For many a page now we have spoken intermittently of that extraordinary
man and poet--full of power and full of passion, both uncontrolled--whose
surroundings we found in that pleasantly undulating Nottingham country
where Newstead Abbey piled above its lawn and its silent tarns--half a
ruin, and half a home.[80] Nor did Byron ever know a home which showed no
ruin--nor ever know a ruin, into which his verse did not nestle as into a
home.
We traced him from the keeping of that passionate mother--who smote him
through and through with her own wrathful spirit--to the days when he
uttered the “Idle” songs--coined in the courts of Cambridge--and to those
quick succeeding days, when his mad verse maddened English bards and
Scotch reviewers. Then came the passages of love--with Mary Chaworth,
which was real and vain; with a Milbanke, which was a mockery and ended in
worse than mockery; all these experiences whetting the edge of that sword
of song with which he carved a road of romance for thousands of after
journeymen to travel, through the old Iberian Peninsula, and the vales of
Thessaly. Then there was the turning away, in rage, from the shores of
England, the episode with the Shelley household on the borders of Lake
Leman, with its record of “crag-splitting” storms and sunny siestas; and
such enduring memorials as the ghastly _Frankenstein_ of Mrs. Shelley, the
Third Canto of _Childe Harold_, and the child-name of--Allegra.
Next came Venice, where the waves lapped murmurously upon the door-steps
of the palaces which “Mi-lord” made noisy with his audacious revelry. To
this succeeded the long stay at Ravenna, with its pacifying and
lingering, reposeful reach of an attachment, which was beautiful in its
sincerity, but as lawless as his life. After Ravenna came Pisa with its
Hunt-Lanfranchi coruscations of spleen, and its weird interlude of the
burning of the body of his poor friend Shelley upon the Mediterranean
shores. Song, and drama, and tender verselets, and bagnio-tainted pictures
of Don Juan, gleamed with fervid intensity through the interstices of this
Italian life; but they all came to a sudden stay when he sailed for
Greece, and with a generosity as strong as his wilder passions, flung away
his fortune and his life in that vortex of Suliote strifes and deadly
miasmas, which was centred amid the swamplands of Missolonghi.
The Cretans of to-day (1897), and the men of Thessaly, and of the Morea,
and Albanians all, may find a lift of their ambitions and a spur to their
courage in Byron’s sacrifice to their old struggle for liberty, and in his
magnificent outburst of patriotic song. So, too, those who love real
poetry will never cease to admire his subtle turns of thought, and his
superb command of all the resources of language. But the households are
few in which his name will be revered as an apostle of those cheering
altitudes of thought which encourage high endeavor, or of those tenderer
humanities which spur to kindly deeds, and give their glow to the
atmosphere of homes.
_King William’s Time._
The last figure that we dealt with among England’s kings was that bluff,
vulgar-toned sailor, William IV., whom even the street-folk criticise,
because he spat from his carriage window when driving on some State
ceremonial.[81] Nor was this the worst of his coarsenesses; he swore--with
great ease and pungency. He forgot his dignity; he insulted his ministers;
he gave to Queen Adelaide, who survived him many years as dowager, many
most uncomfortable half-hours; and if he read the new sea-stories of
Captain Marryat--though he read very little--I suspect he loved more the
spicier condiments of _Peregrine Pickle_ and of _Tom Jones_.
Yet during the period of his short reign--scarce seven years--events
happened--some through his slow helpfulness, and none suffering grievously
from his obstructiveness--which gave new and brighter color to the
political development and to the literary growth of England. There was,
for instance, the passage of the Reform Bill of 1832 (of which I have
already spoken, in connection with Sydney Smith)--not indeed accomplishing
all its friends had hoped; not inaugurating a political millennium; not
doing away with the harsh frictions of state-craft; no reforms ever do or
can; but broadening the outlook and range of all publicists, and stirring
quiet thinkers into aggressive and kindling and hopeful speech. Very
shortly after this followed the establishment of that old society for the
“Diffusion of Useful Knowledge” which came soon to the out-put--under the
editorship of Charles Knight--of the _Penny Cyclopædia_ and the _Penny
Magazine_.[82]
I recall distinctly the delight with which--as boys--we lingered over the
pictured pages of that magazine--the great forerunner of all of our
illustrated monthlies.
To the same period belong those _Tracts for the Times_, in which John
Keble, the honored author of the _Christian Year_, came to new notice,
while his associates, Dr. Pusey and Cardinal Newman, gave utterance to
speech which is not without reverberating echoes, even now. Nor was it
long after this date that British journalism received a great lift, and a
great broadening of its forces, by a reduction of the stamp-tax--largely
due to the efforts of Bulwer Lytton--whereby British newspapers increased
their circulation, within two years, by 20,000,000 annually.[83]
All these things had come about in the reign of William IV.; but to none
of them had he given any enthusiastic approval, or any such urgence of
attention as would have dislocated a single one of his royal dinners.
In 1837 he died--not very largely sighed over; least of all by that
sister-in-law, the Duchess of Kent, whom he had hated for her starched
proprieties, whom he had insulted again and again, and who now, in her
palace of Kensington, prepared her daughter Victoria for her entrance upon
the sovereignty.
_Her Majesty Victoria._
The girl was only eighteen--well taught, discreet, and modest. Greville
tells us that she was consumed with blushes when her uncles of Sussex and
of Cumberland came, with the royal council, to kneel before her, and to
kiss her hand in token of the new allegiance.
The old king had died at two o’clock of the morning; and by eleven o’clock
on the same day the duties of royalty had begun for the young queen, in
receiving the great officers of state. Among the others she meets on that
first regal day in Kensington Palace, are Lansdowne, the fidgety Lord
Brougham, the courtly Sir Robert Peel, and the spare, trim-looking old
Duke of Wellington, who is charmed by her gracious manner, and by her
self-control and dignity. He said he could not have been more proud of
her if she had been his own daughter.
Nearer to the young queen than all these--by old ties of friendship, that
always remained unshaken--was the suave and accomplished Lord
Melbourne--First Minister--who has prepared the queen’s little speech for
her, which she reads with charming self-possession; to him, too, she looks
for approval and instruction in all her progress through the new
ceremonials of Court, and the ordering of a royal household. And Melbourne
is admirably suited to that task; he was not a great statesman; was never
an orator, but possessed of all the arts of conciliation--adroit and full
of tact, yet kindly, sympathetic, and winning. Not by any means a man
beyond reproach in his private life, but bringing to those new offices of
political guardianship to the young queen only the soundest good-sense and
the wisest of advice--thus inspiring in her a trust that was never
forfeited.
Indeed, it was under Melbourne’s encouragements, and his stimulative
commendation (if stimulus were needed), that the young princess formed
shortly after that marriage relation which proved altogether a happy
one--giving to England and to the world shining proof that righteous
domesticities were not altogether clean gone from royal houses. And if the
good motherly rulings have not had their best issues with some of the male
members of the family, can we not match these wry tendencies with those
fastening upon the boys of well-ordered households all around us? It is
not in royal circles only that his satanic majesty makes friends of nice
boys, when the girls escape him--or seem to!
Well, I have gone back to that old palace of Kensington, which still, with
its mossy brick walls, in the west of London, baffles the years, and the
fogs--the same palace where we went to find William III. dying, and the
gracious Queen Anne too; and where now the Marquis of Lorne and the
Princess Louise have their home. I have taken you again there to see how
the young Victoria bore herself at the news of her accession--with the
great councillors of the kingdom about her--not alone because those whom
we shall bring to the front, in this closing chapter, have wrought during
her reign; but because, furthermore, she with her household have been
encouragers and patrons of both letters and of art in many most helpful
ways; and yet, again, because this queen, who has within this twelve-month
(1897) made her new speech to Parliament--sixty years after that first
little speech at Kensington--is herself, in virtue of certain modest
book-making, to be enrolled with all courtesy in the Guild of Letters. And
though the high-stepping critics may be inclined to question the literary
judgment or the scrupulous finish of her book-work, we cannot, I think,
deny to it a thoroughly humane tone, and a tender realism. We greet her
not only by reason of her queenship proper, but for that larger
sovereignty of womanhood and of motherhood which she has always dignified
and adorned.
I once caught such glimpse of her--as strangers may--in the flush of her
early wedded life; not beautiful surely, but comely, kindly, and radiant,
in the enjoyment of--what is so rare with sovereigns--a happy home-life;
and again I came upon other sight of her eight years later, when the
prince was a rollicking boy, and the princess a blooming maiden; these
and lesser rosy-cheeked ones were taking the air on the terrace at
Windsor, almost in the shadow of the great keep, which has frowned there
since the days of Edward III.
_Macaulay._
In the early days of Queen Victoria’s reign--when Sir Robert Peel was
winning his way to the proud position he later held--when American and
English politicians were getting into the toils of the “Maine Boundary”
dispute (afterward settled by Ashburton and Webster), and when the
Countess of Blessington was making “Gore House” lively with her little
suppers, and the banker Rogers entertaining all _beaux esprits_ at his
home near the Green Park, there may have been found as guest at one of the
banker’s famous breakfasts--somewhere we will say in the year 1838--a man,
well-preserved, still under forty--with a shaggy brow, with clothes very
likely ill-adjusted and ill-fitting, and with gloves which are never
buttoned--who has just come back from India, where he has held lucrative
official position. He is cogitating, it is said, a history of England,
and his talk has a fulness and richness that seem inexhaustible.
You know to whom I must refer--Thomas Babington Macaulay[84]--not a new
man at Rogers’s table, not a new man to bookish people; for he had won his
honors in literature, especially by a first paper on Milton, published in
the year 1825 in the _Edinburgh Review_. This bore a new stamp and had
qualities that could not be overlooked. There are scores of us who read
that paper for the first time in the impressionable days of youth, who are
carried back now by the mere mention of it to the times of the old Puritan
poet.
“We can almost fancy that we are visiting him in his small lodging;
that we see him sitting at the old organ beneath the faded green
hangings; that we can catch the quick twinkle of his eyes, rolling
in vain to find the day; that we are reading in the lines of his
noble countenance the proud and mournful history of his glory and
his affliction!”
Macaulay came of good old Scotch stock--his forefathers counting up
patriarchal families in Coll and Inverary; but his father, Zachary
Macaulay, well known for his anti-slavery action and influence, and for
his association with Wilberforce, married an English Quaker girl from
Bristol--said to have been a _protégée_ of our old friend, Mistress Hannah
More. Of this marriage was born, in 1800, at the charming country house of
an aunt, named Babington, in the pleasant county of Leicestershire, the
future historian.
The father’s first London home was near by Lombard Street, where he
managed an African agency under the firm name of Macaulay & Babington; and
the baby Macaulay used to be wheeled into an open square near by, for the
enjoyment of such winter’s sunshine as fell there at far-away intervals.
His boyish memories, however, belonged to a later home at Clapham, then a
suburban village. There, was his first schooling, and there he budded
out--to the wonderment of all his father’s guests--into young poems and
the drollest of precocious talk. His pleasant biographer (Trevelyan) tells
of a visit the bright boy made at Strawberry Hill--Walpole’s old
showplace. There was a spilling of hot drink of some sort, during the
visitation, which came near to scalding the lad; and when the sympathizing
hostess asked after his suffering: “Thank you, madam,” said he, “the agony
is abated!” The story is delightfully credible; and so are other pleasant
ones of his reciting some of his doggerel verses to Hannah More and
getting a gracious and approving nod of her gray curls and of her mob-cap.
At Cambridge, where he went at the usual student age, he studied what he
would, and discarded what he would--as he did all through his life. For
mathematics he had a distinguished repugnance, then and always; and if
brought to task by them in those student days--trying hard to twist their
certainties into probabilities, and so make them subject to that world of
“ifs and buts” which he loved to start buzzing about the ears of those who
loved the exact sciences better than he. He missed thus some of the
University honors, it is true; yet, up and down in those Cambridge
coteries he was a man looked for, and listened to, eagerly and bravely
applauded. Certain scholastic honors, too, he did reap, in spite of his
lunges outside the traces; there was a medal for his poem of _Pompeii_;
and a Fellowship, at last, which gave him a needed, though small
income--his father’s Afric business having proved a failure, and no home
moneys coming to him thereafter.
The first writings of Macaulay which had public issue were printed in
_Knight’s Quarterly Magazine_--among them were criticisms on Italian
writers, a remarkable imaginary conversation between “Cowley and Milton,”
and the glittering, jingling battle verses about the War of the League and
stout “Henry of Navarre”--full to the brim of that rush and martial
splendor which he loved all his life, and which he brought in later years
to his famous re-heralding of the _Lays of Ancient Rome_. A few lines are
cited:--
“The King is come to marshal us, in all his armor drest;
And he has bound a snow-white plume upon his gallant crest.
He looked upon his people, and a tear was in his eye;
He looked upon the traitors, and his glance was stern and high.
Right graciously he smiled on us, as rolled from wing to wing
Down all our line a deafening shout, ‘God save our Lord the King!’
And if my standard bearer fall, as fall full well he may,
For never saw I promise yet of such a bloody fray;
Press where ye see my white plume shine, amidst the ranks of war,
And be your oriflamme to-day the helmet of Navarre!”
On the year after this “Battle of Ivry” had sparkled into print appeared
the paper on Milton, to which I have alluded, and which straightway set
London doors open to the freshly fledged student-at-law. Crabb Robinson,
in his diary of those days, speaks patronizingly of a “young gentleman of
six or seven and twenty, who has emerged upon the dinner-giving public,”
and is astounding old habitués by his fulness and brilliancy of talk. He
had not, to be sure, those lighter and sportive graces of conversation
which floated shortly thereafter out from the open windows of Gore House,
and had burgeoned under the beaming smiles of Lady Blessington. But he
came to be a table match for Sydney Smith, and was honored by the
invitations of Lady Holland,[85] who allowed no new find of so brilliant
feather to escape her.
_In Politics and Verse._
Macaulay’s alliance with the Scottish Reviewers, and his known liberalism,
make him a pet of the great Whigs; and through Lansdowne, with a helping
hand from Melbourne, he found his way into Parliament: there were those
who prophesied his failure in that field; I think Brougham in those days,
with not a little of jealousy in his make up, was disposed to count him a
mere essayist. But his speeches in favor of the Reform bill belied all
such auguries. Sir Robert Peel declared them to be wonderful in their
grasp and eloquence; they certainly had great weight in furthering reform;
and his parliamentary work won presently for him the offer from Government
of a place in India. No Oriental glamour allured him, but the new position
was worth £10,000 per annum. He counted upon saving the half of this, and
returning after five years with a moderate fortune. He did better,
however--shortening his period of exile by nearly a twelve-month, and
bringing back £30,000.
His sister (who later became Lady Trevelyan) went with him as the mistress
of his Calcutta household; and his affectionate and most tender relations
with this, as well as with his younger sister, are beautifully set forth
in the charming biography by his nephew, Otto Trevelyan. It is a biography
that everybody should read; and none can read it, I am sure, without
coming to a kindlier estimate of its subject. The home-letters with which
it abounds run over with affectionate playfulness. We are brought to no
ugly _post mortem_ in the book, and no opening of old sores. It is modest,
courteous, discreet, and full.
Macaulay did monumental work in India upon the Penal Code. He also kept up
there his voracious habits of reading and study. Listen for a moment to
his story of this:
“During the last thirteen months I have read Eschylus, twice;
Sophocles, twice; Euripides, once; Pindar, twice; Callimachus,
Apollonius Rhodius, Theocritus, twice; Herodotus, Thucydides,
almost all of Xenophon’s works, almost all of Plato, Aristotle’s
_Politics_, and a good deal of his _Organon_; the whole of
Plutarch’s Lives; half of Lucian; two or three books of Athenæus;
Plautus, twice; Terence, twice; Lucretius, twice; Catullus,
Propertius, Lucan, Statius, Silius Italicus, Livy, Velleius
Paterculus, Sallust, Cæsar, and lastly, Cicero.”
This is his classical list. Of his modern reading he does not tell; yet he
was plotting the _History of England_, and the bouncing balladry of the
_Lays of Rome_ was even then taking shape in the intervals of his study.
His father died while Macaulay was upon his voyage home from India--a
father wholly unlike the son, in his rigidities and his Calvinistic
asperities; but always venerated by him, and in the latter years of the
old gentleman’s life treated with a noble and beautiful generosity.
A short visit to Italy was made after the return from India; and it was in
Rome itself that he put some of the last touches to the Lays--staying the
work until he could confirm by personal observation the relative sites of
the bridge across the Tiber and the home of Horatius upon the Palatine.
You remember the words perhaps; if not, ’twere well you should,--
“Alone stood brave Horatius,
But constant still in mind;
Thrice thirty thousand foes before,
And the broad flood behind.
‘Down with him!’ cried false Sextus,
With a smile on his pale face.
‘Now yield thee,’ cried Lars Porsena,
‘Now yield thee to our grace!’
Round turned he, as not deigning
Those craven ranks to see;
Nought spake he to Lars Porsena,
To Sextus nought spake he!
But he saw on Palatinus
The white porch of his home;
And he spake to the noble river
That rolls by the towers of Rome.
‘Oh, Tiber, father Tiber!
To whom the Romans pray,
A Roman’s life, a Roman’s arms,
Take thou in charge this day!’
So he spake, and speaking sheathed
The good sword by his side,
And, with his harness on his back,
Plunged headlong in the tide.”
This does not sound like those verses of Shelley, which we lately
encountered. Those went through the empyrean of song like Aurora’s
chariot of the morning, with cherubs, and garlands, and flashing torches.
This, in the comparison, is like some well-appointed dump-cart, with
sleek, well-groomed Percheron horses--up to their work, and accomplishing
what they are set to do absolutely well.
It was not until 1842, a year or two after the Italian visit, that
Macaulay ventured to publish that solitary book of his verse; he very much
doubted the wisdom of putting his literary reputation in peril by such
overture in rhyme. It extorted, however, extravagant praise from that
muscular critic Christopher North; while the fastidious Hunt writes to him
(begging a little money--as was his wont), and regretting that the book
did not show more of the poetic aroma which breathes from the _Faerie
Queene_. But say what we may of its lack--there is no weakly maundering;
it is the work of a man full-grown, with all his wits active, and his
vision clear, and who loved plain sirloins better than the fricandeaux and
ragoûts of the artists.
There is also a scholarly handling, with high, historic air blowing
through--as if he liked his Homer better than his Spenser; his prosody is
up to the rules; the longs and shorts are split to a hair’s
breadth--jingling and merry where the sense calls for it; and sober and
resonant where meaning is weighty; flashing, too, where need is--with
sword play and spear-heads that glitter and waver over marching men; but
nowhere--I think it must be said--the tremulous poetic _susurrus_, that
falters, and touches, and detains by its mystic sounds--tempting one into
dim border-lands where higher and more inspired singers find their way.
Christabel is not of his school, nor the star-shaped shadow of
Wordsworth’s Daisy.
_Parliamentarian and Historian._
Meantime occasional papers from Macaulay’s hand found their way into the
pages of the great Northern _Review_--but by no means so many as the Whig
managers could have wished; he had himself grown to think lightly of such
work; the History was calling for his best powers, and there were
parliamentary duties devolving upon him as member for Edinboro’.
I remember catching sight of him somewhere between 1844 and 1846--in his
place in the House of Commons, and of listening to his brilliant
castigation of Sir Robert Peel, in the matter, I think, of the Maynooth
grant. He was well toward fifty then, but sturdy--with the firm tread of a
man who could do his three or four leagues of walking--if need were;
beetle-browed; his clothes ill-adjusted; his neck bundled in a big
swathing of cravat. There was silence when he rose; there was nothing
orator-like in his bearing; rather awkward in his pose; having scorn, too,
as would seem, for any of the graces of elocution. But he was clear,
emphatic, direct, with a great swift river of words all bearing toward
definite aim. Tory critics used to say he wrote his speeches and committed
them to memory. There was no need for that. Words tripped to his tongue as
easily as to his pen. But there were no delicate modulations of voice; no
art of pantomime; no conscious or unconscious assumption of graceful
attitudes; and when subject-matter enfevered and kindled him--as it did
on that occasion--there was the hurry and the over-strained voice of
extreme earnestness.
It was not very long after this that he met with a notable repulse from
his old political supporters in Edinboro’ that touched him grievously. But
there were certain arts of the politician he could not, and would not
learn; he could not truckle; he could not hobnob with clients who made
vulgar claims upon him. He could not make domiciliary visits, to kiss the
babies--whether of patrons, or of editors; he could not listen to twaddle
from visiting committees, without breaking into a righteous wrath that
hurt his chances. Edinboro’, afterward, however, cleared the record, by
giving him before his death a triumphant return to Parliament.
Meantime that wonderful History had been written, and its roll of
magniloquent periods made echo in every quarter of the literary world. Its
success was phenomenal. After the issue of its second couplet of volumes
the publishers sent to the author a check for £20,000 on account. Such
checks passing between publisher and author were then uncommon;
and--without straining a point--I think I may say they are now. With its
Macaulay endorsement, it makes a unique autograph, now in the possession
of the Messrs. Longmans--but destined to find place eventually among the
manuscript treasures of the British Museum.
The great history is a partisan history, but it is the work of a bold and
out-spoken and manly partisan. The colors that he uses are intense and
glaring; but they are blended in the making of his great panorama of King
William’s times, with a marvellous art. We are told that he was an
advocate and not a philosopher; that he was a rhetorician and not a poet.
We may grant all this, and we may grant more--and yet I think we shall
continue to cherish his work. Men of greater critical acumen and nicer
exploration may sap the grounds of some of his judgments; cooler writers,
and those of more self-restraint, may draw the fires by which his
indignations are kindled; but it will be very long before the world will
cease to find high intellectual refreshment in the crackle of his
epigrams, in his artful deployment of testimony, in his picturesque array
of great historic characters and in the roll of his sonorous periods.
Yet he is the wrong man to copy; his exaltations make an unsafe model. He
exaggerates--but he knows how to exaggerate. He paints a truth in colors
that flow all round the truth, and enlarge it. Such outreach of rhetoric
wants corresponding capacity of brain, and pen-strokes that never swerve
or tremble. Smallish men should beware how they copy methods which want
fulness of power and the besom of enthusiasm to fill out their compass.
Homer can make all his sea-waves iridescent and multitudinous--all his
women high-bosomed or blue-eyed--and all his mountains sweep the skies:
but _we_ should be modest and simple.
It was not until Macaulay had done his last work upon the book (still
incomplete) which he counted his monument, that he moved away from his
bachelor quarters in the Albany (Piccadilly) and established himself at
Holly Lodge, which, under the new name (he gave it) of Oirlie Lodge, may
be found upon a winding lane in that labyrinth of city roads that lies
between Kensington Gardens and Holland House. There was a bit of green
lawn attached, which he came to love in those last days of his; though he
had been without strong rural proclivities. Like Gibbon, he never hunted,
never fished, rarely rode. But now and then--among the thorn-trees
reddening into bloom and the rhododendrons bursting their buds, the May
mornings were “delicious” to him. He enjoyed, too, overmuch, the modest
hospitalities he could show in a home of his own. There are joyfully
turned notes--in his journal or in his familiar letters--of “a goose for
Michaelmas,” and of “a chine and oysters for Christmas eve,” and
“excellent audit ale” on Lord Mayor’s day. There, too, at Holly Lodge,
comes to him in August, 1857, when he was very sad about India (as all the
world were), an offer of a peerage. He accepts it, as he had accepted all
the good things of life--cheerily and squarely, and was thenceforward
Baron Macaulay of Rothley. He appears from time to time on the benches of
the Upper House, but never spoke there. His speaking days were over. A
little unwonted fluttering of the heart warned him that the end was not
far off.
A visit to the English lakes and to Scotland in 1859 did not--as was
hoped--give him access of strength. He was much disturbed, too (at this
crisis), by the prospect of a long separation from his sister, Lady
Trevelyan--whose husband had just now been appointed Governor of Madras.
“This prolonged parting,” he says, “this slow sipping of the vinegar and
the gall is terrible!” And the parting came earlier than he thought, and
easier; for on a day of December in the same year he died in his library
chair. His nephew and biographer had left him in the morning--sitting with
his head bent forward on his chest--an attitude not unusual for him--in a
languid and drowsy reverie. In the evening, a little before seven, Lady
Trevelyan was summoned, and the biographer says:--“As we drove up to the
porch of my uncle’s house, the maids ran crying into the darkness to meet
us; and we knew that all was over.”
He was not an old man--only fifty-nine. The stone which marks his grave in
Westminster Abbey is very near to the statue of Addison.
In estimating our indebtedness to Macaulay as a historian--where his fame
and execution were largest--we must remember that his method of close
detail forbade wide outlook or grasp of long periods of time. If he had
extended the same microscopic examination and dramatic exhibit of
important personages to those succeeding reigns, which he originally
intended to cover--coming down to the days of William IV.--he would have
required fifty volumes; and if he had attempted, in the same spirit, a
reach like that of Green or Hume, his rhetorical periods must have
overflowed more than two hundred bulky quartos! No ordinary man could read
such; and--thank Heaven!--no extraordinary man could write so many.
_Some Tory Critics._
Among those who sought with a delightsome pertinacity for flaws in the
historic work of Macaulay, in his own time, was John Wilson Croker, to
whom I have already alluded.[86] He was an older man than the historian;
Irish by birth, handsome, well-allied by marriage, plausible, fawning on
the great (who were of _his_ party) wearing easily and boastfully his
familiarity with Wellington, Lansdowne and Cumberland, airing daintily his
literary qualities at the tables of Holland or Peel; proud of his place in
Parliament, where he loved to show a satiric grace of speech, and the
curled lips of one used to more elegant encounters. In short, he was the
very man to light up the blazing contempt of such another as Macaulay;
more than all since Croker was identified with the worst form of Toryism,
and the other always his political antagonist.
Such being the _animus_ of the parties, one can imagine the delight of
Croker in detecting a blunder of Macaulay, and the delight of Macaulay
when he was able to pounce upon the blunders in Croker’s edition of
_Boswell’s Johnson_. This was on many counts an excellent work and--with
its emendations--holds its ground now; but I think the slaps, and the
scourgings, and the derisive mockery which the critic dealt out to the
self-poised and elegant Croker have made a highly appetizing _sauce
piquante_ for the book these many a year. For my own part, I never enjoy
it half so much as when I think of Macaulay’s rod of discipline “starting
the dust out of the varlet’s [editor’s] jacket.”
It is not a question if Croker deserved this excoriation; we are so taken
up with the dexterity and effectiveness with which the critical professor
uses the surgeon’s knife, that we watch the operation, and the exceeding
grace and ease with which he lays bare nerve after nerve, without once
inquiring if the patient is really in need of such heroic treatment.
The Croker Papers[87]--two ponderous volumes of letters and diary which
have been published in these latter years--have good bits in them; but
they are rare bits, to be dredged for out from quagmires of rubbish. The
papers are interesting, furthermore, as showing how a cleverish man, with
considerable gifts of presence and of brain, with his re-actionary Toryism
dominant, and made a fetich of, can still keep a good digestion and go in
a respectable fashion through a long life--backwards, instead of “face to
the front.”
In this connection it is difficult to keep out of mind that other Toryish
administrator of the _Quarterly_ bombardments of reform and of
Liberalists--I mean Lockhart (to whom reference has already been made in
the present volume), and who, with all of Croker’s personal gifts, added
to these a still larger scorn than that of his elder associate in the
Quarterly conclaves, for those whose social disabilities disqualified them
for breathing the rarefied air which circulated about Albemarle Street and
the courts of Mr. Murray. Even Mr. Lang in his apologetic but very
interesting story of Lockhart’s life,[88] cannot forbear quiet
reprehensive allusions to that critic’s odious way of making caustic
allusion to “the social rank” of political opponents; although much of
this he avers “is said in wrath.” Yet it is an unworthy wrath, always and
everywhere, which runs in those directions. Lockhart, though an acute
critic, and a very clever translator, was a supreme worshipper of
“conditions,” rather than of qualities. He never forgave Americans for
being Americans, and never preter-mitted his wrathy exposition of their
‘low-lived antecedents’ socially. The baronetcy of his father-in-law, Sir
Walter Scott, was I think, a perpetual and beneficent regalement to him.
_Two Gone-by Story Tellers._
Must it be said that the jolly story-teller of the sea and of the
sea-ports, who wrote for our uncles and aunts, and elder brothers, the
brisk, rollicking tales about _Midshipman Easy_, and _Japhet in Search of
a Father_, is indeed gone by?
His name was Frederick Marryat,[89] the son of a well-to-do London
gentleman, who had served the little Borough of Sandwich as member of
Parliament (and was also author of some verses and political tractates),
but who did not wean his boy from an inborn love of the sea. To gratify
this love the boy had sundry adventurous escapades; but when arrived at
the mature age of fourteen, he entered as midshipman in the Royal
Navy--his first service, and a very active one, being with that brave and
belligerent Lord Cochrane, who later won renown on the west coast of South
America. Adventures of most hazardous and romantic qualities were not
wanting under such an officer, all of which were stored in the retentive
memory of the enthusiastic and observant midshipman, and thereafter, for
years succeeding, were strewn with a free hand over his tales of the sea.
These break a good many of the rules of rhetoric--and so do sailors; they
have to do with the breakage of nearly all the commandments--and so do
sailors. But they are breezy; they are always pushing forward; spars and
sails are all ship-shape; and so are the sailors’ oaths, and the rattle of
the chain-cables, and the slatting of the gaskets, and the smell of the
stews from the cook’s galley.
There is also a liberal and _quasi_ democratic coloring of the links and
interludes of his novels. The trials of _Peter Simple_ grow largely out of
the cruel action of the British laws of primogeniture; nor does the jolly
midshipman--grandson, or nephew--forego his satiric raps at my lord
“Privilege.” Yet Marryat shows no special admiration for such evolutions
of the democratic problem as he encounters in America.[90]
Upon the whole, one finds no large or fine literary quality in his books;
but the _fun_ in them is positive, and catching--as our aunts and uncles
used to find it; but it is the fun of the tap-room, and of the for’castle,
rather than of the salon, or the library. For all this, scores and scores
of excellent old people were shaking their sides--in the early part of
this century--over the pages of Captain Marryat--in the days when other
readers with sighs were bemoaning the loss of the “Great Magician’s” power
in the dreary story of _Count Robert of Paris_, or kindling into a new
worship as they followed Ainsworth’s[91] vivid narrative of Dick Turpin’s
daring gallop from London to York.
A nearer name to us, and one perhaps more familiar, is that of G. P. R.
James,[92] an excellent, industrious man, who drove his trade of
novel-making--as our engineers drive wells--with steam, and pistons, and
borings, and everlasting clatter.
Yet,--is this sharp, irreverent mention, wholly fair to the old gentleman,
upon whose confections, and pastries, so many of us have feasted in times
past? What a delight it was--not only for youngsters, but for white-haired
judges, and country lawyers--to listen for the jingle of the spurs, when
one of Mr. James’s swarthy knights--“with a grace induced by habits of
martial exercise”--came dashing into old country quietudes, with his visor
up; or, perhaps in “a Genoa bonnet of black velvet, round which his rich
chestnut hair coiled in profusion”--making the welkin ring with his--“How
now, Sir Villain!”
I caught sight of this great necromancer of “miniver furs,” and
mantua-making chivalry--in youngish days, in the city of New York--where
he was making a little over-ocean escape from the multitudinous work that
flowed from him at home; a well-preserved man, of scarce fifty years,
stout, erect, gray-haired, and with countenance blooming with mild uses of
mild English ale--kindly, unctuous--showing no signs of deep
thoughtfulness or of harassing toil. I looked him over, in boyish way, for
traces of the court splendors I had gazed upon, under his ministrations,
but saw none; nor anything of the “manly beauty of features, rendered
scarcely less by a deep scar upon the forehead,”--nor “of the gray cloth
doublets slashed with purple;” a stanch, honest, amiable, well-dressed
Englishman--that was all.
And yet, what delights he had conjured for us! Shall we be ashamed to name
them, or to confess it all? Shall the modern show of new flowerets of
fiction, and of lilies--forced to the front in January--make us forget
utterly the old cinnamon roses, and the homely but fragrant pinks, which
once regaled and delighted us, in the April and May of our age?
What incomparable siestas those were, when, from between half-closed
eyelids, we watched for the advent of the two horsemen--one in corselet of
shining silver, inlaid with gold, and the other with hauberk of bright
steel rings--slowly riding down the distant declivity, under the rays of a
warm, red sunset! Then, there were abundance of gray castle-walls--ever so
high, the ivy hanging deliciously about them; and there were clanging
chains of draw-bridges, that rattled when a good knight galloped over; and
there were stalwart gypsies lying under hedges, with charmingest of little
ones with flaxen hair (who are not gypsies at all, but only stolen); and
there is clash of arms; and there are bad men, who get punched with spear
heads--which is good for them; and there are jolly old burghers who drink
beer, and “troll songs”; and assassins who lurk in the shadows of long
corridors--where the moonbeams shine upon their daggers; and there are
dark-haired young women, who look out of casements and kiss their hands
and wave white kerchiefs,--and somebody sees it in the convenient edge of
the wood, and salutes in return, and steals away; and the assassin
escapes, and the gypsies are captured in the bush, and some bad king is
killed, and an old parchment is found, and the stars come out, and the
rivulet murmurs, and the good knight comes back; and the dark tresses are
at the casement, and she smiles, and the marriage bells ring, and they are
happy. And the school bell (for supper) rings, and we are happy!
* * * * *
As I close this book with these last shadowy glimpses of story-tellers,
who have told their pleasant tales, and have lived out their time, and
gone to rest, I see lifting over that fair British horizon, where Victoria
shows her queenly presence--the modest Mr. Pickwick, with his gaiters and
bland expanse of figure; Thackeray, too, with his stalwart form and
spectacled eyes is peering out searchingly upon all he encounters; the
refined face of Ruskin is also in evidence, and his easy magniloquence is
covering one phase of British art with new robes. A woman’s Dantesque
profile shows the striking qualities which are fairly mated by the
striking passages in _Adam Bede_ and _Daniel Deronda_; one catches sight,
too, of the shaggy, keen visage of the quarrel-loving Carlyle, and of
those great twin-brethren of poesy--Browning and Tennyson--the Angelo and
the Raphael of latter images in verse. Surely these make up a wonderful
grouping of names--not unworthy of comparison with those others whom we
found many generations ago, grouped around another great queen of England,
who blazed in her royal court, and flaunted her silken robes, and--is
gone.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Robert Southey, b. 1774; d. 1843. _Joan of Arc_ (pub.) 1796;
_Thalaba_, 1801; _A Vision of Judgment_, 1821; _Life of Nelson_, 1813;
_The Doctor_, 1834-47. _Life and Correspondence_, edited by Rev. Chas.
Cuthbert Southey, 1849-50.
[2] In a letter to his friend Bedford (he being then aged fifty) he
writes: “I have taken again to my old coat and old shoes; dine at the
reasonable hour of four; enjoy, as I used to do, the wholesome indulgence
of a nap after dinner,” etc.
[3] Letter to Bedford, under date of December, 1793.--_Life and
Correspondence_, p. 69.
[4] In the _Imaginary Conversation_ between Southey and Porson, Landor
makes Porson say: “It is pleasant to find two poets [Southey and
Wordsworth] living as brothers, and particularly when the palm lies
between them, with hardly a third in sight.”
Lamb, too, in a letter to Mr. Coleridge (p. 194, Moxon edition of 1832,
London), says: “On the whole, I expect Southey one day to rival Milton; I
already deem him equal to Cowper, and superior to all living poets
besides.” This is _apropos_ of _Joan of Arc_, which had then recently
appeared. He begins his letter: “With _Joan of Arc_ I have been delighted,
amazed; I had not presumed to expect anything of such excellence from
Southey.”
[5] George IV. was appointed Regent in the year 1811, the old king, George
III., being then plainly so far bereft of his senses as to incapacitate
him even for intelligent clerical service. He died, as we shall find
later, in the year 1820, when the Regent succeeded, and reigned for ten
years.
The _Croker Papers_ (1884), recently published, make mention of Mr.
Croker’s intervention in the matter of the bestowal of the Laureate-ship
upon Southey. Croker was an old friend of Southey, and a trusted
go-between in all literary service for the royal household.
[6] The sixth and seventh volumes appeared after the poet’s death, in
1847.
[7] Henry Crabb Robinson, b. 1775; d. 1867. _Diary, Reminiscences_, etc.
(ed. by Sadler), 1869.
[8] Best edition is that of Macmillan, London, 1869.
[9] Thomas De Quincey, b. 1785; d. 1859. _Confessions of an English Opium
Eater_, 1821. Complete edition of works, 1852-55. _Life and Writings_: H.
A. Page, 2 vols. London, 1877.
[10] The entry is of 1812, p. 391, chap. xv. Macmillan’s edition. London,
1869.
[11] Page 215; vol. ii., _Reminiscences_. Boston Edition.
[12] John Wilson, b. 1785; d. 1854; better known as Christopher North, his
pseudonym in _Blackwood_. _The Isle of Palms_, 1811; _The City of the
Plague_, 1816; _Recreations of Christopher North_, 1842. In 1851 a
civil-list pension of £300 was conferred upon him. His younger brother
James Wilson was a well-known naturalist, and author of _The Rod and the
Gun_.
[13] “Old North and Young North.” _Blackwood_, June, 1828.
[14] Dorothy Wordsworth, under date of 1809, writes to her friend, Lady
Beaumont--“Surely I have spoken to you of Mr. Wilson, a young man of some
fortune, who has built a house in a very fine situation not far from
Bowness.… He has from boyhood been a passionate admirer of my brother’s
writings. [And again.] We all, including Mr. De Quincey and Coleridge,
have been to pay the Bachelor (Wilson) a visit, and we enjoyed ourselves
very much in a pleasant mixture of merriment, and thoughtful discourse.…
He is now twenty-three years of age.”--Coleorton _Letters_, vol. ii, p.
91.
[15] John Gibson Lockhart, b. 1794; d. 1854. Connected with _Blackwood_,
1818; _Adam Blair_, 1822; with _Quarterly Review_, 1826-53; _Ancient
Spanish Ballads_, 1823; _Memoirs of Walter Scott_, 1836-38. Recent _Life
of Lockhart_, by Andrew Lang. 2 vols., 8vo. Nimmo, London.
[16] Mrs. Gordon says, quoting from her mother’s record: Mr. Wilson is as
busy studying as possible; indeed, he has little time before him for his
great task; he says it will take one month at least to make out a
catalogue of the books he has to read and consult. I am perfectly appalled
when I go into the dining-room and see all the folios, quartos, and
duodecimos, with which it is literally filled; and the poor culprit
himself sitting in the midst, with a beard as long and red as an ancient
carrot; for he has not shaved for a fortnight. P. 215, _Memoir of John
Wilson_. We are sorry to see that Mr. Lang, in his recent _Life of
Lockhart_ (1897), pp. 135-6-7-8, has put some disturbing cross-coloring
(perhaps justly) upon the pleasant portrait which Mrs. Gordon has drawn of
Christopher North.
[17] Mrs. Gordon’s _Memoir of John Wilson_, p. 222. The statement is
credited to the author of _The Two Cosmos_. Middleton, New York, 1863.
[18] Thomas Campbell, b. 1777; d. 1844. _The Pleasures of Hope_, 1799;
_Gertrude of Wyoming_, 1809; _Life of Petrarch_, 1841; Dr. Beattie’s
_Life_, 1850.
[19] _Maclise Portrait Gallery_, London, 1883 (which cites in
confirmation, _Notes and Queries_, December 13, 1862).
[20] De Quincey says that he was the only man in all Europe who quoted
Wordsworth as early as 1802. Yet, _per contra_, the _Lyrical Ballads_ had
warm praises from Jeffrey (in _Monthly Review_) and from Southey (in
_Critical_)--showing that the finer ears had caught the new notes from
Helicon.
[21] Walter Scott, b. 1771; d. 1832; _Lay of Last Minstrel_, 1805;
_Marmion_, 1808; _Lady of the Lake_, 1810; _Waverley_, 1814; _Woodstock_,
1826; _Life of Napoleon_, 1827; _Life_, by Lockhart, 1832-37.
[22] He was clerk in Her Majesty’s Foreign Office in London. Carlyle says
in a letter (of date of 1842), “I have the liveliest impression of that
good honest Scotch face and character, though never in contact with the
young man but once.”--Lang’s _Lockhart_, p. 232, vol. ii.
[23] For those readers who have a failing for genealogic quests, I give a
_résumé_ of the Scott family history and succession of heirs to
Abbotsford. The earlier items are from Scott’s black-letter Bible.
Walter Scott, Senior, m. 1758 = Anne Rutherford.
|
+------------+
|
Walter Scott, Bart.,
b. 1771; d. 1832; m. 1797 = Margaret Charlotte
one of twelve children, | Carpenter, of French
of whom five | blood and birth.
reached maturity. |
|
+-----------------+---------+--------+-------------+
| | | |
Charlotte Sophia, Walter, Br. Army, Anne, bapt. Charles,
bapt. 1799; d. bapt. 1801; m. 1803; d. bapt. 1805; d.
1837; m. 1820 1825, Miss Jobson; unmarried unmarried 1841.
= J. G. Lockhart. d. s. p. 1847. 1833.
|
+----+----------------+---------------------+
| | |
John Hugh, Walter Scott, Charlotte, b. 1828; d. 1858
b. 1821; d. b. 1826; d. m. 1847, J. R. Hope,
1831. unmarried later Hope Scott.
1853. |
|
+--------------------------------+
|
Mary Monica, b. 1852; now Mrs. Maxwell Scott,
of Abbotsford.
[24] Chapter IV. _Queen Anne and the Georges._
[25] Lockhart’s _Life of Scott_, chapter viii., pp. 126-27, vol. iii.,
Paris edition.
[26] Henry Mackenzie, b. 1745; d. 1831. _Man of Feeling_, 1771; _The
Lounger_, 1785.
[27] Rev. Sydney Smith, b. 1771; d. 1845. _Memoir_ by Lady Holland.
[28] Francis Horner, b. 1778; d. 1817. _Memoirs and Correspondence_, 1843.
[29] Henry Brougham (Lord Brougham and Vaux), b. 1778; d. 1868. _Collected
Speeches_, 1838. _Historic Sketches, etc._, 1839-43. Autobiography (edited
by a brother), published in 1871.
[30] _Albert Lunel; or The Château of Languedoc._ Lowndes (Bohn) says--“3
vols. post 8vo, 1844. This novel was suppressed on the eve of publication,
and it is said not above five copies of the original edition are extant.”
The _Maclise Portrait Gallery_ speaks of an issue in 1872.
[31] _Life and Correspondence of Lord Jeffrey_, by Lord Cockburn, p. 283,
vol. i., Harper’s edition.
[32] A grandniece of the great marplot John Wilkes of George III.’s time,
and a near connection (if I am not mistaken) of Captain Wilkes of the
South Sea Expedition and of the Mason and Slidell seizure.
[33] Cited from recollection; but very close to his own utterance, in a
letter to a friend.
[34] This was arranged through Lord Grey, in exchange for a place in
Bristol Cathedral, which had been bestowed by his Tory friend Lyndhurst.
To the same friend he was indebted for his living at Combe Fleurey.
[35] _Life and Times of Rev. Sydney Smith_, by STUART J. REID, p. 226,
1885.
[36] James Mackintosh, b. 1765; d. 1832; _Vindiciæ Gallicæ_ (reply to
Burke), 1791; _Memoirs_, by his son, 1835.
[37] _History of the Revolution in England in 1688, Comprising a View of
the Reign of James II. from his Accession to the Enterprise [sic] of the
Prince of Orange_, London, 1834.
[38] Smith, Jeffrey, Brown, Horner, and Brougham. Stephens: _Hours in a
Library_, iii., 140.
The “Brown” alluded to as one of the founders, was Dr. Thomas Brown, a
distinguished physician and psychologist (b. 1778; d. 1820), who after
issue of third number of the _Review_, had differences with Jeffrey
(virtual editor) which led him to withdraw his support. _Life_, by Welsh,
p. 79 _et seq._
[39] I cannot forbear giving--though only in a note--one burst of his
fervid oratory, when his powers were at their best:
“It was the boast of Augustus--it formed part of the glare in which the
perfidies of his earlier years were lost--that he found Rome of brick, and
left it of marble--a praise not unworthy of a great prince, and to which
the present reign [George IV.] has its claim also. But how much nobler
will be our Sovereign’s boast, when he shall have it to say, that he found
law dear and left it cheap; found it a sealed book, and left it a living
letter; found it the patrimony of the rich, left it the inheritance of the
poor; found it the two-edged sword of craft and oppression, left it the
staff of honesty and the shield of innocence.” Speech, on _Present State
of the Law_, February 7, 1828.
[40] William Gifford, b. 1757; d. 1826. I give the birth-date named by
himself in his autobiography, though the new _National Dictionary of
Biography_ gives date of 1756. Gifford--though not always the best
authority--ought to have known the year when he was born.
Ed. _Quarterly Review_, 1809-1824; _Juvenal_, 1802; _Ben Jonson_, 1816.
Some interesting matter concerning the early life of Gifford may be found
in Memoirs of _John Murray_, vol. 1, pp. 127 _et seq._
[41] John Wilson Croker, b. 1780; d. 1857, wrote voluminously for the
_Quarterly Review_; _Life of Johnson_ (ed.), 1831; his _Memoirs_ and
_Correspondence_, 1885.
[42] Very much piquant talk about George IV. and his friends may be found
in the _Journal of Mary Frampion from 1779 until 1846_. London: Sampson
Low & Co., 1885.
[43] _English Lands and Letters_, vol. iii., pp. 168-70.
[44] Queen Charlotte, d. 1818.
[45] W. S. Landor, b. 1775; d. 1864. _Gebir_, 1798; _Imaginary
Conversations_, 1824; Foster’s _Life_, 1869.
[46] P. 465. _Last Fruit from an Old Tree._
[47] Colvin cites this from unpublished verses.
[48] In his _Last Fruits from an Old Tree_, p. 334, Moxon Edition, Landor
writes: “Southey could grasp great subjects and master them; Coleridge
never attempted them; Wordsworth attempted it and failed.” This is
strongly _ex parte_!
[49] I would strongly urge, however, the reading and purchase, if may be,
of Colvin’s charming little _Golden Treasury_ collection from Landor.
[50] Leigh Hunt, b. 1784; d. 1859. _Francesca da Rimini_, 1816;
_Recollections of Byron_, 1828; _The Indicator_, 1819-21; _Autobiography_,
1850.
[51] Thomas Moore, b. 1779; d. 1852. _Lalla Rookh_, 1817. _Life of Byron_,
1830. _Alciphron_, 1839.
[52] Sloperton was near the centre of Wiltshire, a little way northward
from the old market-town of Devizes. Mr. William Winter, in his _Gray Days
and Gold_, has given a very charming account of this home of Moore’s and
of its neighborhood--so full of English atmosphere, and of the graces and
benignities of the Irish poet, as to make me think regretfully of my tamer
mention.
[53] William Hazlitt, b. 1778; d. 1830. _Characters of Shakespeare_, 1817;
_Table Talk_, 1821; _Liber Amoris_, 1823; _Life of Napoleon_, 1828; _Life_
(by Grandson), 1867; a later book of memoirs, _Four Generations of a
Literary Family_, appeared 1897. (It gave nothing essentially new, and was
quickly withdrawn from sale.)
[54] Henry Hallam, b. 1777; d. 1859. _Middle Ages_, 1818. _Literature of
Europe_, 1837-39. Sketch of _Life_, by Dean Milman in _Transactions of
Royal Society_, vol. x.
[55] Marguerite Power (Countess of Blessington), b. 1789; d. 1849; m.
Captain Farmer, 1804; m. Earl of Blessington, 1817. 1822-1829, travelling
on Continent. _Idler in Italy_, 1839-40 (first novel, about 1833).
_Conversations with Lord Byron_, 1834. Her special _reign_ in London, 1831
to 1848.
[56] There is a very interesting, but by no means flattered, account of
Lady Blessington and of her dinners and receptions in Greville’s _Journal
of the Reign of Queen Victoria_, chapter iv., p. 167, vol. i.
[57] Edward L. Bulwer (Lord Lytton), b. 1803; d. 1873; _Pelham_, 1828;
_Rienzi_, 1835; _Caxton Novels_, 1849-53; _Richelieu_, 1839; his
_Biography_ (never fully completed) has been written by his son, the
second Lord Lytton. It is doubtful, however, if its developments, and
inevitable counter-developments, have brought any access of honor to the
elder Bulwer.
[58] Benjamin Disraeli (Lord Beaconsfield), b. 1804; d. 1881. _Vivian
Grey_, 1826-27; _Contarini Fleming_, 1832; _Coningsby_, 1844; _Lothair_,
1870. Was Premier, 1867, 1874-80. Created Earl of Beaconsfield, 1876.
[59] _Vaurien_, 1797; _Flim-Flams_, 1805; _Despotism_, or _Fall of the
Jesuits_, 1811.
[60] A. E. Chalon, an artist much in vogue in the days of “Tokens,”--who
also painted Lady Blessington,--but of no lasting reputation.
[61] In illustration of his comparatively humble position early, Greville
in his later _Journal_, Chapter XXIV., speaks of Disraeli’s once proposing
to Moxon, the publisher, to take him (Disraeli) into partnership; Greville
says Moxon told him this.
[62] George Noel Gordon (Lord Byron), b. (London) 1788; d. (Greece) 1824.
_Hours of Idleness_, 1807; _English Bards, etc._, 1809; _Childe Harold_ (2
cantos), 1812; _Don Juan_, 1819-24; Moore’s _Life_, 1830; Trelawney,
_Recollections, etc._, 1858. The first volume (Macmillan, 1897) has
appeared of a new edition of Byron’s works, with voluminous notes (in
over-fine print) by William Ernest Henley. The editorial stand-point may
be judged by this averment from the preface,--“the sole English poet bred
since Milton to live a master-influence in the world at large.”
Another full edition of works, with editing by Earl of Lovelace (grandson
of Byron), is announced as shortly to appear from the press of Murray in
London, and of Scribners in New York.
[63] Byron’s _Narrative_, published in the first volume of _Hawkesworth’s
Collection_. Hon. John Byron, Admiral, etc., was at one time Governor of
Newfoundland; b. 1723; d. 1786.
[64] The short line is not enough. We must give the burden of that
apostrophe to the land of Hellas, though only in a note:
“Sweet are thy groves, and verdant are thy fields;
Thine olive ripe as when Minerva smiled,
And still his honeyed wealth Hymettus yields.
There the blithe bee his fragrant fortress builds,
The free-born wanderer of the mountain air;
Apollo still thy long, long summer gilds,
Still in his beams Mendeli’s marbles glare,
Art, Glory, Freedom fail, but Nature still is fair.”
[65] I cite that part of the “Dream” which, though written much time
after, was declared by the poet, and by both friends and foes, to
represent faithfully his attitude--both moral and physical--on the
occasion of his marriage.
[66] This poem appeared about the middle of April, 1816. The final break
in his relations with Lady Byron had occurred, probably, in early February
of the same year. On December 10, 1815, his daughter Ada was born; and on
April 25th, next ensuing, he sailed away from England forever. Byron
insisted that the poem (“Fare thee well”), though written in sincerity,
was published against his inclinations, through the over-zeal of a
friend.--_Moore’s Life_, p. 526, vol. i.
[67] Percy Bysshe Shelley, b. 1792; d. (by drowning in Gulf of Spezia)
1822. _Queen Mab_, pub. 1821 (but privately printed 1813); _Alastor_,
1816; _Laon and Cythna_ (afterward _Revolt of Islam_), 1818; _Adonais_,
1821. _Life_, by Mrs. Shelley, 1845; Hogg’s _Life_, 1858; Rossetti’s,
1870. Besides which there is biographic material, more or less full, by
Forman, Trelawny, McCarthy, Leigh Hunt, Garnett, and Jeaffreson (_Real
Shelley_). _Life_, in _English Men of Letters_, by the late John Addington
Symonds; and in 1886, Professor Dowden’s work.
[68] Rossetti, in _Ency. Britannica_, says, “in Christ Church, Newark”--as
to which item (repeated by Dowden) there has been some American
wonderment!
[69] July, 1804, to July, 1810; _Athenæum_, No. 3,006, June, 1885.
[70] William Godwin, b. 1756; d. 1836. _Political Justice_, 1793; _Caleb
Williams_, 1794. William Austen (author of _Peter Rugg_), in his _Letters
from London_, 1802-3, describes a visit to Godwin at his
cottage--Somerston; notices a portrait of “Mary” (Mrs. Shelley) hanging
over the mantel.
[71] Miss Martineau (p. 304, vol. ii., _Autobiography_) says that Godwin
told her he wrote the first half of _Caleb Williams_ in three months, and
then stopped for six--finishing it in three more. “This pause,” she says,
“in the middle of a work so intense, seems to me a remarkable incident.”
[72] Separation took place about the middle of June, 1814; she destroyed
herself, November 10, 1816. At one time there had been ugly rumors that
she was untrue to him; and there is some reason to believe that Shelley
once entertained this belief, but there is no adequate testimony to that
end; Godwin’s _dixit_ should not count for very much. Dowden leaves the
matter in doubt.
[73] I am reminded that Macready’s impersonation of Werner was a noted and
successful one. _Sardanapalus_ and the _Two Foscari_ enlisted also the
fervor of this actor’s dramatic indorsement. But these all--needed a
Macready.
[74] Very full account of the Chancery proceedings in respect to children
of Shelley may be found in Professor Dowden’s biography. By this it would
appear that by decision of Lord Eldon (July 25, 1818) Shelley was allowed
to see his children twelve times a year--if in the presence of their
regularly appointed guardians (Dr. and Mrs. Hume).
[75] John Keats, b. 1795; d. 1821. First “collected” _Poems_, 1817;
_Endymion_, 1818; second volume of collected _Poems_, 1820; _Life and
Letters_--Lord Houghton (Milnes), 1848.
[76] “Ode to a Nightingale,” vi.
[77] In letter 573, to Murray (Halleck Col., date of Genoa, November,
1822), Byron says: “I see somebody represents the Hunts and Mrs. Shelley
as living in my house; it is a falsehood.… I do not see them twice a
month.”
[78] Professor Hoppin, in his honest and entertaining _Old England_,
speaks of it (p. 258) as “a dull, dirty village,” and--of the church--as
“most forlorn.”
[79] _Gray Days and Gold_; chapter viii. Macmillan, 1896.
[80] This relates, of course, to the condition of the Abbey in the days of
Byron’s childhood. Colonel Wildman, a distinguished officer in the
Peninsular War, who succeeded to the ownership (by purchase) about 1817,
expended very large sums upon such judicious improvements as took away its
old look of desolation.
[81] _Croker Papers_, chapter xviii. Closing of Session of 1833. Croker
would have spoken more gently of him in those latter days, when the king
turned his back on Reformers.
[82] The _Penny Magazine_ appeared first in 1832; the _Cyclopædia_ in the
following year.
[83] The reduction of tax from 4_d._ to 1_d._ took place in 1836.
[84] Thomas Babington Macaulay, b. 1800; d. 1859. _History of England_,
1848-55-61. _Lays of Ancient Rome_, 1842. His _Essays_ (published in
America), 1840. Complete _Works_, London, 8 vols., 1866. _Life_, by
Trevelyan, 1876.
[85] Greville (_Journal of Queen Victoria’s Time_, vol. i., p. 369) speaks
of a dinner at Lady Holland’s--Macaulay being present--when her ladyship,
growing tired of the eloquence of Speakers of the House of Commons and
Fathers of the Church, said: “Well, Mr. Macaulay, can you tell us anything
of dolls--when first named or used?” Macaulay was ready on the
instant--dilated upon Roman dolls and others--citing Persius, “_Veneri
donato a virgine puppæ_.”
[86] See p. 116, _Ante_.
[87] _Memoirs and Correspondence_, 1885.
[88] Lang’s _Lockhart_, p. 42, vol. ii.
[89] Frederick Marryat, b. 1792; d. 1848; R. N., 1806; Commander, 1815;
resigned, 1830. _Frank Mildmay_, 1829; _Midshipman Easy_, 1836; _Peter
Simple_, 1837; _Jacob Faithful_, 1838; _Life_, by his daughter, Florence,
1872.
[90] _Diary in America_, by Captain F. Marryat, 1839.
[91] William Harrison Ainsworth, b 1805; d. 1882. _Rookwood_,
1834--chiefly notable for its wonderful description of Dick Turpin’s
ride--upon Black Bess--from London to York. _Tower of London_, 1840.
[92] G. P. R. James, b. 1801; d. 1860. _Richelieu_ (first novel), 1829;
_Darnley_, 1830; _One in a Thousand_, 1835; _Attila_, 1837. His books
count far above a hundred in number: Lowndes (Bohn) gives over seventy
titles of novels alone. What he might have done, with a modern type-writer
at command, it is painful to imagine.
INDEX.
Abbotsford, 66;
the author’s visit to, 67 _et seq._; 81.
“Abou-ben-Adhem,” 152.
“Adam Bede,” 287.
“Adonais,” 232.
Ainsworth, W. H., 283.
“Alastor,” 221.
Alison, Rev. Archibald, 84.
“Anacreon,” Moore’s, 154.
“Ancient Mariner, Rime of the,” 56.
Arnold, Dr., his experience with the young princes, 118.
Aylmer, Rose, 129.
“Battle of Blenheim, The,” 9.
“Battle of Hohenlinden,” Campbell’s, 53.
“Battle of Ivry, The,” 264.
Beaconsfield, Lord. _See_ Disraeli.
_Blackwood’s Magazine_, 42; 46; 52.
Blessington, Lady, 174 _et seq._;
her many fascinations, 176;
her downfall, 186; 242; 259; 264.
“Border Minstrelsy,” Scott’s, 60.
Boswell, Gifford’s satire on, 115.
Bowles, Caroline, 23.
Bowles, William Lisle, 248.
Brougham, Henry, 87;
his connection with the _Edinburgh Review_, 88;
becomes Lord Chancellor, 89;
his manner in Parliament, 90;
his fervid oratory, 108, note;
his many quarrels, 109;
his death, 110; 113;
his famous defence of Queen Caroline, 124; 177;
his criticism of Byron, 193; 255; 265.
Brown, Dr. Thomas, his connection with the _Edinburgh Review_, 107, note.
Browning, Robert, 288.
Bulwer-Lytton, Edward L., 178; 254.
Byron, Lord, 56;
his satire on Scott, 78;
Leigh Hunt’s quarrel with, 144;
his opinion of Moore, 161;
compared with Moore, 162;
his break with George IV., 168;
leaves England, 188;
his family history, 190;
his boyhood, 191;
his controversy with Brougham, 193;
his unfortunate marriage, 201 _et seq._;
in London, 206;
separates from his wife, 209;
leaves England, 212;
his foreign tour, 214;
meets Shelley, 216;
Shelley’s influence on, 222;
in Italy, 223;
his scepticism, 224;
at Shelley’s funeral, 235;
his character, 239, 240;
sails for Greece, 242;
his death, 246; 249.
“Caleb Williams,” 219.
Campbell, Thomas, his primness, 52;
his first poem, 54;
his clear field in 1799, 56;
his work in prose and poetry, 58;
compared with Scott, 61; 82.
Canning, George, 166.
Carlyle, Thomas, his mildness towards Southey, 19;
his criticism of Scott’s work, 75; 288.
Caroline, Queen, marries the Prince, 121;
separates from her husband, 122;
her trial, 124.
Chalon, A. E., 183.
Charlotte, Princess, 122.
Chaworth, Mary, Byron’s poem to, 193; 250.
“Childe Harold,” 195; 238.
Cochrane, Lord, 282.
Cockburn, Lord, his account of Jeffrey, 93.
Coleridge, Hartley, his home, 4;
Southey’s letter to, 8.
Coleridge, S. T., his separation from his wife, 8;
his intercourse with Southey, 11;
with Southey at Greta Hall, 15;
chafes at Southey’s odes, 18;
compared with Southey, 20; 56.
“Confessions of an Opium Eater, The,” 34.
Croker, John Wilson, 116;
his criticism of Macaulay, 277.
“Croker Papers, The,” 18, note; 279.
“Daniel Deronda,” 287.
De Quincey, Thomas, his home, 4;
Robinson’s description of, 28;
his early years, 29;
settles near Grasmere, 31;
his affection for Catharine Wordsworth, 32;
his marriage, 34;
his laudanum drinking, 35;
his “Reminiscences,” 37;
last years and death of, 38, 40;
his assertion as to the appreciation of Wordsworth in 1802, 56, note.
Derwent Water, 2; 5; 6.
“Devereux,” 178.
Dickens, Charles, his caricature of Leigh Hunt, 147.
“Disowned, The,” 178.
Disraeli, Benjamin, his foppishness, 179;
his antecedents, 180 _et seq._;
his literary work, 182 _et seq._;
his ability as Lord Beaconsfield, 186; 201.
“Doctor, The,” Southey’s, 20.
“Don Juan,” 224, 239.
D’Orsay, Comte, 178, 180, 186.
Dwight, Timothy, 12.
_Edinburgh Review_, founded by Smith and Jeffrey, 86.
“Endymion,” 230.
Erskine, William, 80.
_Examiner, The_, 142.
“First Gentleman of Europe, The,” 165.
Fitzherbert, Mrs., 120 _et seq._
Fox, Charles, 96.
_Francesca da Rimini_, Leigh Hunt’s, 148.
“Frankenstein,” 250.
Franklin, Benjamin, 143.
Gamba, Count, 242.
“Gebir,” Landor’s, 129.
George III., loses his reason, 17, note;
Scott’s allusions to, 77; 118.
George IV., appointed Regent, 17;
his friendliness toward Sir Walter Scott, 78;
his later laxity, 119;
his unfortunate situation, 120;
ascends the throne, 123;
last days of, 165.
“Gertrude of Wyoming,” 54; 57.
Gifford, William, 114 _et seq._; 163.
Godwin, Mary, elopes with Shelley, 220.
Godwin, William, 219.
Gordon, General, 186.
Gore House, 177.
Grasmere, 4.
Greta Hall, 15.
Greville, Charles, 166.
Hallam, Arthur, Tennyson’s lament for, 173.
Hallam, Henry, his serenity, 171;
contrasted with Hazlitt, 172, 173; 177.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, his account of Leigh Hunt, 146.
Hazlitt, William, his cynicism, 168;
his friendship with the Lambs, 169;
his strenuous personality, 170.
Helvellyn, Mt., 4, 5.
Holland, Lady, 96; 213; 264.
Holland, Lord, 96.
Horner, Francis, 86.
“Hours of Idleness,” 193.
Hucknall-Torkard, 247.
Humphreys, David, 12.
Hunt, Isaac, 143.
Hunt, John, 142.
Hunt, Leigh, imprisonment of, 142;
his American blood, 143;
his first writings, 144;
his pretty phrases, 145;
his easy methods of living, 147;
his poetry, 148 _et seq._;
his opinion of Moore, 161; 163;
compared with Hazlitt, 170;
compared with Shelley, 228;
his friendship for Shelley, 234;
at Shelley’s funeral, 235; 269.
“Idler in Italy, The,” Lady Blessington’s, 175.
“Imaginary Conversations,” Landor’s, 16, note; 132.
Ingersoll, Robert, 224.
“In Memoriam,” 173; 232.
“Irish Avatar, The,” Byron’s, 168.
“Isle of Palms, The,” John Wilson’s, 42, 45.
James, G. P. R., 283.
“Japhet in Search of a Father,” 281.
Jeffrey, Francis, his association with Sydney Smith, 85, 86;
his criticism of Southey and Wordsworth, 92;
marries Miss Wilkes, 94;
becomes Lord Jeffrey, 95; 113.
Jersey, Lady, 213.
“_Julia de Roubigné_,” Mackenzie’s, 84.
Keats, John, his school days, 229;
publishes “Endymion,” 230;
goes to Italy, 231;
his death, 232, 233.
Keble, John, 254.
“Kehama, The Curse of,” Southey’s, 13.
“Kenilworth,” 73.
Keswick, 3; 8.
Knight, Charles, 253.
_Knight’s Quarterly Magazine_, 263.
“Lady of the Lake, The,” 65.
Lake Country, The, 1 _et seq._
“Lalla Rookh,” 153;
great success of, 157.
Lamb, Charles, 12;
his opinion of Southey, 16, note;
his friendship with Hazlitt, 169.
Lamb, Mary, 169.
Landor, Walter Savage, 16; 18; 20; 56;
his lack of popularity, 125 _et seq._;
his fondness for the country, 127, 128;
his “Gebir,” 129;
goes abroad, 131;
in Italy, 132 _et seq._;
his genius for skimming, 135;
his domestic troubles, 136, 137;
his old age and death, 139;
strange contrasts in, 165;
compared with Byron, 188; 228.
Lang, Andrew, 71; 280.
Lansdowne, Lord, 255; 265.
“Laon and Cythna,” 225.
“Last Days of Pompeii, The,” 179.
“Lay of the Last Minstrel, The,” 60;
Byron’s satire on, 78.
“Lays of Ancient Rome,” 263.
Lockhart, J. G., his work on the _Quarterly Review_, 47;
quotation from Lang’s “Life” of, 71;
Scott’s dying words to, 81; 280.
“Lycidas,” 232.
Lytton, Lord, 180. _See also_ Bulwer-Lytton.
Macaulay, Thomas Babington, his ancestry, 260;
at the university, 262;
his first writings, 263;
supports the Reform Bill, 265;
finishes his “Lays of Ancient Rome,” 267;
in Parliament, 270;
his great History, 272;
elevated to the peerage, 275;
his death, 276.
Macaulay, Zachary, 261.
Mackenzie, Henry, 84.
Mackintosh, Sir James, his political career, 104;
failure of his literary plans, 105 _et seq._
“Man of Feeling, The,” Mackenzie’s, 84.
“Manfred,” 215.
Markham, Dr., 118.
“Marmion,” 61.
Marryat, Frederick, goes to sea, 281;
his books, 282.
Mavrocordatos, 243.
Melbourne, Lord, 256; 265.
“Midshipman Easy,” 281.
Milbanke, Miss, 203, 204; 250.
Milbanke, Sir Ralph, 206.
Moore, Thomas, 56; 101;
his acquaintance with Leigh Hunt, 153;
his success in society, 154;
his impressions of America, 155;
his domestic relations, 158;
his great reputation, 160;
his melodious songs, 164; 177.
More, Mrs. Hannah, 29, 261.
“Murder as a Fine Art,” appears in _Blackwood’s_, 37.
Murray, John, 78;
starts _The Quarterly_, 114; 160; 205.
_New Monthly Magazine, The_, 58.
Newman, Cardinal, 254.
Newspapers, marvellous increase in circulation of, from 1836 to
1838, 254.
Newstead Abbey, 189.
“_Noctes Ambrosianæ_,” 31; 42.
“North, Christopher,” 40 _et seq._, 269.
O’Connell, Daniel, 184.
“Old Mortality,” 73.
Paine, Thomas, 143.
Peel, Sir Robert, 166; 255; 259; 265; 271.
“Pelham,” 178.
_Penny Cyclopædia, The_, 253.
_Penny Magazine, The_, 253.
“Peter Bell,” Lamb’s and Robinson’s opinions of, 27.
“Peter Simple,” 282.
“Pleasures of Hope, The,” 54.
“Political Justice,” 219.
Pusey, Dr., 254.
_Quarterly, The_, founding of, 114.
_Quarterly Review, The_, 16.
“Queen Mab,” 221.
Reform Bill, The, 100; 253.
“Revolt of Islam, The,” 225.
“Rienzi,” 179.
Robinson, Henry Crabb, his friendship with Southey, 23, 24;
his “Diary and Reminiscences,” 26; 264.
“Roderick the Goth,” Southey’s, 14.
Rogers, Samuel, 177.
Ruskin, John, 287.
Rydal, 3.
Scott, Anne, death of, 70.
Scott, Charles, death of, 70.
Scott, Sir Walter, 47;
his boyhood, 59;
his first poems appear, 60;
compared with Campbell, 61;
his marriage, 65;
genealogy of, 72, note;
the charm of his stories, 73 _et seq._;
his love of pageantry, 77;
his management of the Edinboro’ reception to the King, 79;
his visit to the Mediterranean, 80;
his death, 81; 82;
his opinion of Gifford, 116;
his admiration for Moore, 161; 168.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, his early life, 216;
his marriage and unhappiness, 218;
elopes with Mary Godwin, 220;
meets Byron, 221;
his influence on Byron, 222;
his scepticism, 224, 228;
his death and pagan burial, 235;
his character, 236.
Smith, Goldwin, 65; 183.
Smith, Sydney, settles in Edinboro’, 84;
assists in founding _The Edinburgh Review_, 86;
goes to London, 96;
his ministerial career, 97 _et seq._;
his famous “Dame Partington” simile, 100;
his wit, 102;
his praise of Moore, 161; 177; 264.
Southey, Robert, 5 _et seq._;
his early life, 11 _et seq._;
settles at Keswick, 14;
appointed Poet Laureate, 18;
compared with Coleridge, 20;
refuses a baronetcy, 22;
death of, 24; 56;
meets Landor at Como, 131; 168; 177;
Shelley’s acquaintance with, 218;
Byron’s satire on, 224; 228.
Staël, Madame de, 106; 215.
Stamp Tax, The, effect of its reduction on the newspapers, 254.
Stanley, Lord, 91.
Stewart, Dugald, 48; 84.
Story, W. W., Landor’s connection with, 139.
Strawberry Hill, 261.
Swan Inn, The, 4.
“Talisman, The,” 73.
Tennyson, Lord, his grief at the death of Arthur Hallam, 172;
his dramas, 223; 288.
Thackeray, W. M., 287.
“Thalaba,” 13;
profits on, 15.
Thrale, Madame, 115.
“Tintern Abbey,” Wordsworth’s, 62.
Trelawney, E. J., 235; 242.
Trumbull, John, 144.
Victoria, Queen, beginning of her reign, 167;
her accession, 255;
her marriage, 257; 287.
“Vision of Judgment, A,” 224.
“Vivian Grey,” 182.
Wellington, Duke of, 166; 255.
West, Benjamin, 144; 245.
Wilkes, John, 94, note.
William IV., 81;
his nerve and pluck, 167;
his lack of ceremony, 252;
some events of his time, 253, 254.
“William and Helen,” Scott’s, 60.
Wilson, James, 41, note.
Wilson, John, 31; 36;
his character, 40, 41;
his writings in _Blackwood’s_, 42, 46;
his diaries, 44;
becomes a professor, 48;
his success, 50; 82.
Windermere, 2 _et seq._
“Wishing Gate, The,” 4.
Wollstonecraft, Mary, 220.
Wordsworth, Catharine, 32.
Wordsworth, Dorothy, 43, note.
Wordsworth, William, his opposition to railways, 3;
his grave, 4;
his attitude toward Southey’s odes, 18;
his account of Southey’s last years, 23; 30; 31; 32; 56;
his unlikeness to Scott, 61 _et seq._; 168; 228.