It is not the author's purpose to treat the names of painters, or indeed
those of any other branch of art, especially by themselves. Were any
single line to be selected, the peculiarities of its representatives
would alone be sufficient to fill a volume. Under the general design of
this gossip about genius, the pen is permitted to glide after its own
fancy, treating only upon such individuals as readily suggest
themselves, and who are illustrative of characteristics already
introduced.
Upon beginning the chapter before us, we were thinking of John Opie, the
distinguished English painter, born in Cornwall in 1761. When Opie was
only ten years of age[179] he saw a person who was somewhat accomplished
with the pencil draw a butterfly. The boy watched the process with
marked interest, and as soon as the draughtsman had departed, produced
upon a shingle a drawing equally good, which he showed to his mother.
She, good woman, encouraged him, as Mrs. West did her son on a similar
occasion; but the father, being a harsh, rude, low-bred man, was
constantly punishing the boy for laziness, and for chalking figures,
faces, and animals on every stray bit of board or flat surface at hand.
The boy had genius, however; what he required was opportunity. Good
fortune sent Dr. Wolcott, better known as "Peter Pindar," that way. He
saw the boy's dawning genius, and helped him with suitable material and
some useful suggestions. It was not long before the lad got away from
home, quietly aided by his good friend Wolcott, and soon earned money
enough to clothe himself decently and to make a start in life. He
finally married Amelia, daughter of James Alderson, who afterwards
became the well-known authoress Amelia Opie. The husband developed into
a distinguished artist, whose historical pictures, "The Death of Rizzio"
and "Jephthah's Vow," were stepping-stones to his election as President
of the Royal Academy. Does not this truthful sketch from life, of a poor
wood-sawyer's son, read like romance?
Genius will assert itself; it seems useless to strive against it. The
secret suggestions of the soul are true, lead us whither they will.
Salvator Rosa was the son of a poor architect who made ineffectual
efforts to thwart his son's predilection for art, but all in vain. The
young man, finding that he could not hope for any assistance from his
father, strove all the harder to earn a livelihood by painting, but
nearly starved before he reached his majority. About this time the
patrons of art in Rome offered a grand prize for the best painting to be
submitted at an exhibition to be held in the Eternal City. The young
Neapolitan saw his chance, and painted a picture into which he infused
all the glowing spirit of the art which burned within him. If it failed,
he resolved that no one should know aught of its authorship. It was
forwarded anonymously, and received the recognition of being hung in the
most favorable position. That picture took the grand prize, the unknown
artist being lauded as above Titian. Nought was to be heard for it but
praise. This decided the fate of Rosa. He left his humble home near
Naples and settled in Rome, where he secured the friendship and intimacy
of the greatest men of the day.
Numerous and grand were the pictures sent forth from Rosa's hand; orders
pressed upon him faster than he could fill them, and thus he stepped at
once into the highest contemporary fame and fortune.[180] "Salvator
possessed real genius," says Ruskin, "but was crushed by misery in his
youth." He was not only a painter, but also a poet and a musician;
nearly all cultured Italians are the latter. At the grand Carnival of
the year 1639 there appeared upon the Corso and in the squares of Rome
an actor of fantastic dress, who was marked like all the other revellers
on such occasions, but whose name was given as one Formica, of Southern
Italy. He attracted both public and private attention by his brilliant
wit, his eloquence, and especially by his songs, as he accompanied
himself on the lute. He was the hero of the Carnival of that season. By
and by the appointed hour arrived when all the revellers unmasked, and
lo! the stranger proved to be Salvator Rosa.
Among painters, Rubens is one of the greatest and most familiar names,
though Ruskin disparages him by saying that "he is a healthy, worthy,
kind-hearted, courtly-phrased animal, without any clearly perceptible
traces of a soul, except when he paints children." Rubens became an
artist from love of art, and his career was one in which there was far
more of sunshine than usually falls to the lot of genius. He throve
greatly in a business point of view as well as in art, and became a man
of wealth in his native city of Antwerp, where he built a comfortable
house and adorned it inside with pencil and brush--the whole, as he
estimated it, worth about a thousand pounds sterling. Presently there
came to Antwerp the Duke of Buckingham, who coveted the artist's house.
A negotiation was opened, and Rubens sold it to the Duke for twelve
times what it cost, or say in our currency sixty thousand dollars.
Rubens must have possessed wonderful industry, as we judge by the fact
that a hundred of his paintings may be found in the Munich Gallery
alone, not to mention those contained in other European collections.
Undoubtedly his "Descent from the Cross," now in the Antwerp Cathedral,
is his grandest work. Our artist was by no means without his vein of
vanity, as evinced by the family picture which he painted, and in which
he gives himself due prominence. This picture is placed just above his
tomb, back of the altar, in the Church of St. Jacques, at Antwerp. The
presumptuousness is increased by the fact that the combined portraits of
his first and second wife, his daughter, with his father, grandfather,
and himself, are intended to represent a Holy Family, and the painting
is typical of that idea. The whole is incongruous and in bad taste.
Vandyke, Teniers, and Denis Calvart, the instructor of Guido Reni, were
all natives of Antwerp. The city owes its attraction to travellers
almost solely to the fact that here are so many masterpieces of
painting.
William Hogarth was a great and original genius, who wrote comedies
pictorially, satirized vice, and depicted all phases of life more in
detail than is possible with the pen. He was early apprenticed to a
silversmith; but the natural bent of his genius was too apparent and
promising not to be encouraged by the study of art. In the dramatic and
satirical departments of design he has never been excelled. It has been
objected that his pictures are vulgar; but when we remember the period
in which they appeared, and also the fact that they undoubtedly convey
useful lessons of morality, we shall find ample excuse if not
commendation for the artist. In 1753 he published his "Analysis of
Beauty," in which he maintains that a waving line is essential to
beauty. Hogarth composed comedies just as much as did Molière. It was a
singular characteristic of this able designer and artist that he could
not successfully illustrate another's work; he is known utterly to have
failed in the attempt, though never in the successful illustration of
his own ideas. Hogarth was also a historian, inasmuch as every picture
he produced represented the manners and customs of the period. The
interior scenes give us the exact style of the furniture and minutest
domestic surroundings; while out of doors we have all the various modes
of conveyance in use, and a faithful picture of the street architecture.
Hogarth died in 1764.
James Spencer, who was a personal friend of Hogarth, began life as a
London footman; but the genius of an artist was born in him, and it
gradually forced its way to the front. At odd moments he practised
drawing and even painting with oils, whenever and wherever he could
seize upon a brief chance. It happened that a professional
portrait-painter was engaged to make a portrait of the head of the
family where Spencer had long acted as footman. When the likeness was
finished, he heard his master express some just dissatisfaction at its
want of resemblance to the original. Spencer very humbly asked
permission of his master to copy the painting and see if he could not
get a good likeness. After expressing some astonishment at the request,
his master assented. In a much briefer period than the first artist
occupied, and without a single sitting on the part of his employer,
Spencer astonished the family by producing not only a remarkable
likeness, but an entirely satisfactory painting. With such a start the
footman became a professional portrait-painter, and accumulated the
means ere long to set up a fine London establishment.
In an earlier part of this volume we gave numerous instances of genius
being at its best in early youth, when, as Burke says, "the senses are
unworn and tender, and the whole frame is awake in every part." Of this
early development we know of no more striking instance in art than that
of Sir Thomas Lawrence, who at the age of ten years surpassed most of
the London portrait-painters both in his certain likenesses and in the
general effect of his portraits. He was a remarkable genius, and for a
considerable period was the talk of all London.[181] Added to his
ability as an artist, young Lawrence was remarkably handsome. Prince
Hoare saw something so angelic in his face that he desired to paint him
in the character of Christ. In about seven minutes Lawrence scarcely
ever failed of producing in crayon an excellent likeness of any person
present, and in a manner expressive of both grace and freedom. He
succeeded Sir Joshua Reynolds, in due time, as first painter to the
king, was knighted in 1815, and five years later became President of the
Royal Academy.
To realize under what shadows many an artist has lived, worked, and
died, yet who is known to us of the highest genius, we have only to
recall some familiar names. Correggio was of very humble birth: and
though one of the most original of all the brilliant masters of the
sixteenth century, he enjoyed little contemporary fame. His works to-day
are held at as high a valuation as those of Raphael, Titian, or
Murillo.[182] His modesty was characteristic; his pretension, nothing.
His pictures speak for him, and exhibit the softness, tenderness, and
harmony of his nature. Nearly all his work was done at his native city
of Correggio and at Parma; nor is he believed ever to have visited Rome.
It was he who, after gazing on one of Raphael's finest productions,
exclaimed, "I also am a painter!"
Correggio was chosen by the canons of the cathedral at Parma to paint
for them the "Assumption of the Virgin." It was a subject well fitted
to his style, and his conception and execution of the painting were
beyond criticism. It may be seen, mellowed by age, in the Parma
Cathedral to-day. When the work was done, the priests meanly haggled and
found fault with it, in order to reduce the price, which had been
previously agreed upon. Finally, they only paid the artist half the
promised sum, stealing the balance to supply their secret luxuries. To
add insult to their meanness, the priests paid the artist the price in
copper coin. He could not refuse the money, for his poverty-stricken
family awaited his return with it to supply their pressing needs.
Correggio took the heavy burden on his shoulders and bore it two leagues
and more, under a broiling Italian sun, to reach his home. On arriving
there he was completely exhausted, and drank freely of the water his
children brought to him; then, disheartened at his ill-fortune and
broken down by fatigue, he went sadly to his rude bed, to awake on the
following morning in a burning fever and delirious. In two days
Correggio was no more.
The development of the genius which slept in the soul of Canova when a
lad was brought about by a happy accident. A superb banquet was
preparing in the palace of the Falieri family at Venice. The tables were
already arranged, when it was discovered that a crowning ornament of
some sort was required to complete the general effect of the banqueting
board. Canova's grandfather, who brought him up, was a stone-cutter,
often hewing out stone ornaments for the architects; and as he lived
close at hand, he was hastily consulted by the steward of the Falieris.
Canova chanced to go with his grandfather to view the tables, and
overheard the consultation. His quick eye and ready genius at once
suggested a suitable design for the apex of the principal dishes. "Give
me a plate of cold butter," said the boy; and seating himself at a side
table he rapidly moulded a lion of proper proportions, and so true to
nature in its pose and detail as to astonish all present. It was put in
place, and proved to be the most striking ornamental article there. When
the guests were seated and discovered it, they exclaimed aloud with
admiration, and demanded to see at once the person who could perform
such a miracle impromptu. Canova was brought before them, and his boyish
person only heightened their wonder. From that hour he had in the head
of this opulent family a kind, appreciative, and liberal patron. He was
placed under tuition with the best sculptors of Venice and Rome, to
study the art of which he finally became a grand master.[183]
The story of Spagnoletto is a romantic one, and not without a vivid
moral. Of such humble birth was he, that nothing is said of it by
himself or his friends. He suffered the very extreme of poverty; but
feeling a deep love for art, and a consciousness within him that he was
born to be a painter, he pursued this purpose through besetting
difficulties for years. He still felt within him a power of genius
superior to all and every disadvantage which he encountered. He was
Spanish by birth, but made his way on foot to Rome, where he worked for
his daily bread at anything which offered, and for many months was
employed as a street porter, but at the same time followed the study of
art in his humble way. One day a cardinal passing in his carriage saw in
the streets a ragged person painting a board affixed to an ordinary
house of Rome. The young man's wretchedness attracted his attention. It
was Spagnoletto earning wherewith to purchase a loaf of bread. The
cardinal questioned him, took him home to his palace and gave him every
luxury he desired, as well as the means to pursue his beloved art. For a
brief time all was well, and the art student made great progress; but,
alas! the nature which could withstand the frowns of fortune wilted
beneath her smiles, and pleasure thoroughly seduced the youth by her
tempting wiles. He became a slave to the senses, neglected art entirely,
and was fast going to ruin. One night Spagnoletto had a dream; it was
the midnight visit of his better angel, and she prevailed. He awoke the
next morning determined to leave the cardinal's palace with all its
luxuries behind him, to resume his former condition and industry. He
worked his way to Naples, and by degrees rose steadily in art until he
cast off his rags and was independent. He furnished so perfect a
painting of Saint Bartholomew stripped to the muscles, that it became a
valued study for anatomists, and from that day his fame was assured. His
pictures were eagerly sought for, and to-day they adorn the best
European galleries.[184] As Salvator Rosa, the Italian artist, delighted
most in depicting wild, rugged mountain scenery and battles, so
Spagnoletto, the Spanish painter, was most at home with martyrdoms,
executions, and tragic scenes generally. He died at Naples in 1656.
Genius is confined to no line of art, to no special profession; we find
its exponents in the legislative hall, in the pulpit, and on the stage.
Garrick was undoubtedly one of the greatest geniuses of the English
stage; he was not only an actor, but a successful dramatic author. He
married a Viennese danseuse, and so far as the world knows was happy in
his domestic relations. He was equally at home in tragedy and comedy,
possessing in a most marvellous degree the art of imitating the
physiognomy of others and the manner of expressing their various
emotions. It is said of him that he could imitate anything, bird or
beast, both in voice and manner. On the occasion of a grand dinner-party
in London, at a certain lord's, Garrick was a guest; in the course of
the entertainment he was suddenly missed, and at last was discovered in
the garden belonging to the house, where a young negro boy was rolling
on the ground convulsed with screams of laughter to see Garrick
mimicking a turkey-cock that was strutting about in the enclosure. The
actor had his coat-tail stuck out behind, and was in a seeming flutter
of feathered rage and pride.[185] Garrick declared that he would
cheerfully give a hundred guineas if he could say "Oh!" as Whitfield
did. A noble friend wished him to be a candidate for Parliament. "No, my
lord," said the actor, sincerely; "I would rather play the part of great
men on the stage, than the part of fool in Parliament."[186] He
accumulated a large fortune, stated at over a hundred and fifty thousand
pounds. He died in 1779, and was buried with such pomp as is awarded
only to those who are considered national characters. His ashes rest
beside the tomb of Shakespeare in Westminster Abbey.
Moore mentions having seen that excellent comic genius John Liston
behind the scenes in a towering rage about some trifle, while he was
dressed and "made up" for the part of Rigdum Funidos,--a contrast which
must have been as ludicrous as when Washington Irving met Grimaldi in a
furious rage behind the curtain, with the regular stage grin painted on
his cheeks. Liston began his profession in tragic parts and developed
his wonderful comic powers by chance, being suddenly called upon one
evening to fill the low comedian's place on account of the illness of
the actor cast for the part. He made a hit at once, such as he had not
dreamed of, and it was seen by every one that he was naturally a comic
actor. On the occasion referred to, by the exercise of his extraordinary
facial powers he caused the spectators and actors, until the curtain
fell on the closing scene, to roar with laughter, though but very little
of the text had been audible to them. True genius loses itself in the
character and the subject. Betterton, when he performed Hamlet, by
reason of the violent and sudden emotion of amazement and horror at the
presence of his father's spectre, absolutely turned as white as his
neckcloth, although his natural cast of countenance was very florid,
while his whole body seemed affected by an uncontrollable tremor. Had
his father's apparition indeed risen before him, he could not have been
seized with more real agonies. When a well-known actor of that period,
named Booth, first took the part of the ghost, Betterton acted Hamlet;
on which occasion his extraordinary look struck Booth with such horror
that for a moment he remained silent, having forgotten his part.[187]
Samuel Foote, the witty English comedian, was one of the vainest of
geniuses. "For loud, obstreperous, broad-faced mirth," said Dr. Johnson,
"I know not his equal." Foote sought the stage to earn thereby a living
after squandering his fortune at gaming and other vices. When visiting
in the country, his vanity led him to boast of his horsemanship, an
accomplishment of which he knew little or nothing; and when invited by
Lord Mexborough to join the hunt, he could not decently decline. The
consequence was that at the first burst he was thrown and broke his leg
in two places, so that amputation was necessary. However, he managed to
play nearly as well with a cork leg. To some one who made a reflection
upon his "game" leg, Foote replied promptly: "Make no allusion to my
weakest part. Did I ever attack your head?" Garrick, observing that
Foote had placed a plaster bust of him in his entry, remarked, "You are
not afraid, I see, to trust me near your gold and bank-notes." "No,"
retorted the humorist, "you have no hands!" Foote was considered by his
contemporaries the greatest master of comic humor after Molière. One day
Foote, Garrick, and Dr. Johnson went together to Bedlam,--a hospital in
London for the insane. Johnson, who was much affected at the sight of
so much human misery, got into a corner by himself to meditate, and in
the progress of his mood he threw himself into so many strange
attitudes, and drew his face into such odd shapes, that Foote whispered
mysteriously to Garrick to ask _how they should contrive to get him
out_!
Of the moral character of Nell Gwynn, who was a favorite London actress
and a mistress of Charles II., the less said the better; and yet she was
not entirely void of good impulses, for it is well known that she
persuaded the king to establish and endow Chelsea Hospital. But of
Bracegirdle, the beautiful actress who captivated all hearts, and whom
Congreve was thought nearly to worship, not a word reflecting upon her
moral character could be truthfully uttered. At a London coffee-house
one evening there chanced to be gathered a score or more of her
admirers, including the Dukes of Devonshire and Dorset, besides other
members of the peerage. Bracegirdle's name had been mentioned; when Lord
Halifax said: "You all of you praise the virtue of this lady; why not
reward her for not selling it? There are two hundred guineas _pour
encourager les autres_." A thousand guineas were raised on the spot,
which the noblemen took to Bracegirdle, going into her presence in a
body. As it was a testimony intended in honor of her virtue, she
accepted it. No doubt a large portion of this handsome tribute found its
way very quickly into the hands of her needy pensioners; for she was no
more estimable in her profession than noble in her charities. The best
dramatists wrote for her; and two of them, Rowe and Congreve, when they
gave her a lover in a play seemed palpably to plead their own passions
and to make their individual court to her in fictitious characters.
Having spoken of Nell Gwynn and Bracegirdle, another English actress,
Margaret Woffington, comes forcibly to mind; and though we do not
propose to treat especially the profession of the drama, the incidental
mention of some of its members in this gossip is not out of place. Her
father was an Irish bricklayer in Dublin, where Peg Woffington, as she
was best known, was a great public favorite long before she came to
London to find an equally agreeable home. Her versatility of genius may
be judged of from the fact of her personating Lady Macbeth and Sir Harry
Wildare with equal excellence. The latter character was a favorite one
with Garrick, but he gave up the part altogether after witnessing her
excellence in its assumption.[188] She also was distinguished for her
benevolence and open-handed charity. The manager of Covent Garden
Theatre could always be sure of a full house when he announced her in
the character of the gay, dissipated, good-humored rake, Sir Harry
Wildare. Margaret built and endowed two almshouses at Teddington,
Middlesex, and lies buried in the principal church of the district. In
the height of her popularity she declared that she preferred the society
of men to that of women; the latter, she said, "talk of nothing but
silks and scandal." Her end was singularly dramatic. She was playing the
character of Rosalind with more than usual éclat, when she was struck
with paralysis, and died soon after in the prime of life.[189]
We have spoken of accident as often determining the development and
directing the course of genius. Edward Shuter was one of the most
popular comedians on the London stage in 1776, but he began life as a
pot-boy at a public-house in the neighborhood of Covent Garden. A
gentleman came to the house one evening, and after refreshing himself he
sent the boy Shuter to call him a hackney-coach. On reaching home he
found that he had dropped his pocket-book; and suspecting that he had
lost it in the coach, he went the next morning to the tavern to make
inquiry. He asked Shuter if he knew the number of the hack. The poor boy
could not read or write, and was totally unskilled in numerals; but he
knew the signs by which his master scored the quarts and pints of porter
that were drunk, and to the gentleman's inquiry as to the number of the
coach which the boy had called for him Shuter said it was "two pots and
a pint" (771). This was unintelligible to the gentleman, but was
explained by the landlord. The coachman was summoned, and the
pocket-book recovered. This acuteness of the boy interested the
gentleman, and he became his patron, sent him to school, and gave him a
start in the line of his choice, which was the theatrical profession.
Such is the story in brief of one of the famous London comedians.
How many of our readers remember the one recorded scene when Queen
Elizabeth condescended to coquet with Shakespeare? The great bard was
performing the part of a king; Elizabeth's box was contiguous to the
stage, and she purposely dropped her handkerchief from the box upon the
boards, at the very feet of Shakespeare, having a mind thus to try
whether her poet would stoop from his high estate of assumed majesty.
"Take up _our_ sister's handkerchief," was his prompt and dignified
order to one of the actors in his train.
* * * * *
It will doubtless be found interesting to see recorded in juxtaposition
the words and the manner of death of some of the great geniuses whom
history mentions. When Alonzo Cano, the famous Spanish artist, was
dying, the attendant priest presented before him an ivory crucifix; Cano
turned away and refused to look at it because the sculpture was so bad,
calling for a plain cross, which he embraced, and died. Chaucer breathed
his last while composing a ballad. When the priest came whom Alfieri
had been prevailed upon to see, he requested him to call the next day.
"Death, I trust, will tarry four-and-twenty hours," he said, but died in
the interim. Petrarch was found dead in his library, leaning on a book.
"I could wish this tragic scene were over," said Quin the actor, "but I
hope to go through it with becoming dignity." Pitt, the great statesman,
died alone, in a solitary house on Wimbledon Common. Rousseau, when
dying, asked to be carried to the window of the apartment overlooking
his garden, that he might look his last on Nature.
When Malherbe the lyric poet was dying, he reprimanded his nurse for
making use of a solecism in her language, and bade the priest stop his
trite, cant talk about heaven, saying, "Your wretched style only makes
me out of conceit with it." Bide, the English monk and author, on the
night of his death continued to dictate to his amanuensis. He asked his
scribe how many chapters yet remained to complete the work, and was told
there was one. "Take your pen," he commanded, and went on with the work.
By and by the scribe said, "It is finished," just as his master breathed
his last. Roscommon, when expiring, quoted from his own translation of
the "Dies Iræ." "All my possessions for a moment of time!" were the
dying words of Queen Elizabeth. The last words of Cardinal Beaufort
were, "What! is there no bribing death?" The last words uttered by Byron
were, "I must sleep now." In his last moments Crébillon, who had
composed two acts of his tragedy of "Catiline," regretted that he had
not been spared to complete it.
Colorden on the day of his death was visited by his friend Barthe, who
requested his opinion of the comedy of the "Selfish Man," which he came
to read at his bedside. "You may add an excellent trait to the character
of your principal personage," said Colorden. "Say that he obliged an old
friend, on the eve of his death, to hear him read a five-act comedy!"
"Let me die to the sound of delicious music," were the last words of
Mirabeau. Herder died writing an ode to the Deity, his pen on the last
line. Heller died feeling his own pulse; and when he found it almost
gone, turning his eyes to his brother physician, said, "My friend, the
artery ceases to beat!" "Tell Collingwood to bring the fleet to anchor,"
said Nelson, and expired. The last words of Charles I. were uttered on
the scaffold,--"I fear not death! Death is not terrible to me!"
Curran's ruling passion was strong in death. Near the close of his
earthly hours his physician at his morning call said he "seemed to cough
with more difficulty." "That's surprising," said the almost exhausted
invalid, "as I have been practising all night." "There is not a drop of
blood on my hands," said the expiring Frederick V. of Denmark. "Let not
poor Nellie starve" (Nell Gwynn, his mistress), were the last words of
Charles II. "I have loved righteousness and hated iniquity, therefore do
I die in exile," said Pope Gregory VII. with his expiring breath. Anne
Boleyn turned to the executioner on the scaffold, and pointing to her
neck, said pathetically, "It is small, very small indeed!" The last
words of Maria Theresa were, "I do not sleep; I wish to meet my death
awake." Madam Roland exclaimed, "O liberty! liberty! how many crimes are
committed in thy name!"
It was in perfect accord with his character when Chancellor Thurlow said
at the closing moment of his life, "I'm shot if I don't believe I'm
dying!" "World without end, Amen!" said Bunyan as he breathed his last.
"Guilty, but recommended to the mercy of the court," whispered Lord
Hermand. "For the last time I commit soul, body, and spirit into His
hands," said John Knox in dying. "Trust in God," said President Edwards,
"and you need not fear." These were his last words. "If I had strength
enough to hold a pen," said Willian Hunter, the distinguished anatomist,
"I would write how easy and delightful it is to die." The dying words of
Louis XIV. were, "I thought that dying had been more difficult." Arthur
Murphy the dramatist quoted in his last breath Pope's lines,--
"Taught by reason, half by mere decay,
To welcome death and calmly pass away."
When asked if he heard the prayers which were offered in his presence,
the Duke of Marlborough replied, "Yes, and I join in them." He never
spoke again. "O Lord, open the King of England's eyes," said the martyr
Tyndale as he died at the stake. When those noble English reformers,
Latimer and Ridley, were being burned at the stake, "Be of good cheer,
brother," cried Ridley, "for our God will either assuage the fury of
this flame or enable us to abide it." Latimer replied: "Be of good
comfort, brother, for we shall this day light such a candle in England
as by God's grace shall never be put out." Lady Jane Grey's last words
upon the scaffold were: "Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit."
"Many things are growing plain and clear to me," whispered Schiller, and
died with these words on his lips.
Anna Lætitia Barbauld, the English authoress, wrote with great poetic
feeling and moral beauty. Her husband became a lunatic, and she suffered
much. It was her beautiful self-sacrifice that gave the best charm to
her character. She wrote, among many other works, a popular life of the
novelist Richardson, and some political pamphlets of great force and
excellence. Her series of books for children would alone have given her
lasting reputation. There occurs to us in these closing pages the stanza
which she wrote in her old age, probably in her eighty-second year, not
long before her death,--lines which Rogers and Wordsworth so much and so
justly admired. The former says in his "Table Talk" that while sitting
with Madame D'Arblay a few weeks before her death, he asked her if she
remembered these lines of Mrs. Barbauld's. "Remember them!" answered
the famous authoress, "I repeat them to myself every night before I go
to sleep."
"Life! we've been long together
Through pleasant and through cloudy weather;
'T is hard to part when friends are dear;
Perhaps 't will cost a sigh, a tear;
Then steal away, give little warning,
Choose thine own time;
Say not 'Good-night,' but in some brighter clime
Bid me 'Good morning.'"