Part 7 (1/2)
His society was eagerly sought after. With a fastidious la.s.situde of air, and an apparent disinclination to exertion, he possessed remarkable force of thought and fluency of diction; and it was no uncommon thing to see him, when he had begun to relate pa.s.sages from his experience in foreign countries, or adventures in his own, the centre of a gradually increasing audience, amidst which he sat, improvisating a sort of romantic recitation, until he was completely carried away on the current of his own eloquence, and lost every sense of where he was or what he was doing, in the enthusiasm he had fanned up and saw reflected around him. This power was a peculiar gift; and he loved to exercise it. In this form many of his happiest effusions have been given utterance to; and every body who has heard him at such inspired moments has felt regret that the brilliant bursts which so delighted him, should have been stamped upon no more retentive tablets than the ears of ordinary listeners.
”Of this amiable, refined and gifted individual, we are afraid to speak as warmly as our heart would dictate. Before us lie the few hasty lines--but not too hurried to be the channel of a parting kindness--scrawled to us on the first day of this year--the last day the writer was ever to pa.s.s in England. They are, perhaps, amongst the latest words he ever wrote. 'I am off,' they run 'for the West Indies to-morrow. _But I have accomplished your affair._' Oh, vanity of human purpose! Man proposes--G.o.d disposes. We were next to hear of him, standing on the deck of the burning vessel in the Atlantic, alone with the captain, after every other soul had disappeared, surveying--we feel convinced, with a courage of a lion--the awful twofold death close before him, and which he had in probability deliberately preferred to an early relinquishment of his companions to their fate. It is a fine picture--one that shall every hang framed with his image in our memory; helping us to believe that
”'-----Lycidas our sorrow is not dead.
Sunk though he be beneath the watery flood,'--
But that he hath mounted to a higher sphere--
”'Through the dear might of Him that walked the waves.'”
AUTHOR OF ”THE FOOL OF QUALITY.”
Of the interesting papers in the February Dublin University Magazine, we have read none with more satisfaction than the biographical sketch and portrait of one of the most distinguished Irishmen of his own or any age, the gifted and pure minded author of _Gustavus Vasa_ and _The Fool of Quality_, HENRY BROOKE. Of his literary fate it might be said that the most unfortunate thing he did was to a.s.sert the patriotism of Dean Swift; and the most unfortunate thing was to be left out of Doctor Johnson's ”Lives of the Poets.” Trials had he to undergo, although not absolutely driven to the wall, like many children of ”the fatal dowry,”
and those of Irish complexion, in particular; but he bravely bore up against them. Those who deem that relatives may live more happily apart, and that friends.h.i.+p is best preserved in full dress, may look at the picture of Henry Brooke, the poet and politician, and Robert Brooke, the painter, with their wives and children, not less than twenty, living together in perfect peace and amity at Daisy Park, in the flattest part of Kildare, where, in those dull seats and distant times, a family breeze might now and then have been looked on in the Irish sense as a ”convenience and a comfort.” ”While Henry wrote,” says the biographer, ”Robert painted, and sold his pictures; and thus these two loving brothers, having lost their property, made a right and manful use of their intellectual gifts, and supported their large families by the sweat of their brows.”
”In his politics, Brooke was of the old whig school; and, had he lived in 1829, he would probably have been an emanc.i.p.ator. He was a right-minded, ardent Irishman in his love for fatherland; hated oppression; idolized liberty; wrote most keenly against Poyning's infamous laws; mourned over the misrule and misgovernment of his country, under the tyranny and rapacity of the Stuart dynasty; admired King William, and was an exulting Protestant; yet greatly loved his Roman Catholic neighbors, and would preserve to them their properties, though he disliked their principles, and deprecated their ascendency.”
Dr. Johnson's feelings respecting Brooke are accounted for, not improbably, as follows:
”It may be asked why did Dr. Johnson exclude Brooke from his 'Lives of the Poets,' where so many names of little note are to be found? In 1739, Johnson had written in Brooke's praise in his 'Complete Vindication,' and twenty years afterwards, when the learned Dr. Campbell showed a spirited 'Prospectus of a History of Ireland' written by him, to the great moralist, he read it with much pleasure and praise, saying that 'every line breathed the true fire of genius.' It is recorded that, on this occasion, Johnson lamented that 'the vanity of Irishmen, even if their patriotism were extinct, did not enable Brooke to carry his design into execution.'
In Johnson's letter to Charles O'Connor we have his mind on the subject. To Brooke he appears never to have written; there had been an ancient quarrel between them. They had argued and disagreed; and the traditionary story in Brooke's family bears _so_ heavily on the manner of the philosopher, and is _so_ flattering to the courtesy of the poet, that we should prefer not to write it down. Brooke was at all times strangely careless of fame; independent to a fault, and more proud than vain; and though much urged by his friends to humble himself, yet he could not be induced to 'bow down' to the cap of this literary Gesler, much as he regarded his learning and n.o.ble intellect. This dislike of the Doctor continued during his life; and Boswell narrates that on the occasion of a play being read to him (it was Brooke's _Gustavus Vasa_) and a circle of friends, on coming to the line--
”Who rules o'er free men should himself be free!'
the company applauded, but Johnson said it might as well be said--
”'Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat--'
a stupid and inapt verbal sophism, and unworthy of his great and good mind; but such was often his way. In this fas.h.i.+on one might string endless parodies on the line, and equally inapplicable; for example:--
”'Who keeps a madhouse should himself be mad!'
”Mr. Brooke's elegant and honest mind probably had in view that word of Scripture which saith, 'he that ruleth his own spirit is better than he who taketh a city'--(Prov. xvi.
32.)
”By this unhappy difference Brooke lost his Johnsonian niche in the temple of biographical fame. Yet we must remember that a better fate was his,--'his record is on high,'--and his spirit with that Saviour who loved him and made him what he was. Faults and inconsistency were in him, no doubt, but still we know not of any of whom it could be so well and suitably said--
”'His life was gentle, and the elements So mixed him, that Nature might stand up And say to all the world, 'This was a man.'”
BANCROFT'S AMERICAN REVOLUTION.[5]
From the Westminster Review.
Among the historians who have attained a high and deserved reputation in the United States, within the last few years, we are inclined to yield the first place to George Bancroft. His great work on the history of the United States has been brought down from the commencement of American colonization to the opening of the Revolutionary War, to which subject it is understood that he intends devoting the three succeeding volumes.
His researches in the public offices of England, while he was Minister of the United States at the Court of St. James, have brought to light a great ma.s.s of doc.u.mentary evidence on the antecedents and course of the Revolution, which have not yet been made public. With his critical sagacity in sifting evidence, his hound-like instinct in scenting every particle of testimony that can lead him on the right-track, and his plastic skill in moulding the most confused and discordant materials into a compact, symmetrical, and truthful narrative, he cannot fail to present the story of that great historical drama with a freshness, accuracy, and artistic beauty, worthy of the immortal events which it commemorates. Mr. Bancroft is now exclusively occupied in the completion of this work. He pursues it with the drudging fidelity of a mechanical laborer, combined with the enthusiasm of a poet and the comprehensive wisdom of a statesman. With strong social tastes, he gives little time to society. His favorite post is in his library, where he labors the live-long day in the spirit of the ancient artist, _Nulla dies sine linea_. His experience in political and diplomatic life, no less than his rare and generous culture, and his singular union of the highest mental faculties, enable us to predict with confidence that this work will be reckoned among the genuine masterpieces of historical genius. The volumes of the History of the United States already published, are well known to intelligent readers both in Great Britain and America. They are distinguished for their compact brevity of statement, their terse and vigorous diction, their brilliant panoramic views, and the boldness and grace of their sketches of personal character. A still higher praise may be awarded to this history for the tenacity with which it clings to the dominant and inspiring idea of which it records the development. Whoever reads it without comprehending the standpoint of the author, is liable to disappointment. For it must be confessed that as a mere narrative of events, the preference may be given to the productions of far inferior authors. But it is to be regarded as an epic in prose of the triumph of freedom. This n.o.ble principle is considered by Mr. Bancroft as an essential attribute of the soul, necessarily a.s.serting itself in proportion to the spiritual supremacy which has been achieved. The history, then, is devoted to the ill.u.s.tration of the progress of freedom, as an out-birth of the spontaneous action of the soul. It is in this point of view that the remarkable chapters on the Ma.s.sachusetts Pilgrims, the Pennsylvania Quakers, and the North American Indians, were written; and their full purport, their profound significance, can only be appreciated by readers whose minds possess at least the seeds of sympathy and cognateness with this sublime philosophy. The chapter on the Quakers is a pregnant psychological treatise. Sparkling all over with the electric lights of a rich humanitary philosophy, it invests the theologic visions of Fox and Barclay with a radiance and beauty which have been ill-preserved in the formal and lifeless organic systems of their successors. The parallel run by the historian between William Penn and John Locke is one of the most characteristic productions of his peculiar genius. Original, subtle, suggestive, crowded with matter and frugal of words, it brings out the distinctive features of the spiritual and mechanical schools in the persons of two of their 'representative men,' with a breadth and reality which is seldom found in philosophical portraitures. Mr.
Bancroft was the son of an eminent Unitarian clergyman in Worcester, Ma.s.sachusetts. He was born about the beginning of the present century, and is consequently a little more than fifty years of age. He graduated at Harvard University, with distinguished honors, before he had completed his fifteenth year. Soon after he sailed for Europe, and continued his studies at the German Universities, returning to his own country just before the attainment of his majority. Devoting himself for several years to literary and educational pursuits, he acquired a brilliant reputation as a poet, critic, and essayist; and at a subsequent period, entering the career of politics, he has signalized himself by his attachment to democratic ideas, and the eloquence and force with which on all occasions he has sustained the principles with the prevalence of which he identifies the progress of humanity.
From the Athenaeum.