It is an ingenious observation made by a journalist of Trevoux, on
perusing a criticism not ill written, which pretended to detect several
faults in the compositions of Bruyère, that in ancient Rome the great
men who triumphed amidst the applauses of those who celebrated their
virtues, were at the same time compelled to listen to those who
reproached them with their vices. This custom is not less necessary to
the republic of letters than it was formerly to the republic of Rome.
Without this it is probable that authors would be intoxicated with
success, and would then relax in their accustomed vigour; and the
multitude who took them for models would, for want of judgment, imitate
their defects.
Sterne and Churchill were continually abusing the Reviewers, because
they honestly told the one that obscenity was not wit, and obscurity was
not sense; and the other that dissonance in poetry did not excel
harmony, and that his rhymes were frequently prose lines of ten
syllables cut into verse. They applauded their happier efforts.
Notwithstanding all this, it is certain that so little discernment
exists among common writers and common readers, that the obscenity and
flippancy of Sterne, and the bald verse and prosaic poetry of Churchill,
were precisely the portion which they selected for imitation. The
blemishes of great men are not the less blemishes, but they are,
unfortunately, the easiest parts for imitation.
Yet criticism may be too rigorous, and genius too sensible to its direst
attacks. Sir John Marsham, having published the first part of his
"Chronology," suffered so much chagrin at the endless controversies
which it raised--and some of his critics went so far as to affirm it was
designed to be detrimental to revelation--that he burned the second
part, which was ready for the press. Pope was observed to writhe with
anguish in his chair on hearing mentioned the letter of Cibber, with
other temporary attacks; and it is said of Montesquieu, that he was so
much affected by the criticisms, true and false, which he daily
experienced, that they contributed to hasten his death. Ritson's extreme
irritability closed in lunacy, while ignorant Reviewers, in the shapes
of assassins, were haunting his death-bed. In the preface to his
"Metrical Romances," he describes himself as "brought to an end in ill
health and low spirits--certain to be insulted by a base and prostitute
gang of lurking assassins who stab in the dark, and whose poisoned
daggers he has already experienced." Scott, of Amwell, never recovered
from a ludicrous criticism, which I discovered had been written by a
physician who never pretended to poetical taste.
Pelisson has recorded a literary anecdote, which forcibly shows the
danger of caustic criticism. A young man from a remote province came to
Paris with a play, which he considered as a masterpiece. M. L'Etoile was
more than just in his merciless criticism. He showed the youthful bard a
thousand glaring defects in his chef-d'oeuvre. The humbled country
author burnt his tragedy, returned home, took to his chamber, and died
of vexation and grief. Of all unfortunate men, one of the unhappiest is
a middling author endowed with too lively a sensibility for criticism.
Athenæus, in his tenth book, has given us a lively portrait of this
melancholy being. Anaxandrides appeared one day on horseback in the
public assembly at Athens, to recite a dithyrambic poem, of which he
read a portion. He was a man of fine stature, and wore a purple robe
edged with golden fringe. But his complexion was saturnine and
melancholy, which was the cause that he never spared his own writings.
Whenever he was vanquished by a rival, he immediately gave his
compositions to the druggists to be cut into pieces to wrap their
articles in, without ever caring to revise his writings. It is owing to
this that he destroyed a number of pleasing compositions; age increased
his sourness, and every day he became more and more dissatisfied with
the awards of his auditors. Hence his "Tereus," because it failed to
obtain the prize, has not reached us, which, with other of his
productions, deserved preservation, though they had missed the crown
awarded by the public.
Batteux having been chosen by the French government for the compilation
of elementary hooks for the Military School, is said to have felt their
unfavourable reception so acutely, that he became a prey to excessive
grief. The lamentable death of Dr. Hawkesworth was occasioned by a
similar circumstance. Government had consigned to his care the
compilation of the voyages that pass under his name: how he succeeded is
well known. He felt the public reception so sensibly, that he preferred
the oblivion of death to the mortifying recollections of life.[113]
On this interesting subject Fontenelle, in his "Eloge sur Newton," has
made the following observation:--"Newton was more desirous of remaining
unknown than of having the calm of life disturbed by those literary
storms which genius and science attract about those who rise to
eminence." In one of his letters we learn that his "Treatise on Optics"
being ready for the press, several premature objections which appeared
made him abandon its publication. "I should reproach myself," he said,
"for my imprudence, if I were to lose a thing so real as my ease to run
after a shadow." But this shadow he did not miss: it did not cost him
the ease he so much loved, and it had for him as much reality as ease
itself. I refer to Bayle, in his curious article, "Hipponax," note F. To
these instances we may add the fate of the Abbé Cassagne, a man of
learning, and not destitute of talents. He was intended for one of the
preachers at court; but he had hardly made himself known in the pulpit,
when he was struck by the lightning of Boileau's muse. He felt so
acutely the caustic verses, that they rendered him almost incapable of
literary exertion; in the prime of life he became melancholy, and
shortly afterwards died insane. A modern painter, it is known, never
recovered from the biting ridicule of a popular, but malignant wit.
Cummyns, a celebrated quaker, confessed he died of an anonymous letter
in a public paper, which, said he, "fastened on my heart, and threw me
into this slow fever." Racine, who died of his extreme sensibility to a
royal rebuke, confessed that the pain which one severe criticism
inflicted outweighed all the applause he could receive. The feathered
arrow of an epigram has sometimes been wet with the heart's blood of its
victim. Fortune has been lost, reputation destroyed, and every charity
of life extinguished, by the inhumanity of inconsiderate wit.
Literary history, even of our own days, records the fate of several who
may be said to have _died of Criticism_.[114] But there is more sense
and infinite humour in the mode which Phædrus adopted to answer the
cavillers of his age. When he first published his Fables, the taste for
conciseness and simplicity were so much on the decline, that they were
both objected to him as faults. He used his critics as they deserved. To
those who objected against the _conciseness_ of his style, he tells a
long _tedious story_ (Lib. iii. Fab. 10, ver. 59), and treats those who
condemned the _simplicity_ of his style with a run of _bombast verses_,
that have a great many noisy elevated words in them, without any sense
at the bottom--this in Lib. iv. Fab. 6.