Chapter IV: Part 4

Amid these eccentricities it is remarkable that "the Zany" never forsook his studies; and the amazing multiplicity of the MSS. he left behind him confirm this extraordinary fact. "These," he says, "are six thousand more or less, that I value at one guinea apiece; with 150 volumes of commonplaces of wit, memoranda," &c. They were sold for much less than one hundred pounds; I have looked over many; they are written with great care. Every leaf has an opposite blank page, probably left for additions or corrections, so that if his nonsense were spontaneous, his sense was the fruit of study and correction.

Such was "Orator Henley!" A scholar of great acquirements, and of no mean genius; hardy and inventive, eloquent and witty; he might have been an ornament to literature, which he made ridiculous; and the pride of the pulpit, which he so egregiously disgraced; but, having blunted and worn out that interior feeling, which is the instinct of the good man, and the wisdom of the wise, there was no balance in his passions, and the decorum of life was sacrificed to its selfishness. He condescended to live on the follies of the people, and his sordid nature had changed him till he crept, "licking the dust with the serpent."[57]

FOOTNOTES:

[43] So little is known of this singular man, that Mr. Dibdin, in his
very curious "Bibliomania," was not able to recollect any
other details than those he transcribed from Warburton's
"Commentary on the Dunciad." In Mr. Nichols' "History of
Leicestershire" a more copious account of Henley may be found;
to their facts something is here added. It was, however,
difficult to glean after so excellent a harvest-home. To the
author of the "Life of Bowyer," and other works devoted to our
authors, our literary history is more indebted, than to the
labours of any other contemporary. He is the Prosper Marchand
of English literature.

[44] It is, perhaps, unnecessary to point out this allusion of Pope
to our ancient _mysteries_, where the _Clergy_ were the
_actors_; among which, the _Vice_ or _Punch_ was introduced.
(See "Curiosities of Literature.")

[45] Specimens of Henley's style may be most easily referred to in
the "Spectator," Nos. 94 and 518. The communication on
punning, in the first; and that of judging character by
exteriors, in the last; are both attributed to Henley.--ED.

[46] The title is, "Esther, Queen of Persia, an historical Poem, in
four books; by John Henley, B.A. of St. John's College,
Cambridge. 1714."

[47] Many of the rough drafts of his famed discourses delivered at
the Oratory are preserved in the library of the Guildhall,
London. The advertisements he drew up for the papers,
announcing their subject, are generally exceedingly whimsical,
and calculated to attract popular attention.--ED.

[48] This narrative is subscribed A. Welstede. Warburton maliciously
quotes it as a life of Henley, written by Welsted--doubtless
designed to lower the writer of that name, and one of the
heroes of the Dunciad. The public have long been deceived by
this artifice; the effect, I believe, of Warburton's
dishonesty.

[49] Every lecture is dedicated to some branch of the royal family.
Among them one is on "University Learning," an attack.--"On
the English History and Historians," extremely curious.--"On
the Languages, Ancient and Modern," full of erudition.--"On
the English Tongue," a valuable criticism at that moment when
our style was receiving a new polish from Addison and Prior.
Henley, acknowledging that these writers had raised
_correctness_ of expression to its utmost height, adds,
though, "if I mistake not, something to the detriment of that
_force_ and _freedom_ that ought, with the most concealed art,
to be a perfect copy of nature in all compositions." This is
among the first notices of that artificial style which has
vitiated our native idiom, substituting for its purity an
affected delicacy, and for its vigour profuse ornament. Henley
observes that, "to be perspicuous, pure, elegant, copious, and
harmonious, are the chief good qualities of writing the
English tongue; they are attained by study and practice, and
lost by the contrary: but _imitation_ is to be avoided; they
cannot be made our own but by keeping the force of our
understandings superior to our models; by _rendering our
thoughts the original, and our words the copy_."--"On Wit and
Imagination," abounding with excellent criticism.--"On grave
conundrums and serious buffoons, in defence of burlesque
discourses, from the most weighty authorities."--"A
Dissertation upon Nonsense." At the close he has a fling at
his friend Pope; it was after the publication of the Dunciad.
"Of Nonsense there are celebrated professors; Mr. Pope grows
witty like Bays in the 'Rehearsal,' by selling bargains (his
subscriptions for Homer), praising himself, laughing at his
joke, and making his own works the test of any man's
criticism; but he seems to be in some jeopardy; for the ghost
of Homer has lately spoke to him in Greek, and Shakspeare
resolves to bring him, as he has brought Shakspeare, to a
tragical conclusion. Mr. Pope suggests the last choice of a
subject for writing a book, by making the _Nonsense_ of others
his argument; while his own puts it out of any writer's power
to confute him." In another fling at Pope, he gives the reason
why Mr. Pope adds the dirty dialect to that of the water, and
is in love with the Nymphs of Fleet ditch; and in a lecture on
the spleen he announced "an anatomical discovery, that Mr.
Pope's spleen is bigger than his head!"

[50] Thus he anticipated the term, since become so notorious among
German theologians.

[51] It is preserved in the "Historical Register," vol. xi. for 1726.
It is curious and well written.

[52] "Gentleman's Magazine," vol. lvii. p. 876.

[53] His "Defence of the Oratory" is a curious performance. He
pretends to derive his own from great authority. "St. Paul
is related, Acts 28, to have dwelt _two whole years in his
own hired house_, and to have received all that came in
unto him, teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus
Christ with all confidence, no man forbidding him. This
was at _Rome_, and doubtless was his practice in his other
travels, there being the same reason in the thing to produce
elsewhere the like circumstances." He proceeds to show
"the calumnies and reproaches, and the novelty and impiety,
with which Christianity, at its first setting out, was
charged, as a mean, abject institution, not only useless
and unserviceable, but pernicious to the public and its
professors, as the refuse of the world."--Of the false
accusations raised against Jesus--all this he applies to
himself and his oratory--and he concludes, that "Bringing
men to think rightly will always be reckoned a depraving
of their minds by those who are desirous to keep them in a
mistake, and who measure all truth by the standard of their
own narrow opinions, views, and passions. The principles of
this institution are those of right reason: the first ages
of Christianity; true facts, clear criticism, and polite
literature--if these corrupt the mind, to find a place where
the mind will not be corrupted will be impracticable."
Thus speciously could "the Orator" reason, raising himself to
the height of apostolical purity. And when he was accused
that he _did all for lucre_, he retorted, that "some _do
nothing_ for it;" and that "he preached more charity sermons
than any clergyman in the kingdom."

[54] He once advertised an oration on marriage, which drew together
an overflowing assembly of females, at which, solemnly shaking
his head, he told the ladies, that "he was afraid, that
oftentimes, as well as now, they came to church in hopes to
get husbands, rather than be instructed by the preacher;" to
which he added a piece of wit not quite decent. He congregated
the trade of shoemakers, by offering to show the most
expeditious method of making shoes: he held out a boot, and
cut off the leg part. He gave a lecture, which he advertised
was "for the instruction of those who do not like it; it was
on the philosophy, history, and great use of _Nonsense_ to the
learned, political, and polite world, who excel in it."

[55] Dr. Cobden, one of George the Second's chaplains, having, in
1748, preached a sermon at St. James's from these words, "Take
away the wicked from before the king, and his throne shall be
established in righteousness," it gave so much displeasure,
that the doctor was struck out of the list of chaplains; and
the next Saturday the following parody of his text appeared as
a motto to Henley's advertisement:

"Away with the wicked before the king,
And away with the wicked behind him;
His throne it will bless
With righteousness,
And we shall know where to find him."
CHALMER'S "Biographical Dictionary."

[56] The history of the closing years of Henley's life is thus given
in "The History of the Robin Hood Society," 1764, a political
club, whose debates he occasionally enlivened:--"The Orator,
with various success, still kept up his _Oratory_, _King
George's_, or _Charles's Chapel_, as he differently termed it,
till the year 1759, when he died. At its first establishment
it was amazingly crowded, and money flowed in upon him apace;
and between whiles it languished and drooped: but for some
years before its author's death it dwindled away so much, and
fell into such an hectic state, that the few friends of it
feared its decease was very near. The doctor, indeed, kept it
up to the last, determined it should live as long as he did,
and actually exhibited many evenings to empty benches. Finding
no one at length would attend, he admitted the acquaintances
of his door-keeper, runner, mouth-piece, and some other of his
followers, gratis. On the 13th of October, however, the doctor
died, and the Oratory ceased; no one having iniquity or
impudence sufficient to continue it on."--ED.

[57] Hogarth has preserved his features in the parson who figures so
conspicuously in his "Modern Midnight Conversation." His
off-hand style of discourse is given in the _Gray's-Inn
Journal_, 1753 (No. 18), in an imaginary meeting of the
political Robin Hood Society, where he figures as Orator Bronze,
and exclaims:--"I am pleased to see this assembly--you're a
twig from me; a chip of the old block at Clare Market;--I am
the old block, invincible; _coup de grace_ as yet unanswered.
We are brother rationalists; logicians upon fundamentals! I
love ye all--I love mankind in general--give me some of that
porter."--ED.

THE MALADIES OF AUTHORS.

The practice of every art subjects the artist to some particular inconvenience, usually inflicting some malady on that member which has been over-wrought by excess: nature abused, pursues man into his most secret corners, and avenges herself. In the athletic exercises of the ancient Gymnasium, the pugilists were observed to become lean from their hips downwards, while the superior parts of their bodies, which they over-exercised, were prodigiously swollen; on the contrary, the racers were meagre upwards, while their feet acquired an unnatural dimension. The secret source of life seems to be carried forwards to those parts which are making the most continued efforts.

In all sedentary labours, some particular malady is contracted by every worker, derived from particular postures of the body and peculiar habits. Thus the weaver, the tailor, the painter, and the glass-blower, have all their respective maladies. The diamond-cutter, with a furnace before him, may be said almost to live in one; the slightest air must be shut out of the apartment, lest it scatter away the precious dust--a breath would ruin him!

The analogy is obvious;[58] and the author must participate in the common fate of all sedentary occupations. But his maladies, from the very nature of the delicate organ of thinking, intensely exercised, are more terrible than those of any other profession; they are more complicated, more hidden in their causes, and the mysterious union and secret influence of the faculties of the soul over those of the body, are visible, yet still incomprehensible; they frequently produce a perturbation in the faculties, a state of acute irritability, and many sorrows and infirmities, which are not likely to create much sympathy from those around the author, who, at a glance, could have discovered where the pugilist or the racer became meagre or monstrous: the intellectual malady eludes even the tenderness of friendship.

The more obvious maladies engendered by the life of a student arise from over-study. These have furnished a curious volume to Tissot, in his treatise "On the Health of Men of Letters;" a book, however, which chills and terrifies more than it does good.

The unnatural fixed postures, the perpetual activity of the mind, and the inaction of the body; the brain exhausted with assiduous toil deranging the nerves, vitiating the digestive powers, disordering its own machinery, and breaking the calm of sleep by that previous state of excitement which study throws us into, are some of the calamities of a studious life: for like the ocean when its swell is subsiding, the waves of the mind too still heave and beat; hence all the small feverish symptoms, and the whole train of hypochondriac affections, as well as some acute ones.[59]

Among the correspondents of the poets Hughes and Thomson, there is a pathetic letter from a student. Alexander Bayne, to prepare his lectures, studied fourteen hours a-day for eight months successively, and wrote 1,600 sheets. Such intense application, which, however, not greatly exceeds that of many authors, brought on the bodily complaints he has minutely described, with "all the dispiriting symptoms of a nervous illness, commonly called vapours, or lowness of spirits." Bayne, who was of an athletic temperament, imagined he had not paid attention to his diet, to the lowness of his desk, and his habit of sitting with a particular compression of the body; in future all these were to be avoided. He prolonged his life for five years, and, perhaps, was still flattering his hopes of sharing one day in the literary celebrity of his friends, when, to use his words, "the same illness made a fierce attack upon me again, and has kept me in a very bad state of inactivity and disrelish of all my ordinary amusements:" those _amusements_ were his serious _studies_. There is a fascination in literary labour: the student feeds on magical drugs; to withdraw him from them requires nothing less than that greater magic which could break his own spells. A few months after this letter was written Bayne died on the way to Bath, a martyr to his studies.

The excessive labour on a voluminous work, which occupies a long life, leaves the student with a broken constitution, and his sight decayed or lost. The most admirable observer of mankind, and the truest painter of the human heart, declares, "The corruptible body presseth down the soul, and the earthy tabernacle weigheth down the _mind that museth on many things_." Of this class was old Randle Cotgrave, the curious collector of the most copious dictionary of old French and old English words and phrases. The work is the only treasury of our genuine idiom. Even this labour of the lexicographer, so copious and so elaborate, must have been projected with rapture, and pursued with pleasure, till, in the progress, "the mind was musing on many things." Then came the melancholy doubt, that drops mildew from its enveloping wings over the voluminous labour of a laborious author, whether he be wisely consuming his days, and not perpetually neglecting some higher duties or some happier amusements. Still the enchanted delver sighs, and strikes on in the glimmering mine of hope. If he live to complete the great labour, it is, perhaps, reserved for the applause of the next age; for, as our great lexicographer exclaimed, "In this gloom of solitude I have protracted my work, till those whom I wished to please have sunk into the grave, and success and miscarriage are empty sounds;" but, if it be applauded in his own, that praise has come too late for him whose literary labour has stolen away his sight. Cotgrave had grown blind over his dictionary, and was doubtful whether this work of his laborious days and nightly vigils was not a superfluous labour, and nothing, after all, but a "poor bundle of words." The reader may listen to the gray-headed martyr addressing his patron, Lord Burghley:

"I present to your lordship an account of the _expense of many hours_, which, in your service, and to mine own benefit, _might have been otherwise employed_. My desires have aimed at more substantial marks; but _mine eyes_ failed them, and forced me to _spend out their vigour in this bundle of words_, which may be unworthy of your lordship's great patience, and, perhaps, _ill-suited to the expectation of others_."

A great number of young authors have died of over-study. An intellectual enthusiasm, accompanied by constitutional delicacy, has swept away half the rising genius of the age. Curious calculators have affected to discover the average number of infants who die under the age of five years: had they investigated those of the children of genius who perish before their thirtieth year, we should not be less amazed at this waste of man. There are few scenes more afflicting, nor which more deeply engage our sympathy, than that of a youth, glowing with the devotion of study, and resolute to distinguish his name among his countrymen, while death is stealing on him, touching with premature age, before he strikes the last blow. The author perishes on the very pages which give a charm to his existence. The fine taste and tender melancholy of Headley, the fervid genius of Henry Kirke White, will not easily pass away; but how many youths as noble-minded have not had the fortune of Kirke White to be commemorated by genius, and have perished without their fame! Henry Wharton is a name well known to the student of English literature; he published historical criticisms of high value; and he left, as some of the fruits of his studies, sixteen volumes of MS., preserved in the Archiepiscopal Library at Lambeth. These great labours were pursued with the ardour that only could have produced them; the author had not exceeded his thirtieth year when he sank under his continued studies, and perished a martyr to literature. Our literary history abounds with instances of the sad effects of an over indulgence in study: that agreeable writer, Howel, had nearly lost his life by an excess of this nature, studying through long nights in the depth of winter. This severe study occasioned an imposthume in his head; he was eighteen days without sleep; and the illness was attended with many other afflicting symptoms. The eager diligence of Blackmore, protracting his studies through the night, broke his health, and obliged him to fly to a country retreat. Harris, the historian, died of a consumption by midnight studies, as his friend Hollis mentions. I shall add a recent instance, which I myself witnessed: it is that of John Macdiarmid. He was one of those Scotch students whom the golden fame of Hume and Robertson attracted to the metropolis. He mounted the first steps of literary adventure with credit; and passed through the probation of editor and reviewer, till he strove for more heroic adventures. He published some volumes, whose subjects display the aspirings of his genius: "An Inquiry into the Nature of Civil and Military Subordination;" another into "the System of Military Defence." It was during these labours I beheld this inquirer, of a tender frame, emaciated, and study-worn, with hollow eyes, where the mind dimly shone like a lamp in a tomb. With keen ardour he opened a new plan of biographical politics. When, by one who wished the author was in better condition, the dangers of excess in study were brought to his recollection, he smiled, and, with something of a mysterious air, talked of unalterable confidence in the powers of his mind; of the indefinite improvement in our faculties: and, with this enfeebled frame, considered himself capable of continuous labour. His whole life, indeed, was one melancholy trial. Often the day cheerfully passed without its meal, but never without its page. The new system of political biography was advancing, when our young author felt a paralytic stroke. He afterwards resumed his pen; and a second one proved fatal. He lived just to pass through the press his "Lives of British Statesmen," a splendid quarto, whose publication he owed to the generous temper of a friend, who, when the author could not readily procure a publisher, would not see the dying author's last hope disappointed. Some research and reflection are combined in this literary and civil history of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; but it was written with the blood of the author, for Macdiarmid died of over-study and exhaustion.

Among the maladies of poor authors, who procure a precarious existence by their pen, one, not the least considerable, is their old age; their flower and maturity of life were shed for no human comforts; and old age is the withered root. The late THOMAS MORTIMER, the compiler, among other things, of that useful work, "The Student's Pocket Dictionary," felt this severely--he himself experienced no abatement of his ardour, nor deficiency in his intellectual powers, at near the age of eighty;--but he then would complain "of the paucity of literary employment, and the preference given to young adventurers." Such is the _youth_, and such the _old age_ of ordinary authors!

FOOTNOTES:

[58] Hawkesworth, in the second paper of the "Adventurer," has
composed, from his own feelings, an elegant description of
intellectual and corporeal labour, and the sufferings of an
author, with the uncertainty of his labour and his reward.

[59] Dr. Fuller's "Medicina Gymnastica, or, a treatise concerning the
power of Exercise, with respect to the Animal OEconomy, fifth
edition, 1718," is useful to remind the student of what he is
apt to forget; for the object of this volume is to _substitute
exercise for medicine_. He wrote the book before he became a
physician. He considers horse-riding as the best and noblest
of all exercises, it being "a mixed exercise, partly active
and partly passive, while other sorts, such as walking,
running, stooping, or the like, require some labour and more
strength for their performance." Cheyne, in his well-known
treatise of "The English Malady," published about twenty years
after Fuller's work, acknowledges that riding on horseback is
the best of all exercises, for which he details his reasons.
"Walking," he says, "though it will answer the same end, yet
is it more laborious and tiresome;" but amusement ought always
to be combined with the exercise of a student; the mind will
receive no refreshment by a solitary walk or ride, unless it
be agreeably withdrawn from all thoughtfulness and anxiety; if
it continue studying in its recreations, it is the sure means
of obtaining neither of its objects--a friend, not an author,
will at such a moment be the better companion.

The last chapter in Fuller's work contains much curious
reading on the ancient physicians, and their gymnastic
courses, which Asclepiades, the pleasantest of all the ancient
physicians, greatly studied; he was most fortunate in the
invention of exercises to supply the place of much physic, and
(says Fuller) no man in any age ever had the happiness to
obtain so general an applause; Pliny calls him the delight of
mankind. Admirable physician, who had so many ways, it
appears, to make physic agreeable! He invented the _lecti
pensiles_, or hanging beds, that the sick might be rocked to
sleep; which took so much at that time, that they became a
great luxury among the Romans.

Fuller judiciously does not recommend the gymnastic courses,
because horse-riding, for persons of delicate constitutions,
is preferable; he discovers too the reason why the ancients
did not introduce this mode of exercise--it arose from the
simple circumstance of their not knowing the use of stirrups,
which was a later invention. Riding with the ancients was,
therefore, only an exercise for the healthy and the robust; a
horse without stirrups was a formidable animal for a
valetudinarian.

LITERARY SCOTCHMEN.

What literary emigrations from the North of young men of genius, seduced by a romantic passion for literary fame, and lured by the golden prospects which the happier genius of some of their own countrymen opened on them. A volume might be written on literary Scotchmen, who have perished immaturely in this metropolis; little known, and slightly connected, they have dropped away among us, and scarcely left a vestige in the wrecks of their genius. Among them some authors may be discovered who might have ranked, perhaps, in the first classes of our literature. I shall select four out of as many hundred, who were not entirely unknown to me; a romantic youth--a man of genius--a brilliant prose writer--and a labourer in literature.

ISSAC RITSON (not the poetical antiquary) was a young man of genius, who perished immaturely in this metropolis by attempting to exist by the efforts of his pen.

In early youth he roved among his native mountains, with the battles of Homer in his head, and his bow and arrow in his hand; in calmer hours, he nearly completed a spirited version of Hesiod, which constantly occupied his after-studies; yet our minstrel-archer did not less love the severer sciences.

Selected at length to rise to the eminent station of the Village Schoolmaster,--from the thankless office of pouring cold rudiments into heedless ears, RITSON took a poetical flight. It was among the mountains and wild scenery of Scotland that our young Homer, picking up fragments of heroic songs, and composing some fine ballad poetry, would, in his wanderings, recite them with such passionate expression, that he never failed of auditors; and found even the poor generous, when their better passions were moved. Thus he lived, like some old troubadour, by his rhymes, and his chants, and his virelays; and, after a year's absence, our bard returned in the triumph of verse. This was the most seducing moment of life; RITSON felt himself a laureated Petrarch; but he had now quitted his untutored but feeling admirers, and the child of fancy was to mix with the everyday business of life.

At Edinburgh he studied medicine, lived by writing theses for the idle and the incompetent, and composed a poem on Medicine, till at length his hopes and his ambition conducted him to London. But the golden age of the imagination soon deserted him in his obscure apartment in the glittering metropolis. He attended the hospitals, but these were crowded by students who, if they relished the science less, loved the trade more: he published a hasty version of Homer's Hymn to Venus, which was good enough to be praised, but not to sell; at length his fertile imagination, withering over the taskwork of literature, he resigned fame for bread; wrote the preface to Clarke's Survey of the Lakes, compiled medical articles for the Monthly Review; and, wasting fast his ebbing spirits, he retreated to an obscure lodging at Islington, where death relieved a hopeless author, in the twenty-seventh year of his life.

The following unpolished lines were struck off at a heat in trying his pen on the back of a letter; he wrote the names of the Sister Fates, Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos--the sudden recollection of his own fate rushed on him--and thus the rhapsodist broke out:--

I wonder much, as yet ye're spinning, Fates!
What threads yet twisted out for me, old jades!
Ah, Atropos! perhaps for me thou spinn'st
Neglect, contempt, and penury and woe;
Be't so; whilst that foul fiend, the spleen,
And moping melancholy spare me, all the rest
I'll bear, as should a man; 'twill do me good,
And teach me what no better fortune could,
Humility, and sympathy with others' ills.
--------------Ye destinies,
I love you much; ye flatter not my pride.
Your mien, 'tis true, is wrinkled, hard, and sour;
Your words are harsh and stern; and sterner still
Your purposes to me. Yet I forgive
Whatever you have done, or mean to do.
Beneath some baleful planet born, I've found,
In all this world, no friend with fostering hand
To lead me on to science, which I love
Beyond all else the world could give; yet still
Your rigour I forgive; ye are not yet my foes;
My own untutor'd will's my only curse.
We grasp asphaltic apples; blooming poison!
We love what we should hate; how kind, ye Fates,
To thwart our wishes! O you're kind to scourge!
And flay us to the bone to make us feel!--

Thus deeply he enters into his own feelings, and abjures his errors, as he paints the utter desolation of the soul while falling into the grave opening at his feet.

The town was once amused almost every morning by a series of humorous or burlesque poems by a writer under the assumed name of _Matthew Bramble_--he was at that very moment one of the most moving spectacles of human melancholy I have ever witnessed.

It was one evening I saw a tall, famished, melancholy man enter a bookseller's shop, his hat flapped over his eyes, and his whole frame evidently feeble from exhaustion and utter misery. The bookseller inquired how he proceeded in his new tragedy. "Do not talk to me about my tragedy! Do not talk to me about my tragedy! I have indeed more tragedy than I can bear at home!" was the reply, and the voice faltered as he spoke. This man was Matthew Bramble, or rather--M'DONALD, the author of the tragedy of Vimonda, at that moment the writer of comic poetry--his tragedy was indeed a domestic one, in which he himself was the greatest actor amid his disconsolate family; he shortly afterwards perished. M'Donald had walked from Scotland with no other fortune than the novel of "The Independent" in one pocket, and the tragedy of "Vimonda" in the other. Yet he lived some time in all the bloom and flush of poetical confidence. Vimonda was even performed several nights, but not with the success the romantic poet, among his native rocks, had conceived was to crown his anxious labours--the theatre disappointed him--and afterwards, to his feelings, all the world!

LOGAN had the dispositions of a poetic spirit, not cast in a common mould; with fancy he combined learning, and with eloquence philosophy.

His claims on our sympathy arise from those circumstances in his life which open the secret sources of the calamities of authors; of those minds of finer temper, who, having tamed the heat of their youth by the patient severity of study, from causes not always difficult to discover, find their favourite objects and their fondest hopes barren and neglected. It is then that the thoughtful melancholy, which constitutes so large a portion of their genius, absorbs and consumes the very faculties to which it gave birth.

Logan studied at the University of Edinburgh, was ordained in the Church of Scotland--and early distinguished as a poet by the simplicity and the tenderness of his verses, yet the philosophy of history had as deeply interested his studies. He gave two courses of lectures. I have heard from his pupils their admiration, after the lapse of many years; so striking were those lectures for having successfully applied the science of moral philosophy to the history of nations. All wished that Logan should obtain the chair of the Professorship of Universal History--but from some point of etiquette he failed in obtaining that distinguished office.

This was his first disappointment in life, yet then perhaps but lightly felt; for the public had approved of his poems, and a successful poet is easily consoled. Poetry to such a gentle being seems a universal specific for all the evils of life; it acts at the moment, exhausting and destroying too often the constitution it seems to restore.

He had finished the tragedy of "Runnymede;" it was accepted at Covent-garden, but interdicted by the Lord Chamberlain, from some suspicion that its lofty sentiments contained allusions to the politics of the day. The Barons-in-arms who met John were conceived to be deeper politicians than the poet himself was aware of. This was the second disappointment in the life of this man of genius.

The third calamity was the natural consequence of a tragic poet being also a Scotch clergyman. Logan had inflicted a wound on the Presbytery, heirs of the genius of old Prynne, whose puritanic fanaticism had never forgiven Home for his "Douglas," and now groaned to detect genius still lurking among them.[60] Logan, it is certain, expressed his contempt for them; they their hatred of him: folly and pride in a poet, to beard Presbyters in a land of Presbyterians![61]

He gladly abandoned them, retiring on a small annuity. They had, however, hurt his temper--they had irritated the nervous system of a man too susceptible of all impressions, gentle or unkind--his character had all those unequal habitudes which genius contracts in its boldness and its tremors; he was now vivacious and indignant, and now fretted and melancholy. He flew to the metropolis, occupied himself in literature, and was a frequent contributor to the "English Review." He published "A Review of the Principal Charges against Mr. Hastings." Logan wrestled with the genius of Burke and Sheridan; the House of Commons ordered the publisher Stockdale to be prosecuted, but the author did not live to rejoice in the victory obtained by his genius.

This elegant philosopher has impressed on all his works the seal of genius; and his posthumous compositions became even popular; he who had with difficulty escaped excommunication by Presbyters, left the world after his death two volumes of sermons, which breathe all that piety, morality, and eloquence admire. His unrevised lectures, published under the name of a person, one Rutherford, who had purchased the MS., were given to the world in "A View of Ancient History." But one highly-finished composition he had himself published; it is a philosophical review of Despotism: had the name of Gibbon been affixed to the title-page, its authenticity had not been suspected.[62]

From one of his executors, Mr. Donald Grant, who wrote the life prefixed to his poems, I heard of the state of his numerous MSS.; the scattered, yet warm embers of the unhappy bard. Several tragedies, and one on Mary Queen of Scots, abounding with all that domestic tenderness and poetic sensibility which formed the soft and natural feature of his muse; these, with minor poems, thirty lectures on the Roman History, and portions of a periodical paper, were the wrecks of genius! He resided here, little known out of a very private circle, and perished in his fortieth year, not of penury, but of a broken heart. Such noble and well-founded expectations of fortune and fame, all the plans of literary ambition overturned: his genius, with all its delicacy, its spirit, and its elegance, became a prey to that melancholy which constituted so large a portion of it.

Logan, in his "Ode to a Man of Letters," had formed this lofty conception of a great author:--

Won from neglected wastes of time,
Apollo hails his fairest clime,
The provinces of mind;
An Egypt with eternal towers;[63]
See Montesquieu redeem the hours
From Louis to mankind.

No tame remission genius knows,
No interval of dark repose,
To quench the ethereal flame;
From Thebes to Troy, the victor hies,
And Homer with his hero vies,
In varied paths to Fame.

Our children will long repeat his "Ode to the Cuckoo," one of the most lovely poems in our language; magical stanzas of picture, melody, and sentiment.[64]

These authors were undoubtedly men of finer feelings, who all perished immaturely, victims in the higher department of literature! But this article would not be complete without furnishing the reader with a picture of the fate of one who, with a pertinacity of industry not common, having undergone regular studies, not very injudiciously deemed that the life of a man of letters could provide for the simple wants of a philosopher.

This man was the late ROBERT HERON, who, in the following letter, transcribed from the original, stated his history to the Literary Fund. It was written in a moment of extreme bodily suffering and mental agony in the house to which he had been hurried for debt. At such a moment he found eloquence in a narrative, pathetic from its simplicity, and valuable for its genuineness, as giving the results of a life of literary industry, productive of great infelicity and disgrace; one would imagine that the author had been a criminal rather than a man of letters.

"_The Case of a Man of Letters, of regular education, living by honest literary industry._

"Ever since I was eleven years of age I have mingled with my studies the labour of teaching or of writing, to support and educate myself.

"During about twenty years, while I was in constant or occasional attendance at the University of Edinburgh, I taught and assisted young persons, at all periods, in the course of education; from the Alphabet to the highest branches of Science and Literature.

"I read a course of Lectures on the Law of Nature, the Law of Nations; the Jewish, the Grecian, the Roman, and the Canon Law; and then on the Feudal Law; and on the several forms of Municipal Jurisprudence established in Modern Europe. I printed a Syllabus of these Lectures, which was approved. They were intended as introductory to the professional study of Law, and to assist gentlemen who did not study it professionally, in the understanding of History.

"I translated 'Fourcroy's Chemistry' twice, from both the second and the third editions of the original; 'Fourcroy's Philosophy of Chemistry;' 'Savary's Travels in Greece;' 'Dumourier's Letters;' 'Gessner's Idylls' in part; an abstract of 'Zimmerman on Solitude,' and a great diversity of smaller pieces.

"I wrote a 'Journey through the Western Parts of Scotland,' which has passed through two editions; a 'History of Scotland,' in six volumes 8vo; a 'Topographical Account of Scotland,' which has been several times reprinted; a number of communications in the 'Edinburgh Magazine;' many Prefaces and Critiques; a 'Memoir of the Life of Burns the Poet,' which suggested and promoted the subscription for his family--has been many times reprinted, and formed the basis of Dr. Currie's Life of him, as I learned by a letter from the doctor to one of his friends; a variety of _Jeux d'Esprit_ in verse and prose; and many abridgments of large works.

"In the beginning of 1799 I was encouraged to come to London. Here I have written a great multiplicity of articles in almost every branch of science and literature; my education at Edinburgh having comprehended them all. The 'London Review,' the 'Agricultural Magazine,' the 'Anti-Jacobin Review,' the 'Monthly Magazine,' the 'Universal Magazine,' the 'Public Characters,' the 'Annual Necrology,' with several other periodical works, contain many of my communications. In such of those publications as have been reviewed, I can show that my anonymous pieces have been distinguished with very high praise. I have written also a short system of Chemistry, in one volume 8vo; and I published a few weeks since a small work called 'Comforts of Life,'[65] of which the first edition was sold in one week, and the second edition is now in rapid sale.

"In the Newspapers--the _Oracle_, the _Porcupine_ when it existed, the _General Evening Post_, the _Morning Post_, the _British Press_, the _Courier_, &c., I have published many Reports of Debates in Parliament, and, I believe, a greater variety of light fugitive pieces than I know to have been written by any one other person.

"I have written also a variety of compositions in the Latin and the French languages, in favour of which I have been honoured with the testimonies of liberal approbation.

"I have invariably written to serve the cause of religion, morality, pious christian education, and good order, in the most direct manner. I have considered what I have written as mere trifles; and have incessantly studied to qualify myself for something better. I can prove that I have, for many years, read and written, one day with another, from twelve to sixteen hours a day. As a human being, I have not been free from follies and errors. But the tenor of my life has been temperate, laborious, humble, quiet, and, to the utmost of my power, beneficent. I can prove the general tenor of my writings to have been candid, and ever adapted to exhibit the most favourable views of the abilities, dispositions, and exertions of others.

"For these last ten months I have been brought to the very extremity of bodily and pecuniary distress.

"I shudder at the thought of perishing in a gaol.

"_92, Chancery-lane, Feb. 2, 1807._

"(In confinement)."

The physicians reported that Robert Heron's health was such "as rendered him totally incapable of extricating himself from the difficulties in which he was involved, by the _indiscreet exertion of his mind, in protracted and incessant literary labours_."

About three months after, Heron sunk under a fever, and perished amid the walls of Newgate. We are disgusted with this horrid state of pauperism; we are indignant at beholding an author, not a contemptible one, in this last stage of human wretchedness! after early and late studies--after having read and written from twelve to sixteen hours a day! O, ye populace of scribblers! before ye are driven to a garret, and your eyes are filled with constant tears, pause--recollect that few of you possess the learning or the abilities of Heron.

The fate of Heron is the fate of hundreds of authors by profession in the present day--of men of some literary talent, who can never extricate themselves from a degrading state of poverty.

FOOTNOTES:

[60] Home was at the time when he wrote "Douglas" a clergyman in the
Scottish Church; the theatre was then looked upon by the
religious Scotsmen with the most perfect abhorrence. Many
means were taken to deter the performance of the play; and as
they did not succeed, others were tried to annoy the author,
until their persevering efforts induced him to withdraw
himself entirely from the clerical profession.--ED.

[61] The objection to his tragedy was made chiefly by his
parishioners at South Leith, who were strongly opposed to
their minister being in any way connected with the theatre. He
therefore resigned his appointment, and settled in London,
which he never afterwards abandoned, dying there in
1788.--ED.

[62] This admirable little work is entitled "A Dissertation on the
Governments, Manners, and Spirit of Asia; Murray, 1787." It is
anonymous; but the publisher informed me it was written by
Logan. His "Elements of the Philosophy of History" are
valuable. His "Sermons" have been republished.

[63] The finest provinces of Egypt gained from a neglected waste.

[64] An attempt has been made to deprive Logan of the authorship of
this poem. He had edited (very badly) the poems of a deceased
friend, Michael Bruce; and the friends of the latter claimed
this poem as one of them. In the words of one who has examined
the evidence it may be sufficient to say, "his claim is not
only supported by internal evidence, but the charge was never
advanced against him while he was alive to repel it."--ED.

[65] "The Comforts of Life" were written in prison; "The Miseries"
(by Jas. Beresford) necessarily in a drawing-room. The works
of authors are often in contrast with themselves; melancholy
authors are the most jocular, and the most humorous the most
melancholy.

LABORIOUS AUTHORS.

This is one of the groans of old BURTON over his laborious work, when he is anticipating the reception it is like to meet with, and personates his objectors. He says:--

"This is a thinge of meere industrie--a collection without wit or invention--a very toy! So men are valued!--their labours vilified by fellowes of no worth themselves, as things of nought; who could not have done as much."

There is, indeed, a class of authors who are liable to forfeit all claims to genius, whatever their genius may be--these are the laborious writers of voluminous works; but they are farther subject to heavier grievances--to be undervalued or neglected by the apathy or the ingratitude of the public.

Industry is often conceived to betray the absence of intellectual exertion, and the magnitude of a work is imagined necessarily to shut out all genius. Yet a laborious work has often had an original growth and raciness in it, requiring a genius whose peculiar feeling, like invisible vitality, is spread through the mighty body. Feeble imitations of such laborious works have proved the master's mind that is in the original. There is a talent in industry which every industrious man does not possess; and even taste and imagination may lead to the deepest studies of antiquities, as well as mere undiscerning curiosity and plodding dulness.

But there are other more striking characteristics of intellectual feeling in authors of this class. The fortitude of mind which enables them to complete labours of which, in many instances, they are conscious that the real value will only be appreciated by dispassionate posterity, themselves rarely living to witness the fame of their own work established, while they endure the captiousness of malicious cavillers. It is said that the Optics of NEWTON had no character or credit here till noticed in France. It would not be the only instance of an author writing above his own age, and anticipating its more advanced genius. How many works of erudition might be adduced to show their author's disappointments! PRIDEAUX'S learned work of the "Connexion of the Old and New Testament," and SHUCKFORD'S similar one, were both a long while before they could obtain a publisher, and much longer before they found readers. It is said Sir WALTER RALEIGH burned the second volume of his History, from the ill success the first had met with. PRINCE'S "Worthies of Devon" was so unfavourably received by the public, that the laborious and patriotic author was so discouraged as not to print the second volume, which is said to have been prepared for the press. FARNEWORTH'S elaborate Translation, with notes and dissertations, of Machiavel's works, was hawked about the town; and the poor author discovered that he understood Machiavel better than the public. After other labours of this kind, he left his family in distressed circumstances. Observe, this excellent book now bears a high price! The fate of the "Biographia Britannica," in its first edition, must be noticed: the spirit and acuteness of CAMPBELL, the curious industry of OLDYS, and the united labours of very able writers, could not secure public favour; this treasure of our literary history was on the point of being suspended, when a poem by Gilbert West drew the public attention to that elaborate work, which, however, still languished, and was hastily concluded. GRANGER says of his admirable work, in one of his letters--"On a fair state of my account, it would appear that my labours in the improvement of my work do not amount to _half the pay of a scavenger_!" He received only one hundred pounds to the times of Charles I., and the rest to depend on public favour for the continuation. The sale was sluggish; even Walpole seemed doubtful of its success, though he probably secretly envied the skill of our portrait-painter. It was too philosophical for the mere collector, and it took near ten years before it reached the hands of philosophers; the author derived little profit, and never lived to see its popularity established! We have had many highly valuable works suspended for their want of public patronage, to the utter disappointment, and sometimes the ruin of their authors; such are OLDYS'S "British Librarian," MORGAN'S "Phoenix Britannicus," Dr. BERKENHOUT'S "Biographia Literaria," Professor MARTYN'S and Dr. LETTICE'S "Antiquities of Herculaneum:" all these are _first_ volumes, there are no _seconds_! They are now rare, curious, and high priced! Ungrateful public! Unhappy authors!

That noble enthusiasm which so strongly characterises genius, in productions whose originality is of a less ambiguous nature, has been experienced by some of these laborious authors, who have sacrificed their lives and fortunes to their beloved studies. The enthusiasm of literature has often been that of heroism, and many have not shrunk from the forlorn hope.

RUSHWORTH and RYMER, to whose collections our history stands so deeply indebted, must have strongly felt this literary ardour, for they passed their lives in forming them; till Rymer, in the utmost distress, was obliged to sell his books and his fifty volumes of MS. which he could not get printed; and Rushworth died in the King's Bench of a broken heart. Many of his papers still remain unpublished. His ruling passion was amassing state matters, and he voluntarily neglected great opportunities of acquiring a large fortune for this entire devotion of his life. The same fate has awaited the similar labours of many authors to whom the history of our country lies under deep obligations. ARTHUR COLLINS, the historiographer of our Peerage, and the curious collector of the valuable "Sydney Papers," and other collections, passed his life in reselling these works of antiquity, in giving authenticity to our history, or contributing fresh materials to it; but his midnight vigils were cheered by no patronage, nor his labours valued, till the eye that pored on the mutilated MS. was for ever closed. Of all those curious works of the late Mr. STRUTT, which are now bearing such high prices, all were produced by extensive reading, and illustrated by his own drawings, from the manuscripts of different epochs in our history. What was the result to that ingenious artist and author, who, under the plain simplicity of an antiquary, concealed a fine poetical mind, and an enthusiasm for his beloved pursuits to which only we are indebted for them? Strutt, living in the greatest obscurity, and voluntarily sacrificing all the ordinary views of life, and the trade of his _burin_, solely attached to national antiquities, and charmed by calling them into a fresh existence under his pencil, I have witnessed at the British Museum, forgetting for whole days his miseries, in sedulous research and delightful labour; at times even doubtful whether he could get his works printed; for some of which he was not regaled even with the Roman supper of "a radish and an egg." How he left his domestic affairs, his son can tell; how his works have tripled their value, the booksellers. In writing on the calamities attending the love of literary labour, Mr. JOHN NICHOLS, the modest annalist of the literary history of the last century, and the friend of half the departed genius of our country, cannot but occur to me. He zealously published more than fifty works, illustrating the literature and the antiquities of the country; labours not given to the world without great sacrifices. Bishop Hurd, with friendly solicitude, writes to Mr. Nichols on some of his own publications, "While you are enriching the Antiquarian world" (and, by the Life of Bowyer, may be added the Literary), "I hope you do not forget yourself. _The profession of an author, I know from experience, is not a lucrative one._--I only mention this because I see a large catalogue of your publications." At another time the Bishop writes, "You are very good to excuse my freedom with you; but, as times go, almost any trade is better than that of an author," &c. On these notes Mr. Nichols confesses, "I have had some occasion to regret that I did not attend to the judicious suggestions." We owe to the late THOMAS DAVIES, the author of "Garrick's Life," and other literary works, beautiful editions of some of our elder poets, which are now eagerly sought after, yet, though all his publications were of the best kinds, and are now of increasing value, the taste of Tom Davies twice ended in bankruptcy. It is to be lamented for the cause of literature, that even a bookseller may have too refined a taste for his trade; it must always be his interest to float on the current of public taste, whatever that may be; should he have an ambition to _create_ it, he will be anticipating a more cultivated curiosity by half a century; thus the business of a bookseller rarely accords with the design of advancing our literature.

The works of literature, it is then but too evident, receive no equivalent; let this be recollected by him who would draw his existence from them. A young writer often resembles that imaginary author whom Johnson, in a humorous letter in "The Idler" (No. 55), represents as having composed a work "of universal curiosity, computed that it would call for many editions of his book, and that in five years he should gain fifteen thousand pounds by the sale of thirty thousand copies." There are, indeed, some who have been dazzled by the good fortune of GIBBON, ROBERTSON, and HUME; we are to consider these favourites, not merely as authors, but as possessing, by their situation in life, a certain independence which preserved them from the vexations of the authors I have noticed. Observe, however, that the uncommon sum Gibbon received for copyright, though it excited the astonishment of the philosopher himself, was for the continued labour of a _whole life_, and probably the _library_ he had purchased for his work equalled at least in cost the produce of his _pen_; the tools cost the workman as much as he obtained for his work. Six thousand pounds gained on these terms will keep an author indigent.