This is one of the groans of old BURTON over his laborious work, when
he is anticipating the reception it is like to meet with, and
personates his objectors. He says:--
"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."
There is, indeed, a class of authors who are liable to forfeit all
claims to genius, whatever their genius may be--these are the
laborious writers of voluminous works; but they are farther subject
to heavier grievances--to be undervalued or neglected by the apathy or
the ingratitude of the public.
Industry is often conceived to betray the absence of intellectual
exertion, and the magnitude of a work is imagined necessarily to shut
out all genius. Yet a laborious work has often had an original growth
and raciness in it, requiring a genius whose peculiar feeling, like
invisible vitality, is spread through the mighty body. Feeble
imitations of such laborious works have proved the master's mind that
is in the original. There is a talent in industry which every
industrious man does not possess; and even taste and imagination may
lead to the deepest studies of antiquities, as well as mere
undiscerning curiosity and plodding dulness.
But there are other more striking characteristics of intellectual
feeling in authors of this class. The fortitude of mind which
enables them to complete labours of which, in many instances, they
are conscious that the real value will only be appreciated by
dispassionate posterity, themselves rarely living to witness the fame
of their own work established, while they endure the captiousness
of malicious cavillers. It is said that the Optics of NEWTON had
no character or credit here till noticed in France. It would not be
the only instance of an author writing above his own age, and
anticipating its more advanced genius. How many works of erudition
might be adduced to show their author's disappointments! PRIDEAUX'S
learned work of the "Connexion of the Old and New Testament," and
SHUCKFORD'S similar one, were both a long while before they could
obtain a publisher, and much longer before they found readers. It is
said Sir WALTER RALEIGH burned the second volume of his History, from
the ill success the first had met with. PRINCE'S "Worthies of
Devon" was so unfavourably received by the public, that the
laborious and patriotic author was so discouraged as not to print the
second volume, which is said to have been prepared for the press.
FARNEWORTH'S elaborate Translation, with notes and dissertations,
of Machiavel's works, was hawked about the town; and the poor
author discovered that he understood Machiavel better than the
public. After other labours of this kind, he left his family in
distressed circumstances. Observe, this excellent book now bears a
high price! The fate of the "Biographia Britannica," in its first
edition, must be noticed: the spirit and acuteness of CAMPBELL,
the curious industry of OLDYS, and the united labours of very able
writers, could not secure public favour; this treasure of our
literary history was on the point of being suspended, when a poem by
Gilbert West drew the public attention to that elaborate work,
which, however, still languished, and was hastily concluded. GRANGER
says of his admirable work, in one of his letters--"On a fair state
of my account, it would appear that my labours in the improvement
of my work do not amount to _half the pay of a scavenger_!" He
received only one hundred pounds to the times of Charles I., and
the rest to depend on public favour for the continuation. The sale
was sluggish; even Walpole seemed doubtful of its success, though he
probably secretly envied the skill of our portrait-painter. It was
too philosophical for the mere collector, and it took near ten years
before it reached the hands of philosophers; the author derived
little profit, and never lived to see its popularity established!
We have had many highly valuable works suspended for their want of
public patronage, to the utter disappointment, and sometimes the
ruin of their authors; such are OLDYS'S "British Librarian," MORGAN'S
"Phoenix Britannicus," Dr. BERKENHOUT'S "Biographia Literaria,"
Professor MARTYN'S and Dr. LETTICE'S "Antiquities of Herculaneum:"
all these are _first_ volumes, there are no _seconds_! They are
now rare, curious, and high priced! Ungrateful public! Unhappy
authors!
That noble enthusiasm which so strongly characterises genius, in
productions whose originality is of a less ambiguous nature, has been
experienced by some of these laborious authors, who have sacrificed
their lives and fortunes to their beloved studies. The enthusiasm of
literature has often been that of heroism, and many have not shrunk
from the forlorn hope.
RUSHWORTH and RYMER, to whose collections our history stands so deeply
indebted, must have strongly felt this literary ardour, for they
passed their lives in forming them; till Rymer, in the utmost
distress, was obliged to sell his books and his fifty volumes of MS.
which he could not get printed; and Rushworth died in the King's Bench
of a broken heart. Many of his papers still remain unpublished. His
ruling passion was amassing state matters, and he voluntarily
neglected great opportunities of acquiring a large fortune for this
entire devotion of his life. The same fate has awaited the similar
labours of many authors to whom the history of our country lies under
deep obligations. ARTHUR COLLINS, the historiographer of our Peerage,
and the curious collector of the valuable "Sydney Papers," and other
collections, passed his life in reselling these works of antiquity, in
giving authenticity to our history, or contributing fresh materials to
it; but his midnight vigils were cheered by no patronage, nor his
labours valued, till the eye that pored on the mutilated MS. was for
ever closed. Of all those curious works of the late Mr. STRUTT, which
are now bearing such high prices, all were produced by extensive
reading, and illustrated by his own drawings, from the manuscripts of
different epochs in our history. What was the result to that ingenious
artist and author, who, under the plain simplicity of an antiquary,
concealed a fine poetical mind, and an enthusiasm for his beloved
pursuits to which only we are indebted for them? Strutt, living in the
greatest obscurity, and voluntarily sacrificing all the ordinary views
of life, and the trade of his _burin_, solely attached to national
antiquities, and charmed by calling them into a fresh existence under
his pencil, I have witnessed at the British Museum, forgetting for
whole days his miseries, in sedulous research and delightful labour;
at times even doubtful whether he could get his works printed; for
some of which he was not regaled even with the Roman supper of "a
radish and an egg." How he left his domestic affairs, his son can
tell; how his works have tripled their value, the booksellers. In
writing on the calamities attending the love of literary labour, Mr.
JOHN NICHOLS, the modest annalist of the literary history of the last
century, and the friend of half the departed genius of our country,
cannot but occur to me. He zealously published more than fifty works,
illustrating the literature and the antiquities of the country;
labours not given to the world without great sacrifices. Bishop Hurd,
with friendly solicitude, writes to Mr. Nichols on some of his own
publications, "While you are enriching the Antiquarian world" (and, by
the Life of Bowyer, may be added the Literary), "I hope you do not
forget yourself. _The profession of an author, I know from experience,
is not a lucrative one._--I only mention this because I see a large
catalogue of your publications." At another time the Bishop writes,
"You are very good to excuse my freedom with you; but, as times go,
almost any trade is better than that of an author," &c. On these notes
Mr. Nichols confesses, "I have had some occasion to regret that I did
not attend to the judicious suggestions." We owe to the late THOMAS
DAVIES, the author of "Garrick's Life," and other literary works,
beautiful editions of some of our elder poets, which are now eagerly
sought after, yet, though all his publications were of the best kinds,
and are now of increasing value, the taste of Tom Davies twice ended
in bankruptcy. It is to be lamented for the cause of literature, that
even a bookseller may have too refined a taste for his trade; it must
always be his interest to float on the current of public taste,
whatever that may be; should he have an ambition to _create_ it, he
will be anticipating a more cultivated curiosity by half a century;
thus the business of a bookseller rarely accords with the design of
advancing our literature.
The works of literature, it is then but too evident, receive no
equivalent; let this be recollected by him who would draw his
existence from them. A young writer often resembles that imaginary
author whom Johnson, in a humorous letter in "The Idler" (No. 55),
represents as having composed a work "of universal curiosity, computed
that it would call for many editions of his book, and that in five
years he should gain fifteen thousand pounds by the sale of thirty
thousand copies." There are, indeed, some who have been dazzled by the
good fortune of GIBBON, ROBERTSON, and HUME; we are to consider these
favourites, not merely as authors, but as possessing, by their
situation in life, a certain independence which preserved them from
the vexations of the authors I have noticed. Observe, however, that
the uncommon sum Gibbon received for copyright, though it excited the
astonishment of the philosopher himself, was for the continued labour
of a _whole life_, and probably the _library_ he had purchased for his
work equalled at least in cost the produce of his _pen_; the tools
cost the workman as much as he obtained for his work. Six thousand
pounds gained on these terms will keep an author indigent.
Many great labours have been designed by their authors even to be
posthumous, prompted only by their love of study and a patriotic
zeal. Bishop KENNETT'S stupendous "Register and Chronicle," volume I.,
is one of those astonishing labours which could only have been
produced by the pleasure of study urged by the strong love of
posterity.[66] It is a diary in which the bishop, one of our most
studious and active authors, has recorded every matter of fact,
"delivered in the words of the most authentic books, papers, and
records." The design was to preserve our literary history from the
Restoration. This silent labour he had been pursuing all his life,
and published the first volume in his sixty-eighth year, the very
year he died. But he was so sensible of the coyness of the public
taste for what he calls, in a letter to a literary friend, "a tedious
heavy book," that he gave it away to the publisher. "The volume,
too large, brings me no profit. In good truth, the scheme was laid
for conscience' sake, to restore a good old principle that history
should be purely matter of fact, that every reader, by examining and
comparing, may make out a history by his own judgment. I have
collections transcribed for another volume, if the bookseller will
run the hazard of printing." This volume has never appeared, and the
bookseller probably lost a considerable sum by the one published,
which valuable volume is now procured with difficulty.[67]
These laborious authors have commenced their literary life with a
glowing ardour, though the feelings of genius have been obstructed by
those numerous causes which occur too frequently in the life of a
literary man.
Let us listen to STRUTT, whom we have just noticed, and let us learn
what he proposed doing in the first age of fancy.
Having obtained the first gold medal ever given at the Royal Academy,
he writes to his mother, and thus thanks her and his friends for their
deep interest in his success:--
"I will at least strive to the utmost to give my benefactors no reason
to think their pains thrown away. If I should not be able to abound
in riches, yet, by God's help, I will strive to pluck that palm which
the greatest artists of foregoing ages have done before me; _I will
strive to leave my name behind me in the world, if not in the
splendour that some have, at least with +some marks+ of assiduity and
study_; which, I can assure you, shall never be wanting in me. Who can
bear to hear the names of Raphael, Titian, Michael Angelo, &c., the
most famous of the Italian masters, in the mouth of every one, and not
wish to be like them? And to be like them, we must study as they have
done, take such pains, and labour continually like them; the which
shall not be wanting on my side, I dare affirm; so that, should I not
succeed, I may rest contented, and say I have done my utmost. God has
blessed me with a mind to undertake. You, dear madam, will excuse my
vanity; you know me, from my childish days, to have been a vain boy,
always desirous to execute something to gain me praises from every
one; always scheming and imitating whatever I saw done by anybody."
And when Strutt settled in the metropolis, and studied at the British
Museum, amid all the stores of knowledge and art, his imagination
delighted to expatiate in its future prospects. In a letter to a
friend he has thus chronicled his feelings:
"I would not only be a great antiquary, but a refined thinker; I would
not only discover antiquities, but would, by explaining their use,
render them useful. Such vast funds of knowledge lie hid in the
antiquated remains of the earlier ages; these I would bring forth, and
set in their true light."
Poor Strutt, at the close of life, was returning to his own first and
natural energies, in producing a work of the imagination. He had made
considerable progress in one, and the early parts which he had
finished bear the stamp of genius; it is entitled "Queenhoo-hall, a
Romance of ancient times," full of the picturesque manners, and
costume, and characters of the age, in which he was so conversant;
with many lyrical pieces, which often are full of poetic feeling--but
he was called off from the work to prepare a more laborious one.
"Queenhoo-hall" remained a heap of fragments at his death; except the
first volume, and was filled up by a stranger hand. The stranger was
Sir Walter Scott, and "Queenhoo-hall" was the origin of that glorious
series of romances where antiquarianism has taken the shape of
imagination.
Writing on the calamities attached to literature, I must notice one of
a more recondite nature, yet perhaps few literary agonies are more
keenly felt. I would not excite an undue sympathy for a class of
writers who are usually considered as drudges; but the present case
claims our sympathy.
There are men of letters, who, early in life, have formed some
favourite plan of literary labour, which they have unremittingly
pursued, till, sometimes near the close of life, they either discover
their inability to terminate it, or begin to depreciate their own
constant labour. The literary architect has grown gray over his
edifice; and, as if the black wand of enchantment had waved over it,
the colonnades become interminable, the pillars seem to want a
foundation, and all the rich materials he had collected together, lie
before him in all the disorder of ruins. It may be urged that the
reward of literary labour, like the consolations of virtue, must be
drawn with all their sweetness from itself; or, that if the author be
incompetent, he must pay the price of his incapacity. This may be
Stoicism, but it is not humanity. The truth is, there is always a
latent love of fame, that prompts to this strong devotion of labour;
and he who has given a long life to that which he has so much desired,
and can never enjoy, might well be excused receiving our insults, if
he cannot extort our pity.
A remarkable instance occurs in the fate of the late Rev. WILLIAM
COLE;[68] he was the college friend of Walpole, Mason, and Gray; a
striking proof how dissimilar habits and opposite tastes and feelings
can associate in literary friendship; for Cole, indeed, the public had
informed him that his friends were poets and men of wit; and for them,
Cole's patient and curious turn was useful, and, by its extravagant
trifling, must have been very amusing. He had a gossip's ear, and a
tatler's pen--and, among better things, wrote down every grain of
literary scandal his insatiable and minute curiosity could lick up; as
patient and voracious as an ant-eater, he stretched out his tongue
till it was covered by the tiny creatures, and drew them all in at one
digestion. All these tales were registered with the utmost simplicity,
as the reporter received them; but, being but tales, the exactness of
his truth made them still more dangerous lies, by being perpetuated;
in his reflections he spared neither friend nor foe; yet, still
anxious after truth, and usually telling lies, it is very amusing to
observe, that, as he proceeds, he very laudably contradicts, or
explains away in subsequent memoranda what he had before registered.
Walpole, in a correspondence of forty years, he was perpetually
flattering, though he must imperfectly have relished his fine taste,
while he abhorred his more liberal principles, to which sometimes he
addressed a submissive remonstrance. He has at times written a letter
coolly, and, at the same moment, chronicled his suppressed feelings in
his diary, with all the flame and sputter of his strong prejudices. He
was expressly nicknamed Cardinal Cole. These scandalous chronicles,
which only show the violence of his prejudices, without the force of
genius, or the acuteness of penetration, were ordered not to be opened
till twenty years after his decease; he wished to do as little
mischief as he could, but loved to do some. I well remember the cruel
anxiety which prevailed in the nineteenth year of these inclosures; it
spoiled the digestions of several of our literati who had had the
misfortune of Cole's intimate friendship, or enmity. One of these was
the writer of the Life of Thomas Baker, the Cambridge Antiquary, who
prognosticated all the evil he among others was to endure; and,
writhing in fancy under the whip not yet untwisted, justly enough
exclaims in his agony, "The attempt to keep these characters from the
public till the subjects of them shall be no more, seems to be
peculiarly cruel and ungenerous, since it is precluding them from
vindicating themselves from such injurious aspersions, as their
friends, perhaps however willing, may at that distance of time be
incapable of removing." With this author, Mr. Masters, Cole had
quarrelled so often, that Masters writes, "I am well acquainted with
the fickleness of his disposition for more than forty years past."
When the lid was removed from this Pandora's box, it happened that
some of his intimate friends were alive to perceive in what strange
figures they were exhibited by their quondam admirer!
COLE, however, bequeathed to the nation, among his unpublished works,
a vast mass of antiquities and historical collections, and one
valuable legacy of literary materials. When I turned over the papers
of this literary antiquary, I found the recorded cries of a literary
martyr.
COLE had passed a long life in the pertinacious labour of forming an
"Athenae Cantabrigienses," and other literary collections--designed as
a companion to the work of Anthony Wood. These mighty labours exist in
more than fifty folio volumes in his own writing. He began these
collections about the year 1745; in a fly-leaf of 1777 I found the
following melancholy state of his feelings and a literary confession,
as forcibly expressed as it is painful to read, when we consider that
they are the wailings of a most zealous votary:
"In good truth, whoever undertakes this drudgery of an 'Athenae
Cantabrigienses' must be contented with no prospect of credit and
reputation to himself, and with the mortifying reflection that after
all his pains and study, through life, he must be looked upon in a
humble light, and only as a journeyman to Anthony Wood, whose
excellent book of the same sort will ever preclude any other, who
shall follow him in the same track, from all hopes of fame; and will
only represent him as an imitator of so original a pattern. For, at
this time of day, all great characters, both Cantabrigians and
Oxonians, are already published to the world, either in his book, or
various others; so that the collection, unless the same characters are
reprinted here, must be made up of second-rate persons, and the refuse
of authorship.--However, as I have begun, and made so large a progress
in this undertaking, _it is death to think of leaving it off_, though,
from the former considerations, so little credit is to be expected
from it."
Such were the fruits, and such the agonies, of nearly half a century
of assiduous and zealous literary labour! Cole urges a strong claim to
be noticed among our literary calamities. Another of his miseries was
his uncertainty in what manner he should dispose of his collections:
and he has put down this _naive_ memorandum--"I have long wavered how
to dispose of all my MS. volumes; to give them to _King's College_,
would be to throw them into a _horsepond_; and I had as lieve do one
as the other; they are generally so _conceited of their Latin and
Greek, that all other studies are barbarism_."[69]
The dread of incompleteness has attended the life-labours (if the
expression may be allowed) of several other authors who have never
published their works. Such was the learned Bishop LLOYD, and the Rev.
THOMAS BAKER, who was first engaged in the same pursuit as Cole, and
carried it on to the extent of about forty volumes in folio. Lloyd is
described by Burnet as having "many volumes of materials upon all
subjects, so that he could, with very little labour, write on any of
them, with more life in his imagination, and a truer judgment, than
may seem consistent with such a laborious course of study; but he did
not lay out his learning with the same diligence as he laid it in." It
is mortifying to learn, in the words of Johnson, that "he was always
hesitating and inquiring, raising objections, and removing them, and
waiting for clearer light and fuller discovery." Many of the labours
of this learned bishop were at length consumed in the kitchen of his
descendant. "Baker (says Johnson), after many years passed in
biography, left his manuscripts to be buried in a library, because
that was imperfect which could never be perfected." And to complete
the absurdity, or to heighten the calamity which the want of these
useful labours makes every literary man feel, half of the collections
of Baker sleep in their dust in a turret of the University; while the
other, deposited in our national library at the British Museum, and
frequently used, are rendered imperfect by this unnatural divorce.
I will illustrate the character of a laborious author by that of
ANTHONY WOOD.
WOOD'S "Athenae Oxonienses" is a history of near a thousand of our
native authors; he paints their characters, and enters into the spirit
of their writings. But authors of this complexion, and works of this
nature, are liable to be slighted; for the fastidious are petulant,
the volatile inexperienced, and those who cultivate a single province
in literature are disposed, too often, to lay all others under a state
of interdiction.
WARBURTON, in a work thrown out in the heat of unchastised youth, and
afterwards withdrawn from public inquiry, has said of the "Athenae
Oxonienses"--
"Of all those writings given us by the learned Oxford antiquary, there
is not one that is not a disgrace to letters; most of them are so to
common sense, and some even to human nature. Yet how set out! how
tricked! how adorned! how extolled!"[70]
The whole tenor of Wood's life testifies, as he himself tells us,
that "books and MSS. formed his Elysium, and he wished to be dead to
the world." This sovereign passion marked him early in life, and the
image of death could not disturb it. When young, "he walked mostly
alone, was given much to thinking and melancholy." The _deliciae_ of
his life were the more liberal studies of painting and music,
intermixed with those of antiquity; nor could his family; who
checked such unproductive studies, ever check his love of them. With
what a firm and noble spirit he says--
"When he came to full years, he perceived it was his natural genie,
and he could not avoid them--they crowded on him--he could never give
a reason why he should delight in those studies, more than in others,
so prevalent was nature, mixed with a generosity of mind, and a hatred
to all that was servile, sneaking, or advantageous for lucre-sake."
These are not the roundings of a period, but the pure expressions
of a man who had all the simplicity of childhood in his feelings.
Could such vehement emotions have been excited in the unanimated
breast of a clod of literature? Thus early Anthony Wood betrayed the
characteristics of genius; nor did the literary passion desert him
in his last moments. With his dying hands he still grasped his
beloved papers, and his last mortal thoughts dwelt on his _Athenae
Oxonienses_.[71]
It is no common occurrence to view an author speechless in the hour of
death, yet fervently occupied by his posthumous fame. Two friends went
into his study to sort that vast multitude of papers, notes,
letters--his more private ones he had ordered not to be opened for
seven years; about two bushels full were ordered for the fire, which
they had lighted for the occasion. "As he was expiring, he expressed
both his knowledge and approbation of what was done by throwing out
his hands."
Turn over his Herculean labour; do not admire less his fearlessness of
danger, than his indefatigable pursuit of truth. He wrote of his
contemporaries as if he felt a right to judge of them, and as if he
were living in the succeeding age; courtier, fanatic, or papist, were
much alike to honest Anthony; for he professes himself "such an
universal lover of all mankind, that he wished there might be no cheat
put upon readers and writers in the business of commendations. And
(says he) since every one will have a double balance, one for his own
party, and another for his adversary, all he could do is to amass
together what every side thinks will make best weight for themselves.
Let posterity hold the scales."
Anthony might have added, "I have held them." This uninterrupted
activity of his spirits was the action of a sage, not the bustle of
one intent merely on heaping up a book.
"He never wrote in post, with his body and thoughts in a hurry, but in
a fixed abode, and with a deliberate pen. And he never concealed an
ungrateful truth, nor flourished over a weak place, but in sincerity
of meaning and expression."
Anthony Wood cloistered an athletic mind, a hermit critic abstracted from
the world, existing more with posterity than amid his contemporaries. His
prejudices were the keener from the very energies of the mind that
produced them; but, as he practises no deception on his reader, we know
the causes of his anger or his love. And, as an original thinker creates
a style for himself, from the circumstance of not attending to style at
all, but to feeling, so Anthony Wood's has all the peculiarity of the
writer. Critics of short views have attempted to screen it from ridicule,
attributing his uncouth style to the age he lived in. But not one in his
own time nor since, has composed in the same style. The austerity and
the quickness of his feelings vigorously stamped all their roughness and
vivacity on every sentence. He describes his own style as "an honest,
plain English dress, without flourishes or affectation of style, as best
becomes a history of truth and matters of fact. It is the first (work)
of its nature that has ever been printed in our own, or in any other
mother-tongue."
It is, indeed, an honest Montaigne-like simplicity. Acrimonious and
cynical, he is always sincere, and never dull. Old Anthony to me is an
admirable character-painter, for anger and love are often picturesque.
And among our literary historians he might be compared, for the effect
he produces, to Albert Durer, whose kind of antique rudeness has a
sharp outline, neither beautiful nor flowing; and, without a genius
for the magic of light and shade, he is too close a copier of Nature
to affect us by ideal forms.
The independence of his mind nerved his ample volumes, his fortitude
he displayed in the contest with the University itself, and his
firmness in censuring Lord Clarendon, the head of his own party. Could
such a work, and such an original manner, have proceeded from an
ordinary intellect? Wit may sparkle, and sarcasm may bite; but the
cause of literature is injured when the industry of such a mind is
ranked with that of "the hewers of wood, and drawers of water:"
ponderous compilers of creeping commentators. Such a work as the
"Athenae Oxonienses" involved in its pursuits some of the higher
qualities of the intellect; a voluntary devotion of life, a sacrifice
of personal enjoyments, a noble design combining many views, some
present and some prescient, a clear vigorous spirit equally diffused
over a vast surface. But it is the hard fate of authors of this class
to be levelled with their inferiors!
Let us exhibit one more picture of the calamities of a laborious
author, in the character of JOSHUA BARNES, editor of Homer, Euripides,
and Anacreon, and the writer of a vast number of miscellaneous
compositions in history and poetry. Besides the works he published, he
left behind him nearly fifty unfinished ones; many were epic poems,
all intended to be in twelve books, and some had reached their eighth!
His folio volume of "The History of Edward III." is a labour of
valuable research. He wrote with equal facility in Greek, Latin, and
his own language, and he wrote all his days; and, in a word, having
little or nothing but his Greek professorship, not exceeding forty
pounds a year, Barnes, who had a great memory, a little imagination,
and no judgment, saw the close of a life, devoted to the studies of
humanity, settle around him in gloom and despair. The great idol of
his mind was the edition of his Homer, which seems to have completed
his ruin; he was haunted all his days with a notion that he was
persecuted by envy, and much undervalued in the world; the sad
consolation of the secondary and third-rate authors, who often die
persuaded of the existence of ideal enemies. To be enabled to publish
his Homer at an enormous charge, he wrote a poem, the design of which
is to prove that Solomon was the author of the Iliad; and it has been
said that this was done to interest his wife, who had some property,
to lend her aid towards the publication of so divine a work. This
happy pun was applied for his epitaph:--
JOSHUA BARNES,
Felicis memoriae, judicium expectans.
_Here lieth_
JOSHUA BARNES,
Of happy memory, awaiting judgment!
The year before he died he addressed the following letter to the Earl
of Oxford, which I transcribe from the original. It is curious to
observe how the veteran and unhappy scribbler, after his vows of
retirement from the world of letters, thoroughly disgusted with "all
human learning," gently hints to his patron, that he has ready for the
press, a singular variety of contrasted works; yet even then he did
not venture to disclose one-tenth part of his concealed treasures!
"TO THE EARL OF OXFORD.
_Oct. 16, 1711._
"MY HON. LORD,
"This, not in any doubt of your goodness and high respect to
learning, for I have fresh instances of it every day; but because
I am prevented in my design of waiting personally on you, being
called away by my business for Cambridge, to read Greek lectures
this term; and my circumstances are pressing, being, through the
combination of booksellers, and the meaner arts of others, too
much prejudiced in the sale. I am not neither sufficiently
ascertained whether my Homer and letters came to your honour;
surely the vast charges of that edition has almost broke my
courage, there being much more trouble in putting off the
impression, and contending with a subtle and unkind world, than
in all the study and management of the press.
"Others, my lord, are younger, and their hopes and helps are
fresher; I have done as much in the way of learning as any man
living, but have received less encouragement than any, having
nothing but my Greek professorship, which is but forty pounds per
annum, that I can call my own, and more than half of that is taken
up by my expenses of lodging and diet in terme time at Cambridge.
"I was obliged to take up three hundred and fifty pounds on
interest towards this last work, whereof I still owe two hundred
pounds, and two hundred more for the printing; the whole expense
arising to about one thousand pounds. I have lived in the
university above thirty years, fellow of a college now above forty
years' standing, and fifty-eight years of age; am bachelor of
divinity, and have preached before kings; but am now your honour's
suppliant, and would fain retire from the study of humane
learning, which has been so little beneficial to me, if I might
have a little prebend, or sufficient anchor to lay hold on; only I
have two or three matters ready for the press--an ecclesiastical
history, Latin; an heroic poem of the Black Prince, Latin; another
of Queen Anne, English, finished; a treatise of Columnes, Latin;
and an accurate treatise about Homer, Greek, Latin, &c. I would
fain be permitted the honour to make use of your name in some one,
or most of these, and to be, &c.,
"JOSHUA BARNES."[72]
He died nine months afterwards. Homer did not improve in sale; and the
sweets of patronage were not even tasted. This, then, is the history
of a man of great learning, of the most pertinacious industry, but
somewhat allied to the family of the _Scribleri_.