There is an old story of a Spanish court painter, who, being pressed
for money, and having received a piece of damask, which he was to wear
in a state procession, pawned the damask, and appeared, at the show,
dressed out in some very fine sheets of paper, which he had painted so
as exactly to resemble silk. Nay, his coat looked so much richer than
the doublets of all the rest, that the Emperor Charles, in whose honor
the procession was given, remarked the painter, and so his deceit was
found out.
I have often thought that, in respect of sham and real histories, a
similar fact may be noticed; the sham story appearing a great deal more
agreeable, life-like, and natural than the true one: and all who, from
laziness as well as principle, are inclined to follow the easy and
comfortable study of novels, may console themselves with the notion
that they are studying matters quite as important as history, and that
their favorite duodecimos are as instructive as the biggest quartos in
the world.
If then, ladies, the big-wigs begin to sneer at the course of our
studies, calling our darling romances foolish, trivial, noxious to the
mind, enervators of intellect, fathers of idleness, and what not, let
us at once take a high ground, and say,—Go you to your own employments,
and to such dull studies as you fancy; go and bob for triangles, from
the Pons Asinorum; go enjoy your dull black draughts of metaphysics; go
fumble over history books, and dissert upon Herodotus and Livy; OUR
histories are, perhaps, as true as yours; our drink is the brisk
sparkling champagne drink, from the presses of Colburn, Bentley and
Co.; our walks are over such sunshiny pleasure-grounds as Scott and
Shakspeare have laid out for us; and if our dwellings are castles in
the air, we find them excessively splendid and commodious;—be not you
envious because you have no wings to fly thither. Let the big-wigs
despise us; such contempt of their neighbors is the custom of all
barbarous tribes;—witness, the learned Chinese: Tippoo Sultaun declared
that there were not in all Europe ten thousand men: the Sklavonic
hordes, it is said, so entitled themselves from a word in their jargon,
which signifies “to speak;” the ruffians imagining that they had a
monopoly of this agreeable faculty, and that all other nations were
dumb.
Not so: others may be DEAF; but the novelist has a loud, eloquent,
instructive language, though his enemies may despise or deny it ever so
much. What is more, one could, perhaps, meet the stoutest historian on
his own ground, and argue with him; showing that sham histories were
much truer than real histories; which are, in fact, mere contemptible
catalogues of names and places, that can have no moral effect upon the
reader.