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* * * * *
BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
NO. CCCXCVI. OCTOBER, 1848. VOL. LXIV.
CONTENTS.
THE CAXTONS. PART VII., 387
POLITICAL ECONOMY, BY J. S. MILL, 407
LIFE IN THE "FAR WEST." PART V., 429
A LEGEND FROM ANTWERP, 444
A FEW WORDS ABOUT NOVELS.--A DIALOGUE,
IN A LETTER TO EUSEBIUS, 459
CONTINENTAL REVOLUTIONS--IRISH REBELLION--ENGLISH
DISTRESS, 475
BYRON'S ADDRESS TO THE OCEAN, 499
EDINBURGH:
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, 45, GEORGE STREET; AND 37, PATERNOSTER
ROW, LONDON.
_To whom all Communications (post paid) must be addressed._
SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.
BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
NO. CCCXCVI. OCTOBER, 1848. VOL. LXIV.
THE CAXTONS.--PART VII.
CHAPTER XXVI.
Saith Dr Luther, "When I saw Dr Gode begin to tell his puddings
hanging in the chimney, I told him he would not live long!"
I wish I had copied that passage from "The Table Talk" in large round
hand, and set it before my father at breakfast, the morn preceding
that fatal eve in which Uncle Jack persuaded him to tell his puddings.
Yet, now I think of it, Uncle Jack hung the puddings in the
chimney,--but he did not persuade my father to tell them.
Beyond a vague surmise that half the suspended "tomacula" would
furnish a breakfast to Uncle Jack, and that the youthful appetite of
Pisistratus would despatch the rest, my father did not give a thought
to the nutritious properties of the puddings,--in other words, to the
two thousand pounds which, thanks to Mr Tibbets, dangled down the
chimney. So far as the great work was concerned, my father only cared
for its publication, not its profits. I will not say that he might not
hunger for praise, but I am quite sure that he did not care a button
for pudding. Nevertheless, it was an infaust and sinister augury for
Augustine Caxton, the very appearance, the very suspension and
danglement of any puddings whatsoever, right over his ingle-nook, when
those puddings were made by the sleek hands of Uncle Jack! None of the
puddings which he, poor man, had all his life been stringing, whether
from his own chimneys, or the chimneys of other people, had turned out
to be real puddings,--they had always been the _eidola_, the
_erscheinungen_, the phantoms and semblances of puddings. I question
if Uncle Jack knew much about Democritus of Abdera. But he was
certainly tainted with the philosophy of that fanciful sage. He
peopled the air with images of colossal stature, which impressed all
his dreams and divinations, and from whose influences came his very
sensations and thoughts. His whole being, asleep or waking, was thus
but the reflection of great phantom puddings!
As soon as Mr Tibbets had possessed himself of the two volumes of the
"History of Human Error," he had necessarily established that hold
upon my father which hitherto those lubricate hands of his had failed
to effect. He had found what he had so long sighed for in vain, his
_point d'appui_, wherein to fix the Archimedean screw. He fixed it
tight in the "History of Human Error," and moved the Caxtonian world.
A day or two after the conversation recorded in my last chapter, I saw
Uncle Jack coming out of the mahogany doors of my father's banker;
and, from that time, there seemed no reason why Mr Tibbets should not
visit his relations on week-days as well as Sundays. Not a day,
indeed, passed but what he held long conversations with my father. He
had much to report of his interviews with the publishers. In these
conversations he naturally recurred to that grand idea of the
"Literary Times" which had so dazzled my poor father's imagination;
and having heated the iron, Uncle Jack was too knowing a man not to
strike while it was hot.
When I think of the simplicity my wise father exhibited in this crisis
of his life, I must own that I am less moved by pity than admiration
for that poor great-hearted student. We have seen that out of the
learned indolence of twenty years, the ambition which is the instinct
of a man of genius had emerged; the serious preparation of the great
book for the perusal of the world, had insensibly restored the charms
of that noisy world on the silent individual. And therewith came a
noble remorse that he had hitherto done so little for his species. Was
it enough to write quartos upon the past history of Human Error? Was
it not his duty, when the occasion was fairly presented, to enter upon
that present, daily, hourly, war with Error--which is the sworn
chivalry of Knowledge? St George did not dissect dead dragons, he
fought the live one. And London, with that magnetic atmosphere which
in great capitals fills the breath of life with stimulating particles,
had its share in quickening the slow pulse of the student. In the
country, he read but his old authors, and lived with them through the
gone ages. In the city, my father, during the intervals of repose from
the great book, and still more now that the great book had come to a
pause,--inspected the literature of his own time. It had a prodigious
effect upon him. He was unlike the ordinary run of scholars, and,
indeed, of readers for that matter--who, in their superstitious homage
to the dead, are always willing enough to sacrifice the living. He did
justice to the marvellous fertility of intellect which characterises
the authorship of the present age. By the present age, I do not only
mean the present day, I commence with the century. "What," said my
father one day in dispute with Trevanion--"what characterises the
literature of our time is--its _human interest_. It is true that we do
not see scholars addressing scholars, but men addressing men,--not
that scholars are fewer, but that the reading public is more large.
Authors in all ages address themselves to what interests their
readers; the same things do not interest a vast community which
interested half a score of monks or bookworms. The literary _polis_
was once an oligarchy, it is now a republic. It is the general
brilliancy of the atmosphere which prevents your noticing the size of
any particular star. Do you not see, that with the cultivation of the
masses has awakened the Literature of the Affections? Every sentiment
finds an expositor, every feeling an oracle. Like Epimenides, I have
been sleeping in a cave; and, waking, I see those whom I left children
are bearded men; and towns have sprung up in the landscapes which I
left as solitary wastes."
Thence, the reader may perceive the causes of the change which had
come over my father. As Robert Hall says, I think, of Dr Kippis, "he
had laid so many books at the top of his head, that the brains could
not move." But the electricity had now penetrated the heart, and the
quickened vigour of that noble organ enabled the brain to stir.
Meanwhile, I leave my father to these influences, and to the
continuous conversations of Uncle Jack, and proceed with the thread of
my own egotism.
Thanks to Mr Trevanion, my habits were not those which favour
friendships with the idle; but I formed some acquaintances amongst
young men a few years older than myself, who held subordinate
situations in the public offices, or were keeping their terms for the
bar. There was no want of ability amongst these gentlemen; but they
had not yet settled into the stern prose of life. Their busy hours
only made them more disposed to enjoy the hours of relaxation. And
when we got together, a very gay, light-hearted set we were! We had
neither money enough to be very extravagant, nor leisure enough to be
very dissipated; but we amused ourselves notwithstanding. My new
friends were wonderfully erudite in all matters connected with the
theatres. From an opera to a ballet, from Hamlet to the last farce
from the French, they had the literature of the stage at the
finger-ends of their straw-coloured gloves. They had a pretty large
acquaintance with actors and actresses, and were perfect _Walpoluli_
in the minor scandals of the day. To do them justice, however, they
were not indifferent to the more masculine knowledge necessary in
"this wrong world." They talked as familiarly of the real actors of
life as of the sham ones. They could adjust to a hair the rival
pretensions of contending statesmen. They did not profess to be deep
in the mysteries of foreign cabinets, (with the exception of one young
gentleman connected with the Foreign Office, who prided himself on
knowing exactly what the Russians meant to do with India--when they
got it!); but to make amends, the majority of them had penetrated the
closest secrets of our own. It is true that, according to a proper
subdivision of labour, each took some particular member of the
government for his special observation; just as the most skilful
surgeons, however profoundly versed in the general structure of our
frame, rest their anatomical fame on the light they throw on
particular parts of it,--one man taking the brain, another the
duodenum, a third the spinal cord, while a fourth, perhaps, is a
master of all the symptoms indicated by a pensile finger. Accordingly,
one of my friends appropriated to himself the Home Department; another
the Colonies; and a third, whom we all regarded as a future
Talleyrand, (or a de Retz at least,) had devoted himself to the
special study of Sir Robert Peel, and knew, by the way in which that
profound and inscrutable statesman threw open his coat, every thought
that was passing in his breast! Whether lawyers or officials, they all
had a great idea of themselves--high notions of what they were to
_be_, rather than what they were to _do_, some day. As the king of
modern fine gentlemen said of himself, in paraphrase of Voltaire,
"they had letters in their pockets addressed to Posterity,--which the
chances were, however, that they might forget to deliver." Something
"priggish" there might be about some of them; but, on the whole, they
were far more interesting than mere idle men of pleasure. There was
about them, as features of a general family likeness, a redundant
activity of life--a gay exuberance of ambition--a light-hearted
earnestness when at work--a schoolboy's enjoyment of the hours of
play.
A great contrast to these young men was Sir Sedley Beaudesert, who was
pointedly kind to me, and whose bachelor's house was always open to me
after noon; Sir Sedley was visible to no one, but his valet, before
that hour. A perfect bachelor's house it was, too--with its windows
opening on the Park, and sofas niched into the windows, on which you
might loll at your ease, like the philosopher in Lucretius,--
"Despicere unde queas alios, passimque videre,
Errare,"--
And see the gay crowds ride to and fro Rotten Row--without the fatigue
of joining them, especially if the wind was in the east.
There was no affectation of costliness, or what the French and the
upholsterers call _recherche_, about the rooms, but a wonderful
accumulation of comfort. Every patent chair that proffered a variety
in the art of lounging, found its place there; and near every chair a
little table, on which you might deposit your book or your coffee-cup,
without the trouble of moving more than your hand. In winter, nothing
warmer than the quilted curtains and Axminster carpets can be
conceived. In summer, nothing airier and cooler than the muslin
draperies and the Indian mattings. And I defy a man to know to what
perfection dinner may be brought, unless he had dined with Sir Sedley
Beaudesert. Certainly, if that distinguished personage had but been an
egotist, he had been the happiest of men. But, unfortunately for him,
he was singularly amiable and kind-hearted. He had the _bonne
digestion_, but not the other requisite for worldly felicity--the
_mauvais coeur_. He felt a sincere pity for every one else who lived
in rooms without patent chairs and little coffee tables--whose windows
did not look on the Park, with sofas niched into their recesses. As
Henry IV. wished every man to have his _pot au feu_, so Sir Sedley
Beaudesert, if he could have had his way, would have every man served
with an early cucumber for his fish, and a caraffe of iced water by
the side of his bread and cheese. He thus evinced on politics a naive
simplicity, which delightfully contrasted his acuteness on matters of
taste. I remember his saying, in a discussion on the Beer Bill, "The
poor ought not to be allowed to drink beer, it is so particularly
rheumatic! The best drink in hard work is dry champagne--(not
_mousseux_.) I found that out when I used to shoot on the moors."
Indolent as Sir Sedley was, he had contrived to open an extraordinary
number of drains on his great wealth.
First, as a landed proprietor, there was no end to applications from
distressed farmers, aged poor, benefit societies, and poachers he had
thrown out of employment by giving up his preserves to please his
tenants.
Next, as a man of pleasure, the whole race of womankind had legitimate
demands on him. From a distressed duchess, whose picture lay _perdu_
under a secret spring of his snuff-box, to a decayed laundress, to
whom he might have paid a compliment on the perfect involutions of a
frill, it was quite sufficient to be a daughter of Eve to establish a
just claim on Sir Sedley's inheritance from Adam.
Again, as an amateur of art, and a respectful servant of every muse,
all whom the public had failed to patronise--painter, actor, poet,
musician--turned, like dying sun-flowers to the sun, towards the
pitying smile of Sir Sedley Beaudesert. Add to these the general
miscellaneous multitude, who 'had heard of Sir Sedley's high character
for benevolence,' and one may well suppose what a very costly
reputation he had set up. In fact, though Sir Sedley could not spend
on what might fairly be called "himself," a fifth part of his princely
income, I have no doubt that he found it difficult to make both ends
meet at the close of the year. That he did so, he owed perhaps to two
rules which his philosophy had peremptorily adopted. He never made
debts, and he never gambled. For both these admirable aberrations from
the ordinary routine of fine gentlemen, I believe he was indebted to
the softness of his disposition. He had a great compassion for a
wretch who was dunned. "Poor fellow!" he would say, "it must be so
painful to him to pass his life in saying No." So little did he know
about that class of promisers,--as if a man dunned ever said No! As
Beau Brummell, when asked if he was fond of vegetables, owned that he
had once eaten a pea, so Sir Sedley Beaudesert owned that he had once
played high at piquet. "I was so unlucky as to win," said he,
referring to that indiscretion, "and I shall never forget the anguish
on the face of the man who paid me. Unless I could always lose, it
would be a perfect purgatory to play."
Now nothing could be more different in their kinds of benevolence than
Sir Sedley and Mr Trevanion. Mr Trevanion had a great contempt for
individual charity. He rarely put his hand into his purse--he drew a
great cheque on his bankers. Was a congregation without a church, or a
village without a school, or a river without a bridge, Mr Trevanion
set to work on calculations, found out the exact sum required by an
algebraic _x-y_, and paid it as he would have paid his butcher. It
must be owned that the distress of a man, whom he allowed to be
deserving, did not appeal to him in vain. But it is astonishing how
little he spent in that way. For it was hard, indeed, to convince Mr
Trevanion that a deserving man ever was in such distress as to want
charity.
That Trevanion, nevertheless, did infinitely more real good than Sir
Sedley, I believe; but he did it as a mental operation--by no means as
an impulse from the heart. I am sorry to say that the main difference
was this,--distress always seemed to accumulate round Sir Sedley, and
vanish from the presence of Trevanion. Where the last came, with his
busy, active, searching mind, energy woke, improvement sprang up.
Where the first came, with his warm kind heart, a kind of torpor
spread under its rays; people lay down and basked in the liberal
sunshine. Nature in one broke forth like a brisk sturdy winter, in the
other like a lazy Italian summer. Winter is an excellent invigorator,
no doubt, but we all love summer better.
Now, it is a proof how loveable Sir Sedley was, that I loved him, and
yet was jealous of him. Of all the satellites round my fair Cynthia,
Fanny Trevanion, I dreaded most this amiable luminary. It was in vain
for me to say with the insolence of youth that Sir Sedley Beaudesert
was of the same age as Fanny's father;--to see them together he might
have passed for Trevanion's son. No one amongst the younger generation
was half so handsome as Sir Sedley Beaudesert. He might be eclipsed at
first sight by the showy effect of more redundant locks and more
brilliant bloom. But he had but to speak, to smile, in order to throw
a whole cohort of dandies into the shade. It was the expression of his
countenance that was so bewitching; there was something so kindly in
its easy candour, its benign good-nature. And he understood women so
well! He flattered their foibles so insensibly; he commanded their
affection with so gracious a dignity. Above all, what with his
accomplishments, his peculiar reputation, his long celibacy, and the
soft melancholy of his sentiments, he always contrived to _interest_
them. There was not a charming woman by whom this charming man did not
seem just on the point of being caught! It was like the sight of a
splendid trout in a transparent stream, sailing pensively to and fro
your fly, in a will and a won't sort of way. Such a trout! it would be
a thousand pities to leave him, when evidently so well disposed! That
trout, fair maid, or gentle widow, would have kept you--whipping the
stream and dragging the fly--from morn to dewy eve. Certainly I don't
wish worse to my bitterest foe of five-and-twenty than such a rival as
Sedley Beaudesert at seven-and-forty.
Fanny, indeed, perplexed me horribly. Sometimes I fancied she liked me;
but the fancy scarce thrilled me with delight before it vanished in the
frost of a careless look, or the cold beam of a sarcastic laugh.
Spoiled darling of the world as she was, she seemed so innocent in her
exuberant happiness, that one forgot all her faults in that atmosphere
of joy which she diffused around her. And despite her pretty insolence,
she had so kind a woman's heart below the surface! When she once saw
that she had pained you, she was so soft, so winning, so humble, till
she had healed the wound. But _then_, if she saw she had pleased you
too much, the little witch was never easy till she had plagued you
again. As heiress to so rich a father, or rather, perhaps, mother, (for
the fortune came from Lady Ellinor,) she was naturally surrounded with
admirers not wholly disinterested. She did right to plague _them_--but
ME! Poor boy that I was, why should I seem more disinterested than
others! how should she perceive all that lay hid in my young deep
heart? Was I not in all worldly pretensions the least worthy of her
suitors, and might I not seem, therefore, the most mercenary? I who
never thought of her fortune, or, if that thought did come across me,
it was to make me start and turn pale! And then it vanished at her
first glance, as a ghost from the dawn. How hard it is to convince
youth, that sees all the world of the future before it, and covers that
future with golden palaces, of the inequalities of life! In my
fantastic and sublime romance, I looked out into that Great Beyond, saw
myself orator, statesman, minister, ambassador--Heaven knows what;
laying laurels, which I mistook for rent-rolls, at Fanny's feet.
Whatever Fanny might have discovered as to the state of my heart, it
seemed an abyss not worth prying into by either Trevanion or Lady
Ellinor. The first, indeed, as may be supposed, was too busy to think
of such trifles. And Lady Ellinor treated me as a mere boy--almost
like a boy of her own, she was so kind to me. But she did not notice
much the things that lay immediately around her. In brilliant
conversation with poets, wits, and statesmen--in sympathy with the
toils of her husband--or proud schemes for his aggrandisement, Lady
Ellinor lived a life of excitement. Those large eager shining eyes of
hers, bright with some feverish discontent, looked far abroad as if
for new worlds to conquer--the world at her feet escaped from her
vision. She loved her daughter, she was proud of her, trusted in her
with a superb repose--she did not watch over her. Lady Ellinor stood
alone on a mountain, and amidst a cloud.