in the lottery of publication and was also a novelty in origin and
writing. It was written to a set of designs instead of the designs
being made to illustrate the poet: in other words, the artist preceded
the author by making a series of drawings, in which he exhibited his
hero in a succession of places, and in various associations, calculated
to exemplify his hobby-horsical search for the picturesque. Some of
these drawings, made by Rowlandson, than whom no artist ever expressed
so much with so little effort, were shown at a dinner-party at John
Bannister's, in Gower Street, when it was agreed that they should
be recommended to Ackermann, in the Strand, for publication. That
gentleman readily purchased, and handed them, two or three at a time,
to William Combe, who was then confined in the King's Bench Prison
for debt. He fitted the drawings with rhymes, and they were first
published in the _Poetical Magazine_, where they became so popular that
they extended to three tours in as many volumes, and passed through
several editions. The work reminds one of _Drunken Barnaby's Journal_
by its humour: it has been called "rhyming, rambling, rickety, and
ridiculous," but by a very inexperienced critic. The illustrations
were, doubtless, the attraction, which was so great, that the demand
kept pace with the supply. Hence _Syntax_ was succeeded by the _Dance
of Life_, the _Dance of Death_, _Johnny Quægenus_, and _Tom Raw the
Griffin_, all of the same class and character, and ultimately extending
to 295 prints, with versified letter-press "by Dr. Syntax." Of late
years these works have been republished at reduced prices.
Combe, the author of these strange works was of good family connection,
had been educated at Eton and Oxford, and very early came into
possession of a large fortune, in ready money. He started in the world
by taking a large mansion at the west end of London, furnished it
superbly hired servants, and bought carriages, and assembled around
him a set of sycophants and parasites, who made short work of it, for
from the commencement to the drop-scene of the farce did not exceed one
year. The consequence was disgraceful ruin, and Combe fled from his
creditors and from society. We next hear of him as a common soldier,
and recognized at a public-house with a volume of Greek poetry in his
hand. He was relieved; but he still lived a reckless life, by turns
in the King's Bench Prison and the Rules, the limits of which do not
appear to have been to him much punishment. Horace Smith, who knew
Combe, refers to the strange adventures and the freaks of fortune of
which he had been a participator and a victim: "a ready writer of
all-work for the booksellers, he passed all the latter portion of his
time within _the Rules_, to which suburban retreat the present writer
was occasionally invited, and never left without admiring his various
acquirements, and the philosophical equanimity with which he endured
his reverses." Mr. Smith further states, that if there was a lack of
matter occasionally to fill up the columns of their paper, "Combe would
sit down in the publisher's back-room and extemporize a letter from
Sterne at Coxwould, a forgery so well executed that it never excited
suspicion." Mr. Robert Cole, the antiquary, had among his autographs a
list of the literary works and letters of Combe.
Combe was principally employed by Ackermann, who, for several years,
paid him at least 400_l._ a-year. On the first lithograph stone which
Mr. Ackermann printed, when he had prepared everything for working,
Combe wrote:--
"I have been told of one
Who, being asked for bread,
In its stead
Return'd a stone.
"But here we manage better.
The stone we ask
To do its task,
And it returns in every letter."
"WILLIAM COMBE, _Jan. 23, 1817_."
Combe was often a guest at Ackermann's table; he proved a friend to
him during his last illness, and contributed to the expenses of his
funeral, tomb, &c. Subsequent to his death, in 1823, a small volume was
published, entitled _Letters to Marianne_, said to have been written
by him after the age of seventy, to a young girl. We remember to have
visited him in the Rules, near New Bethlem Hospital, when we learnt
that he had written a memoir of his chequered life. Campbell, in his
_Life of Mrs. Siddons_, states that Combe lived nearly twenty years in
the King's Bench, and never quitted that prison; which is not correct.
Combe had nearly been Mrs. Siddons's reading preceptor.
Rowlandson, who designed the Syntax illustrations, was as improvident
as Combe: he had a legacy of 7,000_l._, and other property, bequeathed
to him by an aunt: this he dissipated in the gaming-houses of Paris
and London, where he alternately won and lost without emotion several
thousand pounds. When penniless, he would return to his professional
duties, sit down coolly to make a series of new designs, and exclaim
stoically, "I've played the fool, but (holding up his pencils) here is
my resource." To Rowlandson, as well as Combe, Ackermann proved a warm
and generous patron and employer.
Dr. Doran, in his piquant Notes to the _Last Journals of Horace
Walpole_, tells us that "Combe burst on the world as a wonderfully
well-dressed _beau_, and was received with _éclat_ for the sake of his
wealth, talents, grace, and personal beauty. He was popularly called
'Count Combe,' till his extravagance had dissipated a noble fortune;
and then, addressing himself to literature, the Count was forgotten in
the Author. In the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for May, 1862, there is a
list of his works, originally furnished by his own hand. Not one was
published with his name, and they amount in number to sixty-eight.
Combe was a teetotaller in the days when drunkenness was in fashion,
and was remarkable for disinterestedness and industry. He was the
friend of Hannah More, whom he loved to make weep by improvised
romances, in which he could 'pile up the agony' with wonderful effect.
Religious faith and hope enabled William Combe to triumph over the
sufferings of his latter years. His second wife, the sister of the
gentle and gifted Mrs. Cosway, survived him."
Horace Walpole, 1779, speaking of the poem, _The World as it
Goes_, describes it as "by that infamous Combe, the author of the
_Diabolical_. It has many easy poetic lines, imitates Churchill, and
is fully as incoherent and absurd in its plan as the worst of the
latter's."
Again, in 1778, Walpole describes "Combe" as "a most infamous rascal,
who had married a cast mistress of Lord Beauchamp, and wrote many
satiric poems not quite despicable for the poetry, but brutally
virulent against that Lord, and others, particularly Lord Irnham." But,
as Dr. Doran aptly observes, "Walpole however fond of satire, hated
satirists, particularly when they were fearless and outspoken, like
Combe."
Mrs. Radcliffe and the Critics.
It is singular that although Mrs. Radcliffe's beautiful descriptions
of foreign scenery, composed solely from the materials afforded by
travellers, collected and embodied by her own genius, were marked in
a particular degree with the characteristics of fancy portraits, yet
many of her contemporaries conceived them to be exact descriptions of
scenes which she had visited in person. One report transmitted to the
public by the _Edinburgh Review_, stated that Mr. and Mrs. Radcliffe
had visited Italy; that Mr. Radcliffe had been attached to one of the
British embassies in that country; and that it was here his gifted
consort imbibed the taste for picturesque scenery, and for mouldering
ruins, and for the obscure and gloomy anecdotes which tradition
relates of their former inhabitants. This is so far a mistake, as
Mrs. Radcliffe never was in Italy; but it has been mentioned, in
explanation, that she probably availed herself of the acquaintance
she formed in 1793 with the magnificent scenery on the banks of the
Rhine, and the frowning remains of feudal castles with which it
abounds. The inaccuracy of the reviewer is of no great consequence;
but a more absurd report found its way into print, namely, that Mrs.
Radcliffe, having visited the fine old Gothic mansion of Haddon House,
had insisted upon remaining a night there, in the course of which she
had been inspired with all that enthusiasm for Gothic residences,
hidden passages, and mouldering walls, which marks her writings. Mrs.
Radcliffe, we are assured, never saw Haddon House; and although it
was a place excellently worth her attention, and could hardly have
been seen by her without suggesting some of those ideas in which her
imagination naturally revelled, yet we should suppose the mechanical
aid to invention--the recipe for fine writing--the sleeping in a
dismantled and unfurnished old house, was likely to be rewarded with
nothing but a cold, and was an affectation of enthusiasm to which Mrs.
Radcliffe would have disdained to have recourse.
These are the opinions of Sir Walter Scott; appended to them are these
somewhat depreciatory remarks made by Dunlop, in his _History of
Fiction_:--
"In the writings of Mrs. Radcliffe there is a considerable degree
of uniformity and mannerism, which is perhaps the case with all the
productions of a strong and original genius. Her heroines too nearly
resemble each other, or rather they possess hardly any shade of
difference. They have all blue eyes and auburn hair--the form of each
of them has 'the airy lightness of a nymph'--they are all fond of
watching the setting sun, and catching the purple tints of evening,
and the vivid glow or fading splendour of the western horizon.
Unfortunately they are all likewise early risers. I say unfortunately,
for in every exigency Mrs. Radcliffe's heroines are provided with
a pencil and paper, and the sun is never allowed to rise nor set
in peace. Like Tilburina in the play, they are 'inconsolable to the
minuet in Ariadne,' and in the most distressing circumstances find
time to compose sonnets to sunrise, the bat, a sea-nymph, a lily, or a
butterfly."
The tenor of Mrs. Radcliffe's private life seems to have been
peculiarly calm and sequestered. She probably declined the sort of
personal notoriety which, in London society, usually attaches to
persons of literary merit; and, perhaps, no author whose works were so
universally read and admired was so little personally known even to
the most active of that class of people of distinction, who rest their
peculiar pretensions to fashion upon the selection of literary society.
Her estate was certainly not the less gracious; and it did not disturb
Mrs. Radcliffe's domestic comforts, although many of her admirers
believed, and some are not yet undeceived, that, in consequence of
brooding over the terrors which she depicted, her reason had at length
been overturned, and that the author of _The Mysteries of Udolpho_ only
existed as the melancholy inmate of a private madhouse. This report was
so generally spread, and so confidently repeated in print, as well as
in conversation, that the writer believed it for several years, until,
greatly to his satisfaction, he learned, from good authority, that
there neither was, nor ever had been, the most distant foundation for
this unpleasing rumour.
A false report of another kind gave Mrs. Radcliffe much concern. In
Miss Seward's _Correspondence_, among the literary gossip of the day,
it is roundly stated that the _Plays upon the Passions_ were Mrs.
Radcliffe's, and that she owned them. Mrs. Radcliffe was much hurt at
being reported capable of borrowing from the fame of a gifted sister;
and Miss Seward would, no doubt, have suffered equally, had she been
aware of the pain she inflicted by giving currency to a rumour so
totally unfounded. The truth is, that residing at a distance from the
metropolis, and living upon literary intelligence as her daily food,
Miss Seward was sometimes imposed upon by those friendly caterers, who
were more anxious to supply her with the newest intelligence, than
solicitous about its accuracy.
Mrs. Radcliffe died at her residence in Stafford Row, Pimlico, on
the 7th of February, 1823; and her remains rest in the vault of the
Chapel-of-ease to St. George's parish, in the Bayswater Road, facing
Hyde Park.
Cool Sir James Mackintosh.
Mackintosh, a name dear to letters and philosophy, was no lawyer in
the narrow-minded sense of the word, and when appointed judge at
Bombay, was lamentably thrown away upon such society as he met there.
Accustomed to lead in the conversations of the conversation-men of
the metropolis--such as Sharp, Rogers, Dumont--he found himself
transplanted among those who afforded a sad and bitter contrast. It was
like Goëthe's oak-plant, with its giant fibres, compressed within the
dimensions of a flower-pot. On the third day after his arrival, most
forcibly was he reminded of the contrast, when one of the members of
the Council, the conversation turning upon quadrupeds, turned to him
and inquired what was a quadruped. It was the same sagacious Solomon
who asked him for the loan of some book, in which he could find a good
account of Julius Cæsar. Mackintosh jocosely took down a volume of Lord
Clarendon's _History of the Rebellion_, in which mention is made of a
Sir Julius Cæsar, Master of the Rolls in the time of Charles the First.
The wiseacre actually took the book home with him, and after some
days brought it back to Sir James, remarking that he was disappointed
on finding that the book referred to Julius Cæsar only as a lawyer,
without the slightest mention of his military exploits.
Sir James was subject to certain Parson Adams-like habits of
forgetfulness of common things and lesser proprieties; and this brought
down upon him no slight share of taunt and ridicule. It happened, on
his arrival at Bombay, that there was no house ready for his reception,
and it would be a fortnight before a residence in the fort could be
prepared for him. Mr. Jonathan Duncan, the Governor of the Presidency,
therefore, with great kindness, offered him his garden-house, called
_Sans Pareil_, for the temporary accommodation of Sir James and
his family. But months and months elapsed, till a twelvemonth had
actually revolved; Mackintosh and his wife, during all this time,
found themselves so comfortable in their quarters, that they forgot
completely the limited tenure on which they held them, appearing by a
singular illusion, not to have the slightest suspicion of Mr. Duncan's
proprietorship, notwithstanding some pretty intelligible hints on the
subject from that gentleman, but communicated with his usual delicacy
and politeness. At last, politeness and delicacy were out of the
question, and the poor Governor was driven to the necessity of taking
forcible possession of his own property. This was partly indolence,
partly absence of mind in Sir James. He was constitutionally averse to
every sort of exertion, and especially that of quitting any place where
he found himself comfortable.
Before he went out to India, he made a trip into Scotland with his
lady; and having taken up his abode for the night at an inn in
Perthshire, not far from the beautiful park of Lord Melville (then Mr.
Dundas) sent a request to Lady Jane Dundas (Mr. Dundas being absent)
for permission to see the house and grounds, which was most civilly
granted. Mr. Dundas being expected in the evening, her ladyship
politely pressed them to stay for dinner, and to pass the night, their
accommodation at the inn, not being of the best description. Mr. Dundas
returned the same day, and though their politics were as adverse as
possible, was so charmed with the variety of Mackintosh's conversation,
that he requested his guests to prolong their visit for two or three
days. So liberal, however, was the interpretation they put upon the
invitation, that the two or three days were protracted into as many
months, during which, every species of hint was most ineffectually
given, till their hosts told them, with many polite apologies, that
they expected visitors and a numerous retinue, and could no longer
accommodate Mr. and Mrs. Mackintosh.
During Sir James Mackintosh's Recordership of Bombay, a singular
incident occurred. Two Dutchmen having sued for debt two English
officers, Lieutenants Macguire and Cauty, these officers resolved to
waylay and assault them. This was rather a resolve made in a drunken
excitement than a deliberate purpose. Fortunately, the Dutchmen
pursued a different route from that which they had intended, and
they prosecuted the two officers for the offence of lying-in-wait
with intent to murder. They were found guilty, and brought up for
judgment. Previous to his pronouncing judgment, however, Sir James
received an intimation that the prisoners had conceived the project
of shooting him as he sat on the bench, and that one of them had for
that purpose a loaded pistol in his writing-desk. It is remarkable
that the intimation did not induce him to take some precautions to
prevent its execution--at any rate, not to expose himself needlessly
to assassination. On the contrary, the circumstances only suggested
the following remarks:--"I have been credibly informed that you
entertained the desperate project of destroying your own lives at that
bar, after having previously destroyed the judge who now addresses
you. If that murderous project had been executed, I should have been
the first British judge who ever stained with his blood the seat of
justice. But I can never die better than in the discharge of my duty."
All this eloquence might have been spared. Macguire submitted to the
judge's inspection of his writing-desk, and showed him that, though it
contained two pistols, neither of them was charged. It is supposed to
have been a hoax--a highly mischievous one, indeed--but the statement
was _primâ facie_ so improbable, that it was absurd to give it the
slightest credit.
[Illustration: "Peter Porcupine." W. Cobbett.]
Eccentricities of Cobbett.
Cobbett began his career a political writer of ultra-Conservative
stamp. He first became known to the public as "Peter Porcupine,"
under which name he fiercely attacked the democratic writers and
speakers of France and America. He was then resident in America,
and encountered one or two trials at law for alleged libels, in his
defence of monarchical and aristocratic institutions. The _Porcupine
Papers_ attracted much notice in England, were quoted and lauded by the
government organs--quoted in both Houses of Parliament, and eulogized
in the pulpit. The writer was considered one of the most powerful
supports of the principles of the British constitution. This series of
papers was republished in England, in twelve volumes octavo, under the
patronage of the Prince Regent, to whom, it is believed, the work was
dedicated.
On his return from America, Cobbett began a daily paper called the
_Porcupine_. This was soon discontinued, and he began the _Register_.
Both these papers were strongly in favour of the government; and the
_Register_ ran through several volumes before a change took place in
the political opinions of the editor--a change hastened, if not caused,
by an affront offered him by William Pitt. Windham was a great admirer
of Cobbett, and after reading one of his Porcupine papers, declared
that the author was "worthy of a statue in gold." Pitt had refused to
meet the author of the _Register_ at Windham's table; and this Cobbett
resented, and never forgave. Very soon after this, a marked change took
place in his politics; henceforth he was more consistent, and the last
_Register_ which came from his pen, very shortly before his death,
breathed the same spirit which he had shown years before as one of the
leaders of the democratic party.
One of Cobbett's oddities was the wood-cut of a gridiron which for many
years headed the _Political Register_, as an emblem of the martyrdom
which he avowed he was prepared to undergo, upon certain conditions.
The gridiron will be recollected as one of the emblems of St. Lawrence,
and we see it as the large gilt vane of one of the City churches
dedicated to the saint.
As he was broiled on a gridiron for refusing to give up the treasures
of the church committed to his care, so Cobbett vowed that he would
consent to be broiled upon certain terms, in his _Register_, dated
Long Island, on the 24th of September, 1819, wherein he wrote the
well-known prophecy on Peel's Cash Payments Bill of that year as
follows:--"I, William Cobbett, assert that to carry their bill into
effect is impossible; and I say that if this bill be carried into full
effect, I will give Castlereagh leave to lay me on a gridiron, and
broil me alive, while Sidmouth may stir the coals, and Canning stand by
and laugh at my groans."
On the hoisting of the gridiron _on the Register_, he wrote
and published the fulfilment of his prophecy in the following
statement:--"Peel's bill, together with the laws about small notes,
which last were in force when Peel's bill was passed; these laws all
taken together, if they had gone into effect, would have put an end
to all small notes on the first day of May, 1823; but to precede this
blowing-up of the whole of the funding system, an act was passed, in
the month of July, 1822, to prevent these laws, and especially that
part of Peel's bill which put an end to small Bank of England notes,
from going into full effect; thus the system received a respite; but
thus did the parliament fulfil the above prophecy of September, 1819."
A large sign-gridiron was actually made for Mr. Cobbett. It was of
dimensions sufficient for him to have lain thereon (he was six feet
high); the implement was gilt, and we remember to have seen it in his
office-window, in Fleet Street; but it was never hoisted outside the
office. It was long to be seen on the gable-end of a building next Mr.
Cobbett's house at Kensington.
Cobbett possessed extraordinary native vigour of mind; but every
portion of his history is marked by strange blunders. Shakspeare, the
British Museum, antiquities, posterity, America, France, Germany,
are, one and all, either wholly indifferent to him, or objects of
his bitter contempt. He absurdly condemned the British Museum as "a
bundle of dead insects;" abused drinking "the immortal memory" as a
contradiction of terms; and stigmatized "consuming the midnight oil"
as cant and humbug. His political nicknames were very ludicrous: as
big O for O'Connell; Prosperity Robinson for a flaming Chancellor of
the Exchequer; and shoy-hoy for all degrees of quacks and pretenders.
Still, his own gridiron was a monstrous piece of quackery, as audacious
as any charlatan ever set up.
When he had a subject that suited him, he is said to have handled it
not as an accomplished writer, but "with the perfect and inimitable art
with which a dog picks a bone." Still, his own work would not bear this
sort of handling--witness the biting critique upon his English grammar,
which provoked the remark that he would undertake to write a Chinese
grammar.
In country or in town, at Barn Elms, in Bolt Court or at Kensington,
Cobbett wrote his _Registers_ early in the morning: these, it must
be admitted, had force enough; for he said truly, "Though I never
attempt to put forth that sort of stuff which the intense people on
the other side of the Channel call _eloquence_, I bring out strings of
very interesting facts; I use pretty powerful arguments; and I hammer
them down so closely upon the mind, that they seldom fail to produce a
lasting impression." This he owed, doubtless, to his industry, early
rising, and methodical habits.
Cobbett affected to despise all acquirements which he had not. In his
_English Grammar_ he selects examples of bad English from the writings
of Dr. Johnson and Dr. Watts, and is very contemptuous on "what are
called the learned languages;" but he would not have entered upon Latin
or Greek.
It seemed to be Cobbett's aim to keep himself fresh in the public eye
by some means of advertisement or other; a few were very reprehensible,
but none more than his disinterring the bones of Thomas Paine, buried
in a field on his own estate near New Rochelle, and bringing these
bones to England, where, Cobbett calculated, pieces of them would be
worn as memorials of the gross scoffer. Cobbett, however, never more
widely mistook English feeling: instead of arousing, as he expected,
the enthusiasm of the republican party in this country, he only drew
upon himself universal contempt.
Heber, the Book-Collector.