Part 8 (1/2)

Dr. Samuel Parr, whom Macaulay p.r.o.nounced to be the greatest scholar of his age, was a very hard-working literary genius, sensitive more especially to the tender emotions, so that he would weep like a woman when listening to any affecting story. He was very erratic and imaginative, having a special horror of the east wind, which he believed had both a moral and physical power over him. Sheridan knew this very well, and kept the Doctor a prisoner in the house for a whole fortnight by fixing the weatherc.o.c.k in that direction. The Doctor was not without his share of conceit, founded upon the possession of acknowledged talent and ability. He once said in a miscellaneous a.s.sembly, pertinent to the subject before the company: ”England has produced three great cla.s.sical scholars: the first was Bentley, the second was Porson, and the third modesty forbids _me_ to mention.”

In glancing through the records of the past no name upon the roll of fame strikes the eye of appreciation more pleasantly than that of Sir Philip Sidney, whose life has been called poetry put in action. He lived amid contemporary applause, and his memory is the admiration of all. The bravest of soldiers, he was also the gentlest of sons, equally ill.u.s.trious for moral qualities and for intellectual genius, controlled by ”that chast.i.ty of honor which felt a stain like a wound.” No incident in history is more familiar than that of this exhausted warrior resigning the cup of water to a fainting soldier, whose need, he said, was greater than his own. Sidney was one of the brightest ornaments of Queen Elizabeth's court. Lord Brooke, who was his intimate friend, says of him: ”Though I lived with him and knew him from a child, yet I never knew him other than a man with such steadiness of mind, lovely and familiar gravity, as carried grace and reverence above greater years.

His talk was ever of knowledge, and his very play tended to enrich the mind.” His death occurred at the age of thirty-two, from a wound in battle, the result of his self-abnegation. He was in full armor, but seeing the marshal of the camp unprotected, he took off his armor and gave it to him, thus exposing himself to the mortal wound which he received. Fuller says, ”He was slain before Zutphen, in a small skirmish which we may sadly term a great battle, considering our heavy loss therein.”

Victor Hugo was banished from France for his opposition to the _coup d'etat_. He was ever true to his convictions without counting the cost.

”If there is anything grander than Victor Hugo's genius,” said Louis Blanc, ”it is the use which he has made of it.” He affords us an instance of the highest fame and the favor of fortune culminating in ripe old age. When Hugo was but a rising man, he was still looked upon by the elder litterateurs with considerable jealousy. At the time when he was first an aspirant for the honors of the French Academy, and called on M. Royer-Collard to solicit his vote, the st.u.r.dy veteran professed entire ignorance of his name. ”I am the author of 'Notre Dame de Paris,' 'Marion Delorme,' 'Les Derniers Jours d'un Cond.a.m.ne,' etc.”

”I never heard of them,” said Collard. ”Will you do me the honor of accepting a copy of my works?” said Victor Hugo, with perfect urbanity.

”I never read new books,” was the cutting reply.[169] But the time came presently when not to know the author of ”Les Miserables” was to argue one's self unknown. When he had reached the age of sixty-three he wrote on a bit of sketching paper accompanying a scene he wished to delineate in the ”Toilers of the Sea:” ”On the face of this cardboard I have sketched my own destiny,--a steamboat tossed by the tempest in the midst of the monstrous ocean; almost disabled, a.s.saulted by foaming waves, and having nothing left but a bit of smoke which people call glory, which the wind sweeps away, and which const.i.tutes its strength.”

Improvidence has ever been a distinctive and a common feature in the lives of men of genius. Sir Thomas Lawrence, the celebrated English portrait-painter, was an ill.u.s.trious example. Of his natural genius there was ample evidence even in childhood, when at the age of six years he produced in crayon in a very few moments accurate likenesses of eminent persons. At the age of twenty-three he succeeded Sir Joshua Reynolds as first painter to the king. He received a hundred guineas each for his portraits,--head and bust,--and one thousand if full-length, which was a large price for those days; and yet he was always embarra.s.sed for money, and died deeply in debt while president of the Royal Academy.

Thomas Moore was very improvident; and though he realized over thirty thousand pounds from his literary productions, yet his family were obliged to live in the most economical manner, often experiencing serious deprivation of the ordinary comforts of life. ”His excellent wife,” says Rogers, ”contrived to maintain the whole family upon a guinea a week; and he, when in London, thought nothing of throwing away that sum weekly on hackney-coaches and gloves.” In order to escape the payment of his just debts, Moore was finally obliged to go to Paris, where, Rogers tells us, he frittered away a thousand pounds a year.[170]

Lamartine and the elder Dumas are notable examples of gross improvidence,--the first being reduced almost to beggary before his death, and supported solely by the liberal contributions of his admirers, while the latter was much of his life either squandering gold profusely or dodging his honest creditors.

Richard Savage, the unfortunate poet and dramatist, pa.s.sed his life divided between beggary and extravagance. His undoubted genius and ability as an author attracted the hearty friends.h.i.+p of Johnson and Steele, both of whom made earnest efforts to save him from himself; but dissolute habits had taken too firm a hold of him. It is also honorable to Pope that he was his steady and consistent friend almost to the close of his life. Savage's ill-conceived poem of ”The b.a.s.t.a.r.d” was intended to expose the cruelty of his mother, who was responsible in the main for the wreck of his life. He finally died a prisoner for debt in Bristol jail. Undoubtedly Dr. Johnson was right when he said that the miseries which Savage underwent were sometimes the consequence of his faults, and his faults were often the effect of his misfortunes.

The period of which we are writing has been vividly described by Macaulay, from whom we quote:--

”All that is squalid and miserable might now be summed up in the word Poet. That word denoted a creature dressed like a scarecrow, familiar with compters and sponging-houses, and perfectly competent to decide on the comparative merits of the Common Side in the King's Bench prison and of Mount Scoundrel in the Fleet. Even the poorest pitied him; and they well might pity him. For if their condition was equally abject, their aspirings were not equally high, nor their sense of insult equally acute. To lodge in a garret up four pair of stairs, to dine in a cellar among footmen out of place, to translate ten hours a day for the wages of a ditcher, to be hunted by bailiffs from one haunt of beggary and pestilence to another,--from Grub Street to St. George's Field, and from St.

George's Field to the alleys behind St. Martin's church,--to sleep on a bulk in June and amidst the ashes of a gla.s.s-house in December, to die in a hospital and to be buried in a parish vault, was the fate of more than one writer who, if he had lived thirty years earlier, would have been admitted to the sittings of the Kitcat or the Scriblerus club, would have sat in Parliament, and would have been intrusted with emba.s.sies to the High Allies; who, if he had lived in our time, would have found encouragement scarcely less munificent in Albemarle Street or in Paternoster Row.

”As every climate has its peculiar diseases, so every walk of life has its peculiar temptations. The literary character a.s.suredly has always had its share of faults, vanity, jealousy, morbid sensibility. To these faults were now superadded the faults which are commonly found in men whose livelihood is precarious, and whose principles are exposed to the trial of severe distress. All the vices of the gambler and of the beggar were blended with those of the author. The prizes in the wretched lottery of book-making were scarcely less ruinous than the blanks. If good fortune came, it came in such a manner that it was almost certain to be abused.

After a month of starvation and despair, a full third night or a well-received dedication filled the pocket of the lean, ragged, unwashed poet with guineas. He hastened to enjoy those luxuries with the images of which his mind had been haunted while he was sleeping amidst the cinders and eating potatoes at the Irish ordinary in Shoe Lane. A week of taverns soon qualified him for another year of night-cellars. Such was the life of Savage, of Boyse, and of a crowd of others. Sometimes blazing in gold-lace hats and waistcoats; sometimes lying in bed because their coats had gone to pieces, or wearing paper cravats because their linen was in p.a.w.n; sometimes drinking champagne and Tokay with Betty Careless; sometimes standing at the window of an eating-house in Porridge island, to snuff up the scent of what they could not afford to taste,--they knew luxury; they knew beggary; but they never knew comfort. These men were irreclaimable. They looked on a regular and frugal life with the same aversion which an old gypsy or a Mohawk hunter feels for a stationary abode, and for the restraints and securities of civilized communities.”

Notwithstanding Douglas Jerrold received a thousand pounds per annum from ”Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper” alone, besides a respectable income from ”Punch” and other literary labor, he never had a guinea in his pocket; every penny was forestalled, and he left his family in extreme penury.

Goldsmith, as we have seen, was the most improvident of men, and died owing two thousand pounds; which led Dr. Johnson to say, ”Was ever poet so trusted before?” It was at this time that Boswell, who was always a little jealous of Goldsmith's intimacy with Johnson, made some disparaging remarks about the dead poet; whereupon Johnson promptly replied, ”Dr. Goldsmith was wild, sir, but he is so no more!” ”Cover the good man who has been vanquished,” says Thackeray,--”cover his face and pa.s.s on!” Some families seem to inherit impecuniosity; Goldsmith came thus rightfully, so to speak, by his weakness in this respect.[171]

Sheridan, according to Byron, wrote the best comedy, the ”School for Scandal;” the best opera, the ”Duenna;” the best farce, the ”Critic;”

and delivered the most famous oration of modern times. With genius and talents which ent.i.tled him to the highest station, he yet sank into difficulties, mostly through inexcusable improvidence, outraging every principle of justice and of truth, finally dying in neglect. The reader will be apt to recall the anecdote ill.u.s.trative of Sheridan's impecuniosity. As he was hacking his face one day with a dull razor, he turned to his son and said, ”Tom, if you open any more oysters with my razor, I'll cut you off with a s.h.i.+lling.” ”Very well, father,” was the reply; ”but where is the s.h.i.+lling to come from?” Sheridan thought if he had stuck to the law he might have done as well as his friend Erskine; ”but,” he added, ”I had no time for such studies; Mrs. Sheridan and myself were often obliged to keep writing for our daily leg or shoulder of mutton, otherwise we should have had no dinner; yes, it was a _joint_ concern.”

All authorities combine in p.r.o.nouncing the great speech of Sheridan on the impeachment of Warren Hastings to be one of the grandest oratorical efforts known to us. But the persuasive power of eloquence was never better ill.u.s.trated than in the instance of Mirabeau when he pleaded his own case. His liaison with the Marchioness de Mounier surpa.s.ses, in fact, all stories of romance. Mirabeau induced her to run away with him, for which she was seized and thrown into a convent, while he escaped to Switzerland.[172] He was brought to trial, was convicted of contumacy, and sentenced to lose his head. The lady escaped and once more joined him; together they pa.s.sed into Holland, where they were a second time arrested, she being again immured in a convent and he confined in the Castle of Vincennes, where he remained for more than three years. After his liberation he obtained a new trial, pleaded his own case, and by the impa.s.sioned power of his all-commanding eloquence he terrified the court and the prosecutor, melted the audience to tears, obtained a prompt reversal of his sentence, and even threw the whole cost of the suit upon the prosecution.[173]

When the stupid, ill-bred Judge Robinson insulted Curran by reflecting upon his poverty while he was arguing a case before him, saying to him that he ”suspected his law library was rather contracted,” Curran answered the servile office-holder in words of aptest eloquence and cutting irony. ”It is true, my lord,” said Curran, with dignified respect, ”that I am poor, and the circ.u.mstance has somewhat curtailed my library; my books are not numerous, but they are select, and I hope they have been perused with proper disposition. I have prepared myself for this high profession rather by the study of a few good works than by the composition of a great many bad ones. I am not ashamed of my poverty, but I should be ashamed of my wealth could I have stooped to acquire it by servility and corruption. If I rise not to rank, I shall at least be honest; and should I ever cease to be so, many an example shows me that ill-gained reputation, by making me the more conspicuous, would only make me the more universally and the more notoriously contemptible!”

[174]

Speaking of eloquence, Hazlitt describes how he walked ten miles to hear Coleridge the poet preach, and declared that he could not have been more delighted if he had heard the music of the spheres. The names of Fox, Pitt, Grattan, Patrick Henry, Daniel Webster, Wendell Phillips, and Rufus Choate, with many others, crowd upon the mind as we dwell upon the theme of eloquence in oratory. There is eloquence of the pen as well as of the tongue; Socrates of old, celebrated for his n.o.ble oratorical compositions, was of so timid a disposition that he rarely ventured to speak in public. He compared himself to a whetstone, which will not cut, but which readily enables other things to do so; for his productions served as models to other orators.

We have myriads of examples showing us that accident has often determined the bent and development of genius. Accident may not, however, create genius; it is innate, or it is not at all. Cowley tells us that when quite young he chanced upon a copy of the ”Faerie Queene,”[175] nearly the only book at hand, and becoming interested he read it carefully and often, until enchanted thereby he became irrevocably a poet. The apple that fell on Newton's head with a force apparently out of all proportion to its size, led him to ponder upon the fact, until he deduced the great law of gravitation and laid the foundation of his philosophy. It was Shakespeare's youthful roguery which drove him from his trade of wool-carding and necessitated his leaving Stratford. A company of strolling actors became his first new a.s.sociates, and he took up with their business for a while; but dissatisfied with his own success as an actor he turned to writing plays, and thus arose the greatest dramatist the world has produced.

Moliere, who was of very low birth, being often taken as a lad to the theatre by his grandfather, was thus led to study the usages of the stage, and came to be the greatest dramatic author of France.

”Tartuffe,” which he wrote a hundred and twenty years ago, still holds the stage, as well as many others of his inimitable productions. He was the Shakespeare of France. Hallam says that Shakespeare had the greater genius, but Moliere has perhaps written the better comedies. Corneille fell in love, and was thus incited to pour out his feelings in verse, developing rapidly into a poet and dramatist. He was intended for the law; but love tripped up his heels and made him a poet.

The chance perusal of De Foe's ”Essay on Projects,” Dr. Franklin tells us, influenced the princ.i.p.al events and course of his life; so the reading of the ”Lives of the Saints” caused Ignatius Loyola to form the purpose of creating a new religious order,--which purpose eventuated in the powerful society of the Jesuits. Benjamin West says, ”A kiss from my mother made me a painter.”[176] La Fontaine read by chance a volume of Malherbe's poems,--he who was called ”the poet of princes and the prince of poets,”--whereby he became so impressed, that ever after his mind sought expression through the same medium. Rousseau's eccentric genius was first aroused by an advertis.e.m.e.nt offering a prize for the best essay on a certain theme, which brought out his ”Declamation against the Arts and Sciences” (winning the prize thereby), and determined his future career. The husband and father of the woman who nursed Michael Angelo were stone-masons, and the chisel thus became the first and most common plaything put into the child's hands; hence his earliest efforts were made to apply the hammer and chisel to marble, and the seed was planted which blossomed into art. It was the accidental observation of steam, lifting by its expansive power the heavy iron cover of a boiling pot, that suggested to the mind of James Watt thoughts which led to the invention of the steam-engine. The ”Pickwick Papers,” d.i.c.kens's earliest and best literary work, owes its origin to the publisher of a magazine upon which he was doing job-work desiring him to write a serial story to fit some comic pictures which were in the publisher's possession. The genius was in d.i.c.kens, but it slept.

The sight of Virgil's tomb, just above the Grotto of Posilippo, at Naples, determined Giovanni's literary vocation for life. So Gibbon was struck with the idea of writing his ”Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire,”

as he sat dreaming amid the ruins of the Forum.[177] When Scott was a mere boy he chanced upon a copy of Percy's ”Reliques of Ancient Poetry,”