Part 6 (2/2)
Of course, discovery of the author was unavoidable: so we collided and coalesced, and I rejoiced to find in this ”Angel unaware” no less a celebrity than John Hughes of Donnington Priory, father of the still greater celebrity (then a youth) Toby and ”Tom Brown's Schooldays” Some time after I spent several pleasant days at his fine old place in Berks, and htest old lady I ever met, his mother, who had known Burns and Byron and Scott; as also with his pleasant good wife and her clever sons, one of whoirl, the heiress-ward of rande daby in both hemispheres, for rifledoeshi+p These excellent friendshi+ps surviveyears and will be transplanted elsewhere hereafter All this grew from a casual encounter outside a coach: but such is life; e call accidents are all providences, and we are guided inch by inch and e in Yorkshi+re e in connection with Andrew Irvine's turkeycock irascibility
”Watch little providences: if indeed Or less there be, or greater, in the sight Of Hiht, And sees the forest hidden in the seed: Of all that happens take thou reverent heed, For seen in true Religion's happier light (Though not unknown of Reason's placid creed) All things are ordered; all by orbits ns, Whereby the mind not doubtfully divines What is the will of Hiuidance those paternal hints That all is well, that thou art led by Love, And in thy travel trackest old footprints”
CHAPTER XII
PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY
And this ress, and after long years the full completion of what is manifestly my chief authorial work in life, ”Proverbial Philosophy” To ensure accuracy, and not leave all the details to oftentiive a few extracts froinning of Volurown to s, anecdotes, and letters and scraps of all sorts relating to my numerous works
”In the year 1828, when under Mr Holt's roof at Albury (anno aetatis ht myself, for the special use and behoof of my cousin Isabella, who seven years after became my wife, that I would transcribe my notions on the holy estate of ht, and a forhts, so I resolved to convey them in the manner of Solomon's Proverbs or the 'Wisdom' of Jesus the Son of Sirach: and I did so,--successively, in the Articles first on Marriage, then Love, then Friendshi+p, and fourthly on Education: several other pieces growing afterwards Whilst at Albury, h M'Neile, ararding them as private and personal, I would not hear of it, and in fact it was nine years before they saw print; thus literally, though Ithe Horatian advice, 'nonuust 1838, Mr Stebbing, whose chapel, in the Hae, Regent's Park, infor the _Athenaeu, I was induced to show hiive_ theered; perhaps the rather in that I objected to piece soazine and journalistic literature generally That I made an enemy of him was evidenced by a spiteful little notice in the _Athenaeum_ of April 21st (threethat it was 'a book not likely to please beyond the circle of a few minds as eccentric as the author's'
The saether from any notice in the _Examiner_ wherein he had some literary influence” To this day these reviews have beendid ood; he praised the idea as 'new, because a resuscitation of as very old,'--and as of ood vehicle for thoughts on manyauthor's fa as above So, after a last intervieith him at his house, wherein I conclusively refused hi down (as I recollect at the street corner post opposite Ha paragraph,--
”'Thoughts that have tarried in my mind, and peopled its inner chambers,' &c, &c
”In ten weeks fro it then all I should ever write;--the sa been my delusion at the close of each of my four series My first publisher was Rickerby of Abchurch Lane, who produced a beautifully printed small folio volume with ornamental initials, and now very scarce: it cahtto sell, it was in great part sent to A a copy, fancied the book that of sootten author of the Elizabethan era, and quoted it week after week in a periodical of his, _The Home Journal_, as such: years afterwards, when he met ht dead three hundred years was still alive and juvenile and ruddy
”It th the s of the press to my first odd volumes; suffice it to say, that the kind critics ith few exceptions unanih Hunt, and St John particularly favoureda tenth edition: but I must still condescend to pick out at the end of this paper a few of the plued, if only to please the numerous admirers of my chief 'lifework' One coh has ever been bought or rewarded As to the less fulsome style of criticism, I was supposed by the _Spectator_ to have 'written in hexameters,'--as if David or Solomon had ever imitated Homer or some more ancient predecessor of his; and the _Sun_ fancied that I had 'culled from Erasnorant of their wisdoms: Saavedra I have since learned is Cervantes The _Sunday Times_ finds 'Proverbial Philosophy' 'very like Dodsley's ”Economy of Human Life,”' but I may say I never saw that neat little book of ave it to me fourteen years after my Philosophy was public property; I am also by this critic supposed to have 'imitated the Gulistan or Bostan of Saadi,'--whereof I need not profess norance: however, the writer kindly says of me, 'if he fail to make himself heard, the fault will be rather in the public than in him' The _Metropolitan_ propounds that 'a book like this would make a man's fortune in the East, but we are afraid that philosophy in proverbs has no great chance in the West: we should recoet it translated into Arabic'” [I have since heard that soh as to those first fruits of criticisht be extended to satiety; but I decline to become ”inebriated with the exuberance of my own verbosity,” as Beaconsfield has it about Gladstone
To carry on the story of my old book, its second series was due to Harrison Ainsworth, at all events instruazine, he asked me to help him with a contribution in the style of that then new popularity,days, it was thought ungentleh dukes, archbishops, and preht vulgar: but, when there greeted ift fro all that were then extant of Ainsworth's, I was so taken aback by his kindly munificence that I somewhat penitentially responded thereto by an impromptu chapter on ”Gifts,” ith I hted: one or two others following
However, I was too quick and too impatient to wait for piece I soon hadRickerby as an unfruitful publisher (though, as will soon appear, he produced other books forand prosperous career--receiving annually fro benefited both the like, 10,000 a piece But in the course of tirandfather and the father of the house, excellent men both, went severally to the Better Land, and I had published other books elsewhere, as will be seen, anon: and, as, Mr Bertrand Payne, who represented the respectable poetic house of Moxon, desired to includepreviously obtained license both from me and Messrs Hall & Virtue to select specimens of my lyrics for his volume, asked ly assented, but found myself repulsed by the temporary chief at Hatchards'--lately a subordinate--with a direct refusal to permit any portion of my book, of which they had a three years' lease then nearly out, to be included in the specimen volume until, the whole remainder copies were sold off Mr Payne on that i a cheque of 900 in payot one-half, as I should have done if sold at Hatchards' I then of course went equitably over to Moxon's,--and not long after published estion and solicitation: it was not a financial success, anyhts on topics of the day so handso its reverses,--and a fourth and final series of ”Proverbial Philosophy” having grown up o to Ward & Lock, that ht for wider circulation be all included in one cheap voluot up, and with theh the royalty is only about a penny a volume, the numbers licensed have been an edition of 20,000 succeeded in the course of years by another of 30,000; and I still leave the book with them so far as that cheap issue is concerned
As, however, I desired to meet the wish of many friends and others of the public who often asked for a handso a reproduction of Hatchards' quarto, with additional illustrations for the new ements to have the whole four series issued piecemeal in weekly or ested) a certain de that the aristocracy and gentry had bought the whole volu on a new sale I did not then know that Cassell's had numerous serials already on hand, and that many of them were unremunerative; and so I was a little surprised and vexed to find that my book was after all to appear as a whole and not in nuuinea, in these cheap times quite prohibitive, I protested vainly as to this; as I did also at the unsatisfactory character of the illustrations to the third and fourth series, promised to be equal to Hatchards' first and second, which had cost 2000: but Cassell's additions were cheaply and insufficiently supplied by old Gerht be to my words for illustration This manifest inferiority of the last half of the volureat price, stopped the sale,--and after a tih hand all the copies were sold off by auction, to the loss of both publisher and author As I had supplied gratis the plates of Hatchards' edition, buying up the half notthe other, I found e suht of wood-blocks and stereotypes:--which ether the whole affair was unsatisfactory and disappointing Individuals enial, honest, and considerate, but a coain in the shrewdest way Of all this I'll coh, no more
In their several places, many anecdotes about ”Proverbial Philosophy”
shall duly appear: I ood old enarian, first saw me, he placed his hand on my dark hair and said with tears in his eyes, ”You will thank God for this book when your head coe that he was a true prophet When I riting the concluding essay of the first series, my father (not quite such a prophet as old Hatchard) exhorted me to burn it, as his a failed fro, and he had very little confidence, as afortune However, it did not get burnt, though I had soet it printed instead The dear good man lived to bless me for it, especially for my essay on Iave ift in consequence
As Ithis curious literary anecdote,--which, as known to others, I could scarcely have suppressed,--it is only fair to the memory of my dear and honoured father that I should here produce one of his very few letters toupon this sahton, and is dated Laura House, Southampton, October 16, 1842:--
”My dearest Martin,--Anything that I could say, or any praise that I could give respecting your last volume would, in my estimation, fall very far short indeed of its merits I shall therefore merely say that I look upon your chapter upon Immortality, not only as a most exquisite speci in the most satisfactory manner the _wisdom_ of infidelity, almost perfect I only hope that you may receive the just tribute of the literary cos as the author of that chapter must be very enviable
God bless you, dearest, dearest Martin--Believe me, ever your affectionate father and sincere friend,
Martin Tupper”
I need not say that these are ”_ipsissima verba_,” and that I here insert the letter in full, as the warmest and most honourable palinode I could have received from a man so usually reserved and reticent as was my revered and excellent father
The brother of ale (to be more spoken of hereafter) was so fascinated with the book that he copied it all out in his own handwriting, word for word, and was jocularly accused of pretending to its authorshi+p I once met an enthusiast who knew both the two first series by heart,--and certainly he went on wherever I tried to pose hi far less faithful
Similarly my more recent friend William Hawkes claims to have read the whole book sixty times; whereof this impromptu of mine is a sort of half proof:--