Des Maizeaux was an active literary man of his day, whose connexions
with Bayle, St. Evremond, Locke, and Toland, and his name being set off
by an F.R.S., have occasioned the dictionary-biographers to place him
prominently among their "hommes illustres." Of his private history
nothing seems known. Having something important to communicate
respecting one of his friends, a far greater character, with whose fate
he stands connected, even Des Maizeaux becomes an object of our inquiry.
He was one of those French refugees whom political madness or despair of
intolerance had driven to our shores. The proscription of Louis XIV.,
which supplied us with our skilful workers in silk, also produced a race
of the unemployed, who proved not to be as exquisite in the handicraft
of book-making; such were _Motteux_, _La Coste_, _Ozell_, _Durand_, and
others. Our author had come over in that tender state of youth, just in
time to become half an Englishman: and he was so ambidextrous in the
languages of the two great literary nations of Europe, that whenever he
took up his pen, it is evident by his manuscripts, which I have
examined, that it was mere accident which determined him to write in
French or in English. Composing without genius, or even taste, without
vivacity or force, the simplicity and fluency of his style were
sufficient for the purposes of a ready dealer in all the _minutiae
literariae_; literary anecdotes, curious quotations, notices of obscure
books, and all that _supellex_ which must enter into the history of
literature, without forming a history. These little things, which did so
well of themselves, without any connexion with anything else, became
trivial when they assumed the form of voluminous minuteness; and Des
Maizeaux at length imagined that nothing but anecdotes were necessary to
compose the lives of men of genius! With this sort of talent he produced
a copious life of Bayle, in which he told everything he possibly could;
and nothing can be more tedious, and more curious: for though it be a
grievous fault to omit nothing, and marks the writer to be deficient in
the development of character, and that sympathy which throws inspiration
over the vivifying page of biography, yet, to admit everything, has this
merit--that we are sure to find what we want! Warburton poignantly
describes our Des Maizeaux, in one of those letters to Dr. Birch which
he wrote in the fervid age of study, and with the impatient vivacity of
his genius, "Almost all the life-writers we have had before Toland and
Des Maizeaux are indeed strange, insipid creatures; and yet I had rather
read the worst of them, than be obliged to go through with this of
Milton's, or the other's life of Boileau; where there is such a dull,
heavy succession of long quotations of uninteresting passages, that it
makes their method quite nauseous. But the verbose, tasteless Frenchman
seems to lay it down as a principle, that every life must be a
book,--and, what is worse, it seems a book without a life; for what do
we know of Boileau after all his tedious stuff?"
Des Maizeaux was much in the employ of the Dutch booksellers, then the
great monopolisers in the literary mart of Europe. He supplied their
"nouvelles litteraires" from England; but the work-sheet price was very
mean in those days. I have seen annual accounts of Des Maizeaux settled
to a line for four or five pounds; and yet he sent the "Novelties" as
fresh as the post could carry them! He held a confidential
correspondence with these great Dutch booksellers, who consulted him in
their distresses; and he seems rather to have relieved them than
himself. But if he got only a few florins at Rotterdam, the same
"nouvelles litteraires" sometimes secured him valuable friends at
London; for in those days, which perhaps are returning on us, an English
author would often appeal to a foreign journal for the commendation he
might fail in obtaining at home; and I have discovered, in more cases
than one, that, like other smuggled commodities, the foreign article was
often of home manufactory!
I give one of these curious bibliopolical distresses. Sauzet, a
bookseller at Rotterdam, who judged too critically for the repose of his
authors, seems to have been always fond of projecting a new "Journal;"
tormented by the ideal excellence which he had conceived of such a work,
it vexed him that he could never find the workmen! Once disappointed of
the assistance he expected from a writer of talents, he was fain to put
up with one he was ashamed of; but warily stipulated on very singular
terms. He confided this precious literary secret to Des Maizeaux. I
translate from his manuscript letter.
"I send you, my dear Sir, four sheets of the continuation of my journal,
and I hope this second part will turn out better than the former. The
author thinks himself a very able person; but I must tell you frankly,
that he is a man without erudition, and without any critical
discrimination; he writes pretty well, and turns passably what he says;
but that is all! Monsieur Van Effen having failed in his promises to
realise my hopes on this occasion, necessity compelled me to have
recourse to him; but for _six months only_, and on condition that he
should not, on any account whatever, _allow any one to know that he is
the author of the journal_; for his _name_ alone would be sufficient to
make even a passable book discreditable. As you are among my friends, I
will confide to you in secrecy the name of this author; it is Mons. _De
Limiers_.[14] You see how much my interest is concerned that the author
should not be known!" This anecdote is gratuitously presented to the
editors of certain reviews, as a serviceable hint to enter into the same
engagement with some of their own writers: for it is usually the _De
Limiers_ who expend their last puff in blowing their own name about the
town.
In England, Des Maizeaux, as a literary man, made himself very useful to
other men of letters, and particularly to persons of rank: and he found
patronage and a pension,--like his talents, very moderate! A friend to
literary men, he lived amongst them, from "Orator" Henley, up to
Addison, Lord Halifax, and Anthony Collins. I find a curious character
of our Des Maizeaux in the handwriting of Edward, Earl of Oxford, to
whose father (Pope's Earl of Oxford) and himself the nation owes the
Harleian treasures. His lordship is a critic with high Tory principles,
and high-church notions. "This Des Maizeaux is a great man with those
who are pleased to be called _Freethinkers_, particularly with Mr.
Anthony Collins, collects passages out of books for their writings. His
Life of Chillingworth is wrote to please that set of men." The secret
history I am to unfold relates to Anthony Collins and Des Maizeaux. Some
curious book-lovers will be interested in the personal history of an
author they are well acquainted with, yet which has hitherto remained
unknown. He tells his own story in a sort of epistolary petition he
addressed to a noble friend, characteristic of an author, who cannot be
deemed unpatronised, yet whose name, after all his painful labours,
might be inserted in my "Calamities of Authors."
In this letter he announces his intention of publishing a Dictionary
like Bayle; having written the life of Bayle, the next step was to
become himself a Bayle; so short is the passage of literary delusion! He
had published, as a specimen, the lives of Hales and Chillingworth. He
complains that his circumstances have not allowed him to forward that
work, nor digest the materials he had collected.
A work of that nature requires a steady application, free from the
cares and avocations incident to all persons obliged to seek for
their maintenance. I have had the misfortune to be in the case of
those persons, and am now reduced to a pension on the Irish
establishment, which, deducting the tax of four shillings in the
pound, and other charges, brings me in about 40_l._ a year of our
English money.[15] This pension was granted to me in 1710, and I owe
it chiefly to the friendship of Mr. Addison, who was then secretary
to the Earl of Wharton, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. In 1711, 12, and
14, I was appointed one of the Commissioners of the Lottery by the
interest of Lord Halifax.
And this is all I ever received from the Government, though I had
some claim to the royal favour; for in 1710, when the enemies to our
constitution were contriving its ruin, I wrote a pamphlet entitled
"Lethe," which was published in Holland, and afterwards translated
into English, and twice printed in London; and being reprinted in
Dublin, proved so offensive to the ministry in Ireland, that it was
burnt by the hands of the hangman. But so it is, that after having
showed on all occasions my zeal for the royal family, and endeavoured
to make myself serviceable to the public by several books published;
after forty years' stay in England, and in an advanced age, I find
myself and family destitute of a sufficient livelihood, and suffering
from complaints in the head and impaired sight by constant
application to my studies.
I am confident, my lord, he adds, that if the queen, to whom I was
made known on occasion of Thuanus's French translation, were
acquainted with my present distress, she would be pleased to afford
me some relief.[16]
Among the confidential literary friends of Des Maizeaux, he had the
honour of ranking Anthony Collins, a great lover of literature, and a
man of fine genius, and who, in a continued correspondence with our Des
Maizeaux, treated him as his friend, and employed him as his agent in
his literary concerns. These, in the formation of an extensive library,
were in a state of perpetual activity, and Collins was such a true lover
of his books, that he drew up the catalogue with his own pen.[17]
Anthony Collins wrote several well-known works without prefixing his
name; but having pushed too far his curious inquiries on some obscure
and polemical points, he incurred the odium of a _freethinker_,--a term
which then began to be in vogue, and which the French adopted by
translating it, in their way, _a strong thinker_, or _esprit fort_.
Whatever tendency to "liberalise" the mind from _dogmas_ and _creeds_
prevails in these works, the talents and learning of Collins were of the
first class. His morals were immaculate, and his personal character
independent; but the _odium theologicum_ of those days contrived every
means to stab in the dark, till the taste became hereditary with some. I
shall mention a fact of this cruel bigotry, which occurred within my own
observation, on one of the most polished men of the age. The late Mr.
Cumberland, in the romance entitled his "Life," gave this extraordinary
fact, that Dr. Bentley, who so ably replied by his "Remarks," under the
name of Phileleutherus Lipsiensis, to Collins's "Discourse on
Free-thinking," when, many years after, he discovered him fallen into
great distress, conceiving that by having ruined Collins's character as
a writer for ever, he had been the occasion of his personal misery, he
liberally contributed to his maintenance. In vain I mentioned to that
elegant writer, who was not curious about facts, that this person could
never have been _Anthony_ Collins, who had always a plentiful fortune;
and when it was suggested to him that this "A. Collins," as he printed
it, must have been _Arthur_ Collins, the historical compiler, who was
often in pecuniary difficulties, still he persisted in sending the lie
down to posterity, _totidem verbis_, without alteration in his second
edition, observing to a friend of mine, that "the story, while it told
well, might serve as a striking instance of his great relative's
generosity; and that _it should stand_, because it could do no harm to
any but to _Anthony_ Collins, whom he considered as little short of an
atheist." So much for this pious fraud! but be it recollected that this
Anthony Collins was the confidential friend of Locke, of whom Locke
said, on his dying bed, that "Collins was a man whom he valued in the
first rank of those that he left behind him." And the last words of
Collins on his own death-bed were, that "he was persuaded he was going
to that place which God had designed for them that love him." The cause
of true religion will never be assisted by using such leaky vessels as
_Cumberland's_ wilful calumnies, which in the end must run out, and be
found, like the present, mere empty fictions!
An extraordinary circumstance occurred on the death of Anthony Collins.
He left behind him a considerable number of his own manuscripts, there
was one collection formed into eight octavo volumes; and that they might
be secured from the common fate of manuscripts, he bequeathed them all,
and confided them to the care of our Des Maizeaux. The choice of Collins
reflects honour on the character of Des Maizeaux, yet he proved unworthy
of it! He suffered himself to betray his trust, practised on by the
earnest desire of the widow, and perhaps by the arts of a Mr. Tomlinson,
who appears to have been introduced into the family by the
recommendation of Dean Sykes, whom at length he supplanted, and whom the
widow, to save her reputation, was afterwards obliged to discard.[18] In
an unguarded moment he relinquished this precious _legacy of the
manuscripts_, and accepted _fifty guineas as a present_. But if Des
Maizeaux lost his honour in this transaction, he was at heart an honest
man, who had swerved for a single moment; his conscience was soon
awakened, and he experienced the most violent compunctions. It was in a
paroxysm of this nature that he addressed the following letter to a
mutual friend of the late Anthony Collins and himself.