Self-praise of genius.--The love of praise instinctive in the nature of
genius.--A high opinion of themselves necessary for their great designs.
--The Ancients openly claimed their own praise.--And several Moderns.--An
author knows more of his merits than his readers.--And less of his
defects.--Authors versatile in their admiration and their malignity.
Vanity, egotism, a strong sense of their own sufficiency, form another
accusation against men of genius; but the complexion of self-praise must
alter with the occasion; for the simplicity of truth may appear vanity,
and the consciousness of superiority seem envy--to Mediocrity. It is we
who do nothing, and cannot even imagine anything to be done, who are so
much displeased with self-lauding, self-love, self-independence,
self-admiration, which with the man of genius may often be nothing but an
ostensible modification of the passion of glory.
He who exults in himself is at least in earnest; but he who refuses to
receive that praise in public for which he has devoted so much labour in
his privacy, is not; for he is compelled to suppress the very instinct of
his nature. We censure no man for loving fame, but only for showing us how
much he is possessed by the passion: thus we allow him to create the
appetite, but we deny him its aliment. Our effeminate minds are the
willing dupes of what is called the modesty of genius, or, as it has been
termed, "the polished reserve of modern times;" and this from the selfish
principle that it serves at least to keep out of the company its painful
pre-eminence. But this "polished reserve," like something as fashionable,
the ladies' rouge, at first appearing with rather too much colour, will in
the heat of an evening die away till the true complexion come out. What
subterfuges are resorted to by these pretended modest men of genius, to
extort that praise from their private circle which is thus openly denied
them! They have been taken by surprise enlarging their own panegyric,
which might rival Pliny's on Trajan, for care and copiousness; or
impudently veiling themselves with the transparency of a third person; or
never prefixing their name to the volume, which they would not easily
forgive a friend to pass unnoticed.
Self-love is a principle of action; but among no class of human beings has
nature so profusely distributed this principle of life and action as
through the whole sensitive family of genius. It reaches even to a
feminine susceptibility. The love of praise is instinctive in their
nature. Praise with them is the evidence of the past and the pledge of the
future. The generous qualities and the virtues of a man of genius are
really produced by the applause conferred on him. "To him whom the world
admires, the happiness of the world must be dear," said Madame DE STÄEL.
ROMNEY, the painter, held as a maxim that every diffident artist required
"almost a daily portion of cheering applause." How often do such find
their powers paralysed by the depression of confidence or the appearance
of neglect! When the North American Indians, amid their circle, chant
their gods and their heroes, the honest savages laud the living worthies,
as well as their departed; and when, as we are told, an auditor hears the
shout of his own name, he answers by a cry of pleasure and of pride. The
savage and the man of genius are here true to nature, but pleasure and
pride in his own name must raise no emotion in the breast of genius amidst
a polished circle. To bring himself down to their usual mediocrity, he
must start at an expression of regard, and turn away even from one of his
own votaries. Madame De Stäel, an exquisite judge of the feelings of the
literary character, was aware of this change, which has rather occurred in
our manners than in men of genius themselves. "Envy," says that eloquent
writer, "among the Greeks, existed sometimes between rivals; it has now
passed to the spectators; and by a strange singularity the mass of men are
jealous of the efforts which are tried to add to their pleasures or to
merit their approbation."
But this, it seems, is not always the case with men of genius, since the
accusation we are noticing has been so often reiterated. Take from some
that supreme confidence in themselves, that pride of exultation, and you
crush the germ of their excellence. Many vast designs must have perished
in the conception, had not their authors breathed this vital air of
self-delight, this creative spirit, so operative in great undertakings. We
have recently seen this principle in the literary character unfold itself
in the life of the late Bishop of Landaff. Whatever he did, he felt it was
done as a master: whatever he wrote, it was, as he once declared, the best
work on the subject yet written. With this feeling he emulated Cicero in
retirement or in action. "When I am dead, you will not soon meet with
another JOHN HUNTER," said the great anatomist to one of his garrulous
friends. An apology is formed by his biographer for relating the fact, but
the weakness is only in the apology. When HOGARTH was engaged in his work
of the _Marriage à-la-Mode_, he said to Reynolds, "I shall very soon
gratify the world with such a sight as they have never seen equalled."
--"One of his foibles," adds Northcote, "it is well known, was the
excessive high opinion he had of his own abilities." So pronounced
Northcote, who had not an atom of his genius. Was it a _foible_ in Hogarth
to cast the glove, when he always more than redeemed the pledge?
CORNEILLE has given a very noble full-length of the sublime egotism which
accompanied him through life;[A] but I doubt, if we had any such author in
the present day, whether he would dare to be so just to himself, and so
hardy to the public. The self-praise of BUFFON at least equalled his
genius; and the inscription beneath his statue in the library of the
Jardin des Plantes, which I have been told was raised to him in his
lifetime, exceeds all panegyric; it places him alone in nature, as the
first and the last interpreter of her works. He said of the great geniuses
of modern ages, that "there were not more than five; Newton, Bacon,
Leibnitz, Montesquieu, and Myself." With this spirit he conceived and
terminated his great works, and sat in patient meditation at his desk for
half a century, till all Europe, even in a state of war, bowed to the
modern Pliny.
[Footnote A: See it versified in "Curiosities of Literature," vol. i. p.
431.]
Nor is the vanity of Buffon, and Voltaire, and Rousseau purely national;
for men of genius in all ages have expressed a consciousness of the
internal force of genius. No one felt this self-exultation more potent
than our HOBBES; who has indeed, in his controversy with Wallis, asserted
that there may be nothing more just than self-commendation.[A] There is a
curious passage in the "Purgatorio" of DANTE, where, describing the
transitory nature of literary fame, and the variableness of human opinion,
the poet alludes with confidence to his own future greatness. Of two
authors of the name of Guido, the one having eclipsed the other, the poet
writes:--
Così ha tolto l'uno all'altro Guido
La gloria della lingua; e _forse è nato
Chi l'uno e l'altro caccerà di nido_.
Thus has one Guido from the other snatch'd
The letter'd pride; _and he perhaps is born
Who shall drive either from their nest_.[B]
[Footnote A: See "Quarrels of Authors," p. 471.]
[Footnote B: Cary.]
DE THOU, one of the most noble-minded of historians, in the Memoirs of his
own life, composed in the third person, has surprised and somewhat puzzled
the critics, by that frequent distribution of self-commendation which they
knew not how to reconcile with the modesty and gravity with which the
President was so amply endowed. After his great and solemn labour, amidst
the injustice of his persecutors, this eminent man had sufficient
experience of his real worth to assert it. KEPLER, amidst his sublime
discoveries, looks down like a superior being on other men. He breaks
forth in glory and daring egotism: "I dare insult mankind by confessing
that I am he who has turned science to advantage. If I am pardoned, I
shall rejoice; if blamed, I shall endure. The die is cast; I have written
this book, and whether it be read by posterity or by my contemporaries is
of no consequence; it may well wait for a reader during one century, when
God himself during six thousand years has not sent an observer like
myself." He truly predicts that "his discoveries would be verified in
succeeding ages," and prefers his own glory to the possession of the
electorate of Saxony. It was this solitary majesty, this futurity of their
genius, which hovered over the sleepless pillow of Bacon, of Newton, and
of Montesquieu; of Ben Jonson, of Milton, and Corneille; and of Michael
Angelo. Such men anticipate their contemporaries; they know they are
creators, long before they are hailed as such by the tardy consent of the
public. These men stand on Pisgah heights, and for them the sun shines on
a land which none can view but themselves.
There is an admirable essay in Plutarch, "On the manner by which we may
praise ourselves without exciting envy in others." The sage seems to
consider self-praise as a kind of illustrious impudence, and has one very
striking image: he compares these eulogists to famished persons, who
finding no other food, in their rage have eaten their own flesh, and thus
shockingly nourished themselves by their own substance. He allows persons
in high office to praise themselves, if by this they can repel calumny and
accusation, as did Pericles before the Athenians: but the Romans found
fault with Cicero, who so frequently reminded them of his exertions in the
conspiracy of Catiline; while, when Scipio told them that "they should not
presume to judge of a citizen to whom they owed the power of judging all
men," the people covered themselves with flowers, and followed him to the
capitol to join in a thanksgiving to Jove. "Cicero," adds Plutarch,
"praised himself without necessity. Scipio was in personal danger, and
this took away what is odious in self-praise." An author seems sometimes
to occupy the situation of a person in high office; and there may be
occasions when with a noble simplicity, if he appeal to his works, of
which all men may judge, he may be permitted to assert or to maintain his
claims. It has at least been the practice of men of genius, for in this
very essay we find Timotheus, Euripides, and Pindar censured, though they
deserved all the praise they gave themselves.
EPICURUS, writing to a minister of state, declares, "If you desire glory,
nothing can bestow it more than the letters I write to you:" and SENECA,
in quoting these words, adds, "What Epicurus promised to his friend, that,
my Lucilius, I promise you." _Orna me!_ was the constant cry of CICERO;
and he desires the historian Lucceius to write separately the conspiracy
of Catiline, and to publish quickly, that while he yet lived he might
taste the sweetness of his glory. HORACE and OVID wore equally sensible to
their immortality; but what modern poet would be tolerated with such an
avowal? Yet DRYDEN honestly declares that it was better for him to own
this failing of vanity, than the world to do it for him; and adds, "For
what other reason have I spent my life in so unprofitable a study? Why am
I grown old in seeking so barren a reward as fame? The same parts and
application which have made me a poet might have raised me to any honours
of the gown." Was not CERVANTES very sensible to his own merits when a
rival started up? and did he not assert them too, and distinguish his own
work by a handsome compliment? LOPE DE VEGA celebrated his own poetic
powers under the pseudonyme of a pretended editor, Thomas Barguillos. I
regret that his noble biographer, than whom no one can more truly
sympathise with the emotions of genius, has censured the bard for
his querulous or his intrepid tone, and for the quaint conceit of his
title-page, where his detractor is introduced as a beetle in a _vega_ or
garden, attacking its flowers, but expiring in the very sweetness he would
injure. The inscription under BOILEAU'S portrait, which gives a preference
to the French satirist over Juvenal and Horace, is known to have been
written by himself. Nor was BUTLER less proud of his own merits;
for he has done ample justice to his "Hudibras," and traced out, with
great self-delight, its variety of excellences. RICHARDSON, the novelist,
exhibits one of the most striking instances of what is called literary
vanity, the delight of an author in his works; he has pointed out all the
beauties of his three great works, in various manners.[A] He always taxed
a visitor by one of his long letters. It was this intense self-delight
which produced his voluminous labours.
[Footnote A: I have observed them in "Curiosities of Literature," vol. ii.
p. 64.]
There are certain authors whose very existence seems to require a high
conception of their own talents; and who must, as some animals appear to
do, furnish the means of life out of their own substance. These men of
genius open their career with peculiar tastes, or with a predilection for
some great work of no immediate interest; in a word, with many unpopular
dispositions. Yet we see them magnanimous, though defeated, proceeding
with the public feeling against them. At length we view them ranking with
their rivals. Without having yielded up their peculiar tastes or their
incorrigible viciousness, they have, however, heightened their individual
excellences. No human opinion can change their self-opinion. Alive to the
consciousness of their powers, their pursuits are placed above impediment,
and their great views can suffer no contraction; _possunt quia posse
videntur_. Such was the language Lord BACON once applied to himself when
addressing a king. "I know," said the great philosopher, "that I am
censured of some conceit of my ability or worth; but I pray your majesty
impute it to desire--_possunt quia posse videntur_." These men of genius
bear a charmed mail on their breast; "hopeless, not heartless," may be
often the motto of their ensign; and if they do not always possess
reputation, they still look onwards for fame; for these do not necessarily
accompany each other.
An author is more sensible of his own merits, as he also is of his labour,
which is invisible to all others, while he is unquestionably much less
sensible to his defects than most of his readers. The author not only
comprehends his merits better, because they have passed through a long
process in his mind, but he is familiar with every part, while the reader
has but a vague notion of the whole. Why does an excellent work, by
repetition, rise in interest? Because in obtaining this gradual intimacy
with an author, we appear to recover half the genius which we had lost on
a first perusal. The work of genius too is associated, in the mind of the
author, with much more than it contains; and the true supplement, which he
only can give, has not always accompanied the work itself. We find great
men often greater than the books they write. Ask the man of genius if he
have written all that he wished to have written? Has he satisfied himself
in this work, for which you accuse his pride? Has he dared what required
intrepidity to achieve? Has he evaded difficulties which he should have
overcome? The mind of the reader has the limits of a mere recipient, while
that of the author, even after his work, is teeming with creation. "On
many occasions, my soul seems to know more than it can say, and to be
endowed with a mind by itself, far superior to the mind I really have,"
said MARIVAUX, with equal truth and happiness.
With these explanations of what are called the vanity and egotism of
Genius, be it remembered, that the sense of their own sufficiency is
assumed by men at their own risk. The great man who thinks greatly of
himself, is not diminishing that greatness in heaping fuel on his fire. It
is indeed otherwise with his unlucky brethren, with whom an illusion of
literary vanity may end in the aberrations of harmless madness; as it
happened to PERCIVAL STOCKDALE. After a parallel between himself and
Charles XII. of Sweden, he concludes that "some parts will be to _his_
advantage, and some to _mine_;" but in regard to fame, the main object
between himself and Charles XII., Percival imagined that "his own will not
probably take its fixed and immovable station, and shine with its expanded
and permanent splendour, till it consecrates his ashes, till it illumines
his tomb." After this the reader, who may never have heard of the name of
Percival Stockdale, must be told that there exist his own "Memoirs of his
Life and Writings."[A] The memoirs of a scribbler who saw the prospects of
life close on him while he imagined that his contemporaries were unjust,
are instructive to literary men. To correct, and to be corrected, should
be their daily practice, that they may be taught not only to exult in
themselves, but to fear themselves.
[Footnote A: I have sketched a character of PERCIVAL STOCKDALE, in
"Calamities of Authors" (pp. 218--224); it was taken _ad vivum_.]
It is hard to refuse these men of genius that _aura vitalis_, of which
they are so apt to be liberal to others. Are they not accused of the
meanest adulations? When a young writer experiences the notice of a person
of some eminence, he has expressed himself in language which transcends
that of mortality. A finer reason than reason itself inspires it. The
sensation has been expressed with all its fulness by Milton:--
The debt immense of endless gratitude.
Who ever pays an "immense debt" in small sums? Every man of genius has
left such honourable traces of his private affections; from LOCKE, whose
dedication of his great work is more adulative than could be imagined from
a temperate philosopher, to CHURCHILL, whose warm eulogiums on his friends
beautifully contrast with his satire. Even in advanced age, the man of
genius dwells on the praise he caught in his youth from veteran genius,
which, like the aloe, will flower at the end of life. When Virgil was yet
a youth, it is said that Cicero heard one of his eclogues, and exclaimed
with his accustomed warmth,
Magna spes altera Romæ!
"The second hope of mighty Rome!" intending by the first either himself or
Lucretius. The words of Cicero were the secret honey on which the
imagination of Virgil fed for many a year; for in one of his latest
productions, the twelfth book of the Æneid, he applies these very words
to Ascanius. So long had the accents of Cicero's praise lingered in the
poet's ear!
This extreme susceptibility of praise in men of genius is the same
exuberant sensibility which is so alive to censure. I have elsewhere fully
shown how some have died of criticism.[A] The self-love of genius is
perhaps much more delicate than gross.
But this fatal susceptibility is the cause of that strange facility which
has often astonished the world, by the sudden transitions of sentiment
which literary characters have frequently exhibited. They have eulogised
men and events which they had reprobated, and reprobated what they had
eulogised. The recent history of political revolutions has furnished some
monstrous examples of this subservience to power. Guicciardini records one
of his own times, which has been often repeated in ours. JOVIANUS
PONTANUS, the secretary of Ferdinand, King of Naples, was also selected to
be the tutor of the prince, his son. When Charles VIII. of France invaded
Naples, Pontanus was deputed to address the French conqueror. To render
himself agreeable to the enemies of his country, he did not avoid
expatiating on the demerits of his expelled patrons: "So difficult it is,"
adds the grave and dignified historian, "for ourselves to observe that
moderation and those precepts which no man knew better than Pontanus, who
was endowed with such copious literature, and composed with such facility
in moral philosophy, and possessed such acquirements in universal
erudition, that he had made himself a prodigy to the eye of the world."[B]
The student, occupied by abstract pursuits, may not indeed always take
much interest in the change of dynasties; and perhaps the famous cancelled
dedication to Cromwell, by the learned orientalist Dr. CASTELL,[C] who
supplied its place by another to Charles II., ought not to be placed to
the account of political tergiversation. But the versatile adoration of
the continental _savans_ of the republic or the monarchy, the consul or
the emperor, has inflicted an unhealing wound on the literary character;
since, like PONTANUS, to gratify their new master, they had not the
greatness of mind to save themselves from ingratitude to their old.
[Footnote A: In the article entitled "Anecdotes of Censured Authors," in
vol. i. of "Curiosities of Literature."]
[Footnote B: Guicciardini, Book II.]
[Footnote C: For the melancholy history of this devoted scholar, see note
to the article on "The Rewards of Oriental Students," in "Calamities of
Authors," p. 189.]
Their vengeance, as quickly kindled, lasts as long. Genius is a dangerous
gift of nature. The same effervescent passions form a Catiline or a
Cicero. Plato lays great stress on his man of genius possessing the most
vehement passions, but he adds reason to restrain them. It is Imagination
which by their side stands as their good or evil spirit. Glory or infamy
is but a different direction of the same passion.
How are we to describe symptoms which, flowing from one source, yet show
themselves in such opposite forms as those of an intermittent fever, a
silent delirium, or a horrid hypochondriasm? Have we no other opiate to
still the agony, no other cordial to warm the heart, than the great
ingredient in the recipe of Plato's visionary man of genius--calm
reason? Must men, who so rarely obtain this tardy panacea, remain with all
their tortured and torturing passions about them, often self-disgusted,
self-humiliated? The enmities of genius are often connected with their
morbid imagination. These originate in casual slights, or in unguarded
expressions, or in hasty opinions, or in witty derision, or even in the
obtruding goodness of tender admonition. The man of genius broods over the
phantom that darkens his feelings: he multiplies a single object; he
magnifies the smallest; and suspicions become certainties. It is in this
unhappy state that he sharpens his vindictive fangs, in a libel called his
"Memoirs," or in another species of public outrage, styled a "Criticism."
We are told that COMINES the historian, when residing at the court of the
Count de Charolois, afterwards Duke of Burgundy, one day returning from
hunting, with inconsiderate jocularity sat down before the Count, and
ordered the prince to pull off his boots. The Count would not affect
greatness, and having executed his commission, in return for the princely
amusement, the Count dashed the boot on Comines' nose, which bled; and
from that time, he was mortified at the court of Burgundy, by retaining
the nickname of _the booted head._ The blow rankled in the heart of the
man of genius, and the Duke of Burgundy has come down to us in COMINE'S
"Memoirs," blackened by his vengeance. Many, unknown to their readers,
like COMINES, have had a booted head; but the secret poison is distilled
on their lasting page, as we have recently witnessed in Lord Waldegrave's
"Memoirs." Swift's perpetual malevolence to Dryden originated in that
great poet's prediction, that "cousin Swift would never be a poet;" a
prediction which the wit never could forget. I have elsewhere fully
written a tale of literary hatred, where is seen a man of genius, in the
character of GILBERT STUART, devoting a whole life to harassing the
industry or the genius which he himself could not attain.[A]
[Footnote A: See "Calamities of Authors," pp. 131--139.]
A living Italian poet, of great celebrity, when at the court of Rome,
presented a magnificent edition of his poetry to Pius VI. The bard, Mr.
Hobhouse informs us, lived not in the good graces of his holiness, and
although the pontiff accepted the volume, he did not forbear a severity of
remark which could not fall unheeded by the modern poet; for on this
occasion, repeating some verses of Metastasio, his holiness drily added,
"No one now-a-days writes like that great poet." Never was this to be
erased from memory: the stifled resentment of MONTI vehemently broke forth
at the moment the French carried off Pius VI. from Rome. Then the long
indignant secretary poured forth an invective more severe "against the
great harlot," than was ever traced by a Protestant pen--MONTI now invoked
the rock of Sardinia: the poet bade it fly from its base, that _the last
of monsters_ might not find even a tomb to shelter him. Such was the curse
of a poet on his former patron, now an object of misery--a return for
"placing him below Metastasio!"
The French Revolution affords illustrations of the worst human passions.
When the wretched COLLOT D'HERBOIS was tossed up in the storm to the
summit of power, a monstrous imagination seized him; he projected razing
the city of Lyons and massacring its inhabitants. He had even the heart to
commence, and to continue this conspiracy against human nature; the
ostensible crime was royalism, but the secret motive is said to have been
literary vengeance! As wretched a poet and actor as a man, D'Herbois had
been hissed off the theatre at Lyons, and to avenge that ignominy, he had
meditated over this vast and remorseless crime. Is there but one Collot
D'Herbois in the universe? Long since this was written, a fact has been
recorded of CHENIER, the French dramatic poet, which parallels the horrid
tale of Collot D'Herbois, which some have been willing to doubt from its
enormity. It is said, that this monster, in the revolutionary period, when
he had the power to save the life of his brother André, while his father,
prostrate before a wretched son, was imploring for the life of an innocent
brother, remained silent; it is further said that he appropriated to
himself a tragedy which he found among his brother's manuscripts.
"Fratricide from literary jealousy," observes the relator of this
anecdote, "was a crime reserved for a modern French revolutionist."[A]
There are some pathethic stanzas which André was composing in his last
moments, when awaiting his fate; the most pathetic of all stanzas is that
one which he left unfinished--
Peut-être, avant que l'heure en cercle promenée
Ait posé, sur l'émail brillant,
Dans les soixante pas où sa route est bornée,
Son pied sonore et vigilant,
Le sommeil du tombeau pressera ma paupière--
At this unfinished stanza was the pensive poet summoned to the guillotine!
[Footnote A: _Edinburgh Review_, xxxv. 159]