whose mealy coat no moth can corrupt nor blight can wither. The poet
Keats had not this sort of protection for his person--he lay bare to
weather--the serpent stung him, and the poison-tree dropped upon this
little western flower: when the mercenary servile crew approached him,
he had no pedigree to show them, no rent-roll to hold out in reversion
for their praise: he was not in any great man's train, nor the butt and
puppet of a lord--he could only offer them 'the fairest flowers of the
season, carnations and streaked gilliflowers,'--'rue for remembrance and
pansies for thoughts,'--they recked not of his gift, but tore him with
hideous shouts and laughter,
Nor could the Muse protect her son!
Unless an author has all establishment of his own, or is entered on that
of some other person, he will hardly be allowed to write English or
to spell his own name. To be well spoken of, he must enlist under some
standard; he must belong to some _coterie._ He must get the _esprit de
corps_ on his side: he must have literary bail in readiness. Thus they
prop up one another's rickety heads at Murray's shop, and a spurious
reputation, like false argument, runs in a circle. Croker affirms that
Gifford is sprightly, and Gifford that Croker is genteel; Disraeli that
Jacob is wise, and Jacob that Disraeli is good-natured. A Member of
Parliament must be answerable that you are not dangerous or dull before
you can be of the _entree._ You must commence toad-eater to have your
observations attended to; if you are independent, unconnected, you will
be regarded as a poor creature. Your opinion is honest, you will say;
then ten to one it is not profitable. It is at any rate your own. So
much the worse; for then it is not the world's. Tom Hill is a very
tolerable barometer in this respect. He knows nothing, hears everything,
and repeats just what he hears; so that you may guess pretty well from
this round-faced echo what is said by others! Almost everything goes
by presumption and appearances. 'Did you not think Mr. B----'s language
very elegant?'--I thought he bowed very low. 'Did you not think him
remarkably well-behaved?'--He was unexceptionably dressed. 'But were
not Mr. C----'s manners quite insinuating?'--He said nothing.
"You will at least allow his friend to be a well-informed
man."--talked upon all subjects alike. Such would be a pretty faithful
interpretation of the tone of what is called _good society._ The
surface is everything; we do not pierce to the core. The setting is
more valuable than the jewel. Is it not so in other things as well
as letters? Is not an R. A. by the supposition a greater man in his
profession than any one who is not so blazoned? Compared with that
unrivalled list, Raphael had been illegitimate, Claude not classical,
and Michael Angelo admitted by special favour. What is a physician
without a diploma? An alderman without being knighted? An actor whose
name does not appear in great letters? All others are counterfeits--men
'of no mark or likelihood.' This was what made the Jackals of the North
so eager to prove that I had been turned out of the _Edinburgh Review._
It was not the merit of the articles which excited their spleen--but
their being there. Of the style they knew nothing; for the thought they
cared nothing: all that they knew was that I wrote in that powerful
journal, and therefore they asserted that I did not!
We find a class of persons who labour under an obvious natural
inaptitude for whatever they aspire to. Their manner of setting about
it is a virtual disqualification. The simple affirmation, 'What this
man has said, I will do,' is not always considered as the proper test of
capacity. On the contrary, there are people whose bare pretensions are
as good or better than the actual performance of others. What I myself
have done, for instance, I never find admitted as proof of what I shall
be able to do: whereas I observe others who bring as proof of their
competence to any task (and are taken at their word) what they have
never done, and who gravely assure those who are inclined to trust them
that their talents are exactly fitted for some post because they are
just the reverse of what they have ever shown them to be. One man has
the air of an Editor as much as another has that of a butler or porter
in a gentleman's family. ----- is the model of this character, with
a prodigious look of business, an air of suspicion which passes for
sagacity, and an air of deliberation which passes for judgment. If
his own talents are no ways prominent, it is inferred he will be more
impartial and in earnest in making use of those of others. There
is Britton, the responsible conductor of several works of taste and
erudition, yet (God knows) without an idea in his head relating to
any one of them. He is learned by proxy, and successful from sheer
imbecility. If he were to get the smallest smattering of the departments
which are under his control, he would betray himself from his desire to
shine; but as it is, he leaves others to do all the drudgery for him.
He signs his name in the title-page or at the bottom of a vignette, and
nobody suspects any mistake. This contractor for useful and ornamental
literature once offered me two guineas for a _Life and Character of
Shakespear,_ with an admission to his _converzationi._ I went
once. There was a collection of learned lumber, of antiquaries,
lexicographers, and other 'illustrious obscure,' and I had given up the
day for lost, when in dropped Jack Taylor of the _Sun_--(who would dare
to deny that he was 'the Sun of our table'?)--and I had nothing now to
do but hear and laugh. Mr. Taylor knows most of the good things that
have been said in the metropolis for the last thirty years, and is in
particular an excellent retailer of the humours and extravagances of his
old friend Peter Pindar. He had recounted a series of them, each rising
above the other in a sort of magnificent burlesque and want of literal
preciseness, to a medley of laughing and sour faces, when on his
proceeding to state a joke of a practical nature by the said Peter, a
Mr. ----- (I forget the name) objected to the moral of the story, and to
the whole texture of Mr. Taylor's facetiae--upon which our host, who had
till now supposed that all was going on swimmingly, thought it time
to interfere and give a turn to the conversation by saying, 'Why, yes,
gentlemen, what we have hitherto heard fall from the lips of our friend
has been no doubt entertaining and highly agreeable in its way; but
perhaps we have had enough of what is altogether delightful and pleasant
and light and laughable in conduct. Suppose, therefore, we were to shift
the subject, and talk of what is serious and moral and industrious and
laudable in character--Let us talk of Mr. Tomkins the Penman!'--This
staggered the gravest of us, broke up our dinner-party, and we went
upstairs to tea. So much for the didactic vein of one of our
principal guides in the embellished walks of modern taste, and
master manufacturers of letters. He had found that gravity had been
a never-failing resource when taken at a pinch--for once the joke
miscarried--and Mr. Tomkins the Penman figures to this day nowhere but
in Sir Joshua's picture of him!
To complete the natural Aristocracy of Letters, we only want a Royal
Society of Authors!