brightest lustre to things which were flung off as a pastime, or
composed as an irksome duty, whilst the performances upon which the
author most relied or prided himself have fallen still-born or been
neglected by posterity. Thus Petrarch, who trusted to his Latin poems
for immortality, mainly owes it to the Sonnets, which he regarded as
ephemeral displays of feeling or fancy of the hour. Thus Chesterfield,
the orator, the statesman, the Maecenas and Petronius of his age, and
(above all) the first viceroy who ventured on justice to Ireland, is
floated down to our times by his familiar Letters to his Son. Thus
Johnson, the Colossus of Literature, were he to look up or down (to
adopt the more polite hypothesis), would hardly believe his eyes or
ears, on finding that Bozzy, the snubbed and suppressed, yet ever
elastic and rebounding Bozzy, is the prop, the bulwark, the key-stone of
his fame; "the salt which keeps it sweet, the vitality which preserves
it from putrefaction." We have it upon the authority of old Thomas
Fuller, that "when a French printer complained that he was utterly
undone by printing a solid, serious book of Rabelais concerning physic,
Rabelais, to make him recompense, made that his jesting, scurrilous
work, which repaired the printer's loss with advantage." "It was
impossible to tell beforehand," said Northcote to Hazlitt, "what would
hit the public. You might as well pretend to say what ticket would turn
up a prize in the lottery. It was not chance neither, but some
unforeseen coincidence between the subject and the prevailing taste,
that you could not possibly be a judge of. I had once painted two
pictures--one of a Fortune-teller (a boy with a monkey) and another
called The Visit to the Grandmother; and Raphael Smith came to me and
wanted to engrave them, being willing to give a handsome sum for the
first, but only to do the last as an experiment. He sold ten times as
many of the last as of the first, and told me that there were not less
than five different impressions done of it in Paris; and once, when I
went to his house, to get one to complete a set of engravings after my
designs, they asked me six guineas for a proof impression! This was too
much, but I was delighted that I could not afford to pay for my own
work, from the value that was set upon it." Cervantes, who was
fifty-eight when he published the first part of Don Quixote, had, like
Fielding, "written a considerable number of indifferent dramas which
gave no indication of the immortal work which afterward astonished and
delighted the world. He was the author of several tales, for which even
his subsequent fame can procure very few readers, and would certainly
have been forgotten if the lustre of his masterpiece had not shed its
light upon everything which belonged to him. It was not till he was
verging upon three-score that he hit upon the happy plan which was to
exhibit his genius, and which nothing previously sufficed to display.
Fielding was equally ignorant of his province. Writing for a
subsistence, trying everything by turns, having the strongest interest
in discovering how he could lay out his powers to the best advantage, he
mistook his road, and only found it by chance. If Pamela had never
existed, it is more than possible that English literature might have
wanted Joseph Andrews, Tom Jones, and Amelia." Scott's conversation
about his own productions, as recorded by Moore in his Diary, is
curious, showing that he rather stumbled upon his talent than cultivated
it originally. "Had begun Waverley long before, and then thrown it by,
until having occasion for some money (to help his brother, I think), he
bethought himself of it, but could not find the MSS." When he did,
"made 3,000 pounds by Waverley."
It is set down as a striking commentary upon the taste of his
contemporaries that Hogarth's six pictures of Marriage a la Mode were
sold for nineteen pounds and six shillings, though fifty years afterward
they brought one thousand three hundred and eighty pounds. The
manuscript of Robinson Crusoe ran through the whole trade, nor would any
one print it, though the writer, De Foe, was in good repute as an
author. The bookseller who risked the publication was a speculator, not
remarkable for discernment. The Vicar of Wakefield lay unpublished for
two years after the publisher, Newberry, was importuned by Dr. Johnson
to pay sixty pounds for it to save the author from distress. Paradise
Lost made a narrow escape. Sterne found it hard to find a publisher for
Tristram Shandy. The sermon in it, he says in the preface to his
Sermons, was printed by itself some years before, but could find neither
purchasers nor readers. When it was inserted in his eccentric work, with
the advantage of Trim's fine reading, it met with a most favorable
reception, and occasioned the others to be collected. Cowper's first
volume of poems was published by Johnson, and fell dead from the press.
Author and publisher were to incur equal loss. Cowper begged Johnson to
forgive him his debt, and this was done. In return, Cowper sent Johnson
his Task, saying: "You behaved generously to me on a former occasion; if
you think it safe to publish this new work, I make you a present of it."
Johnson published it. It became popular. The former volume was then sold
with it. The profits to the publisher, it is said, were at least fifty
thousand dollars. Cooper says that the first volume of The Spy was
actually printed several months before he felt a sufficient inducement
to write a line of the second. As the second volume, he says, was slowly
printing, from manuscript that was barely dry when it went into the
compositor's hands, the publisher intimated that the work might grow to
a length that would consume the profits. To set his mind at rest, the
last chapter was actually written, printed, and paged, several weeks
before the chapters which preceded it were even thought of. The Culprit
Fay, we are told by the biographer of Drake, was composed hastily among
the Highlands of the Hudson, in the summer of 1819. The author was
walking with some friends on a warm moonlight evening, when one of the
party remarked that it would be difficult to write a fairy poem, purely
imaginative, without the aid of human characters. When the party was
reassembled two or three days afterward, The Culprit Fay was read to
them, nearly as it is now printed. Drake placed a very modest estimate
on his own productions, and it is believed that but a small portion of
them have been preserved. When on his death-bed, a friend inquired of
him what disposition he would have made of his poems. "Oh, burn them,"
he replied; "they are quite valueless." Written copies of a number of
them were, however, in circulation, and some had been incorrectly
printed in the periodicals; and for this reason was published the single
collection of them which has appeared. A mere rumor that Erasmus'
Colloquies had got into the Index Expurgatorius, sold an impression of
four-and-twenty thousand copies, and made the fortune of the publisher.
Fenelon's Adventures of Telemachus, which had hitherto remained in
manuscript, was given to the world by the dishonesty of a servant who
had been employed to have the work copied, but who sold it to a
bookseller without disclosing the author's name. The king, having been
told that it was from the pen of the Archbishop of Cambrai, and probably
sharing an unfounded suspicion then current, that the book was a satire
on the court, took measures to suppress it; but a few copies escaped
seizure, and an imperfect edition was printed in Holland in 1699.
Others followed rapidly, and for a long time the press was unable to
keep up with the public demand. Sir Matthew Hale wrote four volumes in
folio, "three of which I have read," says Baxter, "against atheism,
Sadduceeism, and infidelity, to prove first the Deity, and then the
immortality of man's soul, and then the truth of Christianity and the
Holy Scripture, answering the infidel's objections against Scripture. It
is strong and masculine, only too tedious for impatient readers. He said
he wrote it only at vacant hours in his circuits, to regulate his
meditations, finding, that while he wrote down what he thought on, his
thoughts were the easier kept close to work, and kept in a method. But I
could not persuade him to publish them."
One is tempted to speculate upon the books that never were published. As
some of the best books have been written in prison or captivity, so some
of like quality may have perished with their unfortunate authors. If so
many great authors, like Dryden and Cervantes, and Le Sage and Spenser,
almost starved, barely procuring a pittance for their published works,
how many good works may not, in despair, have been destroyed by their
authors. If so many great works were accidentally discovered in
manuscript, how many as great may have perished in that form. "The
Romans wrote their books either on parchment or on paper made of the
Egyptian papyrus. The latter, being the cheapest, was, of course, the
most commonly used. But after the communication between Europe and Egypt
was broken off, on account of the latter having been seized upon by the
Saracens, the papyrus was no longer in use in Italy or in other European
countries. They were obliged, on that account, to write all their books
upon parchment, and as its price was high, books became extremely rare,
and of great value. We may judge of the scarcity of materials for
writing them from one circumstance. There still remain several
manuscripts of the eighth, ninth, and following centuries, written on
parchment, from which some former writing had been erased, in order to
substitute a new composition in its place. In this manner, it is
probable, several books of the ancients perished. A book of Livy, or of
Tacitus, might be erased, to make room for the legendary tale of a
saint, or the superstitious prayers of a missal." Truly, a resurrection
of the unpublished, to say the least, would expose an interesting mass
of intellectual novelties. The book-tasters, wise as they think
themselves, are very far from being unerring in their estimates of brain
values, and better things than they have approved may have gone into the
basket. The weather or bad chirography may have damned many a production
of genius. The rejection of an article for a quarterly may have snuffed
out the most promising talents. It is possible that some charitable
reformer may have discovered a way to fuse sects and harmonize
Christians, but was prevented from showing it to the world by the
stupidity of printers!
The most wonderful and sublime things in nature and art are rarely
appreciated at first view. Every visitor is disappointed at the first
sight of Niagara. Mountains are not appreciated till we have dwelt long
among them. Goethe was at first disturbed and confused by the impression
which Switzerland produced on him. Only after repeated visits, he said,
only in later years, when he visited those mountains as a mineralogist
merely, could he converse with them at his ease. The sea is but a dead,
monotonous waste, till we come to feel its immensity and power. London
is but a great town till we have wandered in it, lost ourselves in it,
studied it, in fine, till we have found it too great to be comprehended,
when its marvelous proportions are expanded into a nation, and it is
accepted as one of the great powers of the world. "The longer one stays
in London," said a temporary resident, "the more it seems a mockery to
say anything about it." "I remember," says an American traveler, "having
read a glorious description of Milan cathedral, and a few days later I
saw the temple myself. To my first view it was only a large marble
church, fronting on an unpleasant square, and adorned with indistinct
spires. I was shocked with disappointment. But when I spent a fortnight
at Milan, and studied the cathedral in every light and through every
part, I then saw that the description was far inadequate to the
actuality." "When the visitor," says Hillard, "has passed into the
interior of St. Peter's, and so far recovered from the first rush of
tumultuous sensations which crowd upon him as to be able to look about
him, he will be struck with, and, if not forewarned, disappointed at,
the apparent want of magnitude." But he will find that the windows of
the church are never opened, it is so immense as well as so complete;
that it has its own atmosphere, and needs no supply from the world
without; that the most zealous professor of ventilation would admit that
there was no work for him to do here. "When we dream of the climate of
heaven, we make it warmth without heat, and coolness without cold, like
that of St. Peter's." It has been mentioned as a remarkable quality in
Coleridge's mind that edifices excited little interest in him. "On his
return from Italy, and after having resided for some time in Rome, I
remember," says Cottle, "his describing to me the state of society; the
characters of the popes and the cardinals; the gorgeous ceremonies, with
the superstitions of the people; but not one word did he utter
concerning St. Peter's, the Vatican, or the numerous antiquities of the
place. I remember to have been with Mr. Coleridge at York on our journey
into Durham, to see Mr. Wordsworth. After breakfast at the inn,
perceiving Mr. C. engaged, I went out alone, to see the York minster,
being in the way detained in a bookseller's shop. In the meantime, Mr.
C., having missed me, set off in search of me. Supposing it probable
that I was gone to the minster, he went up to the door of that
magnificent structure, and inquired of the porter, whether such an
individual as myself had gone in there. Being answered in the negative,
he had no further curiosity, not even looking into the interior, but
turned away to pursue his search! so that Mr. C. left York without
beholding, or wishing to behold, the chief attraction of the city, or
being at all conscious that he had committed, by his neglect, high
treason against all architectural beauty!" Northcote mentioned a
conceited painter of the name of Edwards, who went with Romney to Rome,
and when they got into the Sistine chapel, turning round to him, said,
"Egad, George! we're bit!" "Raphael's Transfiguration," says Willis, "is
agreed to be the finest picture in the world. I had made up my mind to
the same opinion from the engravings of it, but was painfully
disappointed in the picture. I looked at it from every corner of the
room, and asked the custodian three times if he was sure this was the
original. The color offended my eye, blind as Raphael's name should make
it, and I left the room with a sigh, and an unsettled faith in my own
taste, that made me seriously unhappy. My complacency was restored a few
hours after on hearing that the wonder was entirely in the drawing--the
colors having quite changed with time." Sir Joshua Reynolds says he was
informed by the keeper of the Vatican that many of those whom he had
conducted through the various apartments of that edifice, when about to
be dismissed, had asked for the works of Raphael, and would not believe
that they had already passed through the rooms where they are preserved.
"I remember very well," he says, "my own disappointment when I first
visited the Vatican. All the indigested notions of painting which I had
brought with me from England were to be totally done away with and
eradicated from my mind. It was necessary, as it is expressed on a very
solemn occasion, that I should become as a little child. Nor does
painting in this respect differ from other arts. A just and poetical
taste, and the acquisition of a nice, discriminative musical ear, are
equally the work of time. Even the eye, however perfect in itself, is
often unable to distinguish between the brilliancy of two diamonds,
though the experienced jeweler will be amazed at its blindness." "The
musician by profession," said Goethe, "hears, in an orchestral
performance, every instrument, and every single tone, whilst one
unacquainted with the art is wrapped up in the massive effect of the
whole. A man merely bent upon enjoyment sees in a green or flowery
meadow only a pleasant plain, whilst the eye of a botanist discovers an
endless detail of the most varied plants and grasses." Gainsborough says
that an artist knows an original from a copy, by observing the touch of
the pencil; for there will be the same individuality in the strokes of
the brush as in the strokes of a pen. "Those who can at once distinguish
between different sorts of handwriting are yet often astonished at the
possession of the faculty when it is exercised upon pictures. No
engraver, in like manner, can counterfeit the style of another. His
brethren of the craft would not only immediately detect the forgery, but
would recognize the distinctive strokes of the forger."
Hogarth and Reynolds, it is said, could not do each other justice.
Hogarth ranked Reynolds very low as a painter. Johnson said "Tristram
Shandy did not last;" and Goldsmith noticed the faults of Sterne only.
They may each have looked with some feeling of envy to the far greater
immediate success than either of themselves had enjoyed; but it does not
follow that Hogarth, Johnson, and Goldsmith were so dishonest as to deny
the existence of the excellences they saw. Unfortunately, persons
engaged in the same departments of literature or art generally dislike
one another. It is one of the drawbacks of genius. Voltaire and Rousseau
hated each other; Fielding despised Richardson; Petrarch, Dante; Michel
Angelo sneered at Raphael; but fortunately their reputations did not
depend upon one another. Envy and hatred aside, it was impossible for
them to judge one another justly; they were too near. A painter once
confessed to Dr. Johnson that no professor of the art ever loved a
person who pursued the same craft. The whole class of underlings who fed
at the table of Smollett, and existed by his patronage, traduced his
character and abused his works; and, as they were no less treacherous to
one another than to their benefactor, each was eager to betray the rest
to him. At the beginning of the last century, says Southey, books which
are now justly regarded as among the treasures of English literature,
which are the delight of the old and the young, the learned and the
unlearned, the high and the low, were then spoken of with contempt; the
Pilgrim's Progress as fit only for the ignorant and the vulgar, Robinson
Crusoe for children; if any one but an angler condescended to look into
Izaak Walton, it must be for the sake of finding something to laugh at.
It will never be forgotten, in the history of English poetry, that, with
a generous and just though impatient sense of indignation, Collins, as
soon as his means enabled him, repaid the publisher of his poems the
price which he had received for their copyright, indemnified him for the
loss in the adventure, and committed the remainder, which was by far the
greater part of the impression, to the flames. But it should also be
remembered that in the course of one generation these poems, without any
adventitious aids to bring them into notice, were acknowledged to be the
best of their kind in the language. The very existence of the works of
William Dunbar has been mentioned as a signal proof of the immortality
of real merit; for we know not at what precise time he was born, nor
when he died, and his very name is not, with one solitary exception, to
be met with in the whole compass of English literature for two hundred
years; nor was it till after the lapse of three centuries that his poems
were collected and published--to secure him the reputation, among his
own countrymen, of being one of the greatest of Scotland's poets. This
neglect or inability to acknowledge contemporary genius was humorously
hinted at by Coleridge in one of his lectures. The lecture being
extemporaneous, he now and then took up scraps of paper on which he had
noted the leading points of his subject, and made use of books that were
about him for quotation. On turning to one of these (a work of his own),
he said, "As this is a secret which I confided to the public a year or
two ago, and which, to do the public justice, has been very faithfully
kept, I may be permitted to read you a passage from it."
Tom Taylor's anecdote of Bott, the barrister, illustrates the
uncertainty of literary recognition. Bott occupied the rooms opposite to
Goldsmith's in Brick Court; he lent the needy author money, drove him in
his gig to the Shoemakers' Paradise, eight miles down the Edgeware Road,
and occasionally periled both their necks in a ditch. Reynolds painted
this good-natured barrister, who runs a better chance of reaching
posterity in that gig of his alongside of Goldsmith, than by virtue of
the Treatise on the Poor Laws which Goldsmith is said to have written up
for him. And as if the uncertainty of literary fame were not great
enough, authors themselves sometimes strive to increase it by most
extraordinary means. You remember Southey's attempt to hoax Theodore
Hook regarding the authorship of The Doctor. At Hook's death a packet of
letters was found addressed to him, as the author of The Doctor, and
acknowledging presentation copies--one from Southey among the rest. They
had been forwarded from the publisher, and were intended, it is
presumed, if they were intended for anything, as a trap for Hook's
vanity. Sydney Smith positively denied all connection with the Plymley
Letters in one edition, and published them in a collection of his
acknowledged works some months after. Sir Walter Scott, being taxed at a
dinner-table as the author of Old Mortality, not only denied being the
author, but said to Murray, the publisher, who was present, "In order to
convince you that I am not the author, I will review the book for you in
the Quarterly,"--which he actually did, and Murray retained the
manuscript after Sir Walter's death.