| 198 | LAMAN BLANCHARD. |
This early stage of my Recollections of Laman Blanchard seems the proper place for what I have to
remark, on the striking constitutional and superficial resemblances that existed between
Blanchard and his only rival as a popular Essayist, Charles Lamb; resemblances, however, which were worn, like
Ophelia’s flowers, with such a marked
“difference,” that they led to results, both personal and intellectual, as
apparently unlike as possible. There was about an equal amount of oriental blood in the
veins of each, and it produced the same physical characters—namely, coal-black curling
hair, jet black eyes, a dark colourless complexion, and a slightly Jewish contour and
expression of features. But while one of these remarkable men,
Blanchard, was always gay, brilliant, fluent, and facile, the
happy and happy-
| LAMAN BLANCHARD. | 199 |
This difference of mere manner between Blanchard and Lamb was perhaps to be accounted for by the habits and incidents of their early lives respectively; the boyhood of the one—Charles Lamb—having been spent in the almost monastic seclusion of the severest and most temper-trying of our public schools—that of Christ’s Church; his early youth, and all the rest of his life, being nailed for eight hours a day to the desk of a public office; while Blanchard was thrown absolutely on his own resources from early boyhood, and had to win or fight his way through the battle of life, with no better weapon than a self-taught pen, and no richer wealth than “his own good spirits, to feed and clothe him.”
The moral and intellectual resemblances of these two men were equally
striking, and
| 200 | LAMAN BLANCHARD. |
There were other personal resemblances between Blanchard and Lamb that are worth
| LAMAN BLANCHARD. | 201 |
Another propensity which Blanchard
and Lamb had in common—and it was the only really
questionable one of their blameless lives—was their fondness for being surrounded by a
little coterie of friends and
| 202 | LAMAN BLANCHARD. |
Yet the motives to this propensity were anything but those vulgar ones which
are the usual leaders to the like result—namely, a desire for admiration and a love of
observance. It was, in fact, of a precisely opposite character—an emanation of that
universal loving-kindness which was the motive-principle of both their characters—added to
a perhaps secret desire—secret, I mean, from themselves—to show that all distinctions
founded on purely intellectual differences are false and mischievous ones, and ought to be
discouraged by the few who can afford or can dare to take the just and natural course in
such matters. In fact, though the nightly meetings at Blanchard’s and Lamb’s
houses were occasionally illustrated by the presence of some of the finest spirits of the
time, they furnished (even on those occasions) an admirable lesson and discipline to the
pride of place and of intellect—all being equally cared
| LAMAN BLANCHARD. | 203 |
These marked general resemblances between Blanchard and Lamb rendered still more notable than it would otherwise have been the striking difference, or rather the positive dissimilarity, in the habitual expression of their countenances; the one, as I have said, at all times and on all occasions, wearing the mask of an almost angelic smile; the other apparently incapable of receiving any such expression—so grave and contemplative was it, so free from all traces of human passion—so purely and entirely intellectual.
It may illustrate this point to observe that Lamb’s face resembled one of Titian’s finest portraits; not what we may fancy the original to have
been, but the portrait itself; one of those quintessences of intellect which have never
proceeded from any other pencil, and which probably had no perfect prototypes in actual
nature, any more than had those corresponding female portraits of Lawrence, in respect of that peculiar look (not
susceptible of verbal description) which marks, and in some respect mars, all those
| 204 | LAMAN BLANCHARD. |
Finally, the writings of Blanchard and Lamb were marked by precisely the same generic resemblances and differences as were their temperaments, their intellects, and their dispositions. There was in both that entire originality, which is not merely the test, but the substance of all genius; genius being nothing else but an idiosyncrasy peculiar to the individual; the faculties which bring out, mould, modify, and colour its intellectual results, being common to the species.
There was, also, in both these charming writers that exquisite clearness of
perception, that acute penetration, and that refined and delicate tact, which together
constitute the critical faculty in its highest and purest form, and which faculty, when it
attains to that highest form (I will venture to add), never fails to usurp some portion of
the creative power with which it is busying itself. There never was
a truly great critic who did not see more in a great work of art than really exists in it.
In Blanchard this
| LAMAN BLANCHARD. | 205 |
Perhaps there never existed two critics who more precisely coincided in the general nature and tone of their critical tastes and awards than did Blanchard and Lamb; the only difference being, that Lamb confined himself almost exclusively to Shakspeare and the early dramatists, whereas the Catholic taste and all-embracing spirit of Blanchard ranged over the whole (English) world of poetry—not loving Wordsworth less, because he idolised Shakspeare, nor dwelling the less fondly upon Tennyson, because he had the whole of Pope by heart.
I should, perhaps, apologise for instituting the foregoing crude and hasty
parallel (if such it can be called) between these two remarkable men. But as it is always
more or less present to my own mind, when it
| 206 | LAMAN BLANCHARD. |
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