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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Res Judicatæ + Papers and Essays + +Author: Augustine Birrell + +Release Date: August 22, 2011 [EBook #37159] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RES JUDICATÆ *** + + + + +Produced by Hunter Monroe, Suzanne Shell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<h1>RES JUDICATÆ</h1> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 320px;"> +<img src="images/cover01.jpg" width="320" height="394" alt="" title="" /> +</div><hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><a name="IN_UNIFORM_BINDING" id="IN_UNIFORM_BINDING"></a><i>IN UNIFORM BINDING</i></h2> + + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="cover"> +<tr><td align='left'><b>ANDREW LANG</b></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Letters to Dead Authors</td><td align='right'>$1 00</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><b>AUGUSTINE BIRRELL</b></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Obiter Dicta—First Series</td><td align='right'>1 00</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Obiter Dicta—Second Series</td><td align='right'>1 00</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Res Judicatæ</td><td align='right'>1 00</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><b>W. E. HENLEY</b></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Views and Reviews—Literature</td><td align='right'>1 00</td></tr> +</table></div><hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p class="center">RES JUDICATÆ</p> + +<p class="center"><i>PAPERS AND ESSAYS</i></p> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>AUGUSTINE BIRRELL</h2> + +<p class="center">AUTHOR OF 'OBITER DICTA,' ETC.</p> +<p><br /></p> + + +<p class="blockquot"> +'It need hardly be added that such sentences do not +any more than the records of the superior courts conclude +as to matters which may or may not have been controverted.'—<i>See</i> +<span class="smcap">Blackham's</span> <i>Case I. Salkeld 290</i> +<br /> +<br /></p> +<p class="center">NEW YORK</p> +<p class="center">CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS</p> +<p class="center">1892</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p class="center">COPYRIGHT, 1892, BY</p> + +<p class="center">CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2>PREFACE +</h2> + +<p>The first two essays in this volume +were composed as lectures, and are now +printed for the first time; the others have +endured that indignity before. The papers +on 'The Letters of Charles Lamb' +and 'Authors in Court' originally appeared +in <i>Macmillan's Magazine</i>; and the short +essays entitled 'William Cowper' and +'George Borrow' in the <i>Reflector</i>, a lively +sheet which owed its existence to and derived +its inspiration from the energy and +genius of the late Mr. J. K. Stephen, whose +too early death has not only eclipsed the +gaiety of many gatherings, but has robbed +the country of the service of a noble and +truth-loving man.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span></p> + +<p>The other papers appeared either in +<i>Scribner's Magazine</i> or in the columns of +the <i>Speaker</i> newspaper.</p> + +<p>Although, by the kindness of my present +publishers, I have always been practically +a 'protected article' in the States, I +cannot help expressing my pleasure in +finding myself in the enjoyment of the +same modest rights as an author in the +new home of my people as in the old.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 17.5em;">A. B.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Lincoln's Inn, London.</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span></p> + + + + +<h2>CONTENTS +</h2> + + +<table summary="toc"> +<tr><td></td><td></td><td align="right">Page</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">I. </td><td><a href="#SAMUEL_RICHARDSON">SAMUEL RICHARDSON</a></td><td align="right">1</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">II.</td> <td><a href="#EDWARD_GIBBON">EDWARD GIBBON</a></td><td align="right">39</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">III. </td><td><a href="#WILLIAM_COWPER">WILLIAM COWPER</a></td><td align="right">84</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">IV. </td><td><a href="#GEORGE_BORROW">GEORGE BORROW</a></td><td align="right">115</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">V. </td><td><a href="#CARDINAL_NEWMAN">CARDINAL NEWMAN</a></td><td align="right">140</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">VI. </td><td><a href="#MATTHEW_ARNOLD">MATTHEW ARNOLD</a></td><td align="right">181</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">VII. </td><td><a href="#WILLIAM_HAZLITT">WILLIAM HAZLITT</a></td><td align="right">224</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">VIII. </td><td><a href="#THE_LETTERS_OF_CHARLES_LAMB7">THE LETTERS OF CHARLES LAMB</a> </td><td align="right">232</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">IX. </td><td><a href="#AUTHORS_IN_COURT">AUTHORS IN COURT</a></td><td align="right">253</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">X. </td><td><a href="#NATIONALITY">NATIONALITY</a></td><td align="right">274</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">XI. </td><td><a href="#THE_REFORMATION">THE REFORMATION</a></td><td align="right">284</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right">XII. </td><td><a href="#SAINTE-BEUVE">SAINTE-BEUVE</a></td><td align="right">298</td></tr> +</table> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="SAMUEL_RICHARDSON" id="SAMUEL_RICHARDSON"></a>SAMUEL RICHARDSON<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></h2> + +<p class="center">A LECTURE</p> + + +<p>It is difficult to describe mankind either +in a book or in a breath, and none but the +most determined of philosophers or the +most desperate of cynics have attempted +to do so, either in one way or the other. +Neither the philosophers nor the cynics can +be said to have succeeded. The descriptions +of the former are not recognisable and +therefore as descriptions at all events, whatever +may be their other merits, must be +pronounced failures; whilst those of the +cynics describe something which bears to +ordinary human nature only the same sort +of resemblance that chemically polluted +waters bear to the stream as it flows higher +up than the source of contamination, which +in this case is the cynic himself.</p> + +<p>But though it is hard to describe mankind, +it is easy to distinguish between peo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span>ple. +You may do this in a great many different +ways: for example, and to approach +my subject, there are those who can read +Richardson's novels, and those who cannot. +The inevitable third-class passenger, no +doubt, presents himself and clamours for a +ticket: I mean the man or woman who has +never tried. But even a lecturer should +have courage, and I say boldly that I provide +no accommodation for that person tonight. +If he feels aggrieved, let him seek +his remedy—elsewhere.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Mr. Samuel Richardson, of Salisbury +Court, Fleet Street, printer, was, if you have +only an eye for the outside, a humdrum +person enough. Witlings, writing about +him in the magazines, have often, out of +consideration for their pretty little styles, +and in order to avoid the too frequent repetition +of his highly respectable if unromantic +name, found it convenient to dub +him the 'little printer.'</p> + +<p>He undoubtedly was short of stature, and +in later life, obese in figure, but had he +stood seven feet high in his stockings, these +people would never have called him the 'big<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> +printer.' Richardson has always been exposed +to a strong under-current of ridicule. +I have known people to smile at the mention +of his name, as if he were a sort of man-milliner—or, +did the thing exist, as some +day it may do, a male nursery-governess. +It is at first difficult to account for this +strange colouring of the bubble reputation. +Richardson's life, admirable as is Mrs. Barbauld's +sketch, cannot be said to have been +written—his letters, those I mean, he +wrote in his own name, not the nineteen +volumes he made his characters write, have +not been reprinted for more than eighty +years. He of all men might be suffered to +live only in his works, and when we turn to +those works, what do we find? <i>Pamela</i> and +<i>Clarissa</i> are both terribly realistic; they contain +passages of horror, and are in parts profoundly +pathetic, whilst <i>Clarissa</i> is desperately +courageous. Fielding, with all his +swagger and bounce, gold lace and strong +language, has no more of the boldness than +he has of the sublimity of the historian of +Clarissa Harlowe. But these qualities avail +poor Richardson nothing. The taint of +afternoon tea still clings to him. The facts<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span>—the +harmless, nay, I will say the attractive, +facts—that he preferred the society of +ladies to that of his own sex, and liked to be +surrounded by these, surely not strange +creatures, in his gardens and grottos, first +at North End, Hammersmith, and afterwards +at Parsons Green, are still remembered +against him. Life is indeed full of +pitfalls, if estimates of a man's genius are to +be formed by the garden-parties he gave, +and the tea he consumed a century and a +quarter ago. The real truth I believe to +be this: we are annoyed with Richardson +because he violates a tradition. The proper +place for an eighteenth-century novelist +was either the pot or the sponging house. +He ought to be either disguised in liquor +or confined for debt. Richardson was +never the one or the other. Let us see +how this works: take Dr. Johnson; we all +know how to describe him. He is our great +moralist, the sturdy, the severe, the pious, +the man who, as Carlyle puts it in his striking +way, worshipped at St. Clement Danes +in the era of Voltaire, or, as he again puts +it, was our real primate, the true spiritual +edifier and soul's teacher of all England?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> +Well, here is one of his reminiscences: 'I +remember writing to Richardson from a +sponging-house and was so sure of my deliverance +through his kindness and liberality, +that before his reply was brought I +knew I could afford to joke with the rascal +who had me in custody, and did so over +a pint of adulterated wine for which at that +moment I had no money to pay.'</p> + +<p>Now, there we have the true, warm-hearted, +literary tradition of the eighteenth +century. It is very amusing, it is full of +good feeling and fellowship, but the morality +of the transaction from the great moralist's +point of view is surely, like his linen, +a trifle dingy. The soul's teacher of all +England, laid by the heels in a sponging-house, +and cracking jokes with a sheriff's +officer over a pint of wine on the chance of +another man paying for it, is a situation +which calls for explanation. It is not my +place to give it. It could, I think, easily +be given. Dr. Johnson was, in my judgment, +all Carlyle declared him to be, and +to have been called upon to set him free +was to be proudly privileged, and, after all, +why make such a fuss about trifles? The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> +debt and costs together only amounted to +£5 18s., so that the six guineas Richardson +promptly sent more than sufficed to +get our 'real primate' out of prison, and +to pay for the pint. All I feel concerned +to say here is, that the praise of this anecdote +belongs to the little printer, and not +to the great lexicographer. The hero of +the parable of the Good Samaritan is the +Good Samaritan himself, and not the unfortunate, +and therefore probably foolish, +traveller who must need fall amongst +thieves.</p> + +<p>But if you violate traditions, and disturb +people's notions as to what it is becoming +for you to be, to do, or to suffer, you have +to pay for it. An eighteenth-century novelist +who made a fortune first by honest +labour and the practice of frugality, and +wrote his novels afterwards; who was fond +of the society of ladies, and a vegetarian in +later life; who divided his time between +his shop and his villa, and became in due +course master of a city company, is not +what we have a right to expect, and makes +a figure which strongly contrasts with that +of Richardson's great contemporary, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> +entirely manly Henry Fielding, whose very +name rings in the true tradition; whilst as +for his books, to take up <i>Tom Jones</i> is like +re-entering in middle life your old college +rooms, where, so at least Mr. Lowell assures +us,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i12">‘You feel o'er you stealing<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The old, familiar, warm, champagny, brandy-punchy feeling.’<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It may safely be said of Richardson that, +after attaining to independence, he did +more good every week of his life—for he +was a wise and most charitable man—than +Fielding was ever able to do throughout +the whole of his; but this cannot alter +the case or excuse a violated tradition.</p> + +<p>The position, therefore, of Richardson +in our literature is that of a great Nonconformist. +He was not manufactured according +to any established process. If I +may employ a metaphor borrowed from his +own most honourable craft, he was set up +in a new kind of type. He was born in +1689 in a Derbyshire village, the name of +which, for some undiscovered reason, he +would never tell. The son of poor parents—his +father was a joiner—he had never<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> +any but a village school education, nor did +he in later life worry much about learning, +or seek, as so many printers have done, to +acquire foreign tongues. At fourteen years +of age he was bound apprentice to a printer +in Aldersgate Street, and for seven years +toiled after a fashion which would certainly +nowadays be forbidden by Act of Parliament, +were there the least likelihood of +anybody either demanding or performing +drudgery so severe. When out of his apprenticeship, +he worked for eight years as +a compositor, reader, and overseer, and then, +marrying his late master's daughter, set up +for himself, and slowly but steadily grew +prosperous and respected. His first wife +dying, he married again, the daughter of a +bookseller of Bath. At the age of fifty he +published his first novel, <i>Pamela</i>. John +Bunyan's life was not more unlike an Archbishop +of Canterbury's than was Richardson's +unlike the life of an ordinary English +novelist of his period.</p> + +<p>This simile to Nonconformity also holds +good a little when we seek to ascertain the +ambit of Richardson's popularity. To do +this we must take wide views. We must<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> +not confine our attention to what may be +called the high and dry school of literary +orthodoxy. There, no doubt, Richardson +has his admirers, just as Spurgeon's sermons +have been seen peeping out from +under a heap of archidiaconal, and even +episcopal Charges, although the seat of +Spurgeon's popularity is not in bishops' +palaces, but in shop parlours. I do not +mean by this that Richardson is now a +popular novelist, for the fact, I suppose, is +otherwise; but I mean that to take the +measure of his popularity, you must look +over the wide world and not merely at the +clans and the cliques, the noble army of +writers, and the ever lessening body of +readers who together constitute what are +called literary circles. Of Richardson's +great fame on the Continent, it will be +time enough to speak in a few minutes; +for the moment I will stop at home. Mr. +Leslie Stephen, who has been called to be +editor of our first really great Dictionary +of National Biography, and has in that +capacity to sit like a coroner's jury upon +every dead author, and to decide whether +his exploits are to be squeezed into one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> +miserable paragraph, or may be allowed +proudly to expand over a page—he, I say, +pronounces <i>Pamela</i> to be neither moral +nor amusing. Poor Pamela, who through +two mortal volumes thinks of nothing but +her virtue, and how to get married according +to law! to be thus dismissed by her +most recent, most distinguished editor! +But, I repeat, we must take wide views. +We must not be content with the verdict +of the university; we must seek that of +the kitchen: nor is the distance ever great +between these institutions. Two months +ago a cook in a family of my acquaintance, +one Saturday evening, when like old Caspar +'her work was done,' suddenly bethought +herself of <i>Pamela</i>, a book she +had not read since girlhood. Rest was +impossible—get it forthwith she must. +The housemaid proffered her <i>The Heir of +Redclyffe</i>, and the kitchen-maid, a somewhat +oppressed damsel, timidly produced +<i>Gates Ajar</i>. The cook was not to be +trifled with after any such feeble fashion. +The spell of <i>Pamela</i> was upon her, and +out she sallied, arrayed in her majesty, to +gratify her soul's desire. Had she been a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> +victim of what is called 'Higher Education +of Women,' and therefore in the habit of +frequenting orthodox bookshops, she would +doubtless have found the quest at so late +an hour as hopeless as that of the <i>Holy +Grail</i>; but she was not that sort of person, +and the shop she had in her mind, +and whither she straightway bent her +steps, was a small stationer's where are +vended <i>Family Heralds</i> and <i>Ballads</i> and +<i>Pamelas</i>; for the latter, in cheap sixpenny +guise—and I hope complete, but for this +I cannot vouch—is a book which is constantly +reprinted for sale amongst the +poor. The cook, having secured her prize, +returned to her home in triumph, where a +dinner worthy of the name was not to be +had until Pamela's virtue was rewarded, +which, as you doubtless remember, it only +was when her master brings her a license +and presses for a day. She desires it may +be on a Thursday, and gives her reasons. +He rallies her agreeably on that head. +The Thursday following is fixed upon. +She reflects seriously on the near prospect +of her important change of condition, and +is diffident of her own worthiness, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> +prays for humility that her new condition +may not be a snare to her, and makes up +her mind how to behave herself to the servants, +she herself having been one.</p> + +<p>There are well-authenticated instances of +the extraordinary power <i>Pamela</i> possesses +of affecting those who are not much in the +habit of reading. There is a story of its +being read aloud by a blacksmith round his +anvil night after night, to a band of eager +rustics, all dreadfully anxious good Mr. +Richardson would only move on a little +faster, and yet unwilling to miss a single +one of poor Pamela's misadventures; and +of their greeting by hearty rounds of British +cheers, the happy issue out of her afflictions +that awaits her, namely, her marriage with +the cause of every one of them.</p> + +<p>There are living writers who have written +some admirable novels, and I have +known people to be glad when they were +finished, but never to the pitch of three +times three.</p> + +<p>I am not, of course, recommending anyone +to read <i>Pamela</i>; to do so would be an +impertinence. You have all done so, or +tried to do so. 'I do not remember,' says<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> +Charles Lamb, 'a more whimsical surprise +than having been once detected by a familiar +damsel, reclining at my ease upon the +grass on Primrose Hill, reading <i>Pamela</i>. +There was nothing in the book to make a +man seriously ashamed at the exposure; +but as she seated herself down by me, and +seemed determined to read in company, I +could have wished it had been—any other +book. We read on very socially for a few +pages; and not finding the author much +to her taste, she got up and went away. +Gentle casuist, I leave it to thee to conjecture +whether the blush (for there was +one between us) was the property of the +nymph or the swain in the dilemma. From +me you shall never learn the secret.'<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p> + +<p>Miss Pamela Andrews was, to tell the +truth, a vulgar young person. There is +nothing heroic or romantic about her; she +has not a touch or a trace of the moral +sublimity of Jeannie Deans, who though of +the same rank of life, belonged to another +country and had had an entirely different +up-bringing. What a reply was that of +Jeannie's to the Rev. Mr. Staunton, George<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> +Robertson's father, when he, entirely misapprehending +the purport of her famous +journey, lets her perceive that he fancies +she is plotting for her own marriage with +his son. Says the father to the son: 'Perhaps +you intend to fill up the cup of disobedience +and profligacy by forming a low +and disgraceful marriage; but let me bid +you beware.' 'If you were feared for sic +a thing happening with me, sir,' said +Jeannie, 'I can only say that not for all +the land that lies between the twa ends of +the rainbow, wad I be the woman that +should wed your son.' 'There is something +very singular in all this,' said the elder +Staunton; and so Pamela would have +thought. She, honest girl that she was, +was always ready to marry anybody's son, +only she must have the marriage lines to +keep in her desk and show to her dear +parents.</p> + +<p>The book's origin ought not to be overlooked. +Some London booksellers, knowing +Mr. Richardson to be a grave man of +decorous life, and with a talent for moralising, +desired him to write a series of familiar +letters on the behaviour of young women<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> +going out to service for the first time; they +never intended a novel: they wanted a +manual of conduct—that conduct which, +according to a precise Arithmetician is +three-fourths, or some other fraction, of +human life. It was in this spirit that +Richardson sat down to write <i>Pamela</i> and +make himself famous. He had a facile +pen, and the book, as it grew under his +hand, outstripped its design, but never +lost sight of it. It was intended for Pamelas, +and is <i>bourgeois</i> to the very last degree. +The language is simple, but its simplicity +is not the noble, soul-stirring simplicity of +Bunyan, nor is it the manly simplicity of +Cobbett or Hugh Miller: it is the ignoble, +and at times almost the odious, simplicity +of a merely uncultured life. It abounds in +vulgar phrases and vulgar thoughts; still, it +reflects powerfully the scenes it portrays, +and you feel as you read a fine affinity +between the communicating medium, the +language, and the thing communicated, the +story. When people said, in the flush of +their first enthusiasm, as they did say, that +there were but two good books in the world, +the <i>Bible</i>, and <i>Pamela</i>, this is what, perhaps<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> +unconsciously they were thinking of; otherwise +they were talking nonsense. Pamela +spoke a language still understood of many, +and if she was not romantic or high-flown, +there are others like her. We are always +well pleased, and it is perhaps lucky for the +majority of novelists that it should be so, +to read about people who do not in the +least resemble us; still, anyone who describes +us as we are, 'strikes the electric +chain wherewith we are darkly bound,' and +makes humanity quiver right down the +centuries. Pamela was a vulgar little +thing, and saucy withal: her notions of +honour and dishonour were neither lofty nor +profound; but she had them and stuck to +them in perilous paths along which the +defenceless of her sex are too often called +to tread; and when finally her virtue is rewarded, +and she is driven off in a chariot +drawn by the four long-tailed mares upon +whom she had been cruelly twitted for setting +her affections, I for one am quite prepared +to join with the rustics round the +blacksmith's anvil in loud cheers for Pamela.</p> + +<p>Ten years after <i>Pamela</i> came <i>Clarissa</i>. +It is not too much to say that not only<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> +Great Britain and Ireland, (the latter country +not yet deprived of her liberties by the +Act of Union, and therefore in a position +to pirate popular authors, after the agreeable +fashion of our American cousins,<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a>) but +also France, Germany, and Holland, simply +gulped <i>Clarissa</i> down; and she was in seven +volumes. It was a kind of gospel, something +good and something new. Its author +was a stout tradesman of sixty, but he was +not in the very least degree what is now +called—perhaps to the point of nausea—a +Philistine. By a Philistine I suppose we +must understand someone who lives and +moves and has his being in the realm of ordinary +stock conventional ideas—a man who +is as blind to the future as he is deaf to the +past. For example, that Dr. Drummond, +Archbishop of York, who just about this +very time told the Rev. Mr. Conyers, one +of his clergy, 'that he would be better employed +preaching the morality of Socrates +than canting about the New Birth,' was a +Philistine—I doubt not a very amiable one, +but, being a Philistine, he had no chance +of recognising what this nascent methodism<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> +was, and as for dreaming what it might +become—had he been capable of this—he +would not have been a Philistine or, +probably, Archbishop of York!</p> + +<p>Richardson on the other hand had his +quiver full of new ideas; he had his face +to the east; he was no mere inheritor, he +was a progenitor. He is, in short, as has +been often said, our Rousseau; his characters +were not stock characters. Think of +Fielding's characters, his Tom Joneses and +Booths, his Amelias and Sophias. They are +stage properties as old as the Plantagenets. +They are quite unidea'd, if I may use a word +which, as applied to girls, has the authority +of Dr. Johnson. Fielding's men are either +good fellows with large appetites, which +they gratify openly, or sneaks with equally +large appetites, which they gratify on the +sly; whilst the characters of his women are +made to hinge solely upon their willingness +or unwillingness to turn a blind eye. If +they are ready to do this, they are angels; +Sophia comes upon the stage in a chapter +headed 'A short hint of what we can do in +the sublime, and a description of Miss +Sophia Western.' Poor neglected Amelia,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> +whenever she is forgiving her husband, is +described as 'all one blaze of beauty;' but +if they are not willing to play this <i>rôle</i>, +why then they are unsexed and held up to +the ridicule and reprobation of all good fellows +and pretty women. This sort of thing +was abhorrent to the soul of the little +printer; he hated Fielding's boisterous +drunkards with an entire hatred. I believe +he would have hated them almost as +much if Fielding had not been a rival of +his fame. He said he was not able to read +any more than the first volume of <i>Amelia</i>, +and as for <i>Tom Jones</i>, in the year 1750, he +was audacious enough to say that its run +was over. Regarded merely as writers, +there can, I suppose, be no real rivalry +between Fielding and Richardson. The +superiority of Fielding is apparent on every +page. Wit, good-humour, a superb lusty +style which carries you along like a pair of +horses over a level moorland road, incidents, +adventures, inns, and all the glory of motion, +high spirits, huge appetites, pretty +women—what a catalogue it makes of +things no doubt smacking of this world +and the kingdom thereof, but none the less<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> +delightful on that account! No wonder +<i>Tom Jones</i> is still running; where, I should +like to know, is the man bold enough to +stop him. But for all this, Richardson was +the more remarkable and really interesting +man of the two; and for the reason that +he was the evangel of the new sentimentalism, +that word which so puzzled one of his +most charming correspondents that she +wrote to ask him what it meant—this new +word sentimental which was just beginning +to be in everybody's mouth. We have +heard a good deal of it since.</p> + +<p><i>Clarissa Harlowe</i> has a place not merely +amongst English novels, but amongst English +women.</p> + +<p>It was a new thing for a woman to be +described as being not only in herself but +by herself commendable and altogether +lovely, as triumphing in her own right over +the cruelest dishonour, and rejecting, with +a noble scorn new to literature, the hand +in marriage of the villain who had done her +wrong. The book opened the flood-gates +of human tears. The waters covered the +earth. We cannot weep as they used to +do in 'the brave days of old.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span></p> + +<p>Listen to the wife of a Lancashire +baronet: 'I verily believe I have shed a +pint of tears, my heart is still bursting +though they cease not to flow at this +moment, nor will I fear for some time.... +Had you seen me I surely should +have moved your pity. When alone in +agonies would I lay down the book, take +it up again, walk about the room, let fall +a flood of tears, wipe my eyes, read again, +perhaps not three lines, throw away the +book, crying out: "Excuse me, good Mr. +Richardson, I cannot go on, it is your +fault, you have done more than I can +bear;" threw myself upon my couch +to compose; again I read, again I acted +the same part, sometimes agreeably interrupted +by my dear man, who was at that +time labouring through the sixth volume +with a heart capable of impressions equal +to my own—tho' the effects shown in a +more justifiable manner—which I believe +may be compared to what Mr. Belfort felt +when he found the beauteous sufferer in +her prison-room. Something rose in my +throat, I knew not what, which made me +guggle as it were for speech.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span></p> + +<p>Nor did the men escape; a most grave +and learned man writes:</p> + +<p>'That <i>Pamela</i> and <i>Clarissa</i> have again +"obtained the <i>honour</i> of my perusal," do +you say, my dear Mr. Richardson. I assure +you I think it an <i>honour</i> to be able +to say I have read, and as long as I have +eyes will read, all your three most excellent +<i>pieces</i> at least once a year, that I am +capable of doing it with increasing pleasure +which is perpetually doubled by the +reflection, that this good man, this charming +author, is <i>my friend</i>. I have been this +day weeping over the seventh volume of +<i>Clarissa</i> as if I had attended her dying +bed and assisted at her funeral procession. +Oh may my latter end be like +hers!'</p> + +<p>It is no wonder the author of <i>Clarissa</i> +had soon a great correspondence with ladies, +married and single, young and old, virtuous +and the reverse. Had he not written seven +volumes, all about a girl? had he not made +her beautiful, wise and witty and learned +withal? had he not depicted with extraordinary +skill the character of the fascinating—the +hitherto resistless Lovelace, who,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> +though accomplishing Clarissa's ruin does +thereby but establish her triumph and confound +himself? It is no doubt unhappily +the case that far too many of Richardson's +fair correspondents lacked the splendid +courage of their master, and to his infinite +annoyance fell in love with his arch-scamp, +and prayed his creator that Lovelace might +first be led to see the error of his ways, +and then to the altar with the divine +Clarissa. But the heroic printer was adamant +to their cries, and he was right if +ever man was. As well might <i>King Lear</i> +end happily as <i>Clarissa Harlowe</i>.</p> + +<p>The seven volumes caused immense talk +and discussion, and it was all Clarissa, +Clarissa, Clarissa. Sophia Western was, +as we have seen, a comely girl enough, but +she was as much like Clarissa as a ship in +dock is like a ship at sea and on fire. +What can you find to say of her or to +her?<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> When you have dug Tom Jones in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> +the ribs, and called him a lucky dog, and +wished her happy, you turn away with a +yawn; but Clarissa is immense. Do you +remember Thackeray's account in the +<i>Roundabout Papers</i> of Macaulay's rhapsody +in the Athenæum Club? 'I spoke to +him once about <i>Clarissa</i>. "Not read <i>Clarissa</i>?" +he cried out. "If you have once +thoroughly entered on <i>Clarissa</i> and are +infected by it, you can't leave off. When +I was in India I passed one hot season +at the hills, and there were the governor-general, +the secretary of government, +the commander-in-chief and their wives. +I had <i>Clarissa</i> with me, and as soon as +they began to read the whole station +was in a passion of excitement about +Miss Harlowe and her misfortunes, and +her scoundrelly Lovelace. The governor's +wife seized the book, and the +secretary waited for it, and the chief +justice could not read it for tears." He +acted the whole scene, he paced up and +down the Athenæum Library. I dare +say he could have spoken pages of the +book, of that book, and of what countless +piles of others.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p> + +<p>I must be permitted to observe that lawyers +have been great Richardsonians. The +Rev. Mr. Loftus, writing to our author +from Ireland, says: 'I will tell you a story +about your sweet girl Pamela. Our late +lord chancellor,<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> who was a man more +remarkable for the goodness of his heart +than even for the abilities of his head, +which were of the most exalted kind, was +so struck with her history that he sat up +reading it the whole night, although it +was then the middle of term, and declared +to his family he could not find it in his +heart to quit his book, nor imagined it to +be so late by many hours.'</p> + +<p>The eminent Sergeant Hill, though +averse to literature, used to set Clarissa's +will before his pupils, and bid them determine +how many of its uses and trusts +could be supported in court. I am sorry +to have to add that in the learned sergeant's +opinion, poor Clarissa, in addition +to all her other misfortunes, died intestate.</p> + +<p>All this commotion and excitement and +Clarissa-worship meant that something was +brewing, and that good Mr. Richardson,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> +with his fat, round face flushed with the +fire, had his ladle in the pan and was busy +stirring it about. What is called the correspondence +of Samuel Richardson, which +was edited by that admirable woman, Mrs. +Barbauld, and published in six volumes in +1804, is mostly made up, not of letters +from, but to, the author of <i>Clarissa</i>. All +the more effectually on that account does +it let us into the manufactory of his mind. +The letters a man receives are perhaps +more significant of his real character than +those he writes. People did not write to +Mr. Richardson about themselves or about +their business, or about literature, unless +it were to say they did not like <i>Tom +Jones</i>, or about politics, or other sports, +but they wrote to him about himself and +his ideas, his good woman, Clarissa, his +good man, Sir Charles, and the true relation +between the sexes. They are immense +fun, these letters, but they ought +also to be taken seriously; Mr. Richardson +took them as seriously as he always +took himself. There was, perhaps, only +one subject Richardson regarded as of +equal importance with himself, and that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> +was the position of woman. This is why +he hated Fielding, the triumphant, orthodox +Fielding, to whom man was a rollicking +sinner, and woman a loving slave. He +pondered on this subject, until the anger +within him imparts to his style a virility +and piquancy not usually belonging to it. +The satire in the following extract from a +letter he wrote to the good lady who shed +a pint of tears over <i>Clarissa</i>, is pungent: +'Man is an animal that must bustle in the +world, go abroad, converse, fight battles, +encounter other dangers of seas, winds, +and I know not what, in order to protect, +provide for, maintain in ease and plenty, +women. Bravery, anger, fierceness are +made familiar to them. They buffet and +are buffeted by the world; are impatient +and uncontrollable; they talk of honour, +run their heads against stone walls to +make good their pretensions to it, and +often quarrel with one another and fight +duels upon any other silly thing that +happens to raise their choler—their +shadows if you please; while women are +meek, passive, good creatures, who used +to stay at home, set their maids at work,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> +and formerly themselves, get their houses +in order to receive, comfort, oblige, give +joy to their fierce, fighting, bustling, +active protectors, providers, maintainers, +divert him with pretty pug's tricks, tell +him soft tales of love, and of who and +who's together, what has been done in +his absence, bring to him little master, +so like his own dear papa, and little pretty +miss, a soft, sweet, smiling soul, with her +sampler in her hand, so like what her +meek mamma was at her years.'</p> + +<p>You cannot, indeed, lay hold of many +specific things which Richardson advocated. +Ignorant of the classics himself, +he was by no means disposed to advocate +the teaching of them to women. Clarissa, +indeed, knew Latin, but Harriet Byron +did not. The second Mrs. Richardson +was just a little bit too much for her husband, +and he was consequently led to hold +what may be called 'high doctrine' as to +the duty of wives obeying their husbands. +Though never was man less of a revolutionary +than Richardson, still he was on +the side of the revolution. He had an +ethical system different from that which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> +stood beside him. This did not escape +the notice of a keen-witted contemporary, +the great Smollett, whose own Roderick +Randoms and Peregrine Pickles are such +unmitigated, high-coloured ruffians as to +induce Sir Walter Scott to call him the +Rubens of fiction, but who none the less +had an eye for the future; he in his history +speaks in terms of high admiration of +the sublime code of ethics of the author of +<i>Clarissa</i>. Richardson was fierce against +duelling, and also against corporal punishment. +He had the courage to deplore +the evil effects produced by the works of +Homer, 'that fierce, fighting <i>Iliad</i>,' as he +called it. We may be sure his children were +never allowed to play with tin soldiers, at +least, not with their father's consent.</p> + +<p>Having written <i>Clarissa</i> it became inevitable +that Richardson should proceed further +and write <i>Grandison</i>. In reading his +correspondence we hail Sir Charles afar +off. Richardson had deeply grieved to +see how many of his ladies had fallen in +love with the scoundrelly Lovelace. It +wounded him to the quick, for he could not +but feel that he was not in the least like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> +Lovelace himself. He turns almost savagely +upon some of his fair correspondents +and upbraids them, telling them indeed +plainly that he feared they were no better +than they should be. They had but one +answer: 'Ah, dear Mr. Richardson, in +<i>Clarissa</i> you have shown us the good +woman we all would be. Now show us +the good man we all should love.' And +he set about doing so seriously, aye and +humbly, too. He writes with a sad sincerity +a hundred years cannot hide:</p> + +<p>'How shall a man obscurely situated, +never in his life delighting in public entertainments, +nor in his youth able to frequent +them from narrowness of fortune; +one of the most attentive of men to the +calls of business—his situation for many +years producing little but prospects of a +numerous family—a business that seldom +called him abroad when he might in the +course of it see and know a little of the +world, as some employments give opportunities +to do—naturally shy and sheepish, +and wanting more encouragement by +smiles to draw him out than anybody +thought it worth their while to give him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>—and +blest (in this he will say blest) +with a mind that set him above dependence, +and making an absolute reliance on +Providence and his own endeavours—how +I say, shall such a man pretend to +describe and enter into characters in +upper life?'</p> + +<p>However, he set about it, and in 1754 +produced <i>Sir Charles Grandison</i>, or as he +had originally intended to call it, the +<i>Good Man</i>, in six octavo volumes.</p> + +<p>I am not going to say he entirely succeeded +with his good man, who I know +has been called an odious prig. I have +read <i>Sir Charles Grandison</i> once—I cannot +promise ever to read it again, and yet +who knows what may happen? Sir Walter +Scott, in his delightful, good-humoured +fashion, tells a tale of a venerable lady of +his acquaintance, who, when she became +subject to drowsy fits, chose to have <i>Sir +Charles</i> read to her as she sat in her elbow +chair in preference to any other work; +because, said she, 'should I drop asleep in +the course of the reading, I am sure when +I awake I shall have lost none of the story,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> +but shall find the party where I left them, +conversing in the cedar-parlour.'</p> + +<p>After <i>Sir Charles</i>, Richardson wrote no +more. Indeed, there was nothing to write +about, unless he had taken the advice of a +morose clerical friend who wrote to him: +'I hope you intend to give us a bad woman—expensive, +imperious, lewd, and, at last, +a drammer. This is a fruitful and necessary +subject which will strike and entertain +to a miracle.' Mr. Richardson replied +jocosely that if the Rev. Mr. Skelton would +only sketch the she-devil for him, he would +find room for her somewhere, and the +subject dropped. The wife of the celebrated +German poet, Klopstock, wrote to +him in her broken English: 'Having finished +your <i>Clarissa</i> (oh, the heavenly +book!) I would prayed you to write the +history of a manly <i>Clarissa</i>, but I had +not courage enough at that time. I +should have it no more to-day, as this is +only my first English letter; but I am now +Klopstock's wife, and then I was only the +single young girl. You have since written +the manly <i>Clarissa</i> without my prayer. +Oh, you have done it to the great joy and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> +thanks of all your happy readers! Now +you can write no more. You must write +the history of an Angel.'</p> + +<p>The poor lady died the following year +under melancholy circumstances, but her +prophecy proved true. Richardson wrote +no more. He died in 1761, seventy-two +years of age. His will, after directing +numerous mourning-rings to be given to +certain friends, proceeds as follows: 'Had +I given rings to all the ladies who have +honoured me with their correspondence, +and whom I sincerely venerate for their +amiable qualities, it would even in this +last solemn act appear like ostentation.'</p> + +<p>It now only remains to say two or three +words about Richardson's great popularity +abroad. Until quite recently, he and +Sterne may be said to have been the only +popular English authors abroad; perhaps +Goldsmith should be added to the party. +Foreigners never felt any difficulty about +him or about the tradition he violated. +The celebrated author of <i>Manon Lescaut</i> +translated <i>Clarissa</i> into French, though it +was subsequently better done by a less +famous hand. She was also turned into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> +German and Dutch. Foreigners, of course, +could not be expected to appreciate the +hopeless absurdity of a man who lived at +Parson's Green attempting to describe the +upper classes. Horace Walpole when in +Paris did his best to make this plain, but +he failed. Say what he might, <i>Clarissa</i> lay +on the toilet tables of the French Princesses, +and everybody was raving about +her. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was +also very angry. 'Richardson,' says she, +writing to the Countess of Bute, 'has no +idea of the manners of high life. Such +liberties as pass between Mr. Lovelace and +his cousins are not to be excused by the +relation. I should have been much astonished +if Lord Denbigh should have offered +to kiss me; and, I dare swear Lord Trentham +never attempted such impertinence +to you.' To the English reader these +criticisms of Lady Mary's have immense +value; but the French sentimentalist, with +his continental insolence, did not care a +sou what impertinences Lord Denbigh and +Lord Trentham might or might not have +attempted towards their female cousins. +He simply read his <i>Clarissa</i> and lifted up<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> +his voice and wept: and so, to do her justice, +did Lady Mary herself. 'This Richardson,' +she writes, 'is a strange fellow. +I heartily despise him and eagerly read +him, nay, sob over his works in a most +scandalous manner.'</p> + +<p>The effect produced upon Rousseau by +Richardson is historical. Without <i>Clarissa</i> +there would have been no <i>Nouvelle Heloïse</i>, +and had there been no <i>Nouvelle Heloïse</i> +everyone of us would have been somewhat +different from what we are.</p> + +<p>The elaborate eulogy of Diderot is well-known, +and though extravagant in parts is +full of true criticism. One sentence only +I will quote: 'I have observed,' he says, +'that in a company where the works of +Richardson were reading either privately +or aloud the conversation at once became +more interesting and animating.' This, +surely, is a legitimate test to which to +submit a novel. You sometimes hear people +say of a book, 'Oh, it is not worth +talking about! I was only reading it.'</p> + +<p>The great Napoleon was a true Richardsonian. +Only once did he ever seem to +take any interest in an Englishman. It<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> +was whilst he was first consul and when +he was introduced to an officer called +Lovelace, 'Why,' he exclaimed with emotion, +'that is the name of the man in +<i>Clarissa</i>!' When our own great critic, +Hazlitt, heard of this incident he fell in +love with Napoleon on the spot, and subsequently +wrote his life in numerous volumes.</p> + +<p>In Germany <i>Clarissa</i> had a great sale, and +those of you who are acquainted with German +sentiment, will have no difficulty in +tracing a good deal of it to its original +fountain in Fleet Street.</p> + +<p>As a man, Richardson had perhaps only +two faults. He was very nervous on the +subject of his health and he was very vain. +His first fault gave a great deal of trouble +to his wives and families, his second +afforded nobody anything but pleasure. +The vanity of a distinguished man, if at +the same time he happens to be a good +man, is a quality so agreeable in its manifestations +that to look for it and not to +find it would be to miss a pleasure. +When the French poet Boileau was invited +to Versailles by Louis Quatorze, he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> +was much annoyed by the vanity of that +monarch. 'Whenever,' said he, 'the conversation +left the king's doings'—and, +let us guess, just approached the poet's +verses—'his majesty always had a yawning-fit, +or suggested a walk on the terrace.' +The fact is, it is not vanity, but +contending vanities, that give pain.</p> + +<p>As for those of you who cannot read +Richardson's nineteen volumes, it can +only be said you are a large and intelligent +class of persons. You number +amongst you poets like Byron—for I +presume Byron is still among the poets—and +philosophers like d'Alembert, who, +when asked whether Richardson was not +right in imitating Nature, replied, 'Yes, +but not to the point of ennui.' We must +not bear you malice or blacken your private +characters. On the other hand, you +must not sneer at us or call us milksops. +There is nothing to be proud of, I can +assure you, in not being able to read <i>Clarissa +Harlowe</i>, or to appreciate the genius +which created Lovelace.</p> + +<p>A French critic, M. Scherer, has had the +audacity to doubt whether <i>Tristram Shandy</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> +is much read in England, and it is commonly +asserted in France that <i>Clarissa</i> is +too good for us. Tristram may be left to +his sworn admirers who could at any moment +take the field with all the pomp and +circumstance of war, but with Clarissa it is +different. Her bodyguard is small and +often in need of recruits. This indeed is +my apology for the trouble I have put you +to.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="EDWARD_GIBBON" id="EDWARD_GIBBON"></a>EDWARD GIBBON<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span></h2> + +<p class="center">A LECTURE</p> + + +<p>'It was at Rome, on the 15th of October, +1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of +the Capitol, while the bare-footed fryars +were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter +that the idea of writing the Decline +and Fall of the City first started to my +mind.</p> + +<p>'It was on the day, or rather night, of +the 27th of June, 1787, between the hours +of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the last +lines of the last page, in a summer-house +in my garden. After laying down my pen +I took several turns in a <i>berceau</i>, or covered +walk of acacias, which commands a prospect +of the country, the lake and the mountains. +The air was temperate, the sky was +serene, the silver orb of the moon was +reflected from the waters and all nature +was silent. I will not dissemble the first +emotions of joy on recovery of my freedom<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> +and perhaps of the establishment of my +fame. But my pride was soon humbled +and a sober melancholy was spread over +my mind by the idea that I had taken an +everlasting leave of an old and agreeable +companion, and that whatever might be +the future date of my history, the life of +the historian must be short and precarious.'</p> + +<p>Between these two passages lies the romance +of Gibbon's life—a romance which +must be looked for, not, indeed, in the volumes, +whether the original quartos or the +subsequent octavos, of his history—but in +the elements which went to make that history +what it is: the noble conception, the +shaping intellect, the mastered learning, the +stately diction and the daily toil.</p> + +<p>Mr. Bagehot has declared that the way +to reverence Gibbon is not to read him at +all, but to look at him, from outside, in +the bookcase, and think how much there is +within; what a course of events, what a +muster-roll of names, what a steady solemn +sound. All Mr. Bagehot's jokes have a +kernel inside them. The supreme merit of +Gibbon's history is not to be found in deep<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> +thoughts, or in wide views, or in profound +knowledge of human nature, or prophetic +vision. Seldom was there an historian less +well-equipped with these fine things than he. +Its glory is its architecture, its structure, its +organism. There it is, it is worth looking +at, for it is invulnerable, indispensable, immortal. +The metaphors which have been +showered upon it, prove how fond people +have been of looking at it from outside. +It has been called a Bridge, less obviously +an Aqueduct, more prosaically a Road. +We applaud the design and marvel at the +execution.</p> + +<p>There is something mournful in this +chorus of approbation in which it is not +difficult to detect the notes of surprise. It +tells a tale of infirmity both of life and purpose. +A complete thing staggers us. We +are accustomed to failure.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘What act proves all its thought had been?’<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The will is weak, opportunities are barren, +temper uncertain and life short.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘I thought all labour, yet no less,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bear up beneath their unsuccess;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Look at the end of work: contrast<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The petty done—the undone vast.’<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span></p> +<p>It is Gibbon's triumph that he made his +thoughts acts. He is not exactly what +you call a pious writer, but he is provocative +of at least one pious feeling. A sabbatical +calm results from the contemplation +of his labours. Succeeding scholars have +read his history and pronounced it good. +It is likewise finished. Hence this feeling +of surprise.</p> + +<p>Gibbon's life has the simplicity of an +epic. His work was to write his history. +Nothing else was allowed to rob this idea of +its majesty. It brooked no rival near its +throne. It dominated his life, for though +a man of pleasure, and, to speak plainly, a +good bit of a coxcomb, he had always the +cadences of the <i>Decline and Fall</i> in his +ears. It has been wittily said of him, that +he came at last to believe that he was the +Roman Empire, or, at all events, something +equally majestic and imposing. His life +had, indeed, its episodes, but so has an epic. +Gibbon's episodes are interesting, abrupt, +and always concluded. In his sixteenth +year he, without the aid of a priest or the +seductions of ritual, read himself into the +Church of Rome, and was one fine June<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> +morning in 1753 baptized by a Jesuit father. +By Christmas, 1754, he had read himself +out again. Gibbon's conversion was perfectly +genuine and should never be spoken +of otherwise than respectfully, but it was +entirely a matter of books and reading. +'Persons influence us,' cries Dr. Newman, +'voices melt us, looks subdue us, deeds +inflame us. Many a man will live and die +upon a dogma; no man will be a martyr +for a conclusion.' It takes all sorts to +make a world, and our plump historian was +one of those whose actions are determined +in libraries, whose lives are unswayed by +personal influences, to whom conclusions +may mean a great deal, but dogmas certainly +nothing. Whether Gibbon on leaving +off his Catholicism ever became a Protestant +again, except in the sense that +Bayle declared himself one, is doubtful. +But all this makes an interesting episode. +The second episode is his well-known love +affair with Mademoiselle Curchod, afterwards +Madame Neckar and the mother of +that social portent, Madame de Stael. +Gibbon, of course, behaved badly in this +affair. He fell in love, made known his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> +plight, obtained mademoiselle's consent, +and then speeded home to tell his father. +'Love,' said he, 'will make me eloquent.' +The elder Gibbon would not hear of it: +the younger tamely acquiesced. His very +acquiescence, like all else about him, has +become classical. 'I sighed as a lover, +I obeyed as a son.' He proceeds: 'My +wound was insensibly healed by time, absence +and the habits of a new life.' It +is shocking. Never, surely, was love so +flouted before. Gibbon is charitably supposed +by some persons to have regretted +Paganism, but it was lucky for both him +and for me that the gods had abandoned +Olympus, since otherwise it would have +required the pen of a Greek dramatist to +depict the horrors that must have eventually +overtaken him for so impious an outrage; +as it was, he simply grew fatter +every day. A very recent French biographer +of Madame Neckar, who has published +some letters of Gibbon's for the +first time, evidently expects his readers to +get very angry with this perfidious son of +Albion. It is much too late to get angry. +Of all the many wrongs women suffer at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> +the hands of men, that of not marrying +them, is the one they ought to find it easiest +to forgive; they generally do forgive. +Madame Neckar forgave, and if she, why +not you and I? Years after she welcomed +Gibbon to her house, and there he used to +sit, fat and famous, tapping his snuff-box +and arranging his ruffles, and watching +with a smile of complacency the infantine, +yet I doubt not, the pronounced gambols +of the vivacious Corinne. After Neckar's +fall, Gibbon writes to Madame: 'Your husband's +condition is always worthy of envy, +he knows himself, his enemies respect +him, Europe admires him, <i>you</i> love him.' +I decline to be angry with such a man.</p> + +<p>His long residence in Switzerland, an +unusual thing in those days, makes a third +episode, which, in so far as it led him to +commence author in the French language, +and to study Pascal as a master of style, was +not without its effects on his history, but +it never diverted him from his studies or +changed their channels. Though he lived +fifteen years in Lausanne, he never climbed +a mountain or ever went to the foot of one, +for though not wholly indifferent to Na<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>ture, +he loved to see her framed in a window. +He actually has the audacity, in a +note to his fifty-ninth chapter, to sneer at +St. Bernard because that true lover of nature +on one occasion, either because his +joy in the external world at times interfered +with his devotions, or, as I think, +because he was bored by the vulgar rhapsodies +of his monkish companions, abstained +from looking at the lake of Geneva. Gibbon's +note is characteristic, 'To admire +or despise St. Bernard as he ought, the +reader should have before the windows of +his library the beauty of that incomparable +landscape.' St. Bernard was to Gibbon, +as Wordsworth to Pope,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">‘A forest seer,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A minstrel of the natural year,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A lover true who knew by heart<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Each joy the mountain dales impart.’<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>He was proud to confess that whatever +knowledge he had of the scriptures he +had acquired chiefly in the woods and the +fields, and that beeches and oaks had been +his best teachers of the Word of God. +One cannot fancy Gibbon in a forest. But +if Gibbon had not been fonder of the library<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> +than of the lake, though he might have +known more than he did of 'moral evil and +of good,' he would hardly have been the +author he was.</p> + +<p>But the <i>Decline and Fall</i> was threatened +from a quarter more likely to prove dangerous +than the 'incomparable landscape.' +On September 10th, 1774, Gibbon writes:</p> + +<p>'Yesterday morning about half-past +seven, as I was destroying an army of +barbarians, I heard a double rap at the +door and my friend Mr. Eliot was soon +introduced. After some idle conversation +he told me that if I was desirous of +being in parliament he had an <i>independent</i> +seat, very much at my service. This +is a fine prospect opening upon me, and +if next spring I should take my seat and +publish my book—(he meant the first +volume only)—it will be a very memorable +era in my life. I am ignorant whether +my borough will be Liskeard or St. Germains.'</p> + +<p>Mr. Eliot controlled four boroughs and +it was Liskeard that became Gibbon's, +and for ten years, though not always for +Liskeard, he sat in parliament. Ten most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> +eventful years they were too, both in our +national and parliamentary history. This +might have been not an episode, but a +catastrophe. Mr. Eliot's untimely entrance +might not merely have postponed the +destruction of a horde of barbarians, but +have destroyed the history itself. However +Mr. Gibbon never opened his mouth in +the House of Commons; 'I assisted,' says +he, in his magnificent way, 'at,' (mark the +preposition,) 'at the debates of a free assembly,' +that is, he supported Lord North. He +was not from the first content to be a mute; +he prepared a speech and almost made up +his mind to catch Sir Fletcher Norton's +eye. The subject, no mean one, was to be +the American war; but his courage oozed +away, he did not rise in his place. A month +after he writes from Boodle's: 'I am still +a mute, it is more tremendous than I +imagined; the great speakers fill me with +despair, the bad ones with terror.' In 1779 +his silent assistance was rewarded with a +seat at the Board of Trade, and a salary of +between seven and eight hundred a year. +Readers of Burke's great speech on Economical +Reform will remember the twenty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> +minutes he devoted to this marvellous Board +of Trade, with its perpetual virtual adjournment +and unbroken sitting vacation. Such +was Gibbon's passion for style that he +listened to the speech with delight, and +gives us the valuable assurance that it +was spoken just as it reads, and that nobody +enjoyed either hearing or reading it +more than he did. What a blessing it is +to have a good temper! But Gibbon's +constituency did not approve of his becoming +a minister's man, and he lost his seat +at the general election of 1783. 'Mr. +Eliot,' this is Gibbon's account of it, 'Mr. +Eliot was now deeply engaged in the +measures of opposition and the electors +of Liskeard are commonly of the same +opinion as Mr. Eliot.' Lord North found +him another seat, and for a short time he +sat in the new parliament for the important +seaport of Lymington, but his office being +abolished in 1784, he bade parliament and +England farewell, and, taking his library +with him, departed for Lausanne to conclude +his history.</p> + +<p>Gibbon, after completing his history, entertained +notions of writing other books,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> +but, as a matter of fact, he had but one +thing left him to do in order to discharge +his duty to the universe. He had written +a magnificent history of the Roman Empire. +It remained to write the history of +the historian. Accordingly we have the +autobiography. These two immortal works +act and react upon one another; the history +sends us to the autobiography, and +the autobiography returns us to the history.</p> + +<p>The style of the autobiography is better +than that of the history. The awful word +'verbose' has been launched against certain +pages of the history by a critic, formidable +and friendly—the great Porson. +There is not a superfluous word in the +autobiography. The fact is, in this matter +of style, Gibbon took a great deal more +pains with himself than he did with the +empire. He sent the history, except the +first volume, straight to his printer from +his first rough copy. He made six different +sketches of the autobiography. It is +a most studied performance, and may be +boldly pronounced perfect. Not to know +it almost by heart is to deny yourself a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> +great and wholly innocent pleasure. Of +the history it is permissible to say with +Mr. Silas Wegg, 'I haven't been, not to +say right slap through him very lately, +having been otherwise employed, Mr. +Boffin;' but the autobiography is no +more than a good-sized pamphlet. It has +had the reward of shortness. It is not +only our best, but our best known autobiography. +Almost its first sentence is +about the style it is to be in: 'The style +shall be simple and familiar, but style is +the image of character, and the habits +of correct writing may produce without +labour or design the appearance of art +and study.' There is nothing artless or +unstudied about the autobiography, but is +it not sometimes a relief to exchange the +quips and cranks of some of our modern +writers, whose humour it is to be as it +were for ever slapping their readers in +the face or grinning at them from unexpected +corners, for the stately roll of the +Gibbonian sentence? The style settled, +he proceeds to say something about the +pride of race, but the pride of letters soon +conquers it, and as we glance down the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> +page we see advancing to meet us, curling +its head, as Shakespeare says of billows in +a storm, the god-like sentence which makes +it for ever certain, not indeed that there +will never be a better novel than <i>Tom +Jones</i>, for that I suppose is still just possible, +but that no novel can ever receive so +magnificent a compliment. The sentence +is well known but irresistible.</p> + +<p>'Our immortal Fielding was of the +younger branch of the Earls of Denbigh +who draw their origin from the Counts of +Hapsburg. Far different have been the +fortunes of the English and German divisions +of the family. The former, the +knights and sheriffs of Leicestershire, +have slowly risen to the dignity of a +peerage, the latter, the Emperors of +Germany and Kings of Spain, have threatened +the liberty of the old and invaded +the treasures of the new world. The +successors of Charles the Fifth may +disdain their brethren of England, but +the romance of <i>Tom Jones</i>, that exquisite +picture of human manners, will outlive the +Palace of the Escurial, and the imperial +eagle of the House of Austria.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span></p> + +<p>Well might Thackeray exclaim in his +lecture on Fielding, 'There can be no +gainsaying the sentence of this great +judge. To have your name mentioned +by Gibbon is like having it written on the +dome of St. Peter's. Pilgrims from all +the world admire and behold it.'</p> + +<p>After all this preliminary magnificence +Gibbon condescends to approach his own +pedigree. There was not much to tell, +and the little there was he did not know. +A man of letters whose memory is respected +by all lovers of old books and +Elizabethan lyrics, Sir Egerton Brydges, +was a cousin of Gibbon's, and as genealogies +were this unfortunate man's consuming +passion, he of course knew all that +Gibbon ought to have known about the +family, and speaks with a herald's contempt +of the historian's perfunctory investigations. +'It is a very unaccountable +thing,' says Sir Egerton, 'that Gibbon +was so ignorant of the immediate branch +of the family whence he sprang'; but the +truth is that Gibbon was far prouder of +his Palace of the Escurial, and his imperial +eagle of the House of Austria, than of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> +family tree, which was indeed of the most +ordinary hedge-row description. His grandfather +was a South Sea director, and when +the bubble burst he was compelled by act +of parliament to disclose on oath his whole +fortune. He returned it at £106,543 5s. +6d., exclusive of antecedent settlements. +It was all confiscated, and then £10,000 +was voted the poor man to begin again +upon. Such bold oppression, says the +grandson, can scarcely be shielded by the +omnipotence of parliament. The old man +did not keep his £10,000 in a napkin, +and speedily began, as his grandson puts +it, to erect on the ruins of the old, the +edifice of a new fortune. The ruins must, +I think, have been more spacious than the +affidavit would suggest, for when only +sixteen years afterwards, the elder Gibbon +died he was found to be possessed of +considerable property in Sussex, Hampshire, +Buckinghamshire, and the New +River Company, as well as of a spacious +house with gardens and grounds at Putney. +A fractional share of this inheritance secured +to our historian the liberty of action +so necessary for the accomplishment of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> +great design. Large fortunes have their +uses. Mr. Milton, the scrivener, Mr. Gibbon, +the South Sea director, and Dr. +Darwin of Shrewsbury had respectively +something to do with <i>Paradise Lost</i>, <i>The +Decline and Fall</i>, and <i>The Origin of Species</i>.</p> + +<p>The most, indeed the only, interesting +fact about the Gibbon <i>entourage</i> is that +the greatest of English mystics, William +Law, the inimitable author of <i>A Serious +Call to a Devout and Holy Life, adapted to +the State and Conditions of all Orders of +Christians</i>, was long tutor to the historian's +father, and in that capacity accompanied +the future historian to Emanuel +College, Cambridge, and was afterwards, +and till the end of his days, spiritual director +to Miss Hester Gibbon, the historian's +eccentric maiden aunt.</p> + +<p>It is an unpleasing impertinence for +anyone to assume that nobody save himself +reads any particular book. I read +with astonishment the other day that Sir +Humphry Davy's <i>Consolations in Travel; +or, The Closing Days of a Philosopher's +Life</i>, was a curious and totally forgotten +work. It is, however, always safe to say<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> +of a good book that it is not read as much +as it ought to be, and of Law's <i>Serious +Call</i> you may add, 'or as much as it used +to be.' It is a book with a strange and +moving spiritual pedigree. Dr. Johnson, +one remembers, took it up carelessly at +Oxford, expecting to find it a dull book, +'as,' (the words are his, not mine,) 'such +books generally are; but,' he proceeds, 'I +found Law an overmatch for me, and this +was the first occasion of my thinking in +earnest.' George Whitfield writes, 'Soon +after my coming up to the university, +seeing a small edition of Mr. Law's <i>Serious +Call</i> in a friend's hand, I soon purchased +it. God worked powerfully upon +my soul by that excellent treatise.' The +celebrated Thomas Scott, of Aston Sandford, +with the confidence of his school, +dates the beginning of his spiritual life +from the hour when he 'carelessly,' as he +says, 'took up Mr. Law's <i>Serious Call</i>, a +book I had hitherto treated with contempt.' +When we remember how Newman +in his <i>Apologia</i> speaks of Thomas +Scott as the writer 'to whom, humanly +speaking, I almost owe my soul,' we be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>come +lost amidst a mazy dance of strange, +spectral influences which flit about the +centuries and make us what we are. +Splendid achievement though the <i>History +of the Decline and Fall</i> may be, glorious +monument though it is, more lasting +than brass, of learning and industry, yet +in sundry moods it seems but a poor and +barren thing by the side of a book which, +like Law's <i>Serious Call</i>, has proved its +power</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘To pierce the heart and tame the will.’<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>But I must put the curb on my enthusiasm, +or I shall find myself re-echoing the sentiment +of a once celebrated divine who +brought down Exeter Hall by proclaiming, +at the top of his voice, that he would sooner +be the author of <i>The Washerwoman on +Salisbury Plain</i> than of <i>Paradise Lost</i>.</p> + +<p>But Law's <i>Serious Call</i>, to do it only +bare literary justice, is a great deal more +like <i>Paradise Lost</i> than <i>The Washerwoman +on Salisbury Plain</i>, and deserves better +treatment at the hands of religious people +than to be reprinted, as it too often is, in +a miserable, truncated, witless form which +would never have succeeded in arresting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> +the wandering attention of Johnson or in +saving the soul of Thomas Scott. The +motto of all books of original genius is:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘Love me or leave me alone.’<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Gibbon read Law's <i>Serious Call</i>, but it +left him where it found him. 'Had not,' +so he writes, 'Law's vigorous mind been +clouded by enthusiasm, he might be ranked +with the most agreeable and ingenious +writers of his time.'</p> + +<p>Upon the death of Law in 1761, it is sad +to have to state that Miss Hester Gibbon +cast aside the severe rule of female dress +which he had expounded in his <i>Serious Call</i>, +and she had practised for sixty years of her +life. She now appeared like Malvolio, resplendent +in yellow stockings. Still, it was +something to have kept the good lady's +feet from straying into such evil garments +for so long. Miss Gibbon had a comfortable +estate; and our historian, as her nearest +male relative, kept his eye upon the +reversion. The fifteenth and sixteenth +chapters had created a coolness, but he +addressed her a letter in which he assured +her that, allowing for differences of expres<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>sion, +he had the satisfaction of feeling that +practically he and she thought alike on the +great subject of religion. Whether she +believed him or not I cannot say; but she +left him her estate in Sussex. I must stop +a moment to consider the hard and far different +fate of Porson. Gibbon had taken +occasion to refer to the seventh verse of +the fifth chapter of the First Epistle of St. +John as spurious. It has now disappeared +from our Bibles, without leaving a trace +even in the margin. So judicious a writer +as Dean Alford long ago, in his Greek Testament, +observed, 'There is not a shadow +of a reason for supposing it genuine.' +An archdeacon of Gibbon's period thought +otherwise, and asserted the genuineness of +the text, whereupon Porson wrote a book +and proved it to be no portion of the inspired +text. On this a female relative who +had Porson down in her will for a comfortable +annuity of £300, revoked that part +of her testamentary disposition, and substituted +a paltry bequest of £30: 'for,' +said she, 'I hear he has been writing +against the Holy Scriptures.' As Porson +only got £16 for writing the book, it cer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>tainly +cost him dear. But the book remains +a monument of his learning and wit. The +last quarter of the annuity must long since +have been paid.</p> + +<p>Gibbon, the only one of a family of five +who managed to grow up at all, had no +school life; for though a short time at +Westminster, his feeble health prevented +regularity of attendance. His father never +won his respect, nor his mother (who died +when he was ten) his affection. 'I am +tempted,' he says, 'to enter my protest +against the trite and lavish praise of the +happiness of our boyish years which is +echoed with so much affectation in the +world. That happiness I have never +known.' Upon which passage Ste. +Beuve characteristically remarks 'that it +is those who have been deprived of a +mother's solicitude, of the down and +flower of tender affection, of the vague +yet penetrating charm of dawning impressions, +who are most easily denuded +of the sentiment of religion.'</p> + +<p>Gibbon was, however, born free of the +'fair brotherhood' Macaulay so exquisitely +described in his famous poem, written<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> +after the Edinburgh election. Reading +became his sole employment. He enjoyed +all the advantages of the most irregular of +educations, and in his fifteenth year arrived +at Oxford, to use his celebrated words, +though for that matter almost every word +in the <i>Autobiography</i> is celebrated, with a +stock of erudition that might have puzzled +a doctor, and a degree of ignorance of +which a schoolboy would have been ashamed—for +example, he did not know the Greek +alphabet, nor is there any reason to suppose +that he would have been taught it at +Oxford.</p> + +<p>I do not propose to refer to what he +says about his university. I hate giving +pain, besides which there have been new +statutes since 1752. In Gibbon's time +there were no public examinations at all, +and no class-lists—a Saturnian reign +which I understand it is now sought to +restore. Had Gibbon followed his father's +example and gone to Cambridge, he would +have found the Mathematical Tripos +fairly started on its beneficent career, and +might have taken as good a place in it +as Dr. Dodd had just done, a divine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> +who is still year after year referred to in +the University Calendar as the author of +<i>Thoughts in Prison</i>, the circumstance that +the thinker was later on taken from prison, +and hung by the neck until he was dead +being no less wisely than kindly omitted +from a publication, one of the objects of +which is to inspire youth with confidence +that the path of mathematics is the way +to glory.</p> + +<p>On his profession of Catholicism, Gibbon, +<i>ipso facto</i> ceased to be a member of +the university, and his father, with a sudden +accession of good sense, packed off +the young pervert, who at that time had +a very big head and a very small body, +and was just as full of controversial theology +as he could hold, to a Protestant +pastor's at Lausanne, where in an uncomfortable +house, with an ill-supplied table +and a scarcity of pocket-money, the ex-fellow-commoner +of Magdalen was condemned +to live from his sixteenth to his +twenty-first year. His time was mainly +spent in reading. Here he learnt Greek; +here also he fell in love with Mademoiselle +Curchod. In the spring of 1758 he came<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> +home. He was at first very shy, and went +out but little, pursuing his studies even in +lodgings in Bond Street. But he was +shortly to be shaken out of his dumps, and +made an Englishman and a soldier.</p> + +<p>If anything could provoke Gibbon's +placid shade, it would be the light and +airy way his military experiences are often +spoken of, as if, like a modern volunteer, +he had but attended an Easter Monday +review. I do not believe the history of +literature affords an equally striking example +of self-sacrifice. He was the most +sedentary of men. He hated exercise, +and rarely took any. Once after spending +some weeks in the summer at Lord Sheffield's +country place, when about to go, +his hat was missing. 'When,' he was +asked, 'did you last see it?' 'On my arrival,' +he replied. 'I left it on the hall-table; +I have had no occasion for it since.' +Lord Sheffield's guests always knew that +they would find Mr. Gibbon in the library, +and meet him at the dinner-table. He +abhorred a horse. His one vocation, and +his only avocation, was reading, not lazy +glancing and skipping, but downright sav<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>age +reading—geography, chronology, and +all the tougher sides of history. What +glorious, what martial times, indeed, must +those have been that made Mr. Gibbon +leap into the saddle, desert his books, and +for two mortal years and a half live in +camps! He was two months at Blandford, +three months at Cranbrook, six +months at Dover, four months at Devizes, +as many at Salisbury, and six more at +Southampton, where the troops were disbanded. +During all this time Captain +Gibbon was energetically employed. He +dictated the orders and exercised the battalion. +It did him a world of good. What +a pity Carlyle could not have been subjected +to the same discipline! The cessation, +too, of his habit of continued reading, +gave him time for a little thinking, and +when he returned to his father's house, in +Hampshire, he had become fixed in his +determination to write a history, though +of what was still undecided.</p> + +<p>I am rather afraid to say it, for no two +men could well be more unlike one another, +but Gibbon always reminds me in an odd +inverted way of Milton. I suppose it is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> +because as the one is our grandest author, +so the other is our most grandiose. Both +are self-conscious and make no apology—Milton +magnificently self-conscious, Gibbon +splendidly so. Everyone knows the great +passages in which Milton, in 1642, asked +the readers of his pamphlet on the reason +of Church government urged against prelacy, +to go on trust with him for some years +for his great unwritten poem, as 'being a +work not to be raised from the heat of +youth or the vapour of wine, like that +which flows at waste from the pen of some +vulgar amorist or the trencher fury of a +rhyming parasite, nor to be obtained by +the invocation of Dame Memory and her +seven daughters, but by devout prayer to +that Eternal Spirit who can enrich with +all utterance and knowledge, and sends +out His seraphim with the hallow'd fire +of His Altar to touch and purify the lips +of whom He pleases: to this must be +added industrious and select reading, +study, observation and insight into all +seemly opinions, arts, and affairs.' Different +men, different minds. There are +things terrestrial as well as things celes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>tial. +Certainly Gibbon's <i>Autobiography</i> +contains no passages like those which are +to be found in Milton's pamphlets; but +for all that he, in his mundane way, consecrated +himself for his self-imposed task, +and spared no toil to equip himself for it. +He, too, no less than Milton, had his high +hope and his hard attempting. He tells +us in his stateliest way how he first +thought of one subject, and then another, +and what progress he had made in his +different schemes before he abandoned +them, and what reasons induced him so to +do. Providence watched over the future +historian of the Roman Empire as surely +as it did over the future author of <i>Paradise +Lost</i>, as surely as it does over everyone +who has it in him to do anything really +great. Milton, we know, in early life was +enamoured of King Arthur, and had it in +his mind to make that blameless king the +hero of his promised epic, but</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">‘What resounds<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In fable or romance of Uther's son,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Begirt with British and Amoric knights,’<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>can brook a moment's comparison with +the baffled hero of <i>Paradise Lost</i>; so too,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> +what a mercy that Gibbon did not fritter +away his splendid energy, as he once contemplated +doing, on Sir Walter Raleigh, +or squander his talents on a history of +Switzerland or even of Florence!</p> + +<p>After the disbanding of the militia Gibbon +obtained his father's consent to spend +the money it was originally proposed to lay +out in buying him a seat in Parliament, +upon foreign travel, and early in 1763 +he reached Paris, where he abode three +months. An accomplished scholar whose +too early death all who knew him can +never cease to deplore, Mr. Cotter Morison, +whose sketch of Gibbon is, by general +consent, admitted to be one of the +most valuable books of a delightful series, +does his best, with but partial success, to +conceal his annoyance at Gibbon's stupidly +placid enjoyment of Paris and French +cookery. 'He does not seem to be aware,' +says Mr. Morison, 'that he was witnessing +one of the most singular social phases +which have ever yet been presented in +the history of man.' Mr. Morison does +not, indeed, blame Gibbon for this, but +having, as he had, the most intimate ac<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>quaintance +with this period of French history, +and knowing the tremendous issues +involved in it, he could not but be chagrined +to notice how Gibbon remained +callous and impervious. And, indeed, +when the Revolution came it took no one +more by surprise than it did the man who +had written the <i>Decline and Fall of the +Roman Empire</i>. Writing, in 1792, to +Lord Sheffield, Gibbon says, 'Remember +the proud fabric of the French monarchy: +not four years ago it stood founded, and +might it not seem on the rock of time, +force, and opinion, supported by the +triple authority of the Church, the Nobility, +and the Parliament?' But the +Revolution came for all that; and what, +when it did come, did it teach Mr. Gibbon? +'Do not, I beseech you, tamper with Parliamentary +representation. If you begin +to improve the Constitution, you may be +driven step by step from the disfranchisement +of Old Sarum to the King in Newgate; +the Lords voted useless, the bishops +abolished, the House of Commons +<i>sans culottes</i>.' The importance of shutting +off the steam and sitting on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> +safety-valve was what the French Revolution +taught Mr. Gibbon. Mr. Bagehot +says: 'Gibbon's horror of the French +Revolution was derived from the fact +that he had arrived at the conclusion that +he was the sort of person a populace invariably +kills.' An excellent reason, in +my opinion, for hating revolution, but not +for misunderstanding it.</p> + +<p>After leaving Paris Gibbon lived nearly +a year in Lausanne, reading hard to prepare +himself for Italy. He made his own +handbook. At last he felt himself fit to +cross the Alps, which he did seated in an +osier basket planted on a man's shoulders. +He did not envy Hannibal his elephant. +He lingered four months in Florence, and +then entered Rome in a spirit of the most +genuine and romantic enthusiasm. His +zeal made him positively active, though it +is impossible to resist a smile at the picture +he draws of himself 'treading with a +lofty step the ruins of the Forum.' He +was in Rome eighteen weeks; there he +had, as we saw at the beginning, his heavenly +vision, to which he was not disobedient. +He paid a visit of six weeks' duration<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> +to Naples, and then returned home more +rapidly. 'The spectacle of Venice,' he says, +'afforded some hours of astonishment.' +Gibbon has sometimes been called 'long-winded,' +but when he chooses, nobody +can be shorter with either a city or a +century.</p> + +<p>He returned to England in 1765, and +for five rather dull years lived in his +father's house in the country or in London +lodgings. In 1770 his father died, +and in 1772 Gibbon took a house in Bentinck +Street, Manchester Square, filled it +with books—for in those days it must not +be forgotten there was no public library of +any kind in London—and worked hard at +his first volume, which appeared in February, +1775. It made him famous, also infamous, +since it concluded with the fifteenth +and sixteenth chapters on Christianity. In +1781 two more volumes appeared. In 1783 +he gave up Parliament and London, and +rolled over Westminster Bridge in a post-chaise, +on his way to Lausanne, where he +had his home for the rest of his days. In +May, 1788, the three last volumes appeared. +He died in St. James's Street whilst on a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> +visit to London, on the 15th of January, +1794, of a complaint of a most pronounced +character, which he had with characteristic +and almost criminal indolence totally neglected +for thirty years. He was buried in +Fletching Churchyard, Sussex, in the family +burial-place of his faithful friend and +model editor, the first Lord Sheffield. He +had not completed his fifty-eighth year.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Before concluding with a few very humble +observations on Gibbon's writings, something +ought to be said about him as a social +being. In this aspect he had distinguished +merit, though his fondness of, and fitness +for, society came late. He had no schooldays, +no college days, no gilded youth. +From sixteen to twenty-one he lived poorly +in Lausanne, and came home more Swiss +than English. Nor was his father of any +use to him. It took him a long time to rub +off his shyness; but the militia, Paris, and +Rome, and, above all, the proud consciousness +of a noble design, made a man of him, +and after 1772, he became a well-known +figure in London society. He was a man +of fashion as well as of letters. In this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> +respect, and, indeed, in all others, except +their common love of learning, he differed +from Dr. Johnson. Lords and ladies, remarked +that high authority, don't like having +their mouths shut. Gibbon never shut +anybody's mouth, and in Johnson's presence +rarely opened his own. Johnson's +dislike of Gibbon does not seem to have +been based upon his heterodoxy, but his +ugliness. 'He is such an amazing ugly +fellow,' said that Adonis. Boswell follows +suit, and, with still less claim to be critical, +complains loudly of Gibbon's ugliness. He +also hated him very sincerely. 'The fellow +poisons the whole club to me,' he cries. I +feel sorry for Boswell, who has deserved +well of the human race. Ironical people +like Gibbon are rarely tolerant of brilliant +folly. Gibbon, no doubt, was ugly. We +get a glance at him in one of Horace +Walpole's letters, which, sparkling as it +does with vanity, spite, and humour, is +always pleasant. He is writing to Mr. +Mason:</p> + +<p>'You will be diverted to hear that Mr. +Gibbon has quarrelled with me. He lent +me his second volume in the middle of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> +November; I returned it with a most civil +panegyric. He came for more incense. +I gave it, but, alas! with too much sincerity; +I added: "Mr. Gibbon, I am sorry +<i>you</i> should have pitched on so disgusting +a subject as the Constantinopolitan +history. There is so much of the Arians +and Eunomians and semi-Pelagians; and +there is such a strange contrast between +Roman and Gothic manners, that, though +you have written the story as well as it +could be written, I fear few will have +patience to read it." He coloured, all +his round features squeezed themselves +into sharp angles; he screwed up his button-mouth, +and rapping his snuff-box, said, +"It had never been put together before"—so +<i>well</i> he meant to add, but gulped it. +He meant so <i>well</i>, certainly, for Tillemont, +whom he quotes in every page, has done +the very thing. Well, from that hour to +this, I have never seen him, though he +used to call once or twice a week; nor +has he sent me the third volume, as he +promised. I well knew his vanity, even +about his ridiculous face and person, but +thought he had too much sense to avow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> +it so palpably.' 'So much,' adds Walpole, +with sublime nescience of the verdict of +posterity upon his own most amusing self, +'so much for literature and its fops.'</p> + +<p>Male ugliness is an endearing quality, +and in a man of great talents it assists his +reputation. It mollifies our inferiority to +be able to add to our honest admiration of +anyone's great intellectual merit, 'But did +you ever see such a chin!'</p> + +<p>Nobody except Johnson, who was morbid +on the subject of looks, liked Gibbon +the less for having a button-mouth and a +ridiculous nose. He was, Johnson and Boswell +apart, a popular member of the club. +Sir Joshua and he were, in particular, great +cronies, and went about to all kinds of +places, and mixed in every sort of society. +In May, June, and July, 1779, Gibbon sat +for his picture—that famous portrait to be +found at the beginning of every edition of +the History. Sir Joshua notes in his Diary: +'No new sitters—hard at work repainting +the "Nativity," and busy with sittings of +Gibbon.'</p> + +<p>If we are to believe contemporary gossip, +this was not the first time Reynolds<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> +had depicted the historian. Some years +earlier the great painter had executed a +celebrated portrait of Dr. Beattie, still +pleasingly remembered by the lovers of +old-fashioned poetry as the poet of <i>The +Minstrel</i>, but who, in 1773, was better +known as the author of an <i>Essay on +Truth</i>. This personage, who in later life, +it is melancholy to relate, took to drinking, +is represented in Reynolds's picture in +his Oxford gown of Doctor of Laws, with +his famous essay under his arm, while beside +him is Truth, habited as an angel, +holding in one hand a pair of scales, and +with the other thrusting down three frightful +figures emblematic of Sophistry, Scepticism, +and Infidelity. That Voltaire and +Hume stood for two of these figures was +no secret, but it was whispered Gibbon +was the third. Even if so, an incident so +trifling was not likely to ruffle the composure, +or prevent the intimacy, of two such +good-tempered men as Reynolds and Gibbon. +The latter was immensely proud of +Reynolds's portrait—the authorised portrait, +of course—the one for which he +had paid. He had it hanging up in his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> +library at Lausanne, and, if we may believe +Charles Fox, was fonder of looking +at it than out of the window upon that +incomparable landscape, with indifference +to which he had twitted St. Bernard.</p> + +<p>But, as I have said, Gibbon was a man +of fashion as well as a man of letters. In +another volume of Walpole we have a +glimpse of him playing a rubber of whist. +His opponents were Horace himself, and +Lady Beck. His partner was a lady whom +Walpole irreverently calls the Archbishopess +of Canterbury.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> At Brooks's, White's, +and Boodle's, Gibbon was a prime favourite. +His quiet manner, ironical humour, +and perpetual good temper made him +excellent company. He is, indeed, reported +once, at Brooks's, to have expressed +a desire to see the heads of Lord North +and half a dozen ministers on the table; +but as this was only a few days before he +accepted a seat at the Board of Trade at +their hands, his wrath was evidently of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> +the kind that does not allow the sun to go +down upon it. His moods were usually +mild:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘Soon as to Brooks's thence thy footsteps bend,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What gratulations thy approach attend!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">See Gibbon rap his box, auspicious sign<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That classic wit and compliment combine.’<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>To praise Gibbon heartily, you must +speak in low tones. 'His cheek,' says +Mr. Morison, 'rarely flushes in enthusiasm +for a good cause.' He was, indeed, not +obviously on the side of the angels. But +he was a dutiful son to a trying father, an +affectionate and thoughtful stepson to a +stepmother who survived him, and the +most faithful and warm-hearted of friends. +In this article of friendship he not only +approaches, but reaches, the romantic. +While in his teens he made friends with +a Swiss of his own age. A quarter of a +century later on, we find the boyish companions +chumming together, under the +same roof at Lausanne, and delighting +in each other's society. His attachment +to Lord Sheffield is a beautiful thing. It +is impossible to read Gibbon's letters without +responding to the feeling which breathes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> +through Lord Sheffield's preface to the miscellaneous +writings:</p> + +<p>'The letters will prove how pleasant, +friendly, and amiable Mr. Gibbon was in +private life; and if in publishing letters +so flattering to myself I incur the imputation +of vanity, I meet the charge with a +frank confession that I am indeed highly +vain of having enjoyed for so many years +the esteem, the confidence, and the affection +of a man whose social qualities endeared +him to the most accomplished +society, whose talents, great as they were, +must be acknowledged to have been fully +equalled by the sincerity of his friendship.'</p> + +<p>To have been pleasant, friendly, amiable +and sincere in friendship, to have written +the <i>Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire</i>, +and the <i>Autobiography</i>, must be Gibbon's +excuse for his unflushing cheek.</p> + +<p>To praise Gibbon is not wholly superfluous; +to commend his history would be +so. In May, 1888, it attained, as a whole, +its hundredth year. Time has not told +upon it. It stands unaltered, and with its +authority unimpaired. It would be invidious +to name the histories it has seen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> +born and die. Its shortcomings have been +pointed out—it is well; its inequalities +exposed—that is fair; its style criticised—that +is just. But it is still read. 'Whatever +else is read,' says Professor Freeman, +'Gibbon must be.'</p> + +<p>The tone he thought fit to adopt towards +Christianity was, quite apart from all particular +considerations, a mistaken one. No +man is big enough to speak slightingly of +the constructions his fellow-men have from +time to time put upon the Infinite. And +conduct which in a philosopher is ill-judged, +is in an historian ridiculous. Gibbon's +sneers could not alter the fact that his +History, which he elected to style the +<i>Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire</i>, +might equally well, as Dean Stanley has +observed, have been called the 'Rise and +Progress of the Christian Church.' This +tone of Gibbon's was the more unfortunate +because he was not of those men who are +by the order of their minds incapable of +theology. He was an admirable theologian, +and, even as it is, we have Cardinal +Newman's authority for the assertion, +that Gibbon is the only Church historian<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> +worthy of the name who has written in +English.</p> + +<p>Gibbon's love of the unseemly may also +be deprecated. His is not the boisterous +impropriety which may sometimes be observed +staggering across the pages of Mr. +Carlyle, but the more offensive variety +which is overheard sniggering in the notes.</p> + +<p>The importance, the final value, of Gibbon's +History has been assailed in high +quarters. Coleridge, in a well-known passage +in his <i>Table Talk</i>—too long to be +quoted—said Gibbon was a man of immense +reading; but he had no philosophy. +'I protest,' he adds, 'I do not remember +a single philosophical attempt +made throughout the work to fathom the +ultimate causes of the decline and fall of +the empire.' This spoiled Gibbon for +Coleridge, who has told us that 'though +he had read all the famous histories, and +he believed some history of every country +or nation, that is or ever existed, he had +never done so for the story itself—the +only thing interesting to him being the +principles to be evolved from and illustrated +by the facts.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p> + +<p>I am not going to insult the majestic +though thickly-veiled figure of the Philosophy +of History. Every sensible man, +though he might blush to be called a philosopher, +must wish to be the wiser for his +reading; but it may, I think, be fairly said +that the first business of an historian is to +tell his story, nobly and splendidly, with +vivacity and vigour. Then I do not see +why we children of a larger growth may +not be interested in the annals of mankind +simply as a story, without worrying every +moment to evolve principles from each +part of it. If I choose to be interested +in the colour of Mary Queen of Scots' +eyes, or the authorship of the <i>Letters of +Junius</i>, I claim the right to be so. Of +course, if I imagine either of these subjects +to be matters of importance—if I +devote my life to their elucidation, if I +bore my friends with presentation pamphlets +about them—why, then, I am +either a feeble fribble or an industrious +fool; but if I do none of these things I +ought to be left in peace, and not ridiculed +by those who seem to regard the noble +stream of events much as Brindley did<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> +rivers—mainly as something which fills +their ugly canals of dreary and frequently +false comment.</p> + +<p>But, thirdly, whilst yielding the first +place to philosophy, divine philosophy, as +I suppose, when one comes to die, one will +be glad to have done, it is desirable that +the text and the comment should be kept +separate and apart. The historian who +loads his frail craft with that perilous +and shifting freight, philosophy, adds immensely +to the dangers of his voyage +across the ocean of Time. Gibbon was +no fool, yet it is as certain as anything +can be, that had he put much of his philosophy +into his history, both would have +gone to the bottom long ago. And even +better philosophy than Gibbon's would +have been, is apt to grow mouldy in a +quarter of a century, and to need three +new coats of good oily rhetoric, to make +it presentable to each new generation.</p> + +<p>Gibbon was neither a great thinker nor +a great man. He had neither light nor +warmth. This is what, doubtless, prompted +Sir James Mackintosh's famous exclamation, +that you might scoop Gibbon's mind<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> +out of Burke's without missing it. But +hence, I say, the fitness of things that +chained Gibbon to his library chair, and +set him as his task, to write the history of +the Roman Empire, whilst leaving Burke +at large to illuminate the problems of his +own time.</p> + +<p>Gibbon avowedly wrote for fame. He +built his History meaning it to last. He +got £6,000 for writing it. The booksellers +netted £60,000 by printing it. Gibbon +did not mind. He knew it would be the +volumes of his History, and not the banking +books of his publishers, who no doubt +ran their trade risks, which would keep +their place upon men's shelves. He did +an honest piece of work, and he has had a +noble reward. Had he attempted to know +the ultimate causes of the decline and fall +of the Roman Empire, he must have failed, +egregiously, childishly. He abated his pretensions +as a philosopher, was content to +attempt some picture of the thing acted—of +the great pageant of history—and +succeeded.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="WILLIAM_COWPER" id="WILLIAM_COWPER"></a>WILLIAM COWPER<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span></h2> + + +<p>The large and weighty family of Gradgrinds +may, from their various well-cushioned +coigns of advantage, give forcible +utterance to their opinions as to what are +the really important things in this life; but +the fact remains, distasteful as it may be +to those of us who accomplish the disciplinary +end of vexing our fathers' souls by +other means than 'penning stanzas,' that +the lives of poets, even of people who have +passed for poets, eclipse in general and +permanent interest the lives of other men. +Whilst above the sod, these poets were +often miserable enough. But charm hangs +over their graves. The sternest pedestrian, +even he who is most bent on making his +inn by the precise path he has, with much +study of the map, previously prescribed for +himself, will yet often veer to the right or +to the left, to visit the lonely churchyard<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> +where, as he hears by the way, lie the +ashes of some brother of the tuneful quill. +It may well be that this brother's verses +are not frequently on our lips. It is not +the lot of every bard to make quotations. +It may sometimes happen to you, as you +stand mournfully surveying the little heap, +to rack your brains unavailingly for so +much as a single couplet; nay, so treacherous +is memory, the very title of his best-known +poem may, for the moment, have +slipped you. But your heart is melted all +the same, and you feel it would indeed +have been a churlish thing to go on your +original way, unmindful of the fact that</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘In yonder grave a Druid lies!’<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And you have your reward. When you +have reached your desired haven, and are +sitting alone after dinner in the coffee-room, +neat-handed Phyllis (were you not +fresh from a poet's grave, a homelier name +might have served her turn) having administered +to your final wants, and disappeared +with a pretty flounce, the ruby-coloured +wine the dead poet loved, the bottled sunshine +of a bygone summer, glows the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> +warmer in your cup as you muse over minstrels +now no more, whether</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘Of mighty poets in their misery dead,’<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>or of such a one as he whose neglected +grave you have just visited.</p> + +<p>It was a pious act, you feel, to visit that +grave. You commend yourself for doing +so. As the night draws on, this very simple +excursion down a rutty lane and across +a meadow, begins to wear the hues of devotion +and of love; and unless you are +very stern with yourself, the chances are +that by the time you light your farthing +dip, and are proceeding on your dim and +perilous way to your bedroom at the end +of a creaking passage, you will more than +half believe you were that poet's only unselfish +friend, and that he died saying so.</p> + +<p>All this is due to the charm of poetry. +Port has nothing to do with it. Indeed, as +a plain matter of fact, who would drink +port at a village inn? Nobody feels a bit +like this after visiting the tombs of soldiers, +lawyers, statesmen, or divines. These pompous +places, viewed through the haze of +one's recollections of the 'careers' of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> +men whose names they vainly try to perpetuate, +seem but, if I may slightly alter +some words of old Cowley's, 'An ill show +after a sorry sight.'</p> + +<p>It would be quite impossible, to enumerate +one half of the reasons which make +poets so interesting. I will mention one, +and then pass on to the subject-matter. +They often serve to tell you the age of +men and books. This is most interesting. +There is Mr. Matthew Arnold. How impossible +it would be to hazard even a wide +solution of the problem of his age, but for +the way he has of writing about Lord +Byron! Then we know</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘The thought of Byron, of his cry<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stormily, sweet, his Titan agony.’<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And again:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘What boots it now that Byron bore,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With haughty scorn which mocked the smart,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through Europe to the Ætolian shore,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The pageant of his bleeding heart?’<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Ask any man born in the fifties, or even +the later forties, what he thinks of Byron's +Titan agony, and his features will probably +wear a smile. Insist upon his giving his +opinion about the pageant of the Childe's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> +bleeding heart, and more likely than not +he will laugh outright. But, I repeat, how +interesting to be able to tell the age of +one distinguished poet from his way of +writing of another!</p> + +<p>So, too, with books. Miss Austen's +novels are dateless things. Nobody in +his senses would speak of them as 'old +novels.' <i>John Inglesant</i> is an old novel, +so is <i>Ginx's Baby</i>. But <i>Emma</i> is quite +new, and, like a wise woman, affords few +clues as to her age. But when, taking up +<i>Sense and Sensibility</i>, we read Marianne +Dashwood's account of her sister's lover—</p> + +<p>'And besides all this, I am afraid, mamma, +he has no real taste. Music seems +scarcely to attract him, and though he +admires Elinor's drawings very much, it +is not the admiration of a person who can +understand their worth. He admires as +a lover, and not as a connoisseur. Oh, +mamma! how spiritless, how tame was +Edward's manner in reading last night! +I felt for my sister most severely. I +could hardly keep my seat to hear those +beautiful lines which have frequently almost +driven me wild, pronounced with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> +such impenetrable calmness, such dreadful +indifference!' 'He would certainly +[says Mrs. Dashwood] have done more +justice to simple and elegant prose. I +thought so, at the time, but you <i>would</i> +give him Cowper.' 'Nay, mamma, if he +is not to be animated by Cowper!'—when +we read this, we know pretty well +when Miss Austen was born. It is surely +pleasant to be reminded of a time when +sentimental girls used Cowper as a test of +a lover's sensibility. One of our modern +swains is no more likely to be condemned +as a Philistine for not reading <i>The Task</i> +with unction, than he is to be hung for +sheep-stealing, or whipped at the cart's +tail for speaking evil of constituted authorities; +but the position probably still has +its perils, and the Marianne Dashwoods +of the hour are quite capable of putting +their admirers on to <i>Rose Mary</i>, or <i>The +Blessed Damosel</i>, and then flouting their +insensibility. The fact, of course, is, that +each generation has a way of its own, and +poets are interesting because they are the +mirrors in which their generation saw its +own face; and what is more, they are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> +magic mirrors, since they retain the power +of reflecting the image long after what +was pleased to call itself the substance +has disappeared into thin air.</p> + +<p>There is no more interesting poet than +Cowper, and hardly one the area of whose +influence was greater. No man, it is unnecessary +to say, courted popularity less, +yet he threw a very wide net, and caught a +great shoal of readers. For twenty years +after the publication of <i>The Task</i> in 1785, +his general popularity never flagged, and +even when in the eyes of the world it was +eclipsed, when Cowper became in the +opinion of fierce Byronians and moss-trooping +Northerners, 'a coddled Pope' and a +milksop, our great, sober, Puritan middle-class +took him to their warm firesides for +two generations more. Some amongst +these were not, it must be owned, lovers +of poetry at all; they liked Cowper because +he is full of a peculiar kind of religious +phraseology, just as some of Burns' countrymen +love Burns because he is full of a +peculiar kind of strong drink called whisky. +This was bad taste; but it made Cowper +all the more interesting, since he thus be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>came, +by a kind of compulsion, the favourite +because the only poet, of all these people's +children; and the children of the righteous +do not wither like the green herb, neither +do they beg their bread from door to door, +but they live in slated houses and are +known to read at times. No doubt, by the +time it came to these children's children +the spell was broken, and Cowper went +out of fashion when Sunday travelling and +play-going came in again. But his was a +long run, and under peculiar conditions. +Signs and tokens are now abroad, whereby +the judicious are beginning to infer that +there is a renewed disposition to read Cowper, +and to love him, not for his faults, but +for his great merits, his observing eye, his +playful wit, his personal charm.</p> + +<p>Hayley's <i>Life of Cowper</i> is now obsolete, +though since it is adorned with vignettes by +Blake it is prized by the curious. Hayley +was a kind friend to Cowper, but he possessed, +in a highly developed state, that +aversion to the actual facts of a case which +is unhappily so characteristic of the British +biographer. Southey's <i>Life</i> is horribly +long-winded and stuffed out; still, like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> +Homer's <i>Iliad</i>, it remains the best. It +was long excluded from strict circles because +of its worldly tone, and also because +it more than hinted that the Rev. John +Newton was to blame for his mode of +treating the poet's delusions. Its place +was filled by the Rev. Mr. Grimshaw's +<i>Life</i> of the poet, which is not a nice book. +Mr. Benham's recent <i>Life</i>, prefixed to the +cheap Globe edition of <i>Cowper's Poems</i>, is +marvellously good and compressed. Mr. +Goldwin Smith's account of the poet in +Mr. Morley's series could not fail to be interesting, +though it created in the minds +of some readers a curious sensation of immense +distance from the object described. +Mr. Smith seemed to discern Cowper +clearly enough, but as somebody very far +off. This, however, may be fancy.</p> + +<p>The wise man will not trouble the biographers. +He will make for himself a short +list of dates, so that he may know where +he is at any particular time, and then, poking +the fire and (his author notwithstanding) +lighting his pipe—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘Oh, pernicious weed, whose scent the fair annoys—’<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span></p> +<p>he will read Cowper's letters. There are +five volumes of them in Southey's edition. +It would be to exaggerate to say you wish +there were fifty, but you are, at all events, +well content there should be five. In the +course of them Cowper will tell you the +story of his own life, as it ought to be told, +as it alone can be told, in the purest of +English and with the sweetest of smiles. +For a combination of delightful qualities, +Cowper's letters have no rivals. They are +playful, witty, loving, sensible, ironical, and, +above all, as easy as an old shoe. So easy, +indeed, that after you have read half a +volume or so, you begin to think their merits +have been exaggerated, and that anybody +could write letters as good as Cowper's. +Even so the man who never played billiards, +and who sees Mr. Roberts play that game, +might hastily opine that he, too, could go +and do likewise.</p> + +<p>To form anything like a fair estimate of +Cowper, it is wise to ignore as much as +possible his mental disease, and always to +bear in mind the manner of man he naturally +was. He belonged essentially to the +order of wags. He was, it is easy to see,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> +a lover of trifling things, elegantly finished. +He hated noise, contention, and +the public gaze, but society he ever insisted +upon.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘I praise the Frenchman, his remark was shrewd,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But grant me still a friend in my retreat,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whom I may whisper—“solitude is sweet.”’<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>He loved a jest, a barrel of oysters, and +a bottle of wine. His well-known riddle +on a kiss is Cowper from top to toe:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘I am just two and two; I am warm, I am cold,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the parent of numbers that cannot be told.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I am lawful, unlawful, a duty, a fault,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I am often sold dear, good for nothing when bought,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An extraordinary boon, and a matter of course,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And yielded with pleasure when taken by force.’<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Why, it is a perfect dictionary of kisses in +six lines!</p> + +<p>Had Cowper not gone mad in his thirty-second +year, and been frightened out of +the world of trifles, we should have had +another Prior, a wittier Gay, an earlier +Praed, an English La Fontaine. We do +better with <i>The Task</i> and the <i>Lines to +Mary</i>, but he had a light touch.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘’Tis not that I design to rob<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thee of thy birthright, gentle Bob,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For thou art born sole heir and single<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of dear Mat Prior's easy jingle.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not that I mean while thus I knit<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My threadbare sentiments together,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To show my genius or my wit,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When God and you know I have neither,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or such as might be better shown<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By letting poetry alone.’<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>This lightness of touch, this love of trifling, +never deserted Cowper, not even +when the pains of hell got hold of him, +and he believed himself the especially +accursed of God. In 1791, when things +were very black, we find him writing to his +good Dissenting friend, the Rev. William +Bull ('Charissime Taurorum'), as follows:</p> + +<p>'Homer, I say, has all my time, except a +little that I give every day to no very +cheering prospects of futurity. I would I +were a Hottentot, or even a Dissenter, so +that my views of an hereafter were more +comfortable. But such as I am, Hope, if +it please God, may visit even me. Should +we ever meet again, possibly we may part +no more. Then, if Presbyterians ever +find their way to heaven, you and I may<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> +know each other in that better world, and +rejoice in the recital of the terrible things +that we endured in this. I will wager sixpence +with you now, that when that day +comes you shall acknowledge my story a +more wonderful one than yours; only +order your executors to put sixpence in +your mouth when they bury you, that you +may have wherewithal to pay me.'</p> + +<p>Whilst living in the Temple, which he +did for twelve years, chiefly it would appear +on his capital, he associated with a race of +men, of whom report has reached us, called +'wits.' He belonged to the Nonsense +Club; he wrote articles for magazines. +He went to balls, to Brighton, to the play. +He went once, at all events, to the gallery +of the House of Commons, where he witnessed +an altercation between a placeman +and an alderman—two well-known types +still in our midst. The placeman had +misquoted Terence, and the alderman had +corrected him; whereupon the ready placeman +thanked the worthy alderman for +teaching him Latin, and volunteered in +exchange to teach the alderman English. +Cowper must at this time have been a con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>siderable +reader, for all through life he is +to be found quoting his authors, poets, and +playwrights, with an easy appositeness, all +the more obviously genuine because he +had no books in the country to refer to. +'I have no English History,' he writes, +'except Baker's <i>Chronicle</i>, and that I borrowed +three years ago from Mr. Throckmorton.' +This was wrong, but Baker's +<i>Chronicle</i> (Sir Roger de Coverley's favourite +Sunday reading) is not a book to be returned +in a month.</p> + +<p>After this easy fashion Cowper acquired +what never left him—the style and manner +of an accomplished worldling.</p> + +<p>The story of the poet's life does not +need telling; but as Owen Meredith says, +probably not even for the second time, +'after all, old things are best.' Cowper +was born in the rectory at Great Berkhampstead, +in 1735. His mother dying when +he was six years old, he was despatched to +a country academy, where he was horribly +bullied by one of the boys, the reality of +whose persecution is proved by one terrible +touch in his victim's account of it: 'I had +such a dread of him, that I did not dare<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> +lift my eyes to his face. I knew him best +by his shoe-buckle.' The odious brute! +Cowper goes on to say he had forgiven +him, which I can believe, but when he proceeds +to ejaculate a wish to meet his persecutor +again in heaven, doubt creeps in. +When ten years old he was sent to Westminster, +where there is nothing to show +that he was otherwise than fairly happy; +he took to his classics very kindly, and (so +he says) excelled in cricket and football. +This is evidence, but as Dr. Johnson once +confessed about the evidence for the immortality +of the soul, 'one would like +more.' He was for some time in the +class of Vincent Bourne, who, though +born in 1695, and a Fellow of Trinity +College, Cambridge, ranks high amongst +the Latin poets. Whether Cowper was +bullied at Westminster is a matter of controversy. +Bourne was bullied. About +that there can be no doubt. Cowper loved +him, and relates with delight how on one +occasion the Duke of Richmond (Burke's +Duke, I suppose) set fire to the greasy +locks of this latter-day Catullus, and then, +alarmed at the spread of the conflagration,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> +boxed his master's ears to put it out. At +eighteen Cowper left Westminster, and +after doing nothing (at which he greatly +excelled) for nine months in the country, +returned to town, and was articled to an +attorney in Ely Place, Holborn, for three +years. At the same time, being intended +for the Bar, he was entered at the Middle, +though he subsequently migrated to the +Inner Temple. These three years in Ely +Place Cowper fribbled away agreeably +enough. He had as his desk-companion +Edward Thurlow, the most tremendous of +men. Hard by Ely Place is Southampton +Row, and in Southampton Row lived Ashley +Cowper, the poet's uncle, with a trio of +affable daughters, Theodora Jane, Harriet, +afterwards Lady Hesketh, and a third, +who became the wife of Sir Archer Croft. +According to Cowper, a great deal of giggling +went on in Southampton Row. He +fell in love with Theodora, and Theodora +fell in love with him. He wrote her verses +enough to fill a volume. She was called +Delia in his lays. In 1752, his articles +having expired, he took chambers in the +Temple, and in 1754 was called to the Bar.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span></p> + +<p>Ashley Cowper, a very little man, who +used to wear a white hat lined with yellow +silk, and was on that account likened by +his nephew to a mushroom, would not hear +of his daughter marrying her cousin; and +being a determined little man, he had his +own way, and the lovers were parted and +saw one another no more. Theodora Cowper +wore the willow all the rest of her long +life. Her interest in her cousin never +abated. Through her sister, Lady Hesketh, +she contributed in later years generously +to his support. He took the money +and knew where it came from, but they +never wrote to one another, nor does her +name ever appear in Cowper's correspondence. +She became, so it is said, morbid +on the subject during her latter days, and +dying twenty-four years after her lover, +she bequeathed to a nephew a mysterious +packet she was known to cherish. It was +found to contain Cowper's love-verses.</p> + +<p>In 1756 Cowper's father died, and the +poet's patrimony proved to be a very small +one. He was made a Commissioner of +Bankrupts. The salary was £60 a year. +He knew one solicitor, but whether he ever<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> +had a brief is not known. He lived alone +in his chambers till 1763, when, under well-known +circumstances, he went raving mad, +and attempted to hang himself in his bedroom, +and very nearly succeeded. He was +removed to Dr. Cotton's asylum, where he +remained a year. This madness, which in +its origin had no more to do with religion +than it had with the Binomial Theorem, +ultimately took the turn of believing that +it was the will of God that he should kill +himself, and that as he had failed to do so +he was damned everlastingly. In this +faith, diversified by doubt, Cowper must be +said henceforth to have lived and died.</p> + +<p>On leaving St. Albans, the poet, in order +to be near his only brother, the Rev. John +Cowper, Fellow of Corpus, Cambridge, and +a most delightful man, had lodgings in +Huntingdon; and there, one eventful Tuesday +in 1765, he made the acquaintance of +Mary Unwin. Mrs. Unwin's husband, a +most scandalously non-resident clergyman—whom, +however, Cowper composedly +calls a veritable Parson Adams—was living +at this time, not in his Norfolk rectory +of Grimston, but contentedly enough in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> +Huntingdon, where he took pupils. Cowper +became a lodger in the family, which +consisted of the rector and his wife, a son +at Cambridge, and a daughter, also one +or two pupils. In 1767 Mr. Unwin was +thrown from his horse and fractured his +skull. Church-reformers pointed out, at +the time, that had the Rector of Grimston +been resident, this accident could not have +occurred in Huntingdon. They then went +on to say, but less convincingly, that Mr. +Unwin's death was the judgment of Heaven +upon him. Mr. Unwin dead, the poet +and the widow moved to Olney, where they +lived together for nineteen years in a tumble-down +house, and on very slender means. +Their attraction to Olney was in the fact +that John Newton was curate-in-charge. +Olney was not an ideal place by any means. +Cowper and Mrs. Unwin lived in no fools' +paradise, for they visited the poor and knew +the manner of their lives. The inhabitants +were mostly engaged in lace-making and +straw-plaiting; they were miserably poor, +immoral, and drunken. There is no idyllic +nonsense in Cowper's poetry.</p> + +<p>In 1773 he had another most violent at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>tack +of suicidal mania, and attempted his +life more than once. Writing in 1786 +to Lady Hesketh, Cowper gives her an account +of his illness, of which at the time +she knew nothing, as her acquaintance with +her cousin was not renewed till 1785:</p> + +<p>'Know then, that in the year '73, the +same scene that was acted at St. Albans +opened upon me again at Olney, only +covered with a still deeper shade of melancholy, +and ordained to be of much +longer duration. I believed that everybody +hated me, and that Mrs. Unwin hated +me most of all; was convinced that all +my food was poisoned, together with ten +thousand megrims of the same stamp. +Dr. Cotton was consulted. He replied +that he could do no more for me than +might be done at Olney, but recommended +particular vigilance, lest I should attempt +my life; a caution for which there was the +greatest occasion. At the same time that +I was convinced of Mrs. Unwin's aversion +to me, I could endure no other companion. +The whole management of me consequently +devolved upon her, and a terrible +task she had; she performed it, however,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> +with a cheerfulness hardly ever equalled +on such an occasion, and I have often +heard her say that if ever she praised God +in her life, it was when she found she was +to have all the labour. She performed it +accordingly, but as I hinted once before, +very much to the hurt of her own constitution.'</p> + +<p>Just before this outbreak, Cowper and +Mrs. Unwin had agreed to marry, but after +it they felt the subject was not to be approached, +and so the poor things spoke of +it no more. Still, it was well they had +spoken out. 'Love me, and tell me so,' is +a wise maxim of behaviour.</p> + +<p>Stupid people, themselves leading, one is +glad to believe, far duller lives than Cowper +and Mary Unwin, have been known to +make dull, ponderous jokes about this +<i>ménage</i> at Olney—its country walks, its +hymn tunes, its religious exercises. But it +is pleasant to note how quick Sainte Beuve, +whose three papers on Cowper are amongst +the glories of the <i>Causeries du Lundi</i>, is to +recognise how much happiness and pleasantness +was to be got out of this semi-monastic +life and close social relation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span></p> + +<p>Cowper was indeed the very man for it. +One can apply to him his own well-known +lines about the winter season, and crown +him</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">‘The King of intimate delights,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fireside enjoyments, and homeborn happiness.’<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>No doubt he went mad at times. It was +a terrible affliction. But how many men +have complaints of the liver, and are as +cheerful to live with as the Black Death, +or Young's <i>Night Thoughts</i>. Cowper had +a famous constitution. Not even Dr. +James's powder, or the murderous practices +of the faculty, could undermine it. +Sadness is not dulness.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘Dear saints, it is not sorrow, as I hear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor suffering that shuts up eye and ear<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To all which has delighted them before,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And lets us be what we were once no more!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No! we may suffer deeply, yet retain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Power to be moved and soothed, for all our pain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By what of old pleased us, and will again.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No! 'tis the gradual furnace of the world,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In whose hot air our spirits are upcurled<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Until they crumble, or else grow like steel,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which kills in us the bloom, the youth, the spring,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which leaves the fierce necessity to feel,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But takes away the power—this can avail<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By drying up our joy in everything,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To make our former pleasures all seem stale.’<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span></div></div> + +<p>I can think of no one to whom these +beautiful lines of Mr. Arnold's are so exquisitely +appropriate as to Cowper. Nothing +could knock the humanity out of him. +Solitude, sorrow, madness, found him out, +threw him down and tore him, as did the +devils their victims in the days of old; but +when they left him for a season, he rose +from his misery as sweet and as human, as +interested and as interesting as ever. His +descriptions of natural scenery and country-side +doings are amongst his best things. +He moralises enough, heaven knows! but +he keeps his morality out of his descriptions. +This is rather a relief after overdoses +of Wordsworth's pantheism and +Keats's paganism. Cowper's Nature is +plain county Bucks.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">‘The sheepfold here<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pours out its fleecy tenants o'er the glebe.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At first progressive as a stream, they seek<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The middle field; but scattered by degrees,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Each to his choice, soon whiten all the land.’<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The man who wrote that had his eye +on the object; but lest the quotation be +thought too woolly by a generation which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> +has a passion for fine things, I will allow +myself another:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘Nor rural sights alone, but rural sounds,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Exhilarate the spirit and restore<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The tone of languid nature, mighty winds<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That sweep the skirt of some far-spreading wood<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of ancient growth, make music not unlike<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The dash of ocean on his winding shore<br /></span> +<span class="i0">. . . . . . . . . . . . . .<br /></span> +<span class="i0">. . . . . . . . . of rills that slip<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through the cleft rock, and chiming as they fall<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Upon loose pebbles, lose themselves at length<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In matted grass, that with a livelier green<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Betrays the secret of their silent course.’<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>In 1781 began the episode of Lady Austen. +That lady was doing some small shopping +in Olney, in company with her sister, +the wife of a neighbouring clergyman, when +our poet first beheld her. She pleased his +eye. Whether in the words of one of his +early poems he made free to comment on +her shape I cannot say; but he hurried +home and made Mrs. Unwin ask her to tea. +She came. Cowper was seized with a fit +of shyness, and very nearly would not go +into the room. He conquered the fit, went +in and swore eternal friendship. To the +very end of her days Mrs. Unwin addressed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> +the poet, her true lover though he was, as +'Mr. Cowper.' In a week, Lady Austen +and he were 'Sister Ann' and 'William' +one to another. Sister Ann had a furnished +house in London. She gave it up. She +came to live in Olney, next door. She was +pretty, she was witty, she played, she sang. +She told Cowper the story of John Gilpin, +she inspired his <i>Wreck of the Royal George</i>. +<i>The Task</i> was written at her bidding. Day +in and day out, Cowper and Lady Austen +and Mrs. Unwin were together. One turns +instinctively to see what Sainte Beuve has +to say about Lady Austen. 'C'était Lady +Austen, veuve d'un baronet. Cette rare +personne était douée des plus heureux +dons; elle n'était plus très-jeune ni dans +la fleur de beauté; elle avait ce qui est +mieux, une puissance d'attraction et d'enchantement +qui tenait à la transparence +de l'âme, une faculté de reconnaissance, +de sensibilité émue jusqu'aux larmes pour +toute marque de bienveillance dont elle +était l'objet. Tout en elle exprimait une +vivacité pure, innocente et tendre. C'était +une créature <i>sympathique</i>, et elle devait +tout-à-fait justifier dans le cas présent ce<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> +mot de Bernardin de Saint-Pierre: "Il y +a dans la femme une gaieté légère qui +dissipe la tristesse de l'homme."'</p> + +<p>That odd personage, Alexander Knox, +who had what used to be called a 'primitive,' +that is, a fourth-century mind, and on +whom the Tractarian movement has been +plausibly grandfathered, and who was (incongruously) +employed by Lord Castlereagh +to help through the Act of Union with Ireland, +of which we have lately heard, but +who remained all the time primitively unaware +that any corruption was going on +around him—this odd person, I say, was +exercised in his mind about Lady Austen, +of whom he had been reading in Hayley's +<i>Life</i>. In October, 1806, he writes to +Bishop Jebb in a solemn strain: 'I have +rather a severer idea of Lady A. than I +should wish to put into writing for publication. +I almost suspect she was a very +artful woman. But I need not enlarge.' +He puts it rather differently from Sainte +Beuve, but I dare say they both meant +much the same thing. If Knox meant +more it would be necessary to get angry +with him. That Lady Austen fell in love<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> +with Cowper and would have liked to marry +him, but found Mrs. Unwin in the way, is +probable enough; but where was the artfulness? +Poor Cowper was no catch. The +grandfather of Tractarianism would have +been better employed in unmasking the +corruption amongst which he had lived, than +in darkly suspecting a lively lady of designs +upon a penniless poet, living in the utmost +obscurity, on the charity of his relatives.</p> + +<p>But this state of things at Olney did not +last very long. 'Of course not,' cackle a +chorus of cynics. 'It could not!' The +Historical Muse, ever averse to theory, is +content to say, 'It did not,' but as she +writes the words she smiles. The episode +began in 1781, it ended in 1784. It became +necessary to part. Cowper may have +had his qualms, but he concealed them +manfully and remained faithful to Mrs. +Unwin—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">‘The patient flower<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who possessed his darker hour.’<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Lady Austen flew away, and afterwards, +as if to prove her levity incurable, married +a Frenchman. She died in 1802. English +literature owes her a debt of gratitude.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> +Her name is writ large over much that is +best in Cowper's poetry. Not indeed over +the very best; <i>that</i> bears the inscription +<i>To Mary</i>. And it was right that it should +be so, for Mrs. Unwin had to put up with +a good deal.</p> + +<p><i>The Task</i> and <i>John Gilpin</i> were published +together in 1785, and some of Cowper's +old friends (notably Lady Hesketh) rallied +round the now known poet once more. +Lady Hesketh soon begins to fill the chair +vacated by Lady Austen, and Cowper's +letters to her are amongst his most delightful. +Her visits to Olney were eagerly +expected, and it was she who persuaded +the pair to leave the place for good and all, +and move to Weston, which they did in +1786. The following year Cowper went +mad again, and made another most desperate +attempt upon his life. Again Mary +Unwin stood by the poor maniac's side, +and again she stood alone. He got better, +and worked away at his translation of +Homer as hard and wrote letters as charming +as ever. But Mrs. Unwin was pretty +well done for. Cowper published his +Homer by subscription, and must be pro<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>nounced +a dab hand in the somewhat +ignoble art of collecting subscribers. I +am not sure that he could not have given +Pope points. Pope had a great acquaintance, +but he had barely six hundred subscribers. +Cowper scraped together upwards +of five hundred. As a beggar he was +unabashed. He quotes in one of his letters, +and applies to himself patly enough, +Ranger's observation in the <i>Suspicious +Husband</i>, 'There is a degree of assurance +in you modest men, that we impudent +fellows can never arrive at!' The University +of Oxford was, however, too much +for him. He beat her portals in vain. +She had but one answer, 'We subscribe +to nothing.' Cowper was very angry, and +called her 'a rich old vixen.' She did not +mind. The book appeared in 1791. It +has many merits, and remains unread.</p> + +<p>The clouds now gathered heavily over +the biography of Cowper. Mrs. Unwin +had two paralytic strokes, the old friends +began to torture one another. She was +silent save when she was irritable, indifferent +except when exacting. At last, not a +day too soon, Lady Hesketh came to Wes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>ton. +They were moved into Norfolk—but +why prolong the tale? Mrs. Unwin died +at East Dereham on the 17th of December, +1796. Thirty-one years had gone since +the poet and she first met by chance in +Huntingdon. Cowper himself died in +April, 1800. His last days were made physically +comfortable by the kindness of some +Norfolk cousins, and the devotion of a +Miss Perowne. But he died in wretchedness +and gloom.</p> + +<p>The <i>Castaway</i> was his last original +poem:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘I therefore purpose not or dream<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Descanting on his fate,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To give the melancholy theme<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A more enduring date;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But misery still delights to trace<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its semblance in another's case.’<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Everybody interested in Cowper has of +course to make out, as best he may, a picture +of the poet for his own use. It is +curious how sometimes little scraps of +things serve to do this better than deliberate +efforts. In 1800, the year of Cowper's +death, his relative, a Dr. Johnson, +wrote a letter to John Newton, sending<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> +good wishes to the old gentleman, and to +his niece, Miss Catlett; and added: 'Poor +dear Mr. Cowper, oh that he were as +tolerable as he was, even in those days +when, dining at his house in Buckinghamshire +with you and that lady, I could +not help smiling to see his pleasant face +when he said, "Miss Catlett, shall I give +you a piece of cutlet?"' It was a very +small joke indeed, and it is a very humble +little quotation, but for me it has long +served, in the mind's eye, for a vignette +of the poet, doomed yet <i>debonnaire</i>. Romney's +picture, with that frightful nightcap +and eyes gleaming with madness, is a pestilent +thing one would forget if one could. +Cowper's pleasant face when he said, 'Miss +Catlett, shall I give you a piece of cutlet?' +is a much more agreeable picture to find a +small corner for in one's memory.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="GEORGE_BORROW" id="GEORGE_BORROW"></a>GEORGE BORROW<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span></h2> + + +<p>Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson, in his +delightful <i>Memories and Portraits</i>, takes +occasion to tell us, amongst a good many +other things of the sort, that he has a +great fancy for <i>The Bible in Spain</i>, by Mr. +George Borrow. He has not, indeed, read +it quite so often as he has Mr. George +Meredith's <i>Egoist</i>, but still he is very fond +of it. It is interesting to know this, interesting, +that is, to the great Clan Stevenson +who owe suit and service to their liege +lord; but so far as Borrow is concerned, +it does not matter, to speak frankly, two +straws. The author of <i>Lavengro</i>, <i>The +Romany Rye</i>, <i>The Bible in Spain</i>, and +<i>Wild Wales</i> is one of those kings of literature +who never need to number their +tribe. His personality will always secure +him an attendant company, who, when he +pipes, must dance. A queer company it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> +is too, even as was the company he kept +himself, composed as it is of saints and +sinners, gentle and simple, master and +man, mistresses and maids; of those who, +learned in the tongues, have read everything +else, and of those who have read +nothing else and do not want to. People +there are for whom Borrow's books play +the same part as did horses and dogs for +the gentleman in the tall white hat, whom +David Copperfield met on the top of the +Canterbury coach. ''Orses and dorgs,' +said that gentleman, 'is some men's fancy. +They are wittles and drink to me, lodging, +wife and children, reading, writing, and +'rithmetic, snuff, tobacker, and sleep.'</p> + +<p>Nothing, indeed, is more disagreeable, +even offensive, than to have anybody +else's favourite author thrust down your +throat. 'Love me, love my dog,' is a +maxim of behaviour which deserves all the +odium Charles Lamb has heaped upon it. +Still, it would be hard to go through life +arm-in-arm with anyone who had stuck in +the middle of <i>Guy Mannering</i>, or had bidden +a final farewell to Jeannie Deans in +the barn with the robbers near Gunnerly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> +Hill in Lincolnshire. But, oddly enough, +Borrow excites no such feelings. It is +quite possible to live amicably in the same +house with a person who has stuck hopelessly +in the middle of <i>Wild Wales</i>, and +who braves it out (what impudence!) by +the assertion that the book is full of things +like this: 'Nothing worthy of commemoration +took place during the two following +days, save that myself and family took an +evening walk on the Wednesday up the side +of the Berwyn, for the purpose of botanising, +in which we were attended by John +Jones. There, amongst other plants, we +found a curious moss which our good +friend said was called in Welsh Corn +Carw, or deer's horn, and which he said +the deer were very fond of. On the +Thursday he and I started on an expedition +on foot to Ruthyn, distant about +fourteen miles, proposing to return in +the evening.'</p> + +<p>The book <i>is</i> full of things like this, and +must be pronounced as arrant a bit of +book-making as ever was. But judgment +is not always followed by execution, and +a more mirth-provoking error can hardly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> +be imagined than for anyone to suppose +that the admission of the fact—sometimes +doubtless a damaging fact—namely, book-making, +will for one moment shake the +faithful in their certitude that <i>Wild Wales</i> +is a delightful book; not so delightful, indeed, +as <i>Lavengro</i>, <i>The Romany</i>, or <i>The +Bible in Spain</i>, but still delightful because +issuing from the same mint as they, stamped +with the same physiognomy, and bearing +the same bewitching inscription.</p> + +<p>It is a mercy the people we love do not +know how much we must forgive them. +Oh the liberties they would take, the +things they would do, were it to be revealed +to them that their roots have gone +far too deep into our soil for us to disturb +them under any provocation whatsoever!</p> + +<p>George Borrow has to be forgiven a +great deal. The Appendix to <i>The Romany +Rye</i> contains an assault upon the memory +of Sir Walter Scott, of which every word +is a blow. It is savage, cruel, unjustifiable. +There is just enough of what base +men call truth in it, to make it one of the +most powerful bits of devil's advocacy ever +penned. Had another than Borrow writ<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>ten +thus of the good Sir Walter, some +men would travel far to spit upon his +tomb. Quick and easy would have been +his descent to the Avernus of oblivion. +His books, torn from the shelf, should +have long stood neglected in the shop of +the second-hand, till the hour came for +them to seek the stall, where, exposed to +wind and weather, they should dolefully +await the sack of the paper-merchant, +whose holy office it should be to mash +them into eternal pulp. But what rhodomontade +is this! No books are more, in +the vile phrase of the craft, 'esteemed' +than Borrow's. The prices demanded for +the early editions already impinge upon +the absurd, and are steadily rising. The +fact is, there is no use blinking it, mankind +cannot afford to quarrel with George Borrow, +and will not do so. It is bad enough +what he did, but when we remember that +whatever he had done, we must have forgiven +him all the same, it is just possible +to thank Heaven (feebly) that it was no +worse. He might have robbed a church!</p> + +<p>Borrow is indeed one of those lucky +men who, in Bagehot's happy phrase,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> +'keep their own atmosphere,' and as a consequence, +when in the destined hour the +born Borrovian—for men are born Borrovians, +not made—takes up a volume of +him, in ten minutes (unless it be <i>Wild +Wales</i>, and then twenty must be allowed) +the victory is won; down tumbles the +standard of Respectability which through +a virtuous and perhaps long life has braved +the battle and the breeze; up flutters the +lawless pennon of the Romany Chal, and +away skims the reader's craft over seas, +hitherto untravelled, in search of adventures, +manifold and marvellous, nor in +vain.</p> + +<p>If one was in search of a single epithet +most properly descriptive of Borrow's +effect upon his reader, perhaps it would +best be found in the word 'contagious.' +He is one of the most 'catching' of our +authors. The most inconsistent of men, +he compels those who are born subject to +his charm to share his inconsistencies. +He was an agent of the Bible Society, +and his extraordinary adventures in Spain +were encountered, so at least his title-page +would have us believe, in an attempt to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> +circulate the Scriptures in the Peninsula. +He was a sound Churchman, and would +have nothing to do with Dissent, even in +Wild Wales, but he had also a passion for +the ring. Mark his devastations. It is as +bad as the pestilence. A gentle lady, bred +amongst the Quakers, a hater of physical +force, with eyes brimful of mercy, was +lately heard to say, in heightened tones, +at a dinner-table, where the subject of +momentary conversation was a late prize-fight: +'Oh! pity was it that ever corruption +should have crept in amongst them.' +'Amongst whom?' inquired her immediate +neighbour. 'Amongst the bruisers of +England,' was the terrific rejoinder. Deep +were her blushes—and yet how easy to +forgive her! The gentle lady spoke as +one does in dreams; for, you must know, +she was born a Borrovian, and only that +afternoon had read for the first time the +famous twenty-fifth chapter of <i>Lavengro</i>:</p> + +<p>'But what a bold and vigorous aspect +pugilism wore at that time! And the +great battle was just then coming off; +the day had been decided upon, and the +spot—a convenient distance from the old<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> +town (Norwich); and to the old town were +now flocking the bruisers of England, men +of tremendous renown. Let no one sneer +at the bruisers of England; what were the +gladiators of Rome, or the bull-fighters of +Spain, in its palmiest days, compared to +England's bruisers? Pity that ever corruption +should have crept in amongst +them—but of that I wish not to talk. +There they come, the bruisers from far +London, or from wherever else they might +chance to be at the time, to the great rendezvous +in the old city; some came one +way, some another: some of tip-top reputation +came with peers in their chariots, +for glory and fame are such fair things +that even peers are proud to have those +invested therewith by their sides; others +came in their own gigs, driving their own +bits of blood; and I heard one say: "I +have driven through at a heat the whole +hundred and eleven miles, and only +stopped to bait twice!" Oh! the blood +horses of old England! but they too have +had their day—for everything beneath +the sun there is a season and a time.... +So the bruisers of England are come to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> +be present at the grand fight speedily +coming off; there they are met in the +precincts of the old town, near the field +of the chapel, planted with tender saplings +at the restoration of sporting Charles, +which are now become venerable elms, +as high as many a steeple; there they +are met at a fitting rendezvous, where a +retired coachman with one leg keeps an +hotel and a bowling-green. I think I now +see them upon the bowling-green, the men +of renown, amidst hundreds of people with +no renown at all, who gaze upon them +with timid wonder. Fame, after all, is a +glorious thing, though it lasts only for a +day. There's Cribb, the champion of +England, and perhaps the best man in +England—there he is, with his huge, +massive figure, and face wonderfully like +that of a lion. There is Belcher the +younger—not the mighty one, who is +gone to his place, but the Teucer Belcher, +the most scientific pugilist that ever entered +a ring, only wanting strength to be—I +won't say what.... But how shall +I name them all? They were there by +dozens, and all tremendous in their way.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> +There was Bulldog Hudson and fearless +Scroggins, who beat the conqueror of +Sam the Jew. There was Black Richmond—no, +he was not there, but I knew +him well. He was the most dangerous +of blacks, even with a broken thigh. +There was Purcell, who could never conquer +till all seemed over with him. There +was—what! shall I name thee last? Ay, +why not? I believe that thou art the last +of all that strong family still above the +sod, where may'st thou long continue—true +piece of English stuff, Tom of Bedford, +sharp as Winter, kind as Spring!'</p> + +<p>No wonder the gentle lady was undone. +It is as good as Homer.</p> + +<p>Diderot, it will be remembered, once +wrote a celebrated eulogium on Richardson, +which some have thought exaggerated, +because he says in it that, on the +happening of certain events, in themselves +improbable, he would keep <i>Clarissa</i> and +<i>Sir Charles</i> on the same shelf with the +writings of Moses, Homer, Euripides, and +Sophocles. Why a literary man should +not be allowed to arrange his library as he +chooses, without being exposed to so awful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> +a charge as that of exaggeration, it is hard +to say. But no doubt the whole eulogium +is pitched in too high a key for modern +ears; still, it contains sensible remarks, +amongst them this one: that he had observed +that in a company where the writings +of Richardson were being read, either +privately or aloud, the conversation became +at once interesting and animated. Books +cannot be subjected to a truer test. Will +they bear talking about? A parcel of +friends can talk about Borrow's books for +ever. The death of his father, as told in +the last chapter of <i>Lavengro</i>. Is there +anything of the kind more affecting in the +library? Somebody is almost sure to say, +'Yes, the death of Le Fevre in <i>Tristram +Shandy</i>.' A third, who always (provoking +creature) likes best what she read last, will +wax eloquent over the death of the little +princess in Tolstoi's great book. The +character-sketch of Borrow's elder brother, +the self-abnegating artist who declined to +paint the portrait of the Mayor of Norwich +because he thought a friend of his +could do it better, suggests De Quincey's +marvellous sketch of his elder brother.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> +And then, what about Benedict Moll, Joey +the dog-fancier of Westminster, and that +odious wretch the London publisher? You +had need to be a deaf mute to avoid taking +part in a conversation like this. Who was +Mary Fulcher? All the clocks in the parish +will have struck midnight before that +question has been answered. It is not to +take a gloomy view of the world to say +that there are few pleasanter things in it +than a good talk about George Borrow.</p> + +<p>For invalids and delicate persons leading +retired lives, there are no books like +Borrow's. Lassitude and Languor, horrid +hags, simply pick up their trailing skirts +and scuttle out of any room into which he +enters. They cannot abide him. A single +chapter of Borrow is air and exercise; +and, indeed, the exercise is not always gentle. +'I feel,' said an invalid, laying down +<i>The Bible in Spain</i>, as she spoke, upon the +counterpane, 'as if I had been gesticulating +violently for the space of two hours.' +She then sank into deep sleep, and is now +hale and hearty. Miss Martineau, in her +<i>Life in the Sick Room</i>, invokes a blessing +upon the head of Christopher North. But<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> +there were always those who refused to +believe in Miss Martineau's illness, and +certainly her avowed preference for the +man whom Macaulay in his wrath, writing +to Napier in Edinburgh, called 'your +grog-drinking, cock-fighting, cudgel-playing +Professor of Moral Philosophy,' is +calculated to give countenance to this unworthy +suspicion. It was an odd taste for +an invalid who, whilst craving for vigour, +must necessarily hate noise. Borrow is a +vigorous writer, Wilson a noisy one. It +was, however, his <i>Recreations</i> and not the +<i>Noctes Ambrosianæ</i>, that Miss Martineau +affected. Still the <i>Recreations</i> are noisy +too, and Miss Martineau must find her best +excuse, and I am determined to find an +excuse for her—for did she not write the +<i>Feats on the Fiord</i>?—in the fact, that +when she wrote her <i>Life in the Sick Room</i> +(a dear little book to read when in rude +health), Borrow had published nothing of +note. Had he done so, she would have +been of my way of thinking.</p> + +<p>How much of Borrow is true and how +much is false, is one of those questions +which might easily set all mankind by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> +ears, but for the pleasing circumstance +that it does not matter a dump. Few +things are more comical than to hear some +douce body, unread in Borrow, gravely inquiring +how far his word may be relied +upon. The sole possible response takes +the exceptionable shape of loud peals of +laughter. And yet, surely, it is a most +reasonable question, or query, as the +Scotch say. So it is; but after you have +read your author you won't ask it—you +won't want to. The reader can believe +what he likes, and as much as he likes. +In the old woman on London Bridge and +her convict son, in the man in black (how +unlike Goldsmith's!), in the <i>Flaming Tinman</i>, +in Ursula, the wife of Sylvester. +There is but one person in whom you +must believe, every hour of the day and of +the night, else are you indeed unworthy—you +must believe in Isopel Berners. A +stranger and more pathetic figure than she +is not to be seen flitting about in the great +shadow-dance men call their life. Born +and bred though she was in a workhouse, +where she learnt to read and sew, fear +God, and take her own part, a nobler, more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> +lovable woman never crossed man's path. +Her introduction to her historian was +quaint. 'Before I could put myself on +my guard, she struck me a blow on the +face, which had nearly brought me to the +ground.' Alas, poor Isopel! Borrow returned +the blow, a deadlier, fiercer blow, +aimed not at the face but at the heart. +Of their life in the Dingle let no man +speak; it must be read in the last chapters +of <i>Lavengro</i>, and the early ones of +<i>The Romany Rye</i>. Borrow was certainly +irritating. One longs to shake him. He +was what children call 'a tease.' He +teased poor Isopel with his confounded +philology. Whether he simply made a mistake, +or whether the girl was right in her +final surmise, that he was 'at the root mad,' +who can say? He offered her his hand, +but at too late a stage in the proceedings. +Isopel Berners left the Dingle to go to +America, and we hear of her no more. +That she lived to become a happy 'housemother,' +and to start a line of brave men +and chaste women, must be the prayer of +all who know what it is to love a woman +they have never seen. Of the strange<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> +love-making that went on in the Dingle +no idea can or ought to be given save +from the original.</p> + +<p>'Thereupon I descended into the Dingle. +Belle was sitting before the fire, at which +the kettle was boiling. "Were you waiting +for me?" I inquired. "Yes," said +Belle, "I thought you would come, and +I waited for you." "That was very +kind," said I. "Not half so kind," said +she, "as it was of you to get everything +ready for me in the dead of last night, +when there was scarcely a chance of my +coming." The tea-things were brought +forward, and we sat down. "Have you +been far?" said Belle. "Merely to +that public-house," said I, "to which +you directed me on the second day of +our acquaintance." "Young men should +not make a habit of visiting public-houses," +said Belle; "they are bad +places." "They may be so to some +people," said I, "but I do not think the +worst public-house in England could do +me any harm." "Perhaps you are so +bad already," said Belle with a smile, +"that it would be impossible to spoil<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> +you." "How dare you catch at my +words?" said I; "come, I will make +you pay for doing so—you shall have +this evening the longest lesson in +Armenian which I have yet inflicted +upon you." "You may well say inflicted," +said Belle, "but pray spare +me. I do not wish to hear anything +about Armenian, especially this evening." +"Why this evening?" said I. +Belle made no answer. "I will not spare +you," said I; "this evening I intend to +make you conjugate an Armenian verb." +"Well, be it so," said Belle, "for this +evening you shall command." "To +command is hramahyel," said I. "Ram +her ill indeed," said Belle, "I do not +wish to begin with that." "No," said +I, "as we have come to the verbs we will +begin regularly: hramahyel is a verb of +the second conjugation. We will begin +with the first." "First of all, tell me," +said Belle, "what a verb is?" "A part +of speech," said I, "which, according to +the dictionary, signifies some action or +passion; for example, 'I command you, +or I hate you.'" "I have given you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> +no cause to hate me," said Belle, looking +me sorrowfully in the face.</p> + +<p>'"I was merely giving two examples," +said I, "and neither was directed at you. +In those examples, to command and +hate are verbs. Belle, in Armenian +there are four conjugations of verbs; +the first ends in al, the second in yel, +the third in oul, and the fourth in il. +Now, have you understood me?"</p> + +<p>'"I am afraid, indeed, it will all end ill," +said Belle. "Hold your tongue!" said +I, "or you will make me lose my patience." +"You have already made me +nearly lose mine," said Belle. "Let us +have no unprofitable interruptions," said +I. "The conjugations of the Armenian +verbs are neither so numerous nor so +difficult as the declensions of the nouns. +Hear that and rejoice. Come, we will +begin with the verb hntal, a verb of the +first conjugation, which signifies to rejoice. +Come along: hntam, I rejoice; +hyntas, thou rejoicest. Why don't you +follow, Belle?"</p> + +<p>'"I am sure I don't rejoice, whatever +you may do," said Belle. "The chief<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> +difficulty, Belle," said I, "that I find in +teaching you the Armenian grammar +proceeds from your applying to yourself +and me every example I give. Rejoice, +in this instance, is merely an +example of an Armenian verb of the +first conjugation, and has no more to +do with your rejoicing than lal, which is +also a verb of the first conjugation, and +which signifies to weep, would have to +do with your weeping, provided I made +you conjugate it. Come along: hntam, +I rejoice; hntas, thou rejoicest; hnta, +he rejoices; hntamk, we rejoice. Now +repeat those words." "I can't bear +this much longer," said Belle. "Keep +yourself quiet," said I. "I wish to be +gentle with you, and to convince you, +we will skip hntal, and also, for the +present, verbs of the first conjugation, +and proceed to the second. Belle, I +will now select for you to conjugate the +prettiest verb in Armenian, not only of +the second, but also of all the four conjugations. +That verb is siriel. Here +is the present tense: siriem, siries, +sire, siriemk, sirèk, sirien. Come on,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> +Belle, and say siriem." Belle hesitated. +"Pray oblige me, Belle, by saying +siriem." Belle still appeared to +hesitate. "You must admit, Belle, that +it is softer than hntam." "It is so," +said Belle, "and to oblige you I will say +siriem." "Very well indeed, Belle," +said I, "and now to show you how +verbs act upon pronouns in Armenian, +I will say siriem zkiez. Please to repeat +siriem zkiez." "Siriem zkiez," said +Belle; "that last word is very hard to +say." "Sorry that you think so, Belle," +said I. "Now, please to say siriá zis." +Belle did so. "Exceedingly well," said +I. "Now say girani thè sireir zis." +"Girane thè sireir zis," said Belle. "Capital!" +said I. "You have now said I +love you—love me. Ah! would that +you would love me!"</p> + +<p>'"And I have said all these things?" +said Belle. "Yes," said I. "You have +said them in Armenian." "I would +have said them in no language that I +understood," said Belle. "And it was +very wrong of you to take advantage of +my ignorance, and make me say such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> +things!" "Why so?" said I. "If you +said them, I said them too."'</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘Was ever woman in this humour wooed?’<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It is, I believe, the opinion of the best +critics that <i>The Bible in Spain</i> is Borrow's +masterpiece. It very likely is so. At the +present moment I feel myself even more +than usually disqualified for so grave a consideration +by my over-powering delight in +its dear, deluding title. A quarter of a +century ago, in all decent homes, a boy's +reading was, by the stern decree of his +elders, divided rigorously, though at the +same time it must be admitted crudely, +into Sunday books and week-day books. +'What have you got there?' has before +now been an inquiry addressed on a Sunday +afternoon to some youngster, suspiciously +engrossed in a book. 'Oh, <i>The +Bible in Spain</i>,' would be the reply. 'It +is written by a Mr. Borrow, you know, and +it is all about'—(then the title-page would +serve its turn) 'his attempts "to circulate +the Scriptures in the Peninsula!"' 'Indeed! +Sounds most suitable,' answers +the gulled authority, some foolish sisters'-governess<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span></p> + +<p>or the like illiterate, and moves +off. And then the happy boy would wriggle +in his chair, and, as if thirsting to taste the +first fruits of his wile, hastily seek out a +streaky page, and there read, for perhaps +the hundredth time, the memorable words:</p> + +<p>'"Good are the horses of the Moslems," +said my old friend; "where will you find +such? They will descend rocky mountains +at full speed, and neither trip nor +fall; but you must be cautious with the +horses of the Moslems, and treat them +with kindness, for the horses of the Moslems +are proud, and they like not being +slaves. When they are young and first +mounted, jerk not their mouths with +your bit, for be sure if you do, they will +kill you; sooner or later, you will perish +beneath their feet. Good are our horses, +and good our riders. Yea, very good +are the Moslems at mounting the horse; +who are like them? I once saw a Frank +rider compete with a Moslem on this +beach, and at first the Frank rider had +it all his own way and he passed the +Moslem, but the course was long, very +long, and the horse of the Frank rider,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> +which was a Frank horse also, panted; +but the horse of the Moslem panted not, +for he was a Moslem also, and the Moslem +rider at last gave a cry, and the +horse sprang forward and he overtook +the Frank horse, and then the Moslem +rider stood up in his saddle. How did +he stand? Truly he stood on his head, +and these eyes saw him; he stood on his +head in the saddle as he passed the Frank +rider; and he cried ha! ha! as he passed +the Frank rider; and the Moslem horse +cried ha! ha! as he passed the Frank +breed, and the Frank lost by a far distance. +Good are the Franks, good their +horses; but better are the Moslems, and +better the horses of the Moslems."'</p> + +<p>That boy, as he lay curled up in his +chair, doting over the enchanted page, +knew full well, else had he been no Christian +boy, that it was not a Sunday book +which was making his eyes start out of +his head; yet, reckless, he cried, 'ha! ha!' +and read on, and as he read he blessed the +madcap Borrow for having called his romance +by the sober-sounding, propitiatory +title of <i>The Bible in Spain</i>!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘Creeds pass, rites change, no altar standeth whole.’<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>In a world of dust and ashes it is a +foolish thing to prophesy immortality, or +even a long term of years, for any fellow-mortal. +Good luck does not usually pursue +such predictions. England can boast +few keener, better-qualified critics than +that admirable woman, Mrs. Barbauld, or, +not to dock her of her accustomed sizings, +Mrs. Anna Lætitia Barbauld. And yet +what do we find her saying? 'The young +may melt into tears at <i>Julia Mandeville</i>, +and <i>The Man of Feeling</i>, the romantic +will shudder at <i>Udolpho</i>, but those of +mature age who know what human nature +is, will take up again and again Dr. +Moore's <i>Zeluco</i>.' One hates to contradict +a lady like Mrs. Barbauld, or to speak in +terms of depreciation of any work of Mrs. +Radcliffe's, whose name is still as a pleasant +savour in the nostrils; therefore I will +let <i>Udolpho</i> alone. As for Henry Mackenzie's +<i>Man of Feeling</i>, what was good +enough for Sir Walter Scott ought surely +to be good enough for us, most days. I +am no longer young, and cannot therefore +be expected to melt into tears at <i>Julia</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> +<i>Mandeville</i>, but here my toleration is exhausted. +Dr. Moore's <i>Zeluco</i> is too much; +maturity has many ills to bear, but repeated +perusals of this work cannot fairly +be included amongst them.</p> + +<p>Still, though prediction is to be avoided, +it is impossible to feel otherwise than very +cheerful about George Borrow. His is a +good life. Anyhow, he will outlive most +people, and that at all events is a comfort.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CARDINAL_NEWMAN" id="CARDINAL_NEWMAN"></a>CARDINAL NEWMAN<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span></h2> + +<p class="center">I</p> + + +<p>There are some men whose names are +inseparably and exclusively associated with +movements; there are others who are for +ever united in human memories with places; +it is the happy fortune of the distinguished +man whose name is at the top of this page +to be able to make good both titles to an +estate in our minds and hearts; for whilst +his fierce intellectual energy made him +the leader of a great movement, his rare +and exquisite tenderness has married his +name to a lovely place. Whenever men's +thoughts dwell upon the revival of Church +authority in England and America during +this century, they will recall the Vicar of +St. Mary's, Oxford, who lived to become a +Cardinal of Rome, and whenever the lover +of all things that are quiet, and gentle, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> +true in life, and literature, visits Oxford he +will find himself wondering whether snap-dragon +still grows outside the windows of +the rooms in Trinity, where once lived the +author of the <i>Apologia</i>.</p> + +<p>The Rev. John Wesley was a distinguished +man, if ever there was one, and his +name is associated with a movement certainly +as remarkable as, and a great deal +more useful than, the one connected with +the name of Newman. Wesley's great +missionary tours in Devon and Cornwall, +and the wild, remote parts of Lancashire, +lack no single element of sublimity. To +this day the memories of those apostolic +journeys are green and precious, and a +source of strength and joy: the portrait +of the eager preacher hangs up in almost +every miner's cottage, whilst his name is +pronounced with reverence by a hundred +thousand lips. 'You seem a very temperate +people here,' once observed a thirsty pedestrian +(who was, indeed, none other than the +present writer) to a Cornish miner, 'how +did it happen?' He replied solemnly, +raising his cap, 'There came a man amongst +us once, and his name was John Wesley.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> +Wesley was an Oxford man, but he is not +much in men's thoughts as they visit that +city of enchantment. Why is this? It is +because, great as Wesley was, he lacked +charm. As we read his diaries and letters, +we are interested, we are moved, but we +are not pleased. Now, Oxford pleases and +charms. Therefore it is, that when we +allow ourselves a day in her quadrangles +we find ourselves thinking of Dr. Newman, +and his Trinity snap-dragon, and how the +Rev. William James, 'some time in the year +1823,' taught him the doctrine of Apostolic +Succession in the course of a walk +round Christchurch Meadow, rather than +of Wesley and his prayer-meetings at Lincoln, +which were proclaimed by the authorities +as savouring of sedition.</p> + +<p>A strong personal attachment of the kind +which springs up from reading an author, +which is distilled through his pages, and +turns his foibles, even his follies, into pleasant +things we would not for the world have +altered, is apt to cause the reader, who is +thus affected, to exaggerate the importance +of any intellectual movement with which +the author happened to be associated.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> +There are, I know, people who think this +is notably so in Dr. Newman's case. Crusty +men are to be met with, who rudely say they +have heard enough of the Oxford movement, +and that the time is over for penning ecstatic +paragraphs about Dr. Newman's personal +appearance in the pulpit at St. Mary's. I +think these crusty people are wrong. The +movement was no doubt an odd one in +some of its aspects—it wore a very academic +air indeed; and to be academic is to +be ridiculous, in the opinion of many. Our +great Northern towns lived their grimy +lives amidst the whirl of their machinery, +quite indifferent to the movement. Our +huge Nonconformist bodies knew no more +of the University of Oxford in those days, +than they did of the University of Tübingen. +This movement sent no missionaries +to the miners, and its tracts were not of +the kind that are served suddenly upon you +in the streets like legal process, but were, +in fact, bulky treatises stuffed full of the +dead languages. London, of course, heard +about the movement, and, so far as she was +not tickled by the comicality of the notion +of anything really important happening<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> +outside her cab-radius, was irritated by it. +Mr. Henry Rogers poked heavy fun at it +in the <i>Edinburgh Review</i>. Mr. Isaac Taylor +wrote two volumes to prove that ancient +Christianity was a drivelling and childish superstition, +and in the opinion of some pious +Churchmen succeeded in doing so. But +for the most part people left the movement +alone, unless they happened to be Bishops +or very clerically connected. 'The bishops,' +says Dr. Newman, 'began charging against +us.' But bishops' charges are amongst the +many seemingly important things that do +not count in England. It is said to be the +duty of an archdeacon to read his bishop's +charge, but it is undoubted law that a mandamus +will not be granted to compel him to +do so.</p> + +<p>But notwithstanding this aspect of the +case, it was a genuine thought-movement +in propagating which these long-coated +parsons, with their dry jokes, strange +smiles, and queer notions were engaged. +They used to drive about the country in +gigs, from one parsonage to another, and +leave their tracts behind them. They were +not concerned with the flocks—their message +was to the shepherds. As for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> +Dissenters, they had nothing to say to +them, except that their very presence in +a parish was a plenary argument for the +necessity of the movement.</p> + +<p>The Tractarians met with the usual fortune +of those who peddle new ideas. Some +rectors did not want to be primitive—more +did not know what it meant; but enough +were found pathetically anxious to read a +meaning into their services and offices, to +make it plain that the Tracts really were +'for' and not 'against' the times.</p> + +<p>The great plot, plan, or purpose, call it +what you will, of the Tractarian movement +was to make Churchmen believe with a personal +conviction that the Church of England +was not a mere National Institution, like the +House of Commons or the game of cricket, +but a living branch of that Catholic Church +which God had from the beginning, endowed +with sacramental gifts and graces, +with a Priesthood apostolically descended, +with a Creed, precise and specific, which it +was the Church's duty to teach, and man's +to believe, and with a ritual and discipline +to be practised and maintained, with daily +piety and entire submission.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span></p> + +<p>These were new ideas in 1833. When +Dr. Newman was ordained in 1824, he has +told us, he did not look on ordination as a +sacramental rite, nor did he ascribe to baptism +any supernatural virtue.</p> + +<p>It cannot be denied that the Tractarians +had their work before them. But they had +forces on their side.</p> + +<p>It is always pleasant to rediscover the +meaning of words and forms which have +been dulled by long usage. This is why +etymology is so fascinating. By the natural +bent of our minds we are lovers of whatever +things are true and real. We hanker +after facts. To get a grip of reality is a +pleasure so keen—most of our faith is so +desperate a 'make-believe,' that it is not to +be wondered at that pious folk should have +been found who rejoiced to be told that +what they had been saying and doing all +the years of their lives really had a meaning +and a history of its own. One would have +to be very unsympathetic not to perceive +that the time we are speaking of must have +been a very happy one for many a devout +soul. The dry bones lived—formal devotions +were turned into joyous acts of faith<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> +and piety. The Church became a Living +Witness to the Truth. She could be interrogated—she +could answer. The old +calendar was revived, and Saint's Day followed +Saint's Day, and season season, in +the sweet procession of the Christian Year. +Pretty girls got up early, made the sign of +the Cross, and, unscared by devils, tripped +across the dewy meadows to Communion. +Grave men read the Fathers, and found +themselves at home in the Fourth Century.</p> + +<p>A great writer had, so it appears, all +unconsciously prepared the way for this +Neo-Catholicism. Dr. Newman has never +forgotten to pay tribute to Sir Walter +Scott.</p> + +<p>Sir Walter's work has proved to be of so +permanent a character, his insight into all +things Scotch so deep and true, and his +human worth and excellence so rare and +noble, that it has hardly been worth while +to remember the froth and effervescence +he at first occasioned; but that he did +create a movement in the Oxford direction +is certain. He made the old Catholic +times interesting. He was not indeed, like +the Tractarians, a man of 'primitive' mind;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> +but he was romantic, and it all told. For +this we have the evidence not only of Dr. +Newman (a very nice observer), but also +of the delightful, the bewitching, the never +sufficiently-to-be-praised George Borrow—Borrow, +the Friend of Man, at whose bidding +lassitude and languor strike their +tents and flee; and health and spirits, adventure +and human comradeship, take up +the reins of life, whistle to the horses, and +away you go!</p> + +<p>Borrow has indeed, in the Appendix to +the <i>Romany Rye</i>, written of Sir Walter +after a fashion for which I hope he has +been forgiven. A piece of invective more +terrible, more ungenerous, more savagely +and exultingly cruel, is nowhere to be +found. I shudder when I think of it. Had +another written it, nothing he ever wrote +should be in the same room with the +<i>Heart of Midlothian</i>, <i>Redgauntlet</i>, and +<i>The Antiquary</i>. I am not going to get +angry with George Borrow. I say at once—I +cannot afford it. But neither am I +going to quote from the Appendix. God +forbid! I can find elsewhere what will +suit my purpose just as well. Readers of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> +<i>Lavengro</i> will remember the Man in +Black. It is hard to forget him, the scandalous +creature, or his story of the ironmonger's +daughter at Birmingham 'who +screeches to the piano the Lady of the +Lake's hymn to the Virgin Mary, always +weeps when Mary Queen of Scots is mentioned, +and fasts on the anniversary of +the death of that very wise martyr, +Charles I. Why, said the Man in Black, +I would engage to convert such an idiot +to popery in a week, were it worth my +trouble. O Cavaliere Gualtereo, avete +fatto molto in favore della Santa Sede.'</p> + +<p>Another precursor was Coleridge, who +(amongst other things) called attention to +the writings of the earlier Anglican divines—some +of whom were men of primitive +tempers and Catholic aspirations. Andrews +and Laud, Jackson, Bull, Hammond +and Thorndyke—sound divines to a man—found +the dust brushed off them. The +second-hand booksellers, a wily and observant +race, became alive to the fact that +though Paley and Warburton, Horsley and +Hoadley, were not worth the brown paper +they came wrapped up in, seventeenth-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>century +theology would bear being marked +high.</p> + +<p>Thus was the long Polar Winter that had +befallen Anglican theology broken up, and +the icebergs began moving about after a +haphazard and even dangerous fashion—but +motion is always something.</p> + +<p>What has come to the Movement? It +is hard to say. Its great leader has written +a book of fascinating interest to prove that +it was not a genuine Anglican movement +at all; that it was foreign to the National +Church, and that neither was its life derived +from, nor was its course in the direction of, +the National Church. But this +was after he himself had joined the Church +of Rome. Nobody, however, ventured to +contradict him, nor is this surprising when +we remember the profusion of argument +and imagery with which he supported his +case.</p> + +<p>A point was reached, and then things +were allowed to drop. The Church of +Rome received some distinguished converts +with her usual well-bred composure, and +gave them little things to do in their new +places. The Tracts for the Times, neatly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> +bound, repose on many shelves. Tract +No. 90, that fierce bomb-shell which once +scattered confusion through clerical circles, +is perhaps the only bit of Dr. Newman's +writing one does not, on thinking of, wish +to sit down at once to re-read. The fact +is that the movement, as a movement with +a terminus <i>ad quem</i>, was fairly beaten by a +power fit to be matched with Rome herself—John +Bullism. John Bull could not be +got to assume a Catholic demeanour. When +his judges denied that the grace of Baptism +was a dogma of his faith, Bull, instead of +behaving as did the people of Milan when +Ambrose was persecuted by an Arian Government, +was hugely pleased, clapped his +thigh, and exclaimed, through the mouth of +Lord John Russell, that the ruling was +'sure to give general satisfaction,' as indeed +it did.</p> + +<p>The work of the movement can still be +seen in the new spirit that has descended +upon the Church of England and in the +general heightening of Church principles; +but the movement itself is no longer to be +seen, or much of the temper or modes of +thought of the Tractarians. The High<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> +Church clergyman of to-day is no Theologian—he +is an Opportunist. The Tractarian +took his stand upon Antiquity—he +laboured his points, he was always ready to +prove his Rule of Faith and to define his +position. His successor, though he has +appropriated the results of the struggle, +does not trouble to go on waging it. He +is as a rule no great reader—you may often +search his scanty library in vain for the +works of Bishop Jackson. Were you to +ask for them, it is quite possible he would +not know to what bishop of that name you +were referring. He is as hazy about the +Hypostatic Union as are many laymen +about the Pragmatic Sanction. He is all +for the People and for filling his Church. +The devouring claims of the Church of +Rome do not disturb his peace of mind. +He thinks it very rude of her to dispute +the validity of his orders—but, then, +foreigners are rude! And so he goes on +his hard-working way, with his high doctrines +and his early services, and has neither +time nor inclination for those studies that +lend support to his priestly pretensions.</p> + +<p>This temper of mind has given us peace<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> +in our time, and has undoubtedly promoted +the cause of Temperance and other good +works; but some day or another the old +questions will have to be gone into again, +and the Anglican claim to be a Church, +Visible, Continuous, Catholic, and Gifted, +investigated—probably for the last time.</p> + +<p>Cynics may declare that it will be but a +storm in a teacup—a dispute in which +none but 'women, priests, and peers' will +be called upon to take part—but it is not +an obviously wise policy to be totally indifferent +to what other people are thinking +about—simply because your own thoughts +are running in other directions.</p> + +<p>But all this is really no concern of mine. +My object is to call attention to Dr. Newman's +writings from a purely literary point +of view.</p> + +<p>The charm of Dr. Newman's style necessarily +baffles description: as well might +one seek to analyse the fragrance of a +flower, or to expound in words the jumping +of one's heart when a beloved friend unexpectedly +enters the room. It is hard to +describe charm. Mr. Matthew Arnold, +who is a poet, gets near it:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘And what but gentleness untired,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And what but noble feeling warm,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wherever seen, howe'er inspired,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is grace, is charm?’<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>One can of course heap on words. Dr. Newman's +style is pellucid, it is animated, it is +varied; at times icy cold, it oftener glows +with a fervent heat; it employs as its obedient +and well-trained servant, a vast vocabulary, +and it does so always with the ease +of the educated gentleman, who by a sure +instinct ever avoids alike the ugly pedantry +of the book-worm, the forbidding accents +of the lawyer, and the stiff conceit of the +man of scientific theory. Dr. Newman's +sentences sometimes fall upon the ear like +well-considered and final judgments, each +word being weighed and counted out with +dignity and precision; but at other times +the demeanour and language of the judge +are hastily abandoned, and, substituted for +them, we encounter the impetuous torrent—the +captivating rhetoric, the brilliant +imagery, the frequent examples, the repetition +of the same idea in different words, of +the eager and accomplished advocate addressing +men of like passions with himself.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span></p> + +<p>Dr. Newman always aims at effect, and +never misses it. He writes as an orator +speaks, straight at you. His object is to convince, +and to convince by engaging your attention, +exciting your interest, enlivening +your fancy. It is not his general practice to +address the pure reason. He knows (he well +may) how little reason has to do with men's +convictions. 'I do not want,' he says, 'to +be converted by a smart syllogism.' In +another place he observes: 'The heart is +commonly reached not through the reason—but +through the imagination by means +of direct impressions, by the testimony of +facts and events, by history and by description. +Persons influence us, voices +melt us, books subdue us, deeds inflame +us.' I have elsewhere ventured upon a +comparison between Burke and Newman. +Both men, despite their subtlety and learning +and super-refinement, their love of fine +points and their splendid capacity for stating +them in language so apt as to make +one's admiration breathless, took very +broad, common-sense, matter-of-fact views +of humanity, and ever had the ordinary +man and woman in mind as they spoke<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> +and wrote. Politics and Religion existed +in their opinion, for the benefit of plain +folk, for Richard and for Jane, or, in other +words, for living bundles of hopes and +fears, doubts and certainties, prejudices and +passions. Anarchy and Atheism are in +their opinion the two great enemies of the +Human Race. How are they to be frustrated +and confounded, men and women +being what they are? Dr. Newman, recluse +though he is, has always got the world +stretched out before him; its unceasing +roar sounds in his ear as does the murmur +of ocean in the far inland shell. In one of +his Catholic Sermons, the sixth of his Discourses +to Mixed Congregations, there is a +gorgeous piece of rhetoric in which he describes +the people looking in at the shop-windows +and reading advertisements in the +newspapers. Many of his pages positively +glow with light and heat and colour. One +is at times reminded of Fielding. And all +this comparing, and distinguishing, and illustrating, +and appealing, and describing, +is done with the practised hand of a consummate +writer and orator. He is as +subtle as Gladstone, and as moving as Ers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span>kine; +but whereas Gladstone is occasionally +clumsy and Erskine is frequently +crude, Newman is never clumsy, Newman +is never crude, but always graceful, always +mellowed.</p> + +<p>Humour he possesses in a marked degree. +A quiet humour, of course, as befits +his sober profession and the gravity of the +subjects on which he loves to discourse. +It is not the humour that is founded on +a lively sense of the incongruous. This +kind, though the most delightful of all, is +apt, save in the hands of the great masters, +the men whom you can count upon your +fingers, to wear a slightly professional +aspect. It happens unexpectedly, but all +the same we expect it to happen, and we +have got our laughter ready. Newman's +quiet humour always takes us unawares, +and is accepted gratefully, partly on account +of its intrinsic excellence, and partly +because we are glad to find that the</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘Pilgrim pale with Paul's sad girdle bound’<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>has room for mirth in his heart.</p> + +<p>In sarcasm Dr. Newman is pre-eminent. +Here his extraordinary powers of compres<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span>sion, +which are little short of marvellous +in one who has also such a talent for +expansion, come to his aid and enable him +to squeeze into a couple of sentences, +pleadings, argument, judgment, and execution. +Had he led the secular life, and +adopted a Parliamentary career, he would +have been simply terrific, for his weapons +of offence are both numerous and deadly. +His sentences stab—his invective destroys. +The pompous high-placed imbecile +mouthing his platitudes, the wordy sophister +with his oven full of half-baked +thoughts, the ill-bred rhetorician with his +tawdry aphorisms, the heartless hate-producing +satirist, would have gone down +before his sword and spear. But God was +merciful to these sinners: Newman became +a Priest and they Privy Councillors.</p> + +<p>And lastly, all these striking qualities +and gifts float about in a pleasant atmosphere. +As there are some days even in +England when merely to go out and breathe +the common air is joy, and when, in consequence, +that grim tyrant, our bosom's +lord</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘Sits lightly in his throne,’<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span></p> +<p>so, to take up almost any one of Dr. Newman's +books, and they are happily numerous—between +twenty and thirty volumes—is +to be led away from 'evil tongues,' +and the 'sneers of selfish men,' from the +mud and the mire, the shoving and pushing +that gather and grow round the pig-troughs +of life, into a diviner ether, a purer +air, and is to spend your time in the company +of one who, though he may sometimes +astonish, yet never fails to make +you feel (to use Carlyle's words about a +very different author), 'that you have +passed your evening well and nobly, as +in a temple of wisdom, not ill and disgracefully +as in brawling tavern supper-rooms +with fools and noisy persons.'</p> + +<p>The tendency to be egotistical noticeable +in some persons who are free from the +faintest taint of egotism is a tendency hard +to account for—but delightful to watch.</p> + +<p>'Anything,' says glorious John Dryden, +'though ever so little, which a man speaks +of himself—in my opinion, is still too +much.' A sound opinion most surely, +and yet how interesting are the personal +touches we find scattered up and down<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> +Dryden's noble prefaces. So with Newman—his +dignity, his self-restraint, his +taste, are all the greatest stickler for a stiff +upper lip and the consumption of your own +smoke could desire, and yet the personal +note is frequently sounded. He is never +afraid to strike it when the perfect harmony +that exists between his character +and his style demands its sound, and so it +has come about that we love what he has +written because he wrote it, and we love +him who wrote it because of what he has +written.</p> + +<p>I now approach by far the pleasantest +part of my task, namely, the selection of +two or three passages from Dr. Newman's +books by way of illustrating what I have +taken the liberty to say are notable characteristics +of his style.</p> + +<p>Let me begin with a chance specimen +of the precision of his language. The passage +is from the prefatory notice the Cardinal +prefixed to the Rev. William Palmer's +<i>Notes of a Visit to the Russian Church in +the Years 1840, 1841</i>. It is dated 1882, +and is consequently the writing of a man +over eighty years of age: 'William Palmer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> +was one of those earnest-minded and devout +men, forty years since, who, deeply +convinced of the great truth that our +Lord had instituted, and still acknowledges +and protects, a Visible Church—one, +individual, and integral; Catholic, +as spread over the earth, Apostolic, as +coeval with the Apostles of Christ, and +Holy, as being the dispenser of His Word +and Sacraments—considered it at present +to exist in three main branches, or +rather in a triple presence, the Latin, the +Greek, and the Anglican, these three +being one and the same Church distinguishable +from each other by secondary, +fortuitous, and local, though important +characteristics. And whereas the whole +Church in its fulness was, as they believed, +at once and severally Anglican, +Greek, and Latin, so in turn each one +of those three was the whole Church; +whence it followed that, whenever any +one of the three was present, the other +two, by the nature of the case, was absent, +and therefore the three could not have +direct relations with each other, as if they +were three substantive bodies, there being<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> +no real difference between them except +the external accident of place. Moreover, +since, as has been said, on a given +territory there could not be more than +one of the three, it followed that Christians +generally, wherever they were, were +bound to recognise, and had a claim to be +recognised by that one; ceasing to belong +to the Anglican Church, as Anglican, +when they were at Rome, and ignoring +Rome, as Rome, when they found themselves +at Moscow. Lastly, not to acknowledge +this inevitable outcome of the +initial idea of the Church, viz., that it was +both everywhere and one, was bad logic, +and to act in opposition to it was nothing +short of setting up altar against altar, +that is, the hideous sin of schism, and a +sacrilege. This I conceive to be the formal +teaching of Anglicanism.'</p> + +<p>The most carefully considered judgments +of Lord Westbury or Lord Cairns +may be searched in vain for finer examples +of stern accuracy and beautiful aptness of +language.</p> + +<p>For examples of what may be called +Newman's oratorical rush, one has not far<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> +to look—though when torn from their +context and deprived of their conclusion +they are robbed of three-fourths of their +power. Here is a passage from his second +lecture addressed to the Anglican Party +of 1833. It is on the Life of the National +Church of England.</p> + +<p>'Doubtless the National religion is alive. +It is a great power in the midst of us, it +wields an enormous influence; it represses +a hundred foes; it conducts a +hundred undertakings; it attracts men to +it, uses them, rewards them; it has thousands +of beautiful homes up and down +the country where quiet men may do its +work and benefit its people; it collects +vast sums in the shape of voluntary offerings, +and with them it builds Churches, +prints and distributes innumerable Bibles, +books, and tracts, and sustains missionaries +in all parts of the earth. In all +parts of the earth it opposes the Catholic +Church, denounces her as anti-christian, +bribes the world against her, obstructs +her influence, apes her authority, and +confuses her evidence. In all parts of +the world it is the religion of gentlemen,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> +of scholars, of men of substance, and +men of no personal faith at all. If this +be life, if it be life to impart a tone to +the Court and Houses of Parliament, to +Ministers of State, to law and literature, +to universities and schools, and to society, +if it be life to be a principle of order +in the population, and an organ of benevolence +and almsgiving towards the poor, +if it be life to make men decent, respectable, +and sensible, to embellish and reform +the family circle, to deprive vice of +its grossness and to shed a glow over +avarice and ambition; if, indeed, it is the +life of religion to be the first jewel in the +Queen's crown, and the highest step of +her throne, then doubtless the National +Church is replete, it overflows with life; +but the question has still to be answered: +life of what kind?'</p> + +<p>For a delightful example of Dr. Newman's +humour, which is largely, if not entirely, +a playful humour, I will remind the +reader of the celebrated imaginary speech +against the British Constitution attributed +to 'a member of the junior branch of the +Potemkin family,' and supposed to have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> +been delivered at Moscow in the year 1850. +It is too long for quotation, but will be +found in the first of the <i>Lectures on the +Present Position of Catholics in England</i>. +The whole book is one of the best humoured +books in the English language.</p> + +<p>Of his sarcasm, the following example, +well-known as it is, must be given. It +occurs in the <i>Essay on the Prospects of the +Anglican Church</i>, which is reprinted from +the <i>British Critic</i> in the first volume of +the <i>Essays Critical and Historical</i>.</p> + +<p>'In the present day mistiness is the +mother of wisdom. A man who can set +down half a dozen general propositions, +which escape from destroying one another +only by being diluted into truisms, who +can hold the balance between opposites +so skilfully as to do without fulcrum or +beam, who never enunciates a truth without +guarding himself from being supposed +to exclude the contradictory, who holds +that Scripture is the only authority—yet +that the Church is to be deferred to, that +faith only justifies, yet that it does not +justify without works, that grace does not +depend on the sacraments, yet is not given<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> +without them, that bishops are a divine +ordinance—yet those who have them +not are in the same religious condition as +those who have—this is your safe man +and the hope of the Church; this is what +the Church is said to want, not party +men, but sensible, temperate, sober, well-judging +persons to guide it through the +channel of No-meaning, between the Scylla +and Charybdis of Aye and No. But, +alas! reading sets men thinking. They +will not keep standing in that very attitude, +which you please to call sound +Church-of-Englandism or orthodox Protestantism. +It tires them, it is so very +awkward, and for the life of them—they +cannot continue in it long together, where +there is neither article nor canon to lean +against—they cannot go on for ever standing +on one leg, or sitting without a chair, +or walking with their legs tied, or grazing +like Tityrus's stags on the air. Promises +imply conclusions—germs lead to developments; +principles have issues; doctrines +lead to action.'</p> + +<p>Of the personal note to which I have +made reference—no examples need or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> +should be given. Such things must not +be transplanted from their own homes.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘The delicate shells lay on the shore;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The bubbles of the latest wave<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fresh pearl to their enamel gave;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the bellowing of the savage sea<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Greeted their safe escape to me.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I wiped away the weeds and foam<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And brought my sea-born treasures home:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But the poor, unsightly noisome things<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Had left their beauty on the shore,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the sun and the sand and the wild uproar.’<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>If I may suppose this paper read by +someone who is not yet acquainted with +Newman's writings I would advise him, +unless he is bent on theology, to begin not +with the <i>Sermons</i>, not even with the <i>Apologia</i>, +but with the <i>Lectures on the Present +Position of Catholics in England</i>. Then +let him take up the <i>Lectures on the Idea +of an University</i>, and on <i>University Subjects</i>. +These may be followed by <i>Discussions +and Arguments</i>, after which he will +be well disposed to read the <i>Lectures on +the Difficulties felt by Anglicans</i>. If after +he has despatched these volumes he is not +infected with what one of those charging<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> +Bishops called 'Newmania,' he is possessed +of a devil of obtuseness no wit of man can +expel.</p> + +<p>Of the strength of Dr. Newman's philosophical +position, which he has explained +in his <i>Grammar of Assent</i>, it would ill become +me to speak. He there strikes the +shield of John Locke. <i>Non nostrum est +tantas componere lites.</i> But it is difficult +for the most ignorant of us not to have shy +notions and lurking suspicions even about +such big subjects and great men. Locke +maintained that a man's belief in a proposition +really depended upon and bore a relation +to the weight of evidence forthcoming +in its favour. Dr. Newman asserts that +certainty is a quality of propositions, and +he has discovered in man 'an illative sense' +whereby conclusions are converted into +dogmas and a measured concurrence into +an unlimited and absolute assurance. This +illative sense is hardly a thing (if I may use +an expression for ever associated with Lord +Macaulay) to be cocksure about. Wedges, +said the mediæval mechanic to his pupils, +split wood by virtue of a wood-splitting +quality in wedges—but now we are indis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span>posed +to endow wedges with qualities, and +if not wedges, why propositions? But the +<i>Grammar of Assent</i> is a beautiful book, and +with a quotation from it I will close my +quotations: 'Thus it is that Christianity +is the fulfilment of the promise made to +Abraham and of the Mosaic revelations; +this is how it has been able from the first +to occupy the world, and gain a hold on +every class of human society to which its +preachers reached; this is why the Roman +power and the multitude of religions which +it embraced could not stand against it; +this is the secret of its sustained energy, +and its never-flagging martyrdoms; this is +how at present it is so mysteriously potent, +in spite of the new and fearful adversaries +which beset its path. It has with it that +gift of stanching and healing the one deep +wound of human nature, which avails more +for its success than a full encyclopædia of +scientific knowledge and a whole library +of controversy, and therefore it must last +while human nature lasts.'</p> + +<p>It is fitting that our last quotation should +be one which leaves the Cardinal face to +face with his faith.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span></p> + +<p>Dr. Newman's poetry cannot be passed +over without a word, though I am ill-fitted +to do it justice. <i>Lead, Kindly Light</i> has +forced its way into every hymn-book and +heart. Those who go, and those who do +not go to church, the fervent believer and +the tired-out sceptic here meet on common +ground. The language of the verses in +their intense sincerity seems to reduce all +human feelings, whether fed on dogmas +and holy rites or on man's own sad heart, +to a common denominator.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘The night is dark, and I am far from home,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lead Thou me on.’<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The believer can often say no more. The +unbeliever will never willingly say less.</p> + +<p>Amongst Dr. Newman's <i>Verses on Various +Occasions</i>—though in some cases the +earlier versions to be met with in the <i>Lyra +Apostolica</i> are to be preferred to the later—poems +will be found by those who seek, +conveying sure and certain evidence of the +possession by the poet of the true lyrical +gift—though almost cruelly controlled by +the course of the poet's thoughts and the +nature of his subjects. One is sometimes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> +constrained to cry, 'Oh, if he could only +get out into the wild blowing airs, how +his pinions would sweep the skies!' but +such thoughts are unlicensed and unseemly. +That we have two such religious poets as +Cardinal Newman and Miss Christina Rossetti +is or ought to be matter for sincere +rejoicing.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p class="center">II</p> + + +<p>To the inveterate truth-hunter there has +been much of melancholy in the very numerous +estimates, hasty estimates no doubt, +but all manifestly sincere, which the death +of Cardinal Newman has occasioned.</p> + +<p>The nobility of the pursuit after truth +wherever the pursuit may lead has been +abundantly recognised. Nobody has been +base enough or cynical enough to venture +upon a sneer. It has been marvellous to +notice what a hold an unpopular thinker, +dwelling very far apart from the trodden +paths of English life and thought, had +obtained upon men's imaginations. The +'man in the street' was to be heard declaring +that the dead Cardinal was a fine +fellow. The newspaper-makers were as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span>tonished +at the interest displayed by their +readers. How many of these honest +mourners, asked the <i>Globe</i>, have read a +page of Newman's writings? It is a vain +inquiry. Newman's books have long had +a large and increasing sale. They stand +on all sorts of shelves, and wherever they +go a still, small voice accompanies them. +They are speaking books; an air breathes +from their pages.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘Again I saw and I confess'd<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy speech was rare and high,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And yet it vex'd my burden'd breast,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And scared I knew not why.’<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It is a strange criticism that recently +declared Newman's style to lack individuality. +Oddity it lacked, and mannerisms, +but not, so it seems to me, individuality.</p> + +<p>But this wide recognition of Newman's +charm both of character and style cannot +conceal from the anxious truth-hunter that +there has been an almost equally wide +recognition of the futility of Newman's +method and position.</p> + +<p>Method and position? These were sacred +words with the Cardinal. But a few +days ago he seemed securely posed before<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> +the world. It cannot surely have been his +unrivalled dialectics only that made men +keep civil tongues in their heads or hesitate +to try conclusions with him. It was +rather, we presume, that there was no especial +occasion to speak of him otherwise +than with the respect and affection due to +honoured age. But when he is dead—it +is different. It is necessary then to gauge +his method and to estimate his influence, +not as a living man, but as a dead one.</p> + +<p>And what has that estimate been? The +saintly life, the mysterious presence, are +admitted, and well-nigh nothing else. All +sorts of reasons are named, some plausible, +all cunningly contrived, to account for +Newman's quarrel with the Church of his +baptism. A writer in the <i>Guardian</i> suggests +one, a writer in the <i>Times</i> another, +a writer in the <i>Saturday Review</i> a third, +and so on.</p> + +<p>However much these reasons may differ +one from another, they all agree in this, +that of necessity they have ceased to operate. +They were personal reasons, and +perished with the man whose faith and +actions they controlled. Nobody else, it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> +has been throughout assumed, will become +a Romanist for the same reasons as John +Henry Newman. If he had not been +brought up an Evangelical, if he had learnt +German, if he had married, if he had been +made an archdeacon, all would have been +different.</p> + +<p>There is something positively terrible in +this natural history of opinion. All the passion +and the pleading of a life, the thought, +and the labour, the sustained argument, +the library of books, reduced to what?—a +series of accidents!</p> + +<p>Newman himself well knew this aspect of +affairs. No one's plummet since Pascal's +had taken deeper soundings of the infirmity—the +oceanic infirmity—of the intellect. +What actuary, he asks contemptuously, can +appraise the value of a man's opinions? In +how many a superb passage does he exhibit +the absurd, the haphazard fashion in which +men and women collect the odds and ends, +the bits and scraps they are pleased to place +in the museum of their minds, and label, in +all good faith, their convictions! Newman +almost revels in such subjects. The solemn +pomposity which so frequently digni<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>fies +with the name of research or inquiry +feeble scratchings amongst heaps of verbosity +had no more determined foe than the +Cardinal.</p> + +<p>But now the same measure is being meted +out to him, and we are told of a thinker's +life—it is nought.</p> + +<p>He thought he had constructed a way of +escape from the City of Destruction for +himself and his followers across the bridge +of that illative sense which turns conclusions +into assents, and opinions into faiths—but +the bridge seems no longer standing.</p> + +<p>The writer in the <i>Guardian</i>, who attributes +Newman's restlessness in the English +Church to the smug and comfortable life +of many of its clergy rather than to any +especial craving after authority, no doubt +wrote with knowledge.</p> + +<p>A married clergy seemed always to annoy +Newman. Readers of <i>Loss and Gain</i> +are not likely to forget the famous 'pork +chop' passage, which describes a young parson +and his bride bustling into a stationer's +shop to buy hymnals and tracts. What was +once only annoyance at some of the ways<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> +of John Bull on his knees, soon ripened +into something not very unlike hatred. +Never was any invention less <i>ben trovato</i> +than that which used to describe Newman +as pining after the 'incomparable liturgy' +or the 'cultured society' of the Church of +England. He hated <i>ex animo</i> all those aspects +of Anglicanism which best recommend +it to Erastian minds. A church of +which sanctity is <i>not</i> a note is sure to have +many friends.</p> + +<p>The <i>Saturday Review</i> struck up a fine +national tune:</p> + +<p>'An intense but narrow conception of +personal holiness, and personal satisfaction +with dogma, ate him (Newman) up—the +natural legacy of the Evangelical +school in which he had been nursed, the +great tradition of Tory churchmanship, +<i>of pride in the Church of England, as +such</i>, of determination to stand shoulder +to shoulder in resisting the foreigner, +whether he came from Rome or from +Geneva, from Tübingen, or from Saint +Sulpice, of the union of all social and +intellectual culture with theological learning—the +idea which, alone of all such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> +ideas, has made education patriotic, and +orthodoxy generous, made insufficient appeal +to him, and for want of it he himself +made shipwreck.'</p> + +<p>Here is John Bullism, bold and erect. +If the Ark of Peter won't hoist the Union +Jack, John Bull must have an Ark of his +own, with patriotic clergy of his own manufacture +tugging at the oar, and with +nothing foreign in the hold save some +sound old port. 'It will always be remembered +to Newman's credit,' says this same +reviewer, 'that he knew good wine if he +did not drink much.' Mark the 'If'; +there is much virtue in it.</p> + +<p>We are now provided with two causes +of Newman's discomfort in the Church of +England—its too comfortable clergy, and +its too frequent introduction of the lion +and the unicorn amongst the symbols of +religion—both effective causes, as may be +proved by many passages; but to say that +either or both availed to drive him out, +and compelled him to seek shelter at the +hands of one whom he had long regarded +as a foe, is to go very far indeed.</p> + +<p>It should not be overlooked that these<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> +minimisers of Newman's influence are all +firmly attached for different reasons to +the institution Newman left. Their judgments +therefore cannot be allowed to pass +unchallenged. What Disraeli meant when +he said that Newman's secession had dealt +the Church of England a blow under which +it still reeled, was that by this act Newman +expressed before the whole world his +profound conviction that our so-called National +Church was not a branch of the +Church Catholic. And this really is the +point of weakness upon which Newman +hurled himself. This is the damage he +did to the Church of this island. Throughout +all his writings, in a hundred places, in +jests and sarcasms as well as in papers and +arguments, there crops up this settled +conviction that England is not a Catholic +country, and that John Bull is not a member +of the Catholic Church.</p> + +<p>This may not matter much to the British +electorate; but to those who care about +such things, who rely upon the validity of +orders and the efficacy of sacraments, who +need a pedigree for their faith, who do not +agree with Emerson that if a man would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> +be great he must be a Nonconformist—over +these people it would be rash to assume +that Newman's influence is spent. +The general effect of his writings, the demands +they awaken, the spirit they breathe, +are all hostile to Anglicanism. They create +a profound dissatisfaction with, a distaste +for, the Church of England as by law established. +Those who are affected by this +spirit will no longer be able comfortably to +enjoy the maimed rites and practices of +their Church. They will feel their place +is elsewhere, and sooner or later they will +pack up and go. It is far too early in the +day to leave Newman out of sight.</p> + +<p>But to end where we began. There has +been scant recognition in the Cardinal's +case of the usefulness of devoting life to +anxious inquiries after truth. It is very +noble to do so, and when you come to die, +the newspapers, from the <i>Times</i> to the +<i>Sporting Life</i>, will first point out, after +their superior fashion, how much better was +this pure-minded and unworldly thinker +than the soiled politician, full of opportunism +and inconsistency, trying hard to +drown the echoes of his past with his loud<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> +vociferations, and then proceed in a few +short sentences to establish how out of +date is this Thinker's thought, how false +his reasoning, how impossible his conclusions, +and lastly, how dead his influence.</p> + +<p>It is very puzzling and difficult, and drives +some men to collect butterflies and beetles. +Thinkers are not, however, to be disposed +of by scratches of the pen. A Cardinal of +the Roman Church is not, to say the least +of it, more obviously a shipwreck than a +dean or even a bishop of the English establishment. +Character, too, counts for +something. Of Newman it may be said:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘Fate gave what chance shall not control,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His sad lucidity of soul.’<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>But the truth-hunter is still unsatisfied.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="MATTHEW_ARNOLD" id="MATTHEW_ARNOLD"></a>MATTHEW ARNOLD<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span></h2> + +<p class="center">I</p> + + +<p>The news of Mr. Arnold's sudden death +at Liverpool struck a chill into many hearts, +for although a somewhat constrained writer +(despite his playfulness) and certainly the +least boisterous of men, he was yet most +distinctly on the side of human enjoyment. +He conspired and contrived to make things +pleasant. Pedantry he abhorred. He was +a man of this life and this world. A +severe critic of the world he indeed was, +but finding himself in it and not precisely +knowing what is beyond it, like a brave +and true-hearted man he set himself to +make the best of it. Its sight and sounds +were dear to him. The 'uncrumpling +fern,' the eternal moon-lit snow, 'Sweet +William with its homely cottage-smell,' +'the red grouse springing at our sound,'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> +the tinkling bells of the 'high-pasturing +kine,' the vagaries of men, women, and +dogs, their odd ways and tricks, whether +of mind or manner, all delighted, amused, +tickled him. Human loves, joys, sorrows, +human relationships, ordinary ties interested +him:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">‘The help in strife,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The thousand sweet still joys of such<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As hand in hand face earthly life.’<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>In a sense of the words which is noble and +blessed, he was of the Earth Earthy.</p> + +<p>In his earlier days Mr. Arnold was much +misunderstood. That rowdy Philistine the +<i>Daily Telegraph</i> called him 'a prophet of +the kid-glove persuasion,' and his own +too frequent iteration of the somewhat +dandiacal phrase 'sweetness and light' +helped to promote the notion that he was +a fanciful, finikin Oxonian,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘A fine puss gentleman that's all perfume,’<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>quite unfit for the most ordinary wear and +tear of life. He was in reality nothing of +the kind, though his literary style was a +little in keeping with this false conception. +His mind was based on the plainest possi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>ble +things. What he hated most was the +fantastic—the far-fetched, all elaborated +fancies, and strained interpretations. He +stuck to the beaten track of human experience, +and the broader the better. He was +a plain-sailing man. This is his true note. +In his much criticised, but as I think admirable +introduction to the selection he made +from Wordsworth's poems, he admits that +the famous <i>Ode on Intimations of Immortality +from Recollections in Early Childhood</i> +is not one of his prime favourites, +and in that connection he quotes from +Thucydides the following judgment on the +early exploits of the Greek Race and +applies it to these intimations of immortality +in babies. 'It is impossible to speak +with certainty of what is so remote, but +from all that we can really investigate +I should say that they were no very great +things.'</p> + +<p>This quotation is in Mr. Arnold's own +vein. His readers will have no difficulty +in calling to mind numerous instances in +which his dislike of everything not broadly +based on the generally admitted facts of +sane experience manifests itself. Though<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> +fond—perhaps exceptionally fond—of +pretty things and sayings, he had a severe +taste, and hated whatever struck him as +being in the least degree sickly, or silly, or +over-heated. No doubt he may often have +considered that to be sickly or silly which +in the opinion of others was pious and becoming. +It may be that he was over-impatient +of men's flirtations with futurity. +As his paper on Professor Dowden's Life +of Shelley shows, he disapproved of 'irregular +relations.' He considered we were all +married to plain Fact, and objected to our +carrying on a flirtation with mystic maybe's +and calling it Religion. Had it been +a man's duty to believe in a specific revelation +it would have been God's duty to +make that revelation credible. Such, at +all events, would appear to have been the +opinion of this remarkable man, who +though he had even more than his share of +an Oxonian's reverence for the great +Bishop of Durham, was unable to admit +the force of the main argument of <i>The +Analogy</i>. Mr. Arnold was indeed too fond +of parading his inability for hard reasoning. +I am not, he keeps saying, like the Arch<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>bishop +of York, or the Bishop of Gloucester +and Bristol. There was affectation +about this, for his professed inferiority did +not prevent him from making it almost +excruciatingly clear that in his opinion +those gifted prelates were, whilst exercising +their extraordinary powers, only beating +the air, or in plainer words busily +engaged in talking nonsense. But I must +not wander from my point, which simply is +that Arnold's dislike of anything recondite +or remote was intense, genuine, and characteristic.</p> + +<p>He always asserted himself to be a good +Liberal. So in truth he was. A better +Liberal than many a one whose claim to +that title it would be thought absurd to +dispute. He did not indeed care very +much about some of the articles of the +Liberal creed as now professed. He had +taken a great dislike to the Deceased +Wife's Sister Bill. He wished the Church +and the State to continue to recognise each +other. He had not that jealousy of State +interference in England which used to be +(it is so no longer) a note of political +Liberalism. He sympathised with Italian<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> +national aspirations because he thought it +wrong to expect a country with such a +past as Italy to cast in her lot with Austria. +He did not sympathise with Irish +national aspirations because he thought +Ireland ought to be willing to admit that +she was relatively to England an inferior +and less interesting country, and therefore +one which had no moral claim for national +institutions. He may have been right or +wrong on these points without affecting +his claim to be considered a Liberal. Liberalism +is not a creed, but a frame of mind. +Mr. Arnold's frame of mind was Liberal. +No living man is more deeply permeated +with the grand doctrine of Equality than +was he. He wished to see his countrymen +and countrywomen all equal: Jack +as good as his master, and Jack's master +as good as Jack; and neither taking claptrap. +He had a hearty un-English dislike +of anomalies and absurdities. He fully +appreciated the French Revolution and +was consequently a Democrat. He was +not a democrat from irresistible impulse, +or from love of mischief, or from hatred +of priests, or like the average British work<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span>man +from a not unnatural desire to get +something on account of his share of the +family inheritance—but all roads lead to +Rome, and Mr. Arnold was a democrat +from a sober and partly sorrowful conviction +that no other form of government was +possible. He was an Educationalist, and +Education is the true Leveller. His almost +passionate cry for better middle-class +education arose from his annoyance +at the exclusion of large numbers of this +great class from the best education the +country afforded. It was a ticklish job +telling this great, wealthy, middle class—which +according to the newspapers had +made England what she is and what +everybody else wishes to be—that it +was, from an educational point of view, +beneath contempt. 'I hear with surprise,' +said Sir Thomas Bazley at Manchester, +'that the education of our great middle +class requires improvement.' But Mr. +Arnold had courage. Indeed he carried +one kind of courage to an heroic pitch. I +mean the courage of repeating yourself +over and over again. It is a sound forensic +maxim: Tell a judge twice whatever<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> +you want him to hear. Tell a special jury +thrice, and a common jury half-a-dozen +times the view of a case you wish them to +entertain. Mr. Arnold treated the middle +class as a common jury and hammered +away at them remorselessly and with the +most unblushing iteration. They groaned +under him, they snorted, and they sniffed—but +they listened, and, what was more +to the purpose, their children listened, and +with filial frankness told their heavy sires +that Mr. Arnold was quite right, and that +their lives were dull, and hideous, and arid, +even as he described them as being. Mr. +Arnold's work as a School Inspector gave +him great opportunities of going about +amongst all classes of the people. Though +not exactly apostolic in manner or method, +he had something to say both to and of +everybody. The aristocracy were polite +and had ways he admired, but they were +impotent of ideas and had a dangerous +tendency to become studiously frivolous. +Consequently the Future did not belong +to them. Get ideas and study gravity, was +the substance of his discourse to the Barbarians, +as, with that trick of his of mis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>calling +God's creatures, he had the effrontery +to dub our adorable nobility. But it +was the middle class upon whom fell the +full weight of his discourse. His sermons +to them would fill a volume. Their great +need was culture, which he declared to +be <i>a study of perfection</i>, the sentiment +for beauty and sweetness, the sentiment +against hideousness and rawness. The +middle class, he protested, needed to know +all the best things that have been said and +done in the world since it began, and to be +thereby lifted out of their holes and corners, +private academies and chapels in side +streets, above their tenth-rate books and +miserable preferences, into the main stream +of national existence. The lower orders +he judged to be a mere rabble, and thought +it was as yet impossible to predict whether +or not they would hereafter display any +aptitude for Ideas, or passion for Perfection. +But in the meantime he bade them +learn to cohere, and to read and write, and +above all he conjured them not to imitate +the middle classes.</p> + +<p>It is not easy to know everything about +everybody, and it may be doubted whether<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> +Mr. Arnold did not over-rate the degree +of acquaintance with his countrymen his +peregrinations among them had conferred +upon him. In certain circles he was supposed +to have made the completest possible +diagnosis of dissent, and was credited with +being able, after five minutes' conversation +with any individual Nonconformist, unerringly +to assign him to his particular chapel, +Independent, Baptist, Primitive Methodist, +Unitarian, or whatever else it might be, +and this though they had only been talking +about the weather. To people who know +nothing about dissenters, Mr. Arnold might +well seem to know everything. However, +he did know a great deal, and used his +knowledge with great cunning and effect, +and a fine instinctive sense of the whereabouts +of the weakest points. Mr. Arnold's +sense for equality and solidarity was not +impeded by any exclusive tastes or hobbies. +Your collector, even though it be but of +butterflies, is rarely a democrat. One of +Arnold's favourite lines in Wordsworth +was—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘Joy that is in widest commonalty spread.’<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The collector's joys are not of that kind.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> +Mr. Arnold was not, I believe, a collector +of anything. He certainly was not of +books. I once told him I had been reading +a pamphlet, written by him in 1859, on +the Italian Question. He inquired how I +came across it. I said I had picked it up +in a shop. 'Oh, yes,' said he, 'some old +curiosity shop, I suppose.' Nor was he +joking. He seemed quite to suppose that +old books, and old clothes, and old chairs +were huddled together for sale in the same +resort of the curious. He did not care +about such things. The prices given for +the early editions of his own poems seemed +to tease him. His literary taste was +broadly democratic. He had no mind for +fished-up authors, nor did he ever indulge +in swaggering rhapsodies over second-rate +poets. The best was good enough for +him. 'The best poetry' was what he +wanted, 'a clearer, deeper sense of the best +in poetry, and of the strength and joy to +be drawn from it.' So he wrote in his +general introduction to Mr. Ward's <i>Selections +from the English Poets</i>. The best of +everything for everybody. This was his +gospel and his prayer.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span></p> + +<p>Approaching Mr. Arnold's writings more +nearly, it seems inevitable to divide them +into three classes. His poems, his theological +excursions, and his criticism, using +the last word in a wide sense as including +a criticism of life and of politics as well as +of books and style.</p> + +<p>Of Mr. Arnold's poetry it is hard for anyone +who has felt it to the full during the +most impressionable period of life to speak +without emotion overcoming reason.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘Hardly shall I tell my joys and sorrows,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hopes and fears, belief and unbelieving.’<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It is easy to admit, in general terms, its +limitations. Mr. Arnold is the last man in +the world anybody would wish to shove out +of his place. A poet at all points, armed +cap-a-pie against criticism, like Lord Tennyson, +he certainly was not. Nor had his +verse any share of the boundless vitality, +the fierce pulsation so nobly characteristic +of Mr. Browning. But these admissions +made, we decline to parley any further with +the enemy. We cast him behind us. Mr. +Arnold, to those who cared for him at all, +was the most <i>useful</i> poet of his day. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> +lived much nearer us than poets of his distinction +usually do. He was neither a +prophet nor a recluse. He lived neither +above us, nor away from us. There are +two ways of being a recluse—a poet may +live remote from men, or he may live in +a crowded street but remote from their +thoughts. Mr. Arnold did neither, and +consequently his verse tells and tingles. +None of it is thrown away. His readers +feel that he bore the same yoke as themselves. +Theirs is a common bondage with +his. Beautiful, surpassingly beautiful some +of Mr. Arnold's poetry is, but we seize +upon the <i>thought</i> first and delight in the +<i>form</i> afterwards. No doubt the form is an +extraordinary comfort, for the thoughts are +often, as thoughts so widely spread could +not fail to be, the very thoughts that are +too frequently expressed rudely, crudely, +indelicately. To open Mr. Arnold's poems +is to escape from a heated atmosphere and +a company not wholly free from offence +even though composed of those who share +our opinions—from loud-mouthed random +talking men into a well-shaded retreat which +seems able to impart, even to our feverish<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> +persuasions and crude conclusions, something +of the coolness of falling water, something +of the music of rustling trees. This +union of thought, substantive thought, with +beauty of form—of strength with elegance, +is rare. I doubt very much whether Mr. +Arnold ever realised the devotedness his +verse inspired in the minds of thousands +of his countrymen and countrywomen, both +in the old world and the new. He is not +a bulky poet. Three volumes contain him. +But hardly a page can be opened without +the eye lighting on verse which at one time +or another has been, either to you or to +someone dear to you, strength or joy. +<i>The Buried Life</i>, <i>A Southern Night</i>, <i>Dover +Beach</i>, <i>A Wanderer is Man from his Birth</i>, +<i>Rugby Chapel</i>, <i>Resignation</i>. How easy to +prolong the list, and what a list it is! Their +very names are dear to us even as are the +names of Mother Churches and Holy +Places to the Votaries of the old Religion. +I read the other day in the <i>Spectator</i> newspaper, +an assertion that Mr. Arnold's poetry +had never consoled anybody. A falser +statement was never made innocently. It +may never have consoled the writer in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> +<i>Spectator</i>, but because the stomach of a +dram-drinker rejects cold water is no kind +of reason for a sober man abandoning his +morning tumbler of the pure element. Mr. +Arnold's poetry has been found full of +consolation. It would be strange if it had +not been. It is</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘No stretched metre of an antique song,’<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>but quick and to the point. There are +finer sonnets in the English language +than the two following, but there are no +better sermons. And if it be said that +sermons may be found in stones, but +ought not to be in sonnets, I fall back +upon the fact which Mr. Arnold himself +so cheerfully admitted, that the middle +classes, who in England, at all events, are +Mr. Arnold's chief readers, are serious, and +love sermons. Some day perhaps they +will be content with metrical exercises, +ballades, and roundels.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">‘<span class="smcap">East London</span><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘’Twas August, and the fierce sun overhead<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Smote on the squalid streets of Bethnal Green,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the pale weaver, through his windows seen<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In Spitalfields, look'd thrice dispirited.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span><br /></span> +</div><br /><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘I met a preacher there I knew, and said:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">“Ill and o'erwork'd, how fare you in this scene?”<br /></span> +<span class="i0">“Bravely!” said he; "for I of late have been<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Much cheer'd with thoughts of Christ, <i>the living bread</i>.”<br /></span> +</div><br /><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘O human soul! as long as thou canst so<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Set up a mark of everlasting light,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Above the howling senses’ ebb and flow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To cheer thee, and to right thee if thou roam—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not with lost toil thou labourest through the night!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou mak'st the heaven thou hop'st indeed thy home.’<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p><br /></p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">‘<span class="smcap">The Better Part</span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">‘Long fed on boundless hopes, O race of man,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How angrily thou spurn'st all simpler fare!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">“Christ,” some one says, “was human as we are;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No judge eyes us from Heaven, our sin to scan;<br /></span> +</div><br /><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘“We live no more, when we have done our span.”—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">“Well, then, for Christ,” thou answerest, “who can care?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From Sin, which Heaven records not, why forbear?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Live we like brutes our life without a plan!”<br /></span> +</div><br /><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘So answerest thou; but why not rather say:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">“Hath man no second life?—<i>Pitch this one high!</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sits there no judge in Heaven, our sin to see?<br /></span> +</div><br /><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘“<i>More strictly, then, the inward judge obey!</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was Christ a man like us?—<i>Ah! let us try</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>If we then, too, can be such men as he!</i>”’<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Mr. Arnold's love of nature, and poetic +treatment of nature, was to many a vexed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> +soul a great joy and an intense relief. Mr. +Arnold was a genuine Wordsworthian—being +able to read everything Wordsworth +ever wrote except <i>Vaudracour and Julia</i>. +The influence of Wordsworth upon him +was immense, but he was enabled, by the +order of his mind, to reject with the heartiest +goodwill the cloudy pantheism which +robs so much of Wordsworth's best verse +of the heightened charm of reality, for, +after all, poetry, like religion, must be true, +or it is nothing. This strong aversion to +the unreal also prevented Mr. Arnold, despite +his love of the classical forms, from +a nonsensical neo-paganism. His was a +manlier attitude. He had no desire to keep +tugging at the dry breasts of an outworn +creed, nor any disposition to go down on +his knees, or <i>hunkers</i> as the Scotch more +humorously call them, before plaster casts +of Venus, or even of 'Proteus rising from +the sea.' There was something very refreshing +about this. In the long run even +a gloomy truth is better company than a +cheerful falsehood. The perpetual strain +of living down to a lie, the depressing atmosphere +of a circumscribed intelligence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> +tell upon the system, and the cheerful +falsehood soon begins to look puffy and +dissipated.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">‘<span class="smcap">The Youth of Nature.</span><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘For, oh! is it you, is it you,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Moonlight, and shadow, and lake,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And mountains, that fill us with joy,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or the poet who sings you so well?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">. . . . . . .<br /></span> +<span class="i0">. . . . . . .<br /></span> +<span class="i0">More than the singer are these<br /></span> +<span class="i0">. . . . . . .<br /></span> +<span class="i0">. . . . . . .<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yourselves and your fellows ye know not; and me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The mateless, the one, will ye know?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Will ye scan me, and read me, and tell<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the thoughts that ferment in my breast,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My longing, my sadness, my joy?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Will ye claim for your great ones the gift<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To have rendered the gleam of my skies,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To have echoed the moan of my seas,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Uttered the voice of my hills?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When your great ones depart, will ye say:<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>All things have suffered a loss,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Nature is hid in their grave?</i><br /></span> +</div><br /><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Race after race, man after man,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Have thought that my secret was theirs,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Have dream'd that I lived but for them,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That they were my glory and joy.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They are dust, they are changed, they are gone!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I remain.’<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span></div></div> + +<p>When a poet is dead we turn to his +verse with quickened feelings. He rests +from his labours. We still</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘Stem across the sea of life by night,’<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>and the voice, once the voice of the living, +of one who stood by our side, has for a +while an unfamiliar accent, coming to us as +it does no longer from our friendly earth +but from the strange cold caverns of +death.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘Joy comes and goes, hope ebbs and flows<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Like the wave,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Change doth unknit the tranquil strength of men.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Love lends life a little grace,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A few sad smiles; and then,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Both are laid in one cold place,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">In the grave.<br /></span> +</div><br /><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘Dreams dawn and fly, friends smile and die<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Like spring flowers;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Our vaunted life is one long funeral.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Men dig graves with bitter tears<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For their dead hopes; and all,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mazed with doubts and sick with fears,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Count the hours.<br /></span> +</div><br /><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘We count the hours! These dreams of ours,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">False and hollow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Do we go hence and find they are not dead?<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Joys we dimly apprehend,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Faces that smiled and fled,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hopes born here, and born to end,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Shall we follow?’<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span></div></div> + +<p>In a poem like this Mr. Arnold is seen +at his best; he fairly forces himself into +the very front ranks. In form almost +equal to Shelley, or at any rate not so +very far behind him, whilst of course in +reality, in wholesome thought, in the +pleasures that are afforded by thinking, it +is of incomparable excellence.</p> + +<p>We die as we do, not as we would. Yet +on reading again Mr. Arnold's <i>Wish</i>, we +feel that the manner of his death was much +to his mind.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">‘<span class="smcap">A Wish.</span><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘I ask not that my bed of death<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From bands of greedy heirs be free:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For these besiege the latest breath<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of fortune's favoured sons, not me.<br /></span> +</div><br /><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘I ask not each kind soul to keep<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tearless, when of my death he hears.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let those who will, if any—weep!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There are worse plagues on earth than tears.<br /></span> +</div><br /><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘I ask but that my death may find<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The freedom to my life denied;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ask but the folly of mankind<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then—then at last to quit my side.<br /></span> +</div><br /><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘Spare me the whispering, crowded room,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The friends who come, and gape, and go;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The ceremonious air of gloom—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All, which makes death a hideous show!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span><br /></span> +</div><br /><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘Nor bring to see me cease to live<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some doctor full of phrase and fame<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To shake his sapient head and give<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The ill he cannot cure a name.<br /></span> +</div><br /><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘Nor fetch to take the accustom'd toll<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the poor sinner bound for death<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His brother-doctor of the soul<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To canvass with official breath<br /></span> +</div><br /><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘The future and its viewless things—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That undiscover'd mystery<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which one who feels death's winnowing wings<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Must needs read clearer, sure, than he!<br /></span> +</div><br /><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘Bring none of these; but let me be<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While all around in silence lies,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Moved to the window near, and see<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Once more before my dying eyes,<br /></span> +</div><br /><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘Bathed in the sacred dews of morn<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The wide aerial landscape spread—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The world which was ere I was born,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The world which lasts when I am dead.<br /></span> +</div><br /><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘Which never was the friend of <i>one</i>,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor promised love it could not give,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But lit for all its generous sun<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And lived itself and made us live.<br /></span> +</div><br /><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘Then let me gaze—till I become<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In soul, with what I gaze on, wed!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To feel the universe my home;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To have before my mind—instead<br /></span> +</div><br /><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘Of the sick room, the mortal strife,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The turmoil for a little breath—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The pure eternal course of life,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not human combatings with death!<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span></div><br /><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘Thus feeling, gazing, let me grow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Composed, refresh'd, ennobled, clear—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then willing let my spirit go<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To work or wait, elsewhere or here!’<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>To turn from Arnold's poetry to his +theological writings—if so grim a name +can be given to these productions—from +<i>Rugby Chapel</i> to <i>Literature and Dogma</i>, +from <i>Obermann</i> to <i>God and the Bible</i>, from +<i>Empedocles on Etna</i> to <i>St. Paul and Protestantism</i>, +is to descend from the lofty +table-lands,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘From the dragon-warder'd fountains<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the springs of knowledge are,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the watchers on the mountains<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the bright and morning star,’<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>to the dusty highroad. It cannot, I think, +be asserted that either the plan or the +style of these books was in keeping with +their subjects. It was characteristic of +Mr. Arnold, and like his practical turn of +mind, to begin <i>Literature and Dogma</i> in +the <i>Cornhill Magazine</i>. A book rarely +shakes off the first draft—<i>Literature and +Dogma</i> never did. It is full of repetitions +and wearisome recapitulations, well enough +in a magazine where each issue is sure to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> +be read by many who will never see another +number, but which disfigure a book. The +style is likewise too jaunty. Bantering +the Trinity is not yet a recognised English +pastime. Bishop-baiting is, but this notwithstanding, +most readers of <i>Literature +and Dogma</i> grew tired of the Bishop of +Gloucester and Bristol and of his alleged +desire to do something for the honour of +the Godhead, long before Mr. Arnold +showed any signs of weariness. But making +all these abatements, and fully admitting +that <i>Literature and Dogma</i> is not +likely to prove permanently interesting to +the English reader, it must be pronounced +a most valuable and useful book, and one +to which the professional critics and philosophers +never did justice. The object of +<i>Literature and Dogma</i> was no less than +the restoration of the use of the Bible to +the sceptical laity. It was a noble object, +and it was in a great measure, as thousands +of quiet people could testify, attained. +It was not a philosophical treatise. In its +own way it was the same kind of thing as +many of Cardinal Newman's writings. It +started with an assumption, namely, that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> +it is impossible to believe in the miracles +recorded in the Old and New Testaments. +There is no laborious attempt to distinguish +between one miracle and another, or +to lighten the burden of faith in any particular. +Nor is any serious attempt made +to disprove miracles. Mr. Arnold did not +write for those who find no difficulty in +believing in the first chapter of St. Luke's +gospel, or the sixteenth chapter of St. +Mark's, but for those who simply cannot +believe a word of either the one chapter or +the other. Mr. Arnold knew well that +this inability to believe is apt to generate +in the mind of the unbeliever an almost +physical repulsion to open books which are +full of supernatural events. Mr. Arnold +knew this and lamented it. His own love +of the Bible was genuine and intense. He +could read even Jeremiah and Habakkuk. +As he loved Homer with one side of him, +so he loved the Bible with the other. He +saw how men were crippled and maimed +through growing up in ignorance of it, and +living all the days of their lives outside +its influence. He longed to restore it to +them, to satisfy them that its place in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> +mind of man—that its educational and +moral power was not due to the miracles +it records nor to the dogmas that Catholics +have developed or Calvanists extracted from +its pages, but to its literary excellence and +to the glow and enthusiasm it has shed +over conduct, self-sacrifice, humanity, and +holy living. It was at all events a worthy +object and a most courageous task. It +exposed him to a heavy cross-fire. The +Orthodox fell upon his book and abused +it, unrestrainedly abused it for its familiar +handling of their sacred books. They +almost grudged Mr. Arnold his great acquaintance +with the Bible, just as an +Englishman might be annoyed at finding +Moltke acquainted with all the roads from +Dover to London. This feeling was natural, +and on the whole I think it creditable +to the orthodox party that a book so needlessly +pain-giving as <i>Literature and Dogma</i> +did not goad them into any personal +abuse of its author. But they could not +away with the book. Nor did the philosophical +sceptic like it much better. The +philosophical sceptic is too apt to hate the +Bible, even as the devil was reported to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> +hate holy water. Its spirit condemns him. +Its devout, heart-stirring, noble language +creates an atmosphere which is deadly for +pragmatic egotism. To make men once more +careful students of the Bible was to deal a +blow at materialism, and consequently was +not easily forgiven. 'Why can't you leave +the Bible alone?' they grumbled—'What +have we to do with it?' But Pharisees +and Sadducees do not exhaust mankind, +and Mr. Arnold's contributions to the religious +controversies of his time were very +far from the barren things that are most +contributions, and indeed most controversies +on such subjects. I believe I am +right when I say that he induced a very +large number of persons to take up again +and make a daily study of the books both +of the Old and the New Testament.</p> + +<p>As a literary critic Mr. Arnold had at +one time a great vogue. His <i>Essays in +Criticism</i>, first published in 1865, made him +known to a larger public than his poems +or his delightful lectures on translating +Homer had succeeded in doing. He had +the happy knack of starting interesting +subjects and saying all sorts of interesting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> +things by the way. There was the French +Academy. Would it be a good thing to +have an English Academy? He started +the question himself and answered it in the +negative. The public took it out of his +mouth and proceeded to discuss it for itself, +always on the assumption that he had answered +it in the affirmative. But that is +the way with the public. No sensible man +minds it. To set something going is the +most anybody can hope to do in this world. +Where it will go to, and what sort of moss +it will gather as it goes, for despite the +proverb there is nothing incompatible between +moss and motion, no one can say. +In this volume, too, he struck the note, so +frequently and usefully repeated, of self-dissatisfaction. +To make us dissatisfied +with ourselves, alive to our own inferiority, +not absolute but in important respects, to +check the chorus, then so loud, of self-approval +of our majestic selves—to make +us understand why nobody who is not an +Englishman wants to be one, this was +another of the tasks of this militant man. +We all remember how <i>Wragg<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> is in custody</i>.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> +The papers on Heine and Spinoza +and Marcus Aurelius were read with eagerness, +with an enjoyment, with a sense of +widening horizons too rare to be easily forgotten. +They were light and graceful, but +it would I think be unjust to call them +slender. They were not written for specialists +or even for students, but for ordinary +men and women, particularly for young +men and women, who carried away with +them from the reading of <i>Essays in Criticism</i> +something they could not have found +anywhere else and which remained with +them for the rest of their days, namely, a +way of looking at things. A perfectly safe +critic Mr. Arnold hardly was. Even in +this volume he fusses too much about the +De Guérins. To some later judgments of +his it would be unkind to refer. It was +said of the late Lord Justice Mellish by +Lord Cairns that he went right instinctively. +That is, he did not flounder into +truth. Mr. Arnold never floundered, but +he sometimes fell. A more delightful +critic of literature we have not had for +long. What pleasant reading are his +<i>Lectures on Translating Homer</i>, which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> +ought to be at once reprinted. How full +of good things! Not perhaps fit to be +torn from their contexts, or paraded in a +commonplace book, but of the kind which +give a reader joy—which make literature +tempting—which revive, even in dull middle-age, +something of the enthusiasm of +the love-stricken boy. Then, too, his +<i>Study of Celtic Literature</i>. It does not +matter much whether you can bring yourself +to believe in the <i>Eisteddfod</i> or not. +In fact Mr. Arnold did not believe in it. +He knew perfectly well that better poetry +is to be found every week in the poet's +corner of every county newspaper in England +than is produced annually at the +<i>Eisteddfod</i>. You need not even share +Mr. Arnold's opinion as to the inherent +value of Celtic Literature, though this is +of course a grave question, worthy of all +consideration—but his <i>Study</i> is good +enough to be read for love. It is full of +charming criticism. Most critics are such +savages—or if they are not savages, they +are full of fantasies, and are capable at +any moment of calling <i>Tom Jones</i> dull, or +Sydney Smith a bore. Mr. Arnold was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> +not a savage, and could no more have called +<i>Tom Jones</i> dull or Sydney Smith a bore, +than Homer heavy or Milton vulgar. He +was no gloomy specialist. He knew it +took all sorts to make a world. He was +alive to life. Its great movement fascinated +him, even as it had done Burke, even +as it did Cardinal Newman. He watched +the rushing stream, the 'stir of existence,' +the good and the bad, the false and the +true, with an interest that never flagged. +In his last words on translating Homer he +says: 'And thus false tendency as well +as true, vain effort as well as fruitful, go +together to produce that great movement +of life, to present that immense and +magic spectacle of human affairs, which +from boyhood to old age fascinates the +gaze of every man of imagination, and +which would be his terror if it were not +at the same time his delight.'</p> + +<p>Mr. Arnold never succeeded in getting +his countrymen to take him seriously as a +practical politician. He was regarded as +an unauthorised practitioner whose prescriptions +no respectable chemist would +consent to make up. He had not the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> +diploma of Parliament, nor was he able, +like the Secretary of an Early Closing +Association, to assure any political aspirant +that he commanded enough votes to +turn an election. When Mr. John Morley +took occasion after Mr. Arnold's death to +refer to him in Parliament, the name was +received respectfully but coldly. And yet +he was eager about politics, and had much +to say about political questions. His work +in these respects was far from futile. What +he said was never inept. It coloured men's +thoughts, and contributed to the formation +of their opinions far more than even public +meetings. His introduction to his <i>Report +on Popular Education in France</i>, published +in 1861, is as instructive a piece of writing +as is to be found in any historical disquisition +of the last three decades. The paper +on 'My Countrymen' in that most amusing +book <i>Friendship's Garland</i> (which ought +also to be at once reprinted) is full of point.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>But it is time to stop. It is only possible +to stop where we began. Matthew +Arnold is dead. He would have been the +last man to expect anyone to grow hysteri<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span>cal +over the circumstance, and the first +to denounce any strained emotion. <i>Il n'y +a pas d'homme nécessaire.</i> No one ever +grasped this great, this comforting, this +cooling, this self-destroying truth more +cordially than he did. As I write the +words, I remember how he employed them +in his preface to the second edition of +<i>Essays in Criticism</i>, where he records a +conversation, I doubt not an imaginary +one, between himself and a portly jeweller +from Cheapside—his fellow-traveller on +the Woodford branch of the Great Eastern +line. The traveller was greatly perturbed +in his mind by the murder then lately +perpetrated in a railway carriage by the +notorious Müller. Mr. Arnold plied him +with consolation. 'Suppose the worst to +happen,' I said, 'suppose even yourself to +be the victim—<i>il n'y a pas d'homme +nécessaire</i>—we should miss you for a day +or two on the Woodford Branch, but the +great mundane movement would still go +on, the gravel walks of your villa would +still be rolled, dividends would still be +paid at the bank, omnibuses would still +run, there would still be the old crush at +the corner of Fenchurch Street.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span></p> + +<p>And so it proves for all—for portly +jewellers and lovely poets.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘The Pillar still broods o’er the fields<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which border Ennerdale Lake,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And Egremont sleeps by the sea—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nature is fresh as of old,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is lovely; a mortal is dead.’<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p class="center">II</p> + + +<p>Lord Byron's antipathies were, as a rule, +founded on some sound human basis, and +it may well be that he was quite right for +hating an author who was all author and +nothing else. He could not have hated +Matthew Arnold on that score, at all +events, though perhaps he might have +found some other ground for gratifying a +feeling very dear to his heart. Mr. Arnold +was many other things as well as a poet, so +many other things that we need sometimes +to be reminded that he was a poet. He +allowed himself to be distracted in a variety +of ways, he poured himself out in many +strifes; though not exactly eager, he was +certainly active. He discoursed on numberless +themes, and was interested in many +things of the kind usually called 'topics.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span></p> + +<p>Personally, we cannot force ourselves to +bewail his agility, this leaping from bough +to bough of the tree of talk and discussion. +It argues an interest in things, a wide-eyed +curiosity. If you find yourself in a village +fair you do well to examine the booths, and +when you bring your purchases home, the +domestic authority will be wise not to scan +too severely the trivial wares never meant +to please a critical taste or to last a lifetime. +Mr. Arnold certainly brought home some +very queer things from his village fair, and +was perhaps too fond of taking them for +the texts of his occasional discourses. But +others must find fault, we cannot. There +is a pleasant ripple of life through Mr. Arnold's +prose writings. His judgments are +human judgments. He did not care for +strange, out-of-the-way things; he had no +odd tastes. He drank wine, so he once +said, because he liked it—good wine, that +is. And it was the same with poetry and +books. He liked to understand what he +admired, and the longer it took him to understand +anything the less disposed he was +to like it. Plain things suited him best. +What he hated most was the far-fetched. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> +had the greatest respect for Mr. Browning, +and was a sincere admirer of much of his +poetry, but he never made the faintest attempt +to read any of the poet's later volumes. +The reason probably was that he +could not be bothered. Hazlitt, in a fine +passage descriptive of the character of a +scholar, says: 'Such a one lives all his life +in a dream of learning, and has never once +had his sleep broken by a real sense of +things.' Mr. Arnold had a real sense of +things. The writings of such a man could +hardly fail to be interesting, whatever they +might be about, even the burial of Dissenters +or the cock of a nobleman's hat.</p> + +<p>But for all that we are of those who, +when we name the name of Arnold, mean +neither the head-master of Rugby nor the +author of <i>Culture and Anarchy</i> and <i>Literature +and Dogma</i>, but the poet who sang, +not, indeed, with Wordsworth, 'The wonder +and bloom of the world,' but a severer, still +more truthful strain, a life whose secret is +not joy, but peace.</p> + +<p>Standing on this high breezy ground, we +are not disposed to concede anything to +the enemy, unless, indeed, it be one some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span>what +ill-defended outpost connected with +metre. The poet's ear might have been a +little nicer. Had it been so, he would have +spared his readers an occasional jar and a +panegyric on Lord Byron's poetry. There +are, we know, those who regard this outpost +we have so lightly abandoned as the +citadel. These rhyming gentry scout what +Arnold called the terrible sentence passed +on a French poet—<i>il dit tout ce qu'il veut</i>, +<i>mais malheureusement il n'a rien à dire</i>. +They see nothing terrible in a sentence +which does but condemn them to nakedness. +Thought is cumbersome. You skip +best with nothing on. But the sober-minded +English people are not the countrymen +of Milton and Cowper, of Crabbe and +Wordsworth, for nothing. They like poetry +to be serious. We are fond of sermons. +We may quarrel with the vicar's five-and-twenty +minutes, but we let Carlyle go on +for twice as many years, and until he had +filled thirty-four octavo volumes.</p> + +<p>The fact is that, though Arnold was fond +of girding at the Hebrew in us, and used to +quote his own Christian name with humorous +resignation as only an instance of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> +sort of thing he had to put up with, he was +a Puritan at heart, and would have been as +ill at ease at a Greek festival as Newman +at a Spanish <i>auto da fé</i>.</p> + +<p>What gives Arnold's verse its especial +charm is his grave and manly sincerity. +He is a poet without artifice or sham. He +does not pretend to find all sorts of meanings +in all sorts of things. He does not +manipulate the universe and present his +readers with any bottled elixir. This has +been cast up against him as a reproach. +His poetry, so we have been told, has no +consolation in it. Here is a doctor, it is +said, who makes up no drugs, a poet who +does not proclaim that he sees God in the +avalanche or hears Him in the thunder. +The world will not, so we are assured, hang +upon the lips of one who bids them not to +be too sure that the winds are wailing man's +secret to the complaining sea, or that nature +is nothing but a theme for poets. +These people may be right. In any event +it is unwise to prophesy. What will be, will +be. Nobody can wish to be proved wrong. +It is best to be on the side of truth, whatever +the truth may be. The real atheism<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> +is to say, as men are found to do, that they +would sooner be convicted of error they +think pleasing, than have recognised an unwelcome +truth a moment earlier than its +final demonstration, if, indeed, such a moment +should ever arrive for souls so craven. +In the meantime, this much is plain, that +there is no consolation in non-coincidence +with fact, and no sweetness which does not +chime with experience. Therefore, those +who have derived consolation from Mr. +Arnold's noble verse may take comfort. +Religion, after all, observes Bishop Butler +in his tremendous way, is nothing if it is +not true. The same may be said of the +poetry of consolation.</p> + +<p>The pleasure it is lawful to take in the +truthfulness of Mr. Arnold's poetry should +not be allowed to lead his lovers into the +pleasant paths of exaggeration. The Muses +dealt him out their gifts with a somewhat +niggardly hand. He had to cultivate his +Sparta. No one of his admirers can assert +that in Arnold</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">‘The force of energy is found,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the sense rises on the wings of sound.’<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>He is no builder of the lofty rhyme. This<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> +he was well aware of. But neither had he +any ample measure of those 'winged fancies' +which wander at will through the +pages of Apollo's favourite children. His +strange indifference to Shelley, his severity +towards Keats, his lively sense of the wantonness +of Shakespeare and the Elizabethans, +incline us to the belief that he +was not quite sensible of the advantages +of a fruitful as compared with a barren +soil. His own crop took a good deal of +raising, and he was perhaps somewhat disposed +to regard luxuriant growths with disfavour.</p> + +<p>But though severe and restricted, and +without either grandeur or fancy, Arnold's +poetry is most companionable. It never +teases you—there he has the better of +Shelley—or surfeits you—there he prevails +over Keats. As a poet, we would +never dare or wish to class him with either +Shelley or Keats, but as a companion to +slip in your pocket before starting to spend +the day amid</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘The cheerful silence of the fells,’<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>you may search far before you find any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span>thing +better than either of the two volumes +of Mr. Arnold's poems.</p> + +<p>His own enjoyment of the open air is +made plain in his poetry. It is no borrowed +rapture, no mere bookish man's +clumsy joy in escaping from his library, +but an enjoyment as hearty and honest as +Izaak Walton's. He has a quick eye for +things, and rests upon them with a quiet +satisfaction. No need to give instances; +they will occur to all. Sights and sounds +alike pleased him well. So obviously genuine, +so real, though so quiet, was his +pleasure in our English lanes and dells, +that it is still difficult to realise that his +feet can no longer stir the cowslips or his +ear hear the cuckoo's parting cry.</p> + +<p>Amidst the melancholy of his verse, we +detect deep human enjoyment and an honest +human endeavour to do the best he +could whilst here below. The best he +could do was, in our opinion, his verse, +and it is a comfort, amidst the wreckage +of life, to believe he made the most of his +gift, cultivating it wisely and well, and +enriching man's life with some sober, serious, +and beautiful poetry. We are, indeed,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> +glad to notice that there is to be a new +edition of Mr. Arnold's poems in one volume. +It will, we are afraid, be too stout +for the pocket, but most of its contents +will be well worth lodgment in the head. +This new edition will, we have no doubt +whatever, immensely increase the number +of men and women who own the charm of +Arnold. The times are ripening for his +poetry, which is full of foretastes of the +morrow. As we read we are not carried +back by the reflection, 'so men once +thought,' but rather forward along the +paths, dim and perilous it may be, but +still the paths mankind is destined to +tread. Truthful, sober, severe, with a capacity +for deep, if placid, enjoyment of the +pageant of the world, and a quick eye for +its varied sights and an eager ear for its delightful +sounds, Matthew Arnold is a poet +whose limitations we may admit without +denying his right. Our passion for him is +a loyal passion for a most temperate king. +There is an effort on his brow, we must +admit it. It would never do to mistake +his poetry for what he called the best, and +which he was ever urging upon a sluggish<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> +populace. It intellectualises far too much; +its method is a known method, not a magical +one. But though effort may be on his +brow, it is a noble effort and has had a +noble result.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">‘For most men in a brazen prison live,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where in the sun’s hot eye,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With heads bent o'er their toil, they languidly<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their lives to some unmeaning task-work give,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dreaming of nought beyond their prison wall.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And as, year after year,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fresh products of their barren labour fall<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From their tired hands, and rest<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Never yet comes more near,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Gloom settles slowly down over their breast;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And while they try to stem<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The waves of mournful thought by which they are prest,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Death in their prison reaches them<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Unfreed, having seen nothing, still unblest.’<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Or if not a slave he is a madman, sailing +where he will on the wild ocean of life.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘And then the tempest strikes him, and between<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The lightning bursts is seen<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Only a driving wreck.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the pale master on his spar-strewn deck,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With anguished face and flying hair,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Grasping the rudder hard,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Still bent to make some port he knows not where,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Still standing for some false impossible shore;<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> +<span class="i0">And sterner comes the roar<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of sea and wind, and through the deepening gloom<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fainter and fainter wreck and helmsman loom,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And he too disappears and comes no more.’<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>To be neither a rebel nor a slave is the +burden of much of Mr. Arnold's verse—his +song we cannot call it. It will be long +before men cease to read their Arnold; +even the rebel or the slave will occasionally +find a moment for so doing, and when +he does it may be written of him:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘And then arrives a lull in the hot race<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wherein he doth for ever chase<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That flying and illusive shadow Rest.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An air of coolness plays upon his face,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And an unwonted calm pervades his breast,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And then he thinks he knows<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The hills where his life rose<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the sea where it goes.’<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="WILLIAM_HAZLITT" id="WILLIAM_HAZLITT"></a>WILLIAM HAZLITT<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span></h2> + + +<p>For an author to fare better dead than +alive is good proof of his literary vivacity +and charm. The rare merit of Hazlitt's +writing was recognised in his lifetime by +good judges, but his fame was obscured +by the unpopularity of many of his opinions, +and the venom he was too apt to +instil into his personal reminiscences. He +was not a safe man to confide in. He had +a forked crest which he sometimes lifted. +Because they both wrote essays and were +fond of the Elizabethans, it became the +fashion to link Hazlitt's name with Lamb's. +To be compared with the incomparable is +hard fortune. Hazlitt suffered by the +comparison, and consequently his admirers, +usually in those early days men of keen +wits and sharp tongues, grew angry, and +infused into their just eulogiums too much +of Hazlitt's personal bitterness, and too +little of his wide literary sympathies.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span></p> + +<p>But this period of obscurity is now over. +No really good thing once come into existence +and remaining so is ever lost to the +world. This is most comfortable doctrine, +and true, besides. In the long run the +world's taste is infallible. All it requires +is time. How easy it is to give it that! +Is substantial injustice at this moment +done to a single English writer of prose +or verse who died prior to the 1st of January, +1801? Is there a single bad author +of this same class who is now read? Both +questions may be truthfully answered by +a joyful shout of, No! This fact ought to +make the most unpopular of living authors +the sweetest-tempered of men. The sight +of your rival clinging to the cob he has +purchased and maintains out of the profits +of the trashiest of novels should be pleasant +owing to the reflection that both rival +and cob are trotting to the same pit of +oblivion.</p> + +<p>But humorous as is the prospect of the +coming occultation of personally disagreeable +authors, the final establishment of the +fame of a dead one is a nobler spectacle.</p> + +<p>William Hazlitt had to take a thrashing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> +from life. He took it standing up like a +man, not lying down like a cur; but take +it he had to do. He died on September +18, 1830, tired out, discomfited, defeated. +Nobody reviewing the facts of his life can +say that it was well spent. There is nothing +in it of encouragement. He reaped +what he sowed, and it proved a sorry +harvest. When he lay dying he wanted +his mother brought to his side, but she +was at a great distance, and eighty-four +years of age, and could not come. Carlyle +in his old age, grim, worn, and scornful, +said once, sorrowfully enough, 'What I +want is a mother.' It is indeed an excellent +relationship.</p> + +<p>But though Hazlitt got the worst of it in +his personal encounter with the universe, he +nevertheless managed to fling down before +he died what will suffice to keep his name +alive. You cannot kill merit. We are all +too busily engaged struggling with dulness, +our own and other people's, and with ennui; +we are far too much surrounded by +would-be wits and abortive thinkers, ever to +forget what a weapon against weariness lies +to our hand in the works of Hazlitt, who is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> +as refreshing as cold water, as grateful as +shade.</p> + +<p>His great charm consists in his hearty +reality. Life may be a game, and all its +enjoyments counters, but Hazlitt, as we +find him in his writings—and there is now +no need to look for him anywhere else—played +the game and dealt out the counters +like a man bent on winning. He cared +greatly about many things. His admiration +was not extravagant, but his force is +great; in fact, one may say of him as he +said of John Cavanagh, the famous fives +player, 'His service was tremendous.' Indeed, +Hazlitt's whole description of Cavanagh's +play reminds one of his own literary +method:</p> + +<p>'His style of play was as remarkable as +his power of execution. He had no affectation, +no trifling. He did not throw away +the game to show off an attitude or try an +experiment. He was a fine, sensible, +manly player, who did what he could, but +that was more than anyone else could +even affect to do. His blows were not +undecided and ineffectual, lumbering like +Mr. Wordsworth's epic poetry, nor waver<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span>ing +like Mr. Coleridge's lyric prose, nor +short of the mark like Mr. Brougham's +speeches, nor wide of it like Mr. Canning's +wit, nor foul like the <i>Quarterly</i>, +nor <i>let</i> balls like the <i>Edinburgh Review</i>.'</p> + +<p>Wordsworth, Coleridge, Brougham, Canning! +was ever a fives player so described +before? What splendid reading it makes! +but we quote it for the purpose of applying +its sense to Hazlitt himself. As Cavanagh +played, so Hazlitt wrote.</p> + +<p>He is always interesting, and always +writes about really interesting things. His +talk is of poets and players, of Shakespeare +and Kean, of Fielding and Scott, of Burke +and Cobbett, of prize fights and Indian +jugglers. When he condescends to the +abstract, his subjects bring an appetite +with them. The Shyness of Scholars, the +Fear of Death, the Identity of an Author +with his Books, Effeminacy of Character, +the Conversation of Lords, On Reading +New Books: the very titles make you lick +your lips.</p> + +<p>Hazlitt may have been an unhappy man, +but he was above the vile affectation of +pretending to see nothing in life. Had he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> +not seen Mrs. Siddons, had he not read +Rousseau, had he not worshipped Titian +in the Louvre?</p> + +<p>No English writer better pays the debt +of gratitude always owing to great poets, +painters, and authors than Hazlitt; but his +is a manly, not a maudlin, gratitude. No +other writer has such gusto as he. The +glowing passage in which he describes +Titian's St. Peter Martyr almost recalls +the canvas uninjured from the flames which +have since destroyed it. We seem to see +the landscape background, 'with that cold +convent spire rising in the distance amidst +the blue sapphire mountains and the golden +sky.' His essay on Sir Walter Scott and +the <i>Waverley Novels</i> is the very best that +has ever been written on that magnificent +subject.</p> + +<p>As a companion at the Feast of Wits +commend us to Hazlitt, and as a companion +for a fortnight's holiday commend us to the +admirable selection recently made from his +works, which are numerous—some twenty +volumes—by Mr. Ireland, and published +at a cheap price by Messrs. F. Warne and +Co. The task of selection is usually a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> +thankless one. It involves of necessity +omission and frequently curtailment. It is +annoying to look in vain for some favourite +passage, and your annoyance prompts the +criticism that a really sound judgment +would have made room for what you miss. +We lodge no complaint against Mr. Ireland. +Like a wise man, he has allowed to himself +ample space, and he has compiled a volume +of 510 closely though well-printed pages, +which has only to be read in order to make +the reader well acquainted with an author +whom not to know is a severe mental deprivation.</p> + +<p>Mr. Ireland's book is a library in itself, +and a marvellous tribute to the genius of +his author. It seems almost incredible +that one man should have said so many +good things. It is true he does not go +very deep as a critic, he does not see into +the soul of the matter as Lamb and Coleridge +occasionally do—but he holds you +very tight—he grasps the subject, he enjoys +it himself and makes you do so. Perhaps +he does say too many good things. +His sparkling sentences follow so quickly +one upon another that the reader's appreci<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span>ation +soon becomes a breathless appreciation. +There is something almost uncanny +in such sustained cleverness. This impression, +however, must not be allowed to remain +as a final impression. In Hazlitt the +reader will find trains of sober thought pursued +with deep feeling and melancholy. +Turn to the essays, <i>On Living to One's +Self</i>, <i>On Going a Journey</i>, <i>On the Feeling +of Immortality in Youth</i>, and read them +over again. When you have done so you +will be indisposed to consider their author +as a mere sayer of good things. He was +much more than that. One smiles when, +on reading the first Lord Lytton's <i>Thoughts +on the Genius of Hazlitt</i>, the author of +<i>Eugene Aram</i>, is found declaring that +Hazlitt 'had a keen sense of the Beautiful +and the Subtle; and what is more, he was +deeply imbued with sympathies for the +Humane'; but when Lord Lytton proceeds, +'Posterity will do him justice,' we +cease to smile, and handling Mr. Ireland's +book, observe with deep satisfaction, 'It +has.'</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_LETTERS_OF_CHARLES_LAMB7" id="THE_LETTERS_OF_CHARLES_LAMB7"></a>THE LETTERS OF CHARLES LAMB<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span></h2> + + +<p>Four hundred and seventeen letters of +Charles Lamb's, some of them never before +published, in two well-printed but handy +volumes, edited, with notes illustrative, +explanatory, and biographical, by Canon +Ainger, and supplied with an admirable +index, are surely things to be thankful for +and to be desired. No doubt the price is +prohibitory. They will cost you in cash, +these two volumes, full as they are from +title-page to colophon with the sweetness +and nobility, the mirth and the melancholy +of their author's life, touched as every +page of them is with traces of a hard fate +bravely borne, seven shillings and sixpence.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> +None but American millionaires and foolish +book-collectors can bear such a strain +upon their purses. It is the cab-fare to +and from a couple of dull dinner-parties. +But Mudie is in our midst, ever ready to +supply our very modest intellectual wants +at so much a quarter, and ward off the +catastrophe so dreaded by all dust-hating +housewives, the accumulation of those +'nasty books,' for which indeed but slender +accommodation is provided in our upholstered +homes. Yet these volumes, however +acquired, whether by purchase, and +therefore destined to remain by your side +ready to be handled whenever the mood +seizes you, or borrowed from a library to +be returned at the week's end along with +the last new novel people are painfully talking +about, cannot fail to excite the interest +and stir the emotions of all lovers of sound +literature and true men.</p> + +<p>But first of all, Canon Ainger is to be +congratulated on the completion of his +task. He told us he was going to edit +<i>Lamb's Works and Letters</i>, and naturally +one believed him; but in this world there +is nothing so satisfactory as performance.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> +To see a good work well planned, well +executed, and entirely finished by the +same hand that penned, and the same +mind that conceived the original scheme, +has something about it which is surprisingly +gratifying to the soul of man, accustomed +as he is to the wreckage of projects +and the failure of hopes.</p> + +<p>Canon Ainger's edition of <i>Lamb's Works +and Letters</i> stands complete in six volumes. +Were one in search of sentiment, one might +perhaps find it in the intimate association +existing between the editor and the old +church by the side of which Lamb was +born, and which he ever loved and accounted +peculiarly his own. Elia was born +a Templar.</p> + +<p>'I was born and passed the first seven +years of my life in the Temple. Its +church, its halls, its gardens, its fountain, +its river, I had almost said—for in those +young years, what was this king of rivers +to me but a stream that watered our pleasant +places?—these are my oldest recollections.'</p> + +<p>Thus begins the celebrated essay on +'The Old Benchers of the Inner Temple.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> +As a humble member of that honourable +Society, I rejoice that its Reader should +be the man who has, as a labour of love +and by virtue of qualifications which cannot +be questioned, placed upon the library +shelf so complete and choice an edition +of the works of one whose memory is perhaps +the pleasantest thing about the whole +place.</p> + +<p>So far as these two volumes of letters +are concerned the course adopted by the +editor has been, if I may make bold to say +so, the right one. He has simply edited +them carefully and added notes and an +index. He has not attempted to tell +Lamb's life between times. He has already +told the story of that life in a separate +volume. I wish the practice could be +revived of giving us a man's correspondence +all by itself in consecutive volumes, as we +have the letters of Horace Walpole, of +Burke, of Richardson, of Cowper, and many +others. It is astonishing what interesting +and varied reading such volumes make. +They never tire you. You do not stop to +be tired. Something of interest is always +occurring. Some reference to a place you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> +have visited; to a house you have stayed +at; to a book you have read; to a man or +woman you wish to hear about. As compared +with the measured malice of a set +biography, where you feel yourself in the +iron grasp, not of the man whose life is +being professedly written, but of the man +(whom naturally you dislike) who has taken +upon himself to write the life, these volumes +of correspondence have all the ease and +grace and truthfulness of nature. There +is about as much resemblance between +reading them and your ordinary biography, +as between a turn on the treadmill and a +saunter into Hertfordshire in search of +Mackery End. I hope when we get hold +of the biographies of Lord Beaconsfield, +and Dean Stanley, we shall not find ourselves +defrauded of our dues. But it is of +the essence of letters that we should have +the whole of each. I think it wrong to +omit even the merely formal parts. They +all hang together. The method employed +in the biography of George Eliot was, in +my opinion—I can but state it—a vicious +method. To serve up letters in solid slabs +cut out of longer letters is distressing.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> +Every letter a man writes is an incriminating +document. It tells a tale about him. +Let the whole be read or none.</p> + +<p>Canon Ainger has adopted the right +course. He has indeed omitted a few +oaths—on the principle that 'damns have +had their day.' For my part, I think I +should have been disposed to leave them +alone.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘The rough bur-thistle spreading wide<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Amang the bearded bear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I turn’d my weeding-clips aside<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And spared the symbol dear.’<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>But this is not a question to discuss with +a dignitary of the Church. Leaving out +the oaths and, it may perhaps be, here and +there a passage where the reckless humour +of the writer led him to transcend the limits +of becoming mirth, and mere notelets, we +have in these two volumes Lamb's letters +just as they were written, save in an +instance or two where the originals have +been partially destroyed. The first is to +Coleridge, and is dated May 27, 1796; the +last is to Mrs. Dyer, and was written on +December 22, 1834. Who, I wonder, ever +managed to squeeze into a correspondence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> +of forty years truer humour, madder nonsense, +sounder sense, or more tender sympathy! +They do not indeed (these letters) +prate about first principles, but they contain +many things conducive to a good life +here below.</p> + +<p>The earlier letters strike the more solemn +notes. As a young man Lamb was deeply +religious, and for a time the appalling +tragedy of his life, the death of his mother +by his sister's hand, deepened these feelings. +His letters to Coleridge in September +and October, 1769, might very well +appear in the early chapters of a saint's +life. They exhibit the rare union of a +colossal strength, entire truthfulness, (no +single emotion being ever exaggerated,) +with the tenderest and most refined feelings. +Some of his sentences remind one +of Johnson, others of Rousseau. How +people reading these letters can ever have +the impudence to introduce into the tones +of their voices when they are referring to +Lamb the faintest suspicion of condescension, +as if they were speaking of one +weaker than themselves, must always re<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span>main +an unsolved problem of human conceit.</p> + +<p>These elevated feelings passed away. +He refers to this in a letter written in +1801 to Walter Wilson.</p> + +<p>'I have had a time of seriousness, and +I have known the importance and reality +of a religious belief. Latterly, I acknowledge, +much of my seriousness has gone +off, whether from new company or some +other new associations, but I still retain +at bottom a conviction of the truth and a +certainty of the usefulness of religion.'</p> + +<p>The fact, I suspect, was that the strain +of religious thoughts was proving too +great for a brain which had once succumbed +to madness. Religion sits very +lightly on some minds. She could not +have done so on Lamb's. He took refuge +in trivialities seriously, and played the +fool in order to remain sane.</p> + +<p>These letters are of the same material +as the <i>Essays of Elia</i>. The germs, nay, +the very phrases, of the latter are frequently +to be found in the former. This +does not offend in Lamb's case, though as +a rule a good letter ought not forcibly to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> +remind us of a good essay by the same +hand. Admirable as are Thackeray's lately +published letters, the parts I like best +are those which remind me least of a +<i>Roundabout Paper</i>. The author is always +apt to steal in, and the author is the very +last person you wish to see in a letter. +But as you read Lamb's letters you never +think of the author: his personality carries +you over everything. He manages—I +will not say skilfully, for it was the +natural result of his delightful character, +always to address his letter to his correspondent—to +make it a thing which, apart +from the correspondent, his habits and +idiosyncrasies, could not possibly have existed +in the shape it does. One sometimes +comes across things called letters, +which might have been addressed to anybody. +But these things are not letters: +they are extracts from journals or circulars, +and are usually either offensive or +dull.</p> + +<p>Lamb's letters are not indeed model +letters like Cowper's. Though natural to +Lamb, they cannot be called easy. 'Divine +chit-chat' is not the epithet to de<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span>scribe +them. His notes are all high. He +is sublime, heartrending, excruciatingly +funny, outrageously ridiculous, sometimes +possibly an inch or two overdrawn. He +carries the charm of incongruity and total +unexpectedness to the highest pitch imaginable. +John Sterling used to chuckle +over the sudden way in which you turn up +Adam in the following passage from a +letter to Bernard Barton:</p> + +<p>'<span class="smcap">Dear B. B.</span>—You may know my letters +by the paper and the folding. For +the former I live on scraps obtained in +charity from an old friend, whose stationery +is a permanent perquisite; for folding +I shall do it neatly when I learn to tie my +neckcloths. I surprise most of my friends +by writing to them on ruled paper, as if +I had not got past pot-hooks and hangers. +Sealing-wax I have none in my establishment; +wafers of the coarsest bran supply +its place. When my epistles come to be +weighed with Pliny's, however superior to +them in Roman delicate irony, judicious +reflections, etc., his gilt post will bribe +over the judges to him. All the time I +was at the E. I. H. I never mended a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> +pen. I now cut 'em to the stumps, marring +rather than mending the primitive +goose-quill. I cannot bear to pay for +articles I used to get for nothing. When +Adam laid out his first penny upon nonpareils +at some stall in Mesopotamos, I +think it went hard with him, reflecting +upon his old goodly orchard where he had +so many for nothing.'</p> + +<p>There are not many better pastimes for +a middle-aged man who does not care for +first principles or modern novels than to +hunt George Dyer up-and-down Charles +Lamb. Lamb created Dyer as surely as +did Cervantes Don Quixote, Sterne Toby +Shandy, or Charles Dickens Sam Weller. +Outside Lamb George Dyer is the deadest +of dead authors. Inside Lamb he is one +of the quaintest, queerest, most humorously +felicitous of living characters. Pursue +this sport through Canon Ainger's first +volume and you will have added to your +gallery of whimsicalities the picture of +George Dyer by a master-hand.</p> + +<p>Lamb's relations towards Coleridge and +Wordsworth are exceedingly interesting. +He loved them both as only Lamb could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> +love his friends. He admired them both +immensely as poets. He recognised what +he considered their great intellectual superiority +over himself. He considered +their friendship the crowning glory of his +life. For Coleridge his affection reached +devotion. The news of his death was a +shock he never got over. He would keep +repeating to himself, 'Coleridge is dead!' +But with what a noble, independent, manly +mind did he love his friends! How deep, +how shrewd was his insight into their +manifold infirmities! His masculine nature +and absolute freedom from that curse +of literature, coterieship, stand revealed +on every page of the history of Lamb's +friendships.</p> + +<p>On page 327 of Canon Ainger's first +volume there is a letter of Lamb's, never +before printed, addressed to his friend Manning, +which is delightful reading. The +editor did not get it in time to put it in the +text, so the careless reader might overlook +it, lurking as it does amongst the notes. +It is too long for quotation, but a morsel +must be allowed me:</p> + +<p>'I lately received from Wordsworth a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> +copy of the second volume, accompanied +by an acknowledgment of having received +from me many months since a copy of a +certain tragedy with excuses for not having +made any acknowledgment sooner, it +being owing to an almost insurmountable +aversion from letter-writing. This +letter I answered in due form and time, +and enumerated several of the passages +which had most affected me, adding, unfortunately, +that no single piece had moved +me so forcibly as the <i>Ancient Mariner</i>, +<i>The Mad Mother</i>, or the <i>Lines at Tintern +Abbey</i>. The Post did not sleep a +moment. I received almost instantaneously +a long letter of four sweating pages +from my Reluctant Letter-Writer, the purport +of which was, he was sorry his second +volume had not given me more pleasure +(Devil a hint did I give that it had not +pleased me), and was compelled to wish +that my range of sensibility was more extended, +being obliged to believe that I +should receive large influxes of happiness +and happy thoughts (I suppose from the +<i>Lyrical Ballads</i>). With a deal of stuff +about a certain union of Tenderness and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> +Imagination, which in the sense he used +Imagination was not the characteristic of +Shakespeare, but which Milton possessed +in a degree far exceeding other Poets, +which union, as the highest species of +Poetry and chiefly deserving that name +"he was most proud to aspire to"; then +illustrating the said union by two quotations +from his own second volume which +I had been so unfortunate as to miss.'</p> + +<p>But my quotation must stop. It has +been long enough to prove what I was saying +about the independence of Lamb's +judgment even of his best friends. No +wonder such a man did not like being +called 'gentle-hearted' even by S. T. C, to +whom he writes:</p> + +<p>'In the next edition of the <i>Anthology</i> +(which Phœbus avert, those nine other +wandering maids also!) please to blot out +"gentle-hearted," and substitute drunken +dog, ragged head, seld-shaven, odd-eyed, +stuttering, or any other epithet which +truly and properly belongs to the gentleman +in question.'</p> + +<p>Of downright fun and fooling of the +highest intellectual calibre fine examples<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> +abound on all sides. The 'Dick Hopkins' +letter ranks very high. Manning had sent +Lamb from Cambridge a piece of brawn, +and Lamb takes into his head, so teeming +with whimsical fancies, to pretend that it +had been sent him by an imaginary Dick +Hopkins, 'the swearing scullion of Caius,' +who 'by industry and agility has thrust +himself into the important situation (no +sinecure, believe me) of cook to Trinity +Hall'; and accordingly he writes the real +donor a long letter, singing the praises of +this figment of his fancy, and concludes:</p> + +<p>'Do me the favour to leave off the business +which you may be at present upon, +and go immediately to the kitchens of +Trinity and Caius and make my most respectful +compliments to Mr. Richard +Hopkins and assure him that his brawn +is most excellent: and that I am moreover +obliged to him for his innuendo about +salt water and bran, which I shall not fail +to improve. I leave it to you whether +you shall choose to pay him the civility of +asking him to dinner while you stay in +Cambridge, or in whatever other way you +may best like to show your gratitude to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> +<i>my friend</i>. Richard Hopkins considered +in many points of view is a very extraordinary +character. Adieu. I hope to see +you to supper in London soon, where we +will taste Richard's brawn, and drink his +health in a cheerful but moderate cup. +We have not many such men in any rank +of life as Mr. R. Hopkins. Crisp, the +barber of St. Mary's, was just such another. +I wonder <i>he</i> never sent me any +little token, some chestnuts or a puff, or +two pound of hair; just to remember him +by.'</p> + +<p>We have little such elaborate jesting +nowadays. I suppose we think it is not +worth the trouble. The Tartary letter to +Manning and the rheumatism letters to +Crabb Robinson are almost distractingly +provocative of deep internal laughter. The +letter to Cary apologising for the writer's +getting drunk in the British Museum has +its sad side; but if one may parody the +remark, made by 'the young lady of quality,' +to Dr. Johnson, which he was so fond +of getting Boswell to repeat, though it was +to the effect that had he (our great moralist) +been born out of wedlock his genius<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> +would have been his mother's excuse, it +may be said that such a letter as Lamb's +was ample atonement for his single frailty.</p> + +<p>Lamb does not greatly indulge in sarcasm, +though nobody could say more thoroughly +ill-natured things than he if he +chose to do so. George Dawe, the Royal +Academician, is roughly used by him. The +account he gives of Miss Berger—Benjay +he calls her—is not lacking in spleen. But +as a rule if Lamb disliked a person he +damned him and passed on. He did not +stop to elaborate his dislikes, or to toss his +hatreds up and down, as he does his loves +and humorous fancies. He hated the second +Mrs. Godwin with an entire hatred. +In a letter written to Manning when in +China he says:</p> + +<p>'Mrs. Godwin grows every day in disfavour +with me. I will be buried with +this inscription over me: "Here lies C. L., +the woman hater": I mean that +hated one woman; for the rest God bless +them! How do you like the Mandarinesses? +Are you on some little footing +with any of them?'</p> + +<p>Scattered up and down these letters are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> +to be found golden sentences, criticisms +both of life and of books, to rival which +one would have far to go. He has not the +glitter of Hazlitt—a writer whom it is a +shame to depreciate; nor does he ever +make the least pretence of aspiring to the +chair of Coleridge. He lived all his life +through conscious of a great weakness, and +therein indeed lay the foundation of the +tower of his strength. 'You do not know,' +he writes to Godwin, 'how sore and weak +a brain I have, or you would allow for +many things in me which you set down +for whims.' Lamb apologising for himself +to Godwin is indeed a thing at which +the imagination boggles. But his humility +must not blind us to the fact that there are +few men from whom we can learn more.</p> + +<p>The most striking note of Lamb's literary +criticism is its veracity. He is perhaps +never mistaken. His judgments are apt to +be somewhat too much coloured with his +own idiosyncrasy to be what the judicious +persons of the period call final and classical, +but when did he ever go utterly wrong +either in praise or in dispraise? When did +he like a book which was not a good book?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> +When did either the glamour of antiquity +or the glare of novelty lead him astray? +How free he was from that silly chatter +about books now so abundant! When did +he ever pronounce wire-drawn twaddle or +sickly fancies, simply reeking of their impending +dissolution, to be enduring and +noble workmanship?</p> + +<p>But it must be owned Lamb was not a +great reader of new books. That task devolved +upon his sister. He preferred Burnet's +<i>History of his Own Times</i>, to any +novel, even to a 'Waverley.'</p> + +<p>'Did you ever read,' he wrote to Manning, +'that garrulous, pleasant history? +He tells his story like an old man past +political service, bragging to his sons on +winter evenings of the part he took in public +transactions, when his "old cap was +new." Full of scandal, which all true history +is. No palliatives; but all the stark +wickedness, that actually gives the <i>momentum</i> +to national actors. Quite the prattle +of age and outlived importance. Truth +and sincerity staring out upon you in +<i>alto relievo</i>. Himself a party man, he +makes you a party man. None of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> +cursed, philosophical, Humeian indifference, +so cold and unnatural and inhuman. +None of the cursed Gibbonian fine writing +so fine, and composite! None of Dr. +Robertson's periods with three members. +None of Mr. Roscoe's sage remarks, all so +apposite and coming in so clever, lest the +reader should have had the trouble of drawing +an inference.'</p> + +<p>On the subject of children's books Lamb +held strong opinions, as indeed he was entitled +to do. What married pair with their +quiver full ever wrote such tales for children +as did this old bachelor and his maiden +sister?</p> + +<p>'I am glad the snuff and Pipos books +please. <i>Goody Two Shoes</i> is almost out +of print. Mrs. Barbauld's stuff has banished +all the old classics of the nursery, +and the shop-man at Newberry's hardly +deigned to reach them off an old exploded +corner of a shelf when Mary asked for +them. Mrs. Barbauld's and Mrs. Trimmer's +nonsense lay in piles about. Knowledge +insignificant and vapid as Mrs. Barbauld's +books convey, it seems must come +to a child in the <i>shape of knowledge</i>, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> +his empty noddle must be turned with conceit +of his own powers when he has learnt +that a horse is an animal, and Billy is better +than a horse, and such like—instead +of that beautiful interest in wild tales which +made the child a man, while all the time he +suspected himself to be no bigger than a +child.'</p> + +<p>Canon Ainger's six volumes are not very +big. They take up but little room. They +demand no great leisure. But they cannot +fail to give immense pleasure to generations +to come, to purify tastes, to soften +hearts, to sweeten discourse.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="AUTHORS_IN_COURT" id="AUTHORS_IN_COURT"></a>AUTHORS IN COURT<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span></h2> + + +<p>There is always something a little ludicrous +about the spectacle of an author in +pursuit of his legal remedies. It is hard +to say why, but like a sailor on horseback, +or a Quaker at the play, it suggests that +incongruity which is the soul of things +humorous. The courts are of course as +much open to authors as to the really +deserving members of the community; +and, to do the writing fraternity justice, +they have seldom shown any indisposition +to enter into them—though if they have +done so joyfully, it must be attributed to +their natural temperament, which (so we +read) is easy, rather than to the mirthful +character of legal process.</p> + +<p>To write a history of the litigations in +which great authors have been engaged +would indeed be <i>renovare dolorem</i>, and is +no intention of mine; though the subject<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> +is not destitute of human interest—indeed, +quite the opposite.</p> + +<p>Great books have naturally enough, +being longer lived, come into court even +more frequently than great authors. <i>Paradise +Lost</i>, <i>The Whole Duty of Man</i>, <i>The +Pilgrim's Progress</i>, <i>Thomson's Seasons</i>, +<i>Rasselas</i>, all have a legal as well as a literary +history. Nay, Holy Writ herself has +raised some nice points. The king's exclusive +prerogative to print the authorised +version has been based by some lawyers +on the commercial circumstance that King +James paid for it out of his own pocket. +Hence, argued they, cunningly enough, it +became his, and is now his successor's. +Others have contended more strikingly +that the right of multiplying copies of the +Scriptures necessarily belongs to the king +as head of the Church. A few have been +found to question the right altogether, and +to call it a job. As her present gracious +Majesty has been pleased to abandon the +prerogative, and has left all her subjects +free (though at their own charges) to publish +the version of her learned predecessor, +the Bible does not now come into court on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> +its own account. But whilst the prerogative +was enforced, the king's printers were +frequently to be found seeking injunctions +to restrain the vending of the Word of +God by (to use Carlyle's language) 'Mr. +Thomas Teggs and other extraneous persons.' +Nor did the judges, on proper +proof, hesitate to grant what was sought. +It is perhaps interesting to observe that the +king never claimed more than the text. It +was always open to anybody to publish even +King James's version, if he added notes +of his own. But how shamefully was this +royal indulgence abused! Knavish booksellers, +anxious to turn a dishonest penny +out of the very Bible, were known to publish +Bibles with so-called notes, which upon +examination turned out not to be <i>bonâ-fide</i> +notes at all, but sometimes mere indications +of assent with what was stated in the text, +and sometimes simple ejaculations. And +as people as a rule preferred to be without +notes of this character they used to be +thoughtfully printed at the very edge of +the sheet, so that the scissors of the binder +should cut them off and prevent them +annoying the reader. But one can fancy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> +the question, 'What is a <i>bonâ-fide</i> note?' +exercising the legal mind.</p> + +<p>Our great lawyers on the bench have +always treated literature in the abstract +with the utmost respect. They have in +many cases felt that they too, but for the +grace of God, might have been authors. +Like Charles Lamb's solemn Quaker, 'they +had been wits in their youth.' Lord Mansfield +never forgot that, according to Mr. +Pope, he was a lost Ovid. Before ideas in +their divine essence the judges have bowed +down. 'A literary composition,' it has +been said by them, 'so long as it lies dormant +in the author's mind, is absolutely +in his own possession.' Even Mr. Horatio +Sparkins, of whose brilliant table-talk +this observation reminds us, could not +more willingly have recognised an obvious +truth.</p> + +<p>But they have gone much further than +this. Not only is the repose of the dormant +idea left undisturbed, but the manuscript +to which it, on ceasing to be dormant, +has been communicated, is hedged +round with divinity. It would be most +unfair to the delicacy of the legal mind to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> +attribute this to the fact, no doubt notorious, +that whilst it is easy (after, say, three +years in a pleader's chambers) to draw +an indictment against a man for stealing +paper, it is not easy to do so if he has only +stolen the ideas and used his own paper. +There are some quibbling observations in +the second book of Justinian's <i>Institutes</i>, +and a few remarks of Lord Coke's which +might lead the thoughtless to suppose that +in their protection of an author's manuscripts +the courts were thinking more of +the paper than of the words put upon it; +but that this is not so clearly appears from +our law as it is administered in the Bankruptcy +branch of the High Court.</p> + +<p>Suppose a popular novelist were to become +a bankrupt—a supposition which, +owing to the immense sums these gentlemen +are now known to make, is robbed of +all painfulness by its impossibility—and +his effects were found to consist of the +three following items: first, his wearing +apparel; second, a copy of <i>Whitaker's +Almanack</i> for the current year; and third, +the manuscript of a complete and hitherto +unpublished novel, worth in the Row, let<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> +us say, one thousand pounds. These are +the days of cash payments, so we must not +state the author's debts at more than fifteen +hundred pounds. It would have been difficult +for him to owe more without incurring +the charge of imprudence. Now, how will +the law deal with the effects of this bankrupt? +Ever averse to exposing anyone to +criminal proceedings, it will return to him +his clothing, provided its cash value does +not exceed twenty pounds, which, as authors +have left off wearing bloom-coloured garments +even as they have left off writing +<i>Vicars of Wakefield</i>, it is not likely to do. +This humane rule disposes of item number +one. As to <i>Whitaker's Almanack</i>, it would +probably be found necessary to take the +opinion of the court; since, if it be a tool +of the author's trade, it will not vest in the +official receiver and be divisible amongst +the creditors, but, like the first item, will +remain the property of the bankrupt—but +otherwise, if not such a tool. On a +point like this the court would probably +wish to hear the evidence of an expert—of +some man like Mr. George Augustus +Sala, who knows the literary life to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> +backbone. This point disposed of, or +standing over for argument, there remains +the manuscript novel, which, as we have +said, would, if sold in the Row, produce a +sum not only sufficient to pay the costs of +the argument about the <i>Almanack</i> and of +all parties properly appearing in the bankruptcy, +but also, if judiciously handled, a +small dividend to the creditors. But here +our law steps in with its chivalrous, almost +religious respect for ideas, and declares +that the manuscript shall not be taken +from the bankrupt and published without +his consent. In ordinary cases everything +a bankrupt has, save the clothes for his +back and the tools of his trade, is ruthlessly +torn from him. Be it in possession, +reversion, or remainder, it all goes. His +incomes for life, his reversionary hopes, are +knocked down to the speculator. In vulgar +phrase, he is 'cleaned out.' But the +manuscripts of the bankrupt author, albeit +they may be worth thousands, are not recognised +as property; they are not yet dedicated +to the public. The precious papers, +despite all their writer's misfortunes, remain +his—his to croon and to dream over,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> +his to alter and re-transcribe, his to withhold, +ay, his to destroy, if he should deem +them, either in calm judgment, or in a +despairing hour, unhappy in their expression +or unworthy of his name.</p> + +<p>There is something positively tender in +this view. The law may be an ass, but it +is also a gentleman.</p> + +<p>Of course, in my imaginary case, if the +bankrupt were to withhold his consent to +publication, his creditors, even though it +were held that the <i>Almanack</i> was theirs, +would get nothing. I can imagine them +grumbling, and saying (what will not creditors +say?): 'We fed this gentleman whilst +he was writing this precious manuscript. +Our joints sustained him, our bread filled +him, our wine made him merry. Without +our goods he must have perished. By all +legal analogies we ought to have a lien +upon that manuscript. We are wholly +indifferent to the writer's reputation. It +may be blasted for all we care. It was +not as an author but as a customer +that we supplied his very regular wants. +It is now our turn to have wants. We +want to be paid.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span></p> + +<p>These amusing, though familiar, cries of +distress need not disturb our equanimity or +interfere with our admiration for the sublime +views as to the sanctity of unpublished +ideas entertained by the Court sitting in +Bankruptcy.</p> + +<p>We have thus found, so far as we have +gone, the profoundest respect shown by the +law both for the dormant ideas and the +manuscripts of the author. Let us now +push boldly on, and inquire what happens +when the author withdraws his interdict, +takes the world into his confidence, and +publishes his book.</p> + +<p>Our old Common Law was clear enough. +Subject only to laws or customs about +licensing and against profane books and +the like, the right of publishing and selling +any book belonged exclusively to the author +and persons claiming through him. +Books were as much the subjects of property-rights +as lands in Kent or money in +the bank. The term of enjoyment knew +no period. Fine fantastic ideas about +genius endowing the world and transcending +the narrow bounds of property were not +countenanced by our Common Law. Bun<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span>yan's +<i>Pilgrim's Progress</i>, in the year 1680, +belonged to Mr. Ponder: <i>Paradise Lost</i>, in +the year 1739, was the property of Mr. +Jacob Tonson. Mr. Ponder and Mr. Tonson +had acquired these works by purchase. +Property-rights of this description seem +strange to us, even absurd. But that is +one of the provoking ways of property-rights. +Views vary. Perhaps this time +next century it will seem as absurd that +Ben Mac Dhui should ever have been +private property as it now does that in +1739 Mr. Tonson should have been the +owner 'of man's first disobedience and the +fruit of that forbidden tree.' This is not +said with any covered meaning, but is +thrown out gloomily with the intention of +contributing to the general depreciation of +property.</p> + +<p>If it be asked how came it about that +authors and booksellers allowed themselves +to be deprived of valuable and well-assured +rights—to be in fact disinherited, +without so much as an expostulatory ode +or a single epigram—it must be answered, +strange as it may sound, it hap<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span>pened +accidentally and through tampering +with the Common Law.</p> + +<p>Authors are indeed a luckless race. To +be deprived of your property by Act of +Parliament is a familiar process, calling +for no remarks save of an objurgatory +character; but to petition Parliament to +take away your property—to get up an +agitation against yourself, to promote the +passage through both Houses of the Act +of spoliation, is unusual; so unusual indeed +that I make bold to say that none +but authors would do such things. That +they did these very things is certain. It +is also certain that they did not mean to +do them. They did not understand the +effect of their own Act of Parliament. In +exchange for a term of either fourteen or +twenty-one years, they gave up not only +for themselves, but for all before and after +them, the whole of time. Oh! miserable +men! No enemy did this; no hungry +mob clamoured for cheap books; no owner +of copyrights so much as weltered in his +gore. The rights were unquestioned: no +one found fault with them. The authors +accomplished their own ruin. Never,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> +surely, since the well-nigh incredible folly +of our first parents lost us Eden and put +us to the necessity of earning our living, +was so fine a property—perpetual copyright—bartered +away for so paltry an +equivalent.</p> + +<p>This is how it happened. Before the +Revolution of 1688 printing operations +were looked after, first by the Court of +Star Chamber, which was not always engaged, +as the perusal of constitutional history +might lead one to believe, in torturing +the unlucky, and afterwards by the Stationers' +Company. Both these jurisdictions +revelled in what is called summary +process, which lawyers sometimes describe +as <i>brevi manu</i>, and suitors as 'short +shrift.' They hailed before them the +Mr. Thomas Teggs of the period, and +fined them heavily and confiscated their +stolen editions. Authors and their assignees +liked this. But then came Dutch +William and the glorious Revolution. The +press was left free; and authors and their +assignees were reduced to the dull level of +unlettered persons; that is to say, if their +rights were interfered with, they were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> +compelled to bring an action, of the kind +called 'trespass on the case,' and to employ +astute counsel to draw pleadings with +a pitfall in each paragraph, and also to +incur costs; and in most cases, even when +they triumphed over their enemy, it was +only to find him a pauper from whom it +was impossible to recover a penny. Nor +had the law power to fine the offender or +to confiscate the pirated edition; or if it +had this last power, it was not accustomed +to exercise it, deeming it unfamiliar and +savouring of the Inquisition. Grub Street +grew excited. A noise went up 'most +musical, most melancholy,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘As of cats that wail in chorus.’<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It was the Augustan age of literature. +Authors were listened to. They petitioned +Parliament, and their prayer was +heard. In the eighth year of good Queen +Anne the first copyright statute was +passed which, 'for the encouragement of +learned men to compose and write useful +books,' provided that the authors of books +already printed who had not transferred +their rights, and the booksellers or other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> +persons who had purchased the copy of +any books in order to print or reprint the +same, should have the sole right of printing +them for a term of twenty-one years +from the tenth of April, 1710, and no +longer; and that authors of books not +then printed, should have the sole right of +printing for fourteen years, and no longer. +Then followed, what the authors really +wanted the Act for, special penalties for +infringement. And there was peace in +Grub Street for the space of twenty-one +years. But at the expiration of this period +the fateful question was stirred—what +had happened to the old Common Law +right in perpetuity? Did it survive this +peddling Act, or had it died, ingloriously +smothered by a statute? That fine old +book—once on every settle—<i>The Whole +Duty of Man</i>, first raised the point. Its +date of publication was 1657, so it had had +its term of twenty-one years. That term +having expired, what then? The proceedings +throw no light upon the vexed +question of the book's authorship. Sir +Joseph Jekyll was content with the evidence +before him that, in 1735 at all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> +events, <i>The Whole Duty of Man</i> was, or +would have been but for the statute, the +property of one Mr. Eyre. He granted +an injunction, thus in effect deciding that +the old Common Law had survived the +statute. Nor did the defendant appeal, +but sat down under the affront, and left +<i>The Whole Duty of Man</i> alone for the +future.</p> + +<p>Four years later there came into Lord +Hardwicke's court 'silver-tongued Murray,' +afterwards Lord Mansfield, then Solicitor-General, +and on behalf of Mr. Jacob Tonson +moved for an injunction to restrain +the publication of an edition of <i>Paradise +Lost</i>. Tonson's case was, that <i>Paradise +Lost</i> belonged to him, just as the celebrated +ewer by Benvenuto Cellini once +belonged to the late Mr. Beresford Hope. +He proved his title by divers mesne assignments +and other acts in the law, from Mrs. +Milton—the poet's third wife, who exhibited +such skill in the art of widowhood, +surviving her husband as she did for fifty-three +years. Lord Hardwicke granted the +injunction. It looked well for the Common +Law. Thomson's <i>Seasons</i> next took<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> +up the wondrous tale. This delightful +author, now perhaps better remembered +by his charming habit of eating peaches +off the wall with both hands in his pockets, +than by his great work, had sold the book +to Andrew Millar, the bookseller whom +Johnson respected because, said he, 'he +has raised the price of literature.' If so, +it must have been but low before, for he +only gave Thomson a hundred guineas +for 'Summer,' 'Autumn,' and 'Winter,' and +some other pieces. The 'Spring' he bought +separately, along with the ill-fated tragedy, +<i>Sophonisba</i>, for one hundred and thirty-seven +pounds ten shillings. A knave +called Robert Taylor pirated Millar's Thomson's +<i>Seasons</i>; and on the morrow of All +Souls in Michaelmas, in the seventh year +of King George the Third, Andrew Millar +brought his plea of trespass on the case +against Robert Taylor, and gave pledges +of prosecution, to wit, John Doe and +Richard Roe. The case was recognised +to be of great importance, and was argued +at becoming length in the King's Bench. +Lord Mansfield and Justices Willes and +Aston upheld the Common Law. It was,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> +they declared, unaffected by the statute. +Mr. Justice Yates dissented, and in the +course of a judgment occupying nearly +three hours, gave some of his reasons. It +was the first time the court had ever finally +differed since Mansfield presided over it. +Men felt the matter could not rest there. +Nor did it. Millar died, and went to his +own place. His executors put up Thomson's +<i>Poems</i> for sale by public auction, and +one Beckett bought them for five hundred +and five pounds. When we remember +that Millar only gave two hundred and +forty-two pounds ten shillings for them in +1729, and had therefore enjoyed more than +forty years' exclusive monopoly, we realise +not only that Millar had made a good thing +out of his brother Scot, but what great +interests were at stake. Thomson's <i>Seasons</i>, +erst Millar's, now became Beckett's; +and when one Donaldson of Edinburgh +brought out an edition of the poems, it +became the duty of Beckett to take proceedings, +which he did by filing a bill in +the Court of Chancery.<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span></p> +<p>These proceedings found their way, as +all decent proceedings do, to the House of +Lords—farther than which you cannot go, +though ever so minded. It was now high +time to settle this question, and their lordships +accordingly, as was their proud practice +in great cases, summoned the judges +of the land before their bar, and put to +them five carefully-worded questions, all +going to the points—what was the old +Common Law right, and has it survived +the statute? Eleven judges attended, +heard the questions, bowed and retired to +consider their answers. On the fifteenth +of February, 1774, they reappeared, and it +being announced that they differed, instead +of being locked up without meat, drink, or +firing until they agreed, they were requested +to deliver their opinions with their +reasons, which they straightway proceeded +to do. The result may be stated with tolerable +accuracy thus: by ten to one they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> +were of opinion that the old Common Law +recognised perpetual copyright. By six to +five they were of opinion that the statute +of Queen Anne had destroyed this right. +The House of Lords adopted the opinion +of the majority, reversed the decree of the +Court below, and thus Thomson's <i>Seasons</i> +became your <i>Seasons</i>, my <i>Seasons</i>, anybody's +<i>Seasons</i>. But by how slender a +majority! To make it even more exciting, +it was notorious that the most eminent +judge on the Bench (Lord Mansfield) agreed +with the minority; but owing to the combined +circumstances of his having already, +in a case practically between the same +parties and relating to the same matter, +expressed his opinion, and of his being +not merely a judge but a peer, he was prevented +(by etiquette) from taking any part, +either as a judge or as a peer, in the proceedings. +Had he not been prevented (by +etiquette), who can say what the result +might have been?</p> + +<p>Here ends the story of how authors and +their assignees were disinherited by mistake, +and forced to content themselves with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> +such beggarly terms of enjoyment as a hostile +legislature doles out to them.</p> + +<p>As the law now stands, they may enjoy +their own during the period of the +author's life, <i>plus</i> seven years, or the period +of forty-two years, whichever may chance +to prove the longer.</p> + +<p>So strangely and so quickly does the +law colour men's notions of what is inherently +decent, that even authors have forgotten +how fearfully they have been abused +and how cruelly robbed. Their thoughts +are turned in quite other directions. I do +not suppose they will care for these old-world +memories. Their great minds are +tossing on the ocean which pants dumbly-passionate +with dreams of royalties. If +they could only shame the English-reading +population of the United States to pay +for their literature, all would be well. +Whether they ever will, depends upon +themselves. If English authors will publish +their books cheap, Brother Sam may, +and probably will, pay them a penny a +copy, or some such sum. If they will not, +he will go on stealing. It is wrong, but +he will do it. 'He says,' observes an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> +American writer, 'that he was born of +poor but honest parents, <i>I</i> say, "Bah!"'<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="NATIONALITY" id="NATIONALITY"></a>NATIONALITY<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span></h2> + + +<p>Nothing can well be more offensive +than the abrupt asking of questions, unless +indeed it be the glib assurance which +professes to be able to answer them without +a moment's doubt or consideration. +It is hard to forgive Sir Robert Peel for +having once asked, 'What is a pound?' +Cobden's celebrated question, 'What next? +And next?' was perhaps less objectionable, +being vast and vague, and to employ +Sir Thomas Browne's well-known phrase, +capable of a wide solution.</p> + +<p>But in these disagreeable days we must +be content to be disagreeable. We must +even accept being so as our province. It +seems now recognised that he is the best +Parliamentary debater who is most disagreeable. +It is not so easy as some people +imagine to be disagreeable. The gift requires +cultivation. It is easier, no doubt, +for some than for others.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span></p> + +<p>What is a nation—socially and politically, +and as a unit to be dealt with by +practical politicians? It is not a great +many things. It is not blood, it is not +birth, it is not breeding. A man may +have been born at Surat and educated at +Lausanne, one of his four great-grandfathers +may have been a Dutchman, one of +his four great-grandmothers a French refugee, +and yet he himself may remain from +his cradle in Surat to his grave at Singapore, +a true-born Englishman, with all an +Englishman's fine contempt for mixed races +and struggling nationalities.</p> + +<p>Where the English came from is still a +matter of controversy, but where they have +gone to is writ large over the earth's surface. +Yet their nationality has suffered +no eclipse. Caviare is not so good in London +as in Moscow, but it is caviare all the +same. No foreigner needs to ask the +nationality of the man who treads on his +corns, smiles at his religion, and does not +want to know anything about his aspirations.</p> + +<p>England has all the notes of a nation. +She has a National Church, based upon a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> +view of history peculiarly her own. She +has a National Oath, which, without any +undue pride, may be pronounced adequate +for ordinary occasions. She has a Constitution, +the admiration of the world, and of +which a fresh account has to be written +every twenty years. She has a History, +glorious in individual feats, and splendid in +accomplished facts; she has a Literature +which makes the poorest of her children, +if only he has been taught to read, rich +beyond the dreams of avarice. As for the +national character, it may be said of an +Englishman, what has been truly said of +the great English poet Wordsworth—take +him at his best and he need own no superior. +He cannot always be at his best; +and when he is at his worst the world +shudders.</p> + +<p>But what about Scotland and Ireland? +Are they nations? If they are not, it is +not because their separate characteristics +have been absorbed by John Bullism. +Scotland and Ireland are no more England +than Holland or Belgium. It may be +doubted whether, if the three countries +had never been politically united, their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> +existing unlikeness would have been any +greater than it is. It is a most accentuated +unlikeness. Scotland has her own prevailing +religion. Mr. Arnold recognised +this when he observed, in that manner of +his which did not always give pleasure, +that Dr. Chalmers reminded him of a +Scotch thistle valorously trying to look as +much like the rose of Sharon as possible. +This distorted view of Mr. Arnold's at all +events recognises a fact. Then there is +Scotch law. If there is one legal proposition +which John Bull—poor attorney-ridden +John Bull—has grasped for himself, +it is that a promise made without a monetary +or otherwise valuable consideration, is +in its legal aspect a thing of nought, which +may be safely disregarded. Bull's views +about the necessity of writing and sixpenny +stamps are vague, but he is quite sound +and certain about promises going for nothing +unless something passed between the +parties. Thus, if an Englishman, moved, +let us say, by the death of his father, says +hastily to a maiden aunt who has made the +last days of his progenitor easy, 'I will give +you fifty pounds a year,' and then repents<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> +him of his promise, he is under no legal +obligation to make it good. If he is a gentleman +he will send her a ten-pound note +at Christmas and a fat goose at Michaelmas, +and the matter drops as being +but the babble of the sick-room. But in +Scotland the maiden aunt, provided she +can prove her promise, can secure her annuity +and live merrily in Peebles for the +rest of a voluptuous life. Here is a difference +indeed!</p> + +<p>Then, Scotland has a history of her own. +The late Dr. Hill Burton wrote it in nine +comfortable volumes. She has a thousand +traditions, foreign connections, feelings to +which the English breast must always +remain an absolute stranger. Scottish fields +are different from English fields; her farms, +roads, walls, buildings, flowers, are different; +her schools, universities, churches, +household ways, songs, foods, drinks, are +all as different as may be. Boswell's Johnson, +Lockhart's Scott! What a host of +dissimilarities, what an Iliad of unlikenesses, +do the two names of Johnson and +Scott call up from the vasty deep of +national differences!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span></p> + +<p>One great note of a nation is possessed +to the full by Scotland. I mean the power +of blending into one state of national feeling +all those who call what is contained +within her geographical boundaries by the +sacred name of 'Home.' The Lowlander +from Dumfries is more at home at Inverness +than in York. Why is this? Because +Scotland is a nation. The great Smollett, +who challenges Dickens for the foremost +place amongst British comic writers, had +no Celtic blood in his veins. He was +neither a Papist nor a Jacobite, yet how +did his Scottish blood boil whilst listening +in London to the cowardly exultations of +the cockneys over the brutalities that followed +the English victory at Colloden! and +how bitterly—almost savagely—did he +contrast that cowardly exultation with the +depression and alarm that had prevailed in +London when but a little while before the +Scotch had reached Derby.</p> + +<p>What patriotic feeling breathes through +Smollett's noble lines, <i>The Tears of Caledonia</i>, +and with what delightful enthusiasm, +with what affectionate admiration, +does Sir Walter Scott tell us how the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> +last stanza came to be written! 'He +(Smollett) accordingly read them the +first sketch of the <i>Tears of Scotland</i> +consisting only of six stanzas, and on +their remarking that the termination of +the poem, being too strongly expressed, +might give offence to persons whose +political opinions were different, he sat +down without reply, and with an air of +great indignation, subjoined the concluding +stanza:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘“While the warm blood bedews my veins,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And unimpaired remembrance reigns,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Resentment of my country's fate<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Within my filial breast shall beat.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yes, spite of thine insulting foe,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My sympathising verse shall flow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mourn, hopeless Caledonia, mourn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy banished peace, thy laurels torn.”’<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>In the same sense is the story told by +Mr. R. L. Stevenson, how, when the famous +Celtic regiment, the Black Watch, +which then drew its recruits from the now +unpeopled glens of Ross-shire and Sutherland, +returned to Scotland after years of +foreign service, veterans leaped out of the +boats and kissed the shore of Galloway.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span></p> + +<p>The notes of Irish nationality have been, +by conquest and ill-usage, driven deeper in. +Her laws were taken from her, and her +religion brutally proscribed. In the great +matter of national education she has not +been allowed her natural and proper development. +Her children have been driven +abroad to foreign seminaries to get the +religious education Protestant England +denied them at home. Her nationality +has thus been checked and mutilated, but +that it exists in spirit and in fact can +hardly be questioned by any impartial traveller. +Englishmen have many gifts, but +one gift they have not—that of making +Scotsmen and Irishmen forget their native +land.</p> + +<p>The attitude of some Englishmen towards +Scotch and Irish national feelings requires +correction. The Scotsman's feelings are +laughed at. The Irishman's insulted. So +far as the laughter is concerned, it must be +admitted that it is good-humoured. Burns, +Scott, and Carlyle, Scotch moors and Scotch +whisky, the royal game of golf, all have +mollified and beautified English feelings. +In candour, too, it must be admitted that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> +Scotsmen are not conciliatory. They do +not meet people half-way. I do not think +the laughter does much harm. Insults are +different....</p> + +<p>Mr. Arnold, in a now scarce pamphlet +published in 1859, on the Italian Question, +with the motto prefixed, '<i>Sed nondum est +finis</i>,' makes the following interesting observations:—</p> + +<p>'Let an Englishman or a Frenchman, +who respectively represent the two greatest +nationalities of modern Europe, sincerely +ask himself what it is that makes +him take pride in his nationality, what it +is which would make it intolerable to his +feelings to pass, or to see any part of his +country pass, under foreign dominion. +He will find that it is the sense of self-esteem +generated by knowing the figure +which his nation makes in history; by +considering the achievements of his nation +in war, government, arts, literature, or industry. +It is the sense that his people, +which have done such great things, merits +to exist in freedom and dignity, and to enjoy +the luxury of self-respect.'</p> + +<p>This is admirable, but not, nor does it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> +pretend to be, exhaustive. The love of +country is something a little more than +mere <i>amour propre</i>. You may love your +mother, and wish to make a home for her, +even though she never dwelt in kings' +palaces, and is clad in rags. The children +of misery and misfortune are not all illegitimate. +Sometimes you may discern +amongst them high hope and pious endeavour. +There may be, indeed, there is, a +Niobe amongst the nations, but tears are +not always of despair.</p> + +<p>'The luxury of self-respect.' It is a wise +phrase. To make Ireland and Irishmen +self-respectful is the task of statesmen.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_REFORMATION" id="THE_REFORMATION"></a>THE REFORMATION<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span></h2> + + +<p>Long ago an eminent Professor of International +Law, at the University of Cambridge, +lecturing his class, spoke somewhat +disparagingly of the Reformation as compared +with the Renaissance, and regretted +there was no adequate history of the +glorious events called by the latter name. +So keenly indeed did the Professor feel this +gap in his library, that he proceeded to say +that inconvenient as it had been to him to +lecture at Cambridge that afternoon, still +if what he had said should induce any +member of the class to write a history of +the Renaissance worthy to be mentioned +with the masterpiece of Gibbon, he (the +Professor) would never again think it right +to refer to the inconvenience he had +personally been put to in the matter.</p> + +<p>It must be twenty years since these +words were uttered. The class to whom<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> +they were addressed is scattered far and +wide, even as the household referred to in +the touching poem of Mrs. Hemans. No +one of them has written a history of the +Renaissance. It is now well-nigh certain +no one of them ever will. Looking back +over those twenty years it seems a pity it +was never attempted. As Owen Meredith +sweetly sings—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘And it all seems now in the waste of life<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Such a very little thing.’<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>But it has remained undone. Regrets are +vain.</p> + +<p>For my part, I will make bold to say +that the Professor was all wrong. Professors +do not stand where they did. They +have been blown upon. The ugliest gap +in an Englishman's library is in the shelf +which ought to contain, but does not, a +history of the Reformation of Religion in +his own country. It is a subject made for +an Englishman's hand. At present it is +but (to employ some old-fashioned words) +a hotch-potch, a gallimaufry, a confused +mingle-mangle of divers things jumbled or +put together. Puritan and Papist, Anglican<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> +and Erastian, pull out what they choose, +and drop whatever they do not like with a +grimace of humorous disgust. What faces +the early Tractarians used to pull over +Bishop Jewel! How Dr. Maitland delighted +in exhibiting the boundless vulgarity +of the Puritan party! Lord Macaulay +had only a paragraph or two to spare for +the Reformation; but as we note amongst +the contents of his first chapter the following +heads: 'The Reformation and its +Effects,' 'Origin of the Church of England,' +'Her Peculiar Character,' we do not need +to be further reminded of the views of that +arch-Erastian.</p> + +<p>It is time someone put a stop to this +'help yourself' procedure. What is needed +to do this is a long, luminous, leisurely history, +written by somebody who, though +wholly engrossed by his subject, is yet +absolutely indifferent to it.</p> + +<p>The great want at present is of common +knowledge; common, that is, to all parties. +The Catholic tells his story, which is much +the most interesting one, sure of his audience. +The Protestant falls back upon his +Fox, and relights the fires of Smithfield<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> +with entire self-satisfaction. The Erastian +flourishes his Acts of Parliament in the +face of the Anglican, who burrows like a +cony in the rolls of Convocation. Each is +familiar with one set of facts, and shrinks +nervously from the honour of an introduction +to a totally new set. We are not going +to change our old '<i>mumpsimus</i>' for anybody's +new '<i>sumpsimus</i>.' But we must +some day, and we shall when this new +history gets itself written.</p> + +<p>The subject cannot be said to lack charm. +Border lands, marshes, passes are always +romantic. No bagman can cross the Tweed +without emotion. The wanderer on the +Malvern Hills soon learns to turn his eyes +from the dull eastward plain to where they +can be feasted on the dim outlines of wild +Wales. Border periods of history have +something of the same charm. How the +old thing ceased to be? How the new +thing became what it is? How the old +colours faded, and the old learning disappeared, +and the Church of Edward the +Confessor, and St. Thomas of Canterbury, +and William of Wykeham, became the +Church of George the Third, Archbishop<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> +Tait, and Dean Stanley? There is surely +a tale to be told. Something must have +happened at the Reformation. Somebody +was dispossessed. The common people no +longer heard 'the blessed mutter of the +mass,' nor saw 'God made and eaten all +day long.' Ancient services ceased, old +customs were disregarded, familiar words +began to go out of fashion. The Reformation +meant something. On these points +the Catholics entertain no kind of doubt. +That they suffered ejectment they tearfully +admit. Nor, to do them justice, have they +ever acquiesced in the wrong they allege +was then done them, or exhibited the faintest +admiration for the intruder.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">‘Have ye beheld the young God of the Seas,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My dispossessor? Have ye seen his face?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Have ye beheld his chariot foam'd along<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By noble wing'd creatures he hath made?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I saw him on the calmed waters scud,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With such a glow of beauty in his eyes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That it enforced me to bid sad farewell<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To all my empire.’<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>This has never been the attitude or the +language of the Roman Church towards +the Anglican. 'Canterbury has gone its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> +way, and York is gone, and Durham is +gone, and Winchester is gone. It was +sore to part with them.' So spoke Dr. +Newman on a memorable occasion. His +distress would have been no greater had +the venerable buildings to which he alluded +been in the possession of the Baptists.</p> + +<p>But against this view must be set the +one represented by the somewhat boisterous +Church of Englandism of Dean Hook, +who ever maintained that all the Church +did at the Reformation was to wash her +dirty face, and that consequently she underwent +only an external and not a corporate +change during the process.</p> + +<p>There are thousands of pious souls to +whom the question, What happened at the +Reformation? is of supreme importance; +and yet there is no history of the period +written by a 'kinless loon,' whose own personal +indifference to Church Authority +shall be as great as his passion for facts, +his love of adventures and biography, and +his taste for theology.</p> + +<p>In the meantime, and pending the production +of the immortal work, it is pleasant +to notice that annually the historian's task<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> +is being made easier. Books are being published, +and old manuscripts edited and +printed, which will greatly assist the good +man, and enable him to write his book by +his own fireside. The Catholics have been +very active of late years. They have shaken +off their shyness and reserve, and however +reluctant they still may be to allow their +creeds to be overhauled and their rites curtailed +by strangers, they have at least come +with their histories in their hands and invited +criticism. The labours of Father +Morris of the Society of Jesus, and of the +late Father Knox of the London Oratory, +greatly lighten and adorn the path of the +student who loves to be told what happened +long ago, not in order that he may know +how to cast his vote at the next election, +but simply because it so happened, and for +no other reason whatsoever.</p> + +<p>Father Knox's name has just been +brought before the world, not, it is to be +hoped, for the last time, by the publication +of a small book, partly his, but chiefly the +work of the Rev. T. E. Bridgett, entitled +<i>The True Story of the Catholic Hierarchy +deposed by Queen Elizabeth, with Fuller<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> +Memoirs of its Two Last Survivors</i> (Burns +and Oates).</p> + +<p>The book was much wanted. When +Queen Mary died, on the 17th of November, +1558, the dioceses of Oxford, Salisbury, +Bangor, Gloucester, and Hereford +were vacant. The Archbishop of Canterbury, +Reginald Pole, died a few hours +after his royal relative; and the Bishops +of Rochester, Norwich, Chichester, and +Bristol did not long survive her. It thus +happened that at the opening of 1559 +there were only sixteen bishops on the +bench. What became of them? The +book I have just mentioned answers this +deeply interesting question.</p> + +<p>One of them, Oglethorpe of Carlisle, +was induced to crown the Queen, which +service was, however, performed according +to the Roman ceremonial, and included +the Unction, the Pontifical Mass, and the +Communion; but when the oath prescribed +by the Act of Supremacy was +tendered to the bishops, they all, with one +exception, Kitchen of Llandaff, declined +to take it, and their depositions followed +in due course, though at different dates,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> +during the year 1559. They were, in +plain English, turned out, and their places +given to others.</p> + +<p>A whole hierarchy turned a-begging like +this might have been a very startling thing—but +it does not seem to have been so. +There was no Ambrose amongst the bishops. +The mob showed no disposition to +rescue Bonner from the Marshalsea. The +Queen called them 'a set of lazy scamps.' +This was hard measure. The reverend +authors of the book before me call them +'confessors,' which they certainly were. +But there is something disappointing and +non-apostolic about them. They none of +them came to violent ends. What did +happen to them?</p> + +<p>The classical passage recording their +fortunes occurs in Lord Burghley's <i>Execution +of Justice in England</i>, which appeared +in 1583. His lordship in a good-tempered +vein runs through the list of the deposed +bishops one by one, and says in substance, +and in a style not unlike Lord Russell's, +that the only hardship put upon them was +their removal 'from their ecclesiastical +offices, which they would not exercise<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> +according to law.' For the rest, they were +'for a great time retained in bishops' houses +in very civil and courteous manner, without +charge to themselves or their friends, +until the time the Pope began, by his Bulls +and messages, to offer trouble to the realm +by stirring of rebellion;' then Burghley +admits, some of them were removed to +more quiet places, but still without being +'called to any capital or bloody question.'</p> + +<p>In this view historians have pretty generally +acquiesced. Camden speaks of Tunstall +of Durham dying at Lambeth 'in +free custody'—a happy phrase which +may be recommended to those of Her +Majesty's subjects in Ireland who find +themselves in prison under a statute of +Edward III., not for doing anything, but +for refusing to say they will not do it +again. Even that most erudite and delightful +of English Catholics, Charles Butler, +who is one of the pleasantest memories of +Lincoln's Inn, made but little of the sufferings +of these bishops, whilst some Protestant +writers have thought it quite amazing +they were not all burnt as heretics. 'There +were no retaliatory burnings,' says Canon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> +Perry regretfully. But this surely is carrying +Anglican assurance to an extraordinary +pitch. What were they to be burnt for? +You are burnt for heresy. That is right +enough. No one would complain of that. +But who in the year 1559 would have been +bold enough to declare that the Archbishop +of York was a heretic for refusing an oath +prescribed by an Act of the Queen of the +same year? Why, even now, after three +centuries and a quarter of possession, I +suppose Lord Selborne would hesitate +before burning the Archbishop of Westminster +as a heretic. Hanging is a different +matter. It is very easy to get hung—but +to be burnt requires a combination of +circumstances not always forthcoming. +Canon Perry should have remembered +this.</p> + +<p>These deposed bishops were neither +burnt nor hung. The aged Tunstall of +Durham, who had played a very shabby +part in Henry's time, died, where he was +bound to die, in his bed, very shortly after +his deposition; so also did the Bishops of +Lichfield and Coventry, St. David's, Carlisle, +and Winchester. Dr. Scott of Ches<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span>ter, +after four years in the Fleet prison, +managed to escape to Belgium, where he +died in 1565. Dr. Pate of Worcester, who +was a Council of Trent man, spent three +years in the Tower, and then contrived to +slip away unobserved. Dr. Poole of Peterborough +was never in prison at all, but was +allowed to live in retirement in the neighbourhood +of London till his death in 1568. +Bishop Bonner was kept a close prisoner +in the Marshalsea till his death in 1569. +He was not popular in London. As he +had burnt about one hundred and twenty +persons, this need not surprise us. Bishop +Bourne of Bath and Wells was lodged in +the Tower from June, 1560, to the autumn +of 1563, when the plague breaking out, he +was quartered on the new Bishop of Lincoln, +who had to provide him with bed and +board till May, 1566, after which date the +ex-bishop was allowed to be at large till his +death in 1569. The Bishop of Exeter was +kept in the Tower for three years. What +subsequently became of him is not known. +He is supposed to have lived in the country. +Bishop Thirlby of Ely, after three +years in the Tower, lived for eleven years<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> +with Archbishop Parker, uncomfortably +enough, without confession or mass. Then +he died. It is not to be supposed that +Parker ever told his prisoner that they both +belonged to the same Church. Dr. Heath, +the Archbishop of York, survived his deprivation +twenty years, three only of which +were spent in prison. He was a man of +more mark than most of his brethren, and +had defended the Papal supremacy with +power and dignity in his place in Parliament. +The Queen, who had a liking for +him, was very anxious to secure his presence +at some of the new offices, but he +would never go, summing up his objections +thus:—'Whatever is contrary to the +Catholic faith is heresy, whatever is contrary +to Unity is schism.' On getting out +of the Tower, Dr. Heath, who had a private +estate, lived upon it till his death. +Dr. Watson of Lincoln was the most learned +and the worst treated of the deposed bishops. +He was in the Tower and the Marshalsea, +with short intervals, from 1559 to +1577, when he was handed over to the +custody of the Bishop of Winchester, who +passed him on, after eighteen months, to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> +his brother of Rochester, from whose charge +he was removed to join other prisoners in +Wisbeach Castle, where very queer things +happened. Watson died at Wisbeach in +1584. There was now but one bishop left, +the by no means heroic Goldwell of St. +Asaph's, who in June, 1559, proceeded in +disguise to the sea-coast, and crossed over +to the Continent without being recognised. +He continued to live abroad for the rest of +his days, which ended on the 3rd of April, +1585. With him the ancient hierarchy +ceased to exist. That, at least, is the +assertion of the reverend authors of the +book referred to. There are those who +maintain the contrary.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="SAINTE-BEUVE" id="SAINTE-BEUVE"></a>SAINTE-BEUVE<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span></h2> + + +<p>The vivacious, the in fact far too vivacious, +Abbé Galiani, writing to Madame +d'Épinay, observes with unwonted seriousness: +'Je remarque que le caractère dominant +des Français perce toujours. Ils sont +causeurs, raisonneurs, badins par essence; +un mauvais tableau enfante une bonne +brochure; ainsi, vous parlerez mieux des +arts que vous n'en ferez jamais. Il se +trouvera, au bout du compte, dans quelques +siècles, que vous aurez le mieux +raisonné, le mieux discuté ce que toutes +les autres nations auront fait de mieux.' +To affect to foretell the final balance of an +account which is not to be closed for centuries +demands either celestial assurance +or Neapolitan impudence; but, regarded as +a guess, the Abbé's was a shrewd one. The +<i>post-mortem</i> may prove him wrong, but can +hardly prove him absurdly wrong.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span></p> + +<p>We owe much to the French—enlightenment, +pleasure, variety, surprise; they +have helped us in a great many ways: +amongst others, to play an occasional game +of hide-and-seek with Puritanism, a distraction +in which there is no manner of +harm; unless, indeed, the demure damsel +were to turn huffy, and after we had hidden +ourselves, refuse to find us again. +Then, indeed—to use a colloquial expression—there +would be the devil to pay.</p> + +<p>But nowhere have the French been so +helpful, in nothing else has the change +from the native to the foreign article been +so delightful, as in this very matter of criticism +upon which the Abbé Galiani had +seized more than a hundred years ago. Mr. +David Stott has lately published two small +volumes of translations from the writings of +Sainte-Beuve, the famous critic, who so long +has been accepted as the type of all that +is excellent in French criticism. French +turned into English is always a woful spectacle—the +pale, smileless corpse of what +was once rare and radiant; but it is a +thousand times better to read Sainte-Beuve +or any other good foreign author<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> +in English than not to read him at all. +Everybody has not time to emulate the +poet Rowe, who learned Spanish in order +to qualify himself, as he fondly thought, +for a snug berth at Madrid, only to be told +by his scholarly patron that now he could +read <i>Don Quixote</i> in the original.</p> + +<p>We hope these two volumes may be +widely read, as they deserve to be, and that +they may set their readers thinking what +it is that makes Sainte-Beuve so famous a +critic and so delightful a writer. His volumes +are very numerous. 'All Balzac's +novels occupy a shelf,' says Browning's +Bishop; Sainte-Beuve's criticisms take up +quite as much room. The <i>Causeries du +Lundi</i> and the <i>Nouveaux Lundis</i> fill some +twenty-eight tomes. <i>À priori</i>, one would +be disposed to mutter, 'This is too much.' +Can any man turned fifty truthfully declare +that he wishes De Quincey had left thirty +volumes behind him instead of fifteen? +Great is De Quincey, but so elaborate are +his movements, so tremendous his literary +contortions, that when you have done with +him you feel it would be cruelty to keep +him stretched upon the rack of his own<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> +style for a moment longer. Sainte-Beuve +is as easy as may be. Never before or +since has there been an author so well content +with his subject, whatever it might +chance to be; so willing to be bound within +its confines, and not to travel beyond it. +In this excellent 'stay-at-home' quality, he +reminds the English reader more of Addison +than of any of our later critics and essayists. +These latter are too anxious to +please, far too disposed to believe that, +apart from themselves and their flashing +wits, their readers can have no possible interest +in the subject they have in hand. +They are ever seeking to adorn their theme +instead of exploring it. They are always +prancing, seldom willing to take a brisk +constitutional along an honest, turnpike +road. Even so admirable, so sensible a +writer as Mr. Lowell is apt to worry us with +his Elizabethan profusion of imagery, epithet, +and wit. 'Something too much of +this,' we cry out before we are half-way +through. William Hazlitt, again, is really +too witty. It is uncanny. Sainte-Beuve +never teases his readers this way. You +often catch yourself wondering, so matter-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span>of-fact +is his narrative, why it is you are +interested. The dates of the births and +deaths of his authors, the facts as to their +parentage and education, are placed before +you with stern simplicity, and without a +single one of those quips and cranks which +Carlyle ('God rest his soul!—he was a +merry man') scattered with full hands over +his explosive pages. But yet if you are interested, +as for the most part you are, what +a triumph for sobriety and good sense! +A noisy author is as bad as a barrel-organ; +a quiet one is as refreshing as a long pause +in a foolish sermon.</p> + +<p>Sainte-Beuve covered an enormous range +in his criticism; he took the Whole Literature +as his province. It is an amusing +trait of many living authors whose odd craze +it is to take themselves and what they are +fond of calling their 'work'—by which, if +you please, they mean their rhymes and +stories—very seriously indeed, to believe +that critics exist for the purpose of calling +attention to them—these living solemnities—and +pointing out their varied excellences, +or promise of excellence, to an eager book-buying +public. To detect in some infant's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> +squall the rich futurity of a George Eliot, +to predict a glorious career for Gus Hoskins—this +it is to be a true critic. For +my part, I think a critic better occupied, +though he be destitute of the genius of +Lamb or Coleridge, in calling attention to +the real greatnesses or shortcomings of +dead authors than in dictating to his neighbours +what they ought to think about living +ones. If you teach me or help me to think +aright about Milton, you can leave me to +deal with <i>The Light of Asia</i> on my own account. +Addison was better employed expounding +the beauties of <i>Paradise Lost</i> to +an unappreciative age than when he was +puffing Philips and belittling Pope, or even +than he would have been had he puffed +Pope and belittled Philips.</p> + +<p>Sainte-Beuve was certainly happier snuffing +the 'parfums du passée' than when +ranging amongst the celebrities of his +own day. His admiration for Victor +Hugo, which so notoriously grew cool, is +supposed to have been by no means +remotely connected with an admiration for +Victor Hugo's wife. These things cannot<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> +be helped, but if you confine yourself to +the past they cannot happen.</p> + +<p>The method pursued by this distinguished +critic during the years he was +producing his weekly <i>Causerie</i>, was to +shut himself up alone with his selected +author—that is, with his author's writings, +letters, and cognate works—for five days +in the week. This was his period of immersion, +of saturation. On the sixth day +he wrote his criticism. On the seventh +he did no manner of work. The following +day the <i>Causerie</i> appeared, and +its author shut himself up again with another +set of books to produce another criticism. +This was a workmanlike method. +Sainte-Beuve had a genuine zeal to be a +good workman in his own trade—the true +instinct of the craftsman, always honoured +in France, not so honoured as it deserves +to be in England.</p> + +<p>Sainte-Beuve's most careless reader cannot +fail to observe his contentment with +his subject, his restraint, and his good +sense—all workmanlike qualities: but a +more careful study of his writings fully +warrants his title to the possession of other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> +qualities it would be rash to rank higher, +but which, here in England, we are accustomed +to reward with more lavish +praise—namely, insight, sympathy, and +feeling.</p> + +<p>To begin with, he was endlessly curious +about people, without being in the least +bit a gossip or a tattler. His interest never +fails him, yet never leads him astray. His +skill in collecting the salient facts and in +emphasising the important ones is marvellous. +How unerring was his instinct in +these matters the English reader is best +able to judge by his handling of English +authors, so diverse and so difficult as +Cowper, Gibbon, and Chesterfield. He +never so much as stumbles. He understands +Olney as well as Lausanne, Lady +Austen and Mrs. Unwin as well as Madame +Neckar or the Hampshire Militia. +One feels sure that he could have written +a better paper on John Bunyan than +Macaulay did, a wiser on John Wesley +than anybody has ever done.</p> + +<p>Next to his curiosity must be ranked his +sympathy, a sympathy all the more contagious +because so quietly expressed, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> +never purporting to be based on intellectual +accord. He handles mankind tenderly +though firmly. His interest in them +is not merely scientific—his methods are +scientific, but his heart is human. Read +his three papers on Cowper over again, and +you will agree with me. How thoroughly +he appreciates the charm of Cowper's happy +hours—his pleasant humour—his scholar-like +fancies—his witty verse! No clumsy +jesting about old women and balls of +worsted. It is the mixture of insight +with sympathy that is so peculiarly delightful.</p> + +<p>Sainte-Beuve's feeling is displayed doubtless +in many ways, but to me it is always +most apparent when he is upholding modesty +and grace and wisdom against their +loud-mouthed opposites. When he is doing +this, his words seem to quiver with emotion—the +critic almost becomes the preacher. +I gladly take an example from one of the +volumes already referred to. It occurs at +the close of a paper on Camille Desmoulins, +of whom Sainte-Beuve does his best +to speak kindly, but the reaction comes—powerful, +overwhelming, sweeping all before +it:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span></p> + +<p>'What a longing we feel after reading +these pages, encrusted with mire and +blood—pages which are the living image +of the disorder in the souls and morals of +those times! What a need we experience +of taking up some wise book, where common-sense +predominates, and in which +the good language is but the reflection +of a delicate and honest soul, reared in +habits of honour and virtue! We exclaim: +Oh! for the style of honest men—of +men who have revered everything +worthy of respect; whose innate feelings +have ever been governed by the principles +of good taste! Oh! for the polished, +pure, and moderate writers! Oh! +for Nicole's Essays, for D'Aguesseau +writing the Life of his Father. Oh! +Vauvenargues! Oh! Pellisson!'</p> + +<p>I have quoted from one volume; let me +now quote from the other. I will take a +passage from the paper on Madame de +Souza:—</p> + +<p>'In stirring times, in moments of incoherent +and confused imagination like the +present, it is natural to make for the most +important point, to busy one's self with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> +the general working, and everywhere, even +in literature, to strike boldly, aim high, +and shout through trumpets and speaking-tubes. +The modest graces will perhaps +come back after a while, and come with an +expression appropriate to their new surroundings. +I would fain believe it; but +while hoping for the best, I feel sure that +it will not be to-morrow that their sentiments +and their speech will once more +prevail.'</p> + +<p>But I must conclude with a sentence +from Sainte-Beuve's own pen. Of Joubert +he says: 'Il a une manière qui fait qu'il ne +dit rien, absolument rien comme un autre. +Cela est sensible dans les lettres qu'il écrit, +et ne laisse pas de fatiguer à la longue.' +Of such a judgment, one can only scribble +in the margin, 'How true!' Sainte-Beuve +was always willing to write like another +man. Joubert was not. And yet, strange +paradox! there will be always more men +able to write in the strained style of Joubert +than in the natural style of Sainte-Beuve. +It is easier to be odd, intense, +over-wise, enigmatic, than to be sensible, +simple, and to see the plain truth about +things.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span></p> + + + + +<div class="footnotes"><h2>FOOTNOTES:</h2></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> <i>Last Essays of Elia</i>, 52.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Since abandoned, <i>Laus Deo!</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Richardson in a letter says this of her, 'the weak, +the insipid, the runaway, the inn-frequenting Sophia;' +and calls her lover 'her illegitimate Tom.' But nobody +else need say this of Sophia, and as for Tom he was declared +to be a foundling from the first.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Jocelyn, founder of the Roden peerage.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> By which title he refers to Mrs. Cornwallis, a lively +lady who used to get her right reverend lord, himself a +capital hand at whist, into great trouble by persisting in +giving routs on Sunday.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> See <i>Essays in Criticism</i>, p. 23.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> <i>Letters of Charles Lamb.</i> Newly arranged, with +additions; and a New Portrait. Edited, with Introduction +and Notes, by the Rev. Alfred Ainger, M.A., Canon +of Bristol. 2 vols. London, 1888.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Donaldson was a well-known man in Edinburgh. +He was Boswell's first publisher, and on one occasion +gave that gentleman a dinner consisting mainly of pig. +Johnson's view of his larcenous proceedings is stated in +the Life. Thurlow was his counsel in this litigation. +Donaldson's Hospital in Edinburgh represents the fortune +made by this publisher.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> I was wrong, and this very volume is protected by +law in the United States of America—but it still remains +pleasingly uncertain whether the book-buying +public across the water who were willing to buy <i>Obiter +Dicta</i> for twelve cents will give a dollar for <i>Res Judicata</i>.</p></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="Transcribers_Notes" id="Transcribers_Notes"></a>Transcriber's Notes:</h2> + +<p>Typographical errors have been corrected as follows:</p> + +<p>Page 14-"series of familiar letter" replaced with "series of familiar letters"</p> + +<p>Page 24 - Question mark added: "Do you +remember Thackeray's account in the +<i>Roundabout Papers</i> of Macaulay's rhapsody +in the Athenæum Club?"</p> + +<p>Page 95 - "pains of hell gat hold" replaced with "pains of hell got hold"</p> + +<p>Page 108 - "jusqu aux" replaced with "jusqu'aux"</p> + +<p>Page 127 - "perference" replaced with "preference"</p> + +<p>Page 127 - "inbecile" replaced with "imbecile"</p> + +<p>Page 196 - Correct single-double quotes before "We live no more" and +"More strictly, then"</p> + +<p>Page 224 - "vemon" replaced with "venom"</p> + +<p>Page 253 - "ligitations" replaced with "litigations"</p> + +<p>Page 282 - "his people, which has" replaced with "his people, which have"</p> + +<p>Page 287 - "marches" replaced with "marshes"</p> + + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Res Judicatæ, by Augustine Birrell + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RES JUDICATÆ *** + +***** This file should be named 37159-h.htm or 37159-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/7/1/5/37159/ + +Produced by Hunter Monroe, Suzanne Shell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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