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MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
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In preparation:
WIT AND HUMOR : Their Use and Abuse.
MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
BY
WILLIAM MATHEWS, LLD.
N
LITERARY STYLE, AND OTHER ESSAYS," ETC. ETC.
CHICAGO:
S. C. GRIGGS AND COMPANY.
1887.
Copyright, 1887,
BY S. C. GBIGGS AND COMPANY.
53ntbfrsit0
JOHN WILSON AND Sox, CAMBRIDGE.
PREFACE.
HHHE papers in this volume have been written at
intervals of time considerably apart, most of
them for the present work, the rest for other publi-
cations. The paper on William Wirt was written in
answer to an invitation given to the author by the
New York Biographical and Genealogical Society to
address it on that subject ; after having been read be-
fore which Society it was read before the Rhode Island
Historical Society at Providence. For his knowledge
of Mr. Wirt the author is indebted in no small degree
to the elaborate and interesting biography by J. P.
Kennedy. In the paper on " The London Pulpit " no
account is given of Mr. Spurgeon, for the reason that
the author has already tried to portray him and his
manner in the pulpit in a previous work, " Hours with
Men and Books," pp. 80-96.
W. M.
BOSTON, October, 1887.
196
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHARACTER OF NAPOLEON 1 1
WILLIAM WIRT 20
BULWER 53
ALEXANDRA DUMAS 67
THE WEAKNESSES OF GREAT MEN 80
THE GREATNESS OF LONDON 140
THE LONDON PULPIT :
ARCHDEACON FARRAR 150
CANON LIDDON 160
JOSEPH PARKER, D.D 170
REV. STOPFORD A. BROOKE, M.A 179
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS 189
THE QUEEN OF WATERING-PLACES 218
DIARIES 231
THE ADVANTAGES OF UGLINESS 237
WORRY 247
COURAGE 253
OYSTERS . 261
viii CONTENTS.
PAGE-
CYNICS AND CYNICISM 283
THE EXTREMES OF DRESS 289
THE TRICKS OF TYPES 295
CAUSES OF DIVORCE 305
ILLUSIONS ABOUT THE PAST 313
IMMORAL NOVELS 327
WHAT SHALL WE READ? 335
LITERARY QUOTATION 345
THE VALUE OF FAME 355
THE PHILOSOPHY OF HANDWRITING 366
INDEX 377
MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
CHARACTER OF NAPOLEON I.
PROBABLY no great man ever lived whose character
has been the subject of more vehement dispute than
that of Napoleon. Though sixty-five years have rolled by
since he found a grave " amidst the immensity of the
seas " at St. Helena, yet the discussion still goes on. That
there has been a revolution in American sentiment concern-
ing him, we think cannot be doubted. So long as a feeling
of antipathy to England, the most unrelenting and success-
ful foe of Napoleon, prevailed among us, a feeling which
was the unhappy legacy of two wars between the United
States and the mother-country, it was impossible for us
to judge him dispassionately. The difficulty was enhanced
by the dazzling effect of his then recent victories. But
now that a more kindly feeling prevails toward the mother-
country, Americans can look at the hero of Austerlitz
through other media than the mists of prejudice ; and the
result is that he is regarded by three fourths or more of
the men of thought and culture in this country, not as the
liberator of enslaved nations, but as a selfish and unprin-
cipled despot. This verdict may be attributed in part to the
masterly works of Colonel Charms and M. Lanfrey, one of
1
2: ..' ': :..:iErf, PLACES, AND THINGS.
whom has exposed the popular illusions concerning the dis-
aster at Waterloo, such as that it was owing to the blunders
or treaeheiy of Grouch}', etc. ; and the other, having had
access to a vast amount of new historic material, in me-
moirs, letters, and despatches, has torn away the mask that
has so long hidden Napoleon's real character.
Among the writers who have tried to reverse this verdict,
is Mr. John C. Ropes, of Boston, who has given his esti-
mate of Napoleon in a course of lectures delivered before
the Lowell Institute in that city, and since republished.
The lectures are written in a vigorous, fluent, and lucid
style, and form, on the whole, one of the most ingenious
and plausible apologies for Napoleon's career and character
that we have read. The author, though a warm admirer of
Napoleon, is not bitten so badly with the mania as Headley
and Abbott, but stands between Thiers, on the one hand,
and Lanfrey, on the other ; though far nearer to the former
than to the latter. While he justifies Napoleon's invasion
of other countries, and their annexation to France, and
even apologizes for the cold-blooded execution of the Due
d'Enghien, which sent a thrill of horror through Europe,
he, on the other hand, denounces the dethronement of the
Spanish Bourbons, and admits the Emperor's folly in not
securing Austria's neutrality in 1814 by yielding the Ilh rian
provinces, and also in giving to the final struggle of 1815
the character of a military and political experiment, instead
of identifying his cause with that of France.
In justifying Napoleon's seizure upon supreme power and
establishment of a despotism, Mr. Ropes makes a distinc-
tion between the extension of personal liberty and the ex-
tension of political power. He contends that the Emperor
recognized and maintained the personal rights and liberties
CHARACTER OF NAPOLEON I. 3
of the people, which the}' had won by the Revolution, while
he denied them only the exercise of political powers which
their previous political experience had not fitted them to
use. The bitterest enemy of Napoleon will admit that it
was a blessed thing for the peoples of Continental Europe
to be delivered from the grinding oppression of feudal
burdens and exactions. But what if this advantage was
purchased at the cost of political servitude? What if,
while giving the same legal rights to the bourgeois and the
peasant as to the noble, the Empire robbed the people of all
spontaneity, of all freedom of thought and speech, and ex-
tinguished kt all the sentiments which make the individual
live out of himself, whether in the past or the future"?
Usurping supreme authority in all branches of the admin-
istration, Napoleon crushed out every form of liberty,
not only that of the tribune and that of the press, but even
the libert}* of the saloti, the dearest of all to the French.
The reason of this doubtless was that, as one of his his-
torians tells us, he could not endure Wit, '" that eternal
sceptic, the born enemy of false grandeur, the foe of char-
latanism." There was not a man or woman of influence in
the community who was not dogged and watched 03- his
argus-eyed police. So keen-eyed and far-reaching was this
espionage, that Madame de Stae'l complained that Europe
had become "a great net, which entangles you at every
step." In April, 1805, Napoleon directed Fouche to warn
the editors of the " Debats" and the " Publiciste" that he
"would never permit newspapers to sa}* or do anything
contraiy to his interests." How different this from the con-
duct of Frederic the Great, who, confident in his strength,
ordered his attendants to put lower a placard against him-
self, which had been posted too high np to be read easily !
4 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
" My people," said he, u are to say what they please, and
I am to do what I please." Not only was the population
of France dwarfed and diminished by a conscription that
forced tender youth into the ranks, but the French intellect
suffered from the clamps and fetters by which it was
shackled. The sources of mental power were dried up or
poisoned. The civil functionaries of France were stunted
in their growth, morally and mentally, and every depart-
ment of the State was depressed to a dead level of medioc-
rit} r . " Nothing," says Taine, u could be more satisfying
to superficial judgment or more acceptable to vulgar good
sense than this system, nothing better adapted to narrow
egoism, nothing better ' set up ' or more prim, or fitter to
discipline and control the meaner and lower qualities of
human nature, but also to starve and spoil all its higher
qualities."
It is frequently urged in defence of Napoleon that
"his task in his domestic administration was to carry out
the work of the Revolution and establish it on a secure
basis ; " yet who does not know that the whole drift of his
despotic system was in flat contradiction to the principles
of the Revolution? Allied with Russia and the Pope,
married to an archduchess, the founder of a new dynasty,
the restorer of titles of nobilit} 7 and of the alliance between
Catholicism and despotism, the head of an ultra-medieval
court, with its antiquated ceremom 7 and etiquette, what
principles had Napoleon in common with those doctrines of
equality on which the Revolution was based? Justly did
the republican soldier General Delmas characterize the
Napoleonic policy in his bitterly sarcastic reply, when, after
high mass had been celebrated for the first time with pomp
in the cathedral of Notre Dame, Napoleon asked him, as
CHARACTER OF NAPOLEON I. 5
they left the church together, what he had thought of the
ceremon}*. "Oh!" replied the General, " the mummery
(capucinade) was well enough, and only wanted the pres-
ence of the couple of million Frenchmen who got them-
selves killed to abolish what }*ou are restoring." Let us
not forget, when we are pointed to the boasted "Code,"
that while the despot provided for the administration of
justice between man and man, he made no provision for
that between the citizen and the ruler. Political offences
of all offences the ones which should be tried by a
jury were denied that kind of trial. These were "ar-
raigned before ' special tribunals, invested with a half
military character,' the ready ministers of nefarious prose-
cutions, and only intended to cloak by legal forms the mur-
derous purpose of the tyrant." It is said that during
Napoleon's reign nine prisons were erected in place of the
single Bastile destroyed by the popular rage, and they were
filled with prisoners for political offences.
Again, it is contended that it was as philanthropists
that the French overran Italy and other countries of
Europe. " The advent of the French meant to these
populations escape from the misgovernment under which
they labored, and a participation in the grand movement
toward equal rights and privileges inaugurated by France."
It is a little singular that, in executing their mission, these
apostles of benevolence should have plundered and pillaged
every country they came to liberate. As at home the Ja-
cobins had contrived to connect the ideas of fraternity and
the guillotine, so abroad they with equal ingenuity inter-
preted national brotherhood into war and plunder. Who
that is familiar with the Italian campaigns has forgotten
,the heavy exactions made by Napoleon on the Dukes of
G MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
Parma and Modena, in spite of their neutrality; how,
without provocation, he seized on Leghorn and ruined the
once flourishing commerce of Tuscany ; and how he levied
on Lombardy, which he professedly came to liberate, a
contribution of twenty millions of mone}', besides a million
in pictures and objects of art? Though Bonaparte had
entered Milan amid the enthusiastic acclamations of the
citizens, yet a week sufficed to change a friendly people into
a suspicious, hostile, and angry population. The peasants
who rose against their plunderers were shot down or sabred
like dogs. And }*et this same Bonaparte afterward, in
1814, when France was invaded by the Allies, called upon
the foresters of the Vosges to " hunt the Allied soldiers to
death, even as they would hunt so many wolves," that is,
to do the ver3 T deeds for which he had butchered the peas-
ants of Lombardy. Mr. Ropes would have us believe that
it was the bigoted priests who instigated the peasants to
this insurrection. It was, on the contrary, an uprising
of the hard-working, industrious part of the population.
Who, again, has forgotten the plunder of the Vatican, the
Sistine, and other chapels, the Quirinal, the Capitol, and
the man} 1 " private palaces in Rome ; and how in Venice the
Doge's palace, a museum of all that was beautiful and
precious in works of Greek, Roman, or Italian genius, was
stripped to the bare walls ? Since the capture of Corinth by
the Romans, such spoliation as this had been unknown in
the world's histoiy. During all the centuries in which Italy
had been the battle-field of the nations, and had been
ruled successive!}- by them, the right of conquest had
never, till Bonaparte's time, been exercised at the expense
of Italian genius. Not only the palaces of Italy, but the
galleries of Antwerp, Brussels, Dresden, Munich, Madrid,
CHARACTER OF NAPOLEON I. 7
and Seville, were plundered to swell the spoils that
enriched the Louvre. The city of Berne, in Switzerland,
was plundered of over sixteen million francs in specie,
seven millions in arms and ammunition, and eighteen
millions in stores and supplies.
In a letter to the Directory in 1797 Bonaparte wrote:
4 'Venice is more worthy to enjoy liberty than any other
city of Italy." Who after reading this sentiment would
dream that its author, defying the instructions of the
French Government, could shortly afterward deliver the
Kepublic of Venice, bound hand and foot, into the clutches
of Austria? Yet this is what this " liberator of oppressed
nations " actually did by the treaty of Campo Formio,
a treaty which destroyed all that was left of the generous
enthusiasm which had animated the French troops, and
substituted appeals to arms for the nobler sentiments of
patriotism and honor. Yet for this shameful transaction,
which even Villitard, the representative of France in Ven-
ice, could not communicate to the Venetian Government
without breaking down in his speech and bursting into
sobs, Mr. Ropes has not a word of condemnation, but
naively says: "The city of Venice and its adjoining
possessions he [Bonaparte] was compelled to resign to
Austria as a necessary condition of peace " ! A few
months before the treat} 7 , Bonaparte wrote to the munici-
pality of Venice: " In all circumstances I will do all in
my power to give you proofs of my desire to consolidate
your liberty, and to see unhappy Italy . . . resume among
great nations the rank to which she is called," etc. Will
it be believed that on the very next day after this hypo-
critical letter he wrote to the French Directory : " Venice
can hardly survive the shock we have given her. . . .
8 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
We shall take all the vessels, we shall strip the arsenal,
we shall carry off all the cannon, we shall destroy the
forts, we shall keep Corfu and Ancona for ourselves " ?
The pretext for this wholesale robbery adds, if possible,
to its shamelessness. He instructs Generals Perree and
D'Hilliers to go with the French minister to the provi-
sional Government of Venice, and say that the conformity
of principles which exists between the French Republic
and that of Venice demands that she shall immediately
put her naval force on a respectable footing, to unite with
France in protecting their commerce. " Seize everything"
he adds, " under this pretext; but take care to call it
always the Venetian navy, and have constantly on your
lips the unity of the two Republics"
When in 1870 victorious Prussia exacted from France
a small portion of her territory, the demand was denounced
by the French as a great outrage ; but by the treaty of
Tilsit, in 1807, Napoleon despoiled Prussia of more than
half her entire territory. Besides this, his exactions
in money were over five hundred millions of francs.
Again, in 1808 she had. to pay one hundred and twentj"
millions of francs, to obtain a withdrawal of the French
troops from her cities. Nor was this all. Every insult that
could add to the humiliation of a fallen foe was inflicted
upon the Prussian monarch. The war-bulletins sent to
France abounded in contemptuous and sarcastic references
to him, and in one of these papers the chastity of the
Queen was assailed, a beautiful and excellent woman,
whose untimely death was believed by the Prussian people
to have been hastened b3' her grief at her country's mis-
fortunes. In 1810 Napoleon annexed Holland to France,
declaring that the country which the Dutch had laboriously
CHARACTER OF NAPOLEON I. 9
wrested from the sea had been formed by the alluvial
deposits of French rivers !
Mr. Ropes vainly tries to screen Napoleon from the
just indignation of mankind for the murder of the Due
d'Enghien, though, in Mr. Ropes's own words, Napoleon
" preferred to assume the responsibility for the act." He
(Mr. Ropes) holds that Bonaparte was not responsible for
the trial of the Duke having taken place on the night it
did, or "for the execution of the sentence before it had
been sent to the proper authorities for revision and appro-
val ; " and this notwithstanding Bonaparte had ordered
that the sentence should be executed immediately, and
that if the prisoner should ask permission to see him, no
attention should be paid to his request, and though
when the Due d'Enghien arrived at Vincennes to be tried,
his grave was already dug ! The truth is, Napoleon
wanted to strike the Bourbons personally, in order to
terrify both them and their partisans ; and it was simply
because the Due d'Enghien was within reach that he
became the victim. As to the "trial," the very choice of
the nocturnal hour, with its darkness, silence, and isola-
tion ; the absence of the public, of witnesses, of a counsel
that is not denied even to murderers, of all the forms for
protecting the accused ; the stealthy alacrity with which
the work was hurried through by the men whom the First
Consul had chosen for his tools, all show that the whole
affair was a mockery of justice, and that the condemnation
and execution of the unhapp} T prince were foregone con-
clusions. " We were obliged to condemn," wrote Hullin,
president of the Council that pretended to try the unhappy
Duke, " under pain of being condemned ourselves." In
spite of falsifications and lies, in spite of the mean,
10 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
cowardly attempt to throw the odium of the deed upon
"that wretch of a Talleyrand," Napoleon cannot escape
the responsibilit}' of this heartless crime, which was planned
and executed with the utmost deliberation, and which Dr.
Channing justly denounced as " the act of a bandit and
a savage." Nobly did Chateaubriand refuse, in the presence
of the murderer and at the peril of his life, to serve the
power that could so misuse authority, and "sully the very
name of man." It is honorable to Coulaincourt, one
of the most high-minded of the officers surrounding Napo-
leon, that he indignantly resented the way in which the
Emperor had sought to use him in this affair. In 1813,
when he showed his personal devotion to Napoleon by
spurring his horse between him and a burning shell,
Coulaincourt is said, nevertheless, to have exclaimed,
referring to the D'Enghien murder: "I can't believe
there's a God in heaven, if that man dies upon his
throne ! "
To all that the admirers of Napoleon say in praise of
his unique and dazzling militaiy talents, we fully assent.
He had the genius of a great captain, calculating and pre-
cise, yet imaginative to the highest degree. He had the
art of striking men's imaginations, an eye of marvellous
penetration, a swift logic, a decisive will, the subtlet}* of
the Italian, the indomitable and rugged energy of the Cor-
sican. Thiers, whose praise of the great captain is usually
to be taken with much qualification, sa3*s justly that in
him to conceive, will, execute, were a single indivisible act,
of an incredible rapidity, so that between the action and
the thought there was not an instant lost for reflection or
resolve. One of his most remarkable traits was a peculiar
aptitude for discerning and seizing in the views of others
CHARACTER OF NAPOLEON I. 11
whatever could serve his own plans. M. Lanfrey observes
that he had in this respect a power and rapidity of intui-
tion which can be compared only to the sure eye of a bird
of prey. Another faculty which he had in a remarkable
degree was the power of detecting and eliciting ability in
other men, so that he was served by his lieutenants, civil
and military, with a marvellous efficiency that seemed an
infinite multiplication of himself. With great powers of
endurance, capable of sitting on horseback for sixteen or
seventeen hours at a stretch, and of doing without rest
or food, except by snatches, for days together, with the
spring and speed of the tiger in action, he won his battles
as much by the celerity of his movement b}' his rapid
marching and counter-marching, first at the rear, then at
the flank, and again at the front, bewildering and confound-
ing his enemies ; by those night-marches, as rapid as
lightning, which were among his favorite stratagems as
b}* the vigor and fury of his attacks, and by the concentra-
tion of a superior force on the point where he attacked or
was attacked. He said truly that he won his victories as
much by the legs of his soldiers as b}' their arms.
Nothing can be more foolish than attempts like those of
Colonel J. Mitchell, in his " Downfall of Napoleon," to
underrate the great captain's military genius, by ascribing
his victories to the terror his arms inspired, as if it was
not to his marvellous victories that that very terror was
due ! When we hear such explanations of his successes,
we feel as did De Maistre when in 1814 he heard men in
the salons of St. Petersburg talk of Napoleon's faults and
the superiority of the Allied generals: " Je me sens le
gosier serre par je ne sais quel rire convulsif aimable comme
la cravate d'un pendu." A man who raised himself from
12 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
obscurity to a throne ; who possessed at one time three
fourths of Europe ; who took more capitals in fifteen years
than the greatest other captains have taken cities in a life-
time ; whose will was feared as destiny ; who gave crowns
to his favorites, and whose antechamber was thronged by
submissive princes, such a man, as De Maistre says,
" steps out of the ranks." Inferior to Caesar in good
sense and practical wisdom, he yet had in a far higher
degree the faculty of seizing and striking the imaginations
of men. Rising far above those great masters of the art
of war, Turenne and Marlborough, who fought battles as
cooll}' as they played a game of chess, he, on the other
hand, fell below him whom the Corsican confessed to
have been the world's greatest captain, " who sprang like
a bulldog at the throat of the Roman power, and who held
his grasp till it was loosened in death," the fier} 7 , one-
eyed Carthaginian, Hannibal. The march of Bonaparte
across the Alps has been celebrated in history, eulogy, and
painting ; but compared with Hannibal's, it was child's
play. Backed by all the resources of France ; travelling
over good roads, aided by able engineers and all the helps
of modern science ; guided by abundant maps, plans, and
topographical surve\*s, the French general had a compar-
atively easy task. The Carthaginian, on the other hand,
while thwarted by the Hanno faction at home, had not only
to fight his way, for eight hundred miles, with a motley
army against hostile tribes and nations, but also, without
the advantages of modern engineering science, frequently to
construct the roads by which his troops were to pass, and
to collect all his necessaiy information from treacherous
barbarians. Napoleon's feat of crossing the Great St.
Bernard in winter was utterly dwarfed a few 3~ears after-
CHARACTER OF NAPOLEON I. 13
ward by Macdonald, who commanded the army of the
Grisons. In 1800 he crossed the Spliigen in the middle
of December, leading fifteen thousand men across moun-
tains of ice, where avalanches carried off whole squadrons.
Intellectually a giant, Napoleon was a moral pygmy. Of
all generous and exalted sentiments he was strangely desti-
tute. What could be baser than his treatment of the brave
Villeneuve? Though the latter had fought the English at
Trafalgar against his judgment, and after repeated remon-
strances, at Napoleon's peremptory command, yet, after
the fleet was destroyed, the despot denounced his valiant
captain as a coward and a traitor. According to M. Lan-
frey, Napoleon was capable of anger, but was as utter a
stranger to hatred as to sympathy ; he was governed only
by calculation. No one could better feign indignation and
rage when he had a purpose to serve ; there were times
when he appeared to hold his passions in command by the
turning of a peg, like the Tartar horse of the fairy tale,
which at one moment dashed through the air at the rate of
a thousand furlongs an hour, and the next stood motionless
as the Caucasus. His very heroism was more the result of
calculation than of fervent impulse ; and when he most
startled the world into fearful admiration, he was but work-
ing out an answer to some studiously considered problem
of personal aggrandizement. War to him had none of that
" pomp and circumstance," those dazzling attractions, which
fascinate men in general. It was one of the ordinary
conditions of human life, a sentiment striking!}-, though
unconsciously, expressed in a question he once put to an
English traveller, who, having observed that the Loo-Choo
Islanders had no warlike weapons, was interrupted by the
incredulous and mocking exclamation: " No weapons!
14 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
How do they fight, then? " He could not conceive of an
anomaly so ridiculous as a nation that never waged war.
Of political government, except by force, he could form no
idea. In a conversation at St. Helena, in spite of " that
corned}' of converted despot which he was then playing in
sight of posterity," he said, with emphasis: " After all, it
comes to this at bottom, that a man must be a soldier to
govern. You can only govern in boots and spurs"
" Conquest," said he, after the coup tfetat of the 18th Bru-
maire, "made me what I am; conquest alone can main-
tain me in my position."
In self-knowledge Napoleon was strangely lacking.
Nothing, he declared, that he had ever thought or done,
was wrong in motive or act ; and he boasted that he should
appear before his Maker without a fear. At St. Helena he
speaks of his past life as if it had been consecrated to acts
of duty and beneficence ; while in the same breath, though
he had been treacherous to Sardinia, Tuscan}', Venice, and
other States, as well as to men, he is perpetually complain-
ing of the faithlessness of men and nations. A conscience
he apparently had not. Writing to the Directory from Itaty,
he suggests that if they wish to revolutionize Piedmont
and unite it to the Cisalpine Republic, "the way to effect
this without a collision, and without violating the treaty,
would be to join a corps of ten thousand Piedmontese to
our troops, and let them share our victories. Six months
later, the King of Piedmont would be dethroned. It is a
giant embracing a pygmy, and clasping it in his arms ; he
stifles it without anybody being able to accuse him of the
crime" Egotistic, selfish, treacherous, Napoleon was utterly
unscrupulous, both as to his aims and the means of their
attainment. In his first campaign he began to practise
CHARACTER OF NAPOLEON I. 15
what he called the art of u cajoling the priests." In public
he showed an exaggerated deference to " the Very Holy
Father" and "the venerable prelates," as he styled the Pope
and the clergy ; while to his familiars in private he spoke
of them in the most contemptuous terms, such as " the old
fox," and "the black-coats," or "imbecile dotards." Deplor-
ing to ecclesiastics the encroachments of the Directory
upon the spiritual domain, he at the same time wrote
to the Directory his opinion that " Rome, once deprived
of Bologna, Ferrara, and the thirt\* millions we take from
her, cannot exist ; the old machine will fall to pieces when
left all alone." Sending Augereau to the Director}* as the
fittest man to execute a coup de main, he at the same time
writes to Lavalette at Paris : u Don't trust Augereau ; he
is a seditious man." He read with an ecstasy of rage
Kleber's report of his evacuation of Eg} - pt, and in a letter
to the consuls denounced it as " infamous ; " yet replied to
Klcber with the most flattering compliments. When in
May, 1805, the treaty of alliance between England and
Russia was proclaimed by public report, Napoleon was
exasperated, and wrote to Fouche, directing him to " get
several letters published in the papers as coming from St.
Petersburg, and asserting that the French are better treated
there ; . . . that the English are looked on coldly ; that the
plan of the Coalition has failed," etc.
In Egypt, to deceive the Turks and Arabs, he did not
scruple to declare that he and his arm}' were apostates
from Christianity, "true Mussulmans." He boasted be-
fore muftis and ulemas that he had u destroyed the Pope
and overthrown the Cross ; " yet a few years afterward re-
established the Catholic religion in France as a prop to his
power, though, in an address to the Directory and other
16 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
bodies of State, he had previously ranked religion with
ro}*alty and feudalism, as among the prejiidices which the
French people had to conquer, and though eveiy man,
woman, and child knew that he had not a tittle of regard
for religion, and was playing the part of a juggler. To
overcome Count Louis de Frotte, the brilliant, daring, and
energetic leader of the insurrection in Lower Normandy, he
offered a thousand louis to any one who would kill or cap-
ture him. That there was anything barbarous in such a
procedure, long ago proscribed by all civilized nations,
never entered his brain. It was worthy of the man who
in his last will left a legacy of ten thousand francs to the
miscreant who, not long before, had attempted to assassin-
ate the Duke of Wellington.
One of the best expositions of Napoleon's moral code is
furnished by his counsels to the King of Holland : " Never
forget that, in the situation to which my political s^ystem
and the interests of my Empire have called 3*011, }*our first
duty is toward me, }*our second toward France. All }'our
other duties, even those toward the people whom I have
called you to govern, rank after these." When the mem-
bers of his family whom Napoleon had placed on foreign
thrones strove to lessen the burdens of their subjects,
they drew down upon themselves his heavy displeasure.
u La France, c'est un homme, et cet homme, c'est moi"
he said, a declaration never matched in arrogance, except
by the assumption of Louis XIV., " L'etat, c'est moi"
In the art of lying, Napoleon had no superior. He did all
in his power to mystify the battle of Marengo, which, but
for Dessaix's sudden appearance and the inspired charge
of Kellermann, would have been lost. After writing three
conflicting false accounts of it, he ordered all the original
CHARACTER OF NAPOLEON I. 17
reports of it to be destroyed. At St. Helena he spent his
days in trying to falsify history, and in draping his own
figure for posteritj*.
No other man ever filled so large a place in the world's
eye who was so vulgar in his manners and instincts.
Destitute of refinement, delicacy, and self-respect, he was
44 in his inmost soul, and to the very tips of his fingers, a
parvenu" What could be more brutal than his insult to
his brother Jerome? " Jerome, they sa} r the majesty of
kings is stamped on the brow. You may travel incognito
till doomsday without being recognized." What, again,
could be coarser than his bearing toward Talleyrand,
when in a crowded State assemblage, because the prince
had crossed him in a State matter, Napoleon assailed him
with the most violent language and furious gesticulations
and flourishes of the fist, so that, to avoid being struck, he
was forced to retreat step by step before the angry mon-
arch, until the wall prevented further recession? What
more vulgar than his studied attack on Lord Whitworth,
which was carried so far that a shudder ran through the
circle lest he should finish by a blow! What a contrast
between his coarse language and bullying manner, and the
calm, dignified bearing of Metternich, in their interview in
June, 1813 ! It was during this interview that Napoleon
made, without a blush, the cold-blooded avowal: " You
are not a soldier. You have not learned to despise the
lives of others and your own. What are two hundred
thousand men to me f " When he could not bend and
mould to his will the Prussian minister, Hardenberg, he
insulted him in the " Moniteur." He called him a traitor
and a perjurer, and accused him of " selling himself to the
eternal enemies of the Continent." To justify his language,
2
18 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
he published a falsified copy of a letter which the Prussian
minister had written to Lord Harrowby. But of all his
coarse and violent acts, his insulting language to the magis-
trate Lecourbe, who, as one of Moreau's judges at the trial
of that general, had dared to vote for his acquittal, was the
crowning one. When Lecourbe presented himself after-
ward at an audience at the Tuileries, with the members of
the court of Paris, Napoleon advanced quickly toward him,
and in a violent tone said : " How can you dare to pollute
my palace with your presence ? Awa} T , prevaricating judge,
away ! " At one of the fetes given to Napoleon in Paris,
the words of Scripture, "I am that I am," were placed
over the throne in letters of gold. It is well known that
he 3'awned all through the ceremonies of his coronation,
and that when the Pope approached to place the crown
upon his brow, Napoleon snatched it from his hands and
crowned himself.
If Mr. Ropes can persuade the men of this countiy to
admire such a despot, we trust that, for the honor of the
sex, no woman will become a convert to his views. That
Napoleon held an essentially Oriental opinion of women is
shown by his treatment of Mesdames de Stael, Recamier,
de Balbi, de Damas, de Chevreuse, d'Avaux, and others
famous for wit, beauty, or virtue. To ally himself with a
royal house, he cast off the devoted Josephine and married
Maria Louisa of Austria, a mesalliance under which the
House of Hapsburg alwa} T s writhed, and which did not
even secure the neutrality of Austria in his struggles with
the Allies.
In spite of all the special pleading of Napoleon's wor-
shippers, it is evident that his ruling purpose was self-
agorandizeinent, and that he was utterly unscrupulous
CHARACTP:R OF NAPOLEON i. 19
about the means for its attainment. Power was his
supreme object, not a power which should awaken calm
admiration, but power which should dazzle, electrify, and
overwhelm. His greatest crime was not that he murdered
D'Enghien ; not that, contrary to the faith of a solemn
treat}', he shut up Toussaint 1'Ouverture in the freezing
dungeons of the Fort of Joux, there to perish ; riot that he
ordered Frotte to be shot, though he had surrendered him-
self on Bonaparte's announcement that, if he did so, he
might count on the generosity of the government ; not that
he shot Palm for selling a book on the degradation of Ger-
man} T , of whose contents the man was probably ignorant ;
not that he massacred twenty-five hundred prisoners at
Jaffa, though they had surrendered on condition that their
lives should be spared, a condition solemnly accepted and
ratified "on the faith of a Christian:" but that he aggra-
vated to a disease the traditional bias of the French nation
to war, and therefore to despotism : that he corrupted its
morality by a successful course of spoliation ; that he vio-
lently perverted education to serve the cause of tyranny,
and converted religion into an engine of despotism ; that he
persecuted and silenced genius ; that he deprived the par-
liamentary assembly of all representative character; that
he established a monarchy as absolute as that of Louis
XIV. ; and finally, that he turned Europe into a camp, and
made societ}' retrace its steps to those ages of calamity and
darkness when the only law was the sword.
WILLIAM WIRT.
all the attractive forms of literature, there is no one
that combines fascination and profit in a greater
degree than biography. The charm of history itself,
which only can vie with it in instructiveness and interest,
is due mainly to the fact that it is the essence of many
biographies. Yet all memoirs are not equally valuable ;
and as a means of inspiration, as a subject for imitative
study, the biography of a man of genius is, we think,
less helpful than that of a common mortal who is endowed
with good, but not seraphic abilities. The mass of men, it
must be remembered, belong to the latter class. They are
not great wits, but mortals with mediocre gifts ; and to all
such and especially to every youthful aspirant who is
himself no winged soul it is far less important to know
how the eagle on his strong and swift pinion can reach
the mountain crest, than to learn the way in which, more
slowly and laboriously, but not the less surely, a pedestrian
may plant his foot on the summit. The examples most
men need are such as will show them, not how to soar, but
how to climb. The study of the lives of men of genius acts
disastrously on the young reader in two ways. On the one
hand, he may be cheated into the delusion that the same
fire burns within himself, and thus waste his time and
energ3 r in striving after the unattainable ; or, on the other,
conscious that he lacks the vivida vis animi of the prodigy
WILLIAM WIRT. 21
portrayed, he ma}' wonder and admire, but will be rather
discouraged than stimulated to action. Contrasting his
own pygnw powers with those of the giant of the biog-
raphy, he will shut the book with the feeling that the lessons
of such a life are suited to the aristocracy only, not to the
democracy, of intellect. It is because William Wirt, begin-
ning life an orphan, climbed rather than flew to the heights
of honor ; because he was, in the best sense of a much-
abused term, a self-made man rather than one of extraor-
dinary natural endowments, a man \\\\o fought his waj r to
eminence step by step against difficulties, temptations, and
trials, yet preserved the whiteness of his soul amid all the
sullying influences of his calling, that we deem his career
eminently worthy of description, praise, and imitation.
William Wirt, the son of Jacob Wirt, was born in
Bladensburg, Maryland, Nov. 8, 1772. His father was a
Swiss, his mother a German. The father, who was a tavern-
keeper in comfortable circumstances, died when William
was less than two years old ; Henrietta, his mother, died
before he had attained his eighth year, and he passed into
the family and under the guardianship of his uncle, Jasper
Wirt, who was also a Swiss and resided near the village of
his nativit}'. This village, since famous in our annals as a
battle and duelling ground, but now a drowsy and stagnant
hamlet, was then the most active and bustling place of
trade in Mainland. There was a large tobacco inspection
there ; and several rich merchants, together with some
Scotch and other foreign factors with large capitals, gave
by their manner of living a show of opulence to the town.
Between his seventh and his eleventh }*ear the bo} T was sent
to several classical schools, and finallj', at eleven, was trans-
ferred to a very flourishing one, kept by the Rev. James
22 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
Hunt, a Presbyterian clergyman in Montgomery Count}*.
Here he remained till the school was broken up, that is,
till 1787, and here, under an accomplished and sympa-
thetic teacher, he received during four years the chief part
of his education, being carried through all the Greek and
Latin classics then usually taught in grammar-schools, and
instructed in geography and some branches of mathematics,
including arithmetic, trigonometry, surveying, and the first
six books of Euclid. During two years he boarded with
Mr. Hunt, whose most valuable possession was a good
general libraiy, in which young Wirt, now a lad of twelve or
thirteen, browsed with a keen and indiscriminate appetite.
His love for reading was first kindled by " Guy, Earl of
Warwick," borrowed from a carpenter emplo}*ed by Mr.
Hunt, and then fanned by an odd volume of " Peregrine
Pickle." The British dramatists were next devoured with
insatiable appetite ; and then, from sheer exhaustion of
such pabulum, he was driven to Pope, Addison, and
Home's " Elements of Criticism."
In after life Mr. Wirt was accustomed to speak with
regret of this habit of promiscuous reading, which, acquired
thus earl}', had, he thought, diverted his mind from sys-
tematic study. In this sentiment we cannot but think that
he erred. The truth is, that this voracious and indis-
criminate appetite of boys for books, this disposition to
flit about, bee-like, among the roses and honeysuckles of
literature, and ride -them of their sweets, is Nature's own
prompting. The instincts of genius, its natural cravings,
arc the best guide to its proper nutriment. Not till it
has explored its own world, and tried all the tempting
fruits within its reach, can it tell what are its affinities, or
what congenial and nutritious things Nature has provided
WILLIAM WIRT. 23
for it. Many an eminent man has owed the inspiration of
a life to a book which chance threw in his way when he
was a boy. Franklin traced his entire career to Cotton
Mather's " Essays to do good," which fell into his hands
when he was in his teens. Cobbett, at eleven, bought
Swift's "Tale of a Tub," and it proved to him a kind of
"birth of intellect." The current of Jeremy Bentham's
thoughts was directed for life by a single phrase caught at
the end of a pamphlet. The genius of Faraday was fired
by the volumes which he read as a bookseller's apprentice :
and it was an odd volume of Racine, picked up at a stall
on the qua}*, that made the poet of Toulon.
Mr. Hunt used to give his boys one da}' during the court-
week at Montgomery Court-house to go and hear the
lawyers plead. Headed by the dominie, the whole troop
walked four miles to the hall of justice and took seats in
the unoccupied jury-box. This sport the boys enjoyed
with such zest that they determined to have a court of their
own. Young Wirt was appointed to draw up a constitu-
tion, which he speedily reported, with a letter of apology for
its imperfections. When Mr. Hunt's school was broken up,
his pupil was but fifteen, and, his patrimony being nearly
exhausted, had no means of continuing his education.
From this strait the " constitution" and letter of apology
were, fortunately, instrumental in delivering him. Among
the boys at school when these juvenile trifles were pro-
duced was Ninian Edwards, afterward governor of Illinois,
son of Benjamin Edwards, who resided in Montgomery
Count}', and subsequently represented that district in Con-
gress. On his return home, young Edwards took with him
the constitution and letter for the amusement of his father,
who fancied he saw in them signs of more than ordinary
24 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
talents. On the strength of these essays, for he had never
seen their author, and upon the favorable report, perhaps,
of his schoolmates, Mr. Edwards kindly wrote to young
Wirt, inviting him to reside in his family as private tutor
to Ninian and two nephews. He offered him, at the same
time, the use of his library for the prosecution of his
own studies. The invitation was joyfully accepted ; and to
this gentleman's happy cast of character, to his conver-
sation, precepts, and example, Mr. Wirt ever afterward
attributed all that was best or happiest in the bias of his
own mind and character.
The 3*oung tutor had now chosen the Bar for his pro-
fession. Possessing many qualities that were prophetic
of success, he had also some marked disqualifications. Not
only was he shy and timid when appearing in public, but
he had a nervous rapidity of utterance. To overcome
these defects, Mr. Edwards kindly advised him, reminding
him of his natural advantages, and assuring him that almost
every man who had risen to distinction had fought against
obstacles as great as his own. Under Mr. Edwards's roof
he stayed twenty months, spending his time in teaching,
in classical and historical studies, in writing, and in prepa-
ration for the calling to which he was to devote his life.
Being threatened with consumption, he rode on horse-
back to Georgia, spent a winter there, and, returning North,
was at his majority licensed to practise law. With the
advantages of a vigorous constitution, a good person and
carriage, and a prepossessing appearance, but with the
drawbacks of a meagre legal equipment and a great deal
of constitutional timidit}', he began his professional career
at Culpepper Court-house. Virginia. With a cop}' of Black-
stone, two volumes of "Don Quixote," and a volume of
WILLIAM W1RT. 25
u Tristram Shand}*," his entire stock of legal and literary
artillery, he was ready to exasperate the bickerings of
Doe and Roe according to the most approved precedents.
The urbanity which naturally characterized him was then
alloyed by some brusqueness and impetuosity of manner,
a fault due, probabty, to diffidence, which gives an air
of vehemence to what is only hurry. His utterance was
still faultj-. A person who knew him not long after this
period says that when heated in argument his ideas
seemed to outstrip his powers of expression ; his tongue
appeared too large ; he clipped some of his words badly ;
his voice, sweet and musical in conversation, or when
undisturbed by that timidity which prevented his control
of it, grew loud and harsh ; his articulation rapid, indistinct,
and imperfect. In his first case he was more successful
than his friends had expected. Luckily his temper was
roused by an incident in the trial, so that he forgot the
alarms natural to the occasion, and pressed his points with
recollection and firmness.
In 1795 he married Mildred, the eldest daughter of Dr.
George Gilmer, and took up his residence at Pen Park,
the seat of that gentleman, near Charlottesville. A person
who knew him well at that time says that he had never
known any other man so highly engaging and prepossessing.
41 His figure was strikingly elegant and commanding; his
face of the first order of masculine beauty, animated, and
expressing high intellect. His manners took the tone of
his heart : they were frank, open, and cordial ; and his con-
versation, to which his reading and early pursuits had
given a classic tinge, was polished, gay, and witty. Alto-
gether, he was a most fascinating companion, and to
persons of his own age irresistibly and universally win-
26 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
ning." Unfortunately, these ver}' fascinations have their
perils, which are by no means easily avoided. The fashion
of the time increased the danger. A boundless hospitality
among the gentlemen of the country, his biographer tells
us, opened every door to the indulgence of convivial habits.
Every dinner-party was a revel, every visit a temptation.
The members of the Bar especially indulged in a license
of free living, which, alwa}'s hovering on the verge of
excess, often overstepped it. It is not strange that Wirt,
so susceptible to the influences of good fellowship, some-
times in these S3 T mposia forgot the dictates of prudence,
and passed the bounds of temperance. Nor is it strange,
under these circumstances, that his aspirations and aims
were misunderstood. There is little doubt that in these
days he was generally regarded rather as a gay and fasci-
nating companion, a bon vivant full of animal spirits,
wit, and humor, than as an ambitious law\-er who had
placed before himself a lofty ideal, and who to attain it
was willing 4t to scorn delights, and live laborious days."
But these surface indications, which concealed the deeps
of his nature, were misleading.
No doubt he wasted many hours, which, rightly used,
would have given him a greater mastery of the law ; no
doubt, too, we discover, even when he did apply him-
self to his profession, a painful want of system in his
studies. But we must remember that great ability tramples
upon ordinaiy rules, and is a rule unto itself. The syste-
matic stud}' which is good for nineteen minds out of twentj',
may be bad for the twentieth, which maj* reject it with
instinctive distaste. Certain it is that no two minds above
the common level ever acquired their knowledge in the
same order, or fixed it by the same methods in the memoiy.
WILLIAM WIRT. 27
One man reads a book carefully through, page by page ;
another dives into the middle of it, seizes its leading idea,
plucks out the heart of its mystery, and throws it by.
One man likes to begin with the elements of a science,
and clear away each difficult}' as he goes along ; another
prefers plunging into a mass of heterogeneous matter, for
the pleasure of seeing new lights breaking upon him, confi-
dent that he will emerge somGwhere, and that he will be
abundantly rewarded in the end. Either of these systems
may be good for the individual, though not for all. We
know from his subsequent success that Wirt must have
studied, if not methodically, \*et after a way of his own ;
and we are told that besides the law, he studied the fathers
of English literature, Bacon, Hooker, Barrow, South, Locke,
and Milton, with whose writings the library of Dr. Gilmer
abounded. From these old "wells of English undefiled"
he drank deep draughts, and acquired that wealth and vigor
of thought and that masteiy of language which characterized
his subsequent speeches and conversation.
In the midst of these studies, while enjoying what may
be considered as the golden days of his youth, Mr. Wirt
was suddenly bowed down by a severe affliction. In the
fifth year of his married life the wife upon whom he had
doted was snatched from him by disease. An aching
memor}' drove him to Richmond, and soon after he became
clerk to the House of Delegates. He held this place for
three sessions of the Legislature, when he was elected by
that body Chancellor of the Eastern District of Virginia.
This appointment, considering that Mr. Wirt was but
twent}'-nine 3'ears old, was a remarkable testimony to his
abilities. The duties of his new office required him to live
at Williamsburg ; and iu a letter to his friend Gamble he
28 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
gives the following reason for accepting the appointment:
"I wished to leave Richmond on many accounts. I
dropped into a circle dear to me for the amiable and bril-
liant traits which belonged to it, but in which I had found
that during several months I was dissipating my health,
my time, my mone}', and 1113' reputation. This conviction
dwelt so strongly, so incessantly on my mind, that all my
cheerfulness forsook me, and I awoke many a morning with
the feelings of a madman." Tn the same year (1801), he
married Elizabeth, daughter of Colonel Gamble, of Rich-
mond, a lad} r for whom he continued to feel, all his life,
the most romantic attachment.
Six months later he resigned the chancellorship and
returned to Richmond. He now wrote for the " Richmond
Argus "the noted " Letters of the British Spy," which,
though rarely read to-day, were once in- every library.
These letters, written in a vivid and luxuriant style, are
chiefly studies of eloquence and eloquent public men, and
may be regarded, in spite of the exceptional excellence
of " The Blind Preacher," as rather a prophecy of literary
skill than the fulfilment, an earnest of some future
achievement, rather than the achievement itself. They were
thrown off, with little care, in the intervals of severe pro-
fessional toil, and with scarcely a dream of the popularity
they won. Their success was due partly to the. lack of
criticism at that time in this country, and partly to the
eagerness of the public, in the dearth of indigenous litera-
ture, to welcome an}^ clever effort to increase its stock.
A fortunate occasion for Mr. Wirt's fame occurred the
next year, when the celebrated trial of Aaron Burr for
treason took place in Richmond. This trial, to which
we shall refer again, began in the winter of 1807, and Mr.
WILLIAM WIRT. 29
Wirt, by order of President Jefferson, was retained to
aid the United States attorney in the prosecution. In
the brilliant array of counsel on the occasion, no one shone
more conspicuously than he. In 1808 Mr. Wirt was
elected to the House of Delegates in Virginia, the only
time he could be prevailed upon to sit in a legislative bodj'.
In 1804 he wrote for the " Richmond Enquirer" a series of
essays entitled "The Rainbow," and in 1810 the series
of didactic and ethical essays entitled " The Old Bachelor,"
which, collected into a volume, passed through several
editions. The essays were modelled after those of the
" Spectator," and treat of female education, Virginian
manners, the criticism of Americans b}' foreign travellers,
the fine arts, and especially oratory (of the Bar, the Pulpit,
and the Senate), a theme on which he never tired of writ-
ing. The best of these papers is that on the "Eloquence
of the Pulpit." It is a powerful and passionate protest,
worth}' of a Bautain or a Fenelon, against the coldness that
so often reigns there.
In 1816 Mr. Wirt was appointed a District-Attorney of
the United States, and in the next year Attorney-General,
an office which he held with signal honor for twelve years.
Though in the causes which it became his official duty to
prosecute or defend he was often pitted against the most
eminent legal graybeards in the land, he proved himself
a match for all the acuteness and learning that could
be arrayed against him. In 1826 he was offered, but
declined to accept, the presidency of the University of
Virginia.
In June, 1829, Mr. Wirt went to Boston, for the first
time, to argue a cause against Daniel Webster. The
attentions that were showered upon him by the citizens
30 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
strongly affected him, and he wrote to his friend Judge
Carr that he thought the people of Boston were the most
agreeable in the United States. "I expected," he sa}~s,
" to find them cold, slry, and suspicious. I found them,
on the contraiy, open, playful, and generous. Would to
Heaven the people of Virginia and Massachusetts knew
each other better ! What a host of absurd and repulsive
prejudices would that knowledge put to flight!" Again:
" Webster receives and treats me with a kindness and cor-
diality that cannot be exceeded. 4 Our people thought
highly of }"ou,' he told me, ; but had no idea of your
strength. You will carry back a higher reputation than
you brought with .you.' All this was so warmly and so
earnestly said that it made me love him." Mr. Wirt
visited President Quinc}^ of 'Harvard College, and was
greatl}' pleased with the dexterity with which the latter
extricated himself in conversation from an embarrassing
situation. The President asked his visitor in what college
he graduated. "I was obliged to admit," says Mr. Wirt,
44 that I had never been a student of any college. A shade
of embarrassment, scarcely perceptible, just flitted across
his countenance ; but he recovered in an instant, and added
most gracefully /' Upon my word, you furnish a very strong
argument against the utility of a college education.' /
At the close of Mr. Adams's administration Mr. Wirt re-
moved to Baltimore, where in 1832 he was nominated by
the Anti-Masonic party as a candidate for the Presidency
of the United States, a nomination which he, most un-
wisely, we think, accepted. In Januaiy, 1834, he went
to Washington to attend the usual term of the Supreme
Court, before which he had some cases of great magnitude,
and discharged his duties till the 8th of February. On the
WILLIAM WIRT. 31
evening of that da}', which was Saturda}*, he was playful,
and sanguine of success in an argument which he was to
make on Mondaj'. On Sunda}' he went to church at the
Capitol, a mile from his lodgings, and in walking home in a
damp, chilly atmosphere, took cold. That evening he felt
indisposed ; on Monday was confined to his room ; on
the succeeding days grew worse and worse ; and finally,
on Tuesday, the 18th, died of erysipelas at the age of
sixty-two.
Mr. Wirt was conspicuous for his personal beauty, both
in his youth and in his prime. His face was one in which
a physiognomist would have delighted. The massive out-
line of his countenance ; the clear, dark-blue eyes looking
out beneath arching eyebrows and a broad, majestic fore-
head ; the large Roman nose, thin and well-formed lips,
ample chin, and light hair clustering in crisp and luxuriant
curls upon his brow ? suggested, according to his biogra-
pher, Mr. Kennedy, a resemblance to Goethe. His height,
which was above six feet, his broad shoulders, ample chest,
and general fulness of development, with the erectness of
his carriage, added much to the dignity and stateliness of his
appearance. The general gravit}* of his look was relieved
by the ever-changing expression of his 63*6, which, if it was
usually pensive with thought, yet frequently sparkled with
a quiet, lurking humor, that continually welled up from the
depths of his soul, and provoked a laugh before a word was
uttered.
The most striking characteristic of Mr. Wirt was devo-
tion to his profession. From the day it was chosen, he
kept before him a lofty ideal, to which, except for a few
brief intervals of time, he strained every nerve to attain.
To this main end, as to a focal point, all other studies
32 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
his literary, historical, and scientific, as well as his legal
acquisitions, were made to converge. While he was, as
truly as any rnan ever was, the architect of his own fortune,
yet he was greatly facilitated in his achievements by the
valuable acquaintances he made at different stages of his
career. As he entered upon life it was his happy fortune
to be knit to some of the noblest hearts about him in a
friendship which gilded with an almost romantic light the
whole of his earthly pilgrimage. In his profession he rose
rapidly and honorably, step by step, to the summit, unas-
sailed by emy, while political honors again and again were
pressed upon him, which he promptly declined to accept.
Few men who have won so many prizes in life's lottery
have maintained such a modesty of demeanor. Never for
a moment does he seem to have been intoxicated by suc-
cess ; never does his affection for his earlj' friends seem to
have been shaken, or his relish for the joys of home to have
been less keen or pure ; never, even when ranking with
Webster, Martin, and Pinkne}', does he betray the faintest
symptom of arrogance or conceit. On the contraiy, noth-
ing is more marked in his correspondence than the un-
feigned opinion which he again and again expresses, that
his success was utterly disproportionate to his merits. In
a letter written to a young lawyer in 1818 he says : " I lost
the best part of my life indulging the frolics of fancy ; and
the consequence is, that it will take all the rest of it to con-
vince the world that I have common-sense." In another
letter to the same person we find him giving this advice :
4 'Be not in haste to raise the superstructure ofyourora-
toiy. This was my fault. For want of better advice, I
began my building at the top / and it will remain a castle
in the air to the end of time."
WILLIAM WIRT. 33
Incredible as these confessions may seem to us who
think of its author as one of the most powerful advocates of
his time, there is no doubt that at the start he made the
mistake he so frankly acknowledges. Gifted with a rare
fluency, a brilliant wit, and a vivid imagination, he was
tempted in his addresses to aim less at argumentative
strength than at the qualities which captivate the crowd.
The reputation which he thus acquired for excelling in the
ornate rather than in the severer qualities of oratory, ad-
hered to him even after it had ceased to be well founded.
The public estimate was confirmed by the specimens of his
eloquence that appeared in popular works, all of which
were of a florid rather than of a classic character. The
consciousness of this' defect seems to have haunted him
long after he came upon the broader theatre of his fame ;
for we find him not onty perpetually denouncing " the florid
and Asiatic style " of oratorj* in his letters, characterizing
wit and fancy as " dangerous allies," and emphasizing
u strength, cogency, and comprehension " as the qualities
demanded in modern oratoiy, but laboring with indefati-
gable perseverance to obtain a better reputation in the
courts of justice. The truth is that he and Everett were
the last of the classical speakers of the old school ; and
because he felt that this school had had its day, and that a
more direct, terse, and pungent style of oratory would be
demanded by our fiery and impatient age, he urges upon
novices the cultivation of vigor and force rather than the
graces of speech. Writing to F. W. Gilmer in 1818, he
says: "In your arguments at the Bar let argument
strongly predominate. Sacrifice 3*011 r flowers, and let
3*our columns be Doric rather than composite ; the better
medium is Ionic. Avoid, as you would the gates of Death,
3
34 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
the reputation for floridity. Small though your bod}*, let
the march of your mind be the stride of a seven-leagued
giant." Fifteen years later, in a letter to another young
lawyer, he presses the same point home with equal force :
4 - The age of ornament is over ; that of utility has suc-
ceeded. The pugnae quam pompae aptius is the order of
the day, and men fight now with the clenched fist, not with
the open hand, with logic, not with rhetoric. It is the
rough, abrupt strength of Webster which has given him his
fame."
Again, in his address to the Literary Societies of Rutgers
College, in 1830, he says: "It is to the cultivation of a
sound judgment that 3*011 must direct your chief mental
efforts. Young gentlemen are exceedingly apt to make a
sad mistake on this subject. Hand inexpertus loquor.
There is a pleasure in the indulgence of the lighter fac-
ulties, fane}*, imagination, wit, and there is an admira-
tion which follows their successful display, which youthful
vanity can with difficulty resist. But throw this brilliant
youth into the same arena with an antagonist who has
gone for strength of mind, and whose reason and judg-
ment have been the chief objects of discipline, and you will
see the sparkling diamond reduced to carbon and pounded
to dust." Finally, in the most brilliant and eloquent let-
ter he ever wrote, a masterpiece of powerful and im-
pressive writing, the letter to H. W. Miller, of Chapel
Hill College, North Carolina, in 1833, the impression made
by which, when published in the same 3*ear, we distinctly
remember, Mr. Wirt says : "Direct 3*0111* intellectual
efforts principally to the cultivation of the strong, mascu-
line qualities of the mind. Learn (I repeat it) to think,
to think deeply, comprehensively, powerfully, and
WILLIAM WIRT. 35
learn the simple, nervous language which is appropriate to
that kind of thinking. Read the legal and political argu-
ments of Chief-Justice Marshall, and those of Alexander
Hamilton, which are coming out. Read them, study them ;
and see with what an omnipotent sweep of thought they
range over the whole field of any subject they take in hand,
and that with a scythe so keen that not a straw is left
standing behind them. Brace yourself up to these great
efforts. Strike for the giant character of mind, and leave
prettiness and frivolity to triflers. ... In what style of
eloquence 3*011 are best fitted to excel, you yourself, if
destined to excellence, are the best judge. I can only
tell 3"ou that the florid and Asiatic st3'le is not the taste
of the age. The strong, and even the rugged and ab-
rupt, are far more successful. Bold propositions boldly
and briefly expressed ; pithy sentences ; nervous common-
sense ; strong phrases ; the feliciter audax both in lan-
guage and conception ; well-compacted periods ; sudden
and strong masses of light; an apt adage, in English or
Latin ; a keen sarcasm, a merciless personality, a mortal
thrust, these are the beauties and deformities that now
make a speaker the most interesting. A gentleman and a
Christian will conform to the reigning taste so far only as
his principles and habits of decorum will permit."
That Mr. Wirt succeeded at last, b3' dint of incessant
painstaking, in changing his own st3*le of oratoiy, in accor-
dance with these hints to others, is known to all who have
read his speeches. While he never ceased to relieve the
stress and weariness of argument with playful sallies of
wit and humor, yet it was in argumentative ability the
power of close, cogent, logical reasoning that he mainly
excelled. In the words of one of his favorite quotations,
36 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
he came into the forum, " not decorated for pomp, but
armed for battle." His power of analysis was remarkable,
and his discrimination keen. He excelled in clearness
of statement, in discernment of vital points, and in the
vigorous presentation of principles. Bestowing great labor
upon his cases, he often swept the whole field of discussion,
so as to leave little for his associates to glean ; and some-
times, it is said, he even anticipated and answered all his
opponent's arguments so perfectly as " to leave him nothing
to say which had not been better said already." In meeting
the unforeseen points that come up suddenly for discussion,
where the argument of counsel must be instant and off-hand,
he was remarkably prompt and effective. Yet he required
preparation, and would not speak without it. Dinner- table
oratory and stump-speaking he despised. Among his
most powerful legal arguments were those which he
delivered on the trial of Burr, in the case of McCulloch
vs. The State of Maryland, in the Dartmouth College case,
in the great New York steamboat case of Gibbons vs. Og-
den, in the Cherokee case, and in the defence of Judge Peck
before the Senate of the United States. The first of these
speeches, that against Burr, was a masterpiece of its class,
replete throughout with eloquent appeal, polished wit, keen
repartee, and cogent reasoning. In the famous passage on
Blennerhasset we see how eagerly he escaped from the
thraldom of a purely technical discussion and sported in
the field of rhetorical display, where he could soar without
a rival. The passage in which he speaks of the wife of
Blennerhasset, the beautiful and tender partner of his
bosom, whom he lately " permitted not the winds of sum-
mer 'to visit too roughly/" as ''shivering at midnight on
the wintry banks of the Ohio, and mingling her tears with the
WILLIAM WIRT. 37
torrents that froze as they fell," has been a favorite piece
for schoolboy declamation ever since it fell from the lips
of its author ; and the fact that, though worn to shreds
by continual repetition, it still has power to charm, is proof
of its rare, though somewhat florid, beauty.
The argument made by Mr. Wirt in behalf of the
Cherokee Indians against the tyrannical encroachments of
the State of Georgia, did equal honor to his head and heart.
Regarding the storm of abuse which his espousal of the
cause brought upon him, he wrote to a friend: "If I had
declined this engagement from a cowardly fear of the
consequences, I should never have been able to hold up
my head again. The curse of Kehatna would have been
a benediction, compared with the conscious self-abasement
that would have preyed upon me."
Mr. Wirt's argument in defence of Judge Peck, of St.
Louis, impeached before the United States Senate for the
alleged abuse of his judicial authority, was in many respects
the most masterly he ever pronounced. In its union of
logical analysis with rhetorical power and beauty, it has
rarely been surpassed. The best proof of its cogency and
force is that, though at the opening of the trial the tide
of popular feeling set strongl\ r against Mr. Wirt's client,
it gradually grew weaker, and when the defence was closed,
turned in his favor. When the vote was taken, it stood
twenty-one for conviction, twentj'-two against ; and the
judge was acquitted.
At the beginning of his career Mr. Wirt was troubled, as
we have seen, with bashfulness and timidity" ; but as he
advanced in j^ears he rioted in the consciousness of his
strength, and loved nothing better than to meet with a foe-
man worthy of his steel. For a long time he had desired
38 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
to break a lance with the colossus of the Maryland Bar, Mr.
Pinkney; and in 1816 he had the opportunity. Probably
no practitioner in the United States courts cast at that time
a larger shadow over the land than this great lawyer. His
manner was haught}', alert, and guarded ; his brow severe ;
his civilities short and measured. The haughtiness of his
temper was manifested in his carriage, of which it has been
said that it was more than erect, it was perpendicular.
His port at the bar towards his equals was antagonistic
and defiant; he asked no favors, and he granted none.
When about to argue a case he was nervous and restless,
burning with a kind of impatient rage for the fray. Pro-
fessor Ticknor, who saw him once on such an occasion,
says that he showed, by frequently moving in his seat, and
by the convulsive twitches of his face, how anxious he
was to come to the conflict. "At last the judges ceased
to read, and he sprang into the arena like a lion that had
been loosed by his keepers on the gladiator who awaited
him." Few lawyers of equal ability have manifested such
a care about their toilet ; his dress suggested a Beau Brum-
mel rather than the giant of the American Bar. In spite
of all this foppishness and many affectations, he was a
great legal logician, with " as fine a legal head," Rufus
Choate used to say, u as ever was grown in America."
Both Clay and Webster pronounced him the greatest orator
they had ever heard.
Artemas Ward, being once asked to speak in public,
said: "I have the gift of oratory, but I haven't it with
me." How many eloquent men there are who find them-
selves, at times, in this predicament ! ' ' What a scathing
reply I might have made to my adversary," is the regret-
ful reflection that occurs to many a lawyer and politician
WILLIAM WIRT. 39
as he retires, heated and discomfited, from a contest in
which his memory proved treacherous to him. While he
is on his legs, his ideas seem to desert him ; but the mo-
ment he sits down, he invents the happiest retorts, his
knowledge of the subject comes upon him like a flood, the
most unanswerable arguments flash upon him without an
effort. Mr. Wirt was one of the readiest of men; yet
something like this was his experience in his first encounter
with Pinkney, in 1816, who was then at the zenith of his
fame. Having argued the cause before, and being en-
grossed with other cares, he relied upon his notes for
recalling the different topics to his mind ; but at the last
moment found that they were lost. Being interrupted in-
cessantly by callers while trying to study the case, he was
obliged, in this hopeless condition, to go to the court-room
and contend with Pinknej*. Writing afterward to Judge
Carr, he says: " Had I been prepared, how should I have
gloried in that theatre, that concourse, and that adversary !
. . -. I gave, indeed, some hits which produced a visible
and animating effect ; but my courage sank, and I suppose
my manner fett^ under the conscious imbecility of my argu-
ment. I was comforted, however, b} T finding that Pinkney
mended the matter very little, if at all. . . . Had the cause
been to argue over again on the next da}', I could have
shivered him ; for his discussion revived all my forgotten
topics, and, as I lay in bed on the following morning, argu-
ments poured themselves before me as from a cornucopia.
I should have wept at the consideration of what I had lost,
if I had not prevented it by leaping out of bed, and be-
ginning to sing and dance like a maniac. ... I must
contrive, somehow or other, to get another cause in that
court, that I may show them I can do better. . . . With
40 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
full preparation, I should not be afraid of a comparison
with Pirikney at any point, before genuine judges of correct
debate."
Wirt's first impression of Pinkney, derived from this
struggle, was not favorable. Two years later he writes to
a friend : "I expect to go to Baltimore again, early next
month, and to have another grapple with Glendower Pink-
ney. ; The blood more stirs,' you know, ' to rouse the
lion than to start the hare.' A debate with Pinkney is
exercise and health. With all his fame, I have en-
countered men who have hit harder. I find much pleasure
in meeting him. . . . To foil him in a fair fight, and in
the face of the United States, on his own theatre,
would be a crown so imperishable that I feel a kind of
youthful pleasure in preparing for the combat." In 1822
Mr. Pinkney, having overtaxed his strength in a case be-
fore the Supreme Court, died of an inflammation of the
brain ; and we find Mr. Wirt, who had now had many dia-
lectic contests with this Titan of the Bar, doing full justice
to his powers. "He was a great man," writes Wirt to a
friend. "No man dared to grapple with him without the
most perfect preparation and the full possession of all his
strength. In the last two encounters with him I was well sat-
isfied, and should never have been otherwise when entirely
ready. To draw his supremacy into question anywhere,
was honor enough for ambition as moderate as mine."
Few public speakers have combined so many physical
qualifications of the orator as William Wirt. His manly
and striking figure, his intellectual face, his clear, musical
voice, his graceful gesture, won the favor of his hearer in
advance. In manner he was calm, self-possessed, and de-
liberate, rarely soaring to lofty heights of oratory, and still
WILLIAM WIRT. 41
more rarely sinking to tameness. His gestures were pre-
studied, but the art with which he concealed his art is said
to have been consummate. He was not, in the highest
sense, a natural orator ; we mean that he did not come
into the world, like Henry Clay or Patrick Henry, with an
imperative commission to speak written in his blood and on
his brain. He spoke easily, and often eloquently ; but was
not urged to it irresistibly by the trumpet-call of his spon-
taneous enthusiasms, as the war-horse snuffs the battle
from afar. His usual key, his biographer sa3*s, was that of
earnest and animated argument, alternated with that of a
playful and sprightly humor. Though he was not wanting
in force or fire, and could denounce wickedness, in high
places or low, with great vehemence and energy, }*et as a
rule his oratory was not of that fervid, bold, and impetuous
kind which sways all classes of men with absolute do-
minion, rousing and calming their passions at the speaker's
will. Except on rare occasions, it was graceful, polished,
and scholar-like, sparkling with pleasant fancies, and
cheating the spell-bound listener out of all sense of the
lapse of time. Hence he was a favorite of the ladies, who
flocked to hear him, and, to his surprise, however dry or
abstruse the theme, listened with apparent delight to his
longest and most argumentative speeches. In early life, as
we have seen, there was more impetuosity in his manner,
and his articulation was rapid, thick, and indistinct. By
dint of incessant self-schooling he conquered all these de-
fects ; and adopting a lofty ideal of excellence, which he
strove unceasingty to reach, he gradually developed and
perfected his natural powers to a degree that made him the
rival in eloquence of Emmett and Pinkney, and the compeer
in argument of Hopkinson, Pinkney, and Webster.
42 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
A well-known writer, who heard many of Mr. Wirt's
forensic addresses, thinks that the power of ridiculing his
adversary was Mr. Wirt's forte. " After he had demon-
strated the absurdity of his opponent's arguments with a
clearness which the most critical logician would have ad-
mired ; . . . after he had called up the truths of philos-
ophy, the experience of histoiy, and the beauties of poetr}',
all coming like spirits thronging to his call ; he would, if
the opposite part}' deserved the infliction, pour forth upon
him a lava-like ridicule, which flamed while it burned, and
which was at once terrible and beautiful, terrible from its
severity and truth, and beautiful from the chaste language
in which it was conve3'ed." *
It is said that when Mr. Pinkney began to write out his
great speech in the kt Nereid" case, he was so disappointed
in the effect when he saw it on paper that he threw down
his pen ; he saw at once the enormous difference in power
there is between a speech written and a speech delivered.
" How apt are we," says Mr. Wirt, "to forget this differ-
ence in making our estimate of Demosthenes and Cicero !
We measure them only by the speeches they have left us,
forgetting that the speech itself is only the hundredth part
of the orator's power." In reading Mr. Wirt's own
speeches, this caution, if we would avoid disappointment,
needs emphatically to be heeded. It is a sad truth, that
of all the great products of creative art, eloquence is the
only one that does not survive the creator. The words of
a masterpiece of oratorical genius may be caught and jotted
down with literal exactness ; but the attitude and the look,
the voice and the gesture, are lost forever. The aroma,
1 F. W. Thomas, author of "Clinton Bradshaw," etc.
WILLIAM WIKT. 43
the finer essences, have vanished ; only the dead husk
remains.
We have thus far, for convenience, omitted to speak
of Mr. Wirt's biographical work, the well-known Life of
Patrick Henry. The task of writing this book he found the
toughest that had ever engaged his pen. After years of toil
he was half tempted to abandon it altogether. The necessity
of stating facts with scrupulous precision, when, as he ex-
pressed it, " his pen wanted perpetually to career and frolic
it awa}', " was like a stone tied to the wings of his fancy.
To write under such a restraint was like trying to run, tied
up in a bag. In a letter to a friend he thus complains :
"My pen wants perpetually to career and frolic it away.
But it must not be. I must move like Sterne's mule over
the plains of Languedoc, 4 as slow as foot can fall,' and
that, too, without one vintage frolic with Nanette on the
green, or even the relief of a mulberry-tree to stop and take
a pinch of snuff at. I was very sensible, when I began, that
1 was not in the narrative gait. I tried it ever and over
again, almost as often as Gibbon did, to hit the ke3'-note,
and without his success. I determined, therefore, to move
forward, in hopes that my palfrey would get broke by de-
grees, and learn, by and by, to obey the slightest touch of
the snaffle. But I am now in my hundred and seventh
page, . . . and yet I am as far to seek as ever, for the light-
some, lucid, simple graces of composition. You may think
this affectation, if 3*011 please, or }'ou may think it a jest ;
but the dying confession of a felon under the gallows . . .
is not more true, nor much more mortifying."
The difficulty here so pathetically portrayed was not half
so disheartening as the dearth of facts, which compelled the
biographer to evolve his hero, in the German fashion, out of
44 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
the depths of his moral consciousness. At every step he
was obliged to stop and let fly a volley of letters over the
State ; and when the answers came, their statements were
so contradictory that it was impossible to reconcile them.
The truth is, that Patrick Hemy was hardly more than a
name. His vast fame rested upon a tradition which gave
only the A r aguest and most shadowy outlines of an intellect-
ual colossus. Like the bones of an antediluvian giant, only
a few fragments of his speeches remain to testify to his
moral stature. Will's portraiture of the man is brilliant,
but the coloring is too deep. The work burns and glows
with the Southern heart of the writer, and, while exhibiting
much dramatic power and insight into character, has too
much of the charm of a romance. Occasionally, though
not often, as one of his critics has said, the rapid march of
the narrative u breaks into the canter of the jury-haranguing
Iaw3*er or the stump-speaking politician." The popular
feeling regarding the work is well illustrated by an anecdote
told of Mr. Wirt and the Hon. Thomas Corwin, of Ohio.
Mr. Wirt was once opposed to Mr. Corwin as counsel in a
law case, and tried in a somewhat novel way to discredit
the testimony of Mr. Corwin's chief witness, on whose dis-
crimination and accuracy everything hinged, by showing
that he was a person of egregious credulity. "Have you
ever read Gulliver's Travels?" said Wirt to the witness.
" Yes." " Do you believe it all? " " W-a-11, }*es, Square,
I don't know but I do." The same answer was returned
to questions about the "Life of Sinbad the Sailor," the
" Adventures of Baron Munchausen," and other like works ;
Corwin all the while fidgeting and turning nervously in
his seat. Having thus utterly discredited the witness, Mr.
Wirt, with a triumphant gesture and a bland smile, said :
WILLIAM WIRT. 45
" You can have the witness, Brother Corwin." "I have
but one question more," said Corwin: "have you ever
read Will's Life of Patrick Henry?" "Yes." "Do you
believe it all?" " Wh}', no, Square, I can't quite swallow
that."
Mr. Wirt's memory was exceedingly retentive, and in
readiness and felicity of quotation he was rarely surpassed.
He was familiar with the Latin classics, and had marked in
his copies of Horace, Seneca, Quintilian, etc., nearly every
striking thought and sentiment. A pocket edition of Horace
was often thumbed during his journeys ; but Seneca, with
his brilliant and pointed antitheses, was his favorite. In his
legal arguments he often cited an illustration from the
classics with telling effect. In the peroration of his argu-
ment in the great New York steamboat case of Gibbons vs.
Ogden, he retorted on Mr. Emmett a quotation of his from
Virgil with signal skill. The chief question in the case
was whether the laws of New York, which conferred upon
Fulton and Livingston the exclusive right to navigate its
waters with steamboats, were or were not a violation of the
Constitution of the United States. Mr. Emmett, at the
close of his speech, eloquently personified the great State of
New York as casting her eyes over the ocean, beholding
everywhere the triumphs of her genius, and exultingly
asking,
" Quae regio in terris nostri non plena laboris ? "
Mr. Wirt saw with an eagle eye the error his antagonist
had committed ; and giving the true translation of laboris,
which here means, we hardly need to say, not " labor," but
"suffering," or "misfortune," turned the tables upon him
as follows :
46 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
" Sir, it was not in the moment of triumph, nor with the feelings
of triumph, that ^Eneas uttered that exclamation. It was when,
with his faithful Achates by his side, he was surveying the works
of art with which the palace of Carthage was adorned, and his
attention had been caught by a representation of the battles of
Troy. There he saw the sons of Atreus, and Priam, and the fierce
Achilles. The whole extent of his misfortunes, the loss and desola-
tion of his friends, the fall of his beloved country, rushed upon his
recollection :
'Constitit, et lacrimans, Quis jam locus, inquit, Achate,
Quae regio in terris nostri non plena laboris ? ' '
Mr. Wirt then vividly depicted the disastrous results of
the policy of New York ; showing that three States were
already on the eve of conflict, and that unless the Court
should interpose, the war of legislation would become a war
of blows. "Your republican institutions will perish in the
conflict ; 3'our Constitution will fall ; the last hope of na-
tions will be gone. . . . Then, sir, when New York shall
look upon this scene of ruin, if she have the generous feel-
ings which I believe her to have, it will not be with her
head aloft, in the pride of conscious triumph, 4 her rapt
soul sitting in her e3*es.' No, sir, no ! Dejected, with
shame and confusion, drooping under the weight of her
sorrow, with a voice suffocated with despair, well may she
exclaim,
' . . . Quis jam locus, . . .
Quae regio in terris nostri non plena laboris?' "
Mr. Wirt was very happy in his occasional literary ad-
dresses, as in his eulogy on Adams and Jefferson, deliv-
ered before Congress in 1829, which Abraham Hay ward,
in the London " Quarterl}* Review" for March, 1841, pro-
nounced " the best which this remarkable coincidence l has
1 The deaths of Adams and Jefferson on the same clay.
WILLIAM WIRT. 47
called forth ;" and in his address at Rutger's College, in 1830,
a spirit-stirring discourse to the students, which must
have roused them like the sound of a trumpet. The latter
production, which was published in pamphlet form by the
literary societies to which it was addressed, passed rapidly
through three editions, and was republished in England.
It was also translated into the French language and the
German, and published in Paris and in a leading German
city. A fourth American edition was issued in 1852. We
can give but one extract from this eloquent and high-toned
address, in which, portraying the man of decisive integrit}',
the author unconsciously paints one of his own most salient
moral features :
DECISIVE INTEGRITY.
The man who is so conscious of the rectitude of his intentions
as to be willing to open his bosom to the inspection of the world,
is in possession of one of the strongest pillars of a decided character.
The course of such a man will be firm and steady, because he has
nothing to fear from the world, and is sure of the approbation and
support of Heaven ; while the man who is conscious of secret and
dark designs, which, if known, would blast him, is perpetually shrink-
ing and dodging from public observation, and is afraid of all around,
and much more of all above, him.
Such a man may, indeed, pursue his iniquitous plans steadily;
he may waste himself to a skeleton in the guilty pursuit ; but it is
impossible that he can pursue them with the same health-inspiring
confidence and exulting alacrity with him who feels at every step
that he is in the pursuit of honest ends by honest means. The
clear, unclouded brow, the open countenance, the brilliant eye which
can look an honest man steadfastly yet courteously in the face, the
healthfully beating heart, and the firm, elastic step, belong to him
only whose bosom is free from guile, and who knows that all his
motives and purposes are pure and right. Why should such a
48 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
man falter in his course? He may be slandered, he may be de-.
serted by the world ; but he has that within which will keep him
erect, and enable him to move onward in his course, with his eyes
fixed on Heaven, which he knows will not desert him.
Let your first step, then, in that discipline which is to give you
decision of character, be the heroic determination to be honest
men, and to preserve this character through every vicissitude of
fortune, and in every relation which connects you with society. I
do not use this phrase "honest men " in the narrow sense, merely,
of meeting your pecuniary engagements and paying your debts ;
for this the common pride of gentlemen will constrain you to do.
I use it in its larger sense of discharging all your duties, both public
and private, both open and secret, with the most scrupulous, Heaven-
attesting integrity : in that sense, further, which drives from the
bosom all little, dark, crooked, sordid, debasing considerations of
self, and substitutes in their place a bolder, loftier, and nobler
spirit : one that will dispose you to consider yourselves as born
not so much for yourselves as for your country and your fellow-
creatures, and which will lead you to act on every occasion sincerely,
justly, generously, magnanimously.
There is a morality on a larger scale, perfectly consistent with a
just attention to your own affairs, which it would be the height of
folly to neglect : a generous expansion, a proud elevation and con-
scious greatness of character, which is the best preparation for a
decided course in every situation into which you can be thrown ;
and it is to this high and noble tone of character that I would have
you to aspire. I would not have you to resemble those weak and
meagre streamlets, which lose their direction at every petty impe-
diment that presents itself, and stop, and turn back, and creep
around, and search out every little channel through which they
may wind their feeble and sickly course. Nor yet would I have
you resemble the headlong torrent that carries havoc in its mad
career. But I would have you like the ocean, that noblest emblem
of majestic decision, which in the calmest hour still heaves its re-
sistless might of waters to the shore, filling the heavens, day and
night, with the echoes of its sublime declaration of independence,
and tossing and sporting on its bed with an imperial consciousness
of strength that laughs at opposition. It is this depth and weight
WILLIAM WIKT. 49
and power and purity of character that I would have you to re-
semble ; and I would have you, like the waters of the ocean, to
become the purer by your own action.
It is amusing to contrast Mr. Wirt's fees for legal ser-
vices with the sums charged by lawyers to-day. We have
in our possession an elaborate autograph letter of his, con-
sisting of six large quarto pages, giving his opinion in a
knotty case. At the close he says, in substance, that as
he has spent a great deal of thought and trouble on the
case, involving a laborious search of the record and decree
in it, and a sketch of a course of defence, he hopes that he
will not be deemed unreasonable in asking his correspondent
to send him twenty dollars.
Few men ever had a keener sense of the ludicrous than
Mr. Wirt. Referring to some drollery in one of his letters,
he says: "I have always found a little nonsense a capital
preparative for a dry and close argument." He then tells
of a pun which, he sa}*s, made him laugh vociferously.
" There is a gentleman in who is otherwise very
handsome, but with the misfortune of having a nose with-
out a bridge, a mere abortive proboscis. C was re-
marking in compain- one da}- the noble expression of his
countenance. ' Oh ! but that unfortunate nose/ said a
lacly. 4 Nose ! ' replied C ; 4 if it had a bridge, it would
be very passable' " Of all humorous writers Sterne was
Mr. Wirt's favorite. To the exquisite drolleries that lie in
ambush on every page of "Tristram Shandy" he was never
tired of referring.
Though usually buoyant and hopeful, Mr. Wirt was some-
times exceedingly despondent ; and in his self-criticisms he
was more keen and unsparing than his worst enemj 7 . In a
letter to a friend he complains of the lack of concentration
4
50 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
in his legal addresses. "Though I see the track plainly
before me, yet, like an ill-disciplined race-horse, I am per-
petually bolting or flying the way, and this, too, perhaps,
in the very crisis of the argument. . . . On the other hand,
here is John Marshall, whose mind seems to be little else
than a mountain of barren and stupendous rocks, an in-
exhaustible quarry, from which he draws his materials and
builds his fabrics, rude and Gothic, but of such strength
that neither time nor force can beat them down ; a fellow
who would not turn off from the right line of his argument,
though a Paradise should rise to tempt him." Again, in
1810, he writes to the same person : " I can never cease to
deplore the years of my youth that I have murdered in
idleness and folly. ... I now think that I know all the flaws
and weak places of my mind. I know which of the muscles
want tone and vigor, and which are braced bej'ond the
point of health. . . . But now the character of my mind is
fixed ; and as to any beneficial change, one might as well
call upon a tailor, who has sat upon his shopboard till the
calves of his legs are shrivelled, to carry the burdens of a
porter, or upon a man whose hand is violently shaken with
palsy, to split hairs with a razor."
Mr. Wirt wrote verse, and sang, and played upon several
musical instruments. He even wrote a play, entitled " The
Path of Pleasure," for the Richmond stage ; but we cannot
say whether it was performed or not. In private life
he was held in the highest esteem. His conversation
was full of interest and charm. Enriched, as it was, with
the results, always at command, of his multifarious read-
ing, it was suggestive and thought provoking, yet easy,
playful, and sparkling with wit and humor. His manner
was always dignified, yet courteous and winning, and his
WILLIAM WIRT. 51
voice modulated with the nicest taste and skill. He was
not an ambitious talker, striving constantly to say smart
things ; he had no elaborated impromptus, no cut-and-dried
repartees ; he never drew the conversation into an ambush,
that he might give play to his sharpshooters when he had
tricked men within their reach.
The strong religious cast of Mr. Wirt's mind was visible
to all who knew him. Even in the most thoughtless daj's
of his youth he was keenly susceptible to religious impres-
sions. After the death of his youngest daughter, in 1831,
the religious reverence which had been a sentiment of his
heart became a pervading passion. The buoyancy of
spirit which before, even in his gravest moments, broke
forth in sudden and irrepressible sallies, was lost forever.
He gave up many of his pet and long-cherished schemes
and fancies, read the Scriptures daily, studied theology,
cultivated habits of prayer and meditation, and wrote much
on religious themes. He took great interest in missionaiy
and Bible societies, in Sundaj'-schools, and became pres-
ident of the State Bible Society of Maryland. He read
Hooker, Baxter, Faber, Flavel, Hall, Doddridge, and Jay.
Of Baxter he writes to his daughter: " I took up the
' Saints' Rest ' lately, and found it like an old sandal-wood
box, as fresh and fragrant as if it had just been made, al-
though it has been exhaling its odor for a hundred and
eighty years."
Such, in conclusion, were the life and character of Wil-
liam Wirt. Is it too much to say, that in the whole circle
of eminent advocates who have adorned the American Bar,
there is no one whose career is more worthy of imitation ?
Beginning life with a lofty ideal ; keeping ever before his
eyes that aliquid vastum et immenswn of which he so
52 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
often' speaks, he won the highest honors of a profession
in which, perhaps, more than in any other, eminence is a
test of ability and acquirement. Scorning the low and
disingenuous arts of his profession ; despising the cheap
successes of those " gowned vultures," or, as Milton terms
them, those tk hired masters of tongue-fence," who seek
only for pelf and popular applause, he sought by hard
thinking and by broad and comprehensive studies, by the
mastery of philosophy, history, literature, and science, to
build up his reputation upon a solid base. Using his pen
habitually as a means of self-improvement, he became a
read}' and polished writer, and won b}~ his books, orations,
and addresses, literary laurels worthy of a professional
author. Stainless in his professional integrity, conscien-
tious in the discharge of his duties, keenly sensitive to
praise, yet the severest of self-critics, patient of labor, and
opulent in the mental stores which only patient labor can
suppl}*, warm in his affections, faithful in his friendships,
a powerful advocate, a polished orator, a fervid patriot, a
sincere Christian, and a noble man, he has left an example
which, in the words of Daniel Webster, " those who seek
to raise themselves to great heights of professional emi-
nence will emulously study. Fortunate indeed will be the
few who shall imitate it successful!}' ! "
BULWER.
life of Edward George Earle Lytton is a vivid
illustration of the marvels tbat may be performed by
a man of mere talent, toiling with indefatigable energy
through a long series of years. We say " talent;" for
that he had that only, though in the very highest degree,
and was not, though he narrowly escaped being, a genius,
we think is very clear. Had he been such, he would not,
probably, have scattered his forces over so large a field.
Instead of lighting up the whole horizon of thought, he
would have condensed his sheet-lightning into a few lumi-
nous points or a single powerful bolt. As it was, neither
intellectually nor morally was his mind determined with
overwhelming force in any one direction, upon no one sub-
ject did his affections centre ; and the result was, that while
he astonished the world by his breadth of sympathy and
variety of mental faculty, he never reached the pinnacle
of excellence and fame, the topmost peak of the literary
Alps, but only a lofty summit. That he was a tireless
worker, the scores of books which he spun from his brain
bear witness. Poet, dramatist, novelist, essayist, orator,
historian, and pamphleteer, he "swung round the entire
circle " of literary effort, and won high success in every-
thing he attempted. Possessing rank and ample fortune,
he regarded these accidents, in the words of his own Mel-
notte, " as the incentives to exertion, not the title-deeds of
54 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
sloth," and worked, to the ver}* end of his da}-s, as hard as
any bookseller's hack in Great Britain. That he should
have toiled so hard, even after having overcome his early
disadvantages and won riches and position, is a still
greater marvel, and compels the admiration of those who
would otherwise find it hard to forget his foibles. It is
hard to write books when one is clothed in rags and labor-
ing to make the pot boil ; but it is harder still when one
is clothed in purple and fine linen, and faring sumptuously
every day. Many a spiritual giant lies buried under a
mountain of gold. To hunt and shoot and live in clover ;
to frequent clubs and operas and Almack's, enjoying the
variety of London sight-seeing, morning calls, and Par-
liamentary small-talk, during the season, and then off to
the country mansion, with its well-stocked preserves and
its thousand delightful pleasures, alternated with a few
months on the Scotch moors, or a run across the Continent
to Venice or Rome, all this, it has been truly said, is ex-
ceedingly attractive, but it is by no means calculated to
make a man " scorn delights, and live laborious days."
It was to his mother, a woman of great energy and rare
accomplishments, that Bulwer was indebted for the forma-
tion and guidance of his literary tastes. Her father was a
profound scholar, and the first Hebraist of his day. A
favorite book of her son in his childhood was Percy's
" Reliques," which was the match that fired his genius ; for
he wrote some ballads in imitation of it when onl}* five or
six years old. He went to no public school, but graduated
at Cambridge, where he competed successful!}' for the prize
poem of his 3'ear. Better in man}' respects than the uni-
versity education was " the life-education," to use one of
his own terms, which he got in part by wandering over
BULWER. 55
England and Scotland on foot during the Long Vacation,
and afterward by travelling through France on horse-
back. He began to publish at the age of two and twent}*.
44 Weeds and Wild Flowers," his first book, was followed
by u O'Neil, or the Rebel," a BjTonic poem minus the
Byron. "Falkland," his first novel, appeared next year,
but fell dead from the press, being too sentimental even for
the Laura Matildas of the circulating-libraries. It was a
history and anatysis of illicit passion, which, though full of
faults, had yet so much promise of better things that Col-
burn, the publisher, offered 500 for a three-volume novel
from the same pen. " I will give you one that shall be
sure to succeed," was the answer. The first volume of
44 Pelham " was already written, and the manuscript of the
whole was soon in Colburn's hands. Colburn's chief reader
condemned it as " utterly worthless." His second reader's
report was more favorable. Three or four days afterward
Colburn called the two critics to his room and said : " I
have read Mr. Bulwcr's novel, and it is my decided opinion
that it will be the book of the year." The publisher judged
rightly; it was in "Pelham" that Bulwer first fairly
caught the world's ear. For two months the work seemed
likely to be doomed to oblivion. Critics, not seeing its
purpose, and taking its satire literally, treated it with cen-
sure or indifference. But suddenly it won an immense pop-
ularity ; it was a sensation, a novelty in English romance;
and it caused a permanent change in masculine costume.
44 One, at least, of the changes which the book effected in
matters of dress," says Bulwer's son, in his biography of
his father, " has kept its ground to this day. Lady Fran-
ces Pelham sa}'s, in a letter to her son : ' Apropos of the
complexion : I did not like that blue coat you wore when I
56 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
last saw 3'ou. You look best in black, which is a great
compliment ; for people must be very distinguished in ap-
pearance to do so.' Till then the coats worn for evening
dress were of different colors, brown, green, or blue, ac-
cording to the fane}* of the wearer ; and Lord Orford tells
me that the adoption of the now invariable black dates
from the publication of * Pelham.' All the contemporaries
of Pelham would appear to have been simultaneously
possessed with the idea that they were entitled to take to
themselves the ' great compliment ' paid by Ladj' Frances
to her son." In "Pelham" the author gave what many
thought a sympathetic portraiture of a gentleman, a
dand3 T of a superior order, something more than what Cow-
per calls " a fine-puss gentleman, that's all perfume," but
still a worshipper at the shrine of fashion, and more care-
ful about the cut of his coat and the style of his whiskers
than about the furnishing of his brains. The book has
many clever epigrams and some powerful passages, a
few, such as Tyrrel's death-scene, that are artistically fin-
ished, and, though shallow as a whole, showed that there
was power in the author.
For his next novel, "The Disowned," Bulwer received
800, and for "Devereux," which soon followed it, 1,500.
In 1830 he became editor of Colburn's " New Monthly
Magazine." In "Paul Clifford," with its skilfully woven
plot, a novel which was fiercely lashed by the moralists,
Bulwer took a somewhat higher flight; but even yet his
wings were not fairly fledged. It was in " Eugene Aram"
that he first showed the mettle that was in him ; it was
the first distinct print of the lion's foot. Being early
interested in the story of his hero, he set to work to col-
lect the particulars of his life ; and these he wove into
BULWER. 57
a powerful and fascinating romance. In this story he has
aimed to show what strange influences sometimes checker
the web of life ; how a mind essentially noble, by deviating
by an almost imperceptible angle from the path of virtue,
may be gradually lured on till it is hopelessly entangled in
the meshes of sin. Obsta principiis, " Resist begin-
nings," is the moral which he preaches with fearful emphasis
in every page. Do not dally with sin, or listen to the
faintest suggestions of the tempter ; and rely upon it that,
with whatever secrecy one may commit a crime, there is an
avenging Fury tracking the blood-stained, which, sooner or
later, will drag him and his sin to the light. Some critics
have objected to the psychological truthfulness of Eugene
Aram's portrait. Is it possible, they have asked, for a
man to be betrayed into a dreadful crime at the very mo-
ment when he is full of ardor for truth and virtue? Can a
man harbor in his bosom a household devil in the shape of
a consciousness of being a murderer without the whole
mental atmosphere being made foul and poisonous? Those
who ask these questions forget that Eugene Aram did not
strike the blow which caused the death, and found, doubt-
less, in this a plausible reason for his own self-justifica-
tion. They forget that, morally as well as physically, we
are "fearfully and wonderfully made;" that when man
trusts to his reason alone, and suffers his instincts to
be overmastered by his intellect, his better feelings to
be cheated by the casuistries of the brain, there is
no inconsistency of which he may not be guilty, no
deed of horror which he ma}' not commit. The female
characters in this work, especially Madeline and Ellinor,
are regarded by Bulwer's admirers as masterpieces of
portraiture.
58 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
Ill " Ernest Maltravers" and "Alice" we have some
exquisite portraitures of character, especially of female
loveliness ; and we well remember the almost breathless
interest with which the inveterate novel-readers of our
younger days hung over the pages of the former novel.
Just before these appeared "The Last Days of Pompeii"
and " Rienzi," two of Bulwer's most powerful historical
romances ; and, some seven years later, " The Last of the
Barons," which some critics have pronounced intolerably
tedious and heavy, others, one of the most brilliant works
of its class that ever was written. " Zanoni" and " Night
and Morning," two of his purest and most imaginative
fictions, added to his fame ; but it is in " My Novel" and
"The Caxtons" that his genius takes its grandest flight,
winging its way almost to the highest heaven of invention.
In these productions the author puts forth all his strength ;
they are the final development of his powers, the "bright,
consummate flower" of all his faculties, the product of
his genius in its happiest mood. They are marked through-
out by that calmness which indicates the greatest strength,
that simplicit}- and repose which are always found in a per-
fect style. If they dazzle and astonish less than some of
the author's other efforts, they are infinitely more pleasing;
and if they do not abound in rapid adventures, or quicken
the pulse with thrilling situations, culminating points ot
passion, and romantic interest, they nevertheless idealize
common life, transfigure lowl}' persons and objects, and
show the poetic beauty as well as the soul of goodness
which are to be found in the humbler classes of society.
Among the most striking passages in " The Caxtons " are
those relating to Robert Hall and to the benign influence
of Christianitj' in soothing the sorrows of mankind, allu-
BULWER. 59
sions which have opened to Bulwer's genius the door
of many a heart that had been obstinately closed to it
before.
Of Bulwer as a novelist it must be said that, on the
whole, he hardly ranks in the ve^ first class. Minute and
acute in observation, possessing the rarest powers of descrip-
tion and characterization, and exhibiting a versatility that
is aUsolutely marvellous, he has talent rather than genius ;
and rarely, even when he works his most potent spells,
affects us like Scott or Dickens. He rarely takes our
breath away as we follow his eagle flights, or makes the
cordage of our heart to crack, like the great necromancers
of English fiction. He is analytical rather than impulsive ;
elaborate and circuitous rather than direct and concentrating.
He has more fancy than imagination, more head that heart,
and works by rule rather than from instinct. In reading
even his happiest works, we feel that he is a novelist more
by an effort of intellectual determination than by the pos-
session of a gift that will not rest unexercised. A con-
summate artist, he produces his effects by repeated touches,
never by a few masterty strokes of the pencil ; and the
constant succession of minute details at last wearies the
eye, and palls on the mind. In one part of the novelist's
art he is, indeed, a master; namel}', in the construction
of a plot. His characters glide through the intricacies of
his story without a suspicion by the reader of the denoue-
ment, till the clew of his skill extricates them from the laby-
rinth in which they are involved ; but they are generally
pale phantoms, that leave no impression of reality upon
the reader's mind, no feeling that they are men and women
whom we have loved or hated or laughed at in the flesh.
Everywhere the workmanship excels the stuff; it is rather
60 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
mechanical work than creation ; and the reader feels that
there is more power and true philosophy of life in one
fresh, vigorous, and strongly drawn scene of Fielding or
Scott than in whole libraries of Pelhams and Paul Cliffords,
where the art, however great, is not subtle enough to con-
ceal the artist.
"Was Bulwer a poet? His verse unquestionably has
man}' poetical qualities, grace, inelod}', striking imagery,
picturesqueness, but lacks that i3'sterious something,
that divine afflatus, which we call poetr}'. The vigor,
polish, and terseness of " St. Stephen's" would not dis-
honor the masculine genius of Dryden ; " The Lost Tales
of Miletus" have charmed scholars with their playful
fancy ; and the translations from Schiller have been pro-
nounced by Carlyle the ones from which an English reader
will get the most vivid idea of the German poet. In satir-
ical verse he is sometimes very happy. What could be
better of its kind than the following?
" He seemed to turn to you his willing cheek,
And beg you not to smite too hard the other ;
He seized his victim with a smile so meek,
And wept so fondly o'er his erring brother,
No wolf more righteous on a lamb could sup :
You vexed his stream, he grieved and ate you up."
Had Bulwer dramatic genius? Only in a moderate
degree, if we have correctly analyzed his mental qualities.
Besides the disqualifications already hinted at, he is too
aristocratic in his tastes, has too little sympathy with
humanity when rough and unpolished, to excel in dramatic
writing. The men and women he loves to paint are ideal,
not the flesh-and-blood men and women we brush against
in the streets. Yet "Richelieu," in which Macready used
BULWER. 61
to personate the Cardinal, is full of plot, fire, and en-
erg}' ; and it will be long before "The Lady of Lyons,"
with all its absurdities, will lose its hold on the stage. It
is said that there is not an actress there who does not
prefer the part of Pauline to any other. A writer in
the London " Pall Mall Gazette" tells an interesting anec-
dote regarding this last play. Like man}' other literary
men, Bulwer was anxious to test by anonymous publication '
the value of public opinion regarding this work, and there-
fore "The Lady of Lyons" was brought out anonymously
on the first night it was played. Excepting Macready, who
was to personate Claude Melnotte, nobody had been al-
lowed to know the secret of the authorship of the play. Be-
tween the acts Dickens, who had been one of a delighted
audience, went behind the scenes to talk over the play with
Macready and Bulwer, congratulating Macready on his won-
derful impersonation of Claude Melnotte. Dickens was in
raptures with the whole thing, and asked Bulwer what he
thought of it. Bulwer affected to find some fault with the
plot, and suggested improvements here and there in the
various situations. " Come, now," said Dickens, " it is not
like you, Bulwer, to cavil at such small things as those.
The man who wrote the play ma}* have imitated your work
here and there, perhaps, but he is a deuced clever fellow for
all that. To hear you speak so unfairly is almost enough
to make one think that you are jealous." The papers the
next morning lauded the play to the skies, even going so
far as to suggest that it would be well for Mr. Bulwer
to take pattern by this unknown writer, and try to improve
himself in those particular points in which the anonymous
author of "The Lady of Lyons "had been so brilliantly
successful. About a fortnight later Bulwer's authorship of
62 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
the play was made known, to the mingled consternation
and amusement of the critics and the general public.
Was Bulwer an orator ? That depends upon our defini-
tion of oratoiy. If by it is meant that rapturous enthusiasm,
that burning passion, that " furious pride and joy of the
soul " which calls up all the imagination of the speaker,
and makes his rhetoric become a whirlwind, and his logic
fire, then Bulwer was not an orator. Of the inspiration
that prompted Chatham's indignant burst in reply to the
Duke of Richmond, Thurlow's scathing answer to the Duke
of Grafton, G rattan's overwhelming denunciation of Flood,
or Erskine's sublime apostrophe on the trial of Stockdale,
when he spoke of the " savage " in terms so startling and
triumphant, Bulwer has hardly a spark. But if by
oratory is meant simply the power of making an earnest,
lively, polished, and interesting speech, full of ingenious
turns and shrewd sense, then Bulwer was an orator, as
his well-known speeches before the Edinburgh University
and at Leeds abundantly show. Entering Parliament
early, he speedily got the ear of the House, in spite of
a weak voice, a rather florid stj'le, and a certain appearance
of fastidious nicety in dress which by no means accords
with the notions of that assembly. He did not often rise
to speak ; but when he did, his speeches were carefully
prepared, and had the dubious merit of reading well. On
one occasion his speech on Lord Derby's Reform Bill
in 1859 he rose to an unwonted pitch of eloquence;
veterans in the House declared that it equalled anything
they had ever heard at Westminster. But, generally, the
chief fault of his speeches was their artificial'^. Not only
was his voice most studiously modulated, and his excessive
action carefully pre-studied, but his hair, his mustache, his
BULWER. 63
dress and deportment, had an equally elaborate air. In
spite of all this, his appearance on the platform was, on
the whole, in his favor. Tall, spare, and attenuated, he
presented a fine head and face, of which a long, aquiline
nose, and a broad, retreating forehead were the most
marked characteristics. The former feature was truly
Dantean in length and shape, such a sign-post as Napo-
leon would have gloried in. If, as some men think, extra-
ordinary strength and persistence of effort are indicated by
an elephantine proboscis, then Bulwer must have been a
remarkable man.
For lack of space, we have said nothing of Bulwer's his-
tories. The startling vraisemblance with which he has re-
produced the ancient Roman times, and breathed life into
the skeletons of Herculaneum and Pompeii, as well as his
vivid, scholarl}-, and well-studied " Athens: its Rise and
Fall," show that had he concentrated his powers on some
great period of history, he might have produced a master-
piece worth}- to rank with the polished productions of Hume
and Macau la} r .
Had he concentrated his powers ! Here we have the
secret of Bulwer's failure to attain the highest renown as
a writer. Many-sidedness is fatal to fame. Had Bulwer
written his novels only, or only " My Novel " and " The
Caxtons," he would have excited less jealousy and de-
traction, and his reputation as an author would have been
greater. " It was said of Edouard Fournier : ' Get homme-
la sait tout ; il ne sait que cela, inais il le sait bien ; ' yet
Fournier remains an obscure litterateur." We live in an age
of specialism. Universality of knowledge, encyclopedic
culture, is held incompatible with solidity and depth ; and
the man who, scorning the principle of the division of labor,
64 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
excels in a great variet}' of pursuits, must expect to hold
only a secondaiy place in the estimation of his fellow-men.
That Bulwer was aristocratic in his opinions and tastes,
is known to every reader of his works. In two of his latest
novels, the "Coming Race" and the "Parisians," which
abound in keen, rapier-like thrusts at the vices, follies, and
foibles of the times, he depicts the rottenness of French so-
ciet}', and tries to show that health and salvation can come
to it only through its aristocracy. But though "he ab-
horred the politics of destruction and disintegration," his son
declares that he was an ardent reformer wherever he rec-
ognized a rational promise of practical improvement. The
same tendency, we are told, induced in early life the dan-
dyism which made him scrupulously careful of the cut of his
coat and the fashion of his waistcoat.
It has long been the fashion in some circles to sneer at
Bulwer Lytton as a bundle of affectations, a mere dilet-
tante. " His soul," says an enemy, " is not brave enough
for truth." The fact probably is, that, as an apologist has
suggested, he was brave enough to face any truth, but his
policy held check upon his soul. He knew what a strong,
bull-headed thing the world is, and he loved popularity too
well to risk having it trampled down by hoofs. N. P.
Willis, in his " Pencillings," says of him : " I liked his man-
ners extremely. He ran up to Lady Blessington with the
joyous heartiness of a boy let out of school ; and the ' How
d' ye, Bulwer?' went round, as he shook hands with every-
body, in the style of welcome usually given to the 'best
fellow in the world.' ... I can imagine no st3*le of con-
versation calculated to be more agreeable than Bulwer's,
gay, quick, various, half-satirical, and always fresh and
different from even-body else." At the farewell dinner
BULWER. 65
given to Macready upon his leaving the stage, at which
Bulwer was chairman, Charles Dickens thus spoke of the
author of the " Caxtons : " "In the path we both tread, I
have uniformly found him to be, from the first, the most
generous of men, quick to encourage, slow to disparage,
and ever anxious to assert the dignity of the order of which
he is so great an ornament, ... a man entirely without
the little grudging jealousies that so often disparage its
brightness " (that is, of literature) . There must have been
much that was noble in a man who could elicit such tributes
as these. They are the more creditable to him, because his
temperament was naturally sensitive and irritable, an ir-
ritability which the constant overtasking of his faculties and
his enforced confinement rendered morbid!}' acute.
Like Milton, Goethe, and many other authors, Bulwer
strangely mistook his strongest points, and set the highest
value upon his poorest works. He often declared that he
was content to rest his fame upon his " King Arthur,"
which few of his warmest admirers have read ; and he was
greed}' of praise for his tyrical poetry, which won him little
credit in the Old World or the New. u I have alwa}-s
found," he sa3~s, " that one is never so successful as when
one is least sanguine. I fell into the deepest despondency
about ; Pompeii ' and * Eugene Aram,' and was certain,
nay, presumptuous, about c Devereux,' which is the least
generally popular of my writings."
The great lesson to be learned from this glance at Bul-
wer's life and writings is the precious value of persistency
of effort, the only lever by which genius or talent can
move the world. He teaches, as few men have taught, -the
might and worth that lie in determined struggle and in-
vincible perseverance. He did not carry the temple of
5
66 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
fame by a coup de main, like Byron and others who
"woke up one morning and found themselves famous,"
but by slow sap and siege, pursued, against many tempta-
tions to self-indulgent ease, through man} 7 weary years.
Bulwer worked his way to distinction, worked it, though
long tortured by ill-health ; worked it through failure,
sneers, and ridicule. That nimbleness of the pen which
enabled him to dash off a volume every year, was acquired
only by long and arduous effort and stud3 r . Writing
at first slowly and with great difficulty, he resolved, we
are told, to master the stubborn instrument of thought, and
mastered it. Some of his essays and what can be more
exquisite than those of " Caxtoniana " ? were rewritten at
least nine or ten times. Behold the results of his industr}',
over seventy volumes, or more than one for ever}* 3'ear
of his life ; and many of these upon subjects exacting long
and careful research ! And how many hours, think 3*ou,
he devoted to study, to reading and writing, to accomplish
these prodigious results ? Not more, he tells us, than three
hours a day ; and when Parliament was sitting, less than that.
" But then," he adds, and this is the lesson, perhaps, which
his life sounds in the ears of all literary laborers, " dur-
ing those hours I have given my whole attention to what I
icas about."
ALEXANDRE DUMAS.
the famous men who have died in Europe during the
last quarter of a century, the great quadroon must
be considered one of the most remarkable. He was cer-
tainly, regarding his career from his own stand-point, one
of the luckiest men that ever lived. Excepting his death,
his life, to speak Hibernice, was one unbroken series of for-
tunate events from the cradle to the grave. Blessed with
an iron frame that could bear any strain of toil or dissipa-
tion, and a brain of lignum-vitae toughness as well as in-
exhaustible fertility, he went on coining his thoughts and
feelings into napoleons to an extent that lias scarcely a
parallel in modern literature, and reminds one of the feats
of magicians in the Arabian tales. Indeed, there was
something Oriental in the whole constitution of the man,
not only in the necromancy with which he conjured fabulous
sums from his inkstand, but in his gigantesque ph}*sique,
his tropical imagination, his superhuman bodily and mental
feats, his vast expenses, his profuse liberality, and his dar-
ing profligacies. That he did not break down under labors
at which Lope de Vega would have stood appalled, and to
the very verge of threescore and ten could snap his finger
at a ten-volume romance as a bagatelle, is a physiological
enigma which may challenge the genius of a Dalton for its
solution.
From his earliest childhood Dumas exhibited the natural
instincts of his African blood, an intense love of physical
68 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
display, an extraordinary aptitude for bodily exercise, and
the love of an East Indian for everything that might be
viewed as a feat. The feeling was purely hereditary, his
father, the Republican General, having been notorious for
the same passion. In his Memoirs Dumas tells us that his
father had great physical strength, but though he was five
feet nine inches (French) high, had the hand and foot of a
woman. <; His foot, in particular, was the despair of his
mistresses, whose slippers he was rarely unable to wear.
At the epoch of his marriage his calf was exactly the size
of my mother's waist. His wild mode of living had devel-
oped his address and his strength in an extraordinary man-
ner. As to his muscular force, it had become proverbial in
the arm}'. More than once he amused himself in the riding-
school, while passing under a beam, by taking this beam
between his arms and lifting his horse off the ground be-
tween his legs." We are further told that if he found a
sergeant cheating the bivouac of its ennui by holding be-
fore his admiring inferiors a musket by the barrel, at full
stretch, the exhibition would rouse at once the lurking devil
of display in the dark-skinned General, who would proceed
at once to demonstrate his own superiority. Not content
to rival the subordinate, he would dwarf him into insignifi-
cance, quadrupling the difficulty b}~ a new and overwhelm-
ing combination, wherein a series of muskets were seen
to protrude in a direct and undeviating line of rigidity
from the iron fingers of the performer ! Martial feats were
achieved by this African Ajax which make the story of
Horatius Codes insipid. In a chance encounter with a troop
of Austrian cavalry in a narrow pass, General Dumas,
alone, threw his giant bulk " full man}' a rood" across the
path ; fired his duelling-pistols with the rapidity and death-
ALEXANDRE DUMAS. 69
like accuracy of modern revolvers ; and, one horseman
still remaining unscathed, while, unfortunately, our hero
missed his sword at this critical moment, he thanks to
a fertile brain most dexterouslj' terminated the struggle
by whisking his adversary from his saddle, transferring him
crosswise to his own, backing out of the melee, and return-
ing triumphant and unmolested to his own outposts !
At another time, commanding as a brigadier a look-out
party of four dragoons, he fell in unexpectedly with an
enemy's patrol composed of thirteen Tyrolese chasseurs
and a corporal. He instantly charged them, and pursued
them as they retreated into a small meadow surrounded by
a ditch wide enough to stop cavalry. Clearing the ditch on
his spirited horse, he found himself in an instant in the
midst of the thirteen chasseurs, who, stupefied by such har-
dihood, presented their arms and surrendered ! The con-
queror collected the thirteen rifles into a single bundle,
placed them on his saddle-bow, compelled the thirteen pris-
oners to move up to his four dragoons on the other side of
the ditch, and, having repassed the ditch with the last man,
brought his prisoners to headquarters. Credat Judceus
Apella! will be the exclamation of the American reader
at this exploit, which, as a British reviewer says, has no
parallel except that of the Irishman who, single-handed,
took four Frenchmen prisoners by surrounding them !
Thus descended and thus organized, Dumas the son
began his giant labors, performing feats of literary execu-
tion that almost stagger credulity. Had he husbanded his
strength, instead of burning the candle at both ends, he
might have continued dashing off plays, novels, and his-
tories even into the nineties, and rivalled in the number of
his works the Roman author whose body was burned on a
70 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
funeral-pile of his own productions. As it was, however,
he died at a good time, except that Paris was too deeply
absorbed in matters of graver and more pressing interest to
think of the dying romancer who had exhausted his ener-
gies in ministering to her amusement. Amid the shock of
arms, his death failed to create that sensation the prospect
of which would have been to him its chief compensation.
Yet he had the happiness to preserve his illusions almost to
the last ; and when he had sucked out of life all its sweet-
ness, and the crowd was already beginning to turn to other
idols, he passed awa}*, fancying that publishers and direct-
ors were still thronging his antechamber as in the good old
time, and that new romances from his pen were coveted as
greedily as when his genius was in its prime.
Of all the romancers of the nineteenth century, Dumas
will certainly rank in future histories of literature as the
most prolific, if not as the most charming. Since Lope de
Vega there has been no one who could compare with him
in rabbit-like fecundity ; Scott and Balzac were barren in
comparison, and " solitary horseman " James utterly dis-
tanced in the race of the pen. Writing at all hours, by
night and by day ; thinking always of to-morrow, never of
3*esterda}' or to-day ; reading nothing which he had written ;
with a thousand literary projects fermenting in his brain,
he reminds one of those blast-furnaces which have but one
day of repose in a year. While dashing off one novel, plans
of a dozen new ones were revolving in his brain ; as soon
as one romance or vaudeville had burst the shell, another
was hatched, and clamorous for disclosure. It is rarely that
even in France one meets with so great a writer espe-
cialty so consummate an artist as Dumas confessedly was
whose parturition is so easy. Generally, men of genius
ALEXANDRE DUMAS. 71
are slow and laborious in composition, for the very reason
that the fertility of their minds supplies a superabundance
of thought, and their high standard of taste renders them
fastidious in the choice and perfection of their materials.
But Dumas, with all his marvellous fertility of invention,
was never troubled with the "embarrassment of riches;"
gestation followed instantly upon conception, and no envi-
ous Juno, to use Milton's phrase, "sat cross-legged over
the nativity of his intellectual offspring." Writing, some
years ago, to a Belgian journal to excuse himself for his
delay in furnishing the second of a promised series of ar-
ticles, he coolly sa}'s: "In that eight months I have
written something like thirty volumes." On reckoning
them up, however, he finds that he has understated the
number. " Bon ! " he exclaims, with exquisite sang-
froid ; "you see that it turns out there are thirty-seven
volumes instead of thirty : fespere queje suis beaujouer!"
Only Dumas could have written those volumes in that
time ; only Dumas could have spoken of the feat in that
tone of superb carelessness. " I have written something
like thirty volumes, and, on reckoning, it turns out that
I forgot seven, a mere bagatelle ; the affair of a couple of
idle mornings ! "
This fierce haste, this agile skimming of the streams of
fiction, the enemies of Dumas declare, argue but little for
depth. It is a marvellous exhibition of speed, but it is the
speed of the swallow : sixteen hours on the wing, a pro-
digious exertion of muscular power, but unfortunately dis-
played in the pursuit and capture of flies ! Doubtless this
is true of the great majority of Dumas' feats. Oblivion
will devour ninety-nine hundredths of his works ; but who
can doubt that the rest will escape the jaws of Time ? If all
72 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
the others are melted in Time's crucible, we believe that
" Les Trois Mousquetaires," " Vingt Ans Apres," and
"Monte Christo" will come out of the melting-pot un-
scathed ; indeed, it may be doubted whether they will not
be read as long as any other fictions in the French lan-
guage. "In point of plot," says a competent English
critic, "these romances are on a par with 4 Don Quixote '
and 4 Gil Bias ; ' in point of incident, situation, character,
animated narrative, and dialogue, the} 7 will rarely lose by
comparison with the author of l Waverle}*.' Compare, for
example, the scene in ' Les Trois Mousquetaires' be-
tween Buckingham and Anne of Austria, with the strik-
ingly analogous scene between Leicester and Elizabeth in
fc Kemlworth.' "
Many anecdotes are told illustrating the fearless self-
reliance, the prodigious activity, and the almost incredible
power of sustained exertion, of Dumas. One of his many
astonishing tours de force was the composition of a
complete five-act drama within eight daj's ; another, the
editorship of a daily journal, " Le Mousquetaire," with an
understanding with his subscribers that the contents should
be supplied wholly by his pen. Lamartine, who was one
of the subscribers, being asked, after this task had been
faithfully performed for two months, what he thought of
Dumas' journal, replied : "I have an opinion of human
things ; I have none on miracles : you are superhuman.
M}' opinion of 3*011 ? It is a note of exclamation ! People
have tried to discover perpetual motion. You have done
better ; j'ou have created perpetual astonishment." The
truth is, Dumas was an improvisator e. Nature, along
with a herculean frame and the other gifts which she lav-
ished so profusely on this enfant gdte^ had endowed him
ALEXANDRE DUMAS. 73
with a prodigious memory and a power of assimilation
almost beyond belief. A striking instance of this latter
faculty is given by one of his secretaries, Albert AVolff, in
a recent number of the Independance Bdge. 1 4 One morning,
at breakfast," says the writer, "I spoke to him of Hum-
bold t's 4 Cosmos,' which had just appeared. He took the
book, and ran over it for ten minutes; some days after
there appeared in ' Monte Christo ' a scientific conversation,
in which Dumas spoke of science as if he had never been
occupied with anything else ! " It was this marvellous
faculty of entering into the skin of another man which was
the secret of his love for collaboration. A word dropped
accidentally in a conversation, a hint of a play or novel
given him b}' a vulgar workman, sufficed to fire his imagi-
nation ; his brain was a vast furnace which absorbed the
most useless materials, and transformed the coarse mineral
into fine metal. Every one brought to him whatever he
had found in his path, whether a pebble or a handful of
dirt, this one lead, that one iron or copper ; all went into
the furnace, which swallowed all, and returned in exchange
a romance, a drama, or a comed3'. From the merest
chance-mcdle3 r of dates, from the most insignificant fact,
the most unmeaning character, the artist could extract
colors for his palette, matter for his page, and amusement
for his reader.
The rapidity with which a dramatic seed-thought germi-
nated in his volcanic brain is well illustrated by an incident
related by M. Wolff. " One day after dinner," says the
writer, "I gave Dumas a hint of a piece in one act. It
was the merest hint, and a very poor one at that. The
next morning, after breakfast, the master said to me : c I
am going to read to you a little piece which I have written
74 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
in the night.' And he read to me, in fact, one of his most
charming comedies in one act : it was the idea I had sug-
gested ; but how transformed and embellished by his mag-
ical genius ! He had preserved but the starting-point, the
little nothing, the match that served to set ablaze the
furnace whence came forth, at dawn, one of the most
spirituelle little plays of Dumas' repertory."
It was, of course, physically impossible that Dumas
should pen all his eight hundred volumes with his own
hand ; and hence the reports that he robbed his assistants
of the credit which belonged to them, that they were the
real authors of most of his publications, he having only
contributed a masterly touch here and there, with the
name on the title-page. One of these collaborateurs, M.
Maquet, claimed that he had had a large share in composing
the best of Dumas' works, and even convinced some critics
of the justness of this pretension. M. Wolff' flatly contra-
dicts all these charges, and shows that all the works of the
great quadroon are distinguished b}' an unmistakable in-
dividuality. It was Dumas who gave to their unfinished
pieces " the life and the movement which made their for-
tune ; ' and one has only to compare the works written
conjointly with him, with those which his co-laborers pro-
duced unaided, to see that, though the}' might have
moulded the limbs of his statues, he onty could breathe
into them a living soul. " Maquet," sa}-s a writer in the
4t Quarterly Review," " was avowedly employed by Dumas
for twentj r }*ears to hunt up subjects, supply accessories, or
to do for him what eminent portrait-painters are wont to
leave to pupils ; namel}', the preparation of the canvas, the
mixing of the colors, the rough outline of the figures, or the
drapery. That Maquet was capable of nothing better or
ALEXANDRE DUMAS. 75
higher, was proved by his utter failure as a novelist when-
ever, both before and after the alleged partnership, he set
up for himself."
The charge of plagiarism is one that is brought against
authors upon pretexts so silty, that upon intelligent men it
makes little impression. It is perfectly understood by all
persons who are familiar with literary biography that orig-
inality, as some critics define it, is an impossibilitj-. The
greatest and most imperishable authors are not pure in-
ventors, but have all borrowed from their predecessors.
Shakspeare, Virgil, and Dante are debtors, to an incalcu-
lable extent, to the thoughts and verses of not only the
great poets, but also of the army of obscure and unknown
poets who preceded them. Homer could never have
written the Iliad but for the nameless crowd of rhapsodists,
who had wrought out a poetic language and depicted the
deeds of the heroes in rough popular songs. If any Greek
thinker was absolutel}' original, it was Socrates ; }'et his
great dialectical " elenchus," the conception of negative
argument, or the reducing of an opponent ad absurdum,
has been traced to Parmenides and Zeno. As Newton could
not have been Newton without the labors of Kepler ; as
Watt could not have invented the steam-engine if it had
not been half invented by numerous predecessors ; so the
poet is not a creator, but a simper of the thoughts and
emotions that delight us in his works, thoughts and emo-
tions derived from innumerable sources. Sir Joshua Rey-
nolds says, and says truly, that it is by being conversant
with the thoughts of others that we learn to invent, as by
reading the thoughts of others we learn to think. The
water which is poured into a dry pump brings up the deeper
water of the well. Virgil borrowed from Homer, Ennius,
76 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
Lucretius, Catullus, Attius, Lucilius, Naevius, and many
other poets. The most striking incidents of the second
book of the JEneid the story of Sinon, the legend of the
wooden horse, the death of Priam, the untimely fate of
Ast3'anax, the loss of Creusa, and the subsequent fortunes
of Helen were derived from two Cyclic poems, the Sack
of Troy, and the little Iliad of Arctinus. The legend of
Laocoon was taken from the Alexandrian poet Euphorion.
Horace profoundly studied the epic, dramatic, and lyric
poets of Greece, and imitated, adapted, and paraphrased
their sentiments, epithets, and phrases, borrowing ideas and
inspiration from Homer, JEschyltis, Euripides, Sophocles,
and especiallj' from Pindar, Alcaeus, Anacreon, Sappho,
and Tyrtaeus. Pope Gregory the Great is said to have
burned the works of Varro, a writer of prodigious erudi-
tion, that Saint Augustine might escape from the charge
of plagiarism, the saint, who was a great admirer of his
learning, being deeply indebted to Varro's " Antiquitates
Divinarum Rerum " for much of his (Augustine's) great
work, " The City of God." Coleridge took the inspiration
and the framework of his noble " Hymn to Chamouni" from
Frederica Brun. Paley borrowed the well-known illustration
of the watch, with which he begins his "Natural Theology,"
together with the plan and all the leading arguments of
that work, from Nieuwent3*t, a Dutch philosopher, whose
work, designed " to prove the existence and wisdom of
God from the works of creation," was published in Amster-
dam in 1700, and translated into English in 1718-1719.
The watch has even been traced to Matthew Hale. Milton
is now accused of borrowing much of his epic from another
Dutchman. Goldsmith's " Threnodia Augustalis," in mem-
ory of the mother of George III., informs the reader that
ALEXANDRE DUMAS. 77
" Faith shall come, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps her clay ;
And calm Religion shall repair,
To dwell, a weeping hermit, there."
With the exception of a few words, these lines are copied
literally from a well-known ode of Collins. " Glory should
follow, not be run after," says Pliny the Younger. The
same thought appears in a well-known speech of Lord
Mansfield. Voltaire's " L'Ermite" in " Zadig" is a para-
phrase of Parnell's poem. Balzac incorporates into one
of his novels an entire chapter from Bulwer's " The Dis-
owned." Bulwer, again, took the germ of many of the
thoughts in "The Student" from Hazlitt, and " conveyed"
one of the finest scenes in "Paul Clifford" (that of the
trial, where the judge is the criminal's father) from Mrs.
Inchbald. In " Zanoni" he has gathered so many ideas
and sentiments from Plato, Schiller, Richter, and Goethe,
that some critics have called the work a compilation, and
almost intimated that if he were stripped of his pilferings,
he would " stand before the world like our first parents,
naked, but not ashamed." Nearly all the thought in Chal-
mers's famous "Astronomical Discourses" is said to have
been borrowed from Andrew Fuller's " The Gospel its own
Witness." Dr. Johnson's " London," written in imitation of
the Third Satire of Juvenal, owes some of its best passages
to a previous version by Oldham. Sheridan was indebted
to Farquhar for his "Trip to Scarborough," and Fielding's
Tom Jones and Blifil unconsciously suggested the Charles
Surface and Joseph Surface of the " School for Scandal."
Burgoyne, in " The Heiress," borrowed an image of Ari-
osto's and Rousseau's, and Byron, an unhesitating thief of
ideas, used it in his Monody on Sheridan :
78 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
" Sighing that Nature formed but one such man,
And broke the die, in moulding Sheridan."
Scott copied a scene in " Kenilworth " from the "Egmont"
of Goethe. A writer in the "Atlantic Monthly" accuses
Owen Meredith of u conveying" in his "Lncile" not only
the situations, but whole pages of the most animated
epigrammatic dialogue, word for word (except where the
exigencies of rh\'me or metre exact a deviation from the
original), from " Lavinia," an old and half-forgotten tale by
George Sand.
In view of these facts it is useless to accuse Dumas of
borrowing his materials from a hundred originals ; the
question is, Did he borrow in forma pauperis, or did he
repay what he borrowed with compound interest? Did he
return the grain which went into his mental mill as corn, or
did his powerful and active mind grind it into flour? Does
what he appropriates from others become so mingled with his
own creations as to form with them a homogeneous whole,
or does it lie " like lumps of marl upon a barren moor, en-
cumbering what they cannot fertilize " ? In spite of all the
defences of Dumas, ingenious as they are, it seems to us
that while many of his literaiy appropriations are legitimate,
many others are unjustifiable larcenies. Great as he was
in everything, he was immense in plagiarism. In helping
himself to other men's literary property, he seems to have
had no delicacy or scruple. From the cool, unblushing
bodily appropriation of an entire tale or novel, to the
avowed reproduction of certain chapters, and the perpetual
unavowed transference of plots, scenes, images, and anec-
dotes to his own multiform pages, this Briareus of fiction
was the boldest, most unscrupulous, and most wholesale of
literary borrowers. It was said of Horace that, numerous
ALEXANDRE DUMAS. 79
as are bis imitations of the Greek poets, they are never
mere plagiarisms or purple patches, but are made so com-
pletely his own, and are invested with so much noveltj' and
originality, that, when we compare them with the originals,
we derive additional gratification from the resemblance.
The very contrary is true of a large proportion of Dumas'
borrowings. He resembled not so much the broom-maker
who stole the materials, as the one who stole the brooms
ready made. He used to boast that, like Moliere, he re-
possessed himself of his property wherever he found it,
and if charged with theft, he simply laughed. In " Con-
science T Innocent," he took two entire chapters from a
novel of Conscience, the Flemish novelist, repaying him
for the theft by taking his name for that of his hero ; and
also u conveyed" half a volume from Michelet's " Peuple,"
dedicating the book to his victim, and begging him not to
claim all that it contained as his own ! Of another romance,
" Le Pasteur d'Ashbourn," two entire volumes out of four
were " repossessed," with trifling alterations, from Augus-
tus Lafontaine, whose novel, "Family Pictures," the great
French romancer swallows in his own pages with as little
compunction as a boa-constrictor would swallow a goat!
When accused of the theft, he indignantly repudiates the
charge. Petty thieves, he protests, are guilty of stealing ;
not so with the Alexanders and Napoleons of letters, like
himself. Mighty conquerors, they invade the domain of
other authors, and annex to their own whole realms of
thought !
THE WEAKNESSES OF GREAT MEN.
The greatest clerks ben not the wisest men. CHAUCER.
r I "HE imperfection of human nature, even in its noblest
* specimens, is known to every student of biography.
Not only the brown ware of humanity, but its porcelain,
betrays strange rents and chips, cracks and flaws, which
are so much more glaring in the one case than in the other
as almost to reconcile the humbler ware to its unenamelled
condition. In every civilized country, and in every age of
civilization, we find philosophers without practical talent
or knowledge, poets without feeling, moralists without
principle, philanthropists who are domestic tyrants, and
scientists who are victims of the grossest delusions. Yet
these very weaknesses of great men are often the traits of
character which have the most interest for the student of
human nature ; and it is to supply the demand for such in-
formation that diaries, letters, chronicles, and loose scraps
of eveiy kind are ransacked by biographers, who consider
no personal details, however minute or homely, as value-
less tha will flash light upon character. These details,
which in narratives of great public affairs were once
thought to be beneath ' ' the dignity of history," are now
sought for more eagerly, and read with keener zest, than
the pages in which this disagreeable dignity is stiffl}* and
imperiously maintained. The Roman historian who dep-
THE WEAKNESSES OF GREAT MEN. 81
recates the censure of his readers because he tells them
who it was that gave music-lessons to Epaminondas, and
informs them that the Theban general danced gracefully
and played finely on the pipe, would have no occasion to
apologize to-day. It is just such facts which the modern
reader prizes. That Julius Caesar was the greatest general
of his age; that he conquered Gaul, defeated Pompej*,
and became "the foremost man of all the world," are
facts undeniably of great moment ; but, as it has been well
said, "they are, after all, only the dry bones of history."
The general reader is much more interested to learn that he
was a tall, pale-faced, soft-skinned man, with dark, spark-
ling eyes, and subject to head-complaints and epilepsy ;
that he was bald, for which his soldiers jeered at him in
his G allic campaigns ; that he tried to hide this defect by
bringing forward his hair ; that of all the honors conferred
upon him by the Senate, that which most delighted his
heart was the right of continualh* wearing a laurel-wreath
around his brows, thus partiall}' concealing his defect;
that, though he shaved carefully, and was fond of jewels,
he was, in youth, at least, very careless of dress, in ref-
erence to which Sylla urged the aristocracy to beware of
that " ill-girt boy" (puerum male prcecinctitm) ; that he
spoke in the Senate with a shrill voice and used much
gesture, but with great gracefulness ; that in his military
expeditions he slept in chariots or on litters, making, as
Plutarch says, even his repose a kind of action ; and that,
being once, on a journey, compelled by a storm to seek shel-
ter in a poor man's hut which had but one chamber, and
that hardly large enough for one person, he bade Oppius
lie down, while he slept in the porch. So with the Caesar
of the nineteenth century. However keen the tingling inter-
6
82 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
est with which we watch his victories, and whatever our
admiration of his Code and the other products of his genius,
it is the Napoleon of Las Cases and O'Meara, of Bour-
rienne and Madame de Remusat ; the Napoleon pictured by
Sir Neil Campbell in his cabinet at Fontainebieau, dressed
in his old green uniform, with gold epaulets, blue breeches,
and red- top boots, unshaven, uncombed, with particles of
snuff scattered profusely upon his upper lip and breast,
impatiently pacing the length of his apartment, and shrink-
ing in his soul from his fate, that most profoundly inter-
ests us.
To say that such details are mere tittle-tattle and gossip ;
that the taste for them is a petty taste, the taste of valets,
is simpl}* to denounce one of the instincts of our nature,
the instinct which, as Moore says, " leads us to contemplate
with pleasure a great mind in its undress, and to rejoice in
the discovery, so consoling to human pride, that even the
mightiest, in their moments of ease and weakness, re-
semble ourselves." But, in truth, these personal matters
are not mere tittle-tattle and gossip. Our interest in them
is due not simpty to the instinct of which Moore speaks,
but also to the consideration that they have often influ-
enced the destinies of nations and the world. Who does
not know that the history of the Roman empire might have
been wholly different from what it was if, at an intensely
critical period, the royal diadem of Egypt had not been
placed on the brows of a woman of the most marvellous
accomplishments, and mistress of the most witching arts
of pleasing, persuading, and seducing, a sorceress whose
chain
u Around two conquerors of the world was cast,
But, for a third too feeble, broke at last ; "
THE WEAKNESSES OF GREAT MEN. 83
and that the religious Reformation in England might have
been delayed for many a year, though it could not have
been averted, had not the
" Gospel light first beamed from Bullen's eyes"?
The pedants who scorn what they call the ' ' gossip of
history" forget that character manifests itself in little
things, just as a sunbeam finds its way through a chink.
The jest-book of Tacitus ; the medicated drinks of Bacon,
and the entry in his diary " to have in mind and use the
Attorney-General's weakness ; " the guitar of Luther ; the
preparatory violin of Bourdaloue ; the inspiring damsons
of Dryden ; Voltaire's fifty cups of coffee a day ; Byron's
gin ; and the fanc}'-lighting scarlet curtains and rotten
apples of Schiller, all these are " biography in hierogly-
phics, the errata of genius that clear up the text." It is
doubtless true that the publication of such facts tends to
lessen hero-worship. It is not easy to preserve our rev-
erence for genius while spying out the secrets of its do-
mestic life. But what can be more significant than these
trifles, which sometimes illuminate character more than the
most elaborate portraiture? It is not in natural history
only that a Cuvier may find scope for his genius ; biog-
raph}' has its comparative anatomj*, and a saying or a sen-
timent enables a skilful hand to construct a skeleton. It
is for this reason, quite as much as from a love of gossip,
or because ' ' the defects of great men are the consolations
of dunces," that the accounts of personal traits are read
with such avidity in biographies ; that people dwell with
such a feeling of piquancy on the reputed gloominess of
Moliere, the fatness and laziness of Thomson, the silence
and shyness of Gray, Pope's irritability and after-dinner
84 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
nap, Goldsmith's vanity and delight in low company',
Dtyden's fondness for snuff, Hobbes's habit of locking him-
self up to smoke and think all day with his shutters closed,
and of carrying in the head of his cane, when he walked, a
pen and an inkhorn, as well as a note-book in his pocket,
that he might not lose a thought, and the conversational
povert} T of Cowley, Hume, Descartes, Rousseau, Moliere,
and La Fontaine.
That subtle critic, Sainte-Beuve, declares that to become
acquainted with a man you must ask yourself a certain
number of questions, and answer them satisfactorily;
otherwise you cannot be sure of possessing him entirely.
Among these questions are the following : What was he in
his dealings with women, and in his feelings about money?
What was his regimen? What his daily manner of life?
What was his besetting vice or weakness ? for every man-
has one. There is not one of these questions, Sainte-Beuve
asserts, that is without its value in judging an author or
his book, unless it is a treatise on mathematics. To know,
therefore, that Tasso found inspiration in malmsey, Sheridan
in madeira, and Byron in gin, grog, and laudanum ; that
Burns sometimes saw two moons from the top of a whiskey
barrel ; that Coleridge had to be dogged by an unemployed
operative to keep him out of a druggist's shop ; that Bos-
well's scrofulous hero stood in the rain to do penance for
disobedience to his father, and had a trick of touching the
door-posts as he walked, and of picking up and treasuring
pieces of orange-peel ; that Robert Hall charged a lady to
inculcate in her children a belief in ghosts ; that Locke
carried a note-book in his pocket to catch the scintillations
of every common conversation ; that the little crooked
thing that asked questions, drank tea by stratagem, and
THE WEAKNESSES OF GREAT MEN. 85
translated the Iliad on the backs of old letters, always kept
a candle burning at his bedside in order that, if a happy
thought struck him in the night, he might spring up at once
and note it down ; that Carlagnulus, as his friends endear-
ingly called the gentle, stammering Lamb, took too much
egg-flip hot, and found in tobacco "his morning comfort
and his evening curse ; " that Byron shaved his brow to
make it seem higher than it was, ate only a little potato
and vinegar at a literary dinner to give the impression
that he was abstemious, and afterward was found gorging
himself at a restaurant ; that Salmasius, the champion of
kings, shivered under the eye and scourge of his wife ; that
Sobieski, who saved Vienna from the Turks, brought rid-
icule, by a similar subjection, on his illustrious name; and
that Napoleon, who played for a world, could cheat one of
his own officers at whist, to know all these facts not only
gratifies a natural curiosity, and enhances the charm and
picturesqueness of biography, but gives us a deeper insight
into character than any other method but these unconscious
self-revelations will afford. Such personal details have
been compared to u those pen-and-ink sketches of Leech,
where the whole character of a man is condensed in a
single stroke of the pencil." What would we not give for a
few such items about Homer or Shakspeare?
Here let us note that the gossip of biography, if it tends
to lower some great men in our esteem, helps, on the other
hand, to exalt others. The private characters of authors,
while they sometimes destroy the illusion caused by their
books, sometimes also neutralize the repelling impressions
made by their works. The Count Joseph de Maistre, for
example, the great Ultramontanist and champion of the
Catholic Church, defends the Inquisition and proclaims
86 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
the hangman the keystone of the social edifice. He
declares that the English Church is among Protestant
Churches like the orang-outang among apes. He deliber-
ately asserts that contempt of Locke is the beginning of
wisdom, and that the title of the " Essay on the Human
Understanding," which is dry as the sands of Libya,
without the smallest oasis, is a misnomer, and that the
true title would be "An Essay on the Understanding
of Locke." He pronounces Bacon a charlatan, and the
" Novum Organum" simply worthy of Bedlam. It would
be hard to name another writer of equal genius who con-
tinually startles his reader with so much dogmatism, il-
Hberality, prejudice, and arrogance in his principal works ;
and yet his letters to the members of his family, to the
Protestant lady Madame Huber, and others, letters
man}' passages of which Madame de Sevigne might have
envied, abound with evidences of a genial, loving nature,
of candor, liberality, and Christian charity. His corre-
spondence clearl}' shows that, as Sainte-Beuve has happily
suggested, his fierceness, his bursts of sarcasm, his raillery,
transpired, so to speak, only in the upper region of his in-
tellect; that they were the sallies, the flashes, and, as it
were, the thunderbolts of talent, of a talent too rich, su-
perabundant, and solitary. With what kindly pleasantry
he speaks in one of his letters of his attack on Bacon :
"We have boxed like two strong men in Fleet Street;
and if he has pulled out some of my hair, I am quite sure
that his wig is no longer in its place ! "
Having thus shown the interest and value of such details,
let us proceed to consider some of the most noteworthy
weaknesses and follies of great men. It is a popular notion
that such men are always modest ; but, in spite of the
THE WEAKNESSES OF GREAT MEN. 87
assertions of " goody " books, the truth is that the great
majority of famous men have been not only conscious of
their ability, but ready to proclaim that consciousness to
the world. Cicero's chief weakness was a girlish vanity ;
he had an insatiable desire for human applause : }'et he
says that " if ever a man stood at the utmost remove, both
, by his natural disposition and by the conclusions of his
judgment and reason, from the vainglorious desire of the
praise of the vulgar, I think I may truly say that I
am that man." "I spoke with a divine power in the
Senate," he writes one day to Atticus ; " there was never
anything like it." Epicurus wrote to a great minister:
"If 3*011 seek glory, nothing will secure it so effectually
as the letter I am writing." William Rufus had the hardi-
hood to say that "If he had duties toward God, God
had also duties toward him." Not less irreverent and
egotistic was the thought of Alfonso the Wise, of Castile,
who, after drawing up his astronomical tables in accordance
with the scientific theories of the day, and placing the earth
in the centre of the universe, observed that, had he been
consulted, he should have placed the sun in the centre.
A famous French law} T er, Charles Dumoulin, used to write
at the top of his opinions : " I, who yield to no man, and
who have from no man anything to learn." Messieurs
Gaulmin, De Maussac, and Saumaise (the " Salmasins" of
Milton), being together in the Royal Library of Paris, "I
think," said Gaulmin, " that we three can match our heads
against all that there is learned in Europe." To this Salma-
sius replied : " Arid to all that is learned in Europe yourself
and M. de Maussac, and I can match my single head
against the whole of }*ou." Balzac (Jean-Louis de) was so
intensely vain that he always took off his hat when he
88 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
spoke of himself, which, his contemporaries said, ac-
counted for his frequent colds in the head. Explaining
why he had not married, "I do not want," said he, " to
be obliged to count every da}' the hairs of my wife, in
order to feel quite sure that she is faithful."
Voiture was a vintner's son, and was so mortified by
anj" reminder of his early occupation that it is said that
wine, which cheered the heart of other men, sickened his.
Rousseau, "the self-torturing egotist," was a cobbler's son,
and was so ashamed of his humble birth that when his
honest father waited at the door of the theatre to congrat-
ulate him on the success of his first play, the son repulsed
his venerable parent with insult and contempt. When
Rousseau was in the full bloom of his celebrity in England
he went to see Garrick act. It was known that he was
to be there, and the theatre was crowded by persons who
desired to see him. Rousseau was greatly pleased. But
Mrs. Garrick, who sat by him, afterward reported to her
friends that she had never passed a more uncomfortable
evening ; for the recluse philosopher was so very anxious
to display himself, and hung so far forward over the front
of the box, that she was obliged to hold him by the skirt
of his coat, that he might not fall over into the pit. The
poet Akenside always regarded his lameness as an insup-
portable misfortune, since, having been caused by the fall
of a cleaver from one of the blocks of his father, a butcher,
it continually reminded him of his origin. The inscription
under Boileau's portrait, extolling his character with praise
" thick and slab," and expressing his superiority to Juvenal
and Horace, is unfortunately known to have been written
bj T Boileau. Chateaubriand's enormous vanity is well
known. Talleyrand said that the author of the " Genie du
THE WEAKNESSES OF GREAT MEN. 89
Christianisme" lost his sense of bearing about the time
when the world left off talking of him. Let us remember,
however, to the credit of Chateaubriand, the fact we have
alread}' stated, that after Napoleon's murder of the Due
d'Enghien, he refused to serve the power that could do
an act so brutal. Queen Elizabeth, who had a hard face,
full of harsh lines, a hooked nose, thin lips, bad teeth, and
sandy hair, had an intense admiration for her own fancied
beauty. She was especially proud of her narrow hands, with
their long fingers. Before compa^' she was continually pull-
ing her gloves off and on, and her fingers were decorated with
rings and precious stones, in order to call attention to their
symmetry. Sir Robert Naunton tells us that her wonted
oath was " God's death;" but she had an abundance of
others, and swore with an energy becoming her character.
Milton loved to contemplate his own person, and four
iambics express his indignation because the engraver of
his portrait did not reach the epic poet's " ideal grace."
When a poet who had written a cantata for Handel had
the temerity to say that the music did not fitly express the
meaning of the words, " What ! " burst out the wrathful
composer, "my music not good? It is good, very good !
I tell you that it is your words that are good for nothing !
Go, and make better words for my music ! " It is said of
the late Richard Wagner that he expected every visitor
to his " Wahnfried" to offer him a tribute of well-coined
compliments ; and he would let you know, in a tone of
gentle reproof, if he thought that the tribute fell short
of what was due. He loved to dazzle ; and when he
travelled, the courier who preceded him, engaged, if possi-
ble, the suites of apartments in leading hotels which are
generally reserved for crowned heads. At his villa in
90 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
Ba3'reuth he collected a vast number of fine things presented
to him by his admirers ; and among the tokens of their
affection was a huge mausoleum, in gra}' granite, which
adorned a corner of his garden, and bore his name carved
in deep letters. "I shall be buried there," Wagner used
to say. In speaking of this tomb, Wagner often referred
to a grandiose march which he had composed for his own
obsequies ; but it was not to be performed unless it could
be rehearsed during his lifetime. " And how can it be
rehearsed," he would say, "without overwhelming rm~ wife
and children with grief ? " Sir Peter Lety's vanity was so
noted that a malicious wag, wishing to see how large a
dose of flattery he would swallow, told him one day that
if the Author of mankind could have had the benefit of
his opinions upon beaut3*, we should all have been materially
improved in personal appearance. "For Gott, sare,"
echoed Sir Peter, " I believe you're right ! " Sir Godfrey
Kneller, as he lay upon his death-bed, dreamed of distinc-
tions in heaven, and very complacently reported to his
friends the effect his name produced when announced at
the august portals: " As I approached, Saint Peter very
civilly asked my name. I said it was Kneller. I had no
sooner said so than Saint Mark, who was standing just
b}', turned toward me and said with a great deal of
sweetness, i What ! the famous Sir Godfrey Kneller, of
England?' 4 The very same, sir,' says I ; ; at your ser-
vice.' " The vanity of Ben Jonson is well known. When
he visited Drummond of Hawthornden, his free and easy
manners and swaggering conversation, his magisterial
opinions, broad jests, impatience of contradiction, and fond-
ness for the cup, disgusted the shy sonneteer, who set
down his private impression of old Ben in a few pithy
THE WEAKNESSES OF GREAT MEN. 91
words, which have stuck like a barbed arrow in his
reputation. The dramatist was always bearding his cen-
sors in his plays, or in their prologues or epilogues. In
one of his prefaces he calls the public " that many-
mouthed, vulgar dog ; " and in some lines appended to the
41 Poetaster" he speaks of his as a
" most abstracted work, opposed
To the stuffed nostrils of the drunken rout."
Lawrence Sterne was an intense egotist. His first act on
entering a drawing-room was to take from, his pocket a
new volume of ''Tristram Shandy " and read from it to
the company. A similar weakness characterized Words-
worth, who was indifferent to every modern production but
his own poetry. When ' ' Rob Roy " was published, some
of Wordsworth's friends made a picnic, and proposed to
amuse themselves with the new novel. Wordsworth ac-
companied them to the spot, joined them at luncheon, and
then said : " Now, before you begin, I will read you a poem
of my own on Rob Roy. It will increase your pleasure
in the new book." Having recited the verses, " Well," he
said, " now I hope you will enjoy your book ; " and walked
off, to be seen no more during the afternoon.
After General Wolfe had been appointed to command
the expedition against Quebec, he was invited by Pitt to
dinner. In the course of the evening Wolfe broke forth
into a strain of gasconade. Drawing his sword, he rapped
the table with it, flourished it round the room, and talked
of the mighty things that sword was destined to achieve.
Pitt and his other guest, Lord Temple, sat aghast at this
vaingloriousness ; and when Wolfe had taken his leave, and
his carriage was heard to roll from the door ; Pitt lifted up
92 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
his eyes and arms and exclaimed: "Good God! that I
should have intrusted the fate of the country and of the
administration to such hands ! " The heroic Nelson loved
to be called ' ; great and glorious " to his face ; and when
invited, in 1800, when bread was frightfully dear, to a din-
ner at which it was expected that the guests, in accordance
with a fashion that had consequently prevailed, would bring
their own bread, he made quite a scene, called his ser-
vant, and, before the whole company, gave him a shilling
and ordered him to go and buy a roll, saying aloud: " It
is hard that, after fighting my country's battles, I should
be grudged her bread." Napoleon, that colossus of fame,
could not bear any allusion to Caesar in his bulletins ; he
was even vain of his small foot. Buffon said that of the
great geniuses of modern times there were but five : " New-
ton, Bacon, Leibnitz, Montesquieu, and myself." The
principal weakness of Charles Dickens was his overweening
vanity. Always craving for praise, present and posthu-
mous, he was continually supplicating his fellow-men for
their plaudite, and begging Mr. Forster to be sure and
put so and so into his biography.
Lord Erskine, the greatest of forensic advocates, had a
craving and ravenous vanit\ r . He talked so much of him-
self that he was nicknamed " Counsellor Ego." The editor
of the "Morning Chronicle" apologized for giving only a
partial report of one of Erskine's public-dinner speeches
by saying that his stock of capital I's was exhausted.
B}Ton, who once sat next to the famous advocate at dinner,
declared him intolerable when he got upon " Trial by
Jury " and repeated his public speeches. William Hazlitt
confessed that he felt the force of Horace's digito mon-
strari / that he liked to be pointed out in the street, or to
THE WEAKNESSES OF GREAT MEN. 93
hear people ask, in Mr. Powell's court, " Which is Mr.
H " Your name, so repeated, leaves an echo like
music in your ear ; it stirs the blood like the sound of a
trumpet." Miss Martineau, speaking of the pity expressed
by men for women's vanity, says that when she went to
London she saw vanity in high places that was never
transcended by women in their lowlier sphere. As exam-
ples of this weakness she names Babbage and Jeffrey ;
Brougham, " wincing under a newspaper criticism, and
playing the fool among women;" Whewell "grasping at
praise for universal learning;" and Landseer "curled and
cravatted, and glancing round in anxiety about his recep-
tion." " There was Bulweron a sofa, sparkling and languish-
ing among a set of female votaries, he and they dizcned out,
perfumed, and presenting the nearest picture to a seraglio
to be seen on British ground. . . . There was Campbell,
the poet. . . . He darted out of our house and never came
again, because, after warning, he sat down in a room full
of people (all authors, as it happened) on a low chair of
my old aunt's which went very easily on castors, and which
carried him back to the wall and rebounded, of course
making everybod\ r laugh. Off went poor Campbell in a
huff; . . . and I was not very sorry, for his sentimentality
was too soft, and his craving for praise too morbid, to let
him be an agreeable companion." Vainer than any of these
eminent men who disgusted Miss Martineau, was the poet
Thomas Moore. He had an Argus e}*e for all compli-
mentary notices of himself, and he reproduces them in his
journals and letters ad nauseam. "There was a flourish-
ing speech of Shell's," he records, " about me in the Irish
papers ; he says I am the first poet of the da} T , and
join the beauty of the bird-of-paradise plumes to the
94 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
strength of the eagle's wing." Again, at a fancy-ball
which Moore attended, u there was an allusion to me as
Erirfs matchless son; which brought down thunders of
applause and stares on me" Once, at an assembly at
Devonshire House, " the Duke," he says, " in coming to
the door to meet the Duke of Wellington, near whom I
stood, turned aside first to shake hands with me, though
the great captain's hand was ready stretched out." Theo-
dore Parker is said to have been influenced all his life by
the fact that his grandfather was distinguished as the man
who captured the first musket in the War of Independence,
and by his pride in the distinction. His musket stood at
the door of his stud}', and ' ' probably suggested the idea
of the pistol which graced his pulpit cushion and added
such effect to his pulpit eloquence."
Fondness for dress has been one of the commonest,
and perhaps one of the most pardonable, weaknesses of
great men. The slender, spindle-shanked Aristotle wore
several rings on his philosophical fingers, and shaved him.-
self and trimmed his hair with great care. He loved
rich apparel also, and had his shoes adorned with precious
materials. Maecenas, an egregious dand}', is said to have
ruled the Roman empire with rings on his fingers. Sir
Walter Raleigh was one of the greatest exquisites of mod-
ern times. On court da}*s he wore shoes so gorgeously
and heavily adorned with precious stones that he could
scarcely walk in them. Their value is said to have ex-
ceeded six thousand guineas ; he had also a suit of armor
of solid silver, with jewelled sword and belt, the whole of
enormous value. When Ha\*dn was about sitting down
to compose, he always dressed himself with the utmost
care, had his hair nicely powdered, and put on his court-
THE WEAKNESSES OF GREAT MEN. 95
suit. Frederic the Great had given him a diamond ring ;
and the great composer declared that if he began without
it, he could not summon the ghost of an idea. Haydn
could write only on the finest paper, and was as particular
in forming his notes as if he had been engraving them on
copper-plate. The great Descartes, who revolutionized
metaphysics, was fastidious about his wigs, keeping on
hand four at a time ; and Sir Richard Steele never spent
less than forty guineas upon one of his large black peri-
wigs. Buffon used to put on lace ruffles and cuffs when he
wrote. When Honore de Balzac sat down for a spell of
hard work, he always wore a monk's cowl and robe. Rich-
ardson the novelist could write only in a laced suit and
with a diamond on his finger. Wesle}-, busy as he was,
was remarkable for the studied neatness of his appearance
amid all his long journeyings and strange adventures. Ers-
kine never came before any of the crowded audiences which
he kept waiting for him in the court-room, except with a
fine wig and a pair of new and bright yellow gloves. Wil-
liam Pinkney, the giant of the American Bar, was even
more attentive than Erskine to the details of his personal
appearance. He changed his toilet twice a day, and even
used cosmetics to smooth the roughnesses of his face.
Bacon, who was luxurious in all his tastes, was fond of fine
apparel. John Foster used to preach in a blue coat with
brass buttons, and top-boots, but this was from eccen-
tricity, not from fondness for display.
Goldsmith, when he sought to take orders in Ireland,
tried to dazzle his bishop by a pair of scarlet breeches.
When he was stud3*ing medicine in Edinburgh he wore
" rich sky-blue satin," " fine sky-blue shalloon," and silver
hat-lace. Before Johnson, Reynolds, and Garrick he
96 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
strutted about, bragging of his bloom-colored coat; and
when his reputation had been made by the " Traveller "
and the " Deserted Village," he blazed forth in purple silk
small-clothes, a scarlet great-coat, and a physician's wig.
He carried a gold-headed cane, and a sword hung by his
side, a weapon so disproportioued to his diminutive
stature that a coxcomb, who passed him in the Strand,
called to his companion " to look at that fly icith a long
pin stuck through it" It is said that Napoleon had a
weakness for white kerseymere breeches, upon which, when
engrossed with the cares of State, he would continually
spill ink, grav}*, or coffee, a mishap which occurred so
often that he had to pay the imperial tailor over twenty
thousand francs a year ! It is hard to believe that Charles
James Fox, who was such a sloven in manhood, was a dandy
in his youth ; yet Rogers and others declare that, when
a young man, he wore a little odd French hat, and shoes
with red heels, and that he and Lord Carlisle once travelled
from Paris to Lyons for the express purpose of buying
waistcoats, and talked of nothing else during the whole
journe}'. The same Fox, during a session of Parliament,
when, at one o'clock in the afternoon, his friends would call
and find him in bed, or lounging about in his night-shirt,
would look extremely unkempt and dirty. " A conversa-
tion would follow ; plans would be arranged ; and by and
by, his toilet done, and a cup of tea swallowed, Fox would
stroll clown, fresh and vigorous, toward St. Stephen's, to
speak as no other orator ever spoke since Demosthenes."
The foppishness of Chatham, scrupulously crowning him-
self with his best wig when intending to harangue the
House of Lords ; of Horace Walpole, wearing a cravat of
Gibbons's carvings ; the bare throat of Byron ; the Arme-
THE WEAKNESSES OF GREAT MEN. 97
man dress of Rousseau ; the scarlet and gold of Voltaire ;
the prudent carefulness with which Caesar scratched his
head, so as not to disturb the locks arranged over the bald
place, are known to all.
Disraeli, in his early Parliamentary da\*s, dressed in the
extremest style of foppery. An observer describes him as
"having been arrayed in a bottle-green frock-coat and a
waistcoat of white, of the Dick Swiveller pattern, the front
of which exhibited a net-work of glittering chains ; large
fancy-pattern pantaloons and a black tie, above which no
shirt-collar was visible, completed the outward man. He
had a countenance lividly pale, set out by a pair of in-
tensely black eyes, and a broad but not very high forehead,
overhung by clustering ringlets of coal-black hair, which,
combed away from the right temple, fell in bunches of well-
oiled small ringlets over his left cheek." Disraeli's manner
was in keeping with his personal appearance ; it was in-
tensely theatric, his gestures being wild and extravagant.
Of Richard Wagner's dress and manner, it has been said
that to call upon him for the first time, without having been
informed of his peculiarities, was to experience a mild
shock. Entering the room where his visitor was seated,
he would throw the door wide open before him, as if it
were fit that his approach should be heralded like that of a
king ; and he would stand for a moment on the threshold,
a curious medieval figure in a frame. The mystified vis-
itor, rising from his seat, would behold a man richly clad
in a costume of velvet and satin, like that of the early
Tudor period, and wearing a bonnet like that seen in por-
traits of Henry VI. and of his three successors. Wagner
had his composing costume, that of a Meistersinger,
or rather several costumes ; for he would vary his attire,
7
98 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
not only according to his own moods, but according to the
faces of the people who came to see him. He would not
commit the incongruitj' of sitting down in scarlet to con-
verse with a man whose features denoted that he was in "a
brown study ; " he would prefer to leave such a one for an
Augenblick, while he hurried out to slip on some "arrange-
ment " in subfusc hues. It should be added, however, that
dress was a real help to Wagner in composition. Genius
often has recourse to mechanical appliances for stimulating
thought ; and in his slashed doublets there was nothing
more ridiculous than in Handel's bag-wig and ruffles, or
Ha\*dn's finger-ring.
Great men have probably been as often distinguished for
slovenliness as for dandyism ; and of the two extremes the
former is the less pardonable, especially when it is so
offensive as in the case of the saintly Thomas a Becket,
who, we are told, " swarmed with vermin." Frederic the
Great had a kingly contempt for " the linen decencies of
life." He had but one fine gala-dress, which lasted him all
his life. The rest of his wardrobe consisted of two or three
old coats fit for a second-hand clothes-shop, yellow waist-
coats soiled with snuff, and huge boots embrowned by time.
If one of his courtiers was fond of dress, he would fling oil
over his richest suit. Lad}' M.a.ry Wortley Montagu's neg-
lect of the graces of dress furnished Pope and Horace Wai-
pole with materials for coarse satire. Thomson the poet
was one of the most untidy of mortals, and kept his mone}'
strewed about among his clothes and papers. On one
occasion a friend discovered bank-notes bundled up with
the poet's old stockings. Dr. Johnson, who exacted the
utmost propriet}' of appearance in others, the same
Johnson who once visited Goldsmith in a new suit of clothes,
THE WEAKNESSES OF GREAT MEN. 99
in order to teach him, who, he said, " was a great sloven,"
to be less careless about his dress ; the same Johnson
who, as Mrs. Piozzi tells us, in spite of his miserable eye-
sight, noticed the misplacement even of a ribbon in a lady's
dress, was himself a sloven. In answer to the declama-
tions of Puritans and Quakers against showy decorations of
the human figure, he once exclaimed: " Oh! let us not be
found, when the Master calls us, ripping the lace off our
waistcoats, but the spirit of contention from our souls and
tongues. Alas ! sir, a man who cannot get to heaven in a
green coat, will not find his way thither the sooner in a gray
one." Coleridge dressed so shabbily that it is said Dorothy
Wordsworth, on his first visit to the Lake country, mistook
him for the Southeys' groom or gardener. The Southeys had
desired to send a message to Wordsworth, and Coleridge,
who was their guest, volunteered to carry it. He met Miss
Wordsworth (who dressed as carelessly as himself) at the
back door, and did his errand, believing her to be the cook.
She, mistaking him for a servant too, offered him some
beer. The mistakes were not explained until Coleridge was
formally introduced to the lady later in the day.
Sir Isaac Newton was utterl}* neglectful of care in dress.
When at Cambridge, he would sometimes go to dine at
Trinity Hall with shoes down at the heels, stockings
untied, surplice on, and his hair scarcely combed. Pro-
fessor Wilson would go to his class-room in Edinburgh, with
a week's beard on his chin, to lecture on moral philosoph}*.
Beethoven often ignored the barber, and once let his beard
grow till it was two feet long. His hair was equally
neglected, becoming so thick and stiff that he could hardly
keep his hat on, while his shaggy clothes made him look
like a bear.
100 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
Great minds, that have been singularly free from other
weaknesses, have boasted of their descent, and shown a
strange love of titles, stars, ribbons, and garters. Occa-
sionally we find that an eminent man thinks it better to be
the founder of a great house than its disreputable survivor.
When a Marshal of France, Duke of Abrantes, and Gov-
ernor of Paris, was taunted with the obscurity of his birth,
he proudly replied: " Moi, je suis mon ancetre" (T am my
own ancestor). Lord Chesterfield, not subscribing to the
saying of his maternal grandfather, Lord Halifax, that " the
contempt of scutcheons is as much a disease of this age as
the over-valuing them was in former times/' delighted in
ridiculing pedigree and heralds. He wrote against birth in
the u World," and hung up among his ancestors two por-
traits, "Adam de Stanhope" and "Eve de Stanhope."
The same philosophic indifference to the distinction of birth
was manifested by Svdne} r Smith, who, in reference to
Lockhart's attempt to make out an irreproachable pedigree
for Sir Walter Scott, said : " When Lady Lansdowne asked
me about my grandfather, I told her he disappeared about
the time of the assizes, and we asked no questions." But
such a contempt for blue blood is rare even among men who
in other things are the ver\~ t3 r pes of good sense. Julius
Caesar Scaliger, one of the vainest of learned men, claimed
to be descended from a princely house ; and his son Joseph
glorified the family so highly in a short biographic notice,
that their antagonist, Scioppius, called " the grammatical
cur," professed to have counted 499 lies in a work of about
fifteen pages. The Emperor Maximilian had a mania for
being traced to Noah. Sages remonstrated, and coun-
sellors coaxed in vain, till he was cured by his cook, who
said : " As it is, I reverence 3*011 as a kind of god ; but if
THE WEAKNESSES OF GREAT; 'MEN. l^
3*ou insist on being derived from Noah, I must hail }*our
majesty as a cousin." The rugged Puritan, Cromwell,
whose massive and masculine mind had no superior in his
day, longed to be called king. Macaulay's asthmatic hero,
William III., took a childish pleasure in wearing the
crown of the kingdom and the royal robes. Louis Philippe
was greatly dissatisfied because he was not permitted to
style himself Louis XIX., and to be hailed king of
France and Navarre, instead of simply king of France.
His ruffled feelings were smoothed somewhat when the
Queen of England conferred on him the Order of the Garter.
Morgagni, the anatomist, could not forgive a professional
brother who had quoted from him without prefixing to his
name the address illustrissime. In one of his medical
works the celebrated Haller cited a large number of au-
thors worth}' of reference, and indicated the comparative
value of their respective works by the presence or absence
of one or more stars. There is no telling, says a distin-
guished plrysician, how many authors were amazed and irri-
tated because no stars were attached to their names.
Sir William Hamilton spent a great deal of time and
pains in establishing his claim to a baronetcy. Writing
to his mother, he says : U I wish 3*011 would give me a gen-
teeler appellation on the back of 3*our next letter ; " and ends
with, "Your affectionate son, W. S. Hamilton, Esq. Re-
member that." Finding by her next letter that his mother
did not " remember that," he threatens, if the neglect be
repeated, to direct his letters to her, Elizabeth Hamilton,
without any ceremony. Perhaps if he had devoted the
time thus wasted to metaphysical study, the philosophy of
the Unconditioned Infinite, or Absolute, would not have
fallen into such a maze of contradiction as it did. Lord
PLACES, AND THINGS.
Byron had no patience with the magistrate who forgot to
give him his title of peer of England. Even when titles have
been scorned by those to whom they have been offered, the
refusal has often betrayed as much vanity as has prompted
others to parade them. This affected humility reminds
one of the saying of Alexander when some one in his hear-
ing praised Antipater, because he wore black, while his
colleagues wore purple: "Yes, but Antipater is all purple
within." Baron Steuben probably did not affect the
deadly fear he manifested lest some American college
should make him a Doctor of Laws. Having to pass
through a college town in which Lafayette had been thus
dubiously honored, the old warrior halted his men and
said : ' ' You shall spur de horse vel, and ride troo de town
like de debbil ; for if dey catch }"ou, de} r make one
doctor of you." When Pope Alexander VI., in order to
silence Savonarola, offered him the archbishopric of
Florence, with the prospect of a cardinal's (red) hat, the
monk was no doubt sincerely indignant; but there is
a shade of vainglory in his reply, thundered from the
pulpit: 41 I will have no hat but that of the martyr, red
with my own blood ! " What Bacon so finely says of noble
birth, applies to all titles and distinctions: " Nobilitatem
nemo contemnit, nisi cui abest ; nemo jactitat, nisi cui
nihil aliud est quo glorietur." A recent writer observes that
" the virtue of some persons is unpleasantly ferocious. One
cannot help regretting, for instance, that Bentham, when
the Czar sent him a diamond ring, did not decline it if
he must have declined it with less of a flourish of
trumpets. There is something that jars on one's mind
in that message about its not being his mission to receive
diamond rings from emperors, but to teach nations the
THE WEAKNESSES OF GREAT MEN. 103
lessons of wisdom, or words much to that effect. Who
had ever supposed that it was his mission to receive
diamond rings from anybody?"
A volume would not suffice to enumerate all the varieties
of self-indulgence to which great men have been addicted,
especially in regard to things edible and potable. Here
the extremes of humanity meet ; the weaknesses of great
men showing little difference from those of little men.
Among the ancients, Plato, Socrates, Aristophanes, Euri-
pides, Alcaeus, and Horace drank wine freely ; and we are
told by the last-named that even the austere old Cato is re-
lated to have often warmed under the influence of wine :
" Narratur et prisci Catonis
Sacpe mero caluisse virtus."
Tasso, in spite of the remonstrances of his physicians, aggra-
vated his mental irritability by his potations. Goethe was
fond of wine, and drank daily his two or three bottles. He
sat a long while over his glass, chatting gayly, and then
either received friends, or went to the theatre, where at six
a glass of punch was brought to him. Schiller, who was a
night-worker, wrote at one time under the influence of a
bottle of Rhenish and strong coffee, at another time under
that of champagne, with which he would lock himself up
in the evening, and stimulate his jaded brain during the
hours of the night. He used also to munch bread continually
while composing. Ben Jonson was a hard drinker, and
it is estimated that every line of his poetry cost him a
cup of sack. Canary was his favorite drink ; after drench-
ing his brain freely with which, he would, according to
Aubrey, " tumble home to bed," and, " when he had
thoroughly perspired, would then to study." James I.
104 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
gave him, besides his salary as poet-laureate, a tierce
of his favorite wine, his fondness for which won for him,
at last, the nickname of " Canary-bird." Aubrey says
of Prynne's "manner of studie," that u about every three
hours his man was to bring him a roll and a pott of ale,
to refocillate his wasted spirits ; so he studied and drank,
and they maintained him till night, when he made a good
supper." The poet Savage often spent in a night's revelry
the borrowed money which would have saved him from
privation and annoyance for a week. Churchill drank
stimulants to excess, and Hogarth has satirized his love
of porter by picturing him as a bear with a mug of that
liquor in its paw. Adclison bounded his walk at Holland
House by a bottle of port at each end, and sometimes
lingered so long over the bottle that he was compelled
to apologize for his writing, rendered illegible by his shaky
hand. The only excuses that can be given for his intem-
perance are, that he was of a cold temperament, and that
he was married to a middle-aged shrew who looked upon
him as a being utterty beneath her, and hardly showed him
more respect than she showed to her footman.
Pitt and Fox both drank wine to excess. The favorite
stimulant of the former was port w r ine ; it was perhaps
in his case a needful tonic, and his head was so strong
that neither the public business nor his public speeches
often suffered from the indulgence. Only once did his
friends discover an excess of vinous excitation in his
oratory, and that was when he replied one evening after
dinner to a personal attack upon himself. Next day the
clerk assistant of the House told the Speaker that Pitt's
extravagance of the night before had given him a violent
headache. On hearing this, Pitt laughingly declared it
THE WEAKNESSES OF GREAT MEN. 105
to be an excellent arrangement: "I had the wine, and
the clerk got the headache." Sheridan was fond of claret,
and we owe the completion of one of his most brilliant
plays, the "Critic," to the inspiration it afforded. The
piece had been advertised for performance at Drury Lane
Theatre, but had not been finished, much less rehearsed.
The managers were impatient, but their importunities were
unavailing. Finally, by a clever trick, the rest of the play
was coaxed out of him at the eleventh hour. After dinner
Sheridan was decoyed into the managers' room, and then
locked up in company with writing materials, a good fire,
a tray of sandwiches, and two bottles of claret ; his per-
secutors whispering through the key-hole their intention
to keep him prisoner till he should have finished both
the wine and the farce. Under this lene tormentum he
scribbled away for into the night, finished the farce,
and wound up the night with a fresh carousal among his
colleagues. Blackstone wrote his " Commentaries " under
the influence of successive bottles of that wine (port)
which, Bentley said, claret would be if it could. The
frigid, cautious author of the u Pleasures of Hope " was,
according to Barry Cornwall, '* very vivacious, not to say
riotous, in his cups." Rogers, after going to see his statue,
observed : " It is the first time that I have seen him stand
straight for many years." Porson, the giant of classic
lore, " the greatest philosopher of the age," as Macatilay
calls him, was often tipsy with drink. Byron, who saw
him at Cambridge, says: "I can never recollect him ex-
cept as drunk or brutal, and generally both, I mean in
an evening. ... He used to recite, or rather vomit, pages
of all languages, and could hiccough Greek like a Helot ;
and certainly Sparta never shocked her children with a
106 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
grosser exhibition than this man's intoxication." "I met
him at various hours," says Rogers, the poet, " when he got
completely drunk. He would not scruple to return to the
dining-room, after the company had left it, pour into a
tumbler the drops remaining in the wine-glasses, and drink
off the omnium-gatherum." Once at a supper-party he
sat till the bottles were drained and the lights went out ;
when he rose and muttered, ovSe roSe ovSe T aAAo, the
point of which persons familiar with Greek will at once
perceive. Fielding, Steele, and Sterne sat too long over
their cups. Byron sought his inspiration in a bottle of
Hollands. Poor Keats, stung by the ridicule of the envious,
flew to dissipation for relief. For six months, if we may
believe Haydon, the painter, he was hardly ever sober;
" and to show 3*011 what a man of genius does when his
passions are roused, he told me that he once covered his
tongue and throat, as far as he could reach, with cayenne
pepper, in order to enjoy 'the delicious coolness of claret
in all its glory.' The last time I saw him was at Hamp-
stead, lying on his back in a white bed, helpless, irritable,
and hectic. ... He muttered, as I stood by him, that
if he did not recover, he would ' cut his throat .' . . .
Poor dear Keats ! "
Instead of in wine and stronger alcoholic stimulants,
many eminent men have sought refreshment or inspiration
in tea and coffee, beverages which the amiable William
Cobbett denounces as " slops." Voltaire was excessively
fond of coffee, and in his old age drank fifty cups a day,
which greatly hurt his digestion, and hastened his death.
The abstemious Balzac was fond of the same drink, though
it seems to have acted upon his temperament very much as
laudanum upon others. When he sat down at his desk,
THE WEAKNESSES OF GREAT MEN. 107
which was at midnight, his servant used to place coffee
within his reach ; and upon this he worked till his full brain
would drive his starved and almost sleepless bod}" into such
self- forgetful ness that he often found himself at daybreak,
bare-headed and in dressing-gown and slippers, in the
Place du Carrousel, not knowing how he came there, and
miles from home. Sir James Mackintosh had such a fond-
ness for coffee that he went so far as to say that the powers
of a man's mind would generally be found to be propor-
tioned to the amount of that stimulant he drank. The
illustrious Kant always took a single cup of tea and half a
pipe after rising at five in the morning, and over them laid
out his plan of work for the day. Sir James Scarlett once
saw Porson drink sixteen cups of tea, one after another, at
Baynes's chambers in Gray's Inn ; but this was an innocent
beverage, compared with others that he indulged in. Dr.
Parr, having been asked, after he had drunk a dozen cups
of tea at the table of a lady friend, if he would have an-
other, replied, in the language of Catullus : " Non possum
tecum vivere, nee sine te." It was said of Dr. Johnson
that his tea-kettle was^ never diy. The teapot he generall}'
used was a huge one, holding not less than three quarts.
It was of old Oriental porcelain, painted and gilded, and
from its capacity was well suited to the demands of one
" whose kettle had no time to cool, who with tea solaced
the midnight hour, and with tea welcomed the morn." Tea
to him was like sack toFalstaff; it " ascended him into the
brain," made it " apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of nim-
ble, fiery, and delectable shapes ; " and his learning " was a
mere hoard, kept by a devil," till tea unlocked it and " set
it in act and use." But of all tea-drinkers, William Hazlitt,
the writer and critic, was the most intemperate. He would,
108 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
according to Douglas Jerrolcl, sit over his breakfast, of
exceedingly strong black tea and a toasted French roll,
four or live hours, silent, motionless, and self-absorbed,
like a Turk over his opium-pouch. It was the only stimu-
lant or luxury he ever took, and he was very fastidious
about its quality, using always the most expensive kind,
and consuming, when he lived alone, about a pound a week.
He always made his tea himself, half filling the teapot
with tea, pouring boiling water upon it, and then almost
immediately pouring it out, and mingling with it a great
quantity of sugar and cream. Such a brewage must have
been delicious, indeed Jerrold says there was fascination
in it, but as a dally stimulant it must have been most
deleterious ; and as Hazlitt died from a disease of the
digestive organs, it probabty hastened his death. " Te
teneam, moriens," he might have said, " deficiente manu."
Cowpers fondness for kt the cup that cheers, but not inebri-
ates," has given us one of the most pleasing pictures in the
^ Task."
Illustrious as is the roll of tipplers, it is hardly longer
than that of the illustrious bons vivants and gluttons. A
celebrated French lady had the courage to say that she
would commit a baseness for the sake of fried potatoes.
An English king died of eating lampreys, who was one of
the most noted statesmen and warriors of his age. Philip
II. of Spain ruined his digestion by excessive indulgence
in pastry. Louis XIV. had che appetite of an ogre ; and
so had Anne of Austria, who, according to a female writer
of royal blood, ate in a manner perfectly frightful four
times a day. To her voracity some authorities have as-
cribed the disease of which she died. The Empress Eliza-
beth of Russia was both a glutton and a drunkard.
THE WEAKNESSES OF GREAT MEN. 109
Ariosto bad a ravenous appetite for turnips. Handel ate
enormously, and when he dined at a tavern, always ordered
dinner for three. When told that the meal would be ready
as soon as the company should arrive, he would exclaim :
" Den pring up de dinner prestissimo ; I am de company."
Beethoven, who was far from epicurean in his tastes, yet
had strange whims at the table and over his food. He
always made his coffee himself, in a glass apparatus, and
religiously counted sixty beans to each cup. Soup was his
favorite dish ; but it was hard to make it so as to please
him, and he said of a servant who had told him a falsehood,
that she was not pure at heart, and therefore could not
make good soup. He punished his cook for the staleness
of some eggs by throwing the whole batch at her one by
one. Fontcnelle thought strawberries were the most de-
licious of all edibles, and during his last illness was con-
stantly exclaiming: " If I can but reach the season of
strawberries ! " Goethe had an immense appetite, and ate
more than most men even on the days when he complained
of not being hungry. It should be added, however, that
except a cup of chocolate at eleven, he took no refreshment
till two o'clock. Bolingbroke was a moderate eater; but
an over-roasted leg of mutton would strangely disturb and
ruffle his temper. Pope was more epicurean in his tastes,
and when staying at Bolingbroke's house, would lie in bed
for days together, unless he heard there would be stewed
lampre}*s for dinner, when he would at once get up and
appear at the table.
Dr. Johnson had a keen relish for a leg of mutton, and
for a veal-pie with plums. " At my Aunt Field's," he once
said, " I ate so much of a leg of mutton that she used to
talk of it." Being once treated to a dish of new honey and
110 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
clouted cream, he indulged his appetite to such an excess
that his entertainer was alarmed. Dr. Parr had a voracious
appetite for hot lobsters with shrimp sauce. Byron was
particularly fond of eggs and bacon, to which he would
treat himself, though he knew the inevitable result would
be an attack of indigestion. Leigh Hunt loved late suppers,
at which he would indulge in the most indigestible food,
notwithstanding he had repeatedly suffered from it. A
friend of his states that he called on him one evening at
nine, when Leigh Hunt saluted him thus: " I am eating
my supper, you see. Do you eat supper? If you do, take
my advice, and have regularly every night, at nine o'clock
precisely, three eggs boiled hard, with bread and butter.
There is not, I assure you, anything more wholesome for
supper. One sleeps so soundly, too," etc. The next
Friday evening his friend called again, and found that he
was eating a Welsh rarebit, with mustard, etc. " How are
you?" exclaimed Hunt. "I am just eating supper, you
see. Do you ever eat supper? If }*ou do, I pray 3*011
never take boiled eggs ; they are, without any exception,
the most indigestible, nightmare-producing things you can
eat. They have nearly killed me. No ; the lightest and
most palatable supper I have ever taken is a Welsh rarebit
with some Scotch ale. This is the second day I have taken
it, and I do assure you," etc. On Monday next it would
be liver and bacon, or what } T OU will.
The amusements of eminent men have been in many
cases odd and eccentric to the last degree. One of the
kings of Macedon spent his leisure in making lanterns,
and Louis XVI. delighted in making locks. Dornitian
spent hours in killing flies. Cardinal Richelieu, when tired
of contending with the French nobles and baffling hostile
THE WEAKNESSES OF GREAT MEN. Ill
plots, amused himself with violent exercise, and would con-
tend with his servant to see which could jump the higher.
Oliver Cromwell is said to have occasionally relaxed his
puritanic severit}*, and played blind-man's-buff with his
daughters and attendants. The great metaphysician and
theologian, Dr. Samuel Clarke, in the intervals of the time
spent in confuting Hobbes, Leibnitz, and Spinoza, would
leap over the tables and chairs in his study, or play at
all fours with children. Once, seeing a pedant approach-
ing, he exclaimed : ;t Now we must leave off, for a fool is
coming ! " The favorite recreation of Spinoza was to catch
spiders and see them fight ; and when he had learned how
to make them as angry as gamecocks, he would, all thin
and feeble as he was, break out into a roar of laughter, and
chuckle to sec his champions engage, as if they, like men,
were fighting for honor! Anthony Magliabecchi, the fa-
mous linguist, was also fond of spiders, and while sitting
among the piles of books in the Duke of Tuscany's library,
would tell his visitors " not to hurt his spiders." The
Italian poet Alfieri had a passion for horses, of which he
at one time bought fourteen in England. He ranked this
as third in intensit} 7 among his passions, the Count-
ess of Albany being first, and the Tragic Muse second.
His tone and humor for the da}' are said to have de-
pended on the neigh or whimper of the favorite horse,
which he fed every morning with his own hand. Dr.
Paley's favorite amusement was angling, and he had his
portrait painted with a fishing-rod in his hand. The heroic
Nelson, and Daniel Webster, who " in bait and debate was
equally persuasive," sought relief from " carking care" in
fishing. Gray the poet thought the ideal of earthly hap-
piness was to be always lying on a sofa, reading eternally
112 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
new novels of Marivaux and Crebillon. Shelley took a boy-
ish delight in floating little paper boats on lakelets or little
ponds. A pond on Hampstead Heath often bore his tiny
craft ; and it is said that one day, as he stood by the Ser-
pentine, having no other paper with which to indulge his
passion, he actually folded a Bank of England note for fifty
pounds into the shape of a boat, launched the little vessel
upon its vo}~age, watched its stead3 T progress with anxious
delight, and finally walked round and received it safely on
the opposite side.
The anecdotes told of the oddities, eccentricities, and
absence of mind of great men sometimes almost stagger
belief. Archimedes, at the taking of Sj'racuse, was so ab-
sorbed in a geometrical problem that, when a soldier was
about to kill him, he simply exclaimed: "Noli turbare
circulos meos/' Joseph Scaliger was so engrossed with the
study of Homer during the massacre of Saint Bartholomew,
that it was only on the next day that he was aware of his
own escape from it. Vieta, the great mathematician, was
so lost in meditation that he was utterl}* unconscious of
what was going on around him, and for hours seemed more
like a dead person than a living. Sir Isaac Newton often
forgot to dine ; and when reminded of it, would say : "Have
I ? " and then would eat a bit or two standing. When he
had friends to entertain, he would sometimes go into his
study to fetch a bottle of wine, and then forget them.
Once, when he was going home to Cottersworth from Grant-
ham, he led his horse up the steep Spittlegate hill ; but
when he turned to remount, he found that the horse was
not to be seen. Taking advantage of his master's reverj^,
the sagacious steed had slipped the bridle and gone off
without his knowledge, leaving only the bridle in his hands.
THE WEAKNESSES OF GREAT MEN. 113
On another occasion Newton used a lady's finger as a
tobacco-stopper. Another absent-minded man, whom La
Bruyere would have delighted to portray, was Dr. Robert
Hamilton, one of the profoundest philosophical thinkers of
his day. He was at times so completely absorbed in his
own reflections as to lose the perception of external things,
and almost the consciousness of his own identity and ex-
istence. One of his most notable works was an essa}' on
the National Debt, which is said to have fallen like a bomb-
shell upon the English Parliament, or rather to have risen
and illuminated its darkness like an orient sun. In all
his writings one knows not which most to admire, the pro-
found and accurate science, the logical arrangement, or the
lucid expression. Yet in public, it is said, the man was a
shadow. lie pulled off' his hat to his own wife in the
streets, and apologized for not having the pleasure of her
acquaintance ; went to his classes in college, on dark morn-
ings, with one of his wife's white stockings on one leg, and
one of his own black ones on the other ; often spent the
whole time of the session in moving from the table the hats
of the students, which they as constantly returned ; some-
times invited the students to call upon him, and then fined
them for coming to insult him. He would run against a
cow in the road, turn round, and say, " I beg your pardon,
madam, I hope you are not hurt ; " at another time he
would run against a post, and chide it for not getting out
of his way ; and yet we are told that his conversation was
" perfect logic and perfect music." The great Budasus
acUiall}* forgot his wedding-da3 T , and, when sought for, was
found buried deep in his Commentaiy.
One of the most absent-minded men that ever lived was
Beethoven, a peculiarity which involved him in many
8
114 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
troubles. Once a crowd was found under his window,
watching him with wonder and merriment. Beethoven had
risen from bed, and was standing at the window in his
night-shirt, meditating chords and discords, until the noise
of the spectators below roused him from his revery. At
another time he was strolling upon the ramparts of Vienna,
with his hands clasped behind him, lost in thought, and
was roused from his abstraction only by the laughter and
shouts of a party of schoolbo3~s. For some time he was
puzzled to know what made the boys so merry. The fact
was, he had come from home to think over a composition
upon which he was engaged, and though the weather was
rough and blustering, he had left his hat upon the table,
and never missed it till the boj's reminded him of its ab-
sence. At times he would even forget his invited guests,
and dine at the hotel while they were vainly waiting for
him at his quarters. He once wanted to pay for a dinner
which he had neither ordered nor eaten, and he forgot that
he owned a horse until a bill was presented to him for its
keeping. When he had occasion to take a bath, he would
stand before his bowl and compose at the same time that he
was washing himself. Sometimes he would pour pitcher
after pitcher of water over his hands or body, and all the
while keep screaming up and down the scale. Present^,
with e}'es rolling, he would stride across his chamber and
note down something, perhaps on the window-shutter ; and
then the bathing would re-begin. In moments of profound
thought he would pour floods of water over the floor, yet
be wholly unconscious of what he had done, until the land-
lord below would hurry up-stairs to protest against the
deluge that was ruining his ceiling ; upon which a warm
conflict would ensue, that would result in the composer's
THE WEAKNESSES OF GREAT MEN. 115
removal to other quarters. Beethoven had a singular and
intense hatred of etiquette. He once even abandoned a
lodging for which he had paid a heavy rent in advance, be-
cause the landlord insisted on bowing to him whenever they
met. The absent-mindedness of Adam Smith, the father
of political economy, was something amazing. Having
once to sign an official document, he produced, not his own
signature, but an elaborate imitation of the signature of the
person who had signed before him. On another occasion,
having been saluted in militaiy fashion by a sentinel on
duty, he astounded and offended the man by acknowledg-
ing it with a copy a very clumsy copy, no doubt of
the same gestures.
It is told of a noted Glasgow clerg3*man, Mr. McLaurin,
that having chanced one evening, at his son-in-law's, to see
the word TEA inscribed in large letters on a canister on
the sideboard, he stared at the mystical word for some time
without having the slightest idea of what it meant. He
then began to spell it audibly, TEA T-E-A'; but all to
no purpose. At last, utterly baffled, he turned to Dr.
Gillies. "John," he said, "what Greek word is that?"
None of the absent fits we have noted surpassed those of
Coleridge's father, of whose eccentricities the son used to
tell till the tears ran down his cheeks. Having once to go
from home for several days, the old gentleman was aided
in his preparations by his wife, who packed his portmanteau
with a shirt for each day, charging him to be sure to use
them. Finding no shirts in the portmanteau after his
return, she found, on inquiry, that he had duly obeyed
her commands, and had put on a shirt every day, but never
taken one off. There were all the shirts, not in the port-
manteau, but on his own back. In a Latin grammar which
116 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
he composed, he changed the case which Julius Caesar
named, from the Ablative to the Quale-Quare Quiditive, as
the Highgate philosopher might have done had he prepared
a grammar. The moods of abstraction in which Macaulay
not infrequently indulged are not generally known. When
he strode through the streets of London, he was usuall}' so
absorbed in thought that his lips moved and muttered un-
consciously, and he heeded none that he passed, though
persons gazed curiously at him, and stopped to stare when
he had gone by. He used to carry an umbrella, which he
swung and flourished, and battered on the pavement with
mighty thumps. Once, when dining alone in the Trafalgar
Hotel at Greenwich, the attention of other guests was at-
tracted by his peculiar muttering and fidgetiness, and by
the mute gestures with which he ever and anon illustrated
his mental dreamings. Suddenly he seized a massive de-
canter, held it a moment in the air, and then dashed it
down upon the table with such violence that the solid crys-
tal flew about in fragments. Calling loudly for his bill,
which he paid, he pulled with a couple of jerks his hat and
umbrella from the stand, and stalked awa} r as if nothing
unusual had happened. It is told of the late Dean Stanley,
who made no gestures while preaching, and stood quite
still, that one Sunday, after returning from church, he asked
his wife why the congregation looked so intently at him
during the service. " How could they help it, dear," she
replied, " when one of your gloves was on the top of your
head all the time?" It had dropped from his hat. Jona-
than Edwards was a ver} T absent-minded man. For the
sake of the exercise, he used to drive his cows to pasture.
As he was going for them one da} r , a boy opened the gate
with a respectful bow. Edvvards acknowledged the kind-
THE WEAKNESSES OF GREAT MEN. 117
ness, and asked the boy who he was. " Noah Clark's
boy," was the reply. Shortly afterward, on the theologian's
return, the same boy was at hand, and opened the gate for
him again. " Whose boy are you? " Edwards again asked.
The reply was : " The same man's boy I was a quarter of
an hour ago, sir."
Pascal, in his " Thoughts upon Religion," observes that
the soul of the greatest man living is not so independent
but it is liable to be disturbed by the least bustling about
him. " Do not be surprised if you hear him argue a little
incoherently at present ; he has a fly buzzing at his ears,
and that is enough to make him deaf to good counsel.
If you would have him informed of the truth, you must
drive away this animal, which holds his reason in check,
and discomposes that wonderful intellect which governs
cities and kingdoms." Biography teems with illustrations
of this weakness of human nature, some examples of which
the reader will find on page 249. Bayle was thrown into
convulsions whenever he heard water issuing from a spout.
Schopenhauer found noise so insupportable that he declares
that the amount a man can support with equanimity is in.
inverse proportion to his. mental powers. " If I hear a dog
barking for hours on the threshold of a house," he says, '-I
know well enough what kind of brains I may expect from
its inhabitants." Wallenstein had an equal dislike for the
barking of dogs, and even the clatter of large spurs anno}'ed
him. Dickens had on his desk some little bronze figures,
which were as indispensable for the eas} T flow of his writ-
ing as blue ink or quill pens. Alfieri was an exception to
most intellectual men, especially authors, in this respect.
His ideas flowed most freely while he was listening to
music or galloping on horseback. Montaigne tells of a
118 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
scholar whom he found at Padua. " one of the most learned
men of France," whom he saw stud}'ing in the corner of a
room, cut off by a screen, surrounded b}* a number of riotous
servants. " Pie told me and Seneca says much the same
of himself that he worked all the better for this uproar, as
though, overpowered by noise, he w r as obliged to withdraw
all the more closely into himself for contemplation, while
the storm of voices drove his thoughts inward. When at
Padua, he had lodged so long over the clattering of the traffic
and the tumult of the streets that he had been trained not
only to be indifferent to noise, but even to require it for the
prosecution of his studies."
All readers of Addison are familiar with his story of the
barrister who was accustomed, when pleading in court, to
wind a string about one of his fingers, and who, when a
cunning adversary stealthily took the string from him, was
disconcerted, and unable to proceed. Dr. Andrew Fuller
used to rise up to preach with his gloves on, and with his
hands thrust into the pockets of his trousers. As he ad-
vanced with his discourse, one hand was drawn from its
hiding-place, and in a few minutes the other ; a few minutes
more and a glove was drawn off, the other shortlj* following
it to the pulpit floor. When in the full tide of exhortation
or argument, he would unconsciously twist off a coat-button,
which habit became so confirmed that among his intimate
friends he would speak of a season of great enjoj'ment in
preaching as " a button-time." The peculiarities of Dr.
Fuller were trivial compared with the eccentricities of the
Rev. Rowland Hill, whose ministiy at Surrey Chapel, where
he preached for fifty years, Sheridan often attended, because,
as he said, " his [Rowland Hill's] ideas come red-hot from
the heart." It is said that when notices were given him,
THE WEAKNESSES OF GREAT MEN. 119
he used generally to read them aloud. When once an
impudent fellow placed a piece of paper on the desk, just
before he was going to read prayers, he took it and began :
" fc The prayers of the congregation are desired ' - umph
4 for ' umph well, I suppose I must finish what I have
begun 'for the Reverenti Rowland Hill, that he will not
go riding about in his carriage on a Sunday ! ' " Look-
ing up with the utmost coolness, the preacher said : " If the
writer of this piece of folly and impertinence is in the con-
gregation, and will go into the vestry after service, and let
me put a saddle on his back, I will ride him home, instead
of going home in my carriage." He then went on with the
service as if nothing had happened. One of the oddest of
modern litcraiy men was William Ilazlitt, who, with all his
acuteness, was the prey of the craziest fancies. Even to
his oldest friends he manifested the shyness of a recluse.
Mr. Paterson records that he would enter a room as if he
had been dragged there in custody; and after saying, "It
is a fine day," lapse into dreary silence, and apparently
resign himself moodily to his fate. If the talk did not
please him, he would sit half-absorbed and indifferent, and
then suddenly start up, and with an abrupt, " Well, good
morning!" shuffle to the door and blunder his way out.
His favorite haunt for his great talks was the Southamp-
ton Coffee-house in Southampton Buildings, Chancery
Lane. Any small slight, or the mere fact that the bill was
brought to him before he asked for it, scared him from a
chop-house or tavern for 3 7 ears. Odder and more eccentric
even than Hazlitt, was Charles Mathews, the comic actor,
who, though he entertained crowded houses nightlj T , was
one of the shyest of men. To avoid recognition he would,
lame as he was, make long circuits through the bye-lanes of
120 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
London. His wife sa}~s, in her Memoir of him, that he
looked "sheepish" and confused if recognized, and that
his eyes would fall, and his color would mount, if in passing
along the street he heard his name even whispered. Pos-
sessing many of the noblest traits of character, he had at
the same time a nervous whimsicality, an irritability about
trifles, and antipathies to particular persons, places, and
objects, which made him obnoxious to ridicule and censure.
" 1 have seen him scratch his head," sa}'s Julian Charles
Young, " and grind his teeth and assume a look of anguish,
when a haunch of venison had been carved unskilfully in
his presence. I have seen him, though in high feather and
high talk when in a sunn} r chamber, if transferred to a
badly lighted room withdraw into a corner and sit by
himself in moody silence." When giving his entertain-
ments in the country, he had always a secretary to take the
money at the doors. U I hope and believe he is honest,"
said Mathews : u but even if he is not, I could not wrangle
about mone3 T , I do so hate the very touch of it." " What ! "
exclaimed a friend incredulously, "hate money?" " I did
not sa}' that I hated money," was the reply, " but that I
hated the touch of money, I mean coin. It makes my
skin goosey."
Great men often appear to their inferiors to be freezing
aristocrats, when the}' have hearts full of kindness, and are
distant and reserved only from constitutional shyness.
Eobert Chambers speaks of a gentleman, holding one of the
highest offices in Great Britain, Avho was so shy that when-
ever, in a country walk, he found himself about to encounter
his colleague in office, he would deliberately quit the foot-
path and cross to the opposite side of the road, where he
would stand looking over the hedge and affecting to enjoy
THE WEAKNESSES OF GREAT MEN. 121
the landscape, until his friend had passed, when he would
return to the footpath and resume his walk. Archbishop
Whately, when young, was tormented with self-conscious-
ness, and suffered, as he says, " all the agonies of extreme
slyness." Finding that he " must be awkward as a bear
all his life," he resolved to think as little about it as a bear,
and from that time got rid of most of the personal suffering
of shyness, and of most of the faults of manner which con-
sciousness produces ; but his natural roughness and awk-
wardness clung to him through life. He had also certain ec-
centricities of manner which would hardly be credited if not
vouched for by his biographer. When attending the meet-
ings of the Irish Privy Council his favorite attitude in
winter was standing before the fire with his coat-tails held
up ; in summer, sitting upon a chair which he balanced
upon its hind legs, with his own legs thrown over the back
of another chair. Referring to this practice, and to the
rudeness of another member of the council, who in cold
weather would sometimes wear his hat at a meeting, a wag
observed: "The prelate in council uncovers what ought to
be hid, and the peer hides what ought to be uncovered."
Whately was not less boorish in the Castle drawing-room.
Once while waiting there one of a large party till din-
ner should be announced, he deliberately took a pair of
scissors out of a case which he carried in his pocket, and
pared his nails ; at another time, under similar circum-
stances, he was seen to throw himself into an easy-chair,
and drawing another near him, to swing one of his legs
over its back ! Even Sj'dne}' Smith, before he became
u a diner-out of the highest lustre," who could at will set
the tables in a roar, was shy in general society. " It was
not very long," he told a friend later in life, " before I
122 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
made two very useful discoveries : first, that all mankind
were not solely employed in observing me, a belief that all
young people have ; and next, that shamming was of no
use, that the world was very clear-sighted, and soon esti-
mated a man at his just value. This cured me of my shy-
ness, and I determined to be natural."
The name of Lord Chatham suggests one of the most
frequent weaknesses of the great. It is said that he was
an admirable reader of poetry, especially of Shakspeare's
historical plays ; but when he came to an episode of corned}',
he always handed the book to a relative. How finely this
incident combines with the public appearance of the great
statesman the crimson drapery, the tie-wig, the well-
managed crutch, the flannels " arranged with the air of a
Grecian drapery," the statuesque attitude, and the direction
to his under-secretaries never to sit down in his official
presence to reveal his weakness off the stage ! Probably
there never was another instance of a man of such genius,
with so lofty and commanding a spirit, who was so utterly
lacking in simplicity of character. Lord Bacon, Louis XIV.,
and Napoleon were consummate farceurs. All the actions
of Bacon were characterized by a most inordinate love of
pomp. His servants wore liveries with his crest, and he
even went in his State-robes to cheapen and buy silks at
a mercer's. Alexander Pope was an inveterate poser ; he
was always pretending an indifference to poetical reputation
and to criticism, though he was "a fool to fame" to the
latest hour of his life. Jean J. Rousseau at one period
was also a poser. He was constantly writing, and con-
stantly affecting to despise literature ; constantly scoffing
at the fashionable world, and constanth' in society. Byron
was the prince of posers. He was always wearing his heart
THE WEAKNESSES OF GREAT MEN. 123
on his sleeve, and parading his woes before the public,
describing himself as a man whose heart was withered,
whose capacitj' for happiness was gone and could never be
restored, and whose defiant spirit, alike insensible to fame
and obloquy, heeded " nor keen reproof nor partial praise."
It is ridiculous to imagine, says Macaulay, "that a man
whose mind was really imbued with scorn of his fellow-
creatures would have published three or four books every
year in order to tell them so ; or that a man who could say
with truth that he neither sought sympathy nor needed it,
would have admitted all Europe to hear his farewell to his
wife, and his blessings on his child." So far was Byron
from feeling the indifference he affected to the praise of his
fellow-men, that he was childishly elated by the compliments
paid to his maiden speech in the House of Lords.
An adequate account of the inconsistencies and contra-
dictions of great men would fill volumes. Who is not
familiar with the history of Seneca, who in his elegant
pages "raises altars to Poverty," and denounces with
burning indignation the corruption of Rome and the ex-
tortion in the provinces, yet amassed by extortion and
usuiy a fortune of fifteen million dollars ; who wrote a
work on clemenc}*, yet had a large part of Nero's atrocities
upon his conscience? With what admiration we read of
the noble and philosophical Cato, who, before putting an
end to his life, spent some time in meditating with Plato
on the immortality of the soul ; yet what a shock we feel,
when we learn that just before doing this he gave his at-
tendant a blow on the mouth, because he had removed his
sword from fear that his master was about to do himself
harm ! The effect upon our minds is like that we experi-
ence when we read that the accomplished and bewitching
124 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
Queen of Egypt, who captivated Julius Caesar and Mark
Antony by her charms, flew, even in the presence of Octa-
vius, at one of her slaves and tore his face with her nails.
One of the greatest geniuses the world has ever known
was Leonardo da Vinci. Nature showered upon him a
multitude of the choicest gifts in her storehouse, }*et envi-
ously withheld others which she bestows upon common men.
Destitute, apparentl}', of patriotism and of political sense,
as well as of independence of spirit, he was throughout his
life a virtual slave. Lacking thrift, and the means of sup-
port which it gives, he was compelled to place his magnifi-
cent gifts at the disposal of others, first, of Lodovico
Sforza of Milan, next of the infamous Caesar Borgia, and
lastly of Louis XII. of France, the enemy of his country.
Rousseau was a bundle of inconsistencies and contradic-
tions. One day he would declare his certainty that God
exists of himself ; a few days after, he would say : " Frankly,
I confess that neither the pro nor the con [on the existence
of God] appears to me demonstrated." He wrote against
dramatic performances, and composed several operas ; in-
voked parental care for infancy, and sent his own children
to a foundling hospital; confessed a hundred acts of base-
ness, 3*et vaunted himself as a paragon of men. At one
time he apostasized for the sake of gain, that he might live
on the bount} T of his friends ; at another, too proud to re-
ceive any one's bounty, he condemned himself to copy music
at six sous a page. Of Dean Swift it has been said that,
intellectually and morall}', physically and religiously, he
was a mass of contradictions. Suffering all his life from
disease, he was yet capable of great endurance, and lived
to a good age, though he spoke but twice during his
last three years. Though he hated Ireland, where he died
THE WEAKNESSES OF GREAT MEN. 125
" like a poisoned rat in a hole," he defended the rights of
' the scoundrel isle " when his courage might have cost him
his head. Economical and saving to the last degree, he }*et
was liberal to the poor and indigent ; begrudging the food
and wine consumed by a guest, he never took any pa}' for his
writings, and bequeathed all his fortune to a charitable in-
stitution. Maintaining Steele by his influence in au office
of which the Government was about to deprive him, he soon
after by his pen caused him to be expelled from the House
of Commons ; ambitious to be a bishop, he wrote a work
which effectually prevented his rising to dignity in the very
Church which his book sought to exalt. Laying the founda-
tions of fortune for upward of fort}* families, who rose to
distinction by a word from his lips, he could not advance
himself in England a single inch.
Like Swift, the poet Young aspired to a bishopric, which,
with a malicious ingenuity that must have keenl}' irritated
him, was refused by the minister on the ground of the
devotion to retirement so often expressed in his works.
Through nearly all his life he was an inveterate place-
hunter, and, to secure preferment, veered with the wind
and trimmed his sail to every breeze ; yet he never got
anything save the appointment of chaplain to George II.,
and clerk of the closet to the princess-dowager. When
appointed to the chaplainc}*, he withdrew his play of the
" Brothers," then in rehearsal at a London theatre, and sud-
denly professed a profound aversion for the stage ; }'et
afterward returned to it again. After having spent his best
days in toadying and place-hunting, he passed his old age
in satirizing the pursuits in which he had failed, and the
dignities to which he could not attain. Few persons could
write more admirably on politeness than Dr. Johnson ; yet
126 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
if opposed in discussion, the prompt and blunt " You lie,
sir ! " " You don't understand the question, sir ! " were his
favorite modes of silencing an adversary. Dr. Parr states
that he was once disputing with Johnson about the liberty
of the press. "While he was arguing," says Parr, " I
observed that he stamped. Upon this, I stamped. Dr.
Johnson said: 'Why do you stamp, Dr. Parr?' I re-
plied : ' Sir, because you stamped ; and I was resolved not
to give you the advantage even of a stamp in that argu-
ment.'" More inconsistent, if possible, than Swift, Young,
or Johnson, was Robert Southey. It is doubtful if any
other human being of equal eminence ever held during his
life so many contradictoiy opinions as the author of
" Kehama." A freethinker and a Unitarian; an orthodox
believer and a heterodox Churchman ; a socialist and a re-
publican ; an opponent of Catholic rights and a stickler
for the rights of conscience, he branded Byron as chief of
the Satanic school, }*et wrote his own " Vision of Judg-
ment," which in irreverent handling of Heaven's m}'ster-
ies out-Byrons B3'ron. Declaring in his "Life of Cowper"
that the author of the "Task" is the most popular poet
of his generation, he asserts in a letter that Cowper's pop-
ularit} 1 is owing to his piet}', not to his poetry, and that
his piety is craziness. Groaning continually over the pop-
ular ignorance, he was eternally denouncing the London
University and mechanics' institutes.
Colton, the author of "Lacon," was a desperate gam-
bler, and ran deeply in debt for diamonds, jewels, and
rare wines. Preferring suicide to the endurance of a pain-
ful surgical operation, he in 1832 blew out his brains at
Fontainebleau ; and this was the act of the man who, in
his sententious book, had published this aphorism: "The
THE WEAKNESSES OF GREAT MEN. 127
gamester, if he die a martyr to his profession, is doubly
ruined. He adds his soul to every other loss, and by the
act of suicide renounces earth to forfeit heaven ! " In Na-
poleon Bonaparte we find a strange assemblage of opposite
qualities, such as few ancient or modern despots exhibit.
Possessing the keenest and coldest of intellects and the
most inflexible of iron wills, he was yet at times as ca-
pricious as a woman and as fretful as a child. At one
time organizing and executing with the utmost wisdom and
energy stupendous and complicated schemes, he falls at
another time into blunders which the most commonplace
intellect might have avoided. Full ordinarily of coolness
and self-possession in moments of imminent peril, he
sometimes in such crises relapses into an unaccountable
ennui. When the Allies, before the battle of Leipsic, were
gathering around him in their utmost strength, he was wav-
ering and uncertain in his purposes, and reluctant to de-
cide on a retreat. An eye-witness relates that he saw him
seated on a sofa beside a table on which lay his charts,
totally unemployed, unless in scribbling mechanically large
letters on a sheet of white paper, and that at a time when,
to use his own words, " nothing but a thunderbolt could
have saved him."
The weaknesses of great men which we have thus far
noticed are comparatively venial ; but what shall we say of
the absolute lack of truthfulness and of principle which
some celebrated men have exhibited? Pythagoras, the
influence of whose teaching endured in Greece for six cen-
turies, has been called " a demi-god in his ends, and an
impostor in his means." He persuaded his followers that
he had a golden thigh, and that, agreeably to his doctrine
of the transmigration of souls, his soul had animated the
128 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
body of -<Ethalides, and in the Trojan war that of Euphor-
bus. He even, in the temple of Juno at Argos, pointed to
the shield which, as Euphorbus, he had borne in battle.
The Rev. Whit well El win, one of the latest and ablest biog-
raphers and editors of Pope, has shown that he was even a
worse liar and hypocrite than he was before supposed to
be ; and Mr. Lee shows the author of " Robinson Crusoe "
bowing in the house of Rimmon, and rivalling as a political
turncoat the most unprincipled politicians of our own times.
Mr. Minto, in his still later Life of De Foe, comes reluc-
tantly to the conclusion that " he was a great, a truly great
liar, perhaps the greatest liar that ever lived." Of Sir
Richard Steele, who wrote such admirable moral essays in
the " Spectator," it has been said that his life was spent
in sinning and repenting ; in inculcating what was right,
and in doing what was wrong. "In speculation," says
Macaula}*, " he was a man of piet} T and honor; in practice
he was much of the rake, and a little of the swindler." He
would write a treatise against drinking, and leave it unfin-
ished while he got drunk with a friend at an ale-house, or
slept in an armchair with two empt}* bottles beside him.
Swift said of him that he was the worst company in the
world till he had a bottle of wine in his head. " Do Steele
a good turn," said the Dean, "and he is your enemy for
ever." It is well known that he lampooned the minister
who had made him "gazetteer" and raised his salary from
60 to 300 a year. When Steele was once reproached by
Mr. Whiston for having given in the House of Commons
some votes contrary to his formerly professed opinions, he
coolly replied: "Mr. Whiston, you can walk on foot, but
I cannot." A coach had become to Steele so indispensa-
ble, that rather than do without it he would abandon some
THE WEAKNESSES OF GREAT MEN. 129
of his most cherished principles and expose himself to
the most odious imputations. It is hard to believe that
Dr. Pale}*, notwithstanding the " expediency" doctrine of
his " Moral Philosophy," could have advocated, in his
coarsely provincial dialect, the use of " braibery and cor-
rooption ; " but so he appears to have done at the Hyson
Club, a liberal association at Cambridge. " Win*," said
he, when challenged for his reasons, " no one is so mad as
to wish to be governed by force, and no one is such a fool
as to expect to be governed b}* virtue ; so what remains,
tell me, but ' braibery and corrooption ' ? " Paley was, on
principle, slow to pay debts. " Never pay mooney," he
used to say, " till you can't help it; soomething may hap-
pen." On the other hand, he always made his wife and
daughters pay ready cash. ik It's of no use," he used to
say with a patient shrug, " to desire the women to buy
only what they want ; they will always imagine they want
what they wish to buy ; but that paying ready moone}' is
such a check upon their imagination ! " When Paley rose
in the Church he set up a carriage, and by his wife's direc-
tions his arras were painted on the panels. They were
copied from the engraving on a silver cup which Mrs.
Paley supposed to be the bearings of his family. Her
husband thought it a pity to undeceive her ; but the truth
was that he had purchased the cup at a sale.
One of the most deplorable weaknesses of a great man
which biography reveals, was the liaison of Lord Nelson
with the wife of Sir William Hamilton. The slave of an
overpowering infatuation, lie seems never for a moment to
have believed himself culpable, though in January, 1801,
Lady Hamilton gave birth to a daughter who was named
Horatia, and whose father was Lord Nelson. The delin-
9
130 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
quencies of Coleridge his addiction to opium, his ingra-
titude to his friends, and neglect of his parental and conju-
gal obligations are well known. A giant in intellect, he
was a moral dwarf. Engaged to dine with an acquaintance,
he stayed at home ; engaged to deliver a lecture on the De-
cline of the Roman Empire, for tickets to which he had
received the mone}*, he sat smoking in his room, oblivious
of both audience and subject ; engaged to furnish Cottle
with " cop}'," he never had it ready in time, in short, in
the ordinary affairs of life he was a man of infinite promi-
ses, and of infinitesimally small performance. Few persons
have had more intense and violent prejudices. One of his
antipathies was an insuperable aversion to la grande
nation, which he never cared to conceal. " I hate," he
used to say, " the holjowness of French principles ; I hate
the hostility of the French people to revealed religion; I
hate the artificiality of French cooking ; I hate the acidity
of French wines ; I hate the flimsiness of the French lan-
guage, m}' very organs of speech are so anti-Gallican that
the}* refuse to pronounce intelligibly their insipid tongue."
In justification of his invectives against the hollowness and
immorality of the French character, especially that of the
women, he told Julian Charles Young, the actor, an anecdote
of the duplicity of Madame de Stae'l. As he was sitting one
day with that lady in London, her man-servant entered the
room and asked if she would receive Lady Davey. Raising
her ej'ebrows and shrugging her shoulders, she seemed to
shudder with nausea as she replied: "Ah, ma foi ! oh,
mon cher ami, ayez pitie de moi ! Mais quoi faire? Cette
vilaine femme ! comme je la deteste ! Elle est, vraiment,
insupportable ! " Yet on the entr}' of the " vilaine femme"
Madame de Stae'l flung her arms around her, kissed her on
THE WEAKNESSES OF GREAT MEN. 131
both cheeks, pressed her to her bosom, and told her that she
was more than enchanted to behold her. Who, in reading
the story of Napoleon's campaigns, has not been thrilled by
the accounts given of the fiery and heroic courage, always
most stubborn in the most desperate circumstances, of Mar-
shal Ney? -Yet in the degree that we have admired his
matchless valor must we be pained to learn that he who,
after having had five horses shot under him at Waterloo,
led the last desperate charge of the Guard with unflinching
intrepidity, had previously taken an oath to support Louis
XVIII., and sworn to that monarch that he would drag
Napoleon to him in an iron cage.
A story is told of Berryer which shows a contempt for
truth that is almost incredible in the statesman and advocate
who dared to defend Ney at his trial, and to oppose the
coup d'etat of 1852. It is said that, when a young man,
with fame and fortune yet to win, he was at a loss whether
to range himself on the side of the Church and King, or for
the principles of '89. Unable, after much inward debate,
to decide between the arguments for atheism and repub-
licanism on the one hand, and those for religion and legi-
timism on the other, he gave up the task in disgust, and
decided the course of his life in a strange and unparalleled
waj*. He took a louis-d'or from his pocket and tossed it
up, saying: "Heads, king; tail, republic." Heads it
proved ; and from that moment Berryer became the sworn
champion of legitimism, which he supported to his dying
da}'. The immorality of Berryer's decision was hardly
greater than that of the advice said to have been given by
Keble to Arnold when the latter was troubled with doubts
concerning the doctrine of the Trinity. Keble counselled
his friend to take a living, and preach incessantly to his
132 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
parishioners the doctrine in which he only half believed,
by wa}' of strengthening his own faith. Keble's faith was
so unquestioning that he probably could not conceive of
another's doubt as sincere and well-founded.
Meanness, avarice, and penuriousness have been too
often associated with genius and fame. It has been said
of Lord Bacon that in him the intellect of a Solomon was
yoked to the spirit of a slave and the conscience of a house-
maid. Where, indeed, shall we find elsewhere a genius so
lofty, so insatiable a thirst for knowledge, and so honorable
a desire for peaceful and studious retirement, united to an
ambition so servile and a baseness so repulsive ? That the
same hand that wrote the " Novum Organum" could com-
mit to paper some of the most fawning adulation that
biography records ; that he who had received such favors
from Essex could, as queen's counsel, not only show no
reluctance in exposing his friend's guilt, but even go out
of his way to prove it blacker than it actually was ; that
he who had professed to disapprove of torturing prisoners,
should in the case of the mad parson, Peachem, have urged
the use of the rack ; that he who told Raleigh when he ap-
plied for pardon for an old offence which had never been
clearly proved, that he was virtually pardoned already,
could afterward, when Spain cried for vengeance, lead the
way in recommending that Raleigh should, without any new
trial, be at once beheaded for that crime, because " nothing
short of an express pardon could purge the penalties of
treason," - all this seems too outrageojis for belief. Pain-
ful as is the story of Bacon, it is hardly less so to think of
the avarice and meanness united with the splendid genius
of Rembrandt, the feet of clay with the head of fine gold.
But the anecdotes related in illustration of these qualities
THE WEAKNESSES OF GREAT MEN. 133
are too well attested to admit of doubt. A burgomaster of
liis acquaintance having chanced one day to remark that
the painter's works would treble in value after his death,
Rembrandt caught at the idea, and, returning home, directed
his wife and son to give out, first that he was dangerously
sick, and soon after that he was dead. The trick suc-
ceeded ; and when a sale was held of Rembrandt's paint-
ings, as advertised by his widow, crowds flocked to the
auction, and the most trivial sketches realized an enormous
sum. The painter was in ecstasies at his success, and in
due time came to life again ; but his countrymen would
never employ him after his resurrection. Another trick of
his was placing the word " Venetiis " at the bottom of several
of his engravings, to cheat his countrymen into the belief
that he was about to settle in Ital}*, a delusion which
would materially raise the price of his productions. Of
the avarice and penuriousness of the great Duke of Marl-
borough, now acting history in minutes, and now dirtj'ing
his hands by peculation in arm}* contracts, there are, un-
happily, too many proofs. Macaulay has said truly that
u his splendid qualities were mingled with alloy of the
most sordid kind." On one occasion, having left off' the
winner of sixpence after an evening at piquet, he insisted
with troublesome importunity that his friend Dean Jones
should get change for a guinea in order to pay him, on the
ground that he wanted his sixpence for " a chair to take
him home." He carried his point, got the sixpence, and
walked home. A beggar once asked an alms of Lord
Peterborough, and called him by mistake " My Lord Marl-
borough." " I am not Lord Marlborough," replied the
Earl ; " and to prove it to you, here is a guinea." Handel
was so miserly that at the very time when he was receiv-
134 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
ing fifty pounds a night from the opera, he was frequently
known to wear a shirt a month to save the expense of
washing. The depth of meanness to which a great man
can sometimes descend, was never more vividly shown
than b}* the Emperor Napoleon when he left in his will five
thousand francs to the miscreant who shot at Wellington
in Paris.
The want of practical talent in great men is a fact
of common occurrence. Lord Bacon, Addison, Cowper,
Swift, Dante, Machiavelli, Corneille, were all striking ex-
amples of men who were giants in the closet, but children
in the world. Napoleon complained of La Place, that, as
Minister of the Interior, he was alwa}'s searching after sub-
tleties, and that he carried the spirit of the infinitesimal
calculus into the management of business. Adam Smith,
who taught the nations econom}*, could not manage the
econonn* of his own house. Choked with books and ab-
sorbed in abstractions, he was feeble and inefficient in
active life, incapable of acting on his own conclusions.
Goldsmith was so reckless in his expenditures that, though
he received large sums for his writings, he had always his
daily bread to earn. An incident told by Cottle in his
Life of Coleridge strikingly illustrates the ignorance and
helplessness which men of genius often betray regarding
the simplest matters of practical life. Coleridge, Words-
worth, and Cottle had been travelling together in a private
carriage, and the last undertook, at an inn, to remove the
harness from the horse, but could not get off the collar.
Wordsworth then essayed to do the same thing ; but after
exhausting his ingenuity, abandoned the task as impracti-
cable. Next Coleridge tried his hand ; and after twisting
the poor horse's neck almost to strangulation, gave up the
THE WEAKNESSES OF GREAT MEN. 135
effort in despair, declaring that the horse's head must have
grown since the collar was put on. At that moment a ser-
vant girl came running to them ; and exclaiming, " La, mas-
ter, you don't go about the work in the right way ! " turned
the collar upside down and slipped it off in a moment, to
the great astonishment and humiliation of the three lumi-
naries, who were each convinced afresh that there were
heights of knowledge to which they had not yet attained.
The unhappy Keats, according to the painter Hay don, owed
his ruin to his lack of decision and force of will, u without
which," as Ha}*don says truly, " genius is a curse. Fieiy,
impetuous, and ungovernable, he expected the world to
bow at once to his talents as his friends had done ; and he
had no patience to bear the natural irritation of envy at the
undoubted proof he gave of strength." Of Leigh Hunt's
lack of practical! ty, and especiall}' his ignorance of the
comparative value of money, a number of amusing anec-
dotes are told. On one occasion he professed his inability
to pay a debt of three shillings and sixpence because he
had but half-crowns and shillings in his pocket. At an-
other time, having arrived in a cab at a friend's, he praised
the cabman as " a fine fellow, that! " saying in explana-
tion that the "cabb}*" had agreed, as he was returning
"empty" from Hammersmith, to take him (Leigh Hunt)
for half fare (the whole fare being three shillings). u I
told him to drive on. ... When I asked him his fare, he
left it to my honor. You know nothing could be fairer
than that, so I said I was sorry to say that I had only two
half-sovereigns in my pocket, would one of them do? I
could give him that, and if not enough, he could call at so- .
and-so, or I could borrow it from you. ' Oh ! that would
do,' he said ; ' he would not trouble you.' He took it,
136 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
thanked me ; . . . but now he has driven away so suddenly,
as you opened the door, that I hardly know what to think."
The unpractical character of men of genius is vividly
shown, not onh* in their dail}' conduct, but in their pursuits,
and in the political, ethical, and theological doctrines they
have advocated. Among the questions that engaged the
attention of the old grammarians were such as these : What
name did Achilles bear when wearing a woman's dress?
What was the usual subject of the song of the Sirens?
Nicanor is said to have written six volumes on a dot, the
grammatical full-stop. Messala wrote a dissertation on the
letter S, and Martin Vogel wrote another on the German B.
Sir Thomas More, in his " Utopia," recommends the entire
abolition of property ; that rewards should be offered for
assassination, as a mode of warfare ; and that persons
laboring under incurable diseases should be encouraged to
commit suicide. The ridiculous scheme of government
which, under the sounding name of "The Grand Model,"
the famous philosopher John Locke devised at the close of
the seventeenth centuiy for the government of the Carolinas,
is well known to readers of histor}'. With its orders of
nobility (landgraves and caciques), its formidable bureau-
cracy, with officers and titles enough for a populous king-
dom of the Old World, and its seigniories, baronies, and
manors, this system was the most complicated, fanciful,
and impracticable ever contrived by the wit of man, and in
a few 3'ears was abandoned before it was put into full
operation.
That greatness of intellect is no guarantee against super-
stition is evident from many conspicuous examples to the
contraiy. Caesar, "the pale epileptic," who disbelieved in
the gods, never stepped into a carriage without first uttering
THE WEAKNESSES OF GREAT MEN. 137
a magical formula as a preservative against accident. Au-
gustus, who at a banquet openly scoffed at the gods,
dreaded misfortune through the entire da}- if, on rising in
the morning, he had chanced to put the left shoe on the
right foot. He would never begin a journe}* on the nun-
dince, nor undertake anything important on the nonas. Lord
Bacon and Sir Thomas Browne fully believed in witch-
craft. Henry IV., according to Sully, was very uneasy on
account of some prophecy made before his assassination.
Richelieu was governed by his astrologer. Wallenstein con-
sulted the stars. Hobbes, the deist, was a devout believer
in ghosts and spiritual existences. John Wesle} r , the
founder of Methodism, when he was doubtful on am* resolu-
tion, used to try drawing lots, and called the result " the an-
swer of God," a superstition hardly less foolish than those
of sortilege and ordeal in the Dark Ages. Many celebrated
men have manifested a predilection for certain days of the
year, as auspicious to them. Charles V. was especially
fond of the festival of St. Matthias (February twenty-
fourth), and sanctified it beyond all other days because on
that day he was elected Emperor, on that day crowned,
and on that da}', by his lieutenants, he took Francis I.
prisoner ; he was also born on that day, and on the same
day abdicated the throne. Louis XIII. had a predilec-
tion for " the unlucky day," Friday, on which he had
alwaj's been victorious in battle, and engaged in enterprises
that were uniformly successful. Napoleon had a favorite
da}^, the twentieth of March. Bismarck is superstitious
about Friday, and about sitting with twelve others at table.
Some of the most eminent composers of music and actors
have had very curious superstitions, of which a German
newspaper records the following : Tietjens believed that the
138 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
person would speedily die who shook hands with her over
the threshold at parting ; Rachel and Mars thought they
won their greatest success immediately after meeting a
funeral ; Bellini would not permit a new work to be brought
out if on the day announced he was first greeted by a man,
and " La Sonnambula " was thus postponed several times ;
Me}~erbeer regularly washed his hands before beginning an
overture ; and a living noted tragedienne never pla3~s unless
she has a white mouse in her bosom.
The last infirmity of great men that we shall notice is
insanity, a mixture of which, Aristotle affirms, is to be
found in every great genius. Men of genius are usually
men in whom some one faciuMr, or set of faculties, of the
mind are inordinately developed ; and all such are pecu-
liarly liable to morbid affections of the mind. As Dryden
says,
" Great wits to madness nearly are allied,
And thin partitions do their bounds divide."
Lucretius was supposed to be insane when he composed
his great poem ' l De Rerum Natura ; " and Sophocles was
acquitted of insanity only on reciting his " CEdipus at
Colonus." Pascal, the precocious mathematician and bril-
liant polemic, tells us that " 1'extreme esprit est voisin de
1'extreme folie ; " and Pascal himself is said to have been
haunted by the fear of a gulf yawning just in front of him,
which sometimes became so overpowering that he had to be
fastened to a chain to keep him from leaping forward.
Zimmermann, who wrote in praise of solitude, was hypo-
chondriacal, and so were Johnson and Scott. Swift and
Rousseau were insane ; Cowper tried to hang himself, and
suffered from intense religious remorse ; Saint-Simon in a
THE WEAKNESSES OF GREAT MEN. 139
fit of despondency fired a pistol at bis head, by which he
lost an eye ; Lord Byron suffered often from excessive ex-
altation of sentiment; Portugal's greatest poet, Camoens,
died of insanity ; Victor Hugo, according to high medical
authorit}-, was tainted with the same disease, which afflicted
his uncle, one of his brothers, and a daughter; and the
world-renowned author of u Don Quixote," who "laughed
Spain's chivalry away," died mad in a hospital at Madrid.
THE GREATNESS OF LONDON.
THE growth of London, even in this age of great cities,
is one of the marvels of the nineteenth century.
The Great Metropolis, which Guizot once described as "a
province covered with houses," has ceased to be a metropo-
lis only, it has become a kingdom. When, in 1871, we
first visited " the modern Bab\*lon," the population of what
is called Inner, or Registration, London was 3,284,260.
Ten years later the aggregate of men, women, and children
within the same district had swelled to 3,814,471, showing
an increase of over 530,000, a number not far from the
population of Liverpool or Chicago. In 1880 the inhabi-
tants of Greater London that is, the Metropolitan District
numbered 4,790,000 ; to-day it must be considerabty more
than five million souls. In other words, the population of
the British metropolis is more than half that of Norway,
Sweden, and Switzerland united ; is three times that of
Greece ; is a million larger than that of Scotland ; equals
that of nine Chicagos ; and is almost as great as that of
the State of New York, with the cities of New York,
Brooklyn, Albany, Rochester, Syracuse, Buffalo, etc., in-
cluded. In the six hundred and ninety square miles that
lie within a range of fifteen miles of Charing Cross, more
people are crowded together than are to be found in all the
Queen's dominions in North America. If the great bell of
St. Paul's were swung to the full pitch of its tocsin sound,
THE GREATNESS OF LONDON. 141
more ears would bear it than could hear the loudest roar
of Vesuvius or Etna. Stand in the ball above the dome of
that great edifice, and you will gaze upon a panorama of
life and industry such as you can gaze upon from no other
point on the globe. As all roads led to Rome, so they now
lead to London, and the vibrations of life and progress
here quiver and tremble from every continent and great
island on the glabe.
All impulses to trading activit} T , all outgoings of enter-
prise and energy that build up markets in the most distant
parts of the earth, make their effects visible and palpable
in the metropolis. Like a heart to which blood flows, and
from which it pours, money, goods, business arrive thither
from the four quarters of the globe, and flow thence to
distant poles. No sound of war or peace, no convulsion
in state or kingdom, but mingles its echoes with the roar of
London. No great bankruptc}* or embezzlement, no rob-
bery or assassination, but speeds on lightning wings to this
great focus of intelligence. No disaster by fire or flood,
by earthquake or landslide, but sobs its story here. No
ship goes down in Atlantic or Pacific tempest, in near or
distant seas, but the moaning winds whisper of it in this
ear of the world. The tick of the clock at the antipodes is
audible here, and if a storm blow along the Himalayas it
instantly disturbs the London barometer. The population
of London comprises more than one hundred thousand
foreigners, and more Roman Catholics than Rome itself,
more Jews than all Palestine. Eveiy four minutes a birth
takes place in the metropolis, and every six minutes a
death. London is not merely the largest and most rapidly
spreading city in the world, but it exceeds in opulence
and luxur}*, and probablj', too, in chronic destitution and
142 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
miser3% every other city ; and every year its wealth and
wretchedness increase upon a scale to which history affords
no parallel. The area already covered by the mighty
town, which adds another big town to its mass each suc-
ceeding year, is about 450,000 square acres ; and it con-
tains 700,000 houses, of which 26,170 were built in 1881.
During the last thirty years whole districts, large as cities,
have arisen, as by the wand of an enchanter. In that
time the length of the streets has been increased by over
fifteen hundred miles, of which eighty-six miles were con-
structed in 1881. London stands in four counties, and is
striding on to a fifth. In its march it has swallowed up
hundreds of suburban villages, and it threatens to engulf
many more. In one direction it has devoured Bow, Black-
wall, and Stratford, and licks its lips for Ilford and Barking ;
in another it has nearly reached Hammersmith, and menaces
Chiswick and Tnrnham Green. Hampstead and Highgate
are almost overtaken by it on the north, and on the south
its antennae nearly touch Dulwich and Balham.
" When a man is tired of London," said Dr. Johnson to
Boswell, u he is tired of life; for there is in London all
that life can afford." Charles Lamb used to shed tears in
the motley and crowded Strand from fulness of joy at the
sight of so much life. In contemplating this " tuberosity
of civilization" (as Carlyle terms the modern Babylon),
now more than twice the size of Paris, who can realize that
it was once confined to the hill above the Walbrook ;
that an estuary filled what is now St. James's Park ; and
that Camberwell and Peckham, if on dry ground at all,
were on the margin of a vast shallow lake, interspersed
with marshes and dotted with islets ? Yet we are told by
Mr. Loftie, in his recent History of London, that there was
THE GREATNESS OF LONDON. 143
a prehistoric time when elephants roamed on the banks of
the Thames, when Westminster wns a haunt of stags, and
when the men who slew them slew them with weapons of
stone.
It is said that there are more churches and chapels in
London than in all Italy. London has nearly thirteen
thousand policemen, twelve thousand cabmen, and twelve
thousand post-office employe's. It has over six hundred
railway-stations, and it is said that nearly fifteen hundred
passenger-trains pass Clapham Junction daily. The Lon-
don Omnibus Company have over six hundred omnibuses,
which carry more than fifty-six millions of passengers a
year, and the Underground Railway transports fifty mil-
lions more. In 1881, 157,886 foot-passengers and 21,460
vehicles passed in one da}' over London Bridge alone.
No fewer than eight hundred thousand business men enter
the City in the morning, and leave it in the evening for
suburban residences. London has eighty-five thousand
paupers to relieve, besides the insane ; and for their relief
it has a thousand and one charitable societies, whose
income in 1881 was 4,453,000 sterling, or upwards of
twenty-two and a quarter millions of dollars, a sum
greater than the whole revenue of Sweden, double that of
Denmark, and treble that of Switzerland. During the same
year the increase of this income was itself 331,356. Of
these societies ninety-two home and foreign missions re-
ceive 1,481,600; eighty-nine hospitals receive 528,277;
one hundred and twelve dispensaries and nursing institu-
tions receive 102,489 ; and one hundred and sixt}'-two
pensions for the aged receive 431,770. Half a million
sterling is consumed by ninet}'- three institutions for general
relief, and eleven for food and money gifts ; and a million
144 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
and a half more is divided among ninety-four voluntary
homes, fifty-four orphanages, twenty protective societies,
sixt}*-nine reformatories, a hundred and one educational
charities, and thirty-five social improvement homes. Of
this prodigious charity revenue, it is said (we know not
with how much truth) that a large portion is spent in red-
tape. There are six hundred and thirteen pawnbrokers in
London, with whom from thirty to forty millions of pledges
are deposited annuall}'. It is estimated by an able writer
in the ''Quarterly Review" for Januaiy, 1883, that each
of three hundred thousand families in London is constrained
by dire necessity to resort to the pawnbroker one hundred
times in the course of every year.
London consumes forty thousand tons of coal every
winter's day in its domestic fireplaces alone ; it consumes
thirteen million dollars' worth of gas every year ; and the
water-supply is over one hundred million of gallons a day.
One hundred and thirty thousand tons of fish are required
by London every year ; it consumes six hundred thousand
quarts of milk every da\ r , or two hundred and nineteen
million quarts a year, at an expense of four and a half
million pounds per annum ; and to distribute this milk in
small quantities over the enormous area of the metropolis
five thousand persons are required (without counting man-
agers, clerks, shopmen, and shopwomen), assisted by more
than fifteen hundred horses and mules. It has been esti-
mated that if the fronts of all the beershops and gin-palaces
in London were placed in a row they would stretch from
Charing Cross to Chichester, a distance of sixty-two
miles ; and, again, it was estimated twentj'-fi ve years ago
that if all the ale, beer, and porter drunk during a year in
London were put in barrels, and these barrels were piled
THE GREATNESS OF LONDON. 145
up in Hyde Park, they would form a thousand columns, not
less than a mile in perpendicular height.
Thirty- four hundred persons were maimed and otherwise
injured, and two hundred and fifty-two persons were run
over and killed in the streets in 1881, being three times
as many killed, and ten times as man}* wounded, as it cost
to storm Arabi's position at Tel-el-Kebir, and a greater
number, omitting the employes of the road^, than the annual
total of the killed and injured on all the railways of Great
Britain. Twenty-two thousand felonies are committed, on
an average, every year in London, and the acts of house-
breaking and burglaries amount to fourteen hundred and
thirty-one. One hundred and seventy-seven persons mys-
teriously disappeared in 1881 ; seven hundred attempted
suicide ; 27,228 were apprehended for drunkenness and dis-
orderly conduct ; and three thousand persons were arrested
for beggary, and having no visible means of support.
The Cook tourist who " does " other cities in two or three
days, finds himself appalled by the stupendous magnitude
of London. Adequately to see Paris, Berlin, Vienna, or
any other great Continental capital, demands much time,
patience, and strength ; but to acquaint oneself with that
colossal emporium of men, wealth, arts, and intellectual
power, the world's capital, which covers an area of
so man}' square miles, on the banks of the Thames, one
needs the feet of a centipede, the eyes of Argus, a brain
with four lobes, the will of a Cromwell, and " the final
perseverance of the saints." London is infinitely vaster
and more complex in its development than any other city
on the globe. It is the visible embodiment in brick and
stone of the country as a whole, and is not so much a city
as a congeries of cities, an aggregation of towns, of ever-
10
146 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
changing hue. In this harlequin town }*ou will find streets
extending for miles in length, and streets hardly a hundred
feet long ; streets with houses built after the same pattern,
and streets with hardly two houses alike ; streets crossing
each other at all angles, streets ending with a park, and
streets ending with a wall ; streets running under lofty
arches, and streets running over viaducts of granite and
iron; streets nawowing, widening, and crooking in their
course ; here lined with magnificent edifices, and there with
the abodes of poverty and vice ; streets paved with granite,
streets paved with asphaltum, and streets paved with wood.
From every street diverge innumerable alleys, lanes, by-
ways, short-cuts, and arched passages, some straight and
some oblique, leading to courts, squares, markets, churches,
schools, colleges, or to other streets again. Railroads greet
3'ou everywhere, with trains thundering over the houses,
trains crossing stone bridges, and trains rumbling under-
ground. At every point of the compass you see lofty
church-spires, monuments towering in the sky, and tall
chimnej's of innumerable factories pouring out columns of
smoke that hang like a gloom}" pall over the town. Go to
the river-bank, and you will see both sides of the Thames
lined with huge buildings crowded with merchandise from
every clime ; }'ou will see a thousand acres of docks
stretching far inland, in which six thousand ships are lying
every day in the year from all quarters of the globe,
docks, one of which alone is said to employ three thousand
men in loading and unloading the vessels in the basin,
where one hundred million tons of produce have been stored
at a time, and of which the West India alone are capable of
holding one hundred and eighty thousand tons of goods.
You will see there all the types of humanity, and hear all
THE GREATNESS OF LONDON. 147
the principal languages spoken under the sun ; you will see
the blue-eyed Norwegian elbowing the sandy-haired Scotch-
man, and the Milesian the bronzed African ; the yellow
Chinese, with his small, almond-shaped eyes, sallow skin,
and long pig- tail, jostling the hatchet- faced, raw-boned
Yankee ; the Russian, the German, the Malay rushing
about knocking against one another and exchanging jests,
perhaps oaths and fisticuffs. You will see on the
Thames innumerable passenger-steamers shooting under
the arches of the dozen magnificent bridges, and steam-
ships, ships, brigs, barques, schooners, war-vessels, barges,
propellers, tugs, scows, mud-boats, dredging-machines,
canal-boats, and floating hospitals and prisons, sailing
about or lying at anchor on the eternall} 7 vexed stream.
Gorgeous shops, mammoth hotels, galleries of paintings,
museums crammed with priceless treasures, libraries with
millions of volumes, countless theatres, palaces and houses
decorated with exquisite taste, gambling-hells, churches
cheek-bj'-jowl with gin-palaces and other haunts of vice,
gardens, clubs, restaurants, chop-houses, coffee-houses, mar-
kets, lecture-rooms in gloomy alleys, great banks, book-
stores, and publishing-houses in narrow lanes, great schools
behind grimy brick walls, tenement-houses where women in
fireless rooms make collars for five cents a dozen, or a gross
of match-boxes for five cents. These are some of the indi-
viduals that make up the great aggregate of this monster
town, which has no parallel in ancient or modern times.
In no other city in the world does a stranger, left to him-
self for the first time in the streets, especially at night,
experience such a sense of desertion and loneliness as
in this vast metropolis. De Quince}', writing half a cen-
tuiy ago, when London had swollen to only one third its
148 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
present size, vividly describes the feeling with which a man
finds himself a poor shivering unit in this great aggregate
of humanity, but one wave in a total Atlantic, one plant
(and a parasitic plant besides, needing alien props) in
an American forest. "No loneliness," he observes, "can
be like that which weighs upon the heart in the centre
of faces never ending, without voice or utterance for him ;
e}*es innumerable, that have no speculation in their orbs
which he can understand ; and hurrying figures of men
and women weaving to and fro, with no apparent purpose
intelligible to a stranger, seeming like a mass of maniacs,
or, oftentimes, like a pageant of phantoms. The great
length of the streets in many quarters of London ; the con-
tinual opening of transient glimpses into other vistas
equally far stretching, going off at right angles to the
one which you are traversing ; and the murky atmosphere,
which, settling upon the remoter end of every long avenue,
wraps its termination in gloom and uncertainty, all these
are circumstances aiding that sense of vastness and illi-
mitable proportions which forever broods over the aspect
of London in its interior."
It is a consequence of the vast size of London that
there can be no intimac}', no unity of interest, among its
different parts. It has been said that Ezekiel might be
preaching in Smithfield, or Camberwell be swallowed up
by an earthquake, and the people of St. John's Wood
know nothing of it till they saw it announced in the news-
papers next morning. Corporate life in London, such
as we see in other even great cities, is an impossibility ;
for a hundred years, or since the Gordon riots, it has
never, except perhaps lately, been agitated simultaneous^
in all its parts.
THE GREATNESS OF LONDON. 149
The great curse of u the modern Babylon" is its smoke
and fog, which are becoming every }'ear more and more
intolerable, poisoning the physical system of the citizens
to such a degree that it is said that a Londoner may be
known in any corner of the world where he may die, if his
lungs be examined, their color is so sooty. During the fogs
of 1879-80 asthma increased 220 per cent, and bronchitis
331 per cent; and in the week ending Feb. 13, 1882, the
dense fogs sent up the death-rate from 27.1 in the pre-
vious week to 35.3. Yet, strange to say, thanks to its
scores of parks, London, in which, in the reign of
George II., the deaths exceeded the births by nearly
eleven thousand a year, is now, with its mortality of
only twenty-one in a thousand, one of the healthiest cities
on the globe.- These parks, which are the lungs of the
great metropolis, are probably larger and more numerous
than in an}' other great city in the world. Some of them
are the greens of the villages which the giant city has
devoured in its progress ; but the great majorit}*, and
especially the more extensive ones, are the gift of the
Crown. What other great towns in England have owed
to the munificence of rich citizens or to the self-imposed
taxation of the people, London has owed to the wise
liberality of the English kings, whose ancestors luckily,
through love of sport, had provided themselves with ample
parks for that purpose, close by the palaces in or near
London. Of what inestimable value these parks, given
up by the Crown or bought out of imperial funds, and
maintained by annual votes of Parliament, are to the
metropolis, may be judged by the fact that they comprise,
altogether, nearl}' six thousand acres, and that their
maintenance costs the public about 100 ; 000 a 3*ear.
THE LONDON PULPIT.
ARCHDEACON FARRAR.
/ "~T*HE first preacher whom most Americans, when visit-
* ing London, go to hear, is probably Archdeacon
Farrar. As a writer, he not only enjo3*s a transatlantic
reputation, but has probably more readers in the United
States than in England. His literary fecundity is extra-
ordinary, even in this age of many-tomed writers. During
the last ten years he has produced six octavo volumes,
of six hundred pages each, upon the New Testament alone.
Besides his " Life of Christ," which gave him an almost
world-wide fame, his " Life and Work of Saint Paul" and
his " Beginnings of Christianit} 7 ," each of which works rep-
resents a vast amount of research, thought, and literary toil,
and which most clergymen might proudty point to as the
fruit of a life's leisure hours, Archdeacon Farrar has written
a course of Hulsean Lectures on the " Witness of History
to Christ," and a bulky volume on " Eschatology ; " three
brilliant and learned linguistic works, namely, " The
Origin of Language," 4 - Chapters on Language," and
" Families of Speech," all distinguished by acuteness,
vigor, and independence of thought, and showing rare
gifts of exposition and illustration ; many volumes of ser-
mons ; two school-books, "Greek Grammar Rules" and
" Greek Syntax ; " and a considerable number of miscel-
ARCHDEACON FARRAR. 151
laneous works. All this he has done before reaching his
tenth lustrum, besides preaching two sermons every Sun-
da)' for some years, contributing to magazines and reviews,
and delivering many lectures and addresses. His " Life
of Christ," which first made him known to the world in
general, is the fruit of far more care than an} 1 previous
work on the subject. Before venturing on his task he
found it necessary to visit Palestine in person ; and it was
not till he had himself trodden the streets of Jerusalem,
walked on the Mount of Olives, visited Bethlehem, stood
by Jacob's Well, and wandered in the valle}' of Nazareth,
along the shores of the Sea of Galilee and the coasts of
Tyre and Sidon, that he attempted to describe the memo-
rable places of the New Testament. The vivid and graphic
pictures which make the charm of the book would have
been impossible of execution, if he had not seen with his
own eyes the cities and villages which are marked by the
footsteps of the Son of God.
To the stranger who, attracted by Dr. Farrar's fame,
goes to hear him for the first time, his personal appearance
is apt to be disappointing. There are scores of men in
London pulpits who have more intellectual faces and a
grander presence, with hardly a moiety of his genius. He
is a man of medium stature, with a bald head, a pale,
scholarly face, and a quiet dignity of mariner which is
indicative of conscious strength. When he begins speak-
ing, his voice, which, though not powerful, easil\ r fills the
house, is somewhat husky ; but the defect soon wears awa}',
his articulation becomes clear and distinct, and as he
warms with the discussion of his theme, there is a pas-
sionate earnestness in his action and tones that rouses and
holds spellbound every hearer. This earnestness, this
152 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
burning enthusiasm, which springs from deep convictions,
is, indeed, one of the most salient features of his char-
acter. It would be hard to name a preacher or author
whose individuality is more prominent in all his utterances.
Even in his critical and theological writings, when treating
of the origin of language, or different theories of inspira-
tion, and kindred topics, he cannot confine himself to the
aridities of a mere scholastic discussion, but infuses his
own personality, with the heat that accompanies it, into
every page and paragraph. Whether satirizing " the
squabbling Judaism " of the past, or " the newspaper
theology" of to-da} r ; "the lie which claims to be a shib-
boleth of the elect," or " the superstitious adoration of the
letters and vocables of Scripture as though they were the
articulate vocables and immediate autograph of God,"
he is alwa3*s impetuous and outspoken, and stamps upon
all he says the impress of intense conviction.
The chief faults in his delivery are his mannerism and
monotone, and his habits of clutching the gas-fixture of the
pulpit with one hand, while he gesticulates with the other,
and of nervously twitching from time to time at the left
sleeve of his surplice. He has some peculiarities of pro-
nunciation, too, which startle an American hearer. He
accents the second syllable of " doctrinal," pronounces
knowledge lt knowledge," and the last syllable of evil
as if it were spelled "ville." One of the most strik-
ing characteristics of his sermons is the affluence of illus-
trations with which they are enforced and adorned,
illustrations often of the most felicitous kind, and drawn
from the most out-of-the-way nooks and corners of science,
history, biography, and literature. The driest and most
hackneyed themes, which, under ordinary handling, would
ARCHDEACON FARRAK. 153
put an audience to sleep, are thus made to teem with
interest. One of the most eloquent and fascinating dis-
courses we have heard from his lips was delivered at St.
Andrew's Church, London, in November, 1886, in behalf
of the parochial schools of the English Church. Though
devoted mainly to the threadbare theme of education, the
sermon was full of freshness, and sparkled with pertinent
and striking illustrations drawn from all the realms of
literature. Though he had preached twice before during
the da}', at St. Margaret's and in Westminster Abbe}',
yet there was not the faintest visible symptom of weariness
in his manner, and his voice rose, like his thought, in
a crescendo of eloquence from beginning to close. Five
years before, we had heard him discourse on the same
theme, with little less earnestness and power; yet there
was no repetition in the present appeal of the ideas and
illustrations of the former, but a new and fresh presen-
tation of the theme.
The following passage from one of his sermons, on
Failure and Success, is a fair illustration of his pulpit style :
" No true work since the world began was ever wasted ; no
true life since the world began has ever failed. Oh ! under-
stand those two perverted words, i failure ' and ' success,'
and measure them by the eternal, not by the earthly stand-
ard. What the world has regarded as the bitterest failure
has often been in the sight of Heaven the most magnificent
success. When the cap, painted with devils, was placed
on the brows of John Huss, and he sank dying amid the
embers of the flame, was that a failure? When Saint
Francis Xavier died, cold and lonely, on the bleak and
desolate shore of a heathen land, was that a failure?
When the frail, worn body of the Apostle of the Gentiles
154 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
was dragged by a hook from the arena, and the white sand
scattered over the crimson life-blood of the victim whom the
dense amphitheatre despised as some obscure and nameless
Jew, was that a failure? And when, after thirty obscure,
toilsome, unrecorded }*ears in the shop of the village car-
penter, One came forth to be pre-eminently the Man of
Sorrows, to wander from city to city in homeless labors,
and to expire in lonely agony upon the shameful cross,
was that a failure? Nay, my brethren, it was the life, it
was the death, of him who lived that we might follow in his
steps, it was the life, it was the death, of the Son of God."
Archdeacon Paley once said of some one that he knew
nothing against him but that he was a popular preacher.
It is useless to den}' that this is a fault (if fault it is)
of Archdeacon Farrar. The announcement that he is to
preach in Westminster Abbey is sure to attract a dense
throng of persons, who fill the seats long before the clock
has chimed the hour of service. His theological books,
too, have enjo\*ed a popularity almost without a parallel in
the history of such publications, even in this age of enor-
mous book-sales. The k ' Life of Christ," which took the
reading public by storm, went through twenty-four editions
in England in two years ; and it is now in the twenty-ninth
of its original and costly library form, while two other
popular editions have appeared. The sales of the Amer-
ican editions have also been very large. The " Life and
Work of Saint Paul," issued in 1879, is already in its nine-
teenth thousand, besides appearing as a popular serial.
The " Early Days of Christianity," which was published
in 1882, had reached its eighth thousand by Christmas, and
continues to find numerous purchasers both in England and
America.
ARCHDEACON FARRAR. 155
Like every brilliant preacher and writer, the author of
these works has his detractors. One charge brought
against both his preaching and writing is that his style is
florid, an epithet which is sure to be applied by writers,
who are conscious of their own lack of imagination and
fancy, to eveiy speaker or writer who invests his theme
with the graces they cannot command. There is a popular
notion, too, that a man who is a master of rhetoric, who is
eloquent and persuasive, cannot be a solid thinker. Arch-
deacon Farrar, his critics sa}', has a certain many-colored
prismatic brilliancy, but he lacks the severe concentration
of the white and pure light of theology which enables us
to see things as they are. His showy gilding dazzles the
popular eye, but will not stand the acid test for gold.
While he has the historic imagination which conjures up
past events with readiness, and the power of vivid and
picturesque expression, he lacks the calmness and sobriety
which are necessary in critical argument and exegeticai
analysis, is too pugnacious in the expression of his opin-
ions, and leaps too easily and confidently* to his conclusions.
He paints vividty, but his lights are too strong and his
shadows too Jblack. "He is redundant in language, pro-
fuse in illustration, and provokingl}' obscure in allusion.
He dogmatizes upon topics concerning which no positive
opinion can be given, and he hesitates and vacillates where
he should be positive and decided. He criticises with great
warmth an interpretation of a passage of Scripture, and
then offers a solution hardly distinguishable from that
which he has censured." Again, it is urged that the
themes on which he has written amidst his multifarious
employments are so various embracing history, archae-
ology, philology, metaphysics, theology, ethics, the authen-
156 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
ticity and date of the New Testament Scriptures, with a
critical and exegetical exposition of their meaning that
depth and exactness are rendered impossible. Who can
believe that one who has written so much, especially in the
last twelve years, can have thought profoundly or reasoned
logical^? When Canon Farrar published his "Life of
Christ," a cynical critic in the kt Spectator" described it as
" by a special correspondent of the London ' Daily Tele-
graph."'
To all this the Archdeacon might reply, with De Maistre :
"You cannot have my style without my faults. Would
you have fire that does not burn, or water that does not
wet?" The virtues and vices of the Archdeacon's style
have a common root, and it would be difficult to eradicate
the one without eradicating the other. The stream of rhet-
oric which leaps and sparkles in his pages springs from no
affectation or ambition of fine writing, but flows sponta-
neously and irrepressibly from his pen. Tt is true that he
adapts his style to the taste of the age, and does not
condense his ideas like the old divines. The massive
architecture and cathedral st3"le of Hpoker, and that con-
gestion of the brain which one suspects in Barrow and
Taylor, he doubtless thinks are out of place in our time.
They demand a pre-railway age leisure ; and when a man
leaves off, he is apt to feel like the boa-constrictor after
he had swallowed the Witney blanket. Often where a
preacher has such a faculty of illustration, there is very
little to illustrate ; there is a very small army of ideas, but
a most valorous noise of drums. But such is not the case
with Archdeacon Farrar's books and sermons, which abound
in thought, and would be remarkable productions even with-
out the similes and metaphors, which are not purely stylistic
ARCHDEACON FARRAR. 157
ornaments, mere combatants on a rhetorical parade, but
carry weapons and help to win the battle. Those who
regard the bulk of his writings as an argument against
their accuracy, should remember how wondrously doing
increases the capacity of doing, and that Archdeacon
Farrar is a prodigious worker, always at white heat, and
does more in an hour than the half-earnest man in a day.
We have spoken of Archdeacon Farrar's linguistic
works. Those persons who judge from their subjects
that these books are cold, dry, metaphysical discussions,
devoid of all animation and sparkle of style, will find
on a perusal that the very opposite is the fact. The
author cannot write even on scientific themes without
poetizing them. For example, in his " Chapters on Lan-
guage," speaking of the manifold forms which words may
assume, which yet are all directly inspired by the imitative
principle, he cites the names for "thunder" in Gaelic,
Bohemian, Albanian, Wallachian, and other languages,
and asks :
" Who does not see the imitative instinct here at work ? Yet
the results are as different as the individual impressions, which
even differ in the same person with the mood in which they find
him at any particular time. . . . What the eye sees and the ear
hears depends in no small measure on the brain and the heart.
The hieroglyphics of Nature, like the inscriptions on the swords of
Vathek, vary with every eye that glances on them ; her voices, like
the voice of Helen to the ambushed Greeks, take not one tone of
their own, but the tone that each hearer loves best to hear/'
It is difficult to say to what wing of the Anglican Church
the subject of this sketch belongs ; for some years he ap-
pears to have been inclining more and more to that party
known as the Broad Church. He evidently abhors party
158 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
names, strife, and jangling. Nothing is more marked in his
discourses than the spirit of charity and toleration with
which they are saturated. He refuses to believe that any
school of thinkers has a monopoly of truth. The diversified
aspects under which the Gospel presents itself to differently
constituted minds, he thinks, only illustrate its matchless
excellence, by manifesting its adaptation to every class of
intellect and temperament, and its consequent superiority
to the narrow, one-sided systems of fallible men. Arch-
deacon Farrar therefore champions the right of Christians
outside the pale of his Church to differ in doctrine from
his brethren as stoutly as Sydney Smith, who tells us
that he once preached at Bristol a sermon so intolerably
tolerant that ' ' the aldermen could hardlj* keep the turtle
on their stomachs." Even for the Jews the Archdeacon
has a word of sj'inpath}*. What if their ancestors were
guilty of "the greatest crime in histoiy," the crucifixion
of the Son of God : must the sins of the fathers therefore
be visited forever upon the children? The Jews of to-
day would be the last to defend the conduct of Pilate,
or those whose frightful howl, "Crucify him!" ran
through the hall of the Roman tribunal. They are
no more responsible for the persecutions of the early
Christians than are modern Christians for the long and
fierce persecutions to which the Jews in past ages were
subjected.
Archdeacon Farrar preaches at St. Margaret's Church,
close by Westminster Abbey, the church of the House
of Commons, whose walls once echoed the voices of Cal-
amy, Baxter, Lightfoot, and other famous Puritan divines.
It was here that Case dared censure Cromwell to his face,
and afterward to tell General Monk that "there were
ARCHDEACON FARRAB. 159
some who would betray three kingdoms for filthy lucre ; "
and then, to make certain whom he meant, threw his hand-
kerchief into the pew where Monk sat. It was a minister
of this church who was sharply reproved by George III.
for his fulsome flattery of that king in a sermon, his
Majesty telling the preacher that u he came to the church to
hear God praised, not himself." On a stained-glass window,
presented to the church by Americans, in memory of Sir
Walter Raleigh, whose body lies under the chancel floor,
is this verse by James Russell Lowell :
" The New World's sons, from England's breast we drew
Such milk as bids remember whence we came ;
Proud of her past, from which our present grew,
This window we inscribe with Raleigh's name."
A brief history of the Archdeacon's life will show how
rapid has been his rise to different degrees of distinction.
The Rev. Frederic William Farrar, D.D., F.R.S., was born
in the Fort, Bombay, Aug. 7, 1831, and is the son of
the late Rev. C. R. Farrar, rector of Sidcup, Kent. He was
educated at King William's College, in the Isle of Man,
and at King's College, London. In 1850 he became a
classical exhibitioner of the London University, graduated
B.A., and was appointed a University scholar in 1852.
He next went to Trinity College, Cambridge, and in 1854
took his Bachelor's degree there as fourth in the class
of the Classical Tripos, and a junior optime in mathemat-
ics. While at Trinity he won three prizes, the Chan-
cellor's prize for English verse, the Le Bas classical
prize, and the Norrisian prize. In 1854 he was or-
dained deacon by the Bishop of Salisbury, and three years
later was admitted to priest's orders by the Bishop of Ely.
160 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
In 1872 he was made B.D., and in 1873 D.D. For
several years he was an assistant-master at Harrow, and
in 1871 became head-master of Maryborough College,
where he remained till April, 1876, when he was appointed
to a canonry in Westminster Abbey and made rector of
St. Margaret's, vacated by the death of Canon Conway.
In 1868 he was appointed Select Preacher before the
University of Cambridge, and again in 1874-75 ; and in
1870 he delivered the Hulsean Lectures. For eighteen
3'ears he has been chaplain to the Queen, during the
first four years as honorary chaplain, and since as chaplain
in ordinary. In 1883 he was made archdeacon.
CANON LIDDON.
AN American who has been accustomed to hear the great
representative preachers of his own country in the largest
cities is surprised to learn that, with a few exceptions, the
ablest and most eloquent divines of England are not to be
found in the pulpits of the great metropolis. Within a few
3*ears there has been a decided decline in the pulpit oratory
of London. Thomson, Alford, Goulburn, and Boyd have
been lost by cathedral or Church elevation ; Magee, the
most eloquent of Episcopal preachers, has for many years
been Bishop of Peterborough ; R. W. Dale, the ablest and
most scholarly of the Congregational preachers, is at Bir-
mingham ; Mr. Maclaren, the most thoughtful and polished
of all the Baptist preachers, is at Manchester ; and Dr.
Martineau, the most powerful champion of Unitarianism,
CANON LIDDON. 161
occupied, till shortly before he ceased preaching, a pulpit
in Liverpool.
But though London has not these great preachers, she
has a few others who have no superiors ; and among the
hundreds who discourse from her Anglican pulpits na}',
among the twenty thousand divines of the English Church
there are few whom men throng in such crowds to hear as
they do to listen to Canon Liddon when he is announced to
speak at St. Paul's. Long before the bells have tolled the
hour of service, every chair and bench whence one can see
and distinctly hear the preacher is taken. It was on Sun-
day afternoon, the 8th day of April, 1883, at the cathedral,
that we heard him last. The assembly, which was closely
packed, was made up of well-dressed men and women,
chiefly of the middle classes, including a considerable
number of young men, and not a few whose white ties
and black coats marked them as clergymen. At four
o'clock the procession of surpliced choristers and clergy
passed up the aisle into the choir to the soft, sweet notes
of the organ, the procession being closed by the Bishop of
London and the preacher for the occasion, both wearing
the resplendent red-silk hood that denotes the doctor's de-
gree. The chanting and singing were exceedingly beauti-
ful, approaching near to perfection, it seemed to us ; and
in both the congregation heartily joined. This service lasts
about forty-five minutes, after which, with a quiet, rapid
step, the preacher ascends the pulpit. Burying his face in
his hands, he utters a prayer so low and indistinct that you
begin to fear that, though he may be a great theologian and
a profound and subtle thinker, he maj* lack the physical
qualities of an eloquent preacher. As he raises his head
and faces the audience and announces his text, " I was in
11
162 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
the Spirit on the Lord's da}'" (Rev. i. 10), you see little in
his luce or "bodily presence" to justify the hush of ex-
pectation, the indefinable thrill of emotion, that seems to
pervade the dense throng of hearers. He is apparently a
man of about fifty-six years of age, of middle stature, with
short gray hair, a pale, smooth-shaven face, and what
are perhaps his most marked physiognomical traits keen
eyes and a firmly compressed mouth. There is something
monastic in his appearance, and one of his admirers has
noted a resemblance in his face to that of Saint Augustine
in Ary Scheffer's noted picture of that saint and Monica.
On the whole, Canon Liddon looks like a man of some-
what severe, not to say ascetic, temperament, who takes no
optimistic views of life, but broods often and thoughtfully
upon its stern realities. His delivery tends to deepen this
impression. He has a clear, penetrating, though not deep
or powerful voice, articulates with great distinctness, and
from the beginning to the end of his discourse speaks with
an intensity and earnestness of manner that imply the
strongest and most deeply rooted convictions. This uni-
form high pressure of his delivery is the leading character-
istic of his oratory. He is one of the few men in whom
careful culture has not repressed earnestness ; and no
sooner has he announced his text than he begins at once to
throw his whole nature body, mind, and soul into the
delivery of his sermon, and, like an express train, which
never stops at intermediate stations, or even to wood and
water, but goes on devouring space at forty miles an hour
till it has reached its destination, he hardly slackens till
he has uttered the last sentence of his discourse, and
pronounces the ascription. The only pauses, and those
barely perceptible, are when, after having clinched some
CANON LIDDON. 163
argument, or summarized some analysis with keen, re-
morseless logic, he passes to another branch of his subject ;
or when, toward the close, he exchanges logic for rhetoric,
the closed fist for the open palm, and strives by a
practical application of his reasonings to pierce or rouse the
heart. Though it is very exhausting, and you see the per-
spiration streaming down his face, there are many advan-
tages in this rapid utterance when it is clear and distinct.
" I never in my life," says a thoughtful writer, " knew a
good talker who was not also a rapid one. A drawling,
listless enunciation is sure, by an unfailing sympathy, to
affect the understanding and general faculties after its own
kind." The same remark is true, in a large degree, of pub-
lic speaking, especially when it is extemporaneous. A
brisk, nervous utterance stirs the spirit from laziness into
excitement ; it raises a gentle, genial glow over the whole
nervous system. A succession of brisk, decisive sentences,
freely delivered, will often kindle the mind into a luminous
heat, like so many blasts from a pair of bellows.
Though Canon Liddon preaches from manuscript, he is
so familiar with it that it imposes no shackles on his oratory.
Indeed, one might almost fancy his discourses to be extem-
poraneous, did not the affluence of learning, the depth of
thought, and especially the condensation, pungency, and
extreme finish of the st3'le, utterly forbid such a supposition.
Both the substance and the form of the discourse show it
to have been hammered again and again on the anvil, till
every sentence has been forged into a bolt. The late Arch-
bishop Whately used to distinguish two classes of authors
(and the same is true of speakers), the writers of sapient
commonplaces, like Mason on " Self-Knowledge," at whom
he only nodded his head ; and writers of original and vigor-
164 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
ous thought, like John Foster, at whom he rubbed the back
of his ear. In the one case he could run and read ; the
thought was limpid, and he had only to run with the stream.
In the other case the torrent was swift, and his self-respect
compelled him to pause, and not be swept down by its re-
sistless swirl. There can be no doubt to which of these
classes Canon Liddon belongs. Few popular preachers
exact more mental effort on the part of the hearer. It has
been justly said that the mind is in extreme tension as one
tries to follow the course of the reasoning through those
terse, glittering, incisive sentences, which follow each other
so keenly and swiftly, like the steps of a mathematical
demonstration. It is riot strange that occasionally, as he
enters upon a subtle analysis, a look of perplexity or a
shade of weariness steals over some faces, and that others
betray the feelings of persons who are out of their depth.
Yet there is no parade of learning, no scholastic lore, in his
discourses. The solid ingots of scholarship are beaten out
b}* him, and wrought into current coin for men and women
who have leisure for results only, and not for processes ; and
but a few moments pass before the same faces are lighted
up again as, in words of rare felicity and with passionate
earnestness, he gives expression to some of the deepest as-
pirations of our nature, or exposes some shallow sophistry
of the day.
It is well known that almost every public speaker has
some marked fault of manner which mars the effect of his
elocution. One man uses his hands as if he had claws,
pawing with them ; another buttons his coat up to the chin
and folds his arms over his chest, a la Pitt ; another has a
trick of rising on tiptoe, as if he were accustomed to address
his audiences over a wall ; and another paces the platform
CANON LIDDON. 165
to and fro, like a tiger in a cage. Canon Litldon is no ex-
ception to this rule. With all his great excellences, he lias
one habit which detracts not a little from the interest of his
discourses : it is a practice of throwing his bod}- backward
and forward, so that his head describes a segment of a
circle, like the masts of a yacht at anchor in a rough sea,
which is at times so odd, not to say grotesque, as to
divert attention even from the enchaining oratory. We
must add, however, that there has been a signal improve-
ment in this matter since we first heard him in 1871, when,
we sometimes almost feared he would turn a back somerset.
Another thing that mars his oratory is that, being short-
sighted, he often stoops to consult the Bible or his notes, and
yet goes on speaking all the while, as he does when he
bows at the name of Christ ; the result of which bowing of
the head is that his words fall on the pulpit-cushion and are
deadened, so that to persons at a distance there seem to
be frequent stops and gaps in the sermon.
The effects of Canon Liddon's oratory are due to its in-
trinsic excellences, and in no degree to the " presence " or
personal magnetism of the speaker. Nonconformists, who
differ from him in doctrine and ceremonial, hang upon his
lips with as much interest as Churchmen. His eloquence is
of a severe, not of a meretricious, type. It is the farthest
possible in its qualities from that of the fanatic who is car-
ried away by enthusiasm on one lone subject. It is the
eloquence, so rare at all times, of the man of letters who is
at the same time a keen observer of men and events, of
the man who has consumed much midnight oil in his stud3',
and who knows that he has to address intelligent and even
critical congregations, and therefore weighs as in a hair-
balance every word he is to utter. The eagerness with
166 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
which men listen to him disproves the notion that habits of
intense and profound thought are necessarily fatal to elo-
quence ; it disproves, too, the notion that men are impatient
of long sermons, and only yawn after the}' have listened for
twenty or, at most, thirty minutes. No doubt one shud-
ders when he thinks of the ponderous, elephantine dis-
courses to which our forefathers listened for hours at a
stretch ; }*et even in bus}*, mammon- worshipping London,
men and women have sat patiently in a close, sultry atmos-
phere for three hours together to listen to a sermon b} T
Canon Liddon, which itself was an hour and three quarters
in length. The celebrated Dr. Binne}', himself an eloquent
Nonconformist preacher, states that in 1868 he heard
Canon Liddon for an hour and twenty minutes with unabat-
ing interest. The sermon to which we listened lasted just
an hour. It was the most lucid and masterly discourse on
"The Lord's Day" the meaning of that phrase, the
principles recognized in the observance of the day, the dis-
tinction between that day and the Sabbath, and the proper
mode of observing the day to which we have ever
listened.
Speaking of the objection sometimes made to the conse-
cration of a section of time, that in a true Christian life
"all time is already consecrated," he said:
" The answer is, that the larger obligation of love is not ignored
because the smaller obligation of duty is insisted on. In human
life, being what it is, it is easy to do nothing by undertaking to do
everything. . . . The case is exactly parallel to the case of prayer.
. . . The life of a good Christian is, no doubt, a continuous prayer.
The spirit of prayer penetrates it and hallows it ; each duty is
entwined with acts of the soul which raise it up above this earthly
scene to the throne and to the presence of Christ. But for all that,
in Christian lives stated times of prayer, private as well as public,
CANON LID DON. 167
are practically necessary, if prayer is to be at all maintained. And
yet the morning and evening prayers of a Christian are perfectly
consistent with his recognizing the apostolic and divine ideal that
prayer should be incessant in a Christian's life ; and in like man-
ner the especial consecration of one day in seven does not by any
means involve and imply rejection of the claim of our Lord Jesus
Christ on a Christian's whole time. It is like those small pay-
ments known to the English law, which do not profess to give an
exact equivalent for that which they represent, but only techni-
cally to acknowledge the existence of a much larger claim ; it im-
plies that all our time belongs to God, although in our weakness
he graciously accepts a prescribed instalment or a section of it."
In another part of the discourse Canon Liddon showed
that abstinence from labor on one day in seven is not in-
consistent with a recognition of the dignity and claims of
labor, but, on the contrary, protects labor, arrests an ex-
cessive expenditure of strength, and is enacted, therefore,
in the interests of labor itself.
" Especially is this the case in a time like our own, when men
live and work at high pressure, when capital demands quick returns
for outlay, when competition is keen, and the place of a man who
faints for a moment at his post is at once occupied by a stronger
rival who stands watching his opportunity hard by."
In closing his discourse the preacher sa3~s of Sundays
spent in an atmosphere of worship :
" Sundays such as this are to human life like shafts in a long
tunnel, they admit at regular intervals light and air ; and though
we pass them all too soon, their helpful influence does not vanish
with the day : it furnishes us with strength and light for the duties
which await us, and makes it easier for us to follow loyally the road
which God's loving providence may have traced for each one of us
on toward our eternal home."
These passages give but a faint idea of the excellence of
the sermon on "The Lord's Dav." Canon Liddon's merit
168 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
as a preacher does not lie in splendid passages, in pointed,
epigrammatic remarks, or magnificent bursts of eloquence,
but in the sustained excellence and the effect of his dis-
courses as a whole. Unlike Archdeacon Farrar, he deals
little in flowers of rhetoric. His oratoiy is of the kind which
Aristotle has happil}* termed the " agonistical," or wrestling,
kind. His thoughts cut a deep logical channel through his
subject, instead of sparkling over it and around it with the
grace of a playful fancj', or striking sparks out of it b} T the
shock of a strong imagination. If the style of Archdeacon
Farrar sometimes reminds one of a painted window, which
both transmits the light of da}* tinged with a thousand varied
hues, and diverts attention from its proper use to the pomp
and splendor of the artist's work, that of Canon Liddon is
a perfectly transparent medium that transmits light without
suggesting a thought about the medium itself. Every sen-
tence marks the man who is intent upon serious business,
whose sole anxiety is to convey his meaning with the
utmost possible precision and energy to the minds of his
hearers.
Canon Liddon has no sympathy with the so-called "ad-
vanced thinkers " in theology. He belongs to a religious
part} T which looks backward rather than forward for its in-
spiration to effort. He is, in fact, a Catholic Anglican,
identified heart and soul with the sacramental doctrine of
both the Eastern and the Western Churches, and who even
now would look upon reunion with the great communions
of the East as the only adequate presage of the victory of
Christ's kingdom over human evil. It is said that he would
make the Church of England as famous for the splendor of
her ceremonial as for the learning, piet}*, and zeal of her
clergy. He would exalt the holiest service of the Church,
CAXON LIDDON. 169
which has long been regarded as an act of adoring thanks-
giving, into an act of sacrifice. Believing that by some
mysterious process the actual body and blood of Christ are
partaken of at the celebration of the Communion feast, he
would invest the rite with all the outward magnificence that
can be devised, with all the inward awe the heart can be
induced to feel. But though to a certain extent a reaction-
ist, Canon Liddon is not a recluse. He studies men as well
as books ; is fully abreast with the latest thought of the age,
both in theology and science ; and is quick to discern the
signs of the times. No other divine has more clearly per-
ceived where lies the brunt of the theological battle of the
day, or combated with more force and fiery earnestness the
dreary materialism of its scientific thought. It is per-
haps one of the chief secrets of his power that he has so
completely mastered the objections of modern scepticism,
and acquainted himself with the subtle spirit of the age and
the hindrances to faith peculiar to our time. In his Bamp-
ton Lectures and other publications almost every theologi-
cal or ethical problem that has agitated Europe is fearlessly
stated and discussed, whether connected with the names of
Rousseau or Kenan, Hegel or Schleiermacher, Spencer or
Mill.
In conclusion, in view of his great and varied mental
gifts and accomplishments, we may pronounce Canon
Liddon, if not, as Dean Stanley once declared, the great-
est preacher of the age, yet certainly, in the words of an-
other, " the brightest and fullest-orbed mind in the English
Church."
170 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
JOSEPH PARKER, D.D.
THERE are some persons who regard it as the highest en-
comium on a clerg3'man to sa3' that he is " a safe preacher."
By tc a safe preacher" is meant one who travels by easy
stages on the old, orthodox turnpike roads, who never
vexes his brains with queries about new or improved ones,
but jogs on at a comfortable pace, now and then looking
out of the coach window to see that all is right, and then
dropping to sleep again. To Christians who love to be " at
ease in Zion," such preachers are very acceptable. They
never startle the ears of the hearer by original and daring
thoughts or novel interpretations of Scripture ; they never
violate a canon of taste in their sermons, never tell a
story, use a vulgar illustration, or provoke a smile ; and
after listening to them once, he feels that he can doze in his
pew without danger. On the other hand, it must be con-
fessed that the3 T never prick a conscience, never frighten a
sinner, never edify a saint, never pull down a stone of the
devil's strongholds, never save a soul. Such preaching
promotes church unity; the hearers are never tormented
with theological doubts, or at loggerheads about the sound-
ness of the doctrine. They had such a preacher once in
the city of Rouen. A French priest, speaking of the ex-
citement produced there by Bourdaloue's preaching, when
the merchants and mechanics, the lawyers and doctors, left
their shops and offices and thronged the church, added :
" But when I went there to preach, I put all things right
again ; not a man of them left his business."
It is no exaggeration to say of Dr. Joseph Parker that
whatever other faults he may have, he is at the opposite
JOSEPH PARKER. 171
pole from such a clerical icicle as this. Go on an}' Sunday
to the City Temple, and you will find his hearers listening
with eager interest to his words. Nowhere, as }'ou cast
your eye about the crowded congregation, will }*ou see a
person who has the air of one who is brooding over business
problems, planning a corner in stocks, building air-castles,
or criticising a neighbor's dress. All are intent upon hear-
ing the preacher, and give him their undivided attention.
Of Dr. Parker's history we know but little. Nearly
twenty years ago, we think, he began preaching in the town
of .Banbury. He next settled in Manchester, and from that
cit}' went in 1869 to London, where he preached in the
Poultry Chapel. When this building had to be pulled
down, the society built, at an expense of 60,000, the
present spacious edifice in Holborn, near the Viaduct. The
City Temple, in which Dr. Parker has since preached, is
one of the most attractive and agreeable churches in the
metropolis. There are galleries running all around the in-
terior, and the pews are arranged with a view to comfort as
well as to economy. Back of. the handsome pulpit which
was given by the Corporation is a large and beautiful
organ, which is so constructed as to show a circular painted
window behind it, the effect of which is at once unique and
striking. There are half-a-dozen other painted windows
in the building, two of which are representations of the
Sower, and the Pharisee and the Publican praying in the
Temple. Though the City Temple will probably seat from
two thousand to two thousand five hundred persons, it is
almost sure to be filled, and in fine weather crowded. Great
courtesj- is shown to strangers by the ushers, who hardly
let one wait a minute before escorting him to a seat. Con-
nected with the church are a large and flourishing Sunday-
172 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
school and a Colportage Association ; and in the winter
courses of excellent lectures are giv r en in the church to
working-men.
Of all the London preachers we have heard, Dr. Parker
is the one about whom we find it most difficult to form a
satisfactory opinion. He is to us a psychological puzzle.
The oftener we heard him, and the more we studied his
physiognomy, the more were we at a loss how to estimate
or classify him. Hearing him at first with some prejudice,
owing partly to his pompous letter to Dr. Lorimer some
years ago, we found our prejudice gradually disappearing
under the effects of his preaching ; and yet, after listening
to him a third and a fourth time, we found our original feel-
ings returning. In spite of every effort to think the con-
trary, we found it hard to get rid of the impression that the
preacher was theatrical in his manner, studying at times to
startle, surprise, and attract admiration, rather than to con-
vict and persuade his hearers of the great truths he ex-
pounded and illustrated. Dr. Parker is a massive man,
and has the look of a physical, if not of an intellectual,
athlete. His brawny, though somewhat coarse, pln'sical
organism suggests great powers of endurance, and explains
his abilit} T to preach three sermons a week (one on Thurs-
day noon), besides editing the " Christian Chronicle."
He has a high, broad forehead, which owes its appearance
of breadth in part, perhaps, to his habit of brushing his
hair back over his head. His voice, which is like the roll
of thunder, is worthy of his bovine frame, and fills easily
every part of the house. It is not a musical voice, but one
of great power, and drives his sentiments home in the
hearer's mind with a kind of sledge-hammer force. The
ver} T mass of the man helps to make his words impressive.
JOSEPH PARKER. 173
Dr. Parker fully recognizes the importance of elocution ;
he knows perfectly well that the crying want of the pulpit
to-day is not profound scholarship, hair-splitting meta-
physic subtlety, or the moral aroma of character, but ora-
torical skill and power. He knows what weight and pathos
may be communicated b} T sonorous depth and melodious
cadences to the most trivial sentiments, while, on the other
hand, the grandest may be emasculated by a delivery which
fails to distribute the lights and shadows of a proper into-
nation. But there is one lesson, the \cry first lesson in the
elocutionary art, which he apparently has yet to learn ; it
is self-forgetfulness. He has certain tricks of manner
which betray a self-consciousness that is fatal to deep im-
pression. There is an air of self-satisfaction in his attitude
and deliveiy which greatly detracts from the effectiveness
of his speaking. He has a trick of rising on tiptoe, and
coming down on his heels when he wishes to be emphatic ;
a practice of shouting in a series of staccato tones, and
then suddenly lowering his voice to a whisper ; a habit of
thumping the Bible with clenched fist or open palm ; and
above all, a habit of smacking his lips and smiling when,
apparently, he thinks he has said a good thing, all of
which would be comparatively pardonable on the platform,
but are positively offensive in the pulpit. The last pecu-
liarity detracts especially from the excellence of his preach-
ing. One may smile when he sees the preacher fold his
gown about him and gesticulate with his left arm, or when
he makes the long pause between the end of his prayer and
the " Amen," which is pronounced in a basso prof undo
tone; but the peculiar look and tone the smirk by
which he shows his appreciation of the smart things that
have dropped from his lips, and of which, by a sort of
174 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
seignorial right, he grants himself the first enjoyment, is
an unmistakable token of vulgarity.
While noting these defects in Dr. Parker's preaching, we
are happy to say that it is free from the greatest of all
faults, dulness. If he sometimes offends the taste of a
sensitive hearer, he never wearies him. Having announced
his text, he wastes no time upon preliminaries, but attacks
his subject at once. He grapples with it as did Nelson
with the French ships, casting out his grappling-irons and
boarding instanter. Few preachers know so well when to
close a sermon. He rarely preaches for over half an hour ;
when he has driven the nail home and clinched it, he stops.
His discourses have another great merit, that of original-
it}'. He can say with Horace, " Non aliena meo press! pede."
Montaigne, in one of his naive essays, tells us that one day
he was reading in a French book, when, after plodding over
many pages of dull, flat, commonplace matter, he came
suddenly to a piece that was loft}', rich, and elevated to the
veiy clouds. " Now, had I found either the declivity easy,
or the ascent more sloping," he saj's, "there had been
some excuse ; but it was so perpendicular a precipice, and
so cut off from the rest of the work, that by the first words
I found myself flying into the other world, and thence dis-
covered the vale whence I came, so deep and low that I
have never since had the heart to descend into it any more."
There are no such glaring inequalities as this in Dr. Parker's
sermons. There is a uniformity, an individualit}', an ab-
sence of purple patches in them, which show them to be
the coinage of his own brain. They abound in shrewd ob-
servation and practical sense, with occasional touches of
sarcasm and mother- wit ; but give little evidence of scholar-
ship or familiarity with history or literature. They have
JOSEPH PABKEB. 175
no flashes of genius, no pungent, suggestive sayings that
condense the results of years of thought and observation,
and stick like barbed arrows in the hearer's memory.
Dr. Parker appears to be fond of expository preaching,
not, evidently, for the reason once assigned by -another
preacher for resorting to this method, namely, that when
he was " persecuted in one text, he could flee unto another,"
but because ability in this kind of preaching is one of
the Doctor's strong points. Though he is rarely epigram-
matic, he is fond of intense expressions, such as " The
leonine Paul," " Paul had a strong grip on God," etc. ;
and in the reports of his sermons, to give increased em-
phasis to his observations, not a few words are printed with
italics and capitals, as thus : " Having gathered the Church
together, the}' * rehearsed ALL.' But we want to hear
the detail. The little word ALL is really the greatest
word in human speech. In its letters the whole universe
is included." This we should be inclined to call sensation-
alism, for we can conceive of no other motive for making so
foolish a remark ; but we remember that the Doctor, in a
sermon on Acts xiv. 1-7, has rebuked sermon-critics, and
told them that when they talk of " sensationalism " they
are ignorant of its meaning. He says :
" If Christianity were among the Churches to-day, men, instead
of criticizing sermons which they hear, would go out and preach
sermons themselves ; would borrow any chair or stand on any
stone at the street corner, and if they could not preach the Gospel,
they could at least read it. Fifty thousand men at the street-
corners to-day reading with one voice the third chapter of John !
why, apostolic times would have come back again. That chap-
ter needs no comment ; it says, ' Head me, and let me do my own
work.' Do not be frightened by the long word ' sensationalism.'
People who use it do not know its meaning, and they only seek to
176 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
terrify you out of your new-born earnestness in the Christian cause.
Nothing divides society like Christianity. Its voice is, ' Come out
from among them, and be ye separate : the good to the right, the
bad to the left.' It is a tremendous righteousness ; it does not sit
in silken slippers and in downy chairs, indulging itself with philo-
sophical" musings about nothing: it goes to roots and cores, to
hearts and inmost lives, and there its law pierces like a sting,
there its righteousness burns like an oven, there its gospel sings
like an angel."
The following extract from one of Dr. Parker's sermons
will give the reader a good idea of his st3'le of thought and
expression. Commenting upon the account in Acts xiv. 8
18, of the healing of the impotent man at Lystra, he
saj's :
" The very high priest of Jupiter was prepared to offer sacri-
fices unto the visitors. The oxen are in the streets, the garlands
are at the gates, the knife is waiting that shall draw the blood from
the oxen, and Paul and Barnabas, you shall be the gods of Lyca-
onia, and have what you ask for. Every life has its temptations,
its forty days in the wilderness, its hand-to-hand fight with hell.
Why did not Paul and Barnabas settle down upon this eulogium?
They need not perform any other miracle ; they had performed
one, and on that one they may rest as long as they live ; they could
become the tyrants of the place, ordering and commanding what
they please, and drawing to themselves the superstitious homage of
minds wonder-struck and all-trusting. It was the devil's hour : if
they get over that bridge, the apostles will be safe ! They were
over it ! When Barnabas and Paul heard what was going on,
* they rent their clothes, and ran in among the people, crying out,
and saying, Sirs, why do ye these things? We also are men of like
passions with you.' Their self-knowledge was, humanly speaking,
their salvation."
One of the most characteristic sermons of Dr. Parker that
we have heard, exemplifying in a striking degree both his
excellences and his faults as a preacher, is one entitled
JOSEPH PARKER. 177
"Tribulation Accepted," the text being Acts xiv. 19-28.
We regret that we have not room for longer extracts :
" Paul was but once stoned, and he never forgot it ! Writing an
account of his experiences, he puts into the summary of them this
line Once was I stoned.' No man can forget that experience.
In former years those who were engaged in stoning Stephen lay
down their clothes at a young man's feet whose name was Saul.
The wheel of Providence turns round 1 There is no resentment in
God, but there is justice at the very heart of things. They left
Paul, ' supposing he had been dead.' That is a common mistake
about Christianity itself. Many a time has Christianity been stoned
and drawn out of the city and thrown into the ditch, supposed to
be dead.' Paul recovered his consciousness. He was blinded and
stunned, but not killed. So, to the joy of the little circle of weep-
ing disciples, he got up and stood upon his feet, a kind of resur-
rection before the time ! Take it as a typical instance, and regard
it as teaching the impossibility of killing truth. You may ' suppose
it to be dead,' but the error is in the supposition. Whatever is
true, rises again. It may be thrown down ; it may be kept upon
bread and water ; it may be spat upon ; it may be thrust through
with a dart ; over it all hell may have a moment's laugh, but it
finds its feet again I "
Dr. Parker quotes the statement in Acts that when Paul
and his colleague had come back to Antioch, and " had
gathered the church together, they rehearsed all that God
had done with them, and how he had opened the door of
faith unto the Gentiles." The preacher then adds :
" Into no speech with which I am acquainted is so much meaning
condensed. It is the penalty of speakers who have a condensed
style that they do not get credit for all they say. There are minds
that must have bulk as well as quality ; minds that must have every-
thing beaten out to the thinnest and widest possible surface before
they can begin to think. They do not fly on the wind, or take two
mountains at a time in their gigantic strides; they therefore say
they cannot follow the writers who have written such a verse as
12
178 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
the twenty-seventh, which is now before us. Look at it. ...
* They rehearsed all that God had done with them.' They con-
nected the whole story with GOD. What! the stoning? Yes.
The statement does not read that, having called the church to-
gether, Paul put his hand upon his head, and said, * Oh, what I
have suffered for you ! ' Not a word of the kind is said. Stoning
and hunger and peril and persecution, these things God has
done. It is because AVC do not recognize that fact, that we suppose
ourselves to be the victims of circumstances and the butt of enemies.
Get rid of that sophism. God sent the hunger to bite you. Go d
spread the cloud in the face of the sun to shut you out in darkness.
God allows your enemies to smite you on the head and on the face,
and to malign you and misrepresent you. It is God's doing; it is
part of the divine education. ' Can there be evil in the city, and
the Lord not have done it ? ' Done it ! not in the little narrow,
technical sense of hand- working, but in the larger sense of working
up together in one complete massiveness, hells and devils, dangers
and sorrows, into one sublime issue. ' He maketh the wrath of
man to praise him, and the remainder thereof will he restrain.'
The Lord reigneth. The wet days are his, as well as the days that
are full of summer light and summer music. And the graves are
his, as well as the flowers which grow upon their greensward.
And hell is his, and the key of it is on his girdle, and he will know
what to do with it in the upgathering and total issue of his
providence."
Dr. Parker's sermons are all published in his weekly
newspaper, the " Christian Chronicle," for which, together
with the principal pra}'er preceding the sermon, they are
reported by Mrs. Parker. How a preacher with true deli-
cac}' of feeling, and with a just reverence for the sanctities
of religious worship, can have his prayers taken down in
short-hand and blazoned to the world in print, is to us a
mystery. It is true Henry Ward Beecher has set the ex-
ample ; but this is only an illustration of Horace's aphor-
ism, "Decipit exemplar vitiis imitabile ; " and we know of
no clergyman, except Dr. Parker, who has imitated him in
STOPFORD BROOKE. 179
this procedure. If Dr. Parker's public prayers were like
those of John Foster, which were called, by some of his
jesting hearers, "John Foster's stand-up essays," we could
see little objection to their publication ; but the petitions of
the preacher at the City Temple are obnoxious to no such
sarcasm.
REV. STOPFORD A. BROOKE, M.A.
AT the southwest corner of Oxford and Bloomsbury
Streets, almost on the edge of St. Giles, stands a freshly
painted chapel, destitute without and within of architectural
beaut}", which one would take to be a Methodist or other
Nonconformist place of worship, which last it indeed
is, but not of any recognized Dissenting u denomination."
It is here that the Rev. Stopford A. Brooke, M.A., one of
the most eminent preachers in London, has been listened
to with unflagging interest for the last eleven years by
a select and aristocratic, if not very large, congregation.
Of all the preachers whom we heard in London during the
winter of 1882-83, and again in the autumn of 1886, he,
with Canons Liddon and Farrar, best stood the test of
frequent hearings. As he stands in his Geneva gown (for
which he exchanged the surplice before going into the pul-
pit) and announces his text, you feel that here is a man
who must do honor to his calling, who is thoroughly in
earnest, who has pondered all the great theological prob-
lems of the day, and attained to his present beliefs, not
through heredity, but through many and perhaps fierce men-
tal struggles. You feel, too, that he is one who has the
180 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
courage of his convictions, and will not hesitate to speak
his deepest and boldest thought, whatever ma}" be its re-
ception. There are few preachers in England who have a
more commanding presence, a greater degree of blended
dignity and attractiveness or of personal magnetism, than
Mr. Brooke ; few with so massive a head, eyes so earnest,
and an expression so benignant and winning.
To analyze the effects Mr. Brooke produces, and explain
their causes, is not an eas}* task. Whether it is the force
and originality of his thoughts, the nobleness and spiritu-
ality of his sentiments, the intensit}* of his convictions, the
aptness, vividness, and incisiveness of his language, or the
extraordinaiy earnestness of his manner, or all these to-
gether, that rivet the attention of the hearer, it is hard to
tell. In the impression produced by a sermon much is due
to delivery, and Mr. Brooke has a unique kind of oratory
which defies all attempts to describe it. His eloquence has
no pyrotechnics, but consists in the earnest enunciation of
pregnant truths, in the impassioned enforcement of senti-
ments that quicken the intellect and touch the heart. He
seems to preach, not with deliberate effort, but because,
like the prophet, he has " a word in the heart as a burning
fire shut up in his bones, so that he is weaiy of forbearing,
and cannot stay." As he gradually warms with his subject
till it has engrossed his whole heart and soul, all your fac-
ulties are on the alert, and 3*011 are impatient of a cough
that shall cause you to lose one of his glowing periods. At
one moment you are roused to enthusiasm by some noble
thought couched in noble language ; at another you are
melted to tenderness by some masterpiece of pathos ; again
3*011 are fascinated b3' a glowing portraiture of some prophet
or apostle of righteousness ; and then you are wondering
STOPFORD BROOKE. 181
whether that indignant denouncer of the sensualist or the
hypocrite, whose sarcasm is so scathing, can be the same
man who, a few moments before, insisted that God would
never rest until the entire human race should have found
rest in Christ. When the discourse has closed, you feel
yourself flooded and surcharged with spiritual life. Above
all, 3-011 find yourself loathing and abhorring all selfishness
and meanness, and resolved, God helping }"ou, to trample
all your spiritual foes under 3*0111* feet.
Mr. Brooke is not a preacher for the masses of men. He
would be as much out of place in Mr. Spurgeon's pulpit,
even were his convictions the same as those of the Taber-
nacle preacher, as Mr. Spurgeon would be in his ; but his
sermons are admirabty adapted to the peculiar, thoughtful
class to which he ministers, among whom, in the galleiy,
modestly sits the celebrated Dr. James Martineau. Py-
croft, in his "Twenty Years in the Church," tells of a
country clergyman in England who, being asked whether
he studied the Fathers, replied : " No, the fathers are gen-
eralh* at work in the fields ; but I always stud3* the moth-
ers." Mr. Brooke shows by his preaching that he has
studied both. Yet it is, no doubt, the literary charm of his-
sermons which attracts mnny to hear them. Less apho-
ristic than F. W. Robertson's, they abound, like his, in
sentences that linger long in the reader's mind ; and, like
his also, their chief value lies in their substance rather than
in their form, and especially in their thought-provoking qual-
ities and the stimulus they give to feeble and halting wills.
Mr. Brooke was born in the county of Donegal, Ireland,
in 1832. He entered Trinity College, Dublin, in 1850,
where he won honors as well as several prizes for po-
etic composition, and took his B.A. in 1855. During his
182 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
college course he wrote for the " Dublin University Mag-
azine," contributing, just as he attained to his majority, the
following spirited sonnet, which shows that the youth was
father of the man :
" A lay of freedom ! O ye slaves that now
Cramp the broad mind to fashion, form, and rite !
Sweep an unfettered hand across your brow ;
Rise like a falcon to the living light ;
Free the undying thought from licensed lies,
Till, like a river bursting from its ice,
And whirling error to its native night,
Brimming with freedom, through a golden land
It rolls, loud, bright, and broad, impetuously grand ! "
During the year 1864-65 he was chaplain to the British
embassy at Berlin, during which time he wrote the Life of
the Rev. F. W. Robertson, the most charming piece of
biography published since Dean Stanley's Life of Dr. Arnold.
Next he ministered for ten 3~ears at York Street Chapel,
London, where the service was at first thinly attended, but
soon drew crowds of intellectual and deeply interested hear-
ers. In 1876 he began preaching at his present place of
worship, the lease of which was presented to him by some
friends. The advantage of his present position is its per-
fect independence, since no one can call him to account for
supposed heresy. Mr. Brooke is said to be a connoisseur
in art. He has written a primer of English Literature,
which is a marvel of condensation, and full of delicately
discriminative criticism. He has also published several
volumes of sermons. At times he gives lectures in his
chapel, some of the best of which may be found in his
" Theology of the British Poets," a work in two volumes.
In appearance, Mr. Brooke, as we have said, is highly
intellectual. The broad, expansive forehead, which the
STOPFORD BROOKE. 183
masses of iron-gray hair do not conceal, is one that would
delight a phrenologist. With the exception of side-whis-
kers, he is beardless. His voice, which is at times tremu-
lous with emotion, is musical, and his gestures arc few,
but appropriate and significant. With all his love for his
calling, he has never sunk the man in the parson ; and while
he properly respects the "linen decencies" of life, he
would not think it a sin to be seen without a white cravat.
The pith of his preaching is that men and women are
placed in this world, not to pursue their own pleasure, but
to do God's will, to love, work, and suffer for others, even
as Christ suffered, worked, and loved. He believes that
revelation is not completed, but continuous, and full of life
fitted for its age. He is fond of quoting these words of
Christ: " I have 3*et many things to sa}' unto }'ou, but }'e
cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of
truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth." Mr.
Brooke is passionately earnest for freedom in the Church.
He utterly repudiates the charge of dishonesty which is
brought against the Broad thinkers because they do not leave
the Church. It is no shuffling and word-splitting, he pro-
tests, which enables Evangelical Anglicans and Broad Church
persons of resolute and opposed opinions to submit to the
Articles, and to be content to live with them as loug as they
last. Regarding " the impatient requisition of many " that
these members of the English Church "should know their
own mind, and state it clearly," he says :
" I partly do not, and I partly do, sympathize with it. Every
man who really cares for true views, and who has investigated truth
with some precision, knows the difficulty of arriving at clear state-
ments on any political or economical question, much more on any
me!aphysical or theological question, which will satisfy an accurate
184 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
intellect. He who has followed the long labors of the mind of man
for centuries on these topics, and marked its ceaseless changes, its
infinite variety; he who has recognized the necessity of divers
channels of religious opinion to enable different characters to come
to God ; he who has seen portions of truth at the root of many
theories which he considered erroneous, and feared to denounce
them too violently, lest he should lose the truth ; he who has so con-
stant a reverence for truth that he cannot bear hastily to formulate
an opinion, until he has looked on every possible side of the ques-
tion, he will sympathize with those clergymen who shrink from
defining clearly their theological views, and prefer to preach that
spiritual life of Christ which they know to be right ; he will not
be impatient with those who do not define because they have a
minute reverence for truth."
Mr. Brooke probably thinks, with Archdeacon Farrar,
that the imperfection of language as a vehicle of religious
truth is a positive blessing to mankind. In his admirable
4 ' Chapters on Language " the Archdeacon expresses the
opinion that at no period in history was it more evident
than now that the passions of men would be far more furi-
ous and uncontrollable than they are, if it were not possible
to maintain a truce by the common acceptance of words and
formulas which are fairly and honestly capable of express-
ing widely different forms of belief. "The gracious
shadows, the beneficent imperfections of language, save us
from being scorched up by a fulness of truth for which we
are yet but ill-adapted."
In Mr. Brooke's discourses tbe thoughts are so inextri-
cably woven together that it is difficult to exemplify his
abilit}' as a preacher by passages torn from" their context.
His merit does not lie in pointed apothegmatic sentences,
the gold coins of the intellectual exchange, though not a
few of them are imbedded in his writings, but in the focal
power of his sermons. There is alwaj'S in his discourses a
STOPFOED BROOKE. 185
leading idea, in developing which the earnestness of the
preacher steadily increases, so that the emotional climax is
always the logical climax, and the reasoning faculty blends
its suffrage with the homage of the heart. One of the most
impassioned sermons which we have heard him preach was
delivered April 15, 1883, on Matthew v. 9. In this dis-
course he told his hearers that "each nation should work,
not only for its special interests, or be jealous for its own
honor, as duellists are jealous, but labor for the interests of
other nations more than for its own, and be jealous of the
just rights of other nations more than for its own ; that
nothing should even be done in the present by one nation
for its own interests which may in the future put into jeop-
ardy the freedom, the advance, or the individuality of
another nation ; that all that we call national prosperity and
pre-eminence must be systematically subordinated and
this should be the foundation of all foreign politics to the
interest of the whole of mankind." In another sermon he
tells his congregation,
" No time of seeming inactivity is laid upon you by God without
a just reason. It is God calling upon you to do his business by
ripening in quiet all your powers for some higher sphere of activity
which is about to be opened to you. The eighteen years at Naza-
reth, what was their result? A few years of action, but of action
concentrated, intense, infinite ; not one word, not one deed, which
did not tell, and which will not tell upon the universe forever."
The following is one of the happiest passages in Mr.
Brooke's sermons :
" But we have fallen upon faithless times ; and more than the
mediaeval who saw the glint of the angel's wings in the dazzling of
the noon-day cloud, more even than the Greek who peopled his
wood with deities, we see only in the cloud the storehouse of rain
186 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
to ripen our corn, and in the woods a cover for our pheasants.
Those who see more have small cheerfulness in the sight ; neither
the nymphs nor the angels haunt the hills to us. We do not hear
in the cool of the day the voice of God in the garden. We gaze
with sorrow on a world inanimate, and see in it only the reflection
of our own unquiet heart. There is scarcely a universal joyous
description of Nature in our modern poets. There is scarcely a
picture of our great landscape artist which is not tinged with the
passion of sorrow or the passion of death. We bring to bear upon
the world of Nature, not the spiritual eye, but a disintegrating and
petty criticism. We do not let feeling have its way, but talk of
harmonies of color and proportion, and hunt after mere surface
beauty. We train the eye, and not the heart, and we become vic-
tims of the sensualism of the eye, which renders the imagination
gross, and of an instability of the eye, which, unable to rest and
contemplate, comprehends the soul of* nothing which we see. It is
our sick craving for the excitement, the superficiality of our worldly
life, which we transfer to Nature. What wonder if Nature refuses
to speak to us, and we ourselves are insensible to the wisdom, life,
and spirit of the universe ? "
In the following passage from a sermon on Matthew iv. 4
Mr. Brooke's skill in illustration is well exemplified :
" Those of you who have gone through the rooms of a great
factory at night have seen a strange sight. All the wheels are
still, all the various machinery at rest. The silence, which should
be speech, weighs upon the heart. There is, you know, in every-
thing you see, possibility of the quickest, most vivid work ; but the
driving power, the expansive force which sends its life through
every wheel and spindle, is not there : in the inner room the en-
gine sleeps. It is the picture of many a heart. As the man wan-
ders through the chamber of his soul, he sees powers, passions,
capabilities, interests, thoughts, aspirations, plans, all the ma-
chinery for an active life of work, before him ; but all are silent, all
motionless, all terrible and reproachful in the shadowy light. And
he knows that he only needs an inner force of life, a driving im-
pulse, a passionate faith in something, to set his whole being into
vivid movement. But it is not there. In the innermost chamber
STOPFORD BROOKE. 187
there is no life. Set yourself free from the mere life of ease and
comfort ; gain a living impulse. Set in the centre of the soul a
divine passion, a living force of love. Love God in man, and then
every power of the soul connected with or driven by the mighty
engine of the divine emotion of love of Christ in God, of Christ in
Man, will whirl into life and movement, and manufacture produce
for mankind. 'Man doth not live by bread alone, but by every
word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.' "
Mr. Brooke has recently severed his connection with the
English Church. Some years ago he avowed himself to
be, after much painful thinking, out of harmony with its
creed, especial!}" with that which he rightly deemed the
central belief of that creed, the mystery of the incarna-
tion. There is little, however, in his preaching to remind
one of this change of opinion ; on the contrary, almost all
his language regarding our Saviour seems to show that,
as Robertson said of Channing, though his intellect denies
the divinit} r of Christ, he yet acknowledges it with his
heart.
We hear a great deal of foolish talk in these days about
the decline of the pulpit ; and Mr. Mahaffy, in his essay on
the " Decay of Preaching," assumes the supposed fact, and
investigates with much acuteness its causes, without for a
moment questioning whether it be a fact. Such discourses
as those of Mr. Brooke tend to prove the falsity of the
assumption. A strong proof of their power is the state-
ment we have heard, that clergymen of the English Church
have cautioned persons against their brilliancy and fasci-
nation. No doubt some of his former Anglican brethren
feel that his perfervidum ingenium, his literary power,
and even his spirituality itself, only render his heresies
the more dangerous, u on n'aime guere d'etre empoi-
188 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
sonne meme avec esprit de rose." But we are confident
that if the pulpits of England were filled with such
preachers, it could no longer be said, as it has been said,
that even a trial at the Old Bailey for stealing a couple
of pocket-handkerchiefs too often stirs deeper emotion,
both in speaker and hearer, than the most momentous
realities connected with the future and unseen world.
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.
IT is a common remark of the croakers of our time that
the palmy days of parliamentary eloquence are over.
The orator's occupation, they say, is gone ; it has been
destroyed by the newspaper, which addresses fifty thous-
and men while he addresses five hundred. Year by year
the House of Commons is becoming a business assembly ;
at every session it is more and more a monster vestry
meeting, and less and less a gathering of patres conscripti.
The oratorical era reached its climax with Canning; the
House now meets purely for business. Just as the im-
proved artillery, the revolver, and the repeating-rifle have
rendered swords, sabres, and bayonets cumbrous and use-
less, so the old-fashioned formal harangues of the British
senate have given way to the brief, business-like speeches
of modern times. Instead of beginning his speech with
a formal introduction, the modern member preambles but
little, shoots right at the white of his theme, and re-
serves his antithetic brilliance, if he has any, for the con-
clusion, which is hardly uttered before down he drops, and
his hat is on as abruptly as it was pulled off. "If you
should put a pistol-ball through the heart," says a writer,
" you could not bring him down much sooner." There
is considerable truth in all this ; but it must be remem-
bered that we are all victims of that illusion which leads
men to idealize and idolize the past. It must be remem-
bered, too, that oratorical gifts are now far more widety
diffused than formerly ; that if there are to-day few giants
190 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
of eloquence, there is a far greater number of able, accom-
plished, and effective debaters ; that the standard of public
speaking is far higher than of old, and therefore a reputa-
tion for eloquence is less cheaply won. During the winter
of 1882-83 we often visited the House of Commons, and
heard all the leading speakers, whom we shall now tiy to
characterize as they then were and then impressed us.
Among the most effective speakers in the House is Joseph
Cowen, the representative for Newcastle. With the excep-
tion of a loft}' brow, the slouched hat that surmounts it,
and a general negligence of attire, there is nothing striking
in his personal appearance. In private conversation his
voice is low, and his manner quiet and subdued ; but in the
House of Commons he is suddenly transformed. When he
rises to speak, the first sentences are hesitating and indis-
tinct, but as he proceeds, his voice grows clearer and
clearer ; the Northumbrian burr, or peculiar roll of the
canine letter, which mars his articulation, becomes less and
less unpleasant ; and there is a kind of Roman stateliness,
a majestic roll in his periods, a force in his argumentation,
a splendor of imagery in his illustrations, and a passionate
earnestness and vehemence in his tones and gestures, which
hold the House spell-bound to the end. " Wor Joe," as
the Northumbrian pitmen call him, has waged war with
nearlj' every despotism in Europe. The intimate friend of
Mazzini, Garibaldi, Kossuth, and Louis Blanc, he has been
the chief banker and general agent in England of all the
modern revolutionaries, whom he has not only sheltered
when in trouble, but subsidized in their enterprises to the
extent of more than two thirds of his princely income. By
birth and education a humanitarian politician, he takes a
European, or rather cosmopolitan, view of political problems,
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 191
and on the Irish and Eg}'ptian questions has been at vari-
ance with the Ministry, who doubtless regard him as
crotchety and impracticable. Mr. Cowen is owner and
director of the ''Newcastle Chronicle," one of the most
powerful provincial journals in England. The effect of its
teaching was seen in 1874. When the Conservative reac-
tion raged successfully everywhere else, the Northumbrian
Liberals smote their opponents hip and thigh all along
the line.
Lord Hartington is a good specimen of the ponderous,
elephantine British speaker, who stammers and hems and
haws all the way through a speech, mouthing his sentences
" as a cur mouths a bone," so as to be understood only b}*
the reporters and others who are familiar with the muffled
sound of his lips. Though acting with the Liberal party,
Lord Hartington, if we may judge by his bearing and
manner, is an aristocrat to the backbone. Reserved, con-
temptuous, and scornful, he has been called the devil's
advocate of that party, " with a mind quick to raise all
sorts of objections, which he formulates in raspingly queru-
lous tones."
Sir Stafford Northcote would be a forcible speaker if
he had the courage of his convictions. He dreads respon-
sibility, is terror-stricken at every political crisis, and,
above all, is too conscientious, fair, and candid to be a
powerful parliamentary speaker and leader.
A very different kind of speaker from the last two is
Mr. Trevelyan, the Secretary for Ireland, who, though
never eloquent, is always earnest, courteous, lucid, and
interesting. He belongs to the old school of politicians,
who pass through a regular course of training for high
office, achieving an academic reputation, serving long
192 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
apprenticeships in minor offices, and steadily advancing to
higher and higher places in the Cabinet.
One of the most brilliant, witty, and epigrammatic
speakers in the House is Sir William Vernon Harcourt,
well-known to Americans as the " Historicus," who, during
our late Civil War, vindicated the North in a series of
powerful letters in the London "Times." Pie is a man of
great natural and acquired abilities, is strikingly original in
his speeches, and as a master of bitter and caustic irony
has no superior in the House. Unhappilj' he lacks the
qualities which win the good-will of opponents, and is more
powerful to subjugate than to win. The history of the
rapid steps with which he has climbed the steeps of fame
is like a stoiy out of the Arabian Nights. Taking his B.A.
at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1851, at the age of 24,
when he won honors as a senior optime and a first-class in
the Classical Tripos, he was called to the Bar of the Inner
Temple in 1854, became Queen's Counsel in 1856, after-
wards Solicitor-General, and now (1883) holds the pro-
fessorship of International Law at Cambridge, and the
onerous post of Home Secretary in Mr. Gladstone's Admin-
istration.
A still more brilliant speaker, and next, perhaps, in de-
bating power to Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Bright, is Mr.
Gibson. No other speaker, on either side of the House,
has sprung to the front with greater rapidity than did the
member for the University of Dublin during the sessions
of 1881 and 1882. Everybody knows what a multiplicity of
complex, tangled, and almost incomprehensible issues was
raised by the Irish Land Bill. Amid the intricacies and
perplexities of this labyrinth, in which so many parliamen-
tary speakers hopelessly floundered and lost their way, Mr.
THE HOUSE (XF COMMONS. 193
Gibson moved with the sure and easy step of a man to
whom every inch of the route was as familiar as the way to
his own house. His speech on the second reading of the
Bill was a masterpiece. " For nearly two hours," said the
" Spectator," " with breathless speed and with unflagging
animation, he dragged the House through all the highways
and byways of the Bill, penetrating every nook and corner
of it, exposing every hidden flaw, tracking out the unsus-
pected consequences of unobserved provisions, multiplying
illustrations, and accumulating instances, to the manifest
embarrassment of his opponents, and the bewildered ad-
miration of his exhausted followers." The freshness, the
energetic force, the antithesis, the subtlety, wit, and irony
of the speech took the House by storm. When no minister
ventured to reply, the Tories were seized with a fit of exul-
tation which lasted for a week. Since this effort. Mr. Gib-
son has made others even more creditable. He speaks with
great vigor and nervous energ}', in a ringing voice, and
with a distinct articulation which it is a luxury to hear.
As you listen to his pungent, epigrammatic sentences, you.
seem to hear thick hail falling and rattling on the roof,
" Tain multa in tectis crepitans salit horrida grando."
Lord Randolph Churchill, " the rising hope of Toryism,"
has a face and figure which, once seen, are not speedily for-
gotten. The pale, bloodless face ; the broad forehead ; the
largety developed mustache, of peculiar turn and shape ;
"the large, restless, wild-looking eyes, observing every-
thing, watching an adversary as a cat does a mouse ; the
manner, alternating between excess of listlessness and ex-
cess of excitability ; the temperament, proud, highly strung,
keen, sensitive, disdainful, forgiving, revealing itself in
13
194 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
every movement of the body, nay, in the very fashion in
which the cigarette smoke is inhaled ; the toilet sombre in
color, careful, and in good taste," these are the outward
signs of a character that is too full of contradictions to be
easily analyzed. As a speaker in the House of Commons,
Lord Randolph has energy, audacity, and power of invec-
tive, but lacks persuasiveness. He has more smartness
than force, more vehemence than facts or argument. In
his frequent attacks on Mr. Gladstone, he reminds one of
a small dog snarling and yelping at a great English mas-
tiff. He seems never to have learned that the adjectives
are the greatest enemies of the substantives, and that " no
one thinks a drummer a giant because he thumps away on
a big drum." His read}*, rattling harangues, both in and
out of Parliament, are so uniformly shrewish and vituper-
ative that it is difficult to believe in his sincerity ; there
is a hollowness in their ring which makes you suspect he is
talking for political effect. He is fond of irony, but he has
not the swift and stealth}' iron}- of Canning, which stabbed
like a stiletto, nor has he any of the ludicrous combinations
of words, the happy alliterative phrases, with which that
master of rhetoric annoyed his adversary. Lord Randolph
aspires to wear the mantle of Beaconsfield ; but he lacks
the pungent, well-bred raillery with which the latter over-
whelmed his foes, and still more the by-play of manner
which was at times so irresistible, the emphasis, the
glance, the arched eye, the intonation, the exquisitely sar-
castic effect sometimes produced by a single word. 1 Per-
1 Nevertheless, it must be admitted that Lord Randolph has greatly
improved as a speaker since this paper was written. His speech at
Bow on June 3, 1885, before the Tower Hamlets Conservative Associa-
tion, shows the possession of some of those qualities which make a Brit-
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 195
haps we judge Lord Randolph too harshly. If he some-
times excites the disma}' of his friends as well as provokes
the anger of his foes by his speeches, it may at least be
said in his favor that he has a decided, vivid personality,
which stands out in bold relief from the dull, humdrum
mediocrities by whom he is surrounded.
Americans who think that our legislatures have a mo-
nopoly of those stentorian speakers who half deafen their
hearers, should hear Baron De Worms. "Ilia se jactet
in aula, ^Eolus," which was applied years ago to Wedder-
burn, might with equal aptness be applied to him. To
Baron De Worms's mind, apparently, the value of a speech
depends altogether upon the strength of lungs which gives
it projectile force, and the volume of voice which assaults
the ear of the hearer. Such a voice as this member's we
have never heard in any other public assembly. Its only
parallel is that of Novius, the Roman tribune, which, Horace
tells us, was loud enough to drown the noise of two hun-
dred wagons and three funerals meeting in the forum.
Baron De Worms rarely rises except to denounce the Ad-
ministration ; and as with violent gesticulation he pours
forth his tempestuous periods, there is a rushing force of
denunciation, a declamatory vehemence, which reminds one
of the roar of the cataract or the dash of the torrent. For
a few minutes one listens with amazement at such a display
of lung-power ; but the monotony of the declamation soon
becomes tiresome, and suggestive of the beating of a gong,
or of an oratorical machine. The title which an English
ish politician formidable to his foes, ami enable him to force his way to
place and power. " The Cabinet of the thirty-seven policies," as he
called the Gladstone Administration, was a happy sarcastic phrase,
which condensed into one sentence the quintessence of hostile criticism.
196 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
judge once gave to Lord Brougham, "The Harangue,"
would not be inappropriate to Baron De Worms ; or, better
still, the second title of Lord Erskine, with which that vain
but brilliant orator was so often teased by his enemies,
"Baron Clackmannan"
A still more fiery speaker, an irascible gentleman of the
old school, is Sir W. Barttelot, a kind of political Sir
Anthony Absolute, one of those "good haters" whom
his fellow-Tor}', Dr. Johnson, so loved. When he rises
from his seat on one of the back benches, and in rapid
periods and with vehement gesticulation begins an impet-
uous attack on the Ministry, demanding, for example,
whether "we [the House of Commons] are going to allow
our throats to be cut " on the Suez Canal at particular
times, etc., you may expect to see Mr. Gladstone and
his associates tomahawked and scalped without mercy.
Instead of hemming and hawing after the approved style
of British speakers, he begins and rushes on like one
who is brimful and running over with pent-up indignation,
and seems to feel a kind of impatient rage that he can-
not more swiftly cleanse his bosom of the perilous stuff
that weighs upon it, and wreak his thought upon intenser
expression.
Sir Charles W. Dilke author, journalist, traveller, pol-
itician, known to Americans as author of "Greater Bri-
tain," a work in which the men, manners, and institutions
of the United States are for once described b}' an English-
man as they really are is eas3 T , fluent, straightforward in
debate, one of the best level business speakers in Parlia-
ment. With no pretension to eloquence, he is always mas-
ter of his theme, and rareh* fails to catch and hold the ear
of the House.
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 197
Mr. Henry Fawcett, the blind, spectacled Postmaster-
General, is one of the tallest and most sinew}* looking men
in the House. He is a man of great intellectual vigor,
tenacity of purpose, and courage mingled with caution,
and a trenchant parliamentary debater as well as an admir-
able platform-speaker. On account of his profound knowl-
edge of Indian affairs and sympathy with the people of
that country, he is sometimes called u the member for
India ; " and when, with little inone}*, he was trying to
force the portals of " the rich man's club " at Westminster,
a great number of very poor Hindoos subscribed a sum suf-
ficient to defray the cost of his return for Hackney.
One of the wits of the House is Sir Wilfrid Lawson, who,
notwithstanding the jokes with w r hich he is alwaj's bub-
bling and running over, and notwithstanding his great
wealth, is a man of great moral earnestness, and a zealous,
uncompromising Radical. The sworn foe of soldiers and
publicans, he has shown in his advocacy of 4 'Local Op-
tion " and the principles of peace that, in the right hands,
the scimitar of Saladin may strike home as effectually as
the battle-axe of Richard. A critic in one of the magazines
complains that Sir Wilfrid's wit is waning, that it is
beginning " to smack of the cold water which he advocates,
rather than of the sparkling champagne which he keeps in
his cellar."
Mr. Goschen, a tall, slim man, with dark eyes and hair,
pale face, and a slightly foreign look, is a grandson of a
Leipsic German bookseller. A native of England, he be-
came a pupil of Drs. Tait and Goulburn at Rugby, en-
tered Oriel College, Oxford, at which University he took, in
1853, a first-class in classics, and then founded a successful
banking-house in London. He represents the old City
198 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
of London, and is a read}', independent, vigorous, and
instructive speaker, to whom one listens with more profit
than delight.
That gentleman on the Treasury bench with the closely
shaven face, hair brushed back, eye-glass, and nose like
that on which the younger Pitt used to dangle " the Oppo-
sition," is Mr. Chamberlain, the dictator of Birmingham,
the father of the hated caucus (which Mr. Cowen regards
as a plutocratic instrument of torture, contrived by Amer-
ican bosses for the purpose of " putting the screws " upon
working-men), and author of that masterpiece of political
machinery, the National Liberal Federation. He is a clear,
vigorous speaker, whose chief fault is a tendency to sing-
song. Probably no other man, after so short an acquain-
tance with the House of Commons, ever acquired so much
political influence, or was so deeply feared, not to say
hated, by his Tory enemies. He was thirty-two years old
before he ever spoke in public ; but having utilized all his
leisure hours in his libraiy, consisting of three thousand
carefully chosen volumes, he had large stores of knowledge
to draw from, and became a powerful champion of Liberal
principles.
With the exception of Mr. Gladstone, John Bright is
the most powerful speaker in the House. When he rises
to speak, his portly, muscular frame, leonine head, and
thoughtful face arrest the attention of strangers at once.
There is little mobility in his features, which the jaw and
mouth especially indicate resolution and firmness more
than any other mental quality. His voice, which is power-
ful, resonant, and clear, has a vibration which gives a
wondrous effect to his words of pathos, indignation, or
scorn. Beginning in low and tremulous tones, with the
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 199
hesitation common to English orators, he grapples at once
with the question before the House ; and stating its difficulties
without any attempt to evade them, wrestles with them like
an intellectual athlete. There is no display of learning, no
subtle disquisition, no elaborated climax, still less any of
that drawling mannerism so common in the House, but a
simple and masterly presentation of the speaker's views
which touches alike the heart, conscience, and intellect of
the hearer. It matters not how much you dislike his politi-
cal opinions, you cannot listen to him and feel an indif-
ference to his words. A presence which fills the eye, a
voice that captivates the ear, and a slow and deliberate
utterance, which, as one of his critics has said, seems to
choose the best word, and to watch its effect in order that
he may so choose and place the next as to heighten, or, if
need be, to soften and qualify, the impression of the first,
compel attention and interest. Simple in language, com-
pact in statement, pre-eminentlj T happy in illustration, he
speaks much as Daniel Webster spoke. There is the same
straightforward plainness of speech, the same superb self-
restraint, the same parsimony of gesture, the same appear-
ance of reserved power ; and the soul of conviction shines
through all his utterances. What other parliamentary ora-
tor has matched thoughts so pathetic with words so eloquent
and happy, as the man who by the charm of his oratory
almost persuaded the House during the Crimean War, as it
listened in hushed silence to his words, that he could hear
the flapping of the wings of the angel of death?
As a parliamentary orator only, Mr. Bright ma) 7 not
equal Mr. Gladstone, who when on the Treasury bench
is more at home than on "the stump" or in the lecture-
room. But place the Quaker orator on the platform or in
200 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
the open air with six thousand hearers before him, and he
has no equal in eloquence in Great Britain. He is empha-
tically a tribune of the people ; and the fact that he has won
his way to eminence with no adventitious helps, but by the
sheer stress and force of genius, is the secret of not a little
of the sympathy with which he is regarded by his country-
men. A born orator, he has trained and improved his
natural gifts with the most sedulous care. His speeches
abound with illustrations drawn from the masterpieces of
English literature, especially from Shakspeare and Milton.
These authors he has profoundly studied ; and there was a
time, it is said, when it was rare to find him without
" Paradise Lost" in his hand or in his pocket. To his
intimate knowledge of these great poets may be ascribed
his felicity of quotation, for which he has a positive genius.
He is very familiar with the Scriptures too, and his most
impressive tropes, and even many of his turns of expression,
are drawn from the Old Testament. He is a striking ex-
ample of the mental discipline and culture which may be
derived from a few books, if they are books of the highest
order and are thoroughly mastered. Lacking the advan-
tages of a university education, he has shown himself a
match for any of the u double-firsts " and " senior optimes "
that Oxford or Cambridge has produced. With less wit
than Disraeli, he has more humor ; with all the earnestness
of Gladstone, he has more self possession ; while he has a
simple pathos, and an occasional grandeur, indignation,
and scorn, that belong to neither. What other public
speaker has contributed to the literature of oratory so
many phrases which have become household words, as Mr.
Bright? Who has forgotten Mr. Disraeli as u the mystery-
man " of his party, or as the mountebank with " a pill for
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 201
the earthquake ; " or Mr. Horsraan and Mr. Lowe as the
Scotch-terrier part}', of which no one could tell the head
from the tail ; or the Conservatives as the party who, " if
they had been in the wilderness, would have complained of
the Ten Commandments as a harassing piece of legisla-
tion " ? phrases which belong to history as truly as do
u the Adullamites," the " peer of adulterous birth," and the
" fancy franchises" to the political vocabulary of England.
When was an argument put more strongly in a few words
than in the following passage from a speech against the
Crimean War?
" The property-tax is the lever or the weapon with which the
proprietors of land and Louses in this kingdom will have to support
the ' integrity and independence ' of the Ottoman Empire. Gen-
tlemen, I congratulate you that every man of you has a Turk upon
his shoulders.' 1
What, again, can be happier than the following from a
speech on the corn laws? Speaking of the attempt of
Charles I. to levy taxes without the consent of Parliament,
he asks,
" If our fathers refused to be the bondmen of a king, shall we
be the born thralls of an aristocracy like ours ? Shall we, ivho struck
the lion down, pay the wolf homage ? "
Mr. Cobden once said, on a memorable occasion, that
Mr. Bright and Mr. Gladstone were the only speakers in
Parliament who ever changed votes by their eloquence. Mr.
Bright would be still more persuasive if he took more pains
to understand the views of his opponents, whom he too
often defies, instead of conciliating. It is not a hostile but
a friendly critic who saj's that when he encounters what he
thinks prejudices, and others might think principles, his
202 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
massive understanding passes over them like a steam-roller
crushing and pulverizing stones.
Of all England's orators Mr. Bright is most emphatically
the champion of the oppressed. His clients, as he has
justly said, have not been generally the rich and the great,
but the poor and the lowly. In pleading their cause he
has, to use his own words, " endured measureless insult,
and passed through hurricanes of abuse." For forty years
he has labored unceasingly to redeem his country from the
charge that her greatness and her wealth are wrung from
the rags, the toil, and the hunger of pauperized millions.
Having now reached his seventy- third year, it is not strange
that he shows signs of declination. His eye no longer
sparkles with its wonted fire, and his organ-like voice,
which once lent itself easily to ever}* expression of passion,
pathos, humor, or scorn, though it occasionally thunders as
of old, has lost much of its volume and compass. When
listening to his opening address at the great annual meet-
ing of the Liberation Societ}' in Mr. Spnrgeon's Tabernacle
in 1883, where he had to inspire him an enthusiastic and
sjTnpathetic audience of nearly seven thousand persons, we
were surprised at the extreme slowness, resembling recita-
tion rather than declamation, and the lack of fire, with
which he spoke, and at the almost total absence of those
magical passages with which he once electrified his hearers.
In moral earnestness Mr. Bright is the equal of Mr.
Gladstone, and in pathos and humor he is his superior.
But as a parliamentary leader and speaker, in breadth and
versatility, in capacity for receiving and assimilating new
ideas, in genius for organization and the marshalling of
multitudinous details, above all in the astonishing readiness
as well as power with which he can handle every subject
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 203
that comes up, Mr. Gladstone has no superior, nor even an
equal. Other statesmen have surpassed him in the higher
regions of orator}', man}' in the art of managing men ; but
where shall we look for one to match his readiness, his
adroitness, his intellectual keenness, his vast stores of
knowledge in debate? Lord Palmerston had more tact and
self-control, and Disraeli could give a keener edge to his
sparkling sarcasms ; but Mr. Gladstone has made half-a-
dozen successful speeches to Palmerston's or Disraeli's one.
No other speaker half follows, half guides the moods of his
audience more easily, more quickly, than Mr. Gladstone.
He is pre-eminently the orator of affairs. Of all the Chan-
cellors of the Exchequer, he is the only one who has made
budgets eloquent, and imparted a moral significance even to
figures. He is a man of medium stature, with a well-pro-
portioned body of average size. His face, though not
handsome, is highly intellectual, and indicative of goodness
and honesty as well as power. As Sydney Smith said of
Horner's, "the ten commandments are written in it." A
pale complexion, slightly tinged with olive, and dark hair
cut close to his head, with an e}'e of remarkable depth and
fascination, and a slight tinge of melancholy in his expres-
sion, give him, in some degree, the air of a recluse.
When he enters the House by the door behind the
Speaker's chair, he creeps to his seat silently, with a cat-like
tread, and in a few minutes you see him absorbed in the
study of some papers, or more probably listening to the
speaker on the floor. With pencil in hand, his knees
crossed so as to serve for a table, and his head bent for-
ward in the direction of the speaker, he sits hour after hour,
making notes of what is said ; when suddenly he drops his
papers, and advancing to the table, answers an opponent's
204 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
question, or proceeds to vindicate, enforce, or explain some
measure he has in charge. The promptness, ease, and
felicity with which he does this, show him to be a consum-
mate parliamentary debater. Mr. Gladstone's first orator-
ical qualification is his admirable voice. It is not a loud
voice, or one of great volume, but pure, clear, vibrating,
and as silvery as Belial's. Without the slightest effort or
strain of the speaker, it reaches the ear of the remotest
hearer. Of late years some of its finer and more delicate
qualities have often been wanting ; but in Mr. Gladstone's
best days no harshness ever jarred the music of his tones,
and though he spoke for hours together, the closing sen-
tences were as clear and bell-like in their cadence as the
first. It is said that a foreigner who heard him one night
declared that until then he had never regarded the English
as a musical language ; but now he was convinced that it
is one of the most melodious of living tongues. Some-
body once said that Mr. Gladstone was the only man in the
House who could talk in italics. "The saying," adds Mr.
Justin McCarthj*, " was odd, but was, nevertheless, appro-
priate and expressive. Gladstone could by the slightest
modulation of his voice give all the emphasis of italics, of
small print, or large print, or any other effect he might
desire, in his spoken words."
The three distinguishing qualities of Mr. Gladstone's
oratory are readiness, fertility, and force. Of all the great
English speakers he has been the most independent of
preparation. His foot is always in the stirrup, his lance is
always in the rest. No matter what the subject, or how
suddenly he is called upon to speak, he seems always to
have a multitude of facts, ideas, arguments, distinctions,
and illustrations relating to it, and to have mastered all its
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 205
difficulties. Even Fox, eager and impetuous as he was,
was great only in reply, when his feelings were roused by
the excitement of battle ; whereas Mr. Gladstone is just
as impassioned and forcible in the beginning as in the mid-
dle of a speech, in opening a debate as in reply. Great as
are his intellectual gifts, they are not so remarkable as the
intensity of feeling which he throws into everything he
does. Endowed apparently by Nature with " a larger
supply than most men of what George Eliot calls ' solar
energy,' " he is not occasionally aglow, but always aglow.
A temperature which would be regarded as fever-heat in
other men is his normal condition. Hence it is that neither
the seventy-four years that have passed over him, nor the
division of his mind among a multiplicity of things, pol-
itics, theology, history, scholarship, art, and social topics,
have diminished his amazing vigor, and that he can
throw the whole weight of his nature upon whatever he
touches, and yet have such a reservoir of force behind
as never to suffer from the drain. Of the strength of his
physical constitution a striking example was given by his
famous Midlothian campaign of 1879. In the course of a
fortnight, in bitter winter weather, he addressed audiences
numbering in all seventj'-five thousand persons, a feat of
bodily and mental prowess unparalleled by any other states-
man in his seventieth year.
More than forty years ago, Bunsen wrote : "Gladstone
is the first statesman in England as to intellectual power,
and he has heard higher tones than any one else in this
island." It is his moral seriousness, the strength and
transparent honesty of his convictions, with the purity and
elevation of his character, which, more even than his
power as an advocate, have given weight to his opinions
206 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
and won the admiration and esteem of his countrymen.
Mr. Gladstone is not a political pioneer, an original thinker,
but a practical statesman who watches the course of events,
and adapts his measures to the exigencies of the hour. In
his boundless stores of knowledge, in his adroitness and
flexibility, in the marvellous subtlety which enables him to
wind into his subject like a serpent, and in a mastery of
language which enables him to express accurately the most
delicate distinctions of thought, he has no equal in Parlia-
ment. In the power, too, of organizing complex and diffi-
cult details into an orderly scheme, and of giving legislative
form to the measures on which the nation has determined,
as well as of supporting those measures by varied and pow-
erful argument, he is without a rival. At the beginning of
his career he was exceedingly nervous, scrupulous, and sen-
sitive. He professed to act from high religious motives,
and was regarded as a casuist unsuited to the region of
practical politics. He seemed a recluse of scholarly, poeti-
cal temperament, a kind of political lotos-eater, and
was thought to lack the pugnacit}* necessaiy for parliamen-
tary conflict. But he had not been long in Parliament
before it was found that instead of being a dream}* enthusi-
ast, a mere chopper of Oxford logic, who could only
split straws and advocate extreme opinions of High-Church
policy, he was a statesman of the most practical kind.
Business men brought into contact with him found that he
understood their own branches of trade as well as they
themselves. They discovered that " he possessed vast in-
formation in connection with that undercurrent of com-
merce which flows in warehouses and counting-houses, but
of which the cabinet and the library scarcely know the
existence." Politicians discovered that, Conservative though
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 207
he was, he kept all the windows of his mind open, and was
alive to all the dominant ideas of his time. Educated in
the narrow and selfish Toryism of Lord Kldon, he began
his public career as an upholder of established laws and
institutions ; but though he remained a Tory for twenty
years, he argued every question in a liberal spirit. Even
at Oxford keen observers had noted that he argued on the
Conservative side from Liberal principles.
In 1845 he began casting oft' the wrappings of conven-
tionalism, and his whole subsequent career has been a slow
but steady progress of repudiation of all that his old politi-
cal friends hold dear. It was in finance, of which he in-
troduced a new and brilliant era, that Mr. Gladstone won
the highest distinction. His labors upon the budget and
his tariff scheme were enormous. In his first budget he
abolished the duty on a hundred and twenty-three arti-
cles, and reduced that on a hundred and thirty-three,
the entire relief to the people amounting to 5,000,000. In
the session of 1842 he spoke a hundred and twenty-nine
times, chiefly upon subjects connected with the new fiscal
legislation. In these speeches, and especially in the bud-
gets he introduced as Chancellor of the Exchequer from
1859 to 1866, he showed that the intellect which could deal
with abstract ideas with the subtlety of a casuist or a met-
aphysician, was not less at home with the subject of Baltic
timber, or the duties on hops, salt-meat, and herrings. Pitt
only excepted, what other Chancellor of the Exchequer has
ever contrived to make a budget-speech fascinating? Who
has forgotten when the expounding of the national finances
was the great oratorical sensation of the session ; when the
House of Commons was charmed by eloquent periods on
sugar, spirit-duties, and tea, and the unfolding of the sur-
208 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
plus was awaited with breathless anxiety, like the denoue-
ment of a novelist's plot? When Mr. Gladstone introduced
his memorable budget in 1860, the desire to hear him was
so intense that strangers with members' orders took their
places as early as 9 A. M., or seven hours before the session
began, and for the first time since he had left the House of
Commons, Lord Brougham sat in the gallery, that night.
Mr. Gladstone has defined in a picturesque phrase the
business of the orator as he views it. u The speaker," he
says, " gives back to his hearers in a rain what he has
received from them in a mist." This well describes one of
the characteristics of his own speeches. Great, however,
as are their merits, they are for the ear, and not for the
63-6, for the hour, and not for all time. Some one has
called them Demosthenic ; we could hardly conceive a
grosser misnomer. Amplification, not condensation, is his
forte. Few speakers, equally powerful, have uttered so few
quotable passages, passages sparkling with gems of
thought and expression, in which j'ears of reflection are
condensed into a phrase or a sentence. His language
never suggests a region of thought, a dim vista of imagery,
an oceanic depth of feeling, beyond what is compassed by
his sentences. It is useless to deny that there is a great
deal of verbiage in his speeches, and that whole paragraphs
might l)e cut out with decided advantage to the effect. It
is not that there is any poverty of ideas, but too much cir-
cumlocution and repetition, too many parentheses, qualifi-
cations, and subdivisions of explanation. A member of the
House once declared that Mr. Gladstone would not say
that twice six is twelve, but that twice six multiplied by
three minus thirty plus six is twelve. A writer in the
u Quarterly Review " burlesques Mr. Gladstone answering a
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 209
question, and contrasts him with Lord Palmerston, thus:
44 Supposing each minister were asked on what day the
session would be over, the Viscount would reply that it was
the intention of her Majesty to close the session on the 18th
of August. Mr. Gladstone would possibl}' premise that
inasmuch as it was for her Majesty to decide upon the day
which would be most acceptable to herself, it was scarcely
compatible with parliamentary etiquette to ask her minis-
ters to anticipate such decision ; but presuming that he
quite understood the purport of the right honorable gentle-
man's question, of which he was not entirety assured, the
completion of the duties of the House of Commons and the
formal termination of the sitting of the legislature being
two distinct things, he would say that her Majesty's min-
isters had represented to the Queen that the former would
probably be accomplished about the 18th of August, and
that such would not be unfavorable for the latter; and,
therefore, if the sovereign should be pleased to ratify that
view of the case, the da3* he had named would probabty be
that inquired after by the honorable gentleman."
It is in Parliament rather than on the platform that Mr.
Gladstone achieves his greatest oratorical triumphs. He is
too fond of looking at all the sides of a question, instead of
plucking out the heart of its mystery at once, to please a
great popular audience. His chief defect as a parliamen-
tary speaker is that he has the logical faculty in excess.
He has a scholastic intellect that is fond of metaphysical
subtleties and nice distinctions. His mind is a dialectical
mill, which grinds everything to dust. His arguments be-
gin with an intelligible breadth, but too often are spun out
to a microscopic tenuit}*, becoming u fine by degrees and
beautifully less," till they are nearl}' impalpable. As he
14
210 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
proceeds, he attenuates, till he is lost, "like the gutta-
percha harness when warm, which leaves the carriage a mile
behind, the traces drawn out to the fineness of a gossamer,
the vehicle not drawn at all." This extreme subtlet}^ of
mind, which gives him an inexhaustible supply of replies
and rejoinders, leads him, as was said of Chief-Justice Par-
sons when pleading at the bar, not only to split hairs, but
to decimate them. No matter how apparently antagonistic
two principles are, he will show that they may be re-
conciled ; and hence to convict him of an inconsistency is
an impossibilit3 r . During Garibaldi's visit to London, it
was suggested that a noble and richly jointured widow, who
went about much with him, should marry him. To the
objection that he had a wife living, the read}' answer was :
" Oh ! he must get Gladstone to explain her away." Fond,
however, as Mr. Gladstone is of over-refining, his bitterest
enemies will not pretend that his subtlety of thinking has
ever checked his activity, or that he is not as far as pos-
sible from being a visionary or a dreamer. He never ties
knots for the purpose of entanglement, but, as it has been
truty said, the mental puzzle refers to some practical
measure, and the over-refining usualty consists in efforts to
justify prompt action.
Mr. Gladstone's industiy is something that almost stag-
gers belief. For fifty-three years he has sat in the House
of Commons toiling with a vehement and unsleeping ardor
that would have worn out an ordinary man in half the
time. Even at Eton he used to stupef\' his fags by his
prodigious capacity for work. At the Universit}' of Oxford
he graduated t; double-first" in his twenty-second 3*ear, and
has since never ceased to add to his varied acquirements.
A superlative master of the languages and literatures of
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 211
Greece and Rome, he is also familiar with the leading lan-
guages of modern Europe, especially with the language
and literature of Italy, where his name is a household word.
On one occasion he is said to have delivered a speech of
three hours in faultless Italian. His faculties, bodily and
mental, like sailors on watch, seem to have relieved each
other by turns, and none of them has long slumbered or
slept. Going to Naples for his children's health, he makes
all Europe ring with his denunciations of the atrocities
committed by the Neapolitan court. No sooner does he
resign the premiership, than he startles the public with a
work on Homer. Before men have ceased wondering how
he finds time to keep up his classic studies, he surprises
them anew with a powerful pamphlet on Ultramontanism.
Hardly is the ink dry, when in another publication he is
thundering against the Turkish massacres ; and when peo-
ple begin to think that he must be exhausted, he hurries to
Scotland and delivers a series of speeches which in range,
grasp, passion, and power, rank among the most effective
electioneering harangues recorded in the political history of
Great Britain.
To the admirers of the British Premier in this country,
who, it is safe to say, may be counted by hundreds of thou-
sands, the tidings flashed across the Atlantic from time to
time, of late, concerning his health, have caused much
anxiety. Till now Mr. Gladstone's spare, sinewy frame
has shown a marvellous recuperative power during the
almost unparalleled mental and physical strain to which for
upward of fifty }*ears it has been subjected. Even when
occasionally incapacitated for ministerial and parliamentary
labor by colds caught while walking in the teeth of fierce
northeasters, or when engaged in his favorite winter
212 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
exercise of tree-felling and wood-cutting, lie has always
regained bis wonted health quicker than do most men who
are twenty-four years younger. Rarely is such a mind
wedded to such a body. More than thirty years ago his
iron frame and prodigious capacity for work excited the
astonishment of his associates in the House of Commons,
one of whom, Mr. Sidney Herbert, said: "Don't talk to
me about Gladstone's mind ; it is nothing, compared with
his body." Again and again in past years he has been ex-
amined, sounded, and tested b}' auscultation by his medical
advisers, and invariably they have pronounced him to be
"made of pin-wire." Nothing but a lignum-vitae tough-
ness of constitution, and nerves of steel, with a rare genius
for sleep, and implicit obedience to the laws of health,
could have borne him for over half a centuiy, without
exhaustion, through all his herculean toils.
Like most Englishmen, Mr. Gladstone has alwa}*s been
a fast and vigorous walker. He loves the open air, and
in the bleakest weather rarety wears an overcoat or rides
in a cab. Why, lean, sinewy, without an ounce of super-
fluous flesh about him, he is admirably fitted for pedestrian
feats ; and when a considerably }'ounger man, used to sa}*,
without the slightest appearance of boasting, that he was
good for a forty-mile walk an}' day. A writer in one of
the London daily papers, who knows the Premier's habits
intimately, states that when he lived in Harley Street, it
was only at the urgent request of his physician that he
abstained from trudging down to the House of Commons
eveiy day, and from walking home in all weathers at night.
For riding on horseback, and for field-sports, we believe he
has never shown much taste. For his neglect of the latter,
an accident he met with, about forty years ago, may par-
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 213
tially account. Going out with a large shooting part}-, near
York, during a visit at a relative's, he was loading his gun,
when one barrel exploded, and the index-finger of his left
hand was blown away. It is well known that great orators
are usually poor sleepers. The strain to which the mental
and physical faculties are subjected, both before in prepara-
tion and during the delivery of a long and impassioned
speech, are such as to excite the nerves and to exhaust
their energy more quickly than any other kind of effort.
There have been public speakers who have achieved their
highest successes only at the cost of several nights of wake-
fulness. A famous parliamentary orator said that every
one of his speeches cost him two sleepless nights, one in
which he was thinking what to say, the other in which he
was lamenting what lie might have said better. Not so with
Mr. Gladstone. No speech, however long, whether de-
livered in the open air, or late at night in the close, sultry
atmosphere of the crowded House of Commons, no serious
speech delivered during an exciting Liverpool or Mid-
lothian campaign, has ever banished sleep from his eye-
lids. Till within a \eai* or two past, he has always been
good for seven and a half hours' sleep: "Seven," he has
been accustomed to sa}*, " are not enough for me ; I must
have seven and a half." But now, we are told, this happy
faculty is no longer possessed by the Premier. The sleep-
lessness which drove him several years ago to Cannes,
has returned, and points unmistakably to an overtasked
brain.
Few persons who have not given special attention to the
subject are aware what an enormous amount of labor and
what a weight of responsibility are imposed upon the Prime
Minister of Great Britain to-day. It is not in Downing
214 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
Street only that he is forced to toil ; his duty follows him
like his shadow wherever he goes. The weight of an em-
pire presses upon his brain. Upon him the final responsi-
bility in regard to a hundred matters of importance falls ;
he has piles of papers to look over ; it is his task often not
an easy one to preserve harmony in the Cabinet ; and to
all his other duties may be added that of leading the House
of Commons, and advocating and defending there the meas-
ures he has introduced. No matter how far into the night
a debate may be protracted, his position as leader of his
party keeps him chained to his post. A circumstance that
makes this duty far more arduous than formerly is that the
sessions of Parliament are both longer and later than they
used to be. In the years 1862 to 1866, inclusive, the
average number of hours which the House of Commons sat
annually was 807, of which 79 were spent after midnight.
Since then the average has been steadily increasing, till in
the quinquennial period closing with the session of 1881 the
average sittings of the House had risen to 1,153, of which
176 in each session were spent after midnight.
Another circumstance that intensifies Mr. Gladstone's
toils is the irony of fate, cruel be3'ond precedent, which has
embroiled his countiy with foreign Powers. A sincere lover
of peace, and coming into office with the cry of " non-inter-
vention," he has been compelled to see England dragged
again into the vortex of foreign politics, and committed to
contests in which, even if victorious, she could win neither
honor nor profit. Still another thing that makes Mr. Glad-
stone's labors more exhausting than they would otherwise
be, is the ardor of his temperament, the perfervidum
ingenium Scotorum which he has inherited. One of his
enemies has described him as " a statesman of second-rate
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 215
intellect in a first-rate state of effervescence." He takes
life almost too seriously. Having no half-convictions, he
is terribly earnest in his speeches, and champions the
measures he has introduced into the House of Commons
with the whole force of his brain and heart. "There is
nothing," sa}'s Balzac, " that exhausts and wears us out
so fast as our convictions. A political or a literary convic-
tion is a mistress that kills us at last with the tongue or the
sword." Of such convictions as Mr. Gladstone holds, this
is too true. They literally possess his soul, and allow it no
rest. Hence he does not understand the value of absti-
nence. When he speaks, he is so possessed with his sub-
ject, so anxious to examine it on every side, in order that
he ma}' fully grasp the truth, that he is apparently oblivious
of the lapse of time, and exhausts both his theme and him-
self. His great budget speech of 1860, four hours long, was
made just after an attack of bronchitis. One of his famous
speeches in reply to Disraeli has been thus described :
" In the memory of the present generation there has been no
speech delivered in the House of Commons in which there was
such a rage of words. Its * go ' was incomparable. There was
not even time to cheer. It seemed as if the Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer had only five minutes to spare, and into that space had to
crowd the entire dictionary. He seemed to be speaking against
time, and the pace reminded one of nothing so much as of the last
half-mile of the Derby. He kept this up for a good hour. He
swept on as a hurricane, the House, as he tore on, rising to catch
every word. There was exultation in his voice ; there was an
intensity ... in his speech of which the printed report conveys
but a poor idea. He took the House by storm, and retained it
for the remainder of the evening. It was a physical rather than
intellectual impression that he had created. It was a sensation
rather than a demonstration he had made ; but the sensation was
tremendous."
216 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
Another trait of Mr. Gladstone is that, partly from mag-
nanimity and partly from sensitiveness, he too often stoops
to notice p.ygmy opponents, who think it an honor to be
tossed b}' his horn, and whose insignificance renders them
powerless for mischief. His time and strength are wasted
in discussions with foemen unwortlr^ of his steel. It is as
hard for him to sit silent when he hears the Land Bill or a
speech of his own misquoted, or a misstatement made con-
cerning the practice of the House, as it was for Lord North
to be dumb when a speaker was guilt}' of a false quantity in
a Latin quotation, or for Macaulay to keep his lips closed
when a false date or other error touching the reign of Queen
Anne was thundered in his ears. " Why, Mr. Speaker,"
we once heard Mr. Gladstone exclaim, in reply to an ob-
scure opponent who had cited some rule or practice of
the House in past years, " the honorable gentleman talks
as if he had been a member of the House ever since
Adam ! " As an English friend, to whom we are indebted
for some of our facts concerning Mr. Gladstone, has tersely
said, " his Nasm3*th hammer is equally read}' to beat into
shape the armor of a parliamentary iron-clad, or to crack
a political nut."
To all this the great English statesman may reply that he
is what he is, that if he is killing himself by overwork,
lie bears that within him which would more ignobly kill him,
if he did not throw himself impetuously into the political
struggle and fight for the principles and measures he holds
dear. Needless as it may seem for " the fiery soul to o'er-
inform its integument of clay," yet it is better to wear out
than to rust out ; better, far better, that the ship should be
shivered upon the rocks, or go down beneath the waters, than
rot ingloriously at the wharves ! Yet there is another and
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 217
more quiet arena, to which the Prime Minister might trans-
fer his labors, where he would not be scourged by so merci-
less an activity as that which is now sapping his vitality,
and might obtain a new lease of life, with the hope of long-
continued usefulness. In that Upper House which has rung
with the thunders of Chatham and echoed the silvery ac-
cents of Bolingbroke and Mansfield, he would find oppo-
nents pares congressus Achillis, and scope for the fullest
healthful exercise of his magnificent abilities, with opportu-
nities for repose which, while "stretched on the rack of
restless ecstasy " in the Lower House, he can never expect
to enjoy.
THE QUEEN OF WATERING-PLACES.
BAD-HOMBURG, Sept. 16, 1886.
U OEE Naples, and die!" is an oft-quoted epigram con-
**-* cerning the beauty of an Italian city. See Homburg,
and live ! would be a juster tribute of praise to one of the
most popular German watering-places. Leaving Boston on
the 8th of July last, with the intention of spending August
and September in the Lower Engadine and the TJTO!, I
stopped on the wa}' to look at this watering-place ; and after
a glance at the Kurhaus and the Park, consulted with the
eminent physician, Dr. Deetz, and on his assurance that the
waters of Homburg were just suited to my ailments, decided
to pitch my tent here. After over a month's stay, during
which I have dail}' drunk and bathed in the waters of one
of the springs, with great benefit to my health, T am pre-
pared to pronounce Homburg the queen of all the Euro-
pean watering-places I have }~et visited, not even excepting
Baden-Baden. Of course there is no watering-place abso-
lutely perfect in its situation, climate, waters, and appoint-
ments ; as Boileau said of a perfect sonnet,
" Get heureux phenix est encore a trouver."
It is said that there are only two perfect things in this
world, one's first baby, and the perfect tense ; but Hom-
burg, it seems to me, lacks but two things to make it prac-
tically perfect, namely, a large, luxurious bath-house,
like that of Baden-Baden (which it will have next season,
THE QUEEN OF WATERING-PLACES. 219
at an expense of half a million of marks), and a natural lake
or river, which I fear it must always lack. It is true there
is an artificial lake in the park ; but the stagnant, muddy
water in which the ducks wanton, so unlike the limpid,
transparent water of a natural lake or pebbly stream, has
for me no attraction.
But what, you will ask, are the primary merits of Horn-
burg as a watering-place? What is the nature of its waters,
and for what diseases are they a remedy? Let me say,
then, that the chief merit of the place is its health-restoring
opportunities, its climate, mineral springs, and baths. The
climate, to begin with, is remarkably pure, dry, and invig-
orating. The dryness is due to the absence of rivers in the
vicinity, and to the high, sloping ground on which the town
is built. After the heaviest rain the streets of Homburg
become quickly dry, the water running rapidly away, and
permitting the invalid to take his wonted walk in half an
hour with perfect safety. Though there are some hot, and
even sultry, daj's in Homburg, they are exceptional, I am
told, and the weather is, on the whole, very agreeable
throughout Juty, August, and September. The extensive
woods, which cover the mountains and hills in the neighbor-
hood, give a delicious coolness to the atmosphere, and cause
a gentle breeze, which is rarely wanting even in dog-da3'S.
Of the value of such a climate dry, gently stimulating, and
rich in oxygen in the restoration of health, I need not
speak.
The mineral waters of Homburg, which are found in five
springs, are about ten minutes' walk from the heart of the
town, in a charming park, of which I shall say more pres-
ently. Of these springs, called respectively the Elisabeth,
the Kaiser, the Ludwigsbrunnen, the Luisen, and the
220 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
Stahlbrunnen, the first three are characterized by resolvent
qualities; the remaining two, in which iron predominates
over the salt, are tonic in their effect. Salt, carbonic acid,
and in some cases iron, are the chief constituents of the
waters ; and with these are mingled chloride of calcium and
of lime, etc., which enhance or modify the general effect.
This effect is produced by the action of the waters upon
the mucous membrane, the large glands, the kidneys, and
the liver, revolutionizing, as the waters do, according to
high authority, the whole economy of the body, increasing
the tissue-changes, and renewing the blood more quickly
than usual. But of the diseases which the}' cure or greatly
alleviate, the first and most important, according to Dr. F.
Haeber, one of the leading physicians here (see the " Fort-
nightly Review" for August), "are the diseases of the
mucous membrane of the alimentary tract. Chronic catarrh
of the stomach and bowels, congestion or slight enlargement
of the liver, as well as sluggishness or inactivity of that
organ, impaired circulation in the abdominal organs, habit-
ual constipation and hemorrhoids, will be most directly in-
fluenced by these spas." Again, corpulency, rheumatism,
and gout are almost sure of being relieved by these waters ;
and it is not strange, therefore, that rich and titled English-
men flock here by hundreds. How delightful it must be for
John Bull to exchange for this pure, stimulating atmosphere,
his own dismal climate, of which an English wit, Hemy
Luttrell, once said, that on a fine da}' it was like looking
up a chimney, on a rain}' day, like looking down it ! As
you sit at table d'hote in your hotel, or sit under the trees
in the Kurhaus garden, listening to the delicious strains
of Herr Tomlich's well-trained orchestra, you will hear the
language of Shakspeare and Milton spoken by your neigh-
THE QUEEN OF WATERING-PLACES. 221
bors on the right hand and the left, as often as the more
guttural tongue of Goethe and Schiller. Among the recent
English visitors here has been the Prince of Wales, who
took his dram of mineral water earl}' every morning at the
Elisabeth spring, in common with us poor wretches who,
as Horace says, k ' numerus sumus, et fruges consumere
nati."
The waters of the Luisen and the Stahlbrunnen wells are
found most efficacious in secondary anaemia, resulting from
exhausting ailments, chiefly those of the alimentary tracts.
Professional men, scholars, and business men. who have
been " burning the candle at both ends," who, in other
words, have over-taxed their physical and mental faculties,
and who are suffering from nervous exhaustion, the result
of excessive toil, anxiety, and worry, who are afflicted with
no positive disease, but who feel a lack of spring, buo3*anc3',
and elasticity, and are tormented with sleeplessness, ennui,
and doubts whether the game of life is worth the candle ;
persons who are weakened b} T long sicknesses, in which
they have been so near to death's door that, as Hood says,
they could almost hear the creaking of the hinges, all
these find unquestionable relief in the iron springs.
A few Sundays ago, I was walking to the Scotch Presby-
terian church (which holds its service here in the chapel of
the Hof, or Royal Castle) in company with a rotund Scotch
gentleman, one of those burly men whose presence could
be felt in a room you entered blindfold, when he asked
me if I was taking Homburg waters. " You certainly do
not look," said he, with a significant smile and glance at
my ghostly physique, " as if yon needed veiy much to re-
duce your bulk." In this remark he had reference to the
fact that many obese persons come here to be relieved by
222 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
the waters of their excessive fat; and as, for some time
past, I have been losing flesh, and threatening to shrink to
the dimensions of Hipponax, the Greek comic poet who
invented parody, or to rival in thinness that ancient sooth-
sa3*er who weighed but an obolus, or that aerial poet of Cos
who had to fasten lead to his sandals to keep the wind from
blowing him awa}', the remark was a very natural one.
It is a paradoxical fact that the Homburg waters are used
with advantage for diseases of a seemingly opposite charac-
ter. Not only do those who, like Falstaff, " lard the lean
earth as the}' walk along," and who often, like Hamlet, ex-
claim, " Oh that this too, too solid flesh would melt!" get
relief here from their grossness, but thin, spider-legged,
spectral persons, who look as though they could barely turn
a money-scale, men who are all made up of nervousness
and sensibilitj', complete conductors of electricity, ^Eolian
harps that tremble at every passing breeze, aspen-like
mortals who can say with Wordsworth,
" My apprehensions come in crowds,
I dread the rustling of the grass ;
The very shadows of the clouds
Have power to shake me as they pass,"
find these waters exceedingly helpful.
The Homburg waters are used both internally and ex-
ternally. The curative effect of the springs is aided by the
use of mineral baths. The effect of the salt and other in-
gredients of the mineral water on the skin, according to
the authority alread} 7 quoted, is to vivify and invigorate the
whole nervous sN'stem, " to increase the activity and force
of resistance of the skin, and greatly to aid in the assimila-
tion of nutritious substances." To the agreeable qualities
of these baths I can testify from many trials. It is hardly
THE QUEEN OF WATERING-PLACES. 223
too much to say that they are positively delicious. A de-
lightful prickling, gently stimulating, yet soothing sensation
steals over you, and you feel that you would like to lie and
doze and dream there forever. After one of these baths a
man must be the veriest cynic not to feel kindly to all his
fellow-beings. I could at such a time forgive my worst
enemy, even the cousin who cozened me out of that half-
dollar fifty-nine years ago at the Maine Wesleyan Seminary,
or the critic who said of one of my books that it was " the
most commonplace of commonplace." I fully sympathize
with the Frenchman who, when taking a similar bath at
Schwalbach, was overheard saying to himself: "Dans ces
bains on est absolument amoureux de soi-meme " (In
these baths one is absolutely in love with himself).
Besides the ordinary mineral baths, they give you at
Homburg, if your blood is thin and 3*our body like Dr.
Holmes's "one-horse sha}*," read}' to fall in pieces from
general debility, an effervescing "Schwartz bath ;" and if,
in addition, }*ou are suffering from nervous irritability or
rheumatism, they give you pine-baths, which I have found
very pleasant, although on first lying in the tub you half
fancy that you have been plunged into Acheron or a sec-
tion of the Stygian lake. The pine-oil which is mingled
with the mineral water in these baths is distilled from the
leaves of pine-trees, and is diluted with a decoction of pine-
leaves. For neuralgia and severe rheumatism you can have
mud-baths ; and for scrofula and skin-diseases, mother-of-
lye baths. Let me add that the managers at Homburg do
not pretend, as do those at some other European watering-
places, that the waters are a panacea for all, or nearly all,
the ills that flesh is heir to. Invalids there are, of course,
whom no mineral waters can help ; of whom it may be
224 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
said, indeed, as the Thames waterman said to Pope when
the little crooked dwarf, after having been rowed from Lon-
don home, disputed about the fare, and ejaculated, as he
had a thousand times before, " God mend me ! " "Mend
you, indeed ! Much easier to make another ! "
The effect of the Homburg waters and of the pure, brac-
ing mountain air is greatly enhanced by the regimen pre-
scribed by the doctors. Their patients are furnished with
a list of forbidden articles of diet, among which are salmon,
cabbage, cauliflower, cucumbers, onions, radishes and
horse-radishes, macaroni, puddings, pastn*, and butter.
Light wines are allowed ; but spirits of every kind, heavy
w r ines such as Burgundy, and the 4 ' liquor wines " gener-
all}', such as sherry, madeira, port, and champagne, are
strict^ prohibited. Claret is deemed the best wine for the
invalid, specially if his digestive organs are inclined to
acidity. Raw, uncooked fruit of all kinds is rigidl}* for-
bidden. There is no doubt that, apart from the mineral
waters, the pure, bracing air, the pure water from the
mountain springs, the frequent exercise in the open air,
the early hours for retiring and rising (the last, two being
earnestly enjoined), the freedom from care and anxiety,
together with the avoidance of harmful stimulants and of
all innutritions, indigestible food, would of themselves in
many cases of disease work a cure. From 7 to 9 A. M.
the long, tree-shaded walk from the Kaiser to the Elisabeth
spring is crowded with men and women of all ranks and
nations, walking leisurely between the drams of water,
chatting, and listening to the strains of the fine Kursaal
band. The hollow in w r hich the latter spring lies is en-
circled with fine, lofty trees, and its sides are covered with
exquisitely arranged beds of flowers, flowers of all hues,
THE QUEEN OF WATERING-PLACES. 225
and vividly contrasting with each other in form and color.
Close by the spring are a covered walk for rainy weather,
festooned with flowers, a palm-house, and an orangery. In
the afternoon the visitors flock to the Kurhaus garden,
where, sitting under the trees, they listen to the master-
pieces of the great composers played by the orchestra of
forty picked musicians, and on " Fest" nights, alternately
to these and to a fine regimental band from Frankfort. On
these nights the garden is brilliantl} 7 illuminated by hun-
dreds of Chinese lanterns and colored lamps, and hung
with the flags of all nations. The festivities close with a
grand display of fireworks, and, perhaps, a dance in the
Kursaal.
The Kurhaus, built "by M. Blanc in the days when the
croupiers raked thousands of "krones" and u doppel-
krones " into his coffers, is one of the most magnificent in
Europe. It is a vast palatial building, with two wings,
in one of which are the reading, chess, and billiard rooms,
and in the other an opera-house and a restaurant. In the
centre are the grand entrance-hall or front corridor, a
promenade in itself, cool in summer, and warm in winter,
the ball-room, and the concert-room. How spacious, air}-,
and cool seem all these rooms, especially the concert- room,
with its marble floors, and how pleasant the walls in tinted
arabesque, on which fall bright rays of light through the
cupola above ! Antiquaries will be glad to learn that in
the Kurhaus there is a collection of antiquities found on
the " Saalburg," the remains of a Roman castle, situated
on a wooded height of the Taunns, about two miles from
Homburg. In the rear of the Kurhaus is an immense ve-
randa or terrace roofed with glass and fronting the garden,
where hundreds of visitors sit in the evening, dining at
15
226 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
small tables and listening to the band. But the Park,
the unrivalled, enchanting Park, with its lawns of deep
green ; its walks winding under shady trees along hills,
dales, and levels, its attractive light pavilions draped with
caressing creepers, its flower-beds gorgeous with many-
colored blossoms, how shall I do justice to its charms?
To think of giving a picture of it by particularizing its
features would be as absurd as to describe the separate
features of a man, and call the sum-total Jones or Brown.
As the features of the face are only an alphabet, and a dry,
dead map of a person's face can give no idea of his looks,
so an enumeration of the separate beauties of a park con-
veys no more idea of its total charm than the simple
presentation of an alphabet shows what there is in a poem.
Equally useless would it be to compare this Park with that
of any other watering-place ; it would be like Captain Flu-
ellen's comparison of Macedon with Monmouth, because
there was a river in both places, and " salmons in poth."
I must content myself with saying that all which the most
consummate taste and artistic skill could do to make a
rural paradise in which one might forget the " carking
cares " of life, and enjoy not only that indefinite and in-
stinctive happiness which Dr. Paley attributes to infants,
oysters, and periwinkles, but the exalted pleasure yielded
by the contemplation of Nature's charms, enhanced by art,
has been done here. How many years of painstaking must
have passed, how many elaborate studies of effect must
have been made, before these landscape beauties, these
bewitching negligent graces were hit upon, which seem ac-
cidental, but are the product of the highest art ! I never
tire of strolling along the winding walks shaded by over-
arching trees, by the beds of flowers, in the silent and
THE QUEEN OF WATERING-PLACES. 227
fragrant woods that skirt the Park ; of gazing on the lawn-
tennis-players, enjoying their sport under their picturesque
flags, on the finest grounds in German}- ; or of sitting in
some quiet nook under the grand old elms, and listening
to the birds, or to the strains of the distant orchestra borne
on the breeze, building castles in Spain, and thinking of
absent dear ones (" in inedio fonte leporuin surgit amari
aliquid") who alone are wanting to make my bliss com-
plete. Little did I dream before I came here that I
should ever delight to rise at six in the morning, and
without taking even a cup of that Arabian beverage
which, as Pope says,
" Makes the politician wise,
And see all things through his half-shut eyes,"
walk two hours before breakfast. But such is the necro-
mancy of this Park ; and I am fast becoming what a col-
ored man one day told the late James T. Fields, when he
was taking his " constitutional," that he had become, "a
mighty predestinarian."
A witty French writer, enamored of the charms of Hom-
burg. which he lately visited, sa}'s that it was born (that is,
the new town), like Venus, in the bosom of the waters,
it has sprung by enchantment from its saline fountains.
Only, he adds, it needed an enchanter, and that enchanter
was the devil himself, in the form of M. Blanc, who estab-
lished the gaming-house, die Spielhotte as the German
language, with its inexhaustible lexigraphic power, can say.
It was in 1840 that he began operations ; and at once, at
the sound of the roulette, the number of visitors began to
increase, till, from eight hundred in that year, it mounted
up to ten thousand in 1860, and in the last year of the
228 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
games swelled to twenty thousand. The suppression of the
roulette was ordered in 1866, after the Landgraviat of
Hessen-Homburg had been annexed to the kingdom of
Prussia. M. Blanc was allowed, however, to maintain his
Spielholle six years more, on condition of relinquishing his
garden and park, with the buildings erected upon them, to
the Prussian Government (which afterward gave them to
the town of Homburg), and paying a fixed sum annuallj',
to provide a fund for the subsequent administration of the
Kurhaus and the mineral waters. Since 1872 the click of
the little ball cantering round in its steeple-chase till it
drops exhausted into its fatal resting-place, has no longer
been heard in the Kursaal. It is by the revenue from the
fund just mentioned, and by a moderate tax upon visitors,
which the town is authorized to lev}', that the cost of
maintaining this earthly paradise which is said to be
about fifty thousand dollars a year is defrayed. Every
stranger who passes more than five days at Homburg is re-
quired to pay to the town twelve marks. For a family the
tax is. according to the number of persons, twenty, twenty--
four, or thirty marks. (A mark is nearly twenty-five
cents.) The payment of this charge, which is called the
Kurtaxe, gives one a right, through the season, to use
and enjoy the Park, the springs, and the Kurhaus, with
its salons, its reading-rooms, which spread before him
sixty journals and reviews in all languages, its gardens
with their illuminations, the concerts, given three times
daily by the Kurhaus orchestra, the frequent military
music, and the dancing soirees which take place weekly.
Three dollars for all these luxuries ! What other invest-
ment of that sum would yield an equal return in health
and happiness?
THE QUEEN OF WATERING-PLACES. 229
It is worth a visit to Homburg simply to enjoy its doke
far niente, its dreamy lotos-eating, which may here be
had in perfection ; or to sit under the trees in the Kurhaus
garden and hear the stirring or soothing strains of the
orchestra in the kiosque, the forty trained musicians
directed by Herr Gustave Tomlich, who are employed by
the town at a cost of fifteen thousand dollars a year. From
the beginning of the season, May 15, to the end, Septem-
ber 15, they play not fewer than twent} 7 pieces a da}*.
Herr Tomlich is an artist of the most catholic as well as
the most delicate taste. His repertor}* comprises selections
from more than a hundred composers, old and new, of all
nations, from Beethoven, Gluck, and Wagner, to Rossini,
Balfe, and Strauss. Imagine the amount of musical knowl-
edge which programmes containing such an exquisite variety
of pieces, and changed at every concert, must imply in the
leader of the orchestra ! Imagine the long and laborious
training they presuppose on the part of these Saxon (as
most of them are) musicians, who play as one man, and as
if they had given their lives to the mastery of each piece !
A significant peculiarit}^ of the morning concerts at the
springs is that they begin always with a chant of adoration.
The titles of some of these chorals are as follows: " The
Lord is my Fortress;" "Holy, holy, holy Lord God Al-
mighty ; " " Praise the Lord, O my soul ; " " How great is
the goodness of the Almighty;" "Let us praise Jesus
Christ;" "Let God lead us." Who would not be sur-
prised at such a phenomenon as concerts thus opening at
a French or American watering-place?
In conclusion, I will add, for the information of any of
my readers who may not know its situation, that Homburg
vor der Holie (Homburg on the Height), as it is called, is
230 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
situated on a spur of the Taunus Mountains, about twelve
miles from Frankfort-on-the-Main. The town was formerly
the residence of the Landgraves of Hessen-Homburg, who
occupied the Schloss which overlooks the town at its west
end. Connected with the Schloss is the beautiful palace
garden, which is open to the public, with its orangery, fine
old cedars, and fish-pond.
DIARIES.
THE publication of Hawthorne's Life by bis son, with
extracts from his note-book containing cynical ob-
servations on Margaret Fuller, has called public attention
to the practice of diary -keeping, its virtues and vices. The
assiduity of Curll in publishing memoirs and letters made
Arbuthnot call him u a new terror of death." It is said
that Lord Campbell, when writing the Lives of the Lord
Chancellors, met one day the great advocate Sir Frederic
Thessigcr, and said to him: " Well, Sir Frederic, I under-
stand you are to be Chancellor." "O heavens! I hope
not," was the reply; " you would write my life." Never
before, since the days of Cain, have the lives of men been
taken so cruelly as now. This posthumous martyrdom
has become part of the stipulated tax which genius pays
for celebrity. " Don't let the awkward squad fire over
me," was the dying request of Burns ; but an eminent
statesman, poet, or man-of-letters has a fate to dread far
more fearful than the confused firing of country militia over
his grave. To suspect that almost as soon as the breath is
out of his bodj T its spiritual tenant will be turned inside out
and scrutinized with a microscope ; that he is to be photo-
graphed exactly as he is, with all his ugly little peculiarities,
all his eccentricities, all his weaknesses, faults, and foibles,
is enough to make a sensitive man shudder.
No man can be a Solon at all times. In a moment of
thoughtlessness, in the ebullition of animal spirits, in the
232 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
frankness and playfulness of a smoking-room, in the un-
wariness which is induced by a glass or two of wine in
" the wee small hours ayant the 'twal," a satirical remark
is made, or a ludicrous personal anecdote is told, with no
malicious intent ; and down it goes into the inevitable jour-
nal of some one present, to confront you afterward on a
printed page, when, though you bitterly repent the folly, it
is too late to recall it, whatever misery it may cause.
Since the publication of the Biography of Wilberforce and
the Letters of Carlyle, no public man can be secure that his
peace of mind and the friendship of a lifetime may not
be destined by the indiscretion of a biographer who
chooses to spice his work with epigrams that were dropped
and regretted years ago. No wonder that the gentle,
kindly poet Whittier should have declared, after reading
the Carlyle correspondence, that he had set to work and
destroyed the major part of his own collection of letters,
covering a period of over fifty years, lest they should be
published after his death and bring suffering to some one.
"I wish," he adds, "that all the letters I have written
could be treated by my friends in the same manner."
Nor is it strange that, as an English paper asserts, an
eminent personage is reported to have inquired specially
whether the nominee for a private post about her person
kept one of these damning records of familiar conversa-
tions. It is said that a Frenchman tried to shoot himself
when he learned that his wife kept one. When it is con-
sidered that a diary is ex parte, and cannot be cross-
examined, that it is sure to be colored \>y the moods,
misapprehensions, and prejudices of the writer, it seems
strange that this kind of testimony should be trusted and
cited so often as it is by Macaulay and other historians.
DIARIES. 233
The best men have their ill-natured moments, when the
wind is east or their dinners have not been digested.
How would a Gladstone fare in a Tory's diary, or a
Disraeli in a Radical's?
No doubt diaries have been published, some of them
in this generation, which the world could ill have spared.
How could we do without the " Paston Letters," that
44 precious link in the chain of England's moral history,"
as Mr. Hallam has characterized them ; or without the
letters of Anselm, John of Salisbury, and Peter Blois?
Who would willingly part with Evelyn's diary, with its
revelations of Charles II. 's court, and its graphic pictures
of the plague and the great fire in London ; or with the
naive and amusing chronicle of that inveterate old gossip
Pepys, with its piquant social disclosures and its diary
of the quarrels and reconciliations springing from Mrs.
Pepys's fits of jealousy? How much of our knowledge of
Swift we owe to the journals he kept, and which he trans-
mitted to Mrs. Dingley and Mrs. Johnson, journals in
which we see him without disguise, in his dressing-gown
and slippers ! How characteristic the wish expressed in
one of them, when a man wakes him every day b}' crying
savoys, that his largest cabbage was sticking in his throat !
How naive the Dean's self- portraiture in the account he
gives of his treatment of a wretched poet, who sends him
as a bribe some of the finest wild-fowl he ever saw ! He
eats the fowl, and tells his servant "never to let up the
poet when lie comes. The rogue," he sa^ys, " should have
kept the wings, at least, for his Muse." How could we
dispense with Judge Sewall's journal : or with that exquisite
mosaic work of histoiy, wit and anecdote, character and
incident, which Horace Walpole has left us in his letters ;
234 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
or with Boswell's matchless journal ; or with the auto-
biographic correspondence of Cowper, so inimitable in its
seductive negligence of style, and rivalled only by Sevigne
pour center des bagatelles avec grace ; or with the hardly
less entertaining gossip served up in the later reminiscences
of Henry Crabb Robinson, Greville, and Mozley? Amid
not a little rubbish, these works contain much valuable mat-
ter, both biographical and historical. The pett}* incidents
and seemingly trivial anecdotes and sa}'ings which they
record often flash more light upon public events and upon
national and individual character than pages of elaborate
history. The copy of Montaigne's Essaj's containing the
autograph of Shakspeare is esteemed of almost priceless
value. But how much more should we prize, if we had it,
the old Gascon's diary ! What a treasury of Dryden's wit
and wisdom might have been bequeathed to us if Colley
Gibber, who told Johnson that he had met the poet a thou-
sand times and knew him intimately, had possessed Boswell's
taste for personal facts and rare genius for journalizing !
Not so, however, thinks that brilliant critic, M. Philarete
Chasles. " What care I," he exclaims, " about the patience
or scrupulousness of a former frequenter of the Alexandrian
Library who should have saved for me in twenty-five vol-
umes in folio the billets-doux of Cleopatra and the bills of
her washerwoman and jeweller?" Onty a Nares whose
Memoirs of Lord Burleigh, according to Macaulay, fill two
thousand closely-printed quarto pages, and weigh sixty
pounds avoirdupois would overwhelm his readers with
twenty-five volumes of such material ; but who can doubt
that a selection might be made from Cleopatra's bills and
billets-doux, if we had them, that would reveal to us much
that we do not and cannot otherwise know of the habits,
DIARIES. 235
manners, and tastes of the Egyptian queen, the people, and
the time? How perfectly her artfulness is epitomized in the
incident mentioned by Plutarch, that, to avoid discover}*,
she rolled herself in a carpet, and, carefully tied up at full
length, was delivered in a large parcel at Caesar's palace !
Has not Mr. Forster shown, in his charming biography of
Goldsmith, that even a tailor's bill may be used to throw
light on character? as, for example, the bills of Filb} T , of
Fetter Lane, who made the famous peach-colored coat.
Facts and incidents like these, whether found in biograpfiy
or histoiy, are eminently worth relating. The}' differ ma-
terially from the frivolous ones noted by a large class of
writers, of whom the pedant ridiculed in u Gil Bias " is a
good example. He solemnly narrated that the Athenian
children cried when they were whipped, "a fact of
which cut for his vast and select erudition we should have
remained ignorant."
The London " Athenaeum " not only defends the publi-
cation of damaging things in memoirs, but goes so far as to
insist that such works are not worth the paper they are
written on "if they do not contain something that partial
friends would not approve of, good taste would revolt
from, and the nearest and dearest would be shocked
at." Mr. Froude defends his publication of Carlyle's atra-
bilious utterances by saying: "I learned my duty front
himself, to keep back nothing, and extenuate nothing."
He seems to think that as Cromwell liked to be painted
with the moles upon his face, so it may be right to expose
a great man's mental and moral deformities, even at the
risk of overshadowing the finer or nobler qualities. The
trouble is, in Carlyle's case, as in many others, that the ex-
posure of his defects and Mbles cannot be made without
236 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
giving pain to other persons. The revelations have in not a
few cases scarified the justly sensitive feelings of his worthy
acquaintances, to whom this literary vivisection is as pain-
ful in realit} T , if not in degree, as that of the poor animal
that writhes under the knife of the operator.
No doubt man}' of the evils of diary-publishing are due
rather to the indiscretion of literary executors in publishing
diaries immediately after the writer's death, and thus giving
pain or doing injury to living men, than to the reminiscences
themselves. But even this evil has its compensation. A
false story or libel published during the lifetime of its
victim ma}' be contradicted, or its exaggeration exposed ;
but not so twenty or twent}'-five years after the writer's
death, when the person calumniated, or the witness who
might disprove the calumny, is in the grave. There is
reason to fear that some malicious diarists have directed
the postponement of the publication of their gossip till many
years after their decease, not from motives of delicac}* and
kindness, but to prevent contradiction of their inventions.
Considering the frailty of human life, it is dangerous for a
public man to keep a diary which he would shrink from
having published; but probably, as a recent writer says,
most diaries, like Pope's letters, are penned with an eye to
publication; and "it may reasonably be believed that the
one exception, namel}', Mr. Pepys, had the writer
ever imagined that Parson Smith, of Cambridge, would
have discovered the secret of his cipher, might have con-
tained fewer memoranda about ' black-eyed girls ' and the
little infidelities which, though proper enough for a Caro-
linian courtier, were scarcely becoming in the President of
the Royal Society."
THE ADVANTAGES OF UGLINESS.
" "VTEVER say that it is a small thing to be ugty," says the
-*- ^ late George Dawson in one of his eloquent lectures.
" It is a terrible thing to be ugly ; it is a rock, a mountain,
an obstruction, and a hindrance ; and it should be counted
in any man's way to gloiy that he had this Alp to cross."
Now, we believe the very opposite of this to be true, and we
will give our reasons. The advantages of personal beauty
are obvious ; but those of plainness, and especially of
positive ugliness, are less patent, and therefore less gen-
erally recognized. It is one of the unhappy drawbacks of
beauty that though we all admire it and sing its praises,
we do not trust it. We look upon it as a vain, transitory,
skin-deep thing, which it is well enough for young persons
and poets to rave about, but which, having no solidity or
permanence, is not to be depended upon. On the contraiy,
there is a durability, a fixedness, a respectability about
ugliness, that wins our respect and our confidence. Again,
it is difficult to associate the ideas of mental and moral ex-
cellence with beauty, while it is easy to associate them with
ugliness. The exquisite Venus de Medicis, " the statue
that enchants the world," is hardly less remarkable for the
absence of every intellectual charm, than for the possession
of every animal grace. When Miss Bremer was asked by
her American adorers what she thought when so many
people came to see her, she replied : " I wished that I was
238 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
handsomer." Now, we greatly doubt whether the Swedish
authoress, if beautiful, would have commanded half the
admiration and esteem that she won by her plainness.
What greater misfortune, then, can befall a young man
than to be afflicted with a beautiful form and face? He
may be praised and petted, but he is secretly despised. He
begins life at a positive disadvantage, and may spend half
his days in disabusing his acquaintances of their unfavor-
able impressions. Because he has so many outward, physi-
cal attractions, it is inferred that he has no inner mental
ones. On the other hand, the plain-looking man gets
credit at once upon the mere security of his face. An un-
gainly form conveys the idea of stedfastness of purpose ;
a wrinkled brow suggests thoughtfulness ; and a scarred
cheek, a good bank account. Rufus Choate, when yielding
to an adverse decision of Chief-Justice Shaw, did but ex-
press the feeling which all men, in a greater or less degree,
secretly entertain toward the ill-favored man : "In com-
ing into the presence of your honor, I experience the
same feelings as the Hindoo does when he bows before
his idol. I know that you are ugly, but I feel that you
are great ! "
Schopenhauer, the German philosopher, has well ob-
served that " in the natural world we rarel}' see beauty allied
with usefulness. Lofty trees of magnificent aspect bear no
fruit, productive trees for the most part being ugl} T little
cripples. So also the most beautiful buildings are not
useful. A temple is not a dwelling-place." What is more
worthless than the gaudy poppy, or what more valuable
than the gnarled oak or the bristling corn? So with ani-
mals : how valueless is the brilliant peacock or the gazelle,
and how useful the plain ox, cow, or mule !
THE ADVANTAGES OF UGLINESS. 239
Again, who does not know that the consciousness of
ugliness has proved to many a man an intellectual stimulus,
as Bacon expresses it, "a perpetual spur to rescue and
deliver himself from scorn"? Deformity, says that great
thinker, provokes men to industry ; while " in their su-
periors it quencheth jealousy towards them, as persons that
they think they ma}' at pleasure despise ; and it layeth their
competitors and emulators asleep, as never believing they
should be in possibility of advancement, till they see them
in possession; so that upon the matter [upon the whole],
in a great wit deformity is an advantage to rising."
Who can doubt that it was because Socrates was so intoler-
ably ugty, so ill-looking that Rabelais compares him to
one of those boxes in an apothecary's shop with ugly figures
on the outside, but filled within with precious drugs, that
he so distinguished himself by his mental powers? A more
grotesque figure never attracted the gaze of passers-by in
the streets. He had a flat nose, lobster-like e}*es, and
thick lips, with a round and protuberant body that made
his friends liken him to the figures of Silenus. Again,
who can doubt that it was because Seneca was "lean and
harsh, ugl}' to behold ; " the Emperor Galba, crookbacked ;
Agesilaus, mean and contemptible-looking, that these men
several!}' rose to eminence? Who can help believing that
it was by a similar provocation that Boccharis, the most
deformed ruler that Egypt ever had, was fired to labor at
self- culture till he surpassed in wisdom and knowledge all
his predecessors? JEsop the fabulist is a }*et more strik-
ing example, or would be if Bentley had not cast suspicion
upon, or rather destro} r ed,the credibility of the story which,
he says, was first told b} r Planudes, a B}'zantine monk of the
fourteenth centur}' that ./Esop was a humpbacked dwarf.
240 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
"What but a consciousness of their ugliness, and of the con-
sequent contempt of their fellows, has pricked on some of the
most famous warriors of ancient and modern times ? Would
Uladislaus Cubitatis, the pygmy king of Poland, had he
possessed the ordinary bulk and stature of a man, have
manifested so fiery a valor, and fought, as a quaint old
writer says, " more victorious battles than any of his long-
shanked predecessors"? Was not the Duke of Luxem-
bourg, one of the ablest generals of Louis XIV., deformed?
" I can never beat that little hunchback," said William of
Orange one day angrily. " How does he know that I am a
hunchback?" asked Luxembourg, on hearing of the excla-
mation ; " I have often seen his back, but he has never yet
seen mine." Was it not, in all probability, a consciousness
of his own plr^sical meanness by Robespierre who was but
five feet and two or three inches in height, with a livid and
bilious complexion, eyelids 'continually blinking, and shoul-
ders and neck subject to frequent spasmodic motions
that goaded him on in his career ; and did not the same
mortifying sense of bodily inferiority sting into fearful
activity his rival Marat, who was even shorter than
Robespierre, and had a hideous face and a head monstrous
in size?
The ugliness of Goldsmith is well known. Short and
thick in bod}*, round-faced, and with " an expanse of fore-
head equal to a prize cauliflower," he had a pale complexion,
and was deeply pitted with the small-pox. Can we doubt
that these phrysical disadvantages, which made him a butt
of ridicule in his childhood, provoked him to those literary
toils which extorted the world's admiration in the "Vicar
of Wakefield" and the u Traveller"? The same observa-
tion ma}* be made upon Ben Jonson, of whom it might have
THE ADVANTAGES OF UGLINESS. 241
been said, as Madame de Sevignu said of Pelisson, " qu'il
abusait du privilege dont jouissent les homines d'etre
laids." Decker, in a satire on old Ben, says of his face :
" It looks, for all the world, like a rotten russet apple when
it is bruised. . . . Look at his parboiled face, his face
punched full of eyelet-holes, like the cover of a warming-
pan ! " But massive and unshapely as the old dramatist
was in body, his " mountain-stomach and rocky face" were
only symbols of his rugged, tough, and arrogant mind. In
the days of the French salon, one of the queens of society
was the Princesse de Vaudemont, nee Montmorenc}', who
was grande dame to the tips of her fingers, though her face
and figure ill qualified her for her part. She was not only
short and red-faced, but " plump and thin at the same
time, that is, plump where she ought to have been thin,
and thin where she ought to have been plump." But her
physical disadvantages only piqued her ambition, and she
triumphed over all obstacles by dint of air, manner, and
address. So with Catherine des Jardins, once famous as a
writer of poetiy and dramas : though badly disfigured by
small-pox, yet did she not win for herself three husbands,
and a great many lovers besides? Was it not a woman
whom he himself describes in his sonnets as ugly, black in
complexion, hair, and eyes, with no charm for any physical
sense, that enslaved Shakspeare in his youth? It was her
music that drew him to her, her intellectual grace, and
an aptness which clothed the ugly with beaut}', and raised
in his eyes " the worst in her above all best." Lckain, the
French actor, was both ugly and ungraceful ; but the mo-
ment he had stepped on the stage, " il semblait avoir de-
pouille sa nature bourgeoise avec ses habits bourgeois ; un
heros sortait de cette grossiere envelope." Men and
16
242 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
women who had sneered at his ugliness in the morning,
admired his beauty in the evening. Of Pope, who was so
small and crooked as to be compared to an interrogation-
point, Hazlitt has well asked : " Do we owe nothing to his
deformity? He doubtless soliloquized, 4 Though my person
be crooked, my poetry shall be straight.' "
Was it not because he was rudely shaped, wanting love's
majesty, that Richard III. shaped out a great, unscrupulous
career for himself; and would Brougham ever have ascended
the woolsack had he not been so ill-favored as to become no-
torious b}~ provoking the gibes of O'Connell and "Punch "?
" Did you never see him? " once asked the Irish Liberator ;
"if you never have, I hope 3*011 never will. He is one of
the ugliest beings in existence ; it would make a fellow
almost sick to look at him. I have often seen a head
carved on a walking-stick handsomer than he is." It was
because Francis Horner was so plain-looking that Scotch
and English gave him such credit for honesty ; Sydney
Smith said that the ten commandments were written in his
face. Lord Chesterfield, if we may believe his contemporar}-,
Lord Hervey, was as disagreeable as it was possible for a
human figure to be without being deformed, and George II.
could not believe that a woman could like such a "dwarf
baboon." Yet his very knowledge of this disadvantage
prompted him to laborious self-improvement, and he be-
came not onh T a leader of fashion, but an eminent ambassa-
dor and diplomatist, and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Soame
Jenyns once expressed a wonder that anybod^v so ugly as
Gibbon ccnild write a book ; the real marvel would have
been if that monumental work, the "Decline and Fall,"
had been produced by a handsome man. The remark was
still stranger, coming, as it did, from one who was himself
THE ADVANTAGES OF UGLINESS. 243
a writer of books, and of good books too, although he was
disfigured by an immense wen under his head, and had eyes
protruding like a lobster's, yet allowing room for another
wen between them and his nose. It would be interesting
to know how far Baron von Humboldt, the diplomatist, was
indebted to the plainness of his features for his worldly
advancement. " Look at me," he said, in reply to the re-
quest of Isabey, the French painter, for a sitting, " and
acknowledge that Nature has given me so ugly a face that
you cannot but approve the law I have laid down, never to
spend a halfpenny to preserve the likeness for posterity.
Dame Nature would have too good a laugh at my expense
on seeing me sit for my portrait ; and to punish her for the
shabb}* trick she has pla}'ed me, I will never give her that
pleasure."
It is a popular notion that beauty is the chief passport to
woman's love and esteem, though facts of daily occurrence
prove the contrary to be true. Of all the famous women
whom history records, how many have dazzled a larger
circle of admirers than the beautiful, fascinating, and ac-
complished Lady Hamilton? Yet she gave her heart un-
reservedly to the dwarfish, homely, sickly-looking Lord
Nelson. He had the soul of a hero, which was enough for
her. and she loved him not a whit less passionately when
his deformity was aggravated by the loss of an eye and an
arm. Who was it that, triumphing over a host of princely
rivals, won the heart of " the prettiest and most extraordi-
naiy creature in England " in the time of Charles II., the
bewitching, universally sought, }*et fastidious Frances Jen-
nings? It was the affected, big-headed, pygmy-legged Jer-
myn, who lacked ever}- grace of person and manner which
is deemed necessary to carry the female heart captive. So
244 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
with Lord llervey, one of the ministers of George II. A
man of weak physical frame, he suffered from epilepsy and
many other ailments ; and his face was so meagre and so
pallid, or rather livid, that he used to paint and make up
like an actress or fine lad}'. Yet, in spite of these disad-
vantages, he succeeded in winning the hand of one of the
most beautiful women of the da}', the charming Mary
Lepell, whose name has been celebrated in more than one
poetical panegyric by Pope ; and he also captivated the
heart of one of the royal princesses. It is well known that
the preachers George Whitefield and Edward Irving were
both favorites of the fair, though both were disfigured by
strabismus.
What Englishman of note had ever a more uncouth figure
than Erasmus Darwin, author of the " Botanical Garden "?
His bod}' was vast and massive, and his head almost buried
in his shoulders. He had in these a stoop, and in his face
traces of small-pox. But though twice her age, clumsy,
a stutterer, lame, and ugly, he won the hand of the young
and beautiful Mrs. Pole, in spite of the rivalry of many
young men. Again, what man was ever more successful in
laying siege to female hearts than the demagogue John
Wilkes? He was so exceedingly ugly that a lottery-office
keeper once offered him ten guineas not to pass his window
while the tickets were drawing, for fear of his bringing ill-
luck on the house. Rogers the poet, who had seen him,
speaks of his "diabolical squint." Yet, though the ugliest
man in England, he was at the same time its most accom-
plished intriguer. He was the Don Juan of his day, sneer-
ing at the very women he subdued. He once boasted to
Lord Townshend, whom he admitted to be the handsomest
man in the kingdom, that, give him but a half hour's start,
THE ADVANTAGES OF UGLINESS. 245
he would enter the lists against his lordship with any woman
he might choose to name. In our own day have we not
seen the strongest-minded woman of the age wed the bril-
liant and versatile but exceedingly plain, not to say ugly,
George H. Lewes?
Again, the ugliest Frenchman that ever walked the streets
of Paris was Mirabeau, the master-spirit of the French
Revolution, whose looks some one compared to those of " a
tiger pitted by small-pox." He had the features of a wild
beast, and the massive shock of hair which surmounted his
huge forehead gave him at times the aspect of an enraged
lion. Yet the belt of no u gay Lothario" of his time was
hung with a greater number of bleeding female hearts
than that of this thunderer of the tribune, who shook
from his locks " pestilence and war," who seemed born of
the tempest, and to have been reared by Providence
expressly to
" Guide the whirlwind and direct the storm."
Such was the man who was worshipped by the delicate
beauties of his time, and such the head which, when
wearied by the fierce logic of debate, could rest in the lap
of a royal Venus, and be petted by hands as white and del-
icate as the lily. " There was magic in the strong man's
hideousness. It made men crouch, and women worship.
It blasted from the politician's tribune, but one would
almost suppose it blessed in the lady's chamber, so ca-
ressed, and fondled, and kissed into a sort of grim good-
humor was it every night and every morning." To a
friend who expressed his astonishment at Mirabeau's suc-
cess in intrigue, the great man replied: "Ah, 1113* friend,
you know not the power of my ugliness ! "
246 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
Such are a few of the compensations of ugliness ; but
though besides these we might mention several others, we
will conclude by naming only one. Who has not read of
the stock-jobbing mania that raged in Paris under the aus-
pices of the Scotchman, Law? The Rue Quinquempoix, to
which the business was confined, was so crowded with
people of all ranks and conditions that, though desks and
writing materials were in great demand, it was difficult to
obtain them. In this exigency a humpbacked man let out
his deformity for the speculators to sci;ibble upon ; and so
useful did it prove that he is said to have made by it in a
few daj*s a hundred and fifty thousand livres. What ill-
looking man, after that, need despair of coining his defects
into doubloons ?
WORRY.
worry" is a pithy prescription which is often
given in these days of overwork and severe mental
strain. Worry, we are told, is the converse of work ; the
one develops force, the other checks its development and
wastes what we already have. It is not the revolution that
destroys the machinery, but the friction. All this is sagely
said ; but those who say it forget that worry is an almost
necessary incident of the best, which is high-pressure, work.
To tell persons who have a lofty ideal not to be gloomy
because they fall short of it ; to tell other persons not to
brood over things, not to look forward, not to devise ter-
rors, all this, as Scott said of similar advice, is as useless
as " for Molly to put the kettle on the fire and say ' Don't
boil!'" They cannot help themselves. It is easy to ab-
stain from worry if one has low aspirations, if one is easily
pleased with what he is and with what he does, or if one
has a hard, dull nature, or an incapacit} T for s3'mpath} T .
There is a large class of worries which are inseparable from
the exercise of the affections, and which can be avoided
onty when they are suppressed or extinguished. Swift
knew this ; and hence when some one spoke in his pres-
ence of "a fine old man," he exclaimed: "There's no
such thing ; if his head or heart had been worth any-
thing, it would have worn him out long ago." At the same
time it must be admitted that many persons have a chronic
248 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
habit of worrying which is wholly unjustified by the circum-
stances m which they are placed.
It is a well-known fact that men and women who have
the fewest real troubles and trials often torment themselves
with imaginar} 7 ones. On the other hand, persons who
have to toil hard and to struggle with bona-fide difficul-
ties, who have daily to keep the wolf from their door, are
rarely given to invent fanciful grievances. Chronic inva-
lids who are prisoners to their room, hard- worked mothers
of families, and husbands or sons on whose shoulders rests
a heavy load of care for helpless relatives, often manifest
a cheerfulness that is wanting to their rich neighbors who
appear to possess all of fortune's gifts. Again, men rarely
worry over great calamities ; it is the pett\- trials and vex-
ations of life which tease and fret them most. Charles V.,
overwhelmed as he was with cares during his long reign,
bore up under all his trials and disappointments with
patience, calmness, and dignity; but after his abdication
and retirement to the monastery of St. Juste, his restless,
fidgety habits were the torment of the monks. Being
seized with a mania for punctuality, he spent a large part
of his time in regulating clocks and trying to make them
keep time together, and used to visit the monks at prema-
turely early hours to awaken them for the morning devo-
tional service. On one occasion a young monk whose
sleep was thus foolishly disturbed, muttered that the Em-
peror might be content with having troubled the peace of
all Europe for years, and leave a poor monk to his repose.
Charles's death is supposed to have been hastened by the
rehearsal of his own obsequies. Richelieu at the zenith of
his power was as anxious and worried about the success of
his miserable play as if his political power depended on it.
WORRY. 249
He trembled for its fate as much as he ever had for that of
an embassy or a treaty ; and when the piece fell flat, was
persuaded that the actors were drunk. On its second per-
formance, the cardinal, whose frown overawed even the
king, was transported with delight by the hand-clappings of
toadies and groundlings. The calmest of men in trials
which would have overwhelmed most men with anxiety, cool
and self-possessed when webs of conspiracy were woven
about him, he yet was worried by trifles.
An amusing catalogue might be made of the trifles about
which some of the most celebrated men have tormented
themselves. Wallenstein, accustomed as he was to the
thunder of artillery and the uproar of battles, had such a
dislike for noise at home that he could not bear the barking
of dogs, nor even the clatter of the large spurs then in fash-
ion. To keep every noise at a distance, he had twelve
patrols making, night and da}', regular circuits around his
palace. Julius Caesar could not hear the crowing of a cock
without shuddering. The poet Beattie had such a hatred
of chanticleer that he denounced his lusty proclamation of
the morn in language applicable to the deeds of a Nero.
Kant left a house in which he was pleasantly domiciled, be-
cause a neighbor kept a cock that disturbed his nerves.
When the same metaphysician sat down to think at the
close of the day, he used to fix his eyes on a certain old
tower; and when some poplar-trees grew up and hid it
from his view, he found that he could not think at all, till
at his request the poplars were cropped and the tower made
visible again. Buffon was equally dependent upon trifles
for literary success. He could not think to good purpose
except in full dress, and with his hair elaborately arranged ;
and for an external stimulus to his brain he had a hair-
250 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
dresser interrupt his work twice, and sometimes thrice, a
da}\ The ingenuity which some persons exhibit in finding
means of self-torment is extraordinary. In Richter's
4 'Fruit, Thorn, and Flower Pieces" there is a singular
example of this. A young student marries, and is obliged
to pursue his studies in two small rooms occupied by him-
self and his wife. The latter has a domestic turn, and
loves to keep her apartments clean. Unfortunately he has
formed a habit of listening to her, which scatters all his
ideas to the winds. At last, having one day endured the
noise of her tidying toils as long as he can, he begs that
she will make as little noise as possible, since otherwise he
cannot get on with his writing, which she knew was for pub-
lication. She agrees ; and then skims over the floor, and
athwart the various webs of her household labors, with the
tread of a spider. The nervous, fidgety student has to
keep his ears on the alert to hear her ; but he succeeds, and
at last jumps up and cries out to her: "For one whole
hour I have been listening and watching that dreadful trip-
ping about on tiptoe. Please go about as }*ou usually do,
darling." She complies, and goes about almost as she
usually did ; but this does not satisfy him, and he asks if
she would mind going about the house in her stockings
when he is at work at his writing. When his wife sits
positive!}' idle, the scribbling martyr torments himself b}'
thinking that she will presently resume her labors ; and
when she actuall}* leaves the room and sits quietly in the
adjoining one, he calls through the keyhole: " Lenette, I
can't hear very distinctly what it is, but I know you are up
to something or other there. For God's dear sake, stop it
at once ! " The poor woman was merely wiping the rails of
the bedstead noiselessly with a flannel ; but the student was
WORRY. 251
determined to be worried by her work, and went on tor-
menting himself long after all occasion for his annoyance
had ceased to exist.
Ill-health especially nervous exhaustion is a fruit-
ful source of worry. It is one of the many infirmities of
old age, when a man's bodily stamina have been sapped by
retrogressive changes in which the nervous S3*stem shares,
that cares which sat lightly on the shoulders when he was
young, become now an almost insupportable burden. But
when this proneness to low spirits and discouragement
shows itself in men or women not past their prime, and not
overwhelmed with exhausting toils or cares, it is generally
a sign that the bodily health is "below par," and needs
"toning tip." A New York preacher says that he went
out of the city to his farm early one summer feeling that
the world was just upon the brink of ruin ; he returned to
his church in early autumn persuaded that " we were on
the eve of the millennium."
Wony, like love, is often " the child of idleness and ful-
ness of bread." The leisure which so many toilers j'earn
for is a pleasant garment to look at, but often a very shirt
of Nessus to wear. Wony is not rarely, too, the child of
fastidiousness. Byron, in his diary, speaking of the poet
Rogers's house, says : 4t There is not a gem, a coin, a book
thrown aside on his chimney-piece, his sofa, his table, that
does not bespeak an almost fastidious elegance in the pos-
sessor. But this very fastidiousness must be the miseiy of
his existence. OA, the jarrings his disposition must have
encountered through life!" A real trouble, if not irre-
mediable, is sometimes a blessing, since it puts a host of
scarecrow ills to flight. A story is told of a French abbe
who, having very little to trouble him, " fell into a melan-
252 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
choly" which at last affected his health. Luckily for him,
he had certain enemies who contrived to send him, on some
frivolous charge, to the Bastile. He was liberated after a
while ; but the desire to detect and punish his false accusers
cured alike his body and his mind. He forgot his melan-
choly and his bad health in this engrossing occupation, till
his friends were wont jestingly to ask him " what had be-
come of the abbe, as they now knew quite a different per-
son." Such has been the transformation wrought in many
a person who had been a prey to paltry worries ; but, un-
fortunately, to some the habit of brooding over trivial
troubles returns the moment the pressure of a giant griev-
ance has been removed. They are so habituated to their
grievance that they cannot live without it. Just as a mule
accustomed to cariy panniers or a pack-saddle in a moun-
tainous country, steers his way, when free from his burden,
as if he still bore it, allowing always the distance between
the rocks and himself which was necessary to clear his
loaded panniers ; just as a person doomed in his early
years to poverty often persists in painful petty economies
long after the necessit} r for them has ceased, so a man
who has been suddenly relieved from some genuine cause
for worry which has weighed him down for years, experi-
ences a strangely uneasy feeling in his new situation, and a
latent yearning, like that of Le Brun's Sophie Arnould, for
" le bon vieux temps quand j'etais si malheureux." He
misses the accustomed grievance as Charles Lamb missed
the desk-work which he hated when he quit it, or as the
court favorite who, after man}' rebuffs, had struggled up to
her dazzling position at Versailles, missed the obscure life
in which she had so long languished. " I am like the
carp," she said ; " I regret the mud."
COURAGE.
The thing in the world I am most afraid of is fear. MONTAIGXK.
/"T^HERE are few subjects upon which more fallacious
* popular notions are current than in regard to cour-
age. No quality is more admired by men in general ; yet
it is evident that there is no merit in it, except so far as it
is prompted by rational and conscientious considerations,
since otherwise, whether active or passive, it is but a merely
senseless instinct, which some of the best and most saga-
cious men have lacked, while other and far inferior men
have possessed it abundantly. Turenne, dining one day at
M. de Lamoignon's, was asked whether his courage was
never shaken at the beginning of a battle. "Yes," was
the repty, "I sometimes feel great nervous excitement;
but there are many subaltern officers and soldiers in the
army who feel none whatever." The great Conde was
much agitated in his first campaign. " My body trembles,"
he said, " with the actions my soul meditates." It is told
of Charles V. that he often trembled when arming for
battle, but in the conflict was as cool as if it were impos-
sible for an emperor to be killed. When he once saw in-
scribed on a tombstone, " Here lies a man who never knew
fear," he said : " Then he can never have snuffed a candle
with his fingers ! " Perhaps if Charles had lived in our
day, and had been half-petrified in some Continental cold-
water establishment, he would have said: "Then he can
254 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
never on a winter's morning have gone naked under a
mountain-torrent converted into a douche ! "
The brilliant Savoyard, Count de Maistre, after quoting
the mocking mot of Charles V., finely says in his " Soirees
de Saint-Petersbourg" : "Fear! What man has never
in his life felt fear? Who has never had occasion to won-
der, both in himself and about him, and in history, at the
all-powerful weakness of this passion, which often seems
to have the more empire over us in proportion as it has
fewer reasonable motives? . . . There is a woman's fear,
which flees crying ; and that we are permitted, even bidden,
to regard as impossible, though it may not be a wholly un-
known phenomenon. But there is another form of fear
W 7 hich is much more terrible, which sinks into the manliest
heart, freezes it, and persuades it that it is vanquished.
This is the frightful scourge always hung over armies. I
put one daj r to a military man of the highest rank this
question: ' Tell me. general, what is a lost battle? I
have never well understood that.' He replied, after a
moment's silence : k I know nothing about it ; ' and, after
being silent again, he added : ' It is a battle which one
thinks he has lost. 1 Nothing is more true. A single
man who fights with another is vanquished when he is
killed or thrown down, and the other stands up. It is not
so with two armies ; one of them cannot be killed, while
the other remains on foot. The forces balance each other,
as well as the dead ; and since especially the invention of
powder has made the means of destruction on both sides
more equal, a battle is no longer lost materially, that is,
because there are more dead on the one side than on the
other. Frederic II., who understood this somewhat, said :
* To vanquish is to advance.'' But who is he that advances ?
COURAGE. 255
It is he whose conscientiousness and front (la conscience et
la contenance) make the other recoil. . . . Opinion is so
powerful in war that it alone can change the nature of the
very same event and give it two different names, with no
other reason than its own good pleasure. A general throws
himself between -two hostile corps, and he writes to his
court: ' 1 'have cut him off ; he is lost.' The other writes
to his : ' He has put himself between two fires ; he is lost.'
Which of the two is deceived? He who shall first let
himself be seized b}- the cold goddess."
The Greeks recognized that " frightful scourge hung over
armies " of which De Maistre speaks, that fear which sur-
prises men without any visible cause, by an inexplicable
impulse. Modern military histor}' teems with examples of
panic-struck armies, from the Battle of the Spurs, in 1513
so called because the vanquished troops fled with such haste
that the best mounted cavaliers could not overtake them,
down to Falkirk, the final sauve qui peut of Waterloo, and
our own Bull Run. The Romans lost their first pitched battle
against Hannibal through this cause. A part of their arm}',
comprising ten thousand infantry, took a sudden fright, and
seeing no other way of escape, threw themselves, strange to
say, upon the great array of the enemy, which they charged
again and again with incredible force and fury, and routed
with great slaughter, "thus purchasing," as Montaigne
says, "an ignominious flight at the same price at which
they might have won a glorious victory." It is said that the
dread of being dragged in triumph along the Appian Way,
and thus undergoing a personal humiliation if they resisted,
utterly paralyzed the monarchs of the ancient world ; so that
at the bare approach of a Roman army they hastened to
make such terms as they could.
256 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
An English soldier, after many years' service in one of
the bravest armies in the world, has expressed the opinion
that cowardice is far more common than courage on the
battle-field. "In the whole course of my military career,"
he says, " I never saw two bodies of any size cross bayo-
nets. . . . Before such a collision takes place, one side
always gives way ; and I hold it as a maxim in warfare
that if one body will only stand still, another of equal size
will not come up to it. Before the assailing party arrives
within twenty paces of their enemy, it will be found to be
divided into three parts : the first composed of your rash,
daring fellows, who outstrip their companions ; the next,
of your steady hands, who will do their duty and no more ;
and the last, of those who would stay behind if they could.
Fear is the most powerful of human passions, and is more
evinced than the world generally supposes. We hear of
armies and corps 4 covering themselves with glory,' but we
seldom hear of their covering themselves from the fire of
the enemy. ... I have seen a great deal more to make me
ashamed of my species than proud of it." 1 In contradic-
tion to this, some of the greatest military commanders have
expressed the highest confidence in their soldiers' bravery.
Scipio was wont to say that there was nothing he could
command his army to do that the} 7 were not prepared to
execute on the instant. When halting at Syracuse, on his
way from Italy to Africa, he said: "Look at those three
hundred men, and that tower near them : every one of them,
were I to give the order, would go up to the top of it and
throw himself down headlong." Marlborough's soldiers
smiled at any difficult}', however disheartening it looked,
saying : " That is no business of ours ; Corporal John will
1 Kincaid's " Twenty Years of Retirement " (London, 1835).
COURAGE. 257
cany us through, somehow or other." The Duke of Wel-
lington, when the war in the South of France was concluded,
in 1814, said of his veteran Peninsular army: "At that
time they would have gone anywhere with me, and I could
have done anything with them." " When I see that old
man on his horse," said a young officer of his commander,
Sir C. J. Napier, " the hero of Scinde," during a campaign
in that country, " how can I be idle, who am young and
strong? By , I would go into a loaded cannon's mouth
if he ordered me ! "
When we consider that a man does not make his own
nervous system, which, even if originally health}', is often
grievously impaired b}* the senseless treatment of nurses
and teachers, constitutional timidity is to be pitied, rather
than ridiculed or condemned. It is easy to be brave if
one has been endowed from infancy with iron nerves. Such
was the gift of Charles XII. of Sweden, who loved fighting
for its own sake, for the certaminis gaudia, " the rapture
of the strife." "What is that noise? "he asked, as the
balls whistled b}' him when landing in Denmark, a mere
stripling, under heavy fire. " The sound of the shot
they fire at your Majest}*," replied one of his marshals.
"Good!" said the king; "henceforth that shall be my
music ; " and such it continued to be until, eighteen years
after, the fatal bullet was fired at Frederikshall which
crashed through his brain and ended his miraculous career.
The courage of Nelson was inborn. When, after he had
rambled late one night in his boyhood, his mother said to
him on his return that she wondered fear did not drive him
home, "Fear!" replied the lad, "who's he? I don't
know him." It is when moral courage is engrafted by
education, pride, or a sense of duty on a timid tempera-
17
258 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
ment, a nature original!}* craven, that it merits the
highest admiration. It is therefore by no means a bad
omen when a soldier betrays extreme fright in his first
battle ; it shows that he has a keen sensibility, which is
the source of that pride and sense of honor which will en-
able him, with discipline and experience, to face danger
manfully. Both Henry IV. of France and Frederic the
Great of Prussia had an instinctive fear of danger ; yet
both triumphed over their natural poltroonery, and mani-
fested the coolest self-possession and the most daring valor
in many a fiercely fought battle. Henry's body trembled
like an aspen-leaf in his first action ; but this agitation only
provoked him to exclaim : u Villanous nature, I will make
thee ashamed of thyself! " as he spurred his horse through
a breach where the bravest veterans hesitated ; and ever
afterward his white plume was seen in the thickest of the
fight, and regarded as the rallying point of his men. Fred-
eric ran away, shivering with fright, from his first battle-
field, at Molwitz ; but he never turned his back on the
enemy again. When an officer, in a sharp engagement,
complained to Wellington that a brother officer had fled
with terror before a fierce charge of the enemy, the Duke
simply replied : "Look to yourself!" Shortly afterward
the situation was reversed ; the officer who had been fright-
ened was in the hottest of the fight ; and the accuser was
spurring his horse away from the foe.
Colonel T. W. Higginson, in his admirable u Out-door
Papers," observes that " there is a certain magnetic power
in courage, apart from all physical strength. . . . Read
one narrative of shipwreck, and human nature seems all
sublime ; read another, and under circumstances equally
desperate, it appears base, selfish, grovelling. The differ-
COURAGE. 259
ence lies simply in the influence of a few leading spirits.
Ordinarily, as is the captain, so are the officers, so are the
passengers, so are the sailors. Bonaparte said that at the
beginning of almost every battle there was a moment when
the bravest troops were liable to sudden panic ; let the per-
sonal control of the general lead them past that, and the
field was half won."
The hare-brained, dare-devil courage of the Irish is well
known. The author of "Hints to a Soldier on Service"
declares that, in a faction fight, he has driven hundreds of
them before him, with a handful of dragoons ; and yet
these very men recruited the ranks of a native regiment
a few months afterwards, which, bayonet to bayonet,
scattered like sheep Napoleon's Middle Guard at Fuentes
de Onore.
It has been justly said that no man can tell who are
brave and who are cowardly till some crisis comes that
puts men to the test. And " no crisis puts men to the test
that does not bring them alone and single-handed to face
danger. It is nothing to make a rush with the multitude
even into the jaws of destruction. Sheep will do that. . . .
But when some crisis singles put one from the multitude,
pointing at him the particular finger of fate, and telling
him, ' Stand, or run ! ' and he faces about with steady
nerve, with nobody else to stand behind, we may be sure
the hero-stuff is in him. When such a crisis comes, the
true courage is just as likely to be found in people of
shrinking nerves or in weak and timid women, as in great
burly people." True courage is a moral, not a physical,
quality. Its seat is not in the temperament, but in the
will. In our Revolutionary War there was an officer in the
American army who was nicknamed "Captain Death,"
2oO MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
and who was always singled out for the most desperate
enterprises. If a forlorn hope was to be sent out, a danger-
ous battery to be stormed, or an}' other peril to be encount-
ered that demanded nerves of steel, this man was always
chosen to head the enterprise ; yet it was observed that he
was never called up to hear a proposal of this sort that he
did not turn as pale as his namesake, and tremble from
head to foot. He never failed, however, to do the deed of
daring that 'was required of him, and, it is said, escaped all
the perils of war unscathed. That man had genuine cour-
age ; he saw and keenly appreciated the danger, but when
his country called, shrank not from encountering it.
Courage is of many kinds, and the possession of one
kind by no means implies that of any other. There is
man}' a man who can act with the utmost pluck in a great
crisis, in a moment of personal danger, in a struggle with
a burglar, or in a burning house, who yet cannot bear
heroically excruciating pain or the miseiy of a protracted
illness. The young English ensigns and lieutenants who
at Waterloo, as Wellington said, " rushed to meet death as
if it were a game of cricket," had a moral courage which
was the product of a high civilization ; yet the courage of
the men who, after providing for the safety of the women
and children, went down in the ' Birken head," ma}' have
been greater than that of those who gave their lives for
their country at Waterloo. Peter was valiant enough in
the Garden of Gethsemane ; yet, though a hardy Galilean
fisherman, he quailed at the bluster of the winds and waves,
and was cowed by a question from a maid-servant at the
high-priest's palace. How many persons, like Peter, are
ready to use the sword, who yet will shrink from avowing a
principle which, however dear to them, is held in contempt
COURAGE. 261
by the circles in which the}' move ! What a noble resolu-
tion was that shown by Sir Thomas More when Henry
VIII. tried to frighten him into signing a wicked law !
"Terrors," replied he to the king, " are for children, not
for me ! "
There is a courage which is proof against powder and
steel which is not proof against a blow. It is no impeach-
ment of Napoleon's courage that he shrank from clamor
and violence as he would not have shrunk from a cavalry
charge or a battery. That he quailed when hustled and
shaken by the collar in the Cinq-Cents, and deprecated
violence from the Southern Bourbons when about leaving
Fontainebleau for Elba, was proof rather of a creditable
self-respect than of cowardice. " Let the Bourbons have
me assassinated," said he : "I forgive them ; but I shall
perhaps be abandoned to the outrages of the abominable
population of the South. To die on the field of battle is
nothing ; but in the mud, and by such hands ! "
In war the immeasurable superiority of moral courage
to physical is well known. It is only on rare occasions,
comparatively, that the latter can be turned to account ;
while endless opportunities open to him who possesses the
former. A man whose impetuous and enthusiastic daring
leads him to volunteer himself as an enfant perdu of a
forlorn hope will sink under the fatigues and privations of
a few forced marches ; while the impassive determination
of another who lacked nerve to head a deadly struggle in
the breach will calmly encounter the most disheartening
difficulties, and, by the union of head and heart, establish
a palpable superiority over the reckless adventurer who.
dares to "stake his life upon the cast," and with fearless
determination "stand the hazard of the die." A great
2G2 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
deal of so-called courage is simply desperation, the result
of poverty, disease, or despair. The Roman poet Horace
tells a story of a soldier who, having been robbed to the
last penny of the little stock of money which he had got
together by many hardships, became a very wolf in fierce-
ness, and
" offhand
Stormed a treasure-city well walled and manned."
Subsequent!}' the general, desiring to capture some other
fortress, singled out the same hero for the deed, and began
exhorting him in words that might prick on a coward :
" Go, my fine fellow, go where valor calls !
There 's fame, and money too. inside those walls."
But the cunning fellow would not move, and simply replied :
u He will go whither }~ou wish who has lost his purse " (Ibit
eo quo vis qui zonam perdidit) . Plutarch tells of a soldier
of Antigonus, noted for his bravery, who had an unhealthy
look. Prizing his courage, Antigonus put him in charge
of his own plr^sician, who finally cured the disease ; but
with it disappeared all the soldier's valor. Observing this,
the general asked the reason ; to which the soldier re-
plied that he was made less bold by being relieved from
misery by which his life was made hateful to him. The
bravery of Wolfe was doubtless only the more desperate
and daring because he was wasted and almost dying with
dysentery at the time of his triumphant but dangerous
attack upon Quebec; and Nelson at Trafalgar, mutilated
in former battles with the enenrv, having but a single arm
and eye, was ready to win victory at the cost of life.
Among the many brilliant examples of military courage
it would be difficult to name any surpassing those of Murat
COURAGE. 263
and Ney. Yet the difference in the ways in which the
matchless bravery of these heroes was manifested is strik-
ingly great throughout their careers. In the retreat from
Moscow Murat, with dare-devil audacity, at the head of his
dashing cavalry, conspicuous by his white-plumed cap, and
ever present where the contest was the hottest, won even
from the Cossacks their boundless admiration. Ney, on
the other hand, "the bravest of the brave," as half buried
in the snow-heaps and shivering with cold he examined his
maps, and while all around him despaired, pricked out the
route by which he was to lead back to France the fragments
of her magnificent army ; or as at Waterloo, after having had
five horses shot under him, he led with unfaltering courage
the last "forlorn hope" against the impregnable British
lines, was greatest in defeat and ruin. " To which of
these unequalled soldiers," asks a British militaiy writer,
4i should the palm of moral courage be awarded? To him
of Moskwa, indubitably."
OYSTERS.
PROFESSOR BAIRD, in a work published by the
United States Government, states some facts con-
cerning oysters and oyster-culture that are both delight-
ful and depressing. On the one hand, he tells us that
about five and a half billions of oysters are produced in
North America ; on the other hand, the decrease in the
yield in four j-ears has been from forty-one bushels to
the acre to twenty-five. At present we consume in this
country about five and a half millions of oysters annually.
Facts like these last would overwhelm us with sadness did
we not know that the oj'ster is the most fecund of all the
denizens of the sea, and that with proper provision for
its culture there need be no fear of a famine in this de-
licious food. A scientist of so high authority as Frank
Buckland asserts that a single oyster may contain at one
time over eight hundred thousand embn'o oysters. He
avers, too, that he has had in his possession as many
molluscous protoplasms as would have grown in time into
one hundred and twenty-three million marketable oj'sters !
Where is the epicure whose heart will not leap with
joy at these announcements? A quaint old author has said
that o}'sters u are ungodty, uncharitable, and unprofitable
meat : ungodty, because they are eaten without grace ; un-
charitable, because they leave nothing but shells ; and
unprofitable, because they must swim in wine." But were
. OYSTERS. 2C5
they ten times more ungodly than this writer declares, we
fear that few persons, unless made of sterner stuff than
flesh and blood, could resist the temptation they present.
The connection of the oj'ster with the material and moral
health and prosperity of our country is a subject the ade-
quate discussion of which would require volumes. How
closely the succulent bivalve is entwined with all our
deepest feelings ; how vastly, in its social aspect, it con-
tributes to make life worth living ; how indispensable it is
as the genial leader in our dinner-courses, at our church
festivals, and at our evening entertainments, to say nothing
of its place in commerce, will never be fully realized
till the gayety of the nations is eclipsed by the loss of this
fondly loved friend. It was not in our da}-, but by a wretch
in the time of Queen Anne, that the mot was uttered,
" What a grand thing oysters would be if one could make
his servants live on the shells ! " The ingrate, to qualify
his regard b}' so mean a condition as this ! Who of our
readers does not scorn such a screw? Is there one of
them to whom ' ' oyster " is not a charmed word ? What
a flood of tender and delightful recollections does it not
conjure up ! Oysters raw, stewed, fried, roasted ; oysters
on the shell, oysters pickled, oyster pies, and oysters scol-
loped ! who does not love them in all the forms in which
the exhaustless ingenuity of modern cookery can serve them
up, whether the cuisinier have the genius of a So}'er, who
can make 3*011 devour the soles of your boots with infinite
relish, or his ressources de cuisine be as easity exhausted
as those of the cheapest stall-owner, who knows nothing
be}~ond "the plain article," with the condiments of pepper
and vinegar? It is barely possible that there may be per-
sons with such an idiosj'ncrasy as not to relish this most
266 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
delicate and delicious of bivalves, just as there are persons
who have no e}*e for the exquisite creations of Raphael, or
no ear for the divine harmonies of Mozart ; but, like ghosts
and anthropophagi, they have never appeared to us. Such
"an odd stick" must have been the old moralist just
quoted. But if O3~sters are an abomination, what would he
have said of oyster-sauce, which is, we believe, a modern
invention, and which reminds us of Hood's ostracean de-
sign ; namely, a cod's head gravel}* rebuking a number of
very pert-looking oysters, with which she is surrounded, in
the words of a vernacular classic, "None of yonr
sauce ! "
The alimentaiy virtues of the oyster have provoked the
praises not only of the epicure, but of physicians and pli3~si-
ologists. Its meat is firm, yet soft and delicate. It has
flavor enough to please the taste, 3*et not enough to excite
to surfeit. Unlike the fier}* kidney and the vicious Welsh
rarebit, the oyster is easily digestible, and even an approved
remedy for indigestion. The oyster-eater is hardly con-
scious of its presence in his stomach, and }*et it satisfies
the taste, appeases the appetite, and soothes that irritability
of the nerves which hunger creates. As an excellent
French writer has said : " That which constantly pleases in
eating oysters is the fact that, while gastric ailments are
defied, the mind is neither disquieted nor irritated by fears
of the future. One devours them in the full and perfect
certainty that health will not be in the slightest degree com-
promised, were one even to plunge into that ab}'ss which is
called satiety. To eat oysters is, therefore, at once physi-
cally and morally healthful."
Where satiety begins in oyster-eating, it is not easy to
tell; it depends, of course, upon the stomachic capacity of
OYSTERS. 267
the ostreophagist. Brillat-Savarin says : " It was well known
that formerly a feast of any pretensions usually began with
O3'sters, and that there were epicures who did not leave off
until they had swallowed a gross, in other words, a dozen
dozen. Wishing to know what such a prandial advanced
guard weighed, I verified the fact that the weight of a
dozen oysters (including water) is four ounces avoirdupois ;
and this gives for the whole gross three pounds. Now, I
look upon it as certain that these persons, who did not
dine the less heartity after the oysters, would have been
completely satiated if they had eaten the same quantity of
meat, even had it been chicken."
The same writer tells us that a friend once said to him :
"The despair of my life is that I can never get n^- fill of
O3~sters," to which Brillat Savarin replied: "Come and
dine with me, and you shall have 3*our fill." The friend,
one M. Laperte, came punctual to his time, and was soon
engaged in an interesting conference with the oysters.
Brillat-Savarin looked quietly on for an hour, by which
time M. Laperte had given good news of thirty-one dozen ;
and was proceeding, as fresh as ever, to discuss the thirty-
second dozen, when his host, wearied with long inaction,
said : " My poor friend, not to-day will destiny allow you
to eat your fill," and rang for the soup. M. Laperte did
ample justice to the excellent dinner which followed. After
this, who can doubt the truth of the story that the glutton-
ous Emperor Elagabalus took four hundred O3'sters, one
hundred ortolans, and one hundred peaches daily for his
breakfast ?
Besides their healthfulness, another great merit of oysters
is that they are the most democratic of dishes, which ex-
plains their great popularity with Americans. They are the
268 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
amalgamators of society, obliterating the hateful lines of
demarcation between rank and the canaille, wealth and
povert}'. It is only the rich man, " the incarnation of fat
dividends," who can luxuriate in turtle-soup, canvas-backs,
and champagne ; but upon the delicious bivalves the most
unhappy " circulator of copper coin " can reek and riot. It
is said that Greek writers rarely mention the oyster, one
of them calls it u the truffle of the sea;" but among the
old Romans it was held in high esteem. With them oysters
were the token of sincere fellowship, of profound sympathy,
and of innocent hilarity. They figured prominently in the
banquets of the emperors, gave eclat to the victories of
generals, imparted zest to the harangues of orators, and
were considered by the epicures as the best of all dishes
with which to quiet a barking stomach (lenire stomachum
latrantem) or to spur a jaded appetite. The Roman
ladies were so enamoured with oysters that it is said that
they used to gorge themselves to the roots of their tongues,
and then apply peacock's feathers to make their stomachs
disgorge the load, that the}' might feast again on the tempt-
ing fish. The Roman orators, prose- writers, and poets
were " passed-masters " in O3*ster-eating. Cicero nourished
his eloquence with the dainty ; and Seneca tells us that he
ate hundreds of the appetizing bivalves weekly. " Oyster,
dear to gourmands ! " exclaims the moralist, " which ex-
cites instead of satiating the appetite, which never causes
illness, even when eaten to excess, so easy art thou of
digestion ! " Martial found inspiration for his epigrams in
the small Lucrine ; and Horace, Lucilius, Ausonius, Pliny,
and man} T other Romans of note, have each a warm word
of praise for his pet oyster. The Emperor Trajan was fond
of oysters ; and the gluttonous Vitellius is reported to have
OYSTERS. 269
sometimes eaten a thousand at a sitting. It is said that
an oyster-pate was served to some of the gourmets of
ancient Rome which required the juice of five thousand
Lucrine natives to flavor it, and was filled and pasted over
with layers of British oysters besides.
It was to little purpose that Horace told the epicures
of his day to seek for delicate dishes in active exercise ;
that it was not in the price and savor of their food that the
highest enjoyment was to be found, but in themselves,
" Non in caro nidore voluptas
Simima, sed in te ipso est. Tu pulmcntaria quaere
Sudando ; pinguem vitiis albumque neque ostrea
Nee scarus aut poterit peregrina juvare lagois."
Just as at the present day epicures are split into parties
touching the merits of different "brands," the Edin-
burgher extolling his " Pandores," the citizen of Dublin the
blackbearded 4i Carlingfords," or the i4 Powldoodies " of
Burran, famous in song, while with the Londoner nothing
else slips down so well as the large, full-flavored " Colches-
ter," or the little fat " Milton," the American meanwhile
deeming them all flat and unprofitable compared with his
own mammoth juicy 4i Balti mores," so the gourmands
of the Eternal City were divided in opinion about the pro-
duce of different beds, though on the whole the palm was
given to the o}*sters of the Lucrine Lake, of Brundusium, and
of Ab} T dos in the Hellespont, for which men paid fabulous
prices. Baskets of these were considered to be fit presents
to kings ; and we are told that the Emperor Trajan, when
fighting the Parthians, had some sent to him b}' the Ad-
ams Express of the day from the Pontiff Apicius. Horace's
Catius, in his discourse on the art of living, tells us that
the real oysters are from the Circaean coast. Some of the
270 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
" stall-fed" Roman oysters were of mammoth proportions.
There was one abnormally large kind, to which they gave
the name of " Tridacna," that required three bites for its
consumption. To such a degree of gustatoiy acumen had
the gourmets of Rome attained that, according to Juve-
nal (Sat. iv. 140), one of them, "the fat-paunched Mon-
tanus," could tell at the first bite from what coast an oyster
had been taken, whether from Cireeii, the Lucrine Lake,
or Whitstable, at the mouth of the Thames,
" Circaeis nata forent, an
Lucrinum ad saxum, Rutupinove edita funda
Ostrea, callebat primo deprehendere morsu."
To supply the Roman market, large oyster-beds were
formed. Sergius Grata, whom Cicero characterizes as
"ditissimus, amoenissimus, deliciosissimus," made large
reservoirs at Baioe, in which he put thousands of these
shell-fish. Close by he built a palace, in which with his
friends he was wont to feast upon this favorite fish. In the
early da}'S of Rome many slaves were empkn^ed in trans-
porting O3*sters from their ocean-beds to the imperial cit}'.
In ancient Athens oysters were the interpreters of the
judicial sentences of the law, the citizens inscribing upon
these conchological tablets the doom of their disgraced
philosophers or heroes. If six thousand shells were cast
against a man he was ostracized. After the fourth century
we hear little of oysters till the Middle Ages. In the
twelfth century we are told that the students of the Uni-
versity of Paris, when the scholastic disputes were unusually
fierce and noisy, used to rehearse the debates over oyster-
suppers. Louis VIII. was so delighted with the appetizing
manner in which his cook prepared oysters for the roj-al
OYSTERS. 271
table that he gave him a title of nobility and a pension.
Louis XI., that scholarship might not become defunct in
France, used to invite all the members of the College of the
Sorbonne annually to an oyster-feast. In the reign of the
grand monarch, Louis XIV., oysters came again into vogue
in France, and at last became so popular with the frog-eaters
that Louis XVIII. was nicknamed by the wags of Paris
Louis des huitres (Oyster Louis), instead of Louis dix-huit,
because he was accustomed to swallow dozens upon dozens
of o}'sters daily as a whet before dinner. Gastronomers
declare that this may be done with impunity, and even with
advantage, as "the stomach is thus cleared of accidental
phlegm, the gastric juice increased, and any air which may
be fixed about the organs of digestion condensed and dis-
persed." The Encyclopaedists were especially fond of the
dainty mollusk. George I. of England had a great liking
for this shell-fish ; but he could not endure the English
oysters. He grumbled long, Mr. Justin McCarthy tells us,
at their queer taste, their want of flavor ; and it was some
time before his devoted attendants discovered that their
monarch liked stale oysters, with a good strong rankness
about them. No time was lost, when this important dis-
cover} T had been made, in procuring O3*sters to the taste of
the king, and one of George's objections to the throne of
England was removed.
Peter the Great was so fond of oysters that he had them
served up in different styles at eveiy meal, and called them
his '* life-preservers." Napoleon, who used his table as a
State-engine, prided himself upon the varied and unique
modes in which he had O3'sters cooked. The night before
the battle of Austerlitz he supped heartily on oysters, which
helped him to win a memorable victory, as at Dresden it was
272 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
nearly snatched from him by a leg of mutton stuffed with
onions. Cervantes ate so many O3~sters that his enemies
accused him of squandering all his substance in voracious
feasts on this fish. The learned Bentley, in the intervals
of critical stud}', recruited his energy with liberal dishes of
O}*sters. Writing in 1740 from the country, he says : u My
great relief and amusement here is mj' regular supply of
O3*sters. These things must have been made in heaven.
They are delectable, satisfying, delicious, and mentall}*
stimulating in a high degree. I can indite matter b\ T the
yard when I have had a good meal of them." He adds that
while he had his oysters cooked in all the different ways, he
had, on the whole, " a secret relish for the scalloped fashion
above ever}' other." Who can doubt that the Doctor's
brilliant victory over the scholars of Christ Church in the
Phalaris controvers}* was due to the perspicacity imparted
by this stimulating food? Rousseau had so keen a relish
for oysters that he was accused of gluttony. Alexander
Pope was almost as fond of stewed oysters as of his pet
lampreys ; and he once made his acceptance of an invitation
to dine at Lord Bolingbroke's conditional upon his being
regaled with the former luxury. The poet Thomson supped
so voraciously on O3*sters the night before his last illness
that this " surfeit" is said to have been one of the chief
causes of its fatal termination. Thackeray had a keen
relish for this shell-fish, the consumption of which abated
for a while his cynicism, and made life wear the beauty of
promise. Upon his visit to this country, he became ac-
quainted with the product of the American beds, an inci-
dent of which Mr. James T. Fields has given a humorous
account. " Six bloated Falstaffian bivalves lay before him
in their shells. I noticed that he gazed at them anxiously,
OYSTERS. 273
with fork upraised, and then he whispered to me, with a
look of anguish, 4 How shall I do it?' I described to him
the simple process by which the free-born citizens of Amer-
ica were accustomed to accomplish the task. He seemed
satisfied that the thing was feasible, selected the smallest
one in the half-dozen, and then bowed his head as if he
were saying grace. All eyes were upon him to watch the
effect of a new sensation in the person of a great British
author. Opening his mouth very wide, he struggled for a
moment, and then all was over. I shall never forget the
comic look of despair he cast upon the other five over-
occupied shells. I broke the perfect stillness by asking
him how he felt. ' Profoundly grateful,' he gasped, ' and
as if I had swallowed a little bab}*.' "
Oysters are interesting in a scientific and poetical as
well as in a gastronomic point of view. The anatomical
structure of the little creature is wonderfully perfect ; it has
a liver, an intestinal canal, a bag for a stomach, a tiny
heart with its auricle and ventricle, a series of blood-vessels,
and nerves acutely sensible, just as perfect as in bigger
animals. Like a dandy of the deep, it sports a beard
(scientifically called a " byssus"), which has an acute sense
of feeling, in allusion to which some one has called the
oyster one of the greatest anomalies in Nature, because
" It wears a beard without any chin,
And leaves its bed to be tucked in."
The gills, or beard, of the oyster " consist of two pairs of
membranous plates, beautifully striated, and floating within
the cavity of the cell. Microscopists tell us that if a small
portion of the gill be placed on a slip of glass with a little
sea-water, and viewed under a power of about three hun-
18
274 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
dred, a beautiful spectacle will be seen ; the thousands of
tin} 7 cilia lash the water incessantly, thus causing fresh cur-
rents of water to aerate the blood which flows through the
branchial vessels."
As to the " tucking in " of the oyster, it is b} r its enemies,
not by its friends, that tin's is done most effectually ; for
impregnable as it ma}* seem in its limestone castle, its life
is taken by its fellow- tenants of the deep as well as \)\ man.
Among its enemies is the codfish, which takes a whole
O}*ster into its mouth, cracks the shells, and sucks out the
meat. The crab, the drum-fish, the sea-star, and the
sheep's-head, each appreciate the exquisite flavor of its flesh,
and banquet on it with the gust and greediness of true
ocean epicures. The first, which must be considered by the
oyster a decided bore, drills a hole in the shell of its victim,
and then, thrusting in its sucker or "stinger," sucks out
the contents bodily, just as a fast youth sucks mint-juleps
through a straw ; the second swallows shell and all ; the
third, by a devilish contrivance of ingenuity, settles down
upon the poor oyster, wraps its five points about it, and
hugs it closely, until its victim, which cannot live without
an occasional supply of fresh water, opens its shell, when
quick as lightning a nipper is inserted, which keeps it open,
and enables the villain to feast at leisure, like the vulture
at the vitals of Prometheus, upon the gelatinous substance
within. The food of the oyster itself, by the way, scien-
tists tell us, consists of minute animalcules and infusoria,
to the peculiarities of which it owes its flavor. Another
enemy of the oyster is sand, a drift of which has sometimes
destroyed miles of oyster-beds and "the spat" in a single
night. Punch has vividly depicted this evil in the following
sj'mpathetic lament :
OYSTERS. 275
" 'T is the voice of the oyster ; I hear him complain :
' I can't live in this place, here 's the sandstorm again.
I was settling to rest 'mid the rocks and the tiles
They had made for a home ; but this sand, how it riles !
It gets into my shell, and the delicate fringe
That I use when I breathe, and I can't shut my hinge
When the grit lodges there; so the crabs come at will :
Since my poor mouth is open they feed and they kill.
I 've complained to a friend, who quite understands,
But he can't undertake to abolish the sands.'
Thus the native made moan, though I took up the brown
Bread and butter and lemon, and swallowed him down."
Quaint old Thomas Fuller says that oysters are " the
only meat which men eat alive and yet account it no
cruelty." The notion entertained 03- some persons that the
oyster dies the moment
" The damsel's knife the gaping shell commands,
And the salt liquor streams between her hands,"
is an erroneous one, unless some vital part of the mollusk
has been touched by the blade of the operator. This may
be tested b}' putting the shell-less o}*ster under a little sea-
water, when the movements of its several parts may be
seen.
The old divine just quoted tells us that King James was
wont to say, " he was a very valiant man who first ventured
on eating of oysters," a sentiment afterward echoed by
Gay :
" The man had sure a palate covered o'er
With brass or steel, that on the rocky shore
First broke the oozy oyster's pearly coat,
And risked the living morsel down his throat."
But probably the flavor of the oyster was accidentally
learned, just as according to Charles Lamb men dis-
covered the exquisite taste of roast-pig.
276 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
From five to seven years are required to bring the oyster
to perfection. An oyster bears its years on its back,
each successive layer observable on the shell indicating one
year ; so that by counting the layers we can tell at a glance
when the philanthropic creature came into the world.
Touching the true mode of eating the oyster, there is a
mistaken notion that it should be eaten off the upper shell
and swallowed whole. The objection to this is that it is a
waste of the liquor, the natural sauce which accompanies
the fish, as well as of the finer flavors, which are only to
be extracted by mastication. This liquor is not mere salt
water ; it is really the blood of the oyster, and should al-
ways accompany the fish in its last moments when it is
gently " tickled to death" by the teeth of the judicious
epicure. A great authorit}*, Dr. Kitchener, contends that
the o}'ster should be devoured when absolutely alive ; other-
wise the flavor and spirit are lost. "The true lover of an
oyster," he says, " will have more regard for the feelings
of his little favorite than to abandon it to the mercy of a
bungling operator ; he will alwa}"s open it himself, and con-
trive to detach the fish from the shell so dexterously that
the o}*ster is hardly conscious he has been ejected from his
lodging till he feels the teeth of the piscivorous gourmet
tickling him to death." It is in the city of Baltimore
that the cooking of the o}~ster is carried to the last degree
of perfection, as it is in Chesapeake Bay, on which Balti-
more stands, that the most aldermanic and luscious oysters
are raised. Instead of brutally smashing the shells with a
hammer and "dashing the poor, unoffending oyster into
the batter, like doughnuts into a kettle," the Baltimore
cooks, says a sensible writer, "gently persuade the reluc-
tant shells apart, tenderly lift therefrom the fragile, quiver-
OYSTERS. 277
ing morsel, and with a labor so incessant and loving as to
be worthy of all praise, watch over each phase of the oyster
as it dawns gradually, under the beneficent glow of the
furnace, into the more perfect and admirable state of a
true edible." It must have been after the deglutition of a
dozen fried in crumb by one of the artists of the Monumen-
tal City that the following sonnet was composed :
" Fallings of Neptune, delicately crusted,
What savory succulence your pores exude !
Metliinks I love you better fried than stewed,
Or gridiron'd, like Saint Lawrence, or combusted
On red-hot coals, or raw with cayenne dusted ;
Nevertheless, I like you all ways, dressed or nude.
Tidbits for deities, ambrosial food,
Dainties of dainties to the waves intrusted !
Bless'd was the man who from an oyster's nip
His finger snatched, and sucked when it was free.
What rare sensations must have thrilled his life,
And tickled all his physiology,
When, by suspicious torture made to sip,
His pain succumbed to speechless ecstasy ! "
We have spoken of the poetry in oysters. We are aware
of the popular prejudice which deems the oj-ster a dull,
sluggish animal, doomed to a lonek, semi- vegetable exis-
tence, and which "nothing in its life becomes so much as
its leaving it," when it finds a tomb in the stomach of the
grateful epicure. "As stupid as an o}'ster" is a prover-
bial expression, not only among English-speaking peoples,
but among the French. The} 7 tell a person whom they wish
to reproach with mental inferiority that he " argues like an
oyster,'* and torment the soul of the card-plaj'er on whose
skill they have staked their money, b}~ sajMng that he " pla3*s
like an oj'ster." The poet Bryant, too, who doubtless
often in his long life fed his poetic fire by an oyster-stew or
278 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
a fancy roast, moistened with Chateau Yquem or Chablis,
was once guilty of so ungenerous a fling as to counsel that
insatiable blood-sucker, the mosquito, to
" Go to the man for whom in ocean's halls
The oyster breeds and the green turtle sprawls."
In reply to all such cold-blooded reasoners it suffices to cite
the opinion of scientists, who have shown that, though
oysters do not rank high in the scale of intelligence, yet
their sensibilities are not so obscure, nor their instincts so
limited, as is generally supposed. Dr. Carpenter tells us
that the oyster is sensitive to the influence of light, closing
his shells when the shadow of a boat passes over them ;
and we know that it has sense enough to guard against an
enemy's attack by closing its valves, by expelling violently
the water between them (which often frightens its adver-
sary) , and when its shell is perforated, by depositing fresh
shellj' matter in the breach. Again, in La Fontaine's amus-
ing fable of the encounter between the Rat and the Oj'ster,
it was the long-whiskered rodent that was worsted, the
bivalve catching him in his yawning trap. Nor is the
oyster wanting in happiness. Somebody has styled fossil-
iferous rocks " monuments of the felicity of past ages."
Commenting on this text, a learned naturalist in the
" Westminster Review " says,
" An undisturbed oyster-bed is a concentration of happiness in
the present. Dormant though the several creatures there congre-
gated seem, each individual is leading the beatified existence of
an Epicurean god. The world without, its cares and joys, its
storms and calms, its passions, evil and good, all are indifferent
to the unheeding oyster. Unobservant even of what passes in its
immediate vicinity, its whole soul is concentrated in itself ; yet not
sluggishly and apathetically, for its body is throbbing with life and
OYSTERS. 279
enjoyment. The mighty ocean is subservient to its pleasures.
The rolling waves waft fresh and choice food within its reach, and
the flow of the current feeds it without requiring an effort. Each
atom of water that comes in contact with its delicate gills evolves
its imprisoned air to freshen and invigorate the creature's pellucid
blood. Invisible to human eye, unless aided by the wonderful in-
ventions of human science, countless millions of vibrating cilia are
moving incessantly with synchronic beat on every fibre of each
fringing leaflet."
To show that the oyster, like man, is " fearfully and
wonderfully made," it is sufficient to point to the revelations
of the microscope. These show that the bards who apos-
trophize eagles and vultures, mean poultry-stolen and
carrion-hunters, or who chant the praises of that rank
and rancid monster, the lubberly, blubberly whale, mistake
their themes. They show that the shell of an oyster, so
far from being a lonely dwelling-place, is a world occupied
by an innumerable host of animals, compared to which the
oyster itself is a colossus. The liquid inclosed between the
shells of the oyster contains a multitude of embryos, cov-
ered with transparent scales which swim with ease ; a hun-
dred and twenty of these embryos, placed side by side,
would not make an inch in length. Moreover, this liquor
contains a great variety of animalcules, five hundred times
less in size, which give out a phosphoric light. If these
facts do not kindle the imagination, it will surely be enough
to hint at the famous pearls of Cleopatra, which were the
excrescences of this exquisite fish. All persons remember
the brilliant feat of epicureanism when, Antoii} r having
wagered a heavy sum that she could not expend ten million
sesterces (about $400,000 in our money) on one entertain-
ment, she accepted the challenge ; and taking from her ear
one of the matchless pearls that had descended to her from
280 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
her ancestors, dissolved it in vinegar and swallowed the
precious draught, a feat miserably burlesqued by the Eng-
lish sailor who placed a ten-pound note between two slices
of bread and butter and gave them to his "Black-eyed
Susan" to eat as a sandwich. Not content with this prodi-
gal extravagance, the queen would have swallowed the
other pendant also, had not Lucius Plancus snatched it
from her hand and proclaimed her victor in this lovers'
contest. We are aware that Dr. Mobius, a cold-blooded,
matter-of-fact German,' has denied, in his History of Pearls,
the practicability of Cleopatra's famous feat of gastronom}* :
but who cares about the truth of a story so characteristic
of the Oriental queen ; or whether Clodius the glutton had
long before, as Pliny saj's, swallowed a pearl worth over
forty thousand dollars? The same Pliny tells us that the
oyster produces the pearl from feeding upon heavenly dew ;
and an old British writer affirms that earl}' in tiie morning,
when the sky is clear and temperate, "the oysters open
their mouths a little above the water, and most greedily
swallow the dew of heaven," upon which they at once
" conceive and breed the pearl." But alas for poetry and
romance ! science, which, with its sledge-hammer of mat-
ter-of-fact, has converted the diamond into charcoal, has
also declared the precious pearl to be composed of concen-
trate layers of membrane and carbonate of lime ! And }*et
is there not poetry in the fact which this same science dis-
closes, that this brilliant ornament of beauty is the result of
suffering on the part of the poor shell-fish? Naturalists
tell us that when living in its glossy house, should any
foreign substance find its way in, the fish coats the offend-
ing substance with nacre, and converts it into a pearl. The
pearl is, indeed, a little globe of the smooth, glossy sub-
OYSTERS. 281
stance yielded by the oyster's beard, yielded ordinarily to
smooth the narrow home to which his nature binds him,
but yielded in round drops, real pearly tears, if he is hurt.
Little thinks the beauty, as she sweeps through the mazes
of the dance, the cynosure of dazzled eyes, that the pearls
which cluster in her hair and enhance her witching loveli-
ness are the product of pain and diseased action endured
by a poor shell-fish !
But why dwell upon this theme? Was not Callisthenes,
the companion of Alexander the Great, an oyster epicure?
Was not Cambaceres famous for his shell-fish banquets?
Were not D'Alembert, Diderot, Helvetius, Voltaire, all
oyster-eaters of taste? Did riot Hume and Dngald Stewart
gather strength for their metaphysical researches from the
''whiskered pandores " of their day? Did not Walter
Scott, when young, and Sir Adam Ferguson, if tradition
may be believed, eat a whole barrel ful of oysters in a sin-
gle evening? Did not Blomfield, Bishop of London, de-
clare that the sight of an oyster-stall, common in his day,
alwa}'s made his mouth water? Are not the bivalves so
relished by Englishmen to-da} r that a thousand millions of
them are consumed yearl}' b}' London alone? Have not
bivalves affected the politics of our land, and almost
provoked war between sovereign States ? Was it not for
these that Governor Wise of Virginia threatened to draw
the sword, and is not a hard-shelled Shrewsbury the arms
of Old Tammany? What would an evening-party be
without oysters ? The musicians might be dispensed with,
the wax-lights and gorgeous chandeliers laid aside, and
even polkas and quadrilles embargoed ; but without oys-
ters the affair would be a dead failure, like the play of
Hamlet with the part of Hamlet left out. Oysters are a
282 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
fruitful theme for the moralist, and supply the poet with his
finest metaphors. "The world's mine oyster," says Pis-
tol, "which I with sword will open." Doubtless Shak-
speare was fond of the conchiferous animal to which he thus
sententiously alludes, the bivalves of which recall the name
of another, the most subtle and philosophic of English
poets, Shelley. The world is, indeed, an oyster, as the
immortal bard has declared, the riches and honors of which
are impenetrable to the tyro until time instructs him to use
the knife of experience so adroitly as to attain at a blow
the long-coveted treasure.
CYNICS AND CYNICISM.
all the disagreeable persons whom one meets with
in society, there is no one whose influence is more
pernicious than that of the cynic, the man who prides
himself upon his knowledge of human nature, and delights
to mock at every appearance of virtue in his fellow-creatures.
There are persons in every community who have a preterna-
tural gift for detecting evil ; who find apparently an intense
satisfaction in proving that all human beings are equally
selfish, corrupt, and base ; who boast of their skill in de-
tecting the vilest motives for apparently the noblest actions ;
who gloat upon every new revelation of domestic sin and
shame,
" As if it were a pleasant thing to find
The racer stumbling, and the gaze-hound blind."
They have a fatal scent for carrion, a lynx's eye for spots
and blemishes. Their memory has been compared to the
museum of a medical college, where one sees preserved all
the hideous distortions and monstrous growths and revolt-
ing excrescences by which man can be disfigured and
afflicted.
Prove to them bej'ond the shadow of a doubt that a man
has at least one virtue, and they will maintain that it is at
the expense of all the others. Is he philanthropic? Then
he is boastful, or censorious, or greedj' of applause, or slow
in the payment of his debts, or he lets his own family suffer
284 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
while he relieves the miseries of his fellow-men. As literary
critics, they have a microscopic eye for petty blemishes and
minute faults. Speak to them of an orator who holds his
audience breathless by his eloquence, and they will remind
you of some " clap-trap" remark, some slip in the construc-
tion of a sentence, some slight incongruit}' in a metaphor,
or " non-distribution of a middle term," which neutral-
izes all his merits. If a writer has a dazzling wit, they
complain of his lack of judgment ; if another has a scientific
turn of mind, the}' complain of his lack of enthusiasm and
imagination. Brilliant he is, but superficial; solid, but
dull: " so runs the bond." Forgetting that Nature is too
frugal to heap together all manner of shining qualities in
one mass ; that she gives to the beautiful peacock a dis-
cordant voice, to the bird-of-paradise coarse legs, and that
the fleet greyhound has no scent, they demand qualities
of mind and heart diametrically opposite in the same per-
son. The Psalmist said that he had " seen the end of all
perfection " : they have never seen the beginning. As in
the gun-trade, among the men who sight the barrels, and
detect faults in the bore, there are eyes that will dis-
cover a deflection measuring less than a thousandth part of
an inch, so these critics, while blind to the beauties, will
detect infinitesimal flaws in every work of genius. Of
course they find no difficulty in provoking a laugh at the
expense of their victims ; it is so much easier for an ill-
natured man than for a good-natured one to be smart and
witty,
" S'il n'eut mal parle de personne,
On n'eut jamais parle de lui."
Hazlitt, himself one of the most genial of critics, was des-
perately afflicted with them: " Littleness," said he, " is
CYNICS AND CYNICISM. 285
their element, and they give a character of meanness to
whatever they touch. They creep, buzz, and fly-blow. It
is much easier to crush than to catch these troublesome
insects ; and when they are in your power, your self-respect
spares them."
Cynicism is one of the chief vices of our times. The
writers of the day especially the novelists, dramatists,
and poets, the Hawthornes, Braddons, and Reades are
full of it. They are perpetually calling on us to see the
human heart laid bare, and to sec how unutterably black
and foul it is. Judging by their representations, one would
suppose that all goodness had been emptied out of it.
They depict a state of society similar to that described in
Holy Writ, whose enormities brought down the thunders of
Heaven. We have no sympathy with such views, or with
the men who hold them, and who pride themselves on their
knowledge of the "morbid anatom3 r " of human nature.
The man of openly depraved character, who mocks at mor-
ality, is not half so offensive nor half so dangerous an ac-
quaintance as the shrewd, sly, witty, evil-speaking fellow
who, having an extended knowledge of men and things,
comes into one's household with his innuendoes, insinua-
tions, sarcasms, and scandals, that sap our faith in humanity
and make us distrust every appearance of virtue. There is
no other atheism like this, no unbelief so hard and incura-
ble as that which is constantly inveighing against human
hollowness, and turning men away from virtue by persuad-
ing them that it is never genuine ; that " friendship is all
a cheat, smiles hypocrisy, words deceit." Such pessimists,
who are often cultivated men, pride themselves on their
penetration and breadth of mind ; they have no credulity,
no superstitions, no prejudices, no foolish enthusiasms
286 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
for the idols of the day ! But, with all their culture,
they are shallow creatures, for, as Richard Sharp has well
said, "The most gifted men have been the least addicted
to depreciate friends or foes. Dr. Johnson, Burke, and
Fox were always inclined to overrate them." Will it be
said that Pascal is an exception to the rule ? It is true
that Pascal gave to his representations of the depravity
of human nature a Rembrandt-like depth of coloring which
seems to spring from misanthrop3 T . But we must remember
that he dwells as much upon the " greatness" as upon the
4 'misery" of man; that, as Hallain finely says, "it is the
ruined archangel that Pascal delights to paint." It is with
no fiend-like chuckle, no smile of malicious triumph, but
with the profoundest pity, that he declares the results of his
researches into the depths of man's moral nature. So with
Thackera\ r ; it is with no sat}*r's delight, but with sadness
and sorrow, that he depicts the varnished but rotten sinners
that flit across his pages. Not so with Talleyrand, who was
always saying sarcastic and malicious things about other
people ; as when some one told him that M. de Semonville
had a bad cold, "What interest can M. de Semonville have
in catching cold?" asked the cynical statesman. But Tal-
leyrand's youth had been passed in " a hot- bed of intrigue
and back-stairs influence," which powerfully distorted his
views of human nature. Charles II., too, if we may believe
Bishop Burnet, and as we should naturally expect, had a
veiy ill opinion of both men and women, and believed that
there was neither sincerity nor chastity in the world out of
principle, but that some had either one or the other out of
humor or vanity. The letters of Sir Robert Walpole are
flavored throughout with a kind of satirical cynicism against
man and man's nature, which betrays itself especially in
CYNICS AND CYNICISM. 287
untruthful anecdotes of eminent men, which he tells with
evident glee. M. de Lassay, a Frenchman who had a great
knowledge of society, is cited by Chamfort as saying that
it would be necessary to swallow a toad every morning, in
order not to find anything disgusting during the rest of the
da}', when one has to spend it in the world. Akin to this
was the cynical snarl prompted by the gloomy misanthropy
of La Monnoye :
' The world of fools has such a store
That he who would not see an ass,
Must bide at home and bolt his door
And break his looking-glass."
But the greatest of all the libellers of humanity was that
dark and fierce spirit, "the apostate politician, the per-
jured lover, and the ribald priest," Dean Swift. He was
emphatically the prince of pessimists and the king of libel-
lers, a libeller of human nature, a libeller of persons, and
a libeller of himself.
The pessimist is usually as false when he flatters as
when he reviles. He rarely praises Jones but to vex
Brown. All such should be shunned as one would shun
a man afflicted with leprosy or the plague. Let them live,
Diogenes-like, in their tubs, and snarl and sneer at every
passer-by ; but let none go near them to be infected with
the poison of their ill-nature, and of " cette philosophic
rigide qui fait cesser de vivre avant que Von soit rnort."
Better to be forever defenceless, a butt to every consola-
tory falsehood and pleasant cheat, than to be always using
the spear of Ithuriel. Full earty does one learn the bitter
lesson of human depravity, to grow shy, suspicious, and
distrustful of his fellow-men, without being made ac-
quainted with the painful lesson in advance. Wisely has
288 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
the Roman Church proclaimed the sanctity of the confes-
sional. Who that loves to think well of his species would
not loathe the knowledge with which the memory of the
priesthood is burdened and soiled ? Who does not rejoice
that the same creative wisdom which shelters from every
human eye the processes of our animal frame, has shrouded
from observation the workings of our spiritual structure?
Yet it is of these latter that the cynic boasts of having a
microscopic knowledge ; in reply to which we may say that
though it is " a blunder to mistake the Newgate Calendar
for a biographical dictionary," yet, as Burke has justly said,
he who charges all men with being knaves at heart, is sure
at least of convicting one.
THE EXTREMES OF DRESS.
OF all the articles of dress which protect and beautify
the human bod}*, there is no one which so decidedly
stamps a man's character as the hat. Next to a man's
head is his chapeau, in importance as well as in local posi-
tion. It is the crowning article of costume, the keystone
of the arch of the outer man, and as a symbol of the
wearer, of his calling, habits, tastes, and opinions, is
brimful of meaning. Pride, extravagance, haughtiness,
and vulgarity, with their opposites, all betray themselves
in its form and fashion, as well as in the st\'le in which it is
worn. In all ages and countries men have been compara-
tivety neglectful of their soles, provided their brains were
protected by a proper head-dress. Not to speak of the
Phrygian cap of Liberty or the red cap of the cardinal,
both intensel}' significant, what can be more gorgeous than
the Greek cap, more picturesque than the turban, or more
dazzlingly beautiful than the soldier's helm with its nodding
plume? If the part played by the hat in history were fully
written out, it would fill a volume. Dr. Draper, in writing
his " History of Civilization in Europe," could hardly have
summed up the leading epochs in its development more
satisfactorily than under headings designated b}* the prom-
inent head-piece of each epoch. What better symbol for
the old Greek epoch than the o-re'^avos ; for the old Ro-
man epoch than the civic crown ; for the Byzantine empire
19
290 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
than the diadem ; for the Middle Ages than the papal
tiara; or for the French Revolution than the bonnet
rouge? Gessler's hat upon a pole, as ever} 7 school-boy
knows, has a reputation co-extensive with the apple of
William Tell. The Highland bonnet, with dark raven
feather, is the volume-speaking emblem of mountain brav-
eiy and independence. What would Faux and his dark-lan-
tern be without his sugar-loaf; or what 3'our " ginoowine
live Yankee " without his towering, narrow-brimmed bell-
crown, an heirloom from his great-grandfather? What
other article of dress has caused so much stir in societ}* as
the hat of George Fox, the founder of Quakerism, the hat
which he refused to take off before Cromwell's magistrates
and ministers? The steeple-hat is as indissolubty asso-
ciated with our idea of the Puritan as are his long Hebrew
name, his nasal tones, and his " heavenly hawings and
hummings." Chateaubriand used to say that Napoleon's
little three-cornered hat set upon a stick would cause all
Europe to fly to arms.
When we meet an acquaintance in the street, how do we
testify our respect? Is it not by taking off the hat? Is
there not a graduated scale of respect, the degrees of which
are indicated by touching and by the manner of doffing this
part of the dress?
What boots it that a man is well shod, if he is not also
well covered ? What matters it that he is in other respects
a poor subject, if he is loyal to the crown of his head ?
We can conceive of a man's wearing an ugly coat or
"seedy" trousers, and } T et being a good citizen, an exem-
plary head of a famih T , an honest man, and even a Chris-
tian. But what if he is caught with a vile hat, one
knocked in at the side, sunken at the top, soiled with dust,
THE EXTREMES OF DRESS. 291
made years ago, and then by a bungler? Would not a
constable arrest him as a vagabond? Would he let him go
without the oath of at least two well-hatted householders ?
A "shocking bad hat" marks the lowest deep of social
degradation. Look at the criminals in the dock : by what
one peculiarity are they universally distinguished, if not by
the never-failing bad hat? On the other hand, the elegant
chapeau of the man of fashion, with its exquisite texture
and well-brushed, gloss}' exterior, is as characteristic as
the melancholy spectacle of " a brick" in one's hat. When
you have done a man a signal favor, or hit him with a sharp
jest, how does he acknowledge it? By tendering you his
gloves ; or by the far more significant act of doffing his
beaver, and saying, " You can just take my hat"? In view
of all these considerations, who can help admiring the
wisdom of the "forty merchants " in a town in Illinois,
who, we are told, some years ago signed a pledge to wear
high hats " to increase the dignity of the town "? We say,
therefore, in the words of the u Autocrat of the Breakfast
Table " :
" Have a good hat ! The secret of your looks
Lives with the beaver in Canadian brooks.
Virtue may dwell in a bad cravat,
But man and Nature scorn the shocking hat ! "
Next to the hat, the boots must be regarded as the most
important and significant part of the costume. The boot is,
in fact, the very foundation of the dress, the base which
supports the whole superstructure. A man may have a
threadbare coat and forget it ; his vest may be shabby, and
his linen ill-shaped and antiquated, yet he ma} 7 be uncon-
scious of it. But he cannot stand upright in a pair of boots
with worn-down heels ; and it is just as difficult to feel mor-
292 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
ally upright in them. He feels at eveiy step the weakness
of his foundation ; and in that forlorn condition all self-
respect, all enterprise, all elan is impossible. A man ill-
shod sometimes natters himself that he carries off attention
from his boots by the use of a " stunning" necktie, a spark-
ling breast-pin, or a gorgeous watch-chain ; but this is a de-
lusion and a snare. The boots are the key of the position,
and if this is neglected, all is lost.
When a stranger makes his entree upon a fashionable
promenade, to what part of the dress is it, after the hat has
been inspected, that the glass of the critic and the soft e}*e
of beauty are directed? Is it to his close-fitting coat, his
elegant vest, or his genteel trousers, that attention is
universally turned ? No ; it is the boots that instantane-
ously decide the character of the man. If they are the
work of an artist and properly polished ; if they are del-
icately shaped and free from squeak, then he may walk
with a proud and elastic step, even though his coat be not
of the most fashionable cut, and though his vest be but-
toned a whole button too high. The boots, in fine, speak
volumes concerning a man's pretensions to standing, as
they also reveal unmistakably his largeness or littleness of
sole, which last is a sure sign that there is not much to go
upon. We have seen boots that were perfectlj* eloquent,
that told as plainty as though endowed with the gift of
speech the capacity of the understandings they covered,
boots from which we could have formed a better opinion
of the wearer's cultivation, refinement, and general tastes,
than from a week's acquaintance. There seems to be a
sort of "destiny" that shapes these pedal ends of men;
" roughhew them as we will," the}' will still speak with
"most miraculous organ," so that the ex pede Herculem
THE EXTREMES OF DRESS. 293
continues to be as safe a rule to-day as in the time of
Phidias.
Who has forgotten the pride and joy with which, when a
boy, he watched his first pair of boots as they grew day by
day into shape under the hands of Crispin? And when the
boy grew into a man. and the thought flashed into his brain
that "life is real, life is earnest," and he must be up and
doing, what were the first words that rushed to his lips?
"My boots!" The most damning condemnation of an
enterprise is to say that it is "bootless."
Among the circumstances which affect man's physical
comfort there are few more potent than the shape and
workmanship of his boots. What, indeed, can be more
completely destructive of even' capability of happiness than
a pair of ill-fitting boots or shoes? Talk of " the insolence
of office," "the law's delay": what are they to a tight
boot? And "the proud man's contumely," or "the pang
of despised love " : can it compare with the agony inflicted
by a half-dozen corns? Truly Hamlet chose petty griev-
ances to justify suicide, compared with the misery inflicted
by bungling cobblers. It is told in Catholic churches that
Saint Dunstan made Satan roar by holding him by the nose
with red-hot pincers ; had the hoi}' saint lived in our da}',
he would have wedged his adversary's foot into a tight
boot, as Prospero threatened to wedge Ariel into a cleft
tree :
" I will rend an oak,
And peg tliee in his knotty entrails, till
Thou hast howled away twelve winters/'
The literature^ of boots would fill a volume. One of
Abraham Lincoln's best stories was a boot-story. It was
about a big Hoosier who went to Washington during the
294 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
war, and called on a street-arab for " a shine." Looking
at the tremendous boots before him, the boy called out to a
brother " shiner " across the street : " Come over and help,
Jimmy ; I've got an army contract. 1 " Dr. Holmes, in his
" Urania," has treated of the choice of boots with his usual
felicity and good sense : -
" Three pairs of boots one pair of feet demands,
If polished daily by the owner's hands :
If the dark menial's visit save from this,
Have twice the number, for he '11 sometimes miss.
One pair for critics of the nicer sex,
Close in the instep's clinging circumflex,
Long, narrow, light ; the Gallic boot of love,
A kind of cross between a boot and glove.
But not to tread on everlasting thorns,
And sow in suffering what is reaped in corns,
Compact, but easy, strong, substantial, square,
Let native art compile the medium pair.
The third remains ; and let your tasteful skill
Here show some relics of affection still.
Let no stiff cowhide, reeking from the tan,
No rough caoutchouc, no deformed brogan,
Disgrace the tapering outline of your feet,
Though yellow torrents gurgle through the street ;
But the patched calf-skin arm against the flood,
In neat, light shoes, impervious to the mud."
THE TRICKS OF TYPES.
Foul murder hath been done, lo! here's the proof I OLD PLAY.
A MONG the petty vexations of a literary man's life,
* *- the flea-bites of his woes, which sometimes irritate
more than graver troubles, not the least annoying is the
ridiculous figure he is made to present through errors of the
press. Ignorance, stupidity, and affectations which seem
to be the offspring of the most ineffable conceit are fathered
upon him b} 7 the freaks of types. A circumstance which pe-
culiarly aggravates the vexation in such cases is that mis-
prints fall, not upon indifferent words or passages, but with
marvellous certainty upon the tenderest parts of one's writ-
ing, just where there is a vital meaning to be destroyed.
Write a sentence which }'ou foolishly think to be unusually
fine, and the printer's devil, as if he w'ere some dogging fiend
or secret enemy trying to " feed fat an ancient grudge," is
sure to mangle, if not to murder it outright, in a way that
will make your flesh creep. Verbal felicities and rhetorical
bravuras that have cost }'ou perhaps da}*s of labor ; wit-
ticisms over which, anticipating the sensation they must
create, you have chuckled in an ecstas} 7 of delight, disap-
pear altogether in print, or are converted into something
to which the}' are as unlike as a " hawk to a hernshaw."
Boileau's witty complaint, in his address to Moliere, de-
scribes, with a slight alteration, your luckless fate,
296 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
"Souvent j'ai beau rever du matin jusqu'au soir ;
Quand je veux dire ' blanc,' la quinteuse dit ' noir ; '
Si je pense exprimer un auteur sans dcfaut,
La raison dit Virgile, et la rime Quinault."
It has often surprised those who have been the victims
of typographical errors that amid the infinite combinations
of types there are no lucky blunders in the author's favor,
turning cacophony into euphony, turgidity into sublimity,
and nonsense into sense. It is true that once in a century
a thought is actually improved by a typographical blunder.
It is told, for example, of Malherbc that when in his famous
epistle to Du Perrier, whose daughter's name was Rosette,
he had written, " Et Rosette a vecu ce que vivent les roses "
(And Rosette has lived as the roses live), the printer,
who found the manuscript difficult to read, put " Roselle "
instead of " Rosette." Malherbe, in reading the proof, was
struck by the change, and re- wrote his verse as follows :
" Et Rose, elle a vecu ce que vivent les roses, 1'espece d'un
matin " (And a rose, she has lived as the roses live, the space
of a morning). But cases like these are exceedingly rare.
There are some printers who appear to have an uncon-
querable repugnance to "following copy." Like all men
of original genius, they hate to tread the path which
another has marked out, to be ' "cabined, cribbed, con-
fined " by the shackles which a writer has imposed ; and in
vain will you seek to fortify yourself against any daring im-
provement of your manuscript at their hands, though you
should make your handwriting as legible as block- letter.
There are other sons of Faust who make it an invariable
rule to stick to copy (or what they think is copy), into
whatever absurdities, contradictions, or nonsense it may
plunge them. No matter how cramped, crooked, or obscure
THE TRICKS OF TYPES. 297
3~our chirograph}', though every line of your manuscript
should present only " a swell-mob of bad characters," out-
Choateing Choate's hieroglyphics, the most obvious and
literal interpretation, however ridiculous, is rigidly adopted.
There is still another class of " typos " who do better with
bad manuscript than with good. Like a great general or a
famous beauty, they do not care for too easy a conquest.
Give them a difficulty to overcome, and they summon all
their wits to contend with it ; make their path easy, and
they walk into bogs and quagmires. The press, in truth,
is a sort Of half-reasoning animal, or species of lunatic,
which sometimes with a sort of inspired felicity divines in-
stantly the meaning of pot-hooks more puzzling than the
hieroglyphics on a Chinese tea-chest ; while at other times,
when all is as clear as rock-water, it commits the most
asinine blunders, and turns the most lucid composition
into " confusion worse confounded."
A collection of errors of the malignant type would be one
of the most entertaining chapters in the curiosities of litera-
ture. Some 3'ears ago the London " Times," in speaking
of a discussion before the council of ministers when Lord
Brougham was Chancellor, stated that " the chandelier had
thrown an extraordina T light on the question." In the
London u Christian World," in 1883, a writer, referring to
an address at Christ Church by the Rev. Theodore Hookes,
represents him as saying that some of the clergy had gone
back " to the black lie [tie] of their boj'hood." In one of
the editions of Davidson's "Popular English Grammar"
the principal parts of the verb " to chide" were given as
follows: "Present infinitive, to chide; past finite, I
chid; past infinitive, to have children." In the London
"Courier," some fifty years ago, his Majestj' George IV.
298 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
was said to have a fit of the goat at Brighton. Another
journal advertised a sermon by a celebrated divine on the
" Immorality of the Soul," and also the " Lies of the
Poets," a work, no doubt, of man}' volumes. The Lon-
don "Globe" once gave an extract from the Registrar-
General's return, in which it was stated that the inhabitants
of London were suffering at that time " from a high rate
of morality" A letter more or a letter less makes strange
havoc of a sentence. Earl}' in the French Revolution the
Abbe Sieves, in correcting the proof-sheets of a pamphlet
in defence of his political conduct, read : "I have abjured
the republic," a misprint for adjured. "Wretch!" he
cried to the printer, "do you wish to send me to the
guillotine?" What is treason, once asked a wag, but
reason to a t, which t an accident of the press may dis-
place with most awkward effect. On the other hand, a
printer who omitted the first letter of Mr. Caswell's name
might have pleaded that it was as well without the C.
Some years ago an eminent lecturer on "Peace" intro-
duced into his discourse a familiar line from a Latin
poet,
" Est deus in nobis, et illo agitante incalescimus,"
which has been translated : "There is a divinity within us,
and when he awakens us we grow inspired." In the printed
copy of the discourse the letter u in deus was set upside
down, so that the quotation read,
" Est dens in nobis, et illo agitante incalescimus,"
which means : " There is a tooth within us, and when that
jumps, we get hot," or, more freely, " we jump too." A
hardly less ludicrous effect was produced by the change of
a letter in an article in the " Revue des Deux Mondes."
THE TRICKS OF TYPES. 299
The writer, being at Venice, quoted the first line of the fourth
canto of Byron's " Childe Harold," which the printer ren-
dered thus :
" J stood at Venice on the Bridge of Sighs."
The author of " Reminiscences of an Old Bohemian"
tells of a ludicrous typographical error that occurred in the
Paris " Constitutional " in the time of Louis Philippe. One
morning there appeared in that paper the following startling
paragraph: '"His Majesty the king received M. Thiers
yesterday at the Tuileries, and charged him with the for-
mation of a new cabinet. The distinguished statesman
hastened to reply to the king : 4 1 have only one regret,
which is that I cannot wring your neck like a turkey's.' " A
few lines lower down there was another paragraph running
to the following effect: " The efforts of justice have been
promptly crowned with success. The murderer of the Rue
du Pot-de-fer has been arrested in a house of ill-fame. Led
at once before the Judge of Instruction, the wretch had the
hardihood to address that magistrate in terms of coarse in-
sult, winding up with the following words, which amply
show that there remains not a spark of conscience or right
feeling in this hardened soul : ' God and man are my wit-
nesses that I have never had any other ambition than to
serve your august person and my country loyally, to the
best of my ability/ " The printer had just innocently man-
aged to interchange the two addresses. Laughable as the
joke was, it derived additional point from the universal
knowledge that there was little love lost between the king
and the minister.
In a volume of American Chaneeiy Reports it is said to
be decided that carpenters (co-partners) are liable for one
300 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
another's debts. In a recent catalogue of books to be sold
by auction in Boston, we find the following amusing
blunder :
" 78. BENTHAM, Jeremy. Thirty Years in the U. S. Senate.
Vol. I. Portrait. 8, cloth"
Mistakes in punctuation, such as the omission or misplac-
ing of a comma, sometimes greatly change the sense of a
passage ; as when a compositor, probably an old bachelor,
in setting up the toast, "Woman, without her, man would
be a savage," put the comma in the wrong place, and made
the sentence read, "Woman, without her man, would be a
savage." Another compositor is said to have punctuated a
well-known proverb of Solomon thus : " The wicked flee,
when no man pursueth the righteous, is bold as a lion."
Some 3'ears ago an editor at the South, wishing to con-
gratulate General Pillow, after his return from Mexico, as
a battle-scarred veteran, was made by the types to char-
acterize him as u a battle-scared veteran." The indignant
general, rushing into the editorial sanctum, demanded an
explanation, which was given, and a correction promised
in the next day's paper. Judge of the editor's feelings on
the morrow, when, as if to heap horrors upon horror's head,
he found the general styled, in the revised paragraph, " that
bottle-scarred veteran " ! This was less excusable than the
blunder of an English journal which stated that the Russian
General Backinoffkowsky was "found dead with a long
word in his mouth ;" for no compositor could be blamed for
leaving out a letter in a sentence after setting up such a
name correctly. Many years ago, in an article on the sub-
ject of literature for children, we wrote: " It is true, they
will devour the most indigestible pabulum, for want of
THE TRICKS OF TYPES. 301
better." The last word of this sentence was transformed
b}* the typographical imp into butter. Erasmus once dedi-
cated a book to the Queen of Hungaiy, and complained
bitterly that the rascal of a printer had lost him his gratuity
b}' printing two successive words as one, and thus so chang-
ing the meaning as to convert a compliment into an insult.
An edition of the Bible printed at the Clarendon Press in
1617 is known as the " Vinegar Bible," because, in the title
of the twentieth chapter of Luke, the Parable of the Vine-
yard is printed u Parable of the Vinegar." Perhaps the most
fearful error of the press that ever occurred was caused by
the letter c dropping out of the following passage in " a
form " of the Book of Common Prayer: " We shall all be
changed in the twinkling of an eye." When the book
appeared, the passage, to the horror of the devout reader,
was thus printed : " We shall all be hanged in the twink-
ling of an eye." Some }*ears ago the editor of the Port-
land (Me.) "Argus" undertook to compliment an eminent
citizen as " a noble old burgher, proudly loving his native
State ; " but the neatly turned compliment came from the
compositor's hands " a nobby old burglar, prowling round
in a naked state." This is almost matched b} T a telegraphic
blunder of which the Rev. Joseph Cooke tells. Not long ago
Ernest Renan had occasion to telegraph across the English
Channel on the subject of a proposed lecture by him in
Westminster Abbey. The subject, as written by him, was
" The Influence of Rome on the Formation of Christianity."
It was announced in England as " The Influence of Rum on
the Digestion of Humanity " ! In the second volume of his
" History of the United States," Mr. McMasters speaks of
"the Spartan bard in the pass of Thermopylae."
Among the most ludicrous misprints are those that some-
302 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
times occur in works of sentiment ; as where the authoress
of a French novel wound up a brilliant rhapsody on love
with the sentence: "Pour bien connaitre ramour, il faut
sortir de soi " (To know truly what love is, we must go out
of ourselves) ; which the printer metamorphosed into the
equivocal phrase : " Pour bien connaitre 1'amour, il faut
sortir de soir " (To know truly what love is, we must go out
o' nights) ! This is more atrocious than " the Sybil burning
her rooks " an anti- classical! ty which would have almost
driven Scaliger mad. The name of Scaliger reminds us of
the misprints which sometimes occur in classical works, and
which afford infinite amusement to the scholar by the way
in which the^y excruciate the wits of commentators. Critic
after critic racks his brain and bites his nails to the quick in
attempts to elucidate a passage ; a prodigious array of learn-
ing is brought to bear upon it, and endless explanations,
many of them exceedingly plausible, are given : when lo !
it turns out, to the confusion of pedantry, that the vexed
phrase was a blunder of the tj~pes. Thus in a passage in
nearl}' if not quite all the editions of Pausanias, the Sybil
declares that her mother was a goddess, but her father
an eater of whales, Trarpo? Se /o7To<ayoio, a phrase which
elicited from the commentators many ingenious explanations.
Dindorf saw that it was a misprint, and transformed it into
% IK o-iTo^ayoto, " an eater of bread," instead of " an eater
of whales," "bread-eater " being the obvious periphrasis
for "mortal."
It is a curious fact that typographical errors are among
the characteristics that recommend a book to book-hunters.
The celebrated Elzevir " Caesar" of 1635 is known by the
circumstance that the number of the 149th page is mis-
printed 153. All that lack this distinction are counterfeits.
THE TRICKS OF TYPES. 303
This rare and costh< volume offered a temptation to fraudu-
lent imitators, who, "as if by a providential arrangement
for their detection, lapsed into accuracy at the critical fig-
ure." John Hill Burton, in his " Book-Hunter," tells of a
typographical mishap that befell a solid scholar who never
missed a date nor left out a word in copying a title-page,
nor ever ended a sentence with a monosyllable. He had
stated that Theodore Beza, or some contemporary of his,
went to sea in a Candian vessel. The statement at the
last moment, when the sheet was going through the press,
caught the eye of an intelligent and judicious corrector,
more conversant with shipping-lists than with the literature
of the sixteenth century, who saw clearly what had been
meant, and took upon himself, like a man who hates all pot-
tering nonsense, to make the necessary correction without
consulting the author. The result was that people read
with some surprise, under the authority of the paragon of
accuracy, that Theodore Beza had gone to sea in a Cana-
dian vessel ! It has been truly said that the pearls of culti-
vated minds are cast in vain before dull understandings.
On the admission of the Cardinal Dubois into the French
Academy, Fontenelle, referring to his constant intercourse
with the young king Louis XV., observed, with more grace
than truth: "It is known that in your daily conversation
with him yQu left nothing untried to render yourself use-
less." A Dutch publisher imagined that useless must be
an error of the press, and substituted useful. Leigh Hunt
has suffered sorely from errors of the press, especiall}' be-
cause his marked peculiarities shut out the charitable sup-
position of a possible mistake of the printer. A misprint of
a line of Hunt's, " the moon is at her silvertys " (silverest),
was ridiculed as a Huntism, and Laman Blanchard even
304 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
warmly defended it. In one of the editions of " Men of
the Time," an English annual, some lines dropped out of
Robert Owen's biography into that of the Bishop of Oxford,
which immediately followed it. The article upon the eccle-
siastical magnate began, therefore, as follows: " Oxford,
the right reverend Samuel Wilberforce, bishop of, was born
in 1805. A more kind-hearted and truly benevolent man
does not exist. A sceptic as regards religious revela-
tion, he is nevertheless an out-and-out believer in spirit-
movements."
It is amusing to note the different degrees of sensitive-
ness to typographical errors manifested by a }'oung writer
and by a veteran of the press. The neophyte can never
forgive the butchery, as he calls it, of his fine sentences,
the dear "begotten of his mind," which for da}*s and
nights he has been licking into shape. The bare misplac-
ing of a comma distresses him keenly ; the change of an
entire word makes him shudder ; and the omission of a sen-
tence almost throws him into convulsions. Not so with the
" old stager." Having, in the course of years, been made
to father some of the most incredible forms of nonsense, he
gets as used to such experiences as eels to being skinned ;
and though now and then some preternaturally frightful
blunder gives him a twinge or two, yet he hardly bites his
lips even when the printer ruins his sublimest effusion by
turning, as Hood says, all his roses into noses, his angels
into angles, and his happiness into pappiness.
CAUSES OF DIVORCE.
r I "HE frequency witli which divorces are sought and
*- granted in this country is acknowledged to be one of
the ugliest features of the times. A careful examination of
the statistics of divorce, made in 1878, showed that the
ratio of divorces to marriages in that year was among Pro-
testants, 1 to 15 in Massachusetts, 1 to 13 in Vermont, 1
to 9 in Rhode Island, and 1 in less than 8 in Connecticut,
an average of 1 to 11.7 for the four States together.
What are the causes of this? Considering the haste with
which most persons rush into matrimony, it is not strange
that there should be occasional tiffs, disagreements, and
possibly quarrels ; and some moralists have even regarded
these showers and thunder-storms as necessary to clear
away the noxious vapors from the hymeneal sky, and to
prevent wedded life from stagnating, or being smothered in
its own sweetness, like a bee stifled in honey. No feeling,
it is argued, is so short-lived as admiration. A little
change of temper, it is held, is absolutely necessary to give
even the most charming woman that variety which prevents
her from being regarded with indifference, and perhaps dis-
gust. Caprice is the very salt of gallantly, that prevents it
from corrupting ; jealousies, piques, and reconciliations, if
not the diet, are at least the exercise, of love. Dr. Paley
could conceive of nothing more insipid than man and wife
living together thirty years without a single quarrel.
20
806 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
Be this as it ma}', we cannot see in the ordinary quarrels,
or in the lack of congeniality, real or fancied, of married
persons of which we hear so much in these days a
good ground for divorce. There are two mistakes which
almost all persons who are unhappy in their conjugal life
are apt to make on this subject. One is the belief that
souls were paired when sent into this world, and exactty
fitted to each other, but that by some jugglery the} T have
been separated, and so confused that no one can find its
mate ; hence all the janglings of the married state. Many,
even educated, persons believe in this fatalism, and are
confident that had they found their u affinities," they would
have experienced nothing but bliss in the married state.
They forget that every human being has a double nature,
a selfish nature to be subdued, as well as an angelic to be
developed ; and that both of these ends are to be accom-
plished only by constant watching and the most persistent
self-denial. When two such imperfect beings are brought
into the closest intimacy, it will be a miracle if their points
of moral repulsion do not begin speedily to appear. If the
two are essentially selfish, and are fully determined to make
no concessions, the jagged points of their natures will grow
more and more obtrusive and aggressive, till utter aliena-
tion ensues. At first perhaps they will onty wish to look
at the moon through separate windows ; but soon, as Hood
sa}*s, they will want separate moons to look at ; and finally
there will be no moon at all, for their charming illusions
will have vanished, and the silver light will have gone out
in darkness. If, on the other hand, the} 7 overcome their
natural selfishness, and live for each other ; if the}' study
each other's weak points, as skaters look for the weak parts
of the ice in order to keep clear of them ; and above all,
CAUSES OF D1VOHCE. 307
if they regard the last word as " the most dangerous of in-
fernal machines," then the jagged points of their natures
will wear off; they will cease to be two beings, odd halves
of humanity, paired, not matched; or, if two, will be
" Two like the brain, whose halves ne'er think apart,
But beat and tremble to one throbbing heart."
Another mistake regarding marriage is that of fancying
that it can yield the highest happiness only when it is a
union of congenial tastes. The very opposite is true.
What man or woman, unless the vainest of peacocks, wants
in a life-long companion a mere duplicate or repetition of
him or herself? Every sensible man seeks in part by mar-
riage to supplement his own imperfect nature, to reined}'
his own defects. The parties must be very two before they
can be very one. It has been happily said that u ideal
men want practical wives ; ideal wives want practical men :
and then, the earth-side and the heaven-side of life being
put together, it rounds to a glorious completeness." As
Swedenborg says, they must be conjoined, not adjoined ;
for though it is the theory of marriage that man and wife
are one, it is not the ceremon} r of marriage that makes
them so. They were one before, else, to use the words of
Milton, "all the ecclesiastical glue that liturgy or laymen
can compound, cannot solder up two such incongruous na-
tures into the one flesh of a true, beseeming marriage."
If these remarks are true, it is evident that divorces
should not be granted simply because the parties do not
always live happily together, or have found wedlock to be
something else than a long honeymoon. How long will
the marriage-tie retain its sacreclness if it may be loosened
on the first growth of a new inclination, the first feeling
308 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
of satiety, the first discover}- of a difference in taste or
temper? Separations should be granted only in cases of
great and irremediable hardship, and not at the demand
of caprice, or because wedlock is found to have its little
disappointments. No doubt cases of such hardship now
and then actually exist where to the public they are not
apparent. When Paulus Emilius was asked why he wished
to put away his wife for no visible reason, " This shoe," he
replied, holding it out on his foot, "is a neat shoe, a new
shoe ; and yet none of you know where it wrings me." But
admitting that occasionally there are separations of man
and wife for reasons that are good but not evident, yet
we are sure that nothing can be more trivial than the
causes of nearly all the quarrels which end in applications
for divorce. Nine tenths of them grow out of the most
insignificant beginnings. A little nervous excitement, fol-
lowed by a few tears and 03- a resolution to have the last
word ; trifling neglects, repeated again and again till they
end in a decided aversion, these, with the nameless negli-
gences that spoil the beaut}' of association, are the kind and
amount of feeling and treatment that, in most cases, soon
produce a confirmed alienation of parties who, by a little
concession and forbearance, might have lived happily to-
gether ; turning all the currents of affection from their
course, and leaving nothing but a barren track, along
which the skeleton of a dead affection stalks alone. It
is absurd to suppose that the miser\ T of such persons results
from their being " mismated." Where men and women
are essentially selfish and exacting, and think of happiness
for themselves as the chief end of marriage, there is no
possible "mating" that could make their joint life a
happy one. It is not their so-called and fancied " incorn-
CAUSES OF DIVORCE. 309
patibilitv," or uncongeniality which causes their unhappi-
ness, but their lack of patience, humility, self-control, and
consideration for others, qualities without which com-
panionship is impossible, and life unendurable in any
relation whatever.
tk He that marries," says Heine, " is like the Doge who
was wedded to the Adriatic. He knows not what there is
in what he marries ; mayhap treasures and pearls, mayhap
monsters and tempests, await him." True ; but in ninety-
nine cases out of a hundred it is for the married man him-
self to determine whether " treasures " or '* tempests " are
permanently to characterize his life. It has been well said
that the true blessedness of souls is not insured by a bare
exchange of plighted faith. It comes through and after
man}* a self-sacrifice, many a crucifixion of the will, many a
scourging of the pride, vanity, and selfishness of the heart.
Home is a school in which husband and wife are to learn
tlioughtfulness, self-forgetfulness, and forbearance, getting
rid of their angularities, harmonizing their differences, and
becoming gradually what they supposed each other to be
when they were outwardly united, one in thought, 83*111-
pathy, and life. Probably not one couple in twenty ever
lived man}* years together without periods of struggle,
without hours, days, and even weeks, when all their firm-
ness was demanded, all their self-denial, all their good
sense, to induce them to bear and forbear, till mutual con-
cession became a habit, and a profound affection was felt.
It is said that Napoleon used to keep his letters unopened
for a fortnight, and then found that most of them required
no answer. It is not improbable that many dissatisfied
husbands and wives, if the}* would wait a }*ear or two before
seeking to be delivered from their troubles by a divorce,
310 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
would find that there is nothing to be delivered from but
their own faults of temper.
To weaken the bonds of society by granting divorces in
cases of supposed incompatibility of temper would be to
destroy that confidence between man and wife which is the
chief guarantee of their happiness. At the prospect of an
easy separation, trivial quarrels, which they now soon forget
under the pressure of necessity, would flame up into deadly
and lasting hatred. The wife, fearful of a divorce, would
intrigue against her husband's interest to secure for her-
self a separate maintenance in the day of trouble ; the
rights of children would be mixed up with the disputes of
parents ; the families of both parties would be embroiled ;
and society would reach at last the condition of Rome as
described by Seneca, when women computed their ages by
the number of their husbands instead of by the years they
had lived. Let the example of that city, where the marriage-
tie could be loosed by mutual agreement, be a warning to
Americans and to American legislators. In the early days
of the Republic Roman virtue frowned upon divorce when it
was sought for insufficient reasons, and triumphed over the
inclinations of those who wished to separate. According
to Plutarch it was two hundred and thirty, according to
other authorities it was two hundred and fifty, years before
a divorce was known in Rome. But in the last period of
the Republic divorce prevailed so generally as to be the
rule, and not the exception ; marriage was thoughtlessly
entered upon, and dissolved at pleasure. The slightest
diminution of affection, the merest shadow of distrust, or
even the desire of novelty, and the inclination of caprice,
were deemed ample warrant for putting away a wife. Sulla,
Caesar, Pompey, Cicero, and Antony did not scruple to do
CAUSES OF DIVORCE. 311
this, and Augustus followed their example. Terentia, from
whom Cicero was divorced after a long union, was after-
ward married successively to Sallust the historian, Messala
Corvinus, and Vibius Rufus. A still greater looseness pre-
vailed in Rome during its decline. Jerome speaks of wit-
nessing the funeral of a woman who was followed by her
twenty-second husband to the grave, she having been his
twenty-first wife. Judging by the slender hold which the
most sacred ties have upon men's consciences, we are trav-
elling fast in the same direction, and only a revolution in
public morals can save us. Experience has shown that it
is not upon courts or legislatures that we must rely, for
41 Bobissimus the elect is only the superlative of Bobus the
elector ; " and, besides, the evil is beyond the reach of
judges and legislators. Its roots are to be found in the
growing egoism, selfishness, luxury, and scepticism of the
age, in the pride of wealth, in a wretched system of do-
mestic training, and in a contempt for those moral ties
without which society cannot exist.
There is one aspect of this subject which urgently needs
the attention of our legislators. There is probabty no other
subject upon which the laws of the different States are so
at variance as upon divorce. In England till about thirty
3'ears ago it was only in very rare cases, at enormous ex-
pense, b} r an act of Parliament, that a divorce could be
obtained. In the State of South Carolina up to a recent
period a divorce had never been granted in a single in-
stance, even under the most urgent circumstances. But
the statutes and decisions of the other States are completely
at loggerheads. In some of the States it is impossible to
tell what is and what is not a legal marriage. In many
cases children may be legitimate in one State and illegiti-
312 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
mate in another, and parties liable to the penitentiary for
adultery in one State who are living in lawful wedlock in the
State adjoining. Indeed, it is said that were the boundaries
of certain States coterminous, the husband, if he wished to
indulge in the luxury of two wives without going to Utah,
might build a house with a wing in each of the two States,
and live with one wife a week in one State, and then with
his other wife a week in the other State ; but should his two
partners, not being well versed in law or geography, ex-
change houses for a moment, both might be arrested as
prostitutes, and the husband held liable in both States as a
bigamist.
ILLUSIONS ABOUT THE PAST.
Past and to come seem best; things present, worst. SHAKSPEARE.
TT 7IIENCE comes that feeling toward the past which
* * leads men to look back with tenderness, and even
regret, upon things which when present were objects of
dread or dislike? Just as a landscape which is tame and
bald, even disagreeable in many of its aspects, when we
are journeying through it, looks beautiful in the blue dis-
tance, so things which were repulsive when present, wear an
attractive aspect if viewed through the lapse of years. A
kinsman or acquaintance who was pestilent when living,
will when dead be thought of not only without anger, but
even with kindly feelings. Even upon Nero's grave flowers
were strewed, and the most hated monarch that ever lost
a crown l\y tyrann} r and folly did not lack friends to cherish
his memor}* in secret amid the general execration. As
with individuals, so with institutions and customs : time
weaves a web of romance about many which were hated
during their existence, and as soon as they have retired
into " the long-withdrawing vale of history " they are ideal-
ized and regretted. By a cunning moral chemistry which
converts all unpleasant experiences into pleasant subjects
of reflection, institutions which broke the hearts of men
customs, superstitions, and modes of living which sprang
from gross ignorance and filled men's lives with misery
314 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
are transformed into objects of interest, just as ivy and
time
" Have softened with beauty many a tower
Which in its days of hardihood and strength
Was only terrible."
Illustrations of this will suggest themselves to every
reader. How much we find in English literature in praise
of bluff King Hal ! Because he was big, burly, and hand-
some, a beef-eating, beer- drinking, typical John Bull, -
and defied the Pope, he is thought of with kindly feelings ;
though eveiy student of histoiy knows that he was as brutal
and selfish a tyrant as ever disgraced a crown. How many
persons do 3*011 suppose, reader, suffered death b}* the hands
of the executioner during the reign of the "bluff" king?
Not fewer, according to Macaula}*, than seventh-two thou-
sand ; and among the victims of his blood-thirsty cruelt}* were
some of the noblest Englishmen that ever lived, men the
latchet of whose shoes he was not worth}* to unloose. One
of these victims was the noble and high-minded Sir Thomas
More, who, because his conscience forbade him to take the
oath relating to the ecclesiastical supremacy of the king,
was beheaded. So, because he had a sad, interesting face,
and wore a picturesque Vandyke costume, Charles I. is
pitied and regretted as a blessed martyr, the simple fact
being that he was a martyr to his own untruth and lack
of sincerity. Truly did Henry G rattan say that "two
artists have contributed not a little to the popularity of
Charles I., Vandyke and the headsman." Tonnage and
poundage, ship-mone}*, forced loans, continual violations
of his most solemn engagements, the collective misery of
the English people, all are forgotten, simply because he
was a king, and his end appalling, like the fifth act of a
ILLUSIONS ABOUT THE PAST. 315
drama. So, too, with Charles II., "the Merry Monarch,"
the most profligate of kings, and Louis XIV. of France.
Even those daring navigators Sir Walter Raleigh, Drake,
Hawkins, and other fine old Englishmen who founded the
British empire on the seas, will not bear a close, not to say
a microscopic, examination. A writer in a Conservative
London journal admits that if we strip them of their swag-
ger, gallantry, and doublets, we shall find them to be little
better than pirates and highwa3*men, who sliced men's
throats and pocketed other men's money in open defiance
of all laws of honor and morality.
If we go back some centuries farther, to the reign of
Henry II., we find things still worse. How rude were the
manners of that age may be judged from the fact that the
finest gentlemen and the most lettered clerks lived as
plainly, spoke as coarsely, treated each other as roughly, as
only the roughest of English boors would do to-day. Henry
II. swore worse than any trooper, and did not hesitate at the
Chancellor's banquet to jump over the table to seat himself
by Becket's side. When Fulk Fitz-Warine was playing
chess with Prince John, the Prince broke his head with the
chess-board, and Fulk gave him a blow that nearly killed
him. Bishops scolded, gibed, and threatened each other
like modern fishwives. The archbishop died with a foul
word on his lips. In a fight for precedence, one bishop
would plump down upon the lap of another ; and once, in
a playful tussle for Becket's cloak, Heniy and his friend
nearty pulled each other off their horses.
The condition of the people and the manner of living in
" the good old times " are invested with an amount of ro-
mance and idj'llic association which the facts not only do
not justify, but show to be in glaring contrast to the truth.
316 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
In Henr}* II. 's time the very^ highest persons in England
were glad to drink beer only, and to eat fat pork without
change for months together. Under their gorgeous apparel
no clean white linen, but only coarse wool, dirt}* from long
wear, was to be found. Henn-'s couch of state was merely
a mattress stuffed with ha} T or straw. For one who has
been charmed by " Ivanhoe " and other such romances it
is hard to believe that the glamour thrown over those times
is a sham ; that the chivalry, the gallantr3 T , and the hos-
pitality which we have so admired were more than coun-
terbalanced by the misery, the semi-barbarism, the utter
absence of comfort, and even decency. But such was the
fact. Even the poetry investing the iv}~-grown castle and
the picturesque old Elizabethan mansions of a later cen-
tur}' is rudely dispelled when we consider what the domestic
life in those mansions was. In none of them was there a
carpet, a bathing-tub, a contrivance for ventilation or for
sewerage, without which even the poorest man's cottage
would now be deemed unfit for habitation ; and in some
there was not even a chimney. Salt beef and strong ale
constituted the chief part of even Queen Elizabeth's break-
fast, and similar refreshments were served to her in bed for
supper. The nobles and dames ate with their fingers, gen-
eralty in couples, out of one trencher, at a bare table.
The ''most godly queen" interlarded her discourse with
oaths ; she boxed the ears of one courtier, and spat upon
the fringed mantle of another. She delighted in bull-bait-
ings and bear-baitings, and prized the nobler sports of the
field less for the skill and excitement than for the butchery.
" The stag, hunted down by man and beast, was brought to
receive its death-blow," says the "Quarterly Review,"
"from a hand which might more gracefully have been raised
ILLUSIONS ABOUT THE PAST. 317
to command its deliverance. She went to bear a sermon at
St. Maiy's Spital, two white bears following in a cart,
we need not say for what purpose they were destined after
the discourse."
The public roads in those days were deeply rutted tracks,
which in bad weather were almost impassable ; and most
of them were so infested b}' bandits and robbers that trav-
ellers had to go armed. Public conveyances and private
carriages were alike attacked. In the reign of George I.
handbills were stuck up at the gates of many known rich
men in London, forbidding an}' of them, on pain of death,
to travel from town without a watch, or with less than ten
guineas of money. Horace Walpole complained, only a
little over a hundred years ago, that he could not stir a mile
from his house without one or two servants armed with a
blunderbuss. The coaches in Elizabeth's time were hardly
more than carts without springs ; and even a century later
the public vehicles were so wretched that they were known
as " hell-carts." Rural England, instead of being the Ar-
cadia which poets and romancers have represented it, with
ruddy squires, contented swains, and gentle damsels, was
prosaic and unromantic to the last degree. If we come
down to the eighteenth centur}', we find that it was an age
of drunkenness, cock-fighting, ratting, duelling, gambling,
in short, of all those vices which are now deemed most
disgraceful to society. London was full of fashionable
gaming " hells," White's, Watier's, Brooke's, Graham's,
the Union, the Cocoa- tree, Crockford's, etc., where
dukes, lords, and fashionable tk gentlemen" staked and
won or lost thousands of pounds in a night. One man,
known as le Wellington des joueurs, lost t went}'- three
thousand pounds at a sitting, which began at midnight, and
318 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
ended at seven the next evening. He and three other
noblemen lost in play, at different times, sums estimated at
not less than a hundred thousand pounds apiece. The
number of families beggared by the play at Crockford's
alone may be judged of by the fact that he retired from his
business a millionnaire.
Political elections in the last century were scenes of
bacchanalian frenzy, debaucheiy, and corruption. Riots
were frequent in all the towns where party spirit raged.
Heads were broken, polling-booths were burned, and part-
isans fought from street to street like hostile armies on a
battle-field. The money spent in electioneering was enor-
mous. Thomas, Marquis of Wharton, who died in 1815, is
said to have spent in this way eighty thousand pounds. In
the hot contest in 1807 which ended in Wilberforce's election
for Yorkshire, " the Austerlitz of electioneering," the
defeated candidates, Lord Milton and Lascelles, spent, for
bringing up voters, a hundred thousand pounds each ; and
it is stated that the entire contest cost near half a million
pounds sterling! Men kept boroughs then as they now
keep a yacht. They invested in them as a speculation, and
" cultivated them for sale." In one of Lord Chesterfield's
letters to his son he says that he spoke to a borough-
monger, and offered him five and twenty hundred pounds
" for a secure seat in Parliament ; " but " he laughed at my
offer, and said that there was no such thing as a borough to
be had now, for the rich East and West Indians had secured
iliem all, at the rate of three thousand pounds at least, hut
many at four thousand, and two or three that he knew at
fide thousand."
Probably no writer has done more to glorify the iron
castles and iron men of past ages in England than Sir
ILLUSIONS ABOUT THE PAST. 319
Walter Scott. Even the plaided Highlanders of 1745,
though regarded with horror and contempt by contem-
porary Whigs, and after their defeat scarcely treated as
human beings, became under his magic pen most interest-
ing monuments of a form of society long since passed away.
But the true way to test these " good old times" is just to
imagine them once more present. Were any one of these
old institutions, which are invested with such poetic hues,
to be suddenly reproduced with all its odious features, how
would it startle us in these happy times ! How insufferable
would it be, for example, to be forced to leave one's fam-
ily and follow to the field some warlike lord who looks so
picturesque through the mist of the past ! How much more
intolerable still would be the whole system of feudal " inci-
dents," as they were called, reliefs, fines upon alienation,
escheats, forfeitures, aids, wardship, and marriage ; by
which last was meant the right of the lord to tender a hus-
band to his female ward in her minorit}', or a wife to his
male ward : a right which was the source of the greatest
abuse and extortion. Yet such were some of the hardships
to which men were subjected as late as the fifteenth cen-
tury. Matthew Paris tells us that during the Barons' Wars
in England, in order that castles might be fortified, " the
houses of the poorest agricultural laborers were rummaged
and plundered even of the straw that served for beds."
The ignorance of economic science was so great that a bad
harvest generally produced almost a famine. The danger
to life was so great from turbulence that in 1216 u markets
and traffic ceased, and goods were exposed for sale only -in
churchyards."
How delightful it must have been to live in the days of
"merry England" when the plague used to come from
320 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
time to time and sweep off a large part of the population ;
when in the reign of one monarch alone (Edward IV.) it
destroyed as man}- persons as the Wars of the Roses !
What blessed days were those when a philosopher so far
in advance of his age in science as Bacon published minute
directions for guarding against witches ; and when that
legal luminary, Sir Matthew Hale, after having condemned
a poor woman to death for witchcraft, sneered at the rash
innovators who were urging a repeal of the statute against
that crime, and, falling on his knees, thanked God for be-
ing enabled to uphold one of the sagest enactments of u our
venerable forefathers " ! Who does not regret that he did
not live in the halcyon days when inoculation for the small-
.pox, and the use of ether or chloroform in surgical and
dental operations, had not been dreamed of; when oil from
kittens boiled alive was considered an excellent application
for a wound, and ointment was applied to the weapon that
had inflicted it; when toads roasted alive were adminis-
tered for asthma, and the hair of mad dogs for hydropho-
.bia ; when the powdered thigh-bone of an executed felon
was considered a specific in dysentery ; when doctors put
.faith in plvylacteries, and watched with intense anxiet}* the
influence of black days and white days, and the aspect of
the stars ; and when, in attempting to quench the fires of
fever and inflammation, they diligently fed the consuming
flame, and hurried their patients to an untimely grave ?
Again, how mournful it is to think that the days of
Tooke, Thelwall, and Hardy, when men were tried for
" constructive treason," have gone, never to return, the
"good old times" when in England hundreds of the most
trivial offences were punished with death ; when the theft
of a fish, maiming cattle, transporting wool, and marrying a
ILLUSIONS ABOUT THE PAST. 321
couple out of church, were put in the same category of
crime as murder, arson, and rape ; when counsel were never
allowed to prisoners, even in capital cases ; and when the
wretch condemned to death might be dragged at the heels
of horses to the place of execution, and there embo welled,
quartered, slit in the nose, or left hanging on the gallows !
But why confine ourselves to the "good old times " in
England? If we look back over the history of our own
country we shall find its " golden age " to have been one of
bronze. In the days of Washington and Franklin men
were compelled to pass their lives in a kind of destitution,
which in this age of scientific luxury would be considered
a state of semi-barbarism. A hundred years ago hardty
one of the modern contrivances for cooking, and for warm-
ing and lighting dwellings, was known. Not a pound of
coal or a cubic foot of illuminating gas had been burned
in the country. There were no machines for mowing, reap-
ing, and threshing, for carding, spinning, and weaving ;
nor had the sewing-machine been dreamed of, which has
done so much for woman's health and strength, and so
abridged the labors of the family. To us "effeminate"
men of to-daj- it is painful to think of the efforts of our
"hardy" ancestors to obtain warmth in their dwellings by
the scorching and freezing of their alternate sides under
the blast that swept from many apertures toward the cur-
rent of a vast open chimney. Pine-knots or tallow candles
supplied them with light for the long and dreary winter
evenings, and sand on the floor supplied the place of car-
pets and rugs. There were no pumps in those days ; no
friction-matches ; and when the fire went out upon the
hearth in the night, and the tinder was damp, so that the
spark could not " catch," the only alternative was to wade
21
322 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
a mile or more through the deep snow to borrow a fire-
brand of a neighbor. Beef, when one could afford it, was
roasted on a revolving spit turned by a man, a dog, or a
smoke-jack. If in summer a man wished for a draught of
cold water, there was no ice ; and if, in the rainy season
or in winter, he wished to keep his feet dr} T , there was no
india-rubber.
How much stuff has been written by picturesque and ro-
mancing writers about the glories of the old coaching daj's !
How delightful it was, in spring or autumn, to drag along
in a heav}', stuffy coach, with the wheels sunk half up to
the axles in mud, at the rate of three miles an hour; or in
winter to plod, half- frozen, through a succession of snow-
drifts, with an occasional overturn, to the great danger of
one's ribs or limbs ! How much preferable it was to be
from six to eight days in travelling two hundred miles, with
the expense of lodging and meals at wretched inns on the
waj', to ftying over the same distance on the wings of steam
in five or six hours, taking your meal, if 3*ou require one,
in an elegant parlor as 3*011 speed along ! The truth is, the
inventions and improvements of modern times have been
equivalent to making human life far longer than it pre-
viously was ; they have virtually trebled or quadrupled its
duration. If a man in travelling can pass over in a single
hour a distance which once, on a horse, would have occu-
pied seven or eight hours, he has in this respect added six
or seven hours to his life For all the purposes of living,
human life is longer than it was in the time of the antedi-
luvians, for the simple reason that with modern time-and-
labor-saving inventions one can accomplish more than he
could in former ages, even had he lived for centuries.
That men live to-day in a more intellectual atmosphere
ILLUSIONS ABOUT THE PAST. 323
than their fathers did, and that they have immeasurably
more culture and knowledge, will hardly be denied by the
most inveterate pessimist. Not only are the classics of al-
most every literature published at incredibly low prices, but
the best works are condensed for us in the magazines and
reviews, so that those who from lack of ability or time can-
not digest large masses of mental food, may have its es-
sence extracted and prepared in a seductive and easily
assimilated form. Will it be said that this intellectual gaia
has been purchased at the cost of phj'sical degenerac}',
that man is wiser but 'weaker to-day than he was centuries
ago? We reply that the very reverse is the truth. Statis-
tics show that the average length of life the true test in
the case is steadily increasing. Physical culture, so
long neglected, has never received such attention before
since the days of Greece. The number of young men who
play at games that exact the severest labor and the most
rigid discipline, such as base-ball, foot-ball, cricket, rowing,
long bicycle rides ; the number who camp out, make long
pedestrian excursions, climb mountains, show that phy-
sical weakness is not a characteristic of our times. Man is
a tougher walker, a swifter runner, a stouter and more
skilful swimmer, an experter oarsman, a surer marksman, a
finer horseman, in this than in any previous century. He
ripens earlier to-day, works faster, and lives longer than he
formerly did ; and both his physique and his command of
his powers, instead of degenerating, are steadily improving.
But we shall be told, perhaps, by some Cassandra that
if not physically, yet morally man has degenerated ; that
there was more virtue in " the good old times " than now ;
that they were the days of contented industry, respect for
the aged, regard for the Sabbath, and reverence for things
324 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
sacred, virtues now, alas! fast disappearing from the
earth. Well, let us hear what that famous and stern old
New England divine Dr. Emmons says regarding the cul-
tivation of those virtues in the golden age in which he
lived. In a sermon preached in 1790 he says that "it is
truly alarming to take a particular view of our prevailing
corruptions. . . . The streets are filled with children who
learn the dialect of hell before they learn the rudiments of
their mother-tongue. . . . Multitudes may be seen every
day, and almost everywhere, wallowing in drunkenness.
Intemperance appears not only in public houses and at pub-
lic places, but in private families and among individuals
of every age and sex." Having specified other vices, he
adds : "I might still add to this long list of vices injustice,
avarice, oppression, indolence, gaming, and almost every
species of corruption which ever disgraced the most aban-
doned people." Some years ago " Zion's Herald," of Bos-
ton, printed a cop}' of a bill rendered at an ordination service
in Hartford, Conn., about a hundred years ago. Among the
items charged were these: "3 Bitters; 15 boles Punch;
11 bottles Wine; 5 mugs Flip; 3 boles Punch; 3 boles
Toddy." Three-bottle men, now as rare as dodos, were
then to be found in eveiy community. Political animosity
was bitterer, and part}' journals were more reckless and
abusive, in the days of Washington than now. The
" Father of his Country " was denounced as a cheat, a des-
pot, a liar, and an adulterer, "wanting in all generous
sentiments, and even in common humanity." We complain
to-day of the corruption in our politics ; fifty-seven years
ago William Wirt in a public address pronounced our elec-
tions "our glory and our shame." He complained bitterly
of the " corrupt combinations" and the " vile intrigues " of
ILLUSIONS ABOUT THE PAST. 825
that da}*, of the "slander and falsehood," of the " coarse
and vulgar flattery," the " wheedling and coaxing of the
4 dear people.'" Among other devices, he says, u a kind
of electioneering machinery is in use in some places, by
which the people have become spell-bound, and taught to
play the part of automatons in their own elections."
A thoughtful writer has well said that "the present is
contemplated coolly, clearly, exactly by the intellect, and
may be considered as the prose of the mind ; the future and
the past may be considered as part of the mind's poetry."
The feeling of admiration for the past is, no doubt, a legiti-
mate feeling ; but when indulged to excess, when it
leads men to glorif}' what is old merely because it is old,
and to denounce what is new simply because it is new, it
is exceedingly baneful in its effects. It is the feeling which,
exaggerated, led the ancient Jews to remain among the
graves, and lodge in the monuments, for which they were
indignantly denounced by the prophets. It is the source of
that fallacy which ascribes superior wisdom to our ancestors,
who were really the children of the world, and therefore
less qualified to arrive at just conclusions than we, their
descendants, who only are the white, silver-haired ancients,
the true Nestors, that have treasured up the experience
which successive ages can supply. Of individuals living
at the same time, the oldest has, of course, the largest
experience ; but among generations of men the reverse is
true, that is, if by " oldest" we mean the most ancient ;
but in reality the times in ichich we live are the oldest.
The sum of the whole matter is that " the good old times,"
over the departed glories of which so many persons sigh,
and which, like the horizon, keep flying farther and farther
backward as we try to approach them, owe their existence
326 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
to a trick of the memory which sheds the softening hues of
the imagination about that which when present was to the
last degree dull and prosaic. The past of the laudator
temporis acti, when men were larger, longer-lived, healthier,
happier, and more virtuous than now ; when the peaches
were larger, the apples finer, and the cherries more abun-
dant than to-da}' ; when May-day was always pleasant, and
Christmas " snowy and seasonable," is a past that never
was present.
IMMORAL NOVELS.
TV /T ANY of our readers will remember the fierce contro-
-***- versy that raged some years ago on the publication
of Charles Reade's novel " Griffith Gaunt," concerning the
morality of that powerful work. About once in a year we
have a periodical fit of morality in this country, when our
newspapers think it a duty they owe to the rising genera-
tion to denounce " the flood of pernicious, demoralizing
trash which, under the name of cheap literature, is deluging
our countr}'." Many and scathing are the invectives we
have read on this theme by men who have seemed pro-
foundly conversant with the works they have decried ; and
shrewd, indeed, have been the arguments for expurgated
editions of the English and the Latin classics by men
who, after going through a gallery of antiques, and view-
ing the matchless Apollo, Venus, and Laocoon, could come
away with imaginations impressed only with the remem-
brance that they were naked. It is a delicate and perplex-
ing question, in some cases, to determine how far the efforts
of these nice persons should be applauded. That a writer
with the fine genius of Mr. Reade can, by debauching the
imaginations, do incalculable damage to his readers, is but
a truism. But shall we, therefore, proscribe all novels but
those that contain no descriptions of vice and wickedness,
and of which the heroes and heroines are models of impos-
sible excellence? To this question not a few moralists will
328 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
reply with an emphatic ' ' No." They think little of that
''fugitive and cloistered virtue," as Milton calls it, which,
u unexercised and unbreathed," is kept healthy only by
shunning all contact with the real world. That great high-
priest of literature and profound anatomist of human nature,
Dr. Johnson, had, it is certain, no such over- fastidious deli-
cac}', not to say squeamish ness, in regard to this proscribed
class of writings. He was willing to trust people with
books that have great faults, provided they have great excel-
lences to redeem them ; and as for mere trash, he knew it
would produce a surfeit which would make it ever after dis-
gusting. When Mrs. Sheridan's eldest daughter began to
give signs of that love of literature for which she w r as after-
ward distinguished, and was noticed b}' Johnson one da} r
reading his " Ramblers," her mother hastened to assure the
great moralist that it was only works of that unexception-
able description which she suffered to meet the eyes of her
little girl. u In general," added the fastidious mother, ex-
pecting, doubtless, to be eulogized for her prudence, " I am
very careful to keep from her all such books as are not cal-
culated, by their moral tendency, expressly for the perusal
of youth." " Then you are a fool, madam ! " bluntly
vociferated the Doctor. " Turn your daughter loose into
the libraiy," continued he, to the astonishment of his hearer.
"If she is well inclined, she will choose only nutritious
food ; if otherwise, all 3*0111* caution will avail nothing to
prevent her following the bent of her inclinations."
Pertinently to this subject, the Scotch poet, Mr. Bu-
chanan, maintains, in an essay in the "Fortnightly
Review," that no literary production can be morally del-
eterious to men of culture, if it be sincere and real in its
conception, that is, written from the heart, with the full
IMMORAL NOVELS. 329
consent of all the author's faculties of belief. The mere
quality of thorough and absolute sincerity of literary pur-
pose diffuses, it is urged, a charm over the writer's style,
and steeps it in an atmosphere of art which, to a reader able
to perceive it, operates practically as a safeguard against
every corrupting influence. That this theory is as true as
it is ingenious and original, in regard to imaginative or ar-
tistic pictures of evil actions, few thoughtful persons can
doubt. The man who finds his imagination debauched after
reading any of Shakspeare's masterpieces may be sure that
the mischief was already done before he felt the necromancy
of the great magician of the pen. The picture of Othello
never tempted an\* man to stifle his wife in a fit of jealousy ;
nor did that of Lady Macbeth ever tempt any woman who
could comprehend it into unscrupulous ambition for her hus-
band ; nor did that of Cleopatra ever fill with sensual feel-
ings a mind that could grasp it imaginatively in all its
proportions. True art, as another has remarked, has the
power to transfigure all the human passions, desires, hopes,
or fears, to the experience of which it appeals, into some-
thing different from ourselves.
In spite of all this, however, we doubt if so sagacious a
moralist as Johnson would seriousl}' recommend to any
3"oung man or woman such a novel as " Griffith Gaunt."
The great objection to the work is not that its author apolo-
gizes for the guilt of its hero, a bigamist, by saying that
" he was the sport of circumstances," which might be said
of the vilest miscreant that ever lived ; not that all the
scoundrels go unwhipped of justice, while the chief scoun-
drel is rewarded for his villany by receiving a large for-
tune, and ends his days in a palatial home and in connubial
bliss ; but that the work deals almost exclusively with the
330 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
darker passions of man, that it tends to sap our belief in
human virtue, to make us sceptical of its very existence.
Of all the demoralizing works of the day, there are none
which should be more studiously shunned b} T the young than
those written by c}*nics, by writers whose dramatis per-
sonce are drunkards, seducers, courtesans, liars, and hypo-
crites ; whose heroes are men of "one virtue, linked to a
thousand crimes ; " who aim to anatomize the human heart,
that they ma}* show how black and foul it is ; who display
a lynx-eyed acuteness in detecting the vilest motives for
the noblest actions ; who reek and riot in revelations of
domestic sin and shame.
It is in vain that such writers, in reply to the charge of
impurity, cry " Honi soit qui mal y pense," and denounce
their critics as ''prurient prudes. 5 ' Mock delicacy, that
prudery which betrays its lack of the reality of virtue by
its niceness about the shadow ; which abhors plain noun-
substantives, and tries to hide its improper imaginings in
studied circumlocution ; which, when a word is used that
has two meanings, is sensitively conscious of the worst one,
and is as deeply shocked as if the better one could never
be intended ; which leads young ladies to pantalette the
legs of their pianos, and to throw a veil over marble Cupids
and Psyches, that spurious feeling which led Swift to
define a nice man as " a man of nasty ideas," we detest as
thoroughly as does Mr. Reade. But to say that every man
who denounces impurit}* in a poem or novel is conscious of
impurity in his own thoughts, and reads the work, to quote
Mr. Reade's own words, " by the light of his own foul im-
agination," is simply absurd. Purity can detect the pres-
ence of the evil which it does not understand, and of which
it is wholly void, just as the dove which has never seen
IMMORAL NOVELS. 331
a hawk trembles at its presence. "Just as a horse rears
uneasily and quivers when the wild beast, unknown and
new, is near, so innocence is startled b} r , }'et understands
not, the unholy look, the guilty tone, the impure suggestion.
It shudders, and shrinks from it instinctively, by a power
like that which God has conferred on the unreasoning
mimosa." While it is true enough as a rule that ' ' to the
pure all things are pure," yet the rule has its limitations ;
and it must be remembered that, unhappily, all men are not
pure, for which bad books are much to blame. Michael
Angelo's replj* to Paul IV., that if he would reform the
morals of the world, the picture of "The Last Judgment"
in the Sistine Chapel (which had been criticised severely on
account of the nudity of the figures) would be reformed of
itself, does not meet the case ; for the world must be taken
as it is, and not as it should be. It was a sharp indictment
of Richardson when a person who was reading " Pamela "
on the grass of Primrose Hill, and who was joined by a
friendly damsel that desired to read in company with him,
confessed: "I could have wished it had been any other
book." Defend as one may some of the warmly colored
scenes of " Tom Jones " and other classic novels, the judg-
ment of the right-minded reader will not be convinced. To
say that they conduct the history to its natural catastrophe,
and have their sting drawn by the moral, it has been well
said, is like telling us to live tranquilly over a cellar of
combustibles because an engine with abundance of water
is at the end of the street. The great objection to the im-
moral novel is not generally that the writer openly excuses
bigamists, seducers, and other miscreants ; not that we
can here and there select a proposition formally false and
pernicious, but that he leaves an impression which is
332 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
unfavorable to a healthful state of thought and feeling,
and peculiarly dangerous to the 3'oung and inexperienced,
who swallow without suspicion the insidious poison that
lurks under the honeyed words of the elegant and philoso-
phical apologist for vice. The brilliant creations of the
novelist are too often, as Professor Frisbie said of Byron's,
"the scene of a summer evening, where all is tender and
beautiful and grand ; but the damps of disease descend
with the dews of heaven, and the pestilent vapors of night
are breathed in with the fragrance and the balm, and the
delicate and the fair are the surest victims of the exposure."
We cannot leave this subject without expressing a doubt
which has arisen in our minds touching the tendency of
minute criticisms, even denunciatory criticisms, of im-
moral novels and other works. Concerning many cases of
wrong-doing, so much pains have sometimes been taken
to show people the way not to be naughty, that the}' have
been thereby, for the very first time in their lives, taught
how, and tempted to be so. Sins of which the}* were utterly
ignorant, and devices for the accomplishment of evil which
would never have occurred to their minds, have first been
taught them Iry romances and other works written with the
sincerest desire of deterring them from the commission of
the crimes the writer has exposed. The Boston clerk who
a few years ago confessed that he stole money from the
safe of the Ames Plow Company in Quincy Market after
having blown open the safe with gunpowder, said, in reply
to a question, that the method of his crime was suggested
to him by narrations of similar exploits in the newspapers.
In like manner, while in some cases, to a reader of the
romances in question, the guilt of the bad characters
and the retribution which has overtaken them have been
IMMORAL NOVELS. 33
revolting enough to make him shudder at the thought of
resembling them, the effect produced on other minds has
been the very opposite. The pictures of vice have been
more attractive to them than those of virtue, and the arrow-
shot at evil has been turned against good. There have
been expurgated editions of books, of which the missing
portions, like the statues of Brutus and Cassius, were the
more conspicuous by their absence. Especially does this
hold true of moral reform societies, denunciations of im-
moral books and of theatrical performances and publica-
tions intended to portra} 7 the frightful increase and terrible
consequences of licentiousness in a communit}'. Such pub-
lications operate in man}' cases only as finger-posts and
advertisements to those whose fervid passions, notwith-
standing their present purity and innocence, are but too
ready to be fanned, by the slightest suggestion, into a
violent and uncontrollable flame. To the writer who, like
Jaques in :< As You Like It," would thus, by u speaking his
mind,"
" through and through
Cleanse the foul body of the infected world,"
we ma}' say, with the Duke,
" Fie on thee ! I can tell what thou wouldst do,
Most mischievous font sin in chiding sin."
When William Pitt was Prime Minister of England, a bill
was passed for the prevention of smuggling, prohibiting
boats of a certain length of keel, breadth of beam, draught
of water, etc., from being built by any subject of King
George. The model prohibited was so exquisitely fine,
of such matchless proportions, that all the smugglers at
once adopted it, and had their craft constructed in French
ports exactly according to the measures forbidden by the
334 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
statute ; and the Deal boatmen used to say that they never
knew how to build a boat for smuggling till Billy Pitt
taught them the way. The anecdote forcibly illustrates the
pernicious effects upon the morals of society resulting from
even well-intended publications denouncing immoral books,
or themselves abounding in eloquent and glowing descrip-
tions of its various forms of vice and wickedness. A
still further confirmation of our views is found in a fact
stated some years ago by an English newspaper that cer-
tain articles in the London " Morning Chronicle " had the
effect of inspiring hundreds with an irresistible desire to
live themselves the strange and peculiar modes of life so
minutely depicted by the writer. It ma}* be questioned
whether De Quincey's vivid and masterly descriptions of the
delights and horrors of opium-eating have not attracted
more persons to, than they have frightened from, the prac-
tice. We never read an impassioned dehortation from this
and kindred vices, above all, those of licentiousness, but
we think of the hostler who was asked on confession day by
his priest if he had never greased the teeth of his guests'
horses, to prevent them from eating their allowance of hay
and oats. "Never!" was the prompt response. Subse-
quentty, he confessed the frequent perpetration of the trick.
" How ! " exclaimed the astonished father, " I thought you
told me, at 3'our last confession, that }'ou had never played
that trick." " True, nor had I then" was the reply ; " for,
till you told me, I never knew that greasing a horse's teeth
would prevent his eating."
WHAT SHALL WE READ?
r I ^HERE are few cultivated men of the present day who
* liave not tormented their brains with attempts to an-
swer this question. How shall we grapple with the vast
and ever-accumulating literature of the day? Nothing is
more obvious, as nothing is more provoking, to him who
loves to spend his leisure hours in " the still air of delight-
ful studies " than his utter inability to read more than a
fraction of the new books to say nothing of the old
which are daily issuing from the press. Irnmanuel Kant,
the German philosopher, who wrote several works of a light,
agreeable character, which are delightful to read when one
has the toothache, has proved to the satisfaction of all
metapl^sicians that Time and Space have no absolute ex-
istence, but are merely forms of thought. It is clear to us
that Kant was not a greed}* bookworm ; he never tried to
keep up with the literature of his day. Space and Time he
would find to be formidable realities, were he living now,
and attempting to cope with the myriads of volumes that
pour 3'earty from the teeming press. Looking at the new
announcements in the London " Athenaeum," the American
" Publishers' Weekty," etc., one is amazed at the volu-
minousness of modern authorship, and still more at the
insatiable demand for new books by the public. Five
thousand new publications are issued annually in England ;
and it has been ascertained that over ten thousand works, or
336 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
a million of volumes, are published even* year in Germany
alone. The shelves of the British Museum groan under
the weight of eleven hundred thousand volumes ; the Biblio-
theque Rationale in Paris is more enormous still, and fifty
thousand volumes and pamphlets are added to it yearly.
The Voltaires, De Vegas, and Balzacs of past ages were
thought to have a rabbit-like fecundity ; but they are certain-
ly matched in productiveness by the Southeys, Trollopes,
Dumases, and Balzacs of this nineteenth century.
The elder Pliny mentions somewhere in his writings that
there was a dearth of paper (papyrus) in the reign of
Tiberius so alarming that senators were appointed to at-
tend to its distribution. When swamped by the deluge of
modern books, who has not, in certain foolish and sarcastic
moments, almost prayed for such a calamity in our da}' ?
Living at a time when it is deemed unpardonable for a man
not to know everything, to be superficially omniscient, at
least, how can a poor one-headed man keep up with the
age? Millions of "winged arrows of good and evil "are
plunged in hourly inkstands ; the wheel of publication, like
the wheel of day and night, rolls round from January to
December, with no pause to cool its fiery axle ; and the
most voracious devourer of novelties finds the four and
twenty hours too brief to taste and chew, much less in-
wardly to digest, all the books he would feed upon. Not
to speak of epitomes, abridgments, plagiarisms, paste-and
scissors books, catalogues, old sermons, anniversary ora-
tions, 4l transcendental lad}- books," ex parte ante mortem
inquisitions like the u Life of Blaine " or the u Biography
of GroA r er Cleveland," dark-lantern-and-bludgeon tales, and
records of pill-and-sarsaparilla heroes, which are all out of
the question, there are enough of instructive and amusing
WHAT SHALL WE READ? 387
books to keep a man employed till the millennium. A Bos-
ton haekman may have a larger and better library than
Charlemagne or Duns Scotus. Who can cope with all these
books? Who can snatch time to get even a smattering of
their contents?
The question is one that would have puzzled even a
Huet or a Southey, with his anaconda-like digestion, to
answer. Steel-pens, steam, and Hoe presses have multi-
plied the power of production, and railways hurry bales of
books to your door as fast as printed ; but what has in-
creased the cerebrum and the cerebellum? The two lobes
of the human brain are not a whit larger than when Adam
learned his abs and ebs in the only extant spelling-book.
The spectacles by which one may read two books at once
are yet to be invented. We have heard of a belle making
her toilet while she despatched her devotions ; but where
is the blue-stocking that can read George Sand and Emer-
son while she studies Greek and plays on the piano? Ency-
clopedic culture is now an impossibilit}*. The da}' has gone
by when a Leonardo da Vinci could be not only a painter,
but a sculptor, architect, engineer, mathematician, metaph}*si-
cian, poet, anatomist, and botanist. The domain of knowl-
edge has extended so widely that one needs now a kind of
intellectual seven-league boots to traverse it in a life-time
as long as Methuselah's. It was said of Brougham that
" if science was his forte, omniscience was his foible ; " and
we know that in the case of all such aspirants to universal
knowledge, surface and depth of knowledge are apt to vary
inversel}'. In view of the frightful and growing evil we
have been considering, we are almost ready to drink to the
memor}' of Omar, who burned the Alexandrian libraiy.
Instead of deploring, scholars should exult that so many of
22
338 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
the classics are lost, that we have but four of the thirty
books of Tacitus, but thirty-five of the hundred and forty
books of Livy, and that of the hundred and thirty com-
edies of Plautus but twenty have come down to us. Were
all the classics that have been written still in existence,
the youth that should master them would be the mir-
acle of a 3'ear or two, and an idiot for the remainder of his
life.
44 But is there no alleviation for this state of things?"
we hear some one en* who, out of breath in trying to keep
up with the Froudes, Grotes, Guizots, Mills, Macanlays,
and Ruskins, despairs of mastering even a twentieth of the
current English literature, let alone the French, Italian,
and German. Shall one do with his reading as Pitt did
with his official business, namely, divide it into three
parts, of which the first is not worth doing, the second
does itself, and the third is quite enough for an}' man to
attempt? Various expedients will suggest themselves.
First, one can read epitomes. He can limit himself to
abstracts and abridgments. An epitome, it has been said,
is only a book shortened ; and, as a rule, the worth increases
as the size lessens. There is considerable truth in Young's
comparison of elaborate compilations to the iron money of
L} T curgus, of which the weight was so enormous, and the value
so small, that a 3'oke of oxen only drew twenty-five hun-
dred dollars. But epitomes are the bones of books, with-
out the flesh ; and, unfortunately, bones, though good for
other exhausted soils, will not regenerate the soil of the mind.
Iliads in nutshells are compendious; but " one would not
like to have all his company reduced to General Nutts and
Tom Thumbs, nor all his orchard filled with Chinese minia-
tures of trees." Besides, knowledge, like food, to be easily
WHAT SHALL WE READ? 339
digested, must not be taken in too concentrated a form.
Next there are "Beauties" and " Elegant Extracts."
But who can judge of a house by a specimen brick? The
literary feast to which the Leigh Hunts and Charles Knights
invite us may be one of " nectared sweets ; " but who is to
insure the perfect taste of the gustator? How shall I know
that Matthew Arnold has not omitted from his " Selections
from Wordsworth " something even more to my taste than
"Tintern Abbey" or the "Daffodils"? Then who does
not know that the finest gems lose some of their lustre
when torn from their setting? The " Balm of a Thousand
Flowers " may be all it professes, ma}' be fraught with
the accumulated odors of a thousand roses ; but who does
not prefer wandering through a garden of roses to snuffing
Lubin's daintiest extracts? Thirdly, there is the wa\' of
sldmminy, going over books as the butterfty over
flowers. But literary epicures who touch nothing but
dainties, and pick books for the plums, acquire speedily a
morbid appetite, upon which at last the dainties themselves
pall. It is well enough to skim milk, for you thus get the
cream ; but how is one to skim Pascal or Bacon?
A. fourth way is to skip judiciously ; in other words, to
consult books according to one's needs, rather than to read
them through. A man who is used to books and well-read
can find out the pith of a work without reading it through
from page to page. He knows instinctive!} 7 where to look
for the novelties, the original and striking thoughts, just as
a practised angler knows where the trout and salmon lie,
and will waste no time upon what does not concern him,
while he will miss nothing that he really needs. To do
this, however, requires a certain degree of critical acute-
ness ; but even the less practised reader may skip with
340 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
advantage. Reading the preface, the table of contents, and
other indications to the general physiognomy of a book,
hovering over its pages like a hawk, glancing at the head-
ings of chapters, at suggestive words, phrases, and proper
names in the text, descending leisurely for a closer view
when am'thing attracts his notice, and swooping down rap-
idly and greedity whenever he descries a golden thought, he
will economize time, and master the work more thoroughly
than another who has plodded through every page.
A. fifth way is to consult books, instead of reading them.
When Johnson was asked by Bos well if he should read Du
Halde's account of China, u Wh}-, yes," was the repty,
"as one reads such books; that is to say, consult it."
The lives of nations, as of individuals, often concentrate
their lustre and interest in a few great periods. Such were
the ages of Pericles and Augustus, Leo, Elizabeth, Charles
V., and Louis XIV. Occasionally a single chapter embraces
the wonders of a century ; as the Feudal System, the Mar-
iner's Compass, the Dawn of Discovery, and the Printing-
press. A good reader will make much use of indexes. It is
better to know where to find information on many subjects
than to be informed about a few. Still, there are some
books which one would like to know through and through ;
and while others, man m y thousands even, are only to be
tasted, 3~et as a rule it is not well to live from hand to
mouth, phj'sicalty or intellectually. It has been well said
that a merchant has little financial strength whose means
consist wholly of moneys due from others. A heavy bank-
deposit, subject to a sight-draft, is the only position of
strength. So he onh* is intellectually strong who has made
heav}' deposits in the bank of memon', upon which he can
draw in any emergency* according to his needs.
WHAT SHALL WE READ? 341
A sixth way is to stick to a few, and those the best.
Read, says one, the most famous book extant in a partic-
ular department, and next the best reputed current book
on the same subject. Study only the great authors, and
you ma}' dispense with the rest, whom the}' include and
go far beyond. Who would go for information to Reille or
D'Erlon, after he had questioned Napoleon on the art of
war? Excellent advice, if one could only follow it. The old
saws, Non multa, sed multum, etc., are easy to utter. It
needs no Solon to tell us that it is better to read one first-
class book a hundred times, than to read a hundred books
once. A few acres of land well tilled will yield a larger
crop than a quarter-section scratched over. Master one
great work, and you have put an oaken beam into the mind
which strengthens and steadies the whole fabric. But who
is willing to look at the world through the spectacles of
Shakspeare only? " He that reads deeply in only one
class of writers," says Dr. Arnold, " only gets views which
are almost sure to be perverted, and which are not only
narrow, but false."
Another, and the last, way is to read only the writers of
our own day. Alas ! this method is as objectionable as
most of the others. True, it is the fashion of the hour.
All the shelves of our libraries and the centre-tables of our
parlors are crowded with the histories of Motley, Froude,
Parkman, and Macaulay ; with the poems of Tennyson,
Swinburne, Longfellow, and Browning ; with the theology
of Bushnell, Robertson, Liddon, and Munger; and with
the novels of Dickens, Thackeray, Trollope, Hawthorne,
and Oliphant. But all these writers, however diverse in
thought and style, have certain strong resemblances. With
all their individuality and idiosyncrasies, they are still en
342 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
rapport. As we have said elsewhere, they breathe the
same air, handle similar topics, are acted upon by the same
influences. Every generation of writers has a personality
of its own ; and to read them exclusively, is to bow slav-
ishly to their authority, to accept their opinions, to make
their tastes our tastes, and their prejudices our prejudices.
Only by qualifying their ideas and sentiments with the
ideas and sentiments of writers in other ages, shall we be
able to resist the intense pressure which writers who are
near to us exercise upon our convictions and feelings, and
avoid that mental slavery which is baser than the slavery of
the body.
Shall we then, in despair, solve the problem by cutting
the Gordian knot, in other words, not read at all?
Radcliffe, when asked to show his library, pointed to a few
vials and test-tubes. The laboratory of the rich Mr. Cav-
endish consisted of apparatus not worth five pounds in the
open market. But one needs to be a great genius to do
like these men. It is said that bears contrive to live
through the winters by sucking their own paws ; but their
condition is a torpid one, and they come forth from their
dens lean and hungry in the spring. A Pascal, when his
books are taken from him, to save his health sapped by
excessive study, may supply their place by the force and
depth of his own reflections ; but there is hardly one Pascal
in a centurj".
Read, then, we must; but there are several ways of con-
soling ourselves if we cannot keep up with the steam-
presses of the day. One is the reflection that nine tenths
of the current, and a large part of all, literature is medi-
ocre, and such as would not win attention, did not the fool-
ish readers, as Boileau complains, match the foolish writers.
WHAT SHALL WE READ? 343
In the days of Goldsmith men talked of u building books,"
as if to compass an entire volume were a feat of literary
architecture ; but in these da} r s of steam and electricity
comparatively few authors toil for years over a production.
If the writer of to-da} r ma}' be said to " build the lofty
rhyme " or other literary edifice, it is too apt to be rushed
up like our other buildings, in a hurry, with little solid
masonry and a good deal of shell-work. The tendency
of literature now is toward easy writing; there are many
authors who know nothing, apparently, of those pangs of
composition which Horace describes as leading one often
to scratch his head and bite his nails to the quick. Many
of these fast writers are not worth attention, for the simple
reason that they create nothing ; they are mere literary
mechanics. Their brains are their tools, and they turn off
volumes just as other persons do boots, bricks, or bureaus.
As for heart, soul, or taste in the business, they betray no
more, ordinarily, than factory-spindles in weaving a web of
cloth, or Babbage's calculating-machine in turning out a
solution of a mathematical problem. Hence you find no
felicitous passages, nothing to kt create a soul under the
ribs of Death " in their writings. They have none of those
happy combinations of words, those original ideas con-
densed into startling phrases, which seize at once on the
reader's attention, and stick like burrs in his memoiy.
Another consolation which will suggest itself to the thought-
ful reader is that the mass of new books are new only in
stj'le and treatment, and add nothing to the general stock
of thought. Newton said that if the earth could be com-
pressed into a solid mass, it could be put into a nutshell.
So with the world of books ; many new ones are but a ri-
facimentO) or rehashing of old ideas, a pouring of old
344 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
wines into new bottles, with generally much dilution; so
that to a veteran reader nothing is so old as a new book.
The complaint of Bacon is as just now as in his own time :
"If a man turn his eye to libraries, he may perhaps be
surprised at the immense varieties of books he finds ; but
on examining and diligently weighing their matters and
contents, he will be struck with amazement on the other
side ; and after finding no end of repetitions, but that men
continually treat and speak the same things over and over
again, fall from admiration of the variety into a wonder
at the want and scantiness of things which have hitherto
detained and possessed the minds of men."
LITERARY QUOTATION.
\ LONDON literary journal denounces the practice, so
*- * common among parliamentary orators and journal-
ists, of employing hackneyed quotations. Old threadbare
phrases bits of dog-latin and scraps of French have
always been a doubtful ornament of editorials and speeches ;
but of late the vice has reached a climax which, the critic
thinks, renders it an intolerable nuisance. A Paris cor-
respondent no sooner begins a letter to a London journal
than he fancies he must display his profound knowledge of
the French language by the use of such phrases as raison
d'etre, en revanche, tant pis ; while for Latin quotations
scarcely one is used which has not the ancient and fish-like
smell of the elementary school-books whence they are
gathered. The writer thinks that a stand should be made
also against the too audacious -repetition of old stories and
historical illustrations. The tale of Bruce and the spider
has been worn threadbare ; Actaeon has grown old and
wrinkled in the public service ; Caesar on the banks of the
Rubicon has become a standing bore ; and Achilles' heel,
Don Quixote's windmill, Canute and the ocean, Mrs. Par-
tington's attempt to brush back the Atlantic with a broom,
the wart on Cromwell's face, and Puck putting a girdle
around the earth, have done duty for so many years that
they are entitled to be shelved, and enjoy henceforth an
old age of honorable repose.
346 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
We sympathize with the London critic, and would en-
large his list by some hundreds more of veteran quotations
which bear the scars of long and honorable service. Why
not include in the roll the legion of stock phrases and allu-
sions borrowed from the heathen mythology, Jove's thun-
ders, the eyes of Argus, the arms of Morpheus, Cupid's
darts, the Sibyl's leaves, the cleansing of the Augean sta-
ble, Minerva springing full-armed from the brain of Jupi-
ter, Ixion's wheel, Tantalus' torments, Sisyphus' stone, a
Triton among the minnows, Fame's hundred tongues,
Pelion heaped upon Ossa, the Phoenix rising from its
ashes, Saturn devouring his children (so sure to be cited
in every reference to the French Revolution), and other
" old soldiers " that have fought for centuries on so many
fields of literature? Then there is an army of allusions
drawn from the literature and history of Rome, to say
nothing of as many more borrowed from the topograph} T ,
history, and literature of Greece. What well-worn scraps
of erudition are more venerable than Fabian dela}'s, geese
that saved the capitol, Marius sitting among the ruins of
Carthage, the Goths and Vandals, falling into Scylla while
trying to avoid Charybdis, " the aspiring youth that fired
the Ephesian dome," and the never-to-be-forgotten Infan-
dum regina f Is not every critic still an Aristarchus,
and every carper a Zoilus? Is not every leading writer
" the Coryphaeus of literature," and is not even' successful
man presumed " to weep, like Alexander, because there are
no more worlds to conquer " ? And if these are to be ex-
empted from all further service, should not the many hun-
dreds of seedy and used-up quotations from English
authors, collected by Mr. Bartlett in his well-known book,
be discharged, or at least granted a furlough? Would it
LITERARY QUOTATION. 347
not be well to provide a literary Greenwich Hospital for
such exhausted and superannuated veterans as " the winter
of our discontent," " the bourn " from which " no traveller
returns," " the feast of reason and the flow of soul," " am-
ple room and verge enough," " like angel visits, few and
far between," "the schoolmaster is abroad," etc.? Is it
not about time, too, to pension off that New Zealander
who has been standing so long on the ruins of London
Bridge; the "Let us alone" of the French merchants in
reply to Colbert ; Columbus's egg ; the dreary " mills which
grind slowly ;" the cow in the way of Stephenson's locomo-
tive, and the cow that kicked over the lamp that set fire to
Chicago ? Might we not also spare the solitude that was
created and " called a desert ; " the victory of which a sec-
ond would have ruined the victors ; and the low watershed
that divides the raindrops into two rills, which, becoming
mighty rivers, flow, the one into the Gulf of St. Lawrence,
the other into the Gulf of Mexico?
It is one of the disadvantages of a tenacious memoiy that
if its possessor reads much, he is tempted to over-quote.
One of the most entertaining and suggestive books in our
language is Burton's " Anatomy of Melancholy," which is
a mass of quotation. Macaula}', whose memory held every-
thing with a vice-like grasp, frankly confesses that he was
afflicted with this propensit}*. Writing to his friend Sharp,
he says : "I feel a habit of quotation growing on me ; but
I resist that devil, for such it is, and it flees from me. It
is all that I can do to keep Greek and Latin out of ail my
letters. Wise sayings of Euripides are even now at my
fingers' ends. If I did not maintain a constant struggle
against this propensity, my correspondence would resemble
the notes to the 'Pursuits of Literature.'" Yet, notwith-
348 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
standing this confession, Macaulay has been known to shed
tears because he could not finish a quotation he had begun.
Some of the anecdotes told of his aptness in sudden quota-
tion are very striking. In a literary circle in London, Lady
Morgan was one evening indulging in some persiflage on
serious subjects immediately after the discussion of a fatal
accident arising from the fall of some houses in Tottenham
Court Road, the incident which, it is said, suggested to
Dickens the catastrophe of " Little Dorrit." While the
conversation was going on, Macaulay whispered to Lord
Carlisle,
" Here falling bouses thunder on your head,
And there a female atheist talks you dead,"
a couplet from Dr. Johnson's "London," in imitation of
Juvenal.
Readers of Dickens must have noted that he rarely, if
ever, indulges in quotation. It is perhaps to ridicule the
abuse of it that he represents one of his characters, Rich-
ard Swiveller, as alwa}'s soothing himself, when in trouble,
with bits from a favorite author. It is recorded of some
learned man, whose very name is forgotten, that though
his reading was very deep, he would quote by the page
in his lectures from books in many languages, never open-
ing one, but having them all on his lecture- table, together
with an open sword. "Here," he would say. "are the
books : follow me in them when you please ; and if I mis-
quote so much as a syllable, stab me. 'Here is the sword."
Sir James Mackintosh used to say that the best Latin
quotation ever made was b}' Leibnitz, on hearing of Ba}'le's
death, and imagining one of the rewards of his candid spirit
in the other world. The German philosopher quoted the
words of Menalcas in Virgil's Fifth Eclogue,
LITERARY QUOTATION. 349
" Candidus insuetum miratur limen Olympi,
Sub pedibusque videt nubes et sidera Daphnis."
Person, the famous "Grecian," who had a great and
exact memory, had also a remarkable power of apt quota-
tion. On one occasion, beginning with an apology for
borrowed shoes, he and a learned friend are said to have
quoted and capped in quick succession felicitous passages
from ^Eschylus, Homer, Bion, Theophrastus, Theocritus,
Horace, and other classical authors. Bishop Heber ex-
celled in this faculty. When one day after dinner the
removal of the white cloth revealed a green baize covering
to the table, he exclaimed, in the words of Horace, kt Dif-
fugere nives, redeunt jam gramina campis." He quoted
from the same poet u Ex somnis stupet Evias," when a fat
gentleman, who was known by a peculiar nickname, awoke
and asked in astonishment what the}' were all laughing at.
As if the world were not afflicted enough with real quo-
tations, there have been forgers of quotations, just as there
are artists who vamp up old bric-a-brac or write fictitious
autographs. It is said that Cardinal De Retz in a parlia-
mentary speech once improvised a neat and telling thing
from Cicero, and so tickled the Parliament that he carried
his point. A similar story is told of Sheridan. Hearing a
member of the House of Commons quote against him some
Greek lines, he immediately rose, and replied that though
the lines might seem conclusive, the honorable gentleman,
if he had completed the passage, would have shown the
House that their real meaning was just the contrary. He
then proceeded with the utmost gravity to repeat what
seemed to be a sentence of Greek, but was really a string
of gibberish such as he could invent on the spur of the
moment. The House, astonished at his classical lore and
350 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
promptness of recollection, cheered him with great enthu-
siasm, while his discomfited opponent sat clown without
reply.
Of all the men who have abused quotation, the advocates
of the sixteenth arid the early part of the seventeenth cen-
tury in France were probably the most outrageous in their
excesses. Their speeches were often, in many parts, mere
centos of quotations from Greek and Latin authors. M.
Berry er says that "they exhibit an amalgam of paganism
and Christianity, where Jupiter, Minerva, and all the fabled
gods of antiquitj r are found side by side with our Saviour
and the saints ; a luxuriant profusion of undigested knowl-
edge which borrows from all ages since the creation of the
world ; a rage for historical allusions which confounds in
the same page the names of persons the most opposite, who
are amazed to find themselves in company together. You
meet in the same page with Ammianus Marcellinus, Homer,
Petrarch, and Saint Chrysostom, Darius and Charlemagne ;
by and by a few Hebrew words ; then verses in Greek,
Latin, and French, and all, perhaps, with reference to a
suit for divorce by a husband against a wife." The truth
is, adds the author of " Hortensius," after the capture of
Constantinople the remains of classic writers were scattered
over Western Europe, and being made accessible to the
public by the discovery of the art of printing, they were
read with an avidity of which we to-day can form no con-
ception. The minds of men had so long been starved upon
the dry husks of the Schoolmen and their barren subtle-
ties that when the rich banquet of ancient learning was
placed within their reach, they devoured it with famished
appetites : -
" Greedily they ingorged, without restraint."
LITERARY QUOTATION. 351
Talleyrand once said of a man who was eternally parrot-
ing the sayings of others: "That man has a mind of in-
verted commas ; " and the sarcasm justly characterizes the
whole race of scribblers who, having no ideas of their own,
sponge on others, and steal these dingy rags of reference
to cover their own literary nakedness. They are the gyp-
sies of literature, whose language has been stolen from
every country through which they have passed ; or, rather,
the chiffonniers, the rag-pickers, who appropriate every
worn, threadbare thought that lies in their way. Their
writings are a kind of mosaic, the parts of which are in-
geniously dovetailed, and remind one of the architectural
workmanship of those Barbarians who used the Coliseum
and the Theatre of Pompe}* as quarries, who built hovels out
of Ionian friezes, and propped cow-houses on pillars of laz-
ulite. To quotation, when consisting of fresh and if we
may use the term original extracts, bits of thought, allu-
sion, or illustration not worn threadbare, there can be, of
course, no objection. Out of the depths of a full mind apt
and sparkling literary illustrations will almost of necessity-
bubble up to the surface ; and a critical eye can tell instantly
whether a quotation is spontaneous, or borrowed from Bart-
lett. "An intimate acquaintance with Greek and Latin,"
said the Marquis of Wellesley, " is to a man what beaut}'
is to woman, and gives a grace and finish to his words and
writings which nothing else can supply." Who can doubt
that the parliamentary speeches of Pitt, Burke, Peel, and
Canning would lose half of their charm if bereft of that
" classical quotation " which, as Dr. Johnson tells us, " is
the parole of literary men all over the world"? A happy
quotation, especially when suddenly improvised, may some-
times show as much acuteness and ingenuity as an original
352 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
remark ; as, for example, when Mr. Stanley, afterward
Lord Derby, quoted against O'Connell, who, contrary to the
rules of the House, had spoken three times in Committee
on the same question, "Thrice the brinded cat hath
mewed," from "Macbeth," and when Lord Denman ap-
plied to Lord Brougham and Vaux the words "Vox, et
prseterea nihil." So when Lord Carteret replied to Swift r
who bustled into the court which the former was holding as
Lord-Lieutenant, and demanded how he could do this and
that,
"Res dura, et regni novitas me talia cogunt
Moliri."
Equally as felicitous was the quotation by Swift, who, when
he saw the motto, " Non rapui, sed recepi," on a medal
of William III., observed : " The receiver is as bad as the
thief." Mr. Gladstone, one of the few members of the
House of Commons who to-day grace their speeches with
classic quotation, made an apt application of a passage
from the -ZEneid in his speech on Parliamentary Reform,
April 27, 1866. Turning to the Liberal party, he said :
" I came amongst you an outcast from those with whom I asso-
ciated, driven from the ranks, I admit, by no arbitrary act, but by
the slow and resistless forces of conviction. I came amongst you,
to make use of the legal phraseology, in forma pauperis. I had
nothing to offer you but faithful and honorable service ; you re-
ceived me as Dido received the shipwrecked jEneas,
' . . . Ejectum littore, egentem
Excepi.'
And I only trust you may not hereafter at any time have to com-
plete the sentence in regard to me :
' Et regni, demens ! in parte locavi/ "
LITERARY QUOTATION. 853
Some 3'ears ago a famous university' proposed the " Discov-
ery of the Sources of the Nile " as the subject of a prize
essa} r , the competitors being desired to send in their papers
with mottoes attached, by which the successful effort might
be identified. One of these was "Ex Nilo nihil fit,"
which witticism was worth more probably than some of the
essays.
When quotation is introduced with the felicitj' of a Haz-
litt, nothing can add more to the attractiveness of literary
composition. It is said that that brilliant writer, whose
mind was a florilegium of fine passages gathered from
every field of literature, once boasted that at ten minutes'
notice he could illustrate any subject with an appropriate
quotation from Shakspeare, and give the play and the act
from which he took it ; and on Theodore Hook giving him
that most unpoetical of themes, u the treadmill," he in a
few minutes repeated the following from the last scene of
the fourth act of " Lear : " -
" Oh cease, tliou hard ascent of climbing sorrows ! "
But all writers are not Hazlitts, and the generality of quo-
tations are desperate makeshifts, dragged in by head and
shoulders, without regard to fitness, because the writer is
bankrupt of ideas or expressions. No one will object to
occasionally greeting his old friends, "Nous avons change
tout cela," u Revenons a nos moutons," " Oinne ignotum
pro mirifico," Mahomet's coffin, the genius in the brass
kettle, etc. ; but there are some writers who can never in-
troduce them too often. The moment they take their pens
in hand, these or some other pet phrases and illustrations
begin bobbing up and down in their minds, and keep them
in a state of perpetual unrest till the}* can make use of
23
354 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
them. Now, if a writer cannot express himself except by
borrowing the winged words of another, and, jackdaw-like,
decking himself with pilfered plumage, he would better be
silent. A man's style of expression should be as character-
istic and inseparable from him as his clothes. His words
and phrases should be the exact vesture of his thought.
If, instead of being dressed in his own garments, he be
all patched and pied and dappled ; if he have on one
man's boots, another's hat, and have borrowed a coat and
vest from a third, how are we to know him ? His own
garments may not be of the latest and most fashionable cut,
or of the best material ; but if they are a true expression of
himself, the\' are infinitely more becoming to him than more
costly or showy ones that mask his individuality.
THE VALUE OF FAME.
author of "The Religion of Nature Delineated"
a work extensively popular in its day, but now rarely
read, or even named strikingly shows what a mockery
is posthumous fame. " In reality," says he, "the man is
not known ever the more to posterity because his name
is transmitted to them ; he doth not live because his name
does. When it is said, 'Julius Caesar subdued Gaul, con-
quered Pompey,' etc -5 it i s tne same thing as to say, the
conqueror of Pompey was Julius Caesar ; i. e., Caesar and
the conqueror of Pompey is the same thing. Caesar is as
much known by one designation as by the other. The
amount, then, is only this : that the conqueror of Pompey
conquered Pompey ; or rather, since Pompey is as little
known now as Caesar, somebody conquered somebody. Such
a poor business is this boasted immortality, and such is
the thing called glor} r among us ! To discerning men this
fame is mere air, and what they despise, if not shun."
What a satire on human ambition are all the contrivances
to cheat oblivion ! How much disappointment and misery
men would avoid if they could realize how fleeting is
human fame ! The applause of the multitude is sweet, but
it is in most cases the thing of a da} r , a flower that is fresh
and fragrant in the morning, but droops in the hot noon-
tide, and dies in the evening. " Popularity," said Lord
Mansfield on a notable occasion, " may be obtained without
356 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
merit, and lost without a fault." How often do we find
that the man to whom hosannas are sung to-day, is fol-
lowed to-morrow by the cry of "Crucify him ! Crucify him ! "
Man}- a man who was once the god of the people's idolatry,
" the observed of all observers," the shake of whose hand
or the nod of whose head was welcomed as the presage of
thick-coming honors, has in a few years, perhaps in a
few months, outlived his fame, and then languished in ob-
scurity, to be named, if named at all, only with a sneer. It
is curious to see what trifles sometimes make or unmake
the fortunes of men. A thoughtless or silly remark, uttered
or penned in a moment of haste, will often place men of
eminent ability and real moral worth in a ridiculous posi-
tion, withdrawing attention from all their past services, and
making them the butt of every malicious pen and the
byword of every wagging tongue.
We have a notable example of this in the case of Gen-
eral Scott, a veteran soldier and a patriot of unquestioned
ability and virtue, who was at one time a candidate for the
Presidency of the United States. By one foolish, unguarded
expression, the merest slip of the pen, " a hast}* plate of
soup," he came near signing his political death-warrant.
Had he embezzled the public funds or committed some act
of moral turpitude, it would have been far better for him ;
for this might have been overlooked in the dazzling bril-
liancy of his past career. But he had been guilty of no
crime, done the State no injur}* ; but, what was far less
excusable, he had made himself ridiculous. The old hero
of Chippewa and Lundy's Lane found it difficult to breast
this torrent of ridicule, harder far than to stand up against
the iron shock of the battle-field ; and it is doubtful if his
reputation ever fully recovered from the damage it received.
THE VALUE OF FAME. 357
Napoleon well understood the fickleness of human applause.
44 The crowd that contemplates me with admiration," said he,
"would with the same feeling see me mount the scaffold."
So thought also the Scottish monarch in the " Lady of the
Lake : " -
"With like acclaim, the vulgar throat
Strained for King James their morning note ;
With like acclaim they hailed the day
When first I broke the Douglas' sway ;
And like acclaim would Douglas greet
If he could hurl me from my seat."
Wellington, in a less degree, had experience of the fickle-
ness and ingratitude of those he served. Even after Water-
loo, the nobility regarded him as a soldier of fortune, a
militar}' adventurer, who would soon find his level in
societ}' ; and the}' actuall}* combined to keep him in u his
proper place." Such, in almost every land, is military and
political popularity, huzzas one day, and death the next.
Its possessor may stand on the topmost pinnacle of public
admiration, yet the wafting of a feather may send him
toppling to the earth.
What reader of Roman history is not familiar with the
magnificent ''triumphs" of Pom pey over Mithridates, the
last of which surpassed in splendor every similar pageant
in the imperial city? Having triumphed successive!}' over
Europe, Africa, and Asia, Pompey was looked upon as tho
conqueror of the world, and was classed not only with
Alexander, but with the more ancient heroes and divinities,
Bacchus and Hercules. He had concluded victoriously a
war of thirty years' duration, during which he had reduced
twent3 T -eight hundred cities and fortresses, burned or cap-
tured eight hundred and forty-six galleys, routed, slain, or
taken as prisoners two millions of enemies, and made the
358 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
province of Asia, which had hitherto been the extremit}',
now only the centre of the Roman dominions. Yet the star
of the general who on this his birthday was the centre
of attraction to the applauding multitude, and of whom a
bust entirely incrusted with pearls was carried in the pro-
cession culminated on this very day, when every kind of
incense was offered to his vanity. It was but a short time
afterward when, at a public show of gladiators, of which
he himself was the exhibitor, he was hissed by the whole
assembly. "I could not refrain from tears," says Cicero
in a letter to Atticus, " when, on the eighth day before the
kalends of August, I observed him haranguing the people
concerning the edicts of Bibulus. . . . He, who was now-
compelled to descend from the starry height of his ambition,
instead of gently falling, appeared to have been violently
hurled from the firmament. As for myself, if Apelles had
beheld his Venus, or Protogones his famous Jalysus, denied
with mud, his feelings could not have been more acute than
mine on seeing one on whom I had formerly lavished the
most glowing colors and the most artful touches of my
eloquence, thus suddenly disfigured."
It is said that Alexander VI., Pope of Rome, on entering
a town which he had captured, saw a number of the citizens
engaged in pulling down from a gibbet a figure designed to
represent himself, while others were knocking down a neigh-
boring statue of one of the Orsini famil}*, with whom he
was at war, in order to put his own effigy, when taken
down, in its place. Instead of expressing surprise or con-
tempt at the adulation of these barefaced flatterers, Alex-
ander turned to Cesare Borgia, his son, and said with a
smile: "You see, my son, how small is the difference
between a gibbet and a statue ! "
THE VALUE OF FAME. 359
When Opie, the painter, first came to London, after hav-
ing lived in obscurity in Cornwall, he became speedily the
idol of the fashionable world. The novelty and originality
of manner in his pictures, added to his great abilities, drew
universal attention from the connoisseurs, and he was at
once surrounded and employed by all the principal nobility
of England. Even Sir Joshua Reynolds was for a time
eclipsed ; and the street where Opie lived was so crowded
with coaches of noble lords and ladies that the obstruction
was a real nuisance to the neighborhood. To his friend
Northcote he jestingly observed that "he thought he must
plant cannon at the door to keep the multitude off from it."
But alas for human caprice! As soon as "the Cornish
wonder," as he was called, ceased to be a novelty, his
house was blockaded no longer. The wealthy and titled
hordes, professing taste and virt'tl^ who had come swarming
out to behold the new phenomenon of art, now deserted
him ; and his drawing-room, which had been filled with
noble lords and ladies waiting patiently their turns to be
painted, contained hardly a sitter. Finally, he found him-
self so entirely forsaken that he said to a friend: "My
studio is as carefully shunned as if I had small-pox patients
there." Conscious of his defects as an artist, he strove
assiduously to improve himself, and made extraordinary
progress; but the improvement was not visible to the
leaders of taste and fashion. When his works were crude
and unstudied, their applause was deafening ; when his
paintings really merited a place in public galleries, the
world, resolved not to be infatuated twice with the same
object, paid him a cold attention.
The most discriminating public of which history tells,
accepted cordially only ten or twelve out of a hundred of
360 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
the works of JEschylus, and forsook him wholly for a new
writer. Equally fickle in its admirations was the public of
Moliere's time, which waited for the nod of le grand mo-
narque before it saw merit in a play. Louis XIV., on the
first hearing of one of Moliere's best comedies, said noth-
ing ; hence the public concluded that he was displeased,
and all the next morning nothing was to be heard but
bandied criticism of the play as poor stuff, and such inanity
that really, if Monsieur Moliere did not make a great
change in his manner, he would never hold his ground with
men of taste. At dinner the king held out his hand to the
poet, and said that he had enjoj'ed his comedy beyond
expression. In the afternoon every soul was charmed with
the wit of the new plaj*.
When John Adams was about retiring from the Pres-
idenc} r of the United States, after a life spent in toils and
sacrifices for the nation, he was humiliated by an unpop-
ularity which he did not deserve. Hated and reviled by
thousands of his fellow-citizens, he felt and declared him-
self a disgraced man. " I am left alone," he wrote to
Rufus King. "... Can there be any deeper damnation in
this universe than to be condemned to a long life in dan-
ger, toil, and anxiety ; to be rewarded only with abuse,
insult, and slander ; and to die at sevent}", leaving an ami-
able wife and nine small children nothing for an inheritance
but the contempt, hatred, and malice of the world?" It
was not the open and violent attacks of his political ene-
mies that were the most galling ; he was constantly pricked,
says his latest biographer, by many small arrows of malice,
none carrying mortal wounds, but all keeping up a constant
irritation of the moral system.
It has been said that " it is a small thing to be popular,
THE VALUE OF FAME. 361
but a great thing to be famous. The advantages of pop-
ularity are that a man has it while he lives, and that it puts
money in his pocket ; the disadvantages of fame are that it
is for the most part posthumous, and consequently paj's
no baker's, no butcher's, no tailor's bill, and may give no
crust of bread to that man living, to whom after death it
ma}' give a very considerable stone with a magniloquent
inscription on it. Popularity is the fashion of the hour, but
fame is for all time." The "all time" for which fame
endures shrinks, in the case of most famous men, into a
century or two, sometimes into a few decades. New names
are continually clamoring for the world's attention, and the
great and the good men of the past, whose memories might
otherwise be kept green, are overshadowed by the great
and good men of to-da\-. When Napoleon asked a portrait-
painter who was engaged upon a canvas that was to hand
down his features to future ages, how long the canvas
would last, he was told that with care it might last five
hundred years. " Five hundred years !" exclaimed the em-
peror, with a contemptuous shrug of the shoulders. "And
people call that immortalit}* ! " Yet five hundred 3*ears, in
a world whose great men are continually multiplying, is a
prodigious^ long period for a man's name to remain visible
on the page of histo^. How many persons who fill a large
space in the e}'es of their contemporaries are utterly for-
gotten in half a century ! How many more strut their brief
hour on the stage of life, fanc\~ing that the e3'e of the world
is upon them, over whose names and deeds the veil of
oblivion is drawn in fifty weeks, or even as many da}*s !
When the memory of a great man is perpetuated b}^ the
chisel instead of by the brush, the chances of its being pre-
served for centuries are fewer still. War, fire, earthquake,
362 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
a hundred things, may cause the destruction of the finest
productions of the sculptor's art. When the tidings of
Pompey's defeat at Pharsalia reached Rome, all his statues
were thrown down and mutilated. When the Rhodians de-
creed a statue to a general, he was desired to choose any
one he liked among the existing votive statues, and the
dedication was altered by inserting his name. It is as-
serted by a Roman historian that Caesar cut off the head of
an equestrian statue of Alexander, and replaced it by a
gilded effigy of himself. Tiberius, in like manner, decapi-
tated a statue of Augustus to make room for his own head.
There are statues which, after passing for centuries as the
" counterfeit presentments " of certain great men of an-
tiquit}', are now labelled with the names of others. In the
museum at Naples there is a statue of JEschines which till
recently was exhibited as that of Aristides.
The kings of Egypt, to secure an earthly immortalit}*,
had their embalmed bodies preserved in vast Pyramids.
Yet in the seventeenth centurj* these bodies were sold
for quack medicines, and to-da3 r they are used as fuel.
"Mummy," sa}*s Sir Thomas Browne, "is become mer-
chandise. Misraim cures wounds, and Pharaoh is sold for
balsams. . . . Oblivion blindly scattereth her poppy, and
deals with the memory of men without distinction to merit
of perpetuit3\ Who can but pity the founder of the p}'ra-
mids? Herostratus lives, that burnt the temple of Diana;
he is almost lost that built it. Time hath spared the epi-
taph of Adrian's horse ; confounded that of himself. In
vain we compute our felicities b}' the advantage of our good
names, since bad have equal durations ; and Thersites is
likelj* to live as long as Agamemnon without the favor of the
Everlasting Register. The Canaanitish woman lives more
THE VALUE OF FAME. 363
happily without a name than Herod i as with one ; and who
had rather not have been the good thief than Pilate ? "
Even those who have basked longest in the sunshine of
popularity have found little pleasure in it. On the other
hand, the toils and the watchfulness which the maintenance
of a great reputation exacts are often found intolerable.
" O ye Athenians ! " exclaimed Alexander the Great as in
a heavy thunder-storm he was fording the flooded Hydas-
pes to attack King Porus on the opposite bank, " what
toils do I undergo to obtain your praise ! " Prince Eugene,
after gaining a useless victory, acknowledged that "on
travaille trop pour la Gazette." The appetite for fame
" grows b} r what it feeds on ; " and where " Alps on Alps
arise" in the pathway of the ambitious man, he is no more
content to pause on the tenth elevation than on the first.
The view from the first hill-top is often the most exhilarat-
ing. One of the marshals of France, old in years and
honors, said on a review of his life : "I entered the Pol}'-
technic School at sixteen, and I left it to enter the Engi-
neers. The grade which gave me the greatest pleasure was
that of corporal at the Polytechnic School." The greed for
fame becomes in some eminent men so strong that the}' are
unhappy, however loudly extolled, if the}' do not monopolize
the exclusive attention of the public. All qualified praise
is regarded by them as a kind of censure ; and if in a gallon
of laudation there is a drop of criticism, only the latter in-
gredient will be tasted. Voltaire was even jealous of a roue
who was the talk of the town. Napoleon, with his world-
wide renown, hated any allusion to Caesar in official bulletins,
and was even angry at the reputation of the sarcastic
Geoffry. The " great Boileau " confessed to Freret that he
had always sought for glory, and that he had never heard
364 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
any one praised, not even a shoemaker, without feeling a
touch of jealousy. The fame of Linnaeus cost Buffon many
a sleepless night. Ityron found the fame he won so un-
satisfying that he declared that the praise of the greatest
of the race could not take the sting from the censure
of the meanest. At the end of a conclave in the Vati-
can, a poor creature who had just been elected Pope was
thus addressed in a whisper by a cardinal who had voted
for him: " Your Holiness knows that you are ignorant,
weak, and profligate. Don't be alarmed ! 'T is the last
time you will hear the truth, even from me. Adieu! Je
vais vous adorer ! "
Cowley, in one of his admirable essaj's, shows a just ap-
preciation of the value of notoriety. " If we engage into a
large acquaintance and various familiarities," he sa}'s, " we
set open our gates to the invaders of most of our time ; we
expose our life to a quotidian ague of frigid impertinences
which should make a wise man tremble to think of. Now,
as for being known much by sight, and pointed at, I cannot
comprehend the honor that lies in that ; whatsoever it be,
eveiy mountebank has it more than the best doctor, and
the hangman more than the lord chief-justice of a city.
Every creature has it, both of nature and art, if it be any-
ways extraordinary. It was as often said ' This is that
Bucephalus ' or ' This is that Incitatus,' when they were led
prancing through the streets, as 'This is that Alexander '
or * This is that Domitian ; ' and truly, for the latter, I take
Incitatus to have been a much more honorable beast than
his master, and more deserving the consulship than he the
empire."
The hollowness of fame, the heavy tax it .imposes on
its votaries, and the little lasting pleasure it gives, have
THE VALUE OF FAME. 365
been felt most keenly by those who have drunk most deeply
of its intoxicating draught. Caesar, when he had reached the
highest summit of greatness that even his ambition coveted,
was filled with sadness, apparently at the hollowness of all
earthly glory. He became melanchol}*, regardless of his
personal safety, and expressed a preference of death to life.
" I have considered it well," said the English Hippocrates,
u and find celebrity to be lighter than a feather or a
bubble." "I intend," said Newton, when his wonderful
discoveries began to excite the hostilities of rivals, "to
have done with matters of philosophy. I blame my own
imprudence for parting with so substantial a blessing as my
quiet to run after a shadow." " You see what fame is,"
wrote Lord Byron to a friend. u I don't know what others
feel, but I am always lighter when I have got rid of mine ;
it sits on me like the armor on the Lord Mayor's cham-
pion." Yet thousands labor to forge for themselves the
chains so dazzling to the observer and so burdensome to
the wearer, because they see the glitter, and know nothing
of the weight.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF HANDWRITING.
"\ T 7HENCE sprang the idea, so prevalent among young
* * writers, that 4 ' a shocking bad hand " is an indica-
tion of genius? Did it originate with Alexandre Dumas,
who calls a good handwriting li the brevet of incapacitj- " ?
Or did it come from some disciple of Talleyrand, who be-
lieved that penmanship, like language, was given to man to
enable him to conceal his thoughts ? The notion is ridicu-
lous enough in this age of the schoolmaster, however suited
to darker times, when communications were more frequently
answered b}' sword or cudgel than by pen or post. Emi-
nent writers, who make it their business to instruct their
fellow-men, have less excuse than business men for a bad
chirograph}^. They should know how to form their " pot-
hooks and hangers," even if the}' do not mind their " p's
and q's." It is no doubt true that a writer, when his facul-
ties and feelings are stimulated to the highest pitch, and
" all the god comes rushing upon his soul," will hardly
pause, in dashing off his thoughts upon paper, to be
squeamishly nice in his handwriting; but no degree of
exaltation or fine frenzy should excuse him from putting
his thoughts in a plain hand. Vexatious enough is it for
editor and printer to puzzle out the abbreviations, clippings
of final letters, and other peculiarities of passable penmen ;
but when these usual perplexities are heightened by that
mischievous invention of modern times, a running hand, by
THE PHILOSOPHY OF HANDWRITING. 367
which all the smaller letters are blended together into an
undistinguishable mass of " pot-hooks and trammels," in
which long words, after a few letters have been written, are
whizzed off with a horizontal snake-line and a final ram's-
horu, the whole forming a confused jumble of letters, as
though blown into a heap b}' a wrathful explosion, who
can blame the editor who, instead of crucifying his eyes
over such a manuscript, consigns it, unread, to " Balaam's
box"?
Doubtless there are persons who cannot by any amount
of painstaking write a legible hand. Chesterfield, indeed,
declared that any man who has the use of his eyes and his
right hand can write whatever hand he pleases. But the
facts do not sustain this assertion. Were it true, is it
probable that Byron would have put his burning verse into
such a miserable schoolboy scrawl ? Would Emerson have
written so sprawling a hand? Or would Napoleon have
written the worst hand on record, so bad that his letters
to Josephine from Germany were sometimes mistaken for
maps of the seat of war? When he first became eminent
his signature was of full length ; but gradually it shrank to
the three first letters (Nap.), and finally it degenerated into
a clash or scrawl intended for an N. No doubt the vileness
of his " pot-hooks " was aggravated by the speed with which
he wrote. It is said that he could dash off several pages a
minute, not a remarkable feat when each page consisted
of eight blots and a spatter. Scores of other eminent men
men, too, man}- of them, of exquisite taste have writ-
ten hands so execrable that we must believe they were
prevented from writing well by some plrysical infirmity.
Jacob Bryant said of Archdeacon Coxe's hieroglyphics that
they could be called neither a hand nor a fist, but a foot,
368 MEN, PLACES, AND 1 KINGS.
and that a club one. SN'dney Smith once wrote to
that lie had tried to read a letter of the great reviewer from
left to right, and Mrs. Sydney from right to left ; but neither
of them could decipher a single word. Of Sj'dney's own
hand it has been said that, with the exception of Jeffrey's,
it was the worst that Constable's printers had to puzzle out
for the " Edinburgh Review." He himself compared it to
the hieroglyphics of a swarm of ants escaping from an ink-
bottle, and walking over a sheet of paper without wiping
their legs. When his wife inclosed to him an illegible pas-
sage from one of his letters from London, containing direc-
tions about the management of his farm, and asked for an
explanation, he simply returned it with the remark that he
must decline ever reading his own handwriting four and
twenty hours after he had written it !
The handwriting of Dr. Chalmers was still more per-
plexing than that of Sydney Smith. It literally defied all
attempts to read it. It is said that when his father received
a weekly or fortnightly letter from his eminent son, he care-
fully locked it up. After a store had accumulated, the son
would come and pa}' him a visit, upon which he would
break all the seals and ask the writer of the letters to read
them.
The celebrated actor and manager, Macready, wrote a
puzzling hand, and his orders for admission to the theatre,
it is said, were extraordinary productions. Of this the fol-
lowing anecdote is a striking illustration. He had one day
given an order to a friend for a third part}*. On the latter
receiving it he remarked: " If I had not known what it
was, I should have taken it for a doctor's recipe." "You
are right," resumed his friend, u it looks exactly like it ; let
us try our luck with it." " Be it so ; let us get the draught
THE PHILOSOPHY OF HANDWRITING. 369
made up." The}' go to the nearest apothecary's and hand
the paper to the assistant. He throws a quick glance over
it, and fills a phial from various bottles ; another glance,
another ingredient, and the phial is half full. Then a dubi-
ous pause ensues ; the assistant is obviousl}' puzzled, and
scratches his head. Finally he disappears through a parti-
tion, behind which the proprietor is seated. The latter, a
profoundly learned-looking man, appears at the counter.
A short, low dialogue takes place, in consequence of which
the chief peruses the document. He shakes his head, evi-
dently at the ignorance of the assistant, fetches another
bottle down, and finally fills the phial with an apocryphal
liquid, corks and labels it in proper form. Thereupon he
hands it to the expectant gentlemen with a friendly smile :
44 Here is the cough-mixture, which is apparently very good.
Fifteenpence, if you please."
It has been said of Rufus Choate's handwriting that it
could not be deciphered without the help of a pair of com-
passes and a quadrant. The best specimens look like the
hieroglyphics on a Chinese tea-chest, while the rest seem
like crayon-sketches done in the dark with a three-pronged
fork. A Massachusetts paper once expressed a fear that
he would not be able to stand the writing test, should it be
incorporated, as proposed, into the Constitution of that
State. Having been invited on a certain occasion to ad-
dress a public meeting in New Hampshire, he replied by
letter ; but the committee, after puzzling for hours over the
scrawl, despaired of deciphering it, and were obliged to
send a special messenger to learn his answer. In a country
law-office in Maine two attorneys and the writer of this essay
spent an entire forenoon in trying to read some written
questions sent by Mr. Choate to be put in a deposition,
24
370 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
and only succeeded in spelling out the preposition o-f. Of
Horace Greeley, an ex-" Tribune" proof-reader is reported
as having said that if he had written the inscription on the
wall in Babylon, Belshazzar would have been a good deal
more scared !
A college student who found more pleasure in using his
hand in base-ball than in writing, excused himself to his
guardian by saying : " If I were to write better, people
would find out how I spell." An anecdote told of the cel-
ebrated Ben Hardin shows that lawyers may have even
weightier reasons for writing badly. Ben, who was some
years ago a talented and eccentric member of the Kentucky
Bar, as well as a member of Congress, had been crippled in
his right hand by the falling of a tree. The two main forks
chanced to strike on each side of him, sparing his life as if
by miracle ; but his hand became singular!}' injured and de-
formed. Two stumps of fingers remained, and those were
divided for about an inch and a half only. When, there-
fore, he wished to write, he thrust a pen between the
stumps, as one would crowd a quill under a splinter on a
rail ; and as the fingers were stiff, all movement was com-
municated by the arm. An JEdipns who could guess out
Ben's pen-scratches could have beaten Champoliion in de-
ciphering the Egyptian hieroglyphics, and would have been
in no danger of being devoured by the Sphinx. When be-
fore the court, Ben was lynx-eyed in detecting the blunders
of his opponent; but as with a bald man pulling hair
no such vexations could be retorted on him. If a plea or
declaration seemed to be open to technical objections, and
his opponent thereupon demurred, Ben was alwa\'s read}' :
" My brother merely mistakes my handwriting, that's
all ; I have it here just as he thinks it ought to be." As
THE PHILOSOPHY OF HANDWRITING. 371
nobody but himself could pronounce with the slightest de-
gree of certainty upon the old fellow's crow-tracks, he had
it all his own way, and the demurring attorney was obliged
" to give it up."
The great classical scholar Dr. Parr, who himself wrote a
beautiful, clerkly hand, thus satirizes the chirography of
one of his acquaintances :
" His letters put me in mind of tumult and anarchy ; there is
sedition in every sentence ; syllable has no longer any confidence
in syllable, but dissolves its connection, as preferring an alliance
with the succeeding word. A page of his epistle looks like the
floor of a garden-house, covered with old crooked nails which have
just been released from a century's durance in a brick wall. I
cannot cast my eyes on his character without being religious.
This is the only good effect I have derived from his writings : he
brings into my mind the resurrection, and paints the tumultuous
resuscitation of awakened men with a pencil of masterly confusion.
I am fully convinced of one thing, either that he or his pen is in-
toxicated when he writes to me ; for his letters seem to have bor-
rowed the reel of wine, and stagger from one corner of the sheet
to the other. They remind me of Lord Chatham's Administration,
lying together heads and points in one truckle-bed."
It is doubtful whether as much attention is given to chi-
rography in these days as in the olden time. Few persons
now try " to write like an angel," that is, as the phrase
means, like the learned Angelo Vergecio, in imitation of
whose remarkable calligraph}' Francis I. of France caused a
fount of Greek type to be modelled. We have no longer
Iliads written in a hand so infinitesimally microscopic
that the entire poem may be squeezed into a nutshell, nor
do royal personages wear minute manuscripts in the form
of finger-rings. In the autographs of a century ago the
chirography will be found better than the orthography, while
372 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
to-day men spell better than they write. Voltaire and
Rousseau wrote excellent hands ; and in the round-robin
addressed to Dr. Johnson on the subject of Goldsmith's
epitaph, the names of the most eminent men, Burke,
Gibbon, Sheridan, Reynolds, Colman, and Warton,
though written at the dinner-table, betray no slovenliness.
What our forefathers thought of that easy writing which is
such hard reading, is evident from their practice. What
equal number of signatures can be found to anj r document
more legible and beautiful than those appended to the Dec-
laration of Independence? Round, upright, bold, and com-
pact, their hands were as much superior to the sprawling,
shuffling hands of to-day as the men themselves were
superior to the tricky politicians, their successors.
Within a few years a startling discovery has been made
in regard to handwriting. We allude to the alleged art of
detecting a man's character by his pot-hooks. The experts
have carried this art to such a pitch of perfection that it
is positively dangerous to touch a pen, unless }'ou wish " to
wear your heart on your sleeve, for daws to peck at." A
man signs his name to a note, and lo ! his most secret mo-
tives of action are revealed to the public gaze as effectually
as if he were turned inside out. Professors of this art will
just glance at } r our handwriting, and, with all the confi-
dence of a Velpeau making a diagnosis, will exclaim :
''There is an I which denotes intense egotism; this #,
much greatness of soul ; this upstroke comes from a soar-
ing mind ; that downstroke betrays a proclivity to baseness ;
this z shows a zigzag, flighty disposition ; the tail of that
y argues a little avarice in the writer." Mr. "Punch,"
who thus explains handwriting, has posted himself fully
in the new art, and reveals the following for the benefit
THE PHILOSOPHY OF HANDWRITING. 373
of those who would like to know the sort of persons they
are corresponding with: 4 ' A running hand to an accep-
tance ma}' indicate a disposition on the part of the acceptor
to run away from his liability. A cramped hand from a
creditor demanding payment of a debt, shows that he will
require very stiff interest if he grants time ; and a smeared
signature shows that the writer has no objection to a blot on
his name ; while if a man asking to borrow money fails to
unite his O, it is certain he is not likely to bring matters
round very easily."
The philosophers who contend that the curves and angles
of a man's handwriting give a key to his character, do not
lack shrewd arguments for their faith. Into every habitual
act which is performed unconsciously, earnestly, or natu-
rally, they contend, the mind unavoidably passes. The
play of the features, the motion of the limbs, the paces, the
tones, the very folds of the drapery (especially if it have
long been worn), says Hartley Coleridge, are all significant.
" A mild, considerate man hangs up his hat in a very dif-
ferent style from a hasty, resolute one ; a Dissenter does
not shake hands like a High Churchman. But there is no
act into which the character enters more fully than into
that of writing ; for it is generally performed alone or un-
observed, seldom, in adults, is an object of conscious atten-
tion, f and takes place while the thoughts and the natural
current of feeling are in full operation." Shelley, if we
ma}' judge from the following passage in one of his letters,
in which he gives his opinion of two celebrated poets, held
a similar view. "The handwriting of Ariosto is a small,
firm, and pointed character, expressing, as I should say, a
strong and keen, but circumscribed, energy of mind ; that
of Tasso is large, free, and flowing, except that there is a
374 MEN, PLACES, AND THINGS.
checked expression in the midst of its flow which brings
the letters into a smaller compass than one expected from
the beginning of the word. It is the symbol of an intense
and earnest mind, exceeding at times its own depths, and
admonished to return by the chillness of the waters of
oblivion striking upon its adventurous feet."
No doubt there are more open windows than we dream
of, through which keen, scrutinizing eyes may look in upon
the hidden points of our character ; yet we doubt whether
the knowledge of men derived from handwriting can be of
any practical value. Not only does the general turn of the
handwriting vary in different ages, but mam* hands are ac-
quired by imitation, and so all individuality is lost. There
are modes of writing which, like modes of dress, become
the rage for a season, and therefore throw no more light
on character than the singing of a fashionable song or the
dancing of a popular " polka." Again, there are business
hands which have so much general resemblance that the pecu-
liarities of the writers are almost completely hidden. Then
there are hands which are never full}' developed, but, for
lack of care or of instruction, remain always in an abortive
state. Finally, men write large or small, in hands boldly or
weakly formed, according to the schools in which the}' have
been taught, and according to the humor of the moment.
Brave, decided men may write a timid, hesitating scrawl ;
noble, high-minded men may perpetrate a mean hand ; and
cowards produce a script that is bold and flowing. The
profound, clear-headed Pascal wrote an almost illegible
hand, while Porson, the most untidy of scholars, wrote
elegantly. The chirography of the crooked- minded Charles
I. is clear and striking, and that of the trick}', tortuous
Bolingbroke is bold and flowing. The handwriting of Pro-
THE PHILOSOPHY OF HANDWRITING. 375
fessor Huxlej*, whose style is the ideal of lucidit}', is almost
undecipherable ; the " pot-hooks" of Darwin are so utterly
without form and void that there was evidently no process
of "natural selection" in their choice. In the big, flashy
hand of Disraeli there is no trace of the statesman or the
litterateur; nor from the cryptographic penmanship of
Swinburne would one ever guess at the voluptuous beauty
and the exquisite music of his verse. Dean Stanley was one
of the clearest of authors ; yet of a letter of his in our pos-
session, even the signature is almost illegible. The manu-
script of Edgar A. Poe is beautiful, and without an erasure ;
that of Charles Dickens is rugged, and full of interlineations
and alterations. Of Rosa Bonheur's chirography it has
been said that, though artistic and picturesque, "it is not
handwriting. That the capital B [of her signature] was
represented by those ammonite-horned hangers, or that bon-
heur was symbolized by the tout ensemble of its curves and
curls, could only be guessed by a Chabot or a ChampoHion."
On the other hand, the stiffness and slowness of Boileau's
handwriting were in keeping with his severe and caustic
disposition ; and the extremely delicate hand of Count de
Montalembert, one of whose notes we have, is indicative of
his almost feminine grace and refinement, but not of his
strength and impetuosity. Again, there is a remarkable
affinity between Moore's diamond lines and the sparkling
thoughts and images that lie in them ; and the small, con-
densed writing of Thomas Gray is admirably suited for
shutting up essences in.
INDEX.
A.
ADAMS, John, President, his unpopu-
larity in old age, 360.
Addison, Joseph, his intemperance,
104 ; his anecdote of a barrister,
118.
^Eschylus, 359, 360.
^Esop* the fabulist, 239.
Akenside, Mark, 88.
Alexander the Great, sayings of, 102,
363.
Alexander VI., Pope, anecdote of,
358.
Alfieri, the poet, his passion for horses,
111; when his ideas flowed most
freely, 117.
Alfonso the Wise, saying of, 87.
Angelo, Michael, his reply to Paul
IV., 331.
Anne of Austria, 108.
Archimedes, 112.
Aristotle, 94.
Augustine, Saint, his indebtedness to
Varro, 76.
B.
BACON, Francis, saying of, 102; his
love of pomp, 122; his acts of mean-
ness, 132; on deformity, 239.
Balzac, Honore de, 95; his fondness
for coffee, 106-7.
Balzac, Jean-Louis de, his vanity, 87;
saying of his, 88.
Barttelot, Sir Walter, M.P., his par-
liamentary speeches, 196.
Battles, when lost, 254-5.
Beattie, James, 249.
Beauty, its disadvantages, 238, 243.
Beethoven, the composer, anecdotes
of, 99; his whims regarding food,
109; anecdotes of his eccentricity
and absence of mind, 113-15.
Bentham, Jeremy, 23, 102.
Bent ley, Richard, D.D., his praise of
oysters, 272.
Berryer, Pierre-Nicolas, anecdote of,
131.
Biography, its fascination, etc., 20;
when most useful, 20-1; value of
its personal details, 82-6.
Bismarck, Prince, his superstitions, 137.
Boccharis, king of Egypt, his defor-
mity, 239.
Boileau, his vanity, 88; confession of,
363-4.
Books, the multitude of new ones,
335-6; epitomes of them, 338; "ele-
gant extracts" from them, 339;
skimming them, 339; consulting
them, 340; advantages and disad-
vantages of reading a few, 341 ;
evils of reading only those of our
own age, 342; indispensable to cul-
ture, 342; generally mediocre, and
new only in style, 342-4.
Boots, their importance in dress, 291-
4; an index of character and stand-
ing, 292; their effect on man's
physical comfort, 293; Abraham
Lincoln's story about them, 293-4;
Dr. Holmes's lines on, 294.
Borrowers, some celebrated literary,
75-8.
Boswell, James, his Life of Johnson,
234.
Bremer, Frederica, saying of, 237.
378
INDEX.
Bright, John, M.P., his physiognomy,
198; his oratory described, 198-201;
his felicitous phrases, 200-1; his
bearing toward opponents, 201; a
champion of the oppressed, 202;
declination of his oratory, 202.
Brillat-Savarin, M., his anecdote of
an epicure, 267.
Brooke, Kev. Stopford A., 179-88;
his chapel, 179 ; his personal appear-
ance, 179, 180, 182-3; qualities of
his pulpit eloquence, 180-1; his
birthplace and education, 181-2;
sonnet by, 182; his Life of Rev.
F. W. Robertson, and other works,
182; character of his preaching, 183,
184; his defence of Broad Church-
men, 183-4; extracts from his ser-
mons, 185-7; his separation from
the English Church, 187.
Brougham, Lord, O'Connell on his
ugliness, 242.
Browne, Sir Thomas, extract from, 362.
Buchanan, Robert, on literary sin-
cerity, 328-9.
Buddaeus, Johannes Franciscus, 113.
Buffon, his vanity, 92; his literary
habits, 95, 249, 364.
Bulwer (Baron Lytton), 53-66; not a
genius, 53; his versatility, 53; a
tireless worker, 53-4. 65-6*; bis first
publications, 55; his "Falkland"
and "Pelham," 55-6; his "Paul
Clifford," 56; his "Eugene Aram,"
and the objections to it, 56-7; his
" My Novel " and " The Caxtons "
characterized, 58-9 ; his qualities as
a novelist, 59-60; his poems, 60;
his merits and defects as a drama-
tist, 60-1; anecdote of his "Lady
of Lyons," 61; his oratory, 62-3;
his histories, 63; aristocratic in his
opinions and tastes, 64 ; his novels,
" The Coming Race " and " The
Parisians," 64; described by N. P.
Willis, 64; his mistakes concerning
his own works, 65 ; the great lesson
of his life, 65-6; his vanity, 93; his
indebtedness to other writers, 77.
Burton, John Hill, anecdote by, 303.
Byron, Lord, 85, 102, 106," 122-3,
364-5.
C.
CAESAR, Augustus, his superstition,
137.
Caesar, Julius, his physiognomy, pe-
culiarities, and habits, 81, 249; his
superstition, 136; his sadness, 365.
Campbell, Thomas, anecdote of. 93 ;
Rogers on, 105.
Carlyle, his biography by Froude, 235.
Cato, contradictions in his character,
123.
Chamberlain, Joseph, M.P., 198.
Charles I. of England, why regarded
as a martyr, 314.
Charles II. of England, a cynic, 286.
Charles V., emperor, his lucky days,
137; his habits at the monastery of
St. Juste, 248; his intrepidity, 253;
saying of, 253.
Charles XII. of Sweden, anecdote of,
257.
Chasles, Philarete, quoted, 234.
Chateaubriand, his refusal to serve
Napoleon, 10.
Chatham, Lord, his lack of simplicity,
122.
Chesterfield, Lord, on pedigree and
heralds, 100; his ugliness, 242.
Choate, Rufus, saying of his, 238.
Churchill, Lord Randolph, M.P., his
personal appearance, 193; his par-
liamentary speeches, 194-5.
Cicero, his vanity, 87; on Pompey,
358.
Clarke, Samuel, D.D., anecdotes of,
111.
Cleopatra, queen of Egypt, 82, 124;
her bills and billets-doux, 234; an
incident in her life, 235; her feat of
epicureanism, 279, 280.
Cobbett, William, his early reading,
23.
Coleridge, Hartley N., on handwrit-
ing, 373.
INDEX.
379
Coleridge, Rev. John, his eccentrici-
ties, 115-16.
Coleridge, S. T., a literan" borrower,
76; anecdote of, 99; his moral de-
linquencies and prejudices, 130; on
the French character, 130; anecdote
of him, Wordsworth, and Cottle,
134-5.
Colton, C. C., author of " Lacon," 126.
Conde, saying of, 253.
Corwin, Hon. Thomas, anecdote of
him and Wirt, 44-5.
Coulaincourt, on the murder of the
Due d'Enghien, 10.
Courage, 253-63; when meritorious,
253; that of Charles XII. and Lord
Nelson, 257 ; when most admirable,
258-9; of Henry IV. and Frederic
the Great, 258; "of the Irish, 259;
tested only by crises, 259 ; a moral
quality, 259; 'of "Captain Death,"
260-1; of many kinds, 260; of the
apostle Peter, 260-1 ; of Sir T. More,
261; superiority of moral to physi-
cal in war, 261; often desperation,
262; of Wolfe at Quebec, and Nel-
son at Trafalgar, 262 ; of Murat and
Ney compared, 263.
Cowen, Joseph, M.P., his parliamen-
tary speeches, .190; his political
views, 190.
Cowley, Abraham, on notoriety, 364.
Cowper, William, his letters, 234.
Cromwell, Oliver, 101, 111.
Cubitatis, Uladislaus, king of Poland,
240.
Culture, encyclopedic, now impossible,
337.
Cynics, and cynicism, 283-8; their
characteristics, 283-4.
D.
DARWIN, Erasmus, 244.
Da Vinci, Leonardo, his lack of thrift,
etc., 124.
" Death, Captain," his courage, 259,
260.
Defoe, Daniel, declared a liar, 128.
Deformity, Bacon on, 239.
Del mas, General, on the policy of Na-
poleon T., 4, 5.
Descartes, 95.
Des Jardins, Marie Catherine, 241.
Diaries, 233-6; objections to them,
231-2, 235 ; some famous ones, 233-5.
Dickens, Charles, his vanity, 92; sel-
dom quotes, 348.
Dilke, Sir Charles W., M.P., 196.
Disraeli, Benjamin, his youthful fop-
pery, 97.
Divorce, its causes, 305-12; statistics
of, 305 ; when it should be granted,
307-8 ; for incompatibility of temper,
310; in ancient Rome, 310-11; in
England, 311 ; American laws on it,
311, 312.
Dress, its extremes, 289-94; fondness
of great men for, 94-8.
Dumas, Alexandra, 67-79 ; his good
fortune, 67; his Oriental constitu-
tion, 67; his love of physical dis-
play, 67-8; physical and martial
feats of his father, 68-9; his liter-
ary fecundity, 70-3; his romances
characterized, 72; his powers of
mental assimilation, 73; his tours
deforce, 72-4; how far aided in his
works by Maquet, 74-5; his pla-
giarisms, 78-9.
Dumoulin, Charles, 87.
E.
EDWARDS, Jonathan, D.D., his absent-
mindedness, 116.
Electioneering, in England, 318.
Elizabeth, Queen of England, her
vanity, etc., 89; her manners and
amusements, 316; the mansions,
roads, and coaches of her age, 317.
Emmons, Nathaniel, D.D., on the
vices of his time, 324.
England, its vices in the eighteenth
century, 317, 318; "the good old
times " in it, 319-21.
380
INDEX.
Epaminondas, 81.
Epicurus, his vanity, 87.
Erskine, Lord, his vanity, 92; hi
dress, 95.
Eugene, Prince, saying of, 363.
Evelyn, John, his diary, 233.
F.
FAME, its value, 355-65; its disad
vantages, 361, 365-6; its fleeting
nature, 361, 363-4; greed of em
inent men for it, 363.
Faraday, Michael, 23.
Farrar, Archdeacon, 150-160; his
works, 150; his "Life of Christ,
151; his personal appearance, 151,
his excellences and faults as a
preacher, 151-2; his discourse on
parochial schools, 153; on "fail
ure " and "success," 153-4 ; his pop-
ularity, 154; criticisms on his ser-
mons and books, 155-6 ; his charity,
158; sketch of his life, 159-160; on
the imperfection of language, 184.
Fawcett, Henry, M.P., 197.
Feudalism, hardships inflicted by it
319.
Fontenelle, 109.
Foster, John, 95.
Fox, Charles James, anecdotes of, 96,
104.
Franklin, Benjamin, his early reading,
23.
Frederic the Great, contrasted with
Napoleon I., 3, 4; his wardrobe,
98; his courage, 258.
Fuller, Andrew, D.D., his peculiari-
ties, 118.
G.
GAMBLING in the eighteenth century,
317, 318.
George I. of England, his fondness
for stale oysters, 271.
Gibbon, the historian, Soame Jenvns
on, 242.
Gibson, Edward, M.P., his oratory
described, 192-3; his speech on the
Irish Laud Bill, 193.
Gladstone, William Ewart, M.P., his
qualities as a parliamentary leader,
202-3, 205-7; his personal appear-
ance and voice, 203- 4 ; his oratory,
204-5, 208-10; his physical con-
stitution, 205, 210-13; Buusen on,
205; a practical statesman, 206; his
repudiation of Conservatism, 207;
his labors and speeches on the
budget, 207; his definition of ora-
tory, 208; faults of his speeches,
208-10 ; his industry, 210, 211 ; his
health, 211; his pedestrian habits,
212; a lover of peace, 214; his
ardent temperament, 214, 215; his
reply to Disraeli, 215 ; his notice of
pygmy opponents, 216 ; excuses for
his overwork, 216; his felicity in
quotation, 352.
Goethe, his fondness for wine, 103;
his appetite, 109.
Goldsmith, Oliver, his dandyism, 95-
6; his ugliness, 240.
Goschen, George Joachim, M.P.,
197.
ray, Thomas, his love of novel-read-
ing, 111.
Great Men, their weaknesses, 80-139;
why these interest us, 83-4; too
often egotistic, 87; their love of
dress, 94-8; their slovenliness, 99-
100; their love of titles, etc., 100;
their excesses in eating and drink-
ing, 103-10; their oddities, eccentri-
cities, and absence of mind, 112-17;
disturbed by trifles, 117-20; their
inconsistencies, 123-7 ; their lack
of truthfulness and principle, 127-
32; their meanness, avarice, and
penuriousness, 132-4; their want
of practical talent, 134-6; their
superstitions, 136-8; their insan-
ity, 138-9.
Griffith Gaunt," Charles Reade's
novel, objections to it, 329, 330.
INDEX.
381
H.
HAMILTON, Lady Emma, and Lord
Nelson, 243.
Hamilton, Dr. Robert, anecdotes of,
113.
Hamilton, Sir William, anecdote of,
101.
Handel, the composer, anecdotes of,
89, 109; his penuriousness, 133-4.
Handwriting, its philosophy, 366-75;
bad, inexcusable, 367; Chesterfield
on, 367; of many eminent men
characterized, 367-75; how far an
index to character, 372-5; H. N.
Coleridge and Shelley on, 373.
Harcourt, Sir WillianTVernon, M.P.,
192.
Hartington, Lord, his style of speak-
ing, 191.
Hat, the, its importance in dress, 289-
91; an index of character, 289, 290-
1; symbolic of different epochs, 289,
290; George Fox's, 290; Chateau-
briand on Napoleon's, 290; Dr. O.
W. Holmes on, 291.
Haydn, the composer, 94-5.
Hazlitt, William, 92; his tea-drinking
habits; 107-8; his shyness and ec-
centricity, 119.
Henry II. of England, rudeness of
manners, etc., in his reign, 315, 316.
Henry IV. of France, 137; his ac-
quired courage, 258.
Henry VIII., his character, 314.
Henry, Patrick, his Life by Wirt, 43-4.
Hervev, Lord John, and Mary Lepell,
244."
Hill, Rev. Rowland, anecdote of, 118-
9.
History, value of its personal details,
82-3.
Homburg, Germany, as a watering-
place, 218-30; its climate, 219;
qualities of its mineral springs, 219-
22; effects of its various baths, 223;
its regimen, 224; its "Fest" nights,
225; its Kurhaus, 225; its " Saal-
burg" antiquities, 225; charms of
its Park, 225-7 ; its suppressed gam-
ing-house, 227-8; the number of
its former visitors, 227; its Kur-
taxe, 228; its orchestra, and their
concerts, 229 ; its situation, 229.
Horace, his advice to epicures, 269.
Homer, Francis, 242.
House of Commons, the, 189-217;
character of its speeches, 189; in-
crease in the length of its sessions,
214.
Humboldt, Baron von, the diploma-
tist, on his own looks, 243.
Hunt, Rev. James, 22.
Hunt, Leigh, anecdotes of, 110, 135;
misprint of one of his lines, 303.
1.
ILLUSIONS about the Past, 313-26.
Insanity of great men, 138-9.
Inventions, modern, lengthen life, 322.
J.
JENNINGS, Frances, 243.
Jenyns, Soame, his phj'siognomy, 243.
Johnson, Dr. Samuel, careless in his
dress, 98-9; his fondness for tea,
107; and for mutton, etc., 109, 110;
his rudeness, 124-5; his advice to
Mrs. Sheridan, 328.
Jonson, Ben, his visit (o Hawthornden,
90 ; his egotism, 91; a hard drinker,
103-4; his physiognomy, 241.
Junot, Andoche, Due d'Abrantes, 100.
K.
KANT, Immanuel, his peculiarities,
249.
Keats, John, the poet, his dissipation,
106; Haydon on his faults, 135.
Keble, Rev. John, his advice to Dr.
Arnold, 131.
Kincaid. Captain J., on courage on the
battlefield, 256.
Kneller, Sir Godfrey, anecdote of, 90.
382
INDEX.
L.
LANFREY on Napoleon I., 11, 13.
La Place, Napoleon on, 134.
Lassay, M. f a mot of, 287.
Lawson, Sir Wilfrid, M.P., 197.
Lecourbe, M., insulted by Napoleon,
18.
Leibnitz, his quotation from Virgil, 348.
Lekain, Henri Louis, his looks, 241-2.
Lely, Sir Peter, his vanity, 90.
Liddon, Canon, 160-9; his popularity
as a preacher, 161 ; his personal ap-
pearance, 162; his pulpit oratory,
162-8; qualities of his sermons,
163-5; his faults of manner, 165;
his sermon on "The Lord's Day,"
166-7; his style, 168; a Catholic-
Anglican, 169; his views of "The
Lord's Supper," 169; abreast with
the time, 169.
Locke, John, his scheme of govern-
ment for the Carolinas, 136.
London, its greatness, 140-9; its pop-
ulation, 140-1; its rapid growth,
142; prehistoric, 141-2; statistics of
its policemen, cabmen, etc., 143 ; its
omnibuses, 143; its paupers and
charitable societies, 143-4; its pawn-
brokers, 144; its consumption of
coal, gas, milk, and ale, 144; per-
sons killed or injured in its streets,
145; its criminals, etc., 145; its
docks, 146-7; its loneliness, 147-8;
its want of unity, 148; its smoke
and fog, 149 ; its healthiness, 149 ;
its parks, 149; its consumption of
oysters, 281.
Louis XIII., his predilection for Friday,
137.
Louis XVIII., his fondness for oysters,
271.
M.
MACAULAY, T. B., his moods of ab-
straction, 116; on Byron, 123; his
propensity for quotation, 347-8; apt
quotation by, 348.
Macdonald, Marshal, his passage of
the Spliigen, 12, 13.
Macready, VV. C., his handwriting,
368-9.
Magliabecchi, Anthony, 111.
Maistre, Count Joseph de, his charac-
ter, 85-6; on Bacon, 86; on fear,
254.
Malherbe, anecdote of. 296.
Marat, Jean-Paul, 240.
Marl borough, the Duke of, his av-
arice and penuriousness, 133; con-
fidence of his soldiers in him,
256-7.
Marriage, mistakes concerning it,
306-7; the true motives for it,
307; cases of hardship and "in-
compatibility" in it, 308; Heine
on, 309; a school of self-sacrifice,
309; how its happiness is secured,
309.
Marshall, John, his legal arguments,
35.
Martineau, Harriet, on the vanity of
some men in high places, 93.
Mathews, Charles, his shyness and
whimsicality, 119-20.
Matrimonial quarrels, their causes,
308-9.
Maximilian, the Emperor, 100.
McLaurin, Rev. , anecdote of,
115.
Metternich, Napoleon's interview with
him, 17.
Milton, John, 89.
Mirabeau, his ugliness and magnetism,
245.
Mitchell, Colonel J., on Napoleon's
victories, 11.
Moliere, the popular judgment of his
plays, 360.
Montaigne, his story of a scholar at
Padua, 117-8.
Montmorenci, Francois-Henri de, Due
de Luxembourg, his deformity,
240.
Moore, Thomas, his vanity, 93-4.
More, Sir Thomas, his " Utopia," 136;
his courage, 261.
INDEX.
383
N.
NAPIER, Sir C. J., 257.
Napoleon I., his character, 1-19;
Ropes's lectures on, 2, 7, 9; a foe
to liberty, 3; his dislike of wit, 3;
contrasted with Frederic the Great,
3, 4; M. Taine on his political sys-
tem, 4 ; General Delinas on his policy,
4, 5; defects of his Code, 5; his
treatment of the Italian peasants, 6 ;
his proclamation to the people of the
Vosges, 6; his treatment of Venice,
7-8; his spoliations of Prussia and
Holland, 8; his responsibility for
the murder of D'Enghien, 9, 10; his
military genius, 10-12; Thiers on,
10; Lanfrey on his rapidity of in-
tuition, 11; compared with Hanni-
bal, 12; a moral pygmy, 13; his
treatment of Villeneuve, 13; his
view of war, 13, 14; on the govern-
ment of men, 14; his lack of self-
knowledge, 14; his treachery and
hypocrisy, 14, 15; his duplicity,
14-16; his treatment of Comte de
Frotte", 16 ; his lack of veracity, 16 ;
his vulgarity and insults to eminent
men, 14-18; his avowal to Metter-
nich, 17; his treatment of Josephine,
18; his ruling purpose, 18, 19; his
chief crime, 19 ; at Fontainebleau,
81-2, 96; his cheating at whist, 85;
his vanity, 92; on La Place, 134;
his favorite day, 137; his courage,
261; sayings of, 261, 361; his fond-
ness for oysters, 271-2; on human
applause, 357.
Nelson, Lord, anecdote of, 92; his
Unison with Lady Hamilton, 129;
his courage inborn, 257 : his bravery,
262.
Newton, Sir Isaac, 99; his absence of
mind, 112; saying of, 365.
Ney, Marshal, his inconsistency, 131.
Northcote, Sir Stafford, M.P. (Lord
Idesleigh), 191.
Novels, immoral, 327-334; Dr. John-
son on them, 328; the chief objec-
tion to them, 331-2; danger of de-
nunciatorv criticisms of them, 332-
4.
o.
OPIE, John, anecdotes of, 359.
Orators generally poor sleepers, 213.
Oratory, the difference between written
and spoken, 42; its asserted decay
in recent times, 189.
Originality, literar}', 75.
Oysters, 264-282; Professor Baird on
their culture and consumption, 264;
their fecundity, 264; their social
value, 265-281; their healthful qual-
ities, 266; esteemed by the Romans,
268; praised by eminent Romans,
268-9; Roman culture of them, 270;
monarchs who have been fond of
them, 270-1; Bentley on, 272; emi-
nent men who have been fond of
them, 271-2, 281; their anatomical
structure, 273; their enemies, 274;
their food, 274; their lament (from
"Punch"), 275; Thomas Fuller on,
275; Gay on their first eater, 275;
true mode of eating them, 276; their
liquor, 276 ; where cooked best, 276-
7; sonnet on, 277; their alleged
stupidity, 277; their sensibilities
and instincts, 278; their happiness,
278; " wonderfully made," 279; the
embryos and animalcules in their
liquor, 279; their influence on poli-
tics, 281.
P.
PALEY, William, D.D., his indebted-
ness to Nieuwentvt, 76 ; his fondness
for angling, 111; anecdotes of, 123.
Panics, in battle, 255.
Parker, Joseph, D.D., 171-9; the
"Temple" in which he preaches
described, 171; his personal appear-
ance, 172; his tricks of manner, 173;
his merits as a preacher, 174; his
expository sermons, 175; his fond-
ness for intense expressions, 175;
384
INDEX.
extracts from his sermons, 175-8;
his published prayers, 178-9.
Parker, Theodore, 94.
Parr, Samuel, D.D., his fondness for
tea and lobsters, 107, 110; his dis-
pute with Dr. Johnson, 126.
Pascal, Blaise, quoted, 117; his insan-
ity, 138; not a cynic, 286.
Past, the, admiration for it, 325.
Pearls, their origin and composition,
280-1.
Pepys, Samuel, his diary, 233, 236.
Philippe, Louis, his love of titles, 101.
Pinkney, William, described, 38;
Wirt's first encounter with him,
38-40; Wirt's opinion of him, 40;
his toilet, 95.
Pitt, William, his love of port wine,
104; his bill for preventing smug-
gling, 333-4.
Plagiarism, charges of, 75.
Politics, their bitterness and corruption
in America, 324.
Pompey, his triumph over Mithridates,
357-8; hissed at a gladiatorial show,
358.
Pope, Alexander, anecdote of, 109; a
"poser," 122; declared a liar, 128;
Hazlitt on, 242.
Popularity, 355-6 ; its cost, 363.
Person, Richard, anecdotes of, 105-6,
107.
Preacher, a "safe" one described,
170.
Printers, their peculiarities, 296-7.
Pulpit, the London, 150-188; its al-
leged decline, 187-8.
Punctuation, some mistakes in, 300.
Pythagoras, his character, 127.
Q.
QUINCKY, DE, Thomas, on the loneli-
ness of London, 147-8 ; his " Con-
fessions of an Opium-Eater," 334.
Quincy, Josiah, President of Harvard
University, his compliment to
; Wirt, 30.'
Quotation, literary, 345-54; hack-
neyed, 345-47; Macaulay's propen-
sity for it, 347; Leibnitz's from
Virgil on Bayle's death, 348; Por-
son and Bishop Heber apt in it, 349 ;
invented by Sheridan, 349 ; its abuse
by advocates in France, 350; when
legitimate, 351; happy examples of,
352-3; Hazlitt's felicity in it,
353.
R.
RALEIGH, Sir Walter, his dandyism,
94.
Reading, promiscuous, useful to boys,
22 ; different systems of, 26-7 ; what
shall we read? 335-44.
Rembrandt, the painter, anecdotes of,
132-3.
Richard III., 242.
Richardson, the novelist, 95; his " Pa-
mela," 331.
Richelieu, Cardinal, 111; his worry
about trifles, 248-9.
Richter, Jean Paul, extract from,
250.
Robespierre, his physiognomy, 240.
Rogers, the poet, his fastidious taste,
251.
Ropes, J. C., his Lectures on Napo-
leon I., 2, 7, 9.
Rousseau, J. J., anecdotes of, 88; a
"poser," 122; his inconsistencies,
124.
s.
SAINTE-BEUVE, C. A., on the knowl-
edge of men, 84.
Salmasius, Claudius, saying of, 87.
Savage, Richard, 104.
Savonarola, 102.
Scaliger, Joseph J., 100, 112.
Scaliger, Julius Caesar, 100.
Schiller, his stimulants, 83, 103.
Schopenhauer, Arthur, on noise, 117;
on beauty, 238.
INDEX.
385
Scipio, on his soldiers' bravery, 256.
Scott, General Winfield, his" " hasty
plate of soup," 356.
Seneca, his inconsistencies, 123.
Shakspeare, the woman that enslaved
him in his youth, 241.
Shelley, the poet, anecdote of, 112 ; on
Ariosto's handwriting, 373.
Sheridan, Thomas, anecdotes of, 105>
349.
Smith, Adam, his lack of practical
talent, 134
Smith, Rev. Sydney, on his pedigree,
100; his shyness, 121; his handwrit-
ing, 368.
Socrates, his ugliness, 239.
Southey, Robert, his inconsistencies,
126.
Spinoza, his spiders, 111.
Stael, Madame de, anecdote of, 130.
Stanley, Dean Arthur P., 116.
Statues, mutilation of ancient, 362.
Steele, Sir Richard, his inconsistencies,
128; Swift on, 128; anecdote of,
128.
Sterne, Laurence, 91.
Steuben, Baron F. W. A., anecdote of,
102.
St. Margaret's church, London, 159-
60.
Style, literary, 354.
Superstitions of some actresses and
composers, 137-8.
Swift, Dean, the contradictions in his
character, 1 24-5 ; his journals, 233 :
his pessimism, 287.
T.
TAINE, Hippolyte-Adolphe, on the
policy of Napolton I., 4.
Talleyrand, Napoleon's rudeness to,
17; his cynicism, 286.
Tasso, 103.
Thackeray, anecdote of, 272-3 ; saying
of, 351; not a cynic, 286.
Thessiger, Sir Frederic, saying of,
231.
Thiers, Louis-Adolphe, on Napoleon's
rapidity of thought and action, 10.
Thomson, the poet, his untidiness, 98.
Travel a century ago, 322.
Trevelyan, Sir" George Otto, M.P.,
191."
Turenne, saying of, 253
Types, their tricks, 295-304 ; thoughts
improved by their errors, 296; ex-
amples of their errors, 297-304 ; sen-
sitiveness to their errors, 304.
u.
UGLINESS, its advantages, 237-46;
George Dawson on, 237; an intel-
lectual stimulus, 239; of many great
men, 235-49.
V.
VAUDEMONT, Princesse de, 241.
Vieta, Francois, 112.
Villeneuve, Pierre de, his treatment
by Napoleon I., 13.
Virgil, his literary borrowings, 75-6.
Voiture, Vincent, 88.
Voltaire, his fondness for coffee, 106.
W.
WAGXER, Richard, his vanity, etc.,
89-90; his dress and manner, 97-8.
Wallenstein, 117, 137; his dislike of
noise, 249.
Walpole, Horace, his letters, 233.
Walpole, Sir Robert, cynicism in his
letters, 286.
Washington denounced, 324.
Watering-places, the Queen of, 218-
30.
Webster, Daniel, compliments Wirt,
30, 52.
Wellington, the Duke of, on the Pe-
ninsular army, 257; anecdote of,
258 ; his treatment by the nobility,
357.
25
386
INDEX.
Wesley, Rev. John, his superstition,
137.
" Westminster Review," the, on the
happiness of the oyster, 278-9.
Whately, Richard, D.D., his shyness
and eccentricities, 121.
Whittier, John G., on his correspond-
ence, 232.
Wilkes, John, his ugliness, 244-5.
William Rufus, saying of, 87.
Wilson, Professor John, 99.
Wirt, William, 20-52; his parentage,
21 ; his early reading, 22 ; chooses
the Bar for his profession, 24 ; mar-
ries Miss Gilmer, 25 ; his appearance
and conversation, 25; his convivial
habits, 26; his study of the English
classics, 27; elected clerk to the
Virginia House of Delegates, also
Chancellor of the E. District, 27;
marries Miss Gamble, 28 ; his " Let-
ters of the British Spy," 28-9; elect-
ed to the House of Delegates, 29 ;
his essays ("The Rainbow" and
" The Old Bachelor "), 29 ; ap-
pointed a District-Attorney of the
United States, 29; appointed Attor-
ney-General of the United States,
29; his first visit to Boston, Mass.,
29, 30; nominated for the Presi-
dency of the United States, 30; his
last illness and death, 30-1; his
personal appearance, 31; his self-
criticisms, 32, 33, 49, 50; on florid
oratory, 33-4; his advice to F. W.
Gilmer, 33-4; his Address at Rut-
gers College, 34, 47; his letter to
H. W. Miller, 34-5; on the orato-
rical taste of the age, 35 ; his argu-
mentative ability, 36-7; his speech
against Burr, 36; his argument for
the Cherokee Indians, 37 ; his defence
of Judge Peck, 37 ; his first encounter
with Pinkney, 38-40; his oratory
characterized, 40-2; his "Life of
Patrick Hemy," 43-5; anecdote of
him and Hon. Thomas Corwin, 44;
his classic culture, 45; his retort on
Emmett, 45-6; his eulogy on Adariis
and Jefferson, 46; on decisive in-
tegrity, 47-9; his legal fees, 49; on
Chief-Justice Marshall, 50; his con-
versation, 50-1; his religious char-
acter, 51 ; characterized, 51-2: on the
political corruption of his time, 324.
Wolfe, General James, anecdote of,
91.
Wollaston, William, on posthumous
fame, 355.
Wordsworth, William, anecdote of,
91.
Worms, Baron Henry de, M.P., his
Parliamentary speeches, 195-6.
Worry, 247-52; when unavoidable,
247'; its causes, 248, 251-2; its
effects when habitual, 252.
Y.
YOUNG, Edward, the poet, his
consistencies, 125-6.
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