I If THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE »■»•■'•■»• ■^ ■^ ■»• ■^ ■ Elx Libris C. K. OGDEN THE WORKS ISAAC DISRAELI. THE LITERARY CHARACTER; OR THE HISTORY OP MEN OF GENIUS, ^rafon from iht'ix obit ^ttlmp anb Confessions LITEEAKY MISCELLANIES; AND AN INQUIRY INTO THE CHARACTER OF JAMES THE FIRST. By ISAAC DISRAELI. EDITED BY HIS SON, THE RIGHT HON. B. DISRAELI, CHAKCBLLOR 01' llKlt MAJESTY'S EXCUEQUEB. LONDON: ROUTLEDGE, WAKNES, AND ROUTLEDGE, FARRINGDON STREET. NEW YORK: 18, UEEKMAN STREET. 1859. LONDON : SAVILL AND EDWARDS, PRINTEKh. CHANDOS STREET. COVENT GARDEN. PREFACE. The following Preface was prefixed to an Edition of the author's Miscellaneous Works in 1840. They were comprised in a thick 8vo volume, and included the Calamities and QuABEELS OP Ax;THt)ES, uow published separately. This Preface is of interest for the expression of the author's own view of these works. This volume comprises my writings on subjects chiefly of our vernacular literature. Now collected together, they offer an unity of design, and afford to the general reader and to the student of classical antiquity some initiation into our national Literature. It is presumed also, that they present materials for thinking not solely on literary topics ; authors and books are not alone here treated of, — a comprehensive view of human nature necessarily enters into the subject from the diversity of the characters portrayed, through the gradations of their faculties, the influence of their tastes, and those incidents of their lives prompted by their fortunes or their passions. This present volume, with its brother " Curiosities OF LiTEKATUUE," UOW constitute a body of reading which may awaken knowledge in minds only seeking amusement, and refresh the deeper studies of the learned by matters not unworthy of their curiosity. The LiTERAttY CilAEACTEB has been an old favourite with many of my contemporaries departed or now living, who have found it respond to their own emotions. The Miscella^nies are literary amenities, should they be found to deserve the title, constructed on that principle early adopted by me, of interspersing facts with speculation. vi Preface. TiiK Inquiry into the Litehaiiv vnu Politicai. C'liAKACTEH OK J AMES THE FiHST has surt'ly Corrected some ),'t'neriil misconccptinns, and thrown lijifht on some obscure points in the history of that anomalous personage. It is a satisfaction to me to observe, since the publication of this tract, that while some competent judges have considered the " evidence irresistible," a material change has occurred in the tone of most writers. The subject presented an occasion to exhibit a minute pictiin" of that age of transition in our national history. The titles of Calamhiks of AuTnons and QiAitnELS oi AuTiious do not wholly designate the ^orks, which include a considerable portion of literary history. Public favour has encouraged the republication of these various works, which often referred to, have long been difficult to procure. It has been deferred from time to time with the intention of giving the subjects a more enlarged investigation ; but I have delaj'cd the task till it caimot be performed. One of the Calamities of Authors falls to my lot, the delicate organ of vision with me has suflfered a singular disorder,* — a disorder which no oculist by his touch can heal, and no physician by his experience can expound ; so much remains concerning the frame of man unrevealed to man ! In the midst of my library I am as it were distant from it. My untinished labours, frustrated designs, remain paralysed. In a joyous heat I wander no longer through the wide circuit before me. The " strucken deer" has the sad privilege to weep wlien he lies down, perhaps no more to course amid those far-distant woods where once he sought to range. * I record my literary cahmity as a warning to my sedentary brothers. When my eyes dwell on any object, or whenever they are closed, there appear on a bluish film a number of mathematical squares, which are the reflection of the fine network of the retina, succeeded by blotches which subside into printed characters, apparently forming distinct wonls, arranged in straijrht lines as in a printed book ; the monosyllables are often legible. This is the process of a few seconds. It is remarkable that the usaal power of the eye is not injured or diminished for distant objects, while those near are clouded over. Preface. vii Although thus compelled to refrain in a great measure from all mental labour, and incapacitated from the use of the pen and the book, these works, notwithstanding, have received many important corrections, having been read over to me v/ith critical precision. Amid tliis partial darkness I am not left without a distant hope, nor a present consolation ; and to Her who has so often lent to me the light of her eyes, the intelhgence of her voice, and the carefid work of her hand, the author must ever owe "the debt immense" of paternal gratitude. London, May, 1840. CONTENTS. LITERARY CHARACTER. CHAPTER I. Fi.6B Of literary characters, and of the lovers of literature and art . . . 11 CHAPTER II. Of the adversaries of literary mea among themselves. — Matter-of-fact men, and men of wit. — The political economists. — Of those who abandon their studies. — Men in office. — The arbiters of public opinion. — Those who treat the pursuits of literature with levity . 14 CHAPTER III. Of artists, in the history of men of literary genius, — Their habits and pursuits analogous. — The nature of their genius is similar in their distinct works. — Shown by their parallel teras, and by a common end pursued by both 20 CHAPTER IV. Of natural genius. — Minds constitutionally diflerent cannot have an equal aptitude. — Genius not the result of habit and education. — Originates in peculiar qualities of the mind. — The predisposition of genius. — A substitution for the white paper of Locke .... 24 CHAPTER V. Youth of genius. — Its first impulses may be illustrated by its subse- quent actions. — Parents have another association of the man of genius than we. — Of genius, its first habits. — Its melancholy. — Its X Contents. rxr.t. rovericH. — Itn love of Holiltido. - -lt8 dinpoHition to repose. — Of a youth diatinxuished by hi.t eqiialn. — Feeblcneso of it« firnt attempts. -Of geniiiH not discoverable even in manhood. — The education of the youth may not be that of his gcniuH. — An unitettled impnlMe, querulous till it finds its true occupation. — With some, curiosity as intense a faculty as invention. — What the youth first applies to is commonly his delight afterwards. — F.acts of the deci.sive character of genius 31 CHAPTER VI. The first studies. — The self-educated are marked by stubborn peculi- arities. — Their errors. — Their improvement from the neglect or con- tempt they incur. — The history of .self-education in Moses Men- delssohn. — Friends usually prejudicial in the youth of genius. — A remarkable interview between Petrarch in his first studies, and his literary adviser. — Exhortation 55 CHAPTER VII. Of the irritability of genius. — Genius in society often in a state of suffering. —Equality of temper more prevalent among men of let- ters. — Of the occupation of making a great name. — Anxieties of the most successful. — Of the inventors. — Writers of learning. — Writers of taste. — Arti.sts 6i* CHAPTER VIII. The spirit of literature and the spirit of society. — The inventors. — Society offers seduction and not reward to men of genius. — The no- tions of persons of fashion of men of genius. — The habitudes of the man of genius distinct from those of the man of society. — Study, meditation, and enthusiasm, the progress of genius. — The dis- agreement between the men of the world and the literary character, 89 CHAPTER IX. Conversations of men of genius. — Their deficient agreeableness may result from qualities which conduce to their greatness. — Slow- minded men not the dullest. — The conversationists not the ablest writers. — Their true excellence in conversation consists of associa- tions \«-ith their pursuits 99 Contents. xi CHAPTER X. PACK Literal? solitude. — Its necessity. — Its pleasures. — Of visitors by pro- fession. — Its inconveniences 109 CHAPTER XI. The meditations of Genius. — A work on the Art of Meditation not yet produced. — Predisposing the mind. — Imagination awakens imagina- tion. — Generating feelings by music. — Slight habits. — Darkness and silence, by suspending the exercise of our senses, increase the vivacity of our conceptions. — The arts of memory. — Memory the foundation of genius. — Inventions by several to preserve their own moral and literary character. ^ — And to assist their studies. — The meditations of genius depend on habit. — Of the night-time. — A day of meditation should precede a day of composition. — Works of magnitude from slight conceptions. — Of thoughts never written. — The art of meditation exercised at all hours and places. — Con- tinuity of attention the source of philosophical discoveries. — Still- ness of meditation the first state of existence in genius .... llower, and the novel arts of the nations of Kurope, that they learned each other's languages ; and they discovered that, however their manners varied as they arose from their different customs, they participated in the same intellectual faculties, suffered from tlie same wants, and were alive to the same pleasures ; they perceived that there were no conventional fashions, nor national distinctions, in abstract truths and fundamental knowledge. A new spirit seems to bring them nearer to each other: and, as if literary Euroj)e were intent to form but one people out of the popu- lace of mankind, they ofl'er their reciprocal labours; they pledge to each other the same opinions ; and that knowledge which, like a small river, takes its source from one spot, at length mingles with the ocean-stream common to them all. Jiut those who stand connected with this literary com- munity are not always sensible of the kindred alliance ; even a genius of the first order has not always been aware that he is the founder of a society, and that there will ever be a brotherhood where there is a father-genius. These literary characters are partially, and with a melan- choly colouring, exhibited by Joiixsox. " To talk in private, to think in solitude, to inquire or to answer inquiries, is the business of a scholar. He wanders about the world without pomp or terror ; and is neither known nor valued but by men like himself." Thus thought this great writer dui'ing those sad probationary years of genius when Slow rises worth, by poverty depress 'd ; not yet conscious that he himself was devoting his days to cast the minds of his contemporaries and of tlie succeeding age in the mightv mould of his own ; Johnsox was of that order of men whose individual genius becomes that of a people. A prouder conception rose in the majestic mind of Ml 1-TON, of ''that lasting fame and perpetuity of praise which God and good men have consented shall be the reward of those whose plumsued laboubs advanced the good of mankind." The LITEKAUY CUAKACTEE is a denomination which, how. Similarity of Literary Men. 13 ever vafjue, flefines the pursuits of the individual, and sepa- rates him I'roni other professions, although it frequently occurs that he is himself a member of one. Professional characters are moditied by the change of manners, and are usually national ; while the literary chai'acter, from the objects in which it concerns itself, retains a more permanent, and necessarily a more independent nature. Formed by the same habits, and inHuenced by the same motives, notwithstanding the contrast of talents and tempers, and the remoteness of times and places, the literary character has ever preserved among its followers the most striking family resemblance. The passion for study, the delight in books, the desire of solitude and celebrity, the obstructions of human life, the character of their pursuits, the uniformity of their habits, the triumphs and the disappointments of literary glory, were as truly described by Cicero and the younger Pliny as by Petrarch and Erasmus, and as they have been by Hume and Gibbon. And this similarity, too, may equally be remarked with respect to that noble passion of the lovers of literature and of art for collecting: tofjether their mmgled treasures ; a thirst which was as insatiable in Atticus and Peibesc as in our Cracherode and Town- let.* We trace the feelings of our literary contemporaries in all ages, and among every people who have ranked with nations I'ar advanced in civilization ; for among these may be equally observed both the great artificers of knowledge and those who preserve unbroken the vast chain of human accjui- sitions. The one have stamped the images of their minds on their works, and the others have preserved the circulation of this intellectual coinage, this Gold of the dead, Wbich Time does still disperse, but not devour. * The Rev. C. M. Cracherode bequeathed at his death, in 1799, to the British Museum, the large cnUuction of literature, art, aud virtu he liad emjihiyed au industrious life in collecting. His books nuniliered nearly 4500 volumes, many of grt;at nixity and value. His drawings, many by early Ittiliau masters, and .all rare or curious, were deposited in the print- room of the same establishment; his anti(iuities, &c. were in a similar way added to the other departments. The " Townley Gallery" of classic sculi)ture wa.s purchased of his executors by Government for 28,200/. It had been collected with singular taste and judgment, as well as some amount of good fortune also ; Townley resided at Home during the researches on the site of Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli ; and lie had for aids aud advisers Sir WillLam Hamilton, Gavin Hamilton, and other active collectors; and was the friend and correspondent of D'Haucarville and Winckelmann. — E». 14 Literary Character. ClIAriER II. Of the Adversaries of Literary Men among themselves. — Matter-of-fact Men, and Men of Wit. — The Politioal Economist. — Of those who abandon their studies. — Men in othce. — The arbiters of public opinion. — Those who treat the pursuits of literature with levity. The pursuits of literature have been openly or insidiously lowered by those literary men who, from motives not always difficult to ])enetrate, are eager to confound the ranks in the republic of letters, maliciousl}' conferring the honours of authorship on that " Ten Thousand" whose recent list is not so much a muster-roll of heroes as a table of population.* Matter-of-fact men, or men of knowledge, and men of wit and taste, were long inimical to each other's pursuits. f The lioj'al Society in it.s origin could hardly support itself against the ludicrous attacks of literary men, J and the Antiquarian * We have a Dictionary of "Ten Thousand living Authors" of oar own nation. The alphabet is fatal by its juxtapositions. In France, before the Revolution, they counted about twenty thousand writers. When David would have his people numbered, Joab asked, "Why doth my lord delight in this?" In political economy, the population returns may be useful, provided they be correct ; but in the literary republic, its numerical force diminishes the strength of the empire. "There you are numbered, we had rather you were weighed." Put aside the puling infants of litera- ture, of whom such a mortality occurs in its nurseries ; such as the writers of the single sermon, the single law-tract, the single medical dissertation, &c. ; all writers whose subject is single, without being singular ; count for nothing the inefficient mob of mediocrists ; and strike out our literary charlatans; and then our alphabet of men of genius will not consist, as it now does, of the four-and-twenty letters. t The cause is developed in the chapter on "Want of Mutual Esteem." * See BuTLEK, in his "Elephant in the Moon." Socth, in his oration at the opening of the theatre at Oxford, passed this bitter sircasm on the naturalists, — "Mirantur nihil «m pulices, pcdiculos — f^ sc ipsos;" — nothing they admire but fleas, lice, and themselves ! The illustrious Sloane endured a long persecution from the bantering humour of Dr. Kiko. One of the most amusing declaimers against what he calls Us Sciences des faujc .S;(ir(/H« is Father AIalebranche; he is far more severe than Corne- lius Agrippa, and he long preceded Rocsskau, so famous for his invective against the sciences. The seventh chapter of his fourth book is an inimita- ble satire. "The principal excuse," says he, " which engages men in faUe studies, is, that they have attached the idea of harned where they shoold not." Astronomy, antiquarianisni, history, ancient poetry, and natural history, are all mowed down by his metaphysical scythe. When we become acquainted with the idea Father Malebrauche attaches to the term /earned, we understand liim — and we smile. Adversaries of Literature. 15 Society has afforded them amusement.* Such partial views have ceased to contract tlie understanding. Science yields a new substance to literature ; literature combines new asso- ciations for the votaries of knowledge. There is no subject in nature, and in the history of man, which will not associate witli our feelings and our curiosity, whenever genius extends its awakening hand. The antiquary, the naturalist, the architect, the chemist, and even writers on medical topics, have in our days asserted their claims, and discovered their long-interrupted relationship with the great family of genius and literature. A new race of jargonists, the barbarous metaphysicians of political economy, have struck at the essential existence of the productions of genius in literature and art ; for, appre- ciating them by their own standard, they have miserably de- graded the professors. Absorbed in the contemplation of material objects, and rejecting whatever does not enter into their own restricted notion of " utility," these cold arithme- tical seers, with nothing but millions in their imagination, and whose choicest works of art are spinning-jeiniies, have valued the intellectual tasks of the library and tlie studio by " the demand and the supply." They have sunk these pur- suits into the class of what they term " unproductive labour;" and by another result of their line and level system, men of letters, with some other important characters, are forced down into the class " of buffoons, singers, opera-dancers, &c." lii a system of political economy it has been discovered that " that tmprosperous race of men, called men of letters, must vecessarity occupy their present /br/o/vj state in society much as formerly, when a scholar and a beggar seem to have been terms very nearly synonymous. "f In their commercial, agricultural, and manufacturing view of human nature, addressing society by its most pressing wants and its coarsest feelings, tliese theorists limit the moral and jthysioal existence of man by speculative tables of population, planing and level- ling society down in their carpentry of human nature. They would yoke and luirness the loftier spirits to one common and vulgar destination. Man is considered only as he wheels on the wharf, or as lie s[)ins in the factory ; but man, as a recluse being of meditation, or impelled to action by more generous * See the chapter on "Pucli the Commentator," in tlie "Curiosities of Literature," vol. iii. ; also p. 304 of the same Vdlnme, t "Wealth of Nations," i. 182. 16 Literary Character. passions, has l)een stnick out of the system of our political economists. It is, however, only ainoni^ their " unproduc- tive lal)ourers" that we shall find those men of leisure, whose hal)itual pursuits arc consumed in the development of thought and the gradual accessions of knowledge ; those men of whom the sage of Judca declares, that "It is he who hath little business who sliall become wise : how can he get wisdom that holdeth the plough, and whose talk is of bullocks ? But THEY," — the men of leisure and study, — " will maintain THE STATE OF THE AvouLU !" The prosperity and the happi- ness of a people include something more evident and more permanent than " the Wealth of a Nation."* There is a more formidable class of men of genius who are heartless to the interests of literature. Like CoRXELirs AoRiPPA, who wrote on " the vanity of the arts and sciences," many of these are only tracing in the arts which they have abandoned their own inconstant tempers, their feeble tastes, and their disordered judgments. But, with others of this class, study has usually served as the instrument, not as the object, of their ascent ; it was the ladder which they once climbed, but it was not the eastern star which guided and in- spired. Such literary characters were WAfiBUurox,t Wat- • Since this murmur has been uttered against the degrading views of some of those theorists, it aflforded me pleasure to observe that Afr. Mal- thus has fully sanctioned its justness. On this head, at least, Jlr. Malthus has amply confuted his stubborn and tasteless brothers. Alluding to the productions of genius, this writer observes, that, "to estimate the value of Newton's discoveries, or the delight communicated by Shakspeark and Milton, by the price at which their works have sold, would be but a poor measure of the degree in which they have elevated and enchanted their country." — Principles of Pol. Econ. p. 48. And hence he acknow- ledges, that " .wme unproductive labour is of much more use and imjtor- tance than productive labour, but is incapable of being the subject of the gross calculations which relate to national wealth ; contributing to other sources of happiness besides those which are derived from matter." Po- litical economists would have smiled with contempt on the querulous PoRSON, who once observed, that "it seemed to him very hard, that with all his critical knowledge of Greek, he could not get a hundred pounds." They would have demonstrated to the learned Grecian, that this was just as it ought to be ; the same occurrence had even happenetl to Homer in his own country, where Greek ought to have fete of the domestic treasons of the lite- rary character against literature — " Et tu, Brute !" But the hero of literature outlives his assassins, and might address them in that language of poetry and affection with which a Mexican king reproached his traitorous counsellors : — " You were the feathers of my wings, and the eyelids of my eyes." CHAPTER III. Of artists, in the history of men of literary genius. — Their habits and pnr- suits analogous. — The nature of their genius is similar in their distinct works. — Shown by their parallel eras, and by a common end pursued by both. Aetists and literary men, alike insulated in their studies, pass through the same permanent discipline ; and thus it has happened that the same habits and feelings, and the same fortunes, have accompanied men who have sometimes un- happily imagined their pursuits not to be analogous. Let the artist share The palm ; he shares the peril, and dejected Faints o'er the labour unapproved — alas ! Despair and genius ! — The congenial histories of literature and art describe the same periodical revolutions and parallel eras. After the golden age of Latinity, we gradually slide into the silver, and at length precipitately descend into the iron. In the history of painting, after the splendid epoch of Raphael, Titian, and Correggio, we meet with pleasure the Carraccis, Domenichiuo, Guido, and Albano ; as we read Paterculus, • The claims of Pope to the title of a great poet were denied in the days of Byron ; and occasioned a warm and noble defence of him by that poet. It has since been found necessary to do the same for Byron, whom some transcendentalists have attacked. — Ed. Art and Literature. 21 Quintilian, Seneca, Juvenal, and Silius Italicus, after their immortal masters, Cicero, Livy, Vii'gil, and Horace. It is evident that Milton, Michael Axgelo, and Handel, belong to the same order of minds ; the same ima- ginative powers, and the same sensibility, are only operating with different materials. Lanzi, the delightful historian of the Storia Pittorica, is prodigal of his comparisons of the ]5ainters with the poets ; his delicacy of perception discerned the refined analogies which for ever unite the two sisters, and he fondly dwelt on the transjjlanted flowers of the two arts; " C'/hael and the anticjue.* The poet and the painter are only truly great by the mutual inlluences of their studies, and the jealousy of glory has only i)roduced an idle contest. This old family-quarrel for precedence was renewed by our estimable President, in his brilliant " llhymes on Art ;" where he maintains that " the narrative of an action is not comparable to the action itself before the eyes ;" while the enthusiast Barry considers painting " as poetry realised."t This error of genius, perhaps * Rubens wns an ardeut collector of works of antique art ; and in the "Curiosities uf Literature," vol. iii. p. 393, will be fouud an interesting account of his museum at Antwerp. — Ed. t The late Sir Martin Archer Shee, P. 11. A. This accomi)lished artist, who possessed a large amount of poetical and literary power, asks, "What is there of intellectual in the operations of the poet which the painter docs not ecjual ? What is there of iiuc/iuuical which he dues not sui-pass ? The advantage which poetry possesses over painting in continued narration 22 Liternri/ Character. first cauglit from TJicluirdsoirs hcwiMeriii^ pages, was strongtliciied by tlie extravagant princii)le adopted by Dar- ^viN, wlio, to exalt his solitary talent of deseriptive poetry, assorted that "the essence of jioetry was picture." The jdiilosophical critic will find no difficulty in assigning to each sister-art her distinct province ; and it is only a pleasing delirium, in the enthusiasm of artists, which has confused the boundaries of these arts. The dread pathetic story of Dante's " Ugolino," under the plastic hand of ^Michael Angelo, formed the subject of a basso-relievo ; and Reynolds, with liis highest effort, embodied the terrific conception of the poet as much as his art permitted : but assuredly both these great artists would never have claimed the precedence of the Dantesc genius, and might have hesitated at the rivalry. Who has not heard of that one common principle which unites the intellectual arts, and who has not felt that the nature of their genius is similar in their distinct works ? Hence curious inquiries could never decide whether the group of the Laocoon in sculpture preceded or was borrowed from that in poetry. Lessing conjectures that the sculptor copied the poet. It is evident that the agony of Laocoon was the common end where the sculptor and the poet were to meet ; and we may observe that the artists in marble and in verse skilfully adaj^ted their variations to their re- spective art: the one having to prefer the nude, rejected the veiling fillet from the forehead, that he might not con- ceal its deep expression, and the drapery of the sacrificial robe, that he might display the human fi)rm in visible agony ; but the other, by the charm of verse, could invest the priest with the pomp of the pontifical robe without hiding from us the interior sufferings of the human victim. We see they obtained by difierent means, adapted to their respective arts, that common end which each designed ; but who will decide which invention preceded the other, or who was the greater artist ? This approximation of men appai'ently of opposite pursuits is so natural, that wheu GESxjiK, in his inspiring letter on and successive impression, cannot be advanced as a peculiar merit of the poet, since it results from the nature of language, and is common to prose." Poetry he values as the earliest of arts, painting as the lattst and most refined. — Ed. Barry's Enthusiasm, 23 landscape-painting,* recommends to the young painter a constant stud}' of poetry and literature, the impatient artist is made to exclaim, " Must we combine with so many other studies those which belong to literary men ? Must we read as well as paint ?" " It is useless to reply to this question ; for some important truths must be instinctively felt, perhaps the fundamental ones in the arts." A truly imaginative artist, whose enthusiasm was never absent when he meditatinl on the art he loved, Bakry, thus vehemently broke forth : "Go home from the academy, light up your lamps, and exercise your- selves in the creative part of your art, with Homer, with Livy, and all the great characters, ancient and modei-n, for your companions and counsellors." This genial intercourse of literature witli art may be proved by painters who have suggested subjects to poets, and poets who have selected them for painters. Goldsmith suggested the subject of the tragic and pathetic picture of Ugolino to the pencil of liEYXOLDS. All the classes of men in society have their peculiar sor- rows and enjoyments, as they have their peculiar habits and characteristics. In the histor}^ of men of genius we may often open the secret story of their minds, for they have above others the privilege of communicating their own feelings ; and every life of a man of genius, composed by himself, presents us with the experimental philosophy of the mind. 13y living with their brothers, and contemplating their masters, they will judge from consciousness less erro- neously than from discussion ; and in forming comparative views and parallel situations, they will discover certain liabits and feelings, and lind these reflected in themselves. Sydenham has beautifully said, " Whoever describes a violet exactly as to its colour, taste, smell, form, and uther ])roperties, will find the description agree in most particulars with all the violets in the universe." * Few writers were so competent to instruct in art as Gesner, who ■was not only an autlmr and a poet, but an artist who decorated his poems by designs as graceful as their subject. — Ed. 2Jj Literary Character. CHAPTER IV. Of nnturnl genius. — Minrln constitutionally different cannot have an eqnal aiititudc. — Genius not the result of habit and education. — Originates in peculiiir tiualities of the mind. — The predisposition of genius. — A substi- tution for the white paper of Locke.* TllAT faculty in art which intlividualises the artist, belong- ing to him and to no other, and which in a work forms that creative part whose likeness is not found in any other work — is it inherent in the constitutional dispositions of the Creator, or can it be formed by patient acquisition ? Astonished at their own silent and obscure progress, some have imagined that they have formed their genius solely by their own studies ; when they generated, they conceived that they had acquired; and, losing the distinction between nature and habit, with fatal temerity the idolatry of philosophy substituted something visible and paljiable, yet shaped by the mpst opposite fancies, called a Theor}', for Nature herself! Men of genius, whose great occupation is to be conversant with the inspirations of Nature, made \ip a factitious one among themselves, and assumed that they could ojjerate with- out the intervention of the occult original. But Nature would not be mocked ; and whenever this race of idolaters have worked without her agency, she has afflicted them with the most stubborn sterility. Theories of genius are the peculiar constructions of ouTn own philosophical times ; ages of genius had passed away, and they left no other record than their works ; no precon- certed theory described the workings of the imagination to be without imagination, nor did they venture to teach how to invent invention. The chai-acter of genius, viewed as the effect of habit and education, on the principle of the equality of the human mind, infers that men have an equal aptitude for the work of * In the second edition of this work in 1818, I touched on some points of this inquiry in the second chapter : I almost despaired to find any phi- losopher sympathise with the subject, so invulnerable, they imagine, are the entrenchments of their theories. I was agreeably surprised to find these ideas taken up in the Edinburgh Review for August, 1S20, in an entertaining article on Reynolds. I have, no doubt, profited by the perusal, though this chapter was prepared before I met with that spirited viudioation of " an inherent difference in the organs or faculties to receive impressions of any kind." Natural Genius. 25 genius : a paradox which, with a more fatal one, came from the French school, and arose probahly from an equivocal expression. Locke emplo3'ed the well-known comparison of the mind with "white paper void of all characters," to free his famous " Inquiry " from that powerful obstacle to his system, the absurd belief of "innate ideas," of notions of objects before objects were presented to observation. Our philosopher con- sidered that this simple analogy sufficiently described the manner in which he conceived tlie impressions of the senses write themselves on the mind. His French pupils, the amusing Helvetius, or Diderot, for they were equally con- cerned in the paradoxical " L'Esprit," inferred that this blank paper served also as an evidence that men had an equul apti- tude for genius, just as the blank paper reflects to us what- ever characters we trace on it. This equaliti/ of minds gave rise to the same monstrous doctrine in the science of meta- physics which that of another verbal misconception, the equality of men, did in that of politics. Tlie Scottish meta- jjjiysieians powerfull}^ combined to illustrate the mechanism of the mind, — an important and a curious truth ; for as rules and principles exist in the nature of things, and when dis- covered are only thence drawn out, genius unconsciously con- ducts itself by a uniform process ; and when this process had been traced, they inferred that what was done by some men, under the influence of fundamental laws which regulate tlie march of the intellect, must also be in the reach of others, who, in the same circumstances, apply themselves to the samestudy. But these metaphysicians resemble anatomists, under whose knife all men are alike. They know the structure of the bones, the movement of the muscles, and where the connecting liga- ments lie ! but the invisible principle of life Hies from their touch. It is the practitioner on the living body who studies in every individual that peculiarity of constitution which forms the idiosyncrasy. Under the influence of such novel theories of genius, Johnson defined it as " A Mind of large general powers ACCIDENTALLY determined by some particular direction.''' On this principle we must infer that the reasoning Locke, or the arithmetical De Moivre, could have been the m\isical and fairy Spensee.* This conception of the nature of * It is more dangerous to define than to describe : a dry definition ex- cludes so muoli, an ardent description at once appeals to our s_vuipatlii*.'s. How much more comprehensible our great critic becomes when he nobly 26 L'Ucrari/ ('haracicr. genius became preval«'nt. It induced the philosophical Bec- CARIA to assert that every individual had an e<|ual deforce of genius for poetry and clocjuence ; it runs tiirough the philo- sophy of tiie el'c(ti.sposi(io)i in the mind are not more obscure and ambiguous than those which have been assigned as the sources of genius in certain individuals. For is it more difficult to conceive that a person bears in his constitutional disposition a germ of native aptitude which is developing itself to a predominant character of genius, which breaks forth in the temperament and moulds the habits, than to conjecture that these men of genius could not have been such but from accident, or that they differ only in their capacity f Every class of men of genius has distinct habits ; all poets resemble one another, as all painters and all mathematicians. There is a conformity in the cast of their minds, and the quality of each is distinct from the other, and the very faculty which fits them for one particular pursuit, is just the reverse required for another. If these are truisms, as they may appear, we need not demonstrate that from which we only wish to draw our conclusion. Why does this remarkable similarity prevail through the classes of genius ? Because each, in their favourite production, is working with the same appropriate organ. The poetical eye is early busied with imagery ; as early will the reveries of the poetical mind be busied with the passions ; as early will the painter's hand be copying forms and colours ; as early will the young musician's ear wander in the creation of sounds, and the philosopher's head mature its meditations. It is then the ai)titude of the appropriate organ, however it varies in its character, in which genius seems most concerned, and which is connatural and connate with the individual, and, as it was expressed in old days, is horn with him. There seems no other source of genius ; for whenever this has been refused by nature, as it is so olten, no theory of genius, neither habit nor education, have ever supjjlied its want. To discriminate between the habit and tha predisposi- tion is quite impossible ; because whenever great genius dis- covers itself, as it can only do b}' continuity, it has become a habit with the individual; it is the I'atal notion of habit having the jjower of generating genius, which has so long served to delude the numerous votaries of mediocrit}'. Natu- ral or native power is enlarged by art ; but the most perfect art has but narrow limits, deprived of natural disposition. 30 Literary Character. A curious decision on this obscure sul^jcct may be drawn from an udniiniblc ju(lt,'o of the nature ot<,'eniu8, Akensujk, in that fine poem which i'orms its liistory, tracing its source, sang, From Ileftven my .strains V«egin, from Heaven descenda The flame of genius to the human breast. But in the final revision of that poem, which he left many years after, the bard lias vindicated the solitar}' and inde- pendent origin of genius, by the mysterious epithet, THE CHOSEN BREAST. The veteran poet was, perhaps, schooled by the vicissitudes of his own poetical life, and those of some of his brothers. Metaphors are but imperfect illustrations in metaphysical inquiries : usually they include too little or take in too much. Yet f;\nciful analogies are not willingly abandoned. The iconologists describe Genius as a winged child with a flame above its head ; the wings and the flame express more than some metaphysical conclusions. Let me substitute for " the white paper" of Locke, which served the philosopher in his description of the operations of the sen.ses on the mind, a less artificial substance. Iii the soils of the earth we may dis- cover that variety of primary qualities which we believe to exist in human minds. The botanist and the geologist always find the nature of the strata indicative of its productions ; the meagre light herbage announces the poverty of the soil it covers, while the luxuriant growth of plants betrays the richness of the matrix in which the roots are fixed. It is scarcely reasoning by analogy to apply this operating princi- ple of nature to the faculties of men. But while the origin and nature of that faculty which we understand by the term Genius remain still wrapt up in its mysterious bud, ma}' we not trace its history in its votaries ? If Nature overshadow with her wings her first causes, still the ertects lie open before us, and experience and observation will often deduce from consciousness what we cannot from demonstration. If Nature, in some of her great operations, has kept back her last secrets ; if Newton, even in the result of his reasonings, has religiously abstained from penetrating into her occult connexions, is it nothing to be her historian, although we cannot be her legislator ? Youthful Studies. 31 CHAPTER V. Youth of genius. — Its first impulses may be illustrated hv its subsequent actions. — Parents have another association of the man of genius than we. — Of genius, its fii-st habits. — Its melancholy. — Its reveries. — Its love of solitude. — Its disposition to repose. — Of a youth distinguished by his equals. — Feebleness of its first attempts. — Of genius not discoverable even in manhood. — The education of the youth may not be that of his genius. — An unsettled impulse, querulous till it finds its true occupation. — With some, curiosity as intense a faculty as invention. — What the youth first applies to is commonly his delight afterwards. — Facts of the decisive character of genius. We are entering into a fairyland, touching only shadows, and chasing the most changeable lights ; many stories we sliall hear, and many scenes will open on us ; 3'et though realities are but dimly to be traced in this twilight of imagination and tra- dition, we think that the first impulses of genius may be often illustrated by the subsequent actions of the individual ; and whenever we find these in perfect harmony, it will be difficult to convince us tliat there does not exist a secret connexion between those first impidses and these last actions. Can we then trace in the faint lines of his youth an un- steady outline of the man ? In the temperament of genius may we not reasonably look for certain indications or predis- positions, announcing the permanent cliaracter ? Is not great sensibility born with its irritable fibres ? Will not the deep retired character cling to its musings ? And the unalterable being of intrepidity and fortitude, will he not, commanding even amidst his sports, lead on his equals ? The boyhood of Cato was marked by the sternness of the man, observable in his speech, his countenance, and his puerile amusements ; and Bacon, Descartes, Hobbks, Geay, and others, betrayed the same early appearance of their intellectual vigour and pre- cocity of character. The virtuous and contemplative Boyle imagined that he had discovered in childhood that disposition of mind which indicated an instinctive ingenuousness. An incident which he relates, evinced, as he thought, that even then he preferred to aoro-ravate his fault rather than consent to suppress anv ]iart of the truth, an effort which had been unnatural to his mind. His fanciful, yet striking illustration may open our incjuiry. " This trivial passage," the little story alluded to, " J have mentioned now, not that 1 think that in itself it deserves a 32 Literary Character. relation, but because as the sun is seen best at liis rising and his scttiufj, so men's native dispositions are clearliest per- ceived whilst tliey are chihh'en, and when they are dying. These Httle sudden actions are the greatest discoverers of men's true humours." Alfieui, tliat historian of the literary mind, was conscious that even in his childhood the peculiarity and the melancholy of his character prevailed : a boyhood passed in domestic solitude fed the interior feelings of his impassioned character; and in noticing some incidents of a childish nature, this man of genius observes, " Whoever will rellect on these inept cir- cumstances, and explore into the seeds of the passions of man, possibly may iind these neither so laughable nor so puerile as they may appear." His native genius, or by whatever other term we may describe it, betrayed the wayward predisposi- tions of some of his poetical brothers : " Tacitura and placid for the most part, but at times loquacious and most vivacious, and usually in the most opposite extremes ; stubborn and im- patient against force, but most open to kindness, more restrained by the dread of reprimand than by anything else, susceptible of shame to excess, but inflexible if violently opposed." Such is the portrait of a child of seven years old, a portrait which induced the great tragic bard to deduce this result from his own self-experience, that " man is a continua- tion of the chihiy* That the dispositions of genius in early life presage its future character, was long the feeling of antiquity. Cicebo, in his " Dialogue on Old Age," employs a beautiful analogy drawn from Nature,marking her secret conformity in all things which have life and come from her hands ; and the human mind is one of her plants. " Youth is the vernal season of life, and the blossoms it then puts forth are indications of those future fruits which are to be gathered in the succeeding periods." One of the masters of the human mind, after much jnxnious observation of those who attended his lectures, would advise one to engage in political studies, then exhorted another to compose history, elected these to be poets, and those to be orators; for Isocmates believed that Xatui'e had some con- cern in forming a man of genius, and endeavoured to guess at her secret by detecting the fii-st energetic inclination of the * See in his Life, chap, iv., entitle\x\i\\ of Hudson, our country was at length to pride herself on another liaphael ?* Even the manhood of genius may pass unobserved b}'' his companions, and, like J^neas, he may be hidden in a cloud amidst his associates. The celebrated Fahius Maximus in his boyhood was called in derision " the little sheep," from the meekness and gravity of his disposition. His sedatcniess and taciturnity, his indifference to juvenile amusements, his slowness and difficulty in learning, and his ready submission to his equals, induced them to consider him as one irrecover- abh'^ stupid. The greatness of mind, unalterable courage, and invincible character, which Fabius afterwards displayed, they then imagined had lain concealed under the ap[)arent contrary qualities. The boy of genius may indeed seem slow and dull even to the phlegmatic ; for thoughtful and observ- ing dispositions conceal themselves in timorous silent cha- racters, who have not yet experienced their strength ; and that assiduous love, which cannot tear itself away from the secret instruction it is perpetually iml)ibing, cannot be easily distinguislied from the pertinacity of the mere plodder. We often hear, from the early com{)anions of a man of genius, that at school he appeared heavy and unpromising, llousseau imagined that the childliood of some men is accompanied by this seeming and deceitful dulness, which is the sign of a profound genius; and Roger Ascham has placed among "the best natures for learning, the sad-natured and hard-witted child;" that is.thethoughtful.or themelancholic, and the slow. The 3'oung painters, to ridicule the persevering labours of l)oME>'iciii>'0, which were at first heavy and unpromising, called him "the great ox;" and Passeri, while he has happily expressed the still labours of his concealed genius, sua taci- iurna lentezza, his silent slowness, expresses his surprise at the accounts he received of the early life of this great artist. * Hudson was the fashionable portrait-painter who succeeded Kneller, and made a great reputation and fortune ; but he was a very mean artist, who uierely co|(ied the peculiarities of Ills predecessor without his gtiiius. His stilf hard style was formality itself ; Init was approved in an age of formalism; the earlier half of the last century. — Eu. 44 Literary Character. "It is (liHinilt to believe, wliat many assert, that, from the beein'8 Sl.OANE exi)resses himself in this manner :^ — "Our author's thirst for knowledge seems to have been horn with him, so that his Cahinet of Barities may be said to have commenced with his being." This strange metaj)horical style has only confused an obscure truth. Sloa>'e, early in life, felt an irresistible impulse which inspired him with the most en- larged views of the productions of nature, and he exulted in their accomplishment ; for in his will he has solemnly re- corded, that his collections were the fruits of his early devo- tion, having had from my youth a strong inclination to the study of plants and all other productions of nature. The vehement passion of Peiresc for knowledge, according to accounts which Gassendi received from old men who had known him as a child, broke out as soon as he had been taught his alphabet ; for then his delight was to be handhng books and papers, and his perpetual inquiries after their con- tents obliged them to invent something to quiet the child's insatiable curiosity, who was hurt when told that he had not the capacity to understand them. He did not study as an ordinary scholar, for he never read but with pei-petual re- searches. At ten years of age, his passion for the studies of antiquity was kindled at the sight of some ancient coins dug up in his neighbourhood ; then that vehement passion for knowledge "began to burn like fire in a forest," as Gassendi happily describes the fervour and amplitude of the mind of this man of vast learning. Bayle, who was an experienced judge in the history of genius, observes on two friars, one of whom was haunted by a strong disposition to genealogical, and the other to geographical pursuits, that, " let a man do what he will, if nature incline us to certain things, there is no preventing the gratification of our desire, though it lies Lid under a monk's frock." It is not, therefore, as the world Youthful Studies. 49 is apt to imagine, only poets and painters for whom is reserved this restless and impetuous propensity for their particular pursuits ; I claim it for the man of science as well as for the man of imagination. And I confess that I consider this strong bent of the mind in men eminent in pursuits in which imagination is little concerned, and whom men of genius have chosen to remove so far from their class, as another gifted aptitude. They, too, share in the glorious fever of genius, and we feel how just was the expression formerly used, of " their thirst for knowledge." But to return to the men of genius who answer more strictly to the popular notion of inventors. We have Boc- caccio's own words for a proof of his early natural tendency to tale-writing, in a passage of his genealogy of the gods : — " Before seven years of age, when as yet I had met with no stories, was vvitliout a master, and hardly knew my letters, I had a natural talent for fiction, and produced some little tales." Thus the " Uecamerone" was appearing much earlier than we suppose. Descartes, while yet a boy, indulged such habits of deep meditation, that he was nicknamed by his com- panions " The Philosopher," always questioning, and ever settling the cause and the effect. He was twenty-five years of age before he left the army, but the jjropensity for medita- tion had been early formed ; and he has himself given an account of the pursuits which occupied his youth, and of the progress of his genius ; of the secret struggle wliich he so long maintained with his own mind, wandering in conceal- ment over the world for more than twenty years, and, as he says of himself, like the statuary labouring to draw out a Minerva from the marble block. Michael Anoelo, as yet a child, wherever he went, busied himself in drawing ; and when his noble parents, hurt that a man of genius was dis- turbing the line of their ancestry, forced him to relinquish the pencil, the infant artist flew to the chisel : the art which was in his soul would not allow of idle hands. Lope db Vega, Velasquez, Ariosto, and Tasso, are all said to have betrayed at their school-tasks the most marked indications of their suljsequent characteristics. This decision of the impulse of genius is apparent in Mu- RILLO. This young artist was undistinguislied at the jilace of his birth. A brother artist returning home from London, where he bad studied under Van J)yk, surprised Muhii,lo by a chaste, and to him hitherto unknown, manner. Instantly £ 50 Literary Character. he conceived the project of quitting his native Seville and Hying to Italy — the lever of genius broke forth with all its restlessness. But he was destitute of the most ordinary means to pursue a journey, and forced to an expedient, he purchased a j)iece of canvas, which dividing into parts, he painted on each figures of saints, landscapes, and flowers — an humhle merchandise of art adapted to the taste and devout feelings of tlie times, and whicli were readily sold to the adventurers to the Indies. With these small means he de- parted, having communicated his project to no one except to a beloved sister, whose tears could not prevail to keep the lad at home; the impetuous impulse had blinded him to the perils and the impracticability of his wild project. He reached Madrid, where the great Velasqui z, his country- man, was struck by the ingenuous simplicity of the youth, who urgently requested letters for Kome ; but when that noble genius understood the purport of this romantic journey, Velasquez assured him that he need not proceed to Italy to learn the art he loved. The great master opened the royal galleries to the youth, and cherished his studies. MuuiLLO returned to his native city, where, from his obscurity, he had never been missed, having ever lived a retired life of silent labour ; but tliis painter of nature returned to make the city which had not noticed his absence the theatre of his glory. The same imperious impulse drove Callot, at the age of twelve years, from his father's roof. His parents, from pre- judices of birth, had conceived that the art of engraving was one beneath the studies of their son ; but the boy had listened to stories of the miracles of Italian art, and with a curiosity predominant over any self-consideration, one morning the genius flew away. Many days had not elapsed, wheii finding himself in the utmost distress, with a gang of gipsies he arrived at Florence. A merchant of Nancy discovered him, and returned the reluctant boy of genius to his home. Again he flies to Italy, and again his brother discovers him, and reconducts him to his parents. The father, whose patience and forgiveness were now exhausted, permitted his son to become the most original genius of French art — one who, in his vivacious groups, the touch of his graver, and the natural expression of his figures, anticipated the creations of Hogarth. Facts of this decisive character are abundant. See the boy Najs'TEUIl hiding himself in a tree to pursue the delightful Youthful Studies. 51 exercise of his pencil, while his parents are averse to their son practising his young art ! See Handel, intended for a doctor of the civil laws, and whom no parental discouragement could deprive of his enthusiasm, for ever touching harpsichords, and having secretly conveyed a musical instrument to a retired, apartment, listen to him when, sitting through the night, he awakens his harmonious spirit ! Observe Ferguson, the child of a peasant, acquiring the art of reading without any one suspecting it, by listening to his father teaching his brother; observe him making a wooden watch without the slightest knowledge of mechanism ; and while a shepherd, studying, like an ancient Clialdean, the phenomena of the heavens, on a celestial globe formed by his own hand. That great mechanic, Sme.vton, when a child, disdained the ordinary playthings of his age ; he collected the tools of workmen, observed them at their work, and asked questions till he could work himself. One day, having watched some millwrights, the child was shortly alter, to the distress of the family, dis- covered in a situation of extreme danger, fixing up at the top of a barn a rude windmill. Many circumstances of this nature occurred before his sixth year. His father, an attor- ney, sent him up to London to be brought up to the same profession ; but he declared that " the study of the law did not suit the bent of /lis genius''' — a term he frequently used. He addressed a strong memorial to his father, to show his utter incompetency to study law ; and the good sense of the father abandoned Smeaton " to the bent of his genius in his own way." Such is the history of the man who raised the Eddy stone Lighthouse, in the midst of the waves, like the rock on which it stands. Can we hesitate to believe that in such minds there was a resistless and mysterious propensity, " growing with the growth " of these youths, who seem to have been placed out of the influence of that casual excitement, or any other of those sources of genius, so frequently assigned for its pro- duction ? Yet these cases are not more striking than one related of the Abbe La Caille, who ranked among the first astrono- mers of the age. La Caille was the son of the parish ckrk of a village. At the age of ten years his father sent him every evening to ring the church bell, but tlie boy always returned home late: his futhcr was angry, and beat him, and still the boy retained an hour after he had rung the bell. The father, £ 2 52 Literary Character. suspecting something mysterious in his conduct, one evening watclied him. lie saw his son ascend the steeple, ring tlie bell as usual, and remain there during an hour. When the unlucky boy descended, lie trembled like one caught in the fact, and on his knees confessed that the pleasure he took in watching the stars from the steeple was the real cause which detained him from home. As the father was not born to be an astronomer, he Hogged his son severely. The youth was found weeping in the streets by a man of science, who, when he discovered in a boy of ten years of age a passion for con- templating the stars at night, and one, too, who had discovered an observatory in a steeple, decided that the seal of Nature had impressed itself on the genius of that boy. Kelieving the parent from the son, and the son from the parent, he assisted the young La Caille in his passionate pursuit, and the event completely justified the prediction. How children feel a predisposition for the studies of astronomy, or mechanics, or architecture, or natural history, is that secret in nature we have not guessed. There may be a virgin thought as well as a virgin habit — nature before education — which first opens the mind, and ever afterwards is shaping its tender folds. Accidents may occur to call it forth, but thousands of youths have found themselves in pai-allel situations with Smeatox, Ferouson, and La Caille, without experiencing their energies. The case of Claieok, the great French tragic actress, who seems to have been an actress before she saw a theatre, de- serves attention. This female, destined to be a sublime tragedian, was of the lowest extraction ; the daughter of a violent and illiterate woman, who, with blows and menaces, was driving about the child all day to manual labour. " I know not," says Clairon, "whence I derive my disgust, but I could not bear the idea to be a mere workwoman, or to remain inactive in a corner." In her eleventh year, being locked up in a room as a punishment, with the windows fastened, she climbed upon a chair to look about her. A new object instantly absorbed her attention. In the house oppo- site she observed a celebrated actress amidst her family ; her daughter was performing her dancing lesson : the girl Clairon, the future Melpomene, was struck by the intiuence of this graceful and atiectionate scene. "All my little being col- lected itself into my eyes ; I lost not a single motion ; as soon as the lesson ended, all the family applauded, and the mother Youthful Siudies. 53 embraced the daughter. The difference of her fate and mine filled me with profound grief; my tears hindered me from seeing any longer, and when the ])alpitations of my heart allowed me to re-ascend the chair, all had disappeared." This scene was a discovery ; from that moment Clairon knew no rest, and rejoiced when she could get her mother to confine lier in that room. The happy girl was a divinity to the un- happy one, whose susceptible genius imitated her in every gesture and every motion ; and Clairon soon showed the effect of her ardent studies. She betrayed in the common inter- course of life, all the graces she had taught herself; she charmed her friends, and even softened her barbarous mother ; in a word, the enthusiastic girl was an actress without know- ing what an actress was. In this case of the youth of genius, are we to conclude that the accidental view of a young actress practising her studies imparted the character of Clairon ? Could a mei'e chance occurrence have given birth to those facvdties which produced a sublime tragedian ? In all arts there are talents which may be acquired by imitation and reflection, — and thus far may genius be educated ; but there are others which are entirely tlie result of native sensibility, which often secretly torment the possessor, and which may even be lost fi'oni the want of development, dissolved into a state of languor from which many have not recovered. Clairon, before she saw the young actress, and having yet no conception of a theatre — for she had never entered one — had in her soul that latent faculty which creates a dramatic genius. " Had I not felt like Dido," she once exclaimed, " I could not have thus personified her !" The force of impressions received in tiie warm susceptibility of the childhood of genius, is probably little known to us ; but we may perceive them also working in the moral charac- ter, which frequently discovers itself in childhood, and which manhood canncjt always conceal, however it may alter. The intellectual and the moral character are unquestionably closely allied. Erasmus acquaints us, that Sir Thomas Mouk had something ludicrous in his aspect, tending to a smile, — a fea- ture which his portraits preserve ; and that he was more inclined to pleasantry and jesting, than to the gravity of the chancellor. This circumstance he imputes to Sir Thomas More " being from a child so delighted with humour, that he seemed to be even born for it." And we know that ho died as he had lived, with a jest on his lips. The hero, who 64 Literary Character. came at lenc^th to rpcfrot that he had but one world to con- quer, betrayed the majest}' of his restless genius when but a youth. Had Aristotle been nigh when, solicited to join in the course, the j)rincely boy replied, that " He would run in no career where kings were not the competitors," the pre- scient tutor might have recognised in his pupil the future and successful rival of Darius and Porus. A narrative of the earliest years of Prince Henry, by one of his attendants, forms an authentic collection of juvenile anecdotes, which made me feel very forcibly that there are some children who deserve to have a biographer at their side ; but anecdotes of children are the rarest of biographies, and I deemed it a singular piece of good fortune to have recovered such a remarkable evidence of the precocity of character.* Professor Dugald Stewart has noticed a fact in Arnauld's infanc}^ which, considered in connexion with his subsequent life, affords a good illustration of the force of impressions re- ceived in the first dawn of reason. Arxauld, who, to his eightieth year, passed through a life of theological controversy, when a child, amusing himself in the library' of the Cardinal Du Perron, requested to have a pen given to him. " For what purpose ?" inquired the cardinal. " To write hooks, like you, against the Huguenots." The cardinal, then aged and infirm, could not conceal his joy at the ])rospect of so hopeful a suc- cessor; and placing the pen in his hand, said, " I give it you as the dying shepherd, Damoetas, bequeathed his pipe to the little Corydon." Other children might have asked for a pen — but to write against the Huguenots evinced a deeper feeling and a wider association of ideas, indicating the future i)olemic. Some of these facts, we conceive, afford decisive evidence of that instinct in genius, that primary qualit}' of mind, some- times called organization, which has inflamed a war of words by an equivocal term. We repeat that this faculty of genius can exist independent of education, and where it is wanting education can never confer it : it is an impulse, an instinc'v always working in the character of "the chosen mind ;" One with our feelings and our powers, And rather part of us, than ours. In the history of genius there are unquestionably many • I have preserved this manuscript narrative in ' ' Curiosities of Lite- rature," vol. ii. Youthful Studies. 55 secondary causes of considerable influence in developing, or even crushing the germ — these have been of late often de- tected, and sometimes carried to a ridiculous extreme ; but among them none seem more remarkable than the first studies and the first habits. CHAPTER VI. The first studies. — The self-educated are marked by stubborn peculiarities. — Their errors. — Their improvement from the neglect or contempt they incur. — The history of self-education in Moses Mendelssohn. — Friends usually prejudicial in the youth of genius. — A remarkable interview be- tween Petrarch in his first studies, aud his literary adviser. — Exhorta- tion. The first studies form an epoch in the history of genius, and unquestionably have sensibly influenced its productions. Often have the first impressions stamped a character on the mind adapted to receive one, as the first step into life has often determined its walk. But this, for ourselves, is a far distant period in our existence, which is lost in the horizon of our own recollections, and is usually unobserved by others. Man}' of those peculiarities of men of genius which are not fortunate, and some which have hardened the character in its mould, may, however, be traced to this period. Physicians tell us that there is a certain point in youth at which the constitution is formed, and on which the sanity of life revolves ; the character of genius experiences a similar dangerous period. Early bad tastes, early peculiar habits, early defective instruc- tions, all the egotistical pride of an untamed intellect, are those evil spirits which will dog genius to its grave. An early attachment to the works of Sir Thomas lirowne pro- duced in Johnson an excessive admiration of that Latinised English, which violated the native graces of the language ; and the peculiar style of Gibbon is traced by himself "to the constant habit of speaking one language, and writing another." The first studies of Rkmiju.vndt artected his alter-labours. The peculiarity of shadow which marks all his pictures, originated in the circumstance of his father's mill receiving light from an aperture at the top, which habituated the artist afterwards to view all objects as if seen in that magical light. The intellectual PoussiN, as Nicholas has been called, could never, from an early devotion to the fine statues of antiquity, 56 Literary Character. extricate his f^ciiius on tlio canvas from the hard forms of marble : he sculptured with his j>encil ; and that cold austerity of tone, still more remarkahle in his last pictures, as it became mannered, chills the spectator on a lirst f^lance. When Pope was a child, he found in his mother's closet a small library of mystical devotion ; but it was not suspected, till the fact was discovered, that the etiusions of love and reli*^ion poured forth in his " Eloisa " were caught from the sera]>hic raptures of those erotic mystics, who to the last retained a place in his library among the classical bards of antiquity. The acci- dental perusal of Quintus Curtius first made JioTLE, to use his own words, " in love with other than pedantic books, and conjured up in him an unsatisfied appetite of knowledge; so that he thought he owed more to Quintus Curtius than did Alexander." From the perusal of Itycaut's folio of Turkish history in childhood, the noble and impassioned bard of our times retained those indelible impressions which gave life and motion to the " Giaour," " the Corsair," and " Alp." A voyage to the country produced the scenery. Rycaut only communicated the impulse to a mind susceptible of the poeti- cal character ; and without this Turkish history we should still have had the poet.* The influence of first studies in the formation of the * The following manuscript note by Lord Byron on this pa.ssage, cannot fail to interest the lovers of poetry, as well as the inquirers into the his- tory of the human mind. His lordship's recollections of his first readings •will not alter the tendency of my conjecture ; it only proves that he had read much more of Eastern history and manners than Rycaut's folio, which probably led to this class of books : " Knolles — Cantemir — De Tott — Lady M. W. Montagu — Hawkins's translation from Mignot's History of the Turks — the Arabian Nights — all travels or histories or books upon the East I could meet with, I had read, as well as Rycaut, before I w;is ten years old. I think the Arabian Nights first. After these I prefen-ed the history of naval actions, Don Quixote, and Smollett's novels, particularly Roderick Random, and I was passionate for the Roman History. ' ' When a boy I could never bear to read any poetry whatever without disgust and reluctiince." — MS. note by Lord Byron. Latterly Lord Byron acknowledged in a convei-sation held in Greece with Count Gamba, not long before he died, " The Turkish History was one of the first books that gave me pleasure when a child ; and I believe it had much intluence on my subsequent wishes to visit the Levant ; and gave perhaps the Oriental colouring which is observed in my poetry." I omitted the following not€ in ray last edition, but I shall now preserve it, as it may enter into the history of his lordship's character : "When I was in Turkey I wasoftener t-empted to turn Mussulman than poet, and havs often regretted since that I did not. 1818." Youthful Studies. 57 character of genius is a moral phenomenon which has not sufficiently attracted our notice. Franklin acquaints us that, when young and wanting books, he accidentally found ])e Foe's "Essay on Projects," from which work impressions were derived which afterwards influenced some of the princi- pal events of his life. The lectures of Keynolds probably originated in the essays of Richardson. It is acknowledged that these first made him a ]xunter, and not long afterwards an author ; and it is said tliat many of the principles in his lectures may be traced in those first studies. Many were the indelible and glowing impressions caught by the ardent Rey- nolds from those bewildering pages of enthusiasm ! Sir Walter Kaavleigu, according to a family tradition, when a young man, was perpetually reading and conversing on the discoveries of Columbus, and the conquests of Cortez and Pizarro. His chai-acter, as well as the great events of his life, seem to have been inspired by his favourite histories ; to pass beyond the discoveries of the Spaniards became a pas- sion, and the vision of his life. It is formally testified that, from a copy of Yegctius de Re Militari, in the school library of St. Paul's, MARLiiOROUGH imbibed his passion for a mili- tary life. If he could not understand the text, the prints were, in such a mind, sufficient to awaken the passion for military glory. Eousseau in early youth, full of his Plu- tarch, while he was also devouring the trash of romances, could only conceive human nature in the colossal forms, or be affected by the infirm sensibility of an imagination mastering sill his faculties ; thinking like a Roman, and feeling like a Sybarite. The same circumstance liappened to Catherine Macaulev, who herself has told us liow she owed the bent of her character to the early reading of the Roman historians ; but combining Roman admiration with English faction, site violated truth in English characters, and exaggerated romajice in her Roman. Rut the permanent efiect of a solitary bias in the youth of genius, impelling the wliole current of his after-life, is strikingly displayed in the remarkable character of Archdeacon Rlackbuune, the author of the famous " Confessional," and the curious "Memoii's of Hollis," written with such a republican fierceness. I had long considered the character of our archdeacon as a lusus poliiicus et tlicologicus. Having subscribed to the Articles, and enjoying the archdeaconry, he was writing against subscription and the whole hierarcliy, with a spirit so 58 Literary Character. irascible and oanstic, that one would have suspected that, like Prynne and liastwick, the archdeacon had already lost both his ears; while his anti])athy to monarchy might have done honour to a Soundhead of the Kota Club. The secret of these volcanic explosions was oidy revealed in a letter acci- dentally jireserved. In the youth of our spirited archdeacon, when fox-huntinf^ was his deepest study, it hapi»ened at the house of a relation, that on a rainy day he fell, among other garret lumber, on some worm-eaten volumes which had once been the careful collections of his great-grandl'ather, an Oliverian justice. "These," says he, "I conveyed to my lodging-room, and there became acquainted with the manners and principles of many excellent old Puritans, and then laid the foundation of my own." The enigma is now solved! Archdeacon BLACKBrn>-E, in his seclusion in Yorkshire amidst the Oliverian justice's library, shows that we are in want of a Cervantes but not of a Quixote, and Yorkshire might yet be as renowned a country as La Mancha ; for political romances, it is presumed, may be as fertile of ridi- cule as any of the folios of chivalry. We may thus mark the influence through life of those first unobserved impressions on the character of genius, which every author has not recorded. Education, however indispensable in a cultivated age, pro- duces nothing on the ^ide of genius. AVhere education ends, genius often begins. Gray was asked if he recollected when, he first felt the strong predilection to poetry ; he replied that, " he believed it was when he began to read Virgil for his own amusement, and not in school hours as a task." Such is the force of self-education in genius, that the celebrated .])hysiolo- gist, John Huktek, who was entirely self-educated, evinced such penetration in his anatomical discoveries, that he has brought into notice passages from writers he was unable to read, and which had been overlooked by profound scholars.* That the education of genius must be its own work, we may appeal to ever3' one of the famih'. It is not always for- * Life of John Hunter, by Dr. Adams, p. 59, where the case is curiously illustrated. [The writer therein defends Hunter from a charge of plagiarism from the Greek writere, who had studied accurately certain phase^s of disease, which ha 1 afterwards been "overlooked by the ran.st profound scholars for nearly two thousand years," until John Hunter by his own close observation had assumed similar conclusions.] Self-Education. 59 tunate, for many die amidst a waste of talents and the wreck of mind. Many a soul sublime Has felt the influeuce of maliguant star. An unfavourable position in society is a usual obstruction in the course of this self-education ; and a man of genius, through half his life, has held a contest with a bad, or with no education. There is a race of the late-taught, who, with a capacity of leading in the first rank, are mortified to discover themselves oidy on a level with their contemporaries. WiNC- KELMANN, who passed his youth in obscure misery as a village schoolmaster, paints feelings which strikingly contrast with his avocations. " I formerly filled the office of a school- master with the greatest punctuality ; and I taught the A, B, C, to children with filthy heads, at the moment I was aspiring after the knowledge of the beautiful, and meditating, low to myself, on the similes of Homer ; then I said to my- self, as I still say, ' Peace, my soul, thy strength shall sur- mount thy cares.' " The obstructions of so unhappy a self- education essentially injured his ardent genius, and long he secretly sorrowed at tliis want of early patronage, and these habits of life so discordant with the habits of his mind. " I am unfortunately one of those whom the Greeks named oyjritiadels, sero sapientes, the late-learned, for I have appeared too late in the world and in Italy. 'J'o have done something, it was necessary that I should have had an education analo- gous to my pursuits, and at your age." This class of tlie late-learned is a useful distinction. It is so with a sister-art ; pne of the greatest musicians of our country assures me that the ear is as latent with many ; there are the late-learned even in the musical world. Bud.kus declared that he was both "self-taught and late-taught." The SELF-EUUCATKD are marked by stubborn peculiarities. Often abounding with talent, but rarely with talent in its place, their native prodigality has to dread a plethora of genius and a delirium of wit : or else, hard but irregular stu- dents rich in acquisition, they find how their huddled know- ledge, like corn lieaped in a granary, for want of ventilation and stirring, perishes in its own masses. Not having attended to the process of their own minds, and little acquainted witli that of other men, they cannot throw out their intractable knowledge, nor with sympathy awaken by its softening 60 Lilcrunj Charucter. touches tlic tliouf,'lits of otliors. To conduct their native impulse, which liad all aloug driven them, is a secret not always discovered, or else discovered late in life. Hence it lias happened with some of this race, that their first work has not announced t^enius, and their last is stamped with it. Some are often judged hy their first work, and when they have surpassed themselves, it is long ere it is acknowledged. They have improved themselves by the very neglect or even contempt which their unfortunate efforts were doomed to meet ; and when once they have learned what is beautiful, they discover a living but unsuspected source in their own wild but unregarded originality. Glorying in their strength at the time that they are betraying their weakness, yet are they still mighty in that enthusiasm which is only disciplined by its own fierce habits. Never can the native faculty of genius with its creative warmth be crushed out of the human soul ; it will work itself out beneath the encumbrance of the most un- cultivated minds, even amidst the deep perplexed feelings and the tumultuous thoughts of the most visionary enthusiast, who is often only a man of genius misplaced.* We may find, a whole race of these self-taught among the unknown writers of the old romances, and the ancient ballads of European nations ; there sleep many a Homer and Virgil — legitimate heirs of their genius, though possessors of decayed estates. BuNYAN is the Spenser of the people. The fire burned towards Heaven, although the altar was rude and rustic. Barky, the painter, has left behind him works not to be turned over by the connoisseur by rote, nor the artist who dares not be just. That enthusiast, with a temper of mind resembling Rousseau's, but with coarser feeUngs, was the same creature of untamed imagination consumed by the same passions, with the same fine intellect disordered, and the same fortitude of soul ; but he found his self-taught pen, like his pencil, betray his genius.f A vehement enthusiasm * "One assertion I will venture to m.ake, as suggested by my own ex- perience, that there exist folios on the human understanding and the nature of man which would have a far juster claim to their high rank and celebrity, if in the whole huge volume there could be found as much ful- ness of heart and intellect as burst forth in many a simple page of George Fox and Jacob Behmen." — Mr. Cohrhh/es Bioijruphia Littcraria, i. 143. + Like Hogarth, when he attempted to engrave his own works, his ori- ginality of style made them dift'er from the tamer and more mechanical labours of tiie professional engraver. They have consequently less beauty, but greater vigour. — Ed. Self-Education. 61 breaks through his ill-composed works, throwing the sparks of his bold conceptions into the soul of the youth of genius. When, in his character of professor, he delivered his lectures at the academy, at every pause his auditors rose in a tumult, and at every close their hands returned to him the proud feelings he adored. This gifted but self-educated man, once listening to the children of genius whom he had created about him, exclaimed, " Go it, go it, my boys ! they did so at Athens." This self-formed genius could throw up his native mud into the very heaven of his invention ! But even such pages as those of Barry's are the aliment of young genius. Before we can discern the beautiful, must we not be endowed with the susceptibility of love ? Must not the disposition be formed before even the object appears ? I have witnessed the young artist of genius glow and start over the reveries of the uneducated Barry, but pause and meditate, and inquire over the mature elegance of Reynolds ; in the one he caught the passion for beauty, and in the other he discovered the beautiful ; with the one he was warm and restless, and with the other calm and satisfied. Of the difficulties overcome in the self-education of genius, we have a remarkable instance in the character of Moses Mendelssohn, on whom literary Germany has bestowed the honourable title of "the Jewish Socrates."* So great appa- rently were the invincible obstructions which barred out Mendelssohn from the world of literature and philo- sophy, that, in the history of men of genius, it is something like taking in the history of man the savage of Ave3'ron from his woods — who, destitute of a human language, should at length create a model of eloquence ; who, without the faculty of conceiving a figure, should at length be capable of adding to the demonstrations of Euclid ; and who, without a com- plex idea and with few sensations, should at length, iu the sublimest strain of metaphysics, open to the world a new view of the immortality of the soul ! Mendelssohn, the son of a poor rabbin, in a village in * I composed the life of Mendelssohn so far back as in 1798, in a periodical publication, whence our late biographers have drawn their no- tices ; a juvenile production, which happened to excite the attention of the late Bakrv, then not personally known to nie ; and he gave all the im- mortality his poetical pencil could bestow on this niau of genius, by im- mediately placing in his Elysium of Genius Mendklssohn shaking hands with Addison, who wrote on the truth of the Christian religion, and near Locke, the English master of Mendelssohn's mind. G2 Literary Character. Germany, received an education coni[>letely rabbinical, and its nature must be comprehended, or the term of education would be misunderstood. The Israelites in Poland and Germany live with all the restrictions of their ceremonial law in an insulated state, and are not always instructed in the language of the country of tlieir birth. They employ for their common intercourse a barbarous or patois Hebrew ; while the sole studies of the young rabbins are strictly con- fined to the Talmud, of which the fundamental principle, like the Sonna of the Turks, is a pious rejection of every species of profane learning. This ancient jealous spirit, which walls in the under^tanding and the faith of man, was to shut out what the imitative Catholics afterwards called heresy. It is, then, these numerous folios of the Talmud which the true Hebraic student contemplates through all the seasons of life, as the Patuecos in their low valley imagine their surrounding mountains to be the confines of the universe. Of such a nature was the plan of Mendelssohn's first studies ; but even in his boyhood this conHict of study occa- sioned an agitation of his spirits, which alfected his life ever after. Eejecting the Talmudical dreamers, he caught a nobler spirit from the celebrated Maimonides ; and his native sagacity was already clearing up the surrounding darkness. An enemy not less hostile to the enlargement of mind than voluminoQs legends, presented itself in the indigence of his lather, who was compelled to send away the youth on foot to Berlin, to find lal)our and bread. At Berlin, jNIendelssohn becomes an amanuensis to an- other poor rabbin, who could only still initiate him into the theology, the jurisprudence, and the scholastic philosophy of his people. Thus, he was as yet no farther advanced in that philosophy of the mind in which he was one day to be the rival of Plato and Locke, nor in that knowledge of literature which was finally to place him among the fii'st polished critics of Germany. Some unexpected event occurs which gives the first great impulse to the mind of genius. Mendelssohn received this from the companion of his misery and his studies, a man of congenial but maturer powers. He was a Polish Jew, ex- pelled from the communion of the orthodox, and the calum- niated student was now a vagrant, with more sensibility than I'ortitude. But this vagrant was a philosopher, a poet, a naturalist, and a mathematician. Mendelssohn, at a distant Mendelssohn. 63 day, never alluded to him without tears. Thrown together into the same situation, they approached each other by the same sympathies, and communicating in the only language which Mendelssohn could speak, the Polander voluntarily un- dertook his literary education. Then was seen one of the most extraordinary spectacles in the history of modern literature. Two houseless Hebrew youths might be discovered, in the moonlit streets of Berlin, sitting in retired corners, or on the steps of some porch, the one instructing the other, with a Euclid in his hand; but what is more extraordinary, it was a Hebrew version, com- posed by the master for a pn])il who knew no other language. Who could then have imagined that the future Plato of Germany was sitting on those steps ! The Polander, whose deep melancholy had settled on his heart, died — yet he had not lived in vain, since the electric spark that lighted up the soul of Mendelssohn had fallen from his own. Mendelssohn was now left alone ; his mind teeming with its chaos, and still master of no other language than that barren idiom which was incapable of expressing the ideas he was meditating on. He had scarcely made a step into the philosophy of his age, and the genius of Mendelssohn had probably been lost to Germany, had not the singularity of his studies and the cast of his mind been detected by the sagacity of Dr. Kisch. The aid of this physician was mo- mentous ; for he devoted several hours every day to the instruction of a poor youth, whose strong capacity he had the discernment to perceive, and the generous temper to aid. Mendelssohn was soon enabled to read Locke in a Latin version ; but with such extreme pain, that, compelled to search for every word, and to arrange their Latin order, and at the same time to combine nieta|}hysical ideas, it was ob- served that he did not so much translate, as gue.-urs, this is universally ac- knowleclged to be true. Some of the malevolent passions indeed fre- Burns' Diary. 71 by Lord Btrox on this work, wliieh I have wished to preserve, I find his lordship observing on the feehngs of genius, that "the depreciation of the lowest of mankind is more painful than the applause of the highest is pleasing." Such is the confession of genius, and such its liability to hourly pain. Once we were nearly receiving from the hand of genius the most curious sketches of the temper, the irascible humours, the delicacy of soul, even to its shadowiness, from the warm shozzos of BuEXS, when he began a diary of the heart, — a narrative of characters and events, and a chronology of his emotions. It was natural for such a creature of sensation and passion to project such a regular task, but quite impos- sible for him to get through it. The paper-book that he con- ceived would have recorded all these things turns out, therefore, but a very imperfect document. Imperfect as it was, it has been thought proper not to give it entire. Yet there we view a warm original mind, when he hrst stepped into the polished circles of society, discovering tliat he could no longer "pour out his bosom, his every thought and float- ing fancy, his very inmost soul, with unreserved confidence to another, without hazard of losing part of that respect which man deserves from man ; or, from the unavoidable imperfec- tions attending human nature, of one day repenting his confidence." This was the first lesson he learned at Edin- burgh, and it was as a substitute for such a human being that he bought a paper-book to keep under lock and key : " a security at least equal," says he, "to the bosom of any friend whatever." Let the man of genius pause over the fragments of this " paper-book ;" — it will instruct as much as any open confession of a criminal at the moment he is about to sutler. No man was more atllicted with that miserable pride, the infirmity of men of imagination, which is so jealously alive, even among their best friends, as to exact a perpetual acknow- ledgment of their j)owers. Our poet, with all his gratitude and veneration for "the noble Glencairn," was " wounded to the soul" because his lordship showed "so much attention, engrossing attention, to the only blockhead at table ; the whole company consisted' of his lordship, Dunderpate, and quently become in leurneil men more than ordinarily strong, from want of that restraint upon tlieir excitement wiiich society imposes." A puerile critic has reproached me for having drawn my description entirely from my own fancy : — I have taken it from life ! See further symptoms of this disease at the close of the chapter on Hdf-iiraise in the present work. 72 Literary Character. myself." This Dunderpatc, who dined wit'n Lord Glencaim, iiiiii^ht have heen a uscfid fitizen, who in some points is of nioiv vahie than an iirital)k' hard. liurn.s was equally olft-nded with another patron, who was also a literary brother, Dr. lilair. At the moment, he too appeared to be neglecting the irritable poet " for the mere carcass of greatness, or when his eye measured the difference of their point of elevation ; I say to myself, with scarcely any emotion," (he might have added, exce|)t a good deal of painful contempt.) " what do I care for him or his pomp either?" — "Dr. Blair's vanity is proverbially known among his acquaintance," adds Burns, at the moment tliat the solitary haughtiness of his own genius had entirely escai)e(l his self-observation. This character of genius is not singular. Grimm tells of Mariyaux, that though a good man, there was something dark and suspicious in his character, which made it difficult to keep on terms with him ; the most innocent word would wound him, and he was always inclined to think that there was an intention to mortif^v him ; this disposition made him unhappy, and rendered his acquaintance too painful to endure. What a moral j^aradox, but what an unquestionable fact, is the wayward irritability of some of the finest geniuses, which is often weak to effeminacy, and capricious to childishness ! while minds of a less delicate texture are not frayed and fretted by casual frictions ; and plain sense with a coarser grain, is sufficient to keep down these aberrations of their feelings. How mortifying is the list of — Fears of the brave and follies of the wise ! Many have been sore and implacable on an allusion to some personal defect— on the obscurity of their birth — on some peculiarity of habit ; and have suffered themselves to be governed in life by nervous whims and chimeras, equally fantastic and trivial. This morbid sensibility lurks in the temperament of genius, and the infection is often iliseovered where it is not always suspected. Cumberland declared that the sensibility of some men of genius is so quick and captious, that you must first consider whom they can be happ}* with, before you can promise yourself any happiness with them : if you bring uncongenial humours into contact with each other, all the ol)jects of society will be frustrated by inattention to the proper grouping of the guests. Look round on our con- temporaries ; every day furnishes facts which confirm our Sensitiveness of Genius. 73 principle. Anions^ the vexations of Pope was tlie liliel of "the pictured shape ;"* and even the robust mind of John- son could not suffer to be exhibited as " blinking Sani."t Milton must have delighted in contemplating his own per- son ; and the engraver not having reached our sublime bard's ideal grace, he has pointed his indignation in four iambics. The praise of a skipping ape raised the feeling of envy in that child of nature and genius, Goldsmith. Voituhe, the son of a vintner, like our Pkior, was so mortitied whenever reminded of his original occupation, that it was bitterly said, that wine, which cheered the hearts of all men, sickened the heart of Voiture, Akekside ever considered his lameness as an unsupportable misfortune, for it continually reminded him of the fall of the cleaver from one of his father's blocks. Beccaeia, invited to Paris by the literati, arrived melancholy and silent, and abruptly returned home. At that moment this great man was most miserable from a fit of jealousy : a young female had extinguished all his philosophy. The poet lioussEAU was the son of a cobbler ; and when his honest parent waited at the door of the theatre to embrace his son on the success of his first piece, genius, whose sensibilitv is not always virtuous, repulsed the venerable lather with insult and contempt. But I will no longer proceed from folly to crime. Those who give so many sensations to others must them- selves possess an excess and a variety of feelings. We find, indeed, that they are censured for their extreme irritability ; and that happy equality of temper so prevalent among men OF lettfcrs, and which is conveniently acquired bv men of the world, has been usually I'efused to great mental powers, or to fervid dispositions — authors and artists. The man of wit becomes ])etulant, the profound thinker morose, and the vivacious ridiculou.sly thoughtless. When ]{ousSE.vu once retired to a village, he had to learn to endure its conversation; for this purpose he was compelled to invent an expedient to get rid of his uneasy sensations. " Alone, I have never known ennui, even when perfectly * He was represented as an ill-made monkey in the frontispiece to a satire noted in " (Quarrels of Authors," p. 2SG (hist eilitiou). — Eu. t Johnson was displeased at the portrait Reynolds painted of him which dwelt on his nearsightedness; declaring that "a man's defects should never be painted." The same defect was made the suliject of a caricature particularly allusive to critical prejudices in his "Lives of the Poets," in which he is pictured as au owl " blinking at the stars." — Ed. 7i> Literary Character. unocoui)i('(l : my imaj^ination, filliiif^ tlio voi'1, was snflRcit^rit to busy me. It is only the inactive cliit-chat of the rooui, wlien every one is seated face to face, and oidy moving tlieir tonjTiies, which I never could support. There to be a fixture, nailed with one hand on the other, to settle the state of the weather, or watch the flies about one, or, what is worse, to be bandying com|)liments, this to me is not bearable." He hit on the expedient of making lace-strings, carrying his working cushion in his visits, to keep the peace with the country gossips. Is the occupation of making a great name less anxious and precarious than that of making a great fortune ? the progress of a man's capital is unequivocal to him, but that of the fame of authors and artists is for the greater part of their lives of an ambiguous nature. They become whatever the minds or knowledge of others make them ; they are the creatures of the prejudices and the predispositions of others, and must sutler from those precipitate judgments which are the result of such prejudices and such predispositions. Time only is the certain friend of literary worth, for time makes the world disairree among themselves ; and when those who condemn discover that there are others who approve, the weaker party loses itself in the stronger, and at length they learn that the author was far more reasonable than their prejudices had allowed them to conceive. It is thus, however, that the regard which men of genius find in one place they lose in another. We may often smile at the local gradations of genius ; the fervid esteem in which an author is held here, and the cold indifference, if not contempt, he encounters in another place ; here the man of learning is condemned as a heavy drone, and there the man of wit anno^'s the unwitty listener. And are not the anxieties of even the most successful men of genius renewed at every work — often quitted in despair, often returned to with rapture ? the same agitation of the spirits, the same poignant delight, the same weariness, the same dissatisfaction, the same querulous languishment after excellence ? Is the man of genius an inventor ? the dis- covery is contested, or it is not comprehended for ten years after, perhaps not during his whole life ; even men of science are as children before him. Sir Thomas Bodley wrote to Lord Bacon, remonstrating with him on his neic mode of phi- losophisin(f. It seems the fate of all originality of thinking to be immodiutely opposed ; a contemporary is not prepared for Contemporary Criticism. 75 its comprehension, and too often cautiously avoids it, from the prudential motive which turns away from a new and solitary ])ath. Bacox was not at all understood at home in his own day ; his reputation — for it was not celebrity — was confined to his history of Henry VII., and his Essays; it was long after his death before English writers ventured to quote Bacon as an authority ; and with equal simplicity and gran- deur, Bacon called himself "the servant of posterity," Montesquieu gave his Esprit des Loix to be read by that man in France, whom he conceived to be the best judge, and in return received the most mortifying remarks. The great philosopher exclaimed in despair, " I see my own age is not ripe enough to understand my work ; however, it shall be published !" When Kepler published the lirst rational work on comets, it was condemned, even by the learned, as a wild dream. Copernicus so much dreaded the prejudice of man- kind against his treatise on "The devolutions of the Heavenly Bodies," that, by a species of continence of all others mo.sfc difficult to a philosopher, says Adam Smith, he detamed it in his closet for thirty years together. Linn.eus once in despair abandoned his beloved studies, from a too irritable feeling of the ridicule in which, as it appeared to him, a professor Sic- gesbeck had involved his famous system. Penury, neglect, and labour Linn.eus could endure, but that his botany should become the object of ridicule for all Stockholni, shook the nerves of this great inventor in his science. Let him speak for himself. " No one cared how many sleepless nights and toilsome hours I had passed, while all with one voice declared, that Siegesbeck had annihilated me. I took my leave of Floni, who bestows on me nothing but Siegesbecks ; and condemned my too numerous ol)servati()ns a thousand times over to eternal oblivion. What a fool have I been to waste so much time, to spend my days in a study which yields no better fruit, and makes me the laughing stock of the world." Such are the cries of the irritability of genius, and such are often the causes. The world was in danger of losing a new science, had not LiNN.T.us returned to the discoveries which he had ibrsakcn in the madness of the mind ! The great Svbeniiam, who, like our Harvey and our Hunter, effected a revolution in the science of medicine, and led on alone by the inde- pendence of his genius, attacked the most prevailing preju- dices, so highly i)r()Voked the malignant emulation of his rivals, tliat a conspiracy was raised against the lather of our modern 7C) Literary Character. practice to banish liim out of tlie colk-Efe, a.s "guilty of medical heresy." John Huntkk was a great discoverer in his own science ; but one who well knew him has told us, that few of his contemporaries perceived the ultimate object of his pursuits ; and his strong and solitary genius laboured to per- fect his designs without the solace of sympathy, without one cheering approbation. " We bees do not j^rovide honey for ourselves," exclaimed Van Helmokt, when worn out by the toils of chemistry, and still contemplating, amidst tribulation and persecution, and approaching death, his " Tree of Life," which be imagined he had discovered in the cedar. But with a sublime melancholy his spirit breaks out ; '"' My mind breathes some imheard-of thing within ; though I, as unpro- fitable for this life, .'^ball be buried!" Such were the mighty but indistinct anticipations of this visionary inventor, the father of modern chemistry ! I cannot quit this short record of the fates of the inventors in science, without advertingto another causeof that irritability of genius which is so closely connected with their pursuits. If we look into the history of theories, we shall be surprised at the vast number which have " not left a rack behind." And do we suppose that the inventors themselves were not at times alarmed by secret doubts of their soundness and stability ? They felt, too often ibr their repose, that the noble architecture which they had raised might be built on move- able sands, and be found only in the dust of libraries ; a cloudy day, or a fit of indigestion, would deprive an inventor of his theory all at once ; and as one of them said, " after dinner, all that I have written in the morning appears to me dark, incongruous, nonsensical." At such moments we should find this man of genius in no pleasant mood. The true cause of this nervous state cannot, nay, must not, be confided to the world : the honour of his darling theory will always be dearer to his pride than the confession of even slight doubts which may shake its truth. It is a curious fact which we have but recently discovered, that Kousseatt was disturbed by a terror he experienced, and which we well know was not un- fiiunded, that his theories of education were false and absurd. He could not endure to read a page in his own " Emile "* with- out disgust after the work had been published ! He acknow- ledged that there were more sufirages against his notions than * In a letter by Hume to Blair, written in 1766, apparently first pub- lished in the Literary Gazette, Nov. 17, 1S21. Labour of Genius. 77 for them. " I am not displeased," says he, "with myself on the style and eloquence, but I still dread that my writings are good ibr nothing at the bottom, and that all my theories are full of extravagance." \_Je crains toujours que je peche par 7e fond, et que ious mes systemes ne sont que des extravagances. '\ Hartley with his "Vibrations and Vibratiuncles," Leiunitz with his " Monads," Cudwokth with his " Plastic Natures," MALEnEA^"c•HE with his paradoxical doctrine of " Seeing all things in (Jod," and Buknet with his heretical " Theory of the Earth," must unquestionabl}^ at times have betrayed an irritability which those about them may have attributed to temper, rather than to genius. Is our man of genius — not the victim of fancy, but the slave of trutli — a learned author ? Of the living waters of human knowledge it cannot be said that " If a man drink thereof, he shall never thirst again." What volumes remain to open ! what manuscript but makes his heart palpitate ! There is no term in researches which new facts may not alter, and a single date may not dissolve. Truth ! thou fascinating, but severe mistress, thy adorers are often broken down in thy servitude, performing a thousand unregarded task-works ! Now winding thee through thy labyrinth with a single thread, often unravelling — now feeling their way in darkness, doubtful if it be thyself they are touching. How much of the real labour of genius and erudition must remain con- cealed from the world, and never be reached by their penetra- tion ! Montesquieu has described this feeling after its agony : " 1 thought I should have killed myself these three months to linish a morceau (for his great work), which I wished to insert, on the origin and revolutions of the civil laws in France. You will read it in three hours ; but I do assure you that it cost me so much labour that it has whitened my hair." Mr. Hallam, stopping to admire the genius of Gibbon, exclaims, " In this, as in many other places, the masterly boldness and precision of his outline, Avhich astonish those who have trodden pai'ts of the same field, is ajit to escape an uninformed reader." Thrice has my learned friend, Sharon Tuiiner, recomposed, with renewed researches, the history of our ancestors, of which ISIiltonand Hume had despaired — thrice, amidst the self-contests of ill- health and professional duties ! The man of erudition in closing his elaborate work i.s still exposed to the fatal omissions of wearied vigilance, or the 78 Literary Character. accick'iital knowlcd^'c of some inferior mind, and always to the reigning taste, whatever it chance to be, of the pubHe. Bur- net criticised Vauii-las unsparingly ;* but when he wrote history himself, Harnier's "Specimen of Errors in Btimet's History," returned Burnet ti>e pangs which he had inflicted on another. Newton's favourite work was his "Chronology," which he had written over fifteen times, yet he desisted from its publication during his life-time, from the ill-usage of which he complained. Even the "Optics" of Newton had no character at home till noticed in France. The calm temper of our great philosopher was of so fearful a nature in regard to criticism, that Whiston declares that he would not pub- lish his attack on the " Chronology," lest it might have killed our philosopher; and thus Bishop Stillingfleet's end was hastened by Locke's confutation of his metaphysics. The feelings of Sir Johx Maksiiam could hardly be less irritable when he found his great work tainted by an accusa- tion that it was not friendly to revelation. t When the learned PococK published a specimen of his translation of Abulpharagias, an Arabian historian, in 1649, it excited great interest ; but in 1663, when he gave the world the complete version, it met with no encouragement : in the course of those thirteen years, the genius of the times had changed, and Oriental studies were no longer in request. The great Vekulam profoundly felt the retiirdment of his fame ; for he has pathetically expressed this sentiment in his testament, where he bequeaths his name to posterity, atteu SOME OENEEATIO'S SHALL BE past. BrUCE SUnk intO his ■grave defrauded of that just fame which his pride and vivacity perhaps too keenly prized, at least for his happiness, and which he authoritatively exacted from an unwilling public. Mortified and indignant at the reception of his great labour bj'the cold-hearted scepticism of little minds, and the malicious- ness of idling wits, he, whose fortitude had toiled through a life of difficulty and danger, could not endure the laugh and scorn of public opinion ; for Bruce there was a simoon more dreadful than the Arabian, and from which genius cannot * For an account of this work, and Burnet's expose of it, see " Curio- sities of Literature," vol. i. p. 132. — Ed. + This great work the Canon Cfirunicus, was published in 1672, and was the first attempt to make the Egyptuin chronology clear and intelli- gible, and to reconcile the whole to the Sci-ii)ture chronology ; a labour he had commenced in DiutriOa Chr(jnoloole, were condemned as failures. When Kacixe pro- duced his " Athalie," it was not at all relished : Boileau indeed declared that he understood these matters better than the jniblic, and prophesied that the public would return to it : tliey did so ; but it was sixty years afterwards ; and JIacine died without suspecting that " Athalie" was his masterpiece. 1 liave lieard one of our great poets regret that he had devoted so much of his life to tlie cultivation of his art, which arose liom a project made in the golden vision of his youth : "■ at a time," said he, " when 1 thought that the fountain could never be dried up." — " Your baggage will reacli posttM'ity," was observed. — " There is much to spare," was the answer. Every day we may observe, of a work of genius, that those * His stories of tbe wealth and population of China, which he described as consisting of miUions obtained for him the nickname of M(irco Milione among the Venetians and other small Italian states, who were unable to comprehend the greatness of his truthful narratives of Eastern travel. Upon his deatli-bed he was adjured by his friends to retract his state- ments, which he indignantly refused. It was long after ere his truthful- ness was established Ijy otber travellers ; the Venetian populace gave his house the name La Curd di Milioui : and a vulgar e^iricature of the great traveller was always introduced in their carnivals, who was termed Marco Miiioiw; ayd delighted them whh the most absurd stories, iu which everything was computed by milLiuns. — Ed. 80 Literary Character. parts wliifh liavc all the raciness of the soil, and as such are most liked bv its admirers, are those which are the most criticised. Modest critics shelter themselves under that g'cneral amnesty too freely granted, that ta-stes are allowed to differ; but we should approximate much nearer to the truth, if we were to say, that Ijut few of mankind are ])repared to relish the beautiful with that enlarged taste which compre- hends all the forms of feeling which genius may assume ; forms which may be necessarily associated with defects. A man of genius composes in a state of intellectual emotion, and the magic of his style consists in the movements of his soul ; but the art of conveying those movements is far separated from the feeling wliich inspires them. The idea in the mind is not always found under the pen, any more than the artist's con- ception can always breathe in his pencil. Like Fiaminoo's image, which he kept polishing till his friend exclaimed, " What perfection would you have ?" — " Alas !" exclaimed the sculptor, " the original I am labouring to come up to is in my head, but not yet in my hand." The writer toils, and repeatedly toils, to throw into our minds that sympathy with which we hang over the illusion of his pages, and become himself. Artosto wrote sixteen different ways the celebrated stanza descriptive of a tempest, as appears by his ]\ISS. at FeiTara ; and the version he pre- ferred was the last of the sixteen. We know that Pethabch made forty-four alterations of a single verse : " whether for the thought, the expression, or the harmony, it is evident that as many ojierations in the heart, the head, or the ear of the poet occurred," observes a man of genius, Ugo Foscolo. Quiutilian and Horace dread the over-fondness of an author ibr his compositions : alteration is not always improvement. A picture over-tinished fails in its effect. If the hand of the artist cannot leave it, how much beauty may it undo ! yet still he is lingering, still strengthening the weak, still sub- duing the daring, still searching for that single idea which awakens so many in the minds of others, while often, as it once happened, the dash of despair hangs the foam on the horse's nostrils. I have known a great sculptor, who for twenty years delighted himself with forming in his mind the nymph his hand was always creating. How ra])turously he beheld her ! what inspiration ! what illusion ! Alas ! the last five years spoiled the beautiful which he had once reached, and could not stop and finish ! Slowness of Great Works. 81 The art of composition, indeed, is of such slow attainment that a man of genius, late in life, may discover how its secret conceals itself in the habit ; how discipline consists in exercise how perfection comes from experience, and how unity is the last effort of judgment. When Fox meditated on a history which should last with the language, he met his evil genius in this new province. The rapidity and the fire of his elocu- tion were extinguished by a pen unconsecrated by long and previous study ; he saw that he could not class with the great historians of every great people ; he complained, while he mourned over the fragn\ent of genius which, after such zealous preparation, he dared not complete. Cuhran, an orator of vehement eloquence, often strikingly original, when late in life he was desirous of cultivating literary composition, unac- customed to its more gradual march, ibund a pen cold, and destitute of every grace. Rousseau has glowingly described the ceaseless inquietude by which he obtained the seductive eloquence of his style ; and has said, that with whatever talent a man may be born, the art of writing is not easily ob- tained. The existing manuscripts of Rousseau display as many erasures as those of Ariosto or Petrarch ; they show his eagerness to dash down his first thoughts, and the art by which he raised them to the impassioned style of his imao'ina- tion. The memoir of Gibbon was composed seven or nine times, and, after all, was left unfinished ; and Buffon tells us that he wrote his " Epoques de la Nature " eighteen times before it satisfied his taste. Buens's anxiety in finishing his poems was great; "all my poetry," said he, ''is the effect of easy comjjosition, but of laborious correction." Pope, when employed on the Iliad, found it not onlv occupy his thoughts by day, but haunting his dreams by night, and once wished himself hanged, to get rid of Homer : and that he experienced often such literary agonies, witness his description of the depressions and elevations of genius : Who pants for glory, finds but short repose ; A breath revives him, or a breath o'erthrows ! When RoMNEY undertook to commence the first subject for the Shakspearc Gallery, in the raj)ture of enthusiasm amidst the sublime and pathetic labouring in his whole mind arose the terror of failure. The subject chosen was " The Temi^est ;" and, as Hayley truly observes, it created many a tempest in the fiuctuating spirits of Romney. The vehement o 82 Literary Character. desire of that perfection wliich j^f^nius conceivps, anrl cannot always execute, liuld a peipetual contest with that dejection of s]»irits wliicli degrades th(; mdiappy sufferer, and casts him, grovelling among the mean of his class. In a national work, a man of genius pledges his honour to the world for its per- formance ; hut to redeem that pledge, there is a darkness in the uncertain issue, and he is risking his honour for ever. liv that work he will always be judged, for public failures are never forgotten, and it is not then a party, but the public itself, who become his adversaries. With Romnet it was " a fever of the mad ;" and his friends could scarcely inspire him with sufficient courage to proceed with his arduous picture, which exercised his imagination and his pencil for several years. I have heard that he built a painting-room purposely for this picture ; and never did an anchorite pour fourth a more fervent orison to Heaven, than Romney when this labour was complete. He had a fine genius, with all its solitary feelings, but he was uneducated, and incompetent even to write a letter ; yet on this occasion, relieved from his intense anxiety under so long a work, he wrote one of the most eloquent. It is a document in the history of genius, and reveals all those feelings which are here too faintly described.* I once heard an amiable author, whose literary career has perhaps not answered the fond hopes of his youth, half in anger and in love, declare that he would retire to some solitude, where, if any one would follow him, he would found a new order — the order of the disappointed. Thus the days of a man of genius are passed in labours as unremitting and exhausting as those of the artisan. The world is not always aware, that to some, meditation, composi- tion, and even conversation, may inflict pains undetected bv the eye and the tenderness of friendship. Whenever Rousseau passed a morning in society, it was observed, that in the evening he was dissatisfied and distressed ; and Joiiy Huxteb, in a mixed company, found that conversation fatigued, instead of amusing him. Hawkesworth, in the second paper of the * "Mr DEAR Friend, — Yonr kindness in rejoicing so heartily at the birth of my picture has given me great satisfaction. "There has been an anxiety labouring in my mind the greater part of the last twelvemonth. At times it had nearly overwhelmed me. I thought I sliould absolutely have sunk into despair. ! what a kind friend is in those times ! I thank (iod, whatever my picture may be, I can say thus much, I am a greater philosopher and a better Chris- tian." Anxiety of Authors. 83 " Adventurer," lias drawn, from his own feelings, an eloquent comparative estimate of intelleetual with corj)oreal labour; it may console the humble meehanie ; and Plato, in his work on " Laws," seems to have been aware of this analogv, lor he con- secrates all working men or artisans to Vulcan and Minerva, because both those deities alike are hard labourers. Yet with genius all does not terminate, even with the most skilful labour. What the toiling Vulcan and the thoughtful Minerva may want, will too often be absent — the presence of the Graces. In the allegorical picture of the School of Design, by Carlo Maratti, where the students are led through their various studies, in the opening clouds above the academy are seen the Graces, hovering over their pupils, with an in- scription they must often recollect — Sunzn di noi ocjnifatica e vana. The anxious uncertainty of an author for his compositions resembles the anxiety of a lover when he has written to a mistress who has not yet decided on his claims ; he repents his labour, for he thinks he has written too much, while he is mortilied at recollecting that he had omitted some things which he imagines would have secured the object of his wishes. Madame De Stael, who has often entered into feelings familiar to a literary and political family, in a pa- rallel between ambition and genius, has distinguished them in this ; that while " ambition perseveres in the desire of acquiring power, genius ^wys of itself. Genius in the midst of society is a pain, an internal fever which would require to be treated as a real disease, if the records of glory did not soften the sufferings it produces." — "Athenians! what troubles have you not cost me," exclaimed Demosthenes, " that I may be talked of by you!" These moments of anxiety often darken the brightest hours of genius. Uacine had extreme sensibility; the pain in- flicted by a severe criticism outweighed all the applause he received. He seems to have felt, what he was often re- proached with, that bis Greeks, his Jews, and his Turks, were all inmates of Versailles. He had two critics, who, like our Dennis with Pope and Addison, regidarly dogged his pieces as tliey ajjjjeared.* Corneille's objections he would attribute to jealousy — at his pieces when burlesqued at tlie Italian * See the article " On the Influence of a bad temper in Criticism" in *' Calamities of Authors," for a notice of Dennis and his career. — Ed. o 2 84 Literary Character. tlioatro* lie would smile outwardly, though sick at heart ; but his son informs us, that a stroke of" raillery {'nnn his witty friend Chapelle, whose pleasiintry hardly sheathed its bitterness, sunk more deeply into his heart than the bur- lesques at the Italian theatre, the protest of Corneille, and the iteration of the two Dennises. More than once Moliere and Kacine, in vexation of spirit, resolved to abandon their dramatic career; it was Boileac who ceaselessly animated their languor: "Posterity," he cried, "will avenge the in- justice of our age 1" And Coxoreye's comedies met with such moderate success, that it appears the autlior was extremely mortified, and on the ill reception of The Way of the World, determined to write no more for the stage. ^Vhen he told Voltaire, on the French wit's visit, that \'oltaire must con- sider him as a private gentleman, and not as an author, — which ap])arent affectation called down on Congreve the sarcastic severity of the French author, t — more of mortifica- tion and humility might have been in Congreve's language than of affectation or pride. The life of Tasso abounds with pictures of a complete ex- haustion of this kind. His contradictory critics had perplexed him with the most intricate literary discussions, and either occasioned or increased a mental alienation. In one of his letters, we find that he repents the composition of his great poem, for although his own taste approved of that marvellous, wdiich still forms a noble part of its creation, yet he confesses that his cold reasoning critics have decided that the history of his hero, Godfrey, required another species of conduct. " Hence," cries the unhappy bard, " doubts torment rae ; but for the past, and what is done, I know of no remed}' ;" and he longs to precipitate the publication, that '" he ma\- be delivered from misery and agony." He solemnly swears — " Did not the circumstances of my situation compel me, I would not print it, even perhaps during my life, I so much doubt of its success." Such was the painful state of fear and doubt experienced by the author of the "Jerusalem Delivered," when he gave it to the world ; a state of suspense, among the children of imagination, in which none are more liable to * See the article on " The Sensibility of Racine" in " Litei-ary Miscel- lanies," (in the present volume) and that on "Parody," in "Curiosities of Literature,"' vol. ii. p. 459. — Ep. + Voltaire quietly said he should not have troubled himself to visit him if he had beeu merely a private gentleman. — Ed. Intellectual Labour. 85 participate than the true sensitive artist. We may now in- spect tlie severe correction of Tasso's muse, in tlie fac-siniile of a page of his manuscripts in Mr. Dibdin's late " Tour." She seems to have inflicted tortures on his pen, surpassing even those wliich may be seen in the fac-simile page which, thirty years ago, I gave of Pope's Homer.* At Florence may still be viewed the many works begixn and abandoned by the genius of Michael Axqelo ; they are preserved in- violate — "so sacred is the terror of Michael Angelo's genius!" exclaims Forsyth. These works are not always to be consi- dered as failures of the chisel ; they appear rather to have been rejected for coming short of the artist's first conceptions : yet, in a strain of sublime poetry, he has preserved his senti- ments on the force of intellectual labour ; he thought that there was nothing which the imagination conceived, that could not be made visible in marble, if the hand were made to obey the mind: — Non ha I'ottimo artista alcun concetto, Ch' un marmo solo in se non circoscriva Col suo soverchio, e solo a quello arriva La man che obbedisce all' intelletto. IMITATED. The sculptor never yet conceived a thought That yielding marble has refused to aid ; But never with a mastery he wrought — Save when the hand the intellect obeyed. An interesting domestic story has been preserved of Ges- NER, who so zealously devoted his graver and his pencil to the arts. His sensibflity was ever struggling after that ideal excellence which he could not attain. Often he sunk into lits of melancholy, and, gentle as he was, the tenderness of his wife and friends could not soothe his distempered feelings; it was necessary to abandon him to his own thoughts, till, alter a long abstinence from his neglected works, in a lucid moment, some accident occasioned him to return to them. In one of these hypochondria of genius, after a long interval of despair, one moniiiig at breakfast with his wife, his eye fixed on one of his pictures : it was a group of fauns with young shephercls dancing at the entrance of a cavern shaded with vines ; his eye appeared at length to glisten ; and a sudden return to ♦ It now forms the frontispiece to vol. ii. of the last edition of the " Curiosities of Literature." — Ed. 86 Literary CharucAcr. good liumour l)rol<(! out in this lively apostrophe — "Ah ! Bee those |;laylul children, they always dance!" This was the moment of gaiety and inspiration, and he flew to his foroakeu easel. La Ilarpe, an author by profession, observes, that as it has been show n that there are some maladies jjeculiar to artisans* — there are also some sorrows peculiar to them, and which the world can neither pity nor soften, because they do not enter into their experience. The querulous language of so many men of genius has been sometimes attributed to causes very different from the real ones — the most fortunate live to see their talents contested and their best works decried. Assuredly many an author has sunk into his grave without the consciousness of having obtained that fame for which he had sacrificed an arduous life. The too feeling Smollett has left this testimony to posterity : — " Had some of those, who are pleased to call themselves my friends, been at any pains to deserve the character, and told me ingenuously what I had to expect in the capacity of an author, I should, in all probability, have spared myself the incredible labour and charjrin I have since undergone." And Smollett was a l^opular writer! Pope's solemn declaration in the ])reface to his collected works comes by no means short of Smollett's avowal. Hume's philosophical indifference could often suppress that irritability which Pope and Smollett fully indulged. But were the feehngs of Hume more obtuse, or did his temper, gentle as it was by constitution, bear, with a saintly patience, the mortifications his literary life so long endured ? After recomposing two of his works, which incurred the same neglect in their altered form, he raised the most sanguine hopes of his History, but he tells us, " miserable was my dis- appomtment !" Although he never deigned to rejdy to his opponents, yet they haunted him ; and an eye-witness has thus described the irritated author discovering in conversa- sion his suppressed resentment — " His forcible mode of ex- pression, the brilliant quick movements of his eyes, and the gestures of his body," these betrayed the pangs of contempt, * See Ramaziiii, " De Morbis Artificium Diatriba," which Dr. James transhvted iu 1750. It is a sad reflection, resulting from this curious trea- tise, tiiat the arts entail no small mischief upon their respective workmen ; so that the means by which they live are too often the occasion of their being hurried out of the world. Irritability of Genius. 87 or of aversion ! Hogarth, in a fit of the spleen, advertised that he had determined not to give the world any more orio;inal works, and intended to pass the rest of his days in painting portraits. The same advertisement is marked by- farther irritability. He contemptuously offers the purchasers of his " Analj'sis of Beauty," to present them gratia with '"an eighteenpenny pamphlet," published by Ilamsay the painter, written in opposition to Hogarth's principles. So un- tameable was the irritability of this great inventor in art, that he attempts to conceal his irritation by offering to dispose gratuitously of the criticism which had disturbed his nights.* Parties confederate against a man of genius, — as happened to Corneille, to D'Avenant,t and Milton ; and a Pradon and a Settle carry away the meed of a llacine and a Dry den. It was to support the drooping spirit of his friend llacine on the opposition raised against Pluedra, that Boileau addressed to him an epistle "On the Utility to be drawn from the Jealous}"- of the Envious." The calm dignit}^ of the historian De Thou, amidst the passions of his times, confidently expected that justice from posterity which his own age refused to his early and his late labour. That great man was, however, compelled by his injured feelings, to compose a poem under the name of anotlier, to serve as his apology against the intolerant court of Rome, and the factious poli- ticians of France ; it was a noble subterfuge to which a great genius was forced. The acquaintances of the poet Colmns probably complained of his wayward humours and irrital)ility ; but how could they sympathise with the secret mortification of the poet, who imagined that he had composed his Pastorals on wrong principles, or when, in tlie agony of his soul, he consigned to the flames with his own hands his unsold, but immortal odes ? Can we forget the dignified complaint of * Hogarth was not without reason for exasperation. lie was severely attacked fur liis theories ahout the curved Hue of beauty, which was branded as a foolish attempt to prove crookedness elegant, and himself vulgarly caricatured. It was even asserted that the theory was stolen from Lom;izzo.— Ed. t See "Quarrels of Authors," p. 403, on the confederacy of several wits against D'Avenant, a great genius ; where I discovered that a volume of poems, said "to be written by the authors friends," which had hitherto been referred to as a volume of panegyrics, contains nothing but irony and satire, which had escaped the discovery of so many transcribero of title-pages, frequently miscalled literary historians. 88 Literary Character. the Rambler, witli which he awfully closes his work, appealing to posterity ? Genius contracts those peculiarities of whicli it is so loudly accused in its solitary occupations — that loftiness of spirit, those quick jealousies, those excessive affections and aversions which view everything as it passes in its own ideal world, and rarely as it exists in the mediocrity of reality. If this irritability of genius be a malady which has raged even among philosophers, we must not be surprised at the temperament of poets. These last have abandoned their country ; they have changed their name ; they have punished themselves with exile in the rage of their disorder. No! not poets only. Descartes sought in vain, even in his secreted life, for a refuge for his genius ; he thought himself persecuted in France, he thought himself calumniated among strangers, and he went and died in Sweden ; and little did that man of genius think that his countrymen would beg to have his ashes restored to them. Even the reasoning Hume once proposed to change his name and his country ; and I believe did. The great poetical genius of our own times has openly alienated himself from the land of his brothers. He becomes immortal in the language of a people whom he would con- temn.* Does he accept with ingratitude the fame he loves more than life ? Such, then, is that state of irritability in which men of genius participate, whether they be inventors, men of learning, fine writers, or artists. It is a state not friendly to equality of temper. In the various humours incidental to it, when the}' are often deeply affected, the cause escapes all perception of sympathy. The intellectual malady eludes even the ten- * I shall preserve a manuscript note of Lord Btron on this passage ; not without a hope that we sliall never receive from him the genius of Italian poetry, otherwise than in the language of his ^^ father land " an expressive term, which I adopted from the Dutch language some years past, and which I have seen since sanctioned by the pens of Lord Byron and of Mr. Southey. His lordship has here observed, "It is not my fault that I am obliged to write in English. If I understood my present language equally well, I would write in it ; but this will require ten years at least to form a style : no tongue so easy to acquire a little of, or so difiScult to master tho- roughly, as Italian." On the same page I find the following note : "What was rumoured of me in that language ? If true, I was unfit for England : if false, England was unfit for me : — 'There is a world else- where.' I have never regretted for a moment that country, but often that I ever returned to it at all. " Genius and Society. 80 clerness of friendship. At those moments, tlie lightest injury to the feelings, which at another time would make no im- pression, may produce a perturbed state of feeling in tlie warm temper, or the corroding chagrin of a self-wounded spirit. These are moments which claim the encouragements of a friendship animated by a high esteem for the intellectual excellence of the man of genius ; not the general intercourse of society ; not the insensibility of the dull, nor the levity of the volatile. Men of genius are often reverenced only where they are known by their writings— intellectual beings in the romance of life; in its history, they are men! Euasmus compared them to the great figures in tapestry-work, which lose their effect when not seen at a distance. Their foibles and their inlirmities are obvious to their associates, often oiil}'' capable of discerning these qualities. The defects of great men are the consolation of the dunces. CHAPTER VIII. The spirit of literature and the spirit of society. — The Inventors. — Society offers seduction and not reward to men of genius. — The notions of per- sons of fashion of men of genius. — The habitudes of the man of genius distinct from those of the man of society. — Study, meditation, and en- thusiasm, the progress of genius. — The disagreement between the men of the world and the literary character. The tnvkxtot^s, who inherited little or nothing from their predecessors, appear to have pursued their insulated studies in the full independence of their mind and development of their inventive i'aculty ; they stood apart, in seclusion, the solitary lights of their age. Such were the founders of oiu" literature — Bacon and Hobbes, Newton and Milton. Even so late as the days of Dryden, Addison, and Pope, the man of genius drew his circle round his intimates; his day was uniform, his habits unbroken ; and he was never too far removed, nor too long estranged from meditation and reverie : his works were the sources of his pleasure ere they became the labours of his pride. But when a more uniform light of knowliMlgc illuminates from all sides, the genius of society, made up ol" so many sorts of genius, becomes greater than tlie genius of the individual who has entii'ely yielded himself up to his solitary art. Hence 90 Literary Character. the character of a man of genius becomes suhordiiiate. A conversation age succeeds a studious one ; and the family of genius, the poet, the painter, and the student, are no longer rccKises. They mix with their rivals, who are jealous of equality, or with others who, incapable of valuing them for thi'insclves alone, rate them but as parts of an integral. The man of genius is now trammelled with the artiticial and meelianical forms of life ; and in too close an intercourse with i^ociety, the loneliness and raciness of thinking is modified away in its seductive conventions. An excessive indulgence in the pleasures of social life constitutes the great interests of a luxuriant and opulent age ; but of late, while the arts of assembling in large societies have been practised, varied by all forms, and pushed on to all excesses, it may become a question whether by them our hap))iness is as much improved, or our individual character as well formed as in a society not so heterogeneous and unsocial as that crowd termed, with the sort of modesty peculiar to our times, " a small party :" the simplicity of parade, the humility of pride engendered by the egotism which multiplies itself in proportion to the numbers it assembles. It may, too, be a question whether the literary man and the artist are not immolatinsr their genius to society when, in the shadowiness of assumed talents — that counterfeiting of all shapes — they lose their real form, with the mockery of Proteus. But nets of roses catch their feet, and a path, where all the senses are flattered, is now opened to win an Epictetus from his hut. The art of multiplying the enjoy- ments of society is discovered in the morning lounge, the evening dinner, and the midnight coterie. In frivolous fatigues, and vigils without meditation, perish the unvalued hours which, true genius knows, are alwa3-s too brief lor art, and too rare to catch its inspirations. Hence so many of our contemporaries, whose card-racks are crowded, have produced only tlashy fragments. Efforts, but not works — they seem to be effects without causes ; and as a great author, who is not one of them, once observed to me, " They waste a barrel of gunpowder in squibs." And yet it is seduction, and not reward, which mere fashion- able society offers the man of true genius. He will be sought for with enthusiasm, but he cannot escape from his certain late — that of becoming tiresome to his pretended admirers. At first the idol — shortly he is changed into a victim. He Genius and Society. 91 forms, indeed, a figure in their little pageant, and is invited as a sort of improvisatore ; but the esteem they concede to him is only a part of the system of politeness ; and should he be dull in discovering the favourite quality of their self-love, or in participating in their volatile tastes, he will find fre- quent opportunities of observing, with the sage at the court of Cyprus, that " what he knows is not proper for this place, and what is proper for this place he knows not." This society takes little personal interest in the literary character. Horace Walpolk lets us into this secret when writing to another man of fashion, on such a man of genius as Gray — " I agree with you most absolutely in j'our opinion about Gra}" ; he is the worst company in the world. From a melancholy turn, from living reclusely, and from a little too much dignity, he never converses easily ; all his words are measured and chosen, and formed into sentences : liis writings are admirable — he himself is not agi-eeable." This volatile being in himself personified the quintessence of that society which is called " the world," and could not endure that equality of intellect which genius exacts. He rejected Chat- terton, and quarrelled with every literary man and every artist whom he first invited to familiarity — and then hated. Witness the fates of Bentley, of Muntz, of Gray, of Cole, and others. Sucli a mind was incapable of appreciating the literary glory on which tlie mighty mind of Buuke was meditating. Walpolk knew Bukke at a critical moment of his life, and he has recorded his own feelings : — " There was a young Mr. IJurice who wrote a book, in the style of Lord Bolingbroke, tliat was much admired. He is a sensible man, but has not wont off his authoriam yr.t, and thinks there is nothing so charming as writers, and to be one : he will know better one of these days.'" Gray and Burke! What mighty men must be submitted to the petrifying sneer — that indiffe- rence of selfism for great sympathies — of this volatile and heartless man of literature and rank ! That thing of silk, Sporus, that mere white curd of ass's milk ! The confidential confession of IIaci>'e to his son is remark- able : — " Do not think that 1 am sought after by the great for my dramas ; Corneille composes nobler ver.^es than mine, but no one notices him, and he only ])leases by the mouth of the actors. 1 never allude to my works when with men of 02 Literary Chartictcr. the world, liut I amuse tlicm about matters tliey like to lioar. My talent with them consists, not in making them feel that 1 have any, but in showing them that they have." Racine treated the great like the children of society ; Cobneillb would not compromise for the tribute he exacted, but he consoled hinisell' when, at his entrance into the theatre, tlie audience usually rose to salute him. The great comic genius of France, wlio indeed was a very thonghtiul and serious man, addressetl a j)oem to the painter Mio'akd, expressing his conviction that " the court," by which a Frenchman of the court of Louis XIV. meant the society we call " fashionable," is fatal to the })erfection of art — Qui se donne a la cour se d^robe h, son art ; Tin esprit partage rarement se consomme, Et les einpluis de feu demandent tout rhomme. Has not the fate in society of our reigning literary favou- rites been uniform ? Their mayoralty hardly exceeds the year : they are pushed aside to put in their place another, who, in his turn, must descend. Such is the history of the literftry character encountering the perpetual difficulty of appearing what he really is not, while he sacriHces to a few, in a certain corner of the metropolis, who have long fantastically styled themselves " the world," that more dignified celebrity which makes an author's name more familiar than his person. To one who appeared astonished at the extensive celebrity of BuFFOX, the modern Pliny replied, " I have passed fifty years at m}- desk." Haydn would not yield up to society more than those hours which were not devoted to study. These were indeed but few : and such were the uniformity and retircdness of his life, that " He was for a long time the only musical man in Europe who was ignorant of the cele- brity of Joseph Haydn." And has not one, the most sub- lime of the race, sung, die seggendo in piuma, In Faraa non si vien, ne sotto coltre ; Sanza la qual chi sua vita eonsuma Cotal vestigio in terra di se lascia Qual fummo in acre, ed in acqua la schiuma. For not on downy plumes, nor under shade Of canopy leposing. Fame is won: Without which, whosoe'er consumes bis days, Leaveth such vestige of himself on earth As smoke in air, or foam upon the wave.* * Gary's Daute, Canto xxiv. Genius and Society. 93 But men of genius, in their intercourse with persons of fashion, have a secret inducement to court that circle. Thev feel a perpetual want of having the reality of their talents confirmed to themselves, and they often step into society to ohserve in what degree they are objects of attention ; for, though ever accused of vanity, the greater part of men of genius feel that their existence, as such, must depend on the opinion of others. This standard is in truth always pro- blematical and variable ; yet they cannot hope to find a more certain one among their rivals, who at all times are adroitly depreciating their brothers, and " dusking" their lustre. They discover among those cultivators of literature and thb arts wdio have recourse to them for their j^leasure, impassioned admirers, rather than unmerciful judges — judges who have only time to acquire that degree of illumination which is just sufficient to set at ease the fears of these claimants of genius. When literary men assemble together, what mimetic friend- ships, in their mutual corruption ! Creatures of intrigue, they borrow other men's e3'es, and act by feelings often even contrary to their own : they wear a mask on their face, and only sing a tune they have cauglit. Some hierophant in their mysteries proclaims their elect whom tliey have to initiate, and their profane who are to stand apart under their ban. They bend to the spirit of the age, but they do not elevate the public to them ; they care not for truth, but only study to produce etfect, and they do nothing for fame but what obtains an instant purpose. Yet their fame is not there- fore the more real, for everything connected with fashion becomes obsolete. Her ear has a great susceptibility of weariness, and her eye rolls for incessant novelty. Never was she earnest for an3'thing. Men's minds with her become tarnished and old-fashioned as furniture. But the steams of rich dinners, the eye which sparkles with the wines of France, the luxurious niglit which llames with more heat and bril- liancy than (jrod has made the day, this is the world the man of coterie-celebrity has chosen ; and the Epicurean, as long as his senses do not cease to act, laughs at the few who retire to the solitary midnight lamp. Posthumous fame is — a nothing ! Such men live like unbelievers in a future state, and their narrow calculating spirit coldly dies in their artificial world : but true genius looks at a nobler source of its exist- ence ; it catches inspiration in its insulated studies ; and to the great genius, who feels how his present is jiecessarily con- 91 Literary Character. iKHttc'd willi liis future celebrity, posthumous fame is a reality, for the sense nets upon him ! The ha\)itu(le.s of f^enius, before genius loses its freshness in this society, are the mould in which the character is east ; and these, in spite of all the disguise of the man, .will make him a distinct l)eing from the man of society. Those who have assumed the literary character often for purposes very distinct from hterary ones, imagine that their circle is the public ; hut in this factitious public all their interests, their opinions, and even their passions, are temporary, and the admirers with the admired pass away with their season, " It is not suflieient that we speak the same language," says a witty jjhilosopher, " but we must learn their dialect ; we must think as they think, and we must echo their opinions, as we act by imitation." Let the man of genius then dread to level himself to the mediocrity of feeling and talent required in such ciieles of societ}^ lest he become one of themselves; he will soon tind that to think like them will in time become to act like them. But he wlio in solitude adopts no transient feelings, and reflects no artificial lights, who is only himself, possesses an immense advantage : he has not attached impor- tance to what is merely local and fugitive, but listens to interior truths, and fixes on the immutable nature of things. He is the man of every age. jNIalebranche has observed, that " It is not indeed thought to be charitable to disturb com- mon opinions, because it is not truth which unites society as it exists so much as opinion and custom :" a principle which the world would not, I think, disagree with ; but which tends to render folly wisdom itseK, and to make error im- mortal. Kidicule is the light scourge of society, and the terror of genius. Kidieule surrounds him with her chimeras, which, like the shadowy monsters opposing J^neas, are impalpable to his strokes : but remember when the sibyl bade the hero proceed without noticing them, he found these airy nothings 'as harm- less as they were unreal. The habits of the literary cha- racter will, however, be tried by the men and women of the world by their own standard : they have no other ; the salt of ridicule gives a poignancy to their deficient comprehension, and their perfect ignorance, of the persons or things which are the suhjects of their ingenious animadversions. The habits of the literary character seem inevitably repulsive to persons of the world, Yoltaibe, and his companion, the Voltaire and De Chatelet. 95 scientific Madame De Chatelet, she who introduced New- ton to the French nation, Hved entirely devoted to literarv pursuits, and their hahits were strictly literary. It happened once that this learned pair dropped unexpectedly into a fashionable circle in the chateau of a French nobleman. A Madame de Stael, the persijleur in office of Madame Du Delfand, has copiously narrated the whole affair. Thev arrived at midnight like two famished spectres, and there was some trouble to put them to supper and bed. They are called apparitions, because they were never visible by dav, only at ten at night ; for the one is busied in describing great deeds, and the other in commenting on Newton. Like other apparitions, they are uneasy companions : they will neither play nor walk ; they will not dissipate their mornings with the charming circle about them, nor allow the charming circle to break into their studies. Voltaire and Madame de Chatelet would have suffered the same pain in being forced to an abstinence of their regular studies, as this circle of "agreables" would have at the loss of their meals and their airings. However, the persijleur declares they were ciphers " en societe," adding no value to the number, and to which their learned writings bear no reference. But if this literary couple would not plaj^, what was worse, Voltaire poured out a vehement declamation against a fiishion- able species of gambling, which appears to have made them all stare. But Madame de Chatelet is the more frequent victim of our 2)6 rsijleur. The learned lady would change her apartment — for it was too noisy, and it had smoke without fire — which last was her emblem. " She is reviewing her Frincijyia ; an exercise she repeats every year, without which precaution they might escape from her, and get so far awav that she might never find them again. I believe that iiJr head in respect to them is a house of imprisonment rather than the place of their birth ; so that she is right to watch them closely ; and she prefers the fresh air of this occupation to our amusements, and persists in her invisibility till ni'dit- time. She has six or seven tables in her apartments, for she wants them of all sizes ; immense ones to spread out her papers, solid ones to hold her instruments, lighter ones, &o. Yet with all this she could not escape from the accident which happened to Philip II., after passing the night in writing, when a bottle of ink fell over the despatches ; but the lady did not imitate the moderation of the prince ; indeed, 96 Literary Character. slie liad not written on State affairs, and uliat was spoilt in lier room was algebra, niueh more difiicult to copy out." Here is a jiair ol' portraits of a f^reat ])oet and a cm ? Aiitipatliit's and sympathies, those still occult causes, however concealed, will break forth at an unguarded moment. Clip the wings of an eagle that he may roost among domestic fowls, — at some unforeseen moment his pinions will overshadow and terrify his tiny associates, for " the feathered king" will be still musing on the rock and the cloud. The man of genius will be restive even in his trammelled paces. Too impatient amidst the heartless courtesies of society, and little practised in the minuter attentions, he has rarely sacrificed to the unlaughing graces of Lord Chester- ' field. Plato ingeniously compares Socrates to the gallipots of the Athenian apothecaries ; the grotesque figures of owls and apes were painted on their exterior, but they contained within precious balsams. The man of genius amidst many a circle may exclaim with Themistocles, " I cannot fiddle, but I can make a little village a great city ;" and with Corneille, he may be allowed to smile at his own deficien- cies, and even disdain to please in certain conventional man- ners, asserting that " wanting all these things, he was not the less Corneille." But with the great thinkers and students, their character is still more obdurate. Adam Smith could never free him- self from the embarrassed manners of a recluse ; he was often absent, and his grave and formal conversation made him seem distant and reserved, when in fact no man had warmer feel- ings for his intimates. One who knew Sir Isa^ic Neuvtoit tells us, that " he would sometimes be silent and thoughtful, and look all the while as if he were saying his prayers." A French princess, desirous of seeing the great moralist NicoLLE, experienced an inconceivable disappointment when the moral instructor, entering with the most perplexing bow imaginable, silently sank into his chair. The interview pro- moted no conversation, and the retired student, whose elevated spirit might have endured martyrdom, shrunk with timidity in the unaccustomed honour of conversing with a princess and having nothing to say. Observe Hume thrown into a most ridiculous attitude by a woman of talents and coterie celebrity. Our philosopher was called on to perform his part in one of those inventions of the hour to which the fashionable, like children in society, have sometimes resorted to attract their world by the rumour of some new extrava- gance. In the present, poor Hume was to represent a sultan Students unfitted for Society. 99 on a sofa, sitting between two slaves, who were tlie prettiest and most vivacious of Parisians. Much was anticipated from this literary exhibition. The two slaves were ready at re- partee, but the utter simplicity of the sultan displayed a blockishness which blunted all edge. The phlegmatic meta- physician and historian only gave a sign of life by repeating the same awkward gesture, and the same ridiculous exclama- tion, without end. One of the fair slaves soon discovered the unchangeable nature of the forlorn philosopher, impatiently exclaiming, " I guessed as much, never was there such a calf of a man !" — " Since this affair," adds Madame d'Epinay, " Hume is at present banished to the class of spectators." The philosopher, indeed, had formed a more correct concep- tion of his own character than the volatile sylphs of the Parisian circle, for in writing to the Countess de Boufflers, on an invitation to I\aris, he said, " I have rusted on amid books and study ; have been little engaged in the active, and not much in the pleasurable, scenes of life ; and am more accus- tomed to a select society than to general companies." If Hume made a ridiculous tigure in these circles, the error did not lie on the side of that cheerful and profound philoso- pher. — This subject leads our inquiries to the natui'e of the conversations of men of genius. CHAPTER IX. Conversations of men of genius. — Their deficient agreeableness may result from qualities which conduce to their greatness. — Slow-minded men not the dullest. — The conversationists not the ablest writers. — Their true excellence in conversation consists of a.ssociations with their pursuits. In conversation the sublime Dante was taciturn or satirical ; BuTLEK sullen or caustic ; Gbay and Alfieui seldom talked or smiled ; Uescaktes, whose habits had formed him for soli- tude and meditation, was silent; IloisSEAU was remarkably trite in conversation, not an idea, not a word of fancy or elo- quence warmed him; Addison and Molieue in society were only observers; and Duyden has very honestly told us, "My conversation is slow and dull, my humour saturnine and reserved ; in short, I am none of those who endeavour to break jests in company, or make repartees." Poi'E had lived 11 2 100 Literary Character. among "the giTiit," not only in rank but in intellect, the most deliglitlul converrtationista ; but the poet felt that he could not contribute to these seductive pleasures, and at last confessed that he could amuse and instruct himself much more by another means : " As much company as I have kept, and as much as I love it, I love reading better, and would rather be employed in reading, than in the most agree- able conversation." Pope's conversation, as preserved by Spence, was sensible ; and it would seem that he had never said but one witty thing in his whole life, for only one has been recorded. It was ingeniously said of Vaucaxso.v, that he was as much an automaton as any which he made. HoGAKTn and Swift, who looked on the circles of society with eyes of inspiration, were absent in company ; but their grossness and asperity did not prevent the one from being the greatest of comic painters, nor the other as much a creator of manners in his way. Genius, even in society, is pursuing its own operations, and it would cease to be itself were it always to act like otliers. Men of genius who are habitually eloquent, who have prac- tised conversation as an art, for some even sacrifice their higher pursuits to this perishable art of acting, have indeed excelled, and in the most opposite manner. Hoexe Tookb iinely discriminates the wit in conversation of SnERiDAy and CuRRAN, after having passed an evening in their company. " Sheridan's wit was like steel highly polished and sharpened for display and use ; Curran's was a mine of virgin gold, in- cessantly crumbling away from its own richness." Charles Butler, whose reminiscences of his illustrious contemporaries are derived from personal intercourse, has correctly described the familiar conversations of Pitt, Fox, and Burke : "The most intimate friends of Mr. Fox complained of his too fre- quent ruminating silence. Mr. Pitt talked, and his talk was iascinating. Mr. Burke's conversation was rambling, but splendid and instructive beyond comparison." Let me add, that the finest genius of our times, is also the most delightful man ; he is that rarest among the rare of human beings, whom to have known is nearly to adore ; whom to have seen, to have heard, forms an era in our life ; whom youth remem- bers with enthusiasm, and whose presence the men and women of " the world " feel like a dream from which they would not awaken. His bonhomie attaches our hearts to him Conversational Power. 101 by its simplicity ; his legendary conversation makes us, for a moment, poets like himself.* But tliat deficient agreeableness in social life with which men of genius have been often reproached, may really result from the nature of those qualities which conduce to the greatness of their public character. A tliinker whose mind is saturated with knowledge on a particular subject, will be apt to deliver himself authoritatively ; but he will then pass for a dogmatist : should he hesitate, that he may correct an equivocal expression, or bring nearer a remote idea, he is in danger of sinking into pedantry or rising into genius. Even the fulness of knowledge has its tediousness. " It is rare," said Malebkaxche, "that those who meditate profoundly can explain well the objects they have meditated on ; for they hesi- tate when they have to speak ; they are scrupulous to convey false ideas or use inaccurate terms. They do not choose to speak, like others, merely for the sake of talking." A vivid and sudden perception of truth, or a severe scrutiny after it, may elevate the voice, and burst with an irruj^tive heat on the subdued tone of conversation. These men are too much in earnest for the weak or the vain. Such seriousness kills their feeble animal spirits. Smeaton, a creative genius of his class, had a warmth of expression which seemed repulsive to many: it arose from an intense application of mind, which impelled him to break out hastily when anything was said that did not accord with his ideas. Persons who are obstinate till they can give uj) their notions with a safe conscience, are trouble- some intimates. Often too the cold tardiness of decision is only the strict balancing of scepticism or candour, while obscurity as frequently may arise from the deficiencj'' of pre- vious knowledge in the listener. It was said that Newtox in conversation did not seem to understand his own writings, and it was supposed that his memory had decayed. The fact, however, was not so ; and Pemberton makes a curious dis- tinction, which accounts for Newton not always heing ready to speak on subjects of which he was the sole master. " In- ventors seem to treasure up in their own minds what they have found out, after another manner than tliose do the * This was written under the inspiration of a night's conversation, or rather li.steuing to Sir Walter Scott. — I cannot bring myself to erase what now, alas ! has closed in the silence of a swift termination of his glorious existence. 102 Literary Character. same thiiip^s tliiit have not this inventive facult}'. Tlie former, wlien tliey have occasion to jiroduce their know- ledge, in sonic means are oljh^^ed immediately to investigate part of what they want. For this they are not etjually fit at all times ; and thus it has often happened, that such as retain things chiefly by means of a very strong memory, have appeared off-hand more expert than the discoverers themselves." A peculiar characteristic in the conversations of men of genius, whieli has often injured them when the listeners were not intimately acquainted with tlie men, are those sports of a vacant mind, those sudden impulses to throw out paradoxi- cal opinions, and to take unexpected views of things in some humour of the moment. These fanciful and capricious ideas are the grotestjue images of a playful mind, and are at least as frequently misrepresented as they are misunderstood. But thus the cunning Philistines are enabled to triumph over the strong and gilted man, because in the hour of confidence, and in the abandonment of the mind, he had laid his head in the lap of wantonness, and taught them how he might be shorn of his strength. Dr. Johnson appears often to have indulged this amusement, both in good and ill humour. Even such a calm philosopher as Adam Smith, as well as such a child of imagination as Burns, were remarked for this ordinary habit of men of genius ; which, perhaps, as often originates in a gentle feeling of contempt for their auditors, as from any other cause. Many years after having written the above, I discovered two recent confessions which confirm the principle. A literai-y character, the late Dr. Letden, acknowledged, that " in conversation I often verge so nearly on absurdity, that I know it is perfectly easy to misconceive me, as well as to misrepresent me." And Miss Edsreworth, in describing her lathers conversation, observes that, " his openness went too far, almost to im])rudence ; exposing him not only to be misrepresented, but to be misunderstood. Those who did not know him intimately, often took literally what was either said in sport, or spoken with the intention of making a strong impression for some good purpose." Cumbekl.vnd, whce conversation was delightful, happily describes the species I have noticed. "Nonsense talked by men of wit and under- standing in the hour of relaxation is of the very finest essence of conviviality, and a treat delicious to those who have the sense to comprehend it ; but it implies a trust in the Simplicity of Genius. 103 company not always to be risked." The truth is, that many, eminent for their genius, have been remarkable in society for a simplicity and playfulness almost infantine. Such was the gaiety of Hume, such the bonhomie of Fox ; and one who had long lived in a circle of men of genius in the last age, was disposed to consider this infantine simplicity as characteristic of genius. It is a solitary grace, which can never lend its charm to a man of the world, whose purity of mind has long been lost in a hacknied intercourse with everything exterior to himself. But above all, what most offends, is that freedom of opinion which a man of genius can no more divest himself of, than of the features of liis face. But what if this intractable obsti- nacy be only resistance of character ? Burns never could account to himself why, " though when he had a mind he was pretty generally beloved, he could never get the art of commanding respect," and imagined it was owing to his de- ficiency in what Sterne calls " that understrapping virtue of discretion ;" "I am so apt to a lapsus liiiffuce," says this honest sinner. Amidst the stupidity of a formal circle, and the inanity of trillers, however such men may conceal their impatience, one of them has forcibly described the reaction of this sup[)ressed feeling : " The force with which it burst out when the pressure was taken off, gave the measure of the constraint which had been endured." Erasmus, that learned and charming writer, who was blessed with the genius which could enliven a folio, has well described himself, sum naturd propensior ad jocos quam fortasse deceat : — more constitu- tionally inclined to pleasantry than, as he is pleased to add, perhaps became him. We know in his intimacy with Sir Thomas More, that Erasmus was a most exhilarating com- panion ; 3'et in his intercourse with the great he was not fortunate. At the first glance he saw through affectation and parade, his jjraise of iblly was too ironical, and his free- dom carried witli it no j)leasantry for those who knew not to prize a laughing sage. In conversation the operations of the intellect with some are habitually slow, but there will be found no difference between tlie result of their perceptions and those of a quicker nature ; and hence it is tliat slow-minded men are not, as men of the world imagine, always the dullest. Nicolle said of a scintillant wit, "lie van(iuishes me in the drawing-room, but surrenders to me at discretion on the stairs." JNLany a lOJ- Literary Character. great wit has thought the wit it was too late to speak, and many a great reasoner has only reasoned when his opponent has disappeared. Conversation with sueh men is a losing game ; and it is often lamentable to observe how men of genius are reduced to a state of helplessness from not com- manding their attention, while inferior intellects ha])itually are found to possess what is called " a ready mind." For this reason some, as it were in despair, have shut themselves up in silence. A lively Frenchman, in describing the distinct sorts of conversation of his literary friends, among whom was Dr. Franklin, energetically hits off that close observer and thinker, wary, even in society, by noting down " the silence of the celebrated Franklin." We learn from Cumberland that Lord Mansfield did not promote that conversation which gave him any pains to carry on. He resorted to society for simple relaxation, and could even find a pleasure in dulness when accompanied with placidity. " It was a kind of cushion to his understanding," observes the wit. Ciiaucee, like La Fontaine, was more facetious in his tales than in his conver- sation ; for the Countess of Pembroke used to rally him, observing that his silence was more agreeable to her than his talk. Tasso's conversation, which his friend Manso has attempted to preserve for us, was not agreeable. Li company he sat absorbed in thought, with a melancholy air; and it was on one of these occasions that a person present observing that this conduct was indicative of madness, that Tasso, who had heard him, looking on him without emotion, asked whether he was ever acquainted with a madman who knew when to hold his tongue ! Malebranche tells us that one of these mere men of learning, who can only venture to praise antiquity, once said, " I have seen Descaetes ; I knew him, and frequently have conversed with him ; he was a good sort of man, and was not wanting in sense, but he had nothing extraordinary in him." Had Aristotle spoken French instead of Greek, and had this man frequently conversed with him, unquestionably be would not have discovered, even in this idol of antiquity, anything extraordinary. Two thousand years would have been wanting for our learned critic's perceptions. It is remarkable that the conversationists have rarely proved to be the abler writers. He whose fancy is susceptible of excitement in the presence of his auditors, making the minds of men run witli his own, seizing on the first impres- sions, and touching the shadows and outlines of things — with Contradictory Character. 105 a memory where all lies ready at hand, quickened by habitual associations, and varying with all those extemporary changes and fugitive colours wliich melt away in the rainbow of con- versation ; with that wit, which is only wit in one place, and for a time; with that vivacity of animal spirits which often exists separately from the more retired intellectual powers— this man can strike out wit by habit, and pour forth a stream of phrase which has sometimes been imagined to require only to be written down to be read with the same delight with which it was heard ; but he cannot print his tone, nor his air and manner, nor the contagion of his hardihood. All the while we were not sensible of the flutter of his ideas, the in- coherence of his transitions, his vague notions, his doubtful assertions, and his meagre knowledge. A pen is the extin- guisher of this luminary. A curious contrast occurred between Buffon' and his friend Montbelliard, who was associated in his great work. The one possessed the reverse qualities of the other : Biffox, whose style in his composition is elaborate and declamatory, was in conversation coarse and careless. Pleading that con- versation with him was only a relaxation, he rather sought than avoided the idiom and slang of the mob, when these seemed expressive and facetious; while Montbelliakb threw every charm of animation over his delightful talk : but when he took his seat at the rival desk of Button, an immense interval separated them ; he whose tongue dropped the honey and the music of the bee, handled a pen of iron ; while Burton's was the soft pencil of the philosophical painter of nature. Cowley and Killeohew furnish another instance. Cowley was embarrassed in conversation, and had no quick- ness in argument or reply : a mind pensive and elegant could not be struck at to catch fire : while with Killeokkw the sparkling bubbles of his fixncy rose and drojiped.* AVhen the delightful conversationist wrote, the deception ceased. Den- ham, who knew them both, hit oif the ditterence between them : Had Cowley ne'er siwke, Killegrew ne'er writ, Comliined in one they had made a matchless wit. * Killegrew's eight jdays, upon which his character as an author rests, have not been repiiblishetl with one exception — tke Purnons Weddiii;/ — which is given in Dodsley'a collection ; and which is sufficient to satisfy curiosity. He was a favourite with Charles the Second, and had great influence with hira. Some of his witty court jests are preserved, hut are too much imbued with the spirit of the age to be quoted here. He was some- times useful by devoting his satiric sallies to ui-ge the king to hisduties. — Eu. 106 Literary Character. Not, however, that a man of genius does not throw out many things in conversation which have only heen found a(hnir- aljle wl\en tiie jJuhHc posses.sed them. The puljhc often widely dill'er Iroin the individual, and a century's opinion may inter- vene between them. The fate of genius is sometimes that of the Athenian sculptor, who submitted his colossal Minerva to a private party for inspection. Before the artist they trembled for his daring chisel, and the man of genius smiled ; hehind him they cahnnniated, and the man of genius forgave. Once fixed in a public place, in the eyes of the whole city, tlie statue was the Divinity ! There is a certain distance at which opinions, .as well as statues, must be viewed. But enough of those defects of men of genius which often attend their conversations. Must we then bow to authorial dignity, and kiss hands, because they are inked ? Must we bend to the artist, who considers us as nothing unless we are canvas or marble under his hands ? Are there not men of genius the grace of society and the charm of their circle ? Fortunate men ! more blest than their brothers ; but for this, they are not the more men of genius, nor the others less. To how man}' of the ordinary intimates of a superior genius who complain of his defects might one say, " Do his productions not delight and sometimes surprise you ? — You are silent ! I beg your pardon ; the public has informed you of a great name ; 3'ou would not otherwise have perceived the precious talent of your neighbour : you know little of your friend but his iiaoie.'' The personal familiarity of ordinary minds with a man of genius has often produced a ludicrous prejudice. A Scotchman, to whom the name of a Dr. Robertson had tra- velled down, was curious to know who he was. — " Your neigh- bour !" — But he could not persuade himself that the man whom he conversed with was the great historian of his coun- try. Even a good man could not believe in the announce- ment of the Messiah, from the same sort of prejudice: " Can there anything good come out of Nazareth ?" Sufler a man of genius to be such as nature and habit have formed him, and he will then be the most interesting com- panion ; then will you see nothing but his character. AkeN- siDE, in conversation with select friends, often touched by a romantic enthusiasm, would pass in review those eminent ancients whom he loved ; he imbued with his poetic faculty even the details of their lives ; and seemed another Plato while he poured libations to their memory in the language of Eloquence of Barry. 107 Plato, among those whose studies and foeUngs were congenial Avith his own. lloMNET, with a fiincy entirely his own, would give vent to his effusions, uttered in a hurried accent and elevated tone, and often accompanied hy tears, to which by constitution he was prone ; thus Cumberland, from per- sonal intimacy, describes the conversation of this man of genius. Even the temperate sensibility of Hume was touched by the bursts of feeling of Kousseau ; who, he says, " in con- versation kindles often to a degree of heat which looks like inspiration." Baurt, that unhapj)y genius ! was the most repulsive of men in his exterior. The vehemence of his lan- guage, the wildness of his glance, his habit of introducing vulgar oaths, which, by some unlucky association of habit, served him as expletives and interjections, communicated even a horror to some. A pious and a learned lady, who had felt intolerable uneasiness in his ])resence, did not, however, leave this man of genius that very evening without an impression that she had never heard so divine a man in her life. The conversation happening to turn on that principle of benevo- lence which pervades Christianity, and on the meekness of the Founder, it gave Bakuy an opportunity of opening on the character of Jesus with that copiousness of heart and mind which, once heard, could never be forgotten. That artist indeed had long in his meditations an ideal head of Christ, which he was always talking of executing : " It is here!" he would cry, striking his head. That which balllcd tlie invention, as we are told, of Leonardo da Vinci, who left his Christ headless, having exhausted his creative faculty among the apostles, this imaginative picture of the mysterious union of a divine and human nature, never ceased, even when con- versing, to haunt the reveries of Barry. There are few authors and artists who are not eloquently instructive on that class of knowledge or that department of art which reveals tiie mastery of their life. Their conversa- tions of this nature allect the mind to a distant period of life. Who, having listened to such, has forgotten wliat a man of genius has said at such moments 'i Who dwells not on the single thought or the glowing expression, stamj'ed in the heiit of the moment, which came from its source f Then the mind of genius rises as the melody of the JOolian liarp, when the winds suddenly sweep over the strings — it comes and goes — and leaves a sweetness beyond the harmonies of art. The Ji/6-ft7/rt«f a of PuHTiAX are not only the result of his 108 Literary Character. studies in thf ricli lihrarv of Lorenzo de' Medici, but of con- versations wliicli lijid passed in those rides which Lorenzo, ac- companied l)y Politiaii, preferred to the pomp of cavalcades. When tlie Canhnal de Cabassolle strayed with Peteabcii about his valley in many a wandering discourse, they sometimes extended their walks to such a distance, that the servant sought them in vain to announce the dinner-hour, and found them returning in the evening. When Helvktius enjoyed the social conversation of a literary friend, he described it as "a chase of ideas." Such are the literary conversations which HouNE TooKE alluded to, when he said "I as.sure you, we find more dilfieulty to finish than to begin our conversations." The natural and congenial conversations of men of letters and of artists must then be those which are associated with their pursuits, and these are of a different complexion with the talk of men of the world, the objects of which are drawn from the temporary passions of party-men, or the variable on dits of trillers — topics studiously rejected from these more tran- quillising conversations. Diamonds can only be polished by their own dust, and are only shaped by the fricticni of other diamonds ; and so it happens with literary men and artists. A meeting of this nature has been recorded by Cicero, vvbieh himself and Attictjs had with Varro in the country. Yarro arriving from Rome in their neighbourhood somewhat fatigued, had sent a messenger to his friends. " As soon as we had heard these tidings," says Cicero. " we could not delay hastening to see one who was attached to us by the same pursuits and by former friendship." They set olF, but found Vairo half way, urged by the same eager desire to join them. They conducted him to Cicero's villa. Here, while Cicero was inquiring after the news of Rome, Attieus inter- rupted the political rival of Caesar, observing, " Let us leave ott' iiKjuiring alter things which cannot be heard without pain. Rather ask about what we know, for Varro' s muses are longer silent than tliey used to be, yet surely he has not forsaken them, but rather conceals what he writes." — " By no means !" rej)lied Varro. '' tor I deem him to be a whimsical man to write what he wishes to suppress. I have indeed a great work in hand (on the Latin language), long designed for Cicero." The conversation then took its natural turn by Attieus having got rid of the political anxiety of Cicero. Such, too, were the conversations which passed at the literary re.sidence of the Medici family, which was described, with as Literary Conversation. 109 much truth as fancy, as " the Lyceum of pliilosophy, the Arcadia of poets, and the Academy of painters." We have a pleasing instance of such a meeting of literary friends in tliose conversations which passed in Pope's garden, where there was often a remarkable union of nobility and literary men. There Thomson, Mallet, Gay, Hooke, and Glover met Cobham, Bathurst, Chesterfield, Lyttleton, and other lords ; there some of these poets found patrons, and Pope himself discovered critics. The contracted views of Spence have un- fortunately not preserved these literary conversations, but a curious passage has dropped from tlie pen of Lord Bolixq- BKOKE, in what his lordship calls " a letter to Pope," often probably passed over among his political tracts. It breathes the spirit of those delightful conversations. " My thoughts," writes his lordship, " in what order soever they tiow, shall be communicated to you just as they pass through mi/ mind — just as they used to be when we conversed tor/ether on these or any other subject ; when loe sauntered alone, or as we have often done with good Arbuthnot, and the jocose Dean of St. Patrick, among the multiplied scenes of your little garden. The theatre is large enough for my ambition." Such a scene opens a beautiful subject for a curious portrait- painter. These literary groups in the garden of Pope, sauntering, or divided in confidential intercourse, would fur- nish a scene of literary repose and enjoynient among some of the most illustrious names in our literature. CHAPTER X. Literary solitude. — Its necessity. — Its pleasures. — Of visitors by profession. — Its inconveniences. The literary character is reproached with an extreme passion for retirement, cultivating those insuhiting habits, which, while they are great intermptions, and even weakeners, of domestic happiness, induce at the same time in pul)nc life to a secession from its cares, and an avoidance of its active duties. Yet the vacancies of retired men are eagerly filled by the many unemployed men of the world hai)jnly I'ramed lor its business. We do not hear these accusations raised against the painter who wears away his days by his easel, or the musician by the side of his instrument ; and much less should we against the legal and the cominercial character : 110 Literary ('hnracter. yot all tlicso arc as much withdrawn from public and private life as the literary character. The desk is as insulatint; as the library. Yet the man who is working for his individual interest is more highly estimated than the retired student, whose disintiTcstcd pursuits are at least more protitable to the world than to liimsclf. La IJruyere discovered the world's erroneous estimate of literary labour: "There requires a better name," he says, " to be bestowed on the leisure (the idleness he calls it) of the literary character, — to meditate, to compose, to read and to be tranquil, should be called tcorkinff." But so invisible is the progress of intellectual pursuits and so rarely are the objects palpable to the observers, that the literar}' character appears to be denied for his pursuits, what cannot be refused to every other. That unremitting applica- tion and unbroken series of their thoughts, admired in every profession, is only complained of in that one whose professors with so much sincerit}^ mourn over the brevity of life, which has often closed on them while sketching their works. It is, however, only in solitude that the genius of eminent men has been formed. There their first thoughts sprang, and there it will become them to find their last : for the solitude of old age — and old age must be often in solitude — may be found the happiest with the literar}' character. Sohtude is the nurse of enthusiasm, and enthusiasm is the true parent of genius. In all ages solitude has been called for — has been flown to. No considerable work was ever composed till its author, like an ancient magician, first retired to the grove, or to the closet, to iuvocate. ^\'hen genius languishes in an irksome solitude among crowds, that is the moment to fly into seclusion and meditation. There is a society in the deepest solitude ; in all the men of genius of the past First of your kind. Society divine ! and in themselves ; for there only can they indulge in the romances of their soul, and there only can they occupy them- selves in their dreams and their vigils, and, with the morning, fly without interruption to the labour they had reluctantly quitted. If there be not periods when they shall allow their days to melt harmoniously into each other, if they do not pass whole weeks together in their study, without intervening absences, they will not be admitted into the last recess of the Muses. AVhether their glory come from researches, or from enthusiasm, time, with not a feather ruflled on his wings, Solitude of Genius. Ill time alone opens cliscoveries and kindles meditation. This desert of solitude, so vast and so dreary to the man of the world, to the man of genius is the magical garden of Armirla, whose enchantments arose amidst solitude, while solitude was everywhere among those enchantments. Whenever Michael Angelo, that " divine madman," as Richardson once wrote on the back of one of his drawings, was meditating on some great design, he closed himself up from the world, "Why do you lead so solitary a life?" asked a friend. "Art," replied the sublime artist, " Art is a jealous god ; it requires the whole and entire man." During his mighty labour in the Sistine Chapel, he refused to have any communication with any person even at his own house. Such undisturbed and solitary attention is demanded even by undoubted genius as the price of performance. How then shall we deem of that feebler race who exult in occasional excellence, and who so often deceive themselves by mistaking the evanescent flashes of genius for that holier flame which burns on its altar, because the fuel is incessantly supplied ? We observe men of genius, in public situations, sighing for this solitude. Amidst the impediments of the world, they are doomed to view their intellectual banquet often rising be- fore them, like some fairy delusion, never to taste it. The great Veuul.vm often complained of the disturbances of his public life, and rejoiced in the occasional retirement he stole from public aH'airs. " And now, because I am in the country, 1 will send you some of my country fruits, which with me are good meditations ; when 1 am in the city, they are choked with business." Lord Clahendox, whose life so happily combined the contemplative with the active powers of m.an, dwells on three periods of retirement which he enjoyed ; he always took pleasure in relating the great tranquillity of spirit experienced during his solitude at Jersey, where for more than two years, employed on his history, he dail}' wrote "one sheet of large pajjcr with his own hand." At the close of his life, his literary labours in his other retirements are detailed with a proud satisfaction. Each of his solitudes occasioned a new acquisition ; to one he owed the Spanish, to another the French, and to a third the Italian literature. The public arc not yet ac(]uainted with the fertility of Lord Clarendon's literary labours. It was not vanity that induced Scipio to declare of solitude, that it had no loneliness for him, since he voluntai'ily retired amidst a glorious life to his Linternuni. 112 Literary Character. Cicero was uneasy amid applauding Rome, and lias distin- guished his numerous works by the titles of his various villas. AuLUS Gkllius marked his solitude by his "Attic Nights," The "Golden Grove" of Jeremy Taylor is the produce of his retreat at the Earl of Carberry's seat in Wales; and the " Diversions of Purley " preserved a man of genius for posterity. Voltaire had talents well adapted for society ; but at one period of his life he passed five years in the most secret seclusion, and indeed usually lived in retirement. Montes- quieu (juitted the brilliant circles of Paris for his books and his meditations, and was ridiculed by the gay triflers he deserted; "but my great work," he observes in triumph, " avance a pas de geant." Harrington, to compose his "Oceana," severed himself from the society of his friends. Descartes, intlamed by genius, hires an obscure house in an unfrequented quarter at Paris, and there he passes two years, unknown to his acquaintance. Adam Smith, after the publi- cation of his iirst work, withdrew into a retirement that lasted ten years : even Hume rallies him for separating him- self from the world ; but by this means the great political inquirer satisfied the world by his great work. And thus it was with men of genius long ere Petrarch withdrew to his Yal chiusa. The interruption of visitors by profession has been feelingly lamented by men of letters. The mind, maturing its specu- lations, feels the unexpected conversation of cold ceremony chilling as March winds over the blossoms of the Spring. Those unhappy beings who wander from house to house, privileged by the charter of society to obstruct the knowledge they cannot impart, to weary because they are wearied, or to seek amusement at the cost of others, belong to tliat Class of society which have affixed no other idea to time than that of getting rid of it. These are judges not the best quiilified to com])rehend the nature and evil of their depredations in the silent apartment of the studious, who may be often driven to exclaim, in the words of the Psalmist, " Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency : for all the day long have I been plagued, and chastened every morning^ When Montesquieu was deeply engaged in his great work, he writes to a friend : — " The favour which your friend Mr. Hein often does me to pass his mornings with me, occasions great damage to my work as well by his impure French as Value of Time. 113 the length of his details." — "We are afraid," said some of those visitors to Baxter, " that we break in upon your time." — "To be sure you do," replied the disturbed aiid blunt scholar. To hint as gently as he could to bis friends that he was avaricious of time, one of the learned Italians had a ])ro- minent inscription over the door of his study, intimating that whoever remained there must join in his labours. The amiable Melancthon, incapable of a harsh expression, when he received these idle visits, only noted down the time he had expended, that he might reanimate his industry, and not lose a day. Evelyx, continually importuned by morning visitors, or "taken up by other impertinencies of my life in the coun- try," stole his hours from his night rest " to redeem his losses," The literary character has been driven to the most inventive shifts to escape the irruption of a formidable party at a single rush, who enter, without " besieging or beseeching," as Milton has it. The late Mr. Ellis, a man of elegant tastes and poetical temperament, on one of these occasions, at his country-house, assured a literary friend, that when driven to the last, he usually made his escape by a leap out of the win- dow ; and Boileau has noticed a similar dilemma when at the villa of the President Lamoignon, while they were holding their delightful conversations in his grounds. Quelquefois de ficlieux arrivent trois voices, Que du pare a riii.st:mt as.siu{,'eiit les allues ; Alors sauve qui peut, et quatre fois heureux Qui salt s'echapper, a quelque autre iguore d'eux. Bratstd Hollis endeavoured to hold out " the idea of singu- larity as a shield;" and the great Uoijert Boylk was com- pelled to advertise in a newspaper that he must decline visits on certain days, that he might have leisure to finish some of his works.* * This curious advertisement is preserved in Dr. Birch's "Life of Boyle," p. 272. Boyle's labours were so exhausting to his naturally weak frame, and so continuous from his eager desire for investigation, that this adver- tisement was concocted by the advice of his physician, "to desire to be excused from receiving visits (unless upon occasions very extraordinary) two days in the week, namely, on the forenoon of Tuesdays and Fridays (both foreign post days), and on Wednesdays and Saturdays in the afternoons, that he may have some time, both to recruit his 8])irits, to range hia papers, and lill up the lacunw of them, aiul to take some care of his affairs in Ireland, which are very much disordered and iiavc tiieir face often changed by the ])ublic calamities there." He ordered likewi.se a lioard to be placed over his door, with an inscription signifying when he did, and when he did not receive visits. — Ed. I 114 Literary Character. UocCACClo lias given an interesting account of the mode of life of the studious I'etrarch, for on a visit he found that Petrarch would not suffer his hours of study to Ik.- broken into even by the person whom of all men he loved most, and did not quit his morning studies for his guest, who during that time occupied himself by reading or transcribing the works of his master. At the decline of day, Petrarch quitted liis study for his garden, where he delighted to open his heart in mutual conlidence. But this solitude, at first a necessity, and then a pleasure, at length is not borne without repining. To tame the fervid wildness of youtli to the strict regularities of study, is a sacrifice jurfurmed by the votary ; but even M ilton appears to have felt this irksome period of life ; for in the preface to " Smectymnuus" he says: — "It is but justice not to defraud of due esteem the xoearisome labours and studious watchings wherein I have spent and tired out almost a whole youth." Cowley, that enthusiast for seclusion, in his retirement calls himself "the ]NJelancholy Cowley." I have seen an original letter of this poet to Evelyn, where he expresses his eagerness to see Sir George Mackenzie's "Essay on Solitude;" for a copy of which he had sent over the town, without obtaining one, being " either all bought up, or burnt in the fire of Lon- don." * — " I am the more desirous," he says, " because it is a subject in which 1 am most deeply interested. Thus Cowley was requiring a book to confirm his predilection, and we know he made the experiment, which did not prove a happy one. We find even Gibbox, with all his fame about him, anti- cipating the dread he entertained of solitude in advanced life. " 1 feel, and shall continue to feel, that domestic solitude, however it may be alleviated by the world, by study, and even by friendship, is a comfortless state, which will grow more painful as 1 descend in the vale of years." And again : — " Your visit has only served to remind me that man, how- * This event happening when Loudon was the chief emporium of books, occasioned many printed just before the time to be excessively rare. The booksellers of Pateruoster-row had removed their stock to the vaults below St. Paul's for safety as the fire approached them. Among the stock was Prynne's records, vol. iii., which were all burnt, except a few copies •which had been sent into the country, a perfect set has l)een valued in consequence at one hundred pounds. The rarity of all books published about the era of the great fire of London induced one curious collector Dr. Bliss, of Oxford, to especially devote himself to gathering such in his library. — Ed. Solitude of Genius. 115 ever amused or occupied in his closet, was not made to live alone." Had the mistaken notions of Sprat not deprived us of Cowley's correspondence, we douhtless had viewed the picture of lonely genius touched hy a tender pencil.* But we have SiiE>'STONE, and Gray, and Swift. The heart of Shenstone bleeds in the dead oblivion of solitude : — " Now I am come from a visit, every little uneasiness is sufficient to introduce my whole train of melancholy considerations, and to make me utterly dissatisfied with the life I now lead, and the life I foresee I shall lead. I am angry, and envious, and de- jected, and frantic, and disregard all present things, as becomes a madman to do. 1 am infinitely pleased, though it is a gloomy joy, with the application of Dr. Swift's com- plaint, that he is forced to die in a rage, like a rat in a poisoned hole." Let the lover of solitude muse on its picture tliroughout the year, in this stanza, by the same amiable but sufiering poet : — Tedious again to curse the drizzling day, Again to trace the wintry tracks of snow, Or, soothed by vernal airs, again survey The self-same hawthorns bud, and cowslips blow. Swift's letters paint with terrifying colours a picture of solitude ; and at length his despair closed with idiutism. Even the playful muse of Geesset throws a sombre queru- lousness over the solitude of men of genius : — Je les vols, victimes du genie, Au foible prix d'un eclat passager, Vivre isules, sans jouir de la vie I Vingt ans d'ennuis pour quelques jours de gloire. Such are the necessity, the pleasures, and the inconve- niences of solitude ! It ceases to be a question whetiier men of genius should blend with the masses of society : ibr whe- ther in solitude, or in the world, of all others they must learn to live with themselves. It is in the world that they borrow the sparks of thought that lly upwards and perish ; but the llame of genius can only be lighted in their own solitary breast. * See the article on Cowley in " Calamities of Authors." 116 Literary Character. CHAPTER XL The mcflitations of genius. — A work on the art of meditation not yet pro- duced. — rredisi)r>sing tlie mind. — Imagination awakens imagination. — Generating feelings by music. — Slight habits. ^ — Darkne.ss and silence, by suspending the exercise of our senses, increase the vivacity of our con- ceptions. — The arts of memory. — Memory the foundation of genius. — Inventions by several to preserve their own moral and literary character. — And to assist their studies. — The meditations of genius depend on habit. — Of the night-time. — A day of meditation should precede a day of composition. — Works of magnitude from slight conceptions. — 0/ thoughts never written. — The art of meditation exercised at all hours and places. — Continuity of attention the source of philosophical dis- coveries. — Stillness of meditation the first state of existence in genius. A coNTiKriTY of attention, a patient quietness of mind, forms one of the characteristics of genius. To think, and to feel, constitute the two grand divisions of men of genius — the men of reasoning and the men of imagination. There is a thread in our thoughts, as there is a pulse in our hearts ; he who can hold the one, knows how to think ; and he who can move the other, knows how to feel. A work on the art of meditation has not yet been pro- duced ; yet such a work might prove of immense advantage to him who never happened to have more than one solitary idea. The pursuit of a single principle has produced a great system. Thus probably we owe Adam Smith to the French economists. And a loose hint has conducted to a new discovery. Thus Giraed, taking advantage of an idea first started by Fenelon, produced his " Synonymes." But while, in every manual art, every great workman improves on his predecessor, of the art of the mind, notwithstanding the facility of practice, and our incessant experience, millions are yet ignorant of the first rudiments ; and men of genius themselves are rarely acquainted with the materials they are working on. Certain constituent principles of the mind itself, which the study of metaphysics curiousl}' developes, ofier many important regulations in this desirable art. We may even suspect, since men of genius in the present age have confided to us the secrets of their studies, that this art may be carried on by more obvious means than at first would ap- pear, and even by mechanical contrivances and practical habits. A mind well organised may be regulated by a single contrivance, as by a bit of lead we govern the fine machinery by which we track the flight of time. Many secrets in this Powers of Mind, 117 art of the mind yet remain as insulated facts, which may hereafter enter into an experimental history. Johnson has a curious observation on the Mind itself. He thinks it obtains a stationary point, from whence it can never advance, occurring before the middle of life. " When the powers of nature have attained their intended energy, they can be no more advanced. The shrub can never become a tree. Nothing then remains but practice and experience ; and per- haps ichy they do so little may he worth inquiry."* The result of this inquiry would probably lay a broader founda- tion for this art of the mind than we have hitherto possessed. Adam Fekgusox has expressed himself with sublimity : — " The lustre which man casts around him, like the flame of a meteor, shines only while his motion continues ; the mo- ments of rest and of obscurity are the same." What is this art of meditation, but the power of withdrawing ourselves from the world, to view that world moving within ourselves, while we are in repose ? As the artist, by an optical instru- ment, reflects and concentrates the boundless landscape around him, and patiently traces all nature in that small space. There is a government of our thoughts. The mind of genius can be made to take a particular disposition or train of ideas. It is a remarkable circumstance in the studies of men of genius, that previous to composition they have often awakened their imagination by the imagination of their favourite masters. By touching a magnet, they become a magnet. A circumstance has been recorded of Gray, by Mr. Mathias, " as wortliy of all accei)tation among the higher votaries of the divine art, when they are assured that Mr. (rray never sate down to compose any poetry without pre- viously, and for a considerable time, reading the works of Spenser." But the circumstance was not unusual with Mal- herbe, Corneille, and Racine; and the most fervid verses of Homer, and the most tender of Euripides, were often re- peated by ^lilton. Even anti(]uity exhibits the same ex- citing intercourse of the mind of genius. Cicero informs us how his eloquence caught inspiration from a constant study of the Latin and (Jrecian poetry ; and it has been recorded of Pompey, who was great even in his youth, that he never undertook any considerable enterprise without animating his * I recommend the reader to turn to the whole passage, in Johnson's "Letters to ilrs. Thrale," vol. i. p. 29G. 118 Literary Character. genius by having read to him the character of Achilles in the first lUnd ; although h(3 acknowledged that the enthu- siasm he caught came rather from the poet than the hero. When BossuKT had to compose a funeral oration, he was accustomed to retire for sijveral days to his study, to rumi- nate over the pages of Homer ; and when a.sked the reason of this habit, he exclaimed, in these lines — magnam mihi mentem, animumque Delius inspiret Vates. It is on the same principle of predisposing the mind, that many have first generated their feelings by the symphonies of music. Alfieri often before he wrote prepared his mind by listening to music : " Almost all my tragedies were sketched in my mind either in the act of hearing mui«ic, or a few hours after" — a circumstance which has been recorded of many others. Lord Bacox had music often played in the room adjoining his study : Miltox listened to his organ for his solemn inspiration, and music was even necessary to Wakburton. The symphonies which awoke in the poet sublime emotions, might have composed the inventive mind of the great critic in the visions of his theoretical mysteries. A celebrated French preacher, Bourdaloue or Massillon, was once found playing on a violin, to screw his mind up to the pitch, preparatory for his sermon, which within a short in- terval he was to preach before the court. Currax's favou- rite mode of meditation was with his violin in his hand ; for hours together would he forget himself, running voluntaries over the strings, while his imagination in collecting its tones was opening all his faculties for the coming emergency at the bar. When Leonardo da Vinci was painting his " Lisa," commonly called La Joconde, he had musicians constantly in waiting, whose light harmonies, by their associations, in- spired feelings of Tipsy dance and revelry. There are slight habits which may be contracted by genius, which assist the action of the mind ; but these are of a nature so trivial, that they seem ridiculous when they have not been experienced : but the imaginative race exist by the acts of imagination. Haydn would never sit down to com- pose without being in full dress, with his great diamond ring, and the tiuest paper to write down his musical compositions. Peculiarities of Genius. 119 RorssEAU lias told us, \Yhen occupied by his celebrated ro- mance, of the influence of the rose-coloured knots of ribbon which tied his portfolio, his fine paper, his brilliant ink, and his gold sand. Similar facts are related of man}-. Whenever Apostolo Zeno, the predecessor of Metastasio, prepared himself to compose a new drama, he used to say to himself, "Apostolo! recordati che questa e la j^rima opera cite dai in luce.'' — "Apostolo! rememljer that this is the first opera you are presenting to the public." We are scarcely aware how we may govern our thoughts by means of our sensations : Db Lu(; was subject to violent bursts of passion , but he calmed the interior tumult by the artifice of filling his mouth with sweets and comfits. When Golboni found his sleep disturbed by the obtrusive ideas still floating from the stu- dies of the day, he contrived to lull himself to rest by con- ning in his mind a vocabulary of the Venetian dialect, trans- lating some word into Tuscan and French ; which being a very uninteresting occupation, at the third or fourth version this recipe never failed. This was an art of withdrawing attention from the greater to the less emotion ; by which, as the interest weakened, the excitement ceased. Mkxdklssoiin, whose feeble and too sensitive frame was often reduced to the last stage of suffering by intellectual exertion, when engaged in any point of difheulty, would in an instant contrive a perfect cessation from thinking, by mechanically going to the window, and counting the tiles upon the roof of his neighbour's house. Such facts show liow much ai't may be concerned in the government of our thoughts. It is an unquestionable fact that some profound thinkers cannot pursue their intellectual operations amidst the dis- tractions of light and noise. With them, attention to what is passing within is interrupted by the discordant impressions from objects pressing and obtruding on the external senses. There are indeed instances, as in the case of Priestley and others, of authors who have pursued their literary works amidst conversation and their family ; but such minds are not the most original thinkers, and the most refined writers ; or tlieir subjects are of a nature which reijuires little more than judginent and diligence. It is the mind only in its fulness which can brood over thoughts till the incubation produces vitality. Such is the feeling in this act of stud}-. Jn Plutarch's time they showed a sul)terianeous jilace of stud}' built by DeiiiObthenes, and where he often continued 120 Literary Character. for two or ilirec montlis tofjotlior. Malcjbranchc, Ilobbes, Corneillc, and others, darkened tlieir apartint-nt when they wrote, to concentrate their thouglits, as Milton sa^'H of the mind, " in the spacious circuits of her musing." It in in proportion as we can suspend the exercise of all our other senses that the liveliness of our conception increases — this is the observation of the most elegant metaphysician of our times ; and when Lord Chestertield advised that his pupil — whose attention wandered on every passing object, which unfitted him for study — should be iristructed in a darkened ai)artment, he was aware of this princi])le; the boy would learn, and retain what he learned, ten times as well. We close our eyes whenever we would collect our mind together, or trace more distinctly an object which seems to have faded away in our recollection. The study of an author or an artist would be ill placed in the midst of a beautiful land- scape ; the "Penseroso" of Milton, "hid from day's garish eye," is the man of genius. A secluded and naked apart- ment, with nothing but a desk, a chair, and a single sheet of paper, was for fifty years the study of Buffon ; the single ornament was a print of Newton placed before his eyes — nothing broke into the unity of his reveries. Cumberland's liveliest comedy, The IVcst Indian, was written in an unfur- nished apartment, close in front of an Irish turf-stack ; and our comic writer was fully aware of the advantages of the situation. " In all my hours of study," says that elegant writer, " it has been through life my object so to locate my- self as to have little or nothing to distract my attention, and therefore brilliant rooms or pleasant prospects I have ever avoided. A dead wall, or, as in the present ease, an Irish turf-stack, are not attractions that can call otf the fancy from its pursuits ; and whilst in these pursuits it can find interest and occupation, it wants no outward aid to cheer it. My father, I believe, rather wondered at my choice." The principle ascertained, the consequences are obvious. The arts of memory have at all times excited the attention of the studious ; the}' open a world of undivulged mysteries, where every one seems to form some discovery of his own, rather exciting his astonishment than enlarging his compre- hension. Le Sage, a modern philosophei*, had a memory singularly defective. Incapable of acquiring languages, and deficient in all those studies which depend on the exercise of the memory, it became the object of his subsequent exertions Conduct of Thought. 121 to supply this deficiency by tlie order and method he observed in arranging every new fact or idea he obtained ; so that in reahty with a very bad memory, it appears that he was still enabled to recall at will any idea or any knowledge which he had stored up. John Huntek happily illustrated the advan- tages which every one derives from putting his thoughts in writing, " it resembles a tradesman taking stock ; without which he never knows either what he possesses, or in what he is deficient." The late William Hutton, a man of an original cast of mind, as an experiment in memory, opened a book which he had divided into 3Go columns, according to the days of the year : he resolved to try to recollect an anec- dote, for every column, as insignilicant and remote as he was able, rejecting all under ten years of age ; and to his surprise, lie fdled those spaces for small reminiscences, within ten columns ; but till this experiment had been made, he never conceived the extent of his faculty. Wolf, the German metaphysician, relates of himself that he had, by the most ])ersevcring haljit, in bed and amidst darkness, resolved his algebraic jtroblems, and geometrically composed all his methods merely by the aid of his imagination and memory ; and when in the daytime he verified the one and the other of these operations, he had always found them true. Unques- tionably, such astonishing instances of a well-regulated memory depend on the practice of its art gradually formed by I'requent associations. When we reflect that whatever we know, and whatever we feel, are the very smallest portions of all the knowledge we have been ac(iuiring, and all the feelings we have cx))erienced through life, how desirable would be that art which should again open the scenes which have vanished, and revivify the emotions which other impressions have efiaced ? Jiut the faculty of memory, although perliaps the most manageable of all others, is considered a subordinate one ; it seems only a grasping and accumulating jjower, and in the work of genius is imagined to ])roduce nothing of itself; yet is meujory tlie I'oundation of (Jenius, whenever this faculty is a.ssociated with imagination and passion ; with men of genius it is a chronology not merely of events, but of emo- tions ; hence they remember nothing that is not interesting to their i'eelings. Persons of inl'erior ca])acity have im|)erlect recollections from feeble impressions. Are not the incidents of the great novelist often founded on the common ones of life 'i and the personages so admirably alive in his fictions, 122 Lilcrary Character. were thoy not discovorofl amoiif^ tlio orowfl ? "^riie ancicntu liave (U'scrilu'd tlic Muses as tlie (laiif^liti-rs of Memory; an elci,'aiit lic'tioii, indicating the natural and intimate connexion between imaf,'ination and reniiniseenoe. The arts oi" memory will form a savinf»-V)anl< of genius, to which it may have recourse, as a wealth which it can accumu- late iniperceptihly amidst the ordinary expenditure. Locke tauglit us tlie first rudiments of this art, when he showed us how he stored his tlious^lits and his facts, by an artificial arrantjement ; and Addison, before he commenced his "Spec- tators," liad amassed three folios of materials. But the higher step will be the volume which shall give an account of a man to himself, in which a single observation immediately becomes a clue of past knowledge, restoring to him his lost studies, and his evanescent existence. Self-contemplation makes the man more nearly entire: and to preserve the past, is half of immortality. The worth of the diary must depend on the diarist ; but " Of the things which concern himself," as Marcus Akto- NiNTJS entitles his celebrated work — this volume, reserved for solitary contemplation, should be considered as a future relic of ourselves. The late Sir Samuel IJomillt commenced, even in the most occupied period of his life, a diary of his last twelve 3'ears ; w hich he declares in his will, " I bequeath to my children, as it may be serviceable to them." Perhaps in this Roniilly bore in mind the example of another eminent lawyer, the celebrated Whitelocke, who had drawn up a great work, entitled " Remembrances of the Labours of Whitelocke, in the Annals of his Life, for the Instruction of his Children." That neither of these family books has appeareil, is our common loss. Such legacies from such men ought to become the inheritance of their countrymen. To register the transactions of the day, with observations on what, and on whom, he had seen, was the advice of Lord Kaimes to the late Mr. Curwen ; and lor years his head never reached its pillow without performing a task which habit had made easy. " Our best and surest road to know- ledge," said Lord Kaimes, " is by profiting from the labours of others, and making their experience our own." In this manner Curwen tells us he acquired by habit the art of think- ing ; and he is an able testimony of the practicability and success of the plan, for he candidly tells ns. '* Though many would sicken at the idea of imposing such a task upon them- Thoughts unexecuted. 123 selves, yet the attempt, persevered in for a short time, would soon become a custom more irksome to omit tlian it was difficult to commence." Could we look into the libraries of authors, the studios of artists, and the laboratories of chemists, and view what they have only sketched, or what lie scattered in fragments, and could we trace their first and last tlioughts, we mis^ht dis- cover that we have lost more than we possess. There we might view foundations without superstructures, once the monuments of their hopes ! A living architect recently ex- hibited to the public an extraordinary picture of his mind, in his " Architectural Visions of Early Fancy in the Gay Morn- ing of Youth," and which now were " dreams in the evening of life." In this picture he had thrown together all the architectural designs his imagination had conceived, but which remained unexecuted. The feeling is true, however whimsical such unaccomplished fancies might appear when thrown to- gether into one picture. In literary history such instances have occurred but too frequently : the imagination of youth, measuring neither time nor ability, creates wliat neither time nor ability can execute. Adam Smith, in the preface to the first edition of his " Theory of Sentiments," announced a large work on law and government ; and in a late edition he still repeated the promise, observing that " Thirty years ago I entertained no doubt of being able to execute every- thing which it announced." Tlie " VVealth of Nations" was but a I'ragnient of this greater work. Surely men of genius, of all others, may mourn over the length of art and the brevity of life! Yet many glorious efforts, and even artificial inventions, have been contrived to assist and save its moral and literary existence in that perpetual race which genius liolds with time. We trace its triumph in the studious days of such men as GriBBoN, Sir William Jonks, and Phikstlet. An inven- tion by which the moral qualities and tlie acquisitions of the literary chaiacter were combined and advanced together, is what Sir William .Jones ingeniously calls his " Andrometer." In tiiat scale of liunian attainments and enjoyments wliich ought to accompany the eras of human life, it reminds us of what was to be learned, and what to be practised, assigning to stated periods their appropriate pursuits. An occasional recurrence, even to so fanciful a standard, would be like look- ing on a clock to remind the student how he loiters, or how 124 Literary Character. he aflvances in the great clay's work. Such romantic plans have been often invtjuted by the ardour of genius. There was no coiiiniunication between Sir William Joxe.s and Dr. Fhankmn ; yet, when young, the self-taught philosopher of America j)ursued the same genial and generous devotion to his own moral and literary excellence. " It was about this time I conceived," says Franklin, " the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection," &c. He began a daily journal, in which against thirteen virtues accompanied by seven columns to mark the days of the week, he dotted down what he considered to be his failures ; he ibund himself iuller of faults than he had imagined, but at length his blots diminished. This self-examination, or this " Faultbook," as Lord Shaftesbury would have called it, was always carried about him. These books still exist. An ad- ditional contrivance was that of journalising his twenty-four hours, of which he has furnished us both with descriptions and specimens of the method ; and he closes with a solemn assurance, that " It may be well my posterity should be in- formed, that to this little artifice their ancestor owes the constant felicity of his life." Thus we see the fancy of Jones and the sense of Franklin, unconnected either by cha- racter or communication, but acted on by the same glorious feeling to create their own moral and literar}' character, in- venting similar although extraordinary methods. The memorials of Gibbon and Priestley present us with the experience and the habits of the liteiary character. " What 1 have known," says Dr. Priestley, "with respect to myself, has tended much to lessen both my admiration and my contempt of others. Could we have entered into the mind of Sir Isaac Newton, and have traced all the steps by which he produced his great works, we might see nothing very extraordiiuirv in the process." Our student, with an ingenuous simplicit}', opens to us that "variety of mecha- nical expedients by which he secured and arranged his thoughts," and that discipline of the mind, by means of a peculiar arrangement of his studies for the day and for the year, in which he rivalled the calm and unalterable system pursued by Gibbon. Jiutibn, and Voltaire, who often only combined the knowledge they obtained by humble methods. They knew what to ask for ; and where what is wanted may be found : they made use of an intelligent secretary ; aware, as Modes of Study. 125 Lord Bacon has expressed it, that some books " may be read by deputy." Button hiid down an excellent rule to obtain originality, when he advised the writer first to exhaust his own thoughts, before he attempted to consult other writers ; and Gibbon, the most experienced reader of all our writers, otters the same important advice to an author. When engaged on a particular subject, he tells us, " I suspended my perusal of any new book on the subject, till I had reviewed all that I knew, or believed, or had thought on it, that I might be qualified to discern how much the authors added to my ori- ginal stock." The advice of Lord Bacon, that we should pursue oui" studies in whatever disposition the mind may be, is excellent. If happily disposed, we shall gain a great step ; and if indisposed, we " shall work out the knots and strands of the mind, and make the middle times the more pleasant." Some active lives have passed away in incessant competition, like those of Mozart, Cicero, and Voltaire, who were restless, perhaps unhappy, when their genius was quiescent. To such minds the constant zeal they bring to their labour supplies the absence of that inspiration which cannot always be the same, nor always at its height. Industry is the feature by which the ancients so frequently describe an eminent character ; such phrases as " incredibili industria ; diligentia singulari" are usual. We of these days cannot conceive the industry of Cicero ; but he has himself told us that he suffered no moments of his leisure to escape from him. Not only his spare hours were consecrated to his books ; but even on days of business he would take a few turns in his walk, to meditate or to dictate ; many of his letters are dated before daylight, some from the senate, at his meals, and amid his morning levees. The dawn of day was the summons of study to Sir William Jones. John Hunter, who was constantly engaged in the search and consideration of new facts, described wliat was passing in his mind by a remarkable illustration : — he said to Abernethy, " INIy mind is like a bee-hive." A simile which was singularly correct ; "for," observes Abernethy, "in the midst of buzz and appa- rent confusion there was great order, regularity of structure, and abundant food, collected with incessant industry from the choicest stores of nature." Thus one man of genius is the ablest commentator on the thoughts and feelings of an- 126 Literary Character. otlior. When wc reflect on the magnitude of tlie labours of Cicero and the elder IMiny, on those of Erasmus, Petrarch, l^aronius, Lord JJacon, Usher, and liayle, we seem at the base of these monuments of study, we seem scarcely awake to admire. These were the laborious iustructors of man- kind ; their acre has closed. Yet let not those other artists of the mind, who work in the airy looms of fancy and wit, imagine that they are weaving their webs, without the direction of a j^rinciple, and without a secret habit which they have acquired, and which some have imagined, by its quickness and facility, to be an instinct. " Habit," says lleid, " differs from instinct, not in its nature, but in its origin ; the last being natural, the first acquired." What we are accustomed to do, gives a facility and proneness to do on like occasions ; and there may be even an art, unperceived by themselves, in opening and pursuing a scene of pure invention, and even in the happiest turns of wit. One who had all the experience of such an artist has em- ployed the very terms we have used, of " mechanical" and '•habitual." "Be assured," says Goldsmith, '"that wit is in some measure mechanical ; and that a man long habituated to catch at even its resemblance, will at last be haj)py enough to possess the substance. By a long habit of writing he ac- quires a justness of thinking, and a mastery of manner which holiday' writers, even with ten times his genius, may vainly attempt to equal." The wit of Bctlee was not extem- poraneous, but painfully elaborated from notes which he in- cessantly accumulated ; and the familiar rime of Berni, the burlesque poet, his existing manuscripts will prove, were produced l)y perpetual re-touches. Even in the sublime efforts of imagination, tliis art of meditation may be prac- tised ; and Alfieri has shown us, that in those energetic tragic dramas which were often produced in a state of en- thusiasm, he pursued a regulated process. " All my tragedies have been composed three times ;" and he describes the three stages of conception, development, and versifying. "After these three operations, I proceed, like other authors, to pub- lish, correct, or amend." "All is liabit in mankind, even virtue itself !" exclaimed Metastasio ; and we may add, even the meditations of genius. Some of its boldest conceptions are indeed for- tuitous, starting up and vanishing almost in the perception ; like that giant form, sometimes seen amidst the glaciers, afar Dreams. 127 from the opposite traveller, moving as he moves, sto])ping as he stops, yet, in a moment lost, and perhaps never more seen, althou^li but his own rellection ! Often in the still obscurity of the night, the ideas, the studies, the whole history of the day, is acted over again. There are probably few mathe- maticians who have not dreamed of an interesting problem, observes Professor Dugald Stewart. In tliese vivid scenes we are often so completely converted into spectators, that a great poetical contemporary of our country thinks that even his dreams should not pass away unnoticed, and keeps what he calls a register of nocturnals. Tasso has recorded some of his poetical dreams, which were often disturbed by waking himself in repeating a verse aloud. " This night I awaked with this verse in my mouth — E i duo che manda il nero adusto suolo. The two, the dark and burning soil has sent. He discovered that the epithet black was not suitable ; " I again fell asleep, and in a dream I read in Strabo that the sand of Ethiopia and Arabia is extremely lohite, and this morning I have found the place. You see what learned dreams I have." But incidents of this nature are not peculiar to this great hard. The improvvisatori poets, we are told, cannot sleep after an evening's effusion ; the rhymes are still ringing in their ears, and imagination, if they have any, will still haunt them. Their previous state of excitement breaks into the calm of sleep ; for, like the ocean, when its swell is subsiding, the waves still heave and beat. A poet, whether a ^lilton or a Blackmore, will ever find that his muse will visit his "slumbers nightly." His i'ate is much harder than that of the great minister. Sir Robert Walpole, who on retiring to rest could throw aside his political intrigues with his clothes ; but Sir Robert, to judge by his portrait and anecdotes of him, had a sleekiness and good-humour, and an unalterable equanimity of countenance, not the j)ortion of men of genius : indeed one of these has regretted that his sleep was so pro- found as not to b(! interrupted by dreams ; from a throng of fantastic ideas he imagined that he could have drawn new sources of poetic imagery. The historian Die Thou was one of those great literary characters who, all his life, was pre- paring to write the history which he afterwards composed ; omitting nothing, in his travels and his embassies, which 128 Literary Character. went to the formation of a great man. De Tnou lias given a very curious account of his dreams. Such was his passion for stud}', and liis ardent admiration of the great men whom he conversed with, tliat lie often imagined in his sleep that he was travelling in Italy, Germany, and in England, where he saw and consulted the learned, and examined their curious libraries. He had all his lifetime these literary dreams, but more particularly in his travels they reflected these images of the day. If memory do not chain down these hurrying fading children of the imagination, and Snatch the faithless fugitives to light with the beams of the morning, the mind suddenly finds itself forsaken and solitary.* Rousseau has uttered a com- plaint on this occasion. Full of enthusiasm, he devoted to the subject of his thoughts, as was his custom, the long sleepless intervals of his nights. Meditating in bed with his eyes closed, he turned over his periods in a tumult of ideas ; but when he rose and had dressed, all was vanished ; and when he sat down to his breakfast he had nothing to write. Thus genius has its vespers and its vigils, as well as its matins, which we have been so often told are the true hours of its inspiration ; but every hour may be full of inspiration for him who knows to meditate. No man was more practised in this art of the mind than Pope, and even the night was not an unregarded portion of his poetical existence, not less than with Leonardo DA Vinci, who tells us how often he found the use of recol- lecting tlie ideas of what he had considered in the day after he had retired to bed, encompassed by the silence and obscu- rity of the night. Sleepless nights are the portion of genius when engaged in its work ; the train of reasoning is still pur- sued ; the imtiges of fancy catch a fresh illumination ; and even a hap))y expression shall linger in the ear of him who turns about for the soft composure to which his troubled spirit cannot settle. But while with genius so much seems fortuitous, in its great operations the march of the mind appears regular, and • One of the most extraonlinary instances of inspiration in dreams is told of Tartiui, the Italian musician, whose "Devil's Sonata" is well known to musicians. He dreamed that the father of evil played this piece to him, and upon waking he put it on pajier. It is a strange wild per- formance, possessing great originality and vigour. — Ed. Value of Meditation. 129 requires preparation. The intellectual faculties are not always co-existent, or do not always act simultaneously. Whenever any particular faculty is highly active, while the others are languid, the work, as a work of genius, may be very deficient. Hence the faculties, in whatever degree they exist, are un- questionably enlarged by meditation. It seems trivial to observe that meditation should precede composition, but we are not always aware of its importance ; the truth is, that it is a difficulty unless it be a habit. We write, and we find we have written ill ; we re-write, and feel we have written well : in the second act of composition we have acquired the necessary meditation. Still we rarely carry on our meditation so far as its practice would enable us. Many works of me- diocrity might have approached to excellence, had this art of the mind been exercised. Many volatile writers might have reached even to deep thinking, had they bestowed a day of meditation before a day of composition, and thus engendered their thoughts. Many productions of genius have originally been enveloped in feebleness and obscurity, which have only been brought to perfection by repeated acts of the mind. There is a maxim of Confucius, which in the translation seems quaint, but which is pregnant with sense — Labour, but slight not meditation ; Meditate, but slight not labour. Few works of magnitude presented themselves at once, in their extent and with their associations, to their authors. Two or three striking circumstances, unobserved before, are perhaps all which the man of genius perceives. It is in re- volving the subject that the whole mind becomes gradually agitated ; as a summer landscape, at the break of day, is wrapped in mist : at first, the sun strikes on a single object, but the light and warmth increasing, the whole scene glows in the noonday of imagination. How beautifully this state of the mind, in the progress of composition, is described by Hetden, alluding to his work, *' when it was only a confused mass of thoughts, tumbling over one another in the dark; when the fancy was yet in its first work, moving the sleeping images of things towards the light, there to be distinguished, and then either to be chosen or rejected by the judgment ! " At that moment, he adds, " I was in that eagerness of imagination which, by over-pleasing fanciful men, flatters them into the danger of writing." Giubon tells us of his history, " At the 130 Literary Cliarurtcr. onset all was dark and doubtful ; even tlie title of the work, the true era of the decline and fall of the empire, &c. I was often tempted to cast away the labour of seven years." WiNCKKLMANN was long lost in composing his "History of Art ;" a hundred fruitless attempts were made, before he could discover a plan amidst the labyrinth. Slight concep- tions kindle finished works. A lady asking for a few verses on rural topics of the Abbe de Lille, his specimens jjjeased, and sketches heaped on sketches produced " Les Jardins." In writing the " Pleasures of Memory," as it happened with "The Kape of the Lock," the poet at first proposed a simple description in a few lines, till conducted by meditation the perfect composition of several years closed in that fine poem. That still valuable work, L'Art dc Penser of the Port-Koyal, was originally projected to teach a young nobleman all that was practically useful in the art of logic in a few days, and was intended to have been written in one morning by the great AitNArLD ; but to that profound thinker so many new ideas crowded in that slight task, that he was compelled to call in his friend Nicolle ; and thus a few projected pages closed in a volume so excellent, that our elegant metaphysician has recently declared, that " it is hardly possible to estimate the merits too highly." Pemberton, who knew Xewtok intimately, informs us that his Treatise on Natural Philosophy, full of a variety of profound inventions, was composed by him from scarcely any other materials than the few propositions he had set down several years before, and which having re- sumed, occupied him in writing one year and a half. A curious circumstance has been preserved in the life of the other immortal man in philosoph}', Lord Bacox. "When young, he wrote a letter to Father Fulgentio concerning an Essay of his, to which he gave the title of " The Greatest Birth of Time," a title which he censures as too pompous. The Essay itself is lost, but it was the first outline of that great design which he afterwards pursued and finished in his " Instauration of the Sciences." Locke himself has informed us, that his great work on " The Human Understanding," when he first put pen to paper, he thought " would have been contained in one sheet, but that the farther he went on, the larger prospect he had." In this manner it would be beautiful to trace the history of the human mind, and observe how a Newton and a Bacon and a Locke were proceeding for First Thoughts. 131 thirty years together, in accumulating truth upon truth, and finally building up these fabrics of their invention. Were it possible to collect some thoughts of great thinkers, which were never written, we should discover vivid con- ceptions, and an originality they never dared to pursue in their works ! Artists have this advantage over authors, that their virgin fancies, their chance felicities, which hihour cannot afterwards produce, are constantly perpetuated ; and those " studies," as they are called, are as precious to posterity as their more complete designs. In literature we possess one re- markable evidence of these fortuitous thoughts of genius. Pope and Swift, being in the country together, observed, that if contemplative men were to notice " the tlioughts whick suddenly present themselves to their minds when walking in the fields, &c., the}' might find many as well worth preserving as some of their more deliberate reflections." They made a trial, and agreed to write down such involuntary thoughts as occurred during their stay there. These furnished out the "Thoughts" in Pope's and Swift's Miscellanies.* Among Lord Bacon's Remains, we find a paper entitled " Sudden Thoughts, set down for Profit." At all hours, by the side of Voltaire's bed, or on his table, stood his pen and ink with slips of paper. The margins of his books were covered with his " sudden thoughts." Cicero, in reading, constantly took notes and made comments. There is an art of reading, as well as an art of thinking, and an art of writing. The art of meditation may be exercised at all hours, and in all places ; and men of genius, in their walks, at table, and amidst assemblies, turning the eye of the mind inwards, can form an artificial soHtude ; retired amidst a crowd, calm amidst distraction, and wise amidst folly. When Domeni- CUINO was reproached for his dilatory habits, in not finishing a great picture for which he had contracted, his reply de- scrilx'd this method of study : Eh ! lo la sto continuamente dipingendo entro di me — I am continually painting it within myself. Houartii, with an eye always awake to tlie ridi- culous, would catch a character on liis thumb-nail. Leonardo DA Vinci has left a great number of little books which he usually carried in his girdle, that he might instantly sketch * This anecdote is found in Rufl'iieud's "Life of Pojie," evidently given by Warburton, as was everything of personal knowleilge in that tiisteless volume of a mere lawyer, who presumed to write the life of a poet. k2 132 Literary Character. whatever lie wLshod to rocal to liis recollection ; and Amo- retti discovered, that, in tliesc light sketches, this fine genius was forming a system of physiognomy which he frequently inculcated to his pupils.* Haydx carefully noted down in a pocket-book the passages and ideas which came to him in his walks or amid company. Some of the great actions of men of thishahit f)f mind were first meditated on amidst the noise of a convivial i)arty, or the music of a concert. The victory of Waterloo might have been organized in the ball-room at Brussels: and thus Uod.ney, at the table of Lord Sandwich, while the bottle was briskly circulating, being observed ar- ranging bits of cork, and his solitary amusement having ex- cited inquiry, said that he was practising a plan to annihilate an enemy's fleet. This proved to be that discovery of break- ing the line, which the happy audacity of the hero afterwards executed. What situation is more common than a sea-voyage, where nothing presents itself to the reflections of most men than irksome observations on the desert of waters ? But the constant exercise of the mind by habitual practice is the pri- vilege of a commanding genius, and, in a similar situation, we discover Cicero and Sir William Jones acting alike. Amidst the Oriental seas, in a voyage of 12,000 miles, the mind of Jones kindled with delightful enthusiasm, and he has per- petuated those elevating feelings in his discourse to the Asiatic Society ; so Cicero on board a ship, sailing slowly along the coast, passing by a town where his friend Trebatius resided, wrote a work which the other had expressed a wish to possess, and of which wish the view of the town had reminded him. To this habit of continuity of attention, tracing the first simple idea to its remoter consequences, the philosophical genius owes many of its discoveries. It was one evening in the cathedral of Pisa that Galileo observed the vibrations of a brass lustre pendent from the vaulted roof, which had been left swinging by one of the vergers. The habitual meditation of genius combined with an ordinary accident a new idea of science, and hence conceived the invention of measuring time by the medium of a pendulum. Who but a genius of this order, sitting in his orchard, and observing the descent of an apple, coidd have discovered a new quality in matter, and have ascertained the laws of attraction, by per- * A collection of sixty-four of these .sketches were published at Paris in 1730. They are remarkable as delineations of mental character in feature as strongly felt as if done under the direction of Lavater himself. — Ed, Great Discoveries. 133 ceiving that the same causes might perpetuate the regular motions of the planetary system ; who hut a genius of this order, while viewing boys blowing soap-bladders, could have discovered the properties of light and colours, and then anato- mised a ray ? Franklin, on board a ship, observing a partial stillness in the waves when they threw down water which had been used for culinary purposes, by the same prin- ciple of meditation was led to the discovery of the wonderful property in oil of calming the agitated ocean ; and many a ship has been preserved in tempestuous weather, or a landing facilitated on a dangerous surf, by this solitary meditation of genius. Thus meditation draws out of the most simple truths the strictness of philosophical demonstration, converting even the amusements of school-boys, or the most ordinary domestic occurrences, into the principle of a new science. The pheno- menon of galvanism was familiar to students ; yet was there but one man of genius who could take advantau:e of an acci- dent, give it his name, and fix it as a science. It was while lying in his bath, but still meditating on the means to detect the fraud of the goldsmith who had made Hiero's crown, that the most extraordinary philosopher of antiquity was led to the investigation of a series of propositions demonstrated in the two books of Auciiimedes, De insidentibus in JluiJo, still extant ; and which a great mathematician admires both for the strictness and elegance of the demonstrations. To as minute a domestic occurrence as Galyani's we owe the steam-engine. When the Marquis of Wokcestek was a State prisoner in the Tower, he one day observed, while his meal was preparing in his apartment, that the cover of the vessel being tight, was, by tlie expansion of the steam, sud- denly forced off, and driven up the chimney. His inventive mind was led on in a train of thought with reference to the practical ap])lieation of steam as a first mover. His observa- tions, obscurely exhibited in his " Century of Inventions," were successively wrouglit out by the meditations of others, and an incident, to which one can hardly make a formal refer- ence without a risible emotion, terminated in the noblest instance of mechanical power. Into the stillness of meditation the mind of genius must be frequently thrown ; it is a kind of darkness which hides from us all surrounding objects, even in the light of day. This is the first state of existence in genius. lu Cicero's " Treatise 134 Literary Character. on Old Ago," we find Cato admirinf^ Cuius Sulpitius Gallus, who. wliL'ii lie sat down to write in the niorninj;^, was sur- prised by the eveninij ; and when he took up his pen in the evening, was surprised by the appearance of the morning. SocRATKs sometimes remained a whole diiy in immovable meditation, his eyes and countenance directed to one spot, a."* if in the stillness of death. La Fontaine, when writing bin comic tales, has been observed early in the morning and late in the evening in the same recumbent posture under the same tree. This quiescent state is a sort of enthusiasm, and renders everj'thing that surrounds us as distant as if an immense in- terval separated us from the scene. Poggius has told us of Dante, that he indulged his meditations more strongly than any man he knew ; for when deeply busied in reading, he seemed to live only in bis ideas. Once the poet went to view a public procession ; having entered a bookseller's shop, and taken up a book, he sunk into a reverie ; on bis return he de- clared that he had neither seen nor beard a single occurrence in the public exhibition, which bad passed unobserved before him. It has been told of a modern astronomer, that one summer night, when he was withdrawing to bis chamber, the brightness of the heavens showed a phenomenon : he passed the whole night in observing it ; and when they came to him early in the morning, and found him in the same attitude, he said, like one who had been recollecting his thoughts for a few moments, " It must be thus ; but I'll go to bed before it is late." He bad gazed the entire night in meditation, and was not aware of it. Abernethy has finely j^ainted the situa- tion of Newton in this state of mind. I will not change his words, for his words are his feelings. " It was this power of mind — which can contemplate the greatest number of facts or propositions with accuracy — that so eminently distinguished Newton from other men. It was this power that enabled liim to arrange the whole of a treatise in his thoughts before he committed a single idea to paper. In the exercise of this power, he was known occasionally to have passed a whole night or day, entirely inattentive to surrounding objects." There is nothing incredible in the stories related of some who have experienced this entranced state in study, where the mind, deliciousl}' inebriated with the object it contem- plates, feels nothing, from the excess of feeling, as a philo- sopher well describes it. The impressions from our exterior sensations are often suspended by great mental excitement. Abstraction of Mind. 135 Aectiimedes, involved in the investigation of mathematical truth, and the ])ainters Paotogenes and Parmkgi.vno, found their senses locked up as it were in meditation, so as to be incapable of withdrawing themselves from their work, even in the midst of the terrors and storming of the place by the enemy. Marixo was so absorbed in the composition of his " Adonis," that he suffered his leg to be burned before the painful sensation grew stronger than the intellectual ])leasure of his imagination. Monsieur Thomas, a modern French wi-iter, and an intense thinker, would sit for hours against a hedge, composing with a low voice, taking the same pinch of snuff for half an hour together without being aware that it had long disappeared. When he quitted his apartment, after prolonging his studies there, a visible alteration was ob- served in his person, and the agitation of his recent thoughts was still traced in his air and manner. With eloquent truth BuFFON described those reveries of the student, which com- press his day, and mark the hours by the sensations of minutes ! " Invention depends on patience : contemplate your subject long ; it will gradually unfold till a sort of electric sjjark convulses for a moment the brain, and spreads down to the very heart a glow of irritation. Then come the luxuries of genius, the true hours for production and composi- tion — hours so delightful, tluit I have spent twelve or four- teen successively at my writing-desk, and still been in a state of pleasure." Bishop Houne, whose literary feelings were of the un»st delicate and lively kind, has beautifully recorded them in his progress through a favourite and lengthened work — his Commentary on the Psalms. He alludes to himself in the third person ; yet who but the self-painter could have caught those delicious emotions which are so evanescent in the deep occupation of pleasant studies ? " He arose fresh in the morning to his task ; the silence of the night invited him to pursue it ; and he can truly say, that food and rest were not preferred before it. Every part improved infinitely upon his acquaintance with it, and no one gave him uneasiness but the last, for tlien he grieved that his work was done." This eager delight of pursuing study, this impatience of interruption, and tliis exultation in progress, are alike finely described by Milton in a letter to his friend Diodati. '■ Such is the character of my mind, that no dehi}', none of the ordinary cessations for rest or otherwise, I had nearly said care or thinking of the very subject, can hold me back 13G Literary Character. from being hurried on to the destined point, and from com- pleting the great circuit, aa it were, of the study in which I am engaged." Sufli is the picture of genius viewed in the stillness of MEDITATION ; but there is yet a more excited state, when, a» if consciousness were mixing with its reveries, in the allusion of a scene, of a person, of a passion, the emotions of the soul affect even the organs of sense. This excitement is exj>e- riencod when the poet in the excellence of invention, and the philosoplicr in the force of intellect, alike share in the hours of inspiration and the enthusiasm of genius. CHAPTER XII. The enthusiasm of genius. — A state of mind resembling a waking dream distinct from reverie. — The ideal presence distinguished from the real presence. — The senses are really affected in the ideal world, proved by a variety of instances. — Of the rapture or sensation of deep study in art, in science, and literature. — -Of perturbed feelings in delirium. — In ex- treme endurance of attention. — And in visionary illusions. — Enthusiasts in literature and art — of their self-immolations. We left the man of genius in the stillness of meditation. We have now to pursue his history through that more excited state which occurs in the most active operations of genius, and which the term reverie inadequately indicates. Metaphy- sical distinctions but ill describe it, and popular language affords no terms for those faculties and feelings which escape the observation of the multitude not affected by the pheno- menon. The illusion produced by a drama on persons of great sensibility, when all the senses are awakened by a mixture of reality with imagination, is the effect experienced by men of genius in their own vivified ideal world. lieal emotions are raised by fiction. In a scene, apparently passing in their presence, where the whole train of circumstances succeeds in all the continuity of nature, and where a sort of real existences appear to rise up before them, they themselves become spec- tators or actors. Their sympathies are excited, and the exterior organs of sense are visibly affected — they even break out into speech, and often accompany their speech with ges- tures. In this equivocal state the enthusiast of genius produces his masterpieces. This waking dream is distinct from reverie, Actors of Genius. 137 where, our thoughts wandering without connexion, the faint impressions are so evanescent as to occur without even being recollected. A day of reverie is beautifully painted by Rors- SEAU as distinct from a day oi thinkinj : " J'ai des journees delicieuses, errant sans souci, sans projet, sans affaire, de bois en bois, et do rocher en rocher, revant toujours et ne pensant pointy Far different, however, is one closely-pursued act of meditation, carrying the enthusiast of genius beyond the pre- cinct of actual existence. The act of contemplation then creates the thing contemplated. He is now the busy actor in a world which he himself only views ; alone, he hears, he sees, he touches, he laughs, he weeps ; his brows and lips, and his very limbs move. Poets and even painters, who, as Lord Bacon describes witches, " are imaginative," have often involuntarily betrayed, in the act of composition, those gestures which accompany chis enthusiasm. Witness Domenichino enraging himself that he might portray anger. Nor were these creative ges- tures quite unknown to Quixtiliax, who has nobly com- pared them to the lashings of the lion's tail, rousing him to combat. Actors of genius have accustomed themselves to walk on the stage for an hour before the curtain was drawn, that they might till their minds with all the phantoms of the drama, and so suspend all communion with the external world. The great actress of our age, during representation, always had the door of her dressing-room open, that she might listen to, and if possible watch the whole performance, with the same attention as was experienced by the spectators. By this means she possessed herself of all the illusion of the scene ; and when she herself entered on the stage, her dreaia- ing thoughts then brightened into a vision, where the per- ceptions of the soul were as firm and clear as if she were really the Constance or the Katherine whom she only repre- sented.* Aware of this peculiar faculty, so prevalent in the more vivid exercise of genius, Lord Kaimes seems to have been the first who, in a work on criticism, attempted to name the ideal presence, to distinguish it from tlie recti presence of things. It has been called the representative faculty, the imaginative state, and many other states and faculties. Call it what we will, no term opens to us the invisible mode of its * The late Mrs. Siddons. She herself comuiuuicated this striking cir- cumstauce to lue. 138 Literary Character. oporations, no metaphysical (It'liiiition exprcsse8 its variable nature. Conscious of the existence of such a faculty, our critic perceived that the conception of it is by no meas clear when (li.'scribcd in words. llae not tlie ditlerence between an actual thini^, and its image in a glass, perplexed some philosophers ? and it is well known how far the ideal philosojjhy has been carried by kg fine a genius as IJishop Bkukeley. "All are jjictures, alike l)ainted on the retina, or optical sensorium !" exclaimed the enthusiast Bakuy, who only saw pictures in nature, and nature in pictures. This faculty has had a strange influence over the passionate lovers of statues. We find unquestion- able evidence of the vividness of the representative faculty, or the ideal presence, vying with that of reality. Evelyk has described one of this cast of mind, in the librarian of the Vatican, who haunted one of the finest collections at Rome. To these statues he would frequently talk as if they were living persons, often kissing and embracing them. A similar circumstance might be recorded of a man of distinguished talent and literature among ourselves. Wondrous stories ai'e told of the amatorial passion for marble statues ; but the wonder ceases, and the truth is established, when the irre- sistible ideal presence is comprehended ; the visions which now bless these lovers of statues, in the modern land of sculpture, Italy, had acted with equal force in ancient Greece. "The Last Judgment," the stupendous ideal pre- sence of Michael Axgelo, seems to have communicated itself to some of his beholders : " As I stood before this pic- ture," a late traveller tells us, " my blood chilled as if the reality were before me, and the very sound of the trumpet seemed to pierce my ears." Cold and barren tempers without imagination, whose im- pressions of objects never rise beyond those of memory and reflection, which know only to compare, and not to excite, will smile at this equivocal state of the ideal presence ; yet it is a real one to the enthusiast of genius, and it is his happiest and peculiar condition. Destitute of this faculty, no meta- ])hvsical aid, no art to be taught him, no mastery of talent, will avail him : unblest with it, the votary will find each sacrifice lying cold on the altar, for no accepting flame from heaven shall kindle it. Tins enthusiasm indeed can only be discovered by men of genius themselves ; yet when most under its influence, they Sensitiveness. 139 can least perceive it, as the eye which sees all things cannot view itself; or, rather, such an attempt would be like search- ing for the principle of life, which were it found would cease to be life. From an enchanted man we must not expect a narrative of his enchantment ; for if he could speak to us reasonably, and like one of ourselves, in that case he would be a man in a state of disenchantment, and then would per- haps yield us no better account than we may trace by our own observations. There is, however, something o*" reality in this state of the ideal presence ; for the most familiar instances will show how the nerves of each external sense are put in motion by the idea of the object, as if the real object had been presented to it. The dill'erence is only in the degree. The senses are more concerned in the ideal world than at first appears. The idea of a thing will make us shudder ; and the bare imagina- tion of it will often produce a real pain. A curious conse- quence may be deduced from this principle ; Miltox, lin- gering amid the freshness of nature in Eden, felt all the delights of those elements which he was creating ; his nerves moved with the images which excited them. The fierce and wild Dante, amidst the abysses of his " Inferno." must often have l)een startled by its horrors, and often left his bitter and gloomy spirit in the stings he inflicted on the great criminal. The moveable nerves, then, of the man of genius are a reality ; he sees, he hears, he feels, by each. How mysterious to us is the operation of this faculty ! A lioMEii and a 1vICII.vkdso>',* like nature, open a volume large as life it.>;elf — embracing a circuit ol human existence ! Tins state of the mind has even a realitj' in it for the gene- rality of persons. In a romance or a drama, tears are often seen in the eyes of the reader or the spectator, who, before they have time to recollect that the whole is fictitious, have been surprised for a moment by a strong conception of a pre- sent and existing scene. Can we doubt of the reality of this faculty, when the visible and outward frame of the man of genius bears witness to its presence ? When FlELDlNa said, " 1 do not doubt but * Richardson assembles a family about him, writing down what they said, seeinf; their very manner of s-ayina;, living with them as often and as long as he wills — with such a personal unity, that an ingenious lawyer once told me that he required no stronger evidence of a fact in any court of law than a circumstantial scene in Richardson. 140 Literary Character. the most patlu-tic and affoftirif* socnos have heen writ with tears," lie i)r()l)al)ly (hrw that fliscovtry from an inverse feeling to liis own. Fiehling would have heen gratified to have confirmed the oljsorvation hy facts which never reached him. INIktastasio, in writing the ninth scene of the second act of his Oh/inpiad, found himself suddeidy moved — shed- ding tears. Tlie imagined sorrows had inspired real tears ; and they afterwards proved contagious, ilad our poet not perpetuated his surprise by an interesting sonnet, the eircu|D- stance had passed away with the emotion, as many such have. Pope could never read Priam's speech for the loss of his son without tears, and frequently has been observed to weep over tender and melancholy passages. Alfieri, the most energetic jioet of modern times, having composed, without a pause, the whole of an act, noted in the margin — ^" Written under a paroxysm of enthusiasm, and while shedding a flood of tears." The impressions which the frame experiences in this state, leave deeper traces behind them than those of reverie. A circumstance accidentally preserved has informed «s of the tremors of Dktden after having written that ode,* which, as he confessed, he had pursued without the power of quitting it ; but these tremors were not unusual with him — for in the preface to his " Tales," he tells us, that "in trans- lating Homer he found greater pleasure than in Virgil ; but it was not a pleasure without pain ; the continual agitation of the spirits must needs be a weakener to any constitution, especially in age, and many pauses are required for refresh- ment betwixt the heats." We find IMetastasio, like others of the brotherhood, sus- ceptible of this state, complaining of his sufferings during the poetical aistus. " When 1 apply with attention, the nerves of my sensorium are put into a violent tumult ; I grow as red as a drunkard, and am obliged to quit my work." When BuFFON was absorbed on a subject which presented great objections to his opinions, he I'elt his head burn, and saw his countenance flushed ; and this was a warning for him to suspend his attention. Gray could never compose voluntarily : his genius resembled the armed apparition in Shakspeare's master-tragedy. "He would not be com- * This famous and unparalleled ode \ras probably afterwards re- toucbeil ; but .lo.scph Warton discovered in it the rapidity of the thoughts, and tiie glow and the expressiveness of the images ; which are the certain marks of ihejirst sketch of a master. Ejfect of Great Works. 141 mandecl." When he wished to compose tlie Installation Ode, for a considerable time he felt himself without the power to bei^in it : a friend calling on him, Gray flung open his door hastily, and in a hurried voice and tone, exclaiming in the first verse of that ode — Hence, avaunt ! 'tis holy ground ! — his friend started at the disordered appearance of the bard, •whose orgasm had disturbed his very air and countenance. Listen to one labouring with all the magic of the spell. Madame Roland has thus powerfully described the ideal presence in her first readings of Telemachus and Tasso : — " My respiration rose, I felt a rapid fire colouring my face, and my voice changing had betrayed my agitation. I was Eucharis for Telemachus, and Erniiiiia for Tancred. How- ever, during this ])erfect transformation, I did not yet think that I myself was anything, for any one: the whole had no connexion with myself. I sought i'or nothing around me ; I was they ; I saw only the objects which existed for them ; it was a dream, without being awakened." The description which so calm and exquisite an investi- gator of taste and philosophy as our sweet and polished Reynolds has given of himself at one of these moments, is too rare not to be recorded in his own words. Alluding to the famous " Transfiguration," our own Raffaelle says — " When I have stood looking at that picture from figure to figure, the eagerness, the spirit, the close unaffected attention of each figure to the principal action, my thoughts have carried me away, that I have forgot myself; and for that time might be looked upon as an entliusiastic madman ; for I could really fancy the whole action was passing before my eyes." The effect which the study of Plutarch's Illustrious Men produced on the mighty mind of Alfieki, during a whole winter, while he lived as it were among the heroes of antiquity, lie has liimself described. Altieri wept and raved with grief and iiuligiiation that he was born under a govern- ment which favoured no Roman heroes and sages. As often as he was struck witli the great deeds of these great men, in his extreme agitation he rose from his seat as one possessed. The feeling of genius in Alfieri was suppressed for more than twenty years, by the discouragement of liis uncle : but as the natural temperament cannot bo crushed out of the soul of 142 Literary Character. genius, he was a poet without writing a single verse ; and as a great ])oet, the ideal presenee at times beeame ungovernable, verging to madness. In traversing the wilds of Arragon, hia emotions would eertainly have given birth to poetry, could he have expressed himself in verse. It was a complete state of the imaginative existence, or this ideal presence; for he pro- ceeded along tlie wilds of Arragon in a reverie, weeping and laughing bv turns. He considered this as a folly, because it ended in nothing but in laughter and tears. He was not aware that he was then yielding to a demonstration, could he have judged of himself, that he possessed those dispositions of mind and that energy of passion which form the poetical character. Genius creates by a single conception ; the statuary con- ceives the statue at once, which he afterwards executes by the slow process of art ; and the architect contrives a whole palace in an instant. In a single principle, opening as it were on a sudden to genius, a great and new svstem of things is discovered. It has happened, sometimes, that this single con- ception, rushing over the whole concentrated spirit, has agitated the frame convulsively. It comes like a whispered secret from Nature. When Malebra>'CHE first took up Descartes's Treatise on Man, the germ of his own subsequent philosophic system, such was his intense feeling, that a violent palpita- tion of the heart, more than once, obliged him to lay down the volume. When the first idea of the " Essay on the Arts and Sciences" rushed on the mind of Kousseau, a feverish symptom in his nervous system approached to a slight delirium. Stopping under an oak, he wrote with a pencil the Proso- popeia of Fabricius. " I still remember my solitary transport at the discovery of a philosophical argument against the doctrine of transubstantiation," exclaimed Gibbox in his Memoirs. This quick sensibility of genius has suppressed the voice of poets in reciting their most pathetic passages. THOMSOif was so oppressed by a passage in Virgil or Milton when he attempted to read, that " his voice sunk in ill-articulated sounds from the bottom of his breast." The tremulous figures of the ancient Sibyl appear to have been viewed in the land of the Muses, by the energetic description which Paulus Jovius gives us of the impetus and afflatus of one of the Italian improvvisatori, some of whom, I have heard from one present at a similar exhibition, have not degenerated in poetic inspiration, nor in its corporeal excitement. " His eyes fixed Enthusiasm. 1 13 downwards, kindle as he gives utterance to his effusions, the moist drops flow down his cheeks, the veins of his forehead swell, and wonderfully his learned ear, as it were, abstracted and intent, moderates each impulse of his flowing numbers."* This enthusiasm throws the man of genius amid Nature into absorbing reveries when the senses of other men are overcome at the appearance of destruction ; he continues to view onl}^ Nature herself. The mind of Pliny, to add one more chapter to his mighty scroll, sought Nature amidst the volcano in which he perished. Vkiinet was on board a ship in a raging tempest where all hope was given up. 'J'he astonished captain beheld the artist of genius, his pencil in his hand, in calm enthusiasm sketching the terrible world of waters — studying tlie wave that was rising to devour him.f There is a tender enthusiasm in tlie elevated studies of antiquity. Then the ideal presence or the imaginative exis- tence prevails, by its perpetual associations, or as the late Dr. Brown has, perhaps, more distinctly termed them, sugrjestions. "In contemplating antiquity, the mind itself becomes antique," was finely observed by Livy, long ere our philosophy of the mind existed as a system. This rapture, or sensation of deep study, has been described by one whose imagination had strayed into the occult learning of antiquity, and in the hymns of Orpheus it seemed to him that he had lifted the veil from Nature. His feelings were associated with her loneliness. I translate his words : — " When I took these dark mystical hymns into my hands, I appeared as it were to be descending into an abyss of the mysteries of venerable antiquity ; at that moment, the world in silence and the stars and moon only, watching me." This enthusiasm is conlirmed by Mr. Mathias, who ajjplies this description to his own emotions on his first opening the manuscript volumes of the poet Gray on the philosophy of Plato; "and many a learned man," he adds, " will acknowledge as his own the feelings of this animated scholar." Amidst the monuments of great and departed nations, our * The passage is curious : — Canenti defixi exardent oouli, sudores manant, fronlis venio conturnescunt, et quod niiruiu est, eruditaj aures, tanquain alieiiaj et inteiitje, omnem impetum proflueiitiuiu numerorum ex- actissiiuil ratione inoderantur." + V'ernet was the artist whose sea-ports of France still decorate the Louvre. He was marine painter to Louis XV. and grandfatiier of the celebrated lloraou Veruet, whose recent death has deprived France of her best painter of hattle-sceues. — Ed. 144 Literary Ckaractcr. imagination is touched by tlie grandeur of local impressions, and the vivid associations, or suggestions, of tlie manners, the arts, and tlie individuals, of a great people. The classical author of Anacharsis, when in Italy, would often stop aa if overcome by his recollections. Amid camj>8, temples, circuses, hippodromes, and public and private edifices, he, as it were, held an interior converse with the manes of those who seemed hovering aljout the capital of the old world ; as if he had been a citizen of ancient Rome travelling in the modern. So men of genius have roved amid the awful ruins till the ideal pre- sence has fondly built up the city anew, and have become Romans in the Rome of two thousand years past. Pompo- mus L.TTUS, who devoted his life to this study, was con- stantly seen wandering amidst the vestiges of this " throne of the world." There, in many a reverie, as his e\'e rested on the mutilated arch and the broken column, abstracted and immovable, he dropped tears in the ideal presence of Rome and of the Romans.* Another enthusiast of this class was Bosius, who sought beneath Rome for another Rome, in those catacombs built by the early Christians for their asylum and their sepulchre. His work of " Roma Sotteranea " is the production of a subterraneous life, passed in fervent and perilous labours. Taking with him a hermit's meal for the week, this new Pliny often descended into the bowels of the earth, by lamp-light, clearing away the sand and ruins till a tomb broke forth, or an inscription became legible. Accom- panied by some friend whom his enthusiasm had inspired with his own sympathy, here he dictated his notes, tracing the mouldering sculpture, and catching the fading picture. Thrown back into the primitive ages of Christianity, amid the local impressions, the historian of the Christian cata- combs collected the memorials of an age and of a race whica were hidden beneath the earth.f The same enthusiasm surrounds the world of science with * Shelley caught much of his poetry in wandering among the ruins of the palace of tlie Caesars on the Palatine Hill ; and the impression made by historic ruins on the mind of Byron is powerfully evinced in his " Childe Harold."— Ed. + A large number of these important memorials have been since removed to the Galleria Lapidaria of the Vatican, and arranged on the walls by Marini. They are invaluable as mementoes of the early Church at Kome. Aringhi has also devoted a work to their elucidation. The Rev. C. Mait- land's "Church in the Catacombs" is an able general summary, clearly displaying their intrinsic historic value — Ed. Werner and Cuvier. 145 that creative imagination wliich has startled even men of science by its pecuhar discoveries. Werner, the mineralo- gist, celebrated for his lectures, appears, by some accounts transmitted by his auditors, to have exercised this facult}'. Werner often said that " he always depended on the muse for inspiration." His unwritten lecture was a reverie — till kind- ling in his progress, blending science and imagination in the grandeur of his conceptions, at times, as if he had gathered about liim the very elements of nature, his spirit seemed to be hovering over the waters and the strata. With the same enthusiasm of science, Cuvier meditated on some bones, and some fragments of bones, which could not belong to any known class of the animal kingdom. The philosoplier dwelt on these animal ruins till he constructed numerous species which had disappeared from the globe. This sublime na- turalist has ascertained and classified the fossil remains of animals whose existence can no longer be traced in the records of mankind. His own language bears testimony to the imagination which carried him on through a career so strange and wonderful. '" It is a rational object of ambition in the mind of man, to whom only a short space of time is allotted upon earth, to have the glor}' of restoring the history of thousands of ages which preceded the existence of his race, and of thousands of animals that never toere contetnjwraneous loith his species.^' Philosophy becomes poetry, and science imagination, in the enthusiasm of genius. Even in the prac- tical part of a science, painful to the operator himself, Mr. Abernethy has declared, and eloquently declared, that this enthusiasm is absolutely requisite. " We have need of enthu- siasm, or some strong incentive, to induce us to spend our nights in study, and our days in the disgusting and health- destroying observation of human diseases, which alone can enable us to understand, alleviate, or remove them. On no other terms can we be considered as real students of our pro- fession — to confer that which sick kings would fondly pur- chase with their diadem — that which wealth cannot ])urcliase, nor state nor rank bestow — to alleviate the most insup- portable of human afflictions." Such is the enthusiasm of the physiologist of genius, who elevates the demonstrations of anatomical inquiries by the cultivation of the intellectual faculties, connecting " man with the common Master of the universe." This enthusiasm inconceivably tills the mind of genius in L 146 Literary Character. all great and solemn operations. It is an af^tatioii amidst calmness, and is recjuired not only in the fine arts, but wherever a great and continued exertion of the soul n)ust be employed. The great ancients, who, if tliey were not always philosophers, were always men of genius, saw, or imagined they saw, a divinity within the man. This enthusiasm is alike experienced in the silence of study and amid.st the roar of cannon, in painting a picture or in scaling a rampart. View De Ti[()U, the historian, after his morning prayers, im- ploring the Divinity to purifj' his heart from partiality and hatred, and to open his spirit in developing the truth, amidst the contending factions of his times ; and Haydx, employed in his "Creation," earnestly addressing the Creator ere he struck his instrument. In moments like these, man becomes a perfect unit}- — one thought and one act, abstracted from all other thoughts and all other acts. This intensity of the mind was felt by Guat in his loftiest excursions, and is perhaps the same power which impels the villager, when, to overcome his rivals in a contest for leaping, he retires back some steps, collects all exertion into his mind, and clears the eventful bound. One of our admirals in the reign of Elizabeth held as a maxim, that a height of passion, amounting to frenzy, was necessary to qualify a man for the command of a fleet ; and Nelson, decorated by all his honours about him, on the day of battle, at the sight of those emblems of glory emulated himself. This enthusiasm was necessary for his genius, and made it effective. But this enthusiasm, prolonged as it often has been by the operation of the imaginative existence, becomes a state of perturlied feeling, and can only be distinguished from a dis- ordered intellect b}^ the power of volition possessed by a sound mind of withdrawing from the ideal world into the world of sense. It is but a step which may carry us from the wanderings of fanc}' into the aberrations of delirium. The endurance of attention, even in minds of the highest order, is limited h\ a law of nature ; and when thinking is goaded on tt) exhaustion, confusion of ideas ensues, as straining any one of our limbs by excessive exertion produces tremor and torpor. ■\iVitli curious art the brain too finely wrought Preys on herself and is destroyed by Thought; Constant attention wears the active mind, Blots out her powers, and leaves a blank behind — The greatest genius to this fat€ may bow. Power of Thouglit. 147 Even minds less susceptible than high genius may become overpowered by their imagination. Often, in the deep silence around us, we seek to relieve ourselves by some voluntary noise or action which may direct our attention to an exterior object, and bring us back to the world, which we had, as it were, left behind us. The circumstance is sufficiently fami- liar ; as well as another ; that whenever we are absorbed in profound contemplation, a startling noise scatters the spirits, and painfully agitates the whole frame. The nerves are then in a state of the utmost relaxation. There may be an agony in thought whicli only deep thinkers experience. The terrible effect of metaphysical studies on Beattie has been told by himself. " Since the ' Essay on Truth ' was printed in quarto, I have never dared to read it over. I durst not even read the sheets to see whether there were an}' errors in the print, and was obliged to get a friend to do that office for me. These studies came in time to have dreadful effects upon my nervous system ; and I cannot read what I then wrote without some degree of horror, because it recalls to my mind the hor- rors that 1 have sometimes felt after passing a long evening in those severe studies." GoLDONi, after a rash exertion of writing sixteen plays in a year, confesses he paid the penalty of the folly. He Hew to Genoa, leading a life of delicious vacuity. To pass the day without doing anything, was all the enjoyment he was now capable of feeling. But long after he said, " I felt at that time, and have ever since continued to feel, the consequence of that exhaustion of spirits I su-stained in composing my sixteen comedies." The enthusiasm of stud}' was experienced by Pope in his self-education, and once it clouded over his fine intellect. It was the severity of his api)lication which distorted his body; and he then partook of a calamity incidental to the family of genius, for he sunk into that state of exhaustion which Smollett experienced during half a year, called a coma vigil, an attection of the brain, where the principle of life is so reduced, that all external objects appear to be passing in a dream. Boeuuaave has related of himself, that having im- prudently indulged in intense thought on a particular subject, he did not close his eyes for six weeks after ; and Tissot, in his work on the health of men of letters, abounds in similar cases, where a complete stupor has affected the imhappy stu- dent for a period of six months. l2 148 Literary Character. Assuredly tlio finest geniuses have not always the power to withdraw tliemsclves froni that intensely interesting^ train of ideas, which we have shown has not l»een removed Iroin about them by (iven the violent stimuli of exterior objects ; and the scenical illusion which then occurs, has been called the hallu- cinafio xtndiosa, or false ideas in reverie. Such was the state in which Petkakch found himself, in that minute narrative of a vision in which Laura appeared to him ; and Tasso, in the loftv conversations he held with a spirit that glided towards him on the beams of the sun. In this state was MALEBRANcnE listening to the voice of Gcd within him ; and Lord Heebert, when, to know whether he should jmblish his book, he threw himself on his knees, and interrogated the Deity in the stillness of the sky.* And thus Pascal started at times at a fiery gulf opening by his side. Spinello having painted the fall of the rebellious angels, had so strongly imagined the illusion, and more particularly the terrible fea- tures of Lucifer, that he was himself struck with such horror as to have been long afflicted with the presence of the demon to which his genius had given birth. The influence of the same ideal presence operated on the religious painter A>'ge- LONi, who could never represent the sufferings of Jesiis with- out his eyes overflowing with tears. Descartes, when young, and in a country seclusion, his brain exhausted with meditation, and his imagination heated to excess, heard a voice in the air which called him to pursue the search of truth ; nor did he doubt the vision, and this delirious dreaming of o-enius charmed him even in his after-studies. Our Collins and CowPER were often thrown into that extraordinary state of mind, when the ideal presence converts us into visionaries ; and their illusions were as strong as Savede>'BOUo's, whosaw a terrestrial heaven in the glittering streets of his New Jeru- salem ; or Jacob Behmen's, who listened to a celestial voice ♦ In bis curious autobiography he has given the prayer he used, ending '• I am not satisfied whether I shall publish this book dc reritafc ; if it be for thy glory, I beseech thee give me some sign from heaven ; if not I shall suppress it." His lordships adds, " I had no sooner spoken these words but a loud, though gentle noise came from the heavens (for it was like no- thing on earth) which did so comfort and cheer me, that I took my petition as granted, and that I had the sign I demanded, whereupon also I resolved to print my book. This (how strange soever it may seem) I prote.«t before the eternal God is true, neither am I any way superstitiously deceived therein, since I did not only clearly hear the nuise, but in the serenest sky that ever I saw, being without all cloud, did to my thinking see the place irom whence it came." — Ed. Visionaries of Genius. 149 till he beheld the apparition of an angel ; or Cardan's, when he so careCuUy observed a number of little armed men at his feet ; or BENVE>aTO Cellini's, whose vivid imagination and glorious egotism so frequently contemplated " a resplendent light hovering over his shadow." Such minds identified themselves with their visions! If we pass tliem over b}' asserting that they were insane, we are only cutting the knot which we cannot untie. We have no right to deny what some maintain, that a sympathy of the corporeal with the incorporeal nature of man, his imaginative with his physical existence, is an excitement which appears to have been experienced by persons of a peculiar organization, and which metaphysicians in despair must resign to the specu- lations of enthusiasts themselves, though metaphysicians reason about phenomena far removed from the perceptions of the eye. The historian of the mind cannot omit this fact, unquestionable, however incomprehensible. According to our own conceptions, this state must produce a strange myste- rious personage : a concentration of a human being within himself, endowed with inward eyes, ears which listen to inte- rior sounds, and invisible liands touching impalpable objects, for whatever they act or however they are acted on, as far as respects themselves all must have passed within their own minds. The Platonic Dr. More flattered himself that he was an enthusiast without enthusiasm, which seems but a suspicious state of convalescence. " I must ingenuously con- fess," lie says, "that I have a natural touch of enthusiasm in my complexion, but such as I tliank God wa.s ever govern- able enough, and have found at length perfectly subduable. In virtue of which victory I know better what is in enthu- siasts than they them.selves ; and therefore was able to write with life and judgment, and shall, I hope, contribute not a little to the ])eace and quiet of this kingdom thereby," Thus far one of its votaries : and all that he vaunts to have acquired by this mysterious faculty of enthusiasm is the having rendered it '• at length perfectly subduable." Yet those who have written on " Mystical devotion," have declared that, " it is a sublime state of mind to which whole sects have aspired, and some individuals appear to have attained."* The histories of great visionaries, wei'e they cor- * CiiAULKS BuTi.KR lias dr.awn up a sensible essay on " Mystical Devo- tion." He was a liinnan Catholic. Norris, and Dr. Hknky Moue, and Bibliop Bekkelev, may be consulted by the curious. 150 Liter (try Character. rectly detailed, would probably prove how their delusions con- sisted of the ocidar spectra of their brain and the accelerated sensations of tlieir nerves. Uaylk has conjured up an amusing theory of apparitions, to show that Houhkh, wlio was subject to occasional terrors, might fear that a certain combination of atoms ai^itatiui; his brain might so disorder his mind as to expose him to spectral visions ; and so being very timid, and distrusting his own imagination, he was averse at times to be left alone. Apparitions often happen in dreams, but they may hap]K'n to a man when awake, for reading and hearing of them would revive their images, and these images might play even an incredulous philosopher some unlucky trick. But men of genius whose enthusiasm has not been past recover^'^jhave experienced this extraordinary state of the mind, in those exhaustions of study to which they unquestionably are subject. Tissot, on " The Health of Men of Letters," has produced a terrifying number of cases. They see and hear what none but themselves do. Genius thrown into this pecu- liar state has produced some noble effusions. KoTZEBUEwas once absorbed in hypochondriacal melancholy, and appears to have meditated on self-destruction ; but it happened that he preserved his habit of dramatic composition, and produced one of his most energetic dramas — that of " Misanthropy and Repentance." He tells us that he had never experienced such a rapid flow of thoughts and images, and he believed, what a physiological history would perhaps show, that there are some maladies, those of the brain and the nerves, which actually stretch the powers of the mind beyond their usual reach. It is the more vivid world of ideal existence. But what is more evident, men of the finest genius have experienced these hallucinations in society acting on their moral habits. They have insulated the mind. With them ideas have become realities, and suspicions certainties ; while events have been noted down as seen and heard, which in truth had never occurred. Rousseatj's phantoms scarcely ever quitted him for a day. Barry imagined that he was invisibly persecuted by the Royal Academy, who had even spirited up a gang of housebreakers. The vivid memoirs of Alfieri will authenticate what Doxxe, who himself had suffered from them, calls " these eclipses, sudden offuscations and darkening of the senses." Too often the man of genius, with a vast and solitary power, darkens the scene of life; he builds a pyramid between himself and the sun. Mocking at Enthusiasm. 151 the expedients by which society has contrived to protect its feebleness, he would break down the institutions from which he has shrunk awa}' in the loneliness of his feelings. Such is the insulating intellect in which some of the most elevated spirits have been reduced. To imbue ourselves with the genius of their works, even to think of them, is an awful thing ! In nature their existence is a solecism, as their genius is a para- dox ; f(jr their crimes seem to be without guilt, their curses have kindness in them, and if they afflict mankind it is in sorrow. Yet what less than enthusiasm is the purchase-price of high passion and invention ? Perhaps never has there been a man of genius of this rare cast, who has not betrayed the ebullitions of imagination in some outward action, at that period when the illusions of life are more real to genius than its realities. There is a fata morgana, that throws into the air a pictured land, and the deceived eye trusts till the visionary shadows glide away. " I have dreamt of a golden land," exclaimed Fuseli, " and solicit in vain for the barge which is to carry me to its shore." A slight derangement of our accustomed habits, a little perturbation of the faculties, and a romantic tinge on the feelings, give no indifferent pro- mise of genius ; of that generous temper which knowing nothing of the baseness of mankind, with indefinite views carries on some glorious design to charm the world or to make it happier. Often we hear, from the confessions of men of genius, of their having in youth indulged the most elevating and the most chimerical projects ; and if age ridi- cule thy imaginative existence, be assured that it is the de- cline of its genius. That virtuous and tender enthusiast, Fen^loN, in his early youth, troubled his friends with a classical and religious reverie. He was on the point of quitting them to restore the independence of Greece, with the piety of a missionary'', and with the taste of a classical anticjuary. The Peloponnesus opened to him the Church of Corinth where St. Paul preached, the Pirajus where Socrates conversed ; while the latent poet was to ))luck laurels fi'om Delphi, and rove amidst the amenities of Tempe. Sach was the influence of the ideal presence ; and barren will be his imagination, and luckless his fortune, who, claiming the honours of genius, has never been touched by such a tem- porary delirium. To this enthusiasm, and to this alone, can we attribute the 152 Literary Character. self-immolation of men of genius. Mighty and laborious works have been pursued, as a forlorn hope, at the certain destruction of tlie fortune of the individual. Vast la}>ours attest the enthusiasm which accompanied their progress. Such men have sealed their works with their blood : they have silently borne the pangs of disease; they have barred themselves from the pursuits of fortune ; they have torn themselves away from all they loved in life, patiently suffer- ing these self-denials, to escape from interruptions and impe- diments to their studies. Martyrs of literature and art, they behold in their solitude the halo of immortality over their studious heads — that fame which is "a life beyond life." Van Helmont, in his library and his laboratory, preferred their busy solitude to the honours and the invitations of Ro- dolphus II., there writing down what he daily experienced during thirty years ; nor would the enthusiast yield up to the emperor one of those golden and visionary days ! Mil- ton would not desist from proceeding with one of his works, although warned by the physician of the certain loss of his sight. He declared he preferred his duty to his eyes, and doubtless his fame to his comfort. Anthony "Wood, to preserve the lives of others, voluntarily resigned his own to cloistered studies ; nor did the literary passion desert him in his last moments, when with his dying hands the hermit of literature still grasped his beloved papers, and his last mortal thoughts dwelt on his " Atlienoe Oxonienses." MoKEiii, the founder of our great biographical collections, conceived the design with such enthusiasm, and found such seduction in tlie lal.iour, that he willingly withdrew from the popular celebrity he had acquired as a preacher, and the pre- ferment which a minister of state, in whose house he re- sided, would have opened to his views.* After the first edi- tion of his " Historical Dictionary," he had nothing so much at heart as its improvement. His unyielding application was converting labour into death ; but collecting his last reno- vated vigour, with his dying hands he gave the volume to the world, though he did not live to witness even its publi- cation. All objects in life appeared mean to him, compared with that exalted delight of addressing, to the literary men * Louis Moreri was born in Provence in 1643, and died in 1680, at the early age of 37, while engaged on a second edition of his great work. The minister alluded to in the text was ^l. de Pumponne, Secretary of State to Louis XIV. until the vear 1679. — Ed. Enthusiasm. 153 of his age, the history of their brothers. Such are the men, as Bacox says of himself, who are " the servants of pos- terity," Who scorn delights, and live laborious days ! Tlie same enthusiasm inspires the pupils of art consumed by their own ardour. The young and classical sculptor who raised the statue of Charles II., placed in the centre of the Royal Exchange, was, in the midst of his work, advised by his medical friends to desist ; for the energy of his labour, with the strong excitement of his feelings, ahvad}- had made fatal inroads in his constitution : but he was willing, he said, to die at the foot of his statue. The statue was raised, and the young sculptor, witl\ the shining eje and hectic flush of consum])tion, beheld it there — returned home — and died. Deouais, a pupil of David, the French painter, was a youth of fortune, but the solitary pleasure of his youth was his de- votion to llapbael ; he was at his studies from four in the morning till night. " Painting or nothing !" was the cry of this enthusiast of elegance ; "First i'ame, then amusement," was another. His sensibility was great as his enthusiasm ; and he cut in pieces the picture for which David declared he would inevitably obtain the prize. " 1 have had my reward in your a))probation ; but next year I shall feel more certain of deserving it," was the reply of this young enthusiast. Afterwards he astonished Paris with his "Marius;" but while engaged on a subject which he could never quit, the principle of life itself was drying up in his veins. Henky Headley aneu, "if the love of his own art do not become a vehement passion ; if tlie hours he employs to cultivate it be not for him the most delicious ones of his life ; if study become not his true existence and his first ha))piness ; if the society of his brothers in art be not that which most pleases him ; if even in the night-time the ideas of his art do not occupy his vigils or his dreams ; if in the morning he tly not to his work, impatient to recommence what he left unfinished. These are the marks of him who labours for true glory and posterity ; but if he seek only to please the taste of his age, his works will not kindle the de- sires nor touch the hearts of those who love the arts and the artists." Unaccompanied by enthusiasm, genius will produce no- thing but uninteresting works of art ; not a work of aj't re- sembling tlie dove of Archytas, which beautiful piece of me- chanism, while other artists beheld flying, no one could frame such another dove to meet it in the air. Enthusiasm is that secret and harmonious spirit which hovers over the produc- tion of genius, throwing the reader of a book, or the spec- tator of a statue, into the very ideal presence whence these works have really originated. A great work always leaves us in a state of musing. CHAPTER XIII. Of the jealousy of Genius. — Jealousy often proportioned to the degree of genius. — A perpetual fever among Authors and Artists. — Instances of its incredible excess among brothers and benefactoi-s. — Of a peculiar species, where the fever consumes the sufferer, without its malignancy. Jealoitst, long supposed to be the offspring of little minds, is not, however, confined to them. In the literary republic, the passion fiercely rages among the senators as well as among the people. In that curious self-description which Jealousy of Authors. 155 LiNN.'EUS comprised in a single i)age, written with the pre- cision of a naturahst, that great man discovered that his constitution was hable to be afflicted with jealousy. Lite- rary jealousy seems often proportioned to the degree of genius, and the shadowy and equivocal claims of literary honour is the real cause of this terrible fear ; for in cases where the object is more palpable and definite than intellec- tual excellence, jealousy does not appear so strongly to afi'ect the claimant for admiration. The most beautiful woman, in the season of beauty, is more haughty than jealous ; she rarely encounters a rival ; and while her claims exist, who can contend with a fine feature or a dissolving glance ? But a man of genius has no other existence than in the oj)inion of the world ; a divided empire Avould obscure him, and a con- tested one might prove his annibilation. The lives ol' authors and artists exhibit a most painful dis- ease in tbat jealousy which is the perpetual fever of their existence. Why does Plato never mention Xenopiion, and why does Xenopiion inveigh against Plato, studiously col- lecting every little rumour which may detract from his lame? They wrote on the same subject ! The studied affectation of Aristotle to differ from the doctrines of his master Pl.vto while he was following them, led him into ambiguities and contradictions which have been remarked. The two fathers of our |)oetry, Chaucer and Goweu, suffered their friendship to be interrupted towards the close of their lives. Chaucer bitterly retlcets on his friend for tlie indelicacy of some of his tales: "Of all such cursed stories I say fy !" and (Jowkk, evidentl}^ in return, erased those verses in praise of his friend which he had inserted in the first copy of his " Confessio Amantis." Why did Cor^eillk. tottering to the grave, when Uacine consulted him on his first tragedy, advise the author never to write another? Why does Voltaire con- tinually detract from the sublimity of Corneille, the sweet- ness of Kacine, and the fire of Crebillon ? Why did Drydkx never sixak of Otway with kindness but when in his grave, then acknowledging that Otway excelled him in the ])athetic ? Why did Lkihnitz speak slightingly of Locke's Kssav, and meditate on nothing less than the complete overthrow of Newton's system ? Why, when Boccaccio sent to Petrarch a copy of Dante, declaring that the work was like a first light which had illuminated his mind, did Petrarch boldly observe that he had not been anxious to iiupiire after it, for 156 Literary Character. intending himself to compose in the vernac-nlar idiom, ho had no wish to he colisidured as a phigiary 'i and he only allows Dante's superiority from having written in the vidgar idiom, which he did not consider an enviable merit. Thus frigidly Petrarch could behold the solitary /Etna before him, in the " Inferno," while he shrunk into himself with the painful consciousness of the existence of another poet, obscuring his own majesty. It is curious to observe Lord Shaftesbury treating with the most acrimonious contempt the great writers of his own times — Cowley, Dryden, Addison, and Prior. We cannot imagine that his lordship was so entirely destitute of every feeling of wit and genius as would appear by this damnatory criticism on all the wit and genius of his age. It is not, indeed, difiicult to comprehend a different motive for this extravagant censure in the jealousy which even a great writer often experiences when he comes in con- tact with his living rivals, and hardily, if not impudently, practises those arts of critical detraction to raise a moment's delusion, which can gratify no one but himself. The moral sense has often been found too weak to temper the malignancy of literary jealousy, and has impelled some men of genius to an incredible excess. A memorable example offers in the history of the two brothers. Dr. William and John Hunter, both great characters fitted to be rivals; but Nature, it was imagined, in the tenderness of blood, had placed a bar to rivalry. John, without any determined pur- suit in his j'outh, was received by his brother at the height of his celebrity ; the doctor initiated him into his school ; they performed their experiments together; and AVilliam Hunter was tiie first to announce to the world the great genius of his brother. After this close connexion in all their studies and discoveries. Dr. William Hunter published his magnificent work — the proud favourite of his heart, the assei'tor of his fame. Was it credible that the genius of the celebrated anatomist, which had been nursed under the wing of his brother, should turn on that wing to clip it ? John Hunter put in his claim to the chief discovery ; it was answered by his brother. The Royal Society, to whom they appealed, concealed the documents of this unnatural feud. The blow was felt, and the jealousy of literary honour for ever separated the brothej-s — the brothers of genius. Such, too, was the jealousy which separated Agostino and Annjbal Caeeacci, whom their cousin LuDovico for so many Jealousy of Artists. 157 years had attempted to unite, and who, during the time their academy existed, worked together, coml)ining their separate powers.* The learning and the philosophy of Agostino assisted the invention of the master genius, Annibal ; but Annibal was jealous of the more literary and poetical cha- racter of Agostino, and, by liis sarcastic humour, frequently mortified his learned brother. Alike great artists, when once employed on the same work, Agostino was thought to have excelled his brother. Annibal, sullen and scornful, imme- diately broke with him ; and their ]iatron, Cardinal Farnese, was compelled to separate the brothers. Their fate is striking : Agostino, divided from his brother Annibal, sunk into dejection and melancholy, and perished by a premature death, while Annibal closed his days not long after in a state of distraction. The brothers of Nature and Art could not live together, and could not live b'ei)arate. The history of artists abounds with instances of jealousy, perhaps more than that of any other class of men of genius. Hudson, the master of Ketnolds, could not endure the sight of his rising pupil, and would not suffer him to con- clude the term of his a[)prenticeship ; while even the mild and elegant Reynolds himself became so jealous of Wilsox, that he took every opportunity of dei)reciating his singular excellence. Stung by the madness of jealousy, Barky one day addressing Sir Joshua on his lectures, burst out, " Such poor flimsy stuff as your discourses !" clenching his fist in the agony of the convulsion. After the death of the great artist Bakuy bestowed on him the most ardent eulogiuni, and deeply grieved over the past. IJut the race of genius born too " near the sun" have found their increased sensibility flame into crimes of a deeper dye — crimes attesting the treacher}^ and the violence of the professors of an art which, it appears, in softening the souls of others, does not neces- sarily mollify those of the artists themselves. The dreadful story of Andrea del Castagno .seems not doubtful. Havin*' been taught the discovery of painting in oil by Domenico Venetiano, yet, still envious of the merit of the generous friend who had confided that great secret to him, Andrea with his own hand secretly assassinated him, that he might remain without a rival. The horror of his crime onlv appeared in his confession on his death-bed. Domexicuino * See an ailiclc ou tlie Carracci ia "Curiosities of Literature," vol. ii. 158 Literary Character, seems to liave been poisoned for tlie preference he obtained over the Neapolitan artists, which raised them to a man against him, and reduced him to the necessity of preparing his food with his own liand. On Ijis last return to Naples, Passeri says, " Non fu mai p/« veduto da huon occhio da quelli Napoletani : e li Fittori lo detestavano perchi er/U era ritornato — moi'i con qualche sospetto di veleno, e questo non e invcrisimiJe pcrche V interesso e un perfido lirannoy So that the Neapolitans honoured Genius at Naples by poison, which they might have forgotten had it nourished at Home. The famous cartoon of the battle of Pisa, a work of ^lichael Angelo, which he produced in a glorious competition with the Homer of painting, Leonardo da Vinci, and in which he had struck out the idea of a new style, is only known by a print which has preserved the wonderful composition ; for the original, it is said, was cut into pieces by the mad jealousy of Baccio Ba>di>'elli, whose whole life was made miserable by his consciousness of a superior rival. In the jealousy of genius, however, there is a peculiar case where the fever silently consumes the sufferer, without pos- sessing the malignant character of the disease. Even the gentlest temper declines under its slow wastings, and this infection may happen among dear friends, whenever a man of genius loses that self-opinion which animates his solitary labours and constitutes his happiness. Perhaps when at the height of his class, he suddenly views himself eclipsed by another genius — and that genius his friend ! This is the jealousy, not of hatred, but of despair. Churchill observed the feeling, but probably included in it a greater degree of malignancy than I would now describe. Envy which turns pale, And sickens even if a friend prevail. Swift, in that curious poem on his own death, said of Pope that He can in one couplet fix More sense than I can do in six. The Dean, perhaps, is not quite serious, but probably is in the next lines — It gives me such a jealous fit, I cry "Pox take him and his wit." If the reader pursue this hint throughout the poem, these Want of Mutual Esteem. 159 compliments to his friends, alwaA's at liis own expense, exliibit a singular mixture of the sensibiUty and the frankness of true genius, which Swift himself has honestly confessed. What poet would not grieve to see His brother write as well as he ?* Addison experienced this painful and mixed emotion in his intercourse with Poi'E, to whose rising celebrity he soon be- came too jealously alive. f It was more tenderly, but not less keenly, felt by the Spanish artist Castillo, a man distin- guished by every amiable disposition. He was the great painter of Seville ; but when some of his nephew jNIurillo's paintings were shown to him, he stood in meek astonishment before them, and turning away, he exclaimed with a sigh — " Ya miirio Castillo / " Castillo is no more ! Returning home, the stricken genius relinquished his pencil, and pined away in hopelessness. The same occurrence happened to Pieteg Pekugino, the master of Raphael, whose general character as a painter was so entirelj'- eclipsed by his far-renowned scholar ; yet, while his real excellences in the ease of his atti- tudes and the mild grace of his female countenances have been passed over, it is probable that Raphael himself might have caught from them his first feelings of ideal beauty. CHAPTER XIV. Want of mutual esteem among men of genius often originates in a defi- ciency of analogous ideas. — It is not always envy or jealousy which in- duces men of genius to undervalue each other. Among men of genius, that want of mutual esteem, usually attributed to envy or jealousy, often originates in a deficiency of analogous ideas, or of sympathy, in the parties. On this principle, several curious phenomena in the history of genius may be explained. Every man of genius has a manner of his own ; a mode of thinking and a habit of style, and usually decides on a work * The plain motive of all these dislikes is still more amusing, as given in this couplet of the same poem : — " If with such genius heaven has blest 'em, Have I not reason to detest 'em." — Eu. t See article on Pope and Addison in " Quarrels of Authors." 100 Literary Character. as it a])prnxinnato«i or varies from liis own. When one great antlior depreciates another, his depreciation has often no worse souree than his own taste. The witty Cowley despised the natural Chaucer ; the austere classical Boileau the rough, sublimity of Creliillon ; the refining Marivaux the familiar Moliere. Fielding ridiculed Richardson, whose manner so strongly contrasted with his own ; and Richardson contemned Fielding, and declared he would not last. Cumberland cscai)ed a fit of unforgivcness, not living to read his own character by Bishop Watson, whose logical head tried the lighter elegancies of that polished man by his own nervous genius, destitute of the beautiful in taste. There was no envy in tlie breast of Johnson when he advised Mrs. Thrale not to purchase " Gray's Letters," as trifling and dull, no more than there was in Gray himself when he sunk the poetical character of Shenstone, and debased his simplicity and purity of feeling by an image of ludicrous contempt. I have heard that Wilkes, a mere wit and elegant scholar, used to treat Gibbon as a mere bookmaker; and applied to that jdiilosopbical historian the verse by which Voltaire de- scribed, with so much caustic facetiousness, the genius of the Abbe Trablet— 11 a compile, compile, compile. The deficient sympathy in these men of genius for modes of feeling opposite to their own was the real cause of their opinions ; and thus it happens that even superior genius is so often liable to be unjust and false in its decisions. The same principle operates still more strikingly in the remarkable contempt of men of genius for those pursuits which require talents distinct from their own, and a cast of mind thrown by nature into another mould. Hence we must not be surprised at the poetical antipathies of Selden and Locke, as well as Longuerue and Button. Newton called poetry '' ingenious nonsense." On the other side, poets undervalue the pursuits of the antiquary, the naturalist, and the metaphysician, forming their estimate by their own favourite scale of imagination. As we can only understand in the degree we comprehend, and feel in the degree in which we sympathize, we may be sure that in both these cases the parties will be found altogether deficient in those qualities of genius which constitute the excellence of the other. To this cause, rather than to the one the friends of Mickle ascribed Prejudices of Genius. 161 to Adam Smith, namely, a personal dislike to the poet, may we place the severe mortification which the unfortunate trans- lator of Camoens suffered from the person to whom lie dedi- cated " The Lusiad." The Dukeof Buccleugh was the pupil of the great political economist, and so little valued an epic poem, that his Grace had not even the curiosity to open the leaves of the presentation copy. A professor of polite literature condemned the study of botany, as adapted to mediocrity of talent, and only demand- ing patience; but LiNX^us showed how a man of genius becomes a creator even in a science which seems to depend only on order and method. It will not be a question with some whether a man must be endowed with the energy and aptitude of genius, to excel in antiquarianism, in natural his- tory, and similar pursuits. The prejudices raised against the claims of such to the honours of genius have probably arisen from the secluded nature of their pursuits, and the little knowledge which the men of wit and imagination possess of these persons, who live in a society of their own. On this subject a very curious circumstance has been revealed respect- ing Peiresc, whose enthusiasm for science was long felt throughout Europe. His name was known in every country, and his death was lamented in forty languages ; yet was this great literary character unknown to several men of genius in his own country ; Rochefoucauld declared he had never heard of his name, and Malherbe wondered why his death created so universal a sensation. Madame De Stael was an experienced observer of the habits of the literary character, and she has remarked how one .student usually revolts from the other when their occu- pations arc different, because they are a reciprocal annoyance. The scholar has nothing to say to the poet, the poet to the naturalist ; and even among men of science, those who are differently occupied avoid each other, taking little interest in what is out of their own circle. Thus we see the classes of literature, liUe tlie planets, revolving as distinct worlds ; and it would not be less absurd for the inhabitants of Venus to treat with contempt the powers and faculties of those of Jupiter, than it is ibr the men of wit and imagination those of the men of knowledge and curiosity. The wits are inca- pable of exerting the peculiar qualities which give a real value to these pursuits, and therelbre they must remain ignorant of their nature and their result. K ]G2 Literary Character. It is not then always envy or jealousy which induces men of genius to uiulcrvulue each other; the want of sympathy will sulliciently account for the want of jutlfrment. Suppose Newton, Quinault, and Machiavkl accidintally meeting together, and unknown to each other, would they not soon have desisted from the vain attempt of communicating their ideas ? Tiie ])hilosophcr would have condemned the poet of the (Jraccs as an intolerable trifler, and the author of "The Prince" as a dark political spy. Machiavel would have con- ceived Newton to be a dreamer among the stars, and a mere almanack-maker among men ; and the other a rhymer, nau- seously doucereux. Quinault might have imagined that he was seated between two madmen. Having annoyed each other for some time, they would have relieved their ennui by reci- procal contempt, and each have parted with a determination to avoid henceforward two such disagreeable companions. CHAPTER XV. Self-praise of genius. — The love of praise instinctive in the nature of genius. — A high opinion of themselves necessary for their great designs. — The Ancients openly claimed their own praise. — And several Mo- derns. — An author knows more of his merits than his readers. — And less of his defects. — Authors versatile in their admiration and their malignity. Vanity, egotism, a strong sense of their own suflRciency, form another accusation against men of genius ; but the com- plexion of self-praise must alter with the occasion ; for the simplicity of truth may appear vanity, and the consciousness of superiority seem envy — to Mediocrity. It is we who do nothing, and cannot even imagine anything to be done, who are so much displeased with self-lauding, self-love, self- inde- pendence, self-admiration, which with the man of genius may often be nothing but an ostensible modification of the passion of glory. He who exults in himself is at least in earnest; but he who refuses to receive that praise in public for which he has de- voted so much labour in his privacy, is not ; for he is com- pelled to suppress the very instinct of his nature. We cen- sure no man for loving fame, but only for showing us how much he is possessed by the passion : thus we allow him to Self. Praise. 163 create the appetite, but we deny him its aliment. Our effeminate minds are the willing dupes of what is called the modesty of genius, or, as it has been termed, " the polished reserve of modern times;" and this from the selfish principle that it serves at least to keep out of the company its painful pre-eminence. But this " polished reserve," like something as fashionable, the ladies' rouge, at first appearing with rather too much colour, will in the heat of an evening die away till the true complexion come out. What subterfuges are resorted to by these pretended modest men of genius, to extort that praise from their private circle which is thus openly denied them ! They have been taken by surprise enlarging their own panegyric, which might rival Pliny's on Trajan, lor care and copiousness ; or impudently veiling themselves with the transparency of a third person ; or never prefixing their name to the volume, which they would not easily forgive a friend to pass unnoticed. Self-love is a principle of action ; but among no class of human beings has nature so profusely distributed tliis prin- ciple of life and action as through the whole sensitive family of genius. It reaches even to a feminine susceptil)ility. The love of praise is instinctive in their nature. Praise with them is the evidence of the past and the pledge of the future. The generous qualities and tlie virtues of a man of genius are really produced by the applause conferred on him. " To him whom the world admires, the happiness of the world must be dear," said Madame De Stael. Romxey, the painter, held as a maxim that every diffident artist required " almost a daily portion of cheering applause." How often do such find their powers paralysed by the depression of con- fidence or the appearance of neglect ! When the North American Indians, amid their circle, chant their gods and their heroes, the honest savages laud the living worthies, as well as their dei)arted ; and when, as we are told, an auditor hears the shout of his own name, he answers by a cry of pleasure and of pride. The savage and the man of genius are hero true to nature, but pleasure and pride in his own name nmst raise no emotion in the breast of genius amidst a polished circle. To bring himself down to their u>ual medio- crity, he must start at an expression of regard, and luin away even from one of his own votaries. Madame J3e Siii ,1, a:i ex- quisite judge of the feelings of the literary character, was aware of this change, which has rather occurred in our raan- M 2 164 Literary Character. ncrs than in mon of genius themBclves. " Envy," says that eloquent writt^T, " amonf^ the Oreeks, existed sometimes between rivals ; it has now passed to the spectators ; and by astranj^e sin<,'ularity the injiss of men are jealous of the efforts which are tried to add to their pleasures or to merit their ap])r()bation." Ijut this, it seems, is not always the case with men of genius, since the accusation we are noticing has been so often reiterated. Take from some that supreme confidence in themselves, that pride of exultation, and you crush the germ of their excellence. Many vast designs must have perished in the conception, had not their authors breathed this vital air of self-delight, this creative spirit, so operative in great undertakings. AVe have recently seen this princijde in the literary character unfold itself in the life of the late Bishop of LandatF. Whatever he did, he felt it was done as a master : whatever he wrote, it was, as he once declared, the best work on the subject yet written. With this feeling he emulated Cicero in retirement or in action. " When I am dead, you will not soon meet with another Johk Hunter," said the great anatomist to one of his garrulous friends. An apology is formed by his biographer for relating* the fact, but the weakness is only in tlie apology. When IIooabth was engaged in his work of the Marriage h-la-Mode, he said to Reynolds, " I shall very soon gratify the world with such a sight as they have never seen equalled." — " One of his foibles," adds Northcote, "it is well known, was the excessive high opinion he had of his own abilities." So pronounced Northcote, who had not an atom of his genius. Was it a foible in Hogarth to cast the glove, when he always more than redeemed the pledge ? Cokxetlle has given a very noble full-length of the sublime egotism which accompanied him through life ;* but I doubt, if we had any such author in the present day, whether he would dare to be so just to him- self, and so hardy to the pubhc. The self-praise of Buffok at least equalled his genius ; and the inscription beneath his statue in the library of the Jardin des Plantes, which I have been told was raised to him in his lifetime, exceeds all pane- gyric ; it places him alone in nature, as the first and the last interpreter of her works. He said of the great geniuses of modern ages, that '• there were not more than five ; Newton, • See it versified in "Curiosities of Literature," vol. i. p. 431. Self-Praise. 1G5 Bacon, Leibnitz, Montesquieu, and Myself." With this spirit he conceived and terminated his great works, and sat in patient meditation at his desk for half a century, till all Europe, even in a state of war, bowed to the modern Pliny. Nor is the vanity of Buflbn, and Voltaire, and Rousseau purely national ; for men of genius in all ages have expressed a consciousness of the internal force of genius. No one felt this self-exultation more potent than our Hobbes ; who has indeed, in his controversy with Wallis, asserted that there may be nothing more just than self-commendation.* There is a curious passage in the " Purgatorio" of Dante, where, de- scribing the transitory nature of literarj' fame, and the va- riableness of human opinion, the poet alludes with confidence to his own future greatness. Of two authors of the name of Guido, the one having eclipsed the other, the poet writes : — Cosi ha tolto I'uno all' altro Guido La gloria della lingua; eforse i nato Clii V uno e I' allro caccerA di nido. Thus has one Guido from the other snatch'd The lotter'd pride ; and he perhaps is bom Who shall drive either from their nest.f De Thoit, one of the most noble-minded of historians, in the Memoirs of his own life, composed in the third person, has surprised and somewhat puzzled the critics, by that fre- quent distribution of self-commendation wliich they knew not how to reconcile with the modesty and gravity with which the President was so amply endowed. After his great and solemn lalwur, amidst the injustice of his per- secutors, this eminent man had sulhcient experience of his real worth to assert it. IvEPiiKU, amidst his sublime discoveries, looks down like a superior being on other men. He breaks forth in glory and daring egotism : " I dare insult mankind by confessing that I am he who has turned science to advan- tage. If I am ])ardoned, I shall rejoice ; if blamed, I shall endure. The die is cast ; I have written this book, and whether it be read by posterity or by my contemporaries is of no consequence ; it may well wait for a reader during one century, when God himself during six thousand years has not sent an observer like myself." He truly predicts that " his discoveries would be verified in succeeding ages ;" and prefers his own glory to the j)ossession of the electorate of * See "Quarrels of Authors," p. 471. t Gary. 1G6 Literary Character. Saxony. Tt was this solitary maji'sty, this futurity of their ^'cnius, whidi liovcrcJ over tho sli'cpless pillow of IJacon, of Newton, and of Montepfiuicu ; of Ben Jonson,of Milton, and Corneillf ; and of Michael Anijclo. Such men anticipate their contemporaries ; the}' know they are creators, long before they ai-e hailed as such by the tardy consent of the public. These men stand on Pisgah heights, and for them the sun shines on a land which none can view but them- selves. There is an admirable essay in Plutarch, "On the manner by which we may praise ourselves without exciting envy in others." The sage seems to consider self-praise as a kind of illustrious impudence, and has one very striking image: he compares these eulogists to famished persons, who finding no other food, in their rage have eaten their own flesh, and thus shockingly nourished themselves by their own substance. He allows persons in high office to praise themselves, if by this they can repel calumny and accusation, as did Pericles before the Athenians : but the Romans found fault with Cicero, who so frequently reminded them of his exertions in the conspiracy of Catiline ; while, when Scipio told them that " they sliould not presume to judge of a citizen to whom they owed the ])ower of judging all men," the people covered themselves with flowers, and followed him to the capitol to join in a thanksgiving to Jove. *' Cicero," adds Plutarch, "praised himself without necessity. Scipio was in personal danger, and this took away what is odious in self-praise." An author seems sometimes to occupy the situation of a per- son in high office ; and there may be occasions when with a noble simplicity, if he appeal to his works, of which all men may judge, he may be permitted to assert or to maintain his claims. It has at least been the practice of men of genius, for in this very essay we find Timotheus, Euripides, and Pindar censured, though they deserved all the praise they gave themselves. Epicritrs, writing to a minister of state, declares, "If you desire glory, nothing can bestow it more than the letters I write to you :" and Seneca, in quoting these words, adds, " What Ejiicurus promised to his friend, that, my Lucilius, I promise you." Orna me ! was the constant cry of Cicero ; and he desires the historian Lucceius to write separately the conspiracy of Catiline, and to publish quickly, that while he yet lived he might taste the sweetness of his Self-Praise. 1G7 glory. Horace and Ovid were equally sensible to their immortality ; but what modern poet would be tolerated with such an avowal ? Yet Dryden honestly declares that it was better for him to own this failing of vanit}^ than the world to do it for him ; and adds, " For wliat other reason have I spent my Ufe in so unprolitable a study ? Wliy am I grown old in seeking so barren a reward as fame ? The same parts and application which have made me a poet might have raised me to any honours of the gown." Was not Cer- vantes very sensible to his own merits when a rival started up ? and did lie not assert them too, and distinguish his own work by a handsome compliment ? Lope de Vega cele- brated his own poetic powers under the pseudonyme of a pretended editor, Thomas Barguillos. I regret that his noble biographer, than whom no one can more truly sympathise with the emotions of genius, has censured the bard for his querulous or his intrepid tone, and for the quaint conceit of his title-page, where his detractor is introduced as a beetle in a vega or garden, attacking its flowers, but expiring in the very sweetness he would injure. The inscription under Boileau's portrait, which gives a preference to the French satirist over Juvenal and Horace, is known to have been written by himself. Nor was Butler less proud of his own merits ; for he has done ample justice to his " Hudibras," and traced out, witli great self-dehght, its variety of excellences. KicilARDsox, the novelist, exhibits one of the most striking instances of what is called literary vanity, the delight of an author in his works ; he has pointed out all the beauties of his three great works, in various manners.* He always taxed a visiti)r by one of his long letters. It was this in- tense self-delight which produced his voluminous labours. There are certain authors whose very existence seems to require a high conception of their own talents ; and who must, as some animals appear to do, furnish the means of life out of their own substance. These men of genius open their career with peculiar tastes, or with a predilection for some great work of no immediate interest ; in a word, with many unpopular dispositions. Yet we see them mag- nanimous, though defeated, proceeding with the pubhc feeling against them. At length we view them ranking witli their rivals. Without having yielded up their peculiar tastes or * I have observed them in "Curiosities of Literature," vol. ii. p. 64. 1G8 Literary Character. their incorrit^ible viciousncss, they have, however, heightened their individual i-xcclleiices. No human opinion can change their self-opinion. Alive to the consciousness of their powers, their pursuits are placed above impediment, and their great views can sufTer no contraction ; poHHunt quia ponne vuioitiir. Such was the language Lord IJacon once applied to himself when addressing a king. "I know," said the great jthilosopher, " that I am censured of some conceit of my ability or worth ; but I pray your majesty impute it to desire — possunt quia posse videntury These men of genius bear a charmed mail on their breast ; " hopeless, not heart- less," may be often the motto of their ensign ; and if they do not always possess reputation, they still look onwards for fame ; for these do not necessarily accompany each other. An author is more sensible of his own merits, as he also is of his labour, which is invisible to all others, while he is unquestionably much less sensible to his defects than most of his readers. The author not only comprehends his merits better, because they have passed through a long process in his mind, but he is familiar with every part, while the reader has but a vague notion of the whole. Why does an excellent work, by repetition, rise in interest ? Because in obtaining this gradual intimacy with an author, we appear to recover half the genius which we had lost on a first perusal. The work of genius too is associated, in the mind of the author, with much more than it contains ; and the true supplement, which he onl^^ cau give, has not always accompanied the work itself. We tind great men often greater than the books they write. Ask the man of genius if he have written all that he wished to have written ? Has he satisfied him- self in this work, for which you accuse his pride ? Has he dared what required intrepidity to achieve ? Has he evaded difficulties which he should have overcome ? The mind of the reader has the limits of a mere recipient, while that of the author, even after his work, is teeming with creation. " On many occasions, m}' soul seems to know more than it can say, and to be endowed with a mind by itself, far supe- rior to the mind I really have," said M.4.RITAUX, with equal truth and happiness. With these explanations of what are called the vanity and egotism of Genius, be it remembered, that the sense of their own sufficiency is assumed by men at their own risk. The great man who thinks greatly of himself, is not diminishing Self -Praise. 1G9 that greatness in heaping fuel on his fire. It is indeed otherwise with his unlucky brethren, with whom an illusion of literary vanity may end in the aberrations of harmless madness; as it happened to Percival Stockdale. After a parallel between himself and Charles XII. of Sweden, he concludes that " some parts will be to his advantage, and some to mine ;'' but in regard to fame, the main object be- tween himself and Charles XII., Percival imagined that " his own will not probably take its fixed and immovable station, and shine with its expanded and permanent splen- dour, till it consecrates his ashes, till it illumines his tomb." After this the reader, who may never have heard of the name of Percival Stockdale, must be told that there exist his own "Memoirs of his Life and Writings."* The memoirs of a scribbler who saw the prospects of life close on him while he imagined that his contemporaries were unjust, are instructive to literary men. To correct, and to be corrected, should be their daily practice, that they may be taught not only to exult in themselves, but to fear themselves. It is hard to refuse these men of genius that aura vitalis, of which they are so apt to be liberal to others. Are they not accused of the meanest adulations ? When a young writer experiences the notice of a person of some eminence, he has exjjressed himself in language which transcends that of mortality. A finer reason than reason itself inspires it. The sensation has been expressed with all its fulness by Milton : — The debt immense of endless gratitude. Who ever pays an " immense debt " in small sums ? Every man of genius has left such honourable traces of his private aft'ections ; from Locke, whose dedication of his great work is more adulative than could be imagined from a temperate philosopher, to Chuhchill, whose warm eulogiums on his friends beautifully contrast with his satire. Even in advanced age, the man of genius dwells on the praise he caught in his youth from veteran genius, which, like the aloe, will fiowerat the end of life. Wlicn Virgil was yet a youth, it is said that Cicero heard one of his eclogues, and exclaimed with his accustomed warmth, Magna spes altera Romio ! * I have sketched a character of Pekcival Stockdale, in "Calamities of Authors" (pp. 218 — 224) ; it was taken ad vivum. 170 Literary Character. " The second hope of miglity Rome !" intending by the first either himself or Lucretius. The words of Cicero were the secret honey on whicli the imagination of Virgil fed for many a year; for in one of his latest productions, the twelfth book of the j^'Jneid, he aj)plics these very words to Ascanius. So long had the accents of Cicero's praise lingered in the poet's ear ! This cxtren\e susceptibility of praise in men of genius is the same exuberant sensibility which is so alive to censure. I have elsewhere fully shown how some have died of criti- cism.* 'J'he self-love of genius is perhaps much more delicate than gross. But this fatal susceptibility is the cause of that strange facility which has often astonished the world, b}' the sudden transitions of sentiment which literary characters have fre- quently exhibited. They have eulogised men and events which they had reprobated, and reprobated what they had eulogised. The recent history of political revolutions has furnished some monstrous examples of this subservience to power. Guicciardini recoids one of his own times, which has been often repeated in ours. Joviaxus Poxtanus, the secretary of Ferdinand, King of Naples, was also selected to be the tutor of the prince, his son. When Charles YIII. of France invaded Naples, Pontanus was deputed to address the French conqueror. To render himself agreeable to the ene- mies of his country, he did not avoid expatiating on the demerits of his expelled patrons: "So difficult it is," adds the grave and digniiied historian, " for ourselves to observe that moderation and those precepts which no man knew better than Pontanus, who was endowed with such copious literature, and composed with sucb facility iu moral philo- sophy, and possessed such acquirements in universal erudition, that he had made himself a prodigy to the eye of the world. "f The student, occupied by abstract pursuits, may not indeed always take much interest in the change of dynasties; and perhaps the famous cancelled dedication to Cromwell, by the learned orientalist Dr. Castell,^ who supplied its place by * In the article entitled " Anecdotes of Censured Authors," in vol, i. of " Curiosities of Literature." + Guicciardini, Book II. t- For the melancholy history of this devoted scholar, see note to the article on "The Kewards of Oriental Students," in "Calamities of Authors," p. 169. Sensitiveness of Genius. ]71 another to Charles 11., ought not to be placed to the account of i)olitical tergiversation. But the versatile adoration oi' the continental savans of the republic or the monarcliy, the consul or the emperor, has inflicted an unhealing wound on the literary character; since, like Pontanus, to gratify their new nia.ster, they had not the greatness of mind to save them- selves from ingratitude to their old. Their vengeance, as quickly kindled, lasts as long. Genius is a dangerous gift of nature. The same ettervescent passions form a Catiline or a Cicero. Plato lays great stress on his man of genius possessing the most vehement passions, but he adds reason to restrain them. It is Imagination which by tlieir side stands as their good or evil spirit. Glory or infamy is but a different direction of the same passion. How are we to describe symptoms which, flowing from one source, yet show themselves in such opposite forms as those of an intermittent fever, a silent delirium, or a horrid hypo- chondriasm ? Have we no otiier opiate to still tlie agony, no other cordial to warm the heart, than the great ingredient in tlie recipe of Plato's visionary man of genius — calm reason ? Must men, who so rarely obtain this tardy panacea, remain with all tlieir tortured and torturing ]jassions about them, often self-disgusted, self-humiliated ? The enmities of genius are often connected witli their morbid imagination. These originate in casual slights, or in unguarded expressions, or in hasty opinions, or in witty derision, or even in the obtruding goodness of tender admonition. The man of genius broods over the phantom that darkens his feelings : he multiplies a single object ; he magnifies the smallest ; and suspicions become certainties. It is in this unhappy state that he sharpens his vindictive fangs, in a libel called his " Memoirs," or in another species of public outrage, styled a " Criticism." AVe are told that Com inks the historian, when residing at the court of the Count de Charolois, afterwards Duke of Bur- gundy, one day returning from hunting, with inconsiderate jocularity sat down before the Count, and ordered the prince to pull oir his boots. The Count would not ailect greatness, and having executed his commission, in return for the princely amusement, the Count dashed the boot on Comines' nose, which bled ; and from that time, he was mortified at the court of Burgundy, by retaining the nickname of f//r hoofed head. The blow rankled in the heart of the man of genius, and the Duke of Burgundy has come down to us in Comine's 172 Literary Character. " Memoirs," blackened by his vengeance. Many, unknown to their readers, like Com inks, have had a booted head; but the secret poison is distilled on their lasting j'^oC) »•" we have recently witnessed in Lord Waldegrave's " Memoirs." Swift's perpetual malevolence to Dryden originated in that great poet's prediction, that "cousin Swift would never be a poet ;" a prediction which the wit never could forget. 1 have elsewhere fully written a tale of literary hatred, where is seen a man of genius, in the character of Gilukut Stuabt, devoting a whole life to harassing the industry or the genius which he himself could not attain.* A living Italian poet, of great celebrity, when at the court of Rome, presented a magnificent edition of his poetry to Pius VI. The bard, Mr. Hobhouse informs us, lived not in the good graces of his holiness, and although the pontiff acce|)ted the volume, he did not forbear a severity of remark which could not fall unheeded by the modern poet ; for on this occasion, repeating some verses of Metastasio, his holi- ness drily added, " No one now-a-tlays writes like that great poet." Never was this to be erased from memory: the stilled resentment of Monti vehemently broke forth at the moment the French carried olf Pius VI. from Home. Then the long indignant secretary poured forth an invective more severe " against the great harlot," than was ever traced by a Pro- testant pen — Monti now invoked the rock of Sardinia: thepoet bade it tly from its base, that t/ie last of monsters might not find even a tomb to shelter him. Such was the curse of a poet on his ibrmer patron, now an object of misery — a return for " placing him below Metastasio !" The French Revolution affords illustrations of the worst human passions. When the wretched Collot D'Hebbois was tossed up in the storm to the summit of power, a mon- strous imagination seized him ; he projected razing the city of Lyons and massacring its inhabitants. He had even the heai't to commence, and to continue this conspiracy against human nature ; the ostensible crime was royalism, but the secret motive is said to have been literary vengeance ! As wretched a poet and actor as a man, D'Herbois had been hissed off the theatre at Lyons, and to avenge that ignominy, he had meditated over this vast and remorseless crime. Is there but one Collot D'Herbois in the universe ? * See " Calamities of Authors," pp. 131 — 139. Domestic Life. 173 Long since this was written, a fact has been recorded of CilENlEE, the French dramatic poet, which parallels tlie hor- rid tale of Collet D'Herbois, which some have been willing to doubt from its enormity. It is said, that this monster, in the revolutionary period, when he had the power to save the life of his brother Andre, while his father, prostrate before a wretched son, was imploring for the life of an innocent brother, remained silent ; it is further said that he appropriated to himself a tragedy which he found among his brother's manuscripts. " Fratricide from literary jealousy," observes the relator of this anecdote, " was a crime reserved for a modern French revolutionist."* Tliere are some pathethic stanzas which Andre was composing in his last moments, when awaiting his fate ; the most pathetic of all stanzas is that one which he left unfinished — Peut-6tre, avant que I'heure en cercle promenee Ait pose, sur rcraail brillant, Dans les soi.xante pas ou sa route est bornee, Son pieil sonore et vigilant, Le sommeil du tombeau pressera ma paupiere — At this unfinished stanza was the pensive poet summoned to the guillotine ! CHAPTER XVI. The domestic life of genius. — Defects of great compositions attributed to domestic infelicities.— The home of the literary character .should be the abode of repose and silence. — Of the Father. — Of the Mother. — Of family genius. — Men uf genius not more respected than other men in their domestic circle. — The cultivators of science and art do not meet on equal terms with others, in domestic life. — Their neglect of those around them. — Often accused of imaginary crimes. When the temper and the leisure of the literary character are alike broken, even his best works, the too faithful mirrors of his state of mind, will participate in its inequalities ; and surely the incubations of genius, in its delicate and shadowy combinations, are not less sensible in their operation than the composition of sonorous bodies, where, while the warm metal is settling in the mould, even an unusual vibration of the air during the moment of fusion will injure the tone. Some of the conspicuous blemishes of several great com- * Edinburgh Review, xxxv. 159. 171 Literary Character. positions may be attributed to the domestic infelicities of their authors. Tlie desultory hfe of Camokns is imaf,niied to be perceptible in the deficient connexion of his ejnc ; and ]\Ii I/ion's blindness and divided family prevented that casti- gating criticism, which otherwise had erased passages which have escaped from his revising hand. He felt himself in the situation of his Samson Agonistes, whom he so pathetically describes — His foes' derision, captive, poor, and blind. Even Locke complains of his "discontinued way of writing," and " writing by incoherent parcels," from the avocations of a busy and unsettled life, which undoubtedly produced a deficiency of method in the disposition of the materials of his great work. The careless rapid lines of Dryden are justly attributed to his distress, and indeed he pleads for his inequalities from his domestic circumstances. JoiiNSOi^ often silently, but eagerly, corrected the "Ramblers" in their successive editions, of which so many had been de- spatched in haste. The learned Greates offered some ex- cuses for his errors in his edition of "Abulfeda," from "his being five years encundjered with lawsuits, and diverted from his studies." ^Vhen at length he returned to them, he ex- presses his surprise " at the pains he had formerly undergone," but of which he now felt himself " unwilling, he knew not how, of again undergoing." Goldo'I, when at the bar, abandoned his comic talent for several years; and having resumed it, his first comedy totally failed: "My head," says he, " was occupied with my professional employment ; I was uneasy in mind and in bad humour." A lawsuit, a bank- ruptcy, a domestic feud, or an indulgence in criminal or in foolish pursuits, have chilled the fervour of imagination, scattered into fragments many a noble design, and paralysed the finest genius. The distractions of Guido's studies from his passion lor gaming, and of Parmegiaxo's for alchemy, have been traced in their works, which are often hurried over and unequal. It is curious to observe, that Cumbehlaxd attributes the excellence of his comedy, The West ludian, to the pecvdiarly hapjiy situation in which he found himself at the time of its composition, free from the incessant avoca- tions which had crossed him in the writing of The Brothers. " I was master of my time, my mind was free, and I was happy in the society of the dearest friends I had on earth. Domestic Infelicity. 175 The calls of office, the cavillings of angry rivals, and the gibings of newspaper critics, could not reach me on the banks of the Shannon, where all within-doors was love and att'ec- tion. In no other j)eriod of my life have the same happy circumstances combined to cheer me in any of my literary labours." The best years of ME>'as' life were embittered by his father, a poor artist, and who, with poorer feelings, converted his home into a prison-house, forced his son into the slavery of stipulated task-work, while bread and water were the only fruits of the fine arts. In this domestic persecution, the son contracted those morose and saturnine habits which in after- life marked the character of the ungenial Menos. Alonso Ca>'0, a celebrated Spanish painter, would have carried his art to perfection, had not the unceasing persecution of the Inquisitors entirely deprived him of that tranquillity so ne- cessary to the very existence of art. Ovid, in exile on the barren shores of Tomos, desei'ted by his genius, in his copious Tristia loses much of the luxuriance of his fancy, AVe have a remarkable evidence of domestic unhappiness annihilating the very faculty of genius itself, in the case of Dr. Bkook Taylor, the celebrated autlior of the " Linear Perspective." This great mathematician in early life distin- guished himself as an inventor in science, and the most sanguine hopes of his future discoveries were raised both at home and abroad. Two unexpected events in domestic life extinguished his inventive faculties. After the loss of two wives, whom he regarded with no common allection, he be- came unfitted for profound studies ; he carried his own personal despair into his favourite objects of pursuit, and abandoned them. The inventor of the mofct original work suffered the last fifteen years of his life to drop away, witliout hope, and without exertion ; nor is this a solitary instance, where a man of genius, deprived of the idohsed partner of liis existence, has no longer been able to find an object in his studies, and where even fame itself has ceased to interest. The reason which Kousseau alleges for the cynical spleen which so frecpiently breathes forth in his works, shows how the domestic character of tlie man of genius leaves itself in his i)roductions. Alter describing the infelicity of his do- mestic affairs, occasioned by the mother of Tlieresa, and Theresa her»elf, both women of the lowest class and the worst dispo.«itions, he adds, on this wretched marriage, 176 Literary Character, " These unexpected disagreeable events, in a state of my own choice, phinged me into literature, to give a new direction and diversion to my mind; and in all my first works I scat- tered that bilious hiunour which had occasion<-d this very occupation." Our author's character in his works was the very opposite to the one in which he appeared to these low people. Feeling his degradation among them, for they treated his simplicity as utter .silliness, his per.sonal timidity assumed a tone of boldness and originality in his writings, while a strong personal sense of shame heightened his caus- ticity, and he delighted to contemn that urbanity in which he had never shared, and which he knew not how to practise. His miserable subservience to the.^e people was the real cause of his oppressed spirit calling out for some undefined freedom in society ; and thus the real Rousseau, with all his disor- dered feelings, only appeared in his writings. The secrets of his heart were confided to his pen. " The painting-room must be like Eden before the Fall ; no joyless turbulent passions must enter there" — exclaims the enthusiast Kiciiabdson. The home of the literary cha- racter should be the abode of repose and of silence. There must he look for the feasts of study, in progressive and alter- nate labours; a taste "which," says Gibbon, " I would not exchange for the treasures of India." Rousseau had always a work going on. for rainy days and spare hours, such as his " Dictionary of Music :" a variety of works never tired ; it was the single one which exhausted. Metastasio looks with delight on his variety, which resembled the fruits in the gar- den of Armida — E nientre spunta I'un, I'altro mature. "While one matures, the other buds and blows. Nor is it always fame, or any lower motive, which may induce the literary character to hold an unweaiied pen. Another equally powerful exists, which must remain inex- plicable to him who knows not to escape from the listlessness of life — it is the passion for literary occupation. He whose eye can only measure the space occujiied by the voluminous labours of the elder Pliny, of a Mazzuchelli. a Muratori, a Montfaucon.and a Gough. all men who laboured from the love of labour, and can see nothing in that space but the industry which filled it, is hke him who only views a citv at a dis- tance — the streets and the edifices, and all the life and popu- Love of Literary Labour. 177 lation within, he can never know. These hterarj characters projected their works as so many schemes to escape from uninteresting pursuits ; and, in these foHos, how many evils of life did they bury, while their happiness expanded with their volume ! Aulus Gellius desired to live no longer than he was able to retain the faculty of writing and observing. The literary character must grow as impassioned with his subject as ^lian with his " History of Animals ;" " wealth and honour I might have obtaint-d at the courts of princes ; but I preferred the delight of multiplying m}' knowledge. I am aware that the avaricious and the ambitious will accuse me of folly ; but I have always found most pleasure in ob- serving the nature of animals, studying their character, and writing their history." Even with those who have acquired their celebrity, the love of literary labour is not diminished — a circumstance recorded b}' the younger Pliny of Livy. In a preface to one of his lost books, that historian had said that he had obtained sufficient glory by his former writings on the Roman history, and might now repose in silence ; but his mind was so rest- less and so abhorrent of indolence, that it onl}'- felt its exis- tence in literary exertion. In a similar situation the foelino' was fully experienced by Hume. Our philosopher completed his history neither for money nor for fame, having then more than a sufficiency of both ; but chietly to indulge a habit as a resource against indolence.* These are the minds which are without hope if they are without occupation. Amidst the repose and silence of study, delightful to the literary character, are the soothing interruptions of the voices of those whom he loves, recalling him from his abstractions into social existence. These re-animate his languor, and moments of inspiration are caught in the emotions of affection, when a * This appears in one of his interesting lettere first published in the JAterary Gazette, Oct. 20, 1821. — [It is addressed to Adam Smiih, dated July 28, 1759, and he says, "I signed an agreement with i\lr. Millar where I mention that I proposed to write the History of England from the beginning till the accession of Henry VII., ; and he engages to give me 1400/. for the copy. This is the first previous agreement ever I made with a bookseller. I shall execute the work at leisure, witiiout fatiguing ray- self by such ardent application as I liave liilhcrto emj loyid. It is diiefly as a resource against idleness that 1 sliall undertake the wurk, fi.r as to money I bave enough ; and as to reputation what I have wrote already ■will be sufficient, if it be good ; if not, it is not likely I shall now write better."] 178 Literary Characttr. father or a friend, a wife, a dauj^hter, or a sister, become the participators of liis own tastes, the companions of his studies, and identify their liap])iiiess witli his fame. A beautiful in- cident in tlie domestic hfe of literature is one which Morcllet has revealed of Maumontel. In presentinfj his collected works to his wife, she discovered that the author had dedi- cated his volumes to herself; but the dedication was not made painful to her modesty, for it was not a public one. Nor was it .so concise as to be mistaken for a compliment. The theme was copious, for the heart overflowed in the pages consecrated to her domestic virtues ; and Maumontel left it as a record, that their children might learn the gratitude of their father, and know the character of their mother, when the writer should be no more. Many readers were perhaps surprised to tind in Xeckee's Comte rendu, au Boi, a poli- tical and financial work, a great and lovely character of domestic excellence in his wife. This was more obtrusive than Marmontel's private dedication ; yet it was not the less sincere. If Necker failed in the cautious reserve of private feelings, who will censure ? Nothing seems misplaced which the heart dictates. If Houace were dear to his friends, he declares they owed him to his father: — purus et insoDS (Ut me collaudem) si vivo et carus amicis, Causa fuit Pater his. If pure and innocent, if dear (forgive These little praises) to my friends I live, My father was the cause. This intelligent father, an obscure tax-gatherer, discovered the propensity of Horace's mind ; for he removed the boy of genius from a rural seclusion to the metropolis, anxiously at- tending on him to his various masters. Geotius, like Horace, celebrated in verse his gratitude to his excellent father, who had formed him not only to be a man of learning, but a great chai-acter. Vitrutius pours forth a grateful prayer to the memory of his parents, who had instilled into his soul a love for literary and philosophical subjects ; and it is an amiable trait in Plutarch to have introduced his father in the Symposiacs, as an elegant critic and moralist, and his brother Laniprias, whose sweetness of disposition, inclining to cheerful railkny, the Siige of Cherontea has immortalised. The Family Affection, 179 father of Gibbon urged him to literary distinction, and the dedication of the "Essay on Literatui'e " to that father, con- nected with liis subsequent labour, shows the force of the ex- citement. The father of PorJE lived long enough to witness his son's celebrity. Tears such as tender fathers shed, Warm from my eyes descend, For joy, to think when I am dead. My sou shall have mankind his Friend.* The son of Buffon one day surprised his father by the sight of a column, which he had raised to the memory of his father's eloquent genius. " It will do you honour," observed the Gallic sage.f And when that son in the revolution was led to the guillotine, he ascended in silence, so impressed with his father's fame, that he only told the people, " I am the son of Button !" Fathers absorbed in their occupations can but rarely attract their ofJspring. The first durable impressions of our moral existence come from the mother. The first prudential wisdom to which Genius listens falls from her lips, and only her caresses can create the moments of tenderness. The earnest discernment of a mother's love survives in the imagination of manhood. The mother of Su* William Jones, having formed a plan for the education of her son, withdrew from great connexions that she might live only for that son. Her great principle of education, was to excite by cm-iosity ; the result could not fail to be knowledge. " Read, and you will know," she constantly replied to her filial pupil. And we have his own acknowledgment, that to this maxim, which produced the habit of study, he was indebted for his future attainments. Kant, the German metaphysician, was always fond of declaring that he owed to the ascendancy of his mother's character the severe inllexibility of his moral prin- ciples. The mother of Burns kindled his genius by reciting the old Scottish ballads, while to his father he attributed his less pleasing cast of character. Bishop Watson traced to the affectionate influence of his mother, the religious feelings * These lines have been happily applied by Mr. Bowles to the father of Pope. — The poet's domestic aflections were as permanent as they were strong. + It still exists in the gardens of the old chateau at Montbard. It is a pillar of marl)le bearing this inscription: — " E.xcelsw turria hamilia columua, Pareuti suo iilius Butlun. 1785." — Ed. n2 180 Literary Character. whicli lie confesses lie inlierited from lier. The mother of EuoKWORTH, confmed tlin)Uf,'li life to her apartment, was the only person who studied his constitutional volatility. When he hastened to her death-hed, the last imperfect accents of that beloved voice reminded him of the past and warned him of the future, and he declares that voice " had a happy in- fluence on his habits," — as hapi>y, at least, as his own volatile nature would allow. " To the manner in which my mother formed me at an early age," said Napoleon, " I j^rincipally owe niv subsequent elevation. My opinion is, that the future good or bad conduct of a child entirely depends upon the mother. ' There is this remarkable in the strong affections of the motlier in the formation of the literary character, that, with- out even partaking of, or sympathising with the pleasures the child is fond of, the mother will often cherish those first decided tastes merely from the delight of promoting the hap- piness of her son ; so that that genius, which some would produce on a preconceived system, or implant by stratagem, or enforce by application, with her may be only the watchful labour of love.* One of our most eminent antiquaries has often assured me that his great passion, and I may say his genius, for his curious knowledge and his vast researches, he attributes to maternal affection. When his early taste for these studies was thwarted by the very different one of his father, the mother silently supplied her son with the sort of treasures he languished for, blessing the knowledge, which indeed she could not share wath him, but which she beheld imparting happiness to her youthful antiquary. Tliere is, what may be called, tamilt ge>'ius. In the home of a man of genius is diffused an electrical atmosphere, and his own pre-eminence strikes out talents in all. " The active pursuits of my father," says the daughter of Edge- ■yvoRTii, " spread an animation through the house by connect- ing children with all that was going on, and allowing them to join in thought and conversation ; sympathy and emulation excited mental exertion in the most agreeable manner." * Kotzebue has noted the delicate attention of his mother in not only fostering his genius, but in watehing its too rapid development. He says : — " If at any time my imagination was overheated, my mother al- ways contrived to select something for my evening reading which might moderate this ardour, and make a gentler impiession on my too irritable fancy." — Ed. Family Affection. 181 Evelyn, in his beautiful retreat at Saye's Court, had inspired his family with that variety of taste which he himself was spreading throughout the nation. His son translated Rapin's " Gardens," which poem the father proudly preserved in his " Sylva ;" his lady, ever busied in his study, excelled in the arts her husband loved, and designed the frontispiece to his "Lucretius:" she was the cultivator of their celebrated gar- den, which served as "an example" of his great work on " forest trees." Cowley, who has commemorated Evelyn's love of books and gardens, has delightfully applied them to his lady, in whom, says the bard, Evelyn meets both pleasui'es : — The fairest garden in her looks, And in her muid the wisest books. The house of Haller resembled a temple consecrated to science and the arts, and the votaries were his own family. The univei'sal acquirements of Haller were possessed in some degree by every one under his roof; and their studious delight in transcribing manuscripts, in consulting authors, in botani- sing, drawing and colouring the plants under his eye, formed occupations wliich made the daugliters happy and the sons eminent.* The painter Stklla inspired his family to copy his fanciful inventions, and the playful graver of Claudine Stella, his niece, animated his " Sports of Children." 1 have seen a print of Coypel in his studio, and by his side his little daughter, who is intensely watching the progress of her father's pencil. The artist has represented himself in the act of suspending his labour to look on his child. At that moment, his thoughts were divided between two objects of his love. The character and the works of the late Elizabetk ILvMrLTON were formed entirely by her brother. Admiring the man she loved, she imitated what she admired ; and while the brother was arduously' completing the version of the Persian lledaya, the sister, who had associated with his morning tasks and his evening conversations, was recalling all the ideas, and pourtraying her fraternal master in her •^ Hindoo llajah." * Ilaller's deatli (a.d. 1777) was as remarkable for its calm philosophy, as his life for its li:iii|iiiiess. He was a professional surj,'et)n, and continued to the last an atlentivu and rational observer of tlio sj ni|(toius of llie disesise which was bringing liini to the grave. He transmitted to tiie University of Gottingen a scieutitic analysis of his case ; and died feeling hia own pulse. — Ei>. 182 Literary Character. Nor arc IIktc wanting instances where this family okmus has been carried down through sticcessive generations : the volume of the father has been continvied by a son, or a rela- tive. The history of the family of the ZwiN(iEHS is a comVji- nation of studies and inherited tastes. Theodore published, in 1007, a folio herl)al, of which his son Frederic gave an enlargid edition in 1744; and the family was honoured by their name having been given to a genus of plants dedicated to their memory, and known in botany by the name of the ZiciiHjcra. In history and in literature, the family name was equally eminent ; the same Theodore continued a great work, "The Theatre of Human Life," which had been begun by his father-in-law, and which for the third time was enlarged by another son. Among the historians of Italy, it is delightful to contemplate this family genius transmitting itself with unsullied probity among the three Villams, and the Malas- PlNis, and the two PonTAS. The history of the learned family of the Stephens presents a dynasty of literature ; and to distinguish the numerous members, they have been de- signated as Henry I. and Henr^- II., — as Robert I., the II., and the III.* Our country may exult in having possessed many literary families — the Wartons, the father and two sons: the Burneys, more in number; and the nephews of Milton, whose humble torch at least was lighted at the altar of the great bard.f No event in literary history is more impressive than the fate of Quintilian ; it was in the midst of his elaborate work, which was composed to form the literary character of a son, that he experienced the most terrible affliction in the domestic life of genius — the successive deaths of his wife and his only child. It was a moral earthquake with a single survivor amidst the ruins. An awful burst of parental and literary affliction breaks forth in Quintilian's lamentation, — " My wealth, and my writings, the fruits of a long and painful life, must now be reserved only for strangers ; all I possess is for aliens, and no longer mine!" We feel the united agony of the husband, the father, and the man of genius ! Deprived of these social consolations, we see Johnsox call about him those whose calamities exiled them from society, and his roof lodges the blind, the lame, and the poor ; * For an account of them and their works, see "Curiosities of Lite- rature," vol. i. p. 76. t The PhUUps. Public and Private Life. 183 for the heart must possess something it can call its own, to be kind to. In domestic life, the Abbe Db St. Pieube enlarged its moral vocabulary, by fixing in his language two significant words. One served to explain the virtue most familiar to him — bienfaisance ; and that irritable vanity which magnifies its ephemeral fame, the sage reduced to a mortifying diminu- tive — la (jloriole I It has often excited surprise that men of genius are not more reverenced than other men in their domestic circle. The disparity between the public and the private esteem of the same man is often striking. In privacy we discover that the comic genius is not always cheerful, tliat the sage is sometimes ridiculous, and the poet seldom delightful. The golden hour of invention must terminate like other hours, and when the )nan of genius returns to the cares, the duties, the vexations, and the amusements of life, his companions behold him as one of themselves — the creature of habits and in- firmities. In the business of life, the cultivators of science and the arts, with all their simplicity of feeling and generous openness about tliera, do not meet on equal terms with otlier men. Their frequent abstractions calling off the mind to whatever enters into its lonely pursuits, render them greatly inferior to others in practical and immediate observation. Studious men have been reproached as being so deficient in the know- ledge of the human character, that they are usually (Usquali- fied for the managenu'nt of public business. Their confidence in their friends lias no bound, while they become the easy dupes of the designing. A friend, who was in office with the late Mr. Cumberland, assures me, that he was so intractable to the forms of business, and so easily induced to do more or to do less than he ought, that he was compelled to jjcrform the ofiicial business of this literary man, to free himself from his annoyance ; and yet Cumberland could not be reproached with any deliciency in a knowledge of the human character, which he was always touching with caustic pleasantry. Addison and I'jiioii were unskilful statesmen ; and Male- SHEKhks confessed, a few days before his death, that TuEGOT and himself, men of genius and pliilosophers, from whom the nation had expected inucli, had badly administered the affairs of the state ; for " knowing men but by books, and unskilful in business, we could not form the king to the government." 184 Literary Character. A man of genius may know the whole map of the world of human nature ; but, like the great geographer, may be aj)t to be lost in the wood which any one in the neighbourhood knows better than him. " The conversation of a poet," says Goldsmith, " is that of a man of sense, while his actions are those of a fool." Genius, careless of the future, and often absent in the present, avoids too deep a commingling in the minor cares of life. Hence it becomes a victim to common fools and vulgar villains. " I love my family's welfare, but I cannot be so fooli.sh as to make myself the slave to the minute affairs of a house," said Montesquieu. The story told of a man of learning is pro- bably true, however ridiculous it may appear. Deeply occu- pied in his library, one, rushing in, informed him that the house was on fire : " Gd to my wife — these matters belong to her!" pettishly rei)lied the inten'upted student. Baco>* sat at one end of his table wi-apt in many a reverie, while at the other the creatures about him were trafficking with his honour, and ruining his good name : " I am better fitted for this," said that great man once, holding out a book, " than for the life I have of late led. Nature has not fitted me for that ; knowing myself by inward calling to be fitter to hold a book than to play a pai't." BuFiox, who consumed his mornings in his old tower of Montbard, at the end of his garden,* with all nature opening to him, formed all his ideas of what was passing before him from the arts of a pliant Capuchin, and the comments of a perruquier on the scandalous chronicle of the village. These humble confidants he treated as children, but the children were commanding the great man ! YorxG, whose satires give the ver}' anatomy of human foibles, was wholly governed by his housekeeper. She thought and acted for him. which probably greatly assisted the " Night Thoughts," but his curate ex- posed the domestic economy of a man of genius by a satirical novel. If I am truly informed, in that gallery of satirical portraits in his " Love of Fame," YouxQ has omitted one of the most striking — his owy ! "While the poet's eye was glancing from "earth to heaven," he totally overlooked the lady whom he married, and who soon became the object of his contempt ; and not only his wife, but his only son, who when he returned home for the vacation from Winchester * For some account of this place, see the chapter on "Literary Resi- dences" in vol. iii. p. 395, of "Curiosities of Literature." Domestic Life. 185 school, was only adinitted into the presence of his poetical father on the first and the last day; and whose unhappy life is attributed to this unnatural neglect :* — a lamentahle do- mestic catastrophe, which, I fear, has too frequently occurred amidst the ardour and occupations of literary glory. Much, too much, of the tender domesticity of life is violated by literary characters. All that lives under their eye, all that should be guided by their hand, the recluse and abstracted men of genius must leave to their own direction. Eut let it not be forgotten, that, if such neglect others, they also neglect themselves, and are deprived of those family enjoy- ments for which few men have warmer sympathies. While the literary character burns with the ambition of raising a great literary name, he is too often forbidden to taste of this domestic intercourse, or to indulge the versatile curiosity of his private amusements — for he is chained to his great labour. Robertson felt this while emj)loyed on his histories, and he at length rejoiced when, after many years of devoted toil, he returned to the luxury of reading for his own amusement and to the conversation of his friends. " Such a sacrifice," observes his philosophical biographer, " must be more or less made by all who devote themselves to letters, whether with a view to emolument or to fame ; nor would it perhaps be easy to make it, were it not for the ])rospect (seldom, alas ! realised) of earning by their exertions that learned and honourable leisure which he was so fortunate as to attain." But men of genius have often been accused of imaginary crimes. Their very eminence attracts the lie of calumny, which tradition often conveys beyond the possibility of refu- tation. Sometimes they are reproaclied as wanting in affec- tion, when they displease their fathers by making an obscure name celebrated. The family of Desc.vutes lamented, as a blot in their escutcheon, that Descartes, wlio was born a gen- tleman, should become a jjhilosopher ; and this elevated genius was refused the satisfaction of embracing an unforgiving jiarent, while his dwarfish brother, with a mind diminutive as his person, ridiculed his philosophic relative, and turned to advantage his philosophic disposition. The daughter of Audi SON was educated with a perfect contempt of authors, * These facts are drawn from a manuscript of the late Sir Herbert Croft, wlio ref;retted that Dr. John.son wouKl not snifer him to give this account durinK the doctor's lifetime, in his Life of Youug, but which it hud always been his intention to have added to it. 186 Literary Character. and blushed to Lear a name more illustrious than that of all the Warwicks. on her alliance to which noble family she prided herself. Tiie children of ^Miltox, far from solacini? the age of their blind jjan-nt, became impatient for his death, embit- tered his last hours with scorn and disaffection, and combined to cheat and rob him. INIilton, havint^ enriched our national poetry by two immortal ejjics, with patient f^rief blessed the single female who did not entirely abandon him, and the obscure I'anatic who was pleased with his poems because they were religions. What felicities! what laurels! And now we have recently learned, that the daughter of Madame De S£vio>'li lived on ill terms with her mother, of whose enchant- ing genius she appears to have been insensible ! The unques- tionable documents are two letters hitherto cautiously secreted. The daughter was in the house of her mother when an ex- traordinary letter was addressed to her from the chamber of Madame de Sevigne after a sleepless night. In this she describes, with her peculiar felicity, the ill-treatment she received from the daughter she idolised ; it is a kindling effu- sion of maternal repi'oach, and tenderness, and genius.* Some have been deemed disagreeable companions, because they felt the weariness of dulness, or the impertinence of in- trusion ; described as bad husbands, when united to women who, without a kindred feeling, had the mean art to prey upon their infirmities ; or as bad fathers, because tlieir off'spiing have not always reflected the moral beauty of their own page. But the magnet loses nothing of its virtue, even when the particles about it, incapable themselves of being attracted, are not acted on by its occult property. CHAPTER XVIL The poverty of literary men. — Poverty, a relative quality. — Of the poverty of literary men in what degree desirable. — Extreme poverty. — Task- work. — Of gratuitous works. — A project to provide against the worst state of poverty among literary men. PoTERTT is a state not so fatal to genius, as it is usually conceived to be. We shall find that it has been sometimes voluntarily chosen ; and that to connect too closely great fortune with great genius, creates one of those powerful but * Lettres in^dites de Madame de S^vign^, pp. 201 and 203. Literary Poverty. 187 unhappy alliances, where the one party must necessarily act contrary to the interests of the other. Poverty is a relative quality, like cold and heat, which are but the increase or the diminution in our own sensations. The positive idea must arise from comparison. There is a state of j)overty reserved even for the wealthy man, the in- stant that he comes in hateful contact with the enormous capi- talist. But there is a poverty neither vulgar nor terrifying, asking no favours and on no terms receiving any ; a poverty which annihilates its ideal evils, and, becoming even a source of pride, will confer independence, that first step to genius. Among the continental nations, to accumulate wealth in the spirit of a capitalist does not seem to form the prime object of domestic life. The traffic of money is with them left to the traffickers, their merchants, and their financiers. In our country, the commercial character has so closely inter- woven and identified itself with the national one, and its peculiar views have so terminated all our pursuits, that every rank is alike infiuenced by its spirit, and things are valued by a market-price which naturally admits of no such appraise- ment. In a country where "The Wealth of Nations" has been fixed as the first principle of political existence, wealth has raised an aristocracy more noble than nobility, more cele- lirated than genius, more popular than patriotism ; but how- ever it may partake at times of a generous nature, it hardly looks beyond its own narrow pale. It is curious to notice that Montesquieu, who was in England, observed, that "If I had been born here, nothing could have consoled me in failing to accumulate a large fortune ; but 1 do not lament the medio- crity of my circumstances in France." The sources of our national wealth have greatly multiplied, and the evil has con- sequently increased, smce the visit of the great philosopher. The cares of property, the daily concerns of a family, the pressure of such minute disturbers of their studies, have in- duced some great minds to regret the abolition of those monastic orders, bcneatii whose undisturbed shade were pro- duced the mighty labours of a Montfaucon, a C.vlmet, a Florez, and the still unfinished volumes of the Bkxedic- TiNEs. Often has the literary character, amidst the busied delights of study, sighed "to bid a farewell sweet" to the turbulence of society. It was not discontent, nor any under- valuing of general society, but the pure enthusiasm of the library, which once induced the studious Evelyn to sketch a 188 Literary Character. retreat of tliis nature, whicli he addressed to his friend, the iUustriourt JJoylk. He ])ropo.sed to form " A college where persons of the same turn of mind mif^lit enjoy the pleasure of ai^reeable society, and at the same time pass their days without care or interruption."* This abandonment of their life to their genius has, indeed, often cost them too dear, from the days of Sophocles, who, ardent in his old age, neglected his family affairs, and was brought before his judges by his relations, as one fallen into a second childhood. The aged poet brought but one solitary witness in his favour — an unlinisbed tragedy; which having read, the judges rose before him, and retorted the charge on his accusers. A parallel circumstance occurred to the Abbe CoTiy, the victim of a rhyme of the satirical Boileau. Studious, and without fortune, Cotin had lived contented till he incurred the unhappiness of inheriting a large estate. Then a world of cares opened on him ; his rents were not paid, and his credi- tors increased. Dragged from his Hebrew and Greek, poor Cotin resolved to make over his entire fortune to one of his heirs, on condition of maintenance. His other relations assuming that a man who parted with his estate in his life- time must necessarily be deranged, brought the learned Cotin into court. Cotin had nothing to say in his own favour, but requested his judges would allow him to address them from the sermons which he preached. The good sense, the sound reasoning, and the erudition of the preacher were such, that the whole bench unanimously declared that they themselves might be considered as madmen, were they to condemn a man of letters who was desirous of escaping from the incumbrance of a fortune which had only interrupted his studies. There may then be sufficient motives to induce such a man to make a state of mediocrity his choice. If he lose his hap- piness, he mutilates his genius. Goldoni, with all the sim- plicity of his feelings and habits, in reviewing his life, tells us how he was always relapsing into his old propensity of comic * This romantic litei-ary retreat is one of tliose delightful reveries which the elegant taste of Evklyn abounded with. It may be found at full length in the fifth volume of Boyle's Works, not in the second, as the Biog. Brit. says. His lady was to live among the society. " If I and my wife take up two apartments, for we are to be decently asunder, however I stipulate, and lier indinatiun will greatly suit with it, that shall be no impediment to the society, but a considerable advantage to the economic part," &c. Literary Poverty. 189 writing ; " but the thought of this does not disturb me," says he ; " for though in any other situation I might have been in easier circumstances, I should never have been so happy." Bayle is a parent of the modern Hterary character ; he pur- sued the same course, and early in life adopted the principle, " Neither to fear bad fortune nor have any ardent desires for good." Acquainted with the passions only as their historian, and living only for literature, he sacrificed to it the two great acquisitions of human pursuits — fortune and a family : but in what country had Bayle not a family and a possession in his fame ? Hume and Gibbon had the most perfect conception of the literary character, and they were aware of this impor- tant principle in its habits — " My own revenue," said Hume, " will be sufficient for a man of letters, who surely needs less money, both for his entertainment and credit, than other people." GiBBOX observed of himself — " Perhaps the golden mediocrity of my fortune has contributed to fortify my apph- cation." The state of poverty, then, desirable in the domestic life of genius, is one in which the cares of property never intrude, and the want of wealth is never perceived. This is not indi- gence ; that state which, however dignified the man of genius himself may be, must inevitably degrade ! for the heartless will gibe, and even the compassionate turn aside in contempt. This literary outcast will soon be forsaken even by himself! his own intellect will be clouded over, and his limbs shrink in the palsy of bodily misery and shame — Malesuada Fames, et turpis Egestas Terribiles visu formse. Not that in this history of men of genius we are without illustrious examples of those who have even learnt to icant, that they might emancipate their genius from their neces- sities ! We see Rousseau rushing out of the palace of the finan- cier, selling his watch, copying music by the sheet, and by the mechanical industry of two hours, purchasing ten for genius. We may smile at the enthusiasm of young Bahuy, who finding himself too constant a haunter of taverns, ima- gined that this expenditure of time was occasioned by having money ; and to put an end to the conflict, he threw the little he possessed at once into the Liffey ; but let us not forget I'JO Littranj Churucter. that Baury, in tlio maturity of life, confRlently began a Libour of years,* and one of the noblest inventions in his art — a great jjouin in a picture — with no other resource than what he found by secret labours through the night, in fur- nishing the shops with those slight and saleable sketches which secured uiiinterrvipted mornings for his genius. Spi- NOSA, a name as celebrated, and perhaps as calumniated, a? Epicurus, lived in all sorts of abstinence, even of honours, of pensions, and of presents ; which, however disguised by kind- ness, he would not accept, so fearful was this philosopher of a chain ! Lodging in a cottage, and obtaining a livelihood by polishing optical glasses, he declared he had never spent more than he earned, and certainly thought there was such a thing as superfluous earnings. At his death, his small accoimts showed how he had subsisted on a few pence a-day, and Enjoy'd, spare feast ! a radish and an egg. PoussiN persisted in refusing a higher price than that affixed to the back of his pictm-es, at the time he was living without a domestic. The great oriental scholar, A>'quetll DE Pekeo>', is a recent example of the literary character carrying his indifference to privations to the ver}' cynicism of poverty ; and he seems to exult over his destitution with the same pride as others would expatiate over their posses- sions. Yet we must not forget, to use the words of Lord Bacon, that "judging that means were to be spent upon learning, and not learning to be applied to means," De Pee- EON refused the offer of thirty thousand livres for his copy of the " Zend-avesta." Writing to some Bramins, he de- scribes his life at Paris to be much like their own. "I sub- sist on the produce of my literary labours without revenue, establishment, or place. I have no wife nor children ; alone, absolutely free, but always the friend of men of probity. In a perpetual war with my senses, I triumph over the attrac- tions of the world or I contemn them." This ascetic existence is not singular. Pahixi, a great modern poet of Italy, whom the Milanese point out to strangers as the glory of their city, lived in the same state of vmrepining ])overt3'. Mr. Hobhouse has given us this self-portrait of the poet : — • His series of pictures for the walls of the meeting-room of the Society of Arts in the Adelphi. — Ed. Literary Poverty. 191 Me, non nato a percotere Le dure illustri porte, Nudo accorra, ma libero II regno della morte. Naked, but free ! A life of hard deprivations was long that of the illustrious LiNN^US. Without fortune, to that great mind it never seemed necessary to acquire any. Peri- grinating on foot with a stylus, a magnifying-glass, and a basket for plants, he shared the rustic meal of the peasant. Never was glory obtained at a cheaper rate ! exclaims one of his eulogists. Satisfied with the least of the little, he only felt one perpetual want — that of completing his Flors. Not that LiNNJuUS was insensible to his situation, for he gave his name to a little flower in Lapland — the Linncea JBorealis, from the fanciful analogy he discovered between its character and his own early fate, " a little northern plant flowering earlj', depressed, abject, and long overlooked." The want of fortune, however, did not deprive this man of genius of his true glory, nor of that statue raised to him in the gardens of the University of Upsal, nor of that solemn eulogy delivered by a crowned head, nor of those medals which his nation struck to commemorate the genius of the three kingdoms of nature ! This, then, is the race who have often smiled at the light regard of their gootl neighbours when contrasted witli their own celebrity ; for in poverty and in solitude such men are not separated from their fame ; that is evei' proceeding, ever raising a secret, but constant, triumpli in tlieir minds.* Yes ! Genius, undegraded and unexhausted, may indeed even in a garret glow in its career ; but it must be on the principle wliich induced Rousseau solemnly to renounce writing '■^ j^ar metier.'''' This in the Journal ile Sgavans he once attempted, but found him.self (juite inadequate to " the profession." t In a garret, the author of the " Studies of Nature," as he exultingly tells us, ari-anged liis work, " It was in a little garret, in the new street of St. Etienne du Mont, where I resided four years, in the midst of physical * Spagnoletto, wliile sign-painting at Rome, attracted Ijy lii.s aMlity the notice of a cjirdiiml, who ultimately gave him a home in his palace ; but the artist, feeling that his poverty was necessary to his industry and inde- pendence, lied to Naples, and recommenced a life of labour. — -Kd. t Twice he repeated this resolution. See his Works, vol. xxxi. p. 283 ; vol. xxxii. p. DO. 192 JAleranj Cliaructcr. and domestic afilictions. But there I enjoyed the most ex- quisite ])leasures of my life, amid profovmd solitude and an enchanting horizon. There I put the finishinf^ hand to my * Studies of Nature,' and there I puhlished them." Pope, one day taking liis usual walk with Harte in the Haymarket, desired him to enter a little shop, where going up three pair of stairs into a small room, Pope said, " In this garret Addi- son wrote his 'Campaign!'" To the feelings of the poet this garret had become a consecrated spot ; (ienius seemed more itself, placed in contrast with its miserable locality ! The man of genius wrestling with oppressive fortune, who follows the avocations of an author as a precarious source of existence, should take as the model of the authorial life, that of Dr. Johnson. The dignity of the literary character was as deeply associated with his feelings, and the " reverence thyself" as present to his mind, when doomed to be one of the Helots of literature, by Osborn. Cave, and Miller, as when, in the honest triumph of Genius, he repelled a tardy advdation of the lordly Chesterfield. Destitute of this enno- bling ])rinciple, the author sinks into the tribe of those rabid adventurers of the pen who have masked the degraded form of the literary character under the assumed title of " authors by profession"* — the Guthries, the Ralphs, and the Ail- nuKSTS.f " There are worse evils for the literary man," says a living author, who himself is the true model of the great literary character, " than neglect, poverty, imprison- ment, and death. There are even more pitiable objects than Chatterton himself with the poison at his lips." " I should die with hunger were I at peace with the world !" exclaimed a corsair of literature — and dashed his pen into the black flood before him of soot and gall. In substituting fortune for the object of his designs, the man of genius deprives himself of those heats of inspiration reserved for him who lives for himself; the mollia tempora fandi of Art. If he be subservient to the public taste, with- out daring to raise it to his own, the creature of his times has not the choice of his subjects, which choice is itself a sort of invention. A task-worker ceases to think his own thoughts. * From an original letter which I have published from Guthrie to a minister of state, this modern phrase appears to have been his own inven- tion. The principle unblushingly avoned, required the sanction of a re- spectable designation. I have preserved it in "Calamities of Authors." t For some account of these men, see " Calamities of Authors." Influence of Necessity. 193 The stipulated price and time are weighing on liis pen or his pencil, while the hour-glass is dropping its hast}' sands. If the man of genius would be wealthy and even luxurious, another fever besides the thirst of glory torments him. Such insatiable desires create many fears, and a mind in fear is a mind in slavery. In one of Siiakspeaee's sonnets he pathetically laments this compulsion of his necessities which forced him to the trade of pleasing the public ; and he illus- trates this degradation by a novel image. " Chide Fortune," cries the bard, — The guilty goddess of my harmless deeds, That did not better for my life provide Than public means which public manners breeds ; Thence comes it that my name receives a brand ; And almost thence my nature is subdued To what it works in, like the dyer's hand. Such is the fate of that author, who, in his variety of task- works, blue, yellow, and red, lives without ever having shown his own natural complexion. We hear the eloquent truth from one who has alike shared in the bliss of composition, and the misery of its " daily bread." " A single hour of com- position won from the business of the day, is Avorth more than the whole day's toil of him who works at the trade of literature: in the one case, the spirit comes joyfully to re- fresh itself, like a hart to the water])rooks ; in the other, it pursues its miserable way, ))anting and jaded, with the dogs of hunger and necessity behind."* We trace tiie fate of all task- work in the history of PoussiN, when called on to reside at the Fi'cnch court. Labouring without intermission, some- times on one thing and sometimes on another, and hurried on in things which required both time and thought, he saw too clearly the iatal tendency of such a lii'e, and exclaimed, with ill-suppressed bitterness, '' If I stay long in this country, I shall turn dauber like the rest liere." The great artist abru])tly returned to Rome to regain the possession of his own thoughts. It has been a question with some, more indeed abroad than at home, whether the art of instructing mankind by the press would not be less suspicious in its character, were it luss in- terested in one of its prevalent motives ? Some noble self- denials of this kind are recorded. The principle of emolument * Quarterly Review, vol. viii. p. 538. 191' Literary Character. will produce ihc industry which furnishes works for popular demand ; but it is only the principle of honour which can produce the lasting works of genius. Boilkau seems to cen- sure Racine for having accepted money for one of his dramas, while he, who was not rich, gave away his polished poems to the public. He seems desirous of raising the art of writing to a more disinterested profession than any other, requiring no fees for tlie professors. Olivet presented his elaborate edi- tion of Cicero to the world, requiring no other remuneration than its glory. Miltox did not compose his immortal work for his trivial copyright ;* and LiXN.^us sold his labours for a single ducat. The Abbe Mably, the author of many poli- tical and moral works, lived on little, and would accept only a few presentation copies from the booksellers. But, since wo have become a nation of book-collector.-r, and since there exists, as Mr. Coleridge describes it, "a reading public," this principle of honour is altered. Wealthy and even noble authors are proud to receive the largest tribute to their genius, because this tribute is the certain evidence of the number who pay it. The property- of a book, therefore, represents to the literary candidate the collective force of the thousands of voters on whose favour his claims can only exist. This change in the affairs of the literary republic in our country was felt by GiBBOK, who has fixed on "the patronage of book- sellers" as the standard of public opinion: "the measure of their liberality," he says, " is the least ambiguous test of our com- mon success." The philosopher accepted it as a substitute for that " iriendship or favour of princes, of which he could not boast." The same opinion was held by Joil>'SO>'. Yet, looking on the present state of English literature, the most profuse perhaps in Europe, we cannot refrain from thinking that the " jnitronage of booksellers" is frequently injurious to the great interests of literature. The dealers in enormous speculative purchases are only subservient to the spirit of the times. If they are the pur- veyors, they are also the panders of public taste ; and their vaunted patronage only extends to popular subjects ; while * The acreeraent made with Simraons, the publisher, was 5/. down, and 5^ more wlu'n 1500 copies were sold, the same sum to be paid for the second and third editions, each of the same number of copies. Milton only lived durinj: the publicjition of two editions, and his widow parted with all her riyht in the work to the same bookseller for eight pounds. Her autograph receipt was in the possession of the late Dawson Turner. — Ei>. Booksellers' Patronaye. 195 their urgent demands are sure to produce hasty manufactures. A precious work on a recondite subject, which may have con- sumed the Ul'e of its author, no bookseller can patronise ; and whenever such a work is published, the author has rarely sur- vived the long season of the public's neglect. While popular works, after some few years of celebrity, have at length been discovered not worth the repairs nor the renewal of their lease of fame, the neglected work of a nobler design rises in value and rarity. The literary work which requires the greatest skill and difficulty, and the longest labour, is not commercially valued with that hasty, spurious novelty, for which the taste of the public is craving, from the strength of its disease rather than of its appetite. Rousseau observed, that his musical opera, the work of five or six weeks, brought him as much money as he had received for his " Emile," which had cost him twenty years of meditation, and three years of composi- tion. This single fact re])resents a hundred. So fallacious are public opinion and the patronage of booksellers ! Such, then, is the inadequate remuneration of a life devoted to lltei'ature ; and notwithstanding the more general interest excited by its productions within the last century, it has not essentially altered their situation in society ; for who is de- ceived by the trivial exultation of the gay sparkling scribbler who lately assured us that authors now dip their pens in silver ink-standishes, and have a valet for an amanuensis? Fashionable writers must necessarily get out of fashion ; it is the inevitable fate of the material and the manufacturer. An eleemosynary fund can provide no permanent relief for the age and sorrows of the unhappy men of science and litera- ture ; and an author may even have composed a work which shall be read by the next generation as well as the present, and still be left in a state even of pauperism. These victims perish in silence ! No one has attenqited to suggest even a palliative for this great evil ; and when I asked the greatest genius of our age to propose some relief for this general suffer- ing, a sad and convulsive nod, a shrug that symiJathiscd with the misery of so many brothers, and an avowal tbat even he could not invent one, was all that genius had to alleviate the forlorn state of the literary character.* The only man of genius who has thrown out a hint for * It was the lute Sir Walter Scott — if I cuuld assign tlie date of this conversation, it would throw some light on what might be then passing in bis own mind. 2 ]96 Literary Character. improving the situation of tlie literary man is Adam Smith. In tliat passage in his " Wealth of" Nations" to vvliich I have already referred, he says, that " Before the invention of the art of printing, the only emploN'ment by which a man of letters could make anything by his talents was that of a public or a private teaclier, or by communicating to other people the various and useful knowledge which he had acquired himself; and this surely is a more honourable, a more useful, and in general even a more profitable employ- ment than that other of writing for a bookseller, to which the art of printing has given occasion." We see the political economist, alike insensible to the dignity of the literary character, incapable of taking a just view of its glorious avocation. To obviate the personal wants att^ached to the occupations of an author, he would, more effectually than skilfully, get rid of authorship itself. This is not to restore the limb, but to amputate it. It is not the preservation of existence, but its annihilation. His friends Hume and Robertson must have turned from this page humiliated and indignant. They could have supplied Adam Smith with a truer conception of the literary character, of its independence, its influence, and its glory. I have projected a plan for the alleviation of the state of these authors who are not blessed with a patrimony. The trade connected with literature is carried on by men who are usually not literate, and the generality of the publishers of hooks, unlike all other tradesmen, are often the worst judges of their own wares. Were it practicable, as I believe it to be, that authors and men of letters could themselves be book- sellers, the public would derive this immediate benefit from the scheme ; a deluge of worthless or indifferent books would be turned away, and the name of the literary publisher would be a pledge for the value of every new book. Every literary man would choose his own favourite department, and we should learn from him as well as from his books. Against this project it may be urged, that literar}- men are ill adapted to attend to the regular details of trade, and that the great capitalists m the book business have not been men of literature. But this plan is not suggested for accumulating a great fortune, or for the purpose of raising up a new class of tradesmen. It is not designed to make authors wealthy, for that would inevitably extinguish great literary exertion, but only to make them independent, as the best means to preserve Literary Booksellers. 197 exertion. The details of trade are not even to reach him. The poet Gesner, a bookseller, left his lihrairie to the care of his admirable wife. His own works, the elegant editions which issued from his press, and the value of manuscripts, were the objects of his attention. On the Continent many of the dealers in books have been literary men. At the memorable expulsion of the French Prote.stants on the edict of Nantes, their expatriated literary men flew to tlie shores of England, and the free provinces of Holland ; and it was in Holland that this colony of littera- teurs established magnificent printing-houses, and furnished Europe with editions of the native writers of France, often preferable to the originals, and even wrote the best works of that time. At that memorable period in our own history, when two thousand nonconformists were ejected on St. Bartholo- mew's day from the national establishment, the greater part were men of learning, who, deprived of their livings, were destitute of an)- means of existence. These scholars were compelled to look to some profitable occupation, and for the greater part they fixed on trades connected with literature ; some became eminent booksellers, and continued to be volu- minous writers, without finding their studies interrupted by their commercial arrangements. The details of trade must be left to others ; the hand of a child can turn a vast machine, and the object here proposed w'ould be lost, if autliors sought to become merely booksellers. Whenever the public of Europe shall witness such a new order of men among their booksellers, they will have less to read, but more to remember. Tlieir opinions will be less fiuctuating, and their knowledge will come to them with more maturity. Men of letters will ily to the house of the book- seller who in that class of literature in which he deals, will himself be not the least eminent member. 198 Literary Character. CHAPTER XVIII. The matrimonial state of literature.— Matrimony sairl not to be well united to the (lornestie life of genius. — Celibacy a concealed cause of the early querulousnoss of men of genius. — Of unhappy unions. — Not abw)lutely necessary that the wife should be a literary woman. — Of the docility and susceptibility of the higher female character. — A picture of a literary wife. Matuiaiony has often been considered as a condition not well suited to the domestic life of genius, accompanied as it must be by many embarrassments for the head and the heart. It was an axiom with Fue.'jsli, the Swiss artist, that the marriage state is incompatible with a high cultivation of the fine arts; and such appears to have been the feeling of most artists. When Michael Angelo was asked why he did not marry, he replied, " I have espoused my art ; and it occasions me sufficient domestic cares, for my works shall be my children. What would Bartholomeo Ghiberti have been, had he not made the gates of St. John ? His children consumed his fortune, but his gates, worthy to be the gates of Paradise, remain." The three Caraccis refused the conjugal bond on the same principle, dreading the interruptions of domestic life. Their crayons and paper were always on their dining-table. Careless of fortune, they determined never to hurry over their works in order that they might supply the ceaseless demands of a family. We discover tlie same principle operating in our own times. When a young painter, who had just manied, told Sir Joshua that he was preparing to pursue his studies in Ital}', that great painter exclaimed, " Married ! then you are ruined as an artist !" The same principle has influenced literary men. Sir Thomas Bodlet had a smart altercation with his first libra- rian, insisting that he should not marr\% maintaining its absurdity in the man who had the perpetual care of a public library ; and Woodward left as one of the express conditions of his lecturer, that he was not to be a married man. They imagined that their private affairs would interfere with their public duties. Peikesc, the great French collector, refused marriage, convinced that the cares of a family were too absorbing for the freedom necessary to literary pursuits, and claimed likewise a sacrifice of fortune incompatible with his great designs. Boyle, who would not suffer his studies to Celibacy. 199 be interru])ted by " bousebokl affairs," lived as a boarder with his sister, Lady Ilanehigh. Newton, Locke, Leibnitz, Bayle, and Hobbes, and Hume, and Gibbon, and Adam Smith, decided for celibac}'. These great authors placed their happi- ness in their celebrity. This debate, for the present topic has sometimes warmed into one, is in truth ill adapted for controversy. The heart is more concerned in its issue tban any espoused doctrine terminating in partial views. Look into the domestic annals of genius — observe the variety of positions into which the literary cbaracter is tlirown in tlie nuptial state. Cynicism will not always obtain a sullen triumph, nor prudence always be allowed to calculate away some of the rielier feelings of our nature. It is not an axiom that literary' characters must necessarily institute a new order of celibacy. The sentence of the apostle ])ronounces that " the forbidding to marry is a doctrine of devils." Wesley, who published "Thoughts on a Single Life," advised some " to remain single for the king- dom of heaven's sake ; but the precept," he adds, " is not for the many." So indecisive have been the opinions of the most curious inquirers concerning the matrimonial state, whenever a great destination has engaged their consideration. One position we may assume, that the studies, and even the happiness of the pursuits of men of genius, are powerfully intluenced by the domestic associate of their lives. They rarely pass through the age of love without its passion. Even their Delias and their Amandas are often the shadows of some real object ; for as Shakspeare's experience told him, Never durst poet touch a pen to write, Until his ink were teinper'd with love's sigh.s. Their imagination is perpetually colouring those pictures of domestic happiness on which they delight to dwell. He who is no husband sighs for that tenderness which is at once be- stowed and received ; and tears will start in the eyes of him who, in becoming a cliild among children, yet feels that he is no father ! These deprivations have usually lieen the concealed cause of the querulous melancholy of the literary character. Such was the real occasion of SiiEXSTONi':'s unhappiness. In early life he had been captivated by a young lady adapted to be both the muse and the wife of the jjoet, and their mu- tual sensibility lasted for some years. It lasted until she died. It was in parting from her that he hrst sketched his 200 Literary Character. " Pastoral Ballad." Shexstone had the fortitude to refuse marriage. His spirit could not endure that she should par- ticipate in that lil'e of self-privations to which he was doomed ; but his heart was not locked up in the ice of celibacy, and his plaintive love songs and elegies flowed from no fictitious source. " It is long since," said he, " I have considered my- self as nnduiic. The world will not perhaps consider me in that liglit entirely till I have married my maid."* Thomson met a reciprocal passion in his Amanda, while the full tenderness of his lieart was ever wasting itself like waters in a desert. As we have been made little acquainted with this part of the history of the poet of the " Seasons," I shall give his own description of those deep feelings from a manuscript letter written to Mallet. " To turn my e3'es a softer way, to you know who — absence sighs it to me. What is my heart made of? a soft system of low nerves, too sensi- ble ior my quiet — capable of being very happy or very un- happy, I am afraid the last will prevail. Lay your hand upon a kindred heart, and despise me not. I know not what it is, but she dwells upon my thought in a mingled sentiment, which is the sweetest, the most intimately pleasing the soul can receive, and which I would wish never to want towards some dear object or another. To have always some secret darling idea to which one can still have recourse amidst the noise and nonsense of the world, and which never fails to touch us in the most exquisite manner, is an art of happiness that fortune cannot deprive us of. This may be called romantic ; but whatever the cause is, the effect is really felt. Pray, when you write, tell me when you saw her, and with the pure eye of a friend, when you see her again, whisper that 1 am her most humble servant." Even Pope was enamoured of a "scornful lady ;" and, as Johnson observed, "polluted his will with female i-esentment." Jonxsox himself, we are told by one who knew him, " had always a metaphysical passion for one princess or other, — the rustic Lucy Porter, or tlie haughty Molly Aston, or the sublimated methodistic Hill Boothby ; and, lastly, the more charming Mrs. Thrale." Even in his advanced age, at the height of his celebrity, we hear his cries of lonely wretched- ness. " I want every comfort ; my life is \ery solitary and very cheerless. Let me know that I have j-et a friend — let * The melancholy tale of Shenstone's life is narrated in the third Tolume of " Curiosities of Literature." — Ed. Celibacy. 201 us be kind to one another." But the " kindness " of distant friends is like the polar sun — too far removed to warm us. Those who have eluded the individual tenderness of the female, are tortured by an aching void in their feelings. The stoic Akenside, in his " Odes," has preserved the history of a life of genius in a series of his own feelings. One entitled, ''At Study," closes with these memorable lines: — Me tliough no peculiar fair Touclies with a lover s care ; Though the pride of my desire Asks immortal friendship's name, Asks tiie palm of honest fame And the old heroic lyre ; Though the day have smoothly gone, Or to letter'd leisure known. Or in social duty spent; Yet at the eve my lonely breast Seeks in vain for perfect rest, LaiKjaishes fur true content. If ever a man of letters lived in a state of energy and excite- ment which might raise liim above the atmosj)here of social love, it was assuredly the enthusiast, Thomas Hollis, who, solely devoted to literature and to n^publieanism, was occupied in furnishing Europe and America with editions of his favour- ite authors. He would not marry, lest marriage should inter- rupt the labours of his platonic politics. But his extraordi- nary memoirs, while they show an intrepid mind in a robust frame, bear witness to the self-tormentor who had trodden down the natural bonds of domestic life. Hence the deep "dejection of his spirits;" those incessant cries, that he has " no one to advise, assist, or cherish those magnanimous pm*- suits in him." At length he retreated into the country, in utter hopelessness. " 1 go not into the country for attentions to agriculture as such, nor attentions of interest of any kind, which I have ever despised as such ; but as a used man, to pass the remaiuder of a life in tolerable sanity and quiet, after having given up the Hovver of it, voluntarily, day, week, month, year after year, successive to eacli other, to public service, and being no longer able to sustain, in hodt/ or miml, the labours that 1 have chosen to go through without falling speedily into t/ic (/rcatest disorders, and it might be im- hecilily itself. This is not colouring, but the exact plain truth." 202 Literary Character. Poor moralist, and what art tfaon? A solitary fly ! Tliy joys no jjlittering female meets, No hive hast thou of hoarded sweets. Assiiredly it would not have been a question whether these literary characters should have married, had not M'te could neitlier sol'ten nor control the asperity of his lady ; and when that great poet lived in exile, she never cared to see him more, though he was the father of her six chil- dren. The internal state of the house of Domenichino attlicted that great artist with many sorrows. He had mar- ried a beauty of high birth and extreme haughtiness, and of the most av;mcious disposition. When at Naples he himself dreaded lest the avaricious passion of his wife should not be Unhappy Unions. 203 able to resist the offers she received to poison him, and he was compelled to provide and dress his own food. It is be- lieved that he died of poison. What a picture has Passeri left of the domestic interior of this great artist ! Cosl fra mille crepacuori mori uno de" piu eccelleiiti artejlci del mundo ; che oltre al siio valore pitfonco avrehbe j^iu d'ogni altri maritato di viver sempre per Vonestd, personale. " So jK'rished, amidst a thousand heart-breakings, the most excel- lent of artists ; who besides his worth as a painter, deserved as much as any one to have lived for his excellence as a man." MiLTOX carried nothing of the greatness of his mind in the choice of his wives. His first wife was the object of sudden fancy. He left the metropolis, and unexpectedly re- turned a manned man, and united to a woman of such un- congenial dispositions, that the romp was frightened at the literary habits of the great poet, found his house solitary, beat his nephews, and ran away after a single month's resi- dence ! To this circumstance we owe his famous treatise on Divorce; and a party (by no means extinct), who having made as ill choices in their wives, were for divorcing as fast as they had been for marrying, calling themselves Mil/onists. When we find that Moliere, so skilful in human life, married a girl from his own troop, who made him experience all those bitter disgusts and ridiculous embarrassments which he himself played off at the theatre ; that Addison's fine taste in morals and in life could suffer the ambition of a courtier to |irevail with himself to seek a countess, whom he descril)es under the stormy character of Oceana, and who drove him contemptuously into solitude, and shortened his days ; and that Steele, warm and tlioughtless, was united to a cold precise "Miss Prue," as he himself calls her, and from whom he never parted without l)ickerings ; in all these cases we censure the great men, not their wives.* Rousseau has honestly confessed his error. He had united himself to a low, illit(;rate woman ; and when he retreated into solitude, he felt the weight which he carried with him. He laments that he had not educated his wife : " In a docile age, 1 could have adorned her mind with talents and knowledge, which would have more clo.^^ely united us in retirement. We should not then have felt the intolerable tedium of a tete-ri-tete ; it is in * See "Curiosities of Literature," for anecdotes of "Literary Wives." 204 Literary Character. solitude one; fuols tlic advantage of living with another who can think." Thus Itousseau confesses the fatal error, and indicates the right principle. Yet it seems not ahsolutely necessary for the domestic happiness of the literary character, that his wife should be a literary woman. Tyciio Buahe, nolde by birth as well as genius, married the daughter of a peasant. By which means that great man obtained two points essential for his abstract pursuits ; he acquired an obedient wife, and freed himself of his noble relatives, who would no longer hold an intercourse with the man who was spreading their family honours into more ages than perha])s they could have traced them back- wards. The lady of Wieland was a pleasing don)estie per- son, who, without reading her husband's works, knew he was a great jjoet. AVieland was apt to exercise liis imagina- tion in declamatory invectives and bitter amplifications ; and the writer of this account, in perfect German taste, assures us, " that many of his felicities of diction were thus struck out at a heat." During this frequent operation of his genius, the placable temper of Mrs. Wieland overcame the orgasm of the German bard, merely by persisting in her ad- miration and her patience. When the burst was over, Wie- land himself was so charmed by her docility, that he usually closed with giving up all his opinions. There is another sort of homely happiness, aptly described in the plain words of Bishop Newtok. He found "the study of sacred and classic authors ill agreed with butchers' and bakers' bills;" and when the prospect of a bishopric opened on him, "more servants, more entertainments, a better table, &c.," it became necessary to look out for " some clever, sensible woman to be his wife, who would lay out his money to the best advantage, and be careful and tender of his health ; a friend and companion at all hours, and who would be hapi)ier in staying at home than be perpetually gadding abroad." Such are the wives not adapted to be the votaries, but who may be the faithful companions through life, even of a man of genius. But in the character of the higher female we may discover a constitutional faculty of docility and enthusiasm which has varied with the genius of different ages. It is the opinion of an elegant metaphysician, that the mind of the female adopts and i'amiliarises itself with ideas more easily than that of man, and hence the facility with which the sex contract or Unhappy Unions. 205 lose habits, and accommodate their minds to new situations. PoHtics, war. and learning, are equally objects of attainment to their deliglitful susceptibility. Love has the fancied tran- sparency of the cameleon. When the art of government di- rected the feelings of a woman, we behold Aspasia, eloquent with the genius of Pericles, instructing the Archons ; Portia, the wife of the republican Brutus, devouring burning coals ; and the wife of Lucan, transcribing and correcting the Pharsalia, before the bust of the poet, which she had placed on her bed, that his very figure might never be absent. When universities were opened to the sex, they acquired academic glory. The wives of military men have shared in the perils of the field ; or like Anna Comnena and our Mrs. Hutchinson, have become even their historians. In the age of love and sympathy, the female often receives an indelible pliancy from her literary associate. His pursuits become the objects of her thoughts, and he observes his own taste re- flected in his family ; much less through his own influence, for his solitary labours often preclude him from forming them, than by that image of his own genius — the mother of his children ! The subjects, the veiy books which enter into his literary occupation, are cherished by her imagination ; a feeling finely opened by the lady of the author of " Sandford and Merton :" " My ideas of my husband," she said, " are so much associated with his hooks, that to part with them would be as it, were breaking some of the last ties which still connect me with so beloved an object. The being in the midst of books he has been accustomed to read, and which contain his marku and notes, will still give him a sort of exis- tence with ine. Unintelligible as such fond chimeras may ap- pear to many people, I am persuaded they are not so to you." With what simplicity Meta Mollers, the wife of Klop- stock, in her (Jerman-Knglish, describes to Richardson, the novelist, tlie manner in which she passes her day with her poet ! she tells him that " she is always present at the birth of the young verses, which begin by fragments, here and there, of a subject with which his soul is just then filled. Persons who live as we do have no need of two chambers ; we arc always in the same : I with my little work, still ! still! only regarding sometimes my husband's f'nce, which is so venerable at that time with tears of devotion, and all the sublimity of the subject — my husband reading me his young verses, and suffering my criticisms." 200 Literary Character. The picture of a literary wife of antiquity lias descended to us, touched by the domestic jjencil of genius, in the sus- ceptible Calimiuunia, the lady of the younger Pliny. " Her aflection for me," he says, " has given her a turn to books : her passion will increase with our days, for it is not my youth or my person, which time gradually impairs, but my reputation and my glory, of which she is enamoured. " I have been told that Buffon, notwithstanding his favourite seclusion of his old tower in his garden, acknow- ledged to a friend that his lady had a considerable influence over his compositions : " Often," said he, " when I cannot please myself, and am impatient at the disappointment, Madame de liuffon reanimates my exertion, or withdraws me to rejiose for a short interval ; 1 return to my pen refreshed, and aided by her advice." Gksneu declared that whatever were his talents, the person who had most contributed to develope them was his wife. She is unknown to the public ; but the history of the mind of such a woman is discovered in the " Letters of Gesner and his Family." "While Gesneb gave himself up entirely to his favourite arts, drawing, painting, etching, and poetry, bis wife would often reanimate a genius that was apt to despond in its attempts, and often exciting him to new- productions, her sure and delicate taste was attentively con- sulted by the poet-painter — but she combined the most prac- tical good sense with the most feeling imagination. This forms the rareness of the character ; ibr this same woman, who united with her husband in the education of their children, to relieve him from the interruptions of common business, carried on alone the concerns of his house in la tihrairie* Her correspondence with her son, a young artist travelling for his studies, opens what an old poet comprehen- sively terms " a gathered mind." Imagine a woman attend- ing to the domestic economy, and to the commercial details, yet withdrawing out of this business of life into the more elevated pursuits of her husband, and at the same time com- bining with all this the cares and counsels which she bestowed on her son to form the artist and the man. * Gesner'.s fatber was a bookseller of Zurich ; descended from a family of men learned in tbe exact sciences, be was apprenticed to a bookseller at Berlin, aud afterwards entered into his father's business. The best edition of bis "Idylls" is that published by himself, in two volumes, 4to, illustrated by his own engravings. — Ed. Gesner's Wife. 207 To know this incomparable woman we must hear her; " Consider your father's precepts as oracles of wisdom; they are the result of tlie experience he has collected, not only of life, but of that art wliich he has acquired sim|)]y by his own industry." She would not have her son suil'er his stronc^ alfection to herself to absorb all other sentiments. " Had you remained at home, and been habituated under your mother's auspices to employments merely domestic, what ad- vantage would you have acquired ? 1 own we should have passed some delightl'ul winter evenings together; but your love for the arts, and my am1)ition to see my sons as much distinguished for their talents as their virtues, would have been a constant source of regret at your passing your time in a manner so little worthy of you." How pi'ofound is her observation on the strong but con- fined attachments of a youth of genius ! "I have frequently remarked, with some regret, the excessive attachmeiit you in- dulge towards those who see and feel as you do yourself, and the total neglect with which you seem to treat every one else. I should reproach a man with such a fault who was destined to pass his life in a small and unvarying circle ; but in an artist, who has a great object in view, and whose country is the whole world, this disposition seems to be likely to pro- duce a great number of inconveniences. Alas ! my son, the life you have hitherto led in your father's house has been in fact a pastoral life, and not such a one as was necessary for the education of a man who.se destiny summons him to the world." And when her son, after meditating on some of the most glorious productions of art, felt himself, as he says, " dis- lu;artened and east down at tlie unattainable superiority of the artist, and that it was only by retlecting on the immense labour and continued efforts which such masterpieces must have required, that 1 regained my courage and my ardour," she observes, " This passage, my dear son, is to me as precious as gold, and I send it to you again, because I wish you to im- press it strongly on your mind. The remembrance of this may also be a useful preservative from too great confidence ia your abilities, to which a warm in)agination may sometimes be liable, or from the desi)on(lence you might oicasionally feel from 'the contemplation of grand originals. Continue, there- fore, my dear son, to form a sound judgment and a pure taste li-om your own observations : your mind, while yet young and 208 Literary Character. flexible, may receive whatever impressions you wish. Be careful that your abilities do not inspire in you too much confidence, lest it should happen to you as it has to many others, that they have never possessed any greater merit than that of havin<^ good al)ilities." One more extract, to preserve an incident which may touch the heart of genius. This extraordinary woman, whose cha- racteristic is that of strong sense combined with delicacy of feeling, would check her German sentimentality at the mo- ment she was betraying those emotions in which the imagi- nation is so powerfully mixed up with the associated feelings. Arriving at their cottage at Sihlwald, she proceeds — "On entering the parlour three small pictures, painted by you, met my eyes. I passed some time in contemplating them. It is now a year, 1 thought, since I saw him trace these pleasing forms ; he whistled and sang, and I saw them grow under his pencil ; now he is far, far from us. In short, 1 had the weak- ness to press my lips on one of these pictures. You well know, my dear son, that 1 am not much addicted to scenes of a sentimental turn ; but to-day, while I considered your works, I could not restrain this little impulse of maternal feeling^. Do not, however, be apprehensive that the tender affection of a mother will ever lead me too far, or that I shall suffer my mind to be too powerfully impressed_with the painful sensa- tions to which your absence gives birth. My reason con- vinces me that it is for your welfare that you are now in a place where your abilities will have opportunities of unfolding, and where you can become great in your art." Such was the incomparable wnfe and mother of the Gesners ! Will it now be a question whether matrimony be incompatible with the cultivation of the arts ? A wile who reanimates the drooping genius of her husband, and a mother who is inspired by the ambition of beholding her sons eminent, is she not the real being which the ancients personi- fied in their Muse ? Literary Friendships. 209 CHAPTER XIX. Literary friendships. — In early life. — Diflferent from those of men of the world. — They suffer an unrestrained communication of theii- ideas, and bear reprimands and exhortations.— Unity of feelings. —A symjjathy not of manners but of feelings. — Admit of dissimilar characters. — Their peculiar glory. — Their sorrow. Among the virtues which hterature inspires, is often that of the most romantic friendship. The delirium of love, and even its lighter caprices, are incompatible with the pursuits of the student ; but to feel friendship like a passion is necessary to the mind of genius alternately elated and depressed, ever pro- digal of feeling and excursive in knowledge. The qualities which constitute literary friendship, compared with those of men of the world, must render it a sentiment as rare as love itself, which it resembles in that intellectual ten- derness in which l)oth so deeply participate. Born " in the dews of their youth," this friendship will not expire on their tomb. In the school or the college this im- mortalit}^ begins; and, engaged in similar studies, should even one excel the other, he will find in him the protector of his fame ; as Addison did in Steele, West in Gray, and Geat in Mason. Thus Petraiicii was the guide of Boccaccio, thus Boccaccio became the defender of his master's genius. Perhaps i'riendship is never more intense than in an inter- course of minds of ready counsels and inspiring ardours. United in the same pursuits, but directed by an unequal ey- perience, the imperceptible supei-iority interests, without mortifving. It is a counsel, it is an aid ; in whatever form it shows itself, it has nothing of the malice of rivalry. A beautiful picture of such a friendship among men of genius otters itself in the history of Miunaiid, the great French painter, and Du FiiESNOY, the great critic of the art itself. Du FuESN'OY, abandoned in utter scorn by his stern father, an apothecary, for his entire devotion to his seductive art, lived at Home in voluntary poverty, till Migxakd, his old fellow-student, arrived, when they became known by the name of " the inseparables." The talents of the friends were ditterent, but their studies were the same. Their days melted away together in drawing from the ancient statues and the basso-relievos, in studying in the galleries of paint- ings, or among the villas which embeUish the environs of P 210 Literary Character. Rome. One roof sheltered them, and one table supplied their sober meal. Lii^^lit were the slumbers wliidi closed each day, each the pleasiiif^ image of the former. Jhit this remarkable friendship was not a simple sentiment whicli limited the views of " tlie Inseparables," for with them it was a perpetual source of mutual usefulness. They gave accounts to each other of whatever the}' observed, and carefully noted their own defects. Du Fbksnoy, so critical in the theory of the art, was unsuc- cessful in the practical parts. His delight in poetical com- position had retarded the progress of his pictorial powers. Not having been taught the handling of his pencil, he worked with difficulty ; but Mignard succeeded in giving him a freer command and a more skilful touch ; while Du Fresxoy, who was the more literary man, enriched the invention of Mignaed by reading to him an Ode of Anacreon or Horace, a passage from the Iliad or Odyssey, or the ./lilneid, or the Jerusalem Delivered, which offered subjects for the artist's invention, who would throw out five or six different sketches on the same subject ; a habit which so highly improved the inventive powers of Mignard, that he could compose a fine picture with playful facility. Thus they lived together, mutually enlightening each other. Mionard supplied Du Feesnoy with all that fortune had refused him ; and, when he was no more, perpetuated his fame, which he felt was a portion of his own celebrity, by publishing his posthumous poem, De Arte Graphica ;* a poem, which Mason has made readable by his versidcation, and Reynolds even interesting by his invaluable commentary. In the poem Cowley composed, on the death of his friend Haryey, this stanza opens a pleasing scene of two young literary friends engaged in their midnight studies : Say, for you saw us, ye immortal lights ! How oft unwearied have we spent the nights, Till the Ledifian stars, so famed for love, Wonder'd at us from ahove. We spent them not in toys, in lust, or wine ; But search of deep philosophy, Wit, eloquence, and poetry ; Arts which I loved, for they, my friend, were thine. Touched by a personal knowledge of this union of genius * La Vie de Pierre Mignard, par L'Abbe de MouTille, the work of an amateur. Literary Friendships. 211 and affection, even Maloxe commemorates, with unusual warmth, the literary friendships of Sir Joshua Keynokls ; and with a feheity of fancy, not often indulged, has raised an un- forced parallel hetween the hland wisdom of Sir Joshua and the " mitis sapientia Laeli." "What the illustrious Scipio was to Lajlius was the all-knowing and all-accomplished Burke to Keyxolus ;" and what the elegant LjbHus was to his master Pansetius, whom he gratefully protected, and to his companion the poet Lucilius, whom he patronised, was IIetxolds to Johnson, of whom he was the scholar and friend, and to Goldsmith, whom he loved and aided.* Count AzARA mourns with c(iual tenderness and force over the memory of the artist and the writer Mengs. "The most tender friendsliip would call forth tears in this sad duty of scattering flowers on his tomb ; but the shade of my ex- tinct friend warns me not to be satisfied with di'opping flowers and tears — they are useless ; and I would rather ac- complish his wishes, in making known the author and his works." I am infinitel}^ delighted by a circumstance communicated to me by one who had visited Gleim, the German poet, who seems to have been a ci'eature made up altogether of sensi- bility. His many and illustrious friends he had never for- gotten, and to the last hour of a life, prolonged beyond his eightieth year, he possessed those interior feelings which can make even an old man an enthusiast. Then? seemed for Gleim to be no extinction in friendship when the friend was no more ; and he had invented a singular mode of gratifying his feelings of literary friendships. The visitor found the old man in a room of which the wainscot was panelled, as we still see among us in ancient houses. In every panel Gleim had inserted the portrait of a friend, and the apartment was crowded. " You see," said the grey-haired poet, " that I never have lost a friend, and am sitting always among them." Such friendship can never be the lot of men of the world; for the source of these lies in the interior affections and the intellectual feelings. Fontenellb describes with character- * Reynokls's liospitivlity was unbounded to all literary men, and his evenings were devoted to their society. It was at his lioii.se they compared notes ; and tlie Piesident of the Royal Academy obtained iliat information ■which gave him a full knowledge of the outward world, which his cease- less occui)atiou could not else have allowed. — Jiu. 1-2 212 Literary Character. istic delicacy the conversations of such literary friends : " Our days passed like moments ; thanks to those pleasures, which, however, are not iiieluded in tliose which are commonly called pleasures." The friendships of the men of society move on tlie principle of personal interest, hut interest can easily separate the interested ; or they are cherished to re- lieve themselves from the listlessness of existence; but, as weariness is contagious, the contact of the propatjator is watched. Men of the world may look on each other with the same countenances, but not with the same hearts. In the common mart of life intimacies may be found which ter- minate in complaint and contempt ; the more they know one another, the less is their mutual esteem : the feeble mind quarrels with one still more imbecile than itself ; the dis- solute riot with the dissolute, and they despise their compa- nions, while they too have themselves become despicable. Literary friendships are marked by another peculiarity ; the true philosophical spirit has learned to bear that shock of contrary opinions which minds less meditative are unequal to encounter. !Men of genius live in the unrestrained com- munication of their ideas, and contide even their caprices with a freedom which sometimes startles ordinary observers. We see literary men, the most opposite in dispositions and opinions, deriving from each other that fulness of knowledge which unfolds the certain, the probable, the doubtful. Topics which break the world into factions and sects, and truths which ordinary men are doomed only to hear from a malig- nant adversary, they gather from a friend ! If neither yields up his opinions to the other,.they are at least certain of silence and a hearing ; but usually The wise new wisdom from the wise acquire. This generous freedom, which spares neither reprimands nor exhortation, has often occurred in the intercourse of lite- rary men. Hume and Rouertson were engaged in the same studies, but with very opposite principles ; yet Robertson declined writing the English history, which he aspired to do, lest it should injure the plans of Hume ; a noble sacrifice ! Politics once divided Boccaccio and Petrarch. The poet of Valchiusa had never forgiven the Florentines for their persecution of his father. By the mediation of Boccaccio they now offered to reinstate Petrarch in his patrimony and his honoui*s. Won over by the tender solicitude of his Petrarch and Boccaccio. 213 friend, Petkaech had consented to return to his country ; but with his usual inconstancy of temper, he had again ex- cused himself to the senate of Florence, and again retreated to his solitude. Nor was this all ; for the Visconti of Milan had by their flattery and promises seduced Petraech to their court ; a court, the avowed enemy of Florence. Boccaccio, for the honour of literature, of his friend, of his country, indignantly heard of Petkarcii's fatal decision, and ad- dressed him by a letter — the most interesting perhaps which ever passed between two literary friends, who were torn asunder by the momentary passions of the vulgar, but who were still united b}' that immortal friendship which litera- ture inspires, and by a reverence for tliat posterit}' which they knew would concern itself with their atfairs. It was on a journej' to Kavenna that Boccaccio first heard the news of Petrarcu's abandonment of his country, when he thus vehemently addressed his brother-genius : — " I would be silent, but I cannot : my reverence commands silence, but my indignation speaks. How has it happened that Silvanus (under this name he conceals Petrarcli) has forgotten his dignity, the many conversations we had toge- ther on the state of Italy, his hatred of the archbishop (Visconti), his love of solitude and freedom, so necessary for study, and has resolved to imprison the Muses at that court? Whom may we trust again, if Silvanus, who once branded II Visconti as tlie Cruel, a Pol^'phepius, a Cyclop, has avowed himself his friend, and placed his neck under the yoke of him whose audacity, and pride, and tyranny, he so deeply abhorred ? How has Visconti obtained that which King liobert, which the pontirt", the emperor, the King of France, could not ? Am 1 to conclude that you accepted this favour from a disdain of your fellow-citizens, who once indeed scorned you, but who have reinstated you in the paternal l)atrimony of which you have been deprived ? I do not disapprove of a just indignation ; but 1 take Heaven to wit- ness that 1 believe that no man, whoever he may be, rightly and honestl}^ can labour against his country, whatever be the injury he has received. You will gain nothing by opposing me in tl)is opiiiiiui ; for if stirred up by the most just indig- nation you become the friend of the enemy of your country, uncpiestionably you will not spur him on to war, nor assist him by your arm, nor by your counsel ; yet how can you avoid rejoicing with him, when you hear of the ruins, the 214 Literary Character. conflaj^rations, Iho imprisonments, death, and rapine, which he shall spread amonij us ?" Such was tlio bold appeal to elevated feelini^s, and such the keen reproach inspired by that confidential freedom which can only exist in the intercourse of great minds. TKe literary friendship, or rather adoration of Boccaccio for Petrarch, was not bartered at the cost of his patriotism : and it is worthy of our notice that Pi:;TRARCir, whose per- sonal injuries from an ungenerous republic were rankling ia his mind, and whom even the eloquence of Boccaccio could not disunite from his protector Visconti, yet received the ardent reproaches of his friend without anger, though not without maintaining the freedom of his own opinions. Petrarch rei)lied, that the anxiety of Boccaccio for the liberty of his friend was a thought most grateful to him ; but he assured Jioccaccio that he preserved his freedom, even although it appeared that he bowed under a hard yoke. He hoped that he had not to learn to serve in his old age, he who had hitherto studied to preserve his independence ; but, in respect to servitude, he did not know whom it was most displeasing to serve, a tyrant like Visconti, or with Boc- caccio, a ])eople of tyrants.* • The unity of feeling is displayed in such memorable asso- ciates as Beaumont and Fletcher ; whose labours are so combined, that no critic can detect the mingled production of either ; and whose lives are so closely united, that no biographer can compose the memoirs of the one without running into the history of the other. Their days were in- terwoven as their verses. Mo>'Taigxe and Charrox, in the eyes of posterit}', are rivals ; but such literary friendship knows no rivalry. Such was Montaigne's affection for Charron, that lie requested him by his will to bear the arms of the Montaignes ; and Charron evinced his gratitude to the manes of his departed friend, by leaving his fortune to the sister of Montaigne. How pathetically Erasmus mourns over the death of his beloved Sir Thomas More ! — " In Moro mihi video?- ex- tinctus''' — " I seem to see myself extinct in More." It was a melancholy presage of his own death, which shortly after followed. The Doric sweetness and simplicity of old Isaac Waltox, the angler, were reflected in a mind as clear and * These interesting letters are presened in Count BalJelli's "Life of Boccaccio," p. 115. Literary Friendships. 215 generous, when Charles Cotton continued the feelings, rather than the Uttle work of Walton. Metastasio and Faeinelli called each other il Gemello, the Twin : and both delighted to trace the resemblance of their lives and fates, and the perpetual alliance of the verse and the voice. The famous John Baptista Porta had a love of the mysterious parts of sciences, such as physiognomy, natural magic, the cryptical arts of writing, and projected many curious inven- tions which astonished his age, and which we have carried to perfection. This e.Ktraordinary man saw his fame somewhat diminishing by a rumour that his brother John Vincent had a great share in the composition of his works ; but this never distiu'bed him ; and Peiresc, in an interesting account of a visit to tliis celebrated Neapolitan, observed, that though now aged and grey-haired, he treated his younger brother as a son. These single-hearted brothers, who would not marry that they might never be separated, knew of but one fame, and that was the fame of Poi'ta. Goguet, the author of "The Origin of the Arts and Sciences," bequeathed his MSS. and his books to his friend Tugere, with whom he had long united his affections and his studies, that his surviving friend might proceed with them : but the author had died of a slow and painful dis- order, which Fugere had watched by his side, in silent de- spair. The sight of those MSS. and books was the friend's death-stroke ; half his soul, which had once given them animation, was parted from him, and a few weeks terminated his own days. When Lloyd heard of the death of Cuurciiill, he neither wished to survive him, nor did.* The Abbe do St. Pierre gave an inten.'sting proof of literary frientlship for A'arignon, the geometrician. They were of congenial dispo- sitions, and St. Pierre, when he went to Paris, could not endure to part with ^'arignon, who was too poor to accom- pan}^ him ; and St. Pierre was not rich. A certain income, however moderate, was necessary lor the tranquil pursuits of * This event is thus told by Southey : " The news of Churchill's death was somewhat aliruiilly announced to Lloyd as he sat at dinner ; he was seized witii a suddt-n sickness, and sayinj;, 'I shall iollnw poor Charles,' took to his bed, from which he never rose again; ilyinj;, if ever man died, of a broken heart. The tragedy did not end here : (Jliurchiirs favourite sister, who is said to have possessed much of her brother's sen.se, and spirit, and genius, and to have been betrothed to Lloyd, attended him during his illness, and, sinking under the double loss, soon followed her brother and her lover to the grave." — Kd. 216 Literary Character. geometry. St. Pierre ])resented Varignon witli a portion of his small income, accomj)anie(l hv that (lellcacy of feeling which men of genius who know each other can best conceive: " I do not give it you," said St. Pierre, "as a salary but as an annuity, that you may be indei)endent, and quit me when you dislike me." The same circumstance occurred between Akenside and Dyson. Dyson, when the i)oet was in great danger of adding one more illustrious name to the " Cala- mities of Authors," interposed lietween him and ill-fortune, by allowing him an annuity of three hundred a-year ; and, when he found the fame of his literary friend attacked, although not in the habit of composition, he published a defence of his poetical and philosophical character. The name and character of Dyson have been suffered to die away, without a single tribute of even biographical sympathy ; as that of LoNGUEviLLE, the modest patron of Bctler, in whom that great political satirist found wliat the careless in- gratitude of a court had denied : but in the record of literary glory, the patron's name should be inscribed by the side of the literary character : for the public incurs an obligation whenever a man of genius is protected. The statesman Fouquet, deserted by all others, witnessed La Foktaine hastening every literary man to his prison- gate. Many have inscribed their works to their disgraced patrons, as Pope did so nobly to the Earl of Oxford in the Tower : 'When interest calls oflF all her sneaking train, And all the obliged desert, and all the vain, They wait, or to the scaffold, or the cell, When the last lingering friend has bid farewell. Literary friendship is a sympathy not of manners, but of feelings. The personal character may happen to be very opposite : the vivacious may be loved by the melanehoUc, and the wit by the man of learning. He who is vehement and vigorous will feel himself a double man by the side of the friend who is calm and subtle. When we observe such friendships, we are apt to imagine that they ai-e not real because the chai-acters ai-e dissimilar ; but it is their common tastes and pursuits which form a bond of union. PoMPOXius L^TUS, so called from his natural good-humour, was the personal friend of Heumolaus Baubarus, whose saturnine and melancholy disposition he often exhilarated ; the warm, impetuous Litueu was the beloved friend of the Literary Friendships. 217 mild and amiable MELANCTiioy ; the caustic Boileau was the companion of Racink and Moliere ; and France, per- haps, owes the chefs-d' ceuvre of her tragic and her comic poet to her satirist. The dehcate taste and the refining in- genuity of HuKD only attached him the more to the im- petuous and dogmatic Waiiburtox.* No men could be more opposite in personal character than the careless, gay, and liasty Steele, and the cautious, serious, and the elegant Addison ; yet no literary friendship was more fortunate than their union. One glory is reserved for literary friendship. The friend- ship of a great name indicates the greatness of the character who a})peals to it. When Sydenham mentioned, as a proof of the excellence of his method of treating acute diseases, that it had received the approbation of his illustrious friend Locke, the philosopher's opinion contributed to the phy- sician's success. Such have been the friendships of great literary characters ; but too true it is, that they have not always contributed thus largely to their mutual happiness. The querulous lament of Gleim to Klopstock is too generally participated. As Gleim lay on his death-bed he addressed the great bard of Germany — " 1 am dying, dear Klopstock ; and, as a dying man will I say, in this world we have not lived long enough together and tor each other ; but in vain would we now recal the past !" What tenderness in the reproach ! What self- accusation in its modesty ! CHAPTER XX. The literary and the personal character. — The personal dispositions of an author may be the reverse of those which ajipear in his writings. — Erroneous conceptions of the ciiaraeter of tlistaiit autiiors. — Paradoxical appearances in the history of Genius. — Why the character of the man may be opposite to that of his writings. Are the personal dispositions of an author discoverable in his writings, as those of an artist are imagined to appear in his works, where Michael Angelo is always great, and Raphael ever graceful ? Is the moralist a moral man ? Is he malignant who pub- * For a full account of their literary career see the first article in "Quarrels of Authors." 218 Literary Character. lislics caustic satires ? Is liu a lihertiiie wiio composes loose poems ? And is he, whose imagination delights in terror and in blood, the very monster he paints ? Many licentious wi-iters have led chaste lives. La. Mothe LE Vaveu wrote two works of" a free nature ; yet his was the unblemislu'd lil'e of" a retired sage. Bayi.e is the too faithful compiler of impurities, but he resisted the voluptuousness of the senses as much as Newton. La Fontaine wrote tales fertile in intrigue, yet the " bon-homme" has not left on record a single ingenious amour of his own. The Queen of Navauhe's Tales are gross imitations of Boccaccio's ; but she herself was a princess of irrejiroacliable habits, and had given ])roof of the most rigid virtue ; but stories of intrigues, told in a natural style, Ibrmed the fashionable literature of the day, and the genius of the female writer was amused in becoming an historian without being an actor. Fortiguerra, the author of the liiccjardetto, abounds with loose and licen- tious descriptions, and yet neither his manners nor his per- sonal character were stained by the offending freedom of his inventions. Smollett's character is immaculate ; yet he has described two scenes which offend even in the license of imagination. Cowley, who boasts with such gaiety of the versatility of his passion among so many mistresses, wanted even the confidence to address one. Thus, licentious writers may be very chaste persons. The imagination may be a volcano while the heart is an Alp of ice. Turn to the moralist — there we find Seneca, a usurer of seven millions, writing on moderate desires on a table of gold. Sallust, who so eloquently declaims against the licentious- ness of the age, was repeatedly accused in the senate of public and habitual debaucheries ; and when this inveigher against the spoilers of provinces attained to a remote government, he pillaged like Verres. That " Demosthe>'ES was more capable of recommending than of imitating the virtues of our an- cestors," is the observation of Plutarch. LuciAX, when young, declaimed against the friendship of the great, as another name for servitude ; but when his talents procured him a situation under the emperor, he facetiously compared him- self to those quacks who, themselves plagued by a perpetual cough, offer to sell an infallible remedy for one. Sir Thomas More, in his "Utopia," declares that no man ought to be punished for his religion ; yet he became a fierce persecutor, flogging and racking men for his own "true faith." At the Personal Disj)osition. 219 moment the poet Rousseau was giving versions of the Psalms, full of unction, as our Catholic neighbours express it, he was profaning the same pen with infiimous epigrams ; and an erotic poet of our times has composed night-hymns in churchyards with the same ardour with which he poured forth Anacreontics. Napoleon said of Bernardin St. Pierre, whose writings breathe the warm principles of humanity and social hapi)iness in every page, that he was one of the worst private characters in France. I have heard this from other quarters ; it startles one ! The pathetic genius of Sterne played about his head, but never reached his heart.* Cardinal liiciiELiKU wrote "The Perfection of a Christian, or the Life of a Christian ;" yet was he an utter stranger to Grospel maxims; and Frederick the Great, when young, pub- lished his " Anti-Machiavel," and deceived the world by the promise of a pacific reign. This military genius protested against those political arts which he afterwards adroitly practised, uniting the lion's head with the fox's tail — and thus himself realising the political monster of Machiavel ! And thus also is it with the personal dispositions of an author, which may be quite the reverse from those which appear in his writings. Johnson would not believe that Horace was a happy man because his verses were cheerful, any more than he could think Pope so, because the poet is continually informing us of it. It surprised Spence when Pope told him that KowE, the tragic poet, whom he had con- sidered so solemn a personage, " would laugh all day long, and do nothing else but laugh." Lord Kaimes says, that Arbutii>'ot nmst have been a great genius, for he exceeded Swift and Addison in humorous painting ; although we ai'e informed he had nothing of that peculiarity in his character. Young, who is constantly contemning ])refcrment in his writings, was all his lile pining after it; and the conversation of the sombrous author of the "Night Thoughts" was of the most volatile kind, abounding with trivial jtuns. He was one of the first who suh-^cribed to the assembly at Wellwyn. !Mrs. Carter, who greatly admii'cd his sublime poetry, ex- pressing her surprise at his social converse, he replied, " Madam, there is much difference between writing and talking." MoLiERE, on the contrary, whose humour is so perfectly * See what is 8aid on this subject in the article on Sterne in the "Literary Miscellanies," of the present volume. 220 Literary Cliaraclcr. comic, and oven ludirrous, was t]iouf,'htful and serious, and even melancholy. His stron'^'ly-fcaturcd jdiysiognomy ex- hibits the face of a gn^at trar^ic, rather than of a great comic, poet. lM>ileau called Moliere "The Contemplative Man." Those who make the world laii^i^h often them.selves laugh the least. A famous and witty harlequin of France waa overcome with hypochondriasm, and consulted a physician, who, after inrpiiring about his malady, told his miserable patient, that he knew of no other medicine for him than to take frequent doses of Carlin — " I am Carlin himself," ex- claimed the melancholy man, in despair. BuiiTON, the pleasant and vivacious author of " The Anatomy of Melan- choly," of whom it is noticed, that he could in an interval of vapours raise laughter in any company, in his chamber was " mute and mopish," and at last was so overcome by that intellectual disorder, which he appeared to have got rid of by writing his volume, that it is believed he closed his life in a fit of melancholy.* Could one have imagined that the brilliant wit, the luxu- riant raillery, and the fine and deep sense of Pascal, could have combined with the most opposite qualities — the hypo- chondriasm and bigotry of an ascetic? Rochefoucauld, in private life, was a conspicuous example (jf all those moral qualities of which he seemed to deny the existence, and exhibited in this respect a striking contrast to the Cardinal de Retz, who has presumed to censure him for his want of faith in the reality of virtue ; but De IIetz himself was the unbeliever in disinterested virtue. This great genius was one of those pretended patriots destitute of a single one of the virtues for which he was the clamorous advocate of faction. When Valincoui' attributed the excessive tenderness in the tragedies of Racine to the poet's own impassioned character, the son amply showed that his father was by no means the slave of love. Racine never wrote a single love-poem, nor even had a mistress ; and his wife had never read his tragedies, for poetry was not her delight. Racine's motive for making love the constant source of action in his tragedies, was from the principle which has inHuenced so many poets, who usually conform to the prevalent taste of the times. In the court of a young monarch it was necessary that heroes should * It is repoi-ted of him that his only motle of alleviating his melan- choly was by walking from his college at Oxford to the bridge, to listen to the rough jokes of the bargemen. Personal Disposition. 221 be lovers ; Corneille had nobly run in one career, and Kacine could not have existed as a great poet had he not rivalled him in an opposite one. The tender Racine was no lover • but he was a subtle and epigrammatic observer, before whom his convivial friends never cared to open their minds ; and the caustic BoiLEAU truly said of him, " Racine is fai- more malicious than I am." Alfieki speaks of his mistress as if he lived with her in the most unreserved fixmiliarity ; the reverse was tlie case. And the gratitude and affection with which he describes his mother, and which she deserved, entered so little into his habitual feelings, that, after their early separation, he never saw her but once, tliough he often passed through the coun- try where she resided. JouNSOX has com])osed a beautiful Rambler, describing the pleasures which result from the influence of good-humour ; and somewhat remarkably says, " Witliout good-humour learning and bravery can be only formidable, and confer that superiority which swells the heart of the lion in the desert, where he roars without reply, and ravages without resistance." He who could so finely discover the happy influence of this pleasing quality was himself a stranger to it, and " the roar and the ravage" were familiar to our lion. Men of genius frequently substitute their beautiful imagination for spon- taneous and natural sentiment. It is not therefore surprising if we are often erroneous in the conception we form of the personal character of a distant author. Klopstock, the votary of the muse of Zion, so astonished and warmed the sage BoDilER, that he invited the ins])ircd bard to his house: but his visitor shocked the grave professor, when, instead of a poet rapt in silent meditation, a volatile youth leaped out of the chaise, who was an entlmsiast for retirement only when writing verses. An artist, whose pictures exhibit a series of scenes of domestic tenderness, awakening all the charities of private life, 1 have heard, participated in them in nootlierwaj than on his canvas. Evelyn, who has written in favour of active life, " loved and lived in retirement ;"* while Sir * Since this wa.s written the correspondence of Evki.yn has appeared, by which we iind that he apologised to Cowley for Laving published this very treatise, which seemed to condemn that life of study and privacy to which they were both eciually attached ; and confesses that the whole must be considered as a mere sportive etfiisiun, requesting that Cowley wonld not suppose its principles formed his private opinions. Thus Leiuhitz, we are 2.22 Literary Character. GEOnGK ^Iackknzie, \v1>o had been continually in the bustle of business, ininie'e and Sir William Jo>'es directed that genius to the austere studies of law and philology, which might have excelled in the poetical and historical character. So versatile is tiiis faculty of genius, that its possessors are some- times uncertain of the manner in which they shall treat their subject, whether gravely or ludicrously. When Buebceuf, the French translator of the Pharsalia of Lucan, had com- pleted the first book as it now appears, he at the same time composed a burlesque version, and sent both to the great arbiter of taste in that day, to decide which the poet should continue. The decision proved to be difficult. Are there not writers who, with all the vehemence of genius, by adopting one principle can make all things shrink into the pigmy form of ridicule, or by adopting another principle startle us by the gigantic monsters of their own exaggerated imagination ? On this principle, of the versatility of the faculty, a production of genius is a piece of art which, wrought up to its full effect with a felicity of manner acquired by taste and habit, is merely the result of certain arbitrary combinations of the mind. Are we then to reduce the works of a man of genius to a mere sport of his talents — a game in which he is only the best player ? Can he whose secret power raises so many emotions in our breasts be without any in his own ? A mere actor performing a part ? Is he unfeeling when he is pathetic, indiffijrent when he is indignant ? Is he an alien to all the wisdom and virtue he inspires ? No ! were men of genius themselves to assert this, and it is said some incline so to do, Contrasts, Personal and LUerarij. 225 there is a more certain conviction than their misconceptions, in our own consciousness, which for ever assures us, that deep feelings and elevated thoughts can alone spring from those who feel deeply and think nobly. In proving that the character of the man may be very opposite to tliat of his writings, we must recollect that the habits of the life may be contrary to the habits of the mind.* The influence of their studies over men of genius is limited. Out of the ideal world, man is reduced to be the active crea- ture of sensation. An author has, in truth, two di.stinct cha- racters : the literary, formed by the habits of his study ; the personal, by the habits of his situation. Geay, cold, effemi- nate, and timid in his personal, was lofty and awful in his literary character. We see men of polished manners and bland affections, who, in grasping a pen, are thrusting a poniard ; while others in domestic life with the simplicity of children and the feebleness of nervous affections, can shake the senate or the bar with the vehemence of tlieir eloquence and the intrepidity of their spirit. The writings of the famous BArriSTA Porta are marked by the boldness of his genius, which formed a singular contrast with the pusilla- nimity of his conduct when menaced or attacked. The heart may be feeble, though the mind is strong. To think boldly may be the habit of tlie mind, to act weakly may be the habit of the constitution. However the personal character may contrast witli that of their genius, still are the works themselves genuine, and exist as realities for us — and were so, doubtless, to the composers themselves in the act of composition. In the calm of study, a beautiful imagination may convert him whose morals are corrupt into an admirable moralist, awakening feelings which yet may be cold in the business of life : as we have shown that the phlegmatic can excite himself into wit, and the cheerful man delight in " Night Thoughts." Sallust, the corrupt Sallust, might retain tlie most sublime conce[)tions of the virtues which were to save the Kepublic ; and Stkuxe, * Nothing is more deliglitfiil to me in my researches on the literary character tlian when I find in persons of unquestionable and higii genius the results of my own discoveries. This circumstance has freiiuently happened to contirni my i)rinciples. Long after this was pulilishi'd, .Mudaiue de Stael made this iniporlant confession in her recent work, " Dix Annees d'Exil," p. 154. "Je ne pouvais me dissimuler que je n'etais pas une personne courageuse; j'ai de la hardiesse dans I'imayinalion, mais de la timidite dans le caracta-e." Q 226 Literary Character. whose heart was not so susceptible in ordinary occurrences, while he was gradually creating incident after incident and toueliing successive emotions, in the stories of Le Fevre and ;Maria, might have thrilled — like some of his readers. Many have mourned over the wisdom or the virtue they con- templated, mortified at their own infirmity. Thus, though there may be no identity between the book and the man, still for us an author is ever an abstract being, and, as one of the Fathers said—" A dead man may sin dead, leaving books that make others sin." An author's wisdom or his folly does not die with him. The volume, not the author, is our companion, and is for us a real personage, perform- ing before us whatever it inspires — " He being dead, yet speaketh." Such is the vitality of a book ! CHAPTER XXI. Tlie man of letters. — Occupies an intermediate station between anthors and readers. — His solitude described. — Often the father of genius. — Atticus, a man of letters of antiquity. — The perfect character of a modern man of letters exhibited in Peiresc. — Their utility to authors and artists. Amonq the active members of the literary republic, there is a class whom formerly we distinguished by the title of Men OF Letters — a title which, with us, has nearly gone out of currency, though I do not think that the general term of " literai-y men" would be sufficiently appropriate. The man of letters, whose habits and whose whole life so closely resemble those of an author, can only be distinguished by this simple circumstance, that the man of letters is not an author. Yet he whose sole occupation through life is literature — he who is always acquiring and never producing, appears as ridiculous as the architect who never raised an edifice, or the statuary who refrains from sculpture. His pursuits are re- proached with terminating in an epicurean selfishness, and amidst his incessant avocations he himself is considered as a particvdar sort of idler. This race of literary characters, as we now find them, could not have appeared till the press had poui'ed forth its aliiuence. In the degree that the nations of Europe became literary, was Men of Letters. 227 that philosophical curiosity kindled which induced some to devote theii" fortunes and their days, and to experience some of the purest of human enjoyments in preserving and familiarising themselves with " the monuments of vanished minds," as books are called by D'Avenant with so much sublimity. Their expansive library presents an indestruc- tible history of the genius of every people, through all their eras — and whatever meii have thought and whatever men have done, were at length discovered in books. Men of letters occupy an intermediate station between authors and readers. They are gifted with more curiosity of knowledge, and more multiplied tastes, and by those precious collections which they are forming during their lives, are more completely furnished with tlie means than are possessed by the multitude who read, and the few who write. The studies of an author are usually restricted to particular subjects. His tastes are tinctured by their colouring, his mind is always shaping itself by their form. An author's works form his solitary pride, and his secret power ; while half his life wears away in the slow maturity of composition, and still the ambition of authorship torments its victim alike in disappointment or in possession. But soothing is the solitude of the Man of Letters ! View the busied inhabitant ol" the library surrounded by the objects of his love ! He possesses them — and they possess him ! These volumes — images of our mind and passions ! — as he traces them from Herodotus to Gibbon, from Homer to Shakspeare— those portfolios which gather up the inven- tions of genius, and that selected cabinet of medals which holds so many unwritten liistories; — some favourite sculp- tures and pictures, and some anticjuities of all nations, here and there about liis house — these are his furniture ! In his unceasing occupations the only repose he requires, consists not in (juitting, but in changing them. Every day produces its discovery ; every day in the life of a man of letters may furnish a multitude of emotions and of ideas. For him there is a silence amidst the world ; and in the scene ever opening before him, all that has pass(;d is acted over again, and all that is to come seems revealed as in a vision. Often his library is contiguous to his chamber,* and * The contiguity of tlie chambkr to the library is not the solitary fancy of an iuilividual, but marks the class. Early iu life, when in France Q 2 228 Literary Character. this domain " parva scd a)>ta" this contracted space, has often marked tlu; boundary of the existence of the opulent owner, who lives where he will die, contracting his days into hours ; and a whole life thus passed is found too short to close its designs. Such are the men who have not been unhappily described by the Jlollanders as Urf-hchbers, lovers or fanciers, and their collection as lief-hebhcry, things of their love. The Dutch call everything for which they are impassioned lief-hchhery ; but their feeling being ntiuch stronger than their delicacy, they apply the term to every- thing, from poesy and picture to tulips and tobacco. The term wants the melody of the languages of genius ; but something parallel is required to correct that indiscrimi- nate notion which most persons associate with that of col- lectors. It was fancifully said of one of these lovers, in the style of the age, that, " His book was his bride, and his study his bride-chamber." Many have voluntarily relinquished a public station and their rank in society, neglecting even their fortune and their health, for the life of self-oblivion of the man of letters. Count De Catlus expended a princely income in the study and the encouragement of Art. He passed his mornings among the studios of artists, watching their progress, increasing his collections, and closing his day in the retirement of his own cabinet. His rank and his opulence were no obstructions to his settled habits. Ciceeo himself, in his happier moments, addressing Axxrcus, ex- claimed — " I had much rather be sitting on your little bench under Aristotle's picture, than in the curule chairs of our great ones." This wish was probably sincere, and reminds us of another great politician who in his secession from public and Holland, I met with several of these amateurs, who had bounded their lives by the circle of their collections, and were rarely seen out of them. The late Duke of Roxburgh once expressed his delight to a literary friend of mine, that he had only to step from his sleeping apartment into his fine library ; so that he could command, at all moments, the gratifica- tion of pursuing his researches while he indulged his reveries. The Chevalier Verhulst, of Bruselles, of whom we have a curious portrait prefi.xed to the catalogue of his pictures and curiosities, was one of those men of letters who experienced this strong affection for his collections, and to such a degree, that he never went out of his house for twenty years ; where, however, he kept up a courteous intercourse with the lovers of art and literature. He was an enthusiastic votary of Rubens, of whom he has written a copious life in Dutch, the only work he appears to have composed. Book Collectors. 229 affairs retreated to a literary life, where he appears suddenly to have discovered a new-found world. Fox's favourite line, which he often repeated, was — How various Ms employments whom the world CaUs idle ! De Sacy, one of the Port-Eoyalists, was fond of repeating this lively remark of a man of wit — " That all the mischief in the world conies from not being able to keep ourselves quiet in our room." But tranquillity is essential to the existence of the man of letters — an unbroken and devotional tranquillity. For though, unlike the author, his occupations are interrupted without inconvenience, and resumed without effort ; yet if the painful realities of life break into this visionary world of literature and art, there is an atmosphere of taste about him which will be dissolved, and harmonious ideas which will be chased away, as it happens when something is violently tlung among the trees where the birds are singing — all instantly disperse ! Even to quit their collections for a short time is a real suffering to these lovers ; everything which surrounds them becomes endeared by habit, and by some higher associations. Men of letters have died with grief from having been forcibly deprived of the use of their libraries. l>i: Tiiou, with all a brother's sympathy, in his f^reat history, has recorded the sad fates of several who had witnessed their collections dispersed in the civil wars of France, or had otherwise been deprived of their precious volumes. Sir Kobert Cottox fell ill, and betrayed, in tlie asliy paleness of his countenance, the misery which killed him on tlie sequestration of his collections. " They have broken my heart who have locked up my library from me," was his lament. If this passion for acquisition and enjoyment be so strong and exquisite, what wonder that these "lovers" should regard all things as valueless in comparison with the objects of their love ? There seem to be spells in their collections, and in their fascination they have often submitted to tlie ruin of their personal, but Jiot of tlieir internal enjoyments. They liave scorned to bahince in the scales tlie treasures of litera- ture and art, though imperial magniliceuce once was ambitious to outweisfh them. Van PitAUX, a friend of Albeit Durer's, of whom we pos- 230 Literary Character. sess a catalogue of pictures and prints, was one of these enthusiasts of taste. The Emperor of Germany, probably desirous of findiufj a royal road to a rare collection, sent an agent to procure the present one entire ; and that some deli- cacy might be observed with such a man, the purchase was to be proposed in the form of a mutual excliange ; the empe- ror had gold, pearls, and diamonds. Our UeJ-hehhrr having silently li.stened to the imperial agent, seemed astonished that such things should be considered as equivalents for a collec- tion of works of art, which had required a long life of expe- rience and many previous studies and practised tastes to have formed, and compared with which gold, pearls, and diamonds, afforded but a mean, an unequal, and a barbarous barter. If the man of letters be less dependent on others for the very perception of his own existence than men of the world are, his solitude, however, is not that of a desert : for all there tends to keep alive those concentrated feelings which cannot be indulged with security, or even without ridicule in general society. Like the Lucullus of Plutarch, he would not only live among the votaries of litei-ature, but would live for them ; he throws open his library, his gallery, and his cabinet, to all the Grecians. Such men are the fathers of genius ; they seem to possess an aptitude in discovering those minds which are clouded over by the obscurit}' of their situations; and it is they who so frequently project those benevolent institutions, where they have poured out the philanthropy of their hearts in that world which they appear to have for- saken. If Europe be literary, to whom does she owe this more than to these men of letters ? Is it not to their noble passion of amassing through life those magnificent collec- tions, which often bear the names of their founders from the gratitude of a following age ? Venice, Florence, and Copen- hagen, Oxford, and London, attest the existence of their labours. Our Bodlets and our Haelets, our Cottoxs and our Sloanes, our Cracheeodes, our Towxlets, and our Banks, were of this race !* In tlie perpetuity of their own * Sir Thomas Bodley, in 1602, first brought the old libraries at Oxford into order for the benefit of students, and added thereto his own noble collection. That of Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford (died 17"24), was par- chased by the country, and is now in the British Museum ; and also are the other collections named above. Sir Robert Cotton died 1631 ; his collection is remarkable for its historic documents and state-papers. Sir Hans Sloane's collections may be said to be the foundation of the British Museum, and were purchased byGoverament for '20,000/., after his death, Living with Books. 231 studies they felt as if they were exteiulinc;' Imman longevity, by throwing an unbroken light of knowledge into the next age. The private acquisitions of a solitary man of letters during half a century have become public endowments. A generous enthusiasm inspired these intrepid labours, and their voluntary privations of what the world calls its plea- sures and its honours, would form an interesting history not yet written ; their due, yet undiscliarged. But " men of tlie world," as they are emphatically dis- tinguished, imagine that a man so lifeless in "the world" must be one of the dead in it, and, with mistaken wit, would inscribe over the sepulchre of his library, " Here lies the body of our friend." If the man of letters have voluntarily quitted their "world," at least he has passed into another, where he enjoys a sense of existence through a long succes- sion of ages, and where Time, who destroys all things for others, for him only preserves and discovers. This world is best described by one who has lingered among its inspirations. " We are wafted into other times and strange lands, con- necting us by a sad but exalting relationship with the great events and great minds which have passed away. Our studies at once cherish and control the imagination, by lead- ing it over an unbounded range of the noblest scenes in the overawing company of departed wisdom and genius."* Living more with books than with men, which is often becoming better acquainted with man himself, though not always with men, the man of letters is more tolerant of opinions than ojjinionists are among themselves. Nor are his views of human affairs contracted to the day, like those who, in the heat and hurry of a too active life, prefer expe- dients to princii)les ; men who deem themselves politicians because they are not moralists; to whom the centuries behind have conveyed no results, and who cannot see how the present time is always full of the future. " Everything," says the lively liurnct, " must be brought to the nature of tinder or gunpowder, ready for a spark to set it on iire," before they discover it. The man of letters indeed is accused of a cold indifference to the interests which divide society ; he is rarely observed as the head or the " rump of a party ;" he views at in 1749. Of Cracherode and Townley some notice will be found on p. 2 of the jircsent volume. Sir Joseph Banks and his sister made large beciuests to the saiue national establishment. — Eii. • "Quarterly Review," No. x.xxiii. p. 1-15. 232 Literary Character. ;i du-.tancc their temporary passions — those mighty beginnings, of wliicli lie knows the miserable terminations. Anti(|uity presents the eharacter of a perfect man of let- ters in Atticus, who retreated from a political to a literary life. Had his letters accompanied those of Cicero, they would have illustrated the ideal character of his class. But the sage Atticus rejected a popular celebrity for a passion not less i)owerful, yielding up his whole soul to study. CiCKiio, with all his devotion to literature, was at the same time agitated by another kind of glory, and the most perfect author in Rome imagined that he was enlarging his honours by the intrigues of the consulship. He has distinctly marked the eharacter of the man of letters in the person of his friend Atticus, for which he has expressed his respect, although he could not content himself with its imitation. " I know," says this man of genius and ambition, " I know the great- ness and ingenuousness of your soul, nor have I found any difference between us, but in a different choice of life ; a cer- tain sort of ambition has led me earnestly to seek after honours, while other motives, b}' no means blameable, induced you to adopt an honourable leisure ; honesfum otium."* These motives appear in the interesting memoirs of this man of letters ; a contempt of political intrigues combined with a desire to escape from the splendid bustle of Home to the learned leisure of Athens. He wished to dismiss a pompous train of slaves for the delight of assembling under his roof a literary society of readers and transcribers. And having col- lected under that roof the portraits or busts of the illustrious men of his country, inspired by their spii'it and influenced by their virtues or their genius, he inscribed under them, in concise verses, the characters of their mind. Valuing wealth only lor its use, a dignified economy enabled him to be profuse, and a moderate expenditure allowed him to be generous. The result of this literary life was the strong affections of the Athenians. At the first opportunity the absence of the man of letters offered, they raised a statue to him, conferring on our PoMPOKius the fond surname of Atticus. To have received a name from the voice of the cit}' they inhabited has happened to more than one man of letters. Pixeuli, born a Neapolitan, but residing at Venice, among other peculiar * "Ad Atticum," Lib. i. Ep. 17. Men of Letters. 233 honours received from the senate, was there distinguished by the atiectionate title of "the Venetian," Yet such a character as Atticus could not escape censure from " men of the world." They want the heart and the imagination to conceive something better than themselves. The happy indifference, perhaps the contempt of our Atticus for rival factions, they have stigmatised as a cold neutrality, a timid pusillanimous hypocrisy. Yet Atticus could not have been a mutual friend, had not both parties alike held the man of letters as a sacred being amidst their disguised ambi- tion ; and the urbanity of Atticus, while it balanced the fierceness of two heroes, Pompey and C;csar, could even tem- ])er the rivalry of genius in the orators llortensius and Cicero. A great man of our own country widely differed from the accusers of Atticus. Sir Matthew Hale lived in distracted times, and took the character of our man of letters for his model, adopting two principles in the conduct of the Roman. He engaged himself with no party business, and afforded a constant relief to the unfortunate, of whatever pai'ty. He was thus preserved amidst the contests of the times. If the personal interests of the man of letters be not deeply involved in society, his individual prosperity, however, is never contrary to public happiness. Other professions necessarily exist by the conflict and the calamities of the community : the politician becomes great by hatching an intrigue ; the lawyer, in counting his briefs ; the physician, his sick-list. The soldier is clamorous for war ; the merchant riots on high prices. But the man of letters only calls lor peace and books, to unite himself with his brothers scattered over Europe; and his usefulness can only be felt at those intervals, when, af"ter a long interchange of destruction, men, recovering their senses, discover that " knowledge is power." IJuiiKK, whose ample mind took in every conception of the literary character, has linely touched on the distinction between this order of contemplative men, and the other active classes of society. In addressing Mr. IMalone, whose real character was that of a man of letters who iirst showed us the neglected state of our literary history, Buuke observed — for I shall give his own words, always too beautiful to alter — " If you are not called to exert your great talents, and employ your great accjuisi- tions in the transitory service of your country, which is done in active life, you will continue to do it that permanent ser- vice which it receives from the labours of those who know 2.31' Literary Character. liow to niiiko llio silence of closets more Lcncficial to the world than all the noise and bustle of courts, senates, and camps." A moving picture of the literary life of a man of letters who was no author, would have been lost to u.«, had not pLiru:sc found in Gassendi a twin spirit. So intimate was the biographer with the very thoughts, so closely united in the same pursuits, and so perpetual an observer of the remarkable man whom he has immortalised, that when em- ployed on this elaborate resemblance of his friend, he was only painting himself with all the identifying strokes of self- love.* It was in the vast library of Pinellt, the founder of the most magnificent one in Europe, that Peiresc, then a youth, felt the remote hope of emulating the man of letters before his eyes. His life was not without preparation, nor without fortunate coincidences ; but there was a grandeur of design in the execution which originated in the genius of the man himself. The curious genius of Peiresc was marked by its precocity, as usually are strong passions in strong minds ; this intense curiosity was the germ of all those studies which seemed mature in his youth. He early resolved on a personal inter- course witli tlie great literary characters of Europe ; and his friend has thrown over these literary travels that charm of detail by which we accompany Peiresc into the libraries of the learned ; there with the historian opening new sources of history, or with the critic correcting manuscripts, and settling points of erudition ; or b}- the opened cabinet of the antiquary, deciphering obscure inscri2)tions, and explaining medals. In the galleries of the curious in art, among their marbles, their pictures, and their prints, Peiresc has often revealed to the artist some secret in his own art. In the museum of the naturalist, or the garden of the botanist, there was no nirity of nature on which he had not something to communicate. His mind toileJ with that impatience of knowledge, that be- comes a pain only when the mind is not on the advance. In England Peiresc was the associate of Camden and Selden, and had more than one interview with thc\t friend to literary * " I suppose," writes Evelyn, that most agreeable enthusiast of litera- ture, to a travelling friend, " that you carry the life of that incomparable virtuoso always about you in your motions, not only because it is portable, but for that it is written by the pen of the great Ghsissendus." Peiresc. 235 men,- our calumniated James the First. One ma}- judge bj these who were the men whom Peiuesc sought, and by whom he himself was ever after sought. Such, indeed, were immortal friendships! Immortal they may be justly called, from the objects in which they concerned themselves, and from the permanent results of the combined studies of such friends. Another peculiar greatness in this literary character was Peiresc's enlarged devotion to literature out of its purest love for itself alone. He made his own universal curiosity the source of knowledge to other men. Considering the studious as forming but one great family wherever they were, for Peiresc the national repositories of knowledge in Europe formed but one collection for the world. This man of letters had possessed himself of their contents, that he might have manuscripts collated, unedited pieces explored, extracts sup- plied, and even draughtsmen employed in remote parts of the world, to furnish views and plans, and to copy antiquities for the student, who in some distant retirement often discovered that the literary treasures of the world were unfailingly opened to him by the secret devotion of this man of letters. Carrying on the same grandeur in his views, his universal mind busied itself in every part of the habitable globe. He kept up a noble traffic with all travellers, supi)lying them with philosophical instruments and recent inventions, by which he I'acilitated their discoveries, and secured their receplion even in barbarous realms. In return he claimed, at bis own cost, for he was " born rather to give tluin to receive," says Gassendi, fresh importations of Oriental literature, curious antiquities, or botanic rarities ; and it was the curiosity of I'EiitESC which tirst embellished his own garden, and thence the gardens of Europe, with a rich variety of exotic llowers and fruits.* Whenever presented witli a medal, a vase, or a manuscri{)t, he never slept over the gilt till he had discovered what the donor delighted in ; and a book, a picture, a plant, when money could not be offered, fed their mutual passion, and sustained the general cause of science. The corre- spondence of Peiresc branched out to the farthest bounds of Ethiopia, connected both Americas, and had touched the * On this -sulyect see "Curiosities of Literature," vol. ii. p. 151 ; ami for some further nccuunt of Peiresc and his labjurs, vol. iii. p. 409, of the same work. — Ed. 23G Lilerunj Characlei'. newly-discovered extremities of tlie universe, when tliis intrepid mind closed in a ])reni.'iturc death. 1 have drawn this imperfect view of Peiresc's character, that men of letters may he reminded of the capacities they jjossess. In the character of Peiuesc, however, there still remains another peculiar ieature. His fortune was not great ; and when he sometimes endured the reproach of those whose sordidness was startled at his prodi<:^ality of mind, and the great ohjects which were the result, Peihesc replied, that " a small matter suffices for the natural wants of a literary man, whose true wealth consists in the monuments of arts, the treasures of his lihrary, and the brotherly affections of the ingenious." Peiresc was a French judge, but he supported his rank more by his own character than by luxury or parade. He would not wear silk, and no tapestrj' hangings ornamented his apartments ; but the walls were covered with the portraits of his literary friends ; and in the unadorned simplicity of his stud}', his hooks, his papers, and his letters were scattered about him on the tables, the seats, and the floor. There, stealing from the world, he would sometimes admit to his spare supper his friend Gassendi, " content," says that amiable philosopher, " to have me for his guest." Peiresc, like Pixelli, never published any work. These men of letters derived their pleasure, and perhaps tlieir pride, from those vast strata of knowledge which their curiosity had heaped together in their mighty collections. They either were not endowed with that faculty of genius which strikes out aggregate views, or were destitute of the talent of com- position which embellishes miimte ones. This deficiency in the minds of such men may be attributed to a tliirst of learn- ing, which the very means to allay can only inflame. From all sides they are gathering information ; and that knowledge seems never perfect to which every day brings new acquisi- tions. With these men, to compose is to hesitate : and to revise is to be mortified by fresh doubts and unsupplied omis- sions, Peiresc was enijiloyed all his life on a history of Provence ; but, observes Gassendi, " He could not mature the birth of his literary olfspiing. or lick it into any shape of elegant form ; he was therefore content to take the midwife's l)art, by helping the hapjiier labours of others." Such are the cultivators of knowledge, who are rarely aiithors, but who are often, however, contributing to the works of others ; and without whose secret labours the public Cultivators of Knowledge. 237 would not have possessed many valued ones. The delightful instruction which these men are constantly oHering to authors and to artists, flows from their silent but uninter- rupted cultivation of literature and the arts. When Robertson, after his successful " History of Scot- land," was long irresolute in his designs, and still unpractised in that curious research which habitually occupies these men of letters, his admirers had nearly lost his popular productions, had not a fortunate introduction to Dr. Birch enabled him to open the clasped books, and to drink of the sealed fountains. Uobektson has confessed his inadequate know- ledge, and his overflowing gratitude, in letters which 1 have elsewhere printed. A suggestion by a man of letters has opened the career of many an aspirant. A hint from VValsk conveyed a new conception of English poetry to one of its masters. The celebrated treatise of Guonus on " Peace and War" was projected by Peiresc. It was said of Maglia- BECHi, who knew all books, and never wrote one, that by his diffusive communications he was in some respect concerned in all the great works of his times. Sir Kouert Cotton greatly assisted Camden and Speed ; and that hermit of literature, Baker of Cambridge, was ever siipplying with his invaluable researches Burnet, Kennet, Hearne, and Middleton. The concealed aid which men of letters att'oj'd authors, may be compared to those subterraneous streams, which, flowing into spacious lakes, are, though unobserved, enlarging the waters which attract the public eye. Count De Caylus, celebrated for his collections, and for his generous patronage of artists, has given the last touches to this picture of the man of letters, with all the delicacy and warmth of a self-painter. " His glory is confined to the mere power which he has of being one day useful to letters and to the arts ; for his whole life is employed in collecting materials of which learned men and artists make no use till after the death of hini who amassed them. It allurds him a ver}' sensible pleasure to labour in hopes of being useful to those who pursue the same course of studies, while there are so great a number who die without discharging the debt which they»incur to society." Such a man of letters appears to have been the late Lord WooDiiousELKE. Mr. Mackenzie, returning from his lord- ship's literary retirement, meeting Mr. Alison, finely said, that " he hoi)ed he was going to \\'^oodhousclee ; for no man 238 Literary Character. could go tlicro without bein<^ happier, or return from it with- out being better." Shall we then hesitate to assert, that this class of literary men forms a useful, as well as a select order in society ? We see that their leisure is not idleness, that their studies are not unfruitful for the public, and that their opinions, purified from passions and prejudices, are always the soundest in the nation. They are counsellors whom statesmen may consult ; fathers of genius to whom authors and artists may look for aid, and friends of all nations ; for we ourselves have witnessed, during a war of thirty years, that the me>' of lettebs in England were still united with their brothers in France. The abode of Sir Joseph Banks was ever open to every literary and scientific foreigner ; while a wish expressed or a communi- cation written by this max of lettehs, was even respected by a political power which, acknowledging no other rights, paid a voluntary tribute to the claims of science and the pri- vileeres of literature. CHAPTER XXII. Literaiy old age still learning. — Influence of late studies in life. — Occnpa- tions in advanced age of the literary character. — Of literary men who have died at their studies. The old age of the literary character retains its enjoyments, and usually its powers — a happiness which accompanies no other. The old age of coquetry witnesses its own extinct beauty ; that of the " used " idler is left without a sensation ; that of the grasping Croesus exists only to envy his heir ; and that of the Machiavel who has no longer a voice in the cabinet, is but an unhappy spirit lingering to find its grave : but for the aged man of letters memory returns to her stores, and imagination is still on the wing amidst fresh discoveries' and new designs. The others fall like dry leaves, but he drops like ripe fruit, and is valued when no longer on the tree. The constitxitional melancholy of Joh>'30K often tinged his views of human life. When he asserted that " no man adds much to his stock of knowledge, or improves much afber forty," his theory was overturned by his own experience ; for his most interesting works were the productions of a very late period of life, formed out of the fresh knowledge with which he had then fui-uished himself. Old Age. 239 Tlie intellectual faculties, the latest to decline, are often vigorous in the decrepitude of age. The curious mind is still striking out into new pursuits, and the mind of genius is still creating. Ancora impako ! — " Even 3'et I am learn- ing !" was the concise inscription on an ingenious device of an old man placed in a child's go-cart, with an hour-glass upon it, which, it is said, Michael Angelo applied to his own vast genius in his ninetieth year. Painters have improved even to extreme old age : West's last works were his hest, and Titian was greatest on the verge of his century. Pous- sin was delighted with the discovery of this circumstance in the lives of painters. " As 1 grow older, I feel the desire of surpassing myself." And it was in the last years of his life, that with the finest j^oetical invention, he painted the alle- gorical pictures of the Seasons. A man of letters in his six- tieth year once told me, " It is hut of late years that I have learnt the right use of books and the art of reading." Time, the great destroyer of other men's happiness, only enlarges the patrimony of literature to its possessor. A learned and highly intellectual friend once said to me, " If I have acquired more knowledge these last four years than I had hitherto, I shall add materiall}' to my stores in the next four years ; and so at every subsequent period of my life, should I acquire only in tlie same proportion, the general mass of my knowledge will greatly accumulate. If we are not deprived by nature or misfortune of the means to pursue this perpetual augmentation of knowledge, I do not see but we may be still fully occupied and deejily interested even to the last day of our earthly term." Such is the dehghtful thought of Owen Feltham ; " If I die to-morrow, my life will be somewhat the sweeter to-day for knowledge." The perfectibility of the human mind, the animating theory of the eloquent De Stael, consists in the mass of our ideas, to which every age will now add, by means unknown to pre- ceding generations. Imagination was born at once perfect, and her arts lind a term to their progress ; but tliere is no boundary to knowledge nor the discovery of thought. How beautiful in the old age of the literary character was the ])lan whicli a friend of mine pursued ! His mind, like a mirror whose (juicksilver had not decayed, reflected all objects to the last. I'uU of learned studies and versatile curiosity, he annually projected a summer-tour on the Continent to some remarkable spot. The local associations wci'e an uu- 240 Litcrury Churucler. failing source of a^jrceablc impressions to a mind so well pre- pared, and \w. presented his friends with a " Voyap^e Litte- raire," as a new-year's gift. In such pursuits, where life i« "rather wearing out than rusting out," as liishop Cumber- land expressed it, scarcely shall we feel those continued menaces of death which shake the old age of men of no in- tellectual j)ursuits, who are dying so many years. Active enjoyments in the decline of life, then, constitute the happiness of literary men. The study of the arts and literature spreads a sunshine over the winter ol' their days. In the solitude and the night of human life, they discover that unregarded kindness of nature, which has given flowers that only open in the evening, and only bloom through the night-season. Necker perceived the influence of late studies in life ; for he tells us, that " the era of threescore and ten is an agreeable age for writing; your mind has not lost its vigour, and envy leaves you in peace." The opening of one of La Mothe le Vatee's Treatises is stiiking : " I should but ill return the iavours God has granted me in the eightieth year of m}- age, should I allow myself to give way to that shameless want of occupation which all my life 1 have condemned ;" and the old man pro- ceeds with his " Observations on the Composition and Read- ing of Books." " If man be a bubble of air, it is then time that I should hasten my task ; for my eightieth year admo- nishes me to get my baggage together ere I leave the world," wrote Vaeko, in opening his curious treatise de Be Rustica, which the sage lived to finish, and which, after nearly two thousand years, the world possesses. " My works are many, and I am old ; yet I still can fatigue and tire myself with writing more," says Petkarch in his " Epistle to Pos- terity." The literary character has been fully occupied in the eightieth and the ninetieth year of life. Isaac Waltox still glowed while writing some of the most interesting bio- graphies in his eighty-fifth year, and in the ninetieth enriched the poetical world with the first publication of a romantic tale by Chalkhill, " the friend of Spenser." Bodmek, beyond eighty, was occupied on Homer, and Wiela>'d on Cicero's Letters.* But the delight of opening a new pursuit, or a new course of reading, imparts the vivacity and novelty of youth even to * See " Curiosities of Literature," on "The jirogress of old age in new studies." studies in advanced Life. 241 old age. The revolutions of modern chemistry kindled the curiosity of Dr. Reid to his latest da^'s, and he studied b}-- various means to prevent the decay of his faculties, and to remedy the deficiencies of one failing sense by the increased activity of another. A late popular author, when advanced in life, discovered, in a class of reading to which he had never been accustomed, a profuse supply of fresh furniture for his mind. This felicity was the delightfulness of the old age of Goethe — literature, art, and science, formed his daily in- quiries ; and this venerable genius, prompt to receive each novel impression, was a companion for the youthful, and a communicator of knowledge even for the most curious. Even the steps of time are retraced, and we resume the possessions we seemed to have lost ; for in advanced life a return to our early studies rei'reshes and renovates the spirits : we open the poets who made us enthusiasts, and the philosophers who taught us to think, with a new source of leeling acquired by our own experience. Adam Siirni con- iessed his satisfaction at this pleasure to Professor Dugald Stewart, while " he was reperusing, with the enthusiasm of a student, the tragic poets of ancient Greece, and Sophocles and Euripides lay open on his table." Dans ses veines toujours un jeune sang bouilloue, Et Sophocle a cent ans peint encore Antigone. The calm philosophic Hume found that death only could interrupt the keen pleasure he was again receiving from Lucian, inspiring at the moment a humorous self-dialogue with Cliaron. "ilapi)ily," said this philosopher, "on re- tiring from the world I found my taste for reading return, even with greater avidity." We tind (hunoN, after the close of his History, returning with an appetite as keen to " a full repast on Homer and Ai'istophanes, and involving himself in the ])hilosophic maze of the writings of Plato." Lord AV^iooiiousKLEE found the reeomposition of his "Lectures on History" so fascinating in the last period of his life, that Mr. Alison informs us, " it rewarded him with that peculiar ihlifjlit., which ha.s been often observed in the later years of literary men ; the delight of returning again to the studios of their youth, and of feeling under the snows of age the cheerful memories of their spring."* * Tlioro is an interesting chapter on Favourite Authors in "Curiosities of Literature," vol. ii., to which the reader may be referreil for other examples. — Ei>. B 242 Lilcranj Character. Not without a pc-nsc of exultation lias tlie literary cha- racter felt this ])eculiar hapjiirK'Ss, in the unl>roken chain of his habits and his feelings. IIobhes exulted that he had outlived his enemies, and was still the same Hohbes ; and to demonstrate the reality of this existence, published, in the eighty-seventh year of his age, his version of the Oilyissey, and the following year his Jliad. Of the happy results of literary habits in advanced life, the Count Ue Tukssax, the elegant abridger of the old French romances, in his " Literary Advice to his Children" has drawn a most pleasing picture. With a taste for study, which lie found rather inconvenient in the moveable existence of a man of the world, and a mili- tary wanderer, he had, however, contrived to reserve an hour or two every day for literary pursuits. The men of science, with whom he had chief!}' associated, appear to have turned his passion to observation and knowledge rather than towards Imagination and feeling ; the combination formed a wreath for his grey hairs. When Count De Tressan retired from a bril- liant to an affectionate circle, anudst his family, he pursued his literary tastes with the vivacity of a young author in- spired by the illusion of fame. At the age of seventy-five, with the imagination of a poet, he abridged, he translated, he recomposed his old Chivalric Iloraances, and his reani- mated fancy struck fire in the veins of the old man. Among the first designs of his retirement was a singular philoso- phical legacy for his children. It was a view of the history and progress of the human mind — of its principles, its errors, and its advantages, as these were reflected in himself; in the dawnings of his taste, and the secret inclinations of his mind, which the men of genius of the age with whom he associated had developed. Expatiating on their memor}', he calls on his children to witness the happiness of study, so evident in those pleasures which were soothing and adorning his old age. " Without knowledge, without literature," ex- claims the venerable enthusiast, " in whatever rank we are born, we can only resemble the vulgar." To the centenary ro>'TE>'ELLE the Count De Teessaij was chiefly indebted for the happy life he derived from the cultivation of litera- ture ; and when this man of a hundred years died, Tressak, himself on the borders of the grave, would offer the last fruits of his mind in an elocjc to his ancient master. It was the voice of the dying to the dead, a last moment of the love and sensibility of genius, which feeble life could not extingni.sh. Deaths of Literary Men. 243 The genius of Cicero, inspired by the love of literature, lias thrown something deliglitful over this latest season of life, in his dc SenechUe. To have written on old age, in old age, is to have obtained a triumph over Time.* When the literary character shall discover himself to be like a stranger in a new world, when all tliat he loved has not life, and all that lives has no love for old age : when his ear has ceased to listen, and nature has locked up the man within liimself, he may still expire amidst his busied thoughts. Such aged votaries, like the old bees, have been found dying in their hone3-coinbs. Let them preserve but the ilame alive on the altar, and at the last moments they may be found in the act of sacrifice ! The venerable Bede, the instructor of his generation, and the historian for so many successive ones, expired in the act of dictating. Such Avas the fate of Petrabcii, who, not long before his death, had written to a friend, " I read, I write, I think ; such is my life, and my pleasures as they were in my youth." Petrarch was found lying on a folio in his librar}-, from which volume he had been busied making extracts for the biography of his countrymen. His domestics having often observed him studying in that reclining posture for da\-s together, it was long before they discovei-ed that the poet was no more. The fate of Leibnitz was similar: he was found dead with the "Argenis" of Barclay in his hand; he had been studying the style of that political romance as a model for his intended histor}^ of the House of IJrunswick. The literary death of Bartuelemv aUbrds a remarkable proof of the force of unin- terrupted habits of study. He had been slightly looking over the newspaper, w-hen suddenly he called ibr a Horace, opened the volume, and found the passage, on which he jjaused for a moment ; and then, too feeble to speak, made a sign to bring him Dacier's ; but his hands were already cold, the Horace fell — and the classical and d3'ing man of letters sunk into a fainting fit, from which he never recovered. Such, too, was the fate — perhaps now told for the first time — of the great Lord Clauenoon. It was in tlie midst of composition that his pen suddenly dropped from his haiul on the paper, he took it up again, and again it dropjied : de- prived of the sense of touch — his hand without motion — the * "Spurinna, or the Comforts of Old Age," by the late Sir Thomas Bernard, waa written a year or two before he died. u2 344 Literary Character. earl perccivcfl himself struck by palsy — and the life of the noble exile closed amidst the warmth of a literary work un- finished ! CHAPTER XXIir. Universality of genius. — Limite' equally prove that he was not blest with a dramatic genius. Cibbeh, a spirited comic writer, was noted for the most degrading failures in tragedy; while Rowe, successful in the softer tones of the tragic muse, proved as luckless a candidate for the smiles of the comic as the pathetic Otwat. La Fo>'- tai>'^e, unrivalled humorist as a fabulist, found his opera hissed, and his romance utterly tedious. The true genius of Steeke was of a descriptive and pathetic cast, and his humour and ribaldiy were a perpetual violation of his natural beat. Singleness of Genius. 2 A7 Alfieei's great tragic powers could not strike out into comedy or wit. ScAunox declared he intended to write a tragedy. The experiment was not made ; but with his strong cast of mind and habitual associations, we probably have lost a new sort of " Roman comique." CiCEUO failed in poetry, Addison in oratory, Voltaiue in comedy, and JoiiKSOK in tragedy. The Anacreontic poet remains only Anacreontic in his epic. With the fine arts the same occurrence has hap- pened. It has been observed in painting, that the school eminent for design was deficient in colouring ; while those who with Titian's warmth could make the blood circulate in the llesh, could never rival the expression and anatomy of even the middling artists of the Roman school. Even among those rare and gifted minds which have startled us by the versatility of their powers, whence do they derive the high character of their genius ? Their durable claims are substantiated by what is inherent in themselves — what is individual — and not by that flexibility which may include so much which others can equal. We rate them by their posi- tive originality, not by their variety of powers. When we think of Young, it is only of his " Night Thoughts," not of his tragedies, nor his poems, nor even of his satires, which others luwe rivalled or excelled. Of Akenside, the solitary work of genius is his great poem ; his numerous odes are not of a higher order than those of other ode-writers. Had Poi'i: only composed odes and tragedies, the great philosoi)hical poet, master of human life and of perfect verse, had not left an undying name. Texieus, unrivalled in the walk of his genius, degraded history by the meanness of his conceptions. Such instances abound, and demonstrate an important truth in the history of genius that we cannot, however we may incline, enlarge the natural extent of our genius, any more than we can " add a cubit to our stature." We may force it into variations, but in nniltipl\ iiig mediocrity, or in doing what others can do, we add nothing to genius. So true is it that men of genius appear only to excel in a single art, or even in a single department of art, tliat it is usual with men of taste to resort to a particular artist lor a particular object. Would you ornament your house by inte- rior decorations, to wliom would you apply if you sought the perfection of art, but to different artists, of very distinct cha- racters in their invention and their execution ? For your arabesques you would call in the artist whose delicacy of 218 Literary Character. toiicli and playfulness of itU-as are not to be expected from the j^randeur of the historical painter, or the sweetness of the Faijsat/iiite. Is it not evident that men of genius excel only in one department of their art, and that whatever they do with the utmost original perfection, cannot be equally done by another man of genius ? He whose undeviating genius guards itself in its own true sj)here, has the greatest chance of encountering no rival. He is a Dante, a Milton, a Michael Aiigelo, a Kaphaol : his hand will not labour on what the Italians call p«A7/cr/os; and he remains not unimi- tated but inimitable. CHAPTER XXIV. Literature an avenue to glory. — An intellectual nobility not chimerical, but created by public opinion. — Literary honours of various nations. — Local associations with the memory of the man of genius. LiTERATUBE is an avenue to glory, ever open for those ingenious men who are deprived of honours or of wealth. Like that illustrious Eoman who owed nothing to his ances- tors, videfur ex se natus, these seem self-born ; and in the baptism of fame, they have given themselves their name. Bruyore has finely said of men of genius, " These men have neither ancestors nor posterity ; they alone compose their whole race." But Akexside, we have seen, blushed when his lameness reminded him of the I'all of one of his father's cleavers ; Peior, the son of a vintner, covdd not endure to be reminded, though by his favourite Horace, that "the cask retains its flavour;" like VoiTUKE, another descendant of a rnarchand de i-m, whose heart sickened over that which exhilarates all other hearts, whenever his opinion of its qualifi/ was maliciously consulted. All these instances too evidently prove that genius is subject to the most vulgar infirmities. But some have thought more courageously. The amiable Bollix was the son of a cutler, but the historian of nations never felt his dignity compromised by his birth. Even late in life, he ingeniously alluded to his first occupation, for we find an epigram of his in sending a knife for a new-year's gift, " informing his friend, that should this present appear to come rather from Vulcan than from Minerva, it should not surprise, for," adds the epigrammatist, "it was from the Genius elevates Obscure Men. 219 cavern of tlie Cyclops I began to direct my footsteps towards Parnassus." The great political negotiator, Cardinal D'0s8a.t, was elevated by his genius from an orphan state of indigence, and was alike destitute of ancestry, of titles, even of parents. On the day of his creation, when others of noble extraction assumed new titles from the seignorial names of their ancient houses, he was at a loss to fix on one. Having asked the Pope whether he should choose that of his bishopric, his holi- ness requested him to preserve liis plain family name, which he had rendered famous by his own genius. The sons of a sword-maker, a potter, and a tax-gatherer, were the greatest of the orators, the most majestic of the poets, and the most graceful of the satirists of antiquity ; Demosthenes, Virgil, and Horace. The eloquent Massillon, the brilliant Flechier, Rousseau, and Diderot ; Johnson, Goldsmith, and Franklin, arose amidst the most humble avocations. Vespasian raised a statue to the historian Josephus, though a Jew ; and the Athenians one to /Esop, though a slave. Even among great military republics the road to public honour was open, not alone to heroes and patricians, but to that solitary genius which derives from itself all which it gives to the public, and nothing from its birth or the public situation it occupies. It is the prerogative of genius to elevate obscure men to the higher class of society. If the influence of wealth in the present day has created a new aristocracy of its own, where they already begin to be jealous of their ranks, we may assert that genius creates a sort of intellectual nobility, which is now conferred by j)ublic feeling ; as heretofore the surnames of "the African," and of " Coriolanus," won by valour, asso- ciated with the names of the conqueror of Africa and the vanquisher of Corioli. Were men of genius, as such, to have armorial bearings, they might consist, not of imaginary things, of griffins and chimeras, but of deeds performed and of public works in existence. When Do>'i)i raised the great astrono- mical clock at the University of Padua, which was long the admiration of Europe, it gave a name and nobility to it.s maker and all his descendants. There still lives a Marquis Dondi dal' Ilorologio. Sir Huoii MiuoLEXoy, in memory of his vast enterprise, changed his former arms to bear tlirec piles, to perpetuate the interesting circumstance, that by these instruments he had strengthened the works he had invented, when his genius poured forth the waters through our metro- 250 Lilerary Character. poli.s, tliercby distin<,'uisliin^' it from all others in the world. Should not Evklyn have inserted an oak-troc in his hearings? for his " Sylva " occasioned th(! jilantation of '' nnan}' millions of timber-trees," and the present navy of Great Britain has been constructed with the oaks which the genius of Evelyn planted. There was an eminent Italian musician, who had a piece of music inscribed on his tomb ; and I liave heard of a J)utch mathematician, who had a calculation for his epitaph. We who were re})roached for a coldness in our national character, have caught the inspiration and enthusiasm for the works and the celebrity of genius ; the symptoms indeed were long dubious. Heynolds wished to have one of his own pictures, "Contemplation in the figure of an Angel," carried at his funeral ; a custom not unusual with foreign painters ; but it was not deemed prudent to comply with tliis last wish of the great artist, from the fears entertained as to the man- ner in which a London populace might have received such a novelty. This shows that the profound feeling of art is still confined within a circle among us, of which hereafter the cir- cumference perpetually enlarging, may embrace even the whole people. If the public have borrowed the names of some lords to dignify a "Sandwich" and a "Spencer," we may be allowed to raise into titles of literary nobility those distinctions w-hich the public voice has attached to some authors ; JEschijlus Potter, Athenian Stuart, and Anacreon Moore. Butler, in his own day, was more generally known by the single and singular name of Hudihras, than by his own. This intellectual nobility is not chimerical. Such titles must be found indeed, in the years which are to come ; yet the prelude of their fame distinguishes these men from the crowd. Whenever the rightful possessor appears, will not the eyes of all spectators be fixed on him "r* 1 allude to scenes which I have witnessed. Will not even literaiy honours superadd a nobility to nobility ; and make a name instantly recognised which might otherwise be hidden under its rank, and remain unknown by its title ? Our illustrious list of literary noblemen is far more glorious than the satirical "Catalogue of Noble Authors," drawn up by a polished and heartless cynic, who has pointed his brilliant shafts at all who were chivalrous in spirit, or related to the family of genius. One may presume on the existence of this intellectual nobility, from the extraordinary circumstance that the great Literary Honours. 251 have actually felt a jealous)' of the literaiy rank. But no rivahy can exist in the solitary honour conferred on an author. It is not an honour derived from birth nor creation, but from PUBLIC OPINION, and inseparable from his name, as an essen- tial quality ; for the diamond will sparkle and the rose will be fragrant, otherwise it is no diamond or rose. The great may well condescend to be humble to genius, since genius pays its homage in becoming proud of that humility. Cardinal Richelieu was mortilied at the celebrit}' of the unbending CoRNEiLLE ; so wcrc scvcral noblemen at Pope's indifference to their rank ; and MAOLlAliECill, the book prodigy of his age, whom every literary stranger visited at Florence, assured Lord Haley that the Duke of Tuscany had become jealous of the attention he was receiving from foreigners, as they usually went to visit Magli.vbeciii before the Grand Duke. A confession by Montesquieu states, with open candour, a fact in his life which contirms this jealousy of the great with the literary character. " On my entering into life 1 was spoken of as a man of talents, and people of condition gave ine a favourable reception ; but when the success of iW Persian Letters proved perhaps that I was not unworthy of my ivputation, and the public began to esteem me, my recep- tion ivilli (lie fjreat was discourcKjinrj, and 1 experienced in- numerable morfijicafions.'^ Montesquieu subjoins a reflection sutliciently humiliating for the mere nobleman : " The great, inwardly wounded with the glory of a celebrated name, seek to humble it. In general he only can jiatiently endure the fame of others, who deserves fame himself." This sort of jealousy unquestionably ))revailed in the late Lord OuFOitu, a wit, a man of the world, and a man of rank ; but while he considered literature as a mere amusement, he was mortified at not obtaining literary celebrity ; he felt his authorial always beneath his personal character. It fell to my lot to develope his real feelings respecting himself and the literary men of his age.* * "Calamities of Authors." I printed, in 1812, extracts from Walpole's correspondence with Cole. Some have considered that there was a severity of delineation in my character of Horace Walpole. I was the jir:. 254 Literary Character. qiiited labours, animated by the learned foreij^ncrs, who hastened to see and converse with this prodigy of P^astern learning. Yes ! to the very presence of the man of genius will the world spontaneously pay their tribute of respect, of admira- tion, or of love. Many a ]>ilgrimage has he lived to receive, and many a crowd has followed his foot'teps! There are days in the life of genius which repay its sufferings. Demos- TiiENts confessed he was pleased when even a fishwoman of Athens pointed him out. Counetlle had his particular seat in the theatre, and the audience would rise to salute him when he entered. At the presence of Eatxal in the House of Com- mons, the Speaker was requested to suspend the debate till that illustrious foreigner, who had written on the English parliament, was accommodated with a seat. Spin'OSa, when he gained an humble livelihood by grinding optical glasses, at an obscure village in Holland, was visited by the first general in Europe, who, for the sake of this philosophical conference, suspended the march of the army. In all ages and in all countries has this feeling been created. It is neither a temporary ebullition nor an individual honour. It comes out of the heart of man. It is the passion of great souls. In Spain, whatever was most beautiful in its kind was described by the name of the great Spanish bard :* ever\thing excellent was called a Lope. Italy would furnish a volume of the public honours decreed to literary men ; nor is that spirit extinct, though the national character has fallen by the chance of fortune. Metastasio and Tiraboschi received what had been accorded to Petrarch and to Poc.Gio. Ger- manj', patriotic to its literary characters, is the land of the enthusiasm of genius. On the borders of the Linnet, in the public walk of Zurich, the monument of Gesxer, erected by the votes of his fellow-citizens attests their sensibility ; and a solemn funeral honoured the remains of Klopstock, led by the senate of Hamburgh, with fifty thousand votaries, so penetrated by one universal sentiment, that this multitude preserved a mournful silence, and the interference of the police ceased to be necessary through the city at the solemn burial of the man of genius. Has even Holland proved insensible? The statue of Erasmus, in Rotterdam, still animates her yomig students, and offers a noble example to her neighbours of the inllucnce even of the sight of the statue of a man of * Lope de Vega. Honour to Genius. 255 genius. Travellers never fail to mention Erasmus when Basle occupies their recollections ; so that, as Bayle observes, " He has rendered the place of hi.s death as celebrated as that of his birth." In France, since Francis I. created genius, and Louis XIV. jirotected it, the impulse has been communicated to the French people. There the statues of their illustrious men spread inspiration on the spots which living they would have haunted : — in their theatres, the great dramatists; in their Institute their illustrious authors ; in their public edifices, con- genial men of genius.* This is wortliy of the country whicli privileged the family of L.v Foxtaixe to be for ever exempt from taxes, and decreed that " the productions of the mind were not seizable," when the creditors of Cbebillox would have attached the produce of his tragedies. These distinctive honours accorded to genius were in unison with their decree respecting the will of Batle. It was the subject of a lawsuit between the heir of the will and the in- heritor by blood. The latter contested that this great lite- rary character, being a fugitive for religion, and dying in a proscribed country, was divested by law of the power to dis- pose of his property, and that our author, when resident in Holland, in a civil sense was dead. In the Parliament of Toulouse the judge decided that learned men are Iree in all countries : that he who had sought in a foreign land an asylum from his love of letters, w;is no fugitive ; that it was unworthy of France to treat as a stranger a son in whoui she gloried, and he protested against the notion of a civil death to such a man as Bayle, whose name was living throughout Europe. This judicial decision in France was in unison with that of the senate of llotterdain, who declared of the emigrant Bayle, that " such a man should not be considered as a Ibreigner." Even the most common objects are consecrated when asso- ciated with the memory of the man of genius. We still seek lor his tomb on the spot where it has vanished. The enthusiasts of genius still wander on the hills of Pausilippo, and muse on ViuoiL to retrace his landscape. There is a grove at Mag- • We cannot bury the fame of our English worthies — that exists before us, independent of ourselves ; but we bury the influence of tlieir inspiring presence in those immortal memorials of genius easy t The house of the man of genius has been spared amidst contending em)>ires, from the days of Pindar to those of Buffon ; " the Historian of Nature's " chateau was preserved from this elevated feeling by Prince Schwartzenberg, as our MAKLBOiU)Uciii had performed tlie same gli)rious office in guarding the hallowed asylum of Fenelon.* In the grandeur * The printing office of Plantyn, at Antwerp, was guariled in a similar manner during' the great revolution that sei).irated llollauil and Helgiiun, when a troop of soldiers were stationed in its courtyard. See " Curiosities of Literature," vol. i. p. 77, note. — Ed. S 258 Literary (^haractci'. of Milton's verse wc perceive the feeling he associated with this literary honour : The great Emathian conqueror bid spare The house of Pindarus when temple and tower Went to the ground . And the meanest things, the very household stuff", associated with tlie memory of tlie man of genius, become the objects of our affections. At a festival, in honour of TuoMSOX the poet, the chair in which he eomiiosed part of his " Seasons " was produced, and appears to have communicated some of the rap- tures to which he was liable who had sat in that chair. Kabelais, amongst his drollest inventions, could not have imagined that his old cloak would have been preserved in the university of Montpelier for future doctors to wear on the day they took their degree ; nor could Siiakspeake have sup- posed, with all his fancy, that the mulberry-tree which he planted would have been multiplied into relics. But in such. instances the feeling is right, with a wrong direction ; and while the populace are exhausting their emotions on an old tree, an old chair, and an old cloak, they are paying that in- voluntary tribute to genius which forms its pride, and will generate the race. CHAPTER XXV. Influence of Authore on society, and of society on Authors. —National tastes a source of literary prejudices. — True Genius always the organ of its nation. — Master- writers preserve the distinct national character. — Genius the organ of the state of the age. — Causes of its suppression in a people. — Often invented, but neglected. — The natural gradations of genius. — Jlen of Genius produce their usefulness in privacy. — The public mind is now the creation of the public writer. — Politicians affect to deny this principle. — Authors stand between the governors and the governed. — A view of the solitary Author in his study. — They create an epoch in history. — Influence of popular Authors. — The immortality of thought. — The Family of Genius illustrated by their genealogy. LiTERAnr fame, which is the sole preserver of all other fame, participates little, and remotely, in the remuneration and the honours of professional characters. All other profes- sions press more immediately on the wants and attentions of men, than the occupations of Liteeart Charactebs, who from their habits are secluded ; producing their usefulness England honoured by its Autliors. 259 often at a late period of life, and not always valued by their own generation. It is not the commercial character of a nation which in- spires veneration in mankind, nor will its military ])ower engage the afi'ections of its neighbours. So late as in 1700 the Italian Cremelli told all Europe tliat he could find nothing among us but our writinrjs to distinguish us from a people of barbarians. It was long considered that our genius partook of the density and variableness of our climate, and that we were incapacitated even by situation from the enjoyments of those beautiful arts which have not yet travelled to us — as if Nature herself had designed to disjoin us fron\ more polished nations and brighter skies. At length we have triumphed ! Our philosophers, our poets, and our historians, are printed at foreign presses. This is a perpetual victory, and establishes the ascendancy of our genius, as much at lea.st as the commiirce and the prowess of England. This singular revolution in the history of the human mind, and by its reaction this singular revolu- tion in human affairs, was effected by ii glorious succession of AUTilous, who have enabled our nation to arbitrate among the nations of Europe, and to possess ourselves of their in- voluntary esteeni b}^ discoveries in science, by principles in philosophy, by truths in histor}', and even by the graces of fiction ; and there is not a man of genius among foreigners who stands unconnected with our intellectual sovereignty. Even had our country displayed more limited resources than its awful powers have opened, and had the sphere of its dominion been enclosed by its island Vjoundarics, if the same national literary character had predominated, we should have stood on the same eminence among our Continental rivals. The small cities of Athens and of Florence will perpetually attest the influence of the literary character over other nations. The one received the tribute of the mistress of the universe, when the llomans sent their youth to be educated at the Grecian city, while the other, at the revival of letters, beheld every polished European crowding to its little court. In closing this ini[)erfect work by attempting to ascertain the real influence of authors on society, it will be necessary to notice some curious facts in the history of genius. Tlie distinct literary tastes of different nations, and the re})ugnance they nuitually betray for the master-writers of each other, is an important circumstance to the philosophical 8 2 260 Literary Character. observer. These national tastes originate in modes of feeling, in customs, in idioms, and all the numerous associations preva- lent aniont^ every people. The reciprocal influence of man- ners on taste, and of taste on manners — of government and religion on the literature of a people, and of their literature on the national character, with other congenial objects of inquiry, still require a more ample investigation. Whoever attempts to reduce this diversity, and these strong contrasts of national tastes to one common standard, b}' forcing such dissimilar objects into comparative parallels, or by trying thom by conventional principles and arbitrar}' regulations, will often condemn what in truth his mind is inadequate to compre- hend, and the experience of his associations to combine. These attempts have been the fertile source in literature of what may be called national prejudices. The French nation insists that the northerns are defective in taste — the taste, they tell us, which is estalibshed at Paris, and which existed at Athens : the Gothic imagination of the nortli spurns at the timid copiers of the Latin classics, and interminable dis- putes prevail in their literature, as in their architecture and their painting. Philosophy discovers a fact of which taste seems little conscious ; it is, that genius varies with the soil, and produces a nationality of taste. The feelings of mankind indeed have the same common source, but they must come to us through the medium and by the modifications of society. Love is a universal passion, but the poetry of love in diffe- rent nations is peculiar to each ; for every great poet belongs to his country. Petrarch, Lope de Vega, Eacine, Shak- speare, and Sadi, would each express this universal j)assion by the most specific differences ; and the style that w:ould be condemned as unnatural by one people, might be habitual with another. The concetti of the Italian, the figurative style of the Persian, the swelling grandeur of the Spaniard, the classical correctness of the French, are all modifications of genius, relatively true to each particular writer. On national tastes critics are but wrestlers : the Spaniard will still prefer his Lope de Vega to the French Eacine, or the English his Shakspeare, as the Italian his Tasso and his Petrarch. Hence all national writers are studied with enthu- siasm by their own people, and their very peculiarities, offensive to others,with the natives constitute their excellences. Nor does this perpetual contest about the great writers of other nations solely arise from an association of patriotic National Authors. 261 glory, but really because these great native writei's have most strongly excited the sympathies and conformed to the habitual tastes of their own people. Hence, then, we deduce that true genius is the organ of its nation. The creative faculty is itself created ; for it is the nation which first imparts an impulse to the chaiMcter of genius. Such is the real source of those distinct tastes which we perceive in all great national authors. Every lite- rary work, to ensure its success, must adapt itself to the sympathies and the understandinti^s of the people it addresses. Hence those opposite characteristics, which are usually ascribed to the master-writers themselves, originate with the country, and not with the writer. Lope be Vega, and Calderon, in their di-amas, and Cekvais'tes, who has left his name as the epithet of a peculiar grave humour, were Spaniards before they were men of genius. Corneille, Racixe, and Kabe- LAis, are entirely of an opposite character to the Spaniards, having adapted their genius to their own declamatory and vivacious countrymen. Petuaiicii and Tasso display a fan- cifulness in depicting the passions, as Boccaccio narrates his I'acetious stories, quite distinct from the inventions and style of northern writers. Siiakspeare is placed at a wider interval from all of them than they are from each other, and is as per- fectly insular in his genius as his own countrymen were in their customs, and their modes of thinking and feeling. Thus the master-writers of ever_y people preserve the dis- tinct national character in their works ; and hence that ex- traordinary enthusiasm with which every people read their own favourite authors; but in which otliers cannot par- ticipate, and for which, with all their national prejudices, they often recriminate on each other with false and even ludicrous criticism. But genius is not only the organ of its nation, it is also that of the state of the times ; and a great work usually ori- ginates in the age. Certain events must precede the man of genius, who often becomes only the vehicle of public feeling. Machiavel ha.s been reproached for propagating a political system subversive of all human honour and hai)pincss ; but was it Machiavel who formed his age, or the age which crijated Machiavel ? Living among tlie petty principalities of Italy, where stratagem and assassination were the prac- tices of those wretched courts, what did that calumniated sreuius more than lift the veil fron\ a cabinet of banditti ? 202 Literary Character. Maciiiavel alarmed tlio world 1)y exposing a system sub- versive of all human virtue and haj)piiiess, and, whether he meant it or not, certainly led the way to political freedom. On the same principle we may leani that I3occaccio would not have written so many indecent tales had not the scan- dalous lives of the monks en;^af^ed puhlic attention. This we may now regret ; but the court of Home felt the concealed satire, and that luxurious and numerous class in society never recovered from the chastisement. Mo>TAioNE has been censured for his universal scepticism, and for the unsettled notions he drew out on his motley page, whicli has been attributed to his incapacity of forming decisive opinions. "Que s^ais-je ?" was his motto. The same accusation may reach the gentle Erasmus, who alike offended the old catholics and the new reformers. The real source of their vacillations we may discover in the age itself. It was one of controversy and of civil wars, when the minds of men were thrown into perpetual agitation, and opinions, like the victories of the parties, were every day changing sides. Even in its advancement beyond the intelligence of its own- age genius is but progressive. In nature all is continuous ; she makes no starts and leaps. Genius is said to soar, but we should rather say that genius climbs. Did the great Vebu- LAM, or liAWLEiGii, or l)r. Moke, emancipate themselves from all the dreams of their age, from the occult agency of witch- craft, the astral influence, and the ghost and demon creed ? Before a particular man of genius can appear, certain events must arise to prepare the age for him. A great com- mercial nation, in the maturity of time, opened all the sources of wealth to the contemplation of Adam Smith. That extensive system of what is called political economy could not have been produced at any other time ; for before this period the materials of this work had but an imperfect existence, and the advances which this sort of science had made were only partial and preparatory. If the principle of Adam Smith's great work seems to confound the happiness of a nation with its wealth, we can scarcely reproach the man of genius, who we shall tind is always reflecting back the feelings of his own nation, even in his most original speculations. In works of pure imagination we trace the same march of the human intellect; and we discover in those inventions, which appear sealed by their originality, how much has been dreived from the age and the people in which they were National Authors. 263 produced. Every work of genius is tinctured by the feel- ings, and often originates in the events, of the times. The Inferno of Daxte was caught from the popular superstitions of the age, and had been preceded b}' the gross visions which the monks luid forged, usually for their own purposes. " La Citta dolente," and "la perduta geute," were familiar to the imaginations of the people, by the monkish visions, and it seems even by ocular illusions of Hell, exhibited in Mysteries, with its gulfs of flame, and its mountains of ice, and the shrieks of the condemned.* To produce the " Inferno" only required the giant step of genius, in the sombre, the awful, and the fierce, Dante. When the age of chivalry flourished, all breathed of love and courtesy ; the great man was the great lover, and the great author the romancer. It was from his own age that Milton derived his greatest blemish — the introduction of school-divinity into poetr3% In a polemical age the poet, as well as the sovereign, reflected the reigning tastes. There are accidents to which genius is liable, and by which it is frequently suppressed in a people. The establishment of the Inquisition in Spain at one stroke annihilated all the genius of the country. Cervantes said that the Inquisition had spoilt many of his most delightful inventions ; and un- questionably it silenced the wit and invention of a nation whose proverbs attest they possessed them even to luxu- riance. All the continental nations have boasted great native painters and architects, while these arts were long truly foreign to us. Theoretical critics, at a loss to account for this singularity, accused not only our climate, but even our diet, as the occult causes of our unfitness to cultivate them. Yet Montesquieu and Winkclmann might have observed that the air of fens and marshes had not dc'itrived the gross feeders of Holland and Flanders of admirable artists. We have been outrageously calumniated. So I'ar from any national inca- pacity, or obtuse feelings, attaching to ourselves in respect to these arts, the noblest etlbrts had long been made, not only by individuals, but by the magniticenee of Henry VIII., who invited to his court Raphael and Titian ; but unfortunately * Sismondi relates that the bed of the river Arno, at Florence, was transformed into a representation of the Gulf of Hell, in the year 1304; and that all the variety of suffering that monkish imagination had invented was apparently inflicted on real persons, whose shrieks and groans gave fearful reality to the appalling scene. — Ei>. 201- Literary Character. only obtained Iloll)cin. A later sovereign, Charles the First, not only possessed galleries of pictures, and was the greatest purchaser in Europe, for he raised their value, but he likewise ])ossessed the taste and the science of the connoisseur. Something, indeed, had occurred to our national genius, which had thrown it into a stupifying state, from which it is yet liardly aroused. Could those foreign philosophers have ascended to moral caus^cs, instead of vajjouring forth fanciful notions, they might have struck at the true cause of the de- ficiency in our national genius. The jealousy of puritanic fanaticism had persecuted these arts from the first rise of the Ileformation in this country. It had not onh' banished them i'rom our churches and altar-pieces, but the fury of the people, and the "wisdom" of parliament, had alike combined to mutilate and even efiace what little remained of painting and sculpture among us. Even within our own times this deadly hostility to art was not extinct ; for when a proposal v.as made gratuitoush' to decorate our places of worship by a series of religious pictures, and English artists, in pure de- votion to Art, zealous to confute the Continental calumni- ators, asked only for walls to cover, George the Third highly approved of the plan. The design was put aside, as some liad a notion that the cultivation of the fine arts in our naked clmrehes was a return to Catholicism. Had this glorious plan been realized, the golden age of English art might have arisen. Every artist would have invented a subject most congenial to his powers. Eet>'OLDS would have emulated Raphael in the Virgin and Child in the manger. West had fixed on Christ raising the young man from the dead, Babet had profoundly meditated on the Jews rejecting Jesus. Thus did an age of genius perish before its birth ! It W'as on. the occasion of this frustrated project that Barhy, in the rage of disappointment, immortalised himself by a gratuitous labour of seven years on the walls of the Society of Arts, for which, it is said, the French government under Buonaparte offered ten thousand pounds. Thus also it has happened, that we have possessed among ourselves great architects, although opportunities for display- ing their genius have been rare. This the fate and fortime of two Englishmen attest. Without the fire of London we might not have shown the world one of the greatest archi- tects, in Sir Ciiristopiter Wkex ; had not a St. Paul's been required by the nation he would have fomid uo opportunity English Architects. 205 of displaying the magnificence of his genius, which even then was mutilated, as the original mod(d bears witness to the world. That great occasion served this noble architect to multiply his powers in other public edifices : and it is here worth remarking tliat, had not Cluirles II. been seized by apoplexy, the royal residence, which was begun at Win- chester on a plan of Sir Christopher Wren's, by its magnifi- cence would have raised a Ver^iilles for England. The fate of Iniuo Jones is as remarkable as that of Ween. Whitehall afforded a ])roof to foreigners that among a people which, before that edifice appeared, was reproached for their total deficiency of feeling for the pure classical style of architecture, the true taste could nevertheless exist. This celebrated piece of architecture, however, is but a fragment of a grander composition, by which, had not the civil wars intervened, the fame of Britain would have balanced the glory of Greece, or Italv, or France, and would have shown that our country is more deficient in marble than in genius. Thus the fire of London produces a St. Paul's, and the civil wars suppress a Whitehall. Such circumstances in the his- tory of art among nations have not always been developed by those theorists who have calumniated the artists of England. In the history of genius it is remarkable that its work is often invented, and lies neglected. A close observer of this age pointed out to me that the military genius of that great French captain, who so long appeared to have conquered Europe, was derived from his applying the new principles of war discovered by Fol.\ru and Guibert. The genius of FoL.vuu obsei'ved that, among the changes of military dis- cipline in the practice of war among European nations since the introduction of gunpowder, one of the ancient methods of the liomans had been improperly neglected, and, in his Commentaries on Polybius, Folard revived this ibrgotten mode of warfare. Guibeut, in his great work, "Histoire de la Milice FraiK^aise," or rather tlie History of the Art of AVar, adopted Folard's system of charging by columns, and breaking the centre of the enemy, which seems to be the famous plan of our Rodney and Nelson in their maritime battles, liut this favourite plan became the ridicule of the military ; and the boldness of his ])en, with the high con- fidence of the author, only excited adversaries to mortify his pretensions, and to treat him as a dreamer. From this per- petual o})position to his plans, and the neglect he mcurred, 2G6 Literary Character. GfiBERT (lied of " vexation of spirit ;" and the la-st words on the death-bed of this man of genius were, " One day they will know nie!" Folaud and Guiijeiit created a JJuoNA- I'AHTE, who studied tliem on the Held of battle ; and he who would trace the military genius wlio so long held in suspense the fate of the world, may discover all that he performed in the neglected inventions of preceding genius. Hence also may we deduce the natural gradations of genius. Many men of genius must arise before a particular man of genius can appear. Before Homer there were other epic poets ; a catalogue of their names and their works has come down to us. CoKNEiLLE could not have been the chief dramatist of France had not the founders of the French. drama preceded him, and Pope could not have preceded Dryden. It was in the nature of things that a Giotto and a Cimabue should have preceded a IIapiiael and a Micuael Angelo. Even the writings of such extravagant geniuses as Bru>*0 and Cardan gave indications of the progress of the human mind ; and had IIamus not shaken the authority of the Orga- non of Aristotle we might not have had the Xovuui Organon of Bacon. Men slide into their degree in the scale of genius often by the exercise of a single quality which their prede- cessors did not possess, or by completing what at first was left imperfect. Truth is a single point in knowledge, as beauty is in art : ages revolve till a Xewton and a LocKJB accomplish what an Aristotle and a Descartes began. The old theory of animal spirits, observes Professor Dugald Stewart, was apj^lied by Descartes to explain the mental phenomena which led Newton into that train of thinking, which served as the groundwork of Hartley's theory of vibrations. The learning of one man makes others learned, and the influence of genius is in nothing more remarkable than in its effects on its brothers. Selden's treatise on the Syrian and Arabian Deities enabled Milton to comprise, in one hundred and thirty beautiful lines, the two large and learned syntagma which Selden had composed on that abstract subject. Leland, the father of British antiquities, impelled Stoave to work on his "Survey of London;" and Stowe's •'London" inspired Camden's stupendous "Britannia." Herodotus produced Thucydides. and ThucN'dides Xeuophon. With us Hume, Robertson, and Gibbon rose almost simul- taneously by mutual inspiration. There exists a perpetual Influence of Authors. 267 action and reaction in the history of the human mind. It has i'requently been inquired why certain periods seem to have been more fovourable to a particular class of genius than another ; or, in other words, why men of genius appear in clustei-s. We have theories respecting barren periods, which are only satisfactorily accounted for by moral causes. Genius generates enthusiasm and rivalry ; but, having reached the meridian of its class, we find that there can be no progress in the limited perfection of human nature. All excellence in art, if it cannot advance, must decline. Important discoveries are often obtained by accident; but the single work of a man of genius, which has at length changed the character of a people, and even of an age, is slowly matured in meditation. Even the mechanical inven- tions of genius must first become perfect in its own solitary abode ere the world can possess them. Men of genius then produce their usefulness in privacy ; but it may not be of im- mediate application, and is often undervalued by their own generation. The influence of authors is so great, while the author him- self is so inconsiderable, that to some the c^se may not appear commensurate to its effect. When Epicurus pub- lished his doctrines, men immediately began to express them- selves with freedom on the established religion, and the dark and fearful superstitions of paganism, falling into neglect, mouldered away. If, then, before the art of multiplying the productions of the human mind existed, the doctrines of a philoso[)her in manuscript or by lecture could diffuse them- selves throughout a literary nation, it will baflle the algebraist of metaphysics to calculate the unknown quantities of the propagation of human thought. There are problems in meta- physics, as well as in nuithematics, which can never be re- solved. A small portion of mankind appears marked out by nature and by study for the purpose of cultivating tliuir thoughts in peace, and of giving activity to their discoveries, by disclosing them to the people. " Could I," exclaims Montesquieu, whose heart was beating with the feelings of a great author, " could I but afford new reasons to men to love their duties, their king, their countr}', their laws, that they might become more sensible of their happiness under every government they live, and in every station they occupy, I should deem myself the happiest of men !" Such was the pure aspiration of the 2G8 Literary Character. i^rcat author wlio studied to i)resc'rvo, Ijy amelioratincj, the liuniane fabric of society. The same largeness of mind cliarac- terises all the eloquent friends of the human race. In an age of religious intolerance it itispired the President De Thou to inculcate, from sad experience and a juster view of human nature, the impolicy as well as the inhumanity of religious persecutions, in that dedication to Henry IV., which Lord Manslicld declared he could never read without rapture. " 1 was not born for myself alone, Vjut for my country and my friends!" exclaimed the genius which hallowed the virtuous pages of his immortal history. Even our liberal yet dispassionate Locke restrained the freedom of his inquiries, and corrected the errors which the highest intellect may fall into, by marking out that impas- sable boundary which must probably for ever limit all human intelligence ; for the maxim which Locke constantly incul- cates is that " Reason must be the last judge and guide in everything." A final answer to those who propagate their opinions, whatever they may be, with a sectarian spirit, to force the understandings of other men to their own modes of belief, and thflr own variable opinions. This alike includes those who yield up nothing to the genius of their age to cor- rect the imperfections of society, and those who, opposing all human experience, would annihilate what is most admii-able in its institutions. The public mind is the creation of the jSIaster- Writers — an axiom as demonstrable as any in Euclid, and a principle as sure in its operation as any in mechanics. Bacon's in- fluence over philosophv, and Grotius's over the political state of society, are still felt, and their principles practised far more than in their own age. These men of genius, in their solitude, and with their views not always comprehended b}' their contemporaries, became themselves the founders of our science and our legislation. When Locke and Mon- tesquieu appeared, the old systems of government were re- viewed, the principle of toleration was developed, and the revolutions of opinion were discovered. A noble thought of Yitbuvius, who, of all the authors of antiquity, seems to have been most deeply imbued with the feelings of the literary character, has often struck me by the grandeur and the truth of its conception. " The sentiments of excellent writers," he says, " although their persons be for ever absent, exist in future ages ; and in councils and debates Influence of Authors. 269 are of greater authority than those of the persons who are present." But pohticians affect to disbeUeve that abstract principles possess any considerable influence on the conduct of the sub- ject. They tell us that " in times of tranquillity they are not wanted, and in times of confusion they are never heard ;" this is the philosophy of men who do not choose that philosophy should disturb their fireside ! But it is in leisure, when they are not wanted, that the speculative part of mankind create them, and when they are wanted they are already prepared for the active multitude, who come, like a phalanx, pressing each other with a unity of feeling and an integrity of force. Paley would not close his eyes on what was passing before him ; for, he has observed, that during the convulsions at Geneva, the political theory of Rousseau was prevalent in their contests ; while, in the political disputes of our country, the ideas of civil authority displayed in the works of Locke recurred in every form. The character of a great author can never be considered as subordinate in society ; nor do politi- cians secretly think so at the moment they are proclaiming it to the world, for, on the contrary, they consider the worst actions of men as of far less consequence than the propagation of their opinions. Politicians have exposed their disguised terrors. Books, as well as their authors, have been tried and condemned. Cromwell was alarmed when he saw the "Oceana" of Hakrinoton, and dreaded the effects of that volume more than the plots of the Hoyalists ; while Charles II. trembled at an author only in his manuscript state, and in the height of terror, and to the honour of genius, it was de- creed, that " Seribere est agere." — " The book of Tele- machus," says jNIadame de Stael, " was a courageous action." To insist with such ardour on the duties of a sovereign, and to paint witli such truth a voluptuous reign, disgraced Fenelon at the court of Louis XIV., but the virtuous author raised a statue for himself in all hearts. jNIassillon's Petit Careme was another of these animated recals of man to the sympathies of his nature, which proves the inlluence of an author ; for, during the contests of Louis XV. with the Par- liaments, large editions of this book were repeatedly printed and circulated through the kingdom. In such moments it is that a people iind and know the value of a great author, whose work is the mighty organ which convevs their voice to their governors. 270 Literunj Character. But, if tlic influonco of iK'nevolcnt authors over society is great, it must not be forgotten tliat the ahuse of this influence is terrific. Autliors ])resi(lc at a tril)unal in Europe vvliich is independent of all the powers of the earth — the tribunal of Opinion ! But since, as Sophocles has long declared, " Opinion is stronger than Truth," it is unquestionable that the falsest and the most de])raved notions are, as long as these opinions maintain their force, accepted as immutable truths ; and the mistakes of one man become the crimes of a whole people. Authors stand between the governors and the governed, and form the single organ of both. Those who govern a nation cannot at the same time enlighten the people, for the execu- ,tive power is not empirical : and the governed cannot think, for they have no continuit}' of leisure. The great systems of thought, and the great discoveries in moral and political philosophy, have come from the solitude of contemplative men, seldom occupied in public affairs or in private employments. The commercial world owes to two retired philosophers, Locke and Smith, those principles which dignify trade into a liberal pursuit, and connect it with the happiness and the glory of a people. A work in France, under the title of " L'Ami des Hommes," by the Manjuis of Mirabeau, first spread there a general passion for agricultural pursuits ; and although the national ardour carried all to excess in the reveries of the " Economistes," yet marshes were drained and waste lands inclosed. The " Emilius" of Kol'sseau, whatever may be its errors and extravagances, operated a comj^lete revolution in modern Europe, by communicating a bolder spirit to edu- cation, and iiiiproving the physical force and character of man. An Italian marquis, whose birth and habits seemed little f\\vourable to study, operated a moral revolution in the administration of the laws. Beccakia dared to plead in favour of humanity against the prejudices of many centuries in his small volume on " Crimes and Punishments," and at length abolished torture ; while the French advocates drew their principles from that book, rather than from their national code, and our Blackstone cpioted it with admira- tion! Locke and Voltaire, having written on "Tolera- tion," have long made us tolerant. In all such cases the authors were themselves entirely unconnected with their subjects, excei)t as speculative writers. Such are the authors who become universal in public Influence of Authors. 271 opinion ; and it then happens that the work itself meets with the singular fate which that great genius Smeatox said happened to his stupendous "Pharos:" "The novelty having yearly worn off, and the greatest real praise of the edifice being that nothing has happened to it — nothing has occurred to keep the talk of it alive." The fundamental principles of such works, after having long entered into our earliest instruction, become unquestionable as self-evident propositions ; yet no one, perhaps, at this day can rightly conceive the great merits of Locke's Treatises on " Educa- tion," and on "Toleration;" or the philosophical spirit of Montesquieu, and works of this high order, which first dif- fused a tone of thinking over Eurojje. The principles have become so incorporated with our judgment, and so interwoven with our feelings, that we can hardly now imagine the fer- vour they excited at the time, or the magnanimity of their authors in the decision of their opinions. Every first great monument of genius raises a new standard to our knowledge, from which the human mind takes its impulse and measures its advancement. The march of human thought through ages might be indicated by every great work as it is pro- gressively succeeded by others. It stands like the golden milliary column in the midst of liome, from whicli all others reckoned their distances. But a scene of less grandeur, yet more beautiful, is the view of the solitary author himself in his own study — so deeply occupied, that whatever passes before him never reaches his observation, while, working more than twelve hours every day, he still murmurs as the hour strikes ; the volume still lies open, the page still importunes — " And whence all this business?" He has made a discovery for us ! that never has there been anything important in the active world but what is rellected in the literary — books con- tain everything, even the falsehoods and the crimes which have been only projected by men ! This solitary man of genius is arranging the materials of instruction and curiosity from every country and every age ; he is striking out, in the concussion of new light, a new order of ideas for his own times; he possesses secrets which men hide from their eon- temporaries, truths they dared not utter, l;u-ts they dared not discover. View him in the stillness of meditation, his eager spirit busied over a copious page, and his eye sparkling with gladness ! He has concluded what his countrymen will here- 272 Literary Character. after chcrisih as tlic legacy of genius — you see him now changed ; and tlie restlessness of his soul is thrown into his very gestures — could you listen to the vaticinator! But the next age only will (juote his predictions. If he be the truly great author, he will he best comprehended by posterity, lor the result of ten years of solitary meditation lias often required a whole century to be understood and to be adopted. The ideas of Bishop Beukeley, in his " Theoiy of Vision," were condemned as a philosophical romance, and now form an* essential part of every treatise of optics ; and " The History of Oracles," by Fontenelle, says La Harpe, which, in his youth, was censured for its impiet\% the centenarian lived to see regarded as a proof of his respect for religion. " But what influence can this solitary man, this author of genius, have on his nation, when he has none in the very street in which he lives ? and it may be suspected as little in his own house, whose inmates are hourly practising on the infantine simplicity which marks his character, and that fre- quent abstraction from what is passing under his own eyes ?" This solitary man of genius is stamping his own character on the minds of his own people. Take one instance, from others far more splendid, in the contrast presented by Frank- lin and Sir William Jones. The parsimonious habits, the money-getting precepts, the war}-- cunning, the little scruple about means, the fixed intent upon the end, of Dr. Frank- lin, imprinted themselves on his Americans. Loftier feelings could not elevate a man of genius who became the founder of a trading people, and who retained the early habits of a jour- neyman ; while the elegant tastes of Sir "William Jones could inspire the servants of a commercial corporation to open new and vast sources of knowledge. A mere company of merchants, influenced by the literary chai'acter, enlarges the stores of the imagination and provides fresh materials for the history of human nature. Franklin, with that calm good sense which is freed from the passion of imagination, has himself declared this impor- tant truth relating to the literary character : — '• I have always thought that one man of tolerable abilities may work great changes and accomplish great atTairs among mankind, if he first forms a good plan ; and cutting off all amusements, or other employments that would divert his attention, makes the execution of that same plan his sole study and business." Fontenelle was of the same opinion, for he remarks that " a Influence of Authors. 273 single great man is sufficient to accomplish a change in the taste of his age." The life of Geanville Suaup is a striking illustration of the solitar}^ force of individual character. It cannot be doubted that the great author, in the solitude of his study, has often created an epoch in the annals of man- kind. A single man of genius arose in a barbarous period in Italy, who gave birth not only to Italian, but to European literature. Poet, orator, })hilosopher, geograj)her, historian, and antiquary, Petuakch kindled a line of light through his native land, while a crowd of followers hailed their lather- genius, who had stamped his character on the age. Des- CAKTEs, it has been observed, accomplished a change in the taste of his age by the perspicacity and method for which he was indebted to his mathematical researches ; and " models of metaphysical analysis and logical discussions" in the works of Hume and Smith have had the same influence in the writings of our own time. Even genius not of the same colossal size may aspire to add to the progressive mass of human improvement by its own single effort. When an author writes on a national subject, he awakens all the knowledge which slumbers in a nation, and calls around him, as it were, every man of talent ; and though his own fame may be eclipsed by his successors, yet the emanation, the morning light, broke from his soli- tary study. Our naturalist, Kay, though no man was more modest in his claims, delighted to tell a friend that " Since the ])ublication of his catalogue of Cambridge plants, many were prompted to botanical studies, and to herbalise in their walks in the lields." Johnson has observed that '' An emu- lation of study was raised by Cueke and Smith, to which even the present age jjcrhaps owes many advantages, without remembering or knowing its benefactors. Rollin is only a compiler of history, and to the anticjuary he is nothing ! But races yet unborn will be enchanted by that excellent man, in whose works " the heart sjjcaks to the heart," and wliom Montesquieu called " The Bee of France." The BaC'OXS, the Newtons, and the Leiunitzes were insulated by their own creative powers, and stood apart from the world, till the dispersers of knowledge became their interpreters to the people, opening a communication between two spots, which, though close to each other, were long separated — the closet and the world ! The Addisons, the Fontenelles, and the Feyjoos, the lirst popular authors in their nations X 271< Litvrnry Character. who taught England, Franco, and Spain to become a reading ]jeople, while their fugitive page imbues with intellectual sweetness every uncultivated mind, like the perfumed mould taken up by the Persian swimmer. " It was but a jiiece of common earth, but so delicate was its fragrance, that he who found it, in astonishment asked whether it were musk or amber. ' I am nothing but earth ; but roses were planted in my soil, and their odorous virtues have deliciously pene- trated through all my pores : I have retained the infusion of sweetness, otherwise 1 had been but a lump of earth!'" I have said that authors produce their usefulness in privacy, and that their good is not of immediate application, and often unvalued by their own generation. On this occasion the name of Eyelyx always occurs to me. This author supplied the public with nearly thirty works, at a time when taste and curiosity were not yet domiciliated in our country ; his patriotism warmed beyond the eightieth year of his age, and in his dying hand he held another legacy for his nation. Evelyn conveys a pleasing idea of his own works and their design. He Hrst taught his country^men how to plant, then to build : and having taught them to be useful without doors, he then attempted to divert and occupy them n-ithin doors, by his treatises on chalcography, painting, medals, Hbraries. It was during the days of destruction and devastation both of woods and buildings, the civil wars of Charles the First, that a solitary author was projecting to make the nation de- light in repairing their evil, by inspiring them with the love of agriculture and architecture. Whether his enthusiasm was introducing to us a taste for medals and prints, or intent on purifying the cit}'' from smoke and nuisances, and sweeten- ing it by plantations of native plants, after having enriched our orchards and our gardens, placed summer-ices on our tables, and varied even the salads of our country ; furnishing " a Gardener's Kalendar," which, as Cowley said, was to last as long "as months and years;" whether the philoso- pher of the Royal Society, or the lighter satirist of the toilet, or the fine moralist for active as well as contemplative life — in all these changes of a studious life, the better part of his history has not yet been told. While Britain retains her awful situation among the nations of Europe, the "Sylva" of EvELYy will endure with her triumphant oaks. In the third edition of that work the heart of the patriot expands at its result ; he tells Charles II. " how many Influence of Authors. 07:" millions of timber trees, besides infinite others, have been propagated and planted at the Instirjation and hy the sole direction of this ivorky It was an author in his studious retreat who, casting a prophetic eye on the age we live in, secured the late victories of our naval sovereignty. Inquire at the Admiralty how the fleets of Nelson have been con- structed, and they can tell you that it was with the oaks which the genius of Ev'Ely:s planted.* The same character existed in France, where De Serres, in 1599, composed a work on the cultivation of mulberry- trees, in reference to the art of raising silkworms. He taught his fellow-citizens to convert a leaf into silk, and silk to become the representative of gold. Our author encoun- tered the hostility of the prejudices of his times, even from Sully, in giving his country one of her staple commodities ; but I lately received a medal recently struck in honour of De Serres by the Agricultural Society of the Department of the Seine. We slowly commemorate the intellectual characters of our own countr}-; and our men of genius are still defrauded of the debt we are daily incurring of their posthumous fame. Let monuments be raised and let medals be struck ! They are sparks of glory which might be scattered through the next age ! There is a singleness and unity in the i)ui'suits of genius which is carried on through all ages, and will for ever connect the nations of the earth. The im.aiortality of Thought EXISTS FOR Man! The veracity of 1Ieroj)Otus, after more than two thousand years, is now receiving a fresh confirmation. The single and precious idea of genius, however obscure, is eventually disclosed ; for original discoveries have often been the developments of former knowledge. The system of the circulation of the blood appears to have been obscurely con- jectured by Servetus, who wanted experimental facts to support his h^'pothesis : Vesalius had an imperfect percep- tion of the right motion of the blood : C.esalpinis admits a circulation without comjjrehending its consequences ; at length our Harvev, by patient meditation and penetrating sagacity, removed the errors of his predecessors, and demon- strated the true system. Thus, too, Hartley expanded the * Since this was first printed, the "Diary" of Evklyn has appeared ; :uul although it coiihl not add to his {,'eneral diaractor, yet I was not too sanguine in my antic'ii)ations of the diary of so jierfect a literary character, who has shown how his studies were intermingled with the husiness of life. t2 27G Literary Character. hint of " tlic association of ideas" from Locke, and raised a system on what Lf>CKi; had only used for an accidental illus- tration. The beautiful theory of vision byUKUKELEV.was taken taken up by him just where Locke had dropped it: and as Pro- fessor Duj^ald Stewart describes, b\' fullowini^ out his principles to their remoter consequences, Behkelky brought out a doc- trine which was as true as it seemed novel. Lvdoate's " Fall of Princes," says Mr. Campbell, " probably suggested to Lord Sackville the idea of his "Mirror for Magistrates." The " Mirror for Magistrates " again gave hints to Spensee in allegory, and may also " have i)Ossibly suggested to Shak- 8PEARE the idea of his historical plays." When indeed we find that that great original, Hogarth, adopted the idea of his " Idle and Industrious Apprentice," from the old comedy of Eastward Hoe, we easily conceive that some of the most original inventions of genius, whether the more profound or the more agreeable, may thus be tracked in the snow of time. In the history of genius therefore there is no chronology, for to its votaries everything it has done is present — the earliest attempt stands connected with the most recent. This continuity of ideas characterizes the human mind, and seems to yield an anticipation of its immortal nature. There is a consanguinity in the characters of men of genius, and a genealogy may be traced among their races. Men of genius in their different classes, living at distinct periods, or in remote countries, seem to reappear under another name ; and in this manner there exists in the lite- rary character an eternal transmigration. In the great march of the human intellect the same individual spirit seems still occupying the same place, and is still carrying on, with the same powers, his great work through a line of centuries. It was on this principle that one great poet has recently hailed his brother as " the Ariosto of the North," and Ariosto as " the Scott of the South." And can we deny the real existence of the genealogy of genius ? Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, and Newton ! this is a single line of descent ! Aristotle, Hobbes, and Locke, Descartes, and Newton, apjiroximate more than we imagine. The same chain of intellect which Aristotle holds, through the intervals of time, is held by them ; and links will only be added by their successors. The naturalists Plixi", Gesker, Aldrovandfs, and Buffon, derive differences in their characters from the spirit of the times ; but each only made Consanguimtij of Genius. 277 ail accession to the family estate, while he was the legitimate representative of the family of the naturalists. Aristo- phanes, MoLiERE, and Foote, are brothers of the family of national wits ; the wit of Aristophanes was a part of the com- mon property, and Moliere and Foote were Aristophanie. PLrxARCii, La Mothe le Vater, and Batle, alike busied in amassing the materials of human thought and human action, with the same vigorous and vagrant curiosity, must have had the same habits of life. If Plutarch were credu- lous. La Mothe Le Vayer sceptical, and Bayle philosophical, all that can be said is, that though the heirs of the family may dilfer in their dispo.sitioiis, no one will arraign the in- tegrity of the lineal descent. Yarre did for the Romans what Pausanias had done for the Greeks, and MoJfTFAUCON for the French, and Camden for ourselves. ^ly learned and reflecting friend, whose original researches have enriched our national history, has this observation on the character of Wickliffe : — " To complete our idea of the importance of Wickliffe, it is only necessary to add, that as his writings made John Huss the refonner of Bohemia, so the writings of John Huss led Martin Luther to be the reformer of Germany ; so extensive and so incalculable are the conse- quences which sometimes follow from human actions."* Oui- liistorian has accompanied this by giving the very feelings of Luther in early life on his first perusal of the works of John lluss ; we see the spark of creation caught at the moment : a striking influence of the generation of character ! Thus a father-spirit has many sons ; and several of the great revolu- tions in the history of man have been carried on by that secret creation of minds visibly operating on human aflairs. In the history of the human mind, he takes an imperfect view, who is confined to contemporary knowledge, as well as he who stops short with the Ancients. Those who do not carry re- searches through the genealogical lines of genius, mutilate their minds. Such, then, is the influence of Authors ! — those " great lights of the world," by whom the torch of genius has been successively seized and perpetually transferred from hand to hand, in the fleeting scene. Descartes delivers it to New- ton, Bacon to Locke ; and the continuity of human aflairs, through the rapid generations of man, is maintained Iroin age to age ! * Turner's "History of Englaml,'' vul. ii. p. 432. LITERARY MISCELLANIES. LITERARY MISCELLANIES. MISCELLANISTS. MisCELLANiSTS are the most popular writers among every people ; for it is the}' who form a communication between the learned and the unlearned, and, as it were, throw a bridge between those two great divisions of the public. Literary Miscellanies are classed among philological studies. The studies of philology formerly consisted rather of the labours of arid grammarians and conjectural critics, than of that more elegant philosophy which has, within our own time, been in- troduced into literature, and which, by its graces and investi- gation, augment the beauties of original genius. This de- lightful province has been termed in Germany the Esthetic, from a Greek term signifying sentiment or feeling. ^Esthetic critics fathom the depths, or run with the current of an author's thoughts, and the sympathies of such a critic offer a supplement to the genius of tlie original writer. Longinus and Addison are ^Esthetic critics. The critics of the adverse school always look for a precedent, and if none is found, woe to the originality of a great writer ! Very elaborate criticisms have been formed by eminent writers, in which great learning and acute logic have oidy betrayed the absence of the vEsthetic faculty. Warburton called Addison an empty sui)crricial writer, destitute himself of an atom of Addison's taste for the beautiful ; and Johnson is a flagrant instance that great powers of reasoning are more fatal to the works of imagination than had ever been suspected. By one of these learned critics was Montaigne, the venerable father of modern ]Miscellanies, called " a bold ignorant fellow." To thinking readers, this critical summary will ajjpear myste- rious ; for Montaigne had imbibed the s[)irit of all the moral writers of antiquity ; and although he has made a capricious complaint of a defective memory, we cannot but wish the complaint had been more real ; for we discover in his works 282 Literary Miscellanies. Hueli a gailicriiig of kno\vlc(lt,'e that it seemp at times to stifle his own energies. Montaigne was censured by Scahger, as Addison was censured by Warburton ; because both, like Socrates, smiled at tliat mere erudition which consists of knowing the thoughts of others and having no thoughts of our own. To weigh sylhibles, and to arrange dates, to adjust texts, and to lieap annotations, has generally proved the absence of the higher faculties. When a more adventurous spirit of this herd attempts some novel discovery, often men of taste behold, with indignation, the perversions of their un- derstanding ; and a lientley in bis Milton, or a Warburton on a Virgil, had either a singular imbecility concealed under the arrogance of the scholar, or they did not believe what they told the public ; the one in his extraordinary invention of an interpolating editor, and the other in his more extraordinary explanation of the Eleusinian mysteries. But what was still worse, the froth of the bead became venom, when it reached the heart. Montaigne has also been censured for an apparent vanity, in making himself the idol of bis lucubrations. If he had not done this, be bad not performed the promise he makes at the commencement of his preface. An engaging tenderness pre- vails in these naive expressions which shall not be injured by a version. " Je I'ay voue a la commodite particuliere de mes parens et amis ; a ce que m'ayans perdu (ce qu'ils ont a faire bientost) ils y puissent rctrouver quelques traicts de mes humeurs, et que par ce moyen ils nourrissent plus entiere et plus vifue la conoissance qu'ils ont eu de moi." Those authors who appear sometimes to forget they are writers, and remember they are men, will be our favourites. He who writes from the heart, will write to the heart ; every one is enabled to decide on his merits, and they will not be referred to learned heads, or a distant day. " Why," says Boileau, " are my verses read b}' all ? it is only because they speak truths, and that I am convinced of the truths I write." W^hy have some of our fine writers interested more than others, who have not displayed inferior talents ? Why is Addison still the first of our essayists ? he has sometimes been excelled in criticisms more philosophical, in topics more interesting, and in diction more coloured. But there is a personal charm in the character he has assumed in his periodi- cal jMiscellanies, which is felt with such a gentle force, that we scai'ce advert to it. He has painted forth his little MisceUanists. 283 humours, his individual feelings, and eternised himself to his readers. Johnson and Hawkesworth we receive with respect, and we dismiss with awe ; we come from theii* writings a? from public lectures, and from Addison's as from private con- versations. Montaigne preferred those of the ancients, who appear to write under a conviction of what they said ; the eloquent Cicero declaims but coldly on liberty, while in the impetuous Brutus may be perceived a man who is resolved to purchase it with his life. We know little of Plutarch ; yet a spirit of honesty and persuasion in his works expresses a phi- losophical character capable of imitating, as well as admiring, the virtues he records. Sterne perhaps derives a portion of his celebrity from tlie same influence ; he interests us in his minutest motions, for he tells us all he feels. Kichardson was sensible of the power with which these minute strokes of description enter the heart, and which are so many fastenings to which the imagi- nation clings. He says, " If I give si)eeches and conversa- tions, I ought to give them justly ; for the humours and cha- racters of persons cannot be known, unless I repeat ivliat they say, and their manner of saying." 1 confess I am infinitely pleased when Sir William Temj)le acquaints us with the size of his orange-trees, and with the flavour of his peaches and grapes, confessed by Frenchmen to equal those of France ; with his having had the honour to naturalise in this country lour kinds of grapes, with his liberal distribution of them, be- cause " he ever thought all things of this kind the commoner they arc the better." In a word, witli his passionate attach- ment to his garden, where he desired his lieart to be buried, of his desire to escape from great employments, and having passed five years without going to town, where, by the way, " he had a large house always ready to receive him." Drydeu has interspersed many of these little particulars in his prosaic compositions, and I think that his character and dispositions may be more correctly acquired by uniting these scattered notices, than by any biographical account which can now be given of this man of genius. From this agreeable mode of writing, a species of composi- tions may be discriminated, which seems above all others to identify the reader with the writer ; compositions which are often discovered in a fugitive state, but to which their authors were prompted by the line impulses of genius, derived from the peculiarity of their situation. Dictated by the heart, or 281' Literary Miscellanies. l)olislicd with the fondness of deliglit, these productions arc impressed hy the seductive eloquence of genius, or attach us by tlie sensibility of taste. The object thus selected is no task imposed on the mind of the writer for the mere ambition of literature, but is a voluntary effusion, warm with all the sensations of a jjathetic writer. In a word, they are the com- positions of genius, on a subject in which it is most deeply interested ; which it revolves on all its sides, which it paints in all its tints, and which it finishes with the same ardour it began. Among such works may be placed the exiled Ijoling- broke's " Reflections upon Exile ;" the retired Petrarch and Zimmerman's Essays on "Solitude;" the imprisoned Boethius's " Consolations of Philosophy ;" the oppressed Pierius Valeria- nus's Catalogue of "Literary Calamities;" the deformed Hay's Essay on " Deformity ;" the projecting De Foe's " Essays on Projects ;" the liberal Shenstone's Poem on " Economy." We may respect the profound genius of voluminous writers ; they are a kind of painters who occupy great room, and fill up, as a satirist expresses it, "an acre of canvas." But we love to dwell on those more delicate pieces, — a group of Cupids ; a Venus emerging from the waves ; a Psyche or an Aglaia, which embellisli the cabinet of the man of taste. It should, indeed, be the characteristic of good Miscellanies, to be multifarious and concise. Usbek, the Persian of Mon- tesquieu, is one of the profoundest philosophers, his letters are, however, but concise pages. Rochefoucault and La Bruyere are not superficial observers of human natiure, although they have only written sentences. Of Tacitus it has been finely remarked by IMoiitesquieu. that " he abridged everything because he saw everything." Montaigne approves of Plutarch and Seneca, because their loose papers were suited to his dispositions, and where knowledge is acquired without a tedious study. " It is," said he, " no great attempt to take one in hand, and I give over at pleasm-e, for they have no sequel or connexion." La Fontaine agreeably applauds short compositions : Les longs ouvrages me font peur ; Loin d'epuiser une matiere, On n'en doit premlre que la flenr ; and Old Francis Osborne has a coarse and ludicrous image in favour of such opuscula ; he says, " Huge volumes, like the ox roasted whole at Bartholomew fair, may proclaim plenty Miscellanists. 285 of labour and invention, but afford less of what is delicate, savoury, and well concocted, i\vdn smaller pieces ^ To quote so light a genius as the enchanting La Fontaine, and so solid a mind as the sensible Osborne, is taking in all the clinaates of the human mind ; it is touching at the equator, and push- ing on to the pole. Montaigne's works have been called by a cardinal " The Breviary of Idlers." It is therefore the book of man ; for all men are idlers ; we have hours which we pass with lamentation, and which we know are always returning. At those moments miscellanists are conformable to all our humours. We dart along their airy and concise page ; and their lively anecdote or their profound observation are so many interstitial pleasui'es in our listless hours. The ancients were great admirers of miscellanies ; Aulus Gellius has preserved a copious list of titles of such works. These titles are so numerous, and include such gay and pleasing descriptions, that we may infer by their number that they were greatly admired by the public, and by theii" titles that they prove the great delight their authors expe- rienced in their composition. Among the titles are "a basket of flowers;" "an embroidered mantle;" and "a variegated meadow." Such a miscellanist as was the admirable Erasmus deserves the happy description which Plutarch with an elegant enthusiasm bestows on Menander : he calls him the delight of philosophers fatigued with study ; that they have recourse to his works as to a meadow enamelled with llower.s, where the sense is delighted by a purer air ; and very el(;gantly adds, that Menander has a salt peculiar to himself, drawn from the same waters that gave birth to Venus. The Troubadours, Conteurs, and Jongleurs, practised what is yet called in the southern parts of France, Le (jmxy Saber, or the gay science. I consider these as the Miscellanists of their day ; they had their grave moralities, their tragical his- tories, and their sportive tales ; tlieir verse and their prose. The village was in motion at their approach ; the castle was opened to the ayibulatory poets, and the feudal hypochon- driac listened to their solemn instruction and their airy fancy. I would call miscellaneous composition Le ouay Sahkr, and 1 would have every misceUancous writer as solemn and as gay, as various and as pleasing, as these lively artists of versatility. Nature herself is most deliiihtful in her miscellaneous 286 Literary Miscellanies. scenes. Wlicn I hoUl a volume of miscellanies, and run over with avidit}' tlie titles of its contents, my mind is enchanted, as if it were jilaced amon^ the landscapes of Yalais, which Rousseau has described with such picturcstjue beauty. I fancy myself seated in a cottage amid those mountains, those valleys, those rocks, encircled by the enchantments of optical illusion. I look, and behold at once the united seasons — " All climates in one place, all seasons in one instant." I gaze at once on a hundred rainbows, and trace the romantic figures of the shifting clouds. I seem to be in a temple dedicated to the service of the Goddess Variety. PREFACES. I DECLARE myself infinitely delighted by a preface. Is it exquisitely written ? no literary morsel is more delicious. Is the author inveterately dull ? it is a kind of preparatory in- formation, which may be very useful. It argues a deficiency in taste to turn over an elaborate preface unread ; for it is the attar of the author's roses; ever}- drop distilled at an im- mense cost. It is the reason of the reasoning, and the folly of the foolish. I do not wish, however, to conceal that several writers, as well as readers, have spoken very disrespectfull}' of this species of literature. That fine writer Moutescpaieu, in clos- ing the preface to his " Persian Letters," says, " I do not praise my ' Persians ;' because it would be a very tedious thing, put in a place already \'ery tedious of itself ; I mean a preface." Spence, in the preface to his " Polymetis," in- forms us, that " there is not any sort of writing which he sits down to with so much unwillingness as that of pre- faces ; and as he believes most people are not much fonder of reading them than he is of writing them, he shall get over this as fast as he can." Pelisson warmly protested against prefatory composition ; but when he published the works of SaiTasin, was w-ise enough to compose a ven,- pleasing one. He, indeed, endeavoured to justify- himself for acting against his own opinions, by this ingenious excuse, that, like funeral honours, it is proper to show the utmost regard for them when given to others, but to be inattentive to them for our- selves. Notwithstanding all this evidence, I have some £:ood rca- Prefaces. 287 sons fov admiring prefaces ; and barren as the investigation may appear, some literary amusement can be gathered. In the first place, I observe that a prefacer is generally a most accomplished liar. Is an author to be introduced to the public ? the preface is as genuine a panegyric, and nearly as long a one, as that of Pliny's on the Emperor Trajan. Such a preface is ringing an alarum bell for an author. If we look closer into the characters of these masters of ceremony, who thus sport with and defy the judgment of their reader, and who, by their extravagant i)anegyric, do considerable injur}- to the cause of taste, we discover that some accidental occur- rence has occasioned this vehement affection for the author, and which, like that of another kind of love, makes one commit so many extravagances. Prefaces are indeed rarely sincere. It is justly observed by Shenstone, in his prefatory Essay to the " Elegies," that " discourses prefixed to poetry inculcate such tenets as may exhibit the performance to the greatest advantage. The fabric is first raised, and the measures by which we are to judge of it are afterwards adjusted." This observation miglit be exemplified by more instances than some readers might choose to read. It will be suflficient to observe with what art both Pope and Fontenelle have drawn up their Essays on the nature of Pastoral Poetry, that the rules they wished to establish might be adapted to their own pastorals. Has accident made some ingenious student .apply himself to a subordinate branch of literature, or to some science which is not liighly esteemed — look in the prelace lor its sublime panegyric. Collectors of coins, dresses, and butterfiies, have jistonishcd the world with eulogiums which would raise their particular studies into the first ranks of philosoph}'. It would appear that there is no lie to which a prefacer is not tem[)ted. I pass over the commodious prelaces of Dryden, which were ever adapted to the poem and not to poetry, to the author and not to literature. The boldest preface-liar was Aldus Manutius, who, having printed an edition of Aristophanes, first published in tiie preface that Saint Chrysostoni was accustomed to place this comic poet imder his pillow, that he might always have his works at hand. As, in that age, a saint was sujiposed to possess every human talent, good taste not excepted, Aristo- phanes thus reconunendcd became a general favourite. The anecdote lasted for nearly two centuries ; and what was of 288 Literary Miscellanies. greater consequence to Aldus, (juickencd the sale of his Aris- tophanes. This inj^enious invention of the prefacer of Aris- tophanes at length was detected by Menage. The insincerity of prefaces arises whenever an author would disguise his solicitude for his work, by appearing neg- ligent, and even undcsirous of its success. A writer will rarely conclude such a preface without betraying himself. I think that even Dr. Johnson forgot his sound dialectic in the admirable Preface to his Dictionary. In one part he says, " having laboured this work with so much application, I cannot but have some degree of parental fondness." But in his conclusion he tells us, " I dismiss it with frigid tranquil- lity, having little to fear or hope from censure or from praise." I deny the doctor's "frigidity." This polished period exhibits an aflFected stoicism, which no writer ever felt for the anxious labour of a great portion of life, addressed not merely to a class of readers, but to literary Europe. But if prefaces are rarely sincere or just, they are, not- withstanding, literary opuscula in which the author is mate- rially concerned. A work with a poor preface, like a person who comes with an indifferent recommendation, must display uncommon merit to master our prejudices, and to please lis, as it were, in spite of ourselves. Works ornamented by a finished preface, such as Johnson not infrequently presented to his friends or his booksellers, inspire us with awe ; we ob- serve a veteran guard placed in the porch, and we are induced to conclude from this appearance that some person of emi- nence resides in the place itself. The public are treated with contempt when an author professes to publish his puerilities. This Warburton did, in his pompous edition of Shakspeare, In the preface he in- formed the public, that his notes " were among his younger amusements, when he turned over these sort of tcrifers.'^ This ungracious compliment to Shakspeare and the public, merited that perfect scourging which our haughty commen- tator received from the sarcastic " Canons of Criticism."* Seudery was a writer of some genius, and great variety. His prefaces are remarkable for their gasconades. In his epic poem of Alaric, he says, " I have such a facility in writing verses, and also in my invention, that a poem of double its * See the essay ou Warburtou and Lis disputes iu ' ' Quarrels of Authors." — Ed. Prefaces. 289 length would have cost me little trouble. Although it con- tains only eleven thousand lines, I believe that longer epics do not exhibit more embellishments than mine." And to conclude with one more student of this class, Amelot de la Houssaie, in the preface to his translation of " The Prince" of Machiavel, instructs us, that " he considers his copy as supe- rior to the original, because it is everywhere intelligible, and Machiavel is iVequently obscure." I have seen in the play- bills of strollers, a very pompous description of the trium- phant entry of Alexander into Babylon ; had they said nothing about the triumph, it might have ])assed without ex- citing ridicule ; and one might not so maliciously have per- ceived how ill the four candle-snuffers crawled as elephants, and the triumphal car discovered its want of a lid. But having pre-excited attention, we had full leisure to sharpen our eye. To these imprudent authors and actors we may apply a Spanish proverb, which has the peculiar quaintness of that people, Aviendo pregonado vino, venden vinagre : " Having cried up their wine, they sell us vinegar." A ridiculous humility in a preface is not less despicable. Many idle apologies were formerly in vogue for publication, and formed a literary cant, of which now the meanest writers perceive the futility. A literary anecdote of the Romans lias been preserved, which is sufliciently curious. One Albinus, in the ^ireface to his Roman Histor}^ intercedes for pardon for his numerous blunders of pliraseology ; ob- serving that they were the more excusable, as he had com- posed his history in the Greek language, with which he was not so famihar as his maternal tongue. Cato severely rallies him on this ; and justly observes, that our Albinus had merited the pardon he solicits, if a decree of the senate h.id compelh'fl hiiu thus to have composed it, and he could not have obtained a dispensation. The avowal of our ignorance of the language we employ is like that excuse which some writers make for composing on topics in which they are little conversant. A reader's heart is not so easily mollified ; and it is a melancholy truth for literary men that the plea- sure of abusing an author is generally superior to that of admiring him. One appears to display more critical acumen than the other, by showing that though we do not ehoo.se to take the trouble of writing, we have infinitely more genius than tlie author. These suppliant prefaeers are described by Boileau. U 290 Literary Miscellanies. Un auteur ii penoux dans une humble preface Au lecteur qii'il ennuie a Ijcau demanJer grace; II ne gagnera rien sur ce juge irrite, Qui lui fait son proems de pleine autorit6. Low in a humble preface authors kneel; In vain, the wearied reader's heart is steel. Callous, that irritated judge with awe, Inflicts the penalties and arms the law. The most entertaining prefaces in our language are those of Dryden ; and though it is ill-naturedly said, by Swift, that they were merely formed To raise the volume's price a shilling, yet these were the eai'liest commencements of English cri- ticism, and the first attempt to restrain the capriciousness of readers, and to form a national taste. Dryden has had the candour to acquaint us with his secret of prefatory composi- tion ; for in that one to his Tales he says, " the nature of preface-writing is rambling; never wholly out of the way, nor in it. This I have learnt from the practice of honest Mon- taigne." There is no great risk in establishing this observa- tion as an axiom in literature ; for should a prefacer loiter, it is never difficult to get rid of lame persons, by escaping from them ; and the reader may make a preface as concise as he chooses. It is possible for an author to paint himself in amiable colours, in this useful page, without incurring the contempt of egotism. After a writer has rendered himself conspicuous by his industry or his genius, his admirers are not displeased to hear something relative to him froni himself. Hayley, in the preface to his poems, has conveyed an amiable feature in his personal character, by giving the cause of his devotion to literature as the only mode by which he could render himself of some utility to his country. There is a modesty in the prefaces of Pope, even when this great poet collected his im- mortal works ; and in several other writers of the most elevated genius, in a Hume and a Kobertson, which becomes their happy successors to imitate, and inferior writers to con- template with awe. There is in prefaces a due respect to be shown to the public and to ourselves. He that has no sense of self-dignit}', will not inspire any reverence in others ; and the ebriety of vanity will be sobered by the alacrity we all feel in disturbing the Sttjle. 291 dreams of self-love. If we dare not attempt the rambling prefaces of a Dryden, we may still entertain the reader, and soothe him into good-humour, for our own interest. This, perhaps, will be best obtained by making the preface (like the symphoii}' to an opera) to contain something analogous to the work itself, to attune the mind into a harmony of tone.* STYLE. Evert period of literature has its peculiar style, derived from some author of reputation ; and the history of a language, as an object of taste, might be traced through a collection of ample quotations from the most celebrated authors of each period. To Johnson may be attributed the establishment of our present refinement, and it is with truth he observes of his " Rambler," " That he had laboured to refine our language to grammatical purity, and to clear it from colloquial barbarisms, licentious idioms, and irregular combinations, and that he has added to the elegance of its construction and to the harmony of its cadence." In this description of his own refinement in style and grammatical accuracy, Johnson probably alluded to the hapi)y carelessness of Addison, whose charm of natural ease long afterwards he discovered. But great inelegance of diction disgraced our language even so late as in 173(3, when the "Inquiry into the Life of Homer" was published. That author was certainly desirous of all the graces of composition, and his volume by its singular sculptures evinces his inordi- nate affection for his work. This fanciful wi'iter had a taste for polished writing, yet he abounds in expressions which now would be considered as impure in literary composition. Such vulgarisms are common — the Greeks fell to their old trade of one tribe expelling another — the scene is always at Athens, and all the pother is some little jilting story — the liaughty lloman snii/fed at the suppleness. If such diction had not been usual with good writers at that period, I should not have quoted Blackwall. Middleton, in his " Life of Cicero," though a man of classical ta.ste, and an historian of a classical era, could not preserve himself from colloquial inelegances ; the greatest characters are levelled by the poverty of his style. * See "Curiosities of Literature," vol. i., for an article on Prefaces. u 2 292 Literary Miscellanies. Warburton, and liis imitator Hurd, and other living critics of that school, are loaded with familiar idiom?, which at present would debase even the style of conversation. Such was the influence of the elaborate novelty of Johnson, that every writer in every class servilely copied the Latinised style, ludicrously mimicking the contortions and re-echoing the sonorous nothings of our great lexicographer ; the novelist of domestic life, or the agriculturist in a treatise on turnips, alike aimed at the polysyllabic force, and the cadenced period. Such was the condition of English style for more than twenty years. Some argue in favour of a natural style, and reiterate the opinion of many great critics that proper ideas will be accom- panied by proper words ; but though supported by the first authorities, they are not perhaps sufficiently precise in their definition. Writers may think justly, and yet write without any effect ; while a splendid style may cover a vacuity of thought. Does not this evident fact prove that style and thinking have not that inseparable connexion which many great writers have pronounced ? Milton imagined that beau- tiful thoughts produce beautiful expression. He says, Then feed on thoughts that voluntary move Harmonious numbers. Writing is justly called an art ; and Rousseau says, it is not an art easil}' acquired. Thinking may be the foundation of stjde, but it is not the superstructure ; it is the marble of the edifice, but not its architecture. The art of presenting our thoughts to another, is often a process of considerable time and labour ; and the delicate task of correction, in the development of ideas, is reserved only for writers of fine taste. There are several modes of presenting an idea ; vulgar readers are only suscejjtible of the strong and palpable stroke : but there are many shades of sentiment, which to seize on and to paint is the ])ride and the labour of a skilful writer. A beau- tiful simplicity itself is a species of refinement, and no writer more solieitousl}' corrected his works than Hume, who excels in this mode of composition. The philosopher highly ap- proves of Addison's dctinition of fine writing, who says, that it consists of sentiments which ai-e natural, without being obvious. This is a definition of thought rather than of corn- position. Shonstone has hit the truth ; for fine writing he defines to be generally the effect of spontaneous thoughts and style. 293 a laboured style. Addison was not insensible to tliese charms, and he felt the seductive art of Cicero when he said, that " there is as much difference in apprehending a thought clothed in Cicero's language and that of a common author, as in seeing an object by the light of a taper, or by the light of the sun." Mannerists in style, however great their powers, rather excite the admiration than the affection of a man of taste ; because their habitual art dissipates that illusion of sincerity, which we love to believe is the impulse which places the pen in the hand of an author. Two eminent literary mannerists are Cicero and Johnson. "VVe know these great men consi- dered their eloquence as a deceptive art ; of any subject, it had been indifferent to them which side to adopt ; and in reading their elaborate works, our ear is more frequently gratified by the ambitious magnificence of their diction, than our heart penetrated by the pathetic enthusiasm of their senti- ments. Writers who are not mannerists, but who seize the appropriate tone of their subject, appeal* to feel a conviction of what they attempt to persuade their reader. It is observ- able, that it is impossible to imitate with uniform felicity the noble simplicity of a patlietic writer ; while the peculiari- ties of a mannerist are so far from being difficult, that they are displayed with nice exactness bv middling writers, who, although their own natural manner had nothing interesting, have attracted notice by such imitations. "VVe may apply to some monotonous mannerists these verses of Boileau : Voulez-Tous du public meriter les amours ? Sans cesse en ecrivant variez vos diseours. Ou lit peu ces auteurs ncs pour nous ennuier, Qui toujours sur un ton senibleut psahnodier. Would you the public's envied favours gain ? Ceaseless, in writing, variegate the strain ; The heavy author, who the fancy calms, Seems in one tone to chant his nasal psalms. Every style is excellent, if it be proi)er ; and that style is most proper which can best convey the intentions of the author to his reader. And, after all, it is style alone by which posterity will judge of a great work, for an autlior can have notliiiig truly his own but his style ; facts, scientific dis- coveries, and every kind of information, may be seized by all, but an autlior's diction cannot be taken from him. Hence very learned writers have been neglected, while their learning 294 Literary Miscellanies. lias not been lost to the world, by having been given by writers with more amenity. It is therefore the duty of an author to learn to write as well as to learn to think ; and this art can only be obtained by the haljitual study of his sensations, and an intimate acquaintance with the intellectual faculties. These are the true prompters of those felicitous expressions which give a tone congruous to the subject, and which invest our thoughts with all the illusion, the beauty, and motion of lively perception. GOLDSMITH AND JOHNSON. We should not censure artists and writers for their attach- ment to their favourite excellence. Who but an artist can value the ceaseless inquietudes of arduous perfection ; can trace the remote possibilities combined in a close union ; the happy arrangement and the novel variation ? He not only is affected by the performance like the man of taste, but is influenced by a peculiar sensation j for while he contem- plates the apparent beauties, he traces" in his own mind those invisible processes by which the final beauty was accom- plished. Hence arises that species of comparative criticism which one great author usually makes of his own manner with that of another great writer, and which so often causes him to be stigmatised with the most unreasonable vanity. The character of Goldsmitu, so underrated in his own day, exemplifies this principle in the literary character. That pleasing writer, without any perversion of intellect or infla- tion of vanity, might have contrasted his powers with those of JoiiNSOX, and might, according to his own ideas, have considered himself as not inferior to his more celebrated and learned rival. Goldsmith might have preferred the felicity of his own genius, which like a native stream flowed from a natural source, to the elaborate powers of Johnson, which in some respects may be compared to those artificial waters which throw their sparkling currents in the air, to fall into marble basins. He might have considered that he had embellished philosophy with poetical elegance ; and have preferred the paintings of his descriptions, to the terse versification and the pointed sentences of Johnson. He might have been more pleased with the faithful representations of English manners Self -Characters. 295 in his " Vicar of Wakefield," than with the horrowed grandeur and the exotic fancy of the Oriental Rasselas. He might have believed, what many excellent critics have believed, that in this age comedy requires more genius than tragedy; and with his audience he might have infinitely more esteemed his own original humour, tlian Johnson's rhetorical declamation. He might have thought, that with inferior literature he displayed superior genius, and with less profundity more gaiety. He might have considered that the facility and vivacity of his pleasing compositions were preferable to that art, that habitual pomp, and that ostentatious eloquence, which prevail in the operose labours of Johnson. No one might be more sensible than himself, that he, according to the happy expression of Johnson (when his rival was in his grave), " tetigit et ornavit." Goldsmith, therefore, without any singular vanity, might have concluded, from his own reasonings, that he was not an inferior writer to Johnson : all tbis not having been consi- dered, he has come down to posterity as the vainest and the most jealous of writers ; he whose dispositions were the most inoifensive, whose benevolence was the most extensive, and whose amiableness of heart has been concealed by its artless- ness, and ])assed over in tlic sarcasms and sneers of a more eloquent rival, and his submissive partisans. SELF-CUARACTERS. TnETiF, are two species of minor biography which may be dis- criminated ; detailing our own life and portraying our own character. Tlie writing our own life lias been practised with various success; it is a delicate operation, a stroke too much may destroy the effect of the whole. If once we detect an author deceiving or deceived, it is a livid spot which infects the entire body. To publish one's own life has sometimes been a ])oor artifice to bring obscurity into notice ; it is the ebriety of vanity, and the delirium of egotism. When a great man leaves some memorial of his days, the grave consecrates the motive. There are certain things which relate to our- selves, which no one can know so well ; a great genius obliges posterity when he records them. But they must bo com- ])Osed.with calmness, with simplicity, and with sincerity'; the biogniphie sketch of Hume, written by himself, is a model of Attic simplicity. The Life of Lord Herbert is a biogra. 29G Literary Miscellanies. phical curiosity. The Memoirs of Sir William Jones, of Priestley, and of Gibbon, oHlt us the daily life of the student ; and tliosc of Colley Cibber are a fine picture of the self-painter. AVe liave some other pieces of self-biography, precious to the philosopher.* The other species of minor biogra{)hy, that of portraying our own character, could only have been invented by the most refined and the vainest nation. The French long cherished this darling egotism ; and have a collection of these self- portraits in two bulky volumes. The brilliant Flechier, and the refined St. Evremond, have framed and glazed their portraits. Every writer then considered his character as necessary as his preface. The fashion seems to have passed over to our country ; Farquhar has drawn his character in a letter to a lady ; and others of our writers have given us their own miniatures. There was, as a book in my possession will testify, a certain verse-maker of the name of Cantenac, who, in 1662, pubUshed in the city of Paris a volume, containing some thousands of verses, which were, as his countrymen express it, de safagon, after his own way. He fell so suddenly into the darkest and deepest pit of oblivion, that not a trace of his memory would have remained, had he not condescended to give ample in- formation of every particular relative to himself. He has ac- quainted us with his size, and teUs us, " that it is rare to see a man smaller than himself. I have that in common with all dwarfs, that if my head only were seen, I should be thought a large man." This atom in creation then describes his oval and full face ; his fiery and eloquent eyes : his vermil lips ; his robust constitution, and his effervescent passions. He appears to have been a most petulant, honest, and diminutive being. The description of his intellect is the object of our curiosity. " I am as ambitious as any person can be ; but I would not sacrifice my honour to my ambition. I am so sensible to contempt, that I bear a mortal and implacable hatred against those who contemn me, and I know 1 could never reconcile myself with them ; but I spare no attentions for those I love ; I would give them my fortune and my life. I some- times lie; but generally in afiairs of gallantry, where I volun- * One of the most interesting is that of Gifford, appended to his trans- lation of Juvenal ; it is a most reiuarkalile record of the struggles of its author in early life, told with candour and simplicity. — Ed. Self-Characters. 297 tarily confirm falsehoods by oaths, without reflection, for swear- ing with me is a habit. I am told that my mind is brilliant, and that I have a certain manner in turning a thought which is quite my own. I am agreeable in conversation, though I confess I am often troublesome ; for I maintain paradoxes to display my genius, which savour too much of scholastic sub- terfuges. I speak too often and too long ; and as I have some reading, and a copious memory, I am fond of showing whatever I know. My judgment is not so solid as my wit is livel3\ I am often melancholy and unhappy ; and this som- brous disposition proceeds from my numerous disappoint- ments in life. jNIy verse is preferred to my prose ; and it has been of some use to me in pleasing the fair sex ; poetry is most adapted to persuade women ; but otherwise it has been of no service to me, and has, I fear, rendered me unfit for many advantageous occupations, in which I might have drudged. The esteem of the fair has, however, charmed away my complaints. This good fortune has been obtained by me, at the cost of many cares, and an unsubdued patience; for I am one of those who, in affairs of love, will suffer an entire year, to taste the pleasures of one day." This character of Cantenac has some local features ; for an English ])oet would hardly console himself with so much gaiety. The Frenchman's attachment to the ladies seems to be equivalent to the advantageous occupations he had lost. But as the miseries of a literary man, without conspicuous talents, are always the same at Paris as in London, there are some parts of this character of Cantenac which appear to describe tbem with truth. Cantenac was a man of honour; as warm in his resentment as his gratitude ; but deluded by literary vanity, he became a writer in prose and verse, and while he saw the prospects of life closing on him, probably considered that the age was unjust. A melancholy example for certain volatile and fervent spirits, who, by becoming authors, eitlier submit their felicity to the caprices of others, or annihilate the obscure comforts of life, and, like him, having " been told that their mind is brilliant, and that they have a certain manner in turning a thought," become writers, and coni])lain tliat they are "often melancholy, owing to tlieir numerous (lisap])ointmcnts." Happy, however, if the obscure, yet too sensible writer, can suffer an entire year, for the enjoy- ment of a single day ! But for this, a man must have been born in France. 298 ON READING. Wkitino is justly denomiiiatt'd an art ; T think that reading claims the same distinction. To adorn ideas with elegance is an act of the mind su])enor to that of receiving them ; but to receive them with a happy di.scrimination is the effect of a practised taste. Yet it will be found that taste alone is not sufficient to obtain the proper end of reading. Two persons of equal taste rise from the perusal of the same book with very different notions : the one will have the ideas of the authoi at com- mand, and find a new train of sentiment awakened ; while the other quits his author in a pleasing distraction, but of the pleasures of reading nothing remains but tumultuous sensations. To account for these different effects, we must have recourse to a logical distinction, which appears to reveal one of the great mysteries in the art of reading. Logicians distinguish between perceptions and ideas. Perception is that faculty of the mind which notices the simple impression of objects : but when these objects exist in the mind, and are there treasured and arranged as materials for reflection, then they are called ideas. A perception is like a transient sunbeam, which ju.st shows the object, but leaves neither light nor warmth ; while an idea is like the fervid beam of noon, which throws a settled and powerful light. Many ingeiiious readers complain that their memory is de- fective, and their studies unfruitful. This defect arises from their indulging the facile pleasures of perceptions, in preference to the laborious habit of forming them into ideas. Perceptions require only the sensibility of taste, and their pleasures are continuous, easy, and exquisite. Ideas are an art of com- bination, and an exertion of the reasoning powers. Ideas are therefore labours ; and for those who will not labour, it is un- just to comphiin. if they come from the harvest with scarcely a sheaf in their hands. There are secrets in the art of reading which tend to facilitate its j)urposes, by assisting the memory, and aug- menting intellectual opnlenc-hest. In the progress of an individual pursuit, what philosophers call the associating or suggesting idea is ever busied, and in its beautiful efiects genius is most deeply concerned ; for be- sides those trains of thought the great artist falls into during his actual composition, a distinct habit accompanies real genius through life in the activity of his associating idea, when not at his work ; it is at all times pressing and conducting his spontaneous thoughts, and every object which suggests tliem however apparently trivial or unconnected towards itself making what it wills its own, while instinctivel}' it seems in- attentive to whatever has no tendency to its own i)urposes. Many ))eculiar advantages attend the cultivation of one master passion or occupation. In superior minds it is a sovereign that exiles others, and in inferior minds it enfeebles pernicious propensities. It may render us useful to our fellow- citizens, and it imparts the most perfect independence to our- selves. It is observed by a great mathematician, that a geometrician would not be unhappy in a desert. 30 li Literary Miscellanies. Tliis unity of design, with a centripetal force, draws all the rays of our existence ; and often, when accident has turned the mind firmly to one object, it has been discovered that its oc- cupation is another name for ha})pine8s ; for it is a mean of escaping from incongruous sensations. It secures us from the dark vacuity of soul, as well as from the whirlwind of ideas ; reason itself is a passion, but a passion full of serenity. It is, however, observable of tliose who have devoted them- selves to an individual object, that its importance is incredibly enlarged to their sensations. Intense attention magniHes like a microscope ; but it is possible to apologise for their apparent extravagance from the consideration, that they really observe combinations not perceived by others of inferior application. That this ])assion has been carried to a curious violence of affection, literary history affords numerous instances. In reading Dr. Burney's " Musical Travels," it would seem that mxisic was the prime object of human life ; Richardson, the pamter, in his treatise on his beloved art, closes all by affirm- ing, that " Raphael is not only equal, but superior to a Virgil, or a Livji, or a Thucydides, or a Homer!'' and that painting can reform our manners, increase our opulence, honoiir, and power. Uenina, in his "Revolutions of Literature," tells us that to excel in historical composition requires more ability than is exercised by the excelling masters of any other art ; because it requires not only the same erudition, genius, imagi- nation, and taste, necessary for a poet, a painter, or a philoso- pher, but the historian must also have some peculiar quaUfi- cations; this served as a prelude to his own history.* Helvetius, an enthusiast in the fine arts and polite literature, has composed a poem on Happiness ; and imagines that it consists in an exclusive love of the cultivation of letters and the arts. All this shows that the more intensely we attach ourselves to an individual object, the more numerous and the more perfect are our sensations ; if we yield to the distracting variety of opposite pursuits with an equal passion, our soiJ is placed amid a continual shock of ideas, and happiness is lost by mistakes. * One of the most amusing modem instances occurs in the Preface to the late Peter Buchan s annotated edition of "Ancient Ballads and Songs of the North of Scotland" (2 vols. Svo, Edin. 1828), in which he declares — "no one lias yet conceived, nor has it entered the mind of man, what patience, perseverance, and general knowledge are necessary for an editor of a Collection of Ancient Ballads." — Ed. 30C ON NOVELTY IN LITERATURE. " All is said," exclaims the lively La Bruyere ; but at the same moment, by his own admirable Reflections, confutes the dreary system he would establish. An opinion of the ex- hausted state of literature has been a ])Opular prejudice of remote existence ; and an unhappy idea of a wise ancient, who, even in his day, lamented that "of books there is no end," has been transcribed in many books. lie who has critically examined any branch of literature has discovered how little of original invention is to be found even in the most excellent works. To add a little to his predecessors satisfies the ambi- tion of the first geniuses. The popular notion of literary novelty is an idea more fanciful tluin exact. Many are yet to learn that our admired originals are not such as they mis- take them to be ; that the plans of the most original perform- ances have been borrowed ; and that the thoughts of the most admired compositions are not wonderful discoveries, but only truths, which the ingenuity of the author, by arranging the intermediate and accessary ideas, has unfolded fi-om that eon- fused sentiment, which those experience who are not accus- tomed to think with depth, or to discriminate with accuracy. This Novelty in Literature is, as Pope defines it, Wliat oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd. Novelty, in its rigid acceptation, will not be found in any judicious production. Voltaire looked on everything as imitation. He observes that the most original writers borrowed one from another, and says that the instruction we gather i'rom books is like fire — we fetch it from our neighbours, kindle it at home, and communicate it to others, till it becomes the property' of all. He traces some of the finest compositions to the fountain- head ; and the reader smiles when he perceives that they have travelled in regular succession through China, India, iVi-abia, and (Ireece, to France and to England. To the obscurit}' of time are the ancients indebted for that originality in wliieh they are imagined to excel, but we know how fretiuently they accuse each other; and to have borrowed copiously i'rom preceding writers was not considered criniinal by sueli illustrious authors as Plato and Cicero. The /Encid X 306 Literary Miscellanies. of Virgil displays little invention in the incidents, for it unites the plan of thu Iliad and the OclyHf:ry, Our own early writers have not more originality than modern genius may a.«pire to reaeh. To imitate and to rival tlie Italians and the French formed their devotion. Chaucer, Gower, and Gawin Douglas, were all sj^rited imitators, and frequently only masterly translators. Spenser, the father of so many poets, is himself the child of the Ausonian Muse. Milton is incessantly borrowing from the poetry of his day. In the beautiful Masque of Comus he preserved all the cir- cumstances of the work he imitated. Ta.sso opened for him the Tartarean Gulf; the sublime description of the bridge may be found in Sadi, who borrowed it from the Turkish theology ; the paradise of fools is a wild flower, transplanted from the wilderness of Ariosto. The rich poetry of Gray is a wonderful tissue, woven on the frames, and composed with the gold threads, of others. To Cervantes we owe Butler ; and the united abilities of three great wits, in their Martinu^ Scrihlerus, could find no other mode of conveying their powers but by imitating at once Don Quixote and Monsieur Oufle. Pope, like Boileau, had all the ancients and moderns in his pay ; the contributions he levied were not the pillages of a bandit, but the taxes of a monarch. Swift is much indebted for the plans of his two very original performances : he owes the " Travels of Gulliver" to the "Voyages of Cyrano de Bergerac to the Sun and Moon ;" a writer, who, without the acuteness of Swift, has wilder flashes of fancy ; Joseph Warton has observed many of Swift's strokes in Bishop Godwin's " Man in the Moon," who, in his turn, must have borrowed his work from Cyrano. " The Tale of a Tub " is an imita- tion of such various originals, that they are too numerous here to mention. Wotton observed, justlv, that in many places the author's wit is not his own. Dr. Ferriar's " Essay on the Imitations of Sterne" might be considerably aug- mented. Such are the writers, however, who imitate, but remain inimitable ! Montaigne, with honest naivete, compares his writings to a thread that binds the flowers of others ; and that, by in- cessantly pouring the waters of a few good old authors into his sieve, some drops fall upon his paper. The good old man elsewhere acquaints us with a certain stratagem of his own invention, consisting of his inserting whole sentences from the ancients, without acknowledgment, that the critics might On Novelty in Literature. 307 blunder, by giving nazardes to Seneca and Plutarch, while they imagined they tweaked his nose. Petrarch, who is not the inventor of that tender poetry of which he is the model, and Boccaccio, called the father of Italian novelists, have alike profited by a studious perusal of writers, who are now only read by those who have more curiosit}^ than taste. Boiardo has imitated Pulci, and Ariosto, Boiardo. The madness of Orlando Furioso, though it wears, by its extravagance, a very original air, is only imitated from Sir Launcelot in the old romance of " Morte Arthur," with which, Warton observes, it agrees in every loading circumstance ; and what is the Cardenio of Cervantes but the Orlando of Ariosto ? Tasso has imitated the Iliad, and enriched his poem with episodes from the u^ncid. It is curious to observe that even Dante, wild and original as he appears, when he meets A'irgil in the Inferno, warmly expresses his gratitude for the many fine passages for which he was indebted to his works, and on which he says he had " long meditated." Moliere and La Fontaine ai"e con- sidered to possess as much originality as any of the French writers ; yet the learned Slenage calls Moliere " un grand et habile picpreur ;" and Boileau tells us that La Fontaine bor- rowed his style and matter from Marot and Rabelais, and took his subjects from Boccaccio, Poggius, and Ariosto. Nor was the eccentric Eahelais the inventor of most of liis bur- lesque narratives ; and he is a very close imitator of Folcngo, the inventor of the macaronic poetr}-, and not a little indebted to the old Facezie of the Italians. Indeed Marot, Villon, jus well as those we have noticed, profited by the authors anterior to the age of Francis I. La Bruyere incorporates whole passages of Publius Syrus in his work, as the translator of the latter abundantly shows. To the "Turkish Spy" was Montesquieu beholden for his " Persian Letters," and a numerous crowd are indebted to Montesquieu. Corneille made a liberal use of Spanish literature; and the pure waters of Racine flowed from the fountains of Sophocles and Euri- pides. This vein of imitation runs through the productions of our greatest authors. Vigneul de Marville compares some of the first writers to bankers who are rich with the assembled ibr- tunes of individuals, and woidd be often ruined were they too hardly drawn on. X 2 308 VERS DE SOClfiTfi. Plint, in an epistle to Tuscus, advis».'s him to intermix among his severer studies the softening charms of poetry ; and notices a species of poetical comjmsition which merits critical animadversion. 1 shall quote Pliny in the language of his elegant translator. He says, " These pieces commonly go under the title of poetical amusements ; but these amuse- ments have sometimes gained as much reputation to their authors as works of a more serious nature. It is surprising how much the mind is entertained and enlivened by these little poetical compositions, as they turn upon subjects of gallantry, satire, tenderness, politeness, and everything, in short, that concerns life, and the affairs of the world." This species of poetry has been carried to its utmost per- fection by the French. It has been discriminated by them, from the mass of poetry, under the ai)t title of " Poesies legeres,^' and sometimes it has been significantly called " Vers de Societe.'' The French writers have formed a body of this fugitive poetry which no European nation can rival ; and to which both the language and genius appear to be greatly favourable. The ^'Poesies legeres^' are not merely compositions of a light and gay turn, but are equally employed as a vehicle for tender and pathetic sentiment. They are never long, for they are consecrated to the amusement of society. The author appears to have composed them for his pleasure, not for his glory ; and he charms his readers, because he seems careless of their approbation. Every delicacy of sentiment must find its delicacy of expression, and every tenderness of thought must be softened by the tenderest tones. Nothing trite or trivial must enfeeble and chill the imagination ; nor must the ear be denied its gratification by a rough or careless verse. In these works nothing is pardoned ; a word may disturb, a line may destroy the charm. The passions of the poet mav form the subjects of his verse. It is in these writings he delineates himself; he reflects his tastes, his desires, his humours, his amours, and even his de- fects. In other poems the poet disappears under the feigned character he assumes ; here alone he speaks, here he acts. He makes a confidant of the reader, interests him in his hopes and Vers de Socieie. 309 his sorrows ; we admire the poet, and conclude with esteem- ing the man. The poem is the comphiint of a lover, or a compliment to a patron, a vow of i'riendship, or a hymn of gratitude. These poems have often, with great success, displayed pic- tures of manners ; for here the poet colours the ohjects with all the hues of social life. Itcfiection must not he ampliiled, for tliese are pieces devoted to the fancy ; a scene may he painted throughout the poem ; a t-cntiment must he conveyed in a verse. In the " Grongar Hill" of Dyer we discover some strokes which may serve to exemplify this criticism. The poet, contemplating the distant landscape, observes — A step methinks may pass the stream, So little distant dangers seem ; So we mistake the future's face, Eyed through Hope's deluding glass. It must not be supposed that, because these poems are con- cise, they are of easy production ; a poet's genius may not be diminutive because his pieces are so ; nor must we call them, as a fine sonnet has been called, a difficult trifle. A circle may be very small, yet it may be as mathematically beautiful and perfect as a larger one. To such compositions we may apply the observation of an ancient critic, that though a littlt; thing gives perfection, yet perfection is not a little thing. The poet must be alike polibhed by an intercourse with the world as with the studies of taste ; one to whom labour is negligence, refinement a science, and art a nature. Genius will not always be sufficient to impart that grace of amenity. Many of the French nobility, who cultivated poetry, have therefore oftener excelled in these poetical amusements than more professed poets. France once de- lighted in the amiable and ennobled names of Nivernois, Boufflers, and St. Aignan ; they have not been considered as unworthy rivals of Chaulieu and Bernard, of Voltaire and Gres.set. All the minor odes of Horace, and the entire Anacreon, are compositions of this kind ; effusions of the heart, and pictures of the imagination, which were produced in the convivial, the amatory, and the pensive hour. Our nation has not alwa^'s been successful in these performances ; they have not been kindred to its genius. With Charles II. something of a ga^'cr and more airy taste was communicated to our ])oetry, but it was desultory and incorrect. Waller, both by his 310 Literary Miscellanies. habits and his {▼cnius, wa?, well adapted to excel in this lighter poetry ; and he has often attained the perfection which the state of the language then permitted. Prior has a variety of sallies ; hut his humour is sometimes gross, and his versitica- tion is sometimes embarrassed. He knew the value of these charming pieces, and he had drunk of this liurgundy in the vineyard itself. He has some translations, and some pla- giarisms ; hut some of his verses to Chloe are eminently airy and pleasing. A diligent selection from our fugitive poetry might perhaps present us with many of these minor poems ; but the " Vers de Socie/e" form a species of poetical composi- tion which may still be employed with great success. THE GENIUS OF MOLIERE. The genius of comedy not only changes with the age, but appears different among different people. Manners and cus- toms not only vary among European nations, but are alike mutable from one age to another, even in the same people. These vicissitudes are often fatal to comic writers ; our old school of comedy has been swept off the stage : and our pre- sent uniformity of manners has deprived our modern writers of those rich sources of invention when persons living more isolated, society was less monotonous ; and Jonson and Shadwell gave us what they called " iJie humours,'' — that is, the individual or particular characteristics of men.* But however tastes and modes of thinking may be incon- stant, and customs and manners alter, at bottom the ground- work is Nature's, in every production of comic genius. A creative genius, guided by an unerring instinct, though he * Aubrey has noted this habit of our two greatest dramatists, when speaking of Shakspeare he saj's — "The humour of the constable iu A xMidsummcr Xi;//tt'ij Dream, he happened to take at Grendou iu Bucks ; which is the roade from Loudon to Stratford ; and there was living that constable in 1642, wheu I first came to Oxon. Ben Jonson and he did gather humours of men dayly, wherever they came." Shadwell, who.«e best plays were produced ia the reign of Charles II., was a professed imitator of the style of Jousou ; and so closely described the manners of his day that he was frequently accused of direct personalities, and obliged to alter one of his plays, The Huinorists, to avoid an outcry raised against him. Sir Walter Scott has recorded, in the Preface to his "For- tunes of Nigel," the obligation he was under to Shadwell's comedy, The Squire of AUatia, for the vivid description it enabled him to give of the lawless denizens of the old Sanctuary of Whitefriars. — Eo. The Genius of Moliere. 311 draws after the contemporary models of society, will retain his pre-eminence beyond his own age and his own nation ; what was temporary and local disappears, but what appertains to universal nature endures. The scholar dwells on the grotesque pleasantries of the sarcastic Aristophanes, though the Athenian manners, and his exotic personages, have long vanished. MoLi?:UE was a creator in the art of cotnedi/ ; and although his personages were the contemporaries of Louis the Four- teenth, and his manners, in the critical acceptation of the term, local and temporary, yet his admirable genius opened tliat secret path of Nature, which is so rarely found among the great names of the most literary nations. Cervantes remains single in Spain ; in England Siiakspeare is a con- secrated name ; and centuries may pass away before the French people shall witness another MoliJ:re. The history of this comic poet is the tale of powerful genius creating itself amidst the most adverse elements. We have the progress of that self-education which struck out an untried path of its own, from the time Moliere had not yet acquired his art to the glorious days when he gave his country a Plautus in his farce, a Terence in his composition, and a Menander in his moral truths. But the difficulties overcome, and the disappointments incurred, his modesty and his confi- dence, and, what was not less extraordinary, his own domestic life in perpetual conflict with his character, open a more strange career, in some respects, than has happened to most others of the high order of his genius. It was long the fate of Moliere to experience that restless importunity of genius which feeds on itself, till it discovers the pabulum it seeks. Moliere not only suffered tliat tormenting impulse, but it was accompanied by the unhappinessof a mis- taken direction. And this has been the lot of some who for many years h:iv(.' tluis been lost to themselves and to the public. A man born among the obscure class of the people, thrown among the itinerant companies of actors — for France had not yet a theatre — occupied to his last hours by too devoted a management of his own dramatic corps ; himself, too, an ori- ginal actor in the characters by himself created ; with no better models of composition than the Italian farces aJV iin- provista, and whose fantastic gaiety he, to the last, loved too well ; becomes the personal favourite of the most magnificent 312 Literary Miscellanies. monarch, anil tlic intimate of tlie most rcfmcd circles. Thoughtful observer of tlicse new scenes and new personages, he sports with tlie afVected precieuses and the flattering mar- quises as with the naive ridiculousness of the bourgeois, and the wild pride and egotism of the parvenus ; and with more profound designs and a hardier hand unmasks the impostures of false 2);T/e?«^/s national. But if this sensi- bility produced at times the softest emotions, if it made him the poet of lovers, and even the poet of imagination, it also rendered him too feelingly alive to criticism, it embittered his days with too keen a perception of the domestic miseries which all men must alike undergo. During a dramatic performance at St. Cs'r, the youthful representative of Esther suddenly- forgot her part ; the agi- tated poet exclaimed, " Oh, mademoiselle, you are ruining my piece !" Terrilied at this reprimand, the young actress wept ; the poet flew to her, wiped away her tears, and with con- tagious S3'mi)athy shed tears himself. " I do not hesitate," sa3's Louis Kacine, " to relate such minute circumstances, be- cause this facility of shedding tears shows the goodness of the heart, according to the observation of the ancients — ayaQol S' apiSaKpves dvSpsg. This morbid state of feehng made his whole literary life uneasy ; unjust criticism affected him as much as the most poignant, and there was nothing he dreaded more than that his son should become a writer of tragedies. " I will not dis- simulate," he says, addressing his son, "that in the heat of composition we are not sometimes pleased with ourselves ; but 3-0U may believe me, when the day after we look over our work, we are astonished not to find that excellence we admired in the evening ; and when we reflect that even what we find good ought to be still better, and how distant we are still from perfection, we are discouraged and dissatisfied. Besides all this, although the approbation I have received has been very flattering, the least adverse criticism, even miserable as it might be, has always occasioned me more vexation than all The Sensibility of Racine. 327 the praise I received could give me pleasure." And, again, lie endeavours to impress on him that the i'avour he received from the world he owed not to his verses. " Do not imagine that they are my verses that attract all these kindnesses. Corneille composes verses a hundred times liner than mine, but no one regards him. His verses are only applauded from the mouths ot" the actors. I do not tire men of the world by r(;citing my works ; I never allude to them ; I endeavour to amuse them with matters which please them. My talent in their company is, not to make them feel that I have any genius, but to show them that they possess some themselves. When you observe the duke pass several hours with me, you would be surprised, were you present, that he frequently quits me without my having uttered three words; but gradually I put him in a humour of chatting, and he leaves me more satis- fied with himself tlian with me." When Kochefoucault said that Boileau and llacine had only one kind of genius, and could only talk about their own poetry, it is evident that the observation should not have extended to Racine, however it might to Jioileau. It was llacine's excessive sensibility which made him the finest dramatic reciter. The celebrated actress, Mademoiselle Champmeslc,* the heroine of his tragedies, had no genius whatever for the stage, but she had beauty, voice, and memoiy. ilacine taught her first to comprehend the verses she was going to recite, showed her the ap[)ropriate gesture, and gave her the variable tones, which he even some- times noted down. His pupil, faithful to her lessons, th(jugh a mere actress of art, on the stage seemed inspired 1)V pas- sion ; and as she, thus formed and fashioned, -naturally only played thus effectively in the dramas of her preceptor, it was su[)j)osed that love for the i)oet inspired the actress. When Racine read aloud he diffused his own enthusiasm ; once with IJoileau and Nicole, amid a literary circle, they talked of" Soplujcles, whom llacine greatly admired, but from whom he had never dared to borrow a tragic subject. Taking up a (ireek Sophocles, and translating the CEdipus, the French * Raciue first met tiiis actress at the llaniuis de Scvignc's petit noupcrs; so mucti lanieiited \>y tiis more famous iiiotlier in one of lier ndmimbte letters, wlio sjiealis of "the Hacines and tlieDesineaux's" wlio a.ssisted his prodigality. In one of Madame de Sevigne's letters, dated in 1(572, she somewhat rashly declares, "llacine now writes his dramas, not for posterity, but for Mademoiselle Cliampmesle :"' she had then forsaken the mariiuis for the poet, who wrote lio.canc iu JiiiJlay), and would give a guinea for a sipieezc of your hand. I send my soul perpetually out to see what you are a-doing — wish 1 could convey iny body with it — adieu, dear and kind girl. Ever your kind friend and affec- tionate adnnrer. " 1 go to the oratorio this night. My service to your mamma." z2 340 Literary Miscellanies. LETTF.n V. " My DEAii Kitty, — Tlinuqli J have but a moment's time to spare, I would not omit writing you an account of my good fortune ; my Lord Fauconberg has this day given me a hun- dred and sixty pounds a year, which 1 hold with all my pre- ferment ; so that all or the most part of my sorrows and tears are going to be wiped away, — 1 have but one obstacle to my happiness now left — and what that is you know as well as I.* " I long most impatiently to see my dear Kitty. I had a purse of guineas given me yesterday by a bishop — all will do well in time. " From morning to night my lodgings, which by the bye are the genteelest in town,t are full of the greatest company. — I dined these two days with two ladies of the bedchamber — then with Lord Rockingham, Lord Edgcumb, Lord AVin- chelsea, Lord Littleton, a bishop, &c. &c. " I assure you, my dear Kitty, that Tristram is the fashion. — Pray to God I may see my dearest girl soon and well. — Adieu. " Your affectionate friend, " L. Steeite." HUME, ROBERTSON, AND BIRCH. The rarest of literary characters is such an historian as Gibbon ; but we know the price which he paid for his acqui- sitions — unbroken and undeviating studies. Wilkes, a mere wit, could only discover the drudgery of compilation in the profound philosopher and painter of men and of nations. A speculative turn of mind, delighting in generalising principles and aggregate views, is usually deticient in that closer know- ledge, without which every step we take is on the fairy- ground of conjecture and theorv, very apt to shift its un- substantial scenes. The researchers are like the inhabitants of a city who live among its ancient editioe*;. and are in the market-places and the streets: but the tlu'orists, occupied by perspective views, with a more artist-Hke pencil may im- pose on us a general resemblance of things ; but often shall * Can this allude to the death of his wife? — that very year he tells his daughter he had taken a house at York, "for your mother and yourself." t They were the second house from St, Alban's Street, Pall Mall. Hume, Robertson, and Birch. 341 we find in those shadowy outlines how the real objects are nearly, if not wholly lost — for much is given which is fanciful, and much omitted which is true. Of our two popular historians, Hume and Robertson, alike in character but different in genius, it is much to be lamented that neither came to their tasks with the previous studies of half a life ; and their speculative or theoretical histories are of so much the less value whenever they are deficient in that closer research which can be obtained only in one way ; not the most agreeable to those literary adventurers, for such they are, however high they rank in the class of genius, who grasp at early celebrity, and depend more on themselves than on their researches. In some curious letters to the literary antiquary Dr. Birch, Kobertson acknowledges " my chief object is to adorn, as far as I^am capable of adorning, the history of a period which de- serves to be better known." He probably took his lesson from Voltaire, the reigning author of that day, and a great iavourite with Kobertson. Voltaire indeed tells us, that no writers, but those who have composed tragedies, can throw any interest into a history ; that we must know to j)aint and excite the passions ; and that a history, like a dramatic piece, must have situation, intrigue, and catastrophe ; an observation which, however true, at least shows that there can be but a moderate quantity of truth in such agi'ceable narratives. Robertson's notion of adorninrj history was the plea.sing labour of genius — it was to amplify into vastness, to colour into beauty, and to arrange the objects of his meditation with a secret artifice of disposition. Such an historian is a sculptor, who, though he display a correct semblance of nature, is not less solicitous to display the miracles of his art, and enlarges his figures to a colossal dimension. Such is theoretical history. The theoretical historian conimunicates his own character to his history ; and if, like Robertson, he be profound and ))olitic, he detects the secret motives of his actors, unravels the webs of cabinet councils, explains projects that were un- known, and details stratagems which never took place. When we admire the fertile conceptions of the Queen Regent, of Elizabeth, and of Hothwell, we are often defrauding Robert- son of wluitever admiration may be due to such deep policy. When Hume received Iroin Dr. Birch Forbes's Manuserijjts and Murdiu's State-papers, in great haste he writes to his 342 Literary Miscellanies. brother historian : — " What I wrote you with regard to Mary, &c., was from the printed histories and jjapers. But I am now sorry to tell you that by Murdin's State-paper?, the matter is put beyond all question. 1 got these papers during the holidays by Dr. Birch's means; and as soon as I read them I ran io Millar, and desired him ver\' earnt?st]y to stop the publication of your history till I should write to you, and give you an opportunity of correcting a mistake so important ; but he absolutely refused compliance. He said that your book was now finished ; that the whole narrative of Mary's trial must be wrote over again ; that it was un- certain whether the new narrative could be brought within the same compass with the old: that this change would require the cancelling a great many sheets ; that there were scviiicvcdi passages through, the volumes founded on your theory.''^ What an interview was this of Andrew Millar and David Hume ! truh^ the bibliopole shone to greater advantage than the tioo theoretical historians ! And so the world had, and eagerly received, what this critical bookseller declared " required the new printing (that is, the new writing) of a great ])art of the edition!" When this successful histor}' of Scotland invited Robertson to pursue this newly-discovered province of philosophical or theoretical history, he was long irresolute in his designs, and so unpractised in those researches he was desirous of attempt- ing, that his admirers would have lost his popular produc- tions, had not a fortunate introduction to Dr. Birch, whose life had been spent in historical pursuits, enabled the Scottish historian to open many a clasped book, and to drink of many a sealed fountain. Robertson was long undecided whether to write the history of Greece, of Leo X., that of William III. and Queen Anne, or that of Charles V., and perhaps many other subjects. We have a curious letter of Lord Orford's, detailing the purport of a visit Robertson paid to him to inquire after materials for the reigns of William and Anne ; he seemed to have little other knowledge than what he had taken upon trust. " I painted to him," says Lord Orford, " the difB- culties and the want of materials — but the booksellers will out-argue me." Both the historian and " the booksellei*s" had resolved on another history : and Robertson looked upon it as a task which he wished to have set to him, and not a glorious toil long matured in his mind. But how did he Hume, Robei'tson, and Birch. 343 come prepared to the verj' dissimilar subjects he proposed ? When he resolved to write the history of Charles V., he con- fesses to Dr. Birch : " I never had access to any copious libraries, and do not pretend to any extensive knowledye of authors ; hut I have made a list of such as I thought most essential to the subject, and have put them down as I found tliem mentioned in any hook I happened to read. Your eru- dition and knowledge of books is infinitely superior to mine, and I doubt not but you will be able to make such additions to my catalogue as may be of great use to me. I know very well, and to my sorrow, how servilely historians copy from one another, and how little is to be learned from reading many books ; but at the same time, when one writes upon any particular period, it is both necessary and decent for him to consult every book relating to it upon which he can lay his hands." This avowal proves that Rolwrtson knew little of the history of Charles Y. till he began the task ; and he further confesses that " he had no knowledge of the Sjoanish or German," which, for the history of a Spanish monarch and a German emperor, was somewhat ominous of the nature of the jn'ojected history. Yet Robertson, though he once thus acknowledged, as we see, that he " never had access to any copious libraries, and did i\ot i^etend to any extensive knowledge of authors,^'' seems to have acquired from his friend, Dr. Birch, who was a genuine researcher in manuscripts as well as printed books, a taste even for bibliographical ostentation, as appears by that pom- pous and voluminous list of authors prefixed to his " History of America ;" the most objectionable of his histories, being a perpetual apology for the Sjianish Government, adapted to the meridian of the court of ^Madrid, rather than to the cause of humanity, of truth, and of pliilosophy. I imderstand, from good authority, that it would not be difficult to prove that our historian had barely examined them, and probably had never turned over half of that deceptive catalogue. Birch thought .so, and was probably a little disturbed at the over- whelming success of our eloquent and penetrating historian, while his own historical labours, the most authentic materials of hi.story, but not history itself, hardly repaid the ])rinter. Birch's publications are either originals, that is, letters or state-papers ; or they are narratives drawn from originals, for he never wrote but from manuscripts. They are the true materia historica. 311. Literary Miscellanies. Birch, however, must have enjoyed many a secret triumph over our popular liistorians, who had introduced their beau- tiful ])hil().sopliical history into our literature; the dilemma in which tln-y sometimes (bund tliemselves must have amused him. He has thrown out an oblique stroke at Uoljertson's " pomp of style, and fine eloquence," " which too often tend to disf^uise tlio real state of the facts."* When he received from liobcrtson the present of his " Charles V.," after the just tribute of his praise, he adds some regret that the histo- rian had not been so fortunate as to have seen Burghley's State-])apers, " published since Christmas," and a manuscript trial of INIary, Queen of Scots, in Lord Royston's possession. Alas! such is the fate of speculative history; a Christmas may come, and overturn the elaborate castle in the air. Can we forbear a smile when we hear Kobertson, who had pro- jected a history of British America, of which we possess two chapters, when the rebellion and revolution broke out, con- gratulate himself that he had not made any further progress? " It is lucky that my American History was not finished be- fore this event ; how many plausible theories that I should have been entitled to form are contradicted by what has now happened!" A fair confession! Let it not be for one moment imagined that this article is designed to depreciate the genius of Hume and Kobertson, who are the noblest of our modern authors, and exhibit a perfect idea of the literary character. Forty-four years ago, I transcribed from their originals the correspondence of the historian with the literary anti- quary. For the satisfaction of the reader, I here preserve these literary relics. Letters between Dr. Birch and Dr. TV. liobertson, relative to the Histories of Scotland and of Charles V. " TO DR. UIRCH. " Gladsmuir, 19 Sept. 1757. " Reteeend Sni, — Though I have not the good fortune to be known to you personally, I am so happy as to be no stranger to your writings, to which I have been indebted for much useful instruction. And a^; I have heard from my friends, Sir David Dalrymple and Mr. Davidson, that your * See "Curiosities of Literature," vol. iii. p. 3S7. Hume, Robertson, and Birch. 3 15 disposition to oblige was equal to your knowledge, I now presume to write to you and to ask your assistance without any apology. " 1 have been engaged for some time in writing the history of Scotland from the death of James V. to the accession of James VI. to the throne of England. My chief object is to adorn (as far as I am capable of adorning) the history of a period which, on account of the greatness of the events, and their close connection with the transactions in England, deserves to be better known. IJut as elegance of composition, even where a writer can attain that, is but a trivial merit without his- torical truth and accuracy, and as the pri-judices and rage of factions, both religious and political, liave rendered almost every fact, in the period which I have chosen, a matter of doubt or of controversy, I have therefore taken all the pains in my power to examine the evidence on both sides with exactness. You know how copious the materia hisforica in this period is. Besides all the common historians and printed collections of papers, I have consulted several manuscripts which are to be found in this country. I am persuaded that there are still many manuscri[)ts worth my seeing to be met with in England, and for that reason I propose to pass some time in London this winter. I am impatient, however, to know what discoveries of this kind I may expect, and what are the treasures before me, and with regard to this I beg leave to consult you. " I was airaid for some time that Dr. Forbes's Collections had been lost upon his death, but I am glad to find by your ' Memoirs ' that they are in the possession of Mr. Yorke. I see likewise that the ' Depeches de Beaumont ' are in the hands of the same gentleman. But I have no opportunity of consulting your ' Memoirs ' at present, and 1 cannot re^ member whether tlie ' Depeches de Fenelon ' be still preserved or not. I see that Carte has m;ule a great use of tiiem in a very busy period from 1503 to 157G. I know the strength of Carte's prejudices so well, that I dare say many things may be found there that he could not see, or would not pub- lish. May 1 beg the favour of you to let me know whether Fenelon's papers be y^'t extant and accessible, and to give me some general idea of what Dr. Forbes's Collections eontain with regard to Scotland, and whether tlie papers they consist of are diHerent from those published by Haynes, Anderson, &c. I am far from desiring that you should enter into any 31C Literary Miscellanies. detail that would l)c troublesome to you, but some short hint of the nature of those (,\)lIections would be extremely satisfy- ing to my curiosity, and I shall esteem it a great obligation laid upon me. " 1 have brought my work almost to a conclusion. If you would be so good as to suggest anything that you thought useful for me to know or to examine into, I shall receive your directions with great respect and gratitude. " 1 am, with sincere esteem, " Eevd Sir, Y' m. ob. & m. h. S', "Wm. ROBERTSOy." TO DB. BIBCH. "Edinburgh, 1 Jan. 1759. " Deati Sir, — If I had not considered a letter of mere compliment as an impertinent interruption to one who is so busy as you commonly are, I would long before this have made my acknowledgments to you for the civilities which you was so good as to show me while I was in London. I had not only a proof of your obliging disposition, but I reaped the good effects of it. " The papers to which I got access by your means, espe- cially those from LordRoyston, have rendered my work more perfect than it could have otherwise been. My history is now ready for publication, and I have desired Mr. Millar to send you a large paper copy of it in my name, which I beg you may accept as a testimony of my regard and of my grati- tude. He will likewise transmit to you another copy, which I must entreat you to present to my Lord lloyston, with such acknowledgments of his favours toward me as are proper for me to make. I have printed a short appendix of original papers. You will observe that there are several inaccuracies in the press work. Mr. Millar grew impatient to have the book published, so that it was impossible to send down the proofs to me. I hope, however, the papers will be abundantly intelligible. I published them only to confirm my own system, about particular facts, not to obtain the character of an antiquarian. If, upon perusing the book, you discover any inaccuracies, either with regard to style or facts, whether of great or of small importance. I will esteem it; a very great favour if you'll be so good as to communicate them to me. I shall likewise be indebted to you, if you'll let rne know what reception the book meets with among the literati of your ac- Hume, Robertson, and Birch. 317 quaintanec. I hope you will be particularly pleased with the critical dissertation at the end, which is the production of a co-partnership between me and your friend Mr. Davidson. Both Sir D. Dalrymple and he offer compliments to you. If Dean Tucker be in town this winter, 1 beg you will offer my compliments to him. "I am, w. great regard, D'. Sir, " Y"^ m. obed*. & mst. o. ser*., " William Hobeetson. "My address is, one of the ministers of Ed." TO DK. BIRCH. " £dinbmrjJi, 13 Dec. 1759. " Dear Sir, — I beg leave once more to have recourse to your good nature and to your love of literature, and to pre- sume upon putting you to a piece of trouble. After consider- ing several subjects for another history, I have at last fixed upon the reign of Charles V., which contains the first estab- lishment of the present political system of Europe. I have begun to labour seriously upon my task. One of the first things requisite was to form a catalogue of books which must be consulted. As I never had access to very copious libraries, I do not pretend to any extensive knowledge of authors, but I have made a list of such as I thovtglit most essential to the subject, and have put them down just in the order which they occurred to me, or as I found them mentioned in any book I happened to read. I beg you would be so good as to look it over, and as j'^our erudition and knowledge of books is infinitely superior to mine, I doubt not but you'll be able to make such additions to my catalogue as may be of great use to me. I know very well, and to my sorrow, how servilely historians copy from one another, and how little is to be learned IVona reading many books, but at the same time when one writes iqion any particular period, it is both necessary and decent for him to consult every book relating to it, upon which he can lay his hands. I am suftieientl}' master of French and Italian ; but have no knowledge of the Spanish or German tongues. 1 fialter myself that 1 shall not sull'er much by this, as the two former languages, together witli the Latin, will supply me with books in abundance. Mr. Walpole in- formed uie some time ago, that in the catalogue of Harleian MSS. in the British Museum, there is a volume of pai)ers 318 Literary Miscellanies. r(l:itin<^ to Charles V., it is No. 295. I do not expect much IVom it, but it would be oxtnitiiely obliging if you would take the trouble of looking into it and of informing me in general what it contains. In the catalogue I have inclosed, this mark x is prefixed to all the books which I can get in this country ; if you yourself, or any friend with whom you can use freedom, have any of the other books in my list, and will be so good as to send them to Mr. Millar, he will forward them to me, and I shall receive them with great gratitude and return them with much punctuality. I beg leave to offer compliments to all our common friends, and particularly to Dean Tucker, if he be in town this season. I wish it were in my power to confer any return for all the trouble you have taken in my behalf " FEOM DE. BIECII TO THE RET. DE. EOBEETSON, AT EDINBUEGH. "London, Z Jany. 1760, " Dear Sie, — Your letter of the 13 Dec*", was particularly- agreeable to me, as it acquainted me with your resolution to resume your historic pen, and to undertake a subject which, from its importance and extent, and your manner of treating it, will be higlxly acceptable to the public. " I have perused your list of books to be consulted on this occasion ; and after transcribing it have delivered it to Mr. Millar ; and shall now make some additions to it. " The new ' Histoire d'Allemagne ' by Father Barre, chan- cellor of the University of Paris, published a few years ago in several volumes in q°., is a work of very good credit, and to be perused b}' you ; as is likewise the second edition of 'Abrege chronologique de I'Histoire & du Droit public d'Allemagne,' jiist printed at Paris, and formed upon the plan of President Henault's 'Nouvel Abrege chronologique de I'Histoire de France,' in which the reigns of Francis I. and Henry II. will be proper to be seen by you. " The ' Memoires pour servir a I'Histoire du Cardinal Granvelle,' by Father Ixosper Levesque, a Benedictin monk, which were print-ed at Paris in two vol*. 12°. in 1753, contain some particulars relating to Charles V. But this performance is much less curious than it might have been, considering that the author had the advantage of a vast collection, above an hundred volumes of the Caj-diiud's original papers, at Hume, Robertson, and Birch. 319 Besanfon. Among these are the papers of his eminence's father, who was chancellor and minister to the Emperor Charles V. " Bishop Burnet, in the ' Summary of Affairs before the Restoration,' prefixed to his ' History of his Own Time,' mentions a life of Frederick Elector Palatine, who first re- formed the Palatinate, as curiously written by Hubert Thomas Leodius. This book, though a very rare one, is in my stud}' and shall be sent to you. You will find in it many facts relating to your Emperor. The manuscript was luckily saved when the library of Heydelberg was plundered and conveyed to the Vatican after the taking of that city in 1022, and it was printed in 1024, at Francfort, in 4'°. The writer had been secretary and councillor to the elector. "Another book which 1 shall transmit to you is a valuable collection of state papers, made by Mons*". Ilivier, and printed at Blois, in 1005, in two vols. f°. They relate to the reigns of Francis I., Henry II., and Francis II. of France. The indexes will direct you to such passages as concern the Emperor. " As Mons'". Amclot de la Houssaie, who was extremely conversant in modern history, has, in the 1". tome of his ' Memoires Historiques Politiques et Litteraires,' from p. 150 to 193, treated of Charles V., I shall add that book to my parcel. " Varillas's ' Life of Henry II. of France ' should be looked into, though that historian has not at present much reputa- tion for exactness and veracity. " I)r. Fiddes, in his ' Life of Cardinal Wolsey,' has frequent occasion to introduce the Emperor, his contemporary, of which Bayle in his Dictionary gives us an express article and not a short one, for it consists of eiglit of his pages. " lloger Ascham, Queen Elizabeth's preceptor, when he was secretary to S*^. Richard Morysin amb. from K. Edward VI. to the imperial court, wrote to a friend of his ' a report and discourse of the affairs and state of Germany and the Emperor Charles's court.' This was printed in the reign of Queen Elizabeth ; but the copies of that edition are now very rare. However this will be soon made public, being reprinted in an edition of all tlie autlior's English works now in the press. " The ' Epitres des Princes,' translated from the Italian by Belleforest, will probably supply you with some few things to your purpose. 350 Literary Miscellanies. "Vol.295 among tlie Harlcian ]\ISS. contains little re- markable except some letters Irom Henry VIII 's amb^ in Spain, in 1518, of which you may see an abstract in the printed catalogue. " In Dr. llayne's ' Collection of State Pajjers in the Hatfield History,' p. 5G, is a long letter of the lord of the council of Henry VIII. , in loilj, to his amb^ with the Emperor." TO DR. BIRCH. Extract from a letter of Dr. Sobertson, dated CoUerje of EdMurgh, Oct. 8, 1765. " * * * I have met with many interruptions in carrying on my ' Charles V.,' partly from bad health, and partly from the avocations arising from performing the duties of my office. But I am now within sight of land. The histo- rical part of the work is finished, and I am busy with a preliminary book, in which I projsose to give a view of the progress in the state of society, laws, manners, and arts, from the kruption of the barbarous nations to the beginning of the sixteenth century. This is a laborious undertaking ; but I flatter myself that I shall be able to finish it in a few months. I have kept the books you was so good as to send me, and shall return them carefully as soon as my work is done." OF VOLUMINOUS WOKKS INCOMPLETE BY THE DEATHS OF THE AUTHORS. In those "Dances of Death" where every profession is shown as taken by surprise in the midst of their unfinished tasks, where the cook is viewed in flight, oversetting his caldron of soup, and the physician, while inspecting his patient's urinal, is himself touched by the grim visitor, one more instance of poor mortality may be added in the writers of works designed to be pursued through a long scries of volumes. The French have an appropriate designation for such works, which they call '' ouvrages de tongue liateine^^ and it has often happened that the haleine has closed before the work. Works of literar}- history have been pai-ticularly subject to Of Incomplete Voluminous Works. 35 1 this mortifying check on intellectual enterprise, and human life has not yielded a sufficient portion for the communication of extensive acquirement ! After years of reading and writing, the literary historian, who in his iimunierable reseai'ches is critical as well as erudite, has still to arbitrate between conflicting opinions ; to resolve on the doubtful, to clear up the obscure, and to grasp at remote researches : — but he dies, and leaves his favourite volumes little moi'e than a project ! Feelingly the antiquary Hearne laments this general for- getfulness of the nature of all human concerns in the mind of the antiquary, who is so busied with other times and so inte- rested for other persons than those about him. " It is the business of a good antiquary, as of a good man, to have mortality always before him." A few illustrious scholars have indeed escaped the fate reserved for most of their brothers. A long life, and the art of multiplying that life not only by an early attachment to study, but by that order and arrangement which shortens our researches, have sufficed for a Mukatori. With such a student time was a great capital, which he knew to put out at compound interest ; and this Varro of the Italians, who per- formed an infinite number of things in the circumscribed period of ordinary life, appears not to have felt any dread of leaving his voluminous labours unfinished, but rather of wanting one to begin. This literary Alexander thought he might want a world to conquer ! Muratori was never per- fectly happy unless employed in two large works at the same time, and so much dreaded the state of literary inaction, that he was incessantly importuning his friends to suggest to him objects worthy of his future coni])Osition. The llame kindled in his youth burned clear in his old age ; and it was in his senility that he produced the twelve quartos of his Annali d' Italia as an addition to his twenty-nine folios of his licnoii Italicarum Scripfores, and the six folios of the Antifjuifates Medii ul^vi 1 Yet these vast edifices of history are not all which this illustrious Italian has raised for his fatherland. Gibbon in his Miscellaneous Works has drawn an admirable character of Muratori. But such a fortunate result has rarely accompanied the labours of the literary worthies of this order. T'lUAiioscm indeed lived to complete his great national history of Italian literature ; but, unha].)pily for us, Wautox, after feeling his 352 Literary Miscellanirs. way tliroupli tlic darker ages of our poetry, and just con- ducting us to a l)nghti'r rof^ion, in jdanning the map of the country of wliieli lie had only a Pisgah view, expires amid his volumes ! Our ])oetical antiquary led us to the opening gates of the paradise of our poetry, when, alas ! they closed on him and on us ! The most precious portion of Warton's history is but the fragment of a fragment. Life passes away in collecting materials— the marble lies in blocks — and sometimes a colonnade is erected, or even one whole side of a palace indicates the design of the architect. Count Mazzuchelli, early in life, formed a noble but too mighty a project, in which, however, he considerably' advanced. This was an historical and critical account of the memoirs and the writings of Italian authors ; he even commenced the publication in alphabetical order, but the six invaluable folios we possess only contain the authors the initial letters of whose names are A and B ! This great literary historian had finished for the press other volumes, which the torpor of his descendants has suffered to lie in a dormant state. Eich in acquisition, and judicious in his decisions, the days of the patriotic Mazzuchelli w-ere freely given to the most curious and elegant researches in his national literature ; his corre- spondence is said to consist of forty volumes ; with eight of literary memoirs, besides the lives of his literary contempo- rai-ies ; — but Europe has been defrauded of the hidden treasures. The history of Baillet's " Jugemens des S^avans sur les Principaux Ouvrages des Auteurs," or Decisions of the Learned on the Learned, is a remarkable instance how little the calculations of writers of research serve to ascertain the period of their projected labour. Baillet passed his life in the midst of the great library of the literary family of the Lamoignons, and as an act of gratitude arranged a classified catalogue in thirty -two folio volumes ; it indicated not only what any author had professedly composed on any subject, but also marked those passages relative to the subject which other writers had touched on. By means of this catalogue, the philosophical patron of Baillet at a single glance discovered the great results of human knowledge on any object of his inquiries. This catalogue, of equal novelty and curiosity, the learned came to study, and often transcribed its precious notices. Amid this world of books, the skill and labour of Baillet prompted him to collect the critical opinions of the Of Incomplete Voluminous Works. 353 learnecl, aiul from the experience he had acqiured in tlie pro- gress of his colossal catalogue, as a preliminary, sketched one of the most magnificent plans of literary history'. This in- structive project has been preserved b}^ Monnoye in his edition. It consists of six large divisions, with 'inimmerable subdivisions. It is a map of the human mind, and presents a view of the magnitude and variety of literature, which few can conceive. The project was too vast for an individual ; it now occupies seven quartos, yet it advanced no farther than the critics, translators, and poets, forming little more than the first, and a commencement of the second great division ; to more important classes the laborious projector never reached ! Another literary history is the " Bibliotheque Fran^oise " of GouJKT, left unfinished by his death. He had desi^'-ned a classified history of French literature ; but of its numerous classes he has only concluded that of the translators, and nut finished the second he had commenced, of the poets. He lost himself in the obscure times of French Literature, and con- sumed sixteen 3'ears on his eighteen volumes ! A great enterprise of the BE'jfEDiCTiXES, the " Histoire Litteraire de la France," now consists of twelve large quartos, which even its successive writers have only been able to carry down to the close of the twelfth century !* David Clement, a bookseller and a book-lover, .designed the mo.st extensive bibliography which had ever aj)i)eared ; this history of books is not a barren nomenclature, the par- ticulars and dissertations are sometimes curious : but the diligent life of the author only allowed him to proceed as far as the letter H ! The alphabetical brder which some wi-iters have adopted has often proved a sad memento of human life ! The last edition of our own " BiographiaBritannica," feeble, imperfect, and inadequate as the writers were to the task the booksellers had chosen tliem to execute, remains still a monu- ment which every literary Englishman may blush to see so hopelessly interrupted. When Le GjiAKi) D'AussY, whose " Fabliaux " are so well known, ado})ted, in the warmth of antiquarian imagination, tlie plan suggested by the JNIarquis de I'aulmy, first sketched in the Mclanc/cs tires iV unc (jrande IJihrtuthcque, of a picture of the domestic life of the French peo[)le from their earliest * This work has been tiuce resumed. A A 354 Literary Miscellanies. periods, the subject broke ujjon liim like a vision ; it liad novelty, amusement, and curiosity : " Ic .sujel m'enpariit neuf, riche et piquant.'''' He revelled amid the scenes of their architecture, the interior decorations of their houses, their changeable dress, their games, and recreations ; in a word, on all th(! ])arts which were most adapted to amuse the fancy. But when he came to compose the more detailed work, the fairy scene faded in the length, the repetition, and the never- ending labour and weariness ; and the three volumes which we now possess, instead of sports, dresses, and architecture, exhibit only a very curious, but not always a very amusing, account of the food of the French nation. No one has more fully poured out his vexation of spirit — he may excite a smile in those who have never experienced this toil of books and manuscripts — but he claims the sym- pathy of those who would discharge their public duties so faithfully to the public. I shall preserve a striking picture of these thousand task-works, coloured by the literary pangs of the voluminous author, who is doomed never to finish his curious work : — " Endowed with a courage at all proofs, with health which, till then, was unaltered, and which excess of labour has greatly changed, I devoted myself to write the lives of the learned of the sixteenth centur}-. Renouncing all kinds of pleasure,, working ten to twelve hours a-day, extracting, ceaselessly copying ; after this sad life I now wished to draw breath, turn over what I had amassed, and arrange it. I found myself possessed of many thousands of hiiUctins, of which the longest did not exceed many lines. At the sight of this frightful chaos, from which I was to form a regular history, J nuist confess that I shuddered ; I felt myself for some time in a sfiijwr and depression of spirits ; and now actually that I have linished this work, 1 cannot endure the recollection of that moment of alarm icithout a feeling of in- voluntary terror. "What a business is this, good God, of a compiler ! In truth, it is too much condemned ; it merits some regard. At length I regained courage ; I returned to my researches : I have completed my plan, though every day I was forced to add, to correct, to change my facts as icell a,s my ideas ; six times has my hand re-copied my work ; and, however fatiguing this may be, it certiiinly is not that portion of my task which has cost me most." The history of the "BibUotheca Britannica" of the late Of Domestic Novelties at first Condemned. 355 Dr. Watt may serve as a mortifyiii!^ example of the lengtli of labour and tlie brevity of life. To this gigantic work tho patient zeal of the writer had devoted twenty' years ; he had just arrived at tlie point of publication, when death folded down his last page ; the son who, during the last four years, had toiled under the direction of his father, was chosen to occupy his place. The work was in the progress of publica- tion, when the son also died; and sti'angers now reap the fruits of their combined labours. One cannot forbear appl^'ing to this subject of voluminous designs, which must be left unfinished, the forcible reflection of Johnson on the planting of trees : " There is a frightful interval between the seed and timber. He that calculates the growth of trees has tho unwelcome remembrance of the shortness of hfc driven hard upon him. He knows that he is doing what will never benefit himself; and, when he re- joices to see the stem arise, is disposed to repine that another shall cut it down." OF DOMESTIC NOVELTIES AT FIRST CONDEMNED. It is amusing enough to discover that things, now considered among the most useful and even agreeable acquisitions of do- mestic life, on their first introduction ran great risks of being rejected, by the ridicule or the invective which they encoun- tered. The repulsive effect produced on mankind b}' the mere strangeness of a thing, which at length we find esta- blished among our indispensable conveniences, or by a prac- tice which has now become one of our habits, must be ascribed sometimes to a proud perversity in our nature ; sometimes to the crossing of our interests, and to that re- pugnance to alter what is known for that which has not been sanctioned by our experience. This feeling has, how- ever, within the latter half century considerably abated ; but it proves, as in higher matters, that some philosophical reflection is re(iuired to determine on the usefulness, or the practical ability, of every object which comes in the shape of novelty or innovation. Could we conceive that man had never discovered the practice of washing his hands, but cleansed them as animals do their paws, lie would for certain have ridiculed and protested against the inventor of soap, and as tardily, as in other matters, have adopted the invention. A a2 35G LUtrurij Miscellanies. A reader, unaccvistomed to minute rescarclics, rni^ht be sur- prised, had lie laid before liim the history of some of the most familiar domestic articles which, in their origin, incurred the ridicule oi the wits, and had to pass throulendour and ruin. The disturbance and opposition these eoaches created we should hardly now liave known, had not Taylor, the Water-poet* and man, sent down to us an invective against coaches, in 1G23, dedi- cated to all who are giievcd with " the world running on wheels." Taylor, a humorist and satirist, as well as waterman, con- veys some information in this rare tract of the period when coaches began to be more generally used — " Within our memories our nobility and gentry could ride well-mounted, and sometimes walk on foot gallantly attended with fourscore brave fellows in blue coats, which was a glory to our nation far greater than forty of thesu leathern timbrels. Then the name of a coach was heathen Greek. Who ever saw, but upon extraordinary occasions. Sir Philip Sidney and Sir Francis Drake ride in a coach ? They made small use of coaches ; there were but few in those times, and they were deadly foes to sloth and effeminacy. It is in the memory of many when in the whole kingdom there was not one ! It is a doubtful question whether the devil brought tobacco into England in a coach, for both appeared at the same time." It appears that families, for the sake of their exterior show, miserably contracted their domestic establishment ; for Taylor, the Water-poet, complains that when they used formerly to keep from ten to a hundred proper serving-men, they now made the best shift, and for the sake of their coach and horse.«i had only " a butterfly page, a trotting footman, and a stifT-drink- ing coachman, a cook, a clerk, a steward, and a butler, v/hich hath forced an army of tall fellows to the gatehouses," or prisons. Of one of the evil effects of this new fashion of coach-riding this satirist of the town wittily observes, that, as soon as a man was knighted, his lad}' was lamed for ever, and could not on any account be seen but in a coach. As hitherto our females had been accustomed to robust exercise, on foot or on horseback, the}' were now forced to substitute a domestic ai'tifieial exercise in sawing billets, swinging, or rolling the great roller in the alleys of their garden. In the * Taylor was originally a Thames ■waterman, hence the term ' ' Water- poet" given him. His attack upon coaches was published with this quaint title, " The world runnes on wheeles, or, odds, betwixt carts and coaches." It is an unsparing satire. — Ed. Of Domestic Novelties at first Condemned. 3G1 cliange of this new fashion they found out the inconvenience of a sedentary hfe passed in their coaches.* Even at this early period of the introduction of coaches, tliey were not only costly in the ornaments — in velvets, damasks, taffetas, silver and gold lace, fringes of all sorts — but their greatest pains were in matching their coach-horses. " They must be all of a colour, longitude, latitude, cressitude, height, length, thickness, breadth (I muse they do not weigh them in a pair of balances) ; and when once matched with a great deal of care, if one of them chance to die, then is the coach maimed till a meet mate be found, whose corresponding may he as equivalent to the surviving palfrey, in all respects, as like as a broom to a besom, barm to yeast, or codlings to boiled apples." This is good natural humour. He proceeds — " They use more diligence in matching their coach-horses than in the marriage of their sons and daughters." A great fashion, in its novelty, is often extravagant ; true elegance and utility are never at first combined ; good sense and expe- rience correct its caprices. They appear to have exhausted more cost and curiosity in their equipages, on their first in- troduction, than since they have become objects of ordinary use. Notwithstanding this humorous invective on the cala- mity of coaches, and that " housekeeping never decayed till coaches came into England ; and that a ten-pound rent now was scarce twenty shillings then, till the witchcraft of the coach quickly mounted the price of all things." The Wattir- poet, were he now living, miglit have acknowledged that if, in the changes of time, some trades disappear, other trades rise up, and in an exchange of modes of industry the nation loses nothing. The hands which, like Taylor's, rowed boats, came to drive coaches. These complainers on all novelties, * Stow, in his "Chronicles," ha.s preserved the date of the first intro- duction of coaclies into Eiighmd, as well as the name of the first driver, and first English coachmaker. " In the year 1.564 Guilliam Boonen, a Dutchman, became the ([uetiu's coachman, and was the first that brought the nse of coaches into England. After a while divers great ladies, with as great jealou.sie of the fjuecn's displeasure, made them coaches, and rid in them up and down the country, to the great admiration of all the beholders ; but then, by little and little, they grew usual among the nobility and others of sorte, and within twenty years became a great trade of coachniaking ;" and he also notes that in the year of their iutroetion than by those whose pursuits require a perfect freedom from domestic cares. Persons of sedentary occupations, and undisturbed habits, abstracted from the daily business of life, must yield luilimited trust to the honesty, ■while they want the hourly attentions and all the cheerful zeal, of the thoughtful domestic. The mutual afflictions of the master and the servant have often been exalted into a companionship of feelings. When Madame de Genlis heard that Pope had raised a monument not only to his fother and to his mother, but also to the faithful servant who had nursed his earliest years, she was so suddenly struck by the fact, that she declared that " This monument of gratitude is the more remarkable for its singularity, as I know of no other instance." Our church- yards would have afforded her a vast number of tomb-stones erected by grateful masters to faithful servants ;"* and a closer intimacy with the domestic privacy of many public characters might have displayed the same splendid examples. The one which appears to have so strongly affected her may be found on the east end of the outside of the parish church of Twickenham. The stone bears this inscription : — * Even our modem cemeteries perpetuate this feeling, and exhibit many grateful Epitaphs on Servants. Domesticity ; or, a Dissertation on Servants. 373 To the memory of Mary Beach, who died November 5, 1725, aged 78. Alexander Pope, whom she nursed in his infancy, and constantly attended for thirty-eight years, Erected this stone In gratitude to a faithful Servant. The original portrait of Siiexstoxe was the votive gift of a master to his servant, for, on its back, written hy the poet's own hand, is the following dedication : — " This picture he- longs to Mary Cutler, given her by her miister, AVilliam Shenstone, January 1st, 1754, in acknowledgment of her native genius, her magnanimit}', her tenderness, and her fidelity , — W. S." We might refer to many similar evidences of the domestic gratitude of such masters to old and attached servants. Some of these tributes may be familiar to most readers. The solemn author of the " Night Thouijhts" inscribed an epitaph over the grave of his man-servant ; the caustic GiPFORD ])oured forth an effusion to the memory of a female servant, fraught with a melancholy tenderness which his muse rarely indulged. The most pathetic, we had nearly said, and had said justly, the most sublime, development of this devotion of a master to his servant, is a letter addressed by that powerful genius MiCUAEL Angelo to his friend Yasari, on the death of Urbino, an old and beloved servant.* Published only in the voluminous collection of the letters of Painters, by Bottari, it seems to have escaped general notice. We venture to trans- late it in despair : for we feel that we must weaken its mas- culine yet tender eloquence. MICHAEL AXOELO TO YASARI. "Mydeau Geouge, — I can but write ill, yet shall not your letter remain without my saying something. You know how Urbino has died. Great was the grace of God when he * It is dellKlitful to note the warm atfection disi)laycd by the great sculptor toward his old servant on his death-bed. Tiiu man wlio would beanl princes and the pope himself, when he felt it necessary to assert his independent character as an artist, and through life evinced a somewhat hard exterior, was soft as a child in affectionate attention to his dying domestic, anticipating all his wants by a ])ersuiial attendance at his bed- side. This was no light service on the part of Michael Angelo, who waa himself at the time eighty-two years of age. — Ed. 374 Literary Miscellanies. bestowed on me tliis man, though now heavy be the grievance and infinite the grief. The grace was that when he Hved he kept me living ; and in dying he has taught me to die, not in sorrow and witli regret, but with a fervent desire of death. Twentv and six years liad he served me, and I found him a mo.st rare and faithful man ; and now that I had made him rich, and expected to lean on him as the staff and the repose of my old age, he is taken from me, and no other hope remains than that of seeing him again in Paradise. A sign of God was this happy death to him ; yet, even more than this death, were his regrets increased to leave me in this world the wretch of many anxieties, since the better half of myself has departed with him, and nothing is left for me than this loneli- ness of life." Even the throne has not been too far removed from this sphere of humble humanity, for we discover in St. George's Chapel a mural monument erected by order of one of our late sovex-eigns as the memorial of a female servant of a favourite daughter. The inscription is a tribute of domestic affection in a royal bosom, where an attached servant became a cherished inmate. King George III. Caused to be interred near this place the body of Maky Gascoigne, Servant to the Princess Amelia ; and this stone to be inscribed in testimony of his grateful sense of the faithful services and attachment of an amiable young woman to his beloved Daughter. This deep emotion for the tender offices of servitude is not peculiar to the refinement of our manners, or to modern Europe ; it is not the chai'ity of Christianity alone which lias hallowed this sensibility, and confessed this equality of affec- tion, which the domestic may participate : monumental in- scriptions, raised by grateful masters to the merits of their slaves, have been preserved in the great collections of Grsevius and Gruter.* * There are several inst.ances of Koman heads of houses who consecrate " to themselves and their servants" the sepulchres they erect in their own lifetime, as if in death they had no desire to be divided from those who had served them faithfully. An instance of affectionate regard to the memory of a deceased servant occurs in the collection at Kismes ; it is au 375 PRINTED LETTERS IN THE VERNACULAR IDIOJ[. Printed Lettebs, without any attention to the selection, is so great a Hteraiy evil, that it has excited my curiosity to de- tect the first modern who obtruded such formless things ou public attention. I conjectured that, whoever he might be, lie would be distinguished for his egotism and his knavery. ]^Iy hypothetical criticism turned out to be correct. Nothing less than the audacity of the unblushing Pietro Aretino could have adventured on this project ; he claims the honour, and the critics do not deny it, of being the first who published Italian letters. Aretino had the hardihood to dedicate one volume of his letters to the King of England, another to the Duke of Florence ; a third to Hercules of P^ste, a relative of Pope Julius Third — evidently insinuating that his letters were worth}-- to be read by the royal and the noble. Among these letters there is one addressed to Mary, Queen of England, on her resuscitation of the ancient faith, which offers a very extraordinary catalogue of the ritual and cei-e- monies of the Romish church. It is indeed impossible to translate into Protestant English the multiplied nomenclatui-e of offices which involve human life in never-ceasing service. As I know not where we can iind so clear a perspective of this amazing contrivance to fetter with religious ceremonies the freedom of the Imman mind, 1 present the reader with an ac- curate translation of it : — "Pietro Aretino to the Queen of Enrjland. " The voices of Psalms, the sound of Canticles, the breath of E{)istles, and the Spirit of Gospels, had need unloose the lan- guage of my words in congratulating your superhumanlMajcsty on having not only restored conscience to the minds and hearts of Englishmen and taken deceitful heresy away j'rom them, ])ut on bringing it to jjass, when it was least hoped for, that charity and faith were again born and raised up in them ; on which sudden conversion triumphs our sovereign Pontiff iiiscriptiou by one Sextus Arius Varcis, to Ilenues, "liis best servant" (servo Optimo). F.ibretti has preserved au iiist'rii)tion wliich records the death of a child, T. Alfacius Scantianius, by one Alfacius Severns, liis master, by which it ai)pear8 he was the child of an old servant, wiio was honoured by l)caring the prcnonien of the master, and who is also styled in the epitaph " hi.s sweetest frccdmau" (liberto dulcissimo). — Ed. 37 G Literary Miscellanies. Julius, the College, and tlie wliole of the clergy, so that it seems in Rome as if the shades of the old Ctesars with visible effect showed it in their very statues ; meanwhile the pure mind of his most blessed Holiness canonizes you, and marks you iu the catalogue among the Catharines and Margarets, and dedicates you," &c. " The stupor of so stupendous a miracle is not the stupe- faction of stupid wonder ; and all proceeds from your being in the grace of God in every deed, whose incomprehensible goodness is pleased with seeing you, in holiness of life and in- nocence of heart, cause to be restored in those proud countries, solemnity to Eastcrs, abstinence to Lents, sobriety to Fridays, parsimony to Satui-days, fulfilment to vows, fasts to vigils, observances to seasons, chrism to creatures, unction to the dying, festivals to saints, images to churches, masses to altars, lights to lamps, organs to quires, benedictions to olives, robings to sacristies, and decencies to baptisms ; and that nothing may be wanting (thanks to your pious and most entire nature), possession has been regained to offices, of hours ; to ceremonies, of incense ; to reliques, of shrines ; to the con- fessed, of absolutions ; to priests, of habits ; to preachers, of pulpits ; to ecclesiastics, of pre-eminences ; to scriptures, of interpreters ; to hosts, of communions ; to the poor, of alms ; to the wretched, of hospitals ; to virgins, of monasteries ; to fathers, of convents ; to the clergy, of orders ; to the defunct, of obsequies ; to tierces, noons, vespers, complins, ave-maries, and matins, the privileges of daily and nightly bells." The fortunate temerity of Aretino gave birth to subsequent publications by more skilful writers. Nicolo Franco closely followed, who had at first been the amanuensis of Aretino, then his rival, and concluded his literary adventures by being hanged at Rome ; a circumstance which at the time must have occasioned regret that Franco had not, in this respect also, been an imitator of his original, a man equally feared, flattered, and despised. The greatest personages and the most esteemed writers of that age were perhaps pleased to have discovered a new and easy path to fame ; and since it was ascertained that a man might become celebrated by writings never intended for the press, and which it was never imagined could confer fame on the writers, volumes succeeded volumes, and some authors are scarcely known to posterity but as letter-writers. We have the too-elaborate epistles of Bembo, secretary to Leo X., and Printed Letters in the Vernacular Idiom. 377 the more elegant correspondence of AxNinAL C.vuo ; a work which, tliough posthumous, and puhlished by an artectionate nephew, and therefore too undiscerning a puhlisher, is a model of familiar letters. These collections, being found agreeable to the taste of their readers, novelty was courted by composing letters more expressly adapted to public curiosity. The subjects were now diversilied by critical and political topics, till at length they descended to one more level with the faculties, and more grateful to the passions of the populace of readers — Love ! Many grave personages had already, without being sensible of tlie ridiculous, languished through tedious odes and starch sonnets. Doxi, a bold literary projector, who invented a literary review both of printed and manuscript works, with not inferior ingenuity, published his love-letters ; and with the felicity of an Italian diminutive, he fondly entitled them " Pistolette Amorose del Doni," 1552, 8vo. These Pistole were designed to be little epistles, or billets-doux, but Doni was one of those fertile authors who have too little time of their own to compose short works. Doni was too facetious to be sentimental, and his quill was not plucked from the wing of Love. He was followed by a graver pedant, who threw a heavy offering on the altar of the Graces ; Paii.vbosco, who in six books of " Lettere Amorose," 15(55, 8vo. was too phlegmatic to sigh over his inkstand. Denina mentions Lewis Pasquahoo of Venice as an im- prover of these amatory epistles, by introducing a deeper interest and a more complicate narrative. Partial to the Italian literature, Denina considers this author as having given birth to those novels in the form of letters, with which modern Europe has been inundated ; and he refers the curious in literary researches, for the jirecursors of these epistolari/ novels, to the works of those Italian wits who llourished in the sixteenth century. "The Worlds" of Doni, and the numerous whimsical works of OuTiCNsio Landi, and the "Circe" of Gelli, of which we have more than one English translation, which, under their fantastic inventions, cover the most profound philoso- phical views, have been considered the precursors of the finer genius of " Tlie Persian Letters," that fertile mother of a numerous jirogeny, of D'Argens and others. The Italians are justly proud of some valuable collections of letters, which seem peculiar to themselves, and which may 378 Literary Miscellanies. be considered as the works of arlists. Tliey have a collection of " Lettere di Tredici Uomini lllustri," which appeared in 1571; another more curious, relatini^ to princes — "Lettere de' Principi le quali o si scrivono da Principi a Prineipi, o ragionano di Principi;" Venezia, loSl, in 3 vols, quarto. But a treasure of this kind, peculiarly interesting to the artist, has appeared in more recent times, in seven quarto volumes, consisting of the original letters of the great painters, from tlie golden age of Leo X., gradually collected by Bot- TART, who published them in separate volumes. They abound in the most interesting facts relative to the arts, and display tlie characteristic traits of their lively writers. Every artist will turn over with delight and curiosity these genuine efi'u- sions ; chronicles of the days and the nights of their viva- cious brotliors. It is a little remarkable that he who claims to be the first satirist in the English language, claims also, more justly per- haps, the honour of being the first author who published familiar letters. In the dedication of his Epistles to Prince Henry, the son of James the First, Bishop Hall claims the honour of introducing " this new fashion of discourse by epistles, new to our language, usual to others ; and as novelty is never without plea of use, more free, more familiar." Of these epistles, in six decades, many were written during his travels. We have a collection of Donne's letters abounding with his peculiar points, at least witty, if not natural. As we became a literary nation, familiar letters served as a vehicle for the fresh feelings of our first authors. Howell, whose Epistolre bears his name, takes a wider circumference in " Familiar Letters, domestic and foreign, historical, poli- tical, and philosophical, upon emergent occasions." The "emergent occasions" the lively writer found in his long con- finement in the Fleet — that English Parnassus ! Howell is a wit, who, in writing his own history, has written that of his times ; he is one of the few whose genius, striking in the heat of the moment only current coin, produces finished medals for the cabinet. His letters are still published. The taste which had now arisen for collecting letters, induced Sir Tobie Mathews, in 16G0, to form a volume, of which many, if not all, are genuine productions of their difi'erent writers. The dissipated elegance of Charles II. inspired freedom in letter-writing. The royal emigrant had caught the tone of Voiture. We have some few letters of the wits of this court. Printed Letters in the Vernacular Idiom. 379 but that school of writers, having sinned in gross materiahsm, the reaction produced another of a more spiritual nature, in a romantic strain of the most refined sentiment. Volumes suc- ceeded volumes from pastoral and heroic minds. Katherine Philips, in the masquerade-dress of " The Matchless Orinda." addressed Sir Charles Cottrel, her grave " Poliarchus ;" while Mrs. Behn, in her loose dress, assuming the nymph-like form of "Astra^a," pursued a gentleman, concealed in a domino, under the name of " Lycidas." Before our letters reached to nature and truth, they were strained by one more effort after novelty ; a new species ap- peared, " From the Dead to the Living," by Mrs. Kowe : they obtained celebrity. She was the first who, to gratify the public taste, adventured beyond the Styx ; the caprice of public favour has returned them to the place whence they came. The letters of Pope were unquestionably written for the public eye. Partly accident, and partly persevering ingenuity, extracted from the family chests the letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montague, who long remained the model of letter- writing. The letters of Hughes and Shenstone, of Gray, Cowper, Walpole, and others, self-painters, whose indelible colours have given an imperishable charm to these fragments of the human mind, may close our subject ; printed familiar letters now enter into the history of our literature. AN INQUIRY LITER AEY AND POLITICAL CHARACTER OF JAMES THE FIRST; LN'CLUDING A SKETCH OF HIS AGE. "The whole reiga of James I. has been represented by a late celebrated pen (Burnet) to have been a continued course of mean practices; and others, who have professedly given an account of it, have filled their works with libel and invective, instead of history. Both King James and his ministers have met with a treatment from posterity highly unworthy of them, and those who have so liberally bestowed their censures were entirely ignorant of the true springs and causes of the actions they have undertaken to represent." — Sawyer's Preface to "Winwood's Memorials." " II y auroit un excellent livre a faire sur les injustices, les ocblis, et les CALOMNiES nisTORiQUES." — Madame de Genlis. ADVERTISEMENT. The present inquiry originates in an affair of literaiy con- science. Many years ago I set off in the world with the popular notions of the character of James the First ; but in the course of study, and with a more enlarged comprehension of the age, I was frequently struck by the contrast of his real witli his apparent character ; and I thought I had developed those hidden and involved causes which have so long influenced modern writers in ridiculing and vilifying this monarch. This historical trifle is, therefore, neither a hasty decision, nor a designed inquiry ; the results gradually arose through successive periods of time, and, were it worth the while, the history of my thoughts, in my own publications, might be arranged in a sort of chronological conviction.* It would be a cowardly silence to shrink from encountering all that popular prejudice and party feeling may oppose ; tliis were incompatible with that constant search after truth which we may at least expect from the retired student. I had originally limited this inquiry to the literary charac- ter of the monarch ; but there was a secret connexion between that and his political conduct ; and that again led me to examine the manners and temper of the times, with the cflects which a peace of more than twenty years operated on the nation. I hope that the freshness of the materials, often drawn from contemporary writings which have never been * I have described the progress of my opinions in "Curiosities of Lite- rature," vol. i. p. 467, last edition. 384 Advertisement. pul)lislic(l, may in sonic respect gratify curiosity. Of llio political character of James tlie First opposite tempers will form opposite opinions ; the friends of peace and humanity will consider that the greatest happiness of tlie people is that of possessing a philosopher on the throne ; let profounder in- quirers hereafter discover why those princes are suspected of being but weak men, who are the true fathers of their people ; let them too inform us, whether we are to ascribe to James the First, as well as to Marcus Antoninus, the disorders of their reign, or place them to the ingratitude and wantonness of mankind. AN INQUIRY LITERARY AND POLITICAL CHARACTER OF JAMES THE FIRST; INCLUDING A SKETCH OF HIS AGE. If sometimes the learned entertain false opinions and tradi- tionary prejudices, as well as the people, they however pre- serve among themselves a paramount love of truth, and the means to remove errors, which have escaped their scrutiny. The occasion of such errors may be complicate, but, usually, it is the arts and passions of the few which find an indolent acquiescence among the many, and firm adherents among those who so eagerly consent to what they do not disUke to hear. A remarkable instance of this appears in the character of James the First, which lies buried under a heap of ridicule and obloquy ; yet James the First was a literary monarch at one of the great eras of English literature, and his contem- poraries were far from suspecting that his talents were incon- siderable, even among those who had their reasons not to like him. The degradation which his literary character has suflered has been inllicted by more recent hands ; and it may startle the last echoer of Pope's *' Pedant-reign " to hear that more wit and wisdom have hijun recorded of James the First than of any one of our sovereigns. An " Autlior-Sovereign," as Lord Shaftesbury, in his anomalous but euqjhatic style, terms this class of writers, is placed between a double eminence of honours, and must incur the double perils ; he will receive no favour from his brothers, the Faineants, as a whole race of ciphers in succession on the throne of Franco were denominated, and who find it much more easy to desj)ise than to acquire ; while his other brothers, the republicans of liteiature, want a heart to admire the n)aii who has resisted the perpetual seductions of a court-life for c c 380 Chdracter of James the First. the silent labours of his closot. Yet if Alphonsus of Arragon he still a iiuriic endeared to us for liis love of literature, and for that elegant testimony of his devotion to study expressed by the device on his banner of «« oprn hook, how much mor«- ought we to be indulgent to the memory of a sovereign who has written one still worthy of being opened ? We must separate the literary from the political character of this monarch, and the qualities of his mind and temper from the ungracious and neglected manners of his personal one. And if we do not take a more familiar view of the events, the parties, and the genius of the times, the views and conduct of James the First will still remain imperfectly comprehended. In the reign of a prince who was no military character, we must busy ourselves at home ; the events he regulated may be numerous and even interesting, although not those which make so much noise and show in the popular page of hi.story, and escape us in its general views. The want of this sort of knowledge has proved to be one great source of the false judgments passed on this monarch. Surely it is not philoso- phical to decide of another age by the changes and the feelings through which our own has passed. There is a chronology of human opinions which, not observing, an indiscreet philo- sopher may commit an anachronism in reasoning. When the Stuarts became the objects of popular indigna- tion, a peculiar race of libels was eagerly dragged into light, assuming the imposing form of history ; many of these state- libels did not even pass through the press, and may occa- sionally be discovered in their MS. state. Yet these publica- tions cast no shade on the talents of James the First. His literary attainments were yet undisputed ; they were echoing in the ear of the writers, and many proofs of his sagacity were still lively in their recollections. THE FIRST MODERN ASSAILANTS OF THE CHARACTER OF JAMES THE FIRST. Burnet, the ardent champion of a party so deeply concerned to oppose as well the persons as the principles of the Stuarts, levelled the father of the race ; we read with delight pages which warm and burr}' us on, mingling truths with rumours, and known with suggested events, with all the spirit of set-ret history. But the character of James 1. was to pass through the first Assailants of James the First. 387 lengthened inquisitorial tortures of the sullen sectarianism of Harris.* It was branded by the fierce, remorseless republican Catharine Macaulay, and flouted by the light, sparkling Whig, Horace Walpole.f A senseless cry of pedantry had been * The historical works of Dr. William Harris have been recently repub- lished in a collected form, and they may now be considered as entering into our historical stores. Hakris is a curious researcher ; but what appears more striking in his historical character, is the impartiality with which he quotes authorities which make against his own opinions and st;itements. Yet is Harris a writer likely to impose on many readers. He announces in his title-pages that his wurks are "after the manner of Mr. Bayle." This is but a lite- rary imposition, fur Harris is perhaps the meanest writer in our language both for style and philosophical thinking. The extraordinary impartiality he displays in his faithful quotations from writers on opposite sides is only the more likely to deceive us; for by that unalterable party feeling, which never forsakes him, the facts against him he studiously weakens by doubts, surmises, and suggestions ; a character sinks tu the level of his notions by a single stroke ; and from the arguments adverse to his purpose, he wrests the most violent inferences. All party writers must submit to practise such mean and disingenuous arts if they affect to disguise themselves under a cover of impartiality. Bayle, intent on collecting facts, was indifferent to their results; but Harris is more intent on the deductions than the facts. The truth is, Harris wrote to please his patron, the republican Hollis, who supplied him with books, and every friendly aid. "It is possible for an ingenious man to beof a^jaW// without being ;>f(r/?rt^," says Rushworth ; an airy clench on the lips of a sober matter-of-fact man looks suspicious, and betrays the weak pang of a half-conscience. t Horace Walpole's character of James I., in his "Royal Authors," is as remarkable as his character of Sir Philip Sidney ; he might have written both withuut any acquaintance with the works he has so maliciously criti- cised. In his account of Sidney he had silently passed over the " Defence of Poetry ;" and in his second edition he makes this insolent avowal, that "he had forgotten it; a proof that I at least did not think it sufhcient foundation for so high a character as he ac(juired." Every re.ader of taste knows the falseness of the criticism, and how heartless the polished cynicism that could dare it. I repeat, what I have cLsewhere said, that Horace Walpole had something in his composition more predominant than his wit, a cold, unfeeling disposition, which contemned all literary men, at the moment his heart secretly panted to partake of their fame. Nothing can be more imposing than his volatile and caustic criticisms on the works of James I. ; yet it appears t<.> me that he had never ojiencd that folio volume he .so poignantly ridicnli'S. For he doubts whether those two pieces, "The Prince's Cabala" and "TiieDutyof a King in his Royal Office," were genuine productions of James I. The truth is, they are both nothing more than extracts printed with those separate titles, drawn from the King's " Basilicon Doron." Ho had probably neither read the extracts nor the original. Thus singularity of opinion, vivacity of ridicule, and polished epigrams in prose, were the means by which this noble writer startled the world by his paradoxes, and at length lived to be mortified at c c 2 388 Character of James the First. raised ai:^ainst him l)y the eloquent invective of Bolingbroke, from whom «loubtless Pope echoed it in verse which has out- lived his lordship's prose : — Oh, cried the goddess, for some pedant reign ! Some gentle James to bless the land again ; To stick the doctor's chair into the throne, Give law to words, or war with words alone, Senates and courts with (ireek and Latin rule. And turn the council to a grammar-school I Dunciad, Ijook iv. ver. 175. THE PEDANTRY OF JAMES THE FIRST. Few of my readers, I suspect, but have long been persuaded that James I. was a mere college pedant, and that all his works, whatever they may be, are monstrous pedantic labours. I'et this monarch of all things detested pedantry, either as it shows itself in the mere form of Greek and Latin, or in ostentatious book-learning, or in the affectation of words of remote signification : these are the only points of view in which I have been taught to consider the meaning of the term pedantiy, which is very indefinite, and always a relative one. The age of James I. was a controversial age, of unsettled opinions and contested principles ; an age, in which authority was considered as stronger than opinion ; but the vigom* of that age of genius was infused into their writings, and those citers, who thus perpetually crowded their margins, were pro- found and original thinkers. When the learning of a pre- ceding age becomes less recondite, and those principles general which were at first peculiar, are the ungrateful heirs of all this knowledge to reproach the fathers of their literature with pedantry ? Lord Bolingbroke has pointedly said of James L that " his pedantry was too much even for the age in which he lived." His lordship knew little of that glorious age when the founders of our literature flourished. It had been over-clouded by the French court of Charles IL, a race of un- principled wits, and the revolution-court of William, heated by a new faction, too impatient to discuss those principles of a reputation which he sported with and lost. I refer the reader to those extracts from his MS. letters which are in " Calamities of Authors," where he has made his litei'ary confessions, and performs his act of penance. His Polemical Studies. 389 government whieh they had established. It was easy to ridicule what they did not always understand, and very rarely met with. But men of far higher genius than this monarch, Selden, Usher, and Milton, must first be condemned before this odium of pedantry can attach itself to the plain and unostentatious writings of James I., who, it is remarkable, has not scattered in them those oratorical periods, and elabo- rate fancies, which he indulged in his speeches and proclama- tions. These loud accusers of the i)edantry of James were little aware that the king has expressed himself with energy and distinctness on this very topic. His majesty cautions Prince Henry against the use of any " corrupt leide, as hook- laufjuage, and pen-and-inkhorn tennes, and, least of all, nig- }iard and effeminate ones." One passage may be given entire as completely i-efuting a charge so general, yet so unfounded. " I would also advise you to write in " i/our own language, for there is nothing left to he said in Greek and Latine already ; and, ynewe (enough) of poore schoUers would match you in these languages ; and besides that it best becometh a King, to purifie and make famous his owne tongue ; therein he may goe before all his subjects, as it setteth him well to doe in all honest and lawful things." No scholar of a pedantic taste could have dared so complete an emancipation from ancient, yet not obsolete prejudices, at a time when many of our own great authors yet imagined tliere was no fame for an English- man unless he neglected his maternal language for the artificial labour of the idiom of ancient Rome. Bacon had even his own domestic Essays translated into Latin; and tlie king found a courtier-bishop to perform the same task lor his majesty's writings. There was something prescient in this view of the national language, by the king, who contemplated in it those latent powers wliich had not yet burst into existence. It is evident that the line of Pope is false which describes the king as intending to rule " senates and courts" by " turning the council to a irrammar-school." HIS roLE.MICAL STUDIES. TiiTS censure of the pedantry of James is also connected with those studies of polemical divinity, for which the king has incurred much ridicule from one party, who were not his contemporaries ; and such vehement invective from another, 390 Character of James the First. who were ; who, to their utter dismay, discovered their monarch descendintj into their theological gymnasium to encounter them with tlieir own weapons. The affairs of rehgion and pohtics in the reign of James I., as in the preceihng one of Elizabeth,* were identified toge- ther ; nor yet have the same causes in Eurojje ceased to act, however changed or moditied. The government of James was im[)eifectly established while his subjects were wrestling with two great factions to obtain the predominance. The Catholics were disputing his title to the crown, which they aimed to carry into the family of Spain, and had even fixed on Arabella Stuart, to marry her to a Prince of Parma ; and the Puritans would have abolished even sovereignty itself; these parties indeed were not able to take the field, but all felt equally powerful with the pen. Hence an age of doc- trines. When a religious body has grown into power, it changes itself into a political one ; the chiefs are flattered by their strength and stimulated by their ambition ; but a power- ful body in the State cannot I'cmain stationary, and a divided empire it disdains. Religious controversies have therefore been usually coverings to mask the political designs of the heads of parties. We smile at James the First threatening the States-general by the English Ambassador about Vorstius, a Dutch professor, Avho had espoused the doctrines of Arminius, and had also vented some metaph^-sical notions of his own respecting the occult nature of the Divinity. He was the head of the Kemonstrants, who were at open war with the party called the Coiitra-Remonstrants. The ostensible subjects were reli- gious doctrines, but the concealed one was a struggle between Pensionary Barnevelt, aided by the French interest, and the Prince of Orange, supported by the English ; eveu to our own days the same opposite interests existed, and betrayed the Piepublie, although religious doctrines had ceased to be the pretext. t * I Lave more largely entered into tbe history of the party who at- tempted to subvert the government in the reign of Elizabeth, and who published their works under the assumed name of JIartin Mar-prelate, than had hitherto been done. In our domestic annals that event and those personages are of some importance and curiosity ; but were imper- fectly known to the popular wTiters of our history. — See "Quarrels of Authors," p. 296, ct scq. t Pensionary Barnevelt, in his seventy-second year, was at length brought to the block. Diodati, a divine of Geneva, made a miserable pun His Polemical Studies. 391 What was passing betsveen tlie Dutch Prince and the Dutch Pensionary, was much like what was taking place Ijetween the King of England and his own suljjects. James 1. had to touch with a balancing hand the Catholics and the Nonconformists,*— to play them one against another; but there was a distinct end in their views. "James I.," saj's Burnet, " continued always writing and talking against Popery, but acting for it." The King and the bishops were probably more tolerant to monarchists and prelatists, than to republicans and presbyters. When James got nothing but gunjjowder and Jesuits from Ivonie, he was willing enough to banisii, or suppress, but the Catholic families were ancient and numerous ; and the most determined spirits which ever sub- verted a government were Catholic. t Yet what could the King expect from the party of the Puritans, and their " con- on the occasion ; he said that " the Canons of tlie Synod of Dort had taken off tlie head of the advocate of Holland." This pun, says Brandt in his curious "History of the Reformation," is very injurious to the Synod, since it intimates that the Church loves blood. It never entered into the mind of these divines that Barnevelt fell, not by the Synod, but by the Orange and English party prevailing against the French. Lord Hardwicke, a statesman and a man of letters, deeply conversant with secret and public- history, is a more able judge than the ecclesiastical historian or the Swiss divine, who could see nothing in the Synod of Dort but what appeared in it. It is in Lord Hardwicke's preface to Sir Dudley Carleton's "Letters" that his lordship has made this important discovery. * James did all he could to weaken the Catholic party by dividing them in opinion. When Dr. Reynolds, the head of the Nonconformists, com- plained to the king of the printing and dispersing of Popish ])amphlets, the king answered, that this was done by a warrant from the Court, to nourish the schism between the Seculars and Jesuits, which was of great service " Doctor," added the king, "you are a better clergyman than statesman." — Neale's "History of the Puritans," vol. i. p. 41*5, 4to. t Tlie character and demeanour of the celebrated Guy or (iuido Fawkes, who ajjpeared first before the council under the a.ssumed name of Johnson, I find in a MS. letter of the times, which contains .some characteristic touches not hitherto published. This letter is from Sir Edward Hoby to Sir Thomas Edmoudes, our ambas.sador at the court of Brussels — dated lyth November, 1(305. "One Johnson w.as found in the vault where the (irunpowdcr Plot was discovered. He was asked if he was sorry ? He answered that he was only sorry it had not taken j)Iace. He was threatened that he should die a worse death than he that killed the Prince of Orange ; he answered, that he could boar it as well. When Johnson was brought to tlie king's presence, the king asked him how he could con- spire so hideous a treason against his children and so many innocent souls who had never offended him ? He an.sw:ered, that dangerous diseases required a desperate remedy ; and he told some of the Scots that his intent was to have blown them back again into Scotland I"— Monhicious Guy Fawkes ! 302 Character of James the First. ceited parity," as he called it, should he once throw himself into their hands, hut the fate his son received from them ? In tlie early stage of the Jieformation, the Catholic still entered into the same church with the Reformed ; this com- mon union was hroken hy the impolitical impatience of the court of Home, who, jealous of tlie tran<|uillity of Elizaheth, hoped to weaken her government hy disunion ;* hut the Re- formed were already separating among themselves hy a new race, who, fancying that their religion was still too Catholic, were for reforming the Reformation. These had most extra- vagant fancies, and were for modelling the government accord- ing to each particular man's notion. Were we to hend to the foreign despotism of the Roman Tiara, or that of the repuhlican rahble of the Presbytery of Geneva ? rOLEAIICAL STUDIES WERE POLITICAL. It was in these times that James I., a learned prince, applied to polemical studies ; properly understood, these were in fact political ones. Lord Bolingbi'oke saN's, " He affected more learning than became a king, which he broached on every occasion in such a manner as would have misbecome a schoolmaster." AVould the politician then require a half- learned king, or a king without any learning at all ? Our eloquent sophist appears not to have recollected that pole- mical studies had long with us been considered as royal ones ; and that from a slender volume of the sort our sovereigns still derive the regal distinction of " Defenders of the Faith." The pacific government of James I. required that the King himself should be a master of these controversies to be enabled to balance the conflicting parties ; and none but a learned king could have exerted the industry or attained to the skill. * Sir Edward Coke, attorney-general, in the trial of Garnet the Jesuit, say.s, " There were no Recusants in England — all came to church howsoever Popishly inclined, till the Bull of Pius V. excommunicated and deposed Elizabeth. On this the Papists refused to join in the public service. — "State Trials," vol. i. p. 242. The Pope imagined, by false impressions he had received, that the Catholic party was strong enough to prevail against Elizabeth. After- wards, when he found his error, a disjieusation was granted by himself and his successor, that all Catholics might .^how outward obedience to Elizabeth till a happier opportunity. Such are Catholic politics and Catholic faith ' 393 THE HAMPTON-COURT CONFERENCE. In the famous conference at Hampton Court, which the King held with the heads of the Nonconformists, we see liis ma- jesty conversing sometimes witli great learning and sense, but oftener more witli the earnestness of a man, than some have imagined comported witli the dignity of a crowned head. The truth is, James, like a true student, indulged, even to his dre^s, an utter carelessness of parade, and there was in his cliaracter a constitutional warmth of heart and a jocundity of temper which did not always adapt it to state- occasions ; he threw out his feelings, and sometimes his jests. James, who had passed his youth in a royal bondage, felt that these Nonconlbrniists, while they were debating small points, were reserving for hereafter their great ones ; were cloaking their republicanism by their theology, and, like all other politicians, that their ostensible were not their real motives.* Harris and Neale, the organs of the Noncon- formists, inveigh against James ; even Hume, with the phi- losophy of the eighteenth century, has pronounced that the king was censurable " for entering zealously into these fri- volous disputes of theology." Lord Bolingbroke declares that the king held this conference " in haste to show his parts." Thus a man of genius substitutes suggestion and assertion for accuracy of knowledge. In the present in- stance, it was an attempt of the Puritans to try the king on his arrival in England ; they presented a petition for a con- * In political history we usually find that the heads of a party are much wiser than tlie iiarty themselves, so that, whatever they intend to acquire, their first demands are small ; but the honest souls who are only stirred by their own innocent zeal, arc sure to complain that th^'ir business is done negligently. Should the party at first succeed, then the bolder spirit, which they have disguised or sui)pressed through policy, is left to itself ; it stjirts unbridled and at full gallop. All this occurred in the ease of the Puritans. We find that some of the rigid Nonconformists did confess in a pamjihlet, "The Christian's modest offer of the Silenced Ministers," lGO(i, that those who were appointed to speak for them at Hampton Court were iiut of their nomluation or ju(/(jmciit ; they insisted that these delegates should declare at once against the whole church esta- blishment, &c., and model the government to each particular man's no- tions ! Hut these delegates prudently refused to acquaint the king with the conflicting opinions of their constituents. — Lunsdownc MSS. 105(5, 51. This confes.sion of the Nonconformists is also acknowledged by their historian Neale, vol. ii. p. 419, 4to edit. 394 Character of James the First. ference, called "The Millenary Petition,"* from a thousand persons supposed to have sifi^ed it ; the king would not refuse it ; but so far from beint^ " in haste to sliow his parts," that when he discovered their pretended grievances were so futile, " he complained that he had been troubled with such importunities, when some more private course might have been taken for their satisfaction." The narrative of this once celebrated conference, notwith- standing the absurdity of the toj)ics, becomes in the hands of the entertaining Fuller a picturesque and dramatic compo- sition, where the dialogue and the manners of the speakers are after the life. In the course of this conference we obtain a familiar in- tercourse with the king ; we may admire the capacity of the monarch whoso genius was versatile with the subjects ; sliding from theme to theme with the ease which only mature studies could obtain ; entering into the graver parts of these discussions ; discovering a ready knowledge of biblical leaining, which would sometimes throw itself out with his natural humour, in apt and familiar illustrations, throughout indulging his own personal feelings with an un- paralleled naivete. The king opened the conference with dignity ; he said " he was happier than his predecessors, who had to alter what the}' found established, but he onl}' to confirm what was well settled." One of the party made a notable discoven,-, that the surplice was a kind of garment used by the priests of Isis. The king observed that he had no notion of this antiquity, since he had always heard from them that it was "a rag of poper}'." " Dr. lieynolds," said the king, with an air of pleasantry, " they used to wear hose and shoes in times of popery ; have you therefore a mind to go bare- foot ?" liej'nolds objected to the words used in matrimony, " with my bod}- I thee worship." The king said the phrase was an usual English term, as a gentleman of icorship, &.C., and turning to the doctor, smiling, said, "Many a man * The petition is given at length in Collier's "Eccles. Hist.," vol. ii. p. 672. At this time also the Lay Catholics of England printed at Douay, "A Petition Apologetical," to James I. Their language is remarkable : they complained they were excluded "that supreme court of parliament first founded by and for Catholike men, was furnished with Catholike pre- lates, peeres, and personages ; and so continued till the times of Edirartf VI. a childc, and Queen Elizabeth a iroman.''' — Dodd's "Church Hlstorv."' The Hampton-Court Conference. 395 speaks of Robin Hood, who never shot in his bow ; if you liad a good wife yourself, you woukl think all the honour and worship you could do to her were well bestowed." Rey- nolds was not satisfied on the 37th article, declaring that " the Bishop of Rome hath no authority in this laud," and desired it should be added, " nor ought to have any." In Barlow's narrative we iind that on this his majesty heartil}' laughed — a laugh easil}' caught up by the lords ; but the king nevertheless condescended to reply sensibly to the weak ob- jection. " What speak you of the pope's authorit\' here ? ILahe- mxis jure quod hahemus ; and therefore inasmuch as it is said he hath not, it is plain enough that he ought not to have." It was on this occasion that some " pleasant discourse passed," in which " a Puritan" was defined to be " a Pro- testant frightened out of his wits." The king is more par- ticularly vivacious when he alludes to the occurrences of his own reign, or suspects the Puritans of republican notions. On one occasion, to cut the gordian-knot, the king royally decided — " 1 will not argue that point w^th you, but answer as khigs in parliament, Le Boy s'avisera.'^ When they hinted at a Scottish Presbytery the king was somewhat stirred, yet what is admirable in him (says Bar- low) without a show of passion. The king had lived among the republican saints, and had been, as he said, " A king without state, without honour, without order, where beard- less boys would brave us to our face ; and, like the Saviour of the world, thou^ tlie merit of detecting the deception — so far was James 1. (rom being credulous, as he is generally sup- ])osed to have been, llidiculous as the affair may appear to us, it had perfectly succeeded with the learned fellows of New College, Oxi'ord, and afterwards with heads as deep ; and it required some exertion of the king's philosophical reasoning to pronounce on the deception. One Haddock, who was desirous of becoming a preacher, but had a stuttering and slowness of utterance, which he could not get rid of, took to the study of physic ; but recol- lecting that, when at Winchester, his schoolfellows had told him that he spoke fluently in his sleep, he tried, affecting to be asleep, to form a discourse on physic. Finding that he succeeded, he continued the practice : he then tried divinity, and spoke a good sermon. Having prepared one for the pur- pose, he sat up in his bed and delivered it so loudly that it attracted attention in the next chamber. It was soon reported that Haddock preaclied in his sleeep ; and nothing was heard but inquiries after the sleeping preacher, who soon found it his interest to keep up the delusion. He was now considered as a man truly inspired ; and he did not in his own mind rate his talents at less worth tlian the first vacant bishopric. He was brought to court, where the greatest personages anxiously sat up through the night by his bedside. They tried all the maUciousness of Puck to pinch and to stir him : he was with- out hearing or feeling ; but they never departed without an orderly text and sermon ; at the close of which, groaning and stretching himself, he pretended to awake, declaring he was unconscious of what had passed. " The king," says Wilson, no flatterer of James, " privately handled him so like a ehirurgeon, that he found out the sore." The king was pre- sent at one of these sermons, and forbade them ; and his reasonings, en this occasion, brought the sleeping preacher on his knees. The king observed, that things studied in the day-time may be dreamed of in the night, but always irregu- larly, without order ; not, as these sermons were, good and learned ; as particularly the one preached before his Majesty in his sleep — which he first treated physically, then theologi- cally ; "and I observed," said the king, "that he always preaches best when he has the most crowded audience." Basilicon Doron. 413 " Were he allowed to proceed, all slander and treason might pass under colour of being asleep," added the king, who, not- withstanding his pretended inspiration, awoke the sleeping preacher for ever afterwards. BASILICON DORON. That treatise of James I., entitled " Basilicon Doron ; or, His Majesty's Instructions to his dearest Son Henry the Prince," was composed by the king in Scotland, in the fresh- ness of his studious days ; a work, addressed to a prince by a monarch which, in some respects, could only have come from the hands of such a workman. The morality and the politics often retain their curiosity and their value. Our royal author has drawn his principles of government from the classical volumes of antiquity ; for then politicians quoted Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero. His waters had, indeed, flowed over those beds of ore ;* but the growth and vigour of the work comes from the mind of the king himself : he writes for the Prince of Scotland, and about the Scottish people. On its first appearance Camden has recorded the strong sensation it excited : it was not only admired, but it entered into and won the hearts of men. Harris, forced to acknowledge, in his mean style and with his frigid temper, that "this book contains some tolerable things," omits not to hint that " it might not be his own :" but the claims of James I. are evi- dent from the peculiarity of the style ; the period at which it was composed ; and by those particular passages stamped with all the individuality of the king himself. The style is remarkable for its profuse sprinkling of Scottish and French words, where the Doric plainness of the one, and the intelli- gent expression of the other, otter curious instances of the influence of manners over language ; the diction of the royal author is a striking evidence of the intermixture of the two nations, and of a court which had marked its divided inte- rests by its own chequered language. This royal manual still interests a philosophical mind ; like one of those anticjue and curious pictures we sometimes dis- * James, early in life, waa a fine Bcholar, and a lover of the ancient hia- torians, aa appeal's frum au accidental expres.siun of Bucliaimn's, in his dedication to James of Lis "Bapiistes;" referring to Sallust, he adds, apud TUUM Saluatium. 414 Character of James the First. cover in a cabinet, — studied for the costume ; 3'et where the touches of nature are true, althou<;h tlie colouring is brown and faded ; but there is a force, and sometimes even a charm, in the ancient simplicity, to which even the delicacy of taste may return, not without pleasure. The king tells his son : — " Sith all ]»eople are naturally inclined to follow their prince's example, in your own person make your wordes and deedes to fight together ; and let your own life be a law- book and a mirror to your people, that therein they may read the practice of their own lavves, and see by your image what life they should lead. " But vnto one faulte is all the common people of this kingdome subject, as well burgh as land ; which is, to judge and speak rashly of their prince, setting the commonweale vpon foure props, as wee call it ; euer wearying of the pre- sent estate, and desirous of nouelties." The remedy the king suggests, " besides the execution of laws that are to be vsed against vnreuerent speakers," is so to rule, as that " the sub- jects may not only live in suretie and wealth, but be stirred up to open their mouthes in your iust praise." JAMES THE FIRST'S IDEA OF A TYRANT AND A KING. The royal aiithor distinguishes a king Irom a t^-rant on their first entrance into the government : — " A tyrant will enter like a saint, till he find himself fast •under foot, and then will suffer his unruly affections to burst forth." He advises the prince to act contrary to Xero, who, at first, " with his tender-hearted wish, vellem nescire lite- ras,^^ appeared to lament that he was to execute the laws. He, on the contrary, would have the prince early show " the severitie of justice, which will settle the country-, and make them know that ye can strike : this would be but for a time. If otherwise ye kyth (show) your clemencie at the first the oSences would soon come to such heapes, and the contempt of you grow so great, that when ye would fall to punish the number to be punished would exceed the innocent ; and ye would, against your nature, be compelled then to wracke manie, whom the chastisement of few in the beginning might have preserved. In this my own dear-bought expe- rience may serve you for a different lesson. For I confess, where I thought (by being gracious at the beginning) to James the First's Idea of a Tyrant and a Kiny. 415 gain all men's heart to a loving and willing obedience, I by the contrarie found the disorder of the countrie, and the loss of my thanks, to be all my reward." James, in the course of the work, often instructs the prince by his own eiTors and misfortunes; and certainly one of these was an excess of the kinder impulses in granting favours ; there was nothing selHsh in his happiness ; James seemed to wish that every one around him should iiartioipato in the fulness of his own enjoyment. His hand was always open to scatter about him honours and wealth, and not always on unworthy favourites, but ol'ten on learned men whose talents he knew well to appreciate. There was a warmth in the king's temper which once he himself well described ; he did not like those who pride themselves on their tepid dispositions. " I love not one that will never be angry, for as he that is without sorrow is without gladness, so he that is without anger is without love. Give me the heart of a man, and out of that all his actions shall be ac- ceptable." The king thus addresses the prince : — On the Choice of Servants and Associates. " Be not moved with importunities ; for the which cause, as also for augmenting your Maiestie, be not so facile of access-giving at all times, as I have been." — In his minority, the choice of his servants had been made by others, " re- commending servants unto me, more for serving, in effect, their friends that put them in, than their niaister that ad- mitted them, and used them well, at the first rebellion raised against me. Chuse you your own servantes for your own vse, and not for the vse of others ; and, since ye must bo communis parens to all your peoi)le, chuse indifforentlie out of all quarters ; not respecting other men's appetites, but their own qualities. For as you must command all, so reason would ye should be served of all. — lie a daily watchman over your own servants, that they obey your laws preci.sely : for how can your laws be kept in the country, if tluy be broken at your eare ! — Bee homelie or strange with them, as ye think their l)ehaviour deserveth and their nature may bear ill. — Kmploy every man as ye think him (pialified, but use not one in all things, lest he wax proud, and be envied by his fellows. — As for the other sort of your companie and .ser- vants, they ought to be of perfect age, see they be of a good fame ; otherwise what can the people think but that ye have 416 Ckaracter of James the First. chosen a companion unto you according to your own humour, and so have jjreferred those men for the l(»ve of their vices and criniL's, that ye knew them to be f^uiltie of. For the peo])le, that see you not within, cannot judge of you hut ac- cording to tlie outward appearance of your actions and com- pany, which only is subject to their sight." THE REVOLUTIONISTS OF THAT AGE. James I. has painted, with vivid touches, the Anti-Mon- archists, or revolutionists, of his time. He describes "their imagined democracie, where they fed themselves with the hope to become trihuni plebi ; and so, in a popular government, by leading the people by the nose, to bear the sway of all the rule. — Every faction," he adds, " always joined them. I was ofttimes calumniated in their popular sermons, not for any evill or vice in me,* but because I was a king, which they thought the highest evill ; and, because they were ashamed to professe this quarrel, they were busie to look narrowly in all my actions, pretending to dis- tinguish the lawfulness of the office from the vice of the person ; yet some of them would snapper out well grossly with the trewth of their intentions, informing the people that all kings and princes were naturally enemies to the liberties of the Chui-ch ; whereby the ignorant were embol- dened (as bayards),tto cry the learned and modest out of it : but their parity is the mother of confusion, and enemie to vnitie, which is the mother of order." And it is not with- out eloquence his Majesty describes these factious Anti-Mon- archists, as " Men, whom no deserts can oblige, neither oaths nor promises bind ; breathing nothing but sedition and calumnies, aspiring without measure, railing without reason, and making their own imaginations the square of their conscience. I protest, before the great God, and, since I am here as vpon my testament, it is no place for me to lie in, that ye shall never find with any Hie-laiid, or Border * The conduct of James I. in Scotland has even extorted praise from one of his bitterest calumniators ; for Mrs. Macaulay has said — " His conduct, when King of Scotland, was in many points unexceptionable." + An old French word, expressing, " A man that gapes or gazes ear- nestly at a thing ; a fly-catcher ; a greedy and unmannerly beholder." — CoiaSATE. Of the Nobility of Scotland. — Of Colonising. 117 theevcs, greater ingratitude, and more lies and vile perjuries : ye may keep them for trying your patience, as Socrates did an evill wife." OF THE NOBILITY OF SCOTLAND. The king makes three great divisions of the Scottish people : the church, the nobility, and tlie burghers. Of the nobility, the king counsels the prince to check " A fectless arrogant conceit of their greatness and power, drinking in with their ver}'' nourish-milk. Teach your nobilitie to keep your lawes, as precisely as the meanest ; fear not their orping, or 1)eing discontented, as long as ye rule well : for their pretended reformation of princes taketh never effect, but where evil government proceedeth. Accjuaint yourself so with all the honest men of your barone anil gen- tlemen, giving access so open and affable, to make their own suites to you themselves, and not to emjiloy the great lordes, their intercessours ; so shall ye bring to a measure their monstrous backes. And for their barbarous feides (feuds), put the laws to due execution made by mee there-anent ; be- ginning ever rathest at him that yee love best, and is oblished vnto you, to make him an example to the rest. I\rake all your reformations to begin at your elbow, and so by degrees to the extremities of tlie land." He would not, however, tliat the prince sliould highly con- temn the nobility : " llemember, howe that error brake the king, my grandfather's heart. Consider that vertue lolloweth oftest noble blood : the more frequently that your court can be garnished with them, as i)ecrs and fathers of your land, thinke it the more your honour." He impresses on the mind of the ))rince ever to embrace the (juarrel of the poor and the sullercr, and to remember the honourable title given to his grandfather, in being called "The poor man's king." OF COLONISING. J.vMES 1. had a project of improving the state of tho.se that dwelt in the isles, "who are so utterly barbarous," by inter- mixing some of the semi-civilised Highlanders, and planting colonics among them of iidand subjects. £ K 418 Character of James the First. " I liavL" alrrady made laws against tlie over-lords, and the cliief of" their clannes, and it would be no diflicultie to danton them ; so rootinj^ out, or traiisportiiif^ the barbarous and stub- born sort, and jdanting eivilised in tlieir rooms." This was as wise a scheme as any modern philosopher could have suggested, and, with the conduct he subse