Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

During the residence of Lord Byron at Venice, a clerk was sent from the office of Messrs. Vizard and Co., of Lincoln's Inn, to procure his lordship's signature to a legal instrument. On his arrival, the clerk sent a message to the noble poet, who appointed to receive him on the following morning. Each party was punctual to the minute. His lordship had dressed himself with the most studious care; and, on the opening of the door of his apartment, it was evident that he had placed himself in what he thought a becoming _pose_. His right arm was displayed over the back of a splendid couch, and his head was gently supported by the fingers of his left hand. He bowed slightly as his visitor approached him, and appeared anxious that his recumbent attitude should remain for a time undisturbed. After the signing of the deed, the noble bard made a few inquiries upon the politics of England, in the tone of a finished exquisite. Some refreshment which was brought in afforded the messenger an opportunity for more minute observation. His lordship's hair had been curled and parted on the forehead; the collar of his shirt was thrown back, so that not only the throat but a considerable portion of his bosom was exposed to view, though partially concealed by some fanciful ornament suspended round the neck. His waistcoat was of costly velvet, and his legs were enveloped in a superb wrapper. It is to be regretted that so great a mind as that of Byron could derive satisfaction from things so trivial and unimportant, but much more that it was liable to be disturbed by a recollection of personal imperfections. In the above interview, the clerk directed an accidental glance at his lordship's lame foot, when the smile that had played upon the visage of the poet became suddenly converted into a frown. His whole frame appeared discomposed; his tone of affected suavity became hard and imperious; and he called to an attendant to open the door, with a peevishness seldom exhibited even by the most irritable.

* * * * *

LORD BYRON'S APOLOGY.

No one knew how to apologize for an affront with better grace, or with more delicacy, than Lord Byron. In the first edition of the first canto of _Childe Harold_, the poet adverted in a note to two political tracts--one by Major Pasley, and the other by Gould Francis Leckie, Esq.; and concluded his remarks by attributing "ignorance on the one hand, and prejudice on the other." Mr. Leckie, who felt offended at the severity and, as he thought, injustice of the observations, wrote to Lord Byron, complaining of the affront. His lordship did not reply immediately to the letter; but, in about three weeks, he called upon Mr. Leckie, and begged him to accept an elegantly-bound copy of a new edition of the poem, in which the offensive passage was omitted.

* * * * *

FINE FLOURISHES.

Lord Brougham, in an essay published long ago in the _Edinburgh Review_, read a smart lesson to Parliamentary wits. "A wit," says his lordship, "though he amuses for the moment, unavoidably gives frequent offence to grave and serious men, who don't think public affairs should be lightly handled, and are constantly falling into the error that when a person is arguing the most conclusively, by showing the gross and ludicrous absurdity of his adversary's reasoning, he is jesting, and not arguing; while the argument is, in reality, more close and stringent, the more he shows the opposite picture to be grossly ludicrous--that is, the more effective the wit becomes. But, though all this is perfectly true, it is equally certain that danger attends such courses with the common run of plain men.

"Nor is it only by wit that genius offends: flowers of imagination, flights of oratory, great passages, are more admired by the critic than relished by the worthy baronets who darken the porch of Boodle's--chiefly answering to the names of Sir Robert and Sir John--and the solid traders, the very good men who stream along the Strand from 'Change towards St. Stephen's Chapel, at five o'clock, to see the business of the country done by the Sovereign's servants. A pretty long course of observation on these component parts of a Parliamentary audience begets some doubt if noble passages, (termed 'fine flourishes,') be not taken by them as personally offensive."

Take, for example, "such fine passages as Mr. Canning often indulged himself and a few of his hearers with; and which certainly seemed to be received as an insult by whole benches of men accustomed to distribute justice at sessions. These worthies, the dignitaries of the empire, resent such flights as liberties taken with them; and always say, when others force them to praise--'Well, well, but it was out of place; we have nothing to do with king Priam here, or with a heathen god, such as Æolus; those kind of folk are all very well in Pope's _Homer_ and Dryden's _Virgil_; but, as I said to Sir Robert, who sat next me, what have you or I to do with them matters? I like a good plain man of business, like young Mr. Jenkinson--a man of the pen and desk, like his father was before him--and who never speaks when he is not wanted: let me tell you, Mr. Canning speaks too much by half. Time is short--there are only twenty four hours in the day, you know.'"

* * * * *

MATHEMATICAL SAILORS.

Nathaniel Bowditch, the translator of Laplace's _Mécanique Céleste_, displayed in very early life a taste for mathematical studies. In the year 1788, when he was only fifteen years old, he actually made an almanack for the year 1790, containing all the usual tables, calculations of the eclipses, and other phenomena, and even the customary predictions of the weather.

Bowditch was bred to the sea, and in his early voyages taught navigation to the common sailors about him. Captain Prince, with whom he often sailed, relates, that one day the supercargo of the vessel said to him, "Come, Captain, let us go forward and hear what the sailors are talking about under the lee of the long-boat." They went forward accordingly, and the captain was surprised to find the sailors, instead of spinning their long yarns, earnestly engaged with book, slate, and pencil, discussing the high matters of tangents and secants, altitudes, dip, and refraction. Two of them, in particular, were very zealously disputing,--one of them calling out to the other, "Well, Jack, what have you got?" "I've got the _sine_," was the answer. "But that ain't right," said the other; "_I_ say it is the _cosine_."

* * * * *

LEWIS'S "MONK."

This romance, on its first appearance, roused the attention of all the literary world of England, and even spread its writer's name to the continent. The author--"wonder-working Lewis," was a stripling under twenty when he wrote _The Monk_ in the short space of ten weeks! Sir Walter Scott, probably the most rapid composer of fiction upon record, hardly exceeded this, even in his latter days, when his facility of writing was the greatest.

* * * * *

THOMSON'S RECITATIONS.

Thomson, the author of the "Seasons," was a very awkward reader of his own productions. His patron, Doddington, once snatched a MS. from his hand, provoked by his odd utterance, telling him that he did not understand his own verses! A gentleman of Brentford, however, told the late Dr. Evans, in 1824, that there was a tradition in that town of Thomson frequenting one of the inns there, and reciting his poems to the company.

* * * * *

GOLDSMITH'S "SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER."

Goldsmith, during the first performance of this comedy, walked all the time in St. James' Park in great uneasiness. Finally, when he thought that it must be over, hastening to the theatre, hisses assailed his ears as he entered the green-room. Asking in eager alarm of Colman the cause--"Pshaw, pshaw!" said Colman, "don't be afraid of squibs, when we have been sitting on a barrel of gunpowder for two hours." The comedy had completely triumphed--the audience were only hissing the after farce. Goldsmith had some difficulty in getting the piece on the stage, as appears from the following letter to Colman:--"I entreat you'll relieve me from that state of suspense in which I have been kept for a long time. Whatever objections you have made, or shall make, to my play, I will endeavour to remove, and not argue about them. To bring in any new judges either of its merits or faults, I can never submit to. Upon a former occasion, when my other play was before Mr. Garrick, he offered to bring me before Mr. Whitehead's tribunal, but I refused the proposal with indignation. I hope I shall not experience as hard treatment from you, as from him. I have, as you know, a large sum of money to make up shortly; by accepting my play, I can readily satisfy my creditor that way; at any rate, I must look about to some certainty to be prepared. For God's sake take the play, and let us make the best of it; and let me have the same measure at least which you have given as bad plays as mine."

* * * * *

SILENCE NOT ALWAYS WISDOM.

Coleridge once dined in company with a person who listened to him, and said nothing for a long time; but he nodded his head, and Coleridge thought him intelligent. At length, towards the end of the dinner, some apple dumplings were placed on the table, and the listener had no sooner seen them than he burst forth, "Them's the jockeys for me!" Coleridge adds: "I wish Spurzheim could have examined the fellow's head."

Coleridge was very luminous in conversation, and invariably commanded listeners; yet the old lady rated his talent very lowly, when she declared she had no patience with a man who would have all the talk to himself.

* * * * *

DR. CHALMERS IN LONDON.

When Dr. Chalmers first visited London, the hold that he took on the minds of men was unprecedented. It was a time of strong political feeling; but even that was unheeded, and all parties thronged to hear the Scottish preacher. The very best judges were not prepared for the display that they heard. Canning and Wilberforce went together, and got into a pew near the door. The elder in attendance stood alone by the pew. Chalmers began in his usual unpromising way, by stating a few nearly self-evident propositions, neither in the choicest language, nor in the most impressive voice. "If this be all," said Canning to his companion, "it will never do." Chalmers went on--the shuffling of the conversation gradually subsided. He got into the mass of his subject; his weakness became strength, his hesitation was turned into energy; and, bringing the whole volume of his mind to bear upon it, he poured forth a torrent of the most close and conclusive argument, brilliant with all the exuberance of an imagination which ranged over all nature for illustrations, and yet managed and applied each of them with the same unerring dexterity, as if that single one had been the study of a whole life. "The tartan beats us," said Mr. Canning; "we have no preaching like that in England."

* * * * *

ROMILLY AND BROUGHAM.

Hallam's _History of the Middle Ages_ was the last book of any importance read by Sir Samuel Romilly. Of this excellent work he formed the highest opinion, and recommended its immediate perusal to Lord Brougham, as a contrast to his dry _Letter on the Abuses of Charities_, in respect of the universal interest of the subject. Yet, Sir Samuel undervalued the Letter, for it ran through eight editions in one month.

* * * * *

PHYSIOGNOMY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTIONISTS.

It is remarkable, (says Bulwer, in his _Zanoni_,) that most of the principal actors of the French Revolution were singularly hideous in appearance--from the colossal ugliness of Mirabeau and Danton, or the villanous ferocity in the countenances of David and Simon, to the filthy squalor of Marat, and the sinister and bilious meanness of the Dictator's features. But Robespierre, who was said to resemble a cat, and had also a cat's cleanliness, was prim and dainty in dress, shaven smoothness, and the womanly whiteness of his hands. Réné Dumas, born of reputable parents, and well educated, despite his ferocity, was not without a certain refinement, which perhaps rendered him the more acceptable to the precise Robespierre. Dumas was a beau in his way: his gala-dress was a _blood-red_ coat, with the finest ruffles. But Henriot had been a lacquey, a thief, a spy of the police; he had drank the blood of Madame de Lamballe, and had risen for no quality but his ruffianism; and Fouquier Tinville, the son of a provincial agriculturist, and afterwards a clerk at the bureau of the police, was little less base in his manners, and yet more, from a certain loathsome buffoonery, revolting in his speech; bull-headed, with black, sleek hair, with a narrow and livid forehead, and small eyes that twinkled with sinister malice; strongly and coarsely built, he looked what he was, the audacious bully of a lawless and relentless bar.

* * * * *

DEATH OF SIR CHARLES BELL.

This distinguished surgeon died suddenly on April 29, 1842, at Hallow Park, near Worcester, while on his way to Malvern. He was out sketching on the 28th, being particularly pleased with the village church, and some fine trees which are beside it; observing that he should like to repose there when he was gone. Just four days after this sentiment had been expressed, his mortal remains were accordingly deposited beside the rustic graves which had attracted his notice, and so recently occupied his pencil. There is a painful admonition in this fulfilment.

* * * * *

CLASSIC PUN.

It was suggested to a distinguished _gourmet_, what a capital thing a dish all fins (turbot's fins) might be made. "Capital," said he; "dine with me on it to-morrow." "Accepted." Would you believe it? when the cover was removed, the sacrilegious dog of an Amphytrion had put into the dish "Cicero _De finibus_" "There is a work all fins," said he.

* * * * *

POETRY OF THE SEA.

Campbell was a great lover of submarine prospects. "Often in my boyhood," says the poet, "when the day has been bright and the sea transparent, I have sat by the hour on a Highland rock admiring the golden sands, the emerald weeds, and the silver shells at the bottom of the bay beneath, till, dreaming about the grottoes of the Nereids, I would not have exchanged my pleasure for that of a connoisseur poring over a landscape by Claude or Poussin. Enchanting nature! thy beauty is not only in heaven and earth, but in the waters under our feet. How magnificent a medium of vision is the pellucid sea! Is it not like poetry, that embellishes every object that we contemplate?"

* * * * *

"FELON LITERATURE."

One of the most stinging reproofs of perverted literary taste, evidently aimed at Newgate Calendar literature, appeared in the form of a valentine, in No. 31 of _Punch_, in 1842.

The valentine itself reminds one of Churchill's muse; and it needs no finger to tell where its withering satire is pointed:--

"THE LITERARY GENTLEMAN.

"Illustrious scribe! whose vivid genius strays 'Mid Drury's stews
to incubate her lays, And in St. Giles's slang conveys her tropes,
Wreathing the poet's lines with hangmen's ropes; You who conceive
'tis poetry to teach The sad bravado of a dying speech; Or, when
possessed with a sublimer mood, Show "Jack o'Dandies" dancing upon
blood! Crush bones--bruise flesh, recount each festering sore--
Rake up the plague-pit, write--and write in gore! Or, when
inspired to humanize mankind, Where doth your soaring soul its
subjects find? Not 'mid the scenes that simple Goldsmith sought,
And found a theme to elevate his thought; But you, great scribe,
more greedy of renown, From Hounslow's gibbet drag a hero down.
Imbue his mind with virtue; make him quote Some moral truth before
he cuts a throat. Then wash his hands, and soaring o'er your
craft--Refresh the hero with a bloody draught: And, fearing lest
the world should miss the act, With noble zeal _italicize_ the
fact. Or would you picture woman meek and pure, By love and virtue
tutor'd to endure, With cunning skill you take a felon's trull,
Stuff her with sentiment, and scrunch her skull! Oh! would your
crashing, smashing, mashing pen were mine, That I could "scorch
your eyeballs" with my words,

"MY VALENTINE."

* * * * *

DEATH BED REVELATIONS.

Men before they die see and comprehend enigmas hidden from them before. The greatest poet, and one of the noblest thinkers of the last age, said on his death-bed:--"Many things obscure to me before, now clear up and become visible."

* * * * *

STAMMERING WIT.

Stammering, (says Coleridge,) is sometimes the cause of a pun. Some one was mentioning in Lamb's presence the cold-heartedness of the Duke of Cumberland, in restraining the duchess from rushing up to the embrace of her son, whom she had not seen for a considerable time, and insisting on her receiving him in state. "How horribly _cold_ it was," said the narrator. "Yes," said Lamb, in his stuttering way; "but you know he is the Duke of _Cu-cum-ber-land_."

* * * * *

ORIGIN OF BOTTLED ALE.

Alexander Newell, Dean of St. Paul's, and Master of Westminster School, in the reign of Queen Mary, was an excellent angler. But Fuller says, while Newell was catching of fishes, Bishop Bonner was catching of Newell, and would certainly have sent him to the shambles, had not a good London merchant conveyed him away upon the seas. Newell was fishing upon the banks of the Thames when he received the first intimation of his danger, which was so pressing, that he dared not go back to his own house to make any preparation for his flight. Like an honest angler, he had taken with him provisions for the day; and when, in the first year of England's deliverance, he returned to his country, and to his own haunts, he remembered that on the day of his flight he had left a bottle of beer in a safe place on the bank: there he looked for it, and "found it no bottle, but a gun--such the sound at the opening thereof; and this (says Fuller) is believed (casualty is mother of more invention than industry) to be the original of bottled ale in England."

* * * * *

BAD'S THE BEST.

Canning was once asked by an English clergyman, at whose parsonage he was visiting, how he liked the sermon he had preached that morning. "Why, it was a short sermon," quoth Canning. "O yes," said the preacher, "you know I avoid being tedious." "Ah, but," replied Canning, "you _were_ tedious."

* * * * *

LUDICROUS ESTIMATE OF MR. CANNING.

The Rev. Sydney Smith compares Mr. Canning in office to a fly in amber: "nobody cares about the fly: the only question is, how the devil did it get there?" "Nor do I," continues Smith, "attack him for the love of glory, but from the love of utility, as a burgomaster hunts a rat in a Dutch dyke, for fear it should flood a province. When he is jocular, he is strong; when he is serious, he is like Samson in a wig. Call him a legislator, a reasoner, and the conductor of the affairs of a great nation, and it seems to me as absurd as if a butterfly were to teach bees to make honey. That he was an extraordinary writer of small poetry, and a diner-out of the highest lustre, I do most readily admit. After George Selwyn, and perhaps Tickell, there has been no such man for the last half-century."

* * * * *

THE AUTHORSHIP OF "WAVERLEY."

Mrs. Murray Keith, a venerable Scotch lady, from whom Sir Walter Scott derived many of the traditionary stories and anecdotes wrought up in his novels, taxed him one day with the authorship, which he, as usual, stoutly denied. "What!" exclaimed the old lady, "d'ye think I dinna ken my ain groats among other folk's kail?"

* * * * *

QUID PRO QUO.

Campbell relates:--"Turner, the painter, is a ready wit. Once at a dinner where several artists, amateurs, and literary men were convened, a poet, by way of being facetious, proposed as a toast the health of the _painters_ and _glaziers_ of Great Britain. The toast was drunk; and Turner, after returning thanks for it, proposed the health of the British _paper-stainers_."

* * * * *

HOPE'S "ANASTASIUS."

Lord Byron, in a conversation with the Countess of Blessington, said that he wept bitterly over many pages of _Anastasius_, and for two reasons: first, that _he_ had not written it; and secondly, that _Hope_ had; for it was necessary to like a man excessively to pardon his writing such a book; as, he said, excelling all recent productions, as much in wit and talent as in true pathos. Lord Byron added, that he would have given his two most approved poems to have been the author of _Anastasius_.

* * * * *

SMART REPARTEE.

Walpole relates, after an execution of _eighteen_ malefactors, a woman was hawking an account of them, but called them _nineteen_. A gentleman said to her, "Why do you say _nineteen_? there were but _eighteen_ hanged." She replied, "Sir, I did not know _you_ had been reprieved."

* * * * *

COLTON'S "LACON."

This remarkable book was written upon covers of letters and scraps of paper of such description as was nearest at hand; the greater part at a house in Princes-street, Soho. Colton's lodging was a penuriously-furnished second-floor, and upon a rough deal table, with a stumpy pen, our author wrote.

Though a beneficed clergyman, holding the vicarage of Kew, with Petersham, in Surrey, Colton was a well-known frequenter of the gaming-table; and, suddenly disappearing from his usual haunts in London about the time of the murder of Weare, in 1823, it was strongly suspected he had been assassinated. It was, however, afterwards ascertained that he had absconded to avoid his creditors; and in 1828 a successor was appointed to his living. He then went to reside in America, but subsequently lived in Paris, a professed gamester; and it is said that he thus gained, in two years only, the sum of 25,000_l_. He blew out his brains while on a visit to a friend at Fontainebleau, in 1832; bankrupt in health, spirits, and fortune.

* * * * *

BUNYAN'S COPY OF "THE BOOK OF MARTYRS."

There is no book, except the Bible, which Bunyan is known to have perused so intently as the _Acts and Monuments_ of John Fox, the martyrologist, one of the best of men; a work more hastily than judiciously compiled, but invaluable for that greater and far more important portion which has obtained for it its popular name of _The Book of Martyrs_. Bunyan's own copy of this work is in existence, and valued of course as such a relic of such a man ought to be. It was purchased in the year 1780, by Mr. Wantner, of the Minories; from him it descended to his daughter, Mrs. Parnell, of Botolph-lane; and it was afterwards purchased, by subscription, for the Bedfordshire General Library.

This edition of _The Acts and Monuments_ is of the date 1641, 3 vols, folio, the last of those in the black-letter, and probably the latest when it came into Bunyan's hands. In each volume he has written his name beneath the title-page, in a large and stout print-hand. Under some of the woodcuts he has inserted a few rhymes, which are undoubtedly his own composition; and which, though much in the manner of the verses that were printed under the illustrations of his own _Pilgrim's Progress_, when that work was first adorned with cuts, (verses worthy of such embellishments,) are very much worse than even the worst of those. Indeed, it would not be possible to find specimens of more miserable doggerel.

Here is one of the Tinker's tetrasticks, penned in the margin, beside the account of Gardiner's death:--

"The blood, the blood that he did shed
Is falling one his one head;
And dredfull it is for to see
The beginers of his misere."

One of the signatures bears the date of 1662; but the verses must undoubtedly have been some years earlier, before the publication of his first tract. These curious inscriptions must have been Bunyan's first attempts in verse: he had, no doubt, found difficulty enough in tinkering them to make him proud of his work when it was done; otherwise, he would not have written them in a book which was the most valuable of all his goods and chattels. In later days, he seems to have taken this book for his art of poetry. His verses are something below the pitch of Sternhold and Hopkins. But if he learnt there to make bad verses, he entered fully into the spirit of its better parts, and received that spirit into as resolute a heart as ever beat in a martyr's bosom.[2]

[2] Southey's Life of John Bunyan.

* * * * *

LITERARY LOCALITIES.

Leigh Hunt pleasantly says:--"I can no more pass through Westminster, without thinking of Milton; or the Borough, without thinking of Chaucer and Shakspeare; or Gray's Inn, without calling Bacon to mind; or Bloomsbury-square, without Steele and Akenside; than I can prefer brick and mortar to wit and poetry, or not see a beauty upon it beyond architecture in the splendour of the recollection. I once had duties to perform which kept me out late at night, and severely taxed my health and spirits. My path lay through a neighbourhood in which Dryden lived, and though nothing could be more common-place, and I used to be tired to the heart and soul of me, I never hesitated to go a little out of the way, purely that I might pass through Gerard-street, and so give myself the shadow of a pleasant thought."

* * * * *

CREED OF LORD BOLINGBROKE.

Lord Brougham says:--"The dreadful malady under which Bolingbroke long lingered, and at length sunk--a cancer in the face--he bore with exemplary fortitude, a fortitude drawn from the natural resources of his vigorous mind, and unhappily not aided by the consolations of any religion; for, having early cast off the belief in revelation, he had substituted in its stead a dark and gloomy naturalism, which even rejected those glimmerings of hope as to futurity not untasted by the wiser of the heathens."

Lord Chesterfield, in one of his letters, which has been published by Earl Stanhope, says that Bolingbroke only doubted, and by no means rejected, a future state.

* * * * *

BUNYAN'S PREACHING.

It is said that Owen, the divine, greatly admired Bunyan's preaching; and that, being asked by Charles II. "how a learned man such as he could sit and listen to an itinerant tinker?" he replied: "May it please your Majesty, could I possess that tinker's abilities for preaching, I would most gladly relinquish all my learning."

* * * * *

HONE'S "EVERY-DAY BOOK."

This popular work was commenced by its author after he had renounced political satire for the more peaceful study of the antiquities of our country. The publication was issued in weekly sheets, and extended through two years, 1824 and 1825. It was very successful, the weekly sale being from 20,000 to 30,000 copies.

In 1830, Mr. Southey gave the following tribute to the merits of the work, which it is pleasurable to record; as these two writers, from their antipodean politics, had not been accustomed to regard each other's productions with any favour. In closing his _Life of John Bunyan_, Mr. Southey says:--

"In one of the volumes, collected from various quarters, which were sent to me for this purpose, I observe the name of William Hone, and notice it that I may take the opportunity of recommending his _Every-day Book and Table Book_ to those who are interested in the preservation of our national and local customs. By these curious publications, their compiler has rendered good service in an important department of literature; and he may render yet more, if he obtain the encouragement which he well deserves."

* * * * *

BUNYAN'S ESCAPES.

Bunyan had some providential escapes during his early life. Once, he fell into a creek of the sea, once out of a boat into the river Ouse, near Bedford, and each time he was narrowly saved from drowning. One day, an adder crossed his path. He stunned it with a stick, then forced open its mouth with a stick and plucked out the tongue, which he supposed to be the sting, with his fingers; "by which act," he says, "had not God been merciful unto me, I might, by my desperateness, have brought myself to an end." If this, indeed, were an adder, and not a harmless snake, his escape from the fangs was more remarkable than he himself was aware of. A circumstance, which was likely to impress him more deeply, occurred in the eighteenth year of his age, when, being a soldier in the Parliament's army, he was drawn out to go to the siege of Leicester, in 1645. One of the same company wished to go in his stead; Bunyan consented to exchange with him, and this volunteer substitute, standing sentinel one day at the siege, was shot through the head with a musket-ball. "This risk," Sir Walter Scott observes, "was one somewhat resembling the escape of Sir Roger de Coverley, in an action at Worcester, who was saved from the slaughter of that action, by having been absent from the field."--_Southey._

* * * * *

DROLLERY SPONTANEOUS.

More drolleries are uttered unintentionally than by premeditation. There is no such thing as being "droll to order." One evening a lady said to a small wit, "Come, Mr. ----, tell us a lively anecdote;" and the poor fellow was mute the rest of the evening.

"Favour me with your company on Wednesday evening--you are such a lion," said a weak party-giver to a young _littérateur_. "I thank you," replied the wit, "but, on that evening I am engaged to eat fire at the Countess of ----, and stand upon my head at Mrs. ----."

* * * * *

ORIGIN OF COWPER'S "JOHN GILPIN."

It happened one afternoon, in those years when Cowper's accomplished friend, Lady Austen, made a part of his little evening circle, that she observed him sinking into increased dejection; it was her custom, on these occasions, to try all the resources of her sprightly powers for his immediate relief. She told him the story of John Gilpin, (which had been treasured in her memory from her childhood), to dissipate the gloom of the passing hour. Its effects on the fancy of Cowper had the air of enchantment. He informed her the next morning that convulsions of laughter, brought on by his recollection of her story, had kept him waking during the greatest part of the night! and that he had turned it into a ballad. So arose the pleasant poem of John Gilpin. To Lady Austen's suggestion, also, we are indebted for the poem of "the Task."

* * * * *

HARD FATE OF AUTHORS.

Sir E. B. (now Lord) Lytton, in the memoir which he prefixed to the collected works of Laman Blanchard, draws the following affecting picture of that author's position, after he had parted from an engagement upon a popular newspaper:--

"For the author there is nothing but his pen, till that and life
are worn to the stump: and then, with good fortune, perhaps on his
death-bed he receives a pension--and equals, it may be, for a few
months, the income of a retired butler! And, so on the sudden loss
of the situation in which he had frittered away his higher and
more delicate genius, in all the drudgery that a party exacts from
its defender of the press, Laman Blanchard was thrown again upon
the world, to shift as he might and subsist as he could. His
practice in periodical writing was now considerable; his
versatility was extreme. He was marked by publishers and editors
as a useful contributor, and so his livelihood was secure. From
a variety of sources thus he contrived, by constant waste of
intellect and strength, to eke out his income, and insinuate
rather than force his place among his contemporary penmen. And
uncomplainingly, and with patient industry, he toiled on, seeming
farther and farther off from the happy leisure, in which 'the
something to verify promise was to be completed.' No time had
he for profound reading, for lengthened works, for the mature
development of the conceptions of a charming fancy. He had given
hostages to fortune. He had a wife and four children, and no
income but that which he made from week to week. The grist must
be ground, and the wheel revolve. All the struggle, all the
toils, all the weariness of brain, nerve, and head, which
a man undergoes in his career, are imperceptible even to his
friends--almost to himself; he has no time to be ill, to be
fatigued; his spirit has no holiday; it is all school-work. And
thus, generally, we find in such men that the break up of the
constitution seems sudden and unlooked-for. The causes of disease
and decay have been long laid; but they are smothered beneath the
lively appearances of constrained industry and forced excitement."

* * * * *

JAMES SMITH, ONE OF THE AUTHORS OF "REJECTED ADDRESSES."

A writer in the _Law Quarterly Magazine_ says:--To the best of our information, James's _coup d'essai_ in literature was a hoax in the shape of a series of letters to the editor of the _Gentleman's Magazine_, detailing some extraordinary antiquarian discoveries and facts in natural history, which the worthy Sylvanus Urban inserted without the least suspicion. In 1803, he became a constant contributor to the _Pic-Nic_ and _Cabinet_ weekly journals, in conjunction with Mr. Cumberland, Sir James Bland Burgess, Mr. Horatio Smith, and others. The principal caterer for these publications was Colonel Greville, on whom Lord Byron has conferred a not very enviable immortality--

"Or hail at once the patron and the pile
Of vice and folly, Greville and Argyle."

One of James Smith's favourite anecdotes related to him. The Colonel requested his young ally to call at his lodgings, and in the course of their first interview related the particulars of the most curious circumstance in his life. He was taken prisoner during the American war, along with three other officers of the same rank; one evening they were summoned into the presence of Washington, who announced to them that the conduct of their Government, in condemning one of his officers to death as a rebel, compelled him to make reprisals; and that, much to his regret, he was under the necessity of requiring them to cast lots, without delay, to decide which of them should be hanged. They were then bowed out, and returned to their quarters. Four slips of paper were put into a hat, and the shortest was drawn by Captain Asgill, who exclaimed, "I knew how it would be; I never won so much as a hit of backgammon in my life." As Greville told the story, he was selected to sit up with Captain Asgill, under the pretext of companionship, but, in reality, to prevent him from escaping, and leaving the honour amongst the remaining three. "And what," inquired Smith, "did you say to comfort him?" "Why, I remember saying to him, when they left us, _D---- it, old fellow, never mind_;" but it may be doubted (added Smith) whether he drew much comfort from the exhortation. Lady Asgill persuaded the French minister to interpose, and the captain was permitted to escape.

Both James and Horatio Smith were also contributors to the _Monthly Mirror_, then the property of Mr. Thomas Hill, a gentleman who had the good fortune to live familiarly with three or four generations of authors; the same, in short, with whom the subject of this memoir thus playfully remonstrated: "Hill, you take an unfair advantage of an accident; the register of your birth was burnt in the great fire of London, and you now give yourself out for younger than you are."

The fame of the Smiths, however, was confined to a limited circle until the publication of the _Rejected Addresses_, which rose at once into almost unprecedented celebrity.

James Smith used to dwell with much pleasure on the criticism of a Leicestershire clergyman: "I do not see why they (the _Addresses_) should have been rejected: I think some of them very good." This, he would add, is almost as good as the avowal of the Irish bishop, that there were some things in _Gulliver's Travels_ which he could not believe.

Though never guilty of intemperance, James was a martyr to the gout; and, independently of the difficulty he experienced in locomotion, he partook largely of the feeling avowed by his old friend Jekyll, who used to say that, if compelled to live in the country, he would have the drive before his house paved like the streets of London, and hire a hackney-coach to drive up and down all day long.

He used to tell, with great glee, a story showing the general conviction of his dislike to ruralities. He was sitting in the library at a country-house, when a gentleman proposed a quiet stroll into the pleasure-grounds:--

"'Stroll! why, don't you see my gouty shoe?'

"'Yes, I see that plain enough, and I wish I'd brought one too,
but they're all out now.'

"'Well, and what then?'

"'What then? Why, my dear fellow, you don't mean to say that you
have really got the gout? I thought you had only put on that shoe
to get off being shown over the improvements.'"

His bachelorship is thus attested in his niece's album:

"Should I seek Hymen's tie,
As a poet I die,
Ye Benedicts mourn my distresses:
For what little fame
Is annexed to my name,
Is derived from _Rejected Addresses_."

The two following are amongst the best of his good things. A gentleman with the same Christian and surname took lodgings in the same house. The consequence was, eternal confusion of calls and letters. Indeed, the postman had no alternative but to share the letters equally between the two. "This is intolerable, sir," said our friend, "and you must quit." "Why am I to quit more than you?" "Because you are James the Second--and must _abdicate_."

Mr. Bentley proposed to establish a periodical publication, to be called _The Wit's Miscellany_. Smith objected that the title promised too much. Shortly afterwards, the publisher came to tell him that he had profited by the hint, and resolved on calling it _Bentley's Miscellany_. "Isn't that going a little too far the other way?" was the remark.

A capital pun has been very generally attributed to him. An actor, named Priest, was playing at one of the principal theatres. Some one remarked at the Garrick Club, that there were a great many men in the pit. "Probably, clerks who have taken Priest's orders." The pun is perfect, but the real proprietor is Mr. Poole, one of the best punsters as well as one of the cleverest comic writers and finest satirists of the day. It has also been attributed to Charles Lamb.

Formerly, it was customary, on emergencies, for the judges to swear affidavits at their dwelling-houses. Smith was desired by his father to attend a judge's chambers for that purpose, but being engaged to dine in Russell-square, at the next house to Mr. Justice Holroyd's, he thought he might as well save himself the disagreeable necessity of leaving the party at eight by dispatching his business at once: so, a few minutes before six, he boldly knocked at the judge's, and requested to speak to him on particular business. The judge was at dinner, but came down without delay, swore the affidavit, and then gravely asked what was the pressing necessity that induced our friend to disturb him at that hour. As Smith told the story, he raked his invention for a lie, but finding none fit for the purpose, he blurted out the truth:--

"'The fact is, my lord, I am engaged to dine at the next
house--and--and----'

"'And, sir, you thought you might as well save your own dinner by
spoiling mine?'

"'Exactly so, my lord, but----'

"'Sir, I wish you a good evening.'"

Smith was rather fond of a joke on his own branch of the profession; he always gave a peculiar emphasis to the line in his song on the contradiction of names:

"Mr. Makepeace was bred an attorney;"

and would frequently quote Goldsmith's lines on Hickey, the associate of Burke and other distinguished cotemporaries:

"He cherished his friend, and he relished a bumper;
Yet one fault he had, and that was a thumper,
Then, what was his failing? come, tell it, and burn ye:
He was, could he help it? a special attorney."

The following playful colloquy in verse took place at a dinner-table between Sir George Rose and himself, in allusion to Craven-street, Strand, where he resided:--

"_J. S._--'At the top of my street the attorneys abound.
And down at the bottom the barges are found:
Fly, Honesty, fly to some safer retreat,
For there's craft in the river, and craft in the street.'"

"_Sir G. R._--'Why should Honesty fly to some safer retreat,
From attorneys and barges, od rot 'em?
For the lawyers are _just_ at the top of the street,
And the barges are _just_ at the bottom.'"

* * * * *

CONTEMPORARY COPYRIGHTS.

The late Mr. Tegg, the publisher in Cheapside, gave the following list of remunerative payments to distinguished authors in his time; and he is believed to have taken considerable pains to verify the items:

Fragments of History, by Charles Fox, sold by Lord Holland, for 5000 guineas. Fragments of History, by Sir James Mackintosh, 500_l._ Lingard's History of England, 4683_l._ Sir Walter Scott's Bonaparte was sold, with the printed books, for 18,000_l._; the net receipts of copyright on the first two editions only must have been 10,000_l._ Life of Wilberforce, by his sons, 4000 guineas. Life of Byron, by Moore, 4000_l._ Life of Sheridan, by Moore, 2000_l._ Life of Hannah More, 2000_l._ Life of Cowper, by Southey, 1000_l._ Life and Times of George IV., by Lady C. Bury, 1000_l._ Byron's Works, 20,000_l._ Lord of the Isles, half share, 1500_l._ Lalla Rookh, by Moore, 3000_l._ Rejected Addresses, by Smith, 1000_l._ Crabbe's Works, republication of, by Mr. Murray, 3000_l._ Wordsworth's Works, republication of, by Mr. Moxon, 1050_l._ Bulwer's Rienzi, 1600_l._ Marryat's Novels, 500_l._ to 1500_l._ each. Trollope's Factory Boy, 1800_l._ Hannah More derived 30,000_l._ per annum for her copyrights, during the latter years of her life. Rundell's Domestic Cookery, 2000_l._ Nicholas Nickleby, 3000_l._ Eustace's Classical Tour, 2100_l._ Sir Robert Inglis obtained for the beautiful and interesting widow of Bishop Heber, by the sale of his journal, 5000_l._

* * * * *

MISS BURNEY'S "EVELINA."

The story of _Evelina_ being printed when the authoress was but seventeen years old is proved to have been sheer invention, to trumpet the work into notoriety; since it has no more truth in it than a paid-for newspaper puff. The year of Miss Burney's birth was long involved in studied obscurity, and thus the deception lasted, until one fine day it was ascertained, by reference to the register of the authoress' birth, that she was a woman of six or seven-and-twenty, instead of a "Miss in her teens," when she wrote _Evelina_. The story of her father's utter ignorance of the work being written by her, and recommending her to read it, as an exception to the novel class, has also been essentially modified. Miss Burney, (then Madame D'Arblay,) is said to have taken the characters in her novel of _Camilla_ from the family of Mr. Lock, of Norbury Park, who built for Gen. D'Arblay the villa in which the work was written, and which to this day is called "Camilla Lacy." By this novel, Madame D'Arblay is said to have realized 3000 guineas.

* * * * *

EPITAPH ON CHARLES LAMB.

Lamb lies buried in Edmonton churchyard, and the stone bears the following lines to his memory, written by his friend, the Rev. H. F. Cary, the erudite translator of _Dante_ and _Pindar_:--

"Farewell, dear friend!--that smile, that harmless mirth,
No more shall gladden our domestic hearth;
That rising tear, with pain forbid to flow--
Better than words--no more assuage our woe.
That hand outstretch'd from small but well-earned store
Yield succour to the destitute no more.
Yet art thou not all lost: through many an age,
With sterling sense and humour, shall thy page
Win many an English bosom, pleased to see
That old and happier vein revived in thee.
This for our earth; and if with friends we share
Our joys in heaven, we hope to meet thee there."

Lamb survived his earliest friend and school-fellow, Coleridge, only a few months. One morning he showed to a friend the mourning ring which the author of _Christabelle_ had left him. "Poor fellow!" exclaimed Lamb, "I have never ceased to think of him from the day I first heard of his death." Lamb died in _five days after_--December 27, 1834, in his fifty-ninth year.

* * * * *

"TOM CRINGLE'S LOG."

The author of this very successful work, (originally published in _Blackwood's Magazine_,) was a Mr. Mick Scott, born in Edinburgh in 1789, and educated at the High School. Several years of his life were spent in the West Indies. He ultimately married, returned to his native country, and there embarked in commercial speculations, in the leisure between which he wrote the _Log_. Notwithstanding its popularity in Europe and America, the author preserved his incognito to the last. He survived his publisher for some years, and it was not till Mr. Scott's death that the sons of Mr. Blackwood were aware of his name.

* * * * *

CHANCES FOR THE DRAMA.

The royal patent, by which the performance of the regular drama was restricted to certain theatres, does not appear to have fostered this class of writing. Dr. Johnson forced Goldsmith's _She Stoops to Conquer_ into the theatre. Tobin died regretting that he could not succeed in hearing the _Honeymoon_ performed. Lillo produced _George Barnwell_ (an admirably written play) at an irregular theatre, after it had been rejected by the holders of the patents. _Douglas_ was cast on Home's hands. Fielding was introduced as a dramatist at an unlicensed house; and one of Mrs. Inchbald's popular comedies had lain two years neglected, when, by a trifling accident, she was able to obtain the manager's _approval_.

* * * * *

FULLER'S MEMORY.

Marvellous anecdotes are related of Dr. Thomas Fuller's memory. Thus, it is stated that he undertook once, in passing to and from Temple Bar to the farthest conduit in Cheapside, to tell at his return every sign as they stood in order on both sides of the way, repeating them either backward or forward. This must have been a great feat, seeing that every house then bore a sign. Yet, Fuller himself decried this kind of thing as a trick, no art. He relates that one (who since wrote a book thereof) told him, before credible people, that he, in Sidney College, had taught him (Fuller) the art of memory. Fuller replied that it was not so, for _he could not remember that he had ever seen him before;_ "which, I conceive," adds Fuller, "was a real refutation;" and we think so, too.

* * * * *

LORD HERVEY'S WIT.

Horace Walpole records Lord Hervey's memorable saying about Lord Burlington's pretty villa at Chiswick, now the Duke of Devonshire's, that it was "too small to inhabit, and too large to hang to your watch;" and Lady Louisa Stuart has preserved a piece of dandyism in eating, which even Beau Brummell might have envied--"When asked at dinner whether he would have some beef, he answered, 'Beef? oh, no! faugh! don't you know I never eat beef, nor horse, nor any of those things?'"--The man that said these things was the successful lover of the prettiest maid of honour to the Princess of Wales--the person held up to everlasting ridicule by Pope--the vice-chamberlain whose attractions engaged the affections of the daughter of the Sovereign he served; and the peer whose wit was such that it "charmed the charming Mary Montague."

* * * * *

ANACREONTIC INVITATION, BY MOORE.

The following, one of the latest productions of the poet Moore, addressed to the Marquis of Lansdowne, shows that though by that time inclining to threescore and ten, he retained all the fire and vivacity of early youth. It is full of those exquisitely apt allusions and felicitous turns of expression in which the English Anacreon excels. It breathes the very spirit of classic festivity. Such an invitation to dinner is enough to create an appetite in any lover of poetry:--

"Some think we bards have nothing real--
That poets live among the stars, so
Their very dinners are ideal,--
(And heaven knows, too oft they are so:)
For instance, that we have, instead
Of vulgar chops and stews, and hashes,
First course,--a phoenix at the head,
Done in its own celestial ashes:
At foot, a cygnet, which kept singing
All the time its neck was wringing.
Side dishes, thus,--Minerva's owl,
Or any such like learned fowl;
Doves, such as heaven's poulterer gets
When Cupid shoots his mother's pets.
Larks stew'd in morning's roseate breath,
Or roasted by a sunbeam's splendour;
And nightingales, be-rhymed to death--
Like young pigs whipp'd to make them tender
Such fare may suit those bards who're able
To banquet at Duke Humphrey's table;
But as for me, who've long been taught
To eat and drink like other people,
And can put up with mutton, bought
Where Bromham rears its ancient steeple;
If Lansdowne will consent to share
My humble feast, though rude the fare
Yet, seasoned by that salt he brings
From Attica's salinest springs,
'Twill turn to dainties; while the cup,
Beneath his influence brightening up,
Like that of Baucis, touched by Jove,
Will sparkle fit for gods above!"

* * * * *

THE POETS IN A PUZZLE.

Cottle, in his Life of Coleridge, relates the following amusing incident:--

"I led the horse to the stable, when a fresh perplexity arose. I removed the harness without difficulty; but, after many strenuous attempts, I could not remove the collar. In despair, I called for assistance, when aid soon drew near. Mr. Wordsworth brought his ingenuity into exercise; but, after several unsuccessful efforts, he relinquished the achievement, as a thing altogether impracticable. Mr. Coleridge now tried his hand, but showed no more grooming skill than his predecessors; for, after twisting the poor horse's neck almost to strangulation and the great danger of his eyes, he gave up the useless task, pronouncing that the horse's head must have grown (gout or dropsy?) since the collar was put on; for he said 'it was a downright impossibility for such a huge _os frontis_ to pass through so narrow a collar!' Just at this instant, a servant-girl came near, and, understanding the cause of our consternation, 'La! master,' said she, 'you don't go about the work in the right way. You should do like this,' when, turning the collar completely upside down, she slipped it off in a moment, to our great humiliation and wonderment, each satisfied afresh that there were heights of knowledge in the world to which we had not yet attained."

* * * * *

SALE OF MAGAZINES.

Sir John Hawkins, in his "Memoirs of Johnson," ascribes the decline of literature to the ascendancy of frivolous Magazines, between the years 1740 and 1760. He says that they render smatterers conceited, and confer the superficial glitter of knowledge instead of its substance.

Sir Richard Phillips, upwards of forty years a publisher, gives the following evidence as to the sale of the Magazines in his time:--

"For my own part, I know that in 1790, and for many years previously, there were sold of the trifle called the _Town and Country Magazine_, full 15,000 copies per month; and, of another, the _Ladies' Magazine_, from 16,000 to 22,000. Such circumstances were, therefore, calculated to draw forth the observations of Hawkins. _The Gentleman's Magazine_, in its days of popular extracts, never rose above 10,000; after it became more decidedly antiquarian, it fell in sale, and continued for many years at 3000.

"The veriest trifles, and only such, move the mass of minds which compose the public. The sale of the _Town and Country Magazine_ was created by a fictitious article, called _Bon-Ton_, in which were given the pretended amours of two personages, imagined to be real, with two sham portraits. The idea was conceived, and, for above twenty years, was executed by Count Carraccioli; but, on his death, about 1792, the article lost its spirit, and within seven years the magazine was discontinued. The _Ladies' Magazine_ was, in like manner, sustained by love-tales and its low price of sixpence, which, till after 1790, was the general price of magazines."