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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Biographical Essays, by Thomas de Quincey
+#8 in our series by Thomas de Quincey
+
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+Title: Biographical Essays
+
+Author: Thomas de Quincey
+
+Release Date: August, 2004 [EBook #6314]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on November 25, 2002]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+Character set encoding: ASCII
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Robert Prince, Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+DE QUINCEY'S WRITINGS.
+
+The "Confessions of an English Opium Eater," and "Suspiria De
+Profundis," form the first volume of this series of Mr. De
+Quincey's Writings. A third volume will shortly be issued,
+containing some of his most interesting papers contributed to the
+English magazines.
+
+
+
+
+
+BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS.
+
+BY THOMAS DE QUINCEY,
+
+Author of "Confessions of an English Opium-Eater," Etc. Etc.
+
+
+
+
+
+SHAKSPEARE.
+[Endnote: 1]
+
+
+William Shakspeare, the protagonist on the great arena of modern
+poetry, and the glory of the human intellect, was born at
+Stratford-upon-Avon, in the county of Warwick, in the year 1564,
+and upon some day, not precisely ascertained, in the month of
+April. It is certain that he was baptized on the 25th; and from
+that fact, combined with some shadow of a tradition, Malone has
+inferred that he was born on the 23d. There is doubtless, on the
+one hand, no absolute necessity deducible from law or custom, as
+either operated in those times, which obliges us to adopt such a
+conclusion; for children might be baptized, and were baptized, at
+various distances from their birth: yet, on the other hand, the 23d
+is as likely to have been the day as any other; and more likely
+than any earlier day, upon two arguments. First, because there was
+probably a tradition floating in the seventeenth century, that
+Shakspeare died upon his birthday: now it is beyond a doubt that he
+died upon the 23d of April.
+
+Secondly, because it is a reasonable presumption, that no parents,
+living in a simple community, tenderly alive to the pieties of
+household duty, and in an age still clinging reverentially to the
+ceremonial ordinances of religion, would much delay the adoption of
+their child into the great family of Christ. Considering the
+extreme frailty of an infant's life during its two earliest years,
+to delay would often be to disinherit the child of its Christian
+privileges; privileges not the less eloquent to the feelings from
+being profoundly mysterious, and, in the English church, forced not
+only upon the attention, but even upon the eye of the most
+thoughtless. According to the discipline of the English church, the
+unbaptized are buried with "maimed rites," shorn of their
+obsequies, and sternly denied that "sweet and solemn farewell," by
+which otherwise the church expresses her final charity with all
+men; and not only so, but they are even _locally_ separated
+and sequestrated. Ground the most hallowed, and populous with
+Christian burials of households,
+
+  "That died in peace with one another.
+  Father, sister, son, and brother,"
+
+opens to receive the vilest malefactor; by which the church
+symbolically expresses her maternal willingness to gather back into
+her fold those even of her flock who have strayed from her by the
+most memorable aberrations; and yet, with all this indulgence, she
+banishes to unhallowed ground the innocent bodies of the
+unbaptized. To them and to suicides she turns a face of wrath. With
+this gloomy fact offered to the very external senses, it is
+difficult to suppose that any parents would risk their own
+reproaches, by putting the fulfilment of so grave a duty on the
+hazard of a convulsion fit. The case of royal children is
+different; their baptisms, it is true, were often delayed for weeks
+but the household chaplains of the palace were always at hand,
+night and day, to baptize them in the very agonies of death.
+[Endnote: 3] We must presume, therefore, that William Shakspeare
+was born on some day very little anterior to that of his baptism;
+and the more so because the season of the year was lovely and
+genial, the 23d of April in 1564, corresponding in fact with what
+we now call the 3d of May, so that, whether the child was to be
+carried abroad, or the clergyman to be summoned, no hindrance would
+arise from the weather. One only argument has sometimes struck us
+for supposing that the 22d might be the day, and not the 23d; which
+is, that Shakspeare's sole granddaughter, Lady Barnard, was married
+on the 22d of April, 1626, ten years exactly from the poet's death;
+and the reason for choosing this day _might_ have had a reference to
+her illustrious grandfather's birthday, which, there is good reason
+for thinking, would be celebrated as a festival in the family for
+generations. Still this choice _may_ have been an accident, or
+governed merely by reason of convenience. And, on the whole, it is as
+well perhaps to acquiesce in the old belief, that Shakspeare was born
+and died on the 23d of April. We cannot do wrong if we drink to his
+memory on both 22d and 23d.
+
+On a first review of the circumstances, we have reason to feel no
+little perplexity in finding the materials for a life of this
+transcendent writer so meagre and so few; and amongst them the
+larger part of doubtful authority. All the energy of curiosity
+directed upon this subject, through a period of one hundred and
+fifty years, (for so long it is since Betterton the actor began to
+make researches,) has availed us little or nothing. Neither the
+local traditions of his provincial birthplace, though sharing with
+London through half a century the honor of his familiar presence,
+nor the recollections of that brilliant literary circle with whom
+he lived in the metropolis, have yielded much more than such an
+outline of his history, as is oftentimes to be gathered from the
+penurious records of a grave-stone. That he lived, and that he
+died, and that he was "a little lower than the angels;"--these make
+up pretty nearly the amount of our undisputed report. It may be
+doubted, indeed, whether at this day we arc as accurately
+acquainted with the life of Shakspeare as with that of Chaucer,
+though divided from each other by an interval of two centuries, and
+(what should have been more effectual towards oblivion) by the wars
+of the two roses. And yet the traditional memory of a rural and a
+sylvan region, such as Warwickshire at that time was, is usually
+exact as well as tenacious; and, with respect to Shakspeare in
+particular, we may presume it to have been full and circumstantial
+through the generation succeeding to his own, not only from the
+curiosity, and perhaps something of a scandalous interest, which
+would pursue the motions of one living so large a part of his life
+at a distance from his wife, but also from the final reverence and
+honor which would settle upon the memory of a poet so predominently
+successful; of one who, in a space of five and twenty years, after
+running a bright career in the capital city of his native land, and
+challenging notice from the throne, had retired with an ample
+fortune, created by his personal efforts, and by labors purely
+intellectual.
+
+How are we to account, then, for that deluge, as if from Lethe,
+which has swept away so entirely the traditional memorials of one
+so illustrious? Such is the fatality of error which overclouds
+every question connected with Shakspeare, that two of his principal
+critics, Steevens and Malone, have endeavored to solve the
+difficulty by cutting it with a falsehood. They deny in effect that
+he _was_ illustrious in the century succeeding to his own, however
+much he has since become so. We shall first produce their statements
+in their own words, and we shall then briefly review them.
+
+Steevens delivers _his_ opinion in the following terms: "How
+little Shakspeare was once read, may be understood from Tate, who,
+in his dedication to the altered play of King Lear, speaks of the
+original as an obscure piece, recommended to his notice by a
+friend; and the author of the Tatler, having occasion to quote a
+few lines out of Macbeth, was content to receive them from
+Davenant's alteration of that celebrated drama, in which almost
+every original beauty is either awkwardly disguised or arbitrarily
+omitted." Another critic, who cites this passage from Steevens,
+pursues the hypothesis as follows: "In fifty years after his death,
+Dryden mentions that he was then become _a little obsolete_.
+In the beginning of the last century, Lord Shaftesbury complains of
+his _rude unpolished style, and his antiquated phrase and
+wit_. It is certain that, for nearly a hundred years after his
+death, partly owing to the immediate revolution and rebellion, and
+partly to the licentious taste encouraged in Charles II's time, and
+perhaps partly to the incorrect state of his works, he was ALMOST
+ENTIRELY NEGLECTED." This critic then goes on to quote with
+approbation the opinion of Malone,--"that if he had been read,
+admired, studied, and imitated, in the same degree as he is now,
+the enthusiasm of some one or other of his admirers in the last age
+would have induced him to make some inquiries concerning the
+history of his theatrical career, and the anecdotes of his private
+life." After which this enlightened writer re-affirms and clenches
+the judgment he has quoted, by saying,--"His admirers, however,
+_if he had admirers in that age_, possessed no portion of such
+enthusiasm."
+
+It may, perhaps, be an instructive lesson to young readers, if we
+now show them, by a short sifting of these confident dogmatists,
+how easy it is for a careless or a half-read man to circulate the
+most absolute falsehoods under the semblance of truth; falsehoods
+which impose upon himself as much as they do upon others. We
+believe that not one word or illustration is uttered in the
+sentences cited from these three critics, which is not
+_virtually_ in the very teeth of the truth.
+
+To begin with Mr. Nahum Tate. This poor grub of literature, if he
+did really speak of Lear as "an _obscure_ piece, recommended
+to his notice by a friend," of which we must be allowed to doubt,
+was then uttering a conscious falsehood. It happens that Lear was
+one of the few Shakspearian dramas which had kept the stage
+unaltered. But it is easy to see a mercenary motive in such an
+artifice as this. Mr. Nahum Tate is not of a class of whom it can
+be safe to say that they are "well known:" they and their desperate
+tricks are essentially obscure, and good reason he has to exult in
+the felicity of such obscurity; for else this same vilest of
+travesties, Mr. Nahum's Lear, would consecrate his name to
+everlasting scorn. For himself, he belonged to the age of Dryden
+rather than of Pope: he "flourished," if we can use such a phrase
+of one who was always withering, about the era of the Revolution;
+and his Lear, we believe, was arranged in the year 1682. But the
+family to which he belongs is abundantly recorded in the Dunciad,
+and his own name will be found amongst its catalogues of heroes.
+
+With respect to _the author of the Tatler_, a very different
+explanation is requisite. Steevens means the reader to understand
+Addison; but it does not follow that the particular paper in
+question was from his pen. Nothing, however, could be more natural
+than to quote from the common form of the play as then in
+possession of the stage. It was _there_, beyond a doubt, that
+a fine gentleman living upon town, and not professing any deep
+scholastic knowledge of literature, (a light in which we are always
+to regard the writers of the Spectator, Guardian, &c.,) would be
+likely to have learned anything he quoted from Macbeth. This we say
+generally of the writers in those periodical papers; but, with
+reference to Addison in particular, it is time to correct the
+popular notion of his literary character, or at least to mark it by
+severer lines of distinction. It is already pretty well known, that
+Addison had no very intimate acquaintance with the literature of
+his own country. It is known, also, that he did not think such an
+acquaintance any ways essential to the character of an elegant
+scholar and _litterateur_. Quite enough he found it, and more
+than enough for the time he had to spare, if he could maintain a
+tolerable familiarity with the foremost Latin poets, and a very
+slender one indeed with the Grecian. _How_ slender, we can see
+in his "Travels." Of modern authors, none as yet had been published
+with notes, commentaries, or critical collations of the text; and,
+accordingly, Addison looked upon all of them, except those few who
+professed themselves followers in the retinue and equipage of the
+ancients, as creatures of a lower race. Boileau, as a mere imitator
+and propagator of Horace, he read, and probably little else amongst
+the French classics. Hence it arose that he took upon himself to
+speak sneeringly of Tasso. To this, which was a bold act for his
+timid mind, he was emboldened by the countenance of Boileau. Of the
+elder Italian authors, such as Ariosto, and, _a fortiori_,
+Dante, be knew absolutely nothing. Passing to our own literature,
+it is certain that Addison was profoundly ignorant of Chaucer and
+of Spenser. Milton only,--and why? simply because he was a
+brilliant scholar, and stands like a bridge between the Christian
+literature and the Pagan,--Addison had read and esteemed. There was
+also in the very constitution of Milton's mind, in the majestic
+regularity and planetary solemnity of its _epic_ movements,
+something which he could understand and appreciate. As to the
+meteoric and incalculable eccentricities of the _dramatic_
+mind, as it displayed itself in the heroic age of our drama,
+amongst the Titans of 1590-1630, they confounded and overwhelmed
+him.
+
+In particular, with regard to Shakspeare, we shall now proclaim a
+discovery which we made some twenty years ago. We, like others,
+from seeing frequent references to Shakspeare in the Spectator, had
+acquiesced in the common belief, that although Addison was no doubt
+profoundly unlearned in Shakspeare's language, and thoroughly
+unable to do him justice, (and this we might well assume, since his
+great rival Pope, who had expressly studied Shakspeare, was, after
+all, so memorably deficient in the appropriate knowledge,)--yet,
+that of course he had a vague popular knowledge of the mighty
+poet's cardinal dramas. Accident only led us into a discovery of
+our mistake. Twice or thrice we had observed, that if Shakspeare
+were quoted, that paper turned out not to be Addison's; and at
+length, by express examination, we ascertained the curious fact,
+that Addison has never in one instance quoted or made any reference
+to Shakspeare. But was this, as Steevens most disingenuously
+pretends, to be taken as an exponent of the public feeling towards
+Shakspeare? Was Addison's neglect representative of a general
+neglect? If so, whence came Rowe's edition, Pope's, Theobald's, Sir
+Thomas Hanmer's, Bishop Warburton's, all upon the heels of one
+another? With such facts staring him in the face, how shameless
+must be that critic who could, in support of such a thesis, refer
+to " _the author of the Tatler_" contemporary with all these
+editors. The truth is, Addison was well aware of Shakspeare's hold
+on the popular mind; too well aware of it. The feeble constitution
+of the poetic faculty, as existing in himself, forbade his
+sympathizing with Shakspeare; the proportions were too colossal for
+his delicate vision; and yet, as one who sought popularity himself,
+he durst not shock what perhaps he viewed as a national prejudice.
+Those who have happened, like ourselves, to see the effect of
+passionate music and "deep-inwoven harmonics" upon the feeling of
+an idiot, we may conceive what we mean. Such music does not utterly
+revolt the idiot; on the contrary, it has a strange but a horrid
+fascination for him; it alarms, irritates, disturbs, makes him
+profoundly unhappy; and chiefly by unlocking imperfect glimpses of
+thoughts and slumbering instincts, which it is for his peace to
+have entirely obscured, because for him they can be revealed only
+partially, and with the sad effect of throwing a baleful gleam upon
+his blighted condition. Do we mean, then, to compare Addison with
+an idiot? Not generally, by any means. Nobody can more sincerely
+admire him where he was a man of real genius, viz., in his
+delineations of character and manners, or in the exquisite
+delicacies of his humor. But assuredly Addison, as a poet, was
+amongst the sons of the feeble; and between the authors of Cato and
+of King Lear there was a gulf never to be bridged over. [Endnote: 4]
+
+But Dryden, we are told, pronounced Shakspeare already in his day
+_"a little obsolete."_ Here now we have wilful, deliberate
+falsehood. _Obsolete_, in Dryden's meaning, does not imply
+that he was so with regard to his popularity, (the question then at
+issue,) but with regard to his diction and choice of words. To cite
+Dryden as a witness for any purpose against Shakspeare,--Dryden,
+who of all men had the most ransacked wit and exhausted language in
+celebrating the supremacy of Shakspeare's genius, does indeed
+require as much shamelessness in feeling as mendacity in principle.
+
+But then Lord Shaftesbury, who may be taken as half way between
+Dryden and Pope, (Dryden died in 1700, Pope was then twelve years
+old, and Lord S. wrote chiefly, we believe, between 1700 and 1710,)
+"complains," it seems, "of his rude unpolished style, and his
+antiquated phrase and wit." What if he does? Let the whole truth be
+told, and then we shall see how much stress is to be laid upon such
+a judgment. The second Lord Shaftesbury, the author of the
+Characteristics, was the grandson of that famous political
+agitator, the Chancellor Shaftesbury, who passed his whole life in
+storms of his own creation. The second Lord Shaftesbury was a man
+of crazy constitution, querulous from ill health, and had received
+an eccentric education from his eccentric grandfather. He was
+practised daily in _talking_ Latin, to which afterwards he
+added a competent study of the Greek; and finally he became
+unusually learned for his rank, but the most absolute and
+undistinguishing pedant that perhaps literature has to show. He
+sneers continually at the regular built academic pedant; but he
+himself, though no academic, was essentially the very impersonation
+of pedantry. No thought however beautiful, no image however
+magnificent, could conciliate his praise as long as it was clothed
+in English; but present him with the most trivial common-places in
+Greek, and he unaffectedly fancied them divine; mistaking the
+pleasurable sense of his own power in a difficult and rare
+accomplishment for some peculiar force or beauty in the passage.
+Such was the outline of his literary taste. And was it upon
+Shakspeare only, or upon him chiefly, that he lavished his
+pedantry? Far from it. He attacked Milton with no less fervor; he
+attacked Dryden with a thousand times more. Jeremy Taylor he quoted
+only to ridicule; and even Locke, the confidential friend of his
+grandfather, he never alludes to without a sneer. As to Shakspeare,
+so far from Lord Shaftesbury's censures arguing his deficient
+reputation, the very fact of his noticing him at all proves his
+enormous popularity; for upon system he noticed those only who
+ruled the public taste. The insipidity of his objections to
+Shakspeare may be judged from this, that he comments in a spirit of
+absolute puerility upon the name _Desdemona_, as though
+intentionally formed from the Greek word for _superstition_.
+In fact, he had evidently read little beyond the list of names in
+Shakspeare; yet there is proof enough that the irresistible beauty
+of what little he _had_ read was too much for all his
+pedantry, and startled him exceedingly; for ever afterwards he
+speaks of Shakspeare as one who, with a little aid from Grecian
+sources, really had something great and promising about him. As to
+modern authors, neither this Lord Shaftesbury nor Addison read any
+thing for the latter years of their lives but Bayle's Dictionary.
+And most of the little scintillations of erudition, which may be
+found in the notes to the Characteristics, and in the Essays of
+Addison, are derived, almost without exception, and uniformly
+without acknowledgment, from Bayle. [Endnote: 5]
+
+Finally, with regard to the sweeping assertion, that "for nearly a
+hundred years after his death Shakspeare was almost entirely
+neglected," we shall meet this scandalous falsehood, by a rapid
+view of his fortunes during the century in question. The tradition
+has always been, that Shakspeare was honored by the especial notice
+of Queen Elizabeth, as well as by that of James I. At one time we
+were disposed to question the truth of this tradition; but that was
+for want of having read attentively the lines of Ben Jonson to the
+memory of Shakspeare, those generous lines which have so absurdly
+been taxed with faint praise. Jonson could make no mistake on this
+point; he, as one of Shakspeare's familiar companions, must have
+witnessed at the very time, and accompanied with friendly sympathy,
+every motion of royal favor towards Shakspeare. Now he, in words
+which leave no room for doubt, exclaims,
+
+  "Sweet swan of Avon, what a sight it were
+  To see thee in our waters yet appear;
+  And make those flights upon the banks of Thames,
+  _That so did take Eliza and our James."_
+
+These princes, then, _were_ taken, were fascinated, with some
+of Shakspeare's dramas. In Elizabeth the approbation would probably
+be sincere. In James we can readily suppose it to have been
+assumed; for he was a pedant in a different sense from Lord
+Shaftesbury; not from undervaluing modern poetry, but from caring
+little or nothing for any poetry, although he wrote about its
+mechanic rules. Still the royal _imprimatur_ would be
+influential and serviceable no less when offered hypocritically
+than in full sincerity. Next let us consider, at the very moment of
+Shakspeare's death, who were the leaders of the British youth, the
+_principes juventutis_, in the two fields, equally important
+to a great poet's fame, of rank and of genius. The Prince of Wales
+and John Milton; the first being then about sixteen years old, the
+other about eight. Now these two great powers, as we may call them,
+these presiding stars over all that was English in thought and
+action, were both impassioned admirers of Shakspeare. Each of them
+counts for many thousands. The Prince of Wales [Endnote: 6] had
+learned to appreciate Shakspeare, not originally from reading him,
+but from witnessing the court representations of his plays at
+Whitehall. Afterwards we know that he made Shakspeare his closet
+companion, for he was reproached with doing so by Milton. And we
+know also, from the just criticism pronounced upon the character
+and diction of Caliban by one of Charles's confidential
+counsellors, Lord Falkland, that the king's admiration of
+Shakspeare had impressed a determination upon the court reading. As
+to Milton, by double prejudices, puritanical and classical, his
+mind had been preoccupied against the full impressions of
+Shakspeare. And we know that there is such a thing as keeping the
+sympathies of love and admiration in a dormant state, or state of
+abeyance; an effort of self-conquest realized in more cases than
+one by the ancient fathers, both Greek and Latin, with regard to
+the profane classics. Intellectually they admired, and would not
+belie their admiration; but they did not give their hearts
+cordially, they did not abandon themselves to their natural
+impulses. They averted their eyes and weaned their attention from
+the dazzling object. Such, probably, was Milton's state of feeling
+towards Shakspeare after 1642, when the theatres were suppressed,
+and the fanatical fervor in its noontide heat. Yet even then he did
+not belie his reverence intellectually for Shakspeare; and in his
+younger days we know that he had spoken more enthusiastically of
+Shakspeare, than he ever did again of any uninspired author. Not
+only did he address a sonnet to his memory, in which he declares
+that kings would wish to die, if by dying they could obtain such a
+monument in the hearts of men; but he also speaks of him in his
+_Il Penseroso_, as the tutelary genius of the English stage.
+In this transmission of the torch (greek: lampadophoria) Dryden
+succeeds to Milton; he was born nearly thirty years later; about
+thirty years they were contemporaries; and by thirty years, or
+nearly, Dryden survived his great leader. Dryden, in fact, lived
+out the seventeenth century. And we have now arrived within nine
+years of the era, when the critical editions started in hot
+succession to one another. The names we have mentioned were the
+great influential names of the century. But of inferior homage
+there was no end. How came Betterton the actor, how came Davenant,
+how came Rowe, or Pope, by their intense (if not always sound)
+admiration for Shakspeare, unless they had found it fuming upwards
+like incense to the Pagan deities in ancient times, from altars
+erected at every turning upon all the paths of men?
+
+But it is objected that inferior dramatists were sometimes
+preferred to Shakspeare; and again, that vile travesties of
+Shakspeare were preferred to the authentic dramas. As to the first
+argument, let it be remembered, that if the saints of the chapel
+are always in the same honor, because _there_ men are simply
+discharging a duty, which once due will be due for ever; the saints
+of the theatre, on the other hand, must bend to the local genius,
+and to the very reasons for having a theatre at all. Men go thither
+for amusement. This is the paramount purpose, and even acknowledged
+merit or absolute superiority must give way to it. Does a man at
+Paris expect to see Moliere reproduced in proportion to his
+admitted precedency in the French drama? On the contrary, that very
+precedency argues such a familiarization with his works, that those
+who are in quest of relaxation will reasonably prefer any recent
+drama to that which, having lost all its novelty, has lost much of
+its excitement. We speak of ordinary minds; but in cases of
+_public_ entertainments, deriving part of their power from
+scenery and stage pomp, novelty is for all minds an essential
+condition of attraction. Moreover, in some departments of the
+comic, Beaumont and Fletcher, when writing in combination, really
+had a freedom and breadth of manner which excels the comedy of
+Shakspeare. As to the altered Shakspeare as taking precedency of
+the genuine Shakspeare, no argument can be so frivolous. The public
+were never allowed a choice; the great majority of an audience even
+now cannot be expected to carry the real Shakspeare in their mind,
+so as to pursue a comparison between that and the alteration. Their
+comparisons must be exclusively amongst what they have
+opportunities of seeing; that is, between the various pieces
+presented to them by the managers of theatres. Further than this,
+it is impossible for them to extend their office of judging and
+collating; and the degenerate taste which substituted the caprices
+of Davenant, the rants of Dryden, or the filth of Tate, for the
+jewellery of Shakspeare, cannot with any justice be charged upon
+the public, not one in a thousand of whom was furnished with any
+means of comparing, but exclusively upon those (viz., theatrical
+managers,) who had the very amplest. Yet even in excuse for
+_them_ much may be said. The very length of some plays
+compelled them to make alterations. The best of Shakspeare's
+dramas, King Lear, is the least fitted for representation; and,
+even for the vilest alteration, it ought in candor to be considered
+that possession is nine points of the law. He who would not have
+introduced, was often obliged to retain.
+
+Finally, it is urged, that the small number of editions through
+which Shakspeare passed in the seventeenth century, furnishes a
+separate argument, and a conclusive one against his popularity. We
+answer, that, considering the bulk of his plays collectively, the
+editions were _not_ few. Compared with any known case, the
+copies sold of Shakspeare were quite as many as could be expected
+under the circumstances. Ten or fifteen times as much consideration
+went to the purchase of one great folio like Shakspeare, as would
+attend the purchase of a little volume like Waller or Donne.
+Without reviews, or newspapers, or advertisements, to diffuse the
+knowledge of books, the progress of literature was necessarily
+slow, and its expansion narrow. But this is a topic which has
+always been treated unfairly, not with regard to Shakspeare only,
+but to Milton, as well as many others. The truth is, we have not
+facts enough to guide us; for the number of editions often tells
+nothing accurately as to the number of copies. With respect to
+Shakspeare it is certain, that, had his masterpieces been gathered
+into small volumes, Shakspeare would have had a most extensive
+sale. As it was, there can be no doubt, that from his own
+generation, throughout the seventeenth century, and until the
+eighteenth began to accommodate, not any greater popularity in
+_him_, but a greater taste for reading in the public, his fame
+never ceased to be viewed as a national trophy of honor; and the
+most illustrious men of the seventeenth century were no whit less
+fervent in their admiration than those of the eighteenth and the
+nineteenth, either as respected its strength and sincerity, or as
+respected its open profession. [Endnote: 7]
+
+It is therefore a false notion, that the general sympathy with the
+merits of Shakspeare ever beat with a languid or intermitting
+pulse. Undoubtedly, in times when the functions of critical
+journals and of newspapers were not at hand to diffuse or to
+strengthen the impressions which emanated from the capital, all
+opinions must have travelled slowly into the provinces. But even
+then, whilst the perfect organs of communication were wanting,
+indirect substitutes were supplied by the necessities of the times,
+or by the instincts of political zeal. Two channels especially lay
+open between the great central organ of the national mind, and the
+remotest provinces. Parliaments were occasionally summoned, (for
+the judges' circuits were too brief to produce much effect,) and
+during their longest suspensions, the nobility, with large
+retinues, continually resorted to the court. But an intercourse
+more constant and more comprehensive was maintained through the
+agency of the two universities. Already, in the time of James I.,
+the growing importance of the gentry, and the consequent birth of a
+new interest in political questions, had begun to express itself at
+Oxford, and still more so at Cambridge. Academic persons stationed
+themselves as sentinels at London, for the purpose of watching the
+court and the course of public affairs. These persons wrote
+letters, like those of the celebrated Joseph Mede, which we find in
+Ellis's Historical Collections, reporting to their
+fellow-collegians all the novelties of public life as they arose,
+or personally carried down such reports, and thus conducted the
+general feelings at the centre into lesser centres, from which
+again they were diffused into the ten thousand parishes of England;
+for, (with a very few exceptions in favor of poor benefices, Welch
+or Cumbrian,) every parish priest must unavoidably have spent his
+three years at one or other of the English universities. And by
+this mode of diffusion it is, that we can explain the strength with
+which Shakspeare's thoughts and diction impressed themselves from a
+very early period upon the national literature, and even more
+generally upon the national thinking and conversation.[Endnote: 8]
+
+The question, therefore, revolves upon us in threefold
+difficulty--How, having stepped thus prematurely into this
+inheritance of fame, leaping, as it were, thus abruptly into the
+favor alike of princes and the enemies of princes, had it become
+possible that in his native place, (honored still more in the final
+testimonies of his preference when founding a family mansion,) such
+a man's history, and the personal recollections which cling so
+affectionately to the great intellectual potentates who have
+recommended themselves by gracious manners, could so soon and so
+utterly have been obliterated?
+
+Malone, with childish irreflection, ascribes the loss of such
+memorials to the want of enthusiasm in his admirers. Local
+researches into private history had not then commenced. Such a
+taste, often petty enough in its management, was the growth of
+after ages. Else how came Spenser's life and fortunes to be so
+utterly overwhelmed in oblivion? No poet of a high order could be
+more popular.
+
+The answer we believe to be this: Twenty-six years after
+Shakspeare's death commenced the great parliamentary war. This it
+was, and the local feuds arising to divide family from family,
+brother from brother, upon which we must charge the extinction of
+traditions and memorials, doubtless abundant up to that era. The
+parliamentary contest, it will be said, did not last above three
+years; the king's standard having been first raised at Nottingham
+in August, 1642, and the battle of Naseby (which terminated the
+open warfare) having been fought in June, 1645. Or even if we
+extend its duration to the surrender of the last garrison, that war
+terminated in the spring of 1646. And the brief explosions of
+insurrection or of Scottish invasion, which occurred on subsequent
+occasions, were all locally confined, and none came near to
+Warwickshire, except the battle of Worcester, more than five years
+after. This is true; but a short war will do much to efface recent
+and merely personal memorials. And the following circumstances of
+the war were even more important than the general fact.
+
+First of all, the very mansion founded by Shakspeare became the
+military headquarters for the queen in 1644, when marching from the
+eastern coast of England to join the king in Oxford; and one such
+special visitation would be likely to do more serious mischief in
+the way of extinction, than many years of general warfare.
+Secondly, as a fact, perhaps, equally important, Birmingham, the
+chief town of Warwickshire, and the adjacent district, the seat of
+our hardware manufactures, was the very focus of disaffection
+towards the royal cause. Not only, therefore, would this whole
+region suffer more from internal and spontaneous agitation, but it
+would be the more frequently traversed vindictively from without,
+and harassed by flying parties from Oxford, or others of the king's
+garrisons. Thirdly, even apart from the political aspects of
+Warwickshire, this county happens to be the central one of England,
+as regards the roads between the north and south; and Birmingham
+has long been the great central axis, [Endnote: 9] in which all
+the radii from the four angles of England proper meet and
+intersect. Mere accident, therefore, of local position, much more
+when united with that avowed inveteracy of malignant feeling, which
+was bitter enough to rouse a re-action of bitterness in the mind of
+Lord Clarendon, would go far to account for the wreck of many
+memorials relating to Shakspeare, as well as for the subversion of
+that quiet and security for humble life, in which the traditional
+memory finds its best _nidus_. Thus we obtain one solution,
+and perhaps the main one, of the otherwise mysterious oblivion
+which had swept away all traces of the mighty poet, by the time
+when those quiet days revolved upon England, in which again the
+solitary agent of learned research might roam in security from
+house to house, gleaning those personal remembrances which, even in
+the fury of civil strife, might long have lingered by the chimney
+corner. But the fierce furnace of war had probably, by its
+_local_ ravages, scorched this field of natural tradition, and
+thinned the gleaner's inheritance by three parts out of four. This,
+we repeat, may be one part of the solution to this difficult
+problem.
+
+And if another is still demanded, possibly it may be found in the
+fact, hostile to the perfect consecration of Shakspeare's memory,
+that after all he was a player. Many a coarse-minded country
+gentleman, or village pastor, who would have held his town
+glorified by the distinction of having sent forth a great judge or
+an eminent bishop, might disdain to cherish the personal
+recollections which surrounded one whom custom regarded as little
+above a mountebank, and the illiberal law as a vagabond. The same
+degrading appreciation attached both to the actor in plays and to
+their author. The contemptuous appellation of "play-book," served
+as readily to degrade the mighty volume which contained Lear and
+Hamlet, as that of "play-actor," or "player-man," has always served
+with the illiberal or the fanatical to dishonor the persons of
+Roscius or of Garrick, of Talma or of Siddons. Nobody, indeed, was
+better aware of this than the noble-minded Shakspeare; and
+feelingly he has breathed forth in his sonnets this conscious
+oppression under which he lay of public opinion, unfavorable by a
+double title to his own pretensions; for, being both dramatic
+author and dramatic performer, he found himself heir to a twofold
+opprobrium, and at an era of English society when the weight of
+that opprobrium was heaviest. In reality, there was at this period
+a collision of forces acting in opposite directions upon the
+estimation of the stage and scenical art, and therefore of all the
+ministers in its equipage. Puritanism frowned upon these pursuits,
+as ruinous to public morals; on the other hand, loyalty could not
+but tolerate what was patronized by the sovereign; and it happened
+that Elizabeth, James, and Charles I., were _all_ alike lovers
+and promoters of theatrical amusements, which were indeed more
+indispensable to the relief of court ceremony, and the monotony of
+aulic pomp, than in any other region of life. This royal support,
+and the consciousness that any brilliant success in these arts
+implied an unusual share of natural endowments, did something in
+mitigation of a scorn which must else have been intolerable to all
+generous natures.
+
+But whatever prejudice might thus operate against the perfect
+sanctity of Shakspeare's posthumous reputation, it is certain that
+the splendor of his worldly success must have done much to
+obliterate that effect; his admirable colloquial talents a good
+deal, and his gracious affability still more. The wonder,
+therefore, will still remain, that Betterton, in less than a
+century from his death, should have been able to glean so little.
+And for the solution of this wonder, we must throw ourselves
+chiefly upon the explanations we have made as to the parliamentary
+war, and the local ravages of its progress in the very district, of
+the very town, and the very house.
+
+If further arguments are still wanted to explain this mysterious
+abolition, we may refer the reader to the following succession of
+disastrous events, by which it should seem that a perfect malice of
+misfortune pursued the vestiges of the mighty poet's steps. In
+1613, the Globe theatre, with which he had been so long connected,
+was burned to the ground. Soon afterwards a great fire occurred in
+Stratford; and next, (without counting upon the fire of London,
+just fifty years after his death, which, however, would consume
+many an important record from periods far more remote,) the house
+of Ben Jonson, in which probably, as Mr. Campbell suggests, might
+be parts of his correspondence, was also burned. Finally, there was
+an old tradition that Lady Barnard, the sole grand-daughter of
+Shakspeare, had carried off many of his papers from Stratford, and
+these papers have never since been traced.
+
+In many of the elder lives it has been asserted, that John
+Shakspeare, the father of the poet, was a butcher, and in others
+that he was a woolstapler. It is now settled beyond dispute that he
+was a glover. This was his professed occupation in Stratford,
+though it is certain that, with this leading trade, from which he
+took his denomination, he combined some collateral pursuits; and it
+is possible enough that, as openings offered, he may have meddled
+with many. In that age, and in a provincial town, nothing like the
+exquisite subdivision of labor was attempted which we now see
+realized in the great cities of Christendom. And one trade is often
+found to play into another with so much reciprocal advantage, that
+even in our own days we do not much wonder at an enterprising man,
+in country places, who combines several in his own person.
+Accordingly, John Shakspeare is known to have united with his town
+calling the rural and miscellaneous occupations of a farmer.
+
+Meantime his avowed business stood upon a very different footing
+from the same trade as it is exercised in modern times. Gloves were
+in that age an article of dress more costly by much, and more
+elaborately decorated, than in our own. They were a customary
+present from some cities to the judges of assize, and to other
+official persons; a custom of ancient standing, and in some places,
+we believe, still subsisting; and in such cases it is reasonable to
+suppose, that the gloves must originally have been more valuable
+than the trivial modern article of the same name. So also, perhaps,
+in their origin, of the gloves given at funerals. In reality,
+whenever the simplicity of an age makes it difficult to renew the
+parts of a wardrobe, except in capital towns of difficult access,
+prudence suggests that such wares should be manufactured of more
+durable materials; and, being so, they become obviously susceptible
+of more lavish ornament. But it will not follow, from this
+essential difference in the gloves of Shakspeare's age, that the
+glover's occupation was more lucrative. Doubtless he sold more
+costly gloves, and upon each pair had a larger profit, but for that
+very reason he sold fewer. Two or three gentlemen "of worship" in
+the neighborhood might occasionally require a pair of gloves, but
+it is very doubtful whether any inhabitant of Stratford would ever
+call for so mere a luxury.
+
+The practical result, at all events, of John Shakspeare's various
+pursuits, does not appear permanently to have met the demands of
+his establishment, and in his maturer years there are indications
+still surviving that he was under a cloud of embarrassment. He
+certainly lost at one time his social position in the town of
+Stratford; but there is a strong presumption, in _our_
+construction of the case, that he finally retrieved it; and for
+this retrieval of a station, which he had forfeited by personal
+misfortunes or neglect, he was altogether indebted to the filial
+piety of his immortal son.
+
+Meantime the earlier years of the elder Shakspeare wore the aspect
+of rising prosperity, however unsound might be the basis on which
+it rested. There can be little doubt that William Shakspeare, from
+his birth up to his tenth or perhaps his eleventh year, lived in
+careless plenty, and saw nothing in his father's house but that
+style of liberal house-keeping, which has ever distinguished the
+upper yeomanry and the rural gentry of England. Probable enough it
+is, that the resources for meeting this liberality were not
+strictly commensurate with the family income, but were sometimes
+allowed to entrench, by means of loans or mortgages, upon capital
+funds. The stress upon the family finances was perhaps at times
+severe; and that it was borne at all, must be imputed to the large
+and even splendid portion which John Shakspeare received with his
+wife.
+
+This lady, for such she really was in an eminent sense, by birth as
+well as by connections, bore the beautiful name of Mary Arden, a
+name derived from the ancient forest district [Endnote: 10] of
+the country; and doubtless she merits a more elaborate notice than
+our slender materials will furnish. To have been _the mother of
+Shakspeare, _--how august a title to the reverence of infinite
+generations, and of centuries beyond the vision of prophecy. A
+plausible hypothesis has been started in modern times, that the
+facial structure, and that the intellectual conformation, may be
+deduced more frequently from the corresponding characteristics in
+the mother than in the father. It is certain that no very great man
+has ever existed, but that his greatness has been rehearsed and
+predicted in one or other of his parents. And it cannot be denied,
+that in the most eminent men, where we have had the means of
+pursuing the investigation, the mother has more frequently been
+repeated and reproduced than the father. We have known cases where
+the mother has furnished all the intellect, and the father all the
+moral sensibility; upon which assumption, the wonder ceases that
+_Cicero,_ Lord Chesterfield, and other brilliant men, who took
+the utmost pains with their sons, should have failed so
+conspicuously; for possibly the mothers had been women of excessive
+and even exemplary stupidity. In the case of Shakspeare, each
+parent, if we had any means of recovering their characteristics,
+could not fail to furnish a study of the most profound interest;
+and with regard to his mother in particular, if the modern
+hypothesis be true, and if we are indeed to deduce from her the
+stupendous intellect of her son, in that case she must have been a
+benefactress to her husband's family, beyond the promises of fairy
+land or the dreams of romance; for it is certain that to her
+chiefly this family was also indebted for their worldly comfort.
+
+Mary Arden was the youngest daughter and the heiress of Robert
+Arden, of Wilmecote, Esq., in the county of Warwick. The family of
+Arden was even then of great antiquity. About one century and a
+quarter before the birth of William Shakspeare, a person bearing
+the same name as his maternal grandfather had been returned by the
+commissioners in their list of the Warwickshire gentry; he was
+there styled Robert Arden, Esq., of Bromich. This was in 1433, or
+the 12th year of Henry VI. In Henry VII.'s reign, the Ardens
+received a grant of lands from the crown; and in 1568, four years
+after the birth of William Shakspeare, Edward Arden, of the same
+family, was sheriff of the county. Mary Arden was, therefore, a
+young lady of excellent descent and connections, and an heiress of
+considerable wealth. She brought to her husband, as her marriage
+portion, the landed estate of Asbies, which, upon any just
+valuation, must be considered as a handsome dowry for a woman of
+her station. As this point has been contested, and as it goes a
+great way towards determining the exact social position of the
+poet's parents, let us be excused for sifting it a little more
+narrowly than might else seem warranted by the proportions of our
+present life. Every question which it can be reasonable to raise at
+all, it must be reasonable to treat with at least so much of minute
+research, as may justify the conclusions which it is made to
+support.
+
+The estate of Asbies contained fifty acres of arable land, six of
+meadow, and a right of commonage. What may we assume to have been
+the value of its fee-simple? Malone, who allows the total fortune
+of Mary Arden to have been 110L 13s 4d., is sure that the value of
+Asbies could not have been more than one hundred pounds. But why?
+Because, says he, the "average" rent of land at that time was no
+more than three shillings per acre. This we deny; but upon that
+assumption, the total yearly rent of fifty-six acres would be
+exactly eight guineas. [Endnote: 11] And therefore, in assigning
+the value of Asbies at one hundred pounds, it appears that Malone
+must have estimated the land at no more than twelve years'
+purchase, which would carry the value to 100L. 16s. "Even at this
+estimate," as the latest annotator [Endnote: 12] on this subject
+_justly_ observes, "Mary Arden's portion was a larger one than
+was usually given to a landed gentleman's daughter." But this
+writer objects to Malone's principle of valuation. "We find," says
+he, "that John Shakspeare also farmed the meadow of Tugton,
+containing sixteen acres, at the rate of eleven shillings per acre.
+Now what proof has Mr. Malone adduced, that the acres of Asbies
+were not as valuable as those of Tugton? And if they were so, the
+former estate must have been worth between three and four hundred
+pounds." In the main drift of his objections we concur with Mr.
+Campbell. But as they are liable to some criticism, let us clear
+the ground of all plausible cavils, and then see what will be the
+result. Malone, had he been alive, would probably have answered,
+that Tugton was a farm specially privileged by nature; and that if
+any man contended for so unusual a rent as eleven shillings an acre
+for land not known to him, the _onus probandi_ would lie upon
+_him_. Be it so; eleven shillings is certainly above the
+ordinary level of rent, but three shillings is below it. We
+contend, that for tolerably good land, situated advantageously,
+that is, with a ready access to good markets and good fairs, such
+as those of Coventry, Birmingham, Gloucester, Worcester,
+Shrewsbury,. &c., one noble might be assumed as the annual rent;
+and that in such situations twenty years' purchase was not a
+valuation, even in Elizabeth's reign, very unusual. Let us,
+however, assume the rent at only five shillings, and land at
+sixteen years' purchase. Upon this basis, the rent would be 14L,
+and the value of the fee simple 224L. Now, if it were required to
+equate that sum with its present value, a very operose [Endnote:
+13] calculation might be requisite. But contenting ourselves with
+the gross method of making such equations between 1560 and the
+current century, that is, multiplying by five, we shall find the
+capital value of the estate to be eleven hundred and twenty pounds,
+whilst the annual rent would be exactly seventy. But if the estate
+had been sold, and the purchase-money lent upon mortgage, (the only
+safe mode of investing money at that time,) the annual interest
+would have reached 28L, equal to 140L of modern money; for
+mortgages in Elizabeth's age readily produced ten per cent.
+
+A woman who should bring at this day an annual income of 140L to a
+provincial tradesman, living in a sort of _rus in urbe_,
+according to the simple fashions of rustic life, would assuredly be
+considered as an excellent match. And there can be little doubt
+that Mary Arden's dowry it was which, for some ten or a dozen years
+succeeding to his marriage, raised her husband to so much social
+consideration in Stratford. In 1550 John Shakspeare is supposed to
+have first settled in Stratford, having migrated from some other
+part of Warwickshire. In 1557 he married Mary Arden; in 1565, the
+year subsequent to the birth of his son William, his third child,
+he was elected one of the aldermen; and in the year 1568 he became
+first magistrate of the town, by the title of high bailiff. This
+year we may assume to have been that in which the prosperity of
+this family reached its zenith; for in this year it was, over and
+above the presumptions furnished by his civic honors, that he
+obtained a grant of arms from Clarencieux of the Heralds' College.
+On this occasion he declared himself worth five hundred pounds
+derived from his ancestors. And we really cannot understand the
+right by which critics, living nearly three centuries from his
+time, undertake to know his affairs better than himself, and to tax
+him with either inaccuracy or falsehood. No man would be at leisure
+to court heraldic honors, when he knew himself to be embarrassed,
+or apprehended that he soon might be so. A man whose anxieties had
+been fixed at all upon his daily livelihood would, by this chase
+after the armorial honors of heraldry, have made himself a butt for
+ridicule, such as no fortitude could enable him to sustain.
+
+In 1568, therefore, when his son William would be moving through
+his fifth year, John Shakspeare, (now honored by the designation of
+_Master_,) would be found at times in the society of the
+neighboring gentry. Ten years in advance of this period he was
+already in difficulties. But there is no proof that these
+difficulties had then reached a point of degradation, or of
+memorable distress. The sole positive indications of his decaying
+condition are, that in 1578 he received an exemption from the small
+weekly assessment levied upon the aldermen of Stratford for the
+relief of the poor; and that in the following year, 1579, he is
+found enrolled amongst the defaulters in the payment of taxes. The
+latter fact undoubtedly goes to prove that, like every man who is
+falling back in the world, he was occasionally in arrears. Paying
+taxes is not like the honors awarded or the processions regulated
+by Clarencieux; no man is ambitious of precedency there; and if a
+laggard pace in that duty is to be received as evidence of
+pauperism, nine tenths of the English people might occasionally be
+classed as paupers. With respect to his liberation from the weekly
+assessment, that may bear a construction different from the one
+which it has received. This payment, which could never have been
+regarded as a burthen, not amounting to five pounds annually of our
+present money, may have been held up as an exponent of wealth and
+consideration; and John Shakspeare may have been required to resign
+it as an honorable distinction, not suitable to the circumstances
+of an embarrassed man. Finally, the fact of his being indebted to
+Robert Sadler, a baker, in the sum of five pounds, and his being
+under the necessity of bringing a friend as security for the
+payment, proves nothing at all. There is not a town in Europe, in
+which opulent men cannot be found that are backward in the payment
+of their debts. And the probability is, that Master Sadler acted
+like most people who, when they suppose a man to be going down in
+the world, feel their respect for him sensibly decaying, and think
+it wise to trample him under foot, provided only in that act of
+trampling they can squeeze out of him their own individual debt.
+Like that terrific chorus in Spohr's oratorio of St. Paul, _"
+Stone him to death "_ is the cry of the selfish and the
+illiberal amongst creditors, alike towards the just and the unjust
+amongst debtors.
+
+It was the wise and beautiful prayer of Agar, "Give me neither
+poverty nor riches;" and, doubtless, for quiet, for peace, and the
+_latentis semita vita_, that is the happiest dispensation.
+But, perhaps, with a view to a school of discipline and of moral
+fortitude, it might be a more salutary prayer, "Give me riches
+_and_ poverty, and afterwards neither." For the transitional
+state between riches and poverty will teach a lesson both as to the
+baseness and the goodness of human nature, and will impress that
+lesson with a searching force, such as no borrowed experience ever
+can approach. Most probable it is that Shakspeare drew some of his
+powerful scenes in the Timon of Athens, those which exhibit the
+vileness of ingratitude and the impassioned frenzy of misanthropy,
+from his personal recollections connected with the case of his own
+father. Possibly, though a cloud of two hundred and seventy years
+now veils it, this very Master Sadler, who was so urgent for his
+five pounds, and who so little apprehended that he should be called
+over the coals for it in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, may have
+compensate for the portrait of that Lucullus who says of Timon:
+
+"Alas, good lord! a noble gentleman 'tis, if he would not keep so
+good a house. Many a time and often I have dined with him, and told
+him on't; and come again to supper to him, of purpose to have him
+spend less; and yet he would embrace no counsel, take no warning by
+my coming. Every man has his fault, and honesty is his; I have told
+him on't, but I could never get him from it."
+
+For certain years, perhaps, John Shakspeare moved on in darkness
+and sorrow:
+
+  "His familiars from his buried fortunes
+  Slunk all away; left their false vows with him,
+  Like empty purses pick'd; and his poor self,
+  A dedicated beggar to the air,
+  With his disease of all-shunn'd poverty,
+  Walk'd, like contempt, alone."
+
+We, however, at this day, are chiefly interested in the case as it
+bears upon the education and youthful happiness of the poet. Now if
+we suppose that from 1568, the high noon of the family prosperity,
+to 1578, the first year of their mature embarrassments, one half
+the interval was passed in stationary sunshine, and the latter half
+in the gradual twilight of declension, it will follow that the
+young William had completed his tenth year before he heard the
+first signals of distress; and for so long a period his education
+would probably be conducted on as liberal a scale as the resources
+of Stratford would allow. Through this earliest section of his life
+he would undoubtedly rank as a gentleman's son, possibly as the
+leader of his class, in Stratford. But what rank he held through
+the next ten years, or, more generally, what was the standing in
+society of Shakspeare until he had created a new station for
+himself by his own exertions in the metropolis, is a question yet
+unsettled, but which has been debated as keenly as if it had some
+great dependencies. Upon this we shall observe, that could we by
+possibility be called to settle beforehand what rank were best for
+favoring the development of intellectual powers, the question might
+wear a face of deep practical importance; but when the question is
+simply as to a matter of fact, what _was_ the rank held by a
+man whose intellectual development has long ago been completed,
+this becomes a mere question of curiosity. The tree has fallen; it
+is confessedly the noblest of all the forest; and we must therefore
+conclude that the soil in which it flourished was either the best
+possible, or, if not so, that any thing bad in its properties had
+been disarmed and neutralized by the vital forces of the plant, or
+by the benignity of nature. If any future Shakspeare were likely to
+arise, it might be a problem of great interest to agitate, whether
+the condition of a poor man or of a gentleman were best fitted to
+nurse and stimulate his faculties. But for the actual Shakspeare,
+since what he was he was, and since nothing greater can be
+imagined, it is now become a matter of little moment whether his
+course lay for fifteen or twenty years through the humilities of
+absolute poverty, or through the chequered paths of gentry lying in
+the shade. Whatever _was_, must, in this case at least, have
+been the best, since it terminated in producing Shakspeare: and
+thus far we must all be optimists.
+
+Yet still, it will be urged, the curiosity is not illiberal which
+would seek to ascertain the precise career through which Shakspeare
+ran. This we readily concede; and we are anxious ourselves to
+contribute any thing in our power to the settlement of a point so
+obscure. What we have wished to protest against, is the spirit of
+partisanship in which this question has too generally been
+discussed. For, whilst some with a foolish affectation of plebeian
+sympathies overwhelm us with the insipid commonplaces about birth
+and ancient descent, as honors containing nothing meritorious, and
+rush eagerly into an ostentatious exhibition of all the
+circumstances which favor the notion of a humble station and humble
+connections; others, with equal forgetfulness of true dignity,
+plead with the intemperance and partiality of a legal advocate for
+the pretensions of Shakspeare to the hereditary rank of gentleman.
+Both parties violate the majesty of the subject. When we are
+seeking for the sources of the Euphrates or the St. Lawrence, we
+look for no proportions to the mighty volume of waters in that
+particular summit amongst the chain of mountains which embosoms its
+earliest fountains, nor are we shocked at the obscurity of these
+fountains. Pursuing the career of Mahommed, or of any man who has
+memorably impressed his own mind or agency upon the revolutions of
+mankind, we feel solicitude about the circumstances which might
+surround his cradle to be altogether unseasonable and impertinent.
+Whether he were born in a hovel or a palace, whether he passed his
+infancy in squalid poverty, or hedged around by the glittering
+spears of bodyguards, as mere questions of fact may be interesting;
+but, in the light of either accessories or counteragencies to the
+native majesty of the subject, are trivial and below all
+philosophic valuation. So with regard to the creator of Lear and
+Hamlet, of Othello and Macbeth; to him from whose golden urns the
+nations beyond the far Atlantic, the multitude of the isles, and the
+generations unborn in Australian climes, even to the realms of the
+rising sun (the greek: anatolai haedlioio,) must in every age
+draw perennial streams of intellectual life, we feel that the
+little accidents of birth and social condition are so unspeakably
+below the grandeur of the theme, are so irrelevant and
+disproportioned to the real interest at issue, so incommensurable
+with any of its relations, that a biographer of Shakspeare at once
+denounces himself as below his subject if he can entertain such a
+question as seriously affecting the glory of the poet. In some
+legends of saints, we find that they were born with a lambent
+circle or golden aureola about their heads. This angelic coronet
+shed light alike upon the chambers of a cottage or a palace, upon
+the gloomy limits of a dungeon, or the vast expansion of a
+cathedral; but the cottage, the palace, the dungeon, the cathedral,
+were all equally incapable of adding one ray of color or one pencil
+of light to the supernatural halo.
+
+Having, therefore, thus pointedly guarded ourselves from
+misconstruction, and consenting to entertain the question as one in
+which we, the worshippers of Shakspeare, have an interest of
+curiosity, but in which he, the object of our worship, has no
+interest of glory, we proceed to state what appears to us the
+result of the scanty facts surviving when collated with each other.
+
+By his mother's side, Shakspeare was an authentic gentleman. By his
+father's he would have stood in a more dubious position; but the
+effect of municipal honors to raise and illustrate an equivocal
+rank, has always been acknowledged under the popular tendencies of
+our English political system. From the sort of lead, therefore,
+which John Shakspeare took at one time amongst his fellow-townsmen,
+and from his rank of first magistrate, we may presume that, about
+the year 1568, he had placed himself at the head of the Stratford
+community. Afterwards he continued for some years to descend from
+this altitude; and the question is, at what point this gradual
+degradation may be supposed to have settled. Now we shall avow it
+as our opinion, that the composition of society in Stratford was
+such that, even had the Shakspeare family maintained their
+superiority, the main body of their daily associates must still
+have been found amongst persons below the rank of gentry. The poet
+must inevitably have mixed chiefly with mechanics and humble
+tradesmen, for such people composed perhaps the total community.
+But had there even been a gentry in Stratford, since they would
+have marked the distinctions of their rank chiefly by greater
+reserve of manners, it is probable that, after all, Shakspeare,
+with his enormity of delight in exhibitions of human nature, would
+have mostly cultivated that class of society in which the feelings
+are more elementary and simple, in which the thoughts speak a
+plainer language, and in which the restraints of factitious or
+conventional decorum are exchanged for the restraints of mere
+sexual decency. It is a noticeable fact to all who have looked upon
+human life with an eye of strict attention, that the abstract image
+of womanhood, in. its loveliness, its delicacy, and its modesty,
+nowhere makes itself more impressive or more advantageously felt
+than in the humblest cottages, because it is there brought into
+immediate juxtaposition with the grossness of manners, and the
+careless license of language incident to the fathers and brothers
+of the house. And this is more especially true in a nation of
+unaffected sexual gallantry, [Endnote: 14] such as the English and
+the Gothic races in general; since, under the immunity which their
+women enjoy from all servile labors of a coarse or out-of-doors
+order, by as much lower as they descend in the scale of rank, by so
+much more do they benefit under the force of contrast with the men
+of their own level. A young man of that class, however noble in
+appearance, is somewhat degraded in the eyes of women, by the
+necessity which his indigence imposes of working under a master;
+but a beautiful young woman, in the very poorest family, unless she
+enters upon a life of domestic servitude, (in which case her labors
+are light, suited to her sex, and withdrawn from the public eye,)
+so long in fact as she stays under her father's roof, is as
+perfectly her own mistress and _sui juris_ as the daughter of
+an earl. This personal dignity, brought into stronger relief by the
+mercenary employments of her male connections, and the feminine
+gentleness of her voice and manners, exhibited under the same
+advantages of contrast, oftentimes combine to make a young cottage
+beauty as fascinating an object as any woman of any station.
+
+Hence we may in part account for the great event of Shakspeare's
+early manhood, his premature marriage. It has always been known, or
+at least traditionally received for a fact, that Shakspeare had
+married whilst yet a boy, and that his wife was unaccountably older
+than himself. In the very earliest biographical sketch of the poet,
+compiled by Rowe, from materials collected by Betterton the actor,
+it was stated, (and that statement is now ascertained to have been
+correct,) that he had married Anne Hathaway, "the daughter of a
+substantial yeoman." Further than this nothing was known. But in
+September, 1836, was published a very remarkable document, which
+gives the assurance of law to the time and fact of this event, yet
+still, unless collated with another record, does nothing to lessen
+the mystery which had previously surrounded its circumstances. This
+document consists of two parts; the first, and principal, according
+to the logic of the case, though second according to the
+arrangement, being a _license_ for the marriage of William
+Shakspeare with Anne Hathaway, under the condition "of _once_
+asking of the bannes of matrimony," that is, in effect, dispensing
+with two out of the three customary askings; the second or
+subordinate part of the document being a _bond_ entered into
+by two sureties, viz.: Fulke Sandells and John Rychardson, both
+described as _agricolae_ or yeomen, and both marksmen, (that
+is, incapable of writing, and therefore subscribing by means of
+_marks,_) for the payment of forty pounds sterling, in the
+event of Shakspeare, yet a minor, and incapable of binding himself,
+failing to fulfil the conditions of the license. In the bond, drawn
+up in Latin, there is no mention of Shakspeare's name; but in the
+license, which is altogether English, _his_ name, of course,
+stands foremost; and as it may gratify the reader to see the very
+words and orthography of the original, we here extract the
+_operative_ part of this document, prefacing only, that the
+license is attached by way of explanation to the bond. "The
+condition of this obligation is suche, that if hereafter there
+shall not appere any lawfull lett or impediment, by reason of any
+precontract, &c., but that Willm. Shagspere, one thone ptie," [on
+the one party,] "and Anne Hathwey of Stratford, in the diocess of
+Worcester, maiden, may lawfully solemnize matrimony together; and
+in the same afterwards remaine and continew like man and wiffe.
+And, moreover, if the said Willm. Shagspere do not proceed to
+solemnization of mariadg with the said Anne Hathwey, without the
+consent of hir frinds;--then the said obligation" [viz., to pay
+forty pounds]" to be voyd and of none effect, or els to stand &
+abide in full force and vertue."
+
+What are we to think of this document? Trepidation and anxiety are
+written upon its face. The parties are not to be married by a
+special license; not even by an ordinary license; in that case no
+proclamation of banns, no public asking at all, would have been
+requisite. Economical scruples are consulted; and yet the regular
+movement of the marriage "through the bell-ropes" [Endnote: 15] is
+disturbed. Economy, which retards the marriage, is here evidently
+in collision with some opposite principle which precipitates it.
+How is all this to be explained? Much light is afforded by the date
+when illustrated by another document. The bond bears date on the
+28th day of November, in the 25th year of our lady the queen, that
+is, in 1582. Now the baptism of Shakspeare's eldest child, Susanna,
+is registered on the 26th of May in the year following.
+
+Suppose, therefore, that his marriage was solemnized on the 1st day
+of December; it was barely possible that it could be earlier,
+considering that the sureties, drinking, perhaps, at Worcester
+throughout the 28th of November, would require the 29th, in so
+dreary a season, for their return to Stratford; after which some
+preparation might be requisite to the bride, since the marriage was
+_not_ celebrated at Stratford. Next suppose the birth of Miss
+Susanna to have occurred, like her father's, two days before her
+baptism, viz., on the 24th of May. From December the 1st to May the
+24th, both days inclusively, are one hundred and seventy-five days;
+which, divided by seven, gives precisely twenty-five weeks, that is
+to say, six months short by one week. Oh, fie, Miss Susanna, you
+came rather before you were wanted.
+
+Mr. Campbell's comment upon the affair is, that "_if_ this
+was the case, "viz., if the baptism were really solemnized on the
+26th of May," the poet's first child would _appear_ to have
+been born only six months and eleven days after the bond was
+entered into. "And he then concludes that, on this assumption,"
+Miss Susanna Shakspeare came into the world a little prematurely."
+But this is to doubt where there never was any ground for doubting;
+the baptism was _certainly_ on the 26th of May; and, in the
+next place, the calculation of six months and eleven days is
+sustained by substituting lunar months for calendar, and then only
+by supposing the marriage to have been celebrated on the very day
+of subscribing the bond in Worcester, and the baptism to have been
+coincident with the birth; of which suppositions the latter is
+improbable, and the former, considering the situation of Worcester,
+impossible.
+
+Strange it is, that, whilst all biographers have worked with so
+much zeal upon the most barren dates or most baseless traditions in
+the great poet's life, realizing in a manner the chimeras of
+Laputa, and endeavoring "to extract sunbeams from cucumbers," such
+a story with regard to such an event, no fiction of village
+scandal, but involved in legal documents, a story so significant
+and so eloquent to the intelligent, should formerly have been
+dismissed without notice of any kind, and even now, after the
+discovery of 1836, with nothing beyond a slight conjectural
+insinuation. For our parts, we should have been the last amongst
+the biographers to unearth any forgotten scandal, or, after so vast
+a lapse of time, and when the grave had shut out all but charitable
+thoughts, to point any moral censures at a simple case of natural
+frailty, youthful precipitancy of passion, of all trespasses the
+most venial, where the final intentions are honorable. But in this
+case there seems to have been something more in motion than passion
+or the ardor of youth. "I like not," says Parson Evans, (alluding
+to Falstaff in masquerade,) "I like not when a woman has a great
+peard; I spy a great peard under her muffler." Neither do we like
+the spectacle of a mature young woman, five years past her
+majority, wearing the semblance of having been led astray by a boy
+who had still two years and a half to run of his minority.
+Shakspeare himself, looking back on this part of his youthful
+history from his maturest years, breathes forth pathetic counsels
+against the errors into which his own inexperience had been
+insnared. The disparity of years between himself and his wife he
+notices in a beautiful scene of the Twelfth Night. The Duke Orsino,
+observing the sensibility which the pretended Cesario had betrayed
+on hearing some touching old snatches of a love strain, swears that
+his beardless page must have felt the passion of love, which the
+other admits. Upon this the dialogue proceeds thus:
+
+
+  DUKE. What kind of woman is't?
+
+  VIOLA. Of your complexion.
+
+  DUKE. She is not worth thee then. What years?
+
+  VIOLA. I' faith, About your years, my lord.
+
+  DUKE. Too old, by heaven. _Let still the woman take
+        An elder than herself: so wears she to him,
+        So sways she level in her husband's heart._
+        For, boy, however we do praise ourselves,
+        Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm,
+        More longing, wavering, sooner lost and worn,
+        Than women's are.
+
+  VIOLA. I think it well, my lord.
+
+  DUKE. _Then let thy love be younger than thyself,
+        Or thy affection cannot hold the bent;_
+        For women are as roses, whose fair flower,
+        Being once display'd, doth fall that very hour.
+
+These counsels were uttered nearly twenty years after the event in
+his own life, to which they probably look back; for this play is
+supposed to have been written in Shakspeare's thirty-eighth year.
+And we may read an earnestness in pressing the point as to the
+_inverted_ disparity of years, which indicates pretty clearly
+an appeal to the lessons of his personal experience. But his other
+indiscretion, in having yielded so far to passion and opportunity
+as to crop by prelibation, and before they were hallowed, those
+flowers of paradise which belonged to his marriage day; this he
+adverts to with even more solemnity of sorrow, and with more
+pointed energy of moral reproof, in the very last drama which is
+supposed to have proceeded from his pen, and therefore with the
+force and sanctity of testamentary counsel. The Tempest is all but
+ascertained to have been composed in 1611, that is, about five
+years before the poet's death; and indeed could not have been
+composed much earlier; for the very incident which suggested the
+basis of the plot, and of the local scene, viz., the shipwreck of
+Sir George Somers on the Bermudas, (which were in consequence
+denominated the Somers' Islands,) did not occur until the year
+1609. In the opening of the fourth act, Prospero formally betrothes
+his daughter to Ferdinand; and in doing so he pays the prince a
+well-merited compliment of having "worthily purchas'd" this rich
+jewel, by the patience with which, for her sake, he had supported
+harsh usage, and other painful circumstances of his trial. But, he
+adds solemnly,
+
+  "If thou dost break her virgin knot before
+  All sanctimonious ceremonies may
+  With full and holy rite be minister'd;"
+
+in that case what would follow?
+
+  "No sweet aspersion shall the heavens let fall,
+  To make this contract grow; _but barren hate,
+  Sour-ey'd disdain and discord, shall bestrew
+  The union of your bed with weeds so loathly
+  That you shall hate it both._ Therefore take heed,
+  As Hymen's lamps shall light you."
+
+The young prince assures him in reply, that no strength of
+opportunity, concurring with the uttermost temptation, not
+
+  "the murkiest den,
+  The most opportune place, the strong'st suggestion
+  Our worser genius can----,"
+
+should ever prevail to lay asleep his jealousy of self-control, so
+as to take any advantage of Miranda's innocence. And he adds an
+argument for this abstinence, by way of reminding Prospero, that
+not honor only, but even prudential care of his own happiness, is
+interested in the observance of his promise. Any unhallowed
+anticipation would, as he insinuates,
+
+  "take away
+  The edge of that day's celebration,
+  When I shall think, or Phoebus' steeds are founder'd,
+  Or night kept chain'd below;"
+
+that is, when even the winged hours would seem to move too slowly.
+Even thus Prospero is not quite satisfied. During his subsequent
+dialogue with Ariel, we are to suppose that Ferdinand, in
+conversing apart with Miranda, betrays more impassioned ardor than
+the wise magician altogether approves. The prince's caresses have
+not been unobserved; and thus Prospero renews his warning:
+
+  "Look thou be true: do not give dalliance
+  Too much the rein: the strongest oaths are straw
+  To the fire i' the blood: be more abstemious,
+  Or else--good night your vow."
+
+The royal lover reassures him of his loyalty to his engagements;
+and again the wise father, so honorably jealous for his daughter,
+professes himself satisfied with the prince's pledges.
+
+Now in all these emphatic warnings, uttering the language "of that
+sad wisdom folly leaves behind," who can avoid reading, as in
+subtle hieroglyphics, the secret record of Shakspeare's own nuptial
+disappointments? We, indeed, that is, universal posterity through
+every age, have reason to rejoice in these disappointments; for to
+them, past all doubt, we are indebted for Shakspeare's subsequent
+migration to London, and his public occupation, which, giving him a
+deep pecuniary interest in the productions of his pen, such as no
+other literary application of his powers could have approached in
+that day, were eventually the means of drawing forth those divine
+works which have survived their author for our everlasting benefit.
+
+Our own reading and deciphering of the whole case is as follows.
+The Shakspeares were a handsome family, both father and sons. This
+we assume upon the following grounds: First, on the presumption
+arising out of John Shakspeare's having won the favor of a young
+heiress higher in rank than himself; secondly, on the presumption
+involved in the fact of three amongst his four sons having gone
+upon the stage, to which the most obvious (and perhaps in those
+days a _sine qua non_) recommendation would be a good person
+and a pleasing countenance; thirdly, on the direct evidence of
+Aubrey, who assures us that William Shakspeare was a handsome and a
+well-shaped man; fourthly, on the implicit evidence of the
+Stratford monument, which exhibits a man of good figure and noble
+countenance; fifthly, on the confirmation of this evidence by the
+Chandos portrait, which exhibits noble features, illustrated by the
+utmost sweetness of expression; sixthly, on the selection of
+theatrical parts, which it is known that Shakspeare personated,
+most of them being such as required some dignity of form, viz.,
+kings, the athletic (though aged) follower of an athletic young
+man, and supernatural beings. On these grounds, direct or
+circumstantial, we believe ourselves warranted in assuming that
+William Shakspeare was a handsome and even noble looking boy. Miss
+Anne Hathaway had herself probably some personal attractions; and,
+if an indigent girl, who looked for no pecuniary advantages, would
+probably have been early sought in marriage. But as the daughter of
+"a substantial yeoman," who would expect some fortune in his
+daughter's suitors, she had, to speak coarsely, a little outlived
+her market. Time she had none to lose. William Shakspeare pleased
+her eye; and the gentleness of his nature made him an apt subject
+for female blandishments, possibly for female arts. Without
+imputing, however, to this Anne Hathaway any thing so hateful as a
+settled plot for insnaring him, it was easy enough for a mature
+woman, armed with such inevitable advantages of experience and of
+self-possession, to draw onward a blushing novice; and, without
+directly creating opportunities, to place him in the way of turning
+to account such as naturally offered. Young boys are generally
+flattered by the condescending notice of grown-up women; and
+perhaps Shakspeare's own lines upon a similar situation, to a young
+boy adorned with the same natural gifts as himself, may give us the
+key to the result:
+
+  "Gentle thou art, and therefore to be won;
+  Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assail'd;
+  And, when a woman woos, what woman's son
+  Will sourly leave her till he have prevail'd?"
+
+Once, indeed, entangled in such a pursuit, any person of manly
+feelings would be sensible that he had no retreat; _that_
+would be--to insult a woman, grievously to wound her sexual pride,
+and to insure her lasting scorn and hatred. These were consequences
+which the gentle-minded Shakspeare could not face. He pursued his
+good fortunes, half perhaps in heedlessness, half in desperation,
+until he was roused by the clamorous displeasure of her family upon
+first discovering the situation of their kinswoman. For such a
+situation there could be but one atonement, and that was hurried
+forward by both parties; whilst, out of delicacy towards the bride,
+the wedding was not celebrated in Stratford, (where the register
+contains no notice of such an event); nor, as Malone imagined, in
+Weston-upon-Avon, that being in the diocese of Gloucester; but in
+some parish, as yet undiscovered, in the diocese of Worcester.
+
+But now arose a serious question as to the future maintenance of
+the young people. John Shakspeare was depressed in his
+circumstances, and he had other children besides William, viz.,
+three sons and a daughter. The elder lives have represented him as
+burdened with ten; but this was an error, arising out of the
+confusion between John Shakspeare the glover, and John Shakspeare a
+shoemaker. This error has been thus far of use, that, by exposing
+the fact of two John Shakspeares (not kinsmen) residing in
+Stratford-upon-Avon, it has satisfactorily proved the name to be
+amongst those which are locally indigenous to Warwickshire.
+Meantime it is now ascertained that John Shakspeare the glover had
+only eight children, viz., four daughters and four sons. The order
+of their succession was this: Joan, Margaret, WILLIAM, Gilbert, a
+second Joan, Anne, Richard, and Edmund. Three of the daughters,
+viz., the two eldest of the family, Joan and Margaret, together
+with Anne, died in childhood. All the rest attained mature ages,
+and of these William was the eldest. This might give him some
+advantage in his father's regard; but in a question of pecuniary
+provision precedency amongst the children of an insolvent is nearly
+nominal. For the present John Shakspeare could do little for his
+son; and, under these circumstances, perhaps the father of Anne
+Hathaway would come forward to assist the new-married couple. This
+condition of dependency would furnish matter for painful feelings
+and irritating words. The youthful husband, whose mind would be
+expanding as rapidly as the leaves and blossoms of spring-time in
+polar latitudes, would soon come to appreciate the sort of wiles by
+which he had been caught. The female mind is quick, and almost
+gifted with the power of witchcraft, to decipher what is passing in
+the thoughts of familiar companions. Silent and forbearing as
+William Shakspeare might be, Anne, his staid wife, would read his
+secret reproaches; ill would she dissemble her wrath, and the less
+so from the consciousness of having deserved them. It is no
+uncommon case for women to feel anger in connection with one
+subject, and to express it in connection with another; which other,
+perhaps, (except as a serviceable mask,) would have been a matter
+of indifference to their feelings. Anne would, therefore, reply to
+those inevitable reproaches which her own sense must presume to be
+lurking in her husband's heart, by others equally stinging, on his
+inability to support his family, and on his obligations to her
+father's purse. Shakspeare, we may be sure, would be ruminating
+every hour on the means of his deliverance from so painful a
+dependency; and at length, after four years' conjugal discord, he
+would resolve upon that plan of solitary emigration to the
+metropolis, which, at the same time that it released him from the
+humiliation of domestic feuds, succeeded so splendidly for his
+worldly prosperity, and with a train of consequences so vast for
+all future ages.
+
+Such, we are persuaded, was the real course of Shakspeare's
+transition from school-boy pursuits to his public career. And upon
+the known temperament of Shakspeare, his genial disposition to
+enjoy life without disturbing his enjoyment by fretting anxieties,
+we build the conclusion, that had his friends furnished him with
+ampler funds, and had his marriage been well assorted or happy,
+we--the world of posterity--should have lost the whole benefit and
+delight which we have since reaped from his matchless faculties.
+The motives which drove him _from_ Stratford are clear enough;
+but what motives determined his course _to_ London, and
+especially to the stage, still remains to be explained.
+Stratford-upon-Avon, lying in the high road from London through
+Oxford to Birmingham, (or more generally to the north,) had been
+continually visited by some of the best comedians during
+Shakspeare's childhood. One or two of the most respectable
+metropolitan actors were natives of Stratford. These would be well
+known to the elder Shakspeare. But, apart from that accident, it is
+notorious that mere legal necessity and usage would compel all
+companies of actors, upon coming into any town, to seek, in the
+first place, from the chief magistrate, a license for opening a
+theatre, and next, over and above this public sanction, to seek his
+personal favor and patronage. As an alderman, therefore, but still
+more whilst clothed with the official powers of chief magistrate,
+the poet's father would have opportunities of doing essential
+services to many persons connected with the London stage. The
+conversation of comedians acquainted with books, fresh from the
+keen and sparkling circles of the metropolis, and filled with racy
+anecdotes of the court, as well as of public life generally, could
+not but have been fascinating, by comparison with the stagnant
+society of Stratford. Hospitalities on a liberal scale would be
+offered to these men. Not impossibly this fact might be one
+principal key to those dilapidations which the family estate had
+suffered. These actors, on _their_ part, would retain a
+grateful sense of the kindness they had received, and would seek to
+repay it to John Shakspeare, now that he was depressed in his
+fortunes, as opportunities might offer. His eldest son, growing up
+a handsome young man, and beyond all doubt from his earliest days
+of most splendid colloquial powers, (for assuredly of _him_ it
+may be taken for granted),
+
+  "Nec licuit populis parvum te, Nile, videre,"
+
+would be often reproached in a friendly way for burying himself in
+a country life. These overtures, prompted alike by gratitude to the
+father, and a real selfish interest in the talents of the son,
+would at length take a definite shape; and, upon, some clear
+understanding as to the terms of such an arrangement, William
+Shakspeare would at length, (about 1586, according to the received
+account, that is, in the fifth year of his married life, and the
+twenty-third or twenty-fourth of his age,) unaccompanied by wife or
+children, translate himself to London. Later than 1586 it could not
+well be; for already in 1589 it has been recently ascertained that
+he held a share in the property of a leading theatre.
+
+We must here stop to notice, and the reader will allow us to notice
+with summary indignation, the slanderous and idle tale which
+represents Shakspeare as having fled to London in the character of
+a criminal, from the persecutions of Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecot.
+This tale has long been propagated under two separate impulses.
+Chiefly, perhaps, under the vulgar love of pointed and glaring
+contrasts; the splendor of the man was in this instance brought
+into a sort of epigrammatic antithesis with the humility of his
+fortunes; secondly, under a baser impulse, the malicious pleasure
+of seeing a great man degraded. Accordingly, as in the case of
+Milton, [Endnote: 16] it has been affirmed that Shakspeare had
+suffered corporal chastisement, in fact, (we abhor to utter such
+words,) that he had been judicially whipped. Now, first of all, let
+us mark the inconsistency of this tale. The poet was whipped, that
+is, he was punished most disproportionately, and yet he fled to
+avoid punishment. Next, we are informed that his offence was
+deer-stealing, and from the park of Sir Thomas Lucy. And it has
+been well ascertained that Sir Thomas had no deer, and had no park.
+Moreover, deer-stealing was regarded by our ancestors exactly as
+poaching is regarded by us. Deer ran wild in all the great forests;
+and no offence was looked upon as so venial, none so compatible
+with a noble Robin-Hood style of character, as this very trespass
+upon what were regarded as _ferae naturae_, and not at all as
+domestic property. But had it been otherwise, a trespass was not
+punishable with whipping; nor had Sir Thomas Lucy the power to
+irritate a whole community like Stratford-upon-Avon, by branding
+with permanent disgrace a young man so closely connected with three
+at least of the best families in the neighborhood. Besides, had
+Shakspeare suffered any dishonor of that kind, the scandal would
+infallibly have pursued him at his very heels to London; and in
+that case Greene, who has left on record, in a posthumous work of
+1592, his malicious feelings towards Shakspeare, could not have
+failed to notice it. For, be it remembered, that a judicial
+flagellation contains a twofold ignominy. Flagellation is
+ignominious in its own nature, even though unjustly inflicted, and
+by a ruffian; secondly, any judicial punishment is ignominous, even
+though not wearing a shade of personal degradation. Now a judicial
+flagellation includes both features of dishonor. And is it to be
+imagined that an enemy, searching with the diligence of malice for
+matter against Shakspeare, should have failed, six years after the
+event, to hear of that very memorable disgrace which had exiled him
+from Stratford, and was the very occasion of his first resorting to
+London; or that a leading company of players in the metropolis,
+_one of whom_, and a chief one, _was his own townsman_,
+should cheerfully adopt into their society, as an honored partner,
+a young man yet flagrant from the lash of the executioner or the
+beadle?
+
+This tale is fabulous, and rotten to its core; yet even this does
+less dishonor to Shakspeare's memory than the sequel attached to
+it. A sort of scurrilous rondeau, consisting of nine lines, so
+loathsome in its brutal stupidity, and so vulgar in its expression,
+that we shall not pollute our pages by transcribing it, has been
+imputed to Shakspeare ever since the days of the credulous Rowe.
+The total point of this idiot's drivel consists in calling Sir
+Thomas "an asse;" and well it justifies the poet's own remark, "Let
+there be gall enough in thy ink, no matter though thou write with a
+goose pen." Our own belief is, that these lines were a production
+of Charles II.'s reign, and applied to a Sir Thomas Lucy, not very
+far removed, if at all, from the age of him who first picked up the
+pecious filth. The phrase "parliament _member_" we believe to
+be quite unknown in the colloquial use of Queen Elizabeth's reign.
+
+But, that we may rid ourselves once and for ever of this outrageous
+calumny upon Shakspeare's memory, we shall pursue the story to its
+final stage. Even Malone has been thoughtless enough to accredit
+this closing chapter, which contains, in fact, such a superfetation
+of folly as the annals of human dullness do not exceed. Let us
+recapitulate the points of the story. A baronet, who has no deer
+and no park, is supposed to persecute a poet for stealing these
+aerial deer out of this aerial park, both lying in
+_nephelococcygia_. The poet sleeps upon this wrong for
+eighteen years; but at length, hearing that his persecutor is dead
+and buried, he conceives bloody thoughts of revenge. And this
+revenge he purposes to execute by picking a hole in his dead
+enemy's coat-of-arms. Is this coat-of-arms, then, Sir Thomas
+Lucy's? Why, no; Malone admits that it is not. For the poet,
+suddenly recollecting that this ridicule would settle upon the son
+of his enemy, selects another coat-of-arms, with which his dead
+enemy never had any connection, and he spends his thunder and
+lighting upon this irrelevant object; and, after all, the ridicule
+itself lies in a Welchman's mispronouncing one single heraldic
+term--a Welchman who mispronounces all words. The last act of the
+poet's malice recalls to us a sort of jest-book story of an
+Irishman, the vulgarity of which the reader will pardon in
+consideration of its relevancy. The Irishman having lost a pair of
+silk stockings, mentions to a friend that he has taken steps for
+recovering them by an advertisement, offering a reward to the
+finder. His friend objects that the costs of advertising, and the
+reward, would eat out the full value of the silk stockings. But to
+this the Irishman replies, with a knowing air, that he is not so
+green as to have overlooked _that_; and that, to keep down the
+reward, he had advertised the stockings as worsted. Not at all less
+flagrant is the bull ascribed to Shakspeare, when he is made to
+punish a dead man by personalities meant for his exclusive ear,
+through his coat-of-arms, but at the same time, with the express
+purpose of blunting and defeating the edge of his own scurrility,
+is made to substitute for the real arms some others which had no
+more relation to the dead enemy than they had to the poet himself.
+This is the very sublime of folly, beyond which human dotage cannot
+advance.
+
+It is painful, indeed, and dishonorable to human nature, that
+whenever men of vulgar habits and of poor education wish to impress
+us with a feeling of respect for a man's talents, they are sure to
+cite, by way of evidence, some gross instance of malignity. Power,
+in their minds, is best illustrated by malice or by the infliction
+of pain. To this unwelcome fact we have some evidence in the
+wretched tale which we have just dismissed; and there is another of
+the same description to be found in all lives of Shakspeare, which
+we will expose to the contempt of the reader whilst we are in this
+field of discussion, that we may not afterwards have to resume so
+disgusting a subject.
+
+This poet, who was a model of gracious benignity in his manners,
+and of whom, amidst our general ignorance, thus much is perfectly
+established, that the term _gentle_ was almost as generally
+and by prescriptive right associated with his name as the affix of
+_venerable_ with Bede, or _judicious_ with Hooker, is
+alleged to have insulted a friend by an imaginary epitaph beginning
+"_Ten in the Hundred_" and supposing him to be damned, yet
+without wit enough (which surely the Stratford bellman could have
+furnished) for devising any, even fanciful, reason for such a
+supposition; upon which the comment of some foolish critic is," The
+_sharpness of the satire_ is said to have stung the man so
+much that he never forgave it. "We have heard of the sting in the
+tail atoning for the brainless head; but in this doggerel the tail
+is surely as stingless as the head is brainless. For, 1st, _Ten
+in the Hundred_ could be no reproach in Shakspeare's time, any
+more than to call a man _Three-and-a-half-per-cent_. in this
+present year, 1838; except, indeed, amongst those foolish persons
+who built their morality upon the Jewish ceremonial law. Shakspeare
+himself took ten per cent. _2dly_, It happens that John Combe,
+so far from being the object of the poet's scurrility, or viewing
+the poet as an object of implacable resentment, was a Stratford
+friend; that one of his family was affectionately remembered in
+Shakspeare's will by the bequest of his sword; and that John Combe
+himself recorded his perfect charity with Shakspeare by leaving him
+a legacy of 5L sterling. And in this lies the key to the whole
+story. For, _3dly_, The four lines were written and printed
+before Shakspeare was born. The name Combe is a common one; and
+some stupid fellow, who had seen the name in Shakspeare's will, and
+happened also to have seen the lines in a collection of epigrams,
+chose to connect the cases by attributing an identity to the two
+John Combes, though at war with chronology.
+
+Finally, there is another specimen of doggerel attributed to
+Shakspeare, which is not equally unworthy of him, because not
+equally malignant, but otherwise equally below his intellect, no
+less than his scholarship; we mean the inscription on his
+grave-stone. This, as a sort of _siste viator_ appeal to
+future sextons, is worthy of the grave-digger or the parish-clerk,
+who was probably its author. Or it may have been an antique
+formula, like the vulgar record of ownership in books--
+
+  "Anthony Timothy Dolthead's hook,
+  God give him grace therein to look."
+
+Thus far the matter is of little importance; and it might
+have been supposed that malignity itself could hardly have imputed
+such trash to Shakspeare. But when we find, even in this short
+compass, scarcely wider than the posy of a ring, room found for
+traducing the poet's memory, it becomes important to say, that the
+leading sentiment, the horror expressed at any disturbance offered
+to his bones, is not one to which Shakspeare could have attached
+the slightest weight; far less could have outraged the sanctities
+of place and subject, by affixing to any sentiment whatever (and,
+according to the fiction of the case, his farewell sentiment) the
+sanction of a curse.
+
+Filial veneration and piety towards the memory of this great man,
+have led us into a digression that might have been unseasonable in
+any cause less weighty than one, having for its object to deliver
+his honored name from a load of the most brutal malignity. Never
+more, we hope and venture to believe, will any thoughtless
+biographer impute to Shakspeare the asinine doggerel with which the
+uncritical blundering of his earliest biographer has caused his
+name to be dishonored. We now resume the thread of our biography.
+The stream of history is centuries in working itself clear of any
+calumny with which it has once been polluted.
+
+Most readers will be aware of an old story, according to which
+Shakspeare gained his livelihood for some time after coming to
+London by holding the horses of those who rode to the play. This
+legend is as idle as any one of those which we have just exposed.
+No custom ever existed of riding on horseback to the play.
+Gentlemen, who rode valuable horses, would assuredly not expose
+them systematically to the injury of standing exposed to cold for
+two or even four hours; and persons of inferior rank would not ride
+on horseback in the town. Besides, had such a custom ever existed,
+stables (or sheds at least) would soon have arisen to meet the
+public wants; and in some of the dramatic sketches of the day,
+which noticed every fashion as it arose, this would not have been
+overlooked. The story is traced originally to Sir William Davenant.
+Betterton the actor, who professed to have received it from him,
+passed it onwards to Rowe, he to Pope, Pope to Bishop Newton, the
+editor of Milton, and Newton to Dr. Johnson. This pedigree of the
+fable, however, adds nothing to its credit, and multiplies the
+chances of some mistake. Another fable, not much less absurd,
+represents Shakspeare as having from the very first been borne upon
+the establishment of the theatre, and so far contradicts the other
+fable, but originally in the very humble character of
+_call-boy_ or deputy prompter, whose business it was to summon
+each performer according to his order of coming upon the stage.
+This story, however, quite as much as the other, is irreconcileable
+with the discovery recently made by Mr. Collier, that in 1589
+Shakspeare was a shareholder in the important property of a
+principal London theatre. It seems destined that all the undoubted
+facts of Shakspeare's life should come to us through the channel of
+legal documents, which are better evidence even than imperial
+medals; whilst, on the other hand, all the fabulous anecdotes, not
+having an attorney's seal to them, seem to have been the fictions
+of the wonder maker. The plain presumption from the record of
+Shakspeare's situation in 1589, coupled with the fact that his
+first arrival in London was possibly not until 1587, but according
+to the earliest account not before 1586, a space of time which
+leaves but little room for any remarkable changes of situation,
+seems to be, that, either in requital of services done to the
+players by the poet's family, or in consideration of money advanced
+by his father-in-law, or on account of Shakspeare's personal
+accomplishments as an actor, and as an adapter of dramatic works to
+the stage; for one of these reasons, or for all of them united,
+William Shakspeare, about the 23d year of his age, was adopted into
+the partnership of a respectable histrionic company, possessing a
+first-rate theatre in the metropolis. If 1586 were the year in
+which he came up to London, it seems probable enough that his
+immediate motive to that step was the increasing distress of his
+father; for in that year John Shakspeare resigned the office of
+alderman. There is, however, a bare possibility that Shakspeare
+might have gone to London about the time when he completed his
+twenty-first year, that is, in the spring of 1585, but not earlier.
+Nearly two years after the birth of his eldest daughter Susanna,
+his wife lay in for a second and a _last_ time; but she then
+brought her husband twins, a son and a daughter. These children
+were baptized in February of the year 1585; so that Shakspeare's
+whole family of three children were born and baptized two months
+before he completed his majority. The twins were baptized by the
+names of Hamnet and Judith, those being the names of two amongst
+their sponsors, viz., Mr. Sadler and his wife. Hamnet, which is a
+remarkable name in itself, becomes still more so from its
+resemblance to the immortal name of Hamlet [Endnote: 17] the Dane;
+it was, however, the real baptismal name of Mr. Sadler, a friend of
+Shakspeare's, about fourteen years older than himself. Shakspeare's
+son must then have been most interesting to his heart, both as a
+twin child and as his only boy. He died in 1596, when he was about
+eleven years old. Both daughters survived their father; both
+married; both left issue, and thus gave a chance for continuing the
+succession from the great poet. But all the four grandchildren died
+without offspring.
+
+Of Shakspeare personally, at least of Shakspeare the man, as
+distinguished from the author, there remains little more to record.
+Already in 1592, Greene, in his posthumous Groat's-worth of Wit,
+had expressed the earliest vocation of Shakspeare in the following
+sentence: "There is an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers;
+in his own conceit the only _Shakscene_ in a country!" This
+alludes to Shakspeare's office of recasting, and even recomposing,
+dramatic works, so as to fit them for representation; and Master
+Greene, it is probable, had suffered in his self-estimation, or in
+his purse, by the alterations in some piece of his own, which the
+duty of Shakspeare to the general interests of the theatre had
+obliged him to make. In 1591 it has been supposed that Shakspeare
+wrote his first drama, the Two Gentlemen of Verona; the least
+characteristically marked of all his plays, and, with the exception
+of Love's Labors Lost, the least interesting.
+
+From this year, 1591 to that of 1611, are just twenty years, within
+which space lie the whole dramatic creations of Shakspeare,
+averaging nearly one for every six months. In 1611 was written the
+Tempest, which is supposed to have been the last of all
+Shakspeare's works. Even on that account, as Mr. Campbell feelingly
+observes, it has "a sort of sacredness;" and it is a most
+remarkable fact, and one calculated to make a man superstitious,
+that in this play the great enchanter Prospero, in whom," _as if
+conscious_, "says Mr. Campbell," _that this would be his last
+work_, the poet has been _inspired to typify himself as_ a
+wise, potent, and _benevolent magician_" of whom, indeed, as
+of Shakspeare himself, it may be said, that "within that circle"
+(the circle of his own art)" none durst tread but he, "solemnly and
+for ever renounces his mysterious functions, symbolically breaks
+his enchanter's wand, and declares that he will bury his books, his
+science, and his secrets,
+
+  "Deeper than did ever plummet sound."
+
+Nay, it is even ominous, that in this play, and from the voice of
+Prospero, issues that magnificent prophecy of the total destruction
+which should one day swallow up
+
+  "The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
+  Yea all which it inherit."
+
+And this prophecy is followed immediately by a most profound
+ejaculation, gathering into one pathetic abstraction the total
+philosophy of life:
+
+  "We are such stuff
+  As dreams are made of; and our little life
+  Is rounded by a sleep;"
+
+that is, in effect, our life is a little tract of feverish vigils,
+surrounded and islanded by a shoreless ocean of sleep--sleep before
+birth, sleep after death.
+
+These remarkable passages were probably not undesigned; but if we
+suppose them to have been thrown off without conscious notice of
+their tendencies, then, according to the superstition of the
+ancient Grecians, they would have been regarded as prefiguring
+words, prompted by the secret genius that accompanies every man,
+such as insure along with them their own accomplishment. With or
+without intention, however, it is believed that Shakspeare wrote
+nothing more after this exquisite romantic drama. With respect to
+the remainder of his personal history, Dr. Drake and others have
+supposed, that during the twenty years from 1591 to 1611, he
+visited Stratford often, and latterly once a year.
+
+In 1589 he had possessed some share in a theatre; in 1596 he had a
+considerable share. Through Lord Southampton, as a surviving friend
+of Lord Essex, who was viewed as the martyr to his Scottish
+politics, there can be no doubt that Shakspeare had acquired the
+favor of James I.; and accordingly, on the 29th of May, 1603, about
+two months after the king's accession to the throne of England, a
+patent was granted to the company of players who possessed the
+Globe theatre; in which patent Shakspeare's name stands second.
+This patent raised the company to the rank of his majesty's
+servants, whereas previously they are supposed to have been simply
+the servants of the Lord Chamberlain. Perhaps it was in grateful
+acknowledgment of this royal favor that Shakspeare afterwards, in
+1606, paid that sublime compliment to the house of Stuart, which is
+involved in the vision shown to Macbeth. This vision is managed
+with exquisite skill. It was impossible to display the whole series
+of princes from Macbeth to James I.; but he beholds the posterity
+of Banquo, one "gold-bound brow" succeeding to another, until he
+comes to an eighth apparition of a Scottish king,
+
+  "Who bears a glass
+  Which shows him many more; and some he sees
+  Who twofold balls and treble sceptres carry;"
+
+thus bringing down without tedium the long succession to the very
+person of James I., by the symbolic image of the two crowns united
+on one head.
+
+About the beginning of the century Shakspeare had become rich
+enough to purchase the best house in Stratford, called _The Great
+House_, which name he altered to _New Place_; and in 1602
+he bought one hundred and seven acres adjacent to this house for a
+sum (320L) corresponding to about 1500 guineas of modern money.
+Malone thinks that he purchased the house as early as 1597; and it
+is certain that about that time he was able to assist his father in
+obtaining a renewed grant of arms from the Herald's College, and
+therefore, of course, to re-establish his father's fortunes. Ten
+years of well-directed industry, viz., from 1591 to 1601, and the
+prosperity of the theatre in which he was a proprietor, had raised
+him to affluence; and after another ten years, improved with the
+same success, he was able to retire with an income of 300L, or
+(according to the customary computations) in modern money of 1500L,
+per annum. Shakspeare was in fact the first man of letters, Pope
+the second, and Sir Walter Scott the third, who, in Great Britain,
+has ever realized a large fortune by literature; or in Christendom,
+if we except Voltaire, and two dubious cases in Italy. The four or
+five latter years of his life Shakspeare passed in dignified ease,
+in profound meditation, we may be sure, and in universal respect,
+at his native town of Stratford; and there he died, on the 23d of
+April, 1616. [Endnote: 18]
+
+His daughter Susanna had been married on the 5th of June of the
+year 1607, to Dr. John Hall, [Endnote: 19] a physician in
+Stratford. The doctor died in November, 1635, aged sixty; his wife,
+at the age of sixty-six, on July 11, 1640. They had one child, a
+daughter, named Elizabeth, born in 1608, married April 22, 1626, to
+Thomas Nashe, Esq., left a widow in 1647, and subsequently
+remarried to Sir John Barnard; but this Lady Barnard, the sole
+grand-daughter of the poet, had no children by either marriage. The
+other daughter, Judith, on February 10, 1616, (about ten weeks
+before her father's death,) married Mr. Thomas Quincy of Stratford,
+by whom she had three sons, Shakspeare, Richard, and Thomas. Judith
+was about thirty-one years old at the time of her marriage; and
+living just forty-six years afterwards, she died in February, 1662,
+at the age of seventy-seven. Her three sons died without issue; and
+thus, in the direct lineal descent, it is certain that no
+representative has survived of this transcendent poet, the most
+august amongst created intellects.
+
+After this review of Shakspeare's life, it becomes our duty to take
+a summary survey of his works, of his intellectual powers, and of
+his station in literature, a station which is now irrevocably
+settled, not so much (which happens in other cases) by a vast
+overbalance of favorable suffrages, as by acclamation; not so much
+by the _voices_ of those who admire him up to the verge of
+idolatry, as by the _acts_ of those who everywhere seek for
+his works among the primal necessities of life, demand them, and
+crave them as they do their daily bread; not so much by eulogy
+openly proclaiming itself, as by the silent homage recorded in the
+endless multiplication of what he has bequeathed us; not so much by
+his own compatriots, who, with regard to almost every other author,
+[Endnote: 20] compose the total amount of his _effective_
+audience, as by the unanimous "all hail!" of intellectual
+Christendom; finally, not by the hasty partisanship of his own
+generation, nor by the biassed judgment of an age trained in the
+same modes of feeling and of thinking with himself,--but by the
+solemn award of generation succeeding to generation, of one age
+correcting the obliquities or peculiarities of another; by the
+verdict of two hundred and thirty years, which have now elapsed
+since the very _latest_ of his creations, or of two hundred
+and forty-seven years if we date from the earliest; a verdict which
+has been continually revived and re-opened, probed, searched,
+vexed, by criticism in every spirit, from the most genial and
+intelligent, down to the most malignant and scurrilously hostile
+which feeble heads and great ignorance could suggest when
+cooperating with impure hearts and narrow sensibilities; a verdict,
+in short, sustained and countersigned by a longer series of
+writers, many of them eminent for wit or learning, than were ever
+before congregated upon any inquest relating to any author, be he
+who he might, ancient [Endnote: 21] or modern, Pagan or Christian.
+It was a most witty saying with respect to a piratical and knavish
+publisher, who made a trade of insulting the memories of deceased
+authors by forged writings, that he was "among the new terrors of
+death." But in the gravest sense it may be affirmed of Shakspeare,
+that he is among the modern luxuries of life; that life, in fact,
+is a new thing, and one more to be coveted, since Shakspeare has
+extended the domains of human consciousness, and pushed its dark
+frontiers into regions not so much as dimly descried or even
+suspected before his time, far less illuminated (as now they are)
+by beauty and tropical luxuriance of life. For instance,--a single
+instance, indeed one which in itself is a world of new revelation,
+--the possible beauty of the female character had not been seen as
+in a dream before Shakspeare called into perfect life the radiant
+shapes of Desdemona, of Imogene, of Hermione, of Perdita, of
+Ophelia, of Miranda, and many others. The Una of Spenser, earlier
+by ten or fifteen years than most of these, was an idealized
+portrait of female innocence and virgin purity, but too shadowy and
+unreal for a dramatic reality. And as to the Grecian classics, let
+not the reader imagine for an instant that any prototype in this
+field of Shakspearian power can be looked for there. The
+_Antigone_ and the _Electra_ of the tragic poets are the
+two leading female characters that classical antiquity offers to
+our respect, but assuredly not to our impassioned love, as
+disciplined and exalted in the school of Shakspeare. They challenge
+our admiration, severe, and even stern, as impersonations of filial
+duty, cleaving to the steps of a desolate and afflicted old man; or
+of sisterly affection, maintaining the rights of a brother under
+circumstances of peril, of desertion, and consequently of perfect
+self-reliance. Iphigenia, again, though not dramatically coming
+before us in her own person, but according to the beautiful report
+of a spectator, presents us with a fine statuesque model of heroic
+fortitude, and of one whose young heart, even in the very agonies
+of her cruel immolation, refused to forget, by a single indecorous
+gesture, or so much as a moment's neglect of her own princely
+descent, and that she herself was "a lady in the land." These are
+fine marble groups, but they are not the warm breathing realities
+of Shakspeare; there is "no speculation" in their cold marble eyes;
+the breath of life is not in their nostrils; the fine pulses of
+womanly sensibilities are not throbbing in their bosoms. And
+besides this immeasurable difference between the cold moony
+reflexes of life, as exhibited by the power of Grecian art, and the
+true sunny life of Shakspeare, it must he observed that the
+Antigones, &c. of the antique put forward but one single trait of
+character, like the aloe with its single blossom. This solitary
+feature is presented to us as an abstraction, and as an insulated
+quality; whereas in Shakspeare all is presented in the
+_concrete_; that is to say, not brought forward in relief, as
+by some effort of an anatomical artist; but embodied and imbedded,
+so to speak, as by the force of a creative nature, in the complex
+system of a human life; a life in which all the elements move and
+play simultaneously, and with something more than mere simultaneity
+or co-existence, acting and re-acting each upon the other, nay,
+even acting by each other and through each other. In Shakspeare's
+characters is felt for ever a real _organic_ life, where each
+is for the whole and in the whole, and where the whole is for each
+and in each. They only are real incarnations.
+
+The Greek poets could not exhibit any approximations to
+_female_ character, without violating the truth of Grecian
+life, and shocking the feelings of the audience. The drama with the
+Greeks, as with us, though much less than with us, was a picture of
+human life; and that which could not occur in life could not wisely
+be exhibited on the stage. Now, in ancient Greece, women were
+secluded from the society of men. The conventual sequestration of
+the hareem, or female apartment [Endnote: 22] of the house, and
+the Mahommedan consecration of its threshold against the ingress of
+males, had been transplanted from Asia into Greece thousands of
+years perhaps before either convents or Mahommed existed. Thus
+barred from all open social intercourse, women could not develop or
+express any character by word or action. Even to _have_ a
+character, violated, to a Grecian mind, the ideal portrait of
+feminine excellence; whence, perhaps, partly the too generic, too
+little individualized, style of Grecian beauty. But prominently to
+_express_ a character was impossible under the common tenor of
+Grecian life, unless when high tragical catastrophes transcended
+the decorums of that tenor, or for a brief interval raised the
+curtain which veiled it. Hence the subordinate part which women
+play upon the Greek stage in all but some half dozen cases. In the
+paramount tragedy on that stage, the model tragedy, the (_OEdipus
+Tyrannus_ of Sophocles), there is virtually no woman at all; for
+Jocasta is a party to the story merely as the dead Laius or the
+self-murdered Sphinx was a party, viz., by her contributions to the
+fatalities of the event, not by anything she does or says
+spontaneously. In fact, the Greek poet, if a wise poet, could not
+address himself genially to a task in which he must begin by
+shocking the sensibilities of his countrymen. And hence followed,
+not only the dearth of female characters in the Grecian drama, but
+also a second result still more favorable to the sense of a new
+power evolved by Shakspeare. Whenever the common law of Grecian
+life did give way, it was, as we have observed, to the suspending
+force of some great convulsion or tragical catastrophe. This for a
+moment (like an earthquake in a nunnery) would set at liberty even
+the timid, fluttering Grecian women, those doves of the dove-cot,
+and would call some of them into action. But which? Precisely those
+of energetic and masculine minds; the timid and feminine would but
+shrink the more from public gaze and from tumult. Thus it happened,
+that such female characters as _were_ exhibited in Greece,
+could not but be the harsh and the severe. If a gentle Ismene
+appeared for a moment in contest with some energetic sister
+Antigone, (and chiefly, perhaps, by way of drawing out the fiercer
+character of that sister,) she was soon dismissed as unfit for
+scenical effect. So that not only were female characters few, but,
+moreover, of these few the majority were but repetitions of
+masculine qualities in female persons. Female agency being seldom
+summoned on the stage, except when it had received a sort of
+special dispensation from its sexual character, by some terrific
+convulsions of the house or the city, naturally it assumed the
+style of action suited to these circumstances. And hence it arose,
+that not woman as she differed from man, but woman as she resembled
+man--woman, in short, seen under circumstances so dreadful as to
+abolish the effect of sexual distinction, was the woman of the
+Greek tragedy. [Endnote: 23] And hence generally arose for
+Shakspeare the wider field, and the more astonishing by its perfect
+novelty, when he first introduced female characters, not as mere
+varieties or echoes of masculine characters, a Medea or
+Clytemnestra, or a vindictive Hecuba, the mere tigress of the
+tragic tiger, but female characters that had the appropriate beauty
+of female nature; woman no longer grand, terrific, and repulsive,
+but woman "after her kind"--the other hemisphere of the dramatic
+world; woman, running through the vast gamut of womanly loveliness;
+woman, as emancipated, exalted, ennobled, under a new law of
+Christian morality; woman, the sister and coequal of man, no longer
+his slave, his prisoner, and sometimes his rebel." It is a far cry
+to Loch Awe; "and from the Athenian stage to the stage of
+Shakspeare, it may be said, is a prodigious interval. True; but
+prodigious as it is, there is really nothing between them. The
+Roman stage, at least the tragic stage, as is well known, was put
+out, as by an extinguisher, by the cruel amphitheatre, just as a
+candle is made pale and ridiculous by daylight. Those who were
+fresh from the real murders of the bloody amphitheatre regarded
+with contempt the mimic murders of the stage. Stimulation too
+coarse and too intense had its usual effect in making the
+sensibilities callous. Christian emperors arose at length, who
+abolished the amphitheatre in its bloodier features. But by that
+time the genius of the tragic muse had long slept the sleep of
+death. And that muse had no resurrection until the age of
+Shakspeare. So that, notwithstanding a gulf of nineteen centuries
+and upwards separates Shakspeare from Euripides, the last of the
+surviving Greek tragedians, the one is still the nearest successor
+of the other, just as Connaught and the islands in Clew Bay are
+next neighbors to America, although three thousand watery columns,
+each of a cubic mile in dimensions, divide them from each other.
+
+A second reason, which lends an emphasis of novelty and effective
+power to Shakspeare's female world, is a peculiar fact of contrast
+which exists between that and his corresponding world of men. Let
+us explain. The purpose and the intention of the Grecian stage was
+not primarily to develop human _character_, whether in men or
+in women: human _fates_ were its object; great tragic
+situations under the mighty control of a vast cloudy destiny, dimly
+descried at intervals, and brooding over human life by mysterious
+agencies, and for mysterious ends. Man, no longer the
+representative of an august _will_, man the passion-puppet of
+fate, could not with any effect display what we call a character,
+which is a distinction between man and man, emanating originally
+from the will, and expressing its determinations, moving under the
+large variety of human impulses. The will is the central pivot of
+character; and this was obliterated, thwarted, cancelled, by the
+dark fatalism which brooded over the Grecian stage. That
+explanation will sufficiently clear up the reason why marked or
+complex variety of character was slighted by the great principles
+of the Greek tragedy. And every scholar who has studied that grand
+drama of Greece with feeling,--that drama, so magnificent, so
+regal, so stately,--and who has thoughtfully investigated its
+principles, and its difference from the English drama, will
+acknowledge that powerful and elaborate character, character, for
+instance, that could employ the fiftieth part of that profound
+analysis which has been applied to Hamlet, to Falstaff, to Lear, to
+Othello, and applied by Mrs. Jamieson so admirably to the full
+development of the Shakspearian heroines, would have been as much
+wasted, nay, would have been defeated, and interrupted the blind
+agencies of fate, just in the same way as it would injure the
+shadowy grandeur of a ghost to individualize it too much. Milton's
+angels are slightly touched, superficially touched, with
+differences of character; but they are such differences, so simple
+and general, as are just sufficient to rescue them from the
+reproach applied to Virgil's "_fortemque Gyan, forlemque
+Cloanthem;_" just sufficient to make them knowable apart. Pliny
+speaks of painters who painted in one or two colors; and, as
+respects the angelic characters, Milton does so; he is
+_monochromatic_. So, and for reasons resting upon the same
+ultimate philosophy, were the mighty architects of the Greek
+tragedy. They also were monochromatic; they also, as to the
+characters of their persons, painted in one color. And so far there
+might have been the same novelty in Shakspeare's men as in his
+women. There _might_ have been; but the reason why there is
+_not_, must be sought in the fact, that History, the muse of
+History, had there even been no such muse as Melpomene, would have
+forced us into an acquaintance with human character. History, as
+the representative of actual life, of real man, gives us powerful
+delineations of character in its chief agents, that is, in men; and
+therefore it is that Shakspeare, the absolute creator of female
+character, was but the mightiest of all painters with regard to
+male character. Take a single instance. The Antony of Shakspeare,
+immortal for its execution, is found, after all, as regards the
+primary conception, in history. Shakspeare's delineation is but the
+expansion of the germ already preexisting, by way of scattered
+fragments, in Cicero's Philippics, in Cicero's Letters, in Appian,
+&c. But Cleopatra, equally fine, is a pure creation of art. The
+situation and the scenic circumstances belong to history, but the
+character belongs to Shakspeare.
+
+In the great world, therefore, of woman, as the interpreter of the
+shifting phases and the lunar varieties of that mighty changeable
+planet, that lovely satellite of man, Shakspeare stands not the
+first only, not the original only, but is yet the sole authentic
+oracle of truth. Woman, therefore, the beauty of the female mind,
+_this_ is one great field of his power. The supernatural
+world, the world of apparitions, _that_ is another. For
+reasons which it would be easy to give, reasons emanating from the
+gross mythology of the ancients, no Grecian, [Endnote: 24] no
+Roman, could have conceived a ghost. That shadowy conception, the
+protesting apparition, the awful projection of the human
+conscience, belongs to the Christian mind. And in all Christendom,
+who, let us ask, who, who but Shakspeare has found the power for
+effectually working this mysterious mode of being? In summoning
+back to earth "the majesty of buried Denmark," how like an awful
+necromancer does Shakspeare appear! All the pomps and grandeurs
+which religion, which the grave, which the popular superstition had
+gathered about the subject of apparitions, are here converted to
+his purpose, and bend to one awful effect. The wormy grave brought
+into antagonism with the scenting of the early dawn; the trumpet of
+resurrection suggested, and again as an antagonist idea to the
+crowing of the cock, (a bird ennobled in the Christian mythus by
+the part he is made to play at the Crucifixion;) its starting "as a
+guilty thing" placed in opposition to its majestic expression of
+offended dignity when struck at by the partisans of the sentinels;
+its awful allusions to the secrets of its prison-house; its
+ubiquity, contrasted with its local presence; its aerial substance,
+yet clothed in palpable armor; the heart-shaking solemnity of its
+language, and the appropriate scenery of its haunt, viz., the
+ramparts of a capital fortress, with no witnesses but a few
+gentlemen mounting guard at the dead of night,--what a mist, what a
+_mirage_ of vapor, is here accumulated, through which the
+dreadful being in the centre looms upon us in far larger
+proportions, than could have happened had it been insulated and
+left naked of this circumstantial pomp! In the _Tempest_,
+again, what new modes of life, preternatural, yet far as the poles
+from the spiritualities of religion! Ariel in antithesis to
+Caliban! What is most ethereal to what is most animal! A phantom of
+air, an abstraction of the dawn and of vesper sun-lights, a
+bodiless sylph on the one hand; on the other a gross carnal
+monster, like the Miltonic Asmodai, "the fleshliest incubus" among
+the fiends, and yet so far ennobled into interest by his
+intellectual power, and by the grandeur of misanthropy! [Endnote:
+25] In the _Midsummer-Night's Dream_, again, we have the old
+traditional fairy, a lovely mode of preternatural life, remodified
+by Shakspeare's eternal talisman. Oberon and Titania remind us at
+first glance of Ariel. They approach, but how far they recede. They
+are like--"like, but, oh, how different!" And in no other
+exhibition of this dreamy population of the moonlight forests and
+forest-lawns, are the circumstantial proprieties of fairy life so
+exquisitely imagined, sustained, or expressed. The dialogue between
+Oberon and Titania is, of itself, and taken separately from its
+connection, one of the most delightful poetic scenes that
+literature affords. The witches in Macbeth are another variety of
+supernatural life, in which Shakspeare's power to enchant and to
+disenchant are alike portentous. The circumstances of the blasted
+heath, the army at a distance, the withered attire of the
+mysterious hags, and the choral litanies of their fiendish Sabbath,
+are as finely imagined in their kind as those which herald and
+which surround the ghost in Hamlet. There we see the
+_positive_ of Shakspeare's superior power. But now turn and
+look to the _negative_. At a time when the trials of witches,
+the royal book on demonology, and popular superstition (all so far
+useful, as they prepared a basis of undoubting faith for the poet's
+serious use of such agencies) had degraded and polluted the ideas
+of these mysterious beings by many mean associations, Shakspeare
+does not fear to employ them in high tragedy, (a tragedy moreover
+which, though not the very greatest of his efforts as an
+intellectual whole, nor as a struggle of passion, is _among_
+the greatest in any view, and positively _the_ greatest for
+scenical grandeur, and in that respect makes the nearest approach
+of all English tragedies to the Grecian model;) he does not fear to
+introduce, for the same appalling effect as that for which
+Aeschylus introduced the Eumenides, a triad of old women,
+concerning whom an English wit has remarked this grotesque
+peculiarity in the popular creed of that day,--that although potent
+over winds and storms, in league with powers of darkness, they yet
+stood in awe of the constable,--yet relying on his own supreme
+power to disenchant as well as to enchant, to create and to
+uncreate, he mixes these women and their dark machineries with the
+power of armies, with the agencies of kings, and the fortunes of
+martial kingdoms. Such was the sovereignty of this poet, so mighty
+its compass!
+
+A third fund of Shakspeare's peculiar power lies in his teeming
+fertility of fine thoughts and sentiments. From his works alone
+might be gathered a golden bead-roll of thoughts the deepest,
+subtilest, most pathetic, and yet most catholic and universally
+intelligible; the most characteristic, also, and appropriate to the
+particular person, the situation, and the case, yet, at the same
+time, applicable to the circumstances of every human being, under
+all the accidents of life, and all vicissitudes of fortune. But
+this subject offers so vast a field of observation, it being so
+eminently the prerogative of Shakspeare to have thought more finely
+and more extensively than all other poets combined, that we cannot
+wrong the dignity of such a theme by doing more, in our narrow
+limits, than simply noticing it as one of the emblazonries upon
+Shakspeare's shield.
+
+Fourthly, we shall indicate (and, as in the last case,
+_barely_ indicate, without attempting in so vast a field to
+offer any inadequate illustrations) one mode of Shakspeare's
+dramatic excellence, which hitherto has not attracted any special
+or separate notice. We allude to the forms of life, and natural
+human passion, as apparent in the structure of his dialogue. Among
+the many defects and infirmities of the French and of the Italian
+drama, indeed, we may say of the Greek, the dialogue proceeds
+always by independent speeches, replying indeed to each other, but
+never modified in its several openings by the momentary effect of
+its several terminal forms immediately preceding. Now, in
+Shakspeare, who first set an example of that most important
+innovation, in all his impassioned dialogues, each reply or
+rejoinder seems the mere rebound of the previous speech. Every form
+of natural interruption, breaking through the restraints of
+ceremony under the impulses of tempestuous passion; every form of
+hasty interrogative, ardent reiteration when a question has been
+evaded; every form of scornful repetition of the hostile words;
+every impatient continuation of the hostile statement; in short,
+all modes and formulae by which anger, hurry, fretfulness, scorn,
+impatience, or excitement under any movement whatever, can disturb
+or modify or dislocate the formal bookish style of commencement,
+--these are as rife in Shakspeare's dialogue as in life itself; and
+how much vivacity, how profound a verisimilitude, they add to the
+scenic effect as an imitation of human passion and real life, we
+need not say. A volume might be written illustrating the vast
+varieties of Shakspeare's art and power in this one field of
+improvement; another volume might be dedicated to the exposure of
+the lifeless and unnatural result from the opposite practice in the
+foreign stages of France and Italy. And we may truly say, that were
+Shakspeare distinguished from them by this single feature of nature
+and propriety, he would on that account alone have merited a great
+immortality.
+
+The dramatic works of Shakspeare generally acknowledged to be
+genuine consist of thirty-five pieces. The following is the
+chronological order in which they are supposed to have been
+written, according to Mr. Malone, as given in his second edition of
+Shakspeare, and by Mr. George Chalmers in his Supplemental Apology
+for the Believers in the Shakspeare Papers:
+
+
+                                             Chalmers.  Malone.
+
+   1. The Comedy of Errors,                    1591       1592
+   2. Love's Labors Lost,                      1592       1594
+   3. Romeo and Juliet,                        1592       1596
+   4. Henry VI., the First Part,               1593       1589
+   5. Henry VI., the Second Part,              1595       1591
+   6. Henry VL, the Third Part,                1595       1591
+   7. The Two Gentlemen of Verona,             1595       1591
+   8. Richard III.,                            1596       1593
+   9. Richard II,                              1596       1593
+  10. The Merry Wives of Windsor,              1596       1601
+  11. Henry IV., the First Part,               1597       1597
+  12. Henry IV., the Second Part,              1597       1599
+  13. Henry V.,                                1597       1599
+  14. The Merchant of Venice,                  1597       1594
+  15. Hamlet,                                  1598       1600
+  16. King John,                               1598       1596
+  17. A Midsummer-Night's Dream,               1598       1594
+  18. The Taming of the Shrew,                 1599       1596
+  19. All's Well that Ends Well,               1599       1606
+  20. Much Ado about Nothing,                  1599       1600
+  21. As you Like It,                          1602       1599
+  22. Troilus and Cressida,                    1610       1602
+  23. Timon of Athens,                         1611       1610
+  24. The Winter's Tale,                       1601       1611
+  25. Measure for Measure,                     1604       1603
+  26. King Lear,                               1605       1605
+  27. Cymbeline,                               1606       1609
+  28. Macbeth,                                 1606       1606
+  29. Julius Caesar,                           1607       1607
+  30. Antony and Cleopatra,                    1608       1608
+  31. Coriolanus,                              1619       1610
+  32. The Tempest,                             1613       1611
+  33. The Twelfth Night,                       1613       1607
+  34. Henry VIII.,                             1613       1603
+  35. Othello,                                 1614       1604
+
+
+
+Pericles and Titus Andronicus, although inserted in all the late
+editions of Shakspeare's Plays, are omitted in the above list, both
+by Malone and Chalmers, as not being Shakspeare's.
+
+The first edition of the Works was published in 1623, in a folio
+volume, entitled Mr. William Shakspeare's Comedies, Histories, and
+Tragedies. The second edition was published in 1632, the third in
+1664, and the fourth in 1685, all in folio; but the edition of 1623
+is considered the most authentic. Rowe published an edition in
+seven vols. 8vo, in 1709. Editions were published by Pope, in six
+vols. 4to, in 1725; by Warburton, in eight vols. 8vo, in 1747; by
+Dr. Johnson, in eight vols. 8vo, in 1765; by Stevens, in four vols.
+8vo, in 1766; by Malone, in ten vols. 8vo, in 1789; by Alexander
+Chalmers, in nine vols. 8vo, in 1811; by Johnson and Stevens,
+revised by Isaac Reed, in twenty-one vols. 8vo, in 1813; and the
+Plays and Poems, with notes by Malone, were edited by James
+Boswell, and published in twenty-one vols. 8vo, in 1821. Besides
+these, numerous editions have been published from time to time.
+
+
+
+
+NOTES.
+
+
+NOTE 1.
+
+Mr. Campbell, the latest editor of Shakspeare's dramatic works,
+observes that "the poet's name has been variously written
+Shax-peare, Shackspeare, Shakspeare, and Shakspere;" to which
+varieties might be added Shagspere, from the Worcester Marriage
+License, published in 1836. But the fact is, that by combining with
+all the differences in spelling the first syllable, all those in
+spelling the second, more than twenty-five distinct varieties of
+the name may be expanded, (like an algebraic series,) for the
+choice of the curious in mis-spelling. Above all things, those
+varieties which arise from the intercalation of the middle _e,
+_(that is, the _e_ immediately before the final syllable
+_spear,_) can never be overlooked by those who remember, at
+the opening of the Dunciad, the note upon this very question about
+the orthography of Shakspeare's name, as also upon the other great
+question about the title of the immortal Satire, Whether it ought
+not to have been the Dunceiade, seeing that Dunce, its great author
+and progenitor, cannot possibly dispense with the letter _e._
+Meantime we must remark, that the first three of Mr. Campbell's
+variations are mere caprices of the press; as is Shagspere; or,
+more probably, this last euphonious variety arose out of the gross
+clownish pronunciation of the two hiccuping _"marksmen"_ who
+rode over to Worcester for the license; and one cannot forbear
+laughing at the bishop's secretary for having been so misled by two
+varlets, professedly incapable of signing their own names. The same
+drunken villains had cut down the bride's name _Hathaway_ into
+_Hathwey._ Finally, to treat the matter with seriousness,
+
+Sir Frederick Madden has shown, in his recent letter to the Society
+of Antiquaries, that the poet himself in all probability
+_wrote_ the name uniformly _Shakspere._ Orthography, both
+of proper names, of appellatives, and of words universally, was
+very unsettled up to a period long subsequent to that of
+Shakspeare. Still it must usually have happened that names written
+variously and laxly by others, would be written uniformly by the
+owners; especially by those owners who had occasion to sign their
+names frequently, and by literary people, whose attention was
+often, as well as consciously, directed to the proprieties of
+spelling. _Shakspeare_ is now too familiar to the eye for any
+alteration to be attempted; but it is pretty certain that Sir
+Frederick Madden is right in stating the poet's own signature to
+have been uniformly _Shakspere._ It is so written twice in the
+course of his will, and it is so written on a blank leaf of
+Florio's English translation of Montaigne's Essays; a book recently
+discovered, and sold, on account of its autograph, for a hundred
+guineas.
+
+NOTE 2.
+
+But, as a proof that, even in the case of royal christenings, it
+was not thought pious to "tempt God," as it were, by delay, Edward
+VI., the only son of Henry VIII., was born on the 12th day of
+October in the year 1537. And there was a delay on account of the
+sponsors, since the birth was not in London. Yet how little that
+delay was made, may be seen by this fact: The birth took place in
+the dead of the night, the day was Friday; and yet, in spite of all
+delay, the christening was most pompously celebrated on the
+succeeding Monday. And Prince Arthur, the elder brother of Henry
+VIII., was christened on the very next Sunday succeeding to his
+birth, notwithstanding an inevitable delay, occasioned by the
+distance of Lord Oxford, his godfather, and the excessive rains,
+which prevented the earl being reached by couriers, or himself
+reaching Winchester, without extraordinary exertions.
+
+NOTE 3.
+
+A great modern poet refers to this very case of music entering "the
+mouldy chambers of the dull idiot's brain;" but in support of what
+seems to us a baseless hypothesis.
+
+NOTE 4.
+
+Probably Addison's fear of the national feeling was a good deal
+strengthened by his awe of Milton and of Dryden, both of whom had
+expressed a homage towards Shakspeare which language cannot
+transcend. Amongst his political friends also were many intense
+admirers of Shakspeare.
+
+NOTE 5.
+
+He who is weak enough to kick and spurn his own native literature,
+even if it were done with more knowledge than is shown by Lord
+Shaftesbury, will usually be kicked and spurned in his turn; and
+accordingly it has been often remarked, that the Characteristics
+are unjustly neglected in our days. For Lord Shaftesbury, with all
+his pedantry, was a man of great talents. Leibnitz had the sagacity
+to see this through the mists of a translation.
+
+NOTE 6.
+
+Perhaps the most bitter political enemy of Charles I. will have the
+candor to allow that, for a prince of those times, he was truly and
+eminently accomplished. His knowledge of the arts was considerable;
+and, as a patron of art, he stands foremost amongst all British
+sovereigns to this hour. He said truly of himself, and wisely as to
+the principle, that he understood English law as well as a
+gentleman ought to understand it; meaning that an attorney's minute
+knowledge of forms and technical niceties was illiberal. Speaking
+of him as an author, we must remember that the _Eikon
+Basilike_ is still unappropriated; that question is still open.
+But supposing the king's claim negatived, still, in his controversy
+with Henderson, in his negotiations at the Isle of Wight and
+elsewhere, he discovered a power of argument, a learning, and a
+strength of memory, which are truly admirable; whilst the whole of
+his accomplishments are recommended by a modesty and a humility as
+rare as they are unaffected.
+
+NOTE 7.
+
+The necessity of compression obliges us to omit many arguments and
+references by which we could demonstrate the fact, that
+Shakspeare's reputation was always in a progressive state; allowing
+only for the interruption of about seventeen years, which this
+poet, in common with all others, sustained, not so much from the
+state of war, (which did not fully occupy four of those years,) as
+from the triumph of a gloomy fanaticism. Deduct the twenty-three
+years of the seventeenth century, which had elapsed before the
+first folio appeared, to this space add seventeen years of
+fanatical madness, during fourteen of which _all_ dramatic
+entertainments were suppressed, the remainder is sixty years. And
+surely the sale of four editions of a vast folio in that space of
+time was an expression of an abiding interest. _No other poet,
+except Spenser, continued to sell throughout the century_.
+Besides, in arguing the case of a _dramatic_ poet, we must
+bear in mind, that although readers of learned books might be
+diffused over the face of the land, the readers of poetry would be
+chiefly concentred in the metropolis; and such persons would have
+no need to buy what they heard at the theatres. But then comes the
+question, whether Shakspeare kept possession of the theatres. And
+we are really humiliated by the gross want of sense which has been
+shown, by Malone chiefly, but also by many others, in discussing
+this question. From the Restoration to 1682, says Malone, no more
+than four plays of Shakspeare's were performed by a principal
+company in London. "Such was the lamentable taste of those times,
+that the plays of Fletcher, Jonson, and Shirley, were much oftener
+exhibited than those of our author." What cant is this! If that
+taste were "lamentable," what are we to think of our own times,
+when plays a thousand times below those of Fletcher, or even of
+Shirley, continually displace Shakspeare? Shakspeare would himself
+have exulted in finding that he gave way only to dramatists so
+excellent. And, as we have before observed, both then and now, it
+is the very familiarity with Shakspeare, which often banishes him
+from audiences honestly in quest of relaxation and amusement.
+Novelty is the very soul of such relaxation; but in our closets,
+when we are _not_ unbending, when our minds are in a state of
+tension from intellectual cravings, then it is that we resort to
+Shakspeare; and oftentimes those who honor him most, like
+ourselves, are the most impatient of seeing his divine scenes
+disfigured by unequal representation, (good, perhaps, in a single
+personation, bad in all the rest;) or to hear his divine thoughts
+mangled in the recitation; or, (which is worst of all,) to hear
+them dishonored and defeated by imperfect apprehension in the
+audience, or by defective sympathy. Meantime, if one theatre played
+only four of Shakspeare's dramas, another played at least seven.
+But the grossest folly of Malone is, in fancying the numerous
+alterations so many insults to Shakspeare, whereas they expressed
+as much homage to his memory as if the unaltered dramas had been
+retained. The substance _was_ retained. The changes were
+merely concessions to the changing views of scenical propriety;
+sometimes, no doubt, made with a simple view to the revolution
+effected by Davenant at the Restoration, in bringing
+_scenes_(in the painter's sense) upon the stage; sometimes
+also with a view to the altered fashions of the audience during the
+suspensions of the action, or perhaps to the introduction of
+_after-pieces,_ by which, of course, the time was abridged for
+the main performance. A volume might be written upon this subject.
+Meantime let us never be told, that a poet was losing, or had lost
+his ground, who found in his lowest depression, amongst his almost
+idolatrous supporters, a great king distracted by civil wars, a
+mighty republican poet distracted by puritanical fanaticism, the
+greatest successor by far of that great poet, a papist and a
+bigoted royalist, and finally, the leading actor of the century,
+who gave and reflected the ruling impulses of his age.
+
+NOTE 8.
+
+One of the profoundest tests by which we can measure the
+congeniality of an author with the national genius and temper, is
+the degree in which his thoughts or his phrases interweave
+themselves with our daily conversation, and pass into the currency
+of the language. _Few French authors, if any, have imparted one
+phrase to the colloquial idiom;_ with respect to Shakspeare, a
+large dictionary might be made of such phrases as "win golden
+opinions," "in my mind's eye," "patience on a monument,"
+"o'erstep the modesty of nature," "more honor'd in the breach than
+in the observance," "palmy state," "my poverty and not my will
+consents, "and so forth, without end. This reinforcement of the
+general language, by aids from the mintage of Shakspeare, had
+already commenced in the seventeenth century.
+
+NOTE 9.
+
+In fact, by way of representing to himself the system or scheme of
+the English roads, the reader has only to imagine one great letter
+X, or a St. Andrew's cross, laid down from north to south, and
+decussating at Birmingham. Even Coventry, which makes a slight
+variation for one or two roads, and so far disturbs this
+decussation, by shifting it eastwards, is still in Warwickshire.
+
+NOTE 10.
+
+And probably so called by some remote ancestor who had emigrated
+from the forest of Ardennes, in the Netherlands, and _now_ for
+ever memorable to English ears from its proximity to Waterloo.
+
+NOTE 11.
+
+Let not the reader impute to us the gross anachronism of making an
+estimate for Shakspeare's days in a coin which did not exist until
+a century, within a couple of years, after Shakspeare's birth, and
+did not settle to the value of twenty-one shillings until a century
+after his death. The nerve of such an anachronism would lie in
+putting the estimate into a mouth of that age. And this is
+precisely the blunder into which the foolish forger of Vortigern,
+&c., has fallen. He does not indeed directly mention guineas; but
+indirectly and virtually he does, by repeatedly giving us accounts
+imputed to Shakspearian contemporaries, in which the sum total
+amounts to 5L 5s.; or to 26L 5s.; or, again, to 17L 17s. 6d. A man
+is careful to subscribe 14L 14s. and so forth. But how could such
+amounts have arisen unless under a secret reference to guineas,
+which were not in existence until Charles II.'s reign; and,
+moreover, to guineas at their final settlement by law into
+twenty-one shillings each, which did not take place until George I.
+'s reign.
+
+NOTE 12.
+
+Thomas Campbell, the poet, in his eloquent Remarks on the Life and
+Writings of William Shakspeare, prefixed to a popular edition of
+the poet's dramatic works. London, 1838.
+
+NOTE 13.
+
+After all the assistance given to such equations between different
+times or different places by Sir George Shuckborough's tables, and
+other similar investigations, it is still a very difficult problem,
+complex, and, after all, merely tentative in the results, to assign
+the true value in such cases; not only for the obvious reason, that
+the powers of money have varied in different directions with regard
+to different objects, and in different degrees where the direction
+has on the whole continued the same, but because the very objects
+to be taken into computation are so indeterminate, and vary so
+much, not only as regards century and century, kingdom and kingdom,
+but also, even in the same century and the same kingdom, as regards
+rank and rank. That which is a mere necessary to one, is a
+luxurious superfluity to another. And, in order to ascertain these
+differences, it is an indispensable qualification to have studied
+the habits and customs of the several classes concerned, together
+with the variations of those habits and customs.
+
+NOTE 14.
+
+Never was the _esse quain videri_ in any point more strongly
+discriminated than in this very point of gallantry to the female
+sex, as between England and France. In France, the verbal homage to
+woman is so excessive as to betray its real purpose, viz. that it
+is a mask for secret contempt. In England, little is said; but, in
+the mean time, we allow our sovereign ruler to be a woman; which in
+France is impossible. Even that fact is of some importance, but
+less so than what follows. In every country whatsoever, if any
+principle has a deep root in the moral feelings of the people, we
+may rely upon its showing itself, by a thousand evidences amongst
+the very lowest ranks, and in their daily intercourse, and their
+_undress_ manners. Now in England there is, and always has
+been, a manly feeling, most widely diffused, of unwillingness to
+see labors of a coarse order, or requiring muscular exertions,
+thrown upon women. Pauperism, amongst other evil effects, has
+sometimes locally disturbed this predominating sentiment of
+Englishmen; but never at any time with such depth as to kill the
+root of the old hereditary manliness. Sometimes at this day a
+gentleman, either from carelessness, or from overruling force of
+convenience, or from real defect of gallantry, will allow a female
+servant to carry his portmanteau for him; though, after all, that
+spectacle is a rare one. And everywhere women of all ages engage in
+the pleasant, nay elegant, labors of the hay field; but in Great
+Britain women are never suffered to mow, which is a most athletic
+and exhausting labor, nor to load a cart, nor to drive a plough or
+hold it. In France, on the other hand, before the Revolution, (at
+which period the pseudo-homage, the lip-honor, was far more
+ostentatiously professed towards the female sex than at present,) a
+Frenchman of credit, and vouching for his statement by the whole
+weight of his name and personal responsibility, (M Simond, now an
+American citizen,) records the following abominable scene as one of
+no uncommon occurrence. A woman was in some provinces yoked side by
+side with an ass to the plough or the harrow; and M. Simond
+protests that it excited no horror to see the driver distributing
+his lashes impartially between the woman and her brute yoke-fellow.
+So much for the wordy pomps of French gallantry. In England, we
+trust, and we believe, that any man, caught in such a situation,
+and in such an abuse of his power, (supposing the case, otherwise a
+possible one,) would be killed on the spot.
+
+NOTE 15.
+
+Amongst people of humble rank in England, who only were ever asked
+in church, until the new-fangled systems of marriage came up within
+the last ten or fifteen years, during the currency of the three
+Sundays on which the banns were proclaimed by the clergyman from
+the reading desk, the young couple elect were said jocosely to Le
+"hanging in the bell-ropes;" alluding perhaps to the joyous peal
+contingent on the final completion of the marriage.
+
+NOTE 16.
+
+In a little memoir of Milton, which the author of this article drew
+up some years ago for a public society, and which is printed in an
+abridged shape, he took occasion to remark, that Dr. Johnson, who
+was meanly anxious to revive this slander against Milton, as well
+as some others, had supposed Milton himself to have this
+flagellation in his mind, and indirectly to confess it, in one of
+his Latin poems, where, speaking of Cambridge, and declaring that
+he has no longer any pleasure in the thoughts of revisiting that
+university, he says,
+
+  "Nee duri libet usque minas preferre magislri,
+  Coeteraque ingenio non subeunda meo."
+
+This last line the malicious critic would translate--"And other
+things insufferable to a man of my temper." But, as we then
+observed, _ingenium_ is properly expressive of the
+_intellectual _ constitution, whilst it is the _moral_
+constitution that suffers degradation from personal
+chastisement--the sense of honor, of personal dignity, of justice,
+&c. _Indoles_ is the proper term for this latter idea; and in
+using the word _ingenium,_ there cannot be a doubt that Milton
+alluded to the dry scholastic disputations, which were shocking and
+odious to his fine poetical genius. If, therefore, the vile story
+is still to be kept up in order to dishonor a great man, at any
+rate let it not in future be pretended that any countenance to such
+a slander can be drawn from the confessions of the poet himself.
+
+NOTE 17.
+
+And singular enough it is, as well as interesting, that Shakspeare
+had so entirely superseded to his own ear and memory the name
+Hamnet by the dramatic name of Hamlet, that in writing his will, he
+actually mis-spells the name of his friend Sadler, and calls him
+Hamlet. His son, however, who should have familiarized the true
+name to his ear, had then been dead for twenty years.
+
+NOTE 18.
+
+"I have heard that Mr. Shakspeare was a natural wit, without any
+art at all. Hee frequented the plays all his younger time, but in
+his elder days lived at Stanford, and supplied the stage with two
+plays every year, and for it had an allowance so large, that he
+spent at the rate of 1,000 guineas a-year, as I have heard.
+Shakespeare, Dray ton, arid Ben Jonson, had a merie meeting, and it
+seems drank too hard, for Shakespear died of a feavour there
+contracted" (Diary of the Rev John Ward, A M Vicar of Stratford
+upon Avon, extending from 1648 to 1679, p 183 Lond. 1839, 8vo)
+
+NOTE 19.
+
+It is naturally to be supposed that Dr Hall would attend the sick
+bed of his father in law, and the discovery of this gentleman's
+medical diary promised some gratification to our curiosity as to
+the cause of Shakspeare's death. Unfortunately, it does not
+commence until the year 1617.
+
+NOTE 20.
+
+An exception ought perhaps to be made for Sir Walter Scott and for
+Cervantes, but with regard to all other writers, Dante, suppose, or
+Anosto amongst Italians, Camoens amongst those of Portugal,
+Schiller amongst Germans, however ably they may have been
+naturalized in foreign languages, as all of those here mentioned
+(excepting only Anosto) have in one part of their works been most
+powerfully naturalized in English, it still remains true, (and the
+very sale of the books is proof sufficient,) that an alien author
+never does take root in the general sympathies out of his own
+country, he takes his station in libraries, he is lead by the man
+of learned leisure, he is known and valued by the refined and the
+elegant, but he is not (what Shakspeare is for Germany and America)
+in any proper sense a _popular_ favorite.
+
+NOTE 21.
+
+It will occur to many readers, that perhaps Homer may furnish the
+sole exception to this sweeping assertion. Any _but_ Homer is
+clearly and ludicrously below the level of the competition, but
+even Homer "with his tail on," (as the Scottish Highlanders say of
+then chieftains when belted by their ceremonial retinues,) musters
+nothing like the force which _already_ follows Shakspeare, and
+be it remembered, that Homer sleeps and has long slept as a subject
+of criticism or commentary, while in Germany as well as England,
+and _now even in France_, the gathering of wits to the vast
+equipage of Shakspeare is advancing in an accelerated ratio. There
+is, in fact, a great delusion current upon this subject.
+Innumerable references to Homer, and brief critical remarks on
+this or that pretension of Homer, this or that scene, this or that
+passage, lie scattered over literature ancient and modern; but the
+express works dedicated to the separate service of Homer are, after
+all, not many. In Greek we have only the large Commentary of
+Eustathius, and the Scholia of Didymus, &c.; in French little or
+nothing before the prose translation of the seventeenth century,
+which Pope esteemed "elegant, "and the skirmishings of Madame
+Dacier, La Motte, &c.; in English, besides the various translations
+and their prefaces, (which, by the way, began as early as 1555,)
+nothing of much importance until the elaborate preface of Pope to
+the Iliad, and his elaborate postscript to the Odyssey--nothing
+certainly before that, and very little indeed since that, except
+Wood's Essay on the Life and Genius of Homer. On the other hand, of
+the books written in illustration or investigation of Shakspeare, a
+very considerable library might be formed in England, and another
+in Germany.
+
+NOTE 22.
+
+Apartment is here used, as the reader will observe, in its true and
+continental acceptation, as a division or _compartment_ of a
+house including many rooms; a suite of chambers, but a suite which
+is partitioned off, (as in palaces,) not a single chamber; a sense
+so commonly and so erroneously given to this word in England.
+
+NOTE 23.
+
+And hence, by parity of reason, under the opposite circumstances,
+under the circumstances which, instead of abolishing, most
+emphatically drew forth the sexual distinctions, viz., in the
+_comic_ aspects of social intercourse, the reason that we see
+no women on the Greek stage; the Greek Comedy, unless when it
+affects the extravagant fun of farce, rejects women.
+
+NOTE 24.
+
+It may be thought, however, by some readers, that Aeschylus, in his
+fine phantom of Darius, has approached the English ghost. As a
+foreign ghost, we would wish (and we are sure that our excellent
+readers would wish) to show every courtesy and attention to this
+apparition of Darius. It has the advantage of being royal, an
+advantage which it shares with the ghost of the royal Dane. Yet how
+different, how removed by a total world, from that or any of
+Shakspeare's ghosts! Take that of Banquo, for instance. How
+shadowy, how unreal, yet how real! Darius is a mere state ghost--a
+diplomatic ghost. But Banquo--he exists only for Macbeth; the
+guests do not see him, yet how solemn, how real, how
+heart--searching he is.
+
+NOTE 25.
+
+Caliban has not yet been thoroughly fathomed. For all Shakspeare's
+great creations are like works of nature, subjects of unexhaustible
+study. It was this character of whom Charles I. and some of his
+ministers expressed such fervent admiration; and, among other
+circumstances, most justly they admired the new language almost
+with which he is endowed, for the purpose of expressing his
+fiendish and yet carnal thoughts of hatred to his master. Caliban
+is evidently not meant for scorn, but for abomination mixed with
+fear and partial respect. He is purposely brought into contrast
+with the drunken Trinculo and Stephano, with an advantageous
+result. He is much more intellectual than either, uses a more
+elevated language, not disfigured by vulgarisms, and is not liable
+to the low passion for plunder as they are. He is mortal,
+doubtless, as his "dam" (for Shakspeare will not call her mother)
+Sycorax. But he inherits from her such qualities of power as a
+witch could be supposed to bequeath. He trembles indeed before
+Prospero; but that is, as we are to understand, through the moral
+superiority of Prospero in Christian wisdom; for when he finds
+himself in the presence of dissolute and unprincipled men, he rises
+at once into the dignity of intellectual power.
+
+
+
+
+
+POPE.
+
+
+
+Alexander Lexander Pope, the most brilliant of all wits who have at
+any
+period applied themselves to the poetic treatment of human manners,
+to the selecting from the play of human character what is
+picturesque, or the arresting what is fugitive, was born in the
+city of London on the 21st day of May, in the memorable year 1688;
+about six months, therefore, before the landing of the Prince of
+Orange, and the opening of that great revolution which gave the
+final ratification to all previous revolutions of that tempestuous
+century. By the "city" of London the reader is to understand us as
+speaking with technical accuracy of that district, which lies
+within the ancient walls and the jurisdiction of the lord mayor.
+The parents of Pope, there is good reason to think, were of "gentle
+blood," which is the expression of the poet himself when describing
+them in verse. His mother was so undoubtedly; and her illustrious
+son, in speaking of her to Lord Harvey, at a time when any
+exaggeration was open to an easy refutation, and writing in a
+spirit most likely to provoke it, does not scruple to say, with a
+tone of dignified haughtiness not unbecoming the situation of a
+filial champion on behalf of an insulted mother, that by birth and
+descent she was not below that young lady, (one of the two
+beautiful Miss Lepels,) whom his lordship had selected from all the
+choir of court beauties as the future mother of his children. Of
+Pope's extraction and immediate lineage for a space of two
+generations we know enough. Beyond that we know little. Of this
+little a part is dubious; and what we are disposed to receive as
+_not_ dubious, rests chiefly on his own authority. In the
+prologue to his Satires, having occasion to notice the lampooners
+of the times, who had represented his father as "a mechanic, a
+hatter, a farmer, nay a bankrupt," he feels himself called upon to
+state the truth about his parents; and naturally much more so at a
+time when the low scurrilities of these obscure libellers had been
+adopted, accredited, and diffused by persons so distinguished in
+all points of personal accomplishment and rank as Lady Mary Wortley
+Montagu and Lord Harvey: _"hard as thy heart"_ was one of the
+lines in their joint pasquinade, _" hard as thy heart, and as thy
+birth obscure."_ Accordingly he makes the following formal
+statement: "Mr. Pope's father was of a gentleman's family in
+Oxfordshire, the head of which was the Earl of Downe. His mother
+was the daughter of William Turner, Esq., of York. She had three
+brothers, one of whom was killed; another died in the service of
+King Charles [meaning Charles I.]; the eldest, following his
+fortunes, and becoming a general officer in Spain, left _her_
+what estate remained after the sequestrations and forfeitures of
+her family." The sequestrations here spoken of were those inflicted
+by the commissioners for the parliament; and usually they levied a
+fifth, or even two fifths, according to the apparent delinquency of
+the parties. But in such cases two great differences arose in the
+treatment of the royalists; first, that the report was colored
+according to the interest which a man possessed, or other private
+means for biassing the commissioners; secondly, that often, when
+money could not be raised on mortgage to meet the sequestration, it
+became necessary to sell a family estate suddenly, and. therefore
+in those times at great loss; so that a nominal fifth might be
+depressed by favor to a tenth, or raised by the necessity of
+selling to a half. And hence might arise the small dowry of Mrs.
+Pope, notwithstanding the family estate in Yorkshire had centred in
+her person. But, by the way, we see from the fact of the eldest
+brother having sought service in Spain, that Mrs. Pope was a
+Papist; not, like her husband, by conversion, but by hereditary
+faith. This account, as publicly thrown out in the way of challenge
+by Pope, was, however, sneered at by a certain Mr. Pottinger of
+those days, who, together with his absurd name, has been safely
+transmitted to posterity in connection with this single feat of
+having contradicted Alexander Pope. We read in a diary published by
+the Microcosm," _Met a large hat, with a man under it_. "And
+so, here, we cannot so properly say that Mr. Pottinger brings down
+the contradiction to our times, as that the contradiction brings
+down Mr. Pottinger." Cousin Pope, "said Pottinger," had made
+himself out a fine pedigree, but he wondered where he got it. "And
+he then goes on to plead in abatement of Pope's pretensions," that
+an old maiden aunt, equally related," (that is, standing in the
+same relation to himself and to the poet,) "a great genealogist, who
+was always talking of her family, never mentioned this
+circumstance." And again we are told, from another quarter, that
+the Earl of Guildford, after express investigation of this matter,
+"was sure that," amongst the descendants of the Earls of Downe,
+"there was none of the name of Pope." How it was that Lord
+Guildford came to have any connection with the affair, is not
+stated by the biographers of Pope; but we have ascertained that, by
+marriage with a female descendant from the Earls of Downe, he had
+come into possession of their English estates.
+
+Finally, though it is rather for the honor of the Earls of Downe
+than of Pope to make out the connection, we must observe that Lord
+Guildford's testimony, _if ever given at all_, is simply
+negative; he had found no proofs of the connection, but he had not
+found any proofs to destroy it; whilst, on the other hand, it ought
+to be mentioned, though unaccountably overlooked by all previous
+biographers, that one of Pope's anonymous enemies, who hated him
+personally, but was apparently master of his family history, and
+too honorable to belie his own convictions, expressly affirms of
+his own authority, and without reference to any claim put forward
+by Pope, that he was descended from a junior branch of the Downe
+family. Which testimony has a double value; first, as corroborating
+the probability of Pope's statement viewed in the light of a fact;
+and, secondly, as corroborating that same statement viewed in the
+light of a current story, true or false, and not as a disingenuous
+fiction put forward by Pope to confute Lord Harvey.
+
+It is probable to us, that the Popes, who had been originally
+transplanted from England to Ireland, had in the person of some
+cadet been re-transplanted to England; and that having in that way
+been disconnected from all personal recognition, and all local
+memorials of the capital house, by this sort of
+_postliminium_, the junior branch had ceased to cherish the
+honor of a descent which was now divided from all direct advantage.
+At all events, the researches of Pope's biographers have not been
+able to trace him farther back in the paternal line than to his
+grandfather; and he (which is odd enough, considering the popery of
+his descendants) was a clergyman of the established church in
+Hampshire. This grandfather had two sons. Of the eldest nothing is
+recorded beyond the three facts, that he went to Oxford, that he
+died there, and that he spent the family estate. [Endnote: 2] The
+younger son, whose name was Alexander, had been sent when young, in
+some commercial character, to Lisbon; [Endnote: 3] and there it
+was, in that centre of bigotry, that he became a sincere and most
+disinterested Catholic. He returned to England; married a Catholic
+young widow; and became the father of a second Alexander Pope,
+_ultra Sauromatas notus et Antipodes._
+
+By his own account to Spence, Pope learned "very early to read;"
+and writing he taught himself "by copying, from printed books;"
+all which seems to argue, that, as an only child, with an indolent
+father and a most indulgent mother, he was not molested with much
+schooling in his infancy. Only one adventure is recorded of his
+childhood, viz., that he was attacked by a cow, thrown down, and
+wounded in the throat.
+
+Pope escaped this disagreeable kind of vaccination without serious
+injury, and was not farther tormented by cows or schoolmasters
+until he was about eight years old, when the family priest, that
+is, we presume, the confessor of his parents, taught him, agreeably
+to the Jesuit system, the rudiments of Greek and Latin
+concurrently. This priest was named Banister; and his name is
+frequently employed, together with other fictitious names, by way
+of signature to the notes in the Dunciad, an artifice which was
+adopted for the sake of giving a characteristic variety to the
+notes, according to the tone required for the illustration of the
+text. From his tuition Pope was at length dismissed to a Catholic
+school at Twyford, near Winchester. The selection of a school in
+this neighborhood, though certainly the choice of a Catholic family
+was much limited, points apparently to the old Hampshire connection
+of his father. Here an incident occurred which most powerfully
+illustrates the original and constitutional determination to satire
+of this irritable poet. He knew himself so accurately, that in
+after times, half by way of boast, half of confession, he says,
+
+  "But touch me, and no Minister so sore:
+  Whoe'er offends, at some unlucky time
+  Slides into verse and hitches in a rhyme,
+  Sacred to ridicule his whole life long,
+  And the sad burthen of some merry song."
+
+Already, it seems, in childhood he had the same irresistible
+instinct, victorious over the strongest sense of personal danger.
+He wrote a bitter satire upon the presiding pedagogue, was brutally
+punished for this youthful indiscretion, and indignantly removed by
+his parents from the school. Mr. Roscoe speaks of Pope's personal
+experience as necessarily unfavorable to public schools; but in
+reality he knew nothing of public schools. All the establishments
+for Papists were narrow, and suited to their political depression;
+and his parents were too sincerely anxious for their son's
+religious principles to risk the contagion of Protestant
+association by sending him elsewhere.
+
+From the scene [Endnote: 4] of his disgrace and illiberal
+punishment, he passed, according to the received accounts, under
+the tuition of several other masters in rapid succession. But it is
+the less necessary to trouble the reader with their names, as Pope
+himself assures us, that he learned nothing from any of them. To
+Banister he had been indebted for such trivial elements of a
+schoolboy's learning as he possessed at all, excepting those which
+he had taught himself. And upon himself it was, and his own
+admirable faculties, that he was now finally thrown for the rest of
+his education, at an age so immature that many boys are then first
+entering their academic career. Pope is supposed to have been
+scarcely twelve years old when he assumed the office of
+self-tuition, and bade farewell for ever to schools and tutors.
+
+Such a phenomenon is at any rate striking. It is the more so, under
+the circumstances which attended the plan, and under the results
+which justified its execution. It seems, as regards the plan,
+hardly less strange that prudent parents should have acquiesced in
+a scheme of so much peril to his intellectual interests, than that
+the son, as regards the execution, should have justified their
+confidence by his final success. More especially this confidence
+surprises us in the father. A doating mother might shut her eyes to
+all remote evils in the present gratification to her affections;
+but Pope's father was a man of sense and principle; he must have
+weighed the risks besetting a boy left to his own intellectual
+guidance; and to these risks he would allow the more weight from
+his own conscious defect of scholarship and inability to guide or
+even to accompany his son's studies. He could neither direct the
+proper choice of studies; nor in any one study taken separately
+could he suggest the proper choice of books.
+
+The case we apprehend to have been this. Alexander Pope, the elder,
+was a man of philosophical desires and unambitious character. Quiet
+and seclusion and innocence of life,--these were what he affected
+for himself; and that which had been found available for his own
+happiness, he might reasonably wish for his son. The two hinges
+upon which his plans may be supposed to have turned, were, first,
+the political degradation of his sect; and, secondly, the fact that
+his son was an only child. Had he been a Protestant, or had he,
+though a Papist, been burthened with a large family of children, he
+would doubtless have pursued a different course. But to him, and,
+as he sincerely hoped, to his son, the strife after civil honors
+was sternly barred. Apostasy only could lay it open. And, as the
+sentiments of honor and duty in this point fell in with the vices
+of his temperament, high principle concurring with his
+constitutional love of ease, we need not wonder that he should
+early retire from commerce with a very moderate competence, or that
+he should suppose the same fortune sufficient for one who was to
+stand in the same position. This son was from his birth deformed.
+That made it probable that he might not marry. If he should, and
+happened to have children, a small family would find an adequate
+provision in the patrimonial funds; and a large one at the worst
+could only throw him upon the same commercial exertions to which he
+had been obliged himself. The Roman Catholics, indeed, were just
+then situated as our modern Quakers are. Law to the one, as
+conscience to the other, closed all modes of active employment
+except that of commercial industry. Either his son, therefore,
+would be a rustic recluse, or, like himself, he would be a
+merchant.
+
+With such prospects, what need of an elaborate education? And where
+was such an education to be sought? At the petty establishments of
+the suffering Catholics, the instruction, as he had found
+experimentally, was poor. At the great national establishments his
+son would be a degraded person; one who was permanently repelled
+from every arena of honor, and sometimes, as in cases of public
+danger, was banished from the capital, deprived of his house, left
+defenceless against common ruffians, and rendered liable to the
+control of every village magistrate. To one in these circumstances
+solitude was the wisest position, and the best qualification, for
+that was an education that would furnish aids to solitary thought.
+No need for brilliant accomplishments to him who must never display
+them; forensic arts, pulpit erudition, senatorial eloquence,
+academical accomplishments--these would be lost to one against whom
+the courts, the pulpit, the senate, the universities, were closed.
+Nay, by possibility worse than lost; they might prove so many
+snares or positive bribes to apostasy. Plain English, therefore,
+and the high thinking of his compatriot authors, might prove the
+best provision for the mind of an English Papist destined to
+seclusion.
+
+Such are the considerations under which we read and interpret the
+conduct of Pope's parents; and they lead us to regard as wise and
+conscientious a scheme which, under ordinary circumstances, would
+have been pitiably foolish. And be it remembered, that to these
+considerations, derived exclusively from the civil circumstances of
+the family, were superadded others derived from the astonishing
+prematurity of the individual. That boy who could write at twelve
+years of age the beautiful and touching stanzas on Solitude, might
+well be trusted with the superintendence of his own studies. And
+the stripling of sixteen, who could so far transcend in good sense
+the accomplished statesmen or men of the world with whom he
+afterwards corresponded, might challenge confidence for such a
+choice of books as would best promote the development of his own
+faculties.
+
+In reality, one so finely endowed as Alexander Pope, could not
+easily lose his way in the most extensive or ill-digested library.
+And though he tells Atterbury, that at one time he abused his
+opportunities by reading controversial divinity, we may be sure
+that his own native activities, and the elasticity of his mind,
+would speedily recoil into a just equilibrium of study, under wider
+and happier opportunities. Reading, indeed, for a person like Pope,
+is rather valuable as a means of exciting his own energies, and of
+feeding his own sensibilities, than for any direct acquisitions of
+knowledge, or for any trains of systematic research. All men are
+destined to devour much rubbish between the cradle and the grave;
+and doubtless the man who is wisest in the choice of his books,
+will have read many a page before he dies that a thoughtful review
+would pronounce worthless. This is the fate of all men. But the
+reading of Pope, as a general result or measure of his judicious
+choice, is best justified in his writings. They show him well
+furnished with whatsoever he wanted for matter or for
+embellishment, for argument or illustration, for example and model,
+or for direct and explicit imitation.
+
+Possibly, as we have already suggested, within the range of English
+literature Pope might have found all that he wanted. But variety
+the widest has its uses; and, for the extension of his influence
+with the polished classes amongst whom he lived, he did wisely to
+add other languages; and a question has thus arisen with regard to
+the extent of Pope's attainments as a self-taught linguist. A man,
+or even a boy, of great originality, may happen to succeed best, in
+working his own native mines of thought, by his unassisted
+energies. Here it is granted that a tutor, a guide, or even a
+companion, may be dispensed with, and even beneficially. But in the
+case of foreign languages, in attaining this machinery of
+literature, though anomalies even here do arise, and men there are,
+like Joseph Scaliger, who form their own dictionaries and grammars
+in the mere process of reading an unknown language, by far the
+major part of students will lose their time by rejecting the aid of
+tutors. As there has been much difference of opinion with regard to
+Pope's skill in languages, we shall briefly collate and bring into
+one focus the stray notices.
+
+As to the French, Voltaire, who knew Pope personally, declared that
+he "could hardly _read_ it, and spoke not one syllable of the
+language." But perhaps Voltaire might dislike Pope? On the
+contrary, he was acquainted with his works, and admired them to the
+very level of their merits. Speaking of him _after death_ to
+Frederick of Prussia, he prefers him to Horace and Boileau,
+asserting that, by comparison with _them_,
+
+  "Pope _approfondit_ ce qu'ils ont _effleura_.
+  D'un esprit plus hardi, d'un pas plus assure,
+  Il porta le flambeau dans l'abeme de l'otre;
+  Et l'homme _avec lui seul_ apprit a se connoetre.
+  L'art quelquefois frivole, et quelquefois divine,
+  L'art des vers est dans Pope utile au genre humain."
+
+This is not a wise account of Pope, for it does not abstract the
+characteristic feature of his power; but it is a very kind one. And
+of course Voltaire could not have meant any unkindness in denying
+his knowledge of French. But he was certainly wrong. Pope, in
+_his_ presence, would decline to speak or to read a language
+of which the pronunciation was confessedly beyond him. Or, if he
+did, the impression left would be still worse. In fact, no man ever
+will pronounce or talk a language which he does not use, for some
+part of every day, in the real intercourse of life. But that Pope
+read French of an ordinary cast with fluency enough, is evident
+from the extensive use which he made of Madame Dacier's labors on
+the Iliad, and still more of La Valterie's prose translation of the
+Iliad. Already in the year 1718, and long before his personal
+knowledge of Voltaire, Pope had shown his accurate acquaintance
+with some voluminous French authors, in a way which, we suspect,
+was equally surprising and offensive to his noble correspondent.
+The Duke of Buckingham [Endnote: 5] had addressed to Pope a
+letter, containing some account of the controversy about Homer,
+which had then been recently carried on in France between La Motte
+and Madame Dacier. This account was delivered with an air of
+teaching, which was very little in harmony with its excessive
+shallowness. Pope, who sustained the part of pupil in this
+interlude, replied in a manner that exhibited a knowledge of the
+parties concerned in the controversy much superior to that of the
+duke. In particular, he characterized the excellent notes upon
+Horace of M. Dacier, the husband, in very just terms, as
+distinguished from those of his conceited and half-learned wife;
+and the whole reply of Pope seems very much as though he had been
+playing off a mystification on his grace. Undoubtedly the pompous
+duke felt that he had caught a Tartar. Now M. Dacier's Horace,
+which, with the text, fills nine volumes, Pope could not have read
+_except_ in French; for they are not even yet translated into
+English. Besides, Pope read critically the French translations of
+his own Essay on Man, Essay on Criticism, Rape of the Lock, &c. He
+spoke of them as a critic; and it was at no time a fault of Pope's
+to make false pretensions. All readers of Pope's Satires must also
+recollect numerous proofs, that he had read Boileau with so much
+feeling of his peculiar merit, that he has appropriated and
+naturalized in English some of his best passages. Voltaire was,
+therefore, certainly wrong.
+
+Of Italian literature, meantime, Pope knew little or nothing; and
+simply because he knew nothing of the language. Tasso, indeed, he
+admired; and, which is singular, more than Ariosto. But we believe
+that he had read him only in English; and it is certain that he
+could not take up an Italian author, either in prose or verse, for
+the unaffected amusement of his leisure.
+
+Greek, we all know has been denied to Pope, ever since he
+translated Homer, and chiefly in consequence of that translation.
+This seems at first sight unfair, because criticism has not
+succeeded in fixing upon Pope any errors of ignorance. His
+deviations from Homer were uniformly the result of imperfect
+sympathy with the naked simplicity of the antique, and therefore
+wilful deviations, not (like those of his more pretending
+competitors, Addison and Tickell) pure blunders of misapprehension.
+But yet it is not inconsistent with this concession to Pope's
+merits, that we must avow our belief in his thorough ignorance of
+Greek when he first commenced his task. And to us it seems
+astonishing that nobody should have adverted to that fact as a
+sufficient solution, and in fact the only plausible solution, of
+Pope's excessive depression of spirits in the earliest stage of his
+labors. This depression, after he had once pledged himself to his
+subscribers for the fulfilment of his task, arose from, and could
+have arisen from nothing else than, his conscious ignorance of
+Greek in connection with the solemn responsibilities he had assumed
+in the face of a great nation. Nay, even countries as
+presumptuously disdainful of tramontane literature as Italy took an
+interest in this memorable undertaking. Bishop Berkeley found
+Salvini reading it at Florence; and Madame Dacier even, who read
+little but Greek, and certainly no English until then, condescended
+to study it. Pope's dejection, therefore, or rather agitation (for
+it impressed by sympathy a tumultuous character upon his dreams,
+which lasted for years after the cause had ceased to operate) was
+perfectly natural under the explanation we have given, but not
+otherwise. And how did he surmount this unhappy self-distrust?
+Paradoxical as it may sound, we will venture to say, that, with the
+innumerable aids for interpreting Homer which even then existed, a
+man sufficiently acquainted with Latin might make a translation
+even critically exact. This Pope was not long in discovering. Other
+alleviations of his labor concurred, and in a ratio daily
+increasing.
+
+The same formulae were continually recurring, such as,
+
+  _"But him answering, thus addressed the swift-footed Achilles;"_
+
+Or,
+
+  _"But him sternly beholding, thus spoke Agamemnon the king
+    of men."_
+
+Then, again, universally the Homeric Greek, from many causes, is
+easy; and especially from these two:
+
+1 _st_, The simplicity of the thought, which never gathers
+into those perplexed knots of rhetorical condensation, which we
+find in the dramatic poets of a higher civilization.
+
+2 _dly_, From the constant hounds set to the expansion of the
+thought by the form of the metre; an advantage of verse which makes
+the poets so much easier to a beginner in the German language than
+the illimitable weavers of prose. The line or the stanza reins up
+the poet tightly to his theme, and will not suffer him to
+expatiate. Gradually, therefore, Pope came to read the Homeric
+Greek, but never accurately; nor did he ever read Eustathius
+without aid from Latin. As to any knowledge of the Attic Greek, of
+the Greek of the dramatists, the Greek of Plato, the Greek of
+Demosthenes, Pope neither had it nor affected to have it. Indeed it
+was no foible of Pope's, as we will repeat, to make claims which he
+had not, or even to dwell ostentatiously upon those which he had.
+And with respect to Greek in particular, there is a manuscript
+letter in existence from Pope to a Mr. Bridges at Falham, which,
+speaking of the original Homer, distinctly records the knowledge
+which he had of his own "imperfectness in the language." Chapman, a
+most spirited translator of Homer, probably had no very critical
+skill in Greek; and Hobbes was, beyond all question, as poor a
+Grecian as he was a doggerel translator; yet in this letter Pope
+professes his willing submission to the "authority" of Chapman and
+Hobbes, as superior to his own.
+
+Finally, in _Latin_ Pope was a "considerable proficient," even
+by the cautious testimony of Dr. Johnson; and in this language only
+the doctor was an accomplished critic. If Pope had really the
+proficiency here ascribed to him, he must have had it already in
+his boyish years; for the translation from Statius, which is the
+principal monument of his skill, was executed _before_ he was
+fourteen. We have taken the trouble to throw a hasty glance over
+it; and whilst we readily admit the extraordinary talent which it
+shows, as do all the juvenile essays of Pope, we cannot allow that
+it argues any accurate skill in Latin. The word Malea, as we have
+seen noticed by some editor, he makes Malea; which in itself, as
+the name was not of common occurrence, would not have been an error
+worth noticing; but, taken in connection with the certainty that
+Pope had the original line before him--
+
+  "Arripit ex templo Maleae de valle resurgens,"
+
+when not merely the scanning theoretically, but the
+whole rhythm is practically, to the most obtuse ear, would be
+annihilated by Pope's false quantity, is a blunder which serves to
+show his utter ignorance of prosody. But, even as a version of the
+sense, with every allowance for a poet's license of compression and
+expansion, Pope's translation is defective, and argues an
+occasional inability to construe the text. For instance, at the
+council summoned by Jupiter, it is said that he at his first
+entrance seats himself upon his starry throne, but not so the
+inferior gods;
+
+    "Nec protinus ausi
+  Coelicolae, veniam donee pater ipse sedendi
+  Tranquilla jubet esse manu."
+
+In which passage there is a slight obscurity, from the ellipsis of
+the word _sedere_, or _sese locare_; but the meaning is
+evidently that the other gods did not presume to sit down
+_protinus_, that is, in immediate succession to Jupiter, and
+interpreting his example as a tacit license to do so, until, by a
+gentle wave of his hand, the supreme father signifies his express
+permission to take their seats. But Pope, manifestly unable to
+extract any sense from the passage, translates thus:
+
+  "At Jove's assent the deities around
+  In solemn slate the consistory _crown'd_;"
+
+where at once the whole picturesque solemnity of the celestial
+ritual melts into the vaguest generalities. Again, at v. 178,
+_ruptaeque vices_ is translated," _and all the ties of
+nature broke_; "but by vices is indicated the alternate reign of
+the two brothers, as ratified by mutual oaths, and subsequently
+violated by Eteocles. Other mistakes might be cited, which seem to
+prove that Pope, like most self-taught linguists, was a very
+imperfect one. [Endnote: 6] Pope, in short, never rose to such a
+point in classical literature as to read either Greek or Latin
+authors without effort, and for his private amusement.
+
+The result, therefore, of Pope's self-tuition appears to us,
+considered in the light of an attempt to acquire certain
+accomplishments of knowledge, a most complete failure. As a
+linguist, he read no language with ease; none with pleasure to
+himself; and none with so much accuracy as could have carried him
+through the most popular author with a general independence on
+interpreters. But, considered with a view to his particular
+faculties and slumbering originality of power, which required
+perhaps the stimulation of accident to arouse them effectually, we
+are very much disposed to think that the very failure of his
+education as an artificial training was a great advantage finally
+for inclining his mind to throw itself, by way of indemnification,
+upon its native powers. Had he attained, as with better tuition he
+would have attained, distinguished excellence as a scholar, or as a
+student of science, the chances are many that he would have settled
+down into such studies as thousands could pursue not less
+successfully than he; whilst as it was, the very dissatisfaction
+which he could not but feel with his slender attainments, must have
+given him a strong motive for cultivating those impulses of
+original power which he felt continually stirring within him, and
+which were vivified into trials of competition as often as any
+distinguished excellence was introduced to his knowledge.
+
+Pope's father, at the time of his birth, lived in Lombard Street;
+[Endnote: 7] a street still familiar to the public eye, from its
+adjacency to some of the chief metropolitan establishments, and to
+the English ear possessing a degree of historical importance;
+first, as the residence of those Lombards, or Milanese, who
+affiliated our infant commerce to the matron splendors of the
+Adriatic and the Mediterranean; next, as the central resort of
+thrme jewellers, or "goldsmiths," as they were styled, who
+performed all the functions of modern bankers from the period of
+the parliamentary war to the rise of the Bank of England, that is,
+for six years after the birth of Pope; and, lastly, as the seat,
+until lately, of that vast Post Office, through which, for so long
+a period, has passed the correspondence of all nations and
+languages, upon a scale unknown to any other country. In this
+street Alexander Pope the elder had a house, and a warehouse, we
+presume, annexed, in which he conducted the wholesale business of a
+linen merchant. As soon as he had made a moderate fortune he
+retired from business, first to Kensington, and afterwards to
+Binfield, in Windsor Forest. The period of this migration is not
+assigned by any writer. It is probable that a prudent man would not
+adopt it with any prospect of having more children. But this chance
+might be considered as already extinguished at the birth of Pope;
+for though his father had then only attained his forty-fourth year,
+Mrs. Pope had completed her forty-eighth. It is probable, from the
+interval of seven days which is said to have elapsed between Pope's
+punishment and his removal from the school, that his parents were
+then living at such a distance from him as to prevent his ready
+communication with them, else we may be sure that Mrs. Pope would
+have flown on the wings of love and wrath to the rescue of her
+darling. Supposing, therefore, as we _do_ suppose, that Mr.
+Bromley's school in London was the scene of his disgrace, it would
+appear on this argument that his parents were then living in
+Windsor Forest. And this hypothesis falls in with another anecdote
+in Pope's life, which we know partly upon his own authority. He
+tells Wycherley that he had seen Dryden, and barely seen him.
+_Virgilium vidi tantum_. This is presumed to have been in
+Will's Coffee-house, whither any person in search of Dryden would
+of course resort; and it must have been before Pope was twelve
+years old, for Dryden died in 1700. Now there is a letter of Sir
+Charles Wogan's, stating that he first took Pope to Will's; and his
+words are, "from our forest." Consequently, at that period, when he
+had not completed his twelfth year, Pope was already living in the
+forest.
+
+From this period, and so long as the genial spirits of youth
+lasted, Pope's life must have been one dream of pleasure. He tells
+Lord Harvey that his mother did not spoil him; but that was no
+doubt because there was no room for wilfulness or waywardness on
+either side, when all was one placid scene of parental obedience
+and gentle filial authority. We feel persuaded that, if not in
+words, in spirit and inclination, they would, in any notes they
+might have occasion to write, subscribe themselves "your dutiful
+parents." And of what consequence in whose hands were the reins
+which were never needed? Every reader must be pleased to know that
+these idolizing parents lived to see their son at the very summit
+of his public elevation; even his father lived two years and a half
+after the publication of his Homer had commenced, and when his
+fortune was made; and his mother lived for nearly eighteen years
+more. What a felicity for her, how rare and how perfect, to find
+that he, who to her maternal eyes was naturally the most perfect of
+human beings, and the idol of her heart, had already been the idol
+of the nation before he had completed his youth. She had also
+another blessing not always commanded by the most devoted love;
+many sons there are who think it essential to manliness that they
+should treat their mother's doating anxiety with levity, or even
+ridicule. But Pope, who was the model of a good son, never swerved
+in words, manners, or conduct, from the most respectful tenderness,
+or intermitted the piety of his attentions. And so far did he carry
+this regard for his mother's comfort, that, well knowing how she
+lived upon his presence or by his image, he denied himself for many
+years all excursions which could not be fully accomplished within
+the revolution of a week. And to this cause, combined with the
+excessive length of his mother's life, must be ascribed the fact
+that Pope never went abroad; not to Italy with Thomson or with
+Berkeley, or any of his diplomatic friends; not to Ireland, where
+his presence would have been hailed as a national honor; not even
+to France, on a visit to his admiring and admired friend Lord
+Bolingbroke. For as to the fear of sea-sickness, _that_ did
+not arise until a late period of his life; and at any period would
+not have operated to prevent his crossing from Dover to Calais. It
+is possible that, in his earlier and more sanguine years, all the
+perfection of his filial love may not have availed to prevent him
+from now and then breathing a secret murmur at confinement so
+constant. But it is certain that, long before he passed the
+meridian of his life, Pope had come to view this confinement with
+far other thoughts. Experience had then taught him, that to no man
+is the privilege granted of possessing more than one or two friends
+who are such in extremity. By that time he had come to view his
+mother's death with fear and anguish. She, he knew by many a sign,
+would have been happy to lay down her life for his sake; but for
+others, even those who were the most friendly and the most constant
+in their attentions, he felt but too certainly that his death, or
+his heavy affliction, might cost them a few sighs, but would not
+materially disturb their peace of mind. "It is but in a very narrow
+circle," says he, in a confidential letter, "that friendship walks
+in this world, and I care not to tread out of it more than I needs
+must; knowing well it is but to two or three, (if quite so many,)
+that any man's welfare or memory can be of consequence." After such
+acknowledgments, we are not surprised to find him writing thus of
+his mother, and his fearful struggles to fight off the shock of his
+mother's death, at a time when it was rapidly approaching. After
+having said of a friend's death, "the subject is beyond writing
+upon, beyond cure or ease by reason or reflection, beyond all but
+one thought, that it is the will of God," he goes on thus, "So will
+the death of my mother be, which now I tremble at, now resign to,
+now bring close to me, now set farther off; every day alters, turns
+me about, confuses my whole frame of mind." There is no pleasure,
+he adds, which the world can give "equivalent to countervail either
+the death of one I have so long lived with, or of one I have so
+long lived for." How will he comfort himself after her death? "I
+have nothing left but to turn my thoughts to one comfort, the last
+we usually think of, though the only one we should in wisdom depend
+upon. I sit in her room, and she is always present before me but
+when I sleep. I wonder I am so well. I have shed many tears; but
+now I weep at nothing."
+
+A man, therefore, happier than Pope in his domestic relations
+cannot easily have lived. It is true these relations were
+circumscribed; had they been wider, they could not have been so
+happy. But Pope was equally fortunate in his social relations.
+What, indeed, most of all surprises us, is the courteous,
+flattering, and even brilliant reception which Pope found from his
+earliest boyhood amongst the most accomplished men of the world.
+Wits, courtiers, statesmen, grandees the most dignified, and men of
+fashion the most brilliant, all alike treated him not only with
+pointed kindness, but with a respect that seemed to acknowledge him
+as their intellectual superior. Without rank, high birth, fortune,
+without even a literary name, and in defiance of a deformed person,
+Pope, whilst yet only sixteen years of age, was caressed, and even
+honored; and all this with no one recommendation but simply the
+knowledge of his dedication to letters, and the premature
+expectations which he raised of future excellence. Sir William
+Trumbull, a veteran statesman, who had held the highest stations,
+both diplomatic and ministerial, made him his daily companion.
+Wycherley, the old _roue_ of the town, a second-rate wit, but
+not the less jealous on that account, showed the utmost deference
+to one whom, as a man of fashion, he must have regarded with
+contempt, and between whom and himself there were nearly "fifty
+good years of fair and foul weather." Cromwell, [Endnote: 8] a
+fox-hunting country gentleman, but uniting with that character the
+pretensions of a wit, and affecting also the reputation of a rake,
+cultivated his regard with zeal and conscious inferiority. Nay,
+which never in any other instance happened to the most fortunate
+poet, his very inaugural essays in verse were treated, not as
+prelusive efforts of auspicious promise, but as finished works of
+art, entitled to take their station amongst the literature of the
+land; and in the most worthless of all his poems, Walsh, an
+established authority, and whom Dryden pronounced the ablest critic
+of the age, found proofs of equality with Virgil.
+
+The literary correspondence with these gentlemen is interesting, as
+a model of what once passed for fine letter-writing. Every nerve
+was strained to outdo each other in carving all thoughts into a
+fillagree work of rhetoric; and the amoebaean contest was like that
+between two village cocks from neighboring farms endeavoring to
+overcrow each other. To us, in this age of purer and more masculine
+taste, the whole scene takes the ludicrous air of old and young
+fops dancing a minuet with each other, practising the most
+elaborate grimaces, sinkings and risings the most awful, bows the
+most overshadowing, until plain walking, running, or the motions of
+natural dancing, are thought too insipid for endurance. In this
+instance the taste had perhaps really been borrowed from France,
+though often enough we impute to France what is the native growth
+of all minds placed in similar circumstances. Madame de Sevigne's
+Letters were really models of grace. But Balzac, whose letters,
+however, are not without interest, had in some measure formed
+himself upon the truly magnificent rhetoric of Pliny and Seneca.
+Pope and his correspondents, meantime, degraded the dignity of
+rhetoric, by applying it to trivial commonplaces of compliment;
+whereas Seneca applied it to the grandest themes which life or
+contemplation can supply. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, on first
+coming amongst the wits of the day, naturally adopted their style.
+She found this sort of _euphuism_ established; and it was not
+for a very young woman to oppose it. But her masculine
+understanding and powerful good sense, shaken free, besides, from
+all local follies by travels and extensive commerce with the world,
+first threw off these glittering chains of affectation.
+
+Dean Swift, by the very constitution of his mind, plain, sinewy,
+nervous, and courting only the strength that allies itself with
+homeliness, was always indisposed to this mode of correspondence.
+And, finally, Pope himself, as his earlier friends died off, and
+his own understanding acquired strength, laid it aside altogether.
+One reason doubtless was, that he found it too fatiguing; since in
+this way of letter-writing he was put to as much expense of wit in
+amusing an individual correspondent, as would for an equal extent
+have sufficed to delight the whole world. A funambulist may harass
+his muscles and risk his neck on the tight-rope, but hardly to
+entertain his own family. Pope, however, had another reason for
+declining this showy system of fencing; and strange it is that he
+had not discovered this reason from the very first. As life
+advanced, it happened unavoidably that real business advanced; the
+careless condition of youth prompted no topics, or at least
+prescribed none, but such as were agreeable to the taste, and
+allowed of an ornamental coloring. But when downright business
+occurred, exchequer bills to be sold, meetings to be arranged,
+negotiations confided, difficulties to be explained, here and there
+by possibility a jest or two might be scattered, a witty allusion
+thrown in, or a sentiment interwoven; but for the main body of the
+case, it neither could receive any ornamental treatment, nor if, by
+any effort of ingenuity, it _had_, could it look otherwise
+than silly and unreasonable:
+
+  "Ornari les a ipsa negat, contenta doceri."
+
+Pope's idleness, therefore, on the one hand, concurring with good
+sense and the necessities of business on the other, drove him to
+quit his gay rhetoric in letter-writing. But there are passages
+surviving in his correspondence which indicate, that, after all,
+had leisure and the coarse perplexities of life permitted it, he
+still looked with partiality upon his youthful style, and cherished
+it as a first love. But in this harsh world, as the course of true
+love, so that of rhetoric, never did run smooth; and thus it
+happened that, with a lingering farewell, he felt himself forced to
+bid it adieu. Strange that any man should think his own sincere and
+confidential overflowings of thought and feeling upon books, men,
+and public affairs, less valuable in a literary view than the
+legerdemain of throwing up bubbles into the air for the sake of
+watching their prismatic hues, like an Indian juggler with his cups
+and balls. We of this age, who have formed our notions of
+epistolary excellence from the chastity of Gray's, the brilliancy
+of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's during her later life, and the
+mingled good sense and fine feeling of Cowper's, value only those
+letters of Pope which he himself thought of inferior value. And
+even with regard to these, we may say that there is a great mistake
+made; the best of those later letters between Pope and Swift, &c.,
+are not in themselves at all superior to the letters of sensible
+and accomplished women, such as leave every town in the island by
+every post. Their chief interest is a derivative one; we are
+pleased with any letter, good or bad, which relates to men of such
+eminent talent; and sometimes the subjects discussed have a
+separate interest for themselves. But as to the quality of the
+discussion, apart from the person discussing and the thing
+discussed, so trivial is the value of these letters in a large
+proportion, that we cannot but wonder at the preposterous value
+which was set upon them by the writers. [Endnote: 9] Pope
+especially ought not to have his ethereal works loaded by the mass
+of trivial prose which is usually attached to them.
+
+This correspondence, meantime, with the wits of the time, though
+one mode by which, in the absence of reviews, the reputation of an
+author was spread, did not perhaps serve the interests of Pope so
+effectually as the poems which in this way he circulated in those
+classes of English society whose favor he chiefly courted. One of
+his friends, the truly kind and accomplished Sir William Trumbull,
+served him in that way, and perhaps in another eventually even more
+important. The library of Pope's father was composed exclusively of
+polemical divinity, a proof, by the way, that he was not a blind
+convert to the Roman Catholic faith; or, if he was so originally,
+had reviewed the grounds of it, and adhered to it after strenuous
+study. In this dearth of books at his own home, and until he was
+able to influence his father in buying more extensively, Pope had
+benefited by the loans of his friends; amongst whom it is probable
+that Sir William, as one of the best scholars of the whole, might
+assist him most. He certainly offered him the most touching
+compliment, as it was also the wisest and most paternal counsel,
+when he besought him, as one _goddess-born_, to quit the
+convivial society of deep-drinkers:
+
+  "Heu, fuge nate dea, teque his, ait, eripe malis."
+
+With these aids from friends of rank, and his way thus laid open to
+public favor, in the year 1709 Pope first came forward upon the
+stage of literature. The same year which terminated his legal
+minority introduced him to the public. _Miscellanies_ in those
+days were almost periodical repositories of fugitive verse. Tonson
+happened at this time to be publishing one of some extent, the
+sixth volume of which offered a sort of ambush to the young
+aspirant of Windsor Forest, from which he might watch the public
+feeling. The volume was opened by Mr. Ambrose Philips, in the
+character of pastoral poet; and in the same character, but
+stationed at the end of the volume, and thus covered by his bucolic
+leader, as a soldier to the rear by the file in advance, appeared
+Pope; so that he might win a little public notice, without too much
+seeming to challenge it. This half-clandestine emersion upon the
+stage of authorship, and his furtive position, are both mentioned
+by Pope as accidents, but as accidents in which he rejoiced, and
+not improbably accidents which Tonson had arranged with a view to
+his satisfaction.
+
+It must appear strange that Pope at twenty-one should choose to
+come forward for the first time with a work composed at sixteen. A
+difference of five years at that stage of life is of more effect
+than of twenty at a later; and his own expanding judgment could
+hardly fail to inform him, that his Pastorals were by far the worst
+of his works. In reality, let us not deny, that had Pope never
+written any thing else, his name would not have been known as a
+name even of promise, but would probably have been redeemed from
+oblivion by some satirist or writer of a Dunciad. Were a man to
+meet with such a nondescript monster as the following, viz.,"
+_Love out of Mount Mlna by Whirlwind_"he would suppose himself
+reading the Racing Calendar. Yet this hybrid creature is one of the
+many zoological monsters to whom the Pastorals introduce us:
+
+    "I know thee. love! on foreign mountains born.
+     Wolves gave thee suck, and savage tigers fed.
+     Thou wert from Aetna's burning entrails torn.
+     Got by fierce whirlwinds, and in thunder born."
+
+But the very names "Damon" and "Strephon," "Phillis" and "Delia,"
+are rank with childishness. Arcadian life is, at the best, a
+feeble conception, and rests upon the false principle of crowding
+together all the luscious sweets of rural life, undignified by the
+danger which attends pastoral life in our climate, and unrelieved
+by shades, either moral or physical. And the Arcadia of Pope's age
+was the spurious Arcadia of the opera theatre, and, what is worse,
+of the French opera.
+
+The hostilities which followed between these rival wooers of the
+pastoral muse are well known. Pope, irritated at what he conceived
+the partiality shown to Philips in the Guardian, pursued the review
+ironically; and, whilst affecting to load his antagonist with
+praises, draws into pointed relief some of his most flagrant
+faults. The result, however, we cannot believe. That all the wits,
+except Addison, were duped by the irony, is quite impossible. Could
+any man of sense mistake for praise the remark, that Philips had
+imitated "_every_ line of Strada; "that he had introduced
+wolves into England, and proved himself the first of gardeners by
+making his flowers "blow all in the same season." Or, suppose
+those passages unnoticed, could the broad sneer escape him, where
+Pope taxes the other writer (viz., himself) with having deviated"
+into downright poetry; "or the outrageous ridicule of Philip's
+style, as setting up for the ideal type of the pastoral style, the
+quotation from Gay, beginning,
+
+  "Rager, go vetch tha kee, or else tha zun
+  Will quite bego before ch' 'avs half a don!"
+
+Philips is said to have resented this treatment by threats of
+personal chastisement to Pope, and even hanging up a rod at
+Button's coffee-house. We may be certain that Philips never
+disgraced himself by such ignoble conduct. If the public indeed
+were universally duped by the paper, what motive had Philips for
+resentment? Or, in any case, what plea had he for attacking Pope,
+who had not come forward as the author of the essay? But, from
+Pope's confidential account of the matter, we know that Philips saw
+him daily, and never offered him "any indecorum;" though, for some
+cause or other, Pope pursued Philips with virulence through life.
+
+In the year 1711, Pope published his Essay on Criticism, which some
+people have very unreasonably fancied his best performance; and in
+the same year his Rape of the Lock, the most exquisite monument of
+playful fancy that universal literature offers. It wanted, however,
+as yet, the principle of its vitality, in wanting the machinery of
+sylphs and gnomes, with which addition it was first published in
+1714.
+
+In the year 1712, Pope appeared again before the public as the
+author of the Temple of Fame, and the Elegy to the Memory of an
+Unfortunate Lady. Much speculation has arisen on the question
+concerning the name of this lady, and the more interesting question
+concerning the nature of the persecutions and misfortunes which she
+suffered. Pope appears purposely to decline answering the questions
+of his friends upon that point; at least the questions have reached
+us, and the answers have not. Joseph Warton supposed himself to
+have ascertained four facts about her: that her name was Wainsbury;
+that she was deformed in person; that she retired into a convent
+from some circumstances connected with an attachment to a young man
+of inferior rank; and that she killed herself, not by a sword, as
+the poet insinuates, but by a halter. As to the latter statement,
+it may very possibly be true; such a change would be a very slight
+exercise of the poet's privileges. As to the rest, there are
+scarcely grounds enough for an opinion. Pope certainly speaks of
+her under the name of Mrs. (_i. e._ Miss) W--, which at least
+argues a poetical exaggeration in describing her as a being "that
+once had _titles_, honor, wealth, and fame;" and he may as
+much have exaggerated her pretensions to beauty. It is indeed
+noticeable, that he speaks simply of her _decent_ limbs,
+which, in any English use of the word, does not imply much
+enthusiasm of praise. She appears to have been the niece of a Lady
+A--; and Mr. Craggs, afterwards secretary of state, wrote to Lady
+A--on her behalf, and otherwise took an interest in her fate. As to
+her being a relative of the Duke of Buckingham's, that rests upon a
+mere conjectural interpretation applied to a letter of that
+nobleman's. But all things about this unhappy lady are as yet
+enveloped in mystery. And not the least part of the mystery is a
+letter of Pope's to a Mr. C--, bearing date 1732, that is, just
+twenty years after the publication of the poem, in which Pope, in a
+manly tone, justifies himself for his estrangement, and presses
+against his unknown correspondent the very blame which he had
+applied generally to the kinsman of the poor victim in 1712. Now,
+unless there is some mistake in the date, how are we to explain
+this gentleman's long lethargy, and his sudden sensibility to
+Pope's anathema, with which the world had resounded for twenty
+years?
+
+Pope had now established his reputation with the public as the
+legitimate successor and heir to the poetical supremacy of Dryden.
+His Rape of the Lock was unrivalled in ancient or modern
+literature, and the time had now arrived when, instead of seeking
+to extend his fame, he might count upon a pretty general support in
+applying what he had already established to the promotion of his
+own interest. Accordingly, in the autumn of 1713, he formed a final
+resolution of undertaking a new translation of the Iliad. It must
+be observed, that already in 1709, concurrently with his Pastorals,
+he had published specimens of such a translation; and these had
+been communicated to his friends some time before. In particular,
+Sir William Trumbull, on the 9th of April, 1708, urged upon Pope a
+complete translation of both Iliad and Odyssey. Defective skill in
+the Greek language, exaggeration of the difficulties, and the
+timidity of a writer as yet unknown, and not quite twenty years
+old, restrained Pope for five years and more. What he had practised
+as a sort of _bravura_, for a single effort of display, he
+recoiled from as a daily task to be pursued through much toil, and
+a considerable section of his life. However, he dallied with the
+purpose, starting difficulties in the temper of one who wishes to
+hear them undervalued; until at length Sir Richard Steele
+determined him to the undertaking, a fact overlooked by the
+biographers, but which is ascertained by Ayre's account of that
+interview between Pope and Addison, probably in 1716, which sealed
+the rupture between them. In the autumn of 1713, he made his design
+known amongst his friends. Accordingly, on the 21st of October, we
+have Lord Lansdown's letter, expressing his great pleasure at the
+communication; on the 26th, we have Addison's letter encouraging
+him to the task; and in November of the same year occurs the
+amusing scene so graphically described by Bishop Kennet, when Dean
+Swift presided in the conversation, and, amongst other indications
+of his conscious authority, "instructed a young nobleman, that the
+best poet in England was Mr. Pope, who had _begun_ a
+translation of Homer into English verse, for which he must have
+them all subscribe; for," says he," _the author shall not begin
+to print until I have a thousand guineas for him_."
+
+If this were the extent of what Swift anticipated from the work, he
+fell miserably below the result. But, perhaps, he spoke only of a
+cautionary _arrha_ or earnest. As this was unquestionably the
+greatest literary labor, as to profit, ever executed, not excepting
+the most lucrative of Sir Walter Scott's, if due allowance be made
+for the altered value of money, and if we consider the Odyssey as
+forming part of the labor, it may be right to state the particulars
+of Pope's contract with Lintot.
+
+The number of subscribers to the Iliad was 575, and the number of
+copies subscribed for was 654. The work was to be printed in six
+quarto volumes; and the subscription was a guinea a volume.
+Consequently by the subscription Pope obtained six times 654
+guineas, or 4218L. 6s., (for the guinea then passed for 21s. 6d.);
+and for the copyright of each volume Lintot offered 200L,
+consequently 1200L for the whole six; so that from the Iliad the
+profit exactly amounted to 5310L. 16s. Of the Odyssey, 574 copies
+were subscribed for. It was to be printed in five quarto volumes,
+and the subscription was a guinea a volume. Consequently by the
+subscription Pope obtained five times 574 guineas, or 3085L. 5s.;
+and for the copyright Lintot offered 600L. The total sum received,
+therefore, by Pope, on account of the Odyssey, was 3685L. 5s. But
+in this instance he had two coadjutors, Broome and Fenton; between
+them they translated twelve books, leaving twelve to Pope. The
+notes also were compiled by Broome; but the Postscript to the notes
+was written by Pope. Fenton received 300L, Broome 500L. Such at
+least is Warton's account, and more probable than that of Ruffhead,
+who not only varies the proportions, but increases the whole sum
+given to the assistants by 100L. Thus far we had followed the
+guidance of mere probabilities, as they lie upon the face of the
+transaction. But we have since detected a written statement of
+Pope's, unaccountably overlooked by the biographers, and serving of
+itself to show how negligently they have read the works of their
+illustrious subject. The statement is entitled to the fullest
+attention and confidence, not being a hasty or casual notice of the
+transaction, but pointedly shaped to meet a calumnious rumor
+against Pope in his character of paymaster; as if he who had found
+so much liberality from publishers in his own person, were
+niggardly or unjust as soon as he assumed those relations to
+others. Broome, it was alleged, had expressed himself dissatisfied
+with Pope's remuneration. Perhaps he had. For he would be likely to
+frame his estimate for his own services from the scale of Pope's
+reputed gains; and those gains would, at any rate, be enormously
+exaggerated, as uniformly happens where there is a basis of the
+marvellous to begin with. And, secondly, it would be natural enough
+to assume the previous result from the Iliad as a fair standard for
+computation; but in this, as we know, all parties found themselves
+disappointed, and Broome had the less right to murmur at this,
+since the arrangement with himself as chief journeyman in the job
+was one main cause of the disappointment. There was also another
+reason why Broome should be less satisfied than Fenton. Verse for
+verse, any one thousand lines of a translation so purely mechanical
+might stand against any other thousand; and so far the equation of
+claims was easy. A book-keeper, with a pen behind his ear, and
+Cocker's Golden Rule open before him, could do full justice to Mr.
+Broome _as a poet_ every Saturday night. But Broome had a
+separate account current for pure prose against Pope. One he had in
+conjunction with Fenton for verses delivered on the premises at so
+much per hundred, on which there could be no demur, except as to
+the allowance for tare and tret as a discount in favor of Pope. But
+the prose account, the account for notes, requiring very various
+degrees of reading and research, allowed of no such easy equation.
+There it was, we conceive, that Broome's discontent arose. Pope,
+however, declares, that he had given him 500L, thus confirming the
+proportions of Warton against Ruffhead, (that is, in effect,
+Warburton,) and some other advantages which were not in money, nor
+deductions at all from his own money profits, but which may have
+been worth so much money to Broome, as to give some colorable truth
+to Ruffhead's allegation of an additional 100L. In direct money, it
+remains certain that Fenton had three, and Broome five hundred
+pounds. It follows, therefore, that for the Iliad and Odyssey
+jointly he received a sum of 8996L. 1s., and paid for assistance
+800L, which leaves to himself a clear sum of 8196L. 1s. And, in
+fact, his profits ought to be calculated without deduction, since
+it was his own choice, from indolence, to purchase assistance.
+
+The Iliad was commenced about October, 1713. In the summer of the
+following year he was so far advanced as to begin making
+arrangements with Lintot for the printing; and the first two books,
+in manuscript, were put into the hands of Lord Halifax. In June,
+1715, between the 10th and 28th, the subscribers received their
+copies of the first volume; and in July Lintot began to publish
+that volume generally. Some readers will inquire, who paid for the
+printing and paper, &c.? All this expense fell upon Lintot, for
+whom Pope was superfluously anxious. The sagacious bookseller
+understood what he was about; and, when a pirated edition was
+published in Holland, he counteracted the injury by printing a
+cheap edition, of which 7500 copies were sold in a few weeks; an
+extraordinary proof of the extended interest in literature. The
+second, third, and fourth volumes of the Iliad, each containing,
+like the first, four books, were published successively in 1716,
+1717, 1718; and in 1720, Pope completed the work by publishing the
+fifth volume, containing five books, and the sixth, containing the
+last three, with the requisite supplementary apparatus.
+
+The Odyssey was commenced in 1723, (not 1722, as Mr. Roscoe
+virtually asserts at p. 259,) and the publication of it was
+finished in 1725. The sale, however, was much inferior to that of
+the Iliad; for which more reasons than one might be assigned. But
+there can be no doubt that Pope himself depreciated the work, by
+his undignified arrangements for working by subordinate hands. Such
+a process may answer in sculpture, because there a quantity of
+rough-hewing occurs, which can no more be improved by committing it
+to a Phidias, than a common shop-bill could be improved in its
+arithmetic by Sir Isaac Newton. But in literature such arrangements
+are degrading; and, above all, in a work which was but too much
+exposed already to the presumption of being a mere effort of
+mechanic skill, or (as Curll said to the House of Lords)" _a
+knack_; "it was deliberately helping forward that idea to let
+off parts of the labor. Only think of Milton letting off by
+contract to the lowest offer, and to be delivered by such a day,
+(for which good security to be found,) six books of Paradise Lost.
+It is true, the great dramatic authors were often
+_collaborateurs_, but their case was essentially different.
+The loss, however, fell not upon Pope, but upon Lintot, who, on
+this occasion, was out of temper, and talked rather broadly of
+prosecution. But that was out of the question. Pope had acted
+indiscreetly, but nothing could be alleged against his honor; for
+he had expressly warned the public, that he did not, as in the
+other case, profess _to translate_, but _to undertake
+[Endnote: 10] a translation_ of the Odyssey. Lintot, however,
+was no loser absolutely, though he might be so in relation to his
+expectations; on the contrary, he grew rich, bought land, and
+became sheriff of the county in which his estates lay.
+
+We have pursued the Homeric labors uninterruptedly from their
+commencement in 1713, till their final termination in 1725, a
+period of twelve years or nearly; because this was the task to
+which Pope owed the dignity, if not the comforts, of his life,
+since it was this which enabled him to decline a pension from all
+administrations, and even from his friend Craggs, the secretary, to
+decline the express offer of 300L per annum. Indeed Pope is always
+proud to own his obligations to Homer. In the interval, however,
+between the Iliad and the Odyssey, Pope listened to proposals made
+by Jacob Tonson, that he should revise an edition of Shakspeare.
+For this, which was in fact the first attempt at establishing the
+text of the mighty poet, Pope obtained but little money, and still
+less reputation. He received, according to tradition, only 217L.
+12s. for his trouble of collation, which must have been
+considerable, and some other trifling editorial labor. And the
+opinion of all judges, from the first so unfavorable as to have
+depreciated the money-value of the book enormously, perhaps from a
+prepossession of the public mind against the fitness of Pope for
+executing the dull labors of revision, has ever since pronounced
+this work the very worst edition in existence. For the edition we
+have little to plead; but for the editor it is but just to make
+three apologies. In the _first_ place, he wrote a brilliant
+preface, which, although (like other works of the same class) too
+much occupied in displaying his own ability, and too often, for the
+sake of an effective antithesis, doing deep injustice to
+Shakspeare, yet undoubtedly, as a whole, extended his fame, by
+giving the sanction and countersign of a great wit to the national
+admiration. _Secondly_, as Dr. Johnson admits, Pope's failure
+pointed out the right road to his successors. _Thirdly_, even
+in this failure it is but fair to say, that in a graduated scale of
+merit, as distributed amongst the long succession of editors
+through that century, Pope holds a rank proportionable to his age.
+For the year 1720, he is no otherwise below Theobald, Hanmer,
+Capell, Warburton, or even Johnson, than as they are successively
+below each other, and all of them as to accuracy below Steevens, as
+he again was below Malone and Read.
+
+The gains from Shakspeare would hardly counterbalance the loss
+which Pope sustained this year from the South Sea Bubble. One
+thing, by the way, is still unaccountably neglected by writers on
+this question. How it was that the great Mississippi Bubble, during
+the Orleans regency in Paris, should have happened to coincide with
+that of London. If this were accident, how marvellous that the same
+insanity should possess the two great capitals of Christendom in
+the same year? If, again, it were not accident, but due to some
+common cause, why is not that cause explained? Pope to his nearest
+friends never stated the amount of his loss. The biographers report
+that at one time his stock was worth from twenty to thirty thousand
+pounds. But that is quite impossible. It is true, that as the stock
+rose at one time a thousand per cent., this would not imply on
+Pope's part an original purchase beyond twenty-five hundred pounds
+or thereabouts. But Pope has furnished an argument against _that,
+_ which we shall improve. He quotes, more than once, as
+applicable to his own case, the old proverbial riddle of Hesiod,
+_----- ----- ------, the half is more than the whole_. What
+did he mean by that? We understand it thus: That between the
+selling and buying, the variations had been such as to sink his
+shares to one half of the price they had once reached, but, even at
+that depreciation, to leave him richer on selling out than he had
+been at first. But the half of 25,000 would be a far larger sum
+than Pope could have ventured to risk upon a fund confessedly
+liable to daily fluctuation. 3000 English pounds would be the
+utmost he could risk; in which case the half of 25,000 pounds
+would have left him so very much richer, that he would have
+proclaimed his good fortune as an evidence of his skill and
+prudence. Yet, on the contrary, he wished his friends to understand
+at times that he had lost. But his friends forgot to ask one
+important question: Was the word _loss_ to be understood in
+relation to the imaginary and nominal wealth which he once
+possessed, or in relation to the absolute sum invested in the South
+Sea fund? The truth is, Pope practised on this, as on other
+occasions, a little finessing, which is the chief foible in his
+character. His object was, that, according to circumstances, he
+might vindicate his own freedom from the common mania, in case his
+enemies should take that handle for attacking him; or might have it
+in his power to plead poverty, and to account for it, in case he
+should ever accept that pension which had been so often tendered
+but never sternly rejected.
+
+In 1723 Pope lost one of his dearest friends, Bishop Atterbury, by
+banishment; a sentence most justly incurred, and mercifully
+mitigated by the hostile Whig government. On the bishop's trial a
+circumstance occurred to Pope which flagrantly corroborated his own
+belief in his natural disqualification for public life. He was
+summoned as an evidence on his friend's behalf. He had but a dozen
+words to say, simply explaining the general tenor of his lordship's
+behavior at Bromley, and yet, under this trivial task, though
+supported by the enthusiasm of his friendship, he broke down. Lord
+Bolingbroke, returning from exile, met the bishop at the sea-side;
+upon which it was wittily remarked that they were "exchanged." Lord
+Bolingbroke supplied to Pope the place, or perhaps more than
+supplied the place, of the friend he had lost; for Bolingbroke was
+a free-thinker, and so far more entertaining to Pope, even whilst
+partially dissenting, than Atterbury, whose clerical profession
+laid him under restraints of decorum, and latterly, there is reason
+to think, of conscience.
+
+In 1725, on closing the Odyssey, Pope announces his intention to
+Swift of quitting the labors of a translator, and thenceforwards
+applying himself to original composition. This resolution led to
+the Essay on Man, which appeared soon afterwards; and, with the
+exception of two labors, which occupied Pope in the interval
+between 1726 and 1729, the rest of his life may properly be
+described as dedicated to the further extension of that Essay. The
+two works which he interposed were a collection of the fugitive
+papers, whether prose or verse, which he and Dean Swift had
+scattered amongst their friends at different periods of life. The
+avowed motive for this publication, and, in fact, the secret
+motive, as disclosed in Pope's confidential letters, was to make it
+impossible thenceforwards for piratical publishers like Curll. Both
+Pope and Swift dreaded the malice of Curll in case they should die
+before him. It was one of Curll's regular artifices to publish a
+heap of trash on the death of any eminent man, under the title of
+his Remains; and in allusion to that practice, it was that
+Arbuthnot most wittily called Curll "one of the new terrors of
+death." By publishing _all_, Pope would have disarmed Curll
+beforehand; and that was in fact the purpose; and that plea only
+could be offered by two grave authors, one forty, the other sixty
+years old, for reprinting _jeux d'esprit_ that never had any
+other apology than the youth of their authors. Yet, strange to say,
+after all, some were omitted; and the omission of one opened the
+door to Curll as well as that of a score. Let Curll have once
+inserted the narrow end of the wedge, he would soon have driven it
+home.
+
+This Miscellany, however, in three volumes, (published in 1727, but
+afterwards increased by a fourth in 1732,) though in itself a
+trifling work, had one vast consequence. It drew after it swarms of
+libels and lampoons, levelled almost exclusively at Pope, although
+the cipher of the joint authors stood entwined upon the title-page.
+These libels in _their_ turn produced a second reaction; and,
+by stimulating Pope to effectual anger, eventually drew forth, for
+the everlasting admiration of posterity, the very greatest of
+Pope's works; a monument of satirical power the greatest which man
+has produced, not excepting the MacFleckno of Dryden, namely, the
+immortal Dunciad.
+
+In October of the year 1727, this poem, in its original form, was
+completed. Many editions, not spurious altogether, nor
+surreptitious, but with some connivance, not yet explained, from
+Pope, were printed in Dublin and in London. But the first quarto
+and acknowledged edition was published in London early in "1728-9,"
+as the editors choose to write it, that is, (without perplexing the
+reader,) in 1729. On March 12 of which year it was presented by the
+prime minister, Sir Robert Walpole, to the king and queen at St.
+James's.
+
+Like a hornet, who is said to leave his sting in the wound, and
+afterwards to languish away, Pope felt so greatly exhausted by the
+efforts connected with the Dunciad, (which are far greater, in
+fact, than all his Homeric labors put together,) that he prepared
+his friends to expect for the future only an indolent companion and
+a hermit. Events rapidly succeeded which tended to strengthen the
+impression he had conceived of his own decay, and certainly to
+increase his disgust with the world. In 1732 died his friend
+Atterbury; and on December the 7th of the same year Gay, the most
+unpretending of all the wits whom he knew, and the one with whom he
+had at one time been domesticated, expired, after an illness of
+three days, which Dr. Arbuthnot declares to have been "the most
+precipitate" he ever knew. But in fact Gay had long been decaying,
+from the ignoble vice of too much and too luxurious eating. Six
+months after this loss, which greatly affected Pope, came the last
+deadly wound which this life could inflict, in the death of his
+mother. She had for some time been in her dotage, and recognized no
+face but that of her son, so that her death was not unexpected; but
+that circumstance did not soften the blow of separation to Pope.
+She died on the 7th of June, 1733, being then ninety-three years
+old. Three days after, writing to Richardson the painter, for the
+purpose of urging him to come down and take her portrait before the
+coffin was closed, he says, "I thank God, her death was as easy as
+her life was innocent; and as it cost her not a groan, nor even a
+sigh, there is yet upon her countenance such an expression of
+tranquillity," that "it would afford the finest image of a saint
+expired that ever painting drew. Adieu, may you die as happily."
+The funeral took place on the 11th; Pope then quitted the house,
+unable to support the silence of her chamber, and did not return
+for months, nor in fact ever reconciled himself to the sight of her
+vacant apartment.
+
+Swift also he had virtually lost for ever. In April, 1727, this
+unhappy man had visited Pope for the last time. During this visit
+occurred the death of George I. Great expectations arose from that
+event amongst the Tories, in which, of course,' Swift shared. It
+was reckoned upon as a thing of course that Walpole would be
+dismissed. But this bright gleam of hope proved as treacherous as
+all before; and the anguish of this final disappointment perhaps it
+was which brought on a violent attack of Swift's constitutional
+malady. On the last of August he quitted Pope's house abruptly,
+concealed himself in London, and finally quitted it, as stealthily
+as he had before quitted Twickenham, for Ireland, never more to
+return. He left a most affectionate letter for Pope; but his
+affliction, and his gloomy anticipations of insanity, were too
+oppressive to allow of his seeking a personal interview.
+
+Pope might now describe himself pretty nearly as _ultimus
+suorum_; and if he would have friends in future, he must seek
+them, as he complains bitterly, almost amongst strangers and
+another generation. This sense of desolation may account for the
+acrimony which too much disfigures his writings henceforward.
+Between 1732 and 1740, he was chiefly engaged in satires, which
+uniformly speak a high moral tone in the midst of personal
+invective; or in poems directly philosophical, which almost as
+uniformly speak the bitter tone of satire in the midst of
+dispassionate ethics. His Essay on Man was but one link in a
+general course which he had projected of moral philosophy, here and
+there pursuing his themes into the fields of metaphysics, but no
+farther in either field of morals or metaphysics than he could make
+compatible with a poetical treatment. These works, however,
+naturally entangled him in feuds of various complexions with people
+of very various pretensions; and to admirers of Pope so fervent as
+we profess ourselves, it is painful to acknowledge that the dignity
+of his latter years, and the becoming tranquillity of increasing
+age, are sadly disturbed by the petulance and the tone of
+irritation which, alike to those in the wrong and in the right,
+inevitably besiege all personal disputes. He was agitated, besides,
+by a piratical publication of his correspondence. This emanated of
+course from the den of Curll, the universal robber and "_blatant
+beast_" of those days; and, besides the injury offered to his
+feelings by exposing some youthful sallies which he wished to have
+suppressed, it drew upon him a far more disgraceful imputation,
+most assuredly unfounded, but accredited by Dr. Johnson, and
+consequently in full currency to this day, of having acted
+collusively with Curll, or at least through Curll, for the
+publication of what he wished the world to see, but could not else
+have devised any decent pretext for exhibiting. The disturbance of
+his mind on this occasion led to a circular request, dispersed
+amongst his friends, that they would return his letters. All
+complied except Swift. He only delayed, and in fact shuffled. But
+it is easy to read in his evasions, and Pope, in spite of his
+vexation, read the same tale, viz., that, in consequence of his
+recurring attacks and increasing misery, he was himself the victim
+of artifices amongst those who surrounded him. What Pope
+apprehended happened.
+
+The letters were all published in Dublin and in London, the
+originals being then only returned when they had done their work of
+exposure.
+
+Such a tenor of life, so constantly fretted by petty wrongs, or by
+leaden insults, to which only the celebrity of their object lent
+force or wings, allowed little opportunity to Pope for recalling
+his powers from angry themes, and converging them upon others of
+more catholic philosophy. To the last he continued to conceal
+vipers beneath his flowers; or rather, speaking proportionately to
+the case, he continued to sheath amongst the gleaming but innocuous
+lightnings of his departing splendors, the thunderbolts which
+blasted for ever. His last appearance was his greatest. In 1742 he
+published the fourth book of the Dunciad; to which it has with much
+reason been objected, that it stands in no obvious relation to the
+other three, but which, taken as a separate whole, is by far the
+most brilliant and the weightiest of his works. Pope was aware of
+the _hiatus_ between this last book and the rest, on which
+account he sometimes called it the greater Dunciad; and it would
+have been easy for him, with a shallow Warburtonian ingenuity, to
+invent links that might have satisfied a mere _verbal_ sense
+of connection. But he disdained this puerile expedient. The fact
+was, and could not be disguised from any penetrating eye, that the
+poem was not a pursuit of the former subjects; it had arisen
+spontaneously at various times, by looking at the same general
+theme of dulness (which, in Pope's sense, includes all aberrations
+of the intellect, nay, even any defective equilibrium amongst the
+faculties) under a different angle of observation, and from a
+different centre. In this closing book, not only bad authors, as in
+the other three, but all abuses of science or antiquarian
+knowledge, or connoisseurship in the arts, are attacked. Virtuosi,
+medalists, butterfly-hunters, florists, erring metaphysicians, &c.,
+are all pierced through and through as with the shafts of Apollo.
+But the imperfect plan of the work as to its internal economy, no
+less than its exterior relations, is evident in many places; and in
+particular the whole catastrophe of the poem, if it can be so
+called, is linked to the rest by a most insufficient incident. To
+give a closing grandeur to his work, Pope had conceived the idea of
+representing the earth as lying universally under the incubation of
+one mighty spirit of dulness; a sort of millennium, as we may call
+it, for ignorance, error, and stupidity. This would take leave of
+the reader with effect; but how was it to be introduced? at what
+era? under what exciting cause? As to the eras, Pope could not
+settle that; unless it were a _future_ era, the description of
+it could not be delivered as a prophecy; and, not being prophetic,
+it would want much of its grandeur. Yet, _as_ a part of
+futurity, how is it connected with our present times? Do they and
+their pursuits lead to it as a possibility, or as a contingency
+upon certain habits which we have it in our power to eradicate, (in
+which case this vision of dulness has a _practical_ warning,)
+or is it a mere necessity, one amongst the many changes attached to
+the cycles of human destiny, or which chance brings round with the
+revolutions of its wheel? All this Pope could not determine; but
+the exciting cause he has determined, and it is preposterously
+below the effect. The goddess of dulness yawns; and her yawn,
+which, after all, should rather express the fact and state of
+universal dulness than its cause, produces a change over all
+nations tantamount to a long eclipse. Meantime, with all its
+defects of plan, the poem, as to execution, is superior to all
+which Pope has done; the composition is much superior to that of
+the Essay on Man, and more profoundly poetic. The parodies drawn
+from Milton, as also in the former books, have a beauty and effect
+which cannot be expressed; and, if a young lady wished to cull for
+her album a passage from all Pope's writings, which, without a
+trace of irritation or acrimony, should yet present an exquisite
+gem of independent beauty, she could not find another passage equal
+to the little story of the florist and the butterfly-hunter. They
+plead their cause separately before the throne of dulness; the
+florist telling how he had reared a superb carnation, which, in
+honor of the queen, he called Caroline, when his enemy, pursuing a
+butterfly which settled on the carnation, in securing his own
+object, had destroyed that of the plaintiff. The defendant replies
+with equal beauty; and it may certainly be affirmed, that, for
+brilliancy of coloring and the art of poetical narration, the tale
+is not surpassed by any in the language.
+
+This was the last effort of Pope worthy of separate notice. He was
+now decaying rapidly, and sensible of his own decay. His complaint
+was a dropsy of the chest, and he knew it to be incurable. Under
+these circumstances, his behavior was admirably philosophical. He
+employed himself in revising and burnishing all his later works, as
+those upon which he wisely relied for his reputation with future
+generations. In this task he was assisted by Dr. Warburton, a new
+literary friend, who had introduced himself to the favorable notice
+of Pope about four years before, by a defence of the Essay on Man,
+which Crousaz had attacked, but in general indirectly and
+ineffectually, by attacking it through the blunders of a very
+faulty translation. This poem, however, still labors, to religious
+readers, under two capital defects. If man, according to Pope, is
+now so admirably placed in the universal system of things, that
+evil only could result from any change, then it seems to follow,
+either that a fall of man is inadmissible; or at least, that, by
+placing him in his true centre, it had been a blessing universally.
+The other objection lies in this, that if all is right already, and
+in this earthly station, then one argument for a future state, as
+the scene in which evil is to be redressed, seems weakened or
+undermined.
+
+As the weakness of Pope increased, his nearest friends, Lord
+Bolingbroke, and a few others, gathered around him. The last scenes
+were passed almost with ease and tranquillity. He dined in company
+two days before he died: and on the very day preceding his death he
+took an airing on Blackheath. A few mornings before he died, he was
+found very early in his library writing on the immortality of the
+soul. This was an effort of delirium; and he suffered otherwise
+from this affection of the brain, and from inability to think in
+his closing hours. But his humanity and goodness, it was remarked,
+had survived his intellectual faculties. He died on the 30th of
+May, 1744; and so quietly, that the attendants could not
+distinguish the exact moment of his dissolution.
+
+We had prepared an account of Pope's quarrels, in which we had
+shown that, generally, he was not the aggressor; and often was
+atrociously ill used before he retorted. This service to Pope's
+memory we had judged important, because it is upon these quarrels
+chiefly that the erroneous opinion has built itself of Pope's
+fretfulness and irritability. And this unamiable feature of his
+nature, together with a proneness to petty manoeuvring, are the
+main foibles that malice has been able to charge upon Pope's moral
+character. Yet, with no better foundation for their malignity than
+these doubtful propensities, of which the first perhaps was a
+constitutional defect, a defect of his temperament rather than his
+will, and the second has been much exaggerated, many writers have
+taken upon themselves to treat Pope as a man, if not absolutely
+unprincipled and without moral sensibility, yet as mean,
+little-minded, indirect, splenetic, vindictive, and morose. Now the
+difference between ourselves and these writers is fundamental. They
+fancy that in Pope's character a basis of ignoble qualities was
+here and there slightly relieved by a few shining spots; we, on the
+contrary, believe that in Pope lay a disposition radically noble
+and generous, clouded and overshadowed by superficial foibles, or,
+to adopt the distinction of Shakspeare, they see nothing but "dust
+a little gilt," and we "gold a little dusted." A very rapid glance
+we will throw over the general outline of his character.
+
+As a friend, it is noticed emphatically by Martha Blount and other
+contemporaries, who must have had the best means of judging, that
+no man was so warm-hearted, or so much sacrificed himself for
+others, as Pope; and in fact many of his quarrels grew out of this
+trait in his character. For once that he levelled his spear in his
+own quarrel, at least twice he did so on behalf of his insulted
+parents or his friends. Pope was also noticeable for the duration
+of his friendships; [Endnote: 11] some dropped him,--but he never
+any throughout his life. And let it be remembered, that amongst
+Pope's friends were the men of most eminent talents in those days;
+so that envy at least, or jealousy of rival power, was assuredly no
+foible of his. In that respect how different from Addison, whose
+petty manoeuvring against Pope proceeded entirely from malignant
+jealousy. That Addison was more in the wrong even than has
+generally been supposed, and Pope more thoroughly innocent as well
+as more generous, we have the means at a proper opportunity of
+showing decisively. As a son, we need not insist on Pope's
+preeminent goodness. Dean Swift, who had lived for months together
+at Twickenham, declares that he had not only never witnessed, but
+had never heard of anything like it. As a Christian, Pope appears
+in a truly estimable light. He found himself a Roman Catholic by
+accident of birth; so was his mother; but his father was so upon
+personal conviction and conversion, yet not without extensive study
+of the questions at issue. It would have laid open the road to
+preferment, and preferment was otherwise abundantly before him, if
+Pope would have gone over to the Protestant faith. And in his
+conscience he found no obstacle to that change; he was a
+philosophical Christian, intolerant of nothing but intolerance, a
+bigot only against bigots. But he remained true to his baptismal
+profession, partly on a general principle of honor in adhering to a
+distressed and dishonored party, but chiefly out of reverence and
+affection to his mother. In his relation to women, Pope was amiable
+and gentlemanly; and accordingly was the object of affectionate
+regard and admiration to many of the most accomplished in that sex.
+This we mention especially because we would wish to express our
+full assent to the manly scorn with which Mr. Roscoe repels the
+libellous insinuations against Pope and Miss Martha Blount. A more
+innocent connection we do not believe ever existed. As an author,
+Warburton has recorded that no man ever displayed more candor or
+more docility to criticisms offered in a friendly spirit. Finally,
+we sum up all in saying, that Pope retained to the last a true and
+diffusive benignity; that this was the quality which survived all
+others, notwithstanding the bitter trial which his benignity must
+have stood through life, and the excitement to a spiteful reaction
+of feeling which was continually pressed upon him by the scorn and
+insult which his deformity drew upon him from the unworthy.
+
+But the moral character of Pope is of secondary interest. We are
+concerned with it only as connected with his great intellectual
+power. There are three errors which seem current upon this subject.
+_First_, that Pope drew his impulses from French literature;
+_secondly_, that he was a poet of inferior rank;
+_thirdly_, that his merit lies in superior "correctness." With
+respect to the first notion, it has prevailed by turns in every
+literature. One stage of society, in every nation, brings men of
+impassioned minds to the contemplation of manners, and of the
+social affections of man as exhibited in manners. With this
+propensity cooperates, no doubt, some degree of despondency when
+looking at the great models of the literature who have usually
+preoccupied the grander passions, and displayed their movements in
+the earlier periods of literature. Now it happens that the French,
+from an extraordinary defect in the higher qualities of passion,
+have attracted the notice of foreign nations chiefly to that field
+of their literature, in which the taste and the unimpassioned
+understanding preside. But in all nations such literature is a
+natural growth of the mind, and would arise equally if the French
+literature had never existed. The wits of Queen Anne's reign, or
+even of Charles II.'s, were not French by their taste or their
+imitation. Butler and Dryden were surely not French; and of Milton
+we need not speak; as little was Pope French, either by his
+institution or by his models. Boileau he certainly admired too
+much; and, for the sake of a poor parallelism with a passage about
+Greece in Horace, he has falsified history in the most ludicrous
+manner, without a shadow of countenance from facts, in order to
+make out that we, like the Romans, received laws of taste from
+those whom we had conquered. But these are insulated cases and
+accidents, not to insist on his known and most profound admiration,
+often expressed, for both Chaucer, and Shakspeare, and Milton.
+Secondly, that Pope is to be classed as an inferior poet, has
+arisen purely from a confusion between the departments of poetry
+which he cultivated and the merit of his culture. The first place
+must undoubtedly be given for ever,--it cannot be refused,--to the
+impassioned movements of the tragic, and to the majestic movements
+of the epic muse. We cannot alter the relations of things out of
+favor to an individual. But in his own department, whether higher
+or lower, that man is supreme who has not yet been surpassed; and
+such a man is Pope. As to the final notion, first started by Walsh,
+and propagated by Warton, it is the most absurd of all the three;
+it is not from superior correctness that Pope is esteemed more
+correct, but because the compass and sweep of his performances lies
+more within the range of ordinary judgments. Many questions that
+have been raised upon Milton or Shakspeare, questions relating to
+so subtile a subject as the flux and reflux of human passion, lie
+far above the region of ordinary capacities; and the
+indeterminateness or even carelessness of the judgment is
+transferred by a common confusion to its objects. But waiving this,
+let us ask, what is meant by "correctness?" Correctness in what? In
+developing the thought? In connecting it, or effecting the
+transitions? In the use of words? In the grammar? In the metre?
+Under every one of these limitations of the idea, we maintain that
+Pope is _not_ distinguished by correctness; nay, that, as
+compared with Shakspeare, he is eminently incorrect. Produce us
+from any drama of Shakspeare one of those leading passages that all
+men have by heart, and show us any eminent defect in the very
+sinews of the thought. It is impossible; defects there may be, but
+they will always be found irrelevant to the main central thought,
+or to its expression. Now turn to Pope; the first striking passage
+which offers itself to our memory, is the famous character of
+Addison, ending thus:
+
+  "Who would not laugh, if such a man there be,
+   Who but must weep if Atticus were he?"
+
+Why must we laugh? Because we find a grotesque assembly of noble
+and ignoble qualities. Very well; but why then must we weep?
+Because this assemblage is found actually existing in an eminent
+man of genius. Well, that is a good reason for weeping; we weep for
+the degradation of human nature. But then revolves the question,
+why must we laugh? Because, if the belonging to a man of genius
+were a sufficient reason for weeping, so much we know from the very
+first. The very first line says, "Peace to all such. But were there
+one whose fires _true genius kindles_ and fair fame inspires."
+Thus falls to the ground the whole antithesis of this famous
+character. We are to change our mood from laughter to tears upon a
+sudden discovery that the character belonged to a man of genius;
+and this we had already known from the beginning. Match us this
+prodigious oversight in Shakspeare. Again, take the Essay on
+Criticism. It is a collection of independent maxims, tied together
+into a fasciculus by the printer, but having no natural order or
+logical dependency; generally so vague as to mean nothing. Like the
+general rules of justice, &c., in ethics, to which every man
+assents; but when the question comes about any practical case,
+_is_ it just? The opinions fly asunder far as the poles. And,
+what is remarkable, many of the rules are violated by no man so
+often as by Pope, and by Pope nowhere so often as in this very
+poem. As a single instance, he proscribes monosyllabic lines; and
+in no English poem of any pretensions are there so many lines of
+that class as in this. We have counted above a score, and the last
+line of all is monosyllabic.
+
+Not, therefore, for superior correctness, but for qualities the
+very same as belong to his most distinguished brethren, is Pope to
+be considered a great poet; for impassioned thinking, powerful
+description, pathetic reflection, brilliant narration. His
+characteristic difference is simply that he carried these powers
+into a different field, and moved chiefly amongst the social paths
+of men, and viewed their characters as operating through their
+manners. And our obligations to him arise chiefly on this ground,
+that having already, in the persons of earlier poets, carried off
+the palm in all the grander trials of intellectual strength, for
+the majesty of the epopee and the impassioned vehemence of the
+tragic drama, to Pope we owe it that we can now claim an equal
+preeminence in the sportive and aerial graces of the mock heroic
+and satiric muse; that in the Dunciad we possess a peculiar form of
+satire, in which (according to a plan unattempted by any other
+nation) we see alternately her festive smile and her gloomiest
+scowl; that the grave good sense of the nation has here found its
+brightest mirror; and, finally, that through Pope the cycle of our
+poetry is perfected and made orbicular, that from that day we might
+claim the laurel equally, whether for dignity or grace.
+
+
+
+
+
+NOTES.
+
+
+NOTE 1.
+
+Dr. Johnson, however, and Joseph Warton, for reasons not stated,
+have placed his birth on the 22d. To this statement, as opposed to
+that which comes from the personal friends of Pope, little
+attention is due. Ruffhead and Spence, upon such questions, must
+always be of higher authority than Johnson and Warton, and _a
+fortiori_ than Bowles. But it ought not to be concealed, though
+hitherto unnoticed by any person, that some doubt after all remains
+whether any of the biographers is right. An anonymous writer,
+contemporary with Pope, and evidently familiar with his personal
+history, declares that he was born on the 8th of June; and he
+connects it with an event that, having a public and a partisan
+interest, (the birth of that Prince of Wales, who was known
+twenty-seven years afterwards as the Pretender,) would serve to
+check his own recollections, and give them a collateral voucher. It
+is true he wrote for an ill-natured purpose; but no purpose
+whatever could have been promoted by falsifying this particular
+date. What is still more noticeable, however, Pope himself puts a
+most emphatic negative upon all these statements. In a pathetic
+letter to a friend, when his attention could not have been
+wandering, for he is expressly insisting upon a sentiment which
+will find an echo in many a human heart, viz., that a birthday,
+though from habit usually celebrated as a festal day, too often is
+secretly a memorial of disappointment, and an anniversary of
+sorrowful meaning, he speaks of the very day on which he is then
+writing as his own birthday; and indeed what else could give any
+propriety to the passage? Now the date of this letter is January 1,
+1733. Surely Pope knew his own birthday better than those who have
+adopted a random rumor without investigation.
+
+But, whilst we are upon this subject, we must caution the readers
+of Pope against too much reliance upon the chronological accuracy
+of his editors. _All_ are scandalously careless; and generally
+they are faithless. Many allusions are left unnoticed, which a very
+little research would have illustrated; many facts are omitted,
+even yet recoverable, which are essential to the just appreciation
+of Pope's satirical blows; and dates are constantly misstated. Mr.
+Roscoe is the most careful of Pope's editors; but even he is often
+wrong. For instance, he has taken the trouble to write a note upon
+Pope's humorous report to Lord Burlington of his Oxford journey on
+horseback with Lintot; and this note involves a sheer
+impossibility. The letter is undated, except as to the month; and
+Mr. Roscoe directs the reader to supply 1714 as the true date,
+which is a gross anachronism. For a ludicrous anecdote is there put
+into Lintot's mouth, representing some angry critic, who had been
+turning over Pope's Homer, with frequent _pshaws_, as having
+been propitiated, by Mr. Lintot's dinner, into a gentler feeling
+towards Pope, and, finally, by the mere effect of good cheer,
+without an effort on the publisher's part, as coming to a
+confession, that what he ate and what he had been reading were
+equally excellent. But in the year 1714, _no part_ of Pope's
+Homer was printed; June, 1715, was the month in which even the
+subscribers first received the four earliest books of the Iliad;
+and the public generally not until July. This we notice by way of
+specimen; in itself, or as an error of mere negligence, it would be
+of little importance; but it is a case to which Mr. Roscoe has
+expressly applied his own conjectural skill, and solicited the
+attention of his reader. We may judge, therefore, of his accuracy
+in other cases which he did not think worthy of examination.
+
+There is another instance, presenting itself in every page, of
+ignorance concurring with laziness, on the part of all Pope's
+editors, and with the effect not so properly of misleading as of
+perplexing the general reader. Until Lord Macclesfield's bill for
+altering the style in the very middle of the eighteenth century,
+six years, therefore, after the death of Pope, there was a custom,
+arising from the collision between the civil and ecclesiastical
+year, of dating the whole period that lies between December 31st
+and March 25th, (both days _exclusively,_) as belonging
+indifferently to the past or the current year. This peculiarity had
+nothing to do with the old and new style, but was, we believe,
+redressed by the same act of Parliament. Now in Pope's time it was
+absolutely necessary that a man should use this double date,
+because else he was liable to be seriously misunderstood. For
+instance, it was then always said that Charles I had suffered on
+the 30th of January 1648/9, and why? Because, had the historian
+fixed the date to what it really was, 1649, in that case all those
+(a very numerous class) who supposed the year 1649 to commence on
+Ladyday, or March 25, would have understood him to mean that this
+event happened in what we _now_ call 1650, for not until 1650
+was there any January which _they_ would have acknowledged as
+belonging to 1649, since _they_ added to the year 1648 all the
+days from January 1 to March 24. On the other hand, if he had said
+simply that Charles suffered in 1648, he would have been truly
+understood by the class we have just mentioned; but by another
+class, who began the year from the 1st of January, he would have
+been understood to mean what we _now_ mean by the year 1648.
+There would have been a sheer difference, not of one, as the reader
+might think at first sight, but of _two_ entire years in the
+chronology of the two parties; which difference, and all
+possibility of doubt, is met and remedied by the fractional date
+1648/1649 for that date says in effect it was 1648 to you who do
+not open the new year till Ladyday; it was 1649 to you who open it
+from January 1. Thus much to explain the real sense of the case,
+and it follows from this explanation, that no part of the year ever
+_can_ have the fractional or double date except the interval
+from January 1 to March 24 inclusively. And hence arises a
+practical inference, viz, that the very same reason, and no other,
+which formerly enjoined the use of the compound or fractional date,
+viz, the prevention of a capital ambiguity or dilemma, now enjoins
+its omission. For in our day, when the double opening of the year
+is abolished, what sense is there in perplexing a reader by using a
+fraction which offers him a choice without directing him how to
+choose? In fact, it is the _denominator_ of the fraction, if
+one may so style the lower figure, which expresses to a modern eye
+the true year. Yet the editors of Pope, as well as many other
+writers, have confused their readers by this double date; and why?
+Simply because they were confused themselves. (period omitted
+in original; but there is a double space following, suggesting one
+should have been there) Many errors in literature of large extent
+have arisen from this confusion. Thus it was said properly enough
+in the contemporary accounts, for instance, in Lord Monmouth's
+Memoirs that Queen Elizabeth died on the last day of the year 1602,
+for she died on the 24th of March, and by a careful writer this
+event would have been dated as March 24, 1602/1603. But many
+writers, misled by the phrase above cited, have asserted that James
+I. was proclaimed on the 1st of January, 1603. Heber, Bishop of
+Calcutta, again, has ruined the entire chronology of the Life of
+Jeremy Taylor, and unconsciously vitiated the facts, by not
+understanding this fractional date. Mr Roscoe even too often leaves
+his readers to collect the true year as they can. Thus, e. g. at p.
+509, of his Life, he quotes from Pope's letter to Warburton, in
+great vexation for the surreptitious publication of his letters in
+Ireland, under date of February 4, 174-0/1. But why not have
+printed it intelligibly as 1741? Incidents there are in most men's
+lives, which are susceptible of a totally different moral value,
+according as the are dated in one year or another That might be a
+kind and honorable liberality in 1740, which would be a fraud upon
+creditors in 1741. Exile to a distance of ten miles from London in
+January, 1744 might argue, that a man was a turbulent citizen, and
+suspected of treason, whilst the same exile in January, 1745, would
+simply argue that, as a Papist, he had been included amongst his
+whole body in a general measure of precaution to meet the public
+dangers of that year. This explanation we have thought it right to
+make both for its extensive application to all editions of Pope,
+and on account of the serious blunders which have arisen from the
+case when ill understood, and because, in a work upon education,
+written jointly by Messrs Lant Carpenter and Shephard though
+generally men of ability and learning, this whole point is
+erroneously explained.
+
+NOTE 2.
+
+It is apparently with allusion to this part of his history, which
+he would often have heard from the lips of his own father, that
+Pope glances at his uncle's memory somewhat disrespectfully in his
+prose letter to Lord Harvey.
+
+NOTE 3.
+
+Some accounts, however, say to Flanders, in which case, perhaps,
+Antwerp or Brussels would have the honor of his conversion.
+
+NOTE 4.
+
+This however was not Twyford, according to an anonymous pamphleteer
+of the times but a Catholic seminary in Devonshire Street that is,
+in the Bloomsbury district of London, and the same author asserts,
+that the scene of his disgrace as indeed seems probable beforehand,
+was not the first but the last of his arenas as a schoolboy Which
+indeed was first, and which last, is very unimportant; but with a
+view to another point, which is not without interest, namely, as to
+the motive of Pope for so bitter a lampoon as we must suppose it to
+have been, as well as with regard to the topics which he used to
+season it, this anonymous letter throws the only light which has
+been offered; and strange it is, that no biographer of Pope should
+have hunted upon the traces indicated by him. Any solution of
+Pope's virulence, and of the master's bitter retaliation, even
+_as_ a solution, is so far entitled to attention; apart from
+which the mere straightforwardness of this man's story, and its
+minute circumstantiality, weigh greatly in its favor. To our
+thinking, he unfolds the whole affair in the simple explanation,
+nowhere else to be found, that the master of the school, the mean
+avenger of a childish insult by a bestial punishment, was a Mr.
+Bromley, one of James II.'s Popish apostates; whilst the particular
+statements which he makes with respect to himself and the young
+Duke of Norfolk of 1700, as two schoolfellows of Pope at that time
+and place, together with his voluntary promise to come forward in
+person, and verify his account if it should happen to be
+challenged,--are all, we repeat, so many presumptions in favor of
+his veracity. "Mr. Alexander Pope," says he, "before he had been
+four months at this school, or was able to construe Tully's
+Offices, employed his muse in satirizing his master. It was a libel
+of at least one hundred verses, which (a fellow-student having
+given information of it) was found in his pocket; and the young
+satirist was soundly whipped, and kept a prisoner to his room for
+seven days; whereupon his father fetched him away, and I have been
+told he never went to school more." This Bromley, it has been
+ascertained, was the son of a country gentleman in Worcestershire,
+and must have had considerable prospects at one time, since it
+appears that he had been a gentleman-commoner at Christ's Church,
+Oxford. There is an error in the punctuation of the letter we have
+just quoted, which affects the sense in a way very important to the
+question before us. Bromley is described as "one of King James's
+converts in Oxford, some years _after_ that prince's
+abdication;" but, if this were really so, he must have been a
+conscientious convert. The latter clause should be connected with
+what follows:" _Some years after that prince's abdication he kept
+a little seminary_; "that is, when his mercenary views in
+quitting his religion were effectually defeated, when the Boyne had
+sealed his despair, he humbled himself into a petty schoolmaster.
+These facts are interesting, because they suggest at once the
+motive for the merciless punishment inflicted upon Pope. His own
+father was a Papist like Bromley, but a sincere and honest Papist,
+who had borne double taxes, legal stigmas, and public hatred for
+conscience' sake. His contempt was habitually pointed at those who
+tampered with religion for interested purposes. His son inherited
+these upright feelings. And we may easily guess what would be the
+bitter sting of any satire he would write on Bromley. Such a topic
+was too true to be forgiven, and too keenly barbed by Bromley's
+conscience. By the way, this writer, like ourselves, reads in this
+juvenile adventure a prefiguration of Pope's satirical destiny.
+
+NOTE 5.
+
+That is, Sheffield, and, legally speaking, of Buckingham
+_shire_. For he would not take the title of Buckingham, under
+a fear that there was lurking somewhere or other a claim to that
+title amongst the connections of the Villiers family. He was a
+pompous grandee, who lived in uneasy splendor, and, as a writer,
+most extravagantly overrated; accordingly, he is now forgotten.
+Such was his vanity, and his ridiculous mania for allying himself
+with royalty, that he first of all had the presumption to court the
+Princess (afterwards Queen) Anne. Being rejected, he then offered
+himself to the illegitimate daughter of James II., by the daughter
+of Sir Charles Sedley. She was as ostentatious as himself, and
+accepted him.
+
+NOTE 6.
+
+Meantime, the felicities of this translation are at times perfectly
+astonishing; and it would be scarcely possible to express more
+nervously or amply the words,
+
+--"_jurisque secundi_
+  _Ambitus impatiens_, et summo dulcius unum
+  Stare loco,"----
+
+than this child of fourteen has done in the following couplet,
+which, most judiciously, by reversing the two clauses, gains the
+power of fusing them into connection.
+
+  "And impotent desire to reign alone,
+  _That scorns the dull reversion of a throne_."
+
+But the passage for which beyond all others we must make room, is a
+series of eight lines, corresponding to six in the original; and
+this for two reasons: First, Because Dr. Joseph Warton has
+deliberately asserted, that in our whole literature, "we have
+scarcely eight more beautiful lines than these;" and though few
+readers will subscribe to so sweeping a judgment, yet certainly
+these must be wonderful lines for a boy, which could challenge such
+commendation from an experienced _polyhistor_ of infinite
+reading. Secondly, Because the lines contain a night-scene. Now it
+must be well known to many readers, that the famous night scene in
+the Iliad, so familiar to every schoolboy, has been made the
+subject, for the last thirty years, of severe, and, in many
+respects, of just criticisms. This description will therefore have
+a double interest by comparison, whilst, whatever may be thought of
+either taken separately for itself, considered as a translation,
+this which we now quote is as true to Statius as the other is
+undoubtedly faithless to Homer
+
+  "_Jamque per emeriti surgens confima Phoebi
+  Titanis, late mundo subvecta silenti
+  Rorifera gelidum tenuaverat aera biga
+  Jam pecudes volucresque tacent. jam somnus avaris
+  Inserpit curis, pronusque per aera nutat,
+  Grata laboratae referens oblivia vitae_"
+              Theb I 336-341.
+
+  "'Twas now the time when Phoebus yields to night,
+  And rising Cynthia sheds her silver light,
+  Wide o'er the world in solemn pomp she drew
+  Her airy chariot hung with pearly dew
+  All birds and beasts he hush'd. Sleep steals away
+  The wild desires of men and toils of day,
+  And brings, descending through the silent air,
+  A sweet forgetfulness of human care."
+
+
+
+NOTE 7.
+
+One writer of that age says, in Cheapside, but probably this
+difference arose from contemplating Lombard Street as a
+prolongation of Cheapside.
+
+NOTE 8.
+
+Dr Johnson said, that all he could discover about Mr Cromwell, was
+the fact of his going a hunting in a tie wig, but Gay has added
+another fact to Dr Johnson's, by calling him "Honest _hatless_
+Cromwell with red breeches" This epithet has puzzled the
+commentators, but its import is obvious enough Cromwell, as we
+learn from more than one person, was anxious to be considered a
+fine gentleman, and devoted to women. Now it was long the custom in
+that age for such persons, when walking with ladies, to carry their
+hats in their hand. Louis XV. used to ride by the side of Madame de
+Pompadour hat in hand.
+
+NOTE 9.
+
+It is strange indeed to find, not only that Pope had so frequently
+kept rough copies of his own letters, and that he thought so well
+of them as to repeat the same letter to different persons, as in
+the case of the two lovers killed by lightning, or even to two
+sisters, Martha and Therese Blount (who were sure to communicate
+their letters,) but that even Swift had retained copies of _his.
+_
+
+NOTE 10.
+
+The word _undertake_ had not yet lost the meaning of
+Shakspeare's age, in which it was understood to describe those
+cases where, the labor being of a miscellaneous kind, some person
+in chief offered to overlook and conduct the whole, whether with or
+without personal labor. The modern _undertaker,_ limited to
+the care of funerals, was then but one of numerous cases to which
+the term was applied.
+
+NOTE 11.
+
+We may illustrate this feature in the behavior of Pope to Savage.
+When all else forsook him, when all beside pleaded the insults of
+Savage for withdrawing their subscriptions, Pope sent his in
+advance. And when Savage had insulted _him_ also, arrogantly
+commanding him never "to presume to interfere or meddle in his
+affairs," dignity and self-respect made Pope obedient to these
+orders, except when there was an occasion of serving Savage. On his
+second visit to Bristol (when he returned from Glamorganshire,)
+Savage had been thrown into the jail of the city. One person only
+interested himself for this hopeless profligate, and was causing an
+inquiry to be made about his debts at the time Savage died. So much
+Dr. Johnson admits; but he _forgets_ to mention the name of
+this long suffering friend. It was Pope. Meantime, let us not be
+supposed to believe the lying legend of Savage; he was doubtless no
+son of Lady Macclesfield's, but an impostor, who would not be sent
+to the tread-mill.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHARLES LAMB.
+
+
+
+It sounds paradoxical, but is not so in a bad sense, to say, that
+in every literature of large compass some authors will be found to
+rest much of the interest which surrounds them on their essential
+_non_-popularity. They are good for the very reason that they
+are not in conformity to the current taste. They interest because
+to the world they are _not_ interesting. They attract by means
+of their repulsion. Not as though it could separately furnish a
+reason for loving a book, that the majority of men had found it
+repulsive. _Prima facie_, it must suggest some presumption
+_against_ a book, that it has failed to gain public attention.
+To have roused hostility indeed, to have kindled a feud against its
+own principles or its temper, may happen to be a good sign.
+_That_ argues power. Hatred may be promising. The deepest
+revolutions of mind sometimes begin in hatred. But simply to have
+left a reader unimpressed, is in itself a neutral result, from
+which the inference is doubtful. Yet even _that_, even simple
+failure to impress, may happen at times to be a result from
+positive powers in a writer, from special originalities, such as
+rarely reflect themselves in the mirror of the ordinary
+understanding. It seems little to be perceived, how much the great
+scriptural [Endnote: 1] idea of the _worldly_ and the
+_unworldly_ is found to emerge in literature as well as in
+life. In reality the very same combinations of moral qualities,
+infinitely varied, which compose the harsh physiognomy of what we
+call worldliness in the living groups of life, must unavoidably
+present themselves in books. A library divides into sections of
+worldly and unworldly, even as a crowd of men divides into that
+same majority and minority. The world has an instinct for
+recognizing its own; and recoils from certain qualities when
+exemplified in books, with the same disgust or defective sympathy
+as would have governed it in real life. From qualities for instance
+of childlike simplicity, of shy profundity, or of inspired
+self-communion, the world does and must turn away its face towards
+grosser, bolder, more determined, or more intelligible expressions
+of character and intellect; and not otherwise in literature, nor at
+all less in literature, than it does in the realities of life.
+
+Charles Lamb, if any ever _was_ is amongst the class here
+contemplated; he, if any ever _has_, ranks amongst writers
+whose works are destined to be forever unpopular, and yet forever
+interesting; interesting, moreover, by means of those very
+qualities which guarantee their non-popularity. The same qualities
+which will be found forbidding to the worldly and the thoughtless,
+which will be found insipid to many even amongst robust and
+powerful minds, are exactly those which will continue to command a
+select audience in every generation. The prose essays, under the
+signature of _Elia_, form the most delightful section amongst
+Lamb's works. They traverse a peculiar field of observation,
+sequestered from general interest; and they are composed in a
+spirit too delicate and unobtrusive to catch the ear of the noisy
+crowd, clamoring for strong sensations. But this retiring delicacy
+itself, the pensiveness chequered by gleams of the fanciful, and
+the humor that is touched with cross-lights of pathos, together
+with the picturesque quaintness of the objects casually described,
+whether men, or things, or usages, and, in the rear of all this,
+the constant recurrence to ancient recollections and to decaying
+forms of household life, as things retiring before the tumult of
+new and revolutionary generations; these traits in combination
+communicate to the papers a grace and strength of originality which
+nothing in any literature approaches, whether for degree or kind of
+excellence, except the most felicitous papers of Addison, such as
+those on Sir Roger de Coverly, and some others in the same vein of
+composition. They resemble Addison's papers also in the diction,
+which is natural and idiomatic, even to carelessness. They are
+equally faithful to the truth of nature; and in this only they
+differ remarkably--that the sketches of Elia reflect the stamp and
+impress of the writer's own character, whereas in all those of
+Addison the personal peculiarities of the delineator (though known
+to the reader from the beginning through the account of the club)
+are nearly quiescent. Now and then they are recalled into a
+momentary notice, but they do not act, or at all modify his
+pictures of Sir Roger or Will Wimble. _They_ are slightly and
+amiably eccentric; but the Spectator him-self, in describing them,
+takes the station of an ordinary observer.
+
+Everywhere, indeed, in the writings of Lamb, and not merely in his
+_Elia_, the character of the writer cooperates in an under
+current to the effect of the thing written. To understand in the
+fullest sense either the gaiety or the tenderness of a particular
+passage, you must have some insight into the peculiar bias of the
+writer's mind, whether native and original, or impressed gradually
+by the accidents of situation; whether simply developed out of
+predispositions by the action of life, or violently scorched into
+the constitution by some fierce fever of calamity. There is in
+modern literature a whole class of writers, though not a large one,
+standing within the same category; some marked originality of
+character in the writer become a coefficient with what he says to a
+common result; you must sympathize with this _personality_ in
+the author before you can appreciate the most significant parts of
+his views. In most books the writer figures as a mere abstraction,
+without sex or age or local station, whom the reader banishes from
+his thoughts. What is written seems to proceed from a blank
+intellect, not from a man clothed with fleshly peculiarities and
+differences. These peculiarities and differences neither do, nor
+(generally speaking)_could_ intermingle with the texture of
+the thoughts so as to modify their force or their direction. In
+such books, and they form the vast majority, there is nothing to be
+found or to be looked for beyond the direct objective. (_Sit
+venia verbo_!) But, in a small section of books, the objective
+in the thought becomes confluent with the subjective in the
+thinker--the two forces unite for a joint product; and fully to
+enjoy that product, or fully to apprehend either element, both must
+be known. It is singular, and worth inquiring into, for the reason
+that the Greek and Roman literature had no such books. Timon of
+Athens, or Diogenes, one may conceive qualified for this mode of
+authorship, had journalism existed to rouse them in those days;
+their "articles" would no doubt have been fearfully caustic. But,
+as _they_ failed to produce anything, and Lucian in an after
+age is scarcely characteristic enough for the purpose, perhaps we
+may pronounce Rabelais and Montaigne the earliest of writers in the
+class described. In the century following _theirs_, came Sir
+Thomas Brown, and immediately after _him_ La Fontaine. Then
+came Swift, Sterne, with others less distinguished; in Germany,
+Hippel, the friend of Kant, Harmann, the obscure; and the greatest
+of the whole body--John Paul Fr. Richter. In _him_, from the
+strength and determinateness of his nature as well as from the
+great extent of his writing, the philosophy of this interaction
+between the author as a human agency and his theme as an
+intellectual reagency, might best be studied. From _him_ might
+be derived the largest number of cases, illustrating boldly this
+absorption of the universal into the concrete--of the pure
+intellect into the human nature of the author. But nowhere could
+illustrations be found more interesting--shy, delicate,
+evanescent--shy as lightning, delicate and evanescent as the
+colored pencillings on a frosty night from the northern lights,
+than in the better parts of Lamb.
+
+To appreciate Lamb, therefore, it is requisite that his character
+and temperament should be understood in their coyest and most
+wayward features. A capital defect it would be if these could not
+be gathered silently from Lamb's works themselves. It would be a
+fatal mode of dependency upon an alien and separable accident if
+they needed an external commentary. But they do _not_. The
+syllables lurk up and down the writings of Lamb which decipher his
+eccentric nature. His character lies there dispersed in anagram;
+and to any attentive reader the regathering and restoration of the
+total word from its scattered parts is inevitable without an
+effort. Still it is always a satisfaction in knowing a result, to
+know also its _why_ and _how_; and in so far as every
+character is likely to be modified by the particular experience,
+sad or joyous, through which the life has travelled, it is a good
+contribution towards the knowledge of that resulting character as a
+whole to have a sketch of that particular experience. What trials
+did it impose? What energies did it task? What temptations did it
+unfold? These calls upon the moral powers, which in music so
+stormy, many a life is doomed to hear, how were they faced? The
+character in a capital degree moulds oftentimes the life, but the
+life _always_ in a subordinate degree moulds the character.
+And the character being in this case of Lamb so much of a key to
+the writings, it becomes important that the life should be traced,
+however briefly, as a key to the character.
+
+That is _one_ reason for detaining the reader with some slight
+record of Lamb's career. Such a record by preference and of right
+belongs to a case where the intellectual display, which is the sole
+ground of any public interest at all in the man, has been intensely
+modified by the _humanities_ and moral _personalities_
+distinguishing the subject. We read a Physiology, and need no
+information as to the life and conversation of its author; a
+meditative poem becomes far better understood by the light of such
+information; but a work of genial and at the same time eccentric
+sentiment, wandering upon untrodden paths, is barely intelligible
+without it. There is a good reason for arresting judgment on the
+writer, that the court may receive evidence on the life of the man.
+But there is another reason, and, in any other place, a better;
+which reason lies in the extraordinary value of the life considered
+separately for itself. Logically, it is not allowable to say that
+_here;_ and, considering the principal purpose of this paper,
+any possible _independent_ value of the life must rank as a
+better reason for reporting it. Since, in a case where the original
+object is professedly to estimate the writings of a man, whatever
+promises to further that object must, merely by that tendency,
+have, in relation to that place, a momentary advantage which it
+would lose if valued upon a more abstract scale. Liberated from
+this casual office of throwing light upon a book--raised to its
+grander station of a solemn deposition to the moral capacities of
+man in conflict with calamity--viewed as a return made into the
+chanceries of heaven--upon an issue directed from that court to try
+the amount of power lodged in a poor desolate pair of human
+creatures for facing the very anarchy of storms--this obscure life
+of the two Lambs, brother and sister, (for the two lives were one
+life,) rises into a grandeur that is not paralleled once in a
+generation.
+
+Rich, indeed, in moral instruction was the life of Charles Lamb;
+and perhaps in one chief result it offers to the thoughtful
+observer a lesson of consolation that is awful, and of hope that
+ought to be immortal, viz., in the record which it furnishes, that
+by meekness of submission, and by earnest conflict with evil, in
+the spirit of cheerfulness, it is possible ultimately to disarm or
+to blunt the very heaviest of curses--even the curse of lunacy. Had
+it been whispered, in hours of infancy, to Lamb, by the angel who
+stood by his cradle--"Thou, and the sister that walks by ten years
+before thee, shall be through life, each to each, the solitary
+fountain of comfort; and except it be from this fountain of mutual
+love, except it be as brother and sister, ye shall not taste the
+cup of peace on earth!"--here, if there was sorrow in reversion,
+there was also consolation.
+
+But what funeral swamps would have instantly ingulfed this
+consolation, had some meddling fiend prolonged the revelation, and,
+holding up the curtain from the sad future a little longer, had
+said scornfully--"Peace on earth! Peace for you two, Charles and
+Mary Lamb! What peace is possible under the curse which even now
+is gathering against your heads? Is there peace on earth for the
+lunatic--peace for the parenticide--peace for the girl that,
+without warning, and without time granted for a penitential cry to
+heaven, sends her mother to the last audit?" And then, without
+treachery, speaking bare truth, this prophet of woe might have
+added--"Thou also, thyself, Charles Lamb, thou in thy proper
+person, shalt enter the skirts of this dreadful hail-storm; even
+thou shalt taste the secrets of lunacy, and enter as a captive its
+house of bondage; whilst over thy sister the accursed scorpion
+shall hang suspended through life, like Death hanging over the beds
+of hospitals, striking at times, but more often threatening to
+strike; or withdrawing its instant menaces only to lay bare her
+mind more bitterly to the persecutions of a haunted memory!"
+Considering the nature of the calamity, in the first place;
+considering, in the second place, its life-long duration; and, in
+the last place, considering the quality of the resistance by which
+it was met, and under what circumstances of humble resources in
+money or friends--we have come to the deliberate judgment, that the
+whole range of history scarcely presents a more affecting spectacle
+of perpetual sorrow, humiliation, or conflict, and that was
+supported to the end, (that is, through forty years,) with more
+resignation, or with more absolute victory.
+
+Charles Lamb was born in February of the year 1775. His immediate
+descent was humble; for his father, though on one particular
+occasion civilly described as a "scrivener," was in reality a
+domestic servant to Mr. Salt--a bencher (and therefore a barrister
+of some standing) in the Inner Temple. John Lamb the father
+belonged by birth to Lincoln; from which city, being transferred to
+London whilst yet a boy, he entered the service of Mr. Salt without
+delay; and apparently from this period throughout his life
+continued in this good man's household to support the honorable
+relation of a Roman client to his _patronus_, much more than
+that of a mercenary servant to a transient and capricious master.
+The terms on which he seems to live with the family of the Lambs,
+argue a kindness and a liberality of nature on both sides. John
+Lamb recommended himself as an attendant by the versatility of his
+accomplishments; and Mr. Salt, being a widower without children,
+which means in effect an old bachelor, naturally valued that
+encyclopaedic range of dexterity which made his house independent
+of external aid for every mode of service. To kill one's own mutton
+is but an operose way of arriving at a dinner, and often a more
+costly way; whereas to combine one's own carpenter, locksmith,
+hair-dresser, groom, &c., all in one man's person,--to have a
+Robinson Crusoe, up to all emergencies of life, always in waiting,
+--is a luxury of the highest class for one who values his ease.
+
+A consultation is held more freely with a man familiar to one's
+eye, and more profitably with a man aware of one's peculiar habits.
+And another advantage from such an arrangement is, that one gets
+any little alteration or repair executed on the spot. To hear is to
+obey, and by an inversion of Pope's rule--
+
+  "One always _is_, and never _to be_, blest."
+
+People of one sole accomplishment, like the _homo unius libri,
+_ are usually within that narrow circle disagreeably perfect,
+and therefore apt to be arrogant. People who can do all things,
+usually do every one of them ill; and living in a constant effort
+to deny this too palpable fact, they become irritably vain. But Mr.
+Lamb the elder seems to have been bent on perfection. He did all
+things; he did them all well; and yet was neither gloomily
+arrogant, nor testily vain. And being conscious apparently that all
+mechanic excellencies tend to illiberal results, unless
+counteracted by perpetual sacrifices to the muses, he went so far
+as to cultivate poetry; he even printed his poems, and were we
+possessed of a copy, (which we are _not_, nor probably is the
+Vatican,) it would give us pleasure at this point to digress for a
+moment, and to cut them up, purely on considerations of respect to
+the author's memory. It is hardly to be supposed that they did not
+really merit castigation; and we should best show the sincerity of
+our respect for Mr. Lamb, senior, in all those cases where we
+_could_ conscientiously profess respect by an unlimited
+application of the knout in the cases where we could _not_.
+
+The whole family of the Lambs seem to have won from Mr. Salt the
+consideration which is granted to humble friends; and from
+acquaintances nearer to their own standing, to have won a
+tenderness of esteem such as is granted to decayed gentry. Yet
+naturally, the social rank of the parents, as people still living,
+must have operated disadvantageously for the children. It is hard,
+even for the practised philosopher, to distinguish aristocratic
+graces of manner, and capacities of delicate feeling, in people
+whose very hearth and dress bear witness to the servile humility of
+their station. Yet such distinctions as wild gifts of nature,
+timidly and half-unconsciously asserted themselves in the
+unpretending Lambs. Already in _their_ favor there existed a
+silent privilege analogous to the famous one of Lord Kinsale. He,
+by special grant from the crown, is allowed, when standing before
+the king, to forget that he is not himself a king; the bearer of
+that peerage, through all generations, has the privilege of wearing
+his hat in the royal presence. By a general though tacit concession
+of the same nature, the rising generation of the Lambs, John and
+Charles, the two sons, and Mary Lamb, the only daughter, were
+permitted to forget that their grandmother had been a housekeeper
+for sixty years, and that their father had worn a livery. Charles
+Lamb, individually, was so entirely humble, and so careless of
+social distinctions, that he has taken pleasure in recurring to
+these very facts in the family records amongst the most genial of
+his Elia recollections. He only continued to remember, without
+shame, and with a peculiar tenderness, these badges of plebeian
+rank, when everybody else, amongst the few survivors that could
+have known of their existence, had long dismissed them from their
+thoughts.
+
+Probably, through Mr. Salt's interest, Charles Lamb, in the autumn
+of 1782, when he wanted something more than four months of
+completing his eighth year, received a presentation to the
+magnificent school of Christ's Hospital. The late Dr. Arnold, when
+contrasting the school of his own boyish experience, Winchester,
+with Rugby, the school confided to his management, found nothing so
+much to regret in the circumstances of the latter as its forlorn
+condition with respect to historical traditions. Wherever these
+were wanting, and supposing the school of sufficient magnitude, it
+occurred to Dr. Arnold that something of a compensatory effect for
+impressing the imagination might be obtained by connecting the
+school with the nation through the link of annual prizes issuing
+from the exchequer. An official basis of national patronage might
+prove a substitute for an antiquarian or ancestral basis. Happily
+for the great educational foundations of London, none of them is in
+the naked condition of Rugby. Westminster, St. Paul's, Merchant
+Tailors', the Charter-House, &c., are all crowned with historical
+recollections; and Christ's Hospital, besides the original honors
+of its foundation, so fitted to a consecrated place in a youthful
+imagination--an asylum for boy-students, provided by a
+boy-king--innocent, religious, prematurely wise, and prematurely
+called away from earth--has also a mode of perpetual connection
+with the state. It enjoys, therefore, _both_ of Dr. Arnold's
+advantages. Indeed, all the great foundation schools of London,
+bearing in their very codes of organization the impress of a double
+function--viz., the conservation of sound learning and of pure
+religion--wear something of a monastic or cloisteral character in
+their aspect and usages, which is peculiarly impressive, and even
+pathetic, amidst the uproars of a capital the most colossal and
+tumultuous upon earth.
+
+Here Lamb remained until his fifteenth year, which year threw him
+on the world, and brought him alongside the golden dawn of the
+French Revolution. Here he learned a little elementary Greek, and
+of Latin more than a little; for the Latin notes to Mr. Cary (of
+Dante celebrity) though brief, are sufficient to reveal a true
+sense of what is graceful and idiomatic in Latinity. _We_ say
+this, who have studied that subject more than most men. It is not
+that Lamb would have found it an easy task to compose a long paper
+in Latin--nobody _can,_ find it easy to do what he has no
+motive for habitually practising; but a single sentence of Latin
+wearing the secret countersign of the "sweet Roman hand,"
+ascertains sufficiently that, in reading Latin classics, a man
+feels and comprehends their peculiar force or beauty. That is
+enough. It is requisite to a man's expansion of mind that he should
+make acquaintance with a literature so radically differing from all
+modern literatures as is the Latin. It is _not_ requisite that
+he should practise Latin composition. Here, therefore, Lamb
+obtained in sufficient perfection one priceless accomplishment,
+which even singly throws a graceful air of liberality over all the
+rest of a man's attainments: having rarely any pecuniary value, it
+challenges the more attention to its intellectual value. Here also
+Lamb commenced the friendships of his life; and, of all which he
+formed, he lost none. Here it was, as the consummation and crown of
+his advantages from the time-honored hospital, that he came to know
+"Poor S. T. C." [Greek text: ton thaumasiotaton.]
+
+Until 1796, it is probable that he lost sight of Coleridge, who was
+then occupied with Cambridge, having been transferred thither as a
+"Grecian" from the house of Christ Church. That year, 1796, was a
+year of change and fearful calamity for Charles Lamb. On that year
+revolved the wheels of his after-life. During the three years
+succeeding to his school days, he had held a clerkship in the South
+Sea House. In 1795, he was transferred to the India House. As a
+junior clerk, he could not receive more than a slender salary; but
+even this was important to the support of his parents and sister.
+They lived together in lodgings near Holborn; and in the spring of
+1796, Miss Lamb, (having previously shown signs of lunacy at
+intervals,) in a sudden paroxysm of her disease, seized a knife
+from the dinner table, and stabbed her mother, who died upon the
+spot. A coroner's inquest easily ascertained the nature of a case
+which was transparent in all its circumstances, and never for a
+moment indecisive as regarded the medical symptoms. The poor young
+lady was transferred to the establishment for lunatics at Hoxton.
+She soon recovered, we believe; but her relapses were as sudden as
+her recoveries, and she continued through life to revisit, for
+periods of uncertain seclusion, this house of woe. This calamity of
+his fireside, followed soon after by the death of his father, who
+had for some time been in a state of imbecility, determined the
+future destiny of Lamb. Apprehending, with the perfect grief of
+perfect love, that his sister's fate was sealed for life--viewing
+her as his own greatest benefactress, which she really _had_
+been through her advantage by ten years of age--yielding with
+impassioned readiness to the depth of his fraternal affection, what
+at any rate he would have yielded to the sanctities of duty as
+interpreted by his own conscience--he resolved forever to resign
+all thoughts of marriage with a young lady whom he loved, forever
+to abandon all ambitious prospects that might have tempted him into
+uncertainties, humbly to content himself with the
+_certainties_ of his Indian clerkship, to dedicate himself for
+the future to the care of his desolate and prostrate sister, and to
+leave the rest to God. These sacrifices he made in no hurry or
+tumult, but deliberately, and in religious tranquillity. These
+sacrifices were accepted in heaven--and even on this earth they
+_had_ their reward. She, for whom he gave up all, in turn gave
+up all for _him_. She devoted herself to his comfort. Many
+times she returned to the lunatic establishment, but many times she
+was restored to illuminate the household hearth for _him_; and
+of the happiness which for forty years and more he had, no hour
+seemed true that was not derived from her. Hence forwards,
+therefore, until he was emancipated by the noble generosity of the
+East India Directors, Lamb's time, for nine-and-twenty years, was
+given to the India House.
+
+"_O fortunati nimium, sua si bona narint,_" is applicable to
+more people than "_agricolae_." Clerks of the India House are
+as blind to their own advantages as the blindest of ploughmen. Lamb
+was summoned, it is true, through the larger and more genial
+section of his life, to the drudgery of a copying clerk--making
+confidential entries into mighty folios, on the subject of calicoes
+and muslins. By this means, whether he would or not, he became
+gradually the author of a great "serial" work, in a frightful
+number of volumes, on as dry a department of literature as the
+children of the great desert could have suggested. Nobody, he must
+have felt, was ever likely to study this great work of his, not
+even Dr. Dryasdust. He had written in vain, which is not pleasant
+to know. There would be no second edition called for by a
+discerning public in Leadenhall Street; not a chance of that. And
+consequently the _opera omnia_ of Lamb, drawn up in a hideous
+battalion, at the cost of labor so enormous, would be known only to
+certain families of spiders in one generation, and of rats in the
+next. Such a labor of Sysyphus,--the rolling up a ponderous stone
+to the summit of a hill only that it might roll back again by the
+gravitation of its own dulness,--seems a bad employment for a man
+of genius in his meridian energies. And yet, perhaps not. Perhaps
+the collective wisdom of Europe could not have devised for Lamb a
+more favorable condition of toil than this very India House
+clerkship. His works (his Leadenhall street works) were certainly
+not read; popular they _could_ not be, for they were not read
+by anybody; but then, to balance _that,_ they were not
+reviewed. His folios were of that order, which (in Cowper's words)
+"not even critics criticise." Is _that_ nothing? Is it no
+happiness to escape the hands of scoundrel reviewers? Many of us
+escape being _read;_ the worshipful reviewer does not find
+time to read a line of us; but we do not for that reason escape
+being criticised, "shown up," and martyred. The list of
+_errata_ again, committed by Lamb, was probably of a magnitude
+to alarm any possible compositor; and yet these _errata_ will
+never be known to mankind. They are dead and buried. They have been
+cut off prematurely; and for any effect upon their generation,
+might as well never have existed. Then the returns, in a pecuniary
+sense, from these folios--how important were _they!_ It is not
+common, certainly, to write folios; but neither is it common to
+draw a steady income of from 300 _l._ to 400 _l._ per
+annum from volumes of any size. This will be admitted; but would it
+not have been better to draw the income without the toil? Doubtless
+it would always be more agreeable to have the rose without the
+thorn. But in the case before us, taken with all its circumstances,
+we deny that the toil is truly typified as a thorn; so far from
+being a thorn in Lamb's daily life, on the contrary, it was a
+second rose ingrafted upon the original rose of the income, that he
+had to earn it by a moderate but continued exertion. Holidays, in a
+national establishment so great as the India House, and in our too
+fervid period, naturally could not be frequent; yet all great
+English corporations are gracious masters, and indulgences of this
+nature could be obtained on a special application. Not to count
+upon these accidents of favor, we find that the regular toil of
+those in Lamb's situation, began at ten in the morning and ended as
+the clock struck four in the afternoon. Six hours composed the
+daily contribution of labor, that is precisely one fourth part of
+the total day. Only that, as Sunday was exempted, the rigorous
+expression of the quota was one fourth of six-sevenths, which makes
+sixty twenty-eighths and not six twenty-fourths of the total time.
+Less toil than this would hardly have availed to deepen the sense
+of value in that large part of the time still remaining disposable.
+Had there been any resumption whatever of labor in the evening,
+though but for half an hour, that one encroachment upon the broad
+continuous area of the eighteen free hours would have killed the
+tranquillity of the whole day, by _sowing_ it (so to speak)
+with intermitting anxieties--anxieties that, like tides, would
+still be rising and falling. Whereas now, at the early hour of
+four, when daylight is yet lingering in the air, even at the dead
+of winter, in the latitude of London, and when the _enjoying_
+section of the day is barely commencing, everything is left which a
+man would care to retain. A mere dilettante or amateur student,
+having no mercenary interest concerned, would, upon a refinement of
+luxury--would, upon choice, give up so much time to study, were it
+only to sharpen the value of what remained for pleasure. And thus
+the only difference between the scheme of the India House
+distributing his time for Lamb, and the scheme of a wise voluptuary
+distributing his time for himself, lay, not in the _amount_ of
+time deducted from enjoyment, but in the particular mode of
+appropriating that deduction. An _intellectual_ appropriation
+of the time, though casually fatiguing, must have pleasures of its
+own; pleasures denied to a task so mechanic and so monotonous as
+that of reiterating endless records of sales or consignments not
+_essentially_ varying from each other. True; it is pleasanter
+to pursue an intellectual study than to make entries in a ledger.
+But even an intellectual toil is toil; few people can support it
+for more than six hours in a day. And the only question, therefore,
+after all, is, at what period of the day a man would prefer taking
+this pleasure of study. Now, upon that point, as regards the case
+of Lamb, there is no opening for doubt. He, amongst his _Popular
+Fallacies_, admirably illustrates the necessity of evening and
+artificial lights to the prosperity of studies. After exposing,
+with the perfection of fun, the savage unsociality of those elder
+ancestors who lived (if life it was) before lamp-light was
+invented, showing that "jokes came in with candles," since "what
+repartees could have passed" when people were "grumbling at one
+another in the dark," and "when you must have felt about for a
+smile, and handled a neighbor's cheek to be sure that he understood
+it?"--he goes on to say," This accounts for the seriousness of the
+elder poetry, "viz., because they had no candle-light. Even eating
+he objects to as a very imperfect thing in the dark; you are not
+convinced that a dish tastes as it should do by the promise of its
+name, if you dine in the twilight without candles. Seeing is
+believing." The senses absolutely give and take reciprocally. "The
+sight guarantees the taste. For instance," Can you tell pork from
+veal in the dark, or distinguish Sherries from pure Malaga? "To all
+enjoyments whatsoever candles are indispensable as an adjunct; but,
+as to _reading_," there is, "says Lamb," absolutely no such
+thing but by a candle. We have tried the affectation of a book at
+noon-day in gardens, but it was labor thrown away. It is a mockery,
+all that is reported of the influential Phoebus. No true poem ever
+owed its birth to the sun's light. The mild internal light, that
+reveals the fine shapings of poetry, like fires on the domestic
+hearth, goes out in the sunshine. Milton's morning hymn in
+Paradise, we would hold a good wager, was penned at midnight; and
+Taylor's rich description of a sunrise smells decidedly of the
+taper. "This view of evening and candle-light as involved in
+literature may seem no more than a pleasant extravaganza; and no
+doubt it is in the nature of such gayeties to travel a little into
+exaggeration, but substantially it is certain that Lamb's feelings
+pointed habitually in the direction here indicated. His literary
+studies, whether taking the color of tasks or diversions, courted
+the aid of evening, which, by means of physical weariness, produces
+a more luxurious state of repose than belong to the labor hours of
+day, and courted the aid of lamp-light, which, as Lord Bacon
+remarked, gives a gorgeousness to human pomps and pleasures, such
+as would be vainly sought from the homeliness of day-light. The
+hours, therefore, which were withdrawn from his own control by the
+India House, happened to be exactly that part of the day which Lamb
+least valued, and could least have turned to account.
+
+The account given of Lamb's friends, of those whom he endeavored to
+love because he admired them, or to esteem intellectually because
+he loved them personally, is too much colored for general
+acquiescence by Sergeant Talfourd's own early prepossessions. It is
+natural that an intellectual man like the Sergeant, personally made
+known in youth to people, whom from childhood he had regarded as
+powers in the ideal world, and in some instances as representing
+the eternities of human speculation, since their names had perhaps
+dawned upon his mind in concurrence with the very earliest
+suggestion of topics which they had treated, should overrate their
+intrinsic grandeur. Hazlitt accordingly is styled "The great
+thinker." But had he been such potentially, there was an absolute
+bar to his achievement of that station in act and consummation. No
+man _can_ be a great thinker in our days upon large and
+elaborate questions without being also a great student. To think
+profoundly, it is indispensable that a man should have read down to
+his own starting point, and have read as a collating student to the
+particular stage at which he himself takes up the subject. At this
+moment, for instance, how could geology be treated otherwise than
+childishly by one who should rely upon the encyclopaedias of 1800?
+or comparative physiology by the most ingenious of men unacquainted
+with Marshall Hall, and with the apocalyptic glimpses of secrets
+unfolding under the hands of Professor Owen? In such a condition of
+undisciplined thinking, the ablest man thinks to no purpose. He
+lingers upon parts of the inquiry that have lost the importance
+which once they had, under imperfect charts of the subject; he
+wastes his strength upon problems that have become obsolete; he
+loses his way in paths that are not in the line of direction upon
+which the improved speculation is moving; or he gives narrow
+conjectural solutions of difficulties that have long since received
+sure and comprehensive ones. It is as if a man should in these days
+attempt to colonize, and yet, through inertia or through ignorance,
+should leave behind him all modern resources of chemistry, of
+chemical agriculture, or of steam-power. Hazlitt had read nothing.
+Unacquainted with Grecian philosophy, with Scholastic philosophy,
+and with the recomposition of these philosophies in the looms of
+Germany during the last sixty and odd years, trusting merely to the
+unrestrained instincts of keen mother-wit--whence should Hazlitt
+have had the materials for great thinking? It is through the
+collation of many abortive voyages to polar regions that a man
+gains his first chance of entering the polar basin, or of running
+ahead on the true line of approach to it. The very reason for
+Hazlitt's defect in eloquence as a lecturer, is sufficient also as
+a reason why he could not have been a comprehensive thinker. "He
+was not eloquent," says the Sergeant, "in the true sense of the
+term." But why? Because it seems "his thoughts were too weighty to
+be moved along by the shallow stream of feeling which an evening's
+excitement can rouse,"--an explanation which leaves us in doubt
+whether Hazlitt forfeited his chance of eloquence by accommodating
+himself to this evening's excitement, or by gloomily resisting it.
+Our own explanation is different, Hazlitt was not eloquent, because
+he was discontinuous. No man can he eloquent whose thoughts are
+abrupt, insulated, capricious, and (to borrow an impressive word
+from Coleridge) non-sequacious. Eloquence resides not in separate
+or fractional ideas, but in the relations of manifold ideas, and in
+the mode of their evolution from each other. It is not indeed
+enough that the ideas should be many, and their relations coherent;
+the main condition lies in the key of the evolution, in the
+_law_ of the succession. The elements are nothing without the
+atmosphere that moulds, and the dynamic forces that combine. Now
+Hazlitt's brilliancy is seen chiefly in separate splinterings of
+phrase or image which throw upon the eye a vitreous scintillation
+for a moment, but spread no deep suffusions of color, and
+distribute no masses of mighty shadow. A flash, a solitary flash,
+and all is gone. Rhetoric, according to its quality, stands in many
+degrees of relation to the permanencies of truth; and all rhetoric,
+like all flesh, is partly unreal, and the glory of both is
+fleeting. Even the mighty rhetoric of Sir Thomas Brown, or Jeremy
+Taylor, to whom only it has been granted to open the trumpet-stop
+on that great organ of passion, oftentimes leaves behind it the
+sense of sadness which belongs to beautiful apparitions starting
+out of darkness upon the morbid eye, only to be reclaimed by
+darkness in the instant of their birth, or which belongs to
+pageantries in the clouds. But if all rhetoric is a mode of
+pyrotechny, and all pyrotechnics are by necessity fugacious, yet
+even in these frail pomps, there are many degrees of frailty. Some
+fireworks require an hour's duration for the expansion of their
+glory; others, as if formed from fulminating powder, expire in the
+very act of birth. Precisely on that scale of duration and of power
+stand the glitterings of rhetoric that are not worked into the
+texture, but washed on from the outside. Hazlitt's thoughts were of
+the same fractured and discontinuous order as his illustrative
+images--seldom or never self-diffusive; and _that_ is a
+sufficient argument that he had never cultivated philosophic
+thinking.
+
+Not, however, to conceal any part of the truth, we are bound to
+acknowledge that Lamb thought otherwise on this point, manifesting
+what seemed to us an extravagant admiration of Hazlitt, and perhaps
+even in part for that very glitter which we are denouncing--at
+least he did so in a conversation with ourselves. But, on the other
+hand, as this conversation travelled a little into the tone of a
+disputation, and _our_ frost on this point might seem to
+justify some undue fervor by way of balance, it is very possible
+that Lamb did not speak his absolute and most dispassionate
+judgment. And yet again, if he _did_, may we, with all
+reverence for Lamb's exquisite genius, have permission to say--that
+his own constitution of intellect sinned by this very habit of
+discontinuity. It was a habit of mind not unlikely to be cherished
+by his habits of life. Amongst these habits was the excess of his
+social kindness. He scorned so much to deny his company and his
+redundant hospitality to any man who manifested a wish for either
+by calling upon him, that he almost seemed to think it a
+criminality in himself if, by accident, he really _was_ from
+home on your visit, rather than by possibility a negligence in you,
+that had not forewarned him of your intention. All his life, from
+this and other causes, he must have read in the spirit of one
+liable to sudden interruption; like a dragoon, in fact, reading
+with one foot in the stirrup, when expecting momentarily a summons
+to mount for action. In such situations, reading by snatches, and
+by intervals of precarious leisure, people form the habit of
+seeking and unduly valuing condensations of the meaning, where in
+reality the truth suffers by this short-hand exhibition, or else
+they demand too vivid illustrations of the meaning. Lord
+Chesterfield himself, so brilliant a man by nature, already
+therefore making a morbid estimate of brilliancy, and so hurried
+throughout his life as a public man, read under this double
+coercion for craving instantaneous effects. At one period, his only
+time for reading was in the morning, whilst under the hands of his
+hair-dresser; compelled to take the hastiest of flying shots at his
+author, naturally he demanded a very conspicuous mark to fire at.
+But the author could not, in so brief a space, be always sure to
+crowd any very prominent objects on the eye, unless by being
+audaciously oracular and peremptory as regarded the sentiment, or
+flashy in excess as regarded its expression. "Come now, my friend,"
+was Lord Chesterfield's morning adjuration to his author;" come
+now, cut it short--don't prose--don't hum and haw. "The author had
+doubtless no ambition to enter his name on the honorable and
+ancient roll of gentlemen prosers; probably he conceived himself
+not at all tainted with the asthmatic infirmity of humming and
+hawing; but, as to "cutting it short," how could he be sure of
+meeting his lordship's expectations in that point, unless by
+dismissing the limitations that might be requisite to fit the idea
+for use, or the adjuncts that might be requisite to integrate its
+truth, or the final consequences that might involve some deep
+_arriere pensee_, which, coming last in the succession, might
+oftentimes be calculated to lie deepest on the mind. To be lawfully
+and usefully brilliant after this rapid fashion, a man must come
+forward as a refresher of old truths, where _his_ suppressions
+are supplied by the reader's memory; not as an expounder of new
+truths, where oftentimes a dislocated fraction of the true is more
+dangerous than the false itself.
+
+To read therefore habitually, by hurried instalments, has this bad
+tendency--that it is likely to found a taste for modes of
+composition too artificially irritating, and to disturb the
+equilibrium of the judgment in relation to the colorings of style.
+Lamb, however, whose constitution of mind was even ideally sound in
+reference to the natural, the simple, the genuine, might seem of
+all men least liable to a taint in this direction. And undoubtedly
+he _was_ so, as regarded those modes of beauty which nature
+had specially qualified him for apprehending. Else, and in relation
+to other modes of beauty, where his sense of the true, and of its
+distinction from the spurious, had been an acquired sense, it is
+impossible for us to hide from ourselves--that not through habits
+only, not through stress of injurious accidents only, but by
+original structure and temperament of mind, Lamb had a bias towards
+those very defects on which rested the startling characteristics of
+style which we have been noticing. He himself, we fear, not bribed
+by indulgent feelings to another, not moved by friendship, but by
+native tendency, shrank from the continuous, from the sustained,
+from the elaborate.
+
+The elaborate, indeed, without which much truth and beauty must
+perish in germ, was by name the object of his invectives. The
+instances are many, in his own beautiful essays, where he literally
+collapses, literally sinks away from openings suddenly offering
+themselves to flights of pathos or solemnity in direct prosecution
+of his own theme. On any such summons, where an ascending impulse,
+and an untired pinion were required, he _refuses_ himself (to
+use military language) invariably. The least observing reader of
+_Elia_ cannot have failed to notice that the most felicitous
+passages always accomplish their circuit in a few sentences. The
+gyration within which his sentiment wheels, no matter of what kind
+it may be, is always the shortest possible. It does not prolong
+itself, and it does not repeat itself. But in fact, other features
+in Lamb's mind would have argued this feature by analogy, had we by
+accident been left unaware of it directly. It is not by chance, or
+without a deep ground in his nature, _common_ to all his
+qualities, both affirmative and negative, that Lamb had an
+insensibility to music more absolute than can have been often
+shared by any human creature, or perhaps than was ever before
+acknowledged so candidly. The sense of music,--as a pleasurable
+sense, or as any sense at all other than of certain unmeaning and
+impertinent differences in respect to high and low, sharp or flat,
+--was utterly obliterated as with a sponge by nature herself from
+Lamb's organization. It was a corollary, from the same large
+_substratum_ in his nature, that Lamb had no sense of the
+rhythmical in prose composition. Rhythmus, or pomp of cadence, or
+sonorous ascent of clauses, in the structure of sentences, were
+effects of art as much thrown away upon him as the voice of the
+charmer upon the deaf adder. We ourselves, occupying the very
+station of polar opposition to that of Lamb, being as morbidly,
+perhaps, in the one excess as he in the other, naturally detected
+this omission in Lamb's nature at an early stage of our
+acquaintance. Not the fabled Regulus, with his eyelids torn away,
+and his uncurtained eye-balls exposed to the noon-tide glare of a
+Carthaginian sun, could have shrieked with more anguish of recoil
+from torture than we from certain sentences and periods in which
+Lamb perceived no fault at all. _Pomp_, in our apprehension,
+was an idea of two categories; the pompous might be spurious, but
+it might also be genuine. It is well to love the simple--_we_
+love it; nor is there any opposition at all between _that_ and
+the very glory of pomp. But, as we once put the case to Lamb, if,
+as a musician, as the leader of a mighty orchestra, you had this
+theme offered to you--"Belshazzar the king gave a great feast to a
+thousand of his lords"--or this," And on a certain day, Marcus
+Cicero stood up, and in a set speech rendered solemn thanks to
+Caius Caesar for Quintus Ligarius pardoned, and for Marcus
+Marcellus restored "--surely no man would deny that, in such a
+case, simplicity, though in a passive sense not lawfully absent,
+must stand aside as totally insufficient for the positive part.
+Simplicity might guide, even here, but could not furnish the power;
+a rudder it might be, but not an oar or a sail. This, Lamb was
+ready to allow; as an intellectual _quiddity_, he recognized
+pomp in the character of a privileged thing; he was obliged to do
+so; for take away from great ceremonial festivals, such as the
+solemn rendering of thanks, the celebration of national
+anniversaries, the commemoration of public benefactors, &c., the
+element of pomp, and you take away their very meaning and life;
+but, whilst allowing a place for it in the rubric of the logician,
+it is certain that, _sensuously_, Lamb would not have
+sympathized with it, nor have _felt_ its justification in any
+concrete instance. We find a difficulty in pursuing this subject,
+without greatly exceeding our limits. We pause, therefore, and add
+only this one suggestion as partly explanatory of the case. Lamb
+had the dramatic intellect and taste, perhaps in perfection; of the
+Epic, he had none at all. Here, as happens sometimes to men of
+genius preternaturally endowed in one direction, he might be
+considered as almost starved. A favorite of nature, so eminent in
+some directions, by what right could he complain that her bounties
+were not indiscriminate? From this defect in his nature it arose,
+that, except by culture and by reflection, Lamb had no genial
+appreciation of Milton. The solemn planetary wheelings of the
+Paradise Lost were not to his taste. What he _did_ comprehend,
+were the motions like those of lightning, the fierce angular
+coruscations of that wild agency which comes forward so vividly in
+the sudden _peripetteia_, in the revolutionary catastrophe,
+and in the tumultuous conflicts, through persons or through
+situations, of the tragic drama.
+
+There is another vice in Mr. Hazlitt's mode of composition, viz.,
+the habit of trite quotation, too common to have challenged much
+notice, were it not for these reasons: 1st, That Sergeant Talfourd
+speaks of it in equivocal terms, as a fault perhaps, but as a
+"felicitous" fault, "trailing after it a line of golden
+associations;" 2dly, because the practice involves a dishonesty. On
+occasion of No. 1, we must profess our belief that a more ample
+explanation from the Sergeant would have left him in substantial
+harmony with ourselves. We cannot conceive the author of Ion, and
+the friend of Wordsworth, seriously to countenance that paralytic
+"mouth-diarrhoea," (to borrow a phrase of Coleridge's)--that
+_fluxe de bouche_(to borrow an earlier phrase of Archbishop
+Huet's) which places the reader at the mercy of a man's tritest
+remembrances from his most school-boy reading. To have the verbal
+memory infested with tags of verse and "cues" of rhyme is in
+itself an infirmity as vulgar and as morbid as the stableboy's
+habit of whistling slang airs upon the mere mechanical excitement
+of a bar or two whistled by some other blockhead in some other
+stable. The very stage has grown weary of ridiculing a folly, that
+having been long since expelled from decent society has taken
+refuge amongst the most imbecile of authors. Was Mr. Hazlitt then
+of that class? No; he was a man of great talents, and of capacity
+for greater things than he ever attempted, though without any
+pretensions of the philosophic kind ascribed to him by the
+Sergeant. Meantime the reason for resisting the example and
+practice of Hazlitt lies in this--that essentially it is at war
+with sincerity, the foundation of all good writing, to express
+one's own thoughts by another man's words. This dilemma arises. The
+thought is, or it is not, worthy of that emphasis which belongs to
+a metrical expression of it. If it is _not_, then we shall be
+guilty of a mere folly in pushing into strong relief that which
+confessedly cannot support it. If it _is_, then how incredible
+that a thought strongly conceived, and bearing about it the impress
+of one's own individuality, should naturally, and without
+dissimulation or falsehood, bend to another man's expression of it!
+Simply to back one's own view by a similar view derived from
+another, may be useful; a quotation that repeats one's own
+sentiment, but in a varied form, has the grace which belongs to the
+_idem in alio_, the same radical idea expressed with a
+difference--similarity in dissimilarity; but to throw one's own
+thoughts, matter, and form, through alien organs so absolutely as
+to make another man one's interpreter for evil and good, is either
+to confess a singular laxity of thinking that can so flexibly adapt
+itself to any casual form of words, or else to confess that sort of
+carelessness about the expression which draws its real origin from
+a sense of indifference about the things to be expressed. Utterly
+at war this distressing practice is with all simplicity and
+earnestness of writing; it argues a state of indolent ease
+inconsistent with the pressure and coercion of strong fermenting
+thoughts, before we can be at leisure for idle or chance
+quotations. But lastly, in reference to No. 2, we must add that the
+practice is signally dishonest. It "trails after it a line of
+golden associations." Yes, and the burglar, who leaves an
+army-tailor's after a midnight visit, trails after him perhaps a
+long roll of gold bullion epaulettes which may look pretty by
+lamplight. But _that_, in the present condition of moral
+philosophy amongst the police, is accounted robbery; and to benefit
+too much by quotations is little less. At this moment we have in
+our eye a work, at one time not without celebrity, which is one
+continued _cento_ of splendid passages from other people. The
+natural effect from so much fine writing is, that the reader rises
+with the impression of having been engaged upon a most eloquent
+work. Meantime the whole is a series of mosaics; a tessellation
+made up from borrowed fragments: and first, when the reader's
+attention is expressly directed upon the fact, he becomes aware
+that the nominal author has contributed nothing more to the book
+than a few passages of transition or brief clauses of connection.
+
+In the year 1796, the main incident occurring of any importance for
+English literature was the publication by Southey of an epic poem.
+This poem, the _Joan of Arc_, was the earliest work of much
+pretension amongst all that Southey wrote; and by many degrees it
+was the worst. In the four great narrative poems of his later
+years, there is a combination of two striking qualities, viz., a
+peculiar command over the _visually_ splendid, connected with
+a deep-toned grandeur of moral pathos. Especially we find this
+union in the _Thalaba_ and the _Roderick_; but in the
+_Joan of Arc_ we miss it. What splendor there is for the fancy
+and the eye belongs chiefly to the Vision, contributed by
+Coleridge, and this was subsequently withdrawn. The fault lay in
+Southey's political relations at that era; his sympathy with the
+French Revolution in its earlier stages had been boundless; in all
+respects it was a noble sympathy, fading only as the gorgeous
+coloring faded from the emblazonries of that awful event, drooping
+only when the promises of that golden dawn sickened under
+stationary eclipse. In 1796, Southey was yet under the tyranny of
+his own earliest fascination: in _his_ eyes the Revolution had
+suffered a momentary blight from refluxes of panic; but blight of
+some kind is incident to every harvest on which human hopes are
+suspended. Bad auguries were also ascending from the unchaining of
+martial instincts. But that the Revolution, having ploughed its way
+through unparalleled storms, was preparing to face other storms,
+did but quicken the apprehensiveness of his love--did but quicken
+the duty of giving utterance to this love. Hence came the rapid
+composition of the poem, which cost less time in writing than in
+printing. Hence, also, came the choice of his heroine. What he
+needed in his central character was, a heart with a capacity for
+the wrath of Hebrew prophets applied to ancient abuses, and for
+evangelic pity applied to the sufferings of nations. This heart,
+with this double capacity--where should he seek it? A French heart
+it must be, or how should it follow with its sympathies a French
+movement? _There_ lay Southey's reason for adopting the Maid
+of Orleans as the depositary of hopes and aspirations on behalf of
+France as fervid as his own. In choosing this heroine, so
+inadequately known at that time, Southey testified at least his own
+nobility of feeling; [Endnote: 3] but in executing his choice, he
+and his friends overlooked two faults fatal to his purpose. One was
+this: sympathy with the French Revolution meant sympathy with the
+opening prospects of man--meant sympathy with the Pariah of every
+clime--with all that suffered social wrong, or saddened in hopeless
+bondage.
+
+That was the movement at work in the French Revolution. But the
+movement of Joanne d'Arc took a different direction. In her day
+also, it is true, the human heart had yearned after the same vast
+enfranchisement for the children of labor as afterwards worked in
+the great vision of the French Revolution. In her days also, and
+shortly before them, the human hand had sought by bloody acts to
+realize this dream of the heart. And in her childhood, Joanna had
+not been insensible to these premature motions upon a path too
+bloody and too dark to be safe. But this view of human misery had
+been utterly absorbed to _her_ by the special misery then
+desolating France. The lilies of France had been trampled under
+foot by the conquering stranger. Within fifty years, in three
+pitched battles that resounded to the ends of the earth, the
+chivalry of France had been exterminated. Her oriflamme had been
+dragged through the dust. The eldest son of Baptism had been
+prostrated. The daughter of France had been surrendered on coercion
+as a bride to her English conqueror. The child of that marriage, so
+ignominious to the land, was King of France by the consent of
+Christendom; that child's uncle domineered as regent of France; and
+that child's armies were in military possession of the land. But
+were they undisputed masters? No; and there precisely lay the
+sorrow of the time. Under a perfect conquest there would have been
+repose; whereas the presence of the English armies did but furnish
+a plea, masking itself in patriotism, for gatherings everywhere of
+lawless marauders; of soldiers that had deserted their banners; and
+of robbers by profession. This was the woe of France more even than
+the military dishonor. That dishonor had been palliated from the
+first by the genealogical pretensions of the English royal family
+to the French throne, and these pretensions were strengthened in
+the person of the present claimant. But the military desolation of
+France, this it was that woke the faith of Joanna in her own
+heavenly mission of deliverance. It was the attitude of her
+prostrate country, crying night and day for purification from
+blood, and not from feudal oppression, that swallowed up the
+thoughts of the impassioned girl. But _that_ was not the cry
+that uttered itself afterwards in the French Revolution. In
+Joanna's days, the first step towards rest for France was by
+expulsion of the foreigner. Independence of a foreign yoke,
+liberation as between people and people, was the one ransom to be
+paid for French honor and peace. _That_ debt settled, there
+might come a time for thinking of civil liberties. But this time
+was not within the prospects of the poor shepherdess The field--the
+area of her sympathies never coincided with that of the
+Revolutionary period. It followed therefore, that Southey
+_could_ not have raided Joanna (with her condition of feeling)
+by any management, into the interpreter of his own. That was the
+first error in his poem, and it was irremediable. The second
+was--and strangely enough this also escaped notice--that the
+heroine of Southey is made to close her career precisely at the
+point when its grandeur commences. She believed herself to have a
+mission for the deliverance of France; and the great instrument
+which she was authorized to use towards this end, was the king,
+Charles VII. Him she was to crown. With this coronation, her
+triumph, in the plain historical sense, ended. And _there_
+ends Southey's poem. But exactly at this point, the grander stage
+of her mission commences, viz., the ransom which she, a solitary
+girl, paid in her own person for the national deliverance. The
+grander half of the story was thus sacrificed, as being irrelevant
+to Southey's political object; and yet, after all, the half which
+he retained did not at all symbolize that object. It is singular,
+indeed, to find a long poem, on an ancient subject, adapting itself
+hieroglyphically to a modern purpose; 2dly, to find it failing of
+this purpose; and 3dly, if it had not failed, so planned that it
+could have succeeded only by a sacrifice of all that was grandest
+in the theme.
+
+To these capital oversights, Southey, Coleridge, and Lamb, were all
+joint parties; the two first as concerned in the composition, the
+last as a frank though friendly reviewer of it in his private
+correspondence with Coleridge. It is, however, some palliation of
+these oversights, and a very singular fact in itself, that neither
+from English authorities nor from French, though the two nations
+were equally brought into close connection with the career of that
+extraordinary girl, could any adequate view be obtained of her
+character and acts. The official records of her trial, apart from
+which nothing can be depended upon, were first in the course of
+publication from the Paris press during the currency of last year.
+First in 1847, about four hundred and sixteen years after her ashes
+had been dispersed to the winds, could it be seen distinctly,
+through the clouds of fierce partisanships and national prejudices,
+what had been the frenzy of the persecution against her, and the
+utter desolation of her position; what had been the grandeur of her
+conscientious resistance.
+
+Anxious that our readers should see Lamb from as many angles as
+possible, we have obtained from an old friend of his a
+memorial--slight, but such as the circumstances allowed--of an
+evening spent with Charles and Mary Lamb, in the winter of 1821-22.
+The record is of the most unambitious character; it pretends to
+nothing, as the reader will see, not so much as to a pun, which it
+really required some singularity of luck to have missed from
+Charles Lamb, who often continued to fire puns, as minute guns, all
+through the evening. But the more unpretending this record is, the
+more appropriate it becomes by that very fact to the memory of
+_him_ who, amongst all authors, was the humblest and least
+pretending. We have often thought that the famous epitaph written
+for his grave by Piron, the cynical author of _La Metromanie_,
+might have come from Lamb, were it not for one objection; Lamb's
+benign heart would have recoiled from a sarcasm, however effective,
+inscribed upon a grave-stone; or from a jest, however playful, that
+tended to a vindictive sneer amongst his own farewell words. We
+once translated this Piron epitaph into a kind of rambling Drayton
+couplet; and the only point needing explanation is, that, from the
+accident of scientific men, Fellows of the Royal Society being
+usually very solemn men, with an extra chance, therefore, for being
+dull men in conversation, naturally it arose that some wit amongst
+our great-grandfathers translated F. R. S. into a short-hand
+expression for a Fellow Remarkably Stupid; to which version of the
+three letters our English epitaph alludes. The French original of
+Piron is this:
+
+   "Ci git Piron; qui ne fut rien;
+   Pas meme acadamicien."
+
+The bitter arrow of the second line was feathered to hit the French
+Acadamie, who had declined to elect him a member. Our translation
+is this:
+
+   "Here lies Piron; who was--nothing; or, if _that_ could be,
+      was  less:
+   How!--nothing? Yes, nothing; not so much as F. R. S."
+
+But now to our friend's memorandum:
+
+October 6, 1848.
+
+MY DEAR X.--You ask me for some memorial, however trivial, of any
+dinner party, supper party, water party, no matter what, that I can
+circumstantially recall to recollection, by any features whatever,
+puns or repartees, wisdom or wit, connecting it with Charles Lamb.
+I grieve to say that my meetings of any sort with Lamb were few,
+though spread through a score of years. That sounds odd for one
+that loved Lamb so entirely, and so much venerated his character.
+But the reason was, that I so seldom visited London, and Lamb so
+seldom quitted it. Somewhere about 1810 and 1812 I must have met
+Lamb repeatedly at the _Courier Office_ in the Strand; that
+is, at Coleridge's, to whom, as an intimate friend, Mr. Stuart (a
+proprietor of the paper) gave up for a time the use of some rooms
+in the office. Thither, in the London season, (May especially and
+June,) resorted Lamb, Godwin, Sir H. Davy, and, once or twice,
+Wordsworth, who visited Sir George Beaumont's Leicestershire
+residence of Coleorton early in the spring, and then travelled up
+to Grosvenor Square with Sir George and Lady Beaumont; _spectatum
+veniens, veniens spectetur ut ipse_.
+
+But in these miscellaneous gatherings, Lamb said little, except
+when an opening arose for a pun. And how effectual that sort of
+small shot was from _him_, I need not say to anybody who
+remembers his infirmity of stammering, and his dexterous management
+of it for purposes of light and shade. He was often able to train
+the roll of stammers into settling upon the words immediately
+preceding the effective one; by which means the key-note of the
+jest or sarcasm, benefiting by the sudden liberation of his
+embargoed voice, was delivered with the force of a pistol shot.
+That stammer was worth an annuity to him as an ally of his wit.
+Firing under cover of that advantage, he did triple execution; for,
+in the first place, the distressing sympathy of the hearers with
+_his_ distress of utterance won for him unavoidably the
+silence of deep attention; and then, whilst he had us all hoaxed
+into this attitude of mute suspense by an appearance of distress
+that he perhaps did not really feel, down came a plunging shot into
+the very thick of us, with ten times the effect it would else have
+had. If his stammering, however, often did him true "yeoman's
+service," sometimes it led him into scrapes. Coleridge told me of a
+ludicrous embarrassment which it caused him at Hastings. Lamb had
+been medically advised to a course of sea-bathing; and accordingly
+at the door of his bathing machine, whilst he stood shivering with
+cold, two stout fellows laid hold of him, one at each shoulder,
+like heraldic supporters; they waited for the word of command from
+their principal, who began the following oration to them: "Hear me,
+men! Take notice of this--I am to be dipped." What more he would
+have said is unknown to land or sea or bathing machines; for having
+reached the word dipped, he commenced such a rolling fire of
+Di--di--di--di, that when at length he descended _a plomb_
+upon the full word _dipped_, the two men, rather tired of the
+long suspense, became satisfied that they had reached what lawyers
+call the "operative" clause of the sentence; and both exclaiming at
+once, "Oh yes, Sir, we're quite aware of _that_," down they
+plunged him into the sea. On emerging, Lamb sobbed so much from the
+cold, that he found no voice suitable to his indignation; from
+necessity he seemed tranquil; and again addressing the men, who
+stood respectfully listening, he began thus: "Men! is it possible
+to obtain your attention?" "Oh surely, Sir, by all means." "Then
+listen: once more I tell you, I am to be di--di--di--"--and then,
+with a burst of indignation," dipped, I tell you,"--"Oh decidedly,
+Sir," rejoined the men, "decidedly," and down the stammerer went
+for the second time. Petrified with cold and wrath, once more Lamb
+made a feeble attempt at explanation--" Grant me pa--pa--patience;
+is it mum--um--murder you me--me--mean? Again and a--ga--ga--gain,
+I tell you, I'm to be di--di--di--dipped," now speaking furiously,
+with the voice of an injured man. "Oh yes, Sir," the men replied,
+"we know that, we fully understood it," and for the third time down
+went Lamb into the sea." Oh limbs of Satan!" he said, on coming up
+for the third time, "it's now too late; I tell you that I am--no,
+that I _was_--to be di--di--di--dipped only _once_."
+
+Since the rencontres with Lamb at Coleridge's, I had met him once
+or twice at literary dinner parties. One of these occurred at the
+house of Messrs. Taylor & Hessey, the publishers. I myself was
+suffering too much from illness at the time to take any pleasure in
+what passed, or to notice it with any vigilance of attention. Lamb,
+I remember, as usual, was full of gayety; and as usual he rose too
+rapidly to the zenith of his gayety; for he shot upwards like a
+rocket, and, as usual, people said he was "tipsy." To me Lamb never
+seemed intoxicated, but at most arborily elevated. He never talked
+nonsense, which is a great point gained; nor polemically, which is
+a greater; for it is a dreadful thing to find a drunken man bent
+upon converting oneself; nor sentimentally, which is greatest of
+all. You can stand a man's fraternizing with you; or if he swears
+an eternal friendship, only once in an hour, you do not think of
+calling the police; but once in every three minutes is too much
+(period omitted here in original, but there is a double space
+following for a new sentence) Lamb did none of these things; he was
+always rational, quiet, and gentlemanly in his habits. Nothing
+memorable, I am sure, passed upon this occasion, which was in
+November of 1821; and yet the dinner was memorable by means of one
+fact not discovered until many years later. Amongst the company,
+all literary men, sate a murderer, and a murderer of a freezing
+class; cool, calculating, wholesale in his operations, and moving
+all along under the advantages of unsuspecting domestic confidence
+and domestic opportunities. This was Mr. Wainwright, who was
+subsequently brought to trial, but not for any of his murders, and
+transported for life. The story has been told both by Sergeant
+Talfourd, in the second volume of these "Final Memoirs," and
+previously by Sir Edward B. Lytton. Both have been much blamed for
+the use made of this extraordinary case; but we know not why. In
+itself it is a most remarkable case for more reasons than one. It
+is remarkable for the appalling revelation which it makes of power
+spread through the hands of people not liable to suspicion, for
+purposes the most dreadful. It is remarkable also by the contrast
+which existed in this case between the murderer's appearance and
+the terrific purposes with which he was always dallying. He was a
+contributor to a journal in which I also had written several
+papers. This formed a shadowy link between us; and, ill as I was, I
+looked more attentively at _him_ than at anybody else. Yet
+there were several men of wit and genius present, amongst whom Lamb
+(as I have said) and Thomas Hood, Hamilton Reynolds, and Allan
+Cunningham. But _them_ I already knew, whereas Mr. W. I now
+saw for the first time and the last. What interested me about
+_him_ was this, the papers which had been pointed out to me as
+his, (signed _Janus Weathercock, Vinklooms_, &c.) were written
+in a spirit of coxcombry that did not so much disgust as amuse. The
+writer could not conceal the ostentatious pleasure which he took in
+the luxurious fittings-up of his rooms, in the fancied splendor of
+his _bijouterie_, &c. Yet it was easy for a man of any
+experience to read two facts in all this idle _etalage_; one
+being, that his finery was but of a second-rate order; the other,
+that he was a parvenu, not at home even amongst his second-rate
+splendor. So far there was nothing to distinguish Mr. W--'s papers
+from the papers of other triflers. But in this point there was,
+viz., that in his judgments upon the great Italian masters of
+painting, Da Vinci, Titian, &c., there seemed a tone of sincerity
+and of native sensibility, as in one who spoke from himself, and
+was not merely a copier from books. This it was that interested me;
+as also his reviews of the chief Italian engravers, Morghen,
+Volpato, &c.; not for the manner, which overflowed with levities
+and impertinence, but for the substance of his judgments in those
+cases where I happened to have had an opportunity of judging for
+myself. Here arose also a claim upon Lamb's attention; for Lamb and
+his sister had a deep feeling for what was excellent in painting.
+Accordingly Lamb paid him a great deal of attention, and continued
+to speak of him for years with an interest that seemed
+disproportioned to his pretensions. This might be owing in part to
+an indirect compliment paid to Miss Lamb in one of W--'s papers;
+else his appearance would rather have repelled Lamb; it was
+commonplace, and better suited to express the dandyism which
+overspread the surface of his manner, than the unaffected
+sensibility which apparently lay in his nature. Dandy or not,
+however, this man, on account of the schism in his papers, so much
+amiable puppyism on one side, so much deep feeling on the other,
+(feeling, applied to some of the grandest objects that earth has to
+show,) did really move a trifle of interest in me, on a day when I
+hated the face of man and woman. Yet again, if I had known this man
+for the murderer that even then he was, what sudden loss of
+interest, what sudden growth of another interest, would have
+changed the face of that party! Trivial creature, that didst carry
+thy dreadful eye kindling with perpetual treasons! Dreadful
+creature, that didst carry thy trivial eye, mantling with eternal
+levity, over the sleeping surfaces of confiding household life--oh,
+what a revolution for man wouldst thou have accomplished had thy
+deep wickedness prospered! What _was_ that wickedness? In a
+few words I will say.
+
+At this time (October, 1848) the whole British island is appalled
+by a new chapter in the history of poisoning. Locusta in ancient
+Rome, Madame Brinvilliers in Paris, were people of original genius:
+not in any new artifice of toxicology, not in the mere management
+of poisons, was the audacity of their genius displayed. No; but in
+profiting by domestic openings for murder, unsuspected through
+their very atrocity. Such an opening was made some years ago by
+those who saw the possibility of founding purses for parents upon
+the murder of their children. This was done upon a larger scale
+than had been suspected, and upon a plausible pretence. To bury a
+corpse is costly; but of a hundred children only a few, in the
+ordinary course of mortality, will die within a given time. Five
+shillings a-piece will produce 25L annually, and _that_ will
+bury a considerable number. On this principle arose Infant Burial
+Societies. For a few shillings annually, a parent could secure a
+funeral for every child. If the child died, a few guineas fell due
+to the parent, and the funeral was accomplished without cost of
+_his_. But on this arose the suggestion--Why not execute an
+insurance of this nature twenty times over? One single insurance
+pays for the funeral--the other nineteen are so much clear gain, a
+_lucro ponatur_, for the parents. Yes; but on the supposition
+that the child died! twenty are no better than one, unless they are
+gathered into the garner. Now, if the child died naturally, all was
+right; but how, if the child did _not_ die? Why, clearly this,
+--the child that _can_ die, and won't die, may be made to die.
+There are many ways of doing that; and it is shocking to know,
+that, according to recent discoveries, poison is comparatively a
+very merciful mode of murder. Six years ago a dreadful
+communication was made to the public by a medical man, viz., that
+three thousand children were annually burned to death under
+circumstances showing too clearly that they had been left by their
+mothers with the means and the temptations to set themselves on
+fire in her absence. But more shocking, because more lingering, are
+the deaths by artificial appliances of wet, cold, hunger, bad diet,
+and disturbed sleep, to the frail constitutions of children. By
+that machinery it is, and not by poison, that the majority qualify
+themselves for claiming the funeral allowances. Here, however,
+there occur to any man, on reflection, two eventual restraints on
+the extension of this domestic curse:--1st, as there is no pretext
+for wanting more than one funeral on account of one child, any
+insurances beyond one are in themselves a ground of suspicion. Now,
+if any plan were devised for securing the _publication_ of
+such insurances, the suspicions would travel as fast as the grounds
+for them. 2dly, it occurs, that eventually the evil checks itself,
+since a society established on the ordinary rates of mortality
+would be ruined when a murderous stimulation was applied to that
+rate too extensively. Still it is certain that, for a season, this
+atrocity _has_ prospered in manufacturing districts for some
+years, and more recently, as judicial investigations have shown, in
+one agricultural district of Essex. Now, Mr. W--'s scheme of murder
+was, in its outline, the very same, but not applied to the narrow
+purpose of obtaining burials from a public fund He persuaded, for
+instance, two beautiful young ladies, visitors in his family, to
+insure their lives for a short period of two years. This insurance
+was repeated in several different offices, until a sum of 18,000
+pounds had been secured in the event of their deaths within the two
+years. Mr. W--took care that they _should_ die, and very
+suddenly, within that period; and then, having previously secured
+from his victims an assignment to himself of this claim, he
+endeavored to make this assignment available. But the offices,
+which had vainly endeavored to extract from the young ladies any
+satisfactory account of the reasons for this limited insurance, had
+their suspicions at last strongly roused. One office had recently
+experienced a case of the same nature, in which also the young lady
+had been poisoned by the man in whose behalf she had effected the
+insurance; all the offices declined to pay; actions at law arose;
+in the course of the investigation which followed, Mr. W--'s
+character was fully exposed. Finally, in the midst of the
+embarrassments which ensued, he committed forgery, and was
+transported.
+
+From this Mr. W--, some few days afterwards, I received an
+invitation to a dinner party, expressed in terms that were
+obligingly earnest. He mentioned the names of his principal guests,
+and amongst them rested most upon those of Lamb and Sir David
+Wilkie. From an accident I was unable to attend, and greatly
+regretted it. Sir David one might rarely happen to see, except at a
+crowded party. But as regarded Lamb, I was sure to see him or to
+hear of him again in some way or other within a short time. This
+opportunity, in fact, offered itself within a month through the
+kindness of the Lambs themselves. They had heard of my being in
+solitary lodgings, and insisted on my coming to dine with them,
+which more than once I did in the winter of 1821-22.
+
+The mere reception by the Lambs was so full of goodness and
+hospitable feeling, that it kindled animation in the most cheerless
+or torpid of invalids. I cannot imagine that any _memorabilia_
+occurred during the visit; but I will use the time that would else
+be lost upon the settling of that point, in putting down any
+triviality that occurs to my recollection. Both Lamb and myself had
+a furious love for nonsense, headlong nonsense. Excepting Professor
+Wilson, I have known nobody who had the same passion to the same
+extent. And things of that nature better illustrate the
+_realities_ of Lamb's social life than the gravities, which
+weighing so sadly on his solitary hours he sought to banish from
+his moments of relaxation.
+
+There were no strangers; Charles Lamb, his sister, and myself made
+up the party. Even this was done in kindness. They knew that I
+should have been oppressed by an effort such as must be made in the
+society of strangers; and they placed me by their own fireside,
+where I could say as little or as much as I pleased.
+
+We dined about five o'clock, and it was one of the hospitalities
+inevitable to the Lambs, that any game which they might receive
+from rural friends in the course of the week, was reserved for the
+day of a friend's dining with them.
+
+In regard to wine, Lamb and myself had the same habit--perhaps it
+rose to the dignity of a principle--viz., to take a great deal
+_during_ dinner--none _after_ it. Consequently, as Miss
+Lamb (who drank only water) retired almost with the dinner itself,
+nothing remained for men of our principles, the rigor of which we
+had illustrated by taking rather too much of old port before the
+cloth was drawn, except talking; amoebaean colloquy, or, in Dr.
+Johnson's phrase, a dialogue of "brisk reciprocation." But this was
+impossible; over Lamb, at this period of his life, there passed
+regularly, after taking wine, a brief eclipse of sleep. It
+descended upon him as softly as a shadow. In a gross person, laden
+with superfluous flesh, and sleeping heavily, this would have been
+disagreeable; but in Lamb, thin even to meagreness, spare and wiry
+as an Arab of the desert, or as Thomas Aquinas, wasted by
+scholastic vigils, the affection of sleep seemed rather a network
+of aerial gossamer than of earthly cobweb--more like a golden haze
+falling upon him gently from the heavens than a cloud exhaling
+upwards from the flesh. Motionless in his chair as a bust,
+breathing so gently as scarcely to seem certainly alive, he
+presented the image of repose midway between life and death, like
+the repose of sculpture; and to one who knew his history a repose
+affectingly contrasting with the calamities and internal storms of
+his life. I have heard more persons than I can now distinctly
+recall, observe of Lamb when sleeping, that his countenance in that
+state assumed an expression almost seraphic, from its intellectual
+beauty of outline, its childlike simplicity, and its benignity. It
+could not be called a transfiguration that sleep had worked in his
+face; for the features wore essentially the same expression when
+waking; but sleep spiritualized that expression, exalted it, and
+also harmonized it. Much of the change lay in that last process.
+The eyes it was that disturbed the unity of effect in Lamb's waking
+face. They gave a restlessness to the character of his intellect,
+shifting, like northern lights, through every mode of combination
+with fantastic playfulness, and sometimes by fiery gleams
+obliterating for the moment that pure light of benignity which was
+the predominant reading on his features. Some people have supposed
+that Lamb had Jewish blood in his veins, which seemed to account
+for his gleaming eyes. It might be so; but this notion found little
+countenance in Lamb's own way of treating the gloomy medieval
+traditions propagated throughout Europe about the Jews, and their
+secret enmity to Christian races. Lamb, indeed, might not be more
+serious than Shakspeare is supposed to have been in his Shylock;
+yet he spoke at times as from a station of wilful bigotry, and
+seemed (whether laughingly or not) to sympathize with the barbarous
+Christian superstitions upon the pretended bloody practices of the
+Jews, and of the early Jewish physicians. Being himself a Lincoln
+man, he treated Sir Hugh [Endnote: 4] of Lincoln, the young child
+that suffered death by secret assassination in the Jewish quarter
+rather than suppress his daily anthems to the Virgin, as a true
+historical personage on the rolls of martyrdom; careless that this
+fable, like that of the apprentice murdered out of jealousy by his
+master, the architect, had destroyed its own authority by
+ubiquitous diffusion. All over Europe the same legend of the
+murdered apprentice and the martyred child reappears under
+different names--so that in effect the verification of the tale is
+none at all, because it is unanimous; is too narrow, because it is
+too impossibly broad. Lamb, however, though it was often hard to
+say whether he were not secretly laughing, swore to the truth of
+all these old fables, and treated the liberalities of the present
+generation on such points as mere fantastic and effeminate
+affectations, which, no doubt, they often are as regards the
+sincerity of those who profess them. The bigotry, which it pleased
+his fancy to assume, he used like a sword against the Jew, as the
+official weapon of the Christian, upon the same principle that a
+Capulet would have drawn upon a Montague, without conceiving it any
+duty of _his_ to rip up the grounds of so ancient a quarrel;
+it was a feud handed down to him by his ancestors, and it was
+_their_ business to see that originally it had been an honest
+feud. I cannot yet believe that Lamb, if seriously aware of any
+family interconnection with Jewish blood, would, even in jest, have
+held that one-sided language. More probable it is, that the fiery
+eye recorded not any alliance with Jewish blood, but that
+disastrous alliance with insanity which tainted his own life, and
+laid desolate his sister's.
+
+On awakening from his brief slumber, Lamb sat for some time in
+profound silence, and then, with the most startling rapidity, sang
+out--"Diddle, diddle, dumpkins;" not looking at me, but as if
+soliloquizing. For five minutes he relapsed into the same deep
+silence; from which again he started up into the same abrupt
+utterance of--"Diddle, diddle, dumpkins." I could not help laughing
+aloud at the extreme energy of this sudden communication,
+contrasted with the deep silence that went before and followed.
+Lamb smilingly begged to know what I was laughing at, and with a
+look of as much surprise as if it were I that had done something
+unaccountable, and not himself. I told him (as was the truth) that
+there had suddenly occurred to me the possibility of my being in
+some future period or other called on to give an account of this
+very evening before some literary committee. The committee might
+say to me--(supposing the case that I outlived him)--"You dined
+with Mr. Lamb in January, 1822; now, can you remember any remark or
+memorable observation which that celebrated man made before or
+after dinner?"
+
+I as _respondent_. "Oh yes, I can."
+
+_Com_. "What was it?"
+
+_Resp_. "Diddle, diddle, dumpkins."
+
+_Com_. "And was this his only observation? Did Mr. Lamb not
+strengthen this remark by some other of the same nature?"
+
+_Resp_. "Yes, he did."
+
+_Com_. "And what was it?"
+
+_Resp_. "Diddle, diddle, dumpkins."
+
+_Com_. "What is your secret opinion of Dumpkins?"
+
+_Com_. "Do you conceive Dumpkins to have been a thing or a
+person?"
+
+_Resp_. "I conceive Dumpkins to have been a person, having the
+rights of a person."
+
+_Com_. "Capable, for instance, of suing and being sued?"
+
+_Resp_. "Yes, capable of both; though I have reason to think
+there would have been very little use in suing Dumpkins."
+
+_Com_. "How so? Are the committee to understand that you, the
+respondent, in your own case, have found it a vain speculation,
+countenanced only by visionary lawyers, to sue Dumpkins?"
+
+_Resp_. "No; I never lost a shilling by Dumpkins, the reason
+for which may be that Dumpkins never owed me a shilling; but from
+his _pronomen_ of 'diddle,' I apprehend that he was too well
+acquainted with joint-stock companies!"
+
+_Com_. "And your opinion is, that he may have diddled Mr.
+Lamb?"
+
+_Resp_. "I conceive it to be not unlikely."
+
+_Com_. "And, perhaps, from Mr. Lamb's pathetic reiteration of
+his name, 'Diddle, diddle,' you would be disposed to infer that
+Dumpkins had practised his diddling talents upon Mr. L. more than
+once?"
+
+_Resp_. "I think it probable."
+
+Lamb laughed, and brightened up; tea was announced; Miss Lamb
+returned. The cloud had passed away from Lamb's spirits, and again
+he realized the pleasure of evening, which, in _his_
+apprehension, was so essential to the pleasure of literature.
+
+On the table lay a copy of Wordsworth, in two volumes; it was the
+edition of Longman, printed about the time of Waterloo. Wordsworth
+was held in little consideration, I believe, amongst the house of
+Longman; at any rate, _their_ editions of his works were got
+up in the most slovenly manner. In particular, the table of
+contents was drawn up like a short-hand bill of parcels. By
+accident the book lay open at a part of this table, where the
+sonnet beginning--
+
+  "Alas! what boots the long laborious quest"--
+
+had been entered with mercantile speed, as--
+
+  "Alas! what boots,"----
+
+"Yes," said Lamb, reading this entry in a dolorous tone of voice, "he
+may well say _that_. I paid Hoby three guineas for a pair that
+tore like blotting paper, when I was leaping a ditch to escape a
+farmer that pursued me with a pitch-fork for trespassing. But why
+should W. wear boots in Westmoreland? Pray, advise him to patronize
+shoes."
+
+The mercurialities of Lamb were infinite, and always uttered in a
+spirit of absolute recklessness for the quality or the prosperity
+of the sally. It seemed to liberate his spirits from some burthen
+of blackest melancholy which oppressed it, when he had thrown off a
+jest: he would not stop one instant to improve it; nor did he care
+the value of a straw whether it were good enough to be remembered,
+or so mediocre as to extort high moral indignation from a collector
+who refused to receive into his collection of jests and puns any
+that were not felicitously good or revoltingly bad.
+
+After tea, Lamb read to me a number of beautiful compositions,
+which he had himself taken the trouble to copy out into a blank
+paper folio from unsuccessful authors. Neglected people in every
+class won the sympathy of Lamb. One of the poems, I remember, was a
+very beautiful sonnet from a volume recently published by Lord
+Thurlow--which, and Lamb's just remarks upon it, I could almost
+repeat _verbatim_ at this moment, nearly twenty-seven years
+later, if your limits would allow me. But these, you tell me, allow
+of no such thing; at the utmost they allow only twelve lines more.
+Now all the world knows that the sonnet itself would require
+fourteen lines; but take fourteen from twelve, and there remains
+very little, I fear; besides which, I am afraid two of my twelve
+are already exhausted. This forces me to interrupt my account of
+Lamb's reading, by reporting the very accident that _did_
+interrupt it in fact; since that no less characteristically
+expressed Lamb's peculiar spirit of kindness, (always quickening
+itself towards the ill-used or the down-trodden,) than it had
+previously expressed itself in his choice of obscure readings. Two
+ladies came in, one of whom at least had sunk in the scale of
+worldly consideration. They were ladies who would not have found
+much recreation in literary discussions; elderly, and habitually
+depressed. On _their_ account, Lamb proposed whist, and in
+that kind effort to amuse them, which naturally drew forth some
+momentary gayeties from himself, but not of a kind to impress
+themselves on the recollection, the evening terminated.
+
+We have left ourselves no room for a special examination of Lamb's
+writings, some of which were failures, and some were so memorably
+beautiful as to be unique in their class. The character of Lamb it
+is, and the life-struggle of Lamb, that must fix the attention of
+many, even amongst those wanting in sensibility to his intellectual
+merits. This character and this struggle, as we have already
+observed, impress many traces of themselves upon Lamb's writings.
+Even in that view, therefore, they have a ministerial value; but
+separately, for themselves, they have an independent value of the
+highest order. Upon this point we gladly adopt the eloquent words
+of Sergeant Talfourd:--
+
+"The sweetness of Lamb's character, breathed through his writings,
+was felt even by strangers; but its heroic aspect was unguessed
+even by many of his friends. Let them now consider it, and ask if
+the annals of self-sacrifice can show anything in human action and
+endurance more lovely than its self-devotion exhibits? It was not
+merely that he saw, through the ensanguined cloud of misfortune
+which had fallen upon his family, the unstained excellence of his
+sister, whose madness had caused it; that he was ready to take her
+to his own home with reverential affection, and cherish her through
+life; and he gave up, for _her_ sake, all meaner and more
+selfish love, and all the hopes which youth blends with the passion
+which disturbs and ennobles it; not even that he did all this
+cheerfully, without pluming himself upon his brotherly nobleness as
+a virtue, or seeking to repay himself (as some uneasy martyrs do)
+by small instalments of long repining; but that he carried the
+spirit of the hour in which he first knew and took his course to
+his last. So far from thinking that his sacrifice of youth and love
+to his sister gave him a license to follow his own caprice at the
+expense of her feelings, even in the lightest matters, he always
+wrote and spoke of her as his wiser self, his generous
+benefactress, of whose protecting care he was scarcely worthy."
+
+It must be remembered, also, which the Sergeant does not overlook,
+that Lamb's efforts for the becoming support of his sister lasted
+through a period of forty years. Twelve years before his death, the
+munificence of the India House, by granting him a liberal retiring
+allowance, had placed his own support under shelter from accidents
+of any kind. But this died with himself; and he could not venture
+to suppose that, in the event of his own death, the India House
+would grant to his sister the same allowance as by custom is
+granted to a wife. This they did; but not venturing to calculate
+upon such nobility of patronage, Lamb had applied himself through
+life to the saving of a provision for his sister under any accident
+to himself. And this he did with a persevering prudence, so little
+known in the literary class, amongst a continued tenor of
+generosities, often so princely as to be scarcely known in any
+class.
+
+Was this man, so memorably good by life-long sacrifice of himself,
+in any profound sense a Christian? The impression is, that he was
+_not_. We, from private communications with him, can undertake
+to say that, according to his knowledge and opportunities for the
+study of Christianity, he _was_. What has injured Lamb on this
+point is, that his early opinions (which, however, from the first
+were united with the deepest piety) are read by the inattentive, as
+if they had been the opinions of his mature days; secondly, that he
+had few religious persons amongst his friends, which made him
+reserved in the expression of his own views; thirdly, that in any
+case where he altered opinions for the better, the credit of the
+improvement is assigned to Coleridge. Lamb, for example, beginning
+life as a Unitarian, in not many years became a Trinitarian.
+Coleridge passed through the same changes in the same order; and,
+here, at least, Lamb is supposed simply to have obeyed the
+influence, confessedly great, of Coleridge. This, on our own
+knowledge of Lamb's views, we pronounce to be an error. And the
+following extracts from Lamb's letters will show, not only that he
+was religiously disposed on impulses self-derived, but that, so far
+from obeying the bias of Coleridge, he ventured, on this one
+subject, firmly as regarded the matter, though humbly as regarded
+the manner, affectionately to reprove Coleridge.
+
+In a letter to Coleridge, written in 1797, the year after his first
+great affliction, he says:
+
+"Coleridge, I have not one truly elevated character among my
+acquaintance; not one Christian; not one but undervalues
+Christianity. Singly, what am I to do? Wesley--[have you read his
+life?]--was not he an elevated character? Wesley has said religion
+was not a solitary thing. Alas! it is necessarily so with me, or
+next to solitary. 'Tis true you write to me; but correspondence by
+letter and personal intimacy are widely different. Do, do write to
+me; and do some good to my mind--already how much 'warped and
+relaxed' by the world!"
+
+In a letter written about three months previously, he had not
+scrupled to blame Coleridge at some length for audacities of
+religious speculation, which seemed to him at war with the
+simplicities of pure religion. He says:
+
+"Do continue to write to me. I read your letters with my sister,
+and they give us both abundance of delight. Especially they please
+us two when you talk in a religious strain. Not but we are offended
+occasionally with a certain freedom of expression, a certain air of
+mysticism, more consonant to the conceits of pagan philosophy than
+consistent with the humility of genuine piety."
+
+Then, after some instances of what he blames, he says:
+
+"Be not angry with me, Coleridge. I wish not to cavil; I know I
+cannot instruct you; I only wish to remind you of that humility
+which best becometh the Christian character. God, in the New
+Testament, our best guide, is represented to us in the kind,
+condescending, amiable, familiar light of a parent; and, in my poor
+mind, 'tis best for us so to consider him as our heavenly Father,
+and our best friend, without indulging too bold conceptions of his
+character."
+
+About a month later, he says:
+
+"Few but laugh at me for reading my Testament. They talk a language
+I understand not; I conceal sentiments that would be a puzzle to
+_them_."
+
+We see by this last quotation _where_ it was that Lamb
+originally sought for consolation. We personally can vouch that, at
+a maturer period, when he was approaching his fiftieth year, no
+change had affected his opinions upon that point; and, on the other
+hand, that no changes had occurred in his needs for consolation, we
+see, alas! in the records of his life. Whither, indeed, could he
+fly for comfort, if not to his Bible? And to whom was the Bible an
+indispensable resource, if not to Lamb? We do not undertake to say,
+that in his knowledge of Christianity he was everywhere profound or
+consistent, but he was always earnest in his aspirations after its
+spiritualities, and had an apprehensive sense of its power.
+
+Charles Lamb is gone; his life was a continued struggle in the
+service of love the purest, and within a sphere visited by little
+of contemporary applause. Even his intellectual displays won but a
+narrow sympathy at any time, and in his earlier period were saluted
+with positive derision and contumely on the few occasions when they
+were not oppressed by entire neglect. But slowly all things right
+themselves. All merit, which is founded in truth, and is strong
+enough, reaches by sweet exhalations in the end a higher sensory;
+reaches higher organs of discernment, lodged in a selecter
+audience. But the original obtuseness or vulgarity of feeling that
+thwarted Lamb's just estimation in life, will continue to thwart
+its popular diffusion. There are even some that continue to regard
+him with the old hostility. And we, therefore, standing by the side
+of Lamb's grave, seemed to hear, on one side, (but in abated tones,
+) strains of the ancient malice--"This man, that thought himself to
+be somebody, is dead--is buried--is forgotten!" and, on the other
+side, seemed to hear ascending, as with the solemnity of an
+anthem--"This man, that thought himself to be nobody, is dead--is
+buried; his life has been searched; and his memory is hallowed
+forever!"
+
+
+
+
+
+NOTES.
+
+
+NOTE 1.
+
+"_Scriptural_" we call it, because this element of thought, so
+indispensable to a profound philosophy of morals, is not simply
+_more_ used in Scripture than elsewhere, but is so exclusively
+significant or intelligible amidst the correlative ideas of
+Scripture, as to be absolutely insusceptible of translation into
+classical Greek or classical Latin. It is disgraceful that more
+reflection has not been directed to the vast causes and
+consequences of so pregnant a truth.
+
+NOTE 2.
+
+"_Poor S T. C._"-The affecting expression by which Coleridge
+indicates himself in the few lines written during his last illness
+for an inscription upon his grave, lines ill constructed in point
+of diction and compression, but otherwise speaking from the depths
+Of his heart.
+
+NOTE 3.
+
+It is right to remind the reader of this, for a reason applying
+forcibly to the present moment Michelet has taxed Englishmen with
+yielding to national animosities in the case of Joan, having no
+plea whatever for that insinuation but the single one drawn from
+Shakspeare's Henry VI. To this the answer is, first, that
+Shakspeare's share in that trilogy is not nicely ascertained
+Secondly, that M Michelet forgot (or, which is far worse,
+_not_ forgetting it, he dissembled) the fact, that in
+undertaking a series of dramas upon the basis avowedly of national
+chronicles, and for the very purpose of profiting by old
+traditionary recollections connected with ancestral glories, it was
+mere lunacy to recast the circumstances at the bidding of
+antiquarian research, so as entirely to disturb these glories.
+Besides that, to Shakspeare's age no such spirit of research had
+blossomed. Writing for the stage, a man would have risked
+lapidation by uttering a whisper in that direction. And, even if
+not, what sense could there have been in openly running counter to
+the very motive that had originally prompted that particular class
+of chronicle plays? Thirdly, if one Englishman had, in a memorable
+situation, adopted the popular view of Joan's conduct,
+(_popular_ as much in France as in England;) on the other
+hand, fifty years before M. Michelet was writing this flagrant
+injustice, another Englishman (viz., Southey) had, in an epic poem,
+reversed this mis-judgment, and invested the shepherd girl with a
+glory nowhere else accorded to her, unless indeed by Schiller.
+Fourthly, we are not entitled to view as an _attack_ upon
+Joanna, what, in the worst construction, is but an unexamining
+adoption of the contemporary historical accounts. A poet or a
+dramatist is not responsible for the accuracy of chronicles. But
+what _is_ an attack upon Joan, being briefly the foulest and
+obscenest attempt ever made to stifle the grandeur of a great human
+struggle, viz., the French burlesque poem of _La
+Pucelle_--what memorable man was it that wrote _that_? Was
+he a Frenchman, or was he not? That M. Michelet should
+_pretend_ to have forgotten this vilest of pasquinades, is
+more shocking to the general sense of justice than any special
+untruth as to Shakspeare _can_ be to the particular
+nationality of an Englishman.
+
+NOTE 4.
+
+The story which furnishes a basis to the fine ballad in Percy's
+Reliques, and to the Canterbury Tale of Chaucer's Lady Abbess.
+
+
+
+
+
+GOETHE
+
+
+
+John Wolfgang von Goethe, a man of commanding influence in the
+literature of modern Germany throughout the latter half of his long
+life, and possessing two separate claims upon our notice; one in
+right of his own unquestionable talents; and another much stronger,
+though less direct, arising out of his position, and the
+extravagant partisanship put forward on his behalf for the last
+forty years. The literary body in all countries, and for reasons
+which rest upon a sounder basis than that of private jealousies,
+have always been disposed to a republican simplicity in all that
+regards the assumption of rank and personal pretensions. _Valeat
+quantum valere potest_, is the form of license to every man's
+ambition, coupled with its caution. Let his influence and authority
+be commensurate with his attested value; and, because no man in the
+present infinity of human speculation, and the present multiformity
+of human power, can hope for more than a very limited superiority,
+there is an end at once to all _absolute_ dictatorship. The
+dictatorship in any case could be only _relative_, and in
+relation to a single department of art or knowledge; and this for a
+reason stronger even than that already noticed, viz., the vast
+extent of the field on which the intellect is now summoned to
+employ itself. That objection, as it applies only to the
+_degree_ of the difficulty, might be met by a corresponding
+degree of mental energy; such a thing may be supposed, at least.
+But another difficulty there is, of a profounder character, which
+cannot be so easily parried. Those who have reflected at all upon
+the fine arts, know that power of one kind is often inconsistent,
+positively incompatible, with power of another kind. For example,
+the _dramatic_ mind is incompatible with the _epic_. And
+though we should consent to suppose that some intellect might arise
+endowed upon a scale of such angelic comprehensiveness, as to
+vibrate equally and indifferently towards either pole, still it is
+next to impossible, in the exercise and culture of the two powers,
+but some bias must arise which would give that advantage to the one
+over the other which the right arm has over the left. But the
+supposition, the very case put, is baseless, and countenanced by no
+precedent. Yet, under this previous difficulty, and with regard to
+a literature convulsed, if any ever was, by an almost total
+anarchy, it is a fact notorious to all who take an interest in
+Germany and its concerns, that Goethe did in one way or other,
+through the length and breadth of that vast country, establish a
+supremacy of influence wholly unexampled; a supremacy indeed
+perilous in a less honorable man, to those whom he might chance to
+hate, and with regard to himself thus far unfortunate, that it
+conferred upon every work proceeding from his pen a sort of papal
+indulgence, an immunity from criticism, or even from the appeals of
+good sense, such as it is not wholesome that any man should enjoy.
+Yet we repeat that German literature was and is in a condition of
+total anarchy. With this solitary exception, no name, even in the
+most narrow section of knowledge or of power, has ever been able in
+that country to challenge unconditional reverence; whereas, with us
+and in France, name the science, name the art, and we will name the
+dominant professor; a difference which partly arises out of the
+fact that England and France are governed in their opinions by two
+or three capital cities, whilst Germany looks for its leadership to
+as many cities as there are _residenzen_ and universities. For
+instance, the little territory with which Goethe was connected
+presented no less than two such public lights; Weimar, the
+_residenz_ or privileged abode of the Grand Duke, and Jena,
+the university founded by that house. Partly, however, this
+difference may be due to the greater restlessness, and to the
+greater energy as respects mere speculation, of the German mind.
+But no matter whence arising, or how interpreted, the fact is what
+we have described; absolute confusion, the "anarch old" of Milton,
+is the one deity whose sceptre is there paramount; and yet
+_there_ it was, in that very realm of chaos, that Goethe built
+his throne. That he must have looked with trepidation and
+perplexity upon his wild empire and its "dark foundations," may be
+supposed. The tenure was uncertain to _him_ as regarded its
+duration; to us it is equally uncertain, and in fact mysterious, as
+regards its origin. Meantime the mere fact, contrasted with the
+general tendencies of the German literary world, is sufficient to
+justify a notice, somewhat circumstantial, of the man in whose
+favor, whether naturally by force of genius, or by accident
+concurring with intrigue, so unexampled a result was effected.
+
+Goethe was born at noonday on the 28th of August, 1749, in his
+father's house at Frankfort on the Maine. The circumstances of his
+birth were thus far remarkable, that, unless Goethe's vanity
+deceived him, they led to a happy revolution hitherto retarded by
+female delicacy falsely directed. From some error of the midwife
+who attended his mother, the infant Goethe appeared to be
+still-born. Sons there were as yet none from this marriage;
+everybody was therefore interested in the child's life; and the
+panic which arose in consequence, having survived its immediate
+occasion, was improved into a public resolution, (for which no
+doubt society stood ready at that moment,) to found some course of
+public instruction from this time forward for those who undertook
+professionally the critical duties of accoucheur.
+
+We have noticed the house in which Goethe was born, as well as the
+city. Both were remarkable, and fitted to leave lasting impressions
+upon a young person of sensibility. As to the city, its antiquity
+is not merely venerable, but almost mysterious; towers were at that
+time to be found in the mouldering lines of its earliest defences,
+which belonged to the age of Charlemagne, or one still earlier;
+battlements adapted to a mode of warfare anterior even to that of
+feudalism or romance. The customs, usages, and local privileges of
+Frankfort, and the rural districts adjacent, were of a
+corresponding character. Festivals were annually celebrated at a
+short distance from the walls, which had descended from a dateless
+antiquity. Every thing which met the eye spoke the language of
+elder ages; whilst the river on which the place was seated, its
+great fair, which still held the rank of the greatest in
+Christendom, and its connection with the throne of Caesar and his
+inauguration, by giving to Frankfort an interest and a public
+character in the eyes of all Germany, had the effect of
+countersigning, as it were, by state authority, the importance
+which she otherwise challenged to her ancestral distinctions. Fit
+house for such a city, and in due keeping with the general scenery,
+was that of Goethe's father. It had in fact been composed out of
+two contiguous houses; that accident had made it spacious and
+rambling in its plan; whilst a further irregularity had grown out
+of the original difference in point of level between the
+corresponding stories of the two houses, making it necessary to
+connect the rooms of the same _suite_ by short flights of
+steps. Some of these features were no doubt removed by the recast
+of the house under the name of "repairs," (to evade a city bye-law,
+) afterwards executed by his father; but such was the house of
+Goethe's infancy, and in all other circumstances of style and
+furnishing equally antique.
+
+The spirit of society in Frankfort, without a court, a university,
+or a learned body of any extent, or a resident nobility in its
+neighborhood, could not be expected to display any very high
+standard of polish. Yet, on the other hand, as an independent city,
+governed by its own separate laws and tribunals, (that privilege of
+_autonomy_ so dearly valued by ancient Greece,) and possessing
+besides a resident corps of jurisprudents and of agents in various
+ranks for managing the interests of the German emperor and other
+princes, Frankfort had the means within herself of giving a liberal
+tone to the pursuits of her superior citizens, and of cooperating
+in no inconsiderable degree with the general movement of the times,
+political or intellectual. The memoirs of Goethe himself, and in
+particular the picture there given of his own family, as well as
+other contemporary glimpses of German domestic society in those
+days, are sufficient to show that much knowledge, much true
+cultivation of mind, much sound refinement of taste, were then
+distributed through the middle classes of German society; meaning
+by that very indeterminate expression those classes which for
+Frankfort composed the aristocracy, viz., all who had daily
+leisure, and regular funds for employing it to advantage. It is not
+necessary to add, because that is a fact applicable to all stages
+of society, that Frankfort presented many and various specimens of
+original talent, moving upon all directions of human speculation.
+
+Yet, with this general allowance made for the capacities of the
+place, it is too evident that, for the most part, they lay inert
+and undeveloped. In many respects Frankfort resembled an English
+cathedral city, according to the standard of such places seventy
+years ago, not, that is to say, like Carlisle in this day, where a
+considerable manufacture exists, but like Chester as it is yet. The
+chapter of a cathedral, the resident ecclesiastics attached to the
+duties of so large an establishment, men always well educated, and
+generally having families, compose the original _nucleus_,
+around which soon gathers all that part of the local gentry who,
+for any purpose, whether of education for their children, or of
+social enjoyment for themselves, seek the advantages of a town.
+Hither resort all the timid old ladies who wish for conversation,
+or other forms of social amusement; hither resort the
+valetudinarians, male or female, by way of commanding superior
+medical advice at a cost not absolutely ruinous to themselves; and
+multitudes besides, with narrow incomes, to whom these quiet
+retreats are so many cities of refuge.
+
+Such, in one view, they really are; and yet in another they have a
+vicious constitution. Cathedral cities in England, imperial cities
+without manufactures in Germany, are all in an improgressive
+condition. The public employments of every class in such places
+continue the same from generation to generation. The amount of
+superior families oscillates rather than changes; that is, it
+fluctuates within fixed limits; and, for all inferior families,
+being composed either of shopkeepers or of menial servants, they
+are determined by the number, or, which, on a large average, is the
+same, by the pecuniary power, of their employers. Hence it arises,
+that room is made for one man, in whatever line of dependence, only
+by the death of another; and the constant increments of the
+population are carried off into other cities. Not less is the
+difference of such cities as regards the standard of manners. How
+striking is the soft and urbane tone of the lower orders in a
+cathedral city, or in a watering place dependent upon ladies,
+contrasted with the bold, often insolent, demeanor of a
+self-dependent artisan or mutinous mechanic of Manchester and
+Glasgow.
+
+Children, however, are interested in the state of society around
+them, chiefly as it affects their parents. Those of Goethe were
+respectable, and perhaps tolerably representative of the general
+condition in their own rank. An English authoress of great talent,
+in her _Characteristics of Goethe_, has too much countenanced
+the notion that he owed his intellectual advantages exclusively to
+his mother. Of this there is no proof. His mother wins more esteem
+from the reader of this day, because she was a cheerful woman, of
+serene temper, brought into advantageous comparison with a husband
+much older than herself, whom circumstances had rendered moody,
+fitful, sometimes capricious, and confessedly obstinate in that
+degree which Pope has taught us to think connected with inveterate
+error:
+
+    "Stiff in opinion, always in the wrong,"
+
+unhappily presents an association too often actually occurring in
+nature, to leave much chance for error in presuming either quality
+from the other. And, in fact, Goethe's father was so uniformly
+obstinate in pressing his own views upon all who belonged to him,
+whenever he did come forward in an attitude of activity, that his
+family had much reason to be thankful for the rarity of such
+displays. Fortunately for them, his indolence neutralized his
+obstinacy. And the worst shape in which his troublesome temper
+showed itself, was in what concerned the religious reading of the
+family. Once begun, the worst book as well as the best, the longest
+no less than the shortest, was to be steadfastly read through to
+the last word of the last volume; no excess of yawning availed to
+obtain a reprieve, not, adds his son, though he were himself the
+leader of the yawners. As an illustration, he mentions Bowyer's
+_History of the Popes_; which awful series of records, the
+catacombs, as it were, in the palace of history, were actually
+traversed from one end to the other of the endless suite by the
+unfortunate house of Goethe. Allowing, however, for the father's
+unamiableness in this one point, upon all intellectual ground both
+parents seem to have met very much upon a level. Two illustrations
+may suffice, one of which occurred during the infancy of Goethe.
+The science of education was at that time making its first rude
+motions towards an ampler development; and, amongst other reforms
+then floating in the general mind, was one for eradicating the
+childish fear of ghosts, &c. The young Goethes, as it happened,
+slept not in separate beds only, but in separate rooms; and not
+unfrequently the poor children, under the stinging terrors of their
+lonely situation, stole away from their "forms," to speak in the
+hunter's phrase, and sought to rejoin each other. But in these
+attempts they were liable to surprises from the enemy; papa and
+mamma were both on the alert, and often intercepted the young
+deserter by a cross march or an ambuscade; in which cases each had
+a separate policy for enforcing obedience. The father, upon his
+general system of "perseverance," compelled the fugitive back to
+his quarters, and, in effect, exhorted him to persist in being
+frightened out of his wits. To his wife's gentle heart that course
+appeared cruel, and she reclaimed the delinquent by bribes; the
+peaches which her garden walls produced being the fund from which
+she chiefly drew her supplies for this branch of the secret
+service. What were her winter bribes, when the long nights would
+seem to lie heaviest on the exchequer, is not said. Speaking
+seriously, no man of sense can suppose that a course of suffering
+from terrors the most awful, under whatever influence supported,
+whether under the naked force of compulsion, or of _that_
+connected with bribes, could have any final effect in mitigating
+the passion of awe, connected, by our very dreams, with the shadowy
+and the invisible, or in tranquillizing the infantine imagination.
+
+A second illustration involves a great moral event in the history
+of Goethe, as it was, in fact, the first occasion of his receiving
+impressions at war with his religious creed. Piety is so beautiful
+an ornament of the youthful mind, doubt or distrust so unnatural a
+growth from confiding innocence, that an infant freethinker is
+heard of not so much with disgust as with perplexity. A sense of
+the ludicrous is apt to intermingle; and we lose our natural horror
+of the result in wonder at its origin. Yet in this instance there
+is no room for doubt; the fact and the occasion are both on record;
+there can be no question about the date; and, finally, the accuser
+is no other than the accused. Goethe's own pen it is which
+proclaims, that already, in the early part of his seventh year, his
+reliance upon God as a moral governor had suffered a violent shock,
+was shaken, if not undermined. On the 1st of November, 1755,
+occurred the great earthquake at Lisbon. Upon a double account,
+this event occupied the thoughts of all Europe for an unusual term
+of time; both as an expression upon a larger scale than usual of
+the mysterious physical agency concerned in earthquakes, and also
+for the awful human tragedy [Endnote: 5] Of this no picture can ever
+hope to rival that hasty one sketched in the letter of the chaplain
+to the Lisbon factory. The plague of Athens as painted by
+Thucydides or Lucretius, nay even the fabulous plague of London by
+De Foe, contain no scenes or situations equal in effect to some in
+this plain historic statement. Nay, it would perhaps be difficult
+to produce a passage from Ezekiel, from Aeschylus, or from
+Shakspeare, which would so profoundly startle the sense of
+sublimity as one or two of his incidents, which attended either
+the earthquake itself, or its immediate sequel in the sudden
+irruption of the Tagus. Sixty thousand persons, victims to the dark
+power in its first or its second _avatar_, attested the
+Titanic scale upon which it worked. Here it was that the shallow
+piety of the Germans found a stumbling-block. Those who have read
+any circumstantial history of the physical signs which preceded
+this earthquake, are aware that in England and Northern Germany
+many singular phenomena were observed, more or less manifestly
+connected with the same dark agency which terminated at Lisbon, and
+running before this final catastrophe at times so accurately
+varying with the distances, as to furnish something like a scale
+for measuring the velocity with which it moved. These German
+phenomena, circulated rapidly over all Germany by the journals of
+every class, had seemed to give to the Germans a nearer and more
+domestic interest in the great event, than belonged to them merely
+in their universal character of humanity. It is also well known to
+observers of national characteristics, that amongst the Germans the
+household charities, the _pieties of the hearth_, as they may
+be called, exist, if not really in greater strength, yet with much
+less of the usual balances or restraints. A German father, for
+example, is like the grandfather of other nations; and thus a
+piety, which in its own nature scarcely seems liable to excess,
+takes, in its external aspect, too often an air of effeminate
+imbecility. These two considerations are necessary to explain the
+intensity with which this Lisbon tragedy laid hold of the German
+mind, and chiefly under the one single aspect of its
+_undistinguishing_ fury. Women, children, old men--these,
+doubtless, had been largely involved in the perishing sixty
+thousand; and that reflection, it would seem from Goethe's account,
+had so far embittered the sympathy of the Germans with their
+distant Portuguese brethren, that, in the Frankfort discussions,
+sullen murmurs had gradually ripened into bold impeachments of
+Providence. There can be no gloomier form of infidelity than that
+which questions the moral attributes of the Great Being, in whose
+hands are the final destinies of us all. Such, however, was the
+form of Goethe's earliest scepticism, such its origin; caught up
+from the very echoes which rang through the streets of Frankfort
+when the subject occupied all men's minds. And such, for anything
+that appears, continued to be its form thenceforwards to the close
+of his life, if speculations so crude could be said to have any
+form at all. Many are the analogies, some close ones, between
+England and Germany with regard to the circle of changes they have
+run through, political or social, for a century back. The
+challenges are frequent to a comparison; and sometimes the result
+would be to the advantage of Germany, more often to ours. But in
+religious philosophy, which in reality is the true _popular_
+philosophy, how vast is the superiority on the side of this
+country. Not a shopkeeper or mechanic, we may venture to say, but
+would have felt this obvious truth, that surely the Lisbon
+earthquake yielded no fresh lesson, no peculiar moral, beyond what
+belonged to every man's experience in every age. A passage in the
+New Testament about the fall of the tower of Siloam, and the just
+construction of that event, had already anticipated the difficulty,
+if such it could be thought. Not to mention, that calamities upon
+the same scale in the earliest age of Christianity, the fall of the
+amphitheatre at Fidenae, or the destruction of Pompeii, had
+presented the same problem at the Lisbon earthquake. Nay, it is
+presented daily in the humblest individual case, where wrong is
+triumphant over right, or innocence confounded with guilt in one
+common disaster. And that the parents of Goethe should have
+authorized his error, if only by their silence, argues a degree of
+ignorance in them, which could not have co-existed with much
+superior knowledge in the public mind.
+
+Goethe, in his Memoirs, (Book VI.,) commends his father for the
+zeal with which he superintended the education of his children. But
+apparently it was a zeal without knowledge. Many things were taught
+imperfectly, but all casually, and as chance suggested them.
+Italian was studied a little, because the elder Goethe had made an
+Italian tour, and had collected some Italian books, and engravings
+by Italian masters. Hebrew was studied a little, because Goethe the
+son had a fancy for it, partly with a view to theology, and partly
+because there was a Jewish quarter, gloomy and sequestrated, in the
+city of Frankfort. French offered itself no doubt on many
+suggestions, but originally on occasion of a French theatre,
+supported by the staff of the French army when quartered in the
+same city. Latin was gathered in a random way from a daily sense of
+its necessity. English upon the temptation of a stranger's
+advertisement, promising upon moderate terms to teach that language
+in four weeks; a proof, by the way, that the system of bold
+innovations in the art of tuition had already commenced. Riding and
+fencing were also attempted under masters apparently not very highly
+qualified, and in the same desultory style of application. Dancing
+was taught to his family, strange as it may seem, by Mr. Goethe
+himself. There is good reason to believe that not one of all these
+accomplishments was possessed by Goethe, when ready to visit the
+university, in a degree which made it practically of any use to
+him. Drawing and music were pursued confessedly as amusements; and
+it would be difficult to mention any attainment whatsoever which
+Goethe had carried to a point of excellence in the years which he
+spent under his father's care, unless it were his mastery over the
+common artifices of metre and the common topics of rhetoric, which
+fitted him for writing what are called occasional poems and
+_impromptus_. This talent he possessed in a remarkable degree,
+and at an early age; but he owed its cultivation entirely to
+himself.
+
+In a city so orderly as Frankfort, and in a station privileged from
+all the common hardships of poverty, it can hardly be expected that
+many incidents should arise, of much separate importance in
+themselves, to break the monotony of life; and the mind of Goethe
+was not contemplative enough to create a value for common
+occurrences through any peculiar impressions which he had derived
+from them. In the years 1763 and 1764, when he must have been from
+fourteen to fifteen years old, Goethe witnessed the inauguration
+and coronation of a king of the Romans, a solemn spectacle
+connected by prescription with the city of Frankfort. He describes
+it circumstantially, but with very little feeling, in his Memoirs.
+Probably the prevailing sentiment, on looking back at least to this
+transitory splendor of dress, processions, and ceremonial forms,
+was one of cynical contempt. But this he could not express, as a
+person closely connected with a German court, without giving much
+and various offence. It is with some timidity even that he hazards
+a criticism upon single parts of the costume adopted by some of the
+actors in that gorgeous scene. White silk stockings, and pumps of
+the common form, he objects to as out of harmony with the antique
+and heraldic aspects of the general costume, and ventures to
+suggest either boots or sandals as an improvement. Had Goethe felt
+himself at liberty from all restraints of private consideration in
+composing these Memoirs, can it be doubted that he would have taken
+his retrospect of this Frankfort inauguration from a different
+station; from the station of that stern revolution which, within
+his own time, and partly under his own eyes, had shattered the
+whole imperial system of thrones, in whose equipage this gay
+pageant made so principal a figure, had humbled Caesar himself to
+the dust, and left him an emperor without an empire? We at least,
+for our parts, could not read without some emotion one little
+incident of these gorgeous scenes recorded by Goethe, namely, that
+when the emperor, on rejoining his wife for a few moments, held up
+to her notice his own hands and arms arrayed in the antique
+habiliments of Charlemagne, Maria Theresa--she whose children where
+summoned to so sad a share in the coming changes--gave way to
+sudden bursts of loud laughter, audible to the whole populace below
+her. That laugh on surveying the departing pomps of Charlemagne,
+must, in any contemplative ear, have rung with a sound of deep
+significance, and with something of the same effect which belongs
+to a figure of death introduced by a painter, as mixing in the
+festal dances of a bridal assembly.
+
+These pageants of 1763-64 occupy a considerable space in Goethe's
+Memoirs, and with some _logical_ propriety at least, in
+consideration of their being exclusively attached to Frankfort, and
+connected by manifold links of person and office with the
+privileged character of the city. Perhaps he might feel a sort of
+narrow local patriotism in recalling these scenes to public notice
+by description, at a time when they had been irretrievably
+extinguished as realities. But, after making every allowance for
+their local value to a Frankfort family, and for their memorable
+splendor, we may venture to suppose that by far the most impressive
+remembrances which had gathered about the boyhood of Goethe, were
+those which pointed to Frederick of Prussia. This singular man, so
+imbecile as a pretender to philosophy and new lights, so truly
+heroic under misfortunes, was the first German who created a German
+interest, and gave a transient unity to the German name, under all
+its multiplied divisions. Were it only for this conquest of
+difficulties so peculiar, he would deserve his German designation
+of Fred. the Unique, (_Fritz der einzige_.) He had been
+partially tried and known previously; but it was the Seven Years'
+War which made him the popular idol. This began in 1756; and to
+Frankfort, in a very peculiar way, that war brought dissensions and
+heart-burnings in its train. The imperial connections of the city
+with many public and private interests, pledged it to the
+anti-Prussian cause. It happened also that the truly German
+character of the reigning imperial family, the domestic habits of
+the empress and her young daughters, and other circumstances, were
+of a nature to endear the ties of policy; self-interest and
+affection pointed in the same direction. And yet were all these
+considerations allowed to melt away before the brilliant qualities
+of one man, and the romantic enthusiasm kindled by his victories.
+Frankfort was divided within herself; the young and the generous
+were all dedicated to Frederick. A smaller party, more cautious and
+prudent, were for the imperialists. Families were divided upon this
+question against families, and often against themselves; feuds,
+begun in private, issued often into public violence; and, according
+to Goethe's own illustration, the streets were vexed by daily
+brawls, as hot and as personal as of old between the Capulets and
+Montagues.
+
+These dissensions, however, were pursued with not much personal
+risk to any of the Goethes, until a French army passed the Rhine as
+allies of the imperialists. One corps of this force took up their
+quarters in Frankfort; and the Comte Thorane, who held a high
+appointment on the staff, settled himself for a long period of time
+in the spacious mansion of Goethe's father. This officer, whom his
+place made responsible for the discipline of the army in relation
+to the citizens, was naturally by temper disposed to moderation and
+forbearance. He was indeed a favorable specimen of French military
+officers under the old system; well bred, not arrogant, well
+informed, and a friend of the fine arts. For painting, in
+particular, he professed great regard and some knowledge. The
+Goethes were able to forward his views amongst German artists;
+whilst, on the other hand, they were pleased to have thus an
+opportunity of directing his patronage towards some of their own
+needy connections. In this exchange of good offices, the two
+parties were for some time able to maintain a fair appearance of
+reciprocal good-will. This on the comte's side, if not particularly
+warm, was probably sincere; but in Goethe the father it was a
+masque for inveterate dislike. A natural ground of this existed in
+the original relations between them. Under whatever disguise or
+pretext, the Frenchman was in fact a military intruder. He occupied
+the best suite of rooms in the house, used the furniture as his
+own; and, though upon private motives he abstained from doing all
+the injury which his situation authorized, (so as in particular to
+have spread his fine military maps upon the floor, rather than
+disfigure the decorated walls by nails,) still he claimed credit,
+if not services of requital, for all such instances of forbearance.
+Here were grievances enough; but, in addition to these, the comte's
+official appointments drew upon him a weight of daily business,
+which kept the house in a continual uproar. Farewell to the quiet
+of a literary amateur, and the orderliness of a German household.
+Finally, the comte was a Frenchman. These were too many assaults
+upon one man's patience. It Will be readily understood, therefore,
+how it happened, that, whilst Goethe's gentle minded mother, with
+her flock of children, continued to be on the best terms with Comte
+Thorane, the master of the house kept moodily aloof, and retreated
+from all intercourse.
+
+Goethe, in his own Memoir, enters into large details upon this
+subject; and from him we shall borrow the _denouement_ of the
+tale. A crisis had for some time been lowering over the French
+affairs in Frankfort; things seemed ripening for a battle; and at
+last it came. Flight, siege, bombardment, possibly a storm, all
+danced before the eyes of the terrified citizens. Fortunately,
+however, the battle took place at the distance of four or five
+miles from Frankfort. Monsieur le Comte was absent, of course, on
+the field of battle. His unwilling host thought that on such an
+occasion he also might go out in quality of spectator; and with
+this purpose he connected another, worthy of a Parson Adams. It is
+his son who tells the story, whose filial duty was not proof
+against his sense of the ludicrous. The old gentleman's hatred of
+the French had by this time brought him over to his son's
+admiration of the Prussian hero. Not doubting for an instant that
+victory would follow that standard, he resolved on this day to
+offer in person his congratulations to the Prussian army, whom he
+already viewed as his liberator from a domestic nuisance. So
+purposing, he made his way cautiously to the suburbs; from the
+suburbs, still listening at each advance, he went forward to the
+country; totally forgetting, as his son insists, that, however
+completely beaten, the French army must still occupy some situation
+or other between himself and his German deliverer. Coming, however,
+at length to a heath, he found some of those marauders usually to
+be met with in the rear of armies, prowling about, and at intervals
+amusing themselves with shooting at a mark. For want of a better,
+it seemed not improbable that a large German head might answer
+their purpose. Certain signs admonished him of this, and the old
+gentleman crept back to Frankfort. Not many hours after came back
+also the comte, by no means creeping, however; on the contrary,
+crowing with all his might for a victory which he averred himself
+to have won. There had in fact been an affair, but on no very great
+scale, and with no distinguished results. Some prisoners, however,
+he brought, together with some wounded; and naturally he expected
+all well disposed persons to make their compliments of
+congratulation upon this triumph. Of this duty poor Mrs. Goethe and
+her children cheerfully acquitted themselves that same night; and
+Monsieur le Comte was so well pleased with the sound opinions of
+the little Goethes, that he sent them in return a collection of
+sweetmeats and fruits. All promised to go well; intentions, after
+all, are not acts; and there certainly is not, nor ever was, any
+treason in taking a morning's walk. But, as ill luck would have it,
+just as Mr. Goethe was passing the comte's door, out came the comte
+in person, purely by accident, as we are told; but we suspect that
+the surly old German, either under his morning hopes or his evening
+disappointments, had talked with more frankness than prudence.
+"Good evening to you, Herr Goethe," said the comte; "you are come,
+I see, to pay your tribute of congratulation. Somewhat of the
+latest, to be sure; but no matter." "By no means," replied the
+German;" by no means; _mit nichten_. Heartily I wished, the
+whole day long, that you and your cursed gang might all go to the
+devil together. "Here was plain speaking, at least. The Comte
+Thorane could no longer complain of dissimulation. His first
+movement was to order an arrest; and the official interpreter of
+the French army took to himself the whole credit that he did not
+carry it into effect. Goethe takes the trouble to report a
+dialogue, of length and dulness absolutely incredible, between this
+interpreter and the comte. No such dialogue, we may be assured,
+ever took place. Goethe may, however, be right in supposing that,
+amongst a foreign soldiery, irritated by the pointed contrasts
+between the Frankfort treatment of their own wounded, and of their
+prisoners who happened to be in the same circumstances, and under a
+military council not held to any rigorous responsibility, his
+father might have found no very favorable consideration of his
+case. It is well, therefore, that after some struggle the comte's
+better nature triumphed. He suffered Mrs. Goethe's merits to
+outweigh her husband's delinquency; countermanded the order for
+arrest, and, during the remainder of their connection, kept at such
+a distance from his moody host as was equally desirable for both.
+Fortunately that remainder was not very long. Comte Thorane was
+soon displaced; and the whole army was soon afterwards withdrawn
+from Frankfort.
+
+In his fifteenth year Goethe was entangled in some connection with
+young people of inferior rank, amongst whom was Margaret, a young
+girl about two years older than himself, and the object of his
+first love. The whole affair, as told by Goethe, is somewhat
+mysterious. What might be the final views of the elder parties it
+is difficult to say; but Goethe assures us that they used his
+services only in writing an occasional epithalamium, the pecuniary
+acknowledgment for which was spent jovially in a general banquet.
+The magistrates, however, interfered, and endeavored to extort a
+confession from Goethe. He, as the son of a respectable family, was
+to be pardoned; the others to be punished. No confession, however,
+could be extorted; and for his own part he declares that, beyond
+the offence of forming a clandestine connection, he had nothing to
+confess. The affair terminated, as regarded himself, in a severe
+illness. Of the others we hear no more.
+
+The next event of importance in Goethe's life was his removal to
+college. His own wishes pointed to Goettingen, but his father
+preferred Leipsic. Thither accordingly he went, but he carried his
+obedience no farther. Declining the study of jurisprudence, he
+attached himself to general literature. Subsequently he removed to
+the university of Strasburg; but in neither place could it be said
+that he pursued any regular course of study. His health suffered at
+times during this period of his life; at first from an affection of
+the chest, caused by an accident on his first journey to Leipsic;
+the carriage had stuck fast in the muddy roads, and Goethe exerted
+himself too much in assisting to extricate the wheels. A second
+illness connected with the digestive organs brought him into
+considerable danger.
+
+After his return to Frankfort, Goethe commenced his career as an
+author. In 1773, and the following year, he made his maiden essay
+in _Goetz of Berlichingen_, a drama, (the translation of
+which, remarkably enough, was destined to be the literary _coup
+d'essai_ of Sir Walter Scott,) and in the far-famed
+_Werther_. The first of these was pirated; and in consequence
+the author found some difficulty in paying for the paper of the
+genuine edition, which part of the expense, by his contract with
+the publisher, fell upon himself. The general and early popularity
+of the second work is well known. Yet, except in so far as it might
+spread his name abroad, it cannot be supposed to have had much
+influence in attracting that potent patronage which now began to
+determine the course of his future life. So much we collect from
+the account which Goethe himself has left us of this affair in its
+earliest stages.
+
+"I was sitting alone in my room," says he, "at my father's house in
+Frankfort, when a gentleman entered, whom at first I took for
+Frederick Jacobi, but soon discovered by the dubious light to be a
+stranger. He had a military air; and announcing himself by the name
+of Von Knebel, gave me to understand in a short explanation, that
+being in the Prussian service, he had connected himself, during a
+long residence at Berlin and Potsdam, with the literati of those
+places; but that at present he held the appointment from the court
+of Weimar of travelling tutor to the Prince Constantine. This I
+heard with pleasure; for many of our friends had brought us the
+most interesting accounts from Weimar, in particular that the
+Duchess Amelia, mother of the young grand duke and his brother,
+summoned to her assistance in educating her sons the most
+distinguished men in Germany; and that the university of Jena
+cooperated powerfully in all her liberal plans. I was aware also
+that Wieland was in high favor; and that the German Mercury (a
+literary journal of eminence) was itself highly creditable to the
+city of Jena, from which it issued. A beautiful and well-conducted
+theatre had besides, as I knew, been lately established at Weimar.
+This, it was true, had been destroyed; but that event, under common
+circumstances so likely to be fatal as respected the present, had
+served only to call forth the general expression of confidence in
+the young prince as a restorer and upholder of all great interests,
+and true to his purposes under any calamity." Thinking thus, and
+thus prepossessed in favor of Weimar, it was natural that Goethe
+should be eager to see the prince. Nothing was easier. It happened
+that he and his brother Constantine were at this moment in
+Frankfort, and Von Knebel willingly offered to present Goethe. No
+sooner said than done; they repaired to the hotel, where they found
+the illustrious travellers, with Count Goertz, the tutor of the
+elder.
+
+Upon this occasion an accident, rather than any previous reputation
+of Goethe, was probably the determining occasion which led to his
+favor with the future sovereign of Weimar. A new book lay upon the
+table; that none of the strangers had read it, Goethe inferred from
+observing that the leaves were as yet uncut. It was a work of
+Moser, (_Patriotische Phantasien_;) and, being political
+rather than literary in its topics, it presented to Goethe,
+previously acquainted with its outline, an opportunity for
+conversing with the prince upon subjects nearest to his heart, and
+of showing that he was not himself a mere studious recluse. The
+opportunity was not lost; the prince and his tutor were much
+interested, and perhaps a little surprised. Such subjects have the
+further advantage, according to Goethe's own illustration, that,
+like the Arabian thousand and one nights, as conducted by Sultana
+Scheherezade, "never ending, still beginning," they rarely come to
+any absolute close, but so interweave one into another, as still to
+leave behind a large arrear of interest In order to pursue the
+conversation, Goethe was invited to meet them soon after at Mentz.
+He kept the appointment punctually; made himself even more
+agreeable; and finally received a formal invitation to enter the
+service of this excellent prince, who was now beginning to collect
+around him all those persons who have since made Weimar so
+distinguished a name in connection with the German literature. With
+some opposition from his father, who held up the rupture between
+Voltaire and Frederick of Prussia as a precedent applying to all
+possible connections of princes and literati, Goethe accepted the
+invitation; and hence forwards, for upwards of fifty-five years, his
+fortunes were bound up with those of the ducal house of Weimar.
+
+The noble part which that house played in the great modern drama of
+German politics is well known, and would have been better known had
+its power been greater. But the moral value of its sacrifices and
+its risks is not the less. Had greater potentates shown equal
+firmness, Germany would not have been laid at the feet of Napoleon.
+In 1806 the grand duke was aware of the peril which awaited the
+allies of Prussia; but neither his heart nor his conscience would
+allow of his deserting a friend in whose army he held a principal
+command. The decisive battle took place in his own territory, and
+not far from his own palace and city of Weimar. Personally he was
+with the Prussian army; but his excellent consort stayed in the
+palace to encourage her subjects, and as far as possible to
+conciliate the enemy by her presence. The fortune of that great
+day, the 14th of October, 1806, was decided early; and the awful
+event was announced by a hot retreat and a murderous pursuit
+through the streets of the town. In the evening Napoleon arrived in
+person; and now came the trying moment. "The duchess," says an
+Englishman well acquainted with Weimar and its court, "placed
+herself on the top of the staircase to greet him with the formality
+of a courtly reception. Napoleon started when he beheld her, _Qui
+etes vous_? he exclaimed with characteristic abruptness. _Je
+suis la Duchesse de Weimar. Je vous plains_, he retorted
+fiercely, J'ecraserai votre mari; he then added, 'I shall dine in
+my apartment,' and rushed by her. The night was spent on the part
+of the soldiery in all the horrid excesses of rapine. In the
+morning the duchess sent to inquire concerning the health of his
+majesty the emperor, and to solicit an audience. He, who had now
+benefited by his dreams, or by his reflections, returned a gracious
+answer, and invited himself to breakfast with her in her
+apartment." In the conversation which ensued, Napoleon asked her if
+her husband were mad, upon which she justified the duke by
+appealing to his own magnanimity, asking in her turn if his majesty
+would have approved of his deserting the king of Prussia at the
+moment when he was attacked by so potent a monarch as himself. The
+rest of the conversation was in the same spirit, uniting with a
+sufficient concession to the circumstances of the moment a
+dignified vindication of a high-minded policy. Napoleon was deeply
+impressed with respect for her, and loudly expressed it. For her
+sake, indeed, he even affected to pardon her husband, thus making a
+merit with her of the necessity which he felt, from other motives,
+for showing forbearance towards a family so nearly allied to that
+of St. Petersburg. In 1813 the grand duke was found at his post in
+that great gathering of the nations which took place on the
+stupendous fields of Leipsic, and was complimented by the allied
+sovereigns as one of the most faithful amongst the faithful to the
+great cause, yet undecided, of national independence.
+
+With respect to Goethe, as a councillor so near the duke's person,
+it may be supposed that his presence was never wanting where it
+promised to be useful. In the earlier campaigns of the duke, Goethe
+was his companion; but in the final contest with Napoleon be was
+unequal to the fatigues of such a post. In all the functions of
+peace, however, he continued to be a useful servant to the last,
+though long released from all official duties. Each had indeed most
+honorably earned the gratitude of the other. Goethe had surrendered
+the flower of his years and the best energies of his mind to the
+service of his serene master. On the other hand, that master had to
+him been at once his Augustus and his Maecenas; such is his own
+expression. Under him he had founded a family, raised an estate,
+obtained titles and decorations from various courts; and in the
+very vigor of his life he had been allowed to retire, with all the
+honors of long service, to the sanctuary of his own study, and to
+the cultivation of his leisure, as the very highest mode in which
+he could further the public interest.
+
+The life of Goethe was so quiet and so uniform after the year 1775,
+when he may first be said to have entered into active life, by
+taking service with the Duke of Weimar, that a biographer will
+find hardly any event to notice, except two journeys to Italy, and
+one campaign in 1792, until he draws near the close of his long
+career. It cannot interest an English reader to see the dates of
+his successive appointments. It is enough to know that they soon
+raised him to as high a station as was consistent with literary
+leisure; and that he had from the beginning enjoyed the unlimited
+confidence of his sovereign. Nothing remained, in fact, for the
+subject to desire which the prince had not previously volunteered.
+In 1825, they were able to look back upon a course of uninterrupted
+friendship, maintained through good and evil fortunes, unexampled
+in their agitation and interest for fifty years. The duke
+commemorated this remarkable event by a jubilee, and by a medal in
+honor of Goethe. Full of years and honor, this eminent man might
+now begin to think of his departure. However, his serenity
+continued unbroken nearly for two years more, when his illustrious
+patron died. That shock was the first which put his fortitude to
+trial. In 1830 others followed; the duchess, who had won so much
+admiration from Napoleon, died; then followed his own son; and
+there remained little now to connect his wishes with the earth. The
+family of his patron he had lived to see flourishing in his
+descendants to the fourth generation. His own grandchildren were
+prosperous and happy. His intellectual labors were now
+accomplished. All that remained to wish for was a gentle
+dismission. This he found in the spring of 1832. After a six days'
+illness, which caused him no apparent suffering, on the morning of
+the 22d of March he breathed away as if into a gentle sleep,
+surrounded by his daughter-in-law and her children. Never was a
+death more in harmony with the life it closed; both had the same
+character of deep and absolute serenity.
+
+Such is the outline of Goethe's life, traced through its principal
+events. But as these events, after all, borrow their interest
+mainly from the consideration allowed to Goethe as an author, and
+as a model in the German literature,--_that_ being the centre
+about which all secondary feelings of interest in the man must
+finally revolve,--it thus becomes a duty to throw a glance over his
+principal works. Dismissing his songs, to which has been ascribed
+by some critics a very high value for their variety and their
+lyrical enthusiasm; dismissing also a large body of short
+miscellaneous poems, suited to the occasional circumstances in
+which they arose; we may throw the capital works of Goethe into two
+classes, philosophic novels, and dramas. The novels, which we call
+_philosophic_ by way of expressing their main characteristic
+in being written to serve a preconceived purpose, or to embody some
+peculiar views of life, or some aspects of philosophic truth, are
+three, viz., the _Werther's Leiden_; secondly, the _Wilhelm
+Meister_; and, lastly, the _Wahloer-wand-schaften_. The
+first two exist in English translations; and though the
+_Werther_ had the disadvantage of coming to us through a
+French version, already, perhaps, somewhat colored and distorted to
+meet the Parisian standards of sentiment, yet, as respects Goethe
+and his reputation amongst us, this wrong has been redressed, or
+compensated at least, by the good fortune of his _Wilhelm
+Meister_, in falling into the hands of a translator whose
+original genius qualified him for sympathizing even to excess with
+any real merits in that work. This novel is in its own nature and
+purpose sufficiently obscure; and the commentaries which have been
+written upon it by the Hurnboldts, Schlegels, &c., make the enigma
+still more enigmatical. We shall not venture abroad upon an ocean
+of discussion so truly dark, and at the same time so illimitable.
+Whether it be qualified to excite any deep and _sincere_
+feeling of one kind or another in the German mind,--in a mind
+trained under German discipline,--this we will consent to waive as
+a question not immediately interesting to ourselves. Enough that it
+has not gained, and will not gain, any attention in this country;
+and this not only because it is thoroughly deficient in all points
+of attraction to readers formed upon our English literature, but
+because in some capital circumstances it is absolutely repulsive.
+We do not wish to offend the admirers of Goethe; but the simplicity
+of truth will not allow us to conceal, that in various points of
+description or illustration, and sometimes in the very outline of
+the story, the _Wilhelm Meister_ is at open war, not with
+decorum and good taste merely, but with moral purity and the
+dignity of human nature. As a novelist, Goethe and his reputation
+are problems, and likely to continue such, to the countrymen of
+Mrs. Inchbald, Miss Harriet Lee, Miss Edgeworth, and Sir Walter
+Scott. To the dramatic works of Goethe we are disposed to pay more
+homage; but neither in the absolute amount of our homage at all
+professing to approach his public admirers, nor to distribute the
+proportions of this homage amongst his several performances
+according to the graduations of _their_ scale. The
+_Iphigenie_ is built upon the old subject of Iphigenia in
+Tauris, as treated by Euripides and other Grecian dramatists; and,
+if we are to believe a Schlegel, it is in beauty and effect a mere
+echo or reverberation from the finest strains of the old Grecian
+music. That it is somewhat nearer to the Greek model than a play
+after the fashion of Racine, we grant. Setting aside such faithful
+transcripts from the antique as the Samson Agonistes, we might
+consent to view Goethe as that one amongst the moderns who had made
+the closest approximation to the Greek stage. _Proximus_, we
+might say, with Quintilian, but with him we must add," _sed lango
+intervallo_; "and if in the second rank, yet nearer to the third
+than to the first. Two other dramas, the _Clavigo_ and the
+_Egmont_, fall below the _Iphigenie_ by the very
+character of their pretensions; the first as too openly renouncing
+the grandeurs of the ideal; the second as confessedly violating the
+historic truth of character, without temptation to do so, and
+without any consequent indemnification. The _Tasso_ has been
+supposed to realize an Italian beauty of genial warmth and of sunny
+repose; but from the common defect of German criticism--the absence
+of all sufficient illustrations--it is as difficult to understand
+the true nature and constituents of the supposed Italian standard
+set up for the regulation of our judgments, as it is to measure the
+degree of approach made to that standard in this particular work.
+_Eugenie_ is celebrated for the artificial burnish of the
+style, but otherwise has been little relished. It has the beauty of
+marble sculpture, say the critics of Goethe, but also the coldness.
+We are not often disposed to quarrel with these critics as
+_below_ the truth in their praises; in this instance we are.
+The _Eugenie_ is a fragment, or (as Goethe himself called it
+in conversation) a _torso_, being only the first drama in a
+trilogy or series of three dramas, each having a separate plot,
+whilst all are parts of a more general and comprehensive plan. It
+may be charged with languor in the movement of the action, and with
+excess of illustration. Thus, _e. g_. the grief of the prince
+for the supposed death of his daughter, is the monotonous topic
+which occupies one entire act. But the situations, though not those
+of _scenical_ distress, are so far from being unexciting,
+that, on the contrary, they are too powerfully afflicting.
+
+The lustre of all these performances, however, is eclipsed by the
+unrivalled celebrity amongst German critics of the _Faust_.
+Upon this it is better to say nothing than too little. How trifling
+an advance has been made towards clearing the ground for any sane
+criticism, may be understood from this fact, that as yet no two
+people have agreed about the meaning of any separate scene, or
+about the drift of the whole. Neither is this explained by saying,
+that until lately the _Faust_ was a fragment; for no
+additional light has dawned upon the main question since the
+publication of the latter part.
+
+One work there is of Goethe's which falls into neither of the
+classes here noticed; we mean the _Hermann and Dorothea_, a
+narrative poem, in hexameter verse. This appears to have given more
+pleasure to readers not critical, than any other work of its
+author; and it is remarkable that it traverses humbler ground, as
+respects both its subject, its characters, and its scenery. From
+this, and other indications of the same kind, we are disposed to
+infer that Goethe mistook his destination; that his aspiring nature
+misled him; and that his success would have been greater had he
+confined himself to the _real_ in domestic life, without
+raising his eyes to the _ideal_.
+
+We must also mention, that Goethe threw out some novel speculations
+in physical science, and particularly in physiology, in the
+doctrine of colors, and in comparative anatomy, which have divided
+the opinions of critics even more than any of those questions which
+have arisen upon points more directly connected with his avowed
+character of poet.
+
+It now remains to say a few words by way of summing up his
+pretensions as a man, and his intellectual power in the age to
+which he belonged. His rank and value as a moral being are so plain
+as to be legible to him who runs. Everybody must feel that his
+temperament and constitutional tendency was of that happy quality,
+the animal so nicely balanced with the intellectual, that with any
+ordinary measure of prosperity he could not be otherwise than a
+good man. He speaks himself of his own "virtue," _sans
+phrase_; and we tax him with no vanity in doing so. As a young
+man even at the universities, which at that time were barbarously
+sensual in Germany, he was (for so much we collect from his own
+Memoirs) eminently capable of self-restraint. He preserves a tone
+of gravity, of sincerity, of respect for female dignity, which we
+never find associated with the levity and recklessness of vice. We
+feel throughout, the presence of one who, in respecting others,
+respects himself; and the cheerfulness of the presiding tone
+persuades us at once that the narrator is in a healthy moral
+condition, fears no ill, and is conscious of having meditated none.
+Yet at the same time we cannot disguise from ourselves, that the
+moral temperament of Goethe was one which demanded prosperity. Had
+he been called to face great afflictions, singular temptations, or
+a billowy and agitated course of life, our belief is that his
+nature would have been found unequal to the strife; he would have
+repeated the mixed and moody character of his father. Sunny
+prosperity was essential to his nature; his virtues were adapted to
+that condition. And happily that was his fate. He had no personal
+misfortunes; his path was joyous in this life; and even the reflex
+sorrow from the calamities of his friends did not press too heavily
+on his sympathies; none of these were in excess either as to degree
+or duration.
+
+In this estimate of Goethe as a moral being, few people will differ
+with us, unless it were the religious bigot. And to him we must
+concede thus much, that Goethe was not that religious creature
+which by nature he was intended to become. This is to be regretted.
+Goethe was naturally pious, and reverential towards higher natures;
+and it was in the mere levity or wantonness of youthful power,
+partly also through that early false bias growing out of the Lisbon
+earthquake, that he falsified his original destination. Do we mean,
+then, that a childish error could permanently master his
+understanding? Not so; _that_ would have been corrected with
+his growing strength. But having once arisen, it must for a long
+time have moulded his feelings; _until_ corrected, it must
+have impressed a corresponding false bias upon his practical way of
+viewing things; and that sort of false bias, once established,
+might long survive a mere error of the understanding. One thing is
+undeniable,--Goethe had so far corrupted and clouded his natural
+mind, that he did not look up to God, or the system of things
+beyond the grave, with the interest of reverence and awe, but with
+the interest of curiosity.
+
+Goethe, however, in a moral estimate, will be viewed pretty
+uniformly. But Goethe intellectually, Goethe as a power acting upon
+the age in which he lived, that is another question. Let us put a
+case; suppose that Goethe's death had occurred fifty years ago,
+that is, in the year 1785, what would have been the general
+impression? Would Europe have felt a shock? Would Europe have been
+sensible even of the event? Not at all; it would have been
+obscurely noticed in the newspapers of Germany, as the death of a
+novelist who had produced some effect about ten years before. In
+1832, it was announced by the post-horns of all Europe as the death
+of him who had written the _Wilhelm Meister_, the
+_Iphigenie_, and the _Faust_, and who had been enthroned
+by some of his admirers on the same seat with Homer and Shakspeare,
+as composing what they termed the _trinity of men of genius_.
+And yet it is a fact, that, in the opinion of some amongst the
+acknowledged leaders of our own literature for the last twenty-five
+years, the _Werther_ was superior to all which followed it,
+and for mere power was the paramount work of Goethe. For ourselves,
+we must acknowledge our assent upon the whole to this verdict; and
+at the same time we will avow our belief that the reputation of
+Goethe must decline for the next generation or two, until it
+reaches its just level. Three causes, we are persuaded, have
+concurred to push it so far beyond the proportion of real and
+genuine interest attached to his works, for in Germany his works
+are little read, and in this country not at all. _First_, his
+extraordinary age; for the last twenty years Goethe had been the
+patriarch of the German literature. _Secondly_, the splendor
+of his official rank at the court of Weimar; he was the minister
+and private friend of the patriot sovereign amongst the princes of
+Germany. _Thirdly_, the quantity of enigmatical and
+unintelligible writing which he has designedly thrown into his
+latter works, by way of keeping up a system of discussion and
+strife upon his own meaning amongst the critics of his country.
+These disputes, had his meaning been of any value in his own eyes,
+he would naturally have settled by a few authoritative words from
+himself; but it was his policy to keep alive the feud in a case
+where it was of importance, that his name should continue to
+agitate the world, but of none at all that he should be rightly
+interpreted.
+
+
+
+
+
+SCHILLER.
+
+
+
+John Christopher Frederick von Schiller, was born at Marbach, a
+small town in the duchy of Wurtemberg, on the 10th day of November,
+1759. It will aid the reader in synchronizing the periods of this
+great man's life with the corresponding events throughout
+Christendom, if we direct his attention to the fact, that
+Schiller's birth nearly coincided in point of time with that of
+Robert Burns, and that it preceded that of Napoleon by about ten
+years.
+
+The position of Schiller is remarkable. In the land of his birth,
+by those who undervalue him the most, he is ranked as the second
+name in German literature; everywhere else he is ranked as the
+first. For us, who are aliens to Germany, Schiller is the
+representative of the German intellect in its highest form; and to
+him, at all events, whether first or second, it is certainly due,
+that the German intellect has become a known power, and a power of
+growing magnitude, for the great commonwealth of Christendom.
+Luther and Kepler, potent intellects as they were, did not make
+themselves known as Germans. The revolutionary vigor of the one,
+the starry lustre of the other, blended with the convulsions of
+reformation, or with the aurora of ascending science, in too kindly
+and genial a tone to call off the attention from the work which
+they performed, from the service which they promoted, to the
+circumstances of their personal position. Their country, their
+birth, their abode, even their separate existence, was merged in
+the mighty cause to which they lent their cooperation. And thus at
+the beginning of the sixteenth century, thus at the beginning of
+the seventeenth, did the Titan sons of Germany defeat their own
+private pretensions by the very grandeur of their merits. Their
+interest as patriots was lost and confounded in their paramount
+interest as cosmopolites. What they did for man and for human
+dignity eclipsed what they had designed for Germany. After them
+there was a long interlunar period of darkness for the land of the
+Rhine and the Danube. The German energy, too spasmodically excited,
+suffered a collapse. Throughout the whole of the seventeenth
+century, but one vigorous mind arose for permanent effects in
+literature. This was Opitz, a poet who deserves even yet to be read
+with attention, but who is no more worthy to be classed as the
+Dryden, whom his too partial countrymen have styled him, than the
+Germany of the Thirty Years' War of taking rank by the side of
+civilized and cultured England during the Cromwellian era, or
+Klopstock of sitting on the same throne with Milton. Leibnitz was
+the one sole potentate in the fields of intellect whom the Germany
+of this country produced; and he, like Luther and Kepler, impresses
+us rather as a European than as a German mind, partly perhaps from
+his having pursued his self-development in foreign lands, partly
+from his large circle of foreign connections, but most of all from
+his having written chiefly in French or in Latin. Passing onwards
+to the eighteenth century, we find, through its earlier half, an
+absolute wilderness, unreclaimed and without promise of natural
+vegetation, as the barren arena on which the few insipid writers of
+Germany paraded. The torpor of academic dulness domineered over the
+length and breadth of the land. And as these academic bodies were
+universally found harnessed in the equipage of petty courts, it
+followed that the lethargies of pedantic dulness were uniformly
+deepened by the lethargies of aulic and ceremonial dulness; so
+that, if the reader represents to himself the very abstract of
+birthday odes, sycophantish dedications, and court sermons, he will
+have some adequate idea of the sterility and the mechanical
+formality which at that era spread the sleep of death over German
+literature. Literature, the very word literature, points the
+laughter of scorn to what passed under that name during the period
+of Gottsched. That such a man indeed as this Gottsched, equal at
+the best to the composition of a Latin grammar or a school
+arithmetic, should for a moment have presided over the German
+muses, stands out as in itself a brief and significant memorial,
+too certain for contradiction, and yet almost too gross for belief,
+of the apoplectic sleep under which the mind of central Europe at
+that era lay oppressed. The rust of disuse had corroded the very
+principles of activity.
+
+And, as if the double night of academic dulness, combined with the
+dulness of court inanities, had not been sufficient for the
+stifling of all native energies, the feebleness of French models
+(and of these moreover naturalized through still feebler
+imitations) had become the law and standard for all attempts at
+original composition. The darkness of night, it is usually said,
+grows deeper as it approaches the dawn; and the very enormity of
+that prostration under which the German intellect at this time
+groaned, was the most certain pledge to any observing eye of that
+intense reaction soon to stir and kindle among the smouldering
+activities of this spell-bound people. This re-action, however, was
+not abrupt and theatrical. It moved through slow stages and by
+equable gradations. It might be said to commence from the middle of
+the eighteenth century, that is, about nine years before the birth
+of Schiller; but a progress of forty years had not carried it so
+far towards its meridian altitude, as that the sympathetic shock
+from the French Revolution was by one fraction more rude and
+shattering than the public torpor still demanded. There is a
+memorable correspondency throughout all members of Protestant
+Christendom in whatsoever relates to literature and intellectual
+advance. However imperfect the organization which binds them
+together, it was sufficient even in these elder times to transmit
+reciprocally from one to every other, so much of that illumination
+which could be gathered into books, that no Christian state could
+be much in advance of another, supposing that Popery opposed no
+barriers to free communication, unless only in those points which
+depended upon local gifts of nature, upon the genius of a
+particular people, or upon the excellence of its institutions.
+These advantages were incommunicable, let the freedom of
+intercourse have been what it might. England could not send off by
+posts or by heralds her iron and coals; she could not send the
+indomitable energy of her population; she could not send the
+absolute security of property; she could not send the good faith of
+her parliaments. These were gifts indigenous to herself, either
+through the temperament of her people, or through the original
+endowments of her soil. But her condition of moral sentiment, her
+high-toned civic elevation, her atmosphere of political feeling and
+popular boldness; much of these she could and did transmit, by the
+radiation of the press, to the very extremities of the German
+empire. Not only were our books translated, but it is notorious to
+those acquainted with German novels, or other pictures of German
+society, that as early as the Seven Years' War, (1756-1763,) in
+fact, from the very era when Cave and Dr. Johnson first made the
+parliamentary debates accessible to the English themselves, most of
+the German journals repeated, and sent forward as by telegraph,
+these senatorial displays to every village throughout Germany. From
+the polar latitudes to the Mediterranean, from the mouths of the
+Rhine to the Euxine, there was no other exhibition of free
+deliberative eloquence in any popular assembly. And the
+_Luise_ of Voss alone, a metrical idyl not less valued for its
+truth of portraiture than our own Vicar of Wakefield, will show,
+that the most sequestered clergyman of a rural parish did not think
+his breakfast equipage complete without the latest report from the
+great senate that sat in London. Hence we need not be astonished
+that German and English literature were found by the French
+Revolution in pretty nearly the same condition of semi-vigilance
+and imperfect animation. That mighty event reached us both, reached
+us all, we may say, (speaking of Protestant states,) at the same
+moment, by the same tremendous galvanism. The snake, the
+intellectual snake, that lay in ambush among all nations, roused
+itself, sloughed itself, renewed its youth, in all of them at the
+same period. A new world opened upon us all; new revolutions of
+thought arose; new and nobler activities were born; "and other
+palms were won."
+
+But by and through Schiller it was, as its main organ, that this
+great revolutionary impulse expressed itself. Already, as we have
+said, not less than forty years before the earthquake by which
+France exploded and projected the scoria of her huge crater over
+all Christian lands, a stirring had commenced among the dry bones
+of intellectual Germany; and symptoms arose that the breath of life
+would soon disturb, by nobler agitations than by petty personal
+quarrels, the deathlike repose even of the German universities.
+Precisely in those bodies, however, it was, in those as connected
+with tyrannical governments, each academic body being shackled to
+its own petty centre of local despotism, that the old spells
+remained unlinked; and to them, equally remarkable as firm trustees
+of truth, and as obstinate depositories of darkness or of
+superannuated prejudice, we must ascribe the slowness of the German
+movement on the path of reascent. Meantime the earliest
+torch-bearer to the murky literature of this great land, this
+crystallization of political states, was Bodmer. This man had no
+demoniac genius, such as the service required; but he had some
+taste, and, what was better, he had some sensibility. He lived
+among the Alps; and his reading lay among the alpine sublimities of
+Milton and Shakspeare. Through his very eyes he imbibed a daily
+scorn of Gottsched and his monstrous compound of German coarseness
+with French sensual levity. He could not look at his native Alps,
+but he saw in them, and their austere grandeurs or their dread
+realities, a spiritual reproach to the hollowness and falsehood of
+that dull imposture which Gottsched offered by way of substitute
+for nature. He was taught by the Alps to crave for something nobler
+and deeper. Bodmer, though far below such a function, rose by favor
+of circumstances into an apostle or missionary of truth for
+Germany. He translated passages of English literature. He
+inoculated with his own sympathies the more fervent mind of the
+youthful Klopstock, who visited him in Switzerland. And it soon
+became evident that Germany was not dead, but sleeping; and once
+again, legibly for any eye, the pulses of life began to play freely
+through the vast organization of central Europe.
+
+Klopstock, however, though a fervid, a religious, and for that
+reason an anti-Gallican mind, was himself an abortion. Such at
+least is our own opinion of this poet. He was the child and
+creature of enthusiasm, but of enthusiasm not allied with a
+masculine intellect, or any organ for that capacious vision and
+meditative range which his subjects demanded. He vas essentially
+thoughtless, betrays everywhere a most effeminate quality of
+sensibility, and is the sport of that pseudo-enthusiasm and
+baseless rapture which we see so often allied with the excitement
+of strong liquors. In taste, or the sense of proportions and
+congruencies, or the harmonious adaptations, he is perhaps the most
+defective writer extant.
+
+But if no patriarch of German literature, in the sense of having
+shaped the moulds in which it was to flow, in the sense of having
+disciplined its taste or excited its rivalship by classical models
+of excellence, or raised a finished standard of style, perhaps we
+must concede that, on a minor scale, Klopstock did something of
+that service in every one of these departments. His works were at
+least Miltonic in their choice of subjects, if ludicrously
+non-Miltonic in their treatment of those subjects. And, whether due
+to him or not, it is undeniable that in his time the mother-tongue
+of Germany revived from the most absolute degradation on record, to
+its ancient purity. In the time of Gottsched, the authors of
+Germany wrote a macaronic jargon, in which French and Latin made up
+a considerable proportion of every sentence: nay, it happened often
+that foreign words were inflected with German forms; and the whole
+result was such as to remind the reader of the medical examination
+in the _Malade Imaginaire_ of Moliere,
+
+  "Quid poetea est a faire?
+  Saignare
+  Baignare
+  Ensuita purgare," &c.
+
+Now is it reasonable to ascribe some share in the restoration of
+good to Klopstock, both because his own writings exhibit nothing of
+this most abject euphuism, (a euphuism expressing itself not in
+fantastic refinements on the staple of the language, but altogether
+in rejecting it for foreign words and idioms,) and because he wrote
+expressly on the subject of style and composition?
+
+Wieland, meantime, if not enjoying so intense an acceptation as
+Klopstock, had a more extensive one; and it is in vain to deny him
+the praise of a festive, brilliant, and most versatile wit. The
+Schlegels showed the haughty malignity of their ungenerous natures,
+in depreciating Wieland, at a time when old age had laid a freezing
+hand upon the energy which he would once have put forth in
+defending himself. He was the Voltaire of Germany, and very much
+more than the Voltaire; for his romantic and legendary poems are
+above the level of Voltaire. But, on the other hand, he was a
+Voltaire in sensual impurity. To work, to carry on a plot, to
+affect his readers by voluptuous impressions,--these were the
+unworthy aims of Wieland; and though a good-natured critic would
+not refuse to make some allowance for a youthful poet's aberrations
+in this respect, yet the indulgence cannot extend itself to mature
+years. An old man corrupting his readers, attempting to corrupt
+them, or relying for his effect upon corruptions already effected,
+in the purity of their affections, is a hideous object; and that
+must be a precarious influence indeed which depends for its
+durability upon the licentiousness of men. Wieland, therefore,
+except in parts, will not last as a national idol; but such he was
+nevertheless for a time.
+
+Burger wrote too little of any expansive compass to give the
+measure of his powers, or to found national impression;
+Lichtenberg, though a very sagacious observer, never rose into what
+can be called a power, he did not modify his age; yet these were
+both men of extraordinary talent, and Burger a man of undoubted
+genius. On the other hand, Lessing was merely a man of talent, but
+of talent in the highest degree adapted to popularity. His very
+defects, and the shallowness of his philosophy, promoted his
+popularity; and by comparison with the French critics on the
+dramatic or scenical proprieties he is ever profound. His plummet,
+if not suited to the soundless depths of Shakspeare, was able ten
+times over to fathom the little rivulets of Parisian philosophy.
+This he did effectually, and thus unconsciously levelled the paths
+for Shakspeare, and for that supreme dominion which he has since
+held over the German stage, by crushing with his sarcastic
+shrewdness the pretensions of all who stood in the way. At that
+time, and even yet, the functions of a literary man were very
+important in Germany; the popular mind and the popular instinct
+pointed one way, those of the little courts another. Multitudes of
+little German states (many of which were absorbed since 1816 by the
+process of _mediatizing_) made it their ambition to play at
+keeping mimic armies in their pay, and to ape the greater military
+sovereigns, by encouraging French literature only, and the French
+language at their courts. It was this latter propensity which had
+generated the anomalous macaronic dialect, of which we have already
+spoken as a characteristic circumstance in the social features of
+literary Germany during the first half of the eighteenth century.
+Nowhere else, within the records of human follies, do we find a
+corresponding case, in which the government and the patrician
+orders in the state, taking for granted, and absolutely postulating
+the utter worthlessness for intellectual aims of those in and by
+whom they maintained their own grandeur and independence,
+undisguisedly and even professedly sought to ally themselves with a
+foreign literature, foreign literati, and a foreign language. In
+this unexampled display of scorn for native resources, and the
+consequent collision between the two principles of action, all
+depended upon the people themselves. For a time the wicked and most
+profligate contempt of the local governments for that native merit
+which it was their duty to evoke and to cherish, naturally enough
+produced its own justification. Like Jews or slaves, whom all the
+world have agreed to hold contemptible, the German literati found
+it hard to make head against so obstinate a prejudgment; and too
+often they became all that they were presumed to be. _Sint
+Maecenates, non deerunt, Flacce, Marones._ And the converse too
+often holds good--that when all who should have smiled scowl upon a
+man, he turns out the abject thing they have predicted. Where
+Frenchified Fredericks sit upon German thrones, it should not
+surprise us to see a crop of Gottscheds arise as the best fruitage
+of the land. But when there is any latent nobility in the popular
+mind, such scorn, by its very extremity, will call forth its own
+counteraction. It was perhaps good for Germany that a prince so
+eminent in one aspect as _Fritz der einziger,_[Footnote: _"
+Freddy the unique;"_ which is the name by which the Prussians
+expressed their admiration of the martial and indomitable, though
+somewhat fantastic, king.] should put on record so emphatically his
+intense conviction, that no good thing could arise out of Germany.
+This creed was expressed by the quality of the French minds which
+he attracted to his court. The very refuse and dregs of the
+Parisian coteries satisfied his hunger for French garbage; the very
+offal of their shambles met the demand of his palate; even a
+Maupertuis, so long as he could produce a French baptismal
+certificate, was good enough to manufacture into the president of a
+Berlin academy. Such scorn challenged a reaction: the contest lay
+between the thrones of Germany and the popular intellect, and the
+final result was inevitable. Once aware that they were insulted,
+once enlightened to the full consciousness of the scorn which
+trampled on them as intellectual and predestined Helots, even the
+mild-tempered Germans became fierce, and now began to aspire, not
+merely under the ordinary instincts of personal ambition, but with
+a vindictive feeling, and as conscious agents of retribution. It
+became a pleasure with the German author, that the very same works
+which elevated himself, wreaked his nation upon their princes, and
+poured retorted scorn upon their most ungenerous and unparental
+sovereigns. Already, in the reign of the martial Frederick, the men
+who put most weight of authority into his contempt of Germans,
+--Euler, the matchless Euler, Lambert, and Immanuel Kant,--had
+vindicated the preeminence of German mathematics. Already, in 1755,
+had the same Immanuel Kant, whilst yet a probationer for the chair
+of logic in a Prussian university, sketched the outline of that
+philosophy which has secured the admiration, though not the assent
+of all men known and proved to have understood it, of all men able
+to state its doctrines in terms admissible by its disciples.
+Already, and even previously, had Haller, who wrote in German,
+placed himself at the head of the current physiology. And in the
+fields of science or of philosophy, the victory was already decided
+for the German intellect in competition with the French.
+
+But the fields of literature were still comparatively barren.
+Klopstock was at least an anomaly; Lessing did not present himself
+in the impassioned walks of literature; Herder was viewed too much
+in the exclusive and professional light of a clergyman; and, with
+the exception of John Paul Bichter, a man of most original genius,
+but quite unfitted for general popularity, no commanding mind arose
+in Germany with powers for levying homage from foreign nations,
+until the appearance, as a great scenical poet, of Frederick
+Schiller.
+
+The father of this great poet was Caspar Schiller, an officer in
+the military service of the Duke of Wurtemberg. He had previously
+served as a surgeon in the Bavarian army; but on his final return
+to his native country of Wurtemberg, and to the service of his
+native prince, he laid aside his medical character for ever, and
+obtained a commission as ensign and adjutant. In 1763, the peace of
+Paris threw him out of his military employment, with the nominal
+rank of captain. But, having conciliated the duke's favor, he was
+still borne on the books of the ducal establishment; and, as a
+planner of ornamental gardens, or in some other civil capacity, he
+continued to serve his serene highness for the rest of his life.
+
+The parents of Schiller were both pious, upright persons, with that
+loyal fidelity to duty, and that humble simplicity of demeanor
+towards their superiors, which is so often found among the
+unpretending natives of Germany. It is probable, however, that
+Schiller owed to his mother exclusively the preternatural
+endowments of his intellect. She was of humble origin, the daughter
+of a baker, and not so fortunate as to have received much
+education. But she was apparently rich in gifts of the heart and
+the understanding. She read poetry with delight; and through the
+profound filial love with which she had inspired her son, she found
+it easy to communicate her own literary tastes. Her husband was not
+illiterate, and had in mature life so laudably applied himself to
+the improvement of his own defective knowledge, that at length he
+thought himself capable of appearing before the public as an
+author. His book related simply to the subjects of his professional
+experience as a horticulturist, and was entitled _Die Baumzurht
+im Grossen_(On the Management of Forests.) Some merit we must
+suppose it to have had, since the public called for a second
+edition of it long after his own death, and even after that of his
+illustrious son. And although he was a plain man, of no
+pretensions, and possibly even of slow faculties, he has left
+behind him a prayer, in which there is one petition of sublime and
+pathetic piety, worthy to be remembered by the side of Agar's wise
+prayer against the almost equal temptations of poverty and riches.
+At the birth of his son, he had been reflecting with sorrowful
+anxiety, not unmingled with self-reproach, on his own many
+disqualifications for conducting the education of the child.
+
+But at length, reading in his own manifold imperfections but so
+many reiterations of the necessity that he should rely upon God's
+bounty, converting his very defects into so many arguments of hope
+and confidence in heaven, he prayed thus: "Oh God, that knowest my
+poverty in good gifts for my son's inheritance, graciously permit
+that, even as the want of bread became to thy Son's hunger-stricken
+flock in the wilderness the pledge of overflowing abundance, so
+likewise my darkness may, in its sad extremity, carry with it the
+measure of thy unfathomable light; and because I, thy worm, cannot
+give to my son the least of blessings, do thou give the greatest;
+because in my hands there is not any thing, do thou from thine pour
+out all things; and that temple of a new-born spirit, which I
+cannot adorn even with earthly ornaments of dust and ashes, do thou
+irradiate with the celestial adornment of thy presence, and finally
+with that peace that passeth all understanding." Reared at the feet
+of parents so pious and affectionate, Schiller would doubtless pass
+a happy childhood; and probably to this utter tranquillity of his
+earlier years, to his seclusion from all that could create pain, or
+even anxiety, we must ascribe the unusual dearth of anecdotes from
+this period of his life; a dearth which has tempted some of his
+biographers into improving and embellishing some puerile stories,
+which a man of sense will inevitably reject as too trivial for his
+gravity or too fantastical for his faith. That nation is happy,
+according to a common adage, which furnishes little business to the
+historian; for such a vacuity in facts argues a condition of
+perfect peace and silent prosperity. That childhood is happy, or
+may generally be presumed such, which has furnished few records of
+external experience, little that has appeared in doing or in
+suffering to the eyes of companions; for the child who has been
+made happy by early thoughtfulness, and by infantine struggles with
+the great ideas of his origin and his destination, (ideas which
+settle with a deep, dove-like brooding upon the mind of childhood,
+more than of mature life, vexed with inroads from the noisy world,)
+will not manifest the workings of his spirit by much of external
+activity. The _fallentis semita vitae_, that path of noiseless
+life, which eludes and deceives the conscious notice both of its
+subject and of all around him, opens equally to the man and to the
+child; and the happiest of all childhoods will have been that of
+which the happiness has survived and expressed itself, not in
+distinct records, but in deep affection, in abiding love, and the
+hauntings of meditative power.
+
+Such a childhood, in the bosom of maternal tenderness, was probably
+passed by Schiller; and his first awaking to the world of strife
+and perplexity happened in his fourteenth year. Up to that period
+his life had been vagrant, agreeably to the shifting necessities of
+the ducal service, and his education desultory and domestic. But in
+the year 1773 he was solemnly entered as a member of a new
+academical institution, founded by the reigning duke, and recently
+translated to his little capital of Stuttgard. This change took
+place at the special request of the duke, who, under the mask of
+patronage, took upon himself the severe control of the whole simple
+family. The parents were probably both too humble and dutiful in
+spirit towards one whom they regarded in the double light of
+sovereign lord and of personal benefactor, ever to murmur at the
+ducal behests, far less to resist them. The duke was for them an
+earthly providence; and they resigned themselves, together with
+their child, to the disposal of him who dispensed their earthly
+blessings, not less meekly than of Him whose vicegerent they
+presumed him to be. In such a frame of mind, requests are but
+another name for commands; and thus it happened that a second
+change arose upon the first, even more determinately fatal to the
+young Schiller's happiness. Hitherto he had cherished a day-dream
+pointing to the pastoral office in some rural district, as that
+which would harmonize best with his intellectual purposes, with his
+love of quiet, and by means of its preparatory requirements, best
+also with his own peculiar choice of studies. But this scheme he
+now found himself compelled to sacrifice; and the two evils which
+fell upon him concurrently in his new situation were, first, the
+formal military discipline and monotonous routine of duty;
+secondly, the uncongenial direction of the studies, which were
+shaped entirely to the attainment of legal knowledge, and the
+narrow service of the local tribunals. So illiberal and so
+exclusive a system of education was revolting to the expansive mind
+of Schiller; and the military bondage under which this system was
+enforced, shocked the aspiring nobility of his moral nature, not
+less than the technical narrowness of the studies shocked his
+understanding. In point of expense the whole establishment cost
+nothing at all to those parents who were privileged servants of the
+duke: in this number were the parents of Schiller, and that single
+consideration weighed too powerfully upon his filial piety to allow
+of his openly murmuring at his lot; while on _their_ part the
+parents were equally shy of encouraging a disgust which too
+obviously tended to defeat the promises of ducal favor. This system
+of monotonous confinement was therefore carried to its completion,
+and the murmurs of the young Schiller were either dutifully
+suppressed, or found vent only in secret letters to a friend. In
+one point only Schiller was able to improve his condition; jointly
+with the juristic department, was another for training young
+aspirants to the medical profession. To this, as promising a more
+enlarged scheme of study, Schiller by permission transferred
+himself in 1775. But whatever relief he might find in the nature of
+his new studies, he found none at all in the system of personal
+discipline which prevailed.
+
+Under the oppression of this detested system, and by pure reaction
+against its wearing persecutions, we learn from Schiller himself,
+that in his nineteenth year he undertook the earliest of his
+surviving plays, the Robbers, beyond doubt the most tempestuous,
+the most volcanic, we might say, of all juvenile creations anywhere
+recorded. He himself calls it "a monster," and a monster it is; but
+a monster which has never failed to convulse the heart of young
+readers with the temperament of intellectual enthusiasm and
+sensibility. True it is, and nobody was more aware of that fact
+than Schiller himself in after years, the characters of the three
+Moors, father and sons, are mere impossibilities; and some readers,
+in whom the judicious acquaintance with human life in its realities
+has outrun the sensibilities, are so much shocked by these
+hypernatural phenomena, that they are incapable of enjoying the
+terrific sublimities which on that basis of the visionary do really
+exist. A poet, perhaps Schiller might have alleged, is entitled to
+assume hypothetically so much in the previous positions or
+circumstances of his agents as is requisite to the basis from which
+he starts. It is undeniable that Shakspeare and others have availed
+themselves of this principle, and with memorable success.
+Shakspeare, for instance, _postulates_ his witches, his
+Caliban, his Ariel: grant, he virtually says, such modes of
+spiritual existence or of spiritual relations as a possibility; do
+not expect me to demonstrate this, and upon that single concession
+I will rear a superstructure that shall be self-consistent; every
+thing shall be _internally_ coherent and reconciled, whatever
+be its _external_ relations as to our human experience. But
+this species of assumption, on the largest scale, is more within
+the limits of credibility and plausible verisimilitude when applied
+to modes of existence, which, after all, are in such total darkness
+to us, (the limits of the possible being so undefined and shadowy
+as to what can or cannot exist,) than the very slightest liberties
+taken with human character, or with those principles of action,
+motives, and feelings, upon which men would move under given
+circumstances, or with the modes of action which in common prudence
+they would be likely to adopt. The truth is, that, as a coherent
+work of art, the Robbers is indefensible; but, however monstrous it
+may be pronounced, it possesses a power to agitate and convulse,
+which will always obliterate its great faults to the young, and to
+all whose judgment is not too much developed. And the best apology
+for Schiller is found in his own words, in recording the
+circumstances and causes under which this anomalous production
+arose. "To escape," says he, "from the formalities of a discipline
+which was odious to my heart, I sought a retreat in the world of
+ideas and shadowy possibilities, while as yet I knew nothing at all
+of that human world from which I was harshly secluded by iron bars.
+Of men, the actual men in this world below, I knew absolutely
+nothing at the time when I composed my Robbers. Four hundred human
+beings, it is true, were my fellow-prisoners in this abode; but
+they were mere tautologies and reiterations of the self-same
+mechanic creature, and like so many plaster casts from the same
+original statue. Thus situated, of necessity I failed. In making
+the attempt, my chisel brought out a monster, of which [and that
+was fortunate] the world had no type or resemblance to show."
+
+Meantime this demoniac drama produced very opposite results to
+Schiller's reputation. Among the young men of Germany it was
+received with an enthusiasm absolutely unparalleled, though it is
+perfectly untrue that it excited some persons of rank and splendid
+expectations (as a current fable asserted) to imitate Charles Moor
+in becoming robbers. On the other hand, the play was of too
+powerful a cast not in any case to have alarmed his serenity the
+Duke of Wurtemberg; for it argued a most revolutionary mind, and
+the utmost audacity of self-will. But besides this general ground
+of censure, there arose a special one, in a quarter so remote, that
+this one fact may serve to evidence the extent as well as intensity
+of the impression made. The territory of the Grisons had been
+called by Spiegelberg, one of the robbers, "the Thief's Athens."
+Upon this the magistrates of that country presented a complaint to
+the duke; and his highness having cited Schiller to his presence,
+and severely reprimanded him, issued a decree that this dangerous
+young student should henceforth confine himself to his medical
+studies.
+
+The persecution which followed exhibits such extraordinary
+exertions of despotism, even for that land of irresponsible power,
+that we must presume the duke to have relied more upon the hold
+which he had upon Schiller through his affection for parents so
+absolutely dependent on his highness's power, than upon any laws,
+good or bad, which he could have pleaded as his warrant. Germany,
+however, thought otherwise of the new tragedy than the serene
+critic of Wurtemburg: it was performed with vast applause at the
+neighboring city of Mannheim; and thither, under a most excusable
+interest in his own play, the young poet clandestinely went. On his
+return he was placed under arrest. And soon afterwards, being now
+thoroughly disgusted, and, with some reason, alarmed by the tyranny
+of the duke, Schiller finally eloped to Mannheim, availing himself
+of the confusion created in Stuttgard by the visit of a foreign
+prince.
+
+At Mannheim he lived in the house of Dalberg, a man of some rank
+and of sounding titles, but in Mannheim known chiefly as the
+literary manager (or what is called director) of the theatre. This
+connection aided in determining the subsequent direction of
+Schiller's talents; and his Fiesco, his Intrigue and Love, his Don
+Carlos, and his Maria Stuart, followed within a short period of
+years. None of these are so far free from the faults of the Robbers
+as to merit a separate notice; for with less power, they are almost
+equally licentious.
+
+Finally, however, he brought out his Wallenstein, an immortal
+drama, and, beyond all competition, the nearest in point of
+excellence to the dramas of Shakspeare. The position of the
+characters of Max Piccolomini and the Princess Thekla is the finest
+instance of what, in a critical sense, is called _relief,_
+that literature offers. Young, innocent, unfortunate, among a camp
+of ambitious, guilty, and blood-stained men, they offer a depth and
+solemnity of impression which is equally required by way of
+contrast and of final repose.
+
+From Mannheim, where he had a transient love affair with Laura
+Dalberg, the daughter of his friend the director, Schiller removed
+to Jena, the celebrated university in the territory of Weimar. The
+grand duke of that German Florence was at this time gathering
+around him the most eminent of the German intellects; and he was
+eager to enroll Schiller in the body of his professors. In 1799
+Schiller received the chair of civil history; and not long after he
+married Miss Lengefeld, with whom he had been for some time
+acquainted. In 1803 he was ennobled; that is, he was raised to the
+rank of gentleman, and entitled to attach the prefix of _Von_
+to his name. His income was now sufficient for domestic comfort and
+respectable independence; while in the society of Goethe, Herder,
+and other eminent wits, he found even more relaxation for his
+intellect, than his intellect, so fervent and so self-sustained,
+could require.
+
+Meantime the health of Schiller was gradually undermined: his lungs
+had been long subject to attacks of disease; and the warning
+indications which constantly arose of some deep-seated organic
+injuries in his pulmonary system ought to have put him on his guard
+for some years before his death. Of all men, however, it is
+remarkable that Schiller was the most criminally negligent of his
+health; remarkable, we say, because for a period of four years
+Schiller had applied himself seriously to the study of medicine.
+The strong coffee, and the wine, which he drank, may not have been
+so injurious as his biographers suppose; but his habit of sitting
+up through the night, and defrauding his wasted frame of all
+natural and restorative sleep, had something in it of that guilt
+which belongs to suicide. On the 9th of May, 1805, his complaint
+reached its crisis. Early in the morning he became delirious; at
+noon his delirium abated; and at four in the afternoon he fell into
+a gentle unagitated sleep, from which he soon awoke. Conscious that
+he now stood on the very edge of the grave, he calmly and fervently
+took a last farewell of his friends. At six in the evening he fell
+again into sleep, from which, however, he again awoke once more to
+utter the memorable declaration, "that many things were growing
+plain and clear to his understanding." After this the cloud of
+sleep again settled upon him; a sleep which soon changed into the
+cloud of death.
+
+This event produced a profound impression throughout Germany. The
+theatres were closed at Weimar, and the funeral was conducted with
+public honors. The position in point of time, and the peculiar
+services of Schiller to the German literature, we have already
+stated: it remains to add, that in person he was tall, and of a
+strong bony structure, but not muscular, and strikingly lean. His
+forehead was lofty, his nose aquiline, and his mouth almost of
+Grecian beauty. With other good points about his face, and with
+auburn hair, it may be presumed that his whole appearance was pleasing
+and impressive, while in latter years the character of sadness and
+contemplative sensibility deepened the impression of his
+countenance. We have said enough of his intellectual merit, which
+places him in our judgment at the head of the Trans-Rhenish
+literature. But we add in concluding, that Frederick von Schiller
+was something more than a great author; he was also in an eminent
+sense a great man; and his works are not more worthy of being
+studied for their singular force and originality, than his moral
+character from its nobility and aspiring grandeur.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Biographical Essays, by Thomas de Quincey
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS ***
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