Part 17 (1/2)

[Footnote A: See what is said on this subject in the article on Sterne in the ”Literary Miscellanies,” of the present volume.]

And thus also is it with the personal dispositions of an author, which may be quite the reverse from those which appear in his writings. Johnson would not believe that HORACE was a happy man because his verses were cheerful, any more than he could think POPE so, because the poet is continually informing us of it. It surprised Spence when Pope told him that ROWE, the tragic poet, whom he had considered so solemn a personage, ”would laugh all day long, and do nothing else but laugh.” Lord Kaimes says, that ARBUTHNOT must have been a great genius, for he exceeded Swift and Addison in humorous painting; although we are informed he had nothing of that peculiarity in his character. YOUNG, who is constantly contemning preferment in his writings, was all his life pining after it; and the conversation of the sombrous author of the ”Night Thoughts” was of the most volatile kind, abounding with trivial puns. He was one of the first who subscribed to the a.s.sembly at Wellwyn. Mrs. Carter, who greatly admired his sublime poetry, expressing her surprise at his social converse, he replied, ”Madam, there is much difference between writing and talking.”

MOLIERE, on the contrary, whose humour is so perfectly comic, and even ludicrous, was thoughtful and serious, and even melancholy. His strongly-featured physiognomy exhibits the face of a great tragic, rather than of a great comic, poet. Boileau called Moliere ”The Contemplative Man.” Those who make the world laugh often themselves laugh the least. A famous and witty harlequin of France was overcome with hypochondriasm, and consulted a physician, who, after inquiring about his malady, told his miserable patient, that he knew of no other medicine for him than to take frequent doses of Carlin--”I am Carlin himself,” exclaimed the melancholy man, in despair. BURTON, the pleasant and vivacious author of ”The Anatomy of Melancholy,” of whom it is noticed, that he could in an interval of vapours raise laughter in any company, in his chamber was ”mute and mopish,” and at last was so overcome by that intellectual disorder, which he appeared to have got rid of by writing his volume, that it is believed he closed his life in a fit of melancholy.[A]

[Footnote A: It is reported of him that his only mode of alleviating his melancholy was by walking from his college at Oxford to the bridge, to listen to the rough jokes of the bargemen.]

Could one have imagined that the brilliant wit, the luxuriant raillery, and the fine and deep sense of PASCAL, could have combined with the most opposite qualities--the hypochondriasm and bigotry of an ascetic?

ROCHEFOUCAULD, in private life, was a conspicuous example of all those moral qualities of which he seemed to deny the existence, and exhibited in this respect a striking contrast to the Cardinal de Retz, who has presumed to censure him for his want of faith in the reality of virtue; but DE RETZ himself was the unbeliever in disinterested virtue. This great genius was one of those pretended patriots dest.i.tute of a single one of the virtues for which he was the clamorous advocate of faction.

When Valincour attributed the excessive tenderness in the tragedies of RACINE to the poet's own impa.s.sioned character, the son amply showed that his father was by no means the slave of love. RACINE never wrote a single love-poem, nor even had a mistress; and his wife had never read his tragedies, for poetry was not her delight. Racine's motive for making love the constant source of action in his tragedies, was from the principle which has influenced so many poets, who usually conform to the prevalent taste of the times. In the court of a young monarch it was necessary that heroes should be lovers; Corneille had n.o.bly run in one career, and Racine could not have existed as a great poet had he not rivalled him in an opposite one. The tender RACINE was no lover; but he was a subtle and epigrammatic observer, before whom his convivial friends never cared to open their minds; and the caustic BOILEAU truly said of him, ”RACINE is far more malicious than I am.”

ALFIERI speaks of his mistress as if he lived with her in the most unreserved familiarity; the reverse was the case. And the grat.i.tude and affection with which he describes his mother, and which she deserved, entered so little into his habitual feelings, that, after their early separation, he never saw her but once, though he often pa.s.sed through the country where she resided.

JOHNSON has composed a beautiful Rambler, describing the pleasures which result from the influence of good-humour; and somewhat remarkably says, ”Without good-humour learning and bravery can be only formidable, and confer that superiority which swells the heart of the lion in the desert, where he roars without reply, and ravages without resistance.” He who could so finely discover the happy influence of this pleasing quality was himself a stranger to it, and ”the roar and the ravage” were familiar to our lion. Men of genius frequently subst.i.tute their beautiful imagination for spontaneous and natural sentiment. It is not therefore surprising if we are often erroneous in the conception we form of the personal character of a distant author. KLOPSTOCK, the votary of the muse of Zion, so astonished and warmed the sage BODMER, that he invited the inspired bard to his house: but his visitor shocked the grave professor, when, instead of a poet rapt in silent meditation, a volatile youth leaped out of the chaise, who was an enthusiast for retirement only when writing verses. An artist, whose pictures exhibit a series of scenes of domestic tenderness, awakening all the charities of private life, I have heard, partic.i.p.ated in them in no other way than on his canvas. EVELYN, who has written in favour of active life, ”loved and lived in retirement;”[A] while Sir GEORGE MACKENZIE, who had been continually in the bustle of business, framed a eulogium on solitude. We see in MACHIAVEL'S code of tyranny, of depravity, and of criminal violence, a horrid picture of human nature; but this retired philosopher was a friend to the freedom of his country; he partic.i.p.ated in none of the crimes he had recorded, but drew up these systemized crimes ”as an observer, not as a criminal.” DRUMMOND, whose sonnets still retain the beauty and the sweetness and the delicacy of the most amiable imagination, was a man of a harsh irritable temper, and has been thus characterised:--

Testie Drummond could not speak for fretting.

[Footnote A: Since this was written the correspondence of EVELYN has appeared, by which we find that he apologised to Cowley for having published this very treatise, which seemed to condemn that life of study and privacy to which they were both equally attached; and confesses that the whole must be considered as a mere sportive effusion, requesting that Cowley would not suppose its principles formed his private opinions. Thus LEIBNITZ, we are told, laughed at the fanciful system revealed in his _Theodicee_, and acknowledged that he never wrote it in earnest; that a philosopher is not always obliged to write seriously, and that to invent an hypothesis is only a proof of the force of imagination.]

Thus authors and artists may yield no certain indication of their personal characters in their works. Inconstant men will write on constancy, and licentious minds may elevate themselves into poetry and piety. We should be unjust to some of the greatest geniuses if the extraordinary sentiments which they put into the mouths of their dramatic personages are maliciously to be applied to themselves. EURIPIDES was accused of atheism when he introduced a denier of the G.o.ds on the stage. MILTON has been censured by CLARKE for the impiety of Satan; and an enemy of SHAKSPEARE might have reproached him for his perfect delineation of the accomplished villain Iago, as it was said that Dr. MOORE was hurt in the opinions of some by his odious Zeluco. CREBILLON complains of this:--”They charge me with all the iniquities of Atreus, and they consider me in some places as a wretch with whom it is unfit to a.s.sociate; as if all which the mind invents must be derived from the heart.” This poet offers a striking instance of the little alliance existing between the literary and personal dispositions of an author. CREBILLON, who exulted, on his entrance into the French Academy, that he had never tinged his pen with the gall of satire, delighted to strike on the most harrowing string of the tragic lyre. In his _Atreus_ the father drinks the blood of his son; in his _Rhadamistus_ the son expires under the hand of the father; in his _Electra_, the son a.s.sa.s.sinates the mother. A poet is a painter of the soul, but a great artist is not therefore a bad man.

MONTAIGNE appears to have been sensible of this fact in the literary character. Of authors, he says, he likes to read their little anecdotes and private pa.s.sions:--”Car j'ai une singuliere curiosite de connaitre l'ame et les nafs jugemens de mes auteurs. Il faut bien juger leur suffisance, mais non pas leurs moeurs, ni eux, par cette montre de leurs ecrits qu'ils etalent au theatre du monde.” Which may be thus translated: ”For I have a singular curiosity to know the soul and simple opinions of my authors. We must judge of their ability, but not of their manners, nor of themselves, by that show of their writings which they display on the theatre of the world.” This is very just; are we yet sure, however, that the simplicity of this old favourite of Europe might not have been as much a theatrical gesture as the sentimentality of Sterne? The great authors of the Port-Royal Logic have raised severe objections to prove that MONTAIGNE was not quite so open in respect to those simple details which he imagined might diminish his personal importance with his readers. He pretends that he reveals all his infirmities and weaknesses, while he is perpetually pa.s.sing himself off for something more than he is. He carefully informs us that he has ”a page,” the usual attendant of an independent gentleman, and lives in an old family chateau; when the fact was, that his whole revenue did not exceed six thousand livres, a state beneath mediocrity. He is also equally careful not to drop any mention of his having a _clerk with a bag_; for he was a counsellor of Bordeaux, but affected the gentleman and the soldier. He trumpets himself forth for having been _mayor_ of Bordeaux, as this offered an opportunity of telling us that he succeeded _Marshal_ Biron, and resigned it to _Marshal_ Matignon. Could he have discovered that any _marshal_ had been a _lawyer_ he would not have sunk that part of his life. Montaigne himself has said, ”that in forming a judgment of a man's life, particular regard should be paid to his behaviour at the end of it;” and he more than once tells us that the chief study of his life is to die calm and silent; and that he will plunge himself headlong and stupidly into death, as into an obscure abyss, which swallows one up in an instant; that to die was the affair of a moment's suffering, and required no precepts. He talked of reposing on the ”pillow of doubt.” But how did this great philosopher die? He called for the more powerful opiates of the infallible church! The ma.s.s was performed in his chamber, and, in rising to embrace it, his hands dropped and failed him; thus, as Professor Dugald Stewart observes on this philosopher--”He expired in performing what his old preceptor, Buchanan, would not have scrupled to describe as an act of idolatry.”

We must not then consider that he who paints vice with energy is therefore vicious, lest we injure an honourable man; nor must we imagine that he who celebrates virtue is therefore virtuous, for we may then repose on a heart which knowing the right pursues the wrong.

These paradoxical appearances in the history of genius present a curious moral phenomenon. Much must be attributed to the plastic nature of the versatile faculty itself. Unquestionably many men of genius have often resisted the indulgence of one talent to exercise another with equal power; and some, who have solely composed sermons, could have touched on the foibles of society with the spirit of Horace or Juvenal. BLACKSTONE and Sir WILLIAM JONES directed that genius to the austere studies of law and philology, which might have excelled in the poetical and historical character. So versatile is this faculty of genius, that its possessors are sometimes uncertain of the manner in which they shall treat their subject, whether gravely or ludicrously. When BREBOEUF, the French translator of the Pharsalia of Lucan, had completed the first book as it now appears, he at the same time composed a burlesque version, and sent both to the great arbiter of taste in that day, to decide which the poet should continue. The decision proved to be difficult. Are there not writers who, with all the vehemence of genius, by adopting one principle can make all things shrink into the pigmy form of ridicule, or by adopting another principle startle us by the gigantic monsters of their own exaggerated imagination? On this principle, of the versatility of the faculty, a production of genius is a piece of art which, wrought up to its full effect with a felicity of manner acquired by taste and habit, is merely the result of certain arbitrary combinations of the mind.

Are we then to reduce the works of a man of genius to a mere sport of his talents--a game in which he is only the best player? Can he whose secret power raises so many emotions in our b.r.e.a.s.t.s be without any in his own? A mere actor performing a part? Is he unfeeling when he is pathetic, indifferent when he is indignant? Is he an alien to all the wisdom and virtue he inspires? No! were men of genius themselves to a.s.sert this, and it is said some incline so to do, there is a more certain conviction than their misconceptions, in our own consciousness, which for ever a.s.sures us, that deep feelings and elevated thoughts can alone spring from those who feel deeply and think n.o.bly.

In proving that the character of the man may be very opposite to that of his writings, we must recollect that the habits of the life may be contrary to the habits of the mind.[A] The influence of their studies over men of genius is limited. Out of the ideal world, man is reduced to be the active creature of sensation. An author has, in truth, two distinct characters: the literary, formed by the habits of his study; the personal, by the habits of his situation. GRAY, cold, effeminate, and timid in his personal, was lofty and awful in his literary character. We see men of polished manners and bland affections, who, in grasping a pen, are thrusting a poniard; while others in domestic life with the simplicity of children and the feebleness of nervous affections, can shake the senate or the bar with the vehemence of their eloquence and the intrepidity of their spirit. The writings of the famous BAPTISTA PORTA are marked by the boldness of his genius, which formed a singular contrast with the pusillanimity of his conduct when menaced or attacked. The heart may be feeble, though the mind is strong. To think boldly may be the habit of the mind, to act weakly may be the habit of the const.i.tution.

[Footnote A: Nothing is more delightful to me in my researches on the literary character than when I find in persons of unquestionable and high genius the results of my own discoveries. This circ.u.mstance has frequently happened to confirm my principles. Long after this was published, Madame de Stael made this important confession in her recent work, ”Dix Annees d'Exil,” p. 154. ”Je ne pouvais me dissimuler que je n'etais pas une persoune courageuse; j'ai de la hardiesse dans _l'imagination,_ mais de la timidite dans la _caractere_.”]

However the personal character may contrast with that of their genius, still are the works themselves genuine, and exist as realities for us--and were so, doubtless, to the composers themselves in the act of composition.

In the calm of study, a beautiful imagination may convert him whose morals are corrupt into an admirable moralist, awakening feelings which yet may be cold in the business of life: as we have shown that the phlegmatic can excite himself into wit, and the cheerful man delight in ”Night Thoughts.”

SALl.u.s.t, the corrupt Sall.u.s.t, might retain the most sublime conceptions of the virtues which were to save the Republic; and STERNE, whose heart was not so susceptible in ordinary occurrences, while he was gradually creating incident after incident and touching successive emotions, in the stories of Le Fevre and Maria, might have thrilled--like some of his readers. Many have mourned over the wisdom or the virtue they contemplated, mortified at their own infirmity. Thus, though there may be no ident.i.ty between the book and the man, still for us an author is ever an abstract being, and, as one of the Fathers said--”A dead man may sin dead, leaving books that make others sin.” An author's wisdom or his folly does not die with him. The volume, not the author, is our companion, and is for us a real personage, performing before us whatever it inspires--”He being dead, yet speaketh.” Such is the vitality of a book!

CHAPTER XXI.

The man of letters.--Occupies an intermediate station between authors and readers.--His solitude described.--Often the father of genius.--Atticus, a man of letters of antiquity.--The perfect character of a modern man of letters exhibited in Peiresc.--Their utility to authors and artists.

Among the active members of the literary republic, there is a cla.s.s whom formerly we distinguished by the t.i.tle of MEN OF LETTERS--a t.i.tle which, with us, has nearly gone out of currency, though I do not think that the general term of ”literary men” would be sufficiently appropriate.

The man of letters, whose habits and whose whole life so closely resemble those of an author, can only be distinguished by this simple circ.u.mstance, that the man of letters is not an author.

Yet he whose sole occupation through life is literature--he who is always acquiring and never producing, appears as ridiculous as the architect who never raised an edifice, or the statuary who refrains from sculpture. His pursuits are reproached with terminating in an epicurean selfishness, and amidst his incessant avocations he himself is considered as a particular sort of idler.

This race of literary characters, as we now find them, could not have appeared till the press had poured forth its affluence. In the degree that the nations of Europe became literary, was that philosophical curiosity kindled which induced some to devote their fortunes and their days, and to experience some of the purest of human enjoyments in preserving and familiarising themselves with ”the monuments of vanished minds,” as books are called by D'Avenant with so much sublimity. Their expansive library presents an indestructible history of the genius of every people, through all their eras--and whatever men have thought and whatever men have done, were at length discovered in books.