Indite, my muse indite,
Subpoena'd is thy lyre,
The praises to requite
Which rules of court require.
PROBATIONARY ODES.
The concluding a literary undertaking, in whole or in part, is, to the
inexperienced at least, attended with an irritating titillation, like
that which attends on the healing of a wound--a prurient impatience,
in short, to know what the world in general, and friends in particular,
will say to our labours. Some authors, I am told, profess an oyster-like
indifference upon this subject; for my own part, I hardly believe in
their sincerity. Others may acquire it from habit; but, in my poor
opinion, a neophyte like myself must be for a long time incapable of
such _sang froid_.
Frankly, I was ashamed to feel how childishly I felt on the occasion. No
person could have said prettier things than myself upon the importance
of stoicism concerning the opinion of others, when their applause or
censure refers to literary character only; and I had determined to
lay my work before the public, with the same unconcern with which the
ostrich lays her eggs in the sand, giving herself no farther trouble
concerning the incubation, but leaving to the atmosphere to bring forth
the young, or otherwise, as the climate shall serve. But though an
ostrich in theory, I became in practice a poor hen, who has no sooner
made her deposit, but she runs cackling about, to call the attention of
every one to the wonderful work which she has performed.
As soon as I became possessed of my first volume, neatly stitched up and
boarded, my sense of the necessity of communicating with some one became
ungovernable. Janet was inexorable, and seemed already to have tired
of my literary confidence; for whenever I drew near the subject, after
evading it as long as she could, she made, under some pretext or other,
a bodily retreat to the kitchen or the cockloft, her own peculiar and
inviolate domains. My publisher would have been a natural resource; but
he understands his business too well, and follows it too closely, to
desire to enter into literary discussions, wisely considering, that
he who has to sell books has seldom leisure to read them. Then my
acquaintance, now that I have lost Mrs. Bethune Baliol, are of
that distant and accidental kind, to whom I had not face enough to
communicate the nature of my uneasiness, and who probably would only
have laughed at me had I made any attempt to interest them in my
labours.
Reduced thus to a sort of despair, I thought of my friend and man of
business, Mr. Fairscribe. His habits, it was true, were not likely to
render him indulgent to light literature, and, indeed, I had more than
once noticed his daughters, and especially my little songstress, whip
into her reticule what looked very like a circulating library volume, as
soon as her father entered the room. Still he was not only my assured,
but almost my only friend, and I had little doubt that he would take an
interest in the volume for the sake of the author, which the work itself
might fail to inspire. I sent him, therefore, the book, carefully sealed
up, with an intimation that I requested the favour of his opinion upon
the contents, of which I affected to talk in the depreciatory style,
which calls for point-blank contradiction, if your correspondent possess
a grain of civility.
This communication took place on a Monday, and I daily expected (what I
was ashamed to anticipate by volunteering my presence, however sure of
a welcome) an invitation to eat an egg, as was my friend's favourite
phrase, or a card to drink tea with Misses Fairscribe, or a provocation
to breakfast, at least, with my hospitable friend and benefactor, and to
talk over the contents of my enclosure. But the hours and days passed on
from Monday till Saturday, and I had no acknowledgment whatever that
my packet had reached its destination. “This is very unlike my good
friend's punctuality,” thought I; and having again and again vexed
James, my male attendant, by a close examination concerning the time,
place, and delivery, I had only to strain my imagination to conceive
reasons for my friend's silence. Sometimes I thought that his opinion
of the work had proved so unfavourable that he was averse to hurt my
feelings by communicating it--sometimes, that, escaping his hands to
whom it was destined, it had found its way into his writing-chamber, and
was become the subject of criticism to his smart clerks and conceited
apprentices. “'Sdeath!” thought I, “if I were sure of this, I would”--
“And what would you do?” said Reason, after a few moment's reflection.
“You are ambitious of introducing your book into every writing and
reading-chamber in Edinburgh, and yet you take fire at the thoughts
of its being criticised by Mr. Fairscribe's young people? Be a little
consistent--for shame!”
“I will be consistent,” said I, doggedly; “but for all that, I will call
on Mr. Fairscribe this evening.”
I hastened my dinner, donn'd my great-coat (for the evening threatened
rain,) and went to Mr. Fairscribe's house. The old domestic opened the
door cautiously, and before I asked the question, said, “Mr. Fairscribe
is at home, sir; but it is Sunday night.” Recognising, however, my face
and voice, he opened the door wider, admitted me, and conducted me to
the parlour, where I found Mr. Fairscribe and the rest of his family
engaged in listening to a sermon by the late Mr. Walker of Edinburgh,
[Footnote: Robert Walker, the colleague and rival of Dr. Hugh Blair,
in St. Giles's Church Edinburgh] which was read by Miss Catherine with
unusual distinctness, simplicity, and judgment. Welcomed as a friend of
the house, I had nothing for it but to take my seat quietly, and making
a virtue of necessity, endeavour to derive my share of the benefit
arising from an excellent sermon. But I am afraid Mr. Walker's force
of logic and precision of expression were somewhat lost upon me. I was
sensible I had chosen an improper time to disturb Mr. Fairscribe, and
when the discourse was ended, I rose to take my leave, somewhat hastily,
I believe. “A cup of tea, Mr. Croftangry?” said the young lady.
“You will wait and take part of a Presbyterian supper?” said Mr.
Fairscribe.--“Nine o'clock--I make it a point of keeping my father's
hours on Sunday at e'en. Perhaps Dr.----(naming an excellent clergyman)
may look in.”
I made my apology for declining his invitation; and I fancy my
unexpected appearance, and hasty retreat, had rather surprised my
friend, since, instead of accompanying me to the door, he conducted me
into his own apartment.
“What is the matter,” he said, “Mr. Croftangry? This is not a night
for secular business, but if any thing sudden or extraordinary has
happened”--
“Nothing in the world,” said I, forcing myself upon confession, as the
best way of clearing myself out of the scrape,--“only--only I sent you
a little parcel, and as you are so regular in acknowledging letters and
communications, I--I thought it might have miscarried--that's all.”
My friend laughed heartily, as if he saw into and enjoyed my motives and
my confusion. “Safe?--it came safe enough,” he said. “The wind of the
world always blows its vanities into haven. But this is the end of
the session, when I have little time to read any thing printed except
Inner-House papers; yet if you will take your kail with us next
Saturday, I will glance over your work, though I am sure I am no
competent judge of such matters.”
With this promise I was fain to take my leave, not without half
persuading myself that if once the phlegmatic lawyer began my
lucubrations, he would not be able to rise from them till he had
finished the perusal, nor to endure an interval betwixt his reading the
last page, and requesting an interview with the author.
No such marks of impatience displayed themselves. Time, blunt or keen,
as my friend Joanna says, swift or leisurely, held his course; and on
the appointed Saturday, I was at the door precisely as it struck four.
The dinner hour, indeed, was five punctually; but what did I know but my
friend might want half an hour's conversation with me before that time?
I was ushered into an empty drawing-room, and, from a needle-book and
work-basket hastily abandoned, I had some reason to think I interrupted
my little friend, Miss Katie, in some domestic labour more praiseworthy
than elegant. In this critical age, filial piety must hide herself in a
closet, if she has a mind to darn her father's linen.
Shortly after, I was the more fully convinced that I had been too early
an intruder when a wench came to fetch away the basket, and recommend to
my courtesies a red and green gentleman in a cage, who answered all my
advances by croaking out, “You're a fool--you're a fool, I tell you!”
until, upon my word, I began to think the creature was in the right. At
last my friend arrived, a little overheated. He had been taking a turn
at golf, to prepare him for “colloquy sublime.” And wherefore not? since
the game, with its variety of odds, lengths, bunkers, tee'd balls, and
so on, may be no inadequate representation of the hazards attending
literary pursuits. In particular, those formidable buffets, which make
one ball spin through the air like a rifle-shot, and strike another down
into the very earth it is placed upon, by the mal-adroitness, or the
malicious purpose of the player--what are they but parallels to the
favourable or depreciating notices of the reviewers, who play at golf
with the publications of the season, even as Altisidora, in her approach
to the gates of the infernal regions, saw the devils playing at racket
with the new books of Cervantes' days.
Well, every hour has its end. Five o'clock came, and my friend, with his
daughters, and his handsome young son, who, though fairly buckled to
the desk, is every now and then looking over his shoulder at a smart
uniform, set seriously about satisfying the corporeal wants of nature;
I, stimulated by a nobler appetite after fame, wished that the touch of
a magic wand could, without all the ceremony of picking and choosing,
carving and slicing, masticating and swallowing, have transported a
_quantum sufficit_ of the good things on my friend's hospitable board,
into the stomachs of those who surrounded it, to be there at leisure
converted into chyle, while their thoughts were turned on higher
matters. At length all was over. But the young ladies sat still, and
talked of the music of the Freischutz, for nothing else was then thought
of; so we discussed the wild hunter's song, and the tame hunter's song,
&c. &c., in all which my young friends were quite at home. Luckily for
me, all this horning and hooping drew on some allusion to the Seventh
Hussars, which gallant regiment, I observe, is a more favourite theme
with both Miss Catherine and her brother than with my old friend, who
presently looked at his watch, and said something significantly to Mr.
James about office hours. The youth got up with the ease of a youngster
that would be thought a man of fashion rather than of business, and
endeavoured, with some success, to walk out of the room, as if the
locomotion was entirely voluntary; Miss Catherine and her sisters left
us at the same time, and now, thought I, my trial comes on.
Reader, did you ever, in the course of your life, cheat the courts
of justice and lawyers, by agreeing to refer a dubious and important
question to the decision of a mutual friend? If so, you may have
remarked the relative change which the arbiter undergoes in your
estimation, when raised, though by your own free choice, from an
ordinary acquaintance, whose opinions were of as little consequence to
you as yours to him, into a superior personage, on whose decision your
fate must depend _pro tanto_, as my friend Mr. Fairscribe would say. His
looks assume a mysterious if not a minatory expression; his hat has a
loftier air, and his wig, if he wears one, a more formidable buckle.
I felt, accordingly, that my good friend Fairscribe, on the present
occasion, had acquired something of a similar increase of
consequence. But a week since, he had, in my opinion, been indeed an
excellent-meaning man, perfectly competent to every thing within his
own profession, but immured, at the same time, among its forms and
technicalities, and as incapable of judging of matters of taste as any
mighty Goth whatsoever, of or belonging to the ancient Senate-House of
Scotland. But what of that? I had made him my judge by my own election;
and I have often observed, that an idea of declining such a reference,
on account of his own consciousness of incompetency, is, as it perhaps
ought to be, the last which occurs to the referee himself. He that has
a literary work subjected to his judgment by the author, immediately
throws his mind into a critical attitude, though the subject be one
which he never before thought of. No doubt the author is well qualified
to select his own judge, and why should the arbiter whom he has chosen
doubt his own talents for condemnation or acquittal, since he has been
doubtless picked out by his friend, from his indubitable reliance on
their competence? Surely, the man who wrote the production is likely to
know the person best qualified to judge of it.
Whilst these thoughts crossed my brain, I kept my eyes fixed on my good
friend, whose motions appeared unusually tardy to me, while he ordered
a bottle of particular claret, decanted it with scrupulous accuracy with
his own hand, caused his old domestic to bring a saucer of olives, and
chips of toasted bread, and thus, on hospitable thoughts intent, seemed
to me to adjourn the discussion which I longed to bring on, yet feared
to precipitate.
“He is dissatisfied,” thought I, “and is ashamed to show it, afraid
doubtless of hurting my feelings. What had I to do to talk to him about
any thing save charters and sasines?--Stay, he is going to begin.”
“We are old fellows now, Mr. Croftangry,” said my landlord; “scarcely so
fit to take a poor quart of claret between us, as we would have been in
better days to take a pint, in the old Scottish liberal acceptation of
the phrase. Maybe you would have liked me to have kept James to help us.
But if it is not a holyday or so, I think it is best he should observe
office hours.”
Here the discourse was about to fall. I relieved it by saying, Mr. James
was at the happy time of life, when he had better things to do than to
sit over the bottle. “I suppose,” said I, “your son is a reader.”
“Um--yes--James may be called a reader in a sense; but I doubt there
is little solid in his studies--poetry and plays, Mr. Croftangry, all
nonsense--they set his head a-gadding after the army, when he should be
minding his business.”
“I suppose, then, that romances do not find much more grace in your eyes
than dramatic and poetical compositions?”
“Deil a bit, deil a bit, Mr. Croftangry, nor historical productions
either. There is too much fighting in history, as if men only were
brought into this world to send one another out of it. It nourishes
false notions of our being, and chief and proper end, Mr. Croftangry.”
Still all this was general, and I became determined to bring our
discourse to a focus. “I am afraid, then, I have done very ill to
trouble you with my idle manuscripts, Mr. Fairscribe; but you must do me
the justice to remember, that I had nothing better to do than to amuse
myself by writing the sheets I put into your hands the other day. I may
truly plead--
'I left no calling for this idle trade.'”
“I cry your mercy, Mr. Croftangry,” said my old friend, suddenly
recollecting--“yes, yes, I have been very rude; but I had forgotten
entirely that you had taken a spell yourself at that idle man's trade.”
“I suppose,” replied I, “you, on your side, have been too _busy_ a man
to look at my poor Chronicles?”
“No, no,” said my friend, “I am not so bad as that neither. I have read
them bit by bit, just as I could get a moment's time, and I believe, I
shall very soon get through them.”
“Well, my good friend?” said I, interrogatively.
And “_Well_, Mr. Croftangry,” cried he, “I really think you have got
over the ground very tolerably well. I have noted down here two or three
bits of things, which I presume to be errors of the press, otherwise it
might be alleged, perhaps, that you did not fully pay that attention to
the grammatical rules, which one would desire to see rigidly observed.”
I looked at my friend's notes, which, in fact, showed, that in one or
two grossly obvious passages, I had left uncorrected such solecisms in
grammar.
“Well, well, I own my fault; but, setting apart these casual errors, how
do you like the matter and the manner of what I have been writing, Mr.
Fairscribe?”
“Why,” said my friend, pausing, with more grave and important hesitation
than I thanked him for, “there is not much to be said against the
manner. The style is terse and intelligible, Mr. Croftangry, very
intelligible; and that I consider as the first point in every thing that
is intended to be understood. There are, indeed, here and there some
flights and fancies, which I comprehended with difficulty; but I got
to your meaning at last. There are people that are like ponies; their
judgments cannot go fast, but they go sure.”
“That is a pretty clear proposition, my friend; but then how did you
like the meaning when you did get at it? or was that like some ponies,
too difficult to catch, and, when caught, not worth the trouble?”
“I am far from saying that, my dear sir, in respect it would be
downright uncivil; but since you ask my opinion, I wish you could have
thought about something more appertaining to civil policy, than all this
bloody work about shooting and dirking, and downright hanging. I am
told it was the Germans who first brought in such a practice of choosing
their heroes out of the Porteous Roll; [Footnote: List of criminal
indictments, so termed in Scotland.] but, by my faith, we are like to be
upsides with them. The first was, as I am credibly informed, Mr. Scolar,
as they call him; a scholar-like piece of work he has made of it, with
his robbers and thieves.”
“Schiller,” said I, “my dear sir, let it be Schiller.”
“Schiller, or what you like,” said Mr. Fairscribe; “I found the
book where I wish I had found a better one, and that is, in Kate's
work-basket. I sat down, and, like an old fool, began to read; but
there, I grant, you have the better of Schiller, Mr. Croftangry.”
“I should be glad, my dear sir, that you really think I have
_approached_ that admirable author; even your friendly partiality ought
not to talk of my having _excelled_ him.”
“But I do say you have excelled him, Mr. Croftangry, in a most material
particular. For surely a book of amusement should be something that one
can take up and lay down at pleasure; and I can say justly, I was never
at the least loss to put aside these sheets of yours when business came
in the way. But, faith, this Schiller, sir, does not let you off so
easily. I forgot one appointment on particular business, and I wilfully
broke through another, that I might stay at home and finish his
confounded book, which, after all, is about two brothers, the greatest
rascals I ever heard of. The one, sir, goes near to murder his own
father, and the other (which you would think still stranger) sets about
to debauch his own wife.”
“I find, then, Mr. Fairscribe, that you have no taste for the romance of
real life--no pleasure in contemplating those spirit-rousing impulses,
which force men of fiery passions upon great crimes and great virtues?”
“Why, as to that, I am not just so sure. But then to mend the matter,”
continued the critic, “you have brought in Highlanders into every story,
as if you were going back again, _velis et remis_, into the old days of
Jacobitism. I must speak my plain mind, Mr. Croftangry. I cannot tell
what innovations in Kirk and State may now be proposed, but our fathers
were friends to both, as they were settled at the glorious Revolution,
and liked a tartan plaid as little as they did a white surplice. I wish
to Heaven, all this tartan fever bode well to the Protestant succession
and the Kirk of Scotland.”
“Both too well settled, I hope, in the minds of the subject,” said I,
“to be affected by old remembrances, on which we look back as on the
portraits of our ancestors, without recollecting, while we gaze on them,
any of the feuds by which the originals were animated while alive. But
most happy should I be to light upon any topic to supply the place of
the Highlands, Mr. Fairscribe. I have been just reflecting that the
theme is becoming a little exhausted, and your experience may perhaps
supply”----
“Ha, ha, ha!--_my_ experience supply!” interrupted Mr. Fairscribe,
with a laugh of derision;--“why, you might as well ask my son James's
experience to supply a case” about thirlage. No, no, my good friend, I
have lived by the law, and in the law, all my life; and when you seek
the impulses that make soldiers desert and shoot their sergeants
and corporals, and Highland drovers dirk English graziers, to prove
themselves men of fiery passions, it is not to a man like me you should
come. I could tell you some tricks of my own trade, perhaps, and a queer
story or two of estates that have been lost and recovered. But, to tell
you the truth, I think you might do with your Muse of Fiction, as you
call her, as many an honest man does with his own sons in flesh and
blood.”
“And how is that, my dear sir?”
“Send her to India, to be sure. That is the true place for a Scot to
thrive in; and if you carry your story fifty years back, as there is
nothing to hinder you, you will find as much shooting and stabbing there
as ever was in the wild Highlands. If you want rogues, as they are so
much in fashion with you, you have that gallant caste of adventurers,
who laid down their consciences at the Cape of Good Hope as they went
out to India, and forgot to take them up again when they returned.
Then, for great exploits, you have in the old history of India, before
Europeans were numerous there, the most wonderful deeds, done by the
least possible means, that perhaps the annals of the world can afford.”
“I know it,” said I, kindling at the ideas his speech inspired. “I
remember in the delightful pages of Orme, the interest which mingles in
his narratives, from the very small number of English which are engaged.
Each officer of a regiment becomes known to you by name, nay, the
non-commissioned officers and privates acquire an individual share of
interest. They are distinguished among the natives like the Spaniards
among the Mexicans. What do I say? They are like Homer's demigods among
the warring mortals. Men, like Clive and Caillaud, influenced great
events, like Jove himself. Inferior officers are like Mars or Neptune;
and the sergeants and corporals might well pass for demigods. Then
the various religious costumes, habits, and manners of the people of
Hindustan,--the patient Hindhu, the warlike Rajahpoot, the haughty
Moslemah, the savage and vindictive Malay--Glorious and unbounded
subjects! The only objection is, that I have never been there, and know
nothing at all about them.”
“Nonsense, my good friend. You will tell us about them all the better
that you know nothing of what you are saying; and come, we'll finish
the bottle, and when Katie (her sisters go to the assembly) has given
us tea, she will tell you the outline of the story of poor Menie Gray,
whose picture you will see in the drawing-room, a distant relation of
my father's, who had, however, a handsome part of cousin Menie's
succession. There are none living that can be hurt by the story now,
though it was thought best to smother it up at the time, as indeed even
the whispers about it led poor cousin Menie to live very retired. I
mind her well when a child. There was something very gentle, but rather
tiresome, about poor cousin Menie.”
When we came into the drawing-room, my friend pointed to a picture which
I had before noticed, without, however, its having attracted more than a
passing look; now I regarded it with more attention. It was one of those
portraits of the middle of the eighteenth century, in which artists
endeavoured to conquer the stiffness of hoops and brocades; by throwing
a fancy drapery around the figure, with loose folds like a mantle
or dressing gown, the stays, however, being retained, and the bosom
displayed in a manner which shows that our mothers, like their
daughters, were as liberal of their charms as the nature of the dress
might permit. To this, the well-known style of the period, the features
and form of the individual added, at first sight, little interest. It
represented a handsome woman of about thirty, her hair wound simply
about her head, her features regular, and her complexion fair. But
on looking more closely, especially after having had a hint that the
original had been the heroine of a tale, I could observe a melancholy
sweetness in the countenance that seemed to speak of woes endured,
and injuries sustained, with that resignation which women can and do
sometimes display under the insults and ingratitude of those on whom
they have bestowed their affections.
“Yes, she was an excellent and an ill-used woman,” said Mr. Fairscribe,
his eye fixed like mine on the picture--“She left our family not less,
I dare say, than five thousand pounds, and I believe she died worth four
times that sum; but it was divided among the nearest of kin, which was
all fair.”
“But her history, Mr. Fairscribe,” said I--“to judge from her look, it
must have been a melancholy one.”
“You may say that, Mr. Croftangry. Melancholy enough, and extraordinary
enough too--But,” added he, swallowing in haste a cup of the tea which
was presented to him, “I must away to my business--we cannot be gowfling
all the morning, and telling old stories all the afternoon. Katie knows
all the outs and the ins of cousin Menie's adventures as well as I do,
and when she has given you the particulars, then I am at your service,
to condescend more articulately upon dates or particulars.”
Well, here was I, a gay old bachelor, left to hear a love tale from my
young friend Katie Fairscribe, who, when she is not surrounded by a bevy
of gallants, at which time, to my thinking, she shows less to advantage,
is as pretty, well-behaved, and unaffected a girl as you see tripping
the new walks of Prince's Street or Heriot Row. Old bachelorship so
decided as mine has its privileges in such a _tete-a-tete_, providing
you are, or can seem for the time, perfectly good-humoured and
attentive, and do not ape the manners of your younger years, in
attempting which you will only make yourself ridiculous. I don't pretend
to be so indifferent to the company of a pretty young woman as was
desired by the poet, who wished to sit beside his mistress--
--“As unconcern'd as when
Her infant beauty could beget
Nor happiness nor pain.”
On the contrary, I can look on beauty and innocence, as something of
which I know and esteem the value, without the desire or hope to make
them my own. A young lady can afford to talk with an old stager like me
without either artifice or affectation; and we may maintain a species of
friendship, the more tender, perhaps, because we are of different sexes,
yet with which that distinction has very little to do.
Now, I hear my wisest and most critical neighbour remark, “Mr.
Croftangry is in the way of doing a foolish thing, He is well to
pass--Old Fairscribe knows to a penny what he is worth, and Miss Katie,
with all her airs, may like the old brass that buys the new pan. I
thought Mr. Croftangry was looking very cadgy when he came in to play a
rubber with us last night. Poor gentleman, I am sure I should be sorry
to see him make a fool of himself.”
Spare your compassion, dear madam, there is not the least danger. The
_beaux yeux de ma casette_ are not brilliant enough to make amends for
the spectacles which must supply the dimness of my own. I am a little
deaf, too, as you know to your sorrow when we are partners; and if I
could get a nymph to marry me with all these imperfections, who
the deuce would marry Janet McEvoy? and from Janet McEvoy Chrystal
Croftangry will not part.
Miss Katie Fairscribe gave me the tale of Menie Gray with much taste and
simplicity, not attempting to suppress the feelings, whether of grief or
resentment, which justly and naturally arose from the circumstances of
the tale. Her father afterwards confirmed the principal outlines of the
story, and furnished me with some additional circumstances, which
Miss Katie had suppressed or forgotten. Indeed, I have learned on this
occasion, what old Lintot meant when he told Pope, that he used to
propitiate the critics of importance, when he had a work in the press,
by now and then letting them see a sheet of the blotted proof, or a
few leaves of the original manuscript. Our mystery of authorship has
something about it so fascinating, that if you admit any one, however
little he may previously have been disposed to such studies, into
your confidence, you will find that he considers himself as a party
interested, and, if success follows, will think himself entitled to no
inconsiderable share of the praise.
The reader has seen that no one could have been naturally less
interested than was my excellent friend Fairscribe in my lucubrations,
when I first consulted him on the subject; but since he has contributed
a subject to the work, he has become a most zealous coadjutor; and
half-ashamed, I believe, yet half-proud of the literary stock-company,
in which he has got a share, he never meets me without jogging my elbow,
and dropping some mysterious hints, as, “I am saying--when will you give
us any more of yon?”--or, “Yon's not a bad narrative--I like yon.”
Pray Heaven the reader may be of his opinion.