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diff --git a/75216-0.txt b/75216-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b845546 --- /dev/null +++ b/75216-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6448 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75216 *** + + + + + + AT THE + LIBRARY TABLE + + + BY + ADRIAN HOFFMAN JOLINE + + Author of “Meditations of an Autograph Collector” “The Diversions of a + Book Lover” &c. + +[Illustration: [Logo]] + + BOSTON + RICHARD G. BADGER + =The Gorham Press= + 1910 + + + + + Copyright, 1909, by A. H. Joline + + All Rights Reserved + + + THE GORHAM PRESS, BOSTON, U. S. A. + + + + + PREPARATORY NOTE + + +Three of the papers in this volume have been privately printed. I have +added, however, some new matter to the sketches of Ainsworth and James; +and it has been suggested to me that those sketches should be published, +although I have some misgivings about them. The other paper I am +reprinting merely to please myself. Two men have confided to me that +they have read it, and possibly two more may be persuaded to do the same +thing. + +November, 1909. + + + + + CONTENTS + + + PAGE. + I. At the Library Table 5 + II. The Deliberations of a Dofob 31 + III. In a Library Corner 45 + IV. Of the Old Fashion 67 + V. William Harrison Ainsworth 83 + VI. George P. R. James 125 + + + + + AT THE LIBRARY TABLE + + +Whether there are many who take much interest in books about books is +a matter of doubt. Multitudes of people like to think that they are +fond of books merely as books, and derive great comfort from the +innocent delusion that they delight in the possession of them. A neat +and imposing library is an attractive ornament of the country house as +well as of the city mansion, and if the volumes are bound in a +becoming fashion, by Zaehnsdorf, Rivière, Lortic, or Cobden-Sanderson, +they look well on the shelves and impart to the establishment an air +of dignity and refinement. But it is a portentous question whether the +majority of book-owners ever find occasion or opportunity to inquire +within or to inform themselves about the contents of the tomes which +line the walls of the comfortable library. The toilers who are +absorbed in the drudgery of daily work have little leisure to expend +on the inside of their books, and the merry idlers who devote their +energies to sports, athletic or otherwise, amusements, and the varied +diversions which occupy the minds of the members of our modern +“society”, have still less. My dear friend, the average man, deserving +as he is of admiration and respect, cannot have much interest in books +which are purely bookish, and my dearer friend, the average woman, who +now and again plunges calmly but despairingly into the depths of +“literature”,—combining with others of her kind in so-called reading +clubs, so as to share her afflictions with her fellows—secretly longs +for the sweets of fiction while she pretends to be fond of such stupid +performances as essays and dissertations. In the recesses of her +personality she regards works of that description as bores to be +avoided; and very likely she is not far wrong. + +Mind, I am not talking of inhabitants of Boston, Massachusetts. It may +be that my notions are derived wholly from my New York environment. A +New Yorker appears to think that it is an evidence of weakness to allow +any one to find out that books are dear to him, and seems to be as loath +to confess the passion as he would be to proclaim at the club or upon +the house-tops his fond attachment to the lady of his choice. In the +goodly number of years during which I have trodden the pavements and +availed of the facilities of transit afforded by the street-railways of +the city whereof we are justly proud, I do not remember hearing the +subject of books or of things pertaining to books discussed or even +referred to by any of my neighbors. But recently in Boston, while +walking on Boylston Street, I passed two lads who were still in their +later teens, and distinctly heard one of them say, “the Latin derivation +of that word is”—I lost the rest of it. In New York he would have been +uttering something in the vulgar argot used by the youth of our +times,—preserved and fostered by the newspaper—about “de cops” or “de +Giants”, or the superiority of some novel brand of cigarettes. They +would have blushed for shame to be discovered in the possession of any +knowledge of such discreditable matters as “Latin” or “derivations” of +any description. The gospel of “doing things” has been preached to them +so strenuously that they have long since forgotten, if they ever knew, +that there is any virtue in “knowing things”. + +Sitting at the library table and letting my eyes wander with affection +to the adjacent shelves, I try to fancy who buys the multitudinous books +of memoirs and reminiscences, of literary, dramatic and political +gossip, which are poured forth so profusely from the English presses. +Now and then I encounter their titles in seductive catalogues and +purchase them at large reductions from the original prices—“published at +£3 10s and marked down to 7s 6d.” We have nothing quite like them in +these United States, or very little, because they do not “pay”, as the +phrase runs. I wonder whether these English books “pay” in England, but +I am inclined to think that they must, for publishers are not usually +actuated by motives of pure philanthropy; they do not print for pleasure +only or for personal gratification in bringing out the screeds of +ambitious authors. I like those English books; their type is large and +legible; the paper has a substantial mellowness; and the simple bindings +are well-fitted to be torn off and replaced by real bindings. They have +the merit of what may be called “skippability”, for the writers are +sadly given to deplorable diffuseness and degenerate frequently into +tediousness for which I love them, as a fellow-sinner. They convey +impressions of abundant leisure and unlimited vocabulary. Does an author +ever become conscious that he is growing tedious? If he does, how he +must revel in the thought that, despite his tediousness, some daring +explorer will toil through his pages, and that in some library at least, +be it that of the British Museum or of our own Congress, his book will +stand triumphantly upon the shelves in the company of Lord Avebury’s One +Hundred. + +I do not believe that an ordinary American, at least in these days, +would dream of publishing such a book as “Gossip From Paris”, the +correspondence (1864–1869) of Anthony B. North Peat, which the Kegan +Paul house brought out a few years ago. Some one may say that an +American could not, and I will not deny the charge if it is made. North +Peat, whose name sounds like that of a station on the Grand Trunk +Railway, was not by any means a famous person, but he was a clever and +an observant journalist and there is much of interest in the volume +mingled with much that is of no present interest whatever. One passage +has given me comfort, because it contains something rarely encountered—a +good word for the collector of autographs. Usually when an author is +feeling a little rancor about life generally, he will go far out of his +way to kick an autograph collector. I purr slightly when I quote what +North Peat wrote in September, 1866. + + + “I know one man in Paris who has an extensive library composed + exclusively of works in one volume and of the same folio; but, + perhaps, among the manifold phases of the collecting mania none is + more excusable than that of gathering autographs.*** To read over the + names and the tariff at which signatures or letters are quoted gives a + most curious insight into the place held in public opinion by the + generals, diplomatists, poets, literary men, composers, and even + criminals whose handwritings are eagerly sought for by amateurs. Last + month the prices ran thus: George Sand, 6f.; Seward, 10f.; Jefferson + Davis, 15f.; Duke of Morny, 4f. 50c.; Michelet, 1f. 75c.; McClellan, + 20f.; Verdi, 3f. 50c.; Prévost Paradol, 2f. 50c.; Champfleury, 2f. + Gerard de Nerval is quoted 20f., thanks to a note attached to the + letter, ‘correspondance amoreuse très passionée.’ A copybook of the + King of Rome is quoted 20f. Rénan, the sceptic author of _La Vie de + Jèsus_, keeps up in the market, and goes for 10f. A letter of Henri + Latouche is to be sold for 2f. 50c.; it contains the following curious + passage: ‘The only souvenirs of my literary life to which I look back + with pride are, having edited _André Chénier_ and having deterred + George Sand from devoting her talents to water-colour drawing.’ A + letter of Louis XVI is quoted at 2f. 50c., by which the King grants a + sum of 2400f. (£100) to ‘La Dame Rousseau, cradle-rocker to the + children of France’.” + + +I have quoted thus at length not only because of my pride in the +compliment to autograph collectors but because the prices mentioned must +bring a pang to the hearts of those who buy now-a-days and pay more than +ten times as much for George Sands, Verdis, and Louis XVIs. I can +imagine the sensations of a dealer of to-day if some innocent should +offer fifty cents for that Louis XVI document—I am confident that it was +not a letter. Mr. North Peat has overlooked the fact, as is common with +those who do not belong to the inner brotherhood, that contents are of +much consequence in establishing the market value of autograph letters, +but his figures are not without significance. Some of us are glad to +observe that even in 1866 McClellan’s autograph “fetched” twice as much +as Seward’s and six times as much as Verdi’s. + +Very unlike the reasonable remarks of North Peat is the autographic +deliverance of that once celebrated “educator”, Mr. Horace Mann. This +gem of wisdom, given to me by a Boston friend in a malicious spirit of +kindly generosity, is lying on the library table. It reads thus:— + + + “I would rather perform one useful act for my fellow men than to be + the possessor of all the autographs in the world. + + HORACE MANN. + + “West Newton, April 23, ’50.” + + +It is an excellent specimen of the smug self-satisfaction, the +Chadbandian cant, the affectation of altruism which marked the middle of +the nineteenth century, particularly in the regions lying about West +Newton. Cheap enough withal it seems to be, for as he could never by any +chance become “the possessor of all the autographs in the world”, his +expression of preference signifies nothing whatever. The formula is +simple enough. Select something which sounds noble and unselfish and +then say that you would rather do that thing than to have—all the +diamonds, all the pictures, all the Caxtons, all the gold mines, all the +puppy-dogs and all the tabby-cats in the universe. It is in +contemporaneous vernacular, a safe “bluff”. If he had said that he would +rather perform one useful act for his fellow men than to be the owner of +a hundred shares of Standard Oil, it would have had some meaning, for +one could then measure the precise extent of his devotion to the welfare +of mankind. One may naturally inquire, why not have all the autographs +in the world and do not one but many useful acts for one’s fellow men? +There is no inherent incompatibility between the two ideas. + +It may be suggested that the subject of books about books and the +gathering of autographs are not cognate; that they have no relation to +each other; that they are illegally joined together in defiance of the +laws laid down in Day’s Praxis. I knew a dignified New England author, +lawyer and soldier who was accustomed, when assailed by a proposition to +which he did not assent, but which he was too polite to dispute, to +close discussion by the sententious remark, “That indeed”. I never fully +understood precisely what it meant, but it seemed to be conclusive for +there was no more to be said. It was like some of the cryptic utterances +of that model of concise expression, Mr. F’s aunt. But I maintain that +the man who truly covets autographs, covets books likewise for the sake +of the books themselves, irrespective of style or contents. It may be +one of Mr. Crother’s One Hundred Worst Books, but all the more precious +for that very reason. My point is easily demonstrated by a logical +device not uncommonly adopted by those who manufacture our opinions for +us in the public press. The man who—to continue the locution of Mr. +Joseph Surface—does not feel a fondness for books of the bookish sort, +derives no gratification from the ownership of autographs. I am not +referring to the pseudo-collector with his album or to the encourager of +profanity who besets the living great with requests for his signature. I +allude, sir, as General Cyrus Choke said in regard to the British lion, +to him who finds a charm in written words penned by the hand of a +warrior, a statesman, or a scholar. It is a charm that may not be +defined, for when you venture upon a definition it softly and suddenly +vanishes away like the Baker who encountered the Snark that was a Boojum +in the Carrollian fable. + + +I am not ashamed to acknowledge that there is something about the +exterior of books which appeals to our warmest affections. We love to +sit among them and enjoy the sight of them as many rejoice in the +prospect of lake, valley and mountain. Dear old R. Wilfer in _Our Mutual +Friend_ had one darling wish, to possess at one time a complete new +attire from boots to hat, but he never attained that glorious pinnacle. +The late Sultan of Turkey, thirty years or more ago, had an enthusiasm +for rifles, bought a lot of them at an enormous cost, and constructed +for the storage of these treasures a kind of mausoleum of rifles, a +grand edifice in which the muskets were arranged in serried ranks +radiating from a centre where, upon a throne, the potentate who called +himself Abdul Hamid Khan Sani, Sultan and Sovereign of the Ottoman +Empire, was accustomed to sit in solemn and solitary state while he +gloated over his acquisitions. In like spirit I would exult if I could +have a library room where I could see all the books at once, reviewing +the beloved brigades and cheerfully foregoing the reading of them. To +marshal the regiments of books, the well-uniformed battalions, the heavy +artillery of the folios, the light skirmishers of the duodecimos, would +bring a joy akin to that which the pompous and patriotic soldier, the +vainest of men, Brevet Lieutenant General Winfield Scott, used to feel +when, sitting on his charger, he reviewed the valiant little army which +conquered Mexico over sixty years ago. This recalls to me that in the +innocent hours of childhood I supposed that the head which Salome +demanded was brought to King Herod on just such a charger as the General +bestrode according to the veracious picture which hung over the sofa in +the “back parlor”, when I also firmly believed that the baskets in which +the fragments were gathered after the miracle were the large, ordinary +baskets used in our laundry. + +Vain as he was, the old General was a good, sturdy warrior, and no one +can read his egotistical memoirs without becoming aware of the fact, in +spite of his enormous self conceit. When King Edward VII visited us as +Prince of Wales in 1860, I saw the royal youth on the parade-ground at +West Point. I remember him well, for as A. Ward observed, “I seldom +forgit a person”. But the General was the man I longed to gaze upon, and +I regret that a facetious uncle easily persuaded me that the gorgeous +drum-major who led the band was the Great Scott himself. The materiality +of this reminiscence lies in the fact that a volume of Scott’s Memoirs +is usually to be found on the library table, a model of what an +autobiography ought not to be. Soldiers in later days learned to write +the story of their battles with more good taste and modesty. Perhaps +General Benjamin F. Butler was an exception, but he was not a soldier, +and his battles were very few; and those of us who loved and honored +McClellan regret the publishing of his “Own Story”, a deed he would +never have countenanced. A man should never be judged by what he writes +to his wife. + +It would not be amiss if some fair-minded and competent person would +give us a candid and impartial history of some of the men who have been +dealt with unjustly by the merciless masses in this country. McClellan +is one of these victims, although students of military affairs have +begun to comprehend the truth about him; but the great majority still +believe that he was a timid, dilatory and inefficient commander who +quarrelled with his President without a cause. General Arthur St. Clair, +of revolutionary times, was even a greater sufferer, and he has been so +long dead that his record may be judged calmly. Aaron Burr has had +several defenders, and it is now well established that whatever sins he +may have committed, treason was not one of them. Martin Van Buren, +sorely maligned by partisan historians, has been ably vindicated by +Edward Morse Shepard. James K. Polk, Chief Justice Taney, and Andrew +Johnson also deserve to be relieved from many of the aspersions which +have been plentifully bestowed upon them. Unfortunately there is a +tendency on the part of most men who undertake a work of that character +to become advocates rather than judges, and to impair the influence of +their arguments by an excess of ardor. + + +Most of us find that as the number of our years increases we are apt to +pass more and more of our time at the library table, within easy reach +of the shelves. I have been charged with believing that books are “the +chief things in life”; I admit that they are not and ought not to be +that, but I see no reason why we should not be allowed to enjoy them as +we would any other innocent pleasure, in due moderation. A good many +young people might as well be accused of believing that sports were the +chief things in human existence; and both in England and in this country +I apprehend that sports engross the attention of the multitude to the +exclusion of such minor things as books; but I find no fault with them +because they choose pleasures different from mine. + +Youth is a pleasure in itself, but one may be allowed to have misgivings +as to whether its joys are not in some degree overrated. Certainly our +young people seem to work very hard to get their fun out of life, and +after they have had it they do not appear to be much the better for it. +We often sigh for our lost youth, and if we are lucky enough to be able +to remember so much of our Horace, we whisper to ourselves “_Eheu +fugaces_” and the rest of it, while if we were confronted by a decree +that we must go over it all again, Latin included, we would beg for +mercy, or, if we happened to be lawyers, ask for an adjournment. It is +“a wise dispensation of Providence”—if one may be permitted to refer to +the mandates of Providence in that patronizing way—that the old have +their pleasures too and that the boys and girls are not violating any +congressional or legislative provisions against trusts by having a +monopoly of enjoyment. Most of these pleasures are associated with +books. Talleyrand’s sad, wistless old age is of no moment when compared +with a sad bookless old age. + +The accusation that the lover of books cares more for them than he does +about life and its varied problems, is as unjust as the complaint, +preferred—semi-jocosely, it must be owned—by that pertinacious +bibliophile, Irving Browne, that “the book-worm does not care for +nature”. He quotes the animal as saying: + + “I feel no need of nature’s flowers,— + Of flowers of rhetoric I have store; + I do not miss the balmy showers— + When books are dry I o’er them pore. + + No need that I should take the trouble + To go abroad to walk or ride, + For I can sit at home and double + Quite up with pain from Akenside.” + +The punster is such a derelict, such a scoffed-at sinner, that he may +not be taken very seriously. Others than Browne however, have gravely +reproached the devotee of the library for his alleged lack of affection +for the outer world and its beauties. But the man who knows his Gilbert +White of Selborne, and his John Burroughs of the Hudson, cannot be +wholly outside the ranks of nature-lovers. We may be uttering a truism +when we say that as we grow older we come closer to mother earth, and as +we strike off more and more years from our calendar all the sweet things +of earth are nearer to us and the trees, the flowers, the fields, and +the wide expanse of hill, river and valley take on a new meaning. A few +days ago I “took a drive”, if one may avail of that wretched colloquial +form of words, to the hamlet of Bedminster, name suggestive of Axminster +with its carpets and Westminster with its monuments, as far as the site +of the old church which was ruthlessly and needlessly destroyed by +iconoclasts within a year or two. It was a delightful autumn drive, the +joy of it tempered by the abominable automobile which infests our New +Jersey roads with its hoots and stinks and cloudy mantle of dust: and +the bookish associations surely did not detract from the pleasure. There +is a good picture of the church in Melick’s “Story of an Old Farm”, a +book containing a mine of information about a neighborhood filled with +associations of the Revolution. When you pass by the graveyard which +still remains, you cannot help thinking of the young English officer, +wounded and captured at Princeton, who died on the journey to Morristown +and was buried in that field where his monument remains at this day. +Melick’s book is disorderly and needs condensing and arranging, but let +no one tell me that the natural beauty of the country is lessened for me +because I study it. It is one of those most often to be found on the +library table in company with Ludwig Schumacher’s pretty story of the +“Somerset Hills”. + +Many of us may recall from our own experience examples of the peace and +contentment, the grace and the dignity of book-lovers who have +understood how to combine their pleasure with the active affairs of +business. I remember affectionately one who had passed beyond the years +of what Elisha Williams called “God Almighty’s statute of limitations”, +and who went to his rest only a few months ago. Elbridge Goss, of +Melrose, was a type of a New England gentleman, a man of business as +well as a lover of literature and of historical pursuits, fond of his +books and autographs, all in a mild, modest and unobtrusive way; a +gentle, admirable man, deserving of esteem and honor. There was no +pretense about him; he had a delightful simplicity, a true catholicity +of sentiment; there was no envy, hatred or malice in his composition. +His “Life of Paul Revere” has long been known favorably, and his other +works, chiefly historical, were no less meritorious. His was a full, +useful and well rounded life, and although his name may not be recorded +among the famous, it will not be forgotten. + +Some weeks before his death, he wrote to me thus: “As to your copy of +Coleridge, has it the expunged verse from ‘The Rime of the Ancient +Mariner’? The genial Longfellow once picked up his copy from his +centre-table and read it to me as follows: + + ‘A gust of wind sterte up behind + And whistled thro’ his bones, + Thro’ the holes of his eyes and the hole of his mouth + Half whistles and half groans.’ + +When Coleridge saw it in print, he took his pencil, crossed it off, and +wrote in the margin, ‘To be struck out. S. T. C.’ It did not appear in +subsequent editions.” Coleridge did well to erase it for it is +dangerously near to the ludicrous. + + +Whether the poet’s later emendations of his published verses are always +improvements is problematical. We have been surfeited of late with +examples of Tennyson’s amendments. He seems never to have been wholly +satisfied with his work. In Buxton Forman’s “Keat’s Poetry and Prose”, +one may perceive that a poet’s changes while sometimes making the lines +smoother, almost invariably weaken the effect. It is so with Byron. The +first thought and image, coming fresh from the brain, are usually more +vigorous and poetic than the sober second-thoughts, and alterations +appear to enfeeble the expression. It is Doctor Johnson’s “wit enough to +keep it sweet” and the “putrefaction” amendment all over again. That, my +friend who loves to ask “Why first editions?” is one of the reasons why. + +The reference to Buxton Forman leads me to record an amusing bit of +characteristic English newspaper wisdom. Some years ago in a book about +autographs I ventured to make some remarks concerning Keats and Forman +which drew down upon me the sneers of a London journal, the purport of +which was that my observations were vulgar and peculiarly American. +After I had recovered from the exaltation of spirit arising from being +noticed at all by such an eminent authority, I permitted myself to +indulge in justifiable mirth because it happened that I had stolen those +very remarks from an old number of the London _Athenæum_ in which my +Keats letter had been copied and described: but according to the well +known custom of plagiarists, I had accidentally omitted the quotation +marks. I inferred that an English assertion becomes vulgar only when it +is repeated by a despicable Yankee. Never again will I be guilty of +petit larceny. + +This matter of quotations is often a troublesome one. I am sorry now +that I left out those neat little commas. The orator has an unfair +advantage over the writer, because he is not obliged to use them, and in +common justice he should be required to give some sign that the eloquent +sentences he borrows are not his own: he might be compelled to hold up +two fingers. A good, well rounded quotation is a great help when ideas +grow so timid that they refuse to come at your call. I suppose that a +lawyer who is asked to speak before assemblages, on some legal topic, +almost always consults _Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations_, where he finds +little to aid him except that respectable old stand-by, “The seat of the +law is the bosom of God; her voice, the harmony of the world”. It sounds +well and it makes a sonorous finale, besides giving the impression that +the quoter is accustomed to occupy himself with the works of fine old +authors: although it always seemed to me that when applied to what we +call “the law” in these times, it is rather highly colored. A friend who +was an admirer of the sentiment once carefully prepared an “address” to +be delivered before the Maryland Bar Association, and had it printed in +advance, lugging in the famous lines at the close of his peroration. To +his horror, the learned President of the Association, who spoke +immediately before him, and who evidently had a _Bartlett_ of his own, +closed an admirable speech with the same old “seat” and “bosom” story. +There was nothing to be done but to pour it forth again upon the heads +of those helpless Marylanders, on whom it must have had a “punch +brothers” effect; but that man will never trot out the “harmony” yarn +again unless he is sure that he is to have the first chance at it. + + +Mr. James Ford Rhodes in an entertaining paper about Edward Gibbon, +expresses his belief that the historian of Rome’s decline and fall +thought with Thucydides “My history is an everlasting possession, not a +prize composition which is heard and forgotten”. It is not a +particularly novel observation, but a faded pamphlet lying before me is +a reminder of the fact that “prize compositions”, “prize poems”, and +“poems on occasions” are always much the same as they were in the time +of Thucydides, feeble things, and the wonder is why men go on +encouraging them and why sane people continue to produce them, unless +there is a fond hope that some of them may turn out to be as good as +“The Builders” of Henry Van Dyke or the great Commemoration Ode of James +Russell Lowell. Even the devoted worshipers of the Autocrat must admit +that as his college class drew nearer to the front rank of the Alumni +processions, his reunion-verses grew quite tiresome; but no one could go +on for some seventy years writing anniversary stanzas on the same theme +without degenerating into the commonplace. The pamphlet is a little one +of thirteen pages, entitled “Pompeii, A Poem which obtained the +Chancellor’s Medal at the Cambridge Commencement, July, 1819; by Thomas +Babington Macaulay, of Trinity College.” It was of this juvenile poem +that the boyish author wrote to his father on February 5, 1819: “I have +not, of course, had time to examine with attention all your criticism on +‘Pompeii’. I certainly am much obliged to you for withdrawing so much +time from more important business to correct my expressions. Most of the +remarks which I have examined are perfectly just; but as to the more +momentous charge, the want of a moral, I think it might be a sufficient +defence that, if a subject is given which admits of none, the man who +writes without a moral is scarcely censurable.”[1] Poets, whether young +or old, seldom take kindly to criticism of their lines, but one cannot +help feeling some sympathy with the youthful Thomas in his gentle +rebellion against the unpoetic demand of his somewhat priggish parent +for a “moral”, although the subject of “Pompeii” ought to be far more +fruitful of “morals” than that which ten years later was inflicted upon +Tennyson, whose “Timbuctoo” carried off the prize in 1829. The +Laureate’s successful “piece” is less impressive than Thackeray’s biting +burlesque—not of Tennyson but of everything produced on that absurd +theme—beginning something like this: + + “In Africa—a quarter of the world— + Men’s skins are black; their hair is crisped and curled, + And somewhere there, unknown to public view, + A mighty city lies, called Timbuctoo.” + +Tennyson competed because his father wished him to, and “in place of +preparing a new poem he furbished up an old one written in blank verse +instead of the orthodox heroic couplet and sent it in.”[2] Milnes wrote +at the time, “Tennyson’s poem has made quite a sensation; it is +certainly equal to most parts of Milton!” The future Lord Houghton was a +cheerful, genial person, if he _was_ guilty of the most abominable +handwriting I ever encountered, for the celebrated scrawls of James +Payn, Charles Darwin and Horace Greeley are copperplate script in +comparison; and Milnes was only twenty then. I knew quite a number of +Tennysons and Miltons, of the mute, inglorious sort, when I was enjoying +the enthusiasms of that period of life, under the shadow of the +Princeton elms; but somehow their chariots have all been transformed +into motor-cars, although they have avoided the fate of Phaëthon, that +mythological prototype of a chauffeur. + +“Pompeii”, naturally enough, is a fair example of the stilted verse +which a bright lad might well have written in 1819. He tells us, among +other interesting details, how + + “In vain Vesuvius groans with wrath supprest, + And mutter’d thunder in his burning breast, + Long since the Eagle from that flaming peak + Hath soar’d with screams a safer nest to seek. + Aw’d by th’ infernal beacon’s fitful glare + The howling fox hath left his wonted lair; + Nor dares the browzing goat in vent’rous leap + To spring, as erst, from dizzy steep to steep;” + +the moral, which father Zachary failed to detect, being that these +intelligent brutes had much more foresight than mere Man, and had wisely +decided that a volcano in eruption was “no place for them”. + +Poor as prize poems may be as poetry, some famous men have not disdained +to enter into the competitions. Lord Selborne’s effort gained for him +the Newdigate prize in 1832, and was deemed worthy of publication in +_Blackwood_. The list of prize winners in the two great Universities +might well be worth studying, even if the poetry came from the machine +and not from inspiration. Byron’s Address on the opening of the new +Drury Lane has not survived, but the “Rejected Addresses”, spontaneous +and _hors concours_, will never be wholly forgotten. Indeed a grave +personage is recorded as saying of them that he did not understand why +they should have been rejected, as some of them were very good. + + +A book-lover may think that he has an affection for all books, but he +surely must draw the line at law-books, books of theology and medical +treatises. So many people who have a notion that a book is valuable to a +collector merely because it is old, will insist on bringing to me, in +the kindness of their hearts, ancient theological tomes, for example, +which are in fact less desirable than old Directories and not for a +moment to be compared with old Almanacs. I have a friend who is enamored +of school-books and books on mathematics; a mania that has method in it +and I can understand the merit of it better than I can the pursuit of +first editions of Trollope. He has a remarkable collection and has +printed a catalogue in two volumes, not only complete in all details but +a handsome specimen of book-making. He showed me a copy once, and in a +moment of hallucination I thought that he was going to give it to me, +but he carried it away. I am not sure that I would be interested in the +collection, and he cares as little for my autographs as I do for his +arithmetics. I was silly enough to speak of my hobby while he was +fussing with his catalogue and I saw his eyes assume that far-away look +which meant that he heard me and that was all. When any one with feigned +interest says, “I would like so much to see your autographs”, I smile +inwardly, if such a feat is possible, and I know that it is only one of +those polite fictions which go so far towards making life pleasant. Very +few people, especially those with a pet hobby of their own, care a straw +about other people’s collections, except perhaps in the matter of +paintings, which, to use an abominable but familiar phrase, is +“altogether a different proposition”. The other man’s collection seldom +assumes importance until the auctioneer falls heir to it. For collectors +seldom have much sympathy with collectors who occupy different fields +from theirs: indeed I have found more true sympathy between collectors +and non-collectors. Steele in one of the numbers of the _Tatler_ deals +with the mania of collecting and makes much poor fun of one Nicholas +Gimcrack, an entomologist, who spent a fortune in accumulating insects; +but entomologists have their uses and perhaps Gimcrack, if such a person +ever lived, might have retorted that his spiders were as well worth +having as Sir Richard’s unparalleled collection of unpaid bills. There +are useful features of postage-stamp collecting; there are attractions +about the hoards of numismatists; one can see why even game-chickens may +be profitably “collected”; but I fancy that the hobby of a lady of my +acquaintance—the collecting of pianos—might be attended with +inconveniences. I fear that the hapless being who confesses that he is +an autograph collector receives the most general condemnation. I once +had a notion of bringing together what might be called the by-products +of autograph-collecting,—a collection of all the ill-natured and abusive +things ever written or printed about autograph collectors from the +beginning of the world to the present day, but it would probably fill a +book as big as my Boydell Shakespeare, which is so unwieldy that I have +had serious thoughts of hiring the tower of the Metropolitan Life +Building to hold it. Yet how kind some of our busiest and greatest men +have been to the wretches who “write for autographs”; the record of +their long-suffering patience would fill another large volume. + +There are other manifestations of the autograph fever almost as +troublesome as the familiar prayer for the signature of the person +addressed; there is, for example, the begging of autographs of other +people which the victim is supposed to possess. Hawthorne, when applied +to in this manner, became quite fierce and intimated with some vigor +that the letters of his friends were valuable to him and not to be +parted with. The venerable Bishop White was more gentle, when beset by +that pioneer of American collectors, Doctor William B. Sprague. There is +a pleasant, old-fashioned dignity about the Bishop’s letter which tempts +me to reproduce it from the original now lying on the library table. It +is a model, and if I ever wrote to men soliciting gifts of that +order—which heaven forbid!—it is just the sort of reply that I would +like to receive. The Bishop’s portraits always make me think of what +Aldrich said of Wordsworth—that he gave him the impression of wanting +milk: with his benign placidity it is no wonder that he lived until his +eighty-ninth year. + + + “Philad^a, Feb. 12, 1823. + + Rev^d & dear Sir:— + + I have received your Letter of ye 23d of January, & am disposed to + take Measures for compliance with your Request. I suppose that I can + furnish you with some signatures, which may be embraced in your + design; but, as it will require considerable examination, to + distinguish between interesting Letters of former correspondents, & + others which I can have no particular Reason to retain, I must defer + ye Work, until I have less of pressing Business on my Hands than at + present. + + In ye mean Time, I am, respectfully + + Your very humble servant, + Wm: White. + + Rev^d Wm: B. Sprague, + West Springfield, + Massachusetts.” + + +The Bishop was doubtless one of the last to transport into the +nineteenth century the use of frequent capitals, the archaic “ye” and +the quaint long “s’s” which are not “f’s” as many believe. + +The subject of autographs is to me what King Charles’s head was to Mr. +Dick. That I am not alone in my infirmity is proved by a letter of James +Freeman Clarke, written in 1878, in which he acknowledges the receipt of +a catalogue of a German collection, and says, naively, “Notwithstanding +my professed indifference to any autographs except those of the Apostle +Paul, Alfred, Charlemagne, Joan of Arc, Martin Luther and the like, I +confess that my mouth watered at the sight of so many of them. It was a +pleasure even to read the description and title”. These words, showing +that his indifference was a mere pretense, were written by a serious and +scholarly man, famous in his day as preacher, author and educator, and I +am sure that even his little pretense would soon have been abandoned if +I could only have been honored for a little while with his company at +the library table. + + +Almost every one finds it hard to understand as he attains the period +when juniors say to him, “Now, at _your_ time of life”—a form of +expression I have come to loathe—that he is really no longer—to use +another wretched locution,—“up to date”. I am beginning to comprehend +the feelings of some of the excellent bewigged old gentlemen of the +seventeen hundreds whose lives lapped over that mysterious one-hundredth +year which is just like any other year, but there is a weird something +about it, indescribable, impossible of definition, which makes it +different. I am certain that those of us who awoke on the morning of the +first day of January in the year of grace 1900, had a consciousness of +passing into a new age, although—not to revive the ancient controversy +but merely to assert the indisputable fact—the new century did not begin +until a year later. How painfully modern Mr. Wordsworth, Mr. Coleridge +and Mr. Shelley must have seemed to the men who knew so well their +Crabbe and their Cowper. It has always been my opinion that the +unfortunates who happen to be born exactly in the middle of a century +are taken at an unfair advantage by those who arrive in a century’s +closing years or in its opening days. They grow old-fashioned so much +sooner. In Comyn Carr’s book of reminiscences (published in 1908)—by no +means one of those dull productions about which we were chatting a few +pages back—he says heroically that he is not very gravely discouraged by +occasionally finding himself ranked as a champion of an outworn fashion, +but he groans over the revelation of a “cultivated young writer of the +newer school” that ‘among men of culture Dickens is now never read after +the age of fourteen!’ This cultivated young writer—we must take Mr. +Carr’s word as to his culture, for otherwise one would be likely to +consider him what Lord Dundreary called “wather an ass”—must have been +trying to impose upon the credulous old gentlemen, who frankly owns that +he was born in the misty mid-region of 1849. What pained me most was the +meek and submissive acquiescence of Carr in his relegation to the +category of back numbers at the surely not venerable age of fifty-nine. +As Thomas Bailey Aldrich said the day after his birthday, “It is +unpleasant to be fifty-nine, but it would be unpleasanter not to be, +having got started!” I insist, however, that it is not enough to warrant +the exile of any ordinary person from the realms of contemporaneous +interest. Dickens, Thackeray, Hawthorne, Tennyson, Browning, all great +Victorians, if an American may be reckoned in that class, are not, I +venture to say, as obsolete as the cultivated infant would have us +believe; if they were, there would not be so much said of them and +written of them in this fast aging first decade of the twentieth +century. Returning to Dickens, I prefer to the babe’s prattle of Carr’s +young interlocutor, the dictum of Chesterton, when he tells us “that +Dickens will have a high place in permanent literature there is, I +imagine, no prig surviving to deny.” + +In a time so remote that I shrink from mentioning the date precisely, I +overheard a young prig say to the feminine companion whom he was +escorting to her home after listening to a lecture by Charles Sumner, +“he suits the masses”. It was a singularly inept remark as applied to +the stilted and artificial oratory of the pompous Senator; but the fact +that “he suits the masses” may well be cited to warrant the assurance of +the lasting quality of Dickens’ fame. The lesser lights are growing pale +and dim in comparison with his and with that of his illustrious compeer, +who ranks higher perhaps in the estimation of the “cultured” but no +higher in the favor of the general. Bulwer Lytton, Charlotte Bronté, +Trollope, and George Eliot, if we may group together stars of such +varying magnitude, shine more feebly than they did while they were in +the full blaze of their glory. But when one takes from the shelf or from +the library table a volume of Dickens or of Thackeray, he may well +exclaim, as was said of the Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini, “This is +no book; who touches this, touches a man.” + +Many of us still retain an affection for Trollope, even if he was, as +some recent compilers of literary hand-books say, “one of the most +boisterous, tactless and unmetaphysical of writing men”—all the more +precious to me because of his unmetaphysicality. In novels “_à bas_ +metaphysics!” If it be true, as these autocratic tyrants of taste aver, +that he “keeps his nose close down, dog-like, to the prosaic texture of +life,” he pursued the game to good purpose. To all lawyers, he must ever +be dear because of his delightful Old Bailey character of Chaffanbrass; +to all the clergy he must be a source of joy for his innumerable +bishops, rectors and curates; and to all physicians a lovable man for +Doctor Thorne. Was he not as much unlike Hawthorne as one novelist may +be unlike another, yet did not Hawthorne say that Trollope’s work +“suited” him? “They precisely suit my taste” wrote the author of the +Scarlet Letter, “solid and substantial, written on the strength of beef, +and through the inspiration of ale, and just as real as if some giant +had hewn a great lump out of the earth and put it under a glass case, +with all its inhabitants going about their daily business and not +suspecting that they were made a show of.” Yet in these days they cannot +be expected to compete with such illuminating representations of real +life as may be found in the pages of—let us say—Elinor Glyn, who +manifestly aspires to be the Aphra Behn of modern literature. + +It is some consolation to realize that we commencing patriarchs are able +to get more satisfaction from our comfortable places at the library +table than others get from the seats of the mighty at horse-shows, +bridge tournaments, automobile contests, and golf competitions. An +enthusiastic golfer once confided to me that the most charming adjunct +of his sport was the shandygaff and the high ball which otherwise the +stern decree of the medical man would have denied to him. Let us say it +in all modesty and self-depreciation, we know so much more than is known +by the modern smooth-faced devotee of the safety razor, who freely +permits the unattractive contour of his mouth to betray the +imperfections of his character. I am convinced that if the customary +motor-car fiend would shroud his expression in hirsute concealment he +would appear far less fierce and domineering. If language was given to +us to conceal thought, surely beards were meant to hide brutality. Even +these young people will come in time to the consciousness of their +present ignorance and the realization of the truth that men learn by +experience. Aldrich—not Nelson, the tariff-king, but Thomas, a king of +modern American letters—said “I often feel sorry for actresses who are +always too old to play Juliet by the time they have learned how to do +it. I know how to play Hamlet and Romeo now, but my figure doesn’t fit +the parts.” Sad it is to reflect that our figures are unfitted for the +roles we would so hugely enjoy. Possibly it would be better for us if we +ventured more in the outer world and spent less time at the library +table; but we cannot always bestride the galloping horse or trifle with +the fascinating brassie. It will be only a few years before riders and +golfers alike will meet us in the fields where we will all be reduced to +socialistic uniformity, as I am taught to believe. Then, perhaps, I may +not regret that I yielded, willingly and lovingly, to the temptations of +the library table. + + + + + THE DELIBERATIONS OF A DOFOB + + +In the neighboring city of Chicago they have a club which boasts the +name of “The Dofobs”. It is not a pretty name, but it means much to the +members. Every two or three years it produces a Year Book and it has +printed “The Love Letters of Nathaniel Hawthorne”, a copy of which now +and then appears at the auction block and is sold for a fabulous price. +Aside from such occasional diversions, these people indulge in pure +Dofobery, which is not really as bad as it sounds. It signifies a +peculiar relation towards books and bookish things; not a mania for +books, but a comfortable enjoyment of them; not a craving for them +solely because they happen to be old, or rare, or famous, but a delight +in them and in the associations which cluster about them, in talking +about them, in scribbling about them, in amusing oneself with them. It +does not require much sagacity to read between the letters of the name; +for most people know what “d.f.” stands for, and “d.o.f.” is only a +variation. + +A Dofob does not trouble himself much about what others think of him or +of his favorite pursuits, because he has what may be fairly styled the +true Dofobian spirit and lives up to the immortal definition of an +honest man as enunciated by the philosopher Timothy Toodles. The honest +man, according to the _dictum_ of that profound observer, was one who +did not care a small Indian copper coin of trifling value—that is to +say, a dam; although I think the philosopher added some superfluous +words about not caring that for what sort of coat a man wore as long as +his heart was in the right place. This sartorial and physiological +supplement is immaterial, for the truth of the characterization lies in +the primary expression: perhaps the word “continental” prefixed to the +name of the coin would impart to the definition a distinctively American +flavor. + +Mr. Growoll in his interesting account of American Book Clubs tells of a +number of these associations, whose laudable purposes are grave, serious +and edifying; wrapped in a mantle of dignity which is most becoming but +which arouses emotions of awe rather than of sympathy. The Dofob is not +as serious as the Grolierite or the Caxtonian. The fact that many of his +fellow-beings look upon him as an individual of imperfect intelligence +because of his inordinate interest in books, he considers to be +equivalent to a patent of nobility; for if he loves a particular book +with a passion transcending all others, he is thereby raised, in his own +estimation, far above the ordinary level of mankind and looks down from +empyrean heights on those who are not sufficiently endowed with +intellect or with intuition to comprehend that the veritable Dofob is +the only person who possesses the power of recognizing at sight the very +best and worthiest of all the books ever printed since the days of Fust +and Gutenberg. With a superb self-appreciation and yet with the greatest +affection and respect for my companions in Dofobishness, I own that in +the depths of my being I consider no individual Dofob to be quite as +praiseworthy, deserving and omniscient as I am. I regard myself as +preeminently a D.O.F. and all that those letters imply, happy in the +contentment which usually results from absolute self conceit. Our chief +pleasure is in being regarded as confirmed and irresponsible cranks, +defying the contumely of the world, hugging to our bosoms our pet +delusions and willing to let other Dofobs hug theirs as closely. I might +however be jealous if any one of them should hug too long and +affectionately my own sweetheart book, for lovely books are as +delightful but often as untrustworthy as lovely women. They are apt to +run off with some millionaire. I am sadly conscious of the fact that the +much prized Davenant folio or my Beaumont and Fletcher would be as happy +in the arms of another as they are in my own. I think that I may as well +abandon the metaphor here and now, for I may be unwittingly led into +something which is described in the catalogues as “curious” or +“facetious”. The man who was arrested for stealing a folio Shakespeare +which he was lugging home after the fashion of Charles Lamb and who +pleaded that it was a joke, was justly reminded by the wise magistrate +that he was carrying the joke too far. (Cf. Joseph Miller’s Reports, +_passim_). There is such a thing as carrying an analogy a little too +far. + +Parenthetically, one is moved to inquire why it is that we Dofobs who +write about books are accustomed to adopt a style of labored +facetiousness, for books are serious things. It is like the fashion of +those who relate the history of old New York and who assume the tone of +“Knickerbocker”: or of the delineator of life in the far west who cannot +help imitating Bret Harte as the novelist of adventure in knighthood +days imitates Sir Walter Scott. Books ought to be worthy of pure +Johnsonese, the only dialect of dignity enough to deal with so solemn a +subject. + +A Dofob would not assert with offensive pride that the majority of +people in this prosperous country are devoid of a real affection for +books, but he is sorry for some of those who fondly imagine that they +are bookish, occasionally reveal their inmost thoughts about books, and +unconsciously disclose their sad incapacity to understand the essential +nature of book-loving. In the matter of bindings, for example, there is +commonly a lamentable ignorance. A few years ago I fortunately +discovered a book printed in the latter part of the eighteenth century, +produced in New York, and bound in the fine old calf of the period: a +little dilapidated by the ravages of time and the bookseller’s shelves, +but by no means in a state of ruin. That very binding made it cost me a +goodly sum, for the contents were of no general interest; the book +itself, the entity, binding and all, gave it value. I honored that book +and after petting it properly, gladly gave it to a dear old gentleman, +the only man in the city who knew anything about the subject dealt with +in the book. A few weeks later he proudly brought it back to me in order +that I might inscribe a few words on the fly leaf, and he said with +considerable satisfaction, “You see, sir, that I have it neatly +rebound!” And so he had, to my horror. The splendid old calf—I am +referring to the binding—in which a Dofob would have rejoiced greatly, +had been replaced by smug, cheap and modern cloth. Then it was that I +grieved because my vocabulary was limited to the few thousand words +which the devotee of statistics allows to the average man. All the +languages of Mezzofanti could not have done justice to the situation; +but the heroic self-restraint of a Dofob came into play and I suffered +in silence. The honest but misguided friend will never know the full +extent of the crime, and as the book is more to his liking in its +present garb than it was in what he was pleased to call its “shabby” +dress, it would have been needlessly cruel to undeceive him; and, after +all, the matter was beyond remedy. + +The kind friend who understands the intricacies of the stock-market and +who tells me much that I care not for, about my garden, where I should +buy my clothes, and what I should have in my library; who enlightens me, +as many of our merciless fellow-beings love to do, about all questions +of religion or of politics; the dear creature who is fond of saying +“Now, what _you_ ought to do is”—whatever in the plentitude of his +self-contentment he ardently believes to be what every one else should +do, because _he_ does it; this one, I say, seldom knows anything about +bindings. “_I_ buy books to read”, he brags, as if one could not read +comfortably a well-bound book. If you mention Tout, or Rivière, or +Hayley, or Zaehnsdorf, to say nothing of Lortic, Prideaux, De Sauty or +Cobden-Sanderson, he stares at you with glassy eyes of indifference and +perhaps he calls your attention to a Barrie “edition de looks”, or to +some of the paralyzing productions which the simple-minded are deluded +into purchasing by the influence of alluring advertisements and +insinuating circulars designed to mislead the ambitious but unwary +buyers of books in the market-place. + + +I plead guilty to the charge of being a dreary old fool over books, but +chiefly over old books, for they have a settled and permanent character +which no one may impeach. We may be tolerably sure about them; they are +generally what they seem to be, with their broad margins, their solid, +substantial type, and their charming air of dignity. Most of the books +of our day are unworthy of absolute confidence, and their paper, their +binding, and their typography are a source of grief to the judicious. +The man whose literary pabulum is sufficiently supplied by his daily +newspaper may ask why an old book, with aged and decayed covers, is +better than a new one with that outward adornment of gilt which some +publishers delight to lavish upon us. The sagacious Dofob will not +undertake the task of breaking his way into the solid density of such a +mind or of explaining to him the reason, for the game is not worth the +candle. When I was a boy I rashly attempted to convince a likely colored +lad that slavery was right and should never be abolished, but to my +fervid eloquence he invariably responded “Well, I doan’ know ’bout +that”. It was an effective rejoinder and I now believe that he was +fairly entitled to his name of Solomon. The smart individual of these +times is beyond the reach of argument, and all one can do is to say to +him, “Go to your newspaper, buy subscription editions of ‘standard +authors’, fill your shelves with ‘the best sellers’, and be as happy as +you may”. + +But notwithstanding what I have just said, it is a favorite fallacy +quite prevalent among the uninitiated that a book must be old in order +to attract the bibliolater. True, as Emily Dickinson, with a magnificent +disregard of rhyme, sings: + + “A precious mouldering pleasure ’tis + To meet an antique book, + In just the dress his century wore: + A privilege, I think.” + +A Dofob, however, does not restrict himself to such dolorous delights as +“mouldering pleasures”, and sees no good reason why he should not be +fascinated by something fresh from a good press as well as by what +writers about books are addicted to calling “musty tomes”. A “tome”, I +believe has come to mean “a large book”, but a Dofob does not +necessarily prize it above a slender duodecimo, any more than he would +prefer a fat friend to a thin one; and while gray hairs may be held +dear, blond locks and jetty curls may be just as winning. A thoughtful +physician once told me that he never read a book that was less than ten +years old; he was not and could never be a Dofob. The rule may be well +enough when applied to fiction, and a rigid observance of it would save +some valuable time; but why should a man living in the earliest quarter +of the last century have delayed for a decade the reading of Shelley’s +“Prometheus Unbound”, or “Rob Roy”, or “The Heart of Midlothian,” or the +two precious volumes of “Charles Lamb’s works”, then given to the world? +A Dofob cannot be persuaded that any book should be neglected because it +is old or condemned merely because it is new. The passion for rare +relics of antiquity is one not difficult to comprehend, but it is not +exclusive of a passion for the best of modern books. Whether the date +upon the title be that of the reign of Elizabeth or of the time of +Victoria or Edward, “a book’s a book for a’ that”. + + +There is a good deal of sameness in the praises of books by book-lovers. +In his Anthology called “Book Song”, Mr. Gleeson White says: “friends +that never tire, that cannot be scorned or dallied with, is an idea that +recurs constantly”, and in regard to those eulogies of special volumes +with which most of us are familiar, he remarks justly, “at times the +pride of ownership becomes a little irritating and seems deliberately +worded to provoke jealousy”. It is a characteristic of Dofobishness that +the Dofob does not indulge in panegyrics upon his own property, although +he may do a little private bragging among intimates. He may dote upon +the book of another, and borrow it too, giving no credence to the common +delusion that a borrowed book is never returned. That is where he shows +his superiority over the ordinary man. Nor does he glorify his books as +“friends who never tire”. I would not care much for any friend who was +so devoid of human qualities as not to be tiresome now and then. A +companion who was always entertaining would be a cloying sort of person, +and even his perfections would grow wearisome in time. The book has an +advantage over a friend in this, that it may be thrown in a corner, or +thrust in a cabinet, or banished to the back-rows when its allurements +begin to pall, and if it experiences any sense of resentment or +mortification at such a summary dismissal, it gives no outward or +visible signs of dissatisfaction. Moreover books are immensely superior +to human friends for they never “call one up” on the telephone, that +imperious invader of peace and comfort, a modern affliction more +dreadful even than the motor-cycle, that Moloch of the highways, because +it has a wider field of operation. One may have some respect for the +automobile, king of our roads, but for the vulgar, snorting tyrant, the +degradation of a graceful, noiseless bicycle, naught but disgust and +horror. No self-respecting horse can meet it without justifiable +rebellion. I have found it the Juggernaut of New Jersey. + + +Few comprehend fully the bookishness of a book, its deserving dignity, +and its peculiar sensitiveness. This man will deliberately turn down the +corner of a leaf, and that man will cut the sheets with rude, +iconoclastic finger or ruthlessly bend open the tender volume until its +back is well-nigh broken. There ought to be a constitutional provision +against cruel and unusual punishments of books, for surely they are +fellow-citizens of worth and as much entitled to protection as the red +men of the West who have recently been added to the number of our +masters, or the voluble and dagger-loving emigrant from Italy who comes +to us with droves of his kind and cheerfully stabs his women or his +rivals in our public streets. I shudder when I remember how often I have +beheld the shocking spectacle of a Philistine actually pulling a book +from the shelf by the top, or wetting his fingers as he turned the pages +of a sacred first edition. But it is better not to dwell upon such +harrowing subjects. + + +However boastful, arrogant and censorious these deliberations may +appear, I protest that I am not quite as conceited as I pretend to be. +The bravado is assumed. I am really humble, conscious of my limitations, +and profoundly deferential towards the experts who are masters of +book-history and are able to “collate”, while I am, by natural +incapacity, utterly unable to share in the collation. I admire these +mighty men afar off, and am devoured by envy of their learning. Let me +however disclose the miserable truth that I find old Dibdin stupid, that +I am dreadfully bored by the tedious catalogues given to us from time to +time by some of our non-Dofobian book clubs, and that in fact I abhor +all catalogues of things which I can never hope to call my own. It may +be a mark of genuine Dofobery to scorn scientific book-description; it +always makes me uneasy and discontented. It affects me much in the same +way as the formal phrases of what the companion of my childhood, +(bookishly speaking) Captain Mayne Reid, used to call “the closet +naturalists”—now known as “nature fakirs”—must affect men who pursue the +tremendous teddy-bear and the bodacious bob-cat in their native wilds. I +am so much in love with my own few books that I would no more dream of +regarding them from the cataloguer’s point of view than I would of +measuring my Dulcinea’s features in order to ascertain whether or not +she comes up to the standard of beauty prescribed by the dull and +pedantic persons who reduce everything to formulas. + + +Candidly, anything hereinbefore contained to the contrary +notwithstanding, I believe that in our beloved country there are more +enthusiastic lovers of books than may be found in any other land. Yet, +if I am not sadly mistaken, England is the paradise of Dofobs. She ought +to be; she is so much older than we are; she was bookish when we were +busy in building an empire and boasted more bears than books. It makes +my heart palpitate when I glance over the fascinating lists of Sotheby, +Wilkinson and Hodge, and see what the libraries of the well-to-do +Britons disgorge without ostentation,—treasures which make the +book-lover’s soul thrill with the indescribable tremor which only a +long-desired book can bring. I find myself wondering whether it will go +on forever, if the resources of the innumerable “gentleman’s libraries” +in England will be exhausted in our own time at least. I trust not, +although I fear that the insatiable demands of American buyers may +ultimately absorb the supply. I am not by any means an Anglomaniac, for +our English cousins are fast becoming too socialistic for my taste, but +surely their auction-sales are more attractive than ours, and what is +more delectable than one of their best “book shops”? Why cannot we have +such palaces of joy as those which may be found on the Strand, or in +Piccadilly, or in the regions adjacent to the British Museum, or indeed +in other places than London, where a Dofob may discover almost +everything necessary to sate his appetite. I am affectionately +reminiscent of Maggs’s. I am not trying to advertise Maggs’s; the name +is not beautiful, euphonious, or seductive; it reminds one of the +nomenclature of Dickens. But the shop is a dream, the managers are +tactful and considerate, and there one may browse undisturbed and +uninterrupted, with no sorrow but that which comes from the fact that +while the prices are low when compared with ours, the purse of a +plutocrat could never suffice to give us all the jewels preserved in the +coffers of those polite and kindly vendors of dainties. I do not know +what may be in Chicago, but in New York we have scarcely anything as +alluring or as charming. Why are we denied such luxuries? When I am +daring enough to enter the precincts of a New York “book-store”—it is +never a “shop”—I approach the majestic salesman with fear and trembling, +having already left my pocket-book with the gentle cabman. Does the +nobleman lead me smilingly to a quiet recess, place a chair and a table +at my disposal, and with tender solicitude submit to me the latest +acquisition, the first edition, the extra-illustrated treasure, the +autograph letter or manuscript which has just “come in” and has not yet +been advertised or catalogued? By no means; he regards me with the same +contemptuous hauteur which is displayed by the clerk of a popular hotel +when I register my name and plead for “a room with bath”. I depart from +the chilly halls feeling that I ought to be ashamed for having disturbed +the lofty serenity of the supercilious magnate. They do these things +better in France and in England: better in almost every other country as +those who have had experience well know. They are content, these +foreigners, with moderate profits. It is true that an American +bookseller is obliged to pay higher rent and is subjected to heavier +expenses because of the extravagant exactions of almost every one in +this free land of ours—except, of course, the modest and diffident +lawyers. Patriotism does not require one to acquiesce uncomplainingly in +the exorbitant prices of our own book dealers. Let me however be fair +and qualify my sweeping assertions: I know a few very decent +book-vendors in New York and in Boston who want to be reasonable and are +“not so bad”. I am grateful to them for many favors. In the words of +Heron-Allen’s “Ballade of Olde Books”, + + “I’ve haunted Brentano and John Delay, + And toyed with their stories of France so free, + At Putnam’s and Scribner’s from day to day + I’ve flirted with Saltus and Roe (E. P.): + But weary of all, I have turned with glee + To Bouton’s murk shelves with their wealth untold, + Yearning for Quaritch in Piccadilly + Where the second-hand books are bought and sold.” + +This would be more accurate if some of the names were changed. I plead +not guilty to Saltus and Roe, and I may perhaps be forgiven for not +remembering at the moment who John Delay was or is. + +Why do we allow such sordid considerations as prices to influence us in +any way? Most of us Dofobs are devoid of a surplus of funds, but we +value our possessions all the more because we may have had to make some +sacrifices to secure them. If we were indifferent about cost, we would +lose much of the pleasure of ownership. I well remember the time when I +abstained from luncheon in order to buy a second-hand, shabby volume at +Leggatt’s. I do not have to deny now my appetite for midday food, but +whenever I come upon one of those old books in my peregrinations about +the library, I have the pleasant little throb of the heart which brings +back to me the ardor of youth, and those cheap treasures take to +themselves a halo which transcends the brilliancy of even an illuminated +missal or a noble Caxton. Those long cherished companions speak to me in +eloquence scarcely to be comprehended by one who is not a Dofob to the +core. + +We are grateful to the kindly dealers who send to us catalogues full of +temptations for those who are so ready to be tempted. With James Freeman +Clarke already quoted, we repeat that “it is a pleasure even to read the +description and the title”, and often like Eugene Field of blessed +memory we mark the items which are too bewitching to resist as if we +were going to acquire them and then either forget about them or resolve +that our purse cannot afford the luxury, afterwards confident that we +bought them and searching for them in vain in the entrancing regions of +the book-cases. + +Then what an insane joy there is in arranging the volumes, sometimes +lamenting because the shelves are not exactly adapted to the association +of fellow-books so that we fear that they will not be as friendly one to +another as we would like to have them. If any one needs occupation for a +rainy day, what more agreeable work may he find than that of assorting +the books, so that not only will their sky-line be less jagged than that +of lower New York, but that their contents may be of a nature to make +them as sociable as they ought to be: while it must be borne in mind +that the colors of their bindings should not be too glaringly +inharmonious. And after all have been arranged, it is the joy of the +genuine Dofob to arrange them all over again. There are times when the +shelves overflow, and then comes the question of a new book-case and a +still graver question as to where it shall be placed, leading to a +further question about the enlargement of the house, which should be +constructed on the Globe-Wernicke principle, for the main use of a house +is to store books in it. + +But there comes to every Dofob the thought that it will not be long +before he must leave them. What is to become of them? No one will ever +worship them as he has done all his life. They are interwoven with his +existence and it is pitiful to think that he must be parted from them. I +fear that in the world of the hereafter there may be no books, but it is +not easy for me to imagine a heaven where books are not. I do not mean +to be irreverent and I do not know whether I may attain even a bookless +heaven, but I am unorthodox enough to own that I might prefer a bookish +Hades. + + + + + IN A LIBRARY CORNER + + +I hate an orderly library. It has a formal air which repels familiarity; +one cannot ramble in it, stroll aimlessly about it, come upon unexpected +“finds”, or pluck a blossom here and there without fear of consequences. +It is as devoid of charm as the stiff, uncompromising gardens of the +eighteenth century which arouse ill temper by their arrogant +right-angles. The card-catalogue itself is an encourager of angry +passions; and glass doors are odiously inhospitable. What care I if dust +accumulate? It is a blessed privilege to brush it off. What need have I +of a card-index, when in hunting for what I want I may discover +treasures hitherto lost to memory? When I encounter glass doors, those +grudging guardians of the sanctuary, I long to fracture the panes with +one mighty kick, for they are offensive with their _noli me tangere_ +exclusiveness. I want my books where I need not open a door to get at +them or climb a ladder to reach them. + +Not that I am averse to a certain method of arrangement, or to a +well-defined color-scheme in the matter of bindings. No one wishes to +put a tiny 16mo by the side of a towering quarto, or to fill the lower +shelves with duodecimos and the upper ones with folios; nor does any one +desire to fret his eyes by massing together colors which scream at each +other and disturb the peace. I would not have Petroleum V. Nasby or the +Orpheus C. Kerr Papers elbowing the “voluminous pages” of Gibbon or the +serious dignity of Grote; but Boswell and Trevelyan need not be +aggrieved by a close proximity to such inferior productions as +Collingwood’s _Life of Lewis Carroll_ or Hallam Tennyson’s disappointing +Memoir of his illustrious father. “There are few duller biographies”, +says Augustine Birrell, “than those written by wives, secretaries, or +other domesticated creatures. Neither the purr of the hearth-rug nor the +unemancipated admiration of the private secretary should be allowed to +dominate a biography”. True, Trevelyan was Macaulay’s nephew, but he was +barely of age when his uncle died, and had not yet been wholly +“domesticated”. + +It is almost needless to say that these wise utterances are not intended +to apply to public libraries, those mausoleums of books, where one may +“consult volumes” but never really read them; for how is it possible for +anybody who is not endowed with a power of phenomenal self-absorption, +to forget that the custodians, although unseen, are perpetually on +guard, while the enforced silence of the place is a constant temptation, +well-nigh irresistible, to arouse the echoes with defiant yells. In one +of those halls of grandeur miscalled “reading rooms”, I am always +reminded of “study hour” in school, and am in momentary expectation of +hearing some one ask of the grim presiding functionary the old, familiar +question, “Please, sir, may I go out?” + + +In every true library, there are sacred corners. In their cosy precincts +you do not usually come upon the dress-parade volumes, imposing in their +garb of polished calf or of velvety morocco, addressing you in solemn +accents, reminding you of the aristocracy of their long descent, +forbidding you to disturb them by casual pullings-down or thoughtless +turning of their chilly pages. Their glacial aspect appals the ardent +lover and freezes the founts of affection. These are seldom to be found +in corners; they demand the showy places on the shelves where they may +intimidate the beholder and turn him away abashed at their impressive +array. They are as much shut off from the admirer’s fond touch as are +the alleged crown-jewels in the Tower or the priceless manuscripts in +the British Museum. My ideal library is composed chiefly of corners +where one may linger in morning-jacket and slippers, and not be +conscious of the need of attiring himself in the evening garments which +conventionality decrees to be necessary for those who take part in +stately functions. I often long to disarrange the symmetry of some +“gentleman’s library”, just as when reading Johnson, or Gibbon, or +Hamilton W. Mabie I have a fiendish propensity to split an infinitive or +to end a sentence with a preposition. + +Now if I were bent on making a foolish pretense of what is known as +“good taste”, which I have no right or disposition to boast of, I would +assert untruthfully, but no one could disprove it, that in these snug +retreats I feast upon “The Proficience and Advancement of Learning”, or +Evelyn’s Diary, or Pepys, or Sir Thomas Browne, or Elia. Every one who +affects a literary “pose” is given to praising Elia; and there are few +more precious books in the world. Yet if those immortal essays should +appear to-day for the first time, they would have only what the +newspapers style a “limited circulation”. A dinosaurus would have just +as much popularity in the annual Horse Show, for they belong to the era +of the stage-coach when people did not “do the Lake Country” in an +escorted tour on a Hodgman car, and the Venetian gondola had not been +crowded out of the Grand Canal by snorting motor-boats; when there were +great men; poets, novelists, essayists, historians and statesmen. To the +question, “Why have we no great men?” Mr. Chesterton rejects the answer +that it is because of “advertisement, cigarette smoking, the decay of +religion, the decay of agriculture, too much humanitarianism, too little +humanitarianism, the fact that people are educated insufficiently, the +fact that they are educated at all”. But his own answer, “We have no +great men chiefly because we are always looking for them”, may be smart, +but it is not convincing. The fact is that we do not have great men +chiefly because we think we have no need of them. + +The craze for equality has so possessed our minds that if one of us is +presumptuous enough to thrust his head above the struggling mob that +surrounds him, we set to work with one accord to pull him down, for who +is he, forsooth, that he should assume to know more than we do or to be +more than we are? In the days when the ignorant and the mediocre had not +come to understand the might of their power, there were leaders; but +however greatly they may need wise leaders now, they have become the +leaders themselves and the ambitious are only astute and adroit +followers. The state of the times is reflected in our literature; and as +every man has arrived at the belief that he is an infallible judge upon +questions of politics and of government, so he fancies that he is +divinely endowed as a judge of all things literary. Thus it has come to +pass that the guerdon of fame is bestowed, not upon the best book but +upon the best seller. It has also come to pass that the only individual +who is allowed to dominate his race is the editor of a newspaper. Great +is the power of humbug; there is but one god, which is “the people”,—and +the editor is his prophet. Every one from the cardinal to the curate, +from the President to the postmaster, trembles before the majesty of a +malicious monkey who by some mischance has contrived to get hold of a +printing-press; for his penny compendium of slander and of crimes +reaches the sons of manual toil who go to their work in the early +morning, filled with envy of the well-to-do, grumbling at the fate which +condemns them to labor while men whom they regard as no better than +themselves enjoy sports and luxuries denied to them, ready to drink in +the flattery addressed to them and rejoicing in the bitterest of +assaults upon wealth and vested interests. No one is great to them +except the crafty demagogue who ministers to their self-importance. + +The mild and gentle Thomas Bailey Aldrich said in a moment of unusual +irritation: “American newspapers are fearfully and wonderfully made. If +about twenty thousand of them could be suppressed, the average decency +of the world would be increased from twenty-five to fifty per cent.” +This is no new cry; but it does not avail much to us soured old +sufferers from their multitudinous lies and libels, to retire to our +library corners and scold at them. In spite of our complaints, we think +it a hardship if we cannot peer at them through our glasses over the +matutinal coffee and enjoy their lies—about other people. + +Great is the power of humbug, I repeat, with an air of imparting a new +and important truth. I have just been reading—in a corner—a sketch of +James Kent by Mr. James Brown Scott. He says of Charles Sumner that he, +said Sumner, was “an ornament of the bar as he later was an ornament of +the Senate”. But Sumner was not a real lawyer; he was not fitted for the +conflicts of the bar. There is nothing like the battles of the law to +take the vanity and pomposity out of a man. I do not wish to be +understood as saying that there are no vain or pompous members of the +legal profession, but they seldom win much respect or distinction. I +doubt even if Sumner can justly be called “an ornament of the Senate”. +He never _did_ anything, he never originated anything; he only “orated”, +so that in a sense he may have been ornamental; surely not useful. His +speeches were carefully prepared and rehearsed; he was weak in debate. +If any one cares to waste time upon the speech for which he was caned by +Preston Brooks, he will be amazed at the scurrility of the language and +the indecency of the vituperation. It is hard to believe that a man of +his stalwart frame could be permanently injured by the blows of a light +stick such as the one which Brooks used that day. The assault was a +wicked performance, but Washington laughed in its sleeve over the outcry +which the castigated one made about it. In those days the anti-slavery +speakers were hunting for martyrdom, and Sumner made the most of his +beating. In course of time, he was supplanted, as a martyr, by the +deified horse-thief and murderer, John Brown. When the Senator assumed +to dictate to Grant, he found his well-merited fate, and he has passed +into oblivion. His useful, modest, hard-working colleague, Henry Wilson, +as earnest and enthusiastic an opponent of slavery as Sumner was, is far +better entitled to be called “an ornament of the Senate” than his more +cultured but less effective associate. + + +Down in a quiet corner hides an humble cloth-clad little book which +scarcely any one cares for except myself, and its interest to me comes +less from its mild satire than from my affection for its author. +“Salander and the Dragon, by Frederick William Shelton, M.A. Rector of +St. John’s Church, Huntington, N. Y.”, with its Goodman, its Duke +d’Envy, its Gudneiburud, Drownthort, and all the other parodies of +Bunyan’s nomenclature, makes dull reading for the present generation, +and it may be that my liking for it is only a form of perverse vanity. +As I glance over the faded leaves, they bring before me the gentle, +scholarly Shelton, who had been my father’s class-mate at +Princeton—delightfully old-fashioned in the time when I had a boyish +acquaintance with him. He was quite like his books, small, decorous, +with a gleam of the humorous mingled with reflective sadness. I can +fancy his shudder of dismay over most of our present-day sensational, +highly-colored “literature” falsely so-called. I never knew more than +two persons who had ever read “Salander”. But it aroused my indignation +a year or two ago to read in a flippant review published in one of our +magazines, a contemptuous reference to Doctor Shelton, whose nature and +whose style were too sweet and pure for the taste of the pert, feminine +scribbler. + +Near the unoffending duodecimo is the well-beloved “Squibob Papers”, not +as good as the immortal “Phoenixiana” which George Derby’s friends +induced him to publish in the middle fifties, a famous precursor of our +later and more elaborate “books of American humor”. My copy is not of +the issue of 1859, but one which was printed by Carleton in 1865, after +the author’s death. As most people know, poor Derby, who died at +thirty-eight, was an officer of the Corps of Topographical Engineers, +or, in his own words, “a Topographical Engineer who constantly wears a +citizen’s dress, for fear some one will find it out.” Comparing them +with the Engineers, he remarked that “the Corps of Topographical +Engineers was only formed in 1838, while the Engineers date from the +time when Noah, sick of the sea, landed and threw up a field-work on +Mount Ararat”. It was an odd training school for a humorist, but Derby +did not need much training. + +His “great railroad project” of “The Belvidere and Behrings’ Straits +Union Railroad”, with its branches to the North Pole “to get the ice +trade”, to Kamchatka “to secure the seal trade for the Calcutta market”, +and to Cochin China “to secure the fowl trade”, reads very much like the +prospectus of an exceedingly modern enterprise. His “Sewing Machine with +Feline Attachment”, by which a cat, induced by a suspended mouse, +operates the mechanism, is an ingenious device, and he records that he +“has seen one cat (a tortoise-shell) of so ardent and unwearying +disposition, that she made eighteen pairs of men’s pantaloons, two dozen +shirts, and seven stitched shirts, before she lay down exhausted”. The +Fourth of July Oration, commemorating our forefathers who “planted corn +and built houses, killed the Indians, hung the Quakers and Baptists, +burned the witches and were very happy and comfortable indeed, and +fought the battle named ‘the battle of Bunker Hill’, on account of its +not having occurred on a hill of that name”, should never be forgotten +if only for the story of the boy who picked his nose on the Fourth of +July because it was Independence Day. Not very refined fun, you may say, +but food for laughter, and with no taint of a peculiar kind of vulgarity +which mars the fun of certain more classic fooling. + +Among the tenants of the corner is a cheap and shabby American edition, +in two fat, awkward volumes, of my pet novel, “Ten Thousand a Year”, +much pawed over and alas! dog’s eared; while the first English edition, +in three volumes, (Blackwood, 1841, “original cloth”), is seldom aroused +from its serene repose on a conspicuous shelf. Ten thousand pounds a +year then stood for colossal wealth; and when my boyish mind first +applied itself to the study of the fitful fortunes of Tittlebat +Titmouse, that income still appeared to represent riches beyond the +dreams of avarice. When I began the study of law, I was one day toiling +over Kent’s Commentaries, and the senior partner, bluff and kindly Aaron +J. Vanderpoel, came upon me suddenly, crying out “What are you reading, +young man?” I confessed, with the conscious pride which one feels when +detected in doing something supposed to be virtuous, that I was reading +Kent. “Don’t read Kent!” he shouted, “read ‘Ten Thousand a Year’”. +Perhaps his advice was good; at all events I took it, and I did not tell +him that I knew it already from cover to cover. + +It is the best “lawyer’s novel” ever written, even if it is full of +doubtful law. For the hundredth time you will follow with eager interest +the progress of the great suit of _Doe ex dem. Titmouse vs. Jolter_, and +await in breathless suspense the momentous decision of Lord Widdrington +upon the question of the admission of that famous deed with the erasure, +however well you may know that he is sure to exclude it; a ruling +undeniably wrong, but if his lordship had held otherwise the story must +have come to a sudden and ignominious close at the end of the first +volume. This would have been a calamity, although the Aubreys and their +woes become quite fatiguing and Oily Gammon turns out to be “more kinds +of a villain” than is to be met with in actual life. He deserved a +different fate; he ought to have married Kate Aubrey, and lived +unhappily ever afterwards. I refuse to believe that he was guilty of the +meaner crimes attributed to him in the account of his dying moments; but +Warren probably thought that as Gammon had to die, he might as well +depart this life in the odor of perfect villainy. He, Gammon, was a +liar, thief, perjurer, forger—almost a murderer; but his crowning act of +infamy was to devise an elaborate method of suicide to defraud a +life-insurance company. If he had lived a little longer, he might have +been found giving a rebate or riding on a Third Avenue car without +paying his fare. + +Warren had about all the worst faults chargeable against a novelist, yet +the book has life. It may not be found in the drawing room or on my +lady’s table, or in the languid hands of those who continually do +recline on the sunny side of transatlantic steamers, but it endures. The +account of the election in which, to my secret satisfaction, Titmouse +defeats Mr. Delamere, is far better than Dickens’s attempt to describe +the Eatanswill contest and fully as good as Trollope’s effort in the +same field. Mr. Delamere, one of those impeccable figureheads created +chiefly for the purpose of providing a husband for the equally +impeccable young female angel who is so transcendently pure that she +blushes deeply at the mere thought of a lover, oblivious of the fact +that her adored parents must at some time have surrendered shamelessly +to the sway of Cupid, is almost too noble for words; and as for Charles +Aubrey, did not Thackeray pronounce him to be the greatest of all snobs? +But he is such a precious snob. + +Yet after we leave the nobility and gentry we find an abundance of +humanity in the numerous “characters” who throng the pages, particularly +among the lawyers. They would be just as well off without their +impossible names which give them an air of unreality. But at that time +it was a favorite custom of fiction-writers to label their personages +with tags, and if Dickens may be pardoned for his Verisophts and his +Gradgrinds, and Thackeray for Mr. Deuceace, Warren may surely be +forgiven for Quicksilver, Subtle, Tag-rag and Going-Gone; and the world +will continue to apply the name of “Quirk, Gammon and Snap” to +attorneys’ firms as long as we have those useful adjuncts of +civilization. In my time I have known several Quirks, not a few Gammons, +and many Snaps. Snap is a sort of lawyer whom only a lawyer could +conceive of; and Gammon, stripped of the basest of his qualities, may be +encountered a dozen times a day between the Court House and the Battery. + +Not far removed from the company of Titmouse and Gammon, is “Trilby”; +the copy with the autograph letter of Du Maurier to Osgood, not the +elaborately bound assemblage of the original _Harper_ chapters, whose +illustrations are so much more attractive than those in the +later-published book, with the cancelled pages about Lorrimer and Joe +Sibley which so offended the shrinking, diffident Whistler that they +were remorselessly cut out—Whistler, who never hurt the feelings of a +friend or learned “the gentle art of making enemies”. Then there are +“The Bab Ballads”, and Lear’s “Nonsense Book,” and Alice, my Lady of +Wonderland, and my Lady of Looking Glass country, whom so many adore and +so many fail to comprehend. For there are myriads who, like the little +Scotch lad, can see nothing in Carroll’s playful extravagances except +that they contain “a great deal of feection”. + +It is sad that the modern disposition to overdo everything should have +so trampled upon such a delicious thing as “Trilby”; made it so common; +worn it threadbare; and when it was no longer fresh, thrown it aside +like a shattered toy. It is a manifestation of the childishness of the +multitude which goes wild over some temporary hero and then lets him +fall into the limbo of the forgotten when there are none so poor to do +him reverence. There must be some magical elixir in “Pinafore”, for +although thirty years have gone by since it sprang into universal favor, +it still survives, is laughed at and admired, and is even quoted in +after-dinner speeches. The mention of these speeches, without which no +public or semi-public dinner is considered to be worth eating, brings +painful reflections. We seem to be losing the art; perhaps we are +approaching the heaviness and prosiness of our English cousins on such +occasions. It is a melancholy thought that some reformers have +introduced the plan of hearing the speeches first and devouring the +dinner afterwards; and very lately diners were encouraged by the +engraved announcement on the cards of invitation, that there would be +“only six speeches, strictly limited to ten minutes each”. Yet, as a +rule, the speakers are not burning for an opportunity to talk; they may +truly say, as a beloved college president was wont to remark to a +disorderly class, disturbing his lecture with horse-play, “Young men, +this may be a bore to you but it is infinitely more of a bore to me.” +There is difficulty in adjusting a speech to the tastes of the +present-day dinner crowds; the time of the unending stream of anecdotes +has passed, with its everlasting “that reminds me”, and it seems to be +succeeded by an epidemic of the serious, which is not easily dealt with +in the presence of a mob flushed with champagne and shrouded in +tobacco-smoke. Some resort to epigram, but in fifteen minutes the +epigram begins to degenerate into jerky twaddle and palls upon the jaded +appetite. Now and again the orator exhibits an inclination to do what +our newspapers are forever howling about—to “probe” something or +somebody; but probing is always a painful operation and frequently does +much more harm than good. It is not given to many to be really +entertaining in discourse, so that our few entertainers are sadly +overworked. This unhappy condition of affairs has brought us to the +latest stage of infamy, when post-prandial talkers demand pay for their +performances: and we may expect to see the day or the night, when the +star of the evening will refuse to rise in his place and do his act +until the pecuniary reward has been tendered to him in specie, bills, or +certified cheque. Fancy the toast-master’s emotions if as he begins the +familiar “We have with us to-night” he is interrupted by a cry from the +hired guest, “You’re a saxpence short!” + +Much unlike the books of which we have been speaking, but in its own way +as attractive, is Mr. Atlay’s “Victorian Chancellors”, a collection of +model biographies, of interest not only to lawyers but to lovers of +history. Atlay makes no claim that his undertaking is to be regarded as +a continuation of Lord Campbell’s “Lives”, and his methods are +absolutely different from those of Campbell, who is amusing but so +palpably unfair and often inaccurate that full faith and credit cannot +be given to him. I regret that the “Lives of the Chief Justices of the +Supreme Court” have not been written by some competent lawyer of our +time, with sufficient leisure and a taste for authorship, as fair and +free from personal prejudice as Atlay’s work proves him to be. The +“Lives” that have hitherto appeared are by no means satisfactory. +Flanders, Van Santvoord, and Tyler, the biographer of Roger Brooke +Taney, are painstaking enough and undoubtedly conscientious, but they +are of the old school, dull in style, with little or no sense of +historical perspective. The biographies of Jay and of Marshall are not +adequate; they do not reveal the men to us with that distinctness which +is necessary to hold the reader’s attention. The “Lives” of Chase are +weak and flimsy. Some of the great Associate Justices might be included +in the series—Story, Curtis, Nelson, Miller; and perhaps others—famous +for long and faithful judicial service if not for surpassing legal +ability. Somehow our modern writers are not at their best in biography; +those of sufficient skill and industry, like Henry Adams and James Ford +Rhodes, are led to devote themselves to general history which affords a +broader field. Moreover, a Justice of the Supreme Court is not as +closely identified with politics and the administration of the +government as an English Chancellor usually is, and the dry technical +details of the career of a mere lawyer are not tempting to the man of +letters. + + +There is a different corner, in a darker part of the library, where one +may well linger when the wind is in the east and teeth are in need of +gnashing. One of the discomforts of advanced years is that you are +unable to do any gnashing without inflicting more pain upon the gnasher +than is actually worth while. In this corner are gathered together some +of the few books which cannot be loved; wall-flowers of literature, +which never made the bookman’s heart palpitate with any fond emotion. + +Here let us approach with hesitation and timidity, for however dry and +disagreeable a book may be, still it is a book. “Somebody loved it”. The +man who evolved it, who brought it forth, who labored over it, who +corrected the proofs, was pleased with it; deformed and misshapen though +it may be in the eyes of others, it was beautiful to him. Moreover, much +may after all be learned from the poorest of books; and the food from +which I would turn in scorn, may to another be palatable. Therefore I +wish it to be clearly understood that in making what are called +“derogatory” remarks about any book, I am guiltless of the offence of +setting up my own judgment and preference against the view and opinion +of any one else whomsoever; I am merely expressing my own personal +feelings. If it be asserted by some one who chances not to agree with +me, that these feelings are of no importance to any one but to myself, I +may reply that I admit it and that no one is obliged to read what I have +written; and should he complain that he has paid “very hard cash” for my +book and has a right to full consideration, I will answer, as Mr. Lang +answered somebody,—that he should read Mazzini, and learn that man has +no rights worth mentioning, only duties. Moreover I would say to him +that if he can prove that he paid for the volume its full price, and did +not pick it up at a discount in some second-hand book shop, that refuge +of lame, halt and blind books, or at a bargain counter in a department +store, I will cheerfully refund his money, provided he will furnish me +with a sworn affidavit declaring solemnly that he sincerely admires the +book which I detest. But even the omnivorous reader must like some books +better than others. If, as was truly said, no cigars are bad, some are +certainly more smokeable than others, and some pretty women are prettier +than other pretty women. If the books I do not like were the only books +in the world, I suppose that I would be fond of them as Frederick was of +Ruth until he beheld the loveliness of Major-General Stanley’s numerous +daughters. + +One of the black sheep of my flock is called “Random Reminiscences: by +Charles H. E. Brookfield”, published in 1902. The author is the son of +Thackeray’s Brookfield, and his portrait shows what manner of man he +must be. How any rational human being could write out or cause to be +published such a flat, stale and unprofitable mess, passes +understanding. The most wretched of anecdotes are retailed, and if he +chances upon a fairly good one he spoils it in the telling. “I am not +aware”, he says in his preface, “that I have included in this volume +anything which appears to me of importance; I trust that I have not +either committed the impertinence of expressing any views.” This may +have been meant in a facetious way, but it is obviously so true that one +is impelled to ask why on earth he wrote it. He is so proud of his +pointless stories that he makes one long to go out and kill something, +thus creating a counter-irritant. How can any one fail to give way to +inextinguishable laughter over this final outburst of glee: “Thanks to +Dr. Walther and his treatment, I put on nearly 2 stone weight in a +little over two months. I was 10 stone 4 before I went, and 12 stone 2 +when I left. And I am over 12 stone to-day, three years later”. From his +humor I should think that he was heavier. I have been waiting patiently +for a second edition to ascertain whether he has grown to any extent, +but none has appeared. No wonder that he finished his autobiography with +a quotation from a newspaper which said of him, on his supposed decease: +“But, after all, it is at his club that he will be most missed”. Jolly +dog, how he must have warmed the cockles of their hearts with his merry +jests! + +In the same corner with the jovial Brookfield and his “twelve stone” are +gathered together the various biographies whose titles begin with “The +True” or “The Real”. I confess that I have not read through “The True +Thomas Jefferson”, although I am burdened with two copies, but I have +ploughed through “The True Abraham Lincoln”, and found it an ordinary +piece of hack-work, marred by blunders. The calm assumption which leads +a writer to proclaim that he alone portrays “the true” and “the real”, +as if all other accounts were false, is condemnatory at the outset. As +for Jeaffreson’s lot,—“The Real Lord Byron” and “The Real Shelley”,—they +are monuments of dullness, the subjects overloaded with petty details of +no value to any one. Mr. John Cordy Jeaffreson, who was always +publishing “Books About” something or somebody, has presented to mankind +his “Recollections”, conspicuous chiefly for its covert sneers at +Thackeray, whom he hated, and studied disparagement of the personal +character of that giant who towered so far above Jeaffresonian pigmies. +Jeaffreson’s books belong to the Sawdust School of literature. He has +not even the brightness of Percy Fitzgerald, who has so long made the +most of his stock in trade, a certain friendship and association with +Dickens, and who in his two volumes of “Memories of an Author” is almost +as bad as Jeaffreson at his best. It is true that Dickens had a personal +liking for Fitzgerald, when the latter was a contributor to “All The +Year Round”, but I believe that Charles Dickens the Younger not many +years ago expressed some doubts as to the intimacy of the two men. + +Jeaffreson was a weak and self-important person, jealous of his betters. +George Somes Layard says, in his interesting “Life of Shirley +Brooks”,[3] that Jeaffreson in his “Book of Recollections” wrote “with +ill concealed envy of a far abler and more successful man than himself” +a silly fling at Brooks concerning the name “Shirley”; and elsewhere +refers to the “Recollections” as a “querulous and pawky book”. The +characterization is undeniably just; plainly in accord with the opinion +of the reading public; and the two pawky volumes rest peacefully in the +trash corner. + +In company with Jeaffreson will be found everything written by Mr. +William Carew Hazlitt, who, in a long life of devotion to the +accumulation of miscellaneous information of doubtful value and to the +parading of the name of Hazlitt, has caused a vast number of pages to be +covered with typographical records of his diligence and of his unfailing +capacity for making blunders. Full forty years ago he was unlucky enough +to come into close contact with the keen lance of one James Russell +Lowell, who riddled his editions of Webster and of Lovelace, included in +John Russell Smith’s “Library of Old Authors”. Lowell wrote that “of all +Mr. Smith’s editors, Mr. W. Carew Hazlitt is the worst. He is at times +positively incredible, worse even than Mr. Halliwell, and that is saying +a good deal.”[4] Whether Hazlitt was worth flaying as Lowell flayed him, +may be questioned. But Hazlitt still goes on, in his Boeotian way; +always inept; sometimes so offensive that, as in the case of his “Four +Generations of a Literary Family” it has been necessary to withdraw the +work from circulation.[5] An example of his “foolish notions” may be +seen in one of his latest books, “The Book-Collector” (1904) which has a +sub-title composed of fifty-one words. Mr. Hazlitt announces the +astonishing generalization that the autograph collector does not care +for books or for manuscripts beyond the extent of a fly leaf or +inscribed title-page, and that he is a modern and inexcusable Bagford +who tears out the inscription and throws away the book. He cites the +case of “a copy of Donne’s Sermons, with a brilliant portrait of the +author—and a long inscription by Izaak Walton presenting the volume to +his aunt. It was in the pristine English calf binding, as clean as when +it left Walton’s hands _en route_ to his kinswoman, and such a +delightful signature. What has become of it? It is sad even to commit to +paper the story—one among many. An American gentleman acquired it, tore +the portrait and leaf of inscription out, and threw the rest away”. + +I believe him—to use the language of a mighty hunter—to be a meticulous +prevaricator. If the tale be true, and I should like to have Mr. William +Carew Hazlitt under cross-examination for a while, it only shows that +there may be a few vandals in the tribe of autograph collectors, but no +true collector would ever be guilty of such a wanton crime. Bagford tore +out title-pages, but that affords no evidence that book-lovers are +habitually given to the folly of tearing out title-pages. As for the +case being “one of many”, I deny it; if he had known of another instance +he would have gloried in the description of it. But he never knew law, +logic or truth, and upon his indictment for silliness it would be +necessary only to offer in evidence his books,—and rest. + +But why should I get so very cross about poor old Hazlitt? The wisest +thing I can do is to recite to him the touching verses of “You are old, +Father William” and remonstrate gently with him in regard to his +pernicious habit of incessantly standing upon his head. It will be a +good plan to return to the favorite corner and soothe my ruffled spirits +by reading Percy Greg’s comical “History of the United States”, or +better still, the dear little story which Roswell Field wrote about “The +Bondage of Ballinger”. + + +Whether so famous a poem as Young’s _Night Thoughts_ is entitled to the +privileges of the pit of Acheron, may be matter for dispute; but as +Goldsmith said of those gloomy lucubrations, a reader speaks of them +with exaggerated applause or contempt as his disposition “is either +turned to mirth or melancholy”. We have preserved “tired nature’s sweet +restorer, balmy sleep”, and “procrastination is the thief of time,” but +we know that the didactic parson’s famous poem is “hardly ever read now +except under compulsion.” My chief grievance against the man who was +compelled to + + “Torture his invention + To flatter knaves or lose his pension,” + +is not, however, founded upon his lugubrious pentameters. + +The man who turns down the corner of the leaf of a book is not only fit +for treason, stratagems and spoils, but is well qualified to commit any +mean crime in the calendar. If his memory is so poor that he cannot +remember page or passage, let him make a small pencil note on the +margin. Such a note may readily be removed by an eraser, but a “dog’s +ear” can never be wholly removed. Its blight continues during the life +of the book. Now Boswell records this sickening fact: “I have seen +volumes of Dr. Young’s copy of _The Rambler_, in which he has marked the +passages which he thought particularly excellent, by folding down a +corner of the page, and such as he rated in a supereminent degree are +marked by double folds. I am sorry that some of the volumes are lost.” I +do not share in this sorrow; it is well that the testimony of such +brutality should be effaced. Double folds! Insatiate archer, would not +one suffice? Perhaps Johnson himself, Virginius-like, destroyed his +offspring thus shamelessly violated. + +It is often difficult to get out of corners; but before I escape, let me +give to the dog’s-earing, nocturnally reflecting Young full credit for a +single utterance—“Joy flies monopolists,”—which proves that it was not +wholly in vain that he burned the midnight oil; for although he speaks +in the present tense, it is manifest that the spirit of prophecy was +strong within him. He looked ahead for more than a century and foresaw +the day when “grafters” might be glorified and exalted, debauchees +acclaimed us apostles of the people, and murderers feasted and honored, +but monopolists hated, shunned and abhorred as miscreants whose sins can +never be forgiven. Joyless indeed are those who dare to deprive their +fellow beings of the inborn right to equality in everything; for we hold +these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created free and +equal,—that is to say, with the right to do just as they please, to till +the soil, to mine the earth, to invent the telegraph and the telephone, +to manufacture steel, and to construct railways, but not to do it so +well as to prevent any of the great people from doing the same thing. +The abandoned wretch who, by his despicable brains, his virtuous life, +and his pernicious industry, seeks to impair those rights in any degree, +however trifling, must be prepared to bid farewell to happiness and +contentment. If he is able to avoid the jail, it will be well for him to +seek refuge in some secluded spot; let us say, in a peaceful library +corner. + + + + + OF THE OLD FASHION + + +Speaking appreciatively a few nights ago at the club, concerning a +recent magazine article on “Prescott, the Man,” I was reminded by a +youthful university graduate of only twenty-five years standing, that +“Prescott is an old-fashioned historian.” + +There is much that is amusing in the attitude of the self-sufficient +present towards the things of the past and there is also an element of +the pathetic. I am often called an “old fogy,” an epithet whose origin +and derivation are uncertain, but whose meaning is reasonably plain. +Nobody who ever had the name applied to him was oppressed by any doubt +about its signification. Some authorities tell us that it comes from the +Swedish _fogde_—one who has charge of a garrison,—but I question it +despite the confident assertion of the _Century Dictionary_. It is not +altogether inappropriate, because old fogies are compelled to hold the +fort against all manner of abominations. They are the brakes on the +electric cars of modern pseudo-progress. Thackeray speaks of “old +Livermore, old Soy, old Chutney the East India director, old Cutler the +surgeon,—that society of old fogies, in fine, who give each other +dinners sound and round and dine for the mere purpose of guttling.” + +So the term is always associated with the stupid and the ridiculous, +used with regard to “elderly persons who have no sympathy with the +amusements and pursuits of the young.” Nobody ever refers to a young +fogy, although most of us know many exceedingly dull-witted young people +who have no sympathy with the amusements and pursuits of the aged or +even of the middle-aged. One class is no more worthy of contempt than +the other. The adolescents who find their highest form of entertainment +in “bridge” are at least as deserving of pity as the semi-centenarian +who prefers to pass his evenings among his books and his pictures or to +devote them to Shakespeare and the musical glasses. There are some +delights about the library fireside which compare favorably with those +of the corridors of our most popular hostelry. + +Certain kindly critics have insisted that my own literary tastes were +acquired in the year 1850. I am not sure that the despised tastes formed +in those commonplace, mid-century days are to be esteemed more highly +than the tastes of our own self-satisfied times, but a good deal may be +said in their favor. Perhaps the past is not always inferior to the +present. There are varying opinions on the subject, from the familiar +saying of Alfonso of Aragon, quoted by Melchior, immortalized by Bacon, +and paraphrased by Goldsmith—that saying about old wood, old wine, old +friends, and old authors—to the dogmatic declaration of Whittier that +“still the new transcends the old.” It may occur to antiquated minds +that there are some elements of excellence about old plays compared with +the dramatic works of this careless, _insouciant_ time; that Wordsworth +has some merits which are superior to those of the worthy gentleman who +now fills the office of Laureate, and that possibly the poetry of the +last few years is not entitled to boast itself greatly beside that of +the early nineteenth century—the poetry of Scott, of Byron, of Shelley +and of Keats. But we have the telephone and the trolley-car, the +automobile, the aeroplane, and the operation for appendicitis; and we +admire our progress, the wonderful growth of the material, the +mechanical, and the million-airy, while a few may pause to ask whether +good taste and good manners have grown as greatly. Some of our older +buildings for example are assuredly far better to look at than the lofty +structures of steel which tower in lower New York and make of our +streets darksome canons where the light of day scarcely penetrates and +where the winds of winter roar wildly about our devoted heads as we +struggle, hat-clutching, to our office doorways. May we not cite the +City Hall and the Assay Office as honorable specimens of dignified +architecture? There was something impressive too about the old +“Tombs,”—replaced not long ago by a monstrosity;—a structure which a +lady recently told me was once referred to by an English friend who had +never been in New York, as “the Westminster Abbey of America.” + +It is delightful to be young and to indulge in the illusions of youth—a +truism which it is safe to utter, for nobody will dispute it. “Youth is +a blunder, manhood a struggle, old age a regret,” said the strange, +semi-oriental personage, an enigma in politics and a problem in +literature, Benjamin Disraeli. Everybody knows the rude saying of old +George Chapman, which it is almost an impertinence to quote, but every +one does not remember whence it came—that young men think the old men +are fools but old men know young men are fools. It is certain that we +have cherished that idea in our minds for many centuries. Pope, in his +epigrammatic way, remarked that “in youth and beauty wisdom is but +rare,” but we cannot give him credit for originality in the utterance. +We will go on with our regrets, our reproofs and our hesitancies, and in +the course of time those who sneer at us now as cumbersome relics, +_laudatores temporis acti_, mere maunderers enamored of an effete past, +will take their turn, fill our places, and endure the pitying and +condescending smiles of the succeeding generation. There is nothing new +under the sun, and the man of to-day may well pause in his arrogant +career to remember that he will quickly pass into the category of the +obsolete. + +Some of us who are beginning to descend that downward slope of life +which soon becomes sadly precipitous, but who retain a vivid +recollection of the long ago, are fond of recalling a period of New York +which in this era of lavish expenditures, indiscriminating profuseness, +and careless prodigality seems strangely simple. Those were the days +when in sedate Second Avenue and Stuyvesant Square were the homes of +dignified wealth, whose owners rather looked down upon Fifth Avenue as +_parvenu_; and Forty-second Street was almost an outpost of +civilization. We revelled in the delights of the ancient Philharmonic +concerts and believed that Carl Bergmann was the last evolution of a +conductor; later we recognized Theodore Thomas as the man who did more +to develop a taste for good orchestral music in this country than any +other one man who ever lived. We thronged the stalls of old Wallack’s, +with its most excellent of stock-companies—something which has wholly +disappeared—and we rejoiced in Dion Boucicault and Agnes Robertson. A +little later we haunted the upper gallery of the Academy of Music in +Fourteenth Street,—at least _I_ did, because of a confirmed stringency +in the money market,—and cheered the magical top-notes of the ponderous +but melodious Wachtel and the generous tones of that most inspiring of +singers, the splendid Parepa-Rosa. We hailed with loud acclaims the +manly and dignified Santley—more in his element in oratorio than in +opera—and the royal contralto, Adelaide Phillips, long since forgotten +except by the Old Guard who afterwards transferred their allegiance to +Annie Louise Cary. It may have been a provincial time, but we did not +think so; it was a good time, and we enjoyed it. + +It seems but yesterday when all over the land flashed the news of +Lincoln’s death, and the black draperies suddenly shrouded the streets +while the triumphant note of Easter Sunday died away in a cry of +lamentation. I was in old St. Bartholomew’s in Lafayette Place that +Sunday, and the recollection of it will never be lost. Nor shall I +forget the grief and alarm of a small band of Southerners, secessionists +of the strongest type, domiciled in the same house with me, as they +lamented that in the death of Abraham Lincoln the South had been +deprived of its best friend, the man who would have made reconstruction +a blessing instead of an affliction. They had been rebels, it is true, +but they were conscious of the loftiness of the soul of that noble +citizen who, with faults which are often the accompaniments of +greatness, stood for all that was just and magnanimous in our national +life. + +Some of us have a clear recollection of the camping of soldiers in City +Hall Park, the cheering of the multitude as the regiments of volunteers +swung down Broadway on their march to Virginia, when we were striving to +preserve the republic and the horror of civil war was present with us +every hour. We were less cynical, less ambitious, less strenuous in +those days, and I think we were more serene and sincere. We had serious +imperfections, but we did not carry ourselves quite as mightily, and on +the whole we had some creditable characteristics. There is no good +reason why we should be ashamed of ourselves. + +Were we so very stupid in the fifties? Was there not some true and +honorable life in our social and literary world of that generation? +Surely our newspapers were as worthy of respect as some of our +contemporary journals with their blazing capitals, their columns of +crime, their pages of the sensational, and their provoking condensed +headlines which exasperate me by their airy flippancy. I sometimes +wonder that nobody except myself utters a protest against those dreadful +headlines. They reduce almost everything to vulgarity, and the affection +of condensation is distinctly irritating. Most objectionable of all are +the headlines followed by interrogation points, because they are +misleading. If, for example, they say in capitals “Mr. Smith strikes his +mother?” the average reader—and there is more of that sort than of any +other—glancing over the pages misses the query and goes to his grave +with the firm conviction that poor Smith was the most unmanly of brutes. +I am not sure that the interrogation mark protects the proprietors +against a libel suit. + +It is true that in the fifties our art may have been of the tame and +tidy sort, timorously clinging to the conventional; our financial +enterprises were conducted on so small a scale that a million was a sum +which made the banker’s heart palpitate with apprehensive emotion; our +politics were concerned chiefly with the colored man and his relations +to the State; in architecture our awful brown stone fronts were +oppressing in a domineering way all the town in and above Fourteenth +Street. But there was a certain dignity about it all, an absence of +tawdriness, a savor of respectability. + +Fourteenth Street! It must be difficult for the New Yorkers of to-day +who have not passed the half-century mark to realize that only fifty +years ago it was really “up-town.” It is easier to imagine the present +Thomas Street as it was in 1815, a spot to be reached only after a +bucolic journey through country lanes which my grandfather used to +traverse on his way to the New York Hospital where he studied medicine. +We think of that condition of things in about the same state of mind as +that in which we contemplate the Roman Forum or the stony avenues of +Pompeii. It amuses me to recall the period of the fifties and early +sixties when the Hudson River Railroad had its terminus in Thirtieth +Street near Tenth Avenue, but sent its cars, horse-drawn, to Chambers +Streets and College Place just opposite old Ridley’s, whose pictures +were on those familiar inverted cones of never-to-be-forgotten candies, +the virtues whereof have been proclaimed sonorously on railway trains +from time immemorial, and that Chambers Street station will always live +in the memory of old-fashioned people who used to “go to town” from +rural neighborhoods. My aforesaid grandfather took me often, much to my +joy, to visit his son in West Nineteenth Street, and the conservative +old gentleman, who served as a surgeon under Commodore Charles Stewart +on the good ship “Franklin,” always went to Chambers Street and thence +by the Sixth Avenue horse-railway to Nineteenth Street, which caused the +pilgrimage to be unduly protracted, but we always reached our +destination sooner or later—generally later. I remember that an idiotic +notion possessed me that we were confined to traveling on West Broadway +because country people were not allowed to encumber the real, the +glorious Broadway, of whose omnibus-crowded splendors I caught but +furtive glimpses by peering up the cross-streets. Another gentleman of +the old school, whom I loved sincerely, invariably proceeded from +Thirtieth Street—and after the genesis of the Grand Central Station, +from Forty-second Street—to the Astor House, from which venerable house +of cheer he wended his way serenely to Union Square, or to Madison +Square, or to any quarter where his business or his pleasure led him, +however remote it might be from City Hall Park. To him the Astor House +was practically the hub of the metropolis. These details may seem to be +trivial, but they are characteristic of the old-fashioned men of half a +century ago who still clung to the swallow-tailed coat as a garment to +be worn by daylight. It never occurred to them to “take a cab,” possibly +because there was no cab which a decent person would willingly occupy +unless it had been ordered in advance from a livery stable. There are +many reasons why this land of freedom—modified freedom—is preferable to +any other land; but when we come to cabs, we must, in all fairness, +admit the superiority of the London hansom over a New York “growler,” +the hansoms now vanishing, we learn, before the all-conquering horde of +motor-cars. + +The old-fashioned magazines—how few ever turn their pages now, and yet +how much in them is of interest, even to a casual reader. Far be it from +me to whisper the slightest word of disparagement about our gorgeous and +innumerable “monthlies,” with their pomp and pride of illustration, +extending from text to the copious advertisements, those soul-stirring +and lucrative adjuncts to a magazine of the present. Do not tell me that +a man who buys the thick, paper-covered book does not read the +advertisements; he pretends that he does not, but he does. According to +my experience he follows them from soap to steam-yachts, from +refrigerators to railway routes, but he would rather die than confess +it. Much as I admire these products of our later civilization, I +nevertheless maintain that there is more charm in an ancient number of +any worthy periodical than is to be found in the latest issue. Time +seems to add a mellow flavor to the good things of the past. There is +not much to say in praise of the solemn _Whig Review_ or of O’Sullivan’s +portentous _Democratic Review_, but take from the shelf a shabbily bound +volume of _Graham’s Magazine of Literature and Art_, published in the +forties, and there will be discovered a wilderness of delights. The +fashion-plates alone are dreams of comical beauty, and the steel plates +of “The Shepherd’s Love,” “The Proffered Kiss,” and “Lace Pattern with +Embossed View” far surpass—in a sense—the boasted work of Pyle and of +Abbey. What soul will decline to be thrilled at the lovely skit entitled +“Born to Love Pigs and Chickens” by that butterfly of literature, +Nathaniel Parker Willis, which you will find in the number of February, +1843. Consider the portrait of Charles Fenno Hoffman, with his exquisite +coatlet, his wonderful legs attired in what appear to be tights, and his +mild but intellectual countenance beaming upon us as he sits, +bare-headed, upon a convenient stage rock, holding in one hand an object +which may be a pie, a boxing-glove or a hat, according to the +imagination of the beholder. Contemplate the list of contributors, +including Bryant, Cooper, Longfellow, Lowell, and “Edgar A. Poe, Esq.,” +the “Esq.” adding a delicious dignity to each of the illustrious names. +It was only “sixty years since,” but can any magazine of to-day rival +that catalogue? Almost every one knows that Poe was editor of _Graham_ +for a year and that _The Murders in the Rue Morgue_ as well as +Longfellow’s _Spanish Student_ first appeared in that magazine. Coming +to a later day, recall the _Harper_ of the fifties. No pleasure of the +present can equal that which we felt when we revelled in Abbott’s +Napoleon, which turned us lads into enthusiastic admirers of the great +Emperor; or when we enjoyed the jovial Porte Crayon, whose drawing was +consistently as bad as Thackeray’s, but whose fascinating humor had a +quality peculiarly its own. Not long ago Mr. Janvier, to the +gratification of the surviving members of the brotherhood of early +_Harper_ readers, gave to Strother the tribute of his judicious praise. + +One may not gossip lightly about the _Atlantic_, but the _Knickerbocker_ +is distinctly old-fashioned. Longfellow’s _Psalm of Life_ first saw the +light in its pages; immortal, even if Barrett Wendell does truthfully +say that it is full not only of outworn metaphor but of superficial +literary allusion. Old New York, adds Professor Wendell, expressed +itself in our first school of renascent writing, which withered away +with the _Knickerbocker Magazine_. But there was a Knickerbocker school, +and the brothers Willis and Gaylord Clark helped to sustain its glories. +The magazine began in 1832, faded in 1857 and died in 1864; and out of +it sprang many of the authors whose names are inseparably associated +with a golden period of our literature. + +It was only a short time ago that one of the men of those by-gone times +departed this life, and the scanty mention of him in the public press +compelled a sad recognition of the familiar truth that in order to +retain popular attraction one must pose perpetually under the +lime-light. Parke Godwin, who belonged to the order of scholarly, +high-minded Americans, had outlived his fame, except among the +Centurions of West Forty-third Street and a few old people of the same +class. Perhaps he did not concentrate his powers sufficiently. Editor, +writer of political essays, author of _Vala, a Mythological Tale_, +biographer of his father-in-law, William Cullen Bryant, and by virtue of +his _History of France_, historian,—but he published only one volume +more than forty years ago and then abandoned the task—he had that broad +culture which sometimes disperses itself and fails to win for its +possessor the highest place in the literary hierarchy. He was a +delightful example of what we now regard as the old-fashioned, and his +address on the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Century Club +is a mine of good things for one who is interested in the past of New +York. “I have stood once more” said he “beside the easel of Cole as he +poured his ideal visions of the Voyage of Life and the Course of Empire +in gorgeous colors upon the canvas. I have seen the boyish Kensett +trying to infuse his own refinement and sweetness into the wild woods of +the wold. I have watched the stately Gifford as he brought the City of +the Sea out of its waters, in a style that Cavaletto and Ziem would envy +and with a brilliancy of color that outshone even its native Italian +skies. I have stood beside the burly Leutze as he portrayed our +Washington among the ice of the Delaware, or depicted the multitudinous +tramp of immigrants making their western way through the wilderness to +the shores of the Oregon, that ‘hears no sound save its own dashings.’ +All have come back for a moment, but they are gone, oh whither? Into the +silent land, says Von Salis; yet how silent it is! We speak to them, but +they answer us not again.” He brought back to us the beginning of +things, when he told us of the incipient conditions of the Academy of +Design. “They took a room—was it suggestive?—in the old Alms House in +the Park, and they worked under a wick dipped in whale-oil which gave +out more smoke than light.” He spoke of Halleck, of Gulian Verplanck, of +Bryant, of Charles Fenno Hoffman, of Robert C. Sands, and of old Tristam +Burges, “who had swallowed Lemprière’s Classical Dictionary;” and he +closed with a brief flight of eloquence such as in these days of +new-fashioned chilliness it is seldom vouchsafed to us to hear. + +Of the same order was William Allen Butler, the friend of Halleck and of +Duyckinck, of Andrew Jackson and of Martin Van Buren, who knew Samuel +Rogers and visited him in London. He was nine years the junior of +Godwin. He might have won the highest eminence in the world of books if +he had not made the law his chief occupation and literature only his +recreation. The bar does not among its rewards number that of enduring +fame, unless occasionally some great political or criminal trial +perpetuates the name of the advocate chiefly concerned in it. Of course, +Mr. Butler’s early essay in verse, “Nothing to Wear,” will never be +entirely forgotten. A humorous skit as it was, its enduring merit is +shown by the fact that in spite of the old-fashioned terms descriptive +of woman’s dress and of the fashionable life of fifty years ago, in its +general tone it is curiously contemporaneous. Scarcely less witty and +amusing were his poems, “General Average” and “The Sexton and the +Thermometer,” the former being more highly esteemed by many than its +popular predecessor. I suppose that he left it out of the later +collection of his poems because, with his gentle and kindly nature, he +feared that a few of its passages might give offense to some of his +friends of the Jewish faith whom he esteemed and respected. His +translations of Uhland are marked by graceful and poetic fervor, and his +prose style was lucidity itself. His humor, always attractive and +appropriate, lightened even his most serious work, from an address on +Statutory Law to an argument in the Supreme Court in Washington City. It +was well said of him by a jurist now living, that “no man of his time, +either in England or America, held an equally high rank both as a lawyer +and a literary man.” + +Another of the old-fashioned literary men, who was, however, +considerably the senior of both Godwin and Butler, was George Perkins +Morris, who died in 1864. He was at once a general of militia, an +editor, a favorite song-writer, and the composer of an opera libretto. +His title to immortality rests mainly upon the sentimental verses known +as “Woodman, Spare that Tree,” which had a flavor about them very dear +to our grandparents. To look at his manly countenance in the portrait +engraved by Hollyer (who at the present writing is still extant and +vigorous) after the Elliott painting, we can scarcely imagine him as the +author of such lines as “Near the Lake Where Drooped the Willow,” “We +Were Boys Together,” “Land-Ho,” “Long Time Ago” and “Whip-poor-will.” +But James Grant Wilson says that for above a score of years he could, +any day, exchange one of his songs unread for a fifty dollar cheque, +when some of _literati_ of New York (possibly Poe) could not sell +anything for the one-fifth part of that sum. In the presence of Morris, +I confess I cannot quite give myself up to adoring admiration of the +taste of our predecessors. This stanza indicates his ordinary quality: + + The star of love now shines above, + Cool zephyrs crisp the sea; + Among the leaves, the wind-harp weaves + Its serenade for thee. + +Notwithstanding this rather trifling vein, admirably satirized by +Orpheus C. Kerr, and a certain tone of commonplace, Morris had a genuine +lyrical quality in his verse, although it was devoid of startling bursts +of inspiration, and English literature affords many examples of less +deserving poesy. Morris was an industrious editor, appreciative of +others, and he had a personal charm which endeared him to those who had +the good fortune to come within the pale of his friendship, and +particularly to those who were permitted to enjoy the generous +hospitality of his sweet and dignified home at Undercliff opposite West +Point. Smile as we may at his little conceits and his obvious rhymes, we +must recognize the sincere and genial nature of the kindly General, so +long conspicuous in the social and literary life of old New York. + +These men, it may be said, do not prove the permanent value of the +literature of the fifties. Godwin and Morris were editors and Butler a +busy lawyer, none of them able to give their undivided attention to +authorship. I suppose that Irving and Emerson, Bryant, Longfellow, +Hawthorne and Bayard Taylor were more distinctly the ornaments of the +time, and there are other names which more judicious and discriminating +men might substitute for some of those I have chosen. Bayard Taylor’s +greatest work was done in later years, but he had already won his first +fame—not a giant, but a poet with “the spontaneity of a born singer,” as +Stedman said. Irving, the most charming and amiable of writers, had not +the most forceful intellect, but he was calm and graceful, with a gentle +and bewitching humor and a strong appreciation of the beautiful—a good +man, beloved and honored at home and abroad. His fame is paler now than +it was forty years gone by, but he has the immortality of a classic. +Emerson had a powerful influence over the minds of men, but, viewed in +the perspective of time, he does not loom so largely now. I am not +competent to venture far into the territory of criticism, having only +the equipment of a general reader who timidly expresses his personal +feelings and leaves to trained and experienced judges the task of +scientific analysis; but we general readers are the jury, after all. + +As time slips by there is a tendency to merge the decades of the past, +and to the young people of 1909 the period of 1850–1860 is every bit +as remote as the period of 1830–1840. The university undergraduate +does not differentiate between the alumnus of 1870 and him of 1855, as +I know by experience. A melancholy illustration of this well-known +fact was afforded of late in a popular play, the scene of which was +laid in a time supposed to be exceedingly far distant, and the +programme announced it as “the early eighties.” The representation was +enlivened by such antiquated melodies as “Old Zip Coon,” “Maryland, My +Maryland,” and “Old Dan Tucker,” as well as “Pretty as a Picture,” “Ye +Merry Birds,” and “How Fair Art Thou,” all as appropriate to the early +eighties as Dr. Arne’s “Where the Bee Sucks” and “Rule Britannia.” It +was almost as abominably anachronistic as the naive declaration of a +pseudo-Princetonian who asserted a membership in the Class of 1879 and +assured me that he had been, while in college, a devoted disciple of +Doctor Eliphalet Nott. If I have mingled my old-fashioned decades +unduly, it has been because of that tendency to merger which no +Sherman Act can suppress. + +Few there are who cling with affection to the memory of the +old-fashioned. Most of us prefer to spin with the world down the ringing +grooves of change, to borrow the shadow of a phrase which has itself +become old-fashioned. The flaming sword of the Civil War severed the +latest century of America in two unequal parts, and its fiery blade +divided the old and the new as surely and as cleanly as the guillotine +cleft apart the France of the old monarchy from the France of modern +days. To stray back in recollection to the land of fifty years ago is +almost like treading the streets of some mediæval town. But for some of +us there is a melancholy pleasure in the retrospect and a lingering +fondness for the life which we thought so earnest and so vigorous then, +but which now seems so placid and so drowsy. + + + + + WILLIAM HARRISON AINSWORTH + + +Reviewers, critics and students of literature are inclined to resent the +assertion with respect to a writer once eminent, that he is +substantially forgotten. But it is safe to say that if we regard the +millions of readers in this country whose literary nutriment is made up +chiefly of works of fiction or of biography of the lighter sort, as “the +reading public of America”, the name of William Harrison Ainsworth is by +no means familiar in the United States. There are many book-owners who +keep his “Works” upon their shelves, and know the backs of the volumes, +and some of the omnivorous have doubtless read “Jack Sheppard”, +“Crichton”, “The Tower of London”, and perhaps “Rookwood”; yet thousands +who are well acquainted with their Scott, their Dickens and their +Thackeray would be sorely puzzled if they were asked to tell us who +Ainsworth was, and exactly when he lived, or to give a synopsis of the +plot of a single one of his numerous stories; and he has been dead not +quite thirty years. + +Allibone gives him but fourteen lines of biography, mostly bitter +censure, with a few words of qualified praise for such historical tales +as “St. Paul’s” and “The Tower”. The indifference to him is not limited +to general readers or to America. Chamber’s _Encyclopædia of English +Literature_ begrudges him twenty-nine lines of depreciative comment, +conceding to him dramatic art and power, but denying to him “originality +or felicity of humor or character”. He is not even mentioned in Mr. +Edmund Gosse’s _Modern English Literature_, and Taine does not +condescend to give his name. In the _History_ of Nicoll and Seccombe no +reference to him can be found. In the pretentious volumes of the +_History of English Literature_ edited by Garnett and Gosse a portrait +of him is given with a rough draft of a Cruikshank drawing; and this is +what is said of him: “A very popular exponent of the grotesque and the +sensational in historical romance was William Harrison Ainsworth +(1805–1882), a Manchester solicitor, who wrote _Rookwood_, 1834, _Jack +Sheppard_, 1839, and _The Tower of London_, 1840. He was a sort of +Cruikshank of the pen, delighting in violent and lurid scenes, crowded +with animated figures”. This is rather an absurd mess of misinformation. +One would scarcely believe that there was a time when he was esteemed to +be a worthy rival of Charles Dickens, and when in the eyes of the +critics and of the public he far outshone Edward Lytton Bulwer. + +In a note to the sketch in the _Dictionary of National Biography_, Mr. +W. E. A. Axon says that “no biography of Ainsworth has appeared or is +likely to be published.” The fact is correctly stated, but the +prediction may not be fulfilled. In 1902, Mr. Axon himself expanded the +_Dictionary_ article and made it into an excellent memoir of forty-three +pages, but only a few copies were printed. It contains five portraits. A +devoted admirer of Ainsworth has been for some years engaged in the +preparation of an extended biography. I do not give his name, for he +probably prefers to make the announcement at his own time and in his own +way. A few years ago I became the possessor of a considerable number of +autographic relics of Ainsworth, including a memorandum book and a +manuscript volume containing an account of his travels in Italy in 1830, +dedicated to his wife, with a poem; some letters to him from Cruikshank; +thirty-six pages of the draft of “Jack Sheppard”, and more than two +hundred of his own letters. It is gratifying to know that my friend who +is at work on the “Life” has been aided by this little collection. + +The only published records of Ainsworth’s life, other than those to +which I have referred, are, as far as I have been able to discover, a +brief memoir by Laman Blanchard which appeared in the _Mirror_ in 1842 +and was reproduced in later editions of “Rookwood”; a chapter in +Madden’s _Life of Lady Blessington_; a sketch by James Crossley +contributed to the Routledge edition of the _Ballads_ in 1855; and an +account of him by William Bates, accompanying a semi-caricature portrait +in the _Maclise Portrait Gallery_. + +Ainsworth was born in his father’s house on King Street, Manchester, +February 4, 1805. His family was “respectable” in the English sense, for +his grandfather on his mother’s side was a Unitarian minister, and his +father a prosperous solicitor. It was from the mother that he inherited +in 1842 some “landed property” to use another distinctively English +phrase, and it is amusing to observe the pride of Madden when he boasts +that Ainsworth’s name appears in _Burke’s Landed Gentry_. He attended +the Free Grammar School in Manchester, where it is said that he was +proficient in Latin and Greek, and as he was expected to succeed to his +father’s practice, he became an articled clerk in the office of Mr. +Alexander Kay, at the age of sixteen. He was a handsome boy, full of +ambition, but his ambition did not lead him in the dull and dusty paths +which solicitors tread. He had already written a drama, for private +production, which was printed in _Arliss’s Magazine_, and a number of +sketches, translations and minor papers for a serial called _The +Manchester Iris_, and he subsequently conducted a periodical styled _The +Boeotian_, which had a short existence of six months. Before he was +nineteen, he was a regular contributor to the _London Magazine_ and the +_Edinburgh Magazine_. Some of these youthful efforts were collected in +“December Tales” (1823), which also contained sketches by James Crossley +and John Partington Aston. In 1822 he issued a pamphlet of “Poems, by +Cheviot Tichborn”, which as Mr. Axon informs us, is quite distinct from +another pamphlet called “The Works of Cheviot Tichborn”, printed in +1825, apparently for private circulation. + +The Tichborn book of verses was dedicated to Charles Lamb. The author +was a devoted admirer of Elia, and as early as 1822 Lamb had lent him a +copy of Cyril Tourneur’s play or plays. On May 7, 1822, Lamb wrote to +him a letter, (printed in _The Lambs_, by William Carew Hazlitt, 1897) +referring to the book and saying, among other things, “I have read your +poetry with pleasure. The tales are pretty and prettily told. It is only +sometimes a little careless, I mean as to redundancy.” The letter +mentions the proposed dedication deprecatingly and modestly. + +Talfourd, Canon Ainger and Fitzgerald in their collections give two +other letters, written respectively on December 9 and December 29, 1823, +one thanking Ainsworth for “books and compliments,” and the other giving +Lamb-like excuses for not leaving beloved London to pay a visit to +Manchester.[6] It was something of an honor for a lad of seventeen to +receive the praise of Charles Lamb, who appears to have discovered one +of his young correspondent’s besetting sins—redundancy. But it may not +have meant much, for in those days they exchanged compliments more +profusely than is customary at the present time. + +All these excursions in the field of authorship were fatal to the grave +study of the law, for which he had no taste, and although when his +father died in 1824 he went to London to finish his term with Mr. Jacob +Phillips of the Inner Temple, it was a foregone conclusion that, +whatever his career might be, it would not be that of a solicitor. About +1826, one John Ebers, a publisher in Bond Street, and also manager of +the Opera House, brought out a novel called “Sir John Chiverton,” which +received the favor of Sir Walter Scott, who said of it in his diary +(October 17, 1826), that he had read it with interest, and that it was +“a clever book,” at the same time asserting that he himself was the +originator of the style in which it was written. For many years it was +supposed that Ainsworth was its sole author, but it was claimed in 1877 +by Mr. John Partington Aston, a lawyer, who had been a fellow-clerk of +Ainsworth’s in Mr. Kay’s office, and the book was probably the result of +collaboration. The dedicatory verses are supposed to have been addressed +to Anne Frances Ebers, John Ebers’ daughter, whom Ainsworth married on +October 11, 1826. Soon afterwards he seems to have been occupied in +editing one of those absurd “Annuals” so common in those days, for we +find Tom Moore recording in his journal in 1827, that he had been asked +to edit the _Forget-Me-Not_ to begin with the second number, “as the +present editor is Mr. Ainsworth (I think), the son-in-law of Ebers.” The +compensation offered to Moore was £500, which indicates that such work +was paid for liberally, but it is not likely that Ainsworth received as +much. A year or so after the marriage—within a year in fact—he followed +his father-in-law’s advice and became himself a publisher and a +bookseller; but at the end of eighteen months he decided to abandon the +business. + +If we may judge by one of the letters in my collection, it is not +surprising that he was not overwhelmingly successful. He writes to +Thomas Hill for a notice in the _Chronicle_ of a book the copyright of +which he had recently purchased, adding, “the work is really a most +scientific one—indeed the only distinct treatise on Confectionery +extant.” Perhaps this was the work of Ude, the cook, whose publisher he +was; but he also “brought out” Caroline Norton as an author, of whom he +writes to Charles Ollier, in his graceful, rather lady-like chirography: + +“Is it not possible [to] get me a short notice of the enclosed into the +new Monthly? By so doing you will infinitely oblige one of the most +beautiful women in the world—the Hon. Mrs. Norton, the granddaughter of +Richard Brinsley Sheridan.” + +In 1827 he published for Thomas Hood two volumes of “National Tales,” +which are said to be the poorest books written by Hood. Christopher +North said of them: “I am glad to see that they are published by Mr. +Ainsworth to whom I wish all success in his new profession. He is +himself a young gentleman of talents, and his Sir John Chiverton is a +spirited and romantic performance.”[7] + +It was for an annual issued by him that Sir Walter Scott wrote the +“Bonnets of Bonnie Dundee,” and the story is told by Mr. Axon that Sir +Walter received twenty guineas for it, but laughingly handed them over +to the little daughter of Lockhart, at whose house he and Ainsworth met. +He wrote some fragmentary and miscellaneous prose and verse, not of much +importance; and in 1828 he travelled through Belgium and up the Rhine, +going to Switzerland and Italy in 1830. The manuscript note-books which +lie before me, the paper foxed and the ink faded, comprise a diary of +the Italian part of the journey. I have toiled over the one hundred and +sixty-eight pages, not always easily decipherable, but have found little +which exceeds in value the ordinary guide-book of our own time. It was, +we must remember, written only for his wife—whom he considerately left +at home—and the dedicatory poem to her, consisting of fifty-eight +unrhymed lines, written in Venice in September, 1830, is quite as +commonplace as might be expected from a man of twenty-five, with little +poetic inspiration but endowed with much verbal fluency, who was not +writing for publication. + +Soon after his return from the Continent, Ainsworth began the work from +which he was to derive his chief title to fame—the composing of novels. +It has been said that he was inspired by Mrs. Radcliffe, whose gloomy +mysteries, weird scenes, and supernatural machinery once made her a +favorite with fiction-lovers, and that he sought to adapt old legends to +English soil. Others have ascribed his impulse to the influence of the +French dramatic romancers, Eugène Sue, Victor Hugo, and Alexandre Dumas. +I question whether he owed his inspiration to any particular source, +although all these writers may have affected his temperament. Perhaps he +unconsciously divined the needs of the reading public, of which his +editorial experience may have taught him much. The inane, fashionable +novel had become tiresome. Moreover, it was a time, in the early +thirties, when the nation of England was absorbed in the growth of her +material prosperity, and when a country is engrossed in commerce and +manufactures, in the production of wealth, tales of adventure seem +necessary to stimulate flagging imagination. We have seen the evidence +of it in our own land during the past ten years, when casting aside the +metaphysical, the psychological, the long drawn-out analyses of +character, the public eagerly devoured story after story of fights and +wars, and daring deeds, whose lucky authors bore off rewards of fabulous +amount and grew rich upon the royalties earned by their hundreds of +thousands of copies. + +We are told by Mr. Axon that “the inspiration came to him when on a +visit to Chesterfield in 1831”. He had visited Cuckfield Place, thought +by Shelley to be “like bits of Mrs. Radcliffe”, and it occurred to +Ainsworth that he might make something of an English story constructed +upon similar lines. Begun in 1831, his “Rookwood” was published in 1834. +It has generally been considered by critics to be a powerful but uneven +story, and it leaped at once into popularity, carrying with it the +youthful author. “The Romany Chant” and “Dick Turpin’s Ride to York” +were the chief features; but the Ride was the thing, like the chariot +race in _Ben-Hur_. It was actually dashed off in the glow of enthusiasm, +the white heat of imagination. It was, says George Augustus Sala, “a +piece of word painting rarely if ever surpassed in the prose of the +Victorian Era,”[8] and he said this sixty years after the novel +appeared. Ainsworth has told us the circumstances. “I wrote it” he said +“in twenty-four hours of continuous work. I had previously arranged the +meeting at Kilburn Wells, and the death of Tom King—a work of some +little time—but from the moment I got Turpin on the high road, I wrote +on and on till I landed him at York. I performed this literary feat, as +you are pleased to call it, without the slightest sense of effort. I +began in the morning, wrote all day, and as night wore on, my subject +had completely mastered me, and I had no power to leave Turpin on the +high road. I was swept away by the curious excitement and novelty of the +situation; and being personally a good horseman, passionately fond of +horses, and possessed moreover of accurate knowledge of a great part of +the country, I was thoroughly at home with my work, and galloped on with +my pet highwayman merrily enough. I must, however, confess that when my +work was in proof, I went over the ground between London and York to +verify the distances and localities, and was not a little surprised at +my accuracy.” This _tour de force_—the composition of a hundred novel +pages in so short a time, was performed at “The Elms,” a house at +Kilburn where he was then living. It brings to mind the familiar story +of Beckford, writing _Vathek_ in French, in a single sitting of three +days and two nights, which is more or less apocryphal. + +It is a proof of the merit and of the success of this chapter that, like +many other successful literary efforts, it was “claimed” by some one +else. Mr. Bates refers rather indignantly to an assertion of R. Shelton +Mackenzie, made upon the authority of Dr. Kenealy, and contained in the +fifth volume of an American edition of the _Noctes Ambrosianæ_, that +Doctor William Maginn, of convivial fame, wrote the “Ride” as well as +all the slang songs in “Rookwood.” But Maginn was seldom sober and +doubtless he bragged in his cups. Kenealy believed in Arthur Orton, the +Tichborne “claimant,” and was capable of believing in any claimant, +particularly if he was an Irishman; while Mackenzie was not celebrated +for acumen or accuracy. Sala says of the absurd tale: “As to the truth +or falsehood of this allegation I am wholly incompetent to pronounce; +but looking at Ainsworth’s striking and powerful pictures of the Plague +and the Fire in his ‘Old St. Paul’s,’ and the numerous studies of Tudor +life in his ‘Tower of London,’ I should say that ‘Turpin’s Ride to York’ +was a performance altogether within the compass of his capacity.” + +In the light of later years, it is interesting to observe the +comparisons made between Bulwer and Ainsworth. In _Fraser’s Magazine_ +for June, 1834, there is a review of “Rookwood” in which the author is +praised far beyond the writer of _Eugene Aram_ and _Paul Clifford_. +Bulwer, according to Sala, was fated “to be beaten on his own ground by +another writer of fiction very much his inferior in genius; but who was +nevertheless endowed with a considerable amount of melodramatic power, +and who had acquired a conspicuous facility for dramatic description.” +It may be that the defeat drove Bulwer to those other fields in which he +won the reputation which has preserved his name while that of his +conqueror of seventy years ago has faded sadly. + +It was erroneously believed by many that Ainsworth must have had some +personal acquaintance with low life in London because of the ease with +which he dealt with the thieves’ jargon, but his knowledge of it was but +second-hand for he obtained it from the autobiography of James Hardy +Vaux.[9] A second edition of “Rookwood” illustrated by George +Cruikshank, appeared in 1836. + +Ainsworth was now a conspicuous man, and his celebrity as an author, +combined with his personal attractions, made him a welcome guest at many +houses, notably at Gore House, where Lady Blessington so long held +sway—“jolly old girl”, he calls her in one of my letters, written in +1836. The beauty at forty-seven was as fascinating as ever. “Everybody +goes to Lady Blessington’s”, says Haydon in his _Diary_. The +effervescent Sala tells of meeting Ainsworth there in a later time. “I +think”, he says, “that on the evening in question there were present, +among others, Daniel Maclise, the painter, and Ainsworth, the novelist. +The author of “Jack Sheppard” was then a young man of about thirty, very +handsome, but somewhat of the curled and oiled and glossy-whiskered +D’Orsay type”. The D’Orsay type was by no means distasteful to my lady. +Sala relates at second-hand the anecdote about Lady Blessington placing +herself between D’Orsay and Ainsworth, and saying that she had for +supporters the two handsomest men in London. + +He was a favorite contributor to _Fraser’s Magazine_, and his portrait +appears among “The Fraserians”, indeed a goodly company, for there are +Coleridge, Southey, James Hogg, Lockhart, D’Orsay, Thackeray, Carlyle, +Washington Irving, Sir David Brewster, and Theodore Hook, with many +others. In the letter-press which accompanied the portrait,—supposed to +have been written by Maginn—the Magazine says: “May he turn out many +novels better, none worse, than ‘Rookwood’; may he, as far as is +consistent with the frailty of humanity, penetrate puffery, and avoid +the three insatiables of Solomon, King of Israel.” + +In 1837, “Crichton” was published, the hero being James Crichton, the +“Admirable”, about whose name has grown so much that is fabulous, but +who was nevertheless a real person. The story was illustrated by Hablôt +K. Browne. It was fairly successful; some regard it as in many respects +his best novel; but while it did not add materially to his fame, it did +not diminish it. It was well done; the author spared no pains and as +usual with him was careful in his researches. In the introductory essay +and in the appendices, which Sidney Lee pronounces “very interesting”, +he reprinted, with translations in verse, Crichton’s Elegy on Borromeo +and the eulogy on Visconti. Madden intimates that D’Orsay occasionally +figured as the model of the accomplished hero. The author received £350 +for the book—more than for “Rookwood”. He had become a figure in the +literary world and his name was something with which to conjure. + +In January, 1837, Richard Bentley began the publication of _Bentley’s +Miscellany_ under the editorship of Charles Dickens. There is a familiar +story that the name originally proposed was “The Wit’s Miscellany,” and +that when the change was mentioned in the presence of “Ingoldsby” Barham +(not Douglus Jerrold, as often supposed), he remarked “Why go to the +other extreme?” In January, 1839, Dickens turned over the office of +editor to Ainsworth, with “a familiar epistle from a parent to his +child”.[10] _Oliver Twist_ had just been the feature of the +_Miscellany_, and now Ainsworth made his second and most celebrated +venture in what Sala calls “felonious fiction”—the immortal “Jack +Sheppard.” + +There are some conflicting statements about dates. Madden says, in one +place, “In 1841 he [Ainsworth] became the editor of ‘Bentley’s +Miscellany’,” and on the next page, “In the spring of 1839 he replaced +Dickens in the editorship of ‘Bentley’s Miscellany,’ and continued as +editor till 1841.”[11] He also says that in 1839 the novel, to be called +“Thames Darrell,” was advertised to appear periodically in the +_Miscellany_, then edited by Charles Dickens.[12] Robert Harrison in the +_Dictionary of National Biography_ (title Bentley) says that Dickens +retired from the post of editor in January, 1839. Mr. Axon tells us in +the _Dictionary_ that Ainsworth became the editor in March, 1840, but in +the “Memoir” he assigns the event to the year 1838. Forster puts the +date 1839, which seems to be correct, and the discrepancies are no doubt +susceptible of explanation. The first number of “Jack Sheppard” appeared +in the number for January, 1839. + +The success of “Rookwood” and _Oliver Twist_ led to the new essay in the +series which the sanctimonious Allibone says might be very appropriately +published under the title of the “Tyburn Plutarch”—not a very sane or +witty remark in my opinion. Ainsworth cast over the scamp Jack Sheppard +the mantle of romance, and made him “a dashing young blood of illicitly +noble descent, who dressed sumptuously and lived luxuriously”—whose +escapes from Newgate and other adventures were described with a charm +and vigor which took the public captive. The sale exceeded even that of +_Oliver Twist_, and no fewer than eight versions were produced upon the +London stage. Mr. Keeley achieved great notoriety as the hero, and Paul +Bedford first made his mark in the character of Blueskin. + +It was not until these dramatic productions appeared that the sedate and +fastidious began the outcry against the so-called criminal school of +romance; an outcry perpetuated in Chambers’ _Encyclopædia_ and in +Allibone’s _Dictionary_. The author and the novel were bitterly +attacked. The main ground of denunciation seems to have been the belief +that the lower orders might be aroused to emulate the brilliant robber, +all of which is sheer nonsense. I am tempted to quote at length from a +letter of Miss Mitford, the personification of an old maid, because it +contains an epitome of the adverse criticism as well as a little +biographical note which I have not encountered elsewhere. + + + “I have been reading ‘Jack Sheppard,’” she writes to Miss Barrett,[13] + “and have been struck by the great danger in these times, of + representing authorities so constantly and fearfully in the wrong; so + tyrannous, so devilish, as the author has been pleased to portray it + in ‘Jack Sheppard,’ for he does not seem so much a man or even an + incarnate fiend, as a representation of power—government or law, call + it as you may—the ruling power. Of course, Mr. Ainsworth had no such + design, but such is the effect; and as the millions who see it + represented at the minor theatres will not distinguish between now and + a hundred years back, all the Chartists in the land are less dangerous + than this nightmare of a book, and I, Radical as I am, lament any + additional temptations to outbreak, with all its train of horrors. + Seriously, what things these are—the Jack Sheppards, and Squeers’s, + and Oliver Twists, and Michael Armstrongs—all the worse for the power + which except the last, the others contain! Grievously the worse! My + friend, Mr. Hughes, speaks well of Mr. Ainsworth. His father was a + collector of these old robber stories, and used to repeat the local + ballads upon Turpin, etc., to his son as he sat upon his knee; and + this has perhaps been at the bottom of the matter. A good antiquarian + I believe him to be, but what a use to make of the picturesque old + knowledge! Well, one comfort is that it will wear itself out; and then + it will be cast aside like an old fashion.” + + +The latter part of the prophecy has come very near to fulfillment; but +we have no proof that the awful novel caused any marked increase of +crime. The real utility and value of stories like “Jack Sheppard” may +well be questioned, for they surely do not belong to the highest and +best in literature, but that any one became a thief or a highway robber +because of them is yet to be demonstrated. + +It was said, and Ainsworth believed it, that the fact that “Jack +Sheppard” had a better sale than _Oliver Twist_ was the cause of some +falling-off in the friendship which had existed between him and John +Forster, who adored Dickens; and it is true that the _Examiner_, of +which paper Forster was the chief literary critic, made an attack on the +book. It is odd that Forster should have met Dickens for the first time +at Ainsworth’s house.[14] There was some sort of friction among the +three friends about the time when “Jack Sheppard” was in the full tide +of favor and Dickens was closing the troublesome negotiations with +Bentley about the copyright of the unpublished _Barnaby Rudge_. A letter +of Dickens to Ainsworth in my collection throws some light upon the +matter. As it has never been printed, to the best of my knowledge, and +as it cannot fail to be of interest to Dickens-lovers, I may be pardoned +for giving it in full: + + + “Doughty Street, + Tuesday morning, March 26th, 1839. + + My dear Ainsworth: + + If the subject of this letter or anything contained in it, should + eventually become the occasion of any disagreement between you and me, + it would cause me very deep and sincere regret. But with this + contingency—even this—before me, I feel that I must speak out without + reserve and that every manly, honest and just consideration compels me + to do so. + + By some means—by what means in the first instance I scarcely know—the + late negotiations between yourself, myself and Mr. Bentley have placed + a mutual friend of ours in a false position and one in which he has no + right to stand; and exposed him to an accusation—very rife and current + indeed just now—equally untrue and undeserved, namely that he, who a + short time before had pledged himself to Mr. Bentley (in the presence + of Mr. Follett) to see my last agreement with that person executed and + carried out, counselled me to break it and in fact entangled and + entrapped the innocent and unsuspecting bookseller—who being all + honesty himself had a child-like confidence in others—into taking such + steps as led to that result. + + Now I wish to remind you—for a purpose which I will tell you + presently—that even by me no agreement whatever was broken; that I + demanded a postponement of my agreement for the term of six + months—that Forster (to whom I have been alluding of course) expressly + and positively said when you pressed upon me the hardship of my + relations with that noblest work of God, in New Burlington Street, + that he could not and would not be any party to a new disruption + between us—_that he was bound to see the old agreement performed_—that + he wrote to Mr. Bentley warning him of my dissatisfaction—that he saw + Mr. Bentley for a full hour, in his own rooms (a man must be in + earnest to do that)—read to him a letter of mine in which I had + expressed my feelings on the subject, and strongly urged upon him the + necessity and propriety of some concession—that Mr. Bentley went away + thanking him and appointing to call again—that he never called + again—that he wrote me an insulting letter dictated by his + lawyers—that Forster then washed his hands of any further interference + between us—that Mr. Bentley then went out to you at Kensal Green—and + that you and he, between you, and without any previous consultation or + advising with Forster settled upon certain terms and conditions which + were afterwards proposed to me through you, and communicated to + Forster, for the first time and to his unbounded astonishment, by both + of us. + + I remind you of all this because Mr. Bentley is going about town + stating in every quarter what may or may not be his real impression of + Forster’s course—because Mr. Bentley does not appeal as an authority + to you—because you do countenance Mr. Bentley in these proceedings by + hearing him express his opinion of Forster and not contradicting + him—and have aggravated him, indeed, by such thoughtless acts as first + procuring an unfavorable notice of the Miscellany in the Examiner (by + dint of urgent solicitations) and then shewing it to him with assumed + vexation and displeasure. I remind you of all this, because Forster + must and shall be set right—not with Mr. Bentley but with the men to + whom these stories are carried and his friends as well as foes—because + there are but two persons who can set him right—and because I wish to + know distinctly from you who shall do so, _without the delay of an + instant_—you or I. + + There is another reason which renders this absolutely necessary. + Forster, acting for Mr. Savage Landor, arranged with Mr. Bentley for + the publication of two tragedies by that gentleman, which were + proceeding rapidly through the press when these matters occurred, and + have since been taken from the printers by Mr. Bentley—not published, + though the time agreed upon is long past; not advertised, though they + should have been long ago—their existence not recognized in anyway—and + all this as a means of annoyance and revenge against Forster who is + placed in the most painful situation with regard to Mr. Landor that it + is possible to conceive. Mr. Landor who holds such men as Mr. Bentley + in as little consideration as the mud of the streets, and who is + violent and reckless when exasperated, is as certain by some public + act to punish the bookseller for this treatment (if he be not + prevented by an immediate atonement) as the sun is to rise to-morrow. + This would entail upon me the immediate necessity, in explanation of + the circumstances which led to it, of laying a full history of these + proceedings before the public, and the consequence would be that we + and our private affairs would be dragged into newspaper notoriety and + involved in controversy and discussion, for the pain of which nothing + could ever compensate. + + But however painful it will be to me to put myself in communication + once again with Mr. Bentley, and openly appeal to you to confirm what + I shall tell him, I have no alternative unless you will frankly and + openly and for the sake of _your_ old friend as well as my intimate + and valued one, avow to Mr. Bentley yourself that he is not to blame, + that you heard him again and again refuse to interfere although deeply + impressed with the hardship of my case—and that you proposed + concessions which he—feeling the position in which he stood—could not + have suggested. Believe me, Ainsworth, that for your sake no less than + on Forster’s account, this should be done. You do not see it I know, + you do not mean it I am persuaded, but he is impressed with the idea, + and nine men out of ten would be (if these matters were stated by + anybody but you) that to enable yourself to gain your object and stand + in your present relations towards Mr. Bentley, you have used him as an + instrument by suppressing that which would have shewn his conduct in + the best and truest light, and have shrunk from the friendly and manly + avowal of feeling which your own impulses and freer and less worldly + considerations so generously prompted. + + Once more let me say that I do not mean to hurt or offend you by + anything I have said, and that I should be truly grieved to find I + have done so. But I must speak strongly because I feel strongly, and + because I have a misgiving that even now I have been silent too long. + + My dear Ainsworth, I am + Faithfully yours, + Charles Dickens. + + William Ainsworth Esquire.” + + +The little quarrel, if it was a quarrel, must have been composed +amicably, for Forster in his _Life of Dickens_ refers several times to +Ainsworth in a kind and appreciative way. + +In 1840 Ainsworth and George Cruikshank brought out the “Tower of +London” in monthly numbers, and were equal partners in the enterprise. +It has always been regarded as a work of merit. In 1841 the author +received £1000 from the _Sunday Times_ for “Old St. Paul’s”, and it was +later one of Cruikshank’s grievances that he was not associated in this +production, the idea of which he insisted was his own. Among my letters +is one written by Cruikshank to Ainsworth on the subject, which has not, +as far as I know, been published, and I give it because it reveals the +relations of the two men quite distinctly. + + + “Amwell St., March 4, 1841. + + MY DEAR AINSWORTH:— + + Mr. Pettigrew called here yesterday and stated your proposition. Had + that proposal been made any time between last December up to about a + fortnight back I should have been happy, _most_ happy, to have + accepted the offer—but now I am sorry to say, but I cannot—no, I have + so far committed myself with various parties that if I were to + withdraw my projected publication I am sure that I should be a + laughing stock to some and what is worse—I fear that with others I + should lose all title to honor or integrity. I do assure you, my dear + Ainsworth, I sincerely regret—that I cannot join you in this work, but + what was I to think—what conclusion was I to come to but that you had + _cut_ me. At the latter end of last year you announced that _we_ were + preparing a “new work!” in the early part of December last. I saw by + an advertisement that your “new work” was to be published in the + “Sunday Times.” You do not come to me or send for me nor send me any + explanations. I meet you at Dickens’s on “New Year’s Eve.” You tell me + then that you will see me in a few days and explain everything to my + satisfaction. I hear nothing from you. In your various notes about the + “Guy Fawkes” you do not even advert to the subject. I purposely keep + myself disengaged refusing many advantageous offers of work—still I + hear nothing from you. At lenth (_sic_) you announce a New Work as a + _companion to the “Tower”!_ without my name. I then conclude that you + do not intend to join _me_ in _any_ “New Work” and therefore determine + to do something for myself—_indeed I could hold out no longer_—to show + that others besides myself considered that you had left me, I was + applied to by Chapman & Hall to join with them and Mr. Dickens in a + speculation which indeed I promised to do should the one with Mr. Felt + be abandoned. However I have still to hope that when you are + disengaged from Mr. Bentley that some arrangements may be made which + may tend to our material benefit. + + I remain, my dear Ainsworth, yours very truly, + GEO. CRUIKSHANK.” + + +In 1841, Ainsworth published the “Guy Fawkes” mentioned in Cruikshank’s +letter. About this time he seems to have become involved in +disagreements with Bentley. On June 22, 1841, he wrote to Ollier: + +“I am scarcely surprised to learn from you that Mr. Bentley states that +I promised Mr. Barham to write two separate stories for the November and +December numbers of the Miscellany, because it is only one of those +misstatements to which that gentleman, in all the negotiations I have +had with him, has invariably had recourse. Nothing of the sort was +either expressed or implied, and I cannot believe Mr. Barham made any +such statement, because it is entirely foreign to the spirit of the +whole arrangement. I will thank you however to give Mr. Bentley +distinctly to understand that I will not write any such story or +stories, and that if he does not think fit to enter into the proposed +arrangement, I shall adhere to the original agreement and finish Guy +Fawkes in February next. I beg you will also give him to understand that +I will not allow Mr. Leech or any other artist than Mr. Cruikshank to +illustrate any portion of the work; and that I insist upon a clause to +that effect being inserted in the mem. of agreement.” + +The remark about Cruikshank is significant when read in connection with +the artist’s letter of three months before, and with his subsequent +conduct. For although it is clear that the trouble about the publication +of “St. Paul’s” had been healed, through the efforts of Mr. Pettigrew, +he rehashed the old grievance thirty years later. + +A rupture with Bentley was imminent and it came very soon. Ainsworth +left the _Miscellany_ in 1841, and in February, 1842, the first number +of “Ainsworth’s Magazine” made its appearance. At first he was both +editor and proprietor, and later he sold the magazine to his +publishers—another of Cruikshank’s grievances; but he afterwards bought +it back, and he continued it until 1854 when he purchased _Bentley’s +Miscellany_ and merged both magazines into one. In 1845 he had bought +for £2,500 Colburn’s _New Monthly Magazine_, of which serial he had been +an editor for a short time in 1836. In a few months he discontinued the +consolidated magazine and sold the _New Monthly_ to his cousin, Dr. W. +F. Ainsworth, closing his editorial career. For “Ainsworth’s Magazine” +he wrote “The Miser’s Daughter”, a work of considerable power, which was +long years afterward dramatized by Andrew Halliday and produced at the +Adelphi Theatre. In 1843 followed “Windsor Castle”, an historical +romance with the scene laid in the reign of Henry VIII; and in 1844 his +active pen busied itself with another story of the same class, “St. +James’s or the Court of Queen Anne”. + +During the period between 1836 and 1844, Ainsworth as we have seen, was +closely associated with Cruikshank, who was destined to become a thorn +in his side. The second issue of “Rookwood” was illustrated by +Cruikshank, who furnished also the designs for “Jack Sheppard,” “The +Tower of London,” “Guy Fawkes,” “The Miser’s Daughter,” “Windsor Castle” +(in part), and “St. James’s.” + +Whatever may be said of Cruikshank as an artist, he was beyond question +a vain, self-centred and disagreeable person. “He had a tendency,” says +Blanchard Jerrold, “to quarrel with all persons with whom he had +business relations, and when he did quarrel, his words knew no +bounds.”[15] He came to that stage of boundless conceit when he regarded +himself as the creator of all the works for which he supplied the +illustrations and reduced the writer to the level of an ordinary +amanuensis. + +All the world knows his absurd pretensions to the origination of _Oliver +Twist_. He also asserted his claim to everything that was good in “Jack +Sheppard,” “The Miser’s Daughter,” and “The Tower of London.” But he +claimed Egan’s _Life in London_ and even a poem of Laman Blanchard’s +which he had illustrated for the _Omnibus_—as well as the pattern of the +hat worn by Russian soldiers! Blanchard Jerrold says in the _Life_ that +the controversies about Dickens and Ainsworth “arose from Cruikshank’s +habit of exaggeration in all things,” which is a biographer’s euphemism, +signifying in plain English that the man was an unmitigated liar. + +If any one is curious about the history of the controversies, he will +find a full, fair and dispassionate account in Chapters VIII and IX of +Jerrold’s book. The biographer prints in full Ainsworth’s dignified +rejoinder to Cruikshank’s assault, and justly ridicules the utterances +of the eccentric designer. Austin Dobson, a competent and impartial +judge, has recently added his condemnation of Cruikshank’s +arrogance.[16] “He was not exempt” says Mr. Dobson “from a certain +‘Roman infirmity’ of exaggerating the importance of his own +performances—an infirmity which did not decrease with years. Whatever +the amount of assistance he gave to Dickens and to Ainsworth, it is +clear that it was not rated by them at the value he placed upon it. That +he did make suggestions, relevant or irrelevant, can hardly be doubted, +for it was part of his inventive and ever projecting habit of mind. It +must also be conceded that he most signally seconded the text by his +graphic interpretations; but that this aid or these suggestions were of +such a nature as to transfer the credit of the ‘Miser’s Daughter’ and +‘Oliver Twist’ from the authors to himself is more than can reasonably +be allowed.” + +Mr. Frith, a friend of Cruikshank, says in his Autobiography:[17] +“Cruikshank labored under a strange delusion regarding the works of +Dickens and Ainsworth. I heard him announce to a large company assembled +at dinner at Glasgow that he was the writer of ‘Oliver Twist.’*** He +also wrote the ‘Tower of London,’ erroneously credited to Ainsworth, as +well as other works commonly understood to have been written by that +author. My intimacy with Cruikshank enables me to declare that I do not +believe he would be guilty of the least deviation from truth, and to +this day I can see no way of accounting for what was a most absurd +delusion.” In fact, there is only one way, if we concede truthfulness to +the deluded person; he was not of sound mind. + +That Cruikshank was pertinaciously suggestive may be readily admitted. +“He was excessively troublesome and obtrusive in his suggestions” says +Ainsworth. “Mr. Dickens declared to me that he could not stand it and +should send him printed matter in future.” He adds, in a kindly spirit +which must appeal to every reader, considering the grossness of the +unjustifiable attack upon him, “It would be unjust, however, to deny +that there was not (_sic_) wonderful cleverness and quickness about +Cruikshank, and I am indebted to him for many valuable hints and +suggestions.” Ainsworth’s appreciation is further shown by an +unpublished letter in my possession, written on December 23, 1838, to +Mr. Jones. + + + “Bentley” he says “will forward you the introductory chapters and + illustrations of Jack Sheppard with this note. As it is of the utmost + consequence to me to produce a favourable impression upon the public + by this work, I venture to hope that you will lend me a helping hand + at starting.*** Cruikshank’s illustrations are, in my opinion, + astonishingly fine. The scene in the loft throws into shade all his + former efforts in this line.” + + +This letter also reveals what appears abundantly in the pages of my +collection,—that Ainsworth was given to calling on all his friends of +journalistic and magazine associations to praise his books. He was not +at all backward in urging them to puff the new works; and when Mr. Ebers +was the manager of the opera, he artfully threw in suggestions of “free +tickets,” which was perhaps justifiable but scarcely consistent with +dignity. + +As an example of the way in which Cruikshank took pains to inflict upon +his author the details of his designs, it may not be amiss to quote a +letter which is also among my possessions, and which has not been +published, to the best of my knowledge. It is addressed to Ainsworth and +is dated “Saturday evening, 5 o’clock. + + + “Jonathan Wild has hold of Jack’s left arm with _his_ left hand, and + grasps the collar with his right. The Jew has both his arms round + Jack’s right arm and Quilt Arnold has hold of the right side of Jack’s + coat. This fellow in making his spring at Sheppard may upset the + gravedigger who nearly falls into the grave. I should advise the + approach of the attacking party to be thus. The Jew and some other + fellow go round the _north_ of the church and lurk there and Qt. + Arnold in that road at the N. W. corner—Wild himself to come along the + _south_ side so as to take Jack in the rear. Darrell is about to draw + his sword. In the other subject I have given Jonathan a _stout_ + walking stick. I have only time to add that I am yours very truly. The + cheque all safe, many thanks.” + + +Cruikshank first put forth his claim publicly in 1872, by means of a +pamphlet called _The Artist and the Author_, just after the publication +of the first volume of Forster’s _Dickens_. It is likely that he was +encouraged in his folly by the flattery of foolish friends. Jerrold lays +much blame on Thackeray, from whom he quotes a long passage exalting the +artist far beyond the author. “With regard to the modern romance of +‘Jack Sheppard’,” remarks Thackeray, “it seems to us that Mr. Cruikshank +really created the tale, and that Mr. Ainsworth, as it were, only put +words to it. Let any reader of the novel think over it for awhile, now +that it is some months since he had perused and laid it down—let him +think, and tell us what he remembers of the tale. George Cruikshank’s +pictures—always George Cruikshank’s pictures.” But Thackeray had such a +poor opinion of the book that it is strange he should have ascribed any +merit to Cruikshank for having “created it”. He called it “a book quite +absurd and unreal, and infinitely more immoral than anything Fielding +even wrote,” if, as is generally supposed Thackeray was the author of +the article on Fielding in the _Times_ of September 2, 1840, reprinted +in “Stray Papers” of Thackeray, edited by Lewis Melville and published +in 1901. Thackeray wrote to his mother: “I read your views about ‘Jack +Sheppard’, and, such is the difference of taste, thought it poor stuff +and much below the mark.”[18] Mr. Jerrold expresses the opinion that +Thackeray was always unjust to Ainsworth. “He caricatured him +unmercifully in _Punch_, and never lost an opportunity of being amusing +at his expense.” I am not inclined to agree with Mr. Jerrold’s views. +The long and cordial intimacy of the two men is evidence against the +truth of the theory. I find no record of any resentment on Ainsworth’s +part against the author of _Vanity Fair_, and Ainsworth was by no means +timid in self-defense or averse to a sturdy combat with those who +assailed him. Thackeray—who never got over the conviction that he +himself was an “artist”—a picture maker—naturally gave to the +illustrator an undue meed of praise; and at the risk of denunciation by +all the scribblers who succumb to the “disease of admiration” and find +it easy to glorify a famous man as if he were perfect and infallible, I +venture to say that in grotesqueness and faulty drawing, the great Snob +and the great Cruikshank were not very dissimilar. Yet Thackeray’s +comments were wisdom itself when compared with the silly utterance of +Mr. Walter Thornbury, who thus delivers himself: “Even Dickens had his +fine gold jewelled by Cruikshank. Ainsworth’s tawdry rubbish—now all but +forgotten, and soon to sink deep in the mud-pool of oblivion,—was +illuminated with a false splendor by the great humorist,”[19] A critical +person might be disposed to inquire why the “great humorist” should +lower himself by illuminating anything with a “false splendor.” It is +not complimentary to the great humorist, but Mr. Thornbury unconsciously +told the truth; his hero was falseness personified. + +In his “Few Words about George Cruikshank,” Ainsworth said: “For myself, +I desire to state emphatically that not a single line—not a word—in any +of my novels was written by their illustrator, Cruikshank. In no +instance did he even see a proof. The subjects were arranged with him +early in the month, and about the fifteenth he used to send me tracings +of the plates. That was all.” He adds: “_Ne sutor ultra crepidam._ Had +Cruikshank been capable of constructing a story, why did he not exercise +his talent when he had no connection with Mr. Dickens or myself? But I +never heard of such a tale being published.” Of course, it may be said +that Cruikshank did not pretend that he had written the books—only that +he had furnished the leading ideas; that is an easy thing to assert, a +hard thing to disprove, and an impossible thing to demonstrate. + +It is fairly manifest that if there had been any real foundation for the +claims of Cruikshank, he would not have waited for thirty years before +setting up his title. He sought to account for the delay by asseverating +that he had frequently _in private_ asserted his claim, which anybody +possessed of ordinary intelligence will see in a moment was a puerile +make-shift; no sufficient reason or explanation. As nobody whose opinion +is worth accepting has ever given credence to the tale of the old +artist, it may be a waste of time to give it further attention; but it +may be permitted to show that Cruikshank needed a good deal of +instruction himself. + +The fact is shown by the letter of Dickens, produced in facsimile by +Forster,[20] and it is confirmed by several of Ainsworth’s letters now +lying before me. In March, 1836, while Cruikshank was engaged on the +designs for the second edition of “Rookwood,” Ainsworth wrote to +Macrone, the publisher, “I _have_ seen some of George Cruikshank’s +designs, and it was because I thought them so _sketchy_ that I write to +you. They are anything but _full_ subjects and appear to be chosen as +much as possible for light work. He shirked the inauguration scene, for +instance, because it was too crowded. I quite agree with you that a few +good designs are better than many meagre sketches, and all I want is +that you should make George understand this. He has evidently two +styles—and one can scarcely recognize in some of his ‘Bozzes’ the hand +of the designer of the Comic Almanack.*** _Do_, I pray of you, see +George Cruikshank, and don’t let him put us off so badly.” Again, in +writing to Macrone in 1836, he makes several recommendations for +designs, and adds: “Another suggestion—and this refers to George. In +addition to the figures I suggested, I wish him to introduce as entering +my old gentleman’s chamber, Thomas Hill, Esq. (in propria persona), or +as I shall call him, Tom Vale. If George has not seen him, you can get +the sketch from Frazer’s Mag. but introduced he must be, as I mean to +carry him throughout and to make him play the part of Mr. Weller in my +story; I wish George therefore to give the portrait, easily done, as +exact as possible.” In a later letter to Cruikshank himself, while they +were at work together on “The Tower,” he writes: “Pray, when you are at +the Tower, sketch the gateway of the Bloody Tower from the south; the +chamber where the princes were murdered; the basement chamber at the +right of the gateway of the Bloody Tower, near the Round Tower.” All +this furnishes competent testimony that Cruikshank was a mere +illustrator, directed and controlled by the author. + +From the time of “Jack Sheppard” until 1881, a period of over forty +years, Ainsworth was a busy man, producing book after book at regular +intervals and until 1855 closely occupied with editorial labors. After +“St. James’s” he began “Auriol,” which was by no means successful. It +dealt with a London alchemist of the sixteenth century, but the plot was +defective and it was not published in book form until near the close of +the author’s life. In 1848 he wrote “Lancashire Witches” for the _Sunday +Times_, receiving £1,000. It was dedicated to his old friend James +Crossley, President of the Chetham Society, which published many +volumes, including Potts’s _Discovery of Witches_ and the _Journals_ of +Nicolas Assheton, both furnishing much of the material for the story. In +1854, “Star Chamber” and “The Flitch of Bacon, or the Custom of Dunmow” +appeared. The “Flitch” treated of the ancient Essex custom of giving a +“Gamon of Bacon” to a married pair “who had taken an oath, pursuant to +the ancient ‘Custom of Confession,’ if ever— + + “—You either married man or wife + By household brawles or contentious strife, + Or otherwise, in bed or at board, + Did offend each other in deed or word, + Or, since the Parish _clerk_ said _Amen_, + You wish’t yourselves unmarried agen, + Or in a twelve months time and a day, + Repented not in thought, any way; + But continued true and just in desire + As when you joyn’d hands in the holy quire.” + +In 1851 “the lord of the manor declined to give the flitch, but the +claimants obtained one from a public subscription, and a concourse of +some three thousand people assembled in Easton Park in their +honour.”[21] In 1855 Ainsworth himself offered to give the flitch. The +candidates were Mr. James Barlow and his wife, of Chipping Ongar, and +the Chevalier de Chatelain and his wife, the last named being well known +in literary circles. They were old friends of Ainsworth. I have thirteen +letters from Ainsworth to the Chevalier and his wife, of the most +intimate character, dating from 1845 to 1880. In one of them, written at +Brighton on October 22, 1854, he says: + + + “My dear Chevalier: Thanks for your charming little volume, full of + graceful translations. You have done me the favor I find to include + the ‘Custom of Dunmow’ in your collection. Within the last few days I + have received another version in French of the same ballad by Jacques + Desrosiers. The Tale has been translated under the title of ‘_Un An et + un Jour_’, and published at Bruxelles. You will be glad to hear that a + worthy personage has announced his intention of bequeathing a sum + sufficient for the perpetual maintenance of the good old custom.” + + +On January 5, 1855, he writes to Madame de Chatelain: + +“I need scarcely say, I hope, that I shall be most happy to entertain +your claim for the Flitch—and though I believe a prior claim has been +made, I will gladly give a second prize rather than you should +experience any disappointment.” On July 19, 1855, she received the +flitch of bacon in the Windmill Field, Dunmore. + +In 1856 “Spendthrift” appeared, and in 1857 “Merwyn Clitheroe” which he +had begun in 1851 but had abandoned after a few weekly numbers. In 1860 +he published “Ovingdean Grange, a Tale of the South Downs.” The two +books last mentioned were partly autobiographical. + +It is unnecessary to do more than to enumerate his later productions, +for although they showed the scrupulous care which he exercised in +respect to details and the pains he took to be accurate in historical +references, they were never as popular as his earlier works. The list is +quite imposing: “Constable of the Tower,” 1861; “The Lord Mayor of +London,” 1862; “Cardinal Pole,” 1863; “John Law, the Projector,” 1864; +“The Spanish Match, or Charles Stuart in Madrid,” 1865; “Myddleton +Pomfret,” 1865; “The Constable de Bourbon,” 1866; “Old Court,” 1867; +“The South Sea Bubble,” 1868; “Hilary St. Ives,” 1869; “Talbot Harland,” +1870; “Tower Hill,” 1871; “Boscobel,” 1872; “The Manchester Rebels, or +the Fatal ’45.” 1873; “Merry England,” 1874; “The Goldsmith’s Wife,” +1874; “Preston Fight, or the Insurrection of 1715,” 1875; “Chetwynd +Calverley,” 1876; “The Leaguer of Lathom, a Tale of the Civil War in +Lancashire,” 1876; “The Fall of Somerset,” 1877; “Beatrice Tyldesley,” +1878; “Beau Nash,” 1879; “Auriol and other tales,” 1880; and “Stanley +Brereton,” 1881. Not a single one of this long catalogue is now +remembered. Percy Fitzgerald in an article in _Belgravia_ (November, +1881), said that the description of Ainsworth’s books in the Catalogue +of the British Museum filled no fewer than forty pages. Mr. Axon reduces +the number of pages to twenty-three, but that is very extensive. In +addition to the prose works whose titles are given above, he published +in 1855 “Ballads, Romantic, Fantastical and Humorous,” which was +illustrated by Sir John Gilbert and which contains some spirited and +picturesque verses; and in 1859 “The Combat of the Thirty,” a +translation of a Breton lay of the middle ages, which was included in +the later editions of the “Ballads.” + +In 1881 Ainsworth was nearly seventy-seven, and approaching the end of +his career. On September 15 in that year, the Mayor of Manchester, Sir +Thomas Baker, gave a banquet in his honor at the town hall. In proposing +the health of the guest, the Mayor said that in the Manchester public +free libraries there were two hundred and fifty volumes of his works. +“During the last twelve months”, said the Mayor, “those volumes have +been read seven thousand six hundred and sixty times, mostly by the +artisan class of readers. And this means that twenty volumes of his +works are being perused in Manchester by readers of the free libraries +every day all the year through.” + +A report of this banquet is given as an introduction to “Stanley +Brereton”, which was dedicated to the Mayor. I have a copy of the +“official” report, a pamphlet of twenty-nine pages, whereof forty copies +were printed “for private circulation only”. The speeches are +characteristic of English dinners, and some of them are funny without +any intention on the part of the speakers. The Mayor rather astonishes +us by saying that the six of the most popular works, in the order in +which they were most read, were “The Tower of London”, “The Lancashire +Witches”, “Old St. Paul’s”, “Windsor Castle”, “The Miser’s Daughter”, +and “The Manchester Rebels”. But this was in Manchester. Ainsworth’s +response was modest and graceful, and he dwelt upon his delight in being +styled “the Lancashire novelist”. His old friend Crossley and Edmund +Yates were among the orators of the occasion, the latter responding to +the toast of “The Press”, and saying of “after-dinner Manchester” that +“even in the midst of enjoyment he would hazard the friendly criticism +that though it was eloquent it was not concise.” The account ends with +these significant words: “This concluded the list of toasts, and the +company shortly afterwards broke up.” One who reads the story of the +feast is not surprised at this, for the speeches were enough to break up +any company; but the tribute to Ainsworth was well-meant and sincere. + +My English friend, the prospective biographer of Ainsworth, takes issue +with me on my assertion that his favorite is an author who has fallen +into oblivion and whose books are not read by the present generation. He +refers of course to English readers, and assures me that the stories are +still popular in England. “Routledge”, he says, “issues a vast number of +cheap editions of his works, and in addition many other publishing firms +have recently issued editions of the better known novels. This has been +done by Methuen, Newnes, Gibbings, Mudie, Treherne, and Grant Richards, +to mention a few that I recollect at the minute.” It is doubtless true +that there is a demand for the tales among the less cultivated English +readers, but it can not, I think, be maintained successfully that the +author has a permanent and enduring literary fame. Perhaps I am +influenced in my opinion by the American lack of acquaintance with +Ainsworth and his works. + +Contemporaneous memoirs and records are full of testimony to the +personal popularity of Ainsworth in the social life of the day. He +entertained freely, and was a favorite guest. Dickens and Thackeray were +both fond of him, although Blanchard Jerrold, as we have seen, doubted +Thackeray’s friendship. Forster says in his _Dickens_, referring to the +period _circa_ 1838, “A friend now especially welcome, too, was the +novelist, Mr. Ainsworth, who shared with us incessantly for the three +following years in the companionship which began at his house; with whom +we visited, during two of these years, friends of arts and letters in +his native Manchester, from among whom Dickens brought away his Brothers +Cheeryble, and to whose sympathy in tastes and pursuits, accomplishments +in literature, open-hearted, generous ways, and cordial hospitality, +many of the pleasures of later years are due.” I have a little note of +his, addressed to Dickens, saying: “Don’t forget your engagement to dine +with me on Tuesday next. I shall send a refresher to Forster the +unpunctual.” There is also this letter from Dickens—strangely enough in +black ink and not the blue which he employed in later days. + + + “Devonshire Terrace, + Fifth February, 1841. + + MY DEAR AINSWORTH— + + Will you tell me where that Punch is to be bought, what one is to ask + for, and what the cost is. It has made me very uneasy in my mind. + + Mind—I deny the beer. It is very excellent; but that it surpasses that + meeker, and gentler, and brighter ale of mine (oh how bright it is!) I + never will admit. My gauntlet lies upon the earth. + + Yours, in defiance, + CHARLES DICKENS.” + + +One of my Thackeray letters is addressed to Ainsworth, dated in 1844, +inviting him to dine at the Garrick, with the characteristic remark, “I +want to ask 3 or 4 of the littery purfession.” Tom Moore in his Journal +(November 21, 1838) mentions a dinner at Bentley’s where the company was +“all the very _haut ton_ of the literature of the day,” including +himself (named first), Jerdan, Ainsworth, Lever, Dickens, Campbell, and +Luttrell. We read in Mackay’s “Breakfasts with Rogers” of a breakfast +where he met Sydney Smith, Daniel O’Connell, Sir Augustus D’Este and +Ainsworth. These references might be multiplied almost indefinitely. +According to Hazlitt, Ainsworth had one rule, as a host, which in these +days of studied unpunctuality might be considered unduly vigorous; when +he had friends to dinner he locked his outside gate at the stroke of the +clock, and no late comer was admitted. + +It is not to be denied that he had his foibles and that he also had his +quarrels—few men of any force or strength of will and character can +escape quarrels. That he fell out with Cruikshank and Bentley is not to +be wondered at, for almost everybody did that, sooner or later. His +passage at arms with Francis Mahony—the Father Prout of “Bells of +Shandon” fame—is more to be regretted, but he was in no way to blame. He +behaved very well under trying conditions. The trouble dated from +Ainsworth’s secession from _Bentley’s Miscellany_—what Mr. Bates calls +his “dis-Bentleyfication,” and, ignoring their past intimacy and cordial +companionship, Mahony sneered at the man “who left the tale of Crichton +half told, and had taken up with ‘Blueskin,’ ‘Jack Sheppard,’ ‘Flitches +of Bacon,’ and ‘Lancashire Witches,’ and thought such things were +‘literature,’”—following it up with some rather poor and clumsy +verse-libels, flat, stale and unprofitable—utterly unworthy of a +moment’s time. Ainsworth replied most courteously in a parody of Prout, +called “The Magpie of Marwood; an humble Ballade,” which none could +condemn as either coarse or brutal. When Mahony came back at his former +friend with quotations from private letters asking eulogistic notices +and literary aid, and when he said “Has he forgotten that he was fed at +the table of Lady Blessington? not merely for the sake of companionship, +for a duller dog never sat at a convivial board,” he showed himself a +despicable cad, a perfidious creature, well deserving the name of +“Jesuit scribe,” which was about all the retort which Ainsworth thought +fit to make. + +The kindly and forgiving nature of Ainsworth is shown by a letter in my +collection, written on February 24, 1880, to Charles Kent. He says: “I +always regret the misunderstanding that occurred between myself and +Mahony, but any offence that was given him on my part was unintentional, +and I cannot help thinking he was incited to the attack he made upon me +by Bentley. Be this as it may, I have long ceased to think about it, and +now only dwell upon the agreeable parts of his character. He was an +admirable scholar, a wit, a charming poet, and generally—not always—a +very genial companion.” These pleasant remarks about the man who had +grossly insulted him, are quite characteristic and demonstrate the sweet +reasonableness with which he treated men like Cruikshank and Father +Prout. + +As Blanchard Jerrold says, _Punch_ was often quite severe on Ainsworth. +Spielmann in his _History of Punch_ confirms the statement: + +“Harrison Ainsworth, as much for his good looks and his literary vanity, +as for his tendency to reprint his romances in such journals as came +under his editorship, was the object of constant banter. An epigram put +the case very neatly: + + “Says Ainsworth to Colburn, + ‘A plan in my pate is, + To give my romance as + A supplement, _gratis_.’ + Says Colburn to Ainsworth, + ‘Twill do very nicely, + For that will be charging + It’s value precisely.’ + +“Harrison Ainsworth could not have his portrait painted, nor write a +novel of crime and sensation, without being regarded as a convenient peg +for pleasantry.” + +There seems to have been, unluckily, a shadow of a difference with +William Jerdan, of the _Literary Gazette_, whose diffuse and often +tedious _Autobiography_ was published in 1853. “Among incipient +authors,” says Jerdan, “whom (to use a common phrase) it was in my power +to ‘take by the hand’ and pull up the steep, few had heartier help than +Mr. William Harrison Ainsworth, whose literary propensities were strong +in youth, and who has since made so wide a noise in the world of +fictitious and periodical literature. From some cause or another, which +I cannot comprehend, he has given a notice to my publishers, to forbid +the use of any of his correspondence in these Memoirs, though on looking +over a number of his letters I can discover nothing discreditable to +him, or aught of which he has reason to be ashamed.” I think it is not +difficult to understand what Jerdan seemed unable to comprehend. +Ainsworth did not care to have his confidential requests for good +notices go out to the public. It was a weakness of his to beg for +complimentary reviews and Father Prout had made the most of it; small +wonder that he dreaded a repetition of the experience. Jerdan gives, +however, a very kindly estimate of Ainsworth.[22] + +In Mr. Axon’s memoir, he says that an engraving by W. C. Edwards of a +portrait of Ainsworth by Maclise appeared on the frontispiece of Laman +Blanchard’s biographical sketch in the first number of “Ainsworth’s +Magazine”. A second portrait by the same artist, which was exhibited at +the Royal Academy in 1844, was the frontispiece of the fifth volume of +the magazine. A portrait by Count D’Orsay dated November 21, 1844, +appeared in the seventh volume. To this period belong the full-length +portrait by the elder Pickersgill, the property of Chetham’s Hospital, +but now in the Manchester Reference Library, and a portrait by R. J. +Lane. The good looks of Ainsworth have been referred to several times; +they were the good looks of the days of William IV, but the Maclise and +Pickersgill portraits as well as the later Fry photograph have a +dandified appearance which in our modern eyes detracts from true +dignity. The sketch in the _Maclise Gallery_ shows him at his best, in +his Fraser days, a fine and gallant figure, without the hideous whiskers +of the type beloved by Tittlebat Titmouse. “This delicately drawn +portrait of the novelist” comments Mr. Bates, “just at the time that he +had achieved his reputation,’—hair curled and oiled as that of an +Assyrian bull, the gothic arch coat-collar, the high neckcloth, and the +tightly strapped trousers—exhibits as fine an example as we could wish +for, of the dandy of the D’Orsay type and pre-Victorian epoch.” + +He lived at one time at the “Elms” at Kilburn, and later at Kensal Manor +House on the Harrow Road. Afterwards he lived at Brighton and at +Tunbridge Wells. When he grew old he resided with his oldest daughter, +Fannie, at Hurstpierpoint. He had also a residence at St. Mary’s Road, +Reigate, Surrey, and there he died, on Sunday, January 3d, 1882. On +January 9th, he was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery, with a quiet and +simple ceremonial as he wished. His widow and three daughters by his +first marriage survived him. + +Ainsworth had no power to portray character or to analyze motives; his +genius was purely descriptive. He had a strong literary bent, and he was +a man of letters in the true sense. He did not possess the spark which +gives immortality, but he toiled faithfully and his work was well done +even if he did not reach the standard of the greatest of his +contemporaries. + +Perhaps his merits were characterized rather too ornately in the _Sun_ +of August 2, 1852, where a reviewer said: + +“His romances yield evidence, in a thousand particulars, that his +temperament is exquisitely sensitive, not less of the horrible than of +the beautiful. We have it in those landscapes variously coloured with +the glow of Claude and the gloom of Salvator Rosa—in those lyrics grave +as the songs of the Tyrol, or ghastly as the incantations of the +Brocken; but still more in those creations, peopling the one and +chaunting the other, namely, some of them as the models of Ostade, and +others wild as the wildest dreams of Fuseli. Everywhere, however, in +these romances a preference for the _grimlier_ moods of imagination +renders itself apparent. The author’s purpose, so to speak, gravitates +towards the preternatural. Had he been a painter instead of a romancist, +he could have portrayed the agonies of Ugolino, as Da Vinci portrayed +the ‘_rotello del fico_,’ in lines the most haggard and lines the most +cadaverous. As a writer of fiction, his place among his contemporaries +may, we conceive, be very readily indicated. He occupies the same +position in the present that Radcliffe occupied in a former generation.” + +Mr. Axon’s estimate is less gorgeous but more convincing. “The essence +of his power was that same faculty by which the Eastern story-teller +holds spellbound a crowd of hearers in the street of Cairo. It is this +fascination which enables Ainsworth, at his best, to compel the reader’s +attention, and hurries him forward from the first page to the last of +some tale of ‘daring-do’, of crime, adventure, sorrow and love. The +reader who has listened to the beginning does not willingly turn aside +until the story is completed and he has seen all the puppets play their +part with that skilful semblance of truth that seems more real than +reality itself.” + +It is to be hoped that the forthcoming biography will do ample justice +to the memory of this charming literary personage, and may revive the +fading interest in him and in his works. + + + + + GEORGE PAYNE RAINSFORD JAMES + + +In a vainglorious mood I said not long ago to a well-dressed and +apparently intelligent gentleman whom I met in the house of an +accomplished lawyer in Washington City, that I had just had the +privilege of conversing with the extremely modern novelist, Mr. Henry +James. He smiled amiably and remarked airily, “Oh, the two horsemen +fellow”. + +The remark was not without significance, because it betrayed the fact +that my casual acquaintance, who might well be presumed to represent +what is called “the average citizen” of this enlightened country; who +was fairly well educated; who had read enough to know of the famous +horsemen and of their habitual appearance in the opening chapter; who +assuredly had skimmed the book-notices in our wonderful newspapers; was, +after all, more distinctly impressed by the writer of sixty years ago +than by the contemporaneous author whose volumes bid fair to rival in +number those of his namesake—an author whose style defies definition and +bewilders the simple-minded searcher after a good story. + +I confess that I am puzzled by these subtle writers with their involved +sentences, their clouds of verbiage, and their incomprehensible +wanderings in speculative mysteries. There is a delight about the direct +and there is often disappointment about the indirect. The true lover of +fiction revels in the directness of Dumas and of Dickens, but he usually +accepts the intricacies of the modern school because he is told that he +ought to do so or because, alone and unaided, he can discover nothing +better in the product of the day. + +To my Washington friend I replied, with that offensive assumption of +superiority which marks the man familiar with his encyclopædia, that the +writer of whom he was thinking had closed his career and finished the +last chapter of his life nearly half a century ago, when Henry James was +only seventeen and had not yet dreamed of Daisy Miller or forecasted the +genesis of the two closely printed volumes of _The Golden Bowl_. I +discerned the truth, however, that the subject was not interesting and +we changed the topic of conversation. + +The earlier James has not been favored by the men who compile histories +of English literature. Nicoll and Seccombe merely call him “the prolific +James”, but devote large space to many inferior writers. Garnett and +Gosse ignore him entirely. It seems to be a rule among self-constituted +critics to speak of him with indifference; I think he deserves more +respectful treatment. It may be that he has been a victim of that +merciless propensity of men to throw stones at him who has been the +subject of ridicule by those who have won popularity; when one cur +barks, the whole pack joins vigorously. As Mr. Stapleton in _Jacob +Faithful_ profoundly observes, it is “human natur”. When Macaulay damned +poor Montgomery to lasting ignominy, he deliberately consigned the +luckless poet to undeserved contempt; and Macaulay’s essay will live +while but for its caustic condemnation Montgomery would be utterly +forgotten. + +The “horseman” tag has for many years attached itself to G. P. R. James +and has done much to bring him into ridicule. It is strange how such +tags preserve immortality, despite the fact that they are often unjust +and deceiving. What is printed, remains. A New York journal said +recently: “An error once made in print, it seems will never die; a +mis-statement may be corrected within the hour, but it goes on its +travels without the correction and becomes a bewildering part of written +history”. It is true also concerning a “tag”. In literature, Bret +Harte’s parodies, the _Rejected Addresses_, and the many clever things +contained in Mr. Hamilton’s amusing compilation, show how easy it is to +discover a mannerism and to attach to an author a label which will +always identify him. + +Possibly the popularity of the “horseman” remark is due in some degree +to Thackeray, who began “that fatal parody,” the burlesque “Barbazure, +by G. P. R. Jeames Esq. etc.” in this wise: “It was upon one of those +balmy evenings of November which are only known in the valleys of +Languedoc and among the mountains of Alsace, that two cavaliers might +have been perceived by the naked eye threading one of the rocky and +romantic gorges that skirt the mountain land between the Marne and the +Garonne.” Our own John Phœnix in his review of the “Life of Joseph +Bowers the Elder”—I quote from the original edition, and not from the +one printed’ by the Caxton Club which omits this gem—says of one of Mr. +Bowers’s supposititious works: “The following smacks, to us, slightly of +‘Jeems.’ ‘It was on a lovely morning in the sweet spring time, when two +horsemen might have been seen slowly descending one of the gentle +acclivities that environ the picturesque valley of San Diego.’” Mr. +Edmund Gosse continues the tradition when in his _Modern English +Literature_, he tells us of the days when “the cavaliers of G. P. R. +James were riding down innumerable roads”; while Justin McCarthy in the +_History of Our Own Times_ remarks pleasantly—“Many of us can remember, +without being too much ashamed of the fact, that there were early days +when Mr. James and his cavaliers and his chivalric adventures gave +nearly as much delight as Walter Scott could have given to the youth of +a preceding generation. But Walter Scott is with us still, young and +old, and poor James is gone. His once famous solitary horseman has +ridden away into actual solitude, and the shades of night have gathered +over his heroic form”. Here we perceive a variation from the familiar +allusion. The “two horsemen” have condensed themselves into a single +rider. + +While we are speaking of the horsemen, it may not be amiss to recall +what James thought of them. In 1851 he published a story called “The +Fate,” and in the sixteenth chapter he deals with them in a manner quite +amusing but also quite pathetic. He is talking about plagiarism and he +wanders into other fields. He says: + + + “As to repeating one’s self, it is no very great crime, perhaps, for I + never heard that robbing Peter to pay Paul was punishable under any + law or statute, and the multitude of offenders in this sense, in all + ages, and in all circumstances, if not an excuse, is a palliation, + showing the frailty of human nature, and that we are as frail as + others—but no more. The cause of this self-repetition, probably, is + not a paucity of ideas, not an infertility of fancy, not a want of + imagination or invention, but like children sent daily to draw water + from a stream, we get into the habit of dropping our buckets into the + same immeasurable depth of thought exactly at the same place; and + though it be not exactly the same water as that which we drew up the + day before it is very similar in quality and flavor, a little clearer + or a little more turbid, as the case may be. + + Now this dissertation—which may be considered as an introduction or + preface to the second division of my history—has been brought about, + has had its rise, origin, source, in an anxious and careful endeavor + to avoid, if possible, introducing into this work the two solitary + horsemen—one upon a white horse—which, by one mode or another, have + found their way into probably one out of three of all the books I have + written and I need hardly tell the reader that the name of these books + is legion. They are, perhaps, too many; but, though I must die, some + of them will live—I know it, I feel it; and I must continue to write + while this spirit is in this body. + + To say truth, I do not know why I should wish to get rid of my two + horsemen, especially the one on the white horse. Wouvermans always had + a white horse in all his pictures; and I do not see why I should not + put my signature, my emblem, my monogram, in my paper and ink pictures + as well as any painter of them all. I am not sure that other authors + do not do the same thing—that Lytton has not always, or very nearly, a + philosophizing libertine—Dickens, a very charming young girl, with + dear little pockets; and Lever a bold dragoon. Nevertheless, upon my + life, if I can help it, we will not have in this work the two horsemen + and the white horse; albeit, in after times—when my name is placed + with Homer and Shakespeare, or in any other more likely position—they + may arise serious and acrimonious disputes as to the real authorship + of the book, from its wanting my own peculiar and distinctive mark and + characteristic. + + But here, while writing about plagiarism, I have been myself a + plagiary; and it shall not remain without acknowledgment, having + suffered somewhat in that sort myself. Here, my excellent friend, + Leigh Hunt, soul of mild goodness, honest truth, and gentle + brightness! I acknowledge that I stole from you the defensive image of + Wouverman’s white horse, which you incautiously put within my reach, + on one bright night of long, dreamy conversation, when our ideas of + many things, wide as the poles asunder, met suddenly without clashing, + or produced but a cool, quiet spark—as the white stones which children + rub together in dark corners emit a soft phosphorescent gleam, that + serves but to light their little noses.”[23] + + +I hold no brief for James. I cannot assert truthfully that I am +particularly well acquainted with more than four or five of his +numerous books, although I remember with delight the perusal of some +of them when I was a boy, reading for the story alone. But I am +confident that he had his merits, and that much of the abuse showered +upon him by critics has been undeserved; that he was a careful and +conscientious writer whose novels are fit to be read, and that while +he may no longer be ranked among “the best sellers”, he deserves a +high place of honor among those who have entertained, amused and +instructed their fellow men. It is only about two years ago that the +Routledges of London considered it wise to begin the new career of +their house by re-issuing in twenty-five volumes the historical +novels, and cheaper reproductions are widely circulated. In a recent +number of a New York magazine the editor says that “the fact is that +James has always had a big public of his own—the public in fact that +does _not_ consult the ‘Dictionary of National Biography’”—referring +to the disparaging article in the Dictionary about which I will have +something to say later on. There are authors who are always praised by +the critics but ignored by the proletariat of readers; there are +authors whom the critics affect to despise but who have many readers +whose judgments are not embalmed in print. James seems to belong to +the last-mentioned class. Yet few are acquainted with the man himself, +and I have thought that it might not be amiss to give a short account +of him, referring to the estimates of his character and ability by +those of his own time and also to some autograph letters of his which +are in my possession and which have not been published. + +The details of his life are not very well known; it was not a stirring +or an eventful one. It was the life of a quiet, dignified and +unostentatious man of letters, unmarked by fierce controversies and +wholly devoid of domestic troubles. If his reputation has not long +survived him among the critical it is because of a law of literature +which Mr. Brander Matthews says is inexorable and universal. The man who +has the gift of story telling and nothing else, who is devoid of humor, +who does not possess the power of making character, who is a “spinner of +yarns” only, has no staying power, and “however immense his immediate +popularity may be, he sinks into oblivion almost as soon as he ceases to +produce”.[24] James seems to have had only in a small degree “the power +of making character”, and although he had a sense of humor, it manifests +itself in his novels only in a mildly unobtrusive way. + +George Payne Rainsford James was born in George Street, Hanover Square, +London, on August 9th, 1799. His father was a physician who had seen +service in the navy and was in America during the Revolution, serving in +Benedict Arnold’s descent on Connecticut. The son of the novelist, who +is still living in Wisconsin, tells me that his grandfather (as he +hinted) shot a man with his own hands to stop the atrocities of the +siege in which Ledyard fell. The physician was also in the vessel which +brought Rodney the news of De Grasse and enabled him to win the great +naval victory which assisted England to make peace creditably. His +paternal grandfather was Dr. Robert James, whose “powders” for curing +fevers enjoyed great celebrity at one time,[25] but his chief title to +fame is that he was admired by Samuel Johnson who said of him, “no man +brings more mind to his profession.”[26] I regret that there is a cruel +insinuation by the great personage which implies that Doctor Robert was +not sober for twenty years, but there is some doubt whether Johnson was +really referring to James.[27] Those were days of free indulgence, and +much may be pardoned; at all events, no one could ever accuse the +grandson of such an offence. + +Young George attended the school of the Reverend William Carmalt at +Putney, but he was not fortunate enough to have the advantage of a +university education, which despite the sneers of those who never +attended a university, is an important element in the life of any man +who devotes himself to literature. It is a great corrective, and those +who regard the subject from a point of view wholly utilitarian do not +comprehend in the least degree what is meant by it. James soon developed +a fondness for the study of languages, not only what are called “the +classics,” but of Persian and Arabic although he says he “sadly failed +in mastering Arabic.” This taste of his may account in part for his +extensive vocabulary, and it may be that his diffuseness, so much +criticised, was due in some degree to his ready command of an unusual +number of words. In his younger days, he studied medicine, as might have +been expected, but his inclination was in a different direction. He +wanted to go into the navy, but says Mr. C. L. James, “his father, who +had a sailor’s experience and manners, said, ‘you may go into the army +if you like—it’s the life of a dog; but the navy is the life of a d——d +dog, and you shan’t try it.’” + +He did accordingly go into the army for a short time during the “One +Hundred Days,” and was wounded in one of the slight actions which +followed Waterloo; but he never rose beyond the rank of lieutenant. His +son writes: “The British and Prussian forces were disposed all along the +frontier to guard every point, and Wellington, with whom my father was +acquainted, did not like the arrangement—it was Blucher’s. When Napoleon +crossed the Sambre at Charlevoi, the Duke saw his purpose of taking +Quatre Bras, between the English and Prussians, so he sent word to all +his own detachments to fall in, ‘running as to a fire.’*** My father’s +company was among those too late for the great battle. I have heard him +tell how the cuirassiers lay piled up, men and horses, to the tops of +lofty hedges.*** My father also said that he saw a dead cuirassier +behind our lines, showing there must have been a time when they actually +pierced the allied centre. When he was on the field they were bringing +in French prisoners, who would have been massacred by the Prussians but +that English soldiers guarded them. Many years afterwards the Duke of +Wellington said to my father, in his abrupt way, ‘You were at Waterloo, +I think?’ ‘No,’ he replied ‘I am sorry to say.’ ‘Why sorry to say,’ +rejoined Wellington, ‘if you had been there, you might not have been +here.’ Another of his anecdotes about the Duke is that just after +Waterloo, where it is well known that a great part of the allied army +was wholly routed, some officers were talking about who ‘ran’, when +Wellington, who had been quietly listening to these unhopeful +personalities, cut in thus: ‘Run! who wouldn’t have run under a fire +like that? I am sure I should—if I had known any place to run to.’” + +One incident in his army life is of interest. Some thirty years ago Mr. +Maunsell B. Field, a gentleman whose title to fame is somewhat dubious, +published a book called “Memories of Many Men.” He knew James well, and +collaborated with him in one of his books—“Adrian, or the Clouds of the +Mind.” Mr. Field says, after mentioning an alleged fact which is not a +fact, viz: that James was taken prisoner before the battle of Waterloo +and detained until after the battle, “The incident which occurred during +his confinement there cast a gloom upon the rest of his life. For some +cause which he never explained to me, he became engaged in a duel with a +French officer. He escaped unhurt himself, but wounded his adversary who +died, after lingering for months. I have still in my possession the +old-fashioned pistols with which this duel was fought, which my deceased +friend presented to me at the time of our early acquaintance.”[28] +Field’s story is made up in a ridiculously inaccurate way. James was not +captured before Waterloo, or after it, for that matter. During his later +travels he became involved in a difficulty with a French officer and +found himself compelled, according to the absurd practice of the time, +to fight a duel with him. The Frenchman was not killed, but only wounded +in the arm, and the duel was fought with swords, not with pistols! The +truth is, that after the sword-duel, James was challenged to fight again +with pistols. Mr. C. L. James writes me thus: “It made him (G. P. R. +James) very angry; and, being a good shot then, he felt confident of the +result if he should accept but said he would put the point of honor to +the French officer’s regiment. They replied by inviting him to dine at +the mess. On receiving this message, he took up his pistols which were +ready, loaded, saying ‘then we shall have no use for these,’ and at that +moment one of them went off, sending the bullet through the floor close +to his foot, though he felt sure they were not cocked.” Mr. Field +undoubtedly meant to tell the truth, but his reminiscences cannot be +relied upon in regard to James or to any one else. + +As a lad of seventeen he wrote a number of sketches, afterwards +published under the title of “A String of Pearls,” which were rather +free translations from the oriental tales he had studied so fondly.[29] +He travelled extensively for those times, visiting France and Spain soon +after the abdication of Napoleon. These early travels and adventures +supplied him with the idea of _Morley Ernstein_. He became acquainted +with Cuvier and other men of eminence, and it is gratifying to Americans +to know that Washington Irving liked him and gave him encouragement. It +has been said that his first work was the _Life of Edward the Black +Prince_, said to have been produced in 1822, but one of my letters, +written in 1835, indicates that it was not produced earlier than 1836. +The son thinks it must have been written before 1830. He had a +disposition to enter political life, but he abandoned the idea in 1827. +He was a mild Tory. His ambition was in the direction of a diplomatic +career. His father had some influence with Lord Liverpool, who offered +him the post of Secretary to an Embassy to China,—a temporary +appointment only, and one which promised him no preferment. It was +declined, and a week later Lord Liverpool died suddenly. + +In 1828 he married the daughter of Honoratus Leigh Thomas, an eminent +physician of that day. She survived her husband exactly thirty-one +years, dying at Eau Claire, Wisconsin, on June 9th, 1891. The assertion +made in some accounts of him that James married in the United States is +wholly untrue. After the marriage, they lived in France, Italy and +Scotland. + +In 1825 he wrote his first novel, _Richelieu_, which was not published +until 1829. Regarded by many as the best of his novels, it is an +excellent example of his strength and of his weakness. It deals with +elementary emotions, and makes but slight attempts to portray character +except in the simplest and most obvious way. Although it bears the name +of the great Cardinal, it might as well have been called “Louis XIII”, +or “Chavigni,” or “The Count de Blenau”, for Richelieu himself appears +but seldom on the scene and is not the hero or the central figure. The +narrative runs briskly on, plentifully seasoned with deeds of daring and +hairbreadth escapes, culminating in the familiar climax of the almost +miraculous arrival of a pardon when the hero has bared his neck to +receive the axe of the executioner. It is evident from the outset that +the nobleman whose fortunes are the subject of the story and the +conventional lady of his love will marry and “be happy ever after.” The +abundant historical and antiquarian padding is admirably devised and +executed, well placed and never tiresome. The tale is skilfully +constructed and if it teaches any lesson, it is that of courage, truth, +honor and loyalty. Our modern “historical novels” are in many respects +distinctly inferior to _Richelieu_. Singularly enough, he did not +include it in the revised edition of his Works. + +After reading _Richelieu_, Sir Walter Scott advised him to adopt +literature as a profession, and as he imitated Scott, the value of the +advice is not to be underestimated. As Mr. Field’s story goes, James had +kept the manuscript concealed from his father, but he managed to get an +introduction to Scott, who promised to give him his opinion. After six +months no news had come from Scotland. James was riding one day in Bond +Street, when, his horse shying, his carriage was pressed against +another. The occupant of the other carriage was Scott, and he invited +James to call upon him. To his surprise and delight, Scott praised the +book highly, and wrote his opinion, which enabled the lucky author to +find a publisher, to whom he sold the copyright for a song. In his +General Preface to the Works (1844–1849) James himself gives a very +different account of the matter. He says that a friend showed Sir Walter +one volume of a romance written long before, and he himself sent a +letter to Scott asking advice in regard to persevering in a literary +career. Some months passed, and James “felt somewhat mortified and a +good deal grieved” at receiving no response, but one day, on returning +from the country to London, he found a packet on his table containing +the volume and a note. “The opinion expressed in that note” adds James +“was more favourable than I had ever expected, and certainly more +favourable than I deserved; for Sir Walter was one of the most lenient +of critics, especially to the young. However, it told me to persevere, +and I did so.”[30] Irving and Scott united in encouraging him to produce +his next novel, _Darnley_, with another great Cardinal as a principal +character. _Darnley_ was sketched and drafted at Montreuil-sur-Mer in +December, 1828, and was completed in a few months. It is still popular +with readers of fiction and has much of the charm which pervades its +predecessor. James lived for a time at Evreux, and _De l’Orme_, written +there in 1829, appeared in 1830. _Philip Augustus_ was produced in less +than seven weeks, and was published in 1831. Under William IV he was +appointed Historiographer Royal, and published several pamphlets +officially.[31] In 1842 he lived at Walmer, and was frequently a guest +of the Duke of Wellington at Walmer Castle—a fact jocosely mentioned in +the _Life of Charles Lever_, where it is recorded that Lever said to +McGlashan that he must beware of James, who had become dangerous from +irritation, but suggested that as James had been dining twice a week +with the Duke, “he had eaten himself into a more than ordinary bilious +temper.”[32] In 1845 he went to Germany, partly for recreation and +partly to obtain information to be used in the _History of Richard Cœur +de Lion_, upon which he was then engaged. The illness of his children +detained him for a year; and at Karlsruhe and Baden-Baden he wrote +_Heidelberg_ and the _Castle of Ehrenstein_. On his return to England he +lived for some time near Farnham, Surrey, where he wrote voluminously. +He was accustomed to rise at five in the morning, to write with his own +hand until nine, and later in the day to dictate to an amanuensis, +walking to and fro meanwhile. + +Towards 1850 he decided to leave England and go to America. His original +intention was to settle in Canada. He had met with severe pecuniary +reverses. The collected edition of his works was illustrated with steel +engravings, but after a few volumes had appeared the publisher failed. +The engraver sued James as a partner in the enterprise, and poor James +had to pay several thousand pounds. In this plight he sought his friend, +the Duke of Northumberland, who endeavored to dissuade him from leaving +England and offered him a signed check, with the amount left blank, +asking him to accept it and fill the blank himself. To his credit, James +declined the generous gift.[33] + +When he reached New York in July, 1850, he took lodgings in the old New +York Hotel. He had many letters of introduction, including one to Horace +Greeley, who, he said, had “the head of a Socrates and the face of a +baby.” Hotel life proving unsatisfactory, he rented Charles Astor +Bristed’s house at Hell Gate, opposite Astoria. Of his many troubles in +getting into his new home, he wrote an amusing account in verse which +Mr. Field prints.[34] Field tells a story of a wealthy man of New York +who was introduced to James, and remarked that he was a great admirer of +the works, that he believed he had read all that were published, and +that there was one “which he vastly preferred to all the others.” “And +which is that?” asked James. “The Last Days of Pompeii,” was the answer. +“That is Bulwer’s, not mine,” replied the mortified novelist. He also +tells of a lady who found in a village library what she supposed to be a +copy of an English edition of one of James’s novels in two volumes. She +read them with much enjoyment, and did not discover until she had +finished them, that she had been reading the first volume of one and the +second volume of another. With admirable tact and discretion Field told +this to James, and says “he winced under it.” + +In 1851 he hired a furnished house at Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and +later he bought property there, making some laudable efforts at farming, +Mr. Field says: + + + “In the meantime he was also industriously pegging away at + book-making, although to the casual observer he appeared to be the + least occupied man in the place. He never did any literary work after + eleven o’clock A. M. until evening. He was not accustomed to put his + own hand to paper, when composing, but always employed an amanuensis. + At this time he had in his service in that capacity the brother of an + Irish baronet, who spoke and wrote English, French, German and + Italian, and whom I had procured for him at the modest stipend of five + dollars a week. When James was dictating, he always kept a paper of + snuff upon the table on which his secretary wrote, and he would stride + up and down the room, stopping every few minutes for a fresh supply of + the titillating powder. He never looked at the manuscript, or made any + corrections except upon proof-sheets.” + + +During that summer James and Field produced _Adrian_, finishing it in +five weeks. Notwithstanding Field’s assertion that “it was very kindly +received by the critics,” it does not appear to have enjoyed any marked +success. + +In 1852 he was appointed British Consul at Norfolk, Virginia. He was not +contented there, as we may see from his letters; but he received many +kindnesses, and on the last night he spent in the United States he spoke +to Field of the Virginians, as “a warm hearted people.” His health +suffered and his spirits also; the yellow fever raged in the city and +caused him great trouble and anxiety. While in the United States he +wrote _Ticonderoga_, _The Old Dominion_, and other novels; his fertile +pen was always busy. His latest work was _The Cavalier_, published in +1859. In 1856 the Consulate was removed to Richmond. At his earnest +request he was transferred from Virginia in September, 1858, and was +appointed Consul General at Venice, where it was hoped that his health +would improve. The war between France and Austria soon broke out, his +labors and anxieties were increased and in April, 1860, his illness +became serious. On June 9, 1860, he died of an apoplectic stroke, “an +utter break up of mind preceding the end” as Lever wrote. He was buried +in Venice—some accounts say in the Lido cemetery, but the monument, +erected by the English residents in Venice, is in the Protestant portion +of the cemetery of St. Michele, which is on an island not far from the +Lido. Laurence Hutton, in his _Literary Landmarks of Venice_, refers to +a vague tradition among the older alien residents that he was buried in +the Lido, where, Hutton says, there are a few very ancient stones and +monuments marking the graves of foreign visitors to Venice, none of them +seeming to be of a later date than the middle of the eighteenth century. +But Sir Francis Vincent, the last British Ambassador to the Venetian +Republic, is buried there. Mr. Hutton adds that the stone in St. Michele +is “a tablet blackened by time, broken and hardly decipherable”; but +when I saw it in the summer of 1906 it was only slightly discolored, and +not broken at all. It showed no evidence of restoration, and was +blackened only as much as much as might be expected of a stone +forty-five years old in a climate like that of Venice. The epitaph, +written by Walter Savage Landor, is absolutely distinct and easily read. + + + “George Payne Rainford James. + + British Consul General in the Adriatic. + + Died in Venice, on the 9th day of June, 1860. + + His merits as a writer are known wherever the English language is, and + as a man they rest on the hearts of many. + + A few friends have erected this humble and perishable monument.” + + +Hutton attempts to give the epitaph in full but makes an unaccountable +error in substituting “heads” for “hearts.” It is another illustration +of the ill will of the fates that even on his tombstone his name should +be inscribed incorrectly. “_Rainford_” is doubtless the mistake of the +Italian who prepared the monument.[35] + +Mr. J. A. Hamilton, in the _Dictionary of National Biography_, says: “An +epitaph, in terms of somewhat extravagant eulogy, was written by Walter +Savage Landor.” The epitaph, which I copied word for word, scarcely +deserves Mr. Hamilton’s censure. Surely there is nothing extravagant +about it. I regret that in such a valuable work as the _Dictionary_, the +account of James is so slight, perfunctory, and in many respects +inaccurate. It could have been made much better, and it is in marked +contrast with most of the biographical sketches included in that +admirable compendium. + +Mr. Hamilton sums up in a careless and indifferent way the literary +career of James. “Flimsy and melodramatic as James’s romances are, they +were highly popular. The historical setting is for the most part +laboriously accurate, and though the characters are without life, the +moral tone is irreproachable; there is a pleasant spice of adventure +about the plots, and the style is clear and correct. The writer’s +grandiloquence and artificiality are cleverly parodied by Thackeray in +‘Barbazure, by G. P. R. Jeames, Esq., &c.,’ in ‘Novels by Eminent +Hands,’ and the conventional sameness of the opening of his novels, ‘so +admirable for terseness,’ is effectively burlesqued in ‘The Book of +Snobs,’ chap. ii. and xvi.” It is the old story: Thackeray made fun of +him, and so—away with him! Yet there was a time when everybody read +James and few read Thackeray. I venture to assert that the romances are +neither flimsy nor melodramatic, unless Scott’s romances are flimsy and +melodramatic. I find no grandiloquence in them. + +Probably the best and most authoritative sketch of his life is contained +in the preface which he wrote for the collected edition of his novels, +published, in twenty-one volumes, in 1844–1849. Of course this includes +no account of the last ten years of his career. The number of volumes he +gave to the world was enormous, as may be seen from the list of his +works compiled from the _Dictionary_ and from Allibone’s laboriously +minute record.[36] They tell of his untiring industry; evidently he +loved to write for the sake of writing. His books brought him a goodly +income, but although he seems to have had a small fortune at one time, +he was generally poor; careless about his expenditure; ever ready and +willing to give aid to those who needed it, particularly to his literary +brethren; a noble, honest Christian gentleman, devoid of selfishness; a +good husband and father, simple and direct in his ways, charitable, +open-hearted, deserving of the esteem and affection of all who knew him. +It was said of him by a writer who deplored “the fatal facility” of the +novels, that “there is a soul of true goodness in them—no maudlin +affectation of virtue, but a manly rectitude of aim which they derive +directly from the heart of the writer. His enthusiastic nature is +visibly impressed upon his productions. They are full of his own frank +and generous impulses—impulses so honorable to him in private life. Out +of his books, there is no man more sincerely beloved. Had he not even +been a distinguished author, his active sympathy in the cause of letters +would have secured to him the attachment and respect of his +contemporaries.” + +His activity was by no means limited to the field of prose fiction. In +poetry, he produced _The Ruined City_ in 1828; _Blanche of Navarre_, a +five act play, in 1839, and _Camaralzaman_, a “fairy drama” in three +acts, in 1848. My “first edition” of _Blanche of Navarre_, a pamphlet of +ninety-eight pages, with a dedication to Talfourd,—until it came into my +hands. After an existence of sixty-six years, unvexed by the +paper-knife, and in that “unopened” condition so dear to the heart of a +collector—does not disclose any good reason for its creation. The finale +of Act III is an example of its “lofty poetic tone”— + + “DON JOHN (_pointing to the gallery_). + + We have spectators there! A lady points! + Let us go succour her! + + DON FERDINAND (_stopping him_). + + Nay, I beseech! + Most likely ’tis my sister!—Foolish child! + She has maids there enow,—Lo, they are gone! + We’ll close the night with wine. + + [_The drop scene descends to dumb-show_].” + +So we might suppose. The hospitable suggestion of Don Ferdinand has a +flavor of reckless rioting about it which brings to mind the one time +favorite amusement of a Tammany Hall leader—“opening wine.” + +It is only fair to let him tell his own story about his literary +fecundity. He says: + + + “Before I close my present task, I may be permitted to say a few words + in regard to the observations which are uniformly made upon every + author who writes rapidly and often. I will not repeat the frequently + noticed fact, that the best writers have generally been the most + voluminous; for I must contend that neither the number of an author’s + works, nor the rapidity with which they are produced, affords any + criterion whatsoever by which to judge of their merit. They may be + numerous and excellent, like those of Voltaire, Scott, Dryden, Vega, + Boccacio and others; they may be rapidly written, and yet accurate, + like the great work of Fénélon, and they may be quite the reverse.*** + I may mention, in my own case, a few circumstances which may account + for the number and rapidity of my works. In the first place, all the + materials for the tales I have written, and for many more than I ever + shall write, were collected long before this idea of entering upon a + literary career ever crossed my mind. In the next place, I am an early + riser, and any one who has that habit must know that it is a grand + secret for getting through twice as much as lazier men can perform. + Again, I write and read during some portion of every day, except when + I am travelling, and even then if possible. I need not point out, that + regular application in literary, as well as all other kinds of labour, + will effect results which no desultory efforts, however energetic, can + obtain. Then, again, the habit of dictating instead of writing with my + own hand, which I first attempted at the suggestion of Sir Walter + Scott, relieves me of the manual labour which many authors have to + undergo, leaves the mind clear and free to act, and affords facilities + inconceivable to those who have not tried, or, having tried, have not + been able to attain it.”[37] + + +I am not convinced that the custom of dictating is one which should be +observed by an author who aims at the highest excellence. + +In the accounts of his life and his work there are many discrepancies +and contradictions. For example Mr. Allibone—who is not altogether +trustworthy in details—tells us that his first book was _A Life of +Edward the Black Prince_, published in 1822; but the _Dictionary of +National Biography_ ascribes that publication to the year 1836, and the +_Dictionary_ is undoubtedly right, for he said in 1835 “The _Black +Prince_ comes on but slowly,”[38] The _Dictionary_ says that as +“historiographer royal”—a sonorous title which must have afforded great +pleasure to its bearer—he published in 1839 a _History of the United +States Boundary Question_, but Mr. Allibone insists that it was not his +production. I have an autograph letter of James which, I think, warrants +the belief that Allibone is wrong. The letter is a good example of his +serious epistolary style. + + + “FAIR OAK LODGE, PETERSFIELD + HANTS, 4th November, 1837. + + MY LORD:— + + A few months previous to the death of his late Majesty, he was pleased + to appoint me Historiographer in ordinary for England into which + office I was duly sworn. On the accession of Her Majesty our present + Queen, although I was informed that the office did not necessarily + lapse on the death of the monarch who conferred it, I applied to Her + Majesty through her Lord Chamberlain for her gracious confirmation of + the honor her Royal Uncle had conferred upon me. Many months have now + elapsed even since Lord Conyngham did me the honor of writing to + inform me that the time had not then arrived for Her Majesty to take + into consideration that class of offices and I am induced in + consequence to apply directly to your Lordship as I understand that + your department of the government embraces such matters. I should have + waited longer ere I thus intruded upon your valuable time but that I + am about to publish a new Historical work of some importance in the + title to which must appear whether I am or am not still + Historiographer. If I am to understand by the silence which has been + maintained upon the subject that it is Her Majesty’s determination to + deprive me of the office which her royal uncle conferred I must bow to + her gracious pleasure and neither my station in society, my fortune, + or my views of what is right require or permit me to say one word to + alter such a resolution. Should that determination however not have + been formed allow me to submit to your Lordship that to dismiss me + from a post to which I was so lately appointed is to cast a stigma of + which I am not deserving. If I have ever written anything that is + calculated to injure society; if I have ever debased my pen to pander + to bad appetites of any kind; if I have ever failed to dedicate its + efforts to the promotion of truth, virtue, and honor, not only let the + dismissal be made public but the cause of that stigma be assigned. But + if on the contrary to have done my best, and that perhaps with more + reputation than my writings merit, to promote all that is good and + noble; if to have bestowed vast labour, anxious research, valuable + time, and many hundreds of pounds for which I can hope no return on + such works as the History of Charlemagne, the History of Edward the + Black Prince, the History of Chivalry, and my letters to Lord Brougham + on the system of Education in the higher German States—if these + circumstances afford any claim to honor or distinction, I think in my + case they may stand in the way of an act which I cannot yet make up my + mind to believe that Her Majesty’s present ministers would advise. I + have given up the expectation indeed that a fair share of honors and + distinctions—or in fact any share at all—should be bestowed upon + literary men in this country, even when a high education, upright + conduct, and a fortune not ill employed combine with literary + reputation; but I still trust that that which has been given will not + be taken away. + + I have now to apologize, my Lord—and I feel that an apology is very + necessary—for addressing this letter to your private house; but your + kindness and courtesy when, as a result of some communications between + my friend Sir David Brewster and myself, I addressed you on the state + of literature in England have encouraged me to trespass upon you in + some manner. + + I have the honor to be, my Lord, your Lordship’s most obedient servant + + G. P. R. JAMES.” + + +I have not been able to discover what effect this letter had, but it is +evident that the ‘Historical work’ was the pamphlet on the Boundary +Question as I do not find a record of any other “historiographical” work +to which the language of the letter is applicable. + +The _Dictionary of National Biography_ credits James with _Memoirs of +Celebrated Women_ (three volumes, 1837), but Allibone says that he had +no share in it, further than writing a preface or “something of that +kind.” The _Dictionary_ further informs us that “about 1850 he was +appointed British Consul for Massachusetts”—an impossible office—and +that he was transferred to Norfolk, Virginia, in 1852, becoming Consul +General at Venice in 1856. Allibone makes him Consul at Richmond, +Virginia, in 1852 and Consul General at Venice in September, 1858. His +friend Hall places him at Norfolk in 1852 and in Venice in 1859. +_Appleton’s Cyclopædia_ follows Allibone as to dates, but very properly +ignores Richmond in favor of Norfolk. The _Encyclopædia Britannica_ says +that Irving encouraged him to produce the _Life of the Black Prince_ in +1822 (an evident error), sends him as “Consul to Richmond” in 1852 and +transfers him to Venice in September, 1858. The truth is that he went to +Norfolk in 1852, to Richmond in 1856, and to Venice in 1858. As we have +seen, even the place of his interment is not without uncertainty. These +variances in regard to the facts of his life are due to the comparative +neglect which has befallen his memory. Perhaps they are not of much +importance. Although he had numerous friends and acquaintances, none of +them, except Mr. S. C. Hall and Maunsell B. Field, left anything +approaching an account of his life, and even Mr. Hall’s reminiscences +are meagre and cursory, while Mr. Field’s are largely apocryphal. + +He surely possessed the art of making friends. Before his marriage he +knew not only Scott and Irving, but Byron, Leigh Hunt, and Walter Savage +Landor, his friendship with Hunt and Landor continuing to the end of his +life. Probably he never saw Shelley, but he admired greatly the writings +of that radical enthusiast. He knew Thackeray, but did not like him; +perhaps the parody galled him. He detested the brilliant, showy, shallow +Count D’Orsay. His son says that he never heard his father speak of +Dickens as if they had met.[39] “He fully acknowledged the power and +versatility of Dickens’s works, but there was something in them which +did not please him. He had detected, if it is there—suspected, if it is +not—the essential vulgarity which this master of pathos and humor is +said to have shown those who came in personal contact with him.” He had +some acquaintance with Bulwer Lytton. “It is odd” remarks the younger +James “but his tone towards this eminent author, who at some points +(_Richelieu_ and the historic novels) approached near enough his own +line for rivalry, was rather one of compassion. He knew the personal and +domestic sorrows of one whom unfriendly critics accused of soulless +dandyism; and he seemed to have a sort of friendly feeling for that +partially unsuccessful ambition which made the author of books as unlike +as _Pelham_ and _Pausonias_ attempt so many things without reaching the +highest rank in any.” The Duke of Northumberland, the Duke of +Wellington, Charles Lever, Thomas Campbell, and Allan Cunningham, were +also friends. In America, he was known and well received by President +Pierce, Hawthorne, Longfellow, Charles Sumner, Farragut, Barron, Henry +A. Wise, Roger A. Pryor, John Tyler, Winder, General Scott, Edward +Everett, Marcy, Caleb Cushing and a host of others. His gentle, modest +nature, his cultivated taste, and his frank, pleasant ways seem to have +attracted all who came within the circle of his friendship. He had much +conversation with Marcy. Each had some idea of sounding the other +diplomatically; both took snuff and neither proposed to be sounded. When +James asked Marcy something which the latter did not choose to answer, +Marcy would ask him for a pinch of snuff, and he readily perceived that +this evasion was as good for two as for one. + +The late Donald G. Mitchell speaks of him as “an excellent, industrious +man, who drove his trade of novel-making—as our engineers drive +wells—with steam, and pistons, and borings, and everlasting clatter”, +adding that “what he might have done, with a modern typewriter at +command, it is painful to imagine. But he gives us the best account I +have seen of the personal appearance of James. + + + “I caught sight of this great necromancer of ‘miniver furs,’ and + mantua-making chivalry—in youngish days, in the city of New York—where + he was making a little over-ocean escape from the multitudinous work + that flowed from him at home; a well-preserved man, of scarce fifty + years, stout, erect, gray-haired, and with countenance blooming with + mild uses of mild English ale—kindly, unctuous—showing no signs of + deep thoughtfulness or of harassing toil. I looked him over, in boyish + way, for traces of the court splendor I had gazed upon, under his + ministrations, but saw none; nor anything of the ‘manly beauty of + features, rendered scarcely less by a deep scar upon the forehead’, + nor ‘of the gray cloth doublets slashed with purple;’ a stanch honest, + amiable, well-dressed Englishman—that was all.”[40] + + +Mr. Mitchell surely did not expect to see Mr. James attired in armor, +with a scarred face, because he wrote of armed knights, and his remarks +certainly appear to be boyish in the extreme. But he atones for them by +saying: + + + “And yet, what delights he had conjured for us! Shall we be ashamed to + name them, or to confess it all? Shall the modern show of new + flowerets of fiction, and of lilies—forced to the front in + January—make us forget utterly the old cinnamon roses, and the homely + but fragrant pinks, which once regaled and delighted us, in the April + and May of our age?” + + +Mr. Field says of him: “If he was sometimes a tedious writer, he was +always the best story-teller that I ever listened to. He had known +almost everybody in his own country, and he never forgot anything. The +literary anecdotes alone which I have heard him relate would suffice to +fill an ordinary volume. He was a big hearted man, too—tender, merciful, +and full of religious sentiment; a good husband, a devoted father, and a +fast friend.” Such is the testimony of all his acquaintances who have +left any record of their impressions. + +It is not my purpose to present any critical study of James or of his +works, but only to submit a few of his unpublished letters, in which his +easy grace of style and his frank and simple nature are manifest; to +give some of the contemporary estimates of him; and to recall to the +minds of readers of our own day a literary personality which should not +be entirely forgotten. + +Among the good friends of James of whom I have spoken was that other +novelist, almost as prolific in production, but better remembered by +modern readers—Charles Lever. When the author of _Charles O’Malley_ was +the editor of the Dublin University Magazine, he wrote to a certain +Reverend Edward Johnson, now wholly lost to fame, requesting him to +contribute to the magazine and inviting him to visit the editor; but by +mistake he addressed the letter to James. “Though he liked the man” says +Mr. Fitzpatrick, “he rather pooh-poohed the stereotyped ‘two cavaliers’ +of G. P. R. James, who of a fine autumnal day might be seen, etc.”[41] +Lever was too kind-hearted to explain the error, and James not only +contributed to the magazine but visited Lever at Templeogue. The story +“_De Lunatico Inquirendo_” was supposed to have been written by Lever, +who wrote only the preface. “_Arrah Neil_” was published in the +Magazine, a work which has peculiar merit and one character, Captain +Barecolt, who is among James’s best people. It is said that James abused +McGlashan for having “emasculated his jokes”. “Where be they? as we used +to say in the Catechism” was Lever’s comment. One Major Dwyer, referred +to in Fitzpatrick’s _Life of Lever_, says: “Lever would sometimes say +that he wanted powder for his magazine. ‘It is doubtful whether James’s +contributions’ he said, ‘were James’s powders at all, or merely that +inferior substitute which the Pharmacopœia condemns.’” Chamber’s +Cyclopædia stated, twenty years before the death of James, that he was +in the habit of dictating to minor scribes his thick-coming fancies. Mr. +R. H. Horne would have it that he always dictated his novels, but that +was a very exaggerated statement. He dictated only at intervals. Major +Dwyer tells of a novel composed by James at Baden, that “it was penned +by an English artist who resided at Lichtenthal, and also spoke the +purest South Devonian, and moreover wrote English nearly as he +pronounced it. James’s flowery language thus rendered, was highly +amusing; I had an opportunity of reading some pages of copy.” + +In spite of his disparaging remarks, Lever was attached to the man +himself, and we find the two romance writers together in 1845, at +Karlsruhe—where, as Mr. Downey says in his _Life of Lever_, “G. P. R. +James and himself were the cynosure of all eyes”—and later at Baden. +Lever dedicated to James his novel _Roland Cashel_, in 1849—“a Roland +for your Oliver, or rather for your Stepmother,” said Lever, for James +had dedicated to him the novel with that title in 1846. Soon afterwards, +however, they became separated, as James went to the United States where +he remained about eight years. One incident connected with the _Dublin_ +is worthy of remembrance. In Volume XXVII of the Magazine (1846) +appeared some verses beginning “A cloud is on the western sky.” They +were said to be “Lines by G. P. R. James” and were prefaced by a note: +‘My dear L——, I send you the song you wished to have. The Americans +totally forgot, when they so insolently calculated upon aid from Ireland +in a war with England, that their own apple is rotten at the core. A +nation with five or six million slaves who would go to war with an +equally strong nation with no slaves is a mad people. Yours, G. P. R. +James.’ ‘The Cloud,’ (amongst other things not intended to be pleasant +to Americans) called upon the dusky millions to ‘shout,’ and the author +of the ‘Lines’ declared that Britain was ready to “draw the sword in the +sacred cause of liberty.” It was Lever’s joke. Poor James had never +heard of the poem until years later, in 1853, an attempt was made to +drive him out of Norfolk, Virginia, because of it. “God forgive me” said +Lever, “it was my doing.” Lever declared that he had no more notion of +James’s ‘powder’ exciting a national animosity than that Holloway’s +Ointment could absorb a Swiss glacier.[42] The son says that during the +first winter they spent in Norfolk there were no less than eight fires +in the house, or in other parts of the block, which James attributed to +deliberate attempts to burn him out on account of his supposed +abolitionist views. + +Lever was Consul at Spezzia when James was in Venice, and they renewed +their old intimacy. The younger James says that Lever was a very +eccentric genius—a thorough specimen of the wild Irishman. Among his +traits was chronic impecuniosity. Another was that he and all his family +delighted in out-door life and could do everything athletic. “When he +was at Venice he told us he was threatened with a visit from a British +war vessel, which it would be his duty to receive in state, and (of +course) he had no boat or other means of doing so with proper pomp. +‘But,’ he said, ‘we can take the British flag in our mouth and swim out +to meet her, singing Rule Britannia.’” + +Notwithstanding the manifestations of hostility by the good people of +Norfolk, it may be remembered that when James was transferred to Venice, +the Virginian poet, John R. Thompson, addressed to him some farewell +verses, published in the _Southern Literary Messenger_, beginning: + + Good bye! they say the time is up— + The “solitary horseman” leaves us, + We’d like to take a “stirrup cup”, + Though much indeed the parting grieves us: + We’d like to hear the glasses clink + Around a board where none was tipsy, + And with a hearty greeting drink + This toast—The Author of the Gipsey! + +The same Major Dwyer relates at some length the conversations of the +guests at Lever’s home in Ireland. Speaking of a visit of Thackeray +about 1842, he says: “James had been living at Brussels previously, and +an intimacy had sprung up between Lever and him. Thackeray’s star was +then barely peeping over the eastern horizon; Lever’s had attained an +altitude that rendered it clearly visible to the uncharmed eye, whilst +James’s had already passed its point of culmination, and was in its +descending node.” I do not know what the eloquent Major meant by an +“uncharmed eye,” but his figures of speech are quite luxuriant. He does +not think that Thackeray and James met at Lever’s house, but he tells of +a dinner there, where a Captain Siborne, Doctor Anster, and the Major +were asked to meet James. It appears that after dinner, James took a +very decided lead in the conversation on horsemanship and military +tactics. “James” remarks the Major, “was not horsey looking; one would +at first sight be inclined to set him down as an exception to the +general rule, that ‘all Britons are born riders’; he looked more like a +seaman than a soldier.” This is deliciously fatuous—as if a man could +not talk well about horses unless he had a horsey look or drive fat oxen +unless he himself were fat. It is like the Mitchell prattle about his +having no scar and wearing no doublet. In talking about horses and +riders, James evidently did not foresee that in the future his name +would be so closely associated with “one horseman” or even two, +threading romantic gorges. Perhaps it would have been better for his +fame, if he had eschewed horsemen. “Why,” continues the Major, “he +should have selected two such topics puzzled both Siborne and myself, +but I subsequently found that James liked to seize upon and talk +categorically about things which other individuals of the company +present might be suspected of considering their own peculiar hobbies.” +This device for enlivening post-prandial dullness by stirring up solemn +and conceited prigs is quite familiar, but it does not seem to have +occurred to the Major that the clever novelist was making game of the +two military magnates. He tells us further how Siborne declined “to +discuss professional matters with a civilian,” and closes his pompous +and heavy remarks with this gem of concentrated wisdom: “James, so fond +of horseflesh, finished his career as Consul General at Venice _where +the sight of a horse is never seen_.” I suppose that the Major would +have considered it more fitting if James had selected some place to die +in where ‘the sight of a horse could be seen’ at all times by merely +looking out of the window. It is not difficult to imagine the joy with +which the nimble-minded James put through their paces the heavy-witted +and cumbrous Captain and Major at the pleasant dinner-table of Charles +Lever. It reminds me of an occasion when a sincere and simple-minded +Briton undertook to engage in single combat with Mark Twain over a +statement thrown out by the equally sincere and simple-minded Clemens +that the people of the Phillipine Islands had a perfect right to make +arson and murder lawful if they considered it proper to incorporate in +their constitution a provision to that effect. His powerful arguments +did not produce the slightest change in the convictions of Mr. Clemens. + +However severely the sapient compilers of _Chambers’ Cyclopædia_ or the +critics of our own generation may sneer at the novels—the fiction of the +twentieth century being in the estimation of our contemporaries so +vastly superior to all that has gone before—it is something to have had +the approval of Christopher North, who was not given to bestowing lavish +commendation upon the work of mere Englishmen. If you will take from the +shelves the _Noctes Ambrosianæ_, you will find these words: + + + “_North_: Mr. Colburn has lately given us two books of a very + different character, [from that of some previously mentioned], + _Richelieu_ and _Darnley_—by Mr. James. _Richelieu_ is one of the + most spirited, amusing and interesting romances I ever read; + characters well drawn—incidents—well managed—story perpetually + progressive—catastrophe at once natural and unexpected—moral good, + but not goody—and the whole felt, in every chapter, to be the work + of a—gentleman. + + _Shepherd_: And what o’_Darnley_? + + _North_: Read and judge.”[43] + + +Edgar Allan Poe, who thought himself a critic while he was an original +genius absolutely unfitted for just or accurate criticism, said that +James was lauded from mere motives of duty, not of inclination—duty +erroneously conceived. “His sentiments are found to be pure,” wrote Poe, +“his morals unquestionable and pointedly shown forth—his language +indisputably correct.” But he calls him an indifferent imitator of +Scott, accuses him of having little pretension to genius, and adds that +we “seldom stumble across a novel emotion in the solemn tranquillity of +his pages.”[44] Elsewhere Poe says: “James’s multitudinous novels seem +to be written upon the plan of the songs of the Bard of Schiraz, in +which, we are assured by Fadladeen, ‘the same beautiful thought occurs +again and again in every possible variety of phrase.’” This is perhaps, +a fair comment upon the work of a writer who produced too many books. + +Samuel Carter Hall, who knew James well, and who gossips with garrulous +freedom about everybody, speaks of him in an admiring way. After +observing that very little was known of James’s life, he says: “I knew +him and esteemed him as an agreeable and kindly gentleman, somewhat +handsome in person, and of very pleasant manners. He had the aspect, and +indeed the character, that usually marks a man of sedentary occupations. +His work all day long, and often into the night, must have been +untiring, for he by no means drew exclusively on his fancy; he must have +resorted much to books and have been a great reader, not only of +English, but of continental histories; and he travelled a good deal in +the countries in which the scenes of his historic fictions were +principally laid. His novels have always been popular—they are so now, +although many competitors for fame, with higher aims and perhaps loftier +genius, have of late years supplied the circulating libraries. It was no +light thing to run a race with Sir Walter Scott, and not to be +altogether beaten out of the field. His great charm was the interest he +created in relating a story, but he had masterly skill in delineating +character, and in ‘chivalric essays’ none of his brethren surpassed +him.”[45] He gives to James more praise for character-drawing than most +of the critics bestow. + +Hall quotes from Alison: “There is a constant appeal in his brilliant +pages, not only to the pure and generous, but to the elevated and noble +sentiments. He is imbued with the very soul of chivalry, and all his +stories turn on the final triumph of those who are influenced by such +feelings. Not a word or a thought which can give pain to the purest +heart ever escapes from his pen.” + +The genial journalist, William Jerdan, in his Autobiography, pays a +deserved tribute to James. He says: + + + “Among the warm friendships to which I may allude, there is not one + more sincere, more lasting, or more grateful to my feelings, than that + which I have the honour and delight to couple with the admired and + estimable name of G. P. R. James. I think it was the production of + ‘The Ruined City’, for private circulation, which first introduced us + to each other; and from that hour (I remember the pleasure I received + from his volunteering a trial of his skill occasionally in the + ‘Gazette’) I now look back on a quarter of a century upon a close + intercourse of minds and hearts without a passing shade to dull its + bright and cheering continuity. I need not dwell on those voluminous + writings which have placed Mr. James in the foremost rank of our + national fictitious literature, nor need I, in his case, illustrate my + theme of the uncertainty of literature as a remunerative pursuit—with + a private fortune, and the genius which has produced so many admirable + works, the author has now fallen back upon a consulate at Norfolk, in + America, where, if report speaks truth, he is exposed even to danger + in consequence of petty resentment against something he wrote long ago + about Slavery!—but, I may say, from nearer and more abundant + observation than the world could attain, that the utmost appreciation + of his genius must fall short of what is due to his personal worth and + nobility of nature. As no author ever excelled him in the purity and + rectitude of his publications—every tone of which tends to inspire + just moral sentiment, and exalted virtue, and brotherly love, and + universal benevolence, and the improvement carrying with it the + progress and happiness of his fellow creatures—so no man in private + life ever more zealously practiced the precepts which he taught, and + was charitable, liberal, and generous, aye, beyond the measure of cold + prudence, and without an atom of selfish reserve. To his + fellow-labourers on the oft-ungrateful soil of letters, he was ever + indulgent and munificent; and were this the fitting time, I could + record acts of his performing that would shed a lustre on any + character, however celebrated in merited biographical panegyric. I + trust I may state, without compromising the privacy of friendly + confidence, that I knew him, as he was ever ready to make sacrifices + to friendship, sacrifice half a fortune, legally in his possession, to + a mere point of honorable, I might say, romantically honourable + feeling, and founded indeed on one of those family romances in which + we find fact more extraordinary than fiction; and amongst lesser + instances of his general sympathies for all who stood in need of + succour, I may mention his procuring me the gratification of handing + over £75 to the Literary Fund, as the price received from Messrs. + Colburn and Bentley for a manuscript entitled “The String of + Pearls.””[46] + + +I have referred to the remark in _Chambers’ Cyclopædia_ about the custom +of James to dictate to an amanuensis, a custom he attempted to defend. +The writers for this useful work, now rather antiquated, were quite +given to the exercise of censorious judgment about authors who did not +preserve their popularity. They say of James, however, that he was +perhaps the best of the numerous imitators of Scott, and that if he had +concentrated his powers on a few congenial subjects or periods of +history, and “resorted to the manual labor of penmanship as a drag-chain +on the machine, he might have attained to the highest honors of this +department of composition. As it is, he has furnished many light, +agreeable and picturesque books, none of questionable tendency.” The +Cyclopædia breaks into exclamation points when it chronicles the fact +that the original works of Mr. James “extend to one hundred and +eighty-nine volumes,” and that he edited almost a dozen more. It then +quotes from some unnamed critic whom it calls a “lively writer,”[47] and +as I am endeavoring to present the contemporary estimates of James, I +venture to reproduce the quotation: + + + “There seems to be no limit to his ingenuity, his faculty of getting + up scenes and incidents, dilemmas, artifices, _contretemps_, battles, + skirmishes, disguises, escapes, trials, combats, adventures. He + accumulates names, dresses, implements of war and peace, official + retinues, and the whole paraphernalia of customs and costumes, with + astounding alacrity. He appears to have exhausted every imaginable + situation, and to have described every available article of attire on + record. What he must have passed through—what triumphs he must have + enjoyed—what exigencies he must have experienced—what love he must + have suffered—what a grand wardrobe his brain must be! He has made + some poetical and dramatic efforts, but this irresistible tendency to + pile up circumstantial particulars is fatal to those forms of art + which demand intensity of passion. In stately narratives of chivalry + and feudal grandeur, precision and reiteration are desirable rather + than injurious—as we would have the most perfect accuracy and finish + in a picture of ceremonials; and here Mr. James is supreme. One of his + court romances is a book of brave sights and heraldic magnificence—it + is the next thing to moving at our leisure through some superb and + august procession.” + + +The lively writer has a style which displays the worst faults of the +middle nineteenth century, but he is really not far wrong in his +conclusions. The Cyclopædia sums up the matter in a sentence which tells +the story and signifies that the man wrote too much: + +“The sameness of the author’s style and characters is, however, too +marked to be pleasing.” + +I timidly venture to suggest that the same thing may be true of Kipling +and hope that I may not be annihilated by the bolts of Jupiter for such +a daring piece of sacrilege. Having gone so far—but I will refrain from +mentioning some other makers of novels with regard to whom the same +fable might be narrated. + +We may easily understand that the accusation of “sameness” is one which +is not very serious when preferred against the author of nearly two +hundred volumes. As Allibone says, “he who composes a library is not to +be judged by the same standard as he who writes but one book.” We must +remember that not only Professor Wilson, but Leigh Hunt, about whose +taste and discrimination there can be no question, says of him: + + + “I hail every fresh publication of James, though I half know what he + is going to do with his lady, and his gentleman, and his landscape, + and his mystery, and his orthodoxy, and his criminal trial. But I am + charmed with the new amusement which he brings out of old materials. I + look on him as I look on a musician famous for ‘variations.’ I am + grateful for his vein of cheerfulness, for his singularly varied and + vivid landscapes, for his power of painting women at once lady-like + and loving, (a rare talent,) for making lovers to match, at once + beautiful and well-bred, and for the solace which all this has + afforded me, sometimes over and over again in illness and in + convalescence, when I required interest without violence, and + entertainment at once animated and mild.” + + +Allan Cunningham, in his _Biographical and Critical History of the +Literature of the Last Fifty Years_ (1833) refers to his excellent +taste, extensive knowledge of history, right feeling of the chivalrous, +and heroic and ready eye for the picturesque, adding that his +proprieties are admirable and his sympathy with whatever is high-souled +and noble, deep and impressive. Cunningham was on terms of intimacy with +him, as a number of letters from James addressed to him abundantly +prove. The _Edinburgh Review_ estimated highly his abilities as a +romance writer, declaring that his works were lively and interesting, +and animated by a spirit of sound and healthy morality in feeling and of +natural deliberation in character which should secure for them a calm +popularity which would “last beyond the present day.” + +He was not regarded so favorably by the _London Athenæum_, which said of +him: “The first and most obvious contrivance for the attainment of +quantity, is, of course, dilution; but this recourse has practically its +limit, and Mr. James had reached it long ago. Commonplace in its best +day, anything more feeble, vapid—_sloppy_ in fact, (for we know not how +to characterize this writer’s style but by some of its own +elegancies)—than Mr. James’s manner has become, it were difficult to +imagine. Every literary grace has been swamped in the spreading marasmus +of his style.”[48] + +The bewildered reader of reviews is often at a loss to reconcile the +censure of one and the praise of another; and it was not very long +before the appearance of this slashing article that the _Dublin +University Magazine_ had thus expressed its opinions: “His pen is +prolific enough to keep the imagination constantly nourished; and of +him, more than of any modern writer, it may be said, that he has +improved his style by the mere dint of constant and abundant practice. +For, although so agreeable a novelist, it must not be forgotten that he +stands infinitely higher as an historian.*** The most fantastic and +beautiful coruscations which the skies can exhibit to the eyes of +mankind dart as if in play from the huge volumes that roll out from the +crater of the volcano.*** The recreation of an enlarged intellect is +ever more valuable than the highest efforts of a confined one. Hence we +find in the works before us, lightly as they have been thrown off, the +traces of study—the footsteps of a powerful and vigorous +understanding.”[49] The works were _Corse de Léon_, _The Ancient +Régime_, and _The Jacquerie_—none of them as deserving as _Richelieu_, +_Henry Masterton_, or _Mary of Burgundy_. James was a member of the +_Dublin_ staff and his friend Lever may have inspired the compliments. + +One more review may be noticed. Mr. E. P. Whipple, whose criticisms have +not become immortal, evidently disapproved of James, and did not +hesitate to say so. It is the old charge of sameness and overproduction. +Whipple scored James in the North American Review of April, 1844. + + + “He is a most scientific expositor of the fact that a man may be a + maker of books without being a maker of thoughts; that he may be the + reputed author of a hundred volumes and flood the market with his + literary wares, and yet have very few ideas and principles for his + stock in trade. For the last ten years he has been repeating his own + repetitions and echoing his own echoes. His first novel was a shot + that went through the target, and he has ever since been assiduously + firing through the hole.*** When a man has little or nothing to say, + he should say it in the smallest space. He should not, at any rate, + take up more room than suffices for a creative mind. He should not + provoke hostility and petulance by the effrontery of his demands upon + time and patience. He should let us off with a few volumes, and gain + our gratitude for his benevolence, if not our praise for his + talents.”[50] + + +Whipple’s _critiques_ are far more obsolete than James’s novels; and a +good deal of what he says of James is fairly applicable to his own +essays. Even Whipple concedes the excellence of _Richelieu_, +notwithstanding the fact that it did not emanate from New England. + +Back in the forties, there was a magazine, published in Philadelphia, +known as _Graham’s American Monthly Magazine_, in which the chief +American writers of the day, including Poe, Bryant, Cooper, Longfellow, +Willis, and Lowell occasionally figured as contributors. It had its page +of reviews and in the number of November, 1848, it enlightened its +readers with a disquisition on “Vanity Fair”; by W. M. _Thackerway_ +(_sic_), beginning “This is one of the most striking novels of the +season.” If Lamb could only have met that reviewer, he surely would have +danced about, as on a memorable occasion, singing “diddle, diddle +dumpling, my son John” and endeavored to examine the reviewer’s bumps. +_Graham_ (November, 1844) was very severe with poor James, in a notice +of _Arrah Neil_. The reviewer says: “In our opinion, there is hardly an +instance on record of an author who has contrived to earn an extensive +reputation as a writer of works of imagination, with such slender +intellectual materials as Mr. James. No one has ever written so many +books, purporting to be novels, with so small a stock of heart, brain, +and invention. He is continually infringing his own copyright, by +reproducing his own novels. Far from being surprised that he has written +so much, we are astonished that he has not written more. From his first +novel, all the rest can be logically deduced; and the reason that they +have not appeared faster, may be found in the fact that he has been +economical in the employment of amanuenses.” More of this kind of talk +is indulged in without a single word about the book itself or its +merits; which proves quite clearly that the reviewer was merely +following the path marked out by some other critic, and there is no +evidence whatever that he had ever read the work he was reviewing. Thus +it is to-day; a parrot-cry of “diffuseness, dilution, re-copying, +repetition,”—so easy to proclaim, so difficult to answer, all born of +the disposition of newspaper and magazine critics to accept the view +which needs no exercise of brains to approve and to announce. It is not +without significance that when James was in America, he was a +contributor to this same magazine, which had scored him so unmercifully; +for example, in the volume for 1851 I find two stories by him—_Christian +Lacy, a Tale of the Salem Witchcraft_, and _Justinian and Theodora_,—as +well as a rather graceful sonnet to Jenny Lind. + +James C. Derby mentions the fact that James was a friend of Philip +Pendleton Cooke, the Virginian poet, and relates that Thackeray visited +James when in the South, but that James “resented the latter’s +[Thackeray’s] flings at him as a ‘solitary horseman’, the meaning of +which those who have read James’s novels will understand. James once +told Cooke of his intention to write his own memoirs—a purpose never +fulfilled. Incidentally, he told Cooke a story of Washington Irving, his +early adviser, who amiably approved of his earliest essays in +literature. It seems that James was in Bordeaux, and after strolling all +day, returned to his inn. On his way through a long, dark passage he saw +some one in front carrying a candle, a man in black slowly ascending the +old-fashioned staircase. On the landing the man stopped, and holding up +his candle looked at a cat lying on the window-sill, regarding the gazer +with a surprised and frightened expression. The stranger in black looked +at the cat for some time mutely and then muttered sadly, ‘Ah, pussy! +pussy! If you had seen as much trouble as I have, you would not be +surprised at anything.’ After which he went on up the stairs,’ said +James, ‘and as I heard that Irving was in Bordeaux, I said to myself: +‘That can be nobody in the world but Irving’, which turned out to be a +fact.[51] + +Frederick Locker-Lampson visited Walter Savage Landor at Fiesole in the +early sixties, and found him reading a Waverly novel. Lampson +congratulated the old poet on having so pleasant a companion in his +retirement, and Landor, with a winning dignity, replied: “Yes, and there +is another novelist whom I equally admire, my old friend [G. P. R.] +James.”[52] Locker-Lampson does not seem to have shared Landor’s +appreciation of James. He says, later in his memoirs: “It is a law of +literature that every generation should be industrious in burying its +own, especially novels. What has become of Smollett and Mackenzie—the +cockpit of the ‘Thunder’ or the sentimental Harley? Where is the shadowy +Mr. G. P. R. James and where is that witty old ghost of the Silver Fork +school, Mrs. Gore?*** Yet they all had vogue.”[53] It is odd that almost +every one, in speaking of James, recites his numerous initials and +bestows upon him the title of “Mr.” which carries with it the suggestion +of a sneer. + +In my small collection of Gladstone letters I find one addressed to +James which shows not only that the statesman liked the books but that +he and the author were on terms of some intimacy. + + + “WHITEHALL, May 17, ’43. + + MY DEAR SIR: I thank you very much for your renewed kindness. The + perusal of your last work gave me very great pleasure, most of all + (though that is but a very slender testimony in their favour) Evesham + and Simon de Montfort, of whom I never had before an adequate + conception. It is true I am adopted into the Cabinet, & will I fear be + alleged as a proof of its poverty. In point of form I cannot succeed + Lord Ripon until the Queen holds a Council.[54] The true and whole + secret of the difficulty about Canada corn (and I do not mean that we + can wonder at it) is, as I believe, that wheat, without great + abundance, is at 46 / a quarter. + + I remain, my dear sir, + Yours faithfully & obliged, + W. E. GLADSTONE. + + G. P. R. JAMES, ESQ., + The Shrubbery, + Walmer. + + +Donald G. Mitchell, describing the little red cottage of Hawthorne, in +the Berkshire hills, reminds us that among those who used to come +a-visiting the great American romancer, was “G. P. R. James, that kindly +master of knights ‘in gay caparison’;” and elsewhere says that at the +Cooper Memorial meeting in Metropolitan Hall, on February 25, 1852, +where Webster, Bryant and Hawks paid their tribute to the author of the +Leatherstocking tales, “Mr. G. P. R. James—then chancing to be a visitor +in New York,—lent a little of his rambling heroics to the interest of +the occasion.”[55] I have before me the _Memorial_, printed by Putnam in +1852, containing a full report of the meeting, including the remarks of +James, and I do not find anything which may fairly be called “heroics”, +rambling or otherwise. The speech was manifestly extemporaneous. He +began by expressing his pride in being an Englishman, a romance writer, +and a man of the people, and his pleasure in paying an humble tribute to +an American romance writer and a man of the people. He praised the +addresses of those who preceded him, corrected a trifling error of +Bryant’s in regard to a Mr. James, a surgeon, and declared that the +proposed statue to Cooper was not merely to a novelist, but to a +genius—to truth—to truth, genius and patriotism combined. He closed by +urging all present to use every exertion to procure contributions for +the purpose of erecting such a statue. To any unprejudiced mind, what +James said was appropriate and dignified; well suited to the occasion; +wholly natural and unaffected; and compared favorably, to say the least, +with the dull and ponderous commonplaces of Daniel Webster who had the +chair and who was singularly unfitted to preside over such a meeting. Of +Webster’s platitudes, Professor Lounsbury is quite contemptuous, +remarking that the distinguished orator “had nothing to say and said it +wretchedly.”[56] I believe that the projected statue was never built. +James was evidently a favorite dinner-speaker. It is pleasant to know +that he spoke at a ‘printer’s banquet’ in New York in the latter part of +1850, and that he paid a well-merited tribute to a man destined to +become a distinguished figure in literature. Bayard Taylor, writing to +his friend George H. Boker, on January 1, 1851, says: “By the bye, James +paid me a very elegant compliment, in his speech at the ‘printer’s +banquet’ the other night, referring to me as the best landscape painter +in words that he had ever known. This is something from an +Englishman.”[57] He always said kind and appreciative words about his +fellow-authors, if they were deserving. + +Returning to the Hawthorne cottage, Julian Hawthorne gives a brief +account of one of the visits of James, who, it appears, was living near +by during the summer of 1851. As the narrator was five years old at the +time of this visit, his estimate of the visitors must have been founded +upon something other than his personal observation. He says: + + + “James was a commonplace, meritorious person, with much blameless and + intelligent conversation, but the only thing that recalls him + personally to my memory is the fact of his being associated with a + furious thunderstorm.” + + +He relates how the storm raged and how the door burst open,—his father +and he were alone in the cottage— + + + “and behold! of all persons in the world—to be heralded by such + circumstances—G. P. R. James! Not he only, but close upon his heels + his entire family, numerous, orthodox, admirable, and infinitely + undesirable to two secluded gentlemen without a wife and mother to + help them out.*** They dripped on the carpet, they were conventional + and courteous; we made conversation between us but whenever the + thunder rolled, Mrs. James became ghastly pale. Mr. James explained + that this was his birthday, and that they were on a pleasure + excursion. He conciliated me by anecdotes of a pet magpie, or raven, + who stole spoons. At last the thunderstorm and the G. P. R. Jameses + passed off together.[58] + + +It is not uninteresting to compare this rather patronizing and +supercilious narration of a trivial incident with that which is given in +his own Journal by the father of this precocious young gentleman of five +years; and it is probably the fact that the story was related by the son +not from his own memory but from the record of the Journal, reproduced +in “Nathaniel Hawthorne and his Wife,” by Julian Hawthorne.[59] +Nathaniel Hawthorne evidently liked James. Under date of July 30, 1851, +he says: + + + “We walked to the village for the mail, and on our way back we met a + wagon in which sat Mr. G. P. R. James, his wife and daughter, who had + just left their cards at our house. Here ensued a talk, quite pleasant + and friendly. He is certainly an excellent man; and his wife is a + plain, good, friendly, kind-hearted woman, and his daughter a nice + girl. Mr. James spoke of ‘The House of the Seven Gables’ and of + ‘Twice-Told Tales,’ and then branched off upon English literature + generally.”[60] The acquaintance between the two authors must have + been deemed to be of advantage to both, for the supercilious Master + Julian takes care to present in full a note of invitation addressed by + James to the elder Hawthorne asking the latter ‘with his two young + people’ to visit him, saying: “We are going to have a little haymaking + after the olden fashion, and a syllabub under the cow; hoping not to + be disturbed by any of your grim old Puritans, as were the poor folks + of Merrymount. By the way, you do not do yourself justice at all in + your preface to the ‘Twice-Told Tales,’—but more on that subject + anon.”[61] + + +Under the date of August 9, 1851, Hawthorne gives his own version of the +thunderstorm episode, in marked contrast with the condescending remarks +of his hopeful son. It reveals the difference between parent and child. + + + “The rain was pouring down,” says Hawthorne senior, “and from all the + hillsides mists were steaming up, and Monument Mountain seemed to be + enveloped as if in the smoke of a great battle. During one of the + heaviest showers of the day there was a succession of thundering + knocks at the front door. On opening it, there was a young man on the + doorstep, and a carriage at the gate, and Mr. James thrusting his head + out of the carriage window, and beseeching shelter from the storm! So + here was an invasion. Mr. and Mrs. James, their eldest son, their + daughter, their little son Charles, their maid-servant, and their + coachman;—not that the coachman came in; and as for the maid, she + stayed in the hall.[62] Dear me! where was Phoebe in this time of + need? All taken aback as I was, I made the best of it. Julian helped + me somewhat, but not much. Little Charley is a few months younger than + he, and between them they at least furnished subject for remark. Mrs. + James, luckily, happened to be very much afraid of thunder and + lightning; and as these were loud and sharp, she might be considered + _hors de combat_. The son, who seemed to be about twenty, and the + daughter, of seventeen or eighteen, took the part of saying nothing, + which I suppose is the English fashion as regards such striplings. So + Mr. James was the only one to whom it was necessary to talk, and we + got along tolerably well. He said that this was his birthday, and that + he was keeping it by a pleasure excursion, and that therefore the rain + was a matter of course.[63] We talked of periodicals, English and + American, and of the Puritans, about whom we agreed pretty well in our + opinions; and Mr. James told how he had recently been thrown out of + his wagon, and how the horse ran away with Mrs. James; and we talked + about green lizards and red ones. And Mr. James told Julian how, when + he was a child, he had twelve owls at the same time; and, at another + time, a raven, who used to steal silver spoons and money. He also + mentioned a squirrel, and several other pets; and Julian laughed most + obstreperously. As to little Charles, he was much interested with + Bunny (who had been returned to us from the Tappans, somewhat the + worse for wear), and likewise with the rocking-horse, which luckily + happened to be in the sitting-room. He examined the horse most + critically, and finally got upon his back, but did not show himself + quite as good a rider as Julian. Our old boy hardly said a word. + Finally the shower passed over, and the invaders passed away; and I do + hope that on the next occasion of the kind my wife will be there to + see.”[64] + + +I give the story in full, not only because of its relation to James and +his family, but for its revelation of Hawthorne himself; the little +touch of parental pride is amusing as well as affecting. What Nathaniel +Hawthorne thought of James in those days is far more important than what +Julian Hawthorne thinks of him now. + +Mr. Charles L. James writes to me: + + + “Yes, I have read Hawthorne’s account of our visit in a thunderstorm; + and what is more, I remember the occurrence. I was little Charley, + whom he mentions. I remember not only getting upon Julian’s + rocking-horse, but pulling out his tail and being aghast at what I had + done, for I did not possess a wooden horse and it had not occurred to + me that the tail was movable.” + + +I am glad that Charles pulled out that tail; perhaps the memory of the +outrage inspired the owner of the steed when he wrote his little story. + +Longfellow regarded James with a degree of kindness and esteem quite +comparable to that with which Hawthorne looked upon him. In his Journal +for September 17, 1850, he says, after mentioning several visitors: +“Then Fields, with G. P. R. James, the novelist, and his son. He is a +sturdy man, fluent and rapid, and looking quite capable of fifty more +novels.”[65] Later, on November 17, he says: “James, the novelist, came +out to dinner with Sumner. He is a manly, middle-aged man, _tirant sur +le grison_, as Lafontaine has it, with a gray mustache; very frank, +off-hand, and agreeable. In politics he is a Tory, and very +conservative.”[66] James certainly had no reason to complain of his +reception by the best of our own literary men of that day. + +It is an evidence of the fact that James was admired and his ability +appreciated by other authors, that he was suspected by no less a person +than William Harrison Ainsworth of being the writer of _Jane Eyre_. I +have before me an autograph letter from Ainsworth to James (November 14, +1849), in which he says: “Anything I can do for you at any time you know +you may command, and I shall only be too happy in the opportunity of +making kindly mention in the N. M. M. of your Dark Scenes of History. +The times are not propitious to us veterans and literature generally has +within the last two years suffered a tremendous depreciation.*** Do you +know I took it into my head that you were the author of ‘Jane Eyre,’ but +I have altered my opinions since I read a portion of ‘Shirley.’ Currer +Bell, whoever he or she may be, has certainly got some of your ‘trick’ +*** but ‘Shirley’ has again perplexed me.” + +Robert Louis Stevenson had a modified fondness for James, which is +expressed in a letter written by him from Saranac, February, 1888, to E. +L. Burlingame. He says: + + + “Will you send me (from the library) some of the works of my dear old + G. P. R. James? With the following especially I desire to make or to + renew acquaintance: _The Songster_, _The Gipsey_, _The Convict_, _The + Stepmother_, _The Gentleman of the Old School_, _The Robber_. _Excusez + du peu._ This sudden return to an ancient favourite hangs upon an + accident. The Franklin County Library contains two works of his, _The + Cavalier_ and _Morley Ernstein_. I read the first with indescribable + amusement—it was worse than I had feared, and yet somehow engaging; + the second (to my surprise) was better than I had dared to hope; a + good, honest, dull, interesting tale, with a genuine old-fashioned + talent in the invention when not strained, and a genuine old-fashioned + feeling for the English language. This experience awoke appetite, and + you see I have taken steps to stay it. + + R. L. S.” + + +I have a number of holograph letters of James, some of which show his +pleasant ways and attractive playfulness. They constitute the _raison d’ +étre_ of this commentary and so I will not apologize for giving them +almost in full. He speaks for himself far better than I can speak for +him. He was surely not a Siborne or a Major Dwyer. To my mind these +letters reveal the man, and they tell of an honest, genial man who was +able to write. + +He writes to C. W. H. Ranken, at Bristol, thus: + + + RENNES, 16 January, 1826. + + RANKENO AMICO CARISSIMO: + + That unfortunate Gentleman upon whose back all the evils of this world + have been laid from time immemorial, I mean the Devil, has certainly + (to give him his due) been tormenting my poor friend and schoolfellow + pretty handsomely. What with your cough in the first place and your + abscess in the second you have been quite a martyr, but remember the + martyrs always reach heaven at last and I doubt not that your + sufferings will soon be over and that in the little Paradise you have + planned for yourself some five or six miles from London (rather a + cockney distance by the by) you will enjoy the happiness of the blest + with those you love best. I think I shall make the same compact with + you that I have made with Becknell namely that in after years when + time has laid his heavy hand upon us all and when you are happy in + your children and your children’s children you will still give the + crusty old Bachelor a place at your fireside and your Sophia shall + furnish me with strong green tea and I will take my pinch of snuff and + tell you Graddam’s tales to amuse the little ones or recount the + wonderful things I have seen in my travels or growl at the degeneracy + of the world and praise the good old days when I was young and gay and + did many a wondrous deed for “Ladye love and pride of Chivalrie” and + you shall forgive many a cross word and ill tempered remark for old + friendship’s sake and say “He was not always so but this world’s + sorrows have soured his temper, poor old Man.” + + You tell me to continue my history of Bretagne, but in sooth I know + not where I left off. Memory, that lazy slut, has forgot to mend her + pocket which has had a hole in it for some time and the consequence is + that, of all I give her to keep for me, the dross alone remains and + the better part is dropped by the wayside. But I am not at all in the + mood to give any descriptions. I am philosophical and therefore will + tell you a story. + + In that mighty empire which exceeds all others as much in wisdom as it + does in size—in the time of Fo Whang, who was the six hundredth + emperor of the ninety-seventh dynasty which has sat on the throne of + Cathay, there lived a philosopher whose doctrine was such that every + Chinese from the mandarin who enjoys the light of the celestial + presence to the waterman who paddles his Junk in the river of Canton + became proselytes. + + Every one knows that every Chinese from generation to generation is in + manners, customs, dress, and appearance so precisely what his father + was before him that a certain Mandarin who had thought proper to fall + into a trance for a century or so, waking from his sleep and entering + his paternal mansion, found his great grandson, who was at dinner, so + strikingly like himself that he was struck dumb with astonishment. + There were the same wide thin eye-brows, there were the same beautiful + black eyes no bigger than peas, there was the same delicate + tea-colored complexion. He wore the same silk his ancestor had worn + and the same chopsticks carried his food to his mouth. The Great + Grandson instantly recognized his predecessor, but the resuscitated + Mandarin, forgetting the lapse of years, mistook his descendant for + his own grandfather and each casting themselves on their belly + wriggled towards each other with all symptoms of respect. Such being + the laudable reverence of this people for all customs sanctified by + time, it may be well supposed that that doctrine was magnificent which + could take a Chinese by the ear, and such indeed was the doctrine of + the Philosopher, namely, that wisdom is folly and folly is wisdom. + Which he proved thus: “The end of wisdom” said the Philosopher, “is to + be happy. And the fewer are our wants the fewer can be our + disappointments and consequently the happier we are. The fool has + fewer wants than the wise man and the ignorant less wishes than the + learned, and therefore the fool being the happiest is the wisest and + the wise man is but a fool.” Now the wise men (even in China) being + lamentably in the minority the Philosopher had all the voices for + himself. Now there was a young Man named To-hi, who never pretended to + be a wise man but was nevertheless not a fool, and going to the + Philosopher he said to him—“Father, I cannot help thinking that your + doctrine means more than it appears to mean and I think I have found + its explication.” “Speak freely, my Son” replied the Philosopher, “and + tell me what you suppose it to be.” “I imagine,” said To-hi, “that you + wish to inculcate that Men seek for wisdom above their power and + destroy their happiness by examining too near the objects which + produce it. For I remark that all that is beautiful in nature as well + as in life is little better than a delusion which to be enjoyed must + be seen from a distance. When I look at the hills of Tartary, they + seem from here grand and soft and blue and changing all sorts of + colors from the reflection of the Sun, but when I approach them I find + nothing but heaps of barren rocks and frightful deserts. If we regard + the finest skin with a magnifying glass, it is like coarsest cloth of + Surat and the sunset that we admire for its soft splendor to the + nations on the edge of the horizon is but the glare of midday. Thus + then we ought to enjoy whatever the world offers us without searching + for faults and be as happy as we can without seeking to be too wise. + Is not this what you meant?” “My Son,” replied the Philosopher “like + many other Philosophers I did not well know what I meant and you, like + many other commentators, have given an explanation which the author + never intended.” + + + Rennes, first of Feby. + + As you will see, my Dear Ranken, this letter has been written half a + century but I have been wandering about the country and forgot to + finish it before I went. Long before this however I hope you are + fundamentally cured and prepared to set up on your own bottom. + Doubtless you will find a vast fund of nonsense in the former part of + this ’pistle but if it serves to give you a minute’s amusement it will + answer the object of + + Yours sincerely + G. P. R. JAMES. + + +Everybody seems to have written affectionately to Charles Ollier, the +publisher—Lamb, Hunt, Keats, Shelley, and a host of others. His son, +Edmund, ‘beheld Charles Lamb with infantile eyes and sat in poor Mary +Lamb’s lap.’[67] James writes to the elder Ollier, from the Chateau du +Buisson, Garumbourg, _près_ Evreux, on August 7, 1829: + + + “MY DEAR MR. OLLIER. + + I take advantage of a friend’s departure for London, to write to you + though I have nothing to say. I have done so much of my new book as I + permit myself to do per diem and having nothing else to do my vile + _cacoethes scribendi_ prompts me to indite this epistle to your + manifest trouble and annoyance. My father informs me you have been ill + and calls your complaint ‘nothing but Dis-pep-sia.’ I hope and trust + however that you have no such long word in your stomach, but if you + have, nothing can be so good for it as crossing the water and visiting + a friend in France. One of my visitors lately brought me over about + twenty newspapers and also the information that my unfortunate _Adra_ + had never made her appearance. Incontinent, I fell into one of my + accustomed fits of passion which was greatly increased by finding that + in none of the twenty journals was any advertisement or mention + whatever of _Richelieu_ which together with the news that about four + and twenty people had asked for _Richelieu_ and could not get it in + England, Scotland or Ireland, made me write instantly to Mr. Bentley a + very flaming letter about printing _Adra_ &c. &c. &c. I had written to + Mr. Colburn sometime ago without his doing me the _honor_ to answer + me, and therefore I write not there again. I have since received an + answer from Mr. R. Bentley and all has gone right. But I am most + profanely ignorant of all news and therefore will beg you to answer me + the following Qys. if you can. + + Has _Richelieu_ been reviewed in the New Monthly? Has it ever been + advertised? Does the sale proceed as successfully as when I left + London? Will you see that its first success does not make Mr. Colburn + relax in his efforts in its favor? Will you manage the reviewing of + Adra and take care that it be sent to and noticed by as many + publications as possible? Will you see that the list of persons to + whom I desired it to be sent and which I left in Burlington street be + attended to? Will you let me know whether there be anything in which I + can in any way serve or pleasure you? I am sincere and ever yours. + + G. P. R. JAMES. + + +This letter dated at Maxpoffle, near Melrose, Roxburghshire, 14th June +1832, is addressed to Allan Cunningham. + + + MY DEAR SIR: + + When you were in this country last year, I told you not to forget me; + and you promised that you would not; yet I doubt not that when you see + the signature to this, memory will have much ado to call up the person + who writes. Nevertheless I cannot forbear—even at the distance of time + which has since elapsed, and the distance of space which + intervenes—from telling you how much delighted I have been with your + Maid of Elnar. I have not seen the whole; but various passages in + various reviews, have shown me so much surpassing beauty, that I do + not wait even till I have been delighted with the whole, to tell you + how great has been the pleasure I have felt from a part. + + I do not know very well how or why, but I have been lately sickening + of poetry; and though once as great a dreamer as ever felt the sweet + music of imagination in his heart of hearts, within the last four or + five years I have found it all flat, stale, and unprofitable; and + began to fancy myself a devout adorer of dull prose. I thank you then + for showing me that there is still such a thing as poetry; and it + would not at all surprise me to feel myself—after reading the Maid of + Elnar through—taking the top of the wave, and going over every poet + again from Chaucer to Byron. Can you tell me what it is that causes + such a strange revolution in tastes? I declare for the last five years + since the Byron mania was upon me, I have looked upon poetry as the + most sappy, senseless misapplication of good words, that ever the + whimsical folly of the universal fool, mankind, devised. A spark or + two of the old faggot was rekindled in my heart about six weeks ago, + by hearing a sonnet of Wordsworth’s read aloud; and that I believe + induced me to read the extracts from your book; and now I am all + ablaze. What I like in the various scattered passages of the Maid of + Elnar, would be endless to tell without writing a review; but there is + something throughout the whole which has enchanted me—a mingling of + the fine spirit of old chivalry, with the sweet home feeling of calm + happy nature that is something newer than even Spenser. As Oliver + Cromwell used to say, I would say something—Ay verily—but I won’t for + fear you should think me exaggerating and therefore I will bid you + farewell. It is natural of course for me to hate you; for every author + is bound to detest any other person who writes what is good. I would + therefore fain pay you that compliment, but your book will not let me; + and I must beg you to believe me + + Ever yours most truly + G. P. R. JAMES. + + I send this to your Bookseller, because I do not know where else to + send it; and I pay it, because many a good wholesome letter which has + been addressed to the care of mine, has never reached me for want of + that precaution on the part of my correspondents. Before the letter + reaches you, I shall have got and read the whole book; and by heaven, + if the rest does not come up to the extracts, I shall either lampoon + you or your critics. + + +Another letter to Cunningham follows: + + + MAXPOFFLE NEAR MELROSE ROXBURGHSHIRE + 17th May 1833. + + MY DEAR FRIEND, + + To show you how little the fault that you notice is attributable to + myself, I have only to tell you that I could not get a copy of _Mary + of Burgundy_ till three days after you had received it and my sister + in law writes to Mrs. James, by the post that brought your letter, + that although she had ordered the book through her own bookseller, she + has not yet been able to get it, while friends of hers have obtained + it at the circulating libraries. Not having lived in London for many + years, I am quite unacquainted with all the ins and outs of these + affairs and do not even know who is the Editor of the Athenæum; but I + think it somewhat hard measure on his part to make an author pay for + the sins of his Bookseller and very different indeed from the usual + liberal spirit that I have seen in his paper. + + However, I never courted a Journalist in my life and although I know + that I have suffered greatly on this account, yet I shall pursue the + same plan; and only by endeavoring to make my works better than they + have been, force all honest writers to give them their due share + whatever it may be. At the same time I will endeavour as far as in me + lies to prevent any such instances of neglect as those of which you + complain taking place for the future, especially in regard to a paper + which deserves so well of the public. Having done so, whatever be the + result the Editor must “tak his wull o’t, as the cat did o’ the + haggis.” I never reply to criticism unless it be very absurd which is + not likely to be the case with his; so let him “pour on, I will + endure.” + + In regard to the _String of Pearls_ I not only begged a copy to be + sent to you before any one else; I wrote you a long letter to be sent + with it; but this is only one out of the many shameful pieces of + negligence which Mr. Bentley has shown in my affairs. + + I trust that the Editor of the Athenæum got a copy of _Mary of + Burgundy_ independent of that sent to you for I wish it clearly to be + understood that I send you my leather and prunella, as a man for whom + I have a high admiration and esteem, and not at all as a critic. When + you get them, review them yourself, let others review, praise, abuse + them, or let others abuse them as you find need; but still receive + them as a mark of regard from me; and be sure that nothing you can say + of them will diminish that regard. Whenever I have any one of them for + which I wish a little lenity I will write you a note with it and tax + your friendship upon the occasion; but still exculpate me in your own + generous mind and plead my exculpation to others, of all intriguing to + gain undue celebrity for my works or of dabbling with literary + coteries. I give in to my bookseller a list of my friends—amongst whom + your name stands high and I leave all the rest to him. For the _String + of Pearls_ I _was_ anxious both because it was given to a charity and + because I was afraid the Publisher might lose by it; but this as far + as I can remember is the only book for which I ever asked a review. + + Thanks however, many thanks, for your critique in the Athenæum which + is calculated to do my book much good and is much more favorable than + it deserves. Of your light censure I will speak to you when we meet + which I am happy to say will be soon—at least I trust soon. On the + twenty-eighth we leave this place for London on our way to Germany and + Italy. My liver and stomach have become so deranged of late that I + find it necessary to put myself under the hands of a physician whose + prescription is an agreeable one. “Take the waters of Ems for two + seasons and spend the intermediate time in traveling through Italy.” + This plan I am about to pursue, and in our way we shall spend a month + in London when I will find you out. + + The country round us is lovely at present. After a cold lingering + spring, summer has set in, in all its radiance and the world has burst + at once into green beauty. You cannot fancy how lovely the Cheviots + looked yesterday evening, as Mrs. James and I rode over the shoulder + of the Eildons. The sky was full of the broken fragments of a past + thunder storm and the lights and shadows were soft, superb and + dreamlike. I know I may rave about beautiful scenery to you without + fear or compunction for the Maid of Elnar made me know that you love + it as well as + + My Dear Allan, + Ever yours truly, + G. P. R. JAMES. + + P. S.—I have not yet got your last volume but if it be as good as its + predecessors you will have no occasion to whip your Genius. + + +He writes again to Cunningham: + + + 10 JULY, 1835. + 1 LLOYDS PLACE, BLACKHEATH. + + MY DEAR FRIEND: + + A thousand thanks for your kind letter and all the kind things it + contains. I am glad that you like my friend the Gipsey, because your + approval is worth much and though I think it tolerable myself, yet I + have attributed a great part of its success to the name. In answer to + the question you put, I do not think he was drowned; but I do not know + with certainty. I have told all I do know and farther this deponent + sayeth not. I have long been thinking of writing to you to tell you + that the name of Chaucer appears in the Scroop and Grosvenor roll in + the year 1386 but all that I dare say you know. The best sketch of the + real events of Chaucer’s life is certainly that in Sir H. Nicholas’ + comments on that roll, Vol. II., page 404, wherein he probably states + all that can be learned with certainty of his life and proceedings. I + tell you all this, although I dare say you are already acquainted with + it because you asked me if I found any thing concerning our poet to + let you know. The _Black Prince_ comes on but slowly. So much + examination and research is necessary that it is a most laborious and + very expensive work. It has already cost me in journeys, + transcriptions, books, MSS., &c., many hundred pounds without at all + calculating my individual labour and do you know, my dear Allan, what + I expect as my reward. Clear loss; and two or three reviews written by + ignorant blockheads upon a subject they do not understand, for the + purpose of damning a work which throws some new light upon English + History. I am very much out of spirits in regard to historical + literature and though I would willingly devote my time and even my + money to elucidate the dark points of our own history yet + encouragement from the public is small and from the Government does + not exist, so that I lay down the pen in despair of ever seeing + English history any thing but what it is—a farrago of falsehoods and + hypotheses covered over with the tinsel of specious reasoning from + wrong data. And so you tell Lord Melbourne when you see him. But to + speak of a personage, you are more likely to see namely Mr. Chantry. + There is a bust which I wish him very much to see and wish you would + take a look at it first as I have not seen the original myself. I have + a cast of it given me by my Banker at Florence, to whom the original + belongs, and if the head be equal to the cast it is the most beautiful + antique I have ever seen. It is to be seen at Mr. Brown’s in + University Street, Gower Street _marble works_. Ask to see the antique + head belonging to Mr. Johnstone and write me but three lines to tell + me what you think of it. He paid, I believe, two hundred pounds for it + and would take I believe three or four. If it be as I think, it + (pedestal and all) is worth double. + + Yours ever with best Compliments to your family + + G. P. R. JAMES + + Excuse a scrawl but I am not very well. + + 1 LLOYDS PLACE, BLACKHEATH + 5th Decr 1835 + + MY DEAR ALLAN,—I have sent you a book and have ten times the pleasure + in sending you one now that ever I had, because I hear you have + detached yourself from all reviews. Heaven be praised therefor; for + now you can sit down quietly by your own ingle nook and pick out all + that is good—if there be any—in my One in a Thousand and palate it + all, without the prospect, the damning prospect, of a broad sheet and + small print before your eyes, and without wracking your honest brain + to find out any small glimmerings of wit and wisdom in your friend’s + book in order to set it forth as fairly as may be to the carping + world. + + By the way, I thought you were honest and true; and yet you have + deceived me wofully. You promised to come down to Blackheath and you + have not appeared. I have been writing night and day or I should have + presented myself to call you to account. Will you come down even yet, + and take a family dinner with me? Any Sunday at five you will be sure + to find me but if you come on another day, let me have a day’s notice + by post, lest I be engaged, which would be a great disappointment to + + Yours ever truly, + G. P. R. JAMES + + +He always wrote frankly and freely to Cunningham. This letter deals with +_Attila_. + + + THE COTTAGE, GREAT MARLOW, BUCKS, + 15th April 1837 + + MY DEAR ALLAN, + + Many thanks for your letter and kind words upon _Attila_. I do believe + that he is a good fellow, at all events he is very successful in + society and though there are not as you well know twenty people in + London who know who Attila was, he is as well received, I understand, + as if he had the entrée. Conjectures as to who Attila was are various + in the well _informed circles_ of the Metropolis, and ever since the + book was advertised two principal opinions have prevailed, some people + maintaining that He, Attila, was Platoff; others asserting that he was + a Lady, first cousin to Boru the Backswoodsman, and the heroine of a + romance by Chateaubriand. This may look like a joke, but I can assure + you, it is a fact and that out of one hundred people of the highest + rank in Europe you will not find five who know who Attila was; setting + aside the groveling animals who, as the Duke of Somerset says, + _addict_ themselves to Literature. + + I am very sorry to hear you say that these well informed and + enlightened times have not done justice to your romances. I’ll tell + you one great fault they have, which is probably that which prevents + the world from liking them as much as it should do: they have too much + poetry in them, Allan, one and all from _Michael Scott to Lord + Roldan_. But you must not expect to succeed in all walks of art. You + are a lyric poet and a biographer; how can you expect that the critics + would ever let you come near romances. No, no; they feel it their + bounden duty to smother all such efforts of your genius and they + fulfil that duty with laudable zeal. Did you see how the Athenæum + attempted to dribble its small beer venom upon _Attila_. If you have + not, read that sweet and gramatical (_sic_) article, when you will + find that because a man has succeeded in one style of writing he + cannot succeed in another, and apply the critics dictum to yourself. + One half of this world is made up of idiocy, insanity, humbug, and + peculation, and the other half (very nearly) of envy, hatred, malice, + and all uncharitableness. + + Yours ever truly + G. P. R. JAMES + + +This letter is directed to “Charles Ollier, Esq., Richard Bentley, Esq., +New Burlington street, London.” + + + FAIR OAK LODGE, PETERSFIELD, + HANTS, 25th December, 1837. + + MY DEAR OLLIER: + + Mr. Bentley I think usually gives me six copies of a work such as + Louis XIV. I have already had one copy of the two first volumes for + the Duke of Sussex, and you will very much oblige me by having the + copies sent to the following persons with my compliments written in + the front leaf and dated Fair Oak Lodge, Petersfield. Lord John + Russell, Wilton Crescent; S. M. Phillipps, Esq., Home Office; The + Marquis Conyngham, Dudley House, Park Lane; The Lady Polwarth, 9 John + Street, Berkeley Square; and also one to G. P. R. James, Fair Oak + Lodge, which will make the six copies. I must also have another copy + sent to my friend Seymour as soon as you can, addressed as follows: + “Sir G. Hamilton Seymour, G. C. H. Brussels, In the care of the Under + Secretary of State F. O. Downing Street.” For this last I will pay as + soon as you let me know what is the price. Mr. Bentley charges me for + the copy; I should like it to be accompanied by a copy of _Henry + Masterton_, the small edition of which by the [way] I have not + received any copies and should like some. Pray let me know what Mr. B. + charges _me_ for Louis per copy as there are several other friends to + whom I should like to give it, but as Sancho would say I must not + stretch my feet beyond the length of my sheet. + + Yours ever, + G. P. R. JAMES. + + P. S. I am anxious to get on with the two last volumes, but I suppose + it is the merry season which prevents my having any proofs as yet. + + +A letter to Alaric Watts refers to the Boundary Question pamphlet: + + + FAIR OAK LODGE, PETERSFIELD, HANTS, + 9th April, 1839. + + MY DEAR WATTS, + + I write you ten lines in the greatest bustle that ever man was in to + tell you that the death of poor Sir Charles Paget turns me out of my + house. This is not of necessity indeed, for I have a lease of it for + some time yet unexpired, but Lady Paget sent to ask if I would let her + come in again and I felt not in my heart to refuse the widow under + such circumstances. I go before the first of May, but I do sincerely + wish that between this and then I may have the pleasure of seeing you + here. I think that you will believe me to be a sincere man; a + tolerably bitter enemy as long as I think there is cause for enmity, a + very pertinacious friend when I do like. From this place we go to + London, or rather to Brompton, Mrs. James’s sister who is in town for + the winter, having lent her her house there, for a short time. It is + called the Hermitage and is nearly opposite Trevor Square, which + perhaps you may know. Do not suffer yourself or Mrs. Watts to fancy + that it will put us to any inconvenience to receive you here if you + can manage it, as I assure you it will not. I sell all my horses by + auction on the 25th and you could help to bid them up. After we quit + the Hermitage, we have not the slightest idea where we shall go but + there at least I trust to see you if you cannot leave your weighty + employments ere then. I was delighted with your parthian shots, which + were exquisitely truly aimed and though the arrows were not poisoned + by your hand, the corruption of the flesh in which they have stuck, + depend upon it, will produce gangrene. You were made for a reviewer: + only you are honest. How was it else that I escaped even when we did + not fully understand each other? + + I have told the booksellers to send you a little pamphlet on the + American Boundary question. It is merely a brief and unpretending + summary of the early history of that bone of contention, only worth + your looking into as a saving of time. + + Pray let me hear from you a few words and believe me with Mrs. James’s + and my own best Compliments to Mrs. Watts. + + Yours ever + G. P. R. JAMES + + P. S. I am making a little collection of my works in their new edition + for Mrs. Watts’s book-case and I send _Richelieu_ with this. It is odd + Bulwer should have just published a play under the same title when the + third edition of mine had been announced for months. I have not seen + his, but I should like to compare the two. + + ALARIC A. WATTS ESQRE + Crane Court + Fleet Street + + 2 VERULAM PLACE HASTINGS + 10th January 1840 + + MY DEAR ALLAN, + + It is very grievous to me to hear that you have been suffering and it + would be as grievous to hear _the how_ if I were not quite sure that + at your age and with temperance in all things such as yours, the + enemy—if so we can venture to call him—will pass away and leave you, + perhaps more useful, but not less comfortable for many a long year. + Within my own recollection this has happened to many that I still know + in health and vigor but while any vestige remains of the disease it + always leaves a despondency as its footprint which makes us look upon + the attack as worse than it really has been. Though a successful man, + I know—I am sure,—you have been an anxious man; and there is nothing + has so great a tendency to produce all kind of nervous affections as + anxiety. I trust however that you have now no cause for any kind of + anxiety but _that_ regarding your health, and that it will soon regain + its tone. Pray my good friend take exercise, not of a violent or + fatiguing nature, but frequent and tranquilly, and remember that + anything which hurries the circulation is very detrimental. You will + also find everything that sits heavy or cold upon the stomach also bad + for you; I know, for I have seen much mischief done by even a small + quantity of the cold sorts of fruit. It gives me great pleasure to + hear you like my books. You are one of those who can understand and + appreciate the plan which I have laid down for myself in writing them. + If I chose to hazard thoughts and speculations that might do evil, to + run a tilt at virtue and honor, to sport with good feelings and to + arouse bad ones, the field being far wider, the materials more ample, + I might perhaps be more brilliant and witty, but I would rather build + a greek temple or a gothic church than the palace of Versailles with + all its frog’s statues and marbles. If the books give you + entertainment, you are soon likely to have another for there is one + now in the press called the “_King’s Highway_” but which is not quite + so Jack Sheppardish as the name implies. With our best regards to all + yours believe me ever + + Yours truly + G. P. R. JAMES + + ALLAN CUNNINGHAM ESQRE + Belgrave Place + Pimlico + + +I do not know to whom this letter was written. + + + HOTEL DE L’EUROPE, BRUSSELS, + 30th July, ’40. + + MY DEAR SIR, + + The grief and anxiety I have suffered have brought upon me an + intermittent fever and various concomitant evils amongst which has + been an affection of the face and eyes. Had this not been the case I + should have written to you ere I left England, although it has cost me + a great effort to write to any one. I am now a good deal better and + will immediately correct the proofs I have received; but for the + future will you tell Mr. Shaw to send the proofs in as large a mass as + possible, addressed as follows and given in to the French diligence + office, à Monsieur G. P. James _chez_ M: C. A. Fries, Heidelberg en + Basle, _aux soins de_ Messrs. Eschenauer Cie, Strasburg, Via Paris, + _Pressé_. + + This is a somewhat long address, but if it be not followed and the + proofs be sent by Rotterdam I shall never get one half of them till + two or three years after, for such was the case with many proofs of + _Edwd. the Black Prince_. + + Any letter for me you had better direct at once to me “_aux soins de_ + Sir G. Hamilton Seymour, G. C. H. Brussels.” When I am a little better + I will write you a longer letter telling you all our movements and + also what progress I have made in my plan for stopping continental + piracy; in which if you will give me your assistance and influence I + do not despair of succeeding although the Government will do nothing. + I have already made some way for I can talk without using my eyes. + + Yours ever faithfully + G. P. R. JAMES. + + +This letter was written to McGlashan, in Lever’s care, at Brussels: + + + THE SHRUBBERY, WALMER, + 2nd August, 41. + + MY DEAR SIR,— + + I did not write to you as I had full occupation for every minute and + of a kind that could not be neglected. The same will be the case for + the next three weeks, as I am just concluding a new work which I can + of course lay aside for no other undertaking till it is finished. It + will give me very great pleasure to see you here on your way back from + Brussels and we can talk over the whole of my plan but as to having + even one number completed that is quite out of the question as in + order to accomplish it I should be obliged to lay aside a work which + had reached the beginning of the last volume before you made up your + mind and to do so would be highly disadvantageous to both books. I can + tell you quite sufficient however regarding the first two numbers to + answer your views as to illustrations. + + Pray give my best wishes to Dr. Lever and tell him that we are all + going on well; though for the last fortnight I have had no small + anxiety upon my shoulders regarding Mrs. James and the baby. + + Believe me to be + Dear Sir + Yours faithfully + G. P. R. JAMES. + + +On May 17, 1842, he wrote to Mr. Bretton: + + + “*** I am very glad you were pleased with what I said at the Literary + Fund dinner. I could have said a great deal more upon the same subject + and opened my views for the benefit of the arts in this country, + including literature of course, as one of the noblest branches of + art—but the hour was so late that I made my speech as short as + possible and yet perhaps it was too long.*** I think if I can bring + the great body of literary men to act with me, especially the much + neglected and highly deserving writers for the daily and weekly press, + I shall be enabled to open a new prospect for literature. Should you + have any oportunity (_sic_) of hinting that such are my wishes and + hopes, pray do: for this is no transient idea, but a fixed and long + meditated purpose which, however inadequate may be my own powers to + carry it out, may produce great things by the aid of more powerful + minds than that of + + Yours very faithfully G. P. R. JAMES. + + +The name of the person to whom the following letter was written is not +given: + + + THE OAKS NR. WALMER KENT + 22ND AUGT. 1844 + + SIR: + + I have been either absent from home or unwell since your letter + arrived or I should have answered it sooner. I do not exactly + understand the sort of use you desire to make of the _Life of Edward + the Black Prince_ written by myself. Of course I can have no possible + objection to your making as long quotations from it as you like, or to + your grounding your own statements upon those which it contains which + I think you may rely upon with full confidence; but if it was your + purpose to make the projected Work a mere sort of Abridgement of mine, + I am sorry to say I cannot give you the permission you desire, however + much I might personally wish to do so, as Messrs. Longman published a + Second Edition of it not long ago, a part of which remains unsold and + I could not venture, of course to interfere with their sale. They + could not of course object to any quotations you might think fit to + make or any reasonable use of the facts stated, as I cannot but think + that each historian has a full right to employ the information + collected by all his predecessors. + + I have the honor to be, + Sir + Your most obedt. Servant + G. P. R. JAMES + + THE SHRUBBERY WALMER KENT + + 1ST JUNE 1847 + + MY DEAR WORTHINGTON, + + I received your letter yesterday and would have answered it + immediately; but we are in the midst of an election business here. I + am not a candidate; and, disgusted with public men, had resolved not + to take any part on behalf of others; but I have been led on and when + once in the business go on, as you know, heart and hand. + + Let me hear a little more about the Ecclesiastical History Society. I + am a churchman you know, but far from Puseyitical and I should not + like to be mixed up with any legends except such as Ehrenstein or any + Saints except St. Mary le bonne. + + I am glad to hear that you have moved your dwelling; for Pancras was + so completely out of my beat that it was impossible for me to get + there when in town. Indeed during my visits to that famed city of + London I always put myself in mind of an American orator’s description + of himself when he said “I am a right down regler Steam Engine, I go + slick off right ahead and never stop till I get to the tarnation back + of nothing at all.” + + I shall be delighted to see you and Mr. Christmas here any time you + can come and will with a great deal of pleasure board and educate you + but as to lodging you I am unable for what with babies, nurses, and + one thing or another I can hardly lodge myself. I do not propose to be + in London for some days or I should rather say weeks, as I was there + very lately. + + As to Marylebone, any body may propose me for any where and I will be + the representative of any body of men always provided nevertheless + that I do not spend a penny and maintain my own principles to the end + of the chapter. I am not yet inscribable in the _dictionnaire des + Girouettes_; but I trust soon to be for it seems to me that the Jim + Crow system is the only one that succeeds in England. + + Believe me with best regards to all your household + + Yours truly + G. P. R. JAMES + + +In a letter dated April 1, 1849, and addressed to Mr. Davison, he says: + + + “I understand you have got a potato. Can you spare half of it, for we + have not that. But to speak seriously, which is not my wont, Mrs. + James has heard from Mrs. H. that on your farm there are some capital + praties, and as we have been languishing for some of the jewels for + the last month without being able to get anything edible or + digestible, if this rumor of your _riches_ is correct, will you spare + a sack or two to a poor man in want, and what will be the cost of the + same, delivered in Farnham safe, sound and in good condition—wind and + weather permitting. The truth is I have no horse to send for them; and + neither cow nor calf have learned to draw yet. I have had no time to + teach them, or to buy a horse either. I wish any one else had half my + work and I half of theirs—I’d take it and give a premium.” + + +How busy he was after his arrival in America may be seen from a letter +dated October 27, 1850: + + + “I fear that it would be quite impossible for me to rewrite the first + four numbers of the tale you speak of. Applications for lectures have + come in so rapidly that I have not one single evening vacant and the + evening would be the only time which I could devote to such a purpose + as all my mornings must be given up to the fulfilment of my + engagements with England and to traveling from place to place. You may + easily imagine how much I am occupied when I tell you that during the + whole month I am about to stay in Boston, there is not one night which + has not its lecture fixed there or at some place in the neighborhood. + The delay in London however, of which I had not heard till I received + your letters is favorable, as it will enable me to get the proofs over + in good time. The four parts are in type, I understand, and I have + written over two thumping letters to the printers scolding them for + not sending the proof as they are bound by contract to do. One of + these letters was posted three weeks ago, so that we may expect the + proofs in a week or ten days. In regard to the name, it is certainly + curious that one name should have been taken three times but I do not + see how it is possible for me to alter it now when it is announced in + London. I was not at all aware that any work had before appeared under + a similar title, but you could head it _James’s_ story without a name + in the Magazine, but if any other title is given it must be by + yourselves and not by + + “Yours faithfully, + “G. P. R. JAMES.” + + +Soon after his arrival in America he appears to have become involved in +some trouble with publishers. He writes from New York on October 24, +1850, to Ollier: + + + *** “Send no more sheets to Mr. Law till you hear from me again. My + eyes have been opened since my arrival here. Four times the sum now + paid can be obtained from Messrs. Harper, and negotiations are going + on with them in which they must not have the advantage of having the + sheets. You shall not lose by any new arrangement—of that you may + trust to the word of one who has I think never failed you.” + + +He adds, in a postscript: “Tell him [Mr. Newby] I have been shamefully +imposed upon by false statements of the sale here and if I had taken his +advice I should have been some hundreds of pounds richer.” + +On October 5, 1851, he writes from Stockbridge to Ollier: + + + “I have not written to you earlier because I wanted to find the treaty + with Russia in regard to Copyright, and also to see the head of a + great German house here in America so as to put you in the way of + negotiating for the sale of my next book in Germany. But I have been + too lame to leave my own house for anything but a morning drive. I am + so far better that I can now walk out for a mile or two, but my right + hand and arm remain very painful. However, I think I shall be able to + go to New York in ten days and will write to you from that place.*** I + am anxious to dedicate the first book I write to my own satisfaction, + to Lord Charles Clinton. He is one of the noblest-minded men I ever + met with—all truth and honor and straightforwardness. If you see him + will you ask him for me whether he has any objection. The Fate is + highly popular here—considered the best book I ever wrote—by the + critics at least. The whole of the first chapter was read in the + Supreme Court the other day before Chief Justice SHAW to prove what + was the state of England in the reign of James II. So says the ‘N. Y. + Evening Post’ and I suppose it is true. I wish I had you here with me + to see the splendor of an American autumn in the most lovely scene. + The landscape is all on fire with the coloring of the foliage and yet + so harmoniously blended are the tints, from the brightest crimson to + the deep green of the pines that the effect is that of a continuous + sunset. Mountains, forests, lakes, streams are all in a glow round.” + + +A letter to Ollier, written at Stockbridge on March 22, 1852, deals with +some financial matters and then proceeds: + + + “I am glad to hear what you say of _Revenge_—though the title is not + one I would myself have chosen, there being a tale of that name in the + book of the Passions. I think it is a good book, better in conception + than in execution perhaps. Your comparison of Richardson and Johnson + with myself and you will not hold. You are scantily remunerated for + much trouble. Johnson had done nothing that I can remember for + Richardson. As to Richardson’s parsimony towards the great, good man, + you explain it all in one word. The former was rich. Do you remember + the fine poem of Gaffer Grey—Holcrofft’s I believe— + + ‘The poor man alone, + To the poor man’s moan, + Of his morsel a morsel will give Gaffer Grey.’ + + “But this rule is not without splendid exceptions, of which I will one + day give you an instance, which I think will touch you much. At + present I am writing in great haste in the grey of the morning with + snow all around me, the thermometer at 18, and my hand nearly frozen. + Verily, we have here to pay for the hot summer and gorgeous autumn in + the cold silver coinage of winter.” + + +Another letter of his written from Winchester, Virginia, November 6, +1853, to Ollier, has some interest. He writes thus: + + + “MY DEAR OLLIER: Long before the arrival of your kind letter, which + reached me only two days ago, I had directed Messrs. Harper to send me + a revise of the first page of _Ticonderoga_, in order to transmit it + to you for the correction of errors which had crept into the Ms. + through the stupidity of the drunken beast who wrote it under my + dictation. Harpers have never sent the revise, but I think it better + to write at once in order to have one correction and one alteration + made, which must be effected even at the cost of a cancel of the + page—which of course I will pay for. The very first sentence should + have inverted commas before it. These have been omitted in the copy + left here, as well as the words ‘so he wrote’ or something tantamount, + inserted at the end of the first clause of that sentence.*** + + I cannot feel that an appointment of any small value, to the dearest + and most unhealthy city in the United States (with the exception of + New Orleans) is altogether what I had a right to hope for or expect. + You must recollect that I never asked for the consulate of Virginia, + where there is neither society for my family, resources or + companionship for myself, nor education to be procured for my little + boy—where I am surrounded by swamps and marsh miasma, eaten up by + mosquitoes and black flies, and baked under an atmosphere of molten + brass, with the thermometer in the shade at 103—where every article of + first necessity, with the exception of meat, is sixty per cent. dearer + than in London—where the only literature is the ledger, and the arts + only illustrated in the slave market. + + I hesitated for weeks ere I accepted; and only did so at length upon + the assurances given that this was to be a step to something better, + and upon the conviction that I was killing myself by excessive + literary labors. Forgive me for speaking somewhat bitterly; but I feel + I have not been well used. You have known me more than thirty years, + and during that time I do not think you ever before heard a complaint + issue from my lips. I am not a habitual grumbler; but ‘the galled jade + will wince.’ + + I am very grateful to Scott for his kind efforts, and perhaps they may + be successful; for Lord Clarendon, who is I believe a perfect + gentleman himself, when he comes to consider the society in which I + have been accustomed to move, my character, my habits of thought, and + the sort of place which Norfolk is—if he knows anything about it—must + see that I am not in my proper position there. He has no cause of + enmity or ill will towards me, and my worst enemy could not wish me a + more unpleasant position. If I thought that I was serving my country + there better than I could elsewhere, I would remain without asking for + a change; but the exact reverse is the case. The slave dealers have + got up a sort of outcry against me—I believe because under Lord + Clarendon’s own orders I have successfully prosecuted several cases of + kidnapping negroes from the West Indies—and the consequence is that + not a fortnight passes but an attempt is made to burn my house down. + The respectable inhabitants of Norfolk are indignant at this treatment + of a stranger, and the authorities have offered a reward of three + hundred dollars for the apprehension of the offenders; but nothing has + proved successful. This outcry is altogether unjust and unreasonable; + for I have been perfectly silent upon the question of slavery since I + have been here, judging that I had no business to meddle with the + institutions of a foreign country in any way. But I will not suffer + any men, when I can prevent or punish it, to reduce to slavery British + subjects without chastisement. + + You will be sorry to hear that this last year in Norfolk has been very + injurious to my health; and I am just now recovering from a sharp + attack of the fever and ague peculiar to this climate. It seized me + just as I set out for the West—the great, the extraordinary West. + Quinine had no effect upon it, but I learned a remedy in Wisconsin + which has cured the disease entirely though I am still very weak.*** + + +He seems to have been tormented by ill health during all his period of +residence at Norfolk. He writes to Ollier: + + + BRITISH CONSULATE, NORFOLK, VIRGINIA, + 7th April, 1855. + + MY DEAR OLLIER:—It has been impossible for me to write to you and it + is now only possible for me to write a few lines as I have already had + to do more than my tormented and feeble hands could well accomplish. + For 10 weeks I was nailed to my chair with rheumatic gout in knees, + feet, hips, hands, shoulder. For some time I could only sign my + dispatches with my left hand and to some letters put my mark. Happily + my feet, knees, &c., are well, but I cannot get the enemy out of my + hands and arms. My shoulder is Sebastapol and will not yield. + + +Another letter, also in my possession, I have caused to be printed +elsewhere. It is addressed to Ollier, and was written from Farnham, +Surrey, on July 26, 1848. + + + My dear Ollier: I do not suppose that I shall be in town for a few + days, and I think in the meantime it would be better to send me down + the sheets with any observations you may have to make. I shall be very + happy to cut, carve, alter and amend to the best of my ability. The + ‘sum’ can only be described as ‘Heaven, Hell and Earth’, or if you + like it better, ‘upstairs, downstairs, in my lady’s chamber.’ But I + suppose neither of these descriptions would be very attractive and + therefore perhaps you had better put ‘The Sky, the hall of Eblis, + South Asia’. When it maketh its appearance you had better for your own + sake take care of the reviewing; for I cannot help thinking that with + the critics at least, my name attached to it is likely to do it more + harm than good, unless friendly hands undertake the reviewing. The + literary world always puts me in mind of the account which naturalists + give of the birds called Puffs and Rees which alight in great bodies + upon high downs and then each bird forms a little circle in which he + runs round and round. As long as each continues this healthful + exercise on the spot he has first chosen, all goes on quietly; but the + moment any one ventures out of his own circle, all the rest fall upon + him and very often a general battle ensues. I wish you could do + anything for my book _Gowrie or the King’s Plot_. I had a good deal of + money embarked in it. + + Yours faithfully, + G. P. R. JAMES. + + +My letter of latest date indicates the time when he was transferred to +Richmond. + + + BRITISH CONSULATE, NORFOLK, VA. + 3 May, 1856. + + MY DEAR MR. KENNEDY: *** Lord Clarendon has ordered me to make every + preparation for moving the Consulate of Virginia up to Richmond but + not to do so until he has nominated a Vice Consul for Norfolk. He also + wishes me to send him a detailed report regarding the late epidemic + here and what between house hunting, office hunting, and trying to run + down those foxes called rumors into their holes and to draw truth up + from the bottom of her well in a place where people are as fanatical + upon contagion and non-contagion as if they were articles of faith, I + have had no peace of my life. My book I would have sent you but I + could not get a copy worth sending. It has found favor in the South + and is powerfully abused in the North, both which circumstances tend + to increase the sale so that it has been wonderfully well read.*** + + I am sorry I did not think of taking notes of all the winning + conversations at Berkeley. We might have made out together some few + from the Noctes Berkelianae. + + Yours ever, + G. P. R. JAMES. + + +I was interested not long ago in a remark of the accomplished literary +reviewer of the _Providence Journal_ about reading for boys. He said: +“As a matter of fact, there is plenty of good, healthy reading for boys +if parents and teachers would do more to bring it to their attention. To +say nothing of Scott—whom some degenerate youngsters in these days +profess to find stupid—there are Ainsworth, G. P. R. James, Mayne Reid +and hosts of others who can tell stories of adventure that any healthy +minded boy will enjoy.” I know well the sound and refined judgments of +my Providence friend,—who castigated me once for my opinion that Cowper +was not much read in these times—but I do not understand how he can +imagine a boy of the twentieth century condescending to read Ainsworth +or James. First and foremost, the novels are too long. The conventional +three volumes demanded by the English public are revolting to the minds +of the modern boys who want their fiction condensed and flavored with +tabasco sauce. The Providence critic and I know—or think we know—what +they ought to read, what would be good for their intellectual digestion; +but we might as well offer them pre-digested tablets in lieu of +chocolate creams. The young person will not now subsist on a diet of +Ainsworth or of James. The long-spun dialogue would bore him. He calls +for something more piquant; revels in slang; wants “sensation” and +plenty of it, compressed in a small compass. As for the parents, they do +not know much better themselves. The man of Providence well says: “The +trouble is, as was pointed out in these columns recently in discussing +the reading of girls, that the home atmosphere is all against any +intelligent selection of books.” The prevalent antagonism to all that is +called “old-fashioned” is not limited to the young people, and the +novels of James are, in comparison with the novels of to-day as +old-fashioned as are the plays of Massinger in comparison with those of +Bernard Shaw. + +James has been compared to Dumas, and there are many things in common +between the two authors—their voluminous publications, their bent +towards the historical, and their use of an amanuensis. A critic, not +very well disposed towards James, says in regard to this comparison, +“both had a certain gift of separating from the picturesque parts of +history what could without difficulty be worked up into picturesque +fiction, and both were possessed of a ready pen. Here, however, the +likeness ends. Of purely literary talent, James had little. His plots +are poor, his descriptions weak, his dialogue often below even a fair +average, and he was deplorably prone to repeat himself.”[68] This harsh +judgment appears to me to be far too severe. His descriptions are not +weak, and he surely had an advantage over Dumas in the matter of decency +and morality. + +But the most ardent admirers of this hard-working and conscientious +toiler in the fields of literature must own that in all his +multitudinous pages he has not given to the world a single character +which has endured in the popular mind, and the Podsnap virtue of having +written no word which could bring a blush to the cheek of the young +person, cannot remedy this flaw in his title. Writers who rival him in +productiveness but who are in respects inferior to him, have +nevertheless secured a more permanent place in the hall of fame, because +they have been able to give to some of their personages a real and +distinctive life. Leather-Stocking and Long Tom Coffin shine forth from +the many wearisome chapters of Fenimore Cooper, Count Fosco and Captain +Wragge from the ephemeral volumes of Wilkie Collins, and Mrs. Proudie +from the placid chronicles of Anthony Trollope, but they have no kinsmen +in the works of James. Even in the historical stories no individual +stands forth like Louis XI. in _Quentin Durward_ or Rienzi in Bulwer’s +stirring tale. Nor has he left to posterity any brilliant _tour de +force_ like the “Dick Turpin’s Ride” of Harrison Ainsworth. + +Whatever may be said of the diffuseness and sameness of the stories, of +their want of definite plan, their lack of strength in the development +of the characters who throng their pages, and the evidence they afford +of hasty composition, it must be admitted that they are clean and +dignified in tone and that they display a wonderful acquaintance with +history as well as a faithful and conscientious use of materials +gathered with infinite pains and laborious research. These qualities, +however, are not those which ensure literary immortality; and while it +is possible that the best of the books may find from time to time +readers incited to peruse them by a certain curiosity, and while the +lovers of good stories may enjoy them, it is not likely that they will +ever rank with the novels of Scott, of Thackeray, of Dickens, or even of +Marryat and Lever, although they may occupy a place on the shelves of +our libraries by the side of the old romances of the period of _Amadis +de Gaul_ or the forgotten tales of the younger Crébillon. + + + + + APPENDIX + A LIST OF THE WORKS OF G. P. R. JAMES + + +It is difficult to give an accurate list of James’s books with the dates +of their publication. The one given by Allibone is the most complete, +but it is not always correct. The catalogue of the British Museum +enumerates sixty-seven novels. The following does not include merely +edited works or those prepared in collaboration with others, with a few +exceptions. Those marked with an asterisk are reprinted in the collected +edition of 1844–1849. I was much helped not only in correcting the +Allibone list, but in the preparation of the sketch of James, by the +late G. H. Sass of Charleston, S. C., who was probably better informed +about the subject than any one else in this country. + + +Life of Edward the Black Prince: 2 vols.: 1822. [Some accounts give +1836: See _ante_, page 136.] + +The Ruined City: a poem. + +Richelieu: 3 vols.: 1829. + +*Darnley: 3 vols.: 1830. + +*Del’Orme: 3 vols.: 1830. + +*Philip Augustus: 3 vols.: 1831. + +Memoirs of Great Commanders: 3 vols.: 1832. + +*Henry Masterton: 3 vols.: 1832. + +History of Charlemagne. 1832. + +*Mary of Burgundy: 3 vols.: 1833. + +*Delaware: 3 vols.: 1833: (reprinted under title of “Thirty Years +Since,” 1848). + +*John Marston Hall: 3 vols.: 1834: (reprinted under title of “The Little +Ball o’ Fire,” 1847). + +*One in a Thousand: 3 vols.: 1835. + +*The Gipsey: 3 vols.: 1835. + +Educational Institutions of Germany: 1836. + +Lives of the Most Eminent Foreign Statesman: 5 vols.: 4 by James, 1836, +[1832?] 1838. + +Attila: 3 vols.: 1837. + +Memoirs of Celebrated Women: 3 vols. (?) 1837. + +*The Robber: 3 vols.: 1838. + +Book of the Passions: 1838. + +History of Louis XIV. 4 vols.: 1838. + +*The Huguenot: 3 vols.: 1838. + +Blanche of Navarre: a play: 1839. + +Charles Tyrrell: 2 vols.: 1839. + +*The Gentleman of the Old School: 3 vols.: 1839. + +*Henry of Guise: 3 vols.: 1839. + +History of the United States Boundary Question: 1839. + +*The King’s Highway: 3 vols.: 1840. + +The Man at Arms: 3 vols.: 1840. + +Rose d’Albret: 3 vols.: 1840. + +The Jacquerie: 3 vols.: 1841. + +The Vernon Letters: 3 vols.: (edited). 1841. + +*Castleneau; or the Ancient Régime: 3 vols.: 1841. + +*The Brigand; or Corse de Léon: 3 vols.: 1841. + +Corn Laws. + +History of Richard Cœur de Lion: 4 vols.: 1841–42. + +Commissioner; or De Lunatico Inquirendo: 1842. + +*Morley Ernstein: 3 vols.: 1842. + +Eva St. Clair, and Other Tales: 2 vols.: 1843. + +The False Heir: 3 vols.: 1843. + +*Forest Days: 3 vols.: 1843. + +History of Chivalry: 1843. + +*Arabella Stuart: 3 vols.: 1843. + +*Agincourt: 3 vols.: 1844. + +Arrah Neil: 3 vols.: 1845. + +The Smuggler: 3 vols.: 1845. + +Heidelberg: 3 vols.: 1846. + +The Stepmother: 3 vols.: 1846. + +Whim and its Consequences: 3 vols.: 1847. + +Margaret Graham: 2 vols.: 1847. + +The Last of the Fairies: 1847. + +The Castle of Ehrenstein: 3 vols.: 1847. + +The Woodman: 3 vols.: 1847. + +The Convict: 3 vols.: 1847. + +Life of Henry IV. of France: 3 vols.: 1847. + +Russell: 3 vols.: 1847. + +Sir Theodore Broughton: 3 vols.: 1847. + +Beauchamp: 3 vols.: 1848. + +Carmazalaman; a Fairy Drama: 1848. + +The Fight of the Fiddlers: 1848. + +Forgery; or Best Intentions: 3 vols.: 1848. + +*Gowrie; or the King’s Plot: 1848. + +Dark Scenes of History: 3 vols.: 1849. + +John Jones’ Tales from English History: 2 vols.: 1849. + +A String of Pearls: 2 vols.: 1849. [His first written book; published +1833 (?); Allibone assigns its publication to 1849]. + +Ireland’s “David Rizzio”: 1849: (edited). + +Heathfield’s “Means of Relief from Taxation”: 1849: (edited). + +Henry Smeaton: 3 vols.: 1850. + +The Fate: 3 vols.: 1851. + +Revenge: (sometimes called A Story Without a Name): 3 vols.: 1851. + +Pequinillo: 3 vols.: 1852. + +Adrian; or the Clouds of the Mind: (jointly with M. B. Field): 2 vols.: +1852. + +Agnes Sorel: 3 vols.: 1853. + +Ticonderoga; or the Black Eagle: 3 vols.: 1854. + +Prince Life: 1855. + +The Old Dominion; or the Southampton Massacre: 3 vols.: 1856. + +Lord Montagu’s Page: 1858. + +The Cavalier: (Bernard March?): 1859. + +Adra; or the Peruvians: a poem: (_circa_, 1829). + +The City of the Silent: a poem. + +The Desultory Man: 3 vols. + +Life of Vicissitudes. + +My Aunt Pontypool: 3 vols. + +The Old Oak Chest: 3 vols. + +----- + +Footnote 1: + + Trevelyan’s Life of Macaulay, I, 93. + +Footnote 2: + + Tennyson: E. L. Cary, 19. + +Footnote 3: + + A Great Punch Editor, London, 1907. + +Footnote 4: + + My Study Windows, 337. + +Footnote 5: + + See a review in _The Literary Collector_, September, 1905. + +Footnote 6: + + See Temple Bar Edition, iii, 51–52. + +Footnote 7: + + Blackwood, April, 1827. + +Footnote 8: + + Sala’s Life and Adventures (1896), 83. + +Footnote 9: + + Axon’s Memoir, xxiii: _The World_, March 28, 1878. + +Footnote 10: + + Forster’s Dickens, i. 141. + +Footnote 11: + + Life of Lady Blessington, iii. 226, 227. + +Footnote 12: + + _Idem._, iii. 224. + +Footnote 13: + + January 3, 1840: Letters, Am. Edition, 1870, ii. p. 218. + +Footnote 14: + + Forster’s _Life of Dickens_, I, 118. + +Footnote 15: + + Life of Cruikshank (1882), i, 48–49. + +Footnote 16: + + Dictionary of National Biography, _Cruikshank_. + +Footnote 17: + + Vol. I, 211. + +Footnote 18: + + See introduction to Biographical Edition of Thackeray, IV. 19. + +Footnote 19: + + British Artists from Hogarth to Turner, ii, 59. + +Footnote 20: + + Vol. ii, 321–322. + +Footnote 21: + + Dict. Nat. Biog., i, 198. + +Footnote 22: + + Autobiography, iv, 390–393. + +Footnote 23: + + As a matter of curiosity, I examined the twenty-one novels composing + the “Revised Edition” of 1844–1849 to ascertain just how many + introduced the horseman or horsemen in the first chapter. Seven + disclose them; in eight they are absent; in four, the horsemen are “a + party”; in two, they appear in the second chapter, the first being + merely introductory. + +Footnote 24: + + Brander Matthews: Aspects of Fiction, 153. + +Footnote 25: + + They are said to have caused the death of Oliver Goldsmith, and + pamphlets were published on the subject. Foster’s _Oliver Goldsmith_, + II. 461–463. + +Footnote 26: + + Boswell (Geo. Birkbeck Hill’s Edition), I. 183. + +Footnote 27: + + _Id._, III. 442. + +Footnote 28: + + Memories: by M. B. Field p. 188—Harper’s, 1874. + +Footnote 29: + + Allibone gives the date of publication as 1849; but it must have been + published in some form prior to May 17, 1833. See _post_, page 184. + +Footnote 30: + + Works Vol. I. “The Gipsey,” vii. + +Footnote 31: + + Dictionary of National Biography, xxix, 209–210. + +Footnote 32: + + Fitzpatrick’s Life of Lever, II. 21. + +Footnote 33: + + This is all according to Field, and may be taken for what it is worth. + +Footnote 34: + + Memoirs, 191–195. + +Footnote 35: + + It is said, but on rather dubious authority, that he was sometimes + called “George Prince Regent James,” and that many believed it to be + his real name. + +Footnote 36: + + See Appendix. + +Footnote 37: + + Works, Vol. I. xiv. + +Footnote 38: + + Letter to Cunningham, _post_, page—. + +Footnote 39: + + Letter of C. L. James. + +Footnote 40: + + English Lands, Letters and Kings, 284. + +Footnote 41: + + Life of Lever, II. 21. + +Footnote 42: + + Fitzpatrick’s Life of Lever II. 418. + +Footnote 43: + + Noctes Ambrosianæ, II. 370—Blackwood Edition, 1887. + +Footnote 44: + + Marginalia, Black’s Edition—III. 393. + +Footnote 45: + + Hall’s Book of Memories, 263. + +Footnote 46: + + Jerdan’s Autobiography, iv 210. + +Footnote 47: + + It was R. H. Horne. A New Spirit of the Age (1844) p. 136. + +Footnote 48: + + London Athenæum, April 11, 1846. + +Footnote 49: + + Dublin University Magazine, March, 1842. + +Footnote 50: + + Essays and Reviews, ii, 116, 137. + +Footnote 51: + + Derby’s Fifty Years Among Authors, etc. 405. + +Footnote 52: + + My Confidences, 161. + +Footnote 53: + + My Confidences, 533, 534. + +Footnote 54: + + Mr. Gladstone succeeded Lord Ripon as President of the Board of Trade + and took his seat in the Cabinet on May 19, 1843. + +Footnote 55: + + American Lands and Letters, II. 252. + +Footnote 56: + + Life of Cooper, 268. + +Footnote 57: + + Life and Letters of Bayard Taylor, I, 203. + +Footnote 58: + + Hawthorne and his Circle, 33, 34. + +Footnote 59: + + Vol. I, 422–423. + +Footnote 60: + + Hawthorne and his Wife, I. 415. + +Footnote 61: + + _Id._ 397, 398. + +Footnote 62: + + A little bit snobbish for a Hawthorne, is it not? + +Footnote 63: + + Observe how Mr. Julian Hawthorne wholly omits the point of the + observation about the pleasure excursion. + +Footnote 64: + + Life of Hawthorne and his Wife, I. 422–424. + +Footnote 65: + + Life of H. W. Longfellow, by Stephen Longfellow, II. 177. + +Footnote 66: + + _Id._, 182. + +Footnote 67: + + Charles Ollier, 1788–1859. + +Footnote 68: + + Encyclopædia Britannica, XIII. 561 (Ninth Edition). + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES + + + Page Changed from Changed to + + 65 I escape, let me give to the I escape, let me give to the + dog’s earing, nocturnally dog’s-earing, nocturnally + + ● Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained. + ● Used numbers for footnotes, placing them all at the end of the last + chapter. + ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. + ● Enclosed bold or blackletter font in =equals=. + ● The caret (^) serves as a superscript indicator, applicable to + individual characters (like 2^d) and even entire phrases (like + 1^{st}). + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75216 *** |