A periodical critic, probably one of the juniors, has thrown out a
startling observation. "There is," says this literary senator,
"something melancholy in the study of biography, because it is--a
history of the dead!" A truism and a falsity mixed up together is the
temptation with some modern critics to commit that darling sin of
theirs--novelty and originality! But we really cannot condole with the
readers of Plutarch for their deep melancholy; we who feel our spirits
refreshed, amidst the mediocrity of society, when we are recalled back
to the men and the women who WERE! illustrious in every glory! Biography
with us is a re-union with human existence in its most excellent state!
and we find nothing dead in the past, while we retain the sympathies
which only require to be awakened.
It would have been more reasonable had the critic discovered that our
country has not yet had her Plutarch, and that our biography remains
still little more than a mass of compilation.
In this study of biography there is a species which has not yet been
distinguished--biographies composed by some domestic friend, or by some
enthusiast who works with love. A term is unquestionably wanted for this
distinct class. The Germans seem to have invented a Platonic one, drawn
from the Greek, _psyche_, or the soul; for they call this the
_psychological life_. Another attempt has been made, by giving it the
scientific term of _idiosyncrasy_, to denote a peculiarity of
disposition. I would call it _sentimental biography_!
It is distinct from a _chronological_ biography, for it searches for the
individual's feelings amidst the ascertained facts of his life; so that
facts, which occurred remotely from each other, are here brought at once
together. The detail of events which completes the chronological
biography, contains many which are not connected with the peculiarity of
the character itself. The _sentimental_ is also distinct from the
_autobiography_, however it may seem a part of it. Whether a man be
entitled to lavish his panegyric on himself, I will not decide; but it
is certain that he risks everything by appealing to a solitary and
suspected witness.
We have two Lives of Dante, one by Boccaccio and the other by Leonardo
Aretino, both interesting: but Boccaccio's is the _sentimental life_!
Aretino, indeed, finds fault, but with all the tenderness possible, with
Boccaccio's affectionate sketch, _Origine, Vita, Studi e Costumi del
clarissimo Dante_, &c. "Origin, Life, Studies and Manners, of the
illustrious Dante," &c. "It seems to me," he says, "that our Boccaccio,
_dolcissimo e suavissimo uomo_, sweet and delightful man! has written
the life and manners of this sublime poet as if he had been composing
the _Filocolo_, the _Filostrato_, or the _Fiametta_," the romances of
Boccaccio--"for all breathes of love and sighs, and is covered with warm
tears, as if a man were born in this world only to live among the
enamoured ladies and the gallant youths of the ten amorous days of his
hundred novels."
Aretino, who wanted not all the feeling requisite for the delightful
"costumi e studi" of Boccaccio's Dante, modestly requires that his own
life of Dante should be considered as a supplement to, not as a
substitute for, Boccaccio's. Pathetic with all the sorrows, and eloquent
with all the remonstrances of a fellow-citizen, Boccaccio, while he
wept, hung with anger over his country's shame in its apathy for the
honour of its long-injured exile. Catching inspiration from the
breathing pages of Boccaccio, it inclines one to wish that we possessed
two biographies of an illustrious favourite character; the one strictly
and fully historical, the other fraught with those very feelings of the
departed, which we may have to seek in vain for in the circumstantial
and chronological biographer. Boccaccio, indeed, was overcome by his
feelings. He either knew not, or he omits the substantial incidents of
Dante's life; while his imagination throws a romantic tinge on
occurrences raised on slight, perhaps on no foundation. Boccaccio
narrates a dream of the mother of Dante so fancifully poetical, that
probably Boccaccio forgot that none but a dreamer could have told it.
Seated under a high laurel-tree, by the side of a vast fountain, the
mother dreamt that she gave birth to her son; she saw him nourished by
its fruit, and refreshed by the clear waters; she soon beheld him a
shepherd; approaching to pluck the boughs, she saw him fall! When he
rose he had ceased to be a man, and was transformed into a peacock!
Disturbed by her admiration, she suddenly awoke; but when the father
found that he really had a son, in allusion to the dream he called him
Dante--or _given! e meritamente_; _perocche ottimamente, siccome si
vedra procedendo, segui al nome l'effetto_: "and deservedly! for
greatly, as we shall see, the effect followed the name!" At nine years
of age, on a May-day, whose joyous festival Boccaccio beautifully
describes, when the softness of the heavens, re-adorning the earth with
its mingled flowers, waved the green boughs, and made all things smile,
Dante mixed with the boys and girls in the house of the good citizen who
on that day gave the feast, beheld little Brice, as she was familiarly
called, but named Beatrice. The little Dante might have seen her before,
but he loved her then, and from that day never ceased to love; and thus
Dante _nella pargoletta eta fatto d'amore ferventissimo servidore_; so
fervent a servant to love in an age of childhood! Boccaccio appeals to
Dante's own account of his long passion, and his constant sighs, in the
_Vita Nuova_. No look, no word, no sign, sullied the purity of his
passion; but in her twenty-fourth year died "la bellissima Beatrice."
Dante is then described as more than inconsolable; his eyes were long
two abundant fountains of tears; careless of life, he let his beard grow
wildly, and to others appeared a savage meagre man, whose aspect was so
changed, that while this weeping life lasted, he was hardly recognised
by his friends; all looked on a man so entirely transformed with deep
compassion. Dante, won over by those who could console the inconsolable,
was at length solicited by his relations to marry a lady of his own
condition in life; and it was suggested that as the departed lady had
occasioned him such heavy griefs, the new one might open a source of
delight. The relations and friends of Dante gave him a wife that his
tears for Beatrice might cease.
It is supposed that this marriage proved unhappy. Boccaccio, like a
pathetic lover rather than biographer, exclaims, _Oh menti cicche! Oh
tenebrosi intelletti! Oh argomenti vani di molti mortali, quante sono le
ruiscite in assai cose contrarie a' nostri avvisi!_ &c. "Oh blind men!
Oh dark minds! Oh vain arguments of most mortals, how often are the
results contrary to our advice! Frequently it is like leading one who
breathes the soft air of Italy to refresh himself in the eternal shades
of the Rhodopean mountains. What physician would expel a burning fever
with fire, or put in the shivering marrow of the bones snow and ice? So
certainly shall it fare with him who, with a new love, thinks to
mitigate the old. Those who believe this know not the nature of love,
nor how much a second passion adds to the first. In vain would we
assist or advise this forceful passion, if it has struck its root near
the heart of him who long has loved."
Boccaccio has beguiled my pen for half-an-hour with all the loves and
fancies which sprung out of his own affectionate and romantic heart.
What airy stuff has he woven into the "Vita" of Dante! this _sentimental
biography_! Whether he knew but little of the personal history of the
great man whom he idolised, or whether the dream of the mother--the
May-day interview with the little Brice, and the rest of the
children--and the effusion on Dante's marriage, were grounded on
tradition, one would not harshly reject such tender incidents.[265] But
let it not be imagined that the heart of Boccaccio was only susceptible
to amorous impressions--bursts of enthusiasm and eloquence, which only a
man of genius is worthy of receiving, and only a man of genius is
capable of bestowing--kindle the masculine patriotism of his bold,
indignant spirit!
Half a century had elapsed since the death of Dante, and still the
Florentines showed no sign of repentance for their ancient hatred of
their persecuted patriot, nor any sense of the memory of the creator of
their language, whose immortality had become a portion of their own
glory. Boccaccio, impassioned by all his generous nature, though he
regrets he could not raise a statue to Dante, has sent down to posterity
more than marble, in the "Life." I venture to give the lofty and bold
apostrophe to his fellow-citizens; but I feel that even the genius of
our language is tame by the side of the harmonised eloquence of the
great votary of Dante!
"Ungrateful country! what madness urged thee, when thy dearest citizen,
thy chief benefactor, thy only poet, with unaccustomed cruelty was
driven to flight! If this had happened in the general terror of that
time, coming from evil counsels, thou mightest stand excused; but when
the passion ceased, didst thou repent? didst thou recall him? Bear with
me, nor deem it irksome from me, who am thy son, that thus I collect
what just indignation prompts me to speak, as a man more desirous of
witnessing your amendment, than of beholding you punished! Seems it to
you glorious, proud of so many titles and of such men, that the one
whose like no neighbouring city can show, you have chosen to chase from
among you? With what triumphs, with what valorous citizens, are you
splendid? Your wealth is a removable and uncertain thing; your fragile
beauty will grow old; your delicacy is shameful and feminine; but these
make you noticed by the false judgments of the populace! Do you glory in
your merchants and your artists? I speak imprudently; but the one are
tenaciously avaricious in their servile trade; and Art, which once was
so noble, and became a second nature, struck by the same avarice, is now
as corrupted, and nothing worth! Do you glory in the baseness and the
listlessness of those idlers, who, because their ancestors are
remembered, attempt to raise up among you a nobility to govern you, ever
by robbery, by treachery, by falsehood! Ah! miserable mother! open thine
eyes; cast them with some remorse on what thou hast done, and blush, at
least, reputed wise as thou art, to have had in your errors so fatal a
choice! Why not rather imitate the acts of those cities who so keenly
disputed merely for the honour of the birth-place of the divine Homer?
Mantua, our neighbour, counts as the greatest fame which remains for
her, that Virgil was a Mantuan! and holds his very name in such
reverence, that not only in public places, but in the most private, we
see his sculptured image! You only, while you were made famous by
illustrious men, you only have shown no care for your great poet. Your
Dante Alighieri died in exile, to which you unjustly, envious of his
greatness, destined him! A crime not to be remembered, that the mother
should bear an envious malignity to the virtues of a son! Now cease to
be unjust! He cannot do you that, now dead, which living he never did do
to you! He lies under another sky than yours, and you never can see him
again, but on that day, when all your citizens shall view him, and the
great Remunerator shall examine, and shall punish! If anger, hatred, and
enmity are buried with a man, as it is believed, begin then to return to
yourself; begin to be ashamed to have acted against your ancient
humanity; begin, then, to wish to appear a mother, and not a cold
negligent step-dame. Yield your tears to your son; yield your maternal
piety to him whom once you repulsed, and, living, cast away from you!
At least think of possessing him dead, and restore your citizenship,
your award, and your grace, to his memory. He was a son who held you in
reverence, and though long an exile, he always called himself, and would
be called a Florentine! He held you ever above all others; ever he loved
you! What will you then do? Will you remain obstinate in iniquity? Will
you practise less humanity than the barbarians? You wish that the world
should believe that you are the sister of famous Troy, and the daughter
of Rome; assuredly the children should resemble their fathers and their
ancestors. Priam, in his misery, bought the corpse of Hector with gold;
and Rome would possess the bones of the first Scipio, and removed them
from Linternum, those bones, which, dying, so justly he had denied her.
Seek then to be the true guardian of your Dante, claim him! show this
humane feeling, claim him! you may securely do this: I am certain he
will not be returned to you; but thus at once you may betray some mark
of compassion, and, not having him again, still enjoy your ancient
cruelty! Alas! what comfort am I bringing you! I almost believe, that if
the dead could feel, the body of Dante would not rise to return to you,
for he is lying in Ravenna, whose hallowed soil is everywhere covered
with the ashes of saints. Would Dante quit this blessed company to
mingle with the remains of those hatreds and iniquities which gave him
no rest in life? The relics of Dante, even among the bodies of emperors
and of martyrs, and of their illustrious ancestors, is prized as a
treasure, for there his works are looked on with admiration; those works
of which you have not yet known to make yourselves worthy. His
birthplace, his origin remains for you, spite of your ingratitude! and
this Ravenna envies you, while she glories in your honours which she has
snatched from you through ages yet to come!"
Such was the deep emotion which opened Boccaccio's heart in this
sentimental biography, and which awoke even shame and confusion in the
minds of the Florentines; they blushed for their old hatreds, and, with
awakened sympathies, they hastened to honour the memory of their great
bard. By order of the city, the _Divina Commedia_ was publicly read and
explained to the people. Boccaccio, then sinking under the infirmities
of age, roused his departing genius: still was there marrow in the bones
of the aged lion, and he engaged in the task of composing his
celebrated Commentaries on the _Divina Commedia_.
In this class of _sentimental biography_ I would place a species which
the historian Carte noticed in his literary travels on the Continent, in
pursuit of his historical design. He found, preserved among several
ancient families of France, their domestic annals. "With a warm,
patriotic spirit, worthy of imitation, they have often carefully
preserved in their families the acts of their ancestors." This delight
and pride of the modern Gauls in the great and good deeds of their
ancestors, preserved in domestic archives, will be ascribed to their
folly or their vanity; yet in that folly there may be so much wisdom,
and in that vanity there may be so much greatness, that the one will
amply redeem the other.
This custom has been rarely adopted among ourselves; we have, however, a
few separate histories of some ancient families, as those of Mordaunt,
and of Warren. One of the most remarkable is "A Genealogical History of
the House of Yvery, in its different branches of Yvery, Luvel, Perceval,
and Gournay." Two large volumes, closely printed,[266] expatiating on
the characters and events of a single family with the grave pomp of a
herald, but more particularly the idolatry of the writer for ancient
nobility, and his contempt for that growing rank in society whom he
designates as "New Men," provoked the ridicule at least of the
aspersed.[267] This extraordinary work, notwithstanding its absurdities
in its general result, has left behind a deep impression. Drawn from the
authentic family records, it is not without interest that we toil
through its copious pages; we trace with a romantic sympathy the
fortunes of the descendants of the House of Yvery, from that
not-forgotten hero _le vaillant Perceval chevalier de la Table Ronde_,
to the Norman Baron Asselin, surnamed the Wolf, for his bravery or his
ferocity; thence to the Cavalier of Charles the First, Sir Philip
Perceval, who, having gloriously defended his castle, was at length
deprived of his lordly possessions, but never of his loyalty, and died
obscurely in the metropolis of a broken heart, till we reach the
polished nobleman, the Lord Egmont of the Georges.
The nation has lost many a noble example of men and women acting a great
part on great occasions, and then retreating to the shade of privacy;
and we may be confident that many a name has not been inscribed on the
roll of national glory only from wanting a few drops of ink! Such
domestic annals may yet be viewed in the family records at Appleby
Castle! Anne, Countess of Pembroke, was a glorious woman, the descendant
of two potent northern families, the Veteriponts and the Cliffords.--She
lived in a state of regal magnificence and independence, inhabiting five
or seven castles; yet though her magnificent spirit poured itself out in
her extended charities, and though her independence mated that of
monarchs, yet she herself, in her domestic habits, lived as a hermit in
her own castles; and though only acquainted with her native language,
she had cultivated her mind in many parts of learning; and as Donne, in
his way, observes, "she knew how to converse of everything, from
predestination to slea-silk." Her favourite design was to have materials
collected for the history of those two potent northern families to whom
she was allied; and at a considerable expense she employed learned
persons to make collections for this purpose from the records in the
Tower, the Rolls, and other depositories of manuscripts: Gilpin had seen
three large volumes fairly transcribed. Anecdotes of a great variety of
characters, who had exerted themselves on very important occasions,
compose these family records--and induce one to wish that the public
were in possession of such annals of the domestic life of heroes and of
sages, who have only failed in obtaining an historian![268]
A biographical monument of this nature, which has passed through the
press, will sufficiently prove the utility of this class of
_sentimental biography_. It is the Life of Robert Price, a Welsh lawyer,
and an ancestor of the gentleman whose ingenuity, in our days, has
refined the principles of the Picturesque in Art. This Life is announced
as "printed by the appointment of the family;" but it must not be
considered merely as a tribute of private affection; and how we are at
this day interested in the actions of a Welsh lawyer in the reign of
William the Third, whose name has probably never been consigned to the
page of history, remains to be told.
Robert Price, after having served Charles the Second, lived latterly in
the eventful times of William the Third--he was probably of Tory
principles, for on the arrival of the Dutch prince he was removed from
the attorney-generalship of Glamorgan. The new monarch has been accused
of favouritism, and of an eagerness in showering exorbitant grants on
some of his foreigners, which soon raised a formidable opposition in the
jealous spirit of Englishmen. The grand favourite, William Bentinck,
after being raised to the Earldom of Portland, had a grant bestowed on
him of three lordships in the county of Denbigh. The patriot of his
native country--a title which the Welsh had already conferred on Robert
Price--then rose to assert the rights of his fatherland, and his
speeches are as admirable for their knowledge as their spirit. "The
submitting of 1500 freeholders to the will of a Dutch lord was," as he
sarcastically declared, "putting them in a worse posture than their
former estate, when under William the Conqueror and his Norman lords.
England must not be tributary to strangers--we must, like patriots,
stand by our country--otherwise, when God shall send us a Prince of
Wales, he may have such a present of a crown made him as a Pope did to
King John, who was surnamed _Sans-terre_, and was by his father made
Lord of Ireland, which grant was confirmed by the Pope, who sent him a
crown of peacocks' feathers, in derogation of his power, and the poverty
of his country." Robert Price asserted that the king could not, by the
Bill of Rights, alien or give away the inheritance of a Prince of Wales
without the consent of parliament. He concluded a copious and patriotic
speech, by proposing that an address be presented to the king, to put an
immediate stop to the grant now passing to the Earl of Portland for the
lordships, &c.
This speech produced such an effect, that the address was carried
unanimously; and the king, though he highly resented the speech of
Robert Price, sent a civil message to the commons, declaring that he
should not have given Lord Portland those lands, had he imagined the
House of Commons could have been concerned; "I will therefore recall the
grant!" On receiving the royal message, Robert Price drew up a
resolution to which the house assented, that "to procure or pass
exorbitant grants by any member of the privy council, &c. was a high
crime and misdemeanour." The speech of Robert Price contained truths too
numerous and too bold to suffer the light during that reign; but this
speech against foreigners was printed the year after King William's
death, with this title, "_Gloria Cambriae_, or the speech of a bold
Briton in parliament, against a Dutch Prince of Wales," with this motto,
_Opposuit et Vicit_. Such was the great character of Robert Price, that
he was made a Welsh judge by the very sovereign whose favourite plans he
had so patriotically thwarted.
Another marked event in the life of this English patriot was a second
noble stand he made against the royal authority, when in opposition to
the public good. The secret history of a quarrel between George the
First and the Prince of Wales, afterwards George the Second, on the
birth of a son, appears in this life; and when the prince in disgrace
left the palace, his royal highness proposed taking his children and the
princess with him; but the king detained the children, claiming the care
of the royal offspring as a royal prerogative. It now became a legal
point to ascertain "whether the education of his majesty's
grandchildren, and the care of their marriages, &c., belonged of right
to his majesty as king of this realm, or not?" Ten of the judges
obsequiously allowed of the prerogative to the full. Robert Price and
another judge decided that the education, &c., was the right of the
father, although the marriages was that of his majesty as king of this
realm, yet not exclusive of the prince, their father. He assured the
king, that the ten obsequious judges had no authority to support their
precipitate opinion; all the books and precedents cannot form a
prerogative for the king of this realm to have the care and education of
his grandchildren during the life and without the consent of their
father--a prerogative unknown to the laws of England! He pleads for the
rights of a father, with the spirit of one who feels them, as well as
with legal science and historical knowledge.
Such were the two great incidents in the life of this Welsh judge! Yet,
had the family not found one to commemorate these memorable events in
the life of their ancestor, we had lost the noble picture of a
constitutional interpreter of the laws, an independent country
gentleman, and an Englishman jealous of the excessive predominance of
ministerial or royal influence.
Cicero, and others, have informed us that the ancient history of Rome
itself was composed out of such accounts of private families, to which,
indeed, we must add those annals or registers of public events which
unquestionably were preserved in the archives of the temples by the
priests. But the history of the individual may involve public interest,
whenever the skill of the writer combines with the importance of the
event. Messala, the orator, gloried in having composed many volumes of
the genealogies of the nobility of Rome; and Atticus wrote the genealogy
of Brutus, to prove him descended from Junius Brutus, the expulser of
the Tarquins, and founder of the Republic, near five hundred years
before.
Another class of this _sentimental biography_ was projected by the late
Elizabeth Hamilton. This was to have consisted of a series of what she
called _comparative biography_, and an ancient character was to have
been paralleled by a modern one. Occupied by her historical romance with
the character of _Agrippina_, she sought in modern history for a partner
of her own sex, and "one who, like her, had experienced vicissitudes of
fortune;" and she found no one better qualified than the princess
palatine, _Elizabeth, the daughter of James the First_. Her next life
was to have been that of _Seneca_, with "the scenes and persons of which
her Life of Agrippina had familiarised her;" and the contrast or the
parallel was to have been _Locke_; which, well managed, she thought
would have been sufficiently striking. It seems to me that it would
rather have afforded an evidence of her invention! Such a biographical
project reminds one of Plutarch's Parallels, and might incur the danger
of displaying more ingenuity than truth. The sage of Cheronea must often
have racked his invention to help out his parallels, bending together,
to make them similar, the most unconnected events and the most distinct
feelings; and, to keep his parallels in two straight lines, he probably
made a free use of augmentatives and diminutives to help out his pair,
who might have been equal, and yet not alike!
Our fatherland is prodigal of immortal names, or names which might be
made immortal; Gibbon once contemplated with complacency, the very ideal
of SENTIMENTAL BIOGRAPHY, and we may regret that he has only left the
project! "I have long revolved in my mind a volume of biographical
writing; the lives or rather the characters of the most eminent persons
in arts and arms, in church and state, who have flourished in Britain
from the reign of Henry the Eighth to the present age. The subject would
afford a rich display of human nature and domestic history, and
powerfully address itself to the feelings of every Englishman."