to take his first trip abroad was the desire to see five distinguished
men. These men were Coleridge, Wordsworth, Landor, DeQuincey, and
Carlyle. "On the 15th May," writes Emerson in his _English Traits_,
"I dined with Mr. Landor. I found him noble and courteous, living in
a cloud of pictures at his Villa Gherardesca, a fine house commanding
a beautiful landscape. I had inferred from his books, or magnified
from some anecdotes, an impression of Achillean wrath,--an untamable
petulance. I do not know whether the imputation were just or not, but
certainly on this May day his courtesy veiled that haughty mind and he
was the most patient and gentle of hosts."
Landor used to say somewhat loftily, "I do not remember that
resentment has ever made me commit an injustice." And in this
connection he related to a friend an incident of his early married
life, when he was living at Como, where he had for his next-door
neighbor the Princess of Wales. Landor and his royal neighbor had a
quarrel arising from trespassing by the domestics of the Princess.
"The insolence of her domestics," said Landor, "was only equaled by
the intolerable discourtesy of her Royal Highness when she was
appealed to in the matter."
Some years later when the Milan Commission was carrying on its
"delicate investigation" concerning the character of the Queen, about
whom there had been rumors detrimental to her character, Landor was
asked to give confidential testimony against Queen Caroline. This made
Landor indignant and he replied,--"Her Royal Highness is my enemy; she
has deeply injured me, therefore I can say nothing against her, and I
never will."
It is significant that shortly before this application for testimony
was made, George IV took an opportunity to ask Landor to dinner. "I
declined the honor," said the old lion, "on the plea that I had an
attack of quinsy. I always have quinsy when royal people ask me to
dinner," he added, laughing immoderately.
Ah, what avails the sceptered race,
Ah, what the form divine!
What every virtue, every grace!--
Rose Aylmer, all were thine.
Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes
May weep but never see,
A night of memories and of sighs
I consecrate to thee.
XX
LEIGH HUNT'S BUSINESS ABILITY
Sir George Murray Smith, leading member of the famous publishing house
of Smith, Elder and Company, was well acquainted with the leading
literary men of England during an active career of sixty years. The
following account of Leigh Hunt is especially entertaining:
"Business was by no means Leigh Hunt's strong point. In this respect,
but not otherwise, he may have suggested Skimpole to Charles Dickens.
On one of my visits I found him trying to puzzle out the abstruse
question of how he should deduct some such sum as thirteen shillings
and ninepence from a sovereign. On another occasion I had to pay him a
sum of money, L100 or L200, and I wrote him a check for the amount.
'Well,' he said, 'what am I to do with this little bit of paper?' I
told him that if he presented it at the bank they would pay him cash
for it, but I added, 'I will save you that trouble.' I sent to the
bank and cashed the check for him. He took the notes away carefully
inclosed in an envelope. Two days afterward Leigh Hunt came in a state
of great agitation to tell me that his wife had burned them. He had
thrown the envelope, with the bank notes inside, carelessly down, and
his wife had flung it into the fire. Leigh Hunt's agitation while on
his way to bring this news had not prevented him from purchasing on
the road a little statuette of Psyche which he carried, without any
paper round it, in his hand. I told him I thought something might be
done in the matter; I sent to the bankers and got the numbers of the
notes, and then in company with Leigh Hunt went off to the Bank of
England. I explained our business, and we were shown into a room where
three old gentlemen were sitting at tables. They kept us waiting some
time, and Leigh Hunt, who had meantime been staring all round the
room, at last got up, walked up to one of the staid officials, and
addressing him said in wondering tones: 'And this is the Bank of
England! And do you sit here all day, and never see the green woods
and the trees and flowers and the charming country?' Then in tones of
remonstrance he demanded, 'Are you contented with such a life?' All
this time he was holding the little naked Psyche in one hand, and with
his long hair and flashing eyes made a surprising figure. I fancy I
can still see the astonished faces of the three officials; they would
have made a most delightful picture. I said, 'Come away, Mr. Hunt,
these gentlemen are very busy.' I succeeded in carrying Leigh Hunt
off, and, after entering into certain formalities, we were told that
the value of the notes would be paid in twelve months. I gave Leigh
Hunt the money at once, and he went away rejoicing."
XXI
DE QUINCEY RUNS AWAY
My father died when I was about seven years old, says the author of
the _Confessions of an Opium-Eater_, and left me to the care of four
guardians. I was sent to various schools, great and small, and was
very early distinguished for my classical attainments, especially for
my knowledge of Greek. At thirteen I wrote Greek with ease, and at
fifteen my command of that language was so great, that I not only
composed Greek verses in lyric meters, but would converse in Greek
fluently, and without embarrassment--an accomplishment which I have
not since met with in any scholar of my times, and which, in my case,
was owing to the practice of daily reading off the newspapers into the
best Greek I could furnish _extempore_; for the necessity of
ransacking my memory and invention for all sorts and combinations of
periphrastic expressions, as equivalents for modern ideas, images,
relations of things, etc., gave me a compass of diction which would
never have been called out by a dull translation of moral essays, etc.
"That boy," said one of my masters, pointing the attention of a
stranger to me, "that boy could harangue an Athenian mob better than
you or I could address an English one." He who honored me with this
eulogy was a scholar, "and a ripe and good one," and of all my tutors,
was the only one whom I loved or reverenced. Unfortunately for me
(and, as I afterwards learned, to this worthy man's great
indignation), I was transferred to the care, first of a blockhead, who
was in a perpetual panic lest I should expose his ignorance; and,
finally, to that of a respectable scholar, at the head of a great
school on an ancient foundation. This man had been appointed to his
situation by ---- College, Oxford, and was a sound, well-built
scholar, but (like most men whom I have known from that college)
coarse, clumsy, and inelegant. A miserable contrast he presented, in
my eyes, to the Etonian brilliancy of my favorite master; and,
besides, he could not disguise from my hourly notice the poverty and
meagerness of his understanding. It is a bad thing for a boy to be,
and know himself, far beyond his tutors, whether in knowledge or power
of mind. This was the case, so far as regarded knowledge at least, not
with myself only, for the two boys who jointly with myself composed
the first form were better Grecians than the head-master, though not
more elegant scholars.... I who had a small patrimonial property, the
income of which was sufficient to support me at college, wished to be
sent thither immediately. I made earnest representations on the
subject to my guardians, but all to no purpose. One, who was more
reasonable, and had more knowledge of the world than the rest, lived
at a distance; two of the other three resigned all their authority
into the hands of the fourth, and this fourth, with whom I had to
negotiate, was a worthy man, in his way, but haughty, obstinate, and
intolerant of all opposition to his will. After a certain number of
letters and personal interviews, I found that I had nothing to hope
for, not even a compromise of the matter, from my guardian:
unconditional submission was what he demanded, and I prepared myself,
therefore, for other measures. Summer was now coming on with hasty
steps, and my seventeenth birthday was fast approaching, after which
day I had sworn within myself that I would no longer be numbered among
schoolboys. Money being what I chiefly wanted, I wrote to a woman of
high rank, who, though young herself, had known me from a child, and
had latterly treated me with great distinction, requesting that she
would "lend" me five guineas. For upward of a week no answer came, and
I was beginning to despond, when at length a servant put into my hands
a double letter, with a coronet on the seal. The letter was kind and
obliging; the fair writer was on the sea-coast, and in that way the
delay had arisen; she inclosed double of what I had asked, and
good-naturedly hinted that if I should _never_ repay her, it would not
absolutely ruin her. Now, then, I was prepared for my scheme: ten
guineas, added to about two that I had remaining from my pocket-money,
seemed to me sufficient for an indefinite length of time, and at that
happy age, if no _definite_ boundary can be assigned to one's power,
the spirit of hope and pleasure makes it virtually infinite.
It is a just remark of Dr. Johnson's (and, what cannot often be said of
his remarks, it is a very feeling one) that we never do anything
consciously for the last time (of things, that is, which we have long
been in the habit of doing) without sadness of heart. This truth I felt
deeply when I came to leave ----, a place which I did not love, and
where I had not been happy. On the evening before I left ---- forever,
I grieved when the ancient and lofty schoolroom resounded with the
evening service, performed for the last time in my hearing; and at
night, when the muster-roll of names was called over, and mine (as
usual) was called first, I stepped forward, and passing the
head-master, who was standing by, I bowed to him, and looked earnestly
in his face, thinking to myself, "He is old and infirm, and in this
world I shall not see him again." I was right; I never _did_ see him
again, nor never shall. He looked at me complacently, smiled
good-naturedly, returned my salutation (or rather my valediction), and
we parted (though he knew it not) forever. I could not reverence him
intellectually, but he had been uniformly kind to me, and had allowed
me many indulgences, and I grieved at the thought of the mortification
I should inflict upon him.
The morning came which was to launch me into the world, and from which
my whole succeeding life has, in many important points, taken its
coloring. I lodged in the head-master's house, and had been allowed,
from my first entrance, the indulgence of a private room, which I used
both as a sleeping-room and as a study. At half after three I rose,
and gazed with deep emotion at the ancient towers of ----, "drest in
earliest light," and beginning to crimson with the radiant luster of a
cloudless July morning. I was firm and immovable in my purpose, but
yet agitated by anticipation of uncertain danger and troubles; and if
I could have foreseen the hurricane, and perfect hail-storm of
affliction, which soon fell upon me, well might I have been agitated.
To this agitation the deep peace of the morning presented an affecting
contrast, and in some degree a medicine. The silence was more profound
than that of midnight, and to me the silence of a summer morning is
more touching than all other silence, because, the light being broad
and strong as that of noonday at other seasons of the year, it seems
to differ from perfect day chiefly because man is not yet abroad, and
thus, the peace of nature, and of the innocent creatures of God, seem
to be secure and deep, only so long as the presence of man, and his
restless and unquiet spirit, are not there to trouble its sanctity.
I dressed myself, took my hat and gloves, and lingered a little in the
room. For the last year and a half this room had been my "pensive
citadel:" here I had read and studied through all the hours of the
night, and, though true it was that, for the latter part of this time,
I, who was framed for love and gentle affections, had lost my gayety
and happiness, during the strife and fever of contention with my
guardian, yet, on the other hand, as a boy so passionately fond of
books, and dedicated to intellectual pursuits, I could not fail to
have enjoyed many happy hours in the midst of general dejection. I
wept as I looked round on the chair, hearth, writing-table, and other
familiar objects, knowing too certainly that I looked upon them for
the last time. While I write this, it is eighteen years ago, and yet,
at this moment, I see distinctly, as if it were yesterday, the
lineaments and expressions of the object on which I fixed my parting
gaze: it was a picture of the lovely ----, which hung over the
mantelpiece, the eyes and mouth of which were so beautiful, and the
whole countenance so radiant with benignity and divine tranquillity,
that I had a thousand times laid down my pen, or my book, to gather
consolation from it, as a devotee from his patron saint. While I was
yet gazing upon it, the deep tones of ---- clock proclaimed that it
was four o'clock. I went up to the picture, kissed it, and then gently
walked out and closed the door forever!
XXII
MACAULAY'S CHILDHOOD
Macaulay is one of the brilliant lights of the first half of the last
century. Trevelyan's _Life and Letters_ of Macaulay gives us an
interesting glimpse of his childhood. When his parents moved from the
heart of London into a less crowded district, Macaulay, baby though he
was, kept the early impressions of the place.
"He remembered," says his biographer, "standing up at the nursery
window by his father's side, looking at a cloud of black smoke pouring
out of a tall chimney. He asked if that was hell: an inquiry that was
received with great displeasure which at the time he could not
understand. The kindly father must have been pained almost against his
own will at finding what feature of his stern creed it was that had
embodied itself in so very material a shape before his little son's
imagination. When in after days, Mrs. Macaulay was questioned as to
how soon she began to detect in the child a promise of the future, she
used to say that his sensibilities and affections were remarkably
developed at an age which to her hearers appeared next to incredible.
He would cry for joy on seeing her after a few hours' absence, and
(till her husband put a stop to it) her power of exciting his feelings
was often made an exhibition to her friends. She did not regard this
precocity as a proof of cleverness, but, like a foolish young mother,
only thought that so tender a nature was marked for early death.
"The new residence was in the High Street of Clapham, a more
commodious part of London than that which they had just left. "It was
a roomy, comfortable dwelling, with a very small garden behind, and in
front a very small one indeed, which has entirely disappeared beneath
a large shop thrown out toward the roadway by the present occupier,
who bears the name of Heywood. Here the boy passed a quiet and most
happy childhood. From the time that he was three years old he read
incessantly, for the most part lying on the rug before the fire, with
his book on the floor, and a piece of bread and butter in his hand. A
very clever woman who then lived in the house as parlor-maid told how
he used to sit in his nankeen frock, perched on the table by her as
she was cleaning the plate, and expounding to her out of a volume as
big as himself. He did not care for toys, but was very fond of taking
his walk, when he would hold forth to his companion, whether nurse or
mother, telling interminable stories, out of his own head, or
repeating what he had been reading in language far above his years.
His memory retained without effort the phraseology of the book which
he had been last engaged on, and he talked, as the maid said, 'quite
printed words,' which produced an effect that appeared formal, and
often, no doubt, exceedingly droll. Mrs. Hannah More was fond of
relating how she called at Mr. Macaulay's, and was met by a fair,
pretty, slight child, with abundance of light hair, about four years
of age, who came to the front door to receive her, and tell her that
his parents were out, but that if she would be good enough to come in
he would bring her a glass of old spirits, a proposition which greatly
startled the old lady, who had never aspired beyond cowslip-wine. When
questioned as to what he knew about old spirits he could only say that
Robinson Crusoe often had some. About this period his father took him
on a visit to Lady Waldegrave at Strawberry Hill, and was much pleased
to exhibit to his old friend the fair, bright boy, dressed in a green
coat with red collar and cuffs, a frill at the throat, and white
trousers. After some time had been spent among the wonders of the
Orford Collection, of which he ever after carried a catalogue in his
head, a servant who was waiting on the company in the great gallery
spilled some hot coffee over his legs. The hostess was all kindness
and compassion, and when, after a while, she asked him how he was
feeling, the little fellow looked up in her face, and replied, 'Thank
you, madam, the agony is abated.'
"But it must not be supposed his quaint manners proceeded from
affectation or conceit, for all testimony declares that a more simple
and natural child never lived, or a more lively and merry one. He had
at his command the resources of the Common; to this day the most
unchanged spot within ten miles of St. Paul's, and which to all
appearance will ere long hold that pleasant pre-eminence within ten
leagues. That delightful wilderness of gorse bushes, and poplar groves
and gravel pits, and ponds great and small, was to little Tom Macaulay
a region of inexhaustible romance and mystery. He explored its
recesses; he composed, and almost believed, its legends; he invented
for its different features a nomenclature which has been faithfully
preserved by two generations of children. A slight ridge intersected
by deep ditches toward the west of the Common, the very existence of
which no one above eight years old would notice, was dignified with
the title of the Alps; while the elevated island, covered with shrubs,
that gives a name to the Mount pond, was regarded with infinite awe,
as being the nearest approach within the circuit of his observation to
a conception of the majesty of Sinai. Indeed, at this period his
infant fancy was much exercised with the threats and terrors of the
Law. He had a little plot of ground at the back of the house, marked
out as his own by a row of oyster shells, which a maid one day threw
away as rubbish. He went straight to the drawing-room, where his
mother was entertaining some visitors, walked into the circle and
said, very solemnly, 'Cursed be Sally; for it is written, cursed be he
that removeth his neighbor's landmark.'
"When still the merest child, he was sent as a day-scholar to Mr.
Greaves, a shrewd Yorkshireman with a turn for science, who had been
brought originally to the neighborhood in order to educate a number of
African youths sent over to imbibe Western civilization at the
fountain-head. The poor fellows had found as much difficulty in
keeping alive at Clapham as Englishmen experience at Sierra Leone;
and, in the end, their tutor set up a school for boys of his own
color, and one time had charge of almost the entire rising generation
of the Common. Mrs. Macaulay explained to Tom that he must learn to
study without the solace of bread-and-butter, to which he replied,
'Yes, Mama, industry shall be my bread and attention my butter.' But,
as a matter of fact, no one ever crept more unwillingly to school.
Each several afternoon he made piteous entreaties to be excused
returning after dinner, and was met by the unvarying formula, 'No,
Tom, if it rains cats and dogs, you shall go.'
"His reluctance to leave home had more than one side to it. Not only
did his heart stay behind, but the regular lessons of the class took
him away from occupations which in his eyes were infinitely more
delightful and important; for these were probably the years of his
greatest literary activity. As an author he never again had more
facility, or anything like so wide a range. In September, 1808, his
mother writes: 'My dear Tom continues to show marks of uncommon
genius. He gets on wonderfully in all branches of his education, and
the extent of his reading, and of the knowledge he derived from it,
are truly astonishing in a boy not yet eight years old. He is at the
same time as playful as a kitten. To give you some idea of the
activity of his mind I will mention a few circumstances that may
interest you and Colin. You will believe that to him we never appear
to regard anything he does as anything more than a schoolboy's
amusement. He took it into his head to write a compendium of universal
history about a year ago, and he really contrived to give a tolerably
connected view of the leading events from the creation to the present
time, filling about a quire of paper. He told me one day that he had
been writing a paper which Henry Daly was to translate into Malabar,
to persuade the people of Travancore to embrace the Christian
religion. On reading it, I found it to contain a very clear idea of
the leading facts and doctrines of that religion, with some strong
arguments for its adoption. He was so fired with reading Scott's _Lay_
and _Marmion_, the former of which he got entirely, and the latter
almost entirely, by heart, merely from his delight in reading them,
that he determined on writing himself a poem in six cantos which he
called _The Battle of Cheviot_.'"
XXIII
MACAULAY BECOMES FAMOUS
In 1848 Macaulay was a famous man. He had served in India and had
written the first part of his _History of England_. In this year after
a lapse of nine years he again keeps a diary. From this diary we quote
extracts showing how he became famous.
"Dec. 4th, 1848.--I have felt to-day somewhat anxious about the fate
of my book. The sale has surpassed expectation: but that proves only
that people have formed a high idea of what they are to have. The
disappointment, if there is disappointment, will be great. All that I
hear is laudatory. But who can trust to praise that is poured into his
own ear? At all events, I have aimed high; I have tried to do
something that may be remembered; I have had the year 2000, or even
3000, often in my mind; I have sacrificed nothing to temporary
fashions of thought and style; and if I fail, my failure will be more
honorable than nine-tenths of the successes that I have witnessed."
"Dec. 12th, 1848.--Longman called. A new edition of three thousand
copies is preparing as fast as they can work. I have reason to be
pleased. Of the _Lay of the Last Minstrel_ two thousand two hundred
and fifty copies were sold in the first year; of _Marmion_ two
thousand copies in the first month; of my book three thousand copies
in ten days. Black says that there has been no such sale since the
days of _Waverley_. The success is in every way complete beyond all
hope and is the more agreeable to me because expectation had been
wound up so high that disappointment was almost inevitable. I think,
though with some misgivings, that the book will live."
"January 11th, 1849.--I am glad to find how well my book continues to
sell. The second edition of three thousand was out of print almost as
soon as it appeared, and one thousand two hundred and fifty of the
third edition are already bespoken. I hope all this will not make me a
coxcomb. I feel no intoxicating effect; but a man may be drunk without
knowing it. If my abilities do not fail me, I shall be a rich man, as
rich, that is to say, as I wish to be. But that I am already, if it
were not for my dear ones. I am content, and should have been so with
less. On the whole, I remember no success so complete, and I remember
all Byron's poems and all Scott's novels."
"Saturday, January 27th.--Longman has written to say that only sixteen
hundred copies are left of the third edition of five thousand, and
that two thousand more copies must be immediately printed, still to be
called the third edition.... Of such a run I had never dreamed. But I
had thought that the book would have a permanent place in our
literature, and I see no reason to alter that opinion."
"February 2d.--Mahon sent me a letter from Arbuthnot, saying that the
Duke of Wellington was enthusiastic in admiration of my book. Though I
am almost callous to praise now, this praise made me happy for two
minutes. A fine old fellow!"
The above selections are from Macaulay's diary, as was said. Now come
several from letters to a Mr. Ellis, to whom Macaulay sent many.
"March 8th, 1849.