How many a time do we take up the page of news, or the sheet of literary
novelty, without reflecting upon the nameless sources whence their
contents have been derived; and yet what a fruitful field do they afford
for our deepest contemplation, and our holiest and purest sympathies!
There may be there brought together, and to the general eye displayed
in undistinguished union, contributions over which the jewelled brow of
nobility hath been knitted into the frown of thoughtfulness, and side
by side with these, chapters wearily traced out by the tremulous hand
of unbefriended genius. Upon the former we do not mean to dwell, but we
_would_ wish for a few moments to contemplate the heart-trying condition
of the latter.
It is hard to conceive a situation more replete with wretchedness than
that of the struggling man of letters--of him who has offered his _all_
before the shrine of long-looked-for fame; who has staked health, and
peace, and happiness, that he may win her favour, and who nevertheless
holds an uncertain tenure even of his “daily bread.” He is poor and in
misery, yet he lives in a world of boundless wealth; but in this very
thing is to be found the exquisite agony of his condition. What though
haggard want wave around him her lean and famished hands, what avails
_that_? Write he must, if it be but to satisfy the cravings of a stinted
nature; write he must, though his only reward be the scanty pittance that
was greedily covenanted for, and when his due, but grudgingly presented
him. And then he must delineate plenty and happiness; he must describe
“the short holiday of childhood,” the guileless period of maiden’s
modesty, the sunshine of the moment when we first hear that we are loved,
the placid calm of peaceful resignation; or it may be, the charms that
nature wears in England’s happy vales, the beauty of her scenery, the
splendour and wealth of her institutions, the protecting law for the
poor man, her admirable code of jurisprudence. All, all these may be
the theme of his song, or the subject of his appointed task; but the
hours will pass away, and the spirits he has called up will disappear,
and his visions of happiness will leave him only, if it be possible,
more fearfully alive to his own helplessness--they cannot wake their
echo in his soul, and instead of their worthier office of healing and
blessedness, they render his wound deeper, deadlier, and more rankling.
And who is there, think you, kind reader, that can feel more acutely
the sting of neglect and poverty than the lonely man of genius? Of him
how truly may it be said, “he cannot dig, to beg he is ashamed!” His
intellect is his world; it is the glorious city in which he abides, the
treasure-house wherein his very being is garnered; it is to cultivate it
that he has lived; and when _it_ fails him in his wintry hour, is not he
indeed “of all men most miserable?”
But let us suppose that his prescribed duty is done, that the required
article is written, and that this child of his sick and aching brain is
at last dismissed; and can his thoughts follow it? Can his heart bear
the reflection that it shall find admission where _he_ durst not make
his appearance? He knows that it will be laid on the gorgeous table of
the rich and honourable. He knows, too, that it will find its way to
the happy fireside, the home where sorrow hath not yet entered--such
as once was his own in the days of his childhood. He knows that the
unnatural relation who spurned him from his door when he asked the bread
of charity, may see it, and without at all knowing the writer, that even
_his_ scornful sneer may be thereby relaxed. He knows----but why more? Of
_himself_ he knows that want and woe have been his companions, that they
are yet encamped around him, and that they will only end their ministry
“where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest!”
This is by no means--oh, would that it were so!--an ideal picture. In
LONDON, amid her “wilderness of building,” there are _at this hour_
hundreds whose sufferings could corroborate it, and whose necessities
could give the stamping conviction to its truth. We were ourselves
cognizant of the history of one young man’s life, his early and buoyant
hopes, his subsequent misfortunes and miseries, and his early and unripe
death, to all of which, anything that is painted above bears but a faint
and indistinct resemblance. He was an Irishman, and gifted with the
characteristics of his country--a romantic genius, united with feelings
the most tremulous, and tender, and impassioned. Many years have since
passed away, and over and over again have the wild flowers sprung up, and
bloomed, and withered over his narrow resting place, no unmeet emblem of
“The poor inhabitant below!”
but never has the memory of his sad story faded from us--never may it
fade! His lot was unhappy, and he “perished in his pride.” His reason
eventually bowed before his intense sufferings; and excepting the few
minutes just before his spirit passed away, his last hours were uncheered
by the glimpse of that glorious intellect which had promised to crown
him with a chaplet of undying fame. Even as it was, he had attracted
notice; his writings were beginning to make for him a name; and the Prime
Minister of England did not think it beneath him to visit his lonely
lodging, and to endeavour to raise his sinking soul with the promise of
almost unlimited patronage. But the restorative came too late: the poison
had worked its portion, and in the guise of Fame, DEATH approached;
“And as around the brow
Of that ill-fated votary he wreath’d
The crown of victory, silently he twined
The cypress with the laurel: at his foot
Perish’d the MARTYR STUDENT.”
We have nothing to add to this. Had we not hoped to strike a chord of
sympathy in our reader’s heart, we should never have even advanced so
far, or have uplifted the veil so as to exhibit the “latter end” of such.
Reader, in conclusion, you know not the toil, and trouble, and bodily
labour, and mental inquietude, that furnish you each week with the price
of YOUR PENNY!