LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 291 |
Those graceful little publications called the “Annuals,” made their appearance between 1820 and 1830. The first called “The Forget me Not,” was published, I think, by Ackerman in the Strand. The “Friendship’s Offering,” was edited by Thomas Pringle, of whom I have already spoken in connection with “Blackwood’s Magazine,” and his own publications at the Cape of Good Hope. There were many contributors who sent their articles gratis. I was continually besieged for contributions, and gave something, always anonymously, except in the case of the very beautiful annual published by Alaric Watts, called the “Literary Souvenir,” the best of all beyond comparison. The later volumes of his annual were changed into choice specimens of art, and of the most pleasing character as to the literature. We cannot help regretting to find such works cease to go on for want of taste in that part of the public, which leads a sort of parasitic life in novelty. Some of these annuals were, as far as literature was concerned, it is too true, made, like Peter Pindar’s razors, to sell. Showy engravings, and verses by people of fashion; no matter who, if their names
292 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
The alterations in female dress are not much more fluctuating than those of the public have become in reading, well bearing out Winckelman’s observation of the worthlessness of taste among the northern nations. The merit of a book is judged too much on the plan adopted by one of the Dublin dealers in the ware, as related to me by a lady. He took the manuscript, balanced it on the palm of his hand, as if trying the merit by the weight of the packet, he paused, balanced it again, and declared himself satisfied with the work.
“But how, madam, about the name of the author—anonymous you say? Suppose we give it as by the Honourable Mrs. T——, who you know is just departed this life? We might set it going as the Duchess of York’s? I must have something to draw the public attention to it. Something catching in the
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 293 |
Of what worth after all is the toil over the midnight lamp, the sincere investigation of truth, the coruscations of genius, or the most laborious efforts to improve our fellow-creatures by wearying acquirements. If the labours of right-minded literary men were confined to a scanty pecuniary recompense alone, if there were not, no matter for the insubstantiality, something attractive and but too fascinating in the pursuit, they would be of all men most miserable. The employment of the mind upon elevated subjects, imparts to it something of their nature. When Johnson and Savage walked all night round St. James’ Square for want of a lodging, they did not converse about their pressing state of deprivation, but occupied the time which others would have spent in lamentation, perhaps in despair, with examining the acts of their rulers; and with topics, the realities of which belonged to the fortunate and rich, the legislature or the prime minister of the nation, to those, in short, who, in their lofty position were, perhaps, less elevated in mind than the two midnight pedestrians.
This can only apply to educated writers whose lives have been habituated to converse with the truly great of all ages, and whose associations have become imbued with the spirit that is least of the earth earthy. There are writers whose ideas do not rise much beyond the shop-boards they describe. But even here there must be a
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Notoriety is a different thing from the fame that springs from honest authorship—but enough. In labouring for the magazine, the correspondence was extensive and various; even the great fanciful apostle of bumps and protuberances must needs correspond. How fertile is Germany in that species of nonsense which attracts the ignorant from ignorance, and the money-lover with the hope of dupes. Nor has the German school the merit of novelty, almost all the more
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 295 |
“All who allow themselves to make similar observations on my discoveries, are either in complete ignorance of the study de la morale, or have not given themselves the trouble to read my works. In the first volume I have answered all the objections which treated of morality and religion. When the organs are considered, for example, that of carnivorous instinct, it is necessary to send my censurers to my treatises on the different tendencies and diverse families of men and animals; if the editor finds that man is degraded by being placed in the carnivorous class of animals, it is needful in order that he should belong to the farinaceous class, that he should renounce mutton, beef, veal, fowl and the like. If further, he is displeased to be denominated an animal of any kind, he must prove that he came into the world in a different way from the animals he eats, and digests, and sleeps in a different mode from them. The editor having a knowledge only of the work of M. Spurzheim, has, in consequence, a very defective knowledge of the matter. M. Spurzheim was well versed in organology, but in his lectures and works he had the great fault of being too concise, and consequently not being satisfactory to the
296 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
“M. Spurzheim did not join himself as an associate in my labours till 1805, at the moment I commenced my travels. Then all my physiological discoveries were completed. He had the merit of contributing to perfect the analogical discoveries. In the first volume of my great work, it may be seen to what point he had perfected the physiology of the brain. He complicated too much by his metaphysical inclinations, to work the divisions and subdivisions. Always travelling, by his journeys and conversation he powerfully contributed to propagate the doctrine.”
So much for F. J. Gall, and his bumps. Doctors differ. I cannot but recal my friend Wilson’s phrenological turnip, the skull of Professor Tornipson, the Swede, a cast of which he sent to the Edinburgh Phrenological Society, which is said to have held a special meeting over the bumps of the vegetable: that is, if the Professor of Moral Philosophy is to be credited.
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 297 |
The following extract will show what sort of intelligence we used to get from Ireland, and that it was not the mere tittle-tattle of Dublin.
“Dear Redding,
“Croker dined at the Castle yesterday, and amused Lord Wellesley by abusing the Irish government for some neglect in the post-office department, upon which before all the company at dinner, Croker got as nate a little dressing as his best friend could well desire. The Lord Lieutenant told him, ‘that he doubted not on his return to his party and his seat in Parliament he would report matters with his wonted fidelity. That he, Lord Wellesley, was the Irish government—that government the object of his dictation and abuse—and personally answerable for all its faults. It was right that he, Mr. Croker, should know, though he might not have heard of it, that it had engaged the attention of the government.’
“I hope this will make you laugh as it did me. The news, too, flew about the drawing-room like wild-fire. A large party was assembled, and everybody rejoiced with exceeding great joy, from which I conclude that the party in question is not popular.”
Going to make an enquiry at the Admiralty one day, I met a gallant officer bustling out from the secretary’s room, where that gentleman was alone.
“Where are you bustling in such a hurry?”
“To the club to read the paper. I have just been with the Admiralty—treated rather off-hand.”
“I saw the First Lord at Whitehall just now—their lordships are not sitting,” I observed.
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“But they are though. I had a trivial request to make, and a shuffling answer.”
“What, from the Board? They are not sitting this morning,” I repeated.
“Yes, they are. Croker is sitting, First Lord, Board and all. He cut me off short.”
It reminded me of Handel answering for six dinners in one; and when the servant told him the company was not yet come, he replied:
“I am de company—bring up de dinner.”
We did not rely on newspaper reports in the “New Monthly” for intelligence, and had not the publisher been fearful of everything but novels and fashion’s alliances, we might have increased our number greatly by more boldness. There was a large circulation in Ireland, and it might have been doubled. As it was a second impression was several times called for after five thousand had gone off at the price of three shillings and sixpence. I gained nothing by a laborious correspondence, which ought not to have been on my shoulders to such an extent; but success brightens hope, and I foolishly imagined chance might be my friend. At this time I received the contributors in the proportion of five to one to those whom Campbell personally knew, or even saw. I had evening conversaziones, which receptions kept our friends together.
Among writers for the magazine, Hazlitt was one of distinguished utility. His pen always supplied matter for reflection. He was paradoxical at times, but ever ingenious and sometimes profound. We had no more than a general acquaintance. He was a pallid complexioned man, with features by no means striking nor
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 299 |
* “New Monthly,” vol. lxxxi—“Memoirs of Campbell.” |
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The German literature of Mr. Taylor of the Temple, led us to have recourse to him in any pressure upon a subject, with which he had a thorough acquaintance. The author of “Gilbert Earle,” Barry Boyle St. Leger, a Rugbeian, the son of the Hon. Mrs. St. Leger, a favourite of the Guildford family, had been sent out to India at seventeen years of age. He came home disgusted, and entered himself of the Middle Temple. He was an exceedingly pleasant writer, cut off by death at the early age of thirty. Sir Charles Morgan, as well as his lady, were early contributors. Sir Charles was an excellent writer, but somewhat too solid and philosophical for the taste of the many. “Fit audience though few,” is all that writers of the better order can venture to anticipate. Always sound in principle, I felt a strong attachment to one who was a gentleman in manners, and possessed of acquirements of no common order. His ideas were liberal, and that amenity so remarkable in his profession beyond any other, seemed with him to arise more from nature than education. The necessity of considering humanity in a point of view different from other men, and a more intimate acquaintance with the physical tenure of our frail being, may perhaps render the profession more philosophical, more generous, and more affable in manners, than in professions, ruled by theological dogmas, or the arid rules of legal practice. We corresponded for many years, and were intimate to the time of his decease. I never found an individual of kinder feelings, more undeviating honour, or better information. Fortunate
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 301 |
When I look back and number those literary friends I have lost, I recal the apprehension of the ultimus suorum moriatur. Poor kind Banim, the Irish novelist, Shiel’s friend, used to visit me. He was an excellent, simple-hearted creature, I had not seen him for some time, and discovered he was married. I met him by accident.
“How is it I have not seen you of late, Banim,” I enquired.
“To tell you the truth, I have got married since I saw you.”
“And what of that—married and can’t come,” I suppose, “grown too anxious?”
“O, not at all; I have married a Catholic.”
“What?”
“I have married a Catholic, and I thought that, here in London, you might not like one of my wife’s religion?”
“You must be odd fish in Ireland, with your Orangemen and Papists. Seriously, my good friend, you must have come from the wilds of Connaught, indeed, to think we trouble ourselves here about the political and
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It was strange, and gave me an odd idea of the curse inflicted upon a country where such notions prevail. Banim soon saw how he erred in mistaking England for his native land. He suffered greatly from indisposition. I had written him at Sevenoaks to ask for some verses at the request of a friend who applied to me on the subject. Banim died in Ireland, I believe not a great while afterwards.
“I have the pleasure to enclose some verses of mine as tolerable, I hope, as you expected, for the consideration of your friend, the editor of the “O——.” They were, at least, as sincerely felt as conceived. Last summer, after going down to Hastings, Mrs. Banim and I took a walk along the path at the bottom of East Hill, and passing the little churchyard, which you may recollect, we caught a glance of the headstone of the daughter of an old friend, who had just died in the town, whom we knew a few months before, young, beautiful, good. After the first feeling came the remark
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 303 |
I engaged to meet in May Fair, the same month, an old friend whom I had visited some time before near Amiens. When I arrived, I was ushered into a room where there was one individual, a perfect stranger about the middling height. As soon as my host came in, he introduced me to John Dunn Hunter, whose curious history has been published by himself. His story was that he had been carried off by Indians in a foray upon an American village, when the inhabitants were massacred, and he was taken away and adopted by an Indian mother, to whom he became strongly attached. Consequently, he had been bred up among the Indians, and my friend, who had been among the Indians himself, did not doubt the truth of his statements. He insisted that habitual actions, and movements of his limbs by Hunter, when unobserved, convinced him that he was no impostor as some of the people in the United States insinuated he was. The Indians used such motions. Hunter was a plain man with a touch of a foreign accent in speaking. His book had been written for him at his dictation; he could not have composed it himself. I asked him as he had seen both London
304 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
He returned to America, determined to instruct his own tribe of Indians in rural economy, in short to teach them to plant, sow, and reap. He was shot soon after he arrived there, in a skirmish with a stranger tribe. He had known Jefferson, the President of America, and several of the chiefs of other Indian tribes, besides that to which he belonged. He told me they had no image worship, but prayed to the Great Spirit, as the other tribes did bordering upon his own. He did not seem to know anything about such beings as superstition conjures up among civilized nations, in the way of ghosts or supernatural appearances. Here, a wild man of the woods as he might be called, shamed us.
While thus alluding to supernatural appearances, I was myself puzzled sorely by a very singular incident connected with those unaccountables. I had called on a lady, about noon, in the height of summer, in one of the streets north of Oxford Street.
I had not been in the house a moment before I saw that something unusual had occurred. Presently the mistress came in, and said they had been alarmed by a
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 305 |
Something prompted her mistress to send and ask if the man was at home. He might have got in by stealth. How were they struck to find he had died that morning, and it was supposed about the same time the girl had seen him. I questioned all the parties, but found no discrepancy in their statements. The death of the young man was confirmed. The girl repeated that she had never encouraged his addresses, because she felt she could never attach herself to him.
I placed this incident to the same account as another I will relate, equally unaccountable as far as human testimony goes. They make just the two out of a dozen, not more, to which, alone, I am unable to find any solution. Captain W—— a gentleman I have long known, of unimpeachable honour, now living, after having served throughout the whole of the Peninsular war, was ordered from Spain to Nova Scotia, when peace was proclaimed in Europe, we being at war with the Americans. He was lounging in the mess-room of the barracks with another officer, I think in Halifax. It was noon-day,
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“There is your brother,” said Captain W—— to his companion, who recognized him also. Supposing the brother really had arrived in the port, and would return, they stood looking out for him to enter again, but he never came. A mail or two afterwards, from Europe, brought an account of his death. It was still more singular that the intruder had upon his head a new regulation hat or cap, of which no pattern had yet reached America, and that both observers remarked the fact. When Admiral Coates saw his wife in India twice, and coming home found her dead, it was no doubt the effect of imagination. How many husbands dream of dead wives and vice versa, and find the contrary—but these cases are not noted. In the case of Captain W——, it was and is to me a great puzzle.
What incidents are the above for a new Johnson to lecture upon in favour of ghosts, and a new Boswell to record. After all, it is mortifying for the supporters of common supernatural hallucinations, to be thrown so much out of this traditionary belief by the congregation of people in large cities, and the modern paucity of such incidents. The hunt after money affords no leisure for the fanciful to weave moon-shine, and the ignorant to take off their wares. Cases like the present are, perhaps, exceptions.
I have often been at lonely hours in remote situations, at the witching time of silence and darkness, when I have felt a great desire to see something supernatural—some agent of an invisible world to establish my cre-
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 307 |
I write on desultorily, leaving it to chance for memory to recal events which may not always fall under the exact order of dates. I am obliged to write at times, when I cannot make references.
Being at Brighton, Van Heeren’s work on the great nations of antiquity was put into my hands, and I felt highly flattered in his allusion to some remarks of mine on his works. I was well acquainted with certain localities which Heeren had never seen. I allude to his remarks on the Voyage of Hamilcar beyond the pillars of Hercules. I had made a critical notice regarding it, which he had seen. The spot referred to was the Cassiterides. His disquisition convinced me that, on matters of topography, nothing short of an actual survey, in future, will answer to secure accuracy. Whitaker wrote a most voluminous work to prove the track of Hannibal over the Alps, a vicinity he had never visited. Half knowledge in such cases, is but castle-building in print.
William Wallace, an old acquaintance, and one of a
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I met for the last time, at Brighton, in an invalid carriage, old Mike Kelly. He was recovering from a fit of the gout. A dissipated man, few of his contemporaries in past times were free of the charge. He had delighted me with those airs and songs of which he was
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 309 |
“Here I am nearly done up, one hand useless with this cursed gout: what are you doing here—you are no invalid?”
“Idling.”
“Do then come and idle over a chop with me. I have an old woman who looks after me now—once it might have been a young one.”
“Who was the father of your gout, Kelly?—the rummer that you can hardly now lift to your lips, and villanous company.”
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“But I can lift the rummer still, I have only one hand that wont work—come to me to-day—say you will.”
Mike Kelly felt solitary, and no doubt wanted company. I was a complete idler, one of those who in such places, if it rains flatten their noses against the window glass; if it is dry blister the feet in driving away time over the shingle. I went to his lodgings. His repast consisted of excellent fish, and mutton chops nicely cooked. Mike was gloomy as gouty people are, until they have swallowed a little wine to brace up the animal machine. He then began to talk, in his wild way, upsteaming with loyalty. I do not know why, but I liked to hear tales about the prince and his companions. So many of the latter were men of mark, whose good sayings, went out into the world often as of royal begetting. Kelly had preserved the old habit of swearing, which polite manners have banished from good society of late years, except in the case of the great Duke who kept up the custom to the last. I told Mike I had been looking at Mrs. Crouch’s urn in the church-yard, the same which he had placed over her remains.
“She was a sweet creature, my dear friend.”
Not exactly platonic on the part of Mike. I had just read his memoirs. They recalled his old music shop, and some of his airs—the “Woodpecker” for example.
“I was near the prime then—did you read about Sheridan—how drunk he got upon my wine—a little stock I had above my music place. I lent him my bedroom to be near the prince, with whom he was going
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 311 |
“I did read the passage—it was characteristic.”
“But you could not read what that rascal Hook omitted. Why, I don’t know. The infernal bookseller employed him to put my memoirs through the press, and he omitted things he had no right to leave out—touched his friends, I suppose.”
“What did he omit?”
Kelly then told me, in substance, how Taylor, who had the Opera House, involved in debt, lived in Cadogan Place. Bailiffs watched his residence day and night. It was of importance that he should not be arrested, and that he should get out of his residence. Kelly found that Taylor’s next door neighbour was in difficulties, about paying some thirty pounds for taxes. Kelly called upon him, and told him that if he would suffer him, Kelly, to work a small hole through his attic party wall, he would give him the thirty pounds, and pay all damage. It was agreed upon. Mike got Taylor that way through the wall into the next house, and walked him clean off.
“I owed Taylor several good turns,” said Mike, “and I could not do more than repay them. What interest Hook had in omitting the story, I don’t know; unless he feared it might give the bailiffs a hint, that might some day cross his own escape under the like circumstances.”
Kelly never returned to town, but went from Brighton to Margate, or some other place on the coast, where he died. It is singular that the more noted men of those
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I was much amused by the result of the publication of an article of my own called the “Fever Ship,” in the “London Weekly Review.” It was wholly the result of fancy, descriptive of the attack of yellow fever upon a vessel at sea, told after the simple manner of De Foe. A messenger was sent from Lloyd’s to the office of the paper to request the name of the vessel, the underwriters there, as they might do, taking fiction for fact. I thought it a high compliment to the authorship.
Colton, the author of ‘Lacon,’ become vicar of Kew and Petersham, one of the most charming clerical posts about London, had taken comfortable apartments at Kew. In time, he began to consider them too costly for his miserly expenditure. It was expensive to keep up proper appearances in his parish. He could live in London unobserved, for a sixth of the expense, and he acted accordingly, transporting his gun and fishing-rod, and half a dozen books, De Foe’s “History of the Devil” among them, to a two pair of stairs lodging overlooking the burying ground of St. Anne’s, Soho. I had once visited him at Kew on a Sunday, in time for the morning service. The congregation was not large. The Duke and Duchess of Cumberland were present. The sermon was above the average in matter, and
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 313 |
“Nothing of moment—an invitation to dine with him at Kew on Wednesday.”
“How uncanonical you are—you went into the pulpit in grey trousers, I wonder if the duke remarked it. You will have a rebuke from the bishop. Half a man’s importance in courtly eyes centres on costume.”
“I don’t care—the duke might have seen it—he might tell me of it. What then—I should reply, your Royal Highness will have the goodness to remember that the efficacy of the sermon of a Christian clergyman does not depend on the colour of his breeches.”
“You had a long confab?”
“No, two or three minutes, I staid to get some segars from under the pulpit, I keep them there because the temperature is excellent, not too damp nor too dry.”
We went to his lodgings, commanding a pleasant view—the Thames not far away. We dined and spent a pleasant evening. He was full of literary conversation, and now and then when he made a sly hit at a writer, or a divine, or at some hacknied opinion, that peculiar cunning twinkle which showed itself at the corners of his eyes on such occasions, as much as to say “is not that a home thrust?” exhibited itself frequently. He got upon the translation of the bible, and upon its numerous
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“Did he?” said Colton, “I like that. There is the pretended Septuagint said to have been found in an old cask in the year 217. There is no such version extant. The Septuagint, which contained only the Jewish books of the law, was destroyed in the Alexandrian library a.d. 47. What a miraculous affair Justin Martyr made of it. I fear the fathers were sad story-tellers. We know the east now, its customs, and much more of its language than was known in the time of James I.”
“Then why not have a new translation?”
“That cannot be, the present translation is the best that can be made. It is time honoured.”
“But if it be radically defective?”
“It must not be changed—parliament has declared it the right thing—James I. has affixed the sign manual to its excellence, as he did to his treatise on witchcraft. It is declared authentic, and parliament is before all the arguments of the learned, even before truth itself.”
“But that time is gone by, nobody thinks of feeding devils, or giving bread and cheese to spectres, for which parliament sanctioned the cremation of helpless old women as a remedy.”
“No matter, it is royally, parliamentarily, and time consecrated, what would you have more?”
“But the very English is obsolete.”
“So much the better, from its being less common
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 315 |
“But where nonsense is made of the original or the text falsified?”
“No matter, it is as it should be, right orthodox by act of parliament, as it stands.”
“But evident clerical errors?”
“They must stand—we must not endanger our orthodoxy by dallying too intimately with self-evident truths,” said Colton, with another of his arch looks.
“The present version tells us that Solomon’s little temple—little in comparison with St. Peter’s at Rome, or our St. Paul’s, cost a sum of money equal to a thousand millions sterling, out of the treasury of an empire not more than twice the size of Yorkshire.”
“But if we are so told in the present version, whether in the original or not, we are bound to believe it by act of parliament.”
“No, no; Josephus, who would no doubt be inclined to exaggerate, tells us the temple cost just fifty millions of our money, that is a pretty large sum for a state like Judea.”
“No matter, my dear fellow, we of the cloth get our incomes under the present version, that will do. Joking apart, several learned divines are of your opinion—have you seen Bellamy’s attempt at a translation?”
“I have not.”
“I will introduce you to him. He says that no translation has been ever made directly from the Hebrew, and insists that with due care and attention it may be done. Our bible is from the latin you know, into which language it was said to have been translated
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When Colton took a lodging in town he introduced me to Bellamy, in Princes Street. His sitting-room was carpetless, a common deal table stood in the centre, and a broken phial placed in a tea saucer served for an inkstand, surrounded with letter covers and paper scraps. Four common chairs, one or two ricketty, a side table holding a few books, half a quire of foolscap paper, and some discarded pens on one side of the room, composed nearly all the furniture, fishing-rods and gun excepted. Here he indited ‘Lacon.’ His copy was written on scraps of paper, blank sides of letters, and but rarely on bran new paper. It is untrue that his rooms were as bad as some penny a line scribbler made out, in a newspaper sketch of him. They were always clean. Much of his domicile was the second to his college rooms. He dined at an eating-house, and sometimes cooked a chop for himself, from inveterate bachelor habits. He placed excellent wine on the table, though he had not then opened a wine cellar which he did afterwards in the name of another person, under a methodist chapel in Dean Street, Soho, where I once
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 317 |
“You have methodism, heterodoxy over your head, Colton, I wonder your wine does not turn sour, belonging as it does to a son of the church.”
“Wine is reconciling, Redding, there is no fear of the two doxies disagreeing in the cellar. The pulpit is the place for pulling caps.”
This wine dealing fit did not last long—he was soon tired of it. There was much of the spoiled child in his composition, going from thing to thing and unsettled. After I had heard Bellamy, I confess I was much pleased with his theory, patronized by George IV. and all the royal family, seven bishops and a number of the clergy and private individuals. Newcombe, Lowth, Symonds, Kennicot, and a host of authorities were brought in proof of the better understanding, both of the Hebrew and Greek text since 1600. The opposition to it was this, that if, as Lowth said, the present version be “ambiguous and incorrect, even in matters of the highest importance,” it is better to leave it so—in other words, that the truth is of no moment compared to the trouble of investigating it. This laisser faire system neither of us agreed in. My judgment was worth nothing, except that in sacred things, more especially, to obtain the naked truth I conceived was especially demanded as an imperative duty. Bellamy was enthusiastic and laborious in his design, Colton was more pleased to perplex Bellamy with his subtleties, than to approve or censure. He agreed that the present version was bad, but
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One of Colton’s ready comments discomposed Bellamy, and marked that shrewdness which he often exhibited. Bellamy said that in the account of the speaking of Balaam’s ass, the Hebrew would allow the words “as if,”—“as if the ass had spoken.”
“But,” said Colton, “the ass did speak. Read 2 St. Peter, c. 2., v. 16. ‘The dumb ass speaking with a man’s voice forbade the madness of the prophet.’”
This was the parson’s shrewd way, and he enjoyed it. I came to Bellamy’s assistance by remarking that the quotation as thus used, might be only illustrative, and have no relation to the exact state of the fact pro or con.
Colton’s first publication after the “Sampford ghost pamphlet” was the poem of “Hypocrisy,” before alluded to, it had for a motto the lines from Butler:
Hypocrisy’s the universal calling The only saint’s bell that rings all in. |
He also published some remarks on Don Juan in his unnatural character of a censor morum. A short poem on the conflagration of Moscow, and a clever latin
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 319 |
320 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
Colton went into the pulpit on one occasion without his sermon. He promptly took a random text, and preached a better extempore ‘sermon than any he ever wrote. He had, at times, certain convictions of what was right, and he would declare his determination to act upon them, but he persevered only for a brief period. How one who knew his inconsistencies so well, could think they were concealed from others is singular. I once told him of it, and he replied,
“O, you know they say we are only finger posts.”
Materialism is a cold doctrine, and unreasonable. If pushed, the reply is “there may be a supreme first cause or there may not. We contend that man, body and soul, is a nonentity when life is extinct.” But the
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 321 |
Mr. Disraeli published “Vivian Grey” about this time. The characters were supposed to be drawn from real life. At least, it was clearly implied, that though the author did not intend to depict Lord A. or Lady B., yet he drew his outlines from those seen in the fashionable circles. There could be no question that pretensions to virtue and character never more falsely or more successfully lacquered fashion than at that moment. There was room and verge enough for the author’s fancy to work and find doubles in real life, but then why pretend otherwise? But “Vivian Grey” did not appear alone.
Authors and publishers were, in those days, much more a unity than they are now. It was at the time Mr. Disraeli incog. was publishing a periodical paper called the “Star Chamber,” of which the public took little notice, that the two first volumes of “Vivian Grey” made their appearance. The “Star Chamber” was personal. I have heard that the author suppressed it, but not till it had attacked most of the literary men of the day. I forgot all else about its contents. Mr. Disraeli reviewed and extolled his own book in its columns. Calling one day upon Colburn, who published “Vivian Grey,” he said, to me:
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“I have a capital book out, ‘Vivian Grey,’ the authorship is a great secret—a man of high fashion—very high—keeps the first society. I can assure you it is a most piquant and spirited work, quite sparkling.”
Colburn always regarded, in publishing, the fashionable taste, no matter how absurd, for the fashionable .was a buying taste, and no Lintot looks farther. I remarked that the characters were not drawn from life, for I had already run my eyes over the work. “Two or three characters might,” I said, “be from the life, but they were exaggerated, or almost wholly imaginary.” This Colburn did not like, but remarked that people of fashion might read, and would understand them for realities. Three or four days after this, walking down Oxford Street, I saw one of Colburn’s establishment come out of the shop of Marsh, Disraeli’s publisher of the “Star Chamber.” He had a number of pamphlets under his arm. “What have you there?” The pamphlets were in yellow covers, about twenty pages of matter. The word “key” was signified by a wood-cut of a key, and below the cut were the words “to Vivian Grey! being a complete exposition of the royal, noble, and fashionable characters who figure in this most extraordinary work.” There was a second wood-cut of a curtain, partly drawn aside, displaying in the perspective a drawing-room filled with company attitudinizing. “Oh,” said I, “why did not Mr. Colburn publish this as well as the book itself?”
“That would not answer,” was the reply.
I did not on the instant remember that Marsh was the publisher of Mr. Disraeli’s “Star Chamber.” I took away one of the pamphlets, and found it filled with
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The key thus concocted, informed the world that “‘Vivian Grey’ was not only personal and satirical, it was also inventive and poetical, and the darts of its malice being sharpened by these qualities, and which is more important, winged by fashion, carry farther and pierce deeper, than they would without the buoyancy of these adjuncts.” Again we were informed that “in the midst of its diabolical spleen, gleams of goodness, and high-mindedness and love of virtue, ever and anon break forth, like the calm but momentary visitations of the moon through the rifts of black clouds in a gusty night.” This is not Colburn’s, thought I, it is the author’s own. Here is a conspiracy—a harmless one it is true, save to the fashionables of the Bull family.
The same day Campbell and myself met, and I told the key story. The poet said, “I have a present of a copy from Colburn, arrived just before I came out. He lauds it as a wonderful work, and says you have got a review of it.” I replied in the negative, the truth being, that it had been sent but I had not been at home. On returning, I found it with the following note:
“I have just sent Mr. C. the vols. of ‘Vivian Grey,’ which, if he reads, I am certain he will agree with the reviewer. I have almost accidentally got this review from a high quarter, where I hope to get others
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This was all fudge, of course—the art of wheedling an editor. That art never before went further than on some of these occasions in publishing. It was not a worthy system, and showed the small chance a work of high merit had, relying alone upon intrinsic worth. I record it as a picture of the time.
Colburn could not, from his nature, leave well alone. If he found a periodical work answer, he had an idea it might be made better by alterations not the most judicious. Works of no merit, too, were thrust upon an editor, who became painfully situated. Without regard to merit or demerit the proprietor deemed his right paramount, ignorant of his own real interest. The manuscripts of authors are continually submitted to persons who are no judges, sometimes even personally prejudiced against them, or else having opinions or prejudices opposed to their own, tempting an adverse judgment. The author thus, of a different opinion, a dispute ensues. I have known an eminent house place a MS. in the hands of one of their friends, of whom they had a high idea, in order to ascertain its merit. He was a
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Let the hazard of such an incident be marked after the time and toil of composition consumed on the part of the author. The artist places his picture before the public free of all cost, but that of his own labour and time. The author only begins where the other ends. His works may thus be placed before a blockhead. Then come stationer, printer, binder, advertiser, and bookseller, who get their profit out of his skull, having to pay them all except the publisher, before he can tell whether his work has any claim to public notice. Hence, the difficulties of writers may be judged.
To return to “Vivian Grey.” I cannot conjecture for what purpose it becomes a habit with some persons to abuse the aristocracy by wholesale. There are in its ranks enough of the proud, debased, and profligate, with perhaps more of a tendency that way than exists where the means and temptation to it are not so convenient and soliciting. But there are no more, proportionably, of this debased class found in the higher ranks than in the lower, and more in proportion are guided by a feeling of honour. Much of the taint of manner imbibed from the accident of birth there may be. This continued objurgation is singular coming from the middle ranks, and deriving sustenance where the indiscriminating fawning obsequiousness which marks these ranks in their conduct to the aristocracy, is so notorious. Some writers belonging by title, if not by birth, to the “order,” join in the same species of vituperation.
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It was in 1829 that I foresaw it would soon be impossible I could proceed much longer in my existing position. A bundle of manuscript would come to me. “Is there nothing here that can be turned to account for the Magazine?” The object was the making an additional profit from such works, by giving portions of them in the periodical. I remonstrated, but it was Campbell’s place to act. A word from me would set him in a fury with Colburn, and I had, therefore, to fight this kind of battle alone, for Campbell’s editorship was negative, or little more at that time. It happened that I received a note from a most able writer, Mr. Warren of the Temple, the year before I quitted the magazine. He wrote me to offer the “Diary of a Physician,” for our pages. I received it, saw its merits, and sent it off to the printer, sealed and directed as usual. Not having a messenger going to the city, I sent it from my house, as I had sent articles often before, that Colburn’s porter might take it with him when he next took anything to the city. It will scarcely be credited, but it is a fact, that the packet was opened, Mr. Warren’s paper canvassed among Colburn’s employés, represented to him as not worth sixpence, and returned to Mr. Warren, without my knowledge, until the number for the month appeared, when I imagined, till I enquired about it, that the paper had
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When I told Campbell what had occurred, and that it was useless to continue to suffer a similar inroad on our duties, he wrote a letter to Colburn just as the impulsive character of the man dictated. Had I not kept it back, we should have all separated that moment. I told the poet what I had done, and wherefore. He agreed to remonstrate in milder terms, quitted London for the continent soon after, leaving the work, as usual on my hands, and forgetting all about an affair that pressed so heavily upon our own connection. That was just his way. I did not cease to profit by it so far as to see that I must look out for an early separation from the concern. I discovered that my anxiety and zeal, which it is true I ought to have known, had never been appreciated, and to regret that my friendship for Campbell had made the tie still stronger to the work. Things happened precisely as I had foreseen.
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I found time to put together for a very worthy man, Captain Andrews, some crude notes of “Travels in South America,” in two volumes. They were among the first works that appeared developing that region. They were published by Murray, who had just travelled out of his way to establish a morning newspaper, one of the most rapid modes of losing a fortune that can be adopted.
Captain Dundas Cochrane, the Siberian traveller, who spoke of the luxury of sleeping upon snow, and eating, with a relish, a square inch of salt fish frozen, had been introduced to me soon after his return. He was small in person, spare, with nothing imposing in his appearance. He had walked from Lisbon through Europe to St. Petersburgh, and from thence to Siberia and Kamschatka. At the latter place he picked up a Kamschatkan wife, an agreeable fresh-coloured young lady. He complained of Dr. Lyal, and his statements regarding St. Petersburgh and Russia generally. I knew Lyal as a general acquaintance, a man of little mark. He died English resident at Madagascar, while Cochrane fell a victim to the pestilential climate of the Caraccas, where he went on some mining speculation. He left a good fortune to his widow, incited by which a subsequent suitor was successful in obtaining possession of both.
“They looked contemptibly upon me, Redding,” said he, “in that ‘Quarterly Review,’ because among my travelling hardships, I said I found frozen salt fish a luxury. I did; it furnished me many a meal. It was ‘ungenteel’ I admit, to live in such a mean way, and
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I edited, or rather re-wrote from rough notes, a novel in three volumes, called “Pandurang Hari.” The notes showed their author to be well versed in Indian manners and customs, into which the work afforded a great insight. He had lived long in India; but the subject, instructive and interesting, did not engage the attention of the public so much as it deserved.
Stewart Rose, M. Depping, Simond de Sismondi, Sotheby, and others who had aided us, had been succeeded by new and inferior names. Horace Smith was seduced to leave the-work for novel writing. Dr. Maculloch was, in general, too scientific for us. Magazine readers are not always deep thinkers, we had few of the last. M. Beyle, Leigh Hunt, Mr. Turner of the Foreign Office, Mrs. Shelley, Himalaya Frazer, Brown of Florence, Wrangham, and Dodd of the Temple, had been of our number. Mr. Englebach, sen. of the Audit Office, wrote our articles on Music, which were of high merit. Lord Dillon, though fluent in conversation, was ponderous as a writer. We had a correspondent who puzzled us as to identity, signed W. E. His correspondence always went to the Borough. We had, at one time, an idea that this writer was Mr. Penn of Stoke. After my notes upon the united labours of Campbell and myself appeared, written twenty years afterwards,
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“They were written by me, when a lady, for the sake of a little money to spend in books, and they were paid for more handsomely in cash and commendation than they deserved.
“August 10, 1847.”
Whoever the lady is or was, for she still preserved her incog., there could be no question about her talents as a magazine writer.
The ignorance and prejudices of some people are very unbearable to editors at times. I had copied much of the discoveries of Professor Buckland into the “Varieties” of the publication, and we got letters remonstrating. The evidence of the senses, and plain reason, must go for nothing. We were told we were “propagating irreligion,” and nobody knows what besides. “We have sufficient blasphemous and open denials of revelation, without sly and artful undermining in the shape of magazine usage. Your correspondent may make his assertion that it is probable the world existed many years without any inhabitants, &c., and may bottom his probabilities on the discoveries of philosophers and geologists, but he should know that other and good probabilities account for the fossil remains and gigantic creatures in the bowels of the earth, without contradicting the express testimony of Scripture.” We were charged with lying against inspired history. Such let-
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I called in Upper Seymour Street one day, and found Mrs. Campbell alone. Asking her if there was any thing new, she said—
“No. Harry Brougham has just been here.”
“And what did he say?”
“O, he was ‘himself as usual.”
How often I think of the character in that one word—there was the past, present, and future man to the life—from supporting West Indian slavery, and then opposing it, to his returning from the Whigs, under whom he got his popularity, to his first loves—it was all in that little word.
One morning, Campbell came to breakfast, and hurried me to go with him to a City meeting respecting a London University. He had previously broached the subject in a printed letter, and still earlier had often spoken of it to myself. The scheme was to be openly proposed for the first time. He would take no excuse. I hated, as he well knew, all public meetings. I had no money to give, and if I employed my pen in any public cause I thought beneficial, it was the utmost I could do. We reached the London Tavern, and found it crowded with company of both sexes, that had evidently come to hear the speeches. Sir James Mackintosh, Lord J. Russell, and others—among them Campbell, too excited to be efficient—addressed the auditory. Just as the meeting was on the point of breaking up, Brougham made his appearance as a lion
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As the poet and myself were returning, I asked if Brougham had ever alluded to the subject in any conversation prior to his announcing the subject publicly. He replied in the negative. “He will play first fiddle then on your project—he will not be organ blower.”
“You are in error,” replied Campbell.
I was not in error, for Brougham threw it in as a make-weight in the balance of his popularity. I have often thought that with all his fame, Lord Brougham never started an original thing, nor evolved a new idea during his public career. Many of the ideas of others he worked out, some most useful and creditable, and met the just meet of praise for his success; we are deeply indebted to him. But he was never scrupulous in the appropriation of other people’s goods, sometimes without the generosity of an acknowledgment in the way of recompense. He would fain eat his cake and have it too. The ideas of Campbell at once run on the machinery of the internal work, in place of that of pecuniary means to erect a proper edifice. Brougham rationally considered what should be done first—he
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There were a number of ladies of talent, single and married, who engaged in authorship at this time, all now deceased. Some looked for fame, others for profit. A few fair wits indeed, never contemplated an immortality beyond a London season, and were seen no more, their works going with them into “the tomb of all the Capulets” when parliament was up. We do not hear of such female coteries in these more degenerate days. The ladies with a sprinkling of titles, some married and others blues unsullied by contact with “male creatures,” met at each other’s residences, about once a week to interchange ideas. Sometimes incipient literati or a sprinkling of gentlemen who were supposed to be able to communicate intelligence about the merits of a novel in the press, and sometimes, but not often, a west end publisher, who drank his wine out of skulls, was admitted, on the score of his information regarding
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These conversational displays of ladies, emulated the “ungentle craft” of critics, and bore hard upon callow diatribists fresh from the boarding-school, who had begun by composing verses. Tea, coffee, and bon-bons lay on the table for the company. As these conversaziones went round, and some of the ultramarines had small incomes, it was whispered that all were to satisfy their appetite before they came. This considerateness was praiseworthy where it was understood—“but how where not?” as Sidney Smith phrased it. On one occasion, a lady whose confectionary provision was moderate in quantity, having already gone round at three previous meetings, and still too from delicacy, exhibited nearly their original quota, was fallen upon by a young guardsman who had just quitted his mamma’s more ample provision of sweetmeats. What such a youth did at such a place at all who can tell! He sat down and deliberately, one by one, cleared all the delicacies only made to be seen.
Every fresh injection of a macaroon or ratifia into his young sparrow-like swallow, going to the hearts of those of the company who were in the secret. The hostess looked and looked, but did not weep, like Rachael. So difficult is it for honourable economy to be “at home,”
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In those days, Lady Caroline Lamb, Lady Charlotte Bury, and others, whose love of love, or of fashionable literature or both was overwhelming, used to link noble and plebeian together. Then came morning calls, the worst things possible for economical single ladies, had not ‘morning’ meant between three and four in the afternoon. One day Lady C—— called on Miss B——, who some years ago ceased to be of the living. She had with her one of those little dogs for which I never could conceive the use until this incident occurred. Lady C—— and the hostess were sitting side by side on the sofa, deeply immersed in the merits of the last new novel, when the little poodle cur, solus, thought idleness the bore of his life at such a moment, and proceeded to extract from beneath the sofa an old slipper, a pair of stockings, a couple of pocket handkerchiefs and so on, to the inexpressible misery of the owner, whose heels were continually exerting themselves au derrière, as if Lady C—— were unconscious of their efforts, in endeavouring to push back some article of female habiliment intended for the bag of the washerwoman. Nothing could avail, the room was strewed with the spoils when Lady C—— rose to depart. O for the feeling of that moment as her ladyship walked over the stairs—no matter now—death has alike extinguished the mortification of the one, and the polished regret of the other. Poor B——, I was sorry for her, and yet the trouble of throwing her things into an adjoining bed-room would not have been more than that of making the sofa their covering.
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Then, too, existed Miss Lydia White whom Sidney Smith delighted to honour, who used to invite people to see her die. I met a lady one morning at her own door stepping into her carriage.
“I am sorry I am going out when you have called, but come with me. I am going to see Lydia White, she is really dying.”
“I Pray you excuse me—it can’t be true—it is only two years since she began to die.”
“It is true now—you had better come once more.”
“Do excuse me, I have gone a dozen times to Park Street and been disappointed. I cannot afford to lose so much time on a mortuary uncertainty.” She died, after keeping her friends so long in expectation, that they began to think on her part death would be a hoax until they had themselves departed.
Miss Benger, a truly estimable and amiable lady, had published several successful works. I had many conversations with her, in which she showed goodness of heart, tinctured with that peculiarity of manner which attaches to the state of single blessedness. She was visited by many fashionable people. Nothing since has matched the social gossipping of that era.
The work entitled, “a Diary of the Times of George IV.” when published, I did not believe genuine. I thought it a tissue of forgeries on account of the inconsistency of the dates, but I could not abuse it as I wished to do. Colburn told me it was genuine, but his assurance was that of its authoress only. It was very like some of the French concoctions. Foscolo, at an early period of our acquaintance, wished to introduce
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Greece was the point on which public attention was fixed. I corresponded with Count Porro of Milan, then in that country, a high-minded nobleman whom Francis of Austria had pursued with all a despot’s vengeance. He himself had no literary pretensions. He happened to be at his chateau on the lake of Como when the order came to arrest him. He got timely notice and escaped across the lake. I believe his being concerned in establishing Lancastrian schools was the principal charge against him. After a residence of a year or two in England he determined to go to Greece. His last letter was dated from the renowned Salamis, the only one I have preserved.
“I thank you for your remembrance and your kind letter. I assure you that if I did not write directly after, it was for the want of a sure occasion (conveyance), and because at the end of last year and beginning of the present I had important commissions at Athens.
“I felt the greatest pleasure in seeing our old friend Colonel Pisa. He is now commanding a body of Philhelenists, that acted extremely well in the battles of the 18 and 20 of August. He is greatly prized here. Where is General Pépé? How is our friend
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There are few recollections more grateful to me than those I recall of Count Porro, whose cruel separation from his family for years, for no offence, was a bitter trial. It is honourable to many of our people of rank who had been hospitably received at the Casa Porro before the proscription of this excellent nobleman, that it was not forgotten here. It must be mentioned, too,
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Spain, too, exiled her best men, many of whom I knew. General Alava was among these, and Telesforo Trueba y Cosio, as merry a fellow as Cervantes could have painted. I was introduced to him on his arrival, and him to Galiano, Arguelles, Cayetano Valdez, and others
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“I perceive,” said Trueba, “that real heroes or heroines are not to the English taste, a man simply virtuous or vicious does not suit in a novel, whether he be of high or low rank. You must give something striking, no matter how vile the character, and as to plot you have still less trouble. I do not mind the critics because yours are guided by the interest of the bookseller in newspapers, there his advertisements react. I always begin the first and second volumes tolerably well. The first is partly read by the critic, and the second serves for extracts to show that the critic has read into it. As for the ‘Edinburgh’ and ‘Quarterly’ they do not meddle with small writers like myself.”
I told him he had got a tolerably correct view of things after so short a residence in London. He insisted that on the continent they were much more conscientious in their criticism than they were in England, which I believe to be true. Literary men form there more a class of themselves, and stand more by the principles of their profession. I have thought a new leaf should be turned over in this respect. Trueba returned to Madrid and became secretary to the Cortes under Espartero’s ministry, took a journey to Paris on business, and died there in the prime of life. There was always
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