PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY.
And this may well be a fitting place wherein to record the origin,
progress, and after long years the full completion of what is manifestly
my chief authorial work in life, "Proverbial Philosophy." To ensure
accuracy, and not leave all the details to oftentimes unfaithful memory,
I will give a few extracts from "a brief account" of the book, set down
in 1838, at the beginning of Volume I. of "My Literary Heirloom," now
grown to many volumes, containing newspaper cuttings, anecdotes, and
letters and scraps of all sorts relating to my numerous works.
"In the year 1828, when under Mr. Holt's roof at Albury (anno ætatis meæ
18), I bethought myself, for the special use and behoof of my cousin
Isabella, who seven years after became my wife, that I would transcribe
my notions on the holy estate of matrimony; a letter was too light, and
a formal essay too heavy, and I didn't care to versify my thoughts, so I
resolved to convey them in the manner of Solomon's Proverbs or the
'Wisdom' of Jesus the Son of Sirach: and I did so,--successively, in the
Articles first on Marriage, then Love, then Friendship, and fourthly on
Education: several other pieces growing afterwards. Whilst at Albury, my
cousin showed some of these to our rector, Hugh M'Neile, who warmly
praised them, and recommended their publication; but, regarding them as
private and personal, I would not hear of it, and in fact it was nine
years before they saw print; thus literally, though I meant it not then,
exemplifying the Horatian advice, 'nonumque premantur in annum.'
However, one day in August 1838, Mr. Stebbing, whose chapel, in the
Hampstead Road I used to attend when living at Gothic Cottage, Regent's
Park, in my first years of marriage, visiting me and urging me to write
something for the _Athenæum_, which he was then editing, I was induced
to show him these earliest essays; but I declined to _give_ them to him,
whereat he was angered; perhaps the rather in that I objected to
piecemeal publication, possibly also casting some reproach (as the
fashion of the day then was) upon magazine and journalistic literature
generally. That I made an enemy of him was evidenced by a spiteful
little notice in the _Athenæum_ of April 21st (three months after my
first series was published) stating that it was 'a book not likely to
please beyond the circle of a few minds as eccentric as the author's.'
The same false friend excluded me altogether from any notice in the
_Examiner_ wherein he had some literary influence." To this day these
reviews have been my foes, which I regret.
"Still, Mr. Stebbing did me substantial good; he praised the idea as
'new, because a resuscitation of what was very old,'--and as of my own
origination in these latter days, and as a good vehicle for thoughts on
many matters: and he promised his valuable assistance to a young
author's fame,--performing as above. So, after a last interview with him
at his house, wherein I conclusively refused him, I wrote my Preface at
once, jotting down (as I recollect at the street corner post opposite
Hampstead Road Chapel) on the back of an old letter my opening
paragraph,--
"'Thoughts that have tarried in my mind, and peopled its inner
chambers,' &c., &c.
"In ten weeks from that day I had my first series ready,--supposing it
then all I should ever write;--the same assurance of a final end having
been my delusion at the close of each of my four series. My first
publisher was Rickerby of Abchurch Lane, who produced a beautifully
printed small folio volume with ornamental initials, and now very
scarce: it came to a second edition, but brought me no money,--and the
third edition failing to sell, it was in great part sent to America;
where N.P. Willis finding a copy, fancied the book that of some
forgotten author of the Elizabethan era, and quoted it week after week
in a periodical of his, _The Home Journal_, as such: years afterwards,
when he met me in London, he was scared to find that one whom he had
thought dead three hundred years was still alive and juvenile and ruddy.
"It might be thought indelicate in me to quote at length the many
pleasant greetings of the press to my first odd volumes; suffice it to
say, that the kind critics were with few exceptions unanimous in
commendation; and some great names, as Heraud, Leigh Hunt, and St. John
particularly favoured me,--the latter prophesying a tenth edition: but I
must still condescend to pick out at the end of this paper a few of the
plums of praise wherewith my early publication was indulged, if only to
please the numerous admirers of my chief 'lifework.' One comfort is that
no one of my reviewers all my life through has ever been bought or
rewarded. As to the less fulsome style of criticism, I was supposed by
the _Spectator_ to have 'written in hexameters,'--as if David or Solomon
had ever imitated Homer or some more ancient predecessor of his; and the
_Sun_ fancied that I had 'culled from Erasmus, Bacon, Franklin, and
Saavedra,' whereas I was totally ignorant of their wisdoms: Saavedra I
have since learned is Cervantes. The _Sunday Times_ finds 'Proverbial
Philosophy' 'very like Dodsley's "Economy of Human Life,"' but I may say
I never saw that neat little book of maxims till my brother Dan gave it
to me fourteen years after my Philosophy was public property; I am also
by this critic supposed to have 'imitated the Gulistan or Bostan of
Saadi,'--whereof I need not profess my total ignorance: however, the
writer kindly says of me, 'if he fail to make himself heard, the fault
will be rather in the public than in him.' The _Metropolitan_ propounds
that 'a book like this would make a man's fortune in the East, but we
are afraid that philosophy in proverbs has no great chance in the West:
we should recommend the author to get it translated into Arabic.'" [I
have since heard that some of it has been.] Let this be enough as to
those first fruits of criticism, which might be extended to satiety; but
I decline to become "inebriated with the exuberance of my own
verbosity," as Beaconsfield has it about Gladstone.
To carry on the story of my old book, its second series was due to
Harrison Ainsworth, at all events instrumentally. For, just as he was
establishing his special magazine, he asked me to help him with a
contribution in the style of that then new popularity, my Proverbs. This
I sturdily declined; for in my young days, it was thought
ungentlemanlike to write in magazines, though dukes, archbishops, and
premiers do so now: even authorship for money was thought vulgar: but,
when there greeted me at home a parcel of well-bound books as a gift
from the author, being all that were then extant of Ainsworth's, I was
so taken aback by his kindly munificence that I somewhat penitentially
responded thereto by an impromptu chapter on "Gifts," wherewith I made
the quarrel up and he was delighted: one or two others following.
However, I was too quick and too impatient to wait for piecemeal
publication month by month,--seeing I soon had my second series ready:
and so, leaving Rickerby as an unfruitful publisher (though, as will
soon appear, he produced other books for me) I went to Hatchards; with
whom I had a long and prosperous career--receiving annually from £500 to
£800 a year, and in the aggregate having benefited both them and
myself--for we shared equally--by something like, £10,000 a piece. But
in the course of time, the old grandfather and the father of the house,
excellent men both, went severally to the Better Land, and I had
published other books elsewhere, as will be seen, anon: and, amongst
other things, Mr. Bertrand Payne, who represented the respectable poetic
house of Moxon, desired to include me in his Beauties of the Poets, and
in order to that, having previously obtained license both from me and
Messrs. Hall & Virtue to select specimens of my lyrics for his volume,
asked me to let him add a few bits of Proverbial; to this I willingly
assented, but found myself repulsed by the temporary chief at
Hatchards'--lately a subordinate--with a direct refusal to permit any
portion of my book, of which they had a three years' lease then nearly
out, to be included in the specimen volume until, the whole remainder
copies were sold off. Mr. Payne on that immediately bought all they had,
writing a cheque of £900 in payment down,--whereof I got one-half, as I
should have done if sold at Hatchards'. I then of course went equitably
over to Moxon's,--and not long after published my third series with that
house, at Mr. Payne's suggestion and solicitation: it was not a
financial success, any more than others in that quarter; but I was paid
by having my later thoughts on topics of the day so handsomely published
at no cost of mine. The house of Moxon having its reverses,--and a
fourth and final series of "Proverbial Philosophy" having grown up
meanwhile, I concluded to go to Ward & Lock, that my four series might
for wider circulation be all included in one cheap volume, beautifully
got up, and with them I have since had some small success: for though
the royalty is only about a penny a volume, the numbers licensed have
been an edition of 20,000 succeeded in the course of years by another of
30,000; and I still leave the book with them so far as that cheap issue
is concerned.
As, however, I desired to meet the wish of many friends and others of
the public who often asked for a handsomer form, suggesting a
reproduction of Hatchards' quarto, with additional illustrations for the
new matter, I applied to Cassell, and made arrangements to have the
whole four series issued piecemeal in weekly or monthly parts, so as to
meet (as Cassell's manager suggested) a certain demand from the middle
and artisan class; seeing that the aristocracy and gentry had bought the
whole volume so freely, but sixpenny parts in a wider field might bring
on a new sale. I did not then know that Cassell's had numerous serials
already on hand, and that many of them were unremunerative; and so I
was a little surprised and vexed to find that my book was after all to
appear as a whole and not in numbers, and that at a higher price,
half-a-guinea, in these cheap times quite prohibitive, I protested
vainly as to this; as I did also at the unsatisfactory character of the
illustrations to the third and fourth series, promised to be equal to
Hatchards' first and second, which had cost £2000: but Cassell's
additions were cheaply and insufficiently supplied by old German plates,
adapted as much as might be to my words for illustration. This manifest
inferiority of the last half of the volume, as well as its too great
price, stopped the sale,--and after a time with a high hand all the
copies were sold off by auction, to the loss of both publisher and
author. As I had supplied gratis the plates of Hatchards' edition,
buying up the half not mine and giving the other, I found myself thus
mulcted in a large sum, for which I have only to show in return about a
hundredweight of wood-blocks and stereotypes:--which may be bought by
any publisher at bargain price. Altogether the whole affair was
unsatisfactory and disappointing. Individuals may be genial, honest, and
considerate, but a company or a partnership simply looks to the hardest
bargain in the shrewdest way. Of all this I'll complain, vainly enough,
no more.
In their several places, many anecdotes about "Proverbial Philosophy"
shall duly appear: I may mention one or two now, as timely. When that
good old man, Grandfather Hatchard, more than an octogenarian, first saw
me, he placed his hand on my dark hair and said with tears in his eyes,
"You will thank God for this book when your head comes to be as white as
mine." Let me gratefully acknowledge that he was a true prophet. When I
was writing the concluding essay of the first series, my father (not
quite such a prophet as old Hatchard) exhorted me to burn it, as his
ambition was to make a lawyer of me, the Church idea having failed from
my stammering, and he had very little confidence, as a man of the world,
in poetry bringing fortune. However, it did not get burnt, though I had
some difficulty in persuading him to let me get it printed instead. The
dear good man lived to bless me for it, especially for my essay on
Immortality, which I know affected him seriously, and he gave me £2000
as a gift in consequence.
As I may have been only too faithfully frank in mentioning this curious
literary anecdote,--which, as known to others, I could scarcely have
suppressed,--it is only fair to the memory of my dear and honoured
father that I should here produce one of his very few letters to me,
just found among my archives and bearing upon this same subject. It was
written to me at Brighton, and is dated Laura House, Southampton,
October 16, 1842:--
"My dearest Martin,--Anything that I could say, or any
praise that I could give respecting your last volume would, in my
estimation, fall very far short indeed of its merits. I shall
therefore merely say that I look upon your chapter upon
Immortality, not only as a most exquisite specimen of fine, sound,
and learned composition, but as combating in the most satisfactory
manner the _wisdom_ of infidelity, almost perfect. I only hope that
you may receive the just tribute of the literary community: your
own feelings as the author of that chapter must be very enviable.
God bless you, dearest, dearest Martin.--Believe me, ever your
affectionate father and sincere friend,
Martin Tupper."
I need not say that these are "_ipsissima verba_," and that I here
insert the letter in full, as the warmest and most honourable palinode I
could have received from a man so usually reserved and reticent as was
my revered and excellent father.
* * * * *
The brother of my friend Benjamin Nightingale (to be more spoken of
hereafter) was so fascinated with the book that he copied it all out in
his own handwriting, word for word, and was jocularly accused of
pretending to its authorship. I once met an enthusiast who knew both the
two first series by heart,--and certainly he went on wherever I tried to
pose him from the open volume,--my own memory being far less faithful.
Similarly my more recent friend William Hawkes claims to have read the
whole book sixty times; whereof this impromptu of mine is a sort of half
proof:--
_Impromptu_.
"Sixty times, you tell me, friend,
You've read my books from end to end.
Perhaps not all my myriad rhymes,
But all my rhythmics sixty times.
Yes, friend, for I have heard you quote
My old Proverbials by rote
Page after page, and anywhere
Have heard you spout them then and there,
Though I myself had quite forgot
What I had writ, and you had not.
"Well, author surely never more
Was complimented so before;
For though I knew in years long past
An amiable enthusiast,
Who copied out in his MS.
My whole Proverbial, as for press,
Until he half believed that he
Was the real Simon M.F.T.,--
Yet thou, my worthy William Hawkes,
Hast beaten Nightingale by chalks,--
And, years ago, your friends for fame
Have given you Martin Tapper's name,
Because you constantly were heard
Quoting Proverbial word for word!
So then, by heart, as by the pen,
'I live upon the mouths of men,'
Ev'n as Ennius lived of old,
A life worth more than gems or gold."
Two more strange anecdotes may here find their place (others will occur
elsewhere in this volume hereafter) respecting "Proverbial Philosophy."
Joseph Durham, the sculptor, a great friend of mine, had been known to
me for some years, and one day he gave me a curious little book, very
ancient and dingy-looking, entitled "Politeuphuia, Wits' Commonwealth:
London, 1667;" with this explanation, that he had picked it up at an old
bookstall, and, finding it was written somewhat in proverbs gave it to
me, adding, in his shrewd way, the humorous fancy that (until he had
read it and couldn't discover a line or thought of exact similarity)
possibly he might have checkmated me by showing me the mine from which I
had dug my wisdoms! As I have before me a memorandum pasted into the
booklet itself (it is a minute duodecimo) I will here quote exactly what
I wrote in it at the time: the date being Albury House, May 24, 1865:--
"This little book has just been given to me by Durham; it is very
scarce, so much so that the British Museum, he says, does not possess a
copy; probably there are not six in the world. I never saw it, nor
heard of it till now; just twenty-nine years after the publication of
my Proverbial Philosophy. It is a curious coincidence that the headings
of this Wits' Miscellany are similar to my own; as Of so and so
throughout; I first wrote On so and so; but did not like the sound, and
remembering it would be De in Latin, altered it to Of. The treatment
also of the subjects has some apparent similitude; but in looking all
through the book, it is strange that not one line, not one phrase, is
the same as any of mine. Travelling on the same road, and in somewhat of
the same proverbial rhythm, this is very curious; whilst it certainly
acquits me of even unintended and unconscious plagiarism. The headings
begin of God, of Heaven, of Angels, &c.,--and then of vertue, of peace,
of truth, &c., and afterwards of love, of jealousie, of hate, of beauty,
of flattery, &c., &c.,--all being aphoristic quotations from ancient
authors. As before stated, the whole was unseen by me until nearly
thirty years after I had published my independent essays on the same
theses much in a similar key."
This is a parallel case to the recent statement in a printed book with
characteristic illustrations respecting the non-originality of Bunyan's
Pilgrim's Progress; and Milton's Paradise Lost has been similarly
disparaged, Mr. Plummer Ward having written and shown to me a pamphlet
by himself to prove that some Italian poem seen by Milton in youth
preceded him on the same lines;--while Mr. Geikie quotes from the
Anglo-Saxon Cædmon papers nearly identical with some in Paradise Lost.
But there is no end to assertions of this sort, impugning authorial
honesty and originality: when authors write on the same topics and with
much the same stock of words and ideas both religious and educational,
it is only a marvel that the thoughts and writings of men do not oftener
collide, and seem to be plagiaristic reproductions. I have spoken of all
this at length, that if any one hereafter finds this "Politeuphuia" in
the British Museum (which is welcome to have my copy if it lacks one),
and years hence accuses my innocence of having stolen from it, he may
know that I have thus taken the bull by the horns and twisted him over.
The last anecdote I shall now inflict upon my reader in this connection
is as follows:--
One James Orton, an American gentleman whom I have never seen that I
know of (unless by possibility in some one of the crowds met
anonymously, before whom I may have read in public) was kind enough many
years ago to publish a beautifully printed and illustrated volume "The
Proverbialist and the Poet," whereof he sent me two copies; but lacking
his address, probably with the delicate object of preventing an
acknowledgment; and I am almost ashamed to state that his whole book in
different inks combines the threefold wisdoms of King Solomon, William
Shakespeare, and Martin Tupper; the title-page being decorated in
colours with views of the Temple, Stratford-on-Avon, and Albury House!
If I ventured to quote the Preface, it would beat even this as the
climax of fulsome flattery, and I think that my friends of the Comic
Press who have done me so much service by keeping up my shuttlecock with
their battledores, and so much honour by placing me prominently among
the defamed worthies of the world, would in their charity (for they have
some) pity the victim of such excruciating praise, if he failed hereby
to repudiate it.
Not but that poor human nature delights in adulation. I well remember
the joy wherewith I first greeted the following from a Cincinnati paper;
so hearty too, and generous, and obviously sincere.
"The author of this book will rank, we are free to say, with the very
first spirits of the British world. It will live, in our judgment, as
long as the English language, and be a text-book of wisdom to the young
of all generations of America and England both. We would rather be the
author of it, than hold any civil or ecclesiastical office in the globe.
We would rather leave it as a legacy to our children, than the richest
estate ever owned by man. From our heart we thank the young author for
this precious gift, and, could our voice reach him, would pronounce a
shower of heartfelt blessings on his soul. When we began to read it with
our editorial pencil in hand, we undertook to mark its beautiful
passages, should we find any worthy of distinction; but, having read to
our satisfaction--indeed to our amazement--we throw down the pencil,
and, had we as much space as admiration, we would quote the whole of it.
It is one solid, sparkling, priceless gem."
I may as well add a few more such extracts, as strictly within the text
of "My Lifework."
"The author of 'Proverbial Philosophy' is a writer in whom beautiful
extremes meet,--the richness of the Orient, and the strength of the
Occident--the stern virtue of the North and the passion of the South. At
times his genius seems to possess creative power, and to open to our
gaze things new and glorious, of which we have never dreamed; then again
it seems like sunlight, its province not to create, but to vivify and
glorify what before was within and around us. Aspirations, fancies,
beliefs we have long folded in our hearts as dear and sacred things,
yet never had the power or the courage to reveal, bloom out as naturally
in his pages as wild flowers when the blossoming time is come. We are
not so much struck by the grandeur of his conceptions, or fascinated by
the elegance of his diction, as warmed, ennobled, and delighted by the
glow of his enthusiasm, the purity of his principles, and the continuous
gushing forth of his tenderness. His words form an electric chain, along
which he sends his own soul, thrilling around the wide circle of his
readers."--N.P. Willis's _Home Journal_.
"Perhaps no writer has attracted a greater degree of public attention,
or received a larger share of public praise, during the last few years,
than Martin F. Tupper,--a man of whom England may well be proud, and
whose name will eventually be one of the very noblest on the scroll of
fame."--_American Courier_.
"Everybody knows the 'Proverbial Philosophy' of Martin Tupper; a million
and a half of copies--so, publishers say--have been sold in
America."--_New York World_.
"Full of genius, rich in thought, admirable in its religious tone and
beautiful language."--_Cincinnati Atlas_.
"'Apples of gold set in pictures of silver' is the most apposite
apophthegm we can apply to the entire work. We have rarely met a volume
so grateful to the taste in all its parts, so rich in its simplicity, so
unique in its arrangements, and so perfect in all that constitutes the
perfection of style, as the volume before us. It must live like immortal
seed, to produce a continual harvest of profitable
reflection."--(_Philadelphian_) _Episcopal Recorder_.
"No one can glance at this work without perceiving that it is produced
by the inspiration of genius. It is full of glorious thoughts, each of
which might be expanded into a treatise."--_Albany Atlas_.
"We cannot express the intense interest and delight with which we have
perused 'Proverbial Philosophy.'"--_Oberlin's Evangelist_.
"The 'Proverbial Philosophy' has struck with almost miraculous force and
effect upon the minds and hearts of a large class of American readers,
and has at once rendered its author's name and character famous and
familiar in our country. It abounds in gems and apt allusions, which
display without an effort the deep practical views and the æsthetical
culture of the author."--_Southern Literary Messenger_.
Let all this suffice for America: a few from this side of the Atlantic
may be added:--
"Were we to say all we think of the nobleness of the thoughts, of the
beauty and virtuousness of the sentiments contained in this volume, we
should be constrained to write a lengthened eulogium on it."--_Morning
Post_.
"Martin Farquhar Tupper has won for himself the vacant throne waiting
for him amidst the immortals, and after a long and glorious term of
popularity among those who know when their hearts are touched, without
being able to justify their taste to their intellect, has been adopted
by the suffrage of mankind and the final decree of publishers into the
same rank with Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Browning."--_Spectator_.
"It is a book easily understood, and repaying the reader on every page
with sentiments true to experience, and expressed often with surprising
beauty."--_Presbyterian_.
"One of the most thoughtful, brilliant, and finished productions of the
age."--_Banner of the Cross_.
"For poetic imagery, for brightness of thought, for clear and striking
views of all the interests and conditions of man, this work has been
pronounced by the English and American press as unequalled."--_Literary
Messenger_.
"The principal work of Martin Farquhar Tupper, 'Proverbial Philosophy,'
is instinct with the spirit of genial hopeful love: and to this mainly
should be attributed the vast amount of sympathetic admiration it has
attracted, not only in this country, but also in the United
States."--_English Review_.
"We congratulate ourselves, for the sake of our land's language, on this
noble addition to her stock of what Dr. Johnson justly esteems 'the
highest order of learning.' If Mr. Tupper be not the high priest of his
profession, he is at least no undignified minister of the altar. The
spirit of a noble hope animates the exercise of his high
function."--_Parthenon_.
"We know not whether Mr. Tupper, when he was pouring forth the contents
of these glorious volumes, intended to write prose or poetry; but if his
object was the former, his end has not been accomplished. 'Proverbial
Philosophy' is poetry assuredly; poetry exquisite, almost beyond the
bounds of fancy to conceive, brimmed with noble thoughts, and studded
with heavenward aspirations."--_Church of England Journal_.
"The 'Proverbial Philosophy,' which first established Mr. Tupper's
reputation, is a work of standard excellence. It has met with
unprecedented success, and many large editions of it have been sold. It
led to the author's being elected a Fellow of the Royal Society; and the
King of Prussia, in token of his Majesty's high approbation of the
work, sent him the gold medal for science and literature."--_Glasgow
Examiner_.
"This book is like a collection of miniature paintings on ivory, small,
beautiful, highly finished, and heterogeneous: in style something
between prose and verse; not so rigid as to fetter the thought, not so
free as to exclude absolute distinctness, with the turn and phrase of
poetry."--_Christian Remembrancer_.
"There is more novelty in the sentiments, a greater sweep of subjects,
and a finer sense of moral beauty displayed by Mr. Tupper, than we
remember to have seen in any work of its class, excepting of course the
'Proverbs of Solomon.' We also discover in his 'Philosophy' the stores
of extensive reading, and the indisputable proofs of habitual and devout
reflection, as well as the workings of an elegant mind."--_Monthly
Review_.
"Have we not now done enough to show that a poet of power and of
promise,--a poet and philosopher both--is amongst us to delight and
instruct, to elevate and to guide."--_Conservative Journal_.
"This work glows and glitters all over with the effluence and lustre of
a fine imagination, and is steeped in the rich hues and pervading beauty
of a mild wisdom, and a genial and kindly morality."--_Scots Times_.
"The 'Proverbial Philosophy' contains much sound reflection, moral and
religious maxims of the highest importance, elegant figures and
allusions, sound and serious observations of life,--all expressed in
most appropriate and well-selected language."--_Gentleman's Magazine_.
"One of the most original and curious productions of our
time."--_Atlas_.
"A book as full of sweetness as a honeycomb, of gentleness as woman's
heart; in its wisdom worthy the disciple of a Solomon, in its genius
the child of a Milton. Every page, nay almost every line, teems with
evidences of profound thinking and various reading, and the pictures it
often presents to our mind are the most imaginative and beautiful that
can possibly be conceived."--_Court Journal_.
"If men delight to read Tupper both in England and America, why should
they not study him both in the nineteenth century and in the twentieth?
The judgment of persons who are more or less free from insular
prejudices is said in some degree to anticipate that which is admitted
to be the conclusive verdict of posterity."--_Saturday Review_.
"The popularity of the 'Proverbial Philosophy' of Martin Tupper is a
gratifying and healthy symptom of the present taste in literature, the
book being full of lessons of wisdom and piety, conveyed in a style
startling at first by its novelty, but irresistibly pleasing by its
earnestness and eloquence."--_Literary Gazette_.
"Mr. Mill, Mr. Herbert Spencer, Mr. Browning, Mr. Morris, Mr.
Rossetti--all these writers have a wider audience in America than in
England. So too has Mr. Tupper. The imagination staggers in attempting
to realise the number of copies of his works which have been published
abroad. Unlike most of his contemporaries, further, he has conquered
popularity in both hemispheres. He has won the suffrages of two great
nations. He may now disregard criticism."--_Daily News_.
* * * * *
This sonnet, written and published in 1837, nearly half a century ago,
explains itself and may fairly come in here as a protest and prophecy by
a then young author. And, _nota bene_, if hyper-criticism objects that
a sonnet must always be a fourteen-liner (this being one only of twelve)
I reply that it is sometimes of sixteen, as in the one by Dante to
Madonna, which I have translated in my "Modern Pyramid:" and there are
instances of twelve, as one at least of Shakespeare's in his Passionate
Pilgrim. But this is a small technicality.
_To my Book "Proverbial Philosophy," before Publication._
"My soul's own son, dear image of my mind,
I would not without blessing send thee forth
Into the bleak wide world, whose voice unkind
Perchance will mock at thee as nothing worth;
For the cold critic's jealous eye may find
In all thy purposed good little but ill,
May taunt thy simple garb as quaintly wrought,
And praise thee for no more than the small skill
Of masquing as thine own another's thought:
What then? count envious sneers as less than nought:
Fair is thine aim,--and having done thy best,
So, thus I bless thee; yea, thou shalt be blest!"
There were also two others afterward, in the jubilate vein; but I spare
my reader, albeit they are curiously prophetic of the wide good-doing
since accomplished.
To the above numerous commendations which indeed might be indefinitely
extended, it is only fair to add that "Proverbial Philosophy" has run
the gauntlet of both hemispheres also in the way of parody, ridicule,
plagiaristic imitation, and in some instances of envious and malignant
condemnation. It has won on each side both praise from the good and
censure from the bad: our comic papers have amused us with its
travesties--as Church Liturgies and Holy Writ have been similarly
parodied,--and some of the modern writers who are unfriendly to
Christian influences have done their small endeavour to damage both the
book and its author through adverse criticism. But their efforts are
vain. They have availed only to advance--from first to last now for some
forty-five years--the world-wide success of "Proverbial Philosophy."
If it is expected, as a matter of impartiality, that I should here print
adverse criticisms as well as those which are favourable, I simply
decline to be so foolish: a caricature impresses where a portrait is
forgotten: the _litera scripta_ in printer's ink remains and is quotable
for ever, and I do not think it worth while deliberately to traduce
myself and my book children by adopting the opinions of dyspeptic
scribes who will find how well I think of them in my Proverbial Essay
"Zoilism;" which, by the way, I read at St. Andrews, before some chiefs
of that university, with A.K.H.B. in the chair.
* * * * *
Accordingly, I prefer now to appear one-sided, as a piece of common
sense; quite indifferent to the charge of vain-gloriousness; all the
good verdicts quoted are genuine, absolutely unpaid and unrewarded, and
are matters of sincere and skilled opinion; so being such I prize them:
the opposing judgments--much fewer, and far less hearty, as "willing to
wound and yet afraid to strike"--may as well perish out of memory by
being ignored and neglected. Here is a social anecdote to illustrate
what I mean. I once knew a foolish young nobleman of the highest rank
who--to spite his younger brother as he fancied--posted him up in his
club for having called him "a maggot;" and all he got for his pains in
this exposure was that the name stuck to himself for life! so it is not
necessary to borrow fame's trumpet to proclaim one's few dispraises.
Moreover, I have thought it only just to the many unseen lovers of
"Proverbial Philosophy" to show them how heartily their good opinions
have been countersigned and sanctioned all over the English-speaking
world by critics of many schools and almost all denominations. It is not
then from personal vanity that so much laudation is exhibited [God wot,
I have reason to denounce and renounce self-seeking]--but rather to
gratify and corroborate innumerable book friends.
* * * * *
If there had been International Copyright in the more halcyon days of my
"Proverbial" popularity, when, as reported (see the _New York World_ on
p. 124), a million and a half copies of my book were consumed in
America, I should have been materially rewarded by a royalty of
something like a hundred thousand pounds: but the bare fact is that all
I have ever received from my Transatlantic booksellers in the way of
money has been some £80 (three thousand dollars) which Herman Hooker of
Philadelphia gave me for the exclusive privilege--so far as I could
grant it--of being my publisher. For aught else, I have nothing to
complain of in the way of praise, however profitless, of kindliness,
however well appreciated, and of boundless hospitality, however fairly
reimbursed at the time by the valuable presence of a foreign celebrity.
No doubt the public are benefited by the cheapness of books unprotected
by copyright, and the author, if he wins no royalty, gains by fame and
pleasure; but the absence of a copyright law is a great mistake,--as
well as an injustice to the authorship of both nations, by starving the
literature of each other, American publishers will not sufficiently pay
their own native bookwrights when they can appropriate their
neighbours' works for nothing; and ours in England probably enriched
themselves as vastly and cheaply by Mrs. Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's
Cabin" as many among the thirty-three States by "Proverbial Philosophy."
* * * * *
As my handsome quarto "Proverbial" has been for two generations a common
gift-book for weddings, and has more than once appeared among the gifts
at royal marriages, it is small wonder that I have often been greeted by
old--and young--married couples as having been a sort of spiritual Cupid
on such occasions. Frequently at my readings and elsewhere ladies
thitherto unknown have claimed me as their unseen friend, and some have
feelingly acknowledged that my Love and Marriage (both written in my
teens) were the turning-points of their lives and causes of their
happiness. These lines will meet the eyes of some who will acknowledge
their truth, and possibly if they like it may write and tell me so: some
of my warmest friendships have originated in grateful letters of a
similar character.
* * * * *
It may also be worthy of mention that on this side of the Atlantic as
well as on the other (see especially the case of N.P. Willis) it has
often been taken for granted that the author of "Proverbial Philosophy"
has been dead for generations. No doubt this is due both to the antique
style of the book and to the retiring habits of its author:
comparatively few of my readers know me by sight. I could mention many
proofs of this belief in my non-existence: here is one; a daughter of
mine is asked lately by an eminent person if she is a descendant of the
celebrated Elizabethan author? and when that individual in passing round
the room came near to the Professor, and was introduced to him as her
father, the man could scarcely be brought to believe that his
long-departed book friend was positively alive before him. The Professor
looked as if he had seen a ghost.
* * * * *
Throughout this volume I wish my courteous readers to bear in mind that
the writer excludes from it as much as possible the strictly private and
personal element; it is intended to be mainly authorial or on matters
therewith connected. Moreover, if they will considerately take into
account that as a youth and until middle age I was, from the
speech-impediment since overcome, isolated from the gaieties of society,
as also that I religiously abstained from theatricals at a time before
Macready, who has since purified them into a very fair school of
morals,--to say less of having been engaged in marriage from seventeen
to twenty-five,--I can have (for example) no love adventures to offer
for amusement, nor any dramatic anecdotes such as Ruskin might supply.
The autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini is full of entertaining and
highly coloured incidents which could not be possible to one rather of
the Huguenot stamp than that of the Cavalier, and so I cannot compete
therewith as to any of the spicier records of hot youth: for which
indeed let me be thankful.
If then my reader finds me less lively than he had--shall I say
uncharitably?--hoped for, let him take into account that, to quote the
splendid but sensuous phrase of Swinburne, I have always been stupidly
prone to prefer "the lilies and languors of virtue" to "the roses and
raptures of vice."
I will now proceed with the self-imposed duty of recording my authorial
performances.