We have been somewhat amused with the piquancy and humour of the
following introduction of a Notice of a volume of Poems, "by John Jones,
an old servant," which has just appeared under the editorship of Mr.
Southey and the _Quarterly Review_:--
Shakspeare has said, "What's in a name?--a rose, by any other name,
would smell as sweet!" But here we have a convincing proof of the
necessity of attending strictly to names, as the commonest regard to the
fitting attributes of a "John Jones," would have kept the victim of such
an appellation quite clear of poetry. It is next to impossible that a
John Jones should be a poet;--and some kind friend should have broken
the truth to the butler, before he endeavoured to share unpolished glory
with uneducated bards.
An inspired serving-man, in a livery of industry, turned up with
morality, is a species of bard which we never expected to find in the
service of the Muses, or bringing a written character from his last
place, and vaunting of his readiness and ability to write epics and
wait at table. The work we should have looked to meet with, emanating
from the butler's pantry, was a miscellaneous volume full of religious
scraps, essays on dress, receipts for boot-tops, wise cooking
cogitations, remedies for bugs, cures for ropy beer, hints for blacking,
ingredients for punch, thoughts on tapping ale, early rising and killing
fleas. The mischief of the wide dissemination of education is now
becoming apparent, for, poor as authors confessedly are, they have
generally been gentlemen, even in rags--learned men of some degree,
though with exposed elbows--folk only a little lower than the angels!
But never until the schoolmaster was so abundantly abroad, distributing
his spelling-soup to the poor, did we ever hear of a butler writing
poetry, and committing it to the press. The order of things is becoming
reversed. The garret is beginning to lose its literary celebrity, and
the kitchen is taking the matter up. A floor near the sky in Grub-street
is no pen-spot now; but down fifty fathoms deep in Portland Place, or
Portman Square, or some far-retired old country house, you shall find
the author: his red cuffs turned up over his light blue jacket sleeves,
the pen in his hand, and his inspired eye looking out upon the area.
There doth he correct the brain-work which is to carry his name up above
the earth, and keep it there, bright as cleaned plate. In the
housekeeper's room, inspiration gives a double knock at his heart. An
author in a pantry certainly writes under great disadvantages, for it
cannot be said that he is there writing for his _bread_. In such a
place, the loaf is in his eye--the larder is so near, he may almost dip
his pen into it by mistake--and positive beef gleams through the veil of
the safe, softened to his eye, yet still solider than beef of the
imagination. In truth, a man has much to overcome in preparing food for
the mind, in the very thick of food for the body;--for a good authority
(no less a man than Mr. Bayes) has strenuously advised that the belly
should be empty when the brain is to be unloaded. How can a gentleman's
gentleman, with a _corpus_ that banishes his backbone nearly four
feet from the table at which he sits, betake himself to his cogitations
over a tankard of October, and expect to beat your true thin
garret-haunting devil, with an inside like a pea-shooter, who can
scarcely be said to be one remove from the ethereal, and who writes from
that best of inspirations--an empty pantry? We shall presently see
whether an author from below is better than one from above--whether it
will be more eligible that the Muses should have several more stories
to descend, when their nine ladyships are invoked so to do--and that the
pen should be taken out of the scraggy hand of a gentleman in rags, and
be placed in the plump gripe of a gentleman in tags.
Before we proceed to give an account of the book before us, we must yet
take leave to indulge in a few reflections on the effect of this mental
explosion in the noddles of John and James and Richard, upon reviewers,
publishers, and the world in general. This change of lodging in the
author will turn many things topsy-turvy, and conjure the spirit out of
much long-established facetiousness. Pictures of poets in garrets will
soon not be understood; bathos will be at a premium! the bard will be
known, not by the brownness of his beaver, but by the gold band that
encircles it. The historian shall go about in black plush breeches; and
the great inspired writers of the age "have a livery more guarded than
their fellows." Authors shall soon be, indeed, even more easily known by
their dress. How often, too, shall we see Mr. Murray or Mr. Colburn
descending "with the nine" to the hireling scribe, who is correcting the
press and locking up the tea-spoons, against his coming; or they may
have occasionally to wait below, while their authors are _waiting_
above. Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green (almost a batch of he-muses
in themselves), will get a new cookery-book, _well done_, from a
genuine cook,[5] who divides his time between the spit and the pen; and
the firm need not, therefore, set Mrs. Rundell's temper upon the
_simmer_, as they are said to have done in days past. Reviewers
too!---will they ever dine together anon?--surely not. Authors are known
to be in the malicious habit of speaking ill of their friends and judges
behind their backs; and at dinner-time they will soon have every
opportunity of so doing. How unpleasant to call for beer from the poet
you have just set in a foam; or to ask for the carving-knife from the
man you have so lately _cut up_! _We_ reviewers shall then never
be able to shoot our severity, without the usual coalman's memento of
"take care below!" One advantage, however, from the new system must be
conceded, and that is, that when an author waits in a great man's hall,
or stands at his door, he will be pretty sure of being paid for it; which,
in the case of your dangling garreteers, has never hitherto happened.
Crabbe's story of "The Patron" will become obsolete. High Life will,
indeed, be below stairs!
There is a lively spirit of banter in these observations, which is
extremely amusing. They are from the _Athenaeum_ of last week,
which, by the way, has more of the intellectual gladiatorship in its
columns than any of its critical contemporaries.
[5] There is a cookery-book, by "a Lady," and a cookery-book by a
Physician; but Mrs. Rundell and Dr. Kitchiner will soon be warned
off the gridiron by the erudite genuine practical cook, who has
a right to the _kitchen stuff_ of literature. Mrs. R. must show
herself to be what she professes, and take "her chops out of the
frying-pan;" and the "good doctor" must "put his tongue into plenty
of cold water" to cool its boiling, broiling ardour.
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