"Rumour and the popular voice
Some look to more than truth, and so confirm Opinions."
CARY'S Dante.
Popularity is a busy talker: she catches hold of topics and offers
them to fame without giving herself time to reflect whether they are
true or false, and fashion is her favourite disciple who sanctions
and believes them as eagerly, and with the same faith, as a young
lady in the last century read a new novel and a tavern-haunter in
this reads the news. It is natural, with such foundations, to ask
whether popularity is fame, for it often happens that very slender
names come to be popular from many causes with which merit or genius
has no sort of connection or kindred. It may be some oddity in the
manner, or incident in the life, of the author that is whispered over
before his book comes out. This often macadamizes the way to
popularity, for gossip is a mighty spell in the literary world, and a
concealment of the author's name often creates an anxiety in the
public mind, for it leaves room for guesses and conjectures, and as
some are very fond of appearing wise in such matters by saying they
know from good authority that such a one is the author, it becomes
the talk of the card party and tea-table, and he gains a superficial
notoriety. Such was the case with the "Pursuits of Literature," a
leaden-footed satire that had as much claim to merit as the statue of
Pasquin in the Market-place of Rome, on which vulgar squibs were
pasted. Everybody knew the author, and nobody knew him. The first
names of the day were foisted into the concern, and when the secret
was found out that it belonged to one of the lowest, the book sank to
rise no more. Sometimes a pompous, pretending title hits the mark at
once and wins a name. Who among the lower orders of youth is ignorant
of the "Young Man's Best Companion" by Mr. Fisher, Accomptant, or the
"Book of Wisdom" by Mr. Penning, Philomath? They are almost as common
as bibles and prayer-books in a cottage library.
A guess is not hazarded in believing that popularity is not the omen
of true fame. Sometimes the trifling and ridiculous grow into the
most extensive popularity, such as the share of it which a man gained
by wearing a high brimmed hat, and another that cut off the tails of
his coat and thereby branded his name on the remnant; and though the
spencers are out of fashion they have outlived many a poetical
popularity. These are instances of the ridiculous. The trifling are
full as extensive. Where is the poet who shares half the popularity
of Warren, Turner, or Day and Martin, whose ebony fames are spread
through every dirty little village in England? These instances of the
trifling and ridiculous made as much noise and stir in their day as
the best, and noise and bustle are the essence and soul of
popularity.
The nearest akin to popularity is common fame. I mean names that are
familiar among the common people. It is not a very envious species,
for they seldom know how to value or appreciate what they are
acquainted with. The name of Chatterton is familiar to their ears as
an unfortunate poet, because they saw his history printed on pocket
handkerchiefs; and the name of Shakespeare as a great play writer,
because they have often seen him nominated as such on the bills of
strolling players, who make shift with barns for theatres. But this
sort of revelry makes a corresponding idea in their minds, for the
paltry ballad mongers, whose productions supply hawkers with their
wares, are poets with them, and they imagine one as great as the
other, common minds making no distinction in these common fames. On
the other hand there is something in it to wish for, because there
are things as old as England that have outlived centuries of
popularity, nay, left half its history in darkness, and they still
live on, as common in every memory as the seasons, and as familiar to
children even as the rain and Spring flowers. I allude to the old
superstitious fragments of legends and stories in rhyme that are said
to be Norman, or Saxon, or Danish. There are many desire this common
fame, and it is mostly met in a manner least expected. While some
affectations are striving for a lifetime to hit all tastes and always
miss the mark by a wide throw, an unconscious poet of little name
writes a trifle as he feels, without thinking of others, and he
becomes a common name.
Unaffected simplicity is the everyday picture of Nature. Thus, little
children's favourites of "Cock Robin," "Little Red Riding Hood," and
"Babes in the Wood," have impressions at the core that grow up with
manhood and are always dear. Poets anxious after common fame, as some
of the "naturals" seem to be, imitate these things by affecting
simplicity, and become unnatural. These things found fame where the
greatest names are still oblivious. A literary man might enquire
after the names of Spenser and Milton in vain in half the villages in
England, even among what are called its gentry, but I believe it
would be difficult to find a corner in any county where the others
are not known, nor an old woman in any hamlet with whom they are not
familiar.
In my days, some of the pieces of the modern poets have gained this
common popularity, which must be distinguished from fame as it may
only live for a season.
Wordsworth's beautiful, simple ballad of "We are seven" I have seen
hawked about for a penny, and Tannahill's song of "Jessy" has met
with more popularity among the common people than all other songs,
English and Scottish, put together. Lord Byron's hasty fame may be
deemed a contradiction to the above opinion that popularity is not
true fame, though at its greatest extent it is but an exception, and
scarcely that, for his great and hurried popularity, that almost
trampled on its own heels in its haste, must drop into a less
bustling degree, and become cool and quiet, like the preaching of
Irving. Shakespeare was hardly noticed in his lifetime by popularity,
but he is known now, and Byron is hardly the tenth part of a
Shakespeare. Every storm must have its calm, and Byron took fame by
storm. By a desperate daring he over-swept petty control like a
rebellious flood, or a tempest worked up into madness by the quarrel
of the elements, and he seemed to value that daring as the attainment
of true fame. He looked upon Horace's "Art of Poetry" no doubt with
esteem as a reader, but he cared no more for it in the profession of
a poet than the weather does for an almanack. He looked upon critics
as the countryman does on a magistrate. He beheld them as a race of
petty tyrants that stood in the way of genius. They were in his eyes
more of stumbling-blocks than guides, and he treated them
accordingly. He let them know there was another road to Parnassus
without taking theirs, and being obliged to do them homage. Not
stooping to the impediments of their authorities, like the paths of a
besieged city encumbered with sentinels, he made a road for himself,
and, like Napoleon crossing the Alps, he let the world see that even
in the eye of a mortal their greatest obstacles were looked on "as
the dust in a balance." He gained the envied eminence of living
popularity by making a breach where it was thought impregnable. Where
others had laid siege for a lifetime, and lost their hopes and their
labour at last, he gained the heights of popularity by a single
stride, and looked down as a free-booter on the world below, scorning
the applause his labours had gained him, and scarcely returning a
compliment for the laurels which fashion so eagerly bound round his
brows, while he saw the alarm of his leaden-footed enemies, and
withered them to nothings with his sneer. He was an Oliver Cromwell
with the critics. He broke up their long-standing Parliament and
placed his own will in the Speaker's chair, and his will they humbly
accepted. They submitted to one that scorned to be shackled, and
champed the bit in his stead. They praised and respected him, nay,
they worshipped him. He was all in all in their mouths and in their
writings, but I suspect their hearts had as much love for him as the
peasantry had for witches in the last century, who spoke well of them
to their faces because they dared not do other-wise for fear of
meeting an injury. Whether Byron hath won true fame or not I cannot
say; my mind is too little to grasp that judgment. To say that he was
the first of his age in his way is saying nothing, but we have
sufficient illustration for the argument in saying that popularity is
not the forerunner of fame's eternity. Among all the bustle of
popularity there must be only a portion of it accepted as fame. Time
will sift it of its drossy puffs and praises. He has been with others
extolled as equal to Shakespeare, and I dare say the popular voice of
"readers" thought him superior. But three centuries will wither every
extravagance, and sober the picture of its glaring colours. He is no
doubt one of the eternals, but he is one of those of the 19th
century, and if all its elements be classed together in the next they
would make but a poor substitute for a Shakespeare. Eternity will not
rake the bottom of the sea of oblivion for puffs and praises, and
all their attendant rubbish, the feelings that the fashion of the day
created, and the flatteries uttered. Eternity will estimate things at
their proper value, and no other. She will not even seek for the
newspaper praise of Walter Scott. She will not look for Byron's
immortality in the company of Warren's blacking, Prince's kalydor,
and Atkinson's bear's grease. She looks for it in his own merit, and
her impartial judgment will be his best reward.
Wordsworth has had little share of popularity, though he bids fair to
be as great in one species of poetry as Byron was in another, but to
acknowledge such an opinion in the world's ear would only pucker the
lips of fashion into a sneer against it. Yet his lack of living
praise is no proof of his lack of genius. The trumpeting clamour of
public praise is not to be relied on as the creditor of the future.
The quiet progress of a name gaining ground by gentle degrees in the
world's esteem is the best living shadow of fame to follow. The
simplest trifle and the meanest thing in nature is the same now as it
shall continue to be till the world's end.
Men trample grass and prize the flowers in May,
But grass is green when flowers do fade away.