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} + </style> + </head> + <body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75216 ***</div> + +<div class='tnotes covernote'> + +<p class='c000'><strong>Transcriber’s Note:</strong></p> + +<p class='c000'>New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.</p> + +</div> + +<div class='titlepage'> + +<div> + <h1 class='c001'><span class='xlarge'>AT THE</span><br> LIBRARY TABLE</h1> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c002'> + <div>BY</div> + <div><span class='large'>ADRIAN HOFFMAN JOLINE</span></div> + <div class='c003'><span class='small'>Author of “Meditations of an Autograph Collector” “The Diversions of a Book Lover” &c.</span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='figcenter id001'> +<img src='images/titlepage.jpg' alt='[Logo]' class='ig001'> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> + <div class='nf-center'> + <div>BOSTON</div> + <div>RICHARD G. BADGER</div> + <div><span class='blackletter'>The Gorham Press</span></div> + <div>1910</div> + </div> +</div> + +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c004'> + <div><span class='small'>Copyright, 1909, by A. H. Joline</span></div> + <div class='c003'><span class='small'>All Rights Reserved</span></div> + <div class='c002'><span class='small'><span class='sc'>The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A.</span></span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='chapter'> + <h2 class='c005'>PREPARATORY NOTE</h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c006'>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>November, 1909.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <h2 class='c005'>CONTENTS</h2> +</div> + +<table class='table0'> + <tr> + <th class='c008'></th> + <th class='c009'> </th> + <th class='c010'><span class='sc'>Page.</span></th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c008'>I.</td> + <td class='c009'>At the Library Table</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_5'>5</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c008'>II.</td> + <td class='c009'>The Deliberations of a Dofob</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_31'>31</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c008'>III.</td> + <td class='c009'>In a Library Corner</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_45'>45</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c008'>IV.</td> + <td class='c009'>Of the Old Fashion</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_67'>67</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c008'>V.</td> + <td class='c009'>William Harrison Ainsworth</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_83'>83</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c008'>VI.</td> + <td class='c009'>George P. R. James</td> + <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_125'>125</a></td> + </tr> +</table> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_5'>5</span> + <h2 class='c005'>AT THE LIBRARY TABLE</h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c006'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_6'>6</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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”.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_7'>7</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>I do not believe that an ordinary American, at least +in these days, would dream of publishing such a book +<span class='pageno' id='Page_8'>8</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c011'>“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, ‘<span lang="fr">correspondance +amoreuse très passionée</span>.’ A copybook of the King of +Rome is quoted 20f. Rénan, the sceptic author of +<cite><span lang="fr">La Vie de Jèsus</span></cite>, keeps up in the market, and goes for +<span class='pageno' id='Page_9'>9</span>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 <cite>André Chénier</cite> 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’.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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:—</p> + +<p class='c011'>“I would rather perform one useful act for my fellow +men than to be the possessor of all the autographs +in the world.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='sc'>Horace Mann.</span></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='lg-container-l c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“West Newton, April 23, ’50.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_10'>10</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_11'>11</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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 +<cite>Our Mutual Friend</cite> 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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_12'>12</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_13'>13</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_14'>14</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 “<i><span lang="la">Eheu fugaces</span></i>” +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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_15'>15</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c014'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“I feel no need of nature’s flowers,—</div> + <div class='line in2'>Of flowers of rhetoric I have store;</div> + <div class='line'>I do not miss the balmy showers—</div> + <div class='line in2'>When books are dry I o’er them pore.</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>No need that I should take the trouble</div> + <div class='line in2'>To go abroad to walk or ride,</div> + <div class='line'>For I can sit at home and double</div> + <div class='line in2'>Quite up with pain from Akenside.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_16'>16</span>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”.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_17'>17</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c014'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>‘A gust of wind sterte up behind</div> + <div class='line in2'>And whistled thro’ his bones,</div> + <div class='line'>Thro’ the holes of his eyes and the hole of his mouth</div> + <div class='line in2'>Half whistles and half groans.’</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_18'>18</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 <cite>Athenæum</cite> 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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_19'>19</span>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 +<cite>Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations</cite>, 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 <cite>Bartlett</cite> 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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_20'>20</span>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.”<a id='r1'></a><a href='#f1' class='c016'><sup>[1]</sup></a> Poets, whether young +or old, seldom take kindly to criticism of their lines, +but one cannot help feeling some sympathy with the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_21'>21</span>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:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c014'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“In Africa—a quarter of the world—</div> + <div class='line'>Men’s skins are black; their hair is crisped and curled,</div> + <div class='line'>And somewhere there, unknown to public view,</div> + <div class='line'>A mighty city lies, called Timbuctoo.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c015'>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.”<a id='r2'></a><a href='#f2' class='c016'><sup>[2]</sup></a> 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 <em>was</em> 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.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_22'>22</span>“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</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c014'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“In vain Vesuvius groans with wrath supprest,</div> + <div class='line'>And mutter’d thunder in his burning breast,</div> + <div class='line'>Long since the Eagle from that flaming peak</div> + <div class='line'>Hath soar’d with screams a safer nest to seek.</div> + <div class='line'>Aw’d by th’ infernal beacon’s fitful glare</div> + <div class='line'>The howling fox hath left his wonted lair;</div> + <div class='line'>Nor dares the browzing goat in vent’rous leap</div> + <div class='line'>To spring, as erst, from dizzy steep to steep;”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c015'>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”.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 +<cite>Blackwood</cite>. 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 <i><span lang="fr">hors concours</span></i>, 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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_23'>23</span>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 <cite>Tatler</cite> deals with the mania of collecting +<span class='pageno' id='Page_24'>24</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_25'>25</span>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.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r c017'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“Philad<sup>a</sup>, Feb. 12, 1823.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='lg-container-l c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>Rev<sup>d</sup> & dear Sir:—</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c018'>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.</p> + +<p class='c018'>In ye mean Time, I am, respectfully</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>Your very humble servant,</div> + <div class='line in16'>Wm: White.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='lg-container-l c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>Rev<sup>d</sup> Wm: B. Sprague,</div> + <div class='line in4'>West Springfield,</div> + <div class='line in8'>Massachusetts.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The subject of autographs is to me what King +Charles’s head was to Mr. Dick. That I am not alone +<span class='pageno' id='Page_26'>26</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>Almost every one finds it hard to understand as he +attains the period when juniors say to him, “Now, at +<em>your</em> 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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_27'>27</span>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_28'>28</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 “<i><span lang="fr">à bas</span></i> metaphysics!” If it be true, as these autocratic +tyrants of taste aver, that he “keeps his nose close +<span class='pageno' id='Page_29'>29</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_30'>30</span>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.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_31'>31</span> + <h2 class='c005'>THE DELIBERATIONS OF A DOFOB</h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c006'>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 <em>dictum</em> +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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_32'>32</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_33'>33</span>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, <em>passim</em>). +There is such a thing as carrying an analogy a little too +far.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>A Dofob would not assert with offensive pride that +the majority of people in this prosperous country are +<span class='pageno' id='Page_34'>34</span>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” +<span class='pageno' id='Page_35'>35</span>dress, it would have been needlessly cruel to undeceive +him; and, after all, the matter was beyond remedy.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 <em>you</em> ought to do is”—whatever in the plentitude +of his self-contentment he ardently believes to be what +every one else should do, because <em>he</em> does it; this one, +I say, seldom knows anything about bindings. “<em>I</em> 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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_36'>36</span>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”.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c014'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“A precious mouldering pleasure ’tis</div> + <div class='line in2'>To meet an antique book,</div> + <div class='line'>In just the dress his century wore:</div> + <div class='line in2'>A privilege, I think.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c015'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_37'>37</span>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”.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_38'>38</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_39'>39</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_40'>40</span>“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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_41'>41</span>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_42'>42</span>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”,</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c014'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“I’ve haunted Brentano and John Delay,</div> + <div class='line'>And toyed with their stories of France so free,</div> + <div class='line'>At Putnam’s and Scribner’s from day to day</div> + <div class='line'>I’ve flirted with Saltus and Roe (E. P.):</div> + <div class='line'>But weary of all, I have turned with glee</div> + <div class='line'>To Bouton’s murk shelves with their wealth untold,</div> + <div class='line'>Yearning for Quaritch in Piccadilly</div> + <div class='line'>Where the second-hand books are bought and sold.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_43'>43</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_44'>44</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_45'>45</span> + <h2 class='c005'>IN A LIBRARY CORNER</h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c006'>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 +<i><span lang="la">noli me tangere</span></i> exclusiveness. I want my books where +I need not open a door to get at them or climb a ladder +to reach them.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_46'>46</span>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 +<cite>Life of Lewis Carroll</cite> 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”.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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?”</p> + +<p class='c012'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_47'>47</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_48'>48</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_49'>49</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_50'>50</span>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 <em>did</em> 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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>Down in a quiet corner hides an humble cloth-clad +little book which scarcely any one cares for except +<span class='pageno' id='Page_51'>51</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_52'>52</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Among the tenants of the corner is a cheap and shabby +American edition, in two fat, awkward volumes, of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_53'>53</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 <cite>Doe ex dem. Titmouse vs. Jolter</cite>, 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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_54'>54</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_55'>55</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 <cite>Harper</cite> 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”.</p> + +<p class='c007'>It is sad that the modern disposition to overdo everything +<span class='pageno' id='Page_56'>56</span>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, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_57'>57</span>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!”</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_58'>58</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Here let us approach with hesitation and timidity, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_59'>59</span>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_60'>60</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_61'>61</span>that he will be most missed”. Jolly dog, how he must +have warmed the cockles of their hearts with his merry +jests!</p> + +<p class='c007'>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_62'>62</span>Jeaffreson was a weak and self-important person, +jealous of his betters. George Somes Layard says, in +his interesting “Life of Shirley Brooks”,<a id='r3'></a><a href='#f3' class='c016'><sup>[3]</sup></a> 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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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.”<a id='r4'></a><a href='#f4' class='c016'><sup>[4]</sup></a> +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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_63'>63</span>work from circulation.<a id='r5'></a><a href='#f5' class='c016'><sup>[5]</sup></a> 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 <em>en route</em> 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”.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_64'>64</span>silliness it would be necessary only to offer in evidence +his books,—and rest.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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”.</p> + +<p class='c012'>Whether so famous a poem as Young’s <cite>Night +Thoughts</cite> 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</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c014'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in10'>“Torture his invention</div> + <div class='line'>To flatter knaves or lose his pension,”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c015'>is not, however, founded upon his lugubrious pentameters.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_65'>65</span>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 <cite>The +Rambler</cite>, 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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>It is often difficult to get out of corners; but before +I escape, let me give to the <a id='t65'></a>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_66'>66</span>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.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_67'>67</span> + <h2 class='c005'>OF THE OLD FASHION</h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c006'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 +<i><span lang="sv">fogde</span></i>—one who has charge of a garrison,—but I question +it despite the confident assertion of the <cite>Century +Dictionary</cite>. 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.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_68'>68</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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, <em>insouciant</em> 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, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_69'>69</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_70'>70</span>time those who sneer at us now as cumbersome relics, +<i><span lang="fr">laudatores temporis acti</span></i>, 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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 <em>parvenu</em>; 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 <em>I</em> 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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_71'>71</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_72'>72</span>There is no good reason why we should be ashamed of +ourselves.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Fourteenth Street! It must be difficult for the New +<span class='pageno' id='Page_73'>73</span>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_74'>74</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_75'>75</span>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 <cite>Whig +Review</cite> or of O’Sullivan’s portentous <cite>Democratic Review</cite>, +but take from the shelf a shabbily bound volume +of <cite>Graham’s Magazine of Literature and Art</cite>, 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 <cite>Graham</cite> for a year and that <cite>The +Murders in the Rue Morgue</cite> as well as Longfellow’s +<span class='pageno' id='Page_76'>76</span><cite>Spanish Student</cite> first appeared in that magazine. Coming +to a later day, recall the <cite>Harper</cite> 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 +<cite>Harper</cite> readers, gave to Strother the tribute of his judicious +praise.</p> + +<p class='c007'>One may not gossip lightly about the <cite>Atlantic</cite>, but +the <cite>Knickerbocker</cite> is distinctly old-fashioned. Longfellow’s +<cite>Psalm of Life</cite> 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 <cite>Knickerbocker +Magazine</cite>. 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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_77'>77</span>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 <cite>Vala, a Mythological +Tale</cite>, biographer of his father-in-law, William Cullen +Bryant, and by virtue of his <cite>History of France</cite>, +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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_78'>78</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_79'>79</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 <em>literati</em> 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:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c014'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>The star of love now shines above,</div> + <div class='line in2'>Cool zephyrs crisp the sea;</div> + <div class='line'>Among the leaves, the wind-harp weaves</div> + <div class='line in2'>Its serenade for thee.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_80'>80</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_81'>81</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Few there are who cling with affection to the memory +of the old-fashioned. Most of us prefer to spin with the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_82'>82</span>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.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_83'>83</span> + <h2 class='c005'>WILLIAM HARRISON AINSWORTH</h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c006'>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 <cite>Encyclopædia +of English Literature</cite> begrudges him twenty-nine +lines of depreciative comment, conceding to him +dramatic art and power, but denying to him “originality +<span class='pageno' id='Page_84'>84</span>or felicity of humor or character”. He is not even mentioned +in Mr. Edmund Gosse’s <cite>Modern English Literature</cite>, +and Taine does not condescend to give his name. +In the <cite>History</cite> of Nicoll and Seccombe no reference to +him can be found. In the pretentious volumes of the +<cite>History of English Literature</cite> 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 <cite>Rookwood</cite>, 1834, <cite>Jack Sheppard</cite>, 1839, and <cite>The +Tower of London</cite>, 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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In a note to the sketch in the <cite>Dictionary of National +Biography</cite>, 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 <cite>Dictionary</cite> 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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_85'>85</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 <cite>Mirror</cite> in 1842 and +was reproduced in later editions of “Rookwood”; a +chapter in Madden’s <cite>Life of Lady Blessington</cite>; a sketch +by James Crossley contributed to the Routledge edition +of the <cite>Ballads</cite> in 1855; and an account of him by +William Bates, accompanying a semi-caricature portrait +in the <em>Maclise Portrait Gallery</em>.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 <cite>Burke’s Landed +Gentry</cite>. 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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_86'>86</span>private production, which was printed in <cite>Arliss’s Magazine</cite>, +and a number of sketches, translations and minor +papers for a serial called <cite>The Manchester Iris</cite>, and he +subsequently conducted a periodical styled <cite>The Boeotian</cite>, +which had a short existence of six months. Before +he was nineteen, he was a regular contributor to the +<cite>London Magazine</cite> and the <cite>Edinburgh Magazine</cite>. 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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 <cite>The Lambs</cite>, +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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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.<a id='r6'></a><a href='#f6' class='c016'><sup>[6]</sup></a> It was something +of an honor for a lad of seventeen to receive the praise +<span class='pageno' id='Page_87'>87</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 <cite>Forget-Me-Not</cite> 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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_88'>88</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 <cite>Chronicle</cite> 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:</p> + +<p class='c007'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>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.”<a id='r7'></a><a href='#f7' class='c016'><sup>[7]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c007'>It was for an annual issued by him that Sir Walter +Scott wrote the “Bonnets of Bonnie Dundee,” and the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_89'>89</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_90'>90</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 <cite>Ben-Hur</cite>. 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,”<a id='r8'></a><a href='#f8' class='c016'><sup>[8]</sup></a> and he said this sixty years after the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_91'>91</span>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 <em>tour de force</em>—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 <cite>Vathek</cite> in French, in a single sitting +of three days and two nights, which is more or less +apocryphal.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 <cite>Noctes Ambrosianæ</cite>, that Doctor William Maginn, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_92'>92</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>In the light of later years, it is interesting to observe +the comparisons made between Bulwer and Ainsworth. +In <cite>Fraser’s Magazine</cite> for June, 1834, there is a review +of “Rookwood” in which the author is praised far +beyond the writer of <cite>Eugene Aram</cite> and <cite>Paul Clifford</cite>. +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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_93'>93</span>second-hand for he obtained it from the autobiography +of James Hardy Vaux.<a id='r9'></a><a href='#f9' class='c016'><sup>[9]</sup></a> A second edition of “Rookwood” +illustrated by George Cruikshank, appeared in +1836.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 <cite>Diary</cite>. 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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>He was a favorite contributor to <cite>Fraser’s Magazine</cite>, +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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_94'>94</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In January, 1837, Richard Bentley began the publication +of <cite>Bentley’s Miscellany</cite> 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”.<a id='r10'></a><a href='#f10' class='c016'><sup>[10]</sup></a> <cite>Oliver Twist</cite> had just +<span class='pageno' id='Page_95'>95</span>been the feature of the <cite>Miscellany</cite>, and now Ainsworth +made his second and most celebrated venture in what +Sala calls “felonious fiction”—the immortal “Jack Sheppard.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>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.”<a id='r11'></a><a href='#f11' class='c016'><sup>[11]</sup></a> He also says that in 1839 +the novel, to be called “Thames Darrell,” was advertised +to appear periodically in the <cite>Miscellany</cite>, then edited +by Charles Dickens.<a id='r12'></a><a href='#f12' class='c016'><sup>[12]</sup></a> Robert Harrison in the <cite>Dictionary +of National Biography</cite> (title Bentley) says +that Dickens retired from the post of editor in January, +1839. Mr. Axon tells us in the <cite>Dictionary</cite> 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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The success of “Rookwood” and <cite>Oliver Twist</cite> 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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_96'>96</span>described with a charm and vigor which took the public +captive. The sale exceeded even that of <cite>Oliver +Twist</cite>, 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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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’ <cite>Encyclopædia</cite> and in Allibone’s +<cite>Dictionary</cite>. 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.</p> + +<p class='c011'>“I have been reading ‘Jack Sheppard,’” she writes to +Miss Barrett,<a id='r13'></a><a href='#f13' class='c016'><sup>[13]</sup></a> “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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_97'>97</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>It was said, and Ainsworth believed it, that the fact +that “Jack Sheppard” had a better sale than <cite>Oliver +Twist</cite> 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 <cite>Examiner</cite>, 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.<a id='r14'></a><a href='#f14' class='c016'><sup>[14]</sup></a> There was some sort of friction among the +three friends about the time when “Jack Sheppard” was +<span class='pageno' id='Page_98'>98</span>in the full tide of favor and Dickens was closing the +troublesome negotiations with Bentley about the copyright +of the unpublished <cite>Barnaby Rudge</cite>. 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:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r c017'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in16'>“Doughty Street,</div> + <div class='line'>Tuesday morning, March 26th, 1839.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='lg-container-l c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>My dear Ainsworth:</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c018'>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.</p> + +<p class='c018'>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.</p> + +<p class='c018'>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) +<span class='pageno' id='Page_99'>99</span>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—<em>that +he was bound to see the old agreement performed</em>—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.</p> + +<p class='c018'>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, <em>without the delay of an instant</em>—you +or I.</p> + +<p class='c018'><span class='pageno' id='Page_100'>100</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c018'>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 <em>your</em> 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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_101'>101</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c018'>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.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>My dear Ainsworth, I am</div> + <div class='line in12'>Faithfully yours,</div> + <div class='line in28'>Charles Dickens.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='lg-container-l c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>William Ainsworth Esquire.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>The little quarrel, if it was a quarrel, must have +been composed amicably, for Forster in his <cite>Life of +Dickens</cite> refers several times to Ainsworth in a kind and +appreciative way.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 <cite>Sunday Times</cite> 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.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r c017'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_102'>102</span>“Amwell St., March 4, 1841.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='lg-container-l c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='sc'>My Dear Ainsworth</span>:—</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c018'>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, <em>most</em> 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 <em>cut</em> me. At +the latter end of last year you announced that <em>we</em> 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 (<em>sic</em>) you announce a New Work as +a <em>companion to the “Tower”!</em> without my name. I +then conclude that you do not intend to join <em>me</em> in <em>any</em> +“New Work” and therefore determine to do something +for myself—<em>indeed I could hold out no longer</em>—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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_103'>103</span>may be made which may tend to our material +benefit.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>I remain, my dear Ainsworth, yours very truly,</div> + <div class='line in28'><span class='sc'>Geo. Cruikshank</span>.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>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:</p> + +<p class='c007'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_104'>104</span>A rupture with Bentley was imminent and it came +very soon. Ainsworth left the <cite>Miscellany</cite> 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 <cite>Bentley’s Miscellany</cite> and +merged both magazines into one. In 1845 he had +bought for £2,500 Colburn’s <cite>New Monthly Magazine</cite>, +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 <cite>New Monthly</cite> 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”.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_105'>105</span>Jerrold, “to quarrel with all persons with whom he had +business relations, and when he did quarrel, his words +knew no bounds.”<a id='r15'></a><a href='#f15' class='c016'><sup>[15]</sup></a> 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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>All the world knows his absurd pretensions to the +origination of <cite>Oliver Twist</cite>. 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 <cite>Life in London</cite> and even a poem of +Laman Blanchard’s which he had illustrated for the +<cite>Omnibus</cite>—as well as the pattern of the hat worn by +Russian soldiers! Blanchard Jerrold says in the <cite>Life</cite> +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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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.<a id='r16'></a><a href='#f16' class='c016'><sup>[16]</sup></a> “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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_106'>106</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Frith, a friend of Cruikshank, says in his Autobiography:<a id='r17'></a><a href='#f17' class='c016'><sup>[17]</sup></a> +“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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 (<em>sic</em>) wonderful cleverness and quickness about +<span class='pageno' id='Page_107'>107</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c011'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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.</p> + +<p class='c011'>“Jonathan Wild has hold of Jack’s left arm with <em>his</em> +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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_108'>108</span>advise the approach of the attacking party to be thus. +The Jew and some other fellow go round the <em>north</em> of +the church and lurk there and Qt. Arnold in that road +at the N. W. corner—Wild himself to come along the +<em>south</em> 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 <em>stout</em> walking stick. I have only +time to add that I am yours very truly. The cheque all +safe, many thanks.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>Cruikshank first put forth his claim publicly in 1872, +by means of a pamphlet called <cite>The Artist and the Author</cite>, +just after the publication of the first volume of +Forster’s <cite>Dickens</cite>. 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 <cite>Times</cite> 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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_109'>109</span>Sheppard’, and, such is the difference of taste, thought +it poor stuff and much below the mark.”<a id='r18'></a><a href='#f18' class='c016'><sup>[18]</sup></a> Mr. +Jerrold expresses the opinion that Thackeray was +always unjust to Ainsworth. “He caricatured him +unmercifully in <cite>Punch</cite>, 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 <cite>Vanity +Fair</cite>, 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,”<a id='r19'></a><a href='#f19' class='c016'><sup>[19]</sup></a> A critical person might be +disposed to inquire why the “great humorist” should +lower himself by illuminating anything with a “false +<span class='pageno' id='Page_110'>110</span>splendor.” It is not complimentary to the great humorist, +but Mr. Thornbury unconsciously told the truth; +his hero was falseness personified.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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: “<i><span lang="la">Ne sutor ultra crepidam.</span></i> 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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 <em>in private</em> 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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The fact is shown by the letter of Dickens, produced +in facsimile by Forster,<a id='r20'></a><a href='#f20' class='c016'><sup>[20]</sup></a> and it is confirmed by several +<span class='pageno' id='Page_111'>111</span>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 <em>have</em> seen some of George +Cruikshank’s designs, and it was because I thought them +so <em>sketchy</em> that I write to you. They are anything but +<em>full</em> 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.*** +<em>Do</em>, 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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_112'>112</span>that Cruikshank was a mere illustrator, directed and +controlled by the author.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 <cite>Sunday Times</cite>, receiving £1,000. It +was dedicated to his old friend James Crossley, President +of the Chetham Society, which published many +volumes, including Potts’s <cite>Discovery of Witches</cite> and +the <cite>Journals</cite> 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—</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c014'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“—You either married man or wife</div> + <div class='line'>By household brawles or contentious strife,</div> + <div class='line'>Or otherwise, in bed or at board,</div> + <div class='line'>Did offend each other in deed or word,</div> + <div class='line'>Or, since the Parish <em>clerk</em> said <em>Amen</em>,</div> + <div class='line'>You wish’t yourselves unmarried agen,</div> + <div class='line'>Or in a twelve months time and a day,</div> + <div class='line'>Repented not in thought, any way;</div> + <div class='line'>But continued true and just in desire</div> + <div class='line'>As when you joyn’d hands in the holy quire.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>In 1851 “the lord of the manor declined to give the +flitch, but the claimants obtained one from a public +<span class='pageno' id='Page_113'>113</span>subscription, and a concourse of some three thousand +people assembled in Easton Park in their honour.”<a id='r21'></a><a href='#f21' class='c016'><sup>[21]</sup></a> +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:</p> + +<p class='c011'>“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 ‘<cite><span lang="fr">Un An et un Jour</span></cite>’, 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.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>On January 5, 1855, he writes to Madame de Chatelain:</p> + +<p class='c007'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In 1856 “Spendthrift” appeared, and in 1857 “Merwyn +Clitheroe” which he had begun in 1851 but had +<span class='pageno' id='Page_114'>114</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 +<cite>Belgravia</cite> (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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_115'>115</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_116'>116</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_117'>117</span>have seen, doubted Thackeray’s friendship. Forster +says in his <cite>Dickens</cite>, referring to the period <em>circa</em> 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.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r c017'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“Devonshire Terrace,</div> + <div class='line in4'>Fifth February, 1841.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='lg-container-l c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='sc'>My Dear Ainsworth</span>—</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c018'>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.</p> + +<p class='c018'>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.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>Yours, in defiance,</div> + <div class='line in4'><span class='sc'>Charles Dickens</span>.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_118'>118</span>Journal (November 21, 1838) mentions a dinner at +Bentley’s where the company was “all the very <i><span lang="fr">haut ton</span></i> +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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 <cite>Bentley’s Miscellany</cite>—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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_119'>119</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>As Blanchard Jerrold says, <cite>Punch</cite> was often quite +severe on Ainsworth. Spielmann in his <cite>History of Punch</cite> +confirms the statement:</p> + +<p class='c007'>“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:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c014'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_120'>120</span>“Says Ainsworth to Colburn,</div> + <div class='line in2'>‘A plan in my pate is,</div> + <div class='line'>To give my romance as</div> + <div class='line in2'>A supplement, <em>gratis</em>.’</div> + <div class='line'>Says Colburn to Ainsworth,</div> + <div class='line in2'>‘Twill do very nicely,</div> + <div class='line'>For that will be charging</div> + <div class='line in2'>It’s value precisely.’</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>There seems to have been, unluckily, a shadow of a +difference with William Jerdan, of the <cite>Literary Gazette</cite>, +whose diffuse and often tedious <cite>Autobiography</cite> +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.<a id='r22'></a><a href='#f22' class='c016'><sup>[22]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_121'>121</span>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 <em>Maclise Gallery</em> 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.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_122'>122</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Perhaps his merits were characterized rather too ornately +in the <cite>Sun</cite> of August 2, 1852, where a reviewer +said:</p> + +<p class='c007'>“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 <em>grimlier</em> +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 ‘<i><span lang="it">rotello del fico</span></i>,’ 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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_123'>123</span>the same position in the present that Radcliffe occupied +in a former generation.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>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.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_125'>125</span> + <h2 class='c005'>GEORGE PAYNE RAINSFORD JAMES</h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_0_6 c006'>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”.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_126'>126</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 <cite>The Golden Bowl</cite>. +I discerned the truth, however, that the subject was not +interesting and we changed the topic of conversation.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 <cite>Jacob Faithful</cite> 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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_127'>127</span>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 <cite>Rejected +Addresses</cite>, 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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 <cite>Modern English Literature</cite>, +he tells us of the days when “the cavaliers of G. +P. R. James were riding down innumerable roads”; +<span class='pageno' id='Page_128'>128</span>while Justin McCarthy in the <cite>History of Our Own +Times</cite> 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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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:</p> + +<p class='c011'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c018'>Now this dissertation—which may be considered as +<span class='pageno' id='Page_129'>129</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c018'>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.</p> + +<p class='c018'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_130'>130</span>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.”<a id='r23'></a><a href='#f23' class='c016'><sup>[23]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c012'>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 <em>not</em> 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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_131'>131</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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”.<a id='r24'></a><a href='#f24' class='c016'><sup>[24]</sup></a> 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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_132'>132</span>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,<a id='r25'></a><a href='#f25' class='c016'><sup>[25]</sup></a> +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.”<a id='r26'></a><a href='#f26' class='c016'><sup>[26]</sup></a> 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.<a id='r27'></a><a href='#f27' class='c016'><sup>[27]</sup></a> 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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_133'>133</span>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.’”</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_134'>134</span>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.’”</p> + +<p class='c007'>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.”<a id='r28'></a><a href='#f28' class='c016'><sup>[28]</sup></a> Field’s story is +made up in a ridiculously inaccurate way. James was +<span class='pageno' id='Page_135'>135</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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.<a id='r29'></a><a href='#f29' class='c016'><sup>[29]</sup></a> 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 +<cite>Morley Ernstein</cite>. He became acquainted with Cuvier +and other men of eminence, and it is gratifying to +<span class='pageno' id='Page_136'>136</span>Americans to know that Washington Irving liked him +and gave him encouragement. It has been said that his +first work was the <cite>Life of Edward the Black Prince</cite>, +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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>In 1825 he wrote his first novel, <cite>Richelieu</cite>, 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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_137'>137</span>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 <cite>Richelieu</cite>. Singularly +enough, he did not include it in the revised edition +of his Works.</p> + +<p class='c007'>After reading <cite>Richelieu</cite>, 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, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_138'>138</span>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.”<a id='r30'></a><a href='#f30' class='c016'><sup>[30]</sup></a> Irving +and Scott united in encouraging him to produce his +next novel, <cite>Darnley</cite>, with another great Cardinal as a +principal character. <cite>Darnley</cite> 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 <cite>De +l’Orme</cite>, written there in 1829, appeared in 1830. <cite>Philip +Augustus</cite> 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.<a id='r31'></a><a href='#f31' class='c016'><sup>[31]</sup></a> 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 +<cite>Life of Charles Lever</cite>, 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.”<a id='r32'></a><a href='#f32' class='c016'><sup>[32]</sup></a> In 1845 he went to Germany, partly +for recreation and partly to obtain information to be +<span class='pageno' id='Page_139'>139</span>used in the <cite>History of Richard Cœur de Lion</cite>, upon +which he was then engaged. The illness of his children +detained him for a year; and at Karlsruhe and +Baden-Baden he wrote <cite>Heidelberg</cite> and the <cite>Castle of +Ehrenstein</cite>. 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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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.<a id='r33'></a><a href='#f33' class='c016'><sup>[33]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c007'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_140'>140</span>which Mr. Field prints.<a id='r34'></a><a href='#f34' class='c016'><sup>[34]</sup></a> 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.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>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:</p> + +<p class='c011'>“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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_141'>141</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>During that summer James and Field produced +<cite>Adrian</cite>, 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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 <cite>Ticonderoga</cite>, +<cite>The Old Dominion</cite>, and other novels; his fertile +pen was always busy. His latest work was <cite>The Cavalier</cite>, +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 <cite>Literary Landmarks of Venice</cite>, refers to +<span class='pageno' id='Page_142'>142</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c011'>“George Payne Rainford James.</p> + +<p class='c018'>British Consul General in the Adriatic.</p> + +<p class='c018'>Died in Venice, on the 9th day of June, 1860.</p> + +<p class='c018'>His merits as a writer are known wherever the English +language is, and as a man they rest on the hearts +of many.</p> + +<p class='c018'>A few friends have erected this humble and perishable +monument.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>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. “<em>Rainford</em>” is doubtless the +mistake of the Italian who prepared the monument.<a id='r35'></a><a href='#f35' class='c016'><sup>[35]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_143'>143</span>Mr. J. A. Hamilton, in the <cite>Dictionary of National +Biography</cite>, 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 <cite>Dictionary</cite>, 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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_144'>144</span>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 +<cite>Dictionary</cite> and from Allibone’s laboriously minute +record.<a id='r36'></a><a href='#f36' class='c016'><sup>[36]</sup></a> 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.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>His activity was by no means limited to the field of +prose fiction. In poetry, he produced <cite>The Ruined City</cite> +in 1828; <cite>Blanche of Navarre</cite>, a five act play, in 1839, +and <cite>Camaralzaman</cite>, a “fairy drama” in three acts, in +1848. My “first edition” of <cite>Blanche of Navarre</cite>, a +pamphlet of ninety-eight pages, with a dedication to +<span class='pageno' id='Page_145'>145</span>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”—</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c014'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“<span class='sc'>Don John</span> (<em>pointing to the gallery</em>).</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>We have spectators there! A lady points!</div> + <div class='line'>Let us go succour her!</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='sc'>Don Ferdinand</span> (<em>stopping him</em>).</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in23'>Nay, I beseech!</div> + <div class='line'>Most likely ’tis my sister!—Foolish child!</div> + <div class='line'>She has maids there enow,—Lo, they are gone!</div> + <div class='line'>We’ll close the night with wine.</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in2'>[<cite>The drop scene descends to dumb-show</cite>].”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>It is only fair to let him tell his own story about his +literary fecundity. He says:</p> + +<p class='c011'>“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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_146'>146</span>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.”<a id='r37'></a><a href='#f37' class='c016'><sup>[37]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c012'>I am not convinced that the custom of dictating is one +which should be observed by an author who aims at the +highest excellence.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 <cite>A Life of Edward +the Black Prince</cite>, published in 1822; but the <cite>Dictionary +of National Biography</cite> ascribes that publication +to the year 1836, and the <cite>Dictionary</cite> is undoubtedly +right, for he said in 1835 “The <cite>Black Prince</cite> comes on +but slowly,”<a id='r38'></a><a href='#f38' class='c016'><sup>[38]</sup></a> The <cite>Dictionary</cite> says that as “historiographer royal”—a +sonorous title which must have afforded +great pleasure to its bearer—he published in +<span class='pageno' id='Page_147'>147</span>1839 a <cite>History of the United States Boundary Question</cite>, +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.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r c017'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“<span class='sc'>Fair Oak Lodge, Petersfield</span></div> + <div class='line in8'><span class='sc'>Hants</span>, 4th November, 1837.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='lg-container-l c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='sc'>My Lord</span>:—</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c018'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_148'>148</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c018'>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.</p> + +<p class='c018'>I have the honor to be, my Lord, your Lordship’s +most obedient servant</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='sc'>G. P. R. James</span>.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_149'>149</span>find a record of any other “historiographical” work to +which the language of the letter is applicable.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The <cite>Dictionary of National Biography</cite> credits James +with <cite>Memoirs of Celebrated Women</cite> (three volumes, +1837), but Allibone says that he had no share in it, +further than writing a preface or “something of that +kind.” The <cite>Dictionary</cite> 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. <cite>Appleton’s +Cyclopædia</cite> follows Allibone as to dates, but very +properly ignores Richmond in favor of Norfolk. The +<cite>Encyclopædia Britannica</cite> says that Irving encouraged +him to produce the <cite>Life of the Black Prince</cite> 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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>He surely possessed the art of making friends. +Before his marriage he knew not only Scott and Irving, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_150'>150</span>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.<a id='r39'></a><a href='#f39' class='c016'><sup>[39]</sup></a> +“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 (<cite>Richelieu</cite> 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 <cite>Pelham</cite> and <cite>Pausonias</cite> 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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_151'>151</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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.</p> + +<p class='c011'>“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.”<a id='r40'></a><a href='#f40' class='c016'><sup>[40]</sup></a></p> +<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_152'>152</span>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:</p> + +<p class='c011'>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 <cite>Charles O’Malley</cite> +was the editor of the Dublin University Magazine, he +<span class='pageno' id='Page_153'>153</span>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.”<a id='r41'></a><a href='#f41' class='c016'><sup>[41]</sup></a> +Lever was too kind-hearted to explain the error, and +James not only contributed to the magazine but visited +Lever at Templeogue. The story “<cite>De Lunatico Inquirendo</cite>” +was supposed to have been written by Lever, +who wrote only the preface. “<cite>Arrah Neil</cite>” 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 +<cite>Life of Lever</cite>, 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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_154'>154</span>nearly as he pronounced it. James’s flowery +language thus rendered, was highly amusing; I had an +opportunity of reading some pages of copy.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 <cite>Life of Lever</cite>, “G. P. R. James +and himself were the cynosure of all eyes”—and later +at Baden. Lever dedicated to James his novel <cite>Roland +Cashel</cite>, 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 <cite>Dublin</cite> 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’ +<span class='pageno' id='Page_155'>155</span>exciting a national animosity than that Holloway’s +Ointment could absorb a Swiss glacier.<a id='r42'></a><a href='#f42' class='c016'><sup>[42]</sup></a> 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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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.’”</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 <cite>Southern Literary Messenger</cite>, +beginning:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c014'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>Good bye! they say the time is up—</div> + <div class='line in2'>The “solitary horseman” leaves us,</div> + <div class='line'>We’d like to take a “stirrup cup”,</div> + <div class='line in2'>Though much indeed the parting grieves us:</div> + <div class='line'>We’d like to hear the glasses clink</div> + <div class='line in2'>Around a board where none was tipsy,</div> + <div class='line'>And with a hearty greeting drink</div> + <div class='line in2'>This toast—The Author of the Gipsey!</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_156'>156</span>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_157'>157</span>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 <em>where the sight of a horse is +never seen</em>.” 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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>However severely the sapient compilers of <cite>Chambers’ +Cyclopædia</cite> 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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_158'>158</span>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 <cite>Noctes Ambrosianæ</cite>, you +will find these words:</p> + +<p class='c011'>“<em>North</em>: Mr. Colburn has lately given us two books +of a very different character, [from that of some previously +mentioned], <cite>Richelieu</cite> and <cite>Darnley</cite>—by Mr. +James. <cite>Richelieu</cite> 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.</p> + +<p class='c018'><em>Shepherd</em>: And what o’<cite>Darnley</cite>?</p> + +<p class='c018'><em>North</em>: Read and judge.”<a id='r43'></a><a href='#f43' class='c016'><sup>[43]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c012'>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.”<a id='r44'></a><a href='#f44' class='c016'><sup>[44]</sup></a> 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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_159'>159</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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.”<a id='r45'></a><a href='#f45' class='c016'><sup>[45]</sup></a> He gives to James more praise for character-drawing +than most of the critics bestow.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_160'>160</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>The genial journalist, William Jerdan, in his Autobiography, +pays a deserved tribute to James. He says:</p> + +<p class='c011'>“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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_161'>161</span>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.””<a id='r46'></a><a href='#f46' class='c016'><sup>[46]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c012'>I have referred to the remark in <cite>Chambers’ Cyclopædia</cite> +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, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_162'>162</span>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,”<a id='r47'></a><a href='#f47' class='c016'><sup>[47]</sup></a> and as I am endeavoring to present +the contemporary estimates of James, I venture to +reproduce the quotation:</p> + +<p class='c011'>“There seems to be no limit to his ingenuity, his +faculty of getting up scenes and incidents, dilemmas, +artifices, <em>contretemps</em>, 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.”</p> + +<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_163'>163</span>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:</p> + +<p class='c007'>“The sameness of the author’s style and characters +is, however, too marked to be pleasing.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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:</p> + +<p class='c011'>“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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_164'>164</span>required interest without violence, and entertainment +at once animated and mild.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>Allan Cunningham, in his <cite>Biographical and Critical +History of the Literature of the Last Fifty Years</cite> +(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 <cite>Edinburgh Review</cite> 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.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>He was not regarded so favorably by the <cite>London +Athenæum</cite>, 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—<em>sloppy</em> +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.”<a id='r48'></a><a href='#f48' class='c016'><sup>[48]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c007'>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 <cite>Dublin University Magazine</cite> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_165'>165</span>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.”<a id='r49'></a><a href='#f49' class='c016'><sup>[49]</sup></a> +The works were <cite>Corse de Léon</cite>, <cite>The Ancient +Régime</cite>, and <cite>The Jacquerie</cite>—none of them as deserving +as <cite>Richelieu</cite>, <cite>Henry Masterton</cite>, or <cite>Mary of +Burgundy</cite>. James was a member of the <cite>Dublin</cite> staff +and his friend Lever may have inspired the compliments.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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.</p> + +<p class='c011'>“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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_166'>166</span>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.”<a id='r50'></a><a href='#f50' class='c016'><sup>[50]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c012'>Whipple’s <em>critiques</em> 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 <cite>Richelieu</cite>, notwithstanding +the fact that it did not emanate from New +England.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Back in the forties, there was a magazine, published +in Philadelphia, known as <cite>Graham’s American Monthly +Magazine</cite>, 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. <cite>Thackerway</cite> (<em>sic</em>), 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. <cite>Graham</cite> (November, 1844) was very severe +with poor James, in a notice of <cite>Arrah Neil</cite>. The reviewer +<span class='pageno' id='Page_167'>167</span>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—<cite>Christian Lacy, a +Tale of the Salem Witchcraft</cite>, and <cite>Justinian and Theodora</cite>,—as +well as a rather graceful sonnet to Jenny +Lind.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_168'>168</span>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.<a id='r51'></a><a href='#f51' class='c016'><sup>[51]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c007'>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.”<a id='r52'></a><a href='#f52' class='c016'><sup>[52]</sup></a> Locker-Lampson +does not seem to have shared Landor’s appreciation +of James. He says, later in his memoirs: “It is +<span class='pageno' id='Page_169'>169</span>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.”<a id='r53'></a><a href='#f53' class='c016'><sup>[53]</sup></a> 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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r c017'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“<span class='sc'>Whitehall</span>, May 17, ’43.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c018'><span class='sc'>My dear Sir</span>: 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.<a id='r54'></a><a href='#f54' class='c016'><sup>[54]</sup></a> 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.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>I remain, my dear sir,</div> + <div class='line in4'>Yours faithfully & obliged,</div> + <div class='line in12'><span class='sc'>W. E. Gladstone</span>.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='lg-container-l c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='sc'>G. P. R. James, Esq.</span>,</div> + <div class='line in4'>The Shrubbery,</div> + <div class='line in12'>Walmer.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_170'>170</span>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.”<a id='r55'></a><a href='#f55' class='c016'><sup>[55]</sup></a> +I have before me the <cite>Memorial</cite>, 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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_171'>171</span>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.”<a id='r56'></a><a href='#f56' class='c016'><sup>[56]</sup></a> +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.”<a id='r57'></a><a href='#f57' class='c016'><sup>[57]</sup></a> He always +said kind and appreciative words about his fellow-authors, +if they were deserving.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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:</p> + +<p class='c011'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_172'>172</span>He relates how the storm raged and how the door +burst open,—his father and he were alone in the cottage—</p> + +<p class='c019'>“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.<a id='r58'></a><a href='#f58' class='c016'><sup>[58]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c012'>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.<a id='r59'></a><a href='#f59' class='c016'><sup>[59]</sup></a> Nathaniel Hawthorne +evidently liked James. Under date of July 30, +1851, he says:</p> + +<p class='c011'>“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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_173'>173</span>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.”<a id='r60'></a><a href='#f60' class='c016'><sup>[60]</sup></a> +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.”<a id='r61'></a><a href='#f61' class='c016'><sup>[61]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c011'>“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, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_174'>174</span>their maid-servant, and their coachman;—not that the +coachman came in; and as for the maid, she stayed in +the hall.<a id='r62'></a><a href='#f62' class='c016'><sup>[62]</sup></a> 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 <i><span lang="fr">hors de combat</span></i>. 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.<a id='r63'></a><a href='#f63' class='c016'><sup>[63]</sup></a> 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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_175'>175</span>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.”<a id='r64'></a><a href='#f64' class='c016'><sup>[64]</sup></a></p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Mr. Charles L. James writes to me:</p> + +<p class='c011'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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.”<a id='r65'></a><a href='#f65' class='c016'><sup>[65]</sup></a> Later, on +November 17, he says: “James, the novelist, came out +to dinner with Sumner. He is a manly, middle-aged +man, <i><span lang="fr">tirant sur le grison</span></i>, as Lafontaine has it, with a +<span class='pageno' id='Page_176'>176</span>gray mustache; very frank, off-hand, and agreeable. +In politics he is a Tory, and very conservative.”<a id='r66'></a><a href='#f66' class='c016'><sup>[66]</sup></a> James +certainly had no reason to complain of his reception by +the best of our own literary men of that day.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 <cite>Jane Eyre</cite>. 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.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>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:</p> + +<p class='c011'>“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: +<cite>The Songster</cite>, <cite>The Gipsey</cite>, <cite>The Convict</cite>, <cite>The +Stepmother</cite>, <cite>The Gentleman of the Old School</cite>, <cite>The +Robber</cite>. <i><span lang="fr">Excusez du peu.</span></i> This sudden return to an +<span class='pageno' id='Page_177'>177</span>ancient favourite hangs upon an accident. The Franklin +County Library contains two works of his, <cite>The Cavalier</cite> +and <cite>Morley Ernstein</cite>. 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.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>R. L. S.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>I have a number of holograph letters of James, some +of which show his pleasant ways and attractive playfulness. +They constitute the <i><span lang="fr">raison d’ étre</span></i> 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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>He writes to C. W. H. Ranken, at Bristol, thus:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r c017'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='sc'>Rennes</span>, 16 January, 1826.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='lg-container-l c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='sc'>Rankeno amico carissimo</span>:</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c018'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_178'>178</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c018'>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.</p> + +<p class='c018'>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.</p> + +<p class='c018'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_179'>179</span>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_180'>180</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c011'>Rennes, first of Feby.</p> + +<p class='c018'>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</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>Yours sincerely</div> + <div class='line in20'><span class='sc'>G. P. R. James</span>.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>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.’<a id='r67'></a><a href='#f67' class='c016'><sup>[67]</sup></a> James writes to the elder Ollier, from +the Chateau du Buisson, Garumbourg, <i><span lang="fr">près</span></i> Evreux, on +August 7, 1829:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-l c017'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“<span class='sc'>My dear Mr. Ollier.</span></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c018'>I take advantage of a friend’s departure for London, +to write to you though I have nothing to say. I have +<span class='pageno' id='Page_181'>181</span>done so much of my new book as I permit myself to do +per diem and having nothing else to do my vile <i><span lang="la">cacoethes +scribendi</span></i> 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 <cite>Adra</cite> 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 <cite>Richelieu</cite> which together +with the news that about four and twenty people +had asked for <cite>Richelieu</cite> and could not get it in England, +Scotland or Ireland, made me write instantly to +Mr. Bentley a very flaming letter about printing <cite>Adra</cite> +&c. &c. &c. I had written to Mr. Colburn sometime +ago without his doing me the <em>honor</em> 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.</p> + +<p class='c018'>Has <cite>Richelieu</cite> 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.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='sc'>G. P. R. James.</span></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_182'>182</span>This letter dated at Maxpoffle, near Melrose, Roxburghshire, +14th June 1832, is addressed to Allan Cunningham.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-l c017'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='sc'>My Dear Sir</span>:</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c018'>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.</p> + +<p class='c018'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_183'>183</span>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</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>Ever yours most truly</div> + <div class='line in20'><span class='sc'>G. P. R. James</span>.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c020'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>Another letter to Cunningham follows:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r c017'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='sc'>Maxpoffle Near Melrose Roxburghshire</span></div> + <div class='line in24'>17th May 1833.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='lg-container-l c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='sc'>My Dear Friend</span>,</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c018'>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 <cite>Mary of Burgundy</cite> 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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_184'>184</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c018'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c018'>In regard to the <cite>String of Pearls</cite> 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.</p> + +<p class='c018'>I trust that the Editor of the Athenæum got a copy +of <cite>Mary of Burgundy</cite> 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; +<span class='pageno' id='Page_185'>185</span>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 <cite>String of +Pearls</cite> I <em>was</em> 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.</p> + +<p class='c018'>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.</p> + +<p class='c018'>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</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>My Dear Allan,</div> + <div class='line in4'>Ever yours truly,</div> + <div class='line in12'><span class='sc'>G. P. R. James</span>.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c018'>P. S.—I have not yet got your last volume but if it +<span class='pageno' id='Page_186'>186</span>be as good as its predecessors you will have no occasion +to whip your Genius.</p> + +<p class='c012'>He writes again to Cunningham:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r c017'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in8'><span class='sc'>10 July, 1835.</span></div> + <div class='line'><span class='sc'>1 Lloyds Place, Blackheath.</span></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='lg-container-l c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='sc'>My Dear Friend</span>:</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c018'>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 <cite>Black Prince</cite> 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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_187'>187</span>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 <em>marble works</em>. 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.</p> + +<p class='c018'>Yours ever with best Compliments to your family</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='sc'>G. P. R. James</span></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c018'>Excuse a scrawl but I am not very well.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='sc'>1 Lloyds Place, Blackheath</span></div> + <div class='line in12'>5th Decr 1835</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c018'><span class='sc'>My Dear Allan</span>,—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.</p> + +<p class='c018'>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. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_188'>188</span>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</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>Yours ever truly,</div> + <div class='line in16'><span class='sc'>G. P. R. James</span></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>He always wrote frankly and freely to Cunningham. +This letter deals with <cite>Attila</cite>.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r c017'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='sc'>The Cottage, Great Marlow, Bucks</span>,</div> + <div class='line in12'>15th April 1837</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='lg-container-l c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='sc'>My Dear Allan</span>,</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c018'>Many thanks for your letter and kind words upon +<cite>Attila</cite>. 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 <em>informed circles</em> +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, +<em>addict</em> themselves to Literature.</p> + +<p class='c018'>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 <cite>Michael +<span class='pageno' id='Page_189'>189</span>Scott to Lord Roldan</cite>. 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 <cite>Attila</cite>. If you have not, read that +sweet and gramatical (<em>sic</em>) 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.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>Yours ever truly</div> + <div class='line in12'><span class='sc'>G. P. R. James</span></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>This letter is directed to “Charles Ollier, Esq., Richard +Bentley, Esq., New Burlington street, London.”</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r c017'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='sc'>Fair Oak Lodge, Petersfield,</span></div> + <div class='line in4'><span class='sc'>Hants</span>, 25th December, 1837.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='lg-container-l c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='sc'>My Dear Ollier</span>:</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c018'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_190'>190</span>the copy; I should like it to be accompanied by +a copy of <cite>Henry Masterton</cite>, 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 <em>me</em> 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.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>Yours ever,</div> + <div class='line in16'><span class='sc'>G. P. R. James</span>.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c018'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>A letter to Alaric Watts refers to the Boundary +Question pamphlet:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r c017'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='sc'>Fair Oak Lodge, Petersfield, Hants</span>,</div> + <div class='line in12'>9th April, 1839.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='lg-container-l c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='sc'>My Dear Watts</span>,</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c018'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_191'>191</span>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?</p> + +<p class='c018'>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.</p> + +<p class='c018'>Pray let me hear from you a few words and believe +me with Mrs. James’s and my own best Compliments +to Mrs. Watts.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>Yours ever</div> + <div class='line in12'><span class='sc'>G. P. R. James</span></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c018'>P. S. I am making a little collection of my works in +their new edition for Mrs. Watts’s book-case and I send +<cite>Richelieu</cite> 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.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='sc'>Alaric A. Watts Esqre</span></div> + <div class='line in4'>Crane Court</div> + <div class='line in12'>Fleet Street</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in8'><span class='sc'>2 Verulam Place Hastings</span></div> + <div class='line in24'>10th January 1840</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='lg-container-l c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='sc'>My Dear Allan</span>,</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c018'>It is very grievous to me to hear that you have been +suffering and it would be as grievous to hear <em>the how</em> 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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_192'>192</span>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 <em>that</em> 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 “<cite>King’s Highway</cite>” but which is not quite so Jack +Sheppardish as the name implies. With our best regards +to all yours believe me ever</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>Yours truly</div> + <div class='line in16'><span class='sc'>G. P. R. James</span></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='lg-container-l c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='sc'>Allan Cunningham Esqre</span></div> + <div class='line in16'>Belgrave Place</div> + <div class='line in28'>Pimlico</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_193'>193</span>I do not know to whom this letter was written.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r c017'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='sc'>Hotel de L’Europe, Brussels</span>,</div> + <div class='line in8'>30th July, ’40.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='lg-container-l c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='sc'>My Dear Sir</span>,</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c018'>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 <i><span lang="fr">chez</span></i> M: C. A. +Fries, Heidelberg en Basle, <i><span lang="fr">aux soins de</span></i> Messrs. Eschenauer +Cie, Strasburg, Via Paris, <i><span lang="fr">Pressé</span></i>.</p> + +<p class='c018'>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 <cite>Edwd. the +Black Prince</cite>.</p> + +<p class='c018'>Any letter for me you had better direct at once to me +“<i><span lang="fr">aux soins de</span></i> 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.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>Yours ever faithfully</div> + <div class='line in20'><span class='sc'>G. P. R. James</span>.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>This letter was written to McGlashan, in Lever’s +care, at Brussels:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r c017'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_194'>194</span><span class='sc'>The Shrubbery, Walmer</span>,</div> + <div class='line in8'>2nd August, 41.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='lg-container-l c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='sc'>My Dear Sir</span>,—</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c018'>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.</p> + +<p class='c018'>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.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>Believe me to be</div> + <div class='line in8'>Dear Sir</div> + <div class='line in12'>Yours faithfully</div> + <div class='line in24'><span class='sc'>G. P. R. James</span>.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>On May 17, 1842, he wrote to Mr. Bretton:</p> + +<p class='c011'>“*** 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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_195'>195</span>for literature. Should you have any oportunity (<em>sic</em>) +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</p> + +<p class='c018'>Yours very faithfully +<span class='sc'>G. P. R. James</span>.</p> + +<p class='c012'>The name of the person to whom the following letter +was written is not given:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r c017'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='sc'>The Oaks nr. Walmer Kent</span></div> + <div class='line in16'><span class='sc'>22nd Augt. 1844</span></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='lg-container-l c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='sc'>Sir</span>:</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c018'>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 <cite>Life of Edward the Black Prince</cite> 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.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>I have the honor to be,</div> + <div class='line in12'>Sir</div> + <div class='line in4'>Your most obedt. Servant</div> + <div class='line in20'><span class='sc'>G. P. R. James</span></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c013'> + <div><span class='pageno' id='Page_196'>196</span><span class='sc'>The Shrubbery Walmer Kent</span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='lg-container-r c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='sc'>1st June 1847</span></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='lg-container-l c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='sc'>My Dear Worthington</span>,</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c018'>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.</p> + +<p class='c018'>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.</p> + +<p class='c018'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c018'>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.</p> + +<p class='c018'>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 <i><span lang="fr">dictionnaire +des Girouettes</span></i>; but I trust soon to be for it seems to me +<span class='pageno' id='Page_197'>197</span>that the Jim Crow system is the only one that succeeds +in England.</p> + +<p class='c018'>Believe me with best regards to all your household</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>Yours truly</div> + <div class='line in16'><span class='sc'>G. P. R. James</span></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>In a letter dated April 1, 1849, and addressed to Mr. +Davison, he says:</p> + +<p class='c011'>“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 <em>riches</em> 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.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>How busy he was after his arrival in America may +be seen from a letter dated October 27, 1850:</p> + +<p class='c011'>“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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_198'>198</span>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 <cite>James’s</cite> story without +a name in the Magazine, but if any other title is +given it must be by yourselves and not by</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“Yours faithfully,</div> + <div class='line in16'>“<span class='sc'>G. P. R. James</span>.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>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:</p> + +<p class='c011'>*** “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.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c007'>On October 5, 1851, he writes from Stockbridge to +Ollier:</p> + +<p class='c011'>“I have not written to you earlier because I wanted +<span class='pageno' id='Page_199'>199</span>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 +<span class='sc'>Shaw</span> 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.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>A letter to Ollier, written at Stockbridge on March +22, 1852, deals with some financial matters and then +proceeds:</p> + +<p class='c011'>“I am glad to hear what you say of <cite>Revenge</cite>—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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_200'>200</span>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—</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c014'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>‘The poor man alone,</div> + <div class='line'>To the poor man’s moan,</div> + <div class='line'>Of his morsel a morsel will give Gaffer Grey.’</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c018'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>Another letter of his written from Winchester, Virginia, +November 6, 1853, to Ollier, has some interest. +He writes thus:</p> + +<p class='c011'>“<span class='sc'>My Dear Ollier</span>: 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 <cite>Ticonderoga</cite>, 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.***</p> + +<p class='c018'>I cannot feel that an appointment of any small +<span class='pageno' id='Page_201'>201</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c018'>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.’</p> + +<p class='c018'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_202'>202</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c018'>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.***</p> + +<p class='c012'>He seems to have been tormented by ill health during +all his period of residence at Norfolk. He writes +to Ollier:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r c017'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='sc'>British Consulate, Norfolk, Virginia</span>,</div> + <div class='line in12'>7th April, 1855.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c018'><span class='sc'>My dear Ollier</span>:—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.</p> + +<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_203'>203</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c011'>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 <cite>Gowrie or the King’s Plot</cite>. I had a good deal +of money embarked in it.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>Yours faithfully,</div> + <div class='line in16'><span class='sc'>G. P. R. James</span>.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>My letter of latest date indicates the time when he +was transferred to Richmond.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r c017'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='sc'>British Consulate, Norfolk, Va.</span></div> + <div class='line in12'>3 May, 1856.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c018'><span class='sc'>My Dear Mr. Kennedy</span>: *** Lord Clarendon +has ordered me to make every preparation for +<span class='pageno' id='Page_204'>204</span>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.***</p> + +<p class='c018'>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.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>Yours ever,</div> + <div class='line in16'><span class='sc'>G. P. R. James</span>.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>I was interested not long ago in a remark of the accomplished +literary reviewer of the <cite>Providence Journal</cite> +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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_205'>205</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_206'>206</span>prone to repeat himself.”<a id='r68'></a><a href='#f68' class='c016'><sup>[68]</sup></a> 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.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 <cite>Quentin Durward</cite> or +Rienzi in Bulwer’s stirring tale. Nor has he left to +posterity any brilliant <em>tour de force</em> like the “Dick Turpin’s +Ride” of Harrison Ainsworth.</p> + +<p class='c007'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_207'>207</span>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 <cite>Amadis +de Gaul</cite> or the forgotten tales of the younger Crébillon.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_209'>209</span> + <h2 class='c005'>APPENDIX<br> <span class='large'>A LIST OF THE WORKS OF G. P. R. JAMES</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>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. <a id='t209'></a>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>Life of Edward the Black Prince: 2 vols.: 1822. +[Some accounts give 1836: See <em>ante</em>, page <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>.]</p> + +<p class='c007'>The Ruined City: a poem.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Richelieu: 3 vols.: 1829.</p> + +<p class='c007'><a href='#t209'>*Darnley</a>: 3 vols.: 1830.</p> + +<p class='c007'><a href='#t209'>*Del’Orme</a>: 3 vols.: 1830.</p> + +<p class='c007'><a href='#t209'>*Philip Augustus</a>: 3 vols.: 1831.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Memoirs of Great Commanders: 3 vols.: 1832.</p> + +<p class='c007'><a href='#t209'>*Henry Masterton</a>: 3 vols.: 1832.</p> + +<p class='c007'>History of Charlemagne. 1832.</p> + +<p class='c007'><a href='#t209'>*Mary of Burgundy</a>: 3 vols.: 1833.</p> + +<p class='c007'><a href='#t209'>*Delaware</a>: 3 vols.: 1833: (reprinted under title of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_210'>210</span>“Thirty Years Since,” 1848).</p> + +<p class='c007'><a href='#t209'>*John Marston Hall</a>: 3 vols.: 1834: (reprinted under +title of “The Little Ball o’ Fire,” 1847).</p> + +<p class='c007'><a href='#t209'>*One in a Thousand</a>: 3 vols.: 1835.</p> + +<p class='c007'><a href='#t209'>*The Gipsey</a>: 3 vols.: 1835.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Educational Institutions of Germany: 1836.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Lives of the Most Eminent Foreign Statesman: 5 +vols.: 4 by James, 1836, [1832?] 1838.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Attila: 3 vols.: 1837.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Memoirs of Celebrated Women: 3 vols. (?) 1837.</p> + +<p class='c007'><a href='#t209'>*The Robber</a>: 3 vols.: 1838.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Book of the Passions: 1838.</p> + +<p class='c007'>History of Louis XIV. 4 vols.: 1838.</p> + +<p class='c007'><a href='#t209'>*The Huguenot</a>: 3 vols.: 1838.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Blanche of Navarre: a play: 1839.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Charles Tyrrell: 2 vols.: 1839.</p> + +<p class='c007'><a href='#t209'>*The Gentleman of the Old School</a>: 3 vols.: 1839.</p> + +<p class='c007'><a href='#t209'>*Henry of Guise</a>: 3 vols.: 1839.</p> + +<p class='c007'>History of the United States Boundary Question: +1839.</p> + +<p class='c007'><a href='#t209'>*The King’s Highway</a>: 3 vols.: 1840.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The Man at Arms: 3 vols.: 1840.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Rose d’Albret: 3 vols.: 1840.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The Jacquerie: 3 vols.: 1841.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The Vernon Letters: 3 vols.: (edited). 1841.</p> + +<p class='c007'><a href='#t209'>*Castleneau; or the Ancient Régime</a>: 3 vols.: 1841.</p> + +<p class='c007'><a href='#t209'>*The Brigand; or Corse de Léon</a>: 3 vols.: 1841.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Corn Laws.</p> + +<p class='c007'>History of Richard Cœur de Lion: 4 vols.: 1841–42.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Commissioner; or De Lunatico Inquirendo: 1842.</p> + +<p class='c007'><a href='#t209'>*Morley Ernstein</a>: 3 vols.: 1842.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Eva St. Clair, and Other Tales: 2 vols.: 1843.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The False Heir: 3 vols.: 1843.</p> + +<p class='c007'><a href='#t209'>*Forest Days</a>: 3 vols.: 1843.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_211'>211</span>History of Chivalry: 1843.</p> + +<p class='c007'><a href='#t209'>*Arabella Stuart</a>: 3 vols.: 1843.</p> + +<p class='c007'><a href='#t209'>*Agincourt</a>: 3 vols.: 1844.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Arrah Neil: 3 vols.: 1845.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The Smuggler: 3 vols.: 1845.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Heidelberg: 3 vols.: 1846.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The Stepmother: 3 vols.: 1846.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Whim and its Consequences: 3 vols.: 1847.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Margaret Graham: 2 vols.: 1847.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The Last of the Fairies: 1847.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The Castle of Ehrenstein: 3 vols.: 1847.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The Woodman: 3 vols.: 1847.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The Convict: 3 vols.: 1847.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Life of Henry IV. of France: 3 vols.: 1847.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Russell: 3 vols.: 1847.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Sir Theodore Broughton: 3 vols.: 1847.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Beauchamp: 3 vols.: 1848.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Carmazalaman; a Fairy Drama: 1848.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The Fight of the Fiddlers: 1848.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Forgery; or Best Intentions: 3 vols.: 1848.</p> + +<p class='c007'><a href='#t209'>*Gowrie; or the King’s Plot</a>: 1848.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Dark Scenes of History: 3 vols.: 1849.</p> + +<p class='c007'>John Jones’ Tales from English History: 2 vols.: +1849.</p> + +<p class='c007'>A String of Pearls: 2 vols.: 1849. [His first written +book; published 1833 (?); Allibone assigns its publication +to 1849].</p> + +<p class='c007'>Ireland’s “David Rizzio”: 1849: (edited).</p> + +<p class='c007'>Heathfield’s “Means of Relief from Taxation”: +1849: (edited).</p> + +<p class='c007'>Henry Smeaton: 3 vols.: 1850.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The Fate: 3 vols.: 1851.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Revenge: (sometimes called A Story Without a +Name): 3 vols.: 1851.</p> + +<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_212'>212</span>Pequinillo: 3 vols.: 1852.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Adrian; or the Clouds of the Mind: (jointly with +M. B. Field): 2 vols.: 1852.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Agnes Sorel: 3 vols.: 1853.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Ticonderoga; or the Black Eagle: 3 vols.: 1854.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Prince Life: 1855.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The Old Dominion; or the Southampton Massacre: +3 vols.: 1856.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Lord Montagu’s Page: 1858.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The Cavalier: (Bernard March?): 1859.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Adra; or the Peruvians: a poem: (<em>circa</em>, 1829).</p> + +<p class='c007'>The City of the Silent: a poem.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The Desultory Man: 3 vols.</p> + +<p class='c007'>Life of Vicissitudes.</p> + +<p class='c007'>My Aunt Pontypool: 3 vols.</p> + +<p class='c007'>The Old Oak Chest: 3 vols.</p> + +<hr class='c021'> +<div class='footnote' id='f1'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r1'>1</a>. Trevelyan’s Life of Macaulay, I, 93.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f2'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r2'>2</a>. Tennyson: E. L. Cary, 19.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f3'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r3'>3</a>. A Great Punch Editor, London, 1907.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f4'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r4'>4</a>. My Study Windows, 337.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f5'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r5'>5</a>. See a review in <cite>The Literary Collector</cite>, September, +1905.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f6'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r6'>6</a>. See Temple Bar Edition, iii, 51–52.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f7'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r7'>7</a>. Blackwood, April, 1827.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f8'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r8'>8</a>. Sala’s Life and Adventures (1896), 83.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f9'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r9'>9</a>. Axon’s Memoir, xxiii: <cite>The World</cite>, March 28, +1878.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f10'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r10'>10</a>. Forster’s Dickens, i. 141.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f11'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r11'>11</a>. Life of Lady Blessington, iii. 226, 227.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f12'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r12'>12</a>. <em>Idem.</em>, iii. 224.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f13'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r13'>13</a>. January 3, 1840: Letters, Am. Edition, 1870, ii. +p. 218.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f14'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r14'>14</a>. Forster’s <cite>Life of Dickens</cite>, I, 118.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f15'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r15'>15</a>. Life of Cruikshank (1882), i, 48–49.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f16'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r16'>16</a>. Dictionary of National Biography, <cite>Cruikshank</cite>.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f17'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r17'>17</a>. Vol. I, 211.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f18'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r18'>18</a>. See introduction to Biographical Edition of Thackeray, +IV. 19.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f19'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r19'>19</a>. British Artists from Hogarth to Turner, ii, 59.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f20'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r20'>20</a>. Vol. ii, 321–322.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f21'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r21'>21</a>. Dict. Nat. Biog., i, 198.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f22'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r22'>22</a>. Autobiography, iv, 390–393.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f23'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r23'>23</a>. 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.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f24'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r24'>24</a>. Brander Matthews: Aspects of Fiction, 153.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f25'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r25'>25</a>. They are said to have caused the death of Oliver +Goldsmith, and pamphlets were published on the subject. +Foster’s <cite>Oliver Goldsmith</cite>, II. 461–463.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f26'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r26'>26</a>. Boswell (Geo. Birkbeck Hill’s Edition), I. 183.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f27'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r27'>27</a>. <em>Id.</em>, III. 442.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f28'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r28'>28</a>. Memories: by M. B. Field p. 188—Harper’s, +1874.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f29'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r29'>29</a>. Allibone gives the date of publication as 1849; but +it must have been published in some form prior to May +17, 1833. See <em>post</em>, page <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f30'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r30'>30</a>. Works Vol. I. “The Gipsey,” vii.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f31'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r31'>31</a>. Dictionary of National Biography, xxix, 209–210.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f32'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r32'>32</a>. Fitzpatrick’s Life of Lever, II. 21.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f33'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r33'>33</a>. This is all according to Field, and may be taken for +what it is worth.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f34'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r34'>34</a>. Memoirs, 191–195.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f35'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r35'>35</a>. 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.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f36'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r36'>36</a>. See Appendix.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f37'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r37'>37</a>. Works, Vol. I. xiv.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f38'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r38'>38</a>. Letter to Cunningham, <em>post</em>, page—.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f39'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r39'>39</a>. Letter of C. L. James.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f40'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r40'>40</a>. English Lands, Letters and Kings, 284.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f41'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r41'>41</a>. Life of Lever, II. 21.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f42'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r42'>42</a>. Fitzpatrick’s Life of Lever II. 418.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f43'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r43'>43</a>. Noctes Ambrosianæ, II. 370—Blackwood Edition, +1887.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f44'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r44'>44</a>. Marginalia, Black’s Edition—III. 393.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f45'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r45'>45</a>. Hall’s Book of Memories, 263.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f46'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r46'>46</a>. Jerdan’s Autobiography, iv 210.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f47'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r47'>47</a>. It was R. H. Horne. A New Spirit of the Age +(1844) p. 136.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f48'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r48'>48</a>. London Athenæum, April 11, 1846.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f49'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r49'>49</a>. Dublin University Magazine, March, 1842.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f50'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r50'>50</a>. Essays and Reviews, ii, 116, 137.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f51'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r51'>51</a>. Derby’s Fifty Years Among Authors, etc. 405.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f52'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r52'>52</a>. My Confidences, 161.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f53'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r53'>53</a>. My Confidences, 533, 534.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f54'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r54'>54</a>. Mr. Gladstone succeeded Lord Ripon as President +of the Board of Trade and took his seat in the Cabinet +on May 19, 1843.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f55'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r55'>55</a>. American Lands and Letters, II. 252.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f56'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r56'>56</a>. Life of Cooper, 268.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f57'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r57'>57</a>. Life and Letters of Bayard Taylor, I, 203.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f58'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r58'>58</a>. Hawthorne and his Circle, 33, 34.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f59'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r59'>59</a>. Vol. I, 422–423.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f60'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r60'>60</a>. Hawthorne and his Wife, I. 415.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f61'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r61'>61</a>. <em>Id.</em> 397, 398.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f62'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r62'>62</a>. A little bit snobbish for a Hawthorne, is it not?</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f63'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r63'>63</a>. Observe how Mr. Julian Hawthorne wholly omits +the point of the observation about the pleasure excursion.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f64'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r64'>64</a>. Life of Hawthorne and his Wife, I. 422–424.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f65'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r65'>65</a>. Life of H. W. Longfellow, by Stephen Longfellow, +II. 177.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f66'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r66'>66</a>. <em>Id.</em>, 182.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f67'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r67'>67</a>. Charles Ollier, 1788–1859.</p> +</div> +<div class='footnote' id='f68'> +<p class='c007'><a href='#r68'>68</a>. Encyclopædia Britannica, XIII. 561 (Ninth Edition).</p> +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c003'> +</div> +<div class='tnotes x-ebookmaker'> + +<div class='chapter ph2'> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c004'> + <div>TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES</div> + </div> +</div> + +</div> + +<table class='table0'> + <tr> + <th class='c022'>Page</th> + <th class='c022'>Changed from</th> + <th class='c023'>Changed to</th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c008'><a href='#t65'>65</a></td> + <td class='c024'>I escape, let me give to the dog’s earing, nocturnally</td> + <td class='c025'>I escape, let me give to the dog’s-earing, nocturnally</td> + </tr> +</table> + + <ul class='ul_1'> + <li>Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained. + + </li> + <li>Used numbers for footnotes, placing them all at the end of the last chapter. + </li> + </ul> + +</div> + +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75216 ***</div> + </body> + <!-- created with ppgen.py 3.57e (with regex) on 2025-01-26 17:58:34 GMT --> +</html> + diff --git a/75216-h/images/cover.jpg b/75216-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2f0e0dc --- /dev/null +++ b/75216-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/75216-h/images/titlepage.jpg b/75216-h/images/titlepage.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..fe6d07e --- /dev/null +++ b/75216-h/images/titlepage.jpg |
