Part 10 (1/2)
”But see where artful Dryden next appears, Grown old in rhyme, but charming e'en in years; Great Dryden next, whose tuneful Muse affords The sweetest numbers and the fittest words.
Whether in comic sounds or tragic airs She forms her voice, she moves our smiles or tears; If satire or heroic strains she writes, Her hero pleases and her satire bites; From her no harsh, unartful numbers fall, She wears all dresses, and she charms in all.”
Richard Porson, the profound scholar, linguist, and wit, reared many monuments of cla.s.sic learning, which have however crumbled away, leaving his name familiar to us only as a writer of _jeux d'esprit_; but these are admirable. He was full of the suns.h.i.+ne of wit; and though sarcastic and personal, as the nature of his _bon-mots_ compelled, he had no bitterness in his reflections, and uttered them with a good-natured laugh. Wonderful stories are told of his powers of memory. He could repeat several consecutive pages of a book after reading them once. It was he who wrote a hundred epigrams in one night on the subject of Pitt's drinking habit, one of which occurs to us:--
”When Billy found he scarce could stand, 'Help, help!' he cried, and stretched his hand, To faithful Harry calling.
Quoth he, 'My friend, I'm sorry for't, 'Tis not my practice to support A minister that's falling.'”
The ”faithful Harry” was Dundas, Viscount Melville.
The reply of Pitt to Walpole, March 6, 1741, is one of the finest, most polished, and biting retorts on record: ”The atrocious crime of being a young man, which the honorable gentleman has, with such spirit and decency, charged upon me, I shall neither attempt to palliate nor deny, but content myself with wis.h.i.+ng that I may be one of those whose follies may cease with their youth, and not of that number who are ignorant in spite of experience.”
Dr. Gilles, the historian of Greece, and Dr. Porson used often to meet and discuss matters of mutual interest relating to the cla.s.sics. These interviews were certain to lead to very earnest arguments; Porson was much the better scholar of the two. Dr. Gilles was one day speaking to him of the Greek tragedies and of the Odes of Pindar. ”We know nothing,”
said Gilles, emphatically, ”of the Greek metres.” Porson answered: ”If, Doctor, you will put your observation in the singular number, I believe it will be quite correct.” In repartee he was remarkable. ”Dr. Porson,”
said a gentleman with whom he had been disputing,--”Dr. Porson, my opinion of you is most contemptible.” ”Sir,” responded the Doctor promptly, ”I never knew an opinion of yours that was not contemptible.”
Porson was a natural wit, so to speak. Being once at a dinner-party where the conversation turned upon Captain Cook and his celebrated voyages, an ignorant person in order to contribute something towards the conversation asked, ”Pray, was Cook killed on his first voyage?” ”I believe he was,” answered Porson, ”though he did not mind it much, but immediately entered upon a second.”
The sharpest repartee is both witty and satirical. James II., when Duke of York, made a visit to Milton, prompted by curiosity. In the course of his conversation the Duke said to the poet that he thought his blindness was a judgment of Heaven on him because he had written against Charles I., the Duke's father; whereupon the immortal poet replied: ”If your Highness thinks that misfortunes are indexes of the wrath of Heaven, what must you think of your father's tragical end? I have lost my eyes--he lost his head.”
Few men equalled Coleridge in the matter of prompt readiness of retort, and few have so misused the lavish gifts of Providence.[194] On a certain occasion he was riding along a Durham turnpike road, in his awkward fas.h.i.+on,--for he was no horseman,--when a wag, noticing his peculiarity, approached him. Quite mistaking his man, he thought the rider a good subject for a little sport, and so accosted him: ”I say, young man, did you meet a _tailor_ on the road?” ”Yes,” replied Coleridge, ”I did, and he told me if I went a little further I should meet a _goose_!” The a.s.sailant was struck dumb, while the traveller jogged leisurely on.
Lord Bolingbroke, the ardent friend of Pope, was often bitterly satirical, and notably quick at retort. Being at Aix-la-Chapelle during the treaty of peace at that place, he was asked impertinently by a Frenchman whether he came there in any public character. ”No, sir,”
replied Bolingbroke, very deliberately; ”I come like a French minister, with no character at all.” Bolingbroke's talents were more brilliant than solid, but the style of his literary work is admirable. It is generally believed that he wrote the ”Essay on Man” in prose, and that Pope put it into verse, with such additions as would naturally occur in such an adaptation.
Painters, like poets, are equal at times to producing the keenest epigrams. Salvator Rosa's opinion of Michael Angelo's ”Last Judgment” is an instance of this. The brother artist wrote not unkindly as follows:--
”My Michael Angelo, I do not jest; Thy pencil a great judgment has expressed; But in that judgment thou, alas! hast shown But very little judgment of thine own!”
We have already spoken of Moliere[195] in these pages, though only too briefly when his just fame is considered. England has her Shakespeare, Spain her Cervantes, Germany her Goethe, and France her Moliere. We have seen how triumphantly his powerful genius made its way amid adverse circ.u.mstances, until it enabled him, as Disraeli says, ”to give his country a Plautus in farce, a Terence in composition, and a Menander in his moral truths.” In short, Moliere showed that the most successful reformer of the manners and morals of the people is a great comic poet.
Did not Cervantes ”laugh Spain's chivalry away”? It is a curious fact, worthy of note, that Moliere, who was so great a comic writer, and such an admirable comedian upon the stage, should have been socially one of the most serious of men and of a melancholic temperament. It was a considerable time before his genius struck out in the right direction and became self-reliant. At the beginning of his dramatic authors.h.i.+p he ”borrowed bravely” from the Italian, as Shakespeare did; and Spanish legends were also adapted by his facile pen to dramatic purposes, himself enacting chosen comedy parts of his own plays.
This course, however, did not satisfy the genius of Moliere; he felt that he was capable of greater originality and of more truly artistic work. After much communing with himself he sought a new and more legitimate field of inspiration and employed fresher material. Having now the entree to the Hotel de Rambouillet, he began to study with critical eye the court life about him, soon producing his ”Precieuses Ridicules,” which was a biting satire upon the follies of the day, though delicately screened. The author skilfully parried in the prologue any application to his court a.s.sociates, by averring that the satire was aimed at their imitators in the provinces. The _ruse_ was sufficient, and the play was performed without offence; but its significance was nevertheless realized, and had its reformative influence without producing too great a shock. It was almost his first grand and original effort, and from thenceforth his career was a triumphal march. He is said to have exclaimed, ”I need no longer study Plautus and Terence, nor poach on the fragments of Menander, I have only to study the world about me.” Subsequently the brilliant success of his ”Tartuffe,” his ”Misanthrope,” and his ”Bourgeois Gentilhomme” confirmed him in his conviction. Although society felt itself arraigned, it was also humbled and powerless. The author had become too great a power to be suppressed.
Moliere's domestic life, like that of only too many men of genius, and especially of authors, was a wreck.[196]
It may be doubted if such persons ought to marry at all. Rousseau is another instance of domestic infelicity; and so are Milton, Dryden, Addison, Steele; indeed, the list could be indefinitely extended. A young painter of great promise once told Sir Joshua Reynolds that he had taken a wife. ”Married!” responded the great master; ”then you are ruined as an artist.” Michael Angelo's answer when he was asked why he never married will be remembered: ”I have espoused my art, and that occasions me sufficient domestic cares; my works shall be my children.”
The marriage of men of genius forms a theme of no little interest in the history of literature. It is herein that genius has oftenest found its suns.h.i.+ne or its shadow. Even Emerson has said, ”Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged from the beginning of the world that such as are in the inst.i.tution wish to get out, and such as are out wish to get in?” Rousseau married a kitchen-girl, and Raphael allied himself for the last eleven years of his life with a common girl of Rome, whom he first saw was.h.i.+ng her feet in the Tiber. Judging from her portrait, which he painted, and which still hangs in the Barberini Gallery, she was by no means beautiful, though the ensemble of head, face, and neck strikes the eye as forming a very attractive whole. Margarita belonged to the lower cla.s.ses of the Eternal City, and when Raphael died she went back to her former obscurity. There must have been many n.o.ble qualities in this young Roman girl, to have held the consistent devotion of so great an artist for an entire decade. She must have possessed some inspiring influence over him other than forming his mere physical model.
Sympathetic she undoubtedly was, or else no such union could have lasted; and one feels that he must have imparted to her a portion of the glowing aspirations which fired his own genius.
Goethe married to legitimize his offspring; Niebuhr, to please a mistress; Churchill, because he was dispirited and lonely; Napoleon, to obtain influence; Wilkes, to oblige a friend; Lamartine, in grat.i.tude for a fortune which was offered to him, and which he rapidly squandered; Wycherly married his servant to spite his relations. And so we might fill pages with brief mention of the influences which have led men of note to a.s.sume matrimonial relations. Balzac's marriage forms a curious example. He met by chance, when travelling, a youthful married lady, who told him, without knowing who he was, how much she admired Balzac's writings. ”I never travel without a volume of his,” she added, producing a copy. Greatly flattered, the author made himself known to the lady, who was a princess by birth, and who became his constant correspondent until the death of her husband, when she gave him her hand and fortune.
They were married, and settled to domestic life in a chateau on the Rhine.
But we have wandered away from Moliere before quite concluding the consideration of himself and his works. One of his most popular productions, ”L'Impromptu de Versailles,” has often been borrowed from; indeed, the general idea has been appropriated bodily both on the English and American stage. In this piece Moliere appears in his own person and in the midst of his whole theatrical company, apparently taken quite aback because there is no suitable piece prepared for the occasion. The characters are the actors as though congregated in the Green Room, with whom the manager is consulting, now reprimanding and now advising. In the course of his remarks he throws out hints of plots designed for plays, criticises his own productions, gives amusing sketches of character, and in short presents a humorous, realistic, and unique scene which formed as a whole a very complete comedy, and which proved a grand success. Louis XIV. was his friend and patron; being himself particularly fond of theatrical performances, he often made shrewd suggestions, which the actor and dramatist took good care faithfully to adopt. Indeed, it was said that this then unique idea of the Green Room brought before the curtain was from his Majesty's own brain, though greatly improved upon by Moliere. Some of the plots hinted at by the manager before his company in this play were afterwards amplified and perfected so as to become popular dramas, not only by Moliere, but by other dramatists. This is notably the case with Beaumarchais' ”Barber of Seville,” which is but the elaboration of one of these incipient plots. However, Moliere was himself so liberal a borrower, like Montesquieu, Racine, and Corneille, he could well afford to lend to others. Bruyere embodies whole pa.s.sages from Publius Syrus in his printed works; and La Fontaine borrowed his style and much of his matter from Mazot and Rabelais. Though we have referred to this subject before, we will add that Voltaire looked upon everything as imitation; saying that the instruction which we gather from books is like fire: we fetch it from our neighbor's, kindle it at home, and communicate it to others, till it becomes the property of all.
CHAPTER XII.
Every thoughtful person must often have realized how close is the natural sympathy between artists in literature and artists of the pencil and brush; between painters and poets. Belori informs us of a curious volume in ma.n.u.script by the hand of Rubens, which contained among other topics descriptions of the pa.s.sions and actions of men, drawn from the poets and delineated by the artist's own graphic pencil. Here were represented battles, s.h.i.+pwrecks, landscapes, and various casualties of life, copied and ill.u.s.trated from Virgil and other cla.s.sic poets, showing clearly whence Rubens often got his inspiration and ideas of detail. The painter and the poet are the Siamese-twins of genius. The finest picture ever produced is but poetry realized, though each art has its distinct province. The same may be said as to sculpture and poetry.