Part 14 (1/2)
Genius and understanding are a man's self, an integrant part of his personal ident.i.ty; and the t.i.tle to these last, as it is the most difficult to be ascertained, is also the most grudgingly acknowledged.
Few persons would pretend to deny that Porson had more Greek than they; it was a question of fact which might be put to the immediate proof, and could not be gainsaid; but the meanest frequenter of the Cider Cellar or the Hole in the Wall would be inclined, in his own conceit, to dispute the palm of wit or sense with him, and indemnify his self-complacency for the admiration paid to living learning by significant hints to friends and casual droppers-in, that the greatest men, when you came to know them, were not without their weak sides as well as others. Pedants, I will add here, talk to the vulgar as pedagogues talk to schoolboys, on an understood principle of condescension and superiority, and therefore make little progress in the knowledge of men or things. While they fancy they are accommodating themselves to, or else a.s.suming airs of importance over, inferior capacities, these inferior capacities are really laughing at them. There can be no true superiority but what arises out of the presupposed ground of equality: there can be no improvement but from the free communication and comparing of ideas.
Kings and n.o.bles, for this reason, receive little benefit from society--where all is submission on one side, and condescension on the other. The mind strikes out truth by collision, as steel strikes fire from the flint!
There are whole families who are born cla.s.sical, and are entered in the heralds' college of reputation by the right of consanguinity.
Literature, like n.o.bility, runs in the blood. There is the Burney family. There is no end of it or its pretensions. It produces wits, scholars, novelists, musicians, artists in 'numbers numberless.' The name is alone a pa.s.sport to the Temple of Fame. Those who bear it are free of Parna.s.sus by birthright. The founder of it was himself an historian and a musician, but more of a courtier and man of the world than either. The secret of his success may perhaps be discovered in the following pa.s.sage, where, in alluding to three eminent performers on different instruments, he says: 'These three ill.u.s.trious personages were introduced at the Emperor's court,' etc.; speaking of them as if they were foreign amba.s.sadors or princes of the blood, and thus magnifying himself and his profession. This overshadowing manner carries nearly everything before it, and mystifies a great many. There is nothing like putting the best face upon things, and leaving others to find out the difference. He who could call three musicians 'personages' would himself play a personage through life, and succeed in his leading object. Sir Joshua Reynolds, remarking on this pa.s.sage, said: 'No one had a greater respect than he had for his profession, but that he should never think of applying to it epithets that were appropriated merely to external rank and distinction.' Madame d'Arblay, it must be owned, had cleverness enough to stock a whole family, and to set up her cousin-germans, male and female, for wits and virtuosos to the third and fourth generation.
The rest have done nothing, that I know of, but keep up the name.
The most celebrated author in modern times has written without a name, and has been knighted for anonymous productions. Lord Byron complains that Horace Walpole was not properly appreciated, 'first, because he was a gentleman; and secondly, because he was a n.o.bleman.' His Lords.h.i.+p stands in one, at least, of the predicaments here mentioned, and yet he has had justice, or somewhat more, done him. He towers above his fellows by all the height of the peerage. If the poet lends a grace to the n.o.bleman, the n.o.bleman pays it back to the poet with interest. What a fine addition is ten thousand a year and a t.i.tle to the flaunting pretensions of a modern rhapsodist! His name so accompanied becomes the mouth well: it is repeated thousands of times, instead of hundreds, because the reader in being familiar with the Poet's works seems to claim acquaintance with the Lord.
Let but a lord once own the happy lines: How the wit brightens, and the style refines!
He smiles at the high-flown praise or petty cavils of little men. Does he make a slip in decorum, which Milton declares to be the princ.i.p.al thing? His proud crest and armorial bearings support him: no bend-sinister slurs his poetical escutcheon! Is he dull, or does he put of some trashy production on the public? It is not charged to his account, as a deficiency which he must make good at the peril of his admirers. His Lords.h.i.+p is not answerable for the negligence or extravagances of his Muse. He 'bears a charmed reputation, which must not yield' like one of vulgar birth. The n.o.ble Bard is for this reason scarcely vulnerable to the critics. The double barrier of his pretensions baffles their puny, timid efforts. Strip off some of his tarnished laurels, and the coronet appears glittering beneath: restore them, and it still s.h.i.+nes through with keener l.u.s.tre. In fact, his Lords.h.i.+p's blaze of reputation culminates from his rank and place in society. He sustains two lofty and imposing characters; and in order to simplify the process of our admiration, and 'leave no rubs or botches in the way,' we equalise his pretensions, and take it for granted that he must be as superior to other men in genius as he is in birth. Or, to give a more familiar solution of the enigma, the Poet and the Peer agree to honour each other's acceptances on the bank of Fame, and sometimes cozen the town to some tune between them. Really, however, and with all his privileges, Lord Byron might as well not have written that strange letter about Pope. I could not afford it, poor as I am. Why does he p.r.o.nounce, _ex cathedra_ and robed, that Cowper is no poet? Cowper was a gentleman and of n.o.ble family like his critic. He was a teacher of morality as well as a describer of nature, which is more than his Lords.h.i.+p is. His _John Gilpin_ will last as long as _Beppo,_ and his verses to Mary are not less touching than the _Farewell._ If I had ventured upon such an a.s.sertion as this, it would have been worse for me than finding out a borrowed line in the _Pleasures of Hope._
There is not a more helpless or more despised animal than a mere author, without any extrinsic advantages of birth, breeding, or fortune to set him off. The real ore of talents or learning must be stamped before it will pa.s.s current. To be at all looked upon as an author, a man must be something more or less than an author--a rich merchant, a banker, a lord, or a ploughman. He is admired for something foreign to himself, that acts as a bribe to the servility or a set-off to the envy of the community. 'What should such fellows as we do, crawling betwixt heaven and earth';--'coining our hearts for drachmas'; now scorched in the sun, now s.h.i.+vering in the breeze, now coming out in our newest gloss and best attire, like swallows in the spring, now 'sent back like hollowmas or shortest day'? The best wits, like the handsomest faces _upon the town,_ lead a hara.s.sing, precarious life--are taken up for the bud and promise of talent, which they no sooner fulfil than they are thrown aside like an old fas.h.i.+on--are caressed without reason, and insulted with impunity--are subject to all the caprice, the malice, and fulsome advances of that great keeper, the Public--and in the end come to no good, like all those who lavish their favours on mankind at large, and look to the grat.i.tude of the world for their reward. Instead of this set of Grub Street authors, the mere _canaille_ of letters, this corporation of Mendicity, this ragged regiment of genius suing at the corners of streets in _forma pauperis,_ give me the gentleman and scholar, with a good house over his head and a handsome table 'with wine of Attic taste'
to ask his friends to, and where want and sorrow never come. Fill up the sparkling bowl; heap high the dessert with roses crowned; bring out the hot-pressed poem, the vellum ma.n.u.scripts, the medals, the portfolios, the intaglios--this is the true model of the life of a man of taste and _virtu_--the possessors, not the inventors of these things, are the true benefactors of mankind and ornaments of letters. Look in, and there, amidst silver services and s.h.i.+ning chandeliers, you will see the man of genius at his proper post, picking his teeth and mincing an opinion, sheltered by rank, bowing to wealth--a poet framed, glazed, and hung in a striking light; not a straggling weed, torn and trampled on; not a poor _Kit-run-the-street,_ but a powdered beau, a sycophant plant, an exotic reared in a gla.s.s case, hermetically sealed,
Free from the Sirian star and the dread thunder-stroke
whose mealy coat no moth can corrupt nor blight can wither. The poet Keats had not this sort of protection for his person--he lay bare to weather--the serpent stung him, and the poison-tree dropped upon this little western flower: when the mercenary servile crew approached him, he had no pedigree to show them, no rent-roll to hold out in reversion for their praise: he was not in any great man's train, nor the b.u.t.t and puppet of a lord--he could only offer them 'the fairest flowers of the season, carnations and streaked gilliflowers,'--'rue for remembrance and pansies for thoughts,'--they recked not of his gift, but tore him with hideous shouts and laughter,
Nor could the Muse protect her son!
Unless an author has all establishment of his own, or is entered on that of some other person, he will hardly be allowed to write English or to spell his own name. To be well spoken of, he must enlist under some standard; he must belong to some _coterie._ He must get the _esprit de corps_ on his side: he must have literary bail in readiness. Thus they prop up one another's rickety heads at Murray's shop, and a spurious reputation, like false argument, runs in a circle. Croker affirms that Gifford is sprightly, and Gifford that Croker is genteel; Disraeli that Jacob is wise, and Jacob that Disraeli is good-natured. A Member of Parliament must be answerable that you are not dangerous or dull before you can be of the _entree._ You must commence toad-eater to have your observations attended to; if you are independent, unconnected, you will be regarded as a poor creature. Your opinion is honest, you will say; then ten to one it is not profitable. It is at any rate your own. So much the worse; for then it is not the world's. Tom Hill is a very tolerable barometer in this respect. He knows nothing, hears everything, and repeats just what he hears; so that you may guess pretty well from this round-faced echo what is said by others! Almost everything goes by presumption and appearances. 'Did you not think Mr. B----'s language very elegant?'--I thought he bowed very low. 'Did you not think him remarkably well-behaved?'--He was unexceptionably dressed. 'But were not Mr. C----'s manners quite insinuating?'--He said nothing.
”You will at least allow his friend to be a well-informed man.”--talked upon all subjects alike. Such would be a pretty faithful interpretation of the tone of what is called _good society._ The surface is everything; we do not pierce to the core. The setting is more valuable than the jewel. Is it not so in other things as well as letters? Is not an R. A. by the supposition a greater man in his profession than any one who is not so blazoned? Compared with that unrivalled list, Raphael had been illegitimate, Claude not cla.s.sical, and Michael Angelo admitted by special favour. What is a physician without a diploma? An alderman without being knighted? An actor whose name does not appear in great letters? All others are counterfeits--men 'of no mark or likelihood.' This was what made the Jackals of the North so eager to prove that I had been turned out of the _Edinburgh Review._ It was not the merit of the articles which excited their spleen--but their being there. Of the style they knew nothing; for the thought they cared nothing: all that they knew was that I wrote in that powerful journal, and therefore they a.s.serted that I did not!
We find a cla.s.s of persons who labour under an obvious natural inapt.i.tude for whatever they aspire to. Their manner of setting about it is a virtual disqualification. The simple affirmation, 'What this man has said, I will do,' is not always considered as the proper test of capacity. On the contrary, there are people whose bare pretensions are as good or better than the actual performance of others. What I myself have done, for instance, I never find admitted as proof of what I shall be able to do: whereas I observe others who bring as proof of their competence to any task (and are taken at their word) what they have never done, and who gravely a.s.sure those who are inclined to trust them that their talents are exactly fitted for some post because they are just the reverse of what they have ever shown them to be. One man has the air of an Editor as much as another has that of a butler or porter in a gentleman's family. ----- is the model of this character, with a prodigious look of business, an air of suspicion which pa.s.ses for sagacity, and an air of deliberation which pa.s.ses for judgment. If his own talents are no ways prominent, it is inferred he will be more impartial and in earnest in making use of those of others. There is Britton, the responsible conductor of several works of taste and erudition, yet (G.o.d knows) without an idea in his head relating to any one of them. He is learned by proxy, and successful from sheer imbecility. If he were to get the smallest smattering of the departments which are under his control, he would betray himself from his desire to s.h.i.+ne; but as it is, he leaves others to do all the drudgery for him.
He signs his name in the t.i.tle-page or at the bottom of a vignette, and n.o.body suspects any mistake. This contractor for useful and ornamental literature once offered me two guineas for a _Life and Character of Shakespear,_ with an admission to his _converzationi._ I went once. There was a collection of learned lumber, of antiquaries, lexicographers, and other 'ill.u.s.trious obscure,' and I had given up the day for lost, when in dropped Jack Taylor of the _Sun_--(who would dare to deny that he was 'the Sun of our table'?)--and I had nothing now to do but hear and laugh. Mr. Taylor knows most of the good things that have been said in the metropolis for the last thirty years, and is in particular an excellent retailer of the humours and extravagances of his old friend Peter Pindar. He had recounted a series of them, each rising above the other in a sort of magnificent burlesque and want of literal preciseness, to a medley of laughing and sour faces, when on his proceeding to state a joke of a practical nature by the said Peter, a Mr. ----- (I forget the name) objected to the moral of the story, and to the whole texture of Mr. Taylor's facetiae--upon which our host, who had till now supposed that all was going on swimmingly, thought it time to interfere and give a turn to the conversation by saying, 'Why, yes, gentlemen, what we have hitherto heard fall from the lips of our friend has been no doubt entertaining and highly agreeable in its way; but perhaps we have had enough of what is altogether delightful and pleasant and light and laughable in conduct. Suppose, therefore, we were to s.h.i.+ft the subject, and talk of what is serious and moral and industrious and laudable in character--Let us talk of Mr. Tomkins the Penman!'--This staggered the gravest of us, broke up our dinner-party, and we went upstairs to tea. So much for the didactic vein of one of our princ.i.p.al guides in the embellished walks of modern taste, and master manufacturers of letters. He had found that gravity had been a never-failing resource when taken at a pinch--for once the joke miscarried--and Mr. Tomkins the Penman figures to this day nowhere but in Sir Joshua's picture of him!
To complete the natural Aristocracy of Letters, we only want a Royal Society of Authors!
NOTES to ESSAY V
(1) Lord Holland had made a diary (in the manner of Boswell) of the conversation held at his house, and read it at the end of a week _pro bono publico._ Sir James Mackintosh made a considerable figure in it, and a celebrated poet none at all, merely answering Yes and No. With this result he was by no means satisfied, and talked incessantly from that day forward. At the end of the week he asked, with some anxiety and triumph, If his Lords.h.i.+p had continued his diary, expecting himself to s.h.i.+ne in 'the first row of the rubric.' To which his n.o.ble Patron answered in the negative, with an intimation that it had not appeared to him worth while. Our poet was thus thrown again into the background, and Sir James remained master of the field!
ESSAY VI. ON CRITICISM
Criticism is an art that undergoes a great variety of changes, and aims at different objects at different times.
At first, it is generally satisfied to give an opinion whether a work is good or bad, and to quote a pa.s.sage or two in support of this opinion: afterwards, it is bound to a.s.sign the reasons of its decision and to a.n.a.lyse supposed beauties or defects with microscopic minuteness.
A critic does nothing nowadays who does not try to torture the most obvious expression into a thousand meanings, and enter into a circuitous explanation of all that can be urged for or against its being in the best or worst style possible. His object indeed is not to do justice to his author, whom he treats with very little ceremony, but to do himself homage, and to show his acquaintance with all the topics and resources of criticism. If he recurs to the stipulated subject in the end, it is not till after he has exhausted his budget of general knowledge; and he establishes his own claims first in an elaborate inaugural dissertation _de omni scibile et quibusdam aliis,_ before he deigns to bring forward the pretensions of the original candidate for praise, who is only the second figure in the piece. We may sometimes see articles of this sort, in which no allusion whatever is made to the work under sentence of death, after the first announcement of the t.i.tle-page; and I apprehend it would be a clear improvement on this species of nominal criticism to give stated periodical accounts of works that had never appeared at all, which would save the hapless author the mortification of writing, and his reviewer the trouble of reading them. If the real author is made of so little account by the modern critic, he is scarcely more an object of regard to the modern reader; and it must be confessed that after a dozen close-packed pages of subtle metaphysical distinction or solemn didactic declamation, in which the disembodied principles of all arts and sciences float before the imagination in undefined profusion, the eye turns with impatience and indifference to the imperfect embryo specimens of them, and the hopeless attempts to realise this splendid jargon in one poor work by one poor author, which is given up to summary execution with as little justice as pity. 'As when a well-graced actor leaves the stage, men's eyes are idly bent on him that enters next'--so it is here.
Whether this state of the press is not a serious abuse and a violent encroachment in the republic of letters, is more than I shall pretend to determine. The truth is, that in the quant.i.ty of works that issue from the press, it is utterly impossible they should all be read by all sorts of people. There must be _tasters_ for the public, who must have a discretionary power vested in them, for which it is difficult to make them properly accountable. Authors in proportion to their numbers become not formidable, but despicable. They would not be heard of or severed from the crowd without the critic's aid, and all complaints of ill-treatment are vain. He considers them as pensioners on his bounty for any pittance or praise, and in general sets them up as b.u.t.ts for his wit and spleen, or uses them as a stalking-horse to convey his own favourite notions and opinions, which he can do by this means without the possibility of censure or appeal. He looks upon his literary _protege_ (much as Peter Pounce looked upon Parson Adams) as a kind of humble companion or unnecessary interloper in the vehicle of fame, whom he has taken up purely to oblige him, and whom he may treat with neglect or insult, or set down in the common footpath, whenever it suits his humour or convenience. He naturally grows arbitrary with the exercise of power. He by degrees wants to have a clear stage to himself, and would be thought to have purchased a monopoly of wit, learning, and wisdom--
a.s.sumes the rod, affects the G.o.d, And seems to shake the spheres.
Besides, something of this overbearing manner goes a great way with the public. They cannot exactly tell whether you are right or wrong; and if you state your difficulties or pay much deference to the sentiments of others, they will think you a very silly fellow or a mere pretender. A sweeping, unqualified a.s.sertion ends all controversy, and sets opinion at rest. A sharp, sententious, cavalier, dogmatical tone is therefore necessary, even in self-defence, to the office of a reviewer. If you do not deliver your oracles without hesitation, how are the world to receive them on trust and without inquiry? People read to have something to talk about, and 'to seem to know that which they do not.'
Consequently, there cannot be too much dialectics and debatable matter, too much pomp and paradox, in a review. _To elevate and surprise_ is the great rule for producing a dramatic or critical effect. The more you startle the reader, the more he will be able to startle others with a succession of smart intellectual shocks. The most admired of our Reviews is saturated with this sort of electrical matter, which is regularly played off so as to produce a good deal of astonishment and a strong sensation in the public mind. The intrinsic merits of an author are a question of very subordinate consideration to the keeping up the character of the work and supplying the town with a sufficient number of grave or brilliant topics for the consumption of the next three months!