| 232 | LAMAN BLANCHARD. |
It is something like a set-off—a sorry one, it is true—to the friends of Laman Blanchard, against his premature loss, that, during the last two or three years of his life, the weak points of his character were gaining a sad ascendancy over the fair, for I must not call them the strong ones, and would inevitably have conquered them at last, if he had lived for a few years longer. The truth is, he was fast lapsing, in his writings, from the sweetest and wisest of moralists into a mere satirist—a gentle and tolerant one, but still a satirist; and qualify this latter phrase by what softening epithets we may, there is at best a dreary difference between them.
All that Sir Bulwer Lytton says of
Blanchard, in the delightful little memoir
prefixed to the reprint of his selected “Essays,” is true to the letter, both in a
personal and a
| LAMAN BLANCHARD. | 233 |
Certain it is, that for those whose friendship or admiration, or even the two combined, cannot blind them to the faults or failings of their friends, there was latterly an ominous change gradually going on in the mind and spirit of Blanchard, which showed itself in the growing irritability of his temper, and the corresponding acerbity of his writings. The rich and sparkling wine of his spirit was slowly but surely undergoing that “acidulous fermentation” to which all wine is liable under certain predisposing conditions.
Those of Blanchard’s mere
reading friends and admirers who doubt this, have only to turn to those of his Essays in
the New Monthly Magazine that were written
during the last three years of his life, many of which are nothing else but satires, more
or less bitter or biting, not merely on those social
| 234 | LAMAN BLANCHARD. |
This change was, no doubt, superinduced by the circumstances of Blanchard’s life, upon that original softness and sweetness of temperament which, even in a man, while they maintain their normal character, may fairly and fitly be described as feminine, without in the smallest degree impeaching the strength or dignity of the intellect they at once elevate and adorn; but which, it must be confessed, are sadly apt, under adverse circumstances, to degenerate into qualities that, in ceasing to be feminine, become effeminate.
The truth is, that, during the last three or four years of his life,
Blanchard had grown,
| LAMAN BLANCHARD. | 235 |
The explanation of this sinister change is probably to be sought in the physical consequences of nearly twenty years of incessant and wearing literary labour, coupled with the fact of finding himself no better off, in a worldly point of view, than when he began.
It is true that he suddenly and unexpectedly found himself, at the end of
this period, the most popular essayist and magazine writer of the day, and, consequently,
the most sought after by publishers. But this only increased the evil instead of curing it,
since it did not enable, or, at all events, induce him to relax from that mere literary
drudgery from which he derived the chief
| 236 | LAMAN BLANCHARD. |
Thus, with constantly increasing calls upon his thoughts and pen, and
constantly diminishing time to answer them, Blanchard became the enfant gaté
of the periodical press; and his temper and tone of mind
| LAMAN BLANCHARD. | 237 |
Some letters of Blanchard have been published by Mr. Ainsworth in the New Monthly Magazine, which, for those who knew the writer’s extreme sensitiveness and delicacy of feeling on the matters to which they refer, place in a very painful light the exigencies of a social position that compelled or induced such a man to submit to the literary subservience they imply, and which their publication (inadvertently no doubt) placards to the world. Blanchard was, at the date of these letters, and indeed up to the period of his death, sub-editor of Ainsworth’s Magazine, and was in the habit of supplying a certain number of pages to that publication every month; and the letters to which I allude evidently refer to some of his recent contributions, which had as evidently not been approved of by his literary chef, who appears to have taken him to task accordingly.
| 238 | LAMAN BLANCHARD. |
When it is recollected that these letters were written under the pressure of a fearful domestic affliction—which resulted, a few weeks afterwards, not only in the death of the wife who was so dear to him, but in the awful catastrophe of his own death also—there is something inexpressibly painful about them.*
After all, however, it must be confessed that there was in Blanchard’s natural temper a morbid sensitiveness to any apparent slight or neglect, which was quite inconsistent with the position he must have felt himself to hold in the estimation of those about whose estimation such a man should alone care. I had observed the existence of this defect from the commencement of my intimacy with him; and I believe it to have arisen (as such defects of temper almost always do), from a sort of half consciousness of, in some degree, meriting the treatment he so disliked.
This requires explanation, and is susceptible of it, so as to remove the smallest
* See New Monthly Magazine, vol. lxxvi. p. 139. |
| LAMAN BLANCHARD. | 239 |
The chief way in which the over-sensitiveness I have alluded to showed
itself was this: when he first became acquainted with any one whom he saw reason to like,
and who liked him, and in consequence made one at those nightly meetings at his house at
Lambeth, which exactly resembled those of Charles
Lamb, many years before, at Islington,—if, after being present on two or
three evenings during a week or fortnight, the new guest ceased for any noticeable space of
time to appear there, Blanchard was hurt and piqued—wondered
“what could be the matter,” and was almost offended; though in the meantime he
had never even thought of seeking them, or at most only thought of it. And the man who, for reasons however valid (and there were
valid reasons in the case of Blanchard), abstains from according to
his friends something of that reciprocity
| 240 | LAMAN BLANCHARD. |
The two following letters are without date, but were written shortly before
Blanchard’s
| LAMAN BLANCHARD. | 241 |
”My dear Patmore,—Forgive my
delay, occasioned by a cold settled on the lungs, and be sure that, although I
was ill, I deeply regretted your going away without seeing me. I would not have
permitted it on any account. Now for your note. The proposal is every way kind
and generous, and I shall always remember with pleasure that you have made it
in so friendly a spirit. But, in my particular case,
there is a fatal obstacle. Not in the house, nor in any
of the arrangements we might probably form, agreeably to your views, but in the
next house. Some members of that family we are very
intimate with still. With respect to others, the taking up our abode next door
would be an impossibility; and though years have passed,
| 242 | LAMAN BLANCHARD. |
”My dear Patmore,—As the enemy that has laid me so low has now hit at my eyes, the optic nerve being dreadfully affected, I write while I can—too ill I have felt before, but worse now—to say that your note grieved and surprised me. I keep it by me; but unless I soon get better, utter helplessness is all you can look for from the interest and attachment of your sick friend.
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