220 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
Clever as Hook was in many
things, there were none of his talents which he did not abuse. He died about this time. In
his writings, he was lively and imaginative. His heroes and heroines were sometimes his
butts, and he had much of a peculiar kind of humour, with great natural vivacity. He was
the readiest man at a reply I ever knew, but his repartees were more often allied to puns
than genuine wit, and he left no good sayings. His animal spirits were extraordinary, and
during the latter half of his life sustained too frequently by the bottle. He continually
played the buffoon, and that with a heavy as well as a light heart, a melancholy species of
double-dealing, while in both cases there was the same apparent flow of spirits, the same
self-possession, and the same effrontery. Principle he had none. His impromptu performances
in verse and music were extraordinary, his practical jokes ever too ready, even in the
earlier part of his career. With all his vivacity and readiness, his insults even to
strangers, and his mockeries of Heaven itself, he was not courageous. Sir Robert Wilson
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 221 |
On his return from the Isle of France, a prisoner for defalcations in his accounts, he hit upon the establishment of a party newspaper, by which he hoped to propitiate the ruling powers, by making an idol of George IV. The “John Bull” newspaper, in those days, for it has long ceased to be obnoxious to such a charge, he made in everything be opposed to the advance of the age. Its columns were filled with lampoons upon defenceless women; it was coarse and licentious in language, and neither virtue nor religion were spared in its columns. It got into a large circulation, and returned Hook, as the price of his labour, several thousands a-year. He lived up to his receipts, and beyond them. There was a story, too, about a fine paid for the paper getting into Hook’s hands. He doubled his potations, he became the guest at men’s tables, where he was invited to make a show of himself, and degrade literary talent, while those whom he had diverted with his “quips and cranks,” and jests, and his easy morality, if, indeed, he can be said ever to have had any morality at all, chose to forget their obligations to him.
A more useful lesson to young and gifted men, than that furnished by
the life of Hook, could not be depicted in fiction:
talent misapplied, religion ridiculed,
222 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
A-propos of Hook, I remember he was once greatly pressed for five hundred pounds, and wanted it advanced to him. A bibliopolist I knew, refused unless he had some evidence that he should have his money’s worth, a portion first, at all events. Hook went home, sat up all night, wrote an introduction to a novel “on a new plan,” appended a hurried chapter, and showed it the next day, with the assertion that he had been offered most liberally for it elsewhere, and brought off the money in his pocket.
I met him at Captain Marryat’s one morning, and told him my mind, in consequence of his unmanly attacks on Mrs. Coutts.
She had given an entertainment, at Holly Lodge, to the theatrical
people. Haydon, the artist, told me that he was
there, and that the feasting and overmuch wine soon carried the company beyond reasonable
control, but that it was an abuse of the hospitality of the lady hostess, for which she was
not to blame. This served Hook as the basis for one
of his disgraceful diatribes. When Mrs. Coutts became Duchess of St. Albans, it was said she paid ten thousand
pounds to obtain an admission to court. The sum was said to have passed into elevated
hands, which court, at the same time, Hook was bedaubing with praise.
On whom, then, was the disgrace reflected, on the party who bought, or the party who sold
the goods, if it was a disgrace? She was troubled, too, at the attacks made upon her by
other papers, that lived by libels. There is a story that, at a
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 223 |
Horace Twiss, with his grave countenance, who should
have been called single-speech, for he made but one good speech in Parliament, was a sober
and attentive man of business—his solemnity sometimes passing for extra wisdom. One
day, going to see a friend in the Temple, I met him on the ground floor. “Come
with me,” said he, “Twiss is rehearsing;
don’t make a noise.” Horace had to be down at the
house that evening. We peeped through the key-hole, hearing him in practice, and saw him
address the tongs, placed upright against the bars, as “Mr. Speaker;” but we
could not hear all the oration. The hon. member preserved wondrous gravity, and the tongs,
falling, said to himself, “Aye, now the speaker has left the chair.”
Twiss had no genius, but was, as I should imagine, a
224 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
The worship of money, defined the “God of trade,” in past time, has lowered the character of trade itself, which may be too frequently defined the “art of overreaching.” I often received from those with whom I was connected, copies of certain works, which it was requested might go into the publication as editorial paragraphs, always sent down to the country by London agents. To these I generally refused insertion, often against the remonstrances of the proprietary, that could never understand why a thing paid for should not have its money’s worth. Among some were puffs and commendations of Lady Blessington.
Anything like rank on a book-cover made a work be read and admired
among the classes which ape fashion, and imagine they obtain respect by talking about
people of title. It is one of the most extraordinary marks of deficient intellect wherever
we see this humiliation of mind; and, in the present case, the dealers determined to make
the most of it. Lady Blessington, shrewd, clever, from
long practice, not among the best of mankind, and tolerably hacknied in what were not
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 225 |
The literary visitors could not be without some sensation allied to
obligation in return, all which the lady speculated upon, and not without good grounds. She
was a fine woman; she had understood too well how to captivate the other sex. She had won
hearts, never having had a heart to return. No one could be more bland and polished, when
she pleased. She understood from no short practice, when it was politic to be amiable, and
yet no one could be less amiable, bland and polished when her temper was roused. Her
language being then well-suited to the circumstances of the provocation, both in style and
epithet. Mr. Manners Sutton forbade her his house,
having been married to her sister. As to her writings,
her facts were, I fear, often fictions, as in her account of conversations with Byron, of whom she saw but little in a passing way.
226 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
I had called on a lady one morning, I remember, in St. James’s Place, and a few minutes afterwards Count d’Orsay’s card was sent up. The answer was, “Not at home.”
“Why, Lady ——,” I observed, “you cannot refuse the handsome dandy, the successor of Brummel in the world of fashion—how is this?”
“Oh! I cannot receive him. No lady can do so that respects herself. Remember, there must be a limit somewhere in society.”
On rising to go away, the footman again came into
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 227 |
“There,” said Lady ——, as I wished her good morning, “I should never have that card again, if I had received D’Orsay.”
Whatever charges Lord Brougham may bring against the aristocracy in his wholesale manner, they have still a respect, at least, some of the female part of it, for what is due to morality and religion, if it be not exhibited beyond external conduct. The virtuous ladies of the aristocracy are not to be classed as Lord Brougham classed them, although many of them may be, and no doubt are, conceited, ignorant, and arrogant enough. His lordship, I take it, was never an Adonis, in ladies’ eyes, and, perhaps, when he wrote, he was returning the compliment on this reflection. Beauty, grace, kindness, and agreeable manners, distinguish no few of these libelled fair ones, in social intercourse. To libel all for the sins of a part is not just.
Lord Dillon, whom I have already mentioned, died about
the time I was in the West. He was a gentlemanly man, handsome, and a great talker. I first
met him in Paddington, at dinner in the house of a friend, who gave old-fashioned repasts.
He would sometimes get a person into a corner, and hold him in conversation until his
hearer became fidgetty. It was impossible to show impatience at what so well-bred a man
addressed to you. The misfortune was, that though he talked so well, he talked in such an
unbroken chain of words, that you could not, as the Frenchman said, “get even the
respite of a comma into his affluence of speech.” His lordship had lived much
in Italy,
228 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
Captain Morris died at ninety years of age. Of whom, too, I knew a little in my earlier life. He was song inditer to the Prince of Wales, and the wits who were the Prince’s companions. Clever, and abounding in that species of talent which those who pushed social habits to excess, most valued, Morris set no bounds to the licentiousness of his productions. Writings of that class are nearly extinct. This, at least, is in favour of the present age, though it may be doubted whether such publications do as much harm as insidious stories, which treat principle as of no moment, and taint the mind by familiarizing it with base and low character, in apparent innocence of intention. Works, the character of which is open, and the offensiveness apparent, are thrown aside by the well-intentioned, and repudiated at once. It is not so with works, the slower poison of which is disguised with apparent decency, as apothecaries disguise nauseous medicines with sweets. I knew but little of Morris. There is a veil over modern profligacy; and it is not like the old, made a boast.
Scott, the great master of fiction, remarked that the
works read in his childhood would not now be tolerated. I can assert the same of those in
my youth. This was said in reference to language, the latent morality may be no better, but
this is something gained. It is to be feared, however, that there is a falling off in the
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 229 |
I published a tale called “Velasco,” printing only a small number, in
consequence of the unparalled depression of the bookselling trade at the time. I
endeavoured, in that work, to revive the old practice of including something more than mere
narrative in my design. I had observed that most works of fiction were without any
acknowledged object, except to “amuse the galleries,” as a player would phrase
it. In the delineations of character, there was a little, but a very little touch of
caricature, in order to be more attractive. The reader is seldom entertained with a picture
exact and in keeping. Exaggeration is everything. I did not write the work for the
many-headed multitude, which comprehends no more than is connected with everyday life at
home, already more faithfully pourtrayed than I could pretend to do it. I sought to please
educated persons by two-fold allusions,
230 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
There were allusions which none but educated persons could comprehend.
I was not solicitous that those “educated” in the present phrase, that is those
who can only read and write legibly, should read my work at all. I used a few Spanish words
to impart an appearance of greater reality, and for no other end. It can scarcely be denied
that an author has a right to carry out his own views and objects, however deficient he may
be in the execution. One critic, who had heard of “Gil Blas,” I say “heard” because he
could not have read it, declared there was that similitude between the two works, which if
he had read the last he would have found existed in his own mind alone. Another accused me
of imitating Borrow. The work was written before
Borrow appeared. In treating of the same people and manners, there
must be some similitude in all such cases, if truth be honestly observed,
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 231 |
I have mentioned Mr. Moir of
Musselburg, the Delta of “Blackwood’s Magazine,” under Wilson’s editorship. When I heard of his death, I began to re-peruse
his natural and beautiful verses. There is a fascination about some writers, which in spite
of himself, holds the reader within a circle of enchantment, from which, if he extricate
himself from their pages, laying them aside, the mind will not be so easily freed from
their influence. Moir’s poetry was to me precisely of this
class. His lines remained impressed on the sensorium, and were continually repeated amid
busy scenes in crowded streets, and even in the social circle, as if they would claim a
corner of the soul to themselves, come what might in the way to divert attention from them.
Many are full of truth and unaffectedness. Moir had no mannerism, none
of the verbiage of hackneyed versifiers, who make rhyme, and call it poetry. He was not one
of the favourites of mystery, who treat poetry as an enigma, to be disclosed by the
initiated only, while the majority of his avowed admirers applauded the obscurity their
vision could not penetrate, valuing most that which they least comprehended. He was full of
true feeling. Pleasure or pain, grandeur or beauty, were really felt by him, not simulated,
and he showed great gentleness and tenderness of soul. It was impossible not
232 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
The death of this mild, meek man was worthy of his life and genius. He, too, is departed with that galaxy of names which for so many years were prized by cultivated minds. Moir’s merit has not been more acknowledged, because only the few have the power of comprehending similar works of genius. The many once lived upon the opinions of the qualified and discriminating few. Now, all are self-constituted judges in everything, from the kitchen to the attic. Taste is supposed to be everywhere, coming to man by nature, in place of proceeding from high intellectual cultivation, combined with natural gifts, hence the present multiplication of mediocrity, and the want of taste for the best things.
I had once an argument with Martin, the artist, after reciting some lines of Moir’s, in regard to the advantage
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 233 |
Fashion is against this view, for to that the world is everything; but
we are not better fitted for obedience to the laws of fashion, which dictate to vulgar
minds of all classes, by the purification of the heart, the justness of the taste, or the
soundness of the understanding. Some of the best principles inculcated by nature, and the
more rational habits, must be changed, independence of soul bartered, and latent hearts
employed to win praises from tongues cankered with envy, while bestowing fashionable
adulation. It is generally this adulation, the most fleeting, that is most valued, because
it is the most palpable. It is a waste of breath, for example, bestowed by the orator,
unless he desire immediate
234 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
In conversation it is much the same thing, while conviction is not
easily produced when there is a feeling of personal pride operating against it. Writing is
the better and more permanent means of producing an effect on every well-informed mind.
“On ne parle jamais,” says a French author,
in another case, “avec autant de force que l’on peut écrire
à un individu, auquel son rang et l’habitude font accorder de grands
égards,” substituting “effect” for
“force.” This is undoubtedly true of writing, where the reason is appealed to
for conviction. For my own part, when I address a number of people extempore, I am too much
borne along by my imagination. Cold men are the best and most conclusive speakers, yet the
men of imagination impress their audiences more rapidly, led by some inspiring,
unpremeditated impulse. As to the degree of attention in the hearer, it is proportioned to
the power or the bitterness poured out by the speaker. Truth, reason, and justice, being
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 235 |
As I grow older, I become more partial to the country. Lamb’s dislike to the country, born and bred in London as he was, seems rational, and equally so that he loved ale and tobacco, attachments worthy of those who dislike flowers, eschew a garden, and love any but particularly low company. Lamb felt himself at home there. He owned, too, that he had a delicacy for sheep-stealers. Were not the Edinburgh reviewers right—could such a man be a poet! His charming essays came from his own habitual feelings and the peculiarities of his social life, and were faithful pictures of certain realities allied with that feeling. Poetry is a different thing, at least that poetry which confers a lasting reputation. A poet born, bred, and educated in a town, with none but urban associations, is like a stall-bred ox, that never pastured.
The most perfect condition when we enjoy health, is not the town. It
is to dwell in the midst of nature, to live in the open air as much as possible, in the
garden or field, when the climate will admit of it. To take wholesome exercise under the
canopy of heaven, and receive good or ill with composure and resignation. No matter for
caste and fashion, these are for the high and low vulgar. With a habit of activity in the
country, mingling the thoughts acquired from association with those generated by the
diversity continually presented by nature on every hand—talk not of sameness—I
speak of those occupied—there is more
236 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 237 |
In this way I contrived to enlarge the most confined local horizon, participating in and drinking those spiritualities, which depend upon the imagination as well as the reason. I have beguiled what might be tedious with active employment. I have kept hope unclouded, elevating the view, and endeavouring as much as possible worthily. Thus avoiding trifling with, or treating principles as a chimera, the sin of the present time, and escaping a degeneracy into that indifference or apathy so fatal, when one pursuit absorbs the whole of our time and labour. It is with the individual as with the mass, when fixed to one solitary pursuit; the mind degenerates as the desire of attainment becomes more intense; we cease to observe more than one confined scene, and fall into intellectual stagnation, as they do who give their souls to accumulation. One half of these search and do not find, and the other half, which does find, is ever discontented and unhappy. I lived contentedly in the country at one time, till forced back again where, to my seeming, the mighty intellect does not balance the inconveniences and self-denials, we must encounter to enjoy it.
I find books, every where, the great and enduring intellectual
pleasure, when good society is scant. They are invaluable when right worthy. Marble and
brass perish, for they are material; worthy books are the embodied mind, and from being
continually renewed, like the youth of the eagle, they run a rival course with the great
globe itself. As an emanation
238 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
I had never, until M. Thiers
published his last historical work, translated any publication for the press, except for my
own amusement. I was solicited to undertake that narrative, because, by adding some
observations in the shape of notes, it constituted a copyright edition. The remarks I made
were principally, relative to the statements of M. Thiers regarding
the navy and its movements, which were exceedingly partial and inaccurate. I completed no
less than seven volumes—rather a heavy task. Whatever may be the merit of this author
in his descriptions of land battles, he cannot be commended for those of his naval combats.
Perhaps the familiarity of Englishmen with nautical matters may make them somewhat too
critical with writers, who have not had the same opportunities of acquiring a knowledge of
similar affairs. Thiers was much commended by the press, with the
exception of his display of sundry Gallic predispositions. The critical charity of the day
was wonderful a little time ago, especially where the proprietors of the works criticised
advertised largely with the noticed publication. It would be hard to censure a virtue so
exemplary, often, indeed, a species of repression of an indignant feeling, in presence of a
vulgar interest. There is something magnanimous in overlooking the errors of our kind,
where the diffusion of our charity may, as in a matter of criticism, be injurious to the
public opinion of our judgment. It is
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 239 |
Such was reviewing, as it is styled, in the time past. It was first
the child of party, next of venality. A vocation often too undertaken from lack of ability
for authorship, or lack of generosity in common dealing. It was no matter, no part of the
consideration, that the general reader should not be misinformed upon the merits of what he
was tempted to purchase and read; no matter that the critic should tell the
240 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
The influence of reviews was owing, in their best days, to there being
always so many individuals out of those who read, who cannot think at all, do not think
sufficiently, or will not take the trouble to think if they are able, being content that
others should judge for them. This would not be so irrational, if the
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 241 |
But there is generally something “providential,” as ignorant people say, which prevents every evil from not having in it the germs of some good. The system of rivalry in reviewing shook that censorious and exclusive exhibition of feeling, which influential individuals once showed towards men of merit. Milton was sneered at by one of these as the “old blind schoolmaster,” who had written a work, the only merit of which, if it was one, was its length. Cowper’s “Task” was pronounced “good moral stuff.” Other examples might be quoted, but the rivalry of the critics at a later date, would have caused the merits of such authors to be canvassed, and more justice done them.
The discussions which take place in many of our publications, and in
the reviews, as well upon the merit of the authors of the last as well as the present
centuries, in regard to the worth of the works of the dead rather than the living, seem to
show a reluctance to deliver living opinions upon living men, a thing not observable twenty
years ago. It would seem as if some writers, afraid of committing themselves, took the
course recorded by a French writer:—“On remarqua surtout que la
plupart des ouvrages littéraires
242 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
It is true that nine-tenths of the new works are works of fiction, and
that original writing upon subjects of depth, or upon science, or metaphysics, or poetry,
meets no encouragement, however ingenious. Those, therefore, who read for any object beyond
amusement, must turn to authors of the preceding time to be gratified. Fortunately, there
is no want of these. The decadence of our literature will probably be coincident with the
exhaustion of subjects for fictitious novelties. The public will never turn from the
non-instructive, to the more intellectual order of books as some suppose. The present
course obliterates the relish which might else tempt a reference to works sufficiently
agreeable to excite a desire for solid information in minds accustomed only to read what
makes no call upon the thinking faculty. The effect of making the low things of life, low
sentiments, and language predominant, by the selection of the hero of the tale from vicious
and vulgar grades, has tended to direct thought and language in a remarkable manner, to
analogous objects. They are not now the great efforts of science, the more worthy results
of advanced and elevated usage, which become the themes of public conversation and
applause, but the coarse and mean. This leads to the extinction of those aspirations which
raise character, by making much of petty achievements, and carrying out crochetty
littlenesses. In literature, at present, the attachment to
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 243 |
In literature, the writers of antiquity are wholly banned. The effect is seen in society continually. The Eton boy, when he put on the man, used to carry in his heart’s core the recollection of passages of classical antiquity, and a knowledge of history and heroic character. Over his wine, among his friends, he recurred to those productions of the mind which have conquered time, interwoven as they were with the delightful period of his earlier years. Sometimes this might have been carried too far, but such an abuse was only that of great and noble things. Now such conversation seems shunned, even by those capable of supporting it, as if it were a forbidden topic, or the scholar was ashamed, and feared to contravene the fashion for low things. The doings of every day traffic were once laid aside in social hours, which thus became hours of relaxation from diurnal duties. At present, the latter supersede the former altogether at the hurried dinner-table, “the feast of reason and flow of soul” being almost unknown.
Such a state of affairs is symptomatic of anything but elevation of
mind and sound mental advance. It may help the exchequer, but the nation that lives upon
commercial tendencies alone is most rapid in its decadence after a short-lived duration at
its maximum. Such seems to me to be marks of our present position, and its inclinations. We
are a great and powerful
244 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
I was recently highly amused at seeing the outlay for books in a library in a city.—Novels and Romances, £180; Arts and Sciences, £1 10s. 6d.; Natural History, £4 10s.; Poetry, £2 9s. 6d.
At present no one concerned in any department of literature but lays claim to the character of a critic. The old writers deemed no one fit for the office that had not some acquaintance with the subject upon which he exhibited his judgment. Fortunately the better order of the craft was above the hypercritical character where the general merit was evident, especially in remarks upon works of real genius. Old Horace says:
“——————non ego
paucis
Offender maculis, quas aut incuria fudit, Aut humana parum cavit natura.” |
The modern critic pays no attention to such “notions,” he
looks in too many cases to the copyright interest. He is over-nice where the fault is not
of moment, if praise or censure be an indifferent matter, showing that with little learning
he is one who, without entering into the soul of an author, keeps a few general
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 245 |
246 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 247 |
In regard, therefore, to profit from authorship, I found that it was
more safe and advantageous to write for existing works, than to bring out works on my own
account. In the one case, all was under my own control; on the other, nothing felt but
onorous labour, vexation, and indirect dealing. The project of a really good work, that
forty years ago would have been grasped at by the leading houses in London, would now have
no
248 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
Among the non-literary characters whom I know recently deceased, was
Mr. William Holmes, a much-abused man by many,
but, in truth, one most honourable for his consistency in politics. A Tory, he held his
course consistently to the last, always kind and courteous, the best manager of the House
of Commons before the Reform Bill, that the country ever saw. His first return for Sligo
was by a mere accident. He made no flaming pretensions—he was no orator—but he
soon found out how to manage the House for the advantage of his party. He was not long in
discovering the tendencies of the members of a tolerably venal House of Commons, of which
it suffices to say Lord Castlereagh
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 249 |
I had thought of a history of the Duchy of Cornwall, beginning with
its institution under Edward III., when Fowey, one of
its towns, sent more ships to the king for the siege of Calais, than any other place in the
kingdom. Down to the reign of Henry VIII., I found the
duchy consisted of ten castles, nine parks, fifty-three manors, thirteen towns and large
tracts of land. At the accession of the house of Hanover, it had been greatly diminished,
principally from the Stuart family, converting the property to their own use. The Stannary
Laws, the geological, mineralogical, commercial, and agricultural relations of the duchy,
and all its statistics, would have been comprehensively treated. On making application to
the proper authorities for leave to examine certain documents, the property of the trustees
of the dukedom, I was informed that there were disputes pending in relation to certain
properties, which it would be inconvenient just then to make known. Without information
afforded from the documents, for which I applied, I could not proceed satisfactorily. The
precise reasons were explained to me, and I fully admitted their justice. Unfortunately,
though the objection was but temporary,
250 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
In actively aiding my plan for the foregoing history, I cannot
overlook the kindness of one of the most gentlemanly and amiable men I ever knew. I was
indebted to him for an introduction to the duchy officers. During an intercourse of twenty
years, I found in him ever the same urbanity, the same kind nature. I refer to Major General Anson, lately cut off so unexpectedly, at a
critical moment, in India, when commander-in-chief of the army in that country, and moving
down upon Delhi, to suppress the mutiny there. With great equanimity of temper, and gentle,
manly feeling, upon all occasions, and a bearing which generated regard from every rank of
persons, he possessed sound judgment, excellent qualifications for business, and a power in
public speaking which would have well marked him in the House of Commons, had he duly
cultivated his talents. 1 have heard him speak in public with a fluency and
self-possession, a manly exposition of principles, and a discrimination that would have
done honour to names distinguished for forensic ability. When clerk of the ordnance, he was
most attentive to his official duties. He was a cool, courageous man, and brought a sound
judgment to bear upon all questions. He was attacked by cholera at the moment when I am
persuaded the exertion of his judgment and good sense would have rendered eminent services
to his country. When a young man, for he was about sixty years old at the time of his
decease, he was known in town as “le beau colonel,” and was
a great favourite with the fair sex. As an individual connected with a family of
distinction, and name in
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 251 |
Another of those vacancies in the social circle of which we are
destined to encounter so many as we advance in life, occurred in the circle of my friends,
by the death of Sir George Magrath, at Plymouth,
whom I have before mentioned, and an account of whose death reached me unexpectedly. He was
at a very advanced age, as may be gathered from his having been the medical officer of
Nelson, at the battle of Copenhagen. He was with the
hero of the Nile also off Toulon, when the French fleet slipped out, and was followed by
Nelson to the West Indies. On passing the Straits of Gibraltar,
the fever raging there at the time, Nelson said,
“Magrath, they seem not to know what they are about,
they are panic-struck; go on shore, and take the naval hospital in hand, and clear
it.” Magrath was left accordingly. The late Sir William Beatty being his locum tenens. Magrath had no opportunity of
rejoining Nelson, and missed being in the battle of Trafalgar.
Sir George was afterwards appointed chief medical officer to the
prisoners of war at Plymouth. We lived near each other, and were both members of the
beefsteak club. He had a pension for the loss of an eye, in the performance of his duties.
After the peace of 1815, he commenced private practice. We had many conversations about
Nelson, in all which, except this great man’s conduct in the
Bay of Naples, he extolled him in the highest terms. Regarding Naples,
Magrath would
252 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 253 |
Admiring the beautiful view from the citadel flagstaff, at Plymouth,
Magrath and myself used to contrast
254 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 255 |
There was no great change in the mode of London pleasure-taking in my
time, till the conveyance by steam. This mostly conveys the citizen to some former haunt.
He flattens his nose, as before, on the window, and thinks idleness is pleasure-taking. The
tea-garden of smaller proportion, and the Sunday drive into the country to a numerical
extent, commensurate with the increase of the metropolitan population, are much as before.
It is true, White Conduit-House, Vauxhall,
256 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 257 |
I had been threatened with an action at law, but it, fortunately, came
to nothing. I had affidavits to make, notwithstanding, which, I was told, were only a mere
form. I had my doubts whether I dared to swear them, though perfectly regarded as in the
due course of things. There was always something frightful to my mind in law-swearing. It
is to be lamented that law and divinity love a little deviation from truth, as a sort of
relish, I presume, for too much of truth in other parts of the profession. The two most
important things to social comfort and happiness, are conspicuous for fictions so clumsy,
or rather, so bare-faced, that no fifth-rate novelist could venture upon them in a fancy
tale. Law fictions have been notoriously displayed by Bentham. If objected to, “O, it is only a form,” is the reply.
Yet the law punishes perjury, but not its own perjuries, they are always right. The worst,
I believe, is that they are paying perjuries. The moral perjuries, too, forced to be
committed, are needless and voluminous. Take the church services, and compare the words and
averments with its exactions—the facts with the falsehoods forced to be uttered. Take
the marriage ceremony, so continually a legalized falsification. The averment of the love
commanded between man and wife, as necessary to the service, and to lawful matrimony, and
the bride led to the ceremony in tears by avaricious parents. Let the
258 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
Southey’s death removed another name from our
literature, familiar to my earlier years, but the last of his life was melancholy from a
state of fatuity. In private life he was amiable, I take it with somewhat of coldness in
temperament. As a poet, he can claim no high place. In literature, he was laborious, in
“all work,” and an advocate of opposite principles at different times, now
dreaming of republics in aboriginal forests, and writing in the extreme republican fashion,
and then turning round to high church and state doctrines, and taking the laureateship from
a regal in place of a republican ruler. Setting out in life, as the champion of peace and
freedom, and closing his career, as long as he was master of his faculties, with defending
absolutism, monopoly, wasteful wars, and religious bigotry. As the slave become master,
changes to the severest of tyrants, the most loose in early political principle become the
most relentless of persecutors. So
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 259 |
As soon as he heard of Byron’s death, he wrote a letter which displayed the mind of an inquisitor, with the spirit that kindled Smithfield fires. He knew that the scourge applied to his back in the parody on his “Vision of Judgment,” his poem worthy of his laureateship, could not again be uplifted. He was in reality a weak-minded man. His leap from philanthropy to religious and political bitterness of soul, from sectarian doctrines, to high church creeds, from toleration to all but persecution, show that honest pride of principle never inhabited his breast. He who had declared his sympathy for Martin, the regicide, expressed a similar attachment for the mental hallucinations of George the Third.
There was no Christianity out of the English Church, and no perfection
in rule, but it was to be found in the most arbitrary notion of the English constitution. I
knew but little of him personally. I never liked him because he hated all who differed from
him, whether in politics, faith, or anything else; and though he lived to see his
260 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
I was introduced, by an old friend, to the well-known editor of the
Dublin “Morning Post,” Mr. Conway, who died in that city at a very advanced age. He was a friendly
man, and in his capacity as editor, the best in all Ireland. He rendered great aid to the
cause of Catholic Emancipation; and he understood the Irish people well, together with
their grievances. He was a man of varied knowledge, and was considered the only editor of
an Irish paper at that time, who could off-hand freely discuss the questions of the
currency, corn laws, and
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 261 |
His paper was once edited by John Magee, the younger, who used to have many a singular dialogue with John Scott, Lord Clonmell, when presiding as Chief Justice in Ireland. In defending himself, Magee would allude to some public character by a familiar designation, and the judge would reprove him. “Mr. Magee, no nick-names in this court.” Magee would reply, “Very well, John Scott!”
Jonah Barrington has related many anecdotes of the elder Magee in his diverting Memoirs. If Sir Jonah romanced occasionally, his romances were diverting. I met him several times in company, but he was by no means as entertaining with his tongue as with his pen, or else I found him in no happy humour. The last time I saw him, he was in company with a daughter, who, I believe, accompanied him to Paris. His pictures of Irish society, so amusing in themselves, do not say much for the state of morals in the island, at the period he describes. It was in vain to reason against the errors of such a view, because reason is unable to cope with deep-rooted follies, to which, all who treat common sense with contempt, have a wonderful attachment. The affection of many men for nonsense, is too natural to be overcome.
Wishing to produce a work that might be of use to the public service,
in consequence of the smattering of naval affairs which I had acquired in my youth, and
impelled by the consciousness that I could achieve an
262 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
The work was large and expensive, one of those designed for all time,
every edition being rendered more perfect by fresh discoveries and corrections. In fact,
such a work, if it included sailing directions, which would quadruple its extent, would be
invaluable in the navy. With the “directions” it would become a national work;
it should be executed by the government. For nearly two years I pored over charts and
voyages, collecting the materials for the North Atlantic. The work was a species of
gazetteer of the ocean. It had reference to the ports, havens, creeks, rocks, shoals,
currents, sands, vigiæ, harbours, roadsteads, capes, banks, and similar minutiae,
classed under the several oceans or seas. The latitudes and longitudes, soundings in
fathoms, lights, anchorages, bearings and the like to be alphabetically arranged. I had the
best assistance from the Admiralty. The hydrographical office was made accessible to me,
where, under the superintendence of Admiral
Beaufort, one of the most able naval officers ever at the head of any department
of the public ser-
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 263 |
The labour, which was great, did not appal me. When the sheets were set up, they were submitted to the inspection of a highly qualified master in the navy, in order to guard against error as much as possible. About two hundred pages of the North Atlantic were beautifully printed by Harrison and Son of St. Martin’s Lane. Here the printing terminated, but a considerable portion of the manuscript was completed satisfactorily.
The booksellers, who now look only to printing an edition of an amusing work, and getting their money back as soon as possible, will no longer undertake works about which there was no difficulty as to the publication in times past, when the modern sources of information did not exist. The plea of utility will not do against a quick money return, and thus one of the most laborious and useful works rests in abeyance, in the period of a supposed advance in minds directed to research, and to those higher undertakings of a literary nature, which should belong to the present rather than to the past time. Then the spirit for acquiring such works did exist, but deficient of the information which is at present in our possession.
The tables are thus turned. It is sufficiently painful to find the
waste of labour and money upon a work of great acknowledged utility, and still more so to
264 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
* The under valuation of the branches of the public service in the navy connected with science, is a part of the inheritance of a barbarous feudal ancestry engrafted on modern aristocracy. In 1848 the sum of £7,726,610 was voted for the Navy. The Hydrographical Office with all its vast and laborious returns, cost about twenty-eight thousand pounds out of so many millions. Yet upon this office depends the safety of all our vessels. The distinguished officer then at its head, Admiral Beaufort, had five hundred a-year, an individual whose name is deep in the minds of scientific men, in every civilized country. This zealous and highly-gifted officer on whom so much depended, had a salary no higher than our dockyard surgeons, storekeepers, and harbour-masters! It is a peculiarity in the public service of England alone, in all its departments, and it is painful to contemplate, that in proportion to the labour of mind, and the difficulty and rarity of high intellectual attainments, the remuneration for the service is estimated less than for those which are common-place. To this, perhaps, it is owing that the French and Spaniards build better sailing vessels than we do: they compensate proportionably to their value the sciences that can alone lead to perfect construction. Nothing is so easy as to rule a kingdom; can it be that those who rule us try mind by their own measure, and as they cannot comprehend the value of high intellect, they pay by their own judgment of its worth—ex nihilo, nihil fit. |
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 265 |
I circulated privately, at that time, some remarks on the invasion mania, too often prevalent. The French were going to run across the Channel with fifty thousand men some dark night, in fifty steamers, and to eat us all up! On the French side there would be no movings down to the coast, no accumulations of stores, no declaration of war, but they were to come over without, and in the teeth of such a danger we were sending away troops. The same croaking of the papers took place when we sent troops to India. Our navy was put out of sight that had so often prevented an invasion, and now with steam so much better able to defend us. I copy my words in 1848:—
“Let us suppose the effective blockade of
Cherbourg, Havre, or Brest, in place of being more practicable than ever, utterly
neglected. I mention these ports because they are the only ports the French possess in the
Channel from one of which such an expedition could sail. Suppose the point of attack to be
somewhere between Portland Roads and Dungeness, say Brighton. We might have a few steamers
in Portland Roads, more at Portsmouth, and a dozen in East or West Road, Dungeness. I put
an imaginary case. The. enemy is in sight off Brighton. The electric telegraph, in five
minutes, communicates the intelligence to the Admiralty; the Admiralty, in five minutes
more, orders the squadron in Portland Roads to steam to the eastward; the Portsmouth to do
the same; to which last force that of Portland would be a reserve. There would be no delay.
In an hour both squadrons would be steaming up Channel; and the headmost off Brighton in
three or four hours more, shaking the Frenchmen’s nerves before their troops were
half landed. The eastern squadron, going west, would steam in sight at the same time round
Beachy Head, and join the Portsmouth seawards. The soldiers still on board the French
vessels would share a fate, which it is not difficult to predict. Suppose the attack more
westwards, we have Falmouth and Plymouth to double upon Portland from the west; Portsmouth
and Dungeness from the east, should the attack be on Portland. I put these cases merely to
show how a system of steam defence may contribute to our insular security far beyond that
which is confined to vessels dependent on the winds and waves, or on blockade; and yet the
latter system alone sufficed to prevent a far more formidable foe from crossing the
Channel, with larger means than centuries are likely to show the world again. So far then
is steam from increasing the facility of invasion without vastly increasing the means of
defence, that it does directly the reverse, under the most adverse aspect. But the French
are too sagacious to
266 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
I have thus repeated myself to a few, though not to the public. I observed that people did not look closely into facts. Too often, if a writer can make a sensation, well or ill founded, his end is answered. Never was there so little exercise of an individual’s own judgment upon public affairs by an attention to facts alone as at the present time. Men do not appear to have leisure for thinking beyond the rule of multiplication in money accounts.
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 267 |
When Wordsworth died there was
a contest about his merits as a poet. I got into a contention on the subject. It cannot be
denied that the projector of a new scheme for poetical writing, not to be challenged,
merits especial notice, for with Wordsworth all was ex cathedra. His lyrical ballads I read on their first appearance, with
a perfect ignorance of what end their author could have in view, except to strip poetry of
all that is attractive, and send her a doggrel ballad singer en chemise through the world.
Dogmatic, haughty, and self-sufficient, there was nothing of soul-kindliness in
Wordsworth, and a poet without a heart is a nondescript creature.
He had no relish for Shakspeare, and affected an
abstractedness, which he imagined, or his friends for him, was a communing with the black
or grey spirits of the Cumberland mountains. When the ‘Excursion’ appeared, a friend who admired the
poem lent it to me. It was with difficulty I waded through it. That there were fine lines
here and there is admitted, but it is too much to have to grope through a bushel of chaff
to find a grain or two of wheat. Wordsworth was a man who, I hope,
only affected a sort of ascetism in order to cultivate solitaryness, and obtain credit for
profundity or rather obscurity. He would fain be oracular and austere as well, in order to
be taken for a second, and no doubt in his own opinion an improved Milton. Yet so far from being worthy of the comparison, he
endeavoured to frame a new poetical system which he notoriously violated in nearly all he
wrote, but which some friends extolled in the face of his violations. All phrases and forms
were to be rejected that were not included in the language of common life. He
268 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
‘Along the line of limitless desires.’” |
“I cannot see it,” I replied. “It is true the obscure is one of the sources of the sublime.”
“You can’t see it?”
“I can’t indeed.”
“Then you have not learned Wordsworth.”
“I am afraid I am but a dull scholar. Is it worth while learning a new language to comprehend a solitary beauty or two? He does not want able advocates.”
Talfourd would not forgive my heretical opinions about the poet of the Lakes, but I fancied that some years afterwards he became much less enthusiastic about him.
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 269 |
Wordsworth was not, in strictness, more than an
illustrator of nature according to his own peculiar view. He drew from observation certain
points which struck him, and he dressed them up in a garb accordant with his own arid
language under peculiar tendencies. With him nature was treated the same in everything, in
the face of her infinite variety of aspect, and in all her moods. He was the hero of his
own solitude, discoursing with himself. He expected the thinking world to abandon its
habits and predispositions, even the use of its visual organs, to see through his
telescope, adopt his ideas, and be grateful for the boon he bestowed. It would not agree to
this, and then Wordsworth was a disappointed man. The solitary
discoursing with himself records nothing of the affections which belong to the great family
of humanity, but bids us admire what affects himself, no matter how much out of the common
course of our judgment. We must take that which he incontinently pours forth for the best
of all possible things, because it is
his—Wordsworth’s—and because so few poets rank
before himself. Others must feel, not as nature dictates, not as Shakspeare exhibits nature in herself faithfully and
truly, but as Wordsworth’s optics exhibit her. We must feel the
force of his descriptions, and learn how, let the theme be low or lofty. He asks nothing,
and affects to give nothing derived from external pomp, and that which the world calls
‘great;’ taking no bias from received opinions, which he rightly felt are as
often false as true. He is proud of showing that in his own view the vulgarest things are
really great and interesting; rendered vulgar by habit, but in reality equal to the highest
270 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 271 |
272 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
What mistakes are made in theories like Wordsworth’s, and so too about that word wisdom, a vain thing,
applied to rectifying commas, and wasting reams of paper to settle the question of a
digamma. The depth of thought, the beauty, the main object of a writer are the last things
noticed by men given to this laborious trifling. They who would carry out new theories
continually deceive themselves. If such men ever deviate from their beaten track, it is
only to inculcate some musty axiom as far from truth as reason. Such persons are Ephraim Jenkinsons. One of them, who has been reading folios
of commentaries up to eighty years of age, says with great gravity, as a novelty,
“the world is in its dotage, and the cosmogany has puzzled the learned of
every age. What a medley of opinions
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 273 |
The vanity of learning is as light as any other species, although it be innocent. Its assumption by those who are ignorant always betrays itself, as the Scotch woman betrayed her husband, when she told her companion that he had travelled over the whole world—had seen Babylon and the Garden of Eden where Paradise was.
“And what did he see there—the tree of life, I suppose, and the like of that?”
“Not a tree for a walking stick, all the garden was gone to ruin, no shrubs, nor flowers, not even a cabbage stump—nothing was left but a few gooseberry bushes.”
274 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
No doubt this was satisfactory to the enquirer. There is a pleasure in ignorance; where little is known, it requires so much less knowledge to be happy.
In Martin, the artist, I lost a friend of high genius. He was a member of the committee of the Literary Union, an unassuming man treated with a species of disdain by the Academy of Painters. He left behind him a renown well earned. His power of delineating the more vast and sublime objects of his imagination, applied to historic scenes or poetical fictions was wonderful, and in this he stood alone among English artists. He was feebly and ineffectually imitated by several artistical plagiarists. A master in perspective, he struck every reflective mind with the grandeur as well as originality of his pictorial conceptions. His works had a certain degree of hardness upon the canvas, but were still noble specimens of his skill. He was opposed openly and secretly by those of the brush who paint by line and rule. To such an extent was this spirit carried, that if he had not been able to engrave his own works, he would have been put down. In England his engravings had a prodigious run; and abroad his works are known from the Seine to the Neva.
He was a man of much simplicity of character, originally designed for an herald painter, as that fine artist, Stanfield, was for a scene painter, but then he had the support of royalty to introduce him into the Academy, or with all his talents, he would hardly have found an entrance within the circuit of the forty wise men. It is the proud attribute of genius to soar above the letter which would enchain its spirit and confine it to the beaten track, just as the true impress of religion in the heart soars about the pharasaical formality of lip worship.
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 275 |
Martin I used to meet in Allsop’s Place, where he displayed, in communicating his ideas, great imaginativeness and a rich fancy. Portrait painting tires, even the portraits of Reynolds, and those of Sir Thomas Lawrence, weary the observer who has no interest in the characters represented. I have often observed the difference between Reynolds and Lawrence. The portraits of the former appear well bred, those of the latter as if they were representations of individuals among the middle class, who were endeavouring to be taken for those above them. Hence the pleasure derived from fancy subjects is greater. Martin was distinguished by much mechanical ingenuity out of his art. The massiveness and grandeur of his principal works have composed his worthiest monument. His designs for Milton contrast admirably with the distortions of Fuseli, whose figures were shapes neither of heaven, nor earth, nor the water under the earth. Nothing is more marked, in the present day, than the coldness of the public towards such eminent men, a thing once not observable, because men felt, in truly estimating art, they honoured themselves, now their conceit makes them imagine they honour art by their notice of it.
The works of great artists are photographic copies of their modes of
thinking or imagining, addressed immediately to the vision. In this they differ from the
workings of great minds as conveyed in books. We hear spoken, we hear read, or see in books
for ourselves, the aspirations of great souls. They address us through more than one sense,
as the more imperishable of mundane things. It is fitting that what springs from an
unfathomable depth or soars
276 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
Happily, all the kings of the earth united, cannot eradicate from the
nations one little symbol of undying thought, conveyed in a dried up liquid upon the most
fragile of substances. The number of high-toned and profound thinkers is fewer than ever
compared to those of the common and inferior classes. Hence it is that dealers in books
prefer only those adapted for the largest number of readers, books being with them only
mercantile ware, and the fabrication governed by that principle alone. Writers do not rule
here as they did formerly. There can be no greater mistake than to suppose the extensive
sale of a work the criterion of its intellectual merit. Such a sale is rather a proof that
the publication descends so low in calibre as to come within the comprehension of a greater
number of readers, or, in other words, of the less expanded minds, and in the next place,
that the
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 277 |
* In a particular and most exclusive manner that of Mr. H. Bohn of York Street. |
278 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
When a select committee of the House of Commons was formed to consider
the onerous state of the wine duties, which on some wines reached to five or six hundred
per cent, and were materially at war with every principle of free trade, I was ordered to
attend and give evidence. I was examined at considerable length, as may be seen in the blue
books of the House
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 279 |
Being the last that left the room, only a few yards down the passage, I ran, in the dim light of that moment, against some one hastening in. It was Mr. Disraeli, who had come, so it was said, to announce that the shattered ministry, to which he belonged, was no longer in existence. It is singular that since the death of Peel, the steps necessary for carrying out free trade, have ceased altogether, as if that measure, having been a cheval de bataille, for the purpose of opposition to one set of ministers, that object being gained, the details of the measure might remain as they did for all the succeeding governments cared about them. It is true the Russian war put an end to any great measure in favour of free trade for a time, and now India can be made the excuse, but I shrewdly suspect the free trade details would without these impediments have remained where they are.
Professions in candidates for office cost nothing, they are mere
trifles, and no one makes a figure in politics who sticks at trifles. Whoever feels the
promptings
280 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
Thus in Lord
Malmesbury’s Memoirs, in regard to Pitt, for example, if the account of the ignorance of
that statesman of the world at large, had been related by any historian he would not have
been credited. Pitt once answered a speech of
Sheridan’s, speaking for an hour and half,
and then asked Sheridan, what his speech was about; the fact being
that he spoke as lawyers call it against time, without relevance to the topic, pretended to
be answered, for he was ignorant of it. So Sheridan, when Fox quoted Greek in his speeches, after complimenting his
honourable friend on his quotation, remarked that he should have added the remainder, and
then himself gave a pretended quotation of the passage he said was omitted, a jargon
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 281 |
His fluency of speech was the most surprising of his talents—“he could speak off a king’s speech.” His coalitions against France were common bargains. He found the money, our allies took it, and got well beaten in return, and it broke his heart. Such was the history of this minister’s career, proud as he was, unyielding, and somewhat egotistical. By the by, the greatest egotists I remember were Cobbett and Southey. It is curious, too, that they were alike notorious political delinquents, having served two or three political purposes, no doubt, with the same sincerity. Both were clever writers, Southey was the greatest sophist. Both were exemplary in domestic life, Cobbett was vulgar and loved to shew the despot by keeping his household strictly subordinate to his will, his wife scarcely dared at any time to remonstrate with him; Southey was kind and hospitable in his family.
Rogers, too, I always found a kind man. He was
exceedingly cautious of giving offence to any one, and it was difficult to obtain his real
opinion of any literary
282 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
“Rogers,” said he, “has an epigrammatic mouth—a mouth characterized by a contractile quality, the power of a sort of pincer’s squeeze lurks about it. It was wonderful he did not come out as an English Martial, perhaps, I should rather say a Juvenal.”
Talking one day after dinner of the necessity of employing attorneys in doing everything, so that a man must keep in with them whether he wishes it or not. Rogers said, “not in doing everything, my dear sir, the bottle is in with you, we cannot drink by attorney.”
Campbell speaking of Rogers, remarked that he thought he liked people to be under an obligation to him, for if you borrowed money of him, after you repaid it, he never seemed half as much on terms with you as he was before.
When I told Rogers that Mr. —— had got a place under government, to which no salary was yet affixed, but he was proud of it. “Poor fellow,” said the poet, “the handsomest cage won’t feed the bird.”
It was melancholy to hear him when his memory failed, and also the unconnected questions he asked; I had not seen him for some years. I found myself near his grave at Hornsey in one of my long rambles, no great time after his funeral, nature in full bloom around, to eyes that could no more behold her beauty. His ashes “unwept,” left “to wither to the parching wind, without the meed of a melodious tear.”
I have said, that in seeking celebrated scenes, I
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 283 |
I was speaking of the personal beauty of Englishwomen while sojourning
at Hastings. Campbell was a great admirer of English
beauty. He admitted fully the wrong direction of the female mind, and a captivating of the
other sex by show. The deficiency in personal beauty of women in France, I made him admit
was often fully compensated by their superior carriage, and the charm of their address. I
alleged that they had wit and vivacity, both which are too often wanting among English
beauties. Their manners were engaging, they were unaffectedly cheerful, and they were never
so destitute of ideas as not to bear their share in conversation. To this the poet agreed,
and that his knowledge of them was slight. I remarked that a
284 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 285 |
The captivating character of the ladies of France is universally
admitted, even in advanced life, where their influence with the other sex, is founded upon
the consciousness of the pleasure enjoyed in their society. It is true, the French ladies
sometimes change their
286 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
“That is all very well,” Campbell observed, “but I prefer my own north country lasses to both, taking them generally. I imagine this impression is a youthful one imbibed from our first amatory feeling being directed towards those to whom we are earliest accustomed.”
I replied, “I could not argue in that, I was a cosmopolitan in affairs of the heart, and might perchance love a Creole in preference to one of his red haired Glasgow lasses.”
“Then you must be a traitor to your country,” said the poet, “hanging, drawing and quartering are too good for you.”
I expressed my opinion which time has confirmed, that the intellectual improvement of female society in England, advances much more rapidly than that of the other sex, men seem to retrograde. The poet would not agree with me.
They who know not the pleasures of imagination, know not half of
those which life can import, even if they enjoy their other faculties in perfection, all is
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 287 |
Men who idealize from every day things, often give erroneous guesses
as to the commonest actions, and form ill-judgments, sometimes too extravagant, and at
others too stinted of the effects of what they observe, some of the sanguine will judge far
beyond the ground they have to go upon, and others will only see the dark side of things.
This is because they have been ac-
288 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
I doubt if the vividness of Campbell’s imagination was not in a very considerable degree faded before thirty. Perhaps, a too early reputation deadened future effort. The object for which the man was “to scorn delight and live laborious days” was attained, or there might have been a consciousness of exhaustion, and a despairing idea that he could not surpass his first works.
Apropos of the last named poet—it was not for want of suggestions, nor even direct hints as to the subject that he wrote so little. He would sometimes say, “you are always asking me for something, but I cannot tell what to write about—think of a subject.”
I promised, and considering for a day or two, put half a dozen
subjects on a slip of paper, but I do not
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 289 |
“To what unshorn Apollo
sings
To the touch of golden wires, while Hebe brings
Immortal nectar to her kingly sire.”
|
We had scrambled that morning to the top of the East Cliff in company with a London bookseller of Herculean mould, whom Campbell had invited to dine with him. The day was warm, and before we were half way to the summit of the cliff, the bibliopolist was not only out of wind, but covered with a copious perspiration. Campbell active enough for a much more difficult task, gave me a look, which I comprehended immediately, that we should push upward at once, glancing his eyes mischievously on our bulky companion, who insisted he could go no further without he pulled off his coat. This he did as fast as his fatigue would permit, and then like another Sysiphus he went on toiling and panting upward again. Campbell’s amusement was expressed in a side glance to me now and then, as we proceeded. The toiling bibliopole, in the prime of existence as to years, evidently was no mean trencher-man, and looked like a Farnese Hercules out of breath after a ponderous foot-race. The summit being attained, we were obliged to halt there some minutes. This my companion called “breathing a bookseller.”
Then it was I suggested the cliff-camp as a subject
290 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
“I will hold you a guinea that man standing on the verge of the sea is wishing the dinner hour was come.”
“Let us watch him from my window, we can talk there,” said Campbell.
The man alluded to, was a solitary, who “had come to enjoy himself, and for three good hours did ‘enjoy’ his move up and down within a square of twenty yards.”
“It is foolish for such people to come here—a ridiculous custom.”
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 291 |
“No, no,” said Campbell “do you not remember Hudibras:—
‘Should once the world resolve to abolish All that’s ridiculous and foolish, It would have nothing else to do, To apply in jest or earnest to.’” |
I believe the poet to have been a man of considerable personal
courage, if put upon his metal, though, at times, nervous. The natives of the three
kingdoms differ in exhibiting it. The English and Scotch are more calm than the Irish. I
have seen men in moments of danger, and such is the time for trying, not merely their
courage, but their character. When a boy, at a depot for prisoners of war, near Falmouth, I
could not help regarding certain differences between the English and French character. They
were letting a heavy ladder down into a well, and some of the prisoners were assisting. The
ladder got too heavy for those who were holding it, and nearly drew them into the well with
it. When the danger increased, and became imminent, the Frenchmen let go, and ran off,
while the Englishmen clung closer to the ladder. Two or three fresh hands coming up,
prevented the mischief, which seemed inevitable. So some travellers in Egypt said, that,
when a storm occurred in Alexandria, the vessels of the Mediterranean ports were made as
snug as possible at their anchors, and then their crews hurried on shore. While to the
vessels from beyond the straits, English, French, or Dutch, the crews were observed
hastening on board, in order, by their presence and experience, to obviate any mischief
that might happen, which it was in their power to remedy. I remember being told by a naval
officer
292 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
During the siege of Sebastopol, when it was some way advanced, the
mention made to me by a friend, several years before, in relation to a mode of throwing
shot without heavy artillery, occurred as likely to be useful, especially where the
approaches had been tolerably advanced. I instituted several experiments, upon a very small
scale, with success, using pewter in place of iron, weighing the powder, and taking the
distances and proportions as approximative to more important instruments and results. I had
only the general idea with which to begin. I was so satisfied of the practicability of the
means, as far as I had tried them, and that they might be used with effect in ricochet
firing, at about point blank distance, that I wrote to the select committee of officers of
artillery, at Woolwich, on the subject. My idea was to throw shot or shell, made in a mode
adapted to the peculiar principle, with no more than a horizontal bed, like that of a
mortar, from which to discharge the missile. The exposure of the men was greatly husbanded,
the missile being brought to the battery ready loaded. With the general theory of gunnery,
I was acquainted, having been much in garrisoned places in boyhood, and in 1814 I had been
some time in Woolwich as an observer. To practical knowledge I could not, of course, lay
claim. The statement to me, by my deceased friend, was barely sufficient to make me
acquainted with the idea. The charging out of the
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 293 |
The answer I received was fully as much to the purpose as I expected,
namely, that it would be applicable to the service “at low velocities.” This
was all I had intended. I was aware, except in a siege, and not at great distances, that
the missile was not so likely to
294 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
Nothing could be more to the purpose, nor apparently more earnest and attentive to the subject placed before it, than this Board, overwhelmed as it was with scheming absurdities. In every respect, I found the members gentlemanly and considerate, where patience was a virtue imperiously required. I saw schemes and models there which bore evidence their projectors had never seen artillery missiles used in their lives. The fame of our artillery abroad is widely spread, and I do not believe it has retrograded in excellence. Indeed, the work now turned out at Woolwich with the same power, is three or four times more than it was last war, principally by improved machinery. Having been much there during that time, I was curious to inquire about the differences and changes which have taken place, and found it never was in higher perfection than at the present moment.
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