished lady is Mr. Samuel Carter
Hall, F.S.A., the founder (1839) and present conductor of that well-known and elegant Magazine, the
Art Journal. The fine arts are greatly indebted to Mr. Hall for his conduct of this publication, which,
after one or two changes of form, has long obtained a firm hold on public favour. Mr. Hall has often
exposed, with cost and courage, the attempted impositions of picture-dealers ; and by this, and his judicious
criticisms in the Journal, has done much to foster a taste for the genuine, truthful works of the modern
school, in place of the “ Raphaels, Correggios, and .stuff,” of Wardour-street manufacture, which were once
the only things that excited the cupidity of the collector. He succeeded Campbell, and preceded Hook, in
the conduct of the New Monthly Magazine, and was editor of that charming annual, the Amulet, of which
eleven volumes appeared. But we are forgetting that we have only to do incidentally with Mr. Hall.

* “ Autobiography of William Jerdan,” vol. iv. chap. 17.
+ “Men of the Time,” 1872, p. 459.
 
     

  

ca

  

   
 
  
    
   

i
Ni
in
Oe =,

eo

 

  
  
 

  
 

   

)
4 ih %

 

AUTHOR OF "(HE MISCELLANY.”
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 191

Mrs. Hall has been a valuable contributor to her husband’s Magazine. In 1847 she contributed to its
columns, “Midsummer Eve,”—a graceful fairy tale, subsequently republished ; and a series of ‘“ pleasant
illustrated sketches of the homes and’ haunts of genius and virtue in our own little island,” which were
reissued later under the title of “Pilgrimages to English Shrines.” In 1871 appeared, with the name of
S. C. Hall on the title-page as author, a very interesting and truly beautiful book, of which the title suffi-
ciently explains the nature: “A Book of Memories of Great Men and Women of the Age, from Personal
Acquaintance.” The following passage occurs in the preface :—“ These memories will derive much of their
value from the aid I receive from my wife. We have worked together for more than forty years; with
only few exceptions my acquaintances were hers. I have had no hesitation in availing myself of her
co-operation in this undertaking, have freely quoted her views of the characters I depict, and occasionally
called upon her for her ‘Memories’ to add to mine.”

This is before the world ; but we have under our eyes another graceful tribute of affection from the
husband to the wife, in the shape of a copy of beautiful and touching verses (privately printed), which we
are permitted to publish here for the first time :—

AFTER FORTY YEARS.

JANUARY 61H, 1864.

Yes! forty years of troubles,—come and gone,— And if the world has found some good in me,
I count, since first I gave thee hand and heart! The prompting and the teaching came from thee!
But none have come from thee, dear Wife—not one!
In griefs that sadden’d me thou hadst no part,— God so guide both that so it ever be!
Save when, accepting more than woman’s share
Of pain and toil, despondency and care, So may the full fount of affection flow:
My comforter thou wert, my hope, my trust: Each loving each as—forty years ago!
Ever suggesting holy thoughts and deeds;
Guiding my steps on earth through blinding dust, We are going down the rugged hill of life,
Into the Heaven-lit path that Heaven-ward leads. Into the tranquil valley at its base ;

But, hand in hand, and heart in heart, dear Wife :
So has it been, from manhood unto age,

In every shifting scene of life’s sad stage, With less of outer care and inner strife,
Since—forty years ago,—a humble name I look into thy mind and in thy face,
I gave to thee, which thou hast given to fame: And only see the Angel coming nearer,
Rejoicing in the wife and friend, to find To make thee still more beautiful and dearer,
The woman’s lesser duties—all—combined. When fromthe thrall and soil of earth made free,
With holiest efforts of creative mind. Thy prayer is heard for me, and mine for thee!

8. C. Hatt.

This is as it should be: the husband indebted to the wife, and glorying in the avowal of the
indebtedness ; while both look back, hand-in-hand, upon nearly half a century of honest, earnest, united
work. Mr. and Mrs, 8. C. Hall have now passed their forty-eighth wedding anniversary. Two short years
more will bring them to their fiftietb. This will be the “ Gonprnse Hocuzeit,” which we wish they may
be spared to celebrate in health, prosperity, and that tempered cheerfulness which befits those whom
Vesper has admonished. And this wish is not the less warmly felt, because to him who utters it, the hope
that something similar might be, too, in his own lot, exists now but as one of his “ Memories” :—

 

sperabat longos, heu! ‘ducere soles,
Et fido acclinis consenuisse sinu.”’ ©

No. 72.—SIR JOHN C, HOBHOUSE.

HIS right honourable baronet is now a member of the Cabinet presided over, at least nominally,
by the brother of the gentleman whom he once so unmercifully exposed in Covent Garden to the
cabbages and turnip-tops of its liberal electors, and the unsparing raillery of Mr. Canning, poured in with
so much effect upon the “ mud-bespattered Whigs, taking refuge from the oppression of their popularity
under the bayonets of the Horse Guards.” Times are changed since. Hobhouse no longer writes letters
to Lord Erskine, or Lord Erskine’s friends, sneering at green ribands, and laughing at the pretensions to
political purity in the holders of place and pension. ‘We are no longer told to “ Ask him, gentlemen,”
when any of the Whigocracy forgets to advocate in power those doctrines which he had maintained to be
indispensable to the very existence of the country while out of office. No! The usual change has taken
place: the brawling patriot has been transformed into the lickspittle placeman.

He began life as a butt of Lord Byron’s, who made many most unsavoury rhymes on his name. In
fact, we do not remember any person of note among us who has had the fortune of being saluted with titles
less redolent of grace than Cam Hobhouse. Hook, by an error of the press, saluted him with an appellation
which, it must be admitted, his personal appearance perpetually tends to suggest. Galt, in his notice of
192 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

the Pot and Kettle controversy, bestowed upon him the title of the former utensil. Lord Palmerston (we
believe) eulogized him in an ode in the John Bull, the first distich of which was,— ‘

“ T care not a: [very familiar beast]
For John Cam Hobhouse.”

 

Cobbett styled him Sancho, from his obsequious servility to Sir Francis Burdett, to whom he bore the same
relation as the greasy clown did to his mistaken but chivalrous master. The time has come when, in the
queer revolution of things which we are doomed to witness, our Sancho has got the government of an
island, and rules India with a degree of wisdom which would excite envy in the cabinet of Barataria.

‘We remember him—we regret to say, a good many years ago—in Athens, where he distinguished
himself by wearing a pair of green baize breeches, which produced an epigram hardly fit to be repeated to
ears polite ; but which, nevertheless, has appeared in print. The collection of such compliments paid to
Hobhouse would be large. It is a pleasant reflection for any man that he should have been so particularly
distinguished by his contemporaries. When he makes a gathering of works attributed to him, we trust
that he will not forget the famous letter in which he boasted that three hundred Muciuses had sworn to
murder Canning. He may append to it, as a fitting note, Canning’s complimentary billet—that the author
of a certain pamphlet was a liar and a scoundrel, who only wanted courage to be an assassin. It would also
be an agreeable literary curiosity, if he were to publish at the same time Lord Byron’s confidential note, in
which his lordship recommended certain folks not to trouble themselves by making vain efforts to appear in
the alien character of men of honour.

He is perhaps the best exemplification of Lord Mansfield’s saying, that popularity is: gained without
a merit, and lost without fa fault. He had no claim whatever, except impudence and servility, on
Westminster, when he was elected ; and these qualities he possessed when he was turned out. One of. the
main pretences for his ejection was his devotion to the cat-o’-nine-tails. His successor has made that
much-abused instrument the principal engine of discipline in his well-whipped and ill-fed army. Of
Hobhouse’s political career the records are short. The man has done nothing, because nothing is in
him, 2x nihilo nil fit—there is no getting blood from a turnip ; and it is one of our misfortunes that we
should be compelled to write about such people at all. But the amber of office embalms them for their day.
Shrined for a while in that we are doomed to observe the forms of creeping things, our wonder at which—
a small one under existing circumstances—secures the tribute of a page even to “my boy, Hobbio.” We
have added to his name the title of his’ first performance—the Miscellany ; or, as his friend Lord Byron
(Murray’s edition, vol. ip. 185) too truly called it, the Miss-sell-any. The names of his other literary
performances we have forgotten.

NOTES.
“MY BOY HOBBY.

What made you in Lob’s pound to go, And who are now the people’s men,

My boy Hobby? My boy Hobby P
Because I bade the people throw There’s I and Burdett, gentlemen,

The House into the Lobby. And blackguards Hunt and Cobby.
You hate the House: why canvass, then, And when amidst your friends you speak,

My boy Hobby ? My boy Hobby,
Because I would reform the den, How is’t that you contrive to keep

As member for the mobby. Your watch within your fobby ?

Now tell me why you hate the Whigs,
My boy Hobby ?

‘Because they want to run their rigs
As under Walpole Bobby.”

HETHER or not'the foregoing verses are by Byron we cannot possibly say; we transcribe them

\) \ from a private quarto print, of eight pages, from the collection of the late Thomas Rodd, Sen.,

which contains a number of pieces,—such as the satirical verses on Rogers,—all which are by or attributed
to that poet, so that it is very probable that these are also from his pen.

Perhaps there is some little truth in the hint that Hobhouse was, in early life, somewhat of a “butt”
to his noble college friend, just as Ben Jonson, in the memorable wit-combats with Shakspeare at the
“Falcon,” felt the effects of his adversary’s light artillery before he could bring his own heavy metal to
bear upon him. Hobhouse, of heavy aspect and ponderous conformation, gave little earnest of the ability
which he really possessed, though he was fluent and communicative in conversation, and occasionally
warmed into force and energy of expression. The real opinion which Byron entertained of his friend may
be gathered from the frequent reference to him in his letters, and especially the preliminary letter to the
Fourth Canto of “Childe Harold,” where he reverts in thought to his old friend :—*To one,” says he,
“whom I have known long and accompanied far, whom I have found wakeful over my sickness and kind in
my sorrow, glad in my prosperity and firm in my adversity, true in council and trusty in peril,—to a friend
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 193

often tried and never found wanting.” Elsewhere, too, he speaks of the same trusty friend as “ the most
interesting of companions, and a fine fellow to boot.”

John Cam Hobhouse was the eldest son of Sir Benjamin Hobhouse, Bart.,* and was born near Bristol,
June 27, 1786. He was educated at Winchester School, from which he proceeded to Trinity College,
Cambridge, where he graduated in 1808. At the University he had made the acquaintance of Lord Byron,
and, upon the latter taking up his abode at Newstead Abbey, aided him, in conjunction with some half-
dozen other choice spivits, to emulate the doings of John Wilkes, the profligate Lord Sandwich, and others,
who, at Medmenham Abbey, on the banks of the Thames, had, a few years before, established a brotherhood,
with all the mummery of hood and corded gown, for the combined worship of Bacchus and Venus. We
do not mean, however, to imply that the orgies of the younger confraternity were characterized by the grossness
of those of Medmenham ; or that the members were guilty of acts more reprehensible than keeping bad
hours and quafting Burgundy from a human skull. Grantley Berkeley gives a humorous account of a
pedestrian march to London, projected by Hobhouse and C. 8. Mathews, who was one of the brotherhood.
The friends started merrily enough ; but, quarrelling on the road, arrived at their destination in mutual
silence and dudgeon.

All about Hobhouse’s travels to Greece is well known. In 1812 he published a record of these in
his “ Journey through Albania and other Provinces of Turkey with Lord Byron.” If the slightest spark
of the love of freedom exists in the soul of a traveller, we cannot conceive that a visit to the shores
of Hellas could fail to kindle it into a flame. One result of his visit to the Hast was the publication
of his ‘“ Letters to an Englishman.” These cost him an imprisonment in Newgate; but gained him an
influence among the people which insured his return when, in 1820, he became a candidate for the
representation ef Westminster in the Liberal interest. He continued to represent this borough till tho
year 1833.

_ When achange of Ministry took place, Hobhouse became Secretary-at-War under Earl Grey. This
office he exchanged for the Chief Secretaryship of Ireland, but failed to secure his re-election. When Sir
Robert Peel came into office, Hobhouse was returned for Nottingham, which he represented till 1847, As
an orater, his strength lay chiefly in attack ; and now, as an opponent to the Premier, he had every opportunity
of bringing his forensic ability into exercise. He was the Marcellus of the day, and brought every oratorical
weapon,—ridicule, irony, sarcasm,—to bear upon his antagonist. Still, when he himself was the subject of
attack, his power was gone, and Sir Robert was then more than his equal. The warfare never ceased till
the resignation of the Minister. From 1847 Hobhouse had sat for Harwich, and this he continued to do
till he was raised to the Peerage in 1851, under the title of Lord Broughton. After his elevation to the
Upper House, he took little or no part in politics. He held the offices of Chief Commissioner of Woods
and Forests and President of the Board of Control under Lord Melbourne, and again held the latter office
during the Administration of Lord John Russell, 1846-52.

Lord Broughton died June 3, 1869, in the eighty-third year of his age. He married the daughter of
the Marquis of Tweeddale, but left no male issue. Part of his income was derived from Whitbread’s
Brewery, in which he was a sleeping partner ; but he was not, we believe, in any sense of the word a rich
man, which may account in some measure for the noiselessness of his exit from the world. Lord Broughton
left a vast mass of papers behind him, much of which relates to political matters and the offices of public
trust which he had filled in the course of his octogenarian life. As publication might compromise
men yet living, or complicate matters of controversy still open, he provided by his will that these papers
should not be divulged, nor even read, till the present century shall have closed, and not then published
without the consent of the Sovereign who shall then occupy the throne. It was a rule with Lord
Palmerston that official correspondence should never be produced while the negotiations to which it
referred were still pending ; and it is one of the axioms attributed to Talleyrand that if letters were only
left long enough they would answer themselves. The conclusion is obvious. It is useless to produce
documents when affairs are settled ; and no one will care about reading letters that refer to the doings of
an official board, or the character and ability of its members, when they have all been in their graves for
half a century.

The chief publications of Lord Broughton were,—“ Imitations and Translations from the Classics,
with Original Poems” (London, 1809, 8vo.); ‘Journey through Albania and other Provinces of Turkey
with Lord Byron ”t (1812, 4to. ; 2nd ed. 1818) ; “Substance of some Letters written by an Englishman
resident at Paris during the last Reign of Napoleon. With an Appendix of Original Documents” (1816,
2 vols. 8vo.); “ Historical Illustrations of the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold, containing Dissertations on
the Ruins of Rome, and an Essay on Italian Literature” (London, 1818, 8vo.); &. He was, moreover, a
contributor to the Westminster Review, and Blackwood’s, and Fraser's Magazine.t

* Tho elder Hobhouse was, too, a traveller, and printed for private circulation an interesting and elegant volume,
entitled “Remarks on several Parts of France, Italy, &c., in the Years 1783, 1784, and 1785. By Benjamin Hobhouse,
Barrister-at-Law. Bath, printed by R. Cruttwell, mpccxcvi. 8vo.” In our copy is a MS. statement to the effect that, at the
gale of the library of the Marquis of Lansdowne, the volnme was sold for six guineas. See “ Public Characters” for 1807, p. 113.

+ Ably criticised in the Quarterly Review, vol. x. pp. 175—208.

+ We perceive that Lowndes also attributes to Hobhouse two volumes of clever satirical poetry, entitled “ Sketches
from St. George’s Fields. By Giorgione di Castel Chiuso”’ (Series i. 1820; Series ii. 1821, small 8vo.). We think the
bibliographer must be in error ; and that the authorship should rather be ascribed to Peter Bayley, editor of the Museum,
who died March 25th, 1823, in a carriage, as he was on his way to the Opera House. Series ii. is dedicated to J.C.
Hobhouse, though this, of course, implies nothing. ;

B
194 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

Of all the literary works of Lord Broughton, we consider the last-mentioned to be the most
interesting ; and this chiefly from its more discursive character, and its relation to the career and poetry
of Byron. The author possessed little imaginative power, but described what came under his personal
observation truthfully and well. In his remarks upon the monuments of Italy he has not added materially
to our stock of knowledge, nor risen above the average of books of travel. His ‘‘ Essay on the Present
Literature of Italy” is, however, an interesting dissertation. His taste was sound, he was fond of the
subject, and had given it considerable attention. His remarks upon the living or recently deceased Italian
writers, especially the poets, are the result of intelligent study, and are still worthy of note. Cesarotti,
who had ably translated Homer and Ossian into his native language, died in 1808 (p. 353); but Mazza, his
school-fellow and friend, was still alive (p. 362), and Hippolito Pindemonte (p. 413), to whom Ugo Foscolo
dedicated his “ Sepolcri.” Hobhouse does not appear to have enjoyed a personal acquaintance with these
celebrated men, though he had evidently read them with attention. Of Alfieri, who died in 1804, he gives
a very interesting account (p. 395), as well as of Vincenzo Monti, who wrote in the “Terza Rima.”
Neither did he know the great moral poet Joseph Parini, who died in extreme poverty, and sleeps without
‘a stone to mark the resting-place of one who exercised’so extraordinary an influence upon his age :—

ee E senza tomba giace il tno
Sacerdote, o Talia, che a te cantando
Nel suo povero tetto educd un Jauro
Con lungo amore, e t’appendea corone.”’
Dei Sepoleri,

 

Of Ugo Foscolo, the writer of these lines,—that greatest of modern Italian poets, who died in London,
September, 1827, and whose bones were exhumed only last year from their exile’s grave at Chiswick, to be
transported with all the honours of an acknowledged patriot to Santa Croce,—Hobhouse has given a
succinct and pleasing account (p. 452); with some interesting, if not very profound, remarks upon that
remarkable book “ Ultime Lettere di Jacopo Ortis,’—a work which has exercised an influence over the
rising intellect of Italy not inferior to that which the ‘ Werther’s Leiden” of Goethe has had over the
mind of Young Germany.

BR RRA

No. 73.—MR. SERJEANT TALFOURD.

E present our readers, on the opposite page, with a representation of the corpora] form of Serjeant
Talfourd, a gentleman who wooes at once the Nine Muses and five Justices of the Common Pleas,
and cultivates with equal assiduity the graces of Clio and his clients. Although he has studied Black-
stone, he has not deemed it necessary to imitate him in bidding a farewell to the Muse; but furnishes
briefs for Macready to plead the cause of Ion before the judges of Covent Garden, as readily as he receives
those which send himself to plead the causes of the everlasting Does and Roes of Westminster Hall. We
know which occupation he finds to be the most profitable; and we fear the memory of those eternal
litigants, the Titii and the Seii of our law, will be more lasting than that of Ion or Clemanthe. But we
do not wish to speak in words of discouraging omen.

The Serjeant is, we suppose, about five-and-forty. He was born at Reading, where his father won his
bread by supplying other people with beer. He was, in short, a brewer, who raised a handsome fortune
by his ale. Talfourd himself made some happy allusions to his father’s business, in an election speech at
Reading. He omitted to say that, in the process of fermentation, the froth rises to the top, and to draw
therefrom some poetical, though ale-washed metaphors, as to the circumstances of the time of political
ferment in which he was speaking. This, we say, he omitted, because he thinks proper to be a Radical,
and to believe in the march of mind, and all the rest of it. He was educated by old Dr. Valpy, who
has lately died, and to whom he dedicated the private edition of his play. In the public edition, he hag
superseded this dedication by an affectionate and nicely-written notice, highly eulogistic of the pedagogue
defunct ; with which we should be more inclined to agree, if we did not recollect his conduct to
John Galt.

In 1835 he was returned for Reading on the Radical interest, and is now seated in the House of
Commons. It is no disgrace to him that he cuts no figure in that assembly. There is no opening for
genius or honourable feeling on the side of the House which he haunts.

What has it with day to do?
Sons of night, twas made for you!

And to the nightmen of Parliament it must be left. In his first speech, he introduced a glowing passage
from Wordsworth, illustrating his argument ; and we think that even the great Laker himself, fond as he
is of hearing his own verses quoted, would have laughed at the misplaced and mistimed quotation. The
 

 

AUTHOR OF "Low?
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 195

ignorant and underbred rabble of ruffians which constitutes the greater portion of our Parliamentary
majority knows nothing of Wordsworth,—except, perhaps, Hume may have found, from some returns, that
he is stamp-master of Westmoreland, and have looked with indignation at his being paid for the office. The
“Lexicon Balatronicum” would be a fitter source to supply quotations for that herd, if even the works of
Grose are not too refined for those whose taste has been fostered by the models of eloquence imported from
the aggregate meetings and the proud days of Ireland. Of course, Serjeant Talfourd sat down without a
cheer,—and we do not think he will try to rise again. As a barrister, he has obtained a high rank in his
profession, and will attain -stiil higher. In the case of the Whig persecution of Messrs. Grant and Bell,
tried and condemned for repeating the language of Lord Denman, Master Brougham, the Lord Chancellor’s
brother, Earl Fitzwilliam, and other lights of Whiggery, he displayed not only great knowledge and
es but, what is still more rare, great forensic courage. It was an exhibition which did him
onour.

His tragedy, however, it is which brings him into our court. Much isto be said in its praise ; but it
will never succeed on the stage. It is to be applauded and forgotten. Neither can we, with the fear of
Homer and Co. before our eyes, pronounce it to be always Greek in spirit. We give one instance,—short,
but decisive :-—

“ Our soldiers,
From'the base instinct of their slavish trade,” &.

The base and slavish instinct of the soldier trade! ev! ev! Such a sentiment may, perhaps, be found
in some mangy sophist, but long and fruitlessly will Serjeant Talfourd toil before he discovers a precedent
for it in a Greek poet. Ion himself is a puling creature. There is, however, good stuff in the tragedy ; and
Talfourd will do better things.

NG 2 es,

“Cut is the branch that bore the goodly fruit,
And wither’d is Apollo’s laurel-tree :
‘TaLFouRD’ is dead —_”’

AN an early contributor to the London Maguzine,—as the friend of Lamb, Coleridge, Carey, Godwin,
Hazlitt, Leigh Hunt, Bulwer, and Dickens,—and as the author of “Ion,”—the name of TaLrourD
will ever find honourable mention in the annals of his country’s literature.

He was born at Reading, May 26th, 1795, and educated, for the most part, at the grammar school of
his native town, then under Dr. Valpy, for whom he ever felt an almost filial reverence. In 1813 he
became the pupil of the celebrated special pleader Chitty, in whose office he first became acquainted with
Macready. Between 1817 and 1821, when he was called to the Bar, he depended for support chiefly upon
his literary exertions. He became a law-reporter for the Z%mes ; contributed several important articles on
Greek literature to the Encyclopedia Metropolitana ; wrote for the Retrospective Review ; and between
1820 and 1832 was a pretty constant writer in the Vew Monthly Magazine, the Edinburgh Review, and
the London Magazine. So early as 1815 he had published an elaborate essay entitled “An Attempt to
estimate the Poetical Talent of the Present Age, incliding a Sketch of the History of Poetry.” This
appeared as an original contribution in the /amphleteer (No. x. vol. v.), and is worthy of mention as
exhibiting a full appreciation of the genius of Wordsworth, which had not then obtained a due recognition
among poetical critics. In the same publication had previously appeared a long essay from his pen,
entitled, ‘“‘ Appeal to the Protestant Dissenters of Great Britain on behalf of the Roman Catholics.”

In 1821 Talfourd was called to the Bar by the Society of the Middle Temple, after four years’ successful
practice as a special pleader. He joined the Oxford Circuit and Berkshire Sessions, and soon succeeded in
obtaining a large and lucrative practice. In 1826 he, nevertheless, found time to prepare a memoir on the
life and writings of the celebrated writer of romance Mrs. Radcliffe, which is prefixed to her posthumous
works. Nor were his legal studies neglected among more literary employment, though any notice of these
hardly falls within our province.

In 1835 Talfourd,—who was now at the head of his circuit, Queen’s Ancient Serjeant, and Recorder
of Banbury,—was returned to Parliament at the general election for his native town. In his legislative
capacity he introduced a useful measure, the ‘ Custody of Infants Act,” and another, the “ Copyright Act”
of 1841. For his exertions in this question he is entitled to the lasting gratitude of literary men. One
memorable expression of this js enshrined in the graceful dedication to him of the “ Posthumous Papers of
the Pickwick Club” (1837) by Charles Dickens, who says to his friend :—“ Many a fevered head and
palsied hand will gather new vigour in the hour of sickness and distress from your excellent exertions ;
many a widowed mother and orphan child, who would otherwise reap nothing from the fame of departed
genius but its too frequent legacy of poverty and suffering, will bear, in their altered condition, higher

testimony to the value of your labours than the most lavish encomiums from lip or pen could ever afford.”
2B 2
196 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

Three years later were published, by Moxon, “Three Speeches delivered in the House of Commons in
favour of a Measure for an Extension of Copyright, by T. N. Talfourd, &c.; to which are added the Petition
in favour of the Bill, and Remarks on the Present State of the Copyright Question” (1840, 12mo.).

In 1848 Talfourd received the honour of knighthood, and was made a Judge of the Common Pleas.
He had the reputation of discharging his judicial functions with ability, discretion, and conscientiousness. :

The reputation of Talfourd chiefly depends upon his beautiful tragedy “Jon.” This was printed for
private circulation towards the close of 1834; and two editions were thus disposed of. A notice of it
appeared in the Quarterly Review ;* and at length the author consented to its production at Covent Garden
Theatre, for Macready’s benefit, May 26th, 1836, when it achieved a decided success. We need not remind
the reader that the title of this play is borrowed from a tragedy of Euripides, where will also be found the
primal idea of the “situation,”—that of a foundling youth, educated in a temple, and ministering in its
services. To involve such a character in circumstances which would naturally excite the passions of the
mind, recourse was had to the old Greek notion of Destiny,—to the accomplishment of a prophecy,—and “to
the idea of fascination, as an engine by which Fate might work its purposes on the innocent mind, and force
it into terrible action most uncongenial to itself, but necessary to the issue.” Whether “ groups surrounded
with the associations of the Greek Mythology, and subjected to the capricious laws of Greek superstition,
could be endowed by genius itself with such present life as to awaken the sympathies of an English
audience,” the author himself considered a subject of doubt. He felt that he was asking too much for a
spectator to grant, but hoped that yet he might engage the reader. ‘This drama,” says he, “may be
described as the phantasm of a tragedy,—not a thing of substance mortised into the living rock of
humanity,—and therefore incapable of exciting that interest which grows out of human feeling, or of
holding that permanent place in the memory which truth only can retain.” So much as to the genesis of
the tragedy, of whose merits and destination its author forms a correct idea. ‘ Ion” is not a work of
genius, but of exquisite refinement, learning, and taste. It is classical and graceful in conception ; instinct
with subtle pathos and sentiment. These are its merits. Its defects are chiefly those of execution; the
idea is hardly worked out with consistency,—the style not sufficiently dramatic,—and the poetry, although
refined, deficient in imagination. With a deep sense of classical grace awakened in his mind by the early
teachings of Dr. Valpy, and the representations of Greek tragedy superintended by that able scholar,
Talfourd had been debarred by the conscientious scruples of friends from an early acquaintance with English
dramatic literature. Jt was from the “Sacred Dramas” of Hannah More that he derived his first sense
of the enjoyment produced by the idea of dramatic action. His mind, as yet incapable of appreciating “ the
deep humanities” of Shakspeare, took delight in the ‘“brocaded grandeurs” of Dryden, Rowe, and
Addison. Hence grew up the “idle wish” to write a tragedy, and hence were derived those materials
which, treasured up by memory and co-ordinated by the imagination, form the basis of the tragedy of
“Jon.” Asan acting play it has not retained its place; though it will never be without charm for the
tasteful reader. A similar remark is also applicable to Talfourd’s two later dramas, “The Athenian
Captive,” and “ Glencoe ; or, the Fate of the Macdonalds.”

It was to the author of “Ion” that Bulwer dedicated his charming “ Lady of Lyons,” as one “ whose
genius and example have alike contributed towards the regeneration of the national drama” ; and Leigh
Hunt, who appears to have been prevented by illness from witnessing the first representation of the
tragedy, addressed a set of pleasing verses to his friend, the author.

In April, 1840, an indictment was preferred against Henry Hetherington, a bookseller in the Strand,
for selling Haslam’s “ Letters to the Clergy of all Denominations,” in penny numbers, charging them as
libels on the Old Testament. The cause was tried before Lord Denman, in the Court of Queen’s Bench,
Dec. 8, 1840, when the defence was conducted by the defendant himself, mainly on the ground of right to
publish all matters of opinion, and that the work in question fairly came within the operation of that
principle. He was, however, convicted, and underwent an imprisonment of four months in the prison of
Queen’s Bench. While this prosecution was pending, Mr. Hetherington, who was a man of considerable
ability, conceived the design of prosecuting, in his turn, several booksellers for the sale of the complete
edition of the Poetical Works of Shelley (1840, 8vo.), which had recently been published by Moxon, to
range with the collected works of Crabbe, Byron, Charles Lamb, and others. Indictments were preferred
against various vendors ; but Moxon, as the publisher, caused his own name to be entered the first of the
series to be tried. The cause eventually came on in the Court of Queen’s Bench, June 23, 1841, before
Lord Denman and a special jury. Mr. Thomas appeared for the prosecution, and Mr. Serjeant Talfourd
for the defence. Lord Denman concluded his observations by the expression of his opinion that “the
most effectual method of dealing with obnoxious doctrines is to refute them by argument, rather than by
persecuting their authors.” The jury retired for a quarter of an hour, and returned a verdict of Guilty,
unaccompanied by any observation. If any task could awaken the soul of poetry in an advocate, it would
surely be the defence of such a man as Moxon for publishing such a poet as Shelley. What then would
be its effect on Talfourd? His speech for the defendant is, as we should expect it to be, an eloquent
“ Defence of Poetry,”—a noble burst of enthusiasm. He argues that there is a radical difference between
the cases of Hetherington and Moxon; that whereas in the former, the offensive matter formed the
staple of the publication,—was issued with a view to bring God and religion into contempt,—and was
thrown, by the lowness of its price, in the way of those whom it was most likely to injure ; in the latter,
the passages indicted as being profanely libellous were not the three-hundredth part of the whole volume,—

* Sept., 1835, vol. liv. p. 505.
 

it

cn

 

»

OF BILLDINGS

aS

SIG

IE

ADTEHOR OF ID
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 197

‘should not be judged apart from their context,—were not the mature opinions of the author,—and were only
given to the world as necessary elements in the consideration of his intellectual development. He pointed
out the price of the book,—twelve shillings,—as likely to confine it to educated readers ; showed that, if
the prosecution was successful, true bills of indictment might be obtained against any one who had sold a
copy of Horace, Virgil, Lucretius, Ovid, or Juvenal ; of Shakspeare and our own dramatists ; of Milton,
even ; of Byron ; of “the vast productions of the German mind”; of “that stupendous work ‘ Faust’ ”;
and that a jury might be asked “‘to take it in their hand, and at an hour’s glance to decide whether it is a
libel on God, or a hymn by Genius to His praise.” He pleaded the respectability of the publisher,—the
whole tenor of his life,—and his association and friendship with Rogers, Lamb, Coleridge, and Southey,—
and concluded by committing the cause of the defendant, as that of Genius, Learning, History, and Thought,
into the hands of the jury. This fine speech he revised and published in the following year (Moxon,
1841, 8vo. pp. 58).

The death of this able and amiable man was awfully sudden. In association with Mr. Justice
Wightman, he opened the Commission at Oxford, March 6, 1854, and that at Stafford on the 11th of the
same month. On the following day he attended Divine service, and on Monday morning, after an early
walk, entered the court at the usual hour, and commenced his address to the Grand Jury. While
commenting upon the state of the calendar,—which contained a list of more than one hundred prisoners, a
great proportion of whom were charged with atrocious offences,—he observed that many of these might be
traced to the vice of intemperance, and took occasion to deplore the want of sympathy between the higher
and lower classes, and urged upon the former the duty of their taking a more lively interest in the welfare
of the latter. At these words he was observed to become excited and flushed, and to manifest a thickness
and hesitancy of utterance. Suddenly he fell forward with his face on his book, and was immediately
caught in the arms of his senior clerk and his second son, who acted as his marshal. Dr. Holland and
Dr. Knight, two magistrates, who were on the bench, rushed to his assistance. He was carried at once to
the judges’ lodgings, in the proximity of the court, when it was found that life was extinct. He was in
the fifty-ninth year of his age.

In his charge to the grand jury at the Derby Assizes, the following feeling tribute was paid by
Myr. Justice Coleridge to his departed friend and brother judge :—“ His literary performances you can
scarcely be ignorant of ; but, indeed, he was much more than a distinguished leader, an eminent judge, or a
great ornament of our literature. He had but one ruling purpose of his life—the doing good to his fellow-
creatures in his generation. He was eminently courteous and kind, generous, simple-hearted, of great
modesty, of the strictest honour, and of spotless integrity.”

It may be as well to add that Mr. Talfourd was created a Doctor of Civil Law by the University
of Oxford, June 20th, 1844; that he is the author of a clever book of travels, ‘Vacation Rambles and
Thoughts ” (1844, 2 vols. 8vo.) ; that he edited the “ Literary Remains” of William Hazlitt, in connection
with Sir E. L. Bulwer (2 vols. 8vo. 1836) ; that he gave to the world “The Letters of Charles Lamb, with a
Sketch of his Life,” and, later, the “‘ Final Memorials” of that charming genius; that some fine verses,
inscribed to “The Muse of Talfourd,” will be found in the “ Brallaghan” of Edward Kenealy, page 234 ;
and that after his death was given to the world, “The Castilian: an Historical Tragedy in Five Acts”
(London, 1853, 8vo.).

No. 74.—SIR JOHN SOANE.

N Fielding’s comedy of the “Miser,” a sycophant, Lappet, holds the following dialogue with the old
curmudgeon whose sexagenarian amours he is encouraging :—

“ Lappet. But take care not to appear too young: she insists on sixty, atleast. Lovegold. This humour is altogether
strange, methinks. Lappet. She carries it further, sir, than can be imagined. She has in her chamber several pictures:
but what do you think they are? None of your smock-faced young fellows,—your Adonis’, your Cephalus’, your Paris,
your Apollos! No, sir! you see nothing there but handsome figures of Saturn, King (Priam, old Nestor, and good Father
Anchises on his son’s shoulders! Lovegold. Admirable! This is more than I could expect.”

We are pretty sure that no one will be so besotted as to fancy, from the appearance of yonder
venerable effigy, that decrepitude and dotage are the best recommendations to a niche in the Gallery of
Recina. Have we not hung up in her pinacotheca, Cephalus Ainsworth, Narcissus Bulwer, and Parisian
D’Orsay? As a set-off to the fascinations of that distinguished trio, look to the right, ladies and gentlemen,
and you will see old Soane of the Antiquarian Society, ex-Architect to the old Lady in Threadneedle
Street, an. et, LX XXII, delineated at full length. ‘

“ Veluti votiva picta tabelld forma senis.”

Every one has heard of the fracas at the Literary Fund,— of Maclise the painter, and of Jerdan the
iconoclast. The removal of a shattered old dutrin furnished Boileau with materials for an epic; the
198 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

disappearance of a rotten old bucket fired the muse of Tassoni; but the demolition of Soane’s portrait is
yet unsung. The grave objection taken to its excessive likeness must apply, we fear, equally to our sketch ;
and it will be seen that the features of the case have not been improved by the penknife of the Gazetteer.
Indeed, that exploit had not even the merit of originality: the experiment of rejuvenating a tough old
subject, by the process of cutting up, was long ago tried on Pelias, king of Colchis, at the suggestion of
Medea the witch, and was not found to answer.

We know Jerpan to have been actuated by the most praiseworthy motives in putting out of the way
what he facetiously called “a bone of contention”; but we now learn, with sincere regret, that Sir John
has allowed himself to be ear-wigged, by certain interested parties, into a withdrawal of his name and
countenance from an unoffending charity on grounds so truly ridiculous. When those who are born to
rank and affluence open their purse to the distressed sons of literature, they at best but discharge a debt ;
for, in many an instance, their life,

“A sick epicure’s dream,
Incoherent and gross, even grosser had past,

Were it not for the cordial and life-giving beam
Which genius and wit round their nothingness cast.”

But has Sir John Soane forgotten the year 1777, when a poor mason’s son, on a pittance of sixty pounds,
drawn from an institution like this, was enabled to lay the foundations of professional knowledge on which
he has since had the good fortune to raise so gorgeous a superstructure of wealth, crowned with honourable
distinction? In what has Cuarity offended? Is it HER fault that wrinkles will attend on good old age,
that gums will become toothless, and cheeks collapsed? While InreLiEct survives, it is yet a noble ruin ;
but when symptoms of decay, such as we would fain not have thus to record, make themselves there
perceptible, we must only sigh out our sorrowful conviction, “fis anus /”

Literature can do more for his fame than stone and mortar will ever achieve, and, if he be wise, he
will make the Muses the caryatides of his renown. Ever since the art of printing arose, Glory has been in
its gift and Immortality at its disposal : in the dark ages, says Victor Hugo, “ Les [liades prenaient la forme
de cathédrales.” The contemporary mind painfully and laboriously sought to eternize itself in huge masses ;
Masonry was the expression, Architecture the language, of society. Nowadays, human thought becomes a
myriad of birds, and wafts its simultaneous flight to the four corners of the earth. You can demolish a
monument, but you cannot grapple with uBiquity ; an MS. may be destroyed, but mpitions defy torch and
Turk : a picture is cut in shreds, but Recina’s GALtery is flung open to the eye of ages yet unborn.
Adieu, Sir John!

Dor Bev Eyw mTEp’ e0wka ovy otc ex’ ameipova TOvTrov
Il.rnon.

LEO PE Ss

‘Waitom by silver Thames’s gentle stream,
In London town there dwelt a subtle wight ;
A wight of mickle wealth and mickle fame,
Book-learn’d and quaint, a virtuoso hight :
Uncommon things and rare were his delight ;
From musings deep his brain ne’er gotten ease,
Nor ceasen he from study day nor night ;
Until (advancing onward by degrees)
: He knew whatever treads on earth, or air, or seas.”
* * * *
“ His rich museum, of dimensions fair,
With goods that spoke the owner’s mind was fraught;
Things curious, ancient, value-worth, and rare,
From sea and land, from Greece and Rome were brought,
Which he with mighty sums of gold had bought.—
On these all tydes with joyous eyes he pored,
And, sooth to say, himself he greater thought,
When he beheld his cabinets thus stored, ‘
Than if he’d been of Albion’s wealthy cities lord.”
AKENSIDE, The Virtuoso.

‘F Str Jonn Soanz had possessed the combined talent of Vitruvius and PaLLapio, we shrewdly
| suspect that, in his character of architect, he would possess little interest for the readers of these
“ Notes.” We shall not, then, dwell upon this; but rather cast about in search of such other elements in
his career as may seem to have given him locus standi in the court of Recina.

It is astonishing how many persons there are—ay, and Londoners too,—who are unaware that ther:
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 199

is such an institution as “Sir John Soane’s Museum,” or who, aware of its existence, have never thought
it worth their while to inspect its contents. Yet here they may pass, as we have often done, a right
pleasant hour or two,—wander at will, from room to room, just as the old architect lived and worked in
them,—and revel at leisure among the treasures of art which his liberality has placed at the service of the
public. Here may be seen “The Rake’s Progress,” by Hocartu,—eight paintings in oil,—with the four
“Election” pictures by the same great master ; paintings by Sir Joshua Reynolds, Danby, Hilton,
Calcott, Eastlake, Howard, Fuseli, and Canaletti ; drawings by Stothard, Turner, Barret, Hamilton, aud
Cosway ; models by Flaxman, Gibson, and Banks; antique busts, Flewish carvings, ancient capitals and
friezes, terra-cottas, miniatures, bronzes, medals, and a vast assemblage of artistic and antiquarian cuviosities.
Here, too, is the magnificent Egyptian sarcophagus discovered by Belzoni in 1816, and purchased by Sir
John Soane from Mr. Salt for £2,000. The whole collection was valued at some £50,000, and was
“settled and preserved” by its possessor for the benefit of the public, in perpetuity, by an Act of Parlia-
ment obtained in the year 1833, which came into operation at his death, four years later. Previously to this,
an elaborate description of the collection was given to the world under the somewhat pompous title of
“The Union of Architecture, Sculpture, and Painting, exemplified in the House and Gulleries of John
Soane, c&e.,” edited by John Britton, F.S.A., 1827, 4to. 29 plates.* In 1832 appeared another “ Description
of the House and Museum,” also in 4to., with 17 plates, chiefly lithographs. In 1835, while a new and
enlarged edition was in preparation, the owner of the collection anticipated a portion of it by his “Description
of Three Designs for the Two Houses of Parliament, made in 1779, 1794, and 1796, and of other Works
of Art in the House and Museum of the Professor of Architecture of the Royal Academy, in a Letter to
a Friend” ; and shortly after appeared the “ Description of the House and Museum on the North Side of
Lincoln’s Inn Fields, the Residence of Sir John Soane, &. With graphic Illustrations and incidental
Details.” With this volume, which contains 38 plates and vignettes, was given a copy of the Act, passed
in 1833, for settling and endowing the Museum. It was not, however, printed for sale ; 150 copies only
being struck off for presentation to “ illustrious personages in this and in foreign countries, to public literary
and scientific institutions and to private friends.” A French translation was also printed; and an
abridgment drawn up, in 1840, by Mr. G. Bailey, the old pupil of Sir John, and first curator of the Museum,
where only it was to be obtained. To this little volume is prefixed an engraving of the splendid medal
which the architects of Great Britain caused to be struck in March, 1835, and presented to Sir John Soane,
in token of their approbation of his conduct and talents.t

The celebrated mutilation of Sir John Soane’s portrait, by William Jerdan, was an episode in the
history of the Literary Fund, into which it is hardly worth while to enter at length. Sir John had been
a large subscriber, and a wish having been manifested to have his portrait in the committee-room, it was
liberally offered by Maclise to paint and present it to the Society. Sir John accordingly “ sat,” and the
portrait was achieved. At first it was considered a marvellous resemblance, and we have little doubt that
it was so. But just as Queen Elizabeth, in her latter days, was wrath with the too-conscientious Master
of the Mint who dared to represent the wrinkles of his Royal mistress on that unfortunate shilling, of which
only one mutilated impression now remains to perpetuate the story, so. was the octogenarian knight led to
believe that the artist had dug “ deeper trenches in his beauty’s field.” than Time himself in bis eighty years’
siege. Officious parasites at the great man’s table fostered the idea; he became furious with wounded
vanity, and ended with demanding, as the condition of the continuance of his subscription, that the too-
truthful portrait should be handed to him, and replaced by a copy, which he offered to provide, of his likeness
by Sir Thomas Lawrence. No objection was made to this, and matters might have been made pleasant had
not Maclise demanded back his portrait, to which. he certainly had a right. Sir John, on the other hand,
insisted that it should be given up to himself, and the Committee was thus placed ina dilemma. If the
portrait was handed over to Sir John, a gross injustice was inflicted on the artist ; while, if Maclise received
back his picture, there was an end to the foolish old knight’s subscriptions. Hugely perplexed, the committee
was gravely deliberating which course it should adopt, when ‘a poor half:witted fellow, very well known
in the town, and who had by some means heard of the controversy, put an end to the dispute in the simplest
manner possible.”{ Having surreptitiously obtained admission into the committee-room late in the evening,
he deliberately cut the portrait into shreds, and took his departure, leaving behind him a note to the effect
that he had “ destroyed the bone of contention.” The affair created, of course, a tremendous sensation, and
it was even proposed to indict the offender for felony. Maclise, however, was generous, and the storm blew
over, leaving little trace of its occurrence, but in a century or so of epigrams, all now forgotten, and of
which the following is by no means the worst :—

 

* “A PICTORIAL DESTRUCTIVE’S DEFENCE.
To the Literary Fund Committee.

Tis past all question that Maclise

Has fail’d your friend, Sir John, to please:
Then never look at me askance ;

For this, believe me, is the case,—

If I had not destroy’d his face,
You must have lost his countenance.”

* See the Gentleman’s Magazine, August, 1827, p. 129. + See the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. iii. p. 524.
t Dublin University Magazine (Notice of Maclise), May, 1847, p. 605.
200 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

As we have hinted above, the “poor half-witted fellow” was no other than William Jerdan. Mr. C. P. Roney
had not long been elected to the office of secretary, and was, no doubt, horror-stricken at the sacrilege.
Jerdan says* :—“TI fancy the greatest shock he received in the discharge of his duties was when I cut
Soane’s portrait into ribands, and carried the slip of canvas with the eyes on it to show him at the opera,
where I knew he was, and which drove him in dismay from a ballet that no young Irishman could dream of
leaving except under very violent pressure indeed. I was menaced with Heaven knows what vengea ice
for committing this atrocious (and I confess half-crazy) deed, but the impulse was defensible.” "The following
epigram, or squib, which appeared at the time, may serve to further elucidate the matter, and set it in its
true light :—

The feud between Sir Joun Soane and the Literary Fund has at length ‘in hollow murmurs died
away’; the talented but too zealous perpetrator of the mutilation has been gently rebuked, and there the
matter ends—unless, indeed, the suggestion given below be acted upon, which we scarcely anticipate :—

(Dr. T. loquitur.)
Ochone! Ochone!
For the portrait of Sosnx!
JERDAN, you ought to have let it alone:
Don’t you see that instead of ‘removing the bone
Of contention,’ the apple of discord you’ ve thrown P
One general moan,
Like a tragedy groan,
Burst forth when the picturecide deed became known.
When the story got blown,
From the Thames to the Rhone,
folks were calling for ether and Eau de Cologne,
All shock’d at the want of discretion you’ve shown.
If your heart’s not a stone,
You will forthwith atone :
The best way to do that is to ask Mr. Ronzs—
—y to sew up the slits; the Committee, you'll own,
When it’s once stitch’d together, must see that it’s Soanr! +

The best portrait of Soane is that by Sir Thomas Lawrence, which remains at the Museum ; this was
painted in 1829, and was almost the last work of the artist.{ There is an earlier portrait (1804), by
W. Owen, R.A. ; anda third, in Masonic costume, by John Jackson, R.A. This artist, at the time of his
death, in 1831, was engaged on a portrait of Mrs. Soane, which in its unfinished state is to be seen at the
Museum ; where is alsoa sketch in chalk of the same lady by John Flaxman, R.A.

Sir John Soane was a native of Reading, where he was born September 10th, 1752. He became a
pupil of Dance, and, later, of Holland. He gained the silver medal at the Royal Academy for the best
drawing of the Banqueting-house, Whitehall ; and a gold one for the best design for a triumphal bridge.
He went to pursue his studies at Rome, with the Academy’s allowance of £60 per annum for three years,
and as much mere for travelling expenses, and remained abroad till 1780. In 1788 he was appointed
architect and surveyor to the Bank of England: a circumstance which mainly led to his reputation and
fortune. In 1795 he became a member of the Society of Antiquaries ; in 1802, a Royal Academician ;
and in 1806, on the retirement of his old master, Mr. Dance, Professor of Architecture to the Royal
Academy, where he revived the practice—long fallen into abeyance—of delivering lectures to the students.
In 1824 he became architect to the Royal College of Surgeons, and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society.
In September, 1831, he received the honour of knighthood. In 1833 he completed the new State Paper
Office in St. James’s Park, which was the last of his professional works. On October 16th of the same year,
with impaired sight, borne down by domestic calamities, and already an octogenarian, he retired from the
profession in which he had been engaged for more than sixty years, ‘for forty-five of which he had been in
the service of the Bank of England, the governor and directors of which, when he tendered his resignation,
expressed their high recognition of the value of bis labours.

He died at his house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, without the slightest pain, and imperceptibly to his
attendants, January 20th, 1837, in the 85th year of his age.

To the very last his Museum engaged his attention ; he made important alterations in the disposition
of its contents, and a few months only before his death purchased, forasum of £500, the valuable collection
of drawings, by his old master, the eminent architect, George Dance, R.A.

There are the “ Memoirs of Sir John Soane,” by John Britton, F.S.A., 1834, royal 8vo.

* “ Autobiography of William Jerdan,” vol. iv. p. 402. .
+ Qy. Sewn ?—Print. Dev.
{ This portrait has been engraved by C. Turner, A.R.A.
   
 
 

 

  
    
 
 
     
   
    
  

yy Yy i)
YY yf

Wy Yi,
Ya

       
   
    
     

  

   
   

HHS
HH
HY
LY VI
|
ay

SSS
SSS
SS

 
 

 

AUTHOR OF "SUMMARY OF THIE SESSION?

 

SS

SS

   
      

SS

   
No. 75.—LORD LYNDHURST.

T is hardly possible to conceive a prouder situation than that which is now occupied by Lord Lyndhurst.
He is the recognised leader of the most honourable party in what, considered on public grounds as
whole, and without reference to the factious fraction which he opposes, is the noblest body in the world ;
and he owes this lofty station to his own overwhelming talents. In an assembly which comprises men who
have filled the greatest offices, governed vast provinces, Jed victorious armies, conducted important missions,
presided over courts of justice, represented large constituencies,—who have, in short, fulfilled with
distinction the highest functions of public life, in every department ;—in an assembly where we find princes
and marshals, viceroys and ambassadors, chancellors and judges, orators and statesmen, knights and nobles,
the presence of any one of whom, with a few disgraceful exceptions, would be considered to be an ornament in
any company in the world ;—in this assembly, illustrious as it is by high birth, ancient descent, polished
breeding, and not more so than by great talent, knowledge, and eloquence, its most illustrious portion has,
without a dissenting voice, chosen Lord Lyndhurst as its organ and its chief. It is a distinction of which
any man might justly be proud; and that just pride must be enhanced by the consciousness that he
executes the duty intrusted to him so as to excite the admiration of his noble allies, and, what is a tribute
no less decisive, the bitter fury of his ignoble antagonists.

It is quite unnecessary that we should attempt the slightest sketch of the life of a man so long before
the public. The bawling demagogue of the day has threatened to expose his private history, and he may
indulge his slanderous propensities with impunity, for all people duly appreciate the reason which dictates
the lies he may publish in some obscure journals. They feel that in his sinking estate,—for sinking he is,
in spite of his swagger and bluster,—he attributes his fall to the eloquence of that eminent orator whom
we have enrolled in our Gallery. The celebrated speech which closed the last session, and which gives us
the title to place his portrait on the opposite page, demolished the reputation of the unfortunate Government,
or rather shadow of a Government, stridden over by O’Connell. All parties agree that it had the most
withering effect. The Whigs were silent, in breathless rage or fear ; the Tories, entranced in admiration
and mute wonder, as the eloquent periods flowed from the lips of the stately speaker. It is generally
reported that O’Connell was present under the gallery while Lord Lyndhurst addressed to him, in one of
his speeches, the passage directed by Cicero against Cataline, and that the triple-bronzed beggar-man shrank
away in abashment. Yet that passage pleased us not. It was not fair to Cataline to compare him who, as
Sallust tells, was “ nobilt loco natus,” who never shrank from danger of any kind in the midst of the
stirring period of human history, whose hands are free from the stain of money, and who died gallantly
fighting, at last, amid his brave companions,—

“Hach stepping where his comrade stood
The instant that he fell,’’—

with one whose name is unconnected with any honourable action, whose whole life has been one scene of
skulking from dangers into which he had drawn others, and who is occupied from one end of the year to the
other in devising plans of drawing enormous fortunes from squalid beggary.

What Lord Lyndhurst is as a politician and lawyer is known to all. In both characters he is
pre-eminent. We shall invade his private life no further than to say that the orator of the Senate is the
wit of the dinner-table,—the profound lawyer of the bench or woolsack, the gayest of the gay in
drawing-room and boudoir. Our artist has been happy in catching his likeness at a moment when, the
robes of office or nobility being thrown aside, he aims at no other character than one in which he is so
well qualified to shine—a gentleman. A pleasanter fellow does not exist ; and in his case, at least, the
fair author was mistaken when she said that “the judge and the peer is a world-weary man.”

It is rarely that a man of genius leaves behind him a son, also a man of genius. It has been so,
however, in the present case. But little’ could Copley. have contemplated, when he was painting his
celebrated picture of the death of Chatham, that his own son was destined to equal the fame of Chatham
in such an assembly as that on which he was employing his pencil.

NOTES.

“ C’TUDIIS vigilare severis” was the motto chosen by this eminent statesman for the gift-rings, when, in
1813, he assumed the coif. The sentence is appropriate, for Lorp Lynpuurst affords, in his own
splendid career, an illustration of the power of mental labour,—of that “capacity for taking trouble,”—
which, if not genius, simulates genius in its manifestations and results.
2¢
202 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

Lord Lyndhurst was born at Boston, in New England, May 21st, 1772, and was the only surviving
son of John Singleton Copley, the Royal Academician, whose paintings, “The Death of Chatham” and the
“Death of Major Pierson,” are so familiar to us, the former from being in the national collection at South
Kensington, and both from the engravings respectively of Bartolozzi and Heath.* The son was destined
for the profession of the father, aud attended the lectures of Reynolds and Barry. He probably saw that
he did not possess the elements of success in art, for he shortly turned his attention to the Church. Having
read for some time with the Rev. Mr. Horne, a private tutor, he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in
1790, where he graduated B.A. in 1794, as second Wrangler, and Smith’s Junior Mathematical Prizeman.
He was elected Fellow of his College in 1797, and soon decided upon the law as a profession, entering
himself as a student at Lincoln’s Inn. Before he left Cambridge he had been appointed one of the
“Travelling Bachelors” of the University, in which capacity he visited the United States, with the
celebrated Volney, author of “Les Ruines,” as a companion. He was called to the Bar in 1804, and
became eventually the acknowledged leader of his circuit. In 1813 he was made a Serjeant; and about
this time, in a well-known trial respecting a lace-patent, had an opportunity of showing, by his practical
acquaintance with chemistry and mechanics, how conducive to success in one profession may be made
collateral knowledge, at first sight remote and distinct from it. Perhaps, however, it was on the occasion
of the celebrated trial of Watson and Thistlewood for high treason, in 1817, when he aided Sir Charles
Wetherell in the successful defence of the prisoners, that Copley found his first important opportunity of
displaying his forensic ability on an occasion of great public: interest. From this period his rise was rapid ;
he became Solicitor-General, and was knighted in 1819 ; his first official employment of importance being
that of counsel, with Sir Robert Gifford, for the Crown, in the conduct of the notorious proceedings against
Queen Caroline. On the unsuccessful termination of these, Gifford having been removed from the post,
he became Attorney-General in 1823 ; and Master of the Rolls in 1826.

When Canning became Premier in 1827, he offered the Chancellorship to Sir John Copley, who was
then created Lord Lyndhurst. He held the office through the ministries of Goderich and Wellington ;
but was displaced by Lord Grey, when he accepted the office of Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer.

On the resignation of Lord Melbourne, in 1834, Lord Lyndhurst again became Chancellor. The
Wellington ministry lasted only a few months, but was signalized by the passing of several important
measures. In 1840 Lord Lyndhurst was elected Lord High Steward of the University of Cambridge ; and
in the following year, on the downfall of the Melbourne administration, was, for-the third time, appointed
Chancellor. He held office through the ministry of Sir Robert Peel; supported the grant to Maynooth,
and the repeal of the corn laws ; and finally retired from the Chancellorship in 1846.

Although now approaching towards the completion of his eighth decade, the talents and influence of
this illustrious man had suffered no diminution. He was prominent in the great “ Bridgwater case”; he
pleaded for the removal of Jewish disabilities ; he foresaw, and warned the peers against, the aggressive
tendencies of the Roman Church ; and, at the age of eighty-five, put himself at the head of the opposition
to the scheme of the Wensleydale Peerage, which involved the question of “Life Peers.” Towards the
last, it must have been a noble and touching sight, that of this “old man eloquent,” on the very verge
of ninety, with tottering gait and shrunken limbs, grasping the hand-rail purposely attached to the bench
below, holding the House entranced by the verba ardentia, the forcible and polished rhetoric of an earlier
day, as if to show how independent of time and: matter is the immortal principle of which these are but
the accidents.

Lord Lyndhurst died at his house, George Street, Hanover Square, October 12th, 1863, in the ninety-
second year of his age.

No. 76.—SHERIDAN KNOWLES.

HAKSPEARE and AristopHayes may well be sufficient precedents for Mr. Knowles’s performing in
S his own plays. He has too much good sense to expect us to say that we imagine that his plays will
cut as great a figure in the world as “ Hamlet” or the “Knights”; but there is some good stutf in them,
nevertheless. He is to Beaumont and Fletcher what those literary brothers are to Shakspeare. Let him
not think that this is a niggard allowance of praise. :

He derives his name from a man who could write a comedy, though he did not soar into regions of
blank verse, or else from the lexicagraphical papa of the red-snouted author of the “ School for Scandal.”
We do not know that he is related to the Sheridan family, though we think we have heard he is; but, at

* Copley died in 1815, aged 78, having lived to witness the early forensic triumphs of his son, whose portrait he painted
the year before his death.
 

7 OTT

 

me peana| ] /
7 a al iE / ne

 

 

 

 

 

 

=

; ===

AUTHOR OF Py HON CHIBAIK”

A \ ; Co ) Z NN
; iS
TEN NS
2 NO \
laf AS \
| (a ai) | | Ky

2
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 203

all events, he and his father share between them the glories of the elder Thomas and Richard Sheridan ;
Knowles pére writing dictionaries ; Knowles jis, comedies. Both are from the same country, “ the first
flower of the earth, the first gem of the sea,” as the men who make the flower to stink, and the gem to dim
to the lack-lustre of an oyster-shell, are fond of calling the country cursed by theiv birth ; and we understand
that our dramatist dates his origin from that beautiful city called Cork, where his father instructed the
juvenile minds of the rising Corcagians, somewhere in the last decade of the last century, within a few
doors of a quartier dear to the beefsteak-devouring population of that city, Fishamble Lane. Among the
pupils of this seminary was, we believe, the Right Hon. John Wilson Croker, to whom, it is to be presumed,
he communicated the secret of pronouncing the canine letter, R, in the manner which distinguishes that
now retired orator.

Of the movements of the elder Knowles we know nothing more ; of those of the younger Knowles
we scarcely know anything at all. He is a tolerably good actor, and would be voted much better if his
fame as a dramatic writer did not stand in the way. People are unwilling to allow supereminent merit in
two capacities to any man ; and if Farren were to write the “Hunchback,” it would be said that he did
wrong in jeopardying his well-earned histrionic fame by producing a middling comedy. He may console
himself by reflecting that the highest part which Shakspeare himself ventured to attempt was the Ghost of
Hamlet,—or, perhaps, Old Adam, in “ As You Like it”; and yet no one but professed inquirers into our
dramatic history knows who was the Hamlet or the Rosalind that drew down thunders of applause, while
the author was, in a mediocre manner, getting through a third-rate part.

He thinks proper to be a Whig, and he makes speeches on that side of the question sufficiently absurd.
Now this, in all men, or imitations of men, wrong, is in Sheridan Knowles peculiarly culpable. All actors
and dramatists worth a fig’s end have been, in all ages, essentially Tory. They were Cavaliers, and fought
like the best of Cavaliers, in the days of Charles ; and such should ever be their characteristic politics.
They are engaged in visibly representing all the honourable and noble emotions of the soul for public
admiration, and of holding up to general contempt all that is mean and base. How, then, is it possible
that they can look otherwise than with contempt on the swindling Sir Giles Overreaches, the blustering
Pistols, the lying Parolleses, the stupid Dogberries, the Morpeth-visaged Apollo Belvis, the battered Lord
Ogilvies, the dinner-hunting Sylvester Daggerwoods, the begging Jack Rags, the parodies upon Jack Cade,
and so forth, who compose the cabinet and its tail? But in Mr. Sheridan Knowles’s case the matter is
still worse. In the name of Melpomene and all her sisters we put it to him, who can write a play, to say
honestly and truly what is his opinion of a party which is led by the author of “ Don Carlos,” in which
the author of the “Siege of Constantinople,” or something of the same kind, holds a conspicuous place ;
and which sends Mulgrave, whom Knowles would not employ as cad to a call-boy in any theatre, to govern
his native country in the badly-filled cast of first gentleman. He must despise the whole troop ; and his
pretended acquiescence in their politics is merely professional. It is only a piece of acting. If otherwise,
he must resemble his own hero, Master Walter ; only, that the Hunchback had only an unfortunate twist
in his body, while its author has an unfortunate twist in his mind.

It would be awfully wrong were we to conclude this page without saying that the gentleman opposite
is one of the best of good fellows.

 

NODES.

‘* Now finish my song with one visitor more ;
The good old boy’s face—how it bloom’d at the door !
Haglitt, painting it during its childhood, turn’d grim,
Saying, ‘D n your fat cheeks!’ Then, out louder, ‘ Frown, Jim.’
Those cheeks still adorn’d the most natural of souls,
Whose style yet was not so—James SHERIDAN KNOWLES.
His style had been taught him in those, his green days,
His soul was his own, and brought crowds to his plays.”
LeieH Hunt, Feast of the Poets.

 

E have already said that this well-known author and actor was, like Maginn and Maclise, a
Corcagian. He was born in the “beautiful city,” in 1784, and was the only son of James
Knowles, distinguished as a lexicographer, and a man of considerable talent and learning. Before he had
entered his teens, his mind showed its natural bent by the composition of a drama, in which his school-
fellows took part. At fourteen he wrote the ballad, and it is thought, composed the music, of the “ Welsh
Harper,” which was his first publication. He early became acquainted with William Hazlitt, who seems,
from the lines above, to have tried his “’prentice ee - on the lineaments of the chubby lad. By him he
Ca
204 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

was introduced to the Lambs, and acquired their love and esteem ; and by-and-by, when he produced his
“ Virginius,” the following lines were indited to him by gentle Charles :—

“Twelve years ago I knew thee, Knowles, and then Almost without the aid language affords,
Esteemed you a perfect specimen Your piece seems wrought. That huffing medium, words,
Of those fine spirits warm-soul’d Ireland sends, (Which in the modern Tamburlaines quite sway
To teach us colder English how a friend’s Our shamed souls from their bias) in your play
Quick pulse should beat. I knew you brave and plain, We scarce attend to. Hastier passion draws
Strong-sensed, rough-witted, above fear or gain; Our tears on credit : and we find the cause
But nothing further had the gift to espy. Some two hours after, spelling o’er again
Sudden, you reappear. With wonder I Those strange few words at ease, that wrought the pain.
Hear my old friend (turn’d Shakspeare) read a scene Proceed, old friend: and, as the year returns,
Only to his inferior in the clean Still match some new old story from the urns
Passes of pathos: with such fence-like art— Of long-dead virtue. We, that knew before
Ere we can see the steel ’tis in our heart. Your worth, may admire, we cannot love you more.”

At the age of seventeen, a commission was procured for the young dramatist, and he commenced the
business of life as a soldier ; but this was not to his taste, and he soon retired from the army. He became
an actor in Cherry’s company, and appeared with some success in Dublin and elsewhere ; but having
proceeded to Belfast in search of an engagement, he was somehow induced to abandon the stage, and turned
schoolmaster. On the establishment of the Belfast Academical Institution, he was offered the appointment
of head-master of the English department. Through his wish, his father was actually appointed to the post,
his son becoming his principal assistant. Knowles now devoted himself to dramatic composition, and
achieved at once a large measure of success. His first piece was “ Brian Boroihme,”—rather an adaptation
of another author’s work than an original composition. His next was, “Caius Gracchus,” which was first
performed in Belfast, February 13th, 1815, with a success, which it excited in a lower degree when brought
out in London, several years later, although the part of the hero was powerfully acted by Macready.

His third piece had for its plot,—

“No story, piled with dark and cumbrous fate,
And words that stagger under their own weight ;
But one of silent grandeur—simply said,

As though it were awaken’d from the dead !
It is a tale made beautiful by years,

Of pure old Roman sorrow—old in tears!
And those you shed o’er it in childhood may
Still fall, and fall for sweet Virginia :”

—a plot that has inspired the muse of Jean Mairet (1628), Le Clere (1645), and Campistron (1683), in
France ; of our own Webster, in his “ Appius and Virginia” (1654, 4to.); John Dennis, in his tragedy
bearing the same title (1709, 4to.); Henry Crisp, in his “ Virginia” (1754); Frances Brooke, in her
tragedy, “ Virginia” (1756) ; Mrs. Gunning, in a poem in six parts, entitled ‘‘ Virginius and Virginia”
(1792) ; and Bidlake, in his “ Virginia ; or, the Fall of the Decemvirs” (1800). To all of these pieces,
with the single exception of that of Webster, the tragedy of Knowles is superior. Original in conception
and treatment, it is built on the eternal foundation of human interest and feeling, rather than on the
accidents of time and place. Hence ‘“ Virginius” excites our interest, more by the exhibition of paternal
emotion than that which belongs to his character as a Roman and a patriot. It is a play, simple in
construction, and so, intelligible at once to an audience. It possesses, moreover, that force of dramatic
situation which is essential to the success of an acting drama, and which the practical experience of
its author enabled him to impart. It is said that it was written for, and at the request of, Kean ; but if
so, that great actor did not appear in it, and the principal part was taken by Macready, who, by his
admirable acting, raised both himself and the author to the highest rank in their respective professions. It
appeared for the first time at Covent Garden, May 17, 1820.

We think that “ William Tell” came next. This piece is not without high merit of its own; though
it unfortunately provokes comparison with the admirable play of Schiller, founded on the same incidents,
and pronounced by A. W. von Schlegel, the best of all the dramatic works of that great poet. The
“ Beggar’s Daughter of Bethnal-green” was uproariously condemned on the first night of its appearance,
and failed, on second representation, to obtain a reversal of judgment. To this want of success, however,
we are indebted for “The Hunchback,” which ‘ recommenced,” as the author tells us, “in the pleasant
walks about Birmingham, and completed on the sands of Newhaven,” came out at Covent Garden, April 5,
1832. Here the author is in his proper element, the social and romantic drama, as distinct from the
tragic. This was followed by the Mantuan tale, “The Wife,” which appeared at Covent Garden in 1833,
and, like its predecessor, acquired and still retains an amount of popular favour which renders criticism
supererogatory. In quick succession after these appeared a number of other dramatic pieces, of which we -
cannot do more here than record the titles :—“The Daughter” appeared at Drury Lane in 1836; “The
Love Chase,” at the Haymarket, in 1837; “The Maid of Mariendorpt,” at Covent Garden, in 1838;
“ John of Procida,” at the same house, in 1840; as also “Old Maids,” in 1841; “The Rose of Arragon,”
in 1842 ; and “ The Secretary,” in 1843. Of these pieces it may be said generally that the poetry which
they possess is that of thought rather than superficial expression. They are moral in sentiment, legitimate
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 205

in construction, and elevated in feeling ; but they are inharmonious in rhythm, trivial in dialogue, and
often turgid in passion. They have made their way in spite of the absence of the adventitious aids of
rhetoric and imagery, and will long keep their place upon the stage from their more purely dramatic qualities,
and the hold which they have by their frequent appeals to those feelings which make all mankind kin.
Above all, the female sex should be grateful to Sheridan Knowles, for it is to him, of all modern dramatic
writers, that women are indebted for their restoration to their due position in the drama, and upon the
stage. From the time of Shakspeare, in whose plays woman occupies a legitimate place,—down through
Congreve, Shadwell, Wycherly, Southerne, Colman, and Sheridan,—she had suffered dethronement ; and
it was first in the plays of Sheridan Knowles that she was reinstated in the position of dignity and grace
which she holds in nature, society, and the other branches of fiction.

In many of the plays of which we have thus spoken, the author appeared himself,— sustaining in some
the leading characters. He also delivered lectures at various places, on rhetoric, dramatic poetry, and
other cognate subjects. These were pronounced by Christopher North “ Admirable, full of matter, elegantly
written, and eloquently delivered. Knowles is a delightful fellow, and a man of true genius.”*

Sheridan Knowles was also author of several stories, some of which were collected into a volume, and
published by Moxon in 1832, under the title of “The Magdalen and other Tales.” We also remember two
novels, “ George Lovell,” and “Fortescue,” which latter was originally contributed to the Sunday Times,
and republished with a dedication to his relative, the Honourable Mrs. Norton.

Knowles paid more than one visit to America, where he was well received. He also travelled on the
Continent, and made many friends there. Under the ministry of Sir Robert Peel, a pension of £200 per
annum was bestowed upon him by the Crown, as an acknowledgment of his services in the cause of
literature.

During the last fifteen years of his life he abandoned dramatic literature, and employed his pen
chiefly in theological polemics. His great object was to expose the errors of Romanism, which he combated
with no mean ability as a controversial essayist in his ‘‘ Rock of Rome” (8vo. 2 vols.), and “The Idol
demolished by its own Priest,” in answer to Cardinal Wiseman’s work on Transubstantiation. He also
became a Baptist preacher, and acquired considerable reputation by the earnestness of his convictions, and
the eloquence of his language. To one who “interviewed” him at Torquay, and published an interesting
record of the conversation, he said, in answer to the question if he ever wrote poetry then,—‘‘ No, I don’t
want to look back after putting my hand to the plough ; not that the writing of a play would necessarily
be wrong, but my thoughts are now occupied with other and better things, and I wish them to continue so
to the end.” He still, however, retained an interest in the dramatic profession, and had no need to forget
the labours of his earlier life, for he had never written a single line, as an author for the stage, which he
could wish expunged, as a minister of the gospel.

Sheridan Knowles was genial, lovable, and generous in disposition. He possessed great information,
and had so good a memory that he could repeat the entire gospel of St. John in the original Greek. He
was the second cousin of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and a descendant, on his mother’s side, of the great
judge Sir Matthew Hale. He became in his latter years a martyr to rheumatism, which almost deprived
him of the use of his limbs. He died at Torquay, November 30th, 1862, in the seventy-ninth year of his
age. He was survived by his second wife, who, under her maiden name of Elphinstone, had been well
known as an actress. Although an Irishman by birth, he looked upon Scotland as the land of his adoption ;
and it was understood that his remains were to be interred in Glasgow, where he enjoyed the affection and
respect of all who knew him. ; ; ; “3

In Brydges Street, Covent Garden, as London night-birds know, is a snug tavern which takes its
name from this distinguished dramatist. Here met, years ago, the worshipful society of “The Owls,’”—
some two hundred strong,—with such men as Leman Rede and Pierce Egan for members ; Augustine Wade
as president ; and James Sheridan Knowles as patron and chancellor. We have known nothing of the
proceedings of this society in late years. The old birds have all departed to final roost, and we know not
if their places have been filled by a younger brood.

* “Noctes Ambrosiane,” No. xlviii
No. 77.—EDMUND LODGE.

N the preface to his magnificent work, his “ Illustrious Portraits,” a book which, take it all in all, is

the most magnificent ever published, Lodge justly remarks :—‘‘ It is from the combination of portraits
and biography that we reap the utmost degree of utility and pleasure which can be derived from them : as,
in contemplating the portrait of an eminent person, we long to be instructed in his history ; so, in
considering his actions, we are anxious to behold his countenance.” Actuated by this principle, we started
our “ Gallery”; which, though it may not be as splendid as that of Mr. Lodge, contains the likenesses of
people who will inspire no small interest to future inquirers ; and in that Gallery we now enlist Mr. Lodge
himself. 7

There he stands in the regal robes of Norroy, in all the glory and grandeur of heraldic costume. He
looks, indeed, every inch a king ; and long may he continue to reign. We should be excessively sorry if,
in these innovating days, the hand of the Destructive should be laid upon Benet’s Hill. The minute
philosopher, or the grovelling utilitarian, may sneer at heraldry, and think the continuance of the Heraldic
College a piece of idle folly ; but for the opinions of these gentlemen we have little respect. They connect
the present time with times past, and make us feel that we belong to a country which is not of yesterday,
and that those who went before us did deeds worthy of being marked with honour and distinction. "Who
that enters the Heralds’ College, as his eye glances on the portcullis of the Plantagenets, the three legs of
the Isle of Man, the eagle’s claw of the Stanleys, but must feel that he is of a race renowned in ages past
all over the world, and think himself called upon to take care that it suffers no disgrace from him. The
arms of a man’s family ought to remind him that he has other people to think of besides himself, and that
no blot is to be cast by him on the scutcheon of his fathers. And albeit we confess ourselves but little
skilled in the science of blazon, we know enough of it to be sure that it requires no small quantity of
multifarious information, and a great share of acuteness and ability. Of pne thing we are certain, that
those who would depose the heraldic kings from their thrones would be ready to pay the same compliment
to another king whose empire is more substantial.

Mr. Lodge is one of the oldest authors now extant. His first work, “ Tlustrations of British History
in the Reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI., Mary, Elizabeth, and James I.,” dates so far back as 1791,
five-and-forty years ago ; so that as the science he professes is a link between the present age and the past,
so is he himself a link between the present race of authors and that gone by. He wears his years well ;
and, oscillating between Alfred Place and Benet’s Hill, ruminates perpetually on the further production of
books destined to inspire honourable thoughts and high feelings in the mind of England. Some of his
friends, he tells us, think that he has spoken, in his celebrated work, too plainly ; but they have not been
able to convince him that he has done wrong. People are seldom convinced that they have so done; but
plain-speaking is no fault in our eyes, and we rather think that, if Mr. Lodge is to be blamed at all, his
error lies the other way. His style is pleasant and lucid, smelling rather more of the last than of the
present century. It is not the worse for that.

The course of his quiet and useful life furnishes us with few materials for our page ; and we fear that
Mr. Lodge will class it among “ the vague and frothy essays which almost invariably wait on engraving of
what, on such occasions, is most properly called letter-press,—being, in fact, nothing else.” Even so we part
him good friends ; and “ quitting all selfish topics, hasten to conclude this short article with a sincere
declaration of the better feelings which render any sort of apology essentially unnecessary for our page,”
and crying, with lungs as stentorian as we can command,

Vive Norrory!

WOT f S:

DMUND LODGE was a true antiquary of the old school,—industrious in research, minute in trifles,
laborious in composition, suave in manners, and a Tory in politics. He was the son of the Rev.
Edmund Lodge, Rector of Carshalton, in Surrey, and was born in Poland-street, London, on the 13th of
June, 1756. His first choice of a profession was the army, and in 1772 he became a Cornet in the King’s
Own regiment of Dragoons. His military ardour, however, waxed cool before a growing taste for literature
and antiquities; and in 1782 he resigned his commission for the more congenial appointment of Blue
Mantle Pursuivant-at-Arms. In 1787 he was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries; in 1793 he
was promoted to be Lancaster Herald, and in 1822 Norroy King of Arms. In 1832 he was nominated
Knight of the Order of the Guelphs of Hanover ; and on the 30th of July, 1838, became Clarencieux
King of Arms.
His talents as an elegant and conscientious editor were first evinced by the publication of the Talbot,
Howard, and Cecil papers in the College of Arms, which appeared in 1791, under the title of “ Illustra-
tions of British History,” 3 vols. 4to. He was also author of the “ Memoirs” attached to Chamberlaine’s
    
  
 
  
   
  

 
 
 

 
   
  
  

Dio

Za

SS
a
|

AUTHOR OF "MEMOS OF LLLUSTRIOUS PERSO NAGES?
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CMARACTERS. 207

“ Imitations of Original Drawings by Hans Holbein,” which were published in parts between 1792 and
1800. In 1810 he published, anonymously, “The Life of Sir Julius Cesar; with Memoirs of his Family
and his Descendants,”—a handsome quarto volume, with numerous portraits. He was, moreover, an occa-
sional contributor in the Quarterly Review, where he wrote the notice of the “Sadler Papers,” of the
“History of London,” and of the * Works of Swift,” as edited by Sir Walter Scott. To his pen are also
to be ascribed the “ Preface” to the second edition of the “ Antiquarian Repertory,” and that to the
collected poems of Sir Charles Hanbury Williams.* We believe that we have now enumerated, so far as
they are known, the literary labours of Mr. Lodge, with the exception of those connected with the valuable
publication with which his name is chiefly associated, and which demands a somewhat more extended
notice at our hands,

We allude to that celebrated and important work, originally published in 1821-8, and entitled
“ Portraits of Illustrious Personages of Great Britain.” Of this splendid performance,—which Lockhart
justly terms ‘a magnificent book,”—it is hardly too much to say that, whether we regard the authenticity
of the portraits, the technical excellence of the engraving, or the admirable style of the accompanying text,
no more important or valuable illustrated work of biography has ever appeared. Sir Walter Scott, who
received a copy, ‘‘ex dono auctoris,” acknowledged the gift in a beautiful letter of eulogy, which is printed
in the preface to the reissue of the work in 1835. He speaks of it as ‘A collection which at once satisfies
the imagination and the understanding, showing us by the pencil how the most distinguished of our
ancestors luoked, moved, and dressed ; and informing us by the pen how they thought, acted, lived, and
died.” He adds, moreover,—referring to the earlier ‘Illustrations of British History,’—that the text
exhibits ‘‘ the same patient powers of collecting information from the most obscure and hidden sources, and
the same talent for selecting tie facts which are the rarest and most interesting, and presenting them to
the general reader in a luminous and concise manner.”

The national predilection for portraiture is an old subject of satiric notice. Dr. Johnson remarks :—
“That the painters find no encouragement’ among the English for many other works than portraits has
been imputed to national selfishness. "Tis vain, says the satirist, to set before any Englishman the
scenes of landscapes or the heroes of history ; nature and antiquity are nothing in his eye ; he has no value
but for himself, nor desires any copy but of his own form.”+ There is much truth in this. Among a
people with whom art is an exotic, and even at this day has small part in the national feeling, and
ministers to no universal appetence, it is natural that, when fashion and example direct the patrouage of
painting, the special branch should find most favour that flatters sentiments so general as self-love and
personal vanity. Hence the ejaculation of Dryden :—

“ Good heaven! that sots and knaves should be so vain,
To wish their vile resemblance to remain;
And stand recorded, at their own request,
To future times a libel or a jest!”
Epistle to Sir Godfrey Kneller.

Here the allusion of the satirist is to the “‘obscurorum virorum icones,” which, if bad, only serve as
palimpsests, and, if good, may retain a place from the merit of the artist, while the very name of the
archetype is forgotten: But of the truly illustrious,—the Conscript Fathers of learning, valour, and piety,—
it must be ever held that the portraits, no less than the biographies, are the most valuable incentives to
rivalry and imitation. That such was the effect in his day is asserted) by the philosophic Roman
histcrian :—‘‘ Nam sepe audivi, Q. Maximum, P: Scipionem, preterea civitatis nostra preclaros viros,
solitos ita dicere, cum majorum imagines intuerentur, vehementissime sibi animum ad virtutem accendi
scilicet non ceram illam, neque figuram tantam vim in sese habere ; sed memoria rerum gestarum eam
flammam egregiis viris in pectore crescere, neque prius sedari, quam. virtus eorum famam atque gloriam
adeequaverit.’+ Horace,—though here he is rather speaking of the lessons conveyed by dramatic represen-
tations,—points out the advantage over oral teaching possessed by those images,—

“ce

 

que sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus, et qua
Ipse sibi tradit spectator.”

 

* The first edition of the “Odes” of Sir Charles Hanbury Williams appeared in 1763, 12mo.; the second in 1780, and
was edited by Joseph Ritson, whose labours, according to Joseph Haslewood, his biographer, did not extend beyond collating
the proof sheets. ‘his edition has the reputation of having been suppressed, we know not with what reason; anyway, it
is scarce, as is also its successor, the third, “improved,” in 1784. The best edition is certainly that of 1822, 3 vols.,
crown 8vo., with notes by Horace Walpole, the preface by Lodge, and a dedication (afterwards suppressed) to Lord John
Russell. Dr. Johanson spoke contemptuously of “ our lively and elegant, though too licentious lyric bard, Hanbury Williams,
and said he has uo fame but from boys who drank with him.” (Boswell’s “Jubnson.”) Madden says of him :—“ Sir Hanbury
Williams, the celebrated sayer of bons-mots, and composer of pointed epigrams, a man of astounding audacity in turning
sacred subjects into ridicule, and treating the most solemn subjects with flippant jocularity and revolting levity, sat in the
House of Commons, a silent member, wrapt in gloom, which terminated in insanity and suicide.”—Life of Lady Blessington,
i. 364. This last edition of this licentious poet produced a severe criticism from the Quarterly Review, vol. xxviii. pp. 46-59,
where it is stated that “ specimens of vbsceuity and blasphemy more horrible than we have before seen collected into one
publication,” are to be found in the volumes, and that they are ‘‘a stigma to good manners, good morals, and literature,
which no man of sense or woman of delicacy can allow to be seen on their table.’ We presume that Lodge did write the
preface to this work, for which we have the authority of the Gentleman’s Magazine. Weshould otherwise have attributed it
to Jeffery, the publisher. '

+ The Idler, No. 45. f Sallust: “ Bellum Jugurthinum.”
208 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

So also Jonathan Richardson, who says :—“ Let a man read a character in Lord Clarendon (and certainly
never was a better painter in that kind), he will find it improved, by seeing a picture of the same person
by Vandyck.”* And Horace Walpole says that “a portrait of real authenticity calls up so many collateral
ideas as to fill an intelligent mind more than any other species of painting.”

So much for the value of portraits. As for our own alleged preference for them, we need not say that
Continental collections date at least a century earlier than any in this country. A splendid gallery of this
kind was formed by the munificent Peyresc, who was wont to request from the eminent men he had
obliged,— Grrotius, De Thou, Scaliger, Salmasius, Casaubon, é&c.,—a portrait, as the sole acknowledgment
of his favours.t Pacheco, the father-in-law of Velasquez, formed a curious gallery, by sketching down the
likenesses of all the men of merit who were in the habit of visiting his atelier. In the long career of this
artist, the number amounted to upwards of three hundred, among whom were Cervantes, Quevedo,
Herrera, &c. Then there are the portraits of the Doges in the ancient hall of the Great Council at Venice,
painted by Tintoretto, Bassano, and the younger Palma, with the lugubrious frame, containing a black
tablet in place of a portrait, with the inscription,—“ Hic est locus Marini Falethri, decapitati pro crimi-
nibus.” In the gallery deg!’ Uffiz, at Florence, is a unique collection of portraits of painters, taken by them-
selves,—Titian, Leonardo da Vinci, Paolo Veronese, Michael Angelo, Guido, Vasari, Angelica Kauffman,
&c. A splendid collection of engraved portraits was formed by Charles Theodore, Elector of Bavaria, and
Francis I., Emperor of Austria. In number it amounted to about eighty thousand, which were arranged
in eight hundred portfolios. Nearly equal to this, in later times, was the famous collection of M. Debure,
comprising sixty-five thousand portraits, arranged in alphabetical order, in one hundred and ninety-two
portfolios. A word, finally, should be bestowed on the magnificent collections of portraits formed by our
countryman, M. Crauford, an Englishman by birth, but a Frenchman by adoption. One of these was
seized during the Reign of Terror ; and the second, equal to the former in extent, was sold after his death,
in 1819. From this gale came the fine portrait of Bossuet, by Rigaud, inthe Louvre, concerning which
some curious details will be found inthe notice appended, by M. Barriére, to the “Mémoires de Madame
de Hausset,” of which M. Crauford was the original editor.

A hundred years before anything of the kind appeared in this country, the Continent had produced
important and beautiful works of engraved portraits and illustrative text, in prose or verse. There is the
“ Promptvaire” of Roville (1553), with its exquisitely-executed heads, on wood, from Adam to Jeanne
dAlbret ; the “‘Icones” of Theodore Beza (1520), with a portrait of James VI., to whom the book is
dedicated ; and.the “ Icones Virorum Illustrium,” of Boissardus, in five parts, 1597, 4to. The curious reader
may be referred for description of, and fac simi/es from, these works,—we have made no progress in art
since,—to the “ Bibliographical Decameron” of T. F, Dibdin (vol. 1. p. 276). Here, too, will be found the
most copious account of Henry Holland’s work,—“ Heroologia Anglica, hoc est clarissimorum aliquot et
doctissimorum Anglorum qui floruerunt ab anno Christo M.D., usque ad presentem annum MDCXX.,
vere Effigies, Vite, et Elogia,” published at Arnheim, and containing sixty-six portraits. But the erudite
doctor has overlooked here (though he mentions it in a note in his “ Library Companion ”) a very important
biographical work, of the same class as the collections mentioned above, with dozens of heads grouped on a
page, and finely engraved by Kilian. This is entitled, “ Theatrum Virorum eruditione singulari clarorum,
in quo Vite et Scripta Theologorum, Jurisconsultorum, Medicorum, et Philosophorum, a seculis aliquot ad
hee usque tempora florentium representantur.” The authcr is Freherus, and the work was published at
Nuremburg, 1688, 2 vols. folio. Neither does he mention a still earlier and rarer tome :—“ Atrium
Heoricum Cesarum, Regum, aliorwmque Summatum ac Procerum” (Augsburg, 1600), containing portraits
of our own Elizabeth, her brother, her successor, and the Earl of Leicester. Who has not heard of the
Fugger family of Augsburg !—those merchant princes of the sixteenth century, whose vast wealth led to the
belief that they possessed the philosopher’s stone, and who, entertaining Charles V., as he passed through
their city, on his expedition against Tunis, piled the grate of their guest with billets of cinnamon, and
lighted them with his own promissory note for a large sum which he had borrowed from them! Their story
is told, and their lineaments preserved, in the fine volume, “ Fuggerorum et Fuggerarum, &c., Imagines,”
published by Dominic Custos, at Antwerp, 1593 (2nd. ed. 1618, 3rd. ed. 1620), with one hundred and
twenty-seven portraits, engraved on copper. After this, we have the “Vrais Pourtraits et Vies des
Hommes Ilustres” of Thevet, of whose text Morhof writes in praise, a splendid folio, of not infrequent
appearance, published in 1648. Next came the “ Académie des Sciences” of Bullart (Amst. 1682, folio) ;
the fine work of Perrault, “ Les Hommes Illustres” (Paris, 1696-1700, folio, 2 vols.) ; the “ Bibliotheca
Belgica,” of Foppens (Amst. 1739, 4to. 2 vols.) ; and the “ Portraits des Hommes Illustres de Dannemark,”
of Tycho Hoffmann (Copenhagen, 1746, 4to.), a rare and beautiful book, of which the reprint in 1773
(3 vols. 4to.) is very inferior as regards the impressions of the plates.

During all this time we had been lagging behind. In 1713, Edward Ward had published his “ History
of the Grand Rebellion,” in three octavo volumes, with its rude prints and doggrel rhymes. For anything
decent in art we had to have recourse to the Continent, and the portraits for the “‘ Heroologia ” were from
the burin of Simon Passe. So in the splendid work of Dr. Birch, ‘“‘ Heads of the most Illustrious Persons
in Great Britain, with their Lives and Characters” (London, 1747, folio), it was by a Dutch engraver,
Houbraken, that the portraits were, for the most part, executed,—aided, at least, in the earlier part of the
work, in this country, by the faithful and elegant Vertue. In point of art, this is truly a magnificent

* The Works of Jonathan Richardson (‘The Theory of Painting’’), 1792, 4to. p. 9.
+ Guvres de Lemontey (“ Eloge de Peiresc »), tom. iii. p. 116.
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CIIARACTERS. " 209

production, and rivals the most splendid works of other countries. But while the biographer, Dr. Birch,
has done his task well, so far as the recital of fact is concerned, it must be admitted that he has neglected
the graces of style and language. Houbraken, on the other hand, has sacrificed truth to the elegances of
his art ; and working in a foreign country, ignorant of our history, and careless as to the authenticity of
the drawings provided for him, he has been so far imposed upon, that the statement made by an anonymous
but well-informed writer in the Gentleman’s Magazine for 1788, cited by Mr. Lodge, is probably not much
exaggerated, that, with regard to these portraits,‘ Thurloe’s, and about thirty of the others, are copied
from heads painted for no one knows whom.” From this, with all its faults, magnificent and important
volume, we must pass in our hurried retrospect, to the “ Portraits of the Illustrious Persons of the Court
of Henry VIII.,” designed by Holbein, and engraved by Bartolozzi, of which, as we have already stated,
the biographical notices are from the pen of Mr. Lodge. This was published by Chamberlaine, in fourteen
parts, 1792, folio. The engravings were made from original drawings in the royal collection ; they are
eighty-two in number, and are delicately engraved in stipple. The volume was republished in a smaller
folio size, in 1812, like its predecessor, under the auspices of Nicol. The notices in this book are admirably
written; but it is well to note that, with regard to the portraits, Dr. Dibdin has pointed out one
instance,—that of Margaret Roper, the eldest daughter of Sir Thomas More,—of flagrant infidelity, and
has, moreover, thrown grave suspicions on the general trustworthiness of Bartolozzi, as a copier.* In
1795 was published the first volume of §. Harding’s “Biographical Mirrour, comprising a Series of
Ancient and Modern English Portraits of Eminent and Distinguished Persons, from original Pictures
and Drawings.” A second volume of this interesting work appeared in 1798; and a third in
1802. With it should be associated the “ Scottish Gallery” of John Pinkerton, engraved by the
Hardings and others, royal 8vo., 1799. With one word to an elegant volume of more local interest,
—‘ The Lives of Eminent and Remarkable Characters born or long resident in the Counties of Essex,
Suffolk, and Norfolk,” 68 portraits (London, 1820, 8vo.), we arrive at a handsome folio, “ Memoirs of
the Celebrated Persons comprising the Kit-Cat Club; with a Prefatory Account of the Origin of the
Association ; illustrated with Forty-eight Portraits, from the original Paintings by Sir Godfrey Kneller ”
(London, 1821). Here, if space permitted, we might enlarge upon the history of the Club,} and discuss
the origin of its quaint appellation. Kneller was a painter of considerable merit, and had enjoyed, in his
artistic career, the singular good forture of numbering no less than ten monarchs among his sitters.{ The
portraits of the members of this celebrated society are still in existence, in the possession of Mr. R. W.
Baker, the representative of the Tonson family, at Bayfordbury, in Hertfordshire. Engravings from them
were made by Faber, and published without letter-press in 1725, the year before the death of Jacob Tonson.
They were re-engraved for the edition of which we speak, and accompanied by “ Memoirs,” attributed by
Lowndes to James Caulfield, but which we believe to have been written by A. A. Watts. By whom-
soever they may be, they are pronounced by Croker,§ ‘‘one of the most blundering pieces of patchwork
that the scissors of a hackney editor ever produced ”; while Charles Knight styles the volume, “ one of the
dullest of books, manufactured out of the commonest materials.” The portraits are also said to be
“deficient in characteristic resemblance,” and to exhibit that kind of family likeness which is to be found
in all Kneller’s faces.

We must bestow a word on that fine work, “The British Gallery of Contemporary Portraits”
(published by Cadell, in 1822, 2 vols.), the large paper copies of which, in folio, forn: an appropriate
companion to the folio edition of Lodge ; and we hardly like to pass without notice the very elegant
<‘Physiognomical Portraits of Distinguished Characters, from Undoubted Originals, with Biographical
Memoirs by Thomson” (1824, 2 vols. 4to.), with plain or India paper plates, and twenty-five copies in
folio, with proof impressions on French paper. This beautiful work was projected and published by the
late Edward Walmsley, to whom we are indebted for the sumptuous reprint of Dibdin’s “ Bibliomania ”
(1842). Finer specimens of the engraver’s art can scarcely be found than these portraits, though perhaps
they are a little deficient in novelty. ;

After our rapid retrospect of this department of literature, which we do not of course profess to be
exhaustive, we come to a pause at the point from which we took our departure,—the publication, in 1821-8,
of the “ Illustrated Biography of Mr. Lodge.” Our own shelves would, indeed, enable us to supply the
titles of many books which we have not thought of sufficient importance to mention in chronological
sequence,—the “ Elogia” of Paulus Jovius (1575, folio) ; the “Tllustrium Imagines” of Theodore Galle
(1606, 4to.); the “Favisse” of H. Spoor (1707, 4to.) ; the “Champions” of Ricraft (1647) ; and the
“ Worthies” of Vicars (1647) ; with many others,—but we have contented ourselves with the indication of
the most important, in the hope that we might aid the reader to estimate the value of Mr. Lodge's labours,
by affording some information as to what had been previously achieved by a similar co-operation of art and
history, in commemorating the lives of illustrious men and women of all ages. ; } .

It now only remains to state that Mr. Lodge died on January 16th, 1839, at his residence in
Bloomsbury Square, in the eighty-third year of his age. A portrait of him, after a drawing by Maclise,
engraved by Smith, is prefixed to the edition of the “ Illustrations of British History,” published in 1838.

* “ Library Companion,” 1st. ed., p. 502. Note.
+ See Ned 1 Ward's es Secret History of Cluhs;” and Charles Knight’s “ Shadows of the Old Rooksellers,” p. 62.

{+ These were Charles II., James II., his Queen, William and Mary, Ann, George I., Louis XIV., Peter the Great, and
the Emperor Charles VI.

§ Quarterly Review, vol. xxvi. p. 425. ,
D
No, 78.—JOHN BALDWIN BUCKSTONE.

UR queer-looking little friend, with his usual “aids to reflection ” before him, is so well known to the
() play-going world of London, that it is scarcely necessary to describe him. All who go to the Adelphi
(and who does not go there ?) have his face by heart —much better, indeed, than his colleague, and our much-
esteemed and admired friend, Jack Reeve, has his parts. His odd countenance,—his quaint manner,—his
whimsical gestures,—his indescribably droll voice, have made so deep an impression on theatrical London,
that we may safely hold ourselves excused from further dilating upon the merits or the peculiarities of
Buckstone the actor.

We introduce to our readers Buckstone the awthor,—and, we may well call him, the Scribe of England.
He is almost as indefatigable as his French contemporary; and, in the handling of his characters, quite
as original. It is true that he sometimes takes the liberty of borrowing from our neighbours, but we
believe that no class of play-writers in the whole world is absolved from the sin of plagiarism. As literature
extends, and becomes what we may learnedly call cosmopolitical,—it is good to use a hard word now and
then, upon occasion,—every nation takes a liberty with the general stock, no matter where it may happen
to be deposited. Scribe himself, with all his fertility, is well understood to draw upon the resources of
aspiring playwrights of obscure degree, who furnish him with the raw material of many a vaudeville,
which he touches up with a few flourishes of his own, and sends forward with his name, unscrupulously,
as his own production, not unfrequently to the infinite indignation of the illustrious unknown. Buck-
stone has original merit enough to enable him to bear with no weightier accusation than that he is, at the
shortest notice, able to nationalize and admirably adapt for the English theatre the last favourite of the
Parisian stage. If we were to imitate our sensitive friends on the other side of the Channel, who make
histrionic affairs matters of prime importance, we should remind them that English works, whether in
prose or verse, have long been the staple sources for their plays, operas, and ballets. We refer only to the
literature of our own times; and it will be enough to mention the “ Lady of the Lake,” “ Kenilworth,”
“Tvanhoe,” “The White Lady of Avenel,” “I Puritani,” the “Siege of Corinth,” and the endless
succession of “ Giaours,” “ Childe Harolds,” ‘“ Laras,” ‘ Corsairs,” and so forth, which have romanticized
French taste, and, we admit, have prepared the way for the still stronger scenes and characters which now
adorn their stage.

Those who are curious as to the history and genealogy of Buckstone, with all anecdotes, bibliographical
and historical, which are worthy of meeting the public eye, will find them duly recorded in some of those
ingenious repertories of dramatic information supplied by Turnour, or other successors of Oxberry. B. has
chosen his peculiar department in his profession, and that department he fills in a manner not to be surpassed.
Long practice in dramatic composition enables him, on the spur of the moment, to improvise a scene while
actually on the stage, when the influence of the jolly god renders Reeve reckless of what is set down for
him, and Jack commences composing, ad libitum, according to the dictates of his flowing fancies. If, as
we have been assured, Buckstone is so deaf that he cannot distinctly hear what is said on the stage, this
faculty of divining the vagaries of Reeve, and playing up to them, without pause or hesitation, is very
remarkable. He is, generally, a favourite with his brother actors ; but, as may be expected, has been
engaged in controversies with his brother play-writers, who seem to be the most irritable even of our
irritable tribe. These comical controversies always turn on the one point, viz., which of the rival authors
first stole the farce from France? He who steals the broom ready-made usually considers himself as the
superior artist to him who only steals it twig by twig. In these important conflicts the theatrical world
has universally conceded the victory to Buckstone, crowning him in consequence with a wreath of the finest
gingerbread gold.

We do not think that he is any relation of Fowell Buxton; but he has shown that he considers the
oppressed sable son of Afric as “a man and a brother ”—actor—by writing a piece for Jim Crow. The
good-humour which this excites, and the popular feeling of good-nature towards the blacks which it calls
forth, must confer more benefits on the “niggers” than the dubious results of the long-winded barmy
harangues of the saintly brewer.

NODES,

S a want of knowledge of the accomplished and versatile gentleman whose portrait is now before us
A would rightly argue that one is not known oneself,—and as he is happily still among us, and all
particulars of him may be learnt in ‘‘ Men of the Time,’—we feel like Canning’s “ Knife-grinder ”:—
“Story ! God bless you, I have none to tell, Sir,’—and must needs indite the shortest and most perfunctory
of “ notes.”
   
   

NY

 
  
  

‘
WY
ARNG
AY
| RN
LN
PRS

   
  

 

 

Sh : :
TICE AUTHOR OF "VIC TORINE?
 

 

\ Re N
SVR

 

\

\ WO

\\

EDITOR OF "LOND ON &WESTMINS TER REVIEW”
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 211

Mr. Buckstone is,—not to put too fine a point upon it,—about as old as the century. Tarning his
back upon Thetis, he coquetted awhile with Themis, and then jilted that severe goddess for the more joyous
Thalia. In earlier life he was a favourite of Edmund Kean ; and after some three years of provincial
experience, he made his first appearance before a metropolitan audience, in 1824, as Peter Smink, in “ The
Armistice.” He is the author of some hundred and fifty comedies, dramas, and farces, many of which
are stock favourites; plays, with the success that all the world knows of, almost all the low-comedy
characters of the English drama; and, as lessee and manager of the Haymarket for many years, has
thoroughly associated his name with all the better productions of genuine English comedy and farce.

But Mr. Buckstone has other labours than those of an actor and dramatic author. He acts as master
and treasurer of the General Theatrical Fund ; is one of the honorary treasurers of the fund accumulating
ce = foundation of a Dramatic College ; and has been for nearly twenty-years a member of the Garrick

ub.

It has been whispered for many years that Mr. Buckstone proposes to embody in an autobiography
the events of his own life, and the vast amount of anecdotal information relating to his dramatic and
literary contemporaries, which he has collected in the course of his long public career. We look anxiously
for the performance of a task for which Mr. Buckstone is so well qualified ; and have little doubt
that he will present us with a record no less valuable than the “Apology” of Colley Cibber, and the
“ Reminiscences ” of O'Keefe, Michael Kelly, and Dibdin. :

By the way, what an amusing volume would make a collection of Mr. Buckstone’s admirable speeches
at the Dramatic Fund dinners, and on other occasions! Verb. sap.

No. 79.—SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH.

HOSE multitudes who know and admire the honourable baronet ag a public character may here

behold this most eminent of Cornishmen as he appears in private.

By an ingenious stratagem, our artist penetrated into the baronet’s sanctuary in Belgrave Square,
attired like a ticket-porter. He produced a note, as from an Irish member, requesting a loan of three-and-
sixpence, to pay a score at the Reform Club. While Sir William Molesworth was meditating whether
he should produce the money,—while he wrote a line signifying that the request was granted, and kindly
enclosed the mopuses in an envelope,—young Croquis watched, marked, surveyed him,—and made the
admirable portrait opposite, unobserved, on his thumb-nail.

Sir William lies on a luxurious sofa; his limbs are enveloped in a damask robe; a Grecian cap,
marvellously embroidered, ornaments his sconce ; his legs are crossed in an attitude of profound meditation.
It is thus our great statesman appears in his closet, and meditates upon cosmogony, or the state of human
affairs. Not politics alone engage his mind: he is a profound metaphysician ; as a linguist, stupendous ;
as a mathematician, he has attained a depth which is more easily imagined than described. Sir Isaac
Newton once said, in our hearing, when Sir William, as a lad, came up to Trinity, “Dash my wig,
Mr. Yorke! that young man beats me all to shivers.” We speak within compass when we say, that
Sir William Molesworth reads you off a page of Chinese with great ease, and the true Pekin accent; that
Professor Whewell is a ninny compared to him in mathematics ; and we have even heard that he not only
admires, but understands, Jeremy Bentham. Our artist remarked nothing further in the chamber, except
that, on his entrance, Sir William was occupied reading an enormous folio of French mathematics, and that
by the honourable baronet’s side lay the ashes of four-and-twenty cigars. Tvifling particulars; but
interesting to those who love to penetrate into human character, and are eager to know the smallest
circumstances relating to good or great men.

He lives in a fine house in Belgrave Square, which is remarkable as being also the residence of the
hon. member for Westminster. These two great statesmen (to use a polite phrase) pig together, and
have their mansion in common. We do not mean to say that Orestes wears the pantaloons of Pylades,
or vice versa; but that, convinced that their party will dissolve, unless rallied round one particular
standard, they have set up this liberty-flag in Belgrave Square. They keep a French cook, and feed their
less fortunate political brethren,—a generosity noble on their part, but, indeed, necessary ; for the
wholesome quality of the victuals serves to keep these Radicals from starving, and likewise greatly elevates
the morale of the men. With a few more such dinners at Pimlico, we expect to hear Mr. Wakley talking
English, and Mr. Harvey looking like a gentleman. :

But, to return to the honourable baronet. He is of ancient family, of Cornwall breed, and possesses
many fat acres in that and the neighbouring county. As to his politics, we are not here to squabble with

2D 2 .
212 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

him regarding them ; for this delightful page of Regina is neutral ground, where we love to be merry and
friendly with our opponents, even though we are to be throat-cutting in the very next leaf. It would be
cowardly to attack yonder peaceful and studious philosopher in the midst of his mild meditations ; let us
praise him, rather, as well we may, for the great and serious benefit which, every day, the kingdom is
receiving from him. He, his friend Mr. Leader, and the ex-member for Bath, Mr. Roebuck, have done as
much for Conservatism as any subjects of her majesty. They make more converts than Sir Robert Peel
himself. For as young gentlemen in Sparta were taught to abbor drunkenness by beholding the
consequences thereof in tipsy Helots, even so the British public learneth political sobriety by witnessing
the mad antics of the above trio.

Perhaps Sir William may grow sober when he grows old, as other honourable baronets have done ; in
the meanwhile, he can harm nobody but himself, in his present state of Radical intoxication. Let him
continue his orations at the Crown and Anchor, and show how rebellion is one of the rights of man, and
order only oppression. People are beginning to understand him: ask Mr. Leader if they don’t—at the
next election.

NOTES.

IR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH was born in London on the 23rd of May, 1810; and succeeded to
the title on the death of his father, the seventh Baronet, at the age of thirteen. He was entered in
due course at the University of Cambridge, where he underwent a sentence of rustication for challenging
his tutor to fight a duel. He next studied at the University of Edinburgh ; completing his education in
Germany, where he bestowed especial attention upon philology and history. He then made the usual tour
of Europe ; and was still in his minority when he returned home in 1831. In 1832, he was returned as
member of Parliament for the Eastern division of Cornwall, in which county, at Pencarrow, his ancestors
had settled in the time of Queen Elizabeth, and where is still the seat of the family. He subsequently sat
for Leeds ; and in 1845 was elected, in the Liberal interest, for Southwark, which he continued to represent
till his death, in Eaton Place, London, on October 22nd, 1855, in the 46th year of his age. In 1842, he
served the office of High Sheriff of Cornwall, for which county he was also Deputy Lieutenant and Magis-
trate ; in 1853, he accepted the office of First Commissioner of Public Works; and subsequently became
her Majesty’s principal Secretary of State for the Colonies, a post which he had well earned, but did not
live long to enjoy.

Although it is not as a public man and a politician that Sir Witu1am Mo esworri is entitled to a
niche in our Pinacotheca, we cannot refrain from a passing word on a career which extorted respect and
admiration from men of all shades of opinion. As a debater, he could hardly be ranked among the first ;
nor were his speeches numerous, though they were always valuable. He advocated the ballot ; and this
not only to further the interests of democracy, but to protect the people at large against demagogic
ascendancy. He did good public service by his fearless inquiry into the Orange Lodges. He laid bare the
system of penal transportation ; and was the zealous promoter of systematic colonization. He was an
advocate of free trade ; of electoral and administrative reform; and of a more philosophical and rational
system of international law; and was, in all respects, a large-minded and enlightened pioneer of liberal
opinion. “The best monument,”—said the 7imes,—“ that could be raised to him would be a complete
collection of his Parliamentary speeches ;—the noblest epitaph that could be inscribed on his tomb would be
the title of ‘the Liberator and Regenerator of the Colonial Empire of Great Britain.’ ”

In his literary capacity, much does not remain for us to say of the subject of these “‘notes.” He was
a large contributor to the Westminster Review, of which he was, for some period, both proprietor and
editor. It is, however, as the editor of Hobbes that he is best known in literature. He had always been a
great admirer of the illustrious and sceptical “philosopher of Malmesbury,” and had devoted the leisure of
his busy and useful life to the collection of materials for the life of his favourite author. In 1839, he
commenced a reprint, in handsome style, of the writings of this unpopular and little understood man. The
Latin and Philosophical Works, including the “obsolete mathematics” occupy five octavo volumes ; and
the “ English Works,” illustrated with expensive engravings, were comprised in eleven more. The whole
entailed a cost for publication of many thousand pounds; the intended biography was said to be far
advanced at the time of the author's death, and we presume still remains in manuscript uncompleted.

Sir William Molesworth has often been spoken of as a friend of Bentham; but this could hardly
have been, as the great utilitarian died in 1832, at the very commencement of the career of the wealthy
young baronet. With James Mill he was, however, intimate; and it was in the company of Grote that
he pursued his travels. His studies were by no means confined to politics and metaphysics. He had.
read extensively in English and foreign literature ; had studied deeply architecture and engineering ; and
was minutely versed in the science of botany.

Further,—as was remarked at the time of his death, by the Athenceum,—“ In private life, his kindliness
of heart, and the child-like simplicity with which he accepted everything meant to give him pleasure, were
remarkable and endearing ; and great the number is of those who will join us in feeling their bereavement
in the withdrawal from the world of one of those able and true men in whom public worth is borne out
and adorned by private amiability.
 

ACTHOR. OF “PLYMLEYS LETTERS ON THE CATHOLICS”
( 213 )

No. 80.—REV, SYDNEY SMITH.

‘HE surname Smith is admitted to be the most common one in the English nation ; though why it

i should have been more so than Carpenter, Gardener, or Baker, we do not well see. Taylor prevails
widely, in spite of the illiberal notions connected with it ; but still there are twenty Smiths to one Taylor.
Tapster is rather a rare name among us,— Butcher still rarer: for these things we can to a certain extent
account ; but who can explain the enormous over-proportion of the clan Smith ?

There are several thriving families who disguise, in some slight degree, this distinguished patronymic,
—on the idea, no doubt, pointed out by Sir Walter Scott in his Diary, that, by adopting an antiquated
spelling, they thus show us that, if their ancestor was indeed a worker in iron, it was at a remote period,
long before orthography was settled. Thus, some write themselves Smyth ; and others not only write the
name Smythe, but cause it to be so pronounced by their servants, and, if parsons, by their curates. It is,
however, worthy of remark, that no really eminent man of the clan has ever yet come before the public in
any of these foolish half-masks. You may find a musicaster calling himself Smyth ; a poetaster, Smythe ,
but, whether you look to the real brains or the real courage, the real wealth or the real wit, of the
generation, it will be found that these are contented with the plainest of English nouns substantive, in its
natural hodiernal shape and sound. Witness Adam, Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of
Glasgow, and of highly immoral philosophy in a work entitled the “Wealth of Nations,’—Sydney the
First, admiral, hero, G.C.B., &e. &c. ;—Robert Lord Carrington, with Abel, Samuel, John of Midhurst, and
their brethren ;—James, of Cecil Street, in the Strand, attorney-at-law, author of the “ Rejected Addresses,”
the song of the “ Dogs’-meat Man,” and other immortal works ;—and Sydney the Second, otherwise styled
the Reverend, rector of Comberflory, in the county of Devon, and canon-residentiary of St. Paul’s
Cathedral ; residing, however, in fact, at No. 39, Charles Street, Berkeley Square, and there habitually
exercising himself in inditing letters to Lord John Russell, Thomas Barnes, Esq., and other men in place
and authority, of and concerning the Right Honourable and Right Reverend Charles James, Lord Bishop of
London, the Right Hon. John Wilson Croker, of Kensington, in the said diocese, and divers other topics
and persons, as to which and whom the said Sydney agrees in the main with the said Lord John, and
differs in the main from the said Thomas Barnes.

Southey, in the “ Doctor,” tacks vilipensive prefixes and postfixes to several of these (indeed, excepting
old Carrington, whom he puffs in some of his books, he seems to have no favourite in the gens Smithica),
and, among the rest, our Sydney the Second is dubbed Joke-Smith. “The Doctor” is at best a clumsy wag,
—pbut no one can let this pass. ’Tis a dull piece of malice.

Sydney was born in the year of salvation 1768,—just a year before Buonaparte and the “Stunted
Corporal”: he is now, consequently, according to the Psalmist, in that year which sums up our usual span.
But we hope that, as Buonaparte kicked the bucket long before the legitimate Davidic period, so both
Wellington and our Canon may outlive it to a very considerable extent. ,We could ill spare either old
Arthur in the Senate, or his venerable contemporary in the Salon.

They were both indoctrinated with the propria que maribus at Eton : from which seminary the one
proceeded to join a marching mess as ensign, the other to a more jolly, as well as a more stationary one, at
Oxford. Here Sydney continued, during the legitimate lustrum, to imbibe Greek metres, long and short ;
and full, copious, mellifluous hexameters of Port. It is said that he annoyed tutors, proctors, et hoc genus
omne, by sundry songs, squibs, and practical jokes ; but was, on the whole, a not indecorous young
academic. He appears to have been rusticated on one occasion, for taking part in a gown-and-town row
(a.D. 1787); but this did not prevent his passing muster as B.A., two years later, and giving an excellent
dinner the same evening at the Black Bear, Woodstock ; when among other demonstrations of juvenile
pleasantry, there occurred a small set-to with the mauleys between him and a certain sprightly competitor,
by name Bill Howley—an evident adumbration afar off of some recent assaults, perpetrated, by means of
a sharper weapon, upon a Most Reverend member of the Church Commission.

In 1794, influenced by those pure and fervent motives and aspirations which are set forth in the
canons of the Anglican Church (the canons residentiary of Amen Corner included), Sydney took holy
orders ; humbly devoting the rest of his life to the cultivation and extension of the Christian virtues and
the orthodox faith ; renouncing the world and all its works ; and taking on himself the exalted, but meek
character of a steward and overseer in the spiritual vineyard.

His apostolical views and gifts, howeverydo not appear to have met with immediate appreciation ; in
other words, Sydney remained not only without a benefice, but, for some considerable time, without even
acuracy. Thus baffled in his earnest longings for practical usefulness as a Minister of the Word, he cast
about for some other field of exertion in which he might display his zeal ; and, presently, Scotland offered
what England had unwisely refused. Sydney became the junior preacher of a small Episcopalian chapel in
Edinburgh, the senior one being Alison, author of a ‘“ Treatise on Taste,”—author and treatise long since
alike dead and buried. That most captivating of the fine arts, the Eloquence of the Pulpit, was, no doubt,
in its most high and palmy state, when two such masters wept alternately over the same velvet
cushion in the Cowgate. Yet, even here, the younger divine found time hang heavily on his hands: a
214 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

fragment of the pastoral duties of a chapel in partibus could hardly be sufficient for the energies of such a
man at this active, and, we understand, Jean period of his existence. He therefore extended his sphere,
by becoming a regular and efficient debater in the Speculative Society of the northern metropolis ; where
he laboured strenuously to give a Christian turn to the discussions, and, if tradition may be believed, laid,
by his sound arguments and benignant example, the foundation of those evangelical convictions and
dispositions of which the world has since admired the full development in the personal, political, and
religious career of more than one eminent saint and patriot, in all respects worthy to have sat at the
feet of such a Gamaliel ; for example, Henry, Baron Brougham and Vaux, who once was, and we trust
will soon again be, lord high chancellor of England; Francis, Lord Jetfrey, now one of the senators of
the College of Justice in Edinburgh ; and the Right Hon. John Archibald Murray, at this time her
Majesty’s lord advocate for Scotland, and recently chairman of the House of Commons’ committee on
the Roxburgh petition,—three disciples whose affectionate reverence for their spiritual father have (as is
well known) remained undisturbed amidst the mutations of half a century.

Sydney, surrounded by such promising sons, now formed a grand plan. In a former age, he might
probably have founded a new order, either of preaching friars or of flagellants. Wisely accommodating
himself to the circumstances and requirements of the opening years of the nineteenth century, Father
Sydney thought of setting up a review, his holy self for editor, with the above-named and a few
other pious acolytes, especially Francis Horner, Esq., and the Rev. John Playfair, for the contributors.
This work was entitled the Edinburgh Review ; or, Critical Journal ; and the first number thereof, graced
with the sweet motto, “Judex damnatur cum nocens absolvitur,” was issued in October, 1802, from
the premises of Archibald Constable, aliased by himself the Czar of Muscovy ; by Jeffrey, the Crafty ;
and by Lockhart or Wilson, or, perhaps, Maginn, the Lord High Constable.

The apostolic Sydney’s journal awakened the nations that sat in darkness, and presently gave a new
aspect to the whole periodical literature,—nay, to the general opinion, doctrine, and character of the
time. Its pages, allowed to display unrivalled genius, learning, and breadth of views, were even more
honourably distinguished by loftiness of principle, purity of morals, and benignity of temper. Its
primary objects were to overawe infidel presumption ; to chastise every symptom of ethical insobriety
or political turbulence ; to encourage rising talents by warm recognition, and to guide them into the
right path, when they needed such guidance, by the admonishments of gentle as well as superior
wisdom. Seldom has a Christian patriot devised for himself a more splendid course of exertion ; never,
in these our later times, has any one beheld his zeal crowned with brighter harbingers of the amaran-
thine wreath.

We propose in a future number to present the reader with a studious florilegium from this work,
while it remained under the conduct of Sydney. But that was not for a long period. Some differences
arose among the collaborators, and it was found that some more mundane spirit had better be placed
in the editorial post. Two candidates offered high pretensions on this important occasion—Francis
Jeffrey and Henry Brougham ; and, for reasons which we shall in due course detail, the voice potential
of Constable, the proprietor, finally determined the question in favour of the former. Had it chanced
otherwise, Brougham would at this time have been a judge of the Court of Session, and Jeffrey,
very possibly, an ex-Chancellor of England. On such narrow points hinge the destinies, sometimes, of
men and of kingdoms. Neither Sydney nor Brougham abandoned the Review upon Jeffrey's installation ;
but both, from that time, ceased to consider it as the main object. The advocate turned barrister,
M.P., and author of books on colonies, books on orders in council, &c. &c. The ejected divine shook
the dust of Edina from off his feet; appeared in London as lecturer on ethics, and other matters, in the
Royal Institution, Albemarle Street ; and soon afterwards produced the greatest work that has yet issued
from his pen—the immortal

“ LETTERS ON THE SUBJECT OF THE CATHOLICS.
TO MY BROTHER ABRAHAM, WHO LIVES IN THE COUNTRY,
BY PETER PLYMLEY.”

No letters since the Drapzr’s ever created such a row as these masterpieces of Sydney the Second.
He reviewed them with exemplary impartiality in the Edinburgh ; John Wilson Croker, with most
culpable malice and indecorum, in the Quarterly. Hine ille lacryme. Here was the beginning of a feud
which has now raged, with few intermissions, during nearly thirty years, between these two expert
dialecticians —the facile principes among the Christian wits of their respective parties.

Our readers, understanding that this is only the first of several papers on Sydney, will forgive our
turning at once to the Plymley. The eleventh edition, published in 1811, is the last. The work is now
so scarce that we paid for our copy no less than fifty shillings ; and, being at a loss to comprehend why the
author will not give another reprint, we consider that we shall merit well of the republic by giving, in the
mean time, a copious set of extracts.

We need not at present, diversify these selections by many comments. We desire, primo loco, to submit
the best evidence as to the extent and characteristics of Sydney’s wit and eloquence ; but the proofs
afforded of his political sagacity and foresight will at the same time, speak for themselves. In fact, the
happy results practical of the measure of Catholic Emancipation are the only comment which political
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 215

posterity will affix to the “Letters of Peter Plymley.” His wise and gentle castigation of his brother
Abraham’s old-fashioned prejudices against the Catholic priesthood, and in favour of the so-called “ Protes-
tant constitution” of this empire,—in particular, Sydney’s complete demolition of the twaddle touching
dangers of Jesuitical evasion in the matter of oaths ;—all these things have had such a seal set upon them
by our own recent experience, that dissertation would be frivolous.

We believe, therefure, our best way will be simply to pick out the passages which have seemed to us
most strikingly indicative of the style and scope of the reverend author's “ High Argument,” and arrange
them in lucid order for the gratification of the existing public, and more especially of those numerous Whigs,
Radicals, and Tories, who were in their nurses’ arms in 1811.

If the effect be not to shame Lord Melbourne into compliance with certain late suggestions touching
the erection of a new bishopric in Mayfair, we shall certainly be disappointed. So, here goes !

Thus far Maginn apud Fraser ; then follow the extracts from ‘“ Peter Plymley,” extending over several
pages, which are not now wanted, as successive reprints of the book itself have made it attainable by all
our readers, at less than the number of farthings that it cost shillings to the writer of the foregoing notice.

WOT Bs

E have often, in the course of these our “Notes,” longed for some such mastery over space and

quantity as that symbolized by the magic tent of which we read in the Orieutal tale, which,

though it could be contained in the closed hand, was capable, when unfolded, of sheltering a mighty

army within its periphery. Pascal apologized for the length of his lettez on the ground of the shortness

of the time in which he was compelled to write it; but what would he have done if he had had to
contend against exiguity of paper, par dessus le marché ?

Sypyvey Smiru, the wise and witty, was born at Woodford, in Essex, in 1771; and was sprung from
ancestors of whom he has himself said that “they never had any arms, and invariably sealed their letters
with their thumbs.” He was educated at Winchester College, where he became ‘ Captain” of the school,
his school-fellows signing a round-robin declining to try for prizes if he, or his brother Courtnay, should
enter in competition. After a few months passed in France to acquire the language, he was, by virtue
of his position at Winchester, elected to a scholarship in New College, Oxford. Here, ten years later, he
graduated with honour, and obtained a fellowship ; proceeding M.A. in 1796. His own inclination was
towards the bar as a profession, but, in compliance with the strong desire of his father, he entered holy
orders. His first curacy was at Netherhaven, in the midst of Salisbury Plain, where he fully realized his
own description of a country curate—“ the poor working man of God—a learned man in a hovel, good and
patient—the first and poorest pauper of the hamlet, yet showing in the midst of worldly misery he has the
heart of a gentleman, the spirit of a Christian, and the kindness of a pastor.” Here he did not remain
long. The squire of the place took a fancy to him, and engaged him to accompany his eldest son to the
University of Weimar. Before he got there, however, with his young charge, Germany became the seat
of war, and the travellers were forced, “ by stress of politics,” to put into Edinburgh, “that garret of the
earth—that knuckle-end of England—that land of Calvin, oatcakes, and sulphur,” as he put it—where he
spent five years in “discussing metaphysics and medicine.” Here he made the acquaintance of Jeffrey,
Horner, Playfair, Walter Scott, Dugald Stewart, Brougham, and other men of mark in the modern
Athens ; and here, enacting the part of “ the emollient potato in this hyperborean salad,” he lived, as he
describes it, ‘‘amid odious smells, barbarous sounds, bad suppers, excellent hearts, and most enlightened
understandings.” Towards the close of his residence in this city he proposed to Jeffrey to start a Review.
The idea was received with acclamation, and the “ Blue and Yellow” was the result. He himself edited
the first number, and then left it in the hands of Jeffrey and Brougham, to attain an unprecedented
popularity and success, contributing from England those articles which now form an important part of his
collected writings. He had, meantime married—tossing into his bride’s lap six battered tea-spoons with
the cheery exclamation, ‘“ There, Kate, you lucky girl, I give you all my fortune !” and at his wife's suggestion
removed to London in 1804. Here he soon became a popular preacher. He had obtained the appoint-
ment of the Foundling Hospital through Sir Thomas Barnard, and he became morning preacher at the
chapel, John Street, Berkeley Square, and at Fitzroy Chapel, where his sermons attracted vast crowds of
the wealthy, curious, dignified, and learned. He also delivered a course of lectures on Moral Philosophy
and the belles lettres at the Royal Institution. These, too, attracted overflowing audiences, for every one
could enjoy and understand the wit, sense, and manly vigour by which they were characterized. He was
the right man in the right place. “No one else,” says Horner, “could have executed such an under-
316 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

taking with the least chance of success ; for who could have made such a mixture of odd paradox, quaint
fun, manly sense, liberal opinions, and striking language?” These admirable lectures were privately
printed at the time ; but it was not till after the death of their author that, at the instance of Lord Jeffrey,
they were presented to the public. Now it was that Lord Byron made the acquaintance of the witty parson ;
giving us, in Don Juan, his portrait in these

«______ his livelier London days, His jokes were sermons, and his sermons jokes,
A brilliant diner-out, though but a curate, But both were thrown away amongst the fens ;
And not a joke he cut but earn’d its praise, For wit hath no great friend in aguish folks :
Until preferment, coming at a sure rate, No longer ready ears and short-hand pens
(O Providence ! how wondrous are thy ways! Imbibed the gay bon-mot, or happy hoax ;
Who could suppose thy gifts sometimes obdurate ?) The poor priest was reduced to common sense,
Gave him, to lay the deyil who looks o’er Lincoln, Or to coarse efforts very loud and long,
A fat fen vicarage, and ‘hought to think on. To hammer a hoarse laugh from the thick throng.”

Canto xvi. st. lxxxii.

Here the allusion is to the promotion of Smith to the living of Foston-le-Clay, in Yorkshire, which he received
from Lord Erskine, under the “Talents” administration, in 1806. In his own words :—“ A diner-out, a
wit, and a popular preacher, I was suddenly caught up by the Archbishop of York, and transported to my
living in Yorkshire, where there had not been a resident clergyman for a hundred and fifty years. Fresh from
London, not knowing a turnip from a carrot, I was compelled to farm 300 acres, and, without capital, to
build a parsonage-house.”

But the new rector was not of a nature to be daunted by obstacles. He managed to build a house,—
truly a tabernacle in a wilderness,—partly furnished it, and removed to it with his wife and children. There
was no time, and as little disposition for grumbling ; deficiencies were supplied by ingenuity, and difficulties
met with good humour, so that before long, as his daughter records, they were ‘‘ the happiest, merriest, and
busiest family in Christendom.” The parson soon became a magistrate, and had to study “ Blackstone,” to
qualify himself for the duties of the office; he turned schoolmaster to educate his son, because he could
not afford to send him to school ; he made himself a farmer, because he could not let his land ; he was clerk
of the works and caterer for his household ; and, in odd times, he wrote for the Hdinburgh, and indited his
ever-memorable “Letters of Peter Plymley.” In everything he was healthy, cheerful, manly, and
energetic. “ Faber mece fortune,” he says, was his adopted motto, and false shame existed not in his house-
hold. Another important office he was also able to fill with more or less success. In early life he had
studied medicine and anatomy with much assiduity, with a view of adopting the profession of physic.
The knowledge thus obtained now stood him in good stead, and he was enabled to enact the part of village
Esculapius, without the disastrous results which generally attend the amiable labours of clergymen who
undertake the ré/e. From his own account, his practice was simple. Let us visit his consulting-room :—
““* Where is Annie Kay? Ring the bell for Annie Kay.’ Kay appeared. ‘Bring me my medicine-book,
Annie Kay. Kay is my apothecary’s boy, and makes up my medicines.’ Kay appears with the book.
“Tam a great doctor ; would you like to hear some of my medicines?’ ‘Oh yes, Mr. Sydney.’ ‘There is
the Gentlejog, a pleasure to take it; the Bulldog, for more serious cases; Peter's puke ; Heart's delight, the
comfort of all the old women in the village ; Rub-a-dub, a capital embrocation ; Dead-stop settles the matter
at once ; Up-with-it then needs no explanation; and so on. Now, Annie Kay, give Mrs. Spratt a bottle
of Rub-a-dub ; and to Mr. Coles a dose of Dead-stop, and twenty drops cf laudanum.’”

Still, with all his care, the amateur doctor met with some misadventures. On one occasion, his horse
“Peter the Cruel,” swallowed two boxes of opium pills, instead of a ball, in his bran-mash, boxes and all ;
but did not sustain any damage from the bolus. Another time, his pigs all got tipsy on fermented grains,
administered by himself, and tumbled about the stye, grunting ‘‘ God save the King!” And once his foot-
man, who had a passion for dough, surreptitiously ate some prepared with arsenic for the vermin, which had
been left on the dresser. ‘“ He swallowed,” said his master, ‘‘as much arsenic as would have poisoned all
the rats in the House of Lords; but I pumped lime-water into him night and day for many hours at a
time, and there he is!”

Here he was visited by many of his most valued friends, who loved to rusticate awhile in his secluded
parsonage. Among others came Thackeray—and Jeffrey, whom he found, on his return home, bestriding
his donkey, Bitty, and saluted with the impromptu :—

“ Witty as Horatius Flaccus,
As great a Jacobin as Gracchus;
Short, though not as fat, as Bacchus,
Riding on a little Jackass!”

Preferment, for which he had long so patiently waited, was now at hand. In 1828,—the year in
which he lost his eldest son,—he was presented with a stall at Bristol by Lord Lyndhurst, who forgot the
politician in the friend ; and in the following year he exchanged Foston for the living of Combe-Florey, in
Somersetshire. In 1831, he was appointed by Lord Grey Canon Residentiary of St. Paul’s; and by-and-by
became comparatively a rich man by succeeding to a third of some £100,000, on the death of his brother
Courtnay, intestate.

From this period no change took place in his ecclesiastical condition. Five-and-twenty years before,
the King had read his reviews, and prophetically said that “he was a very clever fellow, but would never
be a bishop.” And so it turned out. Wolo episcopari was not his motto; but his political friends lacked
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 217

the courage to try the experiment, and Sydney saw mitre after mitre descend upon other brows, while his own
remained unadorned. Lord Melbourne had at least the grace to repent of this. Not that the Canon himself
complained ; for this he was at once too proud and too contented in disposition. So he continued to make,
as he always had done, the best of his lot; employed his pen occasionally, but no longer anonymously ;
discharged with strict attention his capitular duties, and was a wise steward of the revenues; was an
admirable preacher, and a striking exemplar of clerical decorum and Christian conduct. To a Frenchman,
M. Eugéne Robin, who, in the year before his death, had asked for some details of his life for an able
article on his writings which appeared in the Revue de Dewaw Mondes for October, 1844, he thas wrote :—
“‘T am seventy-four years of age ; and being Canon of St. Paul’s, in London, and rector of a parish in the
country, my time is equally divided between town and country. I am living among the best society in the
metropolis ; am at ease in my circumstances ; in tolerable health; a mild Whig; a tolerating Churchman ;
and much given to talking, laughing, and noise. I dine with the rich in London, and physic the poor in
the country ; passing from the sauce of Dives to the sores of Lazarus. J am, upon the whole, a happy
man ; have found the world an entertaining world, and am heartily thankful to Providence for the part
allotted to me in it.” And this, despite the gout (mark the portly form, the double chin, the

‘“ Magister artis, ingenique largitor
Venter”

of the professed diner-out),—which made him feel, as he said, “as if he was walking on his eye-balls !”

He died at his residence, in Green Street, Hyde Park, February 21st, 1845, in the seventy-seventh
year of his age, and was buried in the cemetery at Kensal Green.

“Tt is a pleasant task,” says 8. C. Hall, in his interesting ““ Memories” of this good and accomplished
man, “to write of one whose history is as a sound of trumpets, mingled with the music of joy-bells.” This
history is an important one. It has taught that a man may be an exemplary parson, and a cheery, jovial,
witty companion ; that a man of genius and imagination is not necessarily devoid of prudence, common-
sense, and business habits; that there is no generic connection between orthodoxy and dulness, or, as he
himself puts it, “‘ between piety and paralysis”;* that merry nights need not ever be followed by sorrowful
days ; that the laughing philosopher may yet be a feeling man; that wit and humour may be exercised
without malice and ill-nature ; and that a man may possess a power of satire, ridicule, and sarcasm equal
to that of Swift, without one drop of the sceva indignatio which ate into the heart of the renowned Dean
of St. Patrick’s.

Macaulay styled Sydney Smith “a great reasoner.” But this he hardly was, if by the epithet we
understand a man possessing a penetrative insight into the laws and conditions of mind, and successful in
analysing the principles of thought. But his intellect was clear, logical, and perspicient. It was said of
him by Everett, that, “if he had not been known as the wittiest man of his day, he would have been
accounted one of the wisest”; and if he did not originate and discover, he had a marvellous skill of
converting theory into practice, the abstract into the concrete, and making the ideas of loftier minds
intelligible and popular, by simple language and felicitous illustration.

In the spontaneous and felicitous exercise of the lighter and more brilliant faculties of the intellect he
was pre-eminently great,—a wit emuncte naris,—a humorist of most superlative excellence. There was
this, too, about his wit, that while it was manly, original, graceful, and genial, it rarely lacked a substratum
of earnest purpose. His jokes were intended to make you think and feel, and thus had no resemblance
to those of Hook and others, which are only designed to make one laugh. His humour was like the
rough staff of Brutus, which contained a rod of gold within it. It is never an idle play upon words, or a
purposeless sport of the brain; it is always logical, sensible, goodnatured, and decorous; and never
transcends the limits of that “allowable pleasantry” which even Barrow pronounces to be “ expedient.”
And the marvel of all was, that the possessor of this extraordinary quality conducted his affairs, saved
money, and preserved his health, like the dullest among us ;—rendering applicable to himself his own
description of some similar prodigy :—‘“ He has as much wit as if he had no sense, and as much sense as if
he had no wit; his conduct is as judicious as if he were the dullest of human beings, and his imagination
as brilliant as if he were irretrievably ruined.” Yet this is the man of whom George Daniel could find
nothing better to say, in 1814, than that he had “ too uch lead ”;+ and of whom he could learn nothing
in the twenty years following to make him see that the modified phrase, “leaden Sydney,” { was most
absurdly inapplicable ! : :

Grantley Berkeley describes him somewhat disparagingly as ‘‘a clergyman of the facetious school,
midway between the extreme liberality of Rabelais, Walter de Mapes, Dean Swift, and Laurence Sterne,
and the jocose absurdity of Rowland Hill and John Spurgeon. . . . . He seemed ever anxious to
hide his gown under a suit of motley. Wherever he went, bis ambition was, apparently, not merely to
set the table in a roar, but the chairs, the sideboard, and the family portraits. He was as successful a hoaxer
as Theodore Hook,—sparing neither age nor sex.” $

His colloquial witticisms, indeed, authentic and putative, would fill a jest-book ; no account of him is

* Preface to his “ Sermons,” 2 vols., 12mo.

+ “The Modern Dunciad,” 1814, p. 71.

+ Ibid., 1835, p. 47.

§ “ Life and Hemunieences,” vol. iii. pp. 159-160.
45:
218 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

complete without, at least, a specimen or two. His compliments to the fair sex were peculiarly graceful.
Of a group of ladies he said, “ they were all so beautiful, that Paris could not have decided between them,
but would have cut his apple into slices” ; and of Lady Murray’s mother, “ Her smile is so radiant, that I
believe it would force even a gooseberry-bush into flower.” To a charming girl who, walking through his
garden, told him that she feared a certain pea would never come to perfection, he gallantly said, as he
conducted her to the plant, “ Permit me, then, to lead perfection to the pea.” But to another, who asked
for a motto for her dog, “Spot,” he was not so polite,—“ Out, damned Spot,” was his reply to her
request ;—while he struck horror to the soul of a matter-of-fact old lady, by his sudden proposition, in the
heat of the summer,—“ Let’s take off our flesh, and sit in our bones!” How admirably he describes,—at
too great length, alas! to allow repetition,—an obese lady,—a sort of female Daniel Lambert,—whom a
friend was about to marry.*

But men of his own cloth,—especially the superior clergy,—were the chosen mark of his harmless
pleasantries. ‘A Bishop,” said he, “should be a grave, elderly man, full of Greek, with sound views of
the middle voice, and the preter-pluperfect tense.” Archbishops, he thought, should be tall,—* they ought
not to take them under six feet, without their shoes or wigs.” He heard that Lord Liverpool meant
to elevate Kaye, the Bishop of London, if the see of Canterbury had become vacant in his time :—‘‘ The
Church could not last twenty years with such a little man,” quoth he ; for, as he once remarked,
he had “ but one illusion left, and that was the Archbishop of Canterbury.” To a young lady who sat
next him at table he whispered,—“ You are afraid of me, you are crumbling your bread. I do it when I
sit by the Bishop of London, and with both hands when I sit by the Archbishop.” The “upper parsons,”
he would complain, ‘live vindictively, and evince their aversion to a Whig ministry by an improved
health. The Bishop of has had the rancour to recover after three paralytic strokes, and the Dean of
to be vigorous at eighty-two ; and yet these are men who are called Christians !” He it was who suggested
the combustion of a Bishop,—“ even if it was only Sodor and Man,”—to prevent the locking up on
railways ; while of some unfortunate Dean he said, that he “deserved to be preached to death by wild curates ”

All this may seem very terrible to matter-of-fact people, and betray a sad amount of levity and
irreverence. To us, it seems but the “ buoyancy of a great heart,” the exuberance of a rich and noble
nature. As we read in his “ Memoirs,”—“ He was sometimes mad with spirits, and must talk, laugh,—
or burst.” It was well said to him by an old college friend, “ Your sense, wit, and clumsiness, Sydney,
always give me the idea of an Athenian carter.”

It seems an odd matter that folks who pique themselves on doing everything else well, take no shame
to themselves for writing badly. Sydney Smith wrote an execrable hand,—and, indeed, declined to
decipher his own manuscript when it was twenty-four hours old. He described it himself “as if a swarm
of ants, escaping from an ink-bottle, had walked over a sheet of paper without wiping their legs.” One
would think that chirography was a matter of no importance,—an art in which it was either not worth
while or beyond one’s power to obtain skill. We hold a different opinion; regard caligraphy as a branch
of the fine arts ; and love to gloat over the flourished copy-bovks of Bland, Cocker, Snell, Gething, Vaux,
and the host of fine writers who contributed to the grand “ Universal Pen-Man” of Master Bickham.
This, however, is now one of the lost arts.

But while garnering a few of the stray witticisms of this genial and large-hearted humorist, we
must not forget the more serious and important achievements of his public life. We adopt the record of a
contemporary biographer :—

“ When his ‘ quips and cranks’ are lost and forgotten, it will be remembered that he supported the
Roman Catholic claims, and that they were conceded ; that he strenuously assailed the game-laws, and that
they underwent great modification ; that he compelled a large portion of the public to acknowledge the
mischief of our penal settlements ; that he became the advocate of the wretched chimney-sweepers, and their
miseries were alleviated ; that he contended against many of the unjust provisions of the Church Reform
Bill, and they were amended ; that whereas, before his time, a man accused at the bar of a criminal court
might be hanged before he had been half heard, now every prisoner hag the benefit of a defence by counsel.
Tt will further be freely acknowledged, that no public writer was more successful than he in denouncing
a political humbug, or demolishing a literary pretender ; that he was, on the whole, an upright and
benevolent man ; and, as the world goes, a disinterested politician ; that he had opportunities of improving
his fortune, which he nobly rejected; and that having lived with unostentatious respectability, he died
withont accumulating wealth. His generous presentation of the Rectory of Edmonton to the Rev.
Mr. Tate, when it fell to his gift by the death of that gentleman’s father, will be fresh in the reader's
recollection.” +

It was then, but may not be so now; we must refer the reader to Lady Holland’s memoirs of her
father,—or to the charming “ Memories” (p. 406) of Mr. S. C. Hall, who tells the story, and rightly adds
that it is “one of the best monuments ever placed by child over a father’s grave.” The reverend joker was
practical in his charity. He was not only benevolent, but beneficent ; and had contempt for those good-
natured folks who like to play the good Samaritan, “ without,’—as he put it,—‘ the oil and the twopence.”
His advice was, to form a resolution, on rising in the morning, to make some one person happy during the
day. ‘ Look at the result,” said he ; “ that is 365 in the course of the year. Suppose you live forty years
after you commence, that is 14,600 human beings made happy by you.” That must have been a fine-

 

 

* “ Hminent Men and Popular Books,” from the Times, 1859, page 103.
t Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. xxiii. p. 439.
 

 

HENRY HALLAM
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 219

et man who gave utterance to the sentiment, setting aside the carrying it out in practice. 0, s¢ sic
omnes !

_ We are not acquainted with many portraits of Sydney Smith, and fancy that the one before us is just
a little caricatured,—but it must be remembered that he was a diner-out, and a septuagenarian. Mr.
‘Theodore Taylor,” in his interesting monograph on Thackeray, says :—“He had certainly seen Sydney
Smith. A quaint, half-caricature, outline sketch of the latter was contributed by ‘Titmarsh’ to Fraser’s
Magazine, at an early period of his connection with that journal.” Is it possible that the sketch before us
is from the hand of the great humorist? ‘There is certainly something like his manner to be seen, and
both it and that of Sir W. Molesworth appear wanting in the delicacy and refinement of their predecessors.
Landseer, it is apocryphally said, once expressed a wish, at the table of Miss Berry, to take his likeness ;
but the proposition was wittily met by the question of King Hazael to Elisha,—“ Is thy servant a dog,
that he should do this thing ?”

The eldest daughter of Sydney Smith became the wife of the eminent physician, Sir Henry Holland,
to whom she was married in 1834. She wrote the life of her father, which was accompanied by a selection
from his letters, edited by the elegant writer, Mrs, Austin, and published in 1855, in two volumes, 8vo.*
Lady Holland died in Italy, towards the end of the year 1866.

 

. On March 10th, 1845,—three weeks after the death of his brother,—died, at his residence in London,
in his seventy-sixth year, the almost equally eminent and accomplished Robert Percy Smith,—familiarly
known as “ Bobus” Smith, —formerly Advocate General of Bengal, and M.P. for Lincoln. Of him we can
only here record that he indeed must have been a remarkable man, whose language, according to Canning,
was “the essence of English” ;—whose “ wonderful powers of argument and exquisite French,” were the
delight of Madame de Staél ;—of whom an eminent author wrote to Sir Henry Holland,— “I never knew
a man with so gigantic a grasp” ;—of whose influence in India it is recorded by Sir James Mackintosh,
that “his name among the natives is greater than that of any pundit since the days of Menu” ;—and,
finally, of whose death, his niece, Lady Holland, wrote, “of the genius, learning, and virtue, that were lost
to the world in that grave, I dare not attempt to speak. . . . . To me my uncle’s death was as the
death of a second father,—the extinction of all I have ever known, or conceived, that was brightest and
best in the world!” The following touching and characteristic hexameters were found in his desk after his
death ; they were supposed to be of recent composition, and may not inappropriately close a record of these
two brothers who, by their virtues and talents, exerted in their day an influence so great and for so long a
period :—
“ Hic jacet !—O humanorum meta ultima rerum !

Ultra quam labor, et luctus, curseque quiescunt,

Ultra quam penduntur opes et gloria flocci ;

Et redit ad nihilum vana hee et turbida vita:

Ut te respicerent homines! Que bella per orbem,

Qui motus animorum, et quanta pericula nostra

Acciperent facilem, sine ceode et sanguine, finem !

Tu mihi versare ante oculos, non tristis imago,

Sed monitrix, ut me ipse regam, domus hec mihi cum sit

Vestibulum tumuli, et senii penultima sedes.”

No. 81.—HENRY HALLAM.

NOTES.

HE portrait of Henry Hatiam, with which we have now the gratification of enriching our “ Gallery,”

does not form one of the published series ; as, however, it was found with the others, we conclude that

it properly belongs to them, and now restore it to the place, of which, from some cause unexplained, it has
been so long deprived. Sepa i ; ; :

Passed chiefly in the retirement of domestic life, and in the preparation of works which required rather
the study of books than of cities and men, the long life of Henry Hallam was singularly obscure and
uneventful. He was born at Windsor in 1777 ; his father was Dean of Bristol ; and among his ancestors
was that Bishop of Salisbury who, in the year 1414, represented the English clergy in the Council of
Constance. He was educated at Eton, where he attained eminence among his fellow students, and gained
for the early productions of his muse a place in the “Muse Etonenses.” From Eton he proceeded to
Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated in 1799 ; and on leaving the University, took up his residence

* Reviewed in the Times of August 10th and 14th, 1855; and the Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. xliv. p. 255.
2E 2
920 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

in London. Here he took an active part with Wilberforce, in the great movement for the abolition of the
Slave Trade, and was one of the earliest contributors to the Edinburgh Review, where, inter alia, may be
mentioned an article from his pen, on Sir Walter Scott’s edition of Dryden, remarkable for its candid tone
and critical ability.* It was thus, as a regular contributor to the ‘‘ Blue and Yellow,” and as an ally of
the great Whig families, that he came, later, to be associated by Byron with those truculent condottiert of
the pen whom he pilloried for ever in his ‘‘ English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.” We all know the
distich :—

“ Smug Sydney, too, thy bitter page shall seek,

And classic Hallam, much renown’d for Greek ;”

which the Annual Register t takes as a genuine compliment, extorted from the angry bard by the critic’s
admitted acquaintance with the niceties of classical literature. That the epithet was ironical will, however,
be learnt from a note to Byron’s satire, to the effect that Hallam, reviewing the “ Analytical Inquiry into
the Principles of Taste,” of Richard Payne Knight, was “exceedingly severe on some Greek verses
therein ;” and that ‘not discovering till too late that the lines were Pindar’s, the critique stands an ever-
lasting monument of Hallam’s ingenuity.” So also the author of a powerful satire, lashing the would-be
Longinuses and Scaligers of modern times :—

“ But while they may, in short-lived monthly page,
They fret and fume their hour upon the stage ;
Through thick and thin they slash and criticize,
F’en from the Theban bard they tear the prize ;
More nice than wise, their blind resentment wreak
On Fox’s English, or on Pindar’s Greek,

Their insect-eye each trifling blemish sees,
But grasps not Demosthenic Deinotes.”’t

Here it may not be uninteresting to recall the precise facts, especially as every reference to them,—as,
for instance, the note to Byron,—manifests some amount of error and ambiguity. R. P. Knight, who was a
profound Greek scholar, had, in the work we have alluded to, animadverted upon the “ flippant confidence ”
of certain monthly critics, which led them “to pronounce the most peremptory decisions upon the most
abstruse points of learning, without understanding even its first elements.Ӥ He evidently had in view the
writers of the British Critic (a review better known since as “My Grandmother’s,” from Byron’s
contemptuous designation), who had proclaimed themselves to be “ among the first critics and scholars of the
age.” These gentlemen had passed judgment with much solemnity on the various Greek translations of
Gray's “ Elegy” ; and concluded by offering a version of “The Bard,” as a specimen of “what the splendid
imagery and genuine grandeur of diction exhibited in this immortal poem might be in the language best
adapted to do them justice.” This was examined with nice severity by Mr. Knight, who, citing the lines
representing the fine passage beginning, “‘ On a rock whose haughty brow,” attempted himself to express in
Greek monostrophics the sublime image which his predecessors had “so bunglingly mangled and debased.”
Mr. Knight’s book received in the Edinburgh Review|| a notice in which, on the whole, justice was done to
the extensive learning and philosophical spirit which it exhibited ; but, when the reviewer found his craft
assailed, he felt bound to take sides against the author. He admitted it was presumptuous for Scotchmen
to contend about Greek at all, and hints, too, at the possibility of a eritic-trap. But he was caught never-
theless. Taking up Mr. Knight’s version, line by line, and finding fault, as he proceeds, he comes at length
to the twelfth, which he pronounces, briefly, “‘ nonsense.” Now this line,—

“ Ocpua dé réyywy daxpva orovaxaic,”—

is, as the classical reader need not be reminded, a verbatim interpolation from the tenth Nemean of Pindar
(v. 141); and, as Mr. Knight added, in a subsequent edition of his book, had been ‘until a Synod
of North British critics peremptorily pronounced it to be nonsense,” “ universally thought to express with
peculiar force and delicacy the mixture of indignation and tenderness so appropriate to the grief of the
hero of the modern as well as of the ancient ode.” As the critic does not descend to particulars, we do not
know what it is that he finds fault with. The line might have been written, réyywv rac srovayac (obv)
daxpdore, but still have appeared unintelligible. The figure belongs to poetry, and is hardly a daring one.

But enough about a trifle,—which has, however, become historical. In 1818 was given to the world
the first fruits of the severer labour of Mr. Hallam, in his “ View of the State of Europe during the Middle
Ages”; and nine years later he published his “Constitutional History of England.” This latter was
savagely attacked in the Quarterly Review, in an article which has been attributed to Southey, who seized
the opportunity of assailing, through the historian, the Whig principles of his old associates.

In 1830, Mr. Hallam received one of the two fifty-guinea gold medals, instituted by George IV., for
eminence in historical composition, the other being awarded to Washington Irving.

* Edinburgh Review, October, 1808.

+ Annual Register, 1859, p. 428.

t “ Hypocrisy : a Satire in Three Books.” By the Rev. C. Colton, A.M., Cantab. Tiverton, 1812. 8vo. p. 22.
§ “ Analytical Inquiry into the Principles of Taste.” 1805. 8vo. p. 249.

|| No. xiv. vol. vii.
GALLERY OF’ ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 221

Having thus illustrated the national and political history of Europe, Mr. Hallam had begun to
exercise his powers in the investigation of the literature of the same period, when his life became darkened
by a dire domestic calamity. He had married, earlier in life, a daughter of Sir Abraham Elton, of
Clevedon, in Somersetshire, and had had by her two sons and two daughters. The eldest son, Arthur
Henry, had, by his rare qualities of mind and disposition, excited the highest hopes of his parents and
friends. His precocity of intellect was such that, at the age of seven, he had learnt to read Latin fluently
in a year. He had earned distinction at Oxford; was engaged in the study of the law; and had
already taken honours in literature. In the summer of 1829, he had accompanied his father on a
visit to Sir Walter Scott, at Abbotsford; of which, and an excursion to Melrose Abbey, a pleasing
memorial is preserved in his privately-printed “Remains,” and transferred by Lockhart to his Life of
Sir Walter. This son, so justly endeared to all, was snatched away by death in 1833, in the very
flower of age and intellect. He was buried at Clevedon ; his sorrowing father recording his virtues
and talents in a memoir for private circulation, than which affection has made no more graceful and
touching offering to unfulfilled promise ; while Tennyson,—whose sister was his affianced bride,—in the
exquisite series of verses, entitled “In Memoriam,” has embalmed the memory of his friend in tears
more precious than those which were shed by Moschus over the tomb of Bion.

The poet tells us :—

“Nature hath assign’d
Two sovereign remedies for human grief:

Religion—surest, firmest, first, and best ;
And strenuous action next.’’*

Neither influence was wanting to Hallam-; and, bowing in resignation, he sought a further balm for
sorrow in the resumption of his interrupted labours. The third of his great works, the “ Introduction to
the Literature of Europe,” now far advanced, in due time was completed and given to the world. The
historian was now declining in years. In the battle of life, if we do not fall early ourselves, we see
those we love stricken at our side, It is a sad but almost inevitable dilemma, It falls to the lot of few
to record of themselves :—

“Unus hymen, mens una; duos mors una, diesque,
Junxit; ut una caro, sic cinis unus erit ;” ¢

and Hallam was not among the number. He first lost a daughter ; and then, in the death of his wife,
experienced that calamity which rendered dark and purposeless the life of Jeffrey,t and robbed the labours
of Southey of their best incentive.§ One son only now remained; and in him the father’s hopes
centred, as giving promise of a future no less bright than that of which the death of his elder brother had
forbidden the attainment. But here again a terrible blow fell upon the old man. This son likewise, when
travelling on the Continent, was suddenly and mysteriously removed by death, in 1850, at the age of
twenty-six, just after his call to the bar; and the grave at Clevedon was once more opened that his
remains might be deposited by the side of his brother, his sister, and his mother. One daughter was
yet left to the bereaved father. She was married to Colonel Cator ; and in her home, and attended
by her solicitous care, the philosopher passed his last days. In his seventieth year he had published a
thick volume of ‘Supplementary Notes” to his great work on the Medieval History of Europe, correcting
errors of fact, and doing justice to the labours of those who had detected and investigated them. His other
works were revised, annotated, and completed by him with most curious and conscientious care, so that
each edition was an improvement on the one which preceded it. He retained much of the clearness and
vigour of his intellect till his death, which took place, in his eighty-third year, on January 21st, 1859,—a
year especially sad for Clio, who, besides Hallam, had, in it, to mourn the loss of Macaulay, Washington
Irving, Prescott, and Mountstuart Elphinstone, who has been termed the Tacitus of Indian historians.

Jt is obvious that in dealing in a few lines with such works as those which have made the name of
Hallam illustrious, we are confined to the merest generalities of expression. Nor is there need for more:
they are already classics, and find their place in every historical Jibrary with any pretensions to complete-
ness. They are written for the earnest student, rather than the more idle reader ; and may not by some
be thought rich in those ad captandum tricks of style which are employed by writers who court popular
favour. But they contain the results of a vast reading, of the mosi careful industry and research, and are
everywhere marked by that reference to principles which marks the philosophic writer. Their grand
characteristic is stern judicial impartiality. Erudition as profound, elegance more captivating, logic not

* © Roderick: the Last of the Goths.” By Southey. Cant. xiv.
+ Epitaph on Sir Richard Maitland and his wife.

t “I took no interest in anything which had not some reference to her. . . . . All the exertions I ever made in
the world were for her sake entirely. You know how indolent I was by nature, and how regardless of reputation and
fortune. But it was a delight to me to lay these things at the feet of my darling, . . . . NowTI have no interest in

anything, and no object or motive for being in the world.”— Life of Lord Jeffrey, vol. i. p. 165.

§ “Such consummation of my work will now
Be but a mournful close,—the one being gone,
Whom to have satisfied was still to me
A pure reward, outweighing far all breath
Of public praise.”
Souruzy, Inscriptions, xlv.
ore DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

less cogent, acuteness equally sagacious, and discrimination as subtle, may be exhibited by other historians ;
but we question if Hallam has ever been surpassed in stern integrity, honest singleness of purpose, and
subjugation of personal prejudice. He has left us in bis works a storehouse of historical fact, political
wisdom, and original opinion,—rendering applicable to himself, in a large measure, the judgment of the
learned Lipsius on the historian of Alexander :—“ Wistoricus, me judice, probus, legitimusque, si quisguam
fuit. Mira in sermone ejus felicitas, in narrationibus lepos.  Astrictus idem et profluens, subtilis et
clarus ; verus in judicits, argutus in sententiis, in orutionibus supra quam dixerim fucundus.”

No, 82.—W. M. THACKERAY.

NOTES.

ND there came up a Lion out of Judah!” was the exclamation of Charlotte Bronté, after she had

long gazed in silence at Lawrence’s portrait of the great humoristic novelist. Thackeray, like
Francis Mahony, although a prominent member of the staff of Rrerna, and having place in the grand
cartoon of the “ Fraserians,” did not attain the honour of separate portraitship in the ‘‘ Gallery.” This
honour he now, albeit posthumously, enjoys ; we felt that the series was incomplete without his massive and
leonine front ; and knowing that the Garrick Club possessed a fine portrait in oils,—the production, we
believe, of Sir John Gilbert,—which had never been engraved, we caused special application to be made
to the committee for permission to reproduce it. This was kindly accorded ; a photograph was taken ; and
from this was produced the admirable lithographic copy with which we have the satisfaction to enrich our
Pinacotheka.

Wituiam Maxerrace THackeray was born at Calcutta in 1811* ; his father being a member of the
Bengal Civil Service, his uncle a physician at Chester, and his great-grandfather, Dr. Thomas Thackeray,
the predecessor of Sumner as head-master of Harrow School, where he had the honour of educating Sir
William Jones, and Samuel Parr, who wrote of his early preceptor,— I have reason to love and revere him
as a father as well as a master.” In 1817 the young Anglo-Indian was sent to England to be educated, and
on his voyage home saw Napoleon in his island prison, who was pointed out to him by his black servant as
eating “ three sheep every day, and all the children he could lay his handson!” When about twelve years
of age, he was sent to the Charter-house School, then under the head-mastership of Dr. Russell, whose
death occurred in the same year as that of his celebrated pupil. At this institution he made satisfactory
progress ; and proceeded in due course (about 1828) to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he had for
fellow-students the late J. M. Kemble, the distinguished Anglo-Saxon scholar, aud Alfred Tennyson, the
laureate-poet. Here he made his earliest literary effort by the publication of The Snob: a Literary and
Scientific Journal, the first number of which appeared on April 6th, 1829, and which enjoyed an existence
of eleven weeks. At the University he kept seven or eight terms, but left without taking a degree. In
1831 he betook himself to Weimar, where he visited Goethe, saw Schréder Devrient in “ Fidelio,” drew
caricatures in the Friiulein’s albums, and had the good fortune to possess himself of the court sword of
Schiller, the poet, which hung in his study to the day of his death, as a memorial of the happy Wanderjahre
of his youthful life. Years after, he wrote to his friend, G. H. Lewes, a charming letter relating to his
‘Weimar experiences and his visits to Goethe, which is inserted in the life of the great German, and where
we read :—‘‘ With a five-and-twenty years’ experience, and an acquaintance with an immense variety of
human kind, I think I have never seen a society more simple, charitable, courteous, gentlemanlike, than
that of the dear little Saxon city where the good Schiller and the great Goethe lived and lie buried.”

We next hear of Thackeray at Rome; and by-and-by we find him in Paris, where he busied himself
day after day in copying pictures at the Louvre, in pursuance of the determination which he had now
formed to devote himself to art as a profession. In literature, as we have seen, he had already made essay ;
and he continued to cultivate his talent for writing by occasional contributions, chiefly on art-criticism, to
the English periodicals. Whether his taste for literature gained the ascendancy over that for art, or
whether he acquired the conviction that he hardly possessed the talent calculated to insure high distinction
as a painter, cannot now be ascertained with certainty. In 1834, when he was hardly three-and-twenty,
he seems to have begun in earnest a more exclusively literary career, and became a contributor to Mraser’s
Magazine, where, under the pseudonyms of “ Michael Angelo Titmarsh,” “George Fitzboodle,” “ Charles
Yellowplush,” “ Lancelot Wagstaffe,” and “ Ikey Solomons,” he subsequently raised himself to a prominent
place among that brilliant staff which rendered Recina famous wherever English literature was known.
This magazine,—we quote the words of Mr. “ Theodore Taylor,”—* was at that time under the editorship of
the celebrated Maginn, one of the last of those compounds of genius and profound scholarship with reckless

* Thackeray was probably thinking of his Indian birth when he wrote of Swift: “It seems to me that he was no more
an Irishman than a man born of English parents at Calcutta is a Hindoo.”
 

ATI.”

{
A}

VASIIY Jé

6a,

Die

AWIEOR
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS, 223

extravagance and loose morals, who once flourished under the encouragement of a tolerant public opinion.
There can be no doubt that the editor and Greek scholar who is always in difficulties, who figures in
several of his works, is a faithful picture of this remarkable man as he appeared to his young contributor.”
All this we know ; but it is pleasing to add the record, on the authority of the late Mr. Hannay, that
later on, when Maginn was down and beaten,—when, like Burns before him,—

“ Thoughtless follies laid him low,
And stain’d his name ;”

—and the most brilliant, versatile, and universal scholar of the day was a prisoner in the Fleet,—
Thackeray lent, or rather gave, the broken man,—for this was one of the cases where lending is giving,—
£500 ; one instance, out of many which might be cited, of the constancy of his friendship and the generosity
of his nature.* :

But we have anticipated. It was just at the time that art and literature seemed struggling in rivalry
for the more exclusive devotion of the worshipper whose offerings might have glorified either, that an unpre-
tending work announced the advent of a mighty master in the domain of humoristic fiction, The immortal
“Sketches by Boz” had appeared ; and now Dickens the writer, and Seymour the caricature-artist, were
collaborating in “ The Posthunious Papers of the Pickwick Club,” to further exhibit, by pen and pencil,
the sayings and doings of Cockneydom. Two or three numbers only of this had appeared, when the
unfortunate artist committed suicide in a moment of derangement.t Another graphic hand was wanted ;
and Thackeray, who had illustrated his own “ Yellowplush Correspondence,” in /’raser, in a peculiar and
characteristic style, probably suggested by the outline portraits of Maclise, and to which he afterwards
adhered, bethought himself that he might fill the vacant place. He accordingly took his way, with two or
three sketches in his hand, to the chambers of the great novelist in Furnival’s Inn, to offer his services as
the new illustrator. His drawings, ‘strange to say,” as he himself records, ‘ were not found suitable.”
In this judgment he later acquiesced, and was wont to allude good-humouredly to his rejection, as “ Mr.
Pickwick’s lucky escape” ; still, in the immediate sense of mortification, it is possible that he may have
uttered the exclamation which has been attributed to him :—“ Well, if you will not let me draw, I will
write.”

Write, he accordingly did. But here, unlike Dickens, who became soon his intimate friend, he had a
long period of probation to undergo. The growth of his reputation was, indeed, singularly slow and
gradual ; and, writing for Fraser, for the “Comie Almanac” of his friend George Cruikshank, for Punch,{
for the Westminster,§ for the Times, publishing his “ Paris Sketch-Book” (1840), his “Second Funeral of
Napoleon,” and the “ Chronicles of a Drum” (published together in 1841), and his “ Irish Sketch-Book”
(1843), it was not till his “ Vanity Fair” had fairly taken the world by storm (1847), and the Edinburgh
Review had given him a generous and appreciative article (Jan., 1848), that it came at length to be recog-
nised that we had “a new master of fiction among us, destined to make a name second to none in English
literature in its own field.”

Thackeray was now in the full swing of literary activity. In 1844, he had received from a friend a
free pass for a voyage in one of the steamers of the Peninsular and Oriental Company, the result of which
we have in his “ Notes of a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo,” published at Christmas, 1845. He
was still contributing to Fraser, as of old, and in 1846 several important articles appeared from his pen.
Among these may be mentioned his review of Bulwer’s “ Memoirs of Laman Blanchard,” his paper on
“ Tilustrated Christmas Books,” and his proposal to Alexandre Dumas to write a continuation of “ Ivanhoe.”
In January, 1847, appeared his “Grumble about Christmas Books,” which, so far as we know, is his last
contribution to the Magazine. These illustrated ‘Christmas Books” were now in great demand, and
Thackeray, like Dickens, felt bound to produce his annual novelet. In December, 1846; appeared “ Mrs.
Perkins’s Ball”; in the following year, “Our Street”; in 1849, « Dr. Birch and his Young Friends,” and
“ Rebecca and Rowena”; and in 1850, “ The Kickleburys on the Rhine.”

Meantime, Thackeray had commenced by monthly numbers the publication of another of his more
important works of social fiction, This was the “ History of Pendennis: his Fortunes and Misfortunes,
his Friends and his greatest Enemy. With Illustrations by the Author,” which was ultimately completed
in two volumes. It was a criticism on this work in the Morning Chronicle and the Haaminer that gave
rise to his letter of January 8, 1850, addressed to the editor of the former journal, in which the dignity of
literature and the charges against himself of “ fostering baneful prejudices” with regard to it, are handled
in so manly and able a manner. Shortly after this little passage of arms, the publication of the
“Kickleburys ” as a Christmas Book, had given occasion to a hostile criticism in the Zimes, which possibly

* A newspaper paragraph, which we transcribe here for want of a more appropriate place, affords an equally pleasing
record of another act of liberality on the part of one of Maginn’s old literary associates :—“ The widow of Maginn died
lately. She had comfortable quarters at Bath, procured for her by the untiring activity of her husband’s friend, John

Gibson Lockhart.” —Illustrated News, June 11th, 1859.

This sad event took place April 20th, 1836. ;
t Punch was started in 1841. .s it appeared “ Jeames’s Diary,” the “ Snob Papers,” the “ Fat Contributor,” &c.

§ It was in 1840 that, under the signature of the Greek letter 0, Thackeray contributed to this review the illustrated
and appreciative article on the genius of George Cruikshank. This, which we are told was a labour to which the writer
frequently referred as having given him a peculiar pleasure, was republished in a separate form in 1840, by Hooper, of

Pall Mall. The monograph is now very scarce.
224 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

may be attributed to the facile pen of the late Samuel Phillips.* Thackeray replied to this in the preface
to the second edition of his little book, under the heading of “ An Essay on Thunder and Small Beer,” in
which the mimic artillery of the critic and the pomposity of his “high falutin’” style, were handled with
equal humour and severity. This skirmish between Thackeray and “Jupiter Jeames” of Printing House
Square, is not unworthy of mention, as to it may probably be ascribed the curtness of the Times's obituary,
and the circumstance that the leading journal, alone among the daily papers, had no article on the genius
of this remarkable man, and the loss which literature sustained by his comparatively early death.

Tt was in 1851 that Thackeray, quitting awhile the easel and the desk, and ascending the platform,
commenced the course, as a lecturer, which was to prove more advantageous to his fortune than pencil, or
even pen, had been, This was by the delivery, at Willis’s Rooms, of the six lectures on the English
Humnorists, which, as subsequently published, rank among the most interesting and instructive of his
writings. The subjects were :—1. Swift ; 2. Congreve and Addison ; 3. Steele; 4. Prior, Gay, and Pope ;
5. Hogarth, Smollett, and Fielding ; 6. Sterne and Goldsmith. These lectures were a great success, and
attracted the wit, learning, and fashion of the metropolis. Among the audience was the authoress of
“Jane Eyre,” who speaks of the “furor” which they occasioned :—‘‘ They are a sort of essays,” says she,
“ characterized by his own peculiar originality and power, and delivered with a finished taste and ease,
which is felt, but cannot be described.” They were afterwards delivered in other parts of England ; in
Edinburgh ; and finally in America, where the English author received a. hearty welcome, promising his
audience in gratitude not to write a book about them on his return. More than this, he kept his word.

In 1852, just before his departure for America, he gave to the press a work of fiction, by many considered
the ablest of his writings, and probably suggested to his mind by a course of reading undertaken as a
preparation for his lectures. This was ‘“ The Adventures of Henry Esmond,” a book of which the plot is
laid in the Augustan days of Queen Anne, the style of writing and cast of thought of which are sought to
be reproduced. We must confess our own inability to thoroughly appreciate ‘“‘ Esmond.” We regard the
attempt to write systematically in the idiom and spirit of a bygone day as a mistake, and the result an
anachronism, attended with more or less of unsuccess. st locus wnt cwique swus.

In 1855 appeared “ The Newcomes,” a work in which the author endeavoured to show that, besides
the tendency to cynicism which, it was alleged, was too generally apparent in his writings, he possessed a
keen appreciation of moral beauty, and an unsuspected quality of tenderness and pathos. In the following
year, he made a second voyage to the United States, where he delivered those charming and discursive
lectures on the “ Four Georges,” which are better known to English readers by their appearance in the
Cornhill Magazine,t and their subsequent publication in a separate form. These discourses, eminently
successful in America, were as successfully repeated in England, and even more so in Scotland. From
Edinburgh, in November, 1856, he wrote :—‘‘I have had three per cent. of the whole population here ; if
I could but get three per cent. out of London !”

Fired with the ambition of making a figure in Parliament, Thackeray, in 1857, was induced to offer
himself as a candidate for the representation of the city of Oxford, in the ultra-Liberal interest. He was
unsuccessful in his candidature ; and in the same year solicited the suffrages of a wider and more favourable
constituency by the publication of “The Virginians,” the last of his longer works of fiction.

We now arrive at the most important event of the later years, at least, of Thackeray’s literary life.
This was the establishment of the Cornhill Magazine, the first number of which bears the date of January,
1860. ‘This proved a great success. There was novelty and boldness in the design ; and although the
price was a shilling instead of the traditional halfcrown, it was not found that the quality or quantity
of the matter had suffered by the depreciation. Here appeared the “ Roundabout Papers,” the most
subjective, and on this account not the least interesting of the author’s writings,—“ Lovel the Widower,” and
the story of “Philip on his Way through the World,” both of which are of somewhat inferior merit.
Thackeray now derived a good income from his editorship, and felt justified in removing from the house,
36, Onslow Square, where he had long resided, to a tumble-down mansion on the west side of Kensington
Palace Gardens, which he purchased with the intention of restoring, but finished by taking down, and
building a handsome brick mansion, faced with stone, from a design of his own, in its place.

But Thackeray was not destined to a long enjoyment of the house which he had built, the position
in literature which he had go well earned, or the affluence which was its legitimate result. It
seems appropriate to conclude this narrative with an abruptness like to that which marked the
close of the career of which it is the record. The Christmas festival of 1863 was near at hand. No
paper from the pen of the editor had appeared in the last two numbers of the Cornhill, but he was to

* Samuel Phillips was a man of very considerable talent, who, after receiving his education at Sidney Sussex College,
Cambridge, travelled over the greater part of Europe as private tutor in a certain noble family, and finally settled in
London, with the view of adopting literature as a profession. He became connected with the Times, to the columns of
which he contributed those admirable pieces of biography and criticism, which were subsequently collected and published
by Murray (1851), in two vols. 8vo., under the title of “ Essays from the Times ; being a Selection from the Literary Papers
which have appeared in that Journal.” He is also known as the author of “Caleb Stukeley,”’ and other novels; and a
volume of tales, originally published in Blackwood’s Magazine ; and subsequently (1854) collected by Routledge, under the
title of “We're All Low People There,” &c. Mr. Phillips had long been the subject of consumption; and in 1854 his death
took place from the hemorrhage occasioned by the bursting of a blood-vessel. It was in this last year of his life that he
produced his excellent “ Guide to the Crystal Palace and Park,’ which was, in subsequent editions, newly arranged and
revised by Mr. Shenton.

+ They were commenced in the number for July, 1860.
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 225

commence another serial story with the new year, and of this four numbers, it appears, were already
written. He was known to have been ailing for a day or two; but he made light of his illness, from which
he had often suffered before. On December 23rd, he was somewhat worse ; In the evening he was in much
suffering 3 and on the following day, December 24th, 1863, when his valet brought in coffee, at nine in the
morning, he discovered that his master, lying in bed in tranquil attitude, with his arms, according to wont,
stretched over the coverlet, had already ceased to live. An autopsy was made by his medical attendants,
who pronounced effusion on the brain to have been the immediate cause of death.*

The funeral took place on December 30th, when a vast concourse, amounting, it was said, to nearly
two thousand in number, assembled at Kensal Green Cemetery, where the body was to be interred, to show
respect to the memory of the great writer thus suddenly removed from among us. Among the crowd
might be seen Dickens, the brother humorist ; Mark Lemon, the editor of Punch; Millais and Creswick,
the Academician painters; George Cruikshank, the greatest caricaturist of his time; Leech, the comic
artist ; Russell, the Z'%mes’ correspondent in the Crimea 3 Robert Bell, the critic; Anthony Trollope,
the novelist ; Bradbury, the publisher ; G. H. Lewes, the biographer of Goethe ; Theodore Martin, the
translator of Horace ; Browning, the poet ; Shirley Brooks and Tom Taylor, the dramatists ; Louis Blanc,
‘the historian and lecturer ; Charles Mathews, the actor ; Miss Braddon, one of the most genial and natural,
yet withal the best abused, among modern novelists ; together with a host of others from every class
of society and representing every variety of life and thought,— including, assuredly, not a few whose bond
of sympathy was known only to themselves,—all assembled to mourn over one “whose mind and heart
were a hundred-gated city,” and to make evident that they regarded the untimeous quenching of this great
intellectual light as no less than a national calamity.

With the death of Thackeray came a general attempt, through the voice of the press, to estimate the
value of the great mind we had lost. Charlotte Bronté, who had preceded her illustrious master to the
tomb by nearly ten years, had written of him :—“Thackeray is a Titan of mind. . . . . He likes to
show us human nature at home as he himself daily sces it ; his wonderful observant faculty likes to be in
action. . . . . Some people have been in the habit of terming him the second writer of the day; it
just depends on himself whether or not these critics should be justified in their award. He need not be the
second. God made him second to no man.”t John Sterling wrote to his mother -—“TI got hold of the two
first numbers of the ‘ History of Samuel Titmarsh and the Great Hoggarty Diamond,’t and read them with
extreme delight. What is there better in Fielding or Goldsmith? The man is a true genius, and with
quiet and comfort might produce masterpieces that would last as long as any we have, and delight millions
of unborn readers. There is more truth and nature in one of these papers than in all —_———’s novels
put together.” But these were opinions of a bygone day. Among those which the death of Thackeray
drew forth, it is especially pleasing to cite the generous testimony of Edmund Yates, as this gentleman was
the accredited writer of the inconsiderate sketch of the great humorist in Town Talk of June 12th, 1858,
which had led to the unhappy dissensions in the Garrick Club, and the long-existing coolness between
Thackeray and Dickens. He now wrote :—“ Thackeray is dead ; and the purest English prose-writer of
the nineteenth century, and the novelist with a greater knowledge of the human heart as it really is than
any one, with the exception, perhaps, of Shakspeare and Balzac, is suddenly struck down in the midst
of us.”

This notice we must now bring to a conclusion ; and we cannot, perhaps, better close it than with the
critical remarks of the late Mr.; Hannay, which appear to us to be among the justest and best considered
of any which have appeared :—

“The position of Mr. Thackeray as a novelist is easily defined. He represented the English novel as
the direct representative of Fielding. Other men wrote more popular stories. But he excelled all men in
an intellectual representation of intellectual English life,—in reflecting the thought, sentiment, taste, of
the classes whose character determines the opinion of posterity about each generation. He was even more
a philosopher than a painter, and more a thinker than a humorist, although he was an admirable painter
and an admirable humorist. His culture supplied an adequate basis to his observation. He probably
knew no English writers better than he knew Horace and Montaigne, and he was always grateful to
Charterhouse for the discipline which enabled him, though his life was not properly a studious one, to
interpenetrate his thoroughly modern dissertation with the essential spirit of the purest classical subtlety.

“Those who were honoured with the friendship of this memorable man,—who saw him at home,—
who knew the real truth about his disposition and private conduct,—are alone able to do him justice in
these respects. He was one of the kindest men living of his time—hospitable, generous, charitable,
tolerant, in a degree which would have been a distinction of itself to a man distinguished for nothing else.
His principles, too, were conspicuously sound. He honoured above all men those writers who had devoted
their lives to the service of virtue ; and, shrinking as he did from everything like cant, he never lost an
opportunity of paying his personal homage to the religious institutions and sentiments of the country.”

* The brain of Thackeray was found to be very large, weighing no leas than 58} 0z. The average weight is rather less
than 50 0z. Cuvier’s brain weighétl over 64 oz.

+ “Life of Charlotte Bronté.” By E.C. Gaskell. Pp. 316, 386.

{ Commenced in Fraser’s Magazine, September, 1841.

§ The reader who has not arrived at an appreciation of Balzac may wonder to find him thus bracketed with Shakspeare.
We may remind him of the Eastern saying, that there are only two creatures who can surmount the Pyramids,—the eagle
and the——snail! 3

F
226 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

The article from which the preceding extract is taken originally appeared in the Zdinburgh Hvening
Courant (January 5th, 1864), and has since been reprinted in a separate form, by Oliver & Boyd, of that
city, and by Routledge, of London, under the title of “Studies on Thackeray. By James Hannay.”
There is also the well-written monograph, “ Thackeray, the Humorist and the Man of Letters: the Story
of his Life, &.,” written by Mr. J. C. Hotten, under the assumed name of ‘‘ Theodore Taylor,” published
originally in January, 1864, 8vo, and subsequently re-issued in a cheaper form. ; :

Thackeray married, somewhere about 1836, Miss Shaw, an Irish lady of good family, and sister of
Captain Shaw, an Indian officer, who was one of the mourners at his funeral. His matrimonial felicity
was not, however, of long duration, as two or three years after marriage his wife exhibited decided
symptoms of mental alienation. By this lady he had two daughters, who both survived him, and by the
elder of whom was written the remarkable “Story of Elizabeth,” which was published in her father’s
Magazine.

NOTES ON FRANCS PLACE

could be injured,—her regiment, namely, of tailors on mares,—is said to have addressed a depu-

tation of eighteen Tailors with a “Good morning, gentlemen both /” There is a stury, moreover,

of a duellist, who, having accepted a challenge from a Tailor, and not putting himself into attitude, replied

to a question as to the cause of his delay, by the statement that he was “waiting for the other eight!”

Puace, it is true, has fallen somewhat out of place; but we will not plead a like reason for our own

omission, or attempt, even now, to take with very great precision the measure of him whose profession it
was to take the measure of others.

In Charles Lamb’s fanciful essay, ‘On the Melancholy of Tailors,” he says, “‘I have known some few
among them arrive at the dignity of speculative politicians.” It is just possible that the renowned Tailor
of Charing Cross was in his mind when he indited the remark ; and though Political Economy, or
Benthamite Utilitarianism was not much after his mind, he may have, perchance, listened there to
discussions, as profitable, if less agreeable, than those which he records as taking place at the shop of his
tonsorial friend, in Flower-de-Luce Court, Fleet Street.

Although few characters about Town were better known in their day than Francis Puacg, we do not
suppose that his career, as a politician, a tailor, or a man, is capable of exciting much interest at the
present moment. He began his public career, as early as 1793, when only twenty-one years of age,
by becoming Secretary to the Constitutional Association ; and participated, later, in the active operations
of the Anti-Corn-Law League, and the agitation which obtained for us the Penny Postage. He
lived at No. 16, Charing Cross, and is described in the London Directory for 1808 as a “Tailor and
Mercer.” He was a great political economist, and became the friend of Bentham and the elder Mill. He
gathered together a large number of books; such of which as he had bound,—collections of pamphlets,
for instance,—may be known by their drab sides, vellum backs, and the Porson-like caligraphy of the
lettering thereupon. He acquired a widely extended influence, especially among the lower classes of
Westminster ; and perhaps it is to this, as well as the exhaustion of “ characters” more truly “ illustrious,”
that we are to ascribe his admission into the “Gallery.” He died at his residence, Foxley Terrace,
Kensington, on January 2nd, 1854, in the eighty-third year of his age.

We began in jest, but will conclude in earnest. Tailor-jokes would fill a volume; but instead of
commemorating the members of the gentle craft who have gained an immortality of ridicule, we prefer to
think of those who have dignified the board by learning, wisdom, or virtue. We love to call to mind that
learned Tailor of Buckingham, whom Mr. Spence has ventured to compare with Magliabechi jt—that
erudite Tailor of Norwich, who was sent by Prideaux to Oxford, where he became a celebrated Hebraist,
was employed to transcribe Oriental MS. in the Bodleian, and translated the Al-Mesra, or “ Mahomet’s
Journey to Heaven,” into English ;t—that generous Tailor of Paris (O, si sic omnes /) who lent Thackeray
a thousand francs when the author was hard up, and to whom the latter, in gratitude, dedicated his
“ Paris Sketch-Book ”; §—the political Tailor of London, the subject of these “ Notes ”;—and, finally, that
gentle and simple-hearted Tailor of Dalkeith, whose story, as imagined by “ Delta” Moir, has never been
excelled in beauty and pathos.|| But these citations are caviare for the general, in whom exists an inherent
prejudice which progressive civilization seems impotent to uproot. Hear Professor Teufelsdréckh :—

“Tf aught in the history of the world’s blindness could surprise us, here might we indeed pause and

¥

* See No. 66, page 178.

+ ‘A Parallel in the Manner of Plutarch, between a most celebrated Man of Florence, and one scarce ever heard of in
England.” By the Reverend Mr. Spence. Strawberry-Hill, 1757. o

{ “Selection of Curious Articles from the Gentleman’s Magazine,” vol. iii. p. 266.

§ “Thackeray the Humorist and the Man of Letters.” By Theodore Taylor. P. 84.

|| “ Life of Mansie Wauch, Tailor in Dalkeith.” By D.M. Moir, Blackwood, 1828, 8vo.

(cent ELIZABETH, who boasted that she had a cavalry regiment whereof neither horse nor man
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 227

wonder. An idea has gone abroad, and fixed itself down into a wide-spreading rooted error, that tailors
are a distinct species in physiology,—not men, but fractional parts of men. Call any one a Schneider (cutter,
tailor), 1s 1b not, in our dislocated, hood-winked, and indeed delirious condition of society, equivalent to
defying his perpetual, fellist enmity? The epithet Schneidermdssig (tailor-like) betokens an otherwise
unapproachable degree of pusillanimity. We introduce a ‘ Tailor’s Melancholy,’ more opprobrious than any
leprosy, into our books of medicine ; and fable I know not what of his generating it by living on cabbage.”
__ All this is sadly true ; and so also, we fear, is his prophecy :—“‘ Upwards of a century must elapse, and
still the bleeding fight of freedom be fought, whoso is noblest perishing in the van, and thrones be hurled
on altars like Pelion on Ossa, and the Moloch of Iniquity have his victims, and the Michael of Justice his
martyrs, before tailors can be admitted to their true prerogatives of manhood, and this last wound of suffering
humanity be closed.”*
_ Well: we have done our little to speed this happy day, and so bid adieu to Francis Pxace, tailor and
politician, with the humble aspiration,—

“May he who writes ‘a skilful tailor’ seem,
‘ And like a well-made coat,’ his present theme ;
‘Tho’ close, yet easy ; decent, but not dull;
Short, but not scanty ; without buckram, full!’ ”+

THE CRUIKSHANK TESTIMONIAL, &.

N one of the last year’s catalogues of Mr. F. 8. Ellis,t the eminent bookseller of Covent Garden, a very
remarkable collected copy of the “ Gallery” occurred for sale. It consisted of eighty-one portraits, many
of which were proof impressions, and almost all illustrated by autograph letters of the illustrious originals.
The whole was arranged in two volumes, 4to. ; bound in “red morocco, super-extra”; and did not long
wait a purchaser, I presume at the catalogue price of £63. The portrait of Groree CRUIKSHANK
(p. 106) was accompanied by a letter from that distinguished artist, in which he expressed his “ horror”
at being depicted in the position in which we see him. It does indeed seem rather hard that this uncom-
promising Rechabite should go down to posterity as in any way indebted for support to a beer-barrel, and
able to pursue his graphic labours in the obnoxious propinquity of a tankard and a tobacco-pipe ! But the
artist had other grounds for objecting to the portrait, and these, as stated in a letter to ourselves, appear
worthy of being placed on record. “TI think it right to tell you,” says he, “that Maclise and I were
friends, and that I held him in esteem as a worthy man and a great artist ; but you will please to observe
that the sketch which you allude to, was made by him before we became acquainted, and is therefore not
only not like me, but represents me doing what I never did in the whole course of my life,—thatis-
making a sketch of any one. All the characters which I have placed before the public are from the brain,
—after studying and observing Nature, — and not from any sketches made on the spot, &.”
(April 30, 1873.)

Nearly five-and-thirty years ago,—not a short work-life in itself,—Thackeray wrote : — “ Before the
century was actually in its teens, we believe that Grorcz CRUIKSHANK was amusing the public. Is there
no way in which the country could acknowledge the long services and brave career of such a friend and
benefactor?” In 1866 it was sought to give practical answer to this question by the collection of a
“ Subscription Testimonial,” by way of viaticwm for the evening journey of the pilgrim whose day-march
had been so nobly and independently accomplished. A committee was formed, under the presidency of
Joun Rusxry, composed of several hundred men of eminence in art and literature, all anxious to promote
the object proposed. The labours of this body have been but recently brought to a close; and this, we
regret to chronicle, with an altogether inadequate result. Whether the artist, who has long become in
the best sense of the word an old master, has outlived the generation to which he more properly belongs,—or
whether his self-sacrificing labours in the great cause of temperance have interfered with his productiveness
as an artist, and caused him to be regarded rather as a philanthropist, whom the world always rewards in
inverse proportion to the benefits it receives,—we know not. Certain it is, that the testimonial amounted
only to a few paltry hundreds, —of little use to a man who has sacrificed so much money, time, and labour in
the cause of humanity. Thackeray began and ended his essay in the Westminster with a charge of ingra-
titude. We think its iteration here is hardly misplaced ; but hope that Gzorcr CrurxsHann, if ever so
lightly stung by the thanklessness of his age, may find consolation in the remembrance of his illustrious and
useful career, the high estimation in which his character is held by his contemporaries, and. his certain
acceptation by posterity as the skilfullest etcher after RemBRaNnDT, and the greatest master of moral satire

in art since the days of Hocartu.

* “Sartor Resartus,” chap, xi.
+ Prologue to “The Tailors: a Tragedy for Warm Weather.” By Samuel Foote. 1767.
t+ This worthy successor of Ropp, Tuorrg, and Lrtty, has since removed to 29, New Bond Street.

2Fr2
( 228 )

No. 83.—DANIEL MACLISE, R.A.
NOTES.

u AN we part from our Gattery,”—asked Maginn, when, at the completion of the first score of

volumes, he adverted to this special feature of his Magazine,—“ without saying a word or two
about him to whose pencil we are indebted for it, our old and much-honoured friend, Croquis?” We, at
the conclusion of our own labours, have asked ourselves the same question, and the answer being once
again negative, rejoice to be able to give completion to our Collection by a portrait of the distinguished
artist indicated by this pseudonym, and accompany this by a few biographical “ Notes.”

Daniel Maclise.—or McClise, as earlier in life he wrote his name,—was, like Barry,—that great.
artist whose vigour of mind and originality of conception did so much to awaken taste and classic feeling
in art,—a native of Cork, where he was born January 25th, 1811. His father was a respectable trades-
man of that city, and his grandfather a Scotch Highlander, of the clan MacDonald, some of whose
members, from having taken too active.a part in the rebellion of the Old Pretender against the house of
Brunswick, had lost their estates by confiscation, and returning to their homes, after the establishment of
peace, thought it prudent to assume the name of MacLeish. This grandfather early in life entered a
Volunteer regiment, “The Highland Watch”; served in the Netherlands under William, Duke of
Cumberland ; was present at the battle of Fontenoy, Bergen-op-Zoom, Maestricht, and Dettingen ; was
sent to Ireland ; married into the family of the Hills; retired from the army, with pension and half-pay ;
and settled finally in Dublin in 1750. Here he was blessed with a family of seventeen children, all of
whom died young, with the exception of Alexander, the father of the painter. He obtained an ensign’s
commission in the Elgin Fencibles, stationed at Cork ; and here he married Miss Rebecca Bohanan, of a
respectable Bandon family ; left the army when his regiment was disbanded ; and became, with ill-success,
the proprietor of a tan-yard at Cork, where he undertook, during the war, several Government contracts -
for the troops embarking at Cove. He had ten children, the eldest of whom was Daniel ; and when his
accounts with the world came to be closed, was found hardly better off than he was when he entered it.
The artist had thus, on the paternal side, a strong admixture of Scotch blood in his veins.

An Academy for the study of the fine arts had been opened in the city of Cork in 1822. Here it was,
in the study of the models of classical antiquity, that Hogan, the sculptor, attained that mingled purity
and grandeur of conception which characterizes his works; and Forde, the early lost, felt the first
awakenings of the genius so soon to be extinguished in death. Here, too, came young Maclise to enrol
himself as a student in art, when the conviction that in that direction lay his inevitable destiny led him
to abandon for ever cash-book and ledger, desk and counter. The youth soon gained a patroness, in the
person of Miss Spratt, an old maiden-lady, whose portrait he painted. By her he was introduced to the
family of Mr. Newenham, of Summerhill, a banker anda sculptor, in whose gallery he had every
opportunity of improving his taste, and even gaining practical skill, for both Mr. Newenham and his
daughter were proficients in art. Meantime, he worked at the Academy with unceasing ardour, and made
certain and rapid progress. He became acquainted also with that learned art-lover and profound antiquary,
the late Mr. Sainthill, in whose library he had an opportunity of storing his mind with that lore of
antiquity without which the artist, whatever his genius or talents, can never reach permanent fame. The
celebrated phrenologist, Dr. Spurzheim, happened to be at this time in Cork, and to him the young artist
was taken by his old lady-patroness. The Doctor manipulated with unusual care, and pronounced the
oracular dictum, “ A painter indeed!” which might have had some effect, if need were, to strengthen the
predilections of the patient, and fulfil its own prediction. Maclise also dissected with assiduity at the
Anatomical School of Dr. Woodroffe, and attended the lectures of that eminent surgeon. He sketched
and copied everything that came in his way ; and so worked out his destiny, till a fortuitous circumstance
occurred,—such as often offers, but of which it is reserved to genius alone to take full advantage,—to give
a new impulse to his efforts, and determine the course of his future career.

It was in the autumn of 1825 that Sir Walter Scott, accompanied by Miss Edgeworth and Mr. and
Mrs. J. G. Lockhart, made a hurried tour in Ireland. Among the places visited was Cork ; and while there
the illustrious traveller made a call at the shop of Mr. Bolster, a respectable bookseller. Among the crowd of
literary persons attracted to this spot was the young artist, who had chosen a favourable, position for making
some outline sketches of the great author. Selecting the best of these, he worked upon it all night, and
produced by morning an elaborate pen-and-ink drawing, which he brought to his friend, the bookseller, who
placed it in a conspicuous position in his shop. It did not fail to attract the attention of Sir Walter, who,
expressing admiration of its power and truth, inquired the name of the artist. Maclise, who was at hand,
was brought forward, and introduced to the great man, who shook him by the hand, and predicted that he
would attain a high position. The drawing was lithographed, and 500 copies struck off, which were sold as
soon as printed. The artist was induced by the reputation which this little sketch gained for him, to open a
studio in Patrick Street, which was soon crowded with sitters; commissions for portraits and book-illustrations
flowed in upon him, till, in the spring of 1827, in accordance with the advice of Sir Thomas Deane and Mr.
Sainthill, he determined to leave Cork and proceed to London, to prosecute his art-studies in the schools
 
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 229

of the Royal Academy. A drawing which he had previously forwarded to Somerset House had secured
his admission, and he at once took apartments in Newman Street, and sedulously devoted himself to the
study of his profession. Crofton Croker, to whom he had letters of introduction from Sainthill, invited
him to his house, which was the centre of a large literary circle ; and the refined hospitality of Mr, and
Mrs. 8. C. Hall, whose influence in the world of literature and art was equally important, was generously
extended to the young artist. Years before, in 1820, Mr. Hall had seen him, copying from the
antique, in the Academy of Cork, and had said,—“ My little friend, if you work hard and think, you will
be a great man one of these days”; half a century after this first meeting, it was the lot of the same
accomplished gentleman to pay a last affectionate tribute to the genius and character of the friend whose
race was then run, and register the fulfilment of his prophecy, made a whole lifetime before!

_, To return. In the very year of Maclise’s arrival in London, another event occurred, which, like the
visit of Sir Walter Scott to Cork, had the effect of bringing the name and talents of Maclise prominently
before the public. This was the first appearance on the stage of Charles Kean (who, by the way, was
born in the same year), October Ist, 1827, in the character of Young Worval in Home’s tragedy of
“Douglas.” Maclise secured a place in the pit, as near as possible to the stage, with the intention of
making a sketch of the aspirant. This he accomplished ; executed a finished drawing from it on his return ;
had it, through his friend Croker, lithographed and published next day ; and managed, from its extensive
sale at ten shillings a copy, to pocket a handsome sum when all expenses were paid.* Hence he became
known as a rising artist, and got profitable employment for portraits in pencil and water-colours. He still,
nevertheless, studied hard at the Academy, where he gained, at the competitive exhibitions of the students,
every honour which it had to award. Among these was the medal for the best drawing from the antique—
the last one given by Sir Thomas Lawrence ; the medal for the best copy of a picture from Guido ; and, in
1829, the highest prize within reach of a student, the gold medal for the best historical composition, on a sub-
ject selected by the Academy, “The Choice of Hercules.” This was the height of his ambition ; he was eulogized
by his countryman, Sir Martin Archer Shee, the new President; noticed by all the papers; and received
a note from L. E. L., telling him that his well-merited success had given her “ every pleasure but surprise.”
This distinction, moreover, placed at his command the travelling studentship of the Academy, tenable for
three years ; but he refused, from native independence of character, to avail himself of the bounty, and
thus, like that great self-formed genius, Correggio, the glory of the Venetian school, attained his distinction
without visiting the galleries of Italy.

Having dwelt somewhat at length upon the early life of Maclise, our retrospect of his art-career in
London must be necessarily brief. In 1829, he became for the first time an exhibitor at the Royal
Academy, the subject of his picture being taken from the “Twelfth Night” of Shakspeare. In 1830, he
exhibited no less than seven pictures, among which was a portait of Campbell, of Mrs. 8. C. Hall, and of
Miss Landon. In 1831 he exhibited six pictures; and in 1832 a beautiful composition from “‘ Midsummer's
Night Dream.” In this year he revisited his native city, where he met Hogan, the sculptor, who chanced
to return at the time to the scene of his early studies. An enthusiastic reception was given to both
artists ; and a public meeting convened in the rooms of the Society of Arts, where a gold medal was voted
to each,—that of Maclise bearing the inscription,—“ Alumno suo Danieli Maclise egregie in Picturd, merenti
Societas Artium Corcagiensis. Sep. 26, 1832.” In this year he had also painted a scene from Moore’s
“Talla Rookh,”—“ Mokanna the Prophet revealing his Features to Zelica,’—and to this was awarded by
the Liverpool Academy the prize of £50 for the best painting in oil. This picture, together with the one
mentioned above from Shakspeare, was exhibited at the British Institution, in 1833. In this year he
produced, from sketches which he had made in Ireland, his extraordinary picture of “ All Hallow Eve,
or Snap-apple Night,” which appeared in the Exhibition of 1833, and contains portraits of Sir Walter
Scott, Crofton Croker, the artist’s sisters (whom he was fond of introducing into his pictures), Perceval
Banks (his brother-in-law), and the old Priest, who was host at this annual gathering. This picture created
a great sensation, and is well known from the engraving ; a better description of it can hardly be found
than ig afforded by a poem in Fraser’s Magazine,” for May, 1833, p. 628, from the pen of “ O'Doherty”
(Dr. Maginn). : '

We are here reminded of Maclise’s connection with Recaina, so often alluded to before, and about
which much does not remain to be said. On his arrival in London he found his townsman, Maginn, who
in consequence of some differences with Blackwood, had quitted the modern Athens, installed in the
metropolis, and already wielding a censorial virgula of no light weight. The month of February, 1830,
saw the birth of Fraser’s Magazine ; and in the fifth number,—that for June,—appeared the outline
portrait of William Jerdan, and the inauguration of that redoubtable critic as Corypheus of the “ Gallery
of Innustrrous Literary Characters.” The novel feature pleased ; and thenceforward each succeeding
month produced its portrait, till some four-score had appeared, and the Magazine had reached its fifteenth
volume. Here occurs a breach of continuity. The editor expressed his fear that the readers of the
Magazine would miss “ Our old familiar Faces,—the peculiar feature of the Magazine,—our monthly
Gallery.” He adds that he cannot avoid seeing that the original compact of giving sketches of illustrious
literary characters can hardly be kept up; and that complaints have reached him that some occa-
sionally presented do not fulfil the condition, Thus he proposes to let. the “ Gallery” department lie
fallow for a time, in the hope that a “new crop will turn up fit for the industry of the labourers.

* This sketch is now in the possession of the artist’s niece, Miss Banks.
230 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

Accordingly we find no portraits in vols. xv. and xvi, and only two in vol. xvii., which were duly garnered
with the others,—the harvest-men never troubling themselves to look for an aftermath. From the satirical
character of some of the portraits, and especially the accompanying notices, it was desirable that the identity
of both artist and writer should be invested with some degree of mystery. The earlier portraits have no
signature ; and it is not till February, 1832, that the pseudonym “ Alfred Croquis” appears, at the foot
of the portrait of the Ettrick Shepherd. But it was pretty well known who was meant, and half revelations
were often designedly made. At the great Fraserian banquet, commemorated by the inimitable cartoon
which forms our frontispiece, Crofton Croker gets up to make a speech, and “ orates” as follows :—

“Mr. Fraser and Gentlemen,— What I want to say is, if not confined in a nut-shell, at least walled in
by a wine-glass. While we were all chattering and gabbling about the affairs of all kinds of writing people,
we were forgetting that there was sitting among usa decent fellow, who has the art of making faces in a
manner never beaten yet. I do not like mentioning names, for it is dangerous in these cross times ; but
there he is, Dan,—I beg pardon, for I was uncommonly near making a slip of the tongue,—there he is, Mr.
Alfred Croquis, sitting cheek by jowl to Mr. Barry Cornwall ; and a neat article he is,—I mean Croquis,
equally as well as I mean Cornwall. There he is, as prim and demureas a young lady at a christening, and
good luck to him ; only he is caricaturing us all the whole time he is sitting there as quiet as if he were a
mouse in a cheese. Nevertheless I give his health, and long may he live to sketch and etch. Here’s
your health, Dan, my boy !— Alfred, I mean, only it’s the same thing.” ——raser’s Magazine, January, 1835,
p. 17.

Here, however, it seems right to remark that there appears to be some want of accord between the
artist of ‘‘The Fraserians,” and the writer of the article. Although thus alluded to as being present at
the banquet, the features of Maclise will be in vain sought for round the circular table. We are led to
suppose that the guest seated between Barry Cornwall and Perceval Banks, to the right of Maginn, is
intended for Maclise ; but there can be little doubt that the portrait is that of Southey. His name, it is
true, is not mentioned in the article, but the aquiline contour of the face undoubtedly belongs to the
Laureate, and the identification is corroborated by Mahony in his reproduction of the plate for Bohn’s
edition of the “ Reliques of Father Prout.”

It may be interesting to record that the original sketches were sold at the sale of the artist’s effects,
and secured, we believe, by Mr. John Forster. They were drawn on any odd scraps of paper, and
sometimes on both sides, requiring a glass both at back and front for their exhibition.

Later, when the time came to bid farewell to the “Gallery,” our artist is named with eulogy as its
originator, and the identity of “Croquis” and Maclise broadly asserted :—-“‘ But can we part from our
Gallery without saying a word or two about him to whose pencil we are indebted for it,—our old and much-
honoured friend, Croquis? Watts, in the enlightened and impartial style of censorship which distinguishes
that amiable gentleman, described the sketches as contemptible daubs, the work of some mean artist, got
up for some shabby purpose ; at the which Croquis only laughed, and drew a flattering likeness of the critic,
which instantly attracted Watts’s patronage in a most peculiar manner. Other judges took a far different
view of the case, agreeing that for fidelity of likeness and strict excellence of drawing and design,—often
for shrewd and humorous conception, and frequently for their execution as etchings or engravings,—there are
few artists who could produce ; fewer, if any, who could surpass them. People, indeed, are generally so
good as to allow that he does know something of art ; and yet, so great is his natural and national modesty,
that the name of Alfred Croquis never appears in the catalogues of the Exhibition. The name of a friend
of his, or at least of one who ought to be so, is to be found there pretty often ; and we believe that his
pictures are not to be sneezed at, even by the most Gothic of barbarians. He is rising every year to higher
honours and renown, and displaying fresh proofs of unwearied genius ; and though the pictures which he
exhibits are of greater splendour and loftier aspiration, yet, in their own way, we maintain that the sketches
of Croquis display as much talent as any production of the best R.A. or A.R.A. of the lot,—ay, even if
you named Mactisg himself.”*

We have already (see Preface) recorded our own and others’ opinion as to the transcendant merit of
these sketches, and made allusion to the article in Notes and Queries, which led to their republication.
This latter was immediately followed by an admirable paper from the pen of Mr. D. G. Rossetti, in the
Academy, of April 15, 1871, p. 217, from which we extract the following remarks :—‘‘I suppose no such
series of the portraits of the celebrated of any epoch, produced by an eye and hand of so much insight and
power, and realized with such a view to the actual impression of the sitter, exists anywhere ; and the
period illustrated possessed abundant claims to a worthy personal record..... Each produces the
impression of absolute trustworthiness asin a photograph... . . Both in rendering of character, whether
in its first aspect or subtler shades, and in the unfailing knowledge of form, which seizes at once on the
movement of the body beneath the clothes, and on the lines of the clothes themselves, these drawings are on
an incalculably higher level than the works of even the best professional sketchers. Indeed, no happier
instance could well be found of the unity for literary purposes of what may be justly termed ‘style,’ with
an incisive and relishing realism.”

But the contributions of Maclise to the Magazine were not confined to these graphic productions. The
man who is nothing but an artist, is most assuredly not even that. Maclise was much more ; he was a
musician, a writer, a poet, an antiquarlan,—in every sense of the word, an accomplished gentleman, On

* Fraser's Magazine, vol. xxi. p. 26.
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 231

his own peculiar subject, the Fine Arts, he was an able and elegant writer ; and an evidence of his poetical
abilities may be found in a long poem from his pen, entitled “Christmas Revels: an Epic Rhapsody, in
Twelve Duans,” in Fraser's Magazine, May, 1838, pp. 635—644. With Maginn he was on intimate terms
to the last, and the following reminiscence, contributed to a biographical notice of that remarkable man, is
a striking testimony alike to his genius and character :—‘“‘ With every desire to do what you request, I find
myself embarrassed in contributing the slightest memorandum of my acquaintance with the late Dr. Maginn.
Does he not strike you to have been precisely the person of whom it would be most difficult to convey (to
one who had not known him) a true impression? I cannot boast of having seen as much of the Doctor as
I was ambitious of seeing ; for, although known to him from my first arrival in London, yet, whether from
his own, and perhaps my active occupation, the usual separating tendencies and distractions of town,
differences of pursuit, &c., our interviews were not after all so frequent as I could have wished ; and
when we consider over how many years they were spread, anything I could say of him must of
necessity assume the tone of the highest panegyric, and I find it difficult to satisfy myself in the choice
of any expression sufficiently powerful to convey my idea of his great abilities as a writer and conver-
sationalist, and of his excellent nature as a man. He comes upon my general recollection always crowded
round by the most pleasant associations, and I can conjure him up in particular situations,—the morning
walk of my early acquaintance, and more recently the morning visit, when I had but to listen and be
delighted. Indeed, his various gifts and brilliant qualities ever met with prompt acknowledgment, and
where wit and wits abounded one always had the satisfaction of seeing him commanding attention.” *

A later episode in the life of Maclise was his intimate friendship with Charles Dickens. In 1847,
the latter having gone to Paris, the artist had arranged to join him there with their common friend,
John Forster ; but his heavy engagements forbade the execution of this pleasant project, and he wrote to
the latter a metrical farewell, which happily illustrates his gay and sportive humour :—

“Go where pleasure waits thee, While you hear the Peers debating,
But while it elates thee, While you hear the Commons prating,
Oh! remember me. Even then remember me.
When by the Seine thou rovest, On top of Vendéme column,
With the friend thou lovest, On July’s pillar solemn,
Oh! still remember me. Even then remember me.
When through the Louvre gazing On Notre-Dame’s high towers,
On those works amazing, Versailles and Saint Cloud’s bowers,
(Especially) then remember. Still, still remember me.
When Dumas thou meetest, When with Dickens thou art dining,
And Jules Janin thou greetest, Think of him at 14 pining,
Even then remember me. Oh! do then think of me.
If Sue or Victor Hugo, When with him Lafitte drinking,
George Sand, or Kock, to you go, Let not your spirits sinking,
Still, still remember me. On Lincoln’s Inn then thinking,

A tear bedew your e’e.
If Horace, Paul, or Ary

You meet, oh! still be wary ; Be not such foolish asses,
Forget not Mac—and me. But while the bottle passes,
Fill, fill your sparkling glasses,
In Pére la Chaise while walking, And then remember me.

O’er Montmartre while stalking,
Be sure remember me.

In reverting to the more public career of Maclise, we find that the space at our command now forbids
anything but a cursory notice of its leading incidents. In 1834, he exhibited “ The Installation of Captain
Rock” ; and in 1835, that gorgeous picture, “The Chivalrous Vow of the Ladies and the Peacock,” the
subject of which was suggested to the artist by a note of Sir Walter Scott to his “Lay of the Last
Minstrel,” and, in its turn, inspired the muse of Miss Landon, who published her beautiful poem, “The
Vow of the Peacock,” in the course of the same year. In 1836, at an unusually early age for such an
honour, he was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy. This was the last exhibition at Somerset House
before removal to Trafalgar Square, and Maclise exhibited a picture of “ Macbeth and the Witches,” the
ficure of the Scottish thane being taken from his friend, Macready ; and another, representing “ The
Interview of Charles I. with Cromwell.” At the first opening of the Academy in the new rooms, he
exhibited seven pictures, among which may be mentioned “The Bohemian Gipsies,” a very fine performance i
and, in 1838, five pictures, one of which was a representation of “ Merry Christmas in the Baron’s Hall,
of which the “ Epic Rhapsody,” in Fraser's Magazine, of which we have spoken, is a poetical description.
In 1839, he exhibited four pictures, among which was the well-known * Robin Hood” ; and on
February 2nd, 1840, he was advanced to the full honours of the Academy, in company with his friend,
Solomon A. Hart, who had been elected Associate also on the same night with himself, His “ diploma
picture” was entitled “The Wild Huntsman” ; and he exhibited four pictures besides,—* The Banquet
Scene in Macbeth,” a “Scene from Gil Blas,” another from “Twelfth Night,” and a portrait of his friend,
Charles Dickens. In 1841, we have four pictures,—one of which was “ The Sleeping Beauty,” and another
“ Hunt the Slipper at Farmer Flamborough’s,” from the “ Vicar of Wakefield.” In 1842, were exhibited

* Dublin University Magazine, January, 1844, p. 88.
932 DANIEL MACLISE AND DR. MAGINN.

“The Return of the Knight,” “The Origin of the Harp,” and the “Play Scene in Hamlet,”—the best
known and most popular, if not the greatest, of all his productions. In 1843, came that fine picture, ‘The
Actors’ Reception of the Author,” from “Gil Blas” (which was purchased at 1,000 guineas, and recently
formed part of the Gillott collection), together with “A Waterfall in Cornwall” ; and in 1844, a portrait
of W. H. Ainsworth, a “Scene from Comus,” and others. In 1845, he did not exhibit; but in the next
year contributed to the competitive exhibition of artists desirous of executing mural paintings for the palace
at Westminster, his beautiful design of “ Alfred in the Danish Camp.” This was selected by the Commis-
sioners, who requested him to prepare designs for one of the subjects proposed to be executed in fresco.
This he did, with an oil picture, “ The Spirit of Chivalry,” which he was ordered to paint for the House of
Lords. This he finished in 1847, having found time, moreover, to produce in the interval, for the Exhibition
of 1846, the very interesting picture known as “The Ordeal by Touch.”

In 1847 he exhibited three pictures, one of which was that noble work, “ Noah’s Sacrifice,” which,
though the subject, at the time, of much adverse criticism, is now considered one of the finest productions
of the master.

In 1848 need be noted only the portrait of his friend, Mr. Forster, in the character of Kitely, a
portrait of Mrs. Charles Dickens, and the outlines for Shakspeare’s “Seven Ages.” In 1849, he was not
an exhibitor ; in 1850, he produced “The Spirit of Justice,” and “The Gross of Green Spectacles,” from
“The Vicar of Wakefield” ; in 1851, a portrait of Bulwer, another of Macready as Werner, and his
noble picture of “Caxton showing his Printing Press to Edward IV., in the Almonry at Westminster” ;
in 1852, “ Alfred in the Tent of Guthrum the Dane”; in 1853 no picture; and in 1854, one only, “The
Marriage of Strongbow and Eva,” one of the most important of his works. This subject he was invited by
the Commissioners of Fine Arts to paint in fresco for the Painted Chamber, or Conference Hall, at West-
minster Palace, for the sum of £1,500, which the artist refused, as being wholly inadequate to the
importance of such a work, and the time and labour that would be demanded by its execution.

In 1855, he exhibited one picture, “ Orlando ahout to engage with the Wrestler” ; and in the same year
was appointed one of the Fine Art Jurors for the Paris Exhibition. In 1857, we have “ Peter the Great
working as a Shipwright in Deptford Dockyard,” and the forty-two sketches, some of them elaborately
finished, illustrative of the “Norman Conquest.” We find nothing from his easel in 1858, and in 1859 the
picture of “The Poet to his Wife” was his only exhibited work.

A long interval now occurred, during which the name of Maclise was absent from the catalogues of
Exhibitions. This was occasioned by his engagements in connexion with the frescoes in Westminster Palace,
—a business which cost him nearly ten years of his life, dire injury to his health, serious loss to his pocket,
and bitter disappointment to his expectations. The matter is too long and complicated to enter upon here ;
neither are the precise facts ascertained. It was, doubtless, the premature death of Prince Albert,—a
patron of art as generous as he was enlightened,—that led to interference with the fulfilment of the original
recommendation of the Commissioners, and the ultimate rescission of the agreement made with Maclise.
With the expression of our own conviction that a gross injustice was inflicted upon a sensitive and high-
minded man of genius, we must refer to the pages of Mr. O'Driscoll, his biographer, for a resumé of the
circumstances so far as they have been made known.

In July, 1859, was completed the splendid cartoon representing “The Meeting of Blucher and
Wellington on the Field of Waterloo,” now the property of the Royal Academy. This picture was the
subject of general wonder and admiration ; while the brother-artists of Maclise, both in and out of the
Academy, paid a graceful tribute to the genius of their friend, in the shape of a massive gold porte-crayon,
and a “round robin,” on vellum, circumscribed by forty-three names.

At the completion of the “Wellington and Blucher” fresco, Maclise had commenced that of the
“Death of Nelson.” This he had just finished, when a domestic calamity occurred, to add to the
gloom produced by his professional disappointments. Maclise had never married ; but his elder sister,
Isabella, whose intense affection for her brother had forbidden her to separate from him, had ever
remained the companion of his solitude, and ministered to his comforts with tender solicitude. She died in
1865, and Maclise never properly overgot the blow. His health became more impaired ; he accepted no
commissions ; and habits of seclusion and solitude were further confirmed. These circumstances, together
with the innate modesty of his nature, may have concurred to cause him to refuse the Presidency of the
Academy, when, on the refusal of Sir Edwin Landseer, who had been first selected by the Academicians on
the death of Sir Charles L. Eastlake in 1865, it was in turn offered to him. He exhibited, however, in
1866 and 1867 ; in 1868, “The Sleep of Duncan”; in 1869, the charming picture of “ King Cophetua
and the Beggar-Maid,” which was considered one of ‘the gems of the Exhibition ; and in 1870, his important
work, “The Earls of Desmond and Ormond,” the last picture he produced.

By this time his health was visibly declining. He had suffered from a cough during the winter, which
did not leave him. No danger was, however, apprehended ; but in the early part of April he was seized
with acute pneumonia. The disease ran a rapid course; he was attended by Drs. Murchison and Stewart,
and everything was done that medical science could suggest. But all was in vain; the silver cord was
loosed, and the golden bow] broken ; and the world learnt that the great artist had passed away, without
pain or struggle, on the morning of April 25, 1870. The cemetery of Kensal Green received his remains,
in the same vault where were already sleeping his father, his mother, his brother, and his sister.

Maclise left behind him two brothers, Alexander and Joseph,—the latter a surgeon of considerable
eminence in London, and author of valuable works on Comparative Osteology and Surgical Anatomy. His
GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY CHARACTERS. 233

sister, Anna, also survived him. Her husband was Perceval Weldon Banks, a member of the English Bar,
one of the brilliant staff of Reama, anda compotator in the Fraserian banquet, where he is seen seated
between Southey and Thackeray. Hedied in 1850. One of his daughters, Miss Rhoda Banks, is an artist
herself of considerable ability ; excited the warm affection and interest of her uncle; and sat for the
Beggar Maid in the picture of “ King Cophetua.”

In our rapid summary of the works of Maclise, we have only spoken of his exhibited pictures. These
are but a part of the labours of his life, which include a prodigious number of works of every description.
Among these are book-illustrations,—for the “ Keepsake,” for Prout’s “ Reliques,” for Bulwer’s “ Pilgrims
of the Rhine,” for Moore’s “Irish Melodies,” as published by Longman, for Crofton Croker’s “ Fairy
Legends,” &e. ; portraits,—of Sir John Soane, Mrs. Norton, Mrs. 8. C. Hall, Lord Lytton, Dickens, Forster,
Kean, Macready, and a host of others less known to fame; together with important and well-known
pictures, too numerous to mention ; and not less than three thousand studies and sketches.

It is to be inferred from what we have written that we entertain deep reverence for the character of
Maclise as an artist. Yet we are not insensible to the defects which may be urged against him. It cannot be
said that he isa great or harmonious colourist. His tints are often heavy, opaque, chalky, and meretricious ;
his figures too academical ; his faces deficient in nature and variety ; his action theatrical and extravagant ;
his movement too uniformly vivid, and unbalanced by the repose which so sweetly charms the wearied eye.
Nationality may be for much in some of these points, which involve more than a question of abstract right
or wrong in art. Any way, they are but of the limitations of which every genius has its own. On the
other hand, he is a consummate master of design, especially of large crowds in vehement action. His
composition is picturesque and varied ; his feeling poetic ; his drawing firm and correct; his conception
prodigally inventive ; his technical excellence, even in accessory detail, superlatively great. He had many
—if not all,—of those gifts which go to make up a great painter ; and a distinguished place must assuredly
be assigned to him in the future Walhalla of British Art.

In favour of his character as a man too much cannot be said. Mr. 8. C. Hall proclaims that “he
was in all respects one of nature’s gentlemen”; and adds that, from a knowledge of fifty years, he could say
much of his “ genial nature, high mind, and generous heart.” But Mr. Hall judiciously refrains, feeling
that his own sentiments could not possibly find more eloquent and touching expression than that afforded
by the graceful allusion to the recent death of his friend in the speech of Charles Dickens, at the annual
dinner of the Royal Academy, which took place on the very day appointed for the funeral of its illustrious
member :—‘“ J cannot forbear, before I resume my seat, adverting to a sad theme to which his Royal High-
ness the Prince of Wales made allusion, and to which the President referred with the eloquence of genuine
feeling. Since [ first entered the public lists, a very young man indeed, it has been my constant fortune
to number among my nearest and dearest friends members of the Royal Academy who have been its grace
and pride. They have so dropped from nyy side, one by one, that I already begin to feel like the Spanish
monk of whom Wilkie tells, who had grown to believe that the only realities around him were the pictures
which he loved, and that all the moving life he saw, or ever had seen, wasa shadow anda dream. For
many years I was one of the two most intimate friends, and most constant companions of the late
Mr. Maclise. Of his genius in his chosen art I will venture to say nothing here, but of his prodigious
fertility of mind, and wonderful wealth of intellect, I may confidently assert that they would have made
him, if he had been so minded, at least as great a writer as he was a painter. The gentlest and most
modest of men, the freest as to his generous appreciation of young aspirants, and the frankest and largest
hearted as to his peers, incapable of a sordid or ignoble thought, gallantly sustaining the true dignity of
his vocation, without one grain of self-assertion, wholesomely natural at the last as at the first, ‘in wit a
man, in simplicity a child, no artist, of whatever denomination, I make bold to say, ever went to his rest
leaving a golden memory more pure from dross, or having devoted himself with a truer chivalry to the
Art-goddess whom he worshipped.” ,

Alas! even while the novelist was yet speaking, the curtain was about to fall on the busy and brilliant
drama of his own life,—the iron gate of Time opening through which he was so shortly to follow the
friend to whose death he had just made so touching an allusion. Six weeks only after the death of Maclise,
the eulogy on his character which Dickens had pronounced might have been repeated, with slight
variation, on the occasion of his own sudden removal from among the living. He died June 9th, 1870.

A “Memoir of Daniel Maclise, R.A.,” has been written by his old friend, W. Justin O’Driscoll,
M.R.I.A., Barrister-at-Law, and published by Longman & Oo., 1871, 8vo. A brief sketch of his life,
with a portrait, will also be found in the Dublin University Magazine for May, 1847 ; and there is an
excellent likeness of him, engraved by Pound, from a photograph by Mayall, among “ The Drawing-Room
Portrait Gallery of Eminent Personages,” presented with the [lustrated News of the World.
ERRATUM.

Page 24, line 22 from bottom, before “ the Anakim,” insert “one of.”
LN DF X.

 

0

 

[The Names in Smatt Carirats indicate those of whom Portraits and separate Biographical Notices are given. |

  
     
   
 
 
  
  

    
 
  
   
  
  

 

 

 

 

 

Page
AMINSWORTEH, - Wa. He aisrnac.ave se ciuoonarsanans vexunen ores Reituet ace 134
ANTIQUARIES, THE ,,.. ileusdcirnasbcntaa Reena stawialeneamiadeinnd tein 64
Aberdeen, Harl Of ......ccccscceecsssce eee eeeeee sau esaceeeesans 67
“ Adonis of Sixty,” the ssidadanineud ditiatancses 133
“ Aineas Hunuchus,” by W. Maginn ........, 26
“ Age Reviewed,” the, by R. Montgomery ............... 52
“ Age of Intellect, ” the, by W. Hone .......cccccsseeee eee 92
Aird; Thomas ic esc ccnscanennandta due aa tusawes senebramewenabiini 111
« Albert Lunel,” by Lord Brougham ................65008 50
MUON: Sct vidseiae ackalenatasrnaek annsaayeoatre 194
Alison’s “Treatise on Taste”? o....ccccccsecereseseeeeenes 213
All-Hallow Eve, poem on picture REINS. 229
“ Alroy, Wondrous Tale of,’ ae Disraeli ..............666 98
Amatory poetry . aici give nia Ca 20
“ Amulet,” the, an 1 annual .. a citbendvngntaitoasee da oar 190
“Annual” literature . ie Sbiantoataganepnete nes te 162
Anstey, author of “ Bath ‘Guide ein aa ghee na 145
Antiquarians, characters of . 64
Aphorisms, book Of ........ccccceecesseeseeceseeeen ees ee enn ees 180
“ Apollo Belvidere,” a prize poem by Milman ......... 45
© Arcadian,” the, by DT; HOOK: siwsessaniicess suensvpuenianion 128
Archery’ -scscinni vesavesien eae sacs 66
Arthur, Thomas, bookseller .......c0..ccccseecseceeeeeseeees 131
Art Journal, the iccicccccccccertsteeseseeeeeeteeeneeceenaeea 190
“Athens,” a prize poem by Praed oo... 15
Austin, Mrs., edited letters of Sydney Smith............ 219
BERANGER, P. J. DE ii. cissscssssessceretssstacecsceoesessenses LOZ
BLESSINGTON, COUNTESS OF.,......... 93
Bowzszs, Rev. WiLL1AM LIsLE ..... 185
Brewster, SIR DAVID ..........c0.c0cses 82
BROvUGHAM AND VAUX, THE Lor ....... 49
Brypess, Sir H@@RTON ............0000..5 121
BucksTonz, JoHN BALDWIN 210
ButweEr, EDWARD LYTTON ...........ccceese cece 74,
“ Bacchus in Tuscany,” by Redi ............... 134
Bad cocks) Obie yrs vey sgunesneanes nen ahaueterincenende wa arenconae 136
Baldwin, Edw., a pen-name of W. Godwin............... 141
Ball, Hughes, alias “The Golden Ball” ............00 148
Banks, Miss Rhoda, niece of Maclise ...............006 233
Banks, Perceval Weldon.,............:.0000005 230, 233
Balzac, Honoré: de a. sis sawwerosansene vee tenes nanwnn mira 225
Barry, J. Milner, M.D. Preface, x
Bartolozzi, his infidelity a as a , copier onhguilulmacounetoninnd 209
“ Baviad and Mesviad,? the: sivisicdsasasasamatinennedea ion 44,
Bayley; We. We Nes aisenaaag as slsrehdnuniimilay abagbestyy wens seen 32
Bayly, Thomas Haynes ..........0....000005 42, 43
Bee, Ion (Badcock, John) ..........:.cicceeceese eee eeeeneens 136
Bellingham, W., the assassin, seizure of ...... 10
Benevolence, practical, Sydney Smith on ...... 218
Bennoch, Mr. .........cseeeeeee ee a anlicenaioboman Giga. manent - 36
Bentham, Jeremy, on Libel .............. auatioede aden 09 he 162
Béranger, his song on Dr, Lardner ..................... 78
“ Berkeley Castle,” review of, by Maginn
Berkeley, Grantley, his account of L. E. L.
his opinion of Sydney Smith ............0.005
his quarrel with Maginn ................
Berners-street Hoax, the ........ccscseeeee recone
“ Bibliomania,” the, by T. F. Dibdin .......
Bicycle, known to Romans P ..........::.000085
Black, Dr., and Dr. Hutton, anecdote of ....
Black-mail, literary oo... cicciee ee eeeseeeteeee tenes
Blackwood?s Magazine, originated by Hogg
Blessington, Countess of i... cece see erent
impromptu on, by Lord Byron ..........ceeeses
portrait of, by Sir Thomas Lawrence ......... 95
Blindness of authors wi......ccecsesseeseeesesee eer sseeessesvee 87

 

26

Page
50
46

225

“ Blunders of a Big Wig’”’......sssseeeee
Bowring, Dr.
Brain, the human, weight of
“ Brallaghan, or the Deipnosophists,” by Edward
Kenealy
Braddon, Miss M. E., the novelist............cccessseeeeeees
Bray, Mrs. H. A. (Miss A. E. Kempe)
Brentano, Bettina
Bronté, Charlotte, her remarks on Thackeray
Brooke, W. H., the artist
Broughton, Lord (see Hobhouse) ....
Brown, Dr. Thomas.............scseeeee cues
Buchanan, George, the Latin poet
Bulwer, Sir EH. L., epigram on, by Egerton Warburton 71
attack on by C. M. Westmacott .................. 181
His Geach, csiasisaes wctwmansiesawneasi omens Preface, viii
his dedication of the “Lady of Lyons” to
Talfourd
his “ Student” ...
—— morality of
poetry of...
Buonaparte, Napoleon
Lucien.. waehs, ene eas ete
Burns, Robert, the ‘post | spe leaiunese
and Moore compared...........
Byron, Lord, his lines on Rogers
his friendship with Hobhouse....
his verses on Sydney Smith
impromptu on Countess of Blessington..
ENTS OL sisi usit veaniuny cae atmalesoebinatiaciiesanast S53
sums received by for his poems ..................

"Preface, viii.,

 

    
 
    
  
   
    
 
 
  
  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CampseEtL, THOMAS
CarLyYLE, THOMAS
Coxserr, WILLIAM ......

 

 

 

CoLrRIpGE, SAMUEL TAYLon.. sme
CROKER; CROBTON gecsacsusuns xa, caguerrennnas 29
Croker, JOHN WILSON .....csccsecccessennes 43
CRUIKSHANK, GEORGE............ 106
CUNNINGHAM, ALLAN .....cccsceceee sens 77
Calamities of authors........... cece cee eee ees 62
“Caleb Stukeley,” a novel, by 8. Phillips ... 224
Caley, John, the antiquarian 65
Canada Company, the.............0 cs 95
Carlisle, Nicholas, the antiquarian .... 66
Carlyle and Leigh Hunt...............00 101
his literary style .........0.. 102
ON THUOVS: swisvincsenitannedemcncre 226
Thomas, notice of Goethe .... 57
Cesarotti, an Italian poet .............4. 194
“Chaldee Manuscript,” the, by Hogg.... 55
Chambers’s Jowrnah icceseeceeceeseeeenenee 190
Chandos Peerage Case, the................ 123
Chantrey, Sir Francis, the sculptor ..........:..ccccceceeee 79
“ Christabel,” imitation of, by Maginn oo... 92
Christmas books by Thackeray and others..............4 223
“ Christmas Revels,’ a poem by Maclise............0.0 231
Clark, Hliza, MSS. Dy......cceeeeseetee ene eee eens
“Cockney School” of poetry ...
Cold, seriousness of @..........0:000 sees

Coleridge, 8. T., “ philosophy” of ....
his classical attainments ...

 

 

plagiarisms of ‘e
POSEY OF, siscces stvtenesmn nse se) nmonueeoninne wes
on Homeric and Ovidian metres
Colman, George, his “ Iron Chest,” taken from “ Caleb
Williams’ .......ccccveres camara radi dieaNRNTtaRaendNes we 142

 

 

2
236 INDEX.

Colton, Rev. C. C., his satire on Hallam ............000.. 220
Constant, Benjamin, his opinion of Béranger
Cookery, one of the fine arts

 
 
  
 
  

 

 

 

SMOG lISh:. cicckunis dela genelunanempaiemmansaeeninanaatieens ie:

German: seanassenaamascnnaremanrs ween -ceRaaRe 71
Copley, John Singleton, the painter....... sdibahbce dale 202
Copyright of authors .............ceee ee vikcnea font 195
Cork, Academy at ........ vi. 228

eminent men natives Of .........cccceeceeeeeeee eee 26
Corney, Bolton, his attack on D’Isracli ............00006 63
Cornhill Magazine, its establishment .....,... 197, 224
Cortes, Hernan, life of by Trueba ......ceecceeceece cee ees 38
Crauford, Mr., his collection of portraits se 208
Croker, Crofton, a friend of Maclise .............0..c0e ee 229

Croker, John Wilson, his review of “ Peter Plymley’s
PACE UO TS? senipe mats tii cassasincrnbinh danonanmemae dimedaactianianten

Cromek, his ‘‘ Reliques of Burns” ....

“ Croquis, Alfred,” pseudonym of Maclise.. i a

“ Crowquill, Alfred, ” pseudonym of A. H. Forrester... 63

Cruikshank, George, his etchings for W. H. Ains.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  
   

 

 

worth’s novels ., aiseararene . 136
etchings for “ Ti ack Sheppard PAE 135

finds fault with his portrait in the “ Gallery” 227

his designs for “ Rejected Addresses” ......... 145

at burial of Thackeray ..... immeimaas 22D

essay on genius of, by Thackeray 109, 228

—— his “ Points of Humour”’............... ...71, 108
the “Prince of Caricaturists ”’ ease LUQ
subscription testimonial for....... . 227

his method of work , “937

 

 

 

Cruikshank, Isaac Robert, engraving ‘by. ve 92
Pie Gihrmatnseimradh: Antec ane wie LOD
DOLGAIG TOR css t.c uancestarcipanseayssnecds wom atncumncnuate mal 181

D’IsranLi, BENJAMIN .. 98

D’Israertt, Isaac........ 61

D’Orsay, THE COUNT .. 146

DUNTOP, WIEETAM cpasiocaeenish vas aiuneditants seicisoanccees aien 9D

Dagley, Richard, etchings to “ Flim-Flams” .., 62
Dance, George, R.A., the architect . vec 200
Dancing. ves ssecncuncunnened trcencanatduatoaane vPauieenadicis 183
Daniel, George, his opinion of Sydney Smith ......... 217
Daulby, his catalogue of Rembrandt’s etchings......... 88

   
   
  
   
 
   
  

Davy: UMA PRY sc sccccsina va aervatiinniscagnrasacaesoten ataleaayae canines
Death, Sir Walter Raleigh on ro
sudden, desirability of ..
Debure’s collection of portraits — ,
Dickens, Charles, editor of Daily News apa
dedicates “Pickwick”? to Talfourd.
eulogy on Maclise ......... cee ccecce cence cee eee cee ees
his intimacy with Maclise ...............0..0.0044
his sudden fame.................

D'Israeli’s “ Coningsby” esipaurnies
UMOS DY an curercvevmserann aemaeaeeiesel
Donaldson, Dr., his attack on Bulwer
Drunkenness, Dr. Trotter and Macnish on
Drury, H. J. T., his trick upon Scott ......... tone
Dubois, Edward ibe uel asbeh asc neces goon Vlanciaiads Nea waniniedon

 

 

 

 

 

 

EGERTON, LORD FRANCIS ..........cessececececeeceuseeecsess 163
“ Hcho and Silence,” sonnet on er 1238
Edinburgh Review, the ..........6...5 eee ... 214, 215
Edwin, the comedian ........00.. cece cceccecceaceece vee 44
Egan, Pierce, author of ‘“ Life in London ” . 108

Elizabeth, Queen, coin with her effigies ....0...0......... 199
Ellis, F. §., the bookseller, his copy of the “Gallery” 227
Ellis, Sir Henry, the antiquarian .......00......ceeceeeee ees 68
Elphinstone, Miss, the actress ............0........ is
Mountstuart, the historian ....,
Emperor of the French, the late ........
“uglish Grammar,” by W. Cobbett .. a
“English Spy,” a satirical work .....0.000.0 cee

“ Englishism,” a word coined by C. R. Pemberton .., 177
“ Examiner,” the, by Leigh Hunt a
“* Hxquisites,” the, a novel........cccssceesesseseeecsereees

 

 

 

FARADAY, MICH ABD inca ancaencaawal geoapusuenennseas quences
Farmer, Dr., on “ Learning of Shakspeare ”
“Faust,” by Goethe: iyi cis s0r ciictnawinss saecwnse ons 2

“ Feast of the Poets,” by Leigh Hunt ov...

 

 

 

  
   
   
  
    
 
    
 
   
  
 
 
  

Page
“ Plim-Flams,” a Rabelaisian romance ..........66.0e ee 62
Forde, the artist Se
Morgeries, iterary® <scininenacomietunasenninnnca sana 10, 23, 78
Forrester, Alfred Henry, the comic artist ............... 63
Porater; JOH: sccaviinacnunarieiorewiaieannvenaenaesta

Mostolo; U0 cwseetu reine nctiponets aden
“ Frankenstein,” by Mrs. Shelley.
Braser’s Magaztne, sssscarciniisicascacnawisawsiiwvesenesie
Frost, John, the antiquarian i
Fugger family, the, of Augsburg ..........cccceece eer eeeene

GRATES, QIOREN 5 sisi stsazeanse vansicisiesaten sins oiiecci aso eto TaN ag eERS
GLEIG, THE Rev. Georce Ropert ....
GODWIN), WILGTARE 5 isiuayseanowarniasaies

GoETHE, THE BARON VON ...........0008
Galt, John, and the Canada Company
“ Garret,” the, a song by Béranger......
Gastronomy, a fine art wo... ee
Gay, his epitaph .............
Genius and insanity .....
infirmities of .
Gentleman’ s Magazine, the ifs isanie Poe TR aA eats
George IV., macaronic lines on, by Leigh Hunt.. 5
caricatured by G. Cruikshank.............6000000
German language ........c cee cee eee see cee nes ee aee nee nee tonees
Gifford, William, his sneer at Mary Robinson .........
Gilbert, Davis, the antiquarian
Gillman, Joseph, the surgeon
Gore House, Kensington .........
“ Gourmand” and “ Gourmet”
Grandville, J. J., the French artist .....

Greek criticism, Hallam’ s blunder in ... :
translation of Gray’s “ Elegy and “Bard” 220
Gregory; Barnard iijcccc coisas siosesunes setucemneeanaes Be
“Grenier, Le,” a — - Bee st

Grief, remedies for .. , se

 

 

 

LAL, MRS Ss: Oh, cisaigaisais waenenoiarnrantaninan sunkil/aaeaminnanigia 189
Hariam, Henry ..... .. 67, 219
FLrpay "THOMAS dasanwepesiencgenenndancaneenedanritomenaseaave neti 137
Hosnovss, Sir Joun C. ....... antataey vee LOL
HOGG; JAMES- iscsisancunedaamenendnnuetnanedih scan D4
Hoox, THEODORE EH. we 126
UY, EE « cssicnesaanvesdasaranndaaiwidcaivce re veeansduet en 132
Haggis, Scotch, its excellence ............cce cece eee eee 70
Pall, Mr. SiC). sis siamnnecnrcrenvalimpancamorsisacwanres 190, 229

 

his “Book of Memories,’ quotations from
Preface, X., ae

 

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

his opinion of Maclise ..........ccccc ie cee eee eee eee
his prophecy regarding Maclise i "539
MPR: Se Gre shiiahagienscainem indenter sistemtenhoi wimaswartibee 183
Hallam, Arthur Henry, his precocity and early death 221
Hallam, Henry, his histories ................cscee cesses eee eee 27
and R. Payne Knight oo... cece eeeee 220
blunder in Greek criticism ... ...67, 220
Hamilton; Sir Willtamt seins sessweaeccousw oainoesotea tise aneaes 34
W. R.; the antiquarian .....,..... A weve 67
Handwriting, importance of good .......... 218
Hannay, James, his opinion of Thackeray .... weve 225
Harding, §., his ‘“‘ Biographical Mirrour”’ ......... ve, 209
Haslam’s “ Letters to the Clergy,” prosecuted......... 196
Hayward, A., his prose translation of “Faust” ...... 164
Hazlitt, W., his description of Cobbett 176
his portrait of J. S. Knowles ........:.::: eee
Heber, Reginald, his prize poem, “Palestine” ...... 15
Hemans, Mrs., the poetess ..........ccsceeee eee eee cena renee 111

Hertford, Lord, his bequest to J. W. Croker .
“ Hermippus Redivivus,”’ by Cohausen
Hetherington, Henry, prosecution of .....
Hexameters, Latin, by “‘ Bobus” Smith ni
Hobbes, edition of the works of ................::0:0s0eee
Hobhouse, Sir Benjamin, author of “ Travels in

  

 

 

  
 

Hranoe,) Bios. gf. casasieniatnensduanhacendadans mamutehanan tens 193
Hogan, the sculptor ... .. 26, 228, 229
Hogarth, William, ‘“ Anecdotes” of, by Nichols......... 68
Hoge; Jama’ ...2sexerneeesmner rr ercersanoent anaes 34, 78, 79

lines on death of, ‘by Wordsworth ............... 63
Holland, Sir Henry, M. D. Miuacecmemariasendiient w., 219
- Homeric Ballads,” by Maginn ... 26

Hone, William, religious parodies by si ieiannaniemad: 55
 

INDEX. 237

 

 
  

Page

Hone, William, his “ Facetiaa,? &6. ..c.ccccccccssesecnevees 107
political caricatures by......... .. 107
“Horace in London,” by, the Brothers Smith ......... 145
Hotten, John Camden... -.......ecceccccccceecee Preface, ix., 226

 
  
  
  

“ Fancy Concert,” a poem by
his macaronics on George IV.

 

 

 

 

 

  
  

 

  
 
  

 

Invine, WASHINGTON o.oo cececcecceceeecuseerseeuas 46
Improvisations of Theodore Hook ...... i Sawoxauaoratens se 129
Intemperance, our national vice ........c.eccecceees 108, 190
“Ton” of Euripides ......0....., sesseee 196
of Serjeant Talfourd..... ... 196
““Treland, Fairy Legends of” ............... .. 80
Ireland, W. H., the Shakepearian forger.....,.. ve 65
“Trish Melodies,” Latin version of Moore’s ............ 21
“Trish Stage, Familiar Epistles on,” by J. W. Croker 44
Italian literature, modern ...........0..ccccsceesseeeececeeues 194
“Ttaly :” a poem, by Rogers .........cccsccsecsseseeeeees 16
JERDAN, WILLIAM 0....0... ccc cccccesccececeueceseaceccesceenes 9
and Miss Landon .0.........0..ccccceeseeceessvene eee 113
his mutilation of portrait of Sir John Soane... 199
letter from Mrs. 8. C. Hall to .......ccccceeeee eee 190
Jeffrey, Francis, his visit to Sydney Smith ....... .. 216
Jew, the Wandering we 82
Jewish literature ,....... st aeuaee ae we §©<62
TACO sii, adtclayunoseue sieniademess se OD
Johnson, Dr. Samuel, his favourite dishes ............... 70
“Jolly Nose,” song by W. H. Ainsworth, a translation
from the Froneh 5, scsissawas wtgaaiacseeita ves cecejaielievanses 136
Jouy, M., his opinion of Béranger ................... ». 155
Jones, Richard Roberts, an extraordinary linguist. 88
“ Judaism, Genius of,” by D’Israeli. 63
KNOWLES, SHERIDAN oo... ccsccsccscecccesecsusaeeune ven senses 202
Kaleidoscope, invention of ............... .. 83, 84
sonnet on, by M. F. Tupper..............cccseee ees 84
Kaulbach, his illustrations of “Reineke Fuchs” ...... 155

Keightley, Mr., assisted in Croker’s “Fairy Legends” 30
Kempe, A. J., the antiquarian ...........0....c0cccceeeeeeee 66
Kemble, Charles, his castigation of C. M. Westmacott 131

 

   
 

 

 

  
    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Fanny, insulted by C. M. Westmacott ......... 131
Kenealy, Edward Vaughan, his “Brallaghan” .......... 27
eloquent passage by ..........ccccecceeeeeae ee su. 28
Life of Maginn ..........ccceecceseeueeeee aan 27
Kircher, Father, his polygonal speculum......... sane 84
Kirk, Thomas, the artist.............ccccecccceeceeuneseeeee uss 187
Kit-Kat Club.........0..... ..161, 209
Kneller, Sir Godfrey 1... cece ceeceesseseneeeceesan esses 209
Knight, R. P., his “ Inquiry into Principles of Taste” 220
“ Kunstler Lexicon”? of Nagler, amusing error in ... 109
LAMB, CHARLES voce ceeceeceeseeseeeeees sbpinishtcn tela asunnsitis 149
TGANDONS, MASS: tsscccecantemisaneresieth saucy a baqunn site dive cae alls
LarpNer, Reverend Doctor ssi segs. “WL
LockHakt, JOHN GIBSON ............ si joie A
LopGE, EDMUND ........c.ccecseeeseeese wise wo. 206
Lynpuurst, LorbD ........... 201
“Lady of Lyons,” by Bulwer ving 76)
“ Lady’s Pocket Adonis,” a song by Maginn .....,...... 60
Lamb, Charles, his “ Satan in Search of a Wife” ... 169
his lines to Sheridan Knowles................00005 204
“ On the Melancholy of Tailors” .... 226
W. 8. Landor on w..ceccicceecseeeseesees 151
Lambe, Rev. Robert, a literary forger.......... 78
Landon, Miss, her death...............ccecse eee enee we 113
her poem, ‘“‘ Vow of the Peacock”’......... we 231
one of Rearna’s “ Maids of Honour” ......... 182
Landor, W. S., his influence on Southey.............:006 187
‘Lawrie Todd,” by Galt.......c.cccccecceceeeee eee eee ees 117, 118
“Lay of the Twaddle School,” Montgomery and
Bayly” —scasscatcadiasuasemmntdca seit vvawadvehvendel sai Re TO 42
Lee Priory private printing-press.... 124
Lemon, Robert, the antiquarian ......... Pe

Libel, Jeremy Bentham’s definition of...
“ Liberal,” the, by Leigh Hunt................ccceeeseev eee 133
Life Academy, the, drawing of, by Thomas Rowlandson 131
“ Life in London,” by Pierce Egan .....:c:csccersi neers 107

 

Page
Linguists, eminent..........0.cccccccseseeeee ees Preface, viii., 88
Literary Fund, dispute of Sir John Soane with......... 199

 

Literature, as a profession
English, epochs of..................4.
Lockhart, J. G., his epitaph on Maginn
his article on Theodore Hook ................0008

   
  
 
  
  
   
 
    
 

 

 

 

 

writer of notice of Maginn
Long, St. John, the quack ...............0.5
Longfellow, song by, Latin version of

Loss of books, a calamity to the scholar ................55 87
Lytton, Lord, his death .0..........ccccseesevce een eee Preface, viii

MACLISE, DANIEL, Ri Ais oss sos oxcesaaciseinwednues saiaecewnes 228
Macnisu, Roperr ....... sania ‘i
Maciny, WILLIAM ....
Martineau, Miss H..........
Mitrorp, Mary Russexr ...
MOILR, DOCTOR: sasccuancaddrrenin per ueene
MoteswortH, Sir WILLIAM
Monreomery, ROBERT...........
Moorz, THOMAS ............... he
MORGAN, -sTHA DY cg ces nacnnununussennen sees wax amasamee seamondeoigs
MORIER, JAMES cis seacatesawdacinnaninen ver vbianainpian
Muterave, EArt oF ....
Monster, Hart OF ............
Macaulay, T. Babington
Maclise, Daniel, R.A., destruction of his portrait o:
Sir John Soane ..............065
his etching of O’Brien..........
—— his “Gallery of Portraits”

 

 

 

——— memoir of, by O’Driscoll ........ eee 233
Joseph, the surgeon aistecieeta/etagini tas 232
Magic, Natural ................ , we 85
Maginn, Dr., assisted by Thackeray .............. 223
a prison companion of Theodore Hook .. 129

biographical notice of, by EH. Kenealy ......... 27
described by “ Theodore Taylor”
editor of Fraser’s Magazine.........0:.6ccceees
funeral of, by Kenealy ............00. ccs ceecee ences
Grantley Berkeley on .............

his attachment to Miss Landon ....
his friendship with Maclise ............
his macaronics on St. John Long
imitation of “Christabel” by............
Lockhart’s epitaph on ..............0.
parodies on Moore by ........... oe
parody on Wordsworth by ..........
portrait of, by Skillin; of Cork ....
reminiscence of by Maclise ........
satiric verses on, by A. A. Watts ...
BODE: DY sircaiseickwnainnd eaatoaauisstoihs vemandi We’
BONNGES DY aso casinedosnticeudbadanasine 5
“The Wine-Bibber’s Glory” .........cccceseeees
writer of the notices to illustrate the

  

TTTPETLA TTT

 

 

 

 
   

  
 
  
   

 

    

  

Gallery? scetuccuanai sd dadysvee enema Preface, viii., 26, 229
Magliabechi .............:ccsesseceee 88
Mahony, Rev. Franci: ve 96
Malthusian theory of superfecundity ..... ve 168
“ Manesty, John,” a novel, by Maginn .. ree
“ Mansie Wauch,” by Moir ...............65. 24, 110, 111, 226
Martin, Francis, the antiquarian ..........0....:cceeeee 66
Martineau, Miss, one of Ruaina’s “ Maids of Honour” 183
Mathews, Charles, sen. ..........cccsecsesseueeeae eee eeesne eee 145

Charles, jun. .... vee 94
“Maxims of O’Doherty” ., eet it
Mazza, an Italian poet ..... vee 194
Medical profession, the ................6065 s 180
Medico-Botanical Society of London ..... sis woe 65
Medmenham Abbey, orgies at ...........:cseceeeeeees ve 198

 

Mercandotti, the dancer, married to Hughes Ball...... 148
Meursius, the critic, obscene book attributed to him 18

 

 

Mezzofanti, Cardinal ................ceceecseeeeeeneeenee een ene 88
Michelet, the historian ................008 wi wee 86
Milman, his “ Apollo Belvidere ” ves U5
Milton, blindness of ...............00000 iain cae 63

lost work: Dy scsisa ies siavadanngdinigs wenstermvestan ven 65

Mitford, Mary Russell, one of Reoina’s “Maids of
ONO 5, i iiea sauce nsaaadonbod eiwyedashecmadamaeunatesndawsis
* Modern Pythagorean,” the, by Macnish

 
238 INDEX.

   
  

 

 

 

Page

“ Mohawks,” the, a satire ..... auigone stl .,. 160
Montagu, Basil ae ; Jane LOD
Montgomery, Robert, and 'T. H. ‘Bayly ditesiigpceacdatouditiys 42
and A. A. Watts aia ialacavarataacotSa Trg sadipaeaedaien 161

Moore, epigram OM ...........eeee cesses ees wee 126
his controversy with O’Brien ..............00... 166

and Burns, comparison between awa sieeve 20

More, Hannah, her “ Sacred Dramas”? .............ceeee 196
Morgan, Lady, one of Rucina’s “Maids of Honour’ 182
STEIN Ol 2 crc rsnraciy nortan: ai raloracledis aieattnan mena ee 159

 

Moxon, Edward Preface, x
prosecuted for publishing Shelley’s poems ... 196

 

  
  
 
  

 

 

Museum, Sir John Soane’s...........c.ccccecsesceceeseesneeve 199
Norton, Mrs. . ‘etre “ROE
“Nasology,” a treatise o on n Noses, by“ « Eden Warwick”* 51
Newenham, Mr. and Miss, of Cork . reg . 228
Newstead Abbey, revels at ............ we 193
Nicholson, Francis, the artist ...... we. 80
Renton, the “ Baron” ............. ro. 130

Nichols, John Bowyer, the antiquary ....... ve 68
Nicknames given by Cobbett .........0... rane LEE
Nicolas, Sir Nicholas H., the SaURIAy a ’ 67
“* Noctes Ambrosian,” ‘the asaaiies ; ve 84
motto OF sancarniaermecnadans vee 181
Normanby, the Marquess of ............ vee 173
Northcote, the painter, on Godwin ............ccesee cence 142

Norton, Mrs., one of Rectna’s “ Maids of Honour”’.., 182

 

   

Nose, Lord Brougham’s, peculiarity of 51
ON OG8S: OT: NOB OS) os sassarciatien nnuarenaaenantnatenianniat coe OL
OLBRTEN, ENED j xénisasiaaranasamdesah sey adamant etch 165
O’CoNNELL, DANIEL ..........cc.ce cece vee 124
Obscurity of Coleridge and Goethe 104
O'Doherty, Sir Morgan, on dining 7
“Ortis, Jacopo, Ultime Lettere di” 194
“Our Village,” by Miss Mitford ........ 36
Ouverture, Toussaint l’ ............... accent w 116
“ Owls,’’ the, a London Society...............ccccce cee eeeene 205
“ Owen Meredith” (Hon, Ed. Rob. Lytton) ...Preface, viii
PUACE; -PRENGIS: ss:i:.cguanconcenamenherenirianiiat staaiee 178, 226
PORTER, MISS JANE iicseccccseccsesssccecseneecteesssesssees 156

Paine, Tom, his bones brought to England by W.
EON ee) des aaa ante
Painters, portraits of, at Florence
Paisley, Scottish poets born at .. es
“ Palestine,” a prize poem by Heber |
Palgrave, F. T., his remarks on George Cruikshank ... 108

 
   

 

Palmerston, Lord SAMI Nes wacadanagovsinnte uooaus . =689
Parini, Joseph, an Italian poet.. woe 194
Parr, Dr., his favourite dishes ................ wae 70
linguistic combat with R. R. Jones, 88
his quarrel with W. Godwin 143

 

 

  
   
  

Pathos and Humour ..........ccesesceaseesuseeseesevavaseeees
“Paul Pry,” character of

“ Peddlington (Little),” by Poole ............ccccseceeees 145
Peel, Sir Robert, his generosity to Dr. Maginn .......... 27
ee Pelham,” by Bulwar epaladietdasaiilacnasicorimtaaasi aman wien 0D
“ Peru, Conquest of,” by Trueba ................ ve 28
“ Peter Porcupine,” pen-name of Cobbett ...... wee 175
‘“‘Peter’s Letters to his Kinsfolk” o..0.0...0ccccceeeee eee 14
Peter’s (Saint) chairat Rome, controversy respecting 160

Peyrese, his gallery OF “POLEEATES: oc ccceanndcesene eieaswoes 208
Phallic tower in Syria ..........., is

Phallos, worship of ...........
Phillips, Samuel, the late ....
Phrenology, Macnish on.............
“ Physiognomical Portraits,” the ................
Pindemonte, Hippolito ..........e ee eaee
Pinkerton, John, his ‘ Scottish Gallery ”
Place, Francis, ‘‘ Notes” on
Plurality of worlds, discussion on
“Plymley’s (Peter) Letters,” by Sydney Smith ...... 214

 

    
   
 

 

Page
Poetry, definition Of ..c.cscssceevcesvenssneesencetveeseneneens 111
English, epochs of. bbaatews .. 22, 81, 104, 186

 

 

 

   
  
  
 
 
 
    
  
   
 

 

 

 

modern “ Spasmodic ” Gunes ee emaveeinsee 22, 59
principles of, discussion BA hoiclaapcouaiek 188
Poole, John, author of “ Paul Bey pecs 145
Pork, Southey’s fondness for.......ce.eseee eee 3 . 70
Portraits in Dublin University Magazine ...... Preface, viii
Porta, Baptista, his parabolic speculum .................. 84
Porter, Anna Maria, the novelist ............0scseneneueevee 158
Jane, one of Rearna’s “ Maids of Honour”... 183
Porter, Sir Robert Ker ........0ccscsescessnsavaeseseeeseees 158
Portraits, Continental collections Of............ss0ceesse eee 208
POPUPEMGUPSY iti secon aaecstrextaneadiin vaueniedoe wees 207
fondness of the English for  ........:sseese seen 207
Power; Mr. suicide OF xs senevnrcsmemnineensueas sanoosres cits 125
Praed, « Athens,” a prize poem by .. eae 175
Prescott, the historian, blindness of ..........6.cccccesee eee 63
Priapic worship ss Leactiieenstod baseecec hak cet avs 2OG
Prize poems ...........6.ceceeseeeeee bb deen 75
“Prout, Father” (F. Mahony) we 96
Reliques of ........ vies. 10%
on Miss Landon... saaieage teria 112
Publishers, popular books rejected by. SiHtuaD SOL EORLEO 47
BEUPIGICyOb: sunnsiccats ancwareadanaoaariee emiieiinainnnel ise 4:7

 

‘ Puffiad,” the, a satire, by R. eed iene 53
“ Punster’s Pocket. Book,” the ... sais

Quarterly Review, the.. j
Queen Elizabeth, her jokes 1 upon tailors .........
Quillinan, Edward, the poet .. seiner
Quintus Curtius, judgment of ‘Lipsius o1 on

 

     
 
   
  

Recina’s Marts OF HONOUR............ccceseeeeneen een eee 182
Rocers, SaMUEL.... 15
Roscor, WILLIAM 85
Ross, CApfalin .........00 va L18
Russety, Lorp Jogn ..... wee 41
Rabelais, his last words.. 102
Redding, Cyras ........:cccece cesses ece cesses eee eee tee nee ee neee 10
“Reformation, Protestant, the “History of,” by W.
COBDS bE as cnsccan raaaatennecmnnne tiene sorta iacnactavia @aendin emi 177
* Rejected Addresses,” the st
“Representative,” the ..........
‘Retrospective Review,” the ........cccccceeeeeeeee eee ees 67
Reynolds, Sir Joshua, neglect of his own rules......... 81
“ Roast Pig, Dissertation on,” by Charles Lamb ...... 70
Rosser, W. H., the antiquarian ................cccse cee eee ene

Rossetti, D. G., his article on the “ Gallery’’......
Round towers of Ireland, O’Brien on ...............
Hon. Reginald Herbert’s theory of the...
Rowlandson, Thomas, the artist ..........:..eege
Royal Society of Literature ................. 06

‘‘Ruminator,” the, by Sir E. Brydges
Ruskin, Mr. J., on G. Cruikshank................:0665

 

  
  
 

BUSSEM, Mat) si ouesaiaanaisaviananinnnes anaiaawreniudunioonndnnaiviee
SaDLER, MICHAEL THOMAS ............c00cereeeu eee ... 168
Scorr, Sir WALTER .............. ais ger 2
SHEIL, RicHarp LALOR .............000 vw. 124
SMirn, JAMES oe sriesnate .» 148
Smirn, Rev. SYDNEY ...... Hegicrngers we 213
Soanz, Sir JOBN............ sccavarad siounccnione LOE
Sainthill, Mr., of Cork oo... ccceeceeeeeee tener eee eee eee 228
Sandwich, Lord ............ccceesee eee eeeees astadnagiSiptrais 193
Samnazarius, his epigram on Venice ......seeeeeseeeseens 145
“ Satan in Search of a ee oe ae Lamb ...... 169
Satire ; - iesnaicttoneet
Sayers, Mr., the poet .

Scaliger, the younger, a dependant upon charity ...... 105
Scotland, poets Of .......cccccscsceeeeeeee eee nee eee ree n nee eee 54

 

Sydney Smith on .............

Scott, Sir Walter, imitations of
— his visit to Cork.........

hoaxes On .........65 ii

shape of his head. ..,iscc0isicsncassansnncrescnnen sive

 

 

 

 

* “Eden Warwick” was the pen-name of George Jabet, solicitor, of Birmingham, who died at Handsworth, July 13th,
1873. He was author also of the elegant volume “The Poet’s Pleasaunce: « Garden of Pleasant Flowers,” 1849,

square 8vo.
INDEX. 239

 
  
 

 

Page

Scottish poetry ...... saseuiinie Tl
“ Seaward, Sir E., Diary ‘of; » by “Miss Porter. atin 157
Seymour, the caricaturist isin alastroncewearo MARNE taNtadiey od antidoningy 223
“Shandon Bells,” the, by Mahony .. duudeecssbnnie 97
Shee, Sir Martin Archer, PRA. ..cccccccccccesseeven cence 229
Shelley, prosecution for publishing his works ......... 196
Mrs., daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft ......... 143

Shepherd, Rev. W., author of “Life of Poggio Brac-

LOL ia epsct sine atin sass oe Unie Snahci sc syinpinnsgaiieis snneiireitauiecs
Siddons, Mrs., her opinion of Mary Wollstonecraft ... 116
Signs, the science Of ..........cccceceeseneceseesee cea seecesune
** Silver Po,” the, a ballad by Hook...
“ Sketches from St. George’s Fields a
Sketches, the original, by Maclise, for the “ Gallery”? 229
Skillin, Mr., of Cork, his portrait of Dr. Maginn ...... 27
Smith, “ Bobus,” NOWMC OOF ca; sas :cacia ia naienisnsinsanainncevieawios 219
Latin verses by ..
Smith, Rev. Sydney, on Lerd Brougham
on Rogers’s dinners ............0seeee eee
“ Smith,’ surname of
Smoking oc
ONS SWTIEIN GE  sosare dvionnomranainnsatn earns ianciee audbaracionyeccsercan
Southey, visit of James Hogg to him ..............00008
his love for pork ...........00085 isa
his saying about critics ........
lines on the death of his wife .
Soyer, M., history of Cookery by .......
Spurzheim, his saying of Maclise..
Standard, the ...cicccecccsseveeceeeeees a
Sterline, Earl of, a fine old poet ...............
Sterling, John, his opinion of Thackeray .....
“Story of Elizabeth,” in Cornhill nei
Stothard, Charles Alfred suataincusaiee uneoomnetueinayn

 
 

   
  
 
  
  
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Surtees, R., his imposition on Scott... : : seat eng
Swain, Charles, his lines on Miss Landon ...
Swedenborg, the Times on

 

 

 

 

  
 
  
  

 

Swift, his “Talo of a Tub” sss vensiwcarseacasags eowses vavane

an Irishman only by accident of birth ......... 222

on old age 16
Sym, Mr., “Timothy Tickler,’”’ of Blackwood 56
TALRVOURD,, MUR, ‘SERIMAND 2 cuss vesienssiautauneny nates 194
TALLEYRAND, PRINCE: DE saapisrenvisasaummreweiesoneeriie 89
THACKERAY, W. M. 0... cece eee ee sa aoe vee EOE Ne 222
THORBURN, GRANT .., eye LE
ODT GBR, UTI: ssscricanvatna,aiaenciesret accataraattamipioalntearbateds ve 95:
Trurpa v Cosio, Don TELESFORO DE sve 37
TYDUS-POOH-POOH! siiciconsiauseonge seecmaties 45
Table-turning ......... 185
Tailor, a generous 226
Tailor-jokes ............ vive 226
Tailors, learned. sijewiesesiscnrasissanstscemsenion venareusancuoetiens 226
Talfourd, T. N., on W. Godwit.....c.cecescsecessenseeeeeees 142

Cefends MoxON, sis icersiisssccsseserrevonerss vaetaonee 196
Talleyrand, his bons-mots ........s00056 wircosweens 90
Tansillo, Luigi, his “Nurse, ? &C. oe. .seseceseseeeeeeee ees 88
Temperance, advocates Of ........6cseeeerte eee ... 108, 190
Tennyson, Alfred, his ‘In Memoriam” .............6006 221

  

“Tentamen,” a political satire, by Theodore Hook .,, 128
Thackeray and Lady Blessingt0on........sceeceeseseenes
Thackeray on George Cruikshank ..........:..004
“Thaddeus of Warsaw,” by Miss Jane Porter .
“Thanatopsis”’ of Bryant, beauty of the ........
Thierry, the historian, blindness of ..............056
Thimm, Franz, his “‘ Literature of Germany”
Thomson, James, the poet, on early rising ......... 0
Thornbury, Walter, on George Cruikshank...............
Thornhill, Sir James, his portrait of Jack Sheppard 136
Tickler, Timothy (Sym) iscissecseeceeseesenseerteneees 56

 

Page
Tobacco, excellence Of .......cscceceeeve tse eeeee ses eeeees 12,13
Turner, J. M. W., his illustrations for ‘Ss. ee
es Italy ” and “Poems”

 
   
 

   

 
  
 
   
 

 

 

 

Tweddell, John, his BUG I ceecersantteaahne pick ncoiies 157
Dope, Lovis WUStiCke ccccissomscrcmmvericanrn eee 68
United Service Gazette iiccccccccvcseveeveresneneentner tence 163
Vailpyy; Revs. Dire. sssnienssiai nerd antentantnanassigaiaainlaues idee 195
“Varieties of Foreign Literature’? ...........ccceseeeee eee 62
Vatel, the French cook, suicide of ....... 69
Velocipedes .............000 aniseed Blhee tas 92
Vertue, the engraver ........0...-400 ae .. 208
“Vie de Village en Angleterre” ...........ccesee ee ve 86
“ Virginius,”’ by Sheridan Knowles and others ......... 204
Vivian: Grey,” key tO: s:avnsosdexasananes ensesenviois aap 99)
Volney, author of “Les Ruines’”’..........cccceeceeee eee eee 202
Voltaire, his interviews with Talleyrand... sive 90
“Vow of the Peacock,” a poem, by Miss Landon...... 230
Watts, ALARIC Danii: sesushicestintave uid Sio ald bd eeoame AG Settee 161
WeEstMAcoTT, CHARLES Monuoy sieissisan, 2D)
Witson, Joun . 33
WorbDsworte, WIttran .. 79
Walmsley, Edward .. y tigana vroutsy LOD
Walpole, Horace, on life.. ci aimmlaaie iarenereat aren ae ceeueentinPIO 101
Warburton, his advice to Anstey ..........c0ceeceeseeeee eee 145
Ward, Edward, his ‘‘ History of the Grand Rebellion” 208
“ Warreniana,” by W. FB. Deacon.............ccecee eee ees 86
Water-drinking ......... cece eee eee eee es sits wee 56
Watson, Rev. J. Selby ......... 0c cece eee eee 21, 62
Watts, Rev. Dr. Isaac, a little man.......... wage 29
Watts, A. A.. and R. Montgomery ..........., vis 32
his criticism on Maclise’s portraits...... oe 230
editor of “ Kit-Kat Club” ...........0.5 wo. 209
Ws WEASOD s sisiiscectnieinarciniviivisiiesese sn seieabiveise .. 162
Weimar, society at..... mininemise isso, 222
Wensleydale Peerage ..... ogundneuaseestyensaa LOD
Werther and Charlotte ........cscee wee LTA
Westminster Palace, frescoes at oo... cece ceeeee ree eee ene 231
Westminster Review, essay in on George Cruikshank,
by Whacketay? pesos susauubeawatinetnanivanaitesiacancbaay 223
“Whistlebinkie,” by Maginn and others.. ... 60
“ Whitehall; or, Days of George IV.,” by Maginn wi 26.
Wife, on loss of, by Jeffrey and Southey ieamecnas sa
Witten, J. H., translator of Tasso, &.......c

Zillah Madonna (Mrs. A. ‘AL Watts) .
WIS), DIGI ss racinestretearetarciarcedsitagibetdirua aoteontadeattaiaa anes
Williams, Sir Charles Hanbury, bis “Odes”? ..,
Wine-drinking sascsnces ase ies tonevvaue snaninssaa vero anien
Wit of Theodore Hook and Sydney Smith compared ae
Witticisms of Sydney Smith... cece eee eee ee eee
Wollstonecraft, Mary, her character .. Se euieuiinee a
her ‘“‘shameless books” ........ sicgngerbat wae 115

 

 

 
 

 

 

——— marries William Godwin ... Sis aang 143
mother of Mrs. Shelley oo... cece cece eee eee 143
Woman, her position in the Drama, and on the Stage 205
Wordsworth, his lines on death of James Hogg......... 63
his theory of Poetry.........cc cece eee ee wate: OL

 

 

lines from ‘“ Peter Bell” . .
Wrangham, Archdeacon, his Latin version of Sir E.

Brydges’ sonnet on “ Hcho and Silence”
Wright, Thomas, on George Cruikshank .....,.......
Wyon, William, A.R.A., and Pistrucci......cccessesee ees

 

 

Yates, Edmund, his quarrel with Thackeray ............ 225

“Tanodni,” by Bulwer is icevsmsiaisotuancsanvvandionnrennecesa 15
key to, by Miss Martineau... ccccseeeeeees 76

 

 

WYMAN AND SONS, PRINTERS, GREAT QUEEN STREET, LONDON, W.C.
               

                

\\
QS
\

~ aS
\

SENS

 

        
   

   

 
     

  

Ss

       

  

 

 

ec