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If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - - -Title: English Lands Letters and Kings: The Later Georges to Victoria - - -Author: Donald Grant Mitchell - - - -Release Date: February 9, 2017 [eBook #54143] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - - -***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENGLISH LANDS LETTERS AND KINGS: -THE LATER GEORGES TO VICTORIA*** - - -E-text prepared by MWS and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team -(http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by -Internet Archive (https://archive.org) - - - -Note: Images of the original pages are available through - Internet Archive. See - https://archive.org/details/englishlands04mitc - - - Project Gutenberg has the other three volumes of this work. - I: Fom Celt to Tudor - see http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/54168 - II: From Elizabeth to Anne - see http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/54142 - III: Queen Anne and the Georges - see http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37226 - - - - - -ENGLISH LANDS LETTERS AND KINGS - -The Later Georges to Victoria - - - * * * * * * - -ENGLISH LANDS LETTERS AND KINGS - -_By Donald G. Mitchell_ - - I. From Celt to Tudor - II. From Elizabeth to Anne -III. Queen Anne and the Georges - IV. The Later Georges to Victoria - -_Each 1 vol., 12mo, cloth, gilt top, $1.50_ - -AMERICAN LANDS AND LETTERS - -From the Mayflower to Rip Van Winkle - -_1 vol., square 12mo, Illustrated, $2.50_ - - * * * * * * - - -ENGLISH LANDS LETTERS AND KINGS - -The Later Georges to Victoria - -by - -DONALD G. MITCHELL - -[Illustration] - - - - - - -New York -Charles Scribner’S Sons -MDCCCXCVII - -Copyright, 1897, by -Charles Scribner’S Sons - -Trow Directory -Printing and Bookbinding Company -New York - - - - -_FORECAST._ - - -The printers ask if there is to be prefatory matter. - -There shall be no excuses, nor any defensive explanations: and I shall -only give here such forecast of this little book as may serve as a -reminder, and appetizer, for the kindly acquaintances I meet once more; -and further serve as an illustrative _menu_, for the benefit of those -newer and more critical friends who browse tentatively at the tables of -the booksellers. - -This volume--the fourth in its series of English Lands and Letters--opens -upon that always delightful country of hills and waters, which is known as -the Lake District of England;--where we found Wordsworth, stalking over -the fells--and where we now find the maker of those heavy poems of -_Thalaba_ and _Madoc_, and of the charming little biography of Nelson. -There, too, we find that strange creature, De Quincey, full of a tumult of -thoughts and language--out of which comes ever and anon some penetrating -utterance, whose barb of words fixes it in the mind, and makes it rankle. -Professor Wilson is his fellow, among the hills by Elleray--as strenuous, -and weightier with his great bulk of Scottish manhood; the _Isle of Palms_ -is forgotten; but not “Christopher in his Shooting Jacket”--stained, and -bespattered with Highland libations. - -A Londoner we encounter--Crabb Robinson, full of gossip and -conventionalities; and also that cautious, yet sometimes impassioned -Scottish bard who sang of _Hohenlinden_, and of _Gertrude of Wyoming_. -Next, we have asked readers to share our regalement, in wandering along -the Tweed banks, and in rekindling the memories of the verse, the home, -and the chivalric stories of the benign master of Abbotsford, for -whom--whatever newer literary fashions may now claim allegiance and -whatever historic _quid-nuncs_ may say in derogation--I think there are -great multitudes who will keep a warm place in their hearts and easily -pardon a kindred warmth in our words. - -After Dryburgh, and its pall, we have in these pages found our way to -Edinboro’, and have sketched the beginners, and the beginnings of that -great northern quarterly, which so long dominated the realm of British -book-craft, and which rallied to its ranks such men as Jeffrey and the -witty Sydney Smith, and Mackintosh and the pervasive and petulant -Brougham--full of power and of pyrotechnics. These great names and their -quarterly organ call up comparison with that other, southern and -distinctive Quarterly of Albemarle Street, which was dressed for literary -battle by writers like Gifford, Croker, Southey, and Lockhart. - -The Prince Regent puts in an appearance in startling waistcoats and -finery--vibrating between Windsor and London; so does the bluff -Sailor-King William IV. Next, Walter Savage Landor leads the drifting -paragraphs of our story--a great, strong man; master of classicism, and -master of language; now tender, and now virulent; never quite master of -himself. - -Of Leigh Hunt, and of his graceful, light-weighted, gossipy literary -utterance, there is indulgent mention, with some delightful passages of -verse foregathered from his many books. Of Thomas Moore, too, there is -respectful and grateful--if not over-exultant--talk; yet in these swift -days there be few who are tempted to tarry long in the “rosy bowers by -Bendemeer.” - -From Moore and the brilliant fopperies of “The First Gentleman of Europe,” -we slip to the disorderly, but pungent and vivid essays of Hazlitt--to the -orderly and stately historic labors of Hallam, closing up our chapter with -the gay company who used to frequent the brilliant salon of the Lady -Blessington--first in Seamore Place, and later at Gore House. There we -find Bulwer, Disraeli (in his flamboyant youth-time), the elegant Count -d’Orsay, and others of that train-band. - -Following quickly upon these, we have asked our readers to fare with us -along the old and vivid memories of Newstead Abbey--to track the -master-poet of his time, through his early days of romance and -marriage--through his journeyings athwart Europe, from the orange groves -of Lisbon to the olives of Thessaly--from his friendship with Shelley, and -life at Meillerie with its loud joys and stains--through his wild revels -of Venice--his masterly verse-making--his quietudes of Ravenna (where the -Guiccioli shone)--through his passionate zeal for Greece, and his last -days at Missolonghi, with one brief glimpse of his final resting-place, -beside his passionate Gordon mother, under the grim, old tower of -Hucknall-Torkard. So long indeed do we dwell upon this Byronic episode, as -to make of it the virtual _pièce de résistance_ in the literary _menu_ of -these pages. - -After the brusque and noisy King William there trails royally into view -that Sovereign Victoria, over whose blanched head--in these very June days -in which I write--the bells are all ringing a joyous Jubilee for her -sixtieth year of reign. But to our eye, and to these pages, she comes as a -girl in her teens--modest, yet resolute and calm; and among her advisers -we see the suave and courtly Melbourne; and among those who make -parliamentary battle, in the Queen’s young years, that famed historian -who has pictured the lives of her kinsfolk--William and Mary--in a way -which will make them familiar in the ages to come. - -We have a glimpse, too, of the jolly Captain Marryat cracking his -for’castle jokes, and of the somewhat tedious, though kindly, G. P. R. -James, lifting his chivalric notes about men-at-arms and knightly -adventures--a belated hunter in the fields of ancient feudal gramarye. - -And with this pennant of the old times of tourney flung to the sharp winds -of these days, and shivering in the rude blasts--where anarchic threats -lurk and murmur--we close our preface, and bid our readers all welcome to -the spread of--what our old friend Dugald Dalgetty would call--the -_Vivers_. - - D. G. M. - -EDGEWOOD, June 24, 1897. - - - - -_CONTENTS._ - - - PAGE - - CHAPTER I. - - THE LAKE COUNTRY, 2 - - ROBERT SOUTHEY, 5 - - HIS EARLY LIFE, 11 - - GRETA HALL, 15 - - THE DOCTOR AND LAST SHADOWS, 20 - - CRABB ROBINSON, 24 - - THOMAS DE QUINCEY, 28 - - MARRIAGE AND OTHER FLIGHTS, 34 - - CHAPTER II. - - CHRISTOPHER NORTH, 40 - - WILSON IN SCOTLAND, 45 - - THOMAS CAMPBELL, 52 - - A MINSTREL OF THE BORDER, 59 - - THE WAVERLEY DISPENSATION, 65 - - GLINTS OF ROYALTY, 77 - - CHAPTER III. - - A START IN LIFE, 83 - - HENRY BROUGHAM, 87 - - FRANCIS JEFFREY, 92 - - SYDNEY SMITH, 96 - - A HIGHLANDER, 103 - - REST AT CANNES, 107 - - CHAPTER IV. - - GIFFORD AND HIS QUARTERLY, 113 - - A PRINCE REGENT, 118 - - A SCHOLAR AND POET, 125 - - LANDOR IN ITALY, 132 - - LANDOR’S DOMESTICITIES, 136 - - FINAL EXILE AND DEATH, 138 - - PROSE OF LEIGH HUNT, 142 - - HUNT’S VERSE, 147 - - AN IRISH POET, 152 - - LALLA ROOKH, 157 - - CHAPTER V. - - THE “FIRST GENTLEMAN,” 165 - - HAZLITT AND HALLAM, 168 - - QUEEN OF A SALON, 173 - - YOUNG BULWER AND DISRAELI, 178 - - THE POET OF NEWSTEAD, 187 - - EARLY VERSE AND MARRIAGE, 193 - - CHAPTER VI. - - LORD BYRON A HUSBAND, 201 - - A STAY IN LONDON, 206 - - EXILE, 212 - - SHELLEY AND GODWIN, 216 - - BYRON IN ITALY, 223 - - SHELLEY AGAIN, 225 - - JOHN KEATS, 229 - - BURIED IN ROME, 233 - - PISA AND DON JUAN, 237 - - MISSOLONGHI, 241 - - CHAPTER VII. - - KING WILLIAM’S TIME, 252 - - HER MAJESTY VICTORIA, 255 - - MACAULAY, 259 - - IN POLITICS AND VERSE, 265 - - PARLIAMENTARIAN AND HISTORIAN, 270 - - SOME TORY CRITICS, 277 - - TWO GONE-BY STORY TELLERS, 281 - - - - -_ENGLISH LANDS, LETTERS, & KINGS._ - - - - -CHAPTER I. - - -The reader will, perhaps, remember that we brought our last year’s ramble -amongst British Lands and Letters to an end--in the charming Lake District -of England. There, we found Coleridge, before he was yet besotted by his -opium-hunger; there, too, we had Church-interview with the stately, -silver-haired poet of Rydal Mount--making ready for his last Excursion -into the deepest of Nature’s mysteries. - -The reader will recall, further, how this poet and seer, signalized some -of the later years of his life by indignant protests against the -schemes--which were then afoot--for pushing railways among the rural -serenities of Westmoreland. - - -_The Lake Country._ - -It is no wonder; for those Lake counties are very beautiful,--as if, some -day, all the tamer features of English landscape had been sifted out, and -the residue of picturesqueness and salient objects of flood and mountain -had been bunched together in those twin regions of the Derwent and of -Windermere. Every American traveller is familiar, of course, with the -charming glimpses of Lake Saltonstall from the Shore-line high-road -between New York and Boston; let them imagine these multiplied by a score, -at frequently recurring intervals of walk or drive; not bald duplications; -for sometimes the waters have longer stretch, and the hills have higher -reach, and fields have richer culture and more abounding verdure; -moreover, occasional gray church towers lift above the trees, and specks -of villages whiten spots in the valleys; and the smoothest and hardest of -roads run along the margin of the lakes; and masses of ivy cover walls, -and go rioting all over the fronts of wayside inns. Then, mountains as -high as Graylock, in Berkshire, pile suddenly out of the quieter -undulations of surface, with high-lying ponds in their gulches; there are -deep swales of heather, and bald rocks, and gray stone cairns that mark -the site of ancient Cumbrian battles. - -No wonder that a man loving nature and loving solitude, as Wordsworth did -love them, should have demurred to the project of railways, and have -shuddered--as does Ruskin now--at the whistling of the demon of -civilization among those hills. But it has come there, notwithstanding, -and come to stay; and from the station beyond Bowness, upon the -charmingest bit of Windermere, there lies now only an early morning’s walk -to the old home of Wordsworth at Rydal. Immediately thereabout, it is -true, the levels are a little more puzzling to the engineers, so that the -thirteen miles of charming country road which stretch thence--twirling -hither and yon, and up and down--in a northwesterly direction to the town -of Keswick and the Derwent valley, remain now in very much the same -condition as when I walked over them, in leisurely way, fifty odd years -ago this coming spring. The road in passing out from Rydal village goes -near the cottage where poor Hartley Coleridge lived, and earlier, that -strange creature De Quincey (of whom we shall have presently more to say); -it skirts the very margin of Grasmere Lake; this latter being at your -left, while upon the right you can almost see among the near hills the -famous “Wishing Gate;” farther on is Grasmere village, and Grasmere -church-yard--in a corner of which is the grave of the old poet, and a -modest stone at its head on which is graven only the name, William -Wordsworth,--as if anything more were needed! A mile or two beyond, one -passes the “Swan Inn,” and would like to lodge there, and maybe clamber up -Helvellyn, which here shows its great hulk on the right--no miniature -mountain, but one which would hold its own (3,000 feet) among the lesser -ones which shoulder up the horizon at “Crawford’s,” in the White -Mountains. - -Twirling and winding along the flank of Helvellyn, the road comes -presently upon the long Dunmail Rise, where a Cumbrian battle was fought, -and where, some six hundred feet above the level of Rydal water, one -plunges into mountain savagery. All the while Helvellyn is rising like a -giant on the right, and on the left is the lake of Thirlmere, with its -shores of precipice. An hour more of easy walking brings one to another -crest of hill from which the slope is northward and westward, and from -this point you catch sight of the great mass of Skiddaw; while a little -hitherward is the white speckle of Keswick town; and stretching away from -it to your left lies all the valley of Derwent Water--with a cleft in the -hills at its head, down which the brooklet of Lodore comes--“splashing and -flashing.” - - -_Robert Southey._ - -I have taken the reader upon this stroll through a bit of the Lake country -of England that we might find the poet Dr. Southey[1] in his old home at -Keswick. It is not properly in the town, but just across the Greta River, -which runs southward of the town. There, the modest but good-sized house -has been standing for these many years upon a grassy knoll, in its little -patch of quiet lawn, with scattered show of trees--but never so many as to -forbid full view up the long stretch of Derwent Water. His own hexameters -shall tell us something of this view: - - “I stood at the window beholding - Mountain and lake and vale; the valley disrobed of its verdure; - Derwent, retaining yet from eve a glassy reflection - Where his expanded breast, then still and smooth as a mirror, - Under the woods reposed; the hills that calm and majestic - Lifted their heads into the silent sky, from far Glaramara, - Bleacrag, and Maidenmawr to Grisedal and westernmost Wython, - Dark and distinct they rose. The clouds had gathered above them - High in the middle air, huge purple pillowy masses, - While in the West beyond was the last pale tint of the twilight, - Green as the stream in the glen, whose pure and chrysolite waters - Flow o’er a schistous bed.” - -This may be very true picturing; but it has not the abounding flow of an -absorbing rural enthusiasm; there is too sharp a search in it for the -assonance, the spondees and the alliteration--to say nothing of the -mineralogy. Indeed, though Southey loved those country ways and heights, -of which I have given you a glimpse, and loved his daily walks round about -Keswick and the Derwent, and loved the bracing air of the mountains--I -think he loved these things as the feeders and comforters of his physical -rather than of his spiritual nature. We rarely happen, in his verse, upon -such transcripts of out-of-door scenes as are inthralling, and captivate -our finer senses; nor does he make the boughs and blossoms tell such -stories as filtered through the wood-craft of Chaucer. - -Notwithstanding this, it is to that home of Southey, in the beautiful Lake -country, that we must go for our most satisfying knowledge of the man. He -was so wedded to it; he so loved the murmur of the Greta; so loved his -walks; so loved the country freedom; so loved his workaday clothes and cap -and his old shoes;[2] so loved his books--double-deep in his library, and -running over into hall and parlor and corridors; loved, too, the -children’s voices that were around him there--not his own only, but those -always next, and almost his own--those of the young Coleridges. These were -stranded there, with their mother (sister of Mrs. Southey), owing to the -rueful neglect of their father--the bard and metaphysician. I do not think -this neglect was due wholly to indifference. Coleridge sidled away from -his wife and left her at Keswick in that old home of his own,--where he -knew care was good--afraid to encounter her clear, honest, -discerning--though unsympathetic--eyes, while he was putting all resources -and all subterfuges to the feeding of that opiate craze which had fastened -its wolfish fangs upon his very soul. - -And Southey had most tender and beautiful care for those half-discarded -children of the “Ancient Mariner.” He writes in this playful vein to young -Hartley (then aged eleven), who is away on a short visit: - - “Mr. Jackson has bought a cow, but he has had no calf since you left - him. Edith [his own daughter] grows like a young giantess, and has - a disposition to bite her arm, which you know is a very foolish - trick. Your [puppy] friend Dapper, who is, I believe, your God-dog, - is in good health, though he grows every summer graver than the - last. I am desired to send you as much love as can be enclosed in a - letter. I hope it will not be charged double on that account at the - post-office. But there is Mrs. Wilson’s love, Mr. Jackson’s, your - Aunt Southey’s, your Aunt Lovell’s and Edith’s; with a _purr_ from - Bona Marietta [the cat], an open-mouthed kiss from Herbert [the - baby], and three wags of the tail from Dapper. I trust they will all - arrive safe. Yr. dutiful uncle.” - -And the same playful humor, and disposition to evoke open-eyed wonderment, -runs up and down the lines of that old story of Bishop Hatto and the rats; -and that other smart slap at the barbarities of war--which young people -know, or ought to know, as the “Battle of Blenheim”--wherein old Kaspar -says,-- - - “it was a shocking sight - After the field was won; - For many thousand bodies here - Lay rotting in the sun. - But things like that, you know, must be, - After a famous Victory. - - Great praise the Duke of Marlboro’ won - And our good Prince Eugene; - ‘Why, ’twas a very wicked thing!’ - Said little Wilhelmine. - ‘Nay--nay--my little girl,’ quoth he, - ‘It was a famous Victory.’” - -Almost everybody has encountered these Southeyan verses, and that other, -about Mary the “Maid of the Inn,” in some one or other of the many -“collections” of drifting poetry. There are very few, too, who have not, -some day, read that most engaging little biography of Admiral Nelson, -which tells, in most straightforward and simple and natural way, the -romantic story of a life full of heroism, and scored with stains. I do not -know, but--with most people--a surer and more lasting memory of Southey -would be cherished by reason of those unpretending writings already named, -and by knowledge of his quiet, orderly, idyllic home-life among the Lakes -of Cumberland--tenderly and wisely provident of the mixed household -committed to his care--than by the more ambitious things he did, or by the -louder life he lived in the controversialism and politics of the day. - - -_His Early Life._ - -To judge him more nearly we must give a slight trace of his history. Born -down in Bristol (in whose neighborhood we found, you will remember, -Chatterton, Mistress More, Coleridge, and others)--he was the son of a -broken down linen-draper, who could help him little; but a great aunt--a -starched woman of the Betsey Trotwood stamp--could and did befriend him, -until it came to her knowledge, on a sudden, that he was plotting -emigration to the Susquehanna, and plotting marriage with a dowerless girl -of Bristol; then she dropped him, and the guardian aunt appears nevermore. - -An uncle, however, who is a chaplain in the British service, helps him to -Oxford--would have had him take orders--in which case we should have had, -of a certainty, some day, Bishop Southey; and probably a very good one. -But he has some scruples about the Creed, being over-weighted, perhaps, by -intercourse with young Coleridge on the side of Unitarianism: “Every atom -of grass,” he says, “is worth all the Fathers.”[3] He, however, -accompanies the uncle to Portugal; dreams dreams and has poetic visions -there in the orange-groves of Cintra; projects, too, a History of -Portugal--which project unfortunately never comes to fulfilment. He falls -in with the United States Minister, General Humphreys, who brings to his -notice Dwight’s “Conquest of Canaan,” which Southey is good enough to -think “has some merit.” - -Thereafter he comes back to his young wife; is much in London and -thereabout; coming to know Charles Lamb, Rogers, and Moore, with other -such. He is described at that day as tall--a most presentable man--with -dark hair and eyes, wonderful arched brows; “head of a poet,” Byron said; -looking up and off, with proud foretaste of the victories he will win; he -has, too, very early, made bold literary thrust at that old story of Joan -of Arc: a good topic, of large human interest, but not over successfully -dealt with by him. After this came that extraordinary poem of _Thalaba_, -the first of a triad of poems which excited great literary wonderment (the -others being the _Curse of Kehama_ and _Madoc_). They are rarely heard of -now and scarcely known. Beyond that fragment from _Kehama_, beginning - - “They sin who tell us Love can die,” - -hardly a page from either has drifted from the high sea of letters into -those sheltered bays where the makers of anthologies ply their trade. Yet -no weak man could have written either one of these almost forgotten poems -of Southey; recondite learning makes its pulse felt in them; bright -fancies blaze almost blindingly here and there; old myths of Arabia and -Welsh fables are galvanized and brought to life, and set off with special -knowledge and cumbrous aids of stilted and redundant prosody; but all is -utterly remote from human sympathies, and all as cold--however it may -attract by its glitter--as the dead hand - - “Shrivelled, and dry, and black,” - -which holds the magic taper in the Dom Daniel cavern of _Thalaba_. - -A fourth long poem--written much later in life--_Roderick the Goth_, has a -more substantial basis of human story, and so makes larger appeal to -popular interest; but it had never a marked success. - -Meantime, Southey has not kept closely by London; there have been -peregrinations, and huntings for a home--for children and books must have -a settlement. Through friends of influence he had come to a fairly good -political appointment in Ireland, but has no love for the bulls and -blunderbusses which adorn life there; nor will he tutor his patron’s -boys--which also comes into the scale of his duties--so gives up that -chance of a livelihood. There is, too, a new trip to Portugal with his -wife; and a new reverent and dreamy listening to the rustle of the shining -leaves of the orange-trees of Cintra. I do not think those murmurous tales -of the trees of Portugal, burdened with old monastic flavors, ever went -out of his ears wholly till he died. But finally the poet does come to -settlement, somewhere about 1803--in that Keswick home, where we found him -at the opening of our chapter. - - -_Greta Hall._ - -Coleridge is for awhile a fellow-tenant with him there, then blunders away -to Grasmere--to London, to Highgate, and into that over-strained, -disorderly life of which we know so much and yet not enough. But Southey -does not lack self-possession, or lack poise: he has not indeed so much -brain to keep on balance; but he thinks excellently well of his own parts; -he is disgusted when people look up to him after his Irish -appointment--“as if,” he said, “the author of _Joan of Arc_, and of -_Thalaba_, were made a great man by scribing for the Chancellor of the -Exchequer.” - -Yet for that poem of _Thalaba_, in a twelve-month after issue, he had only -received as his share of profits a matter of £3 15s. Indeed, Southey would -have fared hardly money-wise in those times, if he had not won the favor -of a great many good and highly placed friends; and it was only four years -after his establishment at Keswick, when these friends succeeded in -securing to him an annual Government pension of £200. Landor had possibly -aided him before this time; he certainly had admired greatly his poems and -given praise that would have been worth more, if he had not spoiled it by -rating Southey as a poet so much above Byron, Scott, and Coleridge.[4] - -In addition to these aids the _Quarterly Review_ was set afoot in those -days in London--of which sturdy defender of Church and State, Southey soon -became a virtual pensioner. Moreover, with his tastes, small moneys went a -long way; he was methodical to the last degree; he loved his old coats and -habits; he loved his marches and countermarches among the hills that -flank Skiddaw better than he loved horses, or dogs, or guns; a quiet -evening in his library with his books, was always more relished than ever -so good a place at Drury Lane. New friends and old brighten that -retirement for him. He has his vacation runs to Edinboro’--to London--to -Bristol; the children are growing (though there is death of one little -one--away from home); the books are piling up in his halls in bigger and -always broader ranks. He writes of Brazil, of Spanish matters, of new -poetry, of Nelson, of Society--showing touches of his early radicalism, -and of a Utopian humor, which age and the heavy harness of conventionalism -he has learned to wear, do not wholly destroy. He writes of Wesley and of -the Church--settled in those maturer years into a comfortable -routine-ordered Churchism, which does not let too airy a conscience prick -him into unrest. A good, safe monarchist, too, who comes presently, and -rightly enough--through a suggestion of George IV., then Regent in place -of crazy George III.[5]--by his position as Poet Laureate; and in that -capacity writes a few dismally stiff odes, which are his worst work. Even -Wordsworth, who walks over those Cumberland hills with reverence, and with -a pious fondness traces the “star-shaped shadows on the naked -stones”--cannot warm to Southey’s new gush over royalty in his New Year’s -Odes. Coleridge chafes; and Landor, we may be sure, sniffs, and swears, -with a great roar of voice, at what looks so like to sycophancy. - -To this time belongs that ode whose vengeful lines, after the fall of -Napoleon, whip round the Emperor’s misdeeds in a fury of Tory Anglicanism, -and call on France to avenge her wrongs:-- - - “By the lives which he hath shed, - By the ruin he hath spread, - By the prayers which rise for curses on his head-- - Redeem, O France, thine ancient fame! - Revenge thy sufferings and thy shame! - Open thine eyes! Too long hast thou been blind! - Take vengeance for thyself and for mankind!” - -This seems to me only the outcry of a tempestuous British scold; and yet a -late eulogist has the effrontery to name it in connection with the great -prayerful burst of Milton upon the massacre of the Waldenses:-- - - “Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints whose bones - Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold.” - -No, no; Southey was no Milton--does not reach to the height of an echo of -Milton. - -Yet he was a rare and accomplished man of books--of books rather than -genius, I think. An excellent type of the very clever and well-trained -professional writer, working honestly and steadily in the service to which -he has put himself. Very politic, too, in his personal relations. Even -Carlyle--for a wonder--speaks of him without lacerating him. - -In a certain sense he was not insincere; yet he had none of that -out-spoken exuberant sincerity which breaks forth in declaratory speech, -before the public time-pieces have told us how to pitch our voices. -Landor had this: so had Coleridge. Southey never would have run away from -his wife--never; he might dislike her; but Society’s great harness (if -nothing more) would hold him in check; there were conditions under which -Coleridge might and did. Southey would never over-drink or over-tipple; -there were conditions (not rare) under which Coleridge might and did. Yet, -for all this, I can imagine a something finer in the poet of the _Ancient -Mariner_--that felt moral chafings far more cruelly; and for real poetic -unction you might put _Thalaba_, and _Kehama_, and _Madoc_ all in one -scale, and only _Christabel_ in the other--and the Southey poems would be -bounced out of sight. But how many poets of the century can put a touch to -verse like the touch in _Christabel_? - - -_The Doctor and Last Shadows._ - -I cannot forbear allusion to that curious book--little read now--which was -published by Southey anonymously, called _The Doctor_:[6] a book showing -vast accumulation of out-of-the-way bits of learning--full of quips, and -conceits, and oddities; there are traces of Sterne in it and of Rabelais; -but there is little trenchant humor of its own. It is a literary jungle; -and all its wit sparkles like marsh fire-flies that lead no whither. You -may wonder at its erudition; wonder at its spurts of meditative wisdom; -wonder at its touches of scholastic cleverness, and its want of any -effective coherence, but you wonder more at its waste of power. Yet he had -great pride in this book; believed it would be read admiringly long after -him; enjoyed vastly a boyish dalliance--if not a lying by-play--with the -secret of its authorship; but he was, I think, greatly aggrieved by its -want of the brilliant success he had hoped for. - -But sorrows of a more grievous sort were dawning on him. On the very year -before the publication of the first volumes of _The Doctor_, he writes to -his old friend, Bedford: “I have been parted from my wife by something -worse than death. Forty years she has been the life of my life; and I have -left her this day in a lunatic asylum.” - -But she comes back within a year--quiet, but all beclouded; looking -vacantly upon the faces of the household, saddened, and much thinned now. -For the oldest boy Herbert is dead years since; and the daughter, Isabel, -“the most radiant creature (he says) that I ever beheld, or shall -behold”--dead too; his favorite niece, Sara Coleridge, married and gone; -his daughter Edith, married and gone; and now that other Edith--his -wife--looking with an idle stare around the almost empty house. It was at -this juncture, when all but courage seemed taken from him, that Sir Robert -Peel wrote, offering the poet a Baronetcy; but he was beyond taking heart -from any such toy as this. He must have felt a grim complacency--now that -his hair was white and his shoulders bowed by weight of years and toil, -and his home so nearly desolate--in refusing the empty bauble which -Royalty offered, and in staying--plain Robert Southey. - -Presently thereafter his wife died; and he, whose life had been such a -domestic one, strayed round the house purposeless, like a wheel spinning -blindly--off from its axle. Friends, however, took him away with them to -Paris; among these friends--that always buoyant and companionable Crabb -Robinson, whose diary is so rich in reminiscences of the literary men of -these times. Southey’s son Cuthbert went with him, and the poet made a -good mock of enjoying the new scenes; plotted great work again--did labor -heartily on his return, and two years thereafter committed the -indiscretion of marrying again: the loneliness at Keswick was so great. -The new mistress he had long known and esteemed; and she (Miss Caroline -Bowles) was an excellent, kindly, judicious woman--although a poetess. - -But it was never a festive house again. All the high lights in that home -picture which was set between Skiddaw and the Derwent-water were blurred. -Wordsworth, striding across the hills by Dunmail Rise, on one of his rare -visits, reports that Southey is all distraught; can talk of nothing but -his books; and presently--counting only by months--it appears that he will -not even talk of these--will talk of nothing. His handwriting, which had -been neat--of which he had been proud--went all awry in a great scrawl -obliquely athwart the page. For a year or two he is in this lost trail; -mumbling, but not talking; seeing things--yet as one who sees not; -clinging to those loved books of his--fondling them; passing up and down -the library to find this or the other volume that had been carefully -cherished--taking them from their shelves; putting his lips to them--then -replacing them;--a year or more of this automatic life--the light in him -all quenched. - -He died in 1843, and was buried in the pretty church-yard of Crosthwaite, -a short mile away from his old home. Within the church is a beautiful -recumbent figure of the poet, which every traveller should see. - - -_Crabb Robinson._ - -I had occasion to name Crabb Robinson[7] as one of the party accompanying -Southey on his last visit to the Continent. Robinson was a man whom it is -well to know something of, by reason of his Boswellian _Reminiscences_, -and because--though of comparatively humble origin--he grew to be an -excellent type of the well-bred, well-read club-man of his day--knowing -everybody who was worth knowing, from Mrs. Siddons to Walter Scott, and -talking about everybody who was worth talking of, from Louis Phillippe to -Mrs. Barbauld. - -He was quick, of keen perception--always making the most of his -opportunities; had fair schooling; gets launched somehow upon an -attorney’s career, to which he never took with great enthusiasm. He was an -apt French scholar--passed four or five years, too, studying in Germany; -his assurance and intelligence, aptitude, and good-nature bringing him to -know almost everybody of consequence. He is familiar with Madame de -Staël--hob-nobs with many of the great German writers of the early part of -this century--is for a time correspondent of the _Times_ from the Baltic -and Stockholm; and from Spain also, in the days when Bonaparte is raging -over the Continent. He returns to London, revives old acquaintances, and -makes new ones; knows Landor and Dyer and Campbell; is hail fellow--as -would seem--with Wordsworth, Southey, Moore, and Lady Blessington; falls -into some helpful legacies; keeps lazily by his legal practice; husbands -his resources, but never marries; pounces upon every new lion of the day; -hears Coleridge lecture; hears Hazlitt lecture; hears Erskine plead, and -goes to play whist and drink punch with the Lambs. He was full of -anecdote, and could talk by the hour. Rogers once said to his guests who -were prompt at breakfast: “If you’ve anything to say, you’d better say it; -Crabb Robinson is coming.” He talked on all subjects with average -acuteness, and more than average command of language, and little graceful -subtleties of social speech--but with no special or penetrative analysis -of his subject-matter. The very type of a current, popular, well-received -man of the town--good at cards--good at a club dinner--good at -supper--good in travel--good for a picnic--good for a lady’s tea-fight. - -He must have written reams on reams of letters. The big books of his -_Diary and Reminiscences_[8] which I commend to you for their amusing and -most entertaining gossip, contained only a most inconsiderable part of his -written leavings. - -He took admirable care of himself; did not permit exposure to draughts--to -indigestions, or to bad company of any sort. Withal he was charitable--was -particular and fastidious; always knew the best rulings of society about -ceremony, and always obeyed; never wore a dress-coat counter to good form. -He was an excellent listener--especially to people of title; was a -judicious flatterer--a good friend and a good fellow; dining out five days -in the week, and living thus till ninety: and if he had lived till now, I -think he would have died--dining out. - -Mr. Robinson was not very strong in literary criticism. I quote a bit from -his _Diary_, that will show, perhaps as well as any, his method and range. -It is dated _June 6, 1812_: - - “Sent _Peter Bell_ to Chas. Lamb. To my surprise, he does not like - it. He complains of the slowness of the narrative--as if that were - not the _art_ of the poet. He says Wordsworth has great thoughts, - but has left them out here. [And then continues in his own person.] - In the perplexity arising from the diverse judgments of those to - whom I am accustomed to look up, I have no resource but in the - determination to disregard all opinions, and trust to the simple - impression made on my own mind. When Lady Mackintosh was once - stating to Coleridge her disregard of the beauties of nature, which - men commonly affect to admire, he said his friend Wordsworth had - described her feeling, and quoted three lines from ‘_Peter Bell_:’ - - ‘A primrose by a river brim - ‘A yellow primrose was to him, - ‘And it was nothing more.’ - - “‘Yes,’ said Lady Mackintosh--‘that is precisely my case.’” - - -_Thomas De Quincey._ - -On the same page of that _Diary_--where I go to verify this quotation--is -this entry: - - “At four o’clock dined in the [Temple] Hall with De Quincey,[9] who - was very civil to me, and cordially invited me to visit his cottage - in Cumberland. Like myself, he is an enthusiast for Wordsworth. His - person is small, his complexion fair, and his air and manner are - those of a sickly and enfeebled man.”[10] - -Some twenty-seven years before the date of this encounter, the sickly -looking man was born near to Manchester, his father being a well-to-do -merchant there--whose affairs took him often to Portugal and Madeira, and -whose invalidism kept him there so much that the son scarce knew -him;--remembers only how his father came home one day to his great country -house--pale, and propped up with pillows in the back of his carriage--came -to die. His mother, left with wealth enough for herself and children, was -of a stern Calvinistic sort; which fact gives a streak of unpleasant color -here and there to the son’s reminiscences. He is presently at odds with -her about the Bath school--where he is taught--she having moved into -Somersetshire, whereabout she knows Mistress Hannah More; the boy comes to -know this lady too, with much reverence. The son is at odds with his -mother again about Eton (where, though never a scholar, he has glimpses of -George III.--gets a little grunted talk even, from the old king)--and is -again at odds with the mother about the Manchester Grammar School: so much -at odds here, that he takes the bit fairly in his mouth, and runs away -with _Euripides_ in his pocket. Then he goes wandering in -Wales--gypsy-like--and from there strikes across country blindly to -London, where he becomes gypsy indeed. He bargains with Jews to advance -money on his expectations: and with this money for “sinker,” he sounds a -depth of sin and misery which we may guess at, by what we know, but which -in their fulness, even his galloping pen never told. Into some of those -depths his friends traced him, and patched up a truce, which landed him in -Oxford. - -Quiet and studious here at first--he is represented as a rare talker, a -little given to wine--writing admiring letters to Wordsworth and others, -who were his gods in those days; falling somehow into taste for that drug -which for so many years held him in its grip, body and soul. The Oxford -career being finished after a sort, there are saunterings through London -streets again--evenings with the Lambs, with Godwin, and excursions to -Somersetshire and the Lake country, where he encounters and gives nearer -worship to the poetic gods of his idolatry. Always shy, but earnest; most -interesting to strangers--with his pale face, high brow and lightning -glances; talking too with a winning flow and an exuberance of epithet that -somewhiles amounts to brilliancy: no wonder he was tenderly entreated by -good Miss Wordsworth; no wonder the poet of the “Doe of Rylstone” enjoyed -the titillation of such fresh, bright praises! - -So De Quincey at twenty-four became householder near to Grasmere--in the -cottage I spoke of in the opening of the chapter--once occupied by -Wordsworth, and later by Hartley Coleridge. There, on that pretty shelf of -the hills--scarce lifted above Rydal-water, he gathers his books--studies -the mountains--provokes the gossip of all the pretty Dalesmen’s -daughters--lives there a bachelor, eight years or more--ranging round and -round in bright autumnal days with the sturdy John Wilson (of the _Noctes -Ambrosianæ_)--cultivating intimacy with poor crazy Lloyd (who lived -nearby)--studying all anomalous characters with curious intensity, and -finding anomalies where others found none. Meantime and through all, his -sensibilities are kept wrought to fever heat by the opiate drinks--always -flanking him at his table; and he, so dreadfully wonted to those devilish -drafts, that--on some occasions--he actually consumes within the -twenty-four hours the equivalent of seven full wine-glasses of laudanum! -No wonder the quiet Dales-people looked dubiously at the light burning in -those cottage windows far into the gray of morning, and counted the -pale-faced, big-headed man for something uncanny. - -In these days comes about that strange episode of his mad attachment to -the little elfin child--Catharine Wordsworth--of whom the poet-father -wrote:-- - - “Solitude to her - Was blithe society, who filled the air - With gladness and involuntary songs. - Light were her sallies, as the tripping fawn’s, - Forth startled from the form where she lay couched; - Unthought of, unexpected, as the stir - Of the soft breeze ruffling the meadow flowers.” - -Yet De Quincey, arrogantly interpreting the deep-seated affections of that -father’s heart, says, “She was no favorite with Wordsworth;” but he -“himself was blindly, doatingly, fascinated” by this child of three. And -of her death, before she is four, when De Quincey is on a visit in London, -he says, with crazy exaggeration: - - “Never, perhaps, from the foundations of those mighty hills was - there so fierce a convulsion of grief as mastered my faculties on - receiving that heart-shattering news.… I had always viewed her as an - impersonation of the dawn and the spirit of infancy.… I returned - hastily to Grasmere; stretched myself every night, for more than two - months running, upon her grave; in fact often passed the night upon - her grave … in mere intensity of sick, frantic yearning after - neighborhood to the darling of my heart.”[11] - -This is a type of his ways of feeling, and of his living, and of his -speech--tending easily to all manner of extravagance: black and white are -too tame for his nerve-exaltation; if a friend looks sharply, “his eye -glares;” if disturbed, he has a “tumult of the brain;” if he doubles his -fist, his gestures are the wildest; and a well-built son and daughter of a -neighbor Dalesman are the images of “Coriolanus and Valeria.” - - -_Marriage and other Flights._ - -At thirty-one, or thereabout, De Quincey married the honest daughter of an -honest yeoman of the neighborhood. She was sensible (except her marriage -invalidate the term), was kindly, was long-suffering, and yet was very -human. I suspect the interior of that cottage was not always like the -islands of the blessed. Mr. Froude would perhaps have enjoyed lifting the -roof from such a house. Many children were born to that strangely coupled -pair,--some of them still living and most worthy. - -It happens by and by to this impractical man, from whose disorderly and -always open hand inherited moneys have slipped away; it happens--I -say--that he must earn his bread by his own toil; so he projects great -works of philosophy, of political economy, which are to revolutionize -opinions; but they topple over into opium dreams before they are realized. -He tries editing a county paper, but it is nought. At last he utilizes -even his vices, and a chapter of the _Confessions of an Opium Eater_, in -the _London Magazine_, draws swift attention to one whose language is as -vivid as a flame; and he lays bare, without qualm, his own quivering -sensibilities. This spurt of work, or some new craze, takes him to London, -away from his family. And so on a sudden, that idyl of life among the -Lakes becomes for many years a tattered and blurred page to him. He is -once more a denizen of the great city, living a shy, hermit existence -there; long time in a dim back-room of the publisher Bohn’s, in Bedford -Street, near to Covent Garden. He sees Proctor and Hazlitt odd-whiles, and -Hood, and still more of the Lambs; but he is peevish and distant, and -finds largest company in the jug of laudanum which brings swift succeeding -dreams and stupefaction. - -We will have a taste of some of his wild writing of those days. He is -speaking of a dream. - - “The dream commenced with a music of preparation and of awakening - suspense; a music like the opening of the Coronation Anthem, and - which, like that, gave the feeling of a vast march; of infinite - cavalcades filing off, and the tread of innumerable armies. The - morning was come of a mighty day, a day of crisis and of final hope - for human nature, then suffering some mysterious eclipse, and - laboring in some dread extremity. Somewhere, I knew not - where--somehow, I knew not how--by some beings, I knew not whom--a - battle, a strife, an agony was conducting, was evolving like a great - drama or a piece of music.… I had the power, and yet had not the - power to decide it … for the weight of twenty Atlantes was upon me - as the oppression of inexpiable guilt. Deeper than ever plummet - sounded, I lay inactive. Then, like a chorus, the passion deepened; - there came sudden alarms, hurrying to and fro, trepidations of - innumerable fugitives, I know not whether from the good cause or the - bad; darkness and lights; tempest and human faces; and at last, with - the sense that all was lost, female forms, and the features that - were worth all the world to me, and but a moment allowed--and - clasped hands and heart-breaking partings, and then everlasting - farewells! and with a sigh such as the caves of hell sighed when the - incestuous mother uttered the abhorred name of Death, the sound was - reverberated--everlasting farewells! and again, and yet again - reverberated--everlasting farewells!” - -Some years later he drifts again to Grasmere, but only to pluck up root -and branch that home with wife and children,--so wonted now to the -pleasant sounds and sights of the Lake waters and the mountains--and to -transport them to Edinboro’, where, through Professor Wilson, he has -promise of work which had begun to fail him in London. - -There,--though he has the introduction which a place at the tavern table -of Father Ambrose gives--he is a lonely man; pacing solitary, sometimes in -the shadow of the Castle Rock, sometimes in the shadow of the old houses -of the Canongate; always preoccupied, close-lipped, brooding, and never -without that wretched opium-comforter at his home. It was in _Blackwood_ -(1827) he first published the well known essay on “Murder as a Fine -Art,”--perhaps the best known of all he wrote; there, too, he committed to -paper, in the stress of his necessities, those sketchy _Reminiscences_ of -his Lake life; loose, disjointed, ill-considered, often sent to press -without any revision and full of strange coined words. I note at random, -such as _novel-ish erector_ (for builder), _lambencies_, _apricating_, -_aculeated_; using words not rarely, etymologically, and for some -recondite sense attaching. Worse than this, there is dreary tittle-tattle -and a pulling away of decent domestic drapery from the lives of those he -had professed to love and honor; tedious expatiation, too, upon the -scandal-mongering of servant-maids, with illustrations by page on page; -and yet, for the matter of gossip, he is himself as fertile as a -seamstress or a monthly nurse, and as overflowing and brazen as any -newspaper you may name. - -But here and there, even amid his dreariest pages, you see, -quivering--some gleams of his old strange power--a thrust of keen thought -that bewilders you by its penetration--a glowing fancy that translates one -to wondrous heights of poetic vision; and oftener yet, and over and over, -shows that mastery of the finesse of language by which he commands the -most attenuated reaches of his thought, and whips them into place with a -snap and a sting. - -Yet, when all is said, I think we must count the best that he wrote only -amongst the curiosities of literature, rather than with the manna that -fell for fainting souls in the wilderness. - -De Quincey died in Edinburgh, in 1859, aged seventy-four. - - - - -CHAPTER II. - - -In our last chapter we took a breezy morning walk amid the Lake scenery of -England--more particularly that portion of it which lies between the old -homes of Wordsworth and of Southey; we found it a thirteen-mile stretch of -road, coiling along narrow meadows and over gray heights--beside mountains -and mountain tarns--with Helvellyn lifting mid-way and Skiddaw towering at -the end. We had our talk of Dr. Southey--so brave at his work--so generous -in his home charities--so stiff in his Churchism and latter-day -Toryism--with a very keen eye for beauty; yet writing poems--stately and -masterful--which long ago went to the top-shelves, and stay there. - -We had our rough and ready interviews with that first of “War -Correspondents”--Henry Crabb Robinson--who knew all the prominent men of -this epoch, and has given us such entertaining chit-chat about them, as we -all listen to, and straightway forget. Afterwards we had a look at that -strange, intellectual, disorderly creature De Quincey--he living a long -while in the Lake Country--and in his more inspired moments seeming to -carry us by his swift words, into that mystical region lying beyond the -borders of what we know and see. He swayed men; but he rarely taught them, -or fed them. - - -_Christopher North._ - -We still linger about those charmingest of country places; and by a wooden -gateway--adjoining the approach to Windermere Hotel--upon the “Elleray -woods,” amid which lived--eighty years ago--that stalwart friend of De -Quincey’s, whose acquaintance he made among the Lakes, and who, like -himself, was a devoted admirer of Wordsworth. Indeed, I think it was at -the home of the latter that De Quincey first encountered the tall, lusty -John Wilson--brimful of enthusiasm and all country ardors; brimful, too, -of gush, and all poetic undulations of speech. He[12] was a native of -Paisley--his father having been a rich manufacturer there--and had come to -spend his abundant enthusiasms and his equally abundant moneys between -Wordsworth and the mountains and Windermere. He has his fleet of yachts -and barges upon the lake; he knows every pool where any trout lurk--every -height that gives far-off views. He is a pugilist, a swimmer, an -oarsman--making the hills echo with his jollity, and dashing off through -the springy heather with that slight, seemingly frail De Quincey in his -wake--who only reaches to his shoulder, but who is all compact of nerve -and muscle. For Greek they are fairly mated, both by love and learning; -and they can and do chant together the choral songs of heathen tragedies. - -This yellow-haired, blue-eyed giant, John Wilson--not so well-known now -as he was sixty years ago--we collegians greatly admired in that far-off -day. He had written the _Isle of Palms_, and was responsible for much of -the wit and dash and merriment which sparkled over the early pages of -_Blackwood’s Magazine_--in the chapters of the _Noctes Ambrosianæ_ and in -many a paper besides:--he had his first university training at Glasgow; -had a brief love-episode there also, which makes a prettily coy appearance -on the pleasant pages of the biography of Wilson which a daughter (Mrs. -Gordon) has compiled. After Glasgow came Oxford; and a characteristic bit -of his later writing, which I cite, will show you how Oxford impressed -him:-- - - “Having bidden farewell to our sweet native Scotland, and kissed ere - we parted, the grass and the flowers with a show of filial - tears--having bidden farewell to all her glens, now a-glimmer in the - blended light of imagination and memory, with their cairns and - kirks, their low-chimneyed huts, and their high-turreted halls, - their free-flowing rivers, and lochs dashing like seas--we were all - at once buried not in the Cimmerian gloom, but the Cerulean glitter - of Oxford’s Ancient Academic groves. The genius of the place fell - upon us. Yes! we hear now, in the renewed delight of the awe of our - youthful spirit, the pealing organ in that Chapel called the - Beautiful; we see the Saints on the stained windows; at the Altar - the picture of One up Calvary meekly ascending. It seemed then that - our hearts had no need even of the kindness of kindred--of the - country where we were born, and that had received the continued - blessings of our enlarging love! Yet away went, even then, - sometimes, our thoughts to Scotland, like carrier-pigeons wafting - love messages beneath their unwearied wings.”[13] - -We should count this, and justly, rather over-fine writing nowadays. Yet -it is throughout stamped with the peculiarities of Christopher North; he -cannot help his delightfully wanton play with language and sentiment; and -into whatever sea of topics he plunged--early or late in life--he always -came up glittering with the beads and sparkles of a highly charged -rhetoric. Close after Oxford comes that idyllic life[14] in Windermere to -which I have referred. Four or more years pass there; his trees grow -there; his new roads--hewn through the forests--wind there; he plots a new -house there; he climbs the mountains; he is busy with his boats. Somewhat -later he marries; he does not lose his old love for the poets of the Greek -anthology; he has children born to him; he breeds game fowls, and looks -after them as closely as a New England farmer’s wife after her poultry; -but with him poetry and poultry go together. There are old diaries of -his--into which his daughter gives us a peep--that show such entries as -this:--“The small Paisley hen set herself 6th of July, with no fewer than -nine eggs;” and again--“Red pullet in Josie’s barn was set with eight eggs -on Thursday;” and square against such memoranda, and in script as careful, -will appear some bit of verse like this:-- - - “Oh, fairy child! what can I wish for thee? - Like a perennial flowret may’st thou be, - That spends its life in beauty and in bliss; - Soft on thee fall the breath of time, - And still retain in heavenly clime - The bloom that charms in this.” - -He wrote, too, while living there above Windermere, his poem of the _Isle -of Palms_; having a fair success in the early quarter of this century, but -which was quickly put out of sight and hearing by the brisker, martial -music of Scott, and by the later and more vigorous and resonant verse of -Byron. - -Indeed, Wilson’s poetry was not such as we would have looked for from one -who was a “varra bad un to lick” at a wrestling bout, and who made the -splinters fly when his bludgeon went thwacking into a page of -controversial prose. His verse is tender; it is graceful; it is delicate; -it is full of languors too; and it is tiresome--a gentle girlish treble of -sound it has, that you can hardly associate with this brawny mass of -manhood. - - -_Wilson in Scotland._ - -But all that delightful life amidst the woods of Elleray--with its -game-cocks, and boats, and mountain rambles, and shouted chorus of -Prometheus--comes to a sharp end. The inherited fortune of the poet, by -some criminal carelessness or knavery of a relative, goes in a day; and -our fine stalwart wrestler must go to Edinboro’ to wrestle with the fates. -There he coquets for a time with law; but presently falls into pleasant -affiliation with old Mr. Blackwood (who was a remarkable man in his way) -in the conduct of his magazine. And then came the trumpet blasts of -mingled wit, bravado, and tenderness, which broke into those pages, and -which made young college men in England or Scotland or America, fling up -their hats for Christopher North. Not altogether a safe guide, I think, as -a rhetorician; too much bounce in him; too little self-restraint; too much -of glitter and iridescence; but, on the other hand--bating some -blackguardism--he is brimful of life and heartiness and merriment--lighted -up with scholarly hues of color. - -There was associated with Wilson in those days, in work upon _Blackwood_, -a young man--whom we may possibly not have occasion to speak of again, -and yet who is worthy of mention. I mean J. G. Lockhart,[15] who -afterwards became son-in-law and the biographer of Walter Scott--a slight -young fellow in that day, very erect and prim; wearing his hat well -forward on his heavy brows, and so shading a face that was thin, clean -cut, handsome, and which had almost the darkness of a Spaniard’s. He put -his rapier-like thrusts into a good many papers which the two wrought at -together. All his life he loved literary digs with his stiletto--which was -very sharp--and when he left Edinboro’ to edit the _Quarterly Review_ in -London (as he did in after days) he took his stiletto with him. There are -scenes in that unevenly written Lockhart story of _Adam Blair_--hardly -known now--which for thrilling passion, blazing out of clear sufficiencies -of occasion, would compare well with kindred scenes of Scott’s own, and -which score deeper colorings of human woe and loves and remorse than -belong to most modern stories; not lighted, indeed, with humor; not -entertaining with anecdote; not embroidered with archæologic knowledge; -not rattling with coruscating social fireworks, but--subtle, psychologic, -touching the very marrow of our common manhood with a pen both sharp and -fine. We remember him, however, most gratefully as the charming biographer -of Scott, and as the accomplished translator of certain Spanish ballads -into which he has put--under flowing English verse--all the clashing of -Cordovan castanets, and all the jingle of the war stirrups of the Moors. - -We return now to Professor Wilson and propose to tell you how he came by -that title. It was after only a few years of work in connection with -_Blackwood_ that the Chair of Moral Philosophy in Edinboro’ -University--which had been held by Dugald Stewart, and later by Dr. Thomas -Brown--fell vacant; and at once the name of Wilson was pressed by his -friends for the position. It was not a little odd that a man best known by -two delicate poems, and by a bold swashbuckler sort of magazine writing -should be put forward--in such a staid city as Edinboro’, and against -such a candidate as Sir William Hamilton--for a Chair which had been held -by Dugald Stewart! But he _was_ so put forward, and successfully; Walter -Scott and the Government coming to his aid. Upon this, he went resolutely -to study in the new line marked out for him; his rods and guns were, for -the time, hung upon the wall; his wrestling frolics and bouts at -quarter-staff, and suppers at the Ambrose tavern, were laid under -limitations. He put a conscience and a pertinacity into his labor that -he had never put to any intellectual work before.[16] But there were -very many people in Edinboro’ who had been aggrieved by the -appointment--largely, too, among those from whom his pupils would come. -There was, naturally, great anxiety among his friends respecting the -opening of the first session. An eye-witness says:-- - - “I went prepared to join in a cabal which was formed to put him - down. The lecture-room was crowded to the ceiling. Such a collection - of hard-browed, scowling Scotsmen, muttering over their knob-sticks, - I never saw. The Professor entered with a bold step, amid profound - silence. Every one expected some deprecatory, or propitiatory - introduction of himself and his subject, upon which the mass was to - decide against him, reason or no reason; but he began with a voice - of thunder right into the matter of his lecture, kept - up--unflinchingly and unhesitatingly, without a pause--a flow of - rhetoric such as Dugald Stewart or Dr. Brown, his predecessors, - never delivered in the same place. Not a word--not a murmur escaped - his captivated audience; and at the end they gave him a right-down - unanimous burst of applause.”[17] - -From that time forth, for thirty years or more, John Wilson held the -place, and won a popularity with his annual relays of pupils that was -unexampled and unshaken. Better lectures in his province may very possibly -have been written by others elsewhere--more close, more compact, more -thoroughly thought out, more methodic. His were not patterned after Reid -and Stewart; indeed, not patterned at all; not wrought into a burnished -system, with the pivots and cranks of the old school-men all in their -places. But they made up a series--continuous, and lapping each into each, -by easy confluence of topic--of discourses on moral duties and on moral -relations, with full and brilliant illustrative talk--sometimes in his -heated moments taking on the gush and exuberance of a poem; other times -bristling with reminiscences; yet full of suggestiveness, and telling as -much, I think, on the minds of his eager and receptive students as if the -rhetorical brilliancies had all been plucked away, and some master of a -duller craft had reduced his words to a stiff, logical paradigm. - -From this time forward Professor Wilson lived a quiet, domestic, yet fully -occupied life. He wrote enormously for the magazine with which his name -had become identified; there is scarce a break in his thirty years’ -teachings in the university; there are sometimes brief interludes of -travel; journeys to London; flights to the Highlands; there are breaks in -his domestic circle, breaks in the larger circle of his friends; there are -twinges of the gout and there come wrinkles of age; but he is braver to -resist than most; and for years on years everybody knew that great gaunt -figure, with blue eyes and hair flying wild, striding along Edinboro’ -streets. - -His poems have indeed almost gone down under the literary horizon of -to-day; but one who has known _Blackwood_ of old, can hardly wander -anywhere amongst the Highlands of Scotland without pleasant recollections -of Christopher North and of the musical bravuras of his speech. - - -_Thomas Campbell._ - -Another Scotsman, who is worthy of our attention for a little time, is one -of a different order; he is stiff, he is prim, he is almost priggish; he -is so in his young days and he keeps so to the very last. - -A verse or two from one of the little poems he wrote will bring him to -your memory: - - “On Linden when the sun was low, - All bloodless lay the untrodden snow, - And dark as winter was the flow, - Of Iser, rolling rapidly.” - -And again: - - “Then shook the hills with thunder riven, - Then rushed the steed to battle driven, - And louder than the bolts of heaven, - Far flashed the red artillery.” - -If Thomas Campbell[18] had never written anything more than that page-long -story of the “Battle of Hohenlinden,” his name would have gone into all -the anthologies, and his verse into all those school-books where boys for -seventy years now have pounded at his martial metre in furies of -declamation. And yet this bit of martial verse, so full of the breath of -battle, was, at the date of its writing, rejected by the editor of a small -provincial journal in Scotland--as not coming up to the true poetic -standard![19] - -I have spoken of Campbell as a Scotsman; though after only a short stay in -Scotland--following his university career at Glasgow--and a starveling -tour upon the Continent (out of which flashed “Hohenlinden”)--he went to -London; and there or thereabout spent the greater part of the residue of a -long life. He had affiliations of a certain sort with America, out of -which may possibly have grown his _Gertrude of Wyoming_; his father was -for much time a merchant in Falmouth, Virginia, about 1770; being however -a strong loyalist, he returned in 1776. A brother and an uncle of the poet -became established in this country, and an American Campbell of this stock -was connected by marriage with the family of Patrick Henry. - -The first _coup_ by which Campbell won his literary spurs, was a bright, -polished poem--with its couplets all in martinet-like order--called the -_Pleasures of Hope_. We all know it, if for nothing more, by reason of -the sympathetic allusion to the woes of Poland: - - “Ah, bloodiest picture in the book of time! - Sarmatia fell, unwept, without a crime; - Found not a generous friend, a pitying foe, - Strength in her arms nor mercy in her woe! - Dropped from her nerveless grasp the shattered spear, - Closed her bright eye and curbed her high career, - Hope for a season bade the world farewell, - And freedom shrieked as Kosciusko fell!” - -Even at so late a date as the death of Campbell (1844), when they buried -him in Westminster Abbey, close upon the tomb of Sheridan, some grateful -Pole secured a handful of earth from the grave of Kosciusko to throw upon -the coffin of the poet. - -But in addition to its glow of liberalism, this first poem of Campbell -was, measured by all the old canons of verse, thoroughly artistic. Its -pauses, its rhymes, its longs and shorts were of the best prize order; -even its errors in matters of fact have an academic tinge--as, for -instance,-- - - “On Erie’s banks, where tigers steal along!” - -The truth is, Mr. Campbell was never strong in his natural history; he -does not scruple to put flamingoes and palm trees into the valley of -Wyoming. Another reason why the first poem of Campbell’s, written when he -was only twenty-one, came to such success, was the comparatively clear -field it had. The date of publication was at the end of the century. Byron -was in his boyhood; Scott had not published his _Lay of the Last Minstrel_ -(1805); Southey had printed only his _Joan of Arc_ (1796), which few -people read; the same may be said of Landor’s _Gebir_, (1797); Cowper was -an old story; Rogers’s _Pleasures of Memory_ (1792), and Moore’s -translation of _Anacreon_ (1799-1800), were the more current things with -which people who loved fresh poetry could regale themselves. The _Lyrical -Ballads_ of Wordsworth and Coleridge had indeed been printed, perhaps a -year or two before, down in Bristol; but scarce any one read _these_; few -bought them;[20] and yet--in that copy of the _Lyrical Ballads_ was lying -_perdu_--almost unknown and uncared for--the “Rime of the Ancient -Mariner.” - -_Gertrude of Wyoming_, a poem, written at Sydenham, near London, about -1807, and which, sixty years ago, every good American who was collecting -books thought it necessary to place upon his shelves, I rarely find there -now. It has not the rhetorical elaboration of Campbell’s first poem; never -won its success; there are bits of war in it, and of massacre, that are -gorgeously encrimsoned, and which are laced through and through with -sounds of fife and warwhoop; but the landscape is a disorderly -exaggeration (I have already hinted at its palm trees) and its love-tale -has only the ardors of a stage scene in it; we know where the tragedy is -coming in, and gather up our wraps so as to be ready when the curtain -falls. - -He was a born actor--in need (for his best work) of the foot-lights, the -on-lookers, the trombone, the bass-drum. He never glided into victories of -the pen by natural inevitable movement of brain or heart; he stopped -always and everywhere to consider his _pose_. - -There is little of interest in Campbell’s personal history; he married a -cousin; lived, as I said, mostly in London, or its immediate -neighborhood. He had two sons--one dying young, and the other of weak -mind--lingering many years--a great grief and source of anxiety to his -father, who had the reputation of being exacting and stern in his family. -He edited for a long time the _New Monthly Magazine_, and wrote much for -it, but is represented to have been, in its conduct, careless, -hypercritical, and dilatory. He lectured, too, before the Royal Institute -on poetry; read oratorically and showily--his subject matter being -semi-philosophical, with a great air of learning and academically dry; -there was excellent system in his discourses, and careful thinking on -themes remote from most people’s thought. He wrote some historical works -which are not printed nowadays; his life of Mrs. Siddons is bad; his life -of Petrarch is but little better; some poems he published late in life are -quite unworthy of him and are never read. Nevertheless, this prim, -captious gentleman wrote many things which have the ring of truest poetry -and which will be dear to the heart of England as long as English ships -sail forth to battle. - - -_A Minstrel of the Border._ - -Yet another Scotsman whose name will not be forgotten--whether British -ships go to battle, or idle at the docks--is Walter Scott.[21] I scarce -know how to begin to speak of him. We all know him so well--thanks to the -biography of his son-in-law, Lockhart, which is almost Boswellian in its -minuteness, and has dignity besides. We know--as we know about a -neighbor’s child--of his first struggles with illness, wrapped in a fresh -sheepskin, upon the heathery hills by Smailholme Tower; we know of the -strong, alert boyhood that succeeded; he following, with a firm seat and -free rein--amongst other game--the old wives’ tales and border ballads -which, thrumming in his receptive ears, put the Edinboro law studies into -large confusion. Swift after this comes the hurry-scurry of a boyish -love-chase--beginning in Grey Friar’s church-yard; she, however, who -sprung the race--presently doubles upon him, and is seen no more; and he -goes lumbering forward to another fate. It was close upon these -experiences that some friends of his printed privately his ballad of -_William and Helen_, founded on the German Lenore:-- - - “Tramp, tramp! along the land they rode! - Splash, splash! along the sea! - The scourge is red, the spur drops blood, - The flashing pebbles flee!” - -And the spirit and dash of those four lines were quickly recognized as -marking a new power in Scotch letters; and an echo of them, or of their -spirit, in some shape or other, may be found, I think, in all his -succeeding poems and in all the tumults and struggles of his life. The -elder Scott does not like this philandering with rhyme; it will spoil the -law, and a solid profession, he thinks; and true enough it does. For the -_Border Minstrelsy_ comes spinning its delightfully musical and tender -stories shortly after Lenore; and a little later appears his first long -poem--the _Lay of the Last Minstrel_--which waked all Scotland and England -to the melody of the new master. He was thirty-four then; ripening later -than Campbell, who at twenty-one had published his _Pleasures of Hope_. -There was no kinship in the methods of the two poets; Campbell all -precision, and nice balance, delicate adjustment of language--stepping -from point to point in his progress with all grammatic precautions and -with well-poised poetic steps and demi-volts, as studied as a dancing -master’s; while Scott dashed to his purpose with a seeming abandonment of -care, and a swift pace that made the “pebbles fly.” Just as unlike, too, -was this racing freedom of Scott’s--which dragged the mists away from the -Highlands, and splashed his colors of gray, and of the purple of blooming -heather over the moors--from that other strain of verse, with its -introspections and deeper folded charms, which in the hands of Wordsworth -was beginning to declare itself humbly and coyly, but as yet with only the -rarest applause. I cannot make this distinction clearer than by quoting a -little landscape picture--let us say from _Marmion_--and contrasting with -it another from Wordsworth, which was composed six years or more before -_Marmion_ was published. First, then, from Scott--and nothing prettier -and quieter of rural sort belongs to him,-- - - “November’s sky is chill and drear, - November’s leaf is red and sear; - Late gazing down the steepy linn - That hems our little garden in.” - -(I may remark, in passing, that this is an actual description of Scott’s -home surroundings at Ashestiel.) - - “Low in its dark and narrow glen - You scarce the rivulet might ken, - So thick the tangled greenwood grew, - So feeble trilled the streamlet through; - Now, murmuring hoarse, and frequent seen - Through brush and briar, no longer green, - An angry brook it sweeps the glade, - Breaks over rock and wild cascade, - And foaming brown with double speed - Marries its waters to the Tweed.” - -There it is--a completed picture; do what you will with it! Reading it, is -like a swift, glad stepping along the borders of the brook. - -Now listen for a little to Wordsworth; it is a scrap from Tintern -Abbey:-- - - “Once again I see - These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines - Of sportive wood run wild; these pastoral farms, - Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke - Sent up in silence, from among the trees! - With some uncertain notice, as might seem - Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods, - Or of some hermit’s cave, where by his fire - The hermit sits alone.” - -(Here is more than the tangible picture; the smoke wreaths have put unseen -dwellers there); and again:-- - - “O Sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro’ the woods, - How often has my spirit turned to thee! - - I have learned - To look on Nature, not as in the hour - Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes - The still, sad music of humanity! - Nor harsh, nor grating, though of ample power - To chasten and subdue. And I have felt - A presence that disturbs me with the joy - Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime - Of something far more deeply interfused, - Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns - And the round ocean and the living air - And the blue sky, and in the mind of men - A motion and a spirit, that impels - All thinking things, all objects of all thought, - And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still - A lover of the meadows and the woods - And mountains.” - -This will emphasize the distinction, to which I would call attention, in -the treatment of landscape by the two poets: Wordsworth putting _his_ all -on a simmer with humanities and far-reaching meditative hopes and -languors; and Scott throwing windows wide open to the sky, and saying -only--look--and be glad! - -In those days Wordsworth had one reader where Scott had a hundred; and the -one reader was apologetic and shy, and the hundred were loud and gushing. -I think the number of their respective readers is more evenly balanced -nowadays; and it is the readers of Scott who are beginning to be -apologetic. Indeed I have a half consciousness of putting myself on this -page in that category:--As if the Homeric toss and life and play, and -large sweep of rivers, and of battalions and winnowed love-notes, and -clang of trumpets, and moaning of the sea, which rise and fall in the -pages of the _Minstrel_ and of _Marmion_--needed apology! Apology or no, I -think Scott’s poems will be read for a good many years to come. The guide -books and Highland travellers--and high-thoughted travellers--will keep -them alive--if the critics do not; and I think you will find no better -fore-reading for a trip along the Tweed or through the Trosachs than -_Marmion_, and the _Lady of the Lake_. - - -_The Waverley Dispensation._ - -Meantime, our author has married--a marriage, Goldwin Smith says, of -“intellectual disparagement”; which I suppose means that Mrs. Scott was -not learned and bookish--as she certainly was not; but she was honest, -true-hearted, and domestic. Mr. Redding profanely says that she was used -to plead, “Walter, my dear, you must write a new book, for I want another -silk dress.” I think this is apocryphal; and there is good reason to -believe that she gave a little hearty home huzza at each one of Mr. -Scott’s quick succeeding triumphs. - -Our author has also changed his home; first from the pretty little village -of Lasswade, which is down by Dalkeith, to Ashestiel by the Yarrow; and -thence again to a farm-house, near to that unfortunate pile of Abbotsford, -which stands on the Tweed bank, shadowed by the trees he planted, and -shadowed yet more heavily by the story of his misfortunes. I notice a -disposition in some recent writers to disparage this notable country home -as pseudo-Gothic and flimsy. This gives a false impression of a structure -which, though it lack that singleness of expression and subordination of -details which satisfy a professional critic, does yet embody in a -singularly interesting way, and with solid construction, all the -aspirations, tastes, clannish vanities and archæologic whims of the great -novelist. The castellated tower is there to carry the Scottish standard, -and the cloister to keep alive reverent memory of old religious houses; -and the miniature Court gate, with its warder’s horn; and the Oriole -windows, whose details are, maybe, snatched from Kenilworth; the mass, -too, is impressive and smacks all over of Scott’s personality and of the -traditions he cherished. - -I am tempted to introduce here some notes of a visit made to this locality -very many years ago. I had set off on a foot-pilgrimage from the old -border town of Berwick-on-Tweed; had kept close along the banks of the -river, seeing men drawing nets for salmon, whose silvery scales flashed in -the morning sun. All around swept those charming fields of Tweed-side, -green with the richest June growth; here and there were shepherds at their -sheep washing; old Norham Castle presently lifted its gray buttresses into -view; then came the long Coldstream bridge, with its arches shimmering in -the flood below; and after this the palace of the Duke of Roxburgh. In -thus following up leisurely the Tweed banks from Berwick, I had slept the -first night at Kelso; had studied the great fine bit of ruin which is -there, and had caught glimpses of Teviot-dale and of the Eildon Hills; had -wandered out of my way for a sight of Smailholme tower, and of Sandy -Knowe--both associated with Scott’s childhood; I passed Dryburgh, where he -lies buried, and at last on an evening of early June, 1845, a stout -oarsman ferried me across the Tweed and landed me in Melrose. - -I slept at the George Inn--dreaming (as many a young wayfarer in those -lands has since done), of Ivanhoe and Rebecca, and border wars and _Old -Mortality_. Next morning, after a breakfast upon trout taken from some -near stream (very likely the Yarrow or the Gala-water), I strolled two -miles or so along the road which followed the Tweed bank upon the southern -side, and by a green foot-gate entered the Abbotsford grounds. The forest -trees--not over high at that time--were those which the master had -planted. From his favorite outdoor seat, sheltered by a thicket of -arbor-vitæ, could be caught a glimpse of the rippled surface of the Tweed -and of the turrets of the house. - -It was all very quiet--quiet in the wood-walks; quiet as you approached -the court-yard; the master dead; the family gone; I think there was a yelp -from some young hound in an out-building, and a twitter from some birds I -did not know; there was the unceasing murmur of the river. Besides these -sounds, the silence was unbroken; and when I rang the bell at the entrance -door, the jangle of it was very startling; startling a little terrier, -too, whose quick, sharp bark rang noisily through the outer court. - -Only an old house-keeper was in charge, who had fallen into that dreadful -parrot-like way of telling visitors what things were best worth -seeing--which frets one terribly. What should you or I care (fresh from -_Guy Mannering_ or _Kenilworth_) whether a bit of carving came from -Jedburgh or Kelso? or about the jets in the chandelier, or the way in -which a Russian Grand Duke wrote his name in the visitors’ book? - -But when we catch sight of the desk at which the master wrote, or of the -chair in which he sat, and of his shoes and coat and cane--looking as if -they might have been worn yesterday--these seem to bring us nearer to the -man who has written so much to cheer and to charm the world. There was, -too, a little box in the corridor, simple and iron-bound, with the line -written below it, “Post will close at two.” It was as if we had heard the -master of the house say it. Perhaps the notice was in his handwriting (he -had been active there in 1831-2--just thirteen years before)--perhaps not; -but--somehow--more than the library, or the portrait bust, or the chatter -of the well-meaning house-keeper, it brought back the halting old -gentleman in his shooting-coat, and with ivory-headed cane--hobbling with -a vigorous step along the corridor, to post in that iron-bound box a -packet--maybe a chapter of _Woodstock_. - -I have spoken of the vacant house--family gone: The young Sir Walter -Scott, of the British army, and heir to the estate--was at that date -(1845) absent in the Indies; and only two years thereafter died at sea on -his voyage home. Charles Scott, the only brother of the younger Sir -Walter, died in 1841.[22] Miss Anne Scott, the only unmarried daughter of -the author of _Waverley_, died--worn-out with tenderest care of mother and -father, and broken-hearted--in 1833. Her only sister, Mrs. (Sophia Scott) -Lockhart, died in 1837. Her oldest son--John Hugh, familiarly known as -“Hugh Little John”--the crippled boy, for whom had been written the _Tales -of a Grandfather_, and the darling of the two households upon -Tweed-side--died in 1831. I cannot forbear quoting here a charming little -memorial of him, which, within the present year, has appeared in Mr. -Lang’s _Life of Lockhart_. - - “A figure as of one of Charles Lamb’s dream-children haunts the - little beck at Chiefswood, and on that haugh at Abbotsford, where - Lockhart read the manuscript of the _Fortunes of Nigel_, fancy may - see ‘Hugh Little John,’ ‘throwing stones into the burn,’ for so he - called the Tweed. While children study the _Tales of a Grandfather_, - he does not want friends in this world to remember and envy the boy - who had Sir Walter to tell him stories.”--P. 75, vol. ii. - -A younger son of Lockhart, Walter Scott by name, became, at the death of -the younger Walter Scott, inheritor of all equities in the landed estate -upon Tweed-side, and the proper Laird of Abbotsford. His story is a short -and a sad one; he was utterly unworthy, and died almost unbefriended at -Versailles in January, 1853. - -His father, J. G. Lockhart, acknowledging a picture of this son, under -date of 1843, in a letter addressed to his daughter Charlotte--(later -Mrs. Hope-Scott,[23] and mother of the present proprietress of -Abbotsford), writes with a grief he could not cover:-- - - “I am not sorry to have it by me, though it breaks my heart to - recall the date. It is of the sweet, innocent, happy boy, home for - Sunday from Cowies [his school].… Oh, God! how soon that day became - clouded, and how dark its early close! Well, I suppose there is - another world; if not, sure this is a blunder.” - -I have not spoken--because there seemed no need to speak--of the way in -which those marvellous romantic fictions of Sir Walter came pouring from -the pen, under a cloud of mystery, and of how the great burden of his -business embarrassments--due largely to the recklessness of his jolly, -easy-going friends, the Ballantynes--overwhelmed him at last. Indeed, in -all I have ventured to say of Scott, I have a feeling of its -impertinence--as if I were telling you about your next-door neighbor: we -all know that swift, brilliant, clouded career so well! But are those -novels of his to live, and to delight coming generations, as they have the -past? I do not know what the very latest critics may have to say; but, for -my own part, I have strong belief that a century or two more will be sure -to pass over before people of discernment, and large humanities, and of -literary appreciation, will cease to read and to enjoy such stories as -that of the _Talisman of Kenilworth_ and of _Old Mortality_. I know ’tis -objected, and with much reason, that he wrote hastily, carelessly--that -his stories are in fact (what Carlyle called them) extemporaneous stories. -Yet, if they had been written under other conditions, could we have -counted upon the heat and the glow which gives them illumination? - -No, no--we do not go to him for word-craft; men of shorter imaginative -range, and whose judgments wait on conventional rule, must guide us in -such direction, and pose as our modellers of style. Goldsmith and Swift -both may train in that company. But this master we are now considering -wrote so swiftly and dashed so strongly into the current of what he had to -say, that he was indifferent to methods and words, except what went to -engage the reader and keep him always cognizant of his purpose. But do you -say that this is the best aim of all writing? Most surely it is wise for a -writer to hold attention by what arts he can: failing of this, he fails of -the best half of his intent; but if he gains this by simple means, by -directness, by limpid language, and no more of it than the thought calls -for, and by such rhythmic and beguiling use of it as tempts the reader to -follow, he is a safer exemplar than one who by force of genius can -accomplish his aims by loose expressions and redundance of words. - -Next it is objected to these old favorites of ours, that they are not -clever in the exhibit and explication of mental processes, and their -analysis of motives is incomplete. Well, I suppose this to be true; and -that he did, to a certain extent (as Carlyle used to allege grumblingly), -work from the outside-in. He did live in times when men fell -straightforwardly in love, without counting the palpitations of the heart; -and when heroes struck honest blows without reckoning in advance upon the -probable contractile power of their biceps muscles. Again, it is said that -his history often lacks precision and sureness of statement. Well, the -dates are certainly sometimes twisted a few years out of their proper -lines and seasons; but it is certain, also, that he does give the -atmosphere and the coloring of historic periods in a completer and more -satisfying way than many much carefuller chroniclers, and his portraits of -great historic personages are by common consent--even of the critics--more -full of the life of their subjects, and of a realistic exhibit of their -controlling characteristics, than those of the historians proper. Nothing -can be more sure than that Scott was not a man of great critical learning; -nothing is more sure than that he was frequently at fault in minor -details; but who will gainsay the fact that he was among the most charming -and beneficent of story-tellers? - -There may be households which will rule him out as old fashioned and -stumbling, and wordy, and long; but I know of one, at least, where he will -hold his place, as among the most delightful of visitors--and where on -winter nights he will continue to bring with him (as he has brought so -many times already) the royal figure of the Queen Elizabeth--shining in -her jewels, or sulking in her coquetries; and Dandie Dinmont, with his -pow-wow of Pepper and Mustard; and King Jamie, with Steenie and jingling -Geordie; and the patient, prudent, excellent Jeanie Deans; and the weak, -old, amiable mistress of Tillietudlem; and Rebecca, and the Lady in the -Green Mantle, and Dominie Sampson, and Peter Peebles, and Di Vernon, and -all the rest! - - -_Glints of Royalty._ - -They tell us Scott loved kings: why not? Romanticism was his nurse, from -the days when he kicked up his baby heels under the shadows of Smailholme -Tower, and Feudalism was his foster-parent. Always he loved banners and -pageantry, and always the glitter and pomp which give their under or over -tones to his pages of balladry. And if he stood in awe of titles and of -rank, and felt the cockles of his heart warming in contact with these, -’twas not by reason of a vulgar tuft-hunting spirit, nor was it due to the -crass toadyism which seeks reflected benefit; but it grew, I think, out of -sheer mental allegiance to feudal splendors and traditions. - -Whether Scott ever personally encountered the old king, George III., may -be doubtful; but I recall in some of his easy, family letters (perhaps to -his eldest boy Walter), most respectful and kindly allusions to the august -master of the royal Windsor household--who ordered his home affairs so -wisely--keeping “good hours;” while, amid the turbulences and unrest which -belonged to the American and French Revolutions--succeeding each other in -portentous sequence--he was waning toward that period of woful mental -imbecility which beset him at last, and which clouded an earlier -chapter[24] of our record. The Prince Regent--afterward George IV.--was -always well disposed toward Scott; had read the _Minstrel_, and _Marmion_, -with the greatest gratification (he did sometimes read), and told Lord -Byron as much; even comparing the Scot with Homer--which was as near to -classicism as the Prince often ran. But Byron, in his _English Bards_, -etc., published in his earlier days, had made his little satiric dab at -the _Minstrel_--finding a lively hope in its being _the Last_! - -Murray, however, in the good Christian spirit which sometimes overtakes -publishers, stanched these wounds, and brought the poets to bask together -in the smiles of royalty. The first Baronetcy the Prince bestowed--after -coming to Kingship--was that which made the author of Waverley Sir Walter; -the poet had witnessed and reported the scenes at the Coronation of 1820 -in London; and on the King’s gala visit to Edinboro’--when all the heights -about the gray old city boomed with welcoming cannon, and all the streets -and all the water-ways were a-flutter with tartans and noisy with -bagpipes--it was Sir Walter who virtually marshalled the hosts, and gave -chieftain-like greeting to the Prince. Scott’s management of the whole -stupendous paraphernalia--the banquets, the processions, the receptions, -the decorations (of all which the charming water-colors of Turner are in -evidence)--gave wonderful impressions of the masterful resources and -dominating tact of the man; now clinking glasses (of Glenlivet) with the -mellow King (counting sixty years in that day); now humoring into quietude -the jealousies of Highland chieftains; again threading Canongate at -nightfall and afoot--from end to end--to observe if all welcoming -bannerols and legends are in place; again welcoming to his home, in the -heat of ceremonial occupation, the white-haired and trembling poet Crabbe; -anon, stealing away to his Castle Street chamber for a new chapter in the -_Peveril of the Peak_ (then upon the anvil), and in the heat, and fury, -and absorption of the whole gala business breaking out of line with a -bowed head and aching heart, to follow his best friend, William Erskine -(Lord Kinnedder),[25] out by Queensferry to his burial. - -It was only eight years thereafter, when this poet manager of the great -Scotch jubilee--who seemed good for the work of a score of years--sailed, -by royal permission (an act redeeming and glorifying royalty) upon a -Government ship--seeking shores and skies which would put new vigor (if it -might be) into a constitution broken by toil, and into hopes that had been -blighted by blow on blow of sorrow. - -Never was a royal favor more worthily bespoken; never one more vainly -bestowed. ’Twas too late. No human eye--once so capable of seeing--ever -opened for a first look so wearily upon the blue of the -Mediterranean--upon the marvellous fringed shores of lower Italy--upon -Rome, Florence, and the snowy Swiss portals of the Simplon. - -Royalty (in person of William IV., then on the throne) asked kindly after -the sick magician--who was established presently on a sick bed in London; -while the cabmen on street corners near by talked low of the “great mon” -who lay there a-dying. A little show of recovery gave power to reach -home--Abbotsford and Tweed-side--once more. There was no hope; but it took -time for the great strength in him to waste. - -Withal there was a fine glint of royalty at the end. “Be virtuous, my -dear,” he said to Lockhart; “be a good man.” And that utterance--the -summing up of forty years of brilliant accomplishment, and of baffled -ambitions--emphasized by the trembling voice of a dying man--will dwell -longer in human memories, and more worthily, than the empty baronial pile -we call Abbotsford, past which the scurrying waters of the Tweed ripple -and murmur--as they did on the day Sir Walter was born, and on the day he -was buried at Dryburgh. - - - - -CHAPTER III. - - -Our last chapter was opened by a rather full sketch of Professor Wilson, -and a briefer one of Thomas Campbell--who though of higher repute as a -poet, was a far less interesting man. We then entered upon what may have -seemed a very inadequate account of the great author of Waverley--because -I presumed upon the reader’s full and ready knowledge; and because the -Minstrel’s grand stride over all the Scottish country that is worth the -seeing, and over all that domain in English Lands and Letters, which he -made his own, has been noted by scores of tourists, and by scores of -admiring commentators. You may believe me in saying--that his story was -not scrimped for lack of love; indeed, it would have been easy to riot in -talk about the lively drum-beat of his poems, or the livelier and more -engaging charms of his prose Romance--through two chapters or through ten. -But we must get on; there is a long road before us yet. - - -_A Start in Life._ - -It was somewhere about the year 1798, that a sharp-faced, youngish -Englishman--who had been curate of a small country parish down in -Wiltshire--drove, upon a pleasant June day, on a coach-top, into the old -city of Edinboro’. This clergyman had a young lad seated beside him, whom -he was tutoring; and this tutoring business enabled the curate to take a -respectable house in the city. And by reason of the respectable house, and -his own pleasant humor and intelligence, he came after a year or two to -know a great many of the better folk in Edinboro’, and was invited to -preach an occasional sermon at a small Episcopal chapel in his -neighborhood. But all the good people he met did not prevent his being -a-hungered after a young person whom he had left in the south of England. -So he took a vacation presently and fetched her back, a bride, to the -Scottish capital--having (as he said) thrown all his fortune in her lap. -This fortune was of maternal inheritance, and consisted of six well-worn -silver teaspoons. There was excellent society in Edinboro’ in that day, -among the ornaments of which was Henry Mackenzie,[26] a stately -gentleman--a sort of dean of the literary coteries, and the author of -books which it is well to know by name--_The Man of Feeling_ and _Julia de -Roubigné_--written with great painstaking and most exalted sentiment, -and--what we count now--much dreariness. Then there was a Rev. Archibald -Alison--he too an Episcopal clergyman, though Scotch to the backbone--and -the author of an ingenious, but not very pregnant book, still to be found -in old-fashioned libraries, labelled, _Alison on Taste_. Dugald Stewart -was then active, and did on one or two occasions bring his honored -presence to the little chapel to hear the preaching of the young English -curate I spoke of. And this young curate, poor as he is and with a young -wife, has an itch for getting into print; and does after a little time -(the actual date being 1800) publish a booklet, which you will hardly find -now, entitled _Six Sermons preached at Charlotte Chapel, Edinboro, by Rev. -Sydney Smith_.[27] But it was not so much these sermons, as his wit and -brightness and great range of information, which brought him into easy -intimacy with the most promising young men of the city. Walter Scott he -may have encountered odd whiles, though the novelist was in those days -bent on his hunt after Border Minstrelsy, and would have been shy of the -rampant liberalism ingrained with Smith. - -But the curate did meet often, and most intimately, a certain prim, -delicate, short-statured, black-eyed, smug, ambitious, precocious young -advocate named Francis Jeffrey; and it was in a chamber of this latter--up -three pair of stairs in Buccleugh Place--that Sydney Smith, on a certain -occasion, proposed to the host and two or three other friends there -present, the establishment of a literary journal to be published -quarterly; and out of that proposition grew straightway that famous -_Edinburgh Review_ which in its covers of buff and blue has thrived for -over ninety years now--throwing its hot shot into all opposing camps of -politics or of letters. I have designated two of the arch plotters, Sydney -Smith and Jeffrey. Francis Horner[28] was another who was in at the start; -he, too, a young Scotch lawyer, who went to London on the very year of the -establishment of the journal, but writing for its early issues, well and -abundantly. Most people know him now only by the beautiful statue of him -by Chantrey, which stands in Westminster Abbey; it has a noble head, full -of intellect--full of integrity. Sydney Smith said the Ten Commandments -were writ all over his face. Yet the marble shows a tenderness of soul not -common to those who, like him, had made a profession of politics, and -entered upon a parliamentary career. But the career was short; he died in -1817--not yet forty--leaving a reputation that was spotless; had he lived, -he would have come, without a doubt, to the leadership of liberal opinion -in England. The mourning for him was something extraordinary in its reach, -and its sincerity; a remarkable man--whose politics never up-rooted his -affections, and whose study of the laws of trade did not spoil his temper, -or make him abusive. His example, and his repeated advices, in connection -with the early history of the _Review_, were always against the -personalities and ugly satire which were strong features of it in the -first years, and which had their source--very largely--in the influences -and pertinacity of another member of the _Review_ Syndicate; I mean Henry -Brougham. - - -_Henry Brougham._ - -This was another young lawyer--of Scottish birth, but of Cumberland stock; -ambitious like Jeffrey and equally clever, though in a different line; he -was ungainly and lank of limb; with a dogmatic and presuming manner, and a -noticeably aggressive nose which became afterward the handle (and a very -good handle it made) for those illustrative caricatures of Mr. Punch, -which lasted for a generation. Brougham[29] was always a debater from his -boy-days--and not a little of a bully and outlaw; precocious too--a -capital Latinist--writing a paper on Optics at eighteen, which found -publishment in the Philosophical Transactions; member of the Speculative -Society where Jeffrey and Mackintosh, and Alison were wont to go, and -where his disputatious spirit ran riot. He didn’t love to agree with -anybody; one of those men it would seem who hardly wished his dinner to -agree with him. - -Yet Brougham was one of the master spirits in this new enterprise, and -became a great historic personage. His reputation was indeed rather -political and forensic, than literary, and in his writings he inclined to -scientific discussion. He had, however, a streak of purely literary -ambition, and wrote a novel at one period of his life--after he had -reached maturity--which he called a philosophic Romance.[30] Indeed this -bantling was so swaddled, in philosophic wrappings that it could have -made no noise. Very few knew of it; fewer still ever read it. He said, “It -had not enough of indecency and blasphemy in it to make it popular” (it -was written when Byron was in high repute). But the few who did read it -thought there were other reasons for its want of success. - -He drifted quickly away from Edinboro’, though long keeping up his -connection with the _Review_; became famous as an advocate--notably in -connection with Queen Caroline’s trial; went into Parliament; was -eventually Lord High Chancellor, and won a place in the Peerage. He was -associated intimately, too, with great beneficent schemes--such as the -suppression of the slave trade, the establishment of the London -University, the founding of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful -Knowledge, and the urgence of the great Reform measures of 1832. Yet in -all these, he arrogated more than his share of the honor, wearying his -associates by incessant bickering and scolding, picking flaws in -everything not entirely his own; jealous, suspicious, conceited to the -last degree; never generous in praise of one living beside him; an -enormous worker, with sinews of iron, and on occasions (which are of -record) speaking and wrangling in the House of Commons until two of the -morning, and then going home--not to sleep--but to write a thirty-page -article for the _Edinburgh Review_. Such men make a place for themselves, -and keep it. He was an acrid debater, but a most thorough one--holding all -aspects of a case in view; never getting muddled; ready with facts; ready -with fallacies (if needed); ready for all and any interruptions; setting -them on fire by the stress of his argumentation--like carbons in an -electric circuit; ready with storms of irony and running into rough-edged -sarcasm with singular ease and sharpest appetite. - -On a May evening of 1845 the present writer had the pleasure of watching -him for an hour or more in the House of Lords. He was lank, as I have -said; awkward, nervous, restless; twisting the great seals at his -watch-chain; intent upon everything; now and then sniffing the air, like a -terrier that has lost the scent; presenting a petition, in the course of -the session, in favor of some Newfoundland clients who were anxious for -more direct postal communication--who objected that their mails were sent -in a roundabout way _via_ Halifax. Whereupon Lord Stanley (afterward Earl -Derby), then Secretary for the Colonies, rose in explanation, “regretting -that his Lordship had not communicated with the Colonial Office, which had -considered the question raised; there was no communication by land; the -harbor was often closed by ice; therefore present methods were followed,” -etc. All of which was set forth with most charming grace and suavity; but -Lord Stanley was no sooner ended than the irascible Scotch peer, nettled, -as would seem, by the very graciousness of the explanation, was upon his -feet in an instant, with a sharp “M’ Lards,” that promised fun; and -thereafter came a fusillade of keenest, ironical speech--thanking the -honorable Secretary for “the vera impartant information, that as St. -John’s was upon an island, there could be no communication by land; and -perhaps his learned _Lardship_ supposes, with an acumen commensurate with -his _great_ geographic knowledge, that the sending of the mails by the way -of Halifax will have a tendency to _thaw_ the ice in the Harbor of St. -John’s,” and so on, for a ten minute’s storm of satiric and witty banter. -And then--an awkward plunge backward into his seat--a new, nervous -twirling of his watch-seals, a curious smile of self-approval, followed by -a lapse into the old nervous unrest. - -There was no serenity in Brougham--no repose--scarce any dignity. His -petulance and angry sarcasm and frequent ill-nature made him a much hated -man in his latter days, and involved him in abusive tirades, which people -were slow to forgive. - - -_Francis Jeffrey._ - -As for Mr. Jeffrey, his associate on the _Review_, and for many years its -responsible editor, he was a very different man--of easy address, -courteous, gentlemanly--quite a master of deportment. Yet it was he who -ripped open with his critical knife Southey’s _Thalaba_ and the early -poems of Wordsworth. But even his victims forgot his severities in his -pleasantly magnetic presence and under the caressing suavities of his -manner. He was brisk, _débonnaire_, cheery--a famous talker; not given to -anecdotes or storytelling, but bubbling over with engaging book-lore and -poetic hypotheses, and eager to put them into those beautiful shapes of -language which came--as easily as water flows--to his pen or to his -tongue. He said harsh things, not for love of harsh things; but because -what provoked them grated on his tastes, or his sense of what was due to -Belles Lettres. One did not--after conversing with him--recall great -special aptness of remark or of epithet, so much as the charmingly even -flow of apposite and illustrative language--void of all extravagances and -of all wickednesses, too. Lord Cockburn says of his conversation:-- - - “The listeners’ pleasure was enhanced by the personal littleness of - the speaker. A large man [Jeffrey was very small] could scarcely - have thrown off Jeffrey’s conversational flowers without exposing - himself to ridicule. But the liveliness of the deep thoughts and the - flow of bright expressions that animated his talk, seemed so natural - and appropriate to the figure that uttered them, that they were - heard with something of the delight with which the slenderness of - the trembling throat and the quivering of the wings make us enjoy - the strength and clearness of the notes of a little bird.”[31] - -The first Mrs. Jeffrey dying early in life, he married for second wife a -very charming American lady, Miss Wilkes;[32] having found -time--notwithstanding his engrossment with the _Review_--for an American -journey, at the end of which he carried home his bride. Some of his -letters to his wife’s kindred in America are very delightful--setting -forth the new scenes to which the young wife had been transported. He knew -just what to say and what not to say, to make his pictures perfect. The -trees, the church-towers, the mists, the mosses on walls, the gray -heather--all come into them, under a touch that is as light as a feather, -and as sharp as a diamond. - -His honors in his profession of advocate grew, and he came by courtesy to -the title of Lord Jeffrey--(not to be confounded with that other murderous -Lord Jeffreys, who was judicial hangman for James II.). He is in -Parliament too; never an orator properly; but what he says, always clean -cut, sensible, picturesque, flowing smoothly--but rather over the surface -of things than into their depths. Accomplished is the word to apply to -him; accomplished largely and variously, and with all his accomplishments -perfectly in hand. - -Those two hundred papers which he wrote in the _Edinburgh Review_ are of -the widest range--charmingly and piquantly written. Yet they do not hold -place among great and popular essays; not with Macaulay, or Mackintosh, or -Carlyle, or even Hazlitt. He was French in his literary aptitudes and -qualities; never heavy; touching things, as we have said, with a feather’s -point, yet touching them none the less surely. - -Could he have written a book to live? His friends all thought it, and -urged him thereto. He thought not. There would be great toil, he said, -and mortification at the end; so he lies buried, where we leave him, under -a great tumulus of most happy _Review_ writing. - - -_Sydney Smith._ - -I return now to the clever English curate who was the first to propose the -establishment of that great Northern _Review_, out of which Lord Jeffrey -grew. Smith had written very much and well, and had cracked his jokes in a -way to be heard by all the good people of Edinboro’. But he was poor, and -his wife poor; he had his fortune to make; and plainly was not making it -there, tutoring his one pupil. So, in 1804, he struck out for London, to -carve his way to fortune. He knew few there; but his clever papers in the -_Review_ gave him introduction to Whig circles, and a social plant, which -he never forfeited. Lord and Lady Holland greatly befriended him; and he -early came to a place at the hospitable board of that famous Holland -House--of whose green quietudes we have had glimpses, in connection with -Addison, and in connection with Charles Fox--and whose mistress in the -days we are now upon, showed immense liking for the brilliant and witty -parson. - -All this while, the Rev. Sydney was seeking preaching chances; but was -eyed doubtfully by those who had pulpits in their gift. He was too -independent--too witty--too radical--too hateful of religious -conventionalisms--too _Edinburgh Reviewish_. Neither was he a great -orator; rather scornful of explosive clap-trap or of noisy pulpit -rhetoric; yet he had a resonant voice--earnest in every note and trill; -often sparkling to his points in piquant, conversational way, but wanting -quick-witted ones for their reception and comprehension. He lacked too, in -a measure--what is another great resource for a preacher--the unction -which comes of deep, sustained, devotional feeling, and a conviction of -the unmatchable importance and efficacy of sacerdotal influences. I think -there was no time in his life when he would not rather beguile a wayward -soul by giving him a good, bright witticism to digest than by exhibit of -the terrors of the Law. His Gospel--by preference--was an intellectual -gospel; yet not one that reposed on creeds and formulas. His heart was -large, and his tolerance full. He was a proud Churchman indeed, and loved -to score dissenters; but delighted in the crack of his witticisms, more -than he mourned over their apostasy. Among the “evening meetings” that he -knew very much of, and specially relished, were those at his own little -homestead, with closed blinds, and a few friends, and hot-water, -and--lemons! - -I do not at all mean to imply that he had habits of dissipation, or was -ever guilty of vulgar excesses. Of all such he had a wholesome horror; but -along with it, he had a strong and abiding fondness for what he counted -the good things of life, and the bright things, and the play of wit, and -the encounter of scholarly weapons. - -One beautiful priestly quality, however, always shone in him: that was his -kindliness for the poor and feeble--his sympathy with them--his working -for their benefit; and though he trusted little in appeals to the mere -emotional nature, yet in his charity sermons he drew such vivid pictures -of the suffering poor folk who had come under his eye, as to put half his -auditors in tears. - -His preaching in London at this early period was for the most part at an -out-of-the-way chapel, in connection with a Foundling Hospital; but he -gave a series of Philosophic Lectures at the Royal Institution--never -reckoned by himself with his good work--which were besieged by people who -came to enjoy his witty sayings. In a few years, however, he secured a -valuable church gift in Yorkshire, where he built a rectory--the ugliest -and “honest-est house” in the county--and entertained London and Scottish -friends there, and grew to enjoy--much as he could--the trees, flowers, -and lawns which he planted, and with which he coquetted, though only in a -half-hearted way. His supreme love was for cities and crowds; he counting -the country at its best only a kind of “healthy grave”; flowers, turf, -birds are very well in their way, he says, but not worth an hour of the -rational conversation only to be had where a million are gathered in one -spot.[33] - -And he does at last come to the million--getting, after his Whig friends -came into power, and after the Reform revolution was over, the royal -appointment to a canonry in connection with St. Paul’s Cathedral.[34] - -He also has the gift of a new country “living” in Somersetshire, where he -passes his later summer in another delightfully equipped home; and between -these two church holdings, and certain legacies conveniently falling due, -he has a large income at command, and enjoys it, and makes the poor of his -parishes enjoy it too. - -He has taken a lusty hand in that passage of the Reform bill (1832), and -while its success seemed still to be threatened by the sullen opposition -of the House of Lords, he made that famous witty comparison in which he -likened the popular interest in Reform to a great storm and tide which had -set in from the Atlantic, and the opposition of the Lords, to the efforts -of Dame Partington, who lived upon the beach, and-- - - “who was seen at the door of her house with mops and pattens, - trundling her mop, squeezing out the sea-water, and vigorously - pushing away the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic was roused. Mrs. - Partington’s spirit was up. But I need not tell you the contest was - unequal. The Atlantic Ocean beat Mrs. Partington. She was excellent - at a slop or a puddle, but she should not have meddled with a - tempest.” - -And this happy and droll comparison was met with a great roar of laughter -and of applause that ran all over England. The same tactics of witty -ridicule belonged also to his attacks upon Tractarianism and Puseyism, -which made stir in his latter days. Indeed, his bump of veneration was -very small; and his drollery creeps into his letters as into his speech. -He writes of a visit to Edinboro’: - - “My old friends were glad to see me; some were turned Methodists, - some had lost their teeth, some had grown very fat, some were dying, - and, alas! many were dead. But the world is a coarse enough place; - so I talked away, comforted some, praised others, kissed some old - ladies, and passed a very riotous week.”[35] - -He writes to Moore, the poet: - - “DEAR MOORE: I have a breakfast of philosophers at ten, punctually, - to-morrow--‘muffins and metaphysics, crumpets and contradiction.’ - Will you come?” - -When Mrs. Smith is ailing at her new home in Somersetshire he says: - - “Mrs. S---- has eight distinct illnesses, and I have nine. We take - something every hour, and pass the mixture between us.” - -One part of his suffering comes of hay fever, as to which he says: - - “Light, dust, contradiction--the sight of a dissenter--anything sets - me sneezing; and if I begin sneezing at twelve, I don’t leave off - till two, and am heard distinctly in Taunton (when the wind sets - that way), a distance of six miles.” - -This does not show quite so large a reserve and continence of speech as we -naturally look for in the clerical profession; but this, and other such -do, I think, set the Rev. Sydney Smith before us, with his witty -proclivities, and his unreserve, and his spirit of frolic, as no citations -from his moral and intellectual philosophy could ever do. And I easily -figure to myself this portly, well-preserved gentleman of St. Paul’s, -fighting the weaknesses of the gout with a gold-headed cane, and picking -his way of an afternoon along the pavements of Piccadilly, with eye as -bright as a bird’s, and beak as sharp as a bird’s--regaling himself with -the thought of the dinner for which he is booked, and of the brilliant -talkers he is to encounter, with the old parry and thrust, at Rogers’s -rooms, or under the noble ceiling of Holland House. - - -_A Highlander._ - -Another writer--whose sympathies from the beginning were with the -Liberalism of the _Edinburgh Review_ (though not a contributor till some -years after its establishment) was Sir James Mackintosh.[36] A Highlander -by birth--he was at Aberdeen University--afterwards in Edinboro’, where he -studied medicine, and getting his Doctorate, set up in London--eking out a -support, which his medical practice did not bring, by writing for the -papers. - -This was at the date when the recent French Revolution and its issues were -at the top of all men’s thoughts; and when Burke had just set up his -glittering bulwark of eloquence and of sentiment in his famous -“Reflections”; and our young Doctor (Mackintosh)--full of a bumptious -Whiggism, undertook a reply to the great statesman--a reply so shrewd, so -well-seasoned, so sound--that it brought to the young Scotchman (scarce -twenty-five in those days) a fame he never outlived. It secured him the -acquaintance of Fox and Sheridan, and the friendship of Burke, who in his -latter days invited the young pamphleteer, who had so strongly, yet -respectfully, antagonized his views, to pass a Christmas with him at his -home of Beaconsfield. Of course, such a success broke up the doctoring -business, and launched Mackintosh upon a new career. He devoted himself to -politics; was some time an accredited lecturer upon the law of nations; -was knighted presently and sent to Bombay on civil service. His friends -hoped he might find financial equipment there, but this hope was vain; -red-tape was an abomination to him always; cash-book and ledger -represented unknown quantities; he knew no difference between a shilling -and a pound, till he came to spend them. He was in straits all his life. - -His friendship for Jeffrey, Sydney Smith, and Brougham was maintained by -correspondence, and on his return from India he became an occasional -contributor to the great Scotch _Review_ on various subjects. - -His range of acquirements was most wide--too wide and too unceasing for -the persistency which goes with great single achievements. His histories -are fragments. His speeches are misplaced treatises; his treatises are -epitomes of didactic systems. When we weigh his known worth, his keenness -of intellect, his sound judgment, his wealth of language, his love for -thoroughness--which led him to remotest sources of information--his -amazing power in colloquial discourse, we are astonished at the little -store of good things he has left. There was a lack in him, indeed, of the -salient and electrical wit of Sydney Smith; a lack of the easy and -graceful volubility of Jeffrey; lack of the abounding and illuminating -rhetoric of Macaulay; but a greater lack was of that dogged, persistent -working habit which gave to Brougham his triumphs. - -Yet Mackintosh was always plotting great literary designs; but his -fastidious taste, and his critical hunger for all certainties, kept him -forever in the search of new material and appliances. He was dilatory to -the last degree; his caution always multiplied delays; no general was ever -so watchful of his commissariat--none ever so unready for a “Forward, -march!” Among his forecasts was that of a great history of England. Madame -de Staël urged her friend to take possession of her villa on Lake Geneva -and, like Gibbon, write his way there to a great fame. He did for awhile -set himself resolutely to a beginning at the country home of Weedon Lodge -in Buckinghamshire--accumulated piles of fortifying MSS. and private -records; but for outcome we have only that clumsy torso which outlines the -Revolution of 1688.[37] - -His plans wanted a hundred working years, instead of the thirty which are -only allotted to men. What Jeffrey left behind him marks, I think, the -full limit of his powers; the same is true of Brougham, and true probably -of Macaulay; and I think no tension and no incentive would have wrought -upon Sydney Smith to work greater and brighter things than he did -accomplish. A bishopric would only have set his gibes into coruscation at -greater tables, and perhaps given larger system to his charities. But -Mackintosh never worked up to the full level of his best power and large -learning, except in moments of conversational exaltation. - - -_Rest at Cannes._ - -Before closing our chapter we take one more swift glimpse at that -arch-plotter for Whiggism--in the early days of the _Edinburgh -Review_--whom we left fidgetting in the House of Lords, on a May evening -of 1845. He had a longer life by far than most of those who conspired for -the maintenance of the great blue and buff forerunner of British critical -journals. He was only twenty-three when he put his shoulder to the -quarterly revolutions of the _Edinburgh_--youngest of all the immediate -founders;[38] and he outlived them all and outvoiced them all in the -hurly-burly of the world. - -He survived Macaulay too--an early contributor of whom we shall have more -to say--and though he was past eighty at the death of the historian, he -was alert still, and his brain vagrantly active; but the days of his early -glory and fame--when the young blusterer bolstered up Reform, and slew the -giants of musty privilege and sent “the schoolmaster abroad,” and -antagonized slavery, were gone;[39] so, too, were those palmy times when -he made the courts at Westminster ring with his championship of that poor -Queen (who, whatever her demerits--and they were many--was certainly -abominably maltreated by a husband far worse than she); times when the -populace who espoused her cause shouted bravos to Harry Brougham--times -when he was the best known and most admired man in England; all these, and -his chancellorship, and his wordy triumphs in the House of Lords, were far -behind him, and the inevitable loss of place and power fretted him -grievously. He quarrelled with old coadjutors; in Parliament he shifted -from bench to bench; in the weakness of age, he truckled to power; he -exasperated his friends, and for years together--his scoldings, his -tergiversations, and his plaid trousers made a mine of mockery for Mr. -Punch. As early as 1835-40, Lord Brougham had purchased an estate in the -south of France, in a beautiful nook of that mountain shore which sweeps -eastward from the neighborhood of Marseilles--along the Mediterranean, -and which so many travellers now know by the delights of the Cornice Road -and Monaco, and Mentone, and San Remo. The little fishing village where -years ago Lord Brougham set up his Villa of Louise Eléonore (after a -darling and lost child) is now a suburb of the fashionable resort of -Cannes. At his home there, amongst the olives, the oleanders and the -orange-trees, the disappointed and petulant ex-chancellor passed most of -the later years of his life. - -Friends dropping in upon him--much doubting of their reception--found him -as the humors changed, peevish with strong regrets and recriminations, or -placid under the weight of his years, and perhaps narcotized by the -marvellous beauty of the scenes around him. - -He was over ninety at his death in 1868. To the very last, a man not to be -reckoned on: some days as calm as the sea that rippled under his window; -other days full of his old unrest and petulancies. There are such men in -all times and in all societies--sagacious, fussy, vain, indefatigable, -immensely serviceable, cantankerous; we _can’t_ get on without them; we -are for ever wishing that we could. - - * * * * * - -In our next chapter we shall come upon a critic, who was a famous -editor--adroit, strong, waspish, bookish, and ignoble. We shall encounter -a king, too--of whom we have thus far only had glimpses--who was -jolly--excellently limbed and conditioned physically--a man “of an -infinite jest,” too, and yet as arrant a dastard--by all old-fashioned -moral measures of character--as Falstaff himself. Again we shall follow -traces of a great poet--but never a favorite one--who has left markings of -his career, strong and deep; a man who had a Greek’s delight in things of -beauty, and a Greek’s subtlety of touch; but one can fancy a faun’s ears -showing their tips upon his massive head, and (without fancy) grow -conscious of a heathenism clouding his great culture. Other two poets of -lighter mould we shall meet;--more gracious, lighter pinioned--prettily -flitting--iridescent--grace and sparkle in their utterances, but leaving -no strong markings “upon the sands of time.” - - - - -CHAPTER IV. - - -We have wandered much in our two last chapters beyond what may be reckoned -strictly English lands, into that pleasant region lying between the Tweed -and the Firth of Forth; and it was north of the heights of Lammermuir and -of the Pentland Hills, and in that delightful old city which is dominated -by the lesser heights of the Salisbury crags, the Castle Rock, and Calton -Hill, that we found the builders of that great _Review_, which in its -livery of buff and blue still carries its original name. I traced the -several careers of Sydney Smith, Lord Brougham, and Judge Jeffrey; the -first of these, from a humble village curacy, coming to be one of the most -respected literary men of England, and an important official of St. Paul’s -Cathedral; if his wit had been less lively he might have risen to a -bishopric. Brougham was, first, essayist, then advocate, then -Parliamentary orator, then Reformer, then Lord High Chancellor--purging -the courts of much legal trumpery--always a scold and quarreller, and -gaining in the first year of William IV. his barony of Brougham and Vaux: -hence the little squib of verse, which will help to keep his exact title -in mind: - - “Why is Lord Brougham like a sweeping man - That close by the pavement walks? - Because when he’s done all the sweep that he can - He takes up his _Broom_ and _Valks_!” - -As for Jeffrey, he became by his resolute industry and his literary graces -and aptitudes one of the most admired and honored critics of Great -Britain. - - -_Gifford and His Quarterly._ - -Our start-point to-day is on the Thames--in that devouring city of London, -which very early in the century was laying its tentacles of growth on all -the greenness that lay between Blackwall and Bayswater, and which--athwart -the Thames shores--strode blightingly from Clapham to Hackney. - -It was, I believe, in the year 1809 that Mr. John Murray, the great -publisher of London--stirred, perhaps, by some incentive talk of Walter -Scott, or of other good Tory penmen, and emulous of the success which had -attended Jeffrey’s _Review_ in the north, established a rival one--called -simply _The Quarterly_--intended to represent the Tory interests as -unflinchingly and aggressively as the _Edinburgh_ had done Whig interests. -The first editor was a William Gifford[40] (a name worth remembering among -those of British critics), who was born in Devonshire. He was the son of a -dissolute house-painter, and went to sea in his young days, but was -afterwards apprenticed to a shoemaker. Some piquant rhymes he made in -those days attracting the attention of benevolent gentlemen, he was put in -the way of schooling, and at Oxford, where he studied. It was while there -he meditated, and perhaps executed, some of those clever translations from -Persius and Juvenal, which he published somewhat later. He edited Ben -Jonson’s works in a clumsy and disputatious way, and in some of his -earlier, crude, satirical rhymes (_Baviad_) paid his respects to Madame -Thrale in this fashion: - - “See Thrale’s gay widow with a satchel roam, - And bring in pomp laborious nothings home.” - -Again he pounces upon the biographer of Dr. Johnson thus-wise: - - “Boswell, aping with preposterous pride, - Johnson’s worst frailties, rolls from side to side, - His heavy head from hour to hour erects, - Affects the fool, and is what he affects.” - -These lines afford a very good measure of his poetic grace and aptitude; -but they give only a remote idea of his wonderful capacity for abusing -people who did not think as he thought. He had a genius in this direction, -which could not have discredited an editorial room in New York--or -elsewhere. Walter Scott--a warm political friend--speaks of him as “a -little man, dumpled up together, and so ill-made as to seem almost -deformed;” and I think that kindly gentleman was disposed to attribute -much of the critic’s rancor to his invalidism; but if we measure his -printed bile in this way, there must be credited him not only his usual -rheumatic twinges, but a pretty constant dyspepsia, if not a chronic -neuralgia. Of a certainty he was a most malignant type of British party -critics; and it is curious how the savors of its first bitterness do still -linger about the pages of the _Quarterly Review_. - -John Wilson Croker[41] will be best known to our readers as the editor of -that edition of Boswell’s “Johnson,” to which I have alluded. Within the -last ten years, however, his memoirs and correspondence, in two bulky -volumes, have excited a certain languid interest, and given entertainment -to those who are curious in respect to the political wire-pullings of the -early part of this century in London. He was an ardent co-worker with -Gifford in the early history of the _Quarterly Review_. He loved a lord -every whit as well as Gifford, and by dint of a gentlemanly manner and -gentlemanly associations was not limited to the “back-stairs way” of Mr. -Gifford in courting those in authority. His correspondence with dukes and -earls--to all of whom he is a “dear Croker”--abound; and his account of -interviews with the Prince Regent, and of dinners at the Pavilion in -Brighton, are quite Boswellian in their particularity and in their -atmosphere of worship. There is also long account in the book to which I -have called attention, of a private discourse by George IV., of which Mr. -Croker was sole auditor; and it is hard to determine whether Croker is -more elated by having the discourse to record, or Mr. Jennings by having -such a record to edit. - - -_A Prince Regent._ - -This royal mention brings us once more, for a little space, to our -background of kings. Of the old monarch, George III., we have had frequent -and full glimpses. We wish to know something now of that new prince (whom -we saw in our Scott chapter), but who in 1810, when his father’s faculties -failed altogether, became Regent; and we wish to learn what qualities are -in him and under what training they developed. - -The old father had a substructure of good, hard sense that showed itself -through all his obstinacies; for instance, when Dr. Markham, who was -appointed tutor to his two oldest sons--Prince of Wales and Duke of -York--asked how he should treat them, the old king said: “Treat them? Why, -to be sure, as you would any gentleman’s sons! If they need the birch, -give them the birch, as you would have done at Westminster.” But when they -had advanced a bit, and a certain Dr. Arnold (a later tutor) undertook the -same regimen, the two princes put their forces together and gave the -doctor such a drubbing that he never tried birch again. But it was always -a very close life the princes led in their young days; the old king was -very rigorous in respect of hours and being out at night. By reason of -which George IV. looked sharply after his opportunities, when they did -come, and made up for that early cloisterhood by a large laxity of -regimen.[42] Indeed, he opened upon a very glittering career of -dissipations--the old father groaning and grumbling and squabbling against -it vainly. - -It was somewhere about 1788 or 1789, just when the French Revolution was -beginning to throw its bloody foam over the tops of the Bastille, that -temporary insanity in the old King George III. did for a very brief space -bring the Prince into consequence as Regent. Of the happening of this, and -of the gloom in the palace, there is story in the diary of Madame -D’Arblay,[43] who was herself in attendance upon the Queen. If, indeed, -George III. had stayed mad from that date, and the Prince--then in his -fullest vigor, and a great friend of Fox and other Liberal leaders--had -come to the full and uninterrupted responsibility of the Regency, his -career might have been very different. But the old king rallied, and for -twenty years thereafter put his obstinacies and Tory caution in the way of -the Prince, who, with no political royalties to engage him, and no -important official duties (though he tried hard to secure military -command), ran riot in the old way. He lavishes money on Carlton House; -builds a palace for Mrs. Fitzherbert; coquets with Lady Jersey; affects -the fine gentleman. No man in London was prouder of his walk, his cane, -his club nonchalance, his taste in meats, his knowledge of wines, ragoûts, -indelicate songs, and arts of the toilette. Withal, he is well-made, tall, -of most graceful address, a capital story-teller, too; an indefatigable -diner-out; a very fashion-plate in dress--corsetted, puffed out in the -chest like a pouter pigeon; all the while running vigorously and -scandalously in debt, while the father is setting himself squarely -against any further parliamentary grant in his favor. There are, -however--or will be--relentings in the old King’s mind, if “Wales” will -promise to settle down in life and marry his cousin, Caroline of -Brunswick--if, indeed, he be not already married to Mrs. Fitzherbert, -which some avow and some deny. It does not appear that the Prince is very -positive in his declarations on this point--yes or no. So he filially -yields and accedes to a marriage, which by the conditions of the bargain -is to bring him £70,000 to pay his debts withal. She is twenty-seven--a -good-looking, spirited Brunswicker woman, who sets herself to speaking -English--nips in the bud some love-passages she has at home, and comes -over to conquer the Prince’s affections--which she finds it a very hard -thing to do. He is polite, however; is agreeably disposed to the marriage -scheme, which finds exploitation with a great flourish of trumpets in the -Chapel Royal of St. James. The old King is delighted with his niece; the -old Queen is a little cool, knowing that the Prince does not care a penny -for the bride, and believing that she ought to have found that out. - -She does find it out, however, in good time; and finds out about Mrs. -Fitzherbert and her fine house; and does give her Prince some very severe -curtain lectures--beginning early in that branch of wifely duty. The -Prince takes it in dudgeon; and the dudgeon grows bigger and bigger on -both sides (as such things will); finally, a year or more later--after the -birth of her daughter, the Princess Charlotte--proposals for separation -are passed between them (with a great flourish of diplomacy and golden -sticks), and accepted with exceeding cordiality on both sides. - -Thereafter, the Prince becomes again a man about town--very much about -town indeed. Everybody in London knows his great bulk, his fine -waistcoats, his horses, his hats and his wonderful bows, which are made -with a grace that seems in itself to confer knighthood. For very many -years his domestic life,--what little there was of it,--passed without -weighty distractions. His Regency when established (1811) was held through -a very important period of British history; those great waves of -Continental war which ended in Waterloo belonged to it; so did the -American war of 1812; so did grave disaffection and discontent at home. He -did not quarrel with his cabinets, or impede their action; he learned how -to yield, and how to conciliate. Were it only for this, ’tis hardly fair -to count him a mere posture-master and a dandy. - -He loved, too, and always respected his old mother, the Queen of George -III.;[44] loved too,--in a way--and more than any other creature in the -world except himself, that darling daughter of his, the Princess -Charlotte, who at seventeen became the bride of Leopold, afterward King of -Belgium,--she surviving the marriage only a year. Her memory is kept alive -by the gorgeous marble cenotaph you will see in St. George’s Chapel, -Windsor. - -It was only when George IV. actually ascended the throne in 1820 that his -separated wife put in a disturbing appearance again; she had been living -very independently for some years on the Continent; and it occurred to -her--now that George was actually King--that it would be a good thing, and -not impinge on the old domestic frigidities, to share in some of the -drawing-room splendors and royalties of the British capital. To George IV. -it seemed very awkward; so it did to his cabinet. Hence came about those -measures for a divorce, and the famous trial of Queen Caroline, in which -Brougham won oratorical fame by his brilliant plea for the Queen. This was -so far successful as to make the ministerial divorce scheme a failure; but -the poor Queen came out of the trial very much bedraggled; whether her -Continental life had indeed its criminalities or not, we shall never -positively know. Surely no poor creature was ever more sinned against than -she, in being wheedled into a match with such an unregenerate partaker in -all deviltries as George IV. But she was not of the order of women out of -which are made martyrs for conscience’s sake. It was in the year 1821 that -death came to her relief, and her shroud at last whitened a memory that -had stains. - - -_A Scholar and Poet._ - -We freshen the air now with quite another presence. Yet I am to speak of a -man whose life was full of tumult, and whose work was full of learning and -power--sometimes touched with infinite delicacy. - -He was born four years after Sydney Smith and Walter Scott--both of whom -he survived many years; indeed he lacked only eleven years of completing a -century when he died in Florence, where most of his active--or rather -inactive--life was passed. I allude to the poet and essayist, Walter -Savage Landor.[45] He is not what is called a favorite author; he never -was; he never will be. In fact, he had such scorn of popular applause, -that if it had ever happened to him in moments of dalliance with the -Muses, and of frolic with rhythmic language, to set such music afloat as -the world would have repeated and loved to repeat, I think he would have -torn the music out in disdain for the approval of a multitude. Hear what -he says, in one of his later poetic utterances:-- - - “Never was I impatient to receive - What _any_ man could give me. When a friend - Gave me my due, I took it, and no more, - Serenely glad, because that friend was pleased. - I seek not many; many seek not me. - If there are few now seated at my board, - I pull no children’s hair because they munch - Gilt gingerbread, the figured and the sweet, - Or wallow in the innocence of whey; - Give _me_ wild boar, the buck’s broad haunch give _me_, - And wine that time has mellowed, even as time - Mellows the warrior hermit in his cell.”[46] - -Such verse does not invite a large following, nor did the man. Pugnacious, -tyrannic, loud-mouthed, setting the world’s and the Church’s rubrics at -defiance; yet weighing language to the last jot and tittle of its -significance, and--odd-whiles--putting little tendernesses of thought and -far-reaching poetic aspirations into such cinctures of polished verse--so -jewelled, so compact, so classic, so fine--that their music will last and -be admired as long, I think, as English speech lasts. Apart from all this -man wrote, there is a strange, half-tragic interest in his life, which -will warrant me in telling you more of him than I have told of many whose -books are more prized by you. - -He was the son of a Dr. Landor, of Warwick, in middle England, who by -reason of two adroit marriages was a man of fortune, and so secured -eventually a very full purse to the poet, who if he had depended only on -the sale of his literary wares, would have starved. Language was always -young Landor’s hobby; and he came, by dint of good schooling, to such -dexterity in the use of Latin, as to write it in verse or prose with -nearly the same ease as English. He loved out-of-door pursuits in boyhood -and all his life; was greatly accomplished, his biographer says, in -fishing--especially with a cast-net; and of the prey that sometimes came -into such net there is this frolicsome record: - - “In youth ’twas there I used to scare - A whirring bird, or scampering hare, - And leave my book within a nook - Where alders lean above the brook, - To walk beyond the third mill-pond - And meet a maiden fair and fond - Expecting me beneath a tree - Of shade for two, but not for three. - Ah, my old Yew, far out of view, - Why must I bid you both adieu?”[47] - -At Oxford he was a marked man for his cleverness and for his audacities; -these last brought him to grief there, and going home upon his -rustication, he quarrelled with his father. Thereafter we find him in -London, where he publishes his first little booklet of poems (1795); only -twenty then; counted a fierce radical; detesting old George III. with his -whole heart; admiring the rebel George Washington and declaring it; loving -the French, too, with their liberty and fraternity song, until it was -silenced by the cannonading of Napoleon; thenceforward, he counts that -people a nation of “monkeys, fit only to be chained.” - -But Landor never loved London. We find him presently wandering by the -shores of Wales, and among its mountains. Doubtless he takes his cast-net -with him; the names of Ianthé and Ioné decorate occasional verses; a -certain Rose Aylmer he encounters, too, who loans him a book (by Clara -Reeve), from a sketch in which he takes hint for his wild, weird poem of -_Gebir_, his first long poem--known to very few--perhaps not worth the -knowing. It is blind in its drift; war and pomp and passion in it--ending -with a poisoned cup; and contrasting with these, such rural beatitudes as -may be conjured under Afric skies, with tender love-breezes, ending in -other beatitudes in coral palaces beneath the sea. This, at any rate, is -the phantasmic outline which a reading leaves upon my own memory. Perhaps -another reader may be happier. - -That shadowy Rose Aylmer, through whom the suggestion for the poem came, -was the real daughter of Lord Aylmer, of the near Welsh country; what -Landor’s intimacy with her may have been, in its promise or its reach, we -do not know; but we do know that when she died, somewhat later and in a -far country, the poet gave her name embalmment in those wonderful little -verses, which poor Charles Lamb, it is said, in his later days, would -repeat over and over and over, never tiring of the melody and the pathos. -Here they are:-- - - “Ah, what avails the sceptred race, - Ah, what the form divine! - What--every virtue, every grace! - Rose Aylmer, all were thine. - Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes - May weep, but never see, - A night of memories and of sighs - I consecrate to thee!” - -Meantime, growing into a tempestuous love for the wild Welsh country, he -bargains for a great estate, far up in a valley which opens down upon the -larger valley in which lies Abergavenny; and being rich now by reason of -his father’s death, parts with his beautiful ancestral properties in the -Warwickshire region, lavishing a large portion of the sales-money upon the -savagery of the new estate in Wales. He plants, he builds, he plays the -monarch in those solitudes. He marries, too, while this mountain passion -is on him, a young girl of French or Swiss extraction--led like a lamb -into the lion’s grasp. But the first Welsh quarrel of this -poet-monarch--who was severely classic, and who fed himself all his life -through on the thunder-bolts of Jupiter--was with his neighbors; next with -his workmen; then with his tenants; then the magistrates; last with -everybody; and in a passion of disgust, he throws down his walls, turns -astray his cattle, lets loose his mountain tarns, and leaving behind him -the weltering wreck of his half-built home, goes over with his wife to -Jersey, off the coast of Normandy. There she, poor, tired, frighted, -worried bird--maybe with a little of the falcon in her--would stay; _he_ -would not. So he dashes on incontinently--deserting her, and planting -himself in mid-France at the old city of Tours, where he devotes himself -to study. - -This first family tiff, however, gets its healing, and--his wife joining -him--they go to Como, where Southey (1817) paid them a visit; this poet -had been one of the first and few admirers of _Gebir_, which fact softened -the way to very much of mutual and somewhat over-strained praises between -these two.[48] From Como Landor went to Pisa--afterward to Florence, his -home thenceforth for very many years; first in the town proper and then in -a villa at Fiesole from which is seen that wondrous view--none can forget -who have beheld it--of the valley, which seems a plain--of the nestling -city, with its great Brunelleschi dome, its arrow-straight belfry of -Giotto, its quaint tower of the Palazzo Vecchio, its cypress sentinels on -the Boboli heights, its River Arno shining and winding, and stealing away -seaward from the amphitheatre of hills--on whose slopes are dotted white -convents, sleeping in the sun, and villas peeping out from their cloakings -of verdure, and the gray shimmer of olive orchards. - - -_Landor in Italy._ - -It was in Florence that Landor wrote the greater part of those _Imaginary -Conversations_ which have given him his chief fame; but which, very -possibly, may be outlived in the popular mind by the wonderful finish and -the Saxon force which belong to many of his verselets. - -The conversations are just what their name implies--the talk of learned, -or distinguished men, on such topics as they were supposed to be most -familiar with; all _imagined_, and set forth by the brain of Landor, who -took a strange delight in thus playing with the souls of other men and -making them the puppets of his will. One meets in his pages Roger Ascham -and Lady Jane Grey, Milton and Andrew Marvel, and Achilles and Helena; -then we are transported from Mount Ida to the scene of a homely colloquy -between Washington and Franklin--about monarchy and Republicanism. Again -we have Leofric and Godiva telling their old story with a touching -dramatic interest; and can listen--if we will--to long and dullish dispute -between Dr. Johnson and Horne Tooke, about Language and its Laws; from -this--in which Landor was always much interested--we slip to the -Philo-Russianism of a talk between Peter the Great and Alexis. There are -seven great volumes of it all--which must belong to all considerable -libraries, private or other, and which are apt to keep very fresh and -uncut. Of course there is no logical continuity--no full exposition of a -creed, or a faith, or a philosophy. It is a great, wide, eloquent, homely -jumble; one bounces from rock to rock, or from puddle to puddle (for there -are puddles) at the will of this great giant driver of the chariot of -imaginary talk.[49] There are beauties of expression that fascinate one; -there are sentences so big with meaning as to bring you to sudden pause; -there are wearisome chapters about the balance of French verselets, in -which he sets up the poor Abbé Delille on rhetorical stilts--only to pelt -him down; there are page-long blotches of crude humor, and irrelevant -muddy tales, that you wish were out. As sample of his manner, I give one -or two passages at random. Speaking of Boileau, he says:-- - - “In Boileau there is really more of diffuseness than of brevity [he - loves thus to slap a popular belief straight in the face]; few - observe this, because [Boileau] abounds in short sentences; and few - are aware that sentences may be very short, and the writer very - prolix; as half a dozen stones rising out of a brook give the - passenger more trouble than a plank across it.” [He abounds in - short, pert similes of this sort which seem almost to carry an - argument in them.] - - [Again] “Caligula spoke justly and admirably when he compared the - sentences of Seneca _to sand without lime_.” - - [And once more] “He must be a bad writer, or, however, a very - indifferent one, to whom there are no inequalities. The plants of - such table-land are diminutive and never worth gathering.… The - vigorous mind has mountains to climb and valleys to repose in. Is - there any sea without its shoal? On that which the poet navigates, - he rises intrepidly as the waves riot around him, and sits - composedly as they subside.…” - - “Level the Alps one with another, and where is their sublimity? - Raise up the Vale of Tempe to the downs above, and where are those - sylvan creeks and harbors in which the imagination watches while the - soul reposes, those recesses in which the gods partook of the - weaknesses of mortals, and mortals the enjoyments of the gods.” - -The great learning of Landor and his vast information, taken in connection -with his habits of self-indulgence (often of indolence), assure us that he -must have had the rare talent, and the valuable one, of riddling -books--that is, of skimming over them--with such wonderfully quick -exercise of wit and judgment as to segregate the valuable from the -valueless parts. ’Tis not a bad quality; nor is it necessarily (as many -suppose) attended by superficiality. The superficial man does indeed skim -things; but he pounces as squarely and surely upon the bad as upon the -good; he works by mechanical process and progression--here a sentence and -there a sentence; but the man who can race through a book well (as did Dr. -Johnson and Landor), carries to the work--in his own genius for -observation and quick discernment--a chemical mordant that bites and shows -warning effervescence, and a signal to stay, only where there is something -strong to bite. - - -_Landor’s Domesticities._ - -Meanwhile, we have a sorry story to tell of Landor’s home belongings. -There is a storm brewing in that beautiful villa of Fiesole. Children have -been born to the house, and he pets them, fondles them--seems to love them -absorbingly. Little notelets which pass when they are away, at Naples, at -Rome, are full of pleasantest paternal banter and yearning. But those -children have run wild and are as vagrant as the winds. - -The home compass has no fixed bearings and points all awry--the mother, -never having sympathy with the work which had tasked Landor in those -latter years, has, too, her own outside vanities and a persistent -petulance, which breaks out into rasping speech when Jupiter flings his -thunder-bolts. So Landor, in a strong rage of determination, breaks away: -turns his back on wife and children--providing for them, however, -generously--and goes to live again at Bath, in England. - -For twenty-three years he stays there, away from his family (remembering, -perhaps, in self-exculpating way, how Shakespeare had once done much the -same), rambling over his old haunts, writing new verse, revamping old -books, petting his Pomeranian dog, entertaining admiring guests, fuming -and raving when crossed. He was more dangerously loud, too, than of old; -and at last is driven away, to escape punishment for some scathing libels -into which a storm of what he counted righteous rage has betrayed him. It -must have been a pitiful thing to see this old, white-haired man--past -eighty now--homeless, as good as childless, skulking, as it were, in -London, just before sailing for the Continent,--appearing suddenly at -Forster’s house, seated upon his bed there, with Dickens in presence, -mumbling about Latin poetry and its flavors! - -He finds his way to Genoa, then to Florence, then to the Fiesole Villa -once more; but it would seem as if there were no glad greetings on either -side; and in a few days estrangement comes again, and he returns to -Florence. Twice or thrice more those visits to Fiesole are repeated, in -the vague hope, it would seem, floating in the old man’s mind, that by -some miracle of heaven, aspects would change there--or perhaps in him--and -black grow white, and gloom sail away under some new blessed gale from -Araby. But it does never come; nor ever the muddied waters of that home -upon the Florentine hills flow pure and bright again. - - -_Final Exile and Death._ - -He goes back--eighty-five now--toothless, and trembling under weight of -years and wranglings, to the Via Nunziatina, in Florence; he has no means -now--having despoiled himself for the benefit of those living at his -Villa of Fiesole, who will not live with him, or he with them; he is -largely dependent upon a brother in England. He passes a summer, in these -times, with the American sculptor Story. He receives occasional wandering -friends; has a new pet of a dog to fondle. - -There is always a trail of worshipping women and poetasters about him to -the very last; but the bad odor of his Bath troubles has followed him; -Normanby, the British Minister, will give him no recognition; but there is -no bending, no flinching in this great, astute, imperious, headstrong, -ill-balanced creature. Indeed, he carries now under his shock of white -hair, and in his tottering figure, a stock of that coarse virility which -has distinguished him always--which for so many has its charm, and which -it is hard to reconcile with the tender things of which he was -capable;--for instance, that interview of Agamemnon and Iphigenia--so -cunningly, delicately, and so feelingly told--as if the story were all his -own, and had no Greek root--other than what found hold in the greensward -of English Warwickshire. And I close our talk of Landor, by citing this: -Iphigenia has heard her doom (you know the story); she must die by the -hands of the priest--or, the ships, on which her father’s hopes and his -fortunes rest, cannot sail. Yet, she pleads;--there may have been mistakes -in interpreting the cruel oracle,--there may be hope still,-- - - “The Father placed his cheek upon her head - And tears dropt down it; but, the king of men - Replied not: Then the maiden spoke once more,-- - ‘O, Father, says’t thou nothing? Hear’st thou not - _Me_, whom thou ever hast, until this hour, - Listened to--fondly; and awakened me - To hear my voice amid the voice of birds - When it was inarticulate as theirs, - And the down deadened it within the nest.’ - He moved her gently from him, silent still: - And this, and this alone, brought tears from her - Although she saw fate nearer: then, with sighs,-- - ‘I thought to have laid down my hair before - Benignant Artemis, and not have dimmed - Her polisht altar with my virgin blood; - I thought to have selected the white flowers - To please the Nymphs, and to have asked of each - By name, and with no sorrowful regret, - Whether, since both my parents willed the change, - I might at Hymen’s feet bend my clipt brow, - And--(after those who mind us girls the most) - Adore our own Athena, that she would - Regard me mildly with her azure eyes; - But--Father! to see you no more, and see - Your love, O Father! go, ere I am gone.’ - Gently he moved her off, and drew her back, - Bending his lofty head far over hers, - And the dark depths of nature heaved and burst: - He turned away: not far, but silent still: - She now first shuddered; for in him--so nigh, - So long a silence seemed the approach of death - And like it. Once again, she raised her voice,-- - ‘O Father! if the ships are now detained - And all your vows move not the Gods above - When the knife strikes me, there will be one prayer - The less to them; and, purer can there be - Any, or more fervent, than the daughter’s prayer - For her dear father’s safety and success?’ - A groan that shook him, shook not his Resolve. - An aged man now entered, and without - One word, stept slowly on, and took the wrist - Of the pale maiden. She looked up and saw - The fillet of the priest, and calm cold eyes: - Then turned she, where her parent stood and cried,-- - ‘O, Father! grieve no more! the ships can sail!’” - -When we think of Landor, let us forget his wrangles--forget his wild -impetuosities--forget his coarsenesses, and his sad, lonely death; -and--instead--keep in mind, if we can, that sweet picture I have given -you. - - -_Prose of Leigh Hunt._ - -It was some two years before George IV. came to the Regency, and at nearly -the same date with the establishment of Murray’s _Quarterly_, that Mr. -Leigh Hunt,[50] in company with his brother John Hunt, set up a paper -called the _Examiner_--associated in later days with the strong names of -Fonblanque and Forster. This paper was of a stiffly Whiggish and radical -sort, and very out-spoken--so that when George IV., as Regent, seemed to -turn his back on old Whig friends, and show favors to the Tories (as he -did), Mr. Leigh Hunt wrote such sneering and abusive articles about the -Regent that he was prosecuted, fined, and clapped into prison, where he -stayed two years. They were lucky two years for him--making reputation for -his paper and for himself; his friends and family dressed up his prison -room with flowers (he loved overmuch little luxuries of that sort); -Byron, Moore, Godwin, and the rest all came to see him; and there he -caught the first faint breezes of that popular applause which blew upon -him in a desultory and rather languid way for a good many years -afterward--not wholly forsaking him when he had grown white-haired, and -had brought his delicate, fine, but somewhat feeble pen into the modern -courts of criticism. - -I do not suppose that anybody in our day goes into raptures over the -writings of Leigh Hunt; nevertheless, we must bring him upon our -record--all the more since there was American blood in him. His father, -Isaac Hunt, was born in the Barbadoes, and studied in Philadelphia; in the -latter city, Dr. Franklin and Tom Paine used to be visitors at his -grandfather’s house. At the outbreak of the Revolution, Hunt’s father, -who--notwithstanding his Philadelphia wife--was a bitter loyalist, went to -England--his departure very much quickened by some threats of punishing -his aggressive Toryism. He appears in England as a clergyman--ultimately -wedded to Unitarian doctrines; finding his way sometimes to the studio of -Benjamin West--talking over Pennsylvania affairs with that famous artist, -and encountering there, as it chanced, John Trumbull, a student in -painting--who in after years bequeathed an art-gallery to Yale College. It -happens, too, that this Colonel Trumbull, in 1812, when the American war -was in progress, was suspected as a spy, and escaped grief mainly by the -intervention of Isaac Hunt. - -The young Hunt began early to write--finding his way into journalism of -all sorts; his name associated sooner or later with _The News_, and -dramatic critiques; with the _Examiner_, the _Reflector_, the _Indicator_, -the _Companion_, and the _Liberal_--for which latter he dragged his family -down into Italy at the instance of Byron or Shelley, or both. That -_Liberal_ was intended to astonish people and make the welkin ring; but -the Italian muddle was a bad one, the _Liberal_ going under, and an ugly -quarrel setting in; Hunt revenging himself afterward by writing _Lord -Byron and his Contemporaries_,--a book he ultimately regretted: he was -never strong enough to make his bitterness respected. Honeyed words became -him better; and these he dealt out--wave upon wave--on all sorts of -unimportant themes. Thus, he writes upon “Sticks”; and again upon -“Maid-servants”; again on “Bees and Butterflies” (which is indeed very -pretty); and again “Upon getting up of a cold morning”--in which he -compassionates those who are haled out of their beds by “harpy-footed -furies”--discourses on his own experience and sees his own breath rolling -forth like smoke from a chimney, and the windows frosted over. - - “Then the servant comes in: ‘It is very cold this morning, is it - not?’ ‘Very cold, sir.’ ‘Very cold, indeed, isn’t it?’ ‘Very cold, - indeed, sir.’ ‘More than usually so, isn’t it, even for this - weather?’ ‘Why, sir, I think it _is_, sir.’… And then the hot water - comes: ‘And is it quite hot? And isn’t it too hot?’ And what ‘an - unnecessary and villainous custom this is of shaving.’” - -Whereupon he glides off, in words that flow as easily as water from a -roof--into a disquisition upon flowing beards--instancing Cardinal Bembo -and Michelangelo, Plato and the Turks. Listen again to what he has to say -in his _Indicator_ upon “A Coach”:-- - - “It is full of cushions and comfort; elegantly colored inside and - out; rich yet neat; light and rapid, yet substantial. The horses - seem proud to draw it. The fat and fair-wigged coachman lends his - sounding lash, his arm only in action, and that but little; his body - well set with its own weight. The footman, in the pride of his - nonchalance, holding by the straps behind, and glancing down - sideways betwixt his cocked hat and neckcloth, standing swinging - from East to West upon his springy toes. The horses rush along - amidst their glancing harness. Spotted dogs leap about them, barking - with a princely superfluity of noise. The hammer cloth trembles - through all its fringe. The paint flashes in the sun.” - -Nothing can be finer--if one likes that sort of fineness. We follow such a -writer with no sense of his having addressed our intellectual nature, but -rather with a sense of pleasurable regalement to our nostrils by some high -wordy perfume. - -Hawthorne, in _Our Old Home_, I think, tells us that even to extreme age, -the boyishness of the man’s nature shone through and made Hunt’s speech -like the chirp of a bird; he never tired of gathering his pretty roses of -words. It is hard to think of such a man doing serious service in the role -of radical journalist--as if he _could_ speak dangerous things! And yet, -who can tell? They say Robespierre delighted in satin facings to his -coat, and was never without his _boutonnière_. - -We all know the figure of Harold Skimpole, in Dickens’s _Bleak House_, -with traits so true to Leigh Hunt’s, that the latter’s friends held up a -warning finger, and said: “For shame!” to the novelist. Indeed, I think -Dickens felt relentings in his later years, and would have retouched the -portrait; but a man who paints with flesh and blood pigments cannot -retouch. - -Certain it is that the household of Hunt was of a ram-shackle sort, and he -and his always very much out at ends. Even Carlyle, who was a neighbor at -Chelsea, was taken aback at the easy way in which Hunt confronted the -butcher-and-baker side of life; and the kindly Mrs. Carlyle drops a -half-querulous mention of her shortened larder and the periodic borrowings -of the excellent Mrs. Hunt. - - -_Hunt’s Verse._ - -But over all this we stretch a veil now, woven out of the little poems -that he has left. He wrote no great poems, to be sure; for here, as in -his prose, he is earnestly bent on carving little baskets out of -cherry-stones--little figures on cherry-stones--dainty hieroglyphics, but -always on cherry-stones! - -His “Rimini,” embodying that old Dantesque story about Giovanni and Paolo -and Francesca, is his longest poem. There are exceedingly pretty and -delicate passages in it; I quote one or two: - - “For leafy was the road with tall array - On either side of mulberry and bay, - And distant snatches of blue hills between; - And there the alder was, with its bright green, - And the broad chestnut, and the poplar’s shoot - That, like a feather, waves from head to foot; - With ever and anon majestic pines; - And still, from tree to tree, the early vines - Hung, garlanding the way in amber lines. - … - And then perhaps you entered upon shades, - Pillowed with dells and uplands ’twixt the glades - Through which the distant palace, now and then, - Looked forth with many windowed ken-- - A land of trees which, reaching round about, - In shady blessing stretched their old arms out - With spots of sunny opening, and with nooks - To lie and read in--sloping into brooks, - Where at her drink you started the slim deer, - Retreating lightly with a lovely fear. - And all about the birds kept leafy house, - And sung and sparkled in and out the boughs, - And all about a lovely sky of blue - Clearly was felt, or down the leaves laughed through.” - -And so on--executed with ever so much of delicacy--but not a sign or a -symbol of the grave and melancholy tone which should equip, even to the -utmost hem of its descriptive passages, that tragic story of Dante. - -Those deft, little feathery touches--about deer, and birds, and leafy -houses, are not scored with the seriousness which in every line and pause -should be married with the intensity of the story. The painting of Mr. -Watts, of the dead Francesca--ghastly though it be--has more in it to -float one out into the awful current of Dante’s story than a world of the -happy wordy meshes of Mr. Hunt. A greater master would have brought in, -maybe, all those natural beauties of the landscape--the woods, the -fountains, the clear heaven--but they would all have been toned down to -the low, tragic movement, which threatens, and creeps on and on, and which -dims even the blue sky with forecast of its controlling gloom. - -There is no such inaptness or inadequacy where Leigh Hunt writes of -crickets and grasshoppers and musical boxes. In his version of the old -classic story of “Hero and Leander,” however, the impertinence (if I may -be pardoned the language) of his dainty wordy dexterities is even more -strikingly apparent. _His_ Hero, waiting for her Leander, beside the -Hellespont, - - “Tries some work, forgets it, and thinks on, - Wishing with perfect love the time were gone, - And lost to the green trees with their sweet singers, - Taps on the casement-ledge with idle fingers.” - -No--this is not a Greek maiden listening for the surge of the water before -the stalwart swimmer of Abydos; it is a London girl, whom the poet has -seen in a second-story back window, meditating what color she shall put to -the trimming of her Sunday gown! - -Far better and more beautiful is this fathoming of the very souls of the -flowers: - - “We are the sweet Flowers, - Born of sunny showers, - Think, whene’er you see us, what our beauty saith: - Utterance mute and bright, - Of some unknown delight, - We feel the air with pleasure, by our simple breath; - All who see us, love us; - We befit all places; - Unto sorrow we give smiles; and unto graces, graces. - - “Mark our ways--how noiseless - All, and sweetly voiceless, - Though the March winds pipe to make our passage clear; - Not a whisper tells - Where our small seed dwells, - Nor is known the moment green, when our tips appear. - We tread the earth in silence, - In silence build our bowers, - And leaf by leaf in silence show, ’till we laugh atop, sweet Flowers! - - … - - “Who shall say that flowers - Dress not Heaven’s own bowers? - Who its love, without them, can fancy--or sweet floor? - Who shall even dare - To say we sprang not there, - And came not down that Love might bring one piece of heav’n the more? - Oh, pray believe that angels - From those blue Dominions - Brought us in their white laps down, ’twixt their golden pinions.” - -No poet of this--or many a generation past--has said a sweeter or more -haunting word for the flowers. - -We will not forget the “Abou-ben-Adhem;” nor shall its commonness forbid -our setting this charmingly treated Oriental fable, at the end of our -mention of Hunt--a memorial banderole of verse:-- - - “Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!) - Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace, - And saw within the moonlight in his room, - Making it rich and like a lily in bloom, - An Angel, writing in a book of gold. - Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold; - And to the presence in the room, he said,-- - ‘What writest thou?’ The Vision raised its head, - And with a look made of all sweet accord - Answered, ‘The names of those who love the Lord.’ - ‘And is mine one?’ said Abou. ‘Nay, not so;’ - Replied the Angel. Abou spoke more low, - But cheerly still; and said, ‘I pray thee, then, - Write me as one that loves his fellow-men.’ - The Angel wrote and vanished. The next night - It came again, with a great wakening light, - And showed the names whom love of God had blessed, - And lo!--Ben Adhem’s name led all the rest!” - - -_An Irish Poet._ - -Among those who paid their visits of condolence to Leigh Hunt in the days -of his prisonhood, was Moore[51] the author of _Lalla Rookh_ and of _The -Loves of the Angels_. He was not used to paying visits in such quarters, -for he had an instinctive dislike for all uncanny things and disagreeable -places; nor was he ever a great friend of Hunt; but he must have had a -good deal of sympathy with him in that attack upon the Prince Regent which -brought about Hunt’s conviction. Moore, too, had his gibes at the -Prince--thinking that great gentleman had been altogether too neglectful -of the dignities of his high estate; but he was very careful that his -gibes should be so modulated as not to put their author in danger. - -_Lalla Rookh_ may be little read nowadays; but not many years have passed -since this poem and others of the author’s used to get into the finest of -bindings, and have great currency for bridal and birthday gifts. Indeed, -there is a witching melody in Moore’s Eastern tales, and a delightful -shimmer and glitter of language, which none but the most cunning of our -present craft-masters in verse could reach. - -Moore was born in Dublin, his father having kept a wine-shop there; and -his mother (he tells us) was always anxious about the quality of his -companions, and eager to build up his social standing--an anxiety which -was grafted upon the poet himself, and which made him one of the wariest, -and most coy and successful of society-seekers--all his life. - -He was at the Dublin University--took easily to languages, and began -spinning off some of _Anacreon’s_ numbers into graceful English, even -before he went up to London--on his old mother’s savings--to study law at -the Temple. He was charmingly presentable in those days; very small, to be -sure, but natty, courteous, with a pretty modesty, and a voice that -bubbled over into music whenever he recited one of his engaging snatches -of melody. He has letters to Lords, too, and the most winning of tender -speeches and smiles for great ladies. He comes to an early interview with -the Prince of Wales--who rather likes the graceful Irish singer, and -flatters him by accepting the dedication of _Anacreon_ with smiles of -condescension--which Mr. Moore perhaps counted too largely upon. Never -had a young literary fellow of humble birth a better launch upon London -society. His Lords’ letters, and his pretty conciliatory ways, get him a -place of value (when scarce twenty-four) in Bermuda. But he is not the man -to lose his hold on London; so he goes over seas only to put a deputy in -place, and then, with a swift run through our Atlantic cities, is back -again. It is rather interesting to read now what the young poet says of us -in those green days:--In Philadelphia, it appears, the people quite ran -after him: - - “I was much caressed while there.… and two or three little poems, of - a very flattering kind, some of their choicest men addressed to me.” - [And again.] “Philadelphia is the only place in America which can - boast any literary society.” [Boston people, I believe, never - admired Moore overmuch.] - -Here again is a bit from his diary at Ballston--which was the Saratoga of -that day:-- - - “There were about four hundred people--all stowed in a miserable - boarding-house. They were astonished at our asking for basons and - towels in our rooms; and thought we might condescend to come down to - the Public Wash, with the other gentlemen, in the morning.” - -Poor, dainty, Moore! But he is all right when he comes back to London, and -gives himself to old occupations of drawing-room service, and to the -coining of new, and certainly very sweet and tender, Irish melodies. He -loved to be tapped on the shoulder by great Dowagers, sparkling in -diamonds, and to be entreated--“Now, dear Mr. Moore, _do_ sing us one more -song.” - -And it was pretty sure to come: he delighted in giving his very feeling -and musical voice range over the heads of fine-feathered women. The -peacock’s plumes, the shiver of the crystal, the glitter of Babylon, -always charmed him. - -Nor was it all only tinkling sound that he gave back. For proof I cite one -or two bits:-- - - “Then I sing the wild song, ’twas once such a pleasure to hear, - When our voices commingling breathed, like one, on the ear; - And, as Echo far off thro’ the vale, my sad orison rolls, - I think, O my love! ’tis thy voice from the Kingdom of Souls - Faintly answering still the notes that once were so dear.” - -And again:-- - - “Dear Harp of my Country! farewell to thy numbers, - This sweet wreath of song is the last we shall twine. - Go sleep, with the Sunshine of Fame on thy slumbers, - Till touched by some hand less unworthy than mine. - - “If the pulse of the patriot, soldier, or lover - Have throbbed at our lay, ’tis thy glory alone; - I was _but_ as the wind, passing heedlessly over, - And all the wild sweetness I wak’d was thy own.” - -This is better than dynamite to stir Ireland’s best pulses, even now. - - -_Lalla Rookh._ - -Mr. Moore had his little country vacations--among them, that notable stay -up in the lovely county of Derbyshire, near to Ashbourne and Dovedale, and -the old fishing grounds of Walton and of Cotton--where he wrote the larger -part of his first considerable poem, _Lalla Rookh_--which had amazing -success, and brought to its author the sum of £3,000. But I do not think -that what inspiration is in it came to him from the hollows or the heights -of Derbyshire; I should rather trace its pretty Oriental confusion of -sound and scenes to the jingle of London chandeliers. Yet the web, the -gossamer, the veils and the flying feet do not seem to touch ground -anywhere in England, but shift and change and grow out of his Eastern -readings and dreams. - -Moore married at thirty-two--after he was known for the Irish melodies, -but before the publication of _Lalla Rookh_; and in his _Letters and -Diary_ (if you read them--though they make an enormous mass to read, and -frighten most people away by their bulk), you will come upon very -frequent, and very tender mention of “Dear Bessie”--the wife. It is true, -there were rumors that he wofully neglected her, but hardly well founded. -Doubtless there was many a day and many a week when she was guarding the -cottage and the children at Sloperton; and he bowing and pirouetting his -way amongst the trailing robes of their ladyships who loved music and -literature in London; but how should he refuse the invitations of his -Lordship this or that? Or how should she--who has no robes that will stand -alone--bring her pretty home gowns into that blazon of the salons? Always, -too (if his letters may be trusted), he is eager to make his escape -between whiles--wearied of this _tintamarre_--and to rush away to his -cottage at Sloperton[52] for a little slippered ease, and a romp with the -children. Poor children--they all drop away, one by one--two only reaching -maturity--then dying. The pathetic stories of the sickening, the danger -and the hush, come poignantly into his Diary, and it does seem that the -winning clatter of the world gets a hold upon his wrenched heart -over-quickly again. But what right have you or I to judge in such matters? - -There are chirrupy little men--and women, too,--on whom grief does not -seem to take a hard grip; all the better for them! Moore, I think, was -such a one, and was braced up always and everywhere by his own healthy -pulses, and, perhaps, by a sense of his own sufficiency. His vanities are -not only elastic, but--by his own bland and child-like admissions--they -seem sometimes almost monumental. He writes in his _Diary_, “Shiel -(that’s an Irish friend) says I am the first poet of the day, and join the -beauty of the Bird-of-Paradise’s plumes to the strength of the eagle’s -wing.” Fancy a man copying that sort of thing into his own _Diary_, and -regaling himself with it! - -Yet he is full of good feeling--does not cherish resentments--lets who -will pat him on the shoulder (though he prefers a lord’s pat). Then he -forgives injuries or slights grandly; was once so out with Jeffrey that a -duel nearly came of it; but afterward was his hail-fellow and good friend -for years. Sometimes he shows a magnanimous strain--far more than his -artificialities of make-up would seem to promise. Thus, being at issue -with the publisher, John Murray (a long-dated difference), he determines -on good advisement to be away with it; and so goes smack into the den of -the great publisher and gives him his hand: such action balances a great -deal of namby-pambyism. - -But what surprises more than all about Moore, is the very great reputation -that he had in his day. We, in these latter times, have come to reckon him -(rather rashly, perhaps) only an arch gossipper of letters--a butterfly of -those metropolitan gardens--easy, affable, witty, full of smiles, full of -good feeling, full of pretty little rhythmical utterances--singing songs -as easy as a sky-lark (and leaving the sky thereafter as empty); planting -nothing that lifts great growth, or tells larger tale than lies in his own -lively tintinnabulation of words. - -Yet Byron said of him: “There is nothing Moore may not do, if he sets -about it.” Sydney Smith called him “A gentleman of small stature, but full -of genius, and a steady friend of all that is honorable.” Leigh Hunt says: -“I never received a visit from him, but I felt as if I had been talking -with Prior or Sir Charles Sedley.” It is certain that he must have been a -most charming companion. Walter Scott says: “It would be a delightful -addition to life if Thomas Moore had a cottage within two miles of me.” -Indeed, he was always quick to scent anything that might amuse, and to -store it up. His diaries overflow with these bright specks and bits of -talk, which may kindle a laugh, but do not nestle in the memory. - -But considered as a poet whose longish work ought to live and charm the -coming generations, his reputation certainly does not hold to the old -illuminated heights. Poems of half a century ago, which _Lalla Rookh_ -easily outshone, have now put the pretty orientalisms into shade. Nor can -we understand how so many did, and do, put such twain of verse-makers as -Byron and Moore into one leash, as if they were fellows in power. In the -comparison the author of the _Loves of the Angels_ seems to me only a -little important-looking, kindly pug--nicely combed, with ribbons about -the neck--in an embroidered blanket, with jingling bells at its corners; -and Byron--beside him--a lithe, supple leopard, with a tread that -threatens and a dangerous glitter in the eye. Milk diet might sate that -other; but this one, if occasion served, would lap blood. - -In the pages that follow we shall, among others, more or less notable, -encounter again that lithe leopard in some of his wanton leaps--into -verse, into marriage, into exile, and into the pit of death at -Missolonghi. - - - - -CHAPTER V. - - -We opened our budget in the last chapter with the _Quarterly Review_, -which was just getting upon its legs through the smart, keen, and hard -writing of Mr. William Gifford. It throve afterward under the coddling of -the most literary of the Tory gentlemen in London, and its title has -always been associated with the names of John Wilson Croker, of Dr. -Southey, and of Mr. Lockhart. It is a journal, too, which has always been -tied by golden bonds to the worship of tradition and of vested privilege, -and which has always been ready with its petulant, impatient bark of -detraction at reform or reformers, or at any books which may have had a -scent of Liberalism. Leigh Hunt, of course, came in for periodic -scathings--some of them deserved; some not deserved. Indeed, I am -half-disposed to repent what may have seemed a too flippant mention of -this very graceful poet and essayist. Of a surety, there is an abounding -affluence of easy language--gushing and disporting over his pages--which -lures one into reading and into dreamy acquiescence; but read as much as -we may, and as long as we will, we shall go away from the reading with a -certain annoyance that there is so little to keep out of it all--so little -that sticks to the ribs and helps. - -As for the poet Moore, of whom also we may have spoken in terms which may -seem of too great disparagement to those who have loved to linger in his - - “Vale of Cashmere - With its roses, the brightest that earth ever gave. - Its temples, and grottos, and fountains as clear - As the love-lighted eyes that hang over their wave,” - -no matter what may become of these brilliant orientalisms, or of his life -of Byron, or of his diaries, and his “Two-penny Post Bag,” it is certain -that his name will be gratefully kept alive by his sparkling, patriotic, -and most musical Irish melodies; and under that sufficient monument we -leave him. - -As for Landor--surely the pages in which we dealt with him were not too -long: a strange, strong bit of manhood--as of one fed on collops of bear’s -meat; a big animal nature, yet wonderfully transfused by a vivid -intellectuality--fine and high--that pierced weighty subjects to their -core; and yet--and yet, singing such heart-shivering tributes as that to -Rose Aylmer: coarse as the bumpkins on the sheep wolds of Lincoln, and yet -with as fine subtleties in him as belonged to the young Greeks who -clustered about the writer of the _Œdipus Tyrannus_. - - -_The “First Gentleman.”_ - -King George IV. was an older man than any of those we have commented on; -indeed, he was a prematurely old man at sixty-five--feeling the shivers -and the stings of his wild life: I suppose no one ever felt the approaches -of age more mortifyingly. He had counted so much on being the fine -gentleman to the last--such a height, such a carriage, such a grace! It -was a dark day for him when his mirror showed wrinkles that his cosmetics -would not cover, and a stoop in the shoulders which his tailors could not -bolster out of sight. Indeed, in his later years he shrunk from exposure -of his infirmities, and kept his gouty step out of reach of the curious, -down at Windsor, where he built a cottage in a wood; and arranged his -drives through the Park so that those who had admired this Apollo at his -best should never know of his shakiness. Thither went his conclave of -political advisers--sometimes Canning, the wonderful orator--sometimes the -Duke of Wellington, with the honors of Waterloo upon him--sometimes young -Sir Robert Peel, just beginning to make his influence felt; oftener yet, -Charles Greville, whose memoirs are full of piquant details about the -royal household--not forgetting that army of tailors and hair-dressers who -did their best to assuage the misery and gratify the vanities of the gouty -king. And when he died--which he hated exceedingly to do--in 1830, there -came to light such a multitude of waistcoats, breeches, canes, -snuff-boxes, knee-buckles, whips, and wigs, as I suppose were never -heaped before around any man’s remains. The first gentleman in Europe -could not, after all, carry these things with him. His brother, William -IV., who succeeded him, was a bluff old Admiral--with not so high a sense -of the proprieties of life as George; but honester even in his badnesses -(which were very many) and, with all his coarseness and vulgarity, -carrying a brusque, sailor-like frankness that half redeemed his -peccadilloes. In those stormy times which belonged to the passage of the -Reform Bill of 1832, he showed nerve and pluck, and if he split the air -pretty often with his oaths, he never offended by a wearying -dilettanteism, or by foppery. In the year 1837 he died; and then and there -began--within the memory of a good many of us old stagers--that reign of -his young niece Victoria, daughter of his brother, the Duke of Kent (who -had died seventeen years before)--which reign still continues, and is -still resplendent with the virtues of the Sovereign and the well-being of -her people. - -Under these several royal hands, the traditional helpfulness to men of -letters had declared itself in pensions and civil appointments; Southey -had come to his laureateship, and his additional pension; we found the -venerable Wordsworth making a London pilgrimage for a “kissing of hands,” -and the honor of a royal stipend; Walter Scott had received his baronetcy -at the hands of George IV., and that dilettante sovereign would have taken -Byron (whom we shall presently encounter) patronizingly by the hand, -except the fiery poet--scenting slights everywhere--had flamed up in that -spirit of proud defiance, which afterward declared itself with a fury of -denunciation in the _Irish Avatar_ (1821). - - -_Hazlitt and Hallam._ - -Another noticeable author of this period, whose cynicism kept him very -much by himself, was William Hazlitt;[53] he was the son of a clergyman -and very precocious--hearing Coleridge preach in his father’s pulpit at -Wem in Shropshire, and feeling his ambition stirred by the notice of that -poet, who was attracted by the shrewd speech and great forehead of the -boy. Young Hazlitt drifts away from such early influences to Paris and to -painting--he thinking to master that art. But in this he does nothing -satisfying; he next appears in London, to carve a way to fame with his -pen. He is an acute observer; he is proud; he is awkward; he is shy. -Charles Lamb and sister greatly befriend him and take to him; and he, with -his hate of conventionalisms, loves those Lamb chambers and the whist -parties, where he can go, in whatever slouch costume he may choose; poor -Mary Lamb, too, perceiving that he has a husband-ish hankering after a -certain female friend of hers--blows hot and cold upon it, in her quaint -little notelets, with a delighted and an undisguised sense of being a -party to their little game. It ended in a marriage at last; not without -its domestic infelicities; but these would be too long, and too dreary for -the telling. Mr. Hazlitt wrote upon a vast variety of topics--upon art, -and the drama, upon economic questions, upon politics--as wide in his -range as Leigh Hunt; and though he was far more trenchant, more shrewd, -more disputatious, more thoughtful, he did lack Hunt’s easy pliancy and -grace of touch. Though a wide reader and acute observer, Hazlitt does not -contend or criticise by conventional rules; his law of measurement is not -by old syntactic, grammatic, or dialectic practices; there’s no imposing -display of critical implements (by which some operators dazzle us), but he -cuts--quick and sharp--to the point at issue. We never forget his -strenuous, high-colored personality, and the seething of his -prejudices--whether his talk is of Napoleon (in which he is not reverent -of average British opinion), or of Sir Joshua Reynolds, or of Burke’s -brilliant oratorical apostrophes. But with fullest recognition of his -acuteness, and independence, there remains a disposition (bred by his -obstinacies and shortcomings) to take his conclusions _cum grano salis_. -He never quite disabuses our mind of the belief that he is a paid -advocate; he never conquers by calm; and, upon the whole, impresses one as -a man who found little worth the living for in this world, and counted -upon very little in any other. - -The historian, Henry Hallam,[54] on the other hand, who was another -notable literary character of this epoch, was full of all serenities of -character--even under the weight of such private griefs as were appalling. -He was studious, honest, staid--with a great respect for decorum; he would -have gravitated socially--as he did--rather to Holland House than to the -chambers where Lamb presided over the punch-bowl. In describing the man -one describes his histories; slow, calm, steady even to prosiness, yet -full; not entertaining in a gossipy sense; not brilliant; scarce ever -eloquent. If he is in doubt upon a point he tells you so; if there has -been limitation to his research, there is no concealment of it; I think, -upon the whole, the honestest of all English historians. In his search for -truth, neither party, nor tradition, nor religious scruples make him -waver. None can make their historic journey through the Middle Ages -without taking into account the authorities he has brought to notice, and -the path that he has scored. - -And yet there is no atmosphere along that path as he traces it. People and -towns and towers and monarchs pile along it, clearly defined, but in dead -shapes. He had not the art--perhaps he would have disdained the art--to -touch all these with picturesque color, and to make that page of the -world’s history glow and palpitate with life. - -Among those great griefs which weighed upon the historian, and to which -allusion has been made, I name that one only with which you are perhaps -familiar--I mean the sudden death of his son Arthur, a youth of rare -accomplishments--counted by many of more brilliant promise than any young -Englishman of his time--yet snatched from life, upon a day of summer’s -travel, as by a thunderbolt. He lies buried in Clevedon Church, which -overhangs the waters of Bristol Channel; and his monument is Tennyson’s -wonderful memorial poem. - -I will not quote from it; but cite only the lines “out of which” (says Dr. -John Brown), “as out of the well of the living waters of Love, flows -forth all _In Memoriam_.” - - “Break--break--break - At the foot of thy crags, O sea: - But the tender grace of a day that is dead - Will never come back to me. - And the stately ships go on - To their haven under the hill; - But O, for the touch of a vanished hand - And the sound of a voice that is still.” - -I have purposely set before you two strongly contrasted types of English -literary life in that day--in William Hazlitt and Henry Hallam--the first -representing very nearly what we would call the Bohemian element--ready -to-day for an article in the _Edinburgh Review_, and to-morrow for a gibe -in the _Examiner_, or a piece of diablerie in the _London Magazine_; -Hallam, on the other hand, representing the sober and orderly traditions, -colored by the life and work of such men as Hume, Roscoe, and Gibbon. - - -_Queen of a Salon._ - -Another group of literary people, of a very varied sort, we should have -found in the salons of my Lady Blessington,[55] who used to hold court on -the Thames--now by Piccadilly, and again at Gore House--in the early part -of this century. She was herself a writer; nor is her personal history -without its significance, as an outgrowth of times when George IV. was -setting the pace for those ambitious of social distinction. - -She was the quick-witted daughter of an Irish country gentleman of the -Lucius O’Trigger sort--nicknamed Beau Power. He loved a whip and fast -horses--also dogs, powder, and blare. He wore white-topped boots, with -showy frills and ruffles; he drank hard, swore harder--wasted his fortune, -abused his wife, but was “very fine” to the end. He was as cruel as he was -fine; shot a peasant once, in cold blood, and dragged him home after his -saddle beast. He worried his daughter, Marguerite (Lady Blessington), into -marrying, at fifteen, a man whom she detested. It gave relief, however, -from paternal protection, until the husband proved worse than the father, -and separation ensued--made good (after some years of tumultuous, uneasy -life) by the violent and providential death of the recreant husband. -Shortly after, she married Lord Blessington, a rich Irish nobleman, very -much blasé, seven years her senior, but kind and always generous with her. -Then came travel in a princely way over the Continent, with long stays in -pleasant places, and such lavish spendings as put palaces at their -disposal--of all which a readable and gossipy record is given in her -_Idler in Italy_ and _Idler in France_--books well known, in their day, in -America. Of course she encountered in these ramblings Landor, Shelley, -Byron, and all notable Englishmen, and when she returned to London it was -to establish that brilliant little court already spoken of. She was -admirably fitted for sovereign of such a court; she was witty, ready, -well-instructed; was beautiful, too, and knew every art of the -toilet.[56] - -More than this, she was mistress of all the pretty and delicate arts of -conciliation; had amazing aptitude for accommodating herself to different -visitors--flattering men without letting them know they were -flattered--softening difficulties, bringing enemies together, magnetizing -the most obstinate and uncivil into acquiescence with her rules of -procedure. Withal she had in large development those Irish traits of -generosity and cheer, with a natural, winning way, which she studied to -make more and more taking. One of those women who, with wit, prettiness, -and grace, count it the largest, as it is (to them) the most agreeable -duty of life, to be forever making social conquests, and forever reaping -the applause of drawing-rooms. And if we add to the smiles and the witty -banter and the persuasive tones of our lady, the silken hangings, the -velvet carpets, the mirrors multiplying inviting alcoves, with paintings -by Cattermole or Stothard, and marbles, maybe by Chantrey or Westmacott, -and music in its set time by the best of London masters, and cooking in -its season as fine as the music,--and we shall be at no loss to measure -the attractions of Gore House, and to judge of the literary and social -aspects which blazed there on the foggy banks of the Thames. No wonder -that old Samuel Rogers, prince of epicures, should love to carry his -pinched face and his shrunk shanks into such sunny latitudes. Moore, too, -taking his mincing steps into those regions, would find banquets to remind -him of the Bowers of Bendemeer. Possibly, too, the Rev. Sydney Smith, -without the fear of Lady Holland in his heart or eyes, may have pocketed -his dignity as Canon of St. Paul’s and gone thither to taste the delights -of the table or of the talk. Even Hallam, or Southey (on his rare visits -to town), may have gone there. Lady Blessington was always keenly awake -for such arrivals. Even Brougham used to take sometimes his clumsy -presence to her brilliant home; and so, on occasion, did that younger -politician, and accomplished gentleman, Sir Robert Peel. Procter--better -known as Barry Cornwall--the song-writer, was sure to know his way to -those doors and to be welcomed; and Leigh Hunt was always eager to play -off his fine speeches amid such surroundings of wine and music. - -The Comte d’Orsay, artist and man of letters, who married (1827) a -daughter of Lord Blessington (step-daughter of the Countess), was a -standing ornament of the house; and rivalling him in their cravats and -other millinery were two young men who had long careers before them. These -were Benjamin Disraeli and Edward Lytton Bulwer. - - -_Young Bulwer and Disraeli._ - -It was some years before the passage of the Reform bill, and before the -death of George IV., that Bulwer[57] blazed out in _Pelham_ (1828), _The -Disowned_, and _Devereux_, making conquest of the novel-reading town, at a -time when _Quentin Durward_ (1823) was not an old book, and _Woodstock_ -(1826) still fresh. And if Pelhamism had its speedy subsidence, the same -writer put such captivating historic garniture and literary graces about -the Italian studies of _Rienzi_, and of the _Last Days of Pompeii_, as -carry them now into most libraries, and insure an interested -reading--notwithstanding a strong sensuous taint and sentimental -extravagances. - -He had scholarship; he had indefatigable industry; he had abounding -literary ambitions and enthusiasms, but he had no humor; I am afraid he -had not a very sensitive conscience; and he had no such pervading -refinement of literary taste as to make his work serve as the exemplar for -other and honester workers. - -Benjamin Disraeli[58] in those days overmatched him in cravats and in -waistcoats, and was the veriest fop of all fop-land. No more beautiful -accessory could be imagined to the drawing-room receptions over which Lady -Blessington presided, and of which the ineffable Comte d’Orsay was a -shining and a fixed light, than this young Hebraic scion of a great Judean -house--whose curls were of the color of a raven’s wing, and whose satin -trumpery was ravishing! - -And yet--this young foppish Disraeli, within fifty years, held the -destinies of Great Britain in his hand, and had endowed the Queen with the -grandest title she had ever worn--that of Empress of India. Still further, -in virtue of his old friendship for his fellow fop Bulwer, he sends the -son of that novelist (in the person of the second Lord Lytton) to preside -over a nation numbering two hundred millions of souls. Whoever can -accomplish these ends with such a people as that of Great Britain must -needs have something in him beyond mere fitness for the pretty salons of -my Lady Blessington. - -And what was it? Whatever you may count it, there is surely warrant for -telling you something of his history and his antecedents: Three or more -centuries ago--at the very least--a certain Jew of Cordova, in Spain, -driven out by the terrors of the Inquisition, went to Venice--established -himself there in merchandise, and his family throve there for two hundred -years. A century and a half ago,--when the fortunes of Venice were plainly -on the wane--the head of this Jewish family--Benjamin Disraeli -(grandfather of the one of whom we speak) migrated to England. This first -English Benjamin met with success on the Exchange of London, and owing to -the influences of his wife (who hated all Jewry) he discarded his -religious connection with Hebraism, went to the town of Enfield, a little -north of London--with a good fortune, and lived there the life of a -retired country gentleman. He had a son Isaac, who devoted himself to the -study of literature, and showed early strong bookish proclivities--very -much to the grief of his father, who had a shrewd contempt for all such -follies. Yet the son Isaac persisted, and did little else through a long -life, save to prosecute inquiries about the struggles of authors and the -lives of authors and the work of authors--all ending in that agglomeration -which we know as the _Curiosities of Literature_--a book which sixty years -since used to be reckoned a necessary part of all well-equipped -libraries; but which--to tell truth--has very little value; being without -any method, without fulness, and without much accuracy. It is very rare -that so poor a book gets so good a name, and wears it so long. - -Oddly enough, this father, who had devoted a life to the mere gossip of -literature, as it were, warns his son Benjamin against literary pursuits -(he wrote three or four novels indeed,[59] but they are never heard of), -and the son studied mostly under private tutors; there is no full or -trustworthy private biography of him: but we know that in the years -1826-1827--only a short time before the Lady Blessington coterie was in -its best feather--he wrote a novel called _Vivian Grey_,--the author being -then under twenty-two--which for a time divided attention with _Pelham_. -In club circles it made even more talk. It is full of pictures of people -of the day; Brougham and Wilson Croker, and Southey, and George Canning, -and Mrs. Coutts and Lady Melbourne (Caroline Lamb), all figure in it. He -never gave over, indeed, putting portraits in his books--as Goldwin Smith -can tell us. The larger Reviews were coy of praise and coy of -condemnation: indeed ’twas hard to say which way it pointed--socially or -politically; but, for the scandal-mongers, there was in it very appetizing -meat. He became a lion of the salons; and he enjoyed the lionhood vastly. -Chalon[60] painted him in that day--a very Adonis--gorgeous in velvet coat -and in ruffled shirt. - -But he grew tired of England and made his trip of travel; it followed by -nearly a score of years after that of Childe Harold, and was doubtless -largely stimulated by it; three years he was gone--wandering over all the -East, as well as Europe. He came back with an epic (published 1834), -believing that it was to fill men’s minds, and to conquer a place for him -among the great poets of the century. In this he was dismally mistaken; so -he broke his lyre, and that was virtually the last of his poesy. There -came, however, out of these journeyings, besides the poem, the stories of -_Contarini Fleming_, of _The Young Duke_, and _The Wondrous Tale of -Alroy_. These kept his fame alive, but seemed after all only the work of a -man playing with literature, rather than of one in earnest. - -With ambition well sharpened now, by what he counted neglect, he turned to -politics; as the son of a country gentleman of easy fortune, it was not -difficult to make place for himself. Yet, with all the traditions of a -country gentleman about him, in his first moves he was not inclined to -Toryism; indeed, he startled friends by his radicalism--was inclined to -shake hands at the outset with the arch-agitator O’Connell; but not -identifying himself closely with either party; and so, to the last it -happened that his sympathies were halved in most extraordinary way; he had -the concurrence of the most staid, Toryish, and conservative of country -voters; and no man could, like himself, bring all the jingoes of England -howling at his back. Indeed, nothing is more remarkable in his career than -his shrewd adaptation of policy to meet existing, or approaching tides of -feeling; he does not avow great convictions of duty, and stand by them; -but he toys with convictions; studies the weakness, as he does the power, -of those with him or against him; shifts his ground accordingly; rarely -lacking poise, and the attitude of seeming steadfastness; whipping with -his scourge of a tongue the little lapses of his adversaries till they -shrill all over the kingdom; and putting his own triumphs--great or -small--into such scenic combination, with such beat of drum, and blare of -trumpet, as to make all England break out into bravos.[61] There was not -that literary quality in his books, either early or late, which will give -to them, I think, a very long life; but there was in the man a quality of -shrewdness and of power which will be long remembered--perhaps not always -to his honor. - -I do not yield to any in admiration for the noble and philanthropic -qualities which belong to the venerable, retired statesman of Hawarden; -yet I cannot help thinking that if such a firm and audacious executive -hand as belonged to Lord Beaconsfield, had--in the season of General -Gordon’s stress at Khartoum--controlled the fleets and armies of Great -Britain, there would have been quite other outcome to the sad imbroglio in -the Soudan. When war is afoot, the apostles of peace are the poorest of -directors. - -I go back for a moment to that Blessington Salon--in order to close her -story. There was a narrowed income--a failure of her jointure--a -shortening of her book sales; but, notwithstanding, there was a long -struggle to keep that brilliant little court alive. One grows to like so -much the music and the fêtes and the glitter of the chandeliers, and the -unction of flattering voices! But at last the ruin came; on a sudden the -sheriffs were there; and clerks with their inventories in place of the -“Tokens” and “annuals”--with their gorgeous engravings by Finden & -Heath--which the Mistress had exploited; and she hurried off--after the -elegant D’Orsay--to Paris, hoping to rehabilitate herself, on the Champs -Elysées, under the wing of Louis Napoleon, just elected President. I -chanced to see her in her coupé there, on a bright afternoon early in -1849--with elegant silken wraps about her and a shimmer of the old kindly -smile upon her shrunken face--dashing out to the Bois; but within three -months there was another sharp change; she--dead, and her pretty -_decolleté_ court at an end forever. - - -_The Poet of Newstead._ - -The reminiscences and conversations of Lord Byron, which we have at the -hands of Lady Blessington, belong to a time, of course, much earlier than -her series of London triumphs, and date with her journeys in Italy. A -score of years at least before ever the chandeliers of her Irish ladyship -were lighted in Gore House, Byron[62] had gone sailing away from England -under a storm of wrath; and he never came back again. Indeed it is not a -little extraordinary that one of the most typical of English poets, -should--like Landor, with whom he had many traits in common--have passed -so little of his active life on English ground. Like Landor, he loved -England most when England was most behind him. Like Landor, he was gifted -with such rare powers as belonged to few Englishmen of that generation. In -Landor these powers, so far as they expressed themselves in literary form, -were kept in check by the iron rulings of a scrupulous and exacting -craftsmanship; while in Byron they broke all trammels, whether of -craftsmanship or reason, and glowed and blazed the more by reason of their -audacities. Both were prone to great tempests of wrath which gave to both -furious joys, and, I think, as furious regrets. - -Byron came by his wrathfulness in good hereditary fashion--as we shall -find if we look back only a little way into the records of that Newstead -family. Newstead Abbey (more properly Priory, the archæologists tell us) -is the name of that great English home--half a ruin--associated with the -early years of the poet, but never for much time or in any true sense a -home of his own. It is some ten miles north of Nottingham, in an -interesting country, where lay the old Sherwood Forest, with its -traditions of Robin Hood; there is a lichened Gothic front which explains -the Abbey name; there are great rambling corridors and halls; there is a -velvety lawn, with the monument to “Boatswain,” the poet’s dog; but one -who goes there--with however much of Byronic reading in his or her -mind--will not, I think, warm toward the locality; and the curious -foot-traveller will incline to trudge away in a hunt for Annesley, and the -“Antique Oratory.” - -Well, in that ancient home, toward the end of the last century, there -lived, very much by himself, an old Lord Byron, who some thirty years -before, in a fit of wild rage, had killed a neighbor and kinsman of the -name of Chaworth; there was indeed a little show of a duel about the -murder--which was done in a London tavern, and by candle-light. His -peerage, however, only saved this “wicked lord,” as he was called, from -prison; and at Newstead his life smouldered out in 1798, under clouds of -hate, and of distrust. His son was dead before him; so was his grandson, -the last heir in direct line; but he had a younger brother, John, who was -a great seaman--who published accounts of his voyages,[63] which seem -always to have been stormy, and which lend, maybe, some realistic touches -to the shipwreck scenes in “Don Juan.” A son of this voyager was the -father of the poet, and was reputed to be as full of wrath and turbulence -as his uncle who killed the Chaworth; and his life was as thick with -disaster as that of the unlucky voyager. His first marriage was a runaway -one with a titled lady, whose heart he broke, and who died leaving that -lone daughter who became the most worthy Lady Augusta Leigh. For second -wife he married Miss Gordon, a Scotch heiress, the mother of the poet, -whose fortune he squandered, and whose heart also he would have broken--if -it had been of a breaking quality. With such foregoers of his own name, -one might look for bad blood in the boy; nor was his mother saint-like; -she had her storms of wrath; and from the beginning, I think, gave her boy -only cruel milk to drink. - -His extreme boyhood was passed near to Aberdeen, with the Highlands not -far off. How much those scenes impressed him, we do not know; but that -some trace was left may be found in verses written near his death:-- - - “He who first met the Highland’s swelling blue - Will love each peak that shows a kindred hue; - Hail in each crag a friend’s familiar face - And clasp the mountain in his mind’s embrace.” - -When the boy was ten, the wicked lord who had killed the Chaworth died; -and the Newstead inheritance fell to the young poet. We can imagine with -what touch of the pride that shivers through so many of his poems, this -lad--just lame enough to make him curse that unlucky fate--paced first -down the hall at Newstead--thenceforth master there--a Peer of England. - -But the estate was left in sorry condition; the mother could not hold it -as a residence; so they went to Nottingham--whereabout the boy seems to -have had his first schooling. Not long afterward we find him at Harrow, -not far out of London, where he makes one or two of the few friendships -which abide; there, too, he gives first evidence of his power over -language. - -It is at about this epoch, also, that on his visits to Nottingham--which -is not far from the Chaworth home of Annesley--comes about the spinning of -those little webs of romance which are twisted afterward into the -beautiful Chaworth “Dream.” It is an old story to tell, yet how -everlastingly fresh it keeps! - - “The maid was on the eve of womanhood; - The boy had fewer summers, but his heart - Had far outgrown his years, and to his eye - There was but one beloved face on earth, - And that was shining on him; he had looked - Upon it till it could not pass away; - He had no breath, nor being, but in hers, - She was his voice … upon a tone, - A touch of hers, his blood would ebb and flow, - And his cheek change tempestuously--his heart - Unknowing of its cause of agony.” - -As a matter of fact, Miss Chaworth was two years older, and far more -mature than he; she was gentle too, and possessed of a lady-like calm, -which tortured him--since he could not break it down. Indeed, through all -the time when he was sighing, she was looking over his head at Mr. -Musters--who was bluff and hearty, and who rode to the hounds, and was an -excellent type of the rollicking, self-satisfied, and beef-eating English -squire--whom she married. - - -_Early Verse and Marriage._ - -After this episode came Cambridge, and those _Hours of Idleness_ which -broke out into verse, and caught the scathing lash of Henry Brougham--then -a young, but well-known, advocate, who was conspiring with Sydney Smith -and Jeffrey (as I have told you) to renovate the world through the pages -of the _Edinburgh Review_. - -But this lashing brought a stinging reply; and the clever, shrewd, witty -couplets of Byron’s satire upon the Scottish Reviewers (1809), convinced -all scholarly readers that a new and very piquant pen had come to the -making of English verse. Nor were Byron’s sentimentalisms of that day all -so crude and ill-shapen as Brougham would have led the public to suppose. -I quote a fragment from a little poem under date of 1808--he just twenty: - - “The dew of the morning - Sunk chill on my brow - It felt like the warning - Of what I feel now, - Thy vows are all broken - And light is thy fame; - I hear thy name spoken, - And share in its shame. - - “They name thee before me, - A knell to mine ear; - A shudder comes o’er me-- - Why wert thou so dear? - They know not I knew thee, - Who knew thee too well; - Long, long shall I rue thee - Too deeply to tell.” - -Naturally enough, our poet is beaming with the success of his satire, -which is widely read, and which has made him foes of the first rank; but -what cares he for this? He goes down with a company of fellow roisterers, -and makes the old walls of Newstead ring with the noisy celebration of his -twenty-first birthday; and on the trail of that country revel, and with -the sharp, ringing couplets of his “English Bards” crackling on the public -ear, he breaks away for his first joyous experience of Continental travel. -This takes him through Spain and to the Hellespont and among the isles of -Greece--seeing visions there and dreaming dreams, all which are braided -into that tissue of golden verse we know as the first two cantos of -_Childe Harold_. - -On his return, and while as yet this poem of travel is on the eve of -publication, he prepares himself for a new _coup_ in Parliament--being not -without his oratorical ambitions. It was in February of 1812 that he made -his maiden speech in the House of Lords--carefully worded, calm, not -without quiet elegancies of diction--but not meeting such reception as his -extravagant expectation demanded; whatever he does, he wishes met with a -tempest of approval; a dignified welcome, to his fiery nature, seems cold. - -But the publication of _Childe Harold_, only a short time later, brings -compensating torrents of praise. His satire had piqued attention without -altogether satisfying it; there was little academic merit in it--none of -the art which made _Absalom and Achitophel_ glow, or which gleamed upon -the sword-thrusts of the _Dunciad_; but its stabs were business-like; its -couplets terse, slashing, and full of truculent, scorching _vires iræ_. -This other verse, however, of _Childe Harold_--which took one upon the -dance of waves and under the swoop of towering canvass to the groves of -“Cintra’s glorious Eden,” and among those Spanish vales where Dark -Guadiana “rolls his power along;” and thence on, by proud Seville, and -fair Cadiz, to those shores of the Egean, where - - “Still his honeyed wealth Hymettus yields,--”[64] - -was of quite another order. There is in it, moreover, the haunting -personality of the proud, broken-spirited wanderer, who tells the tale and -wraps himself in the veil of mysterious and piquant sorrows: Withal there -is such dash and spirit, such mastery of language, such marvellous -descriptive power, such subtle pauses and breaks, carrying echoes beyond -the letter--as laid hold on men and women--specially on women--in a way -that was new and strange. And this bright meteor had flashed athwart a sky -where such stars as Southey, and Scott, and Rogers, and the almost -forgotten Crabbe, and Coleridge, and Wordsworth had been beaming for many -a day. Was it strange that the doors of London should be flung wide open -to this fresh, brilliant singer who had blazed such a path through Spain -and Greece, and who wore a coronet upon his forehead? - -He was young, too, and handsome as the morning; and must be mated--as all -the old dowagers declared. So said his friends--his sister chiefest among -them; and the good Lady Melbourne (mother-in-law of Lady Caroline -Lamb)--not without discreet family reasons of her own--fixed upon her -charming niece, Miss Milbanke, as the one with whom the new poet should be -coupled, to make his way through the wildernesses before him. And there -were other approvals; even Tom Moore--who, of all men, knew his habits -best--saying a reluctant “Yes”--after much hesitation. And so, through a -process of coy propositions and counter-propositions, the marriage was -arranged at last, and came about down at Seaham House (near -Stockton-on-Tees), the country home of the father, Sir Ralph Milbanke. - - “Her face was fair, but was not that which made - The starlight of his boyhood; as he stood - Even at the altar, o’er his brow there came - The self-same aspect, and the quivering shock - That in the Antique Oratory shook - His bosom in its solitude; and then-- - As in that hour--a moment o’er his face - The tablet of unutterable thoughts - Was traced; and then it faded as it came, - And he stood calm and quiet, and he spoke - The fitting vows, but heard not his own words, - And all things reeled around him.”[65] - -Yet the service went on to its conclusion; and the music pealed, and the -welcoming shouts broke upon the air, and the adieux were spoken; and -together, they two drove away--into the darkness. - - - - -CHAPTER VI. - - -Our last chapter brought us into the presence of that vivacious specimen -of royalty, George IV., who “shuffled off this mortal coil” in the year -1830, and was succeeded by that rough-edged, seafaring brother of his, -William IV. This admiral-king was not brilliant; but we found -brilliancy--of a sort--in the acute and disputatious essayist, William -Hazlitt; yet he was far less companionable than acute, and contrasted most -unfavorably with that serene and most worthy gentleman, Hallam, the -historian. We next encountered the accomplished and showy Lady -Blessington--the type of many a one who throve in those days, and who had -caught somewhat of the glitter that radiated from the royal trappings of -George the Fourth. We saw Bulwer, among others, in her salon; and we -lingered longer over the wonderful career of that Disraeli, who died as -Lord Beaconsfield--the most widely known man in Great Britain. - -We then passed to a consideration of that other wonderful adventurer--yet -the inheritor of an English peerage--who had made his futile beginning in -politics, and a larger beginning in poetry. To his career, which was left -half-finished, we now recur. - - -_Lord Byron a Husband._ - -As we left him--you will remember--there was a jangle of marriage-bells; -and a wearisome jangle it proved. Indeed Byron’s marriage-bells were so -preposterously out of tune, and lent their discord in such disturbing -manner to the whole current of his life, that it may be worth our while to -examine briefly the conditions under which the discord began. It is -certain that all the gossips of London had been making prey of this match -of the poetic hero of the hour for much time before its consummation. - -Was he seeking a fortune? Not the least in the world; for though the -burden of debt upon his estates was pressing him sorely, and his -extravagances were reckless, yet large sums accruing from his -swift-written tales of the “Corsair,” “Lara,” and “Bride of Abydos” were -left untouched, or lavishly bestowed upon old or new friends; his -liberality in those days was most exceptional; nor does it appear that he -had any very definite notion of the pecuniary aid which his bride might -bring to him. She had, indeed, in her own right, what was a small sum -measured by their standards of living; and her expectancies, that might -have justified the title of heiress (which he sometimes gives to her in -his journal), were then quite remote. - -As for social position, there could be by such marriage no gain to him, -for whom already the doors of England were flung wide open. Did he -seek the reposeful dignity of a home? There may have been such fancies -drifting by starts through his mind; but what crude fancies they must -have been with a man who had scarcely lived at peace with his own -mother, and whose only notion of enjoyment in the house of his ancestors -was in the transport to Newstead of a roistering company of boon -companions--followed by such boisterous revels there, and such unearthly -din and ghostly frolics, as astounded the neighborhood! - -The truth is, he marched into that noose of matrimony as he would have -ordered a new suit from his tailor. When this whim had first seized him, -he had written off formal proposals to Miss Milbanke--whom he knew at that -time only slightly; and she, with very proper prudence, was non-committal -in her reply--though suggesting friendly correspondence. In his journal of -a little later date we have this entry: - - “November 30, 1813 [some fourteen months before the marriage]. - Yesterday a very pretty letter from Annabella [the full name was - Anna Isabella], which I answered. What an odd situation and - friendship is ours! Without one spark of love on either side. She is - a very superior woman, and very little spoiled … a girl of twenty, - an only child and a _savante_, who has always had her own way.” - -This evidently does not promise a very ardent correspondence. Nay, it is -quite possible that the quiet reserve he encounters here, does offer a -refreshing contrast to the heated gush of which he is the subject in that -Babel of London; maybe, too, there is something in the reserve and the -assured dignity which reminds him of that earlier idol of his -worship--Miss Chaworth of Annesley. - -However, three months after this last allusion to Miss Milbanke, we have -another entry in his journal, running thus: - - “January 16, 1814. A wife would be my salvation. I am getting rather - into an admiration for C----, youngest sister of F----. [This is not - Miss Milbanke--observe.] That she won’t love me is very probable, - nor shall I love her. The business would probably be arranged - between the papa and me.” - -Perhaps it was in allusion to this new caprice that he writes to Moore, a -few months later: - - “Had Lady ---- appeared to wish it, or even not to oppose it, I - would have gone on, and very possibly married, with the same - indifference which has frozen over the Black Sea of almost all my - passions.… Obstacles the slightest even, stop me.” (_Moore’s Byron_, - p. 255.) - -And it is in face of some such obstacle, lifting suddenly, that he flashes -up, and over, into new proposals to Miss Milbanke; these are quietly -accepted--very likely to his wonderment; for he says, in a quick ensuing -letter to Moore: - - “I certainly did not dream that she was attached to me, which it - seems she has been for some time. I also thought her of a very cold - disposition, in which I was also mistaken; it is a long story, and I - won’t trouble you with it. As to her virtues, and so on, you will - hear enough of them (for she is a kind of _pattern_ in the north) - without my running into a display on the subject.” - -A little over two months after the date of this they were married, and he -writes to Murray in the same week: - - “The marriage took place on the 2d inst., so pray make haste and - congratulate away.” [And to Moore, a few days later.] “I was married - this day week. The parson has pronounced it; Perry has announced it, - and the _Morning Post_, also, under head of ‘Lord Byron’s - marriage’--as if it were a fabrication and the puff direct of a new - stay-maker.” - -A month and a half later, in another Moore letter, alluding to the death -of the Duke of Dorset (an old friend of his), he says: - - “There was a time in my life when this event would have broken my - heart; and all I can say for it now is--that it isn’t worth - breaking.” - -Two more citations, and I shall have done with this extraordinary record. -In March, 1815 (the marriage having occurred in January), he writes to -Moore from the house of his father-in-law, Sir Ralph Milbanke--a little -northward of the Tees, in County Durham: - - “I am in such a state of sameness and stagnation, and so totally - occupied in consuming the fruits, and sauntering, and playing dull - games at cards, and yawning, and trying to read old _Annual - Registers_ and the daily papers, and gathering shells on the shore, - and watching the growth of stunted gooseberries in the garden, that - I have neither time nor sense to say more than yours ever--B.” - - -_A Stay in London._ - -On leaving the country for a new residence in London, his growing cheer -and spirits are very manifest: - - “I have been very comfortable here. Bell is in health, and unvaried - good humor. But we are all in the agonies of packing.… I suppose by - this hour to-morrow I shall be stuck in the chariot with my chin - upon a band-box. I have prepared, however, another carriage for the - abigail, and all the trumpery which our wives drag along with them.” - -Well, there follows a year or more of this coupled life--with what -clashings we can imagine. Old Ralph Milbanke is not there to drawl through -his after-dinner stories, and to intrude his restraining presence. The -poet finds things to watch about the clubs and the theatres--quite other -than the stunted gooseberries that grew in his father-in-law’s garden. -Nothing is more sure than that the wilful audacities, and selfishness, and -temper of the poet, put my lady’s repose and dignities and perfection to -an awful strain. Nor is it to be wondered at, if the mad and wild -indiscretions of the husband should have provoked some quiet and galling -counter indiscretions on the part of her ladyship. - -It is alleged, for instance, that on an early occasion--and at the -suggestion of a lady companion of the august mistress--there was an -inspection of my lord’s private papers, and a sending home to their -writers of certain highly perfumed notelets found therein; and we can -readily believe that when this instance of wifely zeal came to his -lordship’s knowledge he broke into a strain of remark which was _not_ -precisely that of the “Hebrew Melodies.” Doubtless he carries away from -such encounter a great reserve of bottled wrath--not so much against her -ladyship personally, as against the stolid proprieties, the unbending -scruples, the lady-like austerities, and the cool, elegant -dowager-dignities she represents. Fancy a man who has put such soul as he -has, and such strength and hope and pride as he has, into those swift -poems, which have taken his heart’s blood to their making--fancy him, -asked by the woman who has set out to widen his hopes and life by all the -helps of wifehood, “_When--pray--he means to give up those versifying -habits of his?_” No, I do not believe he resented this in language. I -don’t believe he argued the point; I don’t believe he made defence of -versifying habits; but I imagine that he regarded her with a dazed look, -and an eye that saw more than it seemed to see--an eye that discerned -broad shallows in her, where he had hoped for pellucid depths. I think he -felt then--if never before--a premonition that their roads would not lie -long together. And yet it gave him a shock--not altogether a pleasant one, -we may be sure--when Sir Ralph, the father-in-law, to whose house she had -gone on a visit, wrote him politely to the effect that--“she would never -come back.” Such things cannot be pleasant; at least, I should judge not. - -And so, she thinks something more of marriage than as some highly reckoned -conventionality--under whose cover bickerings may go on and spend their -force, and the decent twin masks be always worn. And in him, we can -imagine lingering traces of a love for the feminine features in her--for -the grace, the dignity, the sweet face, the modesties--but all closed over -and buckled up, and stanched by the everlasting and all encompassing -buckram that laces her in, and that has so little of the compensating -instinctive softness and yieldingness which might hold him in leash and -win him back. The woman who cannot--on occasions--put a weakness into her -forgiveness, can never put a vital strength into her persuasion. - -But they part, and part forever; the only wonder is they had not parted -before; and still another wonder is, that there should have been zealous -hunt for outside causes when so many are staringly apparent within the -walls of home. I do not believe that Byron would have lived at peace with -one woman in a thousand; I do not believe that Lady Byron would have lived -at peace with one man in a hundred. The computation is largely in her -favor; although it does not imply necessity for his condemnation as an -utter brute. Even as he sails away from England--from which he is hunted -with hue and cry, and to whose shores he is never again to return--he -drops a farewell to her with such touches of feeling in it, that one -wonders--and future readers always will wonder--with what emotions the -mother and his child may have read it: - - “Fare thee well and if for ever,[66] - Still for ever--fare thee well! - Even tho’ unforgiving--never - ’Gainst thee shall my heart rebel. - … - Love may sink by slow decay - But, by sudden wrench, believe not - Hearts can thus be torn away. - And when thou would’st solace gather, - When our child’s first accents flow, - Wilt thou teach her to say ‘Father’ - Though his care she must forego? - When her little hands shall press thee, - When her lip to thine is prest, - Think of him whose prayer shall bless thee; - Think of him thy love has blessed. - Should her lineaments resemble - Those thou never more may’st see, - Then thy heart will softly tremble - With a pulse yet true to me; - All my faults perchance thou knowest, - All my madness none can know, - All my hopes where’er thou goest - Wither--yet, with thee they go. - Every feeling hath been shaken; - Pride which not a world could bow, - Bows to thee--by thee forsaken, - Even my soul forsakes me now. - But ’tis done, all words are idle; - Words from _me_ are vainer still; - But the thoughts we cannot bridle - Force their way, without the will. - Fare thee well! thus disunited, - Torn from every nearer tie, - Seared in heart and lone, and blighted-- - More than this, I scarce can die.” - -I should have felt warranted in giving some intelligible account of the -poet’s infelicities at home were it only to lead up to this exhibit of -his wondrous literary skill; but I find still stronger reasons in the fact -that the hue and cry which followed upon his separation from his wife -seemed to exalt the man to an insolent bravado, and a challenge of all -restraint--under which his genius flamed up with new power, and with a -blighting splendor. - - -_Exile._ - -It was on the 25th of April, 1816 (he being then in his twenty-eighth -year), that he bade England adieu forever, and among the tenderest of his -leave-takings was that from his sister, who had vainly sought to make -smooth the difficulties in his home, and who (until Lady Byron had fallen -into the blindness of dotage) retained her utmost respect. I cannot -forbear quoting two verses from a poem addressed to this devoted sister: - - “Though the rock of my last hope is shivered - And its fragments are sunk in the wave, - Though I feel that my soul is delivered - To pain--it shall _not_ be its slave; - There is many a pang to pursue me; - They may crush--but they shall not contemn, - They may torture, but shall not subdue me, - ’Tis of _thee_ that I think--not of them. - - “From the wreck of the past, which hath perished, - Thus much I at least may recall, - It hath taught me that what I most cherished - Deserved to be dearest of all; - In the desert a fountain is springing, - In the wide waste, there still is a tree, - And a bird in the solitude singing - Which speaks to my spirit of _thee_.” - -Never was a man pelted away from his native shores with more anathemas; -never one in whose favor so few appealing voices were heard. It was not so -much a memory of his satirical thrusts, as a jealousy begotten by his late -extraordinary successes, which had alienated nearly the whole literary -fraternity. Only Rogers, Moore, and Scott were among the better known ones -who had forgiven his petulant verse, and were openly apologetic and -friendly; while such kind wishers as Lady Holland and Lady Jersey were -half afraid to make a show of their sympathies. Creditors, too, of that -burdened estate of his, had pushed their executions one upon another--in -those days when his torments were most galling--into what was yet called -with poor significance his home; only his title of peer, Moore tells us, -at one date saved him from prison. - -Yet when he lands in Belgium, he travels--true to his old -recklessness--like a prince; with body servants and physician, and a -lumbering family coach, with its showy trappings. Waterloo was fresh then, -and the wreck and the blood, and the glory of it were all scored upon his -brain, and shortly afterward by his fiery hand upon the poem we know so -well, and which will carry that streaming war pennon in the face of other -generations than ours. Then came the Rhine, with its castles and -traditions, glittering afresh in the fresh stories that he wove; and after -these his settlement for a while upon the borders of Lake Geneva--where, -in some one of these talks of ours we found the studious Gibbon, under his -acacia-trees, and where Rousseau left his footprints--never to be -effaced--at Clarens and Meillerie. One would suppose that literature could -do no more with such outlooks on lake and mountain, as seem to mock at -language. - -And yet the wonderful touch of Byron has kindled new interest in scenes on -which the glowing periods of Rousseau had been lavished. Even the -guide-books can none of them complete their record of the region without -stealing descriptive gems from his verse; and his story of the _Prisoner -of Chillon_ will always--for you and for me--lurk in the shadows that lie -under those white castle walls, and in the murmur of the waters that ebb -and flow--gently as the poem--all round about their foundations. I may -mention that at the date of the Swiss visit, and under the influences and -active co-operation of Madame de Staël--then a middle-aged and invalid -lady residing at her country seat of Coppet, on the borders of Geneva -Lake--Byron did make overtures for a reconciliation with his wife. They -proved utterly without avail, even if they were not treated with scorn. -And it is worthy of special note that while up to this date all mention of -Lady Byron by the poet had been respectful, if not relenting and -conciliatory--thereafter the vials of his wrath were opened, and his -despairing scorn knew no bounds. Thus, in the “Incantation”--thrust into -that uncanny work of _Manfred_--with which he was then at labor--he says: - - “Though thou seest me not pass by, - Thou shalt feel me with thine eye, - As a thing that, though unseen, - Must be near thee, and hath been; - And when, in that secret dread, - Thou hast turned around thy head, - Thou shalt marvel I am not - As thy shadow on the spot; - And the power which thou dost feel - Shall be what thou must conceal.” - - -_Shelley and Godwin._ - -Another episode of Byron’s Swiss life was his encounter there, for the -first time, with the poet Shelley.[67] He, too, was under ban, for reasons -that I must briefly make known. Like his brother poet, Shelley was born to -a prospective inheritance of title and of wealth. His father was a -baronet, shrewd and calculating, and living by the harshest and baldest -of old conventionalisms; this father had given a warm, brooding care to -the estate left him by Sir Bysshe Shelley (the grandfather of the poet), -who had an American bringing up--if not an American birth--in the town of -Newark,[68] N. J. The boy poet had the advantages of a place at -Eton[69]--not altogether a favorite there, it would seem; “passionate in -his resistance to an injury, passionate in his love.” He carried thence to -Oxford a figure and a beauty of countenance that were almost effeminate; -and yet he had a capacity for doubts and negations that was wondrously -masculine. His scholarship was keen, but not tractable; he takes a wide -range outside the established order of studies; he is a great and -unstinted admirer of the French philosophers, and makes such audacious -free-thinking challenge to the church dignitaries of Oxford that he is -expelled--like something venomous. His father, too, gives him the cold -shoulder at this crisis, and he drifts to London. There he contrives -interviews with his sisters, who are in school at Clapham; and is decoyed -into a marriage--before he is twenty--with a somewhat pretty and over-bold -daughter of a coffee-house keeper, who has acted as a go-between in -communications with his sisters. The prudent, conventional father is now -down upon him with a vengeance. - -But the boy has pluck under that handsome face of his. He sets out, with -his wife--after sundry wanderings--to redeem Ireland; but they who are -used to blunderbusses, undervalue Shelley’s fine periods, and his fine -face. He is some time in Wales, too (the mountains there fastening on his -thought and cropping out in after poems); he is in Edinboro’, in York, in -Keswick--making his obeisance to the great Southey (but coming to -over-hate of him in after years). Meantime he has children. Sometimes -money comes from the yielding father--sometimes none; he is abstemious; -bread and water mostly his diet; his home is without order or thrift or -invitingness--the lapses of the hoydenish girl-wife stinging him over and -over and through and through. - -But Shelley has read Godwin’s _Political Justice_--one of those many fine -schemes for the world’s renovation, by tearing out and burning up most of -the old furniture, which make their appearance periodically--and in virtue -of his admiration of Godwin, Shelley counts him among the demi-gods of the -heaven which he has conjured up. In reality Godwin[70] was an oldish, -rather clumsy, but astute and clever dissenting minister, who had left -preaching, and had not only written _Political Justice_, but novels--among -them one called _Caleb Williams_; by which you will know him better--if -you know him at all. This gave him great reputation in its time. There -were critics who ranked him with, or above, Scott--even in fiction. This -may tempt you to read _Caleb Williams_;[71] and if you read it--you will -not forget it. It pinches the memory like a vice; much reading of it -might, I should think, engender, in one of vivid imagination, such -nightmare stories as “_Called Back_” or “_A Dark Day_.” - -But Mr. Godwin had a daughter, Mary (whose mother was that Mary -Wollstonecraft, promoted now to a place amongst famous women), and our -Shelley going to see Godwin, saw also the daughter Mary--many times over; -and these two--having misty and mystic visions of a new order of -ethics--ran away together. - -It must be said, however, to the credit of Shelley (if credit be the word -to use), that when this first wife killed herself--as she did some -eighteen months afterward[72] (whether from grief or other cause is -doubtful)--he married Miss Godwin; and it was during the summer preceding -this second marriage that Byron (1816) encountered Shelley on the shores -of Lake Leman. Shelley had already written that wild screed of _Queen Mab_ -(privately printed, 1813), giving poetic emphasis to the scepticism of his -Oxford days. He had published that dreamy poem of _Alastor_--himself its -poet hero, as indeed he was in a large sense of every considerable poem he -wrote. I cite a fragment of it, that you may see what waking and beguiling -voice belonged to the young bard, who posed there on the Geneva lake -beside the more masculine Byron. He has taken us into forest depths: - - “One vast mass - Of mingling shade, whose brown magnificence - A narrow vale embosoms. - The pyramids - Of the tall cedar, overarching, frame - Most solemn domes within; and far below, - Like clouds suspended in an emerald sky, - The ash and the acacia floating, hang - Tremulous and pale. Like restless serpents clothed - In rainbow and in fire, the parasites - Starred with ten thousand blossoms flowed around - The gray trunks; and as gamesome infants’ eyes, - With gentle meanings and most innocent wiles - Fold their beams round the hearts of those that love, - These twine their tendrils with the wedded boughs. - … the woven leaves - Make net-work of the dark blue lights of day - And the night’s noontide clearness, mutable - As shapes in the weird clouds. - One darkest glen - Sends from its woods of musk-rose twined with jasmine - A soul-dissolving odor, to invite - To some more lovely mystery. Through the dell - Silence and twilight here, twin sisters, keep - Their noonday watch, and sail among the shades - Like vaporous shapes half seen.” - -And such mysteries and vaporous shapes run through all his poetic world. -He wanders, with that rarely fine gift of rhythmic speech, as wide away -from the compact sordid world--upon which Byron always sets foot with a -ringing tread--as ever Spenser in his chase of rainbow creations. Yet -there were penetrative sinuous influences about that young poet--defiant -of law and wrapt in his pursuit of mysteries--which may well have given -foreign touches of color to Byron’s _Manfred_ or to his _Prometheus_. At -any rate, these two souls lay quietly for a time, warped together--like -two vessels windbound under mountain shelter. - - -_Byron in Italy._ - -Byron next goes southward, to riotous life in Venice; where--whether in -tradesmen’s houses or in palaces upon the Grand Canal, or in country -villas upon the Euganean hills--he defies priests and traditions, and -order, and law, and decency. - -To this period belongs, probably, the conception, if not the execution, of -many of those dramas[73]--as non-playable as ever those of -Tennyson--unequal, too, but with passages scattered here and there of -great beauty; masterly aggregation of words smoking with passion, and full -of such bullet-like force of expression as only he could command; but -there is no adequate blending of parts to make either stately or -well-harmonized march of events toward large and definite issues. - -Out of the Venetian welter came, too, the fourth canto of _Childe Harold_ -and the opening parts of _Don Juan_. The mocking, rollicking, marvellous -_Vision of Judgment_, whose daring license staggered even Murray and -Moore, and which scarified poor Southey, belongs to a later phase of his -Italian career. It is angry and bitter--and has an impish laughter in -it--of a sort which our friend Robert Ingersoll might write, if his genius -ran to poetry. _Cain_ had been of a bolder tone--perhaps loftier; with -much of the argument that Milton puts into the mouth of Satan, amplified -and rounded, and the whole illuminated by passages of wonderful poetic -beauty. - -His scepticism, if not so out-spoken and full of plump negatives as that -of Shelley, is far more mocking and bitter. If Shelley was rich in -negations--so far as relates to orthodox belief--he was also rich in dim, -shadowy conceptions of a mysterious eternal region, with faith and love -reigning in it--toward which in his highest range of poetic effusion he -makes approaches with an awed and a tremulous step. But with Byron--even -where his words carry full theistic beliefs--the awe and the tremulous -approaches are wanting. - - -_Shelley Again._ - -Shelley went back from Switzerland to a home for a year or more, beyond -Windsor, near to Bisham--amid some of the loveliest country that borders -upon the Thames. Here he wrote that strange poem of _Laon and Cythna_ (or -_Revolt of Islam_, as it was called on its re-issue), which, so far as one -can gather meaning from its redundant and cumulated billows of rich, -poetic language, tells how a nation was kindled to freedom by the -strenuous outcry of some young poet-prophet--how he seems to win, and his -enemies become like smoking flax--how the dreadful fates that beset us, -and crowd all worldly courses from their best outcome, did at last trample -him down; not him only, but the one dearest to him--who is a willing -victim--and bears him off into the shades of night. Throughout, Laon the -Victim is the poet’s very self; and the very self appears again--with what -seems to the cautious, world-wise reader a curious indiscretion--in the -pretty jumping metre of “Rosalind and Helen”:-- - - “Joyous he was; and hope and peace - On all who heard him did abide, - Raining like dew from his sweet talk, - As where the evening star may walk - Along the brink of the gloomy seas, - Liquid mists of splendid quiver. - His very gestures touched to tears - The unpersuaded tyrant, never - So moved before.… - Men wondered, and some sneered, to see - One sow what he could never reap; - For he is rich, they said, and young, - And might drink from the depths of luxury. - If he seeks Fame, Fame never crowned - The champion of a trampled creed; - If he seeks Power, Power is enthroned - ’Mid ancient rights and wrongs, to feed - Which hungry wolves with praise and spoil, - Those who would sit near Power must toil.” - -It was in 1818, four years before his death, that Shelley sailed away from -English shores forever. There was not much to hold him there; those -children of the Westbrook mother he cannot know or guide.[74] The -Chancellor of England has decided that question against him; and Law, -which he has defied, has wrought him this great pain; nay, he has wild, -imaginary fears, too, that some Lord Chancellor, weaving toils in that web -of orderly British custom, may put bonds on these other and younger -children of the Godwin blood. Nor is it strange that a world of more -reasonable motives should urge this subtle poet--whose head is carried of -purpose, and by love, among the clouds--to turn his back on that grimy, -matter-of-fact England, and set his face toward those southern regions -where Art makes daily food, and where he may trail his robes without the -chafings of law or custom. But do not let me convey the impression that -Shelley then or ever lived day by day wantonly lawless, or doing violence -to old-fashioned proprieties; drunkenness was always a stranger to him, to -that new household--into which he had been grafted by Godwinian ethics--he -is normally true; he would, if it were possible, bring into the lap of -his charities those other estrays from whom the law divides him; his -generosities are of the noblest and fullest; he even entertains at one -time the singular caprice of “taking orders,” as if the author of _Queen -Mab_ could hold a vicarage! It opens, he said, so many ways of doing -kindly things, of making hearts joyful; and--for doctrine, one can always -preach Charity! With rare exceptions, it is only in his mental attitudes -and forays that he oversteps the metes and bounds of the every-day -moralities around him. Few poets, even of that time, can or do so measure -him as to enjoy him or to give him joy. Leigh Hunt is gracious and kindly; -but there are no winged sandals on his feet which can carry him into -regions where Shelley walks. Southey is stark unbeliever in the mystic -fields where Shelley grazes. Wordsworth is conquered by the Art, but has -melancholy doubts of the soul that seems caught and hindered in the meshes -of its own craftsmanship. Landor, of a certainty, has detected with his -keen insight the high faculties that run rampant under the mazes of the -new poet’s language; but Landor, too, is in exile--driven hither and -thither by the same lack of steady home affinities which has overset and -embroiled the domesticities of the younger poet. - - -_John Keats._ - -Yet another singer of these days, in most earnest sympathy with the -singing moods of Shelley--for whom I can have only a word now, was John -Keats;[75] born within the limits of London smoke, and less than -three-quarters of a mile from London Bridge--knowing in his boy days only -the humblest, work-a-day ranges of life; getting some good Latinity and -other schooling out of a Mr. Clarke (of the Cowden Clarke family)--reading -Virgil with him, but no Greek. And yet the lad, who never read Homer save -in Chapman, when he comes to write, as he does in extreme youth, crowds -his wonderful lines with the delicate trills and warblings which might -have broken out straight from Helicon--with a susurrus from the Bees of -Hymettus. This makes a good argument--so far as it reaches--in disproof -of the averments of those who believe that, for conquest of Attic -felicities of expression, the Greek vocables must needs be torn forth root -by root, and stretched to dry upon our skulls. - -He published _Endymion_ in the very year when Shelley set off on his final -voyagings--a gushing, wavy, wandering poem, intermeshed with flowers and -greenery (which he lavishes), and with fairy golden things in it and -careering butterflies; with some bony under-structure of Greek -fable--loose and vague--and serving only as the caulking pins to hold -together the rich, sensuous sway, and the temper and roll of his language. - -I must snatch one little bit from that book of _Endymion_, were it only to -show you what music was breaking out in unexpected quarters from that -fact-ridden England, within sound of the murmurs of the Thames, when -Shelley was sailing away:-- - - “On every morrow are we wreathing - A flowery band to bind us to the earth - Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth - Of noble natures, of the gloomy days, - Of all the unhealthy and o’er-darkened ways - Made for our searching; yes, in spite of all, - Some shape of beauty moves away the pall - From our dark spirits. Such--the sun, the moon, - Trees--old and young, sprouting a shady boon - For simple sheep; and such are daffodils - With the green world they live in; and clear rills - That for themselves a cooling covert make - ’Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake - Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms; - And such, too, is the grandeur of the dooms - We have imagined for the mighty dead; - All lovely tales that we have heard or read.” - -I might cite page on page from Keats, and yet hold your attention; there -is something so beguiling in his witching words; and his pictures are -finished--with only one or two or three dashes of his pencil. Thus we come -upon-- - - “Swelling downs, where sweet air stirs - Blue harebells lightly, and where prickly furze - Buds lavish gold.” - -And again our ear is caught with-- - - “Rustle of the reapéd corn, - And sweet birds antheming the morn.” - -Well, this young master of song goes to Italy, too--not driven, like -Byron, by hue and cry, or like Shelley, restless for change (from -Chancellor’s courts) and for wider horizons--but running from the disease -which has firm grip upon him, and which some three years after Shelley’s -going kills the poet of the _Endymion_ at Rome. His ashes lie in the -Protestant burial-ground there--under the shadow of the pyramid of Caius -Cestius. Every literary traveller goes to see the grave, and to spell out -the words he wanted inscribed there: - - “Here lies one whose name was writ in water.” - -Upon that death, Shelley, then living in Pisa, blazed out in the -_Adonais_--the poem making, with the _Lycidas_ of Milton, and the _In -Memoriam_ of Tennyson, a triplet of laurel garlands, whose leaves will -never fade. Yet those of Shelley have a cold rustle in them--shine as they -may:-- - - “Oh, weep for Adonais--he is dead! - Wake, melancholy mother, wake and weep! - Yet wherefore? Quench within their burning bed - Thy fiery tears, and let thy loud heart keep - Like his--a mute and uncomplaining sleep. - For he is gone where all things wise and fair - Descend. Oh, dream not that the amorous deep - Will yet restore him to the vital air; - Death feeds on his mute voice and laughs at our despair. - - “Oh, weep for Adonais! The quick dreams, - The passion-winged ministers of thought - Who were his flocks, whom near the living streams - Of his young spirit he fed, and whom he taught - The Love which was its music, wander not-- - Wander no more from kindling brain to brain, - But droop there whence they sprung; and mourn their lot - Round the cold heart, where, after their sweet pain, - They ne’er will gather strength, or find a home again.” - -The weak place in this impassioned commemorative poem lies in its waste of -fire upon the heads of those British critics, who--as flimsy, pathetic -legends used to run--slew the poet by their savagery. Keats did not range -among giants; but he was far too strong a man to die of the gibes of the -_Quarterly_, or the jeers of _Blackwood_. Not this; but all along, -throughout his weary life--even amid the high airs of Hampstead, where -nightingales sang--he sang, too,-- - - “I have been half in love with easeful Death, - Called him soft names in many a muséd rhyme, - To take into the air my quiet breath.”[76] - - -_Buried in Rome._ - -Keats died in 1821. In that year Shelley was living between Lirici, on the -gulf of Spezia, and Pisa. While in this latter city, he was planted for a -time at the old Lanfranchi palace, where in the following season very much -at the instance and urgence of Shelley, Leigh Hunt came with his six -riotous young children, and sometimes made a din--that was new to Byron -and most worrisome--in the court of the Lanfranchi house. Out of this Hunt -fraternizing and co-working (forecast by the kindly Shelley) was to be -built up the success of that famous “Liberal” Journal, dear to the hearts -of Shelley and Hunt, of which I have already spoken, and which had -disastrous failure; out of this aggregation of disorderly poetic elements -grew also the squabbles that gave such harsh color to the _Reminiscences_ -of Leigh Hunt.[77] - -But other and graver disaster was impending. Shelley loved the sea, and -carried with him to the water the same reckless daring which he put into -his verse. Upon a summer day of July, 1822, he went with a friend and one -boatman for a sail upon the bay of Spezia, not heeding some cautions that -had been dropped by old seamen, who had seen portents of a storm; and his -boat sailed away into the covert of the clouds. Next day there were no -tidings, nor the next, nor the next. Finally wreck and bodies came to the -shore. - -Trelawney, Byron’s friend, tells a grim story of it all--how the dismal -truth was carried to the widowed wife, how the body of the drowned poet -was burned upon the shore, with heathen libations of oil and wine; how -Byron and Hunt both were present at the weird funeral--the blue -Mediterranean lapping peacefully upon the beach and the black smoke -lifting in great clouds from the pyre and throwing lurid shadows over the -silent company. The burial--such as there was of it--took place in that -same Protestant graveyard at Rome--just out of the Porta San Paolo--where -we were just now witnesses at the burial of Keats. - -Shelley made many friendships, and lasting ones. He was wonderfully -generous; he visited the sick; he helped the needy; putting himself often -into grievous straits for means to give quickly. As he was fine of figure -and of feature, so his voice was fine, delicate, penetrative, yet in -moments of great excitement rising to a shrillness that spoiled melody and -rasped the ear; so his finer generosities and kindnesses sometimes passed -into a rasping indifference or even cruelty toward those nearest him, he -feeling that first Westbrook _mesalliance_, on occasions, like a -torture--specially when the presence of the tyrannic, coarse, aggravating -sister-in-law was like a poisonous irritant; he--under the teachings of a -conscientious father, in his young days--was scarce more than half -responsible for his wry life; running to badnesses--on occasions--under -good impulses; perhaps marrying that first wife because she wanted to -marry him; and quitting her--well--because “she didn’t care.” -Intellectually, as well as morally, he was pagan; seeing things in their -simplest aspects, and so dealing with them; intense, passionate, borne -away in tempests of quick decision, whose grounds he cannot fathom; always -beating his wings against the cagements that hem us in; eager to look into -those depths where light is blinding and will not let us look; seeming at -times to measure by some sudden reach of soul what is immeasurable; but -under the vain uplifts, always reverent, with a dim hope shining fitfully; -contemptuous of harassing creeds or any jugglery of forms--of whatever -splendid fashionings of mere material, whether robes or rites--and -yearning to solve by some strong, swift flight of imagination what is -insoluble. There are many reverent steps that go to that little Protestant -cemetery--an English greenery upon the borders of the Roman -Campagna--where the ashes of Shelley rest and where myrtles grow. And from -its neighborhood, between Mount Aventine and the Janiculan heights, one -may see reaches of the gleaming Tiber, and the great dome of St. Peter’s -lifting against the northern sky, like another tomb, its cross almost -hidden in the gray distance. - - -_Pisa and Don Juan._ - -No such friendship as that whose gleams have shot athwart these latter -pages could have been kindled by Byron. No “Adonais” could have been writ -for him; he could have melted into no “Adonais” for another; old pirate -blood, seething in him, forbade. No wonder he chafed at Hunt’s squalling -children in the Lanfranchi palace; _that_ literary partnership finds quick -dissolution. He sees on rare occasions an old English friend--he, who has -so few! Yet he is in no mood to make new friends. The lambent flames of -the Guiccioli romance hover and play about him, making the only -counterfeit of a real home which he has ever known. The proud, -independent, audacious, lawless living that has been his so long, whether -the early charms lie in it or no--he still clings by. His pen has its old -force, and the words spin from it in fiery lines; but to pluck the flowers -worth the seeking, which he plants in them now, one must go over quaking -bogs, and through ways of foulness. - -The _Childe Harold_ has been brought to its conclusion long before; its -cantos, here and there splendidly ablaze with Nature--its storms, its -shadows, its serenities; and the sentiment--now morbid, now jubilant--is -always his own, though it beguiles with honeyed sounds, or stabs like a -knife. - -There have been a multitude of lesser poems, and of dramas which have had -their inception and their finish on that wild Continental -holiday--beginning on _Lac Leman_ and ending at Pisa and Genoa; but his -real selfhood--whether of mind or passion--seems to me to come out plainer -and sharper in the _Don Juan_ than elsewhere. There may not be lifts in -it, which rise to the romantic levels of the “Pilgrimage;” there may be -lack of those interpolated bits of passion, of gloom, of melancholy, which -break into the earlier poem. But there is the blaze and crackle of his own -mad march of flame; the soot, the cinders, the heat, the wide-spread -ashes, and unrest of those fires which burned in him from the beginning -were there, and devastated all the virginal purities of his youth (if -indeed there were any!) and welded his satanic and his poetic qualities -into that seamy, shining, wonderful residue of dirty scoriæ, and of -brilliant phosphorescence, which we call _Don Juan_. From a mere literary -point of view there are trails of doggerel in it, which the poet was too -indolent to mend, and too proud to exclude. Nor can it ever be done; a -revised Byron would be not only a Byron emasculated, but decapitated and -devastated. ’Twould lack the links that tie it to the humanities which -coil and writhe tortuously all up and down his pages. His faults of -prosody, or of ethics, or of facts--his welter, at intervals, through a -barren splendor of words--are all typical of that fierce, proud, -ungovernable, unconventional nature. This leopard will and should carry -all his spots. We cannot shrive the man; no chanters or churches can do -this; he disdains to be shriven at human hands, or, it would seem, any -other hands. The impact of that strong, vigorous nature--through his -poems--brings, to the average reader, a sense of force, of brilliancy, of -personality, of humanity (if gone astray), which exhilarates, which dashes -away a thousand wordy memories of wordy verses, and puts in their place -palpitating phrases that throb with life. An infinite capability for -eloquent verse; an infinite capability for badnesses! We cannot root out -the satanry from the man, or his books, any more than we can root out -Lucifer from Milton’s Eden. But we can lament both, and, if need be, fight -them. - -Whether closer British influence (which usually smote upon him, like sleet -on glass)--even of that “Ancient Oratory” of Annesley--would have served -to whiten his tracks, who shall say? Long ago he had gone out from them, -and from parish church and sermon; his hymns were the _Ranz des Vaches_ on -the heights of the _Dent de Jaman_, and the preachments he heard were the -mellowed tones of convent bells--filtering through forest boughs--maybe -upon the ear of some hapless Allegra, scathed by birth-marks of a sin that -is not her own--conning her beads, and listening and praying! - - -_Missolonghi._ - -It was in 1823, when he was living in Genoa--whither he had gone from Pisa -(and before this, Ravenna)--that his sympathies were awakened in behalf of -the Greeks, who since 1820 had been in revolt against their Turkish -taskmasters. He had been already enrolled with those Carbonari--the -forerunners of the Mazzinis and the Garibaldis--who had labored in vain -for the independence and unity of Italy; and in many a burst of his -impassioned song he had showered welcoming praises upon a Greece that -should be free, and with equal passion attuned his verse to the -lament--that - - “Freedom found no champion and no child - Such as Columbia saw arise when she - Sprung forth a Pallas, armed and undefiled.” - -How much all this was real and how much only the romanticism of the poet, -was now to be proven. And it was certainly with a business-like air that -he cut short his little _agaceries_ with the Lady Blessington, and -pleasant dalliance with the Guiccioli, for a rallying of all his -forces--moneyed or other--in the service of that cause for which the brave -Marco Bozzaris had fallen, fighting, only three months before. It was in -July that he embarked at Genoa for Greece--in a brig which he had -chartered, and which took guns and ammunition and $40,000 of his own -procurement, with a retinue of attendants--including his trusty -Fletcher--besides his friends Trelawney and the Count Gamba. They skirted -the west coast of Italy, catching sight of Elba--then famous for its -Napoleonic associations--and of Stromboli, whose lurid blaze, reflected -upon the sea, startled the admiring poet to a hinted promise--that those -fires should upon some near day reek on the pages of a Fifth Canto of -_Childe Harold_. - -Mediterranean ships were slow sailers in those days, and it was not until -August that they arrived and disembarked at Cephalonia--an island near to -the outlet of the Gulf of Corinth, and lying due east from the Straits of -Messina. There was a boisterous welcome to the generous and eloquent peer -of England; but it was a welcome that showed factional discords. Only -across a mile or two of water lay the Isle of Ithaca, full of vague, -Homeric traditions, which under other conditions he would have been -delighted to follow up; but the torturing perplexities about the -distribution of moneys or ammunition, the jealousies of quarrelsome -chieftains, the ugly watch over drafts and bills of exchange, and the -griping exactions of local money-changers, made all Homeric fancies or -memories drift away with the scuds of wind that blew athwart the Ionian -seas. - -He battled bravely with the cumulating difficulties--sometimes maddened to -regret--other times lifted to enthusiasm by the cordial greeting of such a -chieftain as Mavrocordatos, or the street cheers of a band of Suliotes. -So months passed, until he embarked again, in equipage of his own, with -his own fittings, for Missolonghi, where final measures were to be taken. -Meantime he is paying for his ships, paying for his Suliotes, paying for -delays, and beset by rival chieftains for his interest, or his stimulating -presence, or his more stimulating moneys. On this new but short sea -venture he barely escapes capture by a Turkish frigate--is badly piloted -among the rocky islets which stud the shores; suffers grievous -exposure--coming at last, wearied and weakened, to a new harborage, where -welcomes are vociferous, but still wofully discordant. He labors wearily -to smooth the troubled waters, his old, splendid allegiance to a free and -united Greece suffering grievous quakes, and doubts; and when after months -of alternating turbulence and rest there seems promise of positive action, -he is smitten by the fever of those low coasts--aggravated by his always -wanton exposures. The attack is as sudden as a shot from a gun--under -which he staggers and falls, writhing with pain, and I know not what -convulsional agonies. - -There is undertaken an Italian regimen of cupping and leeching about the -brow and temples, from which the bleeding is obstinate, and again and -again renewed. But he rallies; attendants are assiduous in their care. -Within a day or two he has recovered much of the old _vires vitæ_, when on -a sudden there is an alarm; a band of mutinous Suliotes, arms in hand, -break into his lordship’s apartments, madly urging some trumpery claim for -back-pay. Whereupon Byron--showing the old savagery of his -ancestors--leaps from his bed, seizes whatever weapon is at hand, and -gory--with his bandaged head still trickling blood--he confronts the -mutineers; his strength for the moment is all his own again, and they are -cowered into submission, their yataghans clinking as they drop to the -tiled flooring of his room. - -’Twas a scene for Benjamin West to have painted in the spirit of Death on -the Pale Horse, or for some later artist--loving bloody “impressions.” -However, peace is established. Quiet reigns once more (we count by days -only, now). There is a goodly scheme for attack upon the fortress which -guards the Gulf of Lepanto (Corinth); the time is set; the guards are -ready; the Suliotes are under bidding; the chieftains are (for once) -agreed, when, on the 18th, he falters, sinks, murmurs some last -words--“Ada--daughter--love--Augusta--” barely caught; doubtfully caught; -but it is all--and the poet of _Childe Harold_ is gone, and that -turbulent, brilliant career hushed in night. - -It was on April 19, 1824, that he died. His body was taken home for -burial. I said _home_; ’twere better to have said to England, to the -family vault, in which his mother had been laid; and at a later day, his -daughter, Ada, was buried there beside him, in the old Hucknall-Torkard -church. The building is heavy and bald, without the winning -picturesqueness that belongs to so many old country churches of Yorkshire. -The beatitudes that are intoned under its timbered arch are not born of -any rural beatitudes in the surroundings. The town is small, straggly, -bricky,[78] and neither church nor hamlet nor neighbors’ houses are -suffused with those softened tints which verdure, and nice keeping, and -mellow sunshine give to so many villages of southern England. -Hucknall-Torkard is half way between Nottingham and Newstead, and lies -upon that northern road which pushes past Annesley into the region of -woods and parks where Sherwood forest once flung its shadows along the -aisles in which the bugle notes of master Robin Hood woke the echoes. - -But Hucknall-Torkard church is bald and tame. Mr. Winter, in his pleasant -descriptive sketch,[79] does indeed give a certain glow to the “grim” -tower, and many a delightful touch to the gray surroundings; but even he -would inhibit the pressure of the noisy market-folk against the -church-yard walls, and their rollicking guffaw. And yet, somehow, the -memory of Byron does not seem to me to mate well with either home or -church quietudes, and their serenities. Is it not proper and fitting after -all that the clangor of a rebellious and fitful world should voice itself -near such a grave? Old mossy and ivied towers in which church bells are -a-chime, and near trees where rooks are cawing with home-sounds, do not -marry happily with our memories of Byron. - -Best of all if he had been given burial where his heart lies, in that -Ætolian country, upon some shaggy fore-land from which could have been -seen--one way, Ithaca and the Ionian seas, and to the southward, across -the Straits of Lepanto, the woody depths of the Morea, far as Arcadia. - -But there is no mending the matter now; he lies beside his harsh Gordon -mother in the middle of the flat country of stockings, lace curtains, and -collieries. - -Another poet, William Lisle Bowles, in a quaint sonnet has versed this -Gordon mother’s imaginary welcome to her dead son:-- - - “Could that mother speak, - In thrilling, but with hollow accent weak, - She thus might give the welcome of the dead: - ‘Here rest, my son, with me; the dream is fled; - The motley mask, and the great stir is o’er. - Welcome to me, and to this silent bed, - Where deep forgetfulness succeeds the roar - Of life, and fretting passions waste the heart no more!’” - - - - -CHAPTER VII. - - -For many a page now we have spoken intermittently of that extraordinary -man and poet--full of power and full of passion, both uncontrolled--whose -surroundings we found in that pleasantly undulating Nottingham country -where Newstead Abbey piled above its lawn and its silent tarns--half a -ruin, and half a home.[80] Nor did Byron ever know a home which showed no -ruin--nor ever know a ruin, into which his verse did not nestle as into a -home. - -We traced him from the keeping of that passionate mother--who smote him -through and through with her own wrathful spirit--to the days when he -uttered the “Idle” songs--coined in the courts of Cambridge--and to those -quick succeeding days, when his mad verse maddened English bards and -Scotch reviewers. Then came the passages of love--with Mary Chaworth, -which was real and vain; with a Milbanke, which was a mockery and ended in -worse than mockery; all these experiences whetting the edge of that sword -of song with which he carved a road of romance for thousands of after -journeymen to travel, through the old Iberian Peninsula, and the vales of -Thessaly. Then there was the turning away, in rage, from the shores of -England, the episode with the Shelley household on the borders of Lake -Leman, with its record of “crag-splitting” storms and sunny siestas; and -such enduring memorials as the ghastly _Frankenstein_ of Mrs. Shelley, the -Third Canto of _Childe Harold_, and the child-name of--Allegra. - -Next came Venice, where the waves lapped murmurously upon the door-steps -of the palaces which “Mi-lord” made noisy with his audacious revelry. To -this succeeded the long stay at Ravenna, with its pacifying and -lingering, reposeful reach of an attachment, which was beautiful in its -sincerity, but as lawless as his life. After Ravenna came Pisa with its -Hunt-Lanfranchi coruscations of spleen, and its weird interlude of the -burning of the body of his poor friend Shelley upon the Mediterranean -shores. Song, and drama, and tender verselets, and bagnio-tainted pictures -of Don Juan, gleamed with fervid intensity through the interstices of this -Italian life; but they all came to a sudden stay when he sailed for -Greece, and with a generosity as strong as his wilder passions, flung away -his fortune and his life in that vortex of Suliote strifes and deadly -miasmas, which was centred amid the swamplands of Missolonghi. - -The Cretans of to-day (1897), and the men of Thessaly, and of the Morea, -and Albanians all, may find a lift of their ambitions and a spur to their -courage in Byron’s sacrifice to their old struggle for liberty, and in his -magnificent outburst of patriotic song. So, too, those who love real -poetry will never cease to admire his subtle turns of thought, and his -superb command of all the resources of language. But the households are -few in which his name will be revered as an apostle of those cheering -altitudes of thought which encourage high endeavor, or of those tenderer -humanities which spur to kindly deeds, and give their glow to the -atmosphere of homes. - - -_King William’s Time._ - -The last figure that we dealt with among England’s kings was that bluff, -vulgar-toned sailor, William IV., whom even the street-folk criticise, -because he spat from his carriage window when driving on some State -ceremonial.[81] Nor was this the worst of his coarsenesses; he swore--with -great ease and pungency. He forgot his dignity; he insulted his ministers; -he gave to Queen Adelaide, who survived him many years as dowager, many -most uncomfortable half-hours; and if he read the new sea-stories of -Captain Marryat--though he read very little--I suspect he loved more the -spicier condiments of _Peregrine Pickle_ and of _Tom Jones_. - -Yet during the period of his short reign--scarce seven years--events -happened--some through his slow helpfulness, and none suffering grievously -from his obstructiveness--which gave new and brighter color to the -political development and to the literary growth of England. There was, -for instance, the passage of the Reform Bill of 1832 (of which I have -already spoken, in connection with Sydney Smith)--not indeed accomplishing -all its friends had hoped; not inaugurating a political millennium; not -doing away with the harsh frictions of state-craft; no reforms ever do or -can; but broadening the outlook and range of all publicists, and stirring -quiet thinkers into aggressive and kindling and hopeful speech. Very -shortly after this followed the establishment of that old society for the -“Diffusion of Useful Knowledge” which came soon to the out-put--under the -editorship of Charles Knight--of the _Penny Cyclopædia_ and the _Penny -Magazine_.[82] - -I recall distinctly the delight with which--as boys--we lingered over the -pictured pages of that magazine--the great forerunner of all of our -illustrated monthlies. - -To the same period belong those _Tracts for the Times_, in which John -Keble, the honored author of the _Christian Year_, came to new notice, -while his associates, Dr. Pusey and Cardinal Newman, gave utterance to -speech which is not without reverberating echoes, even now. Nor was it -long after this date that British journalism received a great lift, and a -great broadening of its forces, by a reduction of the stamp-tax--largely -due to the efforts of Bulwer Lytton--whereby British newspapers increased -their circulation, within two years, by 20,000,000 annually.[83] - -All these things had come about in the reign of William IV.; but to none -of them had he given any enthusiastic approval, or any such urgence of -attention as would have dislocated a single one of his royal dinners. - -In 1837 he died--not very largely sighed over; least of all by that -sister-in-law, the Duchess of Kent, whom he had hated for her starched -proprieties, whom he had insulted again and again, and who now, in her -palace of Kensington, prepared her daughter Victoria for her entrance upon -the sovereignty. - - -_Her Majesty Victoria._ - -The girl was only eighteen--well taught, discreet, and modest. Greville -tells us that she was consumed with blushes when her uncles of Sussex and -of Cumberland came, with the royal council, to kneel before her, and to -kiss her hand in token of the new allegiance. - -The old king had died at two o’clock of the morning; and by eleven o’clock -on the same day the duties of royalty had begun for the young queen, in -receiving the great officers of state. Among the others she meets on that -first regal day in Kensington Palace, are Lansdowne, the fidgety Lord -Brougham, the courtly Sir Robert Peel, and the spare, trim-looking old -Duke of Wellington, who is charmed by her gracious manner, and by her -self-control and dignity. He said he could not have been more proud of -her if she had been his own daughter. - -Nearer to the young queen than all these--by old ties of friendship, that -always remained unshaken--was the suave and accomplished Lord -Melbourne--First Minister--who has prepared the queen’s little speech for -her, which she reads with charming self-possession; to him, too, she looks -for approval and instruction in all her progress through the new -ceremonials of Court, and the ordering of a royal household. And Melbourne -is admirably suited to that task; he was not a great statesman; was never -an orator, but possessed of all the arts of conciliation--adroit and full -of tact, yet kindly, sympathetic, and winning. Not by any means a man -beyond reproach in his private life, but bringing to those new offices of -political guardianship to the young queen only the soundest good-sense and -the wisest of advice--thus inspiring in her a trust that was never -forfeited. - -Indeed, it was under Melbourne’s encouragements, and his stimulative -commendation (if stimulus were needed), that the young princess formed -shortly after that marriage relation which proved altogether a happy -one--giving to England and to the world shining proof that righteous -domesticities were not altogether clean gone from royal houses. And if the -good motherly rulings have not had their best issues with some of the male -members of the family, can we not match these wry tendencies with those -fastening upon the boys of well-ordered households all around us? It is -not in royal circles only that his satanic majesty makes friends of nice -boys, when the girls escape him--or seem to! - -Well, I have gone back to that old palace of Kensington, which still, with -its mossy brick walls, in the west of London, baffles the years, and the -fogs--the same palace where we went to find William III. dying, and the -gracious Queen Anne too; and where now the Marquis of Lorne and the -Princess Louise have their home. I have taken you again there to see how -the young Victoria bore herself at the news of her accession--with the -great councillors of the kingdom about her--not alone because those whom -we shall bring to the front, in this closing chapter, have wrought during -her reign; but because, furthermore, she with her household have been -encouragers and patrons of both letters and of art in many most helpful -ways; and yet, again, because this queen, who has within this twelve-month -(1897) made her new speech to Parliament--sixty years after that first -little speech at Kensington--is herself, in virtue of certain modest -book-making, to be enrolled with all courtesy in the Guild of Letters. And -though the high-stepping critics may be inclined to question the literary -judgment or the scrupulous finish of her book-work, we cannot, I think, -deny to it a thoroughly humane tone, and a tender realism. We greet her -not only by reason of her queenship proper, but for that larger -sovereignty of womanhood and of motherhood which she has always dignified -and adorned. - -I once caught such glimpse of her--as strangers may--in the flush of her -early wedded life; not beautiful surely, but comely, kindly, and radiant, -in the enjoyment of--what is so rare with sovereigns--a happy home-life; -and again I came upon other sight of her eight years later, when the -prince was a rollicking boy, and the princess a blooming maiden; these -and lesser rosy-cheeked ones were taking the air on the terrace at -Windsor, almost in the shadow of the great keep, which has frowned there -since the days of Edward III. - - -_Macaulay._ - -In the early days of Queen Victoria’s reign--when Sir Robert Peel was -winning his way to the proud position he later held--when American and -English politicians were getting into the toils of the “Maine Boundary” -dispute (afterward settled by Ashburton and Webster), and when the -Countess of Blessington was making “Gore House” lively with her little -suppers, and the banker Rogers entertaining all _beaux esprits_ at his -home near the Green Park, there may have been found as guest at one of the -banker’s famous breakfasts--somewhere we will say in the year 1838--a man, -well-preserved, still under forty--with a shaggy brow, with clothes very -likely ill-adjusted and ill-fitting, and with gloves which are never -buttoned--who has just come back from India, where he has held lucrative -official position. He is cogitating, it is said, a history of England, -and his talk has a fulness and richness that seem inexhaustible. - -You know to whom I must refer--Thomas Babington Macaulay[84]--not a new -man at Rogers’s table, not a new man to bookish people; for he had won his -honors in literature, especially by a first paper on Milton, published in -the year 1825 in the _Edinburgh Review_. This bore a new stamp and had -qualities that could not be overlooked. There are scores of us who read -that paper for the first time in the impressionable days of youth, who are -carried back now by the mere mention of it to the times of the old Puritan -poet. - - “We can almost fancy that we are visiting him in his small lodging; - that we see him sitting at the old organ beneath the faded green - hangings; that we can catch the quick twinkle of his eyes, rolling - in vain to find the day; that we are reading in the lines of his - noble countenance the proud and mournful history of his glory and - his affliction!” - -Macaulay came of good old Scotch stock--his forefathers counting up -patriarchal families in Coll and Inverary; but his father, Zachary -Macaulay, well known for his anti-slavery action and influence, and for -his association with Wilberforce, married an English Quaker girl from -Bristol--said to have been a _protégée_ of our old friend, Mistress Hannah -More. Of this marriage was born, in 1800, at the charming country house of -an aunt, named Babington, in the pleasant county of Leicestershire, the -future historian. - -The father’s first London home was near by Lombard Street, where he -managed an African agency under the firm name of Macaulay & Babington; and -the baby Macaulay used to be wheeled into an open square near by, for the -enjoyment of such winter’s sunshine as fell there at far-away intervals. -His boyish memories, however, belonged to a later home at Clapham, then a -suburban village. There, was his first schooling, and there he budded -out--to the wonderment of all his father’s guests--into young poems and -the drollest of precocious talk. His pleasant biographer (Trevelyan) tells -of a visit the bright boy made at Strawberry Hill--Walpole’s old -showplace. There was a spilling of hot drink of some sort, during the -visitation, which came near to scalding the lad; and when the sympathizing -hostess asked after his suffering: “Thank you, madam,” said he, “the agony -is abated!” The story is delightfully credible; and so are other pleasant -ones of his reciting some of his doggerel verses to Hannah More and -getting a gracious and approving nod of her gray curls and of her mob-cap. - -At Cambridge, where he went at the usual student age, he studied what he -would, and discarded what he would--as he did all through his life. For -mathematics he had a distinguished repugnance, then and always; and if -brought to task by them in those student days--trying hard to twist their -certainties into probabilities, and so make them subject to that world of -“ifs and buts” which he loved to start buzzing about the ears of those who -loved the exact sciences better than he. He missed thus some of the -University honors, it is true; yet, up and down in those Cambridge -coteries he was a man looked for, and listened to, eagerly and bravely -applauded. Certain scholastic honors, too, he did reap, in spite of his -lunges outside the traces; there was a medal for his poem of _Pompeii_; -and a Fellowship, at last, which gave him a needed, though small -income--his father’s Afric business having proved a failure, and no home -moneys coming to him thereafter. - -The first writings of Macaulay which had public issue were printed in -_Knight’s Quarterly Magazine_--among them were criticisms on Italian -writers, a remarkable imaginary conversation between “Cowley and Milton,” -and the glittering, jingling battle verses about the War of the League and -stout “Henry of Navarre”--full to the brim of that rush and martial -splendor which he loved all his life, and which he brought in later years -to his famous re-heralding of the _Lays of Ancient Rome_. A few lines are -cited:-- - - “The King is come to marshal us, in all his armor drest; - And he has bound a snow-white plume upon his gallant crest. - He looked upon his people, and a tear was in his eye; - He looked upon the traitors, and his glance was stern and high. - Right graciously he smiled on us, as rolled from wing to wing - Down all our line a deafening shout, ‘God save our Lord the King!’ - And if my standard bearer fall, as fall full well he may, - For never saw I promise yet of such a bloody fray; - Press where ye see my white plume shine, amidst the ranks of war, - And be your oriflamme to-day the helmet of Navarre!” - -On the year after this “Battle of Ivry” had sparkled into print appeared -the paper on Milton, to which I have alluded, and which straightway set -London doors open to the freshly fledged student-at-law. Crabb Robinson, -in his diary of those days, speaks patronizingly of a “young gentleman of -six or seven and twenty, who has emerged upon the dinner-giving public,” -and is astounding old habitués by his fulness and brilliancy of talk. He -had not, to be sure, those lighter and sportive graces of conversation -which floated shortly thereafter out from the open windows of Gore House, -and had burgeoned under the beaming smiles of Lady Blessington. But he -came to be a table match for Sydney Smith, and was honored by the -invitations of Lady Holland,[85] who allowed no new find of so brilliant -feather to escape her. - - -_In Politics and Verse._ - -Macaulay’s alliance with the Scottish Reviewers, and his known liberalism, -make him a pet of the great Whigs; and through Lansdowne, with a helping -hand from Melbourne, he found his way into Parliament: there were those -who prophesied his failure in that field; I think Brougham in those days, -with not a little of jealousy in his make up, was disposed to count him a -mere essayist. But his speeches in favor of the Reform bill belied all -such auguries. Sir Robert Peel declared them to be wonderful in their -grasp and eloquence; they certainly had great weight in furthering reform; -and his parliamentary work won presently for him the offer from Government -of a place in India. No Oriental glamour allured him, but the new position -was worth £10,000 per annum. He counted upon saving the half of this, and -returning after five years with a moderate fortune. He did better, -however--shortening his period of exile by nearly a twelve-month, and -bringing back £30,000. - -His sister (who later became Lady Trevelyan) went with him as the mistress -of his Calcutta household; and his affectionate and most tender relations -with this, as well as with his younger sister, are beautifully set forth -in the charming biography by his nephew, Otto Trevelyan. It is a biography -that everybody should read; and none can read it, I am sure, without -coming to a kindlier estimate of its subject. The home-letters with which -it abounds run over with affectionate playfulness. We are brought to no -ugly _post mortem_ in the book, and no opening of old sores. It is modest, -courteous, discreet, and full. - -Macaulay did monumental work in India upon the Penal Code. He also kept up -there his voracious habits of reading and study. Listen for a moment to -his story of this: - - “During the last thirteen months I have read Eschylus, twice; - Sophocles, twice; Euripides, once; Pindar, twice; Callimachus, - Apollonius Rhodius, Theocritus, twice; Herodotus, Thucydides, - almost all of Xenophon’s works, almost all of Plato, Aristotle’s - _Politics_, and a good deal of his _Organon_; the whole of - Plutarch’s Lives; half of Lucian; two or three books of Athenæus; - Plautus, twice; Terence, twice; Lucretius, twice; Catullus, - Propertius, Lucan, Statius, Silius Italicus, Livy, Velleius - Paterculus, Sallust, Cæsar, and lastly, Cicero.” - -This is his classical list. Of his modern reading he does not tell; yet he -was plotting the _History of England_, and the bouncing balladry of the -_Lays of Rome_ was even then taking shape in the intervals of his study. - -His father died while Macaulay was upon his voyage home from India--a -father wholly unlike the son, in his rigidities and his Calvinistic -asperities; but always venerated by him, and in the latter years of the -old gentleman’s life treated with a noble and beautiful generosity. - -A short visit to Italy was made after the return from India; and it was in -Rome itself that he put some of the last touches to the Lays--staying the -work until he could confirm by personal observation the relative sites of -the bridge across the Tiber and the home of Horatius upon the Palatine. - -You remember the words perhaps; if not, ’twere well you should,-- - - “Alone stood brave Horatius, - But constant still in mind; - Thrice thirty thousand foes before, - And the broad flood behind. - ‘Down with him!’ cried false Sextus, - With a smile on his pale face. - ‘Now yield thee,’ cried Lars Porsena, - ‘Now yield thee to our grace!’ - - Round turned he, as not deigning - Those craven ranks to see; - Nought spake he to Lars Porsena, - To Sextus nought spake he! - But he saw on Palatinus - The white porch of his home; - And he spake to the noble river - That rolls by the towers of Rome. - - ‘Oh, Tiber, father Tiber! - To whom the Romans pray, - A Roman’s life, a Roman’s arms, - Take thou in charge this day!’ - So he spake, and speaking sheathed - The good sword by his side, - And, with his harness on his back, - Plunged headlong in the tide.” - -This does not sound like those verses of Shelley, which we lately -encountered. Those went through the empyrean of song like Aurora’s -chariot of the morning, with cherubs, and garlands, and flashing torches. -This, in the comparison, is like some well-appointed dump-cart, with -sleek, well-groomed Percheron horses--up to their work, and accomplishing -what they are set to do absolutely well. - -It was not until 1842, a year or two after the Italian visit, that -Macaulay ventured to publish that solitary book of his verse; he very much -doubted the wisdom of putting his literary reputation in peril by such -overture in rhyme. It extorted, however, extravagant praise from that -muscular critic Christopher North; while the fastidious Hunt writes to him -(begging a little money--as was his wont), and regretting that the book -did not show more of the poetic aroma which breathes from the _Faerie -Queene_. But say what we may of its lack--there is no weakly maundering; -it is the work of a man full-grown, with all his wits active, and his -vision clear, and who loved plain sirloins better than the fricandeaux and -ragoûts of the artists. - -There is also a scholarly handling, with high, historic air blowing -through--as if he liked his Homer better than his Spenser; his prosody is -up to the rules; the longs and shorts are split to a hair’s -breadth--jingling and merry where the sense calls for it; and sober and -resonant where meaning is weighty; flashing, too, where need is--with -sword play and spear-heads that glitter and waver over marching men; but -nowhere--I think it must be said--the tremulous poetic _susurrus_, that -falters, and touches, and detains by its mystic sounds--tempting one into -dim border-lands where higher and more inspired singers find their way. -Christabel is not of his school, nor the star-shaped shadow of -Wordsworth’s Daisy. - - -_Parliamentarian and Historian._ - -Meantime occasional papers from Macaulay’s hand found their way into the -pages of the great Northern _Review_--but by no means so many as the Whig -managers could have wished; he had himself grown to think lightly of such -work; the History was calling for his best powers, and there were -parliamentary duties devolving upon him as member for Edinboro’. - -I remember catching sight of him somewhere between 1844 and 1846--in his -place in the House of Commons, and of listening to his brilliant -castigation of Sir Robert Peel, in the matter, I think, of the Maynooth -grant. He was well toward fifty then, but sturdy--with the firm tread of a -man who could do his three or four leagues of walking--if need were; -beetle-browed; his clothes ill-adjusted; his neck bundled in a big -swathing of cravat. There was silence when he rose; there was nothing -orator-like in his bearing; rather awkward in his pose; having scorn, too, -as would seem, for any of the graces of elocution. But he was clear, -emphatic, direct, with a great swift river of words all bearing toward -definite aim. Tory critics used to say he wrote his speeches and committed -them to memory. There was no need for that. Words tripped to his tongue as -easily as to his pen. But there were no delicate modulations of voice; no -art of pantomime; no conscious or unconscious assumption of graceful -attitudes; and when subject-matter enfevered and kindled him--as it did -on that occasion--there was the hurry and the over-strained voice of -extreme earnestness. - -It was not very long after this that he met with a notable repulse from -his old political supporters in Edinboro’ that touched him grievously. But -there were certain arts of the politician he could not, and would not -learn; he could not truckle; he could not hobnob with clients who made -vulgar claims upon him. He could not make domiciliary visits, to kiss the -babies--whether of patrons, or of editors; he could not listen to twaddle -from visiting committees, without breaking into a righteous wrath that -hurt his chances. Edinboro’, afterward, however, cleared the record, by -giving him before his death a triumphant return to Parliament. - -Meantime that wonderful History had been written, and its roll of -magniloquent periods made echo in every quarter of the literary world. Its -success was phenomenal. After the issue of its second couplet of volumes -the publishers sent to the author a check for £20,000 on account. Such -checks passing between publisher and author were then uncommon; -and--without straining a point--I think I may say they are now. With its -Macaulay endorsement, it makes a unique autograph, now in the possession -of the Messrs. Longmans--but destined to find place eventually among the -manuscript treasures of the British Museum. - -The great history is a partisan history, but it is the work of a bold and -out-spoken and manly partisan. The colors that he uses are intense and -glaring; but they are blended in the making of his great panorama of King -William’s times, with a marvellous art. We are told that he was an -advocate and not a philosopher; that he was a rhetorician and not a poet. -We may grant all this, and we may grant more--and yet I think we shall -continue to cherish his work. Men of greater critical acumen and nicer -exploration may sap the grounds of some of his judgments; cooler writers, -and those of more self-restraint, may draw the fires by which his -indignations are kindled; but it will be very long before the world will -cease to find high intellectual refreshment in the crackle of his -epigrams, in his artful deployment of testimony, in his picturesque array -of great historic characters and in the roll of his sonorous periods. - -Yet he is the wrong man to copy; his exaltations make an unsafe model. He -exaggerates--but he knows how to exaggerate. He paints a truth in colors -that flow all round the truth, and enlarge it. Such outreach of rhetoric -wants corresponding capacity of brain, and pen-strokes that never swerve -or tremble. Smallish men should beware how they copy methods which want -fulness of power and the besom of enthusiasm to fill out their compass. -Homer can make all his sea-waves iridescent and multitudinous--all his -women high-bosomed or blue-eyed--and all his mountains sweep the skies: -but _we_ should be modest and simple. - -It was not until Macaulay had done his last work upon the book (still -incomplete) which he counted his monument, that he moved away from his -bachelor quarters in the Albany (Piccadilly) and established himself at -Holly Lodge, which, under the new name (he gave it) of Oirlie Lodge, may -be found upon a winding lane in that labyrinth of city roads that lies -between Kensington Gardens and Holland House. There was a bit of green -lawn attached, which he came to love in those last days of his; though he -had been without strong rural proclivities. Like Gibbon, he never hunted, -never fished, rarely rode. But now and then--among the thorn-trees -reddening into bloom and the rhododendrons bursting their buds, the May -mornings were “delicious” to him. He enjoyed, too, overmuch, the modest -hospitalities he could show in a home of his own. There are joyfully -turned notes--in his journal or in his familiar letters--of “a goose for -Michaelmas,” and of “a chine and oysters for Christmas eve,” and -“excellent audit ale” on Lord Mayor’s day. There, too, at Holly Lodge, -comes to him in August, 1857, when he was very sad about India (as all the -world were), an offer of a peerage. He accepts it, as he had accepted all -the good things of life--cheerily and squarely, and was thenceforward -Baron Macaulay of Rothley. He appears from time to time on the benches of -the Upper House, but never spoke there. His speaking days were over. A -little unwonted fluttering of the heart warned him that the end was not -far off. - -A visit to the English lakes and to Scotland in 1859 did not--as was -hoped--give him access of strength. He was much disturbed, too (at this -crisis), by the prospect of a long separation from his sister, Lady -Trevelyan--whose husband had just now been appointed Governor of Madras. -“This prolonged parting,” he says, “this slow sipping of the vinegar and -the gall is terrible!” And the parting came earlier than he thought, and -easier; for on a day of December in the same year he died in his library -chair. His nephew and biographer had left him in the morning--sitting with -his head bent forward on his chest--an attitude not unusual for him--in a -languid and drowsy reverie. In the evening, a little before seven, Lady -Trevelyan was summoned, and the biographer says:--“As we drove up to the -porch of my uncle’s house, the maids ran crying into the darkness to meet -us; and we knew that all was over.” - -He was not an old man--only fifty-nine. The stone which marks his grave in -Westminster Abbey is very near to the statue of Addison. - -In estimating our indebtedness to Macaulay as a historian--where his fame -and execution were largest--we must remember that his method of close -detail forbade wide outlook or grasp of long periods of time. If he had -extended the same microscopic examination and dramatic exhibit of -important personages to those succeeding reigns, which he originally -intended to cover--coming down to the days of William IV.--he would have -required fifty volumes; and if he had attempted, in the same spirit, a -reach like that of Green or Hume, his rhetorical periods must have -overflowed more than two hundred bulky quartos! No ordinary man could read -such; and--thank Heaven!--no extraordinary man could write so many. - - -_Some Tory Critics._ - -Among those who sought with a delightsome pertinacity for flaws in the -historic work of Macaulay, in his own time, was John Wilson Croker, to -whom I have already alluded.[86] He was an older man than the historian; -Irish by birth, handsome, well-allied by marriage, plausible, fawning on -the great (who were of _his_ party) wearing easily and boastfully his -familiarity with Wellington, Lansdowne and Cumberland, airing daintily his -literary qualities at the tables of Holland or Peel; proud of his place in -Parliament, where he loved to show a satiric grace of speech, and the -curled lips of one used to more elegant encounters. In short, he was the -very man to light up the blazing contempt of such another as Macaulay; -more than all since Croker was identified with the worst form of Toryism, -and the other always his political antagonist. - -Such being the _animus_ of the parties, one can imagine the delight of -Croker in detecting a blunder of Macaulay, and the delight of Macaulay -when he was able to pounce upon the blunders in Croker’s edition of -_Boswell’s Johnson_. This was on many counts an excellent work and--with -its emendations--holds its ground now; but I think the slaps, and the -scourgings, and the derisive mockery which the critic dealt out to the -self-poised and elegant Croker have made a highly appetizing _sauce -piquante_ for the book these many a year. For my own part, I never enjoy -it half so much as when I think of Macaulay’s rod of discipline “starting -the dust out of the varlet’s [editor’s] jacket.” - -It is not a question if Croker deserved this excoriation; we are so taken -up with the dexterity and effectiveness with which the critical professor -uses the surgeon’s knife, that we watch the operation, and the exceeding -grace and ease with which he lays bare nerve after nerve, without once -inquiring if the patient is really in need of such heroic treatment. - -The Croker Papers[87]--two ponderous volumes of letters and diary which -have been published in these latter years--have good bits in them; but -they are rare bits, to be dredged for out from quagmires of rubbish. The -papers are interesting, furthermore, as showing how a cleverish man, with -considerable gifts of presence and of brain, with his re-actionary Toryism -dominant, and made a fetich of, can still keep a good digestion and go in -a respectable fashion through a long life--backwards, instead of “face to -the front.” - -In this connection it is difficult to keep out of mind that other Toryish -administrator of the _Quarterly_ bombardments of reform and of -Liberalists--I mean Lockhart (to whom reference has already been made in -the present volume), and who, with all of Croker’s personal gifts, added -to these a still larger scorn than that of his elder associate in the -Quarterly conclaves, for those whose social disabilities disqualified them -for breathing the rarefied air which circulated about Albemarle Street and -the courts of Mr. Murray. Even Mr. Lang in his apologetic but very -interesting story of Lockhart’s life,[88] cannot forbear quiet -reprehensive allusions to that critic’s odious way of making caustic -allusion to “the social rank” of political opponents; although much of -this he avers “is said in wrath.” Yet it is an unworthy wrath, always and -everywhere, which runs in those directions. Lockhart, though an acute -critic, and a very clever translator, was a supreme worshipper of -“conditions,” rather than of qualities. He never forgave Americans for -being Americans, and never preter-mitted his wrathy exposition of their -‘low-lived antecedents’ socially. The baronetcy of his father-in-law, Sir -Walter Scott, was I think, a perpetual and beneficent regalement to him. - - -_Two Gone-by Story Tellers._ - -Must it be said that the jolly story-teller of the sea and of the -sea-ports, who wrote for our uncles and aunts, and elder brothers, the -brisk, rollicking tales about _Midshipman Easy_, and _Japhet in Search of -a Father_, is indeed gone by? - -His name was Frederick Marryat,[89] the son of a well-to-do London -gentleman, who had served the little Borough of Sandwich as member of -Parliament (and was also author of some verses and political tractates), -but who did not wean his boy from an inborn love of the sea. To gratify -this love the boy had sundry adventurous escapades; but when arrived at -the mature age of fourteen, he entered as midshipman in the Royal -Navy--his first service, and a very active one, being with that brave and -belligerent Lord Cochrane, who later won renown on the west coast of South -America. Adventures of most hazardous and romantic qualities were not -wanting under such an officer, all of which were stored in the retentive -memory of the enthusiastic and observant midshipman, and thereafter, for -years succeeding, were strewn with a free hand over his tales of the sea. -These break a good many of the rules of rhetoric--and so do sailors; they -have to do with the breakage of nearly all the commandments--and so do -sailors. But they are breezy; they are always pushing forward; spars and -sails are all ship-shape; and so are the sailors’ oaths, and the rattle of -the chain-cables, and the slatting of the gaskets, and the smell of the -stews from the cook’s galley. - -There is also a liberal and _quasi_ democratic coloring of the links and -interludes of his novels. The trials of _Peter Simple_ grow largely out of -the cruel action of the British laws of primogeniture; nor does the jolly -midshipman--grandson, or nephew--forego his satiric raps at my lord -“Privilege.” Yet Marryat shows no special admiration for such evolutions -of the democratic problem as he encounters in America.[90] - -Upon the whole, one finds no large or fine literary quality in his books; -but the _fun_ in them is positive, and catching--as our aunts and uncles -used to find it; but it is the fun of the tap-room, and of the for’castle, -rather than of the salon, or the library. For all this, scores and scores -of excellent old people were shaking their sides--in the early part of -this century--over the pages of Captain Marryat--in the days when other -readers with sighs were bemoaning the loss of the “Great Magician’s” power -in the dreary story of _Count Robert of Paris_, or kindling into a new -worship as they followed Ainsworth’s[91] vivid narrative of Dick Turpin’s -daring gallop from London to York. - -A nearer name to us, and one perhaps more familiar, is that of G. P. R. -James,[92] an excellent, industrious man, who drove his trade of -novel-making--as our engineers drive wells--with steam, and pistons, and -borings, and everlasting clatter. - -Yet,--is this sharp, irreverent mention, wholly fair to the old gentleman, -upon whose confections, and pastries, so many of us have feasted in times -past? What a delight it was--not only for youngsters, but for white-haired -judges, and country lawyers--to listen for the jingle of the spurs, when -one of Mr. James’s swarthy knights--“with a grace induced by habits of -martial exercise”--came dashing into old country quietudes, with his visor -up; or, perhaps in “a Genoa bonnet of black velvet, round which his rich -chestnut hair coiled in profusion”--making the welkin ring with his--“How -now, Sir Villain!” - -I caught sight of this great necromancer of “miniver furs,” and -mantua-making chivalry--in youngish days, in the city of New York--where -he was making a little over-ocean escape from the multitudinous work that -flowed from him at home; a well-preserved man, of scarce fifty years, -stout, erect, gray-haired, and with countenance blooming with mild uses of -mild English ale--kindly, unctuous--showing no signs of deep -thoughtfulness or of harassing toil. I looked him over, in boyish way, for -traces of the court splendors I had gazed upon, under his ministrations, -but saw none; nor anything of the “manly beauty of features, rendered -scarcely less by a deep scar upon the forehead,”--nor “of the gray cloth -doublets slashed with purple;” a stanch, honest, amiable, well-dressed -Englishman--that was all. - -And yet, what delights he had conjured for us! Shall we be ashamed to name -them, or to confess it all? Shall the modern show of new flowerets of -fiction, and of lilies--forced to the front in January--make us forget -utterly the old cinnamon roses, and the homely but fragrant pinks, which -once regaled and delighted us, in the April and May of our age? - -What incomparable siestas those were, when, from between half-closed -eyelids, we watched for the advent of the two horsemen--one in corselet of -shining silver, inlaid with gold, and the other with hauberk of bright -steel rings--slowly riding down the distant declivity, under the rays of a -warm, red sunset! Then, there were abundance of gray castle-walls--ever so -high, the ivy hanging deliciously about them; and there were clanging -chains of draw-bridges, that rattled when a good knight galloped over; and -there were stalwart gypsies lying under hedges, with charmingest of little -ones with flaxen hair (who are not gypsies at all, but only stolen); and -there is clash of arms; and there are bad men, who get punched with spear -heads--which is good for them; and there are jolly old burghers who drink -beer, and “troll songs”; and assassins who lurk in the shadows of long -corridors--where the moonbeams shine upon their daggers; and there are -dark-haired young women, who look out of casements and kiss their hands -and wave white kerchiefs,--and somebody sees it in the convenient edge of -the wood, and salutes in return, and steals away; and the assassin -escapes, and the gypsies are captured in the bush, and some bad king is -killed, and an old parchment is found, and the stars come out, and the -rivulet murmurs, and the good knight comes back; and the dark tresses are -at the casement, and she smiles, and the marriage bells ring, and they are -happy. And the school bell (for supper) rings, and we are happy! - - * * * * * - -As I close this book with these last shadowy glimpses of story-tellers, -who have told their pleasant tales, and have lived out their time, and -gone to rest, I see lifting over that fair British horizon, where Victoria -shows her queenly presence--the modest Mr. Pickwick, with his gaiters and -bland expanse of figure; Thackeray, too, with his stalwart form and -spectacled eyes is peering out searchingly upon all he encounters; the -refined face of Ruskin is also in evidence, and his easy magniloquence is -covering one phase of British art with new robes. A woman’s Dantesque -profile shows the striking qualities which are fairly mated by the -striking passages in _Adam Bede_ and _Daniel Deronda_; one catches sight, -too, of the shaggy, keen visage of the quarrel-loving Carlyle, and of -those great twin-brethren of poesy--Browning and Tennyson--the Angelo and -the Raphael of latter images in verse. Surely these make up a wonderful -grouping of names--not unworthy of comparison with those others whom we -found many generations ago, grouped around another great queen of England, -who blazed in her royal court, and flaunted her silken robes, and--is -gone. - - - - -FOOTNOTES - - -[1] Robert Southey, b. 1774; d. 1843. _Joan of Arc_ (pub.) 1796; -_Thalaba_, 1801; _A Vision of Judgment_, 1821; _Life of Nelson_, 1813; -_The Doctor_, 1834-47. _Life and Correspondence_, edited by Rev. Chas. -Cuthbert Southey, 1849-50. - -[2] In a letter to his friend Bedford (he being then aged fifty) he -writes: “I have taken again to my old coat and old shoes; dine at the -reasonable hour of four; enjoy, as I used to do, the wholesome indulgence -of a nap after dinner,” etc. - -[3] Letter to Bedford, under date of December, 1793.--_Life and -Correspondence_, p. 69. - -[4] In the _Imaginary Conversation_ between Southey and Porson, Landor -makes Porson say: “It is pleasant to find two poets [Southey and -Wordsworth] living as brothers, and particularly when the palm lies -between them, with hardly a third in sight.” - -Lamb, too, in a letter to Mr. Coleridge (p. 194, Moxon edition of 1832, -London), says: “On the whole, I expect Southey one day to rival Milton; I -already deem him equal to Cowper, and superior to all living poets -besides.” This is _apropos_ of _Joan of Arc_, which had then recently -appeared. He begins his letter: “With _Joan of Arc_ I have been delighted, -amazed; I had not presumed to expect anything of such excellence from -Southey.” - -[5] George IV. was appointed Regent in the year 1811, the old king, George -III., being then plainly so far bereft of his senses as to incapacitate -him even for intelligent clerical service. He died, as we shall find -later, in the year 1820, when the Regent succeeded, and reigned for ten -years. - -The _Croker Papers_ (1884), recently published, make mention of Mr. -Croker’s intervention in the matter of the bestowal of the Laureate-ship -upon Southey. Croker was an old friend of Southey, and a trusted -go-between in all literary service for the royal household. - -[6] The sixth and seventh volumes appeared after the poet’s death, in -1847. - -[7] Henry Crabb Robinson, b. 1775; d. 1867. _Diary, Reminiscences_, etc. -(ed. by Sadler), 1869. - -[8] Best edition is that of Macmillan, London, 1869. - -[9] Thomas De Quincey, b. 1785; d. 1859. _Confessions of an English Opium -Eater_, 1821. Complete edition of works, 1852-55. _Life and Writings_: H. -A. Page, 2 vols. London, 1877. - -[10] The entry is of 1812, p. 391, chap. xv. Macmillan’s edition. London, -1869. - -[11] Page 215; vol. ii., _Reminiscences_. Boston Edition. - -[12] John Wilson, b. 1785; d. 1854; better known as Christopher North, his -pseudonym in _Blackwood_. _The Isle of Palms_, 1811; _The City of the -Plague_, 1816; _Recreations of Christopher North_, 1842. In 1851 a -civil-list pension of £300 was conferred upon him. His younger brother -James Wilson was a well-known naturalist, and author of _The Rod and the -Gun_. - -[13] “Old North and Young North.” _Blackwood_, June, 1828. - -[14] Dorothy Wordsworth, under date of 1809, writes to her friend, Lady -Beaumont--“Surely I have spoken to you of Mr. Wilson, a young man of some -fortune, who has built a house in a very fine situation not far from -Bowness.… He has from boyhood been a passionate admirer of my brother’s -writings. [And again.] We all, including Mr. De Quincey and Coleridge, -have been to pay the Bachelor (Wilson) a visit, and we enjoyed ourselves -very much in a pleasant mixture of merriment, and thoughtful discourse.… -He is now twenty-three years of age.”--Coleorton _Letters_, vol. ii, p. -91. - -[15] John Gibson Lockhart, b. 1794; d. 1854. Connected with _Blackwood_, -1818; _Adam Blair_, 1822; with _Quarterly Review_, 1826-53; _Ancient -Spanish Ballads_, 1823; _Memoirs of Walter Scott_, 1836-38. Recent _Life -of Lockhart_, by Andrew Lang. 2 vols., 8vo. Nimmo, London. - -[16] Mrs. Gordon says, quoting from her mother’s record: Mr. Wilson is as -busy studying as possible; indeed, he has little time before him for his -great task; he says it will take one month at least to make out a -catalogue of the books he has to read and consult. I am perfectly appalled -when I go into the dining-room and see all the folios, quartos, and -duodecimos, with which it is literally filled; and the poor culprit -himself sitting in the midst, with a beard as long and red as an ancient -carrot; for he has not shaved for a fortnight. P. 215, _Memoir of John -Wilson_. We are sorry to see that Mr. Lang, in his recent _Life of -Lockhart_ (1897), pp. 135-6-7-8, has put some disturbing cross-coloring -(perhaps justly) upon the pleasant portrait which Mrs. Gordon has drawn of -Christopher North. - -[17] Mrs. Gordon’s _Memoir of John Wilson_, p. 222. The statement is -credited to the author of _The Two Cosmos_. Middleton, New York, 1863. - -[18] Thomas Campbell, b. 1777; d. 1844. _The Pleasures of Hope_, 1799; -_Gertrude of Wyoming_, 1809; _Life of Petrarch_, 1841; Dr. Beattie’s -_Life_, 1850. - -[19] _Maclise Portrait Gallery_, London, 1883 (which cites in -confirmation, _Notes and Queries_, December 13, 1862). - -[20] De Quincey says that he was the only man in all Europe who quoted -Wordsworth as early as 1802. Yet, _per contra_, the _Lyrical Ballads_ had -warm praises from Jeffrey (in _Monthly Review_) and from Southey (in -_Critical_)--showing that the finer ears had caught the new notes from -Helicon. - -[21] Walter Scott, b. 1771; d. 1832; _Lay of Last Minstrel_, 1805; -_Marmion_, 1808; _Lady of the Lake_, 1810; _Waverley_, 1814; _Woodstock_, -1826; _Life of Napoleon_, 1827; _Life_, by Lockhart, 1832-37. - -[22] He was clerk in Her Majesty’s Foreign Office in London. Carlyle says -in a letter (of date of 1842), “I have the liveliest impression of that -good honest Scotch face and character, though never in contact with the -young man but once.”--Lang’s _Lockhart_, p. 232, vol. ii. - -[23] For those readers who have a failing for genealogic quests, I give a -_résumé_ of the Scott family history and succession of heirs to -Abbotsford. The earlier items are from Scott’s black-letter Bible. - - Walter Scott, Senior, m. 1758 = Anne Rutherford. - | - +------------+ - | - Walter Scott, Bart., - b. 1771; d. 1832; m. 1797 = Margaret Charlotte - one of twelve children, | Carpenter, of French - of whom five | blood and birth. - reached maturity. | - | - +-----------------+---------+--------+-------------+ - | | | | - Charlotte Sophia, Walter, Br. Army, Anne, bapt. Charles, - bapt. 1799; d. bapt. 1801; m. 1803; d. bapt. 1805; d. - 1837; m. 1820 1825, Miss Jobson; unmarried unmarried 1841. - = J. G. Lockhart. d. s. p. 1847. 1833. - | - +----+----------------+---------------------+ - | | | - John Hugh, Walter Scott, Charlotte, b. 1828; d. 1858 - b. 1821; d. b. 1826; d. m. 1847, J. R. Hope, - 1831. unmarried later Hope Scott. - 1853. | - | - +--------------------------------+ - | - Mary Monica, b. 1852; now Mrs. Maxwell Scott, - of Abbotsford. - -[24] Chapter IV. _Queen Anne and the Georges._ - -[25] Lockhart’s _Life of Scott_, chapter viii., pp. 126-27, vol. iii., -Paris edition. - -[26] Henry Mackenzie, b. 1745; d. 1831. _Man of Feeling_, 1771; _The -Lounger_, 1785. - -[27] Rev. Sydney Smith, b. 1771; d. 1845. _Memoir_ by Lady Holland. - -[28] Francis Horner, b. 1778; d. 1817. _Memoirs and Correspondence_, 1843. - -[29] Henry Brougham (Lord Brougham and Vaux), b. 1778; d. 1868. _Collected -Speeches_, 1838. _Historic Sketches, etc._, 1839-43. Autobiography (edited -by a brother), published in 1871. - -[30] _Albert Lunel; or The Château of Languedoc._ Lowndes (Bohn) says--“3 -vols. post 8vo, 1844. This novel was suppressed on the eve of publication, -and it is said not above five copies of the original edition are extant.” -The _Maclise Portrait Gallery_ speaks of an issue in 1872. - -[31] _Life and Correspondence of Lord Jeffrey_, by Lord Cockburn, p. 283, -vol. i., Harper’s edition. - -[32] A grandniece of the great marplot John Wilkes of George III.’s time, -and a near connection (if I am not mistaken) of Captain Wilkes of the -South Sea Expedition and of the Mason and Slidell seizure. - -[33] Cited from recollection; but very close to his own utterance, in a -letter to a friend. - -[34] This was arranged through Lord Grey, in exchange for a place in -Bristol Cathedral, which had been bestowed by his Tory friend Lyndhurst. -To the same friend he was indebted for his living at Combe Fleurey. - -[35] _Life and Times of Rev. Sydney Smith_, by STUART J. REID, p. 226, -1885. - -[36] James Mackintosh, b. 1765; d. 1832; _Vindiciæ Gallicæ_ (reply to -Burke), 1791; _Memoirs_, by his son, 1835. - -[37] _History of the Revolution in England in 1688, Comprising a View of -the Reign of James II. from his Accession to the Enterprise [sic] of the -Prince of Orange_, London, 1834. - -[38] Smith, Jeffrey, Brown, Horner, and Brougham. Stephens: _Hours in a -Library_, iii., 140. - -The “Brown” alluded to as one of the founders, was Dr. Thomas Brown, a -distinguished physician and psychologist (b. 1778; d. 1820), who after -issue of third number of the _Review_, had differences with Jeffrey -(virtual editor) which led him to withdraw his support. _Life_, by Welsh, -p. 79 _et seq._ - -[39] I cannot forbear giving--though only in a note--one burst of his -fervid oratory, when his powers were at their best: - -“It was the boast of Augustus--it formed part of the glare in which the -perfidies of his earlier years were lost--that he found Rome of brick, and -left it of marble--a praise not unworthy of a great prince, and to which -the present reign [George IV.] has its claim also. But how much nobler -will be our Sovereign’s boast, when he shall have it to say, that he found -law dear and left it cheap; found it a sealed book, and left it a living -letter; found it the patrimony of the rich, left it the inheritance of the -poor; found it the two-edged sword of craft and oppression, left it the -staff of honesty and the shield of innocence.” Speech, on _Present State -of the Law_, February 7, 1828. - -[40] William Gifford, b. 1757; d. 1826. I give the birth-date named by -himself in his autobiography, though the new _National Dictionary of -Biography_ gives date of 1756. Gifford--though not always the best -authority--ought to have known the year when he was born. - -Ed. _Quarterly Review_, 1809-1824; _Juvenal_, 1802; _Ben Jonson_, 1816. - -Some interesting matter concerning the early life of Gifford may be found -in Memoirs of _John Murray_, vol. 1, pp. 127 _et seq._ - -[41] John Wilson Croker, b. 1780; d. 1857, wrote voluminously for the -_Quarterly Review_; _Life of Johnson_ (ed.), 1831; his _Memoirs_ and -_Correspondence_, 1885. - -[42] Very much piquant talk about George IV. and his friends may be found -in the _Journal of Mary Frampion from 1779 until 1846_. London: Sampson -Low & Co., 1885. - -[43] _English Lands and Letters_, vol. iii., pp. 168-70. - -[44] Queen Charlotte, d. 1818. - -[45] W. S. Landor, b. 1775; d. 1864. _Gebir_, 1798; _Imaginary -Conversations_, 1824; Foster’s _Life_, 1869. - -[46] P. 465. _Last Fruit from an Old Tree._ - -[47] Colvin cites this from unpublished verses. - -[48] In his _Last Fruits from an Old Tree_, p. 334, Moxon Edition, Landor -writes: “Southey could grasp great subjects and master them; Coleridge -never attempted them; Wordsworth attempted it and failed.” This is -strongly _ex parte_! - -[49] I would strongly urge, however, the reading and purchase, if may be, -of Colvin’s charming little _Golden Treasury_ collection from Landor. - -[50] Leigh Hunt, b. 1784; d. 1859. _Francesca da Rimini_, 1816; -_Recollections of Byron_, 1828; _The Indicator_, 1819-21; _Autobiography_, -1850. - -[51] Thomas Moore, b. 1779; d. 1852. _Lalla Rookh_, 1817. _Life of Byron_, -1830. _Alciphron_, 1839. - -[52] Sloperton was near the centre of Wiltshire, a little way northward -from the old market-town of Devizes. Mr. William Winter, in his _Gray Days -and Gold_, has given a very charming account of this home of Moore’s and -of its neighborhood--so full of English atmosphere, and of the graces and -benignities of the Irish poet, as to make me think regretfully of my tamer -mention. - -[53] William Hazlitt, b. 1778; d. 1830. _Characters of Shakespeare_, 1817; -_Table Talk_, 1821; _Liber Amoris_, 1823; _Life of Napoleon_, 1828; _Life_ -(by Grandson), 1867; a later book of memoirs, _Four Generations of a -Literary Family_, appeared 1897. (It gave nothing essentially new, and was -quickly withdrawn from sale.) - -[54] Henry Hallam, b. 1777; d. 1859. _Middle Ages_, 1818. _Literature of -Europe_, 1837-39. Sketch of _Life_, by Dean Milman in _Transactions of -Royal Society_, vol. x. - -[55] Marguerite Power (Countess of Blessington), b. 1789; d. 1849; m. -Captain Farmer, 1804; m. Earl of Blessington, 1817. 1822-1829, travelling -on Continent. _Idler in Italy_, 1839-40 (first novel, about 1833). -_Conversations with Lord Byron_, 1834. Her special _reign_ in London, 1831 -to 1848. - -[56] There is a very interesting, but by no means flattered, account of -Lady Blessington and of her dinners and receptions in Greville’s _Journal -of the Reign of Queen Victoria_, chapter iv., p. 167, vol. i. - -[57] Edward L. Bulwer (Lord Lytton), b. 1803; d. 1873; _Pelham_, 1828; -_Rienzi_, 1835; _Caxton Novels_, 1849-53; _Richelieu_, 1839; his -_Biography_ (never fully completed) has been written by his son, the -second Lord Lytton. It is doubtful, however, if its developments, and -inevitable counter-developments, have brought any access of honor to the -elder Bulwer. - -[58] Benjamin Disraeli (Lord Beaconsfield), b. 1804; d. 1881. _Vivian -Grey_, 1826-27; _Contarini Fleming_, 1832; _Coningsby_, 1844; _Lothair_, -1870. Was Premier, 1867, 1874-80. Created Earl of Beaconsfield, 1876. - -[59] _Vaurien_, 1797; _Flim-Flams_, 1805; _Despotism_, or _Fall of the -Jesuits_, 1811. - -[60] A. E. Chalon, an artist much in vogue in the days of “Tokens,”--who -also painted Lady Blessington,--but of no lasting reputation. - -[61] In illustration of his comparatively humble position early, Greville -in his later _Journal_, Chapter XXIV., speaks of Disraeli’s once proposing -to Moxon, the publisher, to take him (Disraeli) into partnership; Greville -says Moxon told him this. - -[62] George Noel Gordon (Lord Byron), b. (London) 1788; d. (Greece) 1824. -_Hours of Idleness_, 1807; _English Bards, etc._, 1809; _Childe Harold_ (2 -cantos), 1812; _Don Juan_, 1819-24; Moore’s _Life_, 1830; Trelawney, -_Recollections, etc._, 1858. The first volume (Macmillan, 1897) has -appeared of a new edition of Byron’s works, with voluminous notes (in -over-fine print) by William Ernest Henley. The editorial stand-point may -be judged by this averment from the preface,--“the sole English poet bred -since Milton to live a master-influence in the world at large.” - -Another full edition of works, with editing by Earl of Lovelace (grandson -of Byron), is announced as shortly to appear from the press of Murray in -London, and of Scribners in New York. - -[63] Byron’s _Narrative_, published in the first volume of _Hawkesworth’s -Collection_. Hon. John Byron, Admiral, etc., was at one time Governor of -Newfoundland; b. 1723; d. 1786. - -[64] The short line is not enough. We must give the burden of that -apostrophe to the land of Hellas, though only in a note: - - “Sweet are thy groves, and verdant are thy fields; - Thine olive ripe as when Minerva smiled, - And still his honeyed wealth Hymettus yields. - There the blithe bee his fragrant fortress builds, - The free-born wanderer of the mountain air; - Apollo still thy long, long summer gilds, - Still in his beams Mendeli’s marbles glare, - Art, Glory, Freedom fail, but Nature still is fair.” - -[65] I cite that part of the “Dream” which, though written much time -after, was declared by the poet, and by both friends and foes, to -represent faithfully his attitude--both moral and physical--on the -occasion of his marriage. - -[66] This poem appeared about the middle of April, 1816. The final break -in his relations with Lady Byron had occurred, probably, in early February -of the same year. On December 10, 1815, his daughter Ada was born; and on -April 25th, next ensuing, he sailed away from England forever. Byron -insisted that the poem (“Fare thee well”), though written in sincerity, -was published against his inclinations, through the over-zeal of a -friend.--_Moore’s Life_, p. 526, vol. i. - -[67] Percy Bysshe Shelley, b. 1792; d. (by drowning in Gulf of Spezia) -1822. _Queen Mab_, pub. 1821 (but privately printed 1813); _Alastor_, -1816; _Laon and Cythna_ (afterward _Revolt of Islam_), 1818; _Adonais_, -1821. _Life_, by Mrs. Shelley, 1845; Hogg’s _Life_, 1858; Rossetti’s, -1870. Besides which there is biographic material, more or less full, by -Forman, Trelawny, McCarthy, Leigh Hunt, Garnett, and Jeaffreson (_Real -Shelley_). _Life_, in _English Men of Letters_, by the late John Addington -Symonds; and in 1886, Professor Dowden’s work. - -[68] Rossetti, in _Ency. Britannica_, says, “in Christ Church, Newark”--as -to which item (repeated by Dowden) there has been some American -wonderment! - -[69] July, 1804, to July, 1810; _Athenæum_, No. 3,006, June, 1885. - -[70] William Godwin, b. 1756; d. 1836. _Political Justice_, 1793; _Caleb -Williams_, 1794. William Austen (author of _Peter Rugg_), in his _Letters -from London_, 1802-3, describes a visit to Godwin at his -cottage--Somerston; notices a portrait of “Mary” (Mrs. Shelley) hanging -over the mantel. - -[71] Miss Martineau (p. 304, vol. ii., _Autobiography_) says that Godwin -told her he wrote the first half of _Caleb Williams_ in three months, and -then stopped for six--finishing it in three more. “This pause,” she says, -“in the middle of a work so intense, seems to me a remarkable incident.” - -[72] Separation took place about the middle of June, 1814; she destroyed -herself, November 10, 1816. At one time there had been ugly rumors that -she was untrue to him; and there is some reason to believe that Shelley -once entertained this belief, but there is no adequate testimony to that -end; Godwin’s _dixit_ should not count for very much. Dowden leaves the -matter in doubt. - -[73] I am reminded that Macready’s impersonation of Werner was a noted and -successful one. _Sardanapalus_ and the _Two Foscari_ enlisted also the -fervor of this actor’s dramatic indorsement. But these all--needed a -Macready. - -[74] Very full account of the Chancery proceedings in respect to children -of Shelley may be found in Professor Dowden’s biography. By this it would -appear that by decision of Lord Eldon (July 25, 1818) Shelley was allowed -to see his children twelve times a year--if in the presence of their -regularly appointed guardians (Dr. and Mrs. Hume). - -[75] John Keats, b. 1795; d. 1821. First “collected” _Poems_, 1817; -_Endymion_, 1818; second volume of collected _Poems_, 1820; _Life and -Letters_--Lord Houghton (Milnes), 1848. - -[76] “Ode to a Nightingale,” vi. - -[77] In letter 573, to Murray (Halleck Col., date of Genoa, November, -1822), Byron says: “I see somebody represents the Hunts and Mrs. Shelley -as living in my house; it is a falsehood.… I do not see them twice a -month.” - -[78] Professor Hoppin, in his honest and entertaining _Old England_, -speaks of it (p. 258) as “a dull, dirty village,” and--of the church--as -“most forlorn.” - -[79] _Gray Days and Gold_; chapter viii. Macmillan, 1896. - -[80] This relates, of course, to the condition of the Abbey in the days of -Byron’s childhood. Colonel Wildman, a distinguished officer in the -Peninsular War, who succeeded to the ownership (by purchase) about 1817, -expended very large sums upon such judicious improvements as took away its -old look of desolation. - -[81] _Croker Papers_, chapter xviii. Closing of Session of 1833. Croker -would have spoken more gently of him in those latter days, when the king -turned his back on Reformers. - -[82] The _Penny Magazine_ appeared first in 1832; the _Cyclopædia_ in the -following year. - -[83] The reduction of tax from 4_d._ to 1_d._ took place in 1836. - -[84] Thomas Babington Macaulay, b. 1800; d. 1859. _History of England_, -1848-55-61. _Lays of Ancient Rome_, 1842. His _Essays_ (published in -America), 1840. Complete _Works_, London, 8 vols., 1866. _Life_, by -Trevelyan, 1876. - -[85] Greville (_Journal of Queen Victoria’s Time_, vol. i., p. 369) speaks -of a dinner at Lady Holland’s--Macaulay being present--when her ladyship, -growing tired of the eloquence of Speakers of the House of Commons and -Fathers of the Church, said: “Well, Mr. Macaulay, can you tell us anything -of dolls--when first named or used?” Macaulay was ready on the -instant--dilated upon Roman dolls and others--citing Persius, “_Veneri -donato a virgine puppæ_.” - -[86] See p. 116, _Ante_. - -[87] _Memoirs and Correspondence_, 1885. - -[88] Lang’s _Lockhart_, p. 42, vol. ii. - -[89] Frederick Marryat, b. 1792; d. 1848; R. N., 1806; Commander, 1815; -resigned, 1830. _Frank Mildmay_, 1829; _Midshipman Easy_, 1836; _Peter -Simple_, 1837; _Jacob Faithful_, 1838; _Life_, by his daughter, Florence, -1872. - -[90] _Diary in America_, by Captain F. Marryat, 1839. - -[91] William Harrison Ainsworth, b 1805; d. 1882. _Rookwood_, -1834--chiefly notable for its wonderful description of Dick Turpin’s -ride--upon Black Bess--from London to York. _Tower of London_, 1840. - -[92] G. P. R. James, b. 1801; d. 1860. _Richelieu_ (first novel), 1829; -_Darnley_, 1830; _One in a Thousand_, 1835; _Attila_, 1837. His books -count far above a hundred in number: Lowndes (Bohn) gives over seventy -titles of novels alone. What he might have done, with a modern type-writer -at command, it is painful to imagine. - - - - -INDEX. - - - Abbotsford, 66; - the author’s visit to, 67 _et seq._; 81. - - “Abou-ben-Adhem,” 152. - - “Adam Bede,” 287. - - “Adonais,” 232. - - Ainsworth, W. H., 283. - - “Alastor,” 221. - - Alison, Rev. Archibald, 84. - - “Anacreon,” Moore’s, 154. - - “Ancient Mariner, Rime of the,” 56. - - Arnold, Dr., his experience with the young princes, 118. - - Aylmer, Rose, 129. - - - “Battle of Blenheim, The,” 9. - - “Battle of Hohenlinden,” Campbell’s, 53. - - “Battle of Ivry, The,” 264. - - Beaconsfield, Lord. _See_ Disraeli. - - _Blackwood’s Magazine_, 42; 46; 52. - - Blessington, Lady, 174 _et seq._; - her many fascinations, 176; - her downfall, 186; 242; 259; 264. - - “Border Minstrelsy,” Scott’s, 60. - - Boswell, Gifford’s satire on, 115. - - Bowles, Caroline, 23. - - Bowles, William Lisle, 248. - - Brougham, Henry, 87; - his connection with the _Edinburgh Review_, 88; - becomes Lord Chancellor, 89; - his manner in Parliament, 90; - his fervid oratory, 108, note; - his many quarrels, 109; - his death, 110; 113; - his famous defence of Queen Caroline, 124; 177; - his criticism of Byron, 193; 255; 265. - - Brown, Dr. Thomas, his connection with the _Edinburgh Review_, 107, note. - - Browning, Robert, 288. - - Bulwer-Lytton, Edward L., 178; 254. - - Byron, Lord, 56; - his satire on Scott, 78; - Leigh Hunt’s quarrel with, 144; - his opinion of Moore, 161; - compared with Moore, 162; - his break with George IV., 168; - leaves England, 188; - his family history, 190; - his boyhood, 191; - his controversy with Brougham, 193; - his unfortunate marriage, 201 _et seq._; - in London, 206; - separates from his wife, 209; - leaves England, 212; - his foreign tour, 214; - meets Shelley, 216; - Shelley’s influence on, 222; - in Italy, 223; - his scepticism, 224; - at Shelley’s funeral, 235; - his character, 239, 240; - sails for Greece, 242; - his death, 246; 249. - - - “Caleb Williams,” 219. - - Campbell, Thomas, his primness, 52; - his first poem, 54; - his clear field in 1799, 56; - his work in prose and poetry, 58; - compared with Scott, 61; 82. - - Canning, George, 166. - - Carlyle, Thomas, his mildness towards Southey, 19; - his criticism of Scott’s work, 75; 288. - - Caroline, Queen, marries the Prince, 121; - separates from her husband, 122; - her trial, 124. - - Chalon, A. E., 183. - - Charlotte, Princess, 122. - - Chaworth, Mary, Byron’s poem to, 193; 250. - - “Childe Harold,” 195; 238. - - Cochrane, Lord, 282. - - Cockburn, Lord, his account of Jeffrey, 93. - - Coleridge, Hartley, his home, 4; - Southey’s letter to, 8. - - Coleridge, S. T., his separation from his wife, 8; - his intercourse with Southey, 11; - with Southey at Greta Hall, 15; - chafes at Southey’s odes, 18; - compared with Southey, 20; 56. - - “Confessions of an Opium Eater, The,” 34. - - Croker, John Wilson, 116; - his criticism of Macaulay, 277. - - “Croker Papers, The,” 18, note; 279. - - - “Daniel Deronda,” 287. - - De Quincey, Thomas, his home, 4; - Robinson’s description of, 28; - his early years, 29; - settles near Grasmere, 31; - his affection for Catharine Wordsworth, 32; - his marriage, 34; - his laudanum drinking, 35; - his “Reminiscences,” 37; - last years and death of, 38, 40; - his assertion as to the appreciation of Wordsworth in 1802, 56, note. - - Derwent Water, 2; 5; 6. - - “Devereux,” 178. - - Dickens, Charles, his caricature of Leigh Hunt, 147. - - “Disowned, The,” 178. - - Disraeli, Benjamin, his foppishness, 179; - his antecedents, 180 _et seq._; - his literary work, 182 _et seq._; - his ability as Lord Beaconsfield, 186; 201. - - “Doctor, The,” Southey’s, 20. - - “Don Juan,” 224, 239. - - D’Orsay, Comte, 178, 180, 186. - - Dwight, Timothy, 12. - - - _Edinburgh Review_, founded by Smith and Jeffrey, 86. - - “Endymion,” 230. - - Erskine, William, 80. - - _Examiner, The_, 142. - - - “First Gentleman of Europe, The,” 165. - - Fitzherbert, Mrs., 120 _et seq._ - - Fox, Charles, 96. - - _Francesca da Rimini_, Leigh Hunt’s, 148. - - “Frankenstein,” 250. - - Franklin, Benjamin, 143. - - - Gamba, Count, 242. - - “Gebir,” Landor’s, 129. - - George III., loses his reason, 17, note; - Scott’s allusions to, 77; 118. - - George IV., appointed Regent, 17; - his friendliness toward Sir Walter Scott, 78; - his later laxity, 119; - his unfortunate situation, 120; - ascends the throne, 123; - last days of, 165. - - “Gertrude of Wyoming,” 54; 57. - - Gifford, William, 114 _et seq._; 163. - - Godwin, Mary, elopes with Shelley, 220. - - Godwin, William, 219. - - Gordon, General, 186. - - Gore House, 177. - - Grasmere, 4. - - Greta Hall, 15. - - Greville, Charles, 166. - - - Hallam, Arthur, Tennyson’s lament for, 173. - - Hallam, Henry, his serenity, 171; - contrasted with Hazlitt, 172, 173; 177. - - Hawthorne, Nathaniel, his account of Leigh Hunt, 146. - - Hazlitt, William, his cynicism, 168; - his friendship with the Lambs, 169; - his strenuous personality, 170. - - Helvellyn, Mt., 4, 5. - - Holland, Lady, 96; 213; 264. - - Holland, Lord, 96. - - Horner, Francis, 86. - - “Hours of Idleness,” 193. - - Hucknall-Torkard, 247. - - Humphreys, David, 12. - - Hunt, Isaac, 143. - - Hunt, John, 142. - - Hunt, Leigh, imprisonment of, 142; - his American blood, 143; - his first writings, 144; - his pretty phrases, 145; - his easy methods of living, 147; - his poetry, 148 _et seq._; - his opinion of Moore, 161; 163; - compared with Hazlitt, 170; - compared with Shelley, 228; - his friendship for Shelley, 234; - at Shelley’s funeral, 235; 269. - - - “Idler in Italy, The,” Lady Blessington’s, 175. - - “Imaginary Conversations,” Landor’s, 16, note; 132. - - Ingersoll, Robert, 224. - - “In Memoriam,” 173; 232. - - “Irish Avatar, The,” Byron’s, 168. - - “Isle of Palms, The,” John Wilson’s, 42, 45. - - - James, G. P. R., 283. - - “Japhet in Search of a Father,” 281. - - Jeffrey, Francis, his association with Sydney Smith, 85, 86; - his criticism of Southey and Wordsworth, 92; - marries Miss Wilkes, 94; - becomes Lord Jeffrey, 95; 113. - - Jersey, Lady, 213. - - “_Julia de Roubigné_,” Mackenzie’s, 84. - - - Keats, John, his school days, 229; - publishes “Endymion,” 230; - goes to Italy, 231; - his death, 232, 233. - - Keble, John, 254. - - “Kehama, The Curse of,” Southey’s, 13. - - “Kenilworth,” 73. - - Keswick, 3; 8. - - Knight, Charles, 253. - - _Knight’s Quarterly Magazine_, 263. - - - “Lady of the Lake, The,” 65. - - Lake Country, The, 1 _et seq._ - - “Lalla Rookh,” 153; - great success of, 157. - - Lamb, Charles, 12; - his opinion of Southey, 16, note; - his friendship with Hazlitt, 169. - - Lamb, Mary, 169. - - Landor, Walter Savage, 16; 18; 20; 56; - his lack of popularity, 125 _et seq._; - his fondness for the country, 127, 128; - his “Gebir,” 129; - goes abroad, 131; - in Italy, 132 _et seq._; - his genius for skimming, 135; - his domestic troubles, 136, 137; - his old age and death, 139; - strange contrasts in, 165; - compared with Byron, 188; 228. - - Lang, Andrew, 71; 280. - - Lansdowne, Lord, 255; 265. - - “Laon and Cythna,” 225. - - “Last Days of Pompeii, The,” 179. - - “Lay of the Last Minstrel, The,” 60; - Byron’s satire on, 78. - - “Lays of Ancient Rome,” 263. - - Lockhart, J. G., his work on the _Quarterly Review_, 47; - quotation from Lang’s “Life” of, 71; - Scott’s dying words to, 81; 280. - - “Lycidas,” 232. - - Lytton, Lord, 180. _See also_ Bulwer-Lytton. - - - Macaulay, Thomas Babington, his ancestry, 260; - at the university, 262; - his first writings, 263; - supports the Reform Bill, 265; - finishes his “Lays of Ancient Rome,” 267; - in Parliament, 270; - his great History, 272; - elevated to the peerage, 275; - his death, 276. - - Macaulay, Zachary, 261. - - Mackenzie, Henry, 84. - - Mackintosh, Sir James, his political career, 104; - failure of his literary plans, 105 _et seq._ - - “Man of Feeling, The,” Mackenzie’s, 84. - - “Manfred,” 215. - - Markham, Dr., 118. - - “Marmion,” 61. - - Marryat, Frederick, goes to sea, 281; - his books, 282. - - Mavrocordatos, 243. - - Melbourne, Lord, 256; 265. - - “Midshipman Easy,” 281. - - Milbanke, Miss, 203, 204; 250. - - Milbanke, Sir Ralph, 206. - - Moore, Thomas, 56; 101; - his acquaintance with Leigh Hunt, 153; - his success in society, 154; - his impressions of America, 155; - his domestic relations, 158; - his great reputation, 160; - his melodious songs, 164; 177. - - More, Mrs. Hannah, 29, 261. - - “Murder as a Fine Art,” appears in _Blackwood’s_, 37. - - Murray, John, 78; - starts _The Quarterly_, 114; 160; 205. - - - _New Monthly Magazine, The_, 58. - - Newman, Cardinal, 254. - - Newspapers, marvellous increase in circulation of, from 1836 to - 1838, 254. - - Newstead Abbey, 189. - - “_Noctes Ambrosianæ_,” 31; 42. - - “North, Christopher,” 40 _et seq._, 269. - - - O’Connell, Daniel, 184. - - “Old Mortality,” 73. - - - Paine, Thomas, 143. - - Peel, Sir Robert, 166; 255; 259; 265; 271. - - “Pelham,” 178. - - _Penny Cyclopædia, The_, 253. - - _Penny Magazine, The_, 253. - - “Peter Bell,” Lamb’s and Robinson’s opinions of, 27. - - “Peter Simple,” 282. - - “Pleasures of Hope, The,” 54. - - “Political Justice,” 219. - - Pusey, Dr., 254. - - - _Quarterly, The_, founding of, 114. - - _Quarterly Review, The_, 16. - - “Queen Mab,” 221. - - - Reform Bill, The, 100; 253. - - “Revolt of Islam, The,” 225. - - “Rienzi,” 179. - - Robinson, Henry Crabb, his friendship with Southey, 23, 24; - his “Diary and Reminiscences,” 26; 264. - - “Roderick the Goth,” Southey’s, 14. - - Rogers, Samuel, 177. - - Ruskin, John, 287. - - Rydal, 3. - - - Scott, Anne, death of, 70. - - Scott, Charles, death of, 70. - - Scott, Sir Walter, 47; - his boyhood, 59; - his first poems appear, 60; - compared with Campbell, 61; - his marriage, 65; - genealogy of, 72, note; - the charm of his stories, 73 _et seq._; - his love of pageantry, 77; - his management of the Edinboro’ reception to the King, 79; - his visit to the Mediterranean, 80; - his death, 81; 82; - his opinion of Gifford, 116; - his admiration for Moore, 161; 168. - - Shelley, Percy Bysshe, his early life, 216; - his marriage and unhappiness, 218; - elopes with Mary Godwin, 220; - meets Byron, 221; - his influence on Byron, 222; - his scepticism, 224, 228; - his death and pagan burial, 235; - his character, 236. - - Smith, Goldwin, 65; 183. - - Smith, Sydney, settles in Edinboro’, 84; - assists in founding _The Edinburgh Review_, 86; - goes to London, 96; - his ministerial career, 97 _et seq._; - his famous “Dame Partington” simile, 100; - his wit, 102; - his praise of Moore, 161; 177; 264. - - Southey, Robert, 5 _et seq._; - his early life, 11 _et seq._; - settles at Keswick, 14; - appointed Poet Laureate, 18; - compared with Coleridge, 20; - refuses a baronetcy, 22; - death of, 24; 56; - meets Landor at Como, 131; 168; 177; - Shelley’s acquaintance with, 218; - Byron’s satire on, 224; 228. - - Staël, Madame de, 106; 215. - - Stamp Tax, The, effect of its reduction on the newspapers, 254. - - Stanley, Lord, 91. - - Stewart, Dugald, 48; 84. - - Story, W. W., Landor’s connection with, 139. - - Strawberry Hill, 261. - - Swan Inn, The, 4. - - - “Talisman, The,” 73. - - Tennyson, Lord, his grief at the death of Arthur Hallam, 172; - his dramas, 223; 288. - - Thackeray, W. M., 287. - - “Thalaba,” 13; - profits on, 15. - - Thrale, Madame, 115. - - “Tintern Abbey,” Wordsworth’s, 62. - - Trelawney, E. J., 235; 242. - - Trumbull, John, 144. - - - Victoria, Queen, beginning of her reign, 167; - her accession, 255; - her marriage, 257; 287. - - “Vision of Judgment, A,” 224. - - “Vivian Grey,” 182. - - - Wellington, Duke of, 166; 255. - - West, Benjamin, 144; 245. - - Wilkes, John, 94, note. - - William IV., 81; - his nerve and pluck, 167; - his lack of ceremony, 252; - some events of his time, 253, 254. - - “William and Helen,” Scott’s, 60. - - Wilson, James, 41, note. - - Wilson, John, 31; 36; - his character, 40, 41; - his writings in _Blackwood’s_, 42, 46; - his diaries, 44; - becomes a professor, 48; - his success, 50; 82. - - Windermere, 2 _et seq._ - - “Wishing Gate, The,” 4. - - Wollstonecraft, Mary, 220. - - Wordsworth, Catharine, 32. - - Wordsworth, Dorothy, 43, note. - - Wordsworth, William, his opposition to railways, 3; - his grave, 4; - his attitude toward Southey’s odes, 18; - his account of Southey’s last years, 23; 30; 31; 32; 56; - his unlikeness to Scott, 61 _et seq._; 168; 228. - - - -***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENGLISH LANDS LETTERS AND KINGS: THE -LATER GEORGES TO VICTORIA*** - - -******* This file should be named 54143-0.txt or 54143-0.zip ******* - - -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: -http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/5/4/1/4/54143 - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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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