“THE LITERARY GENTLEMAN.
’Mid Drury’s stews to incubate her lays,
And in St. Giles’s slang conveys her tropes,
Wreathing the poet’s lines with hangmen’s ropes;
You who conceive ’tis poetry to teach
The sad bravado of a dying speech;
Or, when possessed with a sublimer mood,
Show “Jack o’Dandies” dancing upon blood!
Crush bones—bruise flesh, recount each festering sore—
Rake up the plague-pit, write—and write in gore!
Or, when inspired to humanize mankind,
Where doth your soaring soul its subjects find?
Not ’mid the scenes that simple Goldsmith sought,
And found a theme to elevate his thought;
But you, great scribe, more greedy of renown,
From Hounslow’s gibbet drag a hero down.
Imbue his mind with virtue; make him quote
Some moral truth before he cuts a throat.
Then wash his hands, and soaring o’er your craft—
Refresh the hero with a bloody draught:
And, fearing lest the world should miss the act,
With noble zeal italicize the fact.
Or would you picture woman meek and pure,
By love and virtue tutor’d to endure,
With cunning skill you take a felon’s trull,
Stuff her with sentiment, and scrunch her skull!
Oh! would your crashing, smashing, mashing pen were mine,
That I could “scorch your eyeballs” with my words,
“My Valentine.”
DEATH BED REVELATIONS.
Men before they die see and comprehend enigmas hidden from them before. The greatest poet, and one of the noblest thinkers of the last age, said on his death-bed:—“Many things obscure to me before, now clear up and become visible.”
STAMMERING WIT.
Stammering, (says Coleridge,) is sometimes the cause of a pun. Some one was mentioning in Lamb’s presence the cold-heartedness of the Duke of Cumberland, in restraining the duchess from rushing up to the embrace of her son, whom she had not seen for a considerable time, and insisting on her receiving him in state. “How horribly cold it was,” said the narrator. “Yes,” said Lamb, in his stuttering way; “but you know he is the Duke of Cu-cum-ber-land.”
ORIGIN OF BOTTLED ALE.
Alexander Newell, Dean of St. Paul’s, and Master of Westminster School, in the reign of Queen Mary, was an excellent angler. But Fuller says, while Newell was catching of fishes, Bishop Bonner was catching of Newell, and would certainly have sent him to the shambles, had not a good London merchant conveyed him away upon the seas. Newell was fishing upon the banks of the Thames when he received the first intimation of his danger, which was so pressing, that he dared not go back to his own house to make any preparation for his flight. Like an honest angler, he had taken with him provisions for the day; and when, in the first year of England’s deliverance, he returned to his country, and to his own haunts, he remembered that on the day of his flight he had left a bottle of beer in a safe place on the bank: there he looked for it, and “found it no bottle, but a gun—such the sound at the opening thereof; and this (says Fuller) is believed (casualty is mother of more invention than industry) to be the original of bottled ale in England.”
BAD’S THE BEST.
Canning was once asked by an English clergyman, at whose parsonage he was visiting, how he liked the sermon he had preached that morning. “Why, it was a short sermon,” quoth Canning. “O yes,” said the preacher, “you know I avoid being tedious.” “Ah, but,” replied Canning, “you were tedious.”
LUDICROUS ESTIMATE OF MR. CANNING.
The Rev. Sydney Smith compares Mr. Canning in office to a fly in amber: “nobody cares about the fly: the only question is, how the devil did it get there?” “Nor do I,” continues Smith, “attack him for the love of glory, but from the love of utility, as a burgomaster hunts a rat in a Dutch dyke, for fear it should flood a province. When he is jocular, he is strong; when he is serious, he is like Samson in a wig. Call him a legislator, a reasoner, and the conductor of the affairs of a great nation, and it seems to me as absurd as if a butterfly were to teach bees to make honey. That he was an extraordinary writer of small poetry, and a diner-out of the highest lustre, I do most readily admit. After George Selwyn, and perhaps Tickell, there has been no such man for the last half-century.”
THE AUTHORSHIP OF “WAVERLEY.”
Mrs. Murray Keith, a venerable Scotch lady, from whom Sir Walter Scott derived many of the traditionary stories and anecdotes wrought up in his novels, taxed him one day with the authorship, which he, as usual, stoutly denied. “What!” exclaimed the old lady, “d’ye think I dinna ken my ain groats among other folk’s kail?”
QUID PRO QUO.
Campbell relates:—“Turner, the painter, is a ready wit. Once at a dinner where several artists, amateurs, and literary men were convened, a poet, by way of being facetious, proposed as a toast the health of the painters and glaziers of Great Britain. The toast was drunk; and Turner, after returning thanks for it, proposed the health of the British paper-stainers.”
HOPE’S “ANASTASIUS.”
Lord Byron, in a conversation with the Countess of Blessington, said that he wept bitterly over many pages of Anastasius, and for two reasons: first, that he had not written it; and secondly, that Hope had; for it was necessary to like a man excessively to pardon his writing such a book; as, he said, excelling all recent productions, as much in wit and talent as in true pathos. Lord Byron added, that he would have given his two most approved poems to have been the author of Anastasius.
SMART REPARTEE.
Walpole relates, after an execution of eighteen malefactors, a woman was hawking an account of them, but called them nineteen. A gentleman said to her, “Why do you say nineteen? there were but eighteen hanged.” She replied, “Sir, I did not know you had been reprieved.”
COLTON’S “LACON.”
This remarkable book was written upon covers of letters and scraps of paper of such description as was nearest at hand; the greater part at a house in Princes-street, Soho. Colton’s lodging was a penuriously-furnished second-floor, and upon a rough deal table, with a stumpy pen, our author wrote.
Though a beneficed clergyman, holding the vicarage of Kew, with Petersham, in Surrey, Colton was a well-known frequenter of the gaming-table; and, suddenly disappearing from his usual haunts in London about the time of the murder of Weare, in 1823, it was strongly suspected he had been assassinated. It was, however, afterwards ascertained that he had absconded to avoid his creditors; and in 1828 a successor was appointed to his living. He then went to reside in America, but subsequently lived in Paris, a professed gamester; and it is said that he thus gained, in two years only, the sum of 25,000l. He blew out his brains while on a visit to a friend at Fontainebleau, in 1832; bankrupt in health, spirits, and fortune.
BUNYAN’S COPY OF “THE BOOK OF MARTYRS.”
There is no book, except the Bible, which Bunyan is known to have perused so intently as the Acts and Monuments of John Fox, the martyrologist, one of the best of men; a work more hastily than judiciously compiled, but invaluable for that greater and far more important portion which has obtained for it its popular name of The Book of Martyrs. Bunyan’s own copy of this work is in existence, and valued of course as such a relic of such a man ought to be. It was purchased in the year 1780, by Mr. Wantner, of the Minories; from him it descended to his daughter, Mrs. Parnell, of Botolph-lane; and it was afterwards purchased, by subscription, for the Bedfordshire General Library.
This edition of The Acts and Monuments is of the date 1641, 3 vols. folio, the last of those in the black-letter, and probably the latest when it came into Bunyan’s hands. In each volume he has written his name beneath the title-page, in a large and stout print-hand. Under some of the woodcuts he has inserted a few rhymes, which are undoubtedly his own composition; and which, though much in the manner of the verses that were printed under the illustrations of his own Pilgrim’s Progress, when that work was first adorned with cuts, (verses worthy of such embellishments,) are very much worse than even the worst of those. Indeed, it would not be possible to find specimens of more miserable doggerel.
Here is one of the Tinker’s tetrasticks, penned in the margin, beside the account of Gardiner’s death:—
Is falling one his one head;
And dredfull it is for to see
The beginers of his misere.”
One of the signatures bears the date of 1662; but the verses must undoubtedly have been some years earlier, before the publication of his first tract. These curious inscriptions must have been Bunyan’s first attempts in verse: he had, no doubt, found difficulty enough in tinkering them to make him proud of his work when it was done; otherwise, he would not have written them in a book which was the most valuable of all his goods and chattels. In later days, he seems to have taken this book for his art of poetry. His verses are something below the pitch of Sternhold and Hopkins. But if he learnt there to make bad verses, he entered fully into the spirit of its better parts, and received that spirit into as resolute a heart as ever beat in a martyr’s bosom.[1]
LITERARY LOCALITIES.
Leigh Hunt pleasantly says:—“I can no more pass through Westminster, without thinking of Milton; or the Borough, without thinking of Chaucer and Shakspeare; or Gray’s Inn, without calling Bacon to mind; or Bloomsbury-square, without Steele and Akenside; than I can prefer brick and mortar to wit and poetry, or not see a beauty upon it beyond architecture in the splendour of the recollection. I once had duties to perform which kept me out late at night, and severely taxed my health and spirits. My path lay through a neighbourhood in which Dryden lived, and though nothing could be more common-place, and I used to be tired to the heart and soul of me, I never hesitated to go a little out of the way, purely that I might pass through Gerard-street, and so give myself the shadow of a pleasant thought.”
CREED OF LORD BOLINGBROKE.
Lord Brougham says:—“The dreadful malady under which Bolingbroke long lingered, and at length sunk—a cancer in the face—he bore with exemplary fortitude, a fortitude drawn from the natural resources of his vigorous mind, and unhappily not aided by the consolations of any religion; for, having early cast off the belief in revelation, he had substituted in its stead a dark and gloomy naturalism, which even rejected those glimmerings of hope as to futurity not untasted by the wiser of the heathens.”
Lord Chesterfield, in one of his letters, which has been published by Earl Stanhope, says that Bolingbroke only doubted, and by no means rejected, a future state.
BUNYAN’S PREACHING.
It is said that Owen, the divine, greatly admired Bunyan’s preaching; and that, being asked by Charles II. “how a learned man such as he could sit and listen to an itinerant tinker?” he replied: “May it please your Majesty, could I possess that tinker’s abilities for preaching, I would most gladly relinquish all my learning.”
HONE’S “EVERY-DAY BOOK.”
This popular work was commenced by its author after he had renounced political satire for the more peaceful study of the antiquities of our country. The publication was issued in weekly sheets, and extended through two years, 1824 and 1825. It was very successful, the weekly sale being from 20,000 to 30,000 copies.
In 1830, Mr. Southey gave the following tribute to the merits of the work, which it is pleasurable to record; as these two writers, from their antipodean politics, had not been accustomed to regard each other’s productions with any favour. In closing his Life of John Bunyan, Mr. Southey says:—
“In one of the volumes, collected from various quarters, which were sent to me for this purpose, I observe the name of William Hone, and notice it that I may take the opportunity of recommending his Every-day Book and Table Book to those who are interested in the preservation of our national and local customs. By these curious publications, their compiler has rendered good service in an important department of literature; and he may render yet more, if he obtain the encouragement which he well deserves.”
BUNYAN’S ESCAPES.
Bunyan had some providential escapes during his early life. Once, he fell into a creek of the sea, once out of a boat into the river Ouse, near Bedford, and each time he was narrowly saved from drowning. One day, an adder crossed his path. He stunned it with a stick, then forced open its mouth with a stick and plucked out the tongue, which he supposed to be the sting, with his fingers; “by which act,” he says, “had not God been merciful unto me, I might, by my desperateness, have brought myself to an end.” If this, indeed, were an adder, and not a harmless snake, his escape from the fangs was more remarkable than he himself was aware of. A circumstance, which was likely to impress him more deeply, occurred in the eighteenth year of his age, when, being a soldier in the Parliament’s army, he was drawn out to go to the siege of Leicester, in 1645. One of the same company wished to go in his stead; Bunyan consented to exchange with him, and this volunteer substitute, standing sentinel one day at the siege, was shot through the head with a musket-ball. “This risk,” Sir Walter Scott observes, “was one somewhat resembling the escape of Sir Roger de Coverley, in an action at Worcester, who was saved from the slaughter of that action, by having been absent from the field.”—Southey.
DROLLERY SPONTANEOUS.
More drolleries are uttered unintentionally than by premeditation. There is no such thing as being “droll to order.” One evening a lady said to a small wit, “Come, Mr. ——, tell us a lively anecdote;” and the poor fellow was mute the rest of the evening.
“Favour me with your company on Wednesday evening—you are such a lion,” said a weak party-giver to a young littérateur. “I thank you,” replied the wit, “but, on that evening I am engaged to eat fire at the Countess of ——, and stand upon my head at Mrs. ——.”
ORIGIN OF COWPER’S “JOHN GILPIN.”
It happened one afternoon, in those years when Cowper’s accomplished friend, Lady Austen, made a part of his little evening circle, that she observed him sinking into increased dejection; it was her custom, on these occasions, to try all the resources of her sprightly powers for his immediate relief. She told him the story of John Gilpin, (which had been treasured in her memory from her childhood), to dissipate the gloom of the passing hour. Its effects on the fancy of Cowper had the air of enchantment. He informed her the next morning that convulsions of laughter, brought on by his recollection of her story, had kept him waking during the greatest part of the night! and that he had turned it into a ballad. So arose the pleasant poem of John Gilpin. To Lady Austen’s suggestion, also, we are indebted for the poem of “the Task.”
HARD FATE OF AUTHORS.
Sir E. B. (now Lord) Lytton, in the memoir which he prefixed to the collected works of Laman Blanchard, draws the following affecting picture of that author’s position, after he had parted from an engagement upon a popular newspaper:—
“For the author there is nothing but his pen, till that and life are worn to the stump: and then, with good fortune, perhaps on his death-bed he receives a pension—and equals, it may be, for a few months, the income of a retired butler! And, so on the sudden loss of the situation in which he had frittered away his higher and more delicate genius, in all the drudgery that a party exacts from its defender of the press, Laman Blanchard was thrown again upon the world, to shift as he might and subsist as he could. His practice in periodical writing was now considerable; his versatility was extreme. He was marked by publishers and editors as a useful contributor, and so his livelihood was secure. From a variety of sources thus he contrived, by constant waste of intellect and strength, to eke out his income, and insinuate rather than force his place among his contemporary penmen. And uncomplainingly, and with patient industry, he toiled on, seeming farther and farther off from the happy leisure, in which ‘the something to verify promise was to be completed.’ No time had he for profound reading, for lengthened works, for the mature development of the conceptions of a charming fancy. He had given hostages to fortune. He had a wife and four children, and no income but that which he made from week to week. The grist must be ground, and the wheel revolve. All the struggle, all the toils, all the weariness of brain, nerve, and head, which a man undergoes in his career, are imperceptible even to his friends—almost to himself; he has no time to be ill, to be fatigued; his spirit has no holiday; it is all school-work. And thus, generally, we find in such men that the break up of the constitution seems sudden and unlooked-for. The causes of disease and decay have been long laid; but they are smothered beneath the lively appearances of constrained industry and forced excitement.”
JAMES SMITH, ONE OF THE AUTHORS OF “REJECTED ADDRESSES.”
A writer in the Law Quarterly Magazine says:—To the best of our information, James’s coup d’essai in literature was a hoax in the shape of a series of letters to the editor of the Gentleman’s Magazine, detailing some extraordinary antiquarian discoveries and facts in natural history, which the worthy Sylvanus Urban inserted without the least suspicion. In 1803, he became a constant contributor to the Pic-Nic and Cabinet weekly journals, in conjunction with Mr. Cumberland, Sir James Bland Burgess, Mr. Horatio Smith, and others. The principal caterer for these publications was Colonel Greville, on whom Lord Byron has conferred a not very enviable immortality—
Of vice and folly, Greville and Argyle.”
One of James Smith’s favourite anecdotes related to him. The Colonel requested his young ally to call at his lodgings, and in the course of their first interview related the particulars of the most curious circumstance in his life. He was taken prisoner during the American war, along with three other officers of the same rank; one evening they were summoned into the presence of Washington, who announced to them that the conduct of their Government, in condemning one of his officers to death as a rebel, compelled him to make reprisals; and that, much to his regret, he was under the necessity of requiring them to cast lots, without delay, to decide which of them should be hanged. They were then bowed out, and returned to their quarters. Four slips of paper were put into a hat, and the shortest was drawn by Captain Asgill, who exclaimed, “I knew how it would be; I never won so much as a hit of backgammon in my life.” As Greville told the story, he was selected to sit up with Captain Asgill, under the pretext of companionship, but, in reality, to prevent him from escaping, and leaving the honour amongst the remaining three. “And what,” inquired Smith, “did you say to comfort him?” “Why, I remember saying to him, when they left us, D—it, old fellow, never mind;” but it may be doubted (added Smith) whether he drew much comfort from the exhortation. Lady Asgill persuaded the French minister to interpose, and the captain was permitted to escape.
Both James and Horatio Smith were also contributors to the Monthly Mirror, then the property of Mr. Thomas Hill, a gentleman who had the good fortune to live familiarly with three or four generations of authors; the same, in short, with whom the subject of this memoir thus playfully remonstrated: “Hill, you take an unfair advantage of an accident; the register of your birth was burnt in the great fire of London, and you now give yourself out for younger than you are.”
The fame of the Smiths, however, was confined to a limited circle until the publication of the Rejected Addresses, which rose at once into almost unprecedented celebrity.
James Smith used to dwell with much pleasure on the criticism of a Leicestershire clergyman: “I do not see why they (the Addresses) should have been rejected: I think some of them very good.” This, he would add, is almost as good as the avowal of the Irish bishop, that there were some things in Gulliver’s Travels which he could not believe.
Though never guilty of intemperance, James was a martyr to the gout; and, independently of the difficulty he experienced in locomotion, he partook largely of the feeling avowed by his old friend Jekyll, who used to say that, if compelled to live in the country, he would have the drive before his house paved like the streets of London, and hire a hackney-coach to drive up and down all day long.
He used to tell, with great glee, a story showing the general conviction of his dislike to ruralities. He was sitting in the library at a country-house, when a gentleman proposed a quiet stroll into the pleasure-grounds:—
“ ‘Stroll! why, don’t you see my gouty shoe?’
“ ‘Yes, I see that plain enough, and I wish I’d brought one too, but they’re all out now.’
“ ‘Well, and what then?’
“ ‘What then? Why, my dear fellow, you don’t mean to say that you have really got the gout? I thought you had only put on that shoe to get off being shown over the improvements.’ ”
His bachelorship is thus attested in his niece’s album:
As a poet I die,
Ye Benedicts mourn my distresses:
For what little fame
Is annexed to my name,
Is derived from Rejected Addresses.”
The two following are amongst the best of his good things. A gentleman with the same Christian and surname took lodgings in the same house. The consequence was, eternal confusion of calls and letters. Indeed, the postman had no alternative but to share the letters equally between the two. “This is intolerable, sir,” said our friend, “and you must quit.” “Why am I to quit more than you?” “Because you are James the Second—and must abdicate.”
Mr. Bentley proposed to establish a periodical publication, to be called The Wit’s Miscellany. Smith objected that the title promised too much. Shortly afterwards, the publisher came to tell him that he had profited by the hint, and resolved on calling it Bentley’s Miscellany. “Isn’t that going a little too far the other way?” was the remark.
A capital pun has been very generally attributed to him. An actor, named Priest, was playing at one of the principal theatres. Some one remarked at the Garrick Club, that there were a great many men in the pit. “Probably, clerks who have taken Priest’s orders.” The pun is perfect, but the real proprietor is Mr. Poole, one of the best punsters as well as one of the cleverest comic writers and finest satirists of the day. It has also been attributed to Charles Lamb.
Formerly, it was customary, on emergencies, for the judges to swear affidavits at their dwelling-houses. Smith was desired by his father to attend a judge’s chambers for that purpose, but being engaged to dine in Russell-square, at the next house to Mr. Justice Holroyd’s, he thought he might as well save himself the disagreeable necessity of leaving the party at eight by dispatching his business at once: so, a few minutes before six, he boldly knocked at the judge’s, and requested to speak to him on particular business. The judge was at dinner, but came down without delay, swore the affidavit, and then gravely asked what was the pressing necessity that induced our friend to disturb him at that hour. As Smith told the story, he raked his invention for a lie, but finding none fit for the purpose, he blurted out the truth:—
“ ‘The fact is, my lord, I am engaged to dine at the next house—and—and——’
“ ‘And, sir, you thought you might as well save your own dinner by spoiling mine?’
“ ‘Exactly so, my lord, but——’
“ ‘Sir, I wish you a good evening.’ ”
Smith was rather fond of a joke on his own branch of the profession; he always gave a peculiar emphasis to the line in his song on the contradiction of names:
and would frequently quote Goldsmith’s lines on Hickey, the associate of Burke and other distinguished cotemporaries:
Yet one fault he had, and that was a thumper,
Then, what was his failing? come, tell it, and burn ye:
He was, could he help it? a special attorney.”
The following playful colloquy in verse took place at a dinner-table between Sir George Bose and himself, in allusion to Craven-street, Strand, where he resided:—
And down at the bottom the barges are found:
Fly, Honesty, fly to some safer retreat,
For there’s craft in the river, and craft in the street.’ ”
From attorneys and barges, od rot ’em?
For the lawyers are just at the top of the street,
And the barges are just at the bottom.’ ”
CONTEMPORARY COPYRIGHTS.
The late Mr. Tegg, the publisher in Cheapside, gave the following list of remunerative payments to distinguished authors in his time; and he is believed to have taken considerable pains to verify the items:
Fragments of History, by Charles Fox, sold by Lord Holland, for 5000 guineas. Fragments of History, by Sir James Mackintosh, 500l. Lingard’s History of England, 4683l. Sir Walter Scott’s Bonaparte was sold, with the printed books, for 18,000l.; the net receipts of copyright on the first two editions only must have been 10,000l. Life of Wilberforce, by his sons, 4000 guineas. Life of Byron, by Moore, 4000l. Life of Sheridan, by Moore, 2000l. Life of Hannah More, 2000l. Life of Cowper, by Southey, 1000l. Life and Times of George IV., by Lady C. Bury, 1000l. Byron’s Works, 20,000l. Lord of the Isles, half share, 1500l. Lalla Rookh, by Moore, 3000l. Rejected Addresses, by Smith, 1000l. Crabbe’s Works, republication of, by Mr. Murray, 3000l. Wordsworth’s Works, republication of, by Mr. Moxon, 1050l. Bulwer’s Rienzi, 1600l. Marryat’s Novels, 500l. to 1500l. each. Trollope’s Factory Boy, 1800l. Hannah More derived 30,000l. per annum for her copyrights, during the latter years of her life. Rundell’s Domestic Cookery, 2000l. Nicholas Nickleby, 3000l. Eustace’s Classical Tour, 2100l. Sir Robert Inglis obtained for the beautiful and interesting widow of Bishop Heber by the sale of his journal, 5000l.
MISS BURNEY’S “EVELINA.”
The story of Evelina being printed when the authoress was but seventeen years old is proved to have been sheer invention, to trumpet the work into notoriety; since it has no more truth in it than a paid-for newspaper puff. The year of Miss Burney’s birth was long involved in studied obscurity, and thus the deception lasted, until one fine day it was ascertained, by reference to the register of the authoress’ birth, that she was a woman of six or seven-and-twenty, instead of a “Miss in her teens,” when she wrote Evelina. The story of her father’s utter ignorance of the work being written by her, and recommending her to read it, as an exception to the novel class, has also been essentially modified. Miss Burney, (then Madame D’Arblay,) is said to have taken the characters in her novel of Camilla from the family of Mr. Lock, of Norbury Park, who built for Gen. D’Arblay the villa in which the work was written, and which to this day is called “Camilla Lacy.” By this novel, Madame D’Arblay is said to have realized 3000 guineas.
EPITAPH ON CHARLES LAMB.
Lamb lies buried in Edmonton churchyard, and the stone bears the following lines to his memory, written by his friend, the Rev. H. F. Cary, the erudite translator of Dante and Pindar:—
No more shall gladden our domestic hearth;
That rising tear, with pain forbid to flow—
Better than words—no more assuage our woe.
That hand outstretch’d from small but well-earned store
Yield succour to the destitute no more.
Yet art thou not all lost: through many an age,
With sterling sense and humour, shall thy page
Win many an English bosom, pleased to see
That old and happier vein revived in thee.
This for our earth; and if with friends we share
Our joys in heaven, we hope to meet thee there.”
Lamb survived his earliest friend and school-fellow, Coleridge, only a few months. One morning he showed to a friend the mourning ring which the author of Christabelle had left him. “Poor fellow!” exclaimed Lamb, “I have never ceased to think of him from the day I first heard of his death.” Lamb died in five days after—December 27, 1834, in his fifty-ninth year.
“TOM CRINGLE’S LOG.”
The author of this very successful work, (originally published in Blackwood’s Magazine,) was a Mr. Mick Scott, born in Edinburgh in 1789, and educated at the High School. Several years of his life were spent in the West Indies. He ultimately married, returned to his native country, and there embarked in commercial speculations, in the leisure between which he wrote the Log. Notwithstanding its popularity in Europe and America, the author preserved his incognito to the last. He survived his publisher for some years, and it was not till Mr. Scott’s death that the sons of Mr. Blackwood were aware of his name.
CHANCES FOR THE DRAMA.
The royal patent, by which the performance of the regular drama was restricted to certain theatres, does not appear to have fostered this class of writing. Dr. Johnson forced Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer into the theatre. Tobin died regretting that he could not succeed in hearing the Honeymoon performed. Lillo produced George Barnwell (an admirably written play) at an irregular theatre, after it had been rejected by the holders of the patents. Douglas was cast on Home’s hands. Fielding was introduced as a dramatist at an unlicensed house; and one of Mrs. Inchbald’s popular comedies had lain two years neglected, when, by a trifling accident, she was able to obtain the manager’s approval.
FULLER’S MEMORY.
Marvellous anecdotes are related of Dr. Thomas Fuller’s memory. Thus, it is stated that he undertook once, in passing to and from Temple Bar to the farthest conduit in Cheapside, to tell at his return every sign as they stood in order on both sides of the way, repeating them either backward or forward. This must have been a great feat, seeing that every house then bore a sign. Yet, Fuller himself decried this kind of thing as a trick, no art. He relates that one (who since wrote a book thereof) told him, before credible people, that he, in Sidney College, had taught him (Fuller) the art of memory. Fuller replied that it was not so, for he could not remember that he had ever seen him before; “which, I conceive,” adds Fuller, “was a real refutation;” and we think so, too.
LORD HERVEY’S WIT.
Horace Walpole records Lord Hervey’s memorable saying about Lord Burlington’s pretty villa at Chiswick, now the Duke of Devonshire’s, that it was “too small to inhabit, and too large to hang to your watch;” and Lady Louisa Stuart has preserved a piece of dandyism in eating, which even Beau Brummell might have envied—“When asked at dinner whether he would have some beef, he answered, ‘Beef? oh, no! faugh! don’t you know I never eat beef, nor horse, nor any of those things?’ ”—The man that said these things was the successful lover of the prettiest maid of honour to the Princess of Wales—the person held up to everlasting ridicule by Pope—the vice-chamberlain whose attractions engaged the affections of the daughter of the Sovereign he served; and the peer whose wit was such that it “charmed the charming Mary Montague.”
ANACREONTIC INVITATION, BY MOORE.
The following, one of the latest productions of the poet Moore, addressed to the Marquis of Lansdowne, shows that though by that time inclining to threescore and ten, he retained all the fire and vivacity of early youth. It is full of those exquisitely apt allusions and felicitous turns of expression in which the English Anacreon excels. It breathes the very spirit of classic festivity. Such an invitation to dinner is enough to create an appetite in any lover of poetry:—
That poets live among the stars, so
Their very dinners are ideal,—
(And heaven knows, too oft they are so:)
For instance, that we have, instead
Of vulgar chops and stews, and hashes,
First course,—a phœnix at the head,
Done in its own celestial ashes:
At foot, a cygnet, which kept singing
All the time its neck was wringing.
Side dishes, thus,—Minerva’s owl,
Or any such like learned fowl;
Doves, such as heaven’s poulterer gets
When Cupid shoots his mother’s pets.
Larks stew’d in morning’s roseate breath,
Or roasted by a sunbeam’s splendour;
And nightingales, be-rhymed to death—
Like young pigs whipp’d to make them tender.
Such fare may suit those bard’s who’re able
To banquet at Duke Humphrey’s table;
But as for me, who’ve long been taught
To eat and drink like other people,
And can put up with mutton, bought
Where Bromham rears its ancient steeple;
If Lansdowne will consent to share
My humble feast, though rude the fare,
Yet, seasoned by that salt he brings
From Attica’s salinest springs,
’Twill turn to dainties; while the cup,
Beneath his influence brightening up,
Like that of Baucis, touched by Jove,
Will sparkle fit for gods above!”
THE POETS IN A PUZZLE.
Cottle, in his Life of Coleridge, relates the following amusing incident:—
“I led the horse to the stable, when a fresh perplexity arose. I removed the harness without difficulty; but, after many strenuous attempts, I could not remove the collar. In despair, I called for assistance, when aid soon drew near. Mr. Wordsworth brought his ingenuity into exercise; but, after several unsuccessful efforts, he relinquished the achievement, as a thing altogether impracticable. Mr. Coleridge now tried his hand, but showed no more grooming skill than his predecessors; for, after twisting the poor horse’s neck almost to strangulation and the great danger of his eyes, he gave up the useless task, pronouncing that the horse’s head must have grown (gout or dropsy?) since the collar was put on; for he said ‘it was a downright impossibility for such a huge os frontis to pass through so narrow a collar!’ Just at this instant, a servant-girl came near, and, understanding the cause of our consternation, ‘La! master,’ said she, ‘you don’t go about the work in the right way. You should do like this,’ when, turning the collar completely upside down, she slipped it off in a moment, to our great humiliation and wonderment, each satisfied afresh that there were heights of knowledge in the world to which we had not yet attained.”
SALE OF MAGAZINES.
Sir John Hawkins, in his “Memoirs of Johnson,” ascribes the decline of literature to the ascendancy of frivolous Magazines, between the years 1740 and 1760. He says that they render smatterers conceited, and confer the superficial glitter of knowledge instead of its substance.
Sir Richard Phillips, upwards of forty years a publisher, gives the following evidence as to the sale of the Magazines in his time:—
“For my own part, I know that in 1790, and for many years previously, there were sold of the trifle called the Town and Country Magazine, full 15,000 copies per month; and, of another, the Ladies’ Magazine, from 16,000 to 22,000. Such circumstances were, therefore, calculated to draw forth the observations of Hawkins. The Gentleman’s Magazine, in its days of popular extracts, never rose above 10,000; after it became more decidedly antiquarian, it fell in sale, and continued for many years at 3000.
“The veriest trifles, and only such, move the mass of minds which compose the public. The sale of the Town and Country Magazine was created by a fictitious article, called Bon-Ton, in which were given the pretended amours of two personages, imagined to be real, with two sham portraits. The idea was conceived, and, for above twenty years, was executed by Count Carraccioli; but, on his death, about 1792, the article lost its spirit, and within seven years the magazine was discontinued. The Ladies’ Magazine was, in like manner, sustained by love-tales and its low price of sixpence, which, till after 1790, was the general price of magazines.”
Things have now taken a turn unlooked for in those days. The price of most magazines, it is true, is still more than sixpence—usually a shilling, and at that price the Cornhill in some months reached an impression of 120,000; but the circulation of Good Words, at sixpence, has touched 180,000, and continues, we believe, to be over 100,000.
MRS. SOUTHEY.
And who was Mrs. Southey?—who but she who was so long known, and so great a favourite, as Caroline Bowles; transformed by the gallantry of the laureate, and the grace of the parson, into her matrimonial appellation. Southey, so long ago as the 21st of February, 1829, prefaced his most amatory poem of All for Love, with a tender address, that is now, perhaps, worth reprinting:—
With hope of building some elaborate lay,
Then would I wait till worthier strains of mine,
Might have inscribed thy name, O Caroline!
For I would, while my voice is heard on earth,
Bear witness to thy genius and thy worth.
But we have been both taught to feel with fear,
How frail the tenure of existence here;
What unforeseen calamities prevent,
Alas! how oft, the best resolved intent;
And, therefore, this poor volume I address
To thee, dear friend, and sister poetess!
The laureate had his wish; for in duty, he was bound to say, that worthier strains than his bore inscribed the name of Caroline connected with his own—and, moreover, she was something more than a dear friend and sister poetess.
“The laureate,” observes a writer in Fraser’s Magazine, “is a fortunate man; his queen supplies him with butts (alluding to the laureateship), and his lady with Bowls: then may his cup of good fortune be overflowing.”
DEVOTION TO SCIENCE.
M. Agassiz, the celebrated palæontologist, is known to have relinquished pursuits from which he might have been in the receipt of a considerable income, and all for the sake of science. Dr. Buckland knew him, when engaged in this arduous career, with the revenue of only 100l.: and of this he paid fifty pounds to artists for drawings, thirty pounds for books, and lived himself on the remaining twenty pounds a year! Thus did he raise himself to an elevated European rank; and, in his abode, au troisième, was the companion and friend of princes, ambassadors, and men of the highest rank and talent of every country.
DISADVANTAGEOUS CORRECTION.
Lord North had little reason to congratulate himself when he ventured on an interruption with Burke. In a debate on some economical question, Burke was guilty of a false quantity—“Magnum vectĭgal est parsimonia.” “Vectīgal,” said the minister, in an audible under-tone. “I thank the noble lord for his correction,” resumed the orator, “since it gives me the opportunity of repeating the inestimable adage—“Magnum vectīgal est parsimonia.” (Parsimony is a great revenue.)
PATRONAGE OF LITERATURE.
When Victor Hugo was an aspirant for the honours of the French Academy, and called on M. Royer Collard to ask his vote, the sturdy veteran professed entire ignorance of his name. “I am the author of Notre Dame de Paris, Les Derniers Jours d’un Condamné, Bug-Jargal, Marian Delorme, &c.” “I never heard of any of them,” said Collard. “Will you do me the honour of accepting a copy of my works?” said Victor Hugo. “I never read new books,” was the cutting reply.
DR. JOHNSON’S WIGS.
Dr. Johnson’s wigs were in general very shabby, and their fore-parts were burned away by the near approach of the candle, which his short-sightedness rendered necessary in reading. At Streatham, Mr. Thrale’s butler always had a wig ready; and as Johnson passed from the drawing-room, when dinner was announced, the servant would remove the ordinary wig, and replace it with the newer one; and this ludicrous ceremony was performed every day.—Croker.
SHERIDAN’S “PIZARRO.”
Mr. Pitt was accustomed to relate very pleasantly an amusing anecdote of a total breach of memory in some Mrs. Lloyd, a lady, or nominal housekeeper, of Kensington Palace. “Being in company,” he said, “with Mr. Sheridan, without recollecting him, while Pizarro was the topic of discussion, she said to him, ‘And so this fine Pizarro is printed?’ ‘Yes, so I hear,’ said Sherry. ‘And did you ever in your life read such stuff?’ cried she. ‘Why I believe it’s bad enough,’ quoth Sherry; ‘but at least, madam, you must allow it’s very loyal.’ ‘Ah!’ cried she, shaking her head—‘loyal? you don’t know its author as well as I do.’ ”
DR. JOHNSON IN LONDON.
The following were Dr. Johnson’s several places of residence in and near London:—
| 1. | Exeter-street, off Catherine-street, Strand. (1737.) |
| 2. | Greenwich. (1737.) |
| 3. | Woodstock-street, near Hanover-square. (1737.) |
| 4. | Castle-court, Cavendish-square; No. 6. (1738.) |
| 5. | Boswell-court. |
| 6. | Strand. |
| 7. | Strand, again. |
| 8. | Bow-street. |
| 9. | Holborn. |
| 10. | Fetter-lane. |
| 11. | Holborn again; at the Golden Anchor, Holborn Bars. (1748.) |
| 12. | Gough-square. (1748.) |
| 13. | Staple Inn. (1758.) |
| 14. | Gray’s Inn. |
| 15. | Inner Temple-lane, No. 1. (1760.) |
| 16. | Johnson’s-court, Fleet-street, No. 5. (1765.) |
| 17. | Bolt-court, Fleet-street, No. 8. (1776.) |
REGALITY OF GENIUS.
Gibbon, when speaking of his own genealogy, refers to the fact of Fielding being of the same family as the Earl of Denbigh, who, in common with the Imperial family of Austria, is descended from the celebrated Rodolph, of Hapsburgh. “While the one branch,” he says, “have contented themselves with being sheriffs of Leicestershire, and justices of the peace, the others have been emperors of Germany and kings of Spain; but the magnificent romance of Tom Jones will be read with pleasure, when the palace of the Escurial is in ruins, and the Imperial Eagle of Austria is rolling in the dust.”
FIELDING’S “TOM JONES.”
Fielding having finished the manuscript of Tom Jones, and being at the time hard pressed for money took it to a second-rate publisher, with the view of selling it for what it would fetch at the moment. He left it with the trader, and called upon him next day for his decision. The bookseller hesitated, and requested another day for consideration; and at parting, Fielding offered him the MS. for 25l.
On his way home, Fielding met Thomson, the poet, whom he told of the negotiation for the sale of the MS.; when Thomson, knowing the high merit of the work, conjured him to be off the bargain, and offered to find a better purchaser.
Next morning, Fielding hastened to his appointment, with as much apprehension lest the bookseller should stick to his bargain as he had felt the day before lest he should altogether decline it. To the author’s great joy, the ignorant trafficker in literature declined, and returned the MS. to Fielding. He next set off, with a light heart, to his friend Thomson; and the novelist and the poet then went to Andrew Millar, the great publisher of the day. Millar, as was his practice with works of light reading, handed the MS. to his wife, who, having read it, advised him by no means to let it slip through his fingers.
Millar now invited the two friends to meet him at a coffee-house in the Strand, where, after dinner, the bookseller, with great caution, offered Fielding 200l. for the MS. The novelist was amazed at the largeness of the offer. “Then, my good sir,” said Fielding, recovering himself from his unexpected stroke of good fortune, “give me your hand—the book is yours. And, waiter,” continued he, “bring a couple of bottles of your best port.”
Before Millar died, he had cleared eighteen thousand pounds by Tom Jones, out of which he generously made Fielding various presents, to the amount of 2000l.; and he closed his life by bequeathing a handsome legacy to each of Fielding’s sons.
VOLTAIRE AND FERNEY.
The showman’s work is very profitable at the country-house of Voltaire, at Ferney, near Geneva. A Genevese, an excellent calculator, as are all his countrymen, many years ago valued as follows the yearly profit derived by the above functionary from his situation:—
| Francs. | |
| 8000 busts of Voltaire, made with earth of Ferney, at a franc a-piece | 8,000 |
| 1200 autograph letters, at 20 francs | 24,000 |
| 500 walking canes of Voltaire, at 50 francs each | 25,000 |
| 300 veritable wigs of Voltaire, at 100 francs | 30,000 |
| In all | 87,000 |
CLEAN HANDS.
Lord Brougham, during his indefatigable canvass of Yorkshire, in the course of which he often addressed ten or a dozen meetings in a day, thought fit to harangue the electors of Leeds immediately on his arrival, after travelling all night, and without waiting to perform his customary ablutions. “These hands are clean!” cried he, at the conclusion of a diatribe against corruption; but they happened to be very dirty, and this practical contradiction raised a hearty laugh.
MODERATE FLATTERY.
Jasper Mayne says of Master Cartwright, the author of tolerable comedies and poems, printed in 1651:—