Godwin, the novelist and political writer, used to say that an author
should have two heads,—one for his books, the other for worldly matters.
And Holcroft, Godwin’s contemporary, made a similar remark on
actors,—that they were so often filling other characters as to forget
their own. These observations are, happily, of rare application in the
cases of the present day.
We, however, remember the phrase of _Grub-street_ in occasional use, and
we find “the poor devil of an author” in one of Washington Irving’s
early works. But this species is now extinct; and authors build villas,
give large parties, and keep carriages, like other successful
professional men. Nor must it be forgotten that they do not receive
their money for corrupt services, as did the hacks of former days; and a
Grub-street Author would be now almost as great a rarity as a living
gorilla.
We remember a specimen of “author and rags—author and dirt—author and
gin,”—of forty years since. He lived in a garret,[112] in an old house
at the top of Red Lion-court, Fleet-street: in one corner of the room,
upon the floor, lay the bed; near the fire-place was an old chair; a box
placed endwise served for a table; and these, with an almost spoutless
coffee-pot, a maimed cup and saucer, a bottle for a candlestick, and an
old chest, nearly completed the contents of the miserable apartment. The
inmate was an old man turned of seventy, with shrunk shanks and
loosely-fitting coat and breeches, and the conventional
author’s-nightcap; his scratchwig being placed upon one of the uprights
of his chair, which served as a block. Every portion of the room bore
evidence of the _dirt;_ and the atmosphere was redolent of _gin_. He
wrote a large black, sermon-like hand, upon paper of all sorts and
sizes: his matter was as antiquated as his manner; his very talk was
scholastic pedantry, and the room was strewed with scraps and shreds of
his learning: but he lived within the classic shade of Valpy’s
printing-office. With all his labour and learning, whatever he wrote was
not half so serviceable or so interesting as a short-hand report of an
occurrence of yesterday.
Another humble practitioner of authorship had been driven to it by
failure in business; and an undecided Chancery-suit had made him a
pitiable, puling fellow; far less cheerful than the evergreen “Tom
Hill,” who, failing as a drysalter at unlettered Queenhithe, betook
himself to the editorship of the _Monthly Mirror_, but had to part with
a collection of book-rarities (chiefly English poetry), which he began
to make in early life as some relief to drysalting, which was any thing
but Attic work!
The life of this “merry bachelor” exemplified one venerable proverb, and
disproved another: born in 1760, and dying in 1840, he was “as old as
the Hills,” having led a long life and a merry one. He was a remarkably
early riser; but that which contributed more to his longevity was his
gaiety of heart, and his being merry and wise: he had his cares and
crosses, but when nearly ruined by an adverse speculation in indigo, he
retired with the remains of his property to chambers in the Adelphi. His
books were valued at 6000_l._ He had been a Mecænas in his time, and had
patronised two friendless poets, Bloomfield and Kirke White. He was the
Hull of his friend Theodore Hook’s _Gilbert Gurney_, and suggested some
of the eccentricities of Paul Pry.
Authorship and Trade are thought to be “wide as the poles asunder,”
though sometimes attempered by circumstances. David Booth, who wrote the
_Analytical Dictionary_ and a critical work on English Composition, was
originally a brewer, then a man of letters; and late in life he realised
much money by imparting to brewers the secret of preventing
Acidification in Brewing.
Among the strange successes of authorship may be mentioned the
popularity of works published anonymously, which their authors have not
cared to claim. The accomplished Dr. William Maginn wrote the tragic
story of the Polstead murder, in 1827, in the form of a novel, entitled
the _Red Barn_, the sale of which extended to many thousand copies; yet
no one suspected it to be the work of an elegant scholar, critic, and
poet.
Literary Fame, Lord Byron affected to despise, in the following entry in
his entertaining _Ravenna Journal_, January 4th, 1821:
I was out of spirits—read the papers—thought what _fame_ was, on
reading in a case of murder that Mr. Wych, grocer, at Tunbridge,
sold some bacon, flour, cheese, and, it is believed, some plums, to
some gipsy woman accused. He had on his counter (I quote faithfully)
a book, the _Life of Pamela_, which he was _tearing_ for _waste_
paper, &c. &c. In the cheese was found, &c., and a _leaf_ of _Pamela
wrapped round the bacon_. What would Richardson, the vainest and
luckiest of _living_ authors (_i. e._ while alive)—he who, with
Aaron Hill, used to prophesy and chuckle over the presumed fall of
Fielding (the prose Homer of human nature), and of Pope (the most
beautiful of poets)—what would he have said could he have traced his
pages from their place on the French prince’s toilets (see Boswell’s
_Johnson_) to the grocer’s counter and the gipsy murderess’s bacon?
What would he have said—what can any body say—save what Solomon said
long before us. After all, it is but passing from one counter to
another—from the bookseller’s to the other tradesman’s, grocer or
pastry-cook. For my part, I have met with most poetry upon trunks;
so that I am apt to consider the trunk-maker as the sexton of
authorship.
The Letters of Southey afford some of the most truthful experiences of
an author to be found in any record of human life and character. At the
age of thirty, when struggling with the world, he wrote thus
reverentially:
No man was ever more contented with his lot than I am; for few have
ever had more enjoyments, and none had ever better or worthier
hopes. Life, therefore, is sufficiently dear to me, and long life
desirable, that I may accomplish all which I design. But yet, I
could be well content that the next century were over, and my part
fairly at an end, having been gone well through. Just as at school
one wished the school-days over, though we were happy enough there,
because we expected more happiness and more liberty when we were to
be our own masters, might lie as much later in the morning as we
pleased, have no bounds, and do no exercise,—just so do I wish that
my exercises were over, that that ugly chrysalis state were passed
through to which we must all come, and that I had fairly burst my
shell, and got into the new world, with wings upon my shoulders, or
some inherent power like the wishing-cap, which should annihilate
all the inconveniences of space.
How lifelike also is the following passage upon Southey’s meeting his
friend and schoolfellow, Combe! “It is about six years since I saw him.
Both he and I have grown into men with as little change as possible in
either; and yet, after a few minutes, there was a dead weight upon me
which was not to be shaken off. We met with the heartiness of old and
thorough familiarity,—something like a family feeling,—but it was
necessary to go back to school; for the moment we ceased to be
schoolboys there was nothing in common between us. We had no common
acquaintance or pursuit; and I feel that of all things in the world
there is nothing more mortifying than to meet an old friend from whom
you have had no weaning, and to find your friendship cut through at the
root.”
The life of John Britton, the topographer and antiquary, presents a
remarkable instance of a man born to trouble, yet so successfully
struggling with difficulties of all kinds, as to attain a respectable
position in life, and to be honoured in his declining years with a
public testimonial of esteem. He was born at Kington, Wilts, in 1771:
his father, through failure in trade, became insane; the boy learnt his
letters from a hornbook, but received little further schooling. He came
to London, and, until manhood, worked hard in wine-cellars; but his
health breaking down in this employment, he engaged himself at fifteen
shillings a week as clerk to an attorney. He had grown fond of reading,
but could only get snatches at book-stalls from books, having no money
to buy them. However, he at length succeeded in getting a few, read
early and late, and made some attempts at authorship, which led him to
an enterprise that may be said to have indicated his future fortune. He
projected publishing a description of his native county, Wiltshire, and
with this view waited upon the Marquis of Lansdowne, at Bowood, to
solicit his patronage.[113] He had neither card nor prospectus; but he
told his early struggles and his love of reading so artlessly, that the
kind-hearted nobleman directed his librarian to provide young Britton
with books and maps; to allot him a bedroom; and depute a person to show
him over the house and pleasure-grounds. He remained at Bowood four
days, much of which time he passed in the well-stored library. All this
kindness[114] Mr. Britton gratefully acknowledges in his Autobiography,
adding that, had he been coldly repulsed by Lord Lansdowne, “it is
probable that the _Beauties of Wiltshire_ would never have appeared
before the public, nor its author become known in literature.” He wrote,
edited, and published nearly one hundred works, and in this way laboured
for some sixty years. This success we attribute to his great energy of
character, nurtured by the kindness with which he was received at
Bowood; and aided in after-life by qualities which we rarely see
associated in the same individual. Mr. Britton was not only industrious
and persevering, but cheerful under defeat; his evenness of temper was
very remarkable; yet he was not cold in his attachments. He tells us
that from his boyhood he was ambitious to be in the company of his
elders and superiors in knowledge: we can testify that he was
well-behaved, though not obsequious; well-ordered and accurate in
business and money-matters; always living within his means, from youth,
when he read books in bed to save the expense of fire,—to his green old
age of comfort in his quiet and elegant home in Burton-street: “years
had not blunted his sympathies, but to the last his heart overflowed
with genial kindness and benevolence;” and he passed away peacefully and
resignedly in his eighty-sixth year, on New-Year’s-day, 1857. It will
thus be seen that John Britton possessed qualities which, if less
striking than his industry, were equally essential to his success in
life, although they were but fully known to his more immediate circle of
friends and acquaintance.
The career of Mr. Britton’s friend and neighbour, Francis Baily, the
astronomer, presents a memorable instance of a well-spent life, although
commenced with a mistake. He was apprenticed to a London tradesman; but
disliking the business, at the expiration of the term, his taste for
science having already been developed, at the age of one-and-twenty he
made a very remarkable tour in the unsettled parts of North America.
Returning to England, he became a member of the Stock Exchange, wrote
some important papers upon subjects connected with commercial affairs,
and applied himself to astronomy in his leisure-hours. In 1820 he took a
conspicuous part in the foundation of the Astronomical Society. After
realising a competent fortune, he retired from business, and devoted
himself to his favourite pursuits. He died in 1844, in his seventieth
year, after performing a vast amount of valuable work, of which his
labours in the remodelling of the _Nautical Almanac;_ in the fixation of
the standard of length, involving more than 1200 hours’ watching the
oscillations of the pendulum; in the determination of the density of the
earth; and in the revision of catalogues of the stars,—were only a part.
He passed away with these memorable words almost upon his lips: “My life
is nearly closed. I leave life with the same tranquillity and equanimity
which I have generally felt and acted on in my personal intercourse with
friends and strangers. I have been blessed with uninterrupted health. In
short, I have had more than my share of terrestrial happiness, and leave
it, as fulfilling an inscrutable law of animal nature, with thankfulness
and resignation.” “Among Mr. Baily’s friends,” says Prof. de Morgan,
“there is surely not one who will venture to say positively that he ever
knew _a better or a happier man_.”
The rise of Chantrey, the sculptor, from peasant-life was nobly earned.
He was born in the village of Norton, Derbyshire, in 1781, of parents in
humble circumstances. When a boy carrying milk to the next town, he
would stop to form grotesque figures of the yellow clay; and he moulded
his mother’s butter on churning-days into various forms. From his
fondness for drawing and modelling he was apprenticed to a carver and
gilder at Sheffield. Thence he came to London, and began to work at
carving in stone, not having received a single lesson from any sculptor;
and he laboured for eight years without earning 5_l._ in his profession.
At length, a single bust brought him 12,000_l._-worth of commissions,
and he rose to be the first sculptor of his day. He died in 1841, and
was buried in a tomb which he had built for himself in the churchyard of
his native village, where a granite obelisk has been raised to his
memory. He was ever mindful of his lowly origin; for when he had become
famous, and had received knighthood, at a party given by his patron, Mr.
Thomas Hope, Sir Francis Chantrey was observed to notice a piece of
carved furniture; on being asked the reason, he replied, “This was my
first work.”
It is scarcely possible to name Chantrey without being reminded of his
friend, “honest Allan Cunningham,” who, born in the county of Dumfries,
in 1784, received but scanty education, and at the age of eleven was
apprenticed to a mason. In the intervals of his laborious occupation,
“he sought knowledge wherever he could obtain it,” and drew his earliest
poetic inspiration from the dear country of Burns—the wilds of
Nithsdale, and the lone banks of the Solway. Here he earned his daily
bread as a common stonemason until his twenty-sixth year, when he came
to London, wavering between labour and literature. He chose the latter,
in reporting for the newspapers; but, soon tired of its perplexities, he
resumed his first calling, and by a fortunate opportunity, to which his
own excellent character recommended him, he became foreman of the works
of Chantrey, in which honourable employment he remained until the
sculptor’s death, in 1841. In his intervals of business, by untiring
industry, Allan Cunningham produced a succession of works noteworthy in
the poetry and general literature of his day. His first poetry was
printed in 1807: he also wrote stirring romances; and in collecting
Tradition Tales of the Scottish Peasantry, by the light of an evening
fire, he sweetened many an hour of remission from daily labour. Later in
life he became a critic of the Fine Arts, and wrote with amiable
feeling, honesty, and candour, and mature and liberal taste: it was well
observed of him in his lifetime: “He needs no testimony either to his
intellectual accomplishments or his moral worth; nor, thanks to his own
virtuous diligence, does he need any patronage.” His genius and artistic
judgment have been inherited by his third son, Peter Cunningham, the
well-known critic, topographer, and antiquary.[115]
The greatest author of the present century, whether we regard the
beneficial influence of his writings, or its extent, is Sir Walter
Scott. We have already spoken of his diligence and economy of time; his
characteristics as an author have been ably sketched as follows:
With far less classical learning, fewer images derived from
travelling, inferior information on many historical subjects, and a
mind of a less impassioned and energetic cast than other writers of
his time, Sir Walter is far more deeply read in that book which is
ever the same—the human heart. This is his unequalled excellence:
there he stands, without a rival since the days of Shakspeare. It is
to this cause that his astonishing success has been owing. We feel
in his characters that it is not romance, but real life, which is
represented. Every word that is said, especially in the Scotch
novels, is nature itself. Homer, Cervantes, Shakspeare, and Scott,
alone have penetrated to the deep substratum of character, which,
however disguised by the varieties of climate and government, is at
bottom every where the same; and thence they have found a responsive
echo in every human heart. Every man who reads these admirable
works, from the North Cape to Cape Horn, feels that what the
characters they contain are made to say, is just what would have
occurred to themselves, or what they have heard said by others as
long as they lived. Nor is it only in the delineation of character,
and the knowledge of human nature, that the Scottish novelist, like
his great predecessors, is but for them without a rival. Powerful in
the pathetic, admirable in dialogue, unmatched in description, his
writings captivate the mind as much by the varied excellences which
they exhibit, as by the powerful interest which they maintain. He
has carried romance out of the region of imagination and sensibility
into the walks of actual life.[116]
Isaac Disraeli, who died in 1848, at the age of eighty-two, was “a
complete literary character, a man who really passed his life in his
library. Even marriage produced no change in these habits: he rose to
enter the chamber where he lived alone with his books, and at night his
lamp was ever lit within the same walls.” His father destined him for
business; but this he opposed so strongly as to compose a long poem
against commerce, which he attempted to get published. In spite of all
his father could say or do, young Disraeli determined to become a
literary man. His first efforts were in poetry and romance; but he soon
found out that his true destiny was literary history; and in 1790 he
published anonymously _Curiosities of Literature_, the success of which
led him to devote the remainder of his long life to literary and
historical researches, which he prosecuted partly in the British Museum,
where he was a constant visitor when the _readers_ were not more than
half a dozen daily: he also worked in his own library, which was very
extensive. His _Curiosities_ reached eleven editions; and in
acknowledgment of his _Life and Reign of Charles I._ he was made D.C.,
&c. by the University of Oxford. He is thus personally described by his
gifted son:
He was fair, with a Bourbon nose, and brown eyes of extraordinary
beauty and lustre. He wore a small black-velvet cap, but his white
hair latterly touched his shoulders in curls almost as flowing as in
his boyhood. His extremities were delicate and well formed, and his
leg, at his last hour, as shapely as in his youth, which showed the
vigour of his frame. Latterly he had become corpulent. He did not
excel in conversation, though in his domestic circle he was
garrulous. Every thing interested him; and blind, and eighty-two, he
was still as susceptible as a child. One of his last acts was to
compose some verses of gay gratitude to his daughter-in-law, who was
his London correspondent, and to whose lively pen his last years
were indebted for constant amusement. He had by nature a singular
volatility, which never deserted him. His feelings, though always
amiable, were not painfully deep, and amid joy or sorrow the
philosophic vein was ever evident. He more resembled Goldsmith than
any man that I can compare him to: in his conversation his apparent
confusion of ideas ending with some felicitous phrase of genius, his
_naïveté_, his simplicity not untouched with a dash of sarcasm
affecting innocence—one was often reminded of the gifted and
interesting friend of Burke and Johnson. There was, however, one
trait in which my father did not resemble Goldsmith: he had no
vanity. Indeed, one of his few infirmities was rather a deficiency
of self-esteem.
Mr. Disraeli had the pride and happiness to see the writer of the above,
Benjamin Disraeli, not only achieve high distinction in literature, but
become a minister of the Crown. We remember him in his twenty-fifth
year. “Who is that gentleman with a profusion of hair, whom I so often
see here?” was our inquiry of a publisher in Oxford-street. “That is
young Disraeli,” was the publisher’s reply; “and he would be glad to
execute any literary work for a guinea or two.” He had already produced
a piece of piquant satire, an _Account of the Great World_,[117] with a
Vocabulary; and shortly after there was announced for publication a
periodical to be called _The Star-Chamber_, to have been edited by Mr.
Disraeli. He published his first novel, _Vivian Grey_, in 1825;
_Coningsby_, a work of fiction and political history, he wrote chiefly
at Deepdene, in Surrey, the seat of his friend, Mr. H. T. Hope. Mr.
Disraeli entered Parliament in 1837: he succeeded Lord George Bentinck
as the Conservative leader; was Chancellor of the Exchequer under Lord
Derby’s administrations of 1852 and 1858-9; thus exemplifying that the
highest political honours are attainable in this country by intellectual
qualification for public life.
Lord Macaulay, the brilliant essayist, historian, and orator,
exemplifies in his successful career how genius may be most profitably
nurtured by systematic education. Of quick perception and great power of
memory, when a boy he would tell long stories from the _Arabian Nights_
and Scott’s novels; but the familiar books of his home were the Bible,
_Pilgrim’s Progress_, and a few Cameronian divines; and he was fond of
Scripture phraseology throughout his writings. He appears to have been a
great favourite of Hannah More, who thought him a little prodigy of
acquisition, and wrote of him, when on a visit to her in his boyhood:
The quantity of reading that Tom has poured in, and the quantity of
writing he has poured out, is astonishing. We have poetry for
breakfast, dinner, and supper. He recited all _Palestine_ (Bishop
Heber’s poem), while we breakfasted, to our pious friend, Mr.
Whalley, at my desire, and did it incomparably.... I sometimes fancy
I observe a daily progress in the growth of his mental powers. His
fine promise of mind, too, expands more and more; and, what is
extraordinary, he has as much accuracy in his expression as spirit
and vivacity in his imagination. I like, too, that he takes a lively
interest in all passing events, and that _the child_ is still
preserved; I like to see him as boyish as he is studious, and that
he is as much amused with making a pat of butter as a poem. Though
loquacious, he is very docile; and I don’t remember a single
instance in which he has persisted in doing any thing when he saw we
did not approve it. Several men of sense and learning have been
struck with the union of gaiety and rationality in his conversation.
More remarkable was the prevoyance of Macaulay’s power as a writer,
which Hannah More almost literally predicted: he cherished a warm
recollection of his obligations to her, and the influence she had in
directing his reading. He received his peerage in honour of his valuable
services to literature: he will long be remembered by his grasp of mind,
descriptive picturesqueness, strong feeling and vivid fancy, life-like
portraiture, and marvellous scenic skill. In his mastery of the art of
writing he was unrivalled.
It may take the reader by surprise to be told that, astounding as the
career of Lord Brougham has been, the rise of this distinguished man to
the highest honour of the realm appears to have been predicted thirty
years before its attainment. At the Social Science dinner at the Crystal
Palace, Sydenham, on June 14th, 1862, at which Lord Brougham presided,
Mr. J. W. Napier, Ex-Chancellor of Ireland, related that he remembered,
some years previously, meeting an old and respected lady in the north of
England, who was present at a party when the first writers in the
_Edinburgh Review_, including Henry Brougham, dined together at
Edinburgh, after the publication of the Second Number of the Review (in
1802). On that occasion, the lady’s husband, Mr. Fletcher, remarked that
the writer of a certain paper in the Review, of which he knew not the
author, was fit to be any thing. Mr. Brougham hearing this, observed,
“What! do you think he is fit to be Lord Chancellor?” The reply was,
“Yes; and I tell you more: he will be Lord Chancellor;” and the old lady
had the happiness to live thirty years after this, and to see her friend
Lord Chancellor of England. Lord Brougham well remembered old Mrs.
Fletcher, and corroborated the accuracy of Mr. Napier’s anecdote. Mr.
Napier then proposed, in an affectionate manner, the health of Lord
Brougham, whose answer was, as he said, but a repetition of words he had
spoken thirty years ago elsewhere. But on the present occasion they were
perhaps even more appropriate, and in themselves singularly beautiful:
“When I cease from my labours, the cause of freedom, peace, and progress
will lose a friend, and no man living will lose an enemy.” The noble
lord was much affected, and it is needless to tell of the applause which
followed the sentiment.
Henry Brougham was born in Edinburgh in 1779: his father was no
extraordinary man, but his mother is described as a woman of talent and
delightful character. The son was educated in Edinburgh, which, in 1857,
he declared in public he looked upon as a very great benefit conferred
on him by Providence. He was _dux_ of the Rector’s class at the
Edinburgh University in 1791; and he was preëminent in mathematics and
natural philosophy, in law, metaphysics, and political science. When not
more than seventeen, he contributed to the Royal Society a paper on the
Inflection and Reflection of Light; and next, a paper of Porisms in the
Higher Geometry. He chose the Scottish Bar as his profession; and, with
Horner, Jeffrey, and other Scottish Whigs, joined the renowned
Speculative Society for the sake of extemporaneous debate. He for some
time edited the _Edinburgh Review_, and was for five-and-twenty years
the most industrious and versatile of the contributors. In 1808 he was
called to the Bar at Lincoln’s Inn, and began to practise as an English
barrister. In 1810 he entered Parliament, and soon distinguished himself
on all the great questions of the day. His application to law,
literature, and science was alike intense. Sir Samuel Romilly said, he
seemed to have time for every thing; and Sydney Smith once recommended
him to confine himself to only the transaction of so much business as
three strong men could get through. Hazlitt, in a portrait-sketch taken
about 1825, says:
Mr. Brougham writes almost as well as he speaks. In the midst of an
election contest he comes out to address the populace, and goes back
to his study to finish an article for the _Edinburgh Review_,
sometimes indeed wedging three or four articles in the shape of
_rifacimenti_ of his own pamphlets or speeches in Parliament in a
single Number. Such indeed is the activity of his mind, that it
appears to require neither repose nor any other stimulus than a
delight in its own exercise. He can turn his hand to any thing, but
he cannot be idle. He is, in fact, a striking instance of the
versatility and strength of the human mind, and also, in one sense,
of the length of human life: _if we make good use of our time, there
is room enough to crowd almost every art and science into it_.
It is now nearly forty years since this was written, and it is almost as
applicable as ever. In 1828, in a debate in Parliament, Mr. Brougham
used the memorable words, “The schoolmaster is abroad.” He next, in a
speech of six hours’ delivery, moved for an inquiry into the state of
the Law; the Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, Catholic
Emancipation, and the Charities Commission, were next advocated by him;
and then, Parliamentary Reform, the Abolition of Punishment of Forgery
by Death, Local Courts, and the Abolition of Slavery. In 1830 he was
raised to the high office of Lord Chancellor. Mechanics’ Institutes, and
the foundation of University College, and the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge, were next advocated by Lord Brougham. His Chancellorship was
brief. But he continued to labour for the next thirty years in Law
Reform and Social Science, and in aiding the progress of liberal
opinion.
The universal energy which has marked Lord Brougham was thus ably summed
up, on the publication of his volume of scientific Tracts, in 1860:
If the fact of his scientific researches were less well known, there
would be something quite startling in the announcement of a volume
of mathematical tracts from the hand of a man who has had half a
score of other occupations, each sufficient to engross the whole
mind of an ordinarily constituted mortal. To be great as a circuit
leader, all-powerful as a popular chief, triumphant as a reforming
Chancellor—to be the prominent figure in the Anti-Slavery movement,
the promoter of education, the concocter of law-reforming statutes
almost without number—the statesman of all parties, the citizen of
two countries, and the orator of a thousand platforms—might have
sufficed most ambitions, without the renown of literary success and
scientific effort. But, not content with the public achievements of
his life, or the obscure glory of anonymous literature, Lord
Brougham has striven to reproduce in an English dress the eloquence
of Demosthenes, and to correct the real or supposed errors of no
less a philosopher than Newton himself.... Philosophical theories
may survive Lord Brougham’s attacks, and _savans_ may forget his
speculations; but generations of Englishmen will long remember the
career of a man who has exhibited in a thousand forms an amount of
mental vitality which it would be difficult to parallel in the
history of the most restless and eager aspirants to the glory of
universal genius.
It is impossible to reflect upon the politico-legal position of Lord
Brougham when he sat upon the woolsack, without remembering that
Brougham and Denman, at the trial of Queen Caroline, attacked with
virulence, then generally condemned, the Prince from whose hands, as
sovereign, ten years later, both received high legal office. This change
in feeling is alike creditable to all.
One of the most remarkable men of our day was Professor Wilson, the
Editor of _Blackwood’s Magazine_, in the pages of which he is thus
characterised, from his bust in the Crystal Palace at Sydenham: he was
born at Paisley, in Scotland, in 1785; and died at Edinburgh, in 1854.
The head tells the story of the whole man. It is the head of an
athlete, but an athlete possessing a soul, the grace of Apollo
sitting on the thews of Hercules. Such a man, you would say at once,
was none of your sedentary _litterati_, who appear to have the cramp
in their limbs whenever they move abroad, but one who could, like
the Greeks of old, ride, run, wrestle, box, dive, or throw the
discus at need, or put the stone like Ulysses himself, or one who
could do the same things, and in addition to them steer, pull an
oar, shoot, fish, follow hounds, or make a good score at cricket,
like a true Briton of modern times, in spite of all our physical and
intellectual degeneracy, about which, indeed, we have a right to be
sceptical, when we know that such an unmistakable man as Wilson was
living in the reign of Queen Victoria. It is an honour to Scotland
that she produced such a critic on Homer, only second to that which
is hers in having produced that poet who, of all the moderns, has
composed poetry the most Homeric—even Walter Scott.
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Footnote 112:
Such a room as Mr. Egg has painted in his masterly picture of “The
Death of Chatterton;” and, curiously enough, the house above referred
to was nearly upon the same spot.
Footnote 113:
This was William, first Marquis of Lansdowne, who, as Earl of
Shelburne, was Prime Minister in 1782; the date of Mr. Britton’s visit
was 1798. By the Marquis’s kindness, he tells us that he left Bowood
for Chippenham loaded with books, and a copy of a large Survey of
Wiltshire, in eighteen folio sheets. The Marquis was a liberal patron
of Art, and commenced at Bowood and Shelburne House the formation of a
gallery of modern art; and his fine taste was amply inherited by his
son Henry, the third Marquis, who died at Bowood in January 1863.
Footnote 114:
We remember a similarly gratifying incident in early life. We had
scarcely reached twenty-one, when we had occasion to wait upon Mr.
Chamberlain Clark, to request of him some particulars of the house of
Cowley the poet, at Chertsey, which was then in Mr. Clark’s tenancy.
The bland old Chamberlain inquired if we had ever written a book; to
which the reply was, that we had a volume of topography in the press.
“Then please to put down my name for a copy,” kindly rejoined the
Chamberlain, although the work was merely of local interest. What
kindness in one who was the chastener of refractory apprentices and
the terror of evil-doers!
Footnote 115:
Mr. P. Cunningham, in the _Builder_, Feb. 14, 1863, writes as follows:
“Chantrey died so suddenly that an inquest was held upon his body. I
was present. It was a solemn sight, not to be effaced whilst
unimpaired remembrance reigns. In an exquisite little gallery built
for him by Sir John Soane, lay (seen by many lighted tapers) the
breathless body and torpid hand that had given life to helpless clay
and shapeless stone. Around the body in its windingsheet were ranged
some of the finest casts from the antique that money and taste could
procure. Calm and solemn was the scene. My father kissed the cold
forehead of his friend with these words: “My dear master.” I looked
into his eyes as we left together; they were full of tears.”—_New
Materials for the Life of Chantrey._
Footnote 116:
Sir Archibald Alison.
Footnote 117:
Published by Ridgway, Piccadilly, 1829.
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