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CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE.
BY
ISAAC DISRAELI.
A New Edition,
EDITED, WITH MEMOIR AND NOTES,
BY HIS SON,
THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
LONDON:
FREDERICK WARNE AND CO.,
BEDFORD STREET, STRAND.
LONDON:
BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
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|Transcriber's Note: In this text the macron is represented as |
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|[R 'c'] represents a reverse 'c' |
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ADVERTISEMENT.
This is the first collected edition of a series of works which have
separately attained to a great popularity: volumes that have been always
delightful to the young and ardent inquirer after knowledge. They offer
as a whole a diversified miscellany of literary, artistic, and political
history, of critical disquisition and biographic anecdote, such as it is
believed cannot be elsewhere found gathered together in a form so
agreeable and so attainable. To this edition is appended a Life of the
Author by his son, also original notes, which serve to illustrate or to
correct the text, where more recent discoveries have brought to light
facts unknown when these volumes were originally published.
LONDON, 1881.
* * * * *
ON THE
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF MR. DISRAELI.
BY HIS SON.
The traditionary notion that the life of a man of letters is necessarily
deficient in incident, appears to have originated in a misconception of
the essential nature of human action. The life of every man is full of
incidents, but the incidents are insignificant, because they do not
affect his species; and in general the importance of every occurrence is
to be measured by the degree with which it is recognised by mankind. An
author may influence the fortunes of the world to as great an extent as
a statesman or a warrior; and the deeds and performances by which this
influence is created and exercised, may rank in their interest and
importance with the decisions of great Congresses, or the skilful valour
of a memorable field. M. de Voltaire was certainly a greater Frenchman
than Cardinal Fleury, the Prime Minister of France in his time. His
actions were more important; and it is certainly not too much to
maintain that the exploits of Homer, Aristotle, Dante, or my Lord Bacon,
were as considerable events as anything that occurred at Actium,
Lepanto, or Blenheim. A Book may be as great a thing as a battle, and
there are systems of philosophy that have produced as great revolutions
as any that have disturbed even the social and political existence of
our centuries.
The life of the author, whose character and career we are venturing to
review, extended far beyond the allotted term of man: and, perhaps, no
existence of equal duration ever exhibited an uniformity more sustained.
The strong bent of his infancy was pursued through youth, matured in
manhood, and maintained without decay to an advanced old age. In the
biographic spell, no ingredient is more magical than predisposition. How
pure, and native, and indigenous it was in the character of this writer,
can only be properly appreciated by an acquaintance with the
circumstances amid which he was born, and by being able to estimate how
far they could have directed or developed his earliest inclinations.
My grandfather, who became an English Denizen in 1748, was an Italian
descendant from one of those Hebrew families whom the Inquisition forced
to emigrate from the Spanish Peninsula at the end of the fifteenth
century, and who found a refuge in the more tolerant territories of the
Venetian Republic. His ancestors had dropped their Gothic surname on
their settlement in the Terra Firma, and grateful to the God of Jacob
who had sustained them through unprecedented trials and guarded them
through unheard-of perils, they assumed the name of DISRAELI, a name
never borne before or since by any other family, in order that their
race might be for ever recognised. Undisturbed and unmolested, they
flourished as merchants for more than two centuries under the protection
of the lion of St. Mark, which was but just, as the patron saint of the
Republic was himself a child of Israel. But towards the middle of the
eighteenth century, the altered circumstances of England, favourable, as
it was then supposed, to commerce and religious liberty, attracted the
attention of my great-grandfather to this island, and he resolved that
the youngest of his two sons, Benjamin, the "son of his right hand,"
should settle in a country where the dynasty seemed at length
established, through the recent failure of Prince Charles Edward, and
where public opinion appeared definitively adverse to persecution on
matters of creed and conscience.
The Jewish families who were then settled in England were few, though,
from their wealth and other circumstances, they were far from
unimportant. They were all of them Sephardim, that is to say, children
of Israel, who had never quitted the shores of the Midland Ocean, until
Torquamada had driven them from their pleasant residences and rich
estates in Arragon, and Andalusia, and Portugal, to seek greater
blessings, even than a clear atmosphere and a glowing sun, amid the
marshes of Holland and the fogs of Britain. Most of these families, who
held themselves aloof from the Hebrews of Northern Europe, then only
occasionally stealing into England, as from an inferior caste, and whose
synagogue was reserved only for Sephardim, are now extinct; while the
branch of the great family, which, notwithstanding their own sufferings
from prejudice, they had the hardihood to look down upon, have achieved
an amount of wealth and consideration which the Sephardim, even with the
patronage of Mr. Pelham, never could have contemplated. Nevertheless, at
the time when my grandfather settled in England, and when Mr. Pelham,
who was very favourable to the Jews, was Prime Minister, there might be
found, among other Jewish families flourishing in this country, the
Villa Reals, who brought wealth to these shores almost as great as their
name, though that is the second in Portugal, and who have twice allied
themselves with the English aristocracy, the Medinas--the Laras, who
were our kinsmen--and the Mendez da Costas, who, I believe, still exist.
Whether it were that my grandfather, on his arrival, was not encouraged
by those to whom he had a right to look up,--which is often our hard
case in the outset of life,--or whether he was alarmed at the unexpected
consequences of Mr. Pelham's favourable disposition to his countrymen
in the disgraceful repeal of the Jew Bill, which occurred a very few
years after his arrival in this country, I know not; but certainly he
appears never to have cordially or intimately mixed with his community.
This tendency to alienation was, no doubt, subsequently encouraged by
his marriage, which took place in 1765. My grandmother, the beautiful
daughter of a family who had suffered much from persecution, had imbibed
that dislike for her race which the vain are too apt to adopt when they
find that they are born to public contempt. The indignant feeling that
should be reserved for the persecutor, in the mortification of their
disturbed sensibility, is too often visited on the victim; and the cause
of annoyance is recognised not in the ignorant malevolence of the
powerful, but in the conscientious conviction of the innocent sufferer.
Seventeen years, however, elapsed before my grandfather entered into
this union, and during that interval he had not been idle. He was only
eighteen when he commenced his career, and when a great responsibility
devolved upon him. He was not unequal to it. He was a man of ardent
character; sanguine, courageous, speculative, and fortunate; with a
temper which no disappointment could disturb, and a brain, amid
reverses, full of resource. He made his fortune in the midway of life,
and settled near Enfield, where he formed an Italian garden, entertained
his friends, played whist with Sir Horace Mann, who was his great
acquaintance, and who had known his brother at Venice as a banker, eat
macaroni which was dressed by the Venetian Consul, sang canzonettas, and
notwithstanding a wife who never pardoned him for his name, and a son
who disappointed all his plans, and who to the last hour of his life was
an enigma to him, lived till he was nearly ninety, and then died in
1817, in the full enjoyment of prolonged existence.
My grandfather retired from active business on the eve of that great
financial epoch, to grapple with which his talents were well adapted;
and when the wars and loans of the Revolution were about to create those
families of millionaires, in which he might probably have enrolled his
own. That, however, was not our destiny. My grandfather had only one
child, and nature had disqualified him, from his cradle, for the busy
pursuits of men.
A pale, pensive child, with large dark brown eyes, and flowing hair,
such as may be beheld in one of the portraits annexed to these volumes,
had grown up beneath this roof of worldly energy and enjoyment,
indicating even in his infancy, by the whole carriage of his life, that
he was of a different order from those among whom he lived. Timid,
susceptible, lost in reverie, fond of solitude, or seeking no better
company than a book, the years had stolen on, till he had arrived at
that mournful period of boyhood when eccentricities excite attention and
command no sympathy. In the chapter on Predisposition, in the most
delightful of his works,[1] my father has drawn from his own, though his
unacknowledged feelings, immortal truths. Then commenced the age of
domestic criticism. His mother, not incapable of deep affections, but so
mortified by her social position that she lived until eighty without
indulging in a tender expression, did not recognise in her only
offspring a being qualified to control or vanquish his impending fate.
His existence only served to swell the aggregate of many humiliating
particulars. It was not to her a source of joy, or sympathy, or solace.
She foresaw for her child only a future of degradation. Having a strong,
clear mind, without any imagination, she believed that she beheld an
inevitable doom. The tart remark and the contemptuous comment on her
part, elicited, on the other, all the irritability of the poetic
idiosyncrasy. After frantic ebullitions, for which, when the
circumstances were analysed by an ordinary mind, there seemed no
sufficient cause, my grandfather always interfered to soothe with
good-tempered commonplaces, and promote peace. He was a man who thought
that the only way to make people happy was to make them a present. He
took it for granted that a boy in a passion wanted a toy or a guinea. At
a later date, when my father ran away from home, and after some
wanderings was brought back, found lying on a tombstone in Hackney
churchyard, he embraced him, and gave him a pony.
In this state of affairs, being sent to school in the neighbourhood, was
a rather agreeable incident. The school was kept by a Scotchman, one
Morison, a good man, and not untinctured with scholarship, and it is
possible that my father might have reaped some advantage from this
change; but the school was too near home, and his mother, though she
tormented his existence, was never content if he were out of her sight.
His delicate health was an excuse for converting him, after a short
interval, into a day scholar; then many days of attendance were omitted;
finally, the solitary walk home through Mr. Mellish's park was dangerous
to the sensibilities that too often exploded when they encountered on
the arrival at the domestic hearth a scene which did not harmonise with
the fairy-land of reverie.
The crisis arrived, when, after months of unusual abstraction and
irritability, my father produced a poem. For the first time, my
grandfather was seriously alarmed. The loss of one of his argosies,
uninsured, could not have filled him with more blank dismay. His idea of
a poet was formed from one of the prints of Hogarth hanging in his room,
where an unfortunate wight in a garret was inditing an ode to riches,
while dunned for his milk-score. Decisive measures were required to
eradicate this evil, and to prevent future disgrace--so, as seems the
custom when a person is in a scrape, it was resolved that my father
should be sent abroad, where a new scene and a new language might divert
his mind from the ignominious pursuit which so fatally attracted him.
The unhappy poet was consigned like a bale of goods to my grandfather's
correspondent at Amsterdam, who had instructions to place him at some
collegium of repute in that city. Here were passed some years not
without profit, though his tutor was a great impostor, very neglectful
of his pupils, and both unable and disinclined to guide them in severe
studies. This preceptor was a man of letters, though a wretched writer,
with a good library, and a spirit inflamed with all the philosophy of
the eighteenth century, then (1780-1) about to bring forth and bear its
long-matured fruits. The intelligence and disposition of my father
attracted his attention, and rather interested him. He taught his charge
little, for he was himself generally occupied in writing bad odes, but
he gave him free warren in his library, and before his pupil was
fifteen, he had read the works of Voltaire and had dipped into Bayle.
Strange that the characteristics of a writer so born and brought up
should have been so essentially English; not merely from his mastery
over our language, but from his keen and profound sympathy with all that
concerned the literary and political history of our country at its most
important epoch.
When he was eighteen, he returned to England a disciple of Rousseau. He
had exercised his imagination during the voyage in idealizing the
interview with his mother, which was to be conducted on both sides with
sublime pathos. His other parent had frequently visited him during his
absence. He was prepared to throw himself on his mother's bosom, to
bedew her hands with his tears, and to stop her own with his lips; but,
when he entered, his strange appearance, his gaunt figure, his excited
manners, his long hair, and his unfashionable costume, only filled her
with a sentiment of tender aversion; she broke into derisive laughter,
and noticing his intolerable garments, she reluctantly lent him her
cheek. Whereupon Emile, of course, went into heroics, wept, sobbed, and
finally, shut up in his chamber, composed an impassioned epistle. My
grandfather, to soothe him, dwelt on the united solicitude of his
parents for his welfare, and broke to him their intention, if it were
agreeable to him, to place him in the establishment of a great merchant
at Bordeaux. My father replied that he had written a poem of
considerable length, which he wished to publish, against Commerce, which
was the corrupter of man. In eight-and-forty hours confusion again
reigned in this household, and all from a want of psychological
perception in its master and mistress.
My father, who had lost the timidity of his childhood, who, by nature,
was very impulsive, and indeed endowed with a degree of volatility which
is only witnessed in the south of France, and which never deserted him
to his last hour, was no longer to be controlled. His conduct was
decisive. He enclosed his poem to Dr. Johnson, with an impassioned
statement of his case, complaining, which he ever did, that he had never
found a counsellor or literary friend. He left his packet himself at
Bolt Court, where he was received by Mr. Francis Barber, the doctor's
well-known black servant, and told to call again in a week. Be sure that
he was very punctual; but the packet was returned to him unopened, with
a message that the illustrious doctor was too ill to read anything. The
unhappy and obscure aspirant, who received this disheartening message,
accepted it, in his utter despondency, as a mechanical excuse. But,
alas! the cause was too true; and, a few weeks after, on that bed,
beside which the voice of Mr. Burke faltered, and the tender spirit of
Benett Langton was ever vigilant, the great soul of Johnson quitted
earth.
But the spirit of self-confidence, the resolution to struggle against
his fate, the paramount desire to find some sympathising sage--some
guide, philosopher, and friend--was so strong and rooted in my father,
that I observed, a few weeks ago, in a magazine, an original letter,
written by him about this time to Dr. Vicesimus Knox, full of high-flown
sentiments, reading indeed like a romance of Scudery, and entreating
the learned critic to receive him in his family, and give him the
advantage of his wisdom, his taste, and his erudition.
With a home that ought to have been happy, surrounded with more than
comfort, with the most good-natured father in the world, and an
agreeable man; and with a mother whose strong intellect, under ordinary
circumstances, might have been of great importance to him; my father,
though himself of a very sweet disposition, was most unhappy. His
parents looked upon him as moonstruck, while he himself, whatever his
aspirations, was conscious that he had done nothing to justify the
eccentricity of his course, or the violation of all prudential
considerations in which he daily indulged. In these perplexities, the
usual alternative was again had recourse to--absence; he was sent
abroad, to travel in France, which the peace then permitted, visit some
friends, see Paris, and then proceed to Bordeaux if he felt inclined. My
father travelled in France, and then proceeded to Paris, where he
remained till the eve of great events in that capital. This was a visit
recollected with satisfaction. He lived with learned men and moved in
vast libraries, and returned in the earlier part of 1788, with some
little knowledge of life, and with a considerable quantity of books.
At this time Peter Pindar flourished in all the wantonness of literary
riot. He was at the height of his flagrant notoriety. The novelty and
the boldness of his style carried the million with him. The most exalted
station was not exempt from his audacious criticism, and learned
institutions trembled at the sallies whose ribaldry often cloaked taste,
intelligence, and good sense. His "Odes to the Academicians," which
first secured him the ear of the town, were written by one who could
himself guide the pencil with skill and feeling, and who, in the form of
a mechanic's son, had even the felicity to discover the vigorous genius
of Opie. The mock-heroic which invaded with success the sacred recesses
of the palace, and which was fruitlessly menaced by Secretaries of
State, proved a reckless intrepidity, which is apt to be popular with
"the general." The powerful and the learned quailed beneath the lash
with an affected contempt which scarcely veiled their tremor. In the
meantime, as in the latter days of the Empire, the barbarian ravaged the
country, while the pale-faced patricians were inactive within the walls.
No one offered resistance.
There appeared about this time a satire "On the Abuse of Satire." The
verses were polished and pointed; a happy echo of that style of Mr. Pope
which still lingered in the spell-bound ear of the public. Peculiarly
they offered a contrast to the irregular effusions of the popular
assailant whom they in turn assailed, for the object of their indignant
invective was the bard of the "Lousiad." The poem was anonymous, and was
addressed to Dr. Warton in lines of even classic grace. Its publication
was appropriate. There are moments when every one is inclined to praise,
especially when the praise of a new pen may at the same time revenge the
insults of an old one.
But if there could be any doubt of the success of this new hand, it was
quickly removed by the conduct of Peter Pindar himself. As is not
unusual with persons of his habits, Wolcot was extremely sensitive, and,
brandishing a tomahawk, always himself shrank from a scratch. This was
shown some years afterwards by his violent assault on Mr. Gifford, with
a bludgeon, in a bookseller's shop, because the author of the "Baviad
and Maeviad" had presumed to castigate the great lampooner of the age. In
the present instance, the furious Wolcot leapt to the rash conclusion,
that the author of the satire was no less a personage than Mr. Hayley,
and he assailed the elegant author of the "Triumphs of Temper" in a
virulent pasquinade. This ill-considered movement of his adversary of
course achieved the complete success of the anonymous writer.
My father, who came up to town to read the newspapers at the St. James's
Coffee-house, found their columns filled with extracts from the
fortunate effusion of the hour, conjectures as to its writer, and much
gossip respecting Wolcot and Hayley. He returned to Enfield laden with
the journals, and, presenting them to his parents, broke to them the
intelligence, that at length he was not only an author, but a successful
one.
He was indebted to this slight effort for something almost as agreeable
as the public recognition of his ability, and that was the acquaintance,
and almost immediately the warm personal friendship, of Mr. Pye. Mr. Pye
was the head of an ancient English family that figured in the
Parliaments and struggles of the Stuarts; he was member for the County
of Berkshire, where his ancestral seat of Faringdon was situate, and at
a later period (1790) became Poet Laureat. In those days, when literary
clubs did not exist, and when even political ones were extremely limited
and exclusive in their character, the booksellers' shops were social
rendezvous. Debrett's was the chief haunt of the Whigs; Hatchard's, I
believe, of the Tories. It was at the latter house that my father made
the acquaintance of Mr. Pye, then publishing his translation of
Aristotle's Poetics, and so strong was party feeling at that period,
that one day, walking together down Piccadilly, Mr. Pye, stopping at the
door of Debrett, requested his companion to go in and purchase a
particular pamphlet for him, adding that if he had the audacity to
enter, more than one person would tread upon his toes.
My father at last had a friend. Mr. Pye, though double his age, was
still a young man, and the literary sympathy between them was complete.
Unfortunately, the member for Berkshire was a man rather of an elegant
turn of mind, than one of that energy and vigour which a youth required
for a companion at that moment. Their tastes and pursuits were perhaps a
little too similar. They addressed poetical epistles to each other, and
were, reciprocally, too gentle critics. But Mr. Pye was a most amiable
and accomplished man, a fine classical scholar, and a master of correct
versification. He paid a visit to Enfield, and by his influence hastened
a conclusion at which my grandfather was just arriving, to wit, that he
would no longer persist in the fruitless effort of converting a poet
into a merchant, and that content with the independence he had realised,
he would abandon his dreams of founding a dynasty of financiers. From
this moment all disquietude ceased beneath this always well-meaning,
though often perplexed, roof, while my father, enabled amply to gratify
his darling passion of book-collecting, passed his days in tranquil
study, and in the society of congenial spirits.
His new friend introduced him almost immediately to Mr. James Pettit
Andrews, a Berkshire gentleman of literary pursuits, and whose
hospitable table at Brompton was the resort of the best literary society
of the day. Here my father was a frequent guest, and walking home one
night together from this house, where they had both dined, he made the
acquaintance of a young poet, which soon ripened into intimacy, and
which throughout sixty years, notwithstanding many changes of life,
never died away. This youthful poet had already gained laurels, though
he was only three or four years older than my father, but I am not at
this moment quite aware whether his brow was yet encircled with the
amaranthine wreath of the "Pleasures of Memory."
Some years after this, great vicissitudes unhappily occurred in the
family of Mr. Pye. He was obliged to retire from Parliament, and to sell
his family estate of Faringdon. His Majesty had already, on the death of
Thomas Warton, nominated him Poet Laureat, and after his retirement from
Parliament, the government which he had supported, appointed him a
Commissioner of Police. It was in these days that his friend, Mr. Penn,
of Stoke Park, in Buckinghamshire, presented him with a cottage worthy
of a poet on his beautiful estate; and it was thus my father became
acquainted with the amiable descendant of the most successful of
colonisers, and with that classic domain which the genius of Gray, as it
were, now haunts, and has for ever hallowed, and from which he beheld
with fond and musing eye, those
Distant spires and antique towers,
that no one can now look upon without remembering him. It was amid these
rambles in Stoke Park, amid the scenes of Gray's genius, the elegiac
churchyard, and the picturesque fragments of the Long Story, talking
over the deeds of "Great Rebellion" with the descendants of Cavaliers
and Parliament-men, that my father first imbibed that feeling for the
county of Buckingham, which induced him occasionally to be a dweller in
its limits, and ultimately, more than a quarter of a century afterwards,
to establish his household gods in its heart. And here, perhaps, I may
be permitted to mention a circumstance, which is indeed trifling, and
yet, as a coincidence, not, I think, without interest. Mr. Pye was the
great-grandson of Sir Robert Pye, of Bradenham, who married Anne, the
eldest daughter of Mr. Hampden. How little could my father dream, sixty
years ago, that he would pass the last quarter of his life in the
mansion-house of Bradenham; that his name would become intimately
connected with the county of Buckingham; and that his own remains would
be interred in the vault of the chancel of Bradenham Church, among the
coffins of the descendants of the Hampdens and the Pyes. All which
should teach us that whatever may be our natural bent, there is a power
in the disposal of events greater than human will.
It was about two years after his first acquaintance with Mr. Pye, that
my father, being then in his twenty-fifth year, influenced by the circle
in which he then lived, gave an anonymous volume to the press, the fate
of which he could little have foreseen. The taste for literary history
was then of recent date in England. It was developed by Dr. Johnson and
the Wartons, who were the true founders of that elegant literature in
which France had so richly preceded us. The fashion for literary
anecdote prevailed at the end of the last century. Mr. Pettit Andrews,
assisted by Mr. Pye and Captain Grose, and shortly afterwards, his
friend, Mr. Seward, in his "Anecdotes of Distinguished Persons," had
both of them produced ingenious works, which had experienced public
favour. But these volumes were rather entertaining than substantial, and
their interest in many instances was necessarily fleeting; all which
made Mr. Rogers observe, that the world was far gone in its anecdotage.
While Mr. Andrews and his friend were hunting for personal details in
the recollections of their contemporaries, my father maintained one day,
that the most interesting of miscellanies might be drawn up by a
well-read man from the library in which he lived. It was objected, on
the other hand, that such a work would be a mere compilation, and could
not succeed with its dead matter in interesting the public. To test the
truth of this assertion, my father occupied himself in the preparation
of an octavo volume, the principal materials of which were found in the
diversified collections of the French Ana; but he enriched his subjects
with as much of our own literature as his reading afforded, and he
conveyed the result in that lively and entertaining style which he from
the first commanded. This collection of "Anecdotes, Characters,
Sketches, and Observations; Literary, Critical, and Historical," as the
title-page of the first edition figures, he invested with the happy
baptism of "Curiosities of Literature."
He sought by this publication neither reputation nor a coarser reward,
for he published his work anonymously, and avowedly as a compilation;
and he not only published the work at his own expense, but in his
heedlessness made a present of the copyright to the bookseller, which
three or four years afterwards he was fortunate enough to purchase at a
public sale. The volume was an experiment whether a taste for literature
could not be infused into the multitude. Its success was so decided,
that its projector was tempted to add a second volume two years
afterward, with a slight attempt at more original research; I observe
that there was a second edition of both volumes in 1794. For twenty
years the brother volumes remained favourites of the public; when after
that long interval their writer, taking advantage of a popular title,
poured forth all the riches of his matured intellect, his refined taste,
and accumulated knowledge into their pages, and produced what may be
fairly described as the most celebrated Miscellany of Modern Literature.
The moment that the name of the youthful author of the "Abuse of Satire"
had transpired, Peter Pindar, faithful to the instinct of his nature,
wrote a letter of congratulation and compliment to his assailant, and
desired to make his acquaintance. The invitation was responded to, and
until the death of Wolcot, they were intimate. My father always
described Wolcot as a warm-hearted man; coarse in his manners, and
rather rough, but eager to serve those whom he liked, of which, indeed,
I might appropriately mention an instance.
It so happened, that about the year 1795, when he was in his 29th year
there came over my father that mysterious illness to which the youth of
men of sensibility, and especially literary men, is frequently
subject--a failing of nervous energy, occasioned by study and too
sedentary habits, early and habitual reverie, restless and indefinite
purpose. The symptoms, physical and moral, are most distressing:
lassitude and despondency. And it usually happens, as in the present
instance, that the cause of suffering is not recognised; and that
medical men, misled by the superficial symptoms, and not seeking to
acquaint themselves with the psychology of their patients, arrive at
erroneous, often fatal, conclusions. In this case, the most eminent of
the faculty gave it as their opinion, that the disease was consumption.
Dr. Turton, if I recollect right, was then the most considered physician
of the day. An immediate visit to a warmer climate was his specific; and
as the Continent was then disturbed and foreign residence out of the
question, Dr. Turton recommended that his patient should establish
himself without delay in Devonshire.
When my father communicated this impending change in his life to Wolcot,
the modern Skelton shook his head. He did not believe that his friend
was in a consumption, but being a Devonshire man, and loving very much
his native province, he highly approved of the remedy. He gave my father
several letters of introduction to persons of consideration at Exeter;
among others, one whom he justly described as a poet and a physician,
and the best of men, the late Dr. Hugh Downman. Provincial cities very
often enjoy a transient term of intellectual distinction. An eminent man
often collects around him congenial spirits, and the power of
association sometimes produces distant effects which even an individual,
however gifted, could scarcely have anticipated. A combination of
circumstances had made at this time Exeter a literary metropolis. A
number of distinguished men flourished there at the same moment: some of
their names are even now remembered. Jackson of Exeter still survives as
a native composer of original genius. He was also an author of high
aesthetical speculation. The heroic poems of Hole are forgotten, but his
essay on the Arabian Nights is still a cherished volume of elegant and
learned criticism. Hayter was the classic antiquary who first discovered
the art of unrolling the MSS. of Herculaneum. There were many others,
noisier and more bustling, who are now forgotten, though they in some
degree influenced the literary opinion of their time. It was said, and I
believe truly, that the two principal, if not sole, organs of periodical
criticism at that time, I think the "Critical Review" and the "Monthly
Review," were principally supported by Exeter contributions. No doubt
this circumstance may account for a great deal of mutual praise and
sympathetic opinion on literary subjects, which, by a convenient
arrangement, appeared in the pages of publications otherwise professing
contrary opinions on all others. Exeter had then even a learned society
which published its Transactions.
With such companions, by whom he was received with a kindness and
hospitality which to the last he often dwelt on, it may easily be
supposed that the banishment of my father from the delights of literary
London was not as productive a source of gloom as the exile of Ovid to
the savage Pontus, even if it had not been his happy fortune to have
been received on terms of intimate friendship by the accomplished family
of Mr. Baring, who was then member for Exeter, and beneath whose roof he
passed a great portion of the period of nearly three years during which
he remained in Devonshire.
The illness of my father was relieved, but not removed, by this change
of life. Dr. Downman was his physician, whose only remedies were port
wine, horse-exercise, rowing on the neighbouring river, and the
distraction of agreeable society. This wise physician recognised the
temperament of his patient, and perceived that his physical derangement
was an effect instead of a cause. My father instead of being in a
consumption, was endowed with a frame of almost super-human strength,
and which was destined for half a century of continuous labour and
sedentary life. The vital principle in him, indeed, was so strong that
when he left us at eighty-two, it was only as the victim of a violent
epidemic, against whose virulence he struggled with so much power, that
it was clear, but for this casualty, he might have been spared to this
world even for several years.
I should think that this illness of his youth, and which, though of a
fitful character, was of many years' duration, arose from his inability
to direct to a satisfactory end the intellectual power which he was
conscious of possessing. He would mention the ten years of his life,
from twenty-five to thirty-five years of age, as a period very deficient
in self-contentedness. The fact is, with a poetic temperament, he had
been born in an age when the poetic faith of which he was a votary had
fallen into decrepitude, and had become only a form with the public, not
yet gifted with sufficient fervour to discover a new creed. He was a
pupil of Pope and Boileau, yet both from his native impulse and from the
glowing influence of Rousseau, he felt the necessity and desire of
infusing into the verse of the day more passion than might resound from
the frigid lyre of Mr. Hayley. My father had fancy, sensibility, and an
exquisite taste, but he had not that rare creative power, which the
blended and simultaneous influence of the individual organisation and
the spirit of the age, reciprocally acting upon each other, can alone,
perhaps, perfectly develope; the absence of which, at periods of
transition, is so universally recognised and deplored, and yet which
always, when it does arrive, captivates us, as it were, by surprise. How
much there was of freshness, and fancy, and natural pathos in his mind,
may be discerned in his Persian romance of "The Loves of Mejnoon and
Leila." We who have been accustomed to the great poets of the nineteenth
century seeking their best inspiration in the climate and manners of the
East; who are familiar with the land of the Sun from the isles of Ionia
to the vales of Cashmere; can scarcely appreciate the literary
originality of a writer who, fifty years ago, dared to devise a real
Eastern story, and seeking inspiration in the pages of Oriental
literature, compose it with reference to the Eastern mind, and customs,
and landscape. One must have been familiar with the Almorans and Hamets,
the Visions of Mirza and the kings of Ethiopia, and the other dull and
monstrous masquerades of Orientalism then prevalent, to estimate such an
enterprise, in which, however, one should not forget the author had the
advantage of the guiding friendship of that distinguished Orientalist,
Sir William Ouseley. The reception of this work by the public, and of
other works of fiction which its author gave to them anonymously, was in
every respect encouraging, and their success may impartially be
registered as fairly proportionate to their merits; but it was not a
success, or a proof of power, which, in my father's opinion, compensated
for that life of literary research and study which their composition
disturbed and enfeebled. It was at the ripe age of five-and-thirty that
he renounced his dreams of being an author, and resolved to devote
himself for the rest of his life to the acquisition of knowledge.
When my father, many years afterwards, made the acquaintance of Sir
Walter Scott, the great poet saluted him by reciting a poem of
half-a-dozen stanzas which my father had written in his early youth. Not
altogether without agitation, surprise was expressed that these lines
should have been known, still more that they should have been
remembered. "Ah!" said Sir Walter, "if the writer of these lines had
gone on, he would have been an English poet."[2]
It is possible; it is even probable that, if my father had devoted
himself to the art, he might have become the author of some elegant and
popular didactic poem, on some ordinary subject, which his fancy would
have adorned with grace and his sensibility invested with sentiment;
some small volume which might have reposed with a classic title upon our
library shelves, and served as a prize volume at Ladies' Schools. This
celebrity was not reserved for him: instead of this he was destined to
give to his country a series of works illustrative of its literary and
political history, full of new information and new views, which time
and opinion has ratified as just. But the poetical temperament was not
thrown away upon him; it never is on any one; it was this great gift
which prevented his being a mere literary antiquary; it was this which
animated his page with picture and his narrative with interesting
vivacity; above all, it was this temperament, which invested him with
that sympathy with his subject, which made him the most delightful
biographer in our language. In a word, it was because he was a poet,
that he was a popular writer, and made belles-lettres charming to the
multitude.
It was during the ten years that now occurred that he mainly acquired
that store of facts which were the foundation of his future
speculations. His pen was never idle, but it was to note and to
register, not to compose. His researches were prosecuted every morning
among the MSS. of the British Museum, while his own ample collections
permitted him to pursue his investigation in his own library into the
night. The materials which he accumulated during this period are only
partially exhausted. At the end of ten years, during which, with the
exception of one anonymous work, he never indulged in composition, the
irresistible desire of communicating his conclusions to the world came
over him, and after all his almost childish aspirations, his youth of
reverie and hesitating and imperfect effort, he arrived at the mature
age of forty-five before his career as a great author, influencing
opinion, really commenced.
The next ten years passed entirely in production: from 1812 to 1822 the
press abounded with his works. His "Calamities of Authors," his "Memoirs
of Literary Controversy," in the manner of Bayle; his "Essay on the
Literary Character," the most perfect of his compositions; were all
chapters in that History of English Literature which he then commenced
to meditate, and which it was fated should never be completed.
It was during this period also that he published his "Inquiry into the
Literary and Political Character of James the First," in which he first
opened those views respecting the times and the conduct of the Stuarts,
which were opposed to the long prevalent opinions of this country, but
which with him were at least the result of unprejudiced research, and
their promulgation, as he himself expressed it, "an affair of literary
conscience."[3]
But what retarded his project of a History of our Literature at this
time was the almost embarrassing success of his juvenile production,
"The Curiosities of Literature." These two volumes had already reached
five editions, and their author found himself, by the public demand,
again called upon to sanction their re-appearance. Recognising in this
circumstance some proof of their utility, he resolved to make the work
more worthy of the favour which it enjoyed, and more calculated to
produce the benefit which he desired. Without attempting materially to
alter the character of the first two volumes, he revised and enriched
them, while at the same time he added a third volume of a vein far more
critical, and conveying the results of much original research. The
success of this publication was so great, that its author, after much
hesitation, resolved, as he was wont to say, to take advantage of a
popular title, and pour forth the treasures of his mind in three
additional volumes, which, unlike continuations in general, were at once
greeted with the highest degree of popular delight and esteem. And,
indeed, whether we consider the choice variety of the subjects, the
critical and philosophical speculation which pervades them, the amount
of new and interesting information brought to bear, and the animated
style in which all is conveyed, it is difficult to conceive
miscellaneous literature in a garb more stimulating and attractive.
These six volumes, after many editions, are now condensed into the form
at present given to the public, and in which the development of the
writer's mind for a quarter of a century may be completely traced.
Although my father had on the whole little cause to complain of unfair
criticism, especially considering how isolated he always remained, it is
not to be supposed that a success so eminent should have been exempt in
so long a course from some captious comments. It has been alleged of
late years by some critics, that he was in the habit of exaggerating the
importance of his researches; that he was too fond of styling every
accession to our knowledge, however slight, as a discovery; that there
were some inaccuracies in his early volumes (not very wonderful in so
multifarious a work), and that the foundation of his "secret history"
was often only a single letter, or a passage in a solitary diary.
The sources of secret history at the present day are so rich and
various; there is such an eagerness among their possessors to publish
family papers, even sometimes in shapes, and at dates so recent, as
scarcely to justify their appearance; that modern critics, in their
embarrassment of manuscript wealth, are apt to view with too
depreciating an eye the more limited resources of men of letters at the
commencement of the century. Not five-and-twenty years ago, when
preparing his work on King Charles the First, the application of my
father to make some researches in the State Paper Office was refused by
the Secretary of State of the day. Now, foreign potentates and ministers
of State, and public corporations and the heads of great houses, feel
honoured by such appeals, and respond to them with cordiality. It is not
only the State Paper Office of England, but the Archives of France,
that are open to the historical investigator. But what has produced this
general and expanding taste for literary research in the world, and
especially in England? The labours of our elder authors, whose taste and
acuteness taught us the value of the materials which we in our ignorance
neglected. When my father first frequented the reading-room of the
British Museum at the end of the last century, his companions never
numbered half-a-dozen; among them, if I remember rightly, were Mr.
Pinkerton and Mr. Douce. Now these daily pilgrims of research may be
counted by as many hundreds. Few writers have more contributed to form
and diffuse this delightful and profitable taste for research than the
author of the "Curiosities of Literature;" few writers have been more
successful in inducing us to pause before we accepted without a scruple
the traditionary opinion that has distorted a fact or calumniated a
character; and independently of every other claim which he possesses to
public respect, his literary discoveries, viewed in relation to the age
and the means, were considerable. But he had other claims: a vital
spirit in his page, kindred with the souls of a Bayle and a Montaigne.
His innumerable imitators and their inevitable failure for half a
century alone prove this, and might have made them suspect that there
were some ingredients in the spell besides the accumulation of facts and
a happy title. Many of their publications, perpetually appearing and
constantly forgotten, were drawn up by persons of considerable
acquirements, and were ludicrously mimetic of their prototype, even as
to the size of the volume and the form of the page. What has become of
these "Varieties of Literature," and "Delights of Literature," and
"Delicacies of Literature," and "Relics of Literature,"--and the other
Protean forms of uninspired compilation? Dead as they deserve to be:
while the work, the idea of which occurred to its writer in his early
youth, and which he lived virtually to execute in all the ripeness of
his studious manhood, remains as fresh and popular as ever,--the
Literary Miscellany of the English People.
I have ventured to enter into some details as to the earlier and
obscurer years of my father's life, because I thought that they threw
light upon human character, and that without them, indeed, a just
appreciation of his career could hardly be formed. I am mistaken, if we
do not recognise in his instance two very interesting qualities of life:
predisposition and self-formation. There was a third, which I think is
to be honoured, and that was his sympathy with his order. No one has
written so much about authors, and so well. Indeed, before his time, the
Literary Character had never been fairly placed before the world. He
comprehended its idiosyncrasy: all its strength and all its weakness. He
could soften, because he could explain, its infirmities; in the analysis
and record of its power, he vindicated the right position of authors in
the social scale. They stand between the governors and the governed, he
impresses on us in the closing pages of his greatest work.[4] Though he
shared none of the calamities, and scarcely any of the controversies, of
literature, no one has sympathised so intimately with the sorrows, or so
zealously and impartially registered the instructive disputes, of
literary men. He loved to celebrate the exploits of great writers, and
to show that, in these ages, the pen is a weapon as puissant as the
sword. He was also the first writer who vindicated the position of the
great artist in the history of genius. His pages are studded with
pregnant instances and graceful details, borrowed from the life of Art
and its votaries, and which his intimate and curious acquaintance with
Italian letters readily and happily supplied. Above all writers, he has
maintained the greatness of intellect, and the immortality of thought.
He was himself a complete literary character, a man who really passed
his life in his library. Even marriage produced no change in these
habits; he rose to enter the chamber where he lived alone with his
books, and at night his lamp was ever lit within the same walls.
Nothing, indeed, was more remarkable than the isolation of this
prolonged existence; and it could only be accounted for by the united
influence of three causes: his birth, which brought him no relations or
family acquaintance; the bent of his disposition; and the circumstance
of his inheriting an independent fortune, which rendered unnecessary
those exertions that would have broken up his self-reliance. He disliked
business, and he never required relaxation; he was absorbed in his
pursuits. In London his only amusement was to ramble among booksellers;
if he entered a club, it was only to go into the library. In the
country, he scarcely ever left his room but to saunter in abstraction
upon a terrace; muse over a chapter, or coin a sentence. He had not a
single passion or prejudice: all his convictions were the result of his
own studies, and were often opposed to the impressions which he had
early imbibed. He not only never entered into the politics of the day,
but he could never understand them. He never was connected with any
particular body or set of men; comrades of school or college, or
confederates in that public life which, in England, is, perhaps, the
only foundation of real friendship. In the consideration of a question,
his mind was quite undisturbed by traditionary preconceptions; and it
was this exemption from passion and prejudice which, although his
intelligence was naturally somewhat too ingenious and fanciful for the
conduct of close argument, enabled him, in investigation, often to show
many of the highest attributes of the judicial mind, and particularly to
sum up evidence with singular happiness and ability.
Although in private life he was of a timid nature, his moral courage as
a writer was unimpeachable. Most certainly, throughout his long career,
he never wrote a sentence which he did not believe was true. He will
generally be found to be the advocate of the discomfited and the
oppressed. So his conclusions are often opposed to popular impressions.
This was from no love of paradox, to which he was quite superior; but
because in the conduct of his researches, he too often found that the
unfortunate are calumniated. His vindication of King James the First, he
has himself described as "an affair of literary conscience:" his greater
work on the Life and Times of the son of the first Stuart arose from the
same impulse. He had deeply studied our history during the first moiety
of the seventeenth century; he looked upon it as a famous age; he was
familiar with the works of its great writers, and there was scarcely one
of its almost innumerable pamphlets with which he was not acquainted.
During the thoughtful investigations of many years, he had arrived at
results which were not adapted to please the passing multitude, but
which, because he held them to be authentic, he was uneasy lest he
should die without recording. Yet strong as were his convictions,
although, notwithstanding his education in the revolutionary philosophy
of the eighteenth century, his nature and his studies had made him a
votary of loyalty and reverence, his pen was always prompt to do justice
to those who might be looked upon as the adversaries of his own cause:
and this was because his cause was really truth. If he has upheld Laud
under unjust aspersions, the last labour of his literary life was to
vindicate the character of Hugh Peters. If, from the recollection of the
sufferings of his race, and from profound reflection on the principles
of the Institution, he was hostile to the Papacy, no writer in our
literature has done more complete justice to the conduct of the English
Romanists. Who can read his history of Chidiock Titchbourne unmoved? or
can refuse to sympathise with his account of the painful difficulties of
the English Monarchs with their loyal subjects of the old faith? If in
a parliamentary country he has dared to criticise the conduct of
Parliaments, it was only because an impartial judgment had taught him,
as he himself expresses it, that "Parliaments have their passions as
well as individuals."
He was five years in the composition of his work on the "Life and Reign
of Charles the First," and the five volumes appeared at intervals
between 1828 and 1831. It was feared by his publisher, that the
distracted epoch at which this work was issued, and the tendency of the
times, apparently so adverse to his own views, might prove very
injurious to its reception. But the effect of these circumstances was
the reverse. The minds of men were inclined to the grave and national
considerations that were involved in these investigations. The
principles of political institutions, the rival claims of the two Houses
of Parliament, the authority of the Established Church, the demands of
religious sects, were, after a long lapse of years, anew the theme of
public discussion. Men were attracted to a writer who traced the origin
of the anti-monarchical principle in modern Europe; treated of the arts
of insurgency; gave them, at the same time, a critical history of the
Puritans, and a treatise on the genius of the Papacy; scrutinised the
conduct of triumphant patriots, and vindicated a decapitated monarch.
The success of this work was eminent; and its author appeared for the
first and only time of his life in public, when amidst the cheers of
under-graduates, and the applause of graver men, the solitary student
received an honorary degree from the University of Oxford, a fitting
homage, in the language of the great University, "OPTIMI REGIS OPTIMO
VINDICI."
I cannot but recall a trait that happened on this occasion. After my
father returned to his hotel from the theatre, a stranger requested an
interview with him. A Swiss gentleman, travelling in England at the
time, who had witnessed the scene just closed, begged to express the
reason why he presumed thus personally and cordially to congratulate
the new Doctor of Civil Law. He was the son of my grandfather's chief
clerk, and remembered his parent's employer; whom he regretted did not
survive to be aware of this honourable day. Thus, amid all the strange
vicissitudes of life, we are ever, as it were, moving in a circle.
Notwithstanding he was now approaching his seventieth year, his health
being unbroken and his constitution very robust, my father resolved
vigorously to devote himself to the composition of the history of our
vernacular Literature. He hesitated for a moment, whether he should at
once address himself to this greater task, or whether he should first
complete a Life of Pope, for which he had made great preparations, and
which had long occupied his thoughts. His review of "Spence's Anecdotes"
in the Quarterly, so far back as 1820, which gave rise to the celebrated
Pope Controversy, in which Mr. Campbell, Lord Byron, Mr. Bowles, Mr.
Roscoe, and others less eminent broke lances, would prove how well
qualified, even at that distant date, the critic was to become the
biographer of the great writer, whose literary excellency and moral
conduct he, on that occasion, alike vindicated. But, unfortunately as it
turned out, my father was persuaded to address himself to the weightier
task. Hitherto, in his publications, he had always felt an extreme
reluctance to travel over ground which others had previously visited. He
liked to give new matter, and devote himself to detached points, on
which he entertained different opinions from those prevalent. Thus his
works are generally of a supplementary character, and assume in their
readers a certain degree of preliminary knowledge. In the present
instance he was induced to frame his undertaking on a different scale,
and to prepare a history which should be complete in itself, and supply
the reader with a perfect view of the gradual formation of our language
and literature. He proposed to effect this in six volumes; though, I
apprehend, he would not have succeeded in fulfilling his intentions
within that limit. His treatment of the period of Queen Anne would have
been very ample, and he would also have accomplished in this general
work a purpose which he had also long contemplated, and for which he had
made curious and extensive collections, namely, a History of the English
Freethinkers.
But all these great plans were destined to a terrible defeat. Towards
the end of the year 1839, still in the full vigour of his health and
intellect, he suffered a paralysis of the optic nerve; and that eye,
which for so long a term had kindled with critical interest over the
volumes of so many literatures and so many languages, was doomed to
pursue its animated course no more. Considering the bitterness of such a
calamity to one whose powers were otherwise not in the least impaired,
he bore on the whole his fate with magnanimity, even with cheerfulness.
Unhappily, his previous habits of study and composition rendered the
habit of dictation intolerable, even impossible to him. But with the
assistance of his daughter, whose intelligent solicitude he has
commemorated in more than one grateful passage, he selected from his
manuscripts three volumes, which he wished to have published under the
becoming title of "A Fragment of a History of English Literature," but
which were eventually given to the public under that of "Amenities of
Literature."
He was also enabled during these last years of physical, though not of
moral, gloom, to prepare a new edition of his work on the Life and Times
of Charles the First, which had been for some time out of print. He
contrived, though slowly, and with great labour, very carefully to
revise, and improve, and enrich these volumes. He was wont to say that
the best monument to an author was a good edition of his works: it is my
purpose that he should possess this memorial. He has been described by a
great authority as a writer sui generis; and indeed had he never
written, it appears to me, that there would have been a gap in our
libraries, which it would have been difficult to supply. Of him it might
be added that, for an author, his end was an euthanasia, for on the day
before he was seized by that fatal epidemic, of the danger of which, to
the last moment, he was unconscious, he was apprised by his publishers,
that all his works were out of print, and that their re-publication
could no longer be delayed.
In this notice of the career of my father, I have ventured to draw
attention to three circumstances which I thought would be esteemed
interesting; namely, predisposition, self-formation, and sympathy with
his order. There is yet another which completes and crowns the
character,--constancy of purpose; and it is only in considering his
course as a whole, that we see how harmonious and consistent have been
that life and its labours, which, in a partial and brief view, might be
supposed to have been somewhat desultory and fragmentary.
On his moral character I shall scarcely presume to dwell. The
philosophic sweetness of his disposition, the serenity of his lot, and
the elevating nature of his pursuits, combined to enable him to pass
through life without an evil act, almost without an evil thought. As the
world has always been fond of personal details respecting men who have
been celebrated, I will mention that he was fair, with a Bourbon nose,
and brown eyes of extraordinary beauty and lustre. He wore a small black
velvet cap, but his white hair latterly touched his shoulders in curls
almost as flowing as in his boyhood. His extremities were delicate and
well-formed, and his leg, at his last hour, as shapely as in his youth,
which showed the vigour of his frame. Latterly he had become corpulent.
He did not excel in conversation, though in his domestic circle he was
garrulous. Everything interested him; and blind, and eighty-two, he was
still as susceptible as a child. One of his last acts was to compose
some verses of gay gratitude to his daughter-in-law, who was his London
correspondent, and to whose lively pen his last years were indebted for
constant amusement. He had by nature a singular volatility which never
deserted him. His feelings, though always amiable, were not painfully
deep, and amid joy or sorrow, the philosophic vein was ever evident. He
more resembled Goldsmith than any man that I can compare him to: in his
conversation, his apparent confusion of ideas ending with some
felicitous phrase of genius, his naivete, his simplicity not untouched
with a dash of sarcasm affecting innocence--one was often reminded of
the gifted and interesting friend of Burke and Johnson. There was,
however, one trait in which my father did not resemble Goldsmith: he had
no vanity. Indeed, one of his few infirmities was rather a deficiency of
self-esteem.
On the whole, I hope--nay I believe--that taking all into
consideration--the integrity and completeness of his existence, the fact
that, for sixty years, he largely contributed to form the taste, charm
the leisure, and direct the studious dispositions, of the great body of
the public, and that his works have extensively and curiously
illustrated the literary and political history of our country, it will
be conceded, that in his life and labours, he repaid England for the
protection and the hospitality which this country accorded to his father
a century ago.
D.
HUGHENDEN MANOR,
_Christmas_, 1848.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: "Essay on the Literary Character," Vol. I. chap. v.]
[Footnote 2: Sir Walter was sincere, for he inserted the poem in the
"English Minstrelsy." It may now be found in these volumes, Vol. I. p.
230, where, in consequence of the recollection of Sir Walter, and as
illustrative of manners now obsolete, it was subsequently inserted.]
[Footnote 3: "The present inquiry originates in an affair of literary
conscience. Many years ago I set off with the popular notions of the
character of James the First; but in the course of study, and with a
more enlarged comprehension of the age, I was frequently struck by the
contrast between his real and his apparent character. * * * * It would
be a cowardly silence to shrink from encountering all that popular
prejudice and party feeling may oppose; this would be incompatible with
that constant search after truth, which at least may be expected from
the retired student."--_Preface to the Inquiry._]
[Footnote 4: "Essay on the Literary Character," Vol. II. chap. XXV.]
* * * * *
CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE.
BY
I. DISRAELI.
* * * * *
TO
FRANCIS DOUCE, ESQ.
THESE VOLUMES OF SOME LITERARY RESEARCHES
ARE INSCRIBED;
AS A SLIGHT MEMORIAL OF FRIENDSHIP
AND
A GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT
TO
A LOVER OF LITERATURE.
* * * * *
PREFACE.
Of a work which long has been placed on that shelf which Voltaire has
discriminated as _la Bibliotheque du Monde_, it is never mistimed for
the author to offer the many, who are familiar with its pages, a settled
conception of its design.
The "Curiosities of Literature," commenced fifty years since, have been
composed at various periods, and necessarily partake of those successive
characters which mark the eras of the intellectual habits of the writer.
In my youth, the taste for modern literary history was only of recent
date. The first elegant scholar who opened a richer vein in the mine of
MODERN LITERATURE was JOSEPH WARTON;--he had a fragmentary mind, and he
was a rambler in discursive criticism. Dr. JOHNSON was a famished man
for anecdotical literature, and sorely complained of the penury of our
literary history.
THOMAS WARTON must have found, in the taste of his brother and the
energy of Johnson, his happiest prototypes; but he had too frequently to
wrestle with barren antiquarianism, and was lost to us at the gates of
that paradise which had hardly opened on him. These were the true
founders of that more elegant literature in which France had preceded
us. These works created a more pleasing species of erudition:--the age
of taste and genius had come; but the age of philosophical thinking was
yet but in its dawn.
Among my earliest literary friends, two distinguished themselves by
their anecdotical literature: JAMES PETIT ANDREWS, by his "Anecdotes,
Ancient and Modern," and WILLIAM SEWARD, by his "Anecdotes of
Distinguished Persons." These volumes were favourably received, and to
such a degree, that a wit of that day, and who is still a wit as well as
a poet, considered that we were far gone in our "Anecdotage."
I was a guest at the banquet, but it seemed to me to consist wholly of
confectionery. I conceived the idea of a collection of a different
complexion. I was then seeking for instruction in modern literature; and
our language afforded no collection of the _res litterariae_. In the
diversified volumes of the French _Ana_, I found, among the best,
materials to work on. I improved my subjects with as much of our own
literature as my limited studies afforded. The volume, without a name,
was left to its own unprotected condition. I had not miscalculated the
wants of others by my own.
This first volume had reminded the learned of much which it is grateful
to remember, and those who were restricted by their classical studies,
or lounged only in perishable novelties, were in modern literature but
dry wells, for which I had opened clear waters from a fresh spring. The
work had effected its design in stimulating the literary curiosity of
those, who, with a taste for its tranquil pursuits, are impeded in their
acquirement. Imitations were numerous. My reading became more various,
and the second volume of "Curiosities of Literature" appeared, with a
slight effort at more original investigation. The two brother volumes
remained favourites during an interval of twenty years.
It was as late as 1817 that I sent forth the third volume; without a
word of preface. I had no longer anxieties to conceal or promises to
perform. The subjects chosen were novel, and investigated with more
original composition. The motto prefixed to this third volume from the
Marquis of Halifax is lost in the republications, but expresses the
peculiar delight of all literary researches for those who love them:
"The struggling for knowledge hath a pleasure in it like that of
wrestling with a fine woman."
The notice which the third volume obtained, returned me to the dream of
my youth. I considered that essay writing, from Addison to the
successors of Johnson, which had formed one of the most original
features of our national literature, would now fail in its attraction,
even if some of those elegant writers themselves had appeared in a form
which their own excellence had rendered familiar and deprived of all
novelty. I was struck by an observation which Johnson has thrown out.
That sage, himself an essayist and who had lived among our essayists,
fancied that "mankind may come in time to write all aphoristically;" and
so athirst was that first of our great moral biographers for the details
of human life and the incidental characteristics of individuals, that he
was desirous of obtaining anecdotes without preparation or connexion.
"If a man," said this lover of literary anecdotes, "is to wait till he
weaves anecdotes, we may be long in getting them, and get but few in
comparison to what we might get." Another observation, of Lord
Bolingbroke, had long dwelt in my mind, that "when examples are pointed
out to us, there is a kind of appeal with which we are flattered made to
our senses as well as our understandings." An induction from a variety
of particulars seemed to me to combine that delight, which Johnson
derived from anecdotes, with that philosophy which Bolingbroke founded
on examples; and on this principle the last three volumes of the
"Curiosities of Literature" were constructed, freed from the formality
of dissertation, and the vagueness of the lighter essay.
These "Curiosities of Literature" have passed through a remarkable
ordeal of time; they have survived a generation of rivals; they are
found wherever books are bought, and they have been repeatedly reprinted
at foreign presses, as well as translated. These volumes have imbued our
youth with their first tastes for modern literature, have diffused a
delight in critical and philosophical speculation among circles of
readers who were not accustomed to literary topics; and finally, they
have been honoured by eminent contemporaries, who have long consulted
them and set their stamp on the metal.
A voluminous miscellany, composed at various periods, cannot be exempt
from slight inadvertencies. Such a circuit of multifarious knowledge
could not be traced were we to measure and count each step by some
critical pedometer; life would be too short to effect any reasonable
progress. Every work must be judged by its design, and is to be valued
by its result.
BRADENHAM HOUSE,
_March_, 1839.
CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.
LIBRARIES 1
THE BIBLIOMANIA 9
LITERARY JOURNALS 12
RECOVERY OF MANUSCRIPTS 17
SKETCHES OF CRITICISM 24
THE PERSECUTED LEARNED 27
POVERTY OF THE LEARNED 29
IMPRISONMENT OF THE LEARNED 35
AMUSEMENTS OF THE LEARNED 38
PORTRAITS OF AUTHORS 42
DESTRUCTION OF BOOKS 47
SOME NOTIONS OF LOST WORKS 58
QUODLIBETS, OR SCHOLASTIC DISQUISITIONS 60
FAME CONTEMNED 66
THE SIX FOLLIES OF SCIENCE 66
IMITATORS 67
CICERO'S PUNS 69
PREFACES 71
EARLY PRINTING 73
ERRATA 78
PATRONS 82
POETS, PHILOSOPHERS, AND ARTISTS, MADE BY ACCIDENT 85
INEQUALITIES OF GENIUS 88
GEOGRAPHICAL STYLE 88
LEGENDS 89
THE PORT-ROYAL SOCIETY 94
THE PROGRESS OF OLD AGE IN NEW STUDIES 98
SPANISH POETRY 100
SAINT EVREMOND 102
MEN OF GENIUS DEFICIENT IN CONVERSATION 103
VIDA 105
THE SCUDERIES 105
DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULT 110
PRIOR'S HANS CARVEL 111
THE STUDENT IN THE METROPOLIS 112
THE TALMUD 113
RABBINICAL STORIES 120
ON THE CUSTOM OF SALUTING AFTER SNEEZING 126
BONAVENTURE DE PERIERS 128
GROTIUS 129
NOBLEMEN TURNED CRITICS 131
LITERARY IMPOSTURES 132
CARDINAL RICHELIEU 139
ARISTOTLE AND PLATO 142
ABELARD AND ELOISA 145
PHYSIOGNOMY 148
CHARACTERS DESCRIBED BY MUSICAL NOTES 150
MILTON 152
ORIGIN OF NEWSPAPERS 155
TRIALS AND PROOFS OF GUILT IN SUPERSTITIOUS AGES 161
INQUISITION 166
SINGULARITIES OBSERVED BY VARIOUS NATIONS IN THEIR REPASTS 170
MONARCHS 173
OF THE TITLES OF ILLUSTRIOUS, HIGHNESS, AND EXCELLENCE 175
TITLES OF SOVEREIGNS 178
ROYAL DIVINITIES 179
DETHRONED MONARCHS 181
FEUDAL CUSTOMS 183
GAMING 187
THE ARABIC CHRONICLE 191
METEMPSYCHOSIS 192
SPANISH ETIQUETTE 194
THE GOTHS AND HUNS 196
VICARS OF BRAY 196
DOUGLAS 197
CRITICAL HISTORY OF POVERTY 198
SOLOMON AND SHEBA 202
HELL 203
THE ABSENT MAN 206
WAX-WORK 206
PASQUIN AND MARFORIO 208
FEMALE BEAUTY AND ORNAMENTS 211
MODERN PLATONISM 213
ANECDOTES OF FASHION 216
A SENATE OF JESUITS 231
THE LOVER'S HEART 233
THE HISTORY OF GLOVES 235
RELICS OF SAINTS 239
PERPETUAL LAMPS OF THE ANCIENTS 243
NATURAL PRODUCTIONS RESEMBLING ARTIFICIAL COMPOSITIONS 244
THE POETICAL GARLAND OF JULIA 247
TRAGIC ACTORS 248
JOCULAR PREACHERS 251
MASTERLY IMITATORS 258
EDWARD THE FOURTH 261
ELIZABETH 264
THE CHINESE LANGUAGE 267
MEDICAL MUSIC 269
MINUTE WRITING 275
NUMERICAL FIGURES 276
ENGLISH ASTROLOGERS 278
ALCHYMY 283
TITLES OF BOOKS 288
LITERARY FOLLIES 293
LITERARY CONTROVERSY 308
LITERARY BLUNDERS 320
A LITERARY WIFE 327
DEDICATIONS 337
PHILOSOPHIC DESCRIPTIVE POEMS 341
PAMPHLETS 343
LITTLE BOOKS 347
A CATHOLIC'S REFUTATION 349
THE GOOD ADVICE OF AN OLD LITERARY SINNER 350
MYSTERIES, MORALITIES, FARCES, AND SOTTIES 352
LOVE AND FOLLY, AN ANCIENT MORALITY 362
RELIGIOUS NOUVELLETTES 363
"CRITICAL SAGACITY," AND "HAPPY CONJECTURE;" OR, BENTLEY'S
MILTON 370
A JANSENIST DICTIONARY 373
MANUSCRIPTS AND BOOKS 375
THE TURKISH SPY 377
SPENSER, JONSON, AND SHAKSPEARE 379
BEN JONSON, FELTHAM, AND RANDOLPH 381
ARIOSTO AND TASSO 386
BAYLE 391
CERVANTES 394
MAGLIABECHI 394
ABRIDGERS 397
PROFESSORS OF PLAGIARISM AND OBSCURITY 400
LITERARY DUTCH 403
THE PRODUCTIONS OF THE MIND NOT SEIZABLE BY CREDITORS 405
CRITICS 406
ANECDOTES OF CENSURED AUTHORS 408
VIRGINITY 412
A GLANCE INTO THE FRENCH ACADEMY 413
POETICAL AND GRAMMATICAL DEATHS 417
SCARRON 421
PETER CORNEILLE 428
POETS 432
ROMANCES 442
THE ASTREA 451
POETS LAUREAT 454
ANGELO POLITIAN 456
ORIGINAL LETTER OF QUEEN ELIZABETH 460
ANNE BULLEN 461
JAMES THE FIRST 462
GENERAL MONK AND HIS WIFE 468
PHILIP AND MARY 469
CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE.
LIBRARIES.
The passion for forming vast collections of books has necessarily
existed in all periods of human curiosity; but long it required regal
munificence to found a national library. It is only since the art of
multiplying the productions of the mind has been discovered, that men of
letters themselves have been enabled to rival this imperial and
patriotic honour. The taste for books, so rare before the fifteenth
century, has gradually become general only within these four hundred
years: in that small space of time the public mind of Europe has been
created.
Of LIBRARIES, the following anecdotes seem most interesting, as they
mark either the affection, or the veneration, which civilised men have
ever felt for these perennial repositories of their minds. The first
national library founded in Egypt seemed to have been placed under the
protection of the divinities, for their statues magnificently adorned
this temple, dedicated at once to religion and to literature. It was
still further embellished by a well-known inscription, for ever grateful
to the votary of literature; on the front was engraven,--"The
nourishment of the soul;" or, according to Diodorus, "The medicine of
the mind."
The Egyptian Ptolemies founded the vast library of Alexandria, which was
afterwards the emulative labour of rival monarchs; the founder infused a
soul into the vast body he was creating, by his choice of the librarian,
Demetrius Phalereus, whose skilful industry amassed from all nations
their choicest productions. Without such a librarian, a national library
would be little more than a literary chaos; his well exercised memory
and critical judgment are its best catalogue. One of the Ptolemies
refused supplying the famished Athenians with wheat, until they
presented him with the original manuscripts of AEschylus, Sophocles, and
Euripides; and in returning copies of these autographs, he allowed them
to retain the fifteen talents which he had pledged with them as a
princely security.
When tyrants, or usurpers, have possessed sense as well as courage, they
have proved the most ardent patrons of literature; they know it is their
interest to turn aside the public mind from political speculations, and
to afford their subjects the inexhaustible occupations of curiosity, and
the consoling pleasures of the imagination. Thus Pisistratus is said to
have been among the earliest of the Greeks, who projected an immense
collection of the works of the learned, and is supposed to have been the
collector of the scattered works, which passed under the name of Homer.
The Romans, after six centuries of gradual dominion, must have possessed
the vast and diversified collections of the writings of the nations they
conquered: among the most valued spoils of their victories, we know that
manuscripts were considered as more precious than vases of gold. Paulus
Emilius, after the defeat of Perseus, king of Macedon, brought to Rome a
great number which he had amassed in Greece, and which he now
distributed among his sons, or presented to the Roman people. Sylla
followed his example. Alter the siege of Athens, he discovered an entire
library in the temple of Apollo, which having carried to Rome, he
appears to have been the founder of the first Roman public library.
After the taking of Carthage, the Roman senate rewarded the family of
Regulus with the books found in that city. A library was a national
gift, and the most honourable they could bestow. From the intercourse of
the Romans with the Greeks, the passion for forming libraries rapidly
increased, and individuals began to pride themselves on their private
collections.
Of many illustrious Romans, their magnificent taste in their _libraries_
has been recorded. Asinius Pollio, Crassus, Caesar, and Cicero, have,
among others, been celebrated for their literary splendor. Lucullus,
whose incredible opulence exhausted itself on more than imperial
luxuries, more honourably distinguished himself by his vast collections
of books, and the happy use he made of them by the liberal access he
allowed the learned. "It was a library," says Plutarch, "whose walks,
galleries, and cabinets, were open to all visitors; and the ingenious
Greeks, when at leisure, resorted to this abode of the Muses to hold
literary conversations, in which Lucullus himself loved to join." This
library enlarged by others, Julius Caesar once proposed to open for the
public, having chosen the erudite Varro for its librarian; but the
daggers of Brutus and his party prevented the meditated projects of
Caesar. In this museum, Cicero frequently pursued his studies, during the
time his friend Faustus had the charge of it; which he describes to
Atticus in his 4th Book, Epist. 9. Amidst his public occupations and his
private studies, either of them sufficient to have immortalised one man,
we are astonished at the minute attention Cicero paid to the formation
of his libraries and his cabinets of antiquities.
The emperors were ambitious, at length, to give _their names_ to the
_libraries_ they founded; they did not consider the purple as their
chief ornament. Augustus was himself an author; and to one of those
sumptuous buildings, called _Thermae_, ornamented with porticos,
galleries, and statues, with shady walks, and refreshing baths,
testified his love of literature by adding a magnificent library. One of
these libraries he fondly called by the name of his sister Octavia; and
the other, the temple of Apollo, became the haunt of the poets, as
Horace, Juvenal, and Persius have commemorated. The successors of
Augustus imitated his example, and even Tiberius had an imperial
library, chiefly consisting of works concerning the empire and the acts
of its sovereigns. These Trajan augmented by the Ulpian library,
denominated from his family name. In a word, we have accounts of the
rich ornaments the ancients bestowed on their libraries; of their floors
paved with marble, their walls covered with glass and ivory, and their
shelves and desks of ebony and cedar.
The first _public library_ in Italy was founded by a person of no
considerable fortune: his credit, his frugality, and fortitude, were
indeed equal to a treasury. Nicholas Niccoli, the son of a merchant,
after the death of his father relinquished the beaten roads of gain, and
devoted his soul to study, and his fortune to assist students. At his
death, he left his library to the public, but his debts exceeding his
effects, the princely generosity of Cosmo de' Medici realised the
intention of its former possessor, and afterwards enriched it by the
addition of an apartment, in which he placed the Greek, Hebrew, Arabic,
Chaldaic, and Indian MSS. The intrepid spirit of Nicholas V. laid the
foundations of the Vatican; the affection of Cardinal Bessarion for his
country first gave Venice the rudiments of a public library; and to Sir
T. Bodley we owe the invaluable one of Oxford. Sir Robert Cotton, Sir
Hans Sloane, Dr. Birch, Mr. Cracherode, Mr. Douce, and others of this
race of lovers of books, have all contributed to form these literary
treasures, which our nation owe to the enthusiasm of individuals, who
have consecrated their fortunes and their days to this great public
object; or, which in the result produces the same public good, the
collections of such men have been frequently purchased on their deaths,
by government, and thus have been preserved entire in our national
collections.[5]
LITERATURE, like virtue, is often its own reward, and the enthusiasm
some experience in the permanent enjoyments of a vast library has far
outweighed the neglect or the calumny of the world, which some of its
votaries have received. From the time that Cicero poured forth his
feelings in his oration for the poet Archias, innumerable are the
testimonies of men of letters of the pleasurable delirium of their
researches. Richard de Bury, Bishop of Durham, and Chancellor of England
so early as 1341, perhaps raised the first private library in our
country. He purchased thirty or forty volumes of the Abbot of St. Albans
for fifty pounds' weight of silver. He was so enamoured of his large
collection, that he expressly composed a treatise on his love of books,
under the title of _Philobiblion_; and which has been recently
translated.[6]
He who passes much of his time amid such vast resources, and does not
aspire to make some small addition to his library, were it only by a
critical catalogue, must indeed be not more animated than a leaden
Mercury. He must be as indolent as that animal called the Sloth, who
perishes on the tree he climbs, after he has eaten all its leaves.
Rantzau, the founder of the great library at Copenhagen, whose days were
dissolved in the pleasures of reading, discovers his taste and ardour in
the following elegant effusion:--
Salvete aureoli mei libelli,
Meae deliciae, mei lepores!
Quam vos saepe oculis juvat videre,
Et tritos manibus tenere nostris!
Tot vos eximii, tot eruditi,
Prisci lumina saeculi et recentis,
Confecere viri, suasque vobis
Ausi credere lucubrationes:
Et sperare decus perenne scriptis;
Neque haec irrita spes fefellit illos.
IMITATED.
Golden volumes! richest treasures!
Objects of delicious pleasures!
You my eyes rejoicing please,
You my hands in rapture seize!
Brilliant wits, and musing sages,
Lights who beamed through many ages,
Left to your conscious leaves their story,
And dared to trust you with their glory;
And now their hope of fame achieved,
Dear volumes! you have not deceived!
This passion for the enjoyment of _books_ has occasioned their lovers
embellishing their outsides with costly ornaments;[7] a fancy which
ostentation may have abused; but when these volumes belong to the real
man of letters, the most fanciful bindings are often the emblems of his
taste and feelings. The great Thuanus procured the finest copies for his
library, and his volumes are still eagerly purchased, bearing his
autograph on the last page. A celebrated amateur was Grollier; the Muses
themselves could not more ingeniously have ornamented their favourite
works. I have seen several in the libraries of curious collectors. They
are gilded and stamped with peculiar neatness; the compartments on the
binding are drawn, and painted, with subjects analogous to the works
themselves; and they are further adorned by that amiable inscription,
_Jo. Grollierii et amicorum!_--purporting that these literary treasures
were collected for himself and for his friends.
The family of the Fuggers had long felt an hereditary passion for the
accumulation of literary treasures: and their portraits, with others in
their picture gallery, form a curious quarto volume of 127 portraits,
rare even in Germany, entitled "Fuggerorum Pinacotheca."[8] Wolfius, who
daily haunted their celebrated library, pours out his gratitude in some
Greek verses, and describes this bibliotheque as a literary heaven,
furnished with as many books as there were stars in the firmament; or as
a literary garden, in which he passed entire days in gathering fruit and
flowers, delighting and instructing himself by perpetual occupation.
In 1364, the royal library of France did not exceed twenty volumes.
Shortly after, Charles V. increased it to 900, which, by the fate of
war, as much at least as by that of money, the Duke of Bedford
afterwards purchased and transported to London, where libraries were
smaller than on the continent, about 1440. It is a circumstance worthy
observation, that the French sovereign, Charles V. surnamed the Wise,
ordered that thirty portable lights, with a silver lamp suspended from
the centre, should be illuminated at night, that students might not find
their pursuits interrupted at any hour. Many among us, at this moment,
whose professional avocations admit not of morning studies, find that
the resources of a public library are not accessible to them, from the
omission of the regulation of the zealous Charles V. of France. An
objection to night-studies in public libraries is the danger of fire,
and in our own British Museum not a light is permitted to be carried
about on any pretence whatever. The history of the "Bibliotheque du Roi"
is a curious incident in literature; and the progress of the human mind
and public opinion might be traced by its gradual accessions, noting the
changeable qualities of its literary stores chiefly from theology, law,
and medicine, to philosophy and elegant literature. It was first under
Louis XIV. that the productions of the art of engraving were there
collected and arranged; the great minister Colbert purchased the
extensive collections of the Abbe de Marolles, who may be ranked among
the fathers of our print-collectors. Two hundred and sixty-four ample
portfolios laid the foundations, and the very catalogues of his
collections, printed by Marolles himself, are rare and high-priced. Our
own national print gallery is growing from its infant establishment.
Mr. Hallam has observed, that in 1440, England had made comparatively
but little progress in learning--and Germany was probably still less
advanced. However, in Germany, Trithemius, the celebrated abbot of
Spanheim, who died in 1516, had amassed about two thousand manuscripts;
a literary treasure which excited such general attention, that princes
and eminent men travelled to visit Trithemius and his library. About
this time, six or eight hundred volumes formed a royal collection, and
their cost could only be furnished by a prince. This was indeed a great
advancement in libraries, for at the beginning of the fourteenth century
the library of Louis IX. contained only four classical authors; and that
of Oxford, in 1300, consisted of "a few tracts kept in chests."
The pleasures of study are classed by Burton among those exercises or
recreations of the mind which pass _within doors_. Looking about this
"world of books," he exclaims, "I could even live and die with such
meditations, and take more delight and true content of mind in them than
in all thy wealth and sport! There is a sweetness, which, as Circe's
cup, bewitcheth a student: he cannot leave off, as well may witness
those many laborious hours, days, and nights, spent in their voluminous
treatises. So sweet is the delight of study. The last day is _prioris
discipulus_. Heinsius was mewed up in the library of Leyden all the year
long, and that which, to my thinking, should have bred a loathing,
caused in him a greater liking. 'I no sooner,' saith he, 'come into the
library, but I bolt the door to me, excluding Lust, Ambition, Avarice,
and all such vices, whose nurse is Idleness, the mother of Ignorance and
Melancholy. In the very lap of eternity, amongst so many divine souls, I
take my seat with so lofty a spirit, and sweet content, that I pity all
our great ones and rich men, that know not this happiness.'" Such is the
incense of a votary who scatters it on the altar less for the ceremony
than from the devotion.[9]
There is, however, an intemperance in study, incompatible often with our
social or more active duties. The illustrious Grotius exposed himself to
the reproaches of some of his contemporaries for having too warmly
pursued his studies, to the detriment of his public station. It was the
boast of Cicero that his philosophical studies had never interfered with
the services he owed the republic, and that he had only dedicated to
them the hours which others give to their walks, their repasts, and
their pleasures. Looking on his voluminous labours, we are surprised at
this observation;--how honourable is it to him, that his various
philosophical works bear the titles of the different villas he
possessed, which indicates that they were composed in these respective
retirements! Cicero must have been an early riser; and practised that
magic art in the employment of time, which multiplies our days.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 5: The Cottonian collection is the richest English historic
library we possess, and is now located in the British Museum, having
been purchased for the use of the nation by Parliament in 1707, at a
cost of 4500_l._ The collection of Sir Hans Sloane was added thereto in
1753, for the sum of 20,000_l._ Dr. Birch and Mr. Cracherode bequeathed
their most valuable collections to the British Museum. Mr. Douce is the
only collector in the list above who bequeathed his curious gatherings
elsewhere. He was an officer of the Museum for many years, but preferred
to leave his treasures to the Bodleian Library, where they are preserved
intact, according to his earnest wish, a wish he feared might not be
gratified in the national building. It is to this scholar and friend,
the author of these volumes has dedicated them, as a lasting memorial of
an esteem which endured during the life of each.]
[Footnote 6: By Mr. Inglis, in 1832. This famous bishop is said to have
possessed more books than all the others in England put together. Like
Magliabechi, he lived among them, and those who visited him had to
dispense with ceremony and step over the volumes that always strewed his
floor.]
[Footnote 7: The earliest decorated books were the Consular Diptycha,
ivory bookcovers richly sculptured in relief, and destined to contain
upon their tablets the Fasti Consulares, the list ending with the name
of the new consul, whose property they happened to be. Such as have
descended to our own times appear to be works of the lower empire. They
were generally decorated with full length figures of the consul and
attendants, superintending the sports of the circus, or conjoined with
portraits of the reigning prince and emblematic figures. The Greek
Church adopted the style for the covers of the sacred volume, and
ancient clerical libraries formerly possessed many such specimens of
early bookbinding; the covers being richly sculptured in ivory, with
bas-reliefs designed from Scripture history. Such ivories were sometimes
placed in the centre of the covers, and framed in an ornamental
metal-work studded with precious stones and engraved cameos. The
barbaric magnificence of these volumes has never been surpassed; the era
of Charlemagne was the culmination of their glory. One such volume,
presented by that sovereign to the Cathedral at Treves, is enriched with
Roman ivories and decorative gems. The value of manuscripts in the
middle ages, suggested costly bindings for books that consumed the
labour of lives to copy, and decorate with ornamental letters, or
illustrative paintings. In the fifteenth century covers of leather
embossed with storied ornament were in use; ladies also frequently
employed their needles to construct, with threads of gold and silver, on
grounds of coloured silk, the cover of a favourite volume. In the
British Museum one is preserved of a later date--the work of our Queen
Elizabeth. In the sixteenth century small ornaments, capable of being
conjoined into a variety of elaborate patterns, were first used for
stamping the covers with gilding; the leather was stained of various
tints, and a beauty imparted to volumes which has not been surpassed by
the most skilful modern workmen.]
[Footnote 8: The Fuggers were a rich family of merchants, residing at
Augsburg, carrying on trade with both the Indies, and from thence over
Europe. They were ennobled by the Emperor Maximilian I. Their wealth
often maintained the armies of Charles V.; and when Anthony Fugger
received that sovereign at his house at Augsburg he is said, as a part
of the entertainment, to have consumed in a fire of fragrant woods the
bond of the emperor who condescended to become his guest.]
[Footnote 9: A living poet thus enthusiastically describes the charms of
a student's life among his books--"he has his Rome, his Florence, his
whole glowing Italy, within the four walls of his library. He has in his
books the ruins of an antique world, and the glories of a modern
one."--Longfellow's _Hyperion_.]
THE BIBLIOMANIA.
The preceding article is honourable to literature, yet even a passion
for collecting books is not always a passion for literature.
The BIBLIOMANIA, or the collecting an enormous heap of books without
intelligent curiosity, has, since libraries have existed, infected weak
minds, who imagine that they themselves acquire knowledge when they keep
it on their shelves. Their motley libraries have been called the
_madhouses of the Human mind_; and again, _the tomb of books_, when the
possessor will not communicate them, and coffins them up in the cases of
his library. It was facetiously observed, these collections are riot
without a _Lock on the Human Understanding_.[10]
The BIBLIOMANIA never raged more violently than in our own times. It is
fortunate that literature is in no ways injured by the follies of
collectors, since though they preserve the worthless, they necessarily
protect the good.[11]
Some collectors place all their fame on the _view_ of a splendid
library, where volumes, arrayed in all the pomp of lettering, silk
linings, triple gold bands, and tinted leather, are locked up in wire
cases, and secured from the vulgar hands of the _mere reader_, dazzling
our eyes like eastern beauties peering through their jalousies!
LA BRUYERE has touched on this mania with humour:--"Of such a collector,
as soon as I enter his house, I am ready to faint on the staircase, from
a strong smell of Morocco leather. In vain he shows me fine editions,
gold leaves, Etruscan bindings, and naming them one after another, as if
he were showing a gallery of pictures! a gallery, by-the-bye, which he
seldom traverses when _alone_, for he rarely reads; but me he offers to
conduct through it! I thank him for his politeness, and as little as
himself care to visit the tan-house, which he calls his library."
LUCIAN has composed a biting invective against an ignorant possessor of
a vast library, like him, who in the present day, after turning over the
pages of an old book, chiefly admires the _date_. LUCIAN compares him to
a pilot, who was never taught the science of navigation; to a rider who
cannot keep his seat on a spirited horse; to a man who, not having the
use of his feet, would conceal the defect by wearing embroidered shoes;
but, alas! he cannot stand in them! He ludicrously compares him to
Thersites wearing the armour of Achilles, tottering at every step;
leering with his little eyes under his enormous helmet, and his
hunchback raising the cuirass above his shoulders. Why do you buy so
many books? You have no hair, and you purchase a comb; you are blind,
and you will have a grand mirror; you are deaf, and you will have fine
musical instruments! Your costly bindings are only a source of vexation,
and you are continually discharging your librarians for not preserving
them from the silent invasion of the worms, and the nibbling triumphs of
the rats!
Such _collectors_ will contemptuously smile at the _collection_ of the
amiable Melancthon. He possessed in his library only four
authors,--Plato, Pliny, Plutarch, and Ptolemy the geographer.
Ancillon was a great collector of curious books, and dexterously
defended himself when accused of the _Bibliomania_. He gave a good
reason for buying the most elegant editions; which he did not consider
merely as a literary luxury.[12] The less the eyes are fatigued in
reading a work, the more liberty the mind feels to judge of it: and as
we perceive more clearly the excellences and defects of a printed book
than when in MS.; so we see them more plainly in good paper and clear
type, than when the impression and paper are both bad. He always
purchased _first editions_, and never waited for second ones; though it
is the opinion of some that a first edition is only to be considered as
an imperfect essay, which the author proposes to finish after he has
tried the sentiments of the literary world. Bayle approves of Ancillon's
plan. Those who wait for a book till it is reprinted, show plainly that
they prefer the saving of a pistole to the acquisition of knowledge.
With one of these persons, who waited for a second edition, which never
appeared, a literary man argued, that it was better to have two editions
of a book rather than to deprive himself of the advantage which the
reading of the first might procure him. It has frequently happened,
besides, that in second editions, the author omits, as well as adds, or
makes alterations from prudential reasons; the displeasing truths which
he _corrects_, as he might call them, are so many losses incurred by
Truth itself. There is an advantage in comparing the first and
subsequent editions; among other things, we feel great satisfaction in
tracing the variations of a work after its revision. There are also
other secrets, well known to the intelligent curious, who are versed in
affairs relating to books. Many first editions are not to be purchased
for the treble value of later ones. The collector we have noticed
frequently said, as is related of Virgil, "I collect gold from Ennius's
dung." I find, in some neglected authors, particular things, not
elsewhere to be found. He read many of these, but not with equal
attention--"_Sicut canis ad Nilum, bibens et fugiens_;" like a dog at
the Nile, drinking and running.
Fortunate are those who only consider a book for the utility and
pleasure they may derive from its possession. Students, who know much,
and still thirst to know more, may require this vast sea of books; yet
in that sea they may suffer many shipwrecks.
Great collections of books are subject to certain accidents besides the
damp, the worms, and the rats; one not less common is that of the
_borrowers_, not to say a word of the _purloiners_!
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 10: An allusion and pun which occasioned the French
translator of the present work an unlucky blunder: puzzled, no
doubt, by my _facetiously_, he translates "mettant, comme on l'a
_tres-judicieusement_ fait observer, l'entendement humain sous la clef."
The great work and the great author alluded to, having quite escaped
him!]
[Footnote 11: The earliest satire on the mere book-collector is to be
found in Barclay's translation of Brandt's "Ship of Fools," first
printed by Wynkyn de Worde, in 1508. He thus announces his true
position:--
I am the first fool of the whole navie
To keepe the poupe, the helme, and eke the sayle:
For this is my minde, this one pleasure have I,
Of bookes to have greate plentie and apparayle.
Still I am busy bookes assembling,
For to have plenty it is a pleasaunt thing
In my conceyt, and to have them aye in hande:
But what they meane do I not understande.
But yet I have them in great reverence
And honoure, saving them from filth and ordare,
By often brushing and much diligence;
Full goodly bound in pleasaunt coverture,
Of damas, satten, or else of velvet pure:
I keepe them sure, fearing least they should be lost,
For in them is the cunning wherein I me boast.]
[Footnote 12: David Ancillon was born at Metz in 1617. From his earliest
years his devotion to study was so great as to call for the
interposition of his father, to prevent his health being seriously
affected by it; he was described as "intemperately studious." The
Jesuits of Metz gave him the free range of their college library; but
his studies led him to Protestantism, and in 1633 he removed to Geneva,
and devoted himself to the duties of the Reformed Church. Throughout an
honourable life he retained unabated his love of books; and having a
fortune by marriage, he gratified himself in constantly collecting them,
so that he ultimately possessed one of the finest private libraries in
France. For very many years his life passed peaceably and happily amid
his books and his duties, when the revocation of the Edict of Nantes
drove him from his country. His noble library was scattered at
waste-paper prices, "thus in a single day was destroyed the labour,
care, and expense of forty-four years." He died seven years afterwards
at Brandenburg.]
LITERARY JOURNALS.
When writers were not numerous, and readers rare, the unsuccessful
author fell insensibly into oblivion; he dissolved away in his own
weakness. If he committed the private folly of printing what no one
would purchase, he was not arraigned at the public tribunal--and the
awful terrors of his day of judgment consisted only in the retributions
of his publisher's final accounts. At length, a taste for literature
spread through the body of the people; vanity induced the inexperienced
and the ignorant to aspire to literary honours. To oppose these forcible
entries into the haunts of the Muses, periodical criticism brandished
its formidable weapon; and the fall of many, taught some of our greatest
geniuses to rise. Multifarious writings produced multifarious
strictures; and public criticism reached to such perfection, that taste
was generally diffused, enlightening those whose occupations had
otherwise never permitted them to judge of literary compositions.
The invention of REVIEWS, in the form which they have at length
gradually assumed, could not have existed but in the most polished ages
of literature: for without a constant supply of authors, and a refined
spirit of criticism, they could not excite a perpetual interest among
the lovers of literature. These publications were long the chronicles of
taste and science, presenting the existing state of the public mind,
while they formed a ready resource for those idle hours, which men of
letters would not pass idly.
Their multiplicity has undoubtedly produced much evil; puerile critics
and venal drudges manufacture reviews; hence that shameful discordance
of opinion, which is the scorn and scandal of criticism. Passions
hostile to the peaceful truths of literature have likewise made
tremendous inroads in the republic, and every literary virtue has been
lost! In "Calamities of Authors" I have given the history of a literary
conspiracy, conducted by a solitary critic, GILBERT STUART, against the
historian HENRY.
These works may disgust by vapid panegyric, or gross invective; weary
by uniform dulness, or tantalise by superficial knowledge. Sometimes
merely written to catch the public attention, a malignity is indulged
against authors, to season the caustic leaves. A reviewer has admired
those works in private, which he has condemned in his official capacity.
But good sense, good temper, and good taste, will ever form an estimable
journalist, who will inspire confidence, and give stability to his
decisions.
To the lovers of literature these volumes, when they have outlived their
year, are not unimportant. They constitute a great portion of literary
history, and are indeed the annals of the republic.
To our own reviews, we must add the old foreign journals, which are
perhaps even more valuable to the man of letters. Of these the variety
is considerable; and many of their writers are now known. They delight
our curiosity by opening new views, and light up in observing minds many
projects of works, wanted in our own literature. GIBBON feasted on them;
and while he turned them over with constant pleasure, derived accurate
notions of works, which no student could himself have verified; of many
works a notion is sufficient.
The origin of literary journals was the happy project of DENIS DE SALLO,
a counsellor in the parliament of Paris. In 1665 appeared his _Journal
des Scavans_. He published his essay in the name of the Sieur de
Hedouville, his footman! Was this a mere stroke of humour, or designed
to insinuate that the freedom of criticism could only be allowed to his
lacquey? The work, however, met with so favourable a reception, that
SALLO had the satisfaction of seeing it, the following year, imitated
throughout Europe, and his Journal, at the same time, translated into
various languages. But as most authors lay themselves open to an acute
critic, the animadversions of SALLO were given with such asperity of
criticism, and such malignity of wit, that this new journal excited loud
murmurs, and the most heart-moving complaints. The learned had their
plagiarisms detected, and the wit had his claims disputed. Sarasin
called the gazettes of this new Aristarchus, Hebdomadary Flams!
_Billevesees hebdomadaires!_ and Menage having published a law book,
which Sallo had treated with severe raillery, he entered into a long
argument to prove, according to Justinian, that a lawyer is not allowed
to defame another lawyer, &c.: _Senatori maledicere non licet,
remaledicere jus fasque est_. Others loudly declaimed against this new
species of imperial tyranny, and this attempt to regulate the public
opinion by that of an individual. Sallo, after having published only his
third volume, felt the irritated wasps of literature thronging so thick
about him, that he very gladly abdicated the throne of criticism. The
journal is said to have suffered a short interruption by a remonstrance
from the nuncio of the pope, for the energy with which Sallo had
defended the liberties of the Gallican church.
Intimidated by the fate of SALLO, his successor, the Abbe GALLOIS,
flourished in a milder reign. He contented himself with giving the
titles of books, accompanied with extracts; and he was more useful than
interesting. The public, who had been so much amused by the raillery and
severity of the founder of this dynasty of new critics, now murmured at
the want of that salt and acidity by which they had relished the
fugitive collation. They were not satisfied with having the most
beautiful, or the most curious parts of a new work brought together;
they wished for the unreasonable entertainment of railing and raillery.
At length another objection was conjured up against the review;
mathematicians complained that they were neglected to make room for
experiments in natural philosophy; the historian sickened over works of
natural history; the antiquaries would have nothing but discoveries of
MSS. or fragments of antiquity. Medical works were called for by one
party, and reprobated by another. In a word, each reader wished only to
have accounts of books, which were interesting to his profession or his
taste. But a review is a work presented to the public at large, and
written for more than one country. In spite of all these difficulties,
this work was carried to a vast extent. An _index_ to the _Journal des
Scavans_ has been arranged on a critical plan, occupying ten volumes in
quarto, which may be considered as a most useful instrument to obtain
the science and literature of the entire century.
The next celebrated reviewer is BAYLE, who undertook, in 1684, his
_Nouvelles de la Republique des Lettres_. He possessed the art, acquired
by habit, of reading a book by his fingers, as it has been happily
expressed; and of comprising, in concise extracts, a just notion of a
book, without the addition of irrelevant matter. Lively, neat, and full
of that attic salt which gives a relish to the driest disquisitions,
for the first time the ladies and all the _beau-monde_ took an interest
in the labours of the critic. He wreathed the rod of criticism with
roses. Yet even BAYLE, who declared himself to be a reporter, and not a
judge, BAYLE, the discreet sceptic, could not long satisfy his readers.
His panegyric was thought somewhat prodigal; his fluency of style
somewhat too familiar; and others affected not to relish his gaiety. In
his latter volumes, to still the clamour, he assumed the cold sobriety
of an historian: and has bequeathed no mean legacy to the literary
world, in thirty-six small volumes of criticism, closed in 1687. These
were continued by Bernard, with inferior skill; and by Basnage more
successfully, in his _Histoire des Ouvrages des Scavans_.
The contemporary and the antagonist of BAYLE was LE CLERC. His firm
industry has produced three _Bibliotheques_--_Universelle et
Historique_, _Choisie_, and _Ancienne et Moderne_; forming in all
eighty-two volumes, which, complete, bear a high price. Inferior to
BAYLE in the more pleasing talents, he is perhaps superior in erudition,
and shows great skill in analysis: but his hand drops no flowers! GIBBON
resorted to Le Clerc's volumes at his leisure, "as an inexhaustible
source of amusement and instruction." Apostolo Zeno's _Giornale del
Litterati d'Italia_, from 1710 to 1733, is valuable.
BEAUSOBRE and L'ENFANT, two learned Protestants, wrote a _Bibliotheque
Germanique_, from 1720 to 1740, in 50 volumes. Our own literature is
interested by the "_Bibliotheque Britannique_," written by some literary
Frenchmen, noticed by La Croze, in his "Voyage Litteraire," who
designates the writers in this most tantalising manner: "Les auteurs
sont gens de merite, et qui entendent tous parfaitement l'Anglois;
Messrs. S.B., le M.D., et le savant Mr. D." Posterity has been partially
let into the secret: De Missy was one of the contributors, and Warburton
communicated his project of an edition of Velleius Patereulus. This
useful account of English books begins in 1733, and closes in 1747,
Hague, 23 vols.: to this we must add the _Journal Britannique_, in 18
vols., by Dr. MATY, a foreign physician residing in London; this Journal
exhibits a view of the state of English literature from 1750 to 1755.
GIBBON bestows a high character on the journalist, who sometimes
"aspires to the character of a poet and a philosopher; one of the last
disciples of the school of Fontenelle."
MATY'S son produced here a review known to the curious, his style and
decisions often discover haste and heat, with some striking
observations: alluding to his father, in his motto, Maty applies
Virgil's description of the young Ascanius, "Sequitur _patrem_ non
passibus aequis." He says he only holds a _monthly conversation_ with the
public. His obstinate resolution of carrying on this review without an
associate, has shown its folly and its danger; for a fatal illness
produced a cessation, at once, of his periodical labours and his life.
Other reviews, are the _Memoires de Trevoux_, written by the Jesuits.
Their caustic censure and vivacity of style made them redoubtable in
their day; they did not even spare their brothers. The _Journal
Litteraire_, printed at the Hague, was chiefly composed by Prosper
Marchand, Sallengre, and Van Effen, who were then young writers. This
list may be augmented by other journals, which sometimes merit
preservation in the history of modern literature.
Our early English journals notice only a few publications, with little
acumen. Of these, the "Memoirs of Literature," and the "Present State of
the Republic of Letters," are the best. The Monthly Review, the
venerable (now the deceased) mother of our journals, commenced in 1749.
It is impossible to form a literary journal in a manner such as might be
wished; it must be the work of many, of different tempers and talents.
An individual, however versatile and extensive his genius, would soon be
exhausted. Such a regular labour occasioned Bayle a dangerous illness,
and Maty fell a victim to his Review. A prospect always extending as we
proceed, the frequent novelty of the matter, the pride of considering
one's self as the arbiter of literature, animate a journalist at the
commencement of his career; but the literary Hercules becomes fatigued;
and to supply his craving pages he gives copious extracts, till the
journal becomes tedious, or fails in variety. The Abbe Gallois was
frequently diverted from continuing his journal, and Fontenelle remarks,
that this occupation was too restrictive for a mind so extensive as his;
the Abbe could not resist the charms of revelling in a new work, and
gratifying any sudden curiosity which seized him; this interrupted
perpetually the regularity which the public expects from a journalist.
The character of a perfect journalist would be only an ideal portrait;
there are, however, some acquirements which are indispensable. He must
be tolerably acquainted with the subjects he treats on; no _common_
acquirement! He must possess the _literary history of his own times_; a
science which, Fontenelle observes, is almost distinct from any other.
It is the result of an active curiosity, which takes a lively interest
in the tastes and pursuits of the age, while it saves the journalist
from some ridiculous blunders. We often see the mind of a reviewer half
a century remote from the work reviewed. A fine feeling of the various
manners of writers, with a style adapted to fix the attention of the
indolent, and to win the untractable, should be his study; but candour
is the brightest gem of criticism! He ought not to throw everything into
the crucible, nor should he suffer the whole to pass as if he trembled
to touch it. Lampoons and satires in time will lose their effect, as
well as panegyrics. He must learn to resist the seductions of his own
pen: the pretension of composing a treatise on the _subject_, rather
than on the _book_ he criticises--proud of insinuating that he gives, in
a dozen pages, what the author himself has not been able to perform in
his volumes. Should he gain confidence by a popular delusion, and by
unworthy conduct, he may chance to be mortified by the pardon or by the
chastisement of insulted genius. The most noble criticism is that in
which the critic is not the antagonist so much as the rival of the
author.
RECOVERY OF MANUSCRIPTS.
Our ancient classics had a very narrow escape from total annihilation.
Many have perished: many are but fragments; and chance, blind arbiter of
the works of genius, has left us some, not of the highest value; which,
however, have proved very useful, as a test to show the pedantry of
those who adore antiquity not from true feeling, but from traditional
prejudice.
We lost a great number of ancient authors by the conquest of Egypt by
the Saracens, which deprived Europe of the use of the _papyrus_. They
could find no substitute, and knew no other expedient but writing on
parchment, which became every day more scarce and costly. Ignorance and
barbarism unfortunately seized on Roman manuscripts, and industriously
defaced pages once imagined to have been immortal! The most elegant
compositions of classic Rome were converted into the psalms of a
breviary, or the prayers of a missal. Livy and Tacitus "hide their
diminished heads" to preserve the legend of a saint, and immortal truths
were converted into clumsy fictions. It happened that the most
voluminous authors were the greatest sufferers; these were preferred,
because their volume being the greatest, most profitably repaid their
destroying industry, and furnished ampler scope for future
transcription. A Livy or a Diodorus was preferred to the smaller works
of Cicero or Horace; and it is to this circumstance that Juvenal,
Persius, and Martial have come down to us entire, rather probably than
to these pious personages preferring their obscenities, as some have
accused them. At Rome, a part of a book of Livy was found, between the
lines of a parchment but half effaced, on which they had substituted a
book of the Bible; and a recent discovery of Cicero _De Republica_,
which lay concealed under some monkish writing, shows the fate of
ancient manuscripts.[13]
That the Monks had not in high veneration the _profane_ authors, appears
by a facetious anecdote. To read the classics was considered as a very
idle recreation, and some held them in great horror. To distinguish them
from other books, they invented a disgraceful sign: when a monk asked
for a pagan author, after making the general sign they used in their
manual and silent language when they wanted a book, he added a
particular one, which consisted in scratching under his ear, as a dog,
which feels an itching, scratches himself in that place with his
paw--because, said they, an unbeliever is compared to a dog! In this
manner they expressed an _itching_ for those _dogs_ Virgil or
Horace![14]
There have been ages when, for the possession of a manuscript, some
would transfer an estate, or leave in pawn for its loan hundreds of
golden crowns; and when even the sale or loan of a manuscript was
considered of such importance as to have been solemnly registered by
public acts. Absolute as was Louis XI. he could not obtain the MS. of
Rasis, an Arabian writer, from the library of the Faculty of Paris, to
have a copy made, without pledging a hundred golden crowns; and the
president of his treasury, charged with this commission, sold part of
his plate to make the deposit. For the loan of a volume of Avicenna, a
Baron offered a pledge of ten marks of silver, which was refused:
because it was not considered equal to the risk incurred of losing a
volume of Avicenna! These events occurred in 1471. One cannot but smile,
at an anterior period, when a Countess of Anjou bought a favourite book
of homilies for two hundred sheep, some skins of martins, and bushels of
wheat and rye.
In those times, manuscripts were important articles of commerce; they
were excessively scarce, and preserved with the utmost care. Usurers
themselves considered them as precious objects for pawn. A student of
Pavia, who was reduced, raised a new fortune by leaving in pawn a
manuscript of a body of law; and a grammarian, who was ruined by a fire,
rebuilt his house with two small volumes of Cicero.
At the restoration of letters, the researches of literary men were
chiefly directed to this point; every part of Europe and Greece was
ransacked; and, the glorious end considered, there was something sublime
in this humble industry, which often recovered a lost author of
antiquity, and gave one more classic to the world. This occupation was
carried on with enthusiasm, and a kind of mania possessed many, who
exhausted their fortunes in distant voyages and profuse prices. In
reading the correspondence of the learned Italians of these times, their
adventures of manuscript-hunting are very amusing; and their raptures,
their congratulations, or at times their condolence, and even their
censures, are all immoderate. The acquisition of a province would not
have given so much satisfaction as the discovery or an author little
known, or not known at all. "Oh, great gain! Oh, unexpected felicity! I
intreat you, my Poggio, send me the manuscript as soon as possible, that
I may see it before I die!" exclaims Aretino, in a letter overflowing
with enthusiasm, on Poggio's discovery of a copy of Quintilian. Some of
the half-witted, who joined in this great hunt, were often thrown out,
and some paid high for manuscripts not authentic; the knave played on
the bungling amateur of manuscripts, whose credulity exceeded his purse.
But even among the learned, much ill-blood was inflamed; he who had
been most successful in acquiring manuscripts was envied by the less
fortunate, and the glory of possessing a manuscript of Cicero seemed to
approximate to that of being its author. It is curious to observe that
in these vast importations into Italy of manuscripts from Asia, John
Aurispa, who brought many hundreds of Greek manuscripts, laments that he
had chosen more profane than sacred writers; which circumstance he tells
us was owing to the Greeks, who would not so easily part with
theological works, but did not highly value profane writers!
These manuscripts were discovered in the obscurest recesses of
monasteries; they were not always imprisoned in libraries, but rotting
in dark unfrequented corners with rubbish. It required not less
ingenuity to find out places where to grope in, than to understand the
value of the acquisition. An universal ignorance then prevailed in the
knowledge of ancient writers. A scholar of those times gave the first
rank among the Latin writers to one Valerius, whether he meant Martial
or Maximus is uncertain; he placed Plato and Tully among the poets, and
imagined that Ennius and Statius were contemporaries. A library of six
hundred volumes was then considered as an extraordinary collection.
Among those whose lives were devoted to this purpose, Poggio the
Florentine stands distinguished; but he complains that his zeal was not
assisted by the great. He found under a heap of rubbish in a decayed
coffer, in a tower belonging to the monastery of St. Gallo, the work of
Quintilian. He is indignant at its forlorn situation; at least, he
cries, it should have been preserved in the library of the monks; but I
found it _in teterrimo quodam et obscuro carcere_--and to his great joy
drew it out of its grave! The monks have been complimented as the
preservers of literature, but by facts, like the present, their real
affection may be doubted.
The most valuable copy of Tacitus, of whom so much is wanting, was
likewise discovered in a monastery of Westphalia. It is a curious
circumstance in literary history, that we should owe Tacitus to this
single copy; for the Roman emperor of that name had copies of the works
of his illustrious ancestor placed in all the libraries of the empire,
and every year had ten copies transcribed; but the Roman libraries seem
to have been all destroyed, and the imperial protection availed nothing
against the teeth of time.
The original manuscript of Justinian's Pandects was discovered by the
Pisans, when they took a city in Calabria; that vast code of laws had
been in a manner unknown from the time of that emperor. This curious
book was brought to Pisa; and when Pisa was taken by the Florentines,
was transferred to Florence, where it is still preserved.
It sometimes happened that manuscripts were discovered in the last
agonies of existence. Papirius Masson found, in the house of a
bookbinder of Lyons, the works of Agobard; the mechanic was on the point
of using the manuscripts to line the covers of his books.[15] A page of
the second decade of Livy, it is said, was found by a man of letters in
the parchment of his battledore, while he was amusing himself in the
country. He hastened to the maker of the battledore--but arrived too
late! The man had finished the last page of Livy--about a week before.
Many works have undoubtedly perished in this manuscript state. By a
petition of Dr. Dee to Queen Mary, in the Cotton library, it appears
that Cicero's treatise _De Republica_ was once extant in this country.
Huet observes that Petronius was probably entire in the days of John of
Salisbury, who quotes fragments, not now to be found in the remains of
the Roman bard. Raimond Soranzo, a lawyer in the papal court, possessed
two books of Cicero "on Glory," which he presented to Petrarch, who lent
them to a poor aged man of letters, formerly his preceptor. Urged by
extreme want, the old man pawned them, and returning home died suddenly
without having revealed where he had left them. They have never been
recovered. Petrarch speaks of them with ecstasy, and tells us that he
had studied them perpetually. Two centuries afterwards, this treatise on
Glory by Cicero was mentioned in a catalogue of books bequeathed to a
monastery of nuns, but when inquired after was missing. It was supposed
that Petrus Alcyonius, physician to that household, purloined it, and
after transcribing as much of it as he could into his own writings, had
destroyed the original. Alcyonius, in his book _De Exilio_, the critics
observed, had many splendid passages which stood isolated in his work,
and were quite above his genius. The beggar, or in this case the thief,
was detected by mending his rags with patches of purple and gold.
In this age of manuscript, there is reason to believe, that when a man
of letters accidentally obtained an unknown work, he did not make the
fairest use of it, but cautiously concealed it from his contemporaries.
Leonard Aretino, a distinguished scholar at the dawn of modern
literature, having found a Greek manuscript of Procopius _De Bello
Gothico_, translated it into Latin, and published the work; but
concealing the author's name, it passed as his own, till another
manuscript of the same work being dug out of its grave, the fraud of
Aretino was apparent. Barbosa, a bishop of Ugento, in 1649, has printed
among his works a treatise, obtained by one of his domestics bringing in
a fish rolled in a leaf of written paper, which his curiosity led him to
examine. He was sufficiently interested to run out and search the fish
market, till he found the manuscript out of which it had been torn. He
published it, under the title _De Officio Episcopi_. Machiavelli acted
more adroitly in a similar case; a manuscript of the Apophthegms of the
Ancients by Plutarch having fallen into his hands, he selected those
which pleased him, and put them into the mouth of his hero Castrucio
Castricani.
In more recent times, we might collect many curious anecdotes concerning
manuscripts. Sir Robert Cotton one day at his tailor's discovered that
the man was holding in his hand, ready to cut up for measures--an
original Magna Charta, with all its appendages of seals and signatures.
This anecdote is told by Colomies, who long resided in this country; and
an original Magna Charta is preserved in the Cottonian library
exhibiting marks of dilapidation.
Cardinal Granvelle[16] left behind him several chests filled with a
prodigious quantity of letters written in different languages,
commented, noted, and underlined by his own hand. These curious
manuscripts, after his death, were left in a garret to the mercy of the
rain and the rats. Five or six of these chests the steward sold to the
grocers. It was then that a discovery was made of this treasure. Several
learned men occupied themselves in collecting sufficient of these
literary relics to form eighty thick folios, consisting of original
letters by all the crowned heads in Europe, with instructions for
ambassadors, and other state-papers.
A valuable secret history by Sir George Mackenzie, the king's advocate
in Scotland, was rescued from a mass of waste paper sold to a grocer,
who had the good sense to discriminate it, and communicated this curious
memorial to Dr. M'Crie. The original, in the handwriting of its author,
has been deposited in the Advocate's Library. There is an hiatus, which
contained the history of six years. This work excited inquiry after the
rest of the MSS., which were found to be nothing more than the sweepings
of an attorney's office.
Montaigne's Journal of his Travels into Italy has been but recently
published. A prebendary of Perigord, travelling through this province to
make researches relative to its history, arrived at the ancient
_chateau_ of Montaigne, in possession of a descendant of this great man.
He inquired for the archives, if there had been any. He was shown an old
worm-eaten coffer, which had long held papers untouched by the incurious
generations of Montaigne. Stifled in clouds of dust, he drew out the
original manuscript of the travels of Montaigne. Two-thirds of the work
are in the handwriting of Montaigne, and the rest is written by a
servant, who always speaks of his master in the third person. But he
must have written what Montaigne dictated, as the expressions and the
egotisms are all Montaigne's. The bad writing and orthography made it
almost unintelligible. They confirmed Montaigne's own observation, that
he was very negligent in the correction of his works.
Our ancestors were great hiders of manuscripts: Dr. Dee's singular MSS.
were found in the secret drawer of a chest, which had passed through
many hands undiscovered; and that vast collection of state-papers of
Thurloe's, the secretary of Cromwell, which formed about seventy volumes
in the original manuscripts, accidentally fell out of the false ceiling
of some chambers in Lincoln's-Inn.
A considerable portion of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's Letters I
discovered in the hands of an attorney: family-papers are often
consigned to offices of lawyers, where many valuable manuscripts are
buried. Posthumous publications of this kind are too frequently made
from sordid motives: discernment and taste would only be detrimental to
the views of bulky publishers.[17]
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 13: This important political treatise was discovered in the
year 1823, by Angelo Maii, in the library of the Vatican. A treatise on
the Psalms covered it. This second treatise was written in the clear,
minute character of the middle ages, but beneath it Maii saw distinct
traces of the larger letters of the work of Cicero; and to the infinite
joy of the learned succeeded in restoring to the world one of the most
important works of the great orator.]
[Footnote 14: "Many bishops and abbots began to consider learning as
pernicious to true piety, and confounded illiberal ignorance with
Christian simplicity," says Warton. The study of Pagan authors was
declared to inculcate Paganism; the same sort of reasoning led others to
say that the reading of the Scriptures would infallibly change the
readers to Jews; it is amusing to look back on these vain efforts to
stop the effect of the printing-press.]
[Footnote 15: Agobard was Archbishop of Lyons, and one of the most
learned men of the ninth century. He was born in 779; raised to the
prelacy in 816, from which he was expelled by Louis le Debonnaire for
espousing the cause of his son Lothaire; he fled to Italy, but was
restored to his see in 838, dying in 840, when the Church canonized him.
He was a strenuous Churchman, but with enlightened views; and his style
as an author is remarkable alike for its clearness and perfect
simplicity. His works were unknown until discovered in the manner
narrated above, and were published by the discoverer at Paris in 1603,
the originals being bequeathed to the Royal Library at his death. On
examination, several errors were found in this edition, and a new one
was published in 1662, to which another treatise by Agobard was added.]
[Footnote 16: The celebrated minister of Philip II.]
[Footnote 17: One of the most curious modern discoveries was that of the
Fairfax papers and correspondence by the late J. N. Hughes, of
Winchester, who purchased at a sale at Leeds Castle, Kent, a box
apparently filled with old coloured paving-tiles; on removing the upper
layers he found a large mass of manuscripts of the time of the Civil
wars, evidently thus packed for concealment; they have since been
published, and add most valuable information to this interesting period
of English history.]
SKETCHES OF CRITICISM.
It may, perhaps, be some satisfaction to show the young writer, that the
most celebrated ancients have been as rudely subjected to the tyranny of
criticism as the moderns. Detraction has ever poured the "waters of
bitterness."
It was given out, that Homer had stolen from anterior poets whatever was
most remarkable in the Iliad and Odyssey. Naucrates even points out the
source in the library at Memphis in a temple of Vulcan, which according
to him the blind bard completely pillaged. Undoubtedly there were good
poets before Homer; how absurd to conceive that an elaborate poem could
be the first! We have indeed accounts of anterior poets, and apparently
of epics, before Homer; AElian notices Syagrus, who composed a poem on
the Siege of Troy; and Suidas the poem of Corinnus, from which it is
said Homer greatly borrowed. Why did Plato so severely condemn the great
bard, and imitate him?
Sophocles was brought to trial by his children as a lunatic; and some,
who censured the inequalities of this poet, have also condemned the
vanity of Pindar; the rough verses of AEschylus; and Euripides, for the
conduct of his plots.
Socrates, considered as the wisest and the most moral of men, Cicero
treated as an usurer, and the pedant Athenaeus as illiterate; the latter
points out as a Socratic folly our philosopher disserting on the nature
of justice before his judges, who were so many thieves. The malignant
buffoonery of Aristophanes treats him much worse; but he, as Jortin
says, was a great wit, but a great rascal.
Plato--who has been called, by Clement of Alexandria, the Moses of
Athens; the philosopher of the Christians, by Arnobius; and the god of
philosophers, by Cicero--Athenaeus accuses of envy; Theopompus of lying;
Suidas of avarice; Aulus Gellius, of robbery; Porphyry, of incontinence;
and Aristophanes, of impiety.
Aristotle, whose industry composed more than four hundred volumes, has
not been less spared by the critics; Diogenes Laertius, Cicero, and
Plutarch, have forgotten nothing that can tend to show his ignorance,
his ambition, and his vanity.
It has been said, that Plato was so envious of the celebrity of
Democritus, that he proposed burning all his works; but that Amydis and
Clinias prevented it, by remonstrating that there were copies of them
everywhere; and Aristotle was agitated by the same passion against all
the philosophers his predecessors.
Virgil is destitute of invention, if we are to give credit to Pliny,
Carbilius, and Seneca. Caligula has absolutely denied him even
mediocrity; Herennus has marked his faults; and Perilius Faustinus has
furnished a thick volume with his plagiarisms. Even the author of his
apology has confessed, that he has stolen from Homer his greatest
beauties; from Apollonius Rhodius, many of his pathetic passages; from
Nicander, hints for his Georgies; and this does not terminate the
catalogue.
Horace censures the coarse humour of Plautus; and Horace, in his turn,
has been blamed for the free use he made of the Greek minor poets.
The majority of the critics regard Pliny's Natural History only as a
heap of fables; and Pliny cannot bear with Diodorus and Vopiscus; and in
one comprehensive criticism, treats all the historians as narrators of
fables.
Livy has been reproached for his aversion to the Gauls; Dion, for his
hatred of the republic; Velleius Paterculus, for speaking too kindly of
the vices of Tiberius; and Herodotus and Plutarch, for their excessive
partiality to their own country: while the latter has written an entire
treatise on the malignity of Herodotus. Xenophon and Quintus Curtius
have been considered rather as novelists than historians; and Tacitus
has been censured for his audacity in pretending to discover the
political springs and secret causes of events. Dionysius of
Harlicarnassus has made an elaborate attack on Thucydides for the
unskilful choice of his subject, and his manner of treating it.
Dionysius would have nothing written but what tended to the glory of his
country and the pleasure of the reader--as if history were a song! adds
Hobbes, who also shows a personal motive in this attack. The same
Dionysius severely criticises the style of Xenophon, who, he says, in
attempting to elevate his style, shows himself incapable of supporting
it. Polybius has been blamed for his frequent introduction of
reflections which interrupt the thread of his narrative; and Sallust has
been blamed by Cato for indulging his own private passions, and
studiously concealing many of the glorious actions of Cicero. The Jewish
historian, Josephus, is accused of not having designed his history for
his own people so much as for the Greeks and Romans, whom he takes the
utmost care never to offend. Josephus assumes a Roman name, Flavius; and
considering his nation as entirely subjugated, to make them appear
dignified to their conquerors, alters what he himself calls the _Holy
books_. It is well known how widely he differs from the scriptural
accounts. Some have said of Cicero, that there is no connexion, and to
adopt their own figures, no _blood_ and _nerves_, in what his admirers
so warmly extol. Cold in his extemporaneous effusions, artificial in his
exordiums, trifling in his strained raillery, and tiresome in his
digressions. This is saying a good deal about Cicero.
Quintilian does not spare Seneca; and Demosthenes, called by Cicero the
prince of orators, has, according to Hermippus, more of art than of
nature. To Demades, his orations appear too much laboured; others have
thought him too dry; and, if we may trust AEschines, his language is by
no means pure.
The Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius, and the Deipnosophists of Athenaeus,
while they have been extolled by one party, have been degraded by
another. They have been considered as botchers of rags and remnants;
their diligence has not been accompanied by judgment; and their taste
inclined more to the frivolous than to the useful. Compilers, indeed,
are liable to a hard fate, for little distinction is made in their
ranks; a disagreeable situation, in which honest Burton seems to have
been placed; for he says of his work, that some will cry out, "This is a
thinge of meere industrie; a _collection_ without wit or invention; a
very toy! So men are valued; their labours vilified by fellowes of no
worth themselves, as things of nought: Who could not have done as much?
Some understande too little, and some too much."
Should we proceed with this list to our own country, and to our own
times, it might be curiously augmented, and show the world what men the
Critics are! but, perhaps, enough has been said to soothe irritated
genius, and to shame fastidious criticism. "I would beg the critics to
remember," the Earl of Roscommon writes, in his preface to Horace's Art
of Poetry, "that Horace owed his favour and his fortune to the character
given of him by Virgil and Varus; that Fundanius and Pollio are still
valued by what Horace says of them; and that, in their golden age, there
was a good understanding among the ingenious; and those who were the
most esteemed, were the best natured."
THE PERSECUTED LEARNED.
Those who have laboured most zealously to instruct mankind have been
those who have suffered most from ignorance; and the discoverers of new
arts and sciences have hardly ever lived to see them accepted by the
world. With a noble perception of his own genius, Lord Bacon, in his
prophetic Will, thus expresses himself: "For my name and memory, I leave
it to men's charitable speeches, and to foreign nations, and the next
ages." Before the times of Galileo and Harvey the world believed in the
stagnation of the blood, and the diurnal immovability of the earth; and
for denying these the one was persecuted and the other ridiculed.
The intelligence and the virtue of Socrates were punished with death.
Anaxagoras, when he attempted to propagate a just notion of the Supreme
Being, was dragged to prison. Aristotle, after a long series of
persecution, swallowed poison. Heraclitus, tormented by his countrymen,
broke off all intercourse with men. The great geometricians and
chemists, as Gerbert, Roger Bacon, and Cornelius Agrippa, were abhorred
as magicians. Pope Gerbert, as Bishop Otho gravely relates, obtained the
pontificate by having given himself up entirely to the devil: others
suspected him, too, of holding an intercourse with demons; but this was
indeed a devilish age!
Virgilius, Bishop of Saltzburg, having asserted that there existed
antipodes, the Archbishop of Mentz declared him a heretic; and the Abbot
Trithemius, who was fond of improving steganography or the art of secret
writing, having published several curious works on this subject, they
were condemned, as works full of diabolical mysteries; and Frederic
II., Elector Palatine, ordered Trithemius's original work, which was in
his library, to be publicly burnt.
Galileo was condemned at Rome publicly to disavow sentiments, the truth
of which must have been to him abundantly manifest. "Are these then my
judges?" he exclaimed, in retiring from the inquisitors, whose ignorance
astonished him. He was imprisoned, and visited by Milton, who tells us,
he was then _poor_ and _old_. The confessor of his widow, taking
advantage of her piety, perused the MSS. of this great philosopher, and
destroyed such as in his _judgment_ were not fit to be known to the
world!
Gabriel Naude, in his apology for those great men who have been accused
of magic, has recorded a melancholy number of the most eminent scholars,
who have found, that to have been successful in their studies, was a
success which harassed them with continual persecution--a prison or a
grave!
Cornelius Agrippa was compelled to fly his country, and the enjoyment of
a large income, merely for having displayed a few philosophical
experiments, which now every school-boy can perform; but more
particularly having attacked the then prevailing opinion, that St. Anne
had three husbands, he was obliged to fly from place to place. The
people beheld him as an object of horror; and when he walked, he found
the streets empty at his approach.
In those times, it was a common opinion to suspect every great man of an
intercourse with some familiar spirit. The favourite black dog of
Agrippa was supposed to be a demon. When Urban Grandier, another victim
to the age, was led to the stake, a large fly settled on his head: a
monk, who had heard that Beelzebub signifies in Hebrew the God of Flies,
reported that he saw this spirit come to take possession of him. M. de
Langier, a French minister, who employed many spies, was frequently
accused of diabolical communication. Sixtus the Fifth, Marechal Faber,
Roger Bacon, Caesar Borgia, his son Alexander VI., and others, like
Socrates, had their diabolical attendant.
Cardan was believed to be a magician. An able naturalist, who happened
to know something of the arcana of nature, was immediately suspected of
magic. Even the learned themselves, who had not applied to natural
philosophy, seem to have acted with the same feelings as the most
ignorant; for when Albert, usually called the Great, an epithet it has
been said that he derived from his name _De Groot_, constructed a
curious piece of mechanism, which sent forth distinct vocal sounds,
Thomas Aquinas was so much terrified at it, that he struck it with his
staff, and, to the mortification of Albert, annihilated the curious
labour of thirty years!
Petrarch was less desirous of the laurel for the honour, than for the
hope of being sheltered by it from the thunder of the priests, by whom
both he and his brother poets were continually threatened. They could
not imagine a poet, without supposing him to hold an intercourse with
some demon. This was, as Abbe Resnel observes, having a most exalted
idea of poetry, though a very bad one of poets. An anti-poetic Dominican
was notorious for persecuting all verse-makers; whose power he
attributed to the effects of _heresy_ and _magic_. The lights of
philosophy have dispersed all these accusations of magic, and have shown
a dreadful chain of perjuries and conspiracies.
Descartes was horribly persecuted in Holland, when he first published
his opinions. Voetius, a bigot of great influence at Utrecht, accused
him of atheism, and had even projected in his mind to have this
philosopher burnt at Utrecht in an extraordinary fire, which, kindled on
an eminence, might be observed by the seven provinces. Mr. Hallam has
observed, that "the ordeal of fire was the great purifier of books and
men." This persecution of science and genius lasted till the close of
the seventeenth century.
"If the metaphysician stood a chance of being burnt as a heretic, the
natural philosopher was not in less jeopardy as a magician," is an
observation of the same writer, which sums up the whole.
POVERTY OF THE LEARNED.
Fortune has rarely condescended to be the companion of genius: others
find a hundred by-roads to her palace; there is but one open, and that a
very indifferent one, for men of letters. Were we to erect an asylum for
venerable genius, as we do for the brave and the helpless part of our
citizens, it might be inscribed, "An Hospital for Incurables!" When even
Fame will not protect the man of genius from Famine, Charity ought. Nor
should such an act be considered as a debt incurred by the helpless
member, but a just tribute we pay in his person to Genius itself. Even
in these enlightened times, many have lived in obscurity, while their
reputation was widely spread, and have perished in poverty, while their
works were enriching the booksellers.
Of the heroes of modern literature the accounts are as copious as they
are sorrowful.
Xylander sold his notes on Dion Cassius for a dinner. He tells us that
at the age of eighteen he studied to acquire glory, but at twenty-five
he studied to get bread.
Cervantes, the immortal genius of Spain, is supposed to have wanted
food; Camoeens, the solitary pride of Portugal, deprived of the
necessaries of life, perished in an hospital at Lisbon. This fact has
been accidentally preserved in an entry in a copy of the first edition
of the Lusiad, in the possession of Lord Holland. It is a note, written
by a friar who must have been a witness of the dying scene of the poet,
and probably received the volume which now preserves the sad memorial,
and which recalled it to his mind, from the hands of the unhappy
poet:--"What a lamentable thing to see so great a genius so ill
rewarded! I saw him die in an hospital in Lisbon, without having a sheet
or shroud, _una sauana_, to cover him, after having triumphed in the
East Indies, and sailed 5500 leagues! What good advice for those who
weary themselves night and day in study without profit!" Camoeens, when
some fidalgo complained that he had not performed his promise in writing
some verses for him, replied, "When I wrote verses I was young, had
sufficient food, was a lover, and beloved by many friends and by the
ladies; then I felt poetical ardour: now I have no spirits, no peace of
mind. See there my Javanese, who asks me for two pieces to purchase
firing, and I have them not to give him." The Portuguese, after his
death, bestowed on the man of genius they had starved, the appellation
of Great![18] Vondel, the Dutch Shakspeare, after composing a number of
popular tragedies, lived in great poverty, and died at ninety years of
age; then he had his coffin carried by fourteen poets, who without his
genius probably partook of his wretchedness.
The great Tasso was reduced to such a dilemma that he was obliged to
borrow a crown for a week's subsistence. He alludes to his distress
when, entreating his cat to assist him, during the night, with the
lustre of her eyes--"_Non avendo candele per iscrivere i suoi versi_!"
having no candle to see to write his verses.
When the liberality of Alphonso enabled Ariosto to build a small house,
it seems that it was but ill furnished. When told that such a building
was not fit for one who had raised so many fine palaces in his writings,
he answered, that the structure of _words_ and that of _stones_ was not
the same thing. _"Che pervi le pietre, e porvi le parole, non e il
medesimo!"_ At Ferrari this house is still shown, "Parva sed apta" he
calls it, but exults that it was paid for with his own money. This was
in a moment of good humour, which he did not always enjoy; for in his
Satires he bitterly complains of the bondage of dependence and poverty.
Little thought the poet that the _commune_ would order this small house
to be purchased with their own funds, that it might be dedicated to his
immortal memory.
Cardinal Bentivoglio, the ornament of Italy and of literature,
languished, in his old age, in the most distressful poverty; and having
sold his palace to satisfy his creditors, left nothing behind him but
his reputation. The learned Pomponius Laetus lived in such a state of
poverty, that his friend Platina, who wrote the lives of the popes, and
also a book of cookery, introduces him into the cookery book by a
facetious observation, that "If Pomponius Laetus should be robbed of a
couple of eggs, he would not have wherewithal to purchase two other
eggs." The history of Aldrovandus is noble and pathetic; having expended
a large fortune in forming his collections of natural history, and
employing the first artists in Europe, he was suffered to die in the
hospital of that city, to whose fame he had eminently contributed.
Du Ryer, a celebrated French poet, was constrained to write with
rapidity, and to live in the cottage of an obscure village. His
bookseller bought his heroic verses for one hundred sols the hundred
lines, and the smaller ones for fifty sols. What an interesting picture
has a contemporary given of a visit to this poor and ingenious author!
"On a fine summer day we went to him, at some distance from town. He
received us with joy, talked to us of his numerous projects, and showed
us several of his works. But what more interested us was, that, though
dreading to expose to us his poverty, he contrived to offer some
refreshments. We seated ourselves under a wide oak, the table-cloth was
spread on the grass, his wife brought us some milk, with fresh water and
brown bread, and he picked a basket of cherries. He welcomed us with
gaiety, but we could not take leave of this amiable man, now grown old,
without tears, to see him so ill treated by fortune, and to have nothing
left but literary honour!"
Vaugelas, the most polished writer of the French language, who devoted
thirty years to his translation of Quintus Curtius, (a circumstance
which modern translators can have no conception of), died possessed of
nothing valuable but his precious manuscripts. This ingenious scholar
left his corpse to the surgeons, for the benefit of his creditors!
Louis the Fourteenth honoured Racine and Boileau with a private monthly
audience. One day the king asked what there was new in the literary
world. Racine answered, that he had seen a melancholy spectacle in the
house of Corneille, whom he found dying, deprived even of a little
broth! The king preserved a profound silence; and sent the dying poet a
sum of money.
Dryden, for less than three hundred pounds, sold Tonson ten thousand
verses, as may be seen by the agreement.
Purchas, who in the reign of our first James, had spent his life in
compiling his _Relation of the World_, when he gave it to the public,
for the reward of his labours was thrown into prison, at the suit of his
printer. Yet this was the book which, he informs Charles I. in his
dedication, his father read every night with great profit and
satisfaction.
The Marquis of Worcester, in a petition to parliament, in the reign of
Charles II., offered to publish the hundred processes and machines,
enumerated in his very curious "Centenary of Inventions," on condition
that money should be granted to extricate him from the _difficulties in
which he had involved himself by the prosecution of useful discoveries_.
The petition does not appear to have been attended to! Many of these
admirable inventions were lost. The _steam-engine_ and the _telegraph_,
may be traced among them.
It appears by the Harleian MS. 7524, that Rushworth, the author of the
"Historical Collections," passed the last years of his life in gaol,
where indeed he died. After the Restoration, when he presented to the
king several of the privy council's books, which he had preserved from
ruin, he received for his only reward the _thanks of his majesty_.
Rymer, the collector of the Foedera, must have been sadly reduced, by
the following letter, I found addressed by Peter le Neve, Norroy, to the
Earl of Oxford.
"I am desired by Mr. Rymer, historiographer, to lay before your lordship
the circumstances of his affairs. He was forced some years back to part
with all his choice printed books to subsist himself: and now, he says,
he must be forced, for subsistence, to sell all his MS. collections to
the best bidder, without your lordship will be pleased to buy them for
the queen's library. They are fifty volumes in folio, of public affairs,
which he hath collected, but not printed. The price he asks is five
hundred pounds."
Simon Ockley, a learned student in Oriental literature, addresses a
letter to the same earl, in which he paints his distresses in glowing
colours. After having devoted his life to Asiatic researches, then very
uncommon, he had the mortification of dating his preface to his great
work from Cambridge Castle, where he was confined for debt; and, with an
air of triumph, feels a martyr's enthusiasm in the cause for which he
perishes.
He published his first volume of the History of the Saracens in 1708;
and, ardently pursuing his oriental studies, published his second, ten
years afterwards, without any patronage. Alluding to the encouragement
necessary to bestow on youth, to remove the obstacles to such studies,
he observes, that "young men will hardly come in on the prospect of
finding leisure, in a prison, to transcribe those papers for the press,
which they have collected with indefatigable labour, and oftentimes at
the expense of their rest, and all the other conveniences of life, for
the service of the public. No! though I were to assure them, from my own
experience, that _I have enjoyed more true liberty, more happy leisure,
and more solid repose, in six months_ HERE, than in thrice the same
number of years before. _Evil is the condition of that historian who
undertakes to write the lives of others, before he knows how to live
himself._--Not that I speak thus as if I thought I had any just cause to
be angry with the world--I did always in my judgment give the
possession of _wisdom_ the preference to that of _riches_!"
Spenser, the child of Fancy, languished out his life in misery, "Lord
Burleigh," says Granger, "who it is said prevented the queen giving him
a hundred pounds, seems to have thought the lowest clerk in his office a
more deserving person." Mr. Malone attempts to show that Spenser had a
small pension, but the poet's querulous verses must not be forgotten--
"Full little knowest thou, that hast not try'd,
What Hell it is, in suing long to bide."
To lose good days--to waste long nights--and, as he feelingly exclaims,
"To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run,
To speed, to give, to want, to be undone!"
How affecting is the death of Sydenham, who had devoted his life to a
laborious version of Plato! He died in a sponging-house, and it was his
death which appears to have given rise to the Literary Fund "for the
relief of distressed authors."[19]
Who will pursue important labours when they read these anecdotes? Dr.
Edmund Castell spent a great part of his life in compiling his _Lexicon
Heptaglotton_, on which he bestowed incredible pains, and expended on it
no less than 12,000_l._, broke his constitution, and exhausted his
fortune. At length it was printed, but the copies remained _unsold_ on
his hands. He exhibits a curious picture of literary labour in his
preface. "As for myself, I have been unceasingly occupied for such a
number of years in this mass," _Molendino_ he calls them, "that that
day seemed, as it were, a holiday in which I have not laboured so much
as sixteen or eighteen hours in these enlarging lexicons and Polyglot
Bibles."
Le Sage resided in a little cottage while he supplied the world with
their most agreeable novels, and appears to have derived the sources of
his existence in his old age from the filial exertions of an excellent
son, who was an actor of some genius. I wish, however, that every man of
letters could apply to himself the epitaph of this delightful writer:--
_"Sous ce tombeau git LE SAGE, abattu Par le ciseau de la Parque
importune; S'il ne fut pas ami de la fortune, Il fut toujours ami de la
vertu."_
Many years after this article had been written, I published "Calamities
of Authors," confining myself to those of our own country; the catalogue
is incomplete, but far too numerous.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 18: For some time previous to his death he was in so abject a
state of poverty as to be dependent for subsistence upon the exertions
of his faithful servant Antonio, a native of Java, whom he had brought
with him from India, and who was accustomed to beg by night for the
bread which was to save his unhappy master from perishing by want the
next day. Camoeens, when death at last put an end to a life which
misfortune and neglect had rendered insupportable, was denied the solace
of having his faithful Antonio to close his eyes. He was aged only
fifty-five when he breathed his last in the hospital. This event
occurred in 1579, but so little regard was paid to the memory of this
great man that the day or month on which he expired remains
unknown.--Adamson's _Memoirs of Camoeens_, 1820.]
[Footnote 19: This melancholy event happened in 1788, fifteen years
after the original projector of the Literary Fund, Mr. David Williams,
had endeavoured to establish it. It appears that Mr. Floyer Sydenham was
arrested "for a small debt; he never spoke after being arrested, and
sunk under the pressure of his calamity." This is the published record
of the event by the officers of the present fund; and these simple words
are sufficiently indicative of the harrowing nature of the catastrophe;
it was strongly felt that Mr. Williams' hopeful plan of preventing a
second act so fatal should be encouraged. A small literary club took the
initiative, and subscribed a few guineas to pay for such advertisements
as were necessary to keep the intended objects of the founder before the
public, and solicit its aid. Two years afterwards a committee was
formed; another two years saw it take position among the established
institutions of the country. In 1818 it obtained a royal charter. In its
career it has relieved upwards of 1300 applicants, and devoted to that
purpose 47,725_l._]
IMPRISONMENT OF THE LEARNED.
Imprisonment has not always disturbed the man of letters in the progress
of his studies, but has unquestionably greatly promoted them.
In prison Boethius composed his work on the Consolations of Philosophy;
and Grotius wrote his Commentary on Saint Matthew, with other works: the
detail of his allotment of time to different studies, during his
confinement, is very instructive.
Buchanan, in the dungeon of a monastery in Portugal, composed his
excellent Paraphrases of the Psalms of David.
Cervantes composed the most agreeable book in the Spanish language
during his captivity in Barbary.
Fleta, a well-known law production, was written by a person confined in
the Fleet for debt; the name of the _place_, though not that of the
_author_, has thus been preserved; and another work, "Fleta Minor, or
the Laws of Art and Nature in, knowing the bodies of Metals, &c. by Sir
John Pettus, 1683;" received its title from the circumstance of his
having translated it from the German during his confinement in this
prison.
Louis the Twelfth, when Duke of Orleans, was long imprisoned in the
Tower of Bourges: applying himself to his studies, which he had
hitherto neglected, he became, in consequence, an enlightened monarch.
Margaret, queen of Henry the Fourth, King of France, confined in the
Louvre, pursued very warmly the studies of elegant literature, and
composed a very skilful apology for the irregularities of her conduct.
Sir Walter Raleigh's unfinished History of the World, which leaves us to
regret that later ages had not been celebrated by his eloquence, was the
fruits of eleven years of imprisonment. It was written for the use of
Prince Henry, as he and Dallington, who also wrote "Aphorisms" for the
same prince, have told us; the prince looked over the manuscript. Of
Raleigh it is observed, to employ the language of Hume, "They were
struck with the extensive genius of the man, who, being educated amidst
naval and military enterprises, had surpassed, in the pursuits of
literature, even those of the most recluse and sedentary lives; and they
admired his unbroken magnanimity, which, at his age, and under his
circumstances, could engage him to undertake and execute so great a
work, as his History of the World." He was assisted in this great work
by the learning of several eminent persons, a circumstance which has not
been usually noticed.
The plan of the "_Henriade_" was sketched, and the greater part
composed, by Voltaire during his imprisonment in the Bastile; and "the
Pilgrim's Progress" of Bunyan was performed in the circuit of a prison's
walls.
Howell, the author of "Familiar Letters," wrote the chief part of them,
and almost all his other works, during his long confinement in the Fleet
prison: he employed his fertile pen for subsistence; and in all his
books we find much entertainment.
Lydiat, while confined in the King's Bench for debt, wrote his
Annotations on the Parian Chronicle, which were first published by
Prideaux. He was the learned scholar alluded to by Johnson; an allusion
not known to Boswell and others.
The learned Selden, committed to prison for his attacks on the divine
right of tithes and the king's prerogative, prepared during his
confinement his "History of Eadmer," enriched by his notes.
Cardinal Polignac formed the design of refuting the arguments of the
sceptics which Bayle had been renewing in his dictionary; but his public
occupations hindered him. Two exiles at length fortunately gave him the
leisure; and the Anti-Lucretius is the fruit of the court disgraces of
its author.
Freret, when imprisoned in the Bastile, was permitted only to have Bayle
for his companion. His dictionary was always before him, and his
principles were got by heart. To this circumstance we owe his works,
animated by all the powers of scepticism.
Sir William Davenant finished his poem of Gondibert during his
confinement by the rebels in Carisbrook Castle. George Withers dedicates
his "Shepherds Hunting," "To his friends, my visitants in the
Marshalsea:" these "eclogues" having been printed in his
imprisonment.[20]
De Foe, confined in Newgate for a political pamphlet, began his
"Review;" a periodical paper, which was extended to nine thick volumes
in quarto, and it has been supposed served as the model of the
celebrated papers of Steele.
Wicquefort's curious work "on Ambassadors" is dated from his prison,
where he had been confined for state affairs. He softened the rigour of
those heavy hours by several historical works.
One of the most interesting facts of this kind is the fate of an Italian
scholar, of the name of Maggi. Early addicted to the study of the
sciences, and particularly to the mathematics, and military
architecture, he successfully defended Famagusta, besieged by the
Turks, by inventing machines which destroyed their works. When that city
was taken in 1571, they pillaged his library and carried him away in
chains. Now a slave, after his daily labours he amused a great part of
his nights by literary compositions; _De Tintinnabulis_, on Bells, a
treatise still read by the curious, was actually composed by him when a
slave in Turkey, without any other resource than the erudition of his
own memory, and the genius of which adversity could not deprive him.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 20: Withers, throughout these unique eclogues, which are
supposed to narrate the discourses of "friendly shepherds" who visit
him--
"--pent
Within the jaws of strict imprisonment;
A forlorn shepherd void of all the means,
Whereon man's common hope in danger leads"
--is still upheld by the same consciousness of rectitude which inspired
Sir Richard Lovelace in his better-known address "To Althea from
Prison." Withers' poem was published before Lovelace was born. A few
lines from Withers will display this similarity. Speaking of his
enemies, he says:--
"They may do much, but when they have done all,
Only my body they may bring in thrall.
And 'tis not that, my Willy; 'tis my mind,
My mind's more precious freedom I so weigh,
A thousand ways they may my body bind,
In thousand thralls, but ne'er my mind betray:
And hence it is that I contentment find,
And bear with patience this my load away:
I'm still myself, and that I'd rather be.
Than to be lord of all these downs in fee."]
AMUSEMENTS OF THE LEARNED.
Among the Jesuits it was a standing rule of the order, that after an
application to study for two hours, the mind of the student should be
unbent by some relaxation, however trifling. When Petavius was employed
in his _Dogmata Theologica_, a work of the most profound and extensive
erudition, the great recreation of the learned father was, at the end of
every second hour, to twirl his chair for five minutes. After protracted
studies Spinosa would mix with the family-party where he lodged, and
join in the most trivial conversations, or unbend his mind by setting
spiders to fight each other; he observed their combats with so much
interest, that he was often seized with immoderate fits of laughter. A
continuity of labour deadens the soul, observes Seneca, in closing his
treatise on "The Tranquillity of the Soul," and the mind must unbend
itself by certain amusements. Socrates did not blush to play with
children; Cato, over his bottle, found an alleviation from the fatigues
of government; a circumstance, Seneca says in his manner, which rather
gives honour to this defect, than the defect dishonours Cato. Some men
of letters portioned out their day between repose and labour. Asinius
Pollio would not suffer any business to occupy him beyond a stated hour;
after that time he would not allow any letter to be opened, that his
hours of recreation might not be interrupted by unforeseen labours. In
the senate, after the tenth hour, it was not allowed to make any new
motion.
Tycho Brahe diverted himself with polishing glasses for all kinds of
spectacles, and making mathematical instruments; an employment too
closely connected with his studies to be deemed an amusement.
D'Andilly, the translator of Josephus, after seven or eight hours of
study every day, amused himself in cultivating trees; Barclay, the
author of the Argenis, in his leisure hours was a florist; Balzac amused
himself with a collection of crayon portraits; Peirese found his
amusement amongst his medals and antiquarian curiosities; the Abbe de
Marolles with his prints; and Politian in singing airs to his lute.
Descartes passed his afternoons in the conversation of a few friends,
and in cultivating a little garden; in the morning, occupied by the
system of the world, he relaxed his profound speculations by rearing
delicate flowers.
Conrad ab Uffenbach, a learned German, recreated his mind, after severe
studies, with a collection of prints of eminent persons, methodically
arranged; he retained this ardour of the _Grangerite_ to his last days.
Rohault wandered from shop to shop to observe the mechanics labour;
Count Caylus passed his mornings in the _studios_ of artists, and his
evenings in writing his numerous works on art. This was the true life of
an amateur.
Granville Sharp, amidst the severity of his studies, found a social
relaxation in the amusement of a barge on the Thames, which was well
known to the circle of his friends; there, was festive hospitality with
musical delight. It was resorted to by men of the most eminent talents
and rank. His little voyages to Putney, to Kew, and to Richmond, and the
literary intercourse they produced, were singularly happy ones. "The
history of his amusements cannot be told without adding to the dignity
of his character," observes Prince Hoare, in the life of this great
philanthropist.
Some have found amusement in composing treatises on odd subjects. Seneca
wrote a burlesque narrative of Claudian's death. Pierius Valerianus has
written an eulogium on beards; and we have had a learned one recently,
with due gravity and pleasantry, entitled "Eloge de Perruques."
Holstein has written an eulogium on the North Wind; Heinsius, on "the
Ass;" Menage, "the Transmigration of the Parasitical Pedant to a
Parrot;" and also the "Petition of the Dictionaries."
Erasmus composed, to amuse himself when travelling, his panegyric on
_Moria_, or folly; which, authorised by the pun, he dedicated to Sir
Thomas More.
Sallengre, who would amuse himself like Erasmus, wrote, in imitation of
his work, a panegyric on _Ebriety_. He says, that he is willing to be
thought as drunken a man as Erasmus was a foolish one. Synesius composed
a Greek panegyric on _Baldness_. These burlesques were brought into
great vogue by Erasmus's _Moriae Encomium_.
It seems, Johnson observes in his life of Sir Thomas Browne, to have
been in all ages the pride of art to show how it could exalt the low and
amplify the little. To this ambition, perhaps, we owe the Frogs of
Homer; the Gnat and the Bees of Virgil; the Butterfly of Spenser; the
Shadow of Wowerus; and the Quincunx of Browne.
Cardinal de Richelieu, amongst all his great occupations, found a
recreation in violent exercises; and he was once discovered jumping with
his servant, to try who could reach the highest side of a wall. De
Grammont, observing the cardinal to be jealous of his powers, offered to
jump with him; and, in the true spirit of a courtier, having made some
efforts which nearly reached the cardinal's, confessed the cardinal
surpassed him. This was jumping like a politician; and by this means he
is said to have ingratiated himself with the minister.
The great Samuel Clarke was fond of robust exercise; and this profound
logician has been found leaping over tables and chairs. Once perceiving
a pedantic fellow, he said, "Now we must desist, for a fool is coming
in!"[21]
An eminent French lawyer, confined by his business to a Parisian life,
amused himself with collecting from the classics all the passages which
relate to a country life. The collection was published after his death.
Contemplative men seem to be fond of amusements which accord with their
habits. The thoughtful game of chess, and the tranquil delight of
angling, have been favourite recreations with the studious. Paley had
himself painted with a rod and line in his hand; a strange
characteristic for the author of "Natural Theology." Sir Henry Wotton
called angling "idle time not idly spent:" we may suppose that his
meditations and his amusements were carried on at the same moment.
The amusements of the great d'Aguesseau, chancellor of France, consisted
in an interchange of studies; his relaxations were all the varieties of
literature. "Le changement de l'etude est mon seul delassement," said
this great man; and "in the age of the passions, his only passion was
study."
Seneca has observed on amusements proper for literary men, that, in
regard to robust exercises, it is not decent to see a man of letters
exult in the strength of his arm, or the breadth of his back! Such
amusements diminish the activity of the mind. Too much fatigue exhausts
the animal spirits, as too much food blunts the finer faculties: but
elsewhere he allows his philosopher an occasional slight inebriation; an
amusement which was very prevalent among our poets formerly, when they
exclaimed:--
"Fetch me Ben Jonson's scull, and fill't with sack,
Rich as the same he drank, when the whole pack
Of jolly sisters pledged, and did agree
It was no sin to be as drunk as he!"
Seneca concludes admirably, "whatever be the amusements you choose,
return not slowly from those of the body to the mind; exercise the
latter night and day. The mind is nourished at a cheap rate; neither
cold nor heat, nor age itself, can interrupt this exercise; give
therefore all your cares to a possession which ameliorates even in its
old age!"
An ingenious writer has observed, that "a garden just accommodates
itself to the perambulations of a scholar, who would perhaps rather wish
his walks abridged than extended." There is a good characteristic
account of the mode in which the Literati may take exercise, in Pope's
Letters. "I, like a poor squirrel, am continually in motion indeed, but
it is but a cage of three foot! my little excursions are like those of a
shopkeeper, who walks every day a mile or two before his own door, but
minds his business all the while." A turn or two in a garden will often
very happily close a fine period, mature an unripened thought, and raise
up fresh associations, whenever the mind, like the body, becomes rigid
by preserving the same posture. Buffon often quitted the old tower he
studied in, which was placed in the midst of his garden, for a walk in
it. Evelyn loved "books and a garden."
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 21: The same anecdote is related of Dr. Johnson, who once
being at a club where other literary men were indulging in jests, upon
the entry of a new visitor exclaimed, "Let us be grave--here is a fool
coming."]
PORTRAITS OF AUTHORS.
With the ancients, it was undoubtedly a custom to place the portraits of
authors before their works. Martial's 186th epigram of his fourteenth
book is a mere play on words, concerning a little volume containing the
works of Virgil, and which had his portrait prefixed to it. The volume
and the characters must have been very diminutive.
_Quam brevis immensum cepit membrana Maronem!
Ipsius Vultus prima tabella gerit._
Martial is not the only writer who takes notice of the ancients
prefixing portraits to the works of authors. Seneca, in his ninth
chapter on the Tranquillity of the Soul, complains of many of the
luxurious great, who, like so many of our own collectors, possessed
libraries as they did their estates and equipages. "It is melancholy to
observe how the portraits of men of genius, and the works of their
divine intelligence, are used only as the luxury and the ornaments of
walls."
Pliny has nearly the same observation, _lib._ xxxv. _cap._ 2. He
remarks, that the custom was rather modern in his time; and attributes
to Asinius Pollio the honour of having introduced it into Rome. "In
consecrating a library with the portraits of our illustrious authors, he
has formed, if I may so express myself, a republic of the intellectual
powers of men." To the richness of book-treasures, Asinius Pollio had
associated a new source of pleasure, by placing the statues of their
authors amidst them, inspiring the minds of the spectators, even by
their eyes.
A taste for collecting portraits, or busts, was warmly pursued in the
happier periods of Rome; for the celebrated Atticus, in a work he
published of illustrious Romans, made it more delightful, by ornamenting
it with the portraits of those great men; and the learned Varro, in his
biography of Seven Hundred celebrated Men, by giving the world their
true features and their physiognomy _in some manner, aliquo modo
imaginibus_ is Pliny's expression, showed that even their persons should
not entirely be annihilated; they indeed, adds Pliny, form a spectacle
which the gods themselves might contemplate; for if the gods sent those
heroes to the earth, it is Varro who secured their immortality, and has
so multiplied and distributed them in all places, that we may carry
them about us, place them wherever we choose, and fix our eyes on them
with perpetual admiration. A spectacle that every day becomes more
varied and interesting, as new heroes appear, and as works of this kind
are spread abroad.
But as printing was unknown, to the ancients (though _stamping an
impression_ was daily practised, and, in fact, they possessed the art of
printing without being aware of it[22]), how were these portraits of
Varro so easily propagated? If copied with a pen, their correctness was
in some danger, and their diffusion must have been very confined and
slow; perhaps they were outlines. This passage of Pliny excites
curiosity difficult to satisfy; I have in vain inquired of several
scholars, particularly of the late Grecian, Dr. Burney.
A collection of the portraits of illustrious characters affords not only
a source of entertainment and curiosity, but displays the different
modes or habits of the time; and in settling our floating ideas upon the
true features of famous persons, they also fix the chronological
particulars of their birth, age, death, sometimes with short characters
of them, besides the names of painter and engraver. It is thus a single
print, by the hand of a skilful artist, may become a varied banquet. To
this Granger adds, that in a collection of engraved portraits, the
contents of many galleries are reduced into the narrow compass of a few
volumes; and the portraits of eminent persons, who distinguished
themselves through a long succession of ages, may be turned over in a
few hours.
"Another advantage," Granger continues, "attending such an assemblage
is, that the methodical arrangement has a surprising effect upon the
memory. We see the celebrated contemporaries of every age almost at one
view; and the mind is insensibly led to the history of that period. I
may add to these, an important circumstance, which is, the power that
such a collection will have in _awakening genius_. A skilful preceptor
will presently perceive the true bent of the temper of his pupil, by his
being struck with a Blake or a Boyle, a Hyde or a Milton."
A circumstance in the life of Cicero confirms this observation. Atticus
had a gallery adorned with the images or portraits of the great men of
Rome, under each of which he had severally described their principal
acts and honours, in a few concise verses of his own composition. It was
by the contemplation of two of these portraits (the ancient Brutus and a
venerable relative in one picture) that Cicero seems to have incited
Brutus, by the example of these his great ancestors, to dissolve the
tyranny of Caesar. General Fairfax made a collection of engraved
portraits of warriors. A story much in favour of portrait-collectors is
that of the Athenian courtesan, who, in the midst of a riotous banquet
with her lovers, accidentally casting her eyes on the _portrait_ of a
philosopher that hung opposite to her seat, the happy character of
temperance and virtue struck her with so lively an image of her own
unworthiness, that she suddenly retreated for ever from the scene of
debauchery. The Orientalists have felt the same charm in their pictured
memorials; for "the imperial Akber," says Mr. Forbes, in his Oriental
Memoirs, "employed artists to make portraits of all the principal omrahs
and officers in his court;" they were bound together in a thick volume,
wherein, as the Ayeen Akbery, or the Institutes of Akber, expresses it,
"The PAST are kept in lively remembrance; and the PRESENT are insured
immortality."
Leonard Aretin, when young and in prison, found a portrait of Petrarch,
on which his eyes were perpetually fixed; and this sort of contemplation
inflamed the desire of imitating this great man. Buffon hung the
portrait of Newton before his writing-table.
On this subject, Tacitus sublimely expresses himself at the close of his
admired biography of Agricola: "I do not mean to censure the custom of
preserving in brass or marble the shape and stature of eminent men; but
busts and statues, like their originals, are frail and perishable. The
soul is formed of finer elements, its inward form is not to be expressed
by the hand of an artist with unconscious matter; our manners and our
morals may in some degree trace the resemblance. All of Agricola that
gained our love and raised our admiration still subsists, and ever will
subsist, preserved in the minds of men, the register of ages and the
records of fame."
What is more agreeable to the curiosity of the mind and the eye than the
portraits of great characters? An old philosopher, whom Marville invited
to see a collection of landscapes by a celebrated artist, replied,
"Landscapes I prefer seeing in the country itself, but I am fond of
contemplating the pictures of illustrious men." This opinion has some
truth; Lord Orford preferred an interesting portrait to either landscape
or historical painting. "A landscape, however excellent in its
distributions of wood, and water, and buildings, leaves not one trace in
the memory; historical painting is perpetually false in a variety of
ways, in the costume, the grouping, the portraits, and is nothing more
than fabulous painting; but a real portrait is truth itself, and calls
up so many collateral ideas as to fill an intelligent mind more than any
other species."
Marville justly reprehends the fastidious feelings of those ingenious
men who have resisted the solicitations of the artist, to sit for their
portraits. In them it is sometimes as much pride as it is vanity in
those who are less difficult in this respect. Of Gray, Fielding, and
Akenside, we have no heads for which they sat; a circumstance regretted
by their admirers, and by physiognomists.
To an arranged collection of PORTRAITS, we owe several interesting
works. Granger's justly esteemed volumes originated in such a
collection. Perrault's _Eloges_ of "the illustrious men of the
seventeenth century" were drawn up to accompany the engraved portraits
of the most celebrated characters of the age, which a fervent love of
the fine arts and literature had had engraved as an elegant tribute to
the fame of those great men. They are confined to his nation, as
Granger's to ours. The parent of this race of books may perhaps be the
Eulogiums of Paulus Jovius, which originated in a beautiful CABINET,
whose situation he has described with all its amenity.
Paulus Jovius had a country house, in an insular situation, of a most
romantic aspect. Built on the ruins of the villa of Pliny, in his time
the foundations were still to be traced. When the surrounding lake was
calm, in its lucid bosom were still viewed sculptured marbles, the
trunks of columns, and the fragments of those pyramids which had once
adorned the residence of the friend of Trajan. Jovius was an enthusiast
of literary leisure: an historian, with the imagination of a poet; a
Christian prelate nourished on the sweet fictions of pagan mythology.
His pen colours like a pencil. He paints rapturously his gardens bathed
by the waters of the lake, the shade and freshness of his woods, his
green hills, his sparkling fountains, the deep silence, and the calm of
solitude. He describes a statue raised in his gardens to NATURE; in his
hall an Apollo presided with his lyre, and the Muses with their
attributes; his library was guarded by Mercury, and an apartment devoted
to the three Graces was embellished by Doric columns, and paintings of
the most pleasing kind. Such was the interior! Without, the pure and
transparent lake spread its broad mirror, or rolled its voluminous
windings, by banks richly covered with olives and laurels; and in the
distance, towns, promontories, hills rising in an amphitheatre blushing
with vines, and the elevations of the Alps covered with woods and
pasturage, and sprinkled with herds and flocks.
In the centre of this enchanting habitation stood the CABINET, where
Paulus Jovius had collected, at great cost, the PORTRAITS of celebrated
men of the fourteenth and two succeeding centuries. The daily view of
them animated his mind to compose their eulogiums. These are still
curious, both for the facts they preserve, and the happy conciseness
with which Jovius delineates a character. He had collected these
portraits as others form a collection of natural history; and he pursued
in their characters what others do in their experiments.
One caution in collecting portraits must not be forgotten; it respects
their authenticity. We have too many supposititious heads, and ideal
personages. Conrad ab Uffenbach, who seems to have been the first
collector who projected a methodical arrangement, condemned those
spurious portraits which were fit only for the amusement of children.
The painter does not always give a correct likeness, or the engraver
misses it in his copy. Goldsmith was a short thick man, with wan
features and a vulgar appearance, but looks tall and fashionable in a
bag-wig. Bayle's portrait does not resemble him, as one of his friends
writes. Rousseau, in his Montero cap, is in the same predicament.
Winkelmann's portrait does not preserve the striking physiognomy of the
man, and in the last edition a new one is substituted. The faithful
Vertue refused to engrave for Houbraken's set, because they did not
authenticate their originals; and some of these are spurious, as that of
Ben Jonson, Sir Edward Coke, and others. Busts are not so liable to
these accidents. It is to be regretted that men of genius have not been
careful to transmit their own portraits to their admirers: it forms a
part of their character; a false delicacy has interfered. Erasmus did
not like to have his own diminutive person sent down to posterity, but
Holbein was always affectionately painting his friend. Montesquieu once
sat to Dassier the medallist, after repeated denials, won over by the
ingenious argument of the artist; "Do you not think," said Dassier,
"that there is as much pride in refusing my offer as in accepting it?"
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 22: Impressions have been taken from plates engraved by the
ancient Egyptians; and one of these, printed by the ordinary
rolling-press, was exhibited at the Great Manchester Exhibition, 1857;
it being for all practical purposes similar to those executed in the
present day.]
DESTRUCTION OF BOOKS.
The literary treasures of antiquity have suffered from the malice of Men
as well as that of Time. It is remarkable that conquerors, in the moment
of victory, or in the unsparing devastation of their rage, have not been
satisfied with destroying _men_, but have even carried their vengeance
to _books_.
The Persians, from hatred of the religion of the Phoenicians and the
Egyptians, destroyed their books, of which Eusebius notices a great
number. A Grecian library at Gnidus was burnt by the sect of
Hippocrates, because the Gnidians refused to follow the doctrines of
their master. If the followers of Hippocrates formed the majority, was
it not very unorthodox in the Gnidians to prefer taking physic their own
way? But Faction has often annihilated books.
The Romans burnt the books of the Jews, of the Christians, and the
Philosophers; the Jews burnt the books of the Christians and the Pagans;
and the Christians burnt the books of the Pagans and the Jews. The
greater part of the books of Origen and other heretics were continually
burnt by the orthodox party. Gibbon pathetically describes the empty
library of Alexandria, after the Christians had destroyed it. "The
valuable library of Alexandria was pillaged or destroyed; and near
twenty years afterwards the appearance of the _empty shelves_ excited
the regret and indignation of every spectator, whose mind was not
totally darkened by religious prejudice. The compositions of ancient
genius, so many of which have irretrievably perished, might surely have
been excepted from the wreck of idolatry, for the amusement and
instruction of succeeding ages; and either the zeal or avarice of the
archbishop might have been satiated with the richest spoils which were
the rewards of his victory."
The pathetic narrative of Nicetas Choniates, of the ravages committed by
the Christians of the thirteenth century in Constantinople, was
fraudulently suppressed in the printed editions. It has been preserved
by Dr. Clarke; who observes, that the Turks have committed fewer
injuries to the works of art than the barbarous Christians of that age.
The reading of the Jewish Talmud has been forbidden by various edicts,
of the Emperor Justinian, of many of the French and Spanish kings, and
numbers of Popes. All the copies were ordered to be burnt: the intrepid
perseverance of the Jews themselves preserved that work from
annihilation. In 1569 twelve thousand copies were thrown into the flames
at Cremona. John Reuchlin interfered to stop this universal destruction
of Talmuds; for which he became hated by the monks, and condemned by the
Elector of Mentz, but appealing to Rome, the prosecution was stopped;
and the traditions of the Jews were considered as not necessary to be
destroyed.
Conquerors at first destroy with the rashest zeal the national records
of the conquered people; hence it is that the Irish people deplore the
irreparable losses of their most ancient national memorials, which their
invaders have been too successful in annihilating. The same event
occurred in the conquest of Mexico; and the interesting history of the
New World must ever remain imperfect, in consequence of the unfortunate
success of the first missionaries. Clavigero, the most authentic
historian of Mexico, continually laments this affecting loss. Everything
in that country had been painted, and painters abounded there as scribes
in Europe. The first missionaries, suspicious that superstition was
mixed with all their paintings, attacked the chief school of these
artists, and collecting, in the market-place, a little mountain of these
precious records, they set fire to it, and buried in the ashes the
memory of many interesting events. Afterwards, sensible of their error,
they tried to collect information from the mouths of the Indians; but
the Indians were indignantly silent: when they attempted to collect the
remains of these painted histories, the patriotic Mexican usually buried
in concealment the fragmentary records of his country.
The story of the Caliph Omar proclaiming throughout the kingdom, at the
taking of Alexandria, that the Koran contained everything which was
useful to believe and to know, and therefore he commanded that all the
books in the Alexandrian library should be distributed to the masters of
the baths, amounting to 4000, to be used in heating their stoves during
a period of six months, modern paradox would attempt to deny. But the
tale would not be singular even were it true: it perfectly suits the
character of a bigot, a barbarian, and a blockhead. A similar event
happened in Persia. When Abdoolah, who in the third century of the
Mohammedan aera governed Khorassan, was presented at Nishapoor with a MS.
which was shown as a literary curiosity, he asked the title of it--it
was the tale of Wamick and Oozra, composed by the great poet Noshirwan.
On this Abdoolah observed, that those of his country and faith had
nothing to do with any other book than the Koran; and all Persian MSS.
found within the circle of his government, as the works of idolaters,
were to be burnt. Much of the most ancient poetry of the Persians
perished by this fanatical edict.
When Buda was taken by the Turks, a Cardinal offered a vast sum to
redeem the great library founded by Matthew Corvini, a literary monarch
of Hungary: it was rich in Greek and Hebrew lore, and the classics of
antiquity. Thirty amanuenses had been employed in copying MSS. and
illuminating them by the finest art. The barbarians destroyed most of
the books in tearing away their splendid covers and their silver bosses;
an Hungarian soldier picked up a book as a prize: it proved to be the
Ethiopics of Heliodorus, from which the first edition was printed in
1534.
Cardinal Ximenes seems to have retaliated a little on the Saracens; for
at the taking of Granada, he condemned to the flames five thousand
Korans.
The following anecdote respecting a Spanish missal, called St.
Isidore's, is not incurious; hard fighting saved it from destruction. In
the Moorish wars, all these missals had been destroyed, excepting those
in the city of Toledo. There, in six churches, the Christians were
allowed the free exercise of their religion. When the Moors were
expelled several centuries afterwards from Toledo, Alphonsus the Sixth
ordered the Roman missal to be used in those churches; but the people of
Toledo insisted on having their own, as revised by St. Isidore. It
seemed to them that Alphonsus was more tyrannical than the Turks. The
contest between the Roman and the Toletan missals came to that height,
that at length it was determined to decide their fate by single combat;
the champion of the Toletan missal felled by one blow the knight of the
Roman missal. Alphonsus still considered this battle as merely the
effect of the heavy arm of the doughty Toletan, and ordered a fast to be
proclaimed, and a great fire to be prepared, into which, after his
majesty and the people had joined in prayer for heavenly assistance in
this ordeal, both the rivals (not the men, but the missals) were thrown
into the flames--again St. Isidore's missal triumphed, and this iron
book was then allowed to be orthodox by Alphonsus, and the good people
of Toledo were allowed to say their prayers as they had long been used
to do. However, the copies of this missal at length became very scarce;
for now, when no one opposed the reading of St. Isidore's missal, none
cared to use it. Cardinal Ximenes found it so difficult to obtain a
copy, that he printed a large impression, and built a chapel,
consecrated to St. Isidore, that this service might be daily chaunted as
it had been by the ancient Christians.
The works of the ancients were frequently destroyed at the instigation
of the monks. They appear sometimes to have mutilated them, for passages
have not come down to us, which once evidently existed; and occasionally
their interpolations and other forgeries formed a destruction in a new
shape, by additions to the originals. They were indefatigable in erasing
the best works of the most eminent Greek and Latin authors, in order to
transcribe their ridiculous lives of saints on the obliterated vellum.
One of the books of Livy is in the Vatican most painfully defaced by
some pious father for the purpose of writing on it some missal or
psalter, and there have been recently others discovered in the same
state. Inflamed with the blindest zeal against everything pagan, Pope
Gregory VII. ordered that the library of the Palatine Apollo, a treasury
of literature formed by successive emperors, should be committed to the
flames! He issued this order under the notion of confining the attention
of the clergy to the holy scriptures! From that time all ancient
learning which was not sanctioned by the authority of the church, has
been emphatically distinguished as _profane_ in opposition to _sacred_.
This pope is said to have burnt the works of Varro, the learned Roman,
that Saint Austin should escape from the charge of plagiarism, being
deeply indebted to Varro for much of his great work "the City of God."
The Jesuits, sent by the emperor Ferdinand to proscribe Lutheranism from
Bohemia, converted that flourishing kingdom comparatively into a desert.
Convinced that an enlightened people could never be long subservient to
a tyrant, they struck one fatal blow at the national literature: every
book they condemned was destroyed, even those of antiquity; the annals
of the nation were forbidden to be read, and writers were not permitted
even to compose on subjects of Bohemian literature. The mother-tongue
was held out as a mark of vulgar obscurity, and domiciliary visits were
made for the purpose of inspecting the libraries of the Bohemians. With
their books and their language they lost their national character and
their independence.
The destruction of libraries in the reign of Henry VIII. at the
dissolution of the monasteries, is wept over by John Bale. Those who
purchased the religious houses took the libraries as part of the booty,
with which they scoured their furniture, or sold the books as waste
paper, or sent them abroad in ship-loads to foreign bookbinders.[23]
The fear of destruction induced many to hide manuscripts under ground,
and in old walls. At the Reformation popular rage exhausted itself on
illuminated books, or MSS. that had red letters in the title page: any
work that was decorated was sure to be thrown into the flames as a
superstitious one. Red letters and embellished figures were sure marks
of being papistical and diabolical. We still find such volumes mutilated
of their gilt letters and elegant initials. Many have been found
underground, having been forgotten; what escaped the flames were
obliterated by the damp: such is the deplorable fate of books during a
persecution!
The puritans burned everything they found which bore the vestige of
popish origin. We have on record many curious accounts of their pious
depredations, of their maiming images and erasing pictures. The heroic
expeditions of one Dowsing are journalised by himself: a fanatical
Quixote, to whose intrepid arm many of our noseless saints, sculptured
on our Cathedrals, owe their misfortunes.
The following are some details from the diary of this redoubtable Goth,
during his rage for reformation. His entries are expressed with a
laconic conciseness, and it would seem with a little dry humour. "At
_Sunbury_, we brake down ten mighty great angels in glass. At _Barham_,
brake down the twelve apostles in the chancel, and six superstitious
pictures more there; and eight in the church, one a lamb with a cross
(+) on the back; and digged down the steps and took up four
superstitious inscriptions in brass," &c. "_Lady Bruce's house_, the
chapel, a picture of God the Father, of the Trinity, of Christ, the Holy
Ghost, and the cloven tongues, which we gave orders to take down, and
the lady promised to do it." At another place they "brake six hundred
superstitious pictures, eight Holy Ghosts, and three of the Son." And in
this manner he and his deputies scoured one hundred and fifty parishes!
It has been humorously conjectured, that from this ruthless devastator
originated the phrase to _give a Dowsing_. Bishop Hall saved the windows
of his chapel at Norwich from destruction, by taking out the heads of
the figures; and this accounts for the many faces in church windows
which we see supplied by white glass.
In the various civil wars in our country, numerous libraries have
suffered both in MSS. and printed books. "I dare maintain," says Fuller,
"that the wars betwixt York and Lancaster, which lasted sixty years,
were not so destructive as our modern wars in six years." He alludes to
the parliamentary feuds in the reign of Charles I. "For during the
former their differences agreed in the _same religion_, impressing them
with reverence to all allowed muniments! whilst our _civil wars_,
founded in _faction_ and _variety_ of pretended _religions_, exposed all
naked church records a prey to armed violence; a sad vacuum, which will
be sensible in our _English historie_."
When it was proposed to the great Gustavus of Sweden to destroy the
palace of the Dukes of Bavaria, that hero nobly refused; observing, "Let
us not copy the example of our unlettered ancestors, who, by waging war
against every production of genius, have rendered the name of GOTH
universally proverbial of the rudest state of barbarity."
Even the civilisation of the eighteenth century could not preserve from
the destructive fury of an infuriated mob, in the most polished city of
Europe, the valuable MSS. of the great Earl of Mansfield, which were
madly consigned to the flames during the riots of 1780; as those of Dr.
Priestley were consumed by the mob at Birmingham.
In the year 1599, the Hall of the Stationers underwent as great a
purgation as was carried on in Don Quixote's library. Warton gives a
list of the best writers who were ordered for immediate conflagration by
the prelates Whitgift and Bancroft, urged by the Puritanical and
Calvinistic factions. Like thieves and outlaws, they were ordered _to be
taken wheresoever they may be found_.--"It was also decreed that no
satires or epigrams should be printed for the future. No plays were to
be printed without the inspection and permission of the archbishop of
Canterbury and the bishop of London; nor any _English historyes_, I
suppose novels and romances, without the sanction of the privy council.
Any pieces of this nature, unlicensed, or now at large and wandering
abroad, were to be diligently sought, recalled, and delivered over to
the ecclesiastical arm at London-house."
At a later period, and by an opposite party, among other extravagant
motions made in parliament, one was to destroy the Records in the Tower,
and to settle the nation on a new foundation! The very same principle
was attempted to be acted on in the French Revolution by the "true
sans-culottes." With us Sir Matthew Hale showed the weakness of the
project, and while he drew on his side "all sober persons, stopped even
the mouths of the frantic people themselves."
To descend to the losses incurred by individuals, whose names ought to
have served as an amulet to charm away the demons of literary
destruction. One of the most interesting is the fate of Aristotle's
library; he who by a Greek term was first saluted as a collector of
books! His works have come down to us accidentally, but not without
irreparable injuries, and with no slight suspicion respecting their
authenticity. The story is told by Strabo, in his thirteenth book. The
books of Aristotle came from his scholar Theophrastus to Neleus, whose
posterity, an illiterate race, kept them locked up without using them,
buried in the earth! Apellion, a curious collector, purchased them, but
finding the MSS. injured by age and moisture, conjecturally supplied
their deficiencies. It is impossible to know how far Apellion has
corrupted and obscured the text. But the mischief did not end here; when
Sylla at the taking of Athens brought them to Rome, he consigned them
to the care of Tyrannio, a grammarian, who employed scribes to copy
them; he suffered them to pass through his hands without correction, and
took great freedoms with them; the words of Strabo are strong: "Ibique
Tyrannionem grammaticum iis usum atque (ut fama est) _intercidisse_, aut
_invertisse_." He gives it indeed as a report; but the fact seems
confirmed by the state in which we find these works: Averroes declared
that he read Aristotle forty times over before he succeeded in perfectly
understanding him; he pretends he did at the one-and-fortieth time! And
to prove this, has published five folios of commentary!
We have lost much valuable literature by the illiberal or malignant
descendants of learned and ingenious persons. Many of Lady Mary Wortley
Montague's letters have been destroyed, I am informed, by her daughter,
who imagined that the family honours were lowered by the addition of
those of literature: some of her best letters, recently published, were
found buried in an old trunk. It would have mortified her ladyship's
daughter to have heard, that her mother was the Sevigne of Britain.
At the death of the learned Peiresc, a chamber in his house filled with
letters from the most eminent scholars of the age was discovered: the
learned in Europe had addressed Peiresc in their difficulties, who was
hence called "the attorney-general of the republic of letters." The
niggardly niece, although repeatedly entreated to permit them to be
published, preferred to use these learned epistles occasionally to light
her fires![24]
The MSS. of Leonardo da Vinci have equally suffered from his relatives.
When a curious collector discovered some, he generously brought them to
a descendant of the great painter, who coldly observed, that "he had a
great deal more in the garret, which had lain there for many years, if
the rats had not destroyed them!" Nothing which this great artist wrote
but showed an inventive genius.
Menage observes on a friend having had his library destroyed by fire, in
which several valuable MSS. had perished, that such a loss is one of the
greatest misfortunes that can happen to a man of letters. This gentleman
afterwards consoled himself by composing a little treatise _De
Bibliothecae incendio_. It must have been sufficiently curious. Even in
the present day men of letters are subject to similar misfortunes; for
though the fire-offices will insure books, they will not allow _authors
to value their own manuscripts_.
A fire in the Cottonian library shrivelled and destroyed many
Anglo-Saxon MSS.--a loss now irreparable. The antiquary is doomed to
spell hard and hardly at the baked fragments that crumble in his
hand.[25]
Meninsky's famous Persian dictionary met with a sad fate. Its excessive
rarity is owing to the siege of Vienna by the Turks: a bomb fell on the
author's house, and consumed the principal part of his indefatigable
labours. There are few sets of this high-priced work which do not bear
evident proofs of the bomb; while many parts are stained with the water
sent to quench the flames.
The sufferings of an author for the loss of his manuscripts strongly
appear in the case of Anthony Urceus, a great scholar of the fifteenth
century. The loss of his papers seems immediately to have been followed
by madness. At Forli, he had an apartment in the palace, and had
prepared an important work for publication. His room was dark, and he
generally wrote by lamp-light. Having gone out, he left the lamp
burning; the papers soon kindled, and his library was reduced to ashes.
As soon as he heard the news, he ran furiously to the palace, and
knocking his head violently against the gate, uttered this blasphemous
language: "Jesus Christ, what great crime have I done! who of those who
believed in you have I ever treated so cruelly? Hear what I am saying,
for I am in earnest, and am resolved. If by chance I should be so weak
as to address myself to you at the point of death, don't hear me, for I
will not be with you, but prefer hell and its eternity of torments." To
which, by the by, he gave little credit. Those who heard these ravings,
vainly tried to console him. He quitted the town, and lived franticly,
wandering about the woods!
Ben Jonson's _Execration on Vulcan_ was composed on a like occasion; the
fruits of twenty years' study were consumed in one short hour; our
literature suffered, for among some works of imagination there were many
philosophical collections, a commentary on the poetics, a complete
critical grammar, a life of Henry V., his journey into Scotland, with
all his adventures in that poetical pilgrimage, and a poem on the ladies
of Great Britain. What a catalogue of losses!
Castelvetro, the Italian commentator on Aristotle, having heard that his
house was on fire, ran through the streets exclaiming to the people,
_alla Poetica! alla Poetica! To the Poetic! To the Poetic_! He was then
writing his commentary on the Poetics of Aristotle.
Several men of letters have been known to have risen from their
death-bed to destroy their MSS. So solicitous have they been not to
venture their posthumous reputation in the hands of undiscerning
friends. Colardeau, the elegant versifier of Pope's epistle of Eliosa to
Abelard, had not yet destroyed what he had written of a translation of
Tasso. At the approach of death, he recollected his unfinished labour;
he knew that his friends would not have the courage to annihilate one of
his works; this was reserved for him. Dying, he raised himself, and as
if animated by an honourable action, he dragged himself along, and with
trembling hands seized his papers, and consumed them in one
sacrifice.--I recollect another instance of a man of letters, of our own
country, who acted the same part. He had passed his life in constant
study, and it was observed that he had written several folio volumes,
which his modest fears would not permit him to expose to the eye even of
his critical friends. He promised to leave his labours to posterity; and
he seemed sometimes, with a glow on his countenance, to exult that they
would not be unworthy of their acceptance. At his death his sensibility
took the alarm; he had the folios brought to his bed; no one could open
them, for they were closely locked. At the sight of his favourite and
mysterious labours, he paused; he seemed disturbed in his mind, while he
felt at every moment his strength decaying; suddenly he raised his
feeble hands by an effort of firm resolve, burnt his papers, and smiled
as the greedy Vulcan licked up every page. The task exhausted his
remaining strength, and he soon afterwards expired. The late Mrs.
Inchbald had written her life in several volumes; on her death-bed, from
a motive perhaps of too much delicacy to admit of any argument, she
requested a friend to cut them into pieces before her eyes--not having
sufficient strength left herself to perform this funereal office. These
are instances of what may be called the heroism of authors.
The republic of letters has suffered irreparable losses by shipwrecks.
Guarino Veronese, one of those learned Italians who travelled through
Greece for the recovery of MSS., had his perseverance repaid by the
acquisition of many valuable works. On his return to Italy he was
shipwrecked, and lost his treasures! So poignant was his grief on this
occasion that, according to the relation of one of his countrymen, his
hair turned suddenly white.
About the year 1700, Hudde, an opulent burgomaster of Middleburgh,
animated solely by literary curiosity, went to China to instruct himself
in the language, and in whatever was remarkable in this singular people.
He acquired the skill of a mandarine in that difficult language; nor did
the form of his Dutch face undeceive the physiognomists of China. He
succeeded to the dignity of a mandarine; he travelled through the
provinces under this character, and returned to Europe with a collection
of observations, the cherished labour of thirty years, and all these
were sunk in the bottomless sea.
The great Pinellian library, after the death of its illustrious
possessor, filled three vessels to be conveyed to Naples. Pursued by
corsairs, one of the vessels was taken; but the pirates finding nothing
on board but books, they threw them all into the sea: such was the fate
of a great portion of this famous library.[26] National libraries have
often perished at sea, from the circumstance of conquerors transporting
them into their own kingdoms.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 23: Henry gave a commission to the famous antiquary, John
Leland, to examine the libraries of the suppressed religious houses, and
preserve such as concerned history. Though Leland, after his search,
told the king he had "conserved many good authors, the which otherwyse
had bene lyke to have peryshed, to the no smal incommodite of good
letters," he owns to the ruthless destruction of all such as were
connected with the "doctryne of a rowt of Romayne bysshopps." Strype
consequently notes with great sorrow that many "ancient manuscripts and
writings of learned British and Saxon authors were lost. Libraries were
sold by mercenary men for anything they could get, in that confusion and
devastation of religious houses. Bale, the antiquary, makes mention of a
merchant that bought two noble libraries about these times for forty
shillings; the books whereof served him for no other use but for waste
paper; and that he had been ten years consuming them, and yet there
remained still store enough for as many years more. Vast quantities and
numbers of these books vanished with the monks and friars from their
monasteries, were conveyed away and carried beyond seas to booksellers
there, by whole ship ladings; and a great many more were used in shops
and kitchens."]
[Footnote 24: One of the most disastrous of these losses to the admirers
of the old drama occurred through the neglect of a collector--John
Warburton, Somerset herald-at-arms (who died 1759), and who had many of
these early plays in manuscript. They were left carelessly in a corner,
and during his absence his cook used them for culinary purposes as waste
paper. The list published of his losses is, however, not quite accurate,
as one or more escaped, or were mislaid by this careless man; for
Massinger's tragedy, _The Tyrant_, stated to have been so destroyed, was
found among his books, and sold at his sale in 1759; another play by the
same author, _Believe as You List_, was discovered among some papers
from Garrick's library in 1844, and was printed by the Percy Society,
1849. It appears to be the very manuscript copy seen and described by
Cibber and Chetwood.]
[Footnote 25: One of these shrivelled volumes is preserved in a case in
our British Museum. The leaves have been twisted and drawn almost into a
solid ball by the action of fire. Some few of the charred manuscripts
have been admirably restored of late years by judicious pressure, and
inlaying the damaged leaves in solid margins. The fire occurred while
the collection was temporarily placed in Ashburnham House, Little Dean's
Yard, Westminster, in October, 1731. From the Report published by a
Committee of the House of Commons soon after, it appears that the
original number of volumes was 958--"of which are lost, burnt, or
entirely spoiled, 114; and damaged so as to be defective, 98."]
[Footnote 26: Gianvincenzo Pinelli was descended from a noble Genoese
family, and born at Naples in 1535. At the age of twenty-three he
removed to Padua, then noted for its learning, and here he devoted his
time and fortune to literary and scientific pursuits. There was scarcely
a branch of knowledge that he did not cultivate; and at his death, in
1601, he left a noble library behind him. But the Senate of Venice, ever
fearful that an undue knowledge of its proceedings should be made
public, set their seal upon his collection of manuscripts, and took away
more than two hundred volumes which related in some degree to its
affairs. The rest of the books were packed to go to Naples, where his
heirs resided. The printed books are stated to have filled one hundred
and sixteen chests, and the manuscripts were contained in fourteen
others. Three ships were freighted with them. One fell into the hands of
corsairs, and the contents were destroyed, as stated in the text; some
of the books, scattered on the beach at Fermo, were purchased by the
Bishop there. The other ship-loads were ultimately obtained by Cardinal
Borromeo, and added to his library.]
SOME NOTICES OF LOST WORKS.
Although it is the opinion of some critics that our literary losses do
not amount to the extent which others imagine, they are however much
greater than they allow. Our severest losses are felt in the historical
province, and particularly in the earliest records, which might not have
been the least interesting to philosophical curiosity.
The history of Phoenicia by Sanchoniathon, supposed to be a contemporary
with Solomon, now consists of only a few valuable fragments preserved by
Eusebius. The same ill fortune attends Manetho's history of Egypt, and
Berosu's history of Chaldea. The histories of these most ancient
nations, however veiled in fables, would have presented to the
philosopher singular objects of contemplation.
Of the history of Polybios, which once contained forty books, we have
now only five; of the historical library of Diodorus Siculus fifteen
books only remain out of forty; and half of the Roman antiquities of
Dionysius Helicarnassensis has perished. Of the eighty books of the
history of Dion Cassius, twenty-five only remain. The present opening
book of Ammianus Marcellinus is entitled the fourteenth. Livy's history
consisted of one hundred and forty books, and we only possess
thirty-five of that pleasing historian. What a treasure has been lost in
the thirty books of Tacitus! little more than four remain. Murphy
elegantly observes, that "the reign of Titus, the delight of human kind,
is totally lost, and Domitian has escaped the vengeance of the
historian's pen." Yet Tacitus in fragments is still the colossal torso
of history. Velleius Paterculas, of whom a fragment only has reached
us, we owe to a single copy: no other having ever been discovered, and
which has occasioned the text of this historian to remain incurably
corrupt. Taste and criticism have certainly incurred an irreparable loss
in that _Treatise on the Causes of the Corruption of Eloquence_, by
Quintilian; which he has himself noticed with so much satisfaction in
his "Institutes." Petrarch declares, that in his youth he had seen the
works of Varro, and the second Decad of Livy; but all his endeavours to
recover them were fruitless.
These are only some of the most known losses; but in reading
contemporary writers we are perpetually discovering many important ones.
We have lost two precious works in ancient biography: Varro wrote the
lives of seven hundred illustrious Romans; and Atticus, the friend of
Cicero, composed another, on the acts of the great men among the Romans.
When we consider that these writers lived familiarly with the finest
geniuses of their times, and were opulent, hospitable, and lovers of the
fine arts, their biography and their portraits, which are said to have
accompanied them, are felt as an irreparable loss to literature. I
suspect likewise we have had great losses of which we are not always
aware; for in that curious letter in which the younger Pliny describes
in so interesting a manner the sublime industry, for it seems sublime by
its magnitude, of his Uncle,[27] it appears that his Natural History,
that vast register of the wisdom and the credulity of the ancients, was
not his only great labour; for among his other works was a history in
twenty books, which has entirely perished. We discover also the works of
writers, which, by the accounts of them, appear to have equalled in
genius those which have descended to us. Pliny has feelingly described a
poet of whom he tells us, "his works are never out of my hands; and
whether I sit down to write anything myself, or to revise what I have
already wrote, or am in a disposition to amuse myself, I constantly take
up this agreeable author; and as often as I do so, he is still new."[28]
He had before compared this poet to Catullus; and in a critic of so fine
a taste as Pliny, to have cherished so constant an intercourse with the
writings of this author, indicates high powers. Instances of this kind
frequently occur. Who does not regret the loss of the Anticato of
Caesar?
The losses which the poetical world has sustained are sufficiently known
by those who are conversant with the few invaluable fragments of
Menander, who might have interested us perhaps more than Homer: for he
was evidently the domestic poet, and the lyre he touched was formed of
the strings of the human heart. He was the painter of passions, and the
historian of the manners. The opinion of Quintilian is confirmed by the
golden fragments preserved for the English reader in the elegant
versions of Cumberland. Even of AEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, who
each wrote about one hundred dramas, seven only have been preserved of
AEschylus and of Sophocles, and nineteen of Euripides. Of the one hundred
and thirty comedies of Plautus, we only inherit twenty imperfect ones.
The remainder of Ovid's Fasti has never been recovered.
I believe that a philosopher would consent to lose any poet to regain an
historian; nor is this unjust, for some future poet may arise to supply
the vacant place of a lost poet, but it is not so with the historian.
Fancy may be supplied; but Truth once lost in the annals of mankind
leaves a chasm never to be filled.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 27: Book III. Letter V. Melmoth's translation.]
[Footnote 28: Book I. Letter XVI.]
QUODLIBETS, OR SCHOLASTIC DISQUISITIONS.
The scholastic questions were called _Questiones Quodlibeticae_; and they
were generally so ridiculous that we have retained the word _Quodlibet_
in our vernacular style, to express anything ridiculously subtile;
something which comes at length to be distinguished into nothingness,
"With all the rash dexterity of wit."
The history of the scholastic philosophy furnishes an instructive theme;
it enters into the history of the human mind, and fills a niche in our
literary annals. The works of the scholastics, with the debates of these
_Quodlibetarians_, at once show the greatness and the littleness of the
human intellect; for though they often degenerate into incredible
absurdities, those who have examined the works of Thomas Aquinas and
Duns Scotus have confessed their admiration of the Herculean texture of
brain which they exhausted in demolishing their aerial fabrics.
The following is a slight sketch of the school divinity.
The christian doctrines in the primitive ages of the gospel were adapted
to the simple comprehension of the multitude; metaphysical subtilties
were not even employed by the Fathers, of whom several are eloquent. The
Homilies explained, by an obvious interpretation, some scriptural point,
or inferred, by artless illustration, some moral doctrine. When the
Arabians became the only learned people, and their empire extended over
the greater part of the known world, they impressed their own genius on
those nations with whom they were allied as friends, or reverenced as
masters. The Arabian genius was fond of abstruse studies; it was highly
metaphysical and mathematical, for the fine arts their religion did not
permit them to cultivate; and the first knowledge which modern Europe
obtained of Euclid and Aristotle was through the medium of Latin
translations of Arabic versions. The Christians in the west received
their first lessons from the Arabians in the east; and Aristotle, with
his Arabic commentaries, was enthroned in the schools of Christendom.
Then burst into birth, from the dark cave of metaphysics, a numerous and
ugly spawn of monstrous sects; unnatural children of the same foul
mother, who never met but for mutual destruction. Religion became what
is called the study of Theology; and they all attempted to reduce the
worship of God into a system! and the creed into a thesis! Every point
relating to religion was debated through an endless chain of infinite
questions, incomprehensible distinctions, with differences mediate and
immediate, the concrete and the abstract, a perpetual civil war carried
on against common sense in all the Aristotelian severity. There existed
a rage for Aristotle; and Melancthon complains that in sacred assemblies
the ethics of Aristotle were read to the people instead of the gospel.
Aristotle was placed a-head of St. Paul; and St. Thomas Aquinas in his
works distinguishes him by the title of "The Philosopher;" inferring,
doubtless, that no other man could possibly be a philosopher who
disagreed with Aristotle. Of the blind rites paid to Aristotle, the
anecdotes of the Nominalists and Realists are noticed in the article
"Literary Controversy" in this work.
Had their subtile questions and perpetual wranglings only been addressed
to the metaphysician in his closet, and had nothing but strokes of the
pen occurred, the scholastic divinity would only have formed an episode
in the calm narrative of literary history; but it has claims to be
registered in political annals, from the numerous persecutions and
tragical events with which they too long perplexed their followers, and
disturbed the repose of Europe. The Thomists, and the Scotists, the
Occamites, and many others, soared into the regions of mysticism.
Peter Lombard had laboriously compiled, after the celebrated Abelard's
"Introduction to Divinity," his four books of "Sentences," from the
writings of the Fathers; and for this he is called "The Master of
Sentences." These Sentences, on which we have so many commentaries, are
a collection of passages from the Fathers, the real or apparent
contradictions of whom he endeavours to reconcile. But his successors
were not satisfied to be mere commentators on these "sentences," which
they now only made use of as a row of pegs to hang on their fine-spun
metaphysical cobwebs. They at length collected all these quodlibetical
questions into enormous volumes, under the terrifying form, for those
who have seen them, of _Summaries of Divinity_! They contrived, by their
chimerical speculations, to question the plainest truths; to wrest the
simple meaning of the Holy Scriptures, and give some appearance of truth
to the most ridiculous and monstrous opinions.
One of the subtile questions which agitated the world in the tenth
century, relating to dialectics, was concerning _universals_ (as for
example, man, horse, dog, &c.) signifying not _this_ or _that_ in
particular, but _all_ in general. They distinguished _universals_, or
what we call abstract terms, by the _genera_ and _species rerum_; and
they never could decide whether these were _substances_--or _names_!
That is, whether the abstract idea we form of a horse was not really a
_being_ as much as the horse we ride! All this, and some congenial
points respecting the origin of our ideas, and what ideas were, and
whether we really had an idea of a thing before we discovered the thing
itself--in a word, what they called universals, and the essence of
universals; of all this nonsense, on which they at length proceeded to
accusations of heresy, and for which many learned men were
excommunicated, stoned, and what not, the whole was derived from the
reveries of Plato, Aristotle, and Zeno, about the nature of ideas, than
which subject to the present day no discussion ever degenerated into
such insanity. A modern metaphysician infers that we have no ideas at
all!
Of the scholastic divines, the most illustrious was Saint THOMAS
AQUINAS, styled the Angelical Doctor. Seventeen folio volumes not only
testify his industry but even his genius. He was a great man, busied all
his life with making the charades of metaphysics.
My learned friend Sharon Turner has favoured me with a notice of his
greatest work--his "Sum of all Theology," _Summa totius Theologiae_,
Paris, 1615. It is a metaphysicological treatise, or the most abstruse
metaphysics of theology. It occupies above 1250 folio pages, of very
small close print in double columns. It may be worth noticing that to
this work are appended 19 folio pages of double columns of errata, and
about 200 of additional index!
The whole is thrown into an Aristotelian form; the difficulties or
questions are proposed first, and the answers are then appended. There
are 168 articles on Love--358 on Angels--200 on the Soul--85 on
Demons--151 on the Intellect--134 on Law--3 on the Catamenia--237 on
Sins--17 on Virginity, and others on a variety of topics.
The scholastic tree is covered with prodigal foliage, but is barren of
fruit; and when the scholastics employed themselves in solving the
deepest mysteries, their philosophy became nothing more than an
instrument in the hands of the Roman Pontiff. Aquinas has composed 358
articles on angels, of which a few of the heads have been culled for the
reader.
He treats of angels, their substance, orders, offices, natures, habits,
&c., as if he himself had been an old experienced angel!
Angels were not before the world!
Angels might have been before the world!
Angels were created by God--They were created immediately by Him--They
were created in the Empyrean sky--They were created in grace--They were
created in imperfect beatitude. After a severe chain of reasoning, he
shows that angels are incorporeal compared to us, but corporeal compared
to God.
An angel is composed of action and potentiality; the more superior he
is, he has the less potentiality. They have not matter properly. Every
angel differs from another angel in species. An angel is of the same
species as a soul. Angels have not naturally a body united to them. They
may assume bodies; but they do not want to assume bodies for themselves,
but for us.
The bodies assumed by angels are of thick air.
The bodies they assume have not the natural virtues which they show, nor
the operations of life, but those which are common to inanimate things.
An angel may be the same with a body.
In the same body there are, the soul formally giving being, and
operating natural operations; and the angel operating supernatural
operations.
Angels administer and govern every corporeal creature.
God, an angel, and the soul, are not contained in space, but contain it.
Many angels cannot be in the same space.
The motion of an angel in space is nothing else than different contacts
of different successive places.
The motion of an angel is a succession of his different operations.
His motion may be continuous and discontinuous as he will.
The continuous motion of an angel is necessary through every medium, but
may be discontinuous without a medium.
The velocity of the motion of an angel is not according to the quantity
of his strength, but according to his will.
The motion of the illumination of an angel is threefold, or circular,
straight, and oblique.
In this account of the motion of an angel we are reminded of the
beautiful description of Milton, who marks it by a continuous motion,
"Smooth-sliding without step."
The reader desirous of being _merry_ with Aquinas's angels may find them
in Martinus Scriblerus, in Ch. VII. who inquires if angels pass from one
extreme to another without going through the _middle_? And if angels
know things more clearly in a morning? How many angels can dance on the
point of a very fine needle, without jostling one another?
All the questions in Aquinas are answered with a subtlety of distinction
more difficult to comprehend and remember than many problems in Euclid;
and perhaps a few of the best might still be selected for youth as
curious exercises of the understanding. However, a great part of these
peculiar productions are loaded with the most trifling, irreverent, and
even scandalous discussions. Even Aquinas could gravely debate, Whether
Christ was not an hermaphrodite? Whether there are excrements in
Paradise? Whether the pious at the resurrection will rise with their
bowels? Others again debated--Whether the angel Gabriel appeared to the
Virgin Mary in the shape of a serpent, of a dove, of a man, or of a
woman? Did he seem to be young or old? In what dress was he? Was his
garment white or of two colours? Was his linen clean or foul? Did he
appear in the morning, noon, or evening? What was the colour of the
Virgin Mary's hair? Was she acquainted with the mechanic and liberal
arts? Had she a thorough knowledge of the Book of Sentences, and all it
contains? that is, Peter Lombard's compilation from the works of the
Fathers, written 1200 years after her death.--But these are only
trifling matters: they also agitated, Whether when during her conception
the Virgin was seated, Christ too was seated; and whether when she lay
down, Christ also lay down? The following question was a favourite topic
for discussion, and the acutest logicians never resolved it: "When a hog
is carried to market with a rope tied about his neck, which is held at
the other end by a man, whether is the _hog_ carried to market by the
_rope_ or the _man_?"
In the tenth century[29], after long and ineffectual controversy about
the real presence of Christ in the Sacrament, they at length universally
agreed to sign a peace. This mutual forbearance must not, however, be
ascribed to the prudence and virtue of those times. It was mere
ignorance and incapacity of reasoning which kept the peace, and deterred
them from entering into debates to which they at length found themselves
unequal!
Lord Lyttleton, in his Life of Henry II., laments the unhappy effects of
the scholastic philosophy on the progress of the human mind. The minds
of men were turned from classical studies to the subtilties of school
divinity, which Rome encouraged, as more profitable for the maintenance
of her doctrines. It was a great misfortune to religion and to learning,
that men of such acute understandings as Abelard and Lombard, who might
have done much to reform the errors of the church, and to restore
science in Europe, should have depraved both, by applying their
admirable parts to weave those cobwebs of sophistry, and to confound the
clear simplicity of evangelical truths, by a false philosophy and a
captious logic.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 29: Jortin's _Remarks on Ecclesiastical History_, vol. v. p.
17.]
FAME CONTEMNED.
All men are fond of glory, and even those philosophers who write against
that noble passion prefix their _names_ to their own works. It is worthy
of observation that the authors of two _religious books_, universally
received, have concealed their names from the world. The "Imitation of
Christ" is attributed, without any authority, to Thomas A'Kempis; and
the author of the "Whole Duty of Man" still remains undiscovered.
Millions of their books have been dispersed in the Christian world.
To have revealed their _names_ would have given them as much worldly
fame as any moralist has obtained--but they contemned it! Their religion
was raised above all worldly passions! Some profane writers, indeed,
have also concealed their names to great works, but their _motives_ were
of a very different cast.
THE SIX FOLLIES OF SCIENCE.
Nothing is so capable of disordering the intellects as an intense
application to any one of these six things: the Quadrature of the
Circle; the Multiplication of the Cube; the Perpetual Motion; the
Philosophical Stone; Magic; and Judicial Astrology. "It is proper,
however," Fontenelle remarks, "to apply one's self to these inquiries;
because we find, as we proceed, many valuable discoveries of which we
were before ignorant." The same thought Cowley has applied, in an
address to his mistress, thus--
"Although I think thou never wilt be found,
Yet I'm resolved to search for thee:
The search itself rewards the pains.
So though the chymist his great secret miss,
(For neither it in art nor nature is)
Yet things well worth his toil he gains;
And does his charge and labour pay
With good unsought experiments by the way."
The same thought is in Donne; perhaps Cowley did not suspect that he was
an imitator; Fontenelle could not have read either; he struck out the
thought by his own reflection, Glauber searched long and deeply for the
philosopher's stone, which though he did not find, yet in his researches
he discovered a very useful purging salt, which bears his name.
Maupertuis observes on the _Philosophical Stone_, that we cannot prove
the impossibility of obtaining it, but we can easily see the folly of
those who employ their time and money in seeking for it. This price is
too great to counterbalance the little probability of succeeding in it.
However, it is still a bantling of modern chemistry, who has nodded very
affectionately on it!--Of the _Perpetual Motion_, he shows the
impossibility, in the sense in which it is generally received. On the
_Quadrature of the Circle_, he says he cannot decide if this problem be
resolvable or not: but he observes, that it is very useless to search
for it any more; since we have arrived by approximation to such a point
of accuracy, that on a large circle, such as the orbit which the earth
describes round the sun, the geometrician will not mistake by the
thickness of a hair. The quadrature of the circle is still, however, a
favourite game with some visionaries, and several are still imagining
that they have discovered the perpetual motion; the Italians nickname
them _matto perpetuo_: and Bekker tells us of the fate of one Hartmann,
of Leipsic, who was in such despair at having passed his life so vainly,
in studying the perpetual motion, that at length he hanged himself!
IMITATORS.
Some writers, usually pedants, imagine that they can supply, by the
labours of industry, the deficiencies of nature. Paulus Manutius
frequently spent a month in writing a single letter. He affected to
imitate Cicero. But although he painfully attained to something of the
elegance of his style, destitute of the native graces of unaffected
composition, he was one of those whom Erasmus bantered in his
_Ciceronianus_, as so slavishly devoted to Cicero's style, that they
ridiculously employed the utmost precautions when they were seized by a
Ciceronian fit. The _Nosoponus_ of Erasmus tells of his devotion to
Cicero; of his three indexes to all his words, and his never writing but
in the dead of night, employing months upon a few lines; and his
religious veneration for _words_, with his total indifference about the
_sense_.
Le Brun, a Jesuit, was a singular instance of such unhappy imitation. He
was a Latin poet, and his themes were religious. He formed the
extravagant project of substituting a _religious Virgil_ and _Ovid_
merely by adapting his works to their titles. His _Christian Virgil_
consists, like the Pagan Virgil, of _Eclogues_, _Georgics_, and of an
_Epic_ of twelve books; with this difference, that devotional subjects
are substituted for fabulous ones. His epic is the _Ignaciad_, or the
pilgrimage of Saint Ignatius. His _Christian Ovid_, is in the same
taste; everything wears a new face. His _Epistles_ are pious ones; the
_Fasti_ are the six days of the Creation; the _Elegies_ are the six
Lamentations of Jeremiah; a poem on _the Love of God_ is substituted for
the _Art of Love_; and the history of some _Conversions_ supplies the
place of the _Metamorphoses_! This Jesuit would, no doubt, have approved
of a _family Shakspeare_!
A poet of a far different character, the elegant Sannazarius, has done
much the same thing in his poem _De Partu Virginis_. The same servile
imitation of ancient taste appears. It professes to celebrate the birth
of _Christ_, yet his name is not once mentioned in it! The _Virgin_
herself is styled _spes deorum_! "The hope of the gods!" The
_Incarnation_ is predicted by _Proteus_! The Virgin, instead of
consulting the _sacred writings_, reads the _Sibylline oracles_! Her
attendants are _dryads_, _nereids_, &c. This monstrous mixture of
polytheism with the mysteries of Christianity, appears in everything he
had about him. In a chapel at one of his country seats he had two
statues placed at his tomb, _Apollo_ and _Minerva_; catholic piety found
no difficulty in the present case, as well as in innumerable others of
the same kind, to inscribe the statue of _Apollo_ with the name of
_David_, and that of _Minerva_ with the female one of _Judith_!
Seneca, in his 114th Epistle, gives a curious literary anecdote of the
sort of imitation by which an inferior mind becomes the monkey of an
original writer. At Rome, when Sallust was the fashionable writer, short
sentences, uncommon words, and an obscure brevity, were affected as so
many elegances. Arruntius, who wrote the history of the Punic Wars,
painfully laboured to imitate Sallust. Expressions which are rare in
Sallust are frequent in Arruntius, and, of course, without the motive
that induced Sallust to adopt them. What rose naturally under the pen of
the great historian, the minor one must have run after with ridiculous
anxiety. Seneca adds several instances of the servile affectation of
Arruntius, which seem much like those we once had of Johnson, by the
undiscerning herd of his apes.
One cannot but smile at these imitators; we have abounded with them. In
the days of Churchill, every month produced an effusion which tolerably
imitated his slovenly versification, his coarse invective, and his
careless mediocrity,--but the genius remained with the English Juvenal.
Sterne had his countless multitude; and in Fielding's time, Tom Jones
produced more bastards in wit than the author could ever suspect. To
such literary echoes, the reply of Philip of Macedon to one who prided
himself on imitating the notes of the nightingale may be applied: "I
prefer the nightingale herself!" Even the most successful of this
imitating tribe must be doomed to share the fate of Silius Italicus, in
his cold imitation of Virgil, and Cawthorne in his empty harmony of
Pope.
To all these imitators I must apply an Arabian anecdote. Ebn Saad, one
of Mahomet's amanuenses, when writing what the prophet dictated, cried
out by way of admiration--"Blessed be God, the best Creator!" Mahomet
approved of the expression, and desired him to write those words down as
part of the inspired passage.--The consequence was, that Ebn Saad began
to think himself as great a prophet as his master, and took upon himself
to imitate the Koran according to his fancy; but the imitator got
himself into trouble, and only escaped with life by falling on his
knees, and solemnly swearing he would never again imitate the Koran, for
which he was sensible God had never created him.
CICERO'S PUNS.
"I should," says Menage, "have received great pleasure to have conversed
with Cicero, had I lived in his time. He must have been a man very
agreeable in conversation, since even Caesar carefully collected his
_bons mots_. Cicero has boasted of the great actions he has done for his
country, because there is no vanity in exulting in the performance of
our duties; but he has not boasted that he was the most eloquent orator
of his age, though he certainly was; because nothing is more disgusting
than to exult in our intellectual powers."
Whatever were the _bons mots_ of Cicero, of which few have come down to
us, it is certain that Cicero was an inveterate punster; and he seems to
have been more ready with them than with repartees. He said to a
senator, who was the son of a tailor, "_Rem acu tetigisti_." You have
touched it sharply; _acu_ means sharpness as well as the point of a
needle. To the son of a cook, "_ego quoque tibi jure favebo_." The
ancients pronounced _coce_ and _quoque_ like _co-ke_, which alludes to
the Latin _cocus_, cook, besides the ambiguity of _jure_, which applies
to _broth_ or _law--jus_. A Sicilian suspected of being a Jew, attempted
to get the cause of Verres into his own hands; Cicero, who knew that he
was a creature of the great culprit, opposed him, observing "What has a
Jew to do with swine's flesh?" The Romans called a boar pig Verres. I
regret to afford a respectable authority for forensic puns; however, to
have degraded his adversaries by such petty personalities, only proves
that Cicero's taste was not exquisite.
There is something very original in Montaigne's censure of Cicero.
Cotton's translation is admirable.
"Boldly to confess the truth, his way of writing, and that of all other
long-winded authors, appears to me very tedious; for his preface,
definitions, divisions, and etymologies, take up the greatest part of
his work; whatever there is of life and marrow, is smothered and lost in
the preparation. When I have spent an hour in reading him, which is a
great deal for me, and recollect what I have thence extracted of juice
and substance, for the most part I find nothing but wind: for he is not
yet come to the arguments that serve to his purpose, and the reasons
that should properly help to loose the knot I would untie. For me, who
only desired to become more wise, not more learned or eloquent, these
logical or Aristotelian disquisitions of poets are of no use. I look for
good and solid reasons at the first dash. I am for discourses that give
the first charge into the heart of the doubt; his languish about the
subject, and delay our expectation. Those are proper for the schools,
for the bar, and for the pulpit, where we have leisure to nod, and may
awake a quarter of an hour after, time enough to find again the thread
of the discourse. It is necessary to speak after this manner to judges,
whom a man has a design, right or wrong, to incline to favour his cause;
to children and common people, to whom a man must say all he can. I
would not have an author make it his business to render me attentive; or
that he should cry out fifty times _O yes_! as the clerks and heralds
do.
"As to Cicero, I am of the common opinion that, learning excepted, he
had no great natural parts. He was a good citizen, of an affable
nature, as all fat heavy men--(_gras et gausseurs_ are the words in the
original, meaning perhaps broad jokers, for Cicero was not fat)--such as
he was, usually are; but given to ease, and had a mighty share of vanity
and ambition. Neither do I know how to excuse him for thinking his
poetry fit to be published. 'Tis no great imperfection to write ill
verses; but it is an imperfection not to be able to judge how unworthy
bad verses were of the glory of his name. For what concerns his
eloquence, that is totally out of comparison, and I believe will never
be equalled."
PREFACES.
A preface, being the entrance to a book, should invite by its beauty. An
elegant porch announces the splendour of the interior. I have observed
that ordinary readers skip over these little elaborate compositions. The
ladies consider them as so many pages lost, which might better be
employed in the addition of a picturesque scene, or a tender letter to
their novels. For my part I always gather amusement from a preface, be
it awkwardly or skilfully written; for dulness, or impertinence, may
raise a laugh for a page or two. A preface is frequently a superior
composition to the work itself: for, long before the days of Johnson, it
had been a custom for many authors to solicit for this department of
their work the ornamental contribution of a man of genius. Cicero tells
his friend Atticus, that he had a volume of prefaces or introductions
always ready by him to be used as circumstances required. These must
have been like our periodical essays. A good preface is as essential to
put the reader into good humour, as a good prologue is to a play, or a
fine symphony to an opera, containing something analogous to the work
itself; so that we may feel its want as a desire not elsewhere to be
gratified. The Italians call the preface _La salsa del libra_, the sauce
of the book, and if well seasoned it creates an appetite in the reader
to devour the book itself. A preface badly composed prejudices the
reader against the work. Authors are not equally fortunate in these
little introductions; some can compose volumes more skilfully than
prefaces, and others can finish a preface who could never be capable of
finishing a book.
On a very elegant preface prefixed to an ill-written book, it was
observed that they ought never to have _come together_; but a sarcastic
wit remarked that he considered such _marriages_ were allowable, for
they were _not of kin_.
In prefaces an affected haughtiness or an affected humility are alike
despicable. There is a deficient dignity in Robertson's; but the
haughtiness is now to our purpose. This is called by the French, "_la
morgue litteraire_," the surly pomposity of literature. It is sometimes
used by writers who have succeeded in their first work, while the
failure of their subsequent productions appears to have given them a
literary hypochondriasm. Dr. Armstrong, after his classical poem, never
shook hands cordially with the public for not relishing his barren
labours. In the _preface_ to his lively "Sketches" he tells us, "he
could give them much bolder strokes as well as more delicate touches,
but that he _dreads the danger of writing too well_, and feels the value
of his own labour too sensibly to bestow it upon the _mobility_." This
is pure milk compared to the gall in the _preface_ to his poems. There
he tells us, "that at last he has taken the _trouble to collect them_!
What he has destroyed would, probably enough, have been better received
by the _great majority of readers_. But he has always _most heartily
despised their opinion_." These prefaces remind one of the _prologi
galeati_, prefaces with a helmet! as St. Jerome entitles the one to his
Version of the Scriptures. These _armed prefaces_ were formerly very
common in the age of literary controversy; for half the business of an
author consisted then, either in replying, or anticipating a reply, to
the attacks of his opponent.
Prefaces ought to be dated; as these become, after a series of editions,
leading and useful circumstances in literary history.
Fuller with quaint humour observes on INDEXES--"An INDEX is a necessary
implement, and no impediment of a book, except in the same sense wherein
the carriages of an army are termed _Impedimenta_. Without this, a large
author is but a labyrinth without a clue to direct the reader therein. I
confess there is a lazy kind of learning which is _only Indical_; when
scholars (like adders which only bite the horse's heels) nibble but at
the tables, which are _calces librorum_, neglecting the body of the
book. But though the idle deserve no crutches (let not a staff be used
by them, but on them), pity it is the weary should be denied the benefit
thereof, and industrious scholars prohibited the accommodation of an
index, most used by those who most pretend to contemn it."
EARLY PRINTING.
There is some probability that this art originated in China, where it
was practised long before it was known in Europe. Some European
traveller might have imported the hint.[30] That the Romans did not
practise the art of printing cannot but excite our astonishment, since
they actually used it, unconscious of their rich possession. I have seen
Roman stereotypes, or immoveable printing types, with which they stamped
their pottery.[31] How in daily practising the art, though confined to
this object, it did not occur to so ingenious a people to print their
literary works, is not easily to be accounted for. Did the wise and
grave senate dread those inconveniences which attend its indiscriminate
use? Or perhaps they did not care to deprive so large a body of scribes
of their business. Not a hint of the art itself appears in their
writings.
When first the art of printing was discovered, they only made use of one
side of a leaf; they had not yet found out the expedient of impressing
the other. Afterwards they thought of pasting the blank sides, which
made them appear like one leaf. Their blocks were made of soft woods,
and their letters were carved; but frequently breaking, the expense and
trouble of carving and gluing new letters suggested our moveable types
which, have produced an almost miraculous celerity in this art. The
modern stereotype, consisting of entire pages in solid blocks of metal,
and, not being liable to break like the soft wood at first used, has
been profitably employed for works which require to be frequently
reprinted. Printing in carved blocks of wood must have greatly retarded
the progress of universal knowledge: for one set of types could only
have produced one work, whereas it now serves for hundreds.
When their editions were intended to be curious, they omitted to print
the initial letter of a chapter: they left that blank space to be
painted or illuminated, to the fancy of the purchaser. Several ancient
volumes of these early times have been found where these letters are
wanting, as they neglected to have them painted.
The initial carved letter, which is generally a fine wood-cut, among our
printed books, is evidently a remains or imitation of these
ornaments.[32] Among the very earliest books printed, which were
religious, the Poor Man's Bible has wooden cuts in a coarse style,
without the least shadowing or crossing of strokes, and these they
inelegantly daubed over with broad colours, which they termed
illuminating, and sold at a cheap rate to those who could not afford to
purchase costly missals elegantly written and painted on vellum.
Specimens of these rude efforts of illuminated prints may be seen in
Strutt's Dictionary of Engravers. The Bodleian library possesses the
originals.[33]
In the productions of early printing may be distinguished the various
splendid editions of _Primers_, or _Prayer-books_. These were
embellished with cuts finished in a most elegant taste: many of them
were grotesque or obscene. In one of them an angel is represented
crowning the Virgin Mary, and God the Father himself assisting at the
ceremony. Sometimes St. Michael is overcoming Satan; and sometimes St.
Anthony is attacked by various devils of most clumsy forms--not of the
grotesque and limber family of Callot!
Printing was gradually practised throughout Europe from the year 1440 to
1500. Caxton and his successor Wynkyn de Worde were our own earliest
printers. Caxton was a wealthy merchant, who, in 1464, being sent by
Edward IV. to negotiate a commercial treaty with the Duke of Burgundy,
returned to his country with this invaluable art. Notwithstanding his
mercantile habits, he possessed a literary taste, and his first work was
a translation from a French historical miscellany.[34]
The tradition of the Devil and Dr. Faustus was said to have been derived
from the odd circumstance in which the Bibles of the first printer,
Fust, appeared to the world; but if Dr. Faustus and Faustus the printer
are two different persons, the tradition becomes suspicious, though, in
some respects, it has a foundation in truth. When Fust had discovered
this new art, and printed off a considerable number of copies of the
Bible to imitate those which were commonly sold as MSS., he undertook
the sale of them at Paris. It was his interest to conceal this
discovery, and to pass off his printed copies for MSS. But, enabled to
sell his Bibles at sixty crowns, while the other scribes demanded five
hundred, this raised universal astonishment; and still more when he
produced copies as fast as they were wanted, and even lowered his price.
The uniformity of the copies increased the wonder. Informations were
given in to the magistrates against him as a magician; and in searching
his lodgings a great number of copies were found. The red ink, and
Fust's red ink is peculiarly brilliant, which embellished his copies,
was said to be his blood; and it was solemnly adjudged that he was in
league with the Infernals. Fust at length was obliged, to save himself
from a bonfire, to reveal his art to the Parliament of Paris, who
discharged him from all prosecution in consideration of the wonderful
invention.
When the art of printing was established, it became the glory of the
learned to be correctors of the press to eminent printers. Physicians,
lawyers, and bishops themselves occupied this department. The printers
then added frequently to their names those of the correctors of the
press; and editions were then valued according to the abilities of the
corrector.
The _prices_ of books in these times were considered as an object worthy
of the animadversions of the highest powers. This anxiety in favour of
the studious appears from a privilege of Pope Leo X. to Aldus Manutius
for printing Varro, dated 1553, signed Cardinal Bembo. Aldus is exhorted
to put a moderate price on the work, lest the Pope should withdraw his
privilege, and accord it to others.
Robert Stephens, one of the early printers, surpassed in correctness
those who exercised the same profession.[35]
To render his editions immaculate, he hung up the proofs in public
places, and generously recompensed those who were so fortunate as to
detect any errata.
Plantin, though a learned man, is more famous as a printer. His
printing-office was one of the wonders of Europe. This grand building
was the chief ornament of the city of Antwerp. Magnificent in its
structure, it presented to the spectator a countless number of presses,
characters of all figures and all sizes, matrixes to cast letters, and
all other printing materials; which Baillet assures us amounted to
immense sums.[36]
In Italy, the three Manutii were more solicitous of correctness and
illustrations than of the beauty of their printing. They were ambitious
of the character of the scholar, not of the printer.
It is much to be regretted that our publishers are not literary men,
able to form their own critical decisions. Among the learned printers
formerly, a book was valued because it came from the presses of an Aldus
or a Stephens; and even in our own time the names of Bowyer and Dodsley
sanctioned a work. Pelisson, in his history of the French Academy,
mentions that Camusat was selected as their bookseller, from his
reputation for publishing only valuable works. "He was a man of some
literature and good sense, and rarely printed an indifferent work; and
when we were young I recollect that we always made it a rule to purchase
his publications. His name was a test of the goodness of the work." A
publisher of this character would be of the greatest utility to the
literary world: at home he would induce a number of ingenious men to
become authors, for it would be honourable to be inscribed in his
catalogue; and it would be a direction for the continental reader.
So valuable a union of learning and printing did not, unfortunately,
last. The printers of the seventeenth century became less charmed with
glory than with gain. Their correctors and their letters evinced as
little delicacy of choice.
The invention of what is now called the _Italic_ letter in printing was
made by Aldus Manutius, to whom learning owes much. He observed the
many inconveniences resulting from the vast number of _abbreviations_,
which were then so frequent among the printers, that a book was
difficult to understand; a treatise was actually written on the art of
reading a printed book, and this addressed to the learned! He contrived
an expedient, by which these abbreviations might be entirely got rid of,
and yet books suffer little increase in bulk. This he effected by
introducing what is now called the _Italic_ letter, though it formerly
was distinguished by the name of the inventor, and called the _Aldine_.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 30: China is the stronghold where antiquarian controversy
rests. Beaten in affixing the origin of any art elsewhere, the
controversialist enshrines himself within the Great Wall, and is allowed
to repose in peace. Opponents, like Arabs, give up the chase when these
gates close, though possibly with as little reason as the children of
the desert evince when they quietly succumb to any slight defence.]
[Footnote 31: They are small square blocks of metal, with the name in
raised letters within a border, precisely similar to those used by the
modern printer. Sometimes the stamp was round, or in the shape of a foot
or hand, with the potter's name in the centre. They were in constant use
for impressing the clay-works which supplied the wants of a Roman
household. The list of potters' marks found upon fragments discovered in
London alone amounts to several hundreds.]
[Footnote 32: Another reason for the omission of a great initial is
given. There was difficulty in obtaining such enriched letters by
engraving as were used in manuscripts; and there was at this time a
large number of professional scribes, whose interests were in some
degree considered by the printer. Hence we find in early books a large
space left to be filled in by the hand of the scribe with the proper
letter indicated by a small type letter placed in the midst. The famous
_Psalter_ printed by Faust and Scheffer, at Mentz, in 1497, is the first
book having large initial letters printed in red and blue inks, in
imitation of the handwork of the old caligraphers.]
[Footnote 33: The British Museum now possesses a remarkably fine series
of these early works. They originated in the large sheet woodcuts, or
"broadsides," representing saints, or scenes from saintly legends, used
by the clergy as presents to the peasantry or pilgrims to certain
shrines--a custom retained upon the Continent to the present time; such
cuts exhibiting little advance in art since the days of their origin,
being almost as rude, and daubed in a similar way with coarse colour.
One ancient cut of this kind in the British Museum, representing the
Saviour brought before Pilate, resembles in style the pen-drawings in
manuscripts of the fourteenth century. Another exhibits the seven stages
of human life, with the wheel of fortune in the centre. Another is an
emblematic representation of the Tower of Sapience, each stone formed of
some mental qualification. When books were formed, a large series of
such cuts included pictures and type in each page, and in one piece. The
so-called Poor Man's Bible (an evidently erroneous term for it, the
invention of a bibliographer of the last century) was one of these, and
consists of a series of pictures from Scripture history, with brief
explanations. It was most probably preceded by the block books known as
the _Apocalypse of St. John_, the _Cantico Canticorum_, and the _Ars
Memorandi_.]
[Footnote 34: This was Raoul le Fevre's _Recueil des Histoires de
Troye_, a fanciful compilation of adventures, in which the heroes of
antiquity perform the parts of the _preux chevaliers_ of the middle
ages. It was "ended in the Holy City of Colen," in September, 1471. The
first book printed by him in England was _The Game and Playe of the
Chesse_, in March, 1474. It is a fanciful moralization of the game,
abounding with quaint old legends and stories.]
[Footnote 35: Robert Stephens was the most celebrated of a family
renowned through several generations in the history of printing. The
first of the dynasty, Henry Estienne, who, in the spirit of the age,
latinized his name, was born in Paris, in 1470, and commenced printing
there at the beginning of the sixteenth century. His three
sons--Francis, Robert, and Charles--were all renowned printers and
scholars; Robert the most celebrated for the correctness and beauty of
his work. His Latin Bible of 1532 made for him a great reputation; and
he was appointed printer to Francis I. A new edition of his Bible, in
1545, brought him into trouble with the formidable doctors of the
Sorbonne, and he ultimately left Paris for Geneva, where he set up a
printing-office, which soon became famous. He died in 1559. He was the
author of some learned works, and a printer whose labours in the "noble
art" have never been excelled. He left two sons--Henry and Robert--also
remarkable as learned printers; and they both had sons who followed the
same pursuits. There is not one of this large family without honourable
recognition for labour and knowledge, and in their wives and daughters
they found learned assistants. Chalmers says--"They were at once the
ornament and reproach of the age in which they lived. They were all men
of great learning, all extensive benefactors to literature, and all
persecuted or unfortunate."]
[Footnote 36: Plantin's office is still existing in Antwerp, and is one
of the most interesting places in that interesting city. It is so
carefully preserved, that its quadrangle was assigned to the soldiery in
the last great revolution, to prevent any hostile incursion and damage.
It is a lonely building, in which the old office, with its presses and
printing material, still remains as when deserted by the last workman.
The sheets of the last books printed there are still lying on the
tables; and in the presses and drawers are hundreds of the woodcuts and
copperplates used by Plantin for the books that made his office renowned
throughout Europe. In the quadrangle are busts of himself and his
successors, the Morels, and the scholars who were connected with them.
Plantin's own room seems to want only his presence to perfect the scene.
The furniture and fittings, the quaint decoration, leads the imagination
insensibly back to the days of Charles V.]
ERRATA.
Besides the ordinary _errata_, which happen in printing a work, others
have been purposely committed, that the _errata_ may contain what is not
permitted to appear in the body of the work. Wherever the Inquisition
had any power, particularly at Rome, it was not allowed to employ the
word _fatum_, or _fata_, in any book. An author, desirous of using the
latter word, adroitly invented this scheme; he had printed in his book
_facta_, and, in the _errata_, he put, "For _facta_, read _fata_."
Scarron has done the same thing on another occasion. He had composed
some verses, at the head of which he placed this dedication--_A
Guillemette, Chienne de ma Soeur_; but having a quarrel with his sister,
he maliciously put into the _errata_, "Instead of _Chienne de ma Soeur_,
read _ma Chienne de Soeur_."
Lully, at the close of a bad prologue said, the word _fin du prologue_
was an _erratum_, it should have been _fi du prologue_!
In a book, there was printed, _le docte Morel_. A wag put into the
_errata_, "For _le docte Morel_, read _le Docteur Morel_." This _Morel_
was not the first _docteur_ not _docte_.
When a fanatic published a mystical work full of unintelligible
raptures, and which he entitled _Les Delices de l'Esprit_, it was
proposed to print in his errata, "For _Delices_ read _Delires_."
The author of an idle and imperfect book ended with the usual phrase of
_cetera desiderantur_, one altered it, _Non desiderantur sed desunt_;
"The rest is _wanting_, but not _wanted_."
At the close of a silly book, the author as usual printed the word
FINIS.--A wit put this among the errata, with this pointed couplet:--
FINIS!--an error, or a lie, my friend!
In writing foolish books--there is _no End_!
In the year 1561 was printed a work, entitled "the Anatomy of the Mass."
It is a thin octavo, of 172 pages, and it is accompanied by an _Errata_
of 15 pages! The editor, a pious monk, informs us that a very serious
reason induced him to undertake this task: for it is, says he, to
forestal the _artifices of Satan_. He supposes that the Devil, to ruin
the fruit of this work, employed two very malicious frauds: the first
before it was printed, by drenching the MS. in a kennel, and having
reduced it to a most pitiable state, rendered several parts illegible:
the second, in obliging the printers to commit such numerous blunders,
never yet equalled in so small a work. To combat this double machination
of Satan he was obliged carefully to re-peruse the work, and to form
this singular list of the blunders of printers under the influence of
Satan. All this he relates in an advertisement prefixed to the _Errata_.
A furious controversy raged between two famous scholars from a very
laughable but accidental _Erratum_, and threatened serious consequences
to one of the parties. Flavigny wrote two letters, criticising rather
freely a polyglot Bible edited by Abraham Ecchellensis. As this learned
editor had sometimes censured the labours of a friend of Flavigny, this
latter applied to him the third and fifth verses of the seventh chapter
of St. Matthew, which he printed in Latin. Ver 3. _Quid vides festucam
in_ OCULO _fratris tui, et trabem in_ OCULO _tuo non vides_? Ver. 5.
_Ejice primum trabem de_ OCULO _tuo, et tunc videbis ejicere festucam
de_ OCULO _fratris tui_. Ecchellensis opens his reply by accusing
Flavigny of an _enormous crime_ committed in this passage; attempting to
correct the sacred text of the Evangelist, and daring to reject a word,
while he supplied its place by another as _impious_ as _obscene_! This
crime, exaggerated with all the virulence of an angry declaimer, closes
with a dreadful accusation. Flavigny's morals are attacked, and his
reputation overturned by a horrid imputation. Yet all this terrible
reproach is only founded on an _Erratum_! The whole arose from the
printer having negligently suffered the _first letter_ of the word
_Oculo_ to have dropped from the form, when he happened to touch a line
with his finger, which did not stand straight! He published another
letter to do away the imputation of Ecchellensis; but thirty years
afterwards his rage against the negligent printer was not extinguished;
the wits were always reminding him of it.
Of all literary blunders none equalled that of the edition of the
Vulgate, by Sixtus V. His Holiness carefully superintended every sheet
as it passed through the press; and, to the amazement of the world, the
work remained without a rival--it swarmed with errata! A multitude of
scraps were printed to paste over the erroneous passages, in order to
give the true text. The book makes a whimsical appearance with these
patches; and the heretics exulted in this demonstration of papal
infallibility! The copies were called in, and violent attempts made to
suppress it; a few still remain for the raptures of the biblical
collectors; not long ago the bible of Sixtus V. fetched above sixty
guineas--not too much for a mere book of blunders! The world was highly
amused at the bull of the editorial Pope prefixed to the first volume,
which excommunicates all printers who in reprinting the work should make
any _alteration_ in the text!
In the version of the Epistles of St. Paul into the Ethiopic language,
which proved to be full of errors, the editors allege a good-humoured
reason--"They who printed the work could not read, and we could not
print; they helped us, and we helped them, as the blind helps the
blind."
A printer's widow in Germany, while a new edition of the Bible was
printing at her house, one night took an opportunity of stealing into
the office, to alter that sentence of subjection to her husband,
pronounced upon Eve in Genesis, chap. 3, v. 16. She took out the two
first letters of the word HERR, and substituted NA in their place, thus
altering the sentence from "and he shall be thy LORD" (_Herr_), to "and
he shall be thy FOOL" (_Narr_). It is said her life paid for this
intentional erratum; and that some secreted copies of this edition have
been bought up at enormous prices.
We have an edition of the Bible, known by the name of _The Vinegar
Bible_; from the erratum in the title to the 20th chap. of St. Luke, in
which "Parable of the _Vineyard_," is printed, "Parable of the
_Vinegar_." It was printed in 1717, at the Clarendon press.
We have had another, where "Thou shalt commit adultery" was printed,
omitting the negation; which occasioned the archbishop to lay one of the
heaviest penalties on the Company of Stationers that was ever recorded
in the annals of literary history.[37]
Herbert Croft used to complain of the incorrectness of our English
classics, as reprinted by the booksellers. It is evident some stupid
printer often changes a whole text intentionally. The fine description
by Akenside of the Pantheon, "SEVERELY great," not being understood by
the blockhead, was printed _serenely great_. Swift's own edition of "The
City Shower," has "old ACHES throb." _Aches_ is two syllables, but
modern printers, who had lost the right pronunciation, have _aches_ as
one syllable; and then, to complete the metre, have foisted in "aches
_will_ throb." Thus what the poet and the linguist wish to preserve is
altered, and finally lost.[38]
It appears by a calculation made by the printer of Steevens's edition of
Shakspeare, that every octavo page of that work, text and notes,
contains 2680 distinct pieces of metal; which in a sheet amount to
42,880--the misplacing of any one of which would inevitably cause a
blunder! With this curious fact before us, the accurate state of our
printing, in general, is to be admired, and errata ought more freely to
be pardoned than the fastidious minuteness of the insect eye of certain
critics has allowed.
Whether such a miracle as an immaculate edition of a classical author
does exist, I have never learnt; but an attempt has been made to obtain
this glorious singularity--and was as nearly realised as is perhaps
possible in the magnificent edition of _Os Lusiadas_ of Camoens, by Dom
Joze Souza, in 1817. This amateur spared no prodigality of cost and
labour, and flattered himself, that by the assistance of Didot, not a
single typographical error should be found in that splendid volume. But
an error was afterwards discovered in some of the copies, occasioned by
one of the letters in the word _Lusitano_ having got misplaced during
the working of one of the sheets. It must be confessed that this was an
_accident_ or _misfortune_--rather than an _Erratum!_
One of the most remarkable complaints on ERRATA is that of Edw. Leigh,
appended to his curious treatise on "Religion and Learning." It consists
of two folio pages, in a very minute character, and exhibits an
incalculable number of printers' blunders. "We have not," he says,
"Plantin nor Stephens amongst us; and it is no easy task to specify the
chiefest errata; false interpunctions there are too many; here a letter
wanting, there a letter too much; a syllable too much, one letter for
another; words parted where they should be joined; words joined which
should be severed; words misplaced; chronological mistakes," &c. This
unfortunate folio was printed in 1656. Are we to infer, by such frequent
complaints of the authors of that day, that either they did not receive
proofs from the printers, or that the printers never attended to the
corrected proofs? Each single erratum seems to have been felt as a stab
to the literary feelings of the poor author!
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 37: It abounded with other errors, and was so rigidly
suppressed, that a well-known collector was thirty years endeavouring
ineffectually to obtain a copy. One has recently been added to the
British Museum collection.]
[Footnote 38: A good example occurs in _Hudibras_ (Part iii. canto 2,
line 407), where persons are mentioned who
"Can by their pangs and _aches_ find
All turns and changes of the wind."
The rhythm here demands the dissyllable _a-ches_, as used by the older
writers, Shakspeare particularly, who, in his _Tempest_, makes Prospero
threaten Caliban--
"If thou neglect'st, or dost unwillingly
What I command, I'll rack thee with old cramps;
Fill all thy bones with _aches_; make thee roar
That beasts shall tremble at thy din."
John Kemble was aware of the necessity of using this word in this
instance as a dissyllable, but it was so unusual to his audiences that
it excited ridicule; and during the O.P. row, a medal was struck,
representing him as manager, enduring the din of cat-calls, trumpets,
and rattles, and exclaiming, "Oh! my head _aitches_!"]
PATRONS.
Authors have too frequently received ill treatment even from those to
whom they dedicated their works.
Some who felt hurt at the shameless treatment of such mock Maecenases
have observed that no writer should dedicate his works but to his
FRIENDS, as was practised by the ancients, who usually addressed those
who had solicited their labours, or animated their progress. Theodosius
Gaza had no other recompense for having inscribed to Sixtus IV. his
translation of the book of Aristotle on the Nature of Animals, than the
price of the binding, which this charitable father of the church
munificently bestowed upon him.
Theocritus fills his Idylliums with loud complaints of the neglect of
his patrons; and Tasso was as little successful in his dedications.
Ariosto, in presenting his Orlando Furioso to the Cardinal d'Este, was
gratified with the bitter sarcasm of--"_Dove diavolo avete pigliato
tante coglionerie?_" Where the devil have you found all this nonsense?
When the French historian Dupleix, whose pen was indeed fertile,
presented his book to the Duke d'Epernon, this Maecenas, turning to the
Pope's Nuncio, who was present, very coarsely exclaimed--"Cadedids! ce
monsieur a un flux enrage, il chie un livre toutes les lunes!"
Thomson, the ardent author of the Seasons, having extravagantly praised
a person of rank, who afterwards appeared to be undeserving of
eulogiums, properly employed his pen in a solemn recantation of his
error. A very different conduct from that of Dupleix, who always spoke
highly of Queen Margaret of France for a little place he held in her
household: but after her death, when the place became extinct, spoke of
her with all the freedom of satire. Such is too often the character of
some of the literati, who only dare to reveal the truth, when they have
no interest to conceal it.
Poor Mickle, to whom we are indebted for so beautiful a version of
Camoens' Lusiad, having dedicated this work, the continued labour of
five years, to the Duke of Buccleugh, had the mortification to find, by
the discovery of a friend, that he had kept it in his possession three
weeks before he could collect sufficient intellectual desire to cut open
the pages! The neglect of this nobleman reduced the poet to a state of
despondency. This patron was a political economist, the pupil of Adam
Smith! It is pleasing to add, in contrast with this frigid Scotch
patron, that when Mickle went to Lisbon, where his translation had long
preceded his visit, he found the Prince of Portugal waiting on the quay
to be the first to receive the translator of his great national poem;
and during a residence of six months, Mickle was warmly regarded by
every Portuguese nobleman.
"Every man believes," writes Dr. Johnson to Baretti, "that mistresses
are unfaithful, and patrons are capricious. But he excepts his own
mistress, and his own patron."
A patron is sometimes oddly obtained. Benserade attached himself to
Cardinal Mazarin; but his friendship produced nothing but civility. The
poet every day indulged his easy and charming vein of amatory and
panegyrical poetry, while all the world read and admired his verses.
One evening the cardinal, in conversation with the king, described his
mode of life when at the papal court. He loved the sciences; but his
chief occupation was the belles lettres, composing little pieces of
poetry; he said that he was then in the court of Rome what Benserade was
now in that of France. Some hours afterwards, the friends of the poet
related to him the conversation of the cardinal. He quitted them
abruptly, and ran to the apartment of his eminence, knocking with all
his force, that he might be certain of being heard. The cardinal had
just gone to bed; but he incessantly clamoured, demanding entrance; they
were compelled to open the door. He ran to his eminence, fell upon his
knees, almost pulled off the sheets of the bed in rapture, imploring a
thousand pardons for thus disturbing him; but such was his joy in what
he had just heard, which he repeated, that he could not refrain from
immediately giving vent to his gratitude and his pride, to have been
compared with his eminence for his poetical talents! Had the door not
been immediately opened, he should have expired; he was not rich, it was
true, but he should now die contented! The cardinal was pleased with his
_ardour_, and probably never suspected his _flattery_; and the next week
our new actor was pensioned.
On Cardinal Richelieu, another of his patrons, he gratefully made this
epitaph:--
Cy gist, ouy gist, par la mort bleu,
Le Cardinal de Richelieu,
Et ce qui cause mon ennuy
Ma PENSION avec lui.
Here lies, egad, 'tis very true,
The illustrious Cardinal Richelieu:
My grief is genuine--void of whim!
Alas! my _pension_ lies with him!
Le Brun, the great French artist, painted himself holding in his hand
the portrait of his earliest patron. In this accompaniment the Artist
may be said to have portrayed the features of his soul. If genius has
too often complained of its patrons, has it not also often over-valued
their protection?
POETS, PHILOSOPHERS, AND ARTISTS, MADE BY ACCIDENT.
Accident has frequently occasioned the most eminent geniuses to display
their powers. "It was at Rome," says Gibbon, "on the 15th of October,
1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the
bare-footed friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter, that
the idea of writing the Decline and Fall of the City first started to my
mind."
Father Malebranche having completed his studies in philosophy and
theology without any other intention than devoting himself to some
religious order, little expected the celebrity his works acquired for
him. Loitering in an idle hour in the shop of a bookseller, and turning
over a parcel of books, _L'Homme de Descartes_ fell into his hands.
Having dipt into parts, he read with such delight that the palpitations
of his heart compelled him to lay the volume down. It was this
circumstance that produced those profound contemplations which made him
the Plato of his age.
Cowley became a poet by accident. In his mother's apartment he found,
when very young, Spenser's Fairy Queen; and, by a continual study of
poetry, he became so enchanted by the Muse, that he grew irrecoverably a
poet.
Sir Joshua Reynolds had the first fondness for his art excited by the
perusal of Richardson's Treatise.
Vaucanson displayed an uncommon genius for mechanics. His taste was
first determined by an accident: when young, he frequently attended his
mother to the residence of her confessor; and while she wept with
repentance, he wept with weariness! In this state of disagreeable
vacation, says Helvetius, he was struck with the uniform motion of the
pendulum of the clock in the hall. His curiosity was roused; he
approached the clock-case, and studied its mechanism; what he could not
discover he guessed at. He then projected a similar machine; and
gradually his genius produced a clock. Encouraged by this first success,
he proceeded in his various attempts; and the genius, which thus could
form a clock, in time formed a fluting automaton.
Accident determined the taste of Moliere for the stage. His grandfather
loved the theatre, and frequently carried him there. The young man lived
in dissipation; the father observing it asked in anger, if his son was
to be made an actor. "Would to God," replied the grandfather, "he were
as good an actor as Monrose." The words struck young Moliere, he took a
disgust to his tapestry trade, and it is to this circumstance France
owes her greatest comic writer.
Corneille loved; he made verses for his mistress, became a poet,
composed _Melite_ and afterwards his other celebrated works. The
discreet Corneille had else remained a lawyer.
We owe the great discovery of Newton to a very trivial accident. When a
student at Cambridge, he had retired during the time of the plague into
the country. As he was reading under an apple-tree, one of the fruit
fell, and struck him a smart blow on the head. When he observed the
smallness of the apple, he was surprised at the force of the stroke.
This led him to consider the accelerating motion of falling bodies; from
whence he deduced the principle of gravity, and laid the foundation of
his philosophy.
Ignatius Loyola was a Spanish gentleman, who was dangerously wounded at
the siege of Pampeluna. Having heated his imagination by reading the
Lives of the Saints during his illness, instead of a romance, he
conceived a strong ambition to be the founder of a religious order;
whence originated the celebrated society of the Jesuits.
Rousseau found his eccentric powers first awakened by the advertisement
of the singular annual subject which the Academy of Dijon proposed for
that year, in which he wrote his celebrated declamation against the arts
and sciences. A circumstance which decided his future literary efforts.
La Fontaine, at the age of twenty-two, had not taken any profession, or
devoted himself to any pursuit. Having accidentally heard some verses of
Malherbe, he felt a sudden impulse, which directed his future life. He
immediately bought a Malherbe, and was so exquisitely delighted with
this poet that, after passing the nights in treasuring his verses in his
memory, he would run in the day-time to the woods, where, concealing
himself, he would recite his verses to the surrounding dryads.
Flamsteed was an astronomer by accident. He was taken from school on
account of his illness, when Sacrobosco's book De Sphaera having been
lent to him, he was so pleased with it that he immediately began a
course of astronomic studies. Pennant's first propensity to natural
history was the pleasure he received from an accidental perusal of
Willoughby's work on birds. The same accident of finding, on the table
of his professor, Reaumur's History of Insects, which he read more than
he attended to the lecture, and, having been refused the loan, gave such
an instant turn to the mind of Bonnet, that he hastened to obtain a
copy; after many difficulties in procuring this costly work, its
possession gave an unalterable direction to his future life. This
naturalist indeed lost the use of his sight by his devotion to the
microscope.
Dr. Franklin attributes the cast of his genius to a similar accident. "I
found a work of De Foe's, entitled an 'Essay on Projects,' from which
perhaps I derived impressions that have since influenced some of the
principal events of my life."
I shall add the incident which occasioned Roger Ascham to write his
_Schoolmaster_, one of the few works among our elder writers, which we
still read with pleasure.
At a dinner given by Sir William Cecil, at his apartments at Windsor, a
number of ingenious men were invited. Secretary Cecil communicated the
news of the morning, that several scholars at Eton had run away on
account of their master's severity, which he condemned as a great error
in the education of youth. Sir William Petre maintained the contrary;
severe in his own temper, he pleaded warmly in defence of hard flogging.
Dr. Wootton, in softer tones, sided with the secretary. Sir John Mason,
adopting no side, bantered both. Mr. Haddon seconded the hard-hearted
Sir William Petre, and adduced, as an evidence, that the best
schoolmaster then in England was the hardest flogger. Then was it that
Roger Ascham indignantly exclaimed, that if such a master had an able
scholar it was owing to the boy's genius, and not the preceptor's rod.
Secretary Cecil and others were pleased with Ascham's notions. Sir
Richard Sackville was silent, but when Ascham after dinner went to the
queen to read one of the orations of Demosthenes, he took him aside, and
frankly told him that, though he had taken no part in the debate, he
would not have been absent from that conversation for a great deal; that
he knew to his cost the truth that Ascham had supported; for it was the
perpetual flogging of such a schoolmaster that had given him an
unconquerable aversion to study. And as he wished to remedy this defect
in his own children, he earnestly exhorted Ascham to write his
observations on so interesting a topic. Such was the circumstance which
produced the admirable treatise of Roger Ascham.
INEQUALITIES OF GENIUS.
Singular inequalities are observable in the labours of genius; and
particularly in those which admit great enthusiasm, as in poetry, in
painting, and in music. Faultless mediocrity industry can preserve in
one continued degree; but excellence, the daring and the happy, can only
be attained, by human faculties, by starts.
Our poets who possess the greatest genius, with perhaps the least
industry, have at the same time the most splendid and the worst passages
of poetry. Shakspeare and Dryden are at once the greatest and the least
of our poets. With some, their great fault consists in having none.
Carraccio sarcastically said of Tintoret--_Ho veduto il Tintoretto hora
eguale a Titiano, hora minore del Tintoretto_--"I have seen Tintoret now
equal to Titian, and now less than Tintoret."
Trublet justly observes--The more there are _beauties_ and _great
beauties_ in a work, I am the less surprised to find _faults_ and _great
faults_. When you say of a work that it has many faults, that decides
nothing: and I do not know by this, whether it is execrable or
excellent. You tell me of another, that it is without any faults: if
your account be just, it is certain the work cannot be excellent.
It was observed of one pleader, that he _knew_ more than he _said_; and
of another, that he _said_ more than he _knew_.
Lucian happily describes the works of those who abound with the most
luxuriant language, void of ideas. He calls their unmeaning verbosity
"anemone-words;" for anemonies are flowers, which, however brilliant,
only please the eye, leaving no fragrance. Pratt, who was a writer of
flowing but nugatory verses, was compared to the _daisy_; a flower
indeed common enough, and without odour.
GEOGRAPHICAL STYLE.
There are many sciences, says Menage, on which we cannot indeed compose
in a florid or elegant diction, such as geography, music, algebra,
geometry, &c. When Atticus requested Cicero to write on geography, the
latter excused himself, observing that its scenes were more adapted to
please the eye, than susceptible of the embellishments of style.
However, in these kind of sciences, we may lend an ornament to their
dryness by introducing occasionally some elegant allusion, or noticing
some incident suggested by the object.
Thus when we notice some inconsiderable place, for instance _Woodstock_,
we may recall attention to the residence of _Chaucer_, the parent of our
poetry, or the romantic labyrinth of Rosamond; or as in "an Autumn on
the Rhine," at Ingelheim, at the view of an old palace built by
Charlemagne, the traveller adds, with "a hundred columns brought from
Rome," and further it was "the scene of the romantic amours of that
monarch's fair daughter, Ibertha, with Eginhard, his secretary:" and
viewing the Gothic ruins on the banks of the Rhine, he noticed them as
having been the haunts of those illustrious _chevaliers voleurs_ whose
chivalry consisted in pillaging the merchants and towns, till, in the
thirteenth century, a citizen of Mayence persuaded the merchants of more
than a hundred towns to form a league against these little princes and
counts; the origin of the famous Rhenish league, which contributed so
much to the commerce of Europe. This kind of erudition gives an interest
to topography, by associating in our memory great events and personages
with the localities.
The same principle of composition may be carried with the happiest
effect into some dry investigations, though the profound antiquary may
not approve of these sports of wit or fancy. Dr. Arbuthnot, in his
Tables of Ancient Coins, Weights, and Measures, a topic extremely barren
of amusement, takes every opportunity of enlivening the dulness of his
task; even in these mathematical calculations he betrays his wit; and
observes that "the polite Augustus, the emperor of the world, had
neither any glass in his windows, nor a shirt to his back!" Those uses
of glass and linen indeed were not known in his time. Our physician is
not less curious and facetious in the account of the _fees_ which the
Roman physicians received.
LEGENDS.
Those ecclesiastical histories entitled Legends are said to have
originated in the following circumstance.
Before colleges were established in the monasteries where the schools
were held, the professors in rhetoric frequently gave their pupils the
life of some saint for a trial of their talent at _amplification_. The
students, at a loss to furnish out their pages, invented most of these
wonderful adventures. Jortin observes, that the Christians used to
collect out of Ovid, Livy, and other pagan poets and historians, the
miracles and portents to be found there, and accommodated them to their
own monks and saints. The good fathers of that age, whose simplicity was
not inferior to their devotion, were so delighted with these flowers of
rhetoric, that they were induced to make a collection of these
miraculous compositions; not imagining that, at some distant period,
they would become matters of faith. Yet, when James de Voragine, Peter
Nadal, and Peter Ribadeneira, wrote the Lives of the Saints, they sought
for their materials in the libraries of the monasteries; and, awakening
from the dust these manuscripts of amplification, imagined they made an
invaluable present to the world, by laying before them these voluminous
absurdities. The people received these pious fictions with all
imaginable simplicity, and as these are adorned by a number of cuts, the
miracles were perfectly intelligible to their eyes. Tillemont, Fleury,
Baillet, Launoi, and Bollandus, cleared away much of the rubbish; the
enviable title of _Golden Legend_, by which James de Voragine called his
work, has been disputed; iron or lead might more aptly describe its
character.
When the world began to be more critical in their reading, the monks
gave a graver turn to their narratives; and became penurious of their
absurdities. The faithful Catholic contends, that the line of tradition
has been preserved unbroken; notwithstanding that the originals were
lost in the general wreck of literature from the barbarians, or came
down in a most imperfect state.
Baronius has given the lives of many apocryphal saints; for instance, of
a Saint _Xinoris_, whom he calls a martyr of Antioch; but it appears
that Baronius having read in Chrysostom this _word_, which signifies a
_couple_ or _pair_, he mistook it for the name of a saint, and contrived
to give the most authentic biography of a saint who never existed![39]
The Catholics confess this sort of blunder is not uncommon, but then it
is only fools who laugh! As a specimen of the happier inventions, one
is given, embellished by the diction of Gibbon--
"Among the insipid legends of ecclesiastical history, I am tempted to
distinguish the memorable fable of the _Seven Sleepers_; whose imaginary
date corresponds with the reign of the younger Theodosius, and the
conquest of Africa by the Vandals. When the Emperor Decius persecuted
the Christians, seven noble youths of Ephesus concealed themselves in a
spacious cavern on the side of an adjacent mountain; where they were
doomed to perish by the tyrant, who gave orders that the entrance should
be firmly secured with a pile of stones. They immediately fell into a
deep slumber, which was miraculously prolonged, without injuring the
powers of life, during a period of one hundred and eighty-seven years.
At the end of that time the slaves of Adolius, to whom the inheritance
of the mountain had descended, removed the stones to supply materials
for some rustic edifice. The light of the sun darted into the cavern,
and the Seven Sleepers were permitted to awake. After a slumber as they
thought of a few hours, they were pressed by the calls of hunger; and
resolved that Jamblichus, one of their number, should secretly return to
the city to purchase bread for the use of his companions. The youth, if
we may still employ that appellation, could no longer recognise the once
familiar aspect of his native country; and his surprise was increased by
the appearance of a large cross, triumphantly erected over the principal
gate of Ephesus. His singular dress and obsolete language confounded the
baker, to whom he offered an ancient medal of Decius as the current coin
of the empire; and Jamblichus, on the suspicion of a secret treasure,
was dragged before the judge. Their mutual inquiries produced the
amazing discovery, that two centuries were almost elapsed since
Jamblichus and his friends had escaped from the rage of a Pagan tyrant.
The Bishop of Ephesus, the clergy, the magistrates, the people, and, it
is said, the Emperor Theodosius himself, hastened to visit the cavern of
the Seven Sleepers; who bestowed their benediction, related their story,
and at the same instant peaceably expired.
"This popular tale Mahomet learned when he drove his camels to the fairs
of Syria; and he has introduced it, as a _divine revelation_, into the
Koran."--The same story has been adopted and adorned by the nations,
from Bengal to Africa, who profess the Mahometan religion.
The too curious reader may perhaps require other specimens of the more
unlucky inventions of this "Golden Legend;" as characteristic of a
certain class of minds, the philosopher will contemn these grotesque
fictions.
These monks imagined that holiness was often proportioned to a saint's
filthiness. St. Ignatius, say they, delighted to appear abroad with old
dirty shoes; he never used a comb, but let his hair clot; and
religiously abstained from paring his nails. One saint attained to such
piety as to have near three hundred patches on his breeches; which,
after his death, were hung up in public as an _incentive to imitation_.
St. Francis discovered, by certain experience, that the devils were
frightened away by such kinds of breeches, but were animated by clean
clothing to tempt and seduce the wearers; and one of their heroes
declares that the purest souls are in the dirtiest bodies. On this they
tell a story which may not be very agreeable to fastidious delicacy.
Brother Juniper was a gentleman perfectly pious, on this principle;
indeed so great was his merit in this species of mortification, that a
brother declared he could always nose Brother Juniper when within a mile
of the monastery, provided the wind was at the due point. Once, when the
blessed Juniper, for he was no saint, was a guest, his host, proud of
the honour of entertaining so pious a personage, the intimate friend of
St. Francis, provided an excellent bed, and the finest sheets. Brother
Juniper abhorred such luxury. And this too evidently appeared after his
sudden departure in the morning, unknown to his kind host. The great
Juniper did this, says his biographer, having told us what he did, not
so much from his habitual inclinations, for which he was so justly
celebrated, as from his excessive piety, and as much as he could to
mortify worldly pride, and to show how a true saint despised clean
sheets.
In the life of St. Francis we find, among other grotesque miracles, that
he preached a sermon in a desert, but he soon collected an immense
audience. The birds shrilly warbled to every sentence, and stretched out
their necks, opened their beaks, and when he finished, dispersed with a
holy rapture into four companies, to report his sermon to all the birds
in the universe. A grasshopper remained a week with St. Francis during
the absence of the Virgin Mary, and pittered on his head. He grew so
companionable with a nightingale, that when a nest of swallows began to
babble, he hushed them by desiring them not to tittle-tattle of their
sister, the nightingale. Attacked by a wolf, with only the sign-manual
of the cross, he held a long dialogue with his rabid assailant, till the
wolf, meek as a lap-dog, stretched his paws in the hands of the saint,
followed him through towns, and became half a Christian.
This same St. Francis had such a detestation of the good things of this
world, that he would never suffer his followers to touch money. A friar
having placed in a window some money collected at the altar, he desired
him to take it in his mouth, and throw it on the dung of an ass! St.
Philip Nerius was such a _lover of poverty_, that he frequently prayed
that God would bring him to that state as to stand in need of a penny,
and find nobody that would give him one!
But St. Macaire was so shocked at having _killed a louse_, that he
endured seven years of penitence among the thorns and briars of a
forest. A circumstance which seems to have reached Moliere, who gives
this stroke to the character of his Tartuffe:--
Il s'impute a peche la moindre bagatelle;
Jusques-la qu'il se vint, l'autre jour, s'accuser
D'avoir pris une puce en faisant sa priere,
Et de l'avoir tuee avec trop de colere!
I give a miraculous incident respecting two pious maidens. The night of
the Nativity of Christ, after the first mass, they both retired into a
solitary spot of their nunnery till the second mass was rung. One asked
the other, "Why do you want two cushions, when I have only one?" The
other replied, "I would place it between us, for the child Jesus; as the
Evangelist says, where there are two or three persons assembled I am in
the midst of them."--This being done, they sat down, feeling a most
lively pleasure at their fancy; and there they remained, from the
Nativity of Christ to that of John the Baptist; but this great interval
of time passed with these saintly maidens as two hours would appear to
others. The abbess and nuns were alarmed at their absence, for no one
could give any account of them. In the eve of St. John, a cowherd,
passing by them, beheld a beautiful child seated on a cushion between
this pair of runaway nuns. He hastened to the abbess with news of these
stray sheep; she came and beheld this lovely child playfully seated
between these nymphs; they, with blushing countenances, inquired if the
second bell had already rung? Both parties were equally astonished to
find our young devotees had been there from the Nativity of Jesus to
that of St. John. The abbess inquired about the child who sat between
them; they solemnly declared they saw no child between them! and
persisted in their story!
Such is one of these miracles of "the Golden Legend," which a wicked wit
might comment on, and see nothing extraordinary in the whole story. The
two nuns might be missing between the Nativities, and be found at last
with a child seated between them.--They might not choose to account
either for their absence or their child--the only touch of miracle is
that, they asseverated, they _saw no child_--that I confess is a _little
(child) too much_.
The lives of the saints by Alban Butler is the most sensible history of
these legends; Ribadeneira's lives of the saints exhibit more of the
legendary spirit, for wanting judgment and not faith, he is more
voluminous in his details. The antiquary may collect much curious
philosophical information, concerning the manners of the times, from
these singular narratives.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 39: See the article on "Literary Blunders," in this volume,
for the history of similar inventions, particularly the legend of St.
Ursuala and the eleven thousand virgins, and the discovery of a certain
St. Viar]
THE PORT-ROYAL SOCIETY.
Every lover of letters has heard of this learned society, which
contributed so greatly to establish in France a taste for just
reasoning, simplicity of style, and philosophical method. Their "Logic,
or the Art of Thinking," for its lucid, accurate, and diversified
matter, is still an admirable work; notwithstanding the writers had to
emancipate themselves from the barbarism of the scholastic logic. It was
the conjoint labour of Arnauld and Nicolle. Europe has benefited by the
labours of these learned men: but not many have attended to the origin
and dissolution of this literary society.
In the year 1637, Le Maitre, a celebrated advocate, resigned the bar,
and the honour of being _Conseiller d'Etat_, which his uncommon merit
had obtained him, though then only twenty-eight years of age. His
brother, De Sericourt, who had followed the military profession, quitted
it at the same time. Consecrating themselves to the service of religion,
they retired into a small house near _the Port-Royal_ of Paris, where
they were joined by their brothers De Sacy, De St. Elme, and De Valmont.
Arnauld, one of their most illustrious associates, was induced to enter
into the Jansenist controversy, and then it was that they encountered
the powerful persecution of the Jesuits. Constrained to remove from that
spot, they fixed their residence at a few leagues from Paris, and called
it _Port-Royal des Champs_.[40]
These illustrious recluses were joined by many distinguished persons who
gave up their parks and houses to be appropriated to their schools; and
this community was called the _Society of Port-Royal_.
Here were no rules, no vows, no constitution, and no cells formed.
Prayer and study, and manual labour, were their only occupations. They
applied themselves to the education of youth, and raised up little
academies in the neighbourhood, where the members of Port-Royal, the
most illustrious names of literary France, presided. None considered his
birth entitled him to any exemption from their public offices, relieving
the poor and attending on the sick, and employing themselves in their
farms and gardens; they were carpenters, ploughmen, gardeners, and
vine-dressers, as if they had practised nothing else; they studied
physic, and surgery, and law; in truth, it seems that, from religious
motives, these learned men attempted to form a community of primitive
Christianity.
The Duchess of Longueville, once a political chief, sacrificed her
ambition on the altar of Port-Royal, enlarged the monastic inclosure
with spacious gardens and orchards, built a noble house, and often
retreated to its seclusion. The learned D'Andilly, the translator of
Josephus, after his studious hours, resorted to the cultivation of
fruit-trees; and the fruit of Port-Royal became celebrated for its size
and flavour. Presents were sent to the Queen-Mother of France, Anne of
Austria, and Cardinal Mazarin, who used to call it "fruit beni." It
appears that "families of rank, affluence, and piety, who did not wish
entirely to give up their avocations in the world, built themselves
country-houses in the valley of Port-Royal, in order to enjoy the
society of its religious and literary inhabitants."
In the solitudes of Port-Royal _Racine_ received his education; and, on
his death-bed, desired to be buried in its cemetery, at the feet of his
master Hamon. Arnauld, persecuted, and dying in a foreign country, still
cast his lingering looks on this beloved retreat, and left the society
his heart, which was there inurned.
The Duchess of Longueville, a princess of the blood-royal, was, during
her life, the powerful patroness of these solitary and religious men:
but her death, in 1679, was the fatal stroke which dispersed them for
ever.
The envy and the fears of the Jesuits, and their rancour against
Arnauld, who with such ability had exposed their designs, occasioned the
destruction of the Port-Royal Society. _Exinanite, exinanite usque ad
fundamentum in ea!_--"Annihilate it, annihilate it, to its very
foundations!" Such are the terms of the Jesuitic decree. The Jesuits had
long called the little schools of Port-Royal the hot-beds of heresy. The
Jesuits obtained by their intrigues an order from government to dissolve
that virtuous society. They razed the buildings, and ploughed up the
very foundation; they exhausted their hatred even on the stones, and
profaned even the sanctuary of the dead; the corpses were torn out of
their graves, and dogs were suffered to contend for the rags of their
shrouds. The memory of that asylum of innocence and learning was still
kept alive by those who collected the engravings representing the place
by Mademoiselle Hortemels. The police, under Jesuitic influence, at
length seized on the plates in the cabinet of the fair artist.--Caustic
was the retort courteous which Arnauld gave the Jesuits--"I do not fear
your _pen_, but its _knife_."
These were men whom the love of retirement had united to cultivate
literature, in the midst of solitude, of peace, and of piety. Alike
occupied on sacred, as on profane writers, their writings fixed the
French language. The example of these solitaries shows how retirement is
favourable to penetrate into the sanctuary of the Muses.
An interesting anecdote is related of Arnauld on the occasion of the
dissolution of this society. The dispersion of these great men, and
their young scholars, was lamented by every one but their enemies. Many
persons of the highest rank participated in their sorrows. The excellent
Arnauld, in that moment, was as closely pursued as if he had been a
felon.
It was then the Duchess of Longueville concealed Arnauld in an obscure
lodging, who assumed the dress of a layman, wearing a sword and
full-bottomed wig. Arnauld was attacked by a fever, and in the course of
conversation with his physician, he inquired after news. "They talk of a
new book of the Port-Royal," replied the doctor, "ascribed to Arnauld or
to Sacy; but I do not believe it comes from Sacy; he does not write so
well."--"How, sir!" exclaimed the philosopher, forgetting his sword and
wig; "believe me, my nephew writes better than I do."--The physician
eyed his patient with amazement--he hastened to the duchess, and told
her, "The malady of the gentleman you sent me to is not very serious,
provided you do not suffer him to see any one, and insist on his holding
his tongue." The duchess, alarmed, immediately had Arnauld conveyed to
her palace. She concealed him in an apartment, and persisted to attend
him herself.--"Ask," she said, "what you want of the servant, but it
shall be myself who shall bring it to you."
How honourable is it to the female character, that, in many similar
occurrences, their fortitude has proved to be equal to their
sensibility! But the Duchess of Longueville contemplated in Arnauld a
model of human fortitude which martyrs never excelled. His remarkable
reply to Nicolle, when they were hunted from place to place, should
never be forgotten: Arnauld wished Nicolle to assist him in a new work,
when the latter observed, "We are now old, is it not time to rest?"
"Rest!" returned Arnauld, "have we not all Eternity to rest in?" The
whole of the Arnauld family were the most extraordinary instance of that
hereditary character, which is continued through certain families: here
it was a sublime, and, perhaps, singular union of learning with
religion. The Arnaulds, Sacy, Pascal, Tillemont, with other illustrious
names, to whom literary Europe will owe perpetual obligations, combined
the life of the monastery with that of the library.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 40: The early history of the house is not given quite clearly
and correctly in the text. The old foundation of Cistercians, named
_Port-Royal des Champs_, was situated in the valley of Chevreuse, near
Versailles, and founded in 1204 by Bishop Eudes, of Paris. It was in the
reign of Louis XIII. that Madame Arnauld, the mother of the then Abbess,
hearing that the sisterhood suffered from the damp situation of their
convent and its confined space, purchased a house as an infirmary for
its sick members in the Fauxbourg St. Jacques, and called it the
_Port-Royal de Paris_, to distinguish it from the older foundation.]
THE PROGRESS OF OLD AGE IN NEW STUDIES.
Of the pleasures derivable from the cultivation of the arts, sciences,
and literature, time will not abate the growing passion; for old men
still cherish an affection and feel a youthful enthusiasm in those
pursuits, when all others have ceased to interest. Dr. Reid, to his last
day, retained a most active curiosity in his various studies, and
particularly in the revolutions of modern chemistry. In advanced life we
may resume our former studies with a new pleasure, and in old age we may
enjoy them with the same relish with which more youthful students
commence. Adam Smith observed to Dugald Stewart, that "of all the
amusements of old age, the most grateful and soothing is a renewal of
acquaintance with the favourite studies and favourite authors of
youth--a remark, adds Stewart, which, in his own case, seemed to be more
particularly exemplified while he was reperusing, with the enthusiasm of
a student, the tragic poets of ancient Greece. I have heard him repeat
the observation more than once, while Sophocles and Euripides lay open
on his table."
Socrates learnt to play on musical instruments in his old age; Cato, at
eighty, thought proper to learn Greek; and Plutarch, almost as late in
his life, Latin.
Theophrastus began his admirable work on the Characters of Men at the
extreme age of ninety. He only terminated his literary labours by his
death.
Ronsard, one of the fathers of French poetry, applied himself late to
study. His acute genius, and ardent application, rivalled those poetic
models which he admired; and Boccaccio was thirty-five years of age when
he commenced his studies in polite literature.
The great Arnauld retained the vigour of his genius, and the command of
his pen, to the age of eighty-two, and was still the great Arnauld.
Sir Henry Spelman neglected the sciences in his youth, but cultivated
them at fifty years of age. His early years were chiefly passed in
farming, which greatly diverted him from his studies; but a remarkable
disappointment respecting a contested estate disgusted him with these
rustic occupations: resolved to attach himself to regular studies, and
literary society, he sold his farms, and became the most learned
antiquary and lawyer.
Colbert, the famous French minister, almost at sixty, returned to his
Latin and law studies.
Dr. Johnson applied himself to the Dutch language but a few years before
his death. The Marquis de Saint Aulaire, at the age of seventy, began to
court the Muses, and they crowned him with their freshest flowers. The
verses of this French Anacreon are full of fire, delicacy, and
sweetness.
Chaucer's Canterbury Tales were the composition of his latest years:
they were begun in his fifty-fourth year, and finished in his
sixty-first.
Ludovico Monaldesco, at the extraordinary age of 115, wrote the memoirs
of his times. A singular exertion, noticed by Voltaire; who himself is
one of the most remarkable instances of the progress of age in new
studies.
The most delightful of autobiographies for artists is that of Benvenuto
Cellini; a work of great originality, which was not begun till "the
clock of his age had struck fifty-eight."
Koornhert began at forty to learn the Latin and Greek languages, of
which he became a master; several students, who afterwards distinguished
themselves, have commenced as late in life their literary pursuits.
Ogilby, the translator of Homer and Virgil, knew little of Latin or
Greek till he was past fifty; and Franklin's philosophical pursuits
began when he had nearly reached his fiftieth year.
Accorso, a great lawyer, being asked why he began the study of the law
so late, answered, beginning it late, he should master it the sooner.
Dryden's complete works form the largest body of poetry from the pen of
a single writer in the English language; yet he gave no public testimony
of poetic abilities till his twenty-seventh year. In his sixty-eighth
year he proposed to translate the whole Iliad: and his most pleasing
productions were written in his old age.
Michael Angelo preserved his creative genius even in extreme old age:
there is a device said to be invented by him, of an old man represented
in a _go-cart_, with an hour-glass upon it; the inscription _Ancora
imparo!_--YET I AM LEARNING!
We have a literary curiosity in a favourite treatise with Erasmus and
men of letters of that period, _De Ratione Studii_, by Joachim Sterck,
otherwise Fortius de Ringelberg. The enthusiasm of the writer often
carries him to the verge of ridicule; but something must be conceded to
his peculiar situation and feelings; for Baillet tells us that this
method of studying had been formed entirely from his own practical
knowledge and hard experience: at a late period of life he had commenced
his studies, and at length he imagined that he had discovered a more
perpendicular mode of ascending the hill of science than by its usual
circuitous windings. His work has been compared to the sounding of a
trumpet.
Menage, in his Anti-Baillet, has a very curious apology for writing
verses in his old age, by showing how many poets amused themselves
notwithstanding their grey hairs, and wrote sonnets or epigrams at
ninety.
La Casa, in one of his letters, humorously said, _Io credo ch'io faro
Sonnetti venti cinque anni, o trenta, pio che io saro morto_.--"I think
I may make sonnets twenty-five, or perhaps thirty years, after I shall
be dead!" Petau tells us that he wrote verses to solace the evils of old
age--
---- Petavius aeger
Cantabat veteris quaerens solatia morbi.
Malherbe declares the honours of genius were his, yet young--
Je les posseday jeune, et les possede encore
A la fin de mes jours!
SPANISH POETRY.
Pere Bouhours observes, that the Spanish poets display an extravagant
imagination, which is by no means destitute of _esprit_--shall we say
_wit_? but which evinces little taste or judgment.
Their verses are much in the style of our Cowley--trivial points,
monstrous metaphors, and quaint conceits. It is evident that the Spanish
poets imported this taste from the time of Marino in Italy; but the
warmth of the Spanish climate appears to have redoubled it, and to have
blown the kindled sparks of chimerical fancy to the heat of a Vulcanian
forge.
Lopez de Vega, in describing an afflicted shepherdess, in one of his
pastorals, who is represented weeping near the sea-side, says, "That the
sea joyfully advances to gather her tears; and that, having enclosed
them in shells, it converts them into pearls."
"Y el mar como imbidioso
A tierra por las lagrimas salia,
Y alegre de cogerlas
Las guarda en conchas, y convierte en perlas."
Villegas addresses a stream--"Thou who runnest over sands of gold, with
feet of silver," more elegant than our Shakspeare's--"Thy silver skin
laced with thy golden blood," which possibly he may not have written.
Villegas monstrously exclaims, "Touch my breast, if you doubt the power
of Lydia's eyes--you will find it turned to ashes." Again--"Thou art so
great that thou canst only imitate thyself with thy own greatness;" much
like our "None but himself can be his parallel."
Gongora, whom the Spaniards once greatly admired, and distinguished by
the epithet of _The Wonderful_, abounds with these conceits.
He imagines that a nightingale, who enchantingly varied her notes, and
sang in different manners, had a hundred thousand other nightingales in
her breast, which alternately sang through her throat--
"Con diferancia tal, con gracia tanta,
A quel ruysenor llora, que sospecho
Que tiene otros cien mil dentro del pecho,
Que alterno su dolor por su garganta."
Of a young and beautiful lady he says, that she has but a few _years_ of
life, but many _ages_ of beauty.
"Muchos siglos de hermosura
En pocos anos de edad."
Many ages of beauty is a false thought, for beauty becomes not more
beautiful from its age; it would be only a superannuated beauty. A face
of two or three ages old could have but few charms.
In one of his odes he addresses the River of Madrid by the title of the
_Duke of Streams_, and the _Viscount of Rivers_--
"Mancanares, Mancanares,
Os que en todo el aguatismo,
Estois _Duque_ de Arroyos,
Y _Visconde_ de los Rios."
He did not venture to call it a _Spanish Grandee_, for, in fact, it is
but a shallow and dirty stream; and as Quevedo wittily informs us,
"_Mancanares_ is reduced, during the summer season, to the melancholy
condition of the wicked rich man, who asks for water in the depths of
hell." Though so small, this stream in the time of a flood spreads
itself over the neighbouring fields; for this reason Philip the Second
built a bridge eleven hundred feet long!--A Spaniard passing it one day,
when it was perfectly dry, observing this superb bridge, archly
remarked, "That it would be proper that the bridge should be sold to
purchase water."--_Es menester, vender la puente, par comprar agua._
The following elegant translation of a Spanish madrigal of the kind here
criticised I found in a newspaper, but it is evidently by a master-hand.
On the green margin of the land,
Where Guadalhorce winds his way,
My lady lay:
With golden key Sleep's gentle hand
Had closed her eyes so bright--
Her eyes, two suns of light--
And bade his balmy dews
Her rosy cheeks suffuse.
The River God in slumber saw her laid:
He raised his dripping head,
With weeds o'erspread,
Clad in his wat'ry robes approach'd the maid,
And with cold kiss, like death,
Drank the rich perfume of the maiden's breath.
The maiden felt that icy kiss:
_Her suns unclosed, their flame_
Full and unclouded on th' intruder came.
Amazed th' intruder felt
_His frothy body melt
And heard the radiance on his bosom hiss_;
And, forced in blind confusion to retire,
_Leapt in the water to escape the fire_.
SAINT EVREMOND.
The portrait of St. Evremond is delineated by his own hand.
In his day it was a literary fashion for writers to give their own
portraits; a fashion that seems to have passed over into our country,
for Farquhar has drawn his own character in a letter to a lady. Others
of our writers have given these self-miniatures. Such painters are, no
doubt, great flatterers, and it is rather their ingenuity, than their
truth, which we admire in these cabinet-pictures.
"I am a philosopher, as far removed from superstition as from impiety; a
voluptuary, who has not less abhorrence of debauchery than inclination
for pleasure; a man who has never known want nor abundance. I occupy
that station of life which is contemned by those who possess everything;
envied by those who have nothing; and only relished by those who make
their felicity consist in the exercise of their reason. Young, I hated
dissipation; convinced that man must possess wealth to provide for the
comforts of a long life. Old, I disliked economy; as I believe that we
need not greatly dread want, when we have but a short time to be
miserable. I am satisfied with what nature has done for me, nor do I
repine at fortune. I do not seek in men what they have of evil, that I
may censure; I only discover what they have ridiculous, that I may be
amused. I feel a pleasure in detecting their follies; I should feel a
greater in communicating my discoveries, did not my prudence restrain
me. Life is too short, according to my ideas, to read all kinds of
books, and to load our memories with an endless number of things at the
cost of our judgment. I do not attach myself to the observations of
scientific men to acquire science; but to the most rational, that I may
strengthen my reason. Sometimes I seek for more delicate minds, that my
taste may imbibe their delicacy; sometimes for the gayer, that I may
enrich my genius with their gaiety; and, although I constantly read, I
make it less my occupation than my pleasure. In religion, and in
friendship, I have only to paint myself such as I am--in friendship more
tender than a philosopher; and in religion, as constant and as sincere
as a youth who has more simplicity than experience. My piety is composed
more of justice and charity than of penitence. I rest my confidence on
God, and hope everything from His benevolence. In the bosom of
Providence I find my repose, and my felicity."
MEN OF GENIUS DEFICIENT IN CONVERSATION.
The student or the artist who may shine a luminary of learning and of
genius, in his works, is found, not rarely, to lie obscured beneath a
heavy cloud in colloquial discourse.
If you love the man of letters, seek him in the privacies of his study.
It is in the hour of confidence and tranquillity that his genius shall
elicit a ray of intelligence more fervid than the labours of polished
composition.
The great Peter Corneille, whose genius resembled that of our
Shakspeare, and who has so forcibly expressed the sublime sentiments of
the hero, had nothing in his exterior that indicated his genius; his
conversation was so insipid that it never failed of wearying. Nature,
who had lavished on him the gifts of genius, had forgotten to blend with
them her more ordinary ones. He did not even _speak_ correctly that
language of which he was such a master. When his friends represented to
him how much more he might please by not disdaining to correct these
trivial errors, he would smile, and say--"_I am not the less Peter
Corneille!_"
Descartes, whose habits were formed in solitude and meditation, was
silent in mixed company; it was said that he had received his
intellectual wealth from nature in solid bars, but not in current coin;
or as Addison expressed the same idea, by comparing himself to a banker
who possessed the wealth of his friends at home, though he carried none
of it in his pocket; or as that judicious moralist Nicolle, of the
Port-Royal Society, said of a scintillant wit--"He conquers me in the
drawing-room, but he surrenders to me at discretion on the staircase."
Such may say with Themistocles, when asked to play on a lute--"I cannot
fiddle, but I can make a little village a great city."
The deficiencies of Addison in conversation are well known. He preserved
a rigid silence amongst strangers; but if he was silent, it was the
silence of meditation. How often, at that moment, he laboured at some
future Spectator!
Mediocrity can _talk_; but it is for genius to _observe_.
The cynical Mandeville compared Addison, after having passed an evening
in his company, to "a silent parson in a tie-wig."
Virgil was heavy in conversation, and resembled more an ordinary man
than an enchanting poet.
La Fontaine, says La Bruyere, appeared coarse, heavy, and stupid; he
could not speak or describe what he had just seen; but when he wrote he
was a model of poetry.
It is very easy, said a humorous observer on La Fontaine, to be a man of
wit, or a fool; but to be both, and that too in the extreme degree, is
indeed admirable, and only to be found in him. This observation applies
to that fine natural genius Goldsmith. Chaucer was more facetious in his
tales than in his conversation, and the Countess of Pembroke used to
rally him by saying, that his silence was more agreeable to her than his
conversation.
Isocrates, celebrated for his beautiful oratorical compositions, was of
so timid a disposition, that he never ventured to speak in public. He
compared himself to the whetstone which will not cut, but enables other
things to do so; for his productions served as models to other orators.
Vaucanson was said to be as much a machine as any he had made.
Dryden says of himself--"My conversation is slow and dull, my humour
saturnine and reserved. In short, I am none of those who endeavour to
break jests in company, or make repartees."[41]
VIDA.
What a consolation for an aged parent to see his child, by the efforts
of his own merits, attain from the humblest obscurity to distinguished
eminence! What a transport for the man of sensibility to return to the
obscure dwelling of his parent, and to embrace him, adorned with public
honours! Poor _Vida_ was deprived of this satisfaction; but he is placed
higher in our esteem by the present anecdote, than even by that classic
composition, which rivals the Art of Poetry of his great master.
_Jerome Vida_, after having long served two Popes, at length attained to
the episcopacy. Arrayed in the robes of his new dignity, he prepared to
visit his aged parents, and felicitated himself with the raptures which
the old couple would feel in embracing their son as their bishop. When
he arrived at their village, he learnt that it was but a few days since
they were no more. His sensibilities were exquisitely pained. The muse
dictated some elegiac verse, and in the solemn pathos deplored the death
and the disappointment of his parents.
THE SCUDERIES.
Bien heureux SCUDERY, dont la fertile plume
Peut tous les mois sans peine enfanter un volume.
Boileau has written this couplet on the Scuderies, the brother and
sister, both famous in their day for composing romances, which they
sometimes extended to ten or twelve volumes. It was the favourite
literature of that period, as novels are now. Our nobility not
unfrequently condescended to translate these voluminous compositions.
The diminutive size of our modern novels is undoubtedly an improvement:
but, in resembling the size of primers, it were to be wished that their
contents had also resembled their inoffensive pages. Our
great-grandmothers were incommoded with overgrown folios; and, instead
of finishing the eventful history of two lovers at one or two sittings,
it was sometimes six months, _including Sundays_, before they could get
quit of their Clelias, their Cyrus's, and Parthenissas.
Mademoiselle Scudery had composed _ninety volumes_! She had even
finished another romance, which she would not give the public, whose
taste, she perceived, no more relished this kind of works. She was one
of those unfortunate authors who, living to more than ninety years of
age, survive their own celebrity.
She had her panegyrists in her day: Menage observes--"What a pleasing
description has Mademoiselle Scudery made, in her Cyrus, of the little
court at Rambouillet! A thousand things in the romances of this learned
lady render them inestimable. She has drawn from the ancients their
happiest passages, and has even improved upon them; like the prince in
the fable, whatever she touches becomes gold. We may read her works with
great profit, if we possess a correct taste, and love instruction. Those
who censure their _length_ only show the littleness of their judgment;
as if Homer and Virgil were to be despised, because many of their books
were filled with episodes and incidents that necessarily retard the
conclusion. It does not require much penetration to observe that _Cyrus_
and _Clelia_ are a species of the _epic_ poem. The epic must embrace a
number of events to suspend the course of the narrative; which, only
taking in a part of the life of the hero, would terminate too soon to
display the skill of the poet. Without this artifice, the charm of
uniting the greater part of the episodes to the principal subject of the
romance would be lost. Mademoiselle de Scudery has so well treated them,
and so aptly introduced a variety of beautiful passages, that nothing in
this kind is comparable to her productions. Some expressions, and
certain turns, have become somewhat obsolete; all the rest will last
for ever, and outlive the criticisms they have undergone."
Menage has here certainly uttered a false prophecy. The curious only
look over her romances. They contain doubtless many beautiful
inventions; the misfortune is, that _time_ and _patience_ are rare
requisites for the enjoyment of these Iliads in prose.
"The misfortune of her having written too abundantly has occasioned an
unjust contempt," says a French critic. "We confess there are many heavy
and tedious passages in her voluminous romances; but if we consider that
in the Clelia and the Artamene are to be found inimitable delicate
touches, and many splendid parts, which would do honour to some of our
living writers, we must acknowledge that the great defects of all her
works arise from her not writing in an age when taste had reached the
_acme_ of cultivation. Such is her erudition, that the French place her
next to the celebrated Madame Dacier. Her works, containing many secret
intrigues of the court and city, her readers must have keenly relished
on their early publication."
Her Artamene, or the Great Cyrus, and principally her Clelia, are
representations of what then passed at the court of France. The _Map_ of
the _Kingdom of Tenderness_, in Clelia, appeared, at the time, as one of
the happiest inventions. This once celebrated _map_ is an allegory which
distinguishes the different kinds of TENDERNESS, which are reduced to
_Esteem_, _Gratitude_, and _Inclination_. The map represents three
rivers, which have these three names, and on which are situated three
towns called Tenderness: Tenderness on _Inclination_; Tenderness on
_Esteem_; and Tenderness on _Gratitude_. _Pleasing Attentions_, or,
_Petits Soins_, is a _village_ very beautifully situated. Mademoiselle
de Scudery was extremely proud of this little allegorical map; and had a
terrible controversy with another writer about its originality.
GEORGE SCUDERY, her brother, and inferior in genius, had a striking
singularity of character:--he was one of the most complete votaries to
the universal divinity, Vanity. With a heated imagination, entirely
destitute of judgment, his military character was continually exhibiting
itself by that peaceful instrument the pen, so that he exhibits a most
amusing contrast of ardent feelings in a cool situation; not liberally
endowed with genius, but abounding with its semblance in the fire of
eccentric gasconade; no man has portrayed his own character with a
bolder colouring than himself, in his numerous prefaces and addresses;
surrounded by a thousand self-illusions of the most sublime class,
everything that related to himself had an Homeric grandeur of
conception.
In an epistle to the Duke of Montmorency, Scudery says, "I will learn to
write with my left hand, that my right hand may more nobly be devoted to
your service;" and alluding to his pen (_plume_), declares "he comes
from a family who never used one, but to stick in their hats." When he
solicits small favours from the great, he assures them "that princes
must not think him importunate, and that his writings are merely
inspired by his own individual interest; no! (he exclaims) I am studious
only of your glory, while I am careless of my own fortune." And indeed,
to do him justice, he acted up to these romantic feelings. After he had
published his epic of Alaric, Christina of Sweden proposed to honour him
with a chain of gold of the value of five hundred pounds, provided he
would expunge from his epic the eulogiums he bestowed on the Count of
Gardie, whom she had disgraced. The epical soul of Scudery magnanimously
scorned the bribe, and replied, that "If the chain of gold should be as
weighty as that chain mentioned in the history of the Incas, I will
never destroy any altar on which I have sacrificed!"
Proud of his boasted nobility and erratic life, he thus addresses the
reader: "You will lightly pass over any faults in my work, if you
reflect that I have employed the greater part of my life in seeing the
finest parts of Europe, and that I have passed more days in the camp
than in the library. I have used more matches to light my musket than to
light my candles; I know better to arrange columns in the field than
those on paper; and to square battalions better than to round periods."
In his first publication, he began his literary career perfectly in
character, by a challenge to his critics!
He is the author of sixteen plays, chiefly heroic tragedies; children
who all bear the features of their father. He first introduced, in his
"L'Amour Tyrannique," a strict observance of the Aristotelian unities of
time and place; and the necessity and advantages of this regulation are
insisted on, which only shows that Aristotle's art goes but little to
the composition of a pathetic tragedy. In his last drama, "Arminius,"
he extravagantly scatters his panegyrics on its fifteen predecessors;
but of the present one he has the most exalted notion: it is the
quintessence of Scudery! An ingenious critic calls it "The downfall of
mediocrity!" It is amusing to listen to this blazing preface:--"At
length, reader, nothing remains for me but to mention the great Arminius
which I now present to you, and by which I have resolved to close my
long and laborious course. It is indeed my masterpiece! and the most
finished work that ever came from my pen; for whether we examine the
fable, the manners, the sentiments, or the versification, it is certain
that I never performed anything so just, so great, nor more beautiful;
and if my labours could ever deserve a crown, I would claim it for this
work!"
The actions of this singular personage were in unison with his writings:
he gives a pompous description of a most unimportant government which he
obtained near Marseilles, but all the grandeur existed only in our
author's heated imagination. Bachaumont and De la Chapelle describe it,
in their playful "Voyage:"
Mais il faut vous parler du fort,
Qui sans doute est une merveille;
C'est notre dame de la garde!
Gouvernement commode et beau,
A qui suffit pour tout garde,
Un Suisse avec sa hallebarde
Peint sur la porte du chateau!
A fort very commodiously guarded; only requiring one sentinel with his
halbert--painted on the door!
In a poem on his disgust with the world, he tells us how intimate he has
been with princes: Europe has known him through all her provinces; he
ventured everything in a thousand combats:
L'on me vit obeir, l'on me vit commander,
Et mon poil tout poudreux a blanchi sons les armes;
Il est peu de beaux arts ou je ne sois instruit;
En prose et en vers, mon nom fit quelque bruit;
Et par plus d'un chemin je parvins a la gloire.
IMITATED.
Princes were proud my friendship to proclaim,
And Europe gazed, where'er her hero came!
I grasp'd the laurels of heroic strife,
The thousand perils of a soldier's life;
Obedient in the ranks each toilful day!
Though heroes soon command, they first obey.
'Twas not for me, too long a time to yield!
Born for a chieftain in the tented field!
Around my plumed helm, my silvery hair
Hung like an honour'd wreath of age and care!
The finer arts have charm'd my studious hours,
Versed in their mysteries, skilful in their powers;
In verse and prose my equal genius glow'd,
Pursuing glory by no single road!
Such was the vain George Scudery! whose heart, however, was warm:
poverty could never degrade him; adversity never broke down his
magnanimous spirit!
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 41: The same is reported of Butler; and it is said that
Charles II. declared he could not believe him to be the author of
_Hudibras_; that witty poem being such a contradiction to his heavy
manners.]
DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULT.
The maxims of this noble author are in the hands of every one. To those
who choose to derive every motive and every action from the solitary
principle of _self-love_, they are inestimable. They form one continued
satire on human nature; but they are not reconcilable to the feelings of
the man of better sympathies, or to him who passes through life with the
firm integrity of virtue. Even at court we find a Sully, a Malesherbes,
and a Clarendon, as well as a Rouchefoucault and a Chesterfield.
The Duke de la Rochefoucault, says Segrais, had not studied; but he was
endowed with a wonderful degree of discernment, and knew the world
perfectly well. This afforded him opportunities of making reflections,
and reducing into maxims those discoveries which he had made in the
heart of man, of which he displayed an admirable knowledge.
It is perhaps worthy of observation, that this celebrated French duke
could never summon resolution, at his election, to address the Academy.
Although chosen a member, he never entered, for such was his timidity,
that he could not face an audience and deliver the usual compliment on
his introduction; he whose courage, whose birth, and whose genius were
alike distinguished. The fact is, as appears by Mad. de Sevigne, that
Rochefoucault lived a close domestic life; there must be at least as
much _theoretical_ as _practical_ knowledge in the opinions of such a
retired philosopher.
Chesterfield, our English Rochefoucault, we are also informed, possessed
an admirable knowledge of the heart of man; and he, too, has drawn a
similar picture of human nature. These are two _noble authors_ whose
chief studies seem to have been made in _courts_. May it not be
possible, allowing these authors not to have written a sentence of
apocrypha, that the fault lies not so much in _human nature_ as in the
satellites of Power breathing their corrupt atmosphere?
PRIOR'S HANS CARVEL.
Were we to investigate the genealogy of our best modern stories, we
should often discover the illegitimacy of our favourites; and retrace
them frequently to the East. My well-read friend Douce had collected
materials for such a work. The genealogies of tales would have gratified
the curious in literature.
The story of the ring of Hans Carvel is of very ancient standing, as are
most of the tales of this kind.
Menage says that Poggius, who died in 1459, has the merit of its
invention; but I suspect he only related a very popular story.
Rabelais, who has given it in his peculiar manner, changed its original
name of Philelphus to that of Hans Carvel.
This title is likewise in the eleventh of _Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_
collected in 1461, for the amusement of Louis XI. when Dauphin, and
living in solitude.
Ariosto has borrowed it, at the end of his fifth Satire; but has fairly
appropriated it by his pleasant manner.
In a collection of novels at Lyons, in 1555, it is introduced into the
eleventh novel.
Celio Malespini has it again in page 288 of the second part of his Two
Hundred Novels, printed at Venice in 1609.
Fontaine has prettily set it off, and an anonymous writer has composed
it in Latin Anacreontic verses; and at length our Prior has given it
with equal gaiety and freedom. After Ariosto, La Fontaine, and Prior,
let us hear of it no more; yet this has been done, in a manner, however,
which here cannot be told.
Voltaire has a curious essay to show that most of our best modern
stories and plots originally belonged to the eastern nations, a fact
which has been made more evident by recent researches. The Amphitryon of
Moliere was an imitation of Plautus, who borrowed it from the Greeks,
and they took it from the Indians! It is given by Dow in his History of
Hindostan. In Captain Scott's Tales and Anecdotes from Arabian writers,
we are surprised at finding so many of our favourites very ancient
orientalists.--The Ephesian Matron, versified by La Fontaine, was
borrowed from the Italians; it is to be found in Petronius, and
Petronius had it from the Greeks. But where did the Greeks find it? In
the Arabian Tales! And from whence did the Arabian fabulists borrow it?
From the Chinese! It is found in Du Halde, who collected it from the
Versions of the Jesuits.
THE STUDENT IN THE METROPOLIS.
A man of letters, more intent on the acquisitions of literature than on
the intrigues of politics, or the speculations of commerce, may find a
deeper solitude in a populous metropolis than in the seclusion of the
country.
The student, who is no flatterer of the little passions of men, will not
be much incommoded by their presence. Gibbon paints his own situation in
the heart of the fashionable world:--"I had not been endowed by art or
nature with those happy gifts of confidence and address which unlock
every door and every bosom. While coaches were rattling through
Bond-street, I have passed many a solitary evening in my lodging with my
books. I withdrew without reluctance from the noisy and extensive scene
of crowds without company, and dissipation without pleasure." And even
after he had published the first volume of his History, he observes that
in London his confinement was solitary and sad; "the many forgot my
existence when they saw me no longer at Brookes's, and the few who
sometimes had a thought on their friend were detained by business or
pleasure, and I was proud and happy if I could prevail on my bookseller,
Elmsly, to enliven the dulness of the evening."
A situation, very elegantly described in the beautifully polished verses
of Mr. Rogers, in his "Epistle to a Friend:"
When from his classic dreams the student steals
Amid the buzz of crowds, the whirl of wheels,
To muse unnoticed, while around him press
The meteor-forms of equipage and dress;
Alone in wonder lost, he seems to stand
A very stranger in his native land.
He compares the student to one of the seven sleepers in the ancient
legend.
Descartes residing in the commercial city of Amsterdam, writing to
Balzac, illustrates these descriptions with great force and vivacity.
"You wish to retire; and your intention is to seek the solitude of the
Chartreux, or, possibly, some of the most beautiful provinces of France
and Italy. I would rather advise you, if you wish to observe mankind,
and at the same time to lose yourself in the deepest solitude, to join
me in Amsterdam. I prefer this situation to that even of your delicious
villa, where I spent so great a part of the last year; for, however
agreeable a country-house may be, a thousand little conveniences are
wanted, which can only be found in a city. One is not alone so
frequently in the country as one could wish: a number of impertinent
visitors are continually besieging you. Here, as all the world, except
myself, is occupied in commerce, it depends merely on myself to live
unknown to the world. I walk every day amongst immense ranks of people,
with as much tranquillity as you do in your green alleys. The men I meet
with make the same impression on my mind as would the trees of your
forests, or the flocks of sheep grazing on your common. The busy hum too
of these merchants does not disturb one more than the purling of your
brooks. If sometimes I amuse myself in contemplating their anxious
motions, I receive the same pleasure which you do in observing those men
who cultivate your land; for I reflect that the end of all their labours
is to embellish the city which I inhabit, and to anticipate all my
wants. If you contemplate with delight the fruits of your orchards, with
all the rich promises of abundance, do you think I feel less in
observing so many fleets that convey to me the productions of either
India? What spot on earth could you find, which, like this, can so
interest your vanity and gratify your taste?"
THE TALMUD.
The JEWS have their TALMUD; the CATHOLICS their LEGENDS of Saints; and
the TURKS their SONNAH. The PROTESTANT has nothing but his BIBLE. The
former are three kindred works. Men have imagined that the more there is
to be believed, the more are the merits of the believer. Hence all
_traditionists_ formed the orthodox and the strongest party. The word
of God is lost amidst those heaps of human inventions, sanctioned by an
order of men connected with religious duties; they ought now, however,
to be regarded rather as CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE. I give a
sufficiently ample account of the TALMUD and the LEGENDS; but of the
SONNAH I only know that it is a collection of the traditional opinions
of the Turkish prophets, directing the observance of petty superstitions
not mentioned in the Koran.
The TALMUD is a collection of Jewish traditions which have been _orally_
preserved. It comprises the MISHNA, which is the text; and the GEMARA,
its commentary. The whole forms a complete system of the learning,
ceremonies, civil and canon laws of the Jews; treating indeed on all
subjects; even gardening, manual arts, &c. The rigid Jews persuaded
themselves that these traditional explications are of divine origin. The
Pentateuch, say they, was written out by their legislator before his
death in thirteen copies, distributed among the twelve tribes, and the
remaining one deposited in the ark. The oral law Moses continually
taught in the Sanhedrim, to the elders and the rest of the people. The
law was repeated four times; but the interpretation was delivered only
by _word of mouth_ from generation to generation. In the fortieth year
of the flight from Egypt, the memory of the people became treacherous,
and Moses was constrained to repeat this oral law, which had been
conveyed by successive traditionists. Such is the account of honest
David Levi; it is the creed of every rabbin.--David believed in
everything but in Jesus.
This history of the Talmud some inclined to suppose apocryphal, even
among a few of the Jews themselves. When these traditions first
appeared, the keenest controversy has never been able to determine. It
cannot be denied that there existed traditions among the Jews in the
time of Jesus Christ. About the second century, they were industriously
collected by Rabbi Juda the Holy, the prince of the rabbins, who enjoyed
the favour of Antoninus Pius. He has the merit of giving some order to
this multifarious collection.
It appears that the Talmud was compiled by certain Jewish doctors, who
were solicited for this purpose by their nation, that they might have
something to oppose to their Christian adversaries.
The learned W. Wotton, in his curious "Discourses" on the traditions of
the Scribes and Pharisees, supplies an analysis of this vast collection;
he has translated entire two divisions of this code of traditional laws,
with the original text and the notes.
There are two Talmuds: the Jerusalem and the Babylonian. The last is the
most esteemed, because it is the most bulky.
R. Juda, the prince of the rabbins, committed to writing all these
traditions, and arranged them under six general heads, called orders or
classes. The subjects are indeed curious for philosophical inquirers,
and multifarious as the events of civil life. Every _order_ is formed of
_treatises_; every _treatise_ is divided into chapters, every _chapter_
into _mishnas_, which word means mixtures or miscellanies, in the form
of _aphorisms_. In the first part is discussed what relates to _seeds_,
_fruits_, and _trees_; in the second, _feasts_; in the third, _women_,
their duties, their _disorders_, _marriages_, _divorces_, _contracts_,
and _nuptials_; in the fourth, are treated the damages or losses
sustained by beasts or men; of _things found_; _deposits_; _usuries_;
_rents_; _farms_; _partnerships_ in commerce; _inheritance_; _sales_ and
_purchases_; _oaths_; _witnesses_; _arrests_; _idolatry_; and here are
named those by whom the oral law was received and preserved. In the
fifth part are noticed _sacrifices_ and _holy things_; and the sixth
treats of _purifications_; _vessels_; _furniture_; _clothes_; _houses_;
_leprosy_; _baths_; and numerous other articles. All this forms the
MISHNA.
The GEMARA, that is, the _complement_ or _perfection_, contains the
DISPUTES and the OPINIONS of the RABBINS on the oral traditions. Their
last decisions. It must be confessed that absurdities are sometimes
elucidated by other absurdities; but there are many admirable things in
this vast repository. The Jews have such veneration for this
compilation, that they compare the holy writings to _water_, and the
Talmud to _wine_; the text of Moses to _pepper_, but the Talmud to
_aromatics_. Of the twelve hours of which the day is composed, they tell
us that _God_ employs nine to study the Talmud, and only three to read
the written law!
St. Jerome appears evidently to allude to this work, and notices its
"Old Wives' Tales," and the filthiness of some of its matters. The truth
is, that the rabbins resembled the Jesuits and Casuists; and Sanchez's
work on "_Matrimonio_" is well known to agitate matters with such
_scrupulous niceties_ as to become the most offensive thing possible.
But as among the schoolmen and casuists there have been great men, the
same happened to these Gemaraists. Maimonides was a pillar of light
among their darkness. The antiquity of this work is of itself sufficient
to make it very curious.
A specimen of the topics may be shown from the table and contents of
"Mishnic Titles." In the order of seeds, we find the following heads,
which present no uninteresting picture of the pastoral and pious
ceremonies of the ancient Jews.
The Mishna, entitled the _Corner_, i.e. of the field. The laws of
gleaning are commanded according to Leviticus; xix. 9, 10. Of the corner
to be left in a corn-field. When the corner is due and when not. Of the
forgotten sheaf. Of the ears of corn left in gathering. Of grapes left
upon the vine. Of olives left upon the trees. When and where the poor
may lawfully glean. What sheaf, or olives, or grapes, may be looked upon
to be forgotten, and what not. Who are the proper witnesses concerning
the poor's due, to exempt it from tithing, &c. They distinguished
uncircumcised fruit:--it is unlawful to eat of the fruit of any tree
till the fifth year of its growth: the first three years of its bearing,
it is called uncircumcised; the fourth is offered to God; and the fifth
may be eaten.
The Mishna, entitled _Heterogeneous Mixtures_, contains several curious
horticultural particulars. Of divisions between garden-beds and fields,
that the produce of the several sorts of grains or seeds may appear
distinct. Of the distance between every species. Distances between vines
planted in corn-fields from one another and from the corn; between vines
planted against hedges, walls, or espaliers, and anything sowed near
them. Various cases relating to vineyards planted near any forbidden
seeds.
In their seventh, or sabbatical year, in which the produce of all
estates was given up to the poor, one of these regulations is on the
different work which must not be omitted in the sixth year, lest
(because the seventh being devoted to the poor) the produce should be
unfairly diminished, and the public benefit arising from this law be
frustrated. Of whatever is not perennial, and produced that year by the
earth, no money may be made; but what is perennial may be sold.
On priests' tithes, we have a regulation concerning eating the fruits
carried to the place where they are to be separated.
The order _women_ is very copious. A husband is obliged to forbid his
wife to keep a particular man's company before two witnesses. Of the
waters of jealousy by which a suspected woman is to be tried by
drinking, we find ample particulars. The ceremonies of clothing the
accused woman at her trial. Pregnant women, or who suckle, are not
obliged to drink for the rabbins seem to be well convinced of the
effects of the imagination. Of their divorces many are the laws; and
care is taken to particularise bills of divorces written by men in
delirium or dangerously ill. One party of the rabbins will not allow of
any divorce, unless something light was found in the woman's character,
while another (the Pharisees) allow divorces even when a woman has only
been so unfortunate as to suffer her husband's soup to be burnt!
In the order of _damages_, containing rules how to tax the damages done
by man or beast, or other casualties, their distinctions are as nice as
their cases are numerous. What beasts are innocent and what convict. By
the one they mean creatures not naturally used to do mischief in any
particular way; and by the other, those that naturally, or by a vicious
habit, are mischievous that way. The tooth of a beast is convict, when
it is proved to eat its usual food, the property of another man, and
full restitution must be made; but if a beast that is used to eat fruits
and herbs gnaws clothes or damages tools, which are not its usual food,
the owner of the beast shall pay but half the damage when committed on
the property of the injured person; but if the injury is committed on
the property of the person who does the damage, he is free, because the
beast gnawed what was not its usual food. As thus; if the beast of A.
gnaws or tears the clothes of B. in B.'s house or grounds, A. shall pay
half the damages; but if B.'s clothes are injured in A.'s grounds by
A.'s beast, A. is free, for what had B. to do to put his clothes in A.'s
grounds? They made such subtile distinctions, as when an ox gores a man
or beast, the law inquired into the habits of the beast; whether it was
an ox that used to gore, or an ox that was not used to gore. However
acute these niceties sometimes were, they were often ridiculous. No
beast could be _convicted_ of being vicious till evidence was given that
he had done mischief three successive days; but if he leaves off those
vicious tricks for three days more, he is innocent again. An ox may be
convict of goring an ox and not a man, or of goring a man and not an ox:
nay; of goring on the sabbath, and not on a working day. Their aim was
to make the punishment depend on the proofs of the _design_ of the
beast that did the injury; but this attempt evidently led them to
distinctions much too subtile and obscure. Thus some rabbins say that
the morning prayer of the _Shemah_ must be read at the time they can
distinguish _blue_ from _white_; but another, more indulgent, insists it
may be when we can distinguish _blue_ from _green_! which latter colours
are so near akin as to require a stronger light. With the same
remarkable acuteness in distinguishing things, is their law respecting
not touching fire on the Sabbath. Among those which are specified in
this constitution, the rabbins allow the minister to look over young
children by lamp-light, but he shall not read himself. The minister is
forbidden to _read_ by lamp-light, lest he should trim his lamp; but he
may direct the children where they should read, because that is quickly
done, and there would be no danger of his trimming his lamp in their
presence, or suffering any of them to do it in his. All these
regulations, which some may conceive as minute and frivolous, show a
great intimacy with the human heart, and a spirit of profound
observation which had been capable of achieving great purposes.
The owner of an innocent beast only pays half the costs for the mischief
incurred. Man is always convict, and for all mischief he does he must
pay full costs. However there are casual damages,--as when a man pours
water accidentally on another man; or makes a thorn-hedge which annoys
his neighbour; or falling down, and another by stumbling on him incurs
harm: how such compensations are to be made. He that has a vessel of
another's in keeping, and removes it, but in the removal breaks it, must
swear to his own integrity; i.e., that he had no design to break it. All
offensive or noisy trades were to be carried on at a certain distance
from a town. Where there is an estate, the sons inherit, and the
daughters are maintained; but if there is not enough for all, the
daughters are maintained, and the sons must get their living as they
can, or even beg. The contrary to this excellent ordination has been
observed in Europe.
These few titles may enable the reader to form a general notion of the
several subjects on which the Mishna treats. The Gemara or Commentary is
often overloaded with ineptitudes and ridiculous subtilties. For
instance, in the article of "Negative Oaths." If a man swears he will
eat no bread, and does eat all sorts of bread, in that case the perjury
is but one; but if he swears that he will eat neither barley, nor
wheaten, nor rye-bread, the perjury is multiplied as he multiplies his
eating of the several sorts.--Again, the Pharisees and the Sadducees had
strong differences about touching the holy writings with their hands.
The doctors ordained that whoever touched the book of the law must not
eat of the truma (first fruits of the wrought produce of the ground),
till they had washed their hands. The reason they gave was this. In
times of persecution, they used to hide those sacred books in secret
places, and good men would lay them out of the way when they had done
reading them. It was possible, then, that these rolls of the law might
be gnawed by _mice_. The hands then that touched these books when they
took them out of the places where they had laid them up, were supposed
to be unclean, so far as to disable them from eating the truma till they
were washed. On that account they made this a general rule, that if any
part of the _Bible_ (except _Ecclesiastes_, because that excellent book
their sagacity accounted less holy than the rest) or their phylacteries,
or the strings of their phylacteries, were touched by one who had a
right to eat the truma, he might not eat it till he had washed his
hands. An evidence of that superstitious trifling, for which the
Pharisees and the later Rabbins have been so justly reprobated.
They were absurdly minute in the literal observance of their vows, and
as shamefully subtile in their artful evasion of them. The Pharisees
could be easy enough to themselves when convenient, and always as hard
and unrelenting as possible to all others. They quibbled, and dissolved
their vows, with experienced casuistry. Jesus reproaches the Pharisees
in Matthew xv. and Mark vii. for flagrantly violating the fifth
commandment, by allowing the vow of a son, perhaps made in hasty anger,
its full force, when he had sworn that his father should never be the
better for him, or anything he had, and by which an indigent father
might be suffered to starve. There is an express case to this purpose in
the Mishna, in the title of _Vows_. The reader may be amused by the
story:--A man made a vow that his _father should not profit by him_.
This man afterwards made a wedding-feast for his son, and wishes his
father should be present; but he cannot invite him, because he is tied
up by his vow. He invented this expedient:--He makes a gift of the court
in which the feast was to be kept, and of the feast itself, to a third
person in trust, that his father should be invited by that third person,
with the other company whom he at first designed. This third person then
says--If these things you thus have given me are mine, I will dedicate
them to God, and then none of you can be the better for them. The son
replied--I did not give them to you that you should consecrate them.
Then the third man said--Yours was no donation, only you were willing to
eat and drink with your father. Thus, says R. Juda, they dissolved each
other's intentions; and when the case came before the rabbins, they
decreed that a gift which may not be consecrated by the person to whom
it is given is not a gift.
The following extract from the Talmud exhibits a subtile mode of
reasoning, which the Jews adopted when the learned of Rome sought to
persuade them to conform to their idolatry. It forms an entire Mishna,
entitled _Sedir Nezikin_, Avoda Zara, iv. 7. on idolatrous worship,
translated by Wotton.
"Some Roman senators examined the Jews in this manner:--If God hath no
delight in the worship of idols, why did he not destroy them? The Jews
made answer--If men had worshipped only things of which the world had
had no need, he would have destroyed the object of their worship; but
they also worship the sun and moon, stars and planets; and then he must
have destroyed his world for the sake of these deluded men. But still,
said the Romans, why does not God destroy the things which the world
does not want, and leave those things which the world cannot be without?
Because, replied the Jews, this would strengthen the hands of such as
worship these necessary things, who would then say--Ye allow now that
these are gods, since they are not destroyed."
RABBINICAL STORIES.
The preceding article furnishes some of the more serious investigations
to be found in the Talmud. Its levities may amuse. I leave untouched the
gross obscenities and immoral decisions. The Talmud contains a vast
collection of stories, apologues, and jests; many display a vein of
pleasantry, and at times have a wildness of invention, which
sufficiently mark the features of an eastern parent. Many extravagantly
puerile were designed merely to recreate their young students. When a
rabbin was asked the reason of so much nonsense, he replied that the
ancients had a custom of introducing music in their lectures, which
accompaniment made them more agreeable; but that not having musical
instruments in the schools, the rabbins invented these strange stories
to arouse attention. This was ingeniously said; but they make miserable
work when they pretend to give mystical interpretations to pure
nonsense.
In 1711, a German professor of the Oriental languages, Dr. Eisenmenger,
published in two large volumes quarto, his "Judaism Discovered," a
ponderous labour, of which the scope was to ridicule the Jewish
traditions.
I shall give a dangerous adventure into which King David was drawn by
the devil. The king one day hunting, Satan appeared before him in the
likeness of a roe. David discharged an arrow at him, but missed his aim.
He pursued the feigned roe into the land of the Philistines. Ishbi, the
brother of Goliath, instantly recognised the king as him who had slain
that giant. He bound him, and bending him neck and heels, laid him under
a wine-press in order to press him to death. A miracle saves David. The
earth beneath him became soft, and Ishbi could not press wine out of
him. That evening in the Jewish congregation a dove, whose wings were
covered with silver, appeared in great perplexity; and evidently
signified the king of Israel was in trouble. Abishai, one of the king's
counsellors, inquiring for the king, and finding him absent, is at a
loss to proceed, for according to the Mishna, no one may ride on the
king's horse, nor sit upon his throne, nor use his sceptre. The school
of the rabbins, however, allowed these things in time of danger. On this
Abishai vaults on David's horse, and (with an Oriental metaphor) the
land of the Philistines leaped to him instantly! Arrived at Ishbi's
house, he beholds his mother Orpa spinning. Perceiving the Israelite,
she snatched up her spinning-wheel and threw it at him, to kill him; but
not hitting him, she desired him to bring the spinning-wheel to her. He
did not do this exactly, but returned it to her in such a way that she
never asked any more for her spinning-wheel. When Ishbi saw this, and
recollecting that David, though tied up neck and heels, was still under
the wine-press, he cried out. "There are now two who will destroy me!"
So he threw David high up into the air, and stuck his spear into the
ground, imagining that David would fall upon it and perish. But Abishai
pronounced the magical name, which the Talmudists frequently make use
of, and it caused David to hover between earth and heaven, so that he
fell not down! Both at length unite against Ishbi, and observing that
two young lions should kill one lion, find no difficulty in getting rid
of the brother of Goliath.
Of Solomon, another favourite hero of the Talmudists, a fine Arabian
story is told. This king was an adept in necromancy, and a male and a
female devil were always in waiting for an emergency. It is observable,
that the Arabians, who have many stories concerning Solomon, always
describe him as a magician. His adventures with Aschmedai, the prince of
devils, are numerous; and they both (the king and the devil) served one
another many a slippery trick. One of the most remarkable is when
Aschmedai, who was prisoner to Solomon, the king having contrived to
possess himself of the devil's seal-ring, and chained him, one day
offered to answer an unholy question put to him by Solomon, provided he
returned him his seal-ring and loosened his chain. The impertinent
curiosity of Solomon induced him to commit this folly. Instantly
Aschmedai swallowed the monarch; and stretching out his wings up to the
firmament of heaven, one of his feet remaining on the earth, he spit out
Solomon four hundred leagues from him. This was done so privately, that
no one knew anything of the matter. Aschmedai then assumed the likeness
of Solomon, and sat on his throne. From that hour did Solomon say,
"_This_ then is the reward of all my labour," according to
Ecclesiasticus i. 3; which _this_ means, one rabbin says, his
walking-staff; and another insists was his ragged coat. For Solomon went
a begging from door to door; and wherever he came he uttered these
words; "I, the preacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem." At length
coming before the council, and still repeating these remarkable words,
without addition or variation, the rabbins said, "This means something:
for a fool is not constant in his tale!" They asked the chamberlain, if
the king frequently saw him? and he replied to them, No! Then they sent
to the queens, to ask if the king came into their apartments? and they
answered, Yes! The rabbins then sent them a message to take notice of
his feet; for the feet of devils are like the feet of cocks. The queens
acquainted them that his majesty always came in slippers, but forced
them to embrace at times forbidden by the law. He had attempted to lie
with his mother Bathsheba, whom he had almost torn to pieces. At this
the rabbins assembled in great haste, and taking the beggar with them,
they gave him the ring and the chain in which the great magical name was
engraven, and led him to the palace. Asehmedai was sitting on the throne
as the real Solomon entered; but instantly he shrieked and flew away.
Yet to his last day was Solomon afraid of the prince of devils, and had
his bed guarded by the valiant men of Israel, as is written in Cant.
iii. 7, 8.
They frequently display much humour in their inventions, as in the
following account of the manners and morals of an infamous town, which
mocked at all justice. There were in Sodom four judges, who were liars,
and deriders of justice. When any one had struck his neighbour's wife,
and caused her to miscarry, these judges thus counselled the
husband:--"Give her to the offender, that he may get her with child for
thee." When any one had cut off an ear of his neighbour's ass, they said
to the owner--"Let him have the ass till the ear is grown again, that it
may be returned to thee as thou wishest." When any one had wounded his
neighbour, they told the wounded man to "give him a fee for letting him
blood." A toll was exacted in passing a certain bridge; but if any one
chose to wade through the water, or walk round about to save it, he was
condemned to a double toll. Eleasar, Abraham's servant, came thither,
and they wounded him. When, before the judge, he was ordered to pay his
fee for having his blood let, Eleasar flung a stone at the judge, and
wounded him; on which the judge said to him--"What meaneth this?"
Eleasar replied--"Give him who wounded me the fee that is due to myself
for wounding thee." The people of this town had a bedstead on which they
laid travellers who asked for rest. If any one was too long for it, they
cut off his legs; and if he was shorter than the bedstead, they strained
him to its head and foot. When a beggar came to this town, every one
gave him a penny, on which was inscribed the donor's name; but they
would sell him no bread, nor let him escape. When the beggar died from
hunger, then they came about him, and each man took back his penny.
These stories are curious inventions of keen mockery and malice,
seasoned with humour. It is said some of the famous decisions of Sancho
Panza are to be found in the Talmud.
Abraham is said to have been jealous of his wives, and built an
enchanted city for them. He built an iron city and put them in. The
walls were so high and dark, the sun could not be seen in it. He gave
them a bowl full of pearls and jewels, which sent forth a light in this
dark city equal to the sun. Noah, it seems, when in the ark, had no
other light than jewels and pearls. Abraham, in travelling to Egypt,
brought with him a chest. At the custom-house the officers exacted the
duties. Abraham would have readily paid, but desired they would not open
the chest. They first insisted on the duty for clothes, which Abraham
consented to pay; but then they thought, by his ready acquiescence, that
it might be gold. Abraham consents to pay for gold. They now suspected
it might be silk. Abraham was willing to pay for silk, or more costly
pearls; and Abraham generously consented to pay as if the chest
contained the most valuable of things. It was then they resolved to open
and examine the chest; and, behold, as soon as that chest was opened,
that great lustre of human beauty broke out which made such a noise in
the land of Egypt; it was Sarah herself! The jealous Abraham, to conceal
her beauty, had locked her up in this chest.
The whole creation in these rabbinical fancies is strangely gigantic and
vast. The works of eastern nations are full of these descriptions; and
Hesiod's Theogony, and Milton's battles of angels, are puny in
comparison with these rabbinical heroes, or rabbinical things. Mountains
are hurled, with all their woods, with great ease, and creatures start
into existence too terrible for our conceptions. The winged monster in
the "Arabian Nights," called the Roc, is evidently one of the creatures
of rabbinical fancy; it would sometimes, when very hungry, seize and fly
away with an elephant. Captain Cook found a bird's nest in an island
near New Holland, built with sticks on the ground, six-and-twenty feet
in circumference, and near three feet in height. But of the rabbinical
birds, fish, and animals, it is not probable any circumnavigator will
ever trace even the slightest vestige or resemblance.
One of their birds, when it spreads its wings, blots out the sun. An egg
from another fell out of its nest, and the white thereof broke and glued
about three hundred cedar-trees, and overflowed a village. One of them
stands up to the lower joint of the leg in a river, and some mariners,
imagining the water was not deep, were hastening to bathe, when a voice
from heaven said--"Step not in there, for seven years ago there a
carpenter dropped his axe, and it hath not yet reached the bottom."
The following passage, concerning fat geese, is perfectly in the style
of these rabbins:--"A rabbin once saw in a desert a flock of geese so
fat that their feathers fell off, and the rivers flowed in fat. Then
said I to them, shall we have part of you in the other world when the
Messiah shall come? And one of them lifted up a wing, and another a leg,
to signify these parts we should have. We should otherwise have had all
parts of these geese; but we Israelites shall be called to an account
touching these fat geese, because their sufferings are owing to us. It
is our iniquities that have delayed the coming of the Messiah; and these
geese suffer greatly by reason of their excessive fat, which daily and
daily increases, and will increase till the Messiah comes!"
What the manna was which fell in the wilderness, has often been
disputed, and still is disputable; it was sufficient for the rabbins to
have found in the Bible that the taste of it was "as a wafer made with
honey," to have raised their fancy to its pitch. They declare it was
"like oil to children, honey to old men, and cakes to middle age." It
had every kind of taste except that of cucumbers, melons, garlic, and
onions, and leeks, for these were those Egyptian roots which the
Israelites so much regretted to have lost. This manna had, however, the
quality to accommodate itself to the palate of those who did not murmur
in the wilderness; and to these it became fish, flesh, or fowl.
The rabbins never advance an absurdity without quoting a text in
Scripture; and to substantiate this fact they quote Deut. ii. 7, where
it is said, "Through this great wilderness these forty years the Lord
thy God hath been with thee, and _thou hast lacked nothing_!" St. Austin
repeats this explanation of the Rabbins, that the faithful found in this
manna the taste of their favourite food! However, the Israelites could
not have found all these benefits, as the rabbins tell us; for in
Numbers xi. 6, they exclaim, "There is _nothing at all besides this
manna_ before our eyes!" They had just said that they remembered the
melons, cucumbers, &c., which they had eaten of so freely in Egypt. One
of the hyperboles of the rabbins is, that the manna fell in such
mountains, that the kings of the east and the west beheld them; which
they found on a passage in the 23rd Psalm; "Thou preparest a table
before me in the presence of mine enemies!" These may serve as specimens
of the forced interpretations on which their grotesque fables are
founded.
Their detestation of Titus, their great conqueror, appears by the
following wild invention. After having narrated certain things too
shameful to read, of a prince whom Josephus describes in far different
colours, they tell us that on sea Titus tauntingly observed, in a great
storm, that the God of the Jews was only powerful on the water, and
that, therefore, he had succeeded in drowning Pharaoh and Sisera. "Had
he been strong, he would have waged war with me in Jerusalem." On
uttering this blasphemy, a voice from heaven said, "Wicked man! I have a
little creature in the world which shall wage war with thee!" When Titus
landed, a gnat entered his nostrils, and for seven years together made
holes in his brains. When his skull was opened, the gnat was found to be
as large as a pigeon: the mouth of the gnat was of copper, and the claws
of iron. A collection which has recently appeared of these Talmudical
stories has not been executed with any felicity of selection. That there
are, however, some beautiful inventions in the Talmud, I refer to the
story of Solomon and Sheba, in the present volume.
ON THE CUSTOM OF SALUTING AFTER SNEEZING.
It is probable that this custom, so universally prevalent, originated in
some ancient superstition; it seems to have excited inquiry among all
nations.
"Some Catholics," says Father Feyjoo, "have attributed the origin of
this custom to the ordinance of a pope, Saint Gregory, who is said to
have instituted a short benediction to be used on such occasions, at a
time when, during a pestilence, the crisis was attended by _sneezing_,
and in most cases followed by _death_."
But the rabbins, who have a story for everything, say, that before Jacob
men never sneezed but _once_, and then immediately _died_: they assure
us that that patriarch was the first who died by natural disease; before
him all men died by sneezing; the memory of which was ordered to be
preserved in _all nations_, by a command of every prince to his subjects
to employ some salutary exclamation after the act of sneezing. But these
are Talmudical dreams, and only serve to prove that so familiar a custom
has always excited inquiry.
Even Aristotle has delivered some considerable nonsense on this custom;
he says it is an honourable acknowledgment of the seat of good sense and
genius--the head--to distinguish it from two other offensive eruptions
of air, which are never accompanied by any benediction from the
by-standers. The custom, at all events, existed long prior to Pope
Gregory. The lover in Apuleius, Gyton in Petronius, and allusions to it
in Pliny, prove its antiquity; and a memoir of the French Academy
notices the practice in the New World, on the first discovery of
America. Everywhere man is saluted for sneezing.
An amusing account of the ceremonies which attend the _sneezing_ of a
king of Monomotapa, shows what a national concern may be the sneeze of
despotism.--Those who are near his person, when this happens, salute him
in so loud a tone, that persons in the ante-chamber hear it, and join in
the acclamation; in the adjoining apartments they do the same, till the
noise reaches the street, and becomes propagated throughout the city; so
that, at each sneeze of his majesty, results a most horrid cry from the
salutations of many thousands of his vassals.
When the king of Sennaar sneezes, his courtiers immediately turn their
backs on him, and give a loud slap on their right thigh.
With the ancients sneezing was ominous;[42] from the _right_ it was
considered auspicious; and Plutarch, in his Life of Themistocles, says,
that before a naval battle it was a sign of conquest! Catullus, in his
pleasing poem of Acme and Septimus, makes this action from the deity of
Love, from the _left_, the source of his fiction. The passage has been
elegantly versified by a poetical friend, who finds authority that the
gods sneezing on the _right_ in _heaven_, is supposed to come to us on
_earth_ on the _left_.
Cupid _sneezing_ in his flight,
Once was heard upon the _right_,
Boding woe to lovers true;
But now upon the _left_ he flew,
And with sporting _sneeze_ divine,
Gave to joy the sacred sign.
Acme bent her lovely face,
Flush'd with rapture's rosy grace,
And those eyes that swam in bliss,
Prest with many a breathing kiss;
Breathing, murmuring, soft, and low,
Thus might life for ever flow!
"Love of my life, and life of love!
Cupid rules our fates above,
Ever let us vow to join
In homage at his happy shrine."
Cupid heard the lovers true,
Again upon the _left_ he flew,
And with sporting _sneeze_ divine,
Renew'd of joy the _sacred sign_!
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 42: Xenophon having addressed a speech to his soldiers, in
which he declared he felt many reasons for a dependence on the favour of
the gods, had scarcely concluded his words when one of them emitted a
loud sneeze. Xenophon at once declared this a spontaneous omen sent by
Jupiter as a sign that his protection was awarded them.
"O, happy Bridegroom! thee a lucky sneeze
To Sparta welcom'd."--_Theocritus_, Idyll xviii.
"Prometheus was the first that wished well to the sneezer, when the man
which he had made of clay fell into a fit of sternutation upon the
approach of that celestial fire which he stole from the sun."--Ross's
_Arcana Microcosmi_.]
BONAVENTURE DE PERIERS.
A happy art in the relation of a story is, doubtless, a very agreeable
talent; it has obtained La Fontaine all the applause which his charming
_naivete_ deserves.
Of "_Bonaventure de Periers, Valet de Chambre de la Royne de Navarre_,"
there are three little volumes of tales in prose, in the quaint or the
coarse pleasantry of that day. The following is not given as the best,
but as it introduces a novel etymology of a word in great use:--
"A student at law, who studied at Poitiers, had tolerably improved
himself in cases of equity; not that he was over-burthened with
learning; but his chief deficiency was a want of assurance and
confidence to display his knowledge. His father, passing by Poitiers,
recommended him to read aloud, and to render his memory more prompt by
continued exercise. To obey the injunctions of his father, he determined
to read at the _Ministery_. In order to obtain a certain quantity of
assurance, he went every day into a garden, which was a very retired
spot, being at a distance from any house, and where there grew a great
number of fine large cabbages. Thus for a long time he pursued his
studies, and repeated his lectures to these cabbages, addressing them by
the title of _gentlemen_, and balancing his periods to them as if they
had composed an audience of scholars. After a fort-night or three weeks'
preparation, he thought it was high time to take the _chair_; imagining
that he should be able to lecture his scholars as well as he had before
done his cabbages. He comes forward, he begins his oration--but before a
dozen words his tongue freezes between his teeth! Confused, and hardly
knowing where he was, all he could bring out was--_Domini, Ego bene
video quod non eslis caules_; that is to say--for there are some who
will have everything in plain English--_Gentlemen, I now clearly see you
are not cabbages!_ In the _garden_ he could conceive the _cabbages_ to
be _scholars_; but in the _chair_, he could not conceive the _scholars_
to be _cabbages_."
On this story La Monnoye has a note, which gives a new origin to a
familiar term.
"The hall of the School of Equity at Poitiers, where the institutes were
read, was called _La Ministerie_. On which head Florimond de Remond
(book vii. ch. 11), speaking of Albert Babinot, one of the first
disciples of Calvin, after having said he was called 'The _good man_,'
adds, that because he had been a student of the institutes at this
_Ministerie_ of Poitiers, Calvin and others styled him _Mr. Minister_;
from whence, afterwards _Calvin_ took occasion to give the name of
MINISTERS to the pastors of his church."
GROTIUS.
The Life of Grotius shows the singular felicity of a man of letters and
a statesman, and how a student can pass his hours in the closest
imprisonment. The gate of the prison has sometimes been the porch of
fame.
Grotius, studious from his infancy, had also received from Nature the
faculty of genius, and was so fortunate as to find in his father a tutor
who formed his early taste and his moral feelings. The younger Grotius,
in imitation of Horace, has celebrated his gratitude in verse.
One of the most interesting circumstances in the life of this great man,
which strongly marks his genius and fortitude, is displayed in the
manner in which he employed his time during his imprisonment. Other men,
condemned to exile and captivity, if they survive, despair; the man of
letters may reckon those days as the sweetest of his life.
When a prisoner at the Hague, he laboured on a Latin essay on the means
of terminating religious disputes, which occasion so many infelicities
in the state, in the church, and in families; when he was carried to
Louvenstein, he resumed his law studies, which other employments had
interrupted. He gave a portion of his time to moral philosophy, which
engaged him to translate the maxims of the ancient poets, collected by
Stobaeus, and the fragments of Menander and Philemon.
Every Sunday was devoted to the Scriptures, and to his Commentaries on
the New Testament. In the course of the work he fell ill; but as soon as
he recovered his health, he composed his treatise, in Dutch verse, on
the Truth of the Christian Religion. Sacred and profane authors occupied
him alternately. His only mode of refreshing his mind was to pass from
one work to another. He sent to Vossius his observations on the
Tragedies of Seneca. He wrote several other works--particularly a little
Catechism, in verse, for his daughter Cornelia--and collected materials
to form his Apology. Although he produced thus abundantly, his
confinement was not more than two years. We may well exclaim here, that
the mind of Grotius had never been imprisoned.
To these various labours we may add an extensive correspondence he held
with the learned; his letters were often so many treatises, and there is
a printed collection amounting to two thousand. Grotius had notes ready
for every classical author of antiquity, whenever a new edition was
prepared; an account of his plans and his performances might furnish a
volume of themselves; yet he never published in haste, and was fond of
revising them. We must recollect, notwithstanding such uninterrupted
literary avocations, his hours were frequently devoted to the public
functions of an ambassador:--"I only reserve for my studies the time
which other ministers give to their pleasures, to conversations often
useless, and to visits sometimes unnecessary." Such is the language of
this great man!
I have seen this great student censured for neglecting his official
duties; but, to decide on this accusation, it would be necessary to know
the character of his accuser.
NOBLEMEN TURNED CRITICS.
I offer to the contemplation of those unfortunate mortals who are
necessitated to undergo the criticisms of _lords_, this pair of
anecdotes:--
Soderini, the Gonfaloniere of Florence, having had a statue made by the
great _Michael Angelo_, when it was finished, came to inspect it; and
having for some time sagaciously considered it, poring now on the face,
then on the arms, the knees, the form of the leg, and at length on the
foot itself; the statue being of such perfect beauty, he found himself
at a loss to display his powers of criticism, only by lavishing his
praise. But only to praise might appear as if there had been an
obtuseness in the keenness of his criticism. He trembled to find a
fault, but a fault must be found. At length he ventured to mutter
something concerning the nose--it might, he thought, be something more
Grecian. _Angelo_ differed from his Grace, but he said he would attempt
to gratify his taste. He took up his chisel, and concealed some marble
dust in his hand; feigning to re-touch the part, he adroitly let fall
some of the dust he held concealed. The Cardinal observing it as it
fell, transported at the idea of his critical acumen, exclaimed--"Ah,
_Angelo_, you have now given an inimitable grace!"
When Pope was first introduced to read his Iliad to Lord Halifax, the
noble critic did not venture to be dissatisfied with so perfect a
composition; but, like the cardinal, this passage, and that word, this
turn, and that expression, formed the broken cant of his criticisms. The
honest poet was stung with vexation; for, in general, the parts at which
his lordship hesitated were those with which he was most satisfied. As
he returned home with Sir Samuel Garth, he revealed to him the anxiety
of his mind. "Oh," replied Garth, laughing, "you are not so well
acquainted with his lordship as myself; he must criticize. At your next
visit, read to him those very passages as they now stand; tell him that
you have recollected his criticisms; and I'll warrant you of his
approbation of them. This is what I have done a hundred times myself."
_Pope_ made use of this stratagem; it took, like the marble dust of
_Angelo_; and my lord, like the cardinal, exclaimed--"Dear _Pope_, they
are now inimitable!"
LITERARY IMPOSTURES.
Some authors have practised singular impositions on the public.
Varillas, the French historian, enjoyed for some time a great reputation
in his own country for his historical compositions; but when they became
more known, the scholars of other countries destroyed the reputation
which he had unjustly acquired. His continual professions of sincerity
prejudiced many in his favour, and made him pass for a writer who had
penetrated into the inmost recesses of the cabinet; but the public were
at length undeceived, and were convinced that the historical anecdotes
which Varillas put off for authentic facts had no foundation, being
wholly his own inventions--though he endeavoured to make them pass for
realities by affected citations of titles, instructions, letters,
memoirs, and relations, all of them imaginary! He had read almost
everything historical, printed and manuscript; but his fertile political
imagination gave his conjectures as facts, while he quoted at random his
pretended authorities. Burnet's book against Varillas is a curious
little volume.[43]
Gemelli Carreri, a Neapolitan gentleman, for many years never quitted
his chamber; confined by a tedious indisposition, he amused himself with
writing a _Voyage round the World_; giving characters of men, and
descriptions of countries, as if he had really visited them: and his
volumes are still very interesting. I preserve this anecdote as it has
long come down to us; but Carreri, it has been recently ascertained, met
the fate of Bruce--for he had visited the places he has described;
Humboldt and Clavigero have confirmed his local knowledge of Mexico and
of China, and found his book useful and veracious. Du Halde, who has
written so voluminous an account of China, compiled it from the Memoirs
of the Missionaries, and never travelled ten leagues from Paris in his
life,--though he appears, by his writings, to be familiar with Chinese
scenery.
Damberger's Travels some years ago made a great sensation--and the
public were duped; they proved to be the ideal voyages of a member of
the German Grub-street, about his own garret. Too many of our "Travels"
have been manufactured to fill a certain size; and some which bear names
of great authority were not written by the professed authors.
There is an excellent observation of an anonymous author:--"_Writers_
who never visited foreign countries, and _travellers_ who have run
through immense regions with fleeting pace, have given us long accounts
of various countries and people; evidently collected from the idle
reports and absurd traditions of the ignorant vulgar, from whom only
they could have received those relations which we see accumulated with
such undiscerning credulity."
Some authors have practised the singular imposition of announcing a
variety of titles of works preparing for the press, but of which nothing
but the titles were ever written.
Paschal, historiographer of France, had a reason for these ingenious
inventions; he continually announced such titles, that his pension for
writing on the history of France might not be stopped. When he died, his
historical labours did not exceed six pages!
Gregorio Leti is an historian of much the same stamp as Varillas. He
wrote with great facility, and hunger generally quickened his pen. He
took everything too lightly; yet his works are sometimes looked into for
many anecdotes of English history not to be found elsewhere; and perhaps
ought not to have been there if truth had been consulted. His great aim
was always to make a book: he swells his volumes with digressions,
intersperses many ridiculous stories, and applies all the repartees he
collected from old novel-writers to modern characters.
Such forgeries abound; the numerous "Testaments Politiques" of Colbert,
Mazarin, and other great ministers, were forgeries usually from the
Dutch press, as are many pretended political "Memoirs."
Of our old translations from the Greek and Latin authors, many were
taken from French versions.
The Travels, written in Hebrew, of Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela, of which we
have a curious translation, are, I believe, apocryphal. He describes a
journey, which, if ever he took, it must have been with his night-cap
on; being a perfect dream! It is said that to inspirit and give
importance to his nation, he pretended that he had travelled to all the
synagogues in the East; he mentions places which he does not appear ever
to have seen, and the different people he describes no one has known. He
calculates that he has found near eight hundred thousand Jews, of which
about half are independent, and not subjects of any Christian or Gentile
sovereign. These fictitious travels have been a source of much trouble
to the learned; particularly to those who in their zeal to authenticate
them followed the aerial footsteps of the Hyppogriffe of Rabbi Benjamin.
He affirms that the tomb of Ezekiel, with the library of the first and
second temples, were to be seen in his time at a place on the banks of
the river Euphrates; Wesselius of Groningen, and many other literati,
travelled on purpose to Mesopotamia, to reach the tomb and examine the
library; but the fairy treasures were never to be seen, nor even heard
of!
The first on the list of impudent impostors is Annius of Viterbo, a
Dominican, and master of the sacred palace under Alexander VI. He
pretended he had discovered the entire works of Sanchoniatho, Manetho,
Berosus, and others, of which only fragments are remaining. He published
seventeen books of antiquities! But not having any MSS. to produce,
though he declared he had found them buried in the earth, these literary
fabrications occasioned great controversies; for the author died before
he made up his mind to a confession. At their first publication
universal joy was diffused among the learned. Suspicion soon rose, and
detection followed. However, as the forger never would acknowledge
himself as such, it has been ingeniously conjectured that he himself was
imposed on, rather than that he was the impostor; or, as in the case of
Chatterton, possibly all may not be fictitious. It has been said that a
great volume in MS., anterior by two hundred years to the seventeen
books of Annius, exists in the Bibliotheque Colbertine, in which these
pretended histories were to be read; but as Annius would never point out
the sources of his, the whole may be considered as a very wonderful
imposture. I refer the reader to Tyrwhitt's Vindication of his Appendix
to Rowley's or Chatterton's Poems, p. 140, for some curious
observations, and some facts of literary imposture.
An extraordinary literary imposture was that of one Joseph Vella, who,
in 1794, was an adventurer in Sicily, and pretended that he possessed
seventeen of the lost books of Livy in Arabic: he had received this
literary treasure, he said, from a Frenchman, who had purloined it from
a shelf in St. Sophia's church at Constantinople. As many of the Greek
and Roman classics have been translated by the Arabians, and many were
first known in Europe in their Arabic dress, there was nothing
improbable in one part of his story. He was urged to publish these
long-desired books; and Lady Spencer, then in Italy, offered to defray
the expenses. He had the effrontery, by way of specimen, to edit an
Italian translation of the sixtieth book, but that book took up no more
than one octavo page! A professor of Oriental literature in Prussia
introduced it in his work, never suspecting the fraud; it proved to be
nothing more than the epitome of Florus. He also gave out that he
possessed a code which he had picked up in the abbey of St. Martin,
containing the ancient history of Sicily in the Arabic period,
comprehending above two hundred years; and of which ages their own
historians were entirely deficient in knowledge. Vella declared he had a
genuine official correspondence between the Arabian governors of Sicily
and their superiors in Africa, from the first landing of the Arabians in
that island. Vella was now loaded with honours and pensions! It is true
he showed Arabic MSS., which, however, did not contain a syllable of
what he said. He pretended he was in continual correspondence with
friends at Morocco and elsewhere. The King of Naples furnished him with
money to assist his researches. Four volumes in quarto were at length
published! Vella had the adroitness to change the Arabic MSS. he
possessed, which entirely related to Mahomet, to matters relative to
Sicily; he bestowed several weeks' labour to disfigure the whole,
altering page for page, line for line, and word for word, but
interspersed numberless dots, strokes, and flourishes; so that when he
published a fac-simile, every one admired the learning of Vella, who
could translate what no one else could read. He complained he had lost
an eye in this minute labour; and every one thought his pension ought to
have been increased. Everything prospered about him, except his eye,
which some thought was not so bad neither. It was at length discovered
by his blunders, &c., that the whole was a forgery: though it had now
been patronised, translated, and extracted through Europe. When this MS.
was examined by an Orientalist, it was discovered to be nothing but a
history of _Mahomet and his family_. Vella was condemned to
imprisonment.
The Spanish antiquary, Medina Conde, in order to favour the pretensions
of the church in a great lawsuit, forged deeds and inscriptions, which
he buried in the ground, where he knew they would shortly be dug up.
Upon their being found, he published engravings of them, and gave
explanations of their unknown characters, making them out to be so many
authentic proofs and evidences of the contested assumptions of the
clergy.
The Morocco ambassador purchased of him a copper bracelet of Fatima,
which Medina proved by the Arabic inscription and many certificates to
be genuine, and found among the ruins of the Alhambra, with other
treasures of its last king, who had hid them there in hope of better
days. This famous bracelet turned out afterwards to be the work of
Medina's own hand, made out of an old brass candlestick!
George Psalmanazar, to whose labours we owe much of the great Universal
History, exceeded in powers of deception any of the great impostors of
learning. His Island of Formosa was an illusion eminently bold,[44] and
maintained with as much felicity as erudition; and great must have been
that erudition which could form a pretended language and its grammar,
and fertile the genius which could invent the history of an unknown
people: it is said that the deception was only satisfactorily
ascertained by his own penitential confession; he had defied and
baffled the most learned.[45] The literary impostor Lauder had much more
audacity than ingenuity, and he died contemned by all the world.[46]
Ireland's "Shakspeare" served to show that commentators are not blessed,
necessarily, with an interior and unerring tact.[47] Genius and learning
are ill directed in forming literary impositions, but at least they must
be distinguished from the fabrications of ordinary impostors.
A singular forgery was practised on Captain Wilford by a learned Hindu,
who, to ingratiate himself and his studies with the too zealous and
pious European, contrived, among other attempts, to give the history of
Noah and his three sons, in his "Purana," under the designation of
Satyavrata. Captain Wilford having _read_ the passage, transcribed it
for Sir William Jones, who translated it as a curious extract; the whole
was an interpolation by the dexterous introduction of a forged sheet,
discoloured and prepared for the purpose of deception, and which, having
served his purpose for the moment, was afterwards withdrawn. As books in
India are not bound, it is not difficult to introduce loose leaves. To
confirm his various impositions, this learned forger had the patience to
write two voluminous sections, in which he connected all the legends
together in the style of the _Puranas_, consisting of 12,000 lines. When
Captain Wilford resolved to collate the manuscript with others, the
learned Hindu began to disfigure his own manuscript, the captain's, and
those of the college, by erasing the name of the country and
substituting that of Egypt. With as much pains, and with a more
honourable direction, our Hindu Lauder might have immortalized his
invention.
We have authors who sold their names to be prefixed to works they never
read; or, on the contrary, have prefixed the names of others to their
own writings. Sir John Hill, once when he fell sick, owned to a friend
that he had over-fatigued himself with writing seven works at once! one
of which was on architecture, and another on cookery! This hero once
contracted to translate Swammerdam's work on insects for fifty guineas.
After the agreement with the bookseller, he recollected that he did not
understand a word of the Dutch language! Nor did there exist a French
translation! The work, however, was not the less done for this small
obstacle. Sir John bargained with another translator for twenty-five
guineas. The second translator was precisely in the same situation as
the first--as ignorant, though not so well paid as the knight. He
rebargained with a third, who perfectly understood his original, for
twelve guineas! So that the translators who could not translate feasted
on venison and turtle, while the modest drudge, whose name never
appeared to the world, broke in patience his daily bread! The craft of
authorship has many mysteries.[48] One of the great patriarchs and
primeval dealers in English literature was Robert Green, one of the most
facetious, profligate, and indefatigable of the Scribleri family. He
laid the foundation of a new dynasty of literary emperors. The first act
by which he proved his claim to the throne of Grub-street has served as
a model to his numerous successors--it was an ambidextrous trick! Green
sold his "Orlando Furioso" to two different theatres, and is among the
first authors in English literary history who wrote as a _trader_;[49]
or as crabbed Anthony Wood phrases it, in the language of celibacy and
cynicism, "he wrote to maintain his _wife_, and that high and loose
course of living which _poets generally follow_." With a drop still
sweeter, old Anthony describes Gayton, another worthy; "he came up to
London to live in a _shirking condition_, and wrote _trite things_
merely to get bread to sustain him and his _wife_."[50] The hermit
Anthony seems to have had a mortal antipathy against the Eves of
literary men.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 43: Burnet's little 12mo volume was printed at Amsterdam, "in
the Warmoes-straet near the Dam," 1686, and compiled by him when living
for safety in Holland during the reign of James II. He particularly
attacks Varillas' ninth book, which relates to England, and its false
history of the Reformation, or rather "his own imagination for true
history." On the authority of Catholic students, he says "the greatest
number of the pieces he cited were to be found nowhere but in his own
fancy." Burnet allows full latitude to an author for giving the best
colouring to his own views and that of his party--a latitude he
certainly always allowed to himself; but he justly censures the
falsifying, or rather inventing, of history; after Varillas' fashion.
"History," says Burnet, "is a sort of trade, in which false coyn and
false weights are more criminal than in other matters; because the
errour may go further and run longer, though their authors colour their
copper too slightly to make it keep its credit long."]
[Footnote 44: The volume was published in 8vo in 1704, as "An Historical
and Geographical Description of Formosa, an Island subject to the
Emperor of Japan." It is dedicated to the Bishop of London, who is told
that "the Europeans have such obscure and various notions of Japan, and
especially of our island Formosa, that they believe nothing for truth
that has been said of it." He accordingly narrates the political history
of the place; the manners and customs of its inhabitants; their
religion, language, &c. A number of engravings illustrate the whole, and
depict the dresses of the people, their houses, temples, and ceremonies.
A "Formosan Alphabet" is also given, and the Lord's Prayer, Apostles'
Creed, and Ten Commandments, are "translated" into this imaginary
language. To keep up the imposition, he ate raw meat when dining with
the Secretary to the Royal Society, and Formosa appeared in the maps as
a real island, in the spot he had described as its locality.]
[Footnote 45: Psalmanazar would never reveal the true history of his
early life, but acknowledged one of the southern provinces of France as
the place of his birth, about 1679. He received a fair education, became
lecturer in a Jesuit college, then a tutor at Avignon; he afterwards led
a wandering life, subsisting on charity, and pretending to be an Irish
student travelling to Rome for conscience sake. He soon found he would
be more successful if he personated a Pagan stranger, and hence he
gradually concocted his tale of _Formosa_; inventing an alphabet, and
perfecting his story, which was not fully matured before he had had a
few years' hard labour as a soldier in the Low Countries; where a Scotch
gentleman introduced him to the notice of Dr. Compton, Bishop of London;
who patronised him, and invited him to England. He came, and to oblige
the booksellers compiled his _History of Formosa_, by the two editions
of which he realized the noble sum of 22_l._ He ended in becoming a
regular bookseller's hack, and so highly moral a character, that Dr.
Johnson, who knew him well, declared he was "the best man he had ever
known."]
[Footnote 46: William Lauder first began his literary impostures in the
_Gentleman's Magazine_ for 1747, where he accused Milton of gross
plagiarisms in his _Paradise Lost_, pretending that he had discovered
the prototypes of his best thoughts in other authors. This he did by
absolute invention, in one instance interpolating twenty verses of a
Latin translation of Milton into the works of another author, and then
producing them with great virulence as a proof that Milton was a
plagiarist. The falsehood of his pretended quotations was demonstrated
by Dr. Douglas, Bishop of Salisbury, in 1751, but he returned to the
charge in 1754. His character and conduct became too bad to allow of his
continued residence in England, and he died in Barbadoes, "in universal
contempt," about 1771.]
[Footnote 47: Ireland's famous forgeries began when, as a young man in a
lawyer's office, he sought to imitate old deeds and letters in the name
of Shakspeare and his friends, urged thereto by his father's great
anxiety to discover some writings connected with the great bard. Such
was the enthusiasm with which they were received by men of great general
knowledge, that Ireland persevered in fresh forgeries until an entire
play was "discovered." It was a tragedy founded on early British
history, and named _Vortigern_. It was produced at Kemble's Theatre, and
was damned. Ireland's downward course commenced from that night. He
ultimately published confessions of his frauds, and died very poor in
1835.]
[Footnote 48: Fielding, the novelist, in _The Author's Farce_, one of
those slight plays which he wrote so cleverly, has used this incident,
probably from his acquaintance with Hill's trick. He introduces his
author trying to sell a translation of the _AEneid_, which the bookseller
will not purchase; but after some conversation offers him "employ" in
the house as a translator; he then is compelled to own himself "not
qualified," because he "understands no language but his own." "What! and
translate _Virgil!_" exclaims the astonished bookseller. The detected
author answers despondingly, "Alas! sir, I translated him out of
Dryden!" The bookseller joyfully exclaims, "Not qualified! If I was an
Emperor, thou should'st be my Prime Minister! Thou art as well vers'd in
thy trade as if thou had'st laboured in my garret these ten years!"]
CARDINAL RICHELIEU.
The present anecdote concerning Cardinal Richelieu may serve to teach
the man of letters how he deals out criticisms to the _great_, when they
ask his opinion of manuscripts, be they in verse or prose.
The cardinal placed in a gallery of his palace the portraits of several
illustrious men, and was desirous of composing the inscriptions under
the portraits. The one which he intended for Montluc, the marechal of
France, was conceived in these terms: _Multa fecit, plura scripsit, vir
tamen magnus fuit_. He showed it without mentioning the author to
Bourbon, the royal Greek professor, and asked his opinion concerning it.
The critic considered that the Latin was much in the style of the
breviary; and, had it concluded with an _allelujah_, it would serve for
an _anthem_ to the _magnificat_. The cardinal agreed with the severity
of his strictures, and even acknowledged the discernment of the
professor; "for," he said, "it is really written by a priest." But
however he might approve of Bourbon's critical powers, he punished
without mercy his ingenuity. The pension his majesty had bestowed on him
was withheld the next year.
The cardinal was one of those ambitious men who foolishly attempt to
rival every kind of genius; and seeing himself constantly disappointed,
he envied, with all the venom of rancour, those talents which are so
frequently the _all_ that men of genius possess.
He was jealous of Balzac's splendid reputation; and offered the elder
Heinsius ten thousand crowns to write a criticism which should ridicule
his elaborate compositions. This Heinsius refused, because Salmasius
threatened to revenge Balzac on his _Herodes Infanticida_.
He attempted to rival the reputation of Corneille's "Cid," by opposing
to it one of the most ridiculous dramatic productions; it was the
allegorical tragedy called "Europe," in which the _minister_ had
congregated the four quarters of the world! Much political matter was
thrown together, divided into scenes and acts. There are appended to it
keys of the dramatis personae and of the allegories. In this tragedy
Francion represents France; Ibere, Spain; Parthenope, Naples, &c.; and
these have their attendants:--Lilian (alluding to the French lilies) is
the servant of Francion, while Hispale is the confidant of Ibere. But
the key to the allegories is much more copious:--Albione signifies
England; _three knots of the hair of Austrasie_ mean the towns of
Clermont, Stenay, and Jamet, these places once belonging to Lorraine. _A
box of diamonds_ of Austrasie is the town of Nancy, belonging once to
the dukes of Lorraine. The _key_ of Ibere's great porch is Perpignan,
which France took from Spain; and in this manner is this sublime tragedy
composed! When he first sent it anonymously to the French Academy it was
reprobated. He then tore it in a rage, and scattered it about his study.
Towards evening, like another Medea lamenting over the members of her
own children, he and his secretary passed the night in uniting the
scattered limbs. He then ventured to avow himself; and having pretended
to correct this incorrigible tragedy, the submissive Academy retracted
their censures, but the public pronounced its melancholy fate on its
first representation. This lamentable tragedy was intended to thwart
Corneille's "Cid." Enraged at its success, Richelieu even commanded the
Academy to publish a severe _critique_ of it, well known in French
literature. Boileau on this occasion has these two well-turned verses:--
"En vain contre le Cid, un ministre se ligue;
Tout Paris, pour _Chimene_, a les yeux de _Rodrigue_."
"To oppose the Cid, in vain the statesman tries;
All Paris, for _Chimene_, has _Roderick's_ eyes."
It is said that, in consequence of the fall of this tragedy, the French
custom is derived of securing a number of friends to applaud their
pieces at their first representations. I find the following droll
anecdote concerning this droll tragedy in Beauchamp's _Recherches sur le
Theatre_.
The minister, after the ill success of his tragedy, retired
unaccompanied the same evening to his country-house at Ruel. He then
sent for his favourite Desmaret, who was at supper with his friend
Petit. Desmaret, conjecturing that the interview would be stormy, begged
his friend to accompany him.
"Well!" said the Cardinal, as soon as he saw them, "the French will
never possess a taste for what is lofty; they seem not to have relished
my tragedy."--"My lord," answered Petit, "it is not the fault of the
piece, which is so admirable, but that of the _players_. Did not your
eminence perceive that not only they knew not their parts, but that they
were all _drunk_?"--"Really," replied the Cardinal, something pleased,
"I observed they acted it dreadfully ill."
Desmaret and Petit returned to Paris, flew directly to the players to
plan a _new mode_ of performance, which was to _secure_ a number of
spectators; so that at the second representation bursts of applause were
frequently heard!
Richelieu had another singular vanity, of closely imitating Cardinal
Ximenes. Pliny was not a more servile imitator of Cicero. Marville tells
us that, like Ximenes, he placed himself at the head of an army; like
him, he degraded princes and nobles; and like him, rendered himself
formidable to all Europe. And because Ximenes had established schools of
theology, Richelieu undertook likewise to raise into notice the schools
of the Sorbonne. And, to conclude, as Ximenes had written several
theological treatises, our cardinal was also desirous of leaving
posterity various polemical works. But his gallantries rendered him more
ridiculous. Always in ill health, this miserable lover and grave
cardinal would, in a freak of love, dress himself with a red feather in
his cap and sword by his side. He was more hurt by an offensive nickname
given him by the queen of Louis XIII., than even by the hiss of theatres
and the critical condemnation of academies.
Cardinal Richelieu was assuredly a great political genius. Sir William
Temple observes, that he instituted the French Academy to give
employment to the _wits_, and to hinder them from inspecting too
narrowly his politics and his administration. It is believed that the
Marshal de Grammont lost an important battle by the orders of the
cardinal; that in this critical conjuncture of affairs his majesty, who
was inclined to dismiss him, could not then absolutely do without him.
Vanity in this cardinal levelled a great genius. He who would attempt to
display universal excellence will be impelled to practise meanness, and
to act follies which, if he has the least sensibility, must occasion him
many a pang and many a blush.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 49: The story is told in _The Defence of Coneycatching_, 1592,
where he is said to have "sold _Orlando Furioso_ to the Queen's players
for twenty nobles, and when they were in the country sold the same play
to the Lord Admirall's men for as much more."]
[Footnote 50: Edmund Gayton was born in 1609, was educated at Oxford,
then led the life of a literary drudge in London, where the best book he
produced was _Pleasant Notes upon Don Quixote_, in which are many
curious and diverting stories, and among the rest the original of
Prior's _Ladle_. He ultimately retired to Oxford, and died there very
poor, in a subordinate place in his college.]
ARISTOTLE AND PLATO.
No philosopher has been so much praised and censured as Aristotle: but
he had this advantage, of which some of the most eminent scholars have
been deprived, that he enjoyed during his life a splendid reputation.
Philip of Macedon must have felt a strong conviction of his merit, when
he wrote to him, on the birth of Alexander:--"I receive from the gods
this day a son; but I thank them not so much for the favour of his
birth, as his having come into the world at a time when you can have the
care of his education; and that through you he will be rendered worthy
of being my son."
Diogenes Laertius describes the person of the Stagyrite.--His eyes were
small, his voice hoarse, and his legs lank. He stammered, was fond of a
magnificent dress, and wore costly rings. He had a mistress whom he
loved passionately, and for whom he frequently acted inconsistently with
the philosophic character; a thing as common with philosophers as with
other men. Aristotle had nothing of the austerity of the philosopher,
though his works are so austere: he was open, pleasant, and even
charming in his conversation; fiery and volatile in his pleasures;
magnificent in his dress. He is described as fierce, disdainful, and
sarcastic. He joined to a taste for profound erudition, that of an
elegant dissipation. His passion for luxury occasioned him such expenses
when he was young, that he consumed all his property. Laertius has
preserved the will of Aristotle, which is curious. The chief part turns
on the future welfare and marriage of his daughter. "If, after my death,
she chooses to marry, the executors will be careful she marries no
person of an inferior rank. If she resides at Chalcis, she shall occupy
the apartment contiguous to the garden; if she chooses Stagyra, she
shall reside in the house of my father, and my executors shall furnish
either of those places she fixes on."
Aristotle had studied under the divine Plato; but the disciple and the
master could not possibly agree in their doctrines: they were of
opposite tastes and talents. Plato was the chief of the academic sect,
and Aristotle of the peripatetic. Plato was simple, modest, frugal, and
of austere manners; a good friend and a zealous citizen, but a
theoretical politician: a lover indeed of benevolence, and desirous of
diffusing it amongst men, but knowing little of them as we find them;
his "Republic" is as chimerical as Rousseau's ideas, or Sir Thomas
More's Utopia.
Rapin, the critic, has sketched an ingenious parallel of these two
celebrated philosophers:--
"The genius of Plato is more polished, and that of Aristotle more vast
and profound. Plato has a lively and teeming imagination; fertile in
invention, in ideas, in expressions, and in figures; displaying a
thousand turns, a thousand new colours, all agreeable to their subject;
but after all it is nothing more than imagination. Aristotle is hard and
dry in all he says, but what he says is all reason, though it is
expressed drily: his diction, pure as it is, has something uncommonly
austere; and his obscurities, natural or affected, disgust and fatigue
his readers. Plato is equally delicate in his thoughts and in his
expressions. Aristotle, though he may be more natural, has not any
delicacy: his style is simple and equal, but close and nervous; that of
Plato is grand and elevated, but loose and diffuse. Plato always says
more than he should say: Aristotle never says enough, and leaves the
reader always to think more than he says. The one surprises the mind,
and charms it by a flowery and sparkling character: the other
illuminates and instructs it by a just and solid method. Plato
communicates something of genius, by the fecundity of his own; and
Aristotle something of judgment and reason, by that impression of good
sense which appears in all he says. In a word, Plato frequently only
thinks to express himself well: and Aristotle only thinks to think
justly."
An interesting anecdote is related of these philosophers--Aristotle
became the rival of Plato. Literary disputes long subsisted betwixt
them. The disciple ridiculed his master, and the master treated
contemptuously his disciple. To make his superiority manifest, Aristotle
wished for a regular disputation before an audience, where erudition and
reason might prevail; but this satisfaction was denied.
Plato was always surrounded by his scholars, who took a lively interest
in his glory. Three of these he taught to rival Aristotle, and it became
their mutual interest to depreciate his merits. Unfortunately one day
Plato found himself in his school without these three favourite
scholars. Aristotle flies to him--a crowd gathers and enters with him.
The idol whose oracles they wished to overturn was presented to them. He
was then a respectable old man, the weight of whose years had enfeebled
his memory. The combat was not long. Some rapid sophisms embarrassed
Plato. He saw himself surrounded by the inevitable traps of the subtlest
logician. Vanquished, he reproached his ancient scholar by a beautiful
figure:--"He has kicked against us as a colt against its mother."
Soon after this humiliating adventure he ceased to give public lectures.
Aristotle remained master in the field of battle. He raised a school,
and devoted himself to render it the most famous in Greece. But the
three favourite scholars of Plato, zealous to avenge the cause of their
master, and to make amends for their imprudence in having quitted him,
armed themselves against the usurper.--Xenocrates, the most ardent of
the three, attacked Aristotle, confounded the logician, and
re-established Plato in all his rights. Since that time the academic and
peripatetic sects, animated by the spirits of their several chiefs,
avowed an eternal hostility. In what manner his works have descended to
us has been told in a preceding article, on _Destruction of Books_.
Aristotle having declaimed irreverently of the gods, and dreading the
fate of Socrates, wished to retire from Athens. In a beautiful manner he
pointed out his successor. There were two rivals in his schools:
Menedemus the Rhodian, and Theophrastus the Lesbian. Alluding delicately
to his own critical situation, he told his assembled scholars that the
wine he was accustomed to drink was injurious to him, and he desired
them to bring the wines of Rhodes and Lesbos. He tasted both, and
declared they both did honour to their soil, each being excellent,
though differing in their quality;--the Rhodian wine is the strongest,
but the Lesbian is the sweetest, and that he himself preferred it. Thus
his ingenuity designated his favourite Theophrastus, the author of the
"Characters," for his successor.
ABELARD AND ELOISA.
Abelard, so famous for his writings and his amours with Eloisa, ranks
amongst the Heretics for opinions concerning the Trinity! His superior
genius probably made him appear so culpable in the eyes of his enemies.
The cabal formed against him disturbed the earlier part of his life with
a thousand persecutions, till at length they persuaded Bernard, his old
_friend_, but who had now turned _saint_, that poor Abelard was what
their malice described him to be. Bernard, inflamed against him,
condemned unheard the unfortunate scholar. But it is remarkable that the
book which was burnt as unorthodox, and as the composition of Abelard,
was in fact written by Peter Lombard, Bishop of Paris; a work which has
since been _canonised_ in the Sarbonne, and on which the scholastic
theology is founded. The objectionable passage is an illustration of the
_Trinity_ by the nature of a _syllogism_!--"As (says he) the three
propositions of a syllogism form but one truth, so the _Father and Son_
constitute but _one essence_. The _major_ represents the _Father_, the
_minor_ the _Son_, and the _conclusion_ the _Holy Ghost_!" It is curious
to add, that Bernard himself has explained this mystical union precisely
in the same manner, and equally clear. "The understanding," says this
saint, "is the image of God. We find it consists of three parts: memory,
intelligence, and will. To _memory_, we attribute all which we know,
without cogitation; to _intelligence_, all truths we discover which have
not been deposited by memory. By _memory_, we resemble the _Father_; by
_intelligence_, the _Son_; and by _will_, the _Holy Ghost_." Bernard's
Lib. de Anima, cap. i. num. 6, quoted in the "Mem. Secretes de la
Republique des Lettres." We may add also, that because Abelard, in the
warmth of honest indignation, had reproved the monks of St. Denis, in
France, and St. Gildas de Ruys, in Bretagne, for the horrid incontinence
of their lives, they joined his enemies, and assisted to embitter the
life of this ingenious scholar, who perhaps was guilty of no other crime
than that of feeling too sensibly an attachment to one who not only
possessed the enchanting attractions of the softer sex, but, what indeed
is very unusual, a congeniality of disposition, and an enthusiasm of
imagination.
"Is it, in heaven, a crime to love too well?"
It appears by a letter of Peter de Cluny to Eloisa, that she had
solicited for Abelard's absolution. The abbot gave it to her. It runs
thus:--"Ego Petrus Cluniacensis Abbas, qui Petrum Abaelardum in monachum
Cluniacensem recepi, et corpus ejus furtim delatum Heloissae abbatissae et
moniali Paracleti concessi, auctoritate omnipotentis Dei et omnium
sanctorum absolvo eum pro officio ab omnibus peccatis suis."
An ancient chronicle of Tours records, that when they deposited the body
of the Abbess Eloisa in the tomb of her lover, Peter Abelard, who had
been there interred twenty years, this faithful husband raised his arms,
stretched them, and closely embraced his beloved Eloisa. This poetic
fiction was invented to sanctify, by a miracle, the frailties of their
youthful days. This is not wonderful;--but it is strange that Du Chesne,
the father of French history, not only relates this legendary tale of
the ancient chroniclers, but gives it as an incident well authenticated,
and maintains its possibility by various other examples. Such fanciful
incidents once not only embellished poetry, but enlivened history.
Bayle tells us that _billets doux_ and _amorous verses_ are two powerful
machines to employ in the assaults of love, particularly when the
passionate songs the poetical lover composes are sung by himself. This
secret was well known to the elegant Abelard. Abelard so touched the
sensible heart of Eloisa, and infused such fire into her frame, by
employing his _fine pen_, and his _fine voice_, that the poor woman
never recovered from the attack. She herself informs us that he
displayed two qualities which are rarely found in philosophers, and by
which he could instantly win the affections of the female;--he _wrote_
and _sung_ finely. He composed _love-verses_ so beautiful, and _songs_
so agreeable, as well for the _words_ as the _airs_, that all the world
got them by heart, and the name of his mistress was spread from province
to province.
What a gratification to the enthusiastic, the amorous, the vain Eloisa!
of whom Lord Lyttleton, in his curious Life of Henry II., observes, that
had she not been compelled to read the fathers and the legends in a
nunnery, and had been suffered to improve her genius by a continued
application to polite literature, from what appears in her letters, she
would have excelled any man of that age.
Eloisa, I suspect, however, would have proved but a very indifferent
polemic; she seems to have had a certain delicacy in her manners which
rather belongs to the _fine lady_. We cannot but smile at an observation
of hers on the _Apostles_ which we find in her letters:--"We read that
the _apostles_, even in the company of their Master, were so _rustic_
and _ill-bred,_ that, regardless of common decorum, as they passed
through the corn-fields they plucked the ears, and ate them like
children. Nor did they wash their hands before they sat down to table.
To eat with unwashed hands, said our Saviour to those who were offended,
doth not defile a man."
It is on the misconception of the mild apologetical reply of Jesus,
indeed, that religious fanatics have really considered, that, to be
careless of their dress, and not to free themselves from filth and
slovenliness, is an act of piety; just as the late political fanatics,
who thought that republicanism consisted in the most offensive
filthiness. On this principle, that it is saint-like to go dirty, ragged
and slovenly, says Bishop Lavington, in his "Enthusiasm of the
Methodists and Papists," how _piously_ did Whitfield take care of the
outward man, who in his journals writes, "My apparel was mean--thought
it unbecoming a penitent to have _powdered hair_.--I wore _woollen
gloves_, a _patched gown_, and _dirty shoes!_"
After an injury, not less cruel than humiliating, Abelard raises the
school of the Paraclete; with what enthusiasm is he followed to that
desert! His scholars in crowds hasten to their adored master; they cover
their mud sheds with the branches of trees; they care not to sleep under
better roofs, provided they remain by the side of their unfortunate
master. How lively must have been their taste for study!--it formed
their solitary passion, and the love of glory was gratified even in that
desert.
The two reprehensible lines in Pope's Eloisa, too celebrated among
certain of its readers--
"Not Cesar's empress would I deign to prove;
No,--make me mistress to the man I love!"--
are, however, found in her original letters. The author of that ancient
work, "The Romaunt of the Rose," has given it thus _naively_; a specimen
of the _natural_ style in those days:--
Si l'empereur, qui est a Rome,
Souhz qui doyvent etre tout homme,
Me daignoit prendre pour sa femme,
Et me faire du monde dame!
Si vouldroye-je mieux, dist-elle
Et Dieu en tesmoing en appelle,
Etre sa Putaine appellee
Qu'etre emperiere couronnee.
PHYSIOGNOMY.
A very extraordinary physiognomical anecdote has been given by De la
Place, in his "_Pieces Interessantes et peu Connues_," vol. iv. p. 8.
A friend assured him that he had seen a voluminous and secret
correspondence which had been carried on between Louis XIV. and his
favourite physician, De la Chambre, on this science. The faith of the
monarch seems to have been great, and the purpose to which this
correspondence tended was extraordinary indeed, and perhaps scarcely
credible. Who will believe that Louis XIV. was so convinced of that
talent which De la Chambre attributed to himself, of deciding merely by
the physiognomy of persons, not only on the real bent of their
character, but to what employment they were adapted, that the king
entered into a _secret correspondence_ to obtain the critical notices of
his _physiognomist?_ That Louis XIV. should have pursued this system,
undetected by his own courtiers, is also singular; but it appears, by
this correspondence, that this art positively swayed him in his choice
of officers and favourites. On one of the backs of these letters De la
Chambre had written, "If I die before his majesty, he will incur great
risk of making many an unfortunate choice!"
This collection of physiognomical correspondence, if it does really
exist, would form a curious publication; we have heard nothing of it! De
la Chambre was an enthusiastic physiognomist, as appears by his works;
"The Characters of the Passions," four volumes in quarto; "The Art of
Knowing Mankind;" and "The Knowledge of Animals." Lavater quotes his
"Vote and Interest," in favour of his favourite science. It is, however,
curious to add, that Philip Earl of Pembroke, under James I., had formed
a particular collection of portraits, with a view to physiognomical
studies. According to Evelyn on Medals, p. 302, such was his sagacity in
discovering the characters and dispositions of men by their
countenances, that James I. made no little use of his extraordinary
talent on _the first arrival of ambassadors at court_.
The following physiological definition of PHYSIOGNOMY is extracted from
a publication by Dr. Gwither, of the year 1604, which, dropping his
history of "The Animal Spirits," is curious:--
"Soft wax cannot receive more various and numerous impressions than are
imprinted on a man's face by _objects_ moving his affections: and not
only the _objects_ themselves have this power, but also the very
_images_ or _ideas_; that is to say, anything that puts the animal
spirits into the same motion that the _object_ present did, will have
the same effect with the object. To prove the first, let one observe a
man's face looking on a pitiful object, then a ridiculous, then a
strange, then on a terrible or dangerous object, and so forth. For the
second, that _ideas_ have the same effect with the _object_, dreams
confirm too often.
"The manner I conceive to be thus:--the animal spirits, moved in the
sensory by an object, continue their motion to the brain; whence the
motion is propagated to this or that particular part of the body, as is
most suitable to the design of its creation; having first made an
alteration in the _face_ by its nerves, especially by the _pathetic_ and
_oculorum motorii_ actuating its many muscles, as the dial-plate to that
stupendous piece of clock-work which shows what is to be expected next
from the striking part; not that I think the motion of the spirits in
the sensory continued by the impression of the object all the way, as
from a finger to the foot; I know it too weak, though the tenseness of
the nerves favours it. But I conceive it done in the medulla of the
brain, where is the common stock of spirits; as in an organ, whose
pipes being uncovered, the air rushes into them; but the keys let go,
are stopped again. Now, if by repeated acts of frequent entertaining of
a favourite idea of a passion or vice, which natural temperament has
hurried one to, or custom dragged, the _face_ is so often put into that
posture which attends such acts, that the animal spirits find such
latent passages into its nerves, that it is sometimes unalterably set:
as the _Indian_ religious are by long continuing in strange postures in
their _pagods_. But most commonly such a habit is contracted, that it
falls insensibly into that posture when some present object does not
obliterate that more natural impression by a new, or dissimulation hide
it.
"Hence it is that we see great _drinkers_ with _eyes_ generally set
towards the nose, the adducent muscles being often employed to let them
see their loved liquor in the glass at the time of drinking; which were,
therefore, called _bibitory Lascivious persons_ are remarkable for the
_oculorum nobilis petulantia_, as Petronius calls it. From this also we
may solve the _Quaker's_ expecting face, waiting for the pretended
spirit; and the melancholy face of the _sectaries_; the _studious_ face
of men of great application of mind; revengeful and _bloody_ men, like
executioners in the act: and though silence in a sort may awhile pass
for wisdom, yet, sooner or later, Saint Martin peeps through the
disguise to undo all. A _changeable face_ I have observed to show a
_changeable mind_. But I would by no means have what has been said
understood as without exception; for I doubt not but sometimes there are
found men with great and virtuous souls under very unpromising
outsides."
The great Prince of Conde was very expert in a sort of physiognomy which
showed the peculiar habits, motions, and postures of familiar life and
mechanical employments. He would sometimes lay wagers with his friends,
that he would guess, upon the Pont Neuf, what trade persons were of that
passed by, from their walk and air.
CHARACTERS DESCRIBED BY MUSICAL NOTES.
The idea of describing characters under the names of Musical Instruments
has been already displayed in two most pleasing papers which embellish
the _Tatler_, written by Addison. He dwells on this idea with uncommon
success. It has been applauded for its _originality_; and in the
general preface to that work, those papers are distinguished for their
felicity of imagination. The following paper was published in the year
1700, in a volume of "Philosophical Transactions and Collections," and
the two numbers of Addison in the year 1710. It is probable that this
inimitable writer borrowed the seminal hint from this work:--
"A conjecture at dispositions from the modulations of the voice.
"Sitting in some company, and having been but a little before musical, I
chanced to take notice that, in ordinary discourse, _words_ were spoken
in perfect _notes_; and that some of the company used _eighths_, some
_fifths_, some _thirds_; and that his discourse which was the most
pleasing, his _words_, as to their tone, consisted most of _concords_,
and were of _discords_ of such as made up harmony. The same person was
the most affable, pleasant, and best-natured in the company. This
suggests a reason why many discourses which one _hears_ with much
pleasure, when they come to be _read_ scarcely seem the same things.
"From this difference of MUSIC in SPEECH, we may conjecture that of
TEMPERS. We know the Doric mood sounds gravity and sobriety; the Lydian,
buxomness and freedom; the AEolic, sweet stillness and quiet composure;
the Phrygian, jollity and youthful levity; the Ionic is a stiller of
storms and disturbances arising from passion; and why may we not
reasonably suppose, that those whose speech naturally runs into the
notes peculiar to any of these moods, are likewise in nature hereunto
congenerous? _C Fa ut_ may show me to be of an ordinary capacity, though
good disposition. _G Sol re ut_, to be peevish and effeminate. _Flats_,
a manly or melancholic sadness. He who hath a voice which will in some
measure agree with all _cliffs_, to be of good parts, and fit for
variety of employments, yet somewhat of an inconstant nature. Likewise
from the TIMES: so _semi-briefs_ may speak a temper dull and phlegmatic;
_minims_, grave and serious; _crotchets_, a prompt wit; _quavers_,
vehemency of passion, and scolds use them. _Semi-brief-rest_ may denote
one either stupid or fuller of thoughts than he can utter; _minimrest,_
one that deliberates; _crotchet-rest_, one in a passion. So that from
the natural use of MOOD, NOTE, and TIME, we may collect DISPOSITIONS."
MILTON.
It is painful to observe the acrimony which the most eminent scholars
have infused frequently in their controversial writings. The politeness
of the present times has in some degree softened the malignity of the
man, in the dignity of the author; but this is by no means an
irrevocable law.
It is said not to be honourable to literature to revive such
controversies; and a work entitled "Querelles Litteraires," when it
first appeared, excited loud murmurs; but it has its moral: like showing
the drunkard to a youth, that he may turn aside disgusted with ebriety.
Must we suppose that men of letters are exempt from the human passions?
Their sensibility, on the contrary, is more irritable than that of
others. To observe the ridiculous attitudes in which great men appear,
when they employ the style of the fish-market, may be one great means of
restraining that ferocious pride often breaking out in the republic of
letters. Johnson at least appears to have entertained the same opinion;
for he thought proper to republish the low invective of _Dryden_ against
_Settle_; and since I have published my "Quarrels of Authors," it
becomes me to say no more.
The celebrated controversy of _Salmasius_, continued by Morus with
_Milton_--the first the pleader of King Charles, the latter the advocate
of the people--was of that magnitude, that all Europe took a part in the
paper-war of these two great men. The answer of Milton, who perfectly
massacred Salmasius, is now read but by the few. Whatever is addressed
to the times, however great may be its merits, is doomed to perish with
the times; yet on these pages the philosopher will not contemplate in
vain.
It will form no uninteresting article to gather a few of the rhetorical
_weeds_, for _flowers_ we cannot well call them, with which they
mutually presented each other. Their rancour was at least equal to their
erudition,--the two most learned antagonists of a learned age!
Salmasius was a man of vast erudition, but no taste. His writings are
learned, but sometimes ridiculous. He called his work _Defensio
Regia_, Defence of Kings. The opening of this work provokes a
laugh:--"Englishmen! who toss the heads of kings as so many
tennis-balls; who play with crowns as if they were bowls; who look upon
sceptres as so many crooks."
That the deformity of the body is an idea we attach to the deformity of
the mind, the vulgar must acknowledge; but surely it is unpardonable in
the enlightened philosopher thus to compare the crookedness of corporeal
matter with the rectitude of the intellect; yet Milbourne and Dennis,
the last a formidable critic, have frequently considered, that comparing
Dryden and Pope to whatever the eye turned from with displeasure, was
very good argument to lower their literary abilities. Salmasius seems
also to have entertained this idea, though his spies in England gave him
wrong information; or, possibly, he only drew the figure of his own
distempered imagination.
Salmasius sometimes reproaches Milton as being but a puny piece of man;
an homunculus, a dwarf deprived of the human figure, a bloodless being,
composed of nothing but skin and bone; a contemptible pedagogue, fit
only to flog his boys: and, rising into a poetic frenzy, applies to him
the words of Virgil, "_Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen
ademptum_." Our great poet thought this senseless declamation merited a
serious refutation; perhaps he did not wish to appear despicable in the
eyes of the ladies; and he would not be silent on the subject, he says,
lest any one should consider him as the credulous Spaniards are made to
believe by their priests, that a heretic is a kind of rhinoceros or a
dog-headed monster. Milton says, that he does not think any one ever
considered him as unbeautiful; that his size rather approaches
mediocrity than, the diminutive; that he still felt the same courage and
the same strength which he possessed when young, when, with his sword,
he felt no difficulty to combat with men more robust than himself; that
his face, far from being pale, emaciated, and wrinkled, was sufficiently
creditable to him: for though he had passed his fortieth year, he was in
all other respects ten years younger. And very pathetically he adds,
"that even his eyes, blind as they are, are unblemished in their
appearance; in this instance alone, and much against my inclination, I
am a deceiver!"
Morus, in his Epistle dedicatory of his _Regii Sanguinis Clamor_,
compares Milton to a hangman; his disordered vision to the blindness of
his soul, and so vomits forth his venom.
When Salmasius found that his strictures on the person of Milton were
false, and that, on the contrary, it was uncommonly beautiful, he then
turned his battery against those graces with which Nature had so
liberally adorned his adversary: and it is now that he seems to have
laid no restrictions on his pen; but, raging with the irritation of
Milton's success, he throws out the blackest calumnies, and the most
infamous aspersions.
It must be observed, when Milton first proposed to answer Salmasius, he
had lost the use of one of his eyes; and his physicians declared that,
if he applied himself to the controversy, the other would likewise close
for ever! His patriotism was not to be baffled, but with life itself.
Unhappily, the prediction of his physicians took place! Thus a learned
man in the occupations of study falls blind--a circumstance even now not
read without sympathy. Salmasius considers it as one from which he may
draw caustic ridicule and satiric severity.
Salmasius glories that Milton lost his health and his eyes in answering
his apology for King Charles! He does not now reproach him with natural
deformities; but he malignantly sympathises with him, that he now no
more is in possession of that beauty which rendered him so amiable
during his residence in _Italy_. He speaks more plainly in a following
page; and, in a word, would blacken the austere virtue of Milton with a
crime infamous to name.
Impartiality of criticism obliges us to confess that Milton was not
destitute of rancour. When he was told that his adversary boasted he had
occasioned the loss of his eyes, he answered, with ferocity--"_And I
shall cost him his life!_" A prediction which was soon after verified;
for Christina, Queen of Sweden, withdrew her patronage from Salmasius,
and sided with Milton. The universal neglect the proud scholar felt
hastened his death in the course of a twelve-month.
The greatness of Milton's mind was degraded! He actually condescended to
enter into a correspondence in Holland, to obtain little scandalous
anecdotes of his miserable adversary, Morus; and deigned to adulate the
unworthy Christina of Sweden, because she had expressed herself
favourably on his "Defence." Of late years, we have had too many
instances of this worst of passions, the antipathies of politics!
ORIGIN OF NEWSPAPERS.
We are indebted to the Italians for the idea of newspapers. The title of
their _gazettas_ was, perhaps, derived from _gazzera_, a magpie or
chatterer; or, more probably, from a farthing coin, peculiar to the city
of Venice, called _gazetta_, which was the common price of the
newspapers. Another etymologist is for deriving it from the Latin
_gaza_, which would colloquially lengthen into _gazetta_, and signify a
little treasury of news. The Spanish derive it from the Latin _gaza_,
and likewise their _gazatero_, and our _gazetteer_, for a writer of the
_gazette_ and, what is peculiar to themselves, _gazetista_, for a lover
of the gazette.
Newspapers, then, took their birth in that principal land of modern
politicians, Italy, and under the government of that aristocratical
republic, Venice. The first paper was a Venetian one, and only monthly;
but it was merely the newspaper of the government. Other governments
afterwards adopted the Venetian plan of a newspaper, with the Venetian
name:--from a solitary government gazette, an inundation of newspapers
has burst upon us.
Mr. George Chalmers, in his Life of Ruddiman, gives a curious particular
of these Venetian gazettes:--"A jealous government did not allow a
_printed_ newspaper; and the Venetian _gazetta_ continued long after the
invention of printing, to the close of the sixteenth century, and even
to our own days, to be distributed in _manuscript_." In the
Magliabechian library at Florence are thirty volumes of Venetian
gazettas, all in manuscript.
Those who first wrote newspapers were called by the Italians _menanti_;
because, says Vossius, they intended commonly by these loose papers to
spread about defamatory reflections, and were therefore prohibited in
Italy by Gregory XIII. by a particular bull, under the name of
_menantes_, from the Latin _minantes_, threatening. Menage, however,
derives it from the Italian _menare_, which signifies to lead at large,
or spread afar.
We are indebted to the wisdom of Elizabeth and the prudence of Burleigh
for the first newspaper. The epoch of the Spanish Armada is also the
epoch of a genuine newspaper. In the British Museum are several
newspapers which were printed while the Spanish fleet was in the English
Channel during the year 1588. It was a wise policy to prevent, during a
moment of general anxiety, the danger of false reports, by publishing
real information. The earliest newspaper is entitled "The English
Mercurie," which by _authority_ was "imprinted at London by her
highness's printer, 1588." These were, however, but extraordinary
gazettes, not regularly published. In this obscure origin they were
skilfully directed by the policy of that great statesman Burleigh, who,
to inflame the national feeling, gives an extract of a letter from
Madrid which speaks of putting the queen to death, and the instruments
of torture on board the Spanish fleet.
George Chalmers first exultingly took down these patriarchal newspapers,
covered with the dust of two centuries.
The first newspaper in the collection of the British Museum is marked
No. 50, and is in Roman, not in black letter. It contains the usual
articles of news, like the London Gazette of the present day. In that
curious paper, there are news dated from Whitehall, on the 23rd July,
1588. Under the date of July 26, there is the following
notice:--"Yesterday the Scots ambassador, being introduced to Sir
Francis Walsingham, had a private audience of her majesty, to whom he
delivered a letter from the king his master; containing the most cordial
assurances of his resolution to adhere to her majesty's interests, and
to those of the Protestant religion. And it may not here be improper to
take notice of a wise and spiritual saying of this young prince (he was
twenty-two) to the queen's minister at his court, viz.--That all the
favour he did expect from the Spaniards was the courtesy of Polypheme to
Ulysses, _to be the last devoured_." The gazetteer of the present day
would hardly give a more decorous account of the introduction of a
foreign minister. The aptness of King James's classical saying carried
it from the newspaper into history. I must add, that in respect to his
_wit_ no man has been more injured than this monarch. More pointed
sentences are recorded of James I. than perhaps of any prince; and yet,
such is the delusion of that medium by which the popular eye sees things
in this world, that he is usually considered as a mere royal pedant. I
have entered more largely on this subject, in an "Inquiry of the
Literary and Political Character of James I."[51]
Periodical papers seem first to have been more generally used by the
English, during the civil wars of the usurper Cromwell, to disseminate
amongst the people the sentiments of loyalty or rebellion, according as
their authors were disposed. _Peter Heylin_, in the preface to his
_Cosmography_, mentions, that "the affairs of each town, of war, were
better presented to the reader in the _Weekly News-books_." Hence we
find some papers, entitled "News from Hull," "Truths from York,"
"Warranted Tidings from Ireland," &c. We find also, "The Scots' Dove"
opposed to "The Parliament Kite," or "The Secret Owl."--Keener
animosities produced keener titles: "Heraclitus ridens" found an
antagonist in "Democritus ridens," and "The Weekly Discoverer" was
shortly met by "The Discoverer stript naked." "Mercuriua Britannicus"
was grappled by "Mercurius Mastix, faithfully lashing all Scouts,
Mercuries, Posts, Spies, and others." Under all these names papers had
appeared, but a "Mercury" was the prevailing title of these
"News-books," and the principles of the writer were generally shown by
the additional epithet. We find an alarming number of these Mercuries,
which, were the story not too long to tell, might excite laughter; they
present us with a very curious picture of those singular times.
Devoted to political purposes, they soon became a public nuisance by
serving as receptacles of party malice, and echoing to the farthest ends
of the kingdom the insolent voice of all factions. They set the minds of
men more at variance, inflamed their tempers to a greater fierceness,
and gave a keener edge to the sharpness of civil discord.
Such works will always find adventurers adapted to their scurrilous
purposes, who neither want at times either talents, or boldness, or wit,
or argument. A vast crowd issued from the press, and are now to be found
in private collections. They form a race of authors unknown to most
readers of these times: the names of some of their chiefs, however, have
reached us, and in the minor chronicle of domestic literature I rank
three notable heroes; Marchmont Needham, Sir John Birkenhead, and Sir
Roger L'Estrange. |
