FLORA ROOSrRTS COFFIN 
 LiGRARY . 
 
 COMMUHIX.Y HOU€E 
 NO....^fefe li
 

 
 THE 
 
 LITERARY CHARACTER; 
 
 OR THE HISTORY OF 
 
 MEN OF GENIUS, 
 
 JBtainn from tf)£ir oton Jcelinsg antj Confessiong. 
 - LITERARY MISCELLANIES: 
 
 AND AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 THE CHARACTER OF JAMES THE FIRST. 
 
 BY 
 
 ISAAC DISRAELI. 
 
 EDITED BY HIS SON, 
 
 THE RIGHT HON. B. DISRAELI. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 A. C. ARMSTRONG AND SON, * 
 
 714 Bkoadway. 
 1881.
 
 University Pkess : John Wilson & Son, 
 Cambridge.
 
 AUTHOE'S PREFACE. 
 
 Thb following Preface was prefixed to an Edition of 
 the author's Miscellaneous "Works in 1840. They were 
 comprised in a thick 8vo volume, and included the 
 Calamities and Quarrels of Authors, now published 
 separately. This Preface is of interest for the expression 
 of the author's own view of these works. 
 
 This volume comprises my writings on subjects chiefly of our 
 vernacular literature. Now collected together, they offer an 
 unity of design, and aflford to the general reader and to the 
 student of classical antiquity some initiation into our national 
 Literature. It is presumed also, that they present materials for 
 thinking not solely on literary topics ; authors and books are 
 not alone here treated of, — a comprehensive view of human 
 nature necessarily enters into the subject from the diversity of 
 the characters portrayed, through the gradations of their facril- 
 ties, the influence of their tastes, and those incidents of their 
 lives prompted by their fortunes or their passions. This present 
 volume, with its brother " Curiosities of Litekatuee," now 
 constitute a body of reading which may awaken knowledge in 
 minds only seeking amusement, and refresh the deeper studies 
 of the learned by matters not unworthy of their curiosity. 
 
 The LiTEEAET Chaeactee has been an old favourite with 
 many of my contemporaries departed or now living, who have 
 found it respond to their own emotions. 
 
 The Miscellanies are literary amenities, should they be 
 found to deserve the title, constructed on that principle early 
 adopted by me, of interspersing facts with speculation. 
 
 The Inquiey into the Litebaet and Political Chaeactee 
 OF James the First has surely corrected some general miscon- 
 ceptions, and thrown light on some obscure points in the history 
 of that anomalous personage. It is a satisfaction to me to 
 observe, since the publication of this tract, that while some 
 competent judges have considered the " evidence irresistible," 
 a material change has occurred in the tone of most writers.
 
 4 AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 The subject presented an occasion to exliibit a minute pictun 
 of that age of transition in our national history. 
 
 The titles of Calamities of Authoes and Quaeeels oi 
 Authors do not wholly designate the works, which include a 
 considerable portion of literary history. 
 
 Public favour has encouraged the republication of these various 
 works, which often referred to, have long been diflScult to pro- 
 cure. It has been deferred from time to time with the intention 
 of giving the subjects a more enlarged investigation ; but I have 
 delayed the task till it cannot be performed. One of the Calami- 
 ties of Authors falls to my lot, the delicate organ of vision 
 with me has suffered a singular disorder,* — a disorder which no 
 oculist by his touch can heal, and no physician by his experi- 
 ence can expound ; so much remains concerning the frame of 
 man unrevealed to man ! 
 
 In the midst of my library I am as it were distant from it. 
 My unfinished labours, frustrated designs, remain paralysed. In 
 a joyous heat I wander no longer through the wide circuit 
 before me. The "strucken deer " has the sad privilege to weep 
 when he lies down, perhaps no more to course amid those far- 
 distant woods where once he sought to range. 
 
 Although thus compelled to refrain in a great measure from 
 all mental labour, and incapacitated from the use of the pen and 
 the book, these works, notwithstanding, have received many 
 important corrections, having been read over to me with 
 critical precision. 
 
 Amid this partial darkness I am not left without a distant 
 hope, nor a present consolation ; and to Hek who has so often 
 lent to me the light of her eyes, the intelligence of her voice, 
 and the careful work of her hand, the author must ever owe 
 "the debt immense" of paternal gratitude. 
 
 London, May, 1840. 
 
 • 1 record my literary calamity as a warning to my sedentary brothers. When 
 my eyes dwell on any oljoct, or wlienover tliey are closed, there appear on a bluish 
 film a number of mathematical squares, which are the reflection of the fine network 
 of the retina, succeeded by blolclies which subside into printed characters, appa- 
 rently forming distinct words, arranged in struigiit lines as in a i>rinted book ; the 
 monosyllables are often legible. This Is the process of a few seconds. It is re- 
 markable that the usual power of the eye is not injured ir dimluishud for distant 
 objects, while those near are clouded over.
 
 OOIsTTENTS. 
 
 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAOH 
 
 Of literary characters, and of the lovers of literature and art . . 33 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 Of the adversaries of literary men among themselves. — Matter-of- 
 fact men, and men of wit. — Tlie political economists. — Of those 
 who abandon their studies. — Men in ofiBce. — The arbiters of 
 public opinion. — ^Those who treat the pursuits of literature with 
 levity 27 
 
 CHAPTER ni. 
 Of artists, in the history of men of literary genius. — Their habits 
 and pursuits analogous. — The nature of their genius is similar 
 in their distinct works. — Shown by their parallel eras, and by 
 a conunon end pursued by both 36 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 Of natural genius. — Minds constitutionally different cannot have 
 an equal aptitude. — Genius not the result of habit and educa- 
 tion. — Originates in pecuhar qualities of the mind. — The predis- 
 position of genius. — ^A substitution for the white paper of 
 Locke 39 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 Tenth of genius. — Its first impulses may be illustrated by its 
 subsequent actions. — Parents have another association of the 
 man of genius than we. — Of genius, its first habits. — Its melan-
 
 6 CONTENTS. 
 
 PASS 
 
 choly. — Its reveries. — Its love of solitude. — Its disposition to 
 repose. — Of a youth distinguished by his equals. — Feebleness 
 of its first attempts. — Of genius not discoverable even in man- 
 hood. — The education of the youth may not be that of his 
 genius. — An unsettled impulse, querulous till it finds its true 
 occupation. — "With some, curiosity as intense a faculty as in- 
 vention. — What the youth first applies to is commonly his 
 delight afterwards. — Facts of the decisive character of genius 48 
 
 CHAPTER YL 
 
 The first studies. — The self-educated are marked by stubborn 
 peculiarities. — Their errors. — Their improvement from the 
 neglect or contempt they incur. — The history of self-education 
 in Moses Mendelssohn. — Friends usually prejudicial in the youth 
 of genius. — A remarkable interview between Petrarch in his 
 first studies, and his literary adviser. — Exhortation . . 79 
 
 CHAPTER yn. 
 
 Of the irritability of genius. — Genius in society often in a state of 
 Bufiering. — Equality of temper more prevalent among men of 
 letters. — Of the occupation of making a great name. — Anxieties 
 of the most successful. — Of the inventors. — Writers of learning. 
 —Writers of taste. — Artists 98 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The spirit of literature and the spirit of society. — The inventors.^ 
 Society offers seduction and not reward to men of genius. — The 
 notions of persons of fasliion of men of genius. — The habitudes 
 of the man of genius distinct from those of the man of society. — 
 Study, meditation, and enthusiasm, tlie progress of genius. — 
 The disagreement between tlie men of the world and tUe literary 
 character 123 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Conversations of men of genius. — Their deficient agroeableness 
 may result from qualities which conduce to their greatness. — 
 Slow-minded men not the dullest. — The conversationists not 
 the ablest writers. — Their true excellence :u conversation 
 consista of associations with their pursuits .... 139
 
 COXTENTS. 7 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Literary solitude. — Its necessity. — Its pleasures. — Of visitors by 
 profession. — Its inconveniences 149 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 The meditations of genius. — A work on the art of meditation not 
 yet produced. — Predisposing the mind. — Imagination awakens 
 imagiaation. — Generating feelings by music. — Slight habits. — 
 Darkness and silence, by suspending the exercise of our senses, 
 increase the vivacity of our conceptions. — The arts of memory. 
 — Memory the foundation of genius. — Inventions by several 
 to preserve their own moral and literary character. — And to 
 assist their studies. — The meditations of genius depend on 
 habit. — Of the night-time. — A day of meditation should precede 
 a day of composition. — Works of magnitude from slight concep- 
 tions. — Of thoughts never written. — The art of meditation exer- 
 cised at all hours and places. — Continuity of attention the 
 source of philosophical discoveries. — Stillness of meditation the 
 first state of existence in genius 157 
 
 CHAPTER XIL 
 
 The enthusiasm of genius. — A state of mind resembling a waking 
 dream distinct from reverie. — The ideal presence distinguished 
 from the real presence. — The senses are really affected in the 
 ideal world, proved by a variety of instances. — Of the rapture 
 or sensation of deep study in art, science, and literature. — Of 
 perturbed feelings, in delirium. — In extreme endurance of atten- 
 tion. — And in visionary illusions. — Enthusiasts in literature and 
 art — Of their self-immolations 183 
 
 CHAPTER XITL 
 
 Of the jealousy of genius. — Jealousy often proportioned to the 
 degree of genius. — A perpetual fever among authors and 
 artists. — Instances of its incredible excess among brothers and 
 benefactors. — Of a peculiar species, where the fever consumes 
 the sufferer, without its malignancy 207
 
 3 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XIY. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Want of mutual esteem among men of genius often originates in 
 a deficiency of analogous ideas. — It is not always envy or jeal 
 ousy which induces men of genius to undervalue each other . 213 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Self-praise of genius. — The love of praise instinctive in the nature 
 of genius. — A high opinion of themselves necessary for their 
 great designs. — The ancients openly claimed their own praise. — 
 And several moderns. — An author knows more of his merits 
 than his readers. — And less of his defects. — Authors versatile 
 in their admiration and their maUgnity 211 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 The domestic life of genius. — Defects of great compositions at- 
 tributed to domestic infelicities. — The home of the literary char- 
 acter should be the abode of repose and silence. — Of the father. 
 — Of the mother. — Of family genius. — Men of genius not more 
 respected than other men in tiieir domestic circle. — The culti- 
 vators of science and art do not meet on equal terms with 
 others, in domestic life. — Their neglect of those around them. — 
 Often accused of imaginary crimes 231 
 
 CHAPTER XVn. 
 
 The poverty of literary men. — Poverty, a relative quality. — Of the 
 poverty of literary men in what degree desirable. — Extreme 
 poverty. — Task-work. — Of gratuitous works. — A project to pro- 
 vide against the worst state of poverty among literary men . 247 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 The matrimonial state of literature. — Matrimony said not to be 
 well-suited to the domestic life of genius. — Celibacy a concealed 
 cause of the early querulousness of men of genius. — Of unhappy 
 unions. — Not absolutely necessary that the wife .should be a 
 literary woman. — Of the docility and susceptibility of the higher 
 female character. — A picture of a literary wife . . . 263
 
 CONTENTS. 9 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 PAGK 
 
 Literary friendships. — In early life. — DiCfcrent from those of men 
 of the "world. — They suffer an unrestrained communication of 
 their ideas, and bear reprimands and exhortations. — Unity of 
 feelings. — A sympathy not of manners but of feelings. — Admit 
 of dissimilar characters. — Their peculiar glory. — Their sorrow. 276 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 The literary and the personal character. — The personal disposi- 
 tions of an author may be the reverse of those which appear in 
 his writings. — Erroneous conceptions of the character of dis- 
 tant authors. — Paradoxical appearances in the history of genius. 
 — Why the character of the man may be opposite to that of 
 his writings 287 
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 
 The man of letters. — Occupies an intermediate station between 
 authors and readers. — His solitude described. — Often the father 
 of genius. — Atticus, a man of letters of antiquity. — The perfect 
 character of a modern man of letters exhibited in Peiresc. — 
 Their utility to authors and artists 298 
 
 CHAPTER XXn. 
 
 Literary old age stiU learning. — Influence of late studies in life. — 
 Occupations in advanced age of the literary character. — Of 
 literary men who have died at their studies . . .313 
 
 CHAPTER XXni. 
 
 Universality of genius. — Limited notion of genius entertained by 
 the ancients. — Opposite faculties act with diminished force. — 
 Men of genius excel only in a single art 320 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 Literature an avenue to glory. — An intellectual nobility not chi- 
 merical, but created by public opinion. — Literary honours of va- 
 rious nations. — Local associations with the memory of the man 
 of genius 326
 
 10 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXT. 
 
 PAQB 
 
 Influence of authors ou society, and of society on authors. — Na- 
 tional tastes a source of literary prejudices. — True genius always 
 the organ of its nation. — Master-writers preserve the distinct 
 national character. — Genius the organ of the state of the age. — 
 Causes of its suppression in a people. — Often invented, but 
 neglected. — The natural gradations of genius. — Men of genius 
 produce their useTulness in privacy. — The public mind is now 
 the creation of the pubUc writer. — Politicians affect to deny this 
 principle. — Authors stand between the governors and the gov- 
 erned. — A view of the solitary author in his study. — They 
 create an epoch in history. — Influence of popular authors. — 
 The immortality of thought. — The family of genius illustrated 
 by their genealogy 339 
 
 LITERARY MISCELLANIES. 
 
 MisceUanists 367 
 
 Prefaces 373 
 
 Style 380 
 
 Goldsmith and Johnson 383 
 
 Self-characters 385 
 
 On reading 388 
 
 On habituating ourselves to an individual pursuit . . . 394 
 
 On novelty in literature 397 
 
 Vers de Societe 401 
 
 The genius of MoliiJre 404 
 
 The sensibility of Racine 424 
 
 Of Sterne 432 
 
 Hume, Robertson, and Birch 443 
 
 Of voluminous works incomplete by the deaths of the authors 456 
 
 Of domestic novelties at fir.st condemned 462 
 
 Domesticity; or, a dissertation on servants .... 474 
 Printed letters in the vernacular idiom 487
 
 CHARACTER OF JAMES THE FHIST. 
 
 Advertisement 495 
 
 Of the first modern assailants of the character of James I., Burnet, 
 
 Boh'ngbroke and Pope, Harris, Macaulay, and "Walpole 499 
 
 His pedantry 501 
 
 His polemical studies . . . . , 503 
 
 how these were political 506 
 
 The Hampton-Court conference 507 
 
 Of some of his writings 514 
 
 Popular superstition of the age 516 
 
 The King's habits of life those of a man of letters 519 
 
 Of the facility and copiousness of his composition 522 
 
 Of his eloquence 523 
 
 Of his wit . 524 
 
 Specimens of Ins humour, and observations on human life 525 
 
 Some evidences of his sagacity in the discovery of truth 530 
 
 Of his " Basilicon Doron" 533 
 
 Of his idea of a tyrant and a King 534 
 
 Advice to Prince Henry in the choice of his servants and associates 536 
 
 Describes the Revolutionists of his time 537 
 
 Of the nobihty of Scotland 538 
 
 Of colonising 539 
 
 Of merchants 539 
 
 Regulations for the Prince's manners and habits 540 
 
 Of his idea of the royal prerogative 543 
 
 The lawyers' idea of the same 544 
 
 Of his elevated conception of the kingly character 548 
 
 His design in issuing "The Book of Sports" for the Sabbath-day 550 
 
 The Sabbatarian controversy 552 
 
 The motives of his aversion to war 555 
 
 James acknowledges his dependence on the Commons ; their con- 
 duct 556 
 
 Of certain scandalous chronicles 560 
 
 A picture of the age from a manuscript of the times 5G4 
 
 Anecdotes of the manners of the age 569 
 
 James I. discovers the disorders and discontents of a peace of 
 
 more than twenty years 578 
 
 Tlie King's private life in his occasional retirements 580 
 
 A detection of the discrepancies of opinion among the decriers of 
 
 James 1 582 
 
 Summary of his character 587
 
 THE 
 
 LITERARY CHARACTER; 
 
 OR, THE 
 
 HISTORY OF MEN OF GENIUS, 
 
 DRA.WN FROM THEIE OWN FEELINGS AND CONFESSIONS.
 
 to 
 
 EOBEET SOUTHET, LL.D., 
 
 &c., «&c., &c 
 
 In dedicating this work to one of the most eminent literary characters 
 of the age, I am experiencing a peculiar gratification, in which, few, 
 perhaps none, of my contemporaries can participate ; for I am addressing 
 him, whose earliest effusions attracted my regard, near half a century 
 past ; and during that awful interval of time — for fifty years is a trial of 
 life of whatever may be good in us — you have multiplied your talents, 
 and have never lost a virtue. 
 
 When I turn from the uninterrupted studies of your domestic solitude 
 to our metropolitan authors, the contrast, if not encouraging, is at least 
 extraordinary. You are not unaware that the revolutions of Society 
 have operated on our literature, and that new classes of readers have 
 called forth new classes of writers. The causes and the consequences 
 of the present state of this fugitive literature might form an inquiry which 
 would include some of the important topics which concern the Public 
 Mind — but an inquiry which might be invidious shall not disturb a 
 page consecrated to the record of excellence. They who draw their in- 
 spiration from the hour must not, however, complain if with that hour 
 they pass away. 
 
 I. DISRAELL 
 JUareh, 1889,
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 For the fifth time I revise a subject which has occupied my 
 inquiries from early life, with feelings still delightful, and an 
 enthusiasm not wholly diminished. 
 
 Had not the principle upon which this work is constructed 
 occurred to me in my youth, the materials which illustrate 
 the literary character could never have been brought together. 
 It was in early life that I conceived the idea of pursuing the 
 history of genius by the similar events which had occurred to 
 men of genius. Searching into literary history for the literary 
 character formed a course of experimental philosophy in which 
 every new essay verified a former trial, and confirmed a former 
 truth. By the great philosophical principle of induction, in- 
 ferences were deduced and results established, which, however 
 vague and doubtful in speculation, are irresistible when the 
 appeal is made to facts as they relate to others, and to 
 feelings which must be decided on as they are passing in our 
 own breast. 
 
 It is not to be inferred from what I have here stated that 
 I conceive that any single man of genius will resemble every 
 man of genius ; for not only man differs from man, but varies 
 from himself in the different stages of human life. All that 
 I assert is, that every man of genius will discover, sooner or 
 later, that he belongs to the brotherhood of his class, and that 
 he cannot escape from certain habits, and feelings, and dis- 
 orders, which arise from the same temperament and sym- 
 pathies, and are the necessary consequence of occupying the
 
 16 PREFACE. 
 
 same position, and passing through the same moral existence. 
 Whenever we compare men of genius with each other, the 
 history of those who are no more will serve as a perpetual 
 commentary on our contemporaries. There are, indeed, secret 
 feelings which their prudence conceals, or their fears obscure, 
 or their modesty shrinks from, or their pride rejects ; but I 
 have sometimes imagined that I have held the clue as they 
 have lost themselves in their own labyrinth. I know that 
 many, and some of great celebrity, have sympathised with the 
 feelings which inspired these volumes ; nor, while I have 
 elucidated the idiosyncrasy of genius, have I less studied the 
 habits and characteristics of the lovers of litwature. 
 
 It has been considered that the subject of this work might 
 have been treated with more depth of metaphysical disquisition ; 
 and there has since appeared an attempt to combine with this 
 investigation the medical science. A work, however, should 
 be judged by its design, and its execution, and not by any 
 preconceived notion of what it ought to be according to the 
 critic, rather than the author. The nature of this work is 
 dramatic rather than metaphysical. It oflers a narration 
 or a description ; a conversation or a monologue ; an incident 
 or a scene. 
 
 Perhaps I have sometimes too warmly apologised for the 
 infirmities of men of genius. From others we may hourly 
 learn to treat with levity the man of genius because he is 
 only such. Perhaps also I may have been too fond of the 
 subject, which has been for me an old and a favourite one — I 
 may have exalted the literary character beyond the scale by 
 which society is willing to fix it. Yet what is this Society, 
 80 omnipotent, so all judicial? The society of to-day was 
 not the society of yesterday. Its feelings, its thoughts, its 
 manners, its rights, its wishes, and its wants, are ditferent 
 and are changed : alike changed or alike created by those very 
 literary characters whom it rarely comprehends and often 
 would despise. Let us no longer look upon this retired and
 
 PREFACE. 17 
 
 peculiar class as useless members of our busy race. There 
 are mental as well as material labourers. The first are not 
 less necessary ; and as they are much rarer, so are they more 
 precious. These are they whose " published labours " have 
 benefited mankind — these are they whose thoughts can alone 
 rear that beautiful fabric of social life, which it is the object 
 of all good men to elevate or to support. To discover truth 
 and to maintain it, — -to develope the powers, to regulate the 
 passions, to ascertain the privileges of man, — such have ever 
 been, and such ever ought to be, the labours of Authors ! 
 Whatever we enjoy of political and private happiness, our 
 most necessary knowledge as well as our most refined plea- 
 sures, are alike owing to this class of men ; and of these, some 
 for glory, and often from benevolence, have shut themselves 
 out from the very beings whom they love, and for whom they 
 labour. 
 
 Upwards of forty years have elapsed since, composed in a 
 distant county, and printed at a provincial press, I published 
 " An Essay on the Manners and Genius of the Literary Char 
 acter." To my own habitual and inherent defects were 
 superadded those of my youth. The crude production was, 
 however, not ill received, for the edition disappeared, and the 
 subject was found more interesting than the writer. 
 
 During a long interval of twenty years, this little work was 
 often recalled to my recollection by several, and by some who 
 have since obtained celebrity. They imagined that their at- 
 tachment to literary pursuits had been strengthened even by 
 so weak an effort. An extraordinary circumstance concurred 
 with these opinions. A copy accidentally fell into my hands 
 which had formerly belonged to the great poetical genius of 
 our times ; and the singular fact, that it had been more than 
 once read by him, and twice in two subsequent years at 
 Athens, in 1810 and 1811, instantly convinced me that the 
 volume deserved my renewed attention. 
 
 It was with these feelings that I was again ftrcngly at- 
 2
 
 18 PRFFACE. 
 
 tracted to a subject from which, indeed, during the course of 
 a studious life, it had never been long diverted. The conse- 
 quence of m}' labours was the publication, in 1818, of an 
 octavo volume, under the title of " The Literary Character, 
 illustrated by the History of Men of Genius, drawn from their 
 own feelings and confessions." 
 
 In the preface to this edition, in mentioning the fact 
 respecting Lord Byron, which had been the immediate cause 
 of its publication, I added these words : " I tell this fact 
 assuredly not from any little vanity which it may appear to 
 betray ; — for the truth is, were I not as liberal and as candid 
 in respect to my own productions, as I hope I am to others, 
 I could not have been gratified by the present circumstance ; 
 for the marginal notes of the noble author convey no flattery ; 
 — but amidst their pungency, and sometimes their truth, the 
 circumstance that a man of genius could reperuse this slight 
 effusion at two different periods of his life, was a suflBcient 
 authority, at least for an author, to return it once more to 
 the anvil." 
 
 Some time after the publication of this edition of " The 
 Literary Character," which was in fact a new work, I was 
 shown, through the kindness of an English gentleman lately 
 returned from Italy, a copy of it, which had been given to 
 him by Lord Byron, and which again contained marginal 
 notes by the noble author. These were peculiarly interesting, 
 and were chiefly occasioned by observations on his character, 
 which appeared in the work. 
 
 In 1822 I published a new edition of this work, greatly 
 enlarged, and in two volumes. I took this opportunity of 
 inserting the manuscript Notes of Lord Byron, with the ex- 
 ception of one, vviiich, however characteristic of the amiable 
 feelings of the noble poet, and however gratifying to my 
 own, I had no wish to obtrude on the notice of the public* 
 
 ♦ As everything connected with the reading of a mind like Lord Byron's is 
 Interesting to the philosophical inquirer, this note may now he preserved. On
 
 PREFACE. 19 
 
 Soon after the publication of this third edition, I received 
 the following letter from his lordship : 
 
 " MONTENERO, ViLLA DUPDY, NEAR LEGHORN, June 10, 1822. 
 
 " Deab Sib, — If you will permit me to call you so, — I 
 liad some time ago taken up my pen at Pisa, to thank you for 
 the present of your new edition of the 'Literary Character,' 
 which has often been to me a consolation, and always a 
 pleasure. I was interrupted, however, partly by business, 
 and partly by vexation of different kinds, — for I have not very 
 long ago lost a child by fever, and I have had a good deal 
 of petty trouble with the laws of this lawless country, on 
 account of the prosecution of a servant for an attack upon a 
 cowardly scoundrel of a dragoon, who drew his sword upon 
 some unarmed Englishmen, and whom I had done the honcwr 
 to mistake for an officer, and to treat like a gentleman. Ho 
 turned out to be neither, — like many other with medals, and in 
 uniform ; but he paid for his brutality with a severe and danger- 
 ous wound, inflicted by nobody knows whom, for, of three 
 suspected, and two arrested, they have been able to identify 
 neither; which is strange, since be was wounded in the pres- 
 ence of thousands, in a public street, during a feast-day and full 
 promenade. But to return to things more analogous to the 
 ' Literary Character,' I wish to say, that had I known that the 
 book was to fall into your hands, or that the MS. notes you 
 have thought worthy of publication would have attracted your 
 attention, I would have made them more copious, and perhaps 
 not so careless. 
 
 "I really cannot know whether I am, or am not, the genius 
 you are pleased to call me, — but I am very willing to put up 
 with the mistake, if it be one. It is a title dearly enough 
 bought by most men, to render it endurable, even when not 
 quite clearly made out, which it never can be, till the Posterity, 
 
 that passage of the Preface of the second Edition which I have alrea-ij- quoted, his 
 Lordship was ihus pleased to write : 
 
 "I was wrong, but I was young and petulant, and probably wrote down 
 any thing, little thinking that those observations would be betrayed to the author, 
 whose abilities I have always respected, and whose works in general I have read 
 oftener than perhaps those of any English author whatever, except such as trea 
 of Turkey."
 
 20 PREFACE. 
 
 whose decisions are merely dreams to ourselves, have sanctioned 
 or denied it, while it can touch us no further. 
 
 " Mr. Murray is in possession of a MS. memoir of mine (not 
 to be published till I am in my grave), which, strange as it may 
 seem, I never read over since it was written, and have no desire to 
 read over again. In it I have told what, as far as I know, is the 
 truth — not the whole truth — for if I had done so, I must have 
 involved much private, and some dissipated history : but, never- 
 theless, nothing but truth, as far as regard for others permitted 
 it to appear. 
 
 "I do not know whether you have seen those MSS. ; but, as 
 you are curious in such things as relate to the human mind, I 
 should feel gratified if you had, I also sent him (Murray), a 
 few days since, a Common-place Book, by my friend Lord Clare, 
 containing a few things, which may perhaps aid his publication 
 in case of his surviving me. If there are any questions which 
 you would like to ask me, as connected with your philosophy 
 of the literary mind (^y mine be a literary mind), I will answer 
 them fairly, or give a reason for not^ good — bad — or indifferent. 
 At present, I am paying the penalty of having helped to spoil 
 the public taste ; for, as long as I wrote in the false exaggerated 
 style of youth, and the times in which we live, they applauded 
 me to the very echo ; and within these few years, when I have 
 endeavoured at better things, and written what I suspect to have 
 the principle of duration in it : the Church, the Chancellor, and 
 all men, even to my grand patron, Francis Jeffrey, Esq., of the 
 Edinburgh Review^ have risen up against me, and my later 
 publications. Such is Truth ! men dare not look her in the face, 
 except by degrees ; they mistake her for a Gorgon, instead of 
 knowing her to be Minerva. I do not mean to apply this 
 mythological simile to my own endeavours, but I have only to 
 turn over a few pages of your volumes to find innumerable and 
 far more illustrious instances. It is lucky that I am of a temper 
 not to be easily turned aside, though by no means difficult to 
 irritate. But I am making a dissertation, instead of writing a 
 letter. I write to you from the Villa Dupuy, near Leghorn, 
 with the islands of Elba and Corsica visible from my balcony, 
 and ray old friend the Mediterranean rolling blue at my feet. 
 As long as I retain my feeling and my passion for Nature, I can
 
 PREFACE. 21 
 
 partly soften or subdue my other passions, and resist or endure 
 those of others. 
 
 " I have the honour to be, truly, 
 
 " Your obliged and faithful servant, 
 
 " Noel Bteoit. 
 
 "To I. D'ISKAELI, Esq." 
 
 The ill-starred expedition to Greece followed this letter. 
 
 This work, conceived in youth, executed by the research of 
 manhood, and associated with the noblest feelings of our 
 nature, is an humble but fervent tribute, offered to the 
 memory of those Master Spirits from whose labours, as Burkk 
 eloquently describes, " their country receives permanent 
 service : those who know how to make the silence of their 
 closets more beneficial to the world than all the noise and 
 bustle of courts, senates, and camps.'''
 
 THE 
 
 LITEEAET OHARAOTER 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Of Literary Characters, and of the Lovers of Literature and Art. 
 
 DIFFUSED over enlightened Europe, an order of men 
 has arisen, who, uninfluenced by the interests or the 
 passions which give an impulse to the other classes of 
 society, are connected by the secret links of congenial 
 pursuits, and, insensibly to themselves, are combining in 
 the same common labours, and participating in the same 
 divided glory. In the metropolitan cities of Europe the 
 same authors are now read, and the same opinions 
 become established : the Englishman is familiar with 
 Machiavel and Montesquieu; the Italian and the French- 
 man with Bacon and Locke ; and the same smiles and 
 tears are awakened on the banks of the Thames, of the 
 Seine, or of the Guadalquivii", by Shakspeare, Moliere, 
 and Cervantes — 
 
 Contemporains de tous les hommes, 
 Et citoyens de tous les lieux. 
 
 A khan of Tartary admired the wit of Moliere, and 
 discovered the Tartuffe in the Crimea; and had this 
 ingenious sovereign survived the translation which he 
 ordered, the immortal labour of the comic satirist of 
 France mig-ht have laid the foundation of good taste
 
 24 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 even among the Turks and the Tartars. We see the 
 Italian Pignotti referring to the opinion of an English 
 critic, Lord Bolingbroke, for decisive authority on the 
 peculiar characteristics of the historian Guicciardini : the 
 German Schlegel writes on our Shakspeare like a patriot ; 
 and while the Italians admire the noble scenes which our 
 Flaxman has drawn from their great poet, they have 
 rejected the feeble attempts of their native artists. Such 
 is the wide and the perpetual influence of this living 
 intercourse of literary minds. 
 
 Scarcely have two centuries elapsed since the litera- 
 ture of every nation was limited to its fatherland, and 
 men of genius long could only hope for the spread of 
 their fame in the single language of ancient Rome ; 
 which for them had ceased to be natural, and could 
 never be popular. It was in the intercourse of the 
 wealth, the power, and the novel arts of the nations of 
 Europe, that they learned each other's languages; and 
 they discovered that, however their manners varied as 
 they arose from their different customs, they participated 
 in the same intellectual faculties, suffered from the same 
 wants, and were alive to the same pleasures ; they per- 
 ceived that there were no conventional fashions, nor 
 national distinctions, in abstract truths and fundamental 
 knowledge. A new spirit seems to bring them nearer to 
 each other: and, as if literary Europe were intent to 
 form but one people out of the populace of mankind, 
 they offer their reciprocal labours ; they pledge to each 
 other the same opinions ; and that knowledge which, 
 like a small river, takes its source from one spot, at 
 length mingles with the ocean-stream common to them 
 all. 
 
 But those who stand connected with this literary com- 
 munity are not always sensible of the kindred alliance ; 
 even a genius of tlie first order has not always been 
 aware that he is tlie founder of a society, and that there
 
 SmiLAEITY OF LITERARY MEN. 25 
 
 will ever "be a brotherhood where there is a father- 
 genius. 
 
 These literary characters are partially, and with a 
 melancholy colouring, exhibited by Johnson. " To talk 
 in private, to think in solitude, to inquire or to answer 
 inquiries, is the business of a scholar. He wanders about 
 the world without pomp or terror ; and is neither known 
 nor valued but by men like himself" Thus thought this 
 great writer during those sad probationary years of 
 genius when 
 
 Slow rises worth, by poverty depress'd ; 
 
 not yet conscious that he himself was devoting his days 
 to cast the minds of his contemporaries and of the suc- 
 ceeding age in the mighty mould of his own ; Johnson 
 was of that order of men whose individual genius 
 becomes that of a people. A prouder conception rose 
 in the majestic mind of Milton, of " that lasting fame 
 and perpetuity of praise which God and good men have 
 consented shall be the reward of those whose published 
 LABOURS advanced the good of mankind." 
 
 The LITERARY CHARACTER is a denomination which, 
 however vague, defines the pursuits of the individual, 
 and separates him from other professions, although it 
 frequently occurs that he is himself a member of one. 
 Professional characters are modified by the change of 
 manners, and are usually national; while the literary 
 character, from the objects in which it concerns itself, 
 retains a more permanent, and necessarily a more 
 independent nature. 
 
 Formed by the same habits, and influenced by the 
 same motives, notwithstanding the contrast of talents 
 and tempers, and the remoteness of times and places, the 
 literary character has ever preserved among its followers 
 the most striking family resemblance. The passion for 
 study, the delight in books, the desire of solitude and
 
 26 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 celebrity, the obstructions of human life, the character 
 of their pursuits, the uniformity of their habits, the 
 triumphs and the disappointments of literary glory, were 
 as truly described by Cicero and the younger Pliny 
 as by Petrarch and Erasmus, and as they have been 
 by Hume and Gibbon. And this similarity, too, may 
 equally be remai'ked with respect to that noble passion 
 of the lovers of literature and of art for collecting together 
 their mingled treasures ; a thirst which was as insatiable in 
 Atticus and Peii-esc as in our Cracherode and Townley.* 
 We trace the feelings of our literary contemporaries in 
 all ages, and among every people who have ranked with 
 nations far advanced in civilization ; for among these may 
 be equally observed both the great artificers of knowl- 
 edge and those who preserve unbroken the vast chain of 
 human acquisitions. The one have stamped the images 
 of their minds on their works, and the others have 
 preserved the circulation of this intellectual coinage, this 
 
 Gold of the dead, 
 "Which Time does still disperse, but not devour. 
 
 * The Rev. C. M. Cracherode bequeathed at his death, in IT 99, to 
 the British Museum, the large collection of literature, art, and virtu he 
 had employed an industrious life in collecting. His books numbered 
 nearly 4500 volumes, many of great rarity and value. His drawings, 
 many by early Italian masters, and all rare or curious, were de- 
 posited in the print-room of the same establishment; his antiquities, 
 &c., were in a similar way added to the other departments. The 
 " Townley Gallery " of classic sculpture was purchased of his executors 
 by Government for 28,2001. It had been collected with singular taste 
 and judgment, as well as some amount of good fortune also ; Townley 
 resided at Rome during the researches on the site of Hadrian's Villa at 
 Tivoli ; and he had for aid.^ and advisers Sir WQliam Hamilton, Gavin 
 Hamilton, and other active collectors; and was the friend and corre« 
 epondent of D'Hancarville and Winckelmann. — Ed.
 
 ADVERSARIES OF LITERATURE. 27 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Of the Adversaries of Literary Men among themselves. — Matter-of-fact 
 Men, and Men of Wit. — The Political Economists. — Of those who 
 abandon their studies. — Men in ofiSce. — The arbiters of public opin- 
 ion. — Those who treat the pursuits of literature with levity. 
 
 rrHE pursuits of literature have been openly or insidi- 
 -L ously lowered by those literary men who, from 
 motives not always difficult to penetrate, are eager to 
 confound the ranks in the republic of letters, maliciously 
 conferring the honours of authorship on that "Ten 
 Thousand " whose recent list is not so much a muster-roll 
 of heroes as a table of population.* 
 
 Matter-of-fact men, or men of knowledge, and men of 
 wit and taste, were long inimical to each other's pursuits, f 
 The Royal Society in its origin could hardly support 
 itself against the ludicrous attacks of literary men,J and 
 
 * "We have a Dictionary of " Ten Thousand living Authors " of 
 our own nation. The alphabet is fatal by its juxtapositions. In 
 France, before the Revolution, they counted about twenty thousand 
 writers. When David would have his people numbered, Joab asked, 
 " Why doth my lord delight in this ?" In political economy, the 
 population returns may be useful, provided they be correct ; but iu 
 the literary republic, its numerical force diminishes the strength of 
 the empire. "There you are numbered, we had rather you were 
 weighed." Put aside the puling infants of literature, of whom such 
 a mortality occurs in its nurseries ; such as the writers of the single 
 sermon, the single law-tract, the single medical dissertation, &c. ; all 
 writers whose subject is single, without being singular; count for 
 nothing the inefficient mob of mediocrists ; and strike out our hterary 
 charlatans ; and then our alphabet of men of genius will not consist, as 
 it now does, of the four-and-twenty letters. 
 
 f The cause is developed in the chapter on " Want of Mutual 
 Esteem." 
 
 I See Butler, in his " Elephant in the Moon." South, in his oration 
 at the opening of the theatre at Oxford, passed this bitter sarcasm 
 on the naturalists, — ^' Mirafitur nihil nisi pulices, pediculos — else ipsos;"
 
 28 LITERARY CTTARACTER. 
 
 the Antiquarian Society has afforded them amusement.* 
 Such partial views have ceased to contract the under- 
 standing. Science yields a new substance to literature; 
 literature combines new associations for the votaries of 
 knowledge. There is no subject in nature, and in the 
 history of man, which will not associate with our feelings 
 and our curiosity, whenever genius extends its awaken- 
 ing hand. The antiquary, the naturalist, the architect, 
 the chemist, and even writers on medical topics, have in 
 our days asserted their claims, and discovered their long- 
 interrupted relationship with the great family of genius 
 and literature. 
 
 A new race of jargonists, the barbarous metaphysi- 
 cians of political economy, have struck at the essential 
 existence of the productions of genius in literature and 
 art ; for, appreciating them by their own standard, they 
 have miserably degraded the professors. Absorbed in 
 the contemplation of material objects, and rejecting 
 whatever does not enter into their own restricted notion 
 of " utility," these cold arithmetical seers, with nothing 
 but millions in their imagination, and whose choicest 
 works of art are spinning-jennies, have valued the intel- 
 lectual tasks of the library and the studio by " the de- 
 
 — nothing they admire but fleas, lice, and themselves I The illustrious 
 Sloane endured a long persecution from the bantering humour of Dr. 
 King. One of the most amusing declaimers against what he calls les 
 Sciences des faux Sravans is Father Malebranche; he is far more 
 severe than Cornelius Agrippa, and he long preceded Rousseau, so 
 famous for his invective against the sciences. The seventh chapter 
 of his fourth boolc is an inimitable satire. "The principal excuse," 
 says he, " which engages men in fake studies, is, that they have at- 
 tached tlie idea of learned whore they sliould not." Astronomy, anti- 
 quarianism, history, ancient poetry, and natural history, are all mowed 
 down by }iis metaphysical scythe. When we become acquainted with 
 the ideci Fatlier Malobraucho attaches to the term learned, we under- 
 stand him — and wo smile. 
 
 * Scse the cliaptor on " Puck tiie Commentator," in the " Curiosities 
 of Literature," vol. iii. ; also p. 304 of the same volume.
 
 ADYERSARIES OF LITERATURE. 29 
 
 tnand and the supply." They have sunk these pursuits 
 into the class of what they term " unproductive labour ;" 
 and by another result of their line and level system, men 
 of letters, with some other important characters, are forced 
 down into the class " of buffoons, singers, opera-dancers," 
 &c. In a system of political economy it has been dis- 
 covered that " that improsperous race of men, called men 
 of letters, must necessarily occupy their present forlorn 
 state in society much as formerly, when a scholar and a beg- 
 gar seem to have been terms very nearly synonymous."* 
 In their commercial, agricultural, and manufacturing view 
 of human nature, addressing society by its most pressing 
 wants and its coarsest feelings, these theorists limit the 
 moral and physical existence of man by speculative 
 tables of population, planing and levelling society down 
 in their carpentry of human nature. They would yoke 
 and harness the loftier spirits to one common and vulgar 
 destination. Man is considered only as he wheels on the 
 the wharf, or as he spins in the factory ; but man, as a 
 recluse being of meditation, or impelled to action by 
 more generous passions, has been struck out of the 
 system of our political economists. It is, however, only 
 among their " unproductive labourers " that we shall find 
 those men of leisure, whose habitual pursuits are con- 
 sumed in the development of thought and the gradual 
 ascessions of knowledge ; those men of whom the sage 
 of Judea declares, that " It is he who hath little business 
 who shall become wise : how can he get "wisdom that 
 holdeth the plough, and whose talk is of bullocks ? But 
 THEY," — the men of leisure and study, — " will maintain 
 THE STATE OP THE WORLD !" The prosperity and the hap- 
 piness of a people include something more evident and 
 more permanent than " the Wealth of a Nation." f 
 
 * "Wealth of Nations," i. 182. 
 
 \ Since this murmur has been uttered against the degrading views 
 of some of those theorists, it afforded me pleasure to observe that Mr
 
 30 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 There is a more formidable class of men of genius who 
 are heartless to the interests of literature. Like Corne- 
 lius Agrippa, who wrote on " the vanity of the arts and 
 sciences," many of these are only tracing in the arts 
 which they have abandoned their own inconstant 
 tempers, their feeble tastes, and their disordered judg- 
 ments. But, with others of this class, study has usually 
 served as the instrument, not as the object, of their 
 ascent ; it was the ladder which they once climbed, but 
 it was not the eastern star which guided and inspired. 
 Such literary characters were Warburton,* Watson, and 
 Wilkes, who abandoned their studies when their studies 
 had served a purpose. 
 
 Watson gave up his pursuits in chemistry the instant 
 he obtained their limited reward, and the laboratory 
 closed when the professorship was instituted. Such was 
 the penurious love he bore for the science which he had 
 
 Malthus has fully sanctioned its justness. On this head, at least, Mr. 
 Malthus has amply confuted his stubborn and tasteless brothera. 
 Alluding to the productions of genius, this writer observes, that, "to 
 estimate the value of Newton's discoveries, or the delight communi- 
 cated by Shakspeare and Milton, by the price at which their works 
 have sold, would be but a poor measure of the degree in which they 
 have elevated and enchanted their country." — Principles of Pol. Econ., 
 p. 48. And hence he acknowledges, that ^'some unproductive labour is 
 of much more use and importance than productive labour, but is incapa- 
 ble of being the subject of the gross calculations which relate to 
 national wealth ; contriljuting to other sources of happiness besides 
 those which are derived fiom matter." Political economists would 
 have smiled with contempt on the querulous Porson, who once 
 observed, that " it seemed to him very hard, that with all his criticaJ 
 knowledge of Greek, he could not get a hundred pounds." They 
 would h;ive demonstrated to tlie learned Grecian, that this was just &a 
 it ought to bo ; the same occurrence had even happened to Homer in 
 his own country, where Greek ought to have fetched a higher price 
 than in England ; but, that both might have obtained this hundred 
 pormds, had the Grecian bard and the Greek professor been employed 
 at the same stocking-frame together, instead of the "Iliad." 
 
 * For a full disquisition of the character and career of Warburton, 
 see the essay in " Quarrels of Authors "
 
 WILKES. 31 
 
 adopted, that the extraordinary discoveries of thirty 
 years subsequent to his own jBrst essays could never 
 excite even an idle inquiry. He tells us that he preferred 
 " his larches to his laurels :" the wretched jingle ex- 
 pressed the mere worldliness that dictated it. In the 
 same spirit of calculation with which he had at first 
 embraced science and literature, he abandoned them ; 
 and his ingenuous confession is a memorable example of 
 that egotistic pride which beti-ayed in the literary charac- 
 ter the creature of selfism and political ambition. 
 
 We are accustomed to consider Wilkes merely as a 
 political adventurer, and it may surprise to find this 
 " city chamberlain " ranked among professed literary 
 characters: yet in his variable life there was a period 
 when he cherished the aspirations of a votary. Once he 
 desired Lloyd to announce the edition of Churchill, 
 which he designed to enrich by a commentary; and 
 his correspondence on this subject, which has never 
 appeared, would, as he himself tells us, aiford a variety 
 of hints and communications. Wilkes was then warmed 
 by literary glory ; for on his retirement into Italy, he 
 declared, " I mean to give myself entirely to our friend's 
 work, and to my History of England. I wish to equal 
 the dignity of Livy : I am sure the greatness and ma- 
 jesty of our nation demand an historian equal to him." 
 They who have only heard of the intriguing demagogue, 
 and witnessed the last days of the used voluptuary, may 
 hardly imagine that Wilkes had ever cherished such 
 elevated projects ; but mob-politics made this adventur- 
 er's fortune, which fell to the lot of an epicurean : and 
 the literary glory he once sought he Uved to ridicule, in 
 the immortal diligence of Lord Chatham and of Gibbon. 
 Dissolving life away, and consuming all his feelings on 
 himself, Wilkes left his nearest relatives what he left the 
 world — the memory of an anti-social being ! This wit, 
 who has bequeathed to us no wit ; this man of genius,
 
 32 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 who has formed no work of genius ; this bold advocate 
 for popular freedom, who sunk his patriotism in the 
 chamberlainship ; was indeed desirous of leaving behind 
 him some trace of the life of an escroc in a piece of auto- 
 biography, which, for the benefit of the world, has been 
 thrown to the flames. 
 
 Men who have ascended into ofiice through its gra- 
 dations, or have been thrown upwards by accident, are 
 apt to view others in a cloud of passions and politics. 
 They who once commanded us by their eloquence, come 
 at length to suspect the eloquent ; and in their " pride of 
 ofiice " would now drive us by that single force of des- 
 potism which is the corruption of political power. Our 
 late great Minister, Pitt, has been reproached even by his 
 friends for the contemptuous indifierence with which he 
 treated literary men. Perbaps Burke himself, long a 
 literary character, might incur some portion of this 
 censure, by involving the character itself in the odium of 
 a monstrous political sect. These political characters 
 resemble Adrian VI., who obtaining the tiara as the 
 reward of his studies, afterwards persecuted literary 
 men, and, say the Italians, dreaded lest his brothers 
 might shake the Pontificate itself.* 
 
 Worst fares it with authors when minds of this cast 
 become the arbiters of public opinion ; for the greatest 
 of writers may unquestionably be forced into ridiculous 
 
 * It has been suspected that Adrian VI. has been caluminated, for 
 that this pontiff was only too sudden to begin the reform he medi- 
 tated. But Adrian VI. was a scholastic whose austerity turned away 
 with contempt from all ancient art, and was no brother to contemporary 
 genius. Ho vyas one of the cut bono race, a branch of our political 
 economists. When they showed him the Laocoon, Adrian silenced 
 thoir raptures by the frigid observation, that all such things were idola 
 antiquorum: and ridiculed the amena letteratura till every man of 
 genius retreated from his court. Had Adrian's reign extended be- 
 yond its brief period, men of taste in their panic imagined that in his 
 zeal the Pontiff would have calcined the fine statues of ancient art, to 
 expedite the edifice of St Peter.
 
 DEBASED VIEWS OF LITERATURE. 33 
 
 attitudes by the well-known artifices practised by modem 
 criticism. The elephant, no longer in his forest struggling 
 Avith liis hunters, but falling entrapped by a paltry snare, 
 comes at length, in the height of ill-fortune, to dance on 
 heated iron at the bidding of the pantaloon of a fair. 
 Whatever such critics may plead to mortify the vanity 
 of authors, at least it requires as much vanity to give 
 effect to their own polished effrontery.* Scorn, sarcasm, 
 and invective, the egotism of the vain, and the irasci- 
 bility of the petulant, where they succeed in debilitating 
 genius of the conscioixsness of its powers, are practising 
 the witchery of that ancient superstition of " tying the 
 knot," which threw the youthful bridegroom into utter 
 despair by its ideal forcefulness.f 
 
 * Listen to a confession and a recantation of an illustrious sinner; 
 the Corj'phc-eus of the amusing and new-found art, or artifice, of 
 modern criticism. In tlie cliaracter of Burns, the Edinburgh Re- 
 viewer, with his peculiar felicity of manner, attacked the character of 
 the man of genius ; but when Mr. Campbell vindicated his immortal 
 brother with all the inspiration of the family feeling, our critic, who is 
 one of tliose great artists who acquire at length the utmost indiffer- 
 ence even for their own works, generously avowed that, " a certain 
 tone of exaggeration is incidental we fear to the sort of writing in which 
 we are engaged. Reckoning a little too much on the dulness of our 
 readers, we are often led to overstate our sentiments : when a little 
 controversial v)armth is added to a little love of effect, an excess of colour- 
 ing steals over the canvas, which ultimately offends no eye so much as 
 our own." But wliat if this love of effect in the critic has been too 
 often obtained at the entire cost of tlie literary characters, the fruits of 
 whose studious days at this moment he withering in oblivion, or 
 whose genius the critic lias deterred from pursuing the career it had 
 opened for itself I To have silenced the learned, and to have terrified 
 the modest, is the barbarous triumph of a Hun or a Vandal ; and the 
 vaunted freedom of the literary republic departed from us when the 
 vacillating public blindly consecrated the edicts of the demagogues of 
 literature, whoever they may be. 
 
 A reaction appears in the burlesque or bantering spirit. "While one 
 faction drives out another, the abuse of extraordinary powers is 
 equally fatal. Thu3 we are consoled wliile we are afflicted, and we 
 are protected while we are degraded. 
 
 f Nouer VaiguH^^Me, of -^hich the extraordinary eflTect is described
 
 34 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 That spirit of levity which would shake the columns of 
 society, by detracting from or burlesquing the elevating 
 principles which have produced so many illustrious men, 
 has recently attempted to reduce the labours of literature 
 to a mere curious amusement : a finished composition is 
 likened to a skilful game of billiards, or a piece of music 
 finely executed ; and curious researches, to charades and 
 other insignificant puzzles. With such, an author is an 
 idler who will not be idle, amusing or fatiguing others 
 who are completely so. The result of a work of genius 
 is contracted to the art of writing ; but this art is only 
 its last perfection. Inspiration is drawn from a deeper 
 source ; enthusiasm is diffused through contagious pages ; 
 and without these movements of the soul, how poor and 
 artificial a thing is that sparkling composition which 
 flashes with the cold vibrations of mere art or artifice ! 
 We have been recently told, on critical authority, that 
 " a great genius should never allow himself to be sensible 
 to his own celebrity, nor deem his pursuits of much con- 
 sequence, however important or successful." A sort of 
 catholic doctrine, to mortify an author into a saint, ex- 
 tinguishing the glorious appetite of fame by one Lent all 
 the year, and self-flagellation every day ! Buflbn and 
 Gibbon, Voltaire and Pope,* who gave to literature all 
 the cares, the industry, and the glory of their lives, as- 
 suredly were too " sensible to their celebrity, and deemed 
 their pursuits of much consequence," particularly when 
 " important and successful," The self-possession of great 
 authors sustains their own genius by a sense of their 
 own glory. 
 
 by Montaigne, is an Oriental custom still practised. — Mr. Hobhouse^s 
 Journey through Albania, p. 528. 
 
 * The olairas of Pope to the title of a great poet were denied in the 
 days of Byron ; and occasioned a warm and noble defence of liim by 
 that poet. It has since been found necessary to do the same for Byron, 
 whom some transcendentalists have attacked. — Ed.
 
 ART AND LITERATURE. 35 
 
 Such, then, are some of the domestic treasons of the lit- 
 erary character against literature — " Et tu, Brute !" But 
 the hero of literature outlives his assassins, and might ad- 
 dress them in that language of poetry and aftection with 
 which a Mexican king reproached his traitorous counsel- 
 lors — " You were the feathers of my wings, and the ejf 
 lids of my eyes." 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Of artists, in the history of men of literary genius. — Their habits and 
 pursuits analogous. — The nature of their genius is similar in their 
 distinct works. — Shown by their parallel eras, and by a common end 
 pursued by both. 
 
 A RTISTS and literary men, alike insulated in their 
 ■^ studies, pass through the same permanent discipline ; 
 and thus it has happened that the same habits and feel- 
 ings, and the same fortunes, have accompanied men who 
 have sometimes unhappily imagined their pursuits not 
 to be analogous. 
 
 Let the artist share 
 The palm ; he shares the peril, and dejected 
 Faints o'er the labour unapproved — alas 1 
 Despair and genius 1 — 
 
 The congenial histories of literature and art describe 
 the same periodical revolutions and parallel eras. After 
 the golden age of Latinity, we gradually slide into the 
 silver, and at length precipitately descend into the iron. 
 In the history of painting, after the splendid epoch of 
 Raphael, Titian, and Correggio, we meet with pleasure 
 the Carraccis, Domenichino, Guido, and Albano ; as we 
 read Paterculus, Quintilian, Seneca, Juvenal, and Silius 
 Italicus, after their immortal masters, Cicero, Livy, 
 Virgil, and Horace. 
 
 It is evident that Milton, JMichael Angelo, and Handel,
 
 36 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 belong to the same order of minds ; the same imaginative 
 powers, and the same sensibility, are only operating with 
 different materials. Lanzi, the delightful historian of 
 the Storia Pittorica^ is prodigal of his comparisons of the 
 painters with the poets; his delicacy of perception dis- 
 cerned the refined analogies which for ever unite the two 
 sisters, and he fondly dwelt on the ti'ansplanted flowers 
 of the two arts : " Chi sente che sia Tibullo nel poetare 
 sente chi sia Atidrea {del Sarto) nel dipingere ;''"' he who 
 feels what Tibullus is in poetry, feels what Andrea is in 
 painting. Michael Angelo, from his profound conception 
 of the terrible and the difiicult in art, was called its 
 Dante ; from the Italian poet the Italian sculptor de- 
 rived the grandeur of his ideas ; and indeed the visions 
 of the bard had deeply nourished the artist's imagina- 
 tion ; for once he had poured about the margins of his 
 own copy their ethereal inventions, in the rapid designs 
 of his pen. And so Bellori informs us of a very cui'ious 
 volume in manuscript, composed by Rubens, which con- 
 tained, among other topics concerning art, descriptions 
 of the passions and actions of men, drawn from the 
 poets, and demonstrated to the eye by the painters. 
 Here were battles, shipwrecks, sports, groups, and other 
 incidents, which were transcribed from Virgil and other 
 poets, and by their side Rubens had copied what he had 
 met with on those subjects from Raphael and the an- 
 tique.* 
 
 The poet and the painter are only truly great by the 
 mutual influences of their studies, and the jealousy of 
 glory has only produced an idle contest. This old 
 family-quarrel for precedence was renewed by our esti- 
 mable President, in his brilliant "Rhymes on Art ;" where 
 he maintains that " the narrative of an action is not com- 
 
 * Rubens was an ardent collector of works of antique art ; and in the 
 " Curiosities of Literature," vol. iii., p. 398, will be found an interesting 
 account of his musoura at Antwerp. — Ed.
 
 ART AND LITERATURE. 37 
 
 parable to the action itself before the eyes;" while the 
 enthusiast Barry considers painting " as poetry realised."* 
 This error of genius, perhaps first caught from Richard- 
 son's bewildering pages, was strengthened by the extrav- 
 agant principle adopted by Darwin, who, to exalt his 
 solitary talent of descriptive poetry, asserted that " the 
 essence of poetry was picture." The philosophical critic 
 will find no difiiculty in assigning to each sister-art her 
 distinct province ; and it is only a pleasing delirium, in 
 the enthusiasm of artists, which has confused the bound- 
 aries of these arts. The dread pathetic story of Dante's 
 "Ugolino," under the plastic hand of Michael Angelo, 
 formed the subject of a basso-relievo; and Reynolds, 
 with his highest efibrt, embodied the terrific conception 
 of the poet as much as his art permitted : but assuredly 
 both these great artists would never have claimed the 
 precedence of the Dantesc genius, and might have hesi- 
 tated at the rivalry. 
 
 Who has not heard of that one common principle 
 which unites the intellectual arts, and who has not felt 
 that the nature of their genius i? similar in their distinct 
 works? Hence curious inquiries could never decide 
 whether the group of the Laocoon in sculpture preceded 
 or was borrowed from that in poetry. Lessing conjec- 
 tures that the sculptor copied the poet. It is evident 
 that the agony of Laocoon was the common end where 
 the sculptor and the poet were to meet ; and we may ob- 
 serve that the artists in marble and in verse skilfully 
 
 *The late Sir Martin Archer Shee, P. R. A. Tliis accomplished ar- 
 tist, who possessed a large amount of poetical and literary power, asks, 
 " What is there of intdkctiial in the operations of the poet which the 
 painter does not equal ? "What is there of inec.Jianical which be does 
 not surpass? The advantage which poetry possesses over painting in 
 continued narration and successive impression, cannot be advanced as 
 a peculiar merit of the poet, since it results from the nature of lan- 
 guage, and is common to prose." Poetry he values as the earUest of 
 arts, painting as the latest and most rehned. — Ed.
 
 38 LITERARY CHARACTER, 
 
 adapted their variations to their respective art : the one 
 having to prefer tlTe nude, rejected the veiling fillet from 
 the forehead, that he might not conceal its deep expres- 
 sion, and the drapery of the sacrificial robe, that he 
 might display the human form in visible agony ; but the 
 other, by the charm of verse, could invest the priest 
 with the pomp of the pontifical robe without hiding from 
 us the interior sufferings of the human victim. We see 
 they obtained by difierent means, adapted to their respect- 
 ive arts, that common end which each designed ; but who 
 will decide which invention preceded the other, or who 
 was the greater artist ? 
 
 This approximation of men apparently of opposite 
 pursuits is so natural, that when Gesner, in his inspiring 
 letter on landscape-painting,* recommends to the young 
 painter a constant study of poetry and literature, the im- 
 patient artist is made to exclaim, " Must we combine 
 with so many other studies those which belong to liter- 
 ary men ? Must we read as well as paint ?" " It is use- 
 less to reply to this question ; for some important truths 
 must be instinctively felt, perhaps the fundamental ones 
 in the arts." A truly imaginative artist, whose enthusi- 
 asm was never absent when he meditated on the art he 
 loved, Barry, thus vehemently broke forth : " Go home 
 from the academy, light up your lamps, and exercise 
 yourselves in the creative part of your art, with Homer, 
 with Livy, and all the great characters, ancient aiid mod- 
 ern, for your companions and counsellors." This genial 
 intercourse of literature with art may be .proved by 
 painters who have suggested subjects to poets, and poets 
 who have selected them for painters. Goldsmith sug- 
 gested the Bu))ject of the tragic and pathetic picture of 
 Ugolino to the pencil of lleynolds. 
 
 ♦Fow writers wore so competent to instruct in art as Gesnor, who 
 was not only un author and a poet, but an artist who decorated his 
 poems Vjy designs as graceful as their subject. — Ed.
 
 NATUEAL GENIUS. 39 
 
 All the classes of men in society have their peculiar 
 sorrows nnd enjoyments, as they have their peculiar habits 
 and characteristics. In the history of men of genius we 
 may often open the secret story of their minds, for they 
 have above others the privilege of communicating their 
 own feelings ; and every life of a man of genius, composed 
 by himself, presents us with the experimental philosophy 
 of the mind. By living with their brothers, and con- 
 templating their masters, they will judge from conscious- 
 ness less erroneously than from discussion ; and in form- 
 ing comparative views and parallel situations, they will 
 discover certain habits and feelings, and find these reflect- 
 ed in themselves. 
 
 Sydenham has beautifully said, " Whoever describes a 
 violet exactly as to its colour, taste, smell, form, and other 
 properties, will find the description agree in most par- 
 ticulars with all the violets in the universe." 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Of natural genius. — Minds constitutionally different cannot have an 
 equal aptitude. — Genius not the result of habit and education. — 
 Originates in peculiar qualities of the mind. — The predisposition of 
 genius. — A substitution for the white paper of Locke.* 
 
 THAT faculty in art which individualises the artist, 
 belonging to him and to no other, and which in a 
 work forms that creative part whose likeness is not found 
 
 * In the second edition of this work in 1818, I touched on some 
 points of this inquiry in the second chapter: I almost despaired to 
 find any philosopher sympathise with tlie subject, so invulnerable, 
 they imagine, are the entrenchments of their theories. I was agree- 
 ably surprised to find tliese ideas taken up in the Edinburgh Reiiew fur 
 August, 1820, in an entertaining article on Reynolds. I have, no doubt 
 profited by the perusal, though this chapter was prepared before C
 
 40 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 in any other work — is it inherent in the constitutional 
 dispositions of the Creator, or can it be formed by patient 
 acquisition ? 
 
 Astonished at their own silent and obscure progress, 
 some have imagined that they have formed their genius 
 solely by their own studies ; when they generated, they 
 conceived that they had acquired ; and, losing the dis- 
 tinction between nature and habit, with fatal temerity the 
 idolatry of philosophy substituted something visible and 
 palpable, yet shaped by the most opposite fancies, called 
 a Theory, for Nature herself! Men of genius, whose 
 great occupation is to be conversant with the inspirations 
 of Nature, made up a factitious one among themselves, 
 and assumed that they could operate without the inter- 
 vention of the occult original. But Nature would not be 
 mocked; and whenever this race of idolaters have 
 worked without her agency, she has aflBicted them with 
 the most stubborn sterility. 
 
 Theoiies of genius are the peculiar constructions of our 
 own philosophical times ; ages of genius had passed away, 
 and they left no other record than their works ; no pre- 
 concerted theory described the workings of the imagina- 
 tion to be without imagination, nor did they venture to 
 teach how to invent invention. 
 
 The character of genius, viewed as the effect of habit 
 and education, on the principle of the equality of the 
 human mind, infers that men have an equal aptitude for 
 the work of genius : a paradox which, with a more fatal 
 one, came from the French school, and arose probably 
 from an equivocal expression. 
 
 Locke employed the well-known comparison of the 
 mind with " white })aper void of all characters," to free 
 his famous "Incpiiry" from that poAverful obstacle to his 
 system, the al)surd belief of "innate ideas," of notions of 
 
 met with that spirited vindication of " an inherent difiference in the 
 organs or faculties to receive impressions of any kind."
 
 THEORIES OF GENIUS. 41 
 
 objects before objects were presented to observation. 
 Our pliilosopher considered that this simple analogy 
 sufficiently described the manner in which he conceived 
 the impressions of the senses write themselves on the mind. 
 His French pupiV, the amusing Helvetius, or Diderot, 
 for they were equally concerned in the paradoxical 
 "L'Esprit," inferred that this blank paper served also 
 as an evidence that men had an equal aptitude for 
 genius^ just as the blank paper reflects to us whatever 
 characters we trace on it. This equality of minds gave 
 rise to the same monstrous doctrine in the science of 
 metaphysics which that of another verbal misconception, 
 the equality of men, did in that of politics. The Scottish 
 metaphysicians powerfully combined to illustrate the 
 mechanism of the mind, — an important and a curious 
 truth ; for as rules and j^rinciples exist in the nature of 
 things, and when discovered are only thence drawn out, 
 genius unconsciously conducts itself by a uniform pro- 
 cess ; and when this process had been traced, they in- 
 ferred that what was done by some men, under the 
 influence of fundamental laws which regulate the march 
 of the intellect, must also be in the reach of others, who, 
 in the same circumstances, apply themselves to the same 
 study. But these metaphysicians resemble anatomists, 
 under whose knife all men are alike. They know the 
 structure of the bones, the movement of the muscles, 
 and where the connecting ligaments lie ! but the invis- 
 ible principle of life flies from their touch. It is the 
 practitioner on the living body who studies in every 
 individual that peculiarity of constitution which forms 
 the idiosyncrasy. 
 
 Under the influence of such novel theories of genius, 
 Johnson defined it as " A Mind of large general powers 
 ACCIDENTALLY determined by some particidar direction.'''' 
 On this principle we must infer that the reasoning 
 Locke, or the arithmetical De Moivre, could have been
 
 42 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 the musical and fairy Speiisei-.* This conception of the 
 nature of genius became prevalent. It induced the 
 philosopliical Beccaria to assert that every individual had 
 an equal degree of genius for poetry and eloquence ; it 
 runs through the philosophy of the elegant Dugald 
 Stewart ; and Reynolds, the pupil of Johnson in litera- 
 ture, adopting the paradox, constructed his automatic 
 system on this principle of equal aptitude. He says, 
 " this excellence, however expressed by genius, taste, or 
 the gift of Heaven, I am confident may be acquired?'' 
 Reynolds had the modesty to fancy that so many rivals, 
 unendowed by nature, might have equalled the magic 
 of his own pencil : but his theory of industry, so essential 
 to genius, yet so useless without it, too long stimulated 
 the drudges of art, and left us without a Correggio or a 
 Raphael ! Another man of genius caught the fever of 
 the new system. Currie, in his eloquent "Life of 
 Burns," swells out the scene of genius to a startling 
 magnificence ; for he asserts that, " the talents necessary 
 to the construction of an ' Iliad,' under difierent dis- 
 cipline and application, might have led armies to vic- 
 tory or kingdoms to prosperity; might have wielded 
 the thunder of eloquence, or discovered and enlarged 
 the sciences." All this we find in the text ; but in the 
 clear intellect of this man of genius a vast number of 
 intervening difficulties started up, and in a copious note 
 the numerous exceptions show that the assumed theory 
 requires no other refutation than what the theorist 
 
 * It is more dangcro\is to define than to describe : a dry definition 
 excludes so much, an ardent description at once appeals to our sympa- 
 thies. TIow much more comprehensible our great critic becomes 
 when he nobly describes genius, " as the power of mind that collects, 
 comljines, amplifies, and animates ; the energy without which judg- 
 ment is cod, and knowledge is inert 1" And it is this power of 
 MINI), this primary faculty and native aptitude, which wo deem may 
 exist separately from education and habit, since these are often 
 found unaccompanied by genius.
 
 THEORIES OF GENIUS. 43 
 
 has himself so abundantly and so judiciously supplied. 
 There is something ludicrous in the result of a theory of 
 genius which would place Hobbes and Erasmus, those 
 timid and learned recluses, to open a campaign with the 
 military invention and physical inti'epidity of a Marl- 
 borough; or conclude that the romantic bard of the 
 "Fairy Queen," amidst the quickly-shifting scenes of his 
 visionary reveries, could have deduced, by slow and 
 patient watchings of the mind, the system and the 
 demonstrations of Newton. 
 
 Such theorists deduce the faculty called genius from a 
 variety of exterior or secondary causes: zealously reject- 
 ing the notion that genius may originate in constitu- 
 tional dispositions, and be only a mode of the individual's 
 existence, they deny that minds are differently consti- 
 tuted. Habit and education, being more palpable and 
 visible in their operations, and progressive in the develop- 
 ment of the intellectual faculties, have been imagined 
 fully sufficient to make the creative faculty a subject of 
 acquirement. 
 
 But when these theorists had discovered the curious 
 fact, that we have owed to accident several men of genius, 
 and when they laid open some sources which iafluenced 
 genius in its progress, they did not go one step further, 
 they did not inquu-e whether such sources and such acci- 
 dents had ever supplied the icant of genius in the individ- 
 ual. Effects were liere again mistaken for causes. Could 
 Spenser have kindled a poet in Cowley, Richardson a 
 painter in Reynolds, and Descartes a metaphysician 
 in Malebranche, if those master-minds, pointed out as 
 having been such from accident, had not first received 
 the indelible mint-stamp struck by the hand of Xature, 
 and which, to give it a name, we may be allowed to call 
 the 2yf^(^isposition of genius ? The accidents so triumph- 
 antly held forth, which are imagined to have created the 
 genius of these men, have occurred to a thousand who
 
 4:4 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 have run the same career ; but how does it happen that 
 the multitude remain a multitude, and the man of genius 
 arrives alone at the goal ? 
 
 This theory, which long dazzled its beholders, was in 
 time found to stand in contradiction with it':elf. and 
 perpetually with their own experience, Reynolds pared 
 down his decision in the progress of his lectures, often 
 wavered, often altered, and grew more confused as he 
 lived longer to look about him,* The infirm votaries of 
 the new philosophy, with all their sources of genius open 
 before them, went on multiplying mediocrity, while 
 inherent genius, true to nature, still continued rare in 
 its solitary independence. 
 
 Others have strenuously denied that we are born with 
 any peculiar species of mind, and resolve the mysterious 
 problem into capacity^ of which men only differ in the 
 degree. They can perceive no distinction between the 
 poetical and the mathematical genius ; and they con- 
 clude that a man of genius, possessing a general capacity, 
 may become whatever he chooses, but is determined by 
 his first acquired habit to be what he is.f 
 
 In substituting the term capacity for that of genius^ 
 
 * I transcribe the last opinions of Mr. Edgeworth. "As to original 
 genius, and the effect of education in forming taste or directing talent, 
 the last revisal of his opinions was given by himself, in th« introduc- 
 tion to the second edition of ' Professional Kducation.' He was 
 strengthened in his belief that many of the great differences of intellect 
 whicli appear in men, depend more upon the early cultivating the 
 habit of attention than upon any disparity between the powers of one 
 individual and another. Perhaps, he latterly allowed that there is 
 more difference than he had formerly admitted between the natural 
 powers of different persons; but not so groat as is generally supposed." 
 —Eilijeiuortli's Memoirs, ii., 3cS8. 
 
 f Johnson once asserted, that "the supposition of one man having 
 more imagination, another more judgment, is not true; it is only one 
 man has more mind than another. He who has vigour may walk to 
 the east as well as the west, if he happens to turn his head that 
 way." Godwin was persuaded that ail genius is a niore arqui.ntian, 
 for ho hints at "infusing it," and making it a thing "heritable." A
 
 PREDISPOSITION" OF GEXIUS. 45 
 
 the oi'igin or nature remains equally occult. How is it 
 acquired, or how is it inherent ? To assert that any man 
 of genius may become what he wills, those most fer- 
 vently protest against who feel that the character of 
 genius is such that it cannot be other than it is ; that 
 there is an identity of minds, and that there exists an 
 interior conformity as marked and as perfect as the 
 exterior physiognomy. A Scotch metaphysician has 
 recently declared that " Locke or Newton might have 
 been as eminent poets as Homer or Milton, had they 
 given themselves early to the study of poetry." It is 
 well to know how far this taste will go. We believe 
 that had these philosophers obstinately, against nature, 
 persisted in the attempt, as some have unluckily for 
 themselves, we should have lost two great philosophers, 
 and have obtained two supernumerary poets.* 
 
 It would be more useful to discover another source of 
 genius for philosophers and poets, less fallible than the 
 gratuitous assumptions of these theorists. An adequate 
 oi'igin for peculiar qualities in the mind may be found 
 in that constitutional or secret propensity which adapts 
 some for particular pursuits and forms the. predlsjjosition 
 of genius. 
 
 Not that we are bound to demonstrate what our 
 adversaries have failed in proving ; we may still remain 
 ignorant of the nature of genius, and yet be convinced 
 
 reversion which has been missed by tlie many respectable dunces who 
 have been sons of men of genius. 
 
 * This very Scotch metaphysician, at the instant he lays down this 
 postulate, acknowledges that " Dr. Beattie had talents for a poet, but 
 apparently not for a philosoplier.^' It is amusing to learn another 
 result of his ungenial metaphysics. This sage demonstrates and con- 
 cludes in these words, " It will therefore be found, with little excep- 
 tion, that a great poet itt hut an ordinary genius." Let this sturdy Scotch 
 metaphysician never approach Pegasus — he has to fear, not his wings, 
 but his heels. If some have written on genius with a great deal too 
 much, others have written without any.
 
 46 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 that they have not revealed it. The phenomena of pre- 
 disposition in the mind are not more obscure and am- 
 biguous than those which have been assigned as the 
 sources of genius in certain individuals. For is it more 
 difficult to conceive that a person bears in his constitu- 
 tional disposition a germ of native aptitude which is 
 developing itself to a predominant character of genius, 
 which breaks 'forth in the temperament and moulds the 
 habits, than to conjecture that these men of genius could 
 not have been such but from accident^ or that they differ 
 only in their capacity f 
 
 Every class of men of genius has distinct habits ; all 
 poets resemble one another, as all painters and all mathe- 
 maticians. There is a conformity in the cast of their 
 minds, and the quality of each is distinct from the other, 
 and the very faculty which fits them for one particular 
 pursuit, is just the reverse required for another. If 
 these are truisms, as they may appear, we need not 
 demonstrate that from which we only wish to draw our 
 conclusion. Why does this remarkable similarity pre- 
 vail through the classes of genius? Because each, in 
 their favourite production, is working with the same 
 appropriate organ. The poetical eye is early busied 
 with imagery ; as early will the reveries of the poetical 
 mind be busied with the passions ; as early will the 
 painter's hand be copying forms and colours ; as early 
 will the young musician's ear wander in the creation of 
 sounds, and the philosopher's head matiire its medita- 
 tions. It is then the aptitude of the appropriate organ, 
 however it varies in its character, in which genius seems 
 most concerned, and which is connatural and connate 
 with the individual, and, as it was expressed in old days, 
 is horn witli him. Tliere seems no other source of 
 genius ; for whenever tliis has been refused by nature, as 
 it is so often, no theory of genius, neither habit nor educa- 
 tion, have ever supplied its want. To discriminate be-
 
 PREDISPOSITION AND HABIT. 47 
 
 tween the habit and the 2^^&(^isposition is quite impossible ; 
 because whenever great genius discovers itself, as it can 
 only do by continuity, it has become a habit with the 
 individual; it is the fatal notion of habit hav'ng the 
 power of generating genius, which has so long served to 
 delude the numerous votaries of mediocrity. Natural or 
 native power is enlarged by art ; but the most perfect 
 art has but narrow limits, deprived of natural disposition. 
 A curious decision on this obscure subject may be 
 drawn from an admirable judge of the nature of genius. 
 Akenside, in that fine poem which forms its history, 
 tracing its source, sang. 
 
 From Heaven my strains begin, from Heaven descends 
 The flame of genius to the human breast. 
 
 But in the final revision of that poem, which he left 
 many years after, the bard has vindicated the solitary and 
 independent origin of genius, by the mysterious epithet, 
 
 THE CHOSEN BREAST. 
 
 The veteran poet was, perhaps, schooled by the vicissi- 
 tudes of his own poetical life, and those of some of his 
 brothers. 
 
 Metaphors are but imperfect illustrations in meta- 
 physical inquiries ; usually they include too little or take 
 in too much. Yet fanciful analogies are not willingly 
 abandoned. The iconologists describe Genius as a 
 winged child with a flame above its head; the wings 
 and the flame express more than some metaphysical con- 
 clusions. Let me substitute for " the white paper " of 
 Locke, which served the philosopher in his description 
 of the operations of the senses on the mind, a less arti- 
 ficial substance. In the soils of the earth we may dis- 
 cover that variety of primary qualities which we believe 
 to exist in human minds. The botanist and the geolo- 
 gist always find the nature of the strata indicative of
 
 48 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 its productions ; the meagre light herbage announces thn 
 poverty of the soil it covers, while the luxuriant growth 
 of plants betray** the richness of the matrix in which the 
 roots are jQxed It is scarcely reasoning by analogy to 
 apply this operating principle of nature to the faculties 
 of men. 
 
 But while the origin and nature of that faculty which 
 we understand by the term Genius remain stUl wrapt up 
 in its mysterious bud, may we not trace its history in its 
 votaries ? If Nature overshadow with her wings her 
 first causes, still the effects lie open before us, and ex- 
 perience and observation will often deduce from con- 
 sciousness what we cannot from demonstration. If 
 Nature, in some of her great operations, has kept back 
 her last secrets ; if Newton, even in the result of his 
 reasonings, has religiously abstained from penetrating 
 into her occult connexions, is it nothing to be her 
 historian, although we cannot be her legislator ? 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 f outh of genius. — Its first impulses may be illustrated by its subse- 
 quent actions. — Parents have another association of the man of 
 genius than we. — Of genius, its first habits. — Its melanchol}''. — Its 
 reveries. — Its love of solitude. — Its disiDosition to repose. — Of a 
 youth distinguished by his equals. — Feebleness of its first attempts. 
 — Of genius not discoverable even in manhood. — The education of 
 the youth may not be that of his genius. — An unsettled impulse, 
 querulous till it finds its true oo('ii;)ation. — With some, curiosity as 
 intense a faculty as invention. — What the youth first applies to is 
 commonly his delight afterwards. — Facts of the decisive character 
 of genius. 
 
 ¥E are entering into a fairy land, touching only 
 shadows, and chasing the most changeable lights; 
 many stories we shall hear, and many scenes will open on
 
 YOUTHFUL STUDIES. 49 
 
 ns ; yet though realities are but dimly to be traced iu this 
 twilight of imagination and tradition, we think that the 
 first impulses of genius may be often illustrated by the 
 subsequent actions of the individual ; and whenever we 
 find these in perfect harmony, it will be difficult to con- 
 vince us that there does not exist a secret connexion 
 between those first impulses and these last actions. 
 
 Can we then trace in the faint lines of his youth an 
 unsteady outline of the man ? In the temperament of 
 genius may we not reasonably look for certain indica- 
 tions or predispositions, announcing the permanent 
 character ? Is not great sensibility born with its irrita- 
 ble fibres ? Will not the deep retired chai-acter cling to 
 its musings ? And the unalterable being of intrepidity 
 and fortitude, will he not, commanding even amidst his 
 sports, lead on his equals ? The boyhood of Cato was 
 marked by the sternness of the man, observable in his 
 speech, his countenance, and his puerile amusements ; 
 and Bacon, Descartes, Hobbes, Gray, and others, be- 
 trayed the same early appearance of their intellectual 
 vigour and precocity of character. 
 
 The vii'tuous and contemplative Boyle imagined that 
 he had discovered m childhood that disposition of mind 
 which indicated an instinctive ingenuousness. An inci- 
 dent which he relates, evinced, as he thought, that even 
 then he preferred to aggravate his fault rather than 
 consent to suppress any part of the truth, an effort which 
 had been unnatural to his mind. His fanciful, yet strik- 
 ing illustration may open our inquiry. "This trivial 
 passage," the little story alluded to, " I have mentioned 
 now, not that I think that in itself it deserves a relation, 
 but because as the sun is seen best at his rising and his 
 setting, so men's native dispositions are clearliest per- 
 ceived whilst they are children, and when they are 
 dying. These little sudden actions are the greatest dis- 
 coverers of men's ti'ue humours." 
 4
 
 50 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 Alfieri, that historian of the literary mind, was con- 
 scious that even in his chiklhood the peculiarity and the 
 melancholy of his character prevailed : a boyhood passed 
 in domestic solitude fed the interior feelings of his impas- 
 sioned character ; and in noticing some incidents of a 
 childish nature, this man of genius observes, " Whoever 
 will reflect on these inept circumstances, and explore 
 into the seeds of the passions of man, possibly may find 
 these neither so laughable nor so puerile as they may 
 appear." His native genius, or by whatever other term 
 we may describe it, betrayed the wayward predisposi- 
 tions of some of his poetical brothers: "Taciturn and 
 placid for the most part, but at times loquacious and 
 most vivacious, and usually in the most opposite ex- 
 tremes ; stubborn and impatient against force, but most 
 open to kindness, more restrained by the dread of repri- 
 mand than by anything else, susceptible of shame to 
 excess, but inflexible if violently opposed." Such is the 
 portrait of a child of seven years old, a portrait which 
 induced the great tragic bard to deduce this result from 
 his own self-experience, that " man is a continuation of 
 the cUkir * 
 
 That the dispositions of genius in early life presage 
 its futui-e character, was long the feeling of antiquity. 
 Cicero, in his " Dialogue on Old Age," employs a beauti- 
 ful analogy drawn from Natui'e, marking her secret 
 conformity in all things which have life and come from 
 her hands ; and the human mind is one of her plants. 
 " Youth is the vernal season of life, and the blossoms 
 it then puts forth are indications of those future fruits 
 which are to be gathered in the succeeding periods." 
 One of the masters of the human mind, after much pre- 
 vious observation of those who attended his lectures, 
 
 * See in his Life, chap, iv., entitled F^viluppo deW iiuhlf. iivUcaio da 
 vari faUiirelii. " Dovelo|);nent of genius, or natural inclination, indi- 
 cated by various little uiattora."
 
 YOUTHFUL STUDIES. 51 
 
 would advise one to engage in political studies, then 
 exhorted another to compose history, elected these to be 
 poets, and those to be orators ; for Isocrates believed that 
 Nature had some concern in forming a man of genius, and 
 endeavoured to guess at her secret by detecting the first 
 energetic inclination of the mind. This also was the prin- 
 ciple which guided the Jesuits, those other great masters 
 in the art of education. They studied the characteristics 
 of their pupils with such singular care, as to keep a secret 
 register in their colleges, descriptive of their talents, and 
 the natural turn of their dispositions. In some cases they 
 guessed with remarkable felicity. They described Fon- 
 tenelle, adolesceiis omnibus numeris ahsolutus et inter dis- 
 cipulos princeps, " a youth accomplished in every respect 
 and the model for his companions;" but when they 
 describe the elder Crebillon, piier ingeniosus sed in- 
 signis nebulo, " a shrewd boy, but a great rascal," they 
 might not have erred so much as they appear to have 
 done ; for an impetuous boyhood showed the decision of 
 a character which might not have merely and misanthro- 
 pically settled in imaginary scenes of horror, and the 
 invention of characters of unparalleled atrocity. 
 
 In the old romance of King Arthur, when a cowherd 
 comes to the king to request he would make his son 
 a knight — " It is a great thing thou askest," said Arthur, 
 who inquired whether this entreaty proceeded from him 
 or his son. The old man's answer is remarkable — " Of 
 my son, not of me ; for I have thirteen sons, and all 
 these will fall to that labour I put them ; but this child 
 will not labour for me for anything that I and my wife 
 will do; but always he will be shooting and casting 
 darts, and glad for to see battles, and to behold knights, 
 and always day and night he desireth of me to be made 
 a knight." The king commanded the cowherd to fetch 
 all his sons ; " they were all shapeu much like the poor 
 man ; but Tor was not like none of them in shape and in
 
 52 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 countenance, for he was much more than any of them. 
 And so Arthur knighted him." This simple tale is the 
 history of genius — the cowherd's twelve sons were like 
 himself, but the unhappy genius in the family, who per- 
 plexed and plagued the cowherd and his wife and his 
 twelve brothers, was the youth averse to the common 
 labour, and dreaming of chivalry amidst a herd of cows. 
 
 A man of genius is thus dropped among the people, 
 and has first to encounter the diiBculties of ordinary 
 men, unassisted by that feeble ductility which adapts 
 itself to the common destination. Parents are too often 
 the victims of the decided propensity of a son to a Virgil 
 or a Euclid ; and the first step into life of a man of 
 genius is disobedience and grief. Lilly, • our famous 
 astrologer, has described the frequent situation of such 
 a youth, like the cowhei'd's son who would be a knight. 
 Lilly proposed to his father that he should try his for- 
 tune in the metropolis, where he expected that his learn- 
 ing and his talents would prove serviceable to him ; the 
 father quite incapable of discovering the latent genius 
 of his son in his studious disposition, very willingly 
 consented to get rid of him, for, as Lilly proceeds, 
 " I could not work, drive the plough, or endure any 
 country labour ; my father oft would say I was good for 
 nothing^'' — words which the fathers of so many men of 
 genius have repeated.* 
 
 In reading the memoirs of a man of genius, we often 
 reprobate tlie domestic persecutions of those who op- 
 
 * The father of Sir Joshua Reynolds reproached him frequently in 
 his boyish days for his constant attention to drawing, and wrote on 
 ihe back of one of his sketches the condemnatory words, " Done by 
 Joshua out of pure idleness." Mignard distressed liis father, the sur- 
 (<eon, by sketching the expressive faces of his patients instead of 
 attending to their diseases; and our own Opio, when a boy, and 
 working with his father at his business as a carpenter, used fre- 
 quently to excite his anger by drawing with red chalk on the deal 
 boards he had carefully planed for his trade. — Ed.
 
 YOUTHFUL STUDIES. 53 
 
 posed his inclinations. No poet but is moved with 
 indignation at the recollection of the tutor at the Port 
 Royal thrice burning the romance which Racine at 
 length got by heart ; no geometrician but bitterly in- 
 veighs against the father of Pascal for not suffering him 
 to study Euclid, which he at length understood without 
 studying. The father of Petrarch cast to the flames the 
 poetical library of his son, amidst the shrieks, the groans, 
 and the tears of the youth. Yet this burnt-offering 
 neither converted Petrarch into a sober lawyer, nor 
 deprived him of the Roman laurel. The uncle of Alfieri 
 for more than twenty years suppressed the poetical char- 
 acter of this noble bard ; he was a poet without knowing 
 how to write a verse, and Nature, like a hard creditor, 
 exacted, with redoubled interest, all the genius which 
 the uncle had so long kept from her. These are the 
 men whose inherent impulse no human opposition, and 
 even no adverse education, can deter from proving them 
 to be great men. 
 
 Let us, however, be just to the parents of a man of 
 genius ; they have another association of ideas respect- 
 ing him than ourselves. We see a great man, they a 
 disobedient child ; we track him through his glory, they 
 are wearied by the sullen resistance of one who is 
 obscure and seems useless. The career of genius i? 
 rarely that of fortune or happiness ; and the father, who 
 himself may not be insensible to glory, dreads lest his 
 son be found among that obscure multitude, that popu- 
 lace of mean artists, self-deluded, yet self-dissatisfied, 
 who must expire at the barriers of mediocrity. 
 
 If the youth of genius be struggling with a concealed 
 impulse, he will often be thrown into a train of secret 
 instruction which no master can impart. Hippocrates 
 profoundly observed, that " our natures have not been 
 taught us by any master," The faculty which the youth 
 of genius displays in after-life may exist long ere it is
 
 54 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 perceived ; and it will only make its own what is homoge- 
 neous with itself. We may often observe how the mind 
 of this youth stubbornly rejects whatever is contrary to 
 its habits, and aUen to its aifections. Of a solitary char- 
 acter, for solitariness is the wild nurse of his contempla- 
 tions, he is fancifully described by one of the race — and 
 here fancies are facts : 
 
 He is retired as noon-tide dew, • 
 
 Or fountain in a noon-day grove. 
 
 The romantic Sidney exclaimed, " Eagles fly alone, 
 and they are but sheep which always herd together." 
 
 As yet this being, in the first rudiments of his sensa- 
 tions, is touched by rapid emotions, and disturbed by a 
 vague restlessness ; for him the images of nature are yet 
 dim, and he feels before he thinks; for imagination pre- 
 cedes reflection. One truly inspired unfolds the secret 
 story — 
 
 Endow'd with all that Nature can bestow, 
 
 The child of fancy oft in silence bends 
 
 O'er the mixt treasures of his pregnant breast 
 
 With conscious pride. From thence he oft resolves 
 
 To frame he knows not what excelling things ; 
 
 And win he knows not what sublime reward 
 
 Of praise and wonder I 
 
 But the solitude of the youth of genius has a local in- 
 fluence ; it is full of his own creations, of his unmarked 
 passions, and his uncertain thoughts. The titles which 
 he gives his favourite haunts often intimate the bent of 
 his mind — its employment, or its purpose ; as Petrarch 
 called his retreat Linternum^ after that of his hero 
 Scipio ; and a young poet, from some favourite descrip- 
 tion in Cowley, called a spot he loved to muse in, " Cow- 
 ley's Walk." 
 
 A temperament of this kind has been often mistaken
 
 rOUTHPUL STUDIES. 55 
 
 for melancholy.* "When the iutermission of my stuJies 
 allowed me leisure for recreation," says Boyle of his early 
 (ife, " I would very often steal away from all company, 
 and spend four or five hours alone in the fields, and 
 think at random; making my delighted imagination 
 the busy scene where some romance or other was daily 
 acted." This circumstance alarmed his friends, who con- 
 cluded that he was overcome with a growing melan- 
 choly, Alfieri found himself in this precise situation, 
 and experienced these undefinable emotions, when, in 
 his first travels at Marseilles, his lonely spirit only 
 haunted the theatre and the seashore : the tragic drama 
 was then casting its influences over his unconscious 
 genius. Almost every evening, after bathing in the sea, 
 it delighted him to retreat to a little recess where the 
 land jutted out ; there would he sit, leaning his back 
 against a high rock, which he tells us, " concealed from 
 my sight every part of the land behind me, while before 
 and around me I beheld nothing but the sea and the 
 heavens : the sun, sinking into the waves, was lighting 
 up and embellishing these two immensities ; there would 
 I pass a delicious hour of fantastic ruminations, and 
 there I should have composed many a poem, had I then 
 known how to write either in verse or prose in any lan- 
 guao-e whatever." 
 
 An uicident of this nature is revealed to us by the 
 other noble and mighty spirit of our times, who could 
 most truly exhibit the history of the youth of genius, and 
 he has painted forth the enthusiasm of the boy Tasso : — 
 
 * This solemnity of manner was aped in the days of Elizabeth and 
 James I. by such as affected scholar-like habits, and is frequently 
 alluded to by the satirists of the time. Ben Jonson, in his '' Every 
 Man in his Humour." delineates the "country gull," Master Stephen, 
 as alfecting "to be mightily given to melancholy," and receiving the 
 assurance, "It's your only fine humour, sir; your true melancholy 
 breeds your perfect fine wit, sir." — Ed,
 
 56 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 From my very birth 
 My soul was drunk with love, which did pervade 
 And mingle with wliate'er I saw on earth ; 
 Of objects all inanimate I made 
 Idols, and out of wild and lonely flowers 
 And rocks whereby they grew, a paradise, 
 Where I did lay me down within the shado 
 Of waving trees, and dream'd uncounted hours, 
 Though I was chid for wandering. 
 
 The youth of genius will be apt to retire from the 
 active sports of his mates. Beattie paints himself in his 
 own IVIinstrel : 
 
 Concourse, and noise, and toil he ever fled, 
 
 Nor cared to mingle in the clamorous fray 
 Of squabbling imps ; but to the forest sped. 
 
 Bossuet would not join his young companions, and flew 
 to his solitary task, while the classical boys avenged 
 themselves by a schoolboy's villanous pun : stigmatising 
 the studious application of Bossuet by the hos suetus 
 aratro which frequent flogging had made them classical 
 enough to quote. 
 
 The learned Huet has given an amusing detail of the 
 inventive persecutions of his schoolmates, to divert him 
 from his obstinate love of study. " At length, in order to 
 indulge my own taste, I would rise with the sun, while they 
 were buried in sleep, and hide myself in the woods, that 
 I might read and study in quiet;" but they beat the 
 bushes, and started in his burrow the future man of eru- 
 dition. Sir William Jones was rarely a partaker in the 
 active sports of Harrow ; it was said of Gray that he was 
 never a boy; the unhappy Chatterton and Burns were 
 singulai'ly serious in youth ;* as Avere Hobbes and Bacon. 
 
 * Dr. Gregory says of Chatterton, " Instead of the thoughtless levity 
 of childhood, he possosacd the pensiveness, gravity, and melancholy of 
 maturerlifo. He was frequently so lost in contemplation, that for many 
 days togctlicr he would say but very little, and that apparently by con- 
 Btraint. His intimates in the scliool were few, and those of the most
 
 YOUTHFUL STUDIES. 57 
 
 Milton has preserved for us, in solemn numbers, his 
 school-life — 
 
 "When I was yet a child, no childish play 
 To me was pleasing: all my mind was set 
 Serious to learn and know, and tlience to do 
 What might be pubhc good : myself I thought 
 Born to that end, born to promote all truth, 
 All righteous tilings. 
 
 It is remarkable that this love of repose and musing is 
 retained throughout life. A man of fine genius is rarely 
 enamoui'ed of common amusements or of robust exercises; 
 and he is usually unadroit where dexterity of hand or 
 eye, or trivial elegances, are required. This characteristic 
 of genius was discovered by Horace in that Ode which 
 schoolboys often versify. Beattie has expressly told us 
 of his Minstrel, 
 
 The exploit of strength, dexterity or speed 
 To him nor vanit}' nor joy could bring. 
 
 Alfieri said he could never be taught by a French dan- 
 cing-master, whose art made him at once shudder and 
 laugh. Horace, by his own confession, was a very awk- 
 ward rider, and the poet could not always secure a seat 
 on his mule : Metastasio humorously complains of his 
 gun ; the poetical sportsman could only frighten the hares 
 and partridges ; the truth was, as an elder poet sings, 
 
 Instead of hounds that make the wooded hills 
 Talk in a hundred voices to tho rills, 
 I hke the pleasing cadence of a line, 
 Struck by the concert of the sacred Nine. 
 
 And we discover the true "humour" of the indolent con- 
 templative race in their great representatives Yirgil and 
 Horace. When they accompanied Mecsenas into the 
 
 serious cast." Of Burns, his schoolmaster, Mr. Murdoch, says — " Rob- 
 ert's countenance was generally grave, and expressive of a serious, con 
 templative, and thoughtful mind." — Ed.
 
 58 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 country, while the minister amused himself at tennis, 
 the two bards reposed on a vernal bank amidst the freshr 
 ness of the shade. The younger Pliny, who was so per- 
 fect a literary character, was charmed by the Roman 
 mode of hunting, or rather fowling by nets, which admit- 
 ted him to sit a whole day with his tablets and stylus ; 
 so, says he, " should I return with empty nets, my tab- 
 lets may at least be full." Thomson was the hero of his 
 own " Castle of Indolence ;" and the elegant Waller in- 
 fuses into his luxurious verses the true feeling : 
 
 Oh, how I long my careless limbs to lay 
 Under the plantane shade, and all the day 
 Invoke the Muses and improve my vein. 
 
 The youth of genius, whom Beattie has drawn after 
 himself, and I after observation, a poet of great genius, 
 as I understand, has declared to be " too effeminate 
 and timid, and too miich ti'oubled with delicate nerves. 
 The greatest poets of all countries," he continues, " have 
 been men eminently endowed with bodily powers^ and 
 rejoiced and excelled in all manly exercises.'''' May not 
 our critic of northern habits have often mistaken the art 
 of the great poets in describing such " manly exercises 
 or bodily powers," for the proof of their " rejoicing and 
 excelling in them ?" Poets and artists, from their habits, 
 are not usually muscular and robust.* Continuity of 
 thought, absorbing reverie, and sedentary habits, will 
 not combine with corporeal skill and activity. There is 
 also a constitutional delicacy which is too often the 
 accomjDaniment of a fine intellect. The inconveniences 
 
 * "Dr. Currie, in his "Life of Burns," has a passage which may be 
 quoted here : " Though by nature of an athletic form, Burns had in 
 his constitution the peculiarities and the delicacies that belong to the 
 temperament of genius. He was liable, from a very early period of 
 life, to that interruption in the process of digestion which arises from 
 deep and anxious thought, and which is sometimes the effect, and 
 sometimes the cause, of depression of spirits.'" — Ed.
 
 EARLY HABITS. 59 
 
 attached to the inferior sedentary labourers are pailicipa- 
 ted in by men of genius ; the analogy is obvious, and their 
 fate is common. Literary men may be included in Ra- 
 mazzini's " Treatise on the Diseases of Artizans." Rous- 
 seau has described the labours of the closet as enervating 
 men, and weakening the constitution, while study wears 
 the whole machinery of man, exhausts the spirits, de- 
 stroys his strength, and renders him pusillanimous.* But 
 there is a higher principle which guides us to declare, 
 that men of genius should not excel in " all manly exer- 
 cises." Seneca, whose habits were completely literary, 
 admonishes the man of letters that " Whatever amuse- 
 ment he chooses, he should not slowly return from those 
 of the body to the mind, while he should be exercising 
 the latter night and day." Seneca was aware that " to 
 rejoice and excel in all manly exercises," would in some 
 cases intrude into the habits of a literary man, and some- 
 times be even ridiculous. Mortimer, once a celebrated 
 artist, was tempted by his athletic frame to indulge in 
 frequent violent exercises ; and it is not without reason 
 suspected, that habits so unfavourable to thought and 
 study precluded that promising genius from attaining to 
 the maturity of his talents, however he might have suc- 
 ceeded in invigorating his physical powers. 
 
 But to our solitude. So true is it that this love of 
 loneliness is an early passion, that two men of genius of 
 very opposite characters, the one a French wit and the 
 other a French philosopher, have acknowledged that 
 they have felt its influence, and even imagined that they 
 had discovered its cause. The Abb6 de St. Pierre, in 
 his political annals, tells us, " I remember to have heard 
 old Segrais remark, that most young people of both 
 sexes had at one time of their lives, generally about 
 seventeen or eighteen years of age, an inclination to 
 
 ♦ In the Preface to the " Narcisse."
 
 60 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 retire from the world. He maintained this to be a 
 S2:)ecies of melancholy, and humouro^^sly called it the 
 small-pox of the mind, because scarce one in a thousand 
 escajied the attack. I myself have had this distemper, 
 but am not much marked with it." 
 
 But if the youth of genius be apt to retire from the 
 oi'dinary sports of his mates, he will often substitute for 
 them others, which are the reflections of those favourite 
 studies which are haunting his young imagination, as 
 men in their dreams repeat the conceptions which have 
 habitually interested them. The amusements of such 
 an idler have often been analogous to his later jDursuits. 
 Ariosto, while yet a schoolboy, seems to have been very 
 susceptible of poetry, for he composed a sort of tragedy 
 from the story of Pyramus and Thisbe, to be represented 
 by his brothers and sisters, and at this time also de- 
 lighted himself in translating the old French and Spanish 
 romances. Sir William Jones, at Harrow, divided the 
 fields according to a map of Greece, and to each school- 
 fellow portioned out a dominion ; and when wanting a 
 copy of the Tempest to act from, he supplied it from his 
 memory; we must confess that the boy Jones was re- 
 flecting in his amusements the cast of mind he disj)layed 
 in his after-life, and evincing that felicity of memory and 
 taste so prevalent in his literary character. Florian's 
 earliest years were passed in shooting birds all day, and 
 reading every evening an old translation of the Iliad : 
 whenever he got a bird remarkable for its size or its 
 plumage, he personified it by one of the names of his 
 heroes, and raising a funeral pyre, consumed the body : 
 collecting the ashes in an urn, he presented them to his 
 grandfather, with a narrative of his Patroclus or Sar- 
 pedon. We seem here to detect, reflected in his boyish 
 pports, the pleasing genius of the author of Nunia Pom- 
 pilius, Gonsalvo of Cordova, and William Tell. Bacon, 
 when a child, was so remarkable for thoughtful observa-
 
 BOYHOOD. 61 
 
 tion, that Queen Elizabeth used to call him " the young 
 lord-keeper." The boy made a remarkable reply, when 
 her Majesty, inquiring of him his age, he said, that " He 
 was two years younger than her Majesty's happy reign." 
 The boy may have been tutored ; but this mixture of 
 gravity, and ingenuity, and political courtiership, un- 
 doubtedly caught from his father's habits, afterwards 
 characterised Lord Bacon's manhood. I once read the 
 letter of a contemporary of Hobbes, where I found that 
 this great philosopher, when a lad, used to ride on packs 
 of skins to market, to sell them for his father, who was a 
 fellmonger ; and that in the market-place he thus early 
 began to vent his private opinions, which long after- 
 wards so fully appeared in his writings. 
 
 For a youth to be distinguished by his equals is per- 
 haps a criterion of talent. At that moment of life, with 
 no flattery on the one side, and no artifice on the other, 
 all emotion and no reflection, the boy who has obtained 
 a predominance has acquired this merely by native 
 powers. The boyhood of Nelson was characterised by 
 events congenial with those of his after-days ; and his 
 father understood his character when he declared that, " in 
 whatever station he might be placed, he would climb, if 
 possible, to the top of the tree." Some puerile anecdotes 
 which Franklin remembered of himself, betray the inven- 
 tion and the Arm intrepidity of his character, and even 
 perhaps his carelessness of means to obtain a purpose. 
 In boyhood he felt a desire for adventure ; but as his 
 father would not consent to a sea life, he made the river 
 near him represent the ocean ; he lived on the water, 
 and was the daring Columbus of a schoolboy's boat. A 
 part Avhere he and his mates stood to angle, in time 
 became a quagmire : in the course of one day, the infant 
 projector thought of a wharf for them to stand on, and 
 raised it with a heap of stones deposited there for the 
 building of a house. With that sort of practical wis-
 
 32 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 dom, or Ulyssean cunning, which marked his mature 
 character, Franklin raised his wharf at the expense of 
 anothei''s house. His contrivances to aid his puny 
 labourers, with his resolution not to quit the great work 
 till it was effected, seem to strike out to us the in- 
 vention and decision of his future character. But 
 the qualities which would attract the companions of a 
 schoolboy may not be those which are essential to fine 
 genius. The captain or leader of his schoolmates is not 
 to be disregarded ; but it is the sequestei-ed boy who 
 may chance to be the artist or the literary charac- 
 ter. Some facts which have been recorded of men of 
 genius at this period are remarkable. We are told by 
 Miss Stewart that Johnson, when a boy at the free- 
 school, appeared "a huge overgrown misshapen strip- 
 ling ;" but was considered as a stupendous stripling ; 
 " for even at that early period of life, Johnson maintained 
 his opinions with the same sturdy, dogmatical, and ar- 
 rogant fierceness." The puerile characters of Lord Bo- 
 lingbroke and Sir Robert Walpole, schoolfellows and 
 rivals, were observed to prevail through their after-life ; 
 the liveliness and- brilliancy of Bolingbroke appeared in 
 his attacks on Walpole, whose solid and industrious 
 qualities triumphed by resistance. A parallel instance 
 might be pointed out in two great statesmen of our own 
 days ; in the wisdom of the one and the wit of the other 
 — men whom nature made rivals, and time made friends 
 or enemies, as it happened. A curious observer, in look- 
 ing over a collection of the Cambridge poems, which 
 were formerly composed by its students, has remarked 
 that " Cowley from tlie first was quaint, Milton sublime, 
 and Barrow copious." If then the characteristic dispo- 
 sition may reveal itself thus early, it affords a principle 
 which ought not to be neglected at this obscure period 
 of youth. 
 
 Is there then a period in youth which yields decisive
 
 BOYHOOD. 63 
 
 marks of the character of genius ? The natures of men 
 are as various as their fortunes. Some, like diamonds, 
 must wait to receive their splendour from the slow 
 touches of the polisher, while others, resembling pearls, 
 appear at once born with their beauteous lustre. 
 
 Among the inauspicious circumstances is the feeble- 
 ness of the first attempts ; and we must not decide on 
 the talents of a young man by his first works. Dryden 
 and Swift might have been deterred from authorship 
 had their earliest pieces decided their fate. Smollett, 
 before he knew which way his genius would conduct 
 him, had early conceived a high notion of his talents 
 for dramatic poetry : his tragedy of the Regicide was 
 refused by Garrick, whom for a long time he could 
 not forgive, but continued to abuse our Roscius, through 
 his works of genius, for having discountenanced his 
 first work, which had none. Racine's earliest compo- 
 sition, as we may judge by some fragments his son 
 has preserved, remarkably contrasts with his wri- 
 tings; for these fragments abound with those points 
 and conceits which he afterwards abhorred. The ten- 
 der author of "Andromache" could not have been 
 discovered while exhausting himself in running after 
 concetti as surj^rising as the worst parts of Cowley, in 
 whose spirit alone he could have hit on this perplexing 
 concetto, descriptive of Aurora : " Fille du Jour, qui nais 
 devant ton pero !" — " Daughter of Day, but born before 
 thy father!" Gibbon betrayed none of the force and 
 magnitude of his powers in his " Essay on Literature," 
 or his attempted " History of Switzerland." Johnson's 
 cad'?r.Cf)d prose is not recognisable in the humbler sim- 
 plicity of his earliest years. Many authors have begun 
 unsuccessfully the walk they afterwai'ds excelled in. 
 Raphael, when he first drew his meagre forms under 
 Perugino, had not yet conceived one line of that ideal 
 beauty which one day he of all men could alone execute.
 
 04 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 Who could have imagined, in examining the Dream of 
 Raphael, that the same pencil could hereafter have poured 
 out the miraculous Transfiguration ? Or that, in the 
 imitative pupil of Hudson, our country was at length to 
 pride herself on another Raphael ? * 
 
 Even the manhood of genius may pass unobserved by 
 his companions, and, like JEneas, he may be hidden in a 
 cloud amidst his associates. The celebrated Fabius 
 Maximus in his boyhood was called in derision "the 
 little sheep," from the meekness and gravity of his dis- 
 position. His sedateness and taciturnity, his indiffei'ence 
 to juvenile amusement, his slowness and difficulty in 
 learning, and his ready submission to his equals, induced 
 them to consider him as one irrecoverably stupid. The 
 greatness of mind, unalterable courage, and invincible 
 character, which Fabius afterwards displayed, they then 
 imagined had lain concealed under the apparent contrary 
 qualities. The boy of genius may indeed seem slow and 
 dull even to the phlegmatic ; for thoughtful and observ- 
 ing dispositions conceal themselves in timorous silent 
 characters, who have not yet experienced their strength ; 
 and that assiduous love, which cannot tear itself away 
 from the secret instruction it is perpetually imbibing, 
 cannot be easily distinguished from the pertinacity of the 
 mere plodder. We often hear, from the early compan- 
 ions of a man of genius, that at school he appeared heavy 
 and unpromising. Rousseau imagined that the child- 
 hood of some men is accompanied by this seeming and 
 deceitful dulness, which is the sign of a profound genius ; 
 and Roger Ascham has placed among " the best natures 
 
 * Hudson was tlio fashionable portrait-painter who succeeded 
 Knollcr, and made a groat reputation and fortune ; but he was a very 
 mean artist, who merely copied the peculiarities of his predecessor 
 without his genius. His stiff hard stylo was formality itself; but waa 
 approved in an ago of formalism ; the earlier half of the last century.— 
 Ed.
 
 BOYHOOD. 65 
 
 for learning, the sad-natured and liard-witted child ;" that 
 is, the thoughtful, or the melancholic, and the slow. The 
 young painters, to ridicule the persevering labours of 
 Domenichino, which were at first heavy and unpromising, 
 called him " the great ox ;" and Passeri, while he has 
 ha])pily expressed the still labours of his concealed genius, 
 sua taciturna lentezza, his silent slowness, expresses his 
 surprise at the accounts he received of the early life of 
 this great artist. " It is difficult to believe, what many 
 assert, that from the beginning, this great painter had a 
 ruggedness about him which entirely incapacitated him 
 from learning his profession ; and they have heard from 
 himself that he quite despaired of success. Yet I cannot 
 comprehend how such vivacious talents, with a mind so 
 finely organised, and accompanied with such favourable 
 dispositions for the art, would show such signs of utter 
 incapacity ; I rather think that it is a mistake in the 
 proper knowledge of genius, which some imagine indi- 
 cates itself most decisively by its sudden vehemence, 
 showing itself like lightning, and like lightning passing 
 away." 
 
 A parallel case we find in Goldsmith, who passed 
 through an unpromising youth ; he declared that he was 
 never attached to literature till he was thirty ; that poetry 
 had no peculiar charms for him till that age ;* and, indeed, 
 to his latest hour he was surprising his friends by pro- 
 ductions which they had imagined he was incapable of 
 composing. Hume was considered, for his sobriety and 
 assiduity, as competent to become a steady merchant ; and 
 it was said of Boileau that he had no great understanding, 
 but woukl speak ill of no one. This circumstance of the 
 character in youtli being entirely mistaken, or entirely 
 opposite to the subsequent one of maturer life, has been 
 
 * This is a remarkable expression from Goldsmith : but it is much 
 more so when we hear it from Lord Byron. See a note in the follow- 
 ing chapter, on " The First Studies," p. 81. 
 5
 
 QQ LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 noticed of many. Even a discerning parent or mastei 
 has entirely failed to develope the genius of the youth, 
 who has afterwards ranked among eminent men ; we 
 ought as little to decide from early unfavourable appear- 
 ances, as from inequality of talent. The great Isaac 
 Barrow's father used to say, that if it pleased God to 
 take from him any of his children, he hoped it might be 
 Isaac, as the least promising ; and during the three years 
 Barrow passed at the Charter-house, he was remarkable 
 only for the utter negligence of his studies and of his 
 person. The mother of Sheridan, herself a literary 
 female, pronounced early that he was the dullest and 
 most hopeless of her sons. Bodmer, at the head of the 
 literary class in Switzerland, who had so frequently dis- 
 covered and animated the literary youths of his country, 
 could never detect the latent genius of Gesner: after a 
 repeated examination of the young man, he put his 
 pai'ents in despair with the hopeless award that a mind 
 of so ordinary a cast must confine itself to mere writing 
 and accompts. One fact, however, Bodmer bad over- 
 looked when he pronounced the fate of our poet and 
 artist — the dull youth, who could not retain barren words, 
 discovered an active fancy in the image of things. While 
 at his grammar lessons, as it happened to Lucian, he was 
 employing tedious hours in modelling in wax, groups of 
 men, animals, and other figures, the rod of the pedagogue 
 often interrupted the fingers of our infant moulder, who 
 never ceased working to amuse his little sisters with his 
 waxen creatures, which constituted all his happiness. 
 Those arts of imitation were already possessing the soul 
 of the boy Gesner, to which afterwards it became so en- 
 tirely devoted. 
 
 Thus it happens that in the first years of life the educa- 
 tion of the youth may not be the education of his genius; 
 he lives unknown to himself a;i(l ollu is. in all these 
 cases nature had dropped the seeds in the soil; but even
 
 BOYHOOD. 67 
 
 a happy disposition must be concealed amidst adverse 
 circumstances : I repeat, that genius can only make that 
 Its own which is homogeneous with its nature. It has 
 happened to some men of genius during a long period of 
 their lives, that an unsettled impulse, unable to discover 
 the object of its aptitude, a thirst and fever in the tem- 
 perament of too sentient a being, which cannot find the 
 occupation to which only it can attach itself, has sunk 
 into a melancholy and querulous spirit, weary with the 
 burthen of existence ; but the instant the latent talent 
 had declared itself, his first work, the eager ofispring of 
 desire and love, has astonished the world at once with 
 the birth and the maturity of genius. 
 
 We are told that Pelegrino Tibaldi, who afterwards 
 obtained the glorious title of " the reformed Michael An- 
 gelo," long felt the strongest internal dissatisfaction at 
 his own proficiency, and that one day, in melancholy and 
 despair, he had retired from the city, resolved to starve 
 himself to death ; his friend discovered him, and having 
 persuaded him to change his pursuits from painting to 
 architecture, he soon rose to eminence. This story D'Ar- 
 genville throws some doubt over ; but as Tibaldi during 
 twenty years abstained from his pencil, a singular cir- 
 cumstance seems explained by an extraordinary occur- 
 rence. Tasso, with feverish anxiety pondered on five 
 different subjects before he could decide in the choice of 
 his epic ; the same embarrassment was long the fate of 
 Gibbon on the subject of his history. Some have sunk 
 mto a deplorable state of utter languishment, from the 
 circumstance of being deprived of the means of pursuing 
 their beloved study, as in the case of the chemist Berg- 
 man. His friends, to gain him over to the more lucra- 
 tive professions, deprived him of his books of natural 
 history ; a plan which nearly proved fatal to the youth, 
 who with declining health quitted the university. At 
 length, ceasing to struggle with the conflicting desire
 
 eS LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 within him, his renewed enthusiasm for his favourite 
 science restored the health he had lost in abandoning it. 
 
 It was the view of the tomb of Virgil which so power- 
 fully influenced the innate genius of Boccaccio, and fixed 
 his instant decision. As yet young, and in the neighbour- 
 hood of N^aples, wandering for recreation, he reached the 
 tomb of the Mantuan. Pausing before it, his youthful 
 mind began to meditate. Struck by the universal glory of 
 that great name, he lamented his own fortune to be occu- 
 pied by the obscure details of merchandise ; already he 
 sighed to emulate the fame of the Roman, and as Villani 
 tells us, from that day he abandoned forever the occupa- 
 tions of commerce, dedicating himself to literature. 
 Proctor, the lost Phidias of our country, would often say, 
 that he should never have quitted his mercantile situa- 
 tion, but for the accidental sight of Barry's picture of 
 " Venus rising from the Sea ;" a picture which produced 
 so immediate an effect on his mind, that it determined 
 him to quit a lucrative occupation. Surely we cannot 
 account for such sudden eflusions of the mind, and such 
 instant decisions, but by the principle of that predispo- 
 sition which only waits for an occasion to declare itself. 
 
 Abundant facts exhibit genius unequivocally discover- 
 ing itself in youth. In general, perhaps, a master-mind 
 exhibits precocity. "Whatever a young man at first 
 applies himself to, is commonly his delight afterwards." 
 This remai'k was made by Hartley, who has related an 
 anecdote of the infancy of his genius, which indicated the 
 manhood. He declared to his daughter that the inten- 
 tion of writing a book u]>on the nature of man, was con- 
 cciived in his mind wlien he M^as a very little boy — when 
 swinging backwards and forwards upon a gate, not more 
 than nine or ten years old ; he was then meditating upon 
 the nature of his own mind, liow man Avas made, and for 
 what future end. Such was tlie true origin, in a boy of 
 ten years old, of liis celebrated book on " The Frame, the
 
 EARLY BIAS. 69 
 
 Duty, and the Expectation of Man." John Hmiter con- 
 ceived his notion of the principle of life, which to his 
 last day formed the subject of his inquiries and experi- 
 ments, when he was very young ; for at that period of 
 life, Mr. Abernethy tell us, he began his observations on 
 the incubated egg, which suggested or corroborated his 
 opinions. 
 
 A learned friend, and an observer of men of science, 
 has supplied me with a remark highly deserving notice. 
 It is an observation that will generally hold good, that 
 the most important systems of theory, however late they 
 may be published, have been formed at a very eai'ly 
 period of life. This important observation may be veri- 
 fied by some striking facts. A most curious one will be 
 found in Lord Bacon's letter to Father Fulgentio, where 
 he gives an account of his projecting his philosophy 
 thirty years before, during his youth. Milton from early 
 youth mused on the composition of an epic. De Thou 
 has himself told us, that from his tender youth his mind 
 was full of the idea of composing a history of his own 
 times ; and his whole life was passed in pi-eparation, and 
 in a continued accession of materials for a future period. 
 From the age of twenty, Montesquieu was preparing the 
 materials of L^Esprit des Loix, by extracts from the 
 immense volumes of civil law. Tillemont's vast labours 
 were traced out in his mind at the early age of nineteen, 
 on reading Baronius ; and some of the finest passages in 
 Racine's tragedies were composed while a pupil, wander- 
 ing in the woods of the Port-Royal. So trvie is it that the 
 seeds of many of our great literary and scientific works 
 were lying, for many years antecedent to their being 
 given to the world, in a latent state of germination.* 
 
 * I need not to be reminded, that I am not worth mentioning among 
 the illustrioiis men who have long formed the famihar subjects of my 
 delightful researches. But with the middling as well as with the 
 great, the same habits must operate. Early in life, I was struck by
 
 70 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 The predisposition of genius has declared itself in 
 painters and poets, who were snch before they understood 
 the nature of colours and the arts of verse ; and this 
 vehement propensity, so mysteriously constitutional, may 
 be traced in other intellectual characters besides those 
 which belong to the class of imagination. It was said 
 that Pitt was horn a minister ; the late Dr. Shaw I 
 always considered as one horn a naturalist, and I know a 
 great literary antiquary who seems to me to have been 
 also horn such ; for the passion of curiosity is as intense 
 a faculty, or instinct, with some casts of mind, as is that 
 of invention with poets and painters : I confess that to 
 me it is genius in a form in which genius has not yet been 
 suspected to appear. One of the biographers of Sir 
 Hans Sloane expresses himself in this manner : — " Our 
 author's thirst for knowledge seems to have been horn 
 with him, so that his Cahinet of Marities may be said to 
 have commenced with his heing.''"' This strange meta- 
 phorical style has only confused an obscure truth. 
 Sloane, early in life, felt an irresistible impulse which 
 inspired him with the most enlarged views of the pro- 
 ductions of nature, and he exulted in their accomplish- 
 ment ; for in his will he has solemnly recorded, that his 
 collections were the fruits of his early devotion, having 
 had from my youth a strong inclination to the study of 
 plants and all other productions of nature. The vehe- 
 
 tlie inductive philosophy of Bacon, and sought after a Moral Experi- 
 mental Philosophy ; and I had then in my mind an observation of 
 Lord Bolingbroko's, for I see I quoted it thirty years ago, that "Ab- 
 stract or general propositions, though never so true, appear obscure or 
 doubtful to us very often till they are explained by examples." So 
 far back aa in 1193 I published "A Dissertation on Anecdotes," with 
 the simplicity of a young votary ; there I deduced results, and threw 
 out a magnificent project not very practicable. From that time to the 
 hour I am now writing, my metal has been running in this mould, 
 and I still keep casting philoaophy into anecdotes, and anecdotes into 
 philosophy. As I began I fear I shall end.
 
 YOUTHFUL STUDIES. 71 
 
 ment passion of Peiresc for knowledge, according to 
 accounts which Gassendi received from old men who had 
 known him as a child, broke out as soon as he had been 
 taught his alphabet ; for then his delight was to be 
 handling books and papers, and his perpetual inquiries 
 after their contents obliged them to invent something to 
 quiet the child's insatiable curiosity, who was hurt when 
 told that he had not the capacity to understand them. 
 He did not study as an ordinary scholar, for he never 
 read but with perpetual researches. At ten years of age, 
 his passion for the studies of antiquity was kindled at 
 the sight of some ancient coins dug up in his neighbour- 
 hood ; then that vehement passion for knowledge " began 
 to burn like fire in a forest," as Gassendi happily de- 
 scribes the fervour and amplitude of the mind of this man 
 of vast learning. Bayle, who was an experienced judge 
 in the history of genius, observes on two fiiars, one of 
 whom was haunted by a strong disposition to gene- 
 alogical^ and the other to geographical pursuits, that, 
 " let a man do what he will, if nature incline us to cer- 
 tain things, there is no preventing the gratification of 
 our desire, though it lies hid under a monk's frock." It 
 is not, therefore, as the world is apt to imagine, only 
 poets and painters for whom is reserved this restless and 
 impetuous propensity for their particular pursuits; I 
 claim it for the man of science as well as for the man of 
 imagination. And I confess that I consider this strong 
 bent of the mind in men eminent in pursuits in which 
 imagination is little concerned, and whom men of genius 
 have chosen to remove so far from their class, as another 
 gifted aptitude. They, too, share in the glorious fever 
 of genius, and we feel how just was the expression 
 formerly used, of " their thirst for knowledge." 
 
 But to return to the men of genius who answer more 
 strictly to the popular notion of inventors. We have 
 Boccaccio's own words for a proof of his early natural
 
 72 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 tendency to tale-writing, in a passage of his genealogy 
 of the gods : — " Before seven years of age, when as yet I 
 had met with no stories, was without a master, and hardly 
 knew my letters, I had a natural talent for fiction, and 
 produced some little tales." Thus the "Decamerone" 
 was appearing much earlier than we suppose. Descartes, 
 while yet a boy, indulged such habits of deep meditation, 
 that he was nicknamed by his companions " The Philoso- 
 pher," always questioning, and ever settling the cause 
 and the effect. He was twenty-five years of age before 
 he left the army, but the propensity for meditation had 
 been early formed ; and he has himself given an account 
 of the pursuits which occupied his youth, and of the pro- 
 gress of his genius ; of the secret struggle which he so 
 long maintained with his own mind, wandering in con- 
 cealment over the world for more than twenty years, 
 and, as he says of himself, like the statuary labouring to 
 draw out a Minerva from the marble block.. Michael 
 Angelo, as yet a child, wherever he went, busied himself 
 in drawing ; and when his noble parents, hurt that a man 
 of genius was disturbing the line of their ancestry, forced 
 him to relinquish the pencil, the infant artist flew to the 
 chisel : the art which was in his soul would not allow of 
 idle hands. Lope de Vega, Velasquez, Ariosto, and 
 Tasso, are all said to have betrayed at their school-tasks 
 the most marked indications of their subsequent charac- 
 teristics. 
 
 This decision of the impulse of genius is apparent in 
 Murillo. This young artist was undistinguished at the 
 place of his birth. A brother artist returning home from 
 London, where he had studied under Van Dyk, surprised 
 Murillo by a chaste, and to him hitherto unknown, man- 
 ner. Listantly he conceived the project of quitting bis 
 native Seville and flying to Italy — the fever of genius 
 broke forth with all its restlessness. But he was desti- 
 tute of the must ordinary incans to pursue a journey, and
 
 YOUTHPUL STUDIES. 73 
 
 forced to an expedient, he purchased a piece of canvas, 
 which dividing into parts, he painted on each figures of 
 saints, landscapes, and flowers — an humble merchandise 
 of art adapted to the taste and devout feelings of the 
 times, and which were readily sold to the adventurers to 
 the Indies. With these small means he departed, having 
 commuijicated his project to no one except to a beloved 
 sister, whose tears could not prevail to keep the lad at 
 home; the impetuous impulse had blinded him to the 
 perils and the impracticability of his wild project. He 
 reached Madrid, where the great Velasquez, his country- 
 man, was struck by the ingenuous simplicity of the youth, 
 who urgently requested letters for Rome ; but when that 
 noble genius understood the purport of this romantic 
 journey, Velasquez assured him that he need not proceed 
 to Italy to learn the art he loved. The great master 
 opened the royal galleries to the youth, and cherished 
 Ms studies. Murillo returned to his native city, where, 
 from his obscurity, he had never been missed, having 
 ever lived a retired life of silent labour ; but this painter 
 of nature returned to make the city which had not no- 
 ticed his absence the theatre of his glory. 
 
 The same imperious impulse drove Callot, at the age 
 of twelve years, from his father's roof His parents, from 
 prejudices of birth, had conceived that the art of engrav- 
 ing was one beneath the studies of their son ; but the boy 
 had listened to stories of the miracles of Italian art, and 
 with a curiosity predominant over any self-consideration, 
 one morning the genius flew away. Many days had not 
 elapsed, when finding himself in the utmost distress, with 
 a gang of gipsies he arrived at Florence. A merchant 
 of Nancy discovered him, and returned the reluctant boy 
 of genius to his home. Again he flies to Italy, and again 
 his brother discovers him, and reconducts him to his pa- 
 rents. The fiither, whose patience and forgiveness were 
 now exhausted, permitted his son to become the most
 
 74 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 original genius of French art — one who, in his viva- 
 cious groups, the touch of his graver, and the natural 
 expression of his figures, anticipated the creations of 
 Hogarth. 
 
 Facts of this decisive character-are abundant. See the 
 boy Nanteuil hiding himself in a tree to pursue the de- 
 lightful exercise of his pencil, while his parents are averse 
 to their son practising his young art ! See Handel, in- 
 tended for a doctor of the civil laws, and whom no pa- 
 rental discouragement could deprive of his enthusiasm, 
 for ever touching harpsichords, and having secretly con- 
 veyed a musical instrument to a retired apartment, listen 
 to him when, sitting through the night, he awakens his 
 harmonious spirit ! Observe Ferguson, the child of a 
 peasant, acquiring the art of reading without any one 
 suspecting it, by listening to his father teaching his bro- 
 ther ; observe him making a wooden watch without the 
 slightest knowledge of mechanism ; and while a shepherd, 
 studying, like an ancient Chaldean, the phenomena of the 
 heavens, on a celestial globe formed by his own hand. 
 That great mechanic, Smeaton, when a child, disdained 
 the ordinary playthings of his age ; he collected the tools 
 of workmen, observed them at their work, and asked 
 questions till he could work himself. One day, having 
 watched some millwrights, the child was shortly after, to 
 the distress of the family, discovered in a situation of ex- 
 treme danger, fixing up at the top of a barn a rude wind- 
 mill. Many circumstances of this nature occurred before 
 his sixth year. His father, an attorney, sent him up to 
 London to be brought up to t lie same profession ; but he 
 declared that "the study of the law did not suit the bent 
 of his genius " — a term he frequently used. He addressed 
 a strong memorial to his father, to show his utter incom- 
 petency to study law ; and the good sense of the father 
 abandoned Smeaton " to the bent of his genius in his own 
 way." Such is the history of the man who raised the
 
 YOUTHFUL STUDIES. 75 
 
 Eddystone Lighthouse, in the midst of the waves, like 
 the rock on which it stands. 
 
 Can we hesitate to believe that in such minds there 
 was a resistless and mysterious propensity, "growing 
 with the growth" of these youths, who seem to have 
 been placed out of the influence of that casual excite- 
 ment, or any other of those sources of genius, so frequently 
 assigned for its production ? 
 
 Yet these cases are not more striking than the one 
 related of the Abbe La Caille, who ranked among the 
 first astronomers of the age. La Caille was the son of 
 the parish clerk of a village. At the age of ten years 
 his father sent him every evening to ring the church 
 bell, but the boy always returned home late : his father 
 was angry, and beat him, and still the boy returned 
 an hour after he had rung the bell. The father suspect- 
 ing something mysterious in his conduct, one evening 
 watched him. He saw his son ascend the steeple, ring 
 the bell as usual, and remain there during an hour. 
 When the unlucky boy descended, he trembled like one 
 caught in the fact, and on his knees confessed that the 
 pleasure he took in watching the stars from the steeple 
 was the real cause which detained him from home. As 
 the father was not born to be an astronomer, he flogged 
 his son severely. The youth was found weeping in the 
 streets by a man of science, who, when he discovered in 
 a boy of ten years of age a passion for contemplating 
 the stars at night, and one, too, who had discovered an 
 observatory in a steeple, decided that the seal of Nature 
 had impressed itself on the genius of that boy. Reliev- 
 ing the parent from the son, and the son from the 
 parent, he assisted the young La Caille in his passionate 
 pursuit, and the event completely justified the prediction. 
 How childi'cn feel a predisposition for the studies of 
 astronomy, or mechanics, or architecture, or natural 
 history, is that secret in nature we have not guessed.
 
 76 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 There may he a virgin thought as well as a virgin habit 
 — nature before education — which first opens the mind, 
 and ever afterwards is shaping its tender folds. Acci- 
 dents may occur to call it forth, but thousands of youths 
 have found themselves in parallel situations with Smea- 
 ton, Ferguson, and La Caille, without experiencing their 
 energies. 
 
 The case of Clairon, the great French tragic actress, 
 who seems to have been an actress before she saw a 
 theatre, deserves attention. This female, destined to be 
 a sublime tragedian, was of the lowest extraction ; the 
 daughter of a violent and illiterate woman, who, with 
 blows and menaces, was driving about the child all 
 day to manual labour. "I know not," says Claii'on, 
 " whence I derive my disgust, but I could not bear the 
 idea to be a mere workwoman, or to remain inactive in 
 a corner." In her eleventh year, being locked up in a 
 room as a punishment, with the windows fastened, she 
 climbed upon a chair to look about her. A new object 
 instantly absorbed her attention. In the house opposite 
 she observed a celebrated actress amidst her family ; her 
 daughtei* was performing her dancing lesson : the girl 
 Clairon, the future Melpomene, was struck by the influ- 
 ence of this graceful and affectionate scene. "All my 
 little being collected itself into my eyes ; I lost not a 
 single motion ; as soon as the lesson ended, all the 
 family applauded, and the mother embraced the daugh- 
 ter. The difference of her fate and mine filled me with 
 profound grief; my tears hindered me from seeing any 
 longer, and wlien the palpitations of my heart allowed 
 me to re-ascend the chair, all had disappeared." This 
 scene was a discovery ; from that moment Clairon knew 
 no rest, and rejoiced when she could get her mother to 
 confine her in that room. The happy girl was a divinity 
 to the unhappy one, whose susceptible genius imitated 
 her in every gesture and every motion; and Clairon
 
 YOUTHFUL STUDIES. 77 
 
 soon showed the effect of her ardent studies. She 
 betrayed in the common intercourse of life, all the graces 
 she had taught herself; she charmed her friends, and 
 even softened her barbai'ous mother; in a word, the 
 enthusiastic girl was an actress without knowing what 
 an actress was. 
 
 In this case of the youth of genius, are we to conclude 
 that the accidental view of a young actress practising her 
 studies imparted the character of Clairon? Could a 
 mere chance occurrence have given birth to those facul- 
 ties which produced a sublime tragedian? Li all arts 
 there are talents which may be acquired by imitation 
 and reflection, — and thus far may genius be educated; 
 but there are others which are entirely the result of native 
 sensibility, which often secretly torment the possessor, 
 and which may even be lost from the want of develop- 
 ment, dissolved into a state of languor from which many 
 have not recovered. Claii-on, before she saw the young 
 actress, and having yet no concej^tion of a theati'e — ^for 
 she had never entered one — had in her soul that latent 
 faculty which creates a dramatic genius. " Had I not felt 
 like Dido," she once exclaimed, " I could not have thus 
 personified her !" 
 
 The foi'ce of impressions received in the warm suscep- 
 tibility of the childhood of genius, is probably little 
 known to us ; but we may perceive them also working 
 in the moral character, which frequently discovers itself 
 in childhood, and which manhood cannot always conceal, 
 however it may alter. The intellectual and the moral 
 character are unquestionably closely allied. Erasmus 
 acquaints us, that Sir Thomas More had something ludi- 
 crous in his aspect, tending to a smile, — a feature which 
 his portraits preserve ; and that he was more inclined to 
 pleasantry and jesting, than to the gravity of the chan- 
 cellor. This circumstance he imputes to Sir Thomas 
 More "being from a child so delighted with humour.
 
 78 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 that he seemed to be even born for it." And we know 
 that he died as he had lived, with a jest on his lips. The 
 hero, who came at length to regret that he had but one 
 world to conquer, betrayed the majesty of his restless 
 genius when but a youth. Had Aristotle been nigh 
 when, solicited to join in the course, the princely boy re- 
 plied, that " He would run in no career where kings were 
 not the competitors," the prescient tutor might have 
 recognized in his pupil the future and successful rival of 
 Darius and Porus. 
 
 A narrative of the earliest years of Prince Henry, by 
 one of his attendants, forms an authentic collection of 
 juvenile anecdotes, which made me feel very forcibly 
 that there are some children who deserve to have a biog- 
 rapher at their side ; but anecdotes of children are the 
 rarest of biographies, and I deemed it a singular piece of 
 good fortune to have recovered such a remarkable evi- 
 dence of the precocity of character.* Professor Dugald 
 Stewart has noticed a fact in Arnauld's infancy, which, 
 considered in connexion with his subsequent life, affords 
 a good illustration of the force of impressions received in 
 the first dawn of reason. Arnauld, who, to his eightieth 
 year, passed through a life of theological controversy, 
 when a child, amusing himself in the library of the Cardi- 
 nal Du Perron, requested to have a pen given to him. 
 " For what purpose ?" inquii-ed the cardinal. " To write 
 books, like you, against the Huguenots." The cardinal, 
 then aged and infirm, could not conceal his joy at the 
 prospect of so hopeful a successor ; and placing the pen 
 in his hand, said, " I give it you as the dying shepherd, 
 Daraoetas, bequeathed his pipe to the little Corydon." 
 Other children might have asked for a pen — but to write 
 against the Huguenots evinced a deeper feeling and a 
 wider association of ideas, indicating the futui'e polemic. 
 
 * I have prosorvod this mamiscripr aarrativo in " Curiosities of 
 Literature," vol. ii.
 
 YOUTHFUL STUDIES. 79 
 
 Some of these facts, we conceive, afford decisive e\i- 
 dence of that instinct in genius, that primary quality of 
 mind, sometimes called organization, which has inflamed 
 a war of words by an equivocal term. We repeat that 
 this faculty of genius can exist independent of education, 
 and where it is wanting, education can never confer it : 
 it is an impulse, an instinct always working in the char- 
 acter of " the chosen mind ;" 
 
 One with our feelings and our powers, 
 And rather part of us, than ours. 
 
 In the history of genius there are unquestionably many 
 secondary causes of considerable influence in developing, 
 or even crushing the germ — these have been of late often 
 detected, and sometimes carried to a ridiculous extreme ; 
 but among them none seem more remarkable than the 
 first studies and the first habits. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The first studies. — The self-educated are marked by stubborn pecu- 
 liarities. — Their errors. — Their improvement from the neglect or 
 contempt they incur. — The history of self-education in Moses Men- 
 delssohn. — Friends usually prejudicial in the youth of genius. — A 
 remarkable interview between Petrarch in his first studies, and his 
 literary adviser. — Exhortation. 
 
 THE first studies form an epoch in the history of genius, 
 and unquestionably have sensibly influenced its pro- 
 ductions. Often have the first impressions stamped a 
 character on the mind adapted to receive one, as the first 
 Btep into life has often determined its walk. But this, 
 for ourselves, is a far distant period in our existence,
 
 80 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 which is lost in the horizon of our own recollections, and 
 is usually unobserved by othei's. 
 
 Many of those peculiarities of men of genius which are 
 not fortunate, and some which have hardened the charac- 
 ter in its mould, may, however, be traced to this period. 
 Physicians tell us that there is a certain point in youth 
 at which the constitution is formed, and on which the 
 sanity of life revolves ; the character of genius experi- 
 ences a similar dangerous period. Early bad tastes, early 
 peculiar habits, early defective instructions, all the ego- 
 tistical pride of an untamed intelleet, are those evil 
 spirits which will dog genius to its grave. An early at- 
 tachment to the works of Sir Thomas Browne produced 
 in Johnson an excessive admiration of that Latinised 
 English, which violated the native graces of the language ; 
 and the peculiar style of Gibbon is traced by himself " to 
 the constant habit of speaking one language, and writing 
 another. The first studies of Rembrandt affected his 
 after-labours. The peculiarity of shadow which marks 
 all his pictures, originated in the circumstance of his 
 father's mill receiving light from an aperture at the top, 
 which habituated the artist afterwards to view all objects 
 as if seen in that magical liglit. The intellectual Poussin, 
 as Nicholas has been called, could never, from an early 
 devotion to the fine statues of antiquity, extricate his 
 genius on the canvas from the hard forms of marble ; he 
 Bcul2)tured Avith his pencil ; and that cold austerity of 
 tone, still more remarkable in his last pictures, as it be- 
 came mannered, cliills the spectator on a first glance. 
 When Pope was a cliild, he found in his mother's closet a 
 small library of mystical devotion ; but it was not sus- 
 pected, till tlie fact was discovered, that the efliisions of 
 love and religion poured forth in his "Eloisa" were 
 caught from tlie scrapliic raptures of those erotic mystics, 
 wlio to the last retained a pUice in his library among the 
 classical bai'ds of antiquity, Tlie accidental perusal of
 
 YOUTHFUL STUDIES. 81 
 
 Quintus Curtius first made Boyle, to use his own words, 
 " in love with other than pedantic books, and conjured 
 up in him an unsatisfied appetite of knowledge ; so that 
 he thought he owed more to Quintus Curtius than did 
 Alexander," From the perusal of Rycaut's folio of Turk- 
 ish history in childhood, the noble and impassioned bard 
 of our times retained those indelible impressions which 
 gave life and motion to the " Giaour," " the Corsair," 
 and "Alp." A voyage to the country produced the 
 Bcener}-. Rycaut only communicated the impulse to a 
 mind susceptible of the poetical character ; and without 
 this Turkish history we should still have had the poet.* 
 
 The influence of first studies in the formation of the 
 character of genius is a moral phenomenon which has not 
 Bufiicioiitly attracted our notice. Franklin acquaints us 
 that, when young and wanting books, he accidentally 
 
 * Tlie following manuscript note by Lord Byron on this passage, 
 cannot fail to interest the lovers of poetry, as well as the inquirers into 
 the history of the human mind. His lordship's recollections of his first 
 readings will not alter the tendency of my conjecture ; it only proves 
 that he had read much more of Eastern history and manners than Ry- 
 aut's folio, which probably led to this class of books : 
 
 "KnoUes — Cantomir — De Tott — Lady M. W. Montagu — Hawkins's 
 translation from Mignot's History of the Turks — The Arabian Nights — 
 all travels or histories or books upon the East I could meet with I had 
 read, as well as Rycaut, before I was ten years old. I think the Ara- 
 bian Nights first. After these I preferred the history of naval actions, 
 Don Quixote, and Smollett's novels, particularly Roderick Random, 
 and I was passionate for the Roman history. 
 
 •' "When a boy I could never bear to read any poetry whatever with- 
 out disgust and reluctance." — MS. note by D^rd Byron. Latterly Lord 
 Byron acknowledged in a conversation hold in Greece with Count 
 Gamba, not long before he died. " The Turkish History was one of the 
 first books that gave me pleasure when a child; and I beheve it had 
 much influence on my subsequent wishes to visit the Levant; and 
 gave perhaps the Oriental colouring which is observed in my poetry." 
 
 I omitted the following note in my last edition, but I shall now pre- 
 serve it, as it may enter into the history of his lordship's character: 
 
 " When I was in Turkey I was oftener tempted to turn Mussulman 
 than poet, and have '^en regretted since that I did not 1818." 
 6
 
 82 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 found De Foe's " Essay on Projects," from which -worls 
 impressions were derived which afterwards influenced 
 some of the principal events of his life. The lectures of 
 Reynolds probably originated in the essays of Richard- 
 son. It is acknowledged that these first made him a 
 painter, and not long afterwards an author ; and it is said 
 that many of the principles in his lectures may be traced 
 in those first studies. Many were the indelible and glow- 
 ing impressions caught by the ardent Reynolds from 
 those bewildering pages of enthusiasm ! Sir Walter 
 Raleigh, according to a family tradition, when a young 
 man, was perpetually reading and conversing on the dis- 
 coveries of Columbus, and the conquests of Cortez and 
 Pizarro. His character, as well as the great events of 
 his life, seem to have been inspired by his favourite his- 
 tories ; to pass beyond the discoveries of the Spaniards 
 became a passion, and the vision of his life. It is 
 formally testified that, from a copy of Vegetius de Re 
 Milltari, in the school library of St. Paul's, Marlborough 
 imbibed his passion for a military life. If he could not 
 understand the text, the prints were, in such a mind, suflS- 
 cent to awaken the passion for military glory. Rousseau 
 in early youth, full of his Plutarch, while he was also 
 devouring the trash of romances, could only conceive 
 human nature in the colossal forms, or be afiected by the 
 infirm sensibility of an imagination mastering all his 
 faculties; tliinking like a Roman, and feeling like a 
 Sybai-ite. The same circumstance happened to Catherine 
 Macaulcy, who herself has told us how she owed the bent 
 of her character to the early reading of the Roman 
 historians ; but combining Roman admiration with En- 
 glish faction, she violated truth in English characters, and 
 exaggerated romance in her Roman. But the permanent 
 effect of a solitary bias in the youth of genius, impelling 
 the whole current of his after-life, is strikingly displayed 
 in the remarkable character of Archdeacon Blackburne,
 
 ARCHDEACON BLACKBURNE. 83 
 
 the author of the famous " Confessional," and the curious 
 "Memoirs of Hollis," written with such a republican 
 fierceness. 
 
 I had long considered the character of our archdeacon 
 as a lusus poUtieus et theologicus. Having subscribed to 
 the Articles, and enjoying the archdeaconry, he was 
 ■writing against subscription and the whole hierarchy with 
 a spirit so irascible and caustic, that one would have 
 suspected that, like Prynne and BastAvick, the archdeacon 
 had already lost both his ears ; while his antipathy to 
 monarchy might have done honour to a Roundhead of 
 the Rota Club. The secret of these volcanic explosions 
 was only revealed in a letter accidentally preserved. In 
 the youth of our spirited archdeacon, when fox-hunting 
 was his deepest study, it happened at the house of a 
 relation, that on a rainy day he fell, among other garret 
 lumber, on some worm-eaten volumes which had once 
 been the careful collections of his great-grandfather, an 
 Oliverian justice. " These," says he, " I conveyed to my 
 lodging-room, and there became acquainted with the 
 manners and principles of many excellent old Puritans, 
 and then laid the foundation of my own." The enigma 
 is now solved ! Archdeacon Blackburne, in his seclusion 
 in Yorkshire amidst the Oliverian justice's library, shows 
 that we are in want of a Cervantes but not of a Quixote, 
 and Yorkshire might yet be as renowned a country as 
 La Mancha ; for j)olitical romances, it is presumed, may 
 be as fertile of ridicule as any of the folios of chivalry. 
 
 We may thus mark the influence through life of those 
 first unobserved impressions on the character of genius, 
 wliich every author has not recorded. 
 
 Education, however indispensable in a cultivated age, 
 produces nothing on the side of genius. Where educa- 
 tion ends, genius often begins. Gray was asked if he 
 recollected when lie first felt the strong j^redilection to 
 poetry ; he replied that, " he believed it was when he
 
 84 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 began to read Virgil for his own amusement, and not in 
 Bchool hours as a task." Such is the force of self-educa- 
 tion in genius, that the celebrated physiologist, John 
 Hunter, who was entirely self-educated, evinced such 
 penetration in his anatomical discoveries, that he has 
 brought into notice passages from writers he was unable 
 to read, and which had been overlooked by profound 
 scholars.* 
 
 That the education of genius must be its own work, we 
 may appeal to every one of the family. It is not always 
 fortunate, for many die amidst a waste of talents and the 
 wi'eck of mind. 
 
 Many a soul sublime 
 Has felt the influence of malignant star 
 
 An unfavourable position in society is a usual obstruc- 
 tion in the course of this self-education ; and a man of 
 genius, throiigh half his life, has held a contest with a 
 bad, or with no education. There is a race of the late- 
 taught, who, with a capacity of leading in the first rank, 
 are mortified to discover themselves only on a level with 
 their contemporaries. Winckelmann, who passed his youth 
 in obscure misery as a village schoolmaster, paints feel- 
 ings which strikingly contrast with his avocations. " I 
 formerly filled the ofiice of a schoolmaster with the great- 
 est punctuality ; and I taught the A, B, C, to children 
 with filthy heads, at the moment I was aspiring after the 
 knowledge of the beautiful, and meditating, low to my- 
 self, on the similes of Homer ; then I said to myself, as I 
 still say, ' Peace, my soul, thy strength shall surmount 
 
 ♦ Life of John Hunter, by Dr. Adams, p. 69, where the case is curi- 
 ously illustrated. [The writer therein defends Hunter from a charge 
 of plagiarism from the Greek writers, who had studied accurately 
 certain phases of disease, which had afterwards been " overlooked by 
 the most profound scholars for nearly two thousand years," until John 
 Hunter by his own close observation had assumed similar conclusions.]
 
 SELF-EDUCATION. 85 
 
 thy cares.' " The obstructions of so unhappy a self-edu- 
 cation essentially injured his ardent genius, and long he 
 secretly sorrowed at this want of early patronage, and 
 these habits of hfe so discordant with the habits of his 
 mind. " I am unfortunately one of those whom the 
 Greeks named 6<J".fia'9si<;, sero sapientes, the late-learned, 
 for I have appeared too late in the world and in Italy. 
 To have done something, it was necessary that I should 
 have had an education analogous to my pursuits, and at 
 your age." This class of the late-learned is a useful dis- 
 tinction. It is so with a sister-art ; one of the greatest 
 musicians of our country assures me that the ear is as 
 latent with many ; there are the late-learned even in the 
 musical world. Budseus declared that he was both " self- 
 taught and late-taught." 
 
 The SELF-EDUCATED are marked by stubborn peculiari- 
 ties. Often abounding with talent, but rarely with 
 talent in its place, their native prodigality has to dread 
 a plethora of genius and a delirium of wit : or else, hard 
 but irregular students rich in acquisition, they find how 
 their huddled knowledge, like corn heaped in a granary, 
 for want of ventilation and stirring, perishes in its own 
 masses. Not having attended to the process of their 
 own minds, and little acquainted with that of other men, 
 they cannot throw out their intractable knowledge, nor 
 with sympathy awaken by its softening touches the 
 thoughts of others. To conduct their native impulse, 
 which had all along driven them, is a secret not always 
 discovered, or else discovered late in life. Hence it has 
 happened with some of this race, that their fiirst work 
 has not announced genius, and their last is stamped with 
 it. Some are often judged by their first work, and when 
 they have surpassed themselves, it is long ere it is ac- 
 knowledged. They have improved themselves by the 
 very neglect or even contempt which their unfortunate 
 eflEbrts were doomed to meet ; and when once they have
 
 86 LITERART CHARACTER. 
 
 learned what is beautiful, they discover a living but un- 
 suspected source in their own wild but unregarded origi- 
 nality. Glorying in their strength at the time that they 
 are betraying their weakness, yet are they still mighty 
 in that enthusiasm which is only disciplined by its own 
 fierce habits. Never can the native faculty of genius 
 with its creative warmth be crushed out of the human 
 soul ; it will work itself out beneath the encumbrance of 
 the most uncultivated minds, even amidst the deep per- 
 plexed feelings and the tumultuous thoughts of the most 
 visionary enthusiast, who is often only a man of genius 
 misplaced.* We may find a whole race of these self- 
 taught among the unknown writers of the old romances, 
 and the ancient ballads of European nations ; there sleep 
 many a Homer and Virgil — legitimate heirs of their ge- 
 nius, though possessors of decayed estates. Bunyan is 
 the Spenser of the people. The fire burned towai'ds 
 Heaven, although the altar was rude and rustic. 
 
 Barry, the painter, has left behind him works not to be 
 turned over by the connoisseur by rote, nor the artist 
 who dares not be just. That enthusiast, with a temper 
 of mind resembling Rousseau's, but with coarser feelings, 
 was the same creature of untamed imagination consumed 
 by the same passions, with the same fine intellect disor- 
 dered, and the same fortitude of soul ; but he found his 
 self-taught pen, like his pencil, betray his genius, f A 
 
 ■* " One assertion I will venture to make, as suggested by my owu 
 experience, that there exist folios on the human understanding and 
 the nature of man which would have a far jiistor claim to their high 
 rank and celebrity, li' in the whole huge volume there could be found 
 as much fulness of heart and intellect as burst forth in many a sim- 
 ple page of George Pox and Jacob Behmen." — Mr. Coleridge's BiogrU' 
 phia Litkrnria, i. HiJ. 
 
 I Like Hogarth, when he attempted to engrave his own works, hi8 
 originality of style made thorn differ from the tamer and more mechan- 
 ical labours of the professional engraver. They have consequently 
 less beauty, but greater vigour. — Kd.
 
 SELF-EDUCATION. 87 
 
 vehement enthusiasm breaks through his ill-composed 
 works, throwing the sparks of his bold conceptions into 
 the soul of the youth of genius. When, in his charac- 
 ter of professor, he delivered his lectures at the academy, 
 at every pause his auditors rose in a tumult, and at every 
 close their hands returned to him the proud feelings he 
 adored. This gifted but self-educated man, once listen- 
 ing to the children of genius whom he had created about 
 him, exclaimed, " Go it, go it, my boys ! they did so at 
 Athens." This self-formed genius could throw up his 
 native mud into the very heaven of his invention ! 
 
 But even such pages as those of Barry's are the ali- 
 ment of young genius. Before we can discern the 
 beautiful, must we not be endowed with the susceptibil- 
 ity of love ? Must not the disposition be formed before 
 even the object appears ? I have witnessed the young 
 artist of genius glow and start over the reveries of the 
 uneducated Barry, but pause and meditate, and inquire 
 over the mature elegance of Reynolds ; in the one he 
 caught the passion for beauty, and in the other he dis- 
 covered the beautiful; with the one he was warm and 
 restless, and with the other calm and satisfied. 
 
 Of the difficulties overcome in the self-education of 
 genius, we have a remarkable instance in the character 
 of Moses Mendelssohn, on whom literary Germany has 
 bestowed the honorable title of " the Jewish Socrates."* 
 So great apparently were the invincible obstructions 
 which barred out Mendelssohn from the world of litera- 
 ture and philosophy, that, in the history of men of 
 
 * I composed the life of Mendelssohn so far back as in 1798, in a 
 periodical publication, whence our late biographers have drawn their 
 notices; a juvenile production, which happened to excite the attention 
 of the late Barry, then not personally known to me; and he gave all 
 the immortalit_v his poetical pencil could bestow on tliis man of genius, 
 by immediately placing in his Elysium of Genius Mendelssolm shaking 
 hands with Addison, who wrote on the truth of the Christian religion, 
 and near Locke, the English master of Mendelssohn's mind.
 
 88 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 genius, it is something like taking in the history of man 
 the savage of Aveyron from his woods — who, destitute 
 of a human language, should at length create a model of 
 eloquence ; who, without the faculty of conceiving a 
 figure, should at length be capable of adding to the 
 demonstrations of Euclid ; and who, without a complex 
 idea and with few sensations, should at length, in the 
 sublimest strain of metaphysics, open to the world a new 
 view of the immortality of the soul ! 
 
 Mendelssohn, the son of a poor rabbin, in a village in 
 Germany, received an education completely rabbinical, 
 and its nature must be comprehended, or the term of 
 education would be misunderstood. The Israelites in 
 Poland and Germany live with all the restrictions of 
 their ceremonial law in an i su'ated state, and are not 
 always instructed in the language of the country of their 
 birth. They employ for their common intercourse a bar- 
 barous or patois Hebrew ; while the sole studies of the 
 young rabbins are strictly confined to the Talmud, of 
 which the fundamental principle, like the Sonna of the 
 Turks, is a pious rejection of every species of profane 
 learning. This ancient jealous spirit, which walls in the 
 understanding and the faith of man, was to shut out what 
 the imitative Catholics afterwards called heresy. It is, 
 then, these numerous folios of the Talmiid which the 
 true Hebraic student contemplates through all the sea- 
 sons of life, as the Patuecos in their low valley imagine 
 their surrounding mountains to be the confines of the 
 universe. 
 
 Of such a nature was the plan of Mendelssohn's first 
 studies ; but even in his boyhood this conflict of study 
 occasioned an agitation of his spirits, which affected his 
 life ever after. Rejecting the Talmudical dreamers, he 
 cavight a nobler spirit from the celebrated Maimonides ; 
 and his native sagacity was already clearing up the sur- 
 rounding darkness. An enemy not less hostile to the 
 
 1
 
 MENDELSSOHN. 89 
 
 enlargement of mind than voluminous legends, presented 
 itself in the indigence of his father, who was compelled to 
 send away the youth on foot to Berlin, to find labour 
 and bread." 
 
 At Berlin, Mendelssohn becomes an amanuensis to an- 
 other poor rabbin, who could only still initiate him into the 
 theology, the jurisprudence, and the scholastic philosophy 
 of his peopld Thus, he was as yet no farther advanced 
 in that philoso])hy of the mind in which he was one day 
 to be the rival of Plato and Locke, nor in that knowl- 
 edge of literature which was finally to jplace him among 
 the first polished critics of Germany. 
 
 Some unexpected event occurs which gives the first 
 great impulse to the mind of genius: Mendelssohn 
 received this from the companion of his misery and his 
 studies, a man of congenial but maturer powers. He 
 was a Polish Jew, expelled from the communion of the 
 orthodox, and the calumniated student was now a va- 
 grant, with more sensibility than fortitude. But this 
 vagrant was a philosopher, a poet, a naturalist, and a 
 mathematician. Mendelssohn, at a distant day, never 
 alluded to him without tears. Thrown together into the 
 same situation, they approached each other by the same 
 sympathies, and communicating in the only language 
 which Mendelssohn could speak, the Polander voluntarily 
 undertook his literary education. 
 
 Then was seen one of the most extraordinary spectacles 
 in the history of modern literature. Two houseless 
 Hebrew yoiaths might be discovered, in the moonlit 
 streets of Berlin, sitting in retired corners, or on the 
 steps of some porch, the one instructing the other, with 
 a Euclid in his hand ; but what is more extraordinary, it 
 was a Hebrew version, composed by the master for a 
 pupil who knew no other language. Who could then 
 have imagined that the future Plato of Germany was 
 sitting on those steps !
 
 90 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 The Polander, whose deep melancholy had settled ou 
 his heart, died — yet he had not lived in vain, since the 
 electric spark that lighted up the soul of Mendelssohn 
 had fallen from his own. 
 
 ' Mendelssohn was now left alone ; his mind teeming with 
 its chaos, and still master of no other language than that 
 barren idiom which was incapable of expressing the ideas 
 he was meditating on. He had scarcely made a step into 
 the philosophy of his age, and the genius of Mendelssohn 
 had probably been lost to Germany, had not the singular- 
 ity of his studies and the cast of his mind been detected 
 by the sagacity of Dr. Kisch. The aid of this physician 
 was momentous ; for he devoted several hours every day 
 to the instruction of a poor youth, whose strong capacity 
 he had the discernment to perceive, and the generous 
 temper to aid. Mendelssohn was soon enabled to read 
 Locke in a Latin version ; but with such extreme pain, 
 that, compelled to search for every word, and to arrange 
 their Latin oi'der, and at the same time to combine meta- 
 physical ideas, it was observed that he did not so much 
 translate, as guess by the force of meditation. 
 
 This prodigious effort of his intellect retarded his pro 
 gress, but invigorated his habit, as the racer, by running 
 against the hill, at length courses with facility. 
 
 A succeeding eifort was to master the living languages, 
 and chiefly the English, that he might read his favourite 
 Locke in his own idiom. Thus a great genius for meta- 
 physics and languages was forming itself alone, without 
 aid. 
 
 It is curious to detect, in tlie cliaracter of genius, the 
 effects of local and moral influences. There resulted 
 from Mendelssohn's early situation certain defects in his 
 Jewish education, and numerous impediments in his 
 studies. Inheriting but one language, too obsolete and 
 naked to serve tlie purposes of modern philosophy, he 
 perhaps overvalued his new acquisitions, and in his
 
 CRITICISM OF FRIENDS. 91 
 
 delight of knowing many languages, he with difficulty 
 escaped from, remaining a mere philologist ;" while in his 
 philosophy, having adopted the prevailing principles of 
 Wolf and Baumgarten, his genius was long without the 
 courage or the skill to emancipate itself from their rusty 
 chains. It was more than a step which had brought him 
 into their circle, but a step was yet wanting to escape 
 from it. 
 
 At length the mind of Mendelssohn enlarged in liter- 
 ary intercourse : he became a great and original thinker 
 in many beautiful speculations in moral and critical phi- 
 losophy ; while he had gradually been creating a style 
 which the ei'itics of Germany have declared to be their 
 first luminous model of precision and elegance. Thus a 
 Hebrew vagrant, first perplexed in the voluminous laby- 
 rinth of Judaical learning, in his middle age oppressed 
 by indigence and malady, and in his mature life wrestling 
 with that commercial station whence he derived his hum- 
 ble independence, became one of the master-writers in 
 the literature of his countrj'-. The history of the mind 
 of Mendelssohn is one of the noblest pictures of the self- 
 education of genius. 
 
 Fiiends, whose prudential counsels in the business of 
 life are valuable in our youth, ax*e usually prejudicial in 
 the youth of genius. The multitude of authors and 
 artists originates in the ignorant admiration of their 
 early friends ; while the real genius has often been dis- 
 concerted and thrown into despair by the false judgments 
 of his domestic cii-cle. The productions of taste are 
 more unfortunate than those which depend on a chain of 
 reasoning, or the detail of facts ; these are more palpable 
 to the common judgments of men; but taste is of such 
 rarity, that a long life may be passed by some without 
 once obtaining a familiar acquaintance with a mind so 
 cultivated by knowledge, so tried by experience, and so 
 practised by converse wdth the literary world, that its
 
 92 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 prophetic feeling can anticipate the public opinion. 
 When a young writer's first essay is shown, some, 
 through mere inabiUty of censure, see nothing but beau- 
 ties ; others, from mere imbecihty, can see none ; and 
 others, out of pure malice, see nothing but faults, " I 
 was soon disgusted," says Gibbon, "with the modest 
 practice of reading the manuscript to my friends. Of 
 such friends some will praise for politeness, and some 
 will criticise for vanity." Had several of our first 
 writers set their fortunes on the cast of their friends' 
 opinions, we might have lost some precious compositions. 
 The friends of Thomson discovered nothing but faults 
 in his early productions, one of which happened to be his 
 noblest, the " Winter ;" they just could discern that these 
 abounded in luxuriances, without being aware that they 
 were the luxuriances of a poet. He had created a new 
 school in art — and appealed from his circle to the public. 
 From a manuscript letter of our poet's, written when 
 employed on his " Summer," I transcribe his sentiments 
 on his former literary friends in Scotland — he is writing 
 to Mallet : " Far from defending these two lines, I damn 
 them to the lowest depth of the poetical Tophet, prepared 
 of old for Mitchell, Morris, Rook, Cook, Beckingham, and 
 a long &c. Wherever I have evidence, or think I have 
 evidence, which is the same thing, I'll be as obstinate as 
 all the mules in Persia," This poet of warm afi*ections 
 felt so irritably the perverse criticisms of his learned 
 friends, that they were to share alike a poetic Hell — prob- 
 ably a sort of Dunciad, or lampoons. One of these 
 " blasts " broke out in a vindictive epigram on Mitchell, 
 whom he describes with a " blasted eye ;" but this critic 
 literally having one, the poet, to avoid a personal reflec- 
 tion, could only consent to make the blemish more 
 active — 
 
 "Why all not faults, injurious Mitchell I why 
 Appears one beauty to thy blasting eye ?
 
 CRITICISM OF FRIENDS. 93 
 
 He again calls him " the planet-blasted Mitchell." Of 
 another of these critical friends he speaks with more 
 sedateness, but with a strong conviction that the critic, 
 a very sensible man, had no sympathy with the poet. 
 " Aikman's reflections on my writings are very good, 
 but he does not in them regard the tui-n of my genius 
 enough ; should I alter my way, I would write poorly. 
 I must choose what appears to me the most significant 
 epithet, or I cannot with any heart proceed." The 
 " JVIirror," * when periodically published in Edinburgh, 
 was " fastidiously " received, as all " home-productions " 
 are: but London avenged the cause of the author. 
 When Swift introduced Parnell to Lord Bolingbroke, 
 and to the world, he observes, in his Journal, "it is 
 pleasant to see one who hardly passed for anything in 
 Ireland, make his way here with a little friendly forward- 
 ing." Montaigne has honestly told us that in his own 
 province they considered that for him to attempt to 
 become an author was perfectly ludicrous ; at home, says 
 he, " I am compelled to purchase printers ; while at a 
 distance, printers purchase me." There is nothing more 
 trying to the judgment of the friends of a young man 
 of genius than the invention of a new manner : without 
 a standard to appeal to, without bladders to swim, the 
 ordinary critic sinks into irretrievable distress; but 
 usually pronounces against novelty. When Reynolds 
 returned from Italy, wai-m with all the excellence of his 
 art, and painted a portrait, his old master, Hudson, view- 
 ing it, and perceiving no trace of his own manner, ex- 
 claimed that he did not paint so well as when he left 
 England ; while another, who conceived no higher excel- 
 
 * This weekly journal was chiefly supported by the abilities of the 
 rising young men of the Scottish Bar. Henry Mackenzie, the author 
 of the ''Man of Feeling," was th9 principal contributor. The pub- 
 lication was commenced in January, 1779, and concluded May, 
 1790.— Ed.
 
 94 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 "ience tlian Kneller, treated with signal contempt the 
 future Raphael of England. 
 
 If it be dangerous for a young writer to i-esign himself 
 to the opinions of his friends, he also incurs some peril 
 in passing them with inattention. lie wants a Quintilian. 
 One mode to obtain such an invaluable critic is the culti- 
 vation of his own judgment in a round of reading and 
 meditation. Let him at once supply the marble and be 
 himself the sculptor : let the great authors of the world 
 be his gospels, and the best critics their expounders ; 
 from the one he will draw inspiration, and from the others 
 he will supply those tardy discoveries in art which he 
 who solely depends on his own experience may obtain too 
 late. Those who do not read criticism will rarely merit 
 to be criticised ; their f)rogress is like those who travel 
 without a map of the country. The more extensive an 
 author's knowledge of what has been done, the greater 
 will be his powers in knowing what to do. To obtain 
 originality, and effect discovery sometimes requires but a 
 single step, if we only know from what point to set for- 
 wards. This important event in the life of genius has 
 too often depended on chance and good fortune, and 
 many have gone down to their graves without having 
 discovered their unsuspected talent. Curran's predomi- 
 nant faculty was an exuberance of imagination when 
 excited by passion ; but when young he gave no evidence 
 of this peculiar faculty, nor for several years, while a 
 candidate for public distinction, was he aware of his par- 
 ticular powers, so slowly his imagination had developed 
 - itself. It was when assured of the secret of his strength 
 that his confidence, his ambition, and his industry were 
 excited. 
 
 Let the youth preserve his juvenile compositions, what 
 ever these may be; they arc the spontaneous growth, and 
 like the plants of the Alps, not always found in other 
 soils; they are his virgin fancies. By contemplating
 
 JUVENILE WORKa 95 
 
 them, he may detect some of his predominant habits, re- 
 sum^ a fonner manner more happily, invent novelty 
 from an old subject he had rudely dcsii^ned, and often 
 may steal from himself some inventive touches, which, 
 thrown into his most finished compositions, may seem, a 
 happiness rather than an art. It was in contemplating 
 0:1 some of their earliest and unfinished productions, that 
 more than one artist discovered with West that " there 
 were inventive touches of art in his first and juvenile 
 essay, which, with all his subsequent knowledge and ex- 
 perience, he has not been able to surpass." A young 
 writer, in the progress of his studies, should often recol- 
 lect a fanciful simile of Dryden — 
 
 As those who unripe veins in mines explore 
 On the rich bed again the warm turf lay, 
 
 Till time digests the yet imperfect ore ; 
 And know it will be gold another day. 
 
 The youth of genius is that " age of admiration" as 
 sings the poet of " Human Life," when the spell breathed 
 into our ear by our genius, fortunate or unfortunate, is — 
 "Aspire!" Then we adore art and the artists. It was 
 Richardson's enthusiasm which gave Reynolds the rap- 
 tures he caught in meditating on the description of a 
 great painter ; and Reynolds thought Raphael the most 
 extraordinary man the world had ever produced. West, 
 when a youth, exclaimed that " A painter is a com- 
 panion for kings and emperors !" This was the feeling 
 which rendered the thoughts of obscurity painful and in- 
 supportable to their young minds. 
 
 But this sunshine of rapture is not always spread over 
 the spring of the youthful year. There is a season of 
 self-contest, a period of tremors, and doubts, and dark- 
 ness. These frequent returns of melancholy, sometimes 
 of despondence, which is the lot of inexperienced genius, 
 is a secret history of the heart, which has been finely
 
 96 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 conveyed to us by Petrarch, in a conversation with John 
 of Florence, to whom the young poet often resorted 
 when dejected, to reanimate his failing powers, to con- 
 fess his faults, and to confide to him his dark and waver- 
 ing resolves. It was a question with Petrarch, whether 
 he should not turn away from the pursuit of literary 
 fame, by giving another direction to his life. 
 
 " I went one day to John of Florence in one of those 
 ague-fits of faint-heartedness which often happened to 
 me; he received me with his accustomed kindness. 
 ' What ails you ?' said he, ' you seem oppressed with 
 thought : if I am not deceived, something has happened 
 to you.' ' You do not deceive yourself, my father (for 
 thus I used to call him), and yet nothing newly has hap- 
 pened to me ; but I come to confide to you that my old 
 melancholy torments me more than usual. You know 
 its nature, for my heart has always been opened to you; 
 you know all which I have done to draw myself out of 
 the crowd, and to acquire a name ; and surely not with- 
 out some success, since I have your testimony in my 
 favour. Are you not the truest man, and the best of 
 critics, who have never ceased to bestow on me your 
 praise — and what need I more ? Have you not often 
 told me that I am answerable to God for the talents he 
 has endowed me with, if I neglected to cultivate them ? 
 Your praises were to me as a sharp spur : I applied my- 
 self to study with more ardour, insatiable even of my 
 moments. Disdaining the beaten paths, I opened a new 
 road ; and I flattered myself that assiduous labour would 
 lead to something great ; but I know not how, when I 
 thought myself highest, I feel myself fallen ; the spring 
 of my mind has dried up ; what seemed easy once, now 
 appears to me above my sti-ength; I stumble at every 
 Btep, and am ready to sink for ever into despair. I re- 
 ,turn to you to teach me, or at least advise me. Shall I 
 for ever quit my studies? Shall I strike into some new
 
 PETRARCH'S LITERARY ADVISER. 97 
 
 course of life ? My father, have pity ou me ! draw me 
 out of the frightful state in which I am lost.' I could 
 proceed no farther without shedding tears. ' Cease to 
 afflict yourself, my son,' said that good man ; ' your con- 
 dition is not so bad as you think : the truth is, you knew 
 little at the time you imagined you knew much. The 
 discovery of your ignorance is the first great step you 
 have made towards true knowledge. The veil is lifted 
 up, and you now view those deep shades of the soul 
 which were concealed from you by excessive presump- 
 tion. In ascending an elevated spot, we gradually dis- 
 cover many things whose existence before was not sus- 
 pected by us. Persevere in the career which you entered 
 with my advice ; feel confident that God will not aban- 
 don you : there are maladies which the patient does not 
 perceive ; but to be aware of the disease, is the first step 
 towards the cure.' " 
 
 This remarkable literary interview is here given, that 
 it may perchance meet the eye of some kindred youth 
 at one of those lonely moments when a Shakspeare may 
 have thought himself no poet, and a Raphael believed 
 himself no painter. Then may the tender wisdom of a 
 John of Florence, in the cloudy despondency of art, 
 lighten up the vision of its glory ! 
 
 Ingenuous Youth ! if in a constant perusal of the 
 master-writers, you see your OAvn sentiments anticipated 
 — if, in the tumult of your mind, as it comes in contact 
 with theirs, new sentiments arise — if, sometimes, looking 
 on the public favourite of the hour, you feel that within 
 which prompts you to imagine that you could rival or 
 surpass him — if, in meditating on the confessions of 
 every man of genius, for they all have their confessions, 
 you find you have experienced the same sensations from 
 the same circumstances, encountered the same difiiculties 
 and overcome them by the same means; then let not 
 your courage be lost in your admiration, but listen to 
 
 7
 
 98 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 that " still small voice " in your heart which cries with 
 Correggio and with Montesquieu, "Ed io anche son 
 pittore !" 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Of the irritability of genius. — Genius in society often in a state of 
 suffering. — Equality of temper more prevalent among men of letters. 
 — Of the occupation of making a great name. — Anxieties of the 
 most successful. — Of the inventors. — Writers of learning. — Writers 
 of taste. — Artists. 
 
 THE modes of life oi a man of genius, often tinctured 
 by eccentricity and enthusiasm, maintain an eternal 
 conflict with the monotonous and imitative habits of 
 society, as society is carried on in a great metropolis, 
 where men are necessarily alike, and where, in perpetual 
 intei'course, they shape themselves to one another. 
 
 The occupations, the amusements, and the ardour of 
 the man of genius are at discord with the artificial 
 habits of life ; in the vortexes of business, or the world 
 of pleasure, crowds of human beings are only treading 
 in one another's steps. The pleasures and the sorrows 
 of this active multitude are not his, while his are not 
 obvious to them; and his favourite occupations strength- 
 en his peculiarities, and increase his sensibility. Genius 
 in society is often in a state of suflering. Professional 
 characters, who are themselves so often literary, yield- 
 ing to their predominant interests, conform to that 
 assumed urbanity which levels them with ordinary 
 minds; but the man of genius cannot leave himself 
 behind in the cabinet he quits ; the train of his thoughts 
 is not stopped at will, and in the range of conversa- 
 tion the habits of his mind will prevail : the poet 
 will sometimes muse till he modulates a verse ; the 
 artist is sketching what a moment presents, and a
 
 IRRITABILITY OF GENIUS. 99 
 
 moment changes ; the philosophical historian is suddenly 
 absorbed by a new combination of thought, and, placing 
 his hands over his eyes, is thrown back into the Middle 
 Ages. Thus it happens that an excited imagination, a 
 high-toned feeling, a wandering reverie, a restlessness 
 of temper, are perpetually carrying the man of genius 
 out of the processional line of the mere conversationists. 
 Like all solitary beings, he is much too sentient, and pre- 
 pares for defence even at a random touch or a chance hit. 
 His generalising views take things only in masses, while 
 in his rapid emotions he interrogates, and doubts, and 
 is caustic ; in a word, he thinks he converses while he is 
 at his studies. Sometimes, apparently a complacent 
 listener, we are mortified by detecting the absent man : 
 now he appears humbled and spiritless, ruminating over 
 some failure which probably may be only known to 
 himself; and now haughty and hardy for a triumph he 
 has obtained, which yet remains a secret to the world. 
 No man is so apt to indulge the extremes of the most 
 opposite feelings : he is sometimes insolent, and some- 
 times querulous ; now the soul of tenderness and tran- 
 quillity, — then stung by jealousy, or writhing in aver- 
 sion ! A fever shakes his spirit ; a fever which has 
 sometimes generated a disease, and has even produced a 
 slight perturbation of the faculties.* In one of those 
 
 * I have given a history of literary quarrels from personal motives, 
 in " Quarrels of Authors," p. 529. There we find how many contro- 
 versies, in which the public get involved, have sprung from some sud- 
 den squabbles, some neglect of petty civility, some unlucky epithet, or 
 son:e casual observation dropped without much consideration, which 
 mortified or enraged the genus irritahile ; a title which from ancient 
 days has been assigned to every description of authors. The late Dr. 
 Wells, who had some experience in his intercourse with many literary 
 characters, observed, that "in whatever regards the fruits of their 
 mental labours, this is universally acknowledged to bo true. Some 
 of the malevolent passions indeed frequently become in learned men 
 more than ordinarily strong, from want of that restraint upon their ex- 
 citement which society imposes." A puerile critic has reproached rao
 
 100 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 manuscript notes by Lord Byron on this work, which I 
 have wished to preserve, I find his lordship observing on 
 the feelings of genius, that " the depreciation of the 
 lowest of mankind is more painful than the applause of 
 the highest is pleasing." Such is the confession of 
 genius, and such its liability to hourly pain. 
 
 Once we were nearly receiving from the hand of genius 
 the most curious sketches of the temper, the irascible hu- 
 mours, the delicacy of soul, even to its shadowiness, from 
 the warm shozzos of Burns, when he began a diary of the 
 heart, — a narrative of characters and events, and a chro- 
 nology of his emotions. It was natural for such a crea- 
 ture of sensation and passion to project such a regular 
 task, but quite impossible for him to get through it. The 
 paper-book that he conceived would have recorded all 
 these things turns out, therefore, but a very imperfect 
 document. Imperfect as it was, it has been thought 
 proper not to give it entire. Yet there we view a warm 
 original mind, when he first stepped into the polished circles 
 of society, discovering that he could no longer " pour out 
 his bosom, his every thought and floating fancy, his very 
 inmost soul, with unreserved confidence to another, with- 
 out hazard of losing part of that respect which man de- 
 serves from man ; or, from the unavoidable imperfections 
 attending human nature, of one day repenting his confi- 
 dence." This was the first lesson he learned at Edinburgh, 
 and it was as a substitute for such a human being that he 
 bought a paper-book to keep under lock and key : " a 
 security at least equal," says he, " to the bosom of any 
 friend whatever." Let the man of genius pause over the 
 fragments of this " paper-book ;" — ^it will instruct as much 
 as any open confession of a criminal at the moment he is 
 about to sufter. No man was more afflicted with that 
 
 for having drawn my description entirely from my own fancy : — I 
 have taken it from life I See further symptoms of this disease at the 
 close of the chapter on Self-praise in the present work.
 
 BURN'S DIARY. 101 
 
 miserable pride, the infirmity of men of imagination, 
 which is so jealously alive, even among their best friends, 
 as to exact a perpetual acknowledgment of their powers. 
 Our poet, witli all his gratitude and veneration for " the 
 noble Glencairn," was " wounded to the soul " because 
 his lordship showed " so much attention, engrossing atten- 
 tion, to the only blockhead at table ; the whole company 
 consisted of his lordship, Dunderpate, and myself" 
 This Dunderpate, who dined with Lord Glencairn, might 
 have been a useful citizen, who in some points is of more 
 value than an irritable bard. Burns was equally oifended 
 with another patron, who was also a literary brother, 
 Dr. Blair. At the moment, he too appeared to be neg- 
 lecting the irritable poet " for the mere carcass of great- 
 ness, or when his eye measured the difference of their 
 point of elevation ; I say to myself, with scarcely any 
 emotion," (he might have added, except a good deal of 
 painful contempt,) " what do I care for him or his pomp 
 either ?" — " Dr, Blair's vanity is proverbially known 
 among his acquaintances," adds Burns, at the moment 
 that the solitary haughtiness of his own genius had en- 
 tirely escaped his self-observation. 
 
 This character of genius is not singular, Grimm tells 
 of Marivaux, that though a good man, there was some- 
 thing dark and suspicious in his character, which made 
 it difficult to keep on terms with him ; the most innocent 
 word would wound him, and he was always inclined to 
 think that there was an intention to mortify him ; this 
 disposition made him unhappy, and rendered his ac- 
 quaintance too painful to endure. 
 
 AVhat a moral paradox, but what an unquestionable 
 fact, is the wayward irritability of some of the finest 
 geniuses, which is often weak to effeminacy, and capri- 
 cious to childishness ! while minds of a less delicate tex- 
 ture are not fi-ayed and fretted by casual frictions ; and 
 plain sense with a coarser grain, is sufficient to keep
 
 102 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 down these aberrations of their feelings. How mortify- 
 ing is the list of — 
 
 Fears of the brave and follies of the wise I 
 
 Many have been sore and implacable on an illusion to 
 some personal defect — on the obscurity of their birth — on 
 some peculiarity of habit ; and have suifered themselves 
 to be governed in life by nervous whims and chimeras, 
 equally fantastic and trivial. This morbid sensibility 
 lurks in the temperament of genius, and the infection is 
 often discovered where it is not always suspected. 
 Cumberland declared that the sensibility of some men 
 of genius is so quick and captious, that you must first 
 consider whom they can be happy with, before you can 
 promise yourself any happiness with them : if you bring 
 uncongenial humours into contact with each other, all 
 the objects of society will be frustrated by inattention to 
 the proper grouping of the guests. Look round on our 
 contemporaries ; every day furnishes facts which confirm 
 our principle. Among the vexations of Pope was the 
 libel of " the pictured shape ;"* and even the robust mind 
 of Johnson could not sufier to be exhibited as " blinking 
 Sam."f Milton must have delighted in contemplating 
 his own person ; and the engraver not having reached 
 our sublime bard's ideal grace, he has pointed his indig- 
 nation in four iambics. The praise of a skipping ape 
 raised the feeling of envy in that child of nature and 
 genius. Goldsmith. Voiture, the son of a vintner, like 
 
 * He was represented as an ill-made monkey in the frontispiece to 
 a satire noted in "Quarrels of Authors," p. 286 (last edition). — Ed. 
 
 f Johnson was displeased at the portrait Reynolds painted of him 
 wiiich dwelt on his near-sightedness ; declaring that " a man's defects 
 should never be painted." Tlie same defect was made the subject of 
 a caricature particularly allusive to critical prejudice.^ in his " Lives of 
 the Poets," in which he is pictured as an owl " bUnking at the stars." 
 — Ed.
 
 SENSITIVENESS OF GENIUS. 103 
 
 our Prior, was so mortified whenever reminded of his 
 origihal occupation, that it was bitterly said, that wine, 
 which cheered the hearts of all men, sickened the heart 
 of Voiture. Akenside ever considered his lameness as an 
 unsupportable misfortune, for it continually reminded 
 him of the fall of the cleaver from one of his father's 
 blocks. Beccaria, invited to Paris by the literati, ar- 
 rived melancholy and silent, and abruptly returned home. 
 At that moment this great man was most miserable from 
 a fit of jealousy : a young female had extinguished all 
 his philosophy. The poet Rousseau was the son of a 
 cobbler ; and when his honest parent waited at the door of 
 the theatre to embrace his son on the success of his first 
 piece, genius, whose sensibility is not always virtuous, 
 repulsed the venerable father with insult and contempt. 
 But I will no longer proceed from folly to crime. 
 
 Those who give so many sensations to others must 
 themselves possess an excess and a variety of feelings. 
 We find, indeed, that they are censured for their extreme 
 Irritability ; and that happy equality of temper so preva- 
 lent among men of letters, and which is conveniently 
 acquired by men of the world, has been usually refused to 
 great mental powers, or to fervid dispositions — authors 
 and artists. The man of wit becomes petulant, the pro- 
 found thinker morose, and the vivacious ridiculously 
 thoughtless. 
 
 When Rousseau once retired to a village, he had to 
 learn to endure its conversation ; for this purpose he was 
 compelled to invent an expedient to get rid of his uneasy 
 sensations. " Alone, I have never known ennui, even 
 when perfectly unoccupied : my imagination, filling the 
 void, was sufiicient to busy me. It is only the inactive 
 chit-chat of the room, when every one is seated face to 
 face, and only moving their tongues, which I never could 
 support. There to be a fixtui'e, nailed with one hand on 
 the other, to settle the state of the weather, or watch the
 
 104 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 flies about one, or, what is worse, to be bandying compli- 
 ments, this to me is not bearable." He hit on the expe- 
 dient of making lace-strings, carrying his working cush- 
 ion in his visits, to keep the peace with the country 
 gossips. 
 
 Is the occupation of making a great name less anxious 
 and precarious than that of making a great fortune ? the 
 progress of a man's capital is unequivocal to him, "but 
 that of the fame of authors and artists is for the greater 
 part of their lives of an ambiguous nature. They become 
 whatever the minds or knowledge of others make them ; 
 they are the creatures of the prejudices and the predispo- 
 sitions of others, and must suffer from those precipitate 
 judgments which are the result of such prejudices and 
 such predispositions. Time only is the certain friend of 
 literary worth, for time makes the world disagree among 
 themselves ; and when those who condemn discover that 
 there are others who approve, the weaker party loses 
 itself in the stronger, and at length they learn that the 
 author was far more reasonable than their prejudices had 
 allowed them to conceive. It is thus, however, that the 
 regard which men of genius find in one place they lose in 
 another. We may often smile at the local gradations of 
 genius ; the fervid esteem in which an author is held 
 here, and the cold indifference, if not contempt, he en- 
 counters in another place ; here the man of learning is 
 condemned as a heavy drone, and there the man of wit 
 annoys the unwitty listener. 
 
 And are not the anxieties of even the most successful 
 men of genius renewed at every work — often quitted in 
 despair, often returned to with rapture ? the same agita- 
 tion of the spirits, the same poignant delight, the same 
 weariness, the same dissatisfaction, the same querulous 
 languishraent after excellence ? Is the man of genius an 
 iNVENTOK ? the discovery is contested, or it is not com- 
 prehended for ten years after, perhaps not during his
 
 CONTEMPORARY CRITICISM. 105 
 
 whole life ; even men of science are as children before 
 him. Sir Thomas Bodley wrote to Lord Bacon, remon- 
 strating Avith him on his neio mode of philosophising. 
 It seems the fate of all originality of thinking to be im- 
 mediately opposed ; a contemporary is not prepared for 
 its comprehension, and too often cautiously avoids it, 
 from the prudential motive which turns away from a new 
 and solitary path. Bacon was not at all understood at 
 home in his own day ; his reputation — for it was not ce- 
 lebrity — Avas confined to his history of Henry VII., and 
 his Essays ; it was long after his death before English 
 writers ventured to quote Bacon as an authority; and 
 with equal simplicity and grandeur, Bacon called himself 
 " the servant of posterity," Montesquieu gave his Esprit 
 des Loix to be read by that man in France, whom he 
 conceived to be the best judge, and in return received 
 the most mortifying remarks. The great philosopher ex- 
 claimed in despair, " I see my own age is not ripe enough 
 to understand my work; howcA^er it shall be published!" 
 When Kepler published the first rational work on comets, 
 it was condemned, CA-en by the learned, as a Avdld dream. 
 Copernicus so much dreaded the prejudice of mankind 
 against his treatise on " The Revolutions of the HeaAxn- 
 ly Bodies," that by a species of continence of all others 
 most difiicult to a philosopher, says Adam Smith, he de- 
 tained it in his closet for thirty years together. Linnaeus 
 once in despair abandoned his beloved studies, from a 
 too irritable feeling of the ridicule in which, as it ap- 
 peared to him, a professor Siegesbeck had involved his 
 famous system. Penury, neglect, and labour Linnaeus 
 could endure, but that his botany should become the ob- 
 ject of ridicule for all Stockholm, shook the nerves of 
 this great inA^entor in his science. Let him speak for 
 himself, " No one cared how many sleepless nights and 
 toilsome hours I had passed, while all Avith one voice de- 
 clared, that Siegesbeck had annihilated me. I took my
 
 106 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 leave of Flora, who bestows on me nothing but Sieges- 
 becks ; and condemned my too numerous observations a 
 thousand times over to eternal oblivion. Wliat a fool 
 have I been to waste so much time, to spend my days iu 
 a study which yields no better fruit, and makes me the 
 laughing-stock of the world." Such are the cries of the 
 irritability of genius, and such are often the causes. The 
 world was in danger of losing a new science, had not 
 Linnjeus returned to the discoveries which he had forsa- 
 ken in the madness of the mind ! The gi-eat Sydenham, 
 who, like our Harvey and our Hunter, effected a revolu- 
 tion in the science of medicine, and led on alone by the 
 independence of his genius, attacked the most prevailing 
 prejudices, so highly provoked the malignant emulation 
 of his rivals, that a conspiracy was raised against the 
 father of our modern practice to banish him out of the 
 college, as " guilty of medical heresy." John Hunter was 
 a great discoverer in his own science ; but one who well 
 knew him has told us, that few of his contemporaries 
 perceived the ultimate object of his pursuits ; and his 
 strong and solitary genius laboured to perfect his designs 
 without the solace of sympathy, without one cheering ap- 
 probation. " We bees do not provide honey for our 
 selves," exclaimed Van Helmont, when worn out by the 
 toils of chemistry, and still contemplating, amidst tribu 
 lation and persecution, and approaching death, his " Tree 
 of Life," which he imagined he had discovered in the ce- 
 dar. But with a sublime mehincholy his spirit breaks 
 out : " My mind breathes some unheard-of thing within ; 
 though I, as unprofitable for this life, shall be buried !" 
 Such were the mighty but indistinct anticipations of this 
 visionary inventor, the father of modern chemistry ! 
 
 I cannot quit this short record of the fates of the in- 
 ventors in science, without adverting to another cause of 
 that irritability of genius which is so closely connected 
 with their pursuits. If we look into the history of theo-
 
 MISGIVINGS OF INVESTORS. 107 
 
 lies, we shall be surprised at the vast number which have 
 " not left a rack behind." And do we suppose that the 
 inventors themselves were not at times alarmed by se- 
 cret doubts of their soundness and stability ? They felt, 
 too often for their repose, that the noble architecture 
 which they had raised might be built on moveable sands, 
 and be found only in the dust of libraries ; a cloudy day, 
 or a fit of indigestion, would deprive an inventor of his 
 theory all at once ; and as one of them said, " after din- 
 ner, all that I have written in the morning appears to me 
 dark, incongruous, nonsensical." At such moments we 
 should find this man of genius in no pleasant mood. The 
 true cause of this nervous state cannot, nay, must not, 
 be confided to the world: the honour of his darling 
 theory will always be dearer to his pxide than the con- 
 fession of even slight doubts which may shake its truth. 
 It is a curious fact which we have but recently dis- 
 covered, that Rousseau was disturbed by a terror he ex- 
 perienced, and which we well know was not unfounded, 
 that his theories of education were false and absurd. He 
 could not endure to read a page in his own " Emile"* 
 without disgust after the work had been published ! He 
 acknowledged that there were more suffrages against his 
 notions than for them. " I am not displeased," says he, 
 "with myself on the style and eloquence, but I still 
 dread that my wi'itings are good for nothing at the 
 bottom, and that all my theories are full of extrava- 
 gance." [Je crains toujour s que je plche par le fond, et 
 que tons mes systhnes ne sont que des extravagances.'\ 
 Hartley with his " Vibrations and Vibratiuncles," Lieb- 
 nitz with his " Monads," Cudworth with his " Plastic Na- 
 tures," Malebranche with his paradoxical doctrine of 
 " Seeing all things in God," and Burnet with his hereti- 
 cal " Theory of the Earth," must unquestionably at times 
 
 *In a letter by Hume to Blair, written in 1766, apparently first pub- 
 lisl.ved in the Literary Gazette, Nov. 17, 1821.
 
 108 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 have betrayed an irritability which those about them may 
 have attributed to temper, rather than to genius. 
 
 Is our man of genius — not the victim of fancy, but the 
 slave of truth — a learned author ? Of the living waters 
 of human knowledge it cannot be said that " K a man 
 drink thereof, he shall never thirst again." What 
 volumes remain to open ! what manuscript but makes 
 his heart palpitate ! There is no term in researches which 
 new facts may not alter, and a single date may not 
 dissolve. Truth ! thou fascinating, but severe mistress, 
 thy adorers are often broken down in thy servitude, 
 performing a thousand unregarded task-works ! Now 
 winding thee through thy labyrinth with a single thread, 
 often unravelling — now feeling their way in darkness, 
 doubtful if it be thyself they are touching. How much 
 of the real labour of genius and erudition must remain 
 concealed from the world, and never be reached by 
 their penetration ! Montesquieu has described this feel- 
 ing after its agony : " I thought I should have killed 
 myself these three months to finish a morceau (for his 
 great work), which I wished to insert, on the origin and 
 revolutions of the civil laws in France. You will read 
 it in three hours ; but I do assure you that it cost me so 
 much labour that it has whitened my hair." Mr. Hallam, 
 stopping to admire the genius of Gibbon, exclaims, " In 
 this, as in many other places, the masterly boldness and 
 precision of his outline, which astonish those who have 
 trodden parts of the same field, is apt to escape an 
 uninformed reader." Thrice has my learned friend, 
 Sharon Turner, recomposed, with renewed researches, 
 the history of our ancestors, of which Milton and Hume 
 had despaired — thrice, amidst the self-contests of ill-health 
 and professional duties ! 
 
 The man of erudition in closing his elaborate work is 
 still exposed to the fatal omissions of wearied vigilance, 
 or the accidental knowledge of some inferior mind, and
 
 SENSITIVENESS TO CRITIOISM. 109 
 
 always to the reigning taste, whatever it chance to be, of 
 the public. Burnet criticised Varillas unsparingly;* 
 but when he wrote history himself, Harmer's " Specimen 
 of Errors in Burnet's History," returned Burnet the 
 pangs which he had inflicted on another. Newton'a 
 favourite work was his " Chronology," which he had 
 written over fifteen times, yet he desisted from iti 
 publication during his life-time, from the ill-usage oi 
 which he complained. Even the " Optics" of Newtor. 
 had no character at home till noticed in France. Tht 
 calm temper of our great philosopher was of so fearful s 
 nature in regard to criticism, that Whiston declares thax 
 he would not pixblish his attack on the " Chronology," lesv 
 it might have killed our philosopher ; and thus Bisho}^ 
 Stillingfleet's end was hastened by Locke's confutation 
 of his metaphysics. The feelings of Sir John Marsham 
 could hardly be less irritable when he found his greav 
 work tainted by an accusation that it was not friendly trv 
 revelation.f When the learned Pocock published » 
 specimen of his translation of Abulpharagias, an 
 Arabian historian, in 1649, it excited great interest; nut 
 in 1663, when he gave the world the complete version, it 
 met with no encouragement : in the course ot tnose 
 thirteen years, the genius of the times had changr,<t, and 
 Oriental studies were no longer in request. 
 
 The great Verulam profoundly felt the retardment of 
 his fame ; for he has pathetically expressed this sentiment 
 in his testament, where he bequeaths his name to pos- 
 terity, AFTER SOME GENERATIONS SHALL BE paSt. BrUCe 
 
 * For an account of tbis work, and Burnet's expose of it, see " Curi- 
 osities of Literature," vol. i. p. 132. — Ed. 
 
 f This great work the Carum Chronicns, was published in 1672, and 
 was the first attempt to make the Egyptian chronology clear and 
 intelligible, and to reconcile the whole to the Scripture chronology; a 
 labour he had commenced in Diatriba Ghronologica, published in 
 1649.— Ed.
 
 110 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 sunk into his grave defrauded of that just fame which 
 his pride and vivacity perhaps too keenly prized, at least 
 for his happiness, and which he authoritatively exacted 
 from an unwilling public. Mortified and indignant at 
 the reception of his great labour by the cold-hearted 
 scepticism of little minds, and the maliciousness of idling 
 wits, he, whose fortitude had toiled through a life of 
 difficulty and danger, could not endure the laugh and 
 scorn of public opinion ; for Bruce there was a simoon 
 more dreadful than the Arabian, and from which genius 
 cannot hide its head. Yet Bruce only met with the fate 
 which Marco Polo had before encountered; whose 
 faithful narrative had been contemned by his contem- 
 poraries, and who was long thrown aside among le- 
 gendary writers.* 
 
 Harvey, though his life was prolonge'd to his eightieth 
 year, hardly lived to see his great discovery of the circu- 
 lation of the blood established : no physician adopted it ; 
 and when at length it was received, one party attempted to 
 rob Harvey of the honour of the discovery, while another 
 asserted that it was so obvious, that they could only ex- 
 press their astonishment that it had ever escaped obser- 
 vation. Incredulity and envy are the evil spirits which 
 have often dogged great inventors to their tomb, and 
 there only have vanished. — But I seem writing the " ca- 
 
 * Ilis stories of the wealth and population of China, which he 
 described as consisting of millions, obtained for him the nickname of 
 Marco Milionc among the Venetians and other small Italian states, who 
 wore unable to comprehend the greatness of his truthful narratives of 
 Eastern travel. Upon his death-bed he was adjured by his friends to 
 retract his statements, which he indignantly refused. It was long 
 after ere his truthfulness was established by other travellers ; the 
 Venetian populace gave his house the name La Carte di Milioni : and 
 a vulgar caricature of the great traveller was always introduced in 
 their carnivals, who was termed Marco Milione; and delighted them 
 with the most absurd stories, in which everything was computed by 
 millions. — Ed,
 
 EEPUTATION DIFFICULT OF ACQUIRY. m 
 
 lamities of authors," and have only begun the cata- 
 logue. 
 
 The reputation of a writer of taste is subject to more 
 difficulties than any other. Similar was the fate of the 
 finest ode-wi'iters in our poetry. On their publication, 
 the odes of Collins could find no readers ; and those of 
 Gi-ay, though ushered into the reading world by the 
 fiishionable press of Walpole, were condemned as failures. 
 When Racine produced his " Athalie," it was not at all 
 relished : Boileau indeed declared that he understood 
 these matters better than the public, and prophesied that 
 the public would return to it : they did so ; but it was 
 sixty years afterwards ; and Racine died without sus- 
 pecting that " Athalie " was liis masterpiece. I have 
 heard one of our great poets regret that he had devoted 
 so much of his life to the cultivation of his art, which 
 arose from a project made in the golden vision of his 
 youth : " at a time," said he, " when I thought that the 
 fountain could never be di'ied up." — " Your baggage will 
 reach posterity," was observed. — " There is much to 
 spare," was the answer. 
 
 Every day we may observe, of a work of genius, that 
 those parts which have all the raciness of the soil, and 
 as such are most liked by its admirers, are those which 
 are the most criticised. Modest critics shelter them- 
 selves under that general amnesty too freely granted, 
 that tastes ai'e allowed to differ ; but we should approxi- 
 mate much nearer to the ti'uth, if we were to say, that 
 but few of mankind are prepared to relish the beautiful 
 with that enlarged taste which comprehends all the forms 
 of feeling which genius may assume ; forms which may 
 be necessarily associated with defects. A man of genius 
 composes in a state of intellectual emotion, and the magic 
 of his style consists in the movements of his soul ; but 
 the art of conveying those movements is far separated 
 from the feeling which inspires them. The idea in the
 
 112 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 mind is not always found under the pen, any more than 
 the artist's conception can always breathe in his pencil. 
 Like Flamingo's image, which he kept polishing till his 
 friend exclaimed, " What perfection would you have ?" — 
 " Alas !" exclaimed the sculptor, " the original I am la- 
 bouring to come up to is in my head, but not yet in my 
 hand." 
 
 The writer toils, and repeatedly toils, to throw into 
 our minds that sympathy with which we hang over the 
 illusion of his pages, and become himself Ariosto wrote 
 sixteen diflerent ways the celebrated stanza descriptive 
 of a tempest, as appears by his MSS. at Ferrara ; and the 
 version he preferred was the last of the sixteen. We 
 know that Petrarch made forty-four alterations of a single 
 verse : " whether for the thought, the expression, or the 
 harmony, it is evident that as many operations in the 
 heart, the head, or the ear of the poet occurred," observes 
 a man of genius, Ugo Foscolo. Quintilian and Horace 
 dread the over-fondness of an author for his compositions : 
 alteration is not always improvement. A picture over- 
 finished fails in its effect. If the hand of the artist can- 
 not leave it, how much beauty may it undo ! yet still he 
 is lingering, still strengthening the weak, still subduing 
 the daring, still searching for that single idea which 
 awakens so many in the minds of others, while often, as 
 it once happened, the dash of despair hangs the foam on 
 the horse's nostrils. I have known a great sculptor, who 
 for twenty years delighted himself with forming in his 
 mind the nymph his hand was always creating. How 
 rapturously he beheld her ! wliat inspiration ! what illu- 
 sion ! Alas ! the last live years spoiled the beautiful 
 which he had once reached, and could not stop and 
 finish ! 
 
 The art of composition, indeed, is of such slow attain- 
 ment, that a man of genius, late in life, may discover how 
 its secret conceals itself in the habit ; how discipline con-
 
 SLOWNESS OF GREAT WORKS. 113 
 
 sists ill exercise, bow perfeetion comes from experience, 
 and how unity is the last eifort of judgment. "When Fox 
 meditated on a history which should last with the lan- 
 guage, he met his evil genius in this new province. The 
 rapidity and the fire of his elocution were extinguished 
 by a pen unconsecrated by long and previous study ; he 
 saw that he could not class with the great historians of 
 every great people ; he complained, while he mourned 
 over the fragment of genius which, after such zealous 
 preparation, he dared not complete. Curran, an orator 
 of vehement eloquence, often strikingly original, when 
 late in life he was desirous of cultivating literary compo- 
 sition, unaccustomed to its more gradual march, found a 
 pen cold, and destitute of every grace. Rousseau has 
 glowingly described the ceaseless inquietude by which 
 he obtained the seductive eloquence of his style ; and has 
 said, that with whatever talent a man may be born, the 
 art of writing is not easily obtained. The existing man- 
 uscripts of Rousseau display as many erasures as those 
 of Ariosto or Petrarch ; they show his eagerness to dash 
 down. his first thoughts, and the art by which he raised 
 them to the impassioned style of his imagination. The 
 memoir of Gibbon was composed seven or nine times, 
 and, after all, was left unfinished ; and Buffoi; tells us 
 that he wrote his " Epoques de la Xature " eighteen times 
 before it satisfied his taste. Burns's anxiety in finishing 
 his poems was great ; " All my poetry," said he, " is the 
 effect of easy composition, but of laborious correction." 
 
 Pope, when employed on the Iliad, found it not only 
 occupy his thoughts by day, but haunting his dreams 
 by night, and once wished himself hanged, to get rid of 
 Homer : and that he experienced often such literary ago- 
 nies, witness his description of the depressions and eleva 
 tions of genius : 
 
 Who pants for glory, finds but short repose ; 
 A breath revives him, or a breath o'erthrows I
 
 114 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 When Roraney undertook to commence the first sub- 
 ject for the Shakspeare Gallery, in the rapture of enthu- 
 siasm, amidst the sublime and pathetic labouring in his 
 whole mind, arose the terror of failure. The subject 
 chosen was " The Tempest ;" and, as Hayley truly ob- 
 serves, it created many a tempest in the fluctuating 
 spirits of Romney. The vehement desire of that perfec- 
 tion which genius conceives, and cannot always execute, 
 held a perpetual contest with that dejection of spirits 
 which degrades the unhappy suiFerer, and casts him, 
 grovelling among the mean of his class. In a national 
 work, a man of genius pledges his honour to the world for 
 its performance ; but to redeem that pledge, there is a 
 darkness in the uncei'tain issue, and he is I'isking his hon- 
 our for ever. By that work he will always be judged, 
 for public failures are never forgotten, and it is not then 
 a party, but the public itself, who become his adversaries. 
 With Romney it was " a fever of the mad ;" and his 
 friends could scarcely inspire him with sufficient courage 
 to proceed with his arduous picture, which exercised his 
 imagination and his pencil for several years. I have 
 heard that he built a painting-room purposely for this 
 picture ; and never did an anchorite pour forth a more 
 fervent orison to Heaven, than Romney when this labour 
 was complete. He had a fine genius, with all its solitary 
 feelings, but he was uneducated, and incompetent even to 
 write a letter ; yet on this occasion, relieved from his 
 intense anxiety under so long a work, he wrote one of the 
 most eloquent. It is a document in the history of genius, * 
 and reveals all those feelings which are here too faintly 
 described.* I once heard an amiable author, whose lite- 
 rary career has perhaps not answered the fond hopes of 
 
 * " My Dear Friunp, — Your kindness in rejoicing so heartily at the 
 birth of nij' picture has given mo great satisfaction. 
 
 "There has been an anxiety labouring in my mind the greater part 
 of the last twelvemonth. At times it had nearly overwhelmed me. I
 
 ANXIETY OF AUTHORS. 115 
 
 his youth, half in anger and in love, declare that he 
 would retire to some solitude, where, if any one would 
 follow him, he would found a new order — the order of 
 
 THE DISAPPOINTED. 
 
 Thus the days of a man of genius are passed in labours 
 as unremitting and exhausting as those of the artisan. 
 The world is not always aware, that to some, meditation, 
 composition, and even conversation, may inflict pains 
 undetected by the eye and the tenderness of friendship. 
 Whenever Rousseau passed a morning in society, it was 
 observed, that in the evening he was dissatisfied and dis- 
 tressed ; and John Hunter, in a mixed company, found 
 that conversation fatigued, instead of amusing him. 
 Hawkesworth, in the second paper of the " Adventurer," 
 has drawn, from his own feelings, an eloquent compara- 
 tive estimate of intellectual with corporeal labour ; it 
 may console the humble mechanic ; and Plato, in his 
 work on "Laws," seems to have been aware of this 
 analogy, for he consecrates all working men or artisans 
 to Vulcan and Minerva, because both those deities alike are 
 hard labourers. Yet with genius all does not terminate, 
 even with the most skilful labour. What the toiling 
 Vulcan and the thoughtful Minerva may want, will too 
 often be absent — the presence of the Graces. In the alle- 
 gorical picture of the School of Design, by Carlo Maratti, 
 where the students are led through their various studies, 
 in the opening clouds above the academy are seen the 
 Graces, hovering over their pupils, with an inscription 
 they must often recollect — Senza di noi ogni fatica 
 <5 vana. 
 
 The anxious uncertainty of an author for his composi- 
 tions resembles the anxiety of a lover when he has written 
 
 thought I sho'ild absolutely have sunk into despair. 1 what a kind 
 friend is in those times ! I thank God, wliatever my picture may be, 
 I can say thus much, I am a greater philosopher and a better Chris- 
 tian."
 
 116 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 to a mistress who has not yet decided on his claims; 
 he repents his labour, for he thinks he has written too 
 much, while he is mortified at recollecting that he had 
 omitted some things which he imagines would have 
 secured the object of his wishes. Madame De Stael, who 
 has often entered into feelings familiar to a literary and 
 political family, in a parallel between ambition and 
 genius, has distinguished them in this ; that while " am- 
 bition perseveres in the desire of acquiring power, genius 
 flags of itself. -Genius in the midst of society is a pain, 
 an internal fever which would require to be treated as a 
 real disease, if the records of glory did not soften the 
 sufferings it produces." — " Athenians ! what troubles 
 have you not cost me," exclaimed Demosthenes, " that 1 
 may be talked of by you !" 
 
 These moments of anxiety often darken the brightest 
 hours of genius. Racine had extreme sensibility; the 
 pain inflicted by a severe criticism outweighed all the 
 applause he received. He seems to have felt, what he 
 was often repi-oached with, that his Greeks, his Jews, 
 and his Turks, were all inmates of Versailles. He had 
 two critics, who, like our Dennis with Pope and Addison, 
 regularly dogged his pieces as they appeared.* Cor- 
 neille's objections he would attribute to jealousy — at his 
 pieces when burlesqued at the Italian theatref he would 
 smile outwardly, though sick at heart; but his son in- 
 forms us, that a stroke of raillery from his witty friend 
 Chapelle, whose pleasantry hardly sheathed its bitterness, 
 sunk more deeply into liis heart than the burlesques at 
 the Italian theatre, the protest of Corneille, and the 
 iteration of the two Dennises. More than once Moli^re 
 
 * Seo tho article " On the Influence of a bad temper in Criticism " in 
 "Calamities of Authors," for a notice of Dennis and his career. — Ed. 
 
 f See the article on "The Sensibility of Racine" in "Literary Mis- 
 cellanies " (in the present volume), and that on " Parody," in " Curioai- 
 ties of Literature," vol. ii., p. 469. — Ed.
 
 ANXIETY OF AUTHORS. 117 
 
 and Racine, in vexation of spirit, resolved to abandon 
 their dramatic career; it was Boileau who ceaselessly 
 animated their languor: "Posterity," he cried, "will 
 avenge the injustice of our age !" And Congreve's 
 comedies met with such moderate success, that it appears 
 the author was extremely mortified, and on the ill recep- 
 tion of The Way of the World, determined to write no 
 more for the stage. When he told Voltaire, on the 
 French wit's visit, that Voltaire must consider him as a 
 private gentleman, and not as an author, — which apparent 
 affectation called down on Congreve the sarcastic sever- 
 ity of the French author,* — more of mortification and hu- 
 mility might have been in Congreve's language than of 
 affectation or pride. 
 
 The life of Tasso abounds with pictures of a complete 
 exhaustion of this kind. His contradictory critics had 
 perplexed him with the most intricate literary discus- 
 sions, and either occasioned or increased a mental aliena- 
 tion. In one of his letters, we find that he repents the 
 composition of his great poem, for although his own 
 taste approved of that marvellous, which still forms a 
 noble part of its creation, yet he confesses that his cold 
 reasoning critics have decided that the history of his 
 hero, Godfrey, required another species of conduct. 
 " Hence," cries the unhappy bard, " doubts torment me ; 
 but for the past, and what is done, I know of no remedy ;" 
 and he longs to precipitate the publication, that " he may 
 be delivered from misery and agony." He solemnly 
 swears — "Did not the circumstances of my situation 
 compel me, I would not print it, even perhaps during 
 my life, I so much doubt of its success." Such was the 
 painful state of fear and doubt experienced by the author 
 of the " Jerusalem Delivered," when he gave it to the 
 world; a state of suspense, among the children of im- 
 
 * Voltaire quietly said he should not have troubled himself to visit 
 him if he had been merely a private gentleman. — Ed.
 
 118 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 agination, in which none are more liable to participate 
 than the true sensitive artist. We may now inspect the 
 severe correction of Tasso's muse, in the fac-simile of a 
 page of his manuscripts in Mr. Dibdin's late "Tour." 
 She seems to have inflicted tortures on his pen, supass- 
 ing even those which may be seen in the fac-simile page 
 which, thirty years ago, I gave of Pope's Homer.* At 
 Florence may still be viewed the many works begun and 
 abandoned by the genius of Michael Angelo ; they are 
 preserved inviolate — " so sacred is the terror of Michael 
 Angelo's genius !" exclaims Forsyth. These works are 
 not always to be considered as failures of the chisel ; 
 they appear rather to have been rejected for coming 
 short of the artist's first conceptions : yet, in a strain of 
 sublime poetry, he has preserved his sentiments on the 
 force of intellectual labour ; he thought tliat there was 
 nothing which the imagination conceived, that could not 
 be made visible in marble, if the hand were made to 
 obey the mind : — 
 
 Non ha I'ottimo artista alcun concetto, 
 Ch' un marmo solo in se nou circoscriva 
 Col suo sovercliio, e solo a quello arriva 
 
 La man che obbedisce all' intelletto. 
 
 The sculptor never yet conceived a thought 
 That yielding marble has refused to aid ; 
 
 But never with a mastery he wrought — 
 Save when the hand the intellect obeyed. 
 
 An interesting domestic story has been preserved of 
 Gesner, who so zealously devoted his graver and his 
 pencil to the arts. His sensibility was ever struggling 
 after that ideal excellence which he could not attain. 
 Often he sunk into fits of melancholy, and, gentle as he 
 
 * It now forms the frontispiece to vol. ii. of the last edition of the 
 '' Curiosities of Literature." — Ed.
 
 INTELLI<:CTUAL LABOUR. 119 
 
 was, the tenderness of his wile and friends could not 
 soothe his distempered feelings ; it was necessary to 
 abandon him to his own thoughts, till, after a long 
 abstinence from his neglected works, in a lucid moment, 
 some accident occasioned him to return to them. In one 
 of these hypochondria of genius, after a long interval 
 of despair, one morning at breakfast with his wife, his 
 eye fixed on one of his pictures : it was a group of fauns 
 with young shepherds dancing at the entrance of a 
 cavern shaded with vines ; his eye appeared at length to 
 glisten ; and a sudden return to good humour broke out 
 in this lively apostrophe — " Ah ! see those playful chil- 
 dren, they always dance !" This was the moment of 
 gaiety and inspiration, and he flew to his forsaken easel. 
 La Harpe, an author by profession, observes, that as it 
 has been shown that there are some maladies peculiar to 
 artisans* — there are also some sorrows peculiar to them, 
 and which the world can neither pity nor soften, because 
 they do not enter into their experience. The querulous 
 language of so many men of genius has been sometimes 
 attributed to causes very different from the real ones — 
 the most fortunate live to see their talents contested and 
 their best works decried. Assuredly many an author has 
 sunk into his grave without the consciousness of having 
 obtained that fame for which he had sacrificed an arduous 
 life. The too feeling Smollett has left this testimony to 
 posterity : — " Had some of those, who are pleased to call 
 themselves my friends, been at any pains to deserve the 
 charactei*, and told me ingenuously what I had to expect 
 in the capacity of an author, I should, in all probability, 
 have spared myself the incredible labour and chagrin I 
 
 * See Ramazini, " De Morbis Artificium Diatriba." wliich Dr. James 
 translated in 1750. It is a sad reflection, resulting from this curious 
 treatise, that tiie arts entail no small mischief upon their respective 
 workmen ; so that the means hj which they hve are too often the 
 occasion of their being hurried out of the world.
 
 120 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 have since undergone." And Smollett was a popular 
 writer ! Pope's solemn declaration in the preface to his 
 collected works comes by no means short of Smollett's 
 avowal. Hume's philosophical indifference could often 
 suppress that irritability which Pope and Smollett fully 
 indulged. 
 
 But Avere the feelings of Hume more obtuse, or did his 
 temper, gentle as it was by constitution, bear, with a 
 saintly patience, the mortifications his literary life so long 
 endured ? After recomposing two of his works, which 
 incurred the same neglect in their altered form, he raised 
 the most sanguine hopes of his History, but he tells us, 
 " miserable was my disappointment !" Although he 
 never deigned to reply to his opponents, yet they 
 haunted him ; and an eye-wntness has thus described the 
 irritated author discovering in conversation his sup- 
 pressed resentment — " His forcible mode of expression, 
 the brilliant quick movements of his eyes, and the ges- 
 tures of his body," these betrayed the pangs of con- 
 tempt, or of aversion ! Hogarth, in a fit of the spleen, 
 advertised that he liad determined not to give the world 
 any more original works, and intended to pass the rest 
 of his days in painting portraits. The same advertise- 
 ment is marked by farther irritability. He contemptu- 
 ously offers the purchasers of his " Analysis of Beauty," 
 to present them gratis with an "eighteenpenny pam- 
 phlet," published by Ramsay the painter, written in 
 opposition to Hogarth's principles. So untameable was 
 the irritability of this great inventor in art, that he at- 
 tempts to conceal his irritation by offering to dispose gra- 
 tuitously of the criticism which had disturbed his nights.* 
 
 * Hofi;arth was not without reason for exasperation. He was se- 
 verely attacked for liis thoorios about tlio curved line of beauty, which 
 was branded as a foolisli attempt to prove crookedness elogart, and 
 himself vulgarly caricatured. It was even asserted that the theory 
 was stolen from Lomazzo. — Ed.
 
 IRRITABILITY OF GENIUS, 121 
 
 Parties confederate against a man of genius, — as hap- 
 pened to Coi-neille, to D'Avenant,* and Milton ; and a 
 Pradon and a Settle carry away the meed of a Racine and 
 a Drydcn. It was to support the drooping spirit of his 
 friend Racine on the opposition raised against Phgedra, 
 that Boileau addressed to him an epistle " On the Utility to 
 be drawn from the Jealousy of the Envious." The calm 
 dignity of the histoi'ian De Thou, amidst the passions of 
 his times, coniidently expected that justice from posterity 
 which his own age refused to his early and his late labour. 
 That great man was, however, compelled by his injured 
 feelings, to compose a poem under the name of another, to 
 ^erve as his apology against the intolerant court of Rome, 
 and the factious politicians of France ; it was a noble sub- 
 terfuge to which a great genius was forced. The acquaint- 
 ances of the poet Collins probably complained of his 
 wayward humours and irritability ; but how could they 
 sympathise with the secret mortification of the poet, who 
 imagined that he had composed his Pastorals on wrong 
 principles, or when, in the agony of his soul, he consigned 
 to the flames with his own hands his unsold, but immor- 
 tal odes ? Can Ave forget the dignified complaint of the 
 Rambler, with which he awfully closes his work, appeal- 
 ing to posterity ? 
 
 Genius contracts those peculiarities of which it is so 
 loudly accused in its solitary occupations — that loftiness 
 of spirit, those quick jealousies, those excessive afiections 
 and aversions which view everything as it passes in its 
 own ideal world, and rarely as it exists in the mediocrity 
 of reality. If this irritability of genius be a malady which 
 
 * See " Quarrels of Aathors," p. 403, on the confederacy of several 
 wits against D'Avenant, a great genius; where I discovered that a 
 volume of poems, said ''to be written by the author's friends," which 
 had hitherto been referred to as a volume of panegyrics, contains 
 nothing but irony and satire, which had escaped the discovery of so 
 many transcribers of title-pages, frequently miscalled literary historians.
 
 122 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 has raged even among philosophers, we must not be sur- 
 prised at the tenij^erameut of poets. These last have 
 abandoned their country; they have changed their name ; 
 they have punished themselves with exile in the rage of 
 their disorder. No ! not poets only. Descartes sought 
 in vain, even in his secreted life, for a refuge for his 
 genius; he thought himself persecuted in France, he 
 thought himself calumniated among strangers, and he 
 went and died in Sweden ; and little did that man of genius 
 think that his countrymen wol^ld beg to have his ashes 
 restored to them. Even the reasoning Hume once pro- 
 posed to change his name and his country ; and I believe 
 did. The great poetical genius of our own times has 
 openly alienated himself from the land of his brothers. 
 He becomes immortal in the language of a people whom 
 he would contemn.* Does he accept with ingratitude 
 the fame he loves more than life ? 
 
 Such, then, is that state of irritability in which men of 
 genius participate, whether they be inventors, men of 
 learning, fine writers, or artists. It is a state not friendly 
 to equality of temper. In the various humours inci- 
 dental to it, when they are often deeply affected, the 
 •cause escapes all perception of sympathy. The intellect- 
 
 * I shall preserve a manuscript uote of Lord Byron on this passage ; 
 not without a hope that we shall never receive from him the genius of 
 Italian poetrj', otherwise than in the language of his '^father lancl;^' an 
 expressive term, which I adopted from the Dutch language some yeara 
 past, and which I have seen since sanctioned by the pens of Lord Byron 
 and of Mr. Southey. 
 
 Ilis lordship has here observed, " It is not my fault that I am obliged 
 to write in English. If I understood my present language equally well, 
 I would write in it; but this will require ten years at least to form a 
 style : no tongue so easy to acquire a little of, or so difficult to master 
 thorouglily, as Italian." On the same page I find the following note: 
 " Wliat was rumoured of me in that language ? If true, I was unfit 
 for Kugland: if false, England was unfit for me: — 'There is a world 
 elsewhere.' I have never regretted for a moment that country, but 
 often that 1 ever returned to it at all."
 
 GENIUS AND SOCIETY. 123 
 
 ual malady eludes even the tenderness of friendship. At 
 those moments, the lightest injury to the feelings, which 
 at another time would make no imjsression, may produce 
 a perturbed state of feeling in the warm temper, or the 
 corroding chagrin of a self-wounded spiiit. These are 
 moments which claim the encouragements of a friendship 
 animated by a high esteem for the intellectual excellence 
 of the man of genius ; not the general intercourse of so- 
 ciety ; not the insensibility of the dull, nor the levity of 
 the volatile. 
 
 Men of genius are often reverenced only where they 
 are known by their writings — intellectual beings in the 
 romance of life ; in its history, they are men ! Erasmus 
 compared them to the great figures in tapestry-work, which 
 lose their effect when not seen at a distance. Their foibles 
 and their infirmities are obvious to their associates, often 
 only capable of discerning these qualities. The defects 
 of great men are the consolation of the dunces. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The spirit of literature and the spirit of society. — The Inventors. — So- 
 ciety offers seduction and not reward to men of genius. — The notions 
 of persons of fashion of men of genius. — The habitudes of the man 
 of genius distinct from those of the man of society. — Study, medita- 
 tion, and enthusiasm, the progress of genius. — The disagreement 
 between the men of the world and the literary character. 
 
 THE LsTENTOKS, who inherited little or nothing from 
 their predecessors, appear to have pursued their in- 
 sulated studies in the full independence of their mind and 
 development of their inventive faculty; they stood apart, 
 in seclusion, the solitary lights of their age. Such were the 
 founders of our literature — Bacon and Hobbes, Newton
 
 124: LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 and Milton. Even so late as the days of Dryden, Addi- 
 son, and Pope, the man of genius drew his circle round 
 his intimates ; his day was uniform, his habits unbroken ; 
 and he was never too far removed, nor too long estranged 
 from meditation and reverie : his works were the sources 
 of his pleasure ere they became the labours of his pride. 
 
 But when a more uniform light of knowledge illumin- 
 ates from all sides, the genius of society, made up of so 
 many sorts of genius, becomes greater than the genius of 
 the individual who has entix'ely yielded himself up to his 
 solitary art. Hence the character of a man of genius 
 becomes subordinate. A conversation age succeeds a 
 studious one; and the family of genius, the poet, the 
 painter, and the student, are no longer recluses. They 
 mix with their rivals, who are jealous of equality, or with 
 others who, incapable of valuing them for themselves 
 alone, rate them but as parts of an integral. 
 
 The man of genius is now trammelled with the arti- 
 ficial and mechanical forms of life ; and in too close an 
 intercourse with society, the loneliness and raciness of 
 thinking is modified away in its seductive conventions. 
 An excessive indulgence in the pleasures of social life con- 
 stitutes the great interests of a luxuriant and opulent 
 age ; but of late, while the arts of assembling in large 
 societies have been practised, varied by all forms, and 
 pushed on to all excesses, it may become a question 
 whether by them our happiness is as much improved, or 
 our individual character as well formed as in a society 
 not so heterogeneous and unsocial as that crowd termed, 
 with the sort of modesty peculiar to our times, " a small 
 party :" the simplicity of parade, the humility of pride 
 engendered by the egotism which multiplies itself in pro- 
 portion to the numbers it assembles. 
 
 It may, too, be a question whether the literary man 
 and the artist are not immolating their genius to society 
 when, in the shadowiness of assumed talents — that coun-
 
 GENIUS AND SOCIETY. 125 
 
 terfeitiiig of all shapes — they lose their real form, with 
 the mockery of Proteus. But nets of roses catch their 
 feet, and a path, where all the senses are flattered, is now 
 opened to win an Epictetus from his hut. The art of 
 multiplying the enjoyments of society is discovered iii the 
 morning lounge, the evening dinner, and the midnight 
 coterie. In frivolous fatigues, and vigils without medi- 
 tation, perish the unvalued hours which, true genius 
 knows, are always too brief for art, and too rare to catch 
 its inspirations. Hence so many of our contemporaries, 
 whose card-racks are crowded, have produced only flashy 
 fragments. Efibrts, but not works — they seem to be 
 effects without causes ; and as a great author, who is not 
 one of them, once observed to me, " They waste a barrel 
 of gunpowder in squibs." 
 
 And yet it is seduction, and not reward, which mere 
 fashionable society offers the man of true genius. He will 
 be sought for with enthusiasm, but he cannot escape from 
 his certain fate — ^that of becoming tiresome to his pre- 
 tended admirers. 
 
 At first the idol — shortly he is changed into a victim. 
 He forms, indeed, a figure in their little pageant, and is 
 invited as a sort of improvisatore ; but the esteem they 
 concede to him is only a part of the system of politeness ; 
 and should he be dull in discovering the favourite quality 
 of their self-love, or in particijjating in their volatile 
 tastes, he will find frequent opportunities of observing, 
 with the sage at the court of Cyprus, that " what he 
 knows is not proper for this place, and what is proper for 
 this place he knows not." This society takes little per- 
 sonal interest in the literary character. Horace Walpole 
 lets us into this secret when writing to another man of 
 fashion, on such a man of genius as Gray — " I agree with 
 you most absolutely in your opinion about Gray ; he is 
 the worst company in the world. From a melancholy 
 turn, from living reclusely, and from a little too much
 
 126 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 dignity, he never converses easily ; all his words are 
 measured and chosen, and formed into sentences : his 
 writings are admirable^he himself is not agreeable." 
 This volatile being in himself pemonified the quintesseuce 
 of that society which is called " the world,' and could not 
 endure that equality of intellect which genius exacts. He 
 rejected Chatterton, and quarrelled with every literary 
 man and every artist whom he first invited to familiarity 
 ■ — and then hated. Witness the fates of Bentley, of Muntz, 
 of Gray, of Cole, and others. Such a mind was incapa- 
 ble of appreciating the literary glory on which the mighty 
 mind of Burke was meditating. Walpole knew Burke at 
 a critical moment of his life, and he has recorded his own 
 feelings : — " There was a young Mr. Burke who wrote a 
 book, in the style of Lord Bolingbroke, that was much 
 admired. He is a sensible man, but has not xcorn off his 
 authorism yet, and thinks there is nothing so charming 
 as writers, and to be one : he loill know better one of these 
 daysy . Gray and Burke ! What mighty men must be 
 submitted to the petrifying sneer — that indifference of 
 selfism for great sympathies — of tl?ls volatile and heart- 
 less man of literature and rank ! 
 
 That thing of silk, 
 Sporus, that mere white curd of ass's milk I 
 
 The confidential confession of Racine to his son is re- 
 markable : — " Do not think that I am sought after by the 
 great for my dramas ; Corneille composes nobler verses 
 than mine, but no one notices him, and he only pleases 
 by the mouth of the actors. I never allude to my works 
 when with men of the world, but I amuse them about 
 matters they like to hear. My talent with them consists, 
 not in making tliem feel that I have any, but in showing 
 tlicm tliat tlu^y have." Racine treated the great like 
 the children of society ; Corneille would not compromise 
 for the tribute he exacted, but he consoled himself when,
 
 GENIUS AND SOCIETY. 127 
 
 at his entrance into the theatre, the audience usually rose 
 to salute him. The great comic genius of France, who 
 indeed was a very thoughtful and serious man, addressed 
 a poem to the painter Mignard, expressing his conviction 
 that " the court," by which a Frenchman of the court of 
 Louis XIV. meant the society we call " fashionable," is 
 fatal to the perfection of art — • 
 
 Qui se donne a la cour se derobe a son art ; 
 
 Un esprit partage rarement se consomme, 
 
 Et les emplois de feu demandent tout I'homme. 
 
 Has not the fate in society of our reigning literary 
 favom-ites been uniform ? Their mayoralty hardly ex- 
 ceeds the year: they are pushed aside to put in their 
 place another, who, in his turn, must descend. Such is 
 the history of the literary character encountering the 
 perpetual difficulty of appearing what he really is not, 
 while he sacrifices to a few, in a certain corner of the 
 metropolis, who have long fantastically styled themselves 
 " the world," that more dignified celebrity which makes 
 an author's name more familiar than his person. To one 
 who appeared astonished at the extensive celebrity of 
 Buffon, the modern Pliny replied, " I have passed fifty 
 years at my desk." Haydn would not yield up to society 
 more than those hours which were not devoted to study. 
 These were indeed but few : and such were the uniformity 
 and reth-edness of his life, that " He was for a long time 
 the only musical man in Europe who was ignorant of the 
 celebrity of Joseph Haydn." And has not one, the most 
 sublime of the race, sung, 
 
 che seggendo in piuma, 
 In Fama non si vien, ne sotto coltre ; 
 Sanza la qual chi sua vita consuma 
 Cotal vesti^io in terra di se lascia 
 Qual furamo in aere, ed in acqua la schiuma. 
 
 For not on downy plumes, nor under shade 
 Of canopy reposing. Fame is won
 
 128 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 "Without wbich, whosoe'er consumes his days, 
 Leaveth such vestige of himself on earth 
 As smoke iu air, or foam upon the wave.* 
 
 But men of genius, in their intercourse with persons of 
 fashion, have a secret inducement to coui't that circle. 
 They feel a perpetual want of having the reality of their 
 talents confirmed to themselves, and they often step into 
 society to "observe in what degree they are objects 
 of attention; for though ever acciised of vanity, the 
 greater part of men of genius feel that their existence, 
 as such, must depend on the opinion of others. This 
 standard is in truth always problematical and variable ; 
 yet they cannot hope to find a more certain one among 
 their rivals, who at all times are adroitly depreciating 
 their brothers, and " dusking " their lustre. They dis- 
 cover among those cultivators of literature and the arts 
 who have recourse to them for their pleasure, impas- 
 sioned admirers, rather than unmerciful judges — judges 
 who have only time to acquire that degree of illumina- 
 tion which is just sufiicient to set at ease the fears of 
 these claimants of genius. 
 
 When literary men assemble together, what mimetic 
 friendships, in their mutual corruption ! Creatures of 
 intrigue, they borrow other men's eyes, and act by feel- 
 ings often even contrary to their own : they wear a 
 mask on their face, and only sing a tune they have 
 caught. Some hierophant in their mysteries proclaims 
 their elect whom they have to initiate, and their profane 
 who are to stand apart under their ban. They bend to 
 the spirit of the age, but they do not elevate the public 
 to them; they care not for truth, but only study to 
 produce effect, and they do nothing for fame but what 
 obtains an instant purpose. Yet their fame is not there- 
 fore the more real, for everything connected with 
 fashion becomes obsolete. Her ear has a great suscepti- 
 
 • Gary's Dante, Canto xiiv.
 
 GENIUS AND SOCIETY. 129 
 
 bility of weariness, and lier eye rolls for incessant 
 novelty. Never was she earnest for anything. Men's 
 minds with her become tarnished and old-fashioned as 
 furniture. But the steams of rich dinners, the eye which 
 sparkles with the wines of France, the luxurious night 
 which flames with more heat and brilliancy than God 
 has made the day, this is the world the man of coterie- 
 celebrity has chosen ; and the Epicurean, as long as his 
 senses do not cease to act, laughs at the few who retire 
 to the solitary midnight lamp. Posthumous fame is — a 
 nothing ! Such men live like unbelievers in a future 
 state, and their narrow calculating spirit coldly dies in 
 their artificial world : but true genius looks at a nobler 
 source of its existence ; it catches inspiration in its insu- 
 lated studies ; and to the great genius, who feels how 
 his present is necessarily connected with his jfuture 
 celebrity, posthumous fame is a reality, for the sense 
 acts upon him ! 
 
 The habitudes of genius, before genius looses its fresh- 
 ness in this society, are the mould in which the character 
 is cast ; and these, in spite of all the disguise of the man, 
 will make him a distinct being from the man of society. 
 Those who have assumed the literary character often for 
 purposes very distinct from literary ones, imagine that 
 their circle is the public ; but in this factitious public all 
 their interests, their opinions, and even their passions, 
 are temporary, and the admirers with the admired pass 
 away with their season. " Is it not sufficient that we 
 speak the same language," says a witty philosopher, " but 
 we must learn their dialect ; we must think as they 
 think, and we must echo their opinions, as we act by 
 imitation," Let the man of genius then dread to level 
 himself to the mediocrity of feeling and talent required 
 in such cu'cles of society, lest he become one of them- 
 selves ; he will soon find that to think like them will in 
 time become to act like them. But he who in solitude 
 9
 
 130 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 adopts no transient feelings, and reflects no artificial 
 lights, who is only himself, possesses an immense advan- 
 tage : he has not attached importance to what is merely- 
 local and fugitive, but listens to interior truths, and fixes 
 on the immutable nature of things. He is the man of 
 every age. Malebranche has observed, that " It is not 
 indeed thought to be charitable to disturb common 
 opinions, because it is not truth which unites society as 
 it exists so much as opinion and custom :" a principle 
 which the world would not, I think, disagree with ; but 
 which tends to render folly wisdom itself, and to make 
 error immortal. 
 
 Ridicule is the light scourge of society, and the terror 
 of genius. Ridicule surrounds him with her chimer^is, 
 which, like the shadowy monsters opposing ^neas, are 
 impalpable to his strokes : but remember when the sibyl 
 bade the hero proceed without noticing them, he found 
 these airy nothings as harmless as they were unreal. 
 The habits of the literary character will, however, be 
 tried by the men and women of the world by their own 
 standard : they have no other ; the salt of ridicule gives 
 a poignancy to their deficient comprehension, and their 
 perfect ignorance, of the persons or things which are the 
 subjects of their ingenious animadversions. The habits 
 of the literary character seem inevitably repulsive to 
 persons of the world. Voltaire, and his companion, the 
 scientific Madame De Chatelet, she who introduced 
 Newton to the French nation, lived entirely devoted to 
 literary pursuits, and their habits were strictly literary. 
 It happened once that this learned pair dropped unex- 
 pectedly into a fashionable circle in the chdteau of a 
 French nobleman. A Madame de Staiil, the 7:)er5^^e^<r in 
 office of Madame l)u Deffand, has copiously narrated 
 the whole ailUir. They arrived at midnight like two 
 famished spectres, and there was some trouble to put 
 them to supper and bed. They are called apparitions,
 
 VOLTAIRE A^D DE CHATELET. 131 
 
 because they were never visible by day, only at ten at 
 night ; for the one is busied in describing great deeds, 
 and the other in commenting on Newton. Like other 
 apparitions, they are uneasy companions : they will 
 neither play nor walk; they will not dissipate their 
 mornings with the charming circle about them, nor 
 allow the charming circle to break into their studies. 
 Voltaire and Madame de Chatelet would have suffered 
 the same pain in being forced to an abstinence of their 
 regular studies, as this circle of " agreables " would have 
 at the loss of their meals and their airings. However, 
 the persijleur declares they were ciphers " en societe," 
 adding no value to the number, and to which their 
 learned writings bear no reference. 
 
 But if this literary couple would not play, what was 
 worse, Voltaire poured out a vehement declamation 
 against a fashionable species of gambling, which appears 
 to have made them all stare. But Madame de Chatelet 
 is the more frequent victim of omv persijleur. The learned 
 lady would change her apartment — for it was too noisy, 
 and it had smoke without fire — which last was her em- 
 blem. "She is reviewing her Principia ; an exercise 
 she repeats every year, without which precaution they 
 might escape from her, and get so far away that she 
 might never find them again. I believe that her head in 
 respect to them is a house of imprisonment rather than 
 the place of their birth ; so that she is right to watch 
 them closely ; and she prefers the fresh air of this occu- 
 pation to our amusements, and persists in her invisibility 
 till night-time. She has six or seven tables in her apart- 
 ments, for she wants them of all sizes ; immense ones to 
 spread out her papers, solid ones to hold her instruments, 
 lighter ones, &c. Yet with all this she could not escape 
 from the accident which happened to Philip II., after 
 passing the night in writing, when a bottle of ink fell 
 over the despatches ; but the lady did not imitate the
 
 135 LITERARY CFTARAOTlCtt,. 
 
 moderation of the prince ; indeed, she had not written on 
 State affairs, and what was spoilt in her room was algebra, 
 much more diiBcult to copy out." Here is a pair of por- 
 traits of a great poet and a great mathematician, whose 
 habits were discordant with the fashionable circle in 
 which they resided — the representation is just, for it is 
 by one of the coterie itself 
 
 Study, meditation, and enthusiasm, — this is the progress 
 of genius, and th^se cannot be the habits of him who lin- 
 gers till he can only live among polished crowds ; who, 
 if he bear about him the consciousness of genius, will still 
 be acting under their influences. And perhaps there 
 never was one of this class of men who had not either 
 first entirely formed himself in solitude, or who amidst 
 society will not be often breaking out to seek for himself. 
 Wilkes, no longer touched by the fervours of literary 
 and patriotic glory, suffered life to melt away as a do- 
 mestic voluptuary; and then it was that he observed 
 with some surprise of the great Earl of Chatham, that he 
 sacrificed every pleasure of social life, even in youth, to 
 his great pursuit of eloquence. That ardent character 
 studied Barrow's Sermons so often as to repeat them 
 from memory, and could even read twice from beginning 
 to end Bailey's Dictionary ; these are little facts which 
 belong only to great minds ! The earl himself acknowl- 
 edged an artifice he practised in his intercourse with 
 society, for he said, " when he was young, he always 
 came late into company, and left it early." Vittorio Al- 
 fieri, and a brother-spirit, our own noble poet, were rarely 
 seen amidst the brilliant circle in which they were born. 
 The workings of their imagination were perpetually 
 emancipating them, and one deep loneliness of feeling 
 proudly insulated them among the unimpassioned triflers 
 of their rank. They preserved unbroken the unity of 
 their character, in constantly escaping from the proces-
 
 A LITERARY MONARCH. 133 
 
 sional spectacle of society.* It is no trivial observation 
 of another noble writer, Lord Shaftesbury, that " it may 
 happen that a person may be so much the worse author, 
 for beinjTf the finer o-entleman," 
 
 An extraordinary instance of this disagreement be- 
 tween the man of the world and the literary chai-acter, 
 we find in a philosopher seated on a throne. The cele- 
 brated Julian stained the imperial purple with an author's 
 ink ; and when he resided among the Antiochians, his 
 unalterable character shocked that volatile and luxurious 
 race. He slighted the plaudits of their theatre, he ab- 
 horred their dances and their hoi'se-races, he was absti- 
 nent even at a festival, and incorrupt himself, perpetually 
 admonished the dissipated citizens of their impious 
 abandonment of the laws of their country. The Antio- 
 chians libelled their emperor, and petulantly lampooned 
 his beard, which the philosopher cai-elessly wore neither 
 perfumed nor curled. Julian, scorning to inflict a sharper 
 punishment, pointed at them his satire of " the Misopo- 
 gon, or the Antiochian ; the Enemy of the Beard," where, 
 amidst irony and invective, the literary monarch bestows 
 on himself many exquisite and characteristic touches. 
 All that the persons of fashion alleged against the literary 
 character, Julian unreservedly confesses — his undressed 
 beard and awkwardness, his obstinacy, his unsociable 
 habits, his deficient tastes, while at the same time he 
 represents his good qualities as so many extravagances. 
 But, in this Cervantic pleasantry of self-reprehension, the 
 imperial philosopher has not failed to show this light 
 and corrupt people that the reason he could not possibly 
 
 * In a note which Lord Byron has written in a copy of this work 
 his lordship says, " I fear this was not the case ; I have been but too 
 myh. in that circle, especially in 1812-13-14." 
 
 To the expression of " one deep loneliness oi leeling," his lordship 
 has marked in the margin "True." I am gratified to confirm the 
 theory of my ideas of the man of genius, by the practical experience 
 of the greatest of our age.
 
 134 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 resemLle thorn, existed in the unhappy circumstance of 
 having been subject to too strict an education under a 
 family tutor, who had never sutfered him to swerve from 
 the one right way, and who (additional misfortune !) had 
 inspired him with such a silly reverence for Plato and 
 Socrates, Aristotle and Theophrastus, that he had been 
 induced to make them his models. " Whatever manners," 
 says the emperor, "I may have previously contracted, 
 whether gentle or boorish, it is impossible for me now to 
 alter or unlearn. Habit is said to be a second nature ; 
 to oppose it is irksome, but to counteract the study of 
 more than thirty years is extremely difficult, especially 
 when it has been imbibed with so much attention." 
 
 And what if men of genius, relinquishing their habits, 
 could do this violence to their nature, should we not 
 lose the original for a factitious genius, and spoil one 
 race without improving the other ? If nature and habit, 
 that second nature which prevails even over the first, 
 have created two beings distinctly different, what mode 
 of existence shall ever assimilate them ? Antipathies 
 and sympathies, those still occult causes, however con- 
 cealed, will break forth at an unguarded moment. Clip 
 the wings of an eagle that he may roost among domestic 
 fowls, — at some unforeseen moment his i^inions will over- 
 shadow and terrify his tiny associates, for "the feathered 
 king " will be still musing on the rock and the cloud. 
 
 The man of genius will be restive even in his tram- 
 melled paces. Too impatient amidst the heartless cour- 
 tesies of society, and little practised in the minuter 
 attentions, he has rarely sacrificed to the unlaughing 
 graces of Lord Chesterfield. Plato ingeniously compares 
 Socrates to the gallipots of the Athenian apothecaries; 
 the grotesque figures of owls and apes were painted on 
 their exterior, but they contained within precious balsams. 
 The man of genius amidst many a circle may exclaim 
 with Themistocles, " I cannot fiddle, but I can make a
 
 A LITERARY MONARCH. 135 
 
 little village a great city;" and with Corneille, he may 
 be allowed to smile at his own deficiencies, and even 
 disdain to please in certain conventional manners, assert- 
 ing that " wanting all these things, he was not the less 
 Corneille." 
 
 But with the great thinkers and students, their char- 
 acter is still more obdurate. Adam Smith could never 
 free himself from the embarrassed manners of a recluse ; 
 he was often absent, and his grave and formal conver- 
 sation made him seem distant and reserved, when in fact 
 no man had warmer feelings for his intimates. One who 
 kuew Sir Isaac Newton tells us, that " he would some- 
 times be silent and thoughtful, and look all the while 
 as if he were saying his prayers." A French princess, 
 desirous of seeing the great moralist Xicolle, experienced 
 an inconceivable disappointment when the moral in- 
 structor, entering with the most perplexing bow imagin- 
 able, silently sank into his chair. The interview pro- 
 moted no conversation, and the retu-ed student, whose 
 elevated spirit might have endured martyrdom, shrunk 
 with timidity in the unaccustomed honour of conversing 
 with a princess and having nothing to say. Observe 
 Hume thrown into a most ridiculous attitude by a woman 
 of talents and coterie celebrity. Our philosopher was 
 called on to perform his part in one of those inventions 
 of the hour to which the fashionable, like children in 
 society, have sometimes resorted to attract their world 
 by the rimiour of some new extravagance. In the pr(!S- 
 ent, poor Hume was to represent a sultan on a sofa, 
 sitting between two slaves, who were the prettiest and 
 most vivacious of Parisians. Much was anticipated from 
 this literary exhibition. The two slaves were ready at 
 repartee, but the utter simpUcity of the sultan displayed 
 a blockishness which blunted all edge. The phlegmatic 
 metaphysician and historian only gave a s",gn of life by 
 repeating the same awkward gesture, and the same ridi-
 
 136 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 culous exclamation, without end. One of the fair slaves 
 soon discovered the unchangeable nature of the forlorn 
 philosopher, impatiently exclaiming, " I guessed as much, 
 never was there such a calf of a man !" — " Since this 
 affair," adds Madame d'Epinay, " Hume is at present 
 banished to the class of spectators." The philosopher, 
 indeed, had formed a more correct conception of his 
 own character than the volatile sylphs of the Parisian 
 circle, for in writing to the Countess de Boufflers, on an 
 invitation to Paris, he said, " I have rusted on amid 
 books and study ; have been little engaged in the active, 
 and not much in the pleasui'able, scenes of life ; and am 
 more accustomed to a select society than to general 
 companies." If Hume made a ridiculous figure in these 
 cii*cles, the error did not lie on the side of that cheerful 
 and profound philosopher. — This subject leads our inqui- ■ 
 ries to the nature of the conversations of men of 
 genius. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Conversations of men of genius. — Their deficient agreeableness may 
 result from qualities which conduce to their greatness. — Slow-minded 
 men not the dullest. — The conversationists not the ablest writers. — 
 Their true excellence in conversation consists of associations with 
 their pursuits. 
 
 IN conversation the sublime Dante was taciturn or 
 satirical ; Butler sullen or caustic ; Gray and Alfieri 
 seldom talked or smiled ; Descartes, whose habits had 
 formed him for solitude and meditation, was silent ; Rous- 
 seau was remarkably trite in conversation, not an idea, not 
 a word of fancy or eloquence warmed him ; Addison and 
 Moliere in society were only observers ; and Dryden has 
 very honestly told us, " My conversation is slow and dull,
 
 CONVERSATIONAL POWER. 137 
 
 my humour saturnine and reserved ; in short, I am none 
 of those who endeavour to break jests in company, or 
 make repartees." Pope had lived among "the great," 
 not only in rank but in intellect, the most delightful con- 
 versationists ; but the poet felt that he could not contri- 
 bute to these seductive pleasures, and at last confessed 
 that he could amuse and instruct himself much more by 
 another means : " As much company as I have kept, and 
 as much as I love it, I love reading better, and would 
 rather be employed in reading, than in the most agree- 
 able conversation." Pope's conversation, as preserved 
 by Spence, was sensible ; and it would seem that he had 
 never said but one witty thing in his whole life, for only 
 one has been recorded. It was ingeniovxsly said of 
 Vaucanson, that he was as much an automaton as any 
 which he made. Hogarth and Swift, who looked on the 
 circles of society with eyes of inspiration, were absent in 
 company ; but their grossness and asperity did not pre- 
 vent the one from being the greatest of comic painters, 
 nor the other as much a creator of manners in his way. 
 Genius, even in society, is pursuing its own operations, 
 and it would cease to be itself were it always to act like 
 others. 
 
 Men of genius who are habitually eloquent, who have 
 practised conversation as an art, for some even sacrifice 
 their higher pursuits to this perishable art of acting, have 
 indeed excelled, and in the most opposite manner. Home 
 Tooke finely discriminates the wit in conversation of 
 Sheridan and Curran, after having passed an evening in 
 their company. " Sheridan's wit was like steel highly 
 polished and sharpened for display and use ; Curran's 
 was a mine of virgin gold, incessantly crumbling away 
 from its own richness." Charles Butler, whose reminis- 
 cences of his illustrious contemporaries are derived from 
 personal intercourse, has correctly described the familiar 
 conversations of Pitt, Fox, and Burke : " The most intl
 
 138 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 mate friends of Mr. Fox complained of his too frequent 
 ruminating silence. Mr. Pitt talked, and his talk was 
 fascinating. Mr. Burke's conversation was rambling, but 
 splendid and instructive beyond comparison." Let me 
 add, that the finest genius of our times, is also the most 
 delightful man; he is that rarest among the rare of 
 human beings, whom to have known is nearly to adore ; 
 wh©m to have seen, to have heard, forms an era in our 
 life ; whom youth remembers with enthusiasm, and whose 
 presence the men and women of " the world " feel like a 
 dream from which they would not awaken. His bonhomie 
 attaches our hearts to him by its simplicity ; his legen- 
 dary conversation makes us, for a moment, poets like 
 himself* 
 
 But that deficient agreeableness in social life with 
 which men of genius have been often reproached, may 
 really result from the nature of those qualities which 
 conduce to the greatness of their public character. A 
 thinker whose mind is saturated with knowledge on a 
 particular subject, will be apt to deliver himself authori- 
 tatively ; but he will then pass for a dogmatist : should 
 he hesitate, that he may correct an equivocal expression, 
 or bring nearer a remote idea, he is in danger of sinking 
 into pedantry or rising into genius. Even the fulness of 
 knowledge has its tediousness. " It is rare," said Male 
 branche, " that those who meditate profoundly, can ex- 
 plain well the objects they have meditated on ; for they 
 hesitate when they have to speak ; they are scrupulous 
 to convey false ideas or use inaccurate terms. They do 
 not choose to speak, like others, merely for the sake of 
 talking." A vivid and sudden perception of truth, or a 
 Bevere scrutiny after it, may elevate the voice, and burst 
 
 * This was written under tlio inspiration of a night's conversation, 
 )r rather listening to Sir Walter Scott. — I cannot bring myself to 
 »rase what now, alas 1 has closed in the silence of a swift termination 
 of his glorious existence.
 
 CONVERSATIONAL POWER. 139 
 
 with, an irruptive heat on the subdued tone of conversa- 
 tion. These men are too much in earnest for the weak 
 or the vain. Such seriousness kills their feeble animal 
 spirits. Smeaton, a creative genius of his class, had a 
 warmth of expression which seemed repulsive to many : 
 it arose from an intense application of mind, which im- 
 pelled him to break out hastily when anything was said 
 that did not accord with his ideas. Pei-sons who are ob- 
 stinate till they can give up their notions with a safe con- 
 science, are troublesome intimates. Often too the cold 
 tardiness of decision is only the strict balancing of scep- 
 ticism or candour, while obscurity as frequently may arise 
 from the deficiency of previous knowledge in the listenei-. 
 It was said that N'ewton in conversation did not seem to 
 understand his own wi'itings, and it was supposed that 
 his memory had decayed. The fact, however, was not 
 so ; and Pemberton makes a curious distinction, which 
 accounts for Newton noi always being ready to speah on 
 subjects of which he was the sole master. " Inventors 
 seem to treasure up in their own minds what they have 
 found out, after another manner than those do the same 
 things that have not this inventive faculty. The former, 
 when they have occasion to produce their knowledge, in 
 some means are obliged immediately to investigate part 
 of what they want. For this they are not equally fit at 
 all times ; and thus it has often happened, that such as 
 retain things chiefly by means of a very strong memory, 
 have appeared off-hand more expert than the discoverers 
 themselves." 
 
 A peculiar characteristic in the conversations of men 
 of genius, which has often injured them when the listen- 
 ers were not intimately acquainted with the men, are 
 those sports of a vacant mind, those sudden impulses to 
 throw out paradoxical opinions, and to take unexpected 
 views of things in some humour of the moment. These 
 fanciful and capricious ideas are the grotesque images of
 
 140 nTERART CHARACTER. 
 
 a pla^ ill miu<l, and are at least as frequently misrepre- 
 sented ai4 vbey are misunderstood. But thus the cunning 
 Philistmes are enabled to triumph over the strong and 
 gifted man, because in the hour of confidence, and in the 
 abandonment of the mind, he had laid his head in the lap 
 of wantonness, and taught them how he might be shorn 
 of his strength. Dr. Johnson appears often to have in- 
 dulged this amusement, both in good and ill humour. 
 Even such a calm philosopher as Adam Smith, as well as 
 such a child of imagination as Burns, were remarked for 
 this ordinary habit of men of genius ; which, perhaps, as 
 often originates in a gentle feeling of contempt for their 
 auditors, as from any other cause. Many years after 
 having written the above, I discovered two recent confes- 
 sions which confirm the principle, A literary character, the 
 late Dr. Leyden, acknowledged, that " in conversation I 
 often verge so nearly on absurdity, that I know it is per- 
 fectly easy to misconceive me, as well as to misrepresent 
 me." And Miss Edgeworth, in describing her father's 
 conversation, observes that, " his openness went too far, 
 almost to imprudence ; exposing him not only to be mis- 
 represented, but to be misunderstood. Those who did 
 not know him intimately, often took literally what was 
 either said in sport, or spoken with the intention of 
 making a strong impression for some good purpose." 
 Cumberland, whose conversation was delightful, hap- 
 pily describes the species I have noticed. " Nonsense 
 talked by men of wit and understanding in the hour 
 of relaxation is of the very finest essence of convivi- 
 ality, and a treat delicious to those who have the sense 
 to comprehend it ; but it implies a trust in the company 
 not always to be risked." The truth is, that many, 
 eminent for their genius, have been remarkable in society 
 for a simplicity and playfulness almost infantine. Such 
 was tlic gaiety of llumc, such the honhoniie of Fox; and 
 owe. who liad long lived in a circle of men of genius in
 
 SIMPLICITT OF GENTOS. 141 
 
 the last age, was disposed to consider this iufai\Mue siin- 
 plicity as characteristic of genius. It is a solitary g^ .^co, 
 which can never lend its charm to a man of the w* 'Id, 
 whose purity of mind has long been lost in a hack* 'e<^i 
 intercourse with everything exterior to himself. 
 
 But above all, what most offends, is that freedom o^ 
 opinion which a man of genius can no more divest hiin 
 self of, than of the features of his face. But what if thi- 
 intractable obstinacy be only resistance of character 
 Burns never could account to himself why, " thougl 
 when he had a mind he was pretty generally beloved, h( 
 could never get the art of commanding respect," and 
 imagined it was owing to his deficiency in what Sterne 
 calls " that understraj)ping virtue of discretion ;" " I am 
 so apt to a lapsus linguae,^'' says this honest sinner. 
 Amidst the stupidity of a formal circle, and the inanity 
 of triflers, however such men may conceal their impatience, 
 one of them has forcibly described the reaction of this 
 suppressed feeling : " The force with which it burst out 
 when the pressure was taken off, gave the measure of the 
 constraint which had been endured." Erasmus, that 
 learned and charming writer, who was blessed with the 
 genius which could enliven a folio, has well described 
 himself, sum naturd propensior ad jocos quam fortasse 
 deceat : — more constitutionally inclined to pleasantry than, 
 as he is pleased to add, perhaps became him. We know 
 in his intimacy with Sir Thomas More, that Erasmus was 
 a most exhilarating companion ; yet in his intercourse 
 with the great he was not fortunate. At the first glance 
 he saw through affectation and parade, his praise of folly 
 was too ironical, and his freedom carried with it no pleas- 
 antry for those who knew not to prize a laughing sage. 
 
 In conversation the operations of the intellect with 
 some ax-e habitually slow, but there will be found no dif- 
 ference between the result of their perceptions and those 
 of a quicker nature ; and hence it is that slow-minded men
 
 142 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 are not, as men of the world imagine, always the dullest. 
 Nicolle said of a scintillant wit, " He vanquishes me in 
 the drawing-room, but surrenders to me at discretion on 
 the stairs." Many a great wit has thought the wit it was 
 too late to speak, and many a great reasoner has only 
 reasoned when his opponent has disappeared. Conversa- 
 tion with such men is a losing game ; and it is often la- 
 mentable to observe how men of genius are reduced to a 
 state of helplessness from not commanding their attention, 
 while inferior intellects habitually are found to possess 
 what is called " a ready mind." For this reason some, 
 as it were in despair, have shut themselves up in silence. 
 A lively Frenchman, in describing the distinct sorts of 
 conversation of his literary friends, among whom was Dr. 
 Franklin, energetically hits oif that close observer and 
 thinker, wary, even in society, by noting down " the 
 silence of the celebrated Franklin." We learn from 
 Cumberland that Lord Mansfield did not promote that 
 conversation which gave him any pains to carry on. He 
 resorted to society for simple relaxation, and could even 
 find a pleasure in dulness when accompanied with pla- 
 cidity. " It was a kind of cushion to his understanding," 
 observes the wit. Chaucer, like La Fontaine, was more 
 facetious in his tales than in his conversation ; for the 
 Countess of Pembroke used to rally him, observing that 
 his silence was more agreeable to her than his talk. 
 Tasso's conversation, which his friend Manso has attempt- 
 ed to preserve for us, was not agreeable. In company 
 he sat absorbed in thought, with a melancholy air ; and 
 it was on one of these occasions that a person present ob- 
 serving that this conduct was indicative of madness, that 
 Tasso, who had heard him, looking on him without emo- 
 tion, asked whether he was ever acquainted with a mad- 
 man who knew when to hold his tongue ! Malebranche 
 tells us that one of these mere men of learning, who can 
 only venture to praise antiquity, once said, " I have seen
 
 CONTRADICTORY CHARACTER. 143 
 
 Descartes ; I knew him, and frequently have conversed 
 with him ; he was a good sort of man, and was not want- 
 ins; in sense, but he had nothing extraordinary in him." 
 Had Aristotle spoken French instead of Greek, and had 
 this man frequently conversed with him, unquestionably 
 he would not have discovered, even in this idol of anti- 
 quity, anything extraordinary. Two thousand years 
 would have been wanting for our learned critic's percep- 
 tions. 
 
 It is remarkable that the conversationists have rarely 
 proved to be the abler winters. He whose fancy is sus- 
 ceptible of excitement in the presence of his auditors, 
 making the minds of men run with his own, seizing on 
 the first impressions, and touching the shadows and out- 
 lines of things — with a memory where all lies ready at 
 hand, quickened by habitual associations, and varying 
 with all those extemporary changes and fugitive colours 
 which melt away in the rainbow of conversation ; with 
 that wit, which is only wit in one place, and for a time ; 
 w^th that vivacity of animal spirits which often exists 
 separately from the more retired intellectual powers — 
 this man can strike out wit by habit, and pour forth a 
 stream of phrase which has sometimes been imagined to 
 require only to be written down to be read with the same 
 delight with which it was heard ; but he cannot print his 
 tone, nor his air and manner, nor the contagion of his 
 hardihood. All the while we were not sensible of the 
 flutter of his ideas, the incoherence of his transitions, his 
 vague notions, his doubtful assertions, and his meagre 
 knowledge. A pen is the extinguisher of this luminary. 
 
 A curious contrast occurred between Buffon and his 
 friend Montbelliard, who was associated in his great work. 
 The one possessed the reverse qualities of the other: 
 BufFon, whose style in his composition is elaborate and 
 declamatory, was in conversation coarse and careless. 
 Pleading that conversation with him was only a relaxa-
 
 144 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 tion, he rather sought than avoided the idiom and slang 
 of the mob, when these seemed expressive and facetious ; 
 while Montbelliard threw every charm of animation over 
 his delightful talk : but when he took his seat at the rival 
 desk of BufFon, an immense interval separated them ; he 
 whose tongue dropped the honey and the music of the 
 bee, handled a pen of iron ; while Buffon's was the soft 
 pencil of the philosophical painter of nature. Cowley and 
 Killegrew furnish another instance. Cowley was embar- 
 rassed in conversation, and had no quickness in argument 
 or reply: a mind pensive and elegant could not be struck 
 at to catch fire : while with Killegrew the sparkling bub- 
 bles of his fancy rose and dropped.* When the delight- 
 ful conversationist wrote, the deception ceased. Denham, 
 who knew them both, hit off the difference between them • 
 
 Had Cowley ne'er spoke, Killegrew ne'er writ, 
 Combined in one they had made a matchless wit. 
 
 Not, however, that a man of genius does not throw out 
 many things in conversation which have only been found 
 admirable when the public possessed them. The public 
 often widely differ from the individual, and a century's 
 opinion may intervene between them. The fate of genius 
 is sometimes that of the Athenian sculptor, who submit- 
 ted his colossal Minerva to a private party for inspection. 
 Before the artist they trembled for his daring chisel, and 
 the man of genius smiled ; behind him they calumniated, 
 and the man of genius forgave. Once fixed in a public 
 place, in the eyes of the whole city, the statue was the 
 
 * Killegrew's eight plays, upon wblcli his character as an autlior rests, 
 have not been republished with one exception — theParson'n Wedding — 
 which is given in Dodsley's collection; and which is sufficient to sat- 
 isfy curiosity. He was a favourite with Charles the Second, and had 
 great influence with him. Some of his witty court jests are preserved, 
 but are too much imbued with the spirit of the ago to be quoted here. 
 Ho was sometimes useful by devoting his satiric sallies to urge the king 
 to his duties. — Ed.
 
 CONTRADICTORY CHARACTER. I45 
 
 Divinity ! Tliere is a certain distance at whicli opinions, 
 as well as statues, must be viewed. 
 
 But enough of those defects of men of genius which 
 often attend their conversations. Must we then boAV to 
 authorial dignity, and kiss hands, because they are inked ? 
 Must we bend to the artist, who considers us as nothing 
 unless we are canvas or marble under his hands ? Are 
 there not men of genius the grace of society and the 
 charm of their circle ? Fortunate men ! more blest than 
 their brothers ; but for this, they are not the more men 
 of genius, nor the others less. To how many of the ordi- 
 nary intimates of a superior genius who complain of his 
 defects might one say, " Do his productions not delight 
 and sometimes surprise you ? — You are silent ! I beg 
 your pardon; the public has informed you of a great 
 name ; you would not otherwise have perceived the pre- 
 cious talent of your neighbour : you know little of your 
 friend but his name." The personal familiarity of ordinary 
 minds with a man of genius has often produced a ludi- 
 crous prejudice. A Scotchman, to whom the name of a 
 Dr. Robertson had travelled down, was curious to know 
 who he was. — " Your neighbour !" — But he could not per- 
 suade himself that the man whom he conversed with was 
 the great historian of his country. Even a good man 
 could not beheve in the announcement of the Messiah, 
 from the same sort of prejudice : " Can there anything 
 good come out of Nazareth ?" 
 
 Suffer a man of genius to be such as nature and habit 
 have formed him, and he will then be the most interest- 
 ing companion ; then will you see nothing but his char- 
 acter. Akenside, in conversation with select friends, often 
 touched by a romantic enthusiasm, would pass in review 
 those eminent ancients whom he loved ; he imbued with 
 his poetic faculty even the details of their lives; and 
 seemed another Plato while he poured libations to their 
 memory in the language of Plato, among those whose 
 10
 
 146 
 
 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 studies and feeling were congenial with his own. Rom- 
 ney, with a fancy entirely his own, would give vent to 
 his effusions, uttered in a hurried accent and elevated 
 tone, and often accompanied by tears, to which by con- 
 stitution he was prone ; thus Cumberland, from personal 
 intimacy, describes the conversation of tliis man of genius. 
 Even the temperate sensibility of Hume was touched by 
 the bursts of feeling of Rousseau ; who, he says, " in con- 
 versation kindles often to a degree of heat which looks 
 like inspiration." Barry, that unhappy genius ! was the 
 most repulsive of men in his exterior. The vehemence 
 of his language, the wildness of his glance, his habit of 
 introducing vulgar oaths, which, by some unlucky associ- 
 ation of habit, served him as expletives and interjections, 
 communicated even a horror to some. A pious and a 
 learned lady, who had felt intolerable uneasiness in his 
 presence, did not, however, leave this man of genius that 
 very evening without an impression that she had never 
 heard so divine a man in her life. The conversation hap- 
 pening to turn on that principle of benevolence which 
 pervades Christianity, and on the meekness of the Founder, 
 it gave Barry an opportunity of opening on the character 
 of Jesus with that copiousness of heart and mind which, 
 once heard, could never be forgotten. That artist indeed 
 had long in his meditations an ideal head of Christ, which 
 he was always talking of executing : " It is here !" he 
 would cry, striking his head. That which baffled the in- 
 vention, as we are told, of Leonardo da Vinci, M'ho left 
 his Christ headless, having exhausted his creative faculty 
 among the apostles, this imaginative picture of the myste- 
 rious union of a divine and human nature, never ceased, 
 even when conversing, to haunt the reveries of Barry. 
 
 There are few authors and artists who are not eloquent- 
 ly instructive on that class of knowledge or that depart- 
 ment of art which reveals the mastery of their life. Their 
 conversations of this nature affect the mind to a distant
 
 ELOQUENCE OF BARRY. 147 
 
 period of life. Who, having listened to such, has forgotten 
 what a man of genius has said at such moments ? Who 
 dwells not on the single thought or the glowing expres- 
 sion, stamped in the heat of the moment, which came 
 from its source ? Then the mind of genius lises as the 
 melody of the .^olian harp, when the winds suddenly 
 sweep over the strings — it comes and goes — and leaves 
 a sweetness beyond the harmonies of art. 
 
 The Miscellanea of Politian are not only the result of 
 his studies in the rich library of Lorenzo de' Medici, but 
 of conversations which had passed in those rides which 
 Lorenzo, accompanied by Politian, preferred to the pomp 
 of cavalcades. When the Cardinal de Cabassolle strayed 
 with Petrarch about his valley in many a wandering dis- 
 course, they sometimes extended their walks to such a 
 distance, that the servant sought them in vain to an- 
 nounce the dinner-hour, and found them returning in the 
 evening. When Helvetius enjoyed the social conversa- 
 tion of a literary friend, he described it as " a chase of 
 ideas." Such are the literary conversations which Home 
 Tooke alluded to, when he said " I assure you, we find 
 more difficulty to finish than to begin our conversations." 
 
 The natural and congenial conversations of men of let- 
 ters and of artists must then be those which are associ- 
 ated with their pursuits, and these are of a different com- 
 plexion with the talk of men of the world, the objects of 
 which are drawn from the temporary passions of party- 
 men, or the variable on dits of triflers — topics studiously 
 rejected from these more tranquilising conversations. 
 Diamonds can only be polished by their own dust, and 
 are only shaped by the friction of other diamonds ; and 
 so it happens with literary men and artists. 
 
 A meeting of this nature has been recorded by Cicero, 
 which himself and Atticus had with Varro in the coun- 
 try. Varro arriving from Rome in their neighbourhood 
 somewhat fatigued, had sent a messeaager to his friends.
 
 148 
 
 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 "As soon as we had heard these tidings," says Cicero, 
 "we could not delay hastening to see one who was 
 attached to us by the same pursuits and by former 
 friendship." They set off, but found Varro half way, 
 urged by the same eager desire to join them. They con- 
 ducted him to Cicero's villa. Here, while Cicero was in- 
 quiring after the news of Rome, Atticus interrupted the 
 political rival of Cresar, observing, " Let us leave off in- 
 quiring after things which cannot be heard without pain. 
 Rather ask about what we know, for Varro's muses are 
 longer silent than they used to be, yet surely he has not 
 forsaken them, but rather conceals what he wiites." — 
 " By no means !" replied Varro, " for I deem him to be a 
 whimsical man to write what he wishes to suppress. I 
 have indeed a great work in hand (on the Latin lan- 
 guage), long designed for Cicero." The conversation 
 then took its natural turn by Atticus having got rid of 
 the political anxiety of Cicero. Such, too, were the con- 
 versations which passed at the literary residence of the 
 Medici family, which was described, with as much truth 
 as fancy, as " the Lyceum of philosophy, the Arcadia of 
 poets, and the Academy of painters." We have a pleas- 
 ing instance of such a meeting of literary friends in those 
 conversations which passed in Pope's garden, where there 
 was often a remarkable union of nobility and literary 
 men. There Thomson, Mallet, Gay, Hooke, and Glover 
 met Cobham, Bathurst, Chesterfield, Lyttleton, and other 
 lords ; there some of those poets found patrons, and Pope 
 himself discovered critics. The contracted views of Spence 
 have unfortunately not preserved those literary conver- 
 sations, but a curious passage has dropped from the pen 
 of Lord Bolingbroke, in what his lordship calls " a letter 
 to Pope," often probably passed over among his political 
 tracts. It breathes the spirit of those delightful conver- 
 sations. " My thoughts," wi'ites his lordship, " in what 
 order soever they flow, shall be communicated to you
 
 LITERARY SOLITUDE. 149 
 
 just as they pass through my mind — just as tbey used to 
 be when we conversed together on these or any other sub- 
 ject ; when we sauntered alo7ie, or as we have often done 
 with good Arbuthnot, and the jocose Pean of St. Patrick, 
 among the multiplied scenes of your little garden. The 
 theatre is large enough for my ambition." Such a scene 
 opens a beautiful subject for a curious portrait-painter. 
 These literary groups in the garden of Pope, sauntering, 
 or divided in confidential intercourse, would furnish a 
 scene of literary repose and enjoyment among some of 
 the most illustrious names in our literature. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Literary eolitude. — Its necessity. — Its pleasures. — Of visitors by 
 profession. — Its inconveniences. 
 
 THE literary character is reproached with an extreme 
 passion for retirement, cultivating those insulating 
 habits, which, while they are great interruptions, and 
 even weakeners, of domestic happiness, induce at the 
 same time in public life to a secession from its cares, and 
 an avoidance of its active duties. Yet the vacancies of 
 retired men are eagerly filled by the many unemployed 
 men of the world happily framed for its business. We do 
 not hear these accusations raised against the painter who 
 wears away his days by his easel, or the musician by the 
 side of his instrument ; and much less should we against 
 the legal and commercial character ; yet all these are as 
 much "withdrawn from public and private life as the lit- 
 erary character. The desk is as insulating as the library. 
 Yet the man who is working for his individual interest is 
 more highly estimated than the retired student, whose 
 disinterested pursuits are at least more profitable to the
 
 150 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 world than to himself. La Bruy^re discovered the world's 
 erroneous estimate of literary labour : " There requires a 
 better name," he says, " to be bestowed on the leisure 
 (the idleness he calls it) of the literary character, — to 
 meditate, to compose, to read and to be tranquil, should 
 be called workmgy But so invisible is the progress of 
 intellectual pursuits and so rarely are the objects palpable 
 to the observers, that the literary character appears to be 
 denied for his pursuits, what cannot be refused to every 
 other. That unremitting application and unbroken series 
 of their thoughts, admired in every profession, is only 
 complained of in that one whose professors with so much 
 sincerity mourn over the brevity of life, which has often 
 closed on them while sketching their works. 
 
 It is, however, only in solitude that the genius of emi- 
 nent men has been formed. There their first thoughts 
 sprang, and there it vsdll become them to find their last : 
 for the solitude of old age — and old age must be often in 
 solitude — may be found the happiest with the literary 
 character. Solitude is the nurse of enthusiasm, and en- 
 thusiasm is the true parent of genius. In all ages solitude 
 has been called for — has been flown to. No considerable 
 work was ever composed till its author, like an ancient 
 magician, first retired to the grove, or to the closet, to in- 
 vocate. When genius languishes in an irksome solitude 
 among crowds, that is the moment to fly into seclusion 
 and meditation. There is a society in the deepest solitude ; 
 in all the men of genius of the past 
 
 First of your kind, Society divine I 
 
 and in themselves ; for there only can they indulge in the 
 romances of their soul, and there only can they occupy 
 tlicmselvcs in tlieir dreams and their vigils, and, with 
 the morning, fly witliout interruption to the labour they 
 had reluctantly quitted. If there be not periods when 
 they shall allow their days to melt harmoniously into
 
 SOLITUDE OF GENIUS. 151 
 
 each other, if they do not pass whole weeks together in 
 their study, without iuterveniag absences, they mil not 
 he admitted into the last recess of the Muses. Whether 
 their glory come from researches, or from enthusiasm, 
 time, with not a feather ruffled on his wings, time alone 
 opens discoveries and kindles meditation. This desert of 
 solitude, so vast and so dreary to the man of the world, 
 to the man of genius is the magical garden of Armida, 
 whose enchantments arose amidst solitude, while solitude 
 was everywhere among those enchantments. 
 
 Whenever Michael Angelo, that " divine madman," as 
 Richardson once wrote on the back of one of his draw- 
 ings, was meditating on some great design, he closed 
 himself up from the world, " Why do you lead so soli- 
 tary a life ?" asked a friend. " Art," replied the sublime 
 artist, " Art is a jealous god ; it requires the whole and 
 entire man." During his mighty labour in the Sistiue 
 Chapel, he refused to have any communication with any 
 person even at his own house. Such undisturbed and 
 solitary attention is demanded even by undoubted genius 
 as the price of performance. How then shall we deem 
 of that feebler race who exult in occasional excellence, 
 and who so often deceive themselves by mistaking the 
 evanescent flashes of genius for that holier flame which 
 burns on its altar, because the fuel is incessantly sup- 
 plied ? 
 
 We observe men of genius, in public situations, sigh- 
 ing for this solitude. Amidst the impediments of the 
 world, they are doomed to view their intellectual ban- 
 quet often rising before them, like some fairy delusion, 
 never to taste it. The great Verulam often complained 
 of the disturbances of his public lile, and rejoiced in the 
 occasional retirement he stole from public aflairs. " And 
 now, because I am in the country, I will send you some 
 of my country fruits, which with me are good medita- 
 tions ; when I am in the city, they are choked with
 
 152 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 business," Lord Clarendon, whose life so happily com- 
 bined the contemplative with the active powers of man, 
 dwells on three periods of retirement which he enjoyed ; 
 he always took pleasure in relating the great tranquillity 
 of spirit experienced during his solitude at Jersey, where 
 for more than two yeai-s, employed on his history, he 
 daily wrote " one sheet of large paper with his own 
 hand." At the close of his life, his literary labours in 
 his other retirements are detailed with a proud satisfac- 
 tion. Each of his solitudes occasioned a new acquisi- 
 tion ; to one he owed the Spanish, to another the French, 
 and to a third the Italian literature. The public are not 
 yet acquainted with the fertility of Lord Clarendon's 
 literary labours. It was not vanity that induced Scipio 
 to declare of solitude, that it had no loneliness for him, 
 since he voluntarily retired amidst a glorious life to his 
 Linternum. Cicero was uneasy amid applauding Rome, 
 and has distinguished his numerous works by the titles 
 of his various villas. Aulus Gellius marked his solitude 
 by his " Attic Nights." The " Golden Grove " of Jeremy 
 Taylor is the produce of his retreat at the Earl of Car- 
 berry's seat in Wales ; and the " Diversions of Purley " 
 preserved a man of genius for posterity. Voltaire had 
 talents well adapted for society ; but at one period 
 of his life he passed five years in the most secret seclu- 
 sion, and indeed usually lived in retirement. Montes- 
 quieu quitted the brilliant circles of Paris for his books 
 and his meditations, and was ridiculed by the gay 
 triflers he deserted ; " but my great work," he observes 
 in triumph, " avance k pas de g6ant." Harrington, to 
 compose his " Oceana," severed himself from the society 
 of his friends. Descartes, inflamed by genius, hires an 
 obscure house in an unfrequented quarter at Paris, and 
 there ho passes tAvo years, unknown to his acquaintance. 
 Adam Smitli, after tlie publication of his first work, with- 
 drew into a retirement that lasted ten years: even
 
 VALUE OF TIME. 153 
 
 Hume rallies liirn for separating himself from the 
 world ; but by this means the great political inquirer 
 satisfied the world by his great work. And thus it was 
 with men of genius long ere Petrarch withdrew to his 
 Val chiusa. 
 
 The interruption of visitors by profession has been 
 feelingly lamented by men of letters. The mind, matur- 
 ing its speculations, feels the unexpected conversation of 
 cold ceremony chilling as March winds over the blos- 
 soms of the Spring, Those unhappy beings who wander 
 from house to house, privileged by the charter of society 
 to obstruct the knowledge they cannot impart, to weary 
 because they are wearied, or to seek amusement at the 
 cost of others, belong to that class of society which 
 have affixed no other idea to time than that of getting 
 rid of it. These are judges not the best qualified to 
 comprehend the nature and evil of their depredations in 
 the silent apartment of the studious, who may be often 
 driven to exclaim, in the words of the Psalmist, " Yerily 
 I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands 
 in innocency : for all the day long have I been plagued^ 
 and chastened every morning^ 
 
 When Montesquieu was deeply engaged in his great 
 work, he writes to a friend : — " The favoui* which your 
 friend Mr, Hein often does me to pass his mornings with 
 me, occasions great damage to my work as well by his 
 impure French as the length of his details," — "We are 
 afraid," said some of those visitors to Baxter, " that we 
 break in upon your time," — " To be sure you do," replied 
 the disturbed and blunt scholar. To hint as gently as 
 he could to his friends that he was avaricious of time, 
 one of the learned Italians had a prominent inscription 
 over the door of his study, intimating that whoever 
 remained there must join in his labours. The amiable 
 Melancthon, incapable of a harsh expression, when he 
 received these idle visits, only noted down the time he
 
 154 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 had expended, that he might reanimate his indastry, 
 and not lose a day. Evelyn, continually importuned by 
 morning visitors, or " taken up hy other impertinencies 
 of my life in the country," stole his hours from his night 
 rest " to redeem his losses." The literary character has 
 been driven to the most inventive shifts to escape the 
 irruption of a formidable party at a single rush, who 
 enter, vs^ithout " besieging or beseeching," as Milton has 
 it. The late Mr. Ellis, a man of elegant tastes and poeti- 
 cal temperament, on one of these occasions, at his country- 
 house, assured a literary friend, that when driven to 
 the last, he usually made his escape by a leap out of the 
 window ; and Boileau has noticed a similar dilemma when 
 at the villa of the President Lamoignon, while they were 
 holding their delightful conversations in his grounds. 
 
 Quelquefols de ficheux arrivent trois voices, 
 Que du pare a I'instant assiegent les allees ; 
 Alors sauve qui peut, et quatre fois heureux 
 Qui sait s'echapper, a quelque autre ignore d'eux. 
 
 Brand Hollis endeavoured to hold out "the idea of 
 singularity as a shield;" and the great Kobert Boyle 
 was compelled to advertise in a newspaper that he must 
 decline visits on certain days, that he might have leisure 
 to finish some of his works.* 
 
 * This curious advertisement is preserved in Dr. Birch's " Life of 
 Boyle," p. 272. Boyle's labours were so exhausting to his naturally 
 weak frame, and so continuous from his eager desire for investigation, 
 that this advertisement was concocted by tlie advice of his physician, 
 " to desire to bo excused from receiving visits (unless upon occasions 
 very extraordinary) two days in the week, namely, on the forenoon of 
 Tuesdays and Fridays (both foreign post days), and on Wednesdays 
 and Saturdays in the afternoons, that he may liave nome time, both to 
 recruit liis spirits, to range his papers, and fill up the lacunce of them, 
 and to take some care of liis aflairs in Ireland, which are very much 
 disordered and have their face often changed by the public calamities 
 there." lie ordered likewise a board to bo placed over his door, with 
 an inscription signifying when he did, and when he did not receive 
 vi*it3. — Ei>.
 
 SOLITUDE OF GEXIUS. 155 
 
 Boccaccio has given an interesting account of the 
 mode of life of the studious Petrarch, for on a visit he 
 found that Petrarch wouki not suffer his hours of study 
 to be broken into even by the person whom of all men he 
 loved most, and did not quit his morning studies for his 
 guest, who during that time occupied himself by reading 
 or transcribing the works of his master. At the decline 
 of day, Petrarch quitted his study for his garden, where 
 he delighted to open his heart in mutual confidence. 
 
 But this solitude, at first a necessity, and then a 
 pleasure, at length is not borne without repining. To 
 tame the fervid wUdness of youth to the strict regulari- 
 ties of study, is a sacrifice performed by the votary ; but 
 even Milton appears to have felt this u'ksome period of 
 life ; for in the preface to " Smectymnuus," he says : — " It 
 is but justice not to defraud of due esteem the wearisome 
 labours and studious watchings wherein I have spent 
 and tired out almost a whole youth." Cowley, that 
 enthusiast for seclusion, in his retirement calls himself 
 "the Melancholy Cowley." I have seen an original 
 letter of this poet to Evelyn, where he expresses hia 
 eagerness to see Sir George Mackenzie's "Essay on 
 Solitude ;" for a copy of which he had sent over the town, 
 without obtaining one, being " either all bought up, or 
 burnt in the fire of London."* — " I am the more de. 
 sii'ous," he says, " because it is a subject in which I am 
 most deeply interested. Thus Cowley was requkiug a 
 
 * This event happening when London was the chief emporium of 
 books, occasioned many printed just before the time to be excessively 
 rare. The booksellers of Paternoster-row had removed their stock to 
 the vaults below- St. Paul's for safety as the fire approached them. 
 Among the stock was Prynne's records, vol. iii., which were all burnt 
 except a few copies which had been sent into the country, a perfect 
 set has been valued in consequence at one hundred pounds. The rarity 
 of all books published about the era of the great fire of London induced 
 (me curious collector. Dr. Bhss, of Oxford, to especially devote himself 
 to gathering such in his library. — Ed.
 
 156 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 book to confirm his predilection, and we know I e made 
 the experiment, which did not prove a happy one. We 
 find even Gibbon, with all his fame about him, antici- 
 pating the dread he entertained of solitude in advanced 
 life. " I feel, and shall continue to feel, that domestic 
 solitude, however it may be alleviated by the world, by 
 study, and even by friendship, is a comfortless state, 
 which will grow more painful as I descend in the vale of 
 years." And again: — "Your visit has only served to 
 remind me that man, however amused or occupied in his 
 closet, was not made to live alone." 
 
 Had the mistaken notions of Sprat not deprived us of 
 Cowley's correspondence, we doubtless had viewed the 
 picture of lonely genius touched by a tender pencil.* 
 But we have Shenstone, and Gray, and Swift. The heart 
 of Shenstone bleeds in the dead oblivion of solitude ; — 
 " Now I am come from a visit, every little uneasiness is 
 suflicient to introduce my whole train of melancholy con- 
 siderations, and to make me utterly dissatisfied with the 
 life I now lead, and the life I foresee I shall lead. I am 
 angry, and envious, and dejected, and frantic, and disre- 
 gard all present things, as becomes a madman to do. I 
 am infinitely pleased, though it is a gloomy joy, with the 
 application of Dr. Swift's complaint, that he is forced to 
 die in a rage, like a rat in a poisoned hole." Let the 
 lover of solitude muse on its picture throughout the year, 
 in this stanza, by the same amiable but suffering poet : — 
 
 Tedious again to curse the drizzling day, 
 Again to trace the wintry tracks of snow, 
 
 Or, soothed by vernal airs, again survey 
 
 The self-same hawthorns bud, and cowslips blow. 
 
 Swift's letters paint -wHith terrifying colors a picture of 
 solitude ; and at length his despair closed with idiotism. 
 Even the playful muse of Gresset throws a sombre queni- 
 lousness over tlic solitude of men of genius : — 
 
 * See the article on Cowley in " Calamities of Authors."
 
 MEDITATIONS OF GENIUS. ]57 
 
 Je les vois, victimes du genie, 
 Au foible prix d'un eclat passager, 
 Vivre isoles, sans jouir de la vie I 
 Yingt ans d'ennuis pour quelques jours de gloire. 
 
 Such are the necessity, the pleasures, and the incon- 
 veniences of solitude ! It ceases to be a question whether 
 men of genius should blend with the masses of society ; 
 for whether in solitude, or in the world, of all others they 
 must learn to live with themselves. It is in the world 
 that they borrow the sparks of thought that fly upwards 
 and perish : but the flame of genius can only be lighted 
 in their own solitary breast. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 The meditations of genius. — A work on the art of meditation not yet 
 produced. — Predisposing the mind. — Imagination awakens imagina- 
 tion. — Generating feelings by music. — Slight habits. — Darkness and 
 silence, by suspending the exercise of our senses, increase the vi- 
 vacity of our conceptions. — The arts of memory. — Memory the foun- 
 dation of genius. — Inventions by several to preserve their own 
 moral and Uterary character. — And to assist their studies. — The 
 meditations of genius depend on habit. — Of the night-time. — A day 
 of meditation should precede a day of composition. — Works of mag- 
 nitude from slight conceptions. — Of thoughts never written. — The 
 art of meditation exercised at all hours and places. — Continuity of 
 attention the source of philosophical discoveries. — Stillness of medi- 
 tation the first state of existence in genius. 
 
 ACOISTTINUITY of attention, a patient quietness of 
 mind, forms one of the characteristics of genius. 
 To think, and to feel, constitute the two grand divisions 
 of men of genius — the men of reasoning and the men of 
 imagination. There is a thread in our thoughts, as there 
 is a pulse in our hearts ; he who can hold the one, knows
 
 158 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 how to think ; and he who can move the other, knows 
 how to feel. 
 
 A work on the art of meditation has not yet been pro- 
 duced ; yet such a work might prove of immense advan- 
 tage to him who never happened to have more than one 
 solitary idea. The pursuit of a single principle has pro- 
 duced a great system. Thus probably we owe Adam 
 Smith to the French economists. And a loose hint has 
 conducted to a new discovery. Thus Girard, taking ad- 
 vantage of an idea first started by Fenelon, produced 
 his " Synonymes." But while, in every manual art, every 
 great workman improves on his predecessor, of the art of 
 the mind, notwithstanding the facility of practice, and 
 our incessant experience, millions are yet ignorant of the 
 first rudiments ; and men of genius themselves are rarely 
 acquainted with the materials they are working on. Cer- 
 tain constituent principles of the mind itself, which the 
 study of metaphysics curiously developes, ofier many im- 
 portant regulations in this desirable art. We may even 
 suspect, since men of genius in the present age have con- 
 fided to us the secrets of theu- studies, that this art may 
 be carried on by more obvious means than at first would 
 appear, and even by mechanical contrivances and prac- 
 tical habits, A mind well organised may be regulated 
 by a single contrivance, as by a bit of lead we govern 
 the fine machinery by which we track the flight of time. 
 Many secrets in this art of the mind yet remain as insu- 
 lated facts, which may hereafter enter into an experi- 
 mental history. 
 
 Johnson has a curious observation on the Mind itself. 
 He thinks it obtains a stationary point, from whence it 
 can never advance, occurring before the middle of life. 
 " When the powers of nature have attained their intended 
 energy, they can be no more advanced. The shrub can 
 never become a tree. Nothing then remains but prac- 
 tice and experience ; and perhaps why they do so little
 
 POWERS OF MIND. 159 
 
 may he icorth inquiry.'''' * The result of this inquiry 
 would probably lay a broader foundation for this art of 
 the mind than we have hitherto possessed. Adam 
 Ferguson has exj^ressed himself with sublimity : — " The 
 lustre which man casts around him, like the flame of a 
 meteor, shines only while his motion continues ; the mo- 
 ments of rest and of obscurity are the same." What is 
 this art of meditation, but the power of withdrawing 
 ourselves from the world, to view that world moving 
 within ourselves while we are in repose ? As the artist 
 by an optical instrument, reflects and concentrates the 
 boundless landscape around him, and patiently traces 
 all nature in that small space. 
 
 There is a government of our thoughts. The mind of 
 genius can be made to take a particular disposition or 
 train of ideas. It is a remarkable circumstance in the 
 studies of men of genius, that previous to composition 
 they have often awakened their imagination by the im- 
 agination of their favourite masters. By touching a mag- 
 net, they become a magnet. A circumstance has been 
 recorded of Gray, by Mr. Mathias, " as worthy of all ac- 
 ceptation among the higher votaries of the divine art, 
 when they are assured that Mr. Gray never sate down to 
 compose any poetry without previously, and for a con- 
 siderable time, reading the works of Spenser." But the 
 circumstance was not unusual with Malherbe, Corneille, 
 and Racine ; and the most fervid verses of Homer, and 
 the most tender of Euripides, were often repeated by 
 Milton. Even antiquity exhibits the same exciting inter- 
 course of the mind of genius. Cicero informs us how 
 his eloquence caught inspiration from a constant study 
 of the Latin and Grecian poetry ; and it has been record- 
 ed of Pompey, who was great even in his youth, that he 
 never undertook any considerable enterprise without 
 
 *I recommend the reader to turn to the whole passage, in Johnson's 
 "Letters to Mrs. Thrale," voL i., p. 296.
 
 160 LITERARY CnARACTER. 
 
 animating his genius by having read to him the character 
 of Achilles in the first Iliad ; although he acknowledged 
 that the enthusiasm he caught came rather from the poet 
 than the hero. When Bossuet had to compose a funeral 
 oration, he was accustomed to retire for several days to 
 his study, to ruminate over the pages of Homer; and 
 when asked the reason of this habit, he exclaimed, in 
 these lines — 
 
 ^magnam mihi mentem, animumque 
 
 Delius inspiret Vates. 
 
 It is on the same principle of predisposing the mind, 
 that many liave first generated their feelings by the 
 symphonies of music, Altieri often before he wrote 
 prepared his mind by listening to music : " Almost all 
 my tragedies were sketched in my mind either in the act 
 of hearing music, or a few hours after" — a circumstance 
 which has been recorded of many others. Lord Bacon 
 had music often played in the room adjoining his study : 
 Milton listened to his organ for his solemn inspiration, 
 and music was even necessary to Warburton. The 
 symphonies which awoke in the poet sublime emotions, 
 might have composed the inventive mind of the great 
 critic in the visions of his theoretical mysteries. A cele- 
 brated French preacher, Bourdaloue or Massillon, wa8 
 once found playing on a violin, to screw his mind up to 
 the pitch, preparatory for his sermon, which within a 
 short interval he was to preach before the court. Cur- 
 ran's fiivourite mode of meditation was with his violin in 
 his hand; for hours together would he forget himself, 
 running voluntaries over the strings, while his imagina- 
 tion in collecting its tones was opening all his faculties 
 for the coming emergency at the bar. When Leonardo 
 da Vinci was painting his " Lisa," commonly called La 
 Joconde^ lie had musicians constantly in waiting, whose 
 light harmonics, by their associations, inspired feelings of 
 
 Tipsy dance and revelry.
 
 PECULIARITIES OF GENIUS. 161 
 
 There are slight habits which may be contracted by 
 genius, which assist the action of the mind ; but these 
 are of a nature so trivial, that they seem ridiculous 
 when they have not been experienced : but the imagina- 
 tive race exist by the acts of imagination. Haydn 
 Avould never sit down to compose without being in full 
 dress, with his great diamond ring, and the finest 
 paper to write doAvn his musical compositions. Rousseau 
 has told us, when occupied by his celebrated romance, of 
 the influence of the rose-coloured knots of ribbon which 
 tied his portfolio, his fine paper, his brilliant ink, and his 
 gold sand. Similar facts are related of many. When- 
 ever Apostolo Zeno, the predecessor of Metastasio, pre- 
 pared himself to compose a new drama, he used to say 
 to himself, " Apostolo ! reconlati die qiiesta h la pririia 
 opera che dai i?i luce.'''' — " Apostolo ! remember that this 
 is the first opera you are presenting to the public." We 
 are scarcely aware how we may govern our thoughts by 
 means of our sensations : De Luc was subject to violent 
 bursts of passion ; but he calmed the interior tumult by 
 the artifice of filling his mouth with sweets and comfits. 
 When Goldoni found his sleep disturbed by the obtrusive 
 ideas still floating from the studies of the day, he con- 
 trived to lull himself to rest by conning in his mind a 
 vocabulary of the Venetian dialect, translating some 
 word into Tuscan and French ; which being a very unin- 
 teresting occupation, at the third or fourth version this 
 recipe never failed. This was an art of withdrawing 
 attention from the greater to the less emotion ; by which, 
 as the interest weakened, the excitement ceased. Men- 
 delssohn, whose feeble and too sensitive frame was often 
 reduced to the last stage of sufiering by intellectual exer- 
 tion, Avhen engaged in any point of difticulty, would in 
 an instant contrive a perfect cessation from thinking, by 
 mechanically going to the window, and counting the 
 tiles^upon the roof of his neighbour's house. Such facts
 
 162 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 show how much art may be concerned in tlie government 
 of our thoughts. 
 
 It is an unquestionable fact that some profound think- 
 ers cannot pursue their intellectual operations amidst the 
 distractions of light and noise. With them, attention 
 to what is passing within is interrupted by the discordant 
 impressions from objects pressing and obtruding on the 
 external senses. There are indeed instances, as in the 
 case of Priestley and others, of authors who have pui'sued 
 their literary works amidst conversation and their family ; 
 but such minds are not the most original thinkers, and 
 the most refined writers ; or their subjects are of a nature 
 which requires little more than judgment and diligence. 
 It is the mind only in its fulness which can brood over 
 thoughts till the incubation produces vitality. Such is 
 the feeling in this act of study. In Plutarch's time they 
 showed a subterraneous place of study built by De- 
 mosthenes, and where he often continued for two or 
 three months together. Malebranche, Hobbes, Corneille, 
 and others, darkened their apartment when they wrote, 
 to concentrate their thoughts, as Milton says of the 
 mind, " in the spacious circuits of her musing." It is in 
 proportion as we can suspend the exercise of all our other 
 senses that the liveliness of our conception increases — this 
 is the observation of the most elegant metaphysician of 
 our times ; and when Lord Cliesterfield advised that his 
 pupil — whose attention wandered on every passing object, 
 which unfitted him for study — should be instructed in a 
 darkened apartment, he was aware of this principle ; 
 the boy would loarn, and retain what he learned, ten 
 times as well. We close our eyes whenever we would 
 collect our mind together, or trace more distinctly an 
 object which seems to have faded away in our recollec- 
 tion. The study of an author or an artist would be ill 
 placed in the midst of a beautiful landscape ; the " Pen- 
 Bcroso" of Milton, "hid from day's garish eye," is the
 
 CONDUCT OF THOUGHT. 163 
 
 man of genius. A secluded and naked apartment, with 
 nothing but a desk, a chair, and a single sheet of paper, 
 was for fifty years the study of Buffon ; the single orna- 
 ment was a print of Newton placed before his eyes — 
 nothing broke into the unity of his reveries. Cumber- 
 land's liveliest comedy, TJie West Indian, was written in 
 an unfurnished apartment, close in front of an Irish turf- 
 stack ; and our comic writer was fully aware of the 
 advantages of the situation. " In all my hours of study," 
 says that elegant writer, " it has been through life my 
 object so to locate myself as to have little or nothing to 
 distract my attention, and therefore brilliant rooms or 
 pleasant prospects I have ever avoided, A dead wall, or, 
 as in the present case, an Irish turf-stack, are not attrac- 
 tions that can call off the fancy from its pursuits ; and 
 whilst in these pursuits it can find interest and occupa- 
 tion, it wants no outward aid to cheer it. My father, I 
 believe, rather wondered at my choice." The principle 
 ascertained, the consequences are obvious. 
 
 The arts of memory have at all times excited the at- 
 tention of the studious ; they open a world of undivulged 
 mysteries, where every one seems to form some discovery 
 of his own, rather exciting his astonishment than enlarg- 
 ing his comprehension. Le Sage, a modern philosopher, 
 had a memory singularly defective. Incapable of acquiring 
 languages, and deficient in all those studies which depend 
 on the exercise of the memory, it became the object of' 
 his subsequent exertions to supply this deficiency by 
 the order and method he observed in arranging every 
 new fact or idea he obtained ; so that in reality with a 
 very bad memory, it appears that he was still enabled 
 to lecall at will any idea or any knowledge which he 
 had stored up. John Hunter happily illustrated the 
 advantages which every one derives from putting his 
 thoughts in writing, " it resembles a tradesman taking 
 stock ; "without which he never knows either what he pos-
 
 164 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 BesseSj^ or in what he is deficient." The late William 
 Hutton, a man of an original cast of mind, as an experi- 
 ment in memory, opened a book which he had divided 
 into 365 columns, according to the days of the year : he 
 resolved to try to recollect an anecdote, for every column, 
 as insignificant and remote as he was able, rejecting all 
 under ten years of age ; and to his surprise, he filled 
 those spaces for small reminiscences, within ten columns ; 
 but till this experiment had been made, he never con- 
 ceived the extent of his faculty. Wolf, the German 
 metaphysician, relates of himself that he had, by the 
 most persevering habit, in bed and amidst darkness, 
 resolved his algebraic problems, and geometrically com- 
 posed all his methods merely by the aid of his imagina- 
 tion and memory ; and when in the daytime he verified 
 the one and the other of these operations, he had always 
 found them true. Unquestionably, such astonishing in- 
 stances of a well-regulated memory depend on the prac- 
 tice of its art gradually formed by frequent associations. 
 When we reflect that whatever we know, and whatever 
 we feel, are the very smallest portions of all the knowl- 
 edge we have been acquiring, and all the feelings we 
 have experienced through life, how desirable would be 
 that art which should again open the scenes which have 
 vanished, and revivify the emotions which other impres- 
 sions have effaced ? But the faculty of memory, although 
 perhaps the most manageable of all others, is considered 
 a subordinate one ; it seems only a grasping and ac- 
 cumulating power, and in the work of genius is imagined 
 to produce nothing of itself ; yet is memory the founda- 
 tion of Genius, whenever this faculty is associated with 
 imagination and passion ; with men of genius it is a 
 chronology not merely of events, but of emotions ; hence 
 they remember nothing that is not interesting to their 
 feelings. Persons of inferior capacity have imperfect 
 recollections from feeble impressions. Are not the in-
 
 THOUGHTS UNEXECUTED. 165 
 
 «idents of the great novelist often founded on tlie com- 
 mon ones of life ? and the personages so admu-ably alive 
 in his fictions, were they not discovered among the 
 crowd ? The ancients have described the Muses as the 
 daughters of Memory ; an elegant fiction, indicating the 
 natural and intimate connexion between imagination and 
 reminiscence. 
 
 The arts of memory will form a saving-bank of genius, 
 to which it may have recourse, as a wealth which it can 
 accumulate imperceptibly amidst the ordinary expendi- 
 ture. Locke taught us the first rudiments of this art, 
 when he showed us how he stox*ed his thoughts and his 
 facts, by an artificial arrangement ; and Addison, before 
 he commenced his " Spectators," had amassed three folios 
 of materials. But the higher step will be the volume 
 which shall give an account of a man to himself, in 
 which a single obseiwation immediately becomes a clue 
 of past knowledge, restoring to him his lost studies, and 
 his evanescent existence. Self-contemplation makes the 
 man more nearly entire : and to preserve the past, is half 
 of immortality. 
 
 The worth of the diary must depend on the diarist ; 
 but " Of the things which concern himself," as Marcus 
 Antoninus entitles his celebrated work — this volume, 
 reserved for solitary contemplation, should be considered 
 as a future relic of ourselves. The late Sir Samuel 
 Romilly commenced, even in the most occupied period 
 of his life, a diary of his last twelve yeai-s ; which he 
 declares in his will, " I bequeath to my children, as it 
 may be serviceable to them." Perhaps in this Romilly 
 bore in mind the example of another eminent lawyer, the 
 celebrated Whitelocke, who had drawn up a great work, 
 entitled " Remembrances of the Labours of Whitelocke, 
 in the Annals of his Life, for the Instruction of his Chil- 
 dren." That neither of these family books has appeared,
 
 166 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 is our common loss. Such legacies from such men ought 
 to become the inheritance of their countrymen. 
 
 To register the transactions of the day, with observa- 
 tions on what, and on whom, he had seen, was the advice 
 of Lord Kaimes to the late Mr. Curwen; and for years his 
 head never x'eached its pillow without performing a task 
 which habit had made easy. " Our best and surest road 
 to knowledge," said Lord Kaimes, " is by profiting from 
 the labours of others, and making their experience our 
 own." In this manner Curwen tells us he acquired by 
 habit the art of thinhing y and he is an able testimony 
 of the practicability and success of the plan, for he candid- 
 ly tells us, " Though many would sicken at the idea of 
 imposing such a task ujDon themselves, yet the attempt, 
 persevered in for a short time, would soon become a cus- 
 tom more irksome to omit than it was difficult to com- 
 mence." 
 
 Could we look into the libraries of authors, the studios 
 of artists, and the laboratories of chemists, and view 
 what they have only sketched, or what lie scattered in 
 fragments, and could we trace their first and last thoughts, 
 we might discover that we have lost more than we possess. 
 There we might view foundations without superstructures, 
 once the monuments of their hopes ! A living architect 
 recently exhibited to the public an extraordinary picture 
 of his mind, in his " Architectural Visions of Early Fancy 
 in the Gay Morning of Youth," and which now were 
 " dreams in the evening of life." In this picture he had 
 thrown together all the architectural designs his imagina- 
 tion had conceived, but which remained unexecuted. 
 The feeling is true, however whimsical such unac- 
 complished fancies might appear when thrown together 
 into one picture. In literary history such instances have 
 occurred but too frequently : the imagination of youth, 
 measuring neitlier time nor ability, creates what neither 
 time nor ability can execute. Adam Smith, in the pref-
 
 THOUGHTS UNEXECUTED. 167 
 
 ace to the first edition of his "Theory of Sentiments," 
 announced a large work on hxw and government ; and in 
 a late edition he still repeated the promise, observing 
 that " Thirty years ago I entertained no doubt of being 
 able to execute everything which it announced." The 
 " Wealth of Nations " was but a fragment of this greater 
 work. Surely men of genius of all others, may mourn 
 over the length of art and the brevity of life ! 
 
 Yet many glorious efforts, and even artificial inventions, 
 have been contrived to assist and save its moral and 
 literary existence in that perpetual race which genius 
 holds with time. We trace its triumph in the studious 
 days of such men as Gibbon, Sir William Jones, and 
 Priestley. An invention by which the moral qualities 
 and the acquisitions of the literary character were com- 
 bined and advanced together, is what Sir William Jones 
 ingeniously calls his " Andrometer." In that scale of 
 human attainments and enjoyments which ought to ac- 
 company the eras of humaiii life, it reminds us of what 
 was to be learned, and what to be practiced, assigning 
 to stated periods tlieir appropriate pursuits. An occa- 
 sional recurrence, even to so fanciful a standard, would be 
 like looking on a clock to remind the student how he 
 loiters, or how he advances in the great day's work. Such 
 romantic plans have been often invented by the ardour 
 of genius. There was no communication between Sir 
 William Jones and Dr. Franklin ; yet, when young, the 
 self-taught philosopher of America pursued the same 
 genial and generous devotion to his own moral and lit- 
 erary excellence. 
 
 " It was about this time I conceived," says Franklin, 
 " the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral 
 perfection," &c. He began a daily journal, in which 
 against thirteen virtues accompanied by seven columns 
 to mark the days of the week, he dotted down what he 
 considered to l^e his failures ; he found himself fuller of
 
 J68 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 faults than he had imaghied, but at length his blots 
 diminished. This self-examination, or this " Faultbook," 
 as Lord Shaftesbury would have called it, was always 
 carried about him. These books still exist. An ad- 
 ditional contrivance was that of journalising his twenty- 
 four hours, of which he has furnished us both with de- 
 scriptions and specimens of the method ; and he closes 
 with a solemn assurance, that " It may be well my 
 posterity should be informed, that to this little artifice 
 their ancestor owes the constant felicity of his life." 
 Thus we see the fancy of Jones and the sense of Frank- 
 lin, unconnected either by character or communication, 
 but acted on by the same glorious feeling to create their 
 own moral and literary character, inventing similar al- 
 though extraordinary methods. 
 
 The memorials of Gibbon and Priestley present us with 
 the experience and the habits of the literary character. 
 " What I have known," says Dr. Priestley, " mth respect 
 to myself, has tended much to lessen both my admiration 
 and my contempt of others. Could we have entered 
 into the mind of Sir Isaac Newton, and have traced all 
 the steps by which he produced his great works, we 
 might see nothing very extraordinary in the process." 
 Our stiident, with an ingenuous simplicity, opens to us 
 that " variety of mechanical expedients by which he 
 secured and arranged his thoughts," and that discipline 
 of the mind, by means of a peculiar arrangcxnent of 
 his studies for the day and for the year, in which he rival 
 led the calm and unalterable system pursued by Gibbon, 
 Buffon, and Voltaire, who often only combined the knowl- 
 edge they obtained by humble methods. They knew 
 what to ask for ; and where what is wanted may be found : 
 they made use of an intelligent secretary ; aware, as 
 Lord BacH^n has expressed it, that some books " may be 
 read by deputy." 
 
 Buflbn laid down an excellent rule to obtain originality,
 
 MODES OF STUDY. ^69 
 
 when he advised the writer first to exhaust his own 
 thoughts, before he attempted to consult other writers ; 
 and Gibbon, the most experienced reader of all our 
 writers, offers the same important advice to an author. 
 "When engaged on a particular subject, he tells us, "] 
 suspended my perusal of any new book on the subject, 
 till I had reviewed all that I knew, or believed, or had 
 thought on it, that I might be qualified to discern how 
 much the authors added to my original stock." The 
 advice of Lord Bacon, that we should pursue our studies 
 in whatever disposition the mind may be, is excellent. 
 If happily disposed, we shall gain a great step ; and if 
 indisposed, we " shall work out the knots and strands of 
 the mind, and make the middle times the more pleasant." 
 Some active lives have passed away in incessant com- 
 petition, like those of Mozart, Cicero, and Voltaire, who 
 were restless, perhaps unhappy, when their genius was 
 quiescent. To such minds the constant zeal they bring 
 to their labour supplies the absence of that inspii-ation 
 which cannot always be the same, nor always at its 
 height. 
 
 Industry is the feature by which the ancients so 
 frequently describe an eminent character ; such phrases 
 as " increcUMli mdustria / diUgentia singulari^'* are 
 usual. We of these days cannot conceive the industry of 
 Cicero; but he has himself told us that he suffered no 
 moments of his leisure to escape from him. Not only 
 his spare hours were consecrated to his books ; but even 
 on days of business he would take a few turns in his 
 walk, to meditate or to dictate ; many of his letters are 
 dated before daylight, some from the senate, at his meals, 
 and amid his morning levees. The dawn of day was 
 the summons of study to Sir William Jones. John 
 Hunter, who was constantly engaged in the search and 
 consideration of new facts, described what was passing 
 iu his mind by a remarkable illustration: — he said to
 
 170 LITERART CHARACTER. 
 
 Abernethy, "My mind is like a bee-hive." A simile 
 wldch was singularly correct ; " for," observes Abernethy, 
 " in the midst of buzz and apparent confusion there was 
 great order, regularity of structure, and abundant food, 
 collected with incessant industry from the choicest stores 
 of nature." Thus one man of genius is the ablest com- 
 mentator on the thoughts and feelings of another. When 
 we reflect on the magnitude of the labours of Cicero and 
 the elder Pliny, on those of Erasmus, Petrarch, Baronius, 
 Lord Bacon, Usher, and Bayle, we seem at the base of 
 these monuments of study, we seem scarcely awake to 
 admire. These were the laborious instructors of mankind ; 
 their age has closed. 
 
 Yet let not those other artists of the mind, who work 
 in the airy looms of fancy and wit, imagine that they are 
 weaving their webs, without the direction of a principle, 
 and without a secret habit which they have acquired, and 
 which some have imagined, by its quickness and facility, 
 to be an instinct. " Habit," says Reid, " differs from 
 instinct, not in its nature, but in its origin ; the last being 
 natural, the first acquired." AYliat we are accustomed 
 to do, gives a facility and proneness to do on like oc- 
 casions ; and there may be even an art, unperceived by 
 themselves, in opening and pursuing a scene of pure 
 invention, and even in the happiest turns of wit. One 
 who had all the experience of such an ai'tist has employed 
 the very terms we have used, of "mechanical" and 
 " habitual." " Be assured," says Goldsmith, " that wit 
 is in some measure mechanical ; and that a man long 
 habituated to catch at even its resemblance, will at last 
 be happy enough to possess the substance. By a long 
 habit of writing he acquires a justness of thinking, and 
 a mastery of manner which holiday writers, even with 
 ten times his genius, may vainly attempt to equal." The 
 wit of Butler was not extemporaneous, but painfully 
 elaborated from notes which he incessantly accumulated ;
 
 DREAMS. 171 
 
 and the familiar rime of Berni, the burlesque poet, his 
 existing manuscripts will prove, were produced by per- 
 petual re-touches. Even in the sublime efforts of im- 
 agination, this art of meditation may be practised ; and 
 Alfieri has shown us, that in those energetic tragic dra- 
 mas which were often produced in a state of enthusiasm, 
 he pursued a regiilated process. " AU my tragedies 
 have been composed three times ;" and he describes the 
 three stages of conception, development, and versifying. 
 "After these three operations, I proceed, like other au- 
 thors, to publish, correct, or amend," 
 
 " All is habit in mankind, even virtue itself !" exclaimed 
 Metastasio; and we may add, even the meditations of 
 genius. Some of its boldest conceptions are indeed for- 
 tuitous, starting up and vanishing almost in the percep- 
 tion; like that giant form, sometimes seen amidst the 
 glaciers, afar from the opposite traveller, moving as he 
 moves, stopping as he stops, yet, in a moment lost, and 
 perhaps never more seen, although but his own reflection ! 
 Often in the still obscurity of the night, the ideas, the 
 studies, the whole history of the day, is acted over 
 again. There are probably few mathematicians who 
 have not dreamed of an interesting problem, observes 
 Professor Dugald Stewart, In these vivid scenes we 
 are often so completely converted into spectators, that 
 a great poetical contemporary of our country thinks that 
 even his dreams should not pass away unnoticed, and 
 keeps what he calls a register of nocturnals, Tasso 
 has recorded some of his poetical dreams, which were 
 often disturbed by waking himself in repeating a verse 
 aloud, "This night I awaked with this verse in my 
 mouth — 
 
 E i duo che manda U nero adusio suolo. 
 
 The two, the dark and burning soil has sent." 
 
 He discovered that the epithet black was not suitable;
 
 172 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 "I again fell asleep, and in a dream I read in Strabo 
 that the sand of Ethiopia and Arabia is extremely white^ 
 and this morning I have found the place. You see what 
 learned dreams I have." 
 
 But incidents of this nature are not peculiar to this 
 great bard. The iniprovvisatori poets, we are told, can- 
 not sleep after an evening's effusion ; the rhymes are still 
 ringing in their ears, and imagination, if they have any, 
 will still haunt them. Their previous state of excitement 
 breaks into the calm of sleep ; for, like the ocean, when 
 its swell is subsiding, the waves still heave and beat. 
 A poet, whether a Milton or a Blackmore, will ever find 
 that his muse will visit his " slumbers nightly." His 
 fate is much harder than that of the great minister. Sir 
 Robert Walpole, who on retiring to rest could throw 
 aside his political intrigues with his clothes; but Sir 
 Robert, to judge by his portrait and anecdotes of him, 
 had a sleekiness and good-humour, and an unalterable 
 equanimity of countenance, not the portion of men of 
 genius : indeed one of these has regretted that his sleep 
 was so profound as not to be interrupted by dreams; 
 from a throng of fantastic ideas he imagined that he 
 could have drawn new sources of poetic imagery. The 
 historian De Thou was one of those great literary char- 
 acters who, all his life, was preparing to write the liistory 
 which he afterwards composed ; omitting nothing, in his 
 travels and hif embassies, which went to the formation of 
 a great man. De Thou has given a very curious account 
 of his dreams. Such was his passion for study, and his 
 ardent admiration of the great men whom he conversed 
 with, that he often imagined in his sleep that he was 
 travelling in Italy, Germany, and in England, where he 
 saw and consulted tlu; learned, and examined their curious 
 libraries. He had all his lifetime these literary dreams, 
 but more particularly in his travels they reflected these 
 images of the day.
 
 VALUE OF MEDITATION. 173 
 
 If memory do not chain down these hurrying fading 
 children of the imagination, and 
 
 Snatch the faithless fugitives to light 
 
 •with the beams of the morning, the mind suddenly finds 
 itself forsaken and solitary.* Rousseau has uttered a com- 
 plaint on this occasion. Full of enthusiasm, he devoted 
 to the subject of his thoughts, as was his custom, the 
 long sleepless intervals of his nights. Meditating in 
 bed with his eyes closed, he turned over his periods in a 
 tumult of ideas ; but when he rose and had dressed, all 
 was vanished ; and when he sat down to his breakfast he 
 had nothing to write. Thus genius has its vespers and 
 its vigils, as well as its matins, which we have been so 
 often told are the true hours of its inspiration; but 
 every hour may be full of inspiration for him who knows 
 to meditate. No man was more practised in this art of 
 the mind than Pope, and even the night was not an 
 unregarded portion of his poetical existence, not less 
 than with Leonardo da Vinci, who tells us how often he 
 found the use of recollecting the ideas of what he had 
 considered in the day after he had retired to bed, encom- 
 passed by the silence and obscurity of the night. Sleep- 
 less nights are the portion of genius when engaged in 
 its work ; the train of reasoning is still pursued ; the 
 images of fancy catch a fresh illumination ; and even a 
 happy expression shall linger in the ear of him who 
 turns about for the soft composure to which his troubled 
 spirit cannot settle. 
 
 But while with genius so much seems fortuitous, in its 
 great operations the march of the mind appears regular, 
 
 * One of the most extraordinary instances of inspiration in dreams 
 13 told of Tartini, the Italian musician, whose "Devil's Sonata" is 
 well known to musicians. He dreamed that the father of evil played 
 this piece to him, and upon waking he put it on paper. It is a strange 
 wild performance, possessing great originality and vigour. — Ed.
 
 174 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 and requires preparation. The intellectual faculties are 
 not always co-existent, or do not always act simultane- 
 ously. Whenever any particular faculty is highly active, 
 while the others are languid, the work, as a work of 
 genius, may be very deficient. Hence the faculties, in 
 whatever degree they exist, are unquestionably enlarged 
 by meditation. It seems trivial to observe that medita- 
 tion should precede composition, but we are not always 
 aware of its importance ; the truth is, that it is a diffi- 
 culty unless it be a habit. We write, and we find we 
 have written ill ; we re- write, and feel we have written 
 well : in the second act of composition we have acqxiired 
 the necessary meditation. Still we rarely carry on our 
 meditation so far as its practice would enable us. Many 
 works of mediocrity might have approached to excellence, 
 had this art of the mind been exercised. Many volatile 
 writers might have reached even to deep thinking, had 
 they bestowed a day of meditation before a day of com- 
 position, and thus engendered their thoughts. Many 
 productions of genius have originally been enveloped in 
 feebleness and obscurity, which have only been brought 
 to perfection by repeated acts of the mind. There is a 
 maxim of Confucius, which in the translation seems 
 quaint, but which is pregnant with sense — 
 
 Labour, but slight not meditation ; 
 Meditate, but slight not labour. 
 
 Few works of magnitude presented themselves at once, 
 in their extent and with their associations, to their 
 authors. Two or three striking circumstances, unob- 
 served before, are perhaps all wliich the man of genius 
 perceives. It is in revolving the subject that the whole 
 mind becomes gradually agitated ; as a summer land- 
 scape, at the break of day, is wrapped in mist : at first, 
 the sun strikes on a single object, but the light and 
 warmth increasing, the whole scene glows in the noonday
 
 VALUE OF MEDITATION. 175 
 
 of imagination. How beautifully this state of the mind, 
 in the progress of composition, is described by Dryden, 
 alluding to his work, " when it was only a confused mass 
 of thoughts, tumbling over one another in the dark ; 
 when the fancy was yet in its first work, moving the 
 sleeping images of things towards the light, there to be 
 distinguished, and then either to be chosen or rejected 
 by the judgment !" At that moment, he adds, " I was in 
 that eagerness of imagination which, by over-pleasing 
 fanciful men, flatters them into the danger of writing." 
 Gibbon tells us of his history, " At the onset all was 
 dark and doubtful ; even the title of the work, the true 
 era of the decline and fall of the empire, &c. I was 
 often tempted to cast away the labour of seven years." 
 Winckelmann was long lost in composing his " History 
 of Art ;" a hundred fruitless attempts were made, before 
 he could discover a plan amidst the labyrinth. Slight 
 conceptions kindle finished works. A lady asking for a 
 few verses on rural topics of the Abbe de Lille, his 
 specimens pleased, and sketches heaped on sketches pro- 
 duced " Les Jardins." In writing the " Pleasures of 
 Memory," as it happened with " The Rape of the Lock," 
 the poet at first proposed a simple description in a few 
 lines, till conducted by meditation the perfect composi- 
 tion of several years closed in that fine poem. That 
 still valuable work VArt de P^nser of the Port-Royal, 
 was originally projected to teach a young nobleman all 
 that was practically useful in the art of logic in a few 
 days, and was intended to have been written in one 
 morning by the great Arnauld ; but to that profound 
 thinker so many new ideas crowded in that slight task, 
 that he was compelled to call in his friend Nicolle ; and 
 thus a few projected pages closed in a volume so ex- 
 cellent, that our elegant metaphysician has recently de- 
 clared, that " it is hardly possible to estimate the merits 
 too Wghly," Pemberton, who knew Newton intimately,
 
 176 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 informs iis that his Treatise on Natural Philosophy, full 
 of a variety of profound inventions, was composed by 
 him from scarcely any other materials than the fe%o 
 'propositions he had set down several years before, and 
 which having resumed, occupied him in writing one 
 year and a half A curious circumstance has been pre- 
 served in the life of the other immortal man in phi- 
 losophy, Lord Bacon. When young, he wrote a letter to 
 Father Fulgentio concerning an Essay of his, to which 
 he gave the title of "The Greatest Birth of Time," a 
 title which he censures as too pompous. The Essay 
 itself is lost, but it was the first outline of that great 
 design which he afterwards pursued and finished in his 
 " Instauration of the Sciences." Locke himself has in- 
 formed us, that his great work on " The Human Under- 
 standing," when he first put pen to paper, he thought 
 " would have been contained in one sheet, but that the 
 farther he went on, the larger prospect he had." In this 
 manner it would be beautiful to trace the history of the 
 human mind, and observe how a Newton and a Bacon 
 and a Locke were proceeding for thirty years together, 
 in accumulating truth upon truth, and finally building 
 up these fabrics of their invention. 
 
 Were it possible to collect some thoughts of great 
 thinkers, which were never written, we should discover 
 vivid conceptions, and an originality they never dared to 
 pursue in their works ! Artists have this advantage over 
 authors, that their virgin fancies, their chance felicities, 
 which labour cannot afterwards produce, are constantly 
 perpetuated ; and those " studies," as they are called, are 
 as precious to posterity as their more complete designs. In 
 literature we possess one remarkable evidence of these 
 fortuitous thoughts of genius. Pope and Swift, being in 
 the country together, observed, that if contemplative 
 men were to notice "the thoughts which suddenly 
 present themselves to their minds when walking in the
 
 FIRST THOUGHTS. 177 
 
 flelds, &c., they might find many as well worth preserv 
 ing as some of their more deliberate reflections." They 
 made a trial, and agreed to write down such involuntary 
 thoughts as occurred during their stay there. These 
 furnished out the " Thoughts " in Pope's and Swift's 
 Miscellanies.* Among Lord Bacon's Remains, we find a 
 paper entitled " Sudden TJioughts, set down for Profit." 
 At all hours, by the side of Voltaire's bed, or on his 
 table, stood his pen and ink with slips of paper. The 
 margins of his books were covered with his "sudden 
 thoughts." Cicero, in reading, constantly took notes 
 and made comments. There is an art of reading, as well 
 as an art of thinking, and an art of writing. 
 
 The art of meditation may be exercised at all hours, 
 and in all places ; and men of genius, in their walks, at 
 table, and amidst assemblies, turning the eye of the mind 
 inwards, can form an artificial solitude ; retired amidst a 
 crowd, calm, amidst distraction, and wise amidst folly. 
 When Domenichino was reproached for his dilatory 
 habits, in not finishing a great picture for which he had 
 contracted, his reply described this method of study : 
 Eh ! lo la sto continuamente dipingendo entro di me — I 
 am continually painting it within myself. Hogarth, with 
 an eye always awake to the ridiculous, would catch a 
 character on his thumb-nail, Leonardo da Vinci has left 
 a great number of little books which he usually carried 
 in his girdle, that he might instantly sketch whatever he 
 wished to recal to his recollection ; and Amoretti dis- 
 covered, that, in these light sketches, this fine genius 
 was foiTning a system of physiognomy which he 
 frequently inculcated to his pupils.f Haydn carefully 
 
 ♦This anecdote is found in Ruflfbead's "Life of Pope," evidently 
 given by "Warburton, as was everything of personal knowledge in that 
 tasteless volume of a mere lawyer, who presumed to wTite the life of a 
 poet. 
 
 f A collection of sixty-four of these sketches were published at 
 12
 
 178 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 noted down in a pocket-book the passages and ideas 
 which came to him in his walks or amid company. Some 
 of the great actions of men of this habit of mind were 
 first meditated on amidst the noise of a convivial party, 
 or the music of a concert. The victory of Waterloo 
 might have been organized in the ball-room at Brussels : 
 and thus Rodney, at the table of Lord Sandwich, while 
 the bottle was briskly circulating, being observed ar- 
 ranging bits of cork, and his solitary amusement having 
 excited inquiry, said that he was practising a plan to 
 annihilate an enemy's fleet. This proved to be that 
 discovery of breaking the line, which the happy audacity 
 of the hero afterwards executed. What situation is 
 more common than a sea-voyage, where nothing presents 
 itself to the reflections of most men than irl^ome observa- 
 tions on the desert of waters ? But the constant exercise 
 of the mind by habitual practice is the privilege of a 
 commanding genius, and, in a similar situation, we 
 discover Cicero and Sir William Jones acting alike. 
 Amidst the Oriental seas, in a voyage of 12,000 miles, 
 the mind of Jones kindled with delightful enthusiasm, 
 and he has perpetuated those elevating feelings in his 
 discourse to the Asiatic Society ; so Cicero on board a 
 ship, sailing slowly along the coast, passing by a town 
 where his friend Trebatius resided, wrote a work which 
 the other had expressed a wish to possess, and of which 
 wish the view of the town had reminded him. 
 
 To this habit of continuity of attention, tracing 
 the first simple idea to its remoter consequences, 
 the philosophical genius owes many of its discoveries. 
 It was one evening in the cathedral of Pisa that Galileo 
 observed the vi])rations of a brass lustre pendent from 
 the vaulted roof, which had been left swinging by one of 
 
 Paris in H.'iO. Tliey are remarkable as delineations of mental 
 character in feature as strongly felt as if done under the direction of 
 Lavator himself. — Ed.
 
 GREAT DISCOYERIES. 179 
 
 the vergers. The habitual meditation of genius com- 
 bined with an ordinary accident a new idea of science, 
 and hence conceived the invention of measuring time by 
 tlie medium of a penduhmi. Who but a genius of tliis 
 order, sitting in his orchard, and observing the descent of 
 an apple, could have discovered a new quality in matter, 
 and have ascertained the laws of atti'action, by perceiv- 
 ing that the same causes might perpetuate the regular 
 motions of the planetary system ; who but a genius of 
 this order, while viewing boys blowing soap-bladders, 
 could have discovered the properties of light and colours, 
 and then anatomised a ray? Franklin, on board a 
 ship, observing a partial stillness in the waves when they 
 threw down water which had been used for culinary 
 purposes, by the same principles of meditation was led 
 to the discovery of the wonderful property in oil of 
 calming the agitated ocean ; and many a ship has been 
 preserved in tempestuous weather, or a landing facili- 
 tated on a dangerous surf, by this solitary meditation 
 of genius. 
 
 Thus meditation draws out of the most simple truths 
 the strictness of philosophical demonstration, convert- 
 ing even the amusements of school-boys, or the most 
 ordinary domestic occurrences, into the principle of a 
 new science. The phenomenon of galvanism was fa- 
 miliar to students ; yet was there but one man of genius 
 who could take advantage of an accident, give it his 
 name, and fix it as a science. It was while lying in his 
 bath, but still meditating on the means to detect the 
 fraud of the goldsmith who had made Hiero's crown, 
 that the most extraordinary philosopher of antiquity 
 w^as led to the investigation of a series of propositions 
 demonstrated in the two books of Archimedes, De insi- 
 dentihus influido, still extant ; and which a great mathe- 
 matician admires both for the strictness and elegance of 
 the demonstrations. To as minute a domestic occuiTence
 
 180 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 as Galvani's we owe the steam-engine. When the Mar- 
 quis of Worcester was a State prisoner in the Tower, he 
 one day observed, while his meal was preparing in his 
 apartment, that the cover of the vessel being tight, was, 
 by the expansion of the steam, suddenly forced oif, and 
 driven up the chimney. His inventive mind was led on 
 in a train of thought with reference to the practical ap- 
 plication of steam as a first mover. His observations, 
 obscurely exhibited in his " Century of Inventions," 
 were successively wrought out by the meditations of 
 others, and an incident, to which one can hardly make 
 a formal reference without a risible emotion, terminated 
 in the noblest instance of mechanical power. 
 
 Into the stillness of meditation the mind of genius 
 must be frequently thrown ; it is a kind of darkness 
 which hides fi'om us all surrounding objects, even in the 
 light of day. This is the first state of existence in genius. 
 In Cicero's " Treatise on Old Age," we find Cato admir- 
 ing Caius Sulpitius Gallus, who, when he sat down to 
 write in the morning, was surprised by the evening; 
 and when he took up his pen in the evening, was sur- 
 prised by the appearance of the morning. Socrates 
 sometimes remained a whole day in immovable medita- 
 tion, his eyes and countenance directed to one spot, as if 
 in the stillness of death. La Fontaine, when writing his 
 comic tales, has been observed early in the morning and 
 late in the evening in the same recumbent posture under 
 the same tree. This quiescent state is a sort of enthu- 
 siasm, and renders everything that surrounds us as dis- 
 tant as if an immense interval separated us from the 
 scene. Poggius has told us of Dante, that he indulged 
 his meditations more strongly than any man he knew ; 
 for when deeply busied in reading, he seemed to live 
 only in his ideas. Once the poet went to view a public 
 procession; having entered a booksellei"'s shop, and taken 
 up a book, he sunk into a reverie ; on his return he de-
 
 ABSTRACTION OF MIND. 181 
 
 clared that he had neither seen nor heard a single occur- 
 rence in the public exhibition, which had passed un- 
 observed before him. It has been told of a modern as- 
 tronomer, that one summer night, when he was with- 
 drawing to his chamber, the brightness of the heavens 
 showed a phenomenon : he passed the Avhole night in 
 observing it ; and when they came to him early in the 
 morning, and found him in the same attitude, he said, 
 like one who had been recollecting his thoughts for a 
 few moments, " It must be thus ; but I'll go to bed be- 
 fore it is late." He had gazed the entire nio^ht in medita- 
 tion, and was not aware of it. Abernethy has finely 
 painted the situation of Newton in this state of mind. 
 I will not change his words, for his words are his feelings. 
 " It was this power of mind — which can contemplate 
 the greatest number of facts or propositions with ac- 
 curacy — that so eminently distinguished Newton from 
 other men. It was this power that enabled him to ar- 
 ransre the whole of a treatise in his thoughts before he 
 committed a single idea to paper. In the exercise of 
 this power, he was known occasionally to have passed 
 a whole night or day, entii'ely inattentive to surround- 
 ing objects." 
 
 There is nothing incredible in the stories related of 
 some who have experienced this entranced state in study, 
 where the mind, deliciously inebriated with the object it 
 contemplates, feels nothing, from the excess of feeling, as 
 a philosopher well describes it. The impressions from 
 our exterior sensations are often suspended by great 
 mental excitement. Archimedes, involved in the investiga- 
 tion of mathematical truth, and the painters Protogenes 
 and Parmegiano, found their senses locked up as it were 
 in meditation, so as to be incapable of withdrawing 
 themselves from their work, even in the midst of the 
 terrors and storming of the place by the enemy. Marino 
 was so absorbed in the composition of his " Adonis,"
 
 182 LITERARY CHARACTER 
 
 that he suffered his leg to be burned before the painful 
 sensation grew stronger than the intellectual pleasure of 
 his imagination. Monsieur Thomas, a modern French 
 writer, and an intense thinker, would sit for hours 
 against a hedge, composing with a low voice, taking the 
 same pinch of snuff for half an hour together without 
 being aAvare that it had long disappeared. When he 
 quitted his apartment, after prolonging his studies there, 
 a visible alteration was observed in his person, and the 
 agitation of his recent thoughts was still traced in his 
 air and manner. With eloquent truth Buffon described 
 those reveries of the student, which compress his day, 
 and mark the hours by the sensations of minutes ! " In- 
 vention depends on patience : contemplate your subject 
 long ; it will gradually unfold till a sort of electric spark 
 convulses for a moment the brain, and spreads down to 
 the very heart a glow of irritation. Then come the 
 luxuries of genius, the true hours for production and 
 composition — hours so delightful, that I have spent 
 twelve or fourteen successively at my writing-desk, and 
 still been in a state of pleasure." Bishop Home, whose 
 literary feelings were of the most delicate and lively 
 kind, has beautifully recorded them in his progress 
 through a favourite and lengthened work — his Com- 
 mentary on the Psalms. He alludes to himself in the 
 third person ; yet who but the self-painter could have 
 caught those delicious emotions which are so evanescent 
 in the deep occupation of pleasant studies ? " He arose 
 fresh in the morning to his task ; the silence of the night 
 invited hiin to pursue it ; and he can truly say, that 
 food and rest were not preferred before it. Every part 
 improved infinitely upon his acquaintance with it, and no 
 one gave him uneasiness but the last, for then he grieved 
 that his work was done." 
 
 This eager deliglvt of pursuing study, this impatience 
 of interruption, and this exultation in progress, are alike
 
 ENTHUSIASM OF GENIUS. 183 
 
 finely described by Milton in a letter to his friend 
 Diodati. 
 
 " Such is the character of my mind, that no delay, 
 none of the ordinary cessations for rest or otherwise, 
 I had nearly said care or thinking of the very subject, 
 can hold me back from being hurried on to the destined 
 point, and from completing the great circuit, as it were, 
 of the study in which I am engaged." 
 
 Such is the picture of genius viewed in the stillness of 
 MEDITATION ; but there is yet a more excited state, when, 
 as if consciousness were mixing with its reveries, in the 
 allusion of a scene, of a person, of a passion, the emotions 
 of the soul affect even the organs of sense. This excite- 
 ment is experienced when the poet in the excellence of 
 invention, and the philosopher in the force of intellect, 
 alike share in the hours of inspiration and the enthusiasm 
 of genius. 
 
 CHAPTER XII, 
 
 The enthusiasm of genius. — A state of mind resembling a waking 
 dream distinct from reyerie. — The ideal presence distinguished from 
 the real presence. — The senses are really affected in the ideal world 
 proved by a variety of instances. — Of the rapture or sensation of 
 deep study in art, in science, and literature. — Of perturbed feelings 
 in delirium. — In estreme endurance of attention. — And in visionary 
 illusions. — Enthusiasts in literature and art — of their self-immola- 
 tions. 
 
 WE left the man of genius in the stillness of medita- 
 tion. We have now to pursue his history through 
 that more excited state which occurs in the most active 
 operations of genius, and which the term reverie inade- 
 quately indicates. Metaphysical distinctions but ill de- 
 scribe it, and popular language affords no terms for those
 
 184 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 faculties and feelings which escape the observation of the 
 multitude not affected by the phenomenon. 
 
 The illusion produced by a drama on persons of great 
 sensibility, when all the senses are awakened by a mix- 
 ture of reality with imagination, is the effect experienced 
 by men of genius in their own vivified ideal world. 
 Real emotions are raised by fiction. In a scene, ap- 
 parently passing in their presence, where the whole train 
 of circumstances succeeds in all the continuity of nature, 
 and where a sort of real existences appear to rise up 
 before them, they themselves become spectators or 
 actors. Their sympathies are excited, and the exterior 
 organs of sense are visibly affected — they even break 
 out into speech, and often accompany their speech with 
 gestures. 
 
 In this equivocal state the enthusiast of genius pro- 
 duces his masterpieces. This waking dream is distinct 
 from reverie, where, our thoughts wandering without 
 connexion, the faint impressions are so evanescent as to 
 occur without even being recollected. A day of reverie 
 is beautifully painted by Rousseau as distinct from a day 
 of thinking : " J'ai des journees delicieuses, errant sans 
 souci, sans projet, sans affaire, de bois en bois, et de 
 rocher en rocher, revant tovjours et ne pensant point.'''' 
 Far different, however, is one closely-pursued act of 
 meditation, carrying the enthusiast of genius beyond the 
 precinct of actual existence. The act of contemplation 
 then creates the thing contemplated. He is now the 
 busy actor in a world which he himself only views; 
 alone, he hears, he sees, he touches, he laughs, he weeps ; 
 his brows and lips, and his very limbs move. 
 
 Poets and even painters, who, as Lord Bacon describes 
 witches, " are imaginative," have often involuntarily 
 betrayed, in the act of composition, those gestures which 
 accompany this enthusiasm. Witness Domenichino en- 
 raging himself that he might portray anger. Nor were
 
 ACTORS OF GENIUS. 185 
 
 these creative gestures quite unknown to Quintilian, who 
 has nobly compared them to the lashings of the lion's 
 tail, rousing him to combat. Actors of genius have ac- 
 customed themselves to walk on the stage for an hour 
 before the curtain was drawn, that they might fill their 
 minds with all the pliantoms of the drama, and so sus- 
 pend all communion with the external world. The great 
 actress of our age, during representation, always had 
 the door of her dressing-room open, that she might listen 
 to, and if possible Avatch the whole pei'formance, with 
 the same attention as was experienced by the spectators. 
 By this means she possessed herself of all the illusion 
 of the scene ; and when she herself entered on the stage, 
 her dreaming thoughts then brightened into a vision, 
 where the perceptions of the soul were as firm and clear 
 as if she were really the Constance or the Katherine 
 whom she only represented.* 
 
 Aware of this peculiar faculty, so prevalent in the more 
 vivid exercise of genius, Lord Kaimes seems to have 
 been the first who, in a work on criticism, attempted to 
 name tlie ideal presence^ to distinguish it from the real 
 presence of things. ' It has been called the representative 
 faculty, the imaginative state, and many other states 
 and faculties. Call it what we will, no term opens to us 
 the invisible mode of its operations, no metaphysical 
 definition expresses its variable nature. Conscious of 
 the existence of such a faculty, our critic perceived that 
 the conception of it is by no means clear when described 
 in words. 
 
 Has not the difierence between an actual thing, and its 
 image in a glass, perplexed some philosophers ? and it is 
 well known how far the ideal philosophy has been car- 
 ried by so fine a genius as Bishop Berkeley. " All are 
 pictures, alike painted on the retina, or optical sen- 
 
 * Tlie lato Mrs. Siddoas. She herself communicated this striking 
 circumstance to me.
 
 186 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 Borium !" exclaimed the enthusiast Barry, who only saw 
 pictures in nature, and nature in pictures. This faculty 
 has had a strange influence over the passionate lovers of 
 statues. We find unquestionable evidence of the vivid- 
 ness of the representative faculty, or the ideal presence, 
 vying with that of reality. Evelyn has described one of 
 this cast of mind, in the librarian of the Vatican, who 
 haunted one of the finest collections at Rome. To these 
 statues he would frequently talk as if they were living 
 persons, often kissing and embracing them. A similar 
 circumstance might be recorded of a man of distinguished 
 talent and literature among ourselves. Wondrous stories 
 are told of the amatorial passion for marble statues ; but 
 the wonder ceases, and the truth is established, when the 
 irresistible ideal presence is comprehended ; the visions 
 which now bless these lovers of statues, in the modern 
 land of sculpture, Italy, had acted with equal force in an- 
 cient Greece. "The Last Judgment," the stupendous 
 ideal presence of Michael Angelo, seems to have com- 
 municated itself to some of his beholders : " As I stood 
 before this picture," a late traveller tells us, " my blood 
 chilled as if the reality were before me, and the very 
 sound of the trumpet seemed to pierce my ears." 
 
 Cold and ban-en tempers without imagination, whose 
 impressions of objects never rise beyond those of mem- 
 ory and reflection, which know only to compare, and not 
 to excite, will smile at this equivocal state of the ideal 
 presence ; yet it is a real ©ne to the enthusiast of genius, 
 and it is his happiest and peculiar condition. Destitute 
 of this faculty, no metaphysical aid, no art to be taught 
 him, no mastery of talent, will avail him : unblest with 
 it, the votary will find each sacrifice lying cold on 
 the altar, for no accepting flame from heaven shall kin- 
 dle it. 
 
 This enthusiasm indeed can only be discovered by men 
 of genius themselves ; yet when most under its influencCji.
 
 SENSITIVENESS. 187 
 
 they can least perceive it, as the eye which sees all things 
 cannot view itself; or, rather, such an attempt would be 
 like searching for the principle of life, which were it found 
 would cease to be life. From an enchanted man we 
 must not expect a narrative of his enchantment ; for if 
 he could speak to us reasonably, and like one of our- 
 selves, in that case he would be a man in a state of dis- 
 enchantment, and then would perhaps yield us no better 
 account than we may trace by our own observations. 
 
 There is, however, something of reality in this state of 
 the ideal presence ; for the most familiar instances will 
 show how the nerves of each external sense are put in 
 motion by the idea of the object, as if the real object had 
 been presented to it. The difference is only in the de- 
 gree. The senses are more concerned in the ideal world 
 than at first appears. The idea of a thing will make us 
 shudder ; and the bare imagination of it will often pro- 
 duce a real pain. A curious consequence may be deduced 
 from this principle ; Milton, lingering amid the fresh- 
 ness of nature in Eden, felt all the delights of those ele- 
 ments which he was creating ;• his nerves moved with the 
 images which excited them. The fierce and wild Dante, 
 amidst the abysses of his "Inferno," must often have 
 been startled by its horrors, and often left his bitter and 
 gloomy spirit in the stings he inflicted on the great 
 criminal. The moveable nerves, then, of the man of 
 genius are a reality ; he sees, he hears, he feels, by each. 
 How mysterious to us is the operation of this faculty ! 
 
 A Homer and a Richardson,* like nature, open a vol- 
 ume large as life itself — embracing a ckcuit of human 
 existence ! This state of the mind has even a reality in 
 
 * Richardson assembles a family about him, writing down what 
 they said, seeing their very manner of saying, living with them as 
 often and as long as he wills — with such a personal unity, that an in- 
 genious lawyer once told me that he required no stronger evidence of 
 a fact in auy court of law than a circumstantial scene in Richardson.
 
 188 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 it for the generality of persons. In a romance or a drama, 
 tears are often seen in the eyes of the reader or the spec- 
 tator, who, before they have time to recollect that the 
 whole is fictitious, have been surprised for a moment by 
 a strong conception of a present and existing scene. 
 
 Can we doubt of the reality of this faculty, when the 
 visible and outward frame of the man of genius bean^ 
 witness to its presence ? When Fielding said, " I do not 
 doubt but the most pathetic and aifecting scenes have 
 been writ with tears," he probably drew that discovery 
 from an inverse feeling to his own. Fielding would have 
 been gratified to have confirmed the observation by facts 
 which never reached him. Metastasio, in writing the 
 ninth scene of the second act of his Olympiad, found 
 himself suddenly moved — shedding tears. The imagined 
 Bori'ows had inspired real tears; and they afterwards 
 proved contagious. Had our poet not perpetuated his 
 surpi'ise by an interesting sonnet, the circumstance had 
 passed away with the emotion, as many such have. Pope 
 could never read Priam's speech for the loss of his son 
 without tears, and frequently has been observed to weep 
 over tender and melancholy passages. Alfieri, the most 
 energetic poet of modern times, having composed, with- 
 out a pause, the whole of an act, noted in the margin — 
 " Written under a paroxysm of enthusiasm, and while 
 shedding a flood of tears." The impressions which the 
 frame experiences in this state, leave deeper traces behind 
 them than those of reverie. A circumstance accidentally 
 preserved has informed us of the tremors of Dryden after 
 having written that ode,* which, as he confessed, he had 
 pursued without the power of quitting it ; but these tre- 
 mors were not unusual with him — for in the preface to his 
 
 * This famous and unparalleled ode was probably afterwards re. 
 touched ; Vjut Joseph Warton discovered iu it the rapidity of the 
 thout^'hts, and the glow and the oxpreHsiveness of the images; •which 
 are the certain murks of ihofirat sketch of a master.
 
 EFFECT OF GREAT WORKS. 189 
 
 " Tales," he tell us, that " in translating Homer he foun>l 
 greater pleasure than in Virgil ; but it was not a pleasure 
 without pain ; the continual agitation of the spirits must 
 needs be a weakener to any constitution, especially in age, 
 and many pauses are required for refreshment betwixt the 
 heats." 
 
 We find Metastasio, like others of the brotherhood, 
 susceptible of this state, complaining of his sufferings 
 during the poetical aestias. " Wlien I apply with atten- 
 tion, the nerves of my sensorium are put into a violent 
 tumult ; I grow as red as a drunkard, and am obliged to 
 quit my work." When Buffon was absorbed on a subject 
 which presented great objections to his opinions, he felt 
 his head burn, and saw his countenance flushed ; and this 
 was a warning for him to suspend his attention. Gray 
 could never compose voluntarily : his genius resembled 
 the armed apparition in Shakspeare's master-tragedy. 
 " He would not be commanded." When he wished to 
 compose the Installation Ode, for a considerable time he 
 felt himself without the power to begin it : a friend call- 
 ing on him, Gray flung open his door hastily, and in a 
 hurried voice and tone, exclaiming in the first verse of 
 that ode — 
 
 Hence, avaunt I 'tis holy ground I — 
 
 his friend started at the disordered appearance of the 
 bard, whose orgasm had disturbed his very air and coun- 
 tenance. 
 
 Listen to one labouring with all the magic of the spell. 
 Madame Roland has thus powerfully described the ideal 
 presence in her first readings of Telemachus and Tasso : — 
 "My respiration rose, I felt a rapid fire colouring my 
 face, and my voice changing had betrayed my agitation. 
 I was Eucharis for Telemachus, and Erminia for Tancred. 
 However, during this perfect transformation, I did not 
 yet think that I myself was anything, for any one : the
 
 190 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 whole had no connexion with myself. I sought for noth- 
 ing ai'ound me ; I was they ; I saw only the objects 
 which existed for them ; it Avas a dream, without being 
 awakened." 
 
 The description which so calm and exquisite an investi- 
 gator of taste and philosophy as our sweet and polished 
 Reynolds has given of himself at one of these moments, 
 is too rare not to be recorded in his own words. Allud- 
 ing to the famous " Transfiguration," our own Kaffaelle 
 says — " When I have stood looking at that picture from 
 figure to figure, the eagerness, the spirit, the close un- 
 affected attention of each figure to the principal action, 
 my thoughts have carried me away, that I have forgot 
 myself; and for that time might be looked upon as an 
 enthusiastic madman ; for I could really fancy the whole 
 action was passing before my eyes." 
 
 The effect which the study of Plutarch's Illustrious 
 Men produced on the mighty mind of Alfieri, during a 
 whole winter, while he lived as it were among the heroes 
 of antiquity, he has himself described. Alfieri wept and 
 raved with grief and indignation that he was born under 
 a government which favoured no Roman heroes and 
 sages. As often as he was struck with the great deeds 
 of these great men, in his extreme agitatiot. he rose from 
 his seat as one possessed. The feeling of genius in 
 Alfieri was suppressed for more than twenty years, by 
 the discouragement of his uncle: but as the natural 
 temperament cannot be crushed out of the soul of genius, 
 he was a poet without writing a single verse ; and as a 
 great poet, the ideal presence at times became ungovern- 
 able, verging to madness. In traversing the wilds of 
 Arragon, his emotions would certainly have given birth 
 to poetry, could he have expressed himself in verse. It 
 was a complete state of the imaginative existence, or this 
 ideal presence; for he proceeded along the wilds of 
 Arragon in a reverie, weeping and laughing by turns.
 
 EFFECTS OF GREAT WORKS. 191 
 
 He considered this as a folly, because it ended in nothing 
 but in laughter and teai-s. He was not aAvare that he 
 was then yielding to a demonstration, could he have 
 judged of himself, that he possessed those dispositions 
 of mind and that energy of passion which form the 
 poetical character. 
 
 Genius creates by a single conception; the statuary 
 conceives the statue at once, which he afterwards exe- 
 cutes by the slow process of art ; and the architect con- 
 trives a whole palace in an instant. In a single principle, 
 opening as it were on a sudden to genius, a great and 
 new system of things is discovered. It has happened, 
 sometimes, that this single conception, rushing over the 
 whole concentrated spirit, has agitated the frame convul- 
 sively. It comes like a whisj^ered secret from Nature. 
 When Malebranche first took up Descartes's Treatise on 
 Man, the germ of his own subsequent philosophic system, 
 such was his intense feeling, that a violent palpitation of 
 the heart, more than once, obliged him to lay down the 
 volume. When the first idea of the " Essay on the Arts 
 and Sciences" rushed on the mind of Rousseau, a feverish 
 symptom in his nervous system approached to a slight 
 delirium. Stopping under an oak, he wrote mth a pencil 
 the Prosopopeia of Fabricius. "I still remember my 
 solitary transport at the discovery of a philosophical 
 argument against the doctrine of transubstantiation," 
 exclaimed Gibbon in his Memoirs. 
 
 This quick sensibility of genius has suppressed the 
 voice of poets in reciting their most pathetic passages. 
 Thomson was so oppressed by a passage in Virgil or 
 Milton when he attempted to read, that " his voice sunk 
 in ill-articulated sounds from the bottom of his breast." 
 The tremulous figures of the ancient Sibyl appear to 
 have been viewed in the land of the Muses, by the ener- 
 getic description which Paulus Jovius gives us of the 
 impetus and afilatus of one of the Italian improvvisatori,
 
 192 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 some of whom, I have heard from one present at a 
 similar exhibition, have not degenerated in poetic inspi- 
 ration, nor in its corporeal excitement. " His eyes fixed 
 downwards, kindle as he gives utterance to his efi'usions, 
 the moist drops flow down his cheeks, the veins of his 
 forehead swell, and wonderfully his learned ear, as it 
 were, abstracted and intent, moderates each impulse of 
 his flowing numbers." * 
 
 This enthusiasm throws the man of genius amid Nature 
 into absorbing reveries when the senses of other men are 
 overcome at the appearance of destruction ; he continues 
 to view only Nature herself The mind of Pliny, to add 
 one more chapter to his mighty scroll, sought Nature 
 amidst the volcano in which he perished. Vernet was 
 on board a ship in a raging tempest where all hope was 
 given up. The astonished captain beheld the artist of 
 genius, his pencil in his hand, in calm enthusiasm sketch- 
 ing the terrible world of waters — studying the wave 
 that was rising to devour him.f 
 
 There is a tender enthusiasm in the elevated studies 
 of antiquity. Then the ideal presence or the imaginative 
 existence prevails, by its perpetual associations, or as the 
 late Dr. Brown has, perhaps, more distinctly termed them, 
 suggestions. " In contemplating antiquity, the mind 
 itself becomes antique," was finely observed by Livy, 
 long ere our philosophy of the mind existed as a system. 
 This rapture, or sensation of deep study, has been de- 
 scribed by one whose imagination had strayed into the 
 occult learning of antiquity, and in the hymns of Or- 
 
 * The passage is curious : — Oanenti dcfixi exardont oculi, sudores 
 mauant, froiitis ven;c contumescuiit, ct (juod mirum est, erudittc aures, 
 tanquam alien;c et intentie, omnem impetum profluentium numerorum 
 exactissimd ratione moderantur." 
 
 f Vernet was the artist whose sea-ports of France still decorate the 
 Louvre. Tie was marine painter to Louis XV. and grandfather of the 
 celebrated Horace Vernet, whose recent death has deprived France of 
 hor best painter of battle-scenes. — Ed.
 
 ENTHUSIASM. 103 
 
 phcus it seemed to him that he had lifted the veil from 
 Nature. His feelings -were associated with her loneli- 
 ness. I translate his words : — " When I took these dark 
 mystical hymns into my hands, I appeared as it were to 
 he descending into an ahyss of the mysteries of venera- 
 ble antiquity ; at that moment, the world in silence and 
 the stars and moon only, watching me." This enthusi- 
 asm is confirmed by Mr. Mathias, who applies this de- 
 scription to his own emotions on his first opening the 
 manuscript volumes of the poet Gray on the philosophy 
 of Plato ; " and many a learned man," he adds, " will 
 acknowledge as his own the feelings of this animated 
 scholar." 
 
 Amidst the monuments of great and departed nations, 
 our imagination is touched by the grandeur of local 
 impressions, and the vivid associations, or suggestions, 
 of the manners, the arts, and the individuals, of a great 
 people. The classical author of Anacharsis, when in 
 Italy, would often stop as if overcome by his recollec- 
 tions. Amid camps, temjjles, circuses, hippodromes, and 
 public and private edifices, he, as it were, held an interior 
 converse with the manes of those who seemed hovering 
 about the capital of the old world ; as if he had been a 
 citizen of ancient Rome travelling in the modern. So 
 men of genius have roved amid the awful ruins till the 
 ideal presence has fondly built up the city anew, and 
 have become Romans in the Rome of two thousand 
 years past. Pomponius Loetus, who devoted his life to 
 this study, was constantly seen wandering amidst the 
 vestiges of this " throne of the world," There, in many 
 a reverie, as his eyes rested on the mutilated arch 
 and the broken column, abstracted and immovable, he 
 dropped tears in the ideal presence of Rome and of the 
 Romans.* Another enthusiast of this class was Bosius, 
 
 * Shelley caught mucti of his poetry in wandering among the rnina 
 of the palace of the Caesars on the Palatine Hill ; and tho impression 
 13
 
 194 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 who songlit beneatli Rome for nnotlier Rome, in those 
 catacombs built by the early Christians for their asylum 
 and their sepulchre. His -work of "Roma Sotteranca" 
 is the production of a subterraneoiTS life, passed in fervent 
 and perilous labours. Taking with him a hermit's meal 
 for tlie week, tliis new Pliny often descended into the 
 bowels of the earth, by lamp-light, cleai"ing away the sand 
 and ruins till a tomb broke forth, or an inscription became 
 legible. Accompanied by some friend whom his enthu- 
 siasm had inspired with his own sympathy, here he dic- 
 tated his notes, tracing the mouldering sculpture, and 
 catching the fading ])icture. Thrown back into the primi- 
 tive ages of Christianity, amid the local impressions, the 
 historian of the Christian catacombs collected the memo- 
 rials of an age and of a race which were hidden beneath 
 the earth.* 
 
 Tlie same enthusiasm surrounds the vrorld of science 
 with that creative imagination which has startled even 
 men of science by its peculiar discoveries. Werner, the 
 mineralogist, celebrated for his lectures, appears, by some 
 accounts transmitted by his auditors, to have exercised 
 this faculty. Werner often said that "he always de- 
 j)ended on the muse for insi)iration." His unwritten lec- 
 ture was a reverie — till kindling in his progress, blending 
 science and imagination in the grandeur of his concep- 
 tions, at times, as if he had gathered about him the very 
 elements of nature, liis spirit seemed to be hovering over 
 the waters and the strata. With the same enthusiasm 
 of science, Cuvier meditated on some bones, and some 
 
 made by historic ruins on tlio mind of Byron is powerfully evinced in 
 his " Chikle Harold." — Ed. 
 
 * A Lirgc number of those imp'ortnnt memorials have been since 
 removed to the Galkria Lapidaria of the Vatican, and arranged on tiio 
 walls by Marini. Tliey are invaluable as mementoes of the early 
 Churcli at Rome. Aringhi has also devoted a work to their elucida- 
 tion. The Rev. C. Maitland's " Church in tho Catacombs" in an able 
 general summary, clearly displaying their intrinsic historic value. — Ed.
 
 WERNER AND CUVIER. 195 
 
 frac:monts of "bone?, which coiihl not belong to any 
 ki:own class of the animal kingdoni. The philosopher 
 dwelt on these animal ruins till he constructed numerous 
 species which had disappeared from the globe. This sub- 
 lime naturalist has ascertained and classified the fossil 
 remains of animals whose existence can no longer be 
 traced in the records of mankind. His own language 
 bears testimony to the imagination which carried him on 
 through a career so strange and wonderful. " It is a 
 rational object of ambition in the mind of man, to v.'hom 
 only a short space of time is allotted upon earth, to have 
 the glory of restoring the history of thousands of ages 
 toll ich preceded the existence of his race, and of thousands 
 of animals that never were contemporaneous icith his sp>e- 
 cics.^^ Philosophy becomes poetry, and science imagina- 
 tion, in the enthusiasm of genius. Even in the practical 
 part of a science, painful to the operator himself, Mr. Aber- 
 nethy has declared, and eloquently declared, that this 
 enthusiasm is absolutely requisite. " We have need of 
 enthusiasm, or some strong incentive, to induce ns to 
 spend our nights in study, and our days in the disgust- 
 ing and health-destroying observation of human diseases, 
 which alone can enable us to imderstand, alleviate, or 
 remove them. On no other terms can we be considered 
 as real students of our profession — to confer that which 
 sick kings would fondly purchase with their diadem — 
 that which wealth cannot purchase, nor state nor rank 
 bestow — to alleviate the most insupportable of human 
 afflictions." Such is the enthusiasm of the physiologist 
 of genius, who elevates the demonstrations of anatomical 
 inquiries by the cultivation of the intellectual faculties, 
 connecting "man with the common Master of the uni- 
 verse." 
 
 This enthusiasm inconceivably fills the mind of genius 
 in all great and solemn operations. It is an agitation 
 amidst calmness, and is required not only ia the fine arts,
 
 103 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 but -wherercr a, great and continued exertion of the soul 
 must be employed. The great ancients, who, if they Avere* 
 not always" philosophers, were always men of genius, saw, 
 or imagined they saw, a divinity within the man. This 
 enthusiasm is alike experienced in the silence of study 
 and amidst the roar of cannon, in painting a pictui'e or in 
 scaling a rampart. View De Thou, the historian, after 
 his morning prayers, imploring the Divinity to purify his 
 heart from partiality and hatred, and to open his spirit in 
 developing the truth, amidst the contending factions of 
 his times ; and Haydn, employed in his " Creation," earn- 
 estly addressing the Creator ere he struck his instrument. 
 In moments like these, man becomes a perfect unity — one 
 thought and one act, abstracted from all other thoughts 
 and all other acts. This intensity of the mind was felt 
 by Gray in his loftiest excursions, and is perhaps the 
 same jDOwer which impels the villager, when, to overcome 
 his rivals in a contest for leaping, he retires back some 
 steps, collects all exertion into his mind, and clears the 
 eventful bound. One of our admirals in the reign of 
 Elizabeth held as a maxim, that a height of passion^ 
 amounting to frenzy, was necessary to qualify a man for 
 the command of a fleet; and Nelson, decorated by all his 
 honours about him, on the day of battle, at the sight of 
 those emblems of glory emulated himself This enthu- 
 siasm was necessary for liis genius, and made it eifective. 
 But this enthusiasm, prolonged as it often has been by 
 the operation of the imaginative existence, becomes a 
 state of perturbed feeling, and can only be distinguished 
 from a disordered intellect by the power of volition pos- 
 sessed by a sound mind of withdraAving from the ideal 
 world into the world of sense. It is but a step which 
 may carry us from the wanderings of fancy into the aber- 
 rations of delirium. The endurance of attention, even in 
 mimls of the higliest order, is limited by a law of nature; 
 and when thinking is goaded on to exhaustion, confusion
 
 POWER OF TEOLGET. 197 
 
 of ideas ensues, as straining any one of our limbs by 
 excessive exertion produces tremor and torpof. 
 
 T\'ith curious art the brain too finely wrought, 
 Preys on herself and is destroyed by Thought; 
 Constant attention wears the active mind. 
 Blots out her powers, and leaves a blank behind — 
 The greatest genius to this fate may bow. 
 
 Even minds less susceptible tlian liigh genius may be- 
 come overpowered by their imagination. Often, in the 
 deep silence around us, we seek to relieve ourselves by 
 some voluntary noise or action Avhich may direct our at- 
 tention to an exterior object, and bring us back to the 
 world, which we had, as it were, left behind ns. The cir- 
 cumstance is sufficiently familiar; as well as another; 
 that whenever we ave absorbed in profound contempla- 
 tion, a startling noise scatters the spirits, and painfully 
 agitates the whole frame. The nerves are then in a state 
 of the utmost relaxation. There may be an agony in 
 thought which only deep thinkers experience. The ter- 
 rible~ effect of metaphysical studies on Beattie has been 
 told by himself. " Since the ' Essay on Truth ' was print- 
 ed in quarto, I have never dared to read it over. I 
 durst not even read the sheets to see whether there were 
 any errors in the print, and was obliged to get a friend 
 to do that office for me. These studies came in time to 
 have dreadful effects upon my nervous system ; and I 
 cannot read what I then ^a-ote without some degree of 
 horror, because it recalls to my mind the horrors that I 
 have sometimes felt after passing a long evening in those 
 severe studies." 
 
 Goldoni, after a rash exertion of writing sixteen plays 
 in a year, confesses he paid the penalty of the folly. He 
 flew to Genoa, leading a life of delicious vacuity. To 
 pass the day without doing anything, was all the enjoy- 
 ment he was now capable of feeling. But long after he 
 said, *' I felt at that time, and have ever since continued
 
 19S LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 to feel, the consequences of that exhaustion of spirits I 
 sustained in composing my sixteen comedies." 
 
 The enthusiasm of study was experienced by Pope in 
 his self-cducatiun, and once it clouded over his fine 
 intellect. It was the severity of his application Avhich 
 distorted his body ; and he then partook of a calamity 
 incidental to the fomily of g'cnius, for he sunk into that 
 state of exhaustion which Smollett experienced during 
 half a year, called a coma vigil^ an affection of the brain, 
 where the principle of life is so reduced, that all ex- 
 ternal objects appear to be passing in a dream. Boer- 
 liaave has related of himself, that having imprudently 
 indulged in intense thought on a particular subject, he 
 did not close his eyes for six weeks after; and Tissot, in 
 his work on the health of men of letters, abounds in 
 similar cases, where a complete stupor has affected the 
 imliappy student for a period of six months. 
 
 Assuredly the finest geniuses have not always the 
 power to Avithdraw themselves from that intensely inter- 
 esting train of ideas, which we have shown has not been 
 removed from about them by even the violent stimuli of 
 exterior objects; and the scenical illusion which then 
 occurs, has been called the hallucinatio studiosa, or false 
 ideas in reverie. Such was the state in which Petrarch 
 found himself, in that minute narrative of a vision in 
 which Laura appeared to him ; and Tasso, in the lofty 
 conversations he held with a spirit that glided towards 
 him on the beams of the sun. In this state was Male- 
 branche listening to the voice of God Avithin him ; and 
 Lord Herbert, when, to know whether he should publish 
 his book, he threw himself on his knees, and interrogated 
 the Deity in the stillness of the sky.* And thus Pascal 
 
 * In liig curious nntobio;^raphy ho ha=! givon tho prayer he iise'l, end- 
 iug, "I am not satisfied whether I shall publish this book de veritate; 
 if it be for thy glory, I b&seccli theo p,ivo me some sign from heaven; 
 ii' not 1 shall suppress it." His lordship adds, " I Iiud no sooner spoken
 
 VISIONARIES OF GENIUS. 199 
 
 started at times at a fiery gulf opening by liis side. Spi- 
 nello having painted the fall of the rebellious angels, had 
 so strongly imagined the illusion, and more particularly 
 the terrible features of Lucifer, that he was himself struck 
 with such horror as to have been long afflicted witli the 
 presence of the demon to which his genius had given 
 birth. The influence of the same ideal presence operated 
 on the religious painter Angeloni, who could never rep- 
 resent the sufferings of Jesus without his eyes overflowing 
 with tears. Descartes, when young, and in a country 
 seclusion, his brain exliausted with meditation, and his 
 imagination heated to excess, heard a voice in the air 
 which called him to pursue the search of truth ; nor did 
 he doubt the vision, and this delirious dreaming of genius 
 charmed him even in his after-studies. Our Collins and 
 Cowper Avere often thrown into that extraordinary state 
 of mind, when the ideal presence converts us into vision- 
 aries ; and their illusions were as strong as Swedenborg's, 
 who saw a terrestrial heaven in the glittering streets of 
 his New Jerusalem; or Jacob Behmen's, Avho listened to 
 a celestial voice till he beheld the apparition of an angel ; 
 or Cardan's, when he so carefully observed a number of 
 little armed men at his feet ; or Benvenuto Cellini's, 
 whose vivid imagination and glorious egotism so fre- 
 quently contemplated " a resplendent light hovering over 
 his shadow." 
 
 Such minds identified themselves with their visions ! 
 If we pass them over by asserting that they were insane, 
 we are only cutting the knot which we cannot untie. We 
 
 these words but a loud, though gentle noise came from the heavens 
 (for it was like nothing on earth) whieii did so comfort and cheer me, 
 that I took my petition as granted, and that I had the sign I demanded 
 whereupon also I resolved to print my book. This (how strange soever 
 it may seem) I protest before the eternal God is true, neitlier am I any 
 way superstitiously deceived therein, since I did not only clearly hear 
 the noise, but in the serenest sky that ever I saw, being without till 
 cloud, did to my thinking see the place from whence it came." — Ed.
 
 200 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 have no right to deny what some maintain, that a sym- 
 pathy of the corporeal with the incorporeal nature of man, 
 his imaginative with his physical existence, is an excite- 
 ment which appears to have been exj^erienced by persons 
 of a peculiar organization, and which metaphysicians in 
 despair must resign to the speculations of enthusiasts 
 themselves, though metaphysicians reason about phe- 
 nomena far removed from the perceptions of the eye. 
 The historian of the mind cannot omit this fact, unques- 
 tionable, however incomprehensible. According to our 
 own conceptions, this state must produce a strange myste- 
 rious personage : a concentration of a Inxman being within 
 himself, endowed with inward eyes, ears which listen to in- 
 terior sounds, and invisible hands touching impalpable ob- 
 jects, for whatever they act or however they are acted on, 
 as far as respects themselves all must have passed within 
 their own minds. The Platonic Dr. More flattered him- 
 self that he was an enthusiast without enthusiasm, which 
 seems but a suspicious state of convalescence. " I must 
 ingenuously confess," he says, " that I have a natural touch 
 of enthusiasm in my complexion, but such as I thank God 
 was ever governable enough, and have found at length 
 perfectly subduable. In virtue of which victory I know 
 better what is in enthusiasts tlian they themselves ; and 
 therefore was able to write with life and judgment, and 
 shall, I hope, contribute not a little to the peace and quiet 
 of this kingdom thereby." Thus far one of its votaries : 
 and all that he vaunts to have acquired by this mysterious 
 faculty of enthusiasm is tlie having rendered it " at length 
 perfectly subduable," Yet those who have written on 
 "Mystical devotion," liave declared that, "it is a sublime 
 state of mind to which whole sects have aspired, and some 
 individuals appear to have attained."* Tlie histories of 
 
 * Cliarles Butler lias drawn up a sensiblo essay on "Mystical Devo- 
 tion." He was a Roman Catholic. Norris, and Dr. Henry More, and 
 Bishop Berkeley, may bo cousuUud by the curious.
 
 ENTHUSIASM. 2Ul 
 
 great visionanos, were they correctly detailed, would 
 probably prove how tlieir delusions consisted of the ocu 
 lar spectra of their brain and the accelerated sensations of 
 their nerves. Bayle has conjured up an amusing thcoi-y 
 of apparitions, to show that Ilobbes, who was subject to 
 occasional terrors, might fear that a certain combination 
 of atoms agitating his brain might so disordei* his mind 
 as to expose him to spectral visions ; and so being very 
 timid, and distrusting his own imagination, he was averse 
 at times to be left alone. Apparitions often happen in 
 dreams, but they may happen to a man when awake, for 
 reading and hearing of them would revive their images, 
 and these images might play even an incredulous phi- 
 losopher some xmlucky trick. 
 
 But men of genius whose enthusiasm has not been past 
 recovery, have experienced this extraordinary state of 
 the mind, in those exhaustions of study to which they 
 imquestionably are subject. Tissot, on "The Health of 
 Men of Letters," has produced a terrifying number of 
 cases. They see and hear what none but themselves do. 
 Genius thrown into this peculiar state has produced some 
 noble effusions. Kotzebue was once absorbed in hypo- 
 chondriacal melancholy, and appears to have meditated 
 on self-destruction; but it happened that he preserved 
 liis habit of dramatic composition, and produced one of 
 his most energetic dramas — that of " Misanthropy and 
 Repentance." He tells us that he had never experienced 
 such a rapid flow of thoughts and images, and he believed, 
 what a physiological history would perhaps show, that 
 there are some maladies, those of the brain and the 
 nerves, which actually stretch the powers of the mind 
 beyond their usual reach. It is the more vivid world 
 of ideal existence. 
 
 But what is more evident, men of the finest genius have 
 experienced these hallucinations in society acting on tJieir 
 moral habits. They have insulated the mind. \Yith
 
 202 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 tliera ideas have become realities, and suspicions certain- 
 ties ; while events have been noted down as seen and 
 heard, which in truth had never occurred. Kousseau's 
 phantoms scarcely ever quitted him for a day. Barry 
 imagined that he was invisibly persecuted by the Royal 
 Academy, who had even spirited iip a gang of house- 
 breakers. The vivid memoirs of Alfieri will authenticate 
 what Donne, who himself had suffered from them, calls 
 "these eclipses, sudden offuscations and darkening of the 
 senses." Too often the man of genius, with a vast and. 
 solitary power, darkens the scene of life ; he builds a 
 pyramid between himself and the sun. Mocking at the 
 expedients by which society has contrived to protect its 
 feebleness, he would break down the institution from 
 which he has shrunk away in the loneliness of his feelings. 
 Such is the insulating intellect in which some of the most 
 elevated spirits have been reduced. To imbue ourselves 
 with the genius of their works, even to think of them, is 
 an awful thing ! Li nature their existence is a solecism, 
 as their genius is a j^aradox ; for their crimes seem to be 
 without guilt, their curses have kindness in them, and if 
 they afflict mankind it is in sorrow. 
 
 Yet what less than enthusiasm is the purchase-price of 
 high passion and invention ? Perhaps never has thero 
 been a man of genius of this rare cast, who has not be- 
 trayed the ebullitions of imagination in some outward 
 action, at that period when the illusions of life are more 
 real to genius than its realities. There is a fata onor- 
 (jana^ that throws into the air a pictured land, and the 
 deceived eye ti'usts till the visionary shadows glide away. 
 "I have dreamt of a golden land," exclaimed Fuseli, 
 " and solicit in vain for the barge which is to carry me to 
 its shore." A slight derangement of our accustomed 
 habits, a little perturbation of the faculties, and a roman- 
 tic tinge on the feelings, give no indiiferent promise of 
 genius J oi'tliat generous temper which knowing nothing
 
 ENTKUSLVSM. 203 
 
 of tiie baseness of muTikincl, with inclcfinitc views carries 
 on some glorious design to charm the AVorlcT or to make 
 it lia])pier. Often we hear, from the confessions of men 
 of genius, of their having in youth indulged the most 
 elevating and the most chimerical projects ; and if age 
 ridicule thy imaginative existence, be assured that it is 
 the decline of its genius. That virtuous and tender en- 
 thusiast, Fenelon, in his early youth, troubled his friends 
 with a classical and religious reverie, lie was on the 
 point of quitting them to restore the independence of 
 Greece, with the piety of a missionary, and with the taste 
 of a classical antiquary. The Peloponnesus opened to 
 him the Church of Corinth, where St. Paul preached, the 
 PiriTBus where Socrates conversed ; while the latent poet 
 was to pluck laurels from Delphi, and rove amidst the 
 amenities of Tempe. Such was the influence of the ideal 
 ptresence ; and barren will be his imagination, and luck- 
 less his fortune, who, claiming the honours of genius, has 
 never been touched by such a temporary delirium. 
 
 To this enthusiasm, and to this alone, can we attribute 
 the self-immolation of men of genius. Mighty and labo- 
 rious works have been pursued as a forlorn hope, at the 
 certain destruction of the fortune of the individual. Vast 
 labours attest the enthusiasm which accompanied their 
 pi'ogress. Such men have sealed their works with their 
 blood: they have silently borne the pangs of disease; 
 they have barred themselves from the pursuits of fortune; 
 they have torn themselves away from all they loved in 
 life, patiently snifering these self-denials, to escape from 
 interruptions and impediments to their studies. Martyrs 
 of literature and art, they behold in their solitude the 
 halo of immortality over their studious heads — that fame 
 which is "a life beyond life." Van Helraont, in his 
 library and in his laboratory, preferred their busy soli- 
 tude to the honours and the invitations of Eodolphus II., 
 there writing down what he daily experienced during
 
 204: LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 thirty years ; nor would the enthusiast yield u^t to tlio 
 emperor one of those golden and visionary days ! Milton 
 would not desist from 2)roceeding with one of his works, 
 althoiigh warned by the physician of the certain loss of 
 his sight. He declared he preferred his duty to his eyes, 
 and doubtless his fame to his comfort. Anthony "Wood, 
 to preserve the lives of others, voluntarily resigned his 
 own to cloistered studies ; nor did the literary passion 
 desert him in his last moments, when with his dying 
 hands the hermit of literature still grasped his beloved 
 j)apers, and his last mortal thoughts dwelt on his " Athene 
 Oxonieuses." Moreri, the founder of our great biogra- 
 phical collections conceived the design with such enthu- 
 siasm, and found such seduction in the laboux", that he 
 willingly witlidrew from the popular celebrity he had 
 acquired as a preacher, and the preferment which a min 
 ister of state, in whose house he resided, Avould have 
 opened to his views.* After the first edition of his 
 "Historical Dictionary," he had nothing so much at 
 heart as its improvement. His unyielding application 
 was converting labour into death ; but collecting his last 
 renovated vigour, with his dying hands he gave the vol- 
 ume to the world, though he did not live to witness even 
 its publication. All objects in life appeared mean to him, 
 compared with that exalted delight of addressing, to the 
 literary men of his ago, the history of their brothers. 
 Such ai-e the men, as Bacon says of himself, who are 
 " the servants of posterity," 
 
 Who scorn delights, aud live laborious days I 
 
 Tlic same enthusiasm inspires the pupils of art con- 
 sumed by their own ardour. Tlie young and classical 
 
 * Louis Moreri was boru in Provence in 1013, and died in IGSO, at 
 the early age of .'}7, wiiile engaged on a second edition of his great 
 worlc. Tiie miiiislcr alluded to in the text was M. de Ponipouno, Sec- 
 retary of State to Louis XIV. until the year 1670. — Ed.
 
 EXTRUSIASir. 205 
 
 scnlptor wTio raised the statue of Charles IT., placed in 
 the centre of the Royal Exchange, was, in the midst of 
 his work, advised by his medical friends to desist ; for 
 the energy of his labour, with the strong excitement of 
 his feelings, already had made fatal inroads in his consti- 
 tution : but he was willing, he said, to die at the foot of 
 his statue. The statue was raised, and the young sculp- 
 tor, with the shining eye and hectic flush of consumption, 
 bclield it there — returned home — and died. Drouais, a 
 pupil of David, the French painter, was a youth of fortune, 
 but the solitary pleasure of his youth was his devotion to 
 Raphael ; he was at his studies from four in the morning 
 till night. " Painting or nothing !" was the cry of tliis 
 enthusiast of elegance ; " First fame, then amusement," 
 was another. His sensibility was great as his enthusiasm ; 
 and he cut in pieces the i:)icture for which David declared 
 he would inevitably obtain the prize. " I have had my 
 reward in your "approbation ; but next year I shall feel 
 more certain of deserving it," was the reply of this young 
 enthusiast. Afterwards he astonished Paris with his 
 "Mariiis;" but while engaged on a subject which he 
 could never quit, the principle of life itself was drying up 
 in his veins. Henry Headley and Kirke White were the 
 early victims of the enthusiasm of study, and are mourned 
 by the few who are organized like themselves. 
 
 'Twas thine own genius gave the final blow, 
 And help'd to plant the wound that laid thee low ; 
 So the struck eagle, stretch'd upon the plain, 
 No more through rolling clouds to soar again, 
 View'd his own feather on the fatal dart, 
 And wing'd the shaft that quiver'd in his heart ; 
 Keen were his pangs, but keener far to feel 
 He nursed the pinion which impell'd the steel, 
 "While the same plumage that had warm'd his nest. 
 Drank the last Ufe-drop of his bleeding breast. 
 
 One of our former great students, "when reduced in health
 
 206 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 by excessive study, was entreated to abandon it, and in 
 the scliolastic language of the day, not to perdere siib- 
 stantiam propter accidentia. AVith a smile the martyr 
 of study repeated a verso from Juvenal : 
 
 Nee propter vitara vivendi pcrdere causas. 
 jSTol not for life loso that for which I livel 
 
 Thus the shadow of dcatli falls among those who are 
 existing Avith more than life about them. Yet " there is 
 no celebrity for the artist," said Gesner, " if the love of 
 his own art do not become a veliement passion ; if the 
 hours he employs to cultivate it be not for him the most 
 delicious ones of his life ; if study become not his true ex- 
 istence and his first happiness ; if the society of his 
 brothers in art be not that which most pleases him ; if 
 even in the night-time the ideas of his art do not occupy 
 his vigils or his dreams ; if in the morning he fly not to 
 his work, impatient to recommence what he left unfinished. 
 These are the marks of liim who laboiirs for true glory 
 and posterity ; but if he seek only to please the taste of 
 his age, his works will not kindle the desires nor touch 
 the hearts of tliose who love the arts and the artists." 
 
 Unaccompanied by enthusiasm, genius Avill produce 
 nothing but uninteresting works of art ; not a Avork of art 
 resembling tlie dove of Archytas, which beautiful piece 
 of mechanism, while other artists beheld flying, no one 
 could frame such another dove to meet it in the air. 
 Enthusiasm is that secret and harmonious spirit Avhich 
 hovers over tlic production of genius, throwing tlie reader 
 of a book, or tlie spectator of a statue, into the very ideal 
 presence Avhence these works have really originated. A 
 great Avork always leaves us in a state of musing.
 
 JEALOUSY OF GENIUS. 207 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Of the jealousy of Genius. — Jealousy often proportioned to the degree 
 of genius. — A perpetual feveramong Authors and Artists. — Instances 
 of its incredible excess among brothers and benefactors. — Of a pe- 
 culiar species, where the fever consumes the sufferer, without its 
 malignancy. 
 
 JEALOUSY, long supposed to be the offsi^rlng of little 
 minds, is not, however, confined to them. In the 
 literary republic, the passion fiercely rages among the 
 senators as well as among the j)eople. In that curious 
 self-description which Linnajus comprised in a single 
 page, written with the precision of a naturalist, that 
 great man discovered that his constitution was liable to 
 be afflicted vrith jealousy. Literary jealousy seems often 
 projiortioned to the degree of genius, and the sliadowy 
 and equivocal claims of literary honour is the real cause 
 of this terrible fear; for in cases where the object is more 
 palpable and definite than intellectual excellence, jeal- 
 ousy docs not appear so strongly to aifect the claimant 
 tor admiration. The most beautiful woman, in the sea- 
 son of beauty, is more haughty than jealous ; she rarely 
 encounters a rival ; and while her claims exist, who can 
 contend with a fine feature or a dissolving glance? 
 But a man of genius has no other existence than in 
 the opinion of the world ; a divided empire would 
 obscure him, and a contested one might prove his 
 annihilation. 
 
 The lives of authors and artists exhibit a most painful 
 disease in that jealousy which is the perpetual fever of 
 their existence. Why does Plato never mention Xeno- 
 phon, and Avhy does Xenophon inveigh against Plato, 
 studiously collecting eveiy little rumour which may de- 
 tract from his fame ? They wrote on the same subject !
 
 308 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 Tlie studied affectation of Aristotle to differ from tli3 
 doctrines of his master Plato wliile he was following 
 ^them, led him into ambiguities and contradictions which 
 have been remarked. The two fathers of our poetry, 
 Chaucer and Gower, suffered their friendship to be inter- 
 rupted tovv'^ards the close of their lives. Chaucer bitterly 
 reflects on his friend for the indelicacy of some of his 
 tales : " Of all such cursed stories I say fy !" and Gower, 
 evidently in return, erased those verses in j^raise of his 
 friend which he had inserted in the first copy of his 
 " Confessio Amantis." Why did Corneille, tottering to 
 the grave, when Racine consulted him on his first tragedy, 
 advise the author never to write another? Why does 
 Voltaire continually detract from the sublimity of Cor- 
 neille, the sweetness of Racine, and the fire of Crebillon ? 
 Why did Dryden never spsak of Otway with kindness 
 but when in liis grave, then acknowledging that Otway 
 excelled him in the pathetic ? Why did Leibnitz speak 
 slightingly of Locke's Essay, and meditate on nothing 
 less than the complete overthrow of Newton's system ? 
 Why, when Boccaccio sent to Petrarch a copy of Dante, 
 declaring that the work was like a first light which had 
 illuminated his mind, did Petrarch boldly observe that 
 he had not been anxious to inqnirc after it, for intending 
 himself to compose it in the vernacular idiom, he had no 
 wish to be considered as a plagiary ? and ho only allows 
 Dante's superiority from having written in the vulgar 
 idiom, which he did not consid(>r an enviable merit. Tluis 
 frigidly Petrarch could behold the solitary ^tna bcfo'"> 
 him, in the " Inferno," while ho shrunk into himself with 
 the painful consciousness of the existence of another poet, 
 ol)scuriiig his own majesty. It is curious to observe 
 Loi-d SliafLcsbury treating with tho most acrimoiiious 
 conteini)t tho great writ(M-s of his own times — Cowley, 
 Dryden, vVddison, and Prior. We cannot imagine that 
 his lordship was so entirely destitute of every fueling of
 
 JEALOUSY OF AUTHORS. 209 
 
 wdt and genius, as would appear by this damnatory criti- 
 cism on all the wit and genius of his age. It is not, in- 
 deed, difficult to comprehend a different motive for this 
 extravagant censure in the jealousy which even a gi-eat 
 writer often experiences when he comes in contact with 
 his living rivals, and hardily, if not impudently, practises 
 those arts of critical detraction to raise a moment's delu- 
 sion, which can gratify no one but himself. 
 
 The moral sense has often been found too weak to 
 temper the malignancy of literary jealousy, and has im- 
 pelled some men of genius to an incredible excess. A 
 aiemorable example offers in the history of the two bro- 
 thers. Dr. William and John Hunter, both great charac- 
 ters fitted to be rivals ; but Nature, it was imagined, in 
 the tenderness of blood, had placed a bar to rivalry. 
 John, without any determined pursuit in his youth, was 
 received by his brother at the height of his celebrity ; the 
 doctor initiated him into his school; they performed 
 their experiments together ; and William Hunter was the 
 first to announce to the world the great genius of his 
 bi'other. After this close connexion in all their studies" 
 and discoveries, Dr. William Hunter published his mag- 
 nificent work — the proud favourite of his heart, the as- 
 eertor of his fame. Was it credible that the genius of 
 the celebrated anatomist, which had been nursed under 
 the wing of his brother, should turn on that wing to clip 
 \t ? John Hunter put in his claim to the chief discovery ; 
 It was answered by his brother. The Royal Society, 
 to whom they appealed, concealed the documents of this 
 unnatural feud. The blow was felt, and the jealousy of 
 literary honour for ever separated the brothers — the 
 brothers of genius. 
 
 Such, too, was the jealousy which separated Agostino 
 
 and Annibal Carracci, whom their cousin Ludovico for 
 
 so many years had attempted to unite, and who, during 
 
 the time their academy existed, worked together, com- 
 14
 
 210 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 billing their separate powers.* The learniJig and the 
 philosophy of Agostino assisted the invention of the 
 master genius, Annibal ; but Annibal was jealous of the 
 more literary and poetical character of Agostino, and, by 
 his sarcastic humour, frequently mortified his learned 
 brother. Alike great artists, when once employed on the 
 same work, Agostino was thought to have excelled his 
 brother. Annibal, sullen and scornful, immediately 
 broke with him, and their patron. Cardinal Farnese, was 
 compelled to separate the brothers. Their fate is strik- 
 ing : Agostino, divided from his brother Annibal, sunk 
 into dejection and melancholy, and perished by a prema- 
 ture death, while Annibal closed his days not long after 
 in a state of distraction. The brothers of Nature and 
 Aii; could not live together, and could not live separate. 
 The history of artists abounds with instances of jeal- 
 ousy, perhaps more than that of any other class of men 
 of genius. Hudson, the master of Reynolds, could not 
 endure the sight of his rising pupil, and would not 
 suffer him to conclude the term of his apprenticeship; 
 even the mild and elegant Reynolds himself became so 
 jealous of Wilson, that he took every opportunity of 
 depreciating his singular excellence. Stung by the mad- 
 ness of jealousy, Barry one day addressing Sir Joshua 
 on his lectures, burst out, " Such poor flimsy stuff as your 
 discourses !" clenching his fist in the agony of the con- 
 vulsion. After the death of the great artist, Barry be- 
 stowed on him the most ardent culogium, and deeply 
 grieved over the past. But the race of genius born too 
 "near the sun" have found their increased sensibility 
 flame into crimes of a deeper dye — crimes attesting the 
 treachery and the violence of the professors of an art 
 which, it appears, in softening the souls of others, does 
 not necessarily mollify those of the artists themselves. 
 
 * Soo an article on tho Carracci in " Curiosities of Literature," vol. ii.
 
 JEALOUSY OF ARTISTS. 211 
 
 Tlie dreadful story of Andrea del Castagno seems not 
 doubtful. Having been taught the discovery of painting 
 in oil by Doraenico Venetiano, yet, still envious of the 
 merit of the generous friend who had confided that great 
 secret to him, Andrea with his own hand secretly assas- 
 sinated him, that he might remain without a rival. The 
 horror of his crime only appeared in his confession on his 
 death-bed. Domenichino seems to have been poisoned for 
 the preference he obtained over the Neapolitan artists, 
 which raised them to a man against him, and reduced 
 him to the necessity of preparing his food with his own 
 hand. On his last return to Naples, Passeri says, " JSTon 
 fu ynal piib vechito da buon occhio da quelli Napoletani : 
 e U Pittori lo detestavano percM egli era ritornato — mori 
 con qiialche sospetto di veleno, e questo non b inverisimile 
 perclii, I'interesso b un perjido tiranno.'''' So that the 
 Neapolitans honoured Genius at Naples by poison, which 
 they might have forgotten had it flourished at Rome. 
 The famous cartoon of the battle of Pisa, a work of Mi- 
 chael Angelo, which he produced in a glorious competi- 
 tion with the Homer of painting, Leonardo da Vinci, and 
 in which he had struck out the idea of a new style, is 
 only known by a print which has preserved the wonder- 
 ful composition ; for the original, it is said, was cut into 
 pieces by the mad jealousy of Baccio Bandinelli, whose 
 whole life was made miserable by his consciousness of a 
 superior rival. 
 
 In the jealousy of genius, however, there is a peculiar 
 case where the fever silently consumes the sufferer, 'with- 
 out possessing the malignant character of the disease. 
 Even the gentlest temper declines under its slow wast- 
 ings, and this infection may happen among dear friends, 
 whenever a man of genius loses that self-opinion which 
 animates his solitary labours and constitutes his happi- 
 ness. Perhaps when at the height of his class, he sud- 
 denly views himself eclipsed by another genius — and that
 
 212 LITER A.EY CHARACTER. 
 
 genius his friend ! This is tlie jealousy, not of hatred, 
 but of despair. Churchill observed the feeling, but 
 probably included in it a greater degree of malignancy 
 than I would now describe. 
 
 Envy which turns pale, 
 And sickens even if a friend prevail. 
 
 Swift, in that curious poem on his own death, said of 
 
 Pope that 
 
 He can in one couplet fix 
 More sense than J can do in six. 
 
 The Dean, perhaps, is not quite serious, but probably is 
 in the next lines — 
 
 It gives me such a jealous fit, 
 
 I cry " Pox take him and his •wit." 
 
 If the reader pursue this hint throughout the poem, these 
 compliments to his friends, always at his own expense, 
 exhibit a singular mixture of the sensibility and the 
 frankness of true genius, which Swift himself has honestly 
 
 confessed. 
 
 "Wliat poet would not grieve to see 
 His brother write as well as he?* 
 
 Addison experienced this painful and mixed emotion 
 in his intercourse with Pope, to whose rising celebrity 
 he soon became too jealously alive.f It was more 
 tenderly, but not less keenly, felt by the Spanish artist 
 Castillo, a man distinguished by every amiable disposi- 
 tion. He was the great painter of Seville; but when 
 some of his nephew Murillo's paintings were shown to 
 him, he stood in meek astonishment before them, and 
 
 ♦ The plain motive of all these dislikes is still more amusing, as given 
 in this couplet of the same poem : — 
 
 "If with such genius heaven has blest 'em, 
 Have I not reason to detest 'crn." — Ed. 
 f See article on Pope and Addison iu " Quarrels of Authors."
 
 WANT OF MUTUAL ESTEEM. 213 
 
 turning away, he exclaimed with a sigh — ''Tel murlo 
 Castillo /" Castillo is no more ! Returning home, the 
 stricken genius relinquished his pencil, and pined away 
 in hopelessness. The same occurrence happened to 
 Pietro Perugino, the master of Raphael, whose general 
 character as a painter was so entirely eclipsed by his far- 
 renowned scholar ; yet, while his real excellences in the 
 ease of his attitudes and the mild grace of his female 
 countenances have been passed over, it is probable that 
 Raphael himself might have caught from them his first 
 feelings of ideal beauty. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 "Want of mutual esteem among men of genius often originates in a defi- 
 ciency of analogous ideas. — It is not always envy or jealousy which 
 induces men of genius to undervalue each other. 
 
 AMONG men of genius, that want of mutual esteem, 
 usually attributed to envy or jealousy, often orig- 
 inates in a deficiency of analogous ideas, or of sympathy, 
 in the parties. On this principle, several ciirious phe- 
 nomena in the history of genius may be explained. 
 
 Every man of genius has a manner of his own; a 
 mode of thinking and a habit of style, and usually 
 decides on a work as it approximates or varies from his 
 own. When one great author depreciates another, his 
 depreciation has often no worse source than his ovra 
 taste. The witty Cowley despised the natural Chaucer; 
 the austere classical Boileau the rough sublimity of Cre- 
 billon ; the refining Marivaux the familiar Moliere. Field- 
 ing ridiculed Richardson, whose manner so strongly con- 
 trasted with his own ; and Richardson contemned Field- 
 ing, and declared he would not last. Cumberland escaped
 
 214: LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 a fit of iinforgiveness, not living to read his own char- 
 acter by Bishop Watson, whose logical head tried the 
 lighter elegancies of that polished man by his own nervous 
 genius, destitute of the beautiful in taste. There was no 
 envy in the breast of Johnson when he advised Mrs. 
 Thrale not to purchase " Gray's Letters," as trifling and 
 dull, no more than there was in Gray himself when he 
 sunk the poetical character of Shenstone, and debased 
 his simplicity and purity of feeling by an image of ludi- 
 crous contempt. I have heard that Wilkes, a mere wit 
 and elegant scholar, used to treat Gibbon as a mere 
 bookmaker; and applied to that philosophical historian 
 the verse by which Voltaire described, with so mu'ch 
 caustic facetiousness, the genius of the Abbe Trablet — 
 
 H a compile, compile, compile. 
 
 The deficient sympathy in these men of genius for 
 modes of feeling opposite to their own was the real cause 
 of their opinions; and thus it happens that even su- 
 perior genius is so often liable to be unjust and false in 
 its decisions. 
 
 The same principle operates still more strikingly in 
 the remarkable contempt of men of genius for those pur- 
 suits which require talents distinct from their own, and 
 a cast of mind thrown by nature into another mould. 
 Hence we must not be surprised at the poetical antipa- 
 thies of Selden and Locke, as well as Longuerue and 
 Buffbn. Newton called poetry " ingenious nonsense." 
 On the other side, poets undervalue the pursuits of the 
 antiquary, the naturalist, and the metaphysician, form- 
 ing their estimate by their own favourite scale of imagina- 
 tion. As we can only understand in the degree we com- 
 prehend, and feel in the degree in which we sympathize, 
 we may be sure that in both these cases the parties will 
 be found altogether deficient in those qualities of genius 
 which constitute the excellence of the other. To this
 
 PREJUDICES OF GENIUS. 215 
 
 cause, rather than to the one the friends of Mickle ascribed 
 to Adam Smith, namely, a personal dislike to the poet, 
 may we place the severe mortification which the unfor- 
 tunate translator of Camoens suffered from the person to 
 whom he dedicated " The Lusiad." The Duke of Buc- 
 cleugh was the pupil of the great political economist, 
 and so little valued an ej)ic poem, that his Grace had not 
 even the curiosity to open the leaves of the presentation 
 copy. 
 
 A professor of jDolite literature condemned the study of 
 botany, as adapted to mediocrity of talent, and only de- 
 manding patience ; but Linnaeus showed how a man of 
 genius becomes a creator even in a science which seems 
 to depend only on order and method- It will not be a 
 question with some whether a man must be endowed 
 with the energy and aptitude of genius, to excel in anti- 
 quarianism, in natural history, and similar pursuits. The 
 prejudices raised against the claims of such to the honours 
 of genius have probably arisen from the secluded nature 
 of their pursuits, and the little knowledge which the men 
 of wit and imagination possess of these persons, who live 
 in a society of their own. On this subject a very curious 
 circumstance has been revealed respecting Peiresc, whose 
 enthusiasm for science was long felt throughout Europe, 
 His name was known in every country, and his death was 
 lamented in forty languages ; yet was this great literary 
 character unknown to several men of genius in his own 
 country ; Rochefoucauld declared he had never heard of 
 his name, and Malherbe wondered why his death created 
 BO universal a sensation. 
 
 Madame De Stael Avas an experienced observer of the 
 habits of the literary character, and she has remarked 
 how one student usually revolts from the other when 
 their occupations are different, because they are a recipro- 
 cal annoyance. The scholar has nothing to say to the 
 poet, the poet to the natui'alist • and even among men of
 
 216 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 science, those who are differently occupied avoid each 
 other, taking little interest in what is out of their own 
 circle. Thus we see the classes of literature, like the 
 planets, revolving as distinct worlds ; and it would not 
 be less absurd for the inhabitants of Venus to treat with 
 contempt the powers and faculties of those of Jupiter, 
 than it is for the men of wit and imagination those of the 
 men of knowledge and curiosity. The wits are incapable 
 of exerting the peculiar qualities which give a real value 
 to these pursuits, and therefore they must remain igno- 
 rant of their nature and their result. 
 
 It is not then always envy or jealousy which induces 
 men of genius to undervalue each other ; the want of 
 sympathy will sufficiently account for the want of 
 judgment. Suppose Newton, Quinault, and Machiavel 
 accidentally meeting together, and unknown to each 
 other, would they not soon have desisted from the vain 
 attempt of communicating their ideas ? The philosopher 
 woiild have condemned the poet of the Graces as an in- 
 tolerable trifler, and the author of " The Prince" as a dark 
 political spy. Machiavel would have conceived Newton 
 to be a dreamer among the stars, and a mere almanack- 
 maker among men ; and the other a rhymer, nauseously 
 doucereux. Quinault might have imagined that he was 
 seated between two madmen. Having annoyed each 
 other for some time, they would have relieved their ennui 
 by reciprocal contempt, and each have parted with a de- 
 termination to avoid hence forward two such disagreeable 
 companions.
 
 SELF-PRAISE. 217 
 
 CHAPTER XV = 
 
 Self-praise of genius. — The love of praise instinctive in the nature of 
 genius. — A high opinion of themselves necessary for their great 
 designs. — The Ancients openly claimed their own praise.— And 
 several Moderns. — An author knows more of his merits than his 
 readers. — And less of his defects. — Authors versatile in their admi- 
 ration and their mahgnity. 
 
 YAISTITT, egotism, a strong sense of their own suffi- 
 ciency, foiTU another accusation against men of genius ; 
 hut the complexion of self-praise must alter with the occa- 
 sion ; for the simplicity of truth may appear vanity, and the 
 consciousness of superiority seem envy — to Mediocrity. 
 It is we who do nothing, and cannot even imagine any- 
 thing to be done, who are so much displeased with 
 self-lauding, self-love, self-independence, self-admiration, 
 which with the man of genius may often be nothing but 
 an ostensible modification of the passion of glory. 
 
 He who exults in himself is at least in earnest ; but he 
 who refuses to receive that praise in public for which he 
 has devoted so much labour in his privacy, is not ; for he 
 is compelled to sujDpress the very instinct of his nature. 
 We censure no man for loving fame, but only for showing 
 us how much he is possessed by the passion : thus we 
 allow him to create the appetite, but we deny him its ali- 
 ment. Our efieminate minds are the willing dupes of 
 what is called the modesty of genius, or, as it has been 
 termed, " the polished reserve of modern times ;" and this 
 from the selfish principle that it serves at least to keep out 
 of the company its j)ainful pre-eminence. But this " pol- 
 ished reserve," like something as fashionable, the ladies' 
 roiige, at first appearing with rather too much colour, 
 will in the heat of an evening die away till the true com- 
 plexion come out. What subterfuges are resorted to by
 
 218 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 these pretended modest men of genius, to extort that 
 praise from their private circle which is thus openly de- 
 nied them ! They have been taken by surprise enlarg- 
 ing their own panegyric, which might rival Pliny's on 
 Trajan, for care and copiousness ; or impudently veiling 
 themselves with the transparency of a third person ; or 
 never j)refixing their name to the volume, which they 
 would not easily forgive a friend to pass unnoticed. 
 
 Self-love is a principle of action ; but among no class 
 of human beings has nature so profusely distributed this 
 principle of life and action as through the whole sensitive^ 
 family of genius. It reaches even to a feminine suscepti- 
 bility. The love of praise is instinctive in their natm-e. 
 Praise with them is the evidence of the past and the 
 pledge of the future. The generous qualities and tlie 
 virtues of a man of genius are really produced by the 
 applause conferred on him. " To him whom the world 
 admu-es, the happiness of the world must be dear," said 
 Madame De Stiiel. Romney, the painter, held as a 
 maxim that every diffident artist required "almost a 
 daily jjortion of cheering applause." How often do such 
 find their powers jDaralysed by the depression of confi- 
 dence or the appearance of neglect ! When the North 
 Americans Indians, amid their circle, chant their gods 
 and their heroes, the honest savages laud the living wor- 
 thies, as well as their departed ; and when, as we are 
 told, an auditor hears the shout of his own name ; he an- 
 swers by a cry of pleasure and of pride. The savage and 
 the man of genius are here true to nature, but pleasure 
 and pride in his own name must raise no emotion in the 
 breast of genius amidst a polished circle. To bring him- 
 self down to their usual mediocrity, he must start at an 
 expression of regard, and turn away even from one of his 
 own votaries. Madame De Stiiel, an exquisite judge of 
 the feelings of the literary character, was aware of this 
 cliange, whicli has rather occurred in our manners than 
 
 I
 
 SELF-PRAISE. 219 
 
 in men of genius themselves. " Envy," says that eloquent 
 writer, " among the Greeks, existed sometimes between 
 rivals ; it has now passed to the spectators ; and by a 
 strange singularity the mass of men are jealous of tho 
 efforts which are tried to add to their pleasures or to 
 merit their approbation." 
 
 But this, it seems, is not always the case with men of 
 genius, since the accusation we are noticing has been so 
 often reiterated. Take from some that supreme confi- 
 dence in themselves, that pride of exultation, and you 
 crush the germ of their excellence. Many vast designs 
 must have perished in the conception, had not their 
 authors breathed this vital air of self-delight, this crea- 
 tive spirit, so operative in great undertakings. We have 
 recently seen this principle in the literary character 
 unfold itself in the life of the late Bishop of Landaff. 
 Whatever he did, he felt it was done as a master : what- 
 ever he wrote, it was, as he once declared, the best work 
 on the subject yet written. With this feeling he emu- 
 lated Cicero in retirement or in action. " When I an? 
 dead, you will not soon meet with another John Hun- 
 ter," said the great anatomist to one of his garrulous" 
 friends. An apology is formed by his biographer for re- 
 lating the fact, but the weakness is only in the apology. 
 When Hogarth was engaged in his work of the Mariagt 
 d-la-Mode, he said to Reynolds, " I shall very soon gratify 
 the world with such a sight as they have never seen 
 equalled." — " One of his foibles," adds Northcote, " it is 
 well known, was the excessive high opinion he had of his 
 own abilities." So pronoimced Northcote, who had not 
 an atom of his genius. Was it a foible in Hogarth to 
 cast the glove, when he always more than redeemed the 
 pledge? Corneille has given a very noble full-length 
 of the sublime egotism which accompanied him through 
 life ;* but I doubt, if we had any such author in the pres- 
 
 * See it versified in " Curiosities of Literature," vol. i., p. 431
 
 220 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 ent day, whether he would dare to be so just to himself, 
 and so hardy to the public. The self-praise of Buffon 
 at least equalled his genius ; and the inscription beneath 
 his statue in the library, of the Jardin des Plantes, which 
 I have been told was raised to him in his lifetime, exceeds 
 all panegyric ; it places him alone in nature, as the first 
 and the last interpreter of her works. He said of the 
 great geniuses of modern ages, that " there were not 
 more than five ; ISTewton, Bacon, Leibnitz, Montesquieu, 
 and Myself" With this spirit he conceived and termi- 
 nated his great works, and sat in patient meditation at 
 his desk for half a century, till all Europe, even in a state 
 of war, bowed to the modern Pliny. 
 
 Nor is the vanity of Bufibn, and Voltaire, and Rous- 
 seau purely national ; for men of genius in all ages have 
 expressed a consciousness of the internal force of genius. 
 No one felt this self-exultation more potent than our 
 Hobbes ; who has indeed, in his controversy with Wallis, 
 asserted that there may be nothing more just than self- 
 commendation,* There is a curious passage in the " Pur- 
 gatorio " of Dante, where, describing the transitory 
 nature of literary fame, and the variableness of human 
 oj)inion, the poet alludes with confidence to his own future 
 greatness. Of two authors of the name of Guido, the 
 one having eclipsed the othei", the poet writes : — 
 
 Cosi ha tolto I'lino all' altro Guido 
 La Gloria dclla lingua; o forse e nato 
 Chi Vuno e V altro caccerd di nido. 
 
 Thus has one Guido from the other snatched 
 The Ictter'd pride ; and he perhaps is horn 
 Wlio shall drive either from their nest.\ 
 
 Dc Thou, one of the most noble-minded of historians, 
 in tlie JMcmoirs of his own life, composed in the third 
 person, has surprised and somewhat puzzled the critics, 
 
 * See "Quarrels of Authors," p. 471. f Cary.
 
 SELF-PRAISE. 221 
 
 by that frequent distribution of self-commenclation which 
 they knew not how to reconcile with the modesty and 
 gravity with which the President was so amply endowed. 
 After his great and solemn labour, amidst the injustice of 
 his persecutors, this eminent man had sufficient experi- 
 ence of his real worth to assert it. Kepler, amidst his 
 sublime discoveries, looks down like a superior being on 
 other men. He breaks forth in glory and daring egotism : 
 " I dare insult mankind by confessing that I am he who 
 has turned science to advantage. If I am pardoned, I 
 shall rejoice ; if blamed, I shall endure. The die is cast ; 
 I have written this book, and whether it be read by pos- 
 terity or by my contemporaries is of no consequence ; it 
 may well wait for a reader during one century, when 
 God himself during six thousand years has not sent an 
 observer like myself." He truly predicts that " his dis- 
 coveries would be verified in succeeding ages ;" and pre- 
 fers his own glory to the possession of the electorate of 
 Saxony. It was this solitary majesty, this futurity of 
 theii* genius, which hovered over the sleepless pillow of 
 Bacon, of Newton, and of Montesquieu ; of Ben Jonson, 
 of Milton, and Corneille ; and of Michael Angelo. Such 
 men anticipate their contemporaries ; they know they are 
 creators, long before they are hailed as such by the tardy 
 consent of the public. These men stand on Pisgah 
 heights, and for them the sun shines on a land which 
 none can view but themselves. 
 
 There is an admirable essay in Plutarch, " On the 
 manner by which we may praise ourselves without ex- 
 citing envy in others." The sage seems to consider self- 
 praise as a kind of illustrious impudence, and has one 
 very striking image : he compares these eulogists to fam- 
 ished persons, who finding no other food, in their rage 
 have eaten their own flesh, and thus shockingly nour- 
 ished themselves by their own substance. He allows 
 persons in high office to praise themselves, if by this
 
 222 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 they can repel calumny and accusations, as did Pericles 
 before the Athenians : but the Romans found fault with 
 Cicero, wlio so frequently reminded them of his exertions 
 in the conspiracy of Catiline ; while, when Scipio told 
 them that " they should not presume to judge of a citizen 
 to whom they owed the power of judging all men," the 
 people covered themselves with flowers, and followed 
 him to the capitol to join in a thanksgiving to Jove. 
 " Cicero," adds Plutarch, " praised himself without neces- 
 sity. Scipio was in personal danger, and this took away 
 what is odious in self-praise." An author seems some- 
 times to occupy the situation of a person in high office ; 
 and there may be occasions when with a noble simplicity, 
 if he appeal to his works, of which all men may judge, 
 he may be permitted to assert or to maintain his claims. 
 It has at least been the practice of men of genius, for in 
 this very essay we find Timotheus, Euripides, and Pindar 
 censured, though they deserved all the praise they gave 
 themselves. 
 
 Ej^icurus, writing to a minister of state, declares, " If 
 you desire glory, nothing can bestow it more than the 
 letters I write to you:" and Seneca, in quoting these 
 words, adds, "What Epicurus pi-omised to his friends, 
 that, my Lucilius, I promise you." Orna me! was the 
 constant cry of Cicero; and he desires the historian 
 Lucceius to write separately the consj^iracy of Catiline, 
 and to publish quickly, that while he yet lived he might 
 taste the sweetness of his glory. Horace and Ovid were 
 equally sensible to their immortality ; but what modern 
 poet would bo tolerated with such an avowal? Yet 
 Dryden honestly declares that it was better for liim to 
 own tliis foiling of vanity, than the world to do it for 
 him ; and adds, " For what other reason have I spent my 
 life in so unprofitable a study ? Why am I grown old in 
 seeking so barren a reward as fame ? The same parts 
 and application which have made me a poet might 'have
 
 SELF-PRAISE. 223 
 
 raised me to any honours of the gown." "Was not Cer- 
 vantes very sensible to liis OAvn merits when a rival 
 staitecl up ? and did he not assert them too, and distin- 
 guish his own work by a handsome compliment ? Lope 
 de Vega celebrated his own poetic powers under the 
 pseudonyme of a pretended editor, Tliomas Barguillos. 
 I regi-et that his noble biographer, than whom no one can 
 more truly sympathise with the emotions of genius, has 
 censured the bard for his querulous or his intrepid tone, 
 and for the quaint conceit of his title-page, where his 
 detractor is introduced as a beetle in a ve(/a or garden, 
 attacking its flowers, but expiring in the very sweetness 
 he would injure. The inscription under Boileau's por- 
 trait, which gives a preference to the French satirist over 
 Juvenal and Horace, is known to have been written by 
 himself. Nor was Butler less proud of his own merits ; 
 for he has done ample justice to his "Hudibras," and 
 traced out, with great self-delight, its variety of excel- 
 lences. Richardson, the novelist, exhibits one of the 
 most striking instances of what is called literary vanity, 
 the delight of an author in his works ; he has pointed out 
 all the beauties of his three great works, in various man- 
 ners.* He always taxed a visitor by one of his long 
 letters. It was this intense self-delight which produced 
 his voluminous labours. 
 
 There are certain authors whose very existence seems 
 to require a high conception of their own talents ; and 
 who must, as some animals appear to do, furnish the 
 means of life out of their own substance. These men of 
 genius open their career with peculiar tastes, or with a 
 predilection for some great work of no immediate inter- 
 est ; in a word, with many unpopular dispositions. Yet 
 we see them magnanimous, though defeated, proceeding 
 with the public feeling against them. At length we 
 
 * I have observed them in " Curiosities of Literature," vol. ii., p. 64.
 
 224: LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 view them ranking with their rivals. Without having 
 yielded up their peculiar tastes or their incorrigible 
 viciousness, they have, however, heightened their indi- 
 vidual excellences. No human opinion can change their 
 self-opinion. Alive to the consciousness of their powers, 
 their pursuits are placed above impediment, and their 
 great views can suffer no contraction ; possunt quia posse 
 videntur. Such was the language Lord Bacon once ap- 
 plied to himself when addressing a king. " I know," said 
 the great philosopher, " that I am censured of some con- 
 ceit of my ability or worth; but I pi'ay your majesty im- 
 pute it to desire — possunt quia 2^osse videntur.'''' These 
 men of genius bear a charmed mail on their breast; 
 " hopeless, not heartless," may be often the motto of 
 their ensign ; and if they do not always possess reputa- 
 tion, they still look onwards for fame ; for these do not 
 necessarily accompany each other. 
 
 An author is more sensible of his own merits, as he also 
 is of his labour, which is invisible to all others, while he 
 is unquestionably much less sensible to his defects than 
 most of his readers. The author not only comprehends 
 his merits better, because they have passsed through a 
 long process in his mind, but he is familiar with every 
 part, while the reader has but a vague notion of the 
 whole. Why does an excellent work, by repetition, rise 
 in interest? Because in obtaining this gradual intimacy 
 with an author, we appear to recover half the genius 
 which we had lost on a first perusal. The work of genius 
 too is associated, in the mind of the author, with much 
 more than it contains ; and the true supplement, which 
 he only can give, has not always accompanied the work 
 itself .We find great men often greater than the books 
 they write. Ask tlie man of genius if he have written all 
 that he wished to have written ? Has he satisfied him- 
 self in this Avork, for which you accuse his pride ? Has 
 he dared what required intrej)idity to achieve ? Has ho
 
 SELF-PRAISE. 225 
 
 evaded difficulties which he should have overcome ? The 
 mind of the reader has the limits of a mere recipient, 
 while that of the author, even after his work, is teeming 
 with creation. " On many occasions, my soul seems to 
 know more than it can say, and to be endowed with a 
 mind by itself, far superior to the mind I really have," 
 said Marivaux, with equal truth and happiness. 
 
 "With these explanations of what are called the vanity 
 and egotism of Genius, be it remembered, that the sense 
 of their own sufficiency is assumed by men at their own 
 risk. The great man who thinks greatly of himself, is 
 not diminishing that greatness in heaj^ing fuel on his 
 fire. It is indeed otherwise with his unlucky brethren, 
 with whom an illusion of literary vanity may end in the 
 aberrations of harmless madness ; as it happened to Per- 
 cival Stockdale. After a parallel between himself and 
 Charles XII. of Sweden, he concludes that " some parts 
 Avill be to his advantage, and some to mine y" but in re- 
 gard to fame, the main object between himself and 
 Charles XII., Percival imagined that " his own will not 
 probably take its fixed and immovable station, and shme 
 with its expanded and permanent splendour, till it con- 
 secrates his ashes, till it illumines his tomb." After this 
 the reader, who may never have heard of the name of 
 Percival Stockdale, must be told that there exist his own 
 " Memoirs of his Life and Writings." * The memoirs of 
 a scribbler who saw the prospects of life close on him 
 while he imagined that his contemporaries were unjust, 
 are instructive to literary men. To correct, and to be 
 corrected, should be their daily practice, that they may 
 be taught not only to exult in themselves, but to fear 
 themselves. 
 
 It is hard to refuse these men of genius that aura 
 vitalis, of which they are so apt to be liberal to others. 
 
 * T have sketched a cliaracter of Percival Stockdale, iu " Calamities 
 of Authors" (pp. 218-224) ; it was taken ad vivum. 
 15
 
 226 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 Are they not acciised of the meanest adulations ? When 
 a young -uTiter experiences the notice of a person of some 
 eminence, he has expressed himself in language which 
 transcends that of mortality. A finer reason than reason 
 itself inspires it. The sensation has been expressed with 
 all its fulness by Milton : — 
 
 The debt immense of endless gratitude. 
 
 Who ever pays an " immense debt " in small sums ? 
 Every man of genius has left such honourable traces of 
 his private affections ; from Locke, whose dedication of 
 his great work is more adulative than could be imagined 
 from a temperate philosopher, to Chih'chill, whose warm 
 eulogiums on his friends beautifully contrast with his 
 satire. Even in advanced age, the man of genius dwells 
 on the praise he caught in his youth from veteran genius, 
 which, like the aloe, will flower at the end of life. When 
 Vii-gil was yet a youth, it is said that Cicero heard one of 
 his eclogues, and exclaimed with his accustomed warmth, 
 
 Magna spes altera RomEe 1 
 
 " The second hope of mighty Rome !" intending by the 
 first either himself or Lucretius. The words of Cicero 
 were the secret honey on which the imagination of Virgil 
 fed for many a year ; for in one of his latest productions, 
 the twelfth book of the ^neid, he applies these very 
 words to Ascanius. So long had the accents of Cicero's 
 praise lingered in the poet's ear ! 
 
 This extreme susceptibility of praise in men of genius 
 is the same exuberant sensibility which is so alive to cen- 
 sure. I have elsewhere fully shown how some have died 
 of criticism.* The self-love of genius is perhaps much 
 more delicate than gross. 
 
 But this fatal susceptibility is the cause of that strange 
 facility which has often astonished the world, by the 
 
 * In the article entitled "Anecdotes of Censured Authors," in vol 
 I. of " Curiosities of Literature."
 
 SENSITIVENESS OF GENIUS. 227 
 
 sudden transitions of sentiment wliicli literary characters 
 have frequently exhibited. They have eulogised men 
 and events which they had rej)robated, and reprobated 
 what they had eulogised. The recent history of political 
 revolutions has furnished some monstrous examples of 
 this subservience to power. Guicciardini records one of 
 his own times, which has been often repeated in ours. 
 Jovianus Pontanus, the Secretary of Ferdinand, King of 
 Naples, was also selected to be the tutor of the j^rince, 
 his son. When Charles VIIL of France invaded Naples, 
 Pontanus was deputed to address the French conqueror. 
 To render himself agreeable to the enemies of his coun- 
 try, he did not avoid expatiating on the demerits of his 
 expelled patrons : " So difficult it is," adds the grave 
 and dignified historian, " for ourselves to observe that 
 moderation and those precepts which no man knew bet- 
 ter than Pontanus, who was endowed with such copious 
 literature, and composed with siich facility in moral phi- 
 losophy, aud possessed such acquirements in universal 
 erudition, that he had made himself a prodigy to the eye 
 of the world."* The student, occupied by abstract pur- 
 suits, may not indeed always take much interest in the 
 change of dynasties ; and perhaps the famous cancelled 
 dedication to Cromwell, by the learned orientalist. Dr. 
 Castelljf who sujDplied its place by another to Charles II., 
 ought not to be placed to the account of political tergiv- 
 ersation. But the versatile adoration of the continental 
 savans of the republic or the monarchy, the consul or the 
 emperor, has inflicted an unhealing wound on the literary 
 character; since, like Pontanus, to gratify their new 
 master, they had not the greatness of mind to save them- 
 selves from ingratitude to their old. 
 
 * G-uicciardini, Book II. 
 
 •)• For the melancholy history of this devoted scholar, see note to the 
 article on " The Rewards of Oriental Students," in " Calamities of Au- 
 thors," p. 189.
 
 228 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 Their vengeance, as quickly kindled, lasts as long. 
 Genius is a dangerous gift of nature. The same efferves- 
 cent passions from a Catiline or a Cicero. Plato lays 
 great stress on his man of genius possessing the most 
 vehement passions, but he adds reason to restrain them. 
 It is Imagination which by their side stands as their 
 good or evil spirit. Glory or infamy is but a different 
 direction of the same passion. 
 
 How are we to describe symptoms which, flowing from 
 one source, yet show themselves in such opposite forms 
 as those of an intermittent fever, a silent delirium, or a 
 horrid hypochondriasm ? Have we no other opiate to still 
 the agony, no other coi'dial to warm the heai't, than the 
 great ingredient in the recipe of Plato's visionary man 
 of genius — calm reason ? Must men, who so rarely 
 obtain this tardy panacea, remain with all their tortured 
 and torturing passions about them, often self-disgusted, 
 self-humiliated ? The enemies of genius are often connect- 
 ed with their morbid imagination. These originate in 
 casual slights, or in unguarded expressions, or in hasty 
 oj)inions, or in witty derisions, or even in the obtruding 
 goodness of tender admonition. The man of genius broods 
 over the phantom that darkens his feelings: he mul- 
 tiplies a single object ; he magnifies the smallest ; and 
 suspicions become certainties. It is in this unhappy 
 Etate that he sharpens his vindictive fangs, in a libel 
 called his " Memoirs," or in another species of public 
 outrage, styled a " Criticism." 
 
 We are told that Comines the historian, when residing 
 at the court of tlie Count dc Charolois, afterwards Duke 
 of Burgundy, one day returning from hunting, with in- 
 considei'ate joculai-ity sat doAvn before the Count and 
 ordered the prince to pull off his boots. The Count 
 would not affect greatness, and having executed his com- 
 mission, in return for the princely amusement, the Count 
 dashed the boot on Comines' nose, which bled ; and from
 
 SENSITIVENESS OF GENIUS. 229 
 
 that time, he was mortified at the court of Burguncly, 
 by I'etaining the nickname of the hooted head. The 
 blow rankled in the heart of the man of genius, and the 
 Duke of Burgundy has come down to us in Comines* 
 " Memoirs," blackened by his vengeance. Many, un- 
 known to their readers, like Comines, have had a booted 
 head ; but the secret poison is distilled on their lasting 
 page, as we have recently witnessed in Lord Wal de- 
 grave's " Memoirs." Swift's perpetual malevolence to 
 Dryden originated ia that great poet's prediction, that 
 "cousin Swift would never be a poet ;" a prediction which 
 the wit never could forget. I have elsewhere fully writ- 
 ten a tale of literary hatred, where is seen a man of 
 genius, in the character of Gilbert Stuart, devoting a 
 whole life to harassing the industry or the genius which 
 he himself could not attain.* 
 
 A living Italian poet of great celebrity, when at the 
 court of Rome, presented a magnificent edition of his 
 poetry to Pius VI. The bard, Mr. Hobhouse informs us, 
 lived not ia the good graces of his holiness, and although 
 the pontiff accepted the volume, he did not forbear a 
 severity of remark which could not fall unheeded by the 
 modern poet ; for on this occasion, repeating some verses 
 of Metastasio, his holiness drily added, " No one now-a- 
 days writes like that great poet." IN'ever was this to be 
 erased from memory ; the stifled resentment of Monti 
 vehemently broke forth at the moment the French car- 
 ried off Pius VI. from Rome. Then the long indignant 
 secretary poured forth an invective more severe " against 
 the great harlot," than was ever traced by a Protestant 
 pen — Monti now invoked the rock of Sardinia ; the poet 
 bade it fly from its base, that the last of monsters might 
 not find even a tomb to shelter him. Such was the curse 
 of a poet on his former patron, now an object of misery, 
 a return for " placing him below Metastasio !" 
 *. See "Calamities of Authors," pp. 131-139.
 
 230 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 The FrcQch Revolution affords illustrations of the 
 worst human passions. "When the wretched Collot 
 D'Herhois was tossed up in the storm to the summit of 
 power, a monstrous imagination seized him ; he project- 
 ed razing the city of Lyons and massacring its inhabit- 
 ants. He had even the heart to commence, and to con- 
 tinue this conspiracy against human nature ; the ostensi- 
 ble ci'ime was royalism, but the secret motive is said to 
 have been literary vengeance ! As wretched a poet and 
 actor as a man, D'Herbois had been hissed off the thea- 
 tre at Lyons, and to avenge that ignominy, he had 
 meditated over this vast and remorseless crime. Is there 
 but one Collot D' Herbois in the universe ? 
 
 Long since this was written, a fact has been recorded 
 of Chenier, the French dramatic poet, which parallels the 
 horrid tale of Collot D'Herbois, which some have been 
 willing %o doubt from its enormity. It is said, that this 
 monster, in the revolutionary period, when he had the 
 power to save the life of his brother Andre, while his 
 father, prostrate before a wretched son, was imploring 
 for the life of an innocent brother, remained silent ; it is 
 further said that he appropriated to himself a tragedy 
 which he found among his brother's manuscripts. " Fra- 
 tricide from literary jealousy," observes the relator of 
 this anecdote, "was a crime reserved for a modern 
 French revolutionist."* There are some pathetic stan- 
 zas which Andr6 was composing in his last moments, 
 when awaiting his fate ; the most pathetic of all stanzas 
 is that one which he left unfinished — • 
 
 Pout-6tre, avant que I'henro en cerclo promen6o 
 
 Ait pose, sur I'eraail brillant, 
 Dari3 les soixanto pas oh. sa route est bornee, 
 
 Son pied sonoro et vigilant, 
 Lo sommeil du tombeau pressera ma paupi^re— 
 
 * Edinburgh Review, xxx. 159.
 
 DOMESTIC LIFE. 231 
 
 At this unfiuished stauza was the pensive poet sum- 
 moned to the sruillotine ! 
 
 CHAPTER XYL 
 
 The domestic life of genius. — Defects of great compositions attributed 
 to domestic infelicities. — The home of the literary character should 
 be the abode of repose and silence. — Of the Father. — Of the Mother. 
 — Of family genius. — Men of genius not more respected than other 
 men in their domestic circle. — The cultivators of science and art do 
 not meet on equal terms with others, in domestic life. — Their neg- 
 lect of those around them. — Often accused of imaginary crimes. 
 
 WHEN the temper and the leisure of the literary char- 
 acter are alike broken, even his best works, the too 
 faithful mirrors of his state of mind, will participate in 
 its inequalities ; and surely the incubations of genius, in 
 its dehcate and shadowy combinations, are not less sensi- 
 ble in their operation than the composition of sonorous 
 bodies, where, while the warm metal is settling in the 
 mould, even an unusual vibration of the air during the 
 moment of fusion will injure the tone. 
 
 Some of the conspicuous blemishes of several great 
 compositions may be attributed to the domestic infeli- 
 cities of their authors. The desultory life of Camoens 
 is imagined to be perceptible in the deficient connexion 
 of his epic ; and Milton's blindness and divided family 
 prevented that castigating criticism, which otherwise 
 had erased passages which have escaped from his revis- 
 ing hand. He felt himself in the situation of his Samson 
 Agonistes, whom he so pathetically describes — 
 
 His foes' derision, captive, poor, and blind. 
 
 Even Locke complains of his " discontinued way of 
 writing," and " writing by incoherent parcels," from the
 
 232 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 avocations of a busy and unsettled life, which undoubt- 
 edly produced a deficiency of method in the disposition 
 of the materials of his great work. The careless rapid 
 lines of Dry den are justly attributed to his distress, and 
 indeed he pleads for his inequalities from his domestic 
 circumstances. Johnson often silently, but eagerly, 
 corrected the "Ramblers" in their successive editions, 
 of which so many had been despatched in haste. The 
 learned Greaves offered some excuses for his errors in his 
 edition of " Abulfeda," from " his being five years en- 
 cumbered with lawsuits, and diverted from his studies." 
 When at length he returned to them, he expresses his 
 surprise " at the pains he had formerly undergone," but 
 of which he now felt himself unwilling, he knew not how, 
 of again undergoing." Goldoni, when at the bar, aban- 
 doned his comic talent for several years; and having 
 resvimed it, his first comedy totally failed : " My head," 
 says he, "was occupied with my professional employ- 
 ment ; I was uneasy in mind and in bad humour." A law- 
 suit, a bankruptcy, a domestic feud, or an indulgence in 
 criminal or in foolish pursuits, have chilled the fervour 
 of imagination, scattered mto fragments many a noble 
 design, and paralysed the finest genius. The distrac- 
 tions of Guide's studies from his passion for gaming, and 
 of Parmegiano's for alchemy, have been traced in their 
 works, which are often hurried over and unequal. It is 
 curious to observe, that Cumberland attributes the excel- 
 lence of his comedy. The West Indian^ to the peculiarly 
 hapjiy situation in which he found himself at the time of 
 its composition, free from the incessant avocations which 
 had crossed him in the writing of The Brothers. " I was 
 master of my time, my mind was free, and I was happy 
 in the society of the dearest friends I had on earth. The 
 calls of oflice, the cavillings of angry rivals, and the 
 gibings of newspaper critics, could not reach me on the 
 banks of the Shannon, where all Avithin-doors was love
 
 DOMESTIC INFELICITY. 233 
 
 and affection. In no other period of my life have the 
 same haj^py circumstances combined to cheer me in any 
 of my literary laboiirs." 
 
 The best years of Mengs' life were embittered by his 
 father, a poor artist, and who, with poorer feelings, con- 
 verted his home into a prison-house, forced his son into 
 the slavery of stipulated task- work, while bread and 
 water were the only fruits of the fine arts. In this 
 ■ domestic persecution, the son contracted those morose 
 and saturnine habits which in after-life marked the char- 
 acter of the ungenial Mengs. Alonso Cano, a celebrated 
 Spanish painter, would have carried his art to perfection, 
 had not the unceasing persecution of the Inquisitors 
 entirely deprived him of that tranquillity so necessary to 
 the very existence of art. Ovid, in exile on the barren 
 shores of Tomos, deserted by his genius, in his copious 
 Tristia loses much of the luxuriance of his fancy. 
 
 We have a remarkable evidence of domestic unhappi- 
 ness annihilating the very faculty of genius itself, in the 
 case of Dr. Brook Taylor, the celebrated author of the 
 "Linear Perspective." This great mathematician in 
 early life distinguished himself as an inventor in science, 
 and the most sanguine hopes of his future discoveries 
 were raised both at home and abroad. Two unexpected 
 events in domestic life extinguished his inventive facul- 
 ties. After the loss of two wives, whom he regarded 
 with no common affection, he became unfitted for pro- 
 found studies ; he carried his own personal despair into 
 his favourite objects of pursuit, and abandoned them. 
 The inventor of the most original work suffered the last 
 fifteen years of his life to drop away, without hope, and 
 without exertion ; nor is this a solitary instance, whei*e 
 a man of genius, deprived of the idolised partner of his 
 existence, has no longer been able to find an object in his 
 studies, and where even fame itself has ceased to in- 
 terest. Tlie reason which Rousseau alleges for the cyni-
 
 234 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 cal spleen which so frequently breathes forth in his 
 works, shows how the domestic character of the man of 
 genius leaves itself in his productions. After describing 
 the infelicity of his domestic affau-s, occasioned by the 
 mother of Theresa, and Theresa herself, both women of 
 the lowest class and the worst dispositions, he adds, on 
 this wretched marriage, "These unexpected, disagree- 
 able events, in a state of my own choice, plunged me 
 into literature, to give a new direction and diversion to- 
 my mind; and in all my first works I scattered that 
 bilious humour which had occasioned this very occujja- 
 tion." Our author's character in his works was "the 
 very opposite to the one in which he appeared to these 
 low people. Feeling his degradation among them, for 
 they treated his simplicity as utter silliness, his personal 
 timidity assumed a tone of boldness and originality in 
 his writings, while a strong personal sense of shame 
 heightened his causticity, and he delighted to contemn 
 that urbanity in which he had never shared, and which 
 he knew not how to practise. His miserable subser- 
 vience to these people was the real cause of his oppressed 
 6j)irit calling out for some undefined freedom in society ; 
 and thus the real Rousseau, with all his disordered feel- 
 ings, only appeared in his writings. The secrets of his 
 heart were confided to his pen. 
 
 "The painting-room must be like Eden before the 
 Fall ; no joyless turbulent passions must enter there " — 
 exclaims the enthusiast Ilichardson. The home of the 
 literary character should be the abode of i*epose and of 
 silence. Thei'c must he look for the feasts of study, in 
 progressive and alternate labours ; a taste " which," says 
 Gibbon, "I would not exchange for the treasures of 
 India." Rousseau liad always a Avork going on, for 
 rainy days and spare hours, such as his " Dictionary of 
 Music :" a variety of works never tired ; it was the 
 sinfjle one which exhausted. Metastasio looks with
 
 LOYE OF LITERARY LABOUR. 035 
 
 delight on his variety, which resembled the fruits in the 
 garden of Armida — 
 
 E mentre spunta I'un, I'altro mature. 
 
 "Wliile one matures, the other buds and blows. 
 
 Nor is it always fame, or any lower motive, which 
 may induce the literary character to hold an unwearied 
 pen. Another equally powerful exists, which must re- 
 main inexplicable to him who knows not to escape from 
 the listlessness of life — it is the passion for literary occu- 
 pation. He whose eye can only measure the space occu- 
 pied by the voluminous labours of the elder Pliny, of a 
 Mazzuchelli, a Muratori, a Montfaucon, and a Gough, all 
 men who laboured from the love of labour, and can see 
 nothing in that space but the industry which filled it, is 
 like him who only views a city at a distance — the streets 
 and the edifices, and all the life and jjojiulation within, 
 he can never know. These literary characters projected 
 their works as so many schemes to escape from unin- 
 teresting pursuits; and, in these folios, how many evils 
 of life did they bury, while their happiness expanded 
 with their volume ! Aulus Gellius desired to live no 
 longer than he was able to retain the faculty of writing 
 and observing. Tlie literary character must grow as 
 impassioned with his subject as >:Elian with his "History 
 of Animals ;" " wealth and honour I might have obtained 
 at the courts of princes ; but I preferred the delight of 
 multiplying my knowledge. I am aware that the avari- 
 cious and the ambitious will accuse me of folly ; but I 
 have always found most pleasure in observing the nature 
 of animals, studying their character, and writing their 
 history." 
 
 Even with those who have acquired their celebrity, the 
 love of literary labour is not diminished — a circumstance 
 recorded by the younger Pliny of Livy. In a preface to 
 one of his lost books, that historian had said that he had
 
 236 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 obtained Kvifficiont glory by his former writings on the 
 Roman history, and might now repose in silence ; but his 
 mind was isO restless and so abhorrent of indolence, that 
 it only felt its existence in literary exertion. In a simi- 
 lar situatiovj the feeling was fully experienced by Hume. 
 Our philosopher completed his history neither for money 
 nor for fame, having then more than a sufficiency of both ; 
 but chiefly to indulge a habit as a resource against indo- 
 lence.* These are the minds which are without hope if 
 they are without occupation. 
 
 Amidst the repose and silence of study, delightful to 
 the literary character, are the soothing interruptions of 
 the voices of those whom he loves, recalling him from his 
 abstractions into social existence. These re-animate his 
 languor, and moments of inspiration are caught in the 
 emotions of affection, when a father or a friend, a wife, a 
 daughter, or a sister, become the participators of his o-«ti 
 tastes, the companions of his studies, and identify their 
 happiness with his fame. A beautiful incident in the do- 
 mestic life of literature is one which Morellet has revealed 
 of Marmontel. In presenting his collected works to his 
 wife, she discovered that the author had dedicated his 
 volumes to herself; but the dedication was not made pain- 
 ful to her modesty, for it was not a public one. Nor was it 
 so concise as to be mistaken for a compliment. The theme 
 
 * This appears in oiio of liis interesting letters first published in the 
 Literary Gazette, Oct. 20, 1821. — [It is addressed to Adam Smith, dated 
 Julj' 28, 1759, and he says, "I signed an agreement with Mr. Millar, 
 where I mention that I proposed to write tlie History of England from 
 the beginning till the accession of Henry VII.; and lie engages to give 
 mo 1 lOOZ. for tlio copy. This is tho first previous agreement ever I 
 made with a bookseller. I shall execute tlie work at leisure, without 
 fatiguing myself by such ardent application as I -have hitherto em- 
 ployed. It is chiefly as a resource against idleness that I shall under 
 take the work, for as to money I have enough ; and as to reputation 
 what 1 have wroLo already will be sufficient, if it be good; if not, it is 
 not likely I shall now write bettor."]
 
 FAMILY APFECTION. fs37 
 
 was copious, for tlie heart overflowed in the pages o n^e- 
 crated to her domestic vii'tues ; and Marmontel left it m' a 
 record, that their children might learn the gratitude of 
 their father, and know the character of their mother, whcu 
 the writer should be no more. Many readers were perhaj^ 
 surprised to find in Xesker's Comte rendu au Moi, a politt 
 cal and financial work, a great and lovely character c. 
 domestic excellence in his ^^dfe. Tliis was more obtru 
 sive than Marmontel's private dedication ; yet it was ncx 
 the less sincere. K Necker failed in the cautious reservt 
 of private feelings, who will censure ? Nothing seems 
 misplaced which the heart dictates. 
 
 If Horace were dear to his friends, he declares they 
 owed him to his father : — 
 
 purus et insona 
 (Ut me collaudem) si vivo et carus amicis, 
 Causa fuit Pater his. 
 
 If pure and innocent, if dear (forgive 
 Tliese little praises) to my friends I live, 
 My father was the cause. 
 
 This intelligent father, an obscure tax-gatherer, discovered 
 the propensity of Horace's mind; for he removed the boy 
 of genius from a rural seclusion to the metropolis, anx- 
 iously attending on him to his various masters. Grotius, 
 like Horace, celebrated m verse his gratitude to his ex- 
 cellent father, who li.ad formed him not only to be a man 
 of learning, but a great character. Vitruvius pours forth 
 a grateful prayer to the memory of his parents, who 
 had instilled into his soul a love for literary and philo- 
 sophical subjects ; and it is an amiable trait in Plutarch 
 to have introduced his father in the Symposiacs, as an 
 elegant critic and moralist, and his brother Lamprias, 
 whose sweetness of disposition, inclining to cheerful rail- 
 lery, the Sage of Cherontea has immortalised. The father 
 of Gibbon urged him to literary distinction, and the
 
 23S LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 dedication of the "Essay on Literature" to that father, 
 connected with his subsequent labour, shows the force 
 of the excitement. The father of Pope lived long enough 
 to witness his son's celebrity. 
 
 Tears such as tender fathers shed, 
 
 Warm from my eyes descend, 
 For joy, to think when I am dead, 
 
 My son shall have mankind his Friend.* 
 
 The son of Buffon one day sui'prised his father by the 
 sight of a column, which he had raised to the memory of 
 his father's eloquent genius. " It will do you honour," 
 observed the Gallic sage.f And when that son in the 
 revolution was led to the guillotine, he ascended in 
 silence, so impressed with his father's fame, that he only 
 told the people, " I am the son of Buffon !" 
 
 Fathers absorbed in their occupations can but rarely 
 attract their off'spring. The first durable impressions of 
 our moral existence come from the mother. The first 
 prudential wisdom to which Genius listens falls fi'om her 
 lips, and only her caresses can create the moments of ten- 
 derness. The earnest discernment of a mother's love sur- 
 vives in the imagination of manhood. The mother of 
 Sir William Jones, having formed a plan for the educa- 
 tion of her son, withdrew from great connexions that she 
 might live only for that son. Her great principle of edu- 
 cation, was to excite by curiosity ; the result could not fail 
 to be knowledge. " Read, and you will know," she con- 
 stantly replied to her filial pupil. And we have his own 
 acknowledgment, that to tins maxim, which produced 
 the habit of study, he was indebted for his future attain- 
 ments. , Kant, the German metaphysician, was always 
 
 * These linos have been happily applied by Mr. Bowles to the father 
 of Pope. — The poet's domestic affections wore as permanent as they 
 were strong. * 
 
 f It still exists in the gardens of the old chatean at Montbard. It 
 is a pillar of marble bearing this inscription : — " Excelsa) tiirris humilia 
 columna, Parent! suo fiUus Buffon. 1785." — Ed.
 
 FAMILY AFFECTION. 239 
 
 fond of declaring that he OAved to the ascendancy of his 
 mother's character the severe inflexibility of his moral 
 principles. The mother of Burns kindled his genius by 
 reciting the old Scottish ballads, while to his father he 
 attributed his less pleasing cast of character. Bishop 
 Watson traced to the aflectionate influence of his mother, 
 the religious feelings which he confesses he inherited 
 from her. The mother of Edgeworth, confined through 
 life to her apartment, was the only person who studied 
 his constitutional volatility. When he hastened to her 
 death-bed, the last imperfect accents of that beloved 
 voice reminded him of the past and warned him of the 
 future, and he declares that voice " had a happy influ- 
 ence on his habits," — as happy, at least, as his own vola- 
 tile nature would allow. " To the manner in which my 
 mother formed me at an early age," said Napoleon, " I 
 principally owe my subsequent elevation. My opinion 
 is, that the future good or bad conduct of a child en- 
 tirely depends upon the mother." 
 
 There is this remarkable in the strong aflfections of the 
 mother in the formation of the literary character, that, 
 without even partaking of, or sympathising with the 
 pleasures the child is fond of, the mother will often cher- 
 ish those first decided tastes merely from the delight of 
 promoting the happiness of her son ; so that that genius, 
 which some would produce on a preconceived system, or 
 implant by stratagem, or enforce by application, with her 
 may be only the watchful labour of love.* One of our 
 most eminent antiquaries has often assured me that his 
 great passion, and I may say his genius, for his curious 
 
 * Kotzebue has noted the delicate attention of his mother in not only 
 fostering his genius, but in watching its too rapid development. He 
 says: — "If at any time my imagination was overheated, my mother 
 always contrived to select something for my evening reading which 
 might moderate this ardour, and make a gentler impression on my too 
 irritable fancy." — Ed.
 
 240 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 knowledge and liis vast researches, be attributes to ma- 
 ternal affection. When his early taste for these studies 
 was thwarted by the very different one of his father, the 
 mother silently sujiplied her son with the sort of treas- 
 ures he languished for, blessing the knowledge, which 
 indeed she could not share with him, but which she 
 beheld imjiarting happiness to her youthful aiitiquary. 
 
 There is, what may be called, fa^hly genius. In the 
 home of a man of genius is diffused an electrical atmos- 
 phere, and his own pre-eminence strikes out talents in 
 all. " The active pursuits of my father," says the daugh- 
 ter of Edgeworth, " spread an animation through the 
 house by connecting children with all that was going on, 
 and allowing them to join in thought and conversation ; 
 sympathy and emulation excited mental exertion in the 
 most agreeable manner." Evelyn, in his beautiful retreat 
 at Saye's Court, had inspired his family with that variety 
 of taste which he himself was spreading throughout the 
 nation. His son translated Rapin's " Gardens," which 
 poem the father proudly preserved in his "Sylva;" his 
 lady, ever busied in his study, excelled in the arts her . 
 husband loved, and designed the frontispiece to his 
 "Lucretius:" she was the cultivator of their celebrated 
 garden, which served as "an example" of his great 
 work on "forest trees." Cowley, who has commemo- 
 rated Evelyn's love of books and gardens, has delight- 
 fully applied them to his lady, in whom, says the bard, 
 Evelyn meets both pleasures : — 
 
 The fairest garden in her looks, 
 And in her mind the wisest books, 
 
 Tlic house of Ilaller resembled a temple consecrated to 
 science and the arts, and the votaries were his own 
 family. The universal acquirements of ITaller were 
 possessed in some degree by every one under his roof; 
 vand their studious delight in transcribing manuscripts,
 
 FAMILY AFFECTION. 241 
 
 in consulting authors, in botanising, drawing and colour- 
 ing the plants under his eye, formed occupations which 
 made the daughters happy and the sons eminent.* The 
 painter Stella inspired his family to copy his fanciful in- 
 ventions, and the playful graver of Claudine Stella, his 
 niece, animated his " Sports of Children." I have seen 
 a print of Coypel in his studio, and by his side his little 
 daughter, who is intensely watching the progress of her 
 father's pencil. The artist has represented himself in 
 the act of suspending his labour to look on his child. 
 At that moment, his thoughts were divided between 
 two objects of his love. The character and the works 
 of the late Elizabeth Hamilton were formed entirely by 
 her brother. Admiring the man she loved, she imitated 
 what she admired ; and while the brother was arduously 
 completing the version of the Persian Hedaya, the sister, 
 who had associated with his morning tasks and his even- 
 ing conversations, was recalling all the ideas, and pour- 
 traying her fraternal master in her " Hindoo Rajah." 
 
 Nor are there wanting instances where this family 
 GENIUS has been carried down through successive gen- 
 erations : the volume of the father has been continued 
 by a son, or a relative. The history of the family of the 
 Z\vingers is a combination of studies and inherited 
 tastes. Theodore published, in 1697, a folio herbal, of 
 which his son Fi'ederic gave an enlarged edition in 1 744 ; 
 and the family was honoured by their name having been 
 given to a genus of plants dedicated to their memory, 
 and known in botany by the name of the Zioitigera. In 
 history and in literature, the family name was equally 
 
 * Haller's death (a. d. 1777) was as remarkable for its calm philoso- 
 phy, as his life for its happiness. He was a professional surgeon, and 
 continued to the last an attentive and rational observer of the symp- 
 toms of the disease which was bringing him to the grave. He trans- 
 mitted to the University of Gottingen a scientific analysis of his case : 
 and died feeling his own pulse. — Ed. 
 ]6
 
 24-2 LITERARY CHARACTER, 
 
 eminent; the same Theodore continued a great work, 
 " The Theatre of Human Life," which had been begun 
 by his father-in-law, and which for the third time Avas 
 enlarged by another son. Among the historians of Italy, 
 it is delightful to contemplate this family genius trans- 
 mitting itself with unsullied probity among the three 
 Villanis, and the Malaspinis, and the two Portas. The 
 history of the learned family of the Stephens presents a 
 dynasty of literature ; and to distinguish the numerous 
 members, they have been designated as Henry I. and 
 Henry II., — as Robert I., the II., and the HI.* Our 
 coiintry may exult in having possessed many literary 
 families — the Wartons, the father and two sons : the 
 Burneys, more in number ; and the nephews of Milton, 
 whose humble torch at least was lighted at the altar of 
 the great bard.f 
 
 No event in literary history is more impressive than 
 the fate of Quintilian ; it was in the midst of his elaborate 
 work, which was composed to form the literary character 
 of a son, that he experienced the most terrible affliction 
 in the domestic life of genius — the successive deaths 
 of his wife and his only child. It was a moral earth- 
 quake with a single survivor amidst the ruins. An awful 
 burst of parental and literary affliction breaks forth in 
 Quintilian's lamentation, — " My wealth, and my writings 
 the fruits of a long and painful life, must now be re- 
 served only for strangers ; all I possess is for aliens, and 
 no longer mine !" AVe feel the united agony of the hus- 
 band, the father, and the man of genius ! 
 
 Deprived of these social consolations, we see Johnson 
 call about him those whose calamities exiled them from 
 society, and his roof lodges the blind, the lame and the 
 
 * For an account of them and their works, see " Curiositiea of Liter* 
 ature," vol. 1., p. 76, 
 f The PhiUips.
 
 PUBLIC AND PRIVATE LIFE. £43 
 
 poor for the heart must possess something it can call its 
 own, to be kind to. 
 
 In domestic life, the Ahbe De St. Pierre enlarged its 
 moral vocabulary, by fixing in his language two signifi- 
 cant words. One served to explain the virtue most 
 familiar to him hienfaisanee ; and that in-itable vanity 
 which magnifies its ephemeral fame, the sage reduced 
 to a mortifying diminutive — la gloriole ! 
 
 It has often excited surjirise that men of genius are 
 not more reverenced than other men in their domestic 
 circle. The disparity between the public and the pri- 
 vate esteem of the same man is often striking. In 
 privacy we discover that the comic genius is not always 
 cheerful, that the sage is sometimes ridiculous, and the 
 poet seldom delightful. The golden hour of invention 
 must terminate like other hours, and when the man of 
 genius returns to the cares, the duties, the vexations, 
 and the amusements of life, his companions behold him as 
 one of themselves — the creature of habits and infirmities. 
 
 In the business of life, the cultivators of science and 
 the arts, with all their simplicity of feeling, and gener- 
 ous openness about them, do not meet on equal terms 
 with other men. Their freqiaent abstractions calling off 
 the mind to whatever enters into its lonely pursuits, 
 render them greatly inferior to others in practical and 
 immediate observation. Studious men have been re- 
 proached as being so deficient in the knowledge of the 
 human character, that they are usually disqualified for 
 the management of public business. Their confidence 
 in their friends has no bound, while they become the 
 easy dupes of the designing. A friend, who was in 
 ofiice with the late Mr. Cumberland, assures me that he 
 was so intractable to the forms of business, and so easily 
 induced to do more or to do less than he ought, that 
 he was compelled to perform the official business of this 
 literary man, to free himself from his annoyance ; and
 
 244 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 yet Cumberland could not be reproached with any 
 deficiency in a knowledge of the human character, 
 which he was always touching with caustic pleasantry. 
 
 Addison and Prior were unskilful statesman; and 
 Malesherbes confessed, a few days before his death, that 
 Turgot and himself, men of genius and philosophers, 
 from whom the nation had expected much, had badly- 
 administered the aifairs of the state ; for " knowing men 
 but by books, and unskilful in business, we could not 
 form the king to the government." A man of genius 
 may know the whole map of the world of human nature ; 
 but, like the great geographer, may be apt to be lost in 
 the wood which any one in the neighbourhood knows 
 better than him. 
 
 " The conversation of a poet," says Goldsmith, " is that 
 of a man of sense, while his actions are those of a fool." 
 Genius, careless of the future, and often absent in the 
 present, avoids too deep a commingling in the minor 
 cares of life. Hence it becomes a victim to common 
 fools and vulgar villains. " I love my family's welfare, 
 but I cannot be so foolish as to make myself the slave 
 to the minute affairs of a house," said Montesquieu. 
 The story told of a man of learning is probably true, 
 however ridiculous it may appear. DeejDly occupied in 
 his library, one, rushing in, informed him that the house 
 was on fire : " Go to my wife — these matters belong to 
 her !" pettishly replied the interrupted student. Bacon 
 sat at one end of his table wrapt in many a reverie, 
 while at the other the creatures about him were traflfick- 
 ing with his honour, and ruijiing his good name : " I 
 am better fitted for this," said that great man once, 
 holding out a book, " than for the life I have of late led. 
 Nature has not fitted me for that ; knowing myself by 
 inward calling to be fitter to hold a book than to play 
 a part." 
 
 Buffon, who consumed his mornings in his old tower of
 
 DOMESTIC LIFE. 245 
 
 Montbard, at the end of his garden,* with all nature open- 
 ing to him, formed all his ideas of what was passing before 
 him from the arts of a pliant Capuchin, and the com- 
 ments of a perruquier on the scandalous chronicle of the 
 village. These humble confidants he treated as chil- 
 dren, but the children were commanding the great man ! 
 Young, whose satires give the very anatomy of human 
 foibles, was wholly governed by his housekeeper. She 
 thought and acted for him, which probably greatly as- 
 sisted the " Night Thoughts," but his curate exposed the 
 domestic economy of a man of genius by a satirical novel. 
 If I am truly informed, in that gallery of satirical portraits 
 in his " Love of Fame," Young has omitted one of the 
 most striking — his owx ! While the poet's eye was 
 glancing from " earth to heaven," he totally overlooked 
 the lady whom he married, and who soon became the 
 object of his contempt ; and not only his wife, but his 
 only son, who when he returned home for the vacation 
 from Winchester school, was only admitted into the 
 pi'esence of his poetical father on the first and the last 
 day ; and whose unhappy life is attributed to this un- 
 natural neglect :f — a lamentable domestic catastrophe, 
 which, I fear, has too frequently occurred amidst the 
 ardour and occupations of literary glory. Much, too 
 much, of the tender domesticity of life is violated by 
 literary characters. All that lives under their eye, all 
 that should be guided by their hand, the recluse and 
 abstracted men of genius must leave to their own direc- 
 tion. But let it not be forgotten, that, if such neglect 
 others, they also neglect themselves, and are deprived 
 
 * For some account of this place, see the chapter on " Literary Resi- 
 dences" in vol. iii., p. 395, of "Curiosities of Literature." 
 
 f These facts are drawn from a manuscript of the late Sir Herbert 
 Croft, who regretted that Dr. Johnson would not suffer bim to give 
 this account during the doctor's lifetime, in his Life of Young, but 
 which it had always been his intention to have added to it.
 
 246 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 of those family enjoyments for which few men have 
 warmer sympathies. While the literary character burns 
 with the ambition of raising a great literary name, he 
 is too often forbidden to taste of this domestic inter- 
 course, or to indulge the versatile curiosity of his pri- 
 vate amusements — for he is chained to his great labour. 
 Robertson felt this while employed on his histories, and 
 he at length rejoiced when, after many years of devoted 
 toil, he returned to the luxury of reading for his own 
 amusement and to the conversation of his friends. " Such 
 a sacrifice," observes his philosophical biographer, " must 
 be more or less made by all who devote themselves to 
 letters, whether with a view to emolument or to fame ; 
 nor would it perhaps be easy to make it, were it not for 
 the jirospect (seldom, alas ! realised) of earning by their 
 exertions that learned and honourable leisure which he 
 was so fortunate as to attain." 
 
 But men of genius have often been accused of imaginary 
 crimes. Their very eminence attracts the lie of calumny, 
 which tradition often conveys beyond the possibility of 
 refutation. Sometimes they are reproached as Avanting 
 in aifection, when they disjDlease then* fathers by making 
 an obscure name celebrated. The family of Descartes 
 lamented, as a blot in their escutcheon, that Descartes, 
 who was born a gentleman, should become a philosopher ; 
 and this elevated genius was refused the satisfaction of 
 embracing an unforgiving parent, while his dwarfish bro- 
 ther, with a mind diminutive as his person, ridiculed his 
 philosophic relative, and turned to advantage his philo- 
 sophic disposition. The daughter of Addison was edu- 
 cated with a perfect contempt of authors, and blushed to 
 bear a name more illustrious than that of all the War- 
 wicks, on her alliance to which noble family she prided 
 herself The children of Milton, far from solacing the 
 age of their blind parent, became impatient for his death, 
 embittered his last hours with scorn and disafiectiou, and
 
 LITERARY POVERTY. 247 
 
 combined to cheat and rob him. Milton, having enriched 
 our national jjoetry by two immortal epics, with patient 
 grief blessed the single female, who did not entirely aban- 
 don him, and the obscure fanatic who was pleased with 
 his poems because they were religious. What felicities ! 
 Avhat laurels ! And now we have recently learned, that 
 the daughter of Madame de Sevigne lived on ill terms 
 with her mother, of whose enchanting genius she appears 
 to have been insensible ! The unquestionable documents 
 are two letters hitherto cautiously secreted. The daugh- 
 ter was in the house of her mother, when an extraordinary 
 letter was addressed to her from the chamber of Madame 
 de Sevigne after a sleepless night. In this she describes, 
 with her peculiar felicity, the ill-treatment she received 
 from the daughter she idolised ; it is a kindling effusion 
 of maternal reproach, and tenderness, and genius.* 
 
 Some have been deemed disagi'eeable companions, be- 
 cause they felt the weariness of dulness, or the imperti- 
 nence of intrusion ; desci'ibed as bad husbands, when 
 united to women who, without a kindred feeling, had the 
 mean art to prey upon their infirmities ; or as bad fathers, 
 because their ofispring have not always reflected the 
 moral beauty of their own page. But the magnet loses 
 nothing of its vii'tue, even when the particles about it, 
 incapable themselves of being attracted, are not acted 
 on by its occult property. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 The poverty of Literary men. — Poverty, a relative quality. — Of the 
 poverty of literary men in what degree desirable. — Extreme poverty. 
 — Task-work. — Of gratuitious works. — A project to provide against the 
 •worst state of poverty among literary men. 
 
 OVERTY is a state not so fatal to genius, as it is 
 usually conceived to be. We shall find that it has 
 * Lettres inedites de Madame de Sevigne, pp. 201 and 203. 
 
 P
 
 248 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 been sometimes voluntarily cliosen ; and that to connect 
 too closely great fortune with great genius, creates one 
 of those powerful but unhappy alliances,- where the one 
 party must necessarily act contrary to the interests of 
 the other. 
 
 Poverty is a relative quality, like cold and heat, which 
 are but the increase or the diminution in our own sensa- 
 tions. The positive idea must arise from comparison. 
 There is a state of poverty reserved even for the wealthy 
 man, the instant that he comes in hateful contact with 
 the enormous capitalist. But there is a poverty neither 
 vulgar nor terrifying, asking no favours, and on no tei'ms 
 receiving any ; a poverty which annihilates its ideal evils ; 
 and, becoming even a source of pride, will confer inde- 
 pendence, that first step to genius. 
 
 Among the continental nations, to accumulate wealth, 
 in the spirit of a capitalist does not seem to form the 
 prime object of domestic life. The traffic of money is 
 with them left to the traffickers, their merchants, and 
 their financiers. In our country the commercial character 
 has so closely interwoven and identified itself with the 
 national one, and its peculiar views have so terminated 
 all our pursuits, that every rank is alike influenced by its 
 spirit, and things are valued by a market-price which natu- 
 rally admits of no such appraisement. In a country where 
 " The Wealth of Nations " has been fixed as tlie first 
 principle of political existence, wealth has raised an aris- 
 tocracy more noble than nobility, more celebrated than 
 genius, more popular than patriotism ; but however it 
 may partake at times of a generous nature, it liardly looks 
 beyond its own narrow pale. It is curious to notice that 
 Montesquieu, who was in England, observed, that " If I 
 had been born here, nothing could have consoled me in 
 failing to accumulate a large fortune ; but I do not lament 
 the mediocrity of my circumstances in France." The 
 sources of our national wealth have greatly multiplied,
 
 LITERARY POVERTY. 9J,9 
 
 and the evil has consequently increased, since the visit 
 of the great philosopher. 
 
 The cai'es of property, the daily concerns of a family, 
 tlie pressure of such minute disturbers of their studies, 
 have induced some great minds to regret the abolition 
 of those monastic orders, beneath whose undisturbed 
 shade were produced the mighty labours of a Moutfaucon, 
 a Calmet, a Florez, and the still unfinished volumes of 
 the Benedictines. Often has the literary character, 
 amidst the busied delights of study, sighed "to bid a 
 farewell sweet " to the turbulence of society. It was not 
 discontent, nor any undervaluing of general society, but 
 the pure enthusiasm of the library, which once induced 
 tlie studious Evelyn to sketch a retreat of this nature, 
 which he addressed to his friend, the illustrious Boyle. 
 He proposed To form ^ A colleg^'where persons of the 
 same turn of mind might enjoy the pleasure of agreeable 
 society, and at the same time pass their days without 
 care or interruption."* This abandonment of their life 
 to their genius has, indeed, often cost them too dear, from 
 the days of Sophocles, who, ardent in his old age, ne- 
 glected his family affairs, and was brought before his 
 judges by his relations, as one fallen into a second child- 
 hood. The aged poet brought but one solitary witness 
 in his favour — an unfinished tragedy; which having 
 read, the judges rose before him, and retorted the charge 
 on his accusers. 
 
 A parallel circumstance occurred to the Abbe Cotin, 
 the victim of a rhyme of the satirical Boileau. Studious, 
 
 * This romantic literary retreat is one of those delightful reveries 
 which the elegant taste of Evelyn abounded with. It may be found 
 at full length in the fifth volume of Boyle's Works, not in the second, 
 as the Biog. Brit. says. His lady was to live among the society. " If 
 I and my wife take up two apartments, for we are to be decently asun- 
 der, however I stipulate, and her inclination will greatly suit with il^ 
 that shall be no impediment to the society, but a considerable adv^iu- 
 tage to the economic part," &c.
 
 250 LITERARY CnARAClER. 
 
 and without fortune, Cotin had lived contented till he 
 incurred the unhappiness of inheriting a large estate. 
 Then a world of cares opened on him ; his rents Avere not 
 paid, and his creditors increased. Dragged from his 
 Hebrew and Greek, poor Cotin resolved to make over his 
 entii'e fortune to one of his heirs, on condition of mainte- 
 nance. His other relations assuming that a man who 
 parted with his estate in his lifetime must necessarily be 
 deranged, brought the learned Cotin into court. Cotin 
 had nothing to say in his own favour, bitt requested his 
 judges would allow him to address them from the ser- 
 mons which he preached. The good sense, the sound 
 reasoning, and the erudition of the preacher were such, 
 that the whole bench unanimously declared that they 
 themselves might be considered as madmen, were they 
 to condemn a man of letters who was desirous of escaping 
 from the incumbrance of a fortune which had only inter- 
 rupted his studies. 
 
 There may then be sufficient motives to induce such a 
 man to make a state of mediocrity his choice. If he lose 
 his happiness, he mutilates his genius. Goldoni, with all 
 the simplicity of his feelings and habits, in reviewing his 
 life, tells us how he was always relapsing into his old 
 propensity of comic writing; "but the thought of this 
 does not disturb me," says he ; " for though in any other 
 situation I might have been in easier circumstances, I 
 should never have been so hapj^y." Bayle is a parent 
 of the modern literary character ; he pursued the same 
 course, and early in life adopted the i3rincij)lc, " Neither 
 to fear bad fortune nor have any ardent desires for good." 
 Acquainted Avitli the passions only as their historian, and 
 living only for literature, he sacrificed to it the two great 
 acquisitions of human j^ursuits — fortune and a family: 
 but in what country liad Bayle not a fxmily and a pos- 
 session in his fame ? Huine and Gibbon had the most 
 perfect conception of the literary character, and they
 
 TITERART POVERTT. 251 
 
 were aware of this important principle in its habits — • 
 " My own revenue," said Hume, " will be sufficient for a 
 man of letters, who surely needs less money, both for his 
 entertainment and credit, than other people." Gibbon 
 observed of himself- — " Perhaps the golden mediocrity 
 of my fortune has contribiited to fortify my application." 
 The state of poverty, then, desirable in the domestic 
 life of genius, is one in which the cares of property 
 never intrude, and the want of wealth is never perceived. 
 This is not indigence ; that state which, however digni- 
 fied the man of genius himself may be, must inevitably 
 degrade ! for the heartless will gibe, and even the com- 
 passionate turn aside -with contempt. This literary out- 
 cast will soon be forsaken even by himself! his own 
 intellect will be clouded over, and his limbs shrink in the 
 palsy of bodily misery and shame — 
 
 Malesuada Fames, et turpis Egestas 
 Terribiles visu formse. 
 
 Not that in this history of men of genius we are with- 
 out illustrious examples of those who have even learnt 
 to xoant^ that they might emancipate their genius fi'om 
 their necessities ! 
 
 We see Rousseau rushing out of the palace of the 
 financier, selling his watch, copying music by the sheet, 
 and by the mechanical industry of two hours, purchasing 
 ten for genius. We may smile at the enthusiasm of 
 young Bai-ry, who finding himself too constant a haunter 
 of taverns, imagined that this expenditure of time was 
 occasioned by having money ; and to put an end to the 
 conflict, he threw the little he possessed at once into the 
 Liffey ; but let us not forget that Barry, in the maturity 
 of life, confidently began a labour of years,* and one of 
 the noblest inventions in his art — a great poem in a pic- 
 
 * His series of pictures for the walls of the meeting-room of tha 
 Society of Arts iu the Adelphi. — Ed.
 
 252 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 ture — mth no other resource than what he found by 
 secret labours through the night, in furnishing the shops 
 with those slight and saleable sketches which secured 
 uninterrupted mornings for his genius. Spinosa, a name 
 as celebrated, and perhaps as calumniated, as Epicurus, 
 lived in all sorts of abstinence, even of honours, of pen- 
 sions, and of presents; which, however disguised by 
 kindness, he would not accept, so fearful was this philoso- 
 pher of a chain ! Lodging in a cottage and obtaining a 
 livelihood by polishing optical glasses, he declared that 
 he had never spent more than he earned, and certainly 
 thought that there was such a thing as snperfliious earn- 
 ings. At his death his small accounts showed how he 
 had subsisted on a few pence a-day, and 
 
 Enjoy'd, spare feast 1 a radish and an egg. 
 
 Poussin persisted in refusing a higher price than that 
 affixed to the back of his pictures, at the time he was 
 living without a domestic. The great oriental scholar, 
 Anquetil de Perron, is a recent example of the literary 
 character carrying his indifference to privations to the 
 very cynicism of poverty ; and he seems to exult over his 
 destitution with the same pride as others would expatiate 
 over their possessions. Yet we must not forget, to use 
 the words of Lord Bacon, that "judging that means were 
 to be spent upon learning, and not learning to be applied 
 to means," De Perron refused the offer of thirty thousand 
 livres for his copy of the " Zend-avesta." Writing 
 to some Bramins, he describes his life at Paris to be 
 much like their own. " I subsist on the produce of my 
 literary labours without revenue, establisliment, or place. 
 I have no wife nor children ; alone, absolutely free, but 
 always the friend of men of probity. In a perpetual 
 war with my senses, I triumph over the attractions of 
 the Avorld or I contemn them." 
 
 This ascetic existence is not singular. Parini, a great
 
 LITERARY POVERTY. 253 
 
 modern poet of Italy, whom the Milanese point out to 
 strangers as the glory of their city, lived in the same 
 state of unrepining poverty. Mr. Hobhouse has given 
 us this self-portrait of the poet : — 
 
 Me, non nato a percotera 
 Le dure illustri porte, 
 Nudo accorra, ma libero 
 n regno della morte. 
 
 Naked, but free! A life of hard deprivations was 
 long that of the illustrious Linnseus. Without fortune, 
 to that great mind it never seemed necessary to acquire 
 any. Peregrinating on foot with a stylus, a magnifying- 
 glass, and a basket for plants, he shared the rustic meal 
 of the peasant. Never was glory obtained at a cheaper 
 rate ! exclaims one of his eulogists. Satisfied with the 
 least of the little, he only felt one perpetual want — that 
 of completing his Flors. Not that Linnaeus was insensi- 
 ble to his situation, for he gave his name to a little flower 
 in Lapland — the Linncea JBorealis, from the fanciful 
 analogy he discovered between its character and his own 
 early fate, " a little northern plant flowering early, de- 
 pressed, abject, and long overlooked." The want of 
 fortune, however, did not deprive this man of genius of 
 his true glory, nor of that statue raised to him in the 
 gardens of the University of Upsal, nor of that solemn 
 eulogy delivered by a crowned head, nor of those medals 
 which his nation struck to commemorate the genius of 
 the three kingdoms of nature ! 
 
 This, then, is the race who have often smiled at the 
 light regard of their good neighbours when contrasted 
 with their own celebrity ; for in poverty and in solitude 
 such men are not separated from their fame ; that is ever 
 proceeding, ever raising a secret, but constant, triumph 
 in their minds.* 
 
 * Spagnoletto, while sign-painting at Rome, attracted by his ability 
 the notice of a cardinal, who ultimately gave him a home in his
 
 254 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 Yes ! Genius, imclegraded and uuexhaustud, may in- 
 deed even in a garret glow in its career : but it must be 
 on the principle which induced Rousseau solemnly to re- 
 nounce writing "^:)rtr metier.''^ This in the Jburnal de 
 Scavans he once attempted, but found himself quite 
 inadequate to " the profession." * In a garret, the author 
 of the " Studies of Nature," as he exultingly tells us, 
 arranged his work. " It was in a little garret, in the 
 new street of St. Etienne du Mont, where I resided four 
 years, in the midst of physical and domestic afflictions. 
 But there I enjoyed the most exquisite pleasures of my 
 life, amid profound solitude and an enchanting horizon. 
 There I put the finishing liand to my ' Studies of 
 Nature,' and there I published them." Pope, one day 
 taking his usual walk with Harte in the Haymarket, 
 desired him to enter a little shop, where going up three 
 pair of stairs into a small room. Pope said, " In this 
 garret Addison wrote his ' Campaign !' " To the feel- 
 ings of the poet this garret had become a consecrated 
 spot ; Genius seemed more itself, placed in contrast with 
 its miserable locality ! 
 
 The man of genius wrestling with oppressive fortune, 
 who follows the avocations of an author as a precarious 
 source of existence, should take as the model of the 
 authorial life, that of Dr. Johnson. The dignity of the 
 literary character was as deeply associated with his feel- 
 ings, and the "reverence t]iyself"as present to his mind, 
 when doomed to be one of the Helots of literature, by 
 Osborn, Cave, and JVliller, as when, in the honest triumph 
 of Genius, he repelled a tardy adukation of the lordly 
 Chesterfield. Destitute of this ennobling principle, the 
 
 palace; but tho artist, feeling that his poverty was necessary to his 
 industry and independence, fled to Naples, and recommenced a life of 
 labour. — Ed. 
 
 * Twice he repeated this resolution. See his Works, vol. xxxi., p 
 283 ; vol. ixxii., p. 90.
 
 INFLUENCE OF NECESSITY. 255 
 
 autlior sinks into the tribe of those rabid aclventnrers of 
 the pen who have masked the degraded form of the 
 literary cliaractcr under the assumed title of " authors by 
 profession"* — the Guthries, the Ralphs, and the Am- 
 hursts.f There are worse evils for the literary ma»," 
 says a living author, who himself is the true model of the 
 great literary character, "than neglect, poverty, im- 
 prisonment, and death. There are even more pitiable 
 objects than Chatterton himself •^'ith the poison at his 
 lips." " I should die with hunger were I at peace with 
 the world !" exclaimed a corsair of literature — and 
 dashed his pen into the black flood before him of soot 
 and gall. 
 
 In substituting fortune for the object of his designs, 
 the man of genius deprives himself of those heats of in- 
 S2>iration reserved for him who lives for himself; the 
 mollia tempora fandi of Art. K he be subservient to 
 the public taste, without daring to raise it to his own, 
 the creature of his times has not the choice of his sub- 
 jects, which choice is itself a sort of invention, A task- 
 worker ceases to think his own thoughts. The stipulated 
 price and time are weighing on his pen or his pencil, 
 while the hour-glass is dropping its hasty sands. If the 
 man of genius would be wealthy and even luxurious, 
 another fever besides the thirst of glory torments him. 
 Such insatiable desires create many fears, and a mind in 
 fear is a mind in slavery. In one of Shakspeare's son- 
 nets he pathetically laments this compulsion of his neces- 
 sities which forced him to the trade of pleasing the 
 public; and he illustrates this degradation by a novel 
 image. " Chide Fortune," cries the bard, — 
 
 • Prom an original letter which I have published from Guthrie to a 
 minister of state, this modern phrase appears to have been his own 
 invention. The principle unblushingly avowed, required the sanction 
 of a respectable designation. I have preserved it in " Calamities of 
 Authors." 
 
 f For some account of these men, see " Calamities of Authors."
 
 256 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 The guilty goddess of my harmless deeds, 
 
 That did not better for my life provide 
 
 Than public means which public manners breeds ; 
 
 Thence comes it that my name receives a brand; 
 
 And almost thence, my nature is subdued 
 
 To what it works in, like the dter's hand. 
 
 Such is the fate of that author, who, in his variety of 
 task-works, bhie, yellow, and red, lives without ever 
 having shown his own natural complexion. We hear 
 the eloquent truth from one who has alike shared in the 
 bliss of composition, and the misery of its " daily bread." 
 "A single hour of composition won from the business of 
 the day, is worth more than the whole day's toil of him 
 who works at the trade of literature : in the one case, the 
 spirit comes joyfully to refresh itself, like a hart to the 
 waterbrooks ; in the other, it pursues its miserable way, 
 panting and jaded, with the dogs of hvmger and necessity 
 behind,"* We trace the fate of all task-work in the his- 
 tory of Poussin, when called on to reside at the French 
 court. Labouring without intermission, sometimes on 
 one thing and sometimes on another, and hurried on in 
 things which required both time and thought, he saw too 
 clearly the fatal tendency of such a life, and exclaimed, 
 with ill-suppressed bitterness, " If I stay long in this 
 country, I shall turn dauber like the rest here." The 
 great artist abruj^tly returned to Rome to regain the 
 possession of his own thoughts. 
 
 It has been a question with some, more indeed abroad 
 than at home, whether the art of instructing mankind by 
 the press would not be less suspicious in its character, 
 were it less interested in one of its prevalent motives ? 
 Some noble self-denials of this kind are recorded. The 
 principle of emolument will produce the industry which 
 furnislies works for popular demand ; but it is only the 
 principle of honour which can produce the lasting works 
 
 * Qua/rterhj Review, vol. viii., p. 638.
 
 BOOKSELLERS' PATRONAGE. 257 
 
 of genius. Boileau seems to censure Racine for having 
 accepted money for one of his dramas, while he, who was 
 not rich, gave away liis polished poems to the public. 
 He seems desirous of raising the art of writing to a more 
 disinterested profession than any other, requiring no 
 fees for the professors. Olivet presented his elaborate 
 edition of Cicero to the world, requiring no other remu- 
 neration than its glory. Milton did not compose his im- 
 mortal work for his trivial coj^yright ;* and Linnceus sold 
 his labours for a single ducat. The Abbe Mably, the 
 author of many political and moral works, lived on little, 
 and would accept only a few presentation copies from the 
 booksellers. But, since we have become a nation of 
 book-collectors, and since there exists, as Mr. Coleridge 
 describes it, " a reading public," this principle of honour 
 is altered. Wealthy and even noble authors are proud 
 to receive the largest tribute to their genius, because 
 this tribute is the certain evidence of the number who 
 pay it. The property of a book, therefore, represents to 
 the literary candidate the collective force of the thousands 
 of voters on whose favour his claims can only exist. 
 This change in the affairs of the literary republic in our 
 country was felt by Gibbon, who has fixed on " the pa- 
 tronage of booksellers " as the standard of public opinion : 
 "the measure of their liberality," he says, "is the least 
 ambiguous test of our common success." The philoso- 
 pher accepted it as a substitute for that " friendship or 
 favour of princes, of which he could not boast." The 
 same opinion was held by Johnson. Yet, looking on 
 the present state of English literature, the most profuse 
 
 * The agreement made witli Simmons, the publisher, was 51. down, 
 and 51. more when 1500 copies were sold, the same sum to be paid for 
 the second and third editions, each of the same number of copies. 
 Milton only lived during the publication of two editions, and his widow 
 parted with all her right in the work to the same bookseller for eight 
 pounds. Her autograph receipt was in the possession of the late Daw- 
 son Turner. — Ed. 
 17
 
 258 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 pei-liaj)S in Europe, we cannot refrain from thinking that 
 the "patronage of booksellers " is frequently injurious to 
 the great interests of literature. 
 
 The dealers in enonnous speculative purchases are 
 only subservient to the spirit of the times. If they are 
 the purveyors, they are also the panders of public taste ; 
 and their vaunted patronage only extends to popular 
 subjects ; while their urgent demands are sure to produce 
 hasty manufactures. A precious work on a recondite 
 subject, which may have consumed the life of its author, 
 no bookseller can patronise ; and whenever such a work 
 is published, the author has rarely survived the long 
 season of the public's neglect. While popular works, 
 after some few years of celebrity, have at length been 
 discovered not worth the repairs nor the renewal of their 
 lease of fame, the neglected work of a nobler design rises 
 in value and rarity. The literary work which requires 
 the greatest skill and difficulty, and the longest labour, 
 is not commercially valued with that hasty, spurious 
 novelty, for which the taste of the 2)ublic is craving, from 
 the strength of its disease rather than of its appetite. 
 Rousseau observed, that his musical opera, the work of 
 five or six weeks, brought him as much money as he had 
 received for his " Emile," which had cost him twenty 
 years of meditation, and three years of composition. 
 Tills single fact represents a hundred. So fallacious are 
 public opinion and the patronage of booksellers ! 
 
 Such, then, is the inadequate remuneration of a life 
 devoted to literature ; and notwithstanding the more 
 general interest excited by its productions within the 
 last century, it has not essentially altered their situation 
 in society; for who is deceived by the trivial exultation 
 of the gay sparkling scribbler who lately assured us that 
 authors now dip their pens in silver ink-standishes, and 
 have a valet for an amanuensis? Fashionable writers 
 must necessarily get out of fashion ; it is the inevitable fate
 
 BOOKSELLERS' PATRONAGE. 259 
 
 of the material and tlic manufacturer. An eleemosynary 
 fund can provide no permanent relief for the age and soi'- 
 rows of the unhappy men of science and literature; and 
 an author may even have composed a work which shall be 
 read by the next generation as well as the present, and 
 still be left in a state even of pauperism. These victims 
 perish in silence ! Xo one has attempted to suggest even 
 a palliative for this great evil; and when I asked the 
 greatest genius of our age to projiose some relief for this 
 general suffering, a sad and convulsive nod, a shrug tliat 
 sympathised with the misery of so many brothers, and 
 an avowal that even he could not invent one, was all that 
 genius had to alleviate the forlorn state of the literary 
 character.* 
 
 The only man of genius who has thrown out a hint for 
 improving the situation of the literary man is Adam 
 Smith. In that passage in his " "Wealth of Nations " to 
 which I have already referred, he says, that " Before the 
 invention of the art of printing, the only employment by 
 which a man of letters could make anything by his tal- 
 ents was that o^ a puhlic or a private teacher, or by com- 
 municating to other people the various and useful knowl- 
 edge which he had acquired himself; and this surely is a 
 more honourable, a more useful, and in general even a 
 more profitable employment than that other of icriUng 
 for a bookseller, to which the art of printing has given 
 occasion." We see the political economist, alike insensi- 
 ble to the dignity of the literary character, incapable of 
 taking a just view of its glorious avocation. To obviate 
 the personal wants attached to the occupations of an 
 author, he would, more effectually than skilfully, get rid 
 of authorship itself This is not to restore the limb, but 
 to amputate it. It is not the preservation of existence, 
 
 * It -^vas the late Sir "Walter Scott — if T could assign the date of this 
 conversation, it would throw some light on what might be then pass- 
 ing in his own mind.
 
 260 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 but its annihilation. Ilis friends Hume and Robertson 
 must have turned from this page humiliated and indig- 
 nant. They could have supplied Adam Smith with a 
 truer conception of the literary character, of its inde- 
 pendence, its influence, and its glory. 
 
 I have projected a plan for the alleviation of the state 
 of these authors who are not blessed with a patrimony. 
 The trade connected with literature is carried on by men 
 who are usually not literate, and the generality of the 
 publishers of books, imlike all other tradesmen, are often 
 the worst judges of their own wares. Were it jiractica- 
 ble, as I believe it to be, that authors and men of letters 
 could themselves be booksellers, the public would derive 
 this immediate benefit from the scheme ; a deluge of 
 worthless or indifferent books would be turned away, 
 and the name of the literary publisher would be a pledge 
 for the value of every new book. Every literary man 
 would choose his own favourite department, and we 
 should learn from him as well as from his books. 
 
 Against this project it may be iirged, that literary men 
 are ill adapted to attend to the regular details of trade, 
 and that the great capitalists in the book business have 
 not been men of literature. But this plan is not sug- 
 gested for accumulating a great fortune, or for the pur- 
 pose of raising up a new class of tradesmen. It is not 
 designed to make authors wealthy, for that would inev- 
 itably extinguish great literary exertion, but only to 
 make them independent, as the best means to preserve 
 exertion. The details of trade are not even to reach 
 him. The poet Gesner, a bookseller, left his lihrairie to 
 the care of his admirable wife. ITis own works, the ele- 
 gant editions which issued from his press, and the value 
 of manuscripts, were the objects of his attention. 
 
 On the Continent many of the dealers in books have 
 been literary men. At the memorable expulsion of the 
 French Protestants on the edict of Nantes, their expatria-
 
 LITERARY BOOKSELLERS. 261 
 
 ted literary men flew to the shores of England, and the 
 free provinces of Holland ; and it was in Holland that 
 this colonj of litterateurs established magnificent printing- 
 houses, and furnished Europe "wnth editions of the native 
 writers of France, often preferable to the originals, and 
 even wrote the best works of that time. At that memo- 
 rable period in our own history, when two thousand non- 
 conformists were ejected on St. Bartholomew's day from 
 the national establishment, the greater part wei-e men of 
 learning, who, deprived of their livings, were destitute 
 of any means of existence. These scholars were com- 
 pelled to look to some profitable occupation, and for the 
 greater part they fixed on trades connected with litera- 
 ture ; some became eminent booksellers, and continued 
 to be voluminous writers, without finding their studies 
 interrupted by their commercial arrangements. The de- 
 tails of trade must be left to others ; the hand of a child 
 can turn a vast machine, and the object here proposed 
 would be lost, if authors sought to become merely book- 
 sellers. 
 
 Whenever the pxiblic of Europe shall witness such a 
 new order of men among their booksellers, they will 
 have less to read, but more to remember. Their oj^in- 
 ions Avill be less fluctuating, and their knowledge will 
 come to them -^dth more maturity. Men of letters Avill 
 fly to the house of the bookseller who in that class of 
 literature in which he deals, will himself be not the least 
 eminent member.
 
 262 LITERART CHARACTER. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 The matrimonial stato of literature. — Matrimony said not to be vfoU 
 suited to the domestic hfe of genius. — Celibacy a concealed cause of 
 the early querulousness of men of genius. — Of unhappy unions. — 
 Not absolutely necessary that the wife should be a literary woman. — 
 Of the docility and susceptibiUty of the higher female cliaracter. — 
 A picture of a literary wife. 
 
 MATRIMOISrY lias often been considered as a condi- 
 tion not well suited to the domestic life of genius, 
 accomijanied as it must be by many embarrassments for 
 the head and the heart. It was an axiom with Fuessli, 
 the Swiss artist, that the marriage state is incomj^atible 
 with a high cultivation of the fine arts ; and such appears 
 to have been the feeling of most artists. When Michael 
 Angelo was asked why he did not marry, he replied, " I 
 have espoused my art; and it occasions me sufBcient 
 domestic cares, for my works shall be my children. 
 What would Bartholomeo Ghiberti have been, had he 
 not made the gates of St. John? His children consumed 
 his fortune, but his gates, worthy to be the gates of Para- 
 dise, remain." The three Caraccis refused the conjugal 
 bond on the same principle, dreading the interruptions 
 of domestic life. Their crayons and paper were always 
 on their dining-table. Careless of fortune, they deter- 
 mined never to hurry over their works in order that 
 they might supply the ceaseless demands of a family. 
 We discover the same principle operating in our own 
 times. When a young painter, who had just married, 
 told Sir Joshua that he was preparing to pursue his 
 studies in Italy, that great painter exclaimed, "Married ! 
 then you are ruined as an artist !" 
 
 The same principle has influenced literary men. Sir 
 Thomas Bodlcy had a smart altercation with his first 
 librarian, insisting that he should not marry, maintaining
 
 CELIBACY. 233 
 
 its absurdity in the man who had the perpetual care of a 
 public library ; and Woodward left as one of the express 
 conditions of his lecturer, that he was not to be a mar- 
 ried man. They imagined that their private affairs would 
 interfere with their public duties. Peiresc, the great 
 French collector, refused marriage, convinced that the 
 cares of a family were too absorbing for the freedom 
 necessary to literary pursuits, and claimed likewise a 
 sacrifice of fortune incompatible with his great designs. 
 Boyle, who would not sufler his studies to be interrupted 
 by " household affairs," lived as a boarder with his sister. 
 Lady Ranelagh, Xewton, Locke, Leibnitz, Bayle, and 
 Hobbes, and Hume, and Gibbon, and Adam Smith, 
 decided for celibacy. These great authors placed their 
 happiness in their celebrity. 
 
 This debate, for the present topic has sometimes 
 warmed into one, is in truth ill adapted for controversy. 
 The heart is more concerned in its issue than any es- 
 poused doctrine terminating in partial views. Look into 
 the domestic annals of genius — observe the variety of 
 positions into which the literary character is thrown in the 
 nuptial state. Cynicism will not always obtain a sullen 
 triumph, nor prudence always be allowed to calculate 
 away some of the richer feelings of our nature. It is not 
 an axiom that literary characters must necessarily institute 
 a new order of celibacy. The sentence of the apostle 
 pronounces that " the forbidding to marry is a doctrine 
 of devils." Wesley, who published, "Thoughts on a 
 Single Life," advised some "to remain single for the 
 kingdom of heaven's sake ; but the precept," he adds, " is 
 not for the many." So indecisive have been the opinions 
 of the most curious inquirers concerning the matrunonial 
 state, whenever a great destination has engaged their 
 consideration. 
 
 One position we may assume, that the studies, and 
 even the happiness of the pursuits of men of genius, are
 
 264 LTT.ERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 powerfully influenced by the domestic associate of their 
 lives. 
 
 They rarely pass through the age of love without its 
 passion. Even their DeUas and their Amandas are often 
 the shadows of some real object ; for as Shakspeare's ex- 
 perience told him, 
 
 Never durst poet touch a pen to write, 
 Until his ink were temper'd with love's sighs. 
 
 Their imagination is perpetually colouring those pictures 
 of domestic happiness on which they delight to dwell. 
 He who is no husband sighs for that tenderness which is 
 at once bestowed and received ; and tears will start in the 
 eyes of him who, in becoming a child among children, yet 
 feels that he is no father ! These depi'ivations have usu- 
 ally been the concealed cause of the querulous melancholy 
 of the literary character. 
 
 Such was the real occasion of Shenstone's unhappiness. 
 In early life he had been captivated by a young lady 
 adapted to be both the muse and the wife of the poet, 
 and their miatual sensibility lasted for some years. It 
 lasted until she died. It was in parting from her that he 
 first sketched his " Pastoral Ballad." Shenstone had the 
 fortitude to refuse marriage. His spirit could not endure 
 that she should participate in that life of self-privations 
 to which he was doomed ; but his heart was not locked 
 up in the ice of celibacy, and his plaintive love songs, 
 and elegies flowed from no fictitious source. " It is long 
 since," said he, " I have considered myself as undone. 
 The world will not perliaps consider me in that light en- 
 tirely till I have married my maid."* 
 
 Tliorason met a reciprocal passion in his Amanda, while 
 the full tenderness of his heart was ever wasting itself 
 like waters in a desert. As Ave have been made little ae- 
 
 * The melancholy talo of Shonstono's life is narrated in the third 
 volume of "Curiosities of Literature." — E0.
 
 CELIBACY. 235 
 
 quainted with this part of the history of the poet of tlic 
 " Seasons," I shall givehis own description of those deep 
 feelings from a manuscrij^t letter written to Mallet. " To 
 turn my eyes a softer way, to you know who — absence 
 sighs it to me. What is my heart made of ? a soft sys- 
 tem of low nerves, too sensible for my quiet — capable of 
 being very happy or very unhappy, I am afraid the last 
 will prevail. Lay your hand upon a kindred heart, and 
 despise me not. I know not what it is, but she dwells 
 upon my thought in a mingled sentiment, which is the 
 sweetest, the most intimately pleasing the soul can re- 
 ceive, and which I would Avish never to want towards 
 some dear object or another. To have always some se- 
 cret darling idea to which one can still have recourse 
 amidst the noise and nonsense of the world, and which 
 never fails to touch us in the most exquisite manner, is 
 an art of happiness that fortune cannot deprive us of. 
 This may be called romantic ; but whatever the cause is, 
 the effect is really felt. Pray, when you write, tell me 
 when you saw her, and with the pure eye of a friend, 
 when you see her again, whisper that I am her most 
 humble servant." 
 
 Even Pope was enamoured of a " scornful lady ;" and, 
 as Johnson observed, " polluted his will with female resent- 
 ment." Johnson himself, we are told by one who knew 
 him, " had always a metaj)hysical passion for one princess 
 or other, — the rustic Lucy Porter, or the haughty Molly 
 Aston, or the subhmated methodistic Hill Boothby ; and, 
 lastly, the more charming Mrs. Thrale." Even in his 
 advanced age, at the height of his celebrity, we hear his 
 cries of lonely wretchedness. " I want every comfort ; 
 my life is very solitary and very cheerless. Let me 
 know that I have yet a friend — let us be kind to one 
 another." But the " kindness " of distant friends is like 
 the polar sun — too far removed to warm us. Those who 
 have eluded the individual tenderness of the female, are
 
 266 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 tortured by an aching void in their feelings. The stoic 
 Akenside, in his " Odes," has preserved the history of a 
 life of genius in a series of his own feelings. One entitled, 
 " At Study," closes with these memorable lines : — 
 
 Me though no peculiar fair 
 Touches with a lover's care ; 
 
 Though the pride of my desire 
 Asks immortal friendsliip's uame, 
 Asks the palm of honest fame 
 
 And the old heroic lyro ; 
 Though the day have smoothly gone, 
 Or to letter'd leisure known, 
 
 Or in social duty speut ; 
 Tet at the eve my lonely breast 
 Seeks in vain for ]ierftct rest, 
 
 Languishes for true content. 
 
 If ever a man of letters lived in a state of energy and 
 excitement which might raise him above the atmosphere 
 of social love, it Avas assuredly the enthusiast, Thomas 
 Hollis, who, solely devoted to literature and to republi- 
 canism, was occujiied in furnishing Europe and America 
 with editions of his lavourite authors. He would not 
 marry, lest marriage should interrupt the labours of his 
 platonic politics. But his extraordinary memoirs, while 
 they show an intrepid mind in a robust frame, bear wit- 
 ness to the self-tormentor who had trodden down tlie 
 natural bonds of domestic life. Hence tlie deep " dejec- 
 tion of his spirits ;" those incessant cries, tliat he has " no 
 one to advise, assist, or cherish those magnanimous pur- 
 suits in him." At length he retreated into the country, 
 in utter hopelessness. "I go not into the country for 
 attentions to agriculture as such, nor attentions of inter- 
 est of any kind, which I have ever despised as such ; but 
 as a used nian^ to pass the remainder of a life in tolerable 
 sanity and quiet, after luxviiig given up the liower of it, 
 voluntarily, day, week, month, year after year, successive 
 to cacli other, to public service, and being uo longer able
 
 UNHAPPY UNIONS. 2G7 
 
 1^0 sustain, in hody or mind, tlie labours that I ha^e 
 chosen to go through without falling speedily into Ihe 
 greatest disorders, and it might be imhecility itself. This 
 is not colouring, but the exact plain truth." 
 
 Poor moralist, and what art thou? 
 A solitary fly 1 
 
 Thy joys no glittering female meets, 
 No hive hast thou of hoarded sweets. 
 
 Assuredly it would not have been a question whether 
 these literary characters should have married, had not 
 Montaigne, when a widower, declared that "he would 
 not marry a second time, though it were Wisdom itself;" 
 hut the airy Gascon has not disclosed how far Madame 
 was concerned in this anathema. 
 
 If the literary man unite himself to a woman whose 
 taste and whose temper are adverse to his pursuits, he 
 must coixrageously prepare for a martyrdom. Should a 
 female mathematician be united to a poet, it is probable 
 that she would be left amidst her abstractions, to demon- 
 strate to herself how many a specious diagram fails when 
 brought into its mechanical operation ; or discovering 
 the infinite varieties of a curve, she might take occasidti 
 to deduce her husband's versatility. If she become as 
 jealous of his books as other wives might be of his mis- 
 tresses, she may act the virago even over his innocent pa- 
 pers. The wife of Bishop Cooper, while her husband was 
 employed on his Lexicon, one day consigned the volume 
 of many years to the flames, and obliged that scholar to 
 begin a second siege of Troy in a second Lexicon, The 
 wife of Whitelocke often destroyed his MSS., and the 
 marks of her nails have come down to posterity in the 
 numerous lacerations still gaping in his "Memorials." 
 The learned Sir Henry Saville, who devoted more than 
 half his life and nearly ten thousand poxmds to his mag- 
 nificent edition of St. Chrysostom, led a very uneasy life
 
 2G8 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 between the saint and her ladyship, "What with her 
 tenderness for him, and her own want of amyscnient, 
 St, Chrysostora, it appears, incurred more than one 
 danger. 
 
 Genius has not preserved itself from the errors and 
 infirmities of matrimonial connexions. The energetic 
 character of Dante could neither soften nor control the 
 asperity of his lady ; and when that great poet lived in 
 exile, she never cared to see him more, though he was the 
 father of her six children. The internal state of the house 
 of Domenichino afflicted that great artist with many sor- 
 rows. He had married a beauty of high birth and ex- 
 treme haughtiness, and of the most avaricious disposition. 
 When at Naples he himself dreaded lest the avaricious 
 passion of his wife should not be able to resist the offers 
 she received to poison him, and he was compelled to pro- 
 vide and dress his own food. It is believed that he died 
 of poison. What a picture has Passeri left of the domes- 
 tic interior of this great artist ! Cosl fra mille crepacuo- 
 ri mori uno cW piti eccellenti artefici del mimdo ; che oltre 
 al suo valore ptittorico avrehhe pi'iX d''ogni altri marltato 
 di viver sempre per Vonestd personale. " So perished, 
 amidst a thousand heart-breakings, the most excellent of 
 artists; who besides his worth as a painter, deserved 
 as much as any one to have lived for his excellence as a 
 man." 
 
 Milton carried nothing of the greatness of his mind in 
 the choice of his wives. His first wife was the object of 
 Budden fancy. He left the metropolis and unexpectedly 
 returned a married man, and united to a woman of such 
 uncongenial dispositions, that the romp was friglitened 
 at the literary liabits of the great poet, found his 
 house solitary, beat his nephews, and ran away after a 
 single month's residence ! To this circumstance wc owe 
 his famous treatise on Divorce; and a party (by no 
 means extinct), who having made as ill clioices in their
 
 UNHAPPY UNIONS^ 2G9 
 
 wives, were for divorcing as fast as tliey had been for 
 marrying, calling themselves Milto7iists. 
 
 When we find that Moli^re, so skilful in human life, 
 married a girl from his own troop, who made him ex- 
 perience all those bitter disgusts and ridiculous embar- 
 rassments which he himself played off at the theatre ; 
 that Addison's fine taste in morals and in life could suffer 
 the ambition of a courtier to prevail with himself to seek 
 a countess, whom he describes under the stormy charac- 
 ter of Oceana, and who drove him contemptuously into 
 solitude, and shortened" his days; and that Steele, warm 
 and thoughtless, was united to a cold precise "Miss 
 Prue," as he himself calls her, and from whom he never 
 parted without bickerings ; in all these cases we censure 
 the great men, not their wives.* Rousseau has honestly 
 confessed his error. He had united himself to a low, 
 illiterate woman ; and when he retreated into solitude, 
 he felt the weight which he carried with him. He 
 laments that he had not educated his wife : " In a docile 
 age, I could have adorned her mind with talents and 
 knowledge, which would have more closely united us in 
 retirement. We should not then have felt the intolerable 
 tedium of a tete-a-tete; it is in solitude one feels the 
 advantage of living with another who can think." Tlius 
 Rousseau confesses the fatal error, and indicates the 
 right principle. 
 
 Yet it seems not absolutely necessary for the domestic 
 happiness of the literary character, that his wife should 
 be a literary woman. Tycho Brahe, noble by birth as 
 well as genius, married the daughter of a peasant. By 
 which means that great man obtained two points essential 
 for his abstract pursuits; he acquired an obedient wife, 
 and freed himself of his noble relatives, who would no 
 longer hold an intercourse with the man who was spread- 
 ing their family honours into more ages than perhaps 
 * See " Curiosities of Literature," for anecdotes of "Literary "Wives."
 
 270 LITER ART CHARICTER. 
 
 they could have traced them backwards. The lady of 
 Wieland was a pleasing domestic person, who, without 
 reading her husband's works, knew he was a great poet. 
 Wieland was apt to exercise his imagination in declam- 
 atory invectives and bitter amplifications ; and the 
 wi'iter of this account, in perfect Gei-man taste, assures 
 us, " that many of his felicities of diction were thus 
 struck out at a heat." During this frequent operation 
 of his genius, the placable temper of Mrs. Wieland over- 
 came the orgasm of the German bard merely by persist- 
 ing in her admiration and her patience. When the burst 
 was over, Wieland himself was so charmed by her docil- 
 ity, that he usually closed with giving up all his 
 opinions. 
 
 There is another soi't of homely happiness, aptly 
 described in the plain words of Bishop Newton. He 
 found "the study of sacred and classic authors ill agreed 
 with butchers' and bakers' bills;" and when the pros- 
 pect of a bishopric opened on him, " more servants, more 
 entei'tainments, a better table," &c., it became neces- 
 sary to look out for " some clever, sensible woman to be 
 his wife, who would lay out his money to the best advan- 
 tage, and be careful and tencler of his health ; a friend 
 and companion at all hours, and who would be happier 
 in staying at home than be perpetually gadding abroad." 
 Such are the wives not adapted to be the votaries, but 
 who may be the faithful companions through life, even 
 of a man of genius. 
 
 But in the character of the higher female we may dis- 
 cover a constitutional faculty of docility and enthusiasm 
 which has varied Avith the genius of diiTerent ages. It is 
 the opinion of an elegant metaphysician, that the mind of 
 the female adopts and familiarises itself with ideas more 
 easily than that of man, and hence the facility Avith which 
 the sex contract or lose habits, and accommodate tlieir 
 minds to new situations. Politics, war, and learning, are
 
 UNHAPPY UNIONS. 2T1 
 
 equally objects of attainment to their delightful suscepti- 
 bility. Love has the fancied transparency of the came- 
 leon. "When the art of gOA-ernment directed the feel- 
 ings of a woman, we behold Aspasia, eloquent with the 
 genius of Pericles, instructing the Archons ; Portia, the 
 wife of the republican Brutus, devouring burning coals ; 
 and the wife of Lucan, transcribing and correcting the 
 Pharsalia, before the bust of the poet, which she had 
 placed on her bed, that his very figure might never be 
 absent. When the universities were opened to the sex, 
 they acquired academic glory. The wives of military 
 men have shared in the perils of the field ; or like Anna 
 Comnena and our Mrs. Hutchinson, have become even 
 their historians. In the age of love and sympathy, the 
 female often receives an indelible pliancy from her liter- 
 ary associate. His pursuits become the objects of her 
 thoughts, and he observes his own taste reflected in his 
 family ; much less through his own influence, for his 
 solitary labours often preclude him fi-om forming them, 
 than by that image of his oAvn genius — the mother of his 
 childi-en ! The subjects, the very books which enter into 
 his literary occupation, are cherished by her imagina- 
 tion ; a feeling finely opened by the lady of the author 
 of " Sandford and Merton :" " My ideas of my husband," 
 she said, " are so much associated with his booJcs, that to 
 part with them would be as it were breaking some of the 
 last ties which still connect me with so beloved an 
 object. The being in the midst of books he has been 
 accustomed to read, and which contain his marJcs and 
 notes ^ will still give him a sort of existence with me. 
 Unintelligible as such fond chimeras may appear to 
 many people, I am pei'suaded they are not so to you." 
 
 With what simplicity Meta Mollers, the wife of Klop- 
 stock, in her German-English, describes to Richardson, 
 the novelist, the manner in which she passes her day 
 with her poet ! she tells him that " she is always present
 
 272 LITERARY CUARACTER. 
 
 at the birtli of the youug verses, which begin by fi-ag- 
 ments, here and there, of a subject with whicli his soul is 
 yust then filled. Persons who live as we do have no 
 need of two chambers ; we are always in the same : I 
 with my little work, still ! still ! only regarding some- 
 times my husband's face, whicli is so venerable at that 
 time with tears of devotion, and all the sublimity of the 
 subject — my husband reading me his young verses, and 
 suffering my criticisms," 
 
 The picture of a literary wife of antiquity has de- 
 scended to us, touched by the domestic pencil of genius, 
 in the susceptible Calphurnia, the lady of the younger 
 Pliny. "Her affection for me," he says, "has given her 
 a turn to books : her passion will increase with our days, 
 for it is not my youth or my person, which time grad- 
 ually impairs, but my reputation and my glory, of which 
 she is enamoured." 
 
 I have been told that BuiFon, notwithstanding his 
 favourite seclusion of his old tower in his garden, ac- 
 knowledged to a friend that his lady had a considerable 
 influence over his compositions : " Often," said he, " when 
 I caimot please myself, and am impatient at the dis- 
 appointment, Madame de Buffon reanimates ray exertion, 
 x)v withdraws rae to repose for a short interval ; I return 
 to my pen refreshed, and aided by her advice." 
 
 Gesner declared that whatever were his talents, the 
 person who had most contributed to develoj^e them was 
 his wife. She is unknown to the public ; but the history 
 of the mind of such a woman is discovered in the 
 " Letters of Gesner and his Family," While Gesner 
 gave liimself up entirely to his favourite arts, drawing, 
 painting, etching, and poetry, his wife would often reani- 
 mate a genius that was apt to despond in its attempts, 
 and often exciting him to new productions, her sure and 
 delicate taste was attentively consulted by the poet- 
 painter — but she combined the most practical good sense
 
 GESXER'S WIFE. 273 
 
 with the most feeling imagination. This forms the rare- 
 ness of the character ; for this same woman, who unitcil 
 with her husband in the education of their children, to 
 relieve him from the interruptions of common business, 
 carried on alone the concerns of his house in la Ubrairie.* 
 Her correspondence with her son, a young artist travel- 
 ling for his studies, opens what an old poet compre- 
 hensively terms " a gathered mind." Imagine a woman 
 attending to the domestic economy, and to the commercial 
 details, yet withdrawing out of this business of life into 
 the more elevated pursuits of her husband, and at the 
 same time combining with all this the cares and counsels 
 which she bestowed on her son to form the artist and 
 the man. 
 
 To know this incomparable woman we must hear her. 
 " Consider your father's precepts as oracles of wisdom ; 
 they are the result of the experience he has collected, 
 not only of life, but of that art which he has acquired 
 simply by his own industry." She would not have her 
 son suffer his strong affection to herself to absorb all 
 other sentiments. "Had you remained at home, and 
 been habituated under your mother's auspices to employ- 
 ments merely domestic, what advantage would you have 
 acquired ? I own we should have passed some delightful 
 winter evenings together; but your love for the arts, 
 and my ambition to see my sons as much distinguished 
 for their talents as their virtues, would have been a con- 
 stant source of regret at your passing your time in a 
 manner so little worthy of you." 
 
 How profound is her observation on the strong but 
 confined attachments of a youth of genius! "I have 
 
 * Gesner's father was a bookseller of Zurich ; descended from a fi^mily 
 of men learned in the exact sciences, he vras apprenticed to a book- 
 seller at Berlin, and afterwards entered into his father's business. The 
 best edition of his '• Idylls " is that published by himself, in two vol- 
 umes, 4to, illustrated by his own engravings. — Ed. 
 13
 
 274 LITERARY CHARACTER, 
 
 frequently remai-ked, with some regret, the excessive at- 
 tachment you indulge towards those who see and feel as 
 you do yourself, and the total neglect with which you 
 seem to treat every one else. I should reproach a man 
 with such a fault who was destined to pass his life in a 
 small and unvarying circle ; but in an artist, who has a 
 great object in view, and whose country is the whole 
 world, this disposition seems to be likely to produce a 
 great mamber of inconveniences. Alas ! my son, the life 
 you have hitherto led in your father's house has been in 
 fact a pastoral life, and not such a one as was necessary 
 for the education of a man whose destiny summons him 
 to the world." 
 
 And when her son, after meditating on some of the 
 most glorious productions of art, felt himself, as he says, 
 *' disheartened and cast down at the unattainable superi- 
 ority of the artist, and that it was only by reflecting on 
 the immense labour and continued elforts which such 
 masterpieces must have reqiiired, that I regained my 
 courage and my ardour," she observes, "This passage, 
 my dear son, is to me as precious as gold, and I send it 
 to you again, because I wish you to impress it strongly 
 on your mind. The remembrance of this may also be a 
 useful preservative from too great confidence in your 
 abilities, to which a warm imagination may sometimes be 
 liable, or from the despondence you might occasionally 
 feel from the contemplation of grand originals. Continue, 
 therefore, my dear son, to form a sound judgment and a 
 I^ure taste from your own observations ; your mind, 
 while yet young and flexible, may receive whatever im- 
 pressions you wish. Be careful that your abilities do 
 not inspire in you too much confidence, lest it should 
 happen to you as it has to many others, that they have 
 never possessed any greater merit than that of having 
 good abilities." 
 
 One more extract, to preserve an incident which may,
 
 GESXER'S WIFE. 275 
 
 touch the heart of genius. This extraordinary woman, 
 ^hose characteristic is that of strong sense combined 
 ■with delicacy of feeling, "svould check her German sen- 
 timentality at the moment she was betraying those emo- 
 tions in which the imagination is so powerfully mixed 
 up with the associated feelings. Arriving at their cot- 
 tage at Sihlwald, she proceeds — " On entering the par- 
 lour three small pictures, painted by you, met my eyes. 
 I passed some time in contemplating them. It is now a 
 year, I thought, since I saw him trace these pleasing 
 forms ; he whistled and sang, and I saw them grow under 
 his pencil ; now he is far, far from us. In short, I had 
 the weakness to press my lips on one of these pictures. 
 Tou well know, my dear son, that I am not much ad- 
 dicted to scenes of a sentimental turn ; but to-day, while 
 I considered your works, I could not restrain this little 
 impulse of maternal feelings. Do not, however, be ap- 
 prehensive that the tender aifection of a mother will ever 
 lead me too far, or that I shall suffer my mind to be too 
 powerfully impressed with the painful sensations to 
 which your absence gives birth. My reason convinces 
 me that it is for your welfare that you are now in a place 
 where your abilities will have opportunities of unfolding, 
 and where you can become g^reat in your art." 
 
 Such was the incomparable wife and mother of the 
 Gesners ! Will it now be a question whether matrimony 
 be incompatible with the cultivation of the ai"ts? A 
 wife who reanimates the drooping genius of her husband, 
 and a mother who is inspired by the ambition of behold- 
 ing her sons eminent, is she not the real being which the 
 ancients personified in their Muse ?
 
 276 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 Literary friendships. — In early life. — Different from those of men of the 
 world. — They suffer an unrestrained communication of their ideas, 
 and bear reprimands and exhortations. — Unity of feelings. — A sym- 
 pathy not of manners but of feelings. — Admit of dissimilar charac- 
 ters. — Their peculiar glory. — Their sorrow. 
 
 AMONG the virtues which literatm'e inspires, is often 
 that of the most romantic friendship. The delirium 
 of love, and even its lighter caprices, are incompatible 
 with the pursuits of the student ; but to feel friendship 
 like a passion is necessary to the mind of genius alter- 
 nately elated and depressed, ever prodigal of feeling and 
 excursive in knowledge. 
 
 The qualities which constitute literary friendship, com- 
 pared with those of men of the world, must render it a 
 sentiment as rare as love itself, which it resembles in 
 that intellectual tenderness in which both so deeply 
 participate. 
 
 Born " in the dews of their youth," this friendship will 
 not expire on their tomb. In the school or the college 
 this immortality begins ; and, engaged in similar studies, 
 should even one excel the other, he will find in him the 
 protector of his fame ; as Addison did in Steele, "West in 
 Gray, and Gray in Mason. Thus Petrarch was the guide 
 of Boccaccio, thus Boccaccio became the defender of his 
 master's genius. Perhaps friendship is never more in- 
 tense than in an intercourse of minds of ready counsels 
 and inspiring ardours. United in the same pursuits, but 
 directed by an unequal experience, the imperceptible 
 superiority interests, Avithout mortifying. It is a coun- 
 sel, it is an aid ; in whatever form it shows itself, it has 
 nothing of the malice of rivalry. 
 
 A beautiful picture of such a friendship among men of
 
 LITERARY FEIEXDSHIPS. 277 
 
 genius offers itself in the history of Mignard, the great 
 French painter, and Du Fresnoy, the great critic of the 
 art itself Du Fresnoy, abandoned in utter scorn by his- 
 stern father, an apothecary, for his entire devotion to his 
 seductive art, lived at Rome in voluntaiy poverty, till 
 Mignard, his old fellow-student, arrived, when they be- 
 came known by the name of " the inseparables." The 
 talents of the friends were different, but their studies 
 were the same. Their days melted away together in 
 drawing from the ancient statues and the basso-relievos, 
 in studying in the galleries of paintings, or among the 
 villas which embellish the environs of Rome. One roof 
 sheltered them, and one table siipplied their sober meal. 
 Light were the slumbers which closed each day, each the 
 pleasing image of the former. But this remarkable friend- 
 ship was not a simple sentiment which limited the views 
 of " the Inseparables," for with them it was a perpetual 
 source of mutual usefulness. They gave accounts to each 
 other of whatever they observed, and carefully noted 
 their own defects. Du Fresnoy, so critical in the theory 
 of the art, was unsuccessful in the practical parts. His 
 delight in poetical composition had retarded the progress 
 of his pictorial powers. Not having been taught the 
 handling of his pencil, he worked with difficulty; but 
 Mignard succeeded in giving him a freer command and 
 a more skilful touch ; while Du Fresnoy, who was the 
 more literary man, enriched the invention of Mignard by 
 reading to him an Ode of Anacreon or Horace, a passage 
 from the Iliad or Odyssey, or the JEneid, or the Jeru- 
 salem Delivered, which offered subjects for the artist's 
 invention, who would throw out five or six different 
 sketches on the same subject ; a habit which so highly 
 improved the inventive powers of Mignard, that he could 
 compose a fine picture with playful facility. Thus they 
 lived together, mutually enlightening each other. Mig- 
 nard supplied Du Fresnoy with all that fortune had
 
 278 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 refused him ; and when he was no more, perpetuated his 
 fame, which he felt was a portion of his own celebrity, 
 hy publishing his posthumous jyoeniyDeArte Graphica;^ 
 a poem, which Mason has made readable by his versifica- 
 tion, and Reynolds even interesting by his invaluable 
 commentary. 
 
 In the poem Cowley composed, on the death of his 
 friend Harvey, this stanza opens a pleasing scene of two 
 young literary friends engaged in their midnight studies : 
 
 Say, for you saw us, ye immortal li^ihts I 
 How oft unwearied have we spent the nights, 
 Till the Ledajan stars, so famed for love, 
 Wonder'd at us from above. 
 "We spent them not in toys, in lust, or wine ; 
 
 But search of deep philosophy, 
 
 Wit, eloquence, and poetry ; 
 Arts which I loved, for they, my friend, were thine. 
 
 Touched by a personal knowledge of this union of 
 genius and affection, even Malone commemorates, with 
 unusual warmth, the literary friendships of Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds; and with a felicity of fancy, not often in- 
 dulged, has raised an unforced parallel betAveen the 
 bland wisdom of Sir Joshua and the "mitis sapientia 
 Laeli." " What the illustrious Scipio was to Lajlius was 
 the all-knowing and all-accomplished Burke to Rey- 
 nolds ;" and what the elegant Ljelius Avas to his master 
 Pansetius, whom he gratefully protected, and to his com- 
 panion the poet Lucilius, Avhom he patronised, Avas Rey- 
 nolds to Johnson, of whom he was the scholar and friend, 
 and to Goldsmith, whom he loved and aided.f 
 
 * La Yie do Pierre Mignard, par L'Abbe do Monville, the work of 
 an amateur. 
 
 \ Reynolds's hospitality was unbounded to all literary men, and his 
 evotiinps were devoted to their society. It was at his house they com- 
 pared notes ; and the President of the Royal Academy obtained that 
 information whicli gave him a full knowledge of the outward world, 
 which his ceaseless occupation could not else have allowed. — Eu.
 
 LrrERART FRIENDSHIPS. 279 
 
 Count Azara mourns with equal tenderness and force 
 over the memory of the artist and the writer Mengg. 
 "The most tender friendship would call forth tears iu 
 this sad duty of scattering flowers on his tomb ; but the 
 shade of my extinct friend warns me not to be satisfied 
 with dropping flowers and tears — they are useless ; and 
 I Avould rather accomplish his -ndshes, in making known 
 the author and his works." 
 
 I am infinitely delighted by a circumstance communi- 
 cated to me by one who had visited Gleim, the German 
 poet, who seems to have been a creature made up alto- 
 gether of sensibility. His many and illustrious friends 
 he had never forgotten, and to the last hour of a life, 
 prolonged beyond his eightieth year, he j)ossessed those 
 interior feelings which can make even an old man an 
 enthusiast. There seemed for Gleim to be no extinction 
 in fi-iendship w'hen the friend was no more ; and he had 
 invented a singular mode of gratifpng his feelings of lit- 
 erary friendships. The visitor found the old man in a 
 room of which the wainscot was panelled, as we still see 
 among us in ancient houses. In every panel Gleim had 
 inserted the portrait of a friend, and the ajiartment was 
 crowded. " You see," said the grey-haired poet, " that 
 I never have lost a friend, and am sitting always among 
 them." 
 
 Such fi-iendship can never be the lot of men of the 
 ■world ; for the source of these lies in the interior afiec- 
 tions and the intellectual feelings. Fontenelle describes 
 with characteristic delicacy the conversations of such lit- 
 erary fi-iends : " Our days passed like moments ; thanks 
 to those pleasures, which, however, are not included in 
 those which are commonly called pleasures." The friend- 
 ships of the men of society move on the principle of pei*- 
 sonal interest, but interest can easily separate the inter- 
 ested ; or they are cherished to relieve themselves from 
 the listlessness of existence ; but, as weariness is conta-
 
 280 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 gious, the contact of the propagator is watched. Men of 
 the world may look on each other with the same counte- 
 nances, but not with the same hearts. In the common 
 mart of life intimacies may he found which tei-minate in 
 complaint and contempt ; the more they know one an- 
 other, the less is their mutual esteem : the feeble mind 
 quarrels with one still more imbecile than itself; the dis- 
 solute riot with the dissolute, and they despise their 
 companions, while they too have themselves become des- 
 picable. 
 
 Literary friendships are marked by another peculiarity ; 
 the true philosophical spirit has learned to bear that 
 shock of contrary opinions which minds less meditative 
 are unequal to encounter. Men of genius live in the 
 unrestrained communication of their ideas, and confide 
 even their caprices with a freedom which sometimes star- 
 tles ordinary observers. We see literary men, the most 
 opposite in dispositions and opinions, deriving from each 
 other that fulness of knowledge which unfolds the cer- 
 tain, the probable, the doubtful. Topics which break the 
 world into factions and sects, and truths which ordinary 
 men are doomed only to hear from a malignant adver- 
 sary, they gather from a friend ! If neither yields up his 
 opinions to the other, they are at least certain cf silencd 
 aiid % hp-aring ; but usually 
 
 Tie wiso new ■wisdom from the wise acquire. 
 
 Tniji generous freedom, which spares neither repn 
 mands nor -exhortation, has often occurred in the in 
 tercourso of lite»*ary men. Hume and Kobertson were 
 engaged in the same studies, but with very opposite 
 principles ; yet Robertson declined writing the English 
 liistory, which he aspired to do, lest it should injure the 
 plans of Hume ; a noble sacrifice ! 
 
 Politics once divided Boccaccio and Petrarch. The 
 poet of Valchiusa had never forgiven ihe FlorenUnos fot
 
 PETRARCH AND BOCCACCIO 231 
 
 their persecution of his father. By the mediation of Boc- 
 caccio they now offered to reinstate Petrarch in his patri- 
 mony and his honours. Won over by the tender solici- 
 tude of his fiiend, Petrarch had consented to return to 
 his country ; but with his usual inconstancy of temper, 
 he had again excused himself to the senate of Florence, 
 and again retreated to his solitude. Nor was this all; 
 for the Visconti of Milan had by their flattery and prom- 
 ises seduced Petrarch to their court ; a court, the avowed 
 enemy of Florence. Boccaccio, for the honour of litera- 
 ture, of his friend, of his country, indignantly heard of 
 Petrarch's fatal decision, and addressed him by a letter — 
 the mosf interesting perhaps Avhich ever passed between 
 two literary friends, who were torn asunder by the mo- 
 mentary passions of the vulgar, but who were still united 
 by that immortal friendship which literature inspires, and 
 by a reverence for that posterity which they knew would 
 concern itself with their affairs. 
 
 It was on a journey to Ravenna that Boccaccio first 
 heard the news of Petrarch's abandonment of his coun- 
 try, when he thus vehemently addressed his brother- 
 genius : — 
 
 " I would be silent, but I cannot : my reverence com- 
 mands silence, but my indignation speaks. How has it 
 happened that Silvanus (under this name he conceals Pe- 
 trarch) has forgotten his dignity, the many conversations 
 we had together on the state of Italy, his hatred of the 
 archbishop (Visconti), his love of solitude and freedom, 
 so necessary for study, and has resolved to imprison the 
 Musee at that court ? Whom may we trust again, if Sil- 
 vanus, who once branded II V-isconti as the Cruel, a 
 Polyphemus, a Cyclop, has avowed himself his friend, 
 and placed his neck under the yoke of him whose audaci- 
 ty, and pride, and tyranny, he so deeply abhorred ? How 
 has Visconti obtained that which King Robert, which 
 the pontiff, the emperor, the King of France, could not ?
 
 282 LITEEART CHARACTER. 
 
 Am I to conclude that you accepted this favour from a 
 disdain of your fellow-citizens, who once indeed scorned 
 you, but who have reinstated you in the paternal patri- 
 mony of which you have been deprived ? I do not dis- 
 approve of a just indignation; but I take Heaven to wit- 
 ness that I believe that no man, whoever he may be, I'ightly 
 and honestly can labour agauist his country, whatever be 
 the injury he has received. You will gain nothing by 
 opposing me in this opinion; for if stirred n-p by the 
 most just indignation you become the friend of the enemy 
 of your country, unquestionably you will not spur him on 
 to war, nor assist him by your arm, nor by your counsel ; 
 yet how can you avoid rejoicing with him, when you 
 hear of the ruins, the conflagrations, the imprison- 
 ments, death, and rapine, which he sjiall spread among 
 us?" 
 
 Such was the bold appeal to elevated feelings, and such 
 the keen reproach inspired by that confidential freedom 
 which can only exist in the intercourse of great minds. 
 The literary friendship, or rather adoration of Boccaccio 
 for Petrarch, was not bartered at the cost of his patriot- 
 ism : and it is worthy of our notice that Petrarch, whose 
 personal injuries from an ungenerous republic were rank- 
 ling in his mind, and whom even the eloquence of Boc- 
 caccio could not disunite from his protector Visconti, yet 
 received the ardent reproaches of his friend without au- 
 ger, though not without maintaining tlie freedom of his 
 own opinions. Petrarch replied, that the anxiety of Boc- 
 caccio for the liberty of liis friend was a thought most 
 grateful to liim ; but he assured Boccaccio that he preserve 
 ed his freedom, even although it apjicarcd that he bowed 
 under a hard yoke. He hoped that he had not to learn 
 to serve in his old age, he who had hitherto studied to 
 preserve liis independence ; but, in respect to servitude, 
 he did not know wliom it was most dis|)leasing to serve,
 
 LITERARY FRIENDSHIPS. 283 
 
 a tyrant like Visconti, or with Boccaccio, a people of 
 tyrants.* • ® 
 
 The imity of feeling is displayed in such memorable 
 associates as Beaumont and Fletcher ; whose labours are 
 so combined, that no critic can detect the mingled pro- 
 duction of either ; and whose lives are so closely united, 
 that no biographer can compose the memoirs of the one 
 without running into the history of the other. Their 
 days were interwoven as their verses. Montaigne and 
 Charron, in the eyes of posterity, are rivals ; but such lit- 
 erary friendship knows no rivalry. Such was Montaigne's 
 affection for Charron, that he requested him by his 
 will to bear the arms of the Montaignes ; and Charron 
 evinced his gratitude to the manes of his departed friend, 
 by leaving his fortune to the sister of Montaigne. 
 
 How pathetically Erasmus mourns over the death of 
 his beloved Sir Thomas More ! — " In Moro mihi videor 
 extinctus''' — " I seem to see myself extinct in More." It 
 was a melancholy presage of his own death, which shortly 
 after followed. The Doric sweetness and simplicity of 
 old Isaac Walton, the angler, were reflected in a mind as 
 clear and generous, when Charles Cotton continued the 
 feelings, rather than the little work of Walton, Metas- 
 tasio and Farinelli called each other il Gemello^ the TavIu : 
 and both delighted to trace the resemblance of their 
 lives and fates, and the perpetual alliance of the verse 
 and the voice. The famous John Baptista Porta had a 
 love of the mysterious parts of sciences, such as physiog- 
 nomy, natural magic, the cryptical arts of writing, and 
 projected many curious inventions which astonished his 
 age, and which we hare carried to perfection. This ex- 
 traordinary man saw his fame somewhat diminishing by 
 a rumour that his brother Jolin Vincent had a great 
 share in the composition of his works ; but this never 
 
 ♦These interesting letters are , preserved in Count Baldelli'a "Life 
 of Boccaccio," p. 115.
 
 2S4: LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 disturbed him ; and Peiresc, in an interesting account of 
 a visit to this celebrated Neifpolitan, observed, tliat 
 though now now aged and grey-haired, he treated his 
 younger brother as a son. These single-hearted brothers, 
 who would not marry that they might never be separated, 
 knew of but one fame, and that was the fame of Porta. 
 
 Go2;uet, the author of " The Origin of the Arts and 
 Sciences," bequeathed his MSS. and his books to his friend ' 
 Fugere, with whom he had long united his aifections and 
 his studies, that his surviving friend might proceed with 
 them : but the author had died of a slow and painful dis- 
 order, which Fugere had watched by his side, in silent 
 despair. The sight of those MSS. and books was the 
 friend's death-stroke; half his soul, which had once given 
 them animation, was parted from him, and a few Aveeks 
 terminated his own days. When Lloyd heard of the 
 death of Churchill, he neither wished to survive him, nor 
 did.* The Abbe de St. Pierre gave an interesting proof 
 of literary friendship for Varignon, the geometrician. 
 They were of congenial dispositions, and St. Pierre, when 
 he went to Paris, could not endure to part with Varignon, 
 who was too poor to accompany him ; and St. Pierre was 
 not rich. A certain income, however moderate, was 
 necessary for the tranquil pursuits of geometry. St. 
 Pierre presented Varignon -svith a portion of his small 
 income, accompanied by that delicacy of feeling which 
 men of genius who know each other can best conceive : 
 "I do not give it you," said St. Pien-e, "as a salary 
 
 * Tliis event is thus told by Southey : " The news of CliurchiU'R death 
 was somewhat abruptly announced to Lloyd as he sat at dinner; ho 
 was seized with a sudden sickness, and saying, ' I shall follow poor 
 Charles,' took to his bod, from which he never rose again; dying. If 
 ever man died, of a broken heart. The tragedy did not end here: 
 Churchill's favourite sister, who is said to have possessed nuich of 
 her brother's sense, and spirit, and genius, and to have been betrollied 
 to Lloyd, attended him during his illness, and sinking under the double 
 loss, soon followed her brother and her lover to the grave." — Ed.
 
 LITERARY FRIENDSHIPS. 2S5 
 
 but as an annuity, that you may he independent and quit 
 me when you dislike me." The same circumstance occur- 
 red between Akenside and Dyson. Dyson, when the 
 poet was in great danger of adding one more illustrious 
 name to the " Calamities of Authors," interposed between 
 him and ill-fortmie, by allowing him an annuity of three 
 hundred a-year ; and, when he found the fame of his lit- 
 erary friend attacked, although not m the habit of com- 
 position, he published a defence of his poetical and phi- 
 losophical character. The name and character of Dyson 
 have been suffered to die away, without a single tribute 
 of even biographical sympathy ; as that of Longueville, 
 the modest patron of Butler, in whom that great political 
 satirist found what the careless ingratitude of a court 
 had denied : but in the record of literary glory, the pa- 
 tron's name should be inscribed by the side of the literary 
 character : for the public incurs an obligation whenever 
 a man of genius is protected. 
 
 The statesman Fouquet, deserted by all others, wit- 
 nessed La Fontaine hastening eveiy literary man to his 
 prison-gate. Many have inscribed their works to their 
 disgraced patrons, as Pope did so nobly to the Earl of 
 Oxford in the ToAver : 
 
 "WTien interest calls off all her sneaking train, 
 And all the obliged desert, and aU the vain, 
 They wait, or to the scaffold, or the cell, 
 When the last lingering friend has bid farewell. 
 
 Literary friendship is a sympathy not of manners, but 
 of feelings. The personal character may happen to be 
 very opposite : the vivacious may be loved by the melan- 
 cholic, and the wit by the man of learning. He who is 
 vehement and vigorous will feel himself a double man 
 by the side of the friend who is calm and subtle. When 
 we observe such friendships, we are apt to imagine that 
 they are not real because the characters are dissimilar ; 
 but it is their common tastes and pursuits which form a
 
 286 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 bond of union, Pomponius Lretus, so called from liis natu- 
 ral good-humour, was the personal friend of Hermolaus 
 Barbarus, whose saturnine and melancholy disposition he 
 often exhilarated ; the warm, impetuous Luther was the 
 beloved friend of the mild and amiable Melancthon ; the 
 caustic Boileau was the companion of Racine and Mo- 
 liore ; and France, perhaps, owes the chefs-cVceuvre of her 
 tragic and her comic poet to her satirist. The delicate 
 taste and the refining ingenuity of Hurd only attached 
 him the more to the impetuous and dogmatic Warbur- 
 ton.* No men could be more opposite in personal char- 
 acter than the careless, gay, and hasty Steele, and the 
 cautious, serious, and the elegant Addison ; yet no liter- 
 ary friendship was more fortunate than their union. 
 
 One glory is reserved for literary friendship. The 
 friendship of a great name indicates the greatness of the 
 character who appeals to it. When Sydenham mentioned, 
 as a proof of the excellence of his method of treating 
 acute diseases, that it had received the approbation of 
 his illustrious friend Locke, the philosopher's opinion 
 contributed to the physician's success. 
 
 Such have been the friendshijDS of great literary char- 
 acters ; but too true it is, that they have not always con- 
 tributed thus largely to their mutual happiness. The 
 querulous lament of Gleim to Klopstock is too generally 
 participated. As Gleim lay on his death-bed he addressed 
 the great bard of Germany — " I am dying, dear Klop- 
 stock ; and, as a dying man will I say, in this world we 
 liave not lived long enough together and for each other; 
 but in vain would we now recal the past !" What ten- 
 derness in the reproach ! What self-accusation in its 
 modesty ! 
 
 * For a full account of their literary career see the first article in 
 " Quarrels of Authors."
 
 PERSONAL CHARACTER. 287 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 The literary and the personal character. — The personal dispositions of 
 an author may be the reverse of those which appear in his 
 writings. — Erroneous conceptions of the character of distant 
 authors. — Paradoxical appearances in the history of Genius. — "Why 
 the character of the man may be opposite to that of his writings. 
 
 A 
 
 RE the personal dispositions of an author discover- 
 able in his -writings, as those of an artist are 
 imagined to appear in his works, where Michael Angelo 
 is always great, and Raphael ever graceful ? 
 
 Is the moralist a moral man ? Is he malignant who 
 publishes caustic satires ? Is he a libertine who composes 
 loose poems ? And is he, whose imagination delights in 
 terror and in blood, the very monster he paints ? 
 
 Many licentious writers have led chaste lives. La 
 Mothe le Vayer wrote two works of a free nature ; yet 
 his was the unblemished life of a retired sage. Bayle is 
 the too faithful compiler of impurities, but he resisted the 
 voluptuousness of the senses as much as Newton. La 
 Fontaine wrote tales fertile in intrigue, yet the " bon- 
 homme" has not left on record a single ingenious amour 
 of his ovm. The Queen of Navarre's Tales are gross im- 
 itations of Boccaccio's; but she herself was a princess of 
 irreproachable habits, and had given proof of the most 
 rigid virtue ; but stories of intrigues, told in a natural 
 style, formed the fashionable literature of the day, and 
 the genius of the female writer was amused in becomingr 
 an historian without being an actor. Fortiguerra, the 
 author of the Ricciardetto, abounds with loose and licen- 
 tious descriptions, and yet neither his manners nor his 
 personal character were stained by the offending freedom 
 of- his inventions. Smollett's character is immaculate ; 
 yet he has described two scenes which offend even in the
 
 288 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 license of imagination. Cowley, who boasts with such 
 gaiety of the versatility of his passion among so many mis- 
 tresses, wanted even the confidence to address one. Thus, 
 licentious writers may be very chaste persons. The imag- 
 ination may be a volcano while the heart is an Alp of ice. 
 Turn to the moralist — there we find Seneca, a usurer 
 of seven millions, writing on moderate desires on a table 
 of gold. Sallust, who so eloquently declaims against the 
 licentiousness of the age, was repeatedly accused in the 
 senate of public and liabitual debaucheries ; and when 
 this inveigh er against the spoilers of provinces attained 
 to a remote government, he pillaged like Verres. That 
 " Demosthenes was more capable of recommending than 
 of imitating the virtues of our ancestors," is the observa- 
 tion of Plutarch. Lucian, when young, declaimed against 
 the friendship of the great, as another name for servitude ; 
 but when his talents procured him a situation under 
 the emperor, he facetiously compared himself to those 
 quacks who, themselves j^lagued by a perpetual cough, 
 ofier to sell an infallible remedy for one. Sir Thomas 
 More, in his " Utopia," declares that no man ought to be 
 punished for his religion ; yet he became a fierce perse- 
 cutor, flogging and racking men fol* his own " true faith." 
 At the moment the poet Rousseau was giving versions of 
 the Psalms, full of unction, as our Catholic neighbours 
 express it, he was profaning the same j^en with infiimous 
 epigrams ; and an erotic poet of our times has composed 
 night-hymns in churchyards with the same ardour with 
 which lie poured forth Anacreontics. Napoleon said of 
 Bernardin St. Pierre, whose writings breathe the warm 
 principles of humanity and social happiness in every 
 page, that he was one of the worst private characters in 
 France. I have heard this from other quarters ; it startles 
 one ! The pathetic genius of Sterne played about his 
 head, but never reached his heart.* Cardinal Richelieu 
 
 * See what is said on this siibject in the article on Sterno in tho 
 " Literary Miscellauioa," of tho present volumo.
 
 PERSONAL DISPOSITION. 289 
 
 wrote " The Perfection of a Christian, or the Life of a 
 Chi'istian ;" yet was he an ntter stranger to Gospel max- 
 ims ; and Frederick the Great, when young, published his 
 " Anti-Machiavel," and deceived the world by the promise 
 of a pacific reign. This military genius protested against 
 those political arts which he afterwards adroitly practised, 
 uniting the lion's head with the fox's tail — and thus him- 
 self realising the political monster of Machiavel ! 
 
 And thus alsD is it with the personal dispositions of an 
 author, which may be quite the reverse from those which 
 appear in his writings. Johnson would not believe that 
 Horace was a happy man because his verses were cheer- 
 ful, any more than he could think Pope so, because the 
 poet is continually informing us of it. It surprised 
 Spence when Pope told him that Rowe, the tragic poet, 
 whom he had considered so solemn a personage, " would 
 laugh all day long, and do nothing else but laugh." 
 Lord Kaimes says, that Arbuthnot must have been a 
 great genius, for he exceeded Swift and Addison in 
 humorous painting ; although we are informed he had 
 nothing of that peculiarity in his character. Young, 
 who is constantly contemning preferment in his writings, 
 was all his life pining after it ; and the conversation of 
 the sombrous author of the " Night Thoughts " was of 
 the most volatile kind, abounding with trivial puns. He 
 was one of the first who subscribed to the assembly at 
 Wellwyn. Mrs. Carter, who greatly admired his sublime 
 poetry, expressing her surprise at his social converse, he 
 replied, " Madam, there is much difierenee between writ- 
 ing and talking." 
 
 Moliere, on the contrary, whose humour is so perfectly 
 comic, and even ludicrous, was thoughtful and serious, 
 and even melancholy. His strongly-featured physiog- 
 nomy exhibits the face of a great tragic, rather than of a 
 great comic, poet. Boileau called Moliere " The Contem- 
 plative Man." Those who make the world laugh often 
 19
 
 290 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 themselves langli the least. A famous and witty harle« 
 quin of France was overcome with hypochondi-iasm, and 
 consulted a physician, who, after inquiring about his mal- 
 ady, told his miserable patient, that he knew of no other 
 medicine for him than to take frequent doses of Carlin. — 
 *' I am Carlin himself," exclaimed the melancholy man, in 
 despair. Burton, the pleasant and vivacious author of 
 " The Anatomy of Melancholy," of whom it is noticed, 
 that he could in an interval of vapours raise laughter in 
 any company, in his chamber was " mute and mopish," 
 and at last was so overcome by that intellectual disorder, 
 which he appeared to have got rid of by writing his 
 volume, that it is beheved he closed his life in a fit of 
 melancholy.* 
 
 Could one have imagined that the brilliant wit, the luxu- 
 riant raillery, and the fine and deep sense of Pascal, 
 could have combined with the most opposite qualities — 
 the hypochondriasm and bigotry of an ascetic ? Roche- 
 foucauld, in private life, was a conspicuous example of 
 all those moral qualities of which he seemed to deny the 
 existence, and exhibited in this respect a striking con- 
 trast to the Cardinal de Ketz, who has presumed to cen- 
 sure him for his want of faith in the reality of virtue ; 
 but De Retz himself was the unbeliever in disinterested 
 virtue. This gTcat genius was one of those pretended 
 patriots destitute of a single one of the virtues for which 
 he was the clamorous advocate of faction. 
 
 When Valincour attributed the excessive tenderness in 
 the tragedies of Racine to the poet's own impassioned 
 character, the son amply showed that his father was by 
 no means the slave of love. Racine never wrote a single 
 love-poem, nor even had a mistress ; and his wife had 
 never read his tragedies, for poetry was not her delight. 
 
 * It is reported of hiin that his only mode of alleviating his molau- 
 choly \v;i8 by walking from his college at Oxford to the bridge, to listen 
 to the rougli jokes of the bargcrnon.
 
 PERSONAL DISPOSITION. 291 
 
 Racine's motive for making love the constant source of 
 action in his tragedies, was from the principle •which has 
 influenced so many poets, who usually conform to the 
 prevalent taste of the times. In the court of a young 
 monarch it was necessary that heroes should be lovers ; 
 Corneille had nobly run in one career, and Racine could 
 not have existed as a great poet had he not rivalled him 
 in an opposite one. The tender Racine was no lover; 
 but he was a subtle and epigrammatic observer, before 
 whom his convivial friends never cared to open their 
 minds ; and the caustic Boileau truly said of him, "Racine 
 IS far more malicious than I am." 
 
 Alfieri speaks of his mistress as if he lived with her in 
 the most unreserved familiarity; the reverse was the 
 case. And the gratitude and aifection with which he 
 describes his mother, and which she deserved, entered 
 so little into his habitual feelings, that, after their early 
 separation, he never saw her but once, though he often 
 passed through the country where she resided. 
 
 Johnson has composed a beautiful Rambler, describing 
 the pleasures which result from the influence of good- 
 humour ; and somewhat remarkably says, " Without 
 good-humour, learning and bravery can be only formida- 
 ble, and confer that superiority which swells the heart of 
 the lion in the desert, where he roars without reply, and 
 ravages without resistance." He who could so finely 
 discover the happy influence of this pleasing quality was 
 himself a stranger to it, and " the roar and the ravage" 
 were familiar to our lion. Men of genius frequently sub- 
 stitute their beautiful imagination for spontaneous and 
 natural sentiment. It is not therefoi*e surprising if we 
 are often eri'oneous in the conception we form of the per- 
 sonal character of a distant author. Klopstock, the 
 votary of the muse of Zion, so astonished and warmed 
 the sage Bodmer, that he invited the inspired bard to his 
 house : but his visitor shocked the grave professor, when,
 
 292 LTTERAET CHARACTER. 
 
 instead of a poet rapt in silent meditati^ l, a volatile 
 youth leaped out of the chaise, who was an enthusiast for 
 retirement only when writing verses. An artist, whose 
 pictures exhibit a series of scenes of domestic tenderness, 
 awakening all the charities of private life, I have heard, 
 participated in them in no other way than on his canvas, 
 Evelyn, who has written in favour of active life, " loved 
 and lived in retirement ;" * while Sir George Mackenzie, 
 who had been continually in the bustle of business, framed 
 a eulogium on solitude. "We see in Machiavel's code of 
 tyranny, of depravity, and of criminal violence, a horrid 
 picture of human nature ; but this retired philosopher 
 was a friend to the freedom of his country ; he partici- 
 pated in none of the crimes he had recorded, but drew 
 up these systemized crimes " as an observer, not as a 
 criminal." Drummond, whose sonnets still retain the 
 beauty and the sweetness and the delicacy of the most 
 amiable imagination, was a man of a harsh irritable tem- 
 per, and has been thus characterised : — 
 
 Testie Drummoud could not speak for fretting. 
 
 Thus authors and artists may yield no certain indica- 
 tion of their personal characters in their works. Incon- 
 stant men will write on constancy, and licentious minds 
 may elevate themselves into poetry and piety. We 
 should be unjust to some of the greatest geniuses if the 
 
 * Since this was written the correspondence of Evelyn has appeared, 
 by which we find that he apologised to Cowley for having publislied 
 this very treatise, whicli seemed to condemn that life of study and 
 privacy to which they were botli equally attached ; and confesses that 
 the whole must be considered as a mere sportive effusion, requesting 
 that Cowley would not suppose its principles formed his private opin- 
 ions. Thus Leibnitz, wo are told, laughed at the fanciful system 
 revealed in his Thcodiae, and acknowledged tliat he never wrote it in 
 earnest; that a philosopher is not always obliged to write seriously, 
 and that to invent an hypothesis is only a proof of the force of im- 
 agination.
 
 MONTAIGNE. 293 
 
 extraordinary sentiments -n-hich they pnt into the months 
 of their dramatic personages are maliciously to be applied 
 to themselves. Euripides was accused of atheism when 
 lie introduced a denier of the gods on the stage. Milton 
 has been censured by Clarke for the impiety of Satan ; 
 and an enemy of Shakspeare might have reproached hira 
 for his perfect delineation of the accomplished villain 
 lago, as it was said that Dr. Moore was hurt in the opin- 
 ions of some by his odious Zeluco. Crebillon complains 
 of this : — " They charge me with all the iniquities of 
 Atreus, and they consider me in some places as a wretch 
 with whom it is unfit to associate ; as if all which the 
 mind invents must be derived from the heart." This 
 poet offers a striking instance of the little alliance exist- 
 ing between the literary and personal dispositions of an 
 author. Crebillon, who exulted, on his entrance into the 
 French Academy, that he had never tinged his pen with 
 the gall of satire, delighted to strike on the most harrow- 
 ing string of the tragic lyre. In his Atreus the father 
 drinks the blood of his son ; in his Mhadamistus the son 
 expires under the hand of the father ; in his Electra the 
 son assassinates the mother. A poet is a painter of the 
 soul, but a great artist is not therefore a bad man. 
 
 Montaigne appears to have been sensible of this fact 
 in the literary character. Of authors, he says, he likes 
 to read their little anecdotes and private passions : — " Car . 
 j'ai une sihguliere curiosite de connaitre I'ame et les naifs 
 jugemens de mes auteurs. II faut bien juger leur suffi- 
 sance, mais non pas leurs moeurs, ni eux, par cette montre 
 de leurs ecrits qu'ils etalent au theatre du monde." 
 Which may be thus translated : " For I have a singular 
 curiosity to know the soul and simple opinions of my 
 authors. We must judge of their ability, but not of 
 their manners, nor of themselves, by that show of their 
 writings which they display on the theatre of the world." 
 This is very just; are we yet sure, however, that thg
 
 294 LITERARY CnARACTER. 
 
 simplicity of this old favourite of Europe might not have 
 been as much a theatrical gesture as the sentimentality 
 of Sterne ? The great authors of the Port-Royal Logic 
 have raised severe objections to prove that Montaigne 
 was not quite so open in respect to those simple details 
 which he imagined might diminish his personal import- 
 ance with his readers. He pretends that he reveals all 
 his infirmities and weaknesses, while he is perpetually 
 passing himself off for something more than he is. Ho 
 carefully informs us that he has " a page," the usual at- 
 tendant of an independent gentleman, and lives in an old 
 family chateau ; when the fact was, that his whole reve- 
 nue did not exceed six thousand livres, a state beneath 
 mediocrity. He is also equally careful not to drop any 
 mention of his having a cleric with a hag / for he was a 
 counsellor of Bordeaux, but affected the gentleman and 
 the soldier. He trumpets himself forth for having been 
 mayor of Bordeaux, as this offered an opportunity 
 of telling us that he succeeded Marshal Biron, and re- 
 signed it to 3farshal Matignon. Could he have discov- 
 ered that any marshal had been a lawyer he would not 
 have sunk that part of his life. Montaigne himself has 
 said, " that in forming a judgment of a man's life, par- 
 ticular regard should be paid to his behaviour at the end 
 of it ;" and he more than once tells us that the chief 
 study of liis life is to die calm and silent ; and that he 
 will plunge himself headlong and stupidly into death, as 
 into an obscure abyss, which swallows one up in an in- 
 stant ; that to die was the affair of a moment's suffering, 
 and required no precepts. He talked of reposing on the 
 " pillow of doubt." But how did this great philosojjher 
 die ? He called for the more powerful opiates of the in- 
 fallible church ! The mass was performed in his cham- 
 ber, and, in rising to embrace it, his liands dropped and 
 failed him ; thus, as Professor Dugald Stewart observes 
 on this philosoj^her — " He expired in j)erforming what his
 
 CONTRASTS, PERSONAL AND LITERARY. 295 
 
 old preceptor, Buchanan, would not have scrupled to 
 describe as an act of idolatry." 
 
 We must not then consider that he who paints vice 
 with energy is therefore vicious, lest we injure an hon- 
 ourable man ; nor must we imagine that he who celebrates 
 virtue is therefore virtuous, for we may then repose on 
 a heart which kuo"\nng the right pursues the wrong. 
 
 These paradoxical appearances in the history of gen- 
 ius present a curious moral phenomenon. Much must be 
 attributed to the ^jlastic nature of the versatile faculty 
 itself. Unquestionably many men of genius have often 
 resisted the indulgence of one talent to exercise another 
 with equal power ; and some, who have solely composed 
 sermons, could have touched on the foibles of society 
 with the spirit of Horace or Juvenal. Blackstone and 
 Sir William Jones directed that genius to the austere 
 studies of law and philology, which might have excelled 
 in the poetical and historical character. So versatile is 
 this faculty of genius, that its possessors are sometimes 
 uncertain of the manner in which they shall treat their 
 subject, whether gravely or ludicrously. When Breboeuf, 
 the French translator of the Pharsalia of Lucan, had com- 
 pleted the first book as it now appears, he at the same 
 time composed a burlesque version, and sent both to the 
 great arbiter of taste in that day, to decide which the 
 poet should continue. The decision proved to be diffi- 
 cult. Are there not writers who, with all the vehemence 
 of genius, by adopting one principle can make all things 
 shrink into the pigmy form of ridicule, or by adopting 
 another principle stai'tle us by the gigantic monsters of 
 their own exaggerated imagination ? On this princijile, 
 of the versatility of the faculty, a production of genius 
 is a piece of art which, wrought up to its full effect with 
 a felicity of manner acquii-ed by taste and habit, is 
 merely the result of certain arbitrary combinations of 
 the mind.
 
 296 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 Are we then to reduce the works of a man of geniii?! 
 to a mere sport of his talents — a game in which he is 
 only the best player ? Can he whose secret power raises 
 so many emotions in our breasts be without any in his 
 own? A mere actor performing a part ? Is he unfeeling 
 when he is pathetic, indifferent when he is indignant ? 
 Is he an alien to all the wisdom and virtue he mspires ? 
 N'o ! were men of genius themselves to assert this, and 
 it is said some incline so to do, there is a more certain con- 
 viction than their misconceptions, in our own conscious- 
 ness, which for ever assures us, that deep feelings and ele- 
 vated thoughts can alone spring from those who feel 
 deeply and think nobly. 
 
 In pi-oving that the character of the man may be very 
 opposite to that of his writings, we must recollect that 
 the habits of the life may be contrary to the habits of 
 the mind.* The influence of their studies over men of 
 genius is limited. Out of the ideal world, man is re- 
 duced to be the active creature of sensation. An au- 
 thor has, in truth, two distinct characters : the literary, 
 formed by the habits of his study ; the personal, by the 
 habits of his situation. Gray, cold, eiFeminate, and timid 
 •in his personal, was lofty and a"v\^ul in his literary char- 
 acter. "We see men of polished manners and bland aflec- 
 tions, who, in grasping a pen, are thrusting a poniard ; 
 while others in domestic life with the simplicity of chil- 
 dren and the feebleness of nervous affections, can shake 
 the senate or the bar with the vehemence of their elo- 
 quence and the intrepidity of their spirit. The writings 
 
 * Notbing is more delightful to me in my rosearches on the literary 
 character than when I find in persons of uuquestionable and liigh 
 genius tlio results of my own discoveries. This circumstance has fre- 
 quently happened to confirm my principles. Long after tliis was pub- 
 lialied, Madame de Stacl made this important confession in her recent 
 work, "Dix Aunees d'Exil," p. 154, '*Je ne pouvais me dis.simuler 
 (jue je n'otais pa3 une personne couragouse ; j'ai do la hardiesse dans 
 Vimaginali'jn, mais do la limidite dans le caradere."
 
 CONTRASTS, PERSONAL AND LITERARY. 207 
 
 of the famous Baptists Porta are marked by tlie Loldncss 
 of his geuius, which formed a singular contrast witli the 
 "pusillanimity of his conduct when menaced or attacked. 
 The heart may be feeble, though the mind is strong. To 
 think boldly may be the habit of the mind, to act weakly 
 may be the habit of the constitution. 
 
 However the personal character may contrast Avith 
 that of their genius, still are the works themselves gen- 
 uine, and exist as realities for us — and were so, doubtless, 
 to the composers themselves in the act of composition. 
 In the calm of study, a beautiful imagination may con- 
 vert him whose morals are corrupt into an admirable 
 moralist, awakening feelings which yet may be cold in. 
 the business of life : as we have shown that the phleg- 
 matic can excite himself into wit, and the cheerful man 
 delight in " Night Thoughts." Sallust, the corrupt Sal- 
 lust, might retain the most sublime conceptions of the 
 virtues which were to save the Republic ; and Sterne, 
 whose heart was not so susceptible in ordinary occui*- 
 rences, while he was gradually creating incident after 
 incident and touching successive emotions, in the stories 
 of Le Fevre and Maria, might have thrilled — like some of 
 his readers. Many have mourned over the wisdom or the 
 virtue they contemplated, mortified at theii- owii infirmity. 
 Thus, though there may be no identity between the book 
 -and the man, still for us an author is ever an abstract 
 being, and, as one of the Fathers said — "A dead man 
 may sin dead, leaving books that make others sin." An 
 author's wisdom or his folly does not die with him. The 
 volume, not the author, is our companion, and is for us 
 a real personage, performing before us whatever it in- 
 spii'es — " He being dead, yet speaketh." Such is the 
 vitality of a book !
 
 298 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 The man of letters. — Occupies an intermediate station between authors 
 and readers. — His solitude described. — Often the father of genius. — 
 Atticus, a man of letters of antiquity. — The perfect character of a 
 modern man of letters exhibited in Peiresc. — Their utility to authors 
 and artists. 
 
 AMONG the active members of the literary republic, 
 there is a class whom formerly we distinguished by 
 the title of Meist of Letters — a title which, with us, has 
 nearly gone out of currency, though I do not think that 
 the general term of " literary men " would be sufficiently 
 aj^propriate. 
 
 The man of letters, whose habits and Avhose whole life 
 so closely resemble those of an author, can only be dis- 
 tinguished by this simple circumstance, that the man of 
 letters is not an author. 
 
 Yet he whose sole occupation through life is literature 
 — he who is always acquiring and never producing, ap- 
 pears as ridiculous as the architect who never raised an 
 edifice, or the statuary who refrains from sculpture. His 
 pursuits are reproached with terminating in an epicurean 
 selfishness, and amidst his incessant avocations he him- 
 self is considered as a particular sort of idler. 
 
 This race of literary characters, as we now find them, 
 could not have appeared till the press had poured forth 
 its afiiuence. In the degree that the nations of Europe 
 became literary, was that pliilosoi^hical curiosity kindled 
 "which induced some to devote their fortunes and their 
 days, and to experience some of the purest of human 
 enjoyments in preserving and familiarising themselves 
 with " the monuments of vanished minds," as books are 
 called by D'Avenant with so much sublimity. Their 
 expansive library presents an indestructible history of
 
 MEN OF LETTERS. 299 
 
 the genius of every people, through all their eras — and 
 whatever men have thought and whatever men have 
 done, were at length discovered in books. 
 
 Men of letters occupy an intermediate station between 
 authors and readers. They are gifted with more curi- 
 osity of knowledge, and more multiplied tastes, and by 
 those precious collections which they are forming during 
 their lives, are more completely furnished with the means 
 than are possessed by the multitude who read, and the 
 fcAV who write. 
 
 The studies of an author are usually restricted to par- 
 ticular subjects. His tastes are tinctured by their colour- 
 ing, his mind is always shaping itself by their form. An 
 author's works form his solitary pride, and his secret 
 power ; while half his life wears away in the slow matu- 
 rity of composition, and still the ambition of authorship 
 torments its victim alike in disappointment or in posses- 
 sion. 
 
 But soothing is the solitude of the Max of Letters ! 
 View the busied inhabitant of the libi'ary surrounded by 
 the objects of his love ! He possesses them — and they 
 possess him ! These volumes — images of our mind and 
 passions ! — as he traces them from Herodotus to Gibbon, 
 from Homer to Shakspeare — those portfolios which gather 
 up the inventions of genius, and that selected cabinet of 
 medals which holds so many unwritten histories ; — some 
 favourite sculptures and pictures, and some antiquities 
 of all nations, here and there about his house — these are 
 his furniture ! 
 
 In his unceasing occupations the only repose he re- 
 quires, consists not in quitting, but in changing them. 
 Every day produces its discovery ; every day in the life 
 of a man of letters may furnish a multitude of emotions 
 and of ideas. For him there is a silence amidst the 
 world ; and in the scene ever opening befoi-e him, all that 
 has passed is acted over again, and all that is to come
 
 300 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 seems revealed as in a vision. Often his library is con- 
 tiguous to his chamber,* and this domain '■'■ parva sed 
 apta^'' this contracted sj^ace, has often marked the boun- 
 dary of the existence of the opulent owner, vrho lives 
 where he will die, contracting his days into hours ; and a 
 whole life thus passed is found too short to close its de- 
 signs. Such are the men who have not been unhappily 
 described by the Hollanders as Uef-hehbers^ lovers or fan- 
 ciers, and their collection as llef-hehhery^ things of their 
 love. The Dutch call everything for which they are im- 
 passioned lief-hebhery ; but their feeling being much 
 stronger than their delicacy, they apply the term to every 
 thing, from poesy and picture to tulij^s and tobacco. The 
 term wants the melody of the languages of genius ; but 
 something parallel is required to correct that indiscrimi- 
 nate notion which most persons associate with that of 
 collectors. 
 
 It was fancifully said of one of these lovers, in the style 
 of the age, that, " His book was his bride, and his study 
 his bride-chamber." Many have voluntarily relinquished 
 a public station and their rank in society, neglecting even 
 their fortune and their health, for the life of self-oblivion 
 
 * The contiguity of the cnAMBER to the library is not the solitary 
 fancy of an individual, but marks the class. Early in life, when in 
 France and Holland, I met with several of these amateurs, who had 
 bounded their lives by the circle of their collections, and were rarely 
 seen out of them. The late Duke of Roxburgh once expressed his de- 
 light to a literary friend of mine, tliat he had only to stop from his 
 eleoping apartment into his fine library; so that he could command, at 
 all moments, the gratilication of pursuing his researches while he in- 
 dulged his reveries. The Chevalier Vorhulst, of Bruxelles, of whom wo 
 have a curious portrait prefixed to the catalogue of his pictures and 
 curiosities, was one of those raon of letters who experienced this strong 
 afibction for his collections, and to such a degree, that ho never went 
 out of his house for twenty years ; where, however, he kept up a 
 courteous intercourse with the lovers of art and literature. Ho was an 
 enthusiastic votary of Rubens, of whom he has written a copious lifo 
 in Dutch, the only work he appears -to have composed.
 
 BOOK COLLECTORS. 301 
 
 of the man of letters. Count De Caylus expended a 
 princely income in the study and the encouragement of 
 Art. He passed his mornings among the studios of art- 
 ists, watching their progress, increasing his collections, 
 and closing his day in the retirement of his own cabinet. 
 Ilis rank and his opulence were no obstructions to his 
 settled habits. Cicero himself, in his happier moments, 
 addressing Atticus, exclaimed — " I had much rather be 
 sitting on your little bench under Aristotle's picture, 
 than in the curule chairs of our great ones." This wish 
 was probably sincere, and reminds us of another great 
 politician who in his secession from public affairs retreated 
 to a literary life, where he appears suddenly to have dis- 
 covered a new-found world. Fox's favourite line, which 
 he often repeated, was — 
 
 How various his employments ■whom the world 
 Calls idle I 
 
 De Sacy, one of the Port-Royalists, was fond of repeat- 
 ing this lively remark of a man of wit — " That all the 
 mischief in the world comes from not being able to keep 
 ourselves quiet in our room." 
 
 But tranquillity is essential to the existence of the 
 man of letters — an unbroken and devotional tranquillity. 
 For though, unlike the author, his occupations are inter- 
 rupted without inconvenience, and resumed without effort ; 
 yet if the painful realities of life break into this vision- 
 ary world of literature and art, there is an atmosphere 
 of taste about him which will be dissolved, and har- 
 monious ideas which will be chased away, as it happens 
 when something is violently flung among the trees where 
 the birds are singing — all instantly disperse ! 
 
 Even to quit their collections for a short time is a real 
 suffering to these lovers ; everything which surrounds 
 them becomes endeared by habit, and by some higher as- 
 sociations. Men of letters have died with grief from hav-
 
 302 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 iiig been forcibly deprived of the use of their libraries. 
 De Thou, with all a brother's sympathy, in his great his- 
 tory, has recorded the sad fates of several who had wit- 
 nessed their collections dispersed in the civil wars of 
 France, or had otherwise been deprived of their precious 
 volumes. Sir Robert Cotton fell ill, and betrayed, in 
 the ashy paleness of his countenance, the misery which 
 killed him on the sequestration of his collections. " They 
 have broken my heart who have locked up my library 
 from me," was his lament. 
 
 If this passion for acquisition and enjoyment be so 
 strong and exquisite, what wonder that these "lovers" 
 should regard all things as valueless in comparison with 
 the objects of their love ? There seem to be spells 
 in their collections, and in their fascination they have 
 often submitted to the ruin of their personal, but not of 
 their internal enjoyments. They have scorned to bal- 
 ance in the scales the treasures of literature and art, 
 though imperial magnificence once was ambitious to out- 
 weigh them. 
 
 Van Praun, a friend of Albert Durer's, of whom we 
 possess a catalogue of pictures and prints, was one Qf 
 these enthusiasts of taste. The Emperor of Germany, 
 probably desirous of finding a royal i*oad to a rare col- 
 lection, sent an agent to procure the present one entire ; 
 and that some delicacy might be observed with such a 
 man, the purchase was to be proposed in the form of a 
 mutual exchange ; the emiseror had gold, pearls, and dia- 
 monds. Our lief-hehher having silently listened to the 
 imperial agent, seemed astonished that such things should 
 be considered as equivalents for a collection of works of 
 art, which had required a long life of experience and 
 many previous studies and practised tastes to have form- 
 ed, and compared with which gold, pearls, and diamonds, 
 afforded but a mean, an unequal, and a barbarous barter. 
 
 If the man of letters bo less dependent on others for
 
 BOOK COLLECTORS. 303 
 
 the very perception of his o^n existence than men of 
 the world are, his solitude, however, is not that of a des- 
 ert : for all there tends to keep alive those concentrated 
 feelings which cannot be indulged with security, or even 
 without ridicule in general society. Like the Lucullus 
 of Plutarch, he would not only live among the votaries 
 of literature, but would live for them ; he throws open 
 his library, his gallery, and his cabinet, to all the Gre- 
 cians. Such men are the fathers of genius ; they seem to 
 possess an aptitude in discovering those minds which are 
 clouded over by the obscurity of their situations ; and it 
 is they who so frequently project those benevolent insti- 
 tutions, where they have poured out the philanthropy of 
 their hearts in that world which they aj^pear to have for- 
 saken. If Europe be literary, to whom does she owe this 
 more than to these men of letters ? Is it not to their 
 noble passion of amassing through life those magnificent 
 collections, which often bear the names of their founders 
 from the gratitude of a following age ? Venice, Flor- 
 ence, and Copenhagen, Oxford, and London, attest the 
 existence of theu* labours. Our Bodleys and our Har- 
 leys, our Cottons and our Sloanes, our Cracherodes, our 
 Townleys, and our Banks, were of this race ! * In the 
 perpetiiity of their own studies they felt as if they were 
 extending human longevity, by throwing an unbroken 
 light of knowledge into the next age. The private 
 
 * Sir Thomas Bodley, in 1602, first brought the old hbraries at Ox- 
 ford into order for the benefit of students, and added thereto his own 
 noble collection. That of Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford (died 1724), 
 was purchased by the country, and is now in the British Museum ; and 
 also are the other collections named above. Sir Robert Cotton died 
 1631 ; his collection is remarkable for its historic documents and state- 
 papers. Sir Hans Sloane's collections may be said to be the foundation, 
 of the Britisli Museuuj, and were purchased by Government for 20,000Z. 
 after his death, in 1749. Of Cracherode and Townley some notice will 
 be found on p. 2 of the present volume. Sir Joseph Banks and his sister 
 made large bequests to the same national establishment. — Ed.
 
 304 LITERARY CHARACTER, 
 
 acquisitions of a solitary man of letters during half a 
 century have become public endowments. A generous 
 enthusiasm inspired these intrepid labours, and their vol- 
 tary privations of what the world calls its pleasures 
 and its honours, would form an interesting history not 
 yet written ; their due, yet undischarged. 
 
 But " men of the world," as they are emphatically dis- 
 tino^uished, imagiiine that a man so lifeless in "the world" 
 must be one of the dead in it, and, with mistaken wit* 
 would inscribe over the sepiilchre of his library, " Here 
 lies the body of our friend." If the man of letters have 
 voluntarily quitted their " world," at least he has passed 
 into another, where he enjoys a sense of existence 
 through a long succession of ages, and where Time, who 
 destroys all things for others, for him only preserves and 
 discovers. This world is best described by one who has 
 lingered among its inspirations. " We are wafted into 
 other times and strange lands, connecting us by a sad 
 but exalting relationship with the great events and 
 great minds which have passed away. Our studies at 
 once cherish and control the imagination, by leading 
 it over an unbounded range of the noblest scenes 
 in the overawi;ig company of departed wisdom and 
 genius." * 
 
 Living more with books than with men, which is often 
 becoming better acquainted with man himself, though 
 not always with men, the man of letters is more tolerant 
 of opinions than opinionists are among themselves. Nor 
 are his views of human affixirs contracted to the day, like 
 those who, in the heat and hurry of a too active life, pre- 
 fer expedients to principles ; men who deem themselves 
 politicians because they are not moralists ; to whom the 
 ccntxiries behind have conveyed no results, and who 
 cannot see how the present time is always full of the 
 
 * " Quarterly Review," No. ixxiii., p. 145.
 
 LTYING WITH BOOKS. 305 
 
 future. "Everything," says the lively Burnet, "must 
 be brought to the nature of tinder or gunpowder, ready 
 for a spark to set it on fire," before they discover it. 
 The man of letters indeed is accused of a cold indiffer- 
 ence to the interests which divide society ; he is rarely 
 observed as the head or the " rump of a party ;" he 
 views at a distance their temporary passions — those 
 mighty beginnings, of which he knows the miserable 
 terminations. 
 
 Antiquity presents the character of a perfect man of 
 letters in Atticus, who retreated from a political to a 
 literary life. Had his letters accomjDanied those of 
 Cicero, they would have Olustrated the ideal character 
 of his class. But the sage Atticus rejected a popular ce- 
 lebrity for a passion not less powerful, yielding up his 
 whole soul to study. Cicero, with all his devotion to 
 literature, was at the same time agitated by another kind 
 of glory, and the most perfect author in Rome imagined 
 that he was enlarging his honours by the intrigues of 
 the consulship. He has distinctly marked the character 
 of the man of letters in the person of his friend Atticus, 
 for which he has expressed his respect, although he could 
 not content himself with its imitation. " I know," says 
 this man of genius and ambition, " I know the greatness 
 and ingenuousness of your soul, nor have I found any 
 difference between us, but in a different choice of life ; a 
 certain sort of ambition has led me earnestly to seek 
 ifter honours, while other motives, by no means blame- 
 able induced you to adopt an honourable leisure; 
 honestum otmmy * These motives appear in the in- 
 teresting memoirs of this man of letters ; a contempt of 
 political intrigues combined with a desire to escape from 
 the splendid bustle of Rome to the learned leisure of 
 Athens. He wished to dismiss a pompous train of slaves 
 
 * "Ad Atticum," Lib. i., Ep. It 
 20
 
 306 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 for the delight of assembling under his roof a literary 
 society of readers and transcribers. And having col- 
 lected under that roof the portraits or busts of the illus- 
 trious men of his country, inspired by their spirit and 
 influenced by their virtues or their genius, he inscnbed 
 under them, in concise verses, the characters of their 
 mind. Valuing wealth only for its use, a dignified econ- 
 omy enabled him to be profuse, and a moderate expendi- 
 ture allowed him to be generous. 
 
 The result of this litei-ary life was the strong affections 
 of the Athenians. At the first opportunity the absence 
 of the man of letters ofiered, they raised a statue to him, 
 conferring on our Pomponius the fond surname of Atti- 
 cus. To have received a name from the voice of the city 
 they inhabited has happened to more than one man of 
 letters. Pinelli, born a Neapolitan, but residing at 
 Venice, among other pecx;liar honours received from the 
 senate, was there distinguished by the affectionate title 
 of " the Venetian." 
 
 Yet such a character as Atticus could not escape cen- 
 sure from " men of the world." They want the heart 
 and the imao-ination to conceive somethings better than 
 themselves. The happy indifference, perhaps the con- 
 tempt of our Atticus for rival factions, they have stigma- 
 tised as a cold neutrality, a timid pusillanimous hypoc- 
 risy. Yet Atticus could not have been a mutual friend, 
 had not both parties alike held the man of letters as a 
 sacred being amidst their disguised ambition ; and the 
 urbanity of Atticus, while it balanced the fierceness of 
 two heroes, Pompey and Csesar, could even temper the 
 rivalry of genius in the orators ITortcnsius and Cicero. 
 A great man of our own country widely differed from 
 the accusers of Atticus. Sir Matthew Hale lived in dis- 
 tracted times, and took the character of our man of let- 
 ters for his model, adopting two principles in the conduct 
 of the Roman. lie engaged himself with no party busi-
 
 MEN OP LETTERS. 307 
 
 ness, and afforded a constant relief to the unfortunate, of 
 whatever party. He was thus preserved amidst tt.e con- 
 tests of the times. 
 
 If the personal interest of the man of letters be not 
 deeply involved in society, his individual prosperity, 
 however, is never contrary to public happiness. Other 
 professions necessarily exist by tlie conflict and the ca- 
 lamities of the community : the politician becomes great 
 by hatching an intrigue; the lawyer, in counting his 
 briefs ; the physician, his sick-list. The soldier is clam- 
 orous for war ; the merchant riots on high prices. But 
 the man of letters only calls for peace and books, to 
 unite himself "svith his brothers scattered over Europe ; 
 and his usefulness can only be felt at those intervals, 
 when, after a long interchange of destruction, men, re- 
 covering their senses, discover that " knowledge is power." 
 Burke, whose ample mind took in every conception of the 
 literary character, has finely touched on the distinction 
 between this order of contemplative men, and the other 
 active classes of society. In addressing Mr. Malone, 
 whose real character was that of a man of letters who 
 first showed us the neglected state of our literary history, 
 Burke observed — for I shall give his own words, always 
 too beautiful to alter — " If you are not called to exert 
 your great talents, and employ your great acquisitions in 
 the transitory service of your country, which is done in 
 active life, you will continue to do it that permanent serv- 
 ice which it receives from the labours of those who know 
 how to make the silence of closets more beneficial to the 
 world than all the noise and bustle of courts, senates, and 
 camps." 
 
 A moving picture of the literary life of a m;m of let- 
 ters who was no author, Avould have been lost to us, had 
 not Peiresc found in Gassendi a twin spirit. So intimate 
 was the biographer with the very thoughts, so closely 
 united in the same pursuits, and so perpetual an observer
 
 308 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 of the remarkable man whom he has immortalised, that 
 when employed on this elaborate resemblance of his 
 friend, he was only painting himself with all the identi- 
 fying strokes of self-love.* 
 
 It was in the vast library of Pinelli, the founder of the 
 most magnificent one in Europe, that Peiresc, then a 
 youth, felt the remote hope of emulating the man of let- 
 ters before his eyes. His life was not without prepara- 
 tion, nor without fortunate coincidences ; but there was 
 a grandeur of design in the execution which originated 
 in the genius of the man himself. 
 
 The curious genius of Peiresc was marked by its pre- 
 cocity, as usually are strong passions in strong minds ; 
 this intense curiosity was the germ of all those studies 
 which seemed mature in his youth. He early resolved on 
 a personal intercourse with the great literary characters 
 of Europe ; and his friend has thrown over these literary 
 travels that charm of detail by which we accompany 
 Peii'esc into the libraries of the learned ; there with the 
 historian opening new sources of history, or with the 
 critic correcting manuscripts, and settling points of eru- 
 dition ; or by the opened cabinet of the antiquary, de- 
 ciphering obscure inscriptions, and explaining medals. 
 In the gallei'ies of the curious in art, among their marbles, 
 their pictures, and their prints, Peiresc has often revealed 
 to the artist some secret in his own art. In the museum 
 of the naturalist, or the garden of the botanist, there was 
 no rarity of nature on which he had not something to 
 communicate. His mind toiled with that impatience of 
 knowledge, that becomes a pain only when the mind is 
 not on the advance. In England Peiresc was the associate 
 
 * " I suppose," writes Evelyn, that most agreeable enthusiast of 
 literature, to a travelling friend, " that you carry the life of that in- 
 comparable virtuoso always about you in your motions, not only be- 
 cause it is portable, but for that it is written by the pen of the groat 
 Gassendds."
 
 PEIRESC. 309 
 
 of Camden and Selden, and had more than one intei-view 
 •with, that friend to literary men, our calumniated James 
 the First. One may judge by these who were the men 
 whom Peiresc sought, and by whom he himself was ever 
 after sought. Such, indeed, were immortal friendships ! 
 Immortal they may be justly called, from the objects in 
 which they concerned themselves, and from the permanent 
 results of the combined studies of such friends. 
 
 Another peculiar greatness in this literary ^character 
 was Peiresc's enlarged devotion to literature out of its 
 purest love for itself alone. He made his own universal 
 curiosity the source of knowledge to other men. Con- 
 sidering the studious as forming but one great family 
 wherever they were, for Peiresc the national repositories 
 of knowledge in Europe formed but one collection for the 
 world. This man of letters had possessed himself of 
 their contents, that he might have manuscripts collated, 
 unedited pieces explored, extracts supplied, and even 
 draughtsmen employed in remote parts of the world, to 
 furnish views and plans, and to copy antiquities for the 
 student, who in some distant retlfement often discovered 
 that the literary treasures of the world were unfailingly 
 opened to him by the secret devotion of this man of 
 letters. 
 
 Carrjang on the same grandeur in his views, his uni- 
 versal mind busied itself in every part of the habitable 
 globe. He kept up a noble traffic with all travellers, sup- 
 plying them with philosophical instruments and recent 
 inventions, by which he facilitated their discoveries, and 
 secured their reception even in barbarous realms. In 
 return he claimed, at his own cost, for he was "bom 
 rather to give than to receive," says Gassendi, fresh im- 
 portations of Oriental literature, curious antiquities, or 
 botanic rarities ; and it was the curiosity of Peiresc 
 which first embellished his own garden, and thence the 
 gardens of Europe, with a rich variety of exotic flowers
 
 310 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 and fruits.* Whenever presented with a medal, a vase, 
 or a manuscript, he never slept over the gift till he had 
 discovered what the donor delighted in ; and a book, a 
 picture, a plant, when money could not be offered, fed 
 their mutual passion, and sustained the general cause of 
 science. The correspondence of Peiresc branched out to 
 the farthest bounds of Ethiopia, connected both Ameri- 
 cas, and had touched the newly-discovered extremities 
 of the universe, when this intrepid mind closed in a 
 premature death. 
 
 I have drawn this imperfect view of Peiresc's charac- 
 ter, that men of letters may be reminded of the capacity 
 they possess. In the character of Peiresc, however, there 
 still remains another peculiar feature. His fortune was 
 not great ; and when he sometimes endured the repwach 
 of those whose sordidness was startled at his prodigality 
 of mind, and the great objects which w^ere the result, 
 Peiresc replied, that " a small matter suffices for the nat- 
 iiral Avants of a literary man, whose true wealth consists 
 in the monuments of arts, the treasures of his library, 
 and the brotherly affections of the ingenious." Peiresc 
 was a French judge, but he supported his rank more by 
 his own character than by luxury or parade. He would 
 not wear silk, and no taj)estry hangings ornamented his 
 apartments; but the walls were covered with the por- 
 traits of his literary friends ; and in the unadorned sim- 
 plicity of his study, his books, his papers, and his letters 
 were scattered about him on the tables, the seats, and 
 the floor. There, stealing from the world, he would 
 sometimes admit to his spare supper his friend Gassendi, 
 " content," says that amiable philosopher, " to have me 
 for his guest." 
 
 Peiresc, like Pinelli, never published any work. These 
 
 * On this subject soo "Curiosities of Literature," vol. ii., p. 151 ; and 
 for some further account of Peiresc and his labours, vol. iii., p. 409, of 
 the same work. — Ed.
 
 CULTIVATORS OF KNOWLEDGE. 311 
 
 men of letters derived their pleasure, and perhaps their 
 pride, from those vast strata of knowledge which their 
 curiosity had heaped together in their mighty collections. 
 They either were not endowed with that faculty of genius 
 which strikes out aggregate views, or were destitute of 
 the talent of composition which embellishes minute ones. 
 This deficiency in the minds of such men may be attribu- 
 ted to a thirst of learning, which the very means to allay 
 can only inflame. From all sides they ,are gathering 
 mformation ; and that knowledge seems never perfect 
 to which every day brings new acquisitions. With 
 these men, to compose is to hesitate; and to revise is 
 to be mortified by fresh doubts and unsupplied omissions. 
 Peiresc was employed all his life on a history of Prov- 
 ence ; but, observes Gassendi, " He could not mature the 
 bii'th of his literary ofispriug, or lick it into any shape of 
 elegant form ; he was therefore content to take the mid- 
 wife's part, by helping the happier labours of others." 
 
 Such are the cultivators of knowledge, who are rarely 
 authors, but who are often, however, contributing to the 
 works of others; and without whose secret labours the 
 public would not have possessed many valued ones. 
 The delightful instruction which these men are con- 
 stantly ofiering to authors and to artists, flows from 
 their silent but uninterrupted cultivation of literature 
 and the arts. 
 
 When Robertson, after his successful "History of 
 Scotland," was long irresolute in his designs, and still 
 unpractised in that cui'ious research which habitually 
 occupies these men of letters, his admirers had nearly 
 lost his popular productions, had not a fortmmte intro- 
 duction to Dr. Birch enabled him to open the clasjjed 
 books, and to drink of the scaled fountains. Robertson 
 has confessed his inadequate knowledge, and his over- 
 flowing gratitude, in letters which I have elsewhere 
 printed. A suggestion by a man of letters has opened
 
 312 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 the career of many an aspirant. A hint from Walsh 
 conveyed a new conception of English poetry to one of 
 its masters. The celebrated treatise of Grotius on " Peace 
 and War" was projected by Peiresc. It was said of 
 Magliabechi, who knew all books, and never wrote one, 
 that by his diffusive communications he was in some 
 resj^ect concerned in all the great works of his times. Sir 
 Robert Cotton greatly assisted Camden and Speed ; and 
 that hermit of literatiire, Baker of Cambridge, was ever 
 supplying with his invaluable researches Burnet, Kennet, 
 Hearne, and Middleton. The concealed aid which men 
 of letters afford authors, may be compared to those sub- 
 terraneous streams, which, flowing into spacious lakes, 
 are, though unobserved, enlarging the waters which 
 attract the public eye. 
 
 Count De Caylus, celebrated for his collection, and for 
 his generous patronage of artists, has given the last 
 touches to this picture of the man of lettens, with all the 
 delicacy and wannth of a self-painter. 
 
 " His glory is confined to the mere power which he 
 has of being one day useful to letters and to the artf^ ; for 
 his whole life is employed in collecting materials of which 
 learned men and artists make no use till after the death 
 of him who amassed them. It affords him a very sensi- 
 ble pleasure to labour in hopes of being useful to those 
 who pursue the same course of studies, while there are so 
 great a number who die without discharging the debt 
 which they incur to society." 
 
 Such a man of letters appears to have been the late 
 Lord Woodhouselee. Mr. Mackenzie, returning from 
 his lordship's literaiy retirement, meeting Mr. Alison, 
 finely said, that "he hoped he was going to Woodhouse- 
 lee ; for no man could go there without being happier, 
 or return from it without being better." 
 
 Shall we then hesitate to assert, that this class of lit- 
 erary men forms a useful, as well as a select order in
 
 OLD AGE. 313 
 
 society ? We see that their leisure is not idleness, that 
 their studies are not unfruitful for the public, and that 
 their opinions, purified from passions and prejudices, are 
 always the soundest Lti the nation. They are counsellors 
 vrhom statesmen may consult ; fathers of genius to whom 
 authors and artists may look for aid, and friends of all 
 nations ; for we ourselves have witnessed, during a war 
 of thirty years, that the men of letters in England were 
 still united with their brothers in France. The abode of 
 Sir Joseph Banks was ever open to every literary and 
 scientific foreigner; while a wish expressed or a com- 
 munication written by this man of letters, was even 
 respected by a political power which, acknowledging no 
 other rights, paid a voluntary tribute to the claims of 
 science and the privileges of literature. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 Literary old age still learning. — Influence of late studies in life. — Occu- 
 pations in advanced age of the literary character. — Of literary men 
 who have died at their studies. 
 
 THE old age of the literary character retains its enjoy- 
 ments, and usually its powers — a happiness which 
 accompanies no other. The old age of coquetry wit- 
 nesses its own extinct beauty ; that of the " used " idler 
 is left without a sensation ; that of the grasping Croesus 
 exists only to envy his heir; and that of the Machiavel 
 who has no longer a voice in the cabinet, is but an unhappy 
 spirit lingering to find its grave : but for the aged man 
 of letters memory returns to her stores, and imagination 
 is still on the wing amidst fresh discoveries and new 
 designs. The others fall like dry leaves, but he drops 
 like ripe fruit, and is valued when no longer on the tree.
 
 314: LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 The constitutional melancholy of Johnson often tinged 
 his views of human life. When he asserted that " no 
 man adds much to his stock of knowledge, or imj^roves 
 much after forty," his theory was overturned by his own 
 experience ; for his most interesting works were the 
 productions of a very late period of life, formed out of 
 the fresh knowledge with Avhich he had then furnished 
 himself. 
 
 The intellectual faculties, the latest to decline, are often 
 vigorous in the decreijitude of age. The curious mind is 
 still striking out into new pursuits, and the mind of 
 genius is still creating. Ancora impaeo ! — " Even yet I 
 am learning !" was the concise inscription on an ingenious 
 device of an old man jilaced in a child's go-cart, with an 
 hour-glass iipon it, which, it is said, Michael Angelo ap- 
 plied to his own vast genius in his ninetieth year. Paint- 
 ers have improved even to extreme old age : West's last 
 woi'ks were his best, and Titian was greatest on the verge 
 of his century. Poussin was delighted with the dis 
 covery of this circumstance in the lives of painters. "As 
 I grow older, I feel the desire of surpassing myself." 
 And it was in the last year of his life, that with the finest 
 poetical invention, he painted the allegorical pictures of 
 the Seasons. A man of letters in his sixtieth year once 
 told me, " It is but of late years that I have learnt, tlie 
 riglit use of books and the art of reading." 
 
 Time, the great desti'oyer of other men's happiness, 
 only enlarges the patrimony of literature to its possessor. 
 A learned and higlily intellectual friend once said to me, 
 " If I have acquired more knowledge these last four years 
 than I had hitherto, I shall add materially to my stores 
 in tlie next four years ; and so at every subsequent period 
 of my life, should I acquire only in the same proportion, 
 the general mass of my knowledge will greatly accumu- 
 late. If we are not deprived by nature or misfortune of 
 the means to pursue this perpetual augmentation of
 
 OLD AGE. 315 
 
 knowledge, I do not see but we may be still fully occu- 
 pied and deeply interested even to the last day of our 
 earthly terra." Such is the delightful thought of Owen 
 Feltham : " If I die to-morrow, my life will be somewhat 
 the sweeter to-day for knowledge." The perfectibility 
 of the human mind, the animating theory of the eloquent 
 De Staol, consists in the mass of our ideas, to which every 
 age w^ill now add, by means unknown to preceding gen- 
 erations. Imagination was born at once perfect, and her 
 arts find a term to their progress ; but there is no boun- 
 dary to knowledge nor the discovery of thought. 
 
 How beautiful in the old age of the literary character 
 was the plan which a friend of mine pursued ! His mind, 
 like a miiTor whose quicksilver had not decayed, reflected 
 all objects to the last. Full of learned studies and ver- 
 satile curiosity, he annually projected a summer-tour on 
 the Continent to some remarkable spot. The local asso- 
 ciations were an unfailing source of agreeable impressions 
 to a mind so well prepared, and he presented his friends 
 with a " Voyage Litteraire," as a new-year's gift. In 
 such pursuits, where life is " rather wearing out than 
 rusting out," as Bishop Cumberland expressed it, scarcely 
 shall we feel those continued menaces of death which 
 shake the old age of men of no intellectual pursuits, who 
 are dying so many years. 
 
 Active enjoyments in the decline of life, then, consti- 
 tute the happiness of literary men. The study of the 
 arts and literature spreads a sunshine over the winter of 
 their days. In the solitude and the night of human life, 
 they discover that unregarded kindness of nature, which 
 has given flowers that only open in the evening, and only 
 bloom through the night-season. Necker perceived the 
 influence of late studies in life ; for he tells us, that " the 
 era of threescore and ten is an agreeable age for writuig ; 
 your mind has not lost its vigour, and envy leaves you 
 in peace "
 
 IIQ LITERAEY CHARACTER. 
 
 The opening of one of La Mothe le Vayer's Treatises 
 .s striking: "I should but ill return the favours God has 
 granted me in the eightieth year of my age, should I 
 allow myself to give way to that shameless want of oc- 
 cupation which all my life I have condemned ;" and the 
 old man proceeds with his " Observations on the Compo- 
 sition and Reading of Books." " Tf man be a bubble 
 of air, it is then time that I should hasten my task ; for 
 my eightieth year admonishes me to get my baggage to- 
 gether ere I leave the world," wrote Yarro, in opening 
 his curious treatise de Re JRiistica, which the sage lived 
 to finish, and which, after nearly two thousand years, the 
 world possesses. " My works are many, and I am old ; 
 yet I still can fatigue and tire myself with writing more," 
 says Petrarch in his " Epistle to Posterity." The literary 
 character has been fully occupied in the eightieth and the 
 ninetieth year of life. Isaac Walton still glowed while 
 writing some of the most interesting biographies in his 
 eighty-fifth year, and in the ninetieth enriched the poet- 
 ical world with the first publication of a romantic tale by 
 Chalkhill, "the friend of Spenser." Bodmer, beyond 
 eighty, was occuj)ied on Homer, and Wieland on Cicero's 
 Letters.* 
 
 But the delight of opening a new pursuit, or a new 
 course of reading, iraj^arts the vivacity and novelty of 
 youth even to old age. The revolutions of modern 
 chemistry kindled the curiosity of Dr. Reid to his latest 
 days, and he studied by various means to prevent the 
 decay of his faculties, and to remedy the deficiencies of 
 one failing sense by the increased activity of another. A 
 late popular author, when advanced in life, discovered, in 
 a class of reading to which he had never been accustomed, 
 a profuse sujjply of fresh furniture for his mind. This 
 felicity was the delightfulness of the old age of Goethe — • 
 
 * Soo "Curiosities of Literature," on "The progress of old age in 
 ne«" studios."
 
 STUDIES IN ADVANCED LIFE. 31 7 
 
 literature, art, and science, formed his daily inquiries ; and 
 this venerable genius, prompt to receive each novel im- 
 pression, was a companion for the youthful, and a com- 
 municator of knowledge even for the most curious. 
 
 Even the steps of time are retraced, and we resume 
 the possessions we seemed to have lost ; for in advanced 
 life a return to our early studies refreshes and renovates 
 the spirits : we open the poets who made us enthusiasts, 
 and the philosophers who taught us to think, with a new 
 source of feeling acquired by our own experience. Adam 
 Smith confessed his satisfaction at this pleasure to Pro- 
 fessor Dugald Stewart, while " he was reperusing, with 
 the enthusiasm of a student, the tragic poets of ancient 
 Greece, and Sophocles and Euripides lay open on his table." 
 
 Dans ses veines toujours un jeune san^ bouillone, 
 Et Sophocle a cent ans peint encore Antigone. 
 
 The calm philosophic Plume found that death could 
 only mten-upt the keen pleasure he was again recei\'ing 
 from Lucian, inspiring at the moment a humorous self- 
 dialogue with Charon. " Happily," said this philosoi^her, 
 " on retiring from the world I found my taste for reading 
 return, even with greater avidity." We find Gibbon, 
 after the close of his History, returning with an appetite 
 as keen to " a full repast on Homer and Aristophanes, 
 and involving himself in the philosophic maze of the writ- 
 ings of Plato." Lord Woodhouselee found the recom- 
 position of his " Lectures on History" so fascinating in 
 the last period of his life, that Mr. Alison informs us, " it 
 rewarded him with that peculiar delight, which has been 
 often observed in the later years of literary men ; the de- 
 light of returning again to the studies of their youth, and 
 of feeling under the snows of age the cheerful memories 
 of their spring." * 
 
 ♦ There is an interesting chapter on Favourite Authors in " Curi- 
 osities of Literature," vol. iL, to which the reader may be referred for 
 other examples. — Ed
 
 318 LITERIRY CHARACTER. 
 
 Not witlioiit a sense of exultation has the literary char- 
 acter felt this peculiar happiness, in the unbroken chain 
 of his habits, and his feelings. Hobbes exulted that he 
 had outlived his enemies, and was still the same Ilobbcs ; 
 and to demonstratethereality of this existence, published, 
 in the eighty-seventh year of his age, his version of the 
 Odyssey, and the following year his Iliad. Of the happy 
 results of literary habits in advanced life, the Count De 
 Tressan, the elegant abridger of the old French romances, 
 in his " Literary Advice to his Children" has drawn a 
 most pleasing picture. With a taste for study, which he 
 found rather inconvenient in the moveable existence of a 
 man of the world, and a military wanderer, he had, how- 
 ever, contrived to reserve an hour or two every day for 
 literary pursuits. The men of science, with whom he 
 had chiefly associated, appear to have turned his pas- 
 sion to obsei'vation and knowledge rather than towards 
 imagination and feeling ; the combination fonned a wi*eath 
 for his grey hairs. When Count De Tressan retired 
 from a brilliant to an affectionate circle, amidst his 
 family, he j)ursued his literary tastes with the vivacity 
 of a young author inspired by the illusion of fame. At 
 the age of seventy-five, with the imagination of a poet, he 
 abridged, he translated, he recomposed his old Chivalric 
 Komanccs, and his reanimated fancy sti-uck fire in the 
 veins of the old man. Among the first designs of his re- 
 tirement was a singular philosophical legacy for his chil- 
 dren. It was a view of the history and progress of the 
 hiunan mind — of its 2)vincip]es, its errors, and its advan- 
 tages, as these were reflected in himself; in the daAvnings 
 of Ills taste, and the secret inclinations of his mind, which 
 the men of genius of tlie age witli whom he associated 
 had developed. Expatiating on their memory, he calls 
 on his children to witness the happiness of study, so evi- 
 dent in those pleasures which were soothing and adorn- 
 ing his old age, " Without knowledge, witliout litera-
 
 DEATHS OF LITERARY MEIT. 319 
 
 turc," exclaims the venerable entliusiast, "in whatever 
 rank tto are born, we can only resemble the vulgar." To 
 the centenary Fontenelle the Count De Tressan was 
 cliiefly indebted for the happy life he derived from the 
 cultivation of literature ; and when this man of a hundred 
 years died, Tressan, himself on the borders of the grave, 
 would offer the last fruits of his mind in an eloge to his 
 ancient master. It was the voice of the dpng to the 
 dead, a last moment of the love and sensibility of genius, 
 which feeble life could not extinguish. 
 
 The genius of Cicero, inspired by the love of literature, 
 has thrown something delightful over this latest season 
 of life, in his de Senectxcte. To have written on old age, 
 in old age, is to have obtained a triumph over Time.* 
 
 YvHien the literary character shall discover himself to 
 be like a stranger in a" new world, when all that he loved 
 has not life, and all that lives has no love for old age : 
 when his ear has ceased to listen, and nature has locked 
 up the man within himself, he may still expire amidst his 
 busied thoughts. Such aged votaries, like the old bees, 
 have been found dying in their honeycombs. Let them 
 preserve but the flame alive on the altar, and at the last 
 moments they may be found in the act of sacrifice ! The 
 ■"Venerable Bede, the instructor of his genei'ation, and the 
 historian for so many successive ones, expired in the act 
 of dictating. Such was the fate of Petrarch, who, not 
 long before his death, had written to a friend, " I read, 
 I write, I think ; such is my life, and my pleasures as 
 they were in my youth." Peti-arch was found lying on 
 a folio in his library, from which volume he had been 
 busied making exti-acts for the biography of his country 
 men. His domestics having often observed hira studying 
 in that reclining posture for days together, it was long 
 
 * "Spurinna, or the Comforts of Old Age," by the late Sir Thomas 
 Bernard, was written a year or two before he died.
 
 320 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 before they discovered that the poet was no more. The 
 fate of Leibnitz was similar : he was found dead with the 
 " Argenis " of Barclay in his hand ; he had been study- 
 ing the style of that political romance as a model for his 
 intended history of the House of Brunswick. The liter- 
 ary death of Barthelemy aifords a remarkable proof of 
 the force of uninterrupted habits of study. He had 
 been slightly looking over the newspaper, when suddenly 
 he called for a Horace, opened the volume, and found 
 the passage, on which he paused for a moment ; and 
 then, too feeble to speak, made a sign to bring him 
 Dacier's; but his hands were already cold, the Horace 
 fell — and the classical and dying man of letters sunk 
 into a fainting fit, from which he never recovered. 
 Such, too, was the fate — perhaps now told for the first 
 time — of the great Lord Clarendon. It was in the midst 
 of composition that his pen suddenly di'opped from his 
 hand on the paper, he took it up again, and again it 
 dropped : deprived of the sense of touch — his hand with- 
 out motion — the earl perceived himself struck by palsy 
 — and the life of the noble exile closed amidst the 
 warmth of a literary work unfinished ! 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 Universality of genius. — Limited notion of genius entertained by the 
 ancients. — Opposite faculties act with dimiuiahed force. — Men of 
 goniu3 excel only in a single art. 
 
 niHE ancients addicted themselves to one species of 
 JL composition ; the tragic poet appears not to have 
 entered into the province of comedy, nor, as far as we 
 know, were their historians Avritcrs of verse. Their 
 artists worked on the same princij)le ; and from Pliny's
 
 UNIVERSALITY OF GENIUS. 821 
 
 account of the ancient sculptors, wo may infer that with 
 them the true glory of genius consisted in carrying to 
 perfection a single species of their art. They did not 
 exercise themselves indifferently on all subjects, but cul- 
 tivated the favourite ones which they had chosen from 
 the impulse of their own imagination. The hand which 
 ■could copy nature in a human form, with the characteris- 
 tics of the age and the sex, and the occupations of life, 
 refrained from attempting the colossal and ideal majesty 
 of a divinity ; and when one of these sculptors, whose 
 skill was pre-eminent in casting animals, had exquisitely 
 wrought the glowing coursers for a triumphal car, 
 he requested the aid of Praxiteles to place the 
 driver in the chariot, that his work might not be dis- 
 graced by a human form of inferior beauty to his 
 animals. Alluding to the devotion of an ancient sculp- 
 tor to his laboui-s, Madame de Stael has finely said, 
 " Tlie history of his life was the history of his statue." 
 
 Such was the limited conception which the ancients 
 formed of genius. They confined it to particular objects 
 or departments in art. But there is a tendency among 
 men of genius to ascribe a universality of power to a 
 master-intellect. Dry den imagined that Virgil could have 
 written satire equally with Juvenal, and some have hard- 
 ily defined genius as " a power to accomplish all that we 
 undertake." But literary history will detect this fallacy, 
 and the failures of so many eminent men are instructions 
 from Nature which must not be lost on us. 
 
 No man of genius put forth more expansive promises 
 of universal power than Leibnitz. Science, imagination, 
 history, criticism, fertilized the richest of human soils ; 
 yet Leibnitz, with immense powers and perpetual knowl- 
 edge, dissipated them in the multiplicity of his pursuits. 
 "The first of philosophers," the late Professor Playfair 
 observed, "has left nothing in the immense tract of his 
 " -t which can be distinguished as a monument of 
 21
 
 S23 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 his genius." As a iiniversalist, Voltaire remains un- 
 paralleled in ancient or in modern times. This volumin- 
 ous idol of our neighbours stands without a rival in liter- 
 ature; but an exception, even if this were one, cannot 
 overturn a fundamental principle, for we draw our con- 
 clusions not from the fortune of one man of genius, but 
 from the fate of many. The real claims of this great 
 writer to invention and originality are as moderate as 
 his size and his variety are astonishing. The wonder of 
 Lis ninety vol imes is, that he singly consists of a number 
 of men of the second order, making up one great man ; 
 for unquestionably some could rival Voltaire in any 
 single province, but no one but himself has possessed 
 them all. Voltaire discovered a new art, that of creat- 
 ing a supplement to the genius which had preceded him ; 
 and without Corneille, Racine, and Ariosto, it would be 
 difficult to conjecture Avhat sort of a poet Voltaire could 
 have been. He was master, too, of a secret in composi- 
 tion, which consisted in a new style and manner. His 
 style promotes, but never interrupts thinking, while it 
 renders all subjects fimiliar to our comprehension : his 
 manner consists in placing objects well known in new 
 combinations ; he ploughed up the fallow lands, and 
 renovated the worn-out exhausted soils. Swift defined a 
 good style, as " proper words in proper places." Vol- 
 taire's impulse was of a higher flight, " proper thoughts 
 on proper subjects." Swift's idea was that of a gramma- 
 rian. Voltaire's feeling was that of a philosopher. We 
 are only considering this universal writer in his literary 
 character, which has fewer claims to the character of an. 
 inventor than several who never attained to his celebrity. 
 Are the original powers of genius, then, limited to a 
 single art, and even to departments in that art ? May 
 not men of genius plume themselves with the vainglorj- 
 of universality? I-et us dare to call this a vainglory; 
 for he who stands the first in his clar^s, does not really add
 
 SINGLENESS OF GENIUS. 323 
 
 to the distiiictive character of his genius, by a versatility 
 "which, however apparently successful is always subordin- 
 ate to the great character on which his fame rests. It 
 is only that character which bears the raciness of the 
 soil ; it is only that impulse whose solitary force stamps 
 the authentic work of genius. To execute equally well 
 on a variety of subjects may raise a suspicion of the 
 nature of the executive power. Sliould it be mimetic, 
 the ingenious writer may remain absolutely destitute of 
 every claim to genius. Du Clos has been refused the 
 honours of genius by the French critics, because he 
 wi'ote equally well on a variety of subjects. 
 
 I know that this principle is contested by some of 
 great name, who have themselves evinced a wonderful 
 variety of powers. This penurious principle flatters not 
 that egotism which great writers share in common Avith 
 the heroes who have aimed at universal emj^ire. Besides, 
 this universality maj^ answer many temporary purposes. 
 These writers may, however, observe that their contem- 
 poraries ai'e continually disputing on the merits of their 
 versatile productions, and the most contrary opinions are 
 even formed by their admirers ; but their great individ- 
 ual character standing by itself, and resembling no other, 
 is a positive excellence. It is time only, who is influenced 
 by no name, and will never, like contemporaries, mis- 
 take the true work of genius. 
 
 And if it be true that the jirimary qualities of the 
 mind are ^o dififerent in men of genius as to render them 
 more apt for one class than for another, it would seem 
 that whenever a pre-eminent faculty had shaped the 
 mind, a faculty of the most contrary nature must act 
 with a diminished force, and the other often with an 
 exclusive one. An impassioned and pathetic genius has 
 never become equally eminent as a comic genius. Rich- 
 ardson and Fielding could not have written each other''3 
 works. Could Butler, who excelled in wit and satire,
 
 324 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 like Milton have excelled in sentiment and imagination ? 
 Some eminent men have shown remarkable failures in 
 their attemjDts to cultivate opposite dejiartments in their 
 own pursuits. The tragedies and the comedies of Dry- 
 den equally prove that he was not blest with a dramatic 
 genius. Gibber, a spirited comic writer, was noted for 
 the most degrading failures in tragedy;' while Howe, 
 successful in the softer tones of the tragic muse, proved 
 as luckless a candidate for the smiles of the comic as the 
 pathetic Otway. La Fontaine, unrivalled humorist as 
 a fabiilist, found his opera hissed, and his romance 
 utterly tedious. The true genius of Sterne was of a de- 
 scriptive and pathetic cast, and his humour and ribaldry 
 were a perpetual violation of his natural bent. Alfiori's 
 great tragic powers could not strike out into comedy or 
 "wit. Scarron declared he intended to write a tragedy. 
 The experiment was not made ; but with his strong cast 
 of mind and habitual associations, we probably have lost 
 a new sort of " Roman comique." Cicero failed in poetry, 
 Addison in oratory, Voltaire in comedy, and Johnson in 
 tragedy. The Anacreontic poet remains only Anacreon- 
 tic in his epic. With the fine arts the same occurrence 
 has happened. It has been observed in painting, that 
 the school eminent for design was deficient in colouring ; 
 while those who with Titian's warmth could make the 
 blood circulate in the flesh, could never rival the ex-pres- 
 sion and anatomy of even the middling artists of the 
 Roman school. 
 
 Even among those rare and gifted minds which have 
 Rtartfcd us by the versatility of their powers, whence do 
 they derive the high character of their genius? Their 
 durable claims are substantiated by what is inherent in 
 themselves — what is individual — and not by that flexi- 
 bility which may include so much which others can equal. 
 We rate them by their positive originality, not by their 
 variety of powers. When we think of Young, it is only
 
 SINGLENESS OF GENIUS. 323 
 
 of his " Niglit Thoughts," not of his tragedies, nor his 
 poems, nor even of his satires, which others have rivalled 
 or excelled. Of Akenside, the solitary work of genius is 
 his great poem ; his numerous odes are not of a higher 
 order than those of other ode-writers. Had Pope only 
 composed odes and tragedies, the great philosophical poet, 
 master of human life and of perfect verse, had not left an 
 undying name. Teniers, unrivalled in the walk of his 
 genius, degraded history by the meanness of his concep- 
 tions. Such instances abound, and demonstrate an im- 
 portant truth in the history of genius that we cannot, 
 however we may incline, enlarge the natural extent of 
 our genius, any more than we can " add a cubit to our 
 stature." We may force it into variations, but in multi- 
 plying mediocrity, or in doing what others can do, we 
 add nothing to genius. 
 
 So true is it that men of genius appear only to excel in 
 a single art, or even in a single department of art, that 
 it is usual with men of taste to resort to a particular 
 artist for a particular object. Would you ornament your 
 house by interior decorations, to whom would you apply 
 if you sought the perfection of art, but to different artists, 
 of very distinct characters in their invention and their 
 execution ? For your arabesques you would call in the 
 artist whose delicacy of touch and playfulness of ideas 
 are not to be expected from the grandeur of the histori- 
 cal painter, or the sweetness of the Paysagiste. Is it not 
 evident that men of genius excel only in one depart- 
 ment of their art, and that whatever they do with the 
 utmost original perfection, cannot be equally done by an- 
 other man of genius? He whose undeviating genius 
 guards itself in its own true sphere, has the greatest 
 chance of encountering no rival. He is a Dante, a Milton, 
 a Michael Angelo, a Raphael : his hand will not labour 
 on what the Italians call pasticcios / and he remains not 
 uuimitated but inimitable.
 
 S26 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 literature an avenue to glory. — An intellectual nobility not chimerical, 
 but created by public opinion. — Literary honours of various na^ 
 tions. — ^Local associations with the memorj'^ of the man of genius. 
 
 LITERATURE is an avenue to glory, ever open for 
 those ingenious men who are deprived of honours or 
 of wealth. Like that illustrious Roman who owed noth- 
 ing to his ancestors, videtur ex se natus, these seem self- 
 born; and in the baptism of fame, they have given them- 
 selves their name. Bruyere has finely said of men of 
 genius, " These men have neither ancestors nor j^osterity ; 
 they alone compose their whole race." 
 
 But Akenside, we have seen, blushed when his lame- 
 ness reminded him of the fall of one of his fathex-'s cleav- 
 ers ; Prior, the son of a vintner, could not endure to be 
 reminded, though by his favourite Horace, that " the 
 cask retains its flavour ;" like Voiture, another descend- 
 ant of a viarchand de vin, whose heart sickened over that 
 which exhilarates all other hearts, whenever his opinion 
 of its qiiality, was maliciously consulted. All these in- 
 stances too evidently prove that genius is subject to the 
 most vulgar infirmities. 
 
 But some have tliought more courageously. TJie 
 amiable Rollin was the son of a cutler, but the historian 
 of nations never felt his dignity compromised by his 
 birth. Even late in life, he ingeniously alluded to his 
 first occupation, for we find an epigram of his in sending 
 a knife for a new-years's gift, " informing Iiis friend, that 
 bhould this present aj^j^ear to come rather from Vulcan 
 than from Minerva, it should not surprise, foi-," adds the 
 epigrammatist, " it was from the cavern of the Cyclops I 
 began to direct my footsteps towards Parnassus." The 
 great political negotiator, Cardinal D'Ossat, was elevated
 
 GENIUS ELEYATE3 OBSCURE MEN. 327 
 
 by Lis genius from an orphan state of indigence, and 
 was alike destitute of ancestry, of titles, even of parents. 
 On the day of his creation, when others of noble extrac- 
 tion assumed new titles from the seignorial names of their 
 ancient houses, he was at a loss to fix on one. Having 
 asked the Pope whether he should choose that of his 
 bishopric, his holiness requested him to preserve his plain 
 family name, which he had rendered famous by his own 
 genius. The sons of a sword-maker, a potter, and a tax- 
 gatherer, were the greatest of the orators, the most ma- 
 jestic of the poets, and the most graceful of the satirists 
 of antiquity ; Demosthenes, Virgil, and Horace. The 
 eloquent Massillon, the brilliant Flechier, Rousseau, and 
 Diderot ; Johnson, Goldsmith, and Franklin, arose amidst 
 the most humble avocations. 
 
 Vespasian raised a statue to the historian Josephus, 
 though a Jew ; and the Athenians one to ^sop, though 
 a slave. Even among great military republics the road 
 to public honour was open, not alone to heroes and 
 patricians, but to that solitary genius which derives from 
 itself all which it gives to the public, and nothing from 
 its birth or the public situation it occupies. 
 
 It is the prerogative of genius to elevate obscure men 
 to the higher class of society. If the affluence of wealth 
 in the present day has created a new aristocracy of its 
 own, where they already begin to be jealous of their 
 ranks, we may assert that genius creates a sort of intel- 
 lectual nobility, which is now conferred by public feeling ; 
 as heretofore the surnames of " the African," and of 
 " Coriolanus," won by valour, associated with the names 
 of the conqueror of Africa and the vanquisher of Corioli. 
 "Were men of genius, as such, to have armorial bearings, 
 they might consist, not of imaginary things, of griffins 
 and chimeras, but of deeds performed and of public 
 works in existence. When Dondi raised the great astro- 
 nomical clock at the University of Padua, which was
 
 328 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 long the admiration of Europe, it gave a name and 
 nobility to its maker and all his descendants. There 
 still lives a Marquis Dondi dal' Horologio. Sir Hugh 
 Middleton, in memory of his vast enterprise, changed 
 his former arms to bear three piles, to perpetuate the 
 interesting circumstance, that by these instruments he 
 had strengthened the works he had invented, when his 
 genius poured forth the waters through our metropolis, 
 thereby distinguishing it from all others in the world. 
 Should not Evelyn have inserted an oak-tree in his bear- 
 ings ? for his " Sylva " occasioned the plantation of 
 " many millions of timber-trees," and the present navy 
 of Great Britain has been constructed Avith the oaks 
 which the genius of Evelyn j^lanted. There was an 
 eminent Italian musician, who had a piece of music in- 
 scribed on his tomb ; and I have heard of a Dutch mathe- 
 matician, who had a calculation for his epitaph. 
 
 We who were reproached for a coldness in our national 
 character, have caught the inspiration and enthusiasm 
 for the works and the celebrity of genius ; the symptoms 
 indeed were long dubious. Reynolds wished to have 
 one of his own pictures, " Contemplation in the figure 
 of an Angel," carried at his funeral ; a custom not un- 
 usual with foreign painters ; but it was not deemed pru- 
 dent to comply with this last wish of the great artist, 
 from the fears entertained as to the manner in which a 
 London populace might have received such a novelty. 
 This shows that the profound feeling of art is still con- 
 fined within a circle among us, of which hereafter the 
 t;ircumference perpetually enlarging, may embrace even 
 the whole people. If the public have borrowed the 
 names of some lords to dignify a " Sandwich " and a 
 " Spencer," we may be allowed to raise into titles of lit- 
 erary nobility those distinctions which the public voice 
 has attached to some authors ; ^-EiicJi.ylus Potter, Athenian 
 Stuart, and Anacreon Moore. Butler, in his own day,
 
 LITERARY HONOURS. 329 
 
 was more ^euei*ally known by the single and singular 
 name of JIudibras, than by his own. 
 
 This intellectual nobility is not chimerical. Such titles 
 must be found indeed, in the years which are to come ; 
 yet the prelude of their fame distinguishes these men 
 from the crowd. Whenever the rightful possessor ap- 
 pears, -wall not the eyes of all spectators be fixed on him ? 
 I allude to scenes which I have witnessed. Will not 
 even literary honours sui)eradd a nobility to nobility ; 
 and make a name instantly recognised which might 
 otherwise be hidden under its rank, and remain unknown 
 by its title ? Our illustrious list of literary noblemen is 
 far more glorious than the satirical " Catalogue of Noble 
 Authors," drawn up by a polished and heartless cynic, 
 who has pointed his brilliant shafts at all who were chival- 
 rous in spirit, or related to the family of genius. One may 
 presume on the existence of this intellectual nobility, 
 from the extraordinary cu'cumstance that the great have 
 actually felt a jealousy of the literary rank. But no 
 rivalry can exist in the solitary honour conferred on an 
 author. It is not an honour derived from birth nor crea- 
 tion, but from public opinion, and inseparable from his 
 name, as an essential quality; for the diamond wdll 
 sparkle and the rose will be fragrant, otherwise it is no 
 diamond or rose. The great may well condescend to be 
 humble to genius, si ace genius pays its homage in be- 
 coming proud of that humility. Cardinal Richelieu was 
 mortified at the celebrity of the unbending Corneille ; so 
 were several noblemen at Pope's indifierence to their 
 rank ; and Magliabechi, the book prodigy of his age, 
 whom every literary stranger visited at Florence, assured 
 Lord Raley that the Duke of Tuscany had become jeal- 
 ous of the attention he was receiving from foreigners, as 
 they usually went to visit Magliabechi before the Grand 
 Dnke. 
 
 A confession by Montesquieu states, with open can-
 
 830 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 dour, a fact in his life which confirms this jealousy of the 
 great with the literary character. " On my entering into 
 life I was spoken of as a man of talents, and people of 
 condition gave me a favourable reception ; but when the 
 success of ray Persian Letters proved perhaps that I was 
 not unworthy of my reputation, and the public began to 
 esteem me, my reception with the great was discou7'agingy 
 and I experienced innwnerahle mortifications.'*^ Montes- 
 quieu subjoins a reflection siiiBLciently humiliating for the 
 mere nobleman: "The great, inwardly wounded with 
 the glory of a celebrated name, seek to humble it. In 
 general he only can patiently endure the fame of others, 
 who deserves fame himself." This sort of jealousy un- 
 questionably prevailed in the late Lord Orford, a wit, a 
 man of the world, and a man of rank ; but while he con- 
 sidered literature as a mere amusement, he was mortified 
 at not obtaining literary celebrity ; he felt his authorial 
 always beneath his personal character. It fell to my lot 
 to develope his real feelings respecting himself and the 
 literary men of his age.* 
 
 Who was the dignified character. Lord Chesterfield or 
 Samuel Johnson, when the great author, proud of his 
 protracted and vast labour, rejected his lordsliip's tardy 
 and trivial patronage ? f "I value myself," says Swift, 
 
 * "Calamities of Atithors." I printed, iu 1812, extracts from "Wal- 
 polo's correspondence with Cole. Some have considered that there 
 was a severitj'- of delineation in my character of Horace Walpole. I 
 was the first, in my impartial view of his literary character, to pro- 
 claim to the world whit it has now fully sanctioned, that " His most 
 pleasing, if not his great talent, lay in letter-writing ; here he was 
 without a rival. His correspondence aboimded with literature, criti- 
 cism, and wit of the most original and brilliant composition." This 
 was ])ublished several years before the recent collection of his letters. 
 
 \ Johnson had originally submitted the plan of his "Dictionary" 
 to Lord Chesterfield, but received no mark of interest or sympathy 
 during its weary progress; when the moment of jniblication approached, 
 his lordship, perhaps in the hope of earning a dedication, published in 
 Ttui Wvrld two letters commending Johnson and his labours. It was
 
 INTELLECTUAL NOBILITY. 33 1 
 
 " upon making the ministry desii*e to be acquainted with 
 Parnell, and not Parnell with the ministry." Piron 
 would not suffer the literary character to be lowered in 
 his presence. Entering the apartment of a nobleman, 
 who was conducting another peer to the stairs-head, the 
 latter stopped to make way for Piron : " Pass on, my 
 lord," said the noble master; "pass, he is only a poet." 
 Piron replied, " Since our qualities are declared, I shall 
 take my rank," and placed himself before the lord. Nor 
 is this pride, the true soui-ce of elevated character, re- 
 fused to the great artist as well as the great author. 
 Michael Angelo, invited by Julius II. to the court of 
 Rome, found that intrigue had indisposed his holiness 
 towards him, and more than once the great artist was 
 suffered to linger in attendance in the antechamber. 
 One day the indignant man of genius exclaimed, " Tell 
 his holiness, if he wants me, he must look for me else- 
 where." He flew back to his beloved Florence, to pro- 
 ceed with that celebrated cartoon which afterwards be- 
 came a favourite study with all artists. Thrice the Pope 
 wrote for his return, and at length menaced the little 
 State of Tuscany with war, if Michael Angelo j^rolonged 
 his absence. He returned. The sublime artist knelt at 
 the foot of the Father of the Church, turning aside his 
 troubled countenance in silence. An intermeddling 
 bishop offered himself as a mediator, apologising for our 
 artist by observing, " Of this proud humour are these 
 painters made !" Julius turned to this pitiable mediator, 
 and, as Vasari tells, used a switch on this occasion, ob- 
 
 this notice tlaat produced Johnson's celebrated letter, in which lie 
 asks, — " Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a 
 man struggling for hfe in the water, and when he has reached ground 
 encumbers him with help? The notice you have been pleased to take 
 of my labours, had it been early had been kind, but it has been de- 
 layed till I am indifferent and cannot enjoy it ; till I am solitary, and 
 cannot impart it ; till I am known, and do not want it." — Ed.
 
 332 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 serving, "You speak injuriously of him, while I am 
 sileut. It is you who are ignorant." Raising Michael 
 Angelo, Julius II. embraced the man of genius. 
 
 "I can make lords of you every daj^, but I cannot 
 create a Titian," said the Emperor Charles V. to his court- 
 iers, who had become jealous of the hours and the half- 
 hours which the monarch stole from them that he might 
 converse with the man of genius at his work. There is 
 an elevated intercourse between pjower and genius ; and 
 if they are deficient in reciprocal esteem, neither are 
 great. The intellectual nobility seems to have been as- 
 serted by De Harlay, a great French statesman ; for 
 when the Academy was once not received with royal 
 honours, he complained to the French monarch, observ- 
 ing, that when " a man of letters was presented to 
 Francis I. for the first time, the king always advanced 
 three steps from the throne to receive him." It is some- 
 thing more than an ingenious thought, when Fontenelle, 
 in his eloge on Leibnitz, alluding to the death of Queen 
 Anne, adds of her succcL^or, that " The Elector of Han- 
 over united under his dominion an electorate, the three 
 kinjrdoms of Great Britain, and Leibnitz and Newton."* 
 
 If ever the voice of individuals can recompense a life 
 of literary labour, it is in speaking a foreign accent. 
 This sounds like the distant plaudit of posterity. The 
 distance of space between the literary character and the 
 inquirer, in some respects represents the distance of time 
 which separates the author from the next age. Fon- 
 tenelle was never more gratified tlian when a Swede, ar- 
 riving at the gates of Paris, inquired of the custom-house 
 
 * This greatness of intellect that glorifies a court, however small, is 
 well instanced in that at Weimar, where the Duke Frederic surrounded 
 himself with the first men in Germany. It was the ciioson residence and 
 burial-place of Herder ; the birth-place of Kotzobue. Here also "Wieland 
 resided for many years ; and in the vaults of the ducal chapel the ashes 
 of Schiller repose by those of Goethe, who for more than half a century 
 assisted iu the councils, and adorned the court of Weimar. — Bd.
 
 HOXOUR TO GENIUS. 333 
 
 officers where Fontenelle resided, and expressed his in- 
 dignation that not one of them had ever heard of his 
 name. Hobbes expresses his proxid delight that his por- 
 trait was sought after by foreigners, and that the Great 
 Duke of Tuscany made the philosopher the object of his 
 first inquiries. Camden was not insensible to the visits 
 of German noblemen, who were desirous of seeing the 
 British Pliny; and Pocock, while he received no aid 
 from patronage at home for his Oriental studies, never 
 relaxed in those unrequited labours, animated by the 
 learned foreigners, who hastened to see and converse with 
 this prodigy of Eastern leai'ning. 
 
 Yes ! to the very presence of the man of genius -will 
 the world spontaneousl}%pay their tribute of respect, of 
 admiration, or of love. Many a pilgrimage has he lived 
 to receive, and many a crowd has followed his footsteps ! 
 There are days in the life of genius which repay its suffer- 
 ings. Demosthenes confessed he was pleased when even 
 a fishwoman of Athens pointed him out. Corneille had 
 his particular seat in the theatre, and the audience would 
 rise to salute him when he entered. At the presence of 
 Kaynal in the House of Commons, the Speaker was re- 
 quested to suspend the debate till that illustrious for- 
 eigner, who had written on the English parliament, was 
 accommodated with a seat. Spinosa, when he gained an 
 humble livelihood by grinduig optical glasses, at an ob- 
 scure village in Holland, was visited by the first general 
 in Europe, who, for the sake of this philosophical con- 
 ference, suspended the march of the army. 
 
 In all ages and in all countries has this feeling been 
 created. It is neither a temporary ebullition nor an in- 
 dividual honour. It comes out of the heart of man. It 
 is the passion of great souls. In Spain, whatever was 
 most beautiful in its kind was described by the name of 
 the great Spanish bard :* everything excellent was called 
 
 * Lope de Vega.
 
 334: LITERARY CEIARACTER. 
 
 a Lcpe. Italy would furnish a volume of the puhlic 
 honours decreed to literary men ; nor is that spirit ex- 
 tinct, though the national character has fallen by the 
 chance of fortune. Metastasio and Tii-aboschi received 
 what had been accorded to Petrarch and to Poggio. 
 Germany, patriotic to its literary characters, is the land 
 of the enthusiasm of genius. On the borders of the Lin- 
 net, in the public walk of Zurich, the monument of Ges- 
 ner, erected by the votes' of his fellow-citizens, attests 
 their sensibility; and a solemn funeral honoured the re- 
 mains of Klopstock, led by the senate of Hamburgh, 
 with fifty thousand votaries, so penetrated by one uni- 
 versal sentiment, that this multitude preserved a mourn- 
 ful silence, and the interference *f the police ceased to be 
 necessary through the city at the solemn burial of the 
 man of genius. Has even Holland proved insensible ? 
 The statue of Erasmus, in Rotterdam, still animates her 
 young students, and offers a noble example to her neigh- 
 bours of the influence even of the sight of the statue of 
 a man of genius. Travellers never fail to mention Eras- 
 mus when Basle occupies their recollections; so that, as 
 Bayle observes, "He has rendered the place of his 
 death as celebrated as that of his birth," In France, 
 since Francis I. created genius, and Louis XIV. protected 
 it, the impulse has been communicated to the French peo- 
 ple. There the statues of their illustrious men spread 
 inspiration on the spots which living they would have 
 haunted : — in their theatres, the great dramatists ; in their 
 Institute their illustrious authors ; in their public edifices, 
 congenial men of genius.* This is worthy of the coun- 
 
 *"We cannot bury tlie fame of our English worthies — that exists be- 
 fore us, independent of ourselves; but we bury the influence of their in- 
 spiring presence in those immortal memorials of genius easy to bo read 
 by all men — thoir statues and their busts, consigning them to spots 
 seldom visited, and often too obscure to bo viewed. [We liavo recent 
 evidence of a more noblo acknowledi^uient of our great men. The 
 
 I
 
 SOXOURS TO CtEXIUS. 335 
 
 try which privileged the family of La Fontaine to be foi 
 ever exempt from taxes, and decreed that " the produc- 
 tions of the mind vrere not seizable," when the creditors 
 of Crebillon would have attached the produce of his 
 tragedies. 
 
 These distinctive honours accorded to genius were in 
 unison with their decree i*especting the will of Bayle. It 
 was the subject of a lawsuit between the heir of the will 
 and the inheritor by blood. The latter contested that 
 this great literary character, being a fugitive for religion, 
 and dying in a proscribed country, was divested by law 
 of the power to dispose of his property, and that our au- 
 thor, when resident in Holland, in a civil sense was dead. 
 In the Parliament of Toulouse the judge decided that 
 learned men are free in all countries : that he who had 
 sought in a foreign land an asylum from his love of let- 
 ters, was no fugitive ; that it was unworthy of Finance to 
 treat as a stranger a son in whom she gloried, and he 
 protested against the notion of a civil death to such a 
 man as Bayle, whose name was living throughout Europe. 
 This judicial decision in France was in unison with that 
 of the senate of Rotterdam, who declared of the emigrant 
 Bayle, that " such a man should not be considered as a 
 foreigner." 
 
 Even the most common objects are consecrated when 
 associated with the memory of the man of genius. "We 
 Btill seek for his tomb on the spot where it has vanished. 
 The enthusiasts of genius still wander on the hills of Pau- 
 silippo, and muse on Virgil to retrace his landscape. There 
 is a gi'ove at Magdalen College which retains the name of 
 Addison's walk, where still the student will linger ; and 
 there is a cave at Macao, which is still visited by the 
 Portuguese from a national feeling, for Camoens there 
 
 Btatue of Dr. Jenner is placed in Trafalgar Square ; and Grantham 
 has now a noble work to commemorate its great townsman, Sir Isaac 
 Newton.]
 
 336 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 passed many days in composing his Lusiad. When Pe- 
 trarch was passing by his native town, he was received 
 with the honours of his fame ; but when the heads of the 
 town conducted Petrarch to the house where the poet 
 was born, and infoi-med him that the pi'oprietor had often 
 wished to make alterations, but that the townspeople had 
 risen to insist that the house which was consecrated by 
 the birth of Petrarch should be preserved unchanged ; 
 this was a triumph more affecting to Petrarch than his 
 coronation at Rome.* 
 
 In the village of Certaldo is still shown the house of 
 Boccaccio ; and on a turret are seen the arms of the Me- 
 dici, which they had sculptured there, with an inscription 
 alluding to a small house and a name which filled the 
 world ; and in Ferrara, the small house which Ariosto 
 built was purchased, to be preserved, by the municipality, 
 and there they still show the poet's study ; and under his 
 bust a simple but affecting tribute to genius records that 
 " Ludovico Ariosto in this aj^artment wrote." Two hun- 
 dred and eighty years after the death of the divine poet 
 it was purchased by the podesta., with the money of the 
 commune, that "the public veneration may be main- 
 tained." f " Foreigners," says Anthony Wood of Milton, 
 " have, out of piire devotion, gone to Bread-street to see 
 the house and chamber where he was born ;" and at Paris 
 
 * On this passage I And a remarkable manuscript note by Lord 
 Byron : — " It would have pained me more that ' the proprietor' should 
 have 'often wished to make alterations, than it could give pleasure 
 that the rest of Arczzo rose against his r^ght (for rigid he had) ; tlio 
 depreciation of the lowest of manVcind is more painful than the applause 
 of the highest is pleasing; the sting of a scorpion is more in torture 
 than the possession of anything could be in rapture." 
 
 f A public subscription .secured the house in which Shakspeare was 
 born at Rtratford-on-Avon. Durcr's house, at Nuremberg, is still re- 
 ligiously proservod, and its features are unaltered. The house in 
 which Michael Augelo resided at Florence is also carefully guarded, 
 aid the rooms are still in the condition in which they were left by the 
 great master. — Eu.
 
 RELICS OF GENIUS. 337 
 
 the Louse wliicli Voltaire inhabited, and at Ferney his 
 study, are both preserved inviolate. In the study of 
 Montesquieu at La Brcde, near Bordeaux, the proprietor 
 has preserved all the furniture, Avithout altering anything, 
 that the apartment where this great man meditated on 
 his immortal work should want for nothing to assist the 
 reveries of the spectator; and on the side of the chimney 
 is still seen a place which while writing he was accus- 
 tomed to rub his feet against, as they rested on it. In a 
 keep or dungeon of this feudal chateau, the local associa- 
 tion suggested to the philosopher his chapter on " The 
 Liberty of the Citizen." It is the second chapter of tlie 
 twelfth book, of which the close is remarkable. 
 
 Let us regret that the little villa of Pope, and the 
 poetic Leasowes of Shenstone, have fallen the victims of 
 property as much as if destroyed by the barbarous hand 
 which cut down the consecrated tree of Shakspeai-e. The 
 very apartment of a man of genius, the chair he studied 
 in, the table he wrote on, are contemplated with curiosity ; 
 the spot is full of local impressions. And all this hap- 
 pens from an unsatisfied desire to see and hear him whom 
 we never can see nor hear ; yet, in a moment of illusion, 
 if we listen to a traditional conversation, if we can revive 
 one of his feelings, if we can catch "but a dim image, we 
 reproduce this man of genius before us, on whose features 
 we so often dwell. Even the rage of the military spirit 
 has taught itself to respect the abode of genius; and 
 Csesar and Sylla, who never spared the blood of their own 
 Rome, alike felt their spirit rebuked, and alike saved the 
 literary city of Athens. Antiquity has preserved a beau- 
 tiful incident of this nature, in the noble reply of the art- 
 ist Protogenes. "When the city of Rhodes was taken by 
 Demetrius, the man of genius was discovered in his gar- 
 den, tranquilly finishing a picture. " How is it that you 
 do not participate in the general alarm ?" asked the con- 
 queror. " Demetrius, you war against the Rhodians, but 
 22
 
 33S LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 not against the fine arts," replied the man of genius. De- 
 metrius had already shown this by his conduct, for he 
 forbade firing that part of the city where the artist re- 
 sided. 
 
 The house of the man of genius has been spared amidst 
 contending empires, from the days of Pindar to those of 
 Buftbn ; " the Historian of Nature's " chateau was pre- 
 served from this elevated feeling by Prince Schwartzen- 
 berg, as our Marlborough had performed the same glori- 
 ous ofBce in guarding the hallowed asylum of Fenelon. * 
 In the grandeur of Milton's verse yve perceive the feeling 
 he associated Avith this literary honour : 
 
 The great Emathian conquoror bid spare 
 
 The house of Pindarus when temple aud tower 
 
 Went to the ground . 
 
 And the meanest things, the very hoiisehold stuff, asso- 
 ciated with the Tnemory of the man of genius, become the 
 objects of our affections. At a festival, in honour of 
 Thomson, the poet, the chair in which he composed part 
 of his " Seasons" was produced, and appears to have com- 
 municated some of the raptui'es to which he was liable 
 who had sat in that chair. Rabelais, amongst his drollest 
 inventions, could not have imagined that his old cloak 
 would have been preserved in the university of Montpe- 
 lier for future doctors to wear on the day they took their 
 degree ; nor could Shakspeare have supposed, Avith all his 
 fancy, that the mulberry-tree which he planted would 
 have been multiplied into relics. But in such instances 
 the feeling is right, with a wrong direction ; and while 
 the popuhu'c arc exhausting their emotions on an old tree, 
 an old chair, and an old cloak, they are paying that in- 
 
 * Tlio printing ofTice of Plantyn, at Antwerp, was guarded in a 
 Bimiliir manner, during the great revohition that separated Ilohand and 
 Belgium, wlion a troop of soldiers wore stationed in its courtyard. See 
 "Curiosities of Literature," vol. i., p. 77, noce— Ed.
 
 ENGLAND HONOURED BY ITS AUTHORS. 339 
 
 voluntary tribute to genius which forms its pride, and 
 will o-enerate the race. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 Influence of Authors on society, and of society on Authors. — National 
 tastes a source of literary prejudices. — True Genius always the organ 
 of its nation. — Master-writers preserve the distinct national charac- 
 ter. — Genius the organ of the state of the age. — Causes of its sup- 
 pression in a people. — Often invented, but neglected. — The natural 
 gradations of genius. — Men of Genius produce their usefulness ia 
 privacy. — The public mind is now the creation of the public WTiter. — 
 Politicians affect to deny tliis principle. — Authors stand between the 
 governors and the governed. — 'A vievr of the solitary Author in Ids 
 study. — They create an epoch in history. — Influence of popular Au- 
 thors. — The immortality of thought. — The Family of Genius illus- 
 trated by their genealogy. 
 
 LITERARY fame, which is the sole preserver of all 
 other fame, participates little, and remotely, in the 
 remuneration and the honours of professional characters. 
 All other professions press more immediately on the 
 wants and attentions of men, than the occupations of Lit- 
 erary Characters, who from their habits are secluded ; 
 producing their usefulness often at a late period of life, 
 and not always valued by their own generation. 
 
 It is not the commercial character of a nation which 
 inspires veneration in mankind, nor will its military 
 power engage the affections of its neighbours. So late 
 as in 1700 the Italian Gemelli told all Europe that he 
 could find nothing among us but our xoritings to distin- 
 guish us from a people of barbarians. It was long 
 considered that our genius partook of the density and 
 variableness of our climate, and that we were incapaci- 
 tated even by situation from the enjoyments of those 
 beautiful arts which have not yet travelled to us— as if
 
 340 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 Nature herself had designed to disjoin lis from moi'C 
 polished nations and brighter skies. 
 
 At length we have triumphed ! Our philosophers, our 
 poets, and our historians, are printed at foreign presses. 
 This is a perpetual victory, and establishes the ascendancy 
 of our genius, as much at least as the commerce and the 
 prowess of England. This singular revolution in the 
 history of the human mind, and by its reaction this 
 singular revolution in human afiairs, was effected by a 
 glorious succession of authors, who have enabled our 
 nation to arbitrate among the nations of Europe, and to 
 possess ourselves of their involuntary esteem by dis- 
 coveries in science, by principles in philosophy, by truths 
 in history, and even by the graces of fiction ; and there 
 is not a man of genius among foreigners who stands 
 unconnected with oiir intellectual sovereignty. Even 
 had our country displayed more limited resources than 
 its awful jiowers have opened, and had the sphere of its 
 dominion been enclosed by its island boundaries, if the 
 same national literary character had predominated, we 
 should have stood on the same eminence among our 
 Continental rivals. The small cities of Athens and of 
 Florence "will perpetually attest the influence of the 
 literary character over other nations. The one received 
 the tribute of the mistress of the universe, when the 
 Romans sent their youth to be educated at the Grecian 
 city, while the other, at the revival of letters, beheld 
 every polished European crowding to its little court. 
 
 In closing this imperfect work by attempting to 
 ascertain the real influence of authors on society, it will 
 be necessary to notice some curious facts in the history 
 of genius. 
 
 The distinct literary tastes of different nations, and the 
 repugnance tliey mutually betray for the master-writers 
 of each other, is an im]K)rtant circumstance to tlie 
 philosophical observer. These national tastes originate
 
 NATIONAL AUTHORS. 341 
 
 in modes of feeling, in customs, in idioms, and all tlie 
 numerous associations prevalent among every people. 
 The reciprocal influence of manners on taste, and of 
 taste on manners — of government and religion on the 
 literature of a people, and of their literature on the 
 national character, with other congenial objects of 
 inquiry, still require a more ample investigation. 
 Whoever attempts to reduce this diversity, and these 
 strong contrasts of national tastes to one common stand- 
 ard, by forcing such dissimilar objects into comparative 
 parallels, or by trying them by conventional principles 
 and arbitrary regulations, will often condemn what in 
 truth his mind is inadequate to comprehend, and the 
 experience of his associations to combine. 
 
 These attempts have been the fertile source in 
 literature of what may be called national prejudices. 
 The French nation insists that the northerns are defective 
 in taste — the taste, they tell us, which is established at 
 Paris, and which existed at Athens: the Gothic imagina- 
 tion of the north spurns at the timid copiers of the 
 Latin classics, and interminable disputes prevail in their 
 literature, as in their architecture and their painting. 
 Philosophy discovers a fact of which taste seems little 
 conscious; it is, that genius varies with the soil, and 
 produces a nationality of taste. The feelings of mankind 
 indeed have the same common source, but they must 
 come to us through the medium and by the modifica- 
 tions of society. Love is a universal passion, but the 
 poetry of love in diiferent nations is peculiar to each ; 
 for every great poet belongs to his country. Petrarch, 
 Lope de Vega, Racine, Shakspeare, and Sadi, would each 
 express this universal passion by the most specific 
 differences ; and the style that would be condemned as 
 unnatural by one people, might be habitual with another. 
 The concetti of the Italian, the figurative style of the 
 Persian, the swelling grandeur of the Spaniard, the
 
 342 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 Classical correctness of the French, are all modifications 
 of genius, relatively true to each particular writer. On 
 national tastes critics are but wrestlers : the Spaniard 
 will still prefer his Lope de Vega to the French Kacine, 
 or the English his Shakspeare, as the Italian his Tasso 
 and his Petrarch. Hence all national writers are 
 studied with enthusiasm by their own people, and their 
 very peculiarities, oiFensive to others, with the natives 
 constitute their excellences. Nor does this perpetual 
 contest about the great writers of other nations solely 
 arise from, an association of patriotic glory, but really 
 because these great native Avriters have most strongly 
 excited the sympathies and conformed to the habitual 
 tastes of their own people. 
 
 Hence, then, we deduce that true genius is the organ 
 of its nation. The creative faculty is itself created ; for 
 it is tlie nation which first imj^arts an imjDulse to the 
 character of genius. Such is the real source of those 
 distinct tastes which we perceive in all great national 
 authors'. Every literary work, to ensure its success, 
 must adapt itself to the sympathies and the understand- 
 higs of the people it addresses. Hence those 02:)posite 
 characteristics, which are usually ascribed to the master- 
 wi-iters themselves, originate with the country, and not 
 with the writer. Lope de Vega, and Calderon, in their 
 dramas, and Cervantes, who has left his name as the 
 epithet of a peculiar grave humour, were Spaniards 
 before they were men of genius. Corneille, Racine, and 
 Rabelais, are entirely of an opposite character to the 
 Spaniards, having adapted their genius to their own 
 declamatory and vivacious countrymen. Petrarch and 
 Tasso display a fancifulness in depicting the passions, as 
 Boccaccio narrates his facetious stories, quite distinct 
 from the inventions and style of northern writers. 
 Shakspeare is j)laced at a wider interval from all of them 
 than they are from eacli other, and is as perfectly insular
 
 NATIONAL AUTHORS. 343 
 
 in Ills genius as his own countrymen were in tlieir cus- 
 toms, and their modes of thinking and feeling. 
 
 Thus the master-writers of every people preserve the 
 distinct national character in their works ; and hence 
 that extraordinary enthusiasm with which every people 
 read their own fiivourite authors ; but in which otiiers 
 cannot participate, and for which, with all their national 
 prejudices, they often recriminate on each other with 
 false and even ludicrous criticism. 
 
 But genius is not only the organ of its nation, it is 
 also that of the state of the times; and a great work 
 usually originates in the age. Certain events must pre- 
 cede the man of genius, who often becomes only the 
 vehicle of public feeling. Machiavel has been reproached 
 for propagating a political system subversive of all 
 human honour and happiness ; but was it Machiavel who 
 formed his age, or the age* which created Machia^'el ? 
 Livmg among the petty principalities of Italy, where 
 stratagem and assassination were the practices of those 
 wretched courts, what did that calumniated genius more 
 than lift the veil from a cabinet of banditti? Machiavel 
 alarmed the world by exposing a system subversive of all 
 human virtue and happiness, and, whether he meant it or 
 not, certainly led the way to j)olitical freedom. On the 
 same jjnnciple we may learn that Boccaccio would not 
 have written so many indecent tales had not the scandal- 
 ous lives of the monks engaged public attention. This 
 we may now regret ; but the court of Rome felt the con- 
 cealed satire, and that luxurious and numerous class in 
 society never recovered from the chastisement, 
 
 Montaigne has been censured for his universal scepti- 
 cism, and for the unsettled notions he drew out on his 
 motley page, which has been attributed to his incapacity 
 of forming decisive opinions. " Que s^ais-je ?" was his 
 motto. The same accusation may reach the gentle Eras- 
 mus, who alike offended the old catholics and the new
 
 Sir-i LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 reformers. The real source of their vacillations we may 
 discover in the age itself. It was one of controversy and 
 of civil wars, when the minds of men were thrown into 
 perpetual agitation, and opinions, like the victories of the 
 parties, were every day changing sides. 
 
 Even in its advancement beyond the intelligence of its 
 own age genius is but progressive. In nature all is con- 
 tinuous ; she makes no starts and leaps. Genius is said 
 to soar, but we should rather say that genius climbs. 
 Did the gi-eat Verulam, or Rawleigh, or Dr. More, eman- 
 cipate themselves from all the dreams of their age, from 
 the occult agency of witchcraft, the astral influence, and 
 the ghost and demon creed ? 
 
 Before a particular man of genius can appear, certain 
 events must arise to prepare the age for him. *A great 
 commercial nation, in the maturity of time, opened all 
 the sources of w^ealth to the contemplation of Adam 
 Smith. That extensive system of what is called political 
 economy could not have been produced at any other 
 time ; for before this period the materials of this work 
 had but an imperfect existence, and the advances which 
 this sort of science had made were only partial and pre- 
 paratory. If the principle of Adam Smith's great work 
 seems to confound the happiness of a nation with its 
 wealth, we can scarcely reproach the man of genius, who 
 we shall find is always reflecting back the feelings of his 
 own nation, even in his most original speculations. 
 
 In works of pure imagination we trace the same march 
 of the human intellect ; and Ave discover in those inven- 
 tions, wliich ajipear sealed by their originality, how much 
 has been dei-ived from the age and the people in which 
 they were produced. Every Avork of genius is tinctured 
 by the feelings, and often originates in the events, of the 
 times. The Inferno of Dante was caught from the 
 popular superstitions of the age, and had been preceded 
 by the gross visions which the monks had forged, usually
 
 NATIONAL AUTHORS. 3^:5 
 
 for their own purposes. " La Citti dolente," and " la 
 pdrduta gente," were familar to the imaginations of the 
 people, by the monkish visions, and it seems even by- 
 ocular illusions of Hell, exhibited in Mystei'ies, with its 
 gulfs of flame, and its mountains of ice, and the shrieks 
 of the condemned.* To produce the " Liferno " only 
 required the giant step of genius, in the sombre, the 
 awful, and the fierce, Dante. When the age of chivalry 
 flourished, all breathed of love and courtesy ; the great 
 man was the great lover, and the great author the ro- 
 mancer. It was from his own age that Milton derived 
 his greatest blemish — the introduction of school-divinity 
 into poetry. In a polemical age the poet, as Avell as the 
 sovereign, reflected the reigning tastes. 
 
 There are accidents to which genius is liable, and by 
 which it is frequently suppressed in a people. The 
 establishment of the Inquisition in Spain at one stroke 
 annihilated all the genius of the country. Cervantes 
 said that the Inquisition had spoilt many of his most 
 delightful inventions ; and unquestionably it silenced the 
 wit and invention of a nation whose proverbs attest they 
 possessed them even to luxuriance. All the continental 
 nations have boasted great native painters and architects, 
 while these arts were long truly foreign to us. Theoret- 
 ical critics, at a loss to account for this ' singularity, 
 accused not only our climate, but even our diet, as the 
 occult causes of our unfitness to cultivate them. Yet 
 Montesquieu and Winkelmann might have observed that 
 the air of fens and marshes had not deprived the gross 
 feeders of Holland and Flanders of admirable artists. 
 We have been outrageously calumniated. So far from 
 
 * Sismondi relates that the bed of the river Arno, at Florence, wag 
 transformed into a representation of the Gulf of Hell, in the year 
 1304; and that all the variety of suffering that monkish imagination 
 had invented was apparently inflicted on real persons, whose shrieks 
 and groans gave fearful reality to the appalling scene. — Eb.
 
 346 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 any national incapacity, or obtuse feelings, attaching to 
 ourselves in respect to these arts, the noblest efforts had 
 long been made, not only by individuals, but by the 
 magnificence of Henry VIII., who invited to his court 
 Raphael and Titian; but unfortunately only obtained 
 Holbein. A later sovereign, Charles the First, not only 
 possessed galleries of pictures, and was the greatest jjur- 
 chaser in Europe, for he raised their value, but he like- 
 wise possessed the taste and the science of the connois- 
 seur. Something, indeed, had occurred to our national 
 genius, which had thrown it into a stupifying state, from 
 which it is yet hardly aroused. Could those foreign 
 philosophers have ascended to moral causes, instead of 
 vapouring forth fanciful notions, they might have struck 
 at the true cause of the deficiency in our national genius. 
 The jealousy of puritanic fanaticism had persecuted these 
 arts from the first rise of the Reformation in this country. 
 It had not only banished them from our churches and 
 altai'-pieces, but the fury of the people, and the " wisdom " 
 of parliament, had alike combined to mutilate and even 
 efllice what little remained of painting and sculpture 
 among us. Even within our own times tliis deadly 
 hostility to art was not extinct ; for when a proposal was 
 made gratuitously to decorate our places of worship by 
 a series of religious pictures, and English artists, in 2:>ure 
 devotion to Art, zealous to confute the Conthiental 
 calumniators, asked only for walls to cover, George the 
 Third highly approved of the plan. Tlie design was put 
 aside, as some had a notion that the cultivation of the 
 fine arts in our naked churches was a retm-n to Catholi- 
 cism. Had this glorious plan been realized, the golden 
 age of English art miglit have arisen. Every artist 
 would have invented a subject most congenial to his 
 powers. Reynolds would have emulated Raphael in the 
 Virgin and Child in the manger, West had fixed on 
 Christ raising the young man from the dead, Barry had
 
 ENGLISH ARCHITECTS. 347 
 
 profoundly meditated on the Jews rejecting Jesus. Thus 
 did an age of genius perish before its birth ! It was on 
 the occasion of this frustrated project that Barry, in 
 the rage of disappointment, immortalised himself by a 
 gratuitous labour of seven years on the walls of the 
 Society of Arts, for which, it is said, the French govern- 
 ment under Buonaparte offered ten thousand pounds. 
 
 Thus also it has happened, that we have possessed 
 among ourselves great architects, although opportunities 
 for displaying their genius have been rare. This the 
 fate and fortune of two Englishmen attest. Without 
 the fire of London we might not have shown the world 
 one of the greatest architects, in Sir Christopher Wren ; 
 had not a St. Paul's been required by the nation he 
 would have found no opportunity of displaying the 
 magnificence of his genius, which even then was muti- 
 lated, as the original model bears witness to the world. 
 That great occasion served this noble architect to mul- 
 tiply his powers in other public edifices : and it is here 
 worth remarking that, had not Charles 11. been seized 
 by apoplexy, the royal residence, which was begun at 
 Winchester on a plan of Sir Christopher Wren's, by its 
 magnificence would have raised a Versailles for Eng- 
 land. 
 
 The fate of Inigo Jones is as remarkable as that of 
 Wren. Whitehall afforded a proof to foreigners that 
 among a people which, before that edifice appeared, was 
 reproached for their total deficiency of feeling for the 
 pure classical style of architecture, the true taste could 
 nevertheless exist. This celebrated piece of architecture, 
 however, is but a fragment of a grander composition, by 
 which, had not the civil wars intervened, the fame of 
 Britain would have balanced the glory of Greece, or 
 Italy, or France, and would have shown that our 
 country is more deficient in marble than in genius. Thus 
 the fii'e of Loudon produces a St. Paul's, and the civil
 
 348 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 wars suppress a Whitehall. Such circumstances in the; 
 history of art among nations have not always been de- 
 veloj^ed by those theorists who have calumniated the 
 artists of England. 
 
 In the history of genius it is remarkable that its work 
 is often invented, and lies neglected. A close observer 
 of this age pointed out to me that the military genius of 
 that great Fi-ench captain, who so long appeared to have 
 conquered Eurof)e, was derived from his applying the 
 new principles of war discovered by Folard and Guibert. 
 The genius of Folard observed that, among the changes 
 of military discipline in the practice of war among Euro- 
 pean nations since the introduction of gunpowder, one 
 of the ancient methods of the Romans had been im- 
 properly neglected, and, in his Commentaries on Poly- 
 bius, Folard revived this forgotten mode of warfare. 
 Guibert, in his great work, " Histoire de la Milice Fran- 
 ^aise," or rather the History of the Art of War, adopted 
 Folard's system of charging by columns, and breaking 
 the centre of the enemy, which seems to be the famous 
 plan of our Rodney and Nelson in their maritime battles. 
 But this favourite plan became the ridicule of the mili- 
 tary; and the boldness of his pen, with the high confi- 
 dence of the author, only excited adversaries to mortify 
 his pretensions, and to treat him as a dreamei*. From 
 this perpetual opposition to his plans, and the neglect he 
 incurred, Guibert died of " vexation of spirit ;" and the 
 last words on the death-bed of this man of genius were, 
 " One day they will know me !" Folard and Guibert 
 created a Buonaparte, who studied them on the field of 
 battle; and he who would trace the military genuis who 
 BO long held in suspense the fate of the world, may dis- 
 cover all that he performed in the neglected inventions of 
 preceding genius. 
 
 Hence also may we deduce the natural gradations of 
 genius. Many men of genius must arise before a particu-
 
 INFLUElSrCE OF AUTHORS. 349 
 
 lar man of genius can appear. Before Hcimer there 
 •were other epic poets ; a catalogue of their names and 
 their works has come down to us. Corneille could not 
 have been the chief dramatist of France had not the 
 founders of the Frehch drama preceded him, and Pope 
 could not hare preceded Dryden. It was in the nature 
 of things that a Giotto and a Cimabue should have pre- 
 ceded a Raphael and a Michael Angelo. 
 
 Even the writings of such extravagant geniuses as 
 Bruno and Cardan gave indications of the j^rogress of 
 the human mind; and had Ramus not shaken the au- 
 thority of the Organon of Aristotle we might not have 
 had the Novum Organon of Bacon. Men slide into their 
 degree in the scale of genius often by the exercise of a 
 single qiiality which their predecessors did not possess, 
 or by completing what at first was left imperfect. Truth 
 is a single point in knowledge, as beauty is in art : ages 
 revolve till a Newton and a Locke accomplish what an 
 Aristotle and a Descartes began. The old theory of 
 animal spirits, observes Professor Dugald Stewart, was 
 applied by Descartes to explain the mental phenomena 
 which led Newton into that train of thinking, which 
 served as the groundwork of Hartley's theory of vibra- 
 tions. The learning of one man makes others learned, 
 and the influence of genius is in nothing more remark- 
 able than in its efiects on its brothers. Selden's treatise 
 on the Syrian and Arabian Deities enabled Milton to 
 comprise, in one hundred and thirty beautiful lines, the 
 two large and learned syntagma which Selden had com- 
 posed on that abstract subject. Leland, the father of 
 British antiquities, impelled Stowe to work on his " Survey 
 of London ;" and Stowe's " London " inspired Camden's 
 stupendoiis " Britannia." Herodotus produced Thucydi- 
 des, and Thucydides Xenophon. With us Hume, Robert- 
 son, and Gibbon rose almost simultaneously by mutual in- 
 spiration. There exists a perpetual action and reaction in
 
 350 LITERARY CHARICTER. 
 
 the history of the human miad. It has frequently been 
 inquired why certain periods seem, to have been more 
 favourable to a particular class of genius than another ; 
 or, in other words, why men of genius appear in clus- 
 ters. We have theories respecting barren periods, which 
 are only satisfectorily accounted for by moral causes. 
 Genius generates enthusiasm and rivalry ; but, having 
 reached the meridian of its class, we find that there can 
 be no progress in the limited perfection of human nature. 
 All excellence in art, if it cannot advance, must decline. 
 
 Imj)ortant discoveries are often obtained by accident ; 
 but the single work of a man of genius, which has at 
 length changed the charactei* of a people, and even of an 
 age, is slowly matured in meditation. Even the me- 
 chanical inventions of genius must first become perfect in 
 its own solitary abode ere the world can possess them. 
 ]Men of genius then produce their usefulness in privacy ; 
 but it may not be of immediate application, and is often 
 undervalued by their own generation. 
 
 The influence of authors is so great, while the author 
 himself is so inconsiderable, that to some the cause may 
 not appear commensurate to its eifect. When Epicurus 
 published his doctrines, men immediately began to ex- 
 press themselves with freedom on the established religion, 
 and the dark and fearful superstitions of paganism, felling 
 into neglect, mouldered away. If, then, before the art of 
 multiplying the productions of the human mind existed, 
 the doctrines of a philosopher in manuscript or by lecture 
 could diffuse themselves throughout a literary nation, it 
 will baffle the algebraist of metaphysics to calculate the 
 unknown quantities of the propagation of human thought. 
 There are problems in metaphysics, as well as in mathe- 
 matics, which can never be resolved. 
 
 A small portion of mankind appears marked out by 
 nature and by study for the purpose of cultivating their 
 thoughts in peace, and of giving activity to their discov
 
 INFLUENCE OF AUTHORS. 351 
 
 enes, by disclosing them to tlie people. " Could I," ex- 
 claims Montesquieu, whose heart was beating with the 
 feelings of a great author, " could I but afford new rea- 
 sons to men to love their duties, their king, their country, 
 their laws, that they might become more sensible of their 
 happiness under every government they live, and in every 
 station they occupy, I should deem myself the happiest of 
 mon !" Such was the pure aspiration of the great author 
 who studied to preserve, by ameliorating, the humane 
 fabric of society. The same largeness of mind character- 
 ises all the eloquent friends of the human race. In an age 
 of religious intolerance it inspired the President DeThou 
 to inculcate, from sad experience and a juster view of hu- 
 man nature, the impolicy as well as the inhumanity of re- 
 ligious persecutions, in that dedication to Henry I Y., which 
 Lord Mansfield declared he could never read without 
 rapture. " I was not born for myself alone, but for my 
 country and my friends !" exclaimed the genius which 
 hallowed the virtuous pages of his immortal history. 
 
 Even our liberal yet dispassionate Locke restrained the 
 freedom of his inquiries, and corrected the errors which 
 the highest intellect may fall into, by marking out that 
 impassable boundary which must probably for ever 
 limit all human intelligence ; for the maxim which Locke 
 constantly inculcates is that " Reason must be the last- 
 judge and guide in everything." A final answer to those 
 who propagate their opinions, whatever they may be, 
 with a sectarian spirit, to foi'ce the understandings of 
 other men to their own modes of belief, and their own 
 variable opinions. This alike includes those who yield 
 up nothing to the genius of their age to coiTCCt the im- 
 perfections of society, and those who, opposing all human 
 experience, would anniliilate what is most admirable in 
 its institutions. 
 
 The public mind is the creation of the Master-Writers — 
 an axiom as demonstrable as any in Euclid, and a princi-
 
 352 LITERARY CHA.RA.OTER. 
 
 pie as sure in its operation as any in mechanics. Bacon's 
 influence over philosophy, and Grotius's over the politi- 
 cal state of society, are still felt, and their piinciples 
 practised far more than in their own age. These men of 
 genius, in their solitude, and with their views not always 
 comprehended by their contemporaries, became themselves 
 the founders of our science and our legislation. When 
 Locke and Montesquieu appeared, the old systems of 
 government were reviewed, the principle of toleration 
 was developed, and the revolutions of opinion were dis- 
 covered. 
 
 A noble thought of Vitruvius, who, of all the authors 
 of antiquity, seems to have been most deeply imbued 
 with the feelings of the literary chai'acter, has often struck 
 me by the grandeur and the truth of its conception. 
 " The sentiments of excellent writers," he says, " although 
 their persons be for ever absent, exist in future ages ; 
 and in councils and debates are of greater authority than 
 those of the persons who are present." 
 
 But politicians affect to disbelieve that abstract princi- 
 ples possess any considerable influence on the conduct of 
 the subject. They tell us that " in times of tranquillity 
 they are not wanted, and in times of confusion they are 
 never heard ;" this is the philosophy of men who do not 
 choose that pliilosophy should disturb their fireside ! But 
 it is in leisure, when they are not wanted, tliat the specu- 
 lative part of mankind create them, and when they are 
 wanted they are already prepared for the active multitude, 
 who come, like a phalanx, pressing each other with a uni- 
 ty of feeling and an integrity of force. Paley Avould not 
 close his eyes on what was passing before him ; for, he 
 has observed, that during the convulsions at Geneva, the 
 political theory of Rousseau was prevalent in their con- 
 tests ; Avliile, in tlie political disputes of our country, the 
 ideas of civil authority displayed in tlie works of Locke 
 recurred in every form. The character of a great author 
 
 I
 
 INFLUENCE OF AUTHORS. 353 
 
 can never be considered as subordinate in society ; nor 
 do politicians secretly think so at the moment they are 
 proclaiming it to the world, for, on the contrary, they 
 consider the worst actions of men as of far less conse- 
 quence than the ^propagation of their opinions. Politi- 
 cians have exposed their disguised terrors. Books, as 
 well as their authors, have been tried and condemned. 
 Cromwell was alarmed when he saw the " Oceana " of 
 HaiTington, and dreaded the effects of that volume more 
 than the plots of the Royalists ; while Charles II. trem- 
 bled at an author only in his manuscript state, and in 
 the height of terror, and to the honour of genius, it was 
 decreed, that " Scribere est agere." — " The book of Tele- 
 machus," says Madame de Stael, " was a courageous ac- 
 tion," To insist with such ardour on the duties of a sover- 
 eign, and to paint with such truth a voluptuous reign, 
 disgraced Fenelon at the court of Louis XIV., but 
 the virtuous author raised a statue for himself in all 
 hearts. Massillon's Petit Careme was another of these 
 animated recals of man to the sympathies of his nature, 
 which proves the influence of an author ; for, during the 
 contests of Loiiis XV. with the Parliaments, laro;e edi- 
 tions of this book were repeatedly printed and circulated 
 through the kingdom. In such moments it is that a peo- 
 ple find and know the value of a great author, whose 
 work is the mighty organ which conveys their voice to 
 their governors. 
 
 But, if the influence of benevolent authors over society 
 is great, it must not be forgotten that the abuse of this 
 influence is terrific. Authors preside at a tribunal in 
 Europe which is independent of all the powers of the 
 earth — the tribunal of Opinion ! But since, as Sophocles 
 has long declared, " Opinion is stronger than truth," 
 it is unquestionable that the falsest and the most de- 
 praved notions are, as long as these opinions maiu 
 tain their force, accepted as immutable truths ; and 
 23
 
 354: LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 the mistakes of one man become the crimes of a Avhole 
 people. 
 
 Authors stand between the governors and the gov- 
 erned, and form the single organ of both. Those who 
 govern a nation cannot at the same time enlighten the 
 people, for the executive power is not empirical ; and 
 the governed cannot think, for they have no continuity 
 of leisure. The great systems of thoiight, and the great 
 discoveries in moral and political philosophy, have come 
 from the solitude of contemplative men, seldom occupied 
 in public affairs or in private employments. The com- 
 mercial world owes to two retired philosophers, Locke 
 and Smith, those principles which dignify trade into a 
 liberal pursuit, and connect it "s\dth the happiness and the 
 glory of a people. A woi'k in France, under the title of 
 "L'Ami des Hommes," by the Marquis of Mirabeau, 
 first spread there a general passion for agricultural pur- 
 suits; and although the national ardour carried all to 
 excess in the reveries of the " Econoraistes," yet marshes 
 were drained and waste lands inclosed. The " Emilius " 
 of Rousseau, whatever may be its errors and extrava- 
 gances, operated a complete revolution in modern Europe, 
 by communicating a bolder spirit to education, and im. 
 proving the physical force and character of man. An 
 Italian marquis, whose birth and habits seemed little 
 favourable to study, operated a moral revolution in the 
 administration of the laws. Beccai'ia dared to plead in 
 favour of humanity against the prejudices of many cen- 
 turies in his small volume on " Crimes and Punishments," 
 and at length abolished torture ; while the French advo- 
 cates drew their principles from that book, rather than 
 from their national code, and our Blackstone quoted it 
 with admiration ! Locke and Voltaire, having written 
 on "Toleration," have long made us tolerant. In all 
 such cases the authors were themselves entirely uncon- 
 nected with their subjects, except as speculative writers.
 
 INFLUENCE OF AUTHORS. 355 
 
 Such are the authors who become universal in puLlic 
 opinion ; and it then happens that the work itself meets 
 •with the singular fate which that gi*eat genius Smeaton 
 said happened to his stupendous " Pharos :" " The nov- 
 elty having yearly -worn oif, and the greatest real praise 
 of the edifice being that nothing has happened to it — 
 nothing has occurred to keep the talk of it alive." The 
 fundamental principles of such works, after having long 
 entered into our earliest instructions, become unquestion- 
 able as self-evident propositions ; yet no one, perhaps, at 
 this day can rightly conceive the great merits of Locke's 
 Treatises on " Education," and on " Toleration ;" or the 
 philosophical spirit of Montesquieu, and works of this 
 high order, which first difiiised a tone of thinking over 
 Europe. The principles have become so incorporated 
 with our judgment, and so interwoven with our feelings, 
 that we can hardly now imagine the fervour they excited 
 at the time, or the magnanimity of their authors in the 
 decision of their opinions. Every first great monument 
 of genius raises a new standard to our knowledge, from 
 which the human mind takes its impulse and measures 
 its advancement. The march of human thought through 
 ages might be indicated by every great work as it is 
 progressively succeeded by others. It stands like the 
 golden milliary column in the midst of Rome, from which 
 all others reckoned their distances. 
 
 But a scene of less grandeur, yet more beautiful, is the 
 view of the solitary author himself in his own study — so 
 deeply occupied, that whatever passes before him never 
 reaches his observation, while, working more than twelve 
 hours every day, he still m\;rraurs as the hour strikes ; 
 the volume still lies open, the page still importunes — 
 " And whence all this business ?" He has made a dis- 
 covery for us ! that never has there been anything im- 
 portant in the active world but what is reflected in the 
 literary — ^books contain eA'erything, even the falsehooda
 
 356 
 
 LITER ARr CHARACTER. 
 
 and the crimes which have been only projected by man ! 
 This solitary man of genius, is arranging the materials of 
 instruction and curiosity from every country and every 
 age ; he is striking out, in the concussion of new light, a 
 new order of ideas for his own times ; he possesses secrets 
 which men hide from their contemporaries, truths they 
 dared not utter, facts they dared not discover. View 
 him in the stillness of meditation, his eager spirit busied 
 over a copious page, and his eye sparkling with gladness ! 
 He has concluded what his countrymen will hereafter 
 cherish as the legacy of genius — you see him now 
 chanffcd : and the restlessness of his soul is thrown into 
 his very gestures — could you listen to the vaticinator ! 
 But the next age only will quote his predictions. If he 
 be the truly great author, he will be best comprehended 
 by posterity, for the result of ten years of solitary medi- 
 tation has often required a whole century to be under- 
 stood and to be adopted. The ideas of Bisliop Berkeley, 
 in his " Theory of Vision," were condemned as a pliilo- 
 sophical romance, and now form an essential part of 
 every treatise of optics ; and " The History of Oracles," 
 by Fontenelle, says La Harpe, which, in his youth, was 
 censured for its impiety, the centenarian lived to see 
 regarded as a proof of his respect for religion. 
 
 " But what influence can this solitary man, this author 
 of genius, have on his nation, when he has none in the 
 very street in which he lives? and it may be suspected 
 as little in his own house, whose inmates are hourly prac- 
 tising on the infantine simplicity which marks his char- 
 acter, and that frequent abstraction from what is passing 
 under his own eyes ?" 
 
 Thin solitary man of genius is stamping his own char- 
 acter on the minds of his own people. Take one in- 
 stance, from others far more splendid, in the contrast 
 presented by Franklin and Sir WilUam Jones. The par- 
 BimoniouB habits, tlie money-getting precepts, the wary
 
 INFLUEXCE OF AUTHORS. 357 
 
 cunning, tlie little scruple about means, the fixed intent 
 upon the end, of Dr. Franklin, imprinted themselves on 
 his Americans. Loftier feelings could not elevate a man 
 of genius who became the founder of a trading people, 
 and who retained the early habits of a journeyman; 
 while the elegant tastes of Sir William Jones could in- 
 spire the servants of a commercial corporation to open new 
 and vast sources of knowledge. A mere company of 
 merchants, influenced by the literary character, enlarges 
 the stores of the imagination and provides fresh materials 
 for the history of human nature. 
 
 Franklin, with that calm good sense which is freed 
 from the passion of imaginatioji, has himself declared this 
 important truth relating to the literary character: — "I 
 have always thought that one man of tolerable abilities 
 may work great changes and accomplish great affairs 
 among mankind, if he first forms a good plan ; and cut- 
 ting off all amusements, or other employments that 
 would divert his attention, makes the execution of that 
 same plan his sole study and business." Fontenelle 
 was of the same opinion, for he remarks that " a single 
 great man is sufllicient to accomplish a change in the 
 taste of his age." The life of Gran\dlle Sharp is a 
 striking illustration of the solitary force of individual 
 character. 
 
 It cannot be doubted that the great author, in the 
 solitude of his study, has often created an epoch in the 
 annals of mankind. A single man of genius arose in a 
 barbarous period in Italy, who gave birth not only to 
 Italian, but to European literature. Poet, orator, phi- 
 losopher, geographer, historian, and antiquary, Petrarch 
 kindled a line of light through his native land, while a 
 crowd of followers hailed their father-genius, who had 
 stamped his character on the age. Descartes, it has been 
 observed, accomplished a change in the taste of his age 
 by the perspicacity and method for which he was in-
 
 358 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 debted to his mathematical researches ; and " models of 
 metaphysical analysis and logical discussions" in the 
 ■works of Hnme and Smith have had the same influence 
 in the writings of our own time. 
 
 Even genius not of the same colossal size may aspire 
 to add to the progressive mass of human improvement 
 by its own single effort. When an author writes on a 
 national subject, he awakens all the knowledge which 
 slumbers in a nation, and calls around him, as it were, 
 every man of talent ; and though his own fame may be 
 eclipsed by his successors, yet the emanation, the morn- 
 ing light, broke from his solitary study. Our naturalist, 
 Ray, though no man was more modest in his claims, 
 delighted to tell a friend that " Since the publication of 
 his catalogue of Cambridge plants, many were prompted 
 to botanical studies, and to herbalise in their walks in 
 the fields." Johnson has observed that " An emulation 
 of study was raised by Cheke and Smith, to which even 
 the present age perhaps owes many advantages, without 
 rememberino; or knowing; its benefactors. Kollin is 
 only a compiler of history, and to the antiquary he is 
 nothing ! But races yet unborn will be enchanted by 
 that excellent man, in w^hose works " the heart speaks to 
 the heart," and whom Montesquieu called " The Bee of 
 France." The Bacons, the Newtons, and the Leibnitzes 
 were insulated by their own creative powers, and stood 
 apart from the world, till the dispersers of knowledge 
 became their interpreters to the people, opening a com- 
 munication between two spots, which, though close to 
 each other, were long separated — tlie closet and the 
 world! The Addisons, tlie Fontenelles, and the Fey- 
 joos, the first popular authors in theii' nations who 
 tauglit England, France, and Spain to become a reading 
 people, while tlieir fugitive page imbues with intellectual 
 Bwcctness every uncultivated mind, like the perfumed 
 mould taken up by the Persian swimmei'. " It was but a
 
 INFLUENCE OF AUTHOllS. 359 
 
 piece of common earth, but so delicate was its fragrance, 
 that he who found it, in astonishment asked whether it 
 were musk or amber. 'I am nothing but earth; but 
 roses were planted in my soil, and their odorous virtues 
 have deliciously penetrated through all my pores : I have 
 retained the infusion of sweetness, otherwise I had been 
 but a lump of earth !' " 
 
 I have said that authors produce their usefulness in 
 privacy, and that their good is not of immediate applica- 
 tion, and often unvalued by their own generation. On 
 this occasion the name of Evelyn always occurs to me. 
 This author supplied the public with nearly thirty works, 
 at a time when taste and curiosity were not yet domicili- 
 ated in our coimtry ; his patriotism warmed beyond the 
 eightieth year of his age, and in liis dying hand lie held 
 another legacy for his nation, Evelyn conveys a pleas- 
 ing idea of his own works and their design. He first 
 taught his countrymen how to plant, then to build : and 
 having taught them to be useful icithout doors, he then 
 attempted to divert and occupy them within doors, by 
 his treatises on chalcography, painting, medals, libraries. 
 It was during the days of destruction and deA^astatiou 
 both of woods and buildings, the civil wars of Charles 
 the First, that a solitary author was projecting to make 
 tlie nation delight in repairing their evil, by inspiring 
 them with the love of agriculture and architecture. 
 Whether his enthusiasm was introducing to us a taste 
 for medals and prints, or intent on purifying the city 
 from smoke and nuisances, and sweetening it by planta- 
 tions of native plants, after having enriched our orchards 
 and our gardens, placed summer-ices on our tables, and 
 varied even the salads of our country; furnishing "a 
 Gardener's Kalcndar," which, as Cowley said, was to last 
 as long " as months and years ;" whether the philosopher 
 of the Royal Society, or the lighter satirist of tlie toilet, 
 or the fine moralist for active as well as contemplative
 
 3 GO LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 life — in all these changes of a studious life, the better part 
 of his history has not yet been told. "While Britain re- 
 tains her awful situation among the nations of Europe, 
 the " Sylva " of Evelyn will endure with her triumphant 
 oaks. In the third edition of that work the heart of the 
 patriot expands at its result ; he tells Charles II. " how 
 many millions of timber trees, besides infinite others, have 
 been propagated and planted at the instigation and hy 
 the sole direction of this worhP It was an author in 
 his studious retreat who, casting a jDrophetic eye on the 
 age we live in, secured the late victories of our naval 
 sovereignty. Inquire at the Admiralty how the fleets of 
 Nelson have been constructed, and they can tell you that 
 it was with the oaks which the genius of Evelyn planted.* 
 
 The same character existed in France, where De 
 Serres, in 1599, composed a work on the cultivation of 
 mulberry-trees, in reference to the art of raising silk- 
 worms. He taught his fellow-citizens to convert a leaf 
 into silk, and silk to become the representative of gold. 
 Our author encountei-ed the hostility of the prejudices of 
 his times, even from Sully, in giving his country one of 
 her staple commodities ; but I lately received a medal 
 recently struck in honour of De Serres by the Agri- 
 cultural Society of the Department of the Seine. We 
 sloAvly commemorate the intellectual characters of our 
 own country ; and our men of genius are still defrauded 
 of the debt we are daily incurring of their posthumous 
 fame. Let monuments be raised and let medals be 
 struck ! They are sparks of glory which might be 
 scattered through the next age ! 
 
 There is a singleness and unity in the pursuits of 
 
 ♦ Sinco tliig wns first printed, the " Diary " of Evolj'n has appeared; 
 and altlioiif^h it could not add to liis general character, yet I was not 
 too Banguine in my anticipations of the diary of so perfect a literary 
 character, who has shown how his studios were intermingled with the 
 business of life.
 
 CONSANGUINITY OF AUTEORS. 361 
 
 genius v\ iiicli is carried ou through all ages, and will for 
 ever connect the nations of the earth. Tub immortality 
 OF Thought exists for Man ! The veracity of 
 Herodotus, after more than two thousand years, is now 
 receiving a fresh confirmation. The single and precious 
 idea of genius, however obscure, is eventually disclosed ; 
 for original discoveries have often been the developments 
 of former knowledge. The system of the cii-culation 
 of the blood appears to have been obscurely conjectm-ed 
 by Servetus, who wanted experimental facts to support 
 his hypothesis : Yesalius had an imperfect perception of 
 the right motion of the blood: Caesalpinus admits a 
 circulation without comprehending its consequences ; at 
 length our Harvey, by patient meditation and penetra- 
 ting sagacity, removed the errors of his predecessors, and 
 demonstrated the true system. Thus, too. Hartley 
 expanded the hint of " the association of ideas " from 
 Locke, and raised a system on what Locke had only 
 used for an accidental illustration. The beautiful theory 
 of vision by Berkeley, was taken up by him just where 
 Locke had droj^ped it : and as Professor Dugald Stewart 
 describes, by following out his principles to their remoter 
 consequences, Berkeley brought out a doctrine which was 
 as true as it seemed novel. Lydgate's " Fall of Princes," 
 says Mr. Campbell, "probably suggested to Lord 
 Sackville the idea of his " Mirror for Magistrates." The 
 " Mirror for Magistrates " again gave hints to Spenser in 
 allegory, and may also " have possibly suggested to 
 Shakspeare the idea of his historical plays." When 
 indeed we find that that great original, Hogarth, adopted 
 the idea of his " Idle and Industrious Apprentice," from 
 the old comedy of Eastward Soe, we easily conceive 
 that some of the most original inventions of genius, 
 whether the more profound or the more agreeable, may 
 thus be tracked in the snow of time. 
 
 In the history of genius therefore there is no
 
 362 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 chronology, for to its votaries everything it has done is 
 PRESENT— the earliest attempt stands connected with the 
 most recent. This continuity of ideas characterises the 
 human mind, and seems to yield an anticipation of its 
 immortal nature. 
 
 There is a consanguinity in the characters of men of 
 genius, and a genealogy may be traced among their 
 races. Men of genius in their different classes, living at 
 distinct periods, or in remote countries, seem to reappear 
 under another name ; and in this manner there exists in 
 the literary character an eternal transmigration. In the 
 great march of the human intellect the same individual 
 spirit seems still occupying the same place, and is still 
 carrying on, with the same powers, his great work 
 through a line of centuries. It was on this principle that 
 one great poet has recently hailed his brother as " the 
 Ariosto of the North," and Ariosto as " the Scott of the 
 South." And can we deny the real existence of the 
 genealogy of genius ? Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, and 
 Newton ! this is a single line of descent ! 
 
 Aristotle, Hobbes, and Locke, Descartes, and Newton, 
 approximate more than we imagine. The same chain of 
 intellect which Aristotle holds, through the intervals of 
 time, is held by them ; and links will only be added by 
 their successors. The naturalists Pliny, Gesncr, Aldrovan- 
 dus, and Buffon, derive differences in their characters 
 from the spirit of the times ; but each only made au 
 accession to the family estate, while he was the legitimate 
 representative of the family of the naturalists. Aristo- 
 phanes, Moliere, and Foote, are brothers of the family of 
 national wits ; the wit of Aristophanes was a part of the 
 common property, and Moli6re and Foote were Aristo- 
 plianic. Plutarch, La Mothe le Vayer, and Bayle, aliko 
 busied in amassing the materials of human thought and 
 human action, with the same vigorous and vagrant 
 curiosity, must liave had the same habits of life. If
 
 CONSANGUINITY OF GEXIUS. 3G3 
 
 Plutarch were credulous, La Mothe Le Vayer sceptical, 
 aud Bayle philosophical, all that can be said is, tliat 
 though the heirs of the family may differ in their 
 dispositions, no one will arraign the integrity of the lineal 
 descent. Varre did for the Romans what Pausanias had 
 done for the Greeks, and Montfaucon for the French, and 
 Camden for ourselves. 
 
 My learned and reflecting friend, whose original re* 
 searches have enriched our national history, has this 
 observation on the character of Wicklifie : — " To com- 
 plete our idea of the importance of WickliiFe, it is only 
 necessary to add, that as his writings made John Huss 
 the reformer of Bohemia, so the writings of John Huss 
 led Martin Luther to be the reformer of Germany ; so 
 extensive and so incalculable are the consequences Avhich 
 sometimes follow from human actions."* Our historian 
 has accompanied this by giving the very feelings of 
 Luther in early life on his first perusal of the works of 
 John Huss ; we see the sjjark of creation caught at the 
 moment : a striking influence of the generation of char- 
 acter ! Thus a father-spirit has many sons ; and several 
 of the great revolutions in the history of man have been 
 carried on by that secret creation of minds visibly oper- 
 ating on human afiairs. In the history of the human 
 mind, he takes an imperfect view, who is confined to 
 contemporary knowledge, as well as he who stops short 
 with the Ancients. Those who do not carry researches 
 through the genealogical lines of genius, mutilate their 
 minds. 
 
 Such, then, is the influence of Authoks ! — those " great 
 lights of the world," by whom the torch of genius has 
 been successively seized and pei-petually transferred from 
 hand to hand, in the fleeting scene. Descartes delivers 
 it to Newton, Bacon to Locke ; and the continuity of 
 human affairs, through the rapid generations of man, is 
 maintamed from age to age ! 
 
 * Turner's " History of Englan"!," voi. ii., p. 432.
 
 LITERARY MISCELLANIES.
 
 LITERARY MISCELLANIES. 
 
 MISCELLANISTS. 
 
 MISCELLANISTS are the most popular writers 
 among every people ; for it is they who form a 
 communication between the learned and the imlearned, 
 and, as it were, throw a bridge between those two great 
 divisions of the public. Literary Miscellanies are classed 
 among philological studies. The studies of philology 
 formerly consisted rather of the labours of arid gram- 
 mi Tians and conjectural critics, than of that more elegant 
 philosophy which has, within our own time, been intro- 
 duced into literature, and which, by its graces and inves- 
 tigation, augment the beauties of original genius. This 
 delightful province has been tei-med in Germany the 
 Esthetic, from a Greek term signifying sentiment or 
 feeling. Esthetic critics fathom the depths, or run with 
 the current of an aiithor's thoughts, and the symi^athies 
 of such a critic offer a supplement to the genius of the 
 original Avriter. Longinus and Addison are .Esthetic 
 critics. The critics of the adverse school always look 
 for a precedent, and if none is found, woe to the origin- 
 ality of a great writer ! 
 
 Very elaborate criticisms have been foraied by eminent 
 writers, in which great learning and acute logic have only 
 betrayed the absence of the _5^sthetic faculty. Warbur- 
 ton called Addison an empty superficial writer, destitute 
 himself of an atom of Addison's taste for the beautiful; 
 and Johnson is a flagrant instance that great powers of
 
 568 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 reasoning are more fatal to the works of imagination 
 than had ever been suspected. 
 
 By one of these learned critics was Montaigne, the 
 venerable father of modern Miscellanies, called " a bold 
 isrnorant fellow." To thinkinoc readers, this critical 
 summary will appear mysterious; for Montaigne had 
 imbibed the spirit of all the moral writers of antiquity ; 
 and although he has made a capricious complaint of a 
 defective memory, we cannot but wish the complaint had 
 been more real ; for we discover in his works such a 
 gathering of knowledge that it seems at times to stifle 
 his own energies. IMontaigne was censured by Scaliger, 
 as Addison was censured by Wai'burton ; because both, 
 like Socrates, smiled at that mere erudition which con- 
 sists of knowing the thoughts of others and having no 
 thoughts of our own. To weigh syllables, and to arrange 
 dates, to adjust texts, and to heap annotations, has gener- 
 ally proved the absence of the higher faculties. When 
 a more adventurous spirit of this herd attempts some 
 novel discovery, often men of taste behold, with indig- 
 nation, the perversions of their understanding; and a 
 Bentley in his JNIilton, or a Warburton on a Virgil, had 
 either a singular imbecility concealed under the arro- 
 gance of the scholar, or they did not believe Avhat they 
 told the ])ublic ; the one in his extraordinary invention 
 of an interpolating editor, and the other in his more 
 extraordinary explanation of the Eleusinian mysteries. 
 But what was still worse, the froth of the head became 
 venom, when it reached the heart. 
 
 ]\Iontaigne has also been censured for an apparent 
 vanity, in making himself the idol of his lucubrations. 
 If he had not done this, he had not performed the prom- 
 ise lie makes at the commencement of liis preface. An 
 engaging tenderness prevails in these ncuve expressions 
 which shall not be injured by a version. " Je Pay voue 
 a la commodito particuliere de mes parens ct amis ; a co
 
 MISCELLANISTS. 3G9 
 
 que m'ayans perJu (ce qu'ils ont a faire bientost) ils y 
 puissent retrouver quelques traicts de mes humeurs, et 
 que par ce moyen ils nourrissent plus enti^re et plus vifue 
 la conoissance qu'ils ont eu de moi." 
 
 Those authors who appear sometimes to forget tlioy 
 are writers, and remember they are men, will be our 
 fiiYOurites. lie who writes from the heai-t, will write to 
 the heart ; every one is enabled to decide on his merits, 
 and they will not be referred to learned heads, or a dis- 
 tant day. "Why," says Boileau, " are my verses read 
 read by all? it is only because they speak truths, and 
 that I am convinced of the truths I write." 
 
 Why have some of our fine writers interested more 
 than others, who have not displayed inferior talents? 
 Why is Addison still the first of our essayists ? he has 
 sometimes been excelled in criticisms more philosophical, 
 in topics more interesting, and in diction more coloured. 
 But there is a personal charm in the character he has 
 assumed in his periodical Miscellanies, which is felt with 
 such a gentle force, that we scarce advert to it. He has 
 painted forth his little humours, his individual feelings, 
 and eternised himself to his readers. Johnson and 
 Hawkesworth we receive with respect, and we dismiss 
 with awe ; we come from their writings as from public 
 lectures, and from Addison's as from private conversa- 
 tions. Montaigne preferred those of the ancients, who 
 appear to write under a conviction of what they said ; 
 the eloquent Cicero declaims but coldly on liberty, while 
 in the impetuous Brutus may be perceived a man who is 
 resolved to purchase it with his life. We know little of 
 Plutarch ; yet a spirit of honesty and persuasion in his 
 works expresses a philosophical character capable of 
 imitating, as well as admiring, the virtues he records. 
 
 Sterne perhaps derives a portion of his celebrity from 
 the same influence ; he interests us in his minutest mo- 
 tions, for he tells us all he feels. Richardson was sensi- 
 2i
 
 370 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 ble of the power with which these minute stroTces of 
 description enter the heart, and which are so many fast- 
 enings to which the imagination clings. He says, " If I 
 give speeches and conversations, I ought to give them 
 jitstly ; for the humours and characters of persons cannot 
 be known, unless I repeat ichat they saj% and their man- 
 ner of saying." I confess I am infinitely j^leased when 
 Sir William Temple acquaints us with the size of his 
 orange-trees, and with the flavour of his peaches and 
 grapes, confessed by Frenchmen to equal those of France ; 
 with his having had the honour to naturalise in this 
 country four kinds of grapes, with his liberal distribution 
 of them, because "he ever thought all things of this kind 
 the commoner they are the better." In a word, with his 
 passionate attachment to his garden, where he desired his 
 heart to be buried, of his desire to escape from great em- 
 ploj^ments, and having passed five years without going 
 to town, where, by the way, " he had a large house al- 
 ways ready to receive him." Dryden has interspersed 
 many of these little particulars in his prosaic compositions, 
 and I think that his character and dispositions may be 
 more correctly acquired by iiniting these scattered no- 
 tices, than by any biographical account which can noAV 
 be given of this man of geniiis. 
 
 From this agreeable mode of writing, a species of com- 
 positions may be discriminated, which seems above all 
 others to identify the reader with the writer ; composi- 
 tions which are often discovered in a fugitive state, but to 
 which their authors were prompted by the fine impulses 
 of genius, derived from the peculiarity of their situation. 
 Dictated by the heart, or polished with the fondness of 
 delight, these productions are impressed by the seductive 
 eloquence of genius, or attach us by the sensibility of 
 taste. The object thus selected is no task imposed on 
 the mind of the writer for the mere ambition of litera- 
 ture, but is a voluntary effusion, warm with all the sensa- 
 
 I
 
 MISCELLANISTS. 371 
 
 tions of a pathetic writer. In a word, they are the com- 
 positions of genius, on a subject in which it is most deeply 
 interested ; which it revolves on all its sides, which it 
 ])aints in all its tints, and which it finishes with the same 
 ardour it began. Among such works may be placed the 
 exiled Bolingbroke's " Reflections upon Exile ;" the re- 
 tired Petrarch and Zimmerman's Essays on " Solitude ;" 
 the imprisoned Boethius's " Consolations of Philosophy ;" 
 the oppressed Pierius Valerianus's Catalogue of" Literary 
 Calamities ;" the deformed Hay's Essay on " Deformity ;" 
 the projecting De Foe's " Essays on Projects ;" the lib- 
 eral Shenstone's Poem on " Economy." 
 
 We may respect the profound genius of voluminous 
 writers ; they are a kind of painters who occupy great 
 room, and fill np, as a satirist expresses it, " an acre of 
 canvas." But we love to dwell on those more delicate 
 pieces, — a group of Cupids ; a Venus emerging from the 
 waA-es ; a Psyche or an Aglaia, which embellish the cabi- 
 net of the man of taste. 
 
 It should, indeed, be the characteristic of good Miscel- 
 lanies, to be multifarious and concise. Usbek, the Per- 
 sian of Montesquieu, is one of the profoundcst philoso- 
 phers, his letters are, however, but concise pages. Roche- 
 foucault and La Bruyere are not superficial observers of 
 human nature, although they have only written sentences. 
 Of Tacitus it has been finely remarked by Montesquieu, 
 that "he abridged everything because he saw everything." 
 Montaigne approves of Plutarch and Seneca, because their 
 loose papers were suited to his dispositions, and where 
 knowledge is acquired without a tedious study. " It is," 
 'said he, " no great attempt to take one in hand, and I 
 give over at pleasure, for they have no sequel or con- 
 nexion." La Fontaine agreeably applauds short com- 
 positions : 
 
 Les longs ouvrages me font peur; 
 
 Loin d'epuiser une matiere, 
 
 Oa n'en doit prendre que la fleur ;
 
 372. LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 and Old Francis Osborne lias a coarse and ludicrous 
 image in favour of such opuscula ; he says, " Huge vol- 
 umes, like the ox roasted whole at Bartholomew fair, may 
 proclaim plenty of labour and invention, but afford less 
 of what is delicate, savoury, and well concocted, than 
 smaller piecesP To quote so light a genius as the en- 
 chanting; La Fontaine, and so solid a mind as the sensible 
 Osborne, is taking in all the climates of the human mind ; 
 it is touching at the equator, and pushing on to the pole. 
 
 Montaigne's works have been called by a cardinal 
 " The Breviary of Idlers." It is therefore the book of 
 man ; for all men are idlers ; we have hours which we 
 pass with lamentation, and which we know are always 
 returning. At those moments miscellanists are conform- 
 able to all our humours. We dart along their airy and 
 concise page ; and their lively anecdote or their profound 
 observation are so many interstitial pleasures in our list- 
 less hours. 
 
 The ancients were great admirers of miscellanies ; Au- 
 lus Gellius has preserved a copioias list of titles of such 
 works. These titles are so numerous, and include such 
 gay and j^leasing descriptions, that we may infer by their 
 number that they were greatly admired by the piiblic, 
 and by their titles that they prove the great delight their 
 authors experienced in their composition. Among the 
 titles are " a basket of flowers ;" " an embroidered man- 
 tle ;" and " a variegated meadow." Such a miscellanist 
 as was the admirable Erasmus deserves the happy de- 
 scription which Plutarch with an elegant enthusiasm 
 bestows on Menander : he calls him the delight of phi- 
 losophers fatigued with study ; that they have recourse ' 
 to his works as to a meadow enamelled with flowers, 
 where the sense is delighted by a purer air ; and very 
 elegantly adds, that Menander has a salt peculiar to him- 
 self, drawn from the same waters that gave birth to 
 Venus.
 
 PREFACES. 373 
 
 The TrouLadours, Conteurs, and Jongleurs, practised 
 what is yet called in the southern parts of France, Le 
 guay Saber, or the gay science. I consider these as the 
 ]Vliscellanists of their day; they had their grave morali- 
 ties, their tragical histories, and their sportive tales; 
 their verse and their prose. The village was in motion 
 at their approach ; the castle was opened to the ambu- 
 latory poets, and the feudal hypochondriac listened to 
 their solemn instruction and their airy fancy. I would 
 call miscellaneous composition Le guay Saber, and I 
 would have' every miscellaneous writer as solemn and as 
 gay, as various and as pleasing, as these lively artists of 
 versatility. 
 
 Nature herself is most delightful in her miscellaneous 
 scenes. When I hold a volume of miscellanies, and run 
 over with avidity the titles of its contents, my mind is 
 enchanted, as if it were placed among the landscapes of 
 Valais, which Rousseau has described with such pictur- 
 esque beauty. I fancy myself seated in a cottage amid 
 those mountains, those valleys, those rocks, encircled by 
 the enchantments of optical illusion. I look, and behold 
 at once the united seasons — " All climates in one place, 
 all seasons in one instant." I gaze at once on a hundred 
 rainbows, and trace the romantic figures of the shifting 
 clouds. I seem to be in a temple dedicated to the ser- 
 vice of the Goddess Variety. 
 
 PREFACES, 
 
 I DECLARE myself infinitely delighted by a preface. Is 
 it exquisitely written ? no literary morsel is more deli- 
 cious. Is the author inveterately dull ? it is a kind of 
 prejoaratory information, which may be very useful. It 
 argues a deficiency in taste to turn over an elaborate
 
 374 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 preface unread ; for it is the attar of the author's rof-es ; 
 every drop distilled at an immense cost. It is the reason 
 of the reasoning, and the folly of the foolish. 
 
 I do not wish, however, to conceal that several writers, 
 as well as readers, have spoken very disrespectfully of 
 this species of literature. That fine writer Montesquieu, 
 in closing the pi*eface to his " Persian Letters," says, " I 
 do not praise my ' Persians ;' because it would be a very 
 tedious thing, put in a place already very tedioiis of it- 
 self; I mean a preface." Spence, in the preface to his 
 " Polymetis," inform us, that " there is not any sort of 
 wi'iting which he sits down to with so much unwilling- 
 ness as that of prefaces ; and as he believes most people 
 are not much fonder of reading them than he is of writing 
 them, he shall get over this as fast as he can." Pelissoii 
 warmly pi'otested against prefatory composition ; but 
 when he jjublished the works of Sarrasin, was wise enough 
 to compose a very pleasing one. He, indeed, endeavoured 
 to justify himself for acting against his own opinions, 
 by this ingenious excuse, that, like funeral honours, it is 
 proper to show the utmost regard for them when given 
 to others, but to be inattentive to them for ourselves. 
 
 Notwithstanding all this evidence, I have some good 
 reasons for admiring prefaces ; and barren as the investi- 
 gation may appear, some literary amusement can be 
 gathered. 
 
 In the first place, I observe that a prefaccr is generally 
 a most accomplished liar. Is an author to be introduced 
 to the public ? the preface is as genuine a panegyric, 
 and nearly as long a one, as that of Pliny's on the Em- 
 peror Trajan. Such a preface is ringing an alarum boll 
 for an author. If we look closer into the characters of 
 those masters of ceremony, who thus sport Avith and defy 
 the judgment of their reader, and who, by their extrava- 
 gant panegyric, do considerable injury to the cause of 
 taste, we discover that some accidental occurrence has
 
 PREFACES. 375 
 
 occasioned this vehement affection for the autlior, and 
 which, like that of anotlier kind of love, makes one com- 
 mit so many extravagances. 
 
 Prefaces are indeed rarely sincere. It is justly ob- 
 served by Shenstone, in his prefatory Essay to the 
 " Elegies," that " discourses prefixed to poetry inculcate 
 such tenets as may exhibit the performance to the great- 
 est advantage. The fabric is first raised, and the meas- 
 i;res by which we are to judge of it are afterwards ad- 
 justed." This observation might be exemplified by moi-e 
 instances than some readers might choose to read. It 
 will be sufficient to observe with what art both Pope and 
 Fontenelle liave drawn np their Essays on the nature of 
 Pastoral Poetry, that the rules they wished to establish 
 might be adapted to their own pastorals. Has accident 
 made some ingenious student apply himself to a subor- 
 dinate branch of literature, or to some science which is 
 not highly esteemed — look in the preface for its sublime 
 panegyric. Collectors of coins, dresses, and butterflies, 
 have astonished the world with eulogiums which would 
 raise their particular studies into the first ranks of 
 philosophy. 
 
 It would appear that there is no lie to which a prefacer 
 is not tempted. I pass over the commodious prefaces of 
 Dryden, which were ever adapted to the poem and not 
 to poetry, to the author and not to literature. 
 
 The boldest preface-liar was Aldus Manutius, Avho, 
 having printed an edition of Aristophanes, first published 
 in the preface that Saint Chrysostom was accustomed to 
 place this comic poet under his pillow, that he might 
 always have his works at hand. As, in that age, a saint 
 was supposed to possess every human talent, good taste 
 not excepted, Aristophanes thus recommended became 
 a general fiivourite. The anecdote lasted for nearly two 
 centuries ; and what was of greater consequence to Al- 
 dus, quickened the sale of his Aristophanes. This iuge-
 
 376 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 nioiis invention of the prefacer of Aristophanes at length 
 was detected by Menage. 
 
 The insincerity of prefaces arises whenever an author 
 would disguise his solicitude for his work, hy appearing 
 negligent, and even undesirous of its siiccess. A writer 
 will rarely conclude such a preface withoiit betraying 
 himself I think that even Dx-. Johnson forgot his sound 
 dialectic in the admirable Preface to his Dictionary. In 
 one part he says, " having laboured this work with so 
 much application, I cannot but have some degree of pa- 
 rental fondness." But in his conclusion he tells us, " I 
 dismiss it with frigid tranquillity, having little to fear or 
 hope from censure or from praise." I deny the doctor's 
 " frigidity." This polished period exhibits an affected 
 stoicism, which no writer ever felt for the anxious labour 
 of a great portion of life, addressed not merely to a class 
 of readers, but to literary Europe. 
 
 But if prefaces are rarely sincere or just, they are, not- 
 withstanding, literary opuscula in which the author is 
 materially concerned. A work with a poor preface, like 
 a person who comes with an indifferent recommendation, 
 must display uncommon merit to master our prejudices, 
 and to i^lease us, as it were, in spite of ourselves. Works 
 ornamented by a finished preface, such as Johnson not 
 infrequently presented to his friends or his booksellei-s, 
 inspire us with awe ; we observe a veteran guard placed 
 in the porch, and we are induced to conclude from this 
 appearance that some person of eminence resides in the 
 place itself. 
 
 Tlie public are treated with contempt when an author 
 professes to publish his puerilities. This Warburton did, 
 in his pompous edition of Shakspcare. In the preface he 
 informed the public, that his notes " were among his 
 younf/er amnsements, when he turned over these sort of 
 writers^ Tliis ungracious compliment to Shakspcare and 
 the public, merited that perfect scourging wliich our
 
 PREFACES. ' 377 
 
 hauglit}' commentator received from the sarcastic 
 " Canons of Criticism."* Scudery was a writer of some 
 genius, and great variety. His prefaces are remarkable 
 for their gasconades. In his epic poem of Alaric, he 
 Bays, " I have such a facility in writing verses, aud also 
 in my invention, that a poem of double its length would 
 have cost me little trouble. Although it contains only 
 eleven thousand lines, I believe that longer epics do not 
 exhibit more embellishments than mine." And to con- 
 clude with one more student of this class, Amelot de la 
 Iloussaie, in the preface to his translation of " The Prince" 
 of Machiavel, instructs us, that " he considers his copy 
 as superior to the original, because it is everywhere in- 
 telligible, and Machiavel is frequently obscure." I have 
 seen in the playbills of strollers, a very pompous descrip- 
 tion of the triumphant entry of Alexander into Babylon ; 
 had they said nothing about the triumph, it might have 
 passed without exciting ridicule ; and one might not so 
 maliciously have perceived how ill the four candle-snuffers 
 crawled as elephants, and the triumphal car discovered 
 its want of a lid. But having pre-excited attention, we 
 had full leisure to sharpen our eye. To these imprudent 
 authors and actors we may apply a Spanish proverb, 
 which has the peculiar quaintness of that people, Aviendo 
 pregonado vino, venden vinagre : " Having cried up their 
 wine, they sell us vinegar." 
 
 A ridiculous humility in a preface is not less despica- 
 ble. Many idle apologies were formerly in vogue for 
 publication, and formed a literary cant, of which now 
 the meanest writers perceive the futility. A literary 
 anecdote of the Romans has been preserved, which is 
 sufficiently curious. One Albinus, in the preface to his 
 Roman History, intercedes for pardon for his numerous 
 blunders of phraseology ; observing that they were the 
 
 * See the essay on 'Warburton and his disputes in "Quarrels of 
 Authors." — Ed.
 
 378 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 more excusable, as he had composed his history in the 
 Greek language, with which he was not so familiar as his 
 maternal tongue. Cato severely rallies him on this ; and 
 justly obsei'ves, that our Albinus had merited the pardon 
 he solicits, if a decree of the senate had compelled him 
 thus to have composed it, and he could not have obtained 
 a dispensation. The avowal of our ignorance of the 
 language we employ is like that excuse which some 
 writers make for composing on topics in which they are 
 little conversant. A reader's heart is not so easily molli- 
 fied ; and it is a melancholy truth for literary men that 
 the pleasure of abusing an author is generally superior 
 to that of admiring him. One appears to display more 
 critical acumen than the other, by showing that though 
 we do not choose to take the trouble of writing, we have 
 infinitely more genius than the author. These suppliant 
 prefacers are described by Boileau. 
 
 Uu auteur a genoux dans line humble preface 
 Au lecteur qu'il ennuie a beau demander grace ; 
 II ne gagaera rien sur ce juge irrite, 
 Qui lui fait son proces de pleine autorite. 
 
 Low in a humble preface authors kneel ; 
 In vain, the wearied reader's heart is steeL 
 Callous, that irritated judge with awe, 
 Inflicts the penalties and arms the law. 
 
 The most entertaining prefaces in our language are 
 those of Dryden ; and thougli it is ill-naturedly said, by- 
 Swift, that they were merely formed 
 
 To raise the volume's price a shilling, 
 
 yet these were tlie earliest commencements of English 
 criticism, and the first attempt to restrain the capricious- 
 ness of readers, and to form a national taste. Dryden 
 has had the candour to acquaint us with his secret of 
 prefatory composition ; for in that one to liis Tales ho 
 says, " the nature of preface-writing is rambling ; never
 
 PREFACES. 379 
 
 Avholly oxit of the way, nor in it. This I have learnt 
 from the practice of honest Montaigne." There is no 
 great risk in establishing this obsei'vation as an axiom in 
 literature ; for should a prefacer loiter, it is never diffi- 
 cult to get rid of lame persons, by escaping from them ; 
 and the reader may malce a preface as concise as he 
 chooses. 
 
 It is possible for an author to paint himself in amiable 
 colours, in this useful page, without incurring the con- 
 tempt of egotism. After a writer has rendered himself 
 conspicuous by his industry or his genius, his admirers 
 are not displeased to hear something relative to him from 
 himself Hayley, in the preface to his poems, has con- 
 veyed an amiable feature in his personal character, by 
 giving the cause of his devotion to literature as the only 
 mode by which he could render himself of some utility 
 to his country. There is a modesty in the prefaces of 
 Pope, even when this great poet collected his immortal 
 works ; and in several other writers of the most elevated 
 genius, in a Hume and a Robertson, which becomes their 
 happy successors to imitate, and inferior wiiters to con- 
 template with awe. 
 
 There is in prefaces a due respect to be shown to the 
 public and to ourselves. He that has no sense of self- 
 dignity, will not inspire any reverence in others ; and the 
 ebriety of vanity will be sobered by the alacrity we all 
 feel in disturbing the dreams of self-love. If we dare 
 not attempt the rambling prefaces of a Dryden, we may 
 still entertain the reader, and soothe him into good-humour 
 for our own interest. This, perhaps, will be best ob- 
 tained by making the preface (like the symphony to an 
 opera) to contain something analogous to the work itself, 
 to attune the mind into a harmony of tone.* 
 
 * See " Curiosities of Literature," voL i., for an article on Prefaces
 
 880 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 STYLE. 
 
 Evert period of literature has its peculiar style, derived 
 from some author of ref)utation ; and the histoi-y of a 
 language, as an object of taste, might be traced through 
 a collection of ample quotations from the most celebrated 
 authors of each period. 
 
 To Johnson may be atti*ibuted the establishment of 
 our present refinement, and it is with truth he observes 
 of his " Kambler," " That he had laboured to refine our 
 language to grammatical purity, and to clear it from 
 colloquial barbarisms, licentious idioms, and irregular 
 combinations, and that he has added to the elegance of 
 its construction and to the harmony of its cadence." In 
 this description of his own refinement in style and gram- 
 matical accuracy, Johnson probably alluded to the happy 
 carelessness of Addison, whose charm of natural ease 
 long afterwards he discovered. But great inelegance of 
 diction disgraced our language even so late as in 1736, 
 when the " Inquiry into the Life of Homer " was pub- 
 lished. That author was certainly desirous of all the 
 graces of composition, and his volume by its singular 
 sculptures evinces his inordinate afiection for his w^ork. 
 Tliis fanciful writer had a taste for polished writing, yet 
 he abounds in expressions which now would be consid- 
 ered as impure in literary composition. Such vulgarisms 
 are common — the Greeks fell to their old trade of one 
 tribe expelling another — the scene is always at Athens, 
 and all the pother is some little jilting story — the haughty 
 Roman snuffed at the suppleness. If such diction had 
 not been usual with good wa-iters at that period, I should 
 not have quoted Blackwall. Middleton, in his "Life of 
 Cicero," though a man of classical taste, and an historian 
 of a classical era, could not preserve himself from collo- 
 quial inelegances j the greatest characters are levelled by
 
 STYLE. 381 
 
 the poverty of his style, Warburton, and his imitator 
 Hurd, and other living critics of that school, are loaded 
 with familiar idioms, which at present would debase even 
 the style of conversation. 
 
 Such was the influence of the elaborate novelty of 
 Johnson, that every writer in every class servilely copied 
 the Latinised style, ludicrously mimicking the contor- 
 tions and re-echoing the sonorous nothings of our great 
 lexicographer ; the novelist of domestic life, or the agri- 
 cultm-ist in a treatise on turnips, alike aimed at the poly- 
 syllabic force, and the csidenced period. Such was the 
 condition of English style for more than twenty years. 
 
 Some argue in favour of a natural style, and reiterate 
 the opinion of many great critics that proper ideas will 
 be accompanied by proper words ; but though supported 
 by the first authorities, they are not perhaps sufiiciently 
 precise in their definition. Writers may think justly, and 
 yet write without any effect ; while a splendid style may 
 cover a vacuity of thought. Does not this evident fact 
 prove that style and thinking have not that inseparable 
 connexion which many great wi'iters have pronounced ? 
 Milton imagined that beautiful thoughts produce beauti- 
 ful expression. He says, 
 
 Then feed on thoughts that voluntary move 
 Harmouious numbers. 
 
 Writing is justly called an art ; and Rousseau says, it is 
 not an art easily acquired. Thinking may be the founda- 
 tion of style, but it is not the superstructure ; it is the 
 marble of the edifice, but not its architecture. The art 
 of presenting our thoughts to another, is often a process 
 of considerable time and labour ; and the delicate task 
 of correction, in the development of ideas, is reserved 
 only for writers of fine taste. There are several modes 
 of presenting an idea ; vulgar readers are only suscepti- 
 ble of the strong and palpable stroke: but there are
 
 382 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 many shades of sentiment, which to seize on and to paint 
 is the pride and the labour of a skilful writer. A beau- 
 tiful simplicity itself is a species of refinement, and no 
 writer more solicitously coi'rected his works than Hume, 
 who excels in this mode of composition. The philoso- 
 pher highly approves of Addison's definition of fine 
 writing, who says, that it consists of sentiments which 
 are natural, without being obvious. This is a definition 
 of thought rather than of composition. Shenstone has 
 hit the truth ; for fine writing he defines to be generally 
 the effect of spontaneous thoughts and a laboured style. 
 Addison was not insensible to these charms, and he felt 
 the seductive art of Cicero when he said, that " there is 
 as much difference in apprehending a thought clothed in 
 Cicero's language and that of a common author, as in 
 seeing an object by the light of a taper, or by the light 
 of the sun." 
 
 ' Ma.j^xerists in style, however great their powei'S, rather 
 excite the admiration than the affection of a man of taste ; 
 because their habitual art dissipates that illusion of sin- 
 cerity, which we love to believe is the impulse which 
 places the pen in the hand of an author. Two eminent 
 literary mannerists are Cicero and Johnson. We know 
 these great men considered their eloquence as a deceptive 
 art ; of any subject, it had been indifferent to them which 
 side to adopt ; and in reading their elaborate works, our 
 ear is more frequently gratified by the ambitious magni- 
 ficence of their diction, than our heart penetrated by the 
 pathetic entliusiasm of their sentiments. "Writers who 
 are not mannerists, but who seize the appropriate tone of 
 their subject, appear to feel a conviction of what they at- 
 tempt to persuade their reader. It is observable, that it 
 is impossible to imitate with uniform felicity the noble 
 simplicity of a pathetic writer; while the peculiarities of 
 a mannerist are so far from being diificult, that they are 
 displayed with nice exactness by middling writers, who.
 
 GOLDSMITH AND JOHNSON. 383 
 
 although their own natural manner had nothing interest- 
 ing, have attracted notice by such imitations. We may 
 apply to some monotonous mannerists these verses of 
 Boileau : 
 
 Youlez-voiis dn public mcriter les amours ? 
 
 Sans cesse en ecrivant variez vos discours. 
 
 On lit peu ces auteurs nes pour nous ennuier, 
 
 Qui toujours sur un ton semblent psalmodier. 
 
 "Would you the public's envied favours gain ? 
 Ceaseless, in writing, variegate the strain ; 
 The heavy author, who the fancy calms. 
 Seems in one tone to chant his nasal psalms. 
 
 Every style is excellent, if it be proper ; and that style 
 is most proper which can best convey the intentions of 
 the author to his reader. And, after all, it is style alone 
 by which posterity will judge of a great work, for an 
 author can have nothing truly his own but his style ; 
 facts, scientific discoveries, and every kmd of informa- 
 tion, may be seized by all, but an author's diction can- 
 not be taken from him. Hence very leai'ned writers have 
 been neglected, while their learning has not been lost to 
 the world, by having been given by wi'iters with more 
 amenity. It is therefore the duty of an author to learn 
 to write as well as to learn to think ; and this art can 
 only be obtained by the habitual study of his sensations, 
 and an intimate acquaintance with the intellectual facul- 
 ties. These are the true prompters of those felicitous ex- 
 pressions which give a tone congruous to the subject, and 
 which invest our thoughts with all the illusion, the beauty 
 and motion of lively perception. 
 
 GOLDSmTH AND JOHNSOK 
 
 WE should not censure artists and wi-iters for their 
 attachment to their favourite excellence. Who but an
 
 384: LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 artist can value the ceaseless inquietudes of arduous ^jer 
 fection ; can trace the remote possibilities combined in a 
 close union ; the happy arrangement and the novel varia- 
 tion ? He not only is aifected by the performance like 
 the man of taste, but is influenced by a peculiar sensation ; 
 for while he contemplates the apparent beauties, he traces 
 in his own mind those invisible processes by which the 
 final beauty was accomplished. Hence arises that species 
 of comparative criticism which one great author usually 
 makes of his own manner with that of another great 
 writer, and which so often causes him to be stigmatised 
 with the most unreasonable vanity. 
 
 The character of Goldsmith, so underrated in his own 
 day, exemplifies this principle in the literary character. 
 That pleasing writer, without any perversion of intellect 
 or inflation of vanity, might have contrasted his powers 
 with those of Johnson, and might, according to his own 
 ideas, have considered himself as not inferior to his more 
 celebrated and learned rival. 
 
 Goldsmith might have preferred the felicity of his own 
 genius, which like a native stream flowed from a natural 
 source, to the elaborate powers of Johnson, which in some 
 respects may be compared to those artificial waters which 
 throw their sparkling currents in the air, to fall into mar- 
 ble basins. He might have considered that he had em- 
 bellished philosopliy with poetical elegance ; and have 
 preferred the paintings of his descriptions, to the terse 
 versification and the pointed sentences of Johnson. He 
 might have been more pleased with the faithful represen- 
 tations of English manners in his " Vicar of Wakefield," 
 than with tlie borrowed grandeur and the exotic fancy 
 of tlie Oriental Rasselas. He might have believed, what 
 many excellent critics have believed, that in this age 
 comedy requires more genius than tragedy; and with his 
 audience he might liavo infinitely more esteemed his own 
 original humour, than Johnson's rhetorical declamation.
 
 SELF-CHARACTERS. 385 
 
 He might have thought, that with inferior literature he 
 displayed superior genius, and with less profundity more 
 gaiety. He might have considered that the facility and 
 vivacity of his pleasing compositions were preferable to 
 that art, that habitual pomp, and that ostentatious elo- 
 quence, which prevail in the operose labours of Johnson. 
 No one might be more sensible than hunself, that he, ac- 
 cording to the happy expression of Johnson (when his 
 rival was in his grave), "tetigit et ornavit." Gold- 
 smith, therefore, without any singular vanity, might have 
 concluded, from his own reasonings, that he was not an 
 inferior writer to Johnson : all this not having been con- 
 sidered, he has come down to posterity as the vainest and 
 the most jealous of writers ; he whose dispositions were 
 the most inoffensive, whose benevolence was the most 
 extensive, and whose amiableness of heart has been con 
 cealed by its artlessness, and passed over in the sarcasms 
 and sneers of a more eloquent rival, and his submissive 
 partisans. 
 
 SELF-CHARACTERS. 
 
 There are two species of minor biography which may 
 be discriminated ; detailing our own life and portraying 
 our own character. The writing our own life has been 
 practised with various success ; it is a delicate operation, 
 a stroke too much may destroy the effect of the whole. 
 If once we detect an author deceiving or deceived, it is 
 a livid spot which infects the entire body. To publish 
 one's own life has sometimes been a poor artifice to bring 
 obscurity into notice; it is the ebriety of vanity, and 
 the delirium of egotism. When a great man leaves some 
 memorial of his days, the grave consecrates the motive. 
 There are certain things which relate to ourselves, which 
 DO one can know so well; a great genius obliges posterity 
 25
 
 386 LITERAET CHARACTER. 
 
 when he records them. But they must be composed 
 with cahnness, with simplicity, and with sincerity ; the 
 biographic sketch of Hume, written by himself, is a 
 model of Attic simplicity. The Life of Lord Herbert is 
 a biographical curiosity. The Memoirs of Sir William 
 Jones, of Priestley, and of Gibbon, oiFer us the daily life 
 of the student ; and those of Colley Gibber are a fine 
 picture of the self-painter. We have some other pieces 
 of self-biography, precious to the philosopher.* 
 
 The other species of minor biography, that of por- 
 traying our own character, coiild only have been invented 
 by the most refined and the vainest nation. The French 
 long cherished this darling egotism ; and have a collec- 
 tion of these self-portraits in two bulky volumes. The 
 brilliant Flechier, and the refined St. Evremond, have 
 framed and glazed their portraits. Every writer then 
 considered his character as necessary as his preface. 
 The fashion seems to have passed over to our country ; 
 Farquhar has drawn his character in a letter to a lady ; 
 and others of our writers have given us their own minia- 
 tures. 
 
 There was, as a book in my possession will testify, a 
 certain verse-maker of the name of Gantenac, who, in 
 1662, published in the city of Paris a volume, containing 
 Bome thousands of verses, which were, as his countrymen 
 express it, de sa fa^on^ after his own way. He fell so 
 suddenly into the darkest and deepest pit of oblivion, 
 that not a trace of his memory would have remained, 
 had he not condescended to give ample information of 
 every particular relative to himself. He has acquainted 
 us with his size, and tells us, " that it is rare to see a man 
 smaller than himself I have that in common with all 
 dwarfs, that if my head only were seen, I should be 
 
 * Ono of the most interesting ia that of Gifford, appeuded to his 
 translation of Juvonal ; it is a most remarkable record of the strug- 
 gles of its author in early life, told with candour and simplicity. — Ed.
 
 SELF-CHARACTERS. 387 
 
 thought a large man." This atom in creation then de- 
 Bcribes his oval and full face; his fiery and eloquent eyes; 
 his vermil lips ; his robust constitution, and his efferves- 
 cent passions. He appears to have been a most petulant, 
 honest, and diminutive being. 
 
 The description of his intellect is the object of our curi- 
 osity. " I am as ambitious as any person can be ; but I 
 would not sacrifice my honour to my ambition. I am so 
 sensible to contempt, that I bear a mortal and implacable 
 hatred against those who contemn me, and I know I could 
 never reconcile myself with them ; but I spare no attentions 
 for those I love ; I would give them my fortune and my 
 life. I sometimes lie ; but generally in affairs of gallantry, 
 where I voluntarily confirm falsehoods by oaths, without 
 reflection, for swearing with me is a habit. I am told 
 that my mind is brilliant, and that I have a certain man- 
 ner in turning a thought which is quite my own. I am 
 agreeable in conversation, though I confess I am often 
 troublesome ; for I maintain paradoxes to display my 
 genius, which savour too much of scholastic subterfuges. 
 I speak too often and too long ; and as I have some read- 
 ing, and a copious memory, I am fond of showing what- 
 ever I know. My judgment is not so solid as my wit is 
 lively. I am often melancholy and unhappy; and this 
 sombrous disposition proceeds from my numerous disap- 
 pointments in Ufe. My verse is preferred to my prose ; 
 and it has been of some use to me in pleasing the fair 
 sex ; poetry is most adapted to persuade women ; but 
 otherwise it has been of no service to me, and has, I fear, 
 rendered me unfit for many advantageous occupations, in 
 which I might have drudged. The esteem of the fair 
 has, however, charmed away my complaints. This good 
 fortune has been obtained by me, at the cost of many 
 cares, and an unsubdued patience ; for I am one of those 
 who, in affairs of love, will suffer an entire year, to taste 
 the pleasures of one day."
 
 388 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 This character of Cantenac has some local features ; 
 for an English poet would hardly console himself with so 
 much gaiety. The Frenchman's attachment to the ladies 
 seems to be equivalent to the advantageous occupations 
 he had lost. But as the miseries of a literary man, 
 without conspicuous talents, are always the same at 
 Paris as in London, thei-e are some parts of this charac- 
 ter of Cantenac which appear to describe them with 
 truth. Cantenac was a man of honour ; as warm in his 
 resentment as his gratitude ; but deluded by literary 
 vanity, he became a writer in prose and verse, and while 
 he saw the prospects of life closing on him, probably 
 considered that the age was unjust. A melancholy ex- 
 ample for certain volatile and fervent spirits, who, by 
 becoming authors, either submit their felicity to the ca- 
 prices of others, or annihilate the obscure comforts of 
 life, and, like him, having " been told that their mind is 
 brilliant, and that they have a certain manner in turning 
 a thought," become writers, and complain that they are 
 " often melancholy, owing to their numerous disappoint- 
 ments." Happy, however, if the obscure, yet too sen- 
 sible writer, can suffer an entire year, for the enjoyment 
 of a single day ! But for this, a man must have been 
 born in France. 
 
 ON READING. 
 
 Writing is justly denominated an art ; I think that 
 reading claims the same distinction. To adorn ideas 
 with elegance is an act of the mind superior to that of 
 receiving them ; but to receive them with a happy dis- 
 crimination is the effect of a practised taste. 
 
 Yet it will be found that taste alone is not sufficient to 
 obtain the proper end of reading. Two persons of equal 
 taste rise from the perusal of the same book with very
 
 ON READING. 389 
 
 different notions : the one will have the ideas of the 
 author at command, and find a new train of sentiment 
 awakened ; while the other quits his author in a pleasing 
 distraction, but of the pleasures of reading nothing re- 
 mains but tumultuous sensations. 
 
 To account for these different effects, we must have re- 
 course to a logical distinction, which appears to reveal one 
 of the great mysteries in the art of reading. Logicians 
 distinguish between pei-ceptions and ideas. Perception 
 IS that faculty of the mind which notices the simple im- 
 pression of objects : but when these objects exist in the 
 mind, and are there treasured and arranged as materials 
 for reflection, then they are called ideas. A perception is 
 like a transient sunbeam, which just shows the object, 
 but leaves neither light nor warmth ; while an idea is 
 like the fervid beam of noon, which throws a settled and 
 powerful light. 
 
 Many ingenious readers complain that their memory 
 is defective, and their studies unfruitful. This defect 
 arises from their indulging the facile pleasures of percep- 
 tions, in preference to the laborious habit of forming 
 them into ideas. Perceptions require only the sensibility 
 of taste, and their pleasures are continuous, easy, and 
 exquisite. Ideas are an art of combination, and an ex- 
 ertion of the reasoning powers. Ideas are therefore 
 labours ; and for those who will not labour, it is unjust 
 to complain, if they come from the harvest with scarcely 
 a sheaf in their hands. 
 
 There are secrets in the art of reading which tend to 
 facilitate its purposes, by assisting the memory, and aug- 
 menting intellectual opulence. Some our own ingenuity 
 must form, and perhaps every student has peculiar habits 
 of study, as, in short-hand, almost every writer has a 
 system of his own. 
 
 It is an observation of the elder Pliny (who, having 
 been a voluminous compiler, must have had great
 
 390 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 experience iu the art of reading), that there was no book 
 80 bad but which contained something good. To read 
 every book would, however, be fatal to the interest of 
 most readers ; but it is not always necessary, in the 
 pursuits of learning, to read every book entire. Of 
 many books it is sufficient to seize the plan, and to 
 examine some of their portions. Of the little supple- 
 ment at the close of a volume, few readers conceive the 
 utility ; but some of the most eminent writers in Europe 
 have been great adepts in the art of index reading, I, 
 for my part, venerate the inventor of indexes; and I 
 know not to whom to yield the preference, either to 
 Hippocrates, who was the first great anatomiser of the 
 human body, or to that unknown labourer in literature, 
 who first laid open the nerves and arteries of a book. 
 Watts advises the perusal of the prefaces and the index 
 of a book, as they both give light on its contents. 
 
 The ravenous appetite of Johnson for reading is 
 expressed in a strong metaphor by Mrs. Knowles, who 
 said, " he knows how to read better than any one ; he 
 gets at the substance of a book directly : he tears out the 
 heart of it." Gibbon has a new idea in the " Art of 
 Reading ;" he says " we ought not to attend to the order 
 of our books so much as of our thoughts. The perusal 
 of a particular work gives birth perhaps to ideas uncon- 
 nected with the subject it treats ; I pursue these ideas, 
 and quit my proposed plan of reading." Thus in the 
 midst of Homer he I'ead Longinus ; a chapter of Longinus 
 led to an epistle of Pliny; and having finished Longinus, 
 he followed the train of his ideas of the sublime and 
 beautiful in the "Enquiry" of ]>urke, and concluded by 
 comparing the ancient with tlie modern Longinus. 
 
 There are some mechanical aids in reading wliich may 
 prove of great utility, and form a kind of rejuvenescence 
 of our early studies. Montaigne placed at the end of a 
 book which he intended not to reperuse, the time he had
 
 ON READING. 391 
 
 read it, with a concise decision on its merits; "that," 
 Bays he, " it may thus represent to me the air and 
 general idea I had conceived of the author, in reading 
 the work," "We have several of these annotations. Of 
 Young the poet it is noticed, that whenever he came to a 
 striking passage he folded the leaf; and that at his 
 death, books have been found in his library which had long 
 resisted the power of closing : a mode more easy than use- 
 ful ; for after a length of time they must be again read to 
 know why they were folded. This difficulty is obviated by 
 those who note in a blank leaf the pages to be referred to, 
 with a word of criticism. Nor let us consider these mi- 
 nute directions as unworthy the most enlarged minds : by 
 these petty exertions, at the most distant periods, may 
 learning obtain its authorities, and fancy combine its ideas. 
 Seneca, in sending some volumes to his friend Lucil- 
 ius, accompanies them with notes of particular passages, 
 " that," he observes, " you who only aim at the useful 
 may be spared the trouble of examinmg them entire." I 
 have seen books noted by Yoltaire with a word of 
 censure or approbation on the page itself, which was his 
 usual practice ; and these volumes are precious to every 
 man of taste. Forraey complained that the books he lent 
 Voltaire were returned always disfigured by his remarks ; 
 but he was a writer of the old school.* 
 
 A professional student should divide his readings into 
 a uniform reading which is useful, and into a diversified 
 reading which is pleasant. Guy Patin, an eminent 
 physician and man of letters, had a just notion of this 
 maimer. lie says, " I daily read Hippocrates, Galen, 
 Fernel, and other illustrious masters of my profession ; 
 this I call my profitable readings. I frequently read 
 Ovid, Juvenal, Horace, Seneca, Tacitus, and others, and 
 
 * The account of Oldys and his manuscripts, in the third volume of 
 the " Curiosities of Literature," will furnish abundant proof of the 
 value of such disfigurations when the work of certain hands. — Ed.
 
 392 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 these are my recreations." We must observe these 
 distinctions ; for it fi-equently happens that a lawyer or a 
 pliysician, with great industry and love of study, by 
 giving too much into his diversified readings, may 
 utterly neglect what should be his uniform studies. 
 
 A reader is too often a prisoner attached to the trium- 
 phal car of an author of great celebrity ; and when he 
 ventures not to judge for himself, conceives, while he is 
 reading the indifferent works of great authors, that the 
 languor which he experiences arises from his own 
 defective taste. But the best writers, when they are 
 voluminous, have a great deal of mediocrity. 
 
 On the other side, readers must not imagine that all 
 the pleasures of composition depend on the author, for 
 there is something which a reader himself must bring to 
 the book that the book may please. There is a literary 
 appetite, which the author can no more impart than the 
 most skilful cook can give an appetency to the guests. 
 When Cardinal Richelieu said to Godeau, that he did not 
 understand his verses, the honest poet replied that it was 
 not his fault. Tlie temporary tone of the mind may be 
 unfavourable to taste a work properly, and we have had 
 many erroneous criticisms from great men, which may 
 often be attributed to this circomstance. The mind 
 communicates its infirm dispositions to the book, and an 
 author has not only his own defects to account for, but 
 also those of his reader. There is something in compo- 
 sition like the game of shuttlecock, where if the reader 
 do not quickly rebound the feathered cock to the author 
 the game is destroyed, and the whole spirit of the work 
 falls extinct. 
 
 A frequent impediment in reading is a disinclination 
 in the mind to settle on the subject ; agitated by 
 incongruous and dissimilar ideas, it is with pain that we 
 admit those of the author. But on applying ourselves 
 with a gentle violence to the perusal of an interesting
 
 ON READING. 393 
 
 work, the mind soon assimilates to the subject; the 
 ancient rabbins advised their young students to apply 
 themselves to their readings, whether they felt an 
 inclination or not, because, as they proceeded, they 
 would find their disposition restored and their curiosity 
 awakened. 
 
 Readers may be classed into an infinite number of divi- 
 sions; but an author is a solitary being, who, for the 
 same reason he pleases one, must consequently displease 
 another. To have too exalted a genius is more prejudi- 
 cial to his celebrity than to have a moderate one ; for we 
 shall find that the most popular works are not the most 
 profound, but such as instruct those who require instruc- 
 tion, and charm those who are not too learned to taste 
 their novelty. Lucilius, the satirist, said, that he did not 
 write for Persius, for Scipio, and for Rutilius, persons 
 eminent for their science, but for the Tarentines, the 
 Consentines, and the Sicilians, Montaigne has com- 
 plained that he found his readers too learned, or too 
 ignorant, and that he could only please a middle class, 
 who have just learning enough to comprehend him. Con- 
 greve says, "there is in true beauty something which 
 vulgar souls cannot admire." Balzac complains bitterly 
 of readers, — "A period," he cries, "shall have cost us 
 the labour of a day; we shall have distilled into an 
 essay the essence of our mind ; it may be a finished piece 
 of art ; and they think they are indulgent when they 
 pronounce it to contain some pretty things, and that the 
 style is not bad !" There is something in exquisite com- 
 position which ordinary readers can never understand. 
 
 Authors are vain, but readers are capricious. Some 
 will only read old books, as if there were no valuable 
 truths to be discovered in modern publications; while 
 others will only read new books, as if some valuable 
 truths are not among the old. Some mil not read a 
 book, because they are acquainted with the author ; by
 
 394 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 which the reader may be more injured than the author : 
 others not only read the book, but would also read the 
 oaan ; by which the most ingenious author may be injured 
 by the most impertinent reader. 
 
 ON HABITUATING OURSELVES TO AN INDI- 
 VIDUAL PURSUIT. 
 
 Two things in human life are at continual variance, 
 and without escaping from the one we must be separated 
 from the other ; and these ai'e ennui and pleasure. Ennui 
 IS an afflicting sensation, if we may thus express it, from 
 a want of sensation ; and pleasure is greater pleasure 
 according to the quantity of sensation. That sensation 
 IS received in proportion to the capacity of our organs ; 
 and that practice, or, as it has been sometimes called, 
 " educated feeling," enlarges this capacity, is evident in 
 such familiar instances as those of the blind, who have a 
 liner tact, and the jeweller, who has a finer sight, than 
 other men who are not so deeply interested in refining 
 their vision and their touch. Intense attention is, there- 
 fore, a certain means of deriving more numerous pleasures 
 from its object. 
 
 Hence it is that the poet, long employed on a poem, 
 has received a quantity of pleasure which no reader can 
 ever feel. In the progress of any particular pursuit, 
 there are a hundred fugitive sensations which are too 
 intellectual to be embodied into language. Every artist 
 knows that between the thought that first gave rise to 
 his design, and each one whicli appears in it, there are 
 innumerable intermediate evanescences of sensation which 
 no man felt but himself. These pleasui'cs are in number 
 according to the intenseness of his faculties and the 
 quantity of his labour. 
 
 It is so in any particular pursuit, from the manufactur-
 
 HABITUATING OURSELVES, ETC. 395 
 
 ing of pins to the construction of philosophical systems. 
 Every individual can exert that quantity of mind neces- 
 sary to his wants and adapted to his situation; the 
 quality of pleasure is nothing in the present question : 
 for I think that we are mistaken concerning the grada- 
 tions of human ffelicity. It does at first appeal*, that an 
 astronomer rapt in abstraction, while he gazes on a star, 
 must feel a more exquisite delight than a farmer who ia 
 conducting his team ; or a poet experience a higher grati- 
 fication in modulating verses than a trader in arranging 
 sums. But the happiness of the ploughman and the 
 trader may be as satisfactory as that of the astronomer 
 and the poet. Our mind can only be conversant AA-ith 
 those sensations which surround us, and possessing the 
 skill of managing them, we can form an artificial felicity ; 
 it is certain that what the soul does not feel, no more 
 affects it than what the eye does not see. It is thus that 
 the trader, habituated to humble pursuits, can never be 
 unhappy because he is not the general of an army ; for 
 this idea of felicity he has never received. The philoso- 
 pher who gives his entire years to the elevated pursuits 
 of mind, is never unhappy because he is not in posses- 
 sion of an Indian opiflencc, for the idea of accumulating 
 this exotic splendour has never entered the range of his 
 combinations. Nature, an impartial mother, renders 
 felicity as perfect in the school-boy who scourges his top, 
 as in the astronomer who regulates his star. The thing 
 contained can only be equal to the container ; a full glass 
 is as full as a full bottle ; and a human soul may be as 
 much satisfied in the lowest of human beings as in the 
 highest. 
 
 In the progress of an individual pursuit, what philoso- 
 phers call the associating or suggesting idea is ever 
 busied, and in its beautiful effects genius is most deeply 
 concerned ; for besides those trains of thought the great 
 artist falls into during his actual composition, a distinct
 
 396 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 habit accompanies real genius through life in the activity 
 of his associating idea, when not at his work ; it is at all 
 times pressing and conducting his spontaneous thoughts, 
 and every object which suggests them, however ap- 
 parently trivial or unconnected towards itself, making 
 what it wills its own, while instinctively it seems in- 
 attentive to whatever has no tendency to its own pur- 
 poses. 
 
 Many peculiar advantages attend the cultivation of 
 one master passion or occupation. In superior minds it 
 is a sovereign that exiles others, and in inferior minds 
 it enfeebles pernicious propensities. It may render us 
 useful to our fellow-citizens, and it imparts the most pei> 
 feet independence to ourselves. It is observed by a great 
 mathematician, that a geometrician would not be unhappy 
 in a desert. 
 
 This unity of design, with a centripetal force, draws 
 all the rays of our existence ; and often, when accident 
 has turned the mind firmly to one object, it has been 
 discovered that its occupation is another name for hap- 
 piness ; for it is a mean of escaping from incongruous 
 sensations. It secures us from the dark vacuity of soul, 
 as well as from the whirlwind of ideas ; reason itself is a 
 passion, but a passion full of serenity. 
 
 It is, however, observable of those who have devoted 
 themselves to an individual object, that its importance is 
 incredibly enlarged to their sensations. Intense atten- 
 tion magnifies like a microscope; but it is possible to 
 apologise for their apparent extravagance from the con- 
 sideration, that they really observe combinations not 
 perceived by others of inferior application. That this 
 passion has been carried to a curious violence of aifec- 
 tion, literary history affords numerous instances. In 
 reading Dr. Barney's " Musical Travels," it would seem 
 that music was the prime object of luunan life ; Richard- 
 son, the painter, in his treatise on his beloved art, closes
 
 ON NOVELTY IN LITERATURE. 397 
 
 all by affirming, that, " Raphael is not only equal^ but 
 superior to a Virgil^ or a Liviy^ or a Thucydides^ or a 
 Homer r'' and that painting can reform our manners, 
 increase our opulence, honour, and power. Denina, in 
 his " Revolutions of Literature," tells us that to excel in 
 historical composition requires more ability than is exer- 
 cised by the excelling masters of any other art ; because 
 it requires not only the same erudition, genius, imagina- 
 tion, and taste, necessary for a poet, a painter, or a phi- 
 losopher, but the historian must also have some peculiar 
 qualifications; this served as a prelude to his own his- 
 tory,* Helvetius, an enthusiast in the fine arts and polite 
 literature, has composed a poem on Happiness ; and 
 imagines that it consists in an exclusive love of the 
 cultivation of letters and the arts. All this shows that 
 the more intensely we attach ourselves to an individual 
 object, the more numerous and the more perfect are our 
 sensations; if we yield to the distracting variety of 
 opposite pursuits with an equal passion, our soul is placed 
 amid a continual shock of ideas, and happiness is lost by 
 mistakes. 
 
 ON NOVELTY IN LITERATURE. 
 
 " All is said," exclaims the lively La Bruyere ; but at 
 the same moment, by his own admirable Reflections, 
 confutes the dreary system he would establish. An 
 opinion of the exhausted state of literature has been a 
 popular prejudice of remote existence ; and an unhappy 
 idea of a wise ancient, who, even in his day, lamented 
 
 * One of the most amusing modem instances occurs in the Preface 
 to the late Peter Buchan's annotated edition of " Ancient Ballads and 
 Songs of the North of Scotland" (2 vols. 8vo, Edin. 1828), in which 
 he declares — " No one has yet conceived, nor has it entered the mind 
 of man, what patience, perseverance, and general knowledge are necea- 
 sary for an editor of a Collection of Ancient BaUads." — Ed.
 
 398 LITERARY CRA-RACTER. 
 
 that " of books there is no end," has been transcribed in 
 many books. He who has critically examined any branch 
 of literature, has discovered how little of original inven- 
 tion is to be found even in the most excellent works. To 
 add a little to his predecessors satisfies the ambition of 
 the first geniuses. The popular notion of literary nov- 
 elty is an idea more fanciful than exact. IMany are yet 
 to learn that our admired originals are not such as they 
 mistake them to be ; that the plans of the most original 
 performances have been borrowed ; and that the thoughts 
 of the most admired compositions are not wonderful dis- 
 coveries, but only truths, which the ingenuity of the 
 author, by arranging the intermediate and accessary 
 ideas, has unfolded from that confused sentiment, which 
 those experience who are not accustomed to think with 
 depth, or to discriminate with accuracy. This Novelty 
 in Literature is, as Pope defines it, 
 
 What oft waa thought, but ne'er so well express'd. 
 
 Novelty, in its rigid acceptation, will not be found in any 
 judicious production. 
 
 Yoltaire looked on everything as imitation. He ob- 
 serves that the most original writers borrowed one from 
 another, and says that the instruction we gather from 
 books is like fire — we fetch it from our neighbours, kindle 
 it at home, and communicate* it to others, till it becomes 
 the property of all. He traces some of the finest com- 
 positions to the fountain-head ; and the reader smiles 
 when he perceives that they have travelled in regular 
 succession through China, India, Arabia, and Greece, to 
 France and to England. 
 
 To the obscurity of time are the ancients indebted 
 for that originality in which they are imagined to excel, 
 but we knoAV how frequently they accuse each other ; and 
 to have borrowed copiously from preceding writers was 
 not considered criminal by such illustrious authors as
 
 ON NOVELTY IN LITERATURE 399 
 
 Plato and Cicero. The JEneid of Virgil displays little 
 invention in the incidents, for it nnites the plan of the 
 Uiad and the Odyssey. 
 
 Our own early Avriters have not more originality than 
 modern genius may aspire to reach. To imitate and to 
 rival the Italians and the French formed their devotion. 
 Chaucer, Gower, and Gawin Douglas, were all spirited 
 imitators, and frequently only masterly translators. 
 Spenser, the father of so many poets, is himself the child 
 of the Ausonian Muse. Milton is incessantly borrowing 
 from the poetry of his day. In the beautiful Masque of 
 Comus he preserved all the circumstances of the work he 
 imitated. Tasso opened for him the Tartarean Gulf; the 
 sublime description of the bridge may be found in Sadi, 
 who borrowed it from the Turkish theology ; the para- 
 dise of fools is a wild flower, transplanted from the wil- 
 derness of Ariosto. The rich poetry of Gray is a won- 
 derful tissue, woven on the frames, and composed with 
 the gold threads, of others. To Cervantes we owe But- 
 ler ; and the united abilities of three great wits, in their 
 Martinus Scrihlerus, could find no other mode of con- 
 veying their powers but by imitating at once Don 
 Quixote and Monsieur Oufle. Pope, like Boileau, had all 
 the ancients and moderns in his pay ; the contributions 
 he levied were not the pillages of a bandit, but the taxes 
 of a monarch. Swift is much indebted for the plans of 
 his two very original performances : he owes the " Trav- 
 els of Gulliver " to the " Voyages of Cyrano de Bergerac 
 to the Sun and Moon ;" a writer, who, without the acute- 
 ness of Swift, has wilder flashes of fancy ; Joseph War- 
 ton has observed many of Swift's strokes in Bishop 
 Godwin's " Man in the Moon," who, in his turn, must have 
 borrowed his work from Cyrano. " The Tale of a Tub " 
 is an imitation of such various originals, that they are too 
 numerous here to mention, Wotton observed, justly, 
 that in many places the author's wit is not his own.
 
 400 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 Dr. Ferriar's " Essay on the Imitations of Sterne" might 
 be considerably augmented. Such are the writers, how- 
 ever, who imitate, but remain inimitable ! 
 
 Montaigne, with honest naivete, compares his writings 
 to a thread that binds the flowers of others ; and that, by 
 incessantly pouring the waters of a few good old authors 
 into his sieve, some drops fall upon his paper. The good 
 old man elsewhere acquaints us with a certain stratagem 
 of his own invention, consisting of his inserting whole 
 sentences from the ancients, without acknowledgment, 
 that the critics might blunder, by giving nazardes to 
 Seneca and Plutarch, while they imagined they tweaked 
 his nose. Petrarch, who is not the inventor of that ten- 
 der poetry of which he is the model, and Boccaccio, called 
 the father of Italian novelists, have alike profited by a 
 studious perusal of writers, who are now only read by 
 those who have more curiosity than taste. Boiardo has 
 imitated Pulci, and Ariosto, Boiardo. The madness of 
 Orlando Furioso, though it wears, by its extravagance, a 
 very original air, is only imitated from Sir Launcelot in 
 the old romance of " Morte Arthur," with which, Warton 
 observes, it agrees in every leading circumstance ; and 
 what is the Cardenio of Cervantes but the Orlando of 
 Ariosto ? Tasso has imitated the Hiad, and enriched his 
 poem with episodes from the .^^Jneid. It is cui-ious to 
 observe that even Dante, wild and original as he appears, 
 when he meets Virgil in the Inferno, warmly expresses 
 his gratitude for the many fine passages for which he was 
 indebted to his works, and on which he says he had " long 
 meditated." Moliere and La Fontaine are considered to 
 possess as much originality as any of the French writers ; 
 yet the learned Menage calls Moliere " un grand et habile 
 picorcur ;" and Boileau tells us that La Fontaine bor- 
 rowed his style and matter from Marot and Rabelais, and 
 took his subjects from Boccaccio, Poggius, and Ariosto. 
 Nor was the eccentric Rabelais the inventor of most of
 
 VERS DE SOCIETB. 401 
 
 his burlesque narratives ; and he is a very close imitator 
 of Folengo, the inventor of the macaronic poetry, and 
 not a little indebted to the old Facezie of the Italians. 
 Indeed Marot, Villon, as well as those we have noticed, 
 profited by the authors anterior to the age of Francis I. 
 La Bruyere incorporates whole passages of Publius Syrus 
 in his work, as the translator of the latter abundantly 
 shows. To the " Turkish Spy" was Montesquieu be- 
 holden for his " Persian Letters," and a numerous crowd 
 are indebted to Montesquieu. Corneille made a liberal 
 use of Spanish literature ; and the pure waters of Racine 
 flowed from the fountains of Sophocles and Euripides. 
 
 This vein of imitation runs through the productions of 
 our greatest authors. Vigneul de Marville compares 
 some of the first writers to bankers who are rich with 
 the assembled fortunes of individuals, and would be often 
 ruined were they too hardly drawn on. 
 
 VERS DE SOCLfiT:^. 
 
 PLTirr, in an epistle to Tuscus, advises him to intermix 
 among his severer studies the softening charms of poetry; 
 and notices a species of poetical composition which merits 
 critical animadversion. I shall quote Pliny in the lan- 
 guage of his elegant translator. He says, " These pieces 
 commonly go under the title of poetical amusements ; 
 but these amusements have sometimes gained as much 
 reputation to their authors as works of a more serious 
 nature. It is surprising how much the mind is enter- 
 tained and enlivened by these little poetical compositions, 
 as they turn upon subjects of gallantry, satire, tender- 
 ness, politeness, and everything, in short, that concerns 
 life, and the affairs of the world." 
 
 This species of poetry has been carried to its utmost
 
 402 , LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 perfection by the French. It has been discriminated by 
 them, from the mass of poetry, under the apt title of 
 " Poesies leg^res^'' and sometimes it has been significantly 
 called " Yers de SocietV The French writers have 
 formed a body of this fugitive poetry which no European 
 nation can rival ; and to which both the language and 
 genius appear to be greatly favourable. 
 
 The " Poesies leglres^'' are not merely compositions of a 
 light and gay turn, but are equally employed as a vehicle 
 for tender and pathetic sentiment. They are never long, 
 for they are consecrated to the amusement of society. 
 The author appears to have composed them for his pleas- 
 ure, not for his glory ; and he charms his readers, because 
 he seems careless of their approbation. 
 
 Every delicacy of sentiment must find its delicacy of 
 expression, and every tenderness of thought must be 
 softened by the tenderest tones. Nothing trite or trivial 
 must enfeeble and chill the imagination ; nor must the 
 ear be denied its gratification by a rough or careless 
 verse. In these works nothing is pardoned ; a word 
 may disturb, a line may destroy the charm. 
 
 The passions of the poet may form the subjects of his 
 verse. It is in these writings he delineates himself; he 
 reflects his tastes, his desires, his humours, his amours, 
 and even his defects. In other poems the poet disappears 
 under the feigned character he assumes ; here alone he 
 speaks, here he acts. He makes a confidant of the reader, 
 interests him in his hopes and his sorrows ; we admire 
 the poet, and conclude with esteeming the man. The 
 poem is the complaint of a lover, or a compliment to a 
 patron, a vow of friendship, or a hymn of gratitude. 
 
 These poems have often, with great success, displayed 
 pictures of manners ; for here the poet colours the ob- 
 jects with all the hues of social life. Reflection must 
 not be amplified, iox these are pieces devoted to the 
 fancy ; a scene may be painted throughout the poem ; a
 
 VERS DE SOCIETE. 4,03 
 
 BeLtiment must be conveyed in a verse. In the " Grongar 
 Hill " of Dyer we discover some strokes which may serve 
 to exemplify this criticism. The poet, contemplating the 
 distant landscape, observes — 
 
 A step methinks may pass the stream, 
 So little distant dangers seem ; 
 So we mistake the future's face, 
 Eyed through Hope's deluding glass. 
 
 It must not be supposed that, because these poems are 
 concise, they are of easy production; a poet's genius 
 may not be diminutive because his pieces are so ; nor 
 must we call them, as a fine sonnet has been called, a diffi- 
 cult trifle. A circle may be very small, yet it may be as 
 mathematically beautiful and perfect as a larger one. 
 To such compositions we may apply the observation of 
 an ancient critic, that though a little thing gives perfec- 
 tion, yet perfection is not a little thing. 
 
 The poet must be alike polished by an intercourse 
 with the world as with the studies of taste; one to 
 whom labour is negligence, refinement a science, and art 
 a nature. 
 
 Genius will not always be sufficient to impart that 
 grace of amenity. Many of the French nobility, who 
 cultivated poetry, have therefore oftener excelled in 
 these poetical amusements than more professed poets. 
 France once delighted in the amiable and ennobled 
 names of Nivernois, Boufflers, and St. Aignan ; they have 
 not been considered as unworthy rivals of Chaulieu and 
 Bernard, of Voltaire and Gresset. 
 
 All the minor odes of Horace, and the entire Anac- 
 reon, are compositions of tliis kind ; effusions of the 
 heart, and pictures of the imagination, which were pro- 
 duced in the convivial, the amatory, and the pensive 
 hour. Our nation has not always been successful in 
 these performances ; they have not been kindred to its 
 genius. With Charles II. something of a gayer and
 
 404 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 more aiiy taste was communicated to our poetry, but it 
 was desultory and incorrect. Waller, both by his habits 
 and his genius, was well adapted to excel in this lighter 
 poetry ; and he has often attained the perfection which 
 the state of the language then permitted. Prior has a 
 variety of sallies; but his humour is sometimes gross, 
 and his versification is sometimes embarrassed. He knew 
 the value of these chai-ming pieces, and he had drunk of 
 this Bm-gundy in the vineyard itself. He has some trans- 
 lations, and some plagiarisms ; but some of his verses to 
 Chloe are eminently airy and pleasing. A diligent selec- 
 tion from our fugitive poetry might perhaps present us 
 with many of these minor poems ; but the " Vers de 
 SocUte^^ form a species of poetical composition which 
 may still be employed with great success. 
 
 THE GENIUS OF MOLIERE. 
 
 The genius of comedy not only changes with the age, 
 but appears different among different people. Manners 
 and customs not only vary among European nations, but 
 are alike mutable from one age to another, even in the 
 same people. These vicissitudes are often fatal to comic 
 writers ; our old school of comedy has been swept off 
 the stage : and our present uniformity of manners has 
 deprived our modern writers of those rich sources of 
 invention when persons living more isolated, society was 
 less monotonous ; and Jonson and Shadwell gave us 
 what they called " the humours" — that is, the individual 
 or particular characteristics of men.* 
 
 * Aubrey has noted this habit of our two greatest dramatists, when 
 speaking of Shakspearo ho says — " The humour of t)io constable in A 
 Midsummer NighVs Dream, he happend to take at Grendon in Bucks ; 
 which is the roade from London to Stratford ; and there was living 
 that constable in 1642, when I first came to Oxon. Ben Jonson and
 
 THE GENIUS OF MOLlfiRE. 405 
 
 But however taste and modes of thinking may be 
 inconstant, and customs and manners alter, at bottom 
 the groundwork is Nature's, in every production of 
 comic genius. A creative genius, guided by an uner- 
 ring instinct, though he draws after the contemporary 
 models of society, will retain his pre-eminence beyond 
 his own age and his own nation ; what was temporary 
 and local disappears, but what appertains to universal 
 nature endures. The scholar dwells on the grotesque 
 pleasantries of the sarcastic Aristophanes, though the 
 Athenian manners, and his exotic personages, have long 
 vanished. 
 
 Moli^re was a creator in the art of comedy j and al- 
 though his personages were the contemporaries of Louis 
 the Fourteenth, and his manners, in the critical accepta- 
 tion of the term, local and temporary, yet his admirable 
 genius opened that secret path of Nature, which is so 
 rarely found among the great names of the most literary 
 nations. Cervantes remains single in Spain ; in England 
 Shakspeare is a consecrated name ; and centuries may 
 pass away before the French people shall -witness another 
 Moli^re. 
 
 The history of this comic poet is the tale of powerful 
 genius creating itself amidst the most adverse elements. 
 We have the progress of that self-education which struck 
 out an untried path of its own, from the time Moli^re 
 had not yet acquired his art to the glorious days when 
 
 he did gather humours of men dayly, wherever they came." Shadwell, 
 whose best plays were produced in the reigu of Charles II., was a pro- 
 fessed imitator of the style of Jonson ; and so closely described the 
 manners of his day that he was frequently accused of direct persooali- 
 ties, and obliged to alter one of his plays, The Humorists, to avoid an 
 outcry raised against him. Sir Walter Scott has recorded, in the Pre- 
 face to his "Fortunes of Nigel," the obligation he was under to Shad- 
 well's comedy, The Squire of Alsatia, for the vivid description it ena- 
 bled him to give of the lawless denizens of the old Sanct\iary of "White- 
 friars. — Ed.
 
 406 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 he gave his country a Plautus in his farce, a Terence in his 
 composition, and a Menander in his moral truths. But 
 the difficulties overcome, and the disappointments incur- 
 red, his modesty and his confidence, and, what was not 
 less extraordinary, his own domestic life in perpetual 
 conflict with his character, open a more strange career, 
 in some respects, than has happened to most others of 
 the high order of his genius. 
 
 It was long the fate of Moli^re to experience that rest- 
 less importunity of genius which feeds on itself, till it 
 discovers the pabulum it seeks. Moli^re not only suf- 
 fered that tormenting impulse, but it was accompanied 
 by the unhappiness of a mistaken direction. And this 
 has been the lot of some who for many years have thus 
 been lost to themselves and to the public. 
 
 A man born among the obscure class of the people, 
 thrown among the itinerant companies of actors — for 
 France had not yet a theatre — occupied to his last hours 
 by too devoted a management of his own dramatic corps ; 
 himself, too, an original actor in the characters by him- 
 self created ; with no better models of composition than 
 the Italian farces alV hnprovista^ and whose fantastic gaiety 
 he, to the last, loved too well ; becomes the personal fa- 
 vourite of the most magnificent monarch, and the intimate 
 of the most refined circles. Thoughtful observer of these 
 new scenes and new personages, he sports with the affected 
 precieuses and tlie flattering viarqicises as with the naive 
 ridiculousness of the bourgeois, and the wild pi'ide and 
 egotism of the parvenus ; and with more profound de- 
 signs and a hardier hand unmasks the impostures of false 
 pretenders in all professions. His scenes, such was their 
 verity, seem but the reflections of his reminiscences. 
 His fertile facility when touching on transient follies ; his 
 wide comprehension, and his moralising vein, in his more 
 elevated comedy, dis2)lay, in this painter of man, the 
 poet and the philosopher, and, above all, the great moral
 
 THE GENIUS OF MOLlfiRB. 407 
 
 satirist. Moli^re has shown that the most successful 
 reformer of the manners of a people is a great comic 
 poet. 
 
 The youth Pocqtielin — this was his family name — was 
 designed by the tajnssier, his father, to be the heir of the 
 hereditary honours of an ancient standing, which had 
 maintained the Pocquelins through four or five genera- 
 tions by the articles of a furnishing upholsterer. His 
 grandfather was a haunter of the small theatres of that 
 day, and the boy often accompanied this venerable critic 
 of the family to his favourite recreations. The actors 
 were usually more excellent than their pieces ; some had 
 carried the mimetic art to the perfection of eloquent ges- 
 ticulation. In these loose scenes of inartificial and bur- 
 lesque pieces was the genius of Moliere cradled and 
 nursed. The changeful scenes of the Theatre de Bour- 
 gogne deeply busied the boy's imagination, to the great 
 detriment of the tajnsserie of all the Pocquelins. 
 
 The father groaned, the grandfather clapped, the boy 
 remonstrated till, at fourteen years of age, he was con- 
 signed, as" un mauvais sujet" (so his father qualified 
 him), to a college of the Jesuits at Paris, where the au- 
 thor of the " Tartufie " passed five years, studying — for 
 the bar ! 
 
 Philosophy and logic were waters which he deeply 
 drank ; and sprinklings of his college studies often 
 pointed the satire of his more finished comedies. To 
 ridicule false learning and false taste one must be inti- 
 mate with the ti'ue. 
 
 On his return to the metropolis the old humour broke 
 out at the representation of the inimitable Scaramouch 
 of the Italian theatre. The irresistible passion drove 
 him from his law studies, and cast young Pocqueliu 
 among a company of amateur actors, whose fame soon 
 enabled them not to play gratuitously. Pocquelin was 
 the manager and the modeller, for under his studious eye
 
 408 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 this company were induced to imitate Nature with the 
 simplicity the poet himself wrote. 
 
 The prejudices of the day, both civil and religious, had 
 made these private theatres — no gx-eat national theatre 
 yet existing — the resource only of the idler, the dissi- 
 pated, and even of the unfortunate in society. The 
 youthful adventurer aifectionately offered a free admis- 
 sion to the dear Pocquelins. They rejected their entrees 
 with horror, and sent their genealogical tree, drawn 
 afresh, to shame the truant who had wantoned into the 
 luxuiiance of genius. To save the honour of the paren- 
 tal upholsterers Pocquelin concealed himself under the 
 immortal name of Moliere. 
 
 The future creator of French comedy had now passed 
 his thirtieth year, and as yet his reputation was confined 
 to his own dramatic corps — a pilgrim in the caravan of 
 ambulatory comedy. He had provided several tempo- 
 rary novelties. Boileau regretted the loss of one, ie 
 Docteur Amoureux • and in others we detect the abor- 
 tive conceptions of some of his future pieces. The severe 
 judgment of Moliere suffered his skeletons to perish ; 
 but, when he had discovered the art of comic writing, 
 with equal discernment he resuscitated them. 
 
 Not only had Moliere not yet discovered the true bent 
 of his genius, but, still more unfortunate, he had as 
 greatly mistaken it as when he proposed turning avocat^ 
 for he imagined that his most suitable character was 
 tragic. He wrote a tragedy, and he acted in a tragedy; 
 the tragedy he composed was condemned at Bordeaux ; 
 the mortified poet flew to Grenoble ; still the unlucky 
 tragedy haunted his fancy ; he looked on it with paternal 
 eyes, in whicli there were tears. Long after, when Ra- 
 cine, a youtli, offered him a very unactable tragedy,* 
 
 * The tragedy written by Racine was called Thiagene ct Chariclee, 
 and founded on the tale by Ileliodorus. It waa the first attempt of 
 its aiUbor, and submitted by him to Moliere, while director of the
 
 THE GENIUS OF MOLIERE. 409 
 
 Moliere presented him with his own : — " Take this, for I 
 am convinced that the subject is highly tragic, notwith- 
 standing my faihire." The great dramatic poet of 
 France opened his career by recomposing the condemned 
 tragedy of the comic wit in La Thebdide. In the illu- 
 sion that he was a great tragic actor, deceived by his 
 own susceptibility, though his voice denied the tones of 
 piassion, he acted in one of Corneille's tragedies, and 
 quite allayed the alarm of a rival company on the an- 
 nouncement. It was not, however, so when the author- 
 actor vivified one of his own native personages ; then, 
 inimitably comic, every new representation seemed to be 
 a new creation. 
 
 It is a remarkable feature, though not perhaps a sin- 
 gular one, in the character of this great comic writer, 
 that he was one of the most serious of men, and even of a 
 melancholic temperament. One of his lampooners wrote 
 a satii'ical comedy on the comic poet, where he figures as 
 " Moliere. hypochondre," Boileau, who knew him inti- 
 mately, happily characterised Moliere as le Contempla- 
 teur. This deep pensiveness is revealed in his physiog- 
 nomy. 
 
 The genius of Moliere, long undiscovered by himself, 
 in its first attempts in a higher walk did not move alone; 
 it was crutched by imitation, and it often deigned to 
 \ plough with another's heifer. He copied whole scenes 
 from Italian comedies and plots from Italian novelists : 
 his sole merit was their improvement. The great comic 
 satirist, who hereafter was to people the stage tvith a 
 dramatic crowd who were to live on to posterity, had 
 not yet struck at that secret vein of originality — the 
 fairy treasure which one day was to cast out such a 
 
 Theatre of the Palais Royal; the latter had no favourable impression 
 of its success if produced, but suggested La Tliehaide as a subject for 
 his genius, and advanced the young poet 100 louis while engaged 
 on his work, which was successfully produced in 1664. — Ed.
 
 410 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 prodigality of invention. His two first comedies, 
 Zi'Etourdi and Le Depit Amoureux, which he had only 
 ventured to bring out in a jirovincial theati'e, were 
 grafted on Italian and Spanish comedy, Nothing more 
 original offered to his imagination than the Roman, the 
 Italian, and the Spanish drama ; the cunning adroit 
 slave of Terence ; the tricking, bustling Gracioso of 
 modern Spain ; old fathers, the dupes of some scape- 
 grace, or of their own senile follies, with lovers sighing 
 at cross-purposes. The germ of his future powers may, 
 indeed, be discovered in these two comedies, for insensi- 
 bly to himself he had fallen into some scenes of natural 
 simplicity. In 1? Etourdi^ Mascarille, " le roi des servi- 
 teurs," which Moli^re himself admirably personated, is 
 one of those defunct characters of the Italian comedy no 
 longer existing in society ; yet, like our Touchstone, but 
 infinitely richer, this new ideal personage still delights 
 by the fertility of his expedients and his perpetual and 
 vigorous gaiety. In Le Depit Atnoureux is the exquis- 
 ite scene of the quarrel and reconciliation of the lovers. 
 In this fine scene, though perhaps but an amplification 
 of the well-known ode of Horace, Donee gratus eram tibi^ 
 Moliei-e consulted his own feelings, and betrayed his 
 future genius. 
 
 It was after an interval of three or four years that the 
 provincial celebrity of these comedies obtained a repre- 
 sentation at Paris ; their success was decisive. This was 
 an evidence of public favour which did not accorai)any 
 Moliere's more finished productions, which were so far 
 unfortunate that they were more intelligible to the few ; 
 in fact, the first comedies of Moli^re were not written 
 above the popular taste ; the spirit of true comedy, in a 
 profound knowledge of the heart of man, and in the deli- 
 cate discrimination^ of individual character, was yet un- 
 known. Moliere was satisfied to excel his predecessors, 
 but he had not yet learned his art.
 
 THE GENIUS OF MOLI^RE. 411 
 
 The rising poet was now earnestly souglit after ; a 
 more extended circle of society now engaged bis contem- 
 plative habits. He looked around on living scenes no 
 longer through the dim spectacles of the old comedy, and 
 he projected a new species, which was no longer to de- 
 pend on its conventional grotesque personages and its 
 forced incidents; he aspired to please a more critical 
 audience by making his dialogue the conversation of so- 
 ciety, and his characters its portraits. 
 
 Introduced to the literary coterie of the Hotel de Ram- 
 bouillet, a new view opened on the favoured poet. To 
 occupy a seat in this envied circle was a distinction in 
 society. The professed object of this reunion of nobility 
 and literary persons, at the hotel of the Marchioness of 
 Rambouillet, was to give a higher tone to all France, by 
 the cultivation of the language, the intellectual refine- 
 ment of their compositions, and last, but not least, to 
 inculcate the extremest delicacy of manners. The recent 
 civil dissensions had often violated the urbanity of the 
 court, and a grossness prevailed in conversation which 
 offended the scrupulous. This critical cii-cle was composed 
 of both sexes. They were to be the arbiters of taste, 
 the.legislatoi's of criticism, and, what was less tolerable, 
 the models of genius. No work was to be stamped into 
 currency which bore not the mint -mark of the hotel. 
 
 In the annals of fashion and literatui*e no coterie has 
 presented a more instructive and amusing exhibition of 
 the abuses of learning, and the aberrations of ill-regulated 
 imaginations, than the Hotel de Rambouillet, by its in- 
 genious absurdities. Their excellent design to refine the 
 language, the manners, and even morality itself, branched 
 out into every species of false refinement ; theii* science 
 ran into trivial pedantries, their style into a fantastic 
 jargon, and their spiritualising delicacy into the very 
 puritanism of prudery. Their frivolous distinction be- 
 tween the mind and the heart, which could not always
 
 412 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 be made to go together, often perplexed them as much 
 as their own jargon, which was not always intelligible, 
 even to the initiated. The French Academy is said to 
 have originated in the first meetings of the Hotel de 
 Rambouillet ; and it is probable that some sense and 
 taste, in its earliest days, may have visited this society, 
 for we do not begin such refined follies without some 
 show of reason. 
 
 The local genius of the hotel was feminine, though the 
 most glorious men of the literature of France were among 
 its votaries. The great magnet was the famed Mademoi- 
 selle Scudery, whose voluminous romances were their 
 code ; and it is supposed these tomes preserve some of 
 their lengthened conversazio7ies. In the novel system of 
 gallantry of this great inventor of amorous and metaphy- 
 sical " twaddle," the ladies were to be approached as 
 beings nothing short of celestial paragons ; they were 
 addressed in a language not to be found iu any dictionary 
 but their own, and their habits were more fantastic than 
 their language : a sort of domestic chivalry formed their 
 etiquette. Their baptismal names were to them profane, 
 and their assumed ones were drawn from the folio roman- 
 ces — those Bibles of love. At length all ended in a sort 
 of Freemasonry of gallantry, which had its graduated 
 orders, and whoever was not admitted into the mysteries 
 was not permitted to prolong his existence — that is, his 
 residence among them. The apprenticeship of the craft 
 was to be served under certain Introducers to Ruelles. 
 
 Their card of invitation was cither a rondeau or an 
 enigma, which served as a subject to open conversation. 
 The lady received her visitors reposing on that throne of 
 beauty, a bed placed in an alcove ; the toilet was mag- 
 nificently arranged. The space between the bed and the 
 wall was called the liuelle* tlie diminutive of la Rue ; 
 
 * In a portion of tlio ancient Louvre, still prosorvcl amid tlio chan<?e3 
 to which it has been subJ3ctod, is the old wainscoted bedroom of the
 
 THE GENIUS OF MOLlllRB. 41 3 
 
 and in this narrow street, or " Fop's alley," walked the 
 favoured. But the chevalier who was graced by the 
 honorary title of PAlcoviste, was at once master of the 
 household and master of the ceremonies. His character 
 is pointedly defined by 'St. Evremond, as " a lover whom 
 the Precieuse is to love without enjoyment, and to enjoy 
 in good earnest her husband with aversion." The scene 
 ofiered no indecency to such delicate minds, and much 
 less the impassioned style which passed between les chhres^ 
 as they called themselves. Whatever offered an idea, of 
 what their jargon denominated charnelle, was treason 
 and exile. Years passed ere the hand of the elected 
 maiden was kissed by its martyi-. The celebrated Julia 
 d'Angennes was beloved by the Duke de Montausier, but 
 fourteen years elapsed ere she would yield a " yes." 
 When the faithful Julia was no longer blooming, the Al- 
 coviste duke gratefully took up the remains of her 
 beauty. 
 
 Their more curious project was the reform of the style 
 of conversation, to purify its grossness, and invent novel 
 terms for familiar objects. Menage drew up a " Petition 
 of the Dictionaries," which, by their severity of taste, 
 had nearly become superannuated. They succeeded 
 better with the marchandes des modes and the jewellers, 
 furnishing a vocabulary excessively precieuse, by which 
 people bought their old wares with new names. At 
 length they were so successful in their neology, that with 
 great difficulty they understood one another. It is, how- 
 ever, worth observation, that the orthography invented 
 by th.Q precieuses — who, for their convenience, rejected all 
 the redundant letters in words — was adopted, and is now 
 used ; and their pride of exclusiveness in society intro- 
 duced the singular term s'encanailler, to desciibe a 
 person who haunted low company, while their morbid 
 
 great Henry IV., with the carved recess and the rwUle, as described 
 • above : it is a most interesting fragment of regal domestic life. — Ed.
 
 414 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 purity had ever on their lips the word obscenite, tenas 
 which Molii^re ridicules, but whose expressiveness has 
 preserved them in the language. 
 
 Ridiculous as some of these extravagances now appear 
 to us, they had been so closely interwoven with the 
 elegance of the higher ranks, and so intimately associated 
 with genius and literature, that the veil of fashion con- 
 secrated almost the mystical society, since we find among 
 its admirers the most illustrious names of France. 
 
 Into this elevated and artificial circle of society our 
 youthful and unsophisticated poet was now thrown, with 
 a mind not vitiated by any prepossessions of false taste, 
 studious of nature and alive to the ridiculous. But how 
 was the comic genius to strike at the follies of his illus- 
 trious friends — to strike, but not to wound ? A provin- 
 cial poet and actor to enter hostilely into the sacred 
 precincts of these Exclusives ? Tormented by his genius 
 Moli^re produced Z/es Precieuses Ridicules, but admirably 
 parried, in his preface, any application to them, by aver- 
 ring that it was aimed at their imitators — their spurious 
 mimics in the country. The Precieuses Hidicules was 
 acted in the presence of the assembled Hotel de Ram- 
 bouillet with immense applause. A central voice from 
 the pit, anticipating the host of enemies and the fame of 
 the reformer of comedy, exclaimed, "Take courage, 
 Moli^re, this is true comedy." The learned Menage was 
 the only member of the society who had the good sense 
 to detect the drift ; he perceived the snake in the grass. 
 " We must now," said this sensible pedant (in a remote 
 allusion to the fate of idolatry and the introduction of 
 Christianity) to the poetical pedant, Chapelain, " follow 
 the counsel which St. Remi gave to Clovis — we must 
 burn all that we adored, and adore what we have burned." 
 The success of the comedy was universal ; the company 
 doubled their prices ; the country gentry flocked to 
 witness the marvellous novelty, which far exposed that
 
 THE GENIUS OF MOLI^RB. 415 
 
 false taste, that romance-impertinence, and that sickly 
 affectation which had long disturbed the quiet of families. 
 Cervantes had not struck more adroitly at Spanish rodo- 
 montade. 
 
 At this universal reception of the Precieuses Midicules^ 
 Moli^re, it is said, exclaimed — " I need no longer study 
 Plautus and Terence, nor poach in the fragments of 
 Menander ; I have only to study the world." It may be 
 doubtful whether the great comic satirist at that moment 
 caught the sudden revelation of his genius, as he did 
 subsequently in his Tartuffe, his Misanthrope^ his Bour- 
 geois Gentilhomnie, and others. The Precieuses Pidi- 
 cules was the germ of his more elaborate Femmes Savan- 
 tes, which was not produced till after an interval of twelve 
 years. 
 
 Moli^re returned to his old favourite canevas, or plots 
 of Italian farces and novels, and Spanish comedies, which, 
 being always at hand, furnished comedies of intrigue. 
 U'Ecole des 3faris is an inimitable model of this class. 
 
 But comedies which derive their chief interest from 
 the ingenious mechanism of their plots, however poignant 
 the delight of the artifice of the denouement^ are some- 
 what like an epigram, once known, the brilliant point is 
 blunted by repetition. This is not the fate of those 
 representations of men's actions, passions, and manners, 
 in the more enlarged sphere of human nature, where an 
 eternal interest is excited, and will charm on the tenth 
 repetition. 
 
 No ! Moli^re had not yet discovered his true genius ; 
 he was not yet emancipated from his old seductions. A 
 rival company was reputed to have the better actors for 
 tragedy, and Moli^re resolved to compose an heroic 
 drama on the passion of jealousy — a favorite one on 
 which he was incessantly ruminating. Pon Garcie de 
 Navarre, ou Le Prince tTaloux, the hero personated by 
 himself, terminated by the hisses of the audience.
 
 4:16 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 The fall of the Prince Jaloux was nearly fatal to the 
 tender reputation of the poet and the actor. The world 
 became critical : the marquises, and the precieuses, and 
 recently the bourgeois, who were sore from Sganarelle^ 
 ou Le Gocu Iniaginaire, were up in arms ; and the rival 
 theatra maliciously raised the halloo, flattering them- 
 selves that the comic genius of their dreaded rival would 
 be extinguished by the ludicrous convulsed hiccough to 
 which Moli^re was liable in his tragic tones, but which 
 he adroitly managed in his comic parts. 
 
 But the genius of Moli^re was not to be daunted by 
 cabals, nor even injured by his own imprudence. Le 
 Prince Jaloux was condemned in February, 1661, and 
 the same year produced L''Ecole des Maris and Les 
 Fdcheux. The happy genius of the poet opened on his 
 Zoiluses a series of dramatic triumphs. 
 
 Foreign critics — Tiraboschi and Schlegel — have depre- 
 ciated the Frenchman's invention, by insinuating that 
 were all that Moli6re borrowed taken from him, little 
 would remain of his own. But they were not aware of 
 his dramatic creation, even when he appropriated the 
 slight inventions of others; they have not distinguished 
 the eras of the genius of Moli^re, and the distinct classes 
 of his comedies. Moli^re had the art of amalgamating 
 many distinct inventions of others into a single inimit- 
 able whole. Whatever might be the herbs and the 
 reptiles thrown into the mystical caldron, the incantation 
 of genius proved to be truly magical. 
 
 Facility and fecundity may produce inequality, but, 
 when a man of genius works, they are imbued with a 
 raciness which the anxious diligence of inferior minds 
 can never yield. Shakspeare, probably, poured forth 
 many scenes in this spirit. The multiplicity of the 
 pieces of Moli6re, their different merits, and their distinct 
 classes — all written within the space of twenty years — 
 display, if any poet ever did, this wonder-working faculty.
 
 THE GENIUS OF MOLlllRE. 4,17 
 
 The truth is. that few of his comedies are finished works ; 
 he nev^er satisfied himself, even in his most applauded 
 productions. Necessity bound him to furnish novelties 
 for his theatre ; he rarely printed any work. Les 
 Fdcheux^ an admirable series of scenes, in three acts, 
 and in verse, was " planned, written, rehearsed, and 
 represented in a single fortnight." Many of his dramatic 
 effusions were precipitated on the stage ; the humorous 
 scenes of Monsieur de Pourceaugnac were thrown out to 
 enliven a royal fete. 
 
 This versatility and felicity of composition made every- 
 thing with Molifere a subject for comedy. He invented 
 two novelties, such as the stage had never before wit- 
 nessed. Instead of a grave defence from the malice of 
 his critics, and the flying gossip of the court circle, 
 Moli^re found out the art of congregating the public to 
 The Quarrels of Authors. He dramatised his critics. 
 In a comedy without a plot, and in scenes which seemed 
 rather spoken than written, and with characters more 
 real than personated, he displayed his genius by collect- 
 ing whatever had been alleged to depreciate it ; and La 
 Critique de VEcole des Femtnes is still a delightful pro- 
 duction. This singular drama resembles the sketch- 
 book of an artist, the croquis of portraits — the loose 
 hints of thoughts, many of which we discover were more 
 fully delineated in his subsequent pieces. With the 
 same rapid conception he laid hold of his embarrass- 
 ments to furnish dramatic novelties as expeditiously as 
 the king required. Louis XIY. was himself no indif- 
 ferent critic, and more than once suggested an incident 
 or a character to his favom-ite poet. In Ij Impromjitu de 
 Versacclds, Moli6re appears in his own person, and in the 
 midst of his whole company, with all the irritable impa- 
 tience of a manager who had no piece ready. Amidst 
 this green-room bustle Moli6re is advising, reprimanding, 
 and imploring, his "ladies and gentlemen." The char-
 
 4-18 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 acters in this piece are, in fact, the actors themselves, 
 who appear und(u* their OAvn names ; and Moliere himself 
 reveals many fine touches of his o^vn poetical character, as 
 well as his managerial. The personal pleasantries on his 
 own performers, and the hints for plots, and the sketches 
 of cliaracter which the poet incidentally throws out, 
 form a perfect dramatic novelty. Some of these he him- 
 self subsequently adopted, and others have been followed 
 up by some dramatists without rivalling Moliere. The 
 Figaro of Beaumarchais is a descendant of the Mascar- 
 ille of Moliere ; but the glory of rivalling Moliere was 
 reserved for our own stage. Sheridan's Critic^ or a 
 Tragedy Rehearsed^ is a congenial dramatic satire with 
 these two pieces of Moliere. 
 
 The genius of Moliere had now stepped out of the re- 
 stricted limits of the old comedy ; he now looked on the 
 moving world with other eyes, and he pursued the ridic- 
 ulous in society. These fresher studies were going on at 
 all hours, and every object was contemplated with a view 
 to comedy. His most vital characters have been traced 
 to living originals, and some of his most ludicrous scenes 
 had occurred in reality before they delighted the audience. 
 Monsieur Jourdain had expressed his astonishment, " qu'il 
 faisait de la prose," in the Count de Soissons, one of the 
 uneducated noblemen devoted to the chase. The me- 
 morable scene between Trissotin and Vadius, their 
 mutual compliments terminating in their mutual con- 
 tempt, had been rehearsed by their respective authors — the 
 Abbe Cottin and Menage. The stultified booby of Limo- 
 ges, Monsieur de Pourceaug/iaCy mid the mystified mil- 
 lionaire, Le Bourgeois GentUhomme, were copied after 
 life, as Wcis Sgaaarelle, in Le Medeciyi malgre hit. The 
 portraits in that gallery of dramatic paintings, Le Mis- 
 anthrope, have names inscribed under them ; and the 
 immortal Tartuffe was a certain bishop of Autun. No 
 dramatist has conceived with greater variety the female
 
 THE GENIUS OF MOLi:fcRE. 419 
 
 character ; the women of Moliere have a distinctness of 
 feature, and are touched with a freshness of feeling. 
 Moliere studied nature, and his comic humour is never 
 checked by that unnatural wit where the poet, the more 
 he discovers himself, the farther he removes himself from 
 the personage of his creation. The quickening spell 
 which hangs over the dramas of Moliere is this close at- 
 tention to nature, wherein he greatly resembles our 
 Shakspeare, for all springs from its source. His unob- 
 trusive genius never occurs to us in following up his char- 
 acters, and a whole scene leaves on our mind a complete 
 but imperceptible effect. 
 
 The style of Moliere has often been censured by the 
 fastidiousness of his native critics, as has and du style 
 familier. This does not offend the foreigner, who is 
 often struck by its simplicity and vigour. Moliere pre- 
 ferred the most popular and naive expressions, as well as 
 the most natural incidents,, to a degree which startled 
 the morbid delicacy of fashion and fashionable critics. 
 He had frequent occasions to resist their petty remon- 
 strances ; and whenever Moliere introduced an incident, 
 or made an allusion of which he knew the truth, and 
 which with him had a settled meaning, this master of 
 human life trusted to his instinct and his art. 
 
 This pure and simple taste, ever rare at Paris, was the 
 happy poition of the genius of this Frenchman. Hence 
 he d^ghted to try his farcical pieces, for we cannot im- 
 agine that they were his more elevated comedies, on his 
 old maid-servant. This maid, probably, had a keen relish 
 for comic humour, for once when Moliere read to her the 
 comedy of another writer as his own, she soon detected 
 the trick, declaring that it could not be her master's. 
 Hence, too, our poet invited even children to be present 
 on such rehearsals, and at certain points would watch 
 their emotions. Hence, too, in his character of manager, 
 he taught his actors to study nature. An actress, apt to
 
 420 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 speak freely, told him, " You torment us all ; but you 
 never speak to my husband." This man, originally a 
 candle-snuifet, was a perfect child of nature, and acted 
 the Thomas Diaforius, in Le Malade Imaginaire. Moli6re 
 replied, " I should be sorry to say a word to him ; I should 
 spoil his acting. Nature has provided him with better 
 lessons to perform his parts than any which I could give 
 him." We may imagine Shakspeare thus addressing his 
 company, had the poet been also the manager. 
 
 A remarkable incident in the history of the genius of 
 Moli^re is the frequent recurrence of the poet to the 
 passion of jealousy. The "jaundice in the lover's eye," 
 he has painted with every tint of his imagination. " The 
 green-eyed monster " takes all shapes, and is placed in 
 every position. Solemn, or gay, or satirical, he some- 
 times appears in agony, but often seems to make its 
 " trifles light as air," only ridiculous as a source of con 
 solation. Was Le Gontemplateur comic in his melan 
 choly, or melancholy in his comic humour ? 
 
 The truth is, that the poet himself had to pass through 
 those painful stages which he has dramatised. The do- 
 mestic life of Moli^re was itself very dramatic ; it afforded 
 Goldoni a comedy of five acts, to reveal the secrets of the 
 family circle of Molii^re ; and I'Abbate Chiari, an Italian 
 novelist and playwright, has taken for a comic subject, 
 JHoU^re, the Jealous Husband. 
 
 The Fi-ench, in their " petite morale " on co^ugal 
 fidelity, appear so tolerant as to leave little sympathy 
 for the real sufferer. Why should they else have treated 
 domestic jealousy as a foible for ridicule, rather than a 
 subject for deep passion? Their tragic drama exhibits 
 no Othello, nor their comedy a Kitely, or a Suspicious 
 Husband. Moli6re, while his own heart was the victim, 
 conformed to the national taste, by often placing the 
 object on its comic side. Domestic jealousy is a passion 
 which admits of a great diversity of subjects, from the
 
 THE GENIUS OF MOLTi:RE. 421 
 
 tragic 01' the pathetic, to the absurd and the ludicrous. 
 We liave them all in Moliere. Molicre often was him- 
 self " Le Cocu Imaginaire ;" he had been in the position 
 of the guardian in U'Ecole des Maris. Like Arnolphe 
 in IjEcole des Femmes^ he had taken on himself to rear 
 a young wife who played the same part, though with less 
 innocence ; and like the Misanthrope, where the scene 
 between Alceste and Celimene is " une des plus fortes 
 qui existant au theatre," he was deeply entangled in the 
 wily cruelties of scornful coquetry, and we know that at 
 times he suffered in the " hell of lovers " the torments 
 of his own Jealous Prince. 
 
 When this poet cast his fate with a troop of comedians, 
 as the manager, and whom he never would abandon, when 
 at the height of his fortune, could he avoid accustoming 
 himself to the relaxed habits of that gay and sorrowful 
 race, who, " of imagination all compact," too often partake 
 of the passions they inspire in the scene ? The first actress, 
 Madame Bejard, boasted that, "with the exception of the 
 poet, she had never dispensed her personal favours but 
 to the aristocracy. The constancy of Molicre was inter- 
 rupted by another actress, Du Pare ; beautiful but insen- 
 sible, she only tormented the poet, and furnished him 
 with some severe lessons for the coquetry of his Celimene, 
 in Xe Misanthrope. The facility of the transition of the 
 tender passion had more closely united the susceptible 
 poet fo Mademoiselle de Brie. But Madame Bejard, not 
 content to be the chief actress, and to hold her partner- 
 ship in " the properties," to retain her ancient authority 
 over the poet, introduced, suddenly, a blushing daughter, 
 some say a younger sister, who had hitherto resided at 
 Avignon, and who she declared was the offspring of the 
 count of Modena, by a secret marriage. Armande Be- 
 jard soon attracted the paternal attentions of the poet. 
 She became the secret idol of his retired moments, while 
 he fondly thought that he could mould a young mind, in
 
 4,22 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 its innocence, to his own sympathies. The mother and 
 the daughter never agreed. Armande sought his protec- 
 tion ; and one day rushing into his study, declared that 
 she would marry her friend. The elder Bejard freely 
 consented to avenge herself on De Brie. De Brie was 
 indulgent, though "the little creature," she observed, 
 was to be yoked to one old enough to be her father. 
 Under the same roof were now heard the voices of the 
 three females, and Moli^re meditating scenes of feminine 
 jealousies. 
 
 Moliere was fascinated by his youthful wife; her 
 lighter follies charmed : two years riveted the connubial 
 chains. Moliere was a husband who was always a lover. 
 The actor on the stage was the very man he personated. 
 Mademoiselle Moliere, as she was called by the public, 
 was the Lucile in Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme. With 
 what fervour the poet feels her neglect ! with what eager- 
 ness he defends her from the animadversions of the friend 
 who would have dissolved the spell ! 
 
 The poet was doomed to endure more poignant sorrows 
 than slights. Mademoiselle had the art of persuading 
 Moliere that he was only his own " cocu imaginaire ;" 
 but these domestic embarrassments multiplied. Made- 
 moiselle, reckless of the distinguished name she bore, 
 while she gratified her personal vanity by a lavish ex- 
 penditure, practised that artful coquetry which attracted 
 a crowd of loungers. Moliere found no repose Mi his 
 own house, and retreated to a country-house, where, how- 
 ever, his restless jealousy often drove him back to scenes 
 which he trembled to witness. At length came the last 
 argument of outraged matrimony — he threatened con- 
 finement. To prevent a pn))lic rupture, Moliere consent- 
 ed to live under the same roof, and only to meet at the 
 theatre. Weak only in love, however divided from his 
 wife, Moli6re i-ernained lier perpetual lover. He said, in 
 confidence, " I am born with every disposition to tender-
 
 THE GENIUS OF ilOLIERE. 423 
 
 ness. When I married, slie was too young to betray any 
 evil inclinations. My studies were devoted to her, but I 
 soon discovered her indifference. I ascribed it to her 
 temper ; her foolish passion for Count Guiche made too 
 much noise to leave me even this apparent tranquillity 
 I resolved to live with her as an honourable man, whose 
 reputation does not depend on the bad conduct of his 
 wife. My kindness has not changed her, but my com- 
 passion has increased. Those who have not experienced 
 these delicate emotions have never truly loved. In her 
 absence her image is before me ; in her presence, I am 
 deprived of all reflection ; I have no longer eyes for her 
 defects ; I only view her amiable. Is not this the last 
 extreme of folly ? And are you not surprised that I, 
 reasoning as I do, am only sensible of the weakness 
 which I cannot throw ofi"?" 
 
 Few men of genius have left in their writings deeper 
 impressions of their personal feelings than Moliere. 
 With strong passions in a feeble frame, he had duped his 
 imagination that, like another Pygmalion, he would 
 create a woman by his own art. In silence and agony 
 he tasted the bitter fruits of the disordered habits of the 
 life of a comedian, a manager, and a poet. His income 
 was splendid; but he himself was a stranger to dissipa- 
 tion. He was a domestic man, of a pensive and even 
 melancholy temperament. Silent and reserved, unless in 
 conversation viith that more intimate circle whose litera- 
 ture aided his genius, or whose friendship consoled for 
 his domestic disturbances, his habits were minutely me- 
 thodical ; the strictest order was observed throughout 
 his establishment ; the hours of dinner, of writing, of 
 amusement, were allotted, and the slightest derangement 
 in his own apartment excited a morbid irritability which 
 would interrupt his studies for whole days. 
 
 Who, without this tale of Moliere, could conjecture, 
 that one skilled in the workings of our nature would
 
 424 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 have ventured on the perilous experiment of equalizing 
 sixteen years against forty — weighing roses against grey 
 locks — to convert a wayward coquette, through her 
 capricious womanhood, into an attached wife? Yet, 
 althoxigh Mademoiselle could cherish no personal love 
 for the intellectual being, and hastened to change the 
 immortal name she bore for a more terrestrial man, she 
 seems to have been impi*essed by a perfect conviction of 
 his creative genius. When the Archbishop of Paris, in 
 the pride of prelacy, refused the rights of sepulture to 
 the corpse of Moliere the actoe, it was her voice which 
 reminded the world of Moliere the poet, exclaiming — • 
 *' Have they denied a grave to the man to whom Greece 
 would have raised an altar !" 
 
 THE SENSIBILITY OF RACINE. 
 
 The " Memoirs of the poet Racine," composed by his 
 son, who was himself no contemptible poet, may be 
 classed among those precious pieces of biography so de- 
 lightful to the philosopher who studies human nature, 
 and the literary man whose curiosity is interested in the 
 history of his republic. Such works are rare, and rank 
 in merit next to autobiographies. Such biographical 
 sketches, like Boswell's of Johnson, contain Avhat wo 
 often regret is wanting in the more regular life of a 
 professed biographer. These desultory memoirs interest 
 by their warmth, their more personal acquaintance with 
 the hero, and abound with those minuter strokes which 
 give BO much life to the individual character. 
 
 The prominent feature in the character of Racine was 
 an excessive tenderness of feeling ; his profound sensi- 
 bility even to its infirmity, the tears which would cover 
 his face, and the agony in his heart, were perhaps na- 
 tional. Hut if this sensibility produced at times the
 
 SENSIBILITY OF RACINE. 425 
 
 softest emotions, if it made him the poet of lovers, and 
 even the poet of imagination, it also rendered him too 
 feelingly alive to criticism, it embittered his days with 
 too keen a perception of the domestic miseries which all 
 men must alike undergo. 
 
 During a dramatic performance at St. Cyr, the youth- 
 ful representative of Esther suddenly forgot her part ; 
 the agitated poet exclaimed, "Oh, mademoiselle, you 
 are ruining my piece !" Terrified at this repi-imand, the 
 young actress wept ; the poet flew to her, wiped away 
 her tears, and vnth. contagious sympathy shed tears him- 
 self. " I do not hesitate," says Louis Racine, " to relate 
 such minute circumstances, because this facility of shed- 
 ding tears shows the goodness of the heart, according to 
 the observation of the ancients — 
 
 ayaOol 6' apiddKpveg avdpcq. 
 
 This morbid state of feeling made his whole literary 
 life uneasy; unjust criticism affected him as much as the 
 most poignant, and there was nothing he dreaded more 
 than that his son should become a writer of tragedies. 
 *'I will not dissimulate," he says, addressing his son, 
 " that in the heat of composition we are not sometimes 
 pleased with ourselves ; but you may believe me, when 
 the day after we look over our work, we are astonished 
 not to find that excellence we admired in the evening ; 
 and when we reflect that even what we find good ought 
 to be still better, and how distant we are still from per- 
 fection, we are discouraged and dissatisfied. Besides all 
 this, although the approbation I have received has been 
 very flattering, the least adverse criticism, even miserable 
 as it might be, has always occasioned me more vexation 
 than all the praise I received could give me pleasure." 
 And, again, he endeavors to impress on him that the 
 favour he received from the world he owed not to his 
 verses. "Do not imagine that they are my verses that
 
 426 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 attract all these kindnesses. Corneille composes verses? 
 a hundred times finer than mine, but no one regards him. 
 Ilis verses are only applauded from the mouths of the 
 actors. I do not tire men of the world by reciting my 
 works ; I never allude to them ; I endeavour to amuse 
 them with matters which please them. My talent in 
 their company is, not to make them feel that I have any 
 genius, but to show them that they possess some them- 
 selves. When you observe the duke pass several hours 
 with me, you would be surprised, were you present, that 
 he frequently quits me withou.t my having uttered three 
 words ; but gradually I put him in a humour of chatting, 
 and he leaves me more satisfied with himself than with 
 me." When Rochefoucault said that Boileau and Racine 
 had only one kind of genius, and could only talk about 
 their own poetry, it is evident that the observation should 
 not have extended to Racine, however it might to Boi- 
 leau. It was Racine's excessive sensibility which made 
 him the finest dramatic reciter. The celebrated actress. 
 Mademoiselle Champmesle,* the heroine of his tragedies, 
 had no genius whatever for the stage, but she had beauty, 
 voice, and memory. Racine taught her first to compre- 
 hend the verses she was going to recite, showed her the 
 appropriate gesture, and gave her the variable tones, 
 which he even sometimes noted down. His pupil, faith- 
 ful to her lessons, though a mere actress of art, on the 
 stage seemed inspired by passion ; and as she, thus 
 formed and fashioned, naturally only played thus eifect- 
 
 * Racine first met this actress at the Marquis de Sevigno's petit 
 soupcrs ; so much lamented by his more famous motlier in one of her 
 edmirnblo letters, who speaks of " the Raciues and the Despreaux's " 
 who assisted his prodigality. In one of Miulame de Sevigno's letters, 
 dated in 1072, slie somewhat rashly declares, "Racine now writes his 
 dramas, not for posterity, but for MadenioisoUo Champmesle :" she had 
 then forsaken the marquis for the poet, who wrote Roxane in Bajazet 
 expressly for her. — Ed.
 
 THE SENSIBILITY OF RACINE. 427 
 
 ively in the dramas of her preceptor, it was supposed 
 that love for the poet inspired the actress. 
 
 When Racine read aloud he diffused his own enthusi- 
 asm; once with Boileau and Nicole, amid a literary 
 circle, they talked of Sophocles, whom Racine greatly 
 admired, but from whom he had never dared to borrow 
 a tragic subject. Taking up a Greek Sophocles, and 
 translating the CEdipus, the French poet became so 
 deeply imbued with the Greek tragedian, that his audit- 
 ors caught all the emotions of terror and pity. " I have 
 seen," says one of those aiiditors, " our best pieces repre- 
 sented by our best actors, but never anything approached 
 the agitation which then came over us ; and to this dis- 
 tant day I have never lost the recollection of Racine, 
 with the volume in his hand, full of emotion, and we all 
 breathlessly pressing around him." 
 
 It was the poet's sensibility that urged him to make 
 the most extraordinary sacrifice that ever poet made ; 
 he wished to get rid entirely of that poetical fame to 
 which he owed everything, and which was at once his 
 pleasure, his pride, and his property. His education had 
 been a religious one, in the Port-Royal ; * but when 
 Nicole, one of that illustrious fraternity, with undistin 
 guishing fanaticism, had once asserted that all dramatic 
 writers were public poisoners of souls, Racine, in the 
 pride and strength of his genius, had eloquently repelled 
 the denouncement. But now, having yet only half run 
 his unrivalled course, he turned aside, relinquished its 
 glory, repented of his success, and resolved to write no 
 more tragedies.f He determined to enter into the austere 
 
 * For an account of this very celebrated religious foundation, its for- 
 tunes and misfortunes, see the " Curiosities of Literature," vol. i., p. 
 94— Ed. 
 
 f Racine ultimately conceived an aversion for his dramatic offsp "ng 
 and could never be induced to edit a proper edition of his work' oi 
 even give a few lessons in declamation to a juvenile princess, who u«.
 
 4-28 LITERARY CHARACTER 
 
 order of the Chartreux ; but his confessor, more rational 
 than his penitent, assured him that a character so feeling 
 as his own, and so long accustomed to the world, could 
 not endure that terrible solitude. He advised him to 
 marry a woman of a serious turn, and that little domes- 
 tic occupations would withdraw him from the passion he 
 seemed most to dread, that of writing verses. 
 
 The marriage of Racine was an act of penance — neither 
 love nor interest had any share in the union. His wife 
 was a good sort of woman, but perhaps the most insen- 
 sible of her sex ; and the properest person in the world to 
 mortify the passion of literary glory, and the momentary 
 exultation of literary vanity.* It is scarcely credible, but 
 most certainly true, since her own son relates the fact, 
 that the wife of Racine had neither seen acted, nor ever 
 read, nor desired to read, the tragedies which had ren- 
 dered her husband so celebrated throughout Europe ; she 
 had only learned some of their titles in conversation. 
 She was as insensible to fortune as to fame. One day, 
 when Racine returned from Versailles, with the princely 
 gift from Louis XIV. of a purse of 1000 louis, he hastened 
 to embrace his wife, and to show her the treasure. But 
 she was full of trouble, for one of the children for two 
 days had not studied. "We will talk of this another 
 time," exclaimed the poet ; " at present let us be happy.' 
 
 But she insisted he ought instantly to reprimand this 
 child, and continued her complaints; while Bolieau in 
 astonishment paced to and fro, perhaps thinking of his 
 Satire on Women, and exclaiming, " What insensibility ! 
 Is it possible that a purse of 1000 louis is not worth a 
 thought !" This stoical apathy did not arise in Madame 
 
 lected his Andromaque Tor tho subject, perhaps out of compliment to 
 the poet, whoso first visit became in consequence his last. — Kd. 
 
 * The lady ho chose was one Catherine do Romanet, whoso family 
 was of great respectability but of small fortune. She is not described 
 fK jiossessing any marked personal attractions. — Ed.
 
 THE SENSIBILITY OF RACINE. 429 
 
 Racine from the grandeur, but the littleness, of her mincL 
 Her prayer-books and her children were the sole objects 
 that interested this good woman. Racine's sensibility 
 was not mitigated by his marriage; domestic sorrows 
 weighed heavily on his spirits : when the illness of his 
 children agitated him, he sometimes exclaimed, " Why 
 did I expose myself to all this ? Why was I persuaded 
 not to be a Chartreux ?" His letters to his children are 
 those of a father and a friend ; kind exhortations, or pa- 
 thetic reprimands ; he enters into the most domestic 
 detail, while he does not conceal from them the msdioc- 
 rity of their fortune. "Had you known him in his 
 family," said Louis Racine, " you would be more alive 
 to his poetical character, you would then know why his 
 verses are always so full of sentiment. He was never 
 more pleased than when, permitted to be absent from the 
 court, he could come among us to pass a few days. 
 Even in the presence of strangers he dared to be a father, 
 and used to join us in our sports. I well remember our 
 processions, in which my sistei'S were the clergy, I the 
 rector, and the author of 'Athaliah,' chanting with us, 
 carried the cross." 
 
 At length this infirm sensibility abridged his days. 
 He was naturally of a melancholic temperament, apt to 
 dwell on objects which occasion j^ain, rather than on 
 those which exhilarate. Louis Racine observes that his 
 character resembled Cicero's description of himself, more 
 inclined to dread unfortunate events, than to hope for 
 happy ones ; semper tnagis adversos rerum exitus metuens 
 quam sperans secundos. In the last incident of his life 
 his extreme sensibility led him to imagine as present a 
 misfortune which might never have occurred. 
 
 Madame de Maintenon, one day in conversation with 
 the poet, alluded to the misery of the people. Racine 
 observed it was the usual consequence of long wars : the 
 subject was animating, and he entered into it with all
 
 430 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 that enthusiasm lieculiar to himself. Madame de Main- 
 tenon was charmed with his eloquent efi'usion, and 
 requested him to give her his observations in writing, 
 assuring him they should not go out of her hand. She 
 was reading his memoir when the king entered her 
 apartment ; he took it up, and, after having looked over 
 a few pages, he inquired with great quickness who was 
 tlie author. She replied it was a secret ; but the king 
 was peremptory, and the author was named. The king 
 asked with great dissatisfaction, " Is it because he writes 
 the CQOst perfect verses, that he thinks that he is able to 
 become a statesman ?" 
 
 Madame de Maintenon told the poet all that had 
 passed, and declined to receive his visits for the present. 
 Racine was shortly after attacked with violent fever. In 
 the languor of recovery he addressed Madame de Main- 
 tenon to petition to have his pension freed from some 
 new tax ; and he added an apology for his presumption 
 in suggesting the cause of the miseries of the people, 
 with an humiliation that betrays the alarms that existed 
 in his mind. The letter is too long to transcribe, but it 
 is a singular instance how genius can degrade itself 
 when it has placed all its felicity on the varying smiles 
 of those we call the great. Well might his friend 
 Boileau, who had nothing of his sensibility nor imagina- 
 tion, exclaim, with tis good sense, of the court : — 
 
 Quel s6jour etranger, et pour vous et pour moi I 
 
 Racine afterwards saw Madame de Maintenon walking in 
 the gardens of Versailles; she drew aside into a retired 
 allee to meet him ; she exhorted him to exert his 
 2)atiencc and fortitude, and told him that all would end 
 well. " No, madam," he replied, " never !" " Do you 
 tlicn doul)t," she said, " either my lieart, or my influence ?" 
 lie replied, "I acknowledge your influence, and know 
 your goodness to me ; but I have an aunt who loves me
 
 THE SENSIBILITY OF RACINE. 43I 
 
 in quite a different manner. That pious woman every 
 day implores God to bestow on me disgrace, humiliation, 
 and occasions for penitence, and she has more influence 
 than you." As he said these words, the sound of a 
 carriage was heard ; " The king is coming !" said Madame 
 de Maintenon ; " hide yourself !" 
 
 To this last point of misery and degradation was this 
 great genius reduced. Shortly after he died, and was 
 buried at the feet of his master in the chapel of the stu- 
 dious and religious society of Port-Koyal. 
 
 The sacred dramas of Esther and Athaliah were among 
 the latter productions of Racine. The fate of Athaliah^ 
 his masterpiece, was remarkable. The public imagined 
 that it was a piece written only for children, as it was 
 performed by the young scholars of St. Cyr, and received 
 it so coldly that Kacine was astonished and disgusted.* 
 He earnestly requested Boileau's opinion, who main- 
 tained it was his capital work. " I understand these 
 things," said he, "and the public y remendra.'''' The pre- 
 diction was a true one, but it was accomplished too late, 
 long after the death of the author ; it was never appre- 
 ciated till it was publicly performed. 
 
 BoUeau and Racine derived little or no profit from the 
 booksellers. Boileau particularly, though fond of money, 
 was so delicate on this point that he gave all his works 
 away. It was this that made him so bold in railing at 
 those authors qui mettent leicr Apollon aux gages d*un 
 
 *They were written at the request of Madame de Maintenon, for 
 the pupils of her favourite estabhshraent at St. Cyr; she was anxious 
 that they should be perfect in declamation, and she tried them with 
 the poet's Andromaque, but they recited it with so much passion and 
 feehng that they alarmed their patroness, who told Racine " it was so 
 well done that she would be careful they should never act that drama 
 again," and urged him to write plays on sacred subjects expressly for 
 their use. He had not written a play for upwards of ten years ; he 
 now composed his Esther, making that character a flattering reflection 
 of Maintenon's career. — Ed.
 
 4-32 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 libraire, and he declared that he had only inserted these 
 
 vei'ses, 
 
 Je sai qu'ura noble esprit pent sans honte et sans crime 
 Tirer de son travail im tribut legitime, 
 
 to console Racine, who had received some profits froru 
 the printing of his tragedies. Those profits were, how- 
 ever, inconsiderable ; the truth is, the king remunerated 
 the poets. 
 
 Racine's first royal mark of favour was an order signed 
 by Colbert for six hundred livres, to give him the means 
 of continuing his studies of the helles-lettres. He received, 
 by an account found among his papers, above forty thou- 
 sand livres from the cassette of the king, by the hand of 
 the first valet-de-chambre. Besides these gifts, Racine 
 had a pension of four thousand livres as historiographer, 
 and another pension as a man of letters. 
 
 Which is the more honourable ? to crouch for a salary 
 brought by the hand of the first valet-de-chambre, or to 
 exult in the tribute oflered by the public to an author ? 
 
 OF STERNE. 
 
 Cervantes is immortal — Rabelais and Sterne have 
 passed away to the curious. 
 
 These fraternal geniuses alike chose their subjects 
 from their own times. Cervantes, with the innocent de- 
 sign of correcting a temporary folly of his countrymen, 
 so that the very success of the design might have proved 
 fatal to the work itself; for when he had cut o^ the 
 heads of the Hydra, an extinct monster might cease to 
 interest the readers of other times, and other manners. 
 But Cervantes, with judgment -equal to his invention, 
 and with a cast of genius made for all times, deliglited 
 his contemporaries and charms his posterity. He looked
 
 OF STERNE. 433 
 
 to the world and collected othei* follies than the Spanish 
 ones, and to another age than the administration of the 
 duke of Lerraa; with more genuine pleasantry than any 
 writer from the days of Lucian, not a solitary spot has 
 soiled the purity of his page ; while there is scarcely a 
 subject in human nature for which we might not find 
 some apposite illustration. His style, pure as his thoughts, 
 is, however, a magic which ceases to work in all transla- 
 tions, and Cervantes is not Cervantes in English or in 
 French ; yet still he retains his popularity among all the 
 nations of Europe ; which is more than we can say even 
 of our Shakspeare ! 
 
 Rabelais and Sterne were not perhaps inferior in 
 genius, and they were read with as much avidity and 
 delight as the Spaniai-d. "Le docte Rabelais" had 
 the learning which the Englishman wanted; while un- 
 happily Sterne undertook to satirise false erudition, 
 which requires the knowledge of the true. Though the 
 Paperrmnes^ on whom Rabelais has exhausted his gro- 
 tesque humour and his caustic satire, have not yet walked 
 off the stage, we pay a heavy price in the grossness of 
 his ribaldry and his tiresome balderdash for odd stories 
 and flashes of witty humour. Rabelais hardly finds 
 readers even in France, with the exception of a few liter- 
 ary antiquaries. The day has passed when a gay dis- 
 solute abbe could obtain a rich abbey by getting Rabelais 
 by heart, for the perpetual improvement of his patron — 
 and Rabelais is now little more than a Rabelais by 
 tradition.* 
 
 * The clergy were not so unfavourable to Rabelais as might have 
 been expected. He was through life protected by the Cardinal Jean 
 du Bellay, Bishop of Paris, who employed him in various important 
 negotiations ; and it is recorded of him that he refused a scholar admit- 
 tance to his table because he had not read his worlds. This famili- 
 arity with his grotesque romance was also shared by Cardinal Duprat 
 who is said to have always carried a copy of it with him, as if it was 
 his breviary The anecdote of the priest who obtained promotion from 
 2S
 
 4:34 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 In my youth the world doted on Sterne ! Martin Sher- 
 lock ranks him among " the luminaries of the century," 
 Forty years ago, young men in their most facetious 
 humours never failed to find the archetypes of society in 
 the Shandy family — every good-natured soul was uncle 
 Toby, every humorist was old Shandy, every child of 
 Nature was Corporal Trim ! It may now be doubted 
 whether Sterne's natural dispositions were the humorous 
 or the pathetic : the pathetic has survived ! 
 
 There is nothing of a more ambiguous nature than 
 strong humoiir, and Sterne found it to be so ; and latterly, 
 in despair, he asserted that " the taste for humour is the 
 gift of heaven !" I have frequently observed how 
 humour, like the taste for olives, is even repugnant to 
 some palates, and have witnessed the epicure of humour 
 lose it all by discovering how some have utterly rejected 
 his favourite relish ! Even men of wit may not taste 
 humour ! The celebrated Dr. Cheyne, who was not 
 himself deficient in originality of thinking with great 
 learning and knowledge, once entrusted to a friend 
 a remarkable literary confession. Dr. Cheyne assured 
 him that "he could not read 'Don Quixote' with any 
 pleasure, nor had any taste for ' Hudibras' or ' Gulliver ;' 
 and that what we call icit and humour in these authors 
 he considered as false ornaments, and never to be found 
 in those compositions of the ancients which we most 
 admire and esteem."* Cheyne seems to have held 
 Aristophanes and Lucian monstrously cheap! The 
 ancients, indeed, appear not to liave possessed that comic 
 quality that we understand as humour, nor can I dis- 
 
 a knowledge of liis works is given iu the " Curiosities of Literature,'' 
 vol. ii., p. 10. — Ed. 
 
 * This friend, it now appears, was Dr. King, of Oxford, whose 
 anecdotes liavo recently been published. This curious fact is given in 
 a strange hodge-podge, entitled "The Dreamer;" a remarkable instancs 
 wliero a writer of learning often conceives that to be humour, whicli 
 to others is not ovou inlelligiblo 1
 
 OF STERNE, 435 
 
 cover a -word wliicli exactly corresponds with our term 
 humour in any language, ancient or modern. Cervantes 
 excels in that sly satire which hides itself under the 
 cloak of gravity, but this is not the sort of humour which 
 so beautifully plays about the delicacy of Addison's 
 page; and both are distinct from the broader and 
 stronger humour of Sterne, 
 
 The result of Dr. Cheyne's honest confession was expe- 
 rienced by Sterne, for while more than half of the three 
 kingdoms were convulsed with laughter at his humour, 
 the other part were obdurately dull to it. Take, for 
 instance, two very opposite effects produced by 
 " Tristram Shandy" on a man of strong original humour 
 himself, and a wit who had more delicacy and sarcasm 
 than force and originality. The Rev. Philip Skelton 
 declared that " after reading ' Tristram Shandy,' he could 
 not for two or three days attend seriously to his de- 
 votion, it filled him with so many ludicrous ideas," But 
 Horace Walpole, who found his " Sentimental Journey" 
 very pleasing, declares that of " his tiresome ' Tristram 
 Shandy,' he could never get through three volumes," 
 
 The literary life of Sterne was a short one : it was a 
 blaze of existence, and it turned his head. With his 
 personal life we are only acquamted by tradition. "Was 
 the great sentimentalist himself unfeeling, dissolute, and 
 utterly depraved? Some anecdotes which one of his 
 companions* communicated to me, confirm Garrick's 
 £iccount preserved in Dr. Burney's collections, that " He 
 was more dissolute in his cojidiict than his wiitings, and 
 £;enerally drove every female away by his ribaldry. 
 He degenerated in London like an ill-transplanted 
 siirub ; the incense of the gi-eat spoiled his head, and 
 their ragouts his stomach. He grew sickly and proud — 
 an invalid in body and mmd," Warburton declared 
 
 * Caleb Whitefoord, the wit once famed for his invention of crosB- 
 readings, wMch appeared under the name of " Papirius Cursor."
 
 4:36 "LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 that " he was an irrecoverable scoundrel." Authenticated 
 facts are, however, wanting for a judicious summary of 
 the real character of the founder of sentimental writing. 
 An impenetrable mystery hangs OA^er his family conduct ; 
 he has thrown many sweet domestic touches in his own 
 memoirs and letters addressed to his daughter: but it 
 would seem that he was often parted from his family. 
 After he had earnestly solicited the return of his wife 
 from France, though she did return, he was suffered to 
 die in utter neglect. 
 
 His sermons have been observed to be characterised 
 by an air of levity ; he attempted this unusual manner. It 
 was probably a caprice which induced him to introduce 
 one of his sermons in " Tristram Shandy ;" it was fixing 
 a diamond in black velvet, and the contrast set off the 
 brilliancy. But he seems then to have had no design of 
 publishing his " Sermons." One day, in low spirits, com- 
 plaining to Caleb Whitefoord of the state of his finan- 
 ces, Caleb asked him, " if he had no sermons like the one 
 in ' Tristram Shandy' ?" But Sterne had no notion that 
 "sermons" were saleable, for two preceding ones had 
 passed unnoticed. " If you could hit on a striking title, 
 take my word for it that they would go down." The 
 next day Sterne made his appearance in raptures. "I 
 have it!" he cried: "Dramatic Sermons by Yorick." 
 With great difficulty he was persuaded to drop this 
 allusion to the church and the playhouse !* 
 
 We are told in the short addition to his own memoirs, 
 that "he submitted to fate on the 18th day of March, 
 
 * He published these two vohimes of discourses under the title of 
 " Yorick's Sermons," because, aa he stated in his preface, it would 
 " best serve the booksellers' purpose, as Yorick's name is possibly of 
 the two the more known ;" but, fearing tlie censure of the world, h-e 
 added a second title-page with his own name, " to ease the minds of 
 those who see a jest, and the danger which lurks under it, where no 
 jest is meant." All this did not free Sterne from much severe 
 criticism. — Ed.
 
 OF STERNE. 437 
 
 1768, at his lodgings in Bond-street." But it does not 
 appear to have been noticed that Sterne died with neither 
 friend nor relation by his side ! a hired nurse was the sole 
 companion of the man whose wit found admirers in every 
 street, but whose heart, it would seem, could not draw 
 one to his death-bed. We cannot say whether Sterne, 
 who had long been dying, had resolved to practise his 
 own principle, — when he made the philosopher Shandy, 
 who had a fine saying for everything, deliver his opinion 
 on death — that " there is no terror, brother Toby, in its 
 looks, but what it borrows from groans and convulsions 
 — and the blo-wang of noses, and the wiping away of 
 tears vrith the bottoms of curtains in a dying man's room. 
 Strip it of these, what is it ?" I find the moment of his 
 t eath described in a singular book, the " Life of a Foot- 
 man." I give it with all its particulars. " In the month 
 of January, 1768, we set oif for London. We stopped 
 for some time at Almack's house in Pail-Mall. My master 
 afterwards took Sir James Gray's house in Clifibrd-street, 
 who was going ambassador to Spain. He now began 
 house-keeping, hired a French cook, a house-maid, and 
 kitchen-maid, and kept a great deal of the best company. 
 About this time, Mr. Sterne, the celebrated author, was 
 taken ill at the silk-bag shop in Old Bond-street. He 
 was sometimes called ' Tristram Shandy,' and sometimes 
 ' Yorick ;' a very great favourite of the gentlemen's. One 
 day my master had company to dinner who were speaking 
 ?.bout him : the Duke of Roxburgh, the Earl of March, 
 the Earl of Ossory, the Duke of Grafton, Mr. Garrick, 
 Mr. Hume, and Mr. James. ' John,' said my master, ' go 
 and inquire how Mr. Sterne is to-day.' I went, returned, 
 and said, — I went to Mr. Sterne's lodging ; the mistress 
 opened the door; I inquired how he did. She told me 
 to go up to the nurse ; I went into the room, and he was 
 just a-dying. I waited ten minutes ; but in five he said, 
 ' Now it is come !' He put up his hand as if to stop a
 
 438 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 blow, and died in a minute. The gentlemen were all 
 very sorry, and lamented him very much."* 
 
 Such is the simple narrative of the death of this wit If 
 Some letters and papers of Sterne are now before me 
 which reveal a piece of secret history of our sentimentalist. 
 The letters are addressed to a young lady of the name of 
 De Fourmantel, whose ancestors were the Berangers de 
 Foui-mantel, who during the persecution of the French 
 Protestants by Louis XIV. emigrated to this country: 
 they were entitled to extensive possessions in St. Domin- 
 go, but were excluded by their Protestantism, The 
 elder sister became a Catholic, and obtained the estates ; 
 the younger adopted the name of Beranger, and was a 
 
 * " Travels in various parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa, during a 
 aeries of thirty years and upwards, by John Macdonald, a cadet of the 
 family of Kippoch, in luvernesshire, who after the ruin of his family, 
 in 1765, was thrown, when a child, on the wide world, &c. Printed 
 for the author, 1790." — He served a number of noblemen and gentle- 
 men in the humble station of a footman. There is such an air of truth 
 and sincerity throughout the work that I entertain no doubt of its 
 genuineness. 
 
 \ Sterne was buried in the ground belonging to the parish of St. 
 George's, Hanover Square, situated in the Bayswater Road. His 
 funeral was " attended only by two gentlemen in a mourning coach, no 
 bell tolling;" and his grave has been described as "distinguished by 
 a plain headstone, set up with an unsuitable inscription, by a tippling 
 fraternity of Freemasons." In 1761, long before his death, was 
 published a satire on the tendencies of his writings, mixed with a good 
 deal of personal censure, in a pamphlet entitled "A Funeral Discourse, 
 occasioned by the much lamented death of Mr. Yorick, preaclied before 
 a very mixed society of Jemmies, Jessamies, Methodists, and Christians, 
 at a nocturnal meeting in Petticoat Lane ; by Christopher Flagollan, 
 A. M." Aa one of the minor "Curiositiesof Literature" this tract is worth 
 noting ; its author, in a preface, says that " it has boon maliciomlij. or 
 rather stupidly, reported that the late Mr. Sterne, alias Yorick, is not 
 dead ; but that, on the contrary, he is writing a fifth and sixth, and 
 has carried his plan as far as a fiftieth and sixtieth volume of the book 
 called 'The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy;' but they are 
 rather to be attributed to his ghastly ghost, which is said to walk the 
 purlieus of Coveut Garden and Drury Lane." — Ed.
 
 OF STERNE. 439 
 
 governess to the Countess of Bristol. The paper states 
 that Catherine de Fourmantel formed an attachment to 
 Sterne, and that it was the expectation of their friends 
 that they would be united; but that on a visit Sterne 
 became acquainted with a lady, whom he married in the 
 space of one month, after having paid his addresses to 
 Miss de Fourmantel for live years. Tlie consequence 
 was, the total derangement of intellect of this young 
 lady. She was confined in a private madhouse. Sterne 
 twice saw her there ; and from observation on her state 
 drew the " Maria" whom he has so pathetically described. 
 Tlie elder sister, at the instigation of the father of the 
 communicator of these letters, came to England, and 
 took charge of the unhappy Maria, who died at Paris. 
 " For many years," says the writer of this statement, 
 " my mother had the handkerchief Sterne alludes to." 
 The anxious Tvash of Sterne was to have his letters 
 returned to him. In this he failed; and such as they 
 are, without date, either of time or place, they are now 
 before me. 
 
 The billets-doux are unquestionably authentic, but the 
 statement is inaccurate. I doubt whether the narrative 
 be correct instating that Sterne married after an acquaint- 
 ance of one month ; for he tells us in his Memoirs that 
 he courted his wife for two years ; he, however, married 
 in 1741. The " Sei-mon of Elijah," which he presents to 
 Miss de Fourmantel in one of these letters, was not pub- 
 lished till 1747. Her disordered mind could not therefore 
 have been occasioned by the sudden marriage of Sterne. 
 A sentimental intercourse evidently existed between 
 them. He perhaps sought in her sympathy, consolation 
 for his domestic infelicity ; he communicates to her the 
 minutest events of his early fame ; and these letters, 
 which certainly seem very like love-letters, present a pic- 
 ture of his life in town in the full flower of his fame eager 
 with hope and flushed with success.
 
 440 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 " My dear Kitty, — I beg you will accept of tlie in- 
 closed sermon, which I do not make you a present of 
 merely because it was wrote by myself, but because there 
 is a beautiful character in it of a tender and compassionate 
 mind in the picture given of Elijah. Read it, my dear 
 Kitty, and believe me when I assure you that I see some- 
 thing of the same kind and gentle disposition in your 
 heart which I have painted in the prophet's, which has 
 attached me so much to you and your interest, that I 
 shall live and die 
 
 " Your affectionate and faithful servant, 
 
 "Laurence Sterne. 
 
 " P. S. — If possible, I will see you this afternoon be- 
 fore I go to Mr. Fothergil's. Adieu, dear friend, — I had 
 the pleasure to drink your health last night." 
 
 letter n. 
 
 " My dear Kitty, — If this billet catches you in bed, 
 you are a lazy, sleepy little slut, and I am a giddy, fool- 
 ish, unthinking fellow, for keeping you so late up — but 
 this Sabbath is a day of rest, at the same time that it is 
 a day of sorrow ; for I shall not see my dear creature to- 
 day, unless you meet me at Taylor's half an hour after 
 twelve; but in this do as you like. I have ordered Mat- 
 thew to turn thief, and steal you a quart of honey ; what 
 is honey to the sweetness of thee, who art sweeter than 
 all the flowers it comes from ! I love you to distraction, 
 Kitty, and will love you on so to eternity — so adieu, and 
 believe, what time will only prove me, that I am, 
 
 " Yours." 
 
 letter III. 
 
 "My dear KiTi'Y, — I have sent you a pot of sweet- 
 meats and a pot of honey — neither of them half so sweet
 
 OF STERNE. 4J,1 
 
 as yourself — but don't be vain upon this, or presume to 
 grow sour upon this character of sweetness I give you; 
 for if you do I shall send you a pot of pickles (by the 
 way of contraries) to sweeten you up, and bring you to 
 yourself again — whatever changes happen to you, believe 
 me that I am unalterably yours, and according to your 
 - ctto, such a one, my dear Kitty, 
 
 " Qui ne changera pas qu'en mourant. 
 
 " L. S." 
 
 He came up to town in 1760, to publish the two first 
 volumes of " Shandy," of which the first edition had 
 appeared at York the preceding year. 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 " London, May 8. 
 
 " My dear Kitty, — I have arrived here safe and sound 
 — except for the hole in my heart which you have made, 
 like a dear enchanting slut as you are, — I shall take 
 lodgings this morning in Piccadilly or the Haymarket, 
 and before I send this letter will let you know where to 
 direct a letter to me, wliich letter I shall wait for by the 
 return of the post with great impatience. 
 
 " I have the greatest honours paid me, and most civil- 
 iti . : shown me that were ever known from the great ; 
 and am engaged already to ten noblemen and men of 
 fashion to dine, Mr. Garrick pays me all and more hon- 
 our than I could look for : I dined with him to-day, and 
 he has prompted numbers of great people to carry me to 
 dine with them — he has given me an order for the liberty 
 of his boxes, and of every part of his house, for the whole 
 season ; and indeed leaves nothing undone that can do 
 me either service or credit. He has undertaken the 
 whole management of the booksellers, and will procure 
 me a great price — but more of this in my next, 
 
 " And now, my dear girl, let me assure you of the 
 truest friendship for you that ever man bore towards a
 
 442 LITERARY CHARACTER 
 
 woman — wherever I am, my heart is warm towards yo'j, 
 and ever shall be, till it is cold forever. I thank you for 
 the kind proof you gave me of your desire to make my 
 heart easy in ordering yourself to be denied to you know 
 who — while I am so miserable to be separated frotx my 
 dear, dear Kitty, it would have stabbed my soul to have 
 thought such a fellow could have the liberty of coming 
 near you. — I therefore take this proof of your love and 
 good principles most kindly — and have as much faith 
 and dependence upon you in it, as if I was at your elbow 
 — would to God I was at this moment — for I am sitting 
 solitary and alone in my bedchamber (ten o'clock at 
 night after the play), and would give a guinea for a 
 squeeze of your hand. I send my soul perpetually oiit to 
 see what you are a-doing — wish I could convey my body 
 with it — adieu, dear and kind girl. Ever your kind friend 
 and affectionate admirer. 
 
 " I go to the oratorio this night. My service to your 
 mamma." 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 " My dear Kitty, — Though I have but a moment's 
 time to spare, I would not omit writing you an account 
 of my good fortune ; my Lord Fauconberg has this day 
 given me a hundred and sixty pounds a year, which I 
 hold with all my preferment; so that all or the most 
 part of my sorrows and tears are going to be wiped 
 away. — I have but one obstacle to my happiness now 
 left — and what that is you know as well as I.* 
 
 " I long most impatiently to sec my dear Kitty. I 
 had a purse of guineas given me yest^erday by a bishop — 
 all will do well in time. 
 
 " From morning to night my lodgings, which by the 
 
 * Can this allude to the death of his wife ?-that very year ho tells 
 his daughter ho had taken a house at York, "for your mother aDtl 
 yourself."
 
 HUME, ROBERTSON, AND BIRCH. 44.3 
 
 bye are the genteelest in town,* are full of the greatest 
 company. — I dined these two days with two ladies of 
 the bedcliamber — then with Lord Rockingham, Lord 
 Edgcu7nb, Lord Winchelsea, Lord Littleton, a bishop, 
 ♦fee, &c. 
 
 " I assm-e you, my dear Kitty, that Tristram is the 
 fashion. — Pi ay to God I may see my dearest girl soon 
 and well. — Adieu. 
 
 " Your affectionate fi'iend, 
 "L. Stekne." 
 
 HUME, ROBERTSON, AND BIRCH. 
 
 The rarest of literary characters is such an historian 
 as Gibbon ; but we know the price which he paid for his 
 acquisitions — unbroken and undeviating studies. Wilkes, 
 a mere wit, could only discover the drudgery of com- 
 pilation in the profound philosopher and painter of men 
 and of nations. A speculative turn of mind, delighting 
 in generalising principles and aggregate views, is usually 
 deficient in that closer knowledge, without which every 
 step we take is on the fairy-ground of conjecture and 
 theory, very apt to shift its unsubstantial scenes. The 
 researchers are like the mhabitants of a city who live 
 among its ancient edifices, and are in the market-places 
 and the streets : but the theorists, occupied by perspec- 
 tive views, with a more artist-like pencil may impose on 
 us a general resemblance of things ; 'but often shall we 
 find in those shadowy outlines how the real objects are 
 nearly, if not wholly lost — for much is given which is 
 fanciful, and much omitted which is time. 
 
 Of our two popular histoi'ians, Hume and Robertson, 
 alike in character but different in genius, it is much to be 
 iamentetl that neither came to their tasks with the 
 
 * They were tbe second house from St. Alban's Street, Pall MalL
 
 4:44 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 previous studies of half a life; and their spe3ulative or 
 theoretical histories are of so much the less value when- 
 ever they are deficient in that closer resear-^h which can 
 be obtained only in one way ; not the most agreeable to 
 those literary adventurers, for such they are, however 
 high they rank in the class of genius, who grasp at early 
 celebrity, and dejjend more on themselves than on their 
 researches. 
 
 In some curious letters to the literary antiquary Dr. 
 Birch, Robertson acknowledges " my chief object is to 
 adorn^ as far as I am capable of adorning, the history of 
 a period which deserves to be better known." He prob- 
 ably took his lesson from Voltaire, the reigning author 
 of that day, and a great favourite with Robertson. Vol- 
 taire indeed tell us, that no writers, but those who have 
 composed tragedies, can throw any interest into a his- 
 tory; that we must know to paint and excite the 
 passions ; and that a history, like a dramatic piece, must 
 have situation, intrigue, and catastrophe ; an observation 
 svhich, however true, at least shows that there can be but 
 a moderate quantity of truth in such agreeable narratives. 
 Robertson's notion of adorning history was the pleasing 
 labour of genius — it was to amplify into vastness, to 
 ^olour into beauty, and to arrange the objects of his med- 
 itation with a secret artifice of disposition. Such an 
 historian is a sculptor, who, though he display a correct 
 semblance of nature, is not less solicitous to display 
 the rniracles of his art, and enlarges his figures to a co- 
 lossal dimension. Such is theoretical history. 
 
 The theoretical historian communicatees his own char- 
 acter to his history ; and if, like Robertson, he be pro- 
 found and politic, he detects the secret motives of his 
 actors, unravels the webs of cabinet councils, explains 
 projects that were unknown, and details stratagems 
 which never took place. When we admire the fertile 
 conceptions of the Queen Regent, of Elizab* th, and oC
 
 HUME, EOBERTSON, AND BIRCH. 445 
 
 Bothwell, we are often defrauding Robertson of whatever 
 admiration may be due to such deep policy. 
 
 When Hume received from Dr. Birch Forbes's Manu- 
 bcripts and Murdin's State-papers, in great haste he writes 
 to his brc thei historian : — " What I wrote you with regard 
 to Mary, &c , was from the printed histories and papers. 
 But I am now sorry to tell you that by Murdin's State- 
 papers, the matter is put beyond all question. I got 
 these papers during the holidays by Dr. Bii-ch's means ; 
 and as soon as I read them I ran to Millar^ and desired 
 him very earnestly to stop the publication of yoiu- his- 
 tory till I should write to you, and give you an oppor- 
 tunity of con-ecting a mistake so important ; but he 
 absolutely refused compliance. He said that your book 
 was now finished; that the whole narrative of Mary's 
 trial must be wrote over again ; that it was uncertain 
 whether the new narrative could be broi;ght within the 
 same compass with the old : that this change would re- 
 quire the cancelling a great many sheets ; that there were 
 scattered j^assa^/es through the voluines founded on your 
 theory P What an interview was this of Andrew Millar 
 and David Hume ! truly the bibliopole shone to greater 
 advantage than the tioo theoretical historians ! And so 
 the world had, and eagerly received, what this critical 
 bookseller declared " required the new printing (that is, 
 the new writing) of a great part of the edition !" 
 
 When this successful history of Scotland invited Rob- 
 ei-tson to pursue this newly-discovered province of philo- 
 sophical or theoretical history, he was long irresolute in 
 his designs, and so unpractised in those researches he 
 was desu'ous of attempting, that his admirers would have 
 lost his popular productions, had not a fortunate intro- 
 duction to Dr. Birch, whose life had been spent in histori- 
 cal pursuits, enabled the Scottish historian to open many 
 a clasped book, and to drink of many a sealed fountain. 
 Robertson was long undecided whether to write the his-
 
 446 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 tory of Greece, of Leo X., that of William III. and Queen 
 Anne, or that of Charles V., and perhaps many other 
 subjects. 
 
 We have a curious letter of Lord Orford's, detailing 
 the purport of a visit Robertson paid to him to inquire 
 after materials for the reigns of William and Anne ; he 
 seemed to have little other knowledge than what he had 
 taken upon trust. " I painted to him," says Lord Or- 
 ford, " the difficulties and the want of materials — but the 
 booksellers will out-argue me," Both the historian and 
 " the booksellers" had resolved on another history : and 
 Robertson looked upon it as a task which he wished to 
 have set to him, and not a glorious toil long matured in 
 his mind. But how did he come prepared to the very 
 dissimilar subjects he proposed? Wlien he resolved to 
 write the history of Charles V., he confesses to J3r. Birch : 
 " I never had access to any copious libraries, and do not 
 pretend to any extensive Tcnoioledge of authors / but I 
 have made a list of siich as I thought most essential to the 
 subject, and have put them down as I found them men- 
 tioned in any booh I happened to read. Your erudition 
 and knowledge of books is infinitely superior to mine, 
 and I doubt not but you will be able to mak-e such addi- 
 tions to my catalogue as may be of great use to me. I 
 know very well, and to my sorrow, how servilely histo- 
 rians copy from one another, and how little is to be learned 
 from reading many books ; but at the same time, when 
 one writes upon any particular period, it is both necessary 
 and decent for hira to consult every book relating to it 
 upon which he can lay his hands." This avowal jji'oves 
 that Robertson knew little of the history of Charles V. 
 till he began the task ; and he further confesses that " he 
 had no knowledge of the Spanish or German," which, for 
 the history of a Spanish monarch and a German emperor, 
 was somewhat ominous of the nature of the projected 
 history. 
 
 t
 
 HUME, ROBERTSON, J^D BIRCH. 447 
 
 Yet Robertson, though he once thus acknowledged, as 
 we se i^ that he " never had access to any copious libra- 
 ries, and did not pretend to any extensive knoicledge of 
 authors,''^ seems to have acquired from his friend, Dr. 
 Birch, who was a genuine researcher in manuscripts as 
 well as printed books, a taste even for bibliographical 
 ostentation, as appears by that pompous and voluminous 
 list of authors prefixed to his " History of America ;" the 
 most objectionable of his histories, being a perpetual 
 apology for the Spanish Government, adapted to the 
 meridian of the court of Madrid, rather than to the 
 cause of humanity, of truth, and of philosophy. I under- 
 stand; from good authority, that it would not be difficult 
 to prove that our historian had barely examined them, 
 and probably had never turned over half of that decep- 
 tive catalogue. Birch thought so, and was probably a 
 little disturbed at the overwhelming success of our elo- 
 qiient and penetrating historian, while his own historical 
 labours, the most authentic materials of history, but not 
 fiistory itself, hardly repaid the printer. Birch's publica- 
 tions are either originals, that is, letters or state-papers ; 
 or they are nari-atives drawn from originals, for he never 
 wrote but from manuscripts. They are the true materia 
 historica. 
 
 Birch, however, must have enjoyed many a secret tri- 
 Tinph over our popular historians, who had introduced 
 *heir beautiful philosophical history into our literature ; 
 Ihe dilemma in which they sometimes found themselves 
 must have amused him. He has thrown out an oblique 
 stroke at Robertson's " pomp of style, and fine eloquence," 
 " which too often tend to disguise the real state of the 
 facts."* When he received from Robertson the j^resent 
 of his " Charles Y.," after the just tribute of his praise, 
 he adds some regret that the historian had not been so 
 fortunate as to have seen Burghley's State-papers, " pub- 
 ♦ Sec- "Curiosities of Literature," vol. iii., p. 387.
 
 448 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 lished since Christmas," and a manuscript trial of Mary, 
 Queen of Scots, in Lord Royston's possession. A.las ! 
 such is the fate of speculative history / a Christmas may 
 come, and overturn the elaborate castle in the air. Can 
 we forbear a smile when we hear Robertson, who had 
 projected a history of British America, of which we pos- 
 sess two chapters, when the rebellion and revolution 
 broke out, congratulate himself that he had not made 
 any further progress ? " It is lucky that my American 
 History was not finished before this event ; how many 
 plausible theories that I should have been entitled to 
 form are contradicted by what has now happened !" A 
 fair confession ! 
 
 Let it not be for one moment imagined that this 
 article is designed to depreciate the genius of Hume and 
 Robertson, who are the noblest of our modern authors, 
 and exhibit a perfect idea of the literary character. 
 
 Forty-four years ago, I transcribed from their originals 
 the correspondence of the historian with the literary anti- 
 quary. For the satisfaction of the reader, I here preserve 
 these literary relics. 
 
 Letters hetween Dr. Birch and Dr. W. Bohertson^ relative 
 to the Histories of Scotland and of Charles VI 
 
 "t« db. birch. 
 
 "Gladsmuir, 19 Sept. 1151. 
 
 "Reverend Sir, — ^Though I have not the good for- 
 tune to be known to you personally, I am so happy as to 
 be no stranger to your writings, to which I have been in- 
 debted for much useful instruction. And as I have heard 
 from my friends. Sir David Dalrymple and Mr. Davidson, 
 that your disposition to oblige was equal to your knowl- 
 edge, I now presume to write to you and to ask your as- 
 BiBtancc without any apology. 
 
 " I have been engaged for some time in writing the
 
 HUME, ROBERTSON, AND BiKCJii 449 
 
 history of Scotland from the death of James V. to the 
 accession of James YI. to the throne of England. My 
 chief object is to adorn (as far as I am capable of adorn- 
 ing) the history of a period which, on account of the 
 greatness of the events, and their close connection with 
 the transactions in England, deserves to be better known. 
 But as elegance of composition, even where a writer can 
 attain that, is but a trivial merit without historical truth 
 and accuracy, and as the prejudices and rage of factions, 
 both religious and political, have rendered almost every 
 fact, in the period which I have chosen, a matter of 
 doubt or of controversy, I have therefore taken all the 
 pains in my power to examine the evidence on both 
 sides with exactness. You know how copious the mate- 
 ria Idstorica in this period is. Besides all the common 
 historians and printed collections of papers, I have con- 
 sulted several manuscripts which are to be found in this 
 country. I am persuaded that there are still many manu- 
 scripts worth my seeing to be met with in England, and 
 for that reason I propose to pass some time in London 
 this winter. I am impatient, however, to know what 
 discoveries of this kind I may expect, and what are the 
 treasures before me, and with regard to this I beg leave 
 to consult you. 
 
 " I was afraid for some time that Dr. Forbes's Collec- 
 tions had been lost ujjon his death, but I am glad to find 
 by your ' Memoirs ' that they are in the possession of Mr. 
 Yorkr. I see likewise that the ' DepSches de Beaumont ' 
 av(i in the hands of the same gentleman. But I have no 
 opportunity of consulting your 'Memoirs' at present, 
 and I cannot remember whether the 'Depeches de Fene- 
 lon ' be still preserved or not. I see that Carte has made 
 a great use of them in a very busy period from 1563 to 
 1576. I know the strength of Carte's prejudices so well, 
 that I dare say many things may be found there that he 
 could not see, or would not publish. May I beg the 
 
 29
 
 450 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 favour of you to let me know whether Fenelon's papers 
 be yet extant and accessible, and to give me some gen- 
 eral idea of what Dr. Forbes's Collections contain with 
 regard to Scotland, and whether the papers they consist 
 of are diiferent from those published by Haynes, Ander- 
 son, &c. I am far from desiring that you should enter 
 into any detail that would be troublesome to you, but 
 some short hint of the nature of these Collections would 
 be extremely satisfying to my curiosity, and I shall es- 
 teem it a great obligation laid upon me. 
 
 *' I have brought my woi-k almost to a conclusion. If 
 
 you would be so good as to suggest anything that you 
 
 thought useful for me to know or to examine into, I shall 
 
 receive your directions with great respect and gratitude. 
 
 " I am, with sincere esteem, 
 
 " Rev-^ Sir, Y' m. ob. & m. h. S^ 
 
 " Wm. Robertson." 
 
 to dr. birch. 
 
 " Edinburgh, 1 Jan. 1759. 
 
 " Dear Sir, — If I liad not considered a letter of mere 
 compliment as an impertinent interruption to one who is 
 so busy as you commonly are, I would long before this 
 have made my acknowledgments to you for the civilities 
 which you was so good as to show me while I was in 
 London. I had not only a proof of your obliging dis- 
 position, but I reaped the good effects of it. 
 
 " The papers to which I got access by your mean?, 
 especially those from Lord Royston, have rendered my 
 work more perfect than it could have otherwise beoD. 
 My history is now ready for publication, and I have de- 
 sired Mr, Millar to send you a large paper copy of it in 
 my iiame, which I beg you may accept as a testimony of 
 my regard and of my gratitude. Tie will likewise trans- 
 
 1
 
 HUME, ROBERTSON, AND BIRCR 451 
 
 niit to you another copy, whicli I must entreat you to 
 present to my Lord Royston, with such acknowledg- 
 ments of his favours toward me as are proper for me to 
 xnake. I have printed a short appendix of original 
 papers. You will observe that there are several inaccu- 
 racies in the press work. Mr. Millar grew impatient to 
 have the book published, so that it was impossible to 
 send down the proofs to me. I hope, however, the 
 papers will be abundantly intelligible. I published 
 them orly to confirm my own system, about particular 
 facts, not to obtain the character of an antiquarian. If, 
 upon perusing the book, you discover any inaccuracies, 
 either with regard to style or facts, whether of great or 
 of small importance, I will esteem it a very great favour 
 if you'll be so good as to communicate them to me. I 
 shall likewise be indebted to you, if you'll let me know 
 what reception the book meets with among the literati 
 of your acquaintance, I hope you will be particularly 
 pleased with the critical dissertation at the end, which is 
 the production of a co-partnership between me and your 
 friend Mr. Davidson, Both Sir D. Dalrymple and he 
 offer comjiliments to you. If Dean Tucker be in town 
 this winter, I beg you will offer my compliments to him. 
 " I am, w. great regard, D^ Sir, 
 
 " Y' m. obed'. & mst. o. ser'., 
 
 " "William Robertson. 
 " ]VI,y address is, one of the ministers of Ed." 
 
 TO DR. BIRCH. 
 
 "Edinburgh, 13 Bee. 1759. 
 " Dear Sir, — I beg leave once more to have recourse 
 to your good nature and to your love of literature, and 
 to presume upon patting you to a piece of trouble. 
 After considering several subjects for another history, I 
 have at last fixed upon the reign of Charles V., which
 
 452 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 contains the first establishment of the present political 
 system of Europe. I have begun to labour seriously 
 upon my task. One of the first things requisite was to 
 form a catalogue of books which must be consulted. A« 
 I never had access to very copious libraries, I do not 
 pretend to any extensive knowledge of ^.uthors, but I 
 have made a list of such as I tho ght most essential to 
 the subject, and have put them down jast in the order 
 which they occurred to me, or as I found them mentioned 
 in any book I happened to read. I beg you would be 
 so good as to look it over, and as your erudition and 
 knowledge of books is infinitely superior to mine, I 
 doubt not but you'll be able to make such additions to 
 my catalogue as may be of great use to me. I know 
 very well, and to my sorrow, how servilely historians 
 copy from one another, and how little is to be learned 
 from reading many books, but at the sxirae time when 
 one writes upon any particular period, it is both necessary 
 and decent for him to consiilt every boock relating to it, 
 upon which he can lay his hands. I am sufiiciently 
 master of French and Italian ; but have no knowledge 
 of the Spanish or German tongues. I flatter myself 
 that I shall not sufler much by this, as the two former 
 languages, together with the Latin, will supply me with 
 books in abundance. Mr. Walpole informed me some 
 time ago, that in the catalogue of Harleian MSS. in the 
 British Museum, there is a volume of papers relating to 
 Charles V., it is No. 295. I do not expect much from it, 
 but it would be extremely obliging if you would take the 
 trouble of looking into it and of informing me in gen- 
 eral what it contains. In the catalogue I have inclosed, 
 this mark X is prefixed to all the books which I can get 
 in tJiis country ; if you ymirself, or any friend \Vith whom 
 you oan use freedom, have any of the other books in my 
 list, and will be so good as to send them to Mr. Millar, 
 ho will forward them to me, and I shall receive them
 
 HUME, ROBERTSON, AND BIRCH. 453 
 
 with great gratitude and return them with much punctu- 
 ality. I beg leave to offer compliments to all our com- 
 mon friends, and particularly to Dean Tucker, if he be 
 in town this season, I ^dsh it were in my power to 
 confer any return for all the trouble you have taken in 
 my behalf " 
 
 FKOM DR. BIRCH TO THE REV. DR. ROBERTSON AT 
 EDINBURGH. 
 
 ^^ London, 3 Jany. 1760. 
 
 "Dear Sir, — Your letter of the 13 Dec', was particu- 
 larly agreeable to me, as it acquainted me with your 
 resolution to resume your historic pen, and to undertake 
 a subject which, from its importance and extent, and 
 your manner of treating it, will be highly acceptable to 
 the public. 
 
 " I have perused your list of books to be consulted on 
 this occasion ; and after transcribing it have delivered it 
 to Mr, Millar ; and shall now make some additions to it. 
 
 " The new ' Histoire d'Allemagne ' by Father Barre, 
 chancellor of the Univei'sity of Paris, published a few 
 years ago in several volumes in q"., is a work of very 
 good ci-edit, and to be perused by you ; as is likeTvise 
 the second edition of 'Abrege chronologique de I'His- 
 toire & du Droit public d'Allemagne,' just printed at 
 Paris, and formed upon the plan of President Henault's 
 ' "NTouvel Abreg6 chronologique de I'Histoire de France,' 
 in Avhich the reigns of Francis I. and Henry II. will be 
 proper to be seen by you. 
 
 " The ' Memoires pour servir a I'Histoire du Cardinal 
 Granvelle,' by Father Rosper Levesque, a Benedictin 
 monk, which were printed at Paris in two vol'. 12°. in 
 1753, contain some particulars relating to Charles Y. 
 But this performance is much less curious than it might 
 have been, considering that the author had the advantage
 
 454 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 of a vast collection, above an hundred volumes of the 
 Cardinal's original papers, at Besan9on. Among these 
 are the papers of his eminence's father, who was chan 
 cellor and minister to the Emperor Charles V. 
 
 " Bishop Burnet, in the ' Summary of Affairs before 
 the Restoration,' prefixed to his ' History of his Own 
 Time,' mentions a life of Frederick Elector Palatine, who 
 first reformed the Palatinate, as curiously written by 
 Hubert Thomas Leodius. This book, though a very rare 
 one, is in my study and shall be sent to you. You will 
 find in it many facts relating to your Emperor. The 
 manuscript was luckily saved when the libi-ary of Hey- 
 delberg was plundered and conveyed to the Vatican 
 after the taking of that city in 1622, and it was printed 
 in 1624, at Francfort, in 4*°. The writer had been secre- 
 tary and councillor to the elector. 
 
 " Another book which I shall transmit to you is a 
 valuable collection of state papers, made by Mons'. 
 Rivier, and printed at Blois, in 1665, in two vols. f". 
 They relate to the reigns of Francis I., Henry II., and 
 Francis IL of France. The indexes Avill direct you to 
 Buch passages as concern the Empei'or. 
 
 " As Mons'. Amelot de la Houssaie, who was extremely 
 conversant in modern history, has, in the 1^'. tome of his 
 ' Memoii-es Historiques Politiques et Litteraires,' from p. 
 156 to 193, treated of Charles V., I shall add that bcoK 
 to my parcel. 
 
 " Vai-illas's ' Life of Henry II. of France ' should be 
 looked into, though that historian has not at present 
 much reputation for exactness and veracity. 
 
 "Dr. Fiddes, in his 'Life of Cardinal Wolsey,' has 
 frequent occasion to introduce the Emperor, his ccntein- 
 porary, of which Bayle in his Dictionary gives us an 
 express article and not a short one, for it consists of eight 
 of his pages. 
 
 "Roger Ascham, Queen Elizabeth's preceptor, whtm
 
 HUME, ROBERTSON, AND BIRCH. 455 
 
 he was secretary to S'. Richard Morysin amb. from K. 
 Edwai'd YI. to the imperial court, wrote to a fiiend of 
 his ' a report and discourse of the affairs and state of 
 Germany and the Emperor Charles's court. This was 
 printed in the reign of Queen Elizabeth ; but the copies 
 of that editicn are now very rare. However this will 
 be soon made public, being reprinted in an edition of all 
 the author's English works now in the press. 
 
 " The ' Epitres des Princes,' translated from the Italian 
 by Belleforest, will probably supply you vnth some few 
 things to your pui'pose. 
 
 " Vol. 295 among the Harleiau MSS. contains little re- 
 markable except some letters from Henry VHI's amb'. in 
 Spain, in 1518, of which you may see an abstract in the 
 printed catalogue. 
 
 " In Dr. Hayne^s ' Collection of State Papers in the 
 Hatfield History,' p. 56, is a long letter of the lord of the 
 council of Henry VIII., in 154(3, to his amb'. with the 
 Emperor." 
 
 TO DR. BIRCH. 
 
 Extract from a letter of Dr. Robertson, dated College 
 of Edinburgh, Oct. 8, 1765. 
 
 " * * * I have met with many interruptions in carry- 
 ing on my ' Charles V.,' partly fi'om bad health, and 
 partly from the avocations arising from performing the 
 duties of my office. But I am now mthin sight of land. 
 The historical part of the work is finished, and I am 
 busy with a preliminary book, in which I propose to give 
 a view of the progress in the state of society, laws, man- 
 ners, and arts, from the irruption of the barbarous 
 nations to the beginnuig of the sixteenth century. This 
 is a laborious undertaking ; but I fla^tter myself that I 
 shall be able to finish it in a few months. I have kept 
 the books you was so good as to send me, and shall 
 return them carefully as soon as my work is done."
 
 456 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 OF VOLmilNOUS WORKS INCOMPLETE BY 
 THE DEATHS OF THE AUTHORS. 
 
 In those " Dances of Death " where every profession is 
 shown as taken by surprise in the midst of their unfin- 
 ished tasks, where the cook is viewed in flight, overset- 
 ting his caldron of soup, and the physician, while 
 inspecting his patient's urinal, is himself touched by the 
 grim visitor, one more instance of poor mortality may 
 be added in the writers of works deigned to be pursued 
 through a long series of volumes. Tiie French have an 
 appropriate designation for such works, which they call 
 " oiivrages de longue haleine^'' and it has often happened 
 that the haleine has closed before the work. 
 
 Works of literary history have been, particularly sub- 
 ject to this mortifying check on intellectual enterprise, 
 and human life has not yielded a sufficient portion for 
 the communication of extensive acquirement ! After 
 years of reading and writing, the literary historian, who 
 in his innumerable researches is critical as well as erudite, 
 has still to arbiti'ate between conflicting opinions; to 
 resolve on the doubtful, to clear up the obscure, and to 
 grasp at remote researches : — but he dies, and leaves his 
 favourite volumes little more than a pi-oject ! 
 
 Feelingly the antiquary Hearne laments this general 
 forgetfulness of the nature of all human concerns in the 
 mind of the antiquary, who is so busied with other times 
 and so interested for other persons than those about him. 
 " It is the business of a good antiquary, as of a good 
 man, to have mortality always before him." 
 
 A few illustrious scholars have indeed escaped the fate 
 reserved for most of their brothers. A long life, and the 
 art of multiplying that life not only by an curly attach- 
 ment to study, but by that order and arraugenicnt which 
 shortens our researches, have sufficed for a iMuratori. 
 With such a student time was a great capital which he
 
 OP INCOMPLETE YOLITMINOUS WORKS. 457 
 
 knew to put out at compound interest ; and tliis Varro 
 of the Italians, who performed an infinite number of 
 things in the circtimscribed period of ordinary life, ap- 
 |>ears not to have felt any dread of leaving his volumin- 
 ous laboixrs unfinished, but rather of wanting one to 
 begin. This literary Alexander thought he might want 
 a world to conquer ! Muratoxi was never perfectly happy 
 unless employed in two large works at the same time, 
 and so much dreaded the state of literary inaction, that 
 he was incessantly importuning his friends to suggest to 
 him objects worthy of his future composition. The flame 
 kindled in his youth burned clear in his old age ; and it 
 was in his senility that he produced the twelve quartos 
 of his Annali d' Italia as an addition to his twenty-nine 
 folios of his Merum Italicarwn Scriptores, and the six 
 folios of tlie Atitiqtdtates Medii ^vi ! Yet these vast 
 edifices of history are not all which this illustrious Italian 
 has raised for his fatherland. Gibbon in his Miscellane- 
 ous Works has drawn an admirable character of Mura- 
 torl 
 
 But such a fortunate result has rarely accompanied 
 the labours of the literary worthies of this order. Tira- 
 boschi indeed lived to complete his great national his- 
 tory of Italian literature ; but, unhappily for us, Warton, 
 after feeling his way through the darker ages of our 
 poetry, and just conducting us to a brighter region, in 
 planning the map of the country of which he had only a 
 Pisgah view, expires amid his volumes ! Our poetical 
 antiquary led us to the opening gates of the paradise of 
 our poetry, when, alas ! they closed on him and on us ! 
 The most precious portion of Warton's history is but the 
 fragment of a fragment. 
 
 Life passes away in collecting materials — the marble 
 lies in blocks — and sometimes a colonnade is erected, or 
 even one whole side of a palace indicates the design of 
 the architect. Count Mazzuchelli, early in life, formed a
 
 458 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 noble but too mighty a project, in wliicli, however, he 
 considerably advanced. This was an historical and criti- 
 cal account of the memoirs and the writings of Italian 
 authors ; he even commenced the publication in alpha- 
 betical order, but the six invaluable folios we possess 
 only contain the authors the initial letters of whose 
 names are A and B ! This great literary historian had 
 finished for the press other volumes, which the torpor of 
 his descendants has suffered to lie in a dormant state. 
 Rich in acquisition, and judicious in his decisions, the 
 days of the patriotic Mazzuchelli were freely given to 
 the most curious and elegant researches in his national 
 literature ; his correspondence is said to consist of forty 
 volumes ; with eight of literary memoirs, besides the 
 lives of his literary contemporaries; — but Europe has 
 been defrauded of the hidden treasures. 
 
 The history of Baillet's " Jugemens des Scavans sur 
 les Principaux Ouvrages des Auteurs," or Decisions of 
 the Learned on the Learned, is a remarkable instance 
 how little the calculations of writers of research serve 
 to ascertain the period of their projected labour. Baillet 
 passed his life in the midst of the great library of the 
 literary family of the Lamoignons, and as an act of grati- 
 tude arranged a classified catalogue in thirty-two folio 
 volumes ; it indicated not only what any autlior had pro- 
 fessedly composed on any subject, but also marked those 
 passages relative to the subject which other writers had 
 touched on. By means of tliis catalogue, the philosophi- 
 cal patron of Baillet at a single glance discovered the 
 great results of human knowledge on any object of his 
 inquiries. This catalogue, of equal novelty and curiosity, 
 the learned came to study, and often transcribed its pre- 
 cious notices. Amid this world of books, the skill and 
 labour of Baillet prompted him to collect the critical 
 opinions of the learned, and from the experience he had 
 acquired in the progress of his colossal catalogue, as a
 
 OF INCOMPLETE VOLUMINOUS WORKS. 459 
 
 preliminary, sketched one of the most magnificent plans 
 of literary history. This instructive project has been 
 preserved by Monnoye in his edition. It consists of six 
 large divisions, with innumerable subdivisions. It is a 
 map of the human mind, and presents a view of the 
 magnitude and variety of literature, which few can con- 
 ceive. The project was too vast for an individual ; it 
 now occupies seven quartos, yet it advanced no farther 
 than the critics, translators, and poets, forming little 
 more than the first, and a commencement of the second 
 great division ; to more important classes the laborious 
 projector never reached ! 
 
 Another literary history is the " Bibliotheque Fran- 
 Qoise" of Goujet, left unfinished by his death. He had 
 designed a classified history of French literature ; but of 
 its numerous classes he has only concluded that of the 
 translators, and not finished the second he had com- 
 menced, of the poets. He lost himself in the obscure 
 times of French Literature, and consumed sixteen years 
 on his eighteen volumes ! 
 
 A great enterprise of the Benedictines, the* "Histoire 
 Litteraire de la France," now consists of twelve large 
 quartos, which even its successive writers have only been 
 able to carry down to the close of the twelfth century !* 
 
 David Clement, a bookseller, and a book-lover, designed 
 the most extensive bibliography which had ever appeared ; 
 this history of" books is not a barren nomenclature, the 
 particulars and dissertations are sometimes curious : but 
 the diligent life of the author only allowed him to pro- 
 ceed as far as the letter H ! The alphabetical order 
 which some writers have adopted has often proved a sad 
 memento of human life ! The last edition of our own 
 "Biographia Britannica," feeble, impei-fect, and inade- 
 quate as the writers were to the task the booksellers had 
 
 * This work has been since resumed.
 
 460 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 chosen them to execute, remains still a monument which 
 every literary Englishman may blush to see so hopelessly 
 interrupted. 
 
 When Le Grand D'Aussy, whose " Fabliaux " are so 
 well known, adopted, in the warmth of antiquarian imag- 
 ination, the plan suggested by the Marquis de Paulmy, 
 first sketched in the Melanges tires dhme grande Dibli- 
 othhque^ of a picture of the domestic life of the French 
 people from their earliest periods, the subject broke upon 
 him like a vision ; it had novelty, amusement, and curi- 
 osity : " le sujet m'en parut netcf, riche et piquantP He 
 revelled amid the scenes of their architecture, the inte- 
 rior decorations of their houses, their changeable dress, 
 their games, and recreations ; in a word, on all the parts 
 which were most adapted to amuse the fancy. But when 
 he came to compose the more detailed work, the fairy 
 scene faded in the length, the repetition, and the never- 
 ending labour and weariness ; and the three volumes 
 which we now possess, instead of sports, dresses, and 
 architecture, exhibit only a very curious, but not always 
 a very amusing, account of the food of the French 
 nation. 
 
 No one has more fully poured out his vexation of 
 spirit — he may excite a smile in those who have never 
 experienced this toil of books and manuscripts — but he 
 claims the sympathy of those who would discharge their 
 public duties so faithfully to the public. I shall preserve 
 a striking picture of these thousand task-Avorks, coloured 
 by the literary pangs of the voluminous author, who is 
 doomed never to finish his curious work : — 
 
 " Endowed with a coui-age at all proofs, with health 
 which, till then, was unaltered, and which excess of 
 labour has greatly changed, I devoted myself to write 
 the lives of the learned of the sixteenth century. Re- 
 nouncing all kinds of ple.'isure, working ten to twelve 
 hours a-day, extracting, ceaselessly copying; after this
 
 OF INCOMPLETE VOLUMINOUS WORKS. 461 
 
 sad life I now wished to draw breath, turn over what I 
 had amassed, and arrange it. I found myself possessed of 
 many thousands of hullethis^ of which the longest did not 
 exceed many lines. At the sight of this frightful chaos, 
 from which I was to form a regular history, I must con- 
 fess that I shuddered ; I felt myself for some time in a 
 stupor and depression of spirits ; and now actually that 
 I have finished this work, I cannot endure the recollec- 
 tion of that moment of alarm without a feeling of invol- 
 wfitary terror. What a business is this, good God, of a 
 compiler ! In truth, it is too much condemned ; it merits 
 some regard. At length I regained courage ; I returned 
 to my researches : I have completed my plan, though 
 every day I was forced to add^ to correct^ to change my 
 facts as well as my ideas / six times has my hand re- 
 copied my work j and, however fatiguing this may be, it 
 certainly is not that portion of my task which has cost 
 me most." 
 
 The history of the '* Bibliotheca Brittanica " of the late 
 Dr. Watt may serve as a mortifying example of the 
 length of labour and the brevity of life. To this gigantic 
 work the patient zeal of the writer had devoted twenty 
 years ; he had just arrived at the point of publication, 
 when death folded down his last page; the son who, 
 during the last four years, had toiled under the direction 
 of his father, was chosen to occupy his place. The work 
 was in the progress of publication, when the son also 
 died ; and strangers now reap the fruits of their com- 
 bined labrurs. 
 
 One cannot forbear applying to this subject of volumin- 
 ous designs, which must be left unfinished, the forcible 
 reflection of Johnson on the planting of trees : " There 
 is a frightful interval between the seed and timber. He 
 that calculates the growth of trees has the unv>'elcome 
 remembrance of the shortness of life driven hard upon 
 him. He knows that he is doing what will never benefit
 
 462 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 himself; and, when he rejoices to see the stem arise, is 
 disposed to repine that another shall cut it down. 
 
 OF DOI^IESTIC NOVELTIES AT FIRST CON- 
 DEMNED. 
 
 It is amusing enough to discover that things, now 
 considered among the most useful and even agreeable 
 acquisitions of domestic life, on their first introduction 
 ran great risks of being rejected, by the ridicule or the 
 invective which they encountered. The repulsive effect 
 produced on mankind by the mere strangeness of a thing, 
 which at length we find established among our indispen- 
 sable conveniences, or by a practice which has now become 
 one of our habits, must be ascribed sometimes to a proud 
 perversity in our nature ; sometimes to the crossing of 
 our interests, and to that repugnance to alter what is 
 known for that which has not been sanctioned by our 
 experience. This feeling has, however, within the last 
 half century considerably abated ; but it proves, as in 
 higher matters, that some philosophical reflection is re- 
 quired to determine on the \isefulness, or the practical 
 ability, of every object which comes in the shape of 
 novelty or innovation. Could we conceive that man 
 had never discovered the practice of washing his hands, 
 but cleansed them as animals do their paws, he would for 
 certain have ridiculed and protested against the inventor 
 of soap, and as tardily, as in other matters, have adopted 
 the invention. A reader, unaccustomed to minute research- 
 es, might be surprised, had he laid before him the history 
 of some of the most familiar domestic articles which, in 
 their origin, incurred the ridicule of the wits, and liad to 
 pass through no short ordeal of time in the strenuous 
 opposition of the zealots against domestic novelties. 
 The subject requires no grave investigation ; wo will,
 
 DOMESTIC NOVELTIES AT FIRST CONDEMNED. 4G3 
 
 therefore, only notice a few of universal use. They will 
 sufficiently demonstrate that, however obstinately man 
 moves in " the march of intellect," he must be overtaken 
 by that greatest of innovators — Time itself; and that, 
 by his eager adoption of what he had once rejected, and 
 by the imiversal use of what he once deemed unuseful, 
 he will forget, or smile at the difficulties of a former 
 generation, who were baffled in their attempts to do 
 what we all are now doing. 
 
 Forks are an Italian invention ; and in England were 
 so .perfect a novelty in the days of Queen Bess, that 
 Fynes Moryson, in his curious "Itinerary," relating a 
 bargain with the patrone of a vessel which was to convey 
 him from Venice to Constantinople, stipulated to be fed 
 at his table, and to have " his glass or cup to drink in 
 peculiar to himself, with his knife, spoon, and fork.'''' 
 This thins: was so stranire that he found it necessary to 
 describe it.* It is an instrument "to hold the meat 
 
 * Modern research has shown that forks were not so entirely un- 
 known as was imagined when the above was written. In vol. xxviL of 
 the " Archreologia," published by the Society of Antiquaries, is an 
 engraving of a fork and spoon of the Anglo-Saxon era ; they were 
 found with fragments of ornaments in silver and brass, all of which 
 had been deposited in a box. of which there were some decayed re- 
 mains ; together with about seventy pennies of sovereigns from Coen- 
 wolf, King of Mercia (a.d. 796), to Ethelstan (a.d. 878, 890). The inven- 
 tories of royal and noble persons in the middle ages often name forks. 
 They were made of precious materials, and sometimes adorned with 
 jewels like those named in the inventory of the Duke of Normandy, 
 ■ji 1363, "une cuiller d'or et une fourchette, et aux deux fonts deux 
 saphirs;" and in the inventory of Charles V. of France, in 1380, 
 " une cuillier et une fourchette d'or, oh il y a ij balays et X perles." 
 Their use seems to have been a luxurious appendage to the dessert, to 
 lift fruit, or take sops from wine. Thus Piers Gaveston, the celebrated 
 favourite of Edward III., is described to have had three silver forks 
 to eat pears with: and the Duchess of Orleans, in i:390, had one fork 
 of gold to take sops from wine (a prendre la soupe oh. vin). They 
 appear to have been entirely restricted to tliis use, and never adopted 
 as now, to hft meat at ordinary meals. They were carried about the
 
 464: LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 while he cuts it ; for they hold it ill-manners that one 
 should touch the meat with his hands."* At the close 
 of the sixteenth century were our ancestors eating as 
 the Turkish noblesse at present do, with only the free use 
 of their fingers, steadying their meat and conveying it to 
 their mouths by their mere manual dexterity. They 
 were, indeed, most indelicate in their habits, scattering 
 on the table-cloth all their bones and parings. To purify 
 their tables, the servant bore a long wooden " voiding- 
 knife," by which he scraped the fragments from the table, 
 into a basket, called " a voider." Beaumont and Fletcher 
 describe the thing. 
 
 They sweep the table with a wooden dagger. 
 
 Fabling Paganism had probably raised into a deity the 
 little man who first taught us, as Ben Jonson describes 
 its excellence — 
 
 the laudable use of forks, 
 To the sparing of napkins. 
 
 This personage is well-known to have been that odd 
 compound, Coryat the traveller, the perpetual butt of 
 the wits. He positively claims this immortality. "I 
 myself thought good to imitate the Italian fashion by 
 this FORKED cutting of meat^ not only while I was in 
 Italy, but also in Germany, and oftentimes in England 
 since I came home." Here the use of forks was, however, 
 long ridiculed ; it was reprobated in Germany, where 
 some uncleanly saints actually preached against the un- 
 natural custom " as an insult on Providence, not to touch 
 our meat with our fingers." It is a curious fact, that 
 forks were long interdicted in the Congregation de St. 
 
 person in decorated cases, and only used on certain occasions, and 
 then only by the highest classes; hence their comparative rarity. — 
 Bd. 
 
 * Moryson's "Itinerary," part i., p. 208,
 
 DOMESTIC XOVELTIES AT FIRST CONDEMNED. 465 
 
 Maur, and were only used after a protracted struggle be- 
 tween the old members, zealoiis for their traditions, and 
 the young refoi-mers, for their fingers.* The allusions to 
 the use of the fork, which we find in all the dramatic 
 writers through the reigns of James the First and 
 Charles the First, show that it was still considered as a 
 strange afifectation and novelty. The fork does not ap- 
 pear to have been in general use before the Restoration ! 
 On the introduction of forks there appears to have been 
 some difficulty in the manner they were to be held and 
 used. In The M>x, Sir Politic Would-be, counselling 
 Peregrine at Venice, observes — 
 
 Then you must learn the use 
 And handling of your silver lork at meals. 
 
 Whatever this art may be, either we have yet to learn 
 It, or there is more than one way in which it may be 
 practised. D'Archenholtz, in his " Tableau de I'Angle- 
 terre," asserts that " an Englishman may be discovered 
 anywhere, if he be observed at table, because he places 
 his fork upon the left side of his plate ; a Frenchman- 
 by using the fork alone without the knife ; and a Ger, 
 man, by planting it perpendicularly into his plate ; and 
 a Russian, by using it as a toothpick." 
 
 Toothpicks seem to have come in with forks, as younger 
 brothers of the table, and seem to have been boiTowed 
 from the nice manners of the stately Venetians. This 
 implement of cleanliness was, however, doomed to the 
 same anathema as the fantastical oi-nament of " the com- 
 plete Signor," the Italianated Englishman. How would 
 the writers, who . caught " the manners as they rise," 
 have been astonished that now no decorous person 
 would be unaccompanied by what Massinger in con- 
 tempt calls 
 
 Thy case of toothpicks and thy silver fork I 
 
 * I find this circumstance concerning forks mentioned in the " Dio 
 tionnaire de Trevoux." 
 SO
 
 466 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 Umbeellas, in my youth, were not ordinary things ; 
 few but the macaroni's of the day, as the dandies were 
 then called, would venture to display them. For a long 
 while it was not usual for men to carry them without in- 
 curring the brand of effeminacy ; and they were vulgarly 
 considered as the characteristics of a person whom the 
 mob then hugely disliked — namely, a mincing French- 
 man. At first a single umbrella seems to have been 
 kept at a coffee-house for some extraordinary occasion 
 — lent as a coach or chair in a heavy shower — but not 
 commonly cai-ried by the walkers. The Female Tatler 
 advertises "the young gentleman belonging to the 
 custom-house, who, in fear of rain, borrowed the umbrella 
 from Wilks' Coffee-house, shall the next time be wel- 
 come to the maid's pattens^ An umbrella carried by a 
 man was obviously then considered an extreme effemi- 
 nacy. As late as in 1778, one John Macdonald, a foot- 
 man, who has written his own life, informs us, that when 
 he carried " a fine silk umbrella, which he had brought 
 from Spain, he could not with any comfort to himself use 
 it ; the people calling out ' Frenchman ! why don't you 
 get a coach ?' " The fact was, that the hackney-coachmen 
 and the chairmen, joining with the true es2)rit de corj^Sy 
 were clamorous against this portentous rival. This foot- 
 man, in 1778, gives us furtlicr information: — "At this 
 time there were no umbrellas worn in London, except in 
 noblemen's and gentlemen's houses, where there was a 
 large one hung in the hall to hold over a lady or a gen- 
 tleman, if it rained, between the door and their carriage." 
 His sister was compelled to quit his arm one day, from 
 the abuse he drew down on himself by his umbrella. 
 Hut he adds that "he persisted for three months, till 
 they took no further notice of this novelty. Foreigners 
 began to use theirs, and then the English. Now it ir 
 become a great trade in London."* The state of our 
 
 * Umbrellas are, liowovor, au inveution of great antiquitj, and maV
 
 DOMESTIC NOVELTIES AT FIRST CONDEMNED. 407 
 
 population might now, in some degree, be ascertained by 
 the number of umbrellas. 
 
 Coaches, on their first invention, offered a fruitful 
 source of declamation, as an inordinate luxury, particu- 
 larly among the ascetics of monkish Spain. The Spanish 
 biographer of Don John of Austria, describing that 
 golden age, the good old times, when they only used 
 " carts drawn by oxen, riding in this manner to court," 
 notices that it was found necessary to prohibit coaches 
 by a royal proclamation, " to such a height was this 
 infernal vice got, which has done so much injury to Cas- 
 tile," In this style nearly every domestic novelty has 
 been attacked. The injury inflicted on Castile by the 
 introduction of coaches could only have been felt by the 
 purveyors of carts and oxen for a morning's ride. The 
 same circumstances occurred in this country. When 
 coaches began to be kept by the gentry, or were hired 
 out, a powerful party found their " occupation gone !" 
 Ladies would no longer ride on pillions behind their foot 
 men, nor would take the air, where the air was purest, on 
 the river. Judges and counsellors from their inns would 
 no longer be conveyed by water to Westminister Hall, or 
 jog on with all their gravity on a poor palfrey. Consid- 
 erable bodies of men were thrown out of their habitual ' 
 employments — the watennen, the hackneymen, and the 
 
 be seen in the sculptures of ancient Egypt and Assyria. They are 
 also depicted on early Greek vases. But the most curious fact con- 
 nected with their use in this country seems to be the knowledge our 
 Saxon ancestors had of them; though the use, in accordance with the 
 earliest custom, appears to have been as a shelter or mark of distinc- 
 tion for royalty. In Ciedmon's " Metrical Paraphrase of Parts of 
 Scripture," now in the British Museum (Harleiaa MS. No. 603), an 
 Anglo-Saxon manuscript of the tenth centur}', is the drawing of a 
 king, who has an umbrella held over his head by an attendant, in the 
 Bame way as it is borne over modern eastern kings. The form is pre- 
 cisely similar to those now in use, though, as noted above, they were 
 an entire novelty when re-introduced in the last century. — Ed.
 
 468 LITERARY CHAJIACTER. 
 
 saddlers. Families were now jolted, in a heavy wooden 
 machine, into splendour and ruin. The disturbances and 
 opposition these coaches created we should hardly now 
 have known, had not Taylor, the Water-poet * and man, 
 sent down to us an invective against coaches, in 1623, 
 dedicated to all who are grieved with " the world run- 
 ning on wheels." 
 
 Taylor, a humorist and satbist, as well as watennan, 
 conveys some information in this rare tract of the period 
 when coaches began to be more generally used — " Within 
 our memories our nobility and gentry could ride well- 
 mounted, and sometimes walk on foot gallantly attended 
 with fourscore brave fellows in blue coats, which was a 
 glory to our nation far greater than forty of these 
 leathern timbrels. Then the name of a coach was heathen 
 Greek. Who ever saw, but upon extraordinary occasions, 
 Sir Philip Sidney and Sir Francis Drake ride in a coach ? 
 They made small use of coaches ; there were but few in 
 those times, and they were deadly foes to sloth and 
 effeminacy. It is in the memory of many when in the 
 whole kingdom there was, not one ! It is a doubtful 
 question -^^hether the devil brought tobacco into England 
 in a coach^ for both appeared at the same time." It ap- 
 pears that families, for the sake of their exterior show, 
 miserably contracted their domestic establishment; for 
 Taylor, the Water-poet, complains that when they used 
 formerly to keep from ten to a hundred proper serving- 
 men, they now made the best shift, and for the sake of 
 their coach and horses had only " a butterfly page, a 
 trotting footman, and a stiff-drinking coachman, a cook, 
 a clerk, a steward, and a butler, which hatli forced an 
 army of tall fellows to the gatehouses," or prisons. Of 
 
 ♦ Taylor was originally a Thames waterman, hence the term, 
 "Water-poet" given him. His attack upon coaches was published 
 with this quaint title, " The world runues on wheeles, or, odds, betwixt 
 carts and coaches." It is an unsparing satire. — Ed.
 
 DOMESTIC NOVELTIES AT FIRST CONDEMNED. 469 
 
 one of the evil effects of this new fashion of coach-riding 
 this satirist of the town wittily observes, that, as soon as 
 a man was knighted, his lady was lamed for ever, and 
 could not on any account be seen but in a coach. As 
 hitherto our females had been accustomed to robust 
 exercise, on foot or on horseback, they were now foi'ced 
 to substitute a domestic artificial. exercise in sawing bil- 
 lets, swinging, or rolling the great roller in the alleys of 
 their garden. In the change of this new fashion they 
 found out the inconvenience of a sedentary life passed in 
 then* coaches.* 
 
 Even at this early period of the introduction of coaches, 
 they were not only costly in the ornaments — in velvets, 
 damasks, taffetas, silver and gold lace, fringes of all 
 BOX'ts — ^but their greatest pains were in matching their 
 coach-horses. " They must be all of a colour, longitude, 
 latitude, cressitude, height, length, thickness, breadth (I 
 muse they do not weigh them in a pair of balances) ; and 
 when once matched with a great deal of care, if one of 
 them chance to die, then is the coach maimed till a meet 
 mate be found, whose corresponding may be as equivalent 
 to the surviving palfrey, in all respects, as like as a broom 
 to a besom, barm to yeast, or codlings to boiled aj)ples." 
 This is good natural humour. He proceeds — "They use 
 
 * Stow,. in his " Chronicles," has preserved the date of the first in- 
 troduction of coaches into England, as well as the name of the first 
 driver, and first English coachmaker. "In the year 1564 Guilliaiu 
 Boonen, a Dutchman, became the queen's coachman, and was the first 
 that brought the use of coaches into England. After a while divers 
 great ladies, with as great jealousie of the queen's displeasure, made 
 them coaches, and rid in them up and down the country, to the great 
 admiration of all the beholders; but thon, by little and little, they 
 grew usual among the nobility and others of sorte, and within twenty 
 years became a great trade of coachmaking;" and he al*) notes that 
 in the year of their introduction to England '• Walter Rippon made a 
 codie for the Earl of Rutland, which was the first cx>che that was ever 
 made in England." — Ed.
 
 470 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 more diligence in matching their coach-horses than in the 
 maniage of their sons and daughters." A great fashion, 
 in its novelty, is often extravagant; true elegance and 
 utility are never at first combined ; good sense and 
 experience correct its cajji'ices. They appear to have 
 exhausted more cost and curiosity in their equipages, on 
 their first introduction, than since they have become ob- 
 jects of ordinary use. Notwithstanding this humorous 
 invective on the calamity of coaches, and that " house- 
 keepmg never decayed till coaches came into England ; 
 a.nd that a ten-pound rent now was scarce twenty shil- 
 lings then, till the \vatchcraft of the coach quickly mounted 
 the price of all things." The Water-poet, were he now 
 living, might have acknowledged that if, in the changes 
 of time, some trades disappear, other trades rise up, 
 and in an exchange of modes of industry the nation loses 
 nothing. The hands which, like Taylor's, rowed boats, 
 came to drive coaches. These complainers on all novel- 
 ties, unawares always answer themselves. Our satirist 
 aflfords us a most prosperous view of the condition of 
 " this new trade of coachmakers, as the gainfullest about 
 the town. They are apparelled in sattins and velvets, 
 are masters of the parish, vestrymen, and fare like the 
 Emperor Heliogabalus and Sardanapalus — seldom with- 
 out their mackeroones, Parmisants (macaroni, with Par- 
 mesan cheese, I suppose), jellies and kickshaws, with 
 baked swans, pastries hot or cold, red-deer pies, which 
 they have from their debtors, worships in the country !" 
 Such was the sudden luxurious state of our first great 
 coachmakers ! to the deadly mortification of all water- 
 men, hacknoymcn, and other conveyancers of our 
 loungers, thi-own out of employ ! 
 
 Tobacco. — It was tliouglit, at the time of its introduc- 
 tion, that the nation would be ruined by the use of 
 tobacco. Like all novel tastes the newly-imported leaf 
 maddened all ranks among us. " The money spent in
 
 DOMESTIC ifOYELTIES AT FIBST CONDEMNED. 47^ 
 
 smoke is unknown," said a writer of that day, lamenting 
 over this " new trade of tobacco, in which he feared that 
 there were more than seven thousand tobacco-houses." 
 James the First, in his memorable "Counterblast to 
 Tobacco," only echoed from the throne the popular cry ; 
 but the blast was too weak against the smoke, and vainly 
 his paternal majesty attempted to ten-ify his liege chil- 
 dren that " they were making a sooty kitchen in their 
 inward parts, soiling and infecting them with an unctuous 
 kind of soot, as hath been found in some great tobacco- 
 eaters, that after their death were opened." The infor- 
 mation was perhaps a pious fraud. This tract, which 
 has incurred so much ridicule, was, in truth, a merito- 
 rious effort to allay the extravagance of the moment. 
 But such popular excesses end themselves ; and the 
 royal author might have left the subject to the town- 
 satirists of the day, who found the theme inexhaustible 
 for ridicule or invective. 
 
 Coal. — The established use of our ordinary fuel, coal, 
 may be ascribed to the scarcity of wood in the environs 
 of the metropolis. Its recommendation was its cheap- 
 ness, however it destroys everything about us. It has 
 formed an artificial atmosphere which envelopes the gre&t 
 capital, and it is acknowledged that a purer air has 
 often proved fatal to him who, from early life, has only 
 breathed in sulphur and smoke. Charles Fox or^ce r-^vl 
 to a friend, " I cannot live in the country ; my constitu 
 tion is not strong enough." Evelyn poured out a famous 
 invective against "London Smoke." "Imagine," he 
 cries, " a solid tentorium or canopy over London, Avhat a 
 mass of smoke would then stick to it ! This fuliginous 
 crust now comes down every night on the streets, on our 
 houses, the waters, and is taken into our bodies. On the 
 water it leaves a thin web or pellicle of dust dancing upon 
 the surface of it, as those who bath in the Thames dis- 
 cern, and bring home on their bodies." Evelyn has
 
 472 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 detailed the gradual destruction it effects on every 
 article of ornament and price ; and " he heard in France, 
 that those parts lying southwest of England, complain 
 of being infected with smoke from our coasts, which 
 injured their vines in flowei-." I have myself observed 
 at Paris, that the books exposed to sale on stalls, however 
 old they might be, retained their freshness, and were in 
 no instance like our own, corroded and blackened, which 
 our coal-smoke never fails to produce. There was a pro- 
 clamation, so far back as Edward the First, forbidding 
 the use of sea-coal in the suburbs, on a complaint of the 
 nobility and gentry, that they could not go to London 
 on account of the noisome smell and thick air. About 
 1550, Hollingshed foresaw the general use of sea-coal 
 from the neglect of cultivating timber. Coal fires have 
 now been in general use for three centuries. In the 
 country they persevered in using wood and peat. Those 
 who were accustomed to this sweeter smell declared that 
 they always knew a Londoner, by the smell of his clothes, 
 to have come from coal-fires. It must be acknowledged 
 that our custom of using coal for our fuel has prevailed 
 over good reasons why we ought not to have preferred 
 it. But man accommodates himself even to an offensive 
 thing whenever his interest predominates. 
 
 Were we to caiTy on a speculation of this nature into 
 graver topics, we should have a copious chapter to write 
 of the opposition to new discoveries. Medical history 
 supplies no luiiitlportant number. On the improvements 
 in anatomy by Malpighi and his fi)llowers, the senior pro- 
 fessoi's of the university of Bononia were inflamed to such 
 a pitch that they attempted to insert an additional clause 
 in the solemn oath taken by the graduates, to the effect 
 that they would not permit the principles and conclu- 
 sions of IIippocrat(!s, Aristotle, and Galen, which had 
 been approved of so many ages, to be overturned by any 
 person. In phlebotomy we have a curious instance.
 
 DOMESTIC NOVELTIES AT FIRST CONDEMNED. 473 
 
 In Spain, to the sixteenth centmy, they maintained that 
 when the pain was on the one side they ought to bleed 
 on the other. A great physician insisted on a contrary 
 practice ; a civil war of opinion divided Spain ; at length 
 they had recourse to coiirts of law ; the novelists were 
 condemned ; they appealed to the emperor, Charles the 
 Fifth ; he was on the point of confirming the decree of 
 the court, when the Duke of Savoy died of a pleurisy, 
 having been legitimately bled. This puzzled the em- 
 peror, who did not venture on a decision. 
 
 The introduction of antimony and the Jesuits' bark also 
 provoked legislative interference ; decrees and ordinances 
 were issued, and a civil war raged among the medical 
 faculty, of which Guy Patin is the copious historian. 
 Vesalius was incessantly persecuted by the public pre- 
 judices against dissection ; Harvey's discovery of the 
 circulation of the blood led to so protracted a contro- 
 versy, that the great discovery was hardty- admitted even 
 in the latter days of the old man ; Lady Wortley Mon- 
 tague's introduction of the practice of inoculation met 
 the same obstinate resistance as, more recently, that of 
 vaccination startled the people. Thus objects of the 
 highest importance to mankind, on their first appearance, 
 are slighted and contemned. Posterity smiles at the 
 ineptitude of the preceding age, while it becomes familiar 
 with those objects which that age has so eagerly rejected. 
 Time is a tardy patron of true knowledge. 
 
 A nobler theme is connected with the principle we 
 have here but touched on — the gradual changes in public 
 opinion — the utter annihilation of false notions, like 
 those of witchcraft, astrology, spectres, and many other 
 superstitions of no remote date, the hideous progeny of 
 imposture got on ignorance, and audacity on fear. But 
 one impostor reigns paramount, the plausible opposition 
 to novel doctrines which may be subversive of some 
 ancient ones ; doctrines which probably shall one day be
 
 474 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 as generally established as at present they are utterly 
 decried, and which the interests of corporate bodies 
 oppose with all their cumbrous machinery ; but artificial 
 machinery becomes perplexed in its movements when 
 worn out by the friction of ages. 
 
 DOMESTICITY; OR, A DISSERTATION ON 
 SERVANTS. 
 
 The characteristics of servants have been usually 
 known by the broad caricatures of the satirists of every 
 age, and chiefly by the most popular — the writers of 
 comedy. According to these exhibitions, we must infer 
 that the vices of the menial are necessarily inherent to 
 his condition, and consequently that this vast multitude 
 in society remain ever in an ii'recoverably ungovernable 
 state. We discover only the cunning depredator of the 
 household ; the tip-toe spy, at all corners — all ear, all 
 eye : the parasitical knave — the flatterer of the follies, 
 and even the eager participator of the crimes, of his 
 superior. The morality of servants has not been im- 
 proved by the wonderful revelations of Swift's " Direc- 
 tions," where the irony is too refined, while it plainly 
 inculcates the practice. This celebrated tract, designed 
 for the instruction of the masters, is more frequently 
 thumbed in the kitchen, as a manual for the profligate 
 domestic. Servants have acknowledged that some of 
 their base doings have been suggested to them by their 
 renowned satirist. 
 
 Bentham imagined, that were all the methods employed 
 by thieves and rogues described and collected together, 
 such a com])ilation of their artifices and villanies would 
 serve to put us on our guard. The theorist of legisla- 
 tion seems often to forget the metaphysical state of man. 
 With the vitiated mind, that latent sympathy of evil
 
 DISSERTATION ON SERVANTS. 475 
 
 which might never have been called forth but by the 
 occasion, has often evinced how too close an inspection 
 of crime may grow into criminality itself Hence it is, 
 that when some monstrous and unusual crime has been 
 revealed to the public, it rarely passes without a sad 
 repetition. A link in the chain of the intellect is struck, 
 and a crime is perpetrated which else had not occurred. 
 
 Listen to the counsels which one of the livery gives a 
 brother, more stupid but more innocent than himself. I 
 take the passage from that extraordinary Spanish come- 
 dy, in twenty-five acts, the Spanish Bawd. It was no 
 doubt designed to expose the arts and selfishness of the 
 domestic, yet we should regret that the Spanish Bawd 
 was as generally read by servants as Swift's "Direc- 
 tions " : — 
 
 " Serve not your master with this foolish loyalty and 
 ignorant honesty, thinking to find firmness on a false 
 foundation, as most of these masters now-a-days are. 
 Gain friends, which is a during and lasting commodity ; 
 live not on hopes, relying on the vain promises of mas- 
 ters. The masters love more themselves than their serv- 
 ants, nor do they amiss ; and the like love ought servants 
 to bear to themselves. Liberahty was lost long ago — 
 rewards are grown out of date. Every one is now for 
 himself, and makes the best he can of his servant's serv- 
 ice, serving his turn, and therefore they ought to do the 
 same, for they are less in substance. Thy master is one 
 who befools his servants, and wears them out to the very 
 stmnps, looking for much service at then- hands. Thy 
 master cannot be thy friend, such diflerence is there of 
 estate and condition between you two." 
 
 This passage, written two centuries ago, would find an 
 echo of its sentiments in many a modern domestic. These 
 notions are sacred traditions among the livery. We may 
 trace them from Terence and Plautus, as well as Swift 
 and Mandeville. Our latter great cynic has left a fright-
 
 476 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 ful picture of the state of the domestics, when it seems 
 " they had experienced professors among them, who 
 could instruct the graduates in iniquity seven hundred 
 illiberal arts how to cheat, impose upon, and find out the 
 blind side of their masters." The footinen, in Mande- 
 ville's day, had entered into a society together, and made 
 laws to regulate their wages, and not to carry burdens 
 above two or three pounds weight, and a common fund 
 Avas provided to maintain any suit at law against any 
 rebellious master. This seems to be a confederacy which 
 is by no means dissolved. 
 
 Lord Chesterfield advises his son not to allow his upper 
 man to doif his livery, though this valet was to attend 
 his person, when the toilet was a serious avocation re- 
 quiring a more delicate hand and a nicer person than he 
 who was to walk before his chair, or climb behind his 
 coach. This searching genius of philosophy and les 
 petites mceurs solemnly warned that if ever this man were 
 to cast off the badge of his order, he never would resume 
 it. About this period the masters were menaced by a 
 sort of servile war. The famous farce of High Life her 
 low Stairs exposed with great happiness the impudence 
 and the delinquencies of the parti-coloured clans. It 
 roused them into the most barefaced opposition ; and, as 
 ever happens to the few who press unjust claims on the 
 many, in the result worked the reform they so greatly 
 dreaded.* One of the grievances in society was then an 
 
 * The farce was prodacod in 1759, when it was tlie custom to admit 
 any servant in livery free to the upper gallery, as they were supposed 
 to be in attendance on tlieir masters. Their foibles and dishonesty 
 being so completely hit oiT in the play incensed them greatly ; and 
 they created such an uproar that it was resolved to exclude them in 
 future. Tn Eiiinburgli the opposition to the play produced still greater 
 scones of violence, and the lives of some of the performers were threat- 
 ened. It at last became nocessarj'' for their masters to stop this out- 
 break on the part of their servants; and alter the whole system of the 
 household economy vvliich led to such results. — Ed.
 
 DISSERTATION ON SERVANTS. 477 
 
 anomalous custom, for it was only practised in our country, 
 of a guest being highly taxed in dining with a family whose 
 establishment admitted of a mmi(irous train. Watchful 
 of the depai'ture of the guest, this victim had to pass along 
 a line of domestics, arranged in the hall, each man jire- 
 senting the \nsitor with some separate article, of hat, 
 gloves, coat, and cane, claiming their " vails." It would 
 not have been safe to refuse even those who, with noth- 
 ing to present, still held out the hand, for their attentions 
 to the diner-out.* 
 
 When a slave was deemed not a person, but a thing 
 marketable and transferable, the sir; le principle judged 
 suiRcient to regulate the mutual co:. aict of the master 
 and the domestic was, to command and to obey. It 
 seems still the sole stipulation exacted by the haughty 
 from the menial. But this feudal principle, unalleviated 
 by the just sympathies of domesticity, deprives authority 
 of its grace, and service of its zeal. To be served well, 
 we should be loved a little ; the command of an excellent 
 master is even grateful, for the good servant delights to 
 be useful. The slave repines, and such is the domestic 
 destitute of any personal attachment for his master. 
 Whoever was mindful of the interests of him whose 
 beneficence is only a sacrifice to his pomp ? The master 
 dresses and wages highly his pampered train ; but this is 
 
 * These vails, supposed to be the free gratuity of the invited to the 
 servants of the inviter, were ultimately so managed that persons paid 
 servants by that mode only — levying a kind of black-mail on their 
 friends, which ran through all society. " The wages are nothing," 
 says a noble lady's servant in one of Smollet's novels, " but the vails 
 are enormous." The consequence was, that masters and mistresses 
 had little control over them ; they are said in some instances to have 
 paid for their places, as some servants do at inns, where the situation 
 was worth having, owing to the large parties ^ven, and gaming, then 
 so prevalent, being well-attended. It was ended by a mutual under- 
 standing all over the three kingdoms, after the riots which resulted 
 from the production of the play noted above. — Ed.
 
 478 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 the calculated cost of state-liveries, of men measured by 
 a standard, for a Hercules in the Hall, or an Adonis for 
 the drawing-room ; but at those times, when the domestic 
 ceases to be an object in the public eye, he sinks into an 
 object of sordid economy, or of merciless caprice. His 
 personal feelings ai'e recklessly neglected. He sleeps 
 where there is neither light nor air ; he is driven when 
 l.e is already exhausted ; he begins the work of midnight, 
 .« d is confined for hours with men like himself, who fret, 
 repine, and cui'se. They have their tales to compare 
 together ; their xmhallowed secrets to disclose. The mas- 
 ters and the mistresses pass by them in review, and little 
 deem they how oft the malignant glance or the malicious 
 whisper follow their airy steps. To shorten such tedious 
 hours, the servants familiarise themselves with every 
 vicious indulgence, for even the occupation of such do- 
 mestics is little more than a dissolute idleness. A cell in 
 Newgate does not always contain more corruptors than a 
 herd of servants congregated in our winter halls. It is 
 to be lamented that the modes of fashionable life demand 
 the most terrible sacrifices of the health, the happiness, 
 and the morals of servants. Whoever perceives that 
 he is held in no esteem stando degraded in his own 
 thoughts. The heart of the simple throbs with this 
 emotfion ; but it hardens the villain who would rejoice 
 to avenge himself: it makes the artful only the more 
 cuunirrg; it extorts from the sullen a cold unwilling 
 obedience, and it stings even the good-tempered into 
 hisolence. 
 
 South, as great a \vit as a preacher, has separated, by 
 an awful interval, the superior and the domestic. " A 
 servant dwells i-emote from all knowledge of his lord's 
 purposes ; he lives as a kind of foreigner under the same 
 roof; a domestic, yet a foreigner too." This exhibits a 
 ][)i{^ture of feudal manners. But the progress of society 
 in modern Europe has since passed through a miglity
 
 OISSERTATIOX ON SERVANTS. 479 
 
 evolution. In the visible change of habits, of feelings, 
 of social life, the humble domestic has approximated to, 
 and communicated more frequently even with " his lord," 
 The domestic is now not always a stranger to "his lord's 
 purposes," but often their faithful actor — their confiden- 
 tial counsellor — the mirror in which his lordship contem- 
 plates on his wishes personified. 
 
 This reflection, indeed, would have violated the dignity 
 of the noble friend of Swift, Lord Orrerj^ His lordship 
 censures the laughter in " Rabelais' easy chair " for having 
 directed such intense attention to affairs solely relating to 
 servants. " Let him jest with dignity, and let him be 
 ironical upon useful subjects, leaving 2^oor slaves to eat 
 their porridge, or drink their small beer, in such vessels as 
 they shall think proper." This loi'dly criticism has drawn 
 down the lightning of Sir Walter Scott: — "The noble 
 lord's feelings of dignitv leemed nothing worthy of atten- 
 tion that was unconnected ;vith the highest orders of 
 society." Such, in truth, was too long the vicious prin- 
 ciple of those monopolists of personal distinction, the 
 mere men of elevated rank. 
 
 Metropolitan servants, trained in depravity, are inca- 
 pacitated to comprehend hoM'' far the personal interests 
 of servants are folded up with the interests of the house 
 they inhabit. They are unconscious that they have any 
 Bhare in the welfare of the superior, save in the degree 
 that the prosperity of the master contributes to the base 
 and momentary purjDOses of the servant. But in small 
 communities we perceive how the affections of the master 
 and the domestic may take root. Look in an ancient re- 
 tired family, whose servants often haA'e been born under 
 the roof they inhabit, and where the son is serving where 
 the father still serves ; and sometimes call the sacred spot 
 of their cradle and their grave by the proud and endear- 
 ing term of " o .r house." We discover this in Avhole 
 countries where luxury has not removed the classes of
 
 4-80 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 p.-ciety at too wide distances from each other, to deaden 
 their s/mpathies. We behold this in agrestic Switzer- 
 land, among its villages and its pastures ; in France, 
 amon}-- its difct.int provinces ; in Italy, in some of its de- 
 cayed cities ; and in Germany, where simple manners and 
 sti'ong affections mark the inhabitants of certain localities. 
 Holland long preserved its primitive customs ; and there 
 the love of order promotes subordination, though its free 
 institutions have softened the distinctions in the ranks 
 of life, and thei-e we find a remarkable evidence of domes- 
 ticity. It is not unusual in Holland for servants to call- 
 their masters uncle, their mistresses aunt, and the children 
 of the family their cousins. These domestics participa 
 ting in the comforts of the family, become naturalized 
 and domiciliated ; and their extraordinary relatives are 
 often adopted by the heart. An heroic effort of these 
 domestics has been rec rded ; it occurred at the burning 
 of the theatre at Amsterdan., where many rushed into the 
 flames, and nobly perished in the attempt to save their 
 endeared families. 
 
 It is in limited communities that the domestic virtues 
 are most intense ; all concentrating themselves in their 
 private circles, in such localities there is no public — no 
 public which extorts so many sacrifices from the individ- 
 ual. Insular situations are usually remarkable for the 
 warm attachment and devoted fidelity of the domestic, 
 and the personal regard of families for their servants. 
 This genuine domesticity is strikingly displayed in the 
 island of I^agusa, on the coast of Dalraatia : for there 
 they provide for the happiness of the humble friends 
 of the house. Boys, at an early age, are received into 
 families, educated in writing, reading, and arithmetic. 
 Some only quit their abode, in which they were almost 
 born, when tempted by the stirring spirit of maritime 
 enterprise. They form a race of men who are much 
 Bought after for servants ; and the terra applied to them
 
 DISSERTATION ON SERVA2JTS. 481 
 
 of " Men of the Gulf," is a sure recommendation of char 
 acter for unlimited trust and unwearying zeal. 
 
 Tlie mode of providing for the future comforts of their 
 maidens is a little incident in the history of benevolence, 
 which we must regret is only practised in , such limited 
 communities. Malte-Brun, in his "Annales des Voy- 
 ages," has painted a scene of tliis nature, which may 
 read like some romance of real life. The girls, after a 
 service of ten years, on one great holiday, an epoch in 
 their lives, receive the ample reward of their good conduct. 
 On that happy day the mistress and all the friends of 
 the family prepare for the maiden a sort of dowry or 
 marriage-portion. Every friend of the house sends some 
 article ; and the mistress notes down the gifts, that she 
 may return the same on a similar occasion. The dona- 
 tions consist of silver, of gowns, of handkerchiefs, and 
 other useful articles for a young woman. These tributes 
 of friendship are placed beside a silver basin, which con- 
 tains the annual wages of the servant ; her relatives from 
 the coimtry come, accompanied by music, carrying bas- 
 kets covered with ribbons and loaded with fruits, and 
 other rural delicacies. They are received by the master 
 himself, who invites them to the feast, where the com- 
 pany assemble, and particularly the ladies. All the pres- 
 ents are reviewed. The servant introduced kneels to 
 receive the benediction of her mistress, whose grateful 
 task is then to deliver a solemn enumeration of her good 
 qualities, concluding by announcing to the maiden that, 
 having been brought up in the house, if it be her choice 
 to remain, from henceforward she shall be considered as 
 one of the family. Tears of affection often fall during 
 this beautiful scene of true domesticity, which terminates 
 with a ball for the servants, and another for the supe- 
 riors. The relatives of the maiden return homewards 
 with their joyous musicians ; and, if the maiden prefers 
 her old domestic abode, she receives an increase of wages, 
 31
 
 4:82 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 and at a succeeding period of six years another jubilee 
 provides her second good fortune. Let me tell one more 
 story of the influence of this passion of domesticity in the 
 servant ; — its merit equals its novelty. In that inglori- 
 ous attack on Buenos Ayrcs, where our brave soldiers 
 were disgraced by a recreant general, the negroes, slaves 
 as they were, joined the inhabitants to expel the inva- 
 dei'S. On this signal occasion the city decreed a public 
 expression of their gratitude to the negroes, in a sort of 
 triumph, and at the same time awarded the freedom of 
 eighty of their leaders. One of them, having shown his 
 claims to the boon, declared, that to obtain his freedom 
 had all his days formed the proud object of his mshes : 
 his claim was indisputable ; yet now, however, to the 
 amazement of the judges, he refused his proflcred free- 
 dom ! The reason lie alleged was a singular refinement 
 of heartfelt sensibility : — " My kind mistress," said the 
 negro, " once Avealtliy, has fallen into misfortunes in her 
 infirm old age. I work to maintain her, and at intervals 
 of leisure she leans on my arm to take the evening air. 
 I will not be tempted to abandon her, and I renounce the 
 hope of freedom that she may know she possesses a slave 
 who never will quit her side." 
 
 Although I have been travelling out of Europe to fur 
 nish some striking illustrations of the powerful emotiob 
 of domesticity, it is not that we are without instances in 
 the private history of families among ourselves. I have 
 known more than one where the servant has chosen to 
 live without wages, rather tlian quit the master or the 
 mistress in their decayed fortunes; and another Avhere 
 the servant cheerfully worked to support her old lady to 
 her last day. 
 
 Would we look on a very opposite mode of servitude, 
 turn to the United States. No system of servitude was 
 ever so preposterous. A crude notion of popular free- 
 dom in the equality of ranks abolished the very designa-
 
 DISSERTATION ON SERVANTS. 483 
 
 tion of "servant," substituting the fantastic term of 
 " helps." If there be any meaning left in this barbarous 
 neologism, their aid amounts to little ; their engagements 
 are made by the week, and they often quit their domicile 
 without the slightest intimation. 
 
 Let none, in the plenitude of pride and egotism, 
 imagine that they exist independent of the virtues of 
 their domestics. The good conduct of the servant 
 stamps a character on the master. In the sphere of 
 domestic life they must frequently come in contact with 
 them. On this subordinate class, how much the happi- 
 ness and even the welfare of the master may rest ! The 
 gentle offices of servitude began in his cradle, and await 
 him at all seasons and in all spots, in jileasure or in peril. 
 Feelingly observes Sir Walter Scott — " In a free country 
 an individual's happiness is moi:e immediately connected 
 with the personal character of his valet, than w^ith that 
 of the monarch himself." Let the reflection not be 
 deemed extravagant if I venture to add, that the habit- 
 ual obedience of a devoted servant is a more immediate 
 source of personal comfort than even the delightfulness 
 of friendship and the tenderness of relatives — for these 
 are but periodical ; but the unbidden zeal of the domes- 
 tic, intimate with our habits, and patient of our way- 
 wardness, labours for us at all hours. It is those feet 
 which hasten to us in our solitude ; it is those hands 
 which silently administer to our wants. At what jDcriod 
 of life are even the great exempt from the gentle offices 
 of servitude ? 
 
 Faithful servants have never been commemorated by 
 more heartfelt affection than by those whose pursuits re- 
 quire a perfect freedom from domestic cares. Persons of 
 sedentary occupations, and undisturbed habits, abstracted 
 from the daily business of life, must yield unlimited trust 
 to the honesty, while they want the hourly attentions 
 and all the cheerful zeal, of the thoughtful domestic.
 
 484 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 The mutual affections of the master and the servant have 
 often been exalted into a companionship of feelings. 
 
 When Madame de Genlis heard that Pope had raised 
 a monument not only to his father and to his mother, but 
 also to the faithful servant who had nursed his earliest 
 years, she was so suddenly struck by the fact, that she 
 declared that " This monument of gratitude is the more 
 remarkable for its singularity, as I know of no other in- 
 stance." Our churchyards would have afforded her a 
 vast number of tomb-stones erected by grateful masters 
 to faithful servants;"* and a closer intimacy with the 
 domestic privacy of many public characters might have 
 displayed the same splendid examples. The one Avhich. 
 appears to have so strongly affected her may be found 
 on the east end of the outside of the parish church of 
 Twickenham. The stone bears this inscription : — 
 
 To the memory of 
 
 Mary Beach, 
 
 who died November 5, 1725, aged t8. 
 
 Alexander Pope, 
 
 whom she nursed in his infancy, 
 
 and constantly attended for thirty-eight years, 
 
 Erected this stone 
 
 In gratitude to a faithful Servant. 
 
 The original portrait of Shenstone was the votive gift 
 of a master to his servant, for, on its back, written by 
 the poet's own hand, is the following dedication : — " This 
 picture belongs to Mary Cutler, given her by her master, 
 William Shenstone, January 1st, 1754, in acknowledgment 
 of her native genius, her magnanimity, her tenderness, and 
 her fidelity. — W. S." We might refer to many similar 
 evidences of the domestic gratitude of such masters to 
 old and attaclicd servants. Some of these tributes may 
 be familiar to most readers. The solemn author of the 
 
 * Even our modorn cemotorios perpetuate this feeling, and exliibit 
 many grateful Epitaphs on Servants.
 
 DISSERTATION ON SERVANTS. 485 
 
 "Night Thoughts " inscribed an epitaph over the grave 
 of his man-servant ; the caustic GiiFord poured forth an 
 effusion to the memory of a female servant, fraught with 
 a melancholy teudei-ness which his muse rarely indulged. 
 The most pathetic, we had nearly said, and had said 
 justly, the most sublime, development of this devotion 
 of a master to his servant, is a letter addressed by that 
 powerful genius Michael Angelo to his friend Vasari, on 
 the death of Urbino, an old and beloved servant.* Pub- 
 lished only in the voluminous collection of the letters of 
 Painters, by Bottari, it seems to have escaped general 
 notice. We venture to translate it in despair : for we 
 feel that we must weaken its masculine yet tender elo- 
 quence. 
 
 MICHAEL AXGELO TO TASAEl. 
 
 " My dear George, — I can but write ill, yet shall not 
 your letter remain without my saying something. You 
 know how Urbino has died. Great was the grace of God 
 when he bestowed on me this man, though now heavy 
 be the grievance and infinite the grief. The grace was 
 that when he lived he kept me living ; and in dying he 
 has taught me to die, not in sorrow and with regret, but 
 with a fervent desire of death. Twenty and six years 
 had he served me, and I found him a most rare and faith- 
 ful man ; and now that I had made him rich, and ex- 
 pected to lean on him as the staff and the repose of my 
 old age, he is taken from me, and no other hope remains 
 than that of seeing him again in Paradise. A sign of 
 
 *It is delightful to note the warm affection displayed by the great 
 eculptor toward his old servant on his death-bed. The man who 
 would beard princes and tlie pope himself, when he felt it necessary to 
 assert his independent character as an artist, and through life evinced 
 a somewhat hard exterior, was soft as a, child in affectionate attention 
 to his dying domestic, anticipating all his wants by a personal attend- 
 ance at his bedside. This was no light service on the part of Michael 
 Angelo, who was himself at the time eighty-two years of age. — Ed.
 
 486 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 God was this happy fleatli to him ; yet, even more than 
 this death, were his regrets increased to leave me in this 
 workl the wretch of many anxieties, since the better half 
 of myself has departed with him, and nothing is left for 
 me than this loneliness of life." 
 
 Even the throne has not been too far removed from 
 this sphere of humble humanity, for we discover in St. 
 George's Chapel a mural monument erected by order 
 of one of our late sovereigns as the memorial of a female 
 servant of a favourite daughter. The inscription is a 
 tribute of domestic affection in a royal bosom, where an 
 attached servant became a cherished inmate. 
 
 King George Til. 
 
 Caused to be interred near this place the body of 
 
 Mary Gascoigxe, 
 
 Servant to the Princess Amelia ; 
 
 and this stone 
 
 to be inscribed in testimony of his grateful sense 
 
 of the faithful services and attachment 
 
 of an amiable young woman to 
 
 his beloved Daughter. 
 
 This deep emotion for the tender offices of servitude is 
 not peculiar to the refinement of our manners, or to 
 modern Europe; it is not the charity of Christianity 
 alone which has hallowed this sensibility, and. confessed 
 this equality of affection, which the domestic may par- 
 ticipate : monumental inscriptions, raised by grateful 
 masters to the merits of tlieir slaves, have been preserved 
 in the great collections of Grajvius and Gruter.* 
 
 * There arc several instances of Roman heads of houses who con- 
 secrate "to themselves and their servants" the sepulchres they erect 
 in their own lifetime, as if in deatli they had no desire to bo divided 
 from those who had served them faithfully. An instance of affection- 
 ate regard to the memory of a deceased servant occurs in the collec- 
 tion at Nismes; it is an inscription by one Sextus Arius Varcis, to 
 Hermes, "liis best servant" (servo optimo). Fabretti has preserved 
 an inscription which records the death of a child, T. Alfacius .Scanti-
 
 LETTERS IN THE VERNACULAR IDIOM. 4,87 
 
 PRINTED LETTERS IN THE VERNACULAR 
 IDIOM, 
 
 Prustted Letters, without any attention to the selec- 
 tion, is so gi'eat a literary evil, that it has excited my curi- 
 osity to detect the first modern who obtruded such formless 
 things on public attention. I conjectured that, whoever 
 he misrht be, he would be distinguished for his egotism 
 and his knavery. My hypothetical criticism turned out to 
 be correct. Nothing less than the audacity of the unblush- 
 ing Piero Aretino could have adventured on this pro- 
 ject ; he claims the honour, and the critics do not deny it, 
 of being the first v\dio published Italian letters. Aretino 
 had the hardiliood to dedicate one volume of his letters to 
 the King of England, another to the Duke of Florence ; a 
 third to Hercules of Este, a relative of Pope Julius Third 
 — evidently insinuating that his letters were worthy to 
 be read by the royal and the noble. 
 
 Among these letters there is one addressed to Mary, 
 Queen of England, on her resuscitation of the ancient 
 faith, which offers a very extraordinary catalogue of the 
 ritual and ceremonies of the Romish church. It is in- 
 deed impossible to translate into Protestant English the 
 multiplied nomenclature of ofiices which involve human 
 life in never-ceasing service. As I know not where we 
 can find so clear a perspective of this amazing contri- 
 vance to fetter with religious ceremonies the freedom of 
 the human mind, I present the reader with an accurate 
 translation of it : — 
 
 anius, by one Alfacius Severus, his master, by which it appears he 
 was the child of an old servant, who was honoured by bearing the 
 prenomen of the master, and who is also stjded in the epitaph " his 
 sweetest freedman " (liberto dulcissimo). — Ed.
 
 488 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 " Pietro Aretino to the Queen of England. 
 
 "The voices of Psalms, the sound of Canticles, the 
 breath of Epistles and the Spirit of Gospels, had need 
 unloose the language of my words in congratulating 
 your superhuman Majesty on having not only restored 
 conscience to the minds and hearts of Englishmen and 
 taken deceitful heresy away from them, but on bringing 
 it to pass, when it was least hoped for, that charity and 
 faith were again born and raised uj) in them ; on which 
 sudden conversion triumphs our sovereign Pontiff Julius, 
 the College, and the whole of the clergy, so that it seems 
 in Rome as if the shades of the old Ca3sars with visible 
 effect showed it in their A^ery statues; meanwhile the 
 pure mind of his most blessed Holiness canonizes you, 
 and marks you in the catalogue among the Catharines 
 and Margarets, and dedicates you," &c. 
 
 " The stupor of so stupendous a miracle is not the 
 stupefaction of stupid wonder; and all proceeds from 
 your being in the grace of God in every deed, whose 
 incomprehensible goodness is pleased with seeing you, 
 in holiness of life and innocence of heart, cause to be 
 restored in those proud countries, solemnity to Easters, 
 abstinence to Lents, sobriety to Fridays, parsimony to 
 Saturdays, fulfilment to vows, fasts to vigils, observances 
 to seasons, chrism to creatures, unction to the dymg, 
 festivals to saints, images to churches, masses to altars, 
 lights to lamps, organs to quires, benedictions to olives, 
 robings to sacristies, and decencies to baptisms ; and 
 that nothing may be wanting (thanks to your pious and 
 most entire nature), possession has been regained to 
 offices, of hours ; to ceremonies, of incense ; to reliques, 
 of shrines ; to the confeysed, of absolutions ; to priests, of 
 liabits ; to preachers, of pulpits ; to ecclesiastics, of pi-e- 
 eminences ; to scriptures, of interpreters ; to hosts, of 
 communions ; to the poor, of alms ; to the wretched, of
 
 LETTERS IN THE VERNACULAR IDIOM. 489 
 
 hospitals ; to virgins, of monasteries ; to fathers, of eon- 
 vents ; to the clergy, of orders ; to the defunct, of obse- 
 quies ; to tierces, noons, vespers, complins, ave-raaries, 
 and matins, the privileges of daily and nightly bells." 
 
 The fortunate temerity of Aretino gave birth to sub- 
 sequent publications by more skilful writers. Nicolo 
 Franco closely followed, who had at first been the aman- 
 uensis of Aretino, then his rival, and concluded his liter- 
 ary adventures by being hanged at Rome ; a circum- 
 stance which at the time must have occasioned regret 
 that Franco had not, in this respect also, been an imita- 
 tor of his original, a man equally feared, flattered, and 
 despised. 
 
 The greatest personages and the most esteemed writers 
 of that age were perhaps pleased to have discovered a 
 new and easy path to fame ; and since it was ascertained 
 that a man might become celebrated by writings nevei 
 intended for the press, and which it was never imagined 
 could confer fame on the writers, volumes succeeded 
 volumes, and some authors are scarcely known to pos- 
 terity but as letter-writers. We have the too-elaborate 
 epistles of Bembo, secretary to Leo X., and the more 
 elegant correspondence of Annibal Caro ; a work which, 
 though posthumous, and published by an affectionate 
 nephew, and therefoi'e too undiscerning a jjublisher, is a 
 model of familiar letters. 
 
 These collections, being fovmd agreeable to the taste 
 of their readers, novelty was courted by composing let- 
 ters more expressly adapted to public curiosity. The 
 subjects were now diversified by critical and political 
 topics, till at length they descended to one more level 
 with the faculties, and more grateful to the passions of 
 the populace of readers — Love! Many grave person- 
 ages had already, without being sensible of the ridicu- 
 lous, languished through tedious odes and starch sonnets. 
 Doni, a bold literary projector, who invented a literary
 
 490 LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 review both of printed and mannscrij)t works, with not 
 inferior ingenuity, published his love-letters y and with the 
 felicity of an Italian diminutive, he fondly entitled them 
 "Pistolette Amorose del Doni," 1552, 8vo. These Pis- 
 tole were designed to be little epistles, or billets-doux 
 but Doni was one of those fertile authors who have too 
 little time of their own to compose short works. Doni 
 was too facetious to be sentimental, and his quill was not 
 plucked from the wing of Love. He was followed by a 
 graver pedant, who threw a heavy offering on the altar 
 of the Graces ; Parabosco, who in six books of " Lettere 
 Amorose," 1565, 8vo, was too j)hlegmatic to sigh over his 
 inkstand. 
 
 Denina mentions Lewis Pasqualigo of Venice as an 
 improver of these amatory epistles, by introducing a 
 decider interest and a more complicate narrative. Par- 
 tial to the Italian literature, Denina considers this author 
 as having sriven birth to those novels in the form of let- 
 ters^ with which modern Europe has been inundated; 
 and he refers the curious in literary researches, for the 
 precursors of these epistolary novels^ to the works 
 of those Italian wits who flourished in the sixteenth 
 century. 
 
 " The Worlds " of Doni, and the numerous whimsical 
 works of Ortensio Landi, and the " Circe " of Gelli, of 
 which we have more than one English translation, which, 
 under their fantastic inventions, cover the most profound 
 philosophical views, have been considered the precursors 
 of the finer genius of " The Persian Letters," that fertile 
 mother of a numerous i)rogeny, of D'Argens and others. 
 
 The Italians are justly proud of some valuable collec- 
 tions of letters, which seem peculiar to themselves, and 
 which may be considered as the works of artists. They 
 have a collection of " Lettere di Trcdici Uomini Illustri," 
 which appeared in 1571; another more curious, relating 
 to princes — " Lettci-e de' Principi le quali o si sciivono
 
 LETTERS IN THE VERNACULAR IDIOil. 49I 
 
 da Principi a Princi])!, o ragionano di Principi ;" Yenezia, 
 1581, in 3 vols, quarto. 
 
 Biit a treasure of this kind, peculiarly interesting to 
 the artist, has appeared in more recent times, in seven 
 quarto volumes, consisting of the original letters of the 
 great painters, from the golden age of Leo X., gradually- 
 collected by Bottari, who published them in separate 
 volumes. They abound in the most interesting facts rela- 
 tive to the arts, and display the characteristic traits of 
 their lively writers. Every ai'tist will turn over with 
 delight and curiosity these genuine effusions ; chronicles 
 of the days and the nights of their vivacious brothers. 
 
 It is a little remarkable that he who claims to be the 
 first satirist in the English language, claims also, more 
 justly perhaps, the honour of being the first author who 
 published familiar letters. In the dedication of his 
 Epistles to Prince Henry, the son of James the First, 
 Bishop Hall claims the honour of introducing " this new 
 fashion of discourse by epistles, new to our language, 
 usual to others ; and as novelty is never without plea of 
 use, more free, more familiar." Of these epistles, in six 
 decades, many were written during his travels. We have 
 a collection of Donne's letters abounding with his pecu- 
 liar points, at least witty, if not natural. 
 
 As wo became a literary nation, familiar letters served 
 as a vehicle for the fresh feelings of our first authors. 
 Howell, whose Epistolae bears his name, takes a wider 
 circumference in " Familiar Letters, domestic and foreign, 
 historical, political, and philosophical, upon emergent oc- 
 casions." The " emergent occasions " the lively writer 
 found in his lono; confinement in the Fleet — that Ensflish 
 Parnassus ! Howell is a wit, who, in writing his own 
 history, has written that of his times ; he is one of the 
 few whose genius, striking in the heat of the moment 
 only current coin, produces finished medals for the cabi- 
 net. His letters are still published. The taste which
 
 492 • LITERARY CHARACTER. 
 
 had now arisen for collecting letters, induced Sir Tobie 
 Mathews, in 1660, to form a volume, of which many, if 
 not all, are genuine productions of their different wri- 
 ters. 
 
 The dissipated elegance of Charles 11. inspired freedom 
 in letter-writing. The royal emigrant had caught the 
 tone of Voiture. We have some few letters of the wits 
 of this court, but that school of writers, having sinned 
 in gross materialism, the reaction produced another of a 
 more spiritual nature, in a romantic strain of the most 
 refined sentiment. Volumes succeeded volumes from 
 pastoral and heroic minds. Katherine Philij^s, in the 
 masquerade-dress of " The Matchless Orinda," addressed 
 Sir Charles Cottrel, her grave " Poliarchus ;" while Mrs. 
 Behn, in her loose dress, assuming the nymph-like form of 
 " Astrtea," pursued a gentleman, concealed in a domino, 
 under the name of " Lycidas." 
 
 Before our letters i*eached to nature and truth, they 
 were strained by one more effort after novelty ; a new 
 species appeared, " From the Dead to the Living," by 
 Mrs. Rowe : they obtained celebrity. She was the first 
 who, to gratify the public taste, adventured beyond the 
 Styx ; the caprice of public favour has returned them to 
 the place whence they came. 
 
 The letters of Pope were unquestionably written for 
 the pubhc eye. Partly accident, and partly jiersevering 
 ingenuity, extracted from the family chests the letters of 
 Lady Mary Wortley Montague, who long remained the 
 model of letter-writing. The letters of Hughes and 
 Shenstone, of Gray, Cowper, Walpole, and others, self- 
 painters, whose indelible colours have given an imperish- 
 al:>lc charm to these fragments of the human mind, may 
 close our subject ; printed familiir letters now enter into 
 the history of our literature.
 
 AN INQUIRY 
 
 LITERARY AXD POLITICAL CHARACTER OF 
 JAMES THE FIRST; 
 
 INCLUDING A SKETCH OF HIS AGE.
 
 " The whole reign of James I. has been represented by a late cele- 
 brated pen (Burnet) to have been a continued course^f mean practices ; 
 and others, wlio have professedly given an account of it, have filled 
 their works with libel and invective, instead of history. Both King 
 James and his ministers have met with a treatment from posterity 
 higlily unworthy of them, and those who have so liberally bestowed 
 their censures were entirely ignorant of the true springs and causes of 
 the actions they have undertaken to represent." — Sawyer's Preface to 
 " Winwood's Memorials." 
 
 " II y auroit un excellent livre a faire sur les injustices, les Oublis, 
 et les OALOMNiES niSTORiQUES." — Madame db Genlis.
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 The present inquiry originates in an affair of literary 
 conscience. Many years ago I set off in tlie world with 
 the popular notions of the character of James the First ; 
 but in the course of study, and with a more enlarged 
 comprehension of the age, I Avas frequently struck by the 
 contrast of his real with his apparent character ; and I 
 thought I had developed those hidden and involved 
 causes which have so long influenced modern writers in 
 ridiculing and vilifying this monarch. 
 
 This historical trifle is, therefore, neither a hasty deci- 
 sion, nor a designed inquiry ; the results gradually arose 
 through successive periods of time, and, were it worth 
 the while, the history of my thoughts, in my own pub- 
 lications, might be arranged in a sort of chronological 
 conviction.* 
 
 It would be a cowardly silence to shrink from encoun- 
 tering all that popular prejudice and party feeling may 
 oppose ; this were mcompatible with that constant search 
 after truth which we may at least expect from the retired 
 student. 
 
 I had originally limited this inquiry to the literary 
 character of the monarch ; but there was a secret con- 
 nexion between that and his political conduct ; and that 
 again led me to examine the manners and temper of the 
 times, with the eftects which a peace of more than twenty 
 years operated on the nation. I hope that the freshness 
 of the materials, often drawn from contemporary wi'itings 
 
 *I havo described the progress of my opinions in "Curiosities of Literature," 
 vol. i., p. 4GT, l:ist edition.
 
 496 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 which have never been published, may in some respect 
 gratify curiosity. Of the political character of James the 
 First opposite tempers will form opposite opmions ; the 
 friends of peace and humanity will consider that the 
 greatest haj)piness of the people is that of possessing a 
 philosopher on the throne ; let profounder mquirers here- 
 after discover why those princes are suspected of being 
 but weak men, who are the true fathers of their people ; 
 let them too inform us, whether we are to ascribe to 
 James the First, as well as to Marcus Antoninus, the 
 disorders of their reign, or place them to the ingratitude 
 and wantonness of mankind.
 
 M INQUIRY 
 
 INTO THB 
 
 LITERARY AND POLITICAL CHARACTER OF 
 JAMES THE FIRST; 
 
 mCLUDING A SKETCH OF HIS AGE. 
 
 If sometimes the learned entertain false opinions and 
 traditionary prejudices, as well as the people, they how- 
 ever preserve among themselves a paramount love of 
 truth, and the means to remove errors, which have es- 
 caped their scrutiny. The occasion of such errors may 
 be complicate, but, usually, it is the arts and passions of 
 the few which find an indolent acquiescence among the 
 many, and firm adherents among those who so eagerly 
 consent to what they do not dislike to hear. 
 
 A remarkable instance of this appears in the character 
 of James the First, which lies buried under a heap of 
 ridicule and obloquy ; yet James the First was a literary 
 monarch at one of the great eras of English literature, 
 and his contemporaries were far from suspecting that his 
 talents were inconsiderable, even among those who had 
 their reasons not to like him. The degradation which 
 his literary character has suffered has been inflicted by 
 more recent hands ; and it may startle the last echoer of 
 Pope's " Pedant-reign " to hear that more wit and wisdom 
 have been recorded of James the First than of any one 
 of our sovereigns. 
 32
 
 498 CHARACTER OF JAMES THE FIRST. 
 
 An " Author-Sovereign," as Lord Shaftesbury, in his 
 anomalous but emphatic style, terms this class of writers, 
 is placed between a double eminence of honours, and 
 must incur the double perils ; he Avill receive no favour 
 from his brothers, the F'aineants^ as a whole race of 
 ciphers in sxiccession on the throne of France were de- 
 nominated, and who find it much more easy to despise 
 than to acquire ; while his other brothers, the republicans 
 of literature, want a heart to admire the man who has 
 resisted the perpetual seductions of a court-life for the 
 silent labours of his closet. Yet if Alphonsus of Arragon 
 be still a name endeared to us for his love of literature, 
 and for that elegant testimony of his devotion to study 
 expressed by the device on his banner of an open book, 
 how much more ought we to be indulgent to the memory 
 of a sovereign who has written one still worthy of being 
 opened ? 
 
 We must separate the literary from the political char- 
 acter of this monarch, and the qualities of his mind and 
 temper from the ungracious and neglected manners of 
 his personal one. And if we do not take a more familiar 
 view of the events, the parties, and the genius of the 
 times, the views and conduct of James the First will 
 still remain imperfectly comprehended. In the reign of 
 a prince who was no military character, we must busy 
 ourselves at home ; the events he regulated may be nu- 
 merous and even interesting, although not tliose which 
 make so much noise and show in the popular page of his- 
 tory, and escape us in its general views. The want of 
 this sort of knowledge has proved to be one great source 
 of the false judgments passed on this monarch. Surely 
 it is not philosophical to decide of another age by the 
 changes and the feelings through which our own has 
 passed. There is a chronology of human opinions 
 which, not observing, an indiscreet philosopher may 
 commit an anachronism in reasouins^.
 
 FIRST ASSAILANTS OF JAMES THE FIRST. 490 
 
 Wlien the Stuarts became the objects of popular in- 
 dignation, a peculiar race of libels was eagerly dragged 
 into light, assuming the imposing form of history ; many 
 of these state-libels did not even pass through the press, 
 and may occasionally be discovered in their MS. state. 
 Yet these publications cast no shade on the talents of 
 James the First. His literary attainments were yet un- 
 disputed ; they were echoing in the ear of the writers, 
 and many proofs of his sagacity were still lively in their 
 recollections. 
 
 THE FIRST MODERN ASSAHLANTS OF THE 
 CHARACTER OF JA3HES THE FIRST. 
 
 Burnet, the ardent champion of a party so deeply con- 
 cerned to oppose as well the persons as the principles of 
 the Stuarts, levelled the father of the race ; we read with 
 delight pages which warm and hurry us on, mingling 
 truths with rumours, and known with suggested events, 
 with all the spirit of secret history. But the character 
 of James I. was to pass through the lengthened inquisi- 
 torial tortui'es of the sullen sectarianism of Harris.* It 
 
 ♦ The historical works of Dr. "William Harris have been recently 
 republished in a collected form, and they may now be considered as 
 entering into our historical stores. 
 
 Harris is a curious researcher ; but what appears more striking in 
 his historical character, is the impartiality with which he quotes 
 authorities which make against his own opinions and statements. 
 Yet is Harris a writer likely to impose on many readers. He an- 
 nounces in his title-pages that hia works are " after the manner of Mr. 
 Bayle." This is but a literary imposition, for Harris is perhaps the 
 meanest vxTiter in our language both for style and philosophical think- 
 ing. The extraordinary impartiality he displays in his faithful quota- 
 tions from writers on opposite sides is only the more likely to deceive 
 us ; for by that unalterable party feeling, which never forsakes him, 
 the facts against him he studiously weakens by doubts, surmises, and 
 suggestions ; a character sinks to the level of his notions by a single
 
 500 CHAEAOTER OF JAMES THE FIRST. 
 
 was branded by the fierce, remorseless republican, Cath- 
 arine Macaulay, and flouted by the light, sparkling 
 Whig, Horace Walpole.* A senseless cry of pedantry 
 
 stroke ; and from the arguments adverse to his purpose, he wrests the 
 most violent inferences. All party writers must submit to practise 
 Buch mean and disingenuous arts if they affect to dipguise themselves 
 under a cover of impartiality. Bayle, intent on collecting facts, was 
 indifferent to their results ; but Harris is more intent on the deductions 
 than the facts. The truth is, Harris wrote to please his patron, the 
 republican Hollis, who supplied him with books, and every frit'odly 
 aid. " It is possible for an ingenious man to be of a party without 
 being partial,''^ says Rushworth ; an airy clench on the lips of a sober 
 matter-of-fact man looks suspicious, and betrays the weak pang of a 
 half-conscience. 
 
 * Horace Walpole's character of James I., in his "Royal Authors," 
 ia as remarkable as his character of Sir Philip Sidney ; he might have 
 written both without any acquaintance with the works he has so 
 maliciously criticised. In liis account of Sidney he had silently passed 
 over the "Defence of P.i>' ry;" and in his second edition he makes 
 this insolent avowal, that "he had forgotten it ; a proof that I at least 
 did not think it sufficient foundation for so high a character as he ac- 
 quired." Every reader of taste knows the falseness of the criticism, 
 and how heartless the polished cynicism that could dare it. I repeat, 
 what I have elsewhere said, that Horace Walpole had something in 
 his composition more predominant than his wit, a cold, unfeeling dis- 
 position, which contemned all literary men, at the moment his heart 
 ■ecretly panted to partake of their fame. 
 
 Nothing can bo more imposing than his volatUe and caustic criti- 
 cisms on the works of James L; yet it appears to me that he had 
 never opened that folio volume he so poignantly ridicules. For he 
 doubts whether these two pieces, "The Prince's Cabala" and "The 
 Duty of a King in hia Royal Office," were genuine productions of 
 James I. The truth is, they are both nothing more than extracts 
 printed with those separate titles, drawn from tlie King's " Basilicon 
 Doron." He had probably neither read the extracts nor the original. 
 Thus singularity of opinion, vivacity of ridicule, and polished epi- 
 grams in prose, were the means by which this noble writer startled 
 the world by hia paradoxes, and at length lived to be mortified at a 
 reputation which he sported with and lost. I refer the reader to 
 those extracts from his MS. letters which are in " Calamities of Au- 
 thors," where ho has made his literary confessions, and performs his 
 act of penance.
 
 PEDANTRY OP JA3IES THE ilEST. 5ol 
 
 had been raised against him by the eloquent invective of 
 Bolingbroke, from whom doubtless Pope echoed it in 
 verse which has outlived his lordship's prose : — 
 
 Oh, cried the goddess, for some pedant reign I 
 Some geutle James to bless the land again ; 
 To stick the doctor's chair into the throne, 
 Give law to words, or war with words alone, 
 Senates and courts with Greek and Latin rule, 
 And turn the council to a grammar-school 1 
 
 Dunciad, book iv. ver. 175 
 
 THE PEDANTRY OF JAMES THE FHIST. 
 
 Few of my readers, I suspect, but have long been per- 
 suaded that James L was a mere college pedant, and 
 that all his works, whatever they may be, are monstrous 
 pedantic labours. Yet this monarch of all things de- 
 tested pedantry, either as it shows itself in the mere 
 form of Greek and Latin, or in ostentatious book-learn- 
 ing, or in the aifectation of words of remote signification : 
 these are the only points of view in which I have been 
 taught to consider the meaning of the term pedantry, 
 which is very indefinite, and always a relative one. 
 
 The age of James I. was a controversial age, of un- 
 settled opinions and contested principles ; an age, in 
 which authority was considered as stronger than opin- 
 ion ; but the vigour of that age of genius was infused 
 into their writings, and those citers, who thus perpet- 
 ually crowded their margins, were profound and original 
 thinkers. When the learning of a preceding age becomes 
 less recondite, and those principles general which were 
 at first peculiar, are the ungrateful heirs of all this 
 knowledge to rejDroach the fathers of their literature 
 with pedantry? Lord Bolingbroke has pointedly said 
 of James L that " his pedantry was too much even for
 
 502 CHARACTER OF JAMES THE FIRST. 
 
 the age in which he lived." His lordship knew little 
 of that glorious age when the founders of our literature 
 flourished. It had been over-clouded by the French 
 court of Charles II., a race of unprincipled wits, and the 
 revolution-court of William, heated by a new faction, 
 too impatient to discuss those principles of government 
 which they had established. It was easy to ridicule 
 what they did not always understand, and very rarely 
 met with. But men of far higher genius than this mon- 
 arch, Selden, Usher, and Milton, must first be condemned 
 before this odium of pedantry can attach itself to the 
 plain and unostentatious writings of James I., who, it is 
 remarkable, has not scattered in them those oratorical 
 periods, and elaborate fancies, which he indulged in his 
 speeches and proclamations. These loud accusers of the 
 pedantry of James were little aware that the king has 
 expressed himself with energy and distinctness on thia 
 very topic. His majesty cautions Prince Henry against 
 the use of any " corrupt leide, as hook-language, and pen- 
 and-inkhorn termes, and, least of all, nignard and effemi- 
 nate ones." One passage may be given entire as com- 
 pletely refuting a charge so general, yet so unfounded. 
 " I would also advise you to write in " i/our own language^ 
 for there is nothing left to he said in Greek and Latine 
 already ; and, ynewe (enough) of poore schollers would 
 match you in these languages ; and besides that it best 
 becometh a King^ to purifie and make famous his owne 
 tongue / therein he may goe before all his subjects, as it 
 setteth him well to doe in all honest and lawful things." 
 No scholar of a pedantic taste could have dared so com- 
 plete an emancipation from ancient, yet not obsolete pre- 
 judices, at a time when many of our own great authors 
 yet imagined there was no fame for an Englishman 
 unless he neglected his maternal language for the arti- 
 ficial labour of the idiom of ancient Rome. Bacon had 
 even his own domestic Essays translated into Latin ; and
 
 HIS POLEMICAL STUDIES. 503 
 
 the king found a courtier-bishop to perform the same 
 task for his majesty's writings. There was something 
 prescient in this view of the national language, by the 
 king, who contemplated in it those latent powers which 
 had not yet burst into existence. It is evident that the 
 line of Pope is false which describes the king as intend- 
 ing to rule " senates and courts " by " turning the coun- 
 cil to a grammar-school." 
 
 fflS POLEMICAL STUDIES. 
 
 This censure of the pedantry of James is also con- 
 nected with those studies of polemical divinity, for which 
 the king has incurred much ridicule from one party, who 
 were not his contemporaries ; and such vehement invec- 
 tive from another, who were ; who, to their utter dis- 
 may, discovered their monarch descending into their 
 theological gymnasiimi to encounter them with their 
 own weapons. 
 
 The affairs of religion and politics in the reign of 
 James I., as in the preceding one of Elizabeth,* were iden- 
 tified together ; nor yet have the same causes in Europe 
 ceased to act, however changed or modified. The gov- 
 ernment of James was imperfectly established while his 
 subjects were wrestling with two great factions to ob- 
 tain the predominance. The Catholics were disputing 
 his title to the crown, which they aimed to carry into 
 the family of Spain, and had even fixed on Arabella 
 Stuart, to marry her to a Prince of Parma ; and the 
 
 * I have more largely entered into the history of the party who at- 
 tempted to subvert the government in the reign of Elizabeth, and who 
 published their works under the assumed name of Martin Mar-prelate, 
 than had hitherto been done. In our domestic annals that event and 
 those personages are of some importance and curiosity ; but were im- 
 perfectly known to the popular writers of our history. — See " Quar- 
 rels of Authors," p. 296. et seq.
 
 504 CHARACTER OF JAMES THE FIRST. 
 
 Puritans would have abolished even sovereignty itself; 
 these parties indeed were not able to take the field, but 
 all felt equally powerful with the pen. Hence an age of 
 doctrines. When a religious body has grown into pow- 
 er, it changes itself into a political one ; the chiefs are 
 flattered by their strength and stimulated by their am 
 bition ; but a powerful body in the State cannot remain 
 stationary, and a divided empire it disdains. Religious 
 controversies have therefore been usually coverings to 
 mask the political designs of the heads of parties. 
 
 We smile at James the First threatening the States- 
 general by the English Ambassador about Vorstius, a 
 Dutch professor, who had espoused the doctrines of Ar- 
 minius, and had also vented some metaphysical notions 
 of his own respecting the occult nature of the Divinity. 
 He was the head of the Remonstrants, who were at open 
 war with the party called the Contra-Remonstrants. 
 The ostensible subjects were religious doctrines, but the 
 concealed one was a struggle between Pensionary Bar- 
 nevelt, aided by the French interest, and the Prince of 
 Orange, supported by the English ; even to our own days 
 the same opposite interests existed, and betrayed the 
 Republic, although religious doctrines had ceased to be 
 the pretext.* 
 
 * Pensionary Barnevelt, in his seventy-second year, was at length 
 brought to the block. Diodati, a divine of Geneva, made a miserable 
 pun on the occasion ; he said that " the Canons of the Synod of Dort 
 had taken off the head of the advocate of Holland." This pun, says 
 Brandt in his curious " History of the Reformation," is very injurious 
 to the Synod, since it intimates that the Churcli loves blood. It never 
 entered into the mind of these divines that Barnevelt fell, not by the 
 Synod, but by the Orange and English party prevailing against the 
 French. Lord Hardwicke, a statesman and a man of letters, deeply 
 conversant with secret and public history, is a more able judge than 
 the ecclesiastical historian or the Sw^iss divine, who could see nothing 
 in the Synod of Dort but vrliat appeared in it. It is in Lord Hard- 
 wiclic's preface to Sir Dudley Carleton's "Letters" that his lordship 
 has made this important discovery.
 
 Hia POLEMICAL STUDIES. 505 
 
 What was passing between the Dutch Prince and the 
 Dutch Pensionary, was much like what was taking place 
 between the King of England and his own subjects. 
 James I. had to touch with a balancing hand the Catho- 
 lics and the Nonconformists,* — to play them one against 
 another ; but there was a distinct end in their views. 
 " James I.," says Burnet, " continued always writing and 
 talking against Popery, but acting for it." The King 
 and the bishops were probably more tolerant to mon- 
 archists and prelatists, than to republicans and presbyters. 
 When James got nothing but gunpowder and Jesuits 
 from Rome, he was willing enough to banish, or suppress, 
 but the Catholic families were ancient and numerous; 
 and the most determined spirits which ever subverted a 
 government were Catholic.f Yet what could the King 
 
 * James did all he could to weaken the Catholic party by dividing 
 them in opinion. When Dr. Reynolds, the head of the Nonconform- 
 ists, complained to the king of the printing and dispersing of Popish 
 pamphlets, the king answered that this was done by a warrant from 
 the Court, to nourish the schism between the Seculars and Jesuits, 
 which was of great service. "Doctor," added the king, "you are a 
 better clergyman than statesman." — Neale's " History of the Puritans," 
 vol. i., p. 41G, 4to. 
 
 f The character and demeanour of the celebrated Guy or Guido 
 Fawkes, who appeared first before the council under the assumed 
 name of Johnson, I find in a MS. letter of the times, which contains 
 some characteristic touches not hitherto published. This letter is from 
 Sir Edward Hoby to Sir Thomas Edmondes, our ambassador at the 
 court of Brussels — dated 19th Nov., 1605. "One Johnson was found 
 in the vault where the Gunpower Plot was discovered. He was asked 
 if he was sorry ? He answered that he was only sorry it liad not 
 taken place. He was threatened that he should die a worye death 
 than he that killed the Prince of Orange ; he answered, that he could 
 bear it as well. When Johnson was brought to the king's presence, 
 the king asked him how he could conspire so hideous a treason against 
 his children and so many innocent souls who had never ofiended him ? 
 He answered, that dangerous diseases required a desperate remedy; 
 and he told some of the Scots that his intent was to have blown them 
 back again into Scotland 1" — Mordacious Guy Fawkes !
 
 506 CHARACTER OF JAMES THE FIRST. 
 
 expect from the party of the Puritans, and their " con- 
 ceited pai'ity," as he called it, should he once throw him- 
 self into their hands, but the fate his son received from 
 them? 
 
 In the early stage of the Reformation, the Catholic 
 still entered into the same church with the Reformed ; 
 this common union was broken by the impolitical impa- 
 tience of the court of Rome, who, jealous of the tranquil- 
 lity of Elizabeth, hoped to weaken her government by 
 disunion ; * but the Reformed were already separating 
 among themselves by a new race, who, fancying that 
 their religion was still too Catholic, were for reforming 
 the Reformation. These had most extravagant fancies, 
 and were for modelling the government according to each 
 particular man's notion. Were we to bend to the for- 
 eign despotism of the Roman Tiara, or that of the repub- 
 lican rabble of the Presbytery of Geneva ? 
 
 POLEMICAL STUDIES WERE POLITICAL. 
 
 It was in these times that James I,, a learned prince, 
 applied to polemical studies ; properly understood, these 
 were in fact political ones. Lord Bolingbroke says, " He 
 affected more learning than became a king, which he 
 broached on every occasion in such a manner as would 
 
 * Sir Edward Coko, attorney-general, in the trial of Garnet the 
 Jesuit, says, "There were no Recusants in England — all came to 
 church howsoever Popishly inclined, till the Bull of Pius V. excommu- 
 nicated and deposed Eliza))eth. On this the Papists refused to join iu 
 the public service. — "State Trials," vol. i., p. 242. 
 
 The Pope imagined, by false impressions ho had received, that the 
 Catholic party was strong enough to prevail iigainst Elizabeth. After- 
 wards, when he found his error, a dispensation was granted by him- 
 self and his successor, that all Catholics might show outward obedience 
 to Elizabeth till a happier opportunity. Such are Catholic pohtics and 
 Catholic faith I
 
 THE HAMPTON-COURT CONFERENCE. 507 
 
 have misbecome a schoolmaster." "Would the politician 
 then require a half-learned king, or a king witliout any 
 learning at all ? Our eloquent sophist appears not to 
 have recollected that polemical studies had long with us 
 been considered as royal ones ; and that from a slender 
 volume of the sort our sovereigns still derive the regal 
 distinction of " Defenders of the Faith," The pacific 
 government of James I. required that the king himself 
 should be a master of these controversies to be enabled 
 to balance the conflicting parties ; and none but a learned 
 king could have exerted the industry or attained to the 
 8kiU. 
 
 THE HAMPTON-COURT CONFERENCE. 
 
 In" the famous conference at Hampton Court, which the 
 King held with the heads of the Nonconformists, we see 
 his majesty conversing sometimes with great learning and 
 sense, but oftener more with the earnestness of a man, 
 than some have imagined comported with the dignity of 
 a crowned head. The truth is, James, like a true student, 
 indulged, even to his dress, an utter carelessness of 
 parade, and there was in his character a constitutional 
 warmth of heart and a jocundity of temper which did 
 not always adapt it to state-occasions ; he thi*ew out his 
 feelings, and sometimes his jests. James, who had 
 passed his youth in a royal bondage, felt that these 
 Nonconformists, while they were debating small points, 
 were reserving for hereafter their great ones ; were 
 cloaking their republicanism by their theology, and, like 
 all other politicians, that their ostensible were not their 
 real motives.* Harris and Neal, the organs of the 
 
 * In political history we usually find that the heads of a party are 
 much wiser than the party themselves, so that, whatever they intend
 
 508 CHARACTER OF JAMES THE FIRST. 
 
 Nonconformists, inveigh against James ; even Hume, 
 with the philosophy of the eighteenth century, has 
 pronounced that the king was censurable " for entering 
 zealously into these frivolous disputes of theology." 
 Lord Bolingbroke declares that the king held this con- 
 ference " in haste to show his parts." Thus a man of 
 genius substitutes suggestion and assertion for accuracy 
 of knowledge. In the present instance, it was an attempt 
 of the Puritans to try the king on his arrival in England ; 
 they presented a petition for a conference, called " The 
 Millenary Petition," * from a thousand persons supposed 
 to have signed it ; the king would not refuse it ; but so 
 far from being " in haste to show his parts," that when 
 he discovered their pretended grievances were so futile, 
 " he complained that he had been troubled with such 
 
 to acquire, their first demands are email ; but the honest souls who 
 are only stirred by their own innocent zeal, are sure to complain that 
 their business is done negligently. Should the party at first succeed, 
 then the bolder spirit, which they have disguised or suppressed 
 through policy, is left to itself; it starts unbridled and at full gallop. 
 All this occurred in tlie case of the Puritans. We find that some of the 
 rigid Nonconformists did confess in a pamphlet, " The Christian's 
 modest offer of the Silenced Ministers," 1606, that those who were 
 appointed to speak for them at Hampton Court were not of their 
 nomination or judgment; they insisted that these delegates should 
 declare at once against the whole church establishment, &c., and model 
 the government to each particular man's notions ! But these delegates 
 prudently refused to acquaint the king with the conflicting opinions of 
 their constituents. — Lansdowne MSS. 1056, 51. 
 
 This confession of the Nonconformists is also acknowledged by their 
 historian Neale, vol. ii., p. 419, 4to edit. 
 
 * The petition is given at length in Collier's " Eccles. Hist.," vol iL 
 p. 672. At this time also the Lay Catholics of England printed at 
 Douay, " A Petition Apologctical," to James I. Their language is 
 remarkable: they complained they were excluded "tliat supreme 
 court of parliament first founded by ar:d for Catholike men, was 
 furnished with Catholike prelates, poeros, and personages ; and so 
 continued till the times of Edward VI. a childe, and Queen Elizabeth 
 a woman.''^ — Dodd's " Church History."
 
 THE HAMPTON-COURT CONFERENCE. 509 
 
 importunities, when some more private course might 
 have been taken for their satisfaction." 
 
 The narrative of this once celebrated conference, 
 notwithstanding the absurdity of the topics, becomes in 
 the hands of the entertaining Fuller a picturesque and 
 dramatic composition, where the dialogue and the 
 manners of the speakers are after the life. 
 
 In the course of this conference we obtain a familiar in- 
 tercourse with the king ; we may admire the capacity of 
 the monarch whose genius was versatile with the subjects ; 
 sliding from theme to theme with the ease which only 
 mature studies could obtain ; entering into the graver 
 parts of these discussions ; discovering a ready knowl- 
 edge of biblical learning, which would sometimes throw 
 itself out with his natural humour, in apt and familiar 
 illustrations, throughout indulging his own pei'sonal 
 feelings with an unparalleled na'ivetL 
 
 The king opened the conference with dignity ; he said 
 " he was happier than his predecessors, who had to alter 
 what they found established, but he only to confirm 
 what was well settled." One of the party made a 
 notable discovery, that the surplice was a kind of 
 garment used by the priests of Isis. The king observed 
 that he had no notion of this antiquity, since he had 
 always heard from them that it was " a rag of 
 popeiy." "Dr. Reynolds," said the king, with an 
 air of pleasantry, " they used to wear hose and shoes in 
 times of popery ; have you therefore a mind to go bare- 
 foot ?" Reynolds objected to the words used in matri- 
 mony, " with my body I thee worship." The king said 
 the phrase was an usual English term, as a gentle)nan of 
 worship, <fec., and turning to the doctor, smiling, said, 
 " Many a man speaks of Robin Hood, who never shot 
 in his bow ; if you had a good wife yourself, you would 
 think all the honour and worship you could do to 
 her were well bestowed." Reynolds was not satisfied
 
 510 CHARACTER OF JAMES THE FIRST. 
 
 on the 37th article, declaring that "the Bishop of 
 Rome hath no authority in this land," and desired it 
 should be added, "nor ought to have any." In Bar- 
 low's narrative we find that on this his majesty heartily 
 laughed — a laugh easily caught up by the lords; but 
 the king nevertheless condescended to reply sensibly 
 to the weak objection. 
 
 " What speak you of the pope's authority here ? Scu- 
 harms jure quod habemus / and therefore inasmuch as it 
 is said he hath not, it is plain enough that he ought not 
 to have." It was on this occasion that some " pleasant 
 discourse passed," in which " a Pui-itan " was defined to 
 be a " Protestant frightened out of his wits." The king 
 is more particularly vivacious when he alludes to the oc- 
 currences of his own reign, or suspects the Puritans of 
 republican notions. On one occasion, to cut the gordian- 
 knot, the king royally decided — " I will not argue that 
 point with you, but answer as kings in parliament, Le 
 Roy s'avisera.'''' 
 
 When they hinted at a Scottish Presbytery the king 
 was somewhat stirred, yet what is admirable in him (says 
 Barlow) without a show of passion. The king had lived 
 among the republican saints, and had been, as he said, 
 " A king without state, without honour, without order, 
 where beardless boys would brave us to our face ; and, 
 like the Saviour of the world, though he lived among 
 them, he was not of them." On this occasion, although 
 the king may not have " shown his passion," he broke 
 out, however, with a naive eifusion, remarkable for paint- 
 ing after the home-life a republican goverament. It must 
 have struck Hume forcibly, for he has preserved part of 
 it in the body of his history. Hume only consulted Ful- 
 ler. I give the copious explosion from Barlow : — 
 
 " If you aim at a Scottish Presbytery, it agrecth as 
 well with monarchy as God and the devil. Then Jack, 
 and Tom, Will, and Dick, shall meet, and at their pleas-
 
 THE HAMPTON-COURT CONFERENCE. 511 
 
 ure censure me and my council, and all our proceedings ; 
 then Will shall stand up and say, It must be thus ; then 
 Dick shall reply, Nay, marry, but we M'ill have it thus. 
 And therefore here I must once more reiterate my former 
 speech, Le Roy s^avisera. Stay, I pray you, for one seven 
 years before you demand that of. me, and if then you find 
 me pursy and fat, I may hearken to you ; for let that 
 government once be up, I am sure I shall be kept in 
 breath ; then shall we all of us have work enough : but, 
 Dr. Reynolds, till you find that I grow lazy, let that 
 alone." 
 
 The king added, 
 
 " I will tell you a tale : — Knox flattered the queen- 
 regent of Scotland that she was supreme head of all the 
 church, if she suppressed the popish prelates. But how 
 long, trow ye, did this continue ? Even so long, till, by 
 her authority, the popish bishops were repressed, and he 
 himself, and his adherents, were brought in and well 
 settled. Then, lo ! they began to make small account of 
 her authority, a«d took the cause into their own hands." 
 
 This was a pointed political tale, appropriately told in 
 the person of a monarch. 
 
 The king was never deficient in the force and quickness 
 of his arguments. Even Neale, the great historian of the 
 Puritans, complaining that Dean Barlow has cut ofi" some 
 of the king's speeches, is reluctantly compelled to tax 
 himself with a high commendation of the monarch, who, 
 he acknowledges, on one of the days of this conference, 
 spoke against the corruptions of the church, and the 
 practices of the prelates, insomuch that Dr. Andrews, 
 then dean of the chapel, said that his majesty did that 
 day wonderfully play the Puritan.* The king, indeed, 
 
 * The bishops of James I. were, as Fuller calls one of them, "potent 
 courtiers," and too worldly-minded men. Bancroft was a man of vehe- 
 ment zeal, but of the most grasping avarice, as appears by an epigram- 
 matic epitaph on his death in Arthur "Wilson —
 
 512 CHARACTER OF JAMES THE FIRST. 
 
 was seriously inclined to an union of parties. More than 
 once he silenced the angry tongue of Bancroft, and tem- 
 pei-ed the zeal of others ; and even commended when he 
 could Dr. Reynolds, the chief of the Puritans ; the king 
 consented to the only two important articles that side 
 suggested ; a new catechism adapted to the people — 
 " Let the weak be informed and the wilful be punished," 
 said the king; and that new translation of the Bible 
 which forms our present version, " But," added the 
 king, "it must be without marginal notes, for the 
 Geneva Bible is the worst for them, full of seditious con- 
 ceits ; Asa is censured for only deposing his mother for 
 idolatry, and not killing her." Thus early the dark spirit 
 of Machiavel had lighted on that of the ruthless Calvin. 
 The grievances of our first dissenters were futile — their 
 innovations interminable; and we discover the king's 
 notions, at the close of a proclamation, issued after this 
 
 " Here lies his grace, in cold earth clad, 
 Who died with want of what he had." 
 
 We find a characteristic trait of this Bishop of London in this confer- 
 ence. When Ellesmere, Lord Chancellor, observed that " livings 
 rather want learned men, than learned men livings, many in the uni- 
 versities pining for want of places. I wish, therefore, some may have 
 single coats (one living), before others have douhlfts (pluralities), and 
 this method I have observed in bestowing the liing's benefices." Ban- 
 croft replied, " I commend your memorable care that way ; but a 
 dovhht is necessary in cold weather." Tims an avaricious bishop could 
 turn ofT, with a miserable jest, the open avowal of his love of plurali- 
 ties. «Another, Ncilo, Bishop of Lincoln, when any one preached who 
 was remarkable for his piety, desirous of withdrawing the king's at- 
 tention from truths he did not wisli to have his majesty reminded of, 
 would in tiie sermon-time enlertaiu the king with a merry tale, which 
 the king would laugh at, and tell those near him, that he could not 
 hear the preacher for the old — bishop; prefixing an epithet explicit 
 of the character of those merry tales. Kennot has preser\'ed for us 
 the "rank relation," as he calls it; not, he adds, but " we have had 
 divers hammerings and conflicts within us to leave it out." — Kennet's 
 "History of England," ii. 729.
 
 THE HAMPTON-COURT CONFERENCE. 513 
 
 conference : " Such is the desultory levity of some peo- 
 ple, that they are always languishing after change and 
 novelty, insomuch that were they humoured in their in- 
 constancy, they would expose the public management, 
 and make the administration ridiculous." Such is the 
 vigorous style of James the First in his proclamations ; 
 and such is the political truth, which w411 not die away 
 with the conference at Hampton Court. 
 
 These studies of polemical divinity, like those of the 
 ancient scholastics, were not to be obtained without a 
 robust intellectual exercise. James instructed his son 
 Charles,* who excelled in them; and to those studies 
 
 * That the clergy were somewhat jealous of their sovereign's inter- 
 ference in these matters may be traced. When James charged the 
 chaplains, who were to wait on the prince in Spain, to decline, as far 
 as possible, religious disputes, he added, that " should any happen, 
 my son is able to moderate in them." The king, observing one of the 
 divines smile, grew warm, vehemently affirming, " I tell ye, Cliarles 
 shall manage a point in controversy with the best studied divine of 
 ye all." What the king said was afterwards confirmed on an extra- 
 ordinary occasion, in the conference Charles I. held ^-ith Alexander 
 Henderson, the old champion of the kirk. Deprived of books, which 
 might furnish the sword and pistol of controversy, and without a 
 chaplain to stand by him as a second, Charles I. fought the theological 
 duel ; and the old man, cast down, retired with such a sense of the 
 learning and honour of the king, in maintaining the order of episco- 
 pacy in England, that his death, which soon followed, is attributed to 
 the deep vexation of this discomfiture. The veteran, who had suc- 
 ceeded in subverting the hierarchy in Scotland, would not be apt to 
 die of a fit of conversion ; but vexation might be apoplectic in an old 
 and sturdy disputant. The king's controversy was published; and 
 nearly all the writers agree he carried the day. Tet some divines 
 appear more jealous than grateful ; Bishop Kennet, touched by the 
 esprit du corps, honestly tells us, that "some thought the king had been 
 better able to protect the Church, if he had not disputed for it." This 
 discovers all the ardour possible for the establishment, and we are to 
 infer that an English sovereign is only to fight for his churchmen. 
 But there is a nobler office for a sovereign to perform in ecclesiastical 
 history — to promote the learned and the excellent, and repress the 
 dissolute and the intolerant. 
 33
 
 514 CHARACTER OP JAMES THE FIRST. 
 
 Whitelocke attributes that aptitude of Charles I. which 
 made him so skilful a summer-up of arguments, and 
 endowed him with so clear a perception in giving his 
 decisions. 
 
 THE WORKS OF JAMES THE FmST. 
 
 We now turn to the writings of James the First. He 
 composed a treatise on demoniacs and witches ; those 
 dramatic personages in courts of law. James and his 
 council never suspected that those ancient foes to man- 
 kind could be dismissed by a simple Nolle prosequi. " A 
 Commentary on the Revelations," which was a favourite 
 speculation then, and on which greater geniuses have 
 written since his day. " A Counterblast to Tobacco !" 
 the title more ludicrous than the design.* His majesty 
 
 * Not long before James composed his treatise on " Dsemonologie," 
 the learned Wierus had published an olaboiate work on the subject. 
 " De prcestigiis Dmrnonum et incantationibus et Veneficiis" kc, 1568. He 
 advanced one step in philosophy by discovering that many of the sup- 
 posed cases of incantation originated in the imagination of these sor- 
 cerers — but he advanced no farther, for he acknowledges the real dia- 
 bolical presence. The pliysician who pretended to cure the disease, 
 was himself irrecoverably infected. Yet even this single step of 
 "Wierus was strenuously resisted bj' the learned Bodin, who, in his 
 amusing volume of " Demonomanie des Sorciers," 1 593, refutes Wierus. 
 Those are the leading authors of the times ; who were followed by a 
 crowd. Thus James I. neither wanted authorities to quote nor great 
 minds to sanction his "Dajraonologie," first published in 1597. To the 
 honour of England, a single individual, Reginald Scot, with a genius 
 far advanced beyond his age, denied the very existence of those 
 witches and demons, in the curious volume of his "Discovery of 
 Witchcraft," 1584. His books were burned! and the author was him- 
 self not quite out of danger; and Voetius, says Bayle, complains that 
 when the work was translated into Dutch, it raised up a number of 
 libertines who laughed at all the operations and the apparitions of 
 devils. Casaubon and Glanvil, who wrote so much later, treat Scot 
 with profound contempt, assuring us his reasonings are childish, and 
 his philosophy absurd 1 Such was the reward of a man of genius com-
 
 THE WORKS OF JAMES THE FIRST. 515 
 
 terrified " the tobacconists," as the patriarchs of smoking- 
 clubs were called, and who were selling their very lands 
 and houses in an epidemical madness for " a stinking 
 weed," by discovering that " they wei-e making a sooty 
 kitchen in their inward parts." * And the king gained a 
 point with the great majority of his subjects, when he 
 demonstrated to their satisfaction that the pope was anti- 
 christ. Ridiculous as these topics are to us, the works 
 themselves were formed on what modern philosophers 
 affect to term the principle of utility ; a principle which, 
 with them indeed, includes everything they approve of, 
 and nothing they dislike. 
 
 It was a prompt honesty of intention to benefit his 
 people, which seems to have been the urgent motive that 
 induced this monarch to become an author, more than 
 any literary ambition ; for he writes on no prepared or 
 permanent topic, and even published anonymously, and 
 as he once wrote " post-haste," what he composed or 
 designed for practical and immediate use ; and even in 
 
 bating with popular prejudices! Even so late as 1687, these popular 
 superstitions were confirmed by the narrations and the philosophy of 
 Glanvil, Dr. More, &c The subject enters into the " Commentaries 
 on the Laws of England." An edict of Louis XIV. and a statute by 
 George IL made an end of the whole Diahkrie. Had James I. adopted 
 the system of Reginald Scot, the king had probably been branded as 
 an atheist king I 
 
 * Harris, with systematic ingenuity against James I., after abusing 
 this tract as a wretched performance, though himself probably had 
 written a meaner one — quotes the curious information the king gives 
 of the enormous abuse to which the practice of smoking was carried, 
 expressing his astonishment at it. Yet, that James may not escape 
 bitter censure, he abuses the king for levying a heavy tax on it to pre- 
 vent this ruinous consumption, and his sUly policy in discouraging such 
 a branch of our revenues, and an article so valuable to our plantations, 
 &c. As if James I. could possibly incur censure for the discoveries of 
 two centuries after, of the nature of this plant I James saw great 
 families ruined by the epidemic madness, and sacrificed the revenues 
 which his crown might derive from it, to assist its suppression. Thia 
 was patriotism in the monarch.
 
 516 CHARACTER OF JAMES THE FIRST. 
 
 that admirable treatise on the duties of a sovereign, 
 which he addressed to Prince Henry, a great portion is 
 directed to the exigencies of the times, the parties, and 
 the circumstances of his own court. Of the works now 
 more particularly noticed, their interest has ceased with 
 the melancholy follies which at length have passed 
 away ; although the philosophical inquirer will not 
 choose to drop this chapter in the history of mankind. 
 But one fact in favour of our royal author is testified by 
 the honest Fuller and the cynical Osborne. On the 
 king's arrival in England, having discovered the numer- 
 ous impostures and illusions which he had often referred 
 to as authorities, he grew suspicious of the whole system 
 of "Daemonologie," and at length recanted it entirely. 
 With the same conscientious zeal James had written the 
 book, the king condemned it ; and the sovereign separa- 
 ted himself from the author, in the cause of truth ; but 
 the clergy and the parliament persisted in making the 
 imaginary crime felony by the statute, and it is only a 
 recent act of parliament which has forbidden the appear- 
 ance of the possessed and the spae-wife. 
 
 But this apology for having written these treatises 
 need not rest on this fact, however honourably it appeals 
 to our candour. Let us place it on higher ground, and 
 tell those who asperse this monarch for his credulity and 
 intellectual weakness, that they themselves, had they 
 lived in the reign of James I., had probably written on 
 the same topics, and felt as uneasy at the rumour of a 
 witch being a resident in their neighbourhood I 
 
 POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS OF THE AGE. 
 
 This and the succeeding age were the times of omens 
 and meteors, prognostics and providences — of " d&v-f^-
 
 POPULAR STJPBRSTITTOITS OF THE AGE. 517 
 
 tality," or the superstition of fortunate and unfortunate 
 days, and the combined powers of astrology and magic. 
 It was only at the close of the century of James I. that 
 Bayle wrote a treatise on comets, to prove that they had 
 no influence in the cabinets of princes ; this was, how- 
 ever, done with all the precaution imaginable. The 
 greatest minds were then sinking under such popular 
 Buperstitions : and whoever has read much of the private 
 history of this age will have smiled at their ludicrous 
 terrors and bewildered reasonings. The most ordinary 
 events were attributed to an interposition of Providence. 
 In the unpublished memoirs of that learned antiquary, 
 Sir Symonds D'Ewes, such frequently occur. When a 
 comet appeared, and D'Ewes, for exercise at college, had 
 been ringing the great bell, and entangled himself in the 
 rope, which had nearly strangled him, he resolves not to 
 ring while the comet is in the heavens. When a fire 
 happened at the Six Clerks' Office, of whom his father 
 was one, he inquires into the most prominent sins of the 
 six clerks : these were the love of the world, and doing 
 business on Sundays : and it seems they thought so 
 themselves; for after the fire the office-door was fast 
 closed on the Sabbath, When the Thames had an 
 unusual ebb and flow, it was observed, that it had never 
 happened in their recollection, but just before the rising 
 of the Earl of Essex in Elizabeth's reign, — and Sir 
 Symonds became uneasy at the political aspect of afiairs. 
 All the historians of these times are very particular in 
 marking the bearded beams of blazing stars ; and the 
 first public event that occurs is always connected -with 
 the radiant course. Arthur Wilson describes one which 
 preceded the death of the simple queen of James L It 
 was generally imagined that " this great light in the 
 heaven was sent as a flambeaux to her funeral ;" but the 
 historian discovers, while " this blaze was burning, the 
 fire of war broke out in Bohemia." It was found difficult
 
 518 CHARACTER OF JAMES THE FIRST. 
 
 to decide between the two opinions ; and Rushworth, 
 who wrote long afterwards, carefully chronicles both. 
 
 The truth is, the greatest geniuses of the age of James 
 L were as deeply concerned in these investigations as 
 his Majesty. Had the great Verulam emancipated him- 
 self from all the dreams of his age ? He speaks indeed 
 cautiously of witchcraft, but does not deny its occult 
 agency ; and of astrology he is rather for the improve- 
 ment than the rejection. The bold spirit of Rawleigh 
 contended with the superstitions of the times ; but how 
 feeble is the contest where we fear to strike ! Even 
 Rawleigh is prodigal of his praise to James for the king's 
 chapter on magic. The great mind of Rawleigh per- 
 ceived how much men are formed and changed by educor 
 tion ; but, were this principle admitted to its extent, 
 the stars would lose their influence ! In pleading for 
 the free agency of man, he would escape from the perni- 
 cious tendency of predestination, or the astral influence, 
 which yet he allows. To extricate himself from the 
 dilemma, he invents an analogical reasoning of a royal 
 power of dispensing with the laws in extreme cases ; so 
 that, though he does not deny " the binding of the stars," 
 he declares they are controllable by the will of the 
 Creator, In this manner, fettered by prevalent opinions, 
 he satisfies the superstitions of an astrological age, and 
 the penetration of his own genius. At a much later 
 period Dr. Henry More, a writer of genius, confirmed 
 the ghost and demon creed, by a number of facts, as 
 marvellously pleasant as any his own poetical fancy could 
 have invented. Other great authors have not less dis- 
 tinguished themselves. Wlien has there appeared a 
 single genius who at once could free himself of the tra- 
 ditional prejudices of his contemporaries — nay, of his 
 own party ? Genius, in its advancement beyond the 
 intelligence of its own age, is but progressive ; it is fixnci- 
 fully said to soar, but it only climbs. Yet the minds of 
 
 }
 
 HIS HABITS THOSE OF A MAN OF LKTTERS. 519 
 
 some authors of tliis age are often discovered to be supe- 
 rior to their work ; because the mind is impelled by its 
 own inherent powers, but the work usually originates 
 in the age. James L once acutely observed, how " the 
 author may be wise, but the work foolish." 
 
 Thus minds of a higher rank than our royal author had 
 not yet cleared themselves out of these clouds of popular 
 prejudices. We now proceed to more decisive results of 
 the superior capacity of this much ill-used monarch. 
 
 THE HABITS OF JAMES THE FmST THOSE 
 OF A MAN OF LETTERS. 
 
 The habits of life of this monarch were those of a man 
 of letters. His first studies were soothed by none of their 
 enticements. If James loved literature, it was for itself; 
 for Buchanan did not tinge the rim of the vase with 
 honey; and the bitterness was tasted not only in the 
 draught, but also in the rod. In some princes, the harsh 
 discipline James passed through has raised a strong aver- 
 sion against literature. The Dauphin, for whose use was 
 formed the well-known edition of the classics, looked on 
 the volumes with no eye of love. To free himself of his 
 tutor, Huet, he eagerly consented to an early marriage. 
 " Now we shall see if Mr. Huet shall any more keep me 
 to ancient geography !" exclaimed the Dauphin, rejoic- 
 ing in the first act of despotism. This ingenuous sally, it 
 is said, too deeply affected that learned man for many 
 years afterwards. Huet's zealous gentleness (for how 
 could Huet be too rigid ?) wanted the art which Bu- 
 chanan disdained to practise. But, in the case of the 
 prince of Scotland, a constitutional timidity combining 
 with an ardour for study, and therefoi'e a veneration for 
 his tutor, produced a more remarkable effect. Sucli was 
 the terror which the remembrance of this illustrious but
 
 520 CHARACTER OF JAMES THE FIRST. 
 
 inexorable republican left on the imagination of his royal 
 pupil, that even so late as when James was seated on 
 the English throne, once the appearance of his frowning 
 tutor in a dream greatly agitated the king, who in vain 
 attempted to pacify him in this portentous vision. This 
 extraordinary fact may be found in a manuscript letter 
 of that day.* 
 
 James, even by the confession of his bitter satirist, 
 Francis Osborne, " dedicated rainy weather to his 
 standish, and fair to his hounds." His life had the 
 uniformity of a student's ; but the regulated life of a 
 learned monarch must have weighed down the gay and 
 dissipated with the deadliest monotony. Hence one of 
 these courtiers declared that, if he were to awake after a 
 Bleep of seven years' continuance, he would undertake to 
 
 * The learned Mede wrote the present letter soon after another, 
 which had not been acknowledged, to his friend Sir M. Stuteville ; and 
 the writer is uneasy lest the political secrets of the day might bring 
 the parties into trouble. It seems he was desu-ous that letter should 
 be read and then burnt. 
 
 "March 31, 1622. 
 
 " I hope my letter miscarried not ; if it did I am in a sweet picklo 
 I desired to hear from you of the receipt and extinction of it. Thoilgh 
 there is no danger in my letters whilst report is so rife, j'et when it is 
 forgotten they will not be so safe ; but your danger is as great as mine — 
 
 "Mr. Downham was with mo, now (;ome from London. He told me 
 that it was three years ago since those verses were delivered to the 
 king in a dream, by his Master Buchanan, who seemed to check him 
 severely, as he used to do ; and his Majesty, in his dream, seemed desir- 
 ous to pacify him, but he, turning away with a frowning counttnance, 
 would utter those verses, which his Majesty, perfectly remembering, 
 repeated the next day, and many took notice of them. Now, by occa- 
 sion of the late soreness in his arm, and the doubtfulness what it 
 would prove ; especially having, by mischance, fallen into the fire with 
 that arm, the remembrance of the verses began to trouble him." 
 
 It iippoars tliat these verses were of a tlireatening nature, since, in a 
 melanclioly fit, they »vore recalled to rofoUection after an interval of 
 three years; the eraes are lost to us, with the letter whicli contained 
 them.
 
 HIS HABITS THOSE OF A MAN OF LETTERS. 521 
 
 enumerate the whole of his Majesty's occupations, 
 and every dish that had been placed on the table during 
 the interval. But this courtier was not aware that 
 the monotony which the king occasioned him was not 
 so much in the king himself as in his own volatile 
 spirit. 
 
 The table of James I. was a trial of wits, says a more 
 learned courtier, who often partook of these prolonged 
 conversations : those genial and convivial conferences 
 were the recreations of the king, and the means often of 
 advancing those whose talents had then an opportunity 
 of discovering themselves. A life so constant in its 
 pursuits was to have been expected from the temper of 
 him who, at the view of the Bodleian library, exclaimed, 
 " Were I not a king, I would be an university man ; and 
 if it were so that I must be a prisoner, I would have 
 no other prison than this library, and be chained together 
 with all these goodly authors."* 
 
 Study, indeed, became one of the businesses of life with 
 our contemplative monarch ; and so zealous was James 
 to form his future successor, that he even seriously 
 engaged in the education of both his sons. James L 
 offers the singular spectacle of a father who was at once 
 a preceptor and a monarch : it was in this spirit the king 
 composed his " Basilicon Doron ; or, His Majesty's Instruc- 
 tions to his dearest Son Henry the Prince," a work of 
 which something more than the intention is great ; and 
 he directed the studies of the unfortunate Charles. That 
 both these princes were no comnion pupils may be fairly 
 attributed to the king himself. Never did the character 
 of a young prince shoot out with nobler promises than 
 Henry ; an enthusiast for literature and arms, that prince 
 
 * In this well-known exclamation of James I., a witty allusion has 
 been probably overlooked. The king had in his mind the then preva- 
 lent custom of securing books by fastening them to tlie shelves by 
 chains long enough to reach to the reading-desks under them.
 
 522 CHARACTER OF JAMES THE FIRST. 
 
 early showed a great and commanding spirit. Charlea 
 was a man of fine taste : he had talents and virtues, 
 errors and misfortunes ; but he was not without a spirit 
 equal to the days of his trial. 
 
 FACILITY AND COPIOUSNESS OF HIS COM- 
 POSITION. 
 
 The mind of James I. had at all times the fulness of a 
 student's, delighting in the facility and copiousness of 
 composition. The king wrote in one week one hundred 
 folio pages of a monitory address to the European sov- 
 ereigns ; and, in as short a time, his apology, sent to the 
 pope and cardinals. These he delivered to the bishops, 
 merely as notes for their use ; but they were declared to 
 form of themselves a complete answer. " Qua felicitate 
 they were done, let others judge ; but Qua celeritate, I can 
 tell," says the courtly bishop who collected the king's 
 works, and who is here quoted, not for the compliment 
 he would infer, but for the fact he states. The week's 
 labour of his majesty provoked from Cardinal Perron 
 about one thousand pages in folio, and I'eplies and 
 rejoinders from the learned in Europe.* 
 
 * Mr. Lodge, in his " Illustrations of British History," praises and 
 abuses James I. for the very same treatises. Mr. Lodge, dropping the 
 sober character of tlie antiquary for the smarter one of the critic, tella 
 us, " James had the good fortune to gain the two points he 
 principally aimed at in the publication of these dull treatUes — the 
 reputation of an acute disputant, and the honour of having Cardinal 
 BoUarmin for an antagonist." Did Mr. Lodge ever read these " dull 
 treatises ?" I declare I never have ; but I believe these treatises are 
 not dull, from the inference he draws from them : for how any writer 
 can gain tlio reputation of "an acute disputant" by writing "dull 
 treatises," Mr. Lodge only can explain. It is in this manner, and by 
 unphilosoijhical critics, that tlie literary reputation of Janus has been 
 flourished down by modern pens. It was sure gamo to attack 
 James 1. 1
 
 HIS ELOQUENCE. 523 
 
 HIS ELOQUENCE. 
 
 The eloquence of James is another feature in the liter- 
 ary character of this monarch. Amid the sycophancy of 
 the court of a learned sovereign some truths will mani- 
 fest themselves. Bishop Williams, in his funeral eulogy 
 of James I., has praised with warmth the eloquence of 
 the departed monarch, whom he intimately knew ; and 
 this was an acquisition of James's, so manifest to all, that 
 the bishop made eloquence essential to the dignity of a 
 monarch; observing, that "it was the want of it that 
 made Moses, in a manner, refuse all government, though 
 offered by God." * He Avould not have hazarded so pecu- 
 liar an eulogium, had not the monarch been distinguished 
 by that talent. 
 
 Hume first observed of James I., that " the speaker of 
 the House of Commons is usually an eminent man ; yet 
 the harangue of his Majesty will always be foimd much su- 
 perior to that of the speaker in every parliament during 
 
 * This funeral sermon, by layiug such a stress on the eloqueyice of 
 James I., it is said, occasioned the disgrace of the zealous bishop ; per- 
 haps, also, by the arts of the new courtiers practising on the feelings 
 of the youug monarch. It appears that Charles betrayed frequent 
 symptoms of impatience. 
 
 This allusion to the stammering of Moses was most unlucky; for Charles 
 had this defect in his delivery, which he laboured all his life to correct. 
 In the first speech from the throne, he alludes to it : " Now, because 
 / am unfit for much speaking, I mean to bring up the fashion of my pre- 
 decessors, to have my lord-lceeper speak for me in most things." And 
 he closed a speech to the Scottish parhament by saying, that "lie does 
 not ofler to endear himself by words, which indeed is not my way." 
 This, however, proved to be one of those little circumstances which 
 produce a more important result than is suspected. By this substitu- 
 tion of a lord-keeper instead of the sovereign, he failed in exciting the 
 personal affections of his parliament. Even the most gracious speech 
 from the lips of a lord-keeper is but formally deUvered, and coldly 
 received ; and Charles had not yet learned that there are no deputies 
 for our feelings.
 
 524 CHARACTER OF JAMES THE FIRST. 
 
 this reign." His numerous proclamations are evidently 
 wrought by his own hand, and display the pristine vigour 
 of the state of our age of genius. That the state-papers 
 were usually composed by himself, a passage in the Life 
 of the Lord-keeper Williams testifies ; and when Sir 
 Edward Conway, who had been bred a soldier, and was 
 even illiterate, became a viscount, and a royal secretary, 
 by the appointment of Buckingham, the king, who in fact 
 wanted no secretary, would often be merry over his im- 
 perfect scrawls in writing, and his hacking of sentences 
 in reading, often breaking out in laughter, exclaiming, 
 " Stenny has provided me with a secretary who can neither 
 write nor read, and a groom of my bedchamber who can- 
 not truss my points," — this latter person having but one 
 hand ! It is evident, since Lord Conway, the most inef- 
 ficient secretary ever king had — and I have myself seen 
 his scrawls — remained many years in office, that James L 
 required no secretary, and transacted his afiairs with his 
 own mind and hand. These habits of business and of study 
 prove that James indulged miich less those of indolence, 
 for which he is so gratuitously accused. 
 
 HIS WIT. 
 
 Amtd all the ridicule and contempt in which the intel- 
 lectual capacity of James I. is involved, this college- 
 pedant, who is imagined to have given in to every 
 species of false wit, and never to have reached beyond 
 quibbles, puns, conceits, and quo-libets, — was in truth a 
 groat wit ; quick in retort, and happy in illustration ; and 
 often delivering opinions with a sententious force. More 
 wit and wisdom from his lips have descended to us than 
 from any other of our sovereigns. One of the malicious 
 writers of his secret history, Sir Antliony Weldon, not 
 only informs us that he was witty, but describes the man-
 
 SPECIMENS OF HIS HUMOUR, ETC. 525 
 
 ner : " He was very witty, and had as many witty jests 
 as any man Kving : at which he would not smile himself, 
 but deliver them in a grave and serious manner," Thus 
 the king w^as not only witty, but a dextrous wit : nor is 
 he one of those who are recorded as having only said one 
 good thing in their lives ; for his vein was not apt to 
 dry. 
 
 His conversations, like those of most literary men, he 
 loved to prolong at table. We find them described by 
 one who had partaken of them : 
 
 " The reading of some books before him was very 
 frequent, while he was at his repast ; and other^\ase he 
 collected knowledge by variety of questions, which he 
 carved out to the capacity of difiei'ent persons. Me- 
 thought his hunting humour was not oif, while the 
 learned stood about him at his board ; he was ever in 
 chase after some disputable doubts, which he would wind 
 and turn about with the most stabbing objections that 
 ever I hoard ; and was as pleasant and fellow-like, in all 
 these discourses, as with his huntsman in the field. Those 
 who were ripe and weighty in their answers were ever 
 designed for some place of credit or profit." * 
 
 SPECBIEN^S OF HIS HIBIOUR, AOT) OBSERYA- 
 TIONS O^ HUjVIAN life. 
 
 The relics of witticisms and observations on human 
 life, on state aflairs, in literature and history, are scat- 
 tered among contemporary writers, and some are even 
 traditional ; I regret that I have not 'preserved many 
 which occurred in the course of reading. It has hap- 
 pened, however, that a man of genius has preserved for 
 
 * Hacket's curious " Life of the Lord-keeper Williams," p. 38, Part 
 11.
 
 526 CHARACTER OF JAMES THE FIRST. 
 
 posterity some memorials of the wit, the learning, and 
 the sense of the monarch.* 
 
 In giving some loose specimens of the wit and capacity 
 of a man, if they are too few, it may be imagined that 
 they are so from their rarity ; and if too many, the page 
 swells into a mere collection. But truth is not over-nice 
 to obtain her purpose, and even the common labours she 
 inspires are associated Avith her pleasures. 
 
 Early in life James I. had displayed the talent of apt 
 allusion, and his classical wit on the Spaniards, that "He 
 expected no other favour fi'om them than the courtesy of 
 Polyphemus to Ulysses — to be the last devoured," de- 
 lighted Elizabeth, and has even entered into our history. 
 Arthur Wilson, at the close of his " Life of James I.," 
 has preserved one of his apothegms, while he censures 
 him for not making timely use of it ! " Let that prince, 
 who would beware of conspiracies, be rather jealous of 
 such whom his extraordinary favours have advanced, 
 
 * In the Harl. MSS. '7582, Art. 3, one entitled " Crumras fallen from 
 King James's Table; or his Table-Talk, taken by Sir Tlioinas Overbury. 
 The original being in his own handwritiug." This MS. has been, per- 
 haps, imperfectly printed in the "Prince's Cabala, or Mysteries of 
 State," 1715. This Collection of Sir Tliomas Overbury was shortened 
 by his unhappy fate, since he perished early in the reign. — Another 
 Harl. MS. contains things " as they were at sundrie times spoken by 
 James I." I have drawn others from the Hurl. MSS. 6;i95. "We liave 
 also printed, " Wittie Observations, gathered in King James's Ordinary 
 Discourse," 1643; "King James, his Apothegmes or Table-Talk as they 
 were by him delivered occasionally, and by the publisher, his quondam 
 servant, carefully received, by B. A., gent. 4°. in eight leaves, 1643." 
 Tlie collector was Ben". Agar, who had gathered them in his youth ; 
 "Witty Apothegmes, delivered at several times by King James, King 
 Charles, the Marquis of Worcester," &c., 1658. 
 
 The collection of Apothegms formed by Lord Bacon offers many 
 instances of the king's wit and sense. See Lord Bacon's Apothegms 
 new and old; they are numbered to 275 in the edition 1819. Basil 
 Montague, in his edition, has separated vrhat he distinguishes as the 
 spurious ones
 
 SPECIMENS OF HIS HUMOUR, ETC. 527 
 
 than of those whom his displeasure have discontented. 
 Tliese want means to execute their pleasures, but those 
 have means at pleasure to execute their desires." — ^Wil- 
 son himself ably develops this important state-observa- 
 tion, by adding, that " Ambition to rule is more vehement 
 than malice to revenge." A pointed reflection, which 
 rivals a maxim of Rochefoucault. 
 
 The king observed that, " Very wise men and very 
 fools do little harm ; it is the mediocrity of wisdom that 
 troubleth all the world." — He described, by a lively image, 
 the differences which rise in argument : " Men, in argu- 
 ing, are often carried by the force of words farther asun- 
 der than their question was at first ; like two ships going 
 out of the same haven, their landing is many times whole 
 countries distant." 
 
 One of the great national grievances, as it appeared 
 both to the government and the people, in James's reign, 
 was the perpetual growth of the metropolis ; and the na- 
 tion, like an hypochondriac, was ludicrously terrified that 
 their head was too monstrous for their body, and drew 
 all the moisture of life from the remoter parts. It is 
 amusing to observe the endless and vain precautions em- 
 ployed to stop all new buildings, and to force persons oiit 
 of town to reside at their country mansions. Proclama- 
 tions warned and exhorted, but the very interference of 
 prohibition rendered the crowded town more delightful. 
 One of its attendant calamities was the prevalent one of 
 that day, the plague ; and one of those state libels, which 
 were early suppressed, or never printed, entitled, " Ba- 
 laam's Ass," has this passage : " In this deluge of new 
 buildings, we shall be all poisoned with breathing in one 
 another's faces ; and your Majesty has most truly said, 
 England will shortly be London, and London, England.'* 
 It was the popular wish, that country gentlemen should 
 reside more on their estates, and it was on this occasion 
 that the king made that admirable allusion, whicli has been
 
 528 CHARACTER OF JAMES THE FIRST. 
 
 in our days repeated in the House of Commons : " Gen- 
 tlemen resident on their estates were like ships in port — 
 their value and magnitude were felt and acknowledged ; 
 but, when at a distance, as their size seemed insignificant, 
 so their worth and importance were not duly estimated." 
 The king abounded with similar observations ; for he 
 drew from life more than even from books. 
 
 James is reproached for being deficient in political saga- 
 city ; notwithstanding that he somewhat prided himself 
 on what he denominated " king's-craff" This is the fate 
 of a pacific and domestic prince ! 
 
 " A king," said James, " ought to be a presei'ver of his 
 people, as well of their fortunes as lives, and not a de- 
 stroyer of his subjects. Were I to make such a war as 
 the King of France doth, with such tyranny on" his 
 own subjects — with Protestants on one side, and his soldiers 
 drawn to slaughter on the other, — I would put myself in 
 a monastery all my days after, and repent me that I had 
 brought my subjects to such misery." 
 
 That James was an adept in his " king's-craft," by which 
 term he meant the science of politics, but which has been 
 so often misinterpreted in an ill sense, even the confession 
 of such a writer as Sir Anthony Weldon testifies; who 
 acknowledges that " no prince living knew how to make 
 use of men better than King James." He certainly fore- 
 saw the spirit of the Commons, and predicted to the prince 
 and Buckingham, events which occurred after his death. 
 When Cranfield, Earl of Middlesex, whom James consid- 
 ered a useful servant, Buckingham sacrificed, as it would 
 appear, to the clamours of a party, James said, "You 
 are making a rod for your own back;" and when Prince 
 Charles was encouraging the frequent petitions of the 
 Commons, .Tames told him, " You will live to have your 
 bellyful of petitions." The following anecdote may serve 
 to prove his political sagacity: — When the Emperor of 
 Germany, instigated by the Pope and his own state-in-
 
 SPECIMENS OF HIS HUMOUR, ETC. 529 
 
 terests, projected a ciMsade against the Turks, he solicited 
 from Jaraes the aid of three thousand Englishmen ; the 
 wise and pacific monarch, in return, advised the emperor's 
 ambassador to apply to France and Spain, as being more 
 nearly concerned in this project: but the ambassador very 
 ingeniously argued, that, James being a more remote 
 prince, Avould more effectually alarm the Turks, from a 
 notion of a general armament of the Christian princes 
 against them. James got rid of the importunate ambassa- 
 dor by observing, that " three thousand Englishmen 
 would do no more hurt to the Turks than fleas to their 
 skins: great attempts may do good by a destruction, but 
 little ones only stir up anger to hurt themselves." 
 
 His vein of familiar humour flowed at all times, and. his 
 facetiousness was sometimes indulged at the cost of his 
 royalty. In those unhappy difierences between him and 
 his parliament, one day mounting his horse, which, though 
 usually sober and q\iiet, began to bound and prance, — 
 " Sirrah !" exclaimed the king, who seemed to fancy that 
 his favourite prerogative was somewhat resisted on this 
 occasion, " if you be not quiet, I'll send you to the five 
 hundred kings in the lower house : they'll quickly tame 
 you." When one of the Lumleys was pushing on his 
 lineal ascent beyond the patience of the hearers, the king 
 to cut short the tedious descendant of the Lumleys, cries 
 out, " Stop mon ! thou needst no more : now I learn that 
 Adam's surname was Lumley !" ^Yhen Colonel Gray, a 
 military adventurer of that day, just returned from Ger- 
 many, seemed vain of his accoutrements, on which he had 
 spent his all, — the king, staring at this buckled, belted, 
 sworded, and pistolled, but ruined, martinet, observed, 
 that " this town was so well fortified, that, were it victual 
 led, it might be impregnable." 
 34
 
 530 CHARACTER OF JAMES THE FIRST. 
 
 EVIDENCES OF HIS SAGACITY IN THE DIS- 
 COVERY OF TRUTH. 
 
 Pos3EssiN"a the talent of eloquence, the quickness of wit, 
 and the diversified knowledge which produced his " Ta- 
 ble-talk," we find also many evidences of his sagacity in 
 the discovery of truth, with that patient zeal so honoura- 
 ble to a monarch. When the shipwrights, jealous of 
 Pett, our great naval architect, formed a party against 
 him, the king would judge with his own eyes. Having 
 examined the materials depreciated by Pett's accusers, he 
 declared that " the cross-grain was in the men, not in the 
 timber," The king, on historical evidence, and by what 
 he said in his oavu works, claims the honour of discover- 
 ing tlie gunpowder plot, by the sagacity and reflection 
 Avith which he solved the enigmatical and ungramraatical 
 letter sent on that occasion. The train of his thoughts 
 has even been preserved to us ; and although a loose pas- 
 sage, in a priA^ate letter of the Earl of Salisbury, contra- 
 dicted by anotlier passage in the same letter, would indi- 
 cate that the earl was the man ; yet even Mrs. Macaulay 
 acknowledges the propriety of attributing the discovery 
 to the king's sagacity. Several proofs of his zeal and re- 
 flection in the detection of imposture might be adduced; 
 and the reader may, perhaps, be amused at these. 
 
 There existed a conspiracy against the Countess of Exe- 
 ter by Lady Lake, and her daughter, Lady Ross. They 
 had contrived to forge a letter in the Countess's name, in 
 wliieh she confessed all the lieavy ci'imes thoy accused her 
 of, wliich were incest, witchcral't, &c,. •* and to confirm 
 its authenticity, as the king was curious respecting the 
 place, the time, and the occasion, when the letter was 
 written, their maid swore it was at the countess's house 
 at Wimbledon, and tliat she had written it at the windoAV 
 
 * Camden's "Aunals of James I., Kennet II., G52."
 
 SAGACITY IN THE DISCOVERY OF TRUTH. 531 
 
 near the upper end of the great chamber; and that she 
 (the maid) was hid beneath the tapestry, where she heard 
 the conntess read over the letter after writing. The king 
 appeared satisfied with tliis new testimony ; but, unex- 
 pectedly, he visited the great chamber at Wimbledon, 
 observed the distance of the window, jjlaced himself be- 
 hind the hangings, and made the lords in their turn : not 
 one could distinctly hear the voice of a person placed at 
 the window. The king further observed, that the tapes- 
 try was two feet short of the ground, and that any one 
 standing behind it must inevitably be discovered. " Oaths 
 cannot confound my sight," exclaimed the king. Having 
 also effectuated other discoveries with a confession of one 
 of the parties, and Sir Thomas Lake being a faithful servant 
 of James, as he had been of Elizabeth, the king, who 
 valued him, desired he would not stand the trial with his 
 wife and daughter; but the old man pleaded that he was a 
 husband and a father, and must fall with them. " It is a 
 fall !" said the king ; " your wife is the serpent ; your 
 daughter is Eve ; and you, poor man, are Adam !"* 
 
 The sullen Osborne reluctantly says, " I must confess 
 he was the promptest man living in detecting an impos- 
 ture." There was a singular impostor in his reign, of 
 whom no one denies the king the merit of detecting the 
 deception — so for was James I. from being credulous, as 
 he is generally supposed to have been. Ridiculous as the 
 affair may appear to us, it had perfectly succeeded with 
 the learned fellows of Xew College, Oxford, and after- 
 wards with heads as deep ; and it required some exertion 
 of the king's philosophical reasoning to pronounce on the 
 deception. 
 
 One Haddock, who was desirous of becoming a preach- 
 
 * The suit cost Sir Thomas Lake 30,000Z. ; the fiaes in the star-cham- 
 ber were always heavy in all reigns. Harris refers to this cause as an 
 evidence of the tyrannic conduct of James I., as if the king was always 
 influenced by personal dislike ; but he does not give the story.
 
 532 CHARACTER OF JAMES THE FIRST. 
 
 ei*, but liad a stuttering and slowness of utterance, which 
 he could not get rid of, took to the study of physic ; but 
 recollecting that, when at Winchester, his schoolfellows 
 had told him that he spoke fluently in his sleep, he tried, 
 affecting to be asleep, to form a discourse on physic. 
 Finding that he succeeded, he continued the practice : he 
 then tried divinity, and spoke a good sermon. Having 
 prepared one for the purpose, he sat up in his bed and de- 
 livered it so loudly that it attracted attention in the next 
 chamber. It was soon reported that Haddock preached 
 in his sleep ; and nothing was heard but inquiries after 
 the sleeping preacher^ who soon found it his interest to 
 keep up the delusion. He was now considered as a man 
 truly inspired ; and he did not in his own mind rate his 
 talents at less worth than the first vacant bishopric. He 
 was brought to court, where the greatest personages 
 anxiously sat up through the night by his bedside. They 
 tried all the maliciousness of Puck to pinch and to stir him : 
 he was without heai-ing or feeling ; but they never de- 
 parted without an orderly text and sermon ; at the close 
 of which, groaning and stretching himself, he pretended 
 to awake, declaring he was imconcious of what had pass- 
 ed. " The king," says Wilson, no flatterer of James, 
 " privately handled him so like a chirurgeon, that he found 
 out the sore." The king was present at one of these ser- 
 mons, and foi'bade them ; and his reasonings, on this oc- 
 casion, brought the sleeping jjreacher on his knees. The 
 king observed, that things studied in the day-time may 
 be dreamed of in the night, but always irregularly, with- 
 out order ; not, as these sermons were, good and learned : 
 as particularly the one preached before his Majesty in his 
 sleep — which he first treated physically, then theological- 
 ly ; " and I observed," said the king, " that he always 
 preaches best when he has the most crowded atidience." 
 " Were he allowed to proceed, all slander and treason 
 might pass under colour of being asleep," added the king,
 
 BASILICON DORON. 533 
 
 who, notwithstanding his pretended inspiration, awoke 
 the sleeping preacher for ever afterwards. 
 
 BASILICON DORON". 
 
 That treatise of James I., entitled " Basilicon Doron ; 
 or. His Majesty's Instructions to his dearest Son Henry the 
 Prince," was composed by the king in Scotland, in the 
 freshness of his studious days ; a Avork, addressed to a 
 prince by a monarch which, in some respects, could only 
 have come from the hands of such a workman. The morality 
 and the politics often retain their curiosity and their 
 value. Our royal author has drawn his principles of 
 government from the classical volumes of antiquity ; for 
 then politicians quoted Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero. 
 His waters had, indeed, flowed over those beds of ore f 
 but the growth and vigour of the work comes from the 
 mind of the king himself: he writes for the Pi'ince of 
 of Scotland, and about the Scottish people. On its first 
 appearance Camden has recorded the strong sensation it 
 excited : it was not only admired, but it entered into and 
 won the hearts of men. Harris, forced to acknowledge, 
 in his mean style and with his frigid temper, that " this 
 book contains some tolerable things," omits not to hint 
 that " it might not be his own :" but the claims of James 
 I. are evident from the peculiarity of the style; the 
 period at which it was composed ; and by those particular 
 passages stamped with all the individuality of the king 
 himself The style is remarkable for its profuse sprink- 
 ling of Scottish and French words, where the Doric plain- 
 ness of the one, and the intelligent exj)ression of the other, 
 
 * James, early in life, was a fine scholar, and a lover of the ancient 
 historians, as appears from an accidental expression of Buchanan's, 
 in his dedication to James of his " Baptistes;" referring to Sallust, he 
 adds, apud tutjm Saltistium
 
 534 CHARACTER OB yAMES THE FIRST. 
 
 offer curious instances of tlie influence of manners over 
 language ; the diction of the royal author is a striking 
 evidence of the intermixture of the two nations, and of a 
 court whicli had marked its divided interests by its own 
 chequered language. 
 
 This royal manual still interests a jDhilosophical mind ; 
 like one of those antique and curious jjictures we some- 
 times discover in a cabinet, — studied for the costume ; yet 
 where the touches of nature are true, although the 
 colouring is brown and laded ; but there is a force, and 
 sometimes even a charm, in the ancient simplicity, to 
 which even the delicacy of taste may return, not without 
 pleasure. The king tells his son : — 
 
 " Sith all people are naturally inclined to follow their 
 prince's example, in your own j)erson make your wordes 
 and deedes to fight together ; and let your own life be a 
 law-book and a mirror to your people, that therein they 
 may read the practice of their own lawes, and see by your 
 image what life they should lead. 
 
 " But vnto one faulte is all the common people of this 
 kingdome subject, as well burgh as land ; which is, to 
 judge and speak rashly of their prince, setting the 
 commonwealo vpon foure props, as wee call it ; euer 
 wearying of the present estate, and desirous of nouelties." 
 The remedy the king suggests, " besides the execution of 
 laws that are to be vsed against vnreuerent speakers," 
 is so to rule, as that "the subjects may not only live in 
 suretie and wealth, but be stirred up to open their 
 mouthes in your iust jiraise." 
 
 JAIMES THE FIRST'S IDEA OF A TYRANT 
 AND A KING. 
 
 The royal autlior distinguishes a king from a tyrant on 
 their first entrance into the njovernment • —
 
 SIS IDEA OF A TYRANT AND A KING. 535 
 
 "A tyrant will enter like a saint, till he find himself 
 fast under foot, and then will suft'er his unruly affections 
 to burst forth." He advises the prince to act contrary 
 to Nero, who, at first, " with his tender-hearted wish, 
 vellein nescire litei'as,''^ appeared to lament that he was to 
 execute the laws. He, on the contrary, would have the 
 prince early show "the severitie of justice, which will 
 settle the country, and make them know that ye can 
 strike : this would be but for a time. If otherwise ye 
 kyth (show) your clemencie at the first the offences would 
 soon come to such heapes, and the contempt of you grow 
 so great, that Avlien ye would fall to punish, the number 
 to be punished would exceed the innocent ; and ye 
 would, against your nature, be compelled then to wracke 
 manic, whom the chastisement of few in the beginning 
 might have preserved. In this my own dear-bought 
 experience may serve you for a different lesson. For I 
 confess, where I thought (by being gracious at the 
 beginning) to gain all men's heart to a loving and willing 
 obedience, I by the contrarie foimd the disoi'der of the 
 countrie, and the loss of my thanks, to be all my reward." 
 
 James, in the course of the work, often instructs the 
 prince by his own errors and misfortunes ; and certainly 
 one of these was an excess of the kinder impulses in 
 granting favours ; there was nothing selfish in his happi- 
 ness ; James seemed to wish that every one around him 
 should participate in the fulness of his own enjo^Tuent. 
 His hand was always open to scatter about him honours 
 and wealth, and not always on unworthy fiivourites, but 
 often on learned men whose talents he knew well to 
 appreciate. There was a warmth in the king's temper 
 which once he himself well described ; he did not like 
 those who pride themselves on their tepid dispositions 
 " I love not one that will never be angry, for as he that 
 is \vithout sorrow is without gladness, so he that is with- 
 out anger is without love. Give me the heart of a man,
 
 586 CHARACTER OF JAMES THE FIRST. 
 
 and out of that all his actions shall be acceptable." The 
 king thus addresses the jDi-ince : — 
 
 On the Choice of Servants and Associates. 
 
 " Be not moved with importunities ; for the which 
 cause, as also for augmenting your Maiestie, be not so 
 facile of access-giving at all tiiBcs, as I have been." — In 
 his minority, the choice of his servants had been made by 
 others, " recommending servants unto me, more for serv- 
 ing, in effect, their friends that put them in, than their 
 maister that admitted them, and used them well, at the 
 first rebellion raised against me. Chuse you your own 
 servantes for your own vse, and not for the vse of others ; 
 and, since ye must be communis parens to all your peo- 
 ple, chuse indifferentlie out of all quarters ; not respect- 
 ing other men's appetites, but their own qualities. For as 
 you must command all, so reason would ye should be 
 served of all. — Be a daily watchman over your own 
 servants, that they obey your laws precisely : for how 
 can your laws be kept in the country, if they be broken 
 at your eare ! — Bee homelie or strange with them, as ye 
 think their behaviour deserveth and their nature may 
 bear ill. — Employ every man as ye think him qualified, 
 but use not one in all things, lest he wax proud, and be 
 envied by his fellows. — As for the other sort of your 
 com])anie and servants, they ought to be of jjerfect age, 
 see they be of a good fame ; otherwise what can the 
 people think but that ye have chosen a companion unto 
 you according to your own humour, and so have pre- 
 ferred those men for the love of their vices and crimes, 
 that ye knew them to be guiltie of For the people, that 
 see you not within, cannot judge of you but according to 
 the outward a])pearance of your actions and company, 
 which only is subject to their sight."
 
 THE REVOLUTIONISTS OF THAT AGE. 537 
 
 TIIEREYOLUTIONISTS OF THAT AGE. 
 
 James I. has painted, with vivid touches, the Anti- 
 Mouarchists, or revoUitionists, of his time. 
 
 He describes " their imagiued democracie, where they 
 fed themselves with the hope to become tribunt plehi ; 
 and so, in a popular government, by leading the people by 
 tlie nose, to bear the sway of all the rule. — Every faction," 
 he adds, "always joined them. I was ofttimes calum- 
 niated in their poular sermons, not for any evill or vice in 
 mo,* but because I was a king, which they thought the 
 highest evill ; and, because they were ashamed to pro- 
 fesse this quarrel, they were busie to look naiTOwly in 
 all my actions, pretending to distinguish the lawfulness 
 of the office from the vice of the person ; yet some of 
 them would snapper out well grossly with the trewth of 
 their intentions, informing the people that all kings and 
 princes were naturally enemies to the liberties of the 
 Church ; whereby the ignorant were emboldened (as 
 bayards), f to cry the learned and modest out of it : but 
 their parity is the mother of confusion, and enemie to 
 vnitie, which is the mother of order." And it is not 
 without eloquence his Majesty describes these factious 
 Anti-Monarchists, as " Men, whom no deserts can oblige, 
 neither oaths nor promises bind ; breathing nothing but 
 sedition and calumnies, aspiring without measure, railing 
 without reason, and making their own imaginations the 
 square of their conscience. I protest, before the great 
 
 * The conduct of James I. in Scotland has even extorted praise from 
 one of his bitterest calumniators ; for Mrs. Macaulay has said — " His 
 conduct, when King of Scotland, was in many points unexception- 
 able." 
 
 f An old French word, expressing, " A man tliat gapes or gazes 
 earnestly at a thing: a fly-catcher; a greedy and unmannerly be- 
 holder." — COTGEAVE.
 
 538 CHARACTER OP JAMES THE FIRST. 
 
 God, and, since I am here as vpon my testament, it is no 
 place for me to lie in, that ye shall never find with any 
 Hie-land, or Border theeves, greater ingratitude, and 
 more lies and vile perjuries: ye may keep them for try. 
 ing your patience, as Socrates did an evill wife." 
 
 OF THE NOBILITY OF SCOTLAND. 
 
 The king makes three great divisions of the Scottish 
 people : the church, the nobility, and the burghers. 
 
 Of the nobility, the king counsels the prince to check. 
 
 "A fectless arrogant conceit of their greatness and 
 power, drinking in with their very nourish-milk. Teach 
 your nobilitie to keep your lawes, as precisely as the mean- 
 est ; fear not their orping, or being discontented, as long 
 as ye rule well : for their pretended reformation of 
 princes taketh never efiect, but where evil government 
 I^roceedeth. Acquaint yourself so with all the honest 
 men of your barone and gentlemen, giving access so open 
 and aftable, to make their own suites to you themselves? 
 and not to employ the great lordes, their intercessours ; 
 so shall ye bring to a measure their monstrous backes. 
 And for their barbarous feides (feuds), put the laws to 
 due execution made by mee there-anent ; beginning ever 
 rathest at him that yee love best, and is oblishcd vnto you, 
 to make him an example to the rest. Make all your refor- 
 mations to begin at your elbow, and so by degrees to 
 the extremities of the land." 
 
 He would not, however, that the jn-ince should highly 
 contemn the nobility : " Remember, howe that error 
 brake the king, my grandfather's heai't. Consider that 
 vertue foUoweth oftest noble blood :_ the more frc(picntly 
 tliat your court can be garnished with them, as peers and 
 fathers of your land, thinke it the more your honour." 
 
 Ho impi'esses on the mind of the prince ever to era-
 
 OF COLONISING.— OF MERCHANTS. 539 
 
 brace the quarrel of the poor and the sufierer, and to 
 remember the honourable title given to his gi*andfather, 
 in being called " The poor man's king." 
 
 OF COLOmSING. 
 
 James I. had a project of improving the state of those 
 that dwelt in the isles, " who are so utterly barbarous," 
 by intermixing some of the semi-civilised Highlanders, 
 and 2:)lanting colonies among them of inland subjects. 
 
 " I have already made laws against the ovei'-lords, and 
 the chief of their clannes, and it would be no diificultie 
 to danton them ; so rooting out, or transporting the bar- 
 barous and stubborn sort, and planting civilised in their 
 rooms." 
 
 This was as wise a scheme as any modern philosopher 
 could have suggested, and, with the conduct he subse- 
 quently pursued in Ireland, may be referred to as splen- 
 did proofs of the kingly duties so zealously performed by 
 this monarch. 
 
 OF MERCHANTS. 
 
 Of merchants, as this king understood the commercial 
 character, he had no honourable notion. 
 
 He says, " They think the w^hole commonwealth or- 
 dained for raising them u^), and accounting it their law- 
 ful gain to enrich themselves upon the losses of the rest 
 of the people." 
 
 We are not to censure James I. for his principles of 
 political economy, which then had not assumed the dig- 
 nity of a science ; his rude and simple ideas convey popu' 
 lar truths.
 
 540 CHARACTER OF JAMES THE FIRST. 
 
 REGULATIONS FOR THE PRINCE'S MANNERS 
 AND HABITS. 
 
 The last portion of the " Basilicon Doron " is devoted 
 to domestic regulations for the prince, respecting his 
 manners and habits ; which the king calls " the indifferent 
 actions of a man." 
 
 " A king is set as one on a stage, whose smallest 
 actions and gestures all the people gazinglie do behold ; 
 and, however just in the discharge of his office, yet, if his 
 Dehaviour be light or dissolute, in indifferent actions, the 
 people, who see but the outward part, conceive pre-occu- 
 pied conceits of the king's inward intention, which, 
 although Avith time, the trier of truth, will evanish by 
 the evidence of the contrarie effect yet interim patitur 
 Justus, and pre-judged conceits will, in the meantime, 
 breed contempt, the mother of rebellion and disorder. 
 Besides," the king adds, "the indifferent actions and 
 behaviour of a man have a certain holding and depend- 
 ence upon vcrtue or vice, according as they are used or 
 ruled." 
 
 The prince is not to kee]^ regular hours. 
 
 " That any time in the four and twentie hours may be 
 alike to you ; thereby your diet may be accommodated 
 to your affairs, and not your affairs to your diet." 
 
 The prince is to oat in p\iblic, " to shew that he loves 
 not to haunt companic, which is one of tlie marks of a 
 tyrant, and that he delights not to eat privatelie, ashamed 
 of liis gluttonie." As a curious instance of the manners 
 of the times, the king advises the prince " to use mostly 
 to eat of reasonablie-grosse and common-meats ; not only 
 for making your bodie strong for travel, as that ye may 
 be the hartlier received by your meane subiects in their 
 houses, when their clicere may suffice you, which other-
 
 THE PRINCE'S MANNERS AND HABITS. g-tl 
 
 waies would be imputed to you for pride, and breed cold- 
 ness and disdain in them." 
 
 I have noticed his counsel against the pedantry or other 
 affectations of style in speaking. 
 
 He adds, " Let it be plaine, natural, coraelie, cleane, 
 short, and sententious." 
 
 In his gestures "he is neither to look sillily, like a 
 stupid pedant ; nor unsettledly, with an uncouth morgue, 
 like a new-come-over cavalier ; not over sparing in your 
 courtesies, for that Avill be imputed to incivilitie and ar- 
 rogance ; nor yet over prodigal in jowking or nodding at 
 every step, for that forme of being popular becometh bet- 
 ter aspiring Absaloms than lawful kings ; forming ever 
 your gesture according to your present action ; looking 
 gravely, and with a majestic, when ye sit upon judgment, 
 or give audience to embassadors ; homely, when ye are 
 in private with your own servants ; merrily, when ye are 
 at any pastime, or merry discourse ; and let your counte- 
 nance smell of courage and magnanimity Avhen at the 
 warres. And remember (I say again) to be plaine and 
 sensible in your language ; for besides, it is the tongue's 
 office to be the messenger of the mind ; it may be thought 
 a point of imbecilitie of spirit in a king to speak obscurely, 
 much more untrewely, as if he stood in awe of any in 
 uttering his thoughts." 
 
 Should the prince incline to be an author, the king adds — 
 
 " If your engme (genius) spur you to write any workes, 
 either in prose or verse, I cannot but allow you to prac- 
 tise it ; but take no longsome works in hande, for distract- 
 ing you from your calling." 
 
 He reminds the prince with dignity and truth, 
 
 " Your writes (writings) will remain as the true pic-, 
 ture of your minde, to all posterities ; if yee would write 
 worthelie, chuse subjects worthie of you." His critical 
 conception of the nature of poetry is its best definition. 
 " If ye write in verse, remember that it is not the
 
 542 CHARACTER OF JAMES THE FIRST. 
 
 principal part of a poem to rime right, and flow well with 
 many prettie wordes ; but the chief commendation of a 
 poem is, that when the verse shall bee taken sundry in 
 prose, it shall be found so ritch in quick inventions and 
 poetick floures, and in fair and pertinent comparisons, 
 as it shall retain the lustre of a poem although in prose." 
 
 The king proceeds, touching many curious points con- 
 cerning the prince's bodily exercises and " house-pas- 
 times." A genuine picture of the customs and manners 
 of the age : our royal author had the eye of an observer, 
 and the thoughtfulness of a sage. 
 
 The king closes with the hope that the prince's " natural 
 mclination will have a happie simpathie with these pre- 
 cepts ; making the wise man's schoolmaister, which is the 
 example of others, to be your teacher ; and not that over- 
 late repentance by your own experience, which is the 
 schoolmaister of fools." 
 
 Thus have I opened the book, and I believe, the heart 
 of James I. The volume remains a perpetual witness to 
 posterity of the iatellectual capacity and the noble disposi- 
 tion of the royal author. 
 
 But this monarcli has been unfairly reproached both 
 by the political and religious ; as far as these aspersi- 'US 
 connect themselves with his character, they enter into our 
 inquiry. 
 
 His speeches and his writings are perpetually quoted 
 by democratic writers, with the furious zeal of those who 
 are doing the work of a party ; they never separate the 
 character of James from his speculative principles 
 of government ; and, such is the odium they have raised 
 against him, that this sovereign has received the execra- 
 tion, or the ridicule, even of those who do not belong 
 to their party. James maintained certain abstract doc- 
 trines of the times, and had written on " Tlie Preroga- 
 tive Royal," and " The Trew Laws of Freo Monarcliies," 
 as he had on witches and devils. All this verbal despot-
 
 THE KING'S IDEA OP ROYAL PREROGATIVE. 543 
 
 ism is artfully converted into so many acts of despotism 
 itself; and thus they contrive their dramatic exhibition 
 of a blustering tyrant, in the person of a father of his peo- 
 ple, who exercised his power without an atom of brutal 
 despotism adhering to it. 
 
 THE KIXG'S IDEA OF THE ROYAL PRE- 
 ROGATIVE. 
 
 TVhex James asserted that a king is above the laws, he 
 did not understand this in the popular sense ; nor was 
 he the inventor or the reviver of similar doctrines. In 
 all his mysterious flights on the nature of "The Pre- 
 rogative Royal," James only maintained what Elizabeth 
 and all the Tudors had, as jealously, but more energetic- 
 ally exercised.* Elizabeth left to her successor the 
 royal prerogative strained to its highest pitch, with no 
 means to support a throne which in the succeeding reign 
 was found to be baseless. The king employed the style 
 of absolute power, and, as Harris says, " entertained no- 
 tions of his prerogative amazingly great, and bordering 
 on impiety." It never occun-ed to his calumniators, who 
 are always writing, without throwing themselves back 
 into the age of their inquiries, that all the political rever- 
 ies, the abstract notions, and the metaphysical fancies of 
 James I. arose from his studious desire of being an 
 
 * In Sir Symund D'Ewes's "Journals of the Parliament," and in 
 Townshend's " Historical Collections," we trace in some degree Eliza^ 
 betli's arbitrary power concealed in her prerogative, which she always 
 considered as the dissolving charm in the magical circle of our consti- 
 tution. But I possess two letters of the French ambassador to Charles 
 IX., written from our court in her reign; who, by means of his secret 
 intercourse with those about her person, details a curious narrative 
 of a royal interview granted to some deputies of the parliament, at 
 that moment refractory, strongly depicting the exalted notions this 
 great sovereign entertained of the prerogative, and which she asserted 
 in stamping her foot
 
 544: CHARACTER OF JAMES THE FIRST. 
 
 English sovereign, accoxxling to the English constitution 
 — for from thence he derived those very ideas. 
 
 THE LAWYERS' IDEA OF THE ROYAL 
 PREROGATIVE. 
 
 The truth is, that lawyers, in their anxiety to define, or 
 to defend the shadowy limits of the royal prerogative, 
 had contrived some strange and clumsy fictions to de- 
 scribe its powers; their flatteries of the imaginary being, 
 whom they called the sovereign, are more monstrous than 
 all the harmless abstractions of James I. 
 
 They describe an English sovereign as a mysterious 
 being, invested with absolute perfection, and a fabulous 
 immortality, whose person was inviolable by its sacred- 
 ness. A king of England is not subject to death, since 
 the sovereign is a corporation, expressed by the awful 
 plural the cub and the we. His majesty is always of 
 full age, though in infancy ; and so unlike mortality, the 
 king can do no wrong. Such his ubiquity, that lie acts 
 at the same moment in different places ; and such the 
 force of his testimony, that whatever the sovereign de- 
 clares to have passed in his presence, becomes instantly 
 a perpetual record ; he serves for his own witness, by 
 the simple subscription of Teste me ipso / and he is so 
 absolute in power, beyond the laws, that he quashes them 
 by his negative voice.* Such was the origin of the theo- 
 retical prerogative of an ideal sovereign which James I. 
 
 * Such aro tho descriptions of the British sovereign, to be found in 
 Cowell's curious book, entitled " Tho Interpreter." Tho reader may 
 furtlier trace the modern genius of Blackstono, witli an awful reverence, 
 dignifying the venerable nonsense — and tho commentator on Black- 
 stone sometimes labouring to explain the explanations of his master ; 
 so obscure, so abstract, and so delicate is tlie phantom which our an- 
 cient lawyers conjured up, and which the moderns cannot lay.
 
 LAWYERS' IDEA OF ROYAL PREROGATIVE. 5J-5 
 
 had formed : it was a mere curious abstraction of the 
 schools in the spirit of the age, which was perpetually 
 referring to the mysteries of state and the secrets of 
 empires, and not a principle he was practising to the det- 
 riment of the subject. 
 
 James I. while he held for his first principle that a sover- 
 eign is only accountable to God for tlie sins of his govern- 
 ment, an harmless and even a noble principle in a reli- 
 gious prince, at various times acknowledged that " a king 
 is ordained for procuring the prosperity of his people." 
 In his speech, 1603, he says, 
 
 " If you be rich I cannot be poor ; if you be happy I 
 cannot but be fortunate. My worldly felicity consists in 
 your prosperity. And that I am a servant is most true, 
 as I am a head and governour of all the people in my 
 dominions. If we take the people as one body, then aa 
 the head is ordained for the body and not the body for 
 the head, so must a righteous king know himself to be 
 ordained for his people, and not his people for him." 
 
 The truth is always concealed by those writers who 
 are cloaking their antipathy against monarchy, in their 
 declamations against the writings of James L Authors, 
 who are so often influenced by the opinions of their age, 
 have the melancholy privilege of perpetuating them, and 
 of being cited as authorities for those very opinions, 
 however erroneous. 
 
 At this time the true prii^ iples of popular liberty, 
 hidden in the constitution, were yet obscure and con- 
 tested ; involved in contradiction, in assertion and recan- 
 tation ; * and they have been established as much by the 
 
 * Cowell, equally learned and honest, involved himself in contradict- 
 ory positions, and was alike prosecuted by the King and the Commons, 
 on opposite principles. The overbearing Coke seems to have aimed at 
 his life, which the lenity of James saved. His work is a testimony of 
 the unsettled principles of liberty at that time ; Cowell was compelled 
 to appeal to one part of his book to save himself from the other. 
 35
 
 5-iG CHARACTER OP JAMES THE FIRST. 
 
 "blood as by the ink of our patriots. Some noble spiiita 
 in the Commons were then struggling to fix the vacilla- 
 ting pi'inciples of our government ; but often their pri- 
 vate passions were infused into their public feelings; 
 James, who was apt to imagine that these individuals 
 were instigated by a personal enmity in aiming at his 
 mysterious prerogative, and at the same time found their 
 rivals with equal weight opposing the novel opinions, 
 retreated still farther into the dej^ths and arcana of the 
 constitution. Modern writers have viewed the political 
 fancies of this monarch through optical instruments not 
 invented in his days. 
 
 When Sir Edward Coke declared that the king's royal 
 prerogative being unlimited and undefined, " was a great 
 overgrown monster ;" and, on one occasion, when Coke 
 said before the king, that "his Majesty was defended by 
 the laws," — James, in anger, told him he spoke foolishly, 
 and he said he was not defended by the laws, but by God 
 (alluding to his " divine right ") ; and sharply reprimand- 
 ed him for having spoken irrevei-ently of Sir Thomas 
 Crompton, a civilian ; asserting, that Crompton was as 
 good a man as Coke. The fact is, there then existed a 
 rivalry between the civil and the common lawyers. Coke 
 declared that the common law of England was in immi- 
 nent danger of being perverted ; that law which he has 
 enthusiastically described as the perfection of all sense 
 and experience. Coke was strenuously opposed by Lord 
 Bacon and by the civilians, and was at length comnnttcd 
 to the Tower (according to a MS. letter of the day, for 
 the cause is obscure in our history), " charged with speak- 
 ing so in parliament as tended to stir up the subjects' 
 liearts against their sovereign."* Yet in all this we 
 
 * Tho following^ anecdotes of Lord Chief Justice Coke liave not been 
 publiKliod. They are extracts from maimseript letters of tho times: 
 on tliat occasion, at fii'st, the patriot did not conduct liimsclf with tho 
 firmness of a groat spirit.
 
 LAWYERS' IDEA OF ROYAL PEEROGATIYE. 54-7 
 
 must not regard James as the despot lie is represented : 
 be acted as Elizabotli would have acted, for the sacred- 
 ness of his own person, and the integrity of the constitu- 
 
 Nov. 19, 1616. 
 " The thunderbolt hath fallen on the Lord Coke, which hath overlhrowD 
 him from the veiy roots. Tlie supersedeas was carried to him by Sir 
 George Coppin, who, at the presenting of it, received it with dejection 
 and tears. Tremor et sxiccessio non cadunt in forkm et constardem. I 
 send you a distich on the Lord Coke — 
 
 Jus condere Cocus potnit, sc-d condere jure 
 Non potuit ; potuit condere jura cocis." 
 
 It happened that the name of Coke, or rather Cook, admitted of 
 being punned on, both in Latin and in English ; for he was lodged in 
 the Tower, in a room than had once been a kitchen, and as soon as he 
 arrived, one had written on the door, which he read at his entrance — • 
 
 " This room has long wanted a Cook." 
 
 " The Prince interceding lately for Edward Coke, his Majesty an- 
 swered, • He knew no such man.' When tlie Prince interceded by the 
 name of Mr. Coke, his Majesty still answered, ' He knew none of that 
 mme neither ; but he knew there was one Captain Coke, the leader of 
 the faction in parliament.' " 
 
 In another letter. Coke appears with greater dignity. When Lord 
 Arundel was sent by the king to Coke, a prisoner in the Tower, to in- 
 form him that his ilajesty would allow him to consult witli eight of the 
 best learned in the law to advise him for his cause, Coke thanked the 
 king, but he knew himself to be accounted to have as much skill in 
 the law as any man in England, and therefore needed no such help, 
 nor feared to be judged by the law. He knew his Majesty might easily 
 find, in such a one as he, whereby to take away his head ; but for this 
 he feared not what could be said. 
 
 "I have heard you affirm," said Lord Arundel, " that by law, he 
 that should go about to withdraw the subjects' hearts from their king 
 was a traitor." Sir Edward answered, " That he held him an arch- 
 traitor." 
 
 James I. said of Coke, " That he had so many shifts that, throw him 
 where you would, ho still fell upon his legs." 
 
 This affair ended with putting Sir Edward Coke on his knees before 
 the council-table, w-ith an order to retire to a private life, to correct his 
 book of Reports, and occasionally to consult the king himself. This 
 part of Coke's history is fully opened in Mr. Alexander Chalmers'3 
 " Biographical Dictionary."
 
 548 CHARACTER OF JAMES THE FIRST. 
 
 tion. In the same manuscript letter I find that, when at 
 Theobalds, the king, with his usnal openness, was discours- 
 ing how he designed to govern ; and as he would some- 
 times, like the wits of all nations and times, compress an 
 argument into a play on words, — the king said, " I will 
 govern according to the good of the common-weal, but 
 not accordinsf to the commo7i-will P^ 
 
 THE KING'S ELEVATED CONCEPTION OF 
 THE KINGLY CHARACTER. 
 
 But what were the real thoughts and feelings of this pre- 
 sumed despot concerning the duties of a sovereign ? His 
 Platonic conceptions inspired the most exalted feelings ; 
 but his gentle nature never led to one act of unfeeling 
 despotism. His sceptre was wreathed with the roses of 
 his fancy : the iron of arbitrary power only struck into the 
 heart in the succeeding reign. James only menaced with 
 an abstract notion ; or, in anger, Avith his own hand would 
 tear out a protestation from the journals of the Commons : 
 and, when he considered a man as past forgiveness, he con- 
 demned him to a slight imprisonment ; or removed him 
 to a distant employment ; or, if an author, like Coke and 
 Cowell, sent him into retirement to correct his works. 
 
 In a great court of judicature, when the interference of 
 the royal authority was ardently solicited, the magnani- 
 mous monarch replied : — 
 
 "Kings ruled by their laws, as God did by the laws of 
 nature; and ought as rarely to put in use their supreme 
 authority as God does his power of working miracles." 
 
 Notwithstanding his abstract principles, his knowledge 
 and reflection showed him that there is a crisis in mon- 
 archies and a period in empires ; and in discriminating 
 between a king and a tyrant, he tells the prince — 
 
 " A tyranne's miserable and infamous life armeth in end
 
 CONCEPTION OF THE KINGLY CHARACTER. 51-9 
 
 his own subjects to become his burreaux ; and altliough 
 this rebellion be ever unlawful on their part, yet is the 
 world so wearied of him, that his fall is little meaned 
 (minded) by the rest of his subiects, and smiled at by his 
 neighbours." 
 
 And he desires that the prince, his son, should so per- 
 form his royal duties, that, " In case ye fall in the high- 
 way, yet it should be with the honourable report and 
 just regret of all honest men." In the dedicatory sonnet 
 to Prince Henry of the " Basilicon Doron," in verses not 
 without elevation, James admonishes the prince to 
 
 Represse the proud, raaiutainiag aye the right; 
 
 Walk always so, as ever in his sight, 
 
 Wiio guards the godly, plaguing the prophane. 
 
 The poems of James I. are the versifications of a man 
 of learning and meditation. Such an one could not fail 
 of producing lines which reflect the mind of their author. 
 I find in a MS. these couplets, which condense an im- 
 j>ressive thought on a favourite subject : — 
 
 Crowues have their compassa, length of daies their date, 
 Triumphs their tombes, Fclicitie her fate; 
 Of more than earth, can earth malce none partaker; 
 But knowledge makes the king most like his Maker.* 
 
 These are among the elevated conceptions the king had 
 formed of the character of a sovereign, and the feeling 
 was ever present in his mind. James has preserved an 
 anecdote of Henry VIIL, in commenting on it, which 
 serves our purpose : — 
 
 " It was strange," said James I., " to look into the life 
 of Henry VIIL, how like an epicure he lived ! Henry 
 once asked, whether he might be saved ? He was an- 
 swered, 'That he had no cause to fear, having lived so 
 mighty a king.' ' Bat oh !' said he,' I have lived too like a 
 
 *"Harl. MSS.," 6824.
 
 i)50 CHARACTER OF JAMES TLIE FIRST. 
 
 king.' He should I'atlier have said, not like a king — for 
 the office of a king is to do justice and equity ; but he only 
 served his sensuality, like a beast." 
 
 Henry VII. was the favourite character of James I. ' 
 and it was to gratify the king that Lord Bacon wrote the 
 life of this wise and prudent monarch. It is remarkable 
 of James I., that he never mentioned the name of Eliza- 
 beth without some expressive epithet of reverence ; such 
 as, "The late queen of famous memory ;" a circumstance 
 not common among kings, who do not like to remind the 
 world of the reputation of a great predecessor. But it 
 suited the generous temper of that man to extol the 
 greatness he admired, whose philosophic toleration was 
 often known to have pardoned the libel on himself for the 
 redeeming virtue of its epigram. In his forgiving temper, 
 James I. would call such efiusions " the superfluities of 
 idle brains." 
 
 "THE BOOK OF SPORTS." 
 
 But while the mild government of this monarch has been 
 covered with the political odium of arbitrary power, he 
 has also incurred a relisfious one, from his desis^u of ren- 
 dering the Sabbath a day for the poor alike of devotion 
 and enjoyment, hitherto practised in England, as it is still 
 throughout Europe. Plays were performed on Sundays 
 at court, in Elizabeth's reign ; and yet, " the Protestants 
 of Elizabeth" was the usual expressive phrase to mark 
 those who did most honour to the reformed. The king, 
 returning from Scotland, found the people in Lancashire 
 discontented, from the unusual deprivation of their popu- 
 lar recreations on Sundays and holidays, after the church 
 service. " With our own ears we heard the general com- 
 plaint of our peoi)le." The Catholic priests were busily 
 insinuating among the lower orders that the reformed 
 religion was a sullen de2)rivation of all mirth and social
 
 "THE BOOK OF SPORTS. 551 
 
 amusements, and thus " turning the people's hearts." But 
 while they were denied what the king terms lawful rec- 
 reations,"* they had substituted more vicious ones : ale- 
 houses were more frequented — drunkenness more generae- 
 — tale-mongery and sedition, the vices of sedentary idle- 
 ness, prevailed — while a fanatical gloom was s^Jreadiug 
 over the country. 
 
 Tlie king, whose gaiety of temper mstantly sympa- 
 thised with the multitude, and perhaps alarmed at this 
 neV shape which puritanism was assuming, published what 
 is called " The Book of Sports," and which soon obtained 
 the contemptuous term of " The Dancing Book." 
 
 On this subject our recent jjrinciples have governed our 
 decisions i with our habits formed, and our notions final- 
 ly adjusted, this singular state-paper has been reprobated 
 by piety ; Avhose zeal, however, is not sufficiently histori- 
 cal. It was one of the state maxims of this philosophic 
 monarch, in his advice to his son, 
 
 " To allure the common people to a common amitie 
 among themselves; and that certain dales in the yeere 
 should be appointed for delighting the people Avith public 
 spectacles of all honest games and exercise of arms; 
 making playes and lawful games in Male, and good 
 cheare at Christmas ; as also for convening of neigh- 
 bours, for entertaining friendship and heartliness, by hon- 
 est feasting and merriness ; so that the sabbothes be kept 
 holie, and no unlawful pastime be used. This form of 
 contenting the people's minds hath been used in all well- 
 governed republics." 
 
 James, therefore, was shocked at the sudden melancholy 
 among the people. In Europe, even among the reformed 
 themselves, the Sabbath, after church-service, was a 
 
 * These are enumerated to consist of dancing, archery, leaping, 
 vaulting, Maj'-games, Whitsun-ales, Morris-dances, and the setting up 
 of Maj -poles, and other mauly sports.
 
 552 CHARACTES OF JAMES THE FIRST. 
 
 festival-day ; and the wise monarch could discover no 
 reason why, in his kingdom, it should prove a day of 
 penance and self-denial : but when once this unlucky 
 " Book of Sports " was thrown among the nation, they 
 discovered, to their own astonishment, that everything 
 concerninsr the nature of the Sabbath was uncertain. 
 
 THE SABBATARIAN CONTROVERSY. 
 
 And, because they knew nothing, they wrote much. The 
 controversy was carried to an extremity in the succeeding 
 reign. The proper hour of the Sabbath was not agreed 
 on : Was it to commence on the Saturday-eve ? Others 
 thought that time, having a cii'cular motion, the point we 
 begin at was not important, provided the due portion be 
 completed. Another declared, in his " Sunday no Sab- 
 bath," that it was merely an ecclesiastical day which may 
 be changed at pleasure ; as they were about doing it, in 
 the Church of Geneva, to Thursday, — probably from 
 their antipathy to the Catholic Sunday, as the early Chris- 
 tians had anciently changed it from the Jewish Satiirday. 
 This had taken place, had the Thursday voters not formed 
 the minority. Another asserted, that Sunday was a work- 
 ing day, and that Saturday was the perpetual Sabbath.* 
 Some deemed the very name of Sunday profaned the 
 Christian mouth, as allusive to the Saxon idolatry of 
 that day being dedicated to the Sun ; and hence they 
 sanctified it Avith the " Lord's-day." Others Avere stren- 
 uous advocates for closely copying the austerity of the 
 Jewish Sabbath, in all the rigour of tlie Levitical law ; 
 forbidding meat to be dressed, houses swept, tires kindled, 
 &c., — the day of rest was to be a day of mortification. 
 But this spread an alarm, that " the old rotten ceremonial 
 
 ♦Collioi'a "Ecclesiastical History," vol. ii., p. 758.
 
 THE SAIBATARIAN CONTROVERSY. 555 
 
 law of the Jews, which had been buried in the grave of 
 Jesus," was about to be revived. And so prone is man 
 to the reaction of opinion, that, from observing the Sab- 
 bath with a Judaic austerity, some were for rejecting 
 *' Lord's-days " altogether; asserting, they needed not 
 any ; because, in their elevated holiness, all days to them 
 were Lord's-days.* A popular preacher at the Temple, 
 who was disposed to keep alive a cheerful spirit among 
 the people, yet desirous that the sacred day should not 
 pass like any other, moderated between the parties. He 
 declared it was to be observed with strictness only by 
 " persons of quality."! 
 
 One of the chief causes of the civil war is traced to 
 
 ♦Fuller's "Church History," book xi., p. 149. One of the most 
 curious books of this class is Heylin's "History of the Sabbath," a 
 work abounding with uncommon researches; it was written in favour 
 of Charles's declaration for reviving lawful sports on Sundays. Warton, 
 in the first edition of Milton's "Juvenile Poems," observed in a note on 
 the Lady's speech, in Comus, verse 177, that "it is owing to the Puri- 
 tans ever since Cromwell's time that Sunday has been made in England 
 a day of gravity and severity : and many a staunch observer of the rite3 
 of the Church of England little suspects that he is conforming to the 
 Caldnism of an Englit^h Sunday^ It is probable this gave unjust of- 
 fence to grave heads unfurnished with their ovra. national history, for 
 in the second edition Warton cancelled the note. Truth is thus violated. 
 The Puritans, disgusted with the levities and excesses of the age of 
 James and Charles, as is usual on these points, vehemently threw 
 themselves into an opposite direction; but they perhaps advanced too 
 far in converting the Sabbath-day into a sullen and gloomy reserve of 
 Pharisaical austerity. Adam Smith, and Paley, in his " Moral and Po- 
 litical Philosophy," vol. ii., p. 73, have taken more enlightened views on 
 this subject. 
 
 f "Let servants," he says, "whose hands are ever working, whilst 
 their eyes are waking; let such who all the foregoing week had their 
 cheeks moistened with sweat, and their hands hardened with labour, 
 let such have some recreation on the Lord's-day indulged to them \ 
 whilst persons of qiuility, who may be said to keep Sabbath all the 
 week long — I mean, who rest from hard labour — are concerned in con- 
 Bcience to observe the Lord's-day with the greater abstinence from reo 
 reations."
 
 554 CHARACTER OF JAMES THE FIRST. 
 
 the revival of this " Book of Sports." Thus it happened 
 that from the circumstance of our good-tempered monarch 
 discovering the populace iu Lancashire discontented, 
 being debarred from their rustic sports — ^and, exhorting 
 them, out of his honhcnnie and " fatherly love, which he 
 owed to them all " (as he said), to recover their cheerful 
 habits — he was innocently involving the country in divin- 
 ity and in civil war. James I. would have started with 
 horror at the " Book of Sports," could he have presciently 
 contemplated the archbishop, and the sovereign v.'ho 
 persisted to revive it, dragged to the block. What invisi- 
 ble thread suspend together the most remote events ! 
 
 The parliament's armies usually chose Sundays for 
 their battles, that the profanation of the day might be 
 expiated by a field-sacrifice, and that the Sabbath- 
 breakers should receive a signal punishment. The 
 oijinions of the nature of the Sabbath were, even in the 
 succeeding reign, so opposite and novel, that plays were 
 performed before Charles on Sundays. James I,, wlio 
 knew nothing of such opinions, has been unjustly aspersed 
 by those Avho live in more settled times, when such 
 matters have been more wisely established than ever they 
 were discussed.* 
 
 * It is remarkable of James I. that he rever pressed for the 
 performance of any of his proclamations ; and his facile disposition 
 made him moi'e tolerant than appears in onr history. At this very 
 time, the conduct of a lord mayor of London has been preserved by 
 Wilson, as a proof of the city magistrate's piety, and, it may be added, 
 of his wisdom. It is here adduced as an evidence of the king's usual 
 conduct: — 
 
 The king's carriages, removing to Theobalds on the Sabbath, 
 occasioned a great clatter and noise in the time of divine service. The 
 lord-mayor commanded them to bo stopped, and the officers of the 
 carriages, returning to the king, made violent complaints. The king, 
 in a rage, swore he thought there had been no more kings in England 
 than himself; and sent a warrant to the lord-mayor to let them pass, 
 which ho obeyed, observing. — " While it was in my power, I did my 
 duty but that being taken away by a higher power, it is my duty to
 
 MOTIVES OF THE KING'S AVERSION TO WAR. 555 
 
 MOTIVES OF THE KING'S AVERSION TO 
 WAR 
 
 The king's aversion to war has been attributed to his 
 piisillanimity — as if personal was the same thing as 
 political courage, and as if a king placed himself in a 
 field of battle by a proclamation for wai*. The idle talo 
 that James trembled at the mere view of a naked sword, 
 which is produced as an instance of the eflects of 
 sympathy over the infant in the womb from his mother's 
 terror at the assassination of Rizzio, is probably not 
 true, yet it serves the purpose of inconsiderate writers to 
 indicate his excessive pusillanimity ; but there is another 
 idle tale of an opposite nature which is certainly true : — 
 In passing from Berwick into his new kingdom, the king, 
 with his own hand, " shot out of a cannon so fayre and 
 with so great judgment" as convinced the cannoniers of 
 the king's skill " in great artillery," as Stowe records. It 
 is probable, after all, that James I. was not deficient in 
 personal courage, although this is not of consequence in 
 his literary and political character. Several instances are 
 recorded of his intrepidity. But the absurd charge of 
 his pusillanimity and his pedantry has been carried so far, 
 as to suppose that it affected his character as. a sovereign. 
 The warm and hasty Burnet-says at once of James I. : — • 
 "He was despised by all abroad as a pedant without 
 true judgment, courage, or steadiness." This " pedant," 
 however, had " the true judgment and steadiness" to ob- 
 tain his favourite purpose, which was the prej^ervation of a 
 continued peace. If James I. was sometimes despised by 
 foreign powers, it was because an insular king, who will 
 not consume the blood and treasure of his people (and 
 
 obey." The good sense of the lord-mayor so highly gratiflod James, 
 that the king complimented him, and thanked him for it. Of suoh 
 gentleness was the arbitrary power of James composed!
 
 556 CHARACTER OF JAMES THE FIRST. 
 
 James had neither to spare), may be little regarded on 
 the Continent ; the Machiavels of foreign cabinets ■will 
 look with contempt on the domestic blessings a British 
 sovereign would scatter among his subjects ; his presence 
 with the foreigners is only felt m his armies ; and they 
 seek to allure him to fight their battles, and to involve 
 him in their interests. 
 
 James looked with a cold eye on the military adven- 
 turer : he said, " No man gains by war but he that hath 
 not wherewith to live in peace." But there was also a 
 secret motive, which made the king a lover of peace, and 
 which he once thus confidentially opened : — 
 
 " A king of England had no reason but to seek always 
 to decline a war ; for though the sword was indeed in his 
 hand, the purse was in the people's. One could not go 
 without the other. Suppose a supply were levied to begin 
 the fray, what certainty could he have that he should not 
 want sufficient to make an honourable end ? If he called 
 for subsidies, and did not obtain, he must retreat inglo- 
 riously. He must beg an alms, with such conditions as 
 would break the heart of majesty, through capitulations 
 that some members would m,a1ce, who desire to improve the 
 reputatio7i of their wisdom^ by retrenching the dignity of 
 the croion in popular declamations, and thus he must buy 
 the soldier's pay, or fear the danger of a mutiny."* 
 
 JAMES ACKNOWT.EDGES HIS DEPENDENCE 
 ON THE COMMONS.— THEIR CONDUCT. 
 
 Thus James I., perpetually accused of exercising 
 arbitrary power, confesses a humiliating dependence on 
 the Commons ; and, on the whole, at a time when 
 prerogative and privilege Avere alike indefinite and 
 
 * Hacket'a "Lifo of Lord-Keeper Williams," p. 80. The whole is 
 distinguislied by italics, as the king's owa words.
 
 DEPENDENCE ON THE COMMONS. 557 
 
 obscure, the king received from them hard and rigorous 
 usage. A king of peace claimed the indulgence, if not 
 the gratitude, of the people ; and the sovereign who was 
 zealous to correct the abuses of his government, was not 
 distinguished by the Commons from him who insolently 
 would perpetuate them. 
 
 When the Commons were not in good humour with 
 Elizabeth, or James, they contrived three methods of 
 inactivity, running the time to waste — nihil agendo, or 
 aliud agendo, or mali agendo j doing nothing, doing 
 something else, or doing evilly.* In one of these irksome 
 moments, waitmg for subsidies, Elizabeth anxiously 
 inquired of the Speaker, " What had passed in the 
 Lower House ?" He replied, " If it please your 
 Majesty — seven weeks." On one of those occasions, 
 when the queen broke into a passion when they urged 
 her to a settlement of the succession, one of the deputies 
 of the Commons informed her Majesty, that "the 
 Commons would never speah about a subsidy, ,or any 
 other matter whatever ; and that hitherto nothing but 
 the most trivial discussions had passed in parliament : 
 which was, therefore, a great assembly rendered entirely 
 useless, — and all were desirous of returning home."f 
 
 But the more easy and open nature of James I. 
 endured greater hardships : with the habit of studious 
 men, the king had an utter carelessness of money and a 
 generosity of temper, which Hacket, in his Life of the 
 Lord-Keeper Williams, has described. " The king was 
 wont to give like a king, and for the most pai-t to keep 
 one act of liberality warm with the covering of another." 
 He seemed to have had no distinct notions of total 
 amounts ; he was once so shocked at the sischt of the 
 
 * I find this description in a MS. letter of the times. 
 \ From a MS. letter of the French ambassador, La Mothe Fenelon, 
 to Charles IX., then at the court of London, in mj possession.
 
 558 CHARACTER OF JAMES THE FIRST. 
 
 money he had gi-antecl away, lying in heaps on a table, 
 that he instantly reduced it to half the sura. It appears 
 that Parliament never granted even the ordinary supplies 
 they had given to his predecessors; his chief revenue was 
 drawn from the customs ; yet his debts, of which I find 
 an account in the Parliamentary History, after a reign of 
 twenty-one years, did not amount to 200,000/,* This 
 monarch could not have been so wasteful of his 
 revenues as it is presumed. James I. was always gener- 
 ous, and left scarcely any debts. He must have lived 
 amidst many self-deprivations ; nor was this difficult to 
 practise for this king, for he was a philosopher, indifferent 
 to the common and imaginary wants of the vulgar of 
 royalty. Whenever he threw himself into the arms of 
 his Parliament, they left him without a feeling of his 
 distress. In one of his speeches he says — 
 
 " In the last Parliament I laid open the true thoughts 
 of my heart ; but I may say, with our Saviour, ' I have 
 piped to you, and you have not danced ; I have moiirned, 
 and you have not lamented.' I have reigned eighteen 
 years, in which time you have had peace, and I have re- 
 ceived far less supply than hath been given to any king 
 since the Conquest." 
 
 Thus James, denied the relief he claimed, was forced 
 on wretched expedients, selling patents for monopolies, 
 craving benevolences, or free gifts, and such expedients ; 
 the monopolies had been usual in Elizabeth's reign ; yet 
 all our historians agree, that his subjects were never 
 grievously oppressed by such occasional levies ; this was 
 even the confession of the contemporaries of this mon- 
 arch. They were every day becoming wealthier by 
 those acts of peace they despised the monarch for main- 
 taining. "The kingdom, since his reign began, was 
 luxuriant in gold and silver, far above the scant of our 
 
 * "Parliamentary History," vol. v., p. 147.
 
 DEPENDENCE OX THE COMMONS. 559 
 
 fathers who lived before us," are the words of a contem- 
 porary.* All flourished about the king, except the king 
 himself James I. discovered how light and hollow was 
 his boasted " prerogative-royal," which, by its power of 
 dissolving the Parliament, could only keep silent those 
 who had already refused their aid. 
 
 A wit of the day described the Parliaments of James 
 by this ludicrous distich : 
 
 Many faults complained of, few things amended, 
 A subsidy granted, the Parliament ended. 
 
 But this was rarely the fact. Sometimes they address- 
 ed James I. by what the king called a " stinging peti- 
 tion ;" or, when the ministers, passing over in silence the 
 motion of the Commons, pressed for supplies, the heads 
 of a party replied, that to grant them were to put an 
 end to Parliament. But they practised expedients and 
 contrivances, which comported as little with the dignity 
 of an English senate, as with the majesty of the sover- 
 eign. 
 
 At a late hour, when not a third part of the house re- 
 mained, and those who required a fuller house, amid 
 darkness and confusion, were neither seen nor heard, 
 they made a protest, — of which the king approved as 
 little of the ambiguous matter, as the surreptitious means ; 
 and it was then, that, with his o^vn hand, he tore the leaf 
 out of the journal. f In the sessions of 1614 the king 
 was still more indignant at their proceedings. He and 
 the Scotch had been vilified by their invectives; and 
 they were menaced by two lawyers, with a " Sicilian 
 vespers, or a Parisian matins." They aimed to reduce 
 the king to beggary, by calling in question a third part 
 of his revenue, contesting his prerogative in levying his 
 customs. On this occasion I find that, publicly in the 
 
 * Hacket's " Life of Lord-Keeper "WiUiams." 
 f " Rushworth," vol. i., p. 54.
 
 560 CHARACTER OF JAMES THE FIRST. 
 
 Banqueting-house at Whitehall, the king tore all their bills 
 before their faces ; and, as not a single act was passed, 
 in the phrase of the day this was called an addle, Parlia- 
 ment.* Such unhajDpy jsroceedings indicated the fatal 
 divisions of the succeeding reign. A meeting of a difier- 
 ent complexion once occurred in 1621, late in James's 
 reign. The monopolies were then abolished. The king 
 and the prince shed reciprocal tears in the house; and 
 the prince wept when he brought an affectionate message 
 of thanks from the Commons. The letter-writer says, 
 " It is a day worthy to be kept holiday ; some say it shall, 
 but I believe them not." It never was ; for even this par- 
 liament broke up with the cries of "some tribunitial ora- 
 tors," as James designated the pure and the impure demo- 
 cratic sjDirits. Smollett remarks in his margin, that the 
 king endeavoured to cajole the Commons. Had he 
 known of the royal tears, he had still heightened the 
 phrase. Hard fate of kings ! Should ever their tears 
 attest the warmth of honest feelings, they must be tlirown 
 out of the pale of humanity : for Francis Osborne, that 
 cynical republican, declares, "that there ai'e as few abom- 
 inable princes as tolerable kings; because princes must 
 court the public favour before they attain supreme pow- 
 er, and then change their nature ! " Such is the egotism 
 of republicanism ! 
 
 SCANDALOUS CHRONICLES. 
 
 The character of James I. has always been taken from 
 certain scandalous chronicles, whose origin requires detec- 
 tion. It is this mud which has darkened and disturbed 
 the clear stream of history. The reigns of Elizabeth and 
 James teemed with libels in church and state from oppo 
 site pai'ties : the idleness of the pacific court of James I. 
 
 * From a MS. of the timea.
 
 SCANDALOUS CHRONICLES. 561 
 
 hatched a viperous brood of a less hardy, but perhaps of 
 a more malignant nature, than the Martin Mai'-prelatos 
 of the preceding reign. Those boldly at once wrote trea- 
 son, and, in some respects, honestly dared the rope which 
 could only silence Penry and his party ; but these only 
 reached to scandalum magnatum, and the puny wretches 
 could only have crept into a pillory. In the times of the 
 Commonwealth, when all things were agreeable which 
 vilified our kings, these secret histories were dragged from 
 their lurking holes. The writers are meagre Suetoniuses 
 and Procopiuses ; a set of self-elected spies in the court ; 
 gossipers, lounging in the same circle ; eaves-droppers ; 
 pryers into corners ; buzzers of reports ; and punctual 
 scribes of what the French (so skilful in the profession) 
 technically term les on dit ; that is, things that might 
 never have happened, although they are recorded : regis- 
 tered for posterity in many a scandalous chronicle, they 
 have been mistaken for histories ; and include so many 
 truths and falsehoods, that it becomes unsafe for the liis- 
 torian either to credit or to disbelieve them.* 
 
 * Most of these works were meanly printed, and were usually found 
 in a state of filth and rags, and would have perished in their own 
 merited neglect, had tliey not been recently splendidly reprinted by Sir 
 Walter Scott. Thus the garbage has been cleanly laid on a fashionable 
 epergne, and found quite to the taste of certain lovers of authentic 
 history 1 Sir Anthony Weldon, clerk of the king's kitchen, in his 
 " Court of King James " has been reproached for gaining much of his 
 scandalous chronicle from the purlieus of the court. For this work 
 and some similar ones, especially " The None-Such Charles," in which 
 it would appear that he had procured materials from the State Paper 
 Office, and lor other zealous services to the Parliament, they voted 
 him a grant of 500Z. "The Five Years of King James," which passes 
 under the name of Sir Fulk Greville, the dignified friend of the roman- 
 tic Sir Philip Sidney, and is frequently referred to by grave writers, 
 is certainly a Presbyterian's third day's hash — for there are parts 
 copied from Arthur Wilson's " History of James I.," who was him- 
 self the pensioner of a disappointed courtier ; yet this writer never 
 attacks tlie personal character of the king, though charged with hav-
 
 562 CHARACTER OF JAMES THE FIRST. 
 
 Such was the race generated in this court of peace and 
 indolence ! And Hacket, in his " Life of the Lord-Keeper 
 Williams," without disguising the fact, tells us that the 
 Lord-Keeper " spared not for cost to purchase the mos* 
 certain intelligence, by his fee'd pensioners, of evern^ 
 hour's occurrences at court • and was wont to say that 
 no man could be a statesman without a great deal of 
 money." 
 
 We catch many glimpses of these times in another 
 branch of the same family. When news-books, as the 
 first newspapers wei'e called, did not yet exist to appease 
 the hungering curiosity of the country, a voluminous 
 correspondence was carried on between residents in the 
 
 ing scraped up many tales maliciously false. Osborne is a misanthropi- 
 cal politician, who cuts with the most corroding pen that ever rot- 
 tened a man's name. James was very negligent in dress; graceful 
 appearances did not come, into his studies. Weldon tells us how 
 the king was trussed on norseback, and fixed there like a pedlar's pack 
 or a lump of inanimate matter; the truth is, the king had always an 
 infirmity in his legs. Further, we are told that this ridiculous mon- 
 arch allowed his hat to remain just as it chanced to be placed on hia 
 head. Osborne once saw this unlucky king " in a green hunting-dress, 
 with a feather in his cap, and a horn, instead of a sword, by his side ; 
 how suitable to his age, calling, or person, I leave others to judge fron: 
 his pictures:" and this he bitterly calls '• leaving him dressed for pos- 
 terity!" This is the style which passes for history with some readers. 
 Hume observes that "hunting," which was James's sole recreation, 
 necessary for his health, as a sedentaiy scholar, " is the cheapest a 
 king can indulge;" and, indeed, the empty coffers of this monarch 
 afforded no other. 
 
 These pseudo-histories are alluded to by Arthur Wilson as "mon- 
 strous satires against the king's own person, that liaunted both court 
 and country," when, in the wantonness of the times, " every little 
 miscarriage, exuberantly branched, so that evil report did often perch 
 on them." Fuller has designated those suspicious scribes as " a gener- 
 ation of the people who, like moths, have lurked under the carpets of 
 the council-table, and oven like fleas, have leaped into the pillows of 
 the prince's bed-chamber ; and, to enhance the reputation of their 
 knowledge, thence derived that of all things which were, or were not, 
 ever done or thought of" — Church IR'itory, book x., p. 87.
 
 SCANDALOUS CHRONICLES. 5C3 
 
 metropolis and their country friends : tliese letters chiefly 
 remain in their MS. state.* Great men then employed a 
 scribe who had a talent this way, and sometimes a confi- 
 dential friend, to convey to them the secret history of 
 the times ; and, on the whole, they are composed by a 
 better sort of writers ; for, as they had no other design 
 than to inform their friends of the true state of passing 
 events, they were eager to correct, by subsequent ac- 
 counts the lies of the day they sometimes sent down. 
 They have preserved some fugitive events useful in histor- 
 ical researches, but their pens are garrulous ; and it re- 
 quires some experience to discover the character of the 
 writers, to be enabled to adopt their opinions and their 
 statements. Little things were, however, great matters 
 to these diurnalists ; much time was spent in learning 
 of those at court, who had quarrelled, or were on the 
 point ; who were seen to have bit their lips, and looked 
 doAvncast ; who was budding, and whose full-blown flower 
 was drooping : then we have the sudden reconcilement 
 and the anticipated fallings out, with a deal of the pour- 
 quoi of the pourquoi.\ 
 
 * Mr. Lodge's "Illustrations of British History" is an eminent and 
 elegant work of the minufice historicm ; as are the more recent volumes 
 of Sir Henry Ellis's valuable collections. 
 
 f Some specimens of this sort of correspondence of the idleness of the 
 times may amuse. The learned Mede, to his friend Sir Martin Stute- 
 vihe, chronicles a fracas : — " I am told of a great falling out between 
 my Lord Treasurer and my Lord Digby, insomuch that they came to 
 pedlar's blood and traitor's Mood. It was about some money which my 
 Lord Digby should have had, which my Lord Treasurer thought too 
 much for the charge of his employment, and said himself could go in 
 as good a fashion for half the sum. But my Lord Digby replies that 
 he could not peddle so well as his lordship." 
 
 A lively genius sports with a fanciful pen in conveying the same 
 kind of intelligence, and so nice in the shades of curiosity, that he can 
 describe a quarrel before it takes place. 
 
 "You know the primum raolile of our court (Buckingham), by whose 
 motion all the other spheres must move, or else stand still : the bright
 
 564: CHARACTER OF JAMES THE FIRST. 
 
 Such was this race of gossipers in the environs of a 
 court, where, steeped in a supine lethargy of peace, cor- 
 rupting or corrupted, every man stood for himself 
 through a reckless scene of expedients and of compro- 
 mises. 
 
 A PICTURE OF THE AGE FROM A MS. OF THE 
 TIME. 
 
 A LONG reign of peace, which had produced M^ealth in 
 that age, engendered the extremes of luxury and want. 
 Money traders practised the art of decoying the gallant 
 youths of the day into their nets, and transforming, in a 
 certain time, the estates of the country gentlemen into 
 skins of parchment, 
 
 The wax contiuuing hard, the acres melting. 
 
 Massingkr. 
 
 Projectors and monopolists who had obtained patents 
 for licensing all the iims and alehouses — for being the 
 sole vendors of manufactured articles, such as gold lace, 
 tobacco-pipes, starch, soap, &c., were grinding and 
 cheating the people to an extent which was not at first 
 
 sun of our firmament, at whose splendour or glooming all our mary- 
 golds of the court open or shut. There are in higher spheres as great 
 as he, but none so glorious. But the king is in progress, and we are 
 far from court. Now to iiear certuinties. It is told me that my Lord 
 of Pembroke and my Lord of Rochester are so far out, as it is almost 
 come to a quarrel; I know not how true this is, but Sir Thomas Over- 
 bury and my Lord of Pembroke have been long jarring, and therefore 
 the other is hkely." 
 
 Among the numerous MS. letters of tliis kind, I have often ob- 
 served the writer uneasy at the scandal he has seasoned his letter 
 with, and concluding earnestly that his letter, after perusal, should be 
 thrown to the flames. A wish which appears to have been rarely com- 
 plied with; and this may serve as u hint to some to restrain their 
 tattling pens, if they regard their own peace ; for, on most occasions of 
 this nature, the letters are rather preserved with peculiar care.
 
 A PICTtJRE OP THE AGE. 565 
 
 understood, although the practice had existed in the 
 former reign. The gentry, Avhose family pride would 
 vie with these nouveaux riches, exhavxsted themselves in 
 rival profusion ; all crowded to " upstart London," de- 
 serting their country mansions, which wei*e now left to 
 the care of " a poor alms-woman, or a bed-rid beadsman." 
 
 In that day, this abandonment of the ancient country 
 hospitality for the metropolis, and this breaking-up of 
 old family establishments, crowded London with new and 
 distinct races of idlers, or, as they would now be called, 
 unproductive members of society. From a contempo- 
 rary manuscx'ipt, one of those spirited remonstrances ad- 
 dressed to the king, which it was probably thought not 
 prudent to publish, I shall draw some extracts, as a for- 
 cible picture of the manners of the age.* Masters of 
 ancient families, to maintain a mere exterior of magnifi- 
 cence in dress and equipage in the metropolis, were 
 really at the same time hiding themselves in penury : 
 they thrust themselves into lodgings, and " five or six 
 knights, or justices of peace," with all their retinue, be- 
 came the inmates of a shopkeeper ; yet these gentlemen 
 had once " kept the rusty chimneys of two or three 
 houses smoking, and had been the feeders of twenty or 
 forty serving-men : a single page, with a guarded coat, 
 served their turn now. 
 
 " Every one strives to be a Diogenes in his house and 
 an emperor in the streets ; not caring if they sleep in a 
 tub, so they may be hurried in a coach ; giving that 
 allowance to horses and mares that formerly maintained 
 houses full of men ; pinching many a belly to paint a 
 few backs, and burying all the treasures of the kingdom 
 into a few citizens' coffers. 
 
 * The MS. is entitled " Balaam's Ass, or a True Discoverie touching 
 the Murmurs and Feared Discontents of the Times, directed to King 
 James." — Lansdowne Collection, 209. The writer, throughout, speaks 
 of the king with the highest respect.
 
 566 CHARACTER OF JAMES THE FIRST. 
 
 " Tiiere are now," the writer adds, " twenty thousand 
 masterless men turned off, who know not this night 
 where to lodge, where to eat to-morrow, and ready to 
 undertake any desperate course." 
 
 Yet there was still a more turbulent and dangerous 
 race of idlers, in 
 
 " A number of younger brothers, of ancient houses, 
 who, nursed up in fulness, pampered in their minority, 
 and left in charge to their elder brothers, who were to 
 be fathers to them, followed them in despair to London, 
 where these untimely-born youths are left so bare, that 
 their whole life's allowance was consumed in one year." 
 
 The same manuscript exhibits a full and spirited pic- 
 ture of manners in this long period of peace. 
 
 " The gentry are like owls, all feathers and no flesh ; 
 all show, and no substance ; all fashion, and no feeding ; 
 and fit for no service but masks and May-games. The 
 citizens have dealt with them as it is said the Indians are 
 dealt with ; they have given them counterfeit brooches 
 and bugle-bracelets for gold and silver ; * pins and peacock 
 
 * Sir Giles Mompesson and Sir James Mitchell had the monopoliea 
 of gold lace, which they sold in a counterfeit state ; and not only 
 cheated the people, but, by a mixture of copper, the ornaments made 
 of it are said to have rotted the flesh. As soon as the grievance was 
 shown to James, he expressed his abhorrence of the practice, and 
 even declared that no person connected with the villanous fraud 
 should-'escape punishment. The brother of his favourite, Bucking- 
 ham, was known to be one, and with Sir Giles Overreach (as Massin- 
 gor conceals the name of Mompesson), was compelled to fly the coun- 
 try. The style of James, in his speech, is indeed different from 
 kings' speeches in parliament : he speaks as indignantly as any indi- 
 vidual who v/as personally aggrieved: "Three patents at this tune 
 have been complained of, and thought great grievances; my purpose 
 is to strike them all dead, and, that time may not be lost, I will have 
 it done presently. Had these things been complained of to me, 
 before the parliament, I could have done the oflice of a just king, and 
 have punished them ; peradventure more than now ye intend to do. 
 No private person whatsoever, were he ever so dear unto me, shall be
 
 A PICTURE OF THE AGE. 507 
 
 feathers for lands and tenements ; gilded coaches and 
 outlandish hobby-horses for goodly castles and ancient 
 mansions ; their woods are turned into wardrobes, their 
 leases into laces ; and their goods and chattels into 
 guarded coats and gaudy toys. Should your Majesty 
 fly to them for relief, you would fare like those birds 
 that peck at painted fruits ; all outside." The writer 
 then describes the affected penurious habits of the grave 
 citizens, who were then preying on the country gentle- 
 men : — " When those big swoln leeches, that have thus 
 sucked them, wear rags, eat roots, speak like jugglers that 
 have reeds in their mouths ; look like spittle-men, espe- 
 cially when your Majesty hath occasion to use them ; 
 their fat lies in their heails, their substance is buried in 
 their bowels, and he that will have it must first take 
 their lives. Their study is to get, and their chiefest care 
 to conceal; and most from yourself, gracious sir; not a 
 commodity comes from their hand, but you pay a noble 
 in the pound for boohing, which they call forbearing* 
 They think it lost time if they double not their principal 
 in two years. They have attractive powders to draw 
 these flffes into their claws; they will entice men with 
 honey into their hives, and with wax entangle them ; f 
 
 respected by me by many degrees as the public good ; and I hope, my 
 lords, that ye will do me that right to publish to my people this my 
 heart purposes. Proceed judicially ; spare none, whore ye find just 
 cause to punish : but remember that laws have not their eyes in their 
 necks, but in their foreheads." — Rush worth, vol. i., p. 2G. 
 
 * The credit which these knavish traders gave their customers, who 
 could not conveniently pay their money down, was carried to an exor- 
 bitant charge ; since, even in Elizabeth's reign, it was one of the pop- 
 ular grievances brought into Parhament — it is there called, " A bill 
 against Douhk Payments of Book Debts." One of the country mem- 
 bers, who made a speech consisting entirely of proverbs, said, "Pay 
 the reckoning overnight, and you shall not be troubled in the morn- 
 ing." 
 
 f In the life of a famous usurer of that day, who died worth 
 400,000i., an amazing sum at that period, we find numberless expo-
 
 568 CHARACTER OF JAMES THE FIRST. 
 
 they pack the cards, and their confederates, the lords, 
 deal, by which means no other men have ever good 
 game. They have in a few years laid up riches for many, 
 and yet can never be content to say — Soul, take thy rest, 
 or hand receive no tnore y do no more wrong : but still 
 they labour to join house to house, and land to land. 
 What want they of being kings, but the name ? Look 
 into the shires and counties, where, with their purchased 
 lordships and manors, one of their private letters has 
 equal power with your Majesty's privy seal.* It is better 
 to be one of their hinds, than your Majesty's gentleman 
 usher ; one of their grooms, than your guards. What 
 care they, if it be called tribute or no, so long as it 
 comes in terraly : or whether their chamber be called 
 Exchequer, or the dens of cheaters, so that the money 
 be left there." 
 
 This crushing usury seemed to them a real calamity ; for 
 although in the present extraordinary age of calculations 
 
 dients and contrivances of the money trader, practised on improvident 
 landholders and careless heirs, to entangle them in his nets. He gen- 
 erally contrived to make the wood pay for the land, which he called 
 " making the feathers pay for the goose." He never pressoil hard for 
 his loans, but fondly compared his bonds "to infants, which battle 
 best by sleeping;" to battle is to be nourished — a term still retained 
 in the battle-book of the university. I have elsewhere preserved the 
 character and habits of the money-dealer in the age of James I. — See 
 "Curiosities of Literature," 11th Edit., p. 228. 
 
 * It is observed, in the same life, that his mortgages, and statutes, 
 and his judgments were so numerous, that his papers would have 
 made a good m;ip of England. A view of the chamber of this usurer 
 is preserved by Massinger, who can only be understood by the modern 
 reader in Mr. Crifford's edition: — 
 
 Here lay 
 
 A manor, bound fast in a skin of parchment; 
 
 Here a sure deed of gift for a market-town, 
 
 If not rodeem'd this daj', which is not in 
 
 The unthrift's purse; there being scarce one shiro 
 
 In Wales or England, where my monies are not 
 
 Lent out at usury, the certain hook 
 
 To draw in more. Massinqer's City Madam.
 
 ANECDOTES OF THE MANNERS OF THE AGE. 569 
 
 and artificial wealth, we can suffer " a dunghill-breed of 
 men," like Mompesson and his contemptible partner of 
 this reign, to accumulate in a rapid period more than a 
 ducal fortune, without any apparent injury to the public 
 welfare, the result Avas different then ; the legitimate and 
 enlarged principles of commerce were not practised by 
 our citizens in the first era of their prosperity ; their 
 absorbing avarice rapidly took in all the exhausting prodi- 
 gality of the gentry, who were pushed back on the 
 people to prey in their turn on them ; those who found 
 their own acres disappearing, became enclosers of com- 
 mons ; this is one of the gi-ievances which Massinger 
 notices, while the writer of the " Five Years of King 
 James " tells us that these discontents between the gen- 
 try and the commonality grew out into a petty rebel- 
 lion ; and it appears by Peyton that " divers of the peo- 
 ple were hanged up." 
 
 a:n^ecdotes of the manners of the age. 
 
 The minute picture of the domestic manners of this 
 age exhibits the results of those extremes of prodigality 
 and avarice which struck observers in that contracted 
 circle which then constituted society. The king's prodi- 
 gal dispensations of honours and titles seem at first to 
 have been political ; for James was a foreigner, and 
 designed to create a nobility, as likewise an inferior 
 order, who might feel a personal attachment for the new 
 monarch ; but the fiicility by which titles were acquired, 
 was one cause which occasioned so many to crowd to the 
 metropolis to enjoy their airy honour by a substantial 
 ruin ; knighthood had become so common, that some of 
 the most infamous and criminal characters of this age we
 
 570 CHARACTER OF JAMES THE FIRST. 
 
 find in that rank.* The young females, driven to neces- 
 sity by the fashionable ostentation of their parents, were 
 brought to the metropolis as to a market ; " where," 
 says a contemporary, " they obtained pensions, or some- 
 times marriages, by their beauty." When Gondomar, 
 the Spanish ambassador, passed to his house, the ladies 
 were at their balconies on the watch, to make themselves 
 known to him ; and it appears that every one of those 
 ladies had sold their favours at a dear rate. Among 
 these are some, " who pretending to be loits^ as they called 
 them," says Arthur Wilson,f " or had handsome nieces 
 or daughters, drew a great resort to their houses." And 
 it appears that Gondomar, to prevent these conversa- 
 ziones from too freely touching on Spanish politics, 
 sweetened their s-ilence by his presents.^ The same 
 
 * A statesman may read with advantage Sir Edward Walker on 
 " The inconveniences that have attended tlie frequent promotions to 
 Titles, since King James came to the crown." Sir Edward appears 
 not to disapprove of these promotions during the first ten years of his 
 reign, but " when alliance to a favourite, riches though gotten in a 
 ffhop, persons of private estates, and of families whose fathers would 
 have thought themselves highly honoured to have been but knights in 
 Queen Elizabeth's time, were advanced, then the fruits began to appear. 
 The greater nobility were undervalued; the ancient baronage saw 
 inferior families take precedency over them ; nobility lost its respect, 
 and a parity in conversation was introduced which in Englisli disposi- 
 tions begot contempt ; the king could not employ them all ; some grew 
 envious, some factious, some ingrateful, however obliged, by being 
 once denied." — p. 302. 
 
 '\ One may conjecture, by this expression, that the term of " wits " 
 was then introduced, in the sense we now use it. 
 
 f ' Wilson has preserved a characteristic trait of one of the lady wits. 
 When Gondomar one day, in Drury-lane, was passing Lady Jacob's 
 house, she, exposing herself lor a salutation from him, he bowed, but 
 in return she only opened her mouth, gaping on him. This was again 
 repeated the following day, when he sent a gentleman to complain of 
 her incivility. She replied, that he had purchased some favours of 
 the ladies at a dear rate, and she had a mouth to be stopped as well as 
 others.
 
 ANECDOTES OF THE MANNERS OF THE AGE. 571 
 
 grossness of manners was among the higher females of 
 the age ; when we see that grave statesman, Sir Dudley 
 Carleton, narrating the adventures of a bridal night, and 
 all " the petty sorceries," the romping of the " great ladies, 
 who were made shorter by the skirts," we discover their 
 coarse tastes ; but when we find the king going to the 
 bed of the bride in his nightgown, to give a reveille-matin 
 and remaining a good time in or upon the bed, " Choose 
 which you will beUeve ;" this bride was not more decent 
 than the ladies who publicly, on their balconies, were 
 soliciting the personal notice of Gondomar. 
 
 This coarseness of manners, which still prevailed in 
 the nation, as it had in the court of Henry VIII. and 
 Elizabeth, could not but influence the familiar style of 
 their humour and conversation. James I., in the Edict 
 on Duels, employs the expression of our dearest bedfellow 
 to designate the queen ; and there was no indelicacy 
 attached to this singular expression. Much of that silly 
 and obscene correspondence of James with Buckingham, 
 while it adds one more mortifying instance of " the follies 
 of the wise," must be attributed to this cause.* Are not 
 
 * Our wonder and surmises hav^e been often raised at the strange 
 subscriptions of Buckingham to the king, — " Your dog," and James as 
 ingenuously calling him " dog Steenie." But this was not peculiar to 
 Buckingham ; Jamef also called the grave Cecil his " little beagle." 
 The Earl of "Worcester, writing to Cecil, who had succeeded in his 
 search after one Bywater, the earl says, " If the king''s beagle can hunt 
 by land as well as he hath done by water, we will leave capping of 
 Jowler, and cap the beagle.^' The queen, writing to Buckingham to 
 intercede with the king for Rawleigh's life, addresses Buckingham by. 
 "My kind Dog." James appears to have been always playing on some 
 whimsical appellative by which he characterised his ministers and 
 favourites, analogous to the notions of a huntsman. Many of our 
 writers, among them Sir Walter Scott, have strangely misconceived 
 these playful appellatives, unconscious of the origin of this famiUar 
 humour. The age was used to the coarseness. We did noc then 
 excel all Europe, as Addison set the model, in the delicacy of liumour ; 
 indeed, even so late as Congreve's time, they were discussing its essen- 
 tial distinction from wit.
 
 572 CHARACTER OF JAMES THE FIRST. 
 
 most of the dramatic works of that day fi'equently unread- 
 able from this circumstance ? As an historian, it would 
 be my duty to show how incredibly gross were the 
 domestic language and the domestic familiarities of 
 kings, queens, lords, and ladies, which were much like 
 the lowest of our populace. We may felicitate ourselves 
 on having escaped the grossness, without, howerer, 
 extending too far these self-congratulations. 
 * The men were dissolved in all the indolence of life and 
 its wantonness ; they prided themselves in traducing 
 their. own innocence rather than suffer a lady's name to 
 pass unblemished.* The marriage-tie lost its sacredness 
 amid these disorders of social life. The luxurious idlers 
 of that day were polluted with infamous vices ; and 
 Drayton, in the " Mooncalf," has elaborately drawn full- 
 length pictures of the lady and the gentleman of that 
 day, which seem scarcely to have required the darkening 
 tints of satire to be hideous — in one line the Muse de- 
 scribes " the most prodigious birth " — 
 
 He's too much woman and She's too much man. 
 
 The trades of foppery, in Sjjanish fashions, suddenly 
 sprung up in this reign, and exhibited new names and 
 new things. Now silk and gold-lace shops first adorned 
 Cheapside, which the continuator of Stowe calls " the 
 beauty of London ;" the extraordinary rise in price of 
 these fashionable articles forms a curious contrast with 
 those of the preceding reign. Scarfs, in Elizabeth's time, 
 of thirty shillings value, were now wrought up to as 
 many pounds; and embroidered waistcoats, which in the 
 queen's reign no workman knew how to make worth 
 five pounds, were now so rich and curious as to be cheap- 
 ened at forty. Stowe has recorded a revolution in shoe- 
 
 * The expression of one of these gallauts, as preserved by Wilson, 
 cannot be decently given, but is more expressive. — p. 147.
 
 ANECDOTES OF THE MANNERS OF THE AGE. 573 
 
 buckles, portentously closing in shoe-roses, which were 
 puffed cnots of silk, or of precious embroidery, worn even 
 by men of mean rank, at the cost of more than five 
 pounds, wlio formerly had worn gilt copper shoe-buckles. 
 
 In the new and ruinous excess of the use of tobacco, 
 many consumed three or four hundred pounds a year 
 James, who perceived the inconveniences of this sudden 
 luxury in the nation, tried to discountenance it, although 
 the purpose went to diminish his own scanty revenue. 
 Nor was this attack on the abuse of tobacco peculiar to 
 his majesty, although he has been so ridiculed for it ; a 
 contemporary jjublication has well described the mania 
 and its consequences : " The sraoak of fashion hath quite 
 blown away the smoak of hospitalitie, and turned the 
 chimneys of their forefathers into the noseg of their 
 children."* The king also reprobated the finical em- 
 barrassments of the new fashions, and seldom wore new 
 clothes. When they brought him a Spanish hat, he flung 
 it away with scorn, swearing he never loved them nor 
 their fashions ; and when they put roses on his shoes, he 
 swore too, " that they should not make him a rufie-footed 
 dove; a yard of penny ribbon Avould serve that turn." 
 
 The sudden wealth which seems to have rushed into 
 the nation in this reign of peace, appeared in massy plate 
 and jewels, and in " prodigal marriage-portions, which 
 were grown in fashion among the nobility and gentry, as 
 if the skies had rained plenty." Such are the Avoids of- 
 Hacket, in his " Memorial of the Lord-Keeper Williams." 
 Enormous wealth was often accumulated. An usurer 
 died worth 400,000/. ; Sir Thomas Compton, a citizen, 
 left, it is said, 800,000/., and his heir was so overcome with 
 this sudden irruption of Avealth, that he lost his senses ; 
 and Cranfield, a citizen, became the Earl of jNJiddlesex. 
 
 The continued peace, which produced this rage for 
 
 *Tlie "Peace-Maker," 1618.
 
 574 CHARACTER OF JAMES THE FIRST. 
 
 dress, equipage, and magnificence, appeared in all forms 
 of riot and excess ; corruption bred corruption. The in- 
 dustry of the nation was not the commerce of the many, 
 but the arts of money-traders, confined to the suckers of 
 the state ; and the unemployed and dissipated, who were 
 every day increasing the population in the capital, were 
 a daring petulant race, described by a contemporary as 
 " persons of great expense, who, having run themselves 
 into debt, were constrained to run into faction ; and de- 
 fend themselves from the danger of the law." * These 
 appear to have enlisted under some show of privilege 
 among the nobility ; and the metropolis was often shaken 
 by parties, calling themselves Roaring-boys, Bravadoes, 
 Roysters, and Bonaventures.f Such were some of the 
 turbulent ^ children of peace, whose fiery spirits, could 
 they have found their proper vent, had been soldiers 
 of fortune, as they were younger brothers, distressed 
 often by their own relatives ; and wards ruined by their 
 own guardians ; J all these were clamorous for bold pira- 
 cies on the Spaniards : a visionary island, and a secret 
 mine, would often disturb the dreams of these unemployed 
 youths, with whom it was no uncommon practice to take 
 a purse on the road. Such felt that — 
 
 In this plenty 
 And fat of peace, our young men ne'er were trained 
 To martial discipline, and our ships iinrigg'd 
 Rot in the harbour. Massingeb. 
 
 The idleness which rusts quiet minds effervesces in 
 fieiy spirits pent up together ; and the loiterers in the 
 environs of a court, surfeiting with peace, were quick at 
 quarrel. It is remarkable, that in the pacific reign of 
 
 * "Five Years of King James." Harl. Misc. 
 
 f A. Wilson's " Hist, of James I." p. 28. 
 J That ancient oppressive institution of the Court of Wards then 
 existed; and Massinger, the great painter of our domestic manners in 
 this reign, has made it the subject of one of his interesting dramas.
 
 ANECDOTES OF THE MANNERS OF THE AGE. 575 
 
 James I. never was so much blood shed in brawls, nor 
 duels so tremendously barbarous, Hume observed this 
 circumstance, and attributes it to " the turn that the 
 romantic chivalry, for which the nation was formerly so 
 renowned, had lately taken." An inference probably 
 drawn from the extraordinary duel between Sir Edward 
 Sackville, afterwards Lord Dorset, and the Lord Bruce,* 
 These two gallant youths had lived as brothers, yet could 
 resolve not to part without destroying each other ; the 
 narrative so wonderfully composed by Sackville, still 
 makes us shudder at each bloAV received and given. 
 Books were published to instruct them by a system of 
 quarrelling, " to teach young gentlemen when they are 
 beforehand and when behindhand ;" thus they incensed 
 and incited those youths of hope and promise, whom 
 Lord Bacon, in his charge on duelling, calls, in the lan- 
 guage of the poet, Aurorm fillip the sons of the morning, 
 — who often were drowned in their own blood ! But, on 
 a nearer inspection, when we discover the personal mar 
 lignity of these hasty quarrels, the coarseness of their 
 manners, and the choice of weapons and places in their 
 mode of butchering each other, we must confess that they 
 rarely partake of the spirit of chivalry. One gentleman 
 biting the ear of a Templar, or switching a poltroon 
 lord ; another sending a challenge to fight in a saw-pit ; 
 or to strip to their shirts, to mangle each other, were 
 sanguinary duels, which could only have fermented in 
 the disorders of the times, amid that wanton pampered 
 indolence which made them so petulant and pugnacious. 
 Against this evil his Majesty published a voluminous 
 edict, which exhibits many proofs that it was the laboui* 
 of his own hand, for the same dignity, the same eloquence, 
 the same felicity of illustration, embellish the state- 
 
 * It may be found in the popular pages of the "Guardian;" there 
 first printed from a MS. in the library of tlie Harleys.
 
 576 CHARAOTER OF JAMES THE FIRST. 
 
 papers ; * and to remedy it, James, who rarely consented 
 to shed blood, condemned an irascible lord to sutFer the 
 ignominy of the gallows. 
 
 But, while extortion and monopoly prevailed among 
 the monied men, and a hollow magnificence among the 
 gentry, bribery had tainted even the lords. All were 
 hurrying on in a stream of venality, dissipation, and 
 want ; and the nation, amid the prosperity of the king- 
 dom in a long reign of peace, was nourishing in its breast 
 the secret seeds of discontent and turbulence. 
 
 From the days of Elizabeth to those of the Charleses, 
 Cabinet transmitted to Cabinet the caution to preserve 
 the kingdom from the evils of an overgrown metropolis. 
 A political hypochondriacism : they imagined the head 
 was becoming too large for the body, drawing to itself 
 
 * " A publication of his Majestie's edict and seuere censure against 
 private combats and combatants, &c." 1613. It is a volume of about 
 150 pages. As a specimen of the royal style, I transcribe two pas- 
 sages: — 
 
 " The pride of humours, the libertie of times, the conniiiencie of 
 magistrates, together witli a kind of prescription of impunity, hath bred 
 ouer all this kingdome, not only an opinion amoug the weakest, but a 
 constant beleet'e among many that desire to be reputed amoug the 
 wisest, of a certain freedome left to all men vpon earth by nature, as 
 their hirth-right to defend their reputations with their swords, and to 
 take reuenge of any wrong either offered or apprehended, in that 
 measure whicli their owne inward passion or affection dotli suggest, 
 without any further proo'e ; so as the challenge bo sent in a civil 
 manner, though without leave demanded of the sovereign,'''' &c. 
 
 The king employs a bold and poetical metaphor to describe duelling 
 — to tnrn this ha'vk into a singing-bird, clip its wings, and cage it. 
 "By comparing forraine mischiefes with home-bred accidents, it will ■ 
 not be hard to judge into what region this bolde bird of audacious pre- 
 sumption, in dealing blovves so conlidcntly, will mount, if it bee once 
 let fiie, from the breast wherein it lurkes. And therefore it behoveth 
 justice botii to keep her still in her own close cage, with care that she 
 learn neiier any oilier dittie then Est bene ; but withall, that for pre- 
 uontion of the worst that may fall out, wee clippe her wings, that they 
 grow not too fast. For according to that of the proverb. It is labowr 
 lost to Uiy nets he/ore the eyes of winged fowles" &c. — p. 13.
 
 ANECDOTES OF THE MANNERS OF TUE AGE. 577 
 
 all the moisture of life from the middle and the extremities. 
 A statute against the erection of new buildings was passed 
 by Elizabeth ; and from James to his successors, procla- 
 mations were continually issued to forbid any growth of 
 the city. This singular prohibition may have originated 
 in their dread of infection from the plague, but it cer- 
 tainly became the policy of a weak and timid govern- 
 ment, who dreaded, io the enlargement of the laetropolis, 
 the consequent concourse of those they designated as 
 " masterless men," — sedition was as contagious as the 
 plague among the many. But proclamations were not 
 listened to nor read ; houses were continually built, for 
 they were in demand, — and the esquires, with their wives 
 and daughters, hastened to gay or busy London, for a 
 knighthood, a marriage, or a monopoly. The govern- 
 ment at length were driven to the desperate " Order in 
 Council " to pilll down all new houses within ten miles of 
 the metropolis — and further, to direct the Attci aey- 
 General to indict all those sojourners in town who liad 
 country houses, and mulct them in ruinous fines. The 
 rural gentry were " to abide in their own counties, and 
 by their housekeeping in those parts were to guide and 
 relieve the meaner people according to the ancient usage 
 of the English nation.'''' The Attorney-General, like all 
 great lawyers, looking through the spectacles of his 
 books, was short-sighted to reach to the new causes and 
 the new effects which were passing around. The wisest 
 laws are but foolish when Time, though not the lawyers, 
 has annulled them. The popular sympathy was, how- 
 ever, with the Attorney-General, for it was imagined 
 that the country was utterly ruined and depopulated by 
 the town. 
 
 And so in the view it appeared, and so all the satirists 
 
 chorused ! for in the country the ancient hospitality 
 
 was not kept up ; the crowd of retainers had vanished, 
 
 the rusty chimneys of the mansion-house hardly smoked 
 
 37
 
 578 CHARACTER OP JAMES THE FIRST. 
 
 through a Christmas week, while in London all was ex- 
 orbitantly prosperous ; masses of treasure were melted 
 down into every object of magnificence. " And is not 
 this wealth drawn from our acres ? " was the outcry of 
 the rural censor. Yet it was clear that the country in 
 no way was impoverished, for the land rose in price ; and 
 if manors sometimes changed their lords, they sufiered 
 no depreciation. A sudden wealth was diffused in the 
 nation ; the arts of commerce were first advancing ; the 
 first great ship launched for an Indian voyage, was then 
 named the " Trade's Increase." The town, with its mul- 
 tiplied demands, opened a perpetual market for the coun- 
 try. The money-traders were breeding their hoards as 
 the graziers their flocks ; and while the goldsmiths' shoj)S 
 blazed in Cheap, the agriculturists beheld double har- 
 vests cover the soil. The innumerable books on agricul- 
 ture, published during these twenty years of peace is dzi 
 evidence of .the improvement of the country — sustained 
 by the growing capitals of the men in trade. In this 
 progress of domestic conveniency to metropolitan luxury, 
 there was a transition of manners ; new objects and new 
 interests, and new modes of life, yet in their incipient state. 
 The evils of these luxuriant times were of quick 
 growth ; and as fast as they sprung, the Father of his 
 people encountered them by his proclamations, which, 
 during long intervals of parliamentary recess, were to be 
 enforced as laws : but they j^assed away as /L-Drning 
 dreams over a happy, but a thoughtless and wanton people. 
 
 JAMES THE FIRST DISCOVERS THE DISOR- 
 DERS AND DISCONTENTS OF A PEACE OP 
 MORE THAN TWENTY YEARS. 
 
 The kinjx was himself amazed 'at the disorders and 
 discontents he at length discovered ; and, in one of
 
 DISORDERS OP A TWENTY YEARS' PEACE. 579 
 
 Lis later speeches, has expressed a mournful disap- 
 pointment : — 
 
 " And now, I confess, that when I looked before upon 
 the face of the government, I thought^ as every man 
 would have done, that the people were never so happy as 
 in my time ; but even, as at divers times I have looked 
 upon many of my coppices, riding about them, and they 
 appeared, on the outside, very thick and well-grown unto 
 me, but, when I turned into the midst of them, I found 
 them all bitten within, and full of plains and bare spots; 
 like the apple or pear, fair and smooth without, but when 
 you cleave it asunder, you find it rotten at heart. Even 
 so this kingdom, the external government being as good 
 as ever it was, and I am sure as learned judges as ever it 
 had, and I hope as honest administering justice within it; 
 and for peace, both at home and abroad, more settled, 
 and longer lasting, than ever any before ; together with as 
 great plenty as ever: so as it may be thought, every 
 man might sit in safety under his own vine and fig- 
 tree," &c., &c.* 
 
 But while we see this king of peace surrounded by 
 national grievances, and that " this fair coppice was very 
 thick and well-grown," yet loud in murmurs, to what 
 cause are we to attribute them ? Shall we exclaim with 
 Catharine Macaulay against "the despotism of James," 
 and " the intoxication of his power ?" — a monarch who 
 did not even enforce the proclamations or edicts his wis- 
 dom dictated ; f and, as Hume has observed, while vaunt- 
 ing his prerogative, had not a single regiment of guards 
 to maintain it. Must we agree with Hume, and reproach 
 
 * Rushworth, vol. i., p. 29 ; sub anno 1621. 
 
 f James I. said." I will never offer to bring a new custom upon my 
 people without the people's consent ; like a good physician, tell them 
 what is amiss, if they will not concur to amend it, yet I have discharged 
 my part." Among the di fficulties of this king was tliat of being a foreigner, 
 and amidst the contending factions of that day tlie " British Solomon " 
 seems to have been unjustly reproached for his Scottish partialities.
 
 580 CHARACTER OF JAMES THE FIRST. 
 
 the king with his indolence and love of amusement — " par- 
 ticularly of hunting ?" * 
 
 THE KING'S PRIVATE LIFE IN" HIS OCCA- 
 SIONAL RETIREMENTS. 
 
 The king's occasional retirements to Roystou and New- 
 market have even been surmised to have borne some anal- 
 ogy to the horrid Capraja of Tiberius ; but a witness has 
 accidentally detailed the king's uniform life in these occa- 
 sional seclusions. James 1 withdrew at times from pub- 
 lic life, but not from public affairs ; and hunting, to which 
 he then gave alternate days, was the cheap amusement 
 and requisite exercise of his sedentary habits : but the 
 cliase only occupied a few hours. A part of the day was 
 spent by the king in his private studies : another at his 
 dinners, where he had a reader, and was perpetually 
 sending to Cambridge for books of reference : state affairs 
 were transacted at night ; for it was observed, at the time, 
 that his secretaries sat up later at night, in those occa- 
 sional retirements, than when they were at London.f I 
 have noticed, that the state papei'S were composed by 
 
 * La Boderie, the French Ambassador, complams of the kiag's fre- 
 quent absences ; but James did not wish too close an intercourse with 
 one who was making a Frcncli party about Prince Henry, and whose 
 sole object was to provoke a Spanish war : tlie king foiled the French 
 intriguer ; but has incurred his contempt for being " timid and irreso- 
 lute." James's cautious neutrality was no merit in the Frenchman's 
 eye. 
 
 La Boderie resided at our court from 1G06 to 1611, and his " Am- 
 bassades," in 5 vols., are interesting in English history. The most 
 satirical accounts of the domestic life of James, especially in his un- 
 guarded hours of boisterous merriment, are found in the correspondence 
 of the French ambassadors. They studied to flavour their dish, mado 
 of spy and gossip, to the taste of their master. Henry IV. never for- 
 ga-v% James for his adherence to Spain and peace, instead of France 
 and warlike; designs. 
 
 f Ilackot's Scrinia Reserata, Part I., p. 27.
 
 THE KING'S PRIVATE LIFE. 581 
 
 himself; that he wrote letters on important occasions with- 
 out consulting any one ; and that he derived little aid 
 from his secretaries. James was j)robably never indo- 
 lent ; but the uniform life and sedentary habits of literary 
 men usually incur this reproach from those real idlers who 
 bustle in a life of- nothingness. While no one loved 
 more the still-life of peace than this studious monarch, 
 whose habits formed an agreeable combination of the con- 
 templative and the active life, study and business — no 
 king more zealously tried to keep down the growing 
 abuses of his government, by personally concerning him- 
 self in the protection of the subject.* 
 
 * As evidences of this zeal for reform, I throw into this note some 
 extracts from the MS. letters of contemporaries. — Of the king's inter- 
 ference between the judges of two courts about prohibitions, Sir Dud- 
 ley Carleton gives this account : — " The king played the best part in 
 collecting arguments on both sides, and concluded that he saw much 
 endeavour to draw water to their several mills ; and advised them to 
 take moderate courses, whereby the good of the subject might be more 
 respected than their particular jurisdictions. The king sat also at the 
 Admiralty, to look himself into certain disorders of government there; 
 he told the lawyers ' he would leave hunting of hares, and hunt them 
 in their quirks and subtilities, with which the subject had been too long 
 abused.' " — MS. Letter of Sir Dudley Carleton. 
 
 In ""Win wood's Memorials of State " there is a letter from Lord 
 Northampton, who was present at one of these strict examinations of 
 the king ; and his language is warm with admiration: the letter being 
 a private one, can hardly be suspected of court flattery. " His Majesty 
 hath in person, with the greatest dexterity of wit and strength of argu- 
 ment that mine ears ever heard, compounded between the parties of 
 the civil and ecclesiastical courts, who begin to comply, by the king's 
 sweet temper, on points that were held to be incompatible." — "Win- 
 wood's Mem. iii., p. 54. 
 
 In his progresses through the country, if any complained of having 
 received injury from any of the court, the king punished, or had satiB« 
 factioa made to the wronged, immediately.
 
 582 CHARACTER OP JAMES THE FIRST. 
 
 DISCREPANCIES OF OPINIO!^ AlklONG THE 
 DECRIERS OF JAMES THE FIRST. 
 
 Let us detect, among the modern decriers of the charac- 
 ter of James I., those contradictory opinions, which start 
 out in the same page ; for the conviction of truth flashed 
 on the eyes of those who systematically vilified him, and 
 must often have pained them ; while it embarrassed and 
 confused those, who, being of no party, yet had adopted 
 the popular notions. Even Hume is at variance with 
 himself; for he censures James for his indolence, " which 
 prevented him making any progress in the practice of 
 foreign politics, and diminished that regard which all the 
 neighbouring nations had paid to England during the 
 reign of his predecessor." p. 29. Yet this philosopher 
 observes afterwards, on the military character of Prince 
 Henry, at p. 63, that "had he lived, he had probably pro- 
 moted the glory ^ perhajxs not the felicity^ of his people. 
 The unhappy prepossession of men in favour of ambition, 
 &c., engages them into such pursuits as destroy their 
 own peace, and that of the rest of mankind.'''' This is true 
 philosophy, however politicians may comment, and how- 
 ever the military may command the state. Had Hume, 
 with all the sweetness of his temper, been a philosopher 
 on the throne, himself had probably incurred the censure 
 he passed on James I. Another important contradiction 
 in Hume deserves detection. The king, it seems, "boast- 
 ed of his management of Ireland as his masterpiece." 
 According to the accounts of Sir John Davies, whose po- 
 litical works are still read, and whom Hume quotes, James 
 I. " in the space of nine years made greater advances to- 
 wards the reformation of that kingdom than had been 
 eifected in more than four centuries ;" on this Hume adds 
 that the king's " vanity in this particular was not with- 
 out foundation." Thus in describing that wisest act of
 
 OPINIONS OF THE DECEIERS OF JAMES I. 583 
 
 a sovereign, the art of humanising his ruder subjects by- 
 colonisation, so unfortunate is James, that even his most 
 skilful apologist, influenced by popular prepossessions, em- 
 ploys a degrading epithet — and yet he, who had indulged 
 a sai'casm on the vanity of James, in closing his gen- 
 eral view of his wise administration in Ireland, is carried 
 away by his nobler feelings. — " Such were the arts," ex- 
 claims the historian, " by which James introduced human- 
 ity and justice among a people who had ever been buried 
 in the most profound barbarism. Noble cares ! much su- 
 perior to the vain and criminal glory of conquests." Let 
 us add, that had the genius of James the First been war- 
 like, had he commanded a battle to be fought and a vic- 
 tory to be celebrated, popular historians, the panders of 
 ambition, had adorned their pages with bloody trophies ; 
 but the peace the monarch cultivated ; the wisdom which 
 dictated the plan of civilisation ; and the persevering 
 arts which put it into practice — these are the still virtues 
 which give no motion to the spectacle of the historian, 
 and are even forgotten in his pages. 
 
 What were the painful feelings of Catharine Macaulay, 
 in summing up the character of James the First. The 
 king has even extorted from her a confession, that " his 
 conduct in Scotland was unexceptionable^" but " despica- 
 ble in his Britannic government." To account for this 
 seeming change in a man who, from his first to his last 
 day, was always the same, required a more sober his- 
 torian. She tells us also, he afiected " a sententious wit ;" 
 but she adds, that it consisted " only of quaint ^.nd stale 
 conceits." We need not take the word of Mrs. Macaulay, 
 since we have so much of this " sententious wit " record- 
 ed, of which probably she knew little. Forced to confess 
 that James's education had been " a more learned one than 
 is usually bestowed on princes," we find how useless it is 
 to educate princes at all ; for this " more learned educa- 
 tion " made this prince " more than commonly deficien<
 
 584: CHARACTER OF JAMES THE FIRST, 
 
 m all the points he pretended to have any knowledge 
 of!" This mcredible result gives no encouragement for a 
 prince, having a Buchanan for his tutor. Smollett, hav- 
 ing compiled the popular accusations of the " vanity, the 
 prejudices, the littleness of soixl," of this abused monarch, 
 surprises one in the same page by discovering enough 
 good qualities to make something more than a tolerable 
 king. " His reign, though ignoble to himself, was happy 
 to his people, who were enriched by commerce, felt no 
 severe impositions, while they made considerable progress 
 in their liberties," So that, on the whole, the nation ap- 
 pears not to have had all the reason they have so fully 
 exercised in deriding and vilifying a sovereign, who had 
 made them prosperous at the price of making himself 
 contemptible ! I shall notice another writer, of an amia- 
 ble character, as an evidence of the influence of popular 
 prejudice, and the effect of truth. 
 
 When James went to Denmark to fetch his queen, he 
 passed part of his time among the learned; but such 
 was his habitual attention in studying the duties of a 
 sovereign, that he closely attended the Danish courts of 
 justice ; and Daines Barrington, in his curious " Obser- 
 vations on the Statutes," mentions, that the king bor- 
 rowed from the Danish code three statutes for the pun- 
 ishment of criminals. But so provocative of sarcasm is 
 the ill-used name of this monarch, that our author could 
 not but shrewdly observe, that James " spent more time 
 in those courts than in attending upon his destined con- 
 sort,'" Yet this is not true : the king was jovial there, 
 and was as indulgent a husband as he was a father. 
 Osborne even censures James for once giving marks of 
 his uxoriousness ! * But while Daines Barrington de- 
 grades, by unmerited ridicule, the honourable employ- 
 ment of the " British Solomon," he becomes himself per- 
 
 * See "Curiosities of Literature," vol. iii., p. 334,
 
 OPIinONS OF THE DECRIERS OF JAMES I. 585 
 
 plexed at the truth that flashes on his eyes. He ex- 
 presses the most perfect admiration of James the First, 
 •whose statutes he declares " deserve much to be enforced ; 
 nor do I find any one which hath the least tendency to 
 extend the prerogative, or abridge the liberties and 
 rights of his subjects." He who came to scoff remained 
 to pray. Thus a lawyer, in examining the laws of James 
 the First, concludes by approaching neai-er to the truth : 
 the step was a bold one ! He says, " It is at ^^resent a 
 sort of' fashion to suppose that this king, because he 
 was a pedant, had no real understanding, or merit." 
 Had Daines Barrington been asked for proofs of the 
 pedantry of James the First, he had been still more per- 
 plexed ; but what can be more convincing than a law- 
 yer, on a review of the character of James the First, 
 being struck, as he tells us, by " his desu-e of being in- 
 structed in the English law, and holding frequent confer- 
 ences for this pxirpose with the most eminent lawyers, — 
 as Sir Edward Coke, and others !" Such was the mon- 
 arch whose character was perpetually reproached for in- 
 dolent habits, and for exercising arbitrary power ! Even 
 Mr. Brodie, the vehement adversary of the Stuarts, 
 quotes and admii-es James's prescient decision on the 
 character of Laud in that remarkable conversation with 
 Buckingham and Prince Charles recorded by Hacket.* 
 
 But let us leave these moderns perpetuating traditional 
 prejudices, and often to the fiftieth echo, still sounding 
 with no voice of its own, to learn what the unprejudiced 
 contemporaries of James I. thought of the cause of the 
 disorders of their age. They were alike struck by the 
 wisdom and the zeal of the monarch, and the prevalent 
 discontents of this long reign of peace. At first, says 
 the continuator of Stowe, all ranks but those " who were 
 pettled in piracy," as he designates the cormorants of 
 
 * Brodie's "History of British Empire," vol iL, pp. 244, 411,
 
 586 CHARACTER OF JAMES THE FIRST. 
 
 war, and curiously enumerates their classes, " were right 
 joyful of the peace ; but, in a few years afterwards, all 
 the benefits were generally forgotten, and the happiness 
 of the general peace of the most part contemned." The 
 honest annalist accounts for this unexpected resiilt by 
 the natural reflection — " Such is the world's corruption, 
 and man's vile ingratitude."* My philosophy enables 
 me to advance but little beyond. A learned contempo- 
 rary. Sir Symond D'Ewes, in his manuscript diary, 
 notices the death of the monarch, whom he calls " our 
 learned and peaceable sovereign." — " It did not a little 
 amaze me to see all men generally slight and disregard 
 the loss of so mild and gentle a prince, which made me 
 even to feel, that the ensuing times might yet render his 
 loss more sensible, and his memory more dear unto pos- 
 terity." Sir Symond censures the king for not engaging 
 in the German war to support the Palsgrave, and main- 
 tain " the true church of God ;" but deeper politicians 
 have applauded the king for avoiding a war, in which he 
 could not essentially have served the interests of the rash 
 prince who had assumed the title of King of Bohemia.f 
 "Yet," adds Sir Symond, "if we consider his virtues 
 and his learning, his augmenting the liberties of the 
 English, rather than his oppressing them by any un- 
 limited or illegal taxes and corrosions, his death deserved 
 more sorrow and condolement from his subjects than it 
 found."! 
 
 Another contemporary author, Wilson, has not ill- 
 traced the generations of this continued peace — " peace 
 begot plenty, plenty begot ease and wantonness, and 
 ease and wantonness begot poetry, and poetry swelled 
 
 * Stowo's Annals, p. 845. 
 
 f See Sir Edward Walker's " Hist. Discourses," p. 321 ; and Bar- 
 rii-gton's " Obsorv. on the Statutes," who saya, " For this lie deserves 
 the highest praise and commendation from a nation of islanders." 
 
 X Harl. MSS. 646.
 
 SUMMARY OF HIS CHARACTER. 5S7 
 
 out into that bulk in this king's time which hegot mon- 
 strous satyrs." Such were the lascivious times, which 
 dissolving the ranks of society in a general corruption, 
 created on one part the imaginary and itnlimited wants 
 of prosperity ; and on the other produced the riotous 
 children of indolence, and the turbulent adventurers of 
 want. The rank luxuriance of this reign was a steaming 
 hot-bed of peace, which proved to be the seed-plot of 
 that revolution which was reserved for the unfortunate 
 son. 
 
 In the subsequent reign a poet seems to have taken a 
 retrospective view of the age of peace of James I. con- 
 templating on its results in his own disastrous times — 
 
 States that never know 
 A change but in their growth, whicli a long peace 
 Hath brought unto perfection, are like steel, 
 "Which being neglected will consume itself 
 With its own rust ; so doth Security 
 Eat through the hearts of states, while they are sleeping 
 And lulled into false quiet. 
 
 Nabb's Hannibal and Scipio. 
 
 SUM^IART OF HIS CHARACTER. 
 
 Thus the continued peace of James L had calamities 
 of its own ! Are we to attribute them to the king ? It 
 has been usual with us, in the solemn expiations of our 
 history, to convert the sovereign into the scape-goat for 
 the people ; the historian, like the priest of the Hebrews, 
 laying his hands on Azazel,* the curses of the multitude 
 are heaped on that devoted head. And thus the histo- 
 rian conveniently solves all ambiguous events. 
 
 The character of James I, is a moral phenomenon, a sin- 
 gularity of a complex nature. We see that we cannot 
 
 * The Hebrew name, which Calmet translates Bcnio Emissalre, and 
 we Scape Goat, or rather Escape Goat.
 
 588 CHARACTER OF JAMES THE FIRST. 
 
 trust to those modern writers who have passed their 
 censures upon him, however just may be those very- 
 censures ; for when we look narrowly into their represent- 
 ations, as sui'ely we find, perhaps Mdthout an exception, 
 that an invective never closes without some unexpected 
 mitigating circumstance, or qualifying abatement. At 
 the moment of inflicting the censure, some recollection 
 in opposition to what is asserted passes in the mind, and 
 to approximate to Truth, they ofier a discrepancy, a self- 
 contradiction. James must always be condemned on a 
 system, while his apology is only allowed the benefit of 
 a parenthesis. 
 
 How it has happened that our luckless crowned phi- 
 losopher has been the common mark at which so many 
 quivers have been emptied, should be quite obvious 
 when so many causes were operating against him. The 
 shifting positions into which he was cast, and the ambi- 
 guity of his character, will unriddle the enigma of his 
 life. Contrarieties cease to be contradictions when 
 operated on by external causes. 
 
 James was two persons in one, frequently opposed to 
 each other. He was an antithesis in human nature — or 
 even a solecism. "We possess ample evidence of his 
 shrewdness and of his simplicity; we find the lofty 
 regal style mingled with his familiar bonhommie. 
 Warm, hasty, and volatile, yet with the most patient 
 zeal to disentangle involved deception ; such gravity in 
 sense, such levity in humour ; such wariness and such in- 
 discretion ; such mystery and such openness — all these 
 must have often thrown his Majesty into some awkward 
 dilemmas. He was a man of abstract speculation in the 
 theory of human affairs ; too witty or too aphoristic, he 
 never seemed at a loss to decide, but too careless, per- 
 haps too infirm, ever to come to a decision, he leaned on 
 otliers. He shrunk from the council-table ; he had that 
 distaste for the routine of business which studious seden-
 
 SUMMARY OF HIS CHARACTER. 589 
 
 tary men are too apt to indulge ; and imagined that his 
 health, which he said was the health of the kingdom, 
 depended on the alternate days which he devoted to 
 the chase ; Royston and Theobalds were more delectable 
 than a deputation from the Commons, or the Court at 
 Whitehall. 
 
 It has not always been arbitrary power which has 
 forced the people in the dread circle of their fate, sedi- 
 tions, rebellions, and civil wars ; nor always oppressive 
 taxation which has given rise to public grievances. 
 Such were not the crimes of James the First. Amid 
 the full blessings of peace, we find how the people are 
 prone to corrupt themselves, and how a philosopher on 
 the throne, the father of his people, may live without 
 exciting gratitude, and die without inspiring regret — 
 unregarded, imremembered !
 
 I]:^DEX. 
 
 Abeenetht's opinion of enthusiasm, 
 195. 
 
 Abstraction of mind in great men, 
 179-183. 
 
 Actors, traits of character in great, 
 185. 
 
 Adrian VI., Pope, persecutes literary 
 men, 32. 
 
 .Esthetic critics, 368. 
 
 Akenside on the nature of genius, 47. 
 
 Alpieri, childhood of, 50; loneliness of 
 his character, 132; excited by Plu- 
 tarch's works, 190. 
 
 A-NGELO, Michael, illustrates Dante, 36; 
 his ideas of intellectual labour, 118; 
 his reason for a solitary life, 151; his 
 picture of battle of Pisa destroyed by 
 Bandinelli, 211 ; his elevated char- 
 acter, 831 ; his letter to Vasari de- 
 scribing the death of his servant, 4S5. 
 
 Antipathies of men of genius, 214-218. 
 
 Anxiety of genius, 104; of authors and 
 artists over their labours, 112-122. 
 
 Aristophanes, popularised by a false 
 preface, 375. 
 
 Art Friendships, 276-278. 
 
 Aj'.tists, " Studies," or first thoughts, 
 176; their mutu.al jealousies, 208-212. 
 
 AuTOBiOQKAPuy, its interest, 385. 
 
 Barry the painter, his love of ancient 
 literature, 88; his general enthusiasm, 
 86; his rude eloquence, 146. 
 
 Baii.let and his catalogue, 458. 
 
 Beattie describes the powerful effect 
 on himself of metaphysical study, 197. 
 
 Birch, Dr., and Eobertson the Histo- 
 rian, 445-455. 
 
 Boccaccio's friendship for Petrarch, 
 280-282. 
 
 Book Collkctors, 299-804. 
 
 Booksellers, the test of public opinion, 
 258. 
 
 Bosuis, his researches in the Roman 
 catacombs, 194. 
 
 Boyle on the disjiosition of childhood, 
 49; his advertisement against visitors, 
 n., 154; his idea of a literary retreat, 
 249. 
 
 Bruce, the traveller, disbelieved, 110. 
 
 BiJFKoN gives a reason for his fame, 
 127. 
 
 Buonaparte revives old military tac- 
 tics, 843. 
 
 BtTRNs's diary of the heart, 100. 
 Burton, his constitutional melancholy, 
 
 290. 
 BuNY.\N a self-taught genius, 86. 
 Byron's loneliness of feeling, n., 183. 
 
 Calumny frequently attacks genius, 
 246. 
 
 Cantenac and his autobiography, 386. 
 
 Caracci, the, their unfortunate jeal- 
 ousies, 210. 
 
 Castagno murders a rival artist, 211. 
 
 Charles V., friendship for Titian, .332; 
 Robertson's life of, 446. 
 
 Chatelet, Madame de, a female philoso- 
 pher and friend of Voltaire, 130. 
 
 Chatham, Earl of, his constancy of 
 study, .132. 
 
 Chenikr a literary fratricide, 230. 
 
 Cicero on youthful influence, 50. 
 
 Clarendon, his love of retirement, 152. 
 
 Coaches, their first invention, 467. 
 
 Coal, its first use as fuel, 471. 
 
 Coma Vigil, a disease produced by 
 stud}', 198. 
 
 Composition, its toils, 112-118. 
 
 Conti;mporary criticism, frequently un- 
 just, 105. 
 
 Conversations of men of genius, 136- 
 149 ; those who converse well seldom 
 write well, 143. 
 
 Cotin, Abb6, troubled by wealth, 249. 
 
 Craciieroiie. Rev. C M., his collections 
 of art and literature, «., 26. 
 
 Criticis.m not always just, 92-106. 
 
 CuRRiE, his Idea of the power of genius, 
 42. 
 
 Cuvier's discoveries in natural history, 
 194. 
 
 Dante, his great abstraction of mind, 
 
 ISO. 
 Deaths of literary men, 819. 
 Depreciation, theory of, 214. 
 Diaries, their value, 1G5. 
 Disease induced by severe study, 197. 
 Domenichino poisoned by rivals, 211. 
 Domestic Novelties at first condemned, 
 
 462-474. 
 Domestic life of literary men, 281-24T. 
 Dreams of eminent men, 171-178. 
 Drduais an enthusiastic painter, 205. 
 
 England and its tastes, 346.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 591 
 
 Family affection an incentive to genius, 
 
 238-242. 
 Fenblon's early enthusiasm for Greece, 
 
 203. 
 First Studies of great men, 79-85; first 
 
 thoughts for great works, 174^180. 
 i'ouKS, when first used, 4i>3. 
 Fkanklin, Dr., notes tlm calming of the 
 
 sea, 179; his influence on American 
 
 manners, 357. 
 FtJSELi's imaginative power, 202. 
 
 G vLii.EO invents the pendulum. 178. 
 
 Galvanism first discovered, 179. 
 
 Gesxer recommends a study of litera- 
 ture to artists, 33 ; on enthusiasm. 
 206; his wife a model for those of 
 literary men, 272-275. 
 
 Gleim and his portrait gallery, 279. 
 
 Goldsmith contrasted with Johnson, 
 3S4. 
 
 QoLDONi overworks his mind, 197. 
 
 Government of the thoughts, 159. 
 
 Gray's excitement in composing verse, 
 189. 
 
 GdiBERT, his great work on military 
 tactics, 348. 
 
 HABiTtTAL Pdesuits, their power over 
 the mind, 394-397. 
 
 Hallucinations of genius, 19S; real- 
 ities with some minds, 201. 
 
 Haydn, his regulation of his time, 127. 
 
 Helmonts (Van) love of study, 203. 
 
 Herbert of Cherbury, Lord, questions 
 the Deity as to the publication of his 
 book, 19S. 
 
 Hobbes, theory to explain his teiTor, 
 201. 
 
 Hogarth, attacks on, n., 120. 
 
 Hollis, his miserable celib.icy, 266. 
 
 Honours awarded literary men, 327- 
 338. 
 
 Horne (Bishop), his love of literary 
 labour, 182. 
 
 Hume, the historian, his irritability, 120; 
 unfitted for gay life, 135; gives his 
 reason for literary labour, ?i.^236; en- 
 deavours to correct Robertson, 445. 
 
 Hunter, Dr., fraternal jealousy, 209. 
 
 Hypochondria, its cause and effect, 201. 
 
 Ideality defined, 185; its power, 186- 
 
 206. 
 Incompleted books, 456-462. 
 Industry of great writers. 169. 
 Influence of authors, 350-354; 357- 
 
 361. 
 Intellectital nobility, 329. 
 Imitation in literature^ 397-401. 
 IRRIT.4.BIL1TV of genius, 99; 119-122. 
 IsocRATEs' belief in native character, 
 
 51. 
 
 James I., a critical disquisition on the 
 
 character of. 493. 
 Julian, Emperor, anecdotes of, 13.3. 
 Jealousy in art and literature. 207-213; 
 
 of honours p.iid to literary men, 329. 
 
 Johnson, Dr., defines the literary char 
 acter, 25; his moral dignity, 254; his 
 metaphysical loves, 265; anecdotes of 
 him and Goldsmith, 384. 
 
 Juvenile works, their value, S4. 
 
 Labour endured by great authors, 105 
 a pleasure to some minds, 234-2-36. 
 
 Letters in the vernacular idiom, 487- 
 492. 
 
 LINN.EUS sensitive to ridicule, 105; 
 honours awarded to, 258. 
 
 Literary Friendship, 276-286. 
 
 Literature an avenue to glory, 326. 
 
 Locke's simile of the human mind, 40. 
 
 Mannerists in literature, 3S2. 
 
 Marco Polo ridiculed unjustly. «., 110. 
 
 Matrimonial State in literatm-e and 
 
 art, 262-275. 
 M.\zzucuELH a great literary historian, 
 
 457. 
 Meditation, value of, 174. 
 Memory, as an art, 163, 165. 
 Mendelssohn, Moses, his remarkable 
 
 history, 87-91. 
 Men of Letters, their definition, 298- 
 
 313. 
 Metastasio a bad sportsman, 57 ; his 
 
 susceptibility, 189. 
 Milton, his high idea of the literary 
 
 character, 25; his theory of genius, 
 
 41; his love of study, 183; sacrifices 
 
 sight to poetry, 204. 
 Miscellanists and their works, 369- 
 
 373. 
 Modes op Study used by great men, 
 
 169. 
 MoLiERE, his dramatic career, 404-424. 
 Montaigne, his personal traits, 293. 
 More, Dr., on enthusiasm of genius, 
 
 200. 
 Moreri devotes a life to literature, 204, 
 Mortimer, the artist, his athletic exer- 
 cises, 59. 
 MuRATOKi, his literary industry, 456. 
 
 National tastes in literature, 341. 
 Necessity, its influence on literature, 
 255-257. 
 
 Obscure Births of great men, 326- 52^. 
 Old Age of literary men, 813-320. 
 
 Peculiar habits of authors, 161-163. 
 
 Peiresc, his early bias toward litera- 
 ture, 307 ; his studious career, 309. 
 
 Personal Character differs from the 
 literary one, 287-297. 
 
 Petrarch's remarkable conversation 
 on his melancholy, 96; his mode of 
 life, lf.5. 
 
 Pope, his anxiety over his Homer, 118; 
 severity of his early studies. 198. 
 
 PoussiN fears tr.ading in art, 256. 
 
 Poverty of literary men, 247; some- 
 times a choice. 249-251. 
 
 Practical Knowledge of life W8l i5ng 
 in studious men, 243-246.
 
 592 
 
 IITOEX. 
 
 Pbatees of great men, 196. 
 Preoiettses, 411-415. 
 Predisposition of the mind, 160 
 Prefaces, their interest, 873; their 
 
 oceasiond falsehood, 8*4; vanity of 
 
 authors in, 376 ; Idle apologies in, 377 ; 
 
 Dryden's interesting, 378. 
 Prejudices, literary, 213-21G. 
 Public Taste formed by public writers, 
 
 351. 
 
 Eacine, sensibility of, 116; 424-432. 
 
 Hambouillet, Ho'tcl do, 411^13. 
 
 Reaping analyzed, 3SS-394. 
 
 Eecluse manners in great authors, 135- 
 136. 
 
 Eelics of men of genius, 335-838. 
 
 Eemuneration of literature. 257-259. 
 
 Residences of literary men, 335-338. 
 
 Eeynolds, Sir J., his "automatic sys- 
 tem," 42 ; discovers its inconsistencies, 
 44. 
 
 EiDicuLE the terror of genius, ISO. 
 
 Robektson the historian, 443-455. 
 
 Roland, Madame, anecdote of the power 
 of poetry on, 189. 
 
 Romney, his anxiety over his picture 
 of the Tempest, 114. 
 
 Rousseau's expedient to endure society, 
 103; his domestic infelicity, 234. 
 
 Eotal Society, attacks on, ji., 27. 
 
 EUBENS' transcripts of the poets, 36. 
 
 Sand-wich, Lord, his first idea of a 
 
 stratagem at sea, 178. 
 ScuDERY, Mademoiselle, 412. 
 Sensitiveness of genius, 101-103; 109- 
 
 110; 187-189. 
 Self-lmmolation of genius to labour, 
 
 203. 
 Self-praise of genius, 217-227. 
 Servants, a dissertation on, 474-486. 
 Shee, Sir M. A., relations of poetry and 
 
 painting, w., 37. 
 Suenstonk, his early love, 264. 
 SiDDONS, Mrs., anecdote of, 185. 
 Singleness of genins, 322-325. 
 Society, artilicial, an injury to genius, 
 
 Solitude loved by men of genius, 54-60 ; 
 
 149-157. 
 Btbau first discovered, ISO. 
 Steene, anecdotes of, 432-443. 
 
 Studies of advanced life, 317-820. 
 Style and its peculiarities, 380-335. 
 Susceptibility of men of genius, 226- 
 
 229. 
 Suggestions of one mind perfected by 
 
 another, 860-361. 
 
 Tasso uneasy in his labours, 117. 
 
 Taylor, Dr. Brook, his torpid melan- 
 choly, 233. 
 
 Temple, Sir W., his love of gardens, 370. 
 
 Theoretical hislorj', 445. 
 
 Thomson, his sensitiveness to grand 
 poetry, 191 ; irritability over false 
 criticisms, 92. 
 
 Tobacco, its introduction into England, 
 470. 
 
 Toothpicks, origin of, 465. 
 
 Townley Gallery of Sculpture, w., 26. 
 
 Tkoubauouks, their Influence, 373. 
 
 Umbrellas, their history, 466. 
 Utilitarianism and its narrow view of 
 
 literature, 28. 
 Universality of genius, 820. 
 
 Van Praun refuses to part with his 
 
 collection to an emperor, 302 
 Vernet sketches in a storm, 192. 
 Vers de Societb, 401-404. 
 ViNDICTIVENESS of geuiiis, 227-230. 
 Visionaries of genius, 198. 
 Visitors disliked by literary men, 153- 
 
 154. 
 Voltaire, anecdote of his visit to a 
 
 country house, 130; his universal 
 
 genius, 322. 
 
 Walpole's, Horace, opinion of Gray, 
 125; of Burke, 126. 
 
 Watson neglects research in his pro- 
 fessorship, 80. 
 
 Werner's discoveries in science, 194. 
 
 Wilkes desirous of literary glory, 81. 
 
 Wit sometimes mechanical, 170. 
 
 Wives of literary men, 267-275. 
 
 Works intended, but not executed, 166. 
 
 Wood. Anthony, sacrifices all to study, 
 204. ■'' 
 
 Young, the poet, his want of sympathy, 
 
 245. 
 Touxn of great men, 52-78. 
 
 THE END.
 
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